#this is just one of those scenes that rotates in my brain constantly

[floorpancakes]

#chapter 197 #this is just one of those scenes that rotates in my brain constantly #blowing smoke is like a known invitation for sex too so its like BROOO USE YOUR WORDS ITS NOT TOO LATE #xxxholic #its so funny cause watanuki is soooooo #like theyre both being consumed w gay thoughts here #but #USE YOUR FUCKING WORDS WATANUKI. GOD #hes the type of person that thinks if he gives sad noncommittally seductive eye contact he wont have to talk about his feelings #the way he looks like hes mad doumeki didnt get the hint is hilarious given that this is usually doumekis problem #i think he gets it honey hes just burned out and thinks shit will never happen #and if you keep dawdling in your depression this way he never will!!!

[bakedbakermom]

Nugget, the Shifting Cast of Extras, and the Unreliable Narrator

One of the biggest twists of season 2 that I completely did not see coming, is that Nugget was dead all along (a rare miss for me, as I'm usually a great plot guesser). All of the scenes with Nugget were seen through Akliah's eyes; we saw only what she saw/believed, and that was a whole, living mousey friend. The minute Taissa, an outside perspective, came to notice Nugget, we all saw the truth: that he was dead, and had always been dead, and his life with Akliah was nothing but a coping mechanism, a dream that allowed her to keep sane as death slowly closed its claws around all of them.

Akilah was not a reliable narrator of her own story. None of them are.

In this context, the constantly rotating, growing, and shrinking cast of extra JV Jackets makes much more sense. Much of the teen storyline is told through the perspectives and memories of the adult survivors, and through the journals that Shauna kept in the wilderness (more reliable having been written in the moment, but still shaped by her limited perspective as well as trauma and hunger).

It makes sense that their memories focus only on those who are important to what is happening at the time, and the others fade into the background or disappear entirely as their relevance diminishes.

They remember what one background extra wore to the Doomcoming, but forget where she was during the Jackie Snackie. They remember who stood at the gravesite by the plane, but not who drew cards during the first hunt.

Gen and Melissa only got screen time this season because one of the survivors remembers their conversations and interactions. Crystal shows up because of her friendship with Misty. Akilah has a bigger part in s2 due to the Nugget plot and her role in Shauna's labor. Mari has a bigger presence in s2 because she's increasingly annoying and antagonistic to the other survivors, as well as chief acolyte of the Cult of Lottie.

Memory is a tricky thing, and memories made during trauma and starvation are trickier still. They simply don't have the brain power right now to accurately encode memories (adult Lottie mentions this, though she neglects to say that a brain that normally consumes A THIRD of the calories you take in understandably doesn't work very well under starvation conditions).

My prediction is that background YJs will come and go based on their relevance to the events happening on screen. It's not a mistake by the show runners or poor planning or an accident; it's all by design.

Not only does this work in-universe as an explanation for backgrounders coming and going, it gives the writers flexibility to bring in edible characters without having to explain why we haven't seen them before; they've always been there, they just didn't matter until now.

(It also serves to explain why, despite being on the brink of death from starvation, the girls still look pretty normal weight. The out-of-universe explanation is that it's morally reprehensible to ask the young cast to drop to a starvation weight and maintain it for the entire run of the show [or yoyo between seasons, which is even more dangerous]. The in-universe explanation is they remember themselves looking normal, so that's what we see. Just like we saw a healthy, living Nugget. Until we didn't. I wonder if we're going to see a "true" view of them through the eyes of the rescue crew that eventually saves them. Much easier to present one good vfx shot of them looking as haggard as they would actually be rather than multiple seasons.)

#yellowjackets #yellowjackets theories #yellowjackets spoilers

[blueskiesandstarrynights]

ok so because the brain worms have completely taken over, I've been completely rotating the idea of the stranger things kids godly parents and it won't let me go so here are my headcanons for their godly parents with probably not enough thought put into them-

Dustin as a son of hephestus is probably a really low-hanging fruit, but it's low-hanging for a reason. He's constantly making all sorts of shit and he's constantly thinking about the science before his own life. Plus, I'd just love to see him with fire abilities. see how that plays out.

Stobin I bounced around with a couple ideas. I initially had them as mischief-causing children of hermes, but then I had a better idea- Daughter of Athena Robin and son of poseidon Steve. Here me out ok, her affinity for languages plus her ability to improv plans and stories really gave me those vibes and for Steve, he already spends a bunch of time in the water (swim captain, lifeguard) and he kinda gives me the vibes that he would enjoy just sitting at the bottom of the lake and just chilling (robin is so jealous he can speak in a language she can't and demands to figure out how to speak it too) (Side note I considered making steve a son of aphrodite as a close second bc of the charmspeak and such but poseidon won out)

Max I decided on as a daughter of zues. I loved the idea of giving her that much power plus the tragedy that comes with being a child of the big three. idk less thoughts and more vibes with this one, but I think it could also present some fabulous big brother steve moments with this kind of circumstance. If I were to write this I prob wouldn't follow the pjo plot exactly bc none of these characters are a 1:1 of any pjo counterparts, but I really like the idea of her turning into a tree for some time and accidentally coming back. It would kinda be reminiscent of the coma she's in right now and it could be fun to play with.

Lucas I was really vibing with as a son of apollo. Obviously, because of the ranger thing, I'd love to see him with a bow and arrow, but also because of the healing. @andiwriteordie made an excellent thought post about lucas with healing abilities in reference to him as a water bender and while I think some things would change bc atla and pjo are vastly different worlds, I think the core ideas of Lucas being a healer are still there and I rlly vibe with it. Plus, I. Really like the idea of Glowing Boyfriend. Also I think there's plenty of angst to be said with Lucas trying and trying to heal tree!max with apollo powers but that can't beat zues's spell on her.

This one I haven't had as much thought on, but I loved the idea of Erica also being a child of apollo, but specifically a roman one. It would take a bit for them to realize the difference esp bc I don't think apollo has many changes between greek and roman form and I think it could create an interesting dynamic. less thoughts here but I may have more as I continue my HOO reread. I would love to see her as an archer plus I'm obsessed with that trope of the healer talking to their patients like "you dumb motherfucker stop doing stupid shit and landing your ass here again." but on the other hand, her with plague powers would be so funny. dustin tries to give her this superhero "with great power comes great responsibility" speech and he wakes up with hay fever the next day

Speaking of something I need to reread more info on, I was kinda vibing with the idea of El as a daughter of Hecate. I think her working with magic could be really interesting, but I also don't wanna say much till I've finished my HOO reread and I've read more of Hazel's scenes.

Mike I think would make such a good son of athena. He always has a clever plan ready and things often go wrong when people don't follow his plans. Slightly less relevant but I think his creativity as a DM could really match up with this as well.

Now, Nancy I had a bit of a hard time with. I considered Athena because she always seems to have a plan as well, though I'd take her for a different aspect than, say, Robin, since Nancy kinda blanks out whenever things go off the plan. I briefly considered Nemesis since she's the god of revenge and balance and that felt appropriate, but Athena felt a little more on target.

Eddie I'm kinda vibing as a son of Hermes, that chaotic jack of all trades kind of son of hermes. this one is also mostly vibes, but if I have more thoughts later on I'll add them.

Argyle as a son of demeter i think works well because those kids always gave me very chill vibes and I think that would work well.

Will, I actually saw this somewhere, is a clearsighted mortal. It kinda ties back into his canon true sight and lines up well. I really like the idea of him spouting prophecies, plus, he can instantly see monsters for what they truly are which is really something considering

Jonathan is a child of one of the big three, Hades. I felt it kinda fit with his loner persona and I loved the idea of him shadow traveling, plus him attracting monsters frequently leaves him immensely guilty bc his brother who can see through the mist can spot the monsters immediately and it ends up being the little brother looking out for the older brother??? then in this hypothetical au they run away from home which leaves joyce utterly crushed btw. and by they I mean Jonathan ran away and Will followed after him. Jonathan hated feeling like he was putting will in danger, but will just couldn't leave Jonathan alone with the monsters he couldn't spot 100% of the time or as accurately. it's an utterly vicious cycle. Lowkey considering having jonathan run away with the Wheeler’s, I imagine they’d have an adjacent attitude to annabeth’s stepmom in regard to the monsters. plus I think the angst of Jonathan attempting to shadowtravel them into camp and he finds himself halfway down the hill on the other side as will is banging on the magical shield around camp unable to get in as a monster advances to be utterly delicious.

If I were to write this, there’d probably be no defined main character. Certain drabbles/one shots will focus on different characters, so just bc steve’s the son of poseidon doesn’t mean he’s gonna be the main character like percy.

#pjo/st #<- in case i wanna come back to this one day #actually if yall wanna send asks i would love to expand on this #st #stranger things #dustin henderson #steve harrington #robin buckley #stobin #max mayfield #lucas sinclair #erica sinclair #el hopper #mike wheeler #nancy wheeler #eddie munson #argyle stranger things #will byers #jonathan byers #blue rambles

[amemenojaku]

Shinmyoumaru for the character ask prompt

I got several asks about her... thank you everyone for allowing me to go completely batshit insane

General opinion/How much I care about them: GAHHH I love her SO MUCH it's unbearable!!!! I think nowadays I wouldn't be able to say who's my number 1 favorite touhou character between her and Seija... There is a very special place in my heart for Shinmyoumaru Sukuna T_T I love the play on a classic otogizoshi (making the descendant of Issun Boushi a princess AND the ally of a horned demon at the same time is sooo good) and I love that she has this brave and regal aspect to her personality while still being a little bastard and I love her design and the atmosphere of her fight scene in DDC and her heart and everything else!!! She is cool and cute and funny god I wish Shinmyoumaru were real I have so much affection for this silly little character

A ship I love: (puts on my clown makeup) I made myself known here as a seishin artist many years ago and I'm happy to say they're still my absolute favorite pairing in the series! toxic yuri wins!! The way I see them has changed a lot over the years and thanks to the surprisingly big amount of material we got in the spinoffs and the books but at its core it's still the same... Lonely people who created unforgettable memories together and changed each other forever... And you can go so many different ways with them... But I guess my all-time favorite seishin flavor is best summed up in this unrelated quote (more people should read Fafoo):

seishin fans also manifested grimoire of usami into existence which I think is incredible enough on its own to mention

A non-romantic relationship that I love: With Reimu!!! I think we all agree that their interactions in Forbidden Scrollery were perfect and that Shinmyoumaru is an excellent addition to the Reimu solar system. There's something so touhou-ish about them living together after DDC and Shinmyoumaru sewing that small kimono as a gift for Reimu and then later hijacking the danmaku festival so bad that Reimu has to step in. Literally textbook case of Reimu dealing with another little rascal yet befriending them in the process. Speaking of I think they genuinely are good friends, not just danmaku or drinking buddies... I love to imagine their daily life together when Shinmyoumaru stayed at the shrine......

The NOTP: For better or for worse she's almost exclusively shipped with Seija which is fine by me!! I've never liked seeing her with anyone else (save for a onesided Shinmyoumaru -> Reimu crush).

My biggest headcanon about them: THERE'S TOO MANY TO LIST..... I have pages upon pages of Shinmyoumaru & kobito-related headcanons because she is constantly rotating somewhere inside my brain but I can share a few ones: her family is not only a descendant of Issun Boushi but also a descendant of Sukunahikona; none of the kobito have last names except the ruling family who takes on the most sacred one - Sukuna; there's actually a little bit of Issun Boushi's spirit remaining in the miracle mallet, he doesn't exist there anymore or anything but it's like a warmth that Shinmyoumaru can feel when she wields it.

An idea for a fanwork I would like to make/see about them: I have a lot of wips that I probably won't ever finish sadly... But I -would- love to draw some kind of comic or writing/art mix where I could include all those headcanons someday, with her past and especially a study of her relationship with the mallet

Something that makes me think of them: Hedgehogs :) and forget-me-nots!

#thank you for the ask.. 10 years of shinmyoumaru brainrot have changed me as a person

[tacticalhimbo]

— 10 Fandoms, 10 Characters, 10 Mutuals

@perpetuagf tagged me in this and i am OBSESSED, tyvm for tagging me babs &lt;3

apologies in advance if anybody gets a repeat tag in this!

@carlosoliveiraa | @alexxmason | @captastra | @bbrocklesnar | @vendettapandav | @kourumi | @scarfacemarston | @captain-radioactive-mentality | @ollierachnid | @theavaricesystem

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

AIDEN PEARCE | WATCH DOGS; this man embodies older brother rage and it resonates so hard. like. the protectiveness over his remaining family. the fact he acknowledges (even if a bit harshly at times) that he is a bad guy. the fact he thinks he is utterly irredeemable… obsessed with him and his funky sense of fashion

APOLLYON | FOR HONOR; bastard woman. but i love her for it. her backstory doesn't get a lot of mention and i constantly think about how being a child when her family and such was slaughtered, and to have seen how the man who swore to protect them simply turned his back… i just. the way she's grown into someone who is willing to maintain the presence and intensity of war just to showcase its brutality. the way she took said man's armor and forged it to be her own. her brain!!! she is evil and i support women's wrongs o7

ARCADE GANNON | FALLOUT; the original "just like me fr" character, and one of the first canonically queer characters i had exposure to. my favorite companion always. his personality? incredible. his backstory? tragic. his humor? dry and awful, but i still love it and love him

DR. VIKTOR VEKTOR | CYBERPUNK; literally the character with the most transmasc swag i think i have ever witnessed in a game. like. genuinely. this man is trans to me and i am just so head over heels for this old man and his humor and his genuine care for those within his circle

ELSA WOLCOTT | WILSON'S HEART VR; underrated game and underrated character. genuinely. she is such a good character. i love the whole "parent who will do anything and everything for their child" trope (see: my inclusion of sam fisher and, by extension, aiden pearce). but like genuinely, elsa is such a tragic character when you look past the humor of the plot (re: the game being a mish-mash of horror tropes). i wish she coulda had a redemption arc q0q

MAJOR JACK KRAUSER | RESIDENT EVIL; bastard man. but i love him for it. the dynamic he has with leon (aka his obsession over his former ally) is so… man!!!! he also has transmasc energy and i really don't know how to explain it. he just. does

OBI-WAN KENOBI | STAR WARS; my first fictional crush fr, but also he is just. the character ever. the things he's been through, the way he uses them to better himself. the way he tries so hard to be a good man for everyone around him… obsessed

PUNISHED "VENOM" SNAKE | METAL GEAR; i am so normal about this man (lie) and the fact that he is a shell of his former self that has been molded to fit another's perfect image in an attempt to achieve a greater cause (one that would inevitably become corrupted and lead to his own death) and i just. mm. obsessed again

SAM BECKER | FAR CRY; underrated fave. i love sam's bombastic personality and how it stems from the fact that, after facing tragedy and having to adapt a role that makes him complicit in shit, he finally feels hope at things getting better (at least that's how i see it). he is my tragic little meow meow and i am still so sad about his death. i literally know it happens and every time i play the game i start getting so :((((

SAM FISHER | SPLINTER CELL; i discovered him while playing ghost recon and then he single-handedly shot me into the splinter cell series and now i am rotating him in my brain always. his character arc is one of my favorites, and a scene that always plays in my head is the one in conviction when he finds out the truth about his daughter's disappearance like. ugh!! plus i just love very involved and protective father figure characters (if you haven't noticed the trend on this list. and if you did? shush <;3)

#txt #tag games #fave #😌💕 #ngl i almost put jesse (brba) but like. i had to geek out over this bunch so he didn't make the cut sadly #but he is here in spirit

[asteria-argo]

🗣️❔💗

🗣️Talk about your favourite WIP

okay so previously my favourite wip was jamie vs bedtime, but as that is recently finished I'm kind of at a loss. I'd say my current favourite is probably my as of right now untitled aromantic jamie fic that I haven't written a single word for yet, but I am rotating it in my brain constantly.

I'm not sure how many of my followers have noticed the fact I make A Lot of posts about being aromantic, and I'm not sure how many of you have been around long enough to know that this is an extremely new revelation of mine, but I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about what it's like to be aromantic, and to realise that overtime the way I did and also to navigate my friendships with people who are not aromantic and simply don't understand the vibes at all, and I've headcanoned Jamie as aro since my very first watch of Ted Lasso, so obviously I'm going to project those thoughts and feelings onto him, and I'm really excited to write it and share it.

❔Choose a random WIP and talk about it.

babies on board! after bug boy it will be the next installment in kindergarten tactics! another one I haven't actually written a single word for but am thinking about constantly.

the gist of it is Jamie, Sam and Dani earning their titles as the babies of the team, and also their collective and individual reactions to having that particular label put on them. It's mostly just going to be fluff, and as of right now it's no thoughts just vibes, but it's another one I'm excited to get around too.

💗Is there a scene you can’t wait to write for a WIP?

platonic intimacy babeyyyy!! I'm writing a flash fic specifcally so I can write a scene about Roy washing Jamie's hair lmao so I'd say I cannot wait to write that.

but in a longer wip, I am very excited to write Jamie's reunion with the team in To All The Better Places, because it's going to be a fun balance of comedy and Jamie freaking the fuck out.

#wip stuff #asteria answers asks #jamie tartt #ted lasso #roy kent #sam obisanya #dani rojas #ask games #readwing #to all the better places

[assaily]

Wip Game

Rules: Post the names of all your works in your WIP folder. Let people send you asks based on those titles and any that especially intrigues them, and then respond to them. Lastly, tag as many people as WIPs you have.

Thank you @littlerit and @rockinlibrarian for the tags!

I have a lot of wips so i’m just gonna do a couple more recent ones. And they're all tua, they're all about Five.

1. Hide the Morning from the Stars - The thing that started this one was a line I heard that went, “I just wanted to be loved!” It another one of those post-everything Five acclimating to a peaceful life poorly type fic. The siblings are pretty caught up in rebuilding their own lives, as you do, and so Five proceeds to have the loneliest first year of retirement ever. This one also leans pretty heavy into something @mangoshorthand posted or reblogged a few whiles back about Five struggling to reconnect with Grace because she reminds him of the Handler. 

2. Howling still counts as a wip because i cannot go a full 24 hour period without thinking about it. It’s just sitting in my brain, simmering in all the juices. I’m working on this one constantly. Like all the other wips are on a constant rotation, but this is the big fat star they inevitably orbit.

3. Selkies and Shit - my attempt at mermay masked author but i haven’t gotten very far with it. I don’t even know how to describe this one. The kids were selkies, the Handler was a pirate who was keeping Five and Lila’s skins, and everyone in the world had forgotten all their memories from more than six months prior. No one knew why, but it had something to do with the Moon being missing and the ocean being tide-less. 

4. Planned Obsolescence - that fic where the Commission put a kill switch in Five in case he ever defected and then it slowly kills Five when he defects to be with his family. Here’s a tid bit from that one.

5. the delicate parts of us - it’s... a wing fic. anyone remember that really gory wing eruption scene in Haibane Renmei? yeah, i watched that as a kid and this isn’t the first time i’ve been inspired by it. Kind of dumb, actually, but mostly about Five asking for help.

6. And an untitled post-season 3 fic about Five being human trafficked and saving some kids and generally having a bad time and then a less bad time when his family shows up.

Gonna tag @mangoshorthand​, @sharkneto, @clementineofmine, and @in-a-slanted-outhouse. Participation isn’t mandatory, only if you want to, and even if you weren’t tagged. 

#fic game #tua fanfic #this was fun #good to go through some of my wips #always surprises me how much some of them have written and then i just forget about for months and months #a lot of my ideas tend to morph and get absorbed into other fics. Like the first one has absorbed a lot of ideas recently #a lot of these are scrapped howling or tangled ideas too that have grown legs and a tail and have started wiggling #i have another document that's just one sentence or one paragraph ideas i can't even call wips #more like hyperspecific prompts i may or may not ever get around to writing #the tua brainrot is still going strong over here in case it want obvious

[kittyisaddicted]

Stages

Somewhere this year I just gave up. No, I gave in. Gave in to the irresistible sponge that is my endorphin and serotonin seeking bubbly thing of a brain. My return to tumblr was a hell ride from start to now, and I enjoyed every bit of a sick second of it. 

Going through new and still ongoing shows with you all made me realise that my personal deal with media addiction comes in stages–just like grief, in a way. So bare with me for the 7 stages of (my) media addiction. 

Stage 1

The encounter. Gifs, scenes, little snippets from fics. The inacurate quotes kind of thing that makes me go “This might be interesting”. Going into the tags, a short google search (because tumblr search, you know, … sucks), the like. Finally googling: Where to watch …. And maybe having the luck to not need another streaming service grave for my earnings or a VPN to enjoy another mind and heart soaking piece of fiction. 

Stage 2

The beginning. Episode 1, the story unfolds. I’m chill. Watching episode 2. Seeing scenes I already know because of, you know, tumblr. All seems normal so far. Until I binge episode 3, 4 and 5 and stay up late for episode 6 and maybe get late to wor…

Stage 3

The pull. Or: the binge. If I’m lucky, there’s only one season so far. Or *only* 3 (though no one of us was lucky to have only 3 seasons of Malec Shadowhunters Malec). If there’s more, then welp, because life is now circling around watching episode after episode like earth circles the sky, no hostage taken, every spare second is dedicated to w a t c h i n g! Also, every second of the day is about thinking and every night is dreaming about it. I’m all in. 

Stage 4 

The high noon of addiction. Watching episodes alone is not enough anymore. I rewatch. I re-rewatch scenes on YouTube. I celebrate fan videos there also. My serotonin is up and running, i’m basically high all the time. I heavily search tumblr for meta, for gifs, for meta gifs. My brain and my heart are full, no space for anything else. Working is hard, living a normal life even harder. I’m constantly on my devices, consuming everything I can find, feeling both happy so many creators already did an amazing job and sad about possibly missing out something important, pure FOMO ensues. On the outside I try to seem normal, on the inside I’m craving MORE. MORE. MORE. 

Stage 5

The crawling. Now. Comes the phase where I not only unconsciously know but fully realise that there are actors behind those amazing scenes. That there where a lot of people putting a lot of work into this so it turns out as amazing at it is. And because I never get enough, I dive into their accounts, the meta about them and their relationships, the conventions, the interview snippets, the behind the scenes, the bloopers, there is. so. much. to. see. and. read!!! I am living in an alternate universe basically, borders between reality and fiction fade, the soundtrack is on heavy rotation, I quote both the show and the actors without having any mutuals in real life who know what I am talking about. 

Stage 6

The assimilation. I wake up from a fever dream. Life get’s easier again. As the whole show and cast live now rent free in my head, I can start to shift my interest from the original to the fan made bits and peaces, aka the fan fiction–canon, noncanon, doesn’t matter as long as the writing is in character and I get to know them better through the eyes of talented authors. The tags have a special place on the shelves of my well curated tumblr and ao3 lists (because you know, #The Serotonin is stored in the Ao3) and at least five of my brain cells have another content than my latest blorbo. 

Stage 7 

The retreat. My brain leaves me space for new things. I can concentrate again on other things beside them™, like, well, working, cooking, sleeping, you name it. My sweeties have a special place in my heart from now on, and I will always willingly come back to them for comfort. But right now, the urge to follow everything about them, to dedicate everything I have to them, is gone or, better, just a silent thought in the back of my head. 

#and then of course I am ready to start it all over with the next one #going in circles like any good addict would do #in shorter terms every time #so someday I will go from one phase into the other simultaneously for multiple shows #but for now I regret nothing #supernatural #destiel #good omens #ineffable husbands #shadowhunters #malec #peaky blinders #thomas shelby #stranger things #suits #harvey x donna #how to get away with murder #connor walsh #kinnporsche #kinnporsche the series

[mengyao]

9. what's your writing process like?

Depends a lot on if it's "long" or "short" -- to me "longfic" is 20k+ and "short fic" is anything less than that, and depite being pretty bad at estimating total wordcounts I usually know in advance pretty reliably which side of the fence something falls on, since it has to do with whether there's a complex enough plot to require real outlining or if I'm just jotting stuff down and brainstorming the general shape of something that will carry itself on an emotional arc + Vibes + the most bare bones action plot I can get away with.

If it's the latter, I usally start when a specific image/tableau pops into my mind that crystalizes my Vision for the story, then I try and write that to see if the idea has legs, then I brainstorm/plan around that in either direction until I've got a skeleton of something that tells a satisfying story, and then I fill it in piecemeal until I'm satisfied with it. Pretty straightforward.

There's more of an actual process with longfic, obviously. I outline a lot a lot, and usually go through 3-10 outlines per longfic because I constantly revise them and don't wait until they're airtight before starting to write. My "outlines" are sort of combination moodboards/brain dump files/beat sheets.

Longfic typically requires some kind of "research" component as well, even if that's just reading/rereading other fiction in some way similar to what I'm going for… So that usually happens alongside the early outlining/re-outlining stages (this is where I'm at right now with Beefleaf 2 lol.) I find this stage kind of frustrating because you're super In There and putting in the work but don't have anything to show anyone.

I largely write out of order, and writing a long thing is a process of knitting together the connective tissue around a handful of those key tableaus. It's hard to overstate how crucial the initial "key image" is for me to be able to write something… I'm generally more on the mercenary side than the "I need to be Inspired" side when it comes to writing, but I can't really force that into happening or not, and without it I can't really make an idea go anywhere. I can try and cultivate it by rotating something for a while until it happens, but the image itself is usually something fairly organic and sensory and it informs everything that happens from there, even if the scene itself shifts in details once I've written the story proper. I remember one of MXTX's A/Ns in TGCF said that the story came to her with a vision of the end of Book 2 -- Hua Cheng at the altar saying "I will never forget you!!!!" -- and she built the rest of the narrative around that. I felt very seen…

I don't typically go beyond 2 or 3 drafts for fanfic. Original work is another story. The line between an outline and a draft is pretty fuzzy for me, anyway.

[fuckspn]

fuckspn’s mini deancas fic rec

i said a few days ago that i would write a mini fic rec list, and here it is! i tried to limit it to fics i hadn’t seen on other rec lists before, but there are a few that i couldn’t resist adding even though everyone and their mother recommends them. there’s a whole section for “dean pulls cas out of the empty” fix-it fics because i know what the fuck i’m about. also literally all of these are deancas because i don’t read any other type of supernatural fic, and they all have happy endings because i’m not reading supernatural fanfiction to make myself sad.

a quick disclaimer before we start: i generally don’t like explicit sex scenes in fic unless i feel like they’re really narratively earned, realistic, in-character, and necessary to the emotional arc of the story. so while there are explicit fics in here, all but the last two on the list are sufficiently character- and plot-driven that you can skip the sex scenes entirely if you want.

Finale Fix-Its:

(they’ll never break) the shape we take by ~ME~ (Teen, 9k) Yes, this is my own fic, but listen, I wouldn’t have written it if it didn’t hit what I wanted to see in a fix-it! I’m not gonna make any promises as to whether or not you’ll like it, but I do, and that’s what matters here. Read it if you want to see basically every wrong prediction about the finale rolled up into one fic, if you wish they’d kept the Empty as a morally neutral outsider instead of a villain, or if you just like somewhat uncanny, slippery dream logic and gratuitous callbacks. Also even though idk if I’ll ever finish or publish it, I’m working on a fluffy domestic follow-up featuring, among other things, fixes for both Jack and Billie’s endings. I’m just saying that so if you read this fic you know that even though it’s not mentioned, Jack does come back and get to be a normal toddler with his two dads.

my heart a compass by lagaudiere (Teen, 10k) Again, I REALLY hope you like uncanny, slippery dream logic because that’s in this fic too! Cas POV is such a rare and difficult thing and I think lagaudiere nails it. Literally my only complaint about this fic is that at one point Cas imagines Jack having missing baby teeth at age 4 and my immediate reaction was to worry about why Jack would be missing teeth that young. This is because my brain is broken. Your brain is presumably not broken in the same way mine is, so you should enjoy this fic fine.

The World At Large by cenotaphy (General, 4.9k) This fic is so sexy because cenotaphy was like “hey what if there were actual stakes for Dean in the Empty besides the threat of losing the love of his life? Like what if he had a time limit? What if he got fucking stabbed?” and then somehow turned it into the softest little thing about how much all the characters love each other. Truly incredible artistic decisions made here. Despite being relatively short and deancas-centric, Sam and Jack get a lot of screentime here too and they’re absolutely delightful. Tbh you should probably read all of cenotaphy’s season 15 fix-its but if you’re only gonna read one, make it this. (Or Bring Home, but I’ve seen that one on so many rec lists that I think statistically everyone on Earth has read it.)

Other:

You And Your Husband by mikaylamazing (General, 17.9k) 5+1, Dean and Cas getting mistaken for a couple, 80% fluff then 10% angst that genuinely hit me like a gut punch then 10% fluff again. Dean and Cas are at PEAK old married couple in this fic. Yeah they bitch at each other constantly, but they also will tool around the country in their car like a couple of retirees and Dean will indulge Cas’ random flights of fancy even when they’re for something he hates, like the original Starbucks at Pike Place Market. (I’m with Dean on this one.)

Command Me To Be Well by prosopopeya (Explicit, 28k) Not gonna lie, this one hits the “angst with a happy ending” trope hard. The author is NOT fucking around with the warning for internalized homophobia, and I damn near cried at how Dean and Cas clearly loved each other and wanted to be together but just couldn’t because Dean’s psychological hangups were hurting them both. But not only does the happy ending come, the fic luxuriates in it—this is no band-aid slapped over the end, they genuinely fix their shit. Also, this fic has my favorite “Dean coming out to Sam” scene I’ve ever read.

Bring Up the Deep by deathbanjo (Explicit, 22.6k) Okay. Listen. Yes, this is the fic I was talking about the other day, with the tags that make it sound way kinkier than it actually is. And yes, technically this fic does contain dom/sub undertones and sex pollen. But look at me—hey, look at me. This fic owns. It’s a horror case fic, so it’s mainly plot (and three brief sex scenes, but two of those are part of the plot). The monster is genuinely creepy and creative, the supporting characters are enjoyable to read about, the setting is well-drawn, and the ending is something I’m still digesting but in a very enjoyable way. As far as the kinky tags go, the fic basically plays out like Dean and Cas (who are in an established, albeit new, relationship) are slightly randier than normal due to case weirdness: the dom/sub undertones are so light that I barely noticed them, the “sex pollen” is a deliberately unnerving plot device, and both Dean and Cas have nuanced emotional reactions to the whole situation that they are allowed to process and talk through with each other. I’ve never read A Complete Kingdom and never will, but if you’ve ever wanted a Deancas horror casefic set in coastal Maine that won’t leave you a shattered husk of a human being, Bring Up the Deep is for you!

Though The Course May Change by imogenbynight (Explicit, 51.5k) I’ve seen this one on a number of rec lists, but I couldn’t not include it because it’s just so fun. Another case fic involving Dean and Cas staying in a cabin in a rainy, semi-isolated location surrounded by colorful OCs, but this time the only horror is the prospect of fake-dating the guy you’re secretly actually in love with. It’s a delightful read.

More Than Ever by Sass_Master (Explicit, 20.2k) Canon-divergent fic from 2015 about Cas choosing to become human and Dean being a real bitch about it. It’s very fun, but I’m mainly recommending it because it’s part 1 of a series and therefore provides the necessary backstory/buildup for the next fic on this list.

You’re There by Sass_Master (Explicit, 11.5k) This is part 3 of the same series (part 2 is not required reading, it’s just a short explicit fic set in between these two fics), and while most of it is about sex, it’s also a fucking A+, 10/10, award-worthy character study of Dean and his internal relationship to his sexuality. Literally I was reading it going, “That’s it! That’s the Dean Winchester who lives in my head!”

till the juice runs by deathbanjo (Explicit, 8.4k) The epic saga of Dean’s terrible knockoff-Grindr hookups while Cas waits at home for him like if you could see that I’m the one who understands you been here all along so why can’t you see you belong w— Listen, I’ll be honest here, this fic is completely not my usual speed (lots of sex, relatively light—but not nonexistent!—romance, zero Big Emotions), so it doesn’t have much in common with any other fics on this list besides a rotating cast of fun OCs. It is, however, the single funniest fucking deancas fic I’ve ever read in my life. Fun minigame: count how many times one of Dean’s hookups is described as having messy dark hair and/or blue eyes.

#fic rec #idk how 'mini' this is at this point it's 10 fics #but that's only a tiny fraction of the amount of deancas fic i've read in the last 100 days so

[yukippe]

i sold myself on yuekki knowing there was v little content so ig i have to make it myself. heres my take on canon yuekki

so obviously yue lives! for this ill just say she gave back the power she got from the moon spirit and her hair turned black and she ended up w cool spiritbending powers for fun

sokka and yue get together properly 💖yue decides she wants to travel the world and help out with the war however she can and she and sokka have a conversation and theyre like yea we r both young and we dont know whats going to happen so we want to explore this however we can! theyre very soft together and sokka teachers her the basic combat he knows and he gets a lot better at carving because hes constantly making her little things whenever they stop somewhere 

aang and yue do spirit communicating and spirit world trips and bending together and its cool katara practices with them because yue wants to take waterbending influences - katara and yue become really close friends and they tease sokka together whenever they can

in the secret tunnel episode yue thinks the nomads r the funniest thing and shes laughing and having them teach her songs and her voice is HORRIBLE and sokka is just oh dear i love her…

in the swamp sokka and yue both see suki ;)

neither of them mention what they saw bc sokkas like uh? im with yue tho what does this mean is suki okay?? and yue is like oh thats a cute girl wow ! huh :O

yue shows up at the beifongs and goes oh…i am just a princess. nbd! the beifongs are ?!?! okay?? and tell toph to be nice to her. at first toph thinks yue is just a prissy princess but then yue challengers her to a burping contest and tophs opinion does a 180 to first girl crush

they still lose appa : ( yue went into the tower with them bc she wanted to talk to another spirit and when wan shi tong asks her for information shes just like oh lol i was the moon spirit and hes…..um okay that works

yue is the one who gets high off cactus juice 😌 she has a great time and sokka carries her on his back for a bit to make sure shes safe and fusses over her and yue is just bopping his nose and playing with momos tale and earnestly talking about how she thinks she might have to leave sokka for the mermaid (katara who is very flustered) shes flirting with

serpents pass is hijinks and romance at its best :)

suki still kisses sokka and yue sees the girl from the swamp vision kiss sokka and her IMMEDIATE thought is oh new girlfriend i guess and then her brain kicks in and she steps over and goes hey :( my boyfriend :( 

suki: what?? sokka: uh yea, hi suki this is my girlfriend yue. yue this is uh, suki? shes the leader of the kyoshi warriors

basically they sort it out as a haha oops my bad… but then the three of them talk around the campfire and sokka starts to make one of the carvings he always makes for yue and then he makes another and gives it to suki and suki and yue are REALLY getting along and the three of them sit under the moonlight and yue brings up that she saw suki in a vision and sokka goes oh and suki goes really?

they realize they all definitley like each other, but suki has to go back to the rest of the kyoshi warriors and they kiss and yue takes sukis hands and promises her she will find her again and theyll see where the go from there and gives her the carving sokka made for her and suki gives yue the carving sokka made for her and its very much an if we make it out well see where we go from there

azula has no idea who yue is because the nwt princess not being in the nwt is a tiny bit of a secret bc the nwt decided they didnt want it to be known that yue wasnt safe and azula sees her spirit bend and is ???? another avatar?? 

yea the fire nation thinks theres another avatar dw abt it

in ba sing se yues tales of ba sing se episode shes invited to join katara and toph and goes but she also gets her own little story where she gets stuck working a part time job at a pottery store and she so lost dfghj

when theres the confrontation at the end of book 2 azula tries to attack yue and calls her the avatar and zuko is??? no thats the nwt princess!! azula is v stunned and then shes like well. fuck you! and then she turns to aang and proceeds from there

yue pretends to be aangs mom so katara doesnt have too dfghj sokka and yue play up a v cute married couple act and katara keeps pretending to throw up

sokka makes yue a cool meteroite knife while hes making the sword and she loves it and immediatly starts target practice

yue and katara both go with hama in the puppetmaster and its actually a redemption episode and yue shares a message from tui with hama and hama thanks them both and decides to go to the swt 

yue goes on the boiling rock trip and eyes zuko from the other side of the balloon and he asks o uh how are you alive? yue: i gave back the moon spirit and then the moon came back and then i became a vessel for tui and i got spiritbending. sokka: ur so cool

yue spots suki first and nudges sokka and sokka sees her and goes !!. when zuko stands guard he is so extremley awkward abt it bc he doesnt understand why the both of them went in bc he doesnt realize theyre both kinda with suki. inside the three of them are hugging on the ground and outlinging a fast plan

when chit sang goes: hey ur girlfriend is going away, yue crosses her arms and goes: hey thats MY girlfriend chit sang: oh sorry didnt mean to assume

zuko: i thought you were dating sokka? sokka: yue and i are both dating suki because we are all really cool and awesome :D

when hakoda finds out his son has two badass girlfriends and one of them is the leader of an elite group of warriors and the other is the princess of the nwt he goes and takes a nap

you know that scene where suki is trying to sneak into sokka’s tent but zuko interrupts? yue is already in the tent with sokka and hears the stumble and is like zuko?? we didnt invite you but uh? i guess just talk to sokka quickly we have plans

zuko is very intimidated by yue already so hes much more awkward but he goes in and asks his question and then suki and yue go and hangout with sokka and the three of them have a cute date and do each others hair and suki brings out her fans and they fan each other even though suki goes: hey those are weapons! >:( yue, guiding sokka on hiding his face w a fan: yes suki we are so sorry, come fan me with your weapon please

yue dies in the ember island players version of events so suki sneaks yue and sokka backstage so the three of them can roast the actors and playwright and dfghjk yue is like you know what they wrote me out so im taking kataras place and suki and sokka shrug and they convince the katara actress to let yue take over for the next act

yue makes the show 10x better and almost refuses to die when shes supposed to be defeated and suki and sokka are just quietly cheering in the background like THATS OUR GIRLFRIEND

when theyre facing the fleet in the finale im not saying yue throws her meteorite knife and hits ozai but she totally throws her knife and hits ozai

suki sokka and yue kiss at zuko’s coronation bc they all love pda and then they seperate for a while as they go back to their respective homes but they stay in close contact and sneak away to visit each other whenever they can and they manage to make some sort of rotation schedule between homes between the three of them and have three kids :)

#atla #yuekki #yue #sokka #suki #ill do another post w more thoughts on them outside of adding yue to canon #🧚‍♀️babble #long post #I tried editing this and tumblr is fucking it up D:

[fondnesses]

roscoe’s notebook post

A while back I said I was going to write a post about the way I use notebooks for writing projects. This is the first of several posts about Writing Process I’ve been tossing around in my drafts for a little while as a result of conversations with friends, so bear with me.

I. Love. Notebooks. I genuinely would have to deeply overhaul my whole Process of writing anything on the longer side if I were to go paperless; I find physical paper pretty invaluable when I’m outlining, brainstorming, and researching, and I still probably write ¼-⅓ of all my actual content on paper first. (That proportion used to be a lot higher, but I’ve gotten better at being productive on a computer in recent years, which is great.) I’m a very visual person, so notebooks really help me visualize my ideas, story structure, etc. It’s very helpful to be able to use arrows and diagrams and physically strike things through, and the tactility is really soothing to me. If I show people my notebooks or talk about them, I often get a response like “this is so organized”, which is sort of true, but I have to stress that it’s “organization for a disorganized mind”; I can’t misplace ideas or notes if it all goes into the same physical object, vs. electronic notes, which are much more, like “Did I say that in a voice memo? PM it to myself on Discord? Leave it in a desktop sticky note? Write it directly into the Google Doc? Who knows! It’s lost to time!”. It’s very much an ADHD management strategy.

It helps that I’m a very neophyte stationery hobbyist and appreciate any excuse I have to use my pens, but I also will go off at any opportunity about how helpful I find them for writing projects, which is why I decided to just make a post about it. Right now I mostly use them for (fan and original) fiction projects, but I used a notebook for a very similar purpose when I was working on my undergrad thesis, and I have a slightly different but equally necessary-to-me approach to notebooks I use at work.

My typical structure for a notebook that’s devoted to one project only looks like this:

I always leave the first couple pages blank so I can go back and retroactively index bujo-style. I don’t always actually do the index, because sometimes I get too lazy, but I like having those blank pages there to give me the option. I also usually put epigraphs/inspo quotes on the first page.

After that, there’s often (but not always, I’ll talk about it) a couple pages at the start where I’m frantically jotting down loose brainstorming ideas before they've coagulated into a story structure. Just, like, vomiting into the void.

Stemming out of that, I usually write out about like 5-10 pages of outline-style notes in chronological order, laying out all the main story beats and charting out the story trajectory. This will inevitably get revised and rewritten many times, but I find the process of writing these wide-angle synopses really useful for dislodging ideas, making connections re: thematic threads, etc. from my brain.

I’ll devote a couple pages after that to specific things like "sex scene brainstorming", "random scene ideas/minor details that don't have a clear place in the outline right now but I'll turn to for inspo later" [this is what I refer to as “bits” in one of the later photos], "page where I just outline the Motifs And Themes", "research notes", "to-do list", "stuff to check on a second pass", "things to put in the a/n and AO3 tags", etc.--the specifics vary with the story.

Then, I skip ahead to approx. halfway through the notebook and cordon off the rest of the pages to be “free writing” space, AKA writing of actual content rather than planning, with the expectation there will be no internal organization and I’ll transcribe to laptop as I go. Writing on paper feels less binding than typing something on a computer; it’s like a little secret kept with myself, and it doesn’t need to go anywhere or be seen by anyone if I decide I don’t like it. Setting aside pages in the back half of the notebook means that, as more things come up re: planning, I can go back and add those in the rest of the pages that were intentionally left blank. This is how I avoid (for the most part) having the whole thing be a jumbled mess where there’s no separation between the notes and the actual story writing; I learned this the hard way via the first notebook I’ll show you in a second. I’ve recently gotten really into using Muji sticky note tabs to label any pages/sections of particular import that don't want to have to refer back to in the index and would rather just flip to instantly.

I do use notebooks that aren’t specific to any one project, but those are much less organized and less worth sharing.

Before I look at more recent stuff, here are some selections from my notebook for the project that got me into writing longfic, my Golden Kamuy canon divergence AU (with apologies for the bad photos, my phone’s camera is trash). I worked on this from Sept 2018-July 2019. It was a learning experience in a lot of ways, and notebook utilization was one of those. I’ve always used notebooks for keeping track of writing projects, as I said earlier, but before this it was largely without much organization or structure; just total chaos. Having a physical notebook became really important for this project because it was a sprawling multichapter story with rotating POVs and a lot of historical research. I also learned a lot about what not to do with a notebook, personally, or at least things that don’t work so well (for me). This was a college ruled spiral-bound Decomposition Book, for the record.

By the time I bought a notebook for it I already had a (very basic) plot outline in mind, so I wasn’t doing that very initial ground-zero brainstorming in here; I was copying out of my phone’s notes app, basically, and then going from there. 

This is one of the first pages in this notebook; I wanted to visualize the relationship web between the four central characters in the story in terms of how they feel about one another. The two colours correspond to the POV characters (Sugimoto in orange, Ogata in pink), and I used this colour-coding throughout the notebook with highlighters, etc. to keep track of information that was more relevant to one character than the other. Tsurumi and Yuusaku aren’t POV characters, but they’re prominent in the story and their presence impacts the central relationship between Sugimoto and Ogata, and it was helpful to me to map out the emotional ecosystem, as it were.

(There are coffee stains all over this, because I wrote the vast majority of the story in coffee shops because I didn’t want to be around my roommates, lol. This is part of why I never do fiction writing in notebooks that are too nice, I get neurotic about needing to keep them tidy. I can’t use ones that are too shit though, either, so it’s a bit of a narrow window. I’ll talk more about brands and paper quality etc. later.)

As you can see, this is the first page of many I set aside specifically for jotting down different pieces of historical information relevant to my story. It’s about fictional characters who are members of an army division that existed in real life, and both the canon and my fic involve a high level of attention to detail with regards to which divisions were present for which battles, etc., as well as general historical details specific to the Russo-Japanese War setting--what did people eat in the trenches? What did they do to fill time? How did they get through the winter? What did third party observers have to say about the conditions? What were the specs of their weaponry (particularly important because one of the POV characters is a sniper and gun nut)? I did a lot of reading (and watching of antique gun collector Youtube videos... the things I do for love, eh), and it came in handy so many times, because it turns out it’s much easier to write trench warfare slice of life if you have factual details to pull from when you don’t know what to do with a scene! Imagine that!

This is the first of three “grid outlines” I made; this is a way I sometimes like to visualize a story outline all on one page, with the columns representing chapters and the squares within the columns representing sections/scenes within the chapters. As you can see, early on I was hoping to get this done in five or even FOUR chapters (whatmakesyouhaha.mp3), with POV switches happening internally within the chapters. This proved to be unwieldy for many reasons, so I revised the outline:

Here I’d come to terms with the fact this story was going to have a lot more chapters than I’d planned, and I rearranged things so that it would happen in ten, with each chapter belonging to only one POV character. This also needed revising later, and in the end the story looked a bit more like this (though it did in fact end up being twelve chapters, but only because Chapter Ten was like, 12k, and needed to be split in two chunks):

I must have remembered to bring my fineliners to the coffee shop this time, lol, because as you can see it’s properly colour-coded this time. This outline was made when I was already four posted chapters into the fic, which hopefully gives you a sense of the way in which I am sort of a planner and a pantser; I can’t get into a longer project without an outline, but the outline inevitably changes many times throughout writing and I often end up with a finished product that looks pretty different from what I was intending. My creative M.O. as always is Do The Maximum! Amount! Of! Work! Possible!

This is what a “free writing” page looks like, for me. In this notebook I didn’t set aside any specific spaces for free writing so it’s strewn throughout the notebook in a really disorganized way and I was constantly flipping through looking for bits I’d written and forgotten to transcribe, and I decided to be more organized in future as a result of that. If something’s crossed through, that means I transcribed it. As you can see, they’re often small sections, sometimes just a coupled decontextualized sentences. About 3/4 of what I write in a notebook makes it into the story, I’d say; some of it never goes anywhere, and that’s OK. I have less of an issue killing my darlings if they never make it off the paper page.

A very brief, top-down chapter outline, where the goal was not to get too bogged down in details and just to visualize the beats and pin down what they’re trying to accomplish. Chapters for this fic typically ran about 6k, and five or six scenes per chapter was pretty common, so the average scene length was about 1-1.25k words/scene. IDK why I called it storyboarding when I didn’t make drawings. (Margin numbers are to keep track of word count, since I was using a daily word count tracker while writing this.)

This page was, as titled, for keeping track of the various balls in the air when I was about 2/3-3/4 of the way through the story and really feeling the pressure with regards to tying up the various loose ends. This was... a struggle. I hadn’t ever written anything longish (this fic ended up just under 70k) that had an action plot before, let alone a canon divergence scenario where I had to engage with and explain away various canon plot elements so I could maintain the audience’s suspension of disbelief.

Now, I mentioned earlier that I learned various “things not to do” with my notebooks while working on that project. One of those lessons I learned is to be more realistic when assessing how big a project is likely to get, not least because I RAN OUT OF PAGES around the chapter 9-10 mark. In my defense though, that’s because I’d never written anything even half this long! But I know better now, and try not to be in denial. Finishing the notebook early was a way bigger problem than I’d anticipated, and was part of the reason the last few chapters took several grueling months to finish. The issue was that I needed to be able to use a notebook to maintain my workflow--attempting to do it only on a computer was dismal--but it seemed silly to start a notebook of a similar size to the one I’d finished (80pg, approximately B5 dimensions) when there was no way it would need that much space, especially since the reference pages, like the historical notes, didn’t need to be transcribed over. I was also pretty broke at the time and didn’t want to spend money unnecessarily, lol. I tried to get by using a Moleskine Cahier for a month or so because I had one lying around, but it was horrid; it was too small to be used comfortably, it wasn’t spiral-bound so it wouldn’t lay flat, the ghosting is terrible and I hate the way Moleskine paper feels, etc. Eventually I caved and went to Muji and bought a 30ish page A5 with closer to lay-flat binding, and I finished the story in there. I would take a comparative pic for you of the relative notebook sizes and include some of the scene staging diagrams, etc. I put in there, but I can’t find it :(

So I learned that specs really do matter, and it’s okay to be picky if the pickiness is going to make the difference between actually using a notebook or not. Things that are important to me in my notebooks:

Ruling (gotta have ruling, I can suffer through grid but blank or dot is a no-go)

Size (I can’t use anything smaller than at least a medium-large notebook, I find it claustrophobic and get miserly about page space)

Binding (twin ring is my preference because it looks and feels better than a classic spiral but has the same comfort of use with regards to bending the pages back to suit workspace size and laying flat with ease)

Paper quality and colour (I don’t like anything too slippery/smooth or with too much visible ghosting, and I strongly prefer an off-white paper to bleached paper--part of why I don’t use Decomposition Books anymore, the paper is scratchy and it’s too damn bleached!)

Pagecount relative to size of project

Portability (in non-COVID times; anything bigger than a B5 wouldn’t fit in the satchel I used to bring to work at my old job), etc.

But everyone’s taste is different in this respect, and the only way to figure out what works for you is through trial and error, I’m afraid. I also suspect I’m more neurotic and particular about the sensory experience of using a notebook than most people are, but I yam what I yam.

Now to talk about the notebooks for my current projects, where I’ve refined my approach somewhat. I’ve included less photos for these because they’re ongoing WIPs I don’t want to spoil completely, but I’ve tried to include some outline-type stuff to give you an idea.

My big bang fic is in the very ugly twin ring notebook on the right; I got it at a dollar store by my house because I needed something to work in and didn’t want to wait for an online order, but it’s been very serviceable for my needs. The paper isn’t even bad. The bigger notebook (B5) is my Sangcheng fic.

I wanted something with a lot of pages for this, because I knew it was going to be a long story, and for some reason the fact it’s smaller than my usual preference doesn’t bug me (I think it’s an A5?); it just fits this story, somehow. I’m not sure exactly how many sheets are in here but I’d guess about 150.

Because this notebook has upwards of 100 sheets, I made a lot of use of sticky-note tabs to label high-priority pages. The colour coding of these doesn’t mean anything, it was just whichever ones I had at hand at any given moment. These are those tabs from Muji I mentioned, I’m really obsessed with them--the shape makes them so much less obtrusive and more practical than conventional squares/rectangles OR flag shapes, IME.

My big bang story is nonlinear, so, similarly to what I did with colour coding for the two POVs for my GK fic, this story has two main colours corresponding to whether a given section takes place in the “before” or the “after” portions of the timeline, with blue as “after”, yellow as “before”. This is what the most current version of the outline looks like in there:

If you squint, you can see the alphanumeric notes in the top right of each section entry; I gave them each a code like “A3″ or “B5″ corresponding to their position in the story sequence (so, it goes A1, B1, A2, B2, etc., through to B9 and then the epilogue). [Unintentional that this schema overlaps with notebook size labeling and so is kind of confusing in the context of this post.] At first I was just keeping track of the sections via the highlighted titles, but it got confusing because I’d write down “Wedding” or “Yiling” in my notes and then refer to the notes later like “but there are multiple marriages?? and multiple scenes in Yiling??”. Stuff gets struck through with a straight line if it’s been written in a more-or-less complete form and crossed out with a squiggly line if it’s been cut from the outline or made redundant.

As I said earlier, I started out all the initial brainstorming for my Sangcheng fic in its notebook, instead of brainstorming it in someone’s DMs/my notes app/a voice memo/etc. and then transcribing it into the notebook in a somewhat more organized fashion, which is how my stories usually start out. Because of this, the first five-ish pages are basically just stream of consciousness rambling where I was trying to jot down every disconnected thought I had about the story concept. I don’t have photos for that because it’s too spoilerific for later developments in the fic, but I can show you some of the stages the outlines went through, once I was able to corral those initial notes into a story structure:

All the chapters in this fic have their own highlighter colour, so when I started trying to make sense of my initial brainstorm notes I just went through and highlighted stuff in the colour of the chapter it would make the most sense for, and then transcribed things more-or-less in chronological order into the relevant chapter outline. I later ended up rewriting all the chapter outlines AGAIN to refine them and divide them internally by the individual scenes, which makes them a lot more legible and less wall-of-text-y. They look like this now, with about four sheets per chapter:

Because this fic is on the longer side, I have some pages that are just for keeping track of other story elements, like this, where I refer back to whatever the fuck the “themes” are supposed to be whenever I forget what this fic is about:

It’s all about the visionboarding... Anyway, that’s most of what I have to offer, since most of these two notebooks is Forbidden Content.

With regards to brands/supplies, I really like this Kokuyo Campus Wide notebook that I’m writing Sangcheng in, it’s pretty perfect for me. I also like the B5 Muji twin rings, but those only come in 30 sheets, so I wouldn’t use it for anything above a ~20k project. The B5 Maruman Spiral Note 6.5mm ruled/80 sheet is another good one, though I wish it was twin ring instead of spiral. As you can tell, I like Japanese stationery brands because it’s easier to find decent paper quality and minimalist design without shelling out $$ than it is with American/European brands, at least IME. I like Rollbahns too. But honestly, I can usually find pretty serviceable random notebooks that aren’t brand-name from Asian dollar stores; it’s really not something where you need to shell out tons of money.

#notebooks #writing #idk how to tag this!

[monster-bait]

Soooo 👀 you got anymore HCs up your sleeve on Rukh? He has been living rent free in my brain for a while now (like a lot of your OCs!)😅🤩😍

Here are some HCs for Rukh, our favorite gruff bartender in the GW universe. (I've already started writing a small one-shot of Rukh's job interview with Tate, because once I started writing these, I couldn't get the idea out of my head! That will be posting to Patreon shortly!)

If you're interested in learning more about any of my existing characters, all ko-fi contributions earn a headcanon! (Higher amounts will be more detailed!)

Previous Rukh headcanons, including the extremely memorable moment of IvyMemnoch finding a Celtic flute version of Despacito (my fav Tumblr moment of the year, by far! 😂) can be found here

RUKH

Had never heard of the tiny resort town where the Pixie is located before responding to the job listing, despite the fact that he lives in neighboring Starling Heights. He’d been working in one of those quick-service garages before then—an embarrassing waste of his skills, but he figured with his prison record, he was lucky to find a job at all. He’d not been planning on leaving his position, was only looking for a part-time gig, but the job post for the Pixie was too intriguing to scroll past—it was written in Orcish, practically unheard in a mixed-species society, catching his eye immediately. Unlike the other half-a-dozen bartender help wanted ads he’d looked at, the Pixie’s post said nothing about requiring an “upbeat personality” or his “smile being part of the dress code,” all descriptors that made him cringe. Punctuality, accountability, and an authoritative presence were the expectations, experience a plus but not required...it was straightforward and direct., it was clearly directed at orcs...he fit the bill, he thought. He considered himself to have a finely-tuned bullshit meter, and the Pixie’s ad didn’t set it off at all

He has since admitted to himself that he has fallen for Tate’s particular brand of bullshit repeatedly over the years

Rukh is a very tightly closed book. He’s definitely the strong silent type and is not at all comfortable talking about himself. (Despite that, he spilled his guts and told Tate his whole life story during his job interview—falling for the bullshit instance #1)

He discovered a love of reading during his incarceration, one he didn’t possess in his younger days. When he moved to Starling Heights, he was low-key delighted to find his apartment was on the same block as the library. He prefers mysteries and crime novels to anything overly literary, doesn’t have the patience for the endless world-building of high fantasy, and enjoys a wide spectrum of non-fiction. It’s become a game of sorts, engaging Ainsley in conversation and being able to not only keep up, but add his own insights and facts.

Another mental game he likes to play is trying to pinpoint Tate’s actual age. He’d never come right out and ask but sometimes Tate will chime into conversations knowing things he just...shouldn’t, or else will make references to things that Rukh can barely remember from his *own* childhood, things he remembers his parents reminiscing over. He’s added some Celtic history books to his rotation and surreptitiously jots down notes on the random head-scratchers Tate will casually drop and follows rabbit holes looking into said notes...as a result, he’s even more spooked by Tate than he was before he started snooping 😂

When Rukh first started at the Pixie, he thought they would fail. He was positive about it. Too small, in the middle of nowhere, an owner who very quickly made enemies with most of the people in town...he was shocked when the old girl's business plan actually fell into place. Shocked and thrilled, of course. He loves having a routine, loves having a reason to get up and feel energized every day, likes the clientele and takes his job of overseeing the “sightseers” during tourist season seriously. Since the bar turns a respectable profit, they're constantly receiving promotional odds and ends, which is how Rukh wound up with a Bourbon of the Month club subscription for a free year. (Tate hissed like a cat and shooed the offending pamphlet away as though it might bite.) He continued the subscription once the free year ended, and looks forward to his monthly ritual—he waits until his night off, puts on some moody jazz, cracks open the month’s bottle, and enjoys it with a cigar. Thessa referred to it as a self-care routine once, after asking him about his plans for the night, and he nearly turned inside out in mortification.

He doesn’t talk about his time in prison, nor the crime he committed to wind up there. Tate is the only one who knows, and Rukh is happy to keep it that way. It’s not that he regrets the act itself all that much—he has no remorse for his brother, but rather the way it fractured their family, upended his life, and had branded him as someone to be wary of since his release.

That being said...things he did pick up during his incarceration—the ability to keep his head down and just get by, the knowledge that sometimes you simply need to kick someone’s ass, and the value of tidiness—are assets at the Pixie.

Loves nothing more than his solitary days at the Pixie during the off-season. The night-time regulars, while they consistently fill the cash till, are still a handful. He loves the quiet of the daytime, the handful of day drinkers, the time to hear himself think without needing to watch over every aspect of the business. Speaking of which—he knows how to do everything in the Pixie. The ordering, the inventory, the budgets, the schedules, the upkeep...he's not entirely sure why, as Tate very much micro-manages every bit of the day-to-day management, but it was something the boy insisted on and Rukh wasn't about to argue. "Someone needs to be able to take care of her if I'm not here anymore," was the only answer he got, and he decided it was easier not to ask questions. Since Silva has been on the scene, Rukh has been left to his own devices more often and it is *bliss.*

He thought he'd left his days of vice behind him. He drank, he smoked, he dabbled in recreational drugs, he worked on souped-up hot rods and bet on drag racing...prison changed all that and his life afterward left little room for any of it...but Tate and Ainsley are terrible terrible influences. Gamblers and hustlers, he has someone to talk cars with again, to trade intel on illegal street racing with, the chance to get his hands just a littttle bit dirty again, and he loves it

Smokey blues, soulful R&B, moody rock

Sloooow dancing

He is *incredibly* protective of Elshona. He’s the first person who meets her once she arrives in her new home, and he recognizes the fear in her eyes. He’s the only one who understands what it means to be cast out of one’s community, he knows what it means to have to start over again. He doesn’t understand the relationship she has with Tate, doesn’t know all of the details of her expulsion and shunning from her clan, but he’s made a quiet promise to himself that she’ll never be left to flounder completely alone again.

Has a FWB relationship with a half-troll woman in his building. Single mom, splits custody with her ex, so has several nights a week free, and she’ll spend one of them in his bed. It’s casual and neither of them is interested in pursuing more, but it’s occasional companionship and scratches an itch.

He's not immune to the plethora of easy sex the commune attracts. There would be hell to pay if the staff acted on anything beyond mild flirtation at the Pixie, but he'd be a liar if he said he hadn't drifted down to the parties and pool-side bar before to check things out. He's been on the receiving end of more than one edge of the party blowjob to know how addictive that sort of access to easy sex could be; he sees the commune residents and the reckless way they behave and knows how easy it would be to slip into that lust-crazed mindset, and makes a point of only indulging in visiting that side of the resort occasionally

He much prefers to find his partners the old fashioned way: closer to home, in one of the dimly lit little pubs around his neighborhood. He loves the adrenaline rush of a flirtation turning into close talking and lingering hands, that first heat-filled kiss. He doesn't mind the evening ending back at his or her place, he's not picky, and prefers to savor the night (as opposed to the fast, anonymous sex at the commune parties.) Ladies on top or old-fashioned missionary, any position that lets him see their faces: heads dropped back, faces screwed up in ecstasy, that moment when they come...he'll take that over a blow job in the dark any day of the week

A skill that Tate possesses that Rukh greatly admires and strives to emulate: easy banter which leads to confidences shared. They were talking about cars one minute, and in the next Rukh was revealing the details of the day he killed his brother, the shunning of his clan which followed, and his incarceration. He left that initial interview feeling shaken, positive that he'd been the victim of fae magic...but he's come to realize that there is truth in the old adage of hairstylists and barkeeps being the keepers of the whole town's secrets. Tate knows everything about everyone, is able to tease out information as casually as pouring the next drink, and Rukh has begun to employ the same tactics. He was shocked to find that it actually works. As the years have gone on, he's improved his game and knows much about all of the Pixie's regulars, hears the commune gossip and news from town, and is gleeful with the power of being able to pass on information that the Pixie can use to leverage her business.

There is very little that scares him in this world. Possessions are just things and things can be replaced, he's been in fights with bigger, meaner dudes than the Pixie's roughest patrons, and he's not afraid to meet his maker. He's let go of the past and the people in it and tries to live life one day at a time, and that's not a mindset that lends itself to fear much. Tate is a wholly different story. Rukh knew his type in prison: those who viewed other people as pawns, who traded and secrets gossip to advance their own positions; had a minotaur cellmate who was that sort and he got his ass kicked on the regular for it. He knew a lizardman who was as slippery, who contorted himself in and out of trouble, ingratiating himself with the guards and the inmates of the upper echelons to hold himself out of real hot water...but he's never met anyone with the same capacity for mischief and spite as his current employer, has never met anyone so terrifyingly adept at causing trouble while staying out of it. The boy isn't overly concerned about making enemies or worrying about his own hide and wreaks havoc for havoc's sake, and Rukh might be impressed if he didn't actually care about him. Silva is, in Rukh's opinion, Tate's perfect match. A sweet little angel, an absolute beauty, wide-eyed and innocent looking and, Rukh (rightly) suspects, just as shrewd and self-preserving as Tate. He has a feeling the entire town will be set ablaze if/when their relationship consumes itself, and only hopes it happens on his day off.

I hope you enjoyed this little peek into a character who doesn't get as much page time as some of his peers! If you'd like a headcanon of your own, visit my ko-fi! Thanks so much, IvyMemnoch!

#monsterbait answers #ko-fi #girls weekend #the plundered pixie #rukh #ivymemnoch

[razorblade180]

So I finished Age of Calamity

[spoilers]

Thanks to the beauty of holiday time off I have logged in 40 plus hours into this game and just beaten it, so naturally I’m gonna talk about it a bit. I’ll save the spoiler stuff for a little later though.

The game

This game might be my favorite game of 2020, or at least top three. Not just because of the world, but because everything is over the top! So far I’ve done 131 missions and 90% has the consistent energy of “we are fucking under attack” and it’s almost overwhelming in the best way possible. It really felt like you were on a battlefield field. Your map is just a sea of red and it’s your job to clean it up. What kept me engaged in the fights was all of the character’s different uses runes. I found myself constantly ordering my teammates to face certain enemy types that match best with how they fight.

Originally, I really wanted to be fair and rotate between characters. That didn’t last long. Mipha and Link in my opinion don’t have a single bad move. The bias only got worse whenever the master sword is obtained. Before that, my Link had a spear most of the time but that sword is just handy. Especially with item drop rate and attack range on it. In the end, my strongest characters were Link 74, Mipha 70, Impa 60, and Zelda 60. It’s been awhile since I played the first hyrule warriors so I can’t remember if they had the level up system were you can pay for experience but or definitely came in handy. Combine that with how many guardians were in this game and I quickly found out I needed Link with a shield on a regular bases. I also learned I didn’t forget how to time a vase amount of blocks and dodges.

The amount of characters you get to play quickly became too massive for me to juggle, but they all had their own merits for the most part, though I did find a few of the gimmick characters a bit of a hassle. My opinion on who was viable was constantly changing as I unlocked more combos. Originally, wasn’t the biggest fan of Urbosa. That second and fifth combo modifier changed everything.

The real portion of the game that really kept me wanting to play more was not only the ability to order other people, but seeing them fight along side you. I’m a softie for things like this, but genuinely felt relieved or hyped whenever I was fighting something crazy and I can see Impa rushing over towards me while text from soldiers scream “Just keep pushing!!!!” The AI wasn’t dumb either! There’s plenty of moments that controllable and NPC characters will just go where they’re supposed to, or kill targeted enemies. I remember not wanting to switch over to Link because he had low health, so as I’m running over to him as Mipha to heal him, the madman kills the Lynel. Ran all the way over there to watch him flex. That combined with elemental reactions you can cause in a fight, and the entire spectacle just felt elevated. The feeling of fighting three Lynel’s at once becomes a little less scary when you have a lightning rod and puddles everywhere.

The only negative I found in a gameplay perspective is some of the resource gathering. Gaining the trophy notes for killing a type of enemy isn’t too much of a hassle, but I found getting the materials they drop to be a bit harder, even with increased drop rate statuses. Most of this I find irritating for two reasons. One, specialized enemies show up in relatively small groups in a majority of missions, so getting things from them could be a flop altogether. Number two, a fair amount of these missions take a decent chunk of time if you’re being thorough and killing as much as possible. So grinding is a pain. Fortunately most missions a majority of what you need . If the game wanted chu chu jelly, I knew one of the missions coming up had chu chu as an enemy. You could also keep track of what you needed with material sensor that told you when you had enough.

The story

I’ll be honest, I was upset with this game for a hot second. It was advertised as a prequel to BoTW and while sad, I was truly invested to playing the events that lead to the fall of the champions. What this game didn’t tell you is it’s like most LoZ games, on its own separate part of the timeline. This isn’t the story of they lost. It’s the story of how they win, thanks to the little adorable robot mascot that has the ability to not only show the future, but bring people from the future; the champion’s descendants. At first I was upset with this. Mainly because I’m a little tired of time travel plots and it felt really out of place here. However, time travel gave way more to this game than what I expected this game to have in the first place. It allowed at least six more playable characters that wouldn’t have been possible in the other timeline, and a wellspring of interactions through missions. Every time Mipha was with Sidon, I smiled. Having Urbosa being this super encouraging role model to Riju was so nice since BoTW had expressed just how much those two admired and missed those people. Revali was nice to Teba! They were vibing. Even the soldier commentary on the new champions were a treat. So I got over the time travel issue pretty quick. It made things sad as well when the new generation leaves because they’re going back to a time where they lost it all. There was no great union that took place across hyrule to fight Ganon and their beloved champions failed. I do appreciate that the diverge in the timeline really takes place on the day they’re supposed to die, moments before the final blow. It still lets the player see the definitive moment where good was supposed to lose.

The “new” villain is meh. I wouldn’t really say he stands out. His entire thing is thinking he’s gonna win because he doesn’t realize that he isn’t seeing hyrule’s future. He’s seeing another hyrule’s future. What comes out of his character is cool though because it gives a different, yet same finale boss. I wasn’t expecting to basically fight a giant Ganondorf. Honestly, you can kinda say you fought Demise. At least aesthetically speaking. Or Yuga. This game has also made me care about robot. Something I haven’t done in awhile. A few scenes near the end felt hammy, but also amazingly realistic to how a lot of people would feel when someone breaks your favorite thing. The war was already personal, but now it’s really personal. Quests open up after the game that plays on those emotions too. It’s very clever.

Overall, Age of Calamities story felt like a love letter to everyone who loves this rendition of hyrule and the characters in it. They even another one named Sooga, who just might be my favorite. That man has no choice but to be the brain and muscle of the Yiga. It kinda makes me sad he’s introduced here because you can assume he didn’t make it in the other timeline, so he has no descendents. The amount of serotonin I felt just seeing all of these characters fighting together as the absolutely conquer the battlefield was more than satisfying. Definitely worth the money. I don’t know if they can, but Nintendo might wanna consider some sort of audio patch. The mixing is bad in certain parts. Voice lines get really quiet. Other than that, this game is real solid. I’d give it an 8.5/10

Side note

The music is really good. Especially the Zoe’s demain track. Also, I never noticed frame rate dropping or lag, except on two occasions. Both of these happened to be me pushing the game to its limits. The first is being surrounded by enemies in a small space as Mipha. Creating the water vortex and raining down bombs makes the game wanna cry a little. The second one is a similar case. Sidon’s fifth or sixth combo made the made the game drop frames because it’s incredibly fast, involves timing, makes a vortex, and i was in a small space with tons of enemies. Other than that, not even Urbosa’s or Riju’s lightning made the game freak out from what I noticed. That may have something to do with me never using them in a place where there’s constant rain. That might actually be the cause of the drop in combination of everything else.

#hyrule warriors age of calamity #age of calamity #legend of zelda breath of the wild #botw #nintendo #legend of zelda

[sirtadcooper]

🎨 (ah i just saw this! if it’s not too late!!!)

Nik, thank you so much for sending this! It’s probably escaped everyone’s notice by now but this ask game actually expects me to pick one of your latest ten edits. I just thought that was worth pointing out because that is not happening with anyone else and it’s certainly not happening with you. I also usually try to put them vaguely in order of preference but not this time because they are all my preference.

SUN and MOON - Only the first edit I am going to review and already a Masterpiece. The gif layering! The animation! The use of colour! It’s all so pretty and well thought out. The first gif is probably my favourite of the four, it’s just so neat. The falling snow with the yellow filter over it almost looks like sparks, it adds to the pretty.

DIN DJARIN + Troubled Birds Memes / GROGU + Troubled Birds Memes - There are memes and then there are Memes and both of these posts definitely fall into the latter category. When I saw that gifset of Din and the troubled birds for the first time I was laughing so much, I was so tickled by the idea and how well chosen the quotes were. You have managed to have gifs with impeccable comic timing! The way that on some of them the whole quote doesn’t appear until just the right frame... ugh, it’s perfect.

I want more... and I know I shouldn’t. - I love the text effects in first and last gifs, the unexpected use of pastels in association with Darth Vader of all people! It works! The big letters in the boxes are really neat. The layering of scenes is perfectly done. They both bookend that glorious middle gif with the rippling water. I... I don’t know how you did that but it’s incredible.

KELLY MARIE TRAN - Oh how I love this! The way that you’ve picked a colour palette and stuck with it is fantastic. The second panel with the TVs is great and probably my favourite part, just such a clever idea and it’s coloured so well. The first and last panels with the torn paper to tie them together are really pleasing and how could I not mention her gorgeous angel wings and halo in panel three? This is just wonderful. It’s what she deserves.

Day 7: Free Choice - The way these panels are all so different in style and yet they go so perfectly together... I’m in awe. You just have a great instinct for positioning things within a space and using colour to its full potential. You’re amazing.

“Beopero? That’s how they say Pedro… on Mars?” - As usual I don’t know how you did this but I love how it’s animated. Just takes this post to a whole other level! The little “like” heart that pops up, the incredibly realistic swiping animations, and the cute videos! Excellent choice of posts as well and I love how you have coloured them.

Escalating degrees of laughter/wheezing - Gosh this gifset makes me smile so much! I love that I have something in common with Pedro, and that’s the wheezing and rocking back and forth when I am really laughing. I love that you have told the story of Pedro’s laughter, it’s not just a random collection of moments of him laughing, it’s in order of his self control. You’ve really thought about this. That’s very galaxy brain of you.

Kingsman: The Golden Circle (Agent Whiskey) - Sometimes on Tumblr.com an edit is so good, you remember the first time you saw it no matter how many more times you come across it. This is one of those times. This was my first time seeing rotating text like that and it blew me away. You know the best part? It’s seamless. These boots are made for walkin’ just goes around and around and Whiskey in the background just goes around and around and you don’t know where the gif actually begins. That’s brilliant. The text animation on all of these gifs is inspired but it’s the first gif that lives in my mind rent free.

“How would you like to ride home on a real cowboy?” - You... *through tears* made this. I love that you have used a more muted colour palette this time around - I associate a bright blue with Whiskey so strongly, it’s refreshing to see other colours with him. The ye olde Western style just works so well here. Each of these posters has clearly taken a lot of time and effort. I think my favourite is the first, it was just so unexpected but wonderful!

“They all hate you, Mando, because you’re a legend.” - This colour palette! The little animations! The glitching helmet! Wee Grogu and Din with shadows that overlap... oh the Symbolism. This is just perfection.

“Sometimes you gotta do bad things to catch bad people.” - Your poster series is beautiful! This is another favourite of mine. I love that the colour palette is the colours of the Columbian flag. His own words on his skin on the fourth one as he struggles to carry the weight of them... really powerful. The colourful silhouettes on the third, the way they move! And the relatively simple first one with that bright red. The use of black and white and shades of grey throughout, like Javi’s morality... Yes. This is the good stuff.

Purple Rain - Fun fact! This was the first edit of yours that I ever saw (on 11th March, please write down our anniversary for future reference) and I loved it! It was so creative, I thought. Using the photo of him in the water was very clever. I naturally have a soft spot for this one. :)

If you don’t accept me for who I am with my frog then… go away. - This post baffles me. Where are the notes!? I thought this was funny! Din loves him despite the warning signs frog. The frog in Tom Holland’s mouth has mysteriously disappeared recently... Grogu has declined to comment.

trust me, i went to college - Just a big “YEAH!!!” for this post. You have captured my thoughts completely. Why he so broaaaaaad? I love his floof. His happy crinkles. This!!! Yeah, this is a Good Post.

So, Nik, I have made it to the end of your creations tag. I have written this very long essay for you. Your creations here, what you can do with Photoshop, is just incredible. I barely mentioned how perfect your colouring always is but that’s because it constantly gets overshadowed by the creativity you pour into each of your posts. You’re always experimenting, trying something new, surprising us. You have just got a talent for this. You’re an inspiration to me and, I’m sure, many others. I wish you and your Photoshop program a very good day. :)

creators send me 🎨 and i’ll tell you my favourite of your last ten creations and why

#sith-maul #ask #i'm sure there are a million typos in this haha #it's the Gushing it messes with my brain #but i wrote every word of this for the love of nik! #🎨 reviews

[reallyginnyf]

quaranmemes for quarantines

I was tagged by @sparksearcher, thanks, this is a good one. It’s also a long one, so apologies to mobile users and for the rest of you: 

when was the last time you left your home?

We took a drive yesterday but only got out of the car once, at a local farm stand. The pig smell was ripe and there were eight other people milling around so we got back in the car immediately. My last time inside a place of business was on the 13th, a stock-up trip to Aldi. Everyone was wearing a mask and they were controlling the number of shoppers with a “one in, one out” method. I don’t anticipate another grocery run for a few weeks.

what was the last thing you bought?

It was an onlline order of a 10-pack of washable cotton masks just this morning. I’ve crocheted some nifty washable masks using dishcloth yarn but without filter material they’re useless because of the holes in the work. But I think a combo of a crocheted mask with a filter and a cotton cloth mask would be effective. 

is quarantine driving you insane or are you finally relaxed?

My brain is a jerk. I’m an introvert plus I’m agoraphobic so I’ve never minded staying home. It’s cozy and safe. Now that I can’t go anywhere, I literally want to go ALL OF THE PLACES ALL OF THE TIME. I’ve been having a tough time emotionally because everything feels dangerous now and I worry constantly...about my older high-risk husband, about my elderly parents, about my teenager’s future and on and on. 

who are you spending quarantine with?

Russ, when he’s not scheduled to work, and Zack.

do you have pets to keep you company?

I don’t and honestly? I’m happy to not have a pet right now. I’m sure they provide welcome comfort but It’s stressful enough trying to make sure there are enough food and supplies in the house for the three of us plus making sure my elderly parents are provided for without having to plan bulk-buying trips for pet food and other things. I get to see Buddy and Bonnie next door and Paco and Lucky across the street plus it’s baby squirrel and baby bunny season in the garden.

what are your current responsibilities?

Planning meals, planning shopping trips, bulk cooking so we have freezer meals available just in case, keeping an eye on Zack with his online classes since he’s not feeling particularly motivated atm, lots of laundry when Russ is working, cleaning and sanitizing the house, planting and maintaining our flower, vegetable and herb gardens, keeping on top of the budget, making sure bills are paid, trying to keep in touch with friends and family and trying to keep my sanity. I am succeeding at only a few of these.

do you have a room to yourself?

Guest bedroom sometimes when Zack isn’t using it for online class. I’ve mainly been escaping to our unfinished basement because I love it down there. We have bookcases and chairs and lamps and an area rug and a super old TV/VHS combo and it’s always cool and quiet. I do my workouts or listen to podcasts and crochet or put in some ridiculous old movie from our VHS collection and just escape for a while.

are you exercising?

Some? Whatever viral thing I had in March caused a major POTS flare so my heart rate dictates how much I can exercise each day. Right now my O2 sat is hanging in around 94% and my resting pulse rate is in the 90s, sometimes the low 100s, so I have to pace myself. Just walking around can spike it to the 130s. I can’t do my favorite 90s workout MTV: THE GRIND, sad face. So it’s yoga or recumbent bike for now. 

town, country, city?

We’re a city, population around 14,000, but in reality we’re a suburb of St. Louis.

how’s your toilet paper supply?

We’re wealthy. I started getting nervous about coronavirus back in the middle of February so every time I went shopping I picked up another pack. I didn’t hoard, just made sure I bought extra so we have about 45 rolls in the house right now.

what’s the worst thing that you had to cancel?

Two in-state college visits and one out-of-state visit. We’ve been planning and saving money for almost a year and had to cancel them all. Zack isn’t sure he wants to reschedule because he doesn’t know what the college experience will realistically look like for him in 2021. Which is logical but I’m still sad.

what’s the best thing you’ve had to cancel?

Dental work. It’s necessary but not emergent so it’s not being rescheduled until later this summer.

who do you miss the most?

This will sound perverse, because they’re the two people who drive me the absolute bat-shit craziest, but I miss visiting my parents. They won’t call me, refuse to let me shop for them, do not come to the door when I drop off whatever supplies I’m assuming they need and wouldn’t think of driving by our house even though we live less than a mile apart.  I’ve not actually seen them since the end of February so I have no idea how they’re doing. They could be dead or hospitalized for all I know.

do you have any new hobbies?

Hell, no. I’m neglecting the few hobbies I have, I’m not thinking of new ones. What would I do? Learn a language, learn to play an instrument? I’m lucky if I remember to take a shower every day.

what are you watching the most?

I can’t watch scripted TV or movies right now because I sit there and think “I'm watching celebrities who make more money than I will ever have in my life and they’re safe from the pandemic so FUCK THEM” which kind of gets in the way of my enjoyment. I signed up for Ovid TV because I love documentaries but I can’t watch those, either. The pandemic is an emotional overlay of everything I try to consume right now, visual or written, so I’ve been going back and re-watching everything on LGR’s YouTube channel, especially the Sims Let’s Play videos. His Duke Nukem voice and the stupid shit he does like creating Fartwhistle Dingleprop and his Hat of Shame or putting the Sims’ toilet in the middle of a hedge maze hits the right spot for me now. 

are you still going to work?

I’ve been out of work a long time. Russ is still working since he works for a public utility, at an evil, evil coal-burning power plant but hey, the electricity has to be generated somehow. The other options are nuclear, but Callaway scares the shit out of most Missourians and no one wants to pay the increased rates for green energy, so here we are. His team has been divided in three and they rotate three 12-hour days in a row and then seven or eight days off in between. He’s getting his full pay and I am enormously grateful. 

what are you out of?

We’re honestly okay on everything. I started stocking up in mid-February, bought a chest freezer and filled it up and made sure we had plenty of everyone’s shelf-stable favorites. Plus I stocked up on paper towels and disinfecting wipes and hand soap and toiletries. I’m starting to get a little low on eggs but a local restaurant is selling grocery items during the shutdown so I can get a flat when I need them.

have you made any changes to your hair during quarantine?

Nope. I’m allergic to hair dye and my stylist hasn’t found a formulation yet that works for me and I’m not messing with henna. So it’s the same old gray + mousy brown. It’s lovely. I’m letting my hair grow because my emotional state is precarious enough. If I do a hack job with kitchen scissors and cringe every time I look in the mirror, that’s not helping. It’s about an inch past my shoulders now and my fringe is long enough to be swept to the side but I have to hold it in place with barrettes because it’s heavy so I look like a sad old scene girl.

tagging: @this-lioness, @englishsongbird, @veradune, @maresdotes, @impreciselanguage, @stackcats, @resting-meme-face, @buddhish and seriously, all my mutuals because I want to read your answers but I’m having trouble remembering usernames or I remember them but I can’t spell the damn things and I just don’t have the energy to look anyone up, please forgive me. 

#personal #meme #ask game #not a game really #but nice and distracting for about an hour #thanks #tag me if you do this please