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gintrinsic-writing · 5 months

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the hero of twiLIT

CW: drug use

The local hero stared at them like he wasn’t sure what he was seeing.

“Sorry to disturb your fishing,” Time began, motioning to the simple wooden rod that was propped haphazardly between a rock and a very lumpy pumpkin. “But it’s important that we speak with you.”

The hero used his tongue to push a wheat stem from one corner of his mouth to the other, looking no less bewildered than before. A goat bleated in the distance.

“You’re Link, right?” Sky asked when the silence became too much.

The hero nodded slowly.

“Well,” Sky continued, smiling through the awkwardness, “we share the same name. All of us do, actually, though you can call me Sky. We’re heroes like you, but from different eras of Hyrule.”

“Timelines, too,” Legend pointed out, eyeing the little bag by the hero’s crossed legs.

“Right,” Sky agreed. “We’re not exactly sure why, but something or someone is bringing us together through magic portals. You’re the fourth of us. I mean, obviously.” He laughed and gestured to their little group.

The hero didn’t share Sky’s strained amusement. He rubbed his eyes, glanced up, then rubbed his eyes again. His gaze drifted back to Time with obvious bafflement. “Ordona almighty, I’m in fuckin’ space.”

Time blinked. “Pardon?”

“The hell’s this laced with, Jaggle?” the hero drawled, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Ain’t no way this is normal.”

“Looks like our newest clown is high,” Legend said with a grin. He pointed to the bag by the hero’s feet. “Those’re shrooms.”

Sky’s ears twitched back and forth rapidly. “High?”

“Very,” the hero agreed, reaching forward to collect his things. He didn’t seem to care much about them anymore.

“Wha—” Sky closed his mouth with a little click when the hero suddenly stood up and began walking away. “Wait, we still need to talk to you!”

“Nope,” the hero answered. “Y’ain’t real. And you,” he rounded on Time with an accusatory finger, “you just make me wanna cry.”

Time stared after the hero with a dumbfounded expression. “I’m sorry?”

“Mhm. Better be.” The hero didn’t spare them another glance as he walked through the pumpkin patch and over the bridge leading to the center of Ordon Village. He did, however, stop to admire a “real pretty” leaf for several seconds. Then he was out of sight altogether.

“Do we… go after him?” Sky asked the other two.

Legend snickered. “Give it about six hours. He should be sober by then.”

Sky raised both brows. “And how would you know?”

There was a long and incriminating pause, during which Legend also started to walk away. “Saw ‘em in a book once,” he threw over his shoulder.

“You saw—” Sky huffed in disbelief, then looked to Time for support. “Can you believe them?”

Time shrugged and gestured for Sky to lead the way after Legend. “I grew up in a forest, and the Kokiri were very… attuned to nature?” He paused as he thought it over, then nodded in apparent satisfaction. “I also had a magical mask that specifically let me find mushrooms, among other things, so.”

“‘Other things’?”

Time’s grin was disarmingly mischievous. “Other things.”

#time gonna be wondering about that crying comment all day and night #drug use #cw drug use #twilight's a farm boy lbr #lu twilight #lu time #lu legend #lu sky #poor sky #he's sheltered for comedy's sake #bad comedy but still #linked universe #lu fic #gintrinsic writing #i like stupid titles sorry not sorry

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crossbackpoke-check · 2 months

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it’s all the rest of what i want with you

connor dewar/brandon duhaime :: 8k

Summary:

“Brandon,” Connor says with a sigh. “There’s no baby in there.”

“Not yet,” Brandon says. Connor feels his stomach twist, almost like what he would imagine a baby kicking to feel like.

in these trying times of dewvorce, may i offer you 8k of pwp inspired by @stillfertile’s wonderful art which i had. several breakdowns about 🫶 anyway please enjoy!!!

#OFFICIAL FIC ANNOUNCEMENT 🗣️🗣️🗣️‼️‼️‼️ i wish i had pretty fic graphics but alas i have No Skill and also. so much work i should be doing bu #HI SHE’S HERE i would love to say this is a complete surprise drop except i have Anxiety & i needed to ask you guys about it beforehand #in my defense i started writing this in like. january far before any tragedy occurred #because square asked about my tags on their dewey2 art and she spawned like. a million more thoughts about it #including the part where i got absolutely kicked in the face with the lightning vision of those two lines.#like those two lines are the first actual lines of the fic i wrote ajdhkwdiowdjiw ANYWAY please be nice to me i know i am always like #‘this is not the first real fic i ever thought i’d post’ and if i had a nickel i’d have three but this is the first pwp i’ve ever posted #and it’s 8k and it’s not a fic for an exchange (although technically i did very much write this for the dewey^2 hivemind so.)#i have SO many things to say i have so many comments on this doc also i couldn’t pick a title for the LONGEST time and i finally decided on #this one but the full quote was too long:#all the rest of what i want with you that scares me shitless #so. i was angling SO hard to make a yung gravy lyric as a title bc i saw the video of him at a wild game but i couldn’t find a good one #and instead y’all got a very sentimental title l m a o.#liv in the replies #shout out to the extended universe this lives in and also my unhinged comments in the docs.#if you liked fun fuck a baby in him friday i’ll be here all week i promise i am the exact same in the comments as i am in the tags 🫡#the NUMBER of times i wrote something in this by pulling it out of my ass and then actually went back and did the research & was RIGHT is.#far too high. also the amount of coincidental things that dropped while i was writing this (yung gravy song about pregnancy AFTER i wheeze #laughed myself into a yung gravy title the athletic player poll confirming my restaurant & bar choices from googling ‘st. paul good bars’…)#also if anybody got advice on formatting for these little announcements. help. this is different from my miro/luka one &i’m still not happy

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royalarmyofoz · 1 year

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it’s the familiarity for me

#i just read a REALLY good ava x mel fic the other day and i have brainrot now #i was too stoned to leave a comment but i plan to at some point #the title is fly eagles fly!#ava x melissa #abbott elementary #*

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johnslittlespoon · 13 days

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comes crawling back 24 hrs later heyyy haha hi i'm literally flat on the floor with how fucking nice everyone's been about yad(iym) ch1 i don't even know what to do with myself i'm so sjhdgkjgdsk????<33!!!!

i'm so overwhelmed my heart is so full and i'm so motivated to get ch2 done u don't even know :'))) thank you a kaJILLION times, i keep rereading comments and getting TEARY like a LOSER but it rly does mean sm to me, ty ty ty for enabling my brainrot and apologies for always being so Nervous and also Sentimental SDJGJK <33

+ speaking of brainrot i literally have like 50 asks to get back to with drabbles and brainrot and stuff omg i feel so bad, they're all so good and i'm so antsy to get back but i also rly want to focus up on writing this fic bc ik how long i take to write and i don't want to go a month between each update LOL so i will have to find some balance :'^)

#i need to actually reply to comments i am just Processing <3 #also i still need to make a proper moodboard post for the fic #it feels so weird to not call it the dog coded bucky fic tbh #idk if i like using the abbreviated title or not LOL #anyway. my heart is warm and fuzzy and i feel so seen by everyone who *gets* the dog coded vision ugh <333 #thank u endlessly i am so grateful :')#dog coded bucky fic #johnslittlespoon yaps

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nostalgia-tblr · 30 days

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having a vague "why am i writing this horrible story?" crisis about the anglo-saxon au fic that has taken over my mind since *checks* about two days ago. i have approx 2000 words of it written so it is going fairly well in that sense but i have gone a bit niche with my fics recently and am starting to think "nobody wants to read this, people will be annoyed at you if you post this" a bit more often, even though they probably won't because it's a free cake and it's rude to complain about free cake.

#HOWEVER while hits are low the comments are about the same so that's actually my fics doing better really isn't it?#i keep stats hidden on ao3 usually but i occasionally put them back on and look at my stats page #part of switching off stats wasn't MY stats so much as other people's. i do think losing that context makes me feel better about mine.#for all i know 120 hits for a month-old sifki fic is Incredible Amounts of Number Go Up so i may as well just assume it is right?#just as i have MANY silent fans who are too shy to comment or kudos or rec my fic but they LOVE me and i am their FAVE #okay this little pep-talk in the tags has helped somewhat: i NEED to finish this horrible fic for the lurkers who love me! they'll LOVE it!#ps: the missy & jamie moriarty fic has had 24 hits which considering the crossover i am actually very pleased with :D #\o/#fic related #btw if i start tagging my fic-related posts with the working-titles so i can later track my own thought processes would that be weird?#is that too “anne rice if she had a yahoo mailing list”?

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sage-nebula · 1 year

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STH - Finalizing the Pre-Departure Checklist

Notes: I actually have another fic that I've been intending to have finished today, but partway through writing the conclusion of that fic I got distracted by the idea for this one, so here is this for now. I will clean it up later. Spoilers for the ending of Sonic Frontiers, as well as for the Sonic 1 ending cutscene from Sonic Origins.

- - -

Filled water canteens, check. Canned food and energy bar provisions, check. Instant coffee canister, check. Miles Electric, check. Wooden comb, check. Dry shampoo, check. Blankets, check. Magnet gun, flash bombs, emergency grenades—check, check, check. Everything he needed for at least a few days of travel was ready and accounted for, packed in a backpack. After looking through the bag for a third time, just to make sure he was absolutely ready, Tails tossed it into the cockpit of the Cyclone. He had her parked outside for once, behind his Mystic Ruins workshop, ready for takeoff. It had been so long since he’d flown her; she was a solo-craft, not suited for multiple passengers, and so she saw much less use than the Tornado did. But this was a solo trip, and the Cyclone provided him with land travel as much as she did air. She was much better suited for this journey. With one last look at the back door to his workshop to make sure he’d locked it, Tails spun his tails so he could jump into the cockpit—

“Don’t tell me you’re gonna leave without saying goodbye.”

His concentration broken, the rhythm of his tails halted just enough for Tails to land back on the ground with a stumble. Sonic’s hand caught his arm before he had a chance to topple over, and Tails turned stunned eyes on his big brother’s teasing smile as Sonic eased him back onto his feet.

“I left a note,” Tails said, his mind still catching up with the fact that he’d been alone behind the workshop not a second ago. Trust Sonic’s speed to—

“A note? All these years, and that’s all I get? A note?” Sonic put a hand over his heart. “That hurts me, Tails. Right here.”

Tails rolled his eyes. He knew played up theatrics when he saw them. “You already knew I was leaving. We saw each other a day ago. And you hate goodbyes anyway, so—”

“You’re right. I do. And I’ll probably leave this one before it’s over, but . . .” Sonic shrugged. “I still want to see you off. Make sure you’ve got everything you need.”

Sonic cared. Of course he did. And Tails understood, because he cared about Sonic, too. How many times had he made sure that Sonic had all the tech he could possibly need before a dangerous mission? How many times had he used a drone to deliver a forgotten canteen or extra aqua bubble powerup just in case something went wrong? This is what they did—they looked out for each other. That’s all Sonic was doing now, and Tails knew that.

But he was supposed to be proving his independence, proving that he could stand on his own. And that meant not needing someone to look through his provisions like he was a kid going on a field trip. Tails ran his tongue along his teeth and looked away, turning his eyes up to the sky. Cirrus clouds—a good sign. Just what he needed for an easy flight. “No worries. I’ve got everything covered.”

“Good.” Sonic leaned against the Cyclone, and after a moment, tapped her side with his knuckles. “Not taking the Tornado, huh?”

Tails blinked, caught off-guard by the sudden topic change, and looked back over. “No, she’s yours.”

“Pft. I’ve been meaning to give her to you for ages now. Should’ve done it a long time ago.” Sonic crossed his arms loosely over his stomach, an easy smile on his face, but there was something different about it Tails couldn’t quite parse. “You can take her if you want. You should take her.”

As—touching? weird? confusing?—as it was that Sonic was suddenly handing over ownership of the Tornado, Tails couldn’t let it distract him. He shook his head. “Even if you want to give her to me, that doesn’t change the fact that you can fly her, and you might need her. Besides, she’s got a double cockpit now, and I’m flying solo. It’s better for her to be here in case you go on a trip where you need to take someone with you. Amy, or Knuckles, or someone.”

“. . . Yeah. You’re probably right.” Like with his smile, there was something off about Sonic’s tone. And Tails couldn’t identify exactly what it was that he was hearing, but whatever it was, it told him that Sonic probably wasn’t going to be taking the Tornado out of the hangar any time soon. “So. You’re all set to take off, then?”

“Yep.” Tails patted the Cyclone’s side, ran his hand over her freshly dried coat of paint.

“Got a destination in mind?”

“Nope. I’m just gonna go wherever feels right. See where the wind takes me, you know.” Not unlike what Sonic himself always did, meaning that Tails was following in his example yet again, but he was going to try very hard not to think about that.

“Sounds like my kind of adventure. And everything’s in working order—GPS, comms . . . ?”

Tails felt the fur along his back stand on end, and when he turned to look at Sonic, his agitation must’ve shown in his face, for Sonic held his hands up in a placating gesture.

“Hey, I know you can take care of yourself,” Sonic said, and for what it was worth, he did sound sincere. “I just want to make sure—”

“I know,” Tails said, and honest to Chaos he didn’t mean to sound so terse. “I can handle it. I’ll be fine.”

“I know,” Sonic said. “But you know, if something came up—there’s nothing wrong with calling in a little backup. Heck, if it wasn’t for you, Knuckles, and Amy, I’d still be a cyber-zombie back on the Starfall Islands. We all need a little help sometimes.”

“If it wasn’t for us, you wouldn’t have been corrupted in the first place,” Tails muttered.

“What was that?”

“Nothing.” Tails forced a smile as he met Sonic’s eyes again. “Look, I know this is a bit . . . different. And I know you’re just trying to look out for me, and I appreciate it, I really do. But I’ll be fine. That’s what this whole journey is about, right? Proving that I can make it on my own? It’d be disappointing if it turned out I couldn’t, so—”

“Nothing you do could ever be disappointing,” Sonic said, and something uncomfortable wormed in Tails’ gut at the look on Sonic’s face. He turned away again, his tails swishing around him. “But that’s not . . . having your own adventure doesn’t have to mean cutting yourself off from everyone, you know. So you don’t need to call for backup. So what? Doesn’t mean you can’t call just to say hey.”

Tails frowned. “I never said I couldn’t.”

“Great.” There was a smug grin in Sonic’s voice—one Tails had heard so many times over the years, usually right after one of Eggman’s plans had just been ruined. “Then I look forward to hearing from you at least once a week.”

“What?” Tails looked over, aghast, and was met with the exact smile he knew he was going to see. “You can’t be ser—”

Sonic held up his hand. “Doesn’t have to be a phone call. You know I hate talking on the phone. And it definitely doesn’t have to be every day, because we both know I suck at keeping track of what day it is. But just, you know. An email. Once a week. Doesn’t have to be long. Just a couple lines to say hey, let me know how you’re doing, if you’ve seen anything cool in your travels. Just enough so it’s not like you disappeared off the face of the earth.”

It was— Tails wanted to scream, just a little. Because it wasn’t an unreasonable request. It wasn’t like his plan was to disappear off the face of the earth. It’s not like he was trying to cut himself off from his friends. But that also—it wasn’t the point. He wanted to be independent, wanted to prove that he was more than the burdensome little brother that Sonic always had to look after, and if Sonic was still looking after him via weekly check-in emails, then didn’t that defeat the point?

“You never sent weekly check-in emails when you were traveling,” Tails muttered, and he hated how petulant he sounded.

“Yeah, well. That’s big brother privilege,” Sonic said, and perhaps sensing the argument even before Tails opened his mouth, added, “And not the best example set, fair enough. That’s my bad. But I’ll send emails too, in response to yours. We’ll keep in better contact this time. Deal?”

It wasn’t what Tails had had in mind, when he’d decided to go off on his own. But it wasn’t an unreasonable request. Sonic was actually admitting that something he did in the past maybe wasn’t the greatest idea in the world. And from the look on his face, Tails could tell that this really mattered to him.

And for some reason, that made Tails’ throat feel a little choked. He nodded, in lieu of being able to say anything, and Sonic’s posture finally relaxed.

“Okay. Good. Glad we got that sorted.” Sonic stood up straight, free of the Cyclone. He considered Tails for a moment before a half-smile curled his muzzle. “And—one more thing.”

Tails tilted his head, his throat still a little too thick for him to trust his voice. Luckily, Sonic took his head tilt for the cue to continue that it was.

“I don’t think I ever told you this, but—you remember how we met on West Side Island, right?”

Tails nodded. He didn’t know how he could forget.

“Well . . . did I ever tell you why I was on West Side Island?”

Tails blinked, the confusion he felt enough to finally unstick his throat. “No. But it was because Eggman was there, right? He was harvesting animals to use as batteries for his badniks, and so he could build the Death Egg.”

“Well, yeah. But also no.” Before Tails could question what that was supposed to mean, Sonic continued. “Eggman was on South Island before he went to West Side. It just so happens that I was also on South Island, and so I freed the animals there and chased him off.”

“Yeah, I kn—”

“I chased him off as Super Sonic. With the Chaos Emeralds. And before the Chaos Emeralds scattered, they showed me something.” Sonic grinned, his eyes bright. “Wanna know what they showed me?”

“I . . . guess?”

“You. Well,” Sonic waved a hand through the air, “not you exactly, but they showed me West Side Island, so that’s how I knew to go there. And that’s where I met you.” Sonic grinned, and lightly poked Tails on his forehead. “So what I’m trying to say here is, even if you decide to skip out on your weekly email, you can rest assured that the Chaos Emeralds won’t.”

Tails stared at Sonic for a second as he put the pieces together, and then blurted the first thing that came to mind. “Are you saying the Chaos Emeralds are going to snitch on me?”

Sonic laughed, and ruffled the fur atop Tails’ head, heedless of Tails’ attempts to swat his hand away. “Bro, you have no idea how fast they’ll snitch on you. They were snitching on you before we even met. So if I were you, I wouldn’t give ‘em a reason to do it again.”

The fur atop his head now thoroughly ruffled, Tails blew his bangs in a vain attempt to get them back out of his eyes. “The only thing I’m thinking about giving them a reason to do is mind their own business. Do they seriously have nothing better to do than spy on people?”

“Who can say? The Chaos Emeralds work in mysterious ways.” Sonic shrugged, but his expression softened. “But that’s just a backup plan. Just in case . . .”

“I know. And they won’t be needed. I’ll be fine,” Tails said, and added, because he knew Sonic needed to hear him say it, “and I’ll email. Once a week.”

Sonic smiled. And before Tails could say anything else, or could think to turn to the Cyclone, Sonic darted forward and pulled him into a hug. For a split second, Tails wasn’t sure how to respond; one arm thrown around his shoulders was one thing, and not too uncommon a thing at that, but a full-on hug was a different story altogether. Those were so much rarer. But Sonic’s hug was secure and warm, and knowing that it would be the last time for a long time that he’d have the chance to hug his brother, Tails hugged him back just as tightly.

But the hug was over as quickly as it happened. Sonic stepped back, his hands on Tails’ shoulders. He was still smiling, but—Tails was sure he was imagining it, but it looked like it was wavering a little.

“Take care of yourself, partner,” Sonic said. His voice sounded a little tight. “I’ll . . . see you later.”

Tails nodded. “You too, Sonic. I’ll be in touch.”

Sonic nodded, and gave Tails’ shoulders one last, bracing squeeze. In the next second he was gone, and Tails was once again standing alone beside the Cyclone.

#miles tails prower #sonic the hedgehog #unbreakable bond #fic fix #sonic frontiers spoilers #title not final but good enough for now #also one of Sonic's idle lines in Frontiers is him commenting on how he should've given the Tornado to Tails a long time ago #so i didn't just pull that out of nowhere lol #he literally says it in game #sth

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uhbasicallyjustmilex · 5 months

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Just finished Here Comes The Sun and it was absolutely brilliant. I want a ⭐️ director’s commentary ⭐️ on how you navigated Alex’s side of it all. Of course we’re only privy to Miles’ internal dilemma, but you did such a great job of Alex giving Miles signs, yet there were moments where I couldn’t read him at all and kept me guessing (in a good way).

Sorry if this was a longer ask than you were hoping!

hiii 💗 thank you so much for your lovely words about here comes the sun, i'm SO glad to hear you enjoyed it 🥰🥰

oooh that's a great question (and thank you so much, i love that alex managed to keep you guessing too)! i wrote that fic almost a year ago now, so the process isn't as fresh in my mind now as it would have been then, but i do have a few thoughts on your question:

i think the fact i wrote it very shortly after getting into tlsp was a big factor in why i wrote it the way i did - i think it made it easy to get into the headspace of someone (aka miles) who was on the outside looking in, having a sense of what might have been going on with alex but not really knowing for sure, just having a few pieces to try and put things together from and still very much trying to figure things out. one of the things that's always struck me so much about alex is his contradictory capacity to simultaneously be so vulnerable and open whilst also hiding himself so effectively. he's a little like a cloudy day where you catch glimpses of the sun here and there between bits of cloud, but never quite for long enough to see the whole thing - and i feel like that's a sense i really wanted to capture when writing this fic? like giving little vignette moments of the sunshine (eg alex's drunken conversation with miles), but interspersed with enough cloud to give that sense of uncertainty for miles that pushed him to think about and examine his own feelings more in a way he wouldn't have had to otherwise.

also, although i wanted to keep that kind of chameleon-esque ambiguity that feels so characteristic of alex, i also knew very clearly in my own mind where he was emotionally at throughout the fic, so i think that helped pin things into place and gave shape to certain scenes even when that wasn't obviously being addressed.

i took so much inspiration in terms of body language/expressions/ways of speaking from interviews and performances of alex and miles together, and i think pulling those little tells into the story as much as i could really helped me navigate alex's side of things in a way that felt authentic (to me, anyway!)

i have to admit, writing alex and the signs he was exhibiting (and trying to hide sometimes) in this fic was absolutely one of my favourite things about it. in my mind, he was resigned to his feelings and very back and forth about how much to reveal to miles throughout the fic. how much he wanted miles was tempered by how much he cared about him and their friendship, so he was kind of constantly fluctuating between a kind of challenging 'fuck it, let miles see how i'm feeling and do what he will' and a desire to protect himself from rejection and fear of losing what they have with their friendship/hurting miles. so he kind of goes from moments of recklessly just laying everything on the table (eg that entire first smut scene where he just looks at miles, holding miles's gaze when there are those moments of tension between them after their flirty tussling etc.), to suddenly pulling everything back because it feels suddenly too real and too risky (eg the morning where he's writing stuff sitting outside on the curb). and that constantly fluctuating headspace of course made it SO much harder for miles to figure out what was really going on. i think all the way through, alex suspects that miles feels something too, but he doesn't really *know*, and he doesn't trust his own judgement - it's only when miles gives him a really clear sign at the end that he's able to finally make that move.

oh help this ended up just being a huge long ramble, and i'm not even sure if i've fully answered your question 😅 i don't feel like i've been super coherent, but i hope this makes a little bit of sense or at least gives a glimpse into my headspace when writing alex!

thank you for asking such an interesting question, this was a lot of fun to think about 🥰

#and for your lovely comment over on ao3 - it absolutely made my day 💖#ffs i just realised i used a sun simile to describe a fic called here comes the sun 🤦‍♀️#that wasn't intentional at all #i guess it just shows the title was thematically fitting lol #asks #milex fic #milex #here comes the sun

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bang-bang-gang · 9 months

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claudio/yuta smut, have fun <3

#my fic #claudiyoots #reblog and/or comment and ill love you forever etc<3 #silly little ofmd title because its my fic and i can do that!

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total-drama-brainrot · 2 months

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realized I had no idea how to attach an image to ao3 comments so I’m posting this here instead

katy perry firework

LOSING MY FUCKING MIND

#that was so quick i LITERALLY just replied to your comment 😱😱#actually cackling to myself this is osoo fucking funny #i'm gonna have to think of a deidcated tag for my aftermath au fic oh gosh #this was so much easier when i named a fic after a cereal slogan...#the first thing that comes to mind is “sleeping powder fic” since that's. the song the title's named after. but that's boring 👿#and also doesn't really fit the vibes of the fic itself #whatever.#aftermath au fic #shitposting #replies #ophe's ranting in the tags again

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shiningstardan · 1 month

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As a fic writer...

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undercat-overdog · 1 year

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I’ve been thinking recently about all the comment culture discussions and the recent talk around authors’ archive-locking their fic and one of the things that bothers me is how I never really see those discussions centered around the author. The comment conversations are a mix of reasons why readers don’t comment, how to comment, and why comments are good, but I’m not sure I’ve seen something that centers the author as person. Instead it’s the broader community and its desire for “content” that’s centered: comments are good because they keep authors writing (which is, I think, broadly true though people vary in the particulars), but it’s hard to comment (also broadly true, also varies in the particulars), but lack of feedback means some authors stop writing (also also true). The goal seems to be to keep the fic flowing.

And no one is owed comments and no one is owed fic and if it’s harmful to your mental health to comment, or harmful to your mental health to keep your fic online, that’s far more important. Please, don’t take me as saying that you need to comment or that you need to keep making fic available. Reader and/or author, what is best for you comes first; what you are able to do or want to do comes first.

(As for the talk about how authors are bad for archive-locking fic and that they should be shamed and scolded for doing so? No sympathy. I have less than zero patience for that argument. It’s more than fine to feel sad or grieved that you have lost a story you loved or can no longer access it - it is sad! It’s why I download stories now. But an author can do as they wish with their creations; no one is owed fic.)

But none of this gets at the author as person. These discussions seem to return to the personal reasons why a reader wouldn’t comment and how the author as content producer is more likely to write if they get feedback, the goal to get people to comment so fic continues to be produced: put money in the vending machine so you can get a snack. But I think at least some of authorial angst is driven less by comments per se and more by the desire to be recognized and feel seen as people and not fic-producing machines. Authors have anxiety too. Oh, do some of us have anxiety!

To use me as an example, since I’m the only person I truly know: I have almost deleted fic or moved it to an unrevealed collection multiple times because of anxiety that is tied to feels of either not being seen or being seen and intentionally ignored; I almost did so yesterday. It hurts to be ignored, especially when you know that your fic was read and seen but ignored. And that would be one thing - no one’s required to like my work or my friends’ works but to pretend your story is unique when you’re clearly very, very influenced by those works to the point of rewriting dialogue and using the same plot points with the same plot items. It makes me as a person feel ignored and it is currently killing my motivation to write, because at times I am a fainting flower. (To be very clear, my reaction is me, and no one owes me feedback or whatever, or to listen to my navel-gazing.) And I don’t like when my friends and fellow authors are seen then ignored either: that very much makes me angry. But yes, anxiety. It's easy to feel invisible or to feel like you're not worth recognizing.

I do want to note that there are circumstances in which acknowledgement and recognition is owed. If you take direct inspiration from someone’s plot, or rewrite it, that needs to be acknowledged, and it bothers me when it’s not: it feels like being used. Likewise, one place readers do have an obligation to comment, barring extenuating circumstances, is if they are given a gift fic as part of an exchange or event that they signed up for.

So idk. I guess what I’m saying is that I often feel that people don’t see that there’s a person behind the ao3 author’s name and that person’s not recognized. It might be that which stings the most.

(While I used “author” throughout, this applies to all people in fandom who create and share their works. I am an author, so that’s the perspective I’m speaking from, but there are many creative perspectives that are no less important. And of course, “writer” and “reader” are not exclusive categories and I’d guess that most of the former are also the latter. Likewise “artist” isn’t exclusive, nor “podcaster” or so on.)

One last point: I’m not sure it’s talked about how long it can take to write something? I’d guess that most of my one-shots have taken at least two or three dozen hours to write/edit/post and I’d say I’m probably of average speed (when I’m writing lol). For most authors, writing’s not quick; 5k isn’t dashed off in an afternoon but might take 40+ hours. It’s a labor and for most of us it takes time.

#discourse #comment culture #i hate the term 'content'#it feels like something mass-produced and disposable #our works are artisanal and crafted with love lol #but yeah i am really not feeling good or comfortable about some stuff right now #both angry and 'why bother'#and quite angry on another's behalf #at least drop a kudos on the fic whose plot you're using if you don't mention it in the author's notes!#or if you're making something based off a fic (or art! or other creation!) mention the title or author or link to it/them #anyways! feeling pretty mediocre!!#also while reddit's not the reason i'm feeling as i do i should stop arguing on it lol #that might help #i also think i'm going to stop checking tags on ao3 for a little bit

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epersonae · 5 months

Note

1, 5 and 6 for the ao3 ask game! :D

How many words have you written this year?

151,585 words

ok, I'm surprised by that, which maybe I shouldn't be (the most words since 2018)

(this is posted words, which means it includes some of Hungry for love that was written in 2022, but also doesn't include a couple of WIPs, so it probably evens out?)

5. What work of yours got more feedback than you expected?

Speaking of a lot of words, I was blown away at the volume of comments on for the benefit of all the broken hearts. Twice as many comment threads as the longfic that I wrote in 2018 and vastly more than anything else I've ever posted. And such good comments, the kind you go back to for a little ego/mood boost. (I did also hear privately from friends about people they'd seen mention it, and had some lovely conversations in various DMs, and @krakenteacups wrote the most delightfully bananas twitter thread.) It's such a weird off on its own limb piece of writing, I'm forever humbled that it spoke to people.

(I will also consider it "feedback" that several people I know, who would not have otherwise, had Carly Rae Jepsen as a top artist on their Spotify Wrapped. I have never been a music tastemaker once in my entire goddamn life, and this was such a treat.)

6. Favorite title you used

I had some good poetic and/or song lyric titles, and I'm fond of "Commit to the bit", but it really is hard to beat BIGFOOT STOLE MY HUSBAND.

[ao3 wrapped writers edition]

#carlitaverse writing was over 85k which is wild even to me #there is another 12k that will probably go up in the next day or two 😅#I will say that the 'accidental modern AU' fics had some of my favorite titles #I'm also incredibly moved by the comments on Commit to the Bit which came from a very personal place #so many comments given how short it is!#ask games #my writing #my fic

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mishapen-dear · 2 years

Text

Once upon a time, there was a quiet and peaceful kingdom. ... Then the first fracture appeared.

hi. hi! Do you like hermitcraft? Do you like kingdoms? Do you like fairytales gone wrong? Do you like Dramatic Things Happening to Celestial Bodies? then oh, boy do I have a fic for you!!

The World Dies With Me was written by @grianmorelikegrain for the Multidimensional Big Bang event. I saw the concept when they were letting us artists choose what to draw for and i latched the fuck on, and I'm real happy I did. Cherry's been great to work with and made a Banger fic and the whole event was super fun. GO check out other mdbb fics and art. They're so fucking cool. There's even a collection on ao3 and oh my god im going to be fandom-fed for Weeks its all so good

bonus doodle and art ramble under the cut

i dont have a good excuse for why this is blue/purple instead of cream coloured other than Artistic Vision and also just completing failing to absorb what the colour of the palace was until i'd already doodled. legit tho Cherry sent me the draft for chapter one and i blacked out and this appeared in my sketchbook. irl it's like as tall as my thumb so i'm not surprised its so messy lmao

for the main piece tho-- oooooh that one was so so fun. I don't usually work with vector layers or, yknow, any stained glass-esque styles, so this was a fun step outside my comfort zone! It's basically exactly as I first imagined it if you don't count the curtains (which were a late-game design. you can tell because they're so messy and the clock is unrefined. the general rule of thumb with my art is the more over-painted it looks the later in the painting it was added lmao)

honestly idk if i like Bdubs' expression or the melting wax more, so those tie for my favourite parts. If I had to change anything I'd definitely have told past-me to actually, yknow, account for the fact that you need to add curtain size to actually capture the desired vibes, and then maybe the curtains would look less like taffy pulled and folded too many times, but what can ya do. it's not like taffy-pulled anything in my art has stopped me before.

(vector layers are god's gift to artists tho holy shit. i never use them because i rarely want a clean-lined look, but oh my goodness when i do,,,, vector layers my Beloved)

we're going to say that bdubs' hands are the most important and thats why is are the most detailed because of SYMBOLISM and not just because i got tired of drawing hands. it's both tho.i

anyway. im too hyper rn for a tumblr post. go READ the cool fics and STARE at the cool art and BASK in the months' long efforts of literally over a hundred creators. god this event was so cool

#i want to ramble about how cool the fic is but i CANNOT because that is SPOILERS #go subscribe to it on ao3 and leave cherry nice comments #they deserve it for putting up with me and my incessant 'talk to me about cool symbolism' and uhhhhhh occasional ghosting all the time lmao #and in general for writing such a cool thing lmao #mishapen draws #multidimensional big bang #mdbb2022 #multidimensional big bang 2022 #<- *hopeful for future events*#i cant think of anything else i need to tag #as someone in the discord said tho it's really funny that so many of us made stained glass art #give a mcyt artist an event with 'big' in the title and we all go 'okay. big. fancy. GLASS.'#dramatic bastards the lot of us

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