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nanowrimo · 9 months

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5 Tips for Building a Sustainable Writing Practice

Every year, we’re lucky to have great sponsors for our nonprofit events. First Draft Pro, a 2023 Camp NaNoWriMo sponsor, is a great writing app—whether you’re writing solo or with a co-author. Here are a few tips for building a sustainable writing practice, brought to you by author Ariana Brown and First Draft Pro.

We’ve all heard the advice to “write every day,” as if it were that easy! Translation: suck it up, no one cares if you’re tired. But what if there was another way to get writing done, without being unkind to yourself?

Hi, I’m Ariana Brown, and I teach writers how to create a writing practice that is sustainable, flexible, and fulfilling. Most of my students are chronically ill, disabled, neurodivergent, or simply exhausted from the daily stresses of life. I know writing isn’t your only responsibility—capitalism makes sure of that! But I strongly believe that writing should be an enjoyable activity you look forward to.

Below I’ve compiled my top tips for exhausted writers who want to be kinder to themselves—and still get the work done.

1. Add pleasure to your writing routine.

Sensory pleasures are neither frivolous nor are they only for children. They’re a crucial part of being alive! They give us something to look forward to when times are tough and we need motivation. Candles, soft blankets, cold beverages, mood lighting, dance breaks, yummy treats—whatever you choose, make sure it’s something you love. Paint your nails a fun color so you have something beautiful to look at while you’re typing away. Make a playlist of your favorite songs and after you finish a chapter, blast one song so loudly you have to get up and dance. Then, get back to writing. Remember, even for the most focused among us, pleasure is a better motivator than shame.

2. Be clear about your intentions.

What brought you to writing in the first place? For some, it was the ability to escape into our imaginations. For others, it was the chance to finally express what we’d been holding inside. Identify your reason for writing, then ask yourself: Am I still enjoying this? Do I still feel connected to my reason for writing? If not, explore how you can strengthen your connection to your inner child’s reason for writing.

3. Work with your brain, not against it.

If we know that everyone’s brain works differently, why do we force strict discipline and linear processes on ourselves? My advice: find or create a writing process that works for you. Maybe you love outlines; maybe you prefer to see where the words take you. Either way, make space for wandering, play, and discovery as you write. Take brain breaks. Doodle, map, dance, and draw when you get distracted. Body double with other writers, try new exercises and prompts to make the writing sing, and take plenty of breaks to stretch your body and talk to friends. We come to writing with our whole selves. Listen to your body, don’t shut it off.

4. Find a writing community.

You don’t have to wait for a community to come to you! I offer co-writing sessions on Zoom four times a month for my Patreon supporters, but do what works for you. Attend local open mics as an audience member and cheer on your peers. Invite your best friends to your living room once a month for a two hour writing/crafting session. Or check your local library and bookstores for free workshops and author events. You don’t have to do this work alone.

5. Develop a gratitude practice.

Finishing your draft is a huge accomplishment, but it’s not the only milestone to be celebrated. Consider creating opportunities to thank yourself throughout your writing practice. You’re doing an amazing and difficult thing. The fact that you keep showing up is worthy of celebration. Whether you decide to journal, rest, pray, meditate, or reward yourself, a little gratitude goes a long way.

Ariana Brown is a queer writer from San Antonio, TX, based in Houston. She is the author of We Are Owed (Grieveland, 2021) and Sana Sana (Game Over Books, 2020), and a national collegiate poetry slam champion. Ariana holds an MFA in Poetry, MS in Library and Information Science, and a BA in African Diaspora Studies and Mexican American Studies. She has been writing, teaching, and performing for over a decade. Follow her online @ArianaThePoet and www.arianabrown.com.

#nanowrimo #writing advice #executive dysfunction #neurodivergent writers #disabled writers #by nano sponsor #first draft pro #ariana brown

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jwirecs · 7 months

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RECOMMENDED BTS FICS OF SEPTEMBER 2023💖

hello, hello! here are my bts recs of september! hopefully these beautiful stories get more recognition as well as the writers 💝

** anything in parentheses and bolded are my thoughts that can be disregarded if needed **

🔞smut || 💔angst || 💕fluff || ✅completed || 🔄ongoing || 💯favorite

Head Over Skates || @mercurygguk🔞💔🔄

↳ in which jeon jungkook is the captain of the hockey team and one of the biggest fuckboys on campus. you hate his guts and he knows it – that's why he's more than determined to make the most of three weeks of project work. you're convinced it's going to be the end of you.

My Heart Did || @aseaofyoongi🔞💔✅

↳ as soon as senior years comes to an end a lot of teens shed who we were and strive to be flourish into a more polished version of themselves. although, broken hearts aren’t so quick to heal what happens when thoughts reveal all we need to know?

Bad Idea || @back2bluesidex🔞💕✅

↳ Accepting Jungkook's invitation to watch him train topless was such a bad idea.

Don't Tell Me That... You Forgot || @sweetiestokkie💕✅

↳ (short summary that i have come up with since there wasnt one, but oc plans a secret birthday for jk. so we have a lil ol angy jjk.)

Just The Tip? || @joon4eva🔞💕✅

↳ you and namjoon are left alone together for a little too long. or: in your childhood home, you learn just how much is really "just the tip" with namjoon.

My Flower || @i-am-baechu💕✅💯

↳ Men don’t get enough flowers. That’s why whenever it’s Namjoon’s birthday, Y/N always sends flowers (someone please get me a boo so that i can give them flowers.)

Socks || @hisunshiine💕✅

↳ (theres no summary but if we talking about socks, his god dam toe socks lives in my mind rent free and i need it to start paying rent.)

Take Care Of You || @kookslastbutton🔞💕💔✅💯💯

↳ To keep your fiance from burning out you suggest a weekend getaway to Gapyeong, a charming town about an hour outside Seoul. You've specifically asked him to leave his work equipment at home but like a deep rooted habit, he still brings it with him. You're left with no choice but to find a way to get his attention back.

When I Say Forever || @kookslastbutton🔞💕✅💯

↳ Today’s your wedding day and the slightly shy yet handsome, doe-eyed stranger who chased after you when you dropped your wallet on the street three years ago just happens to be the man standing before you today.

7 Hybrids Moved In With Me || @lillsisamarshmallow💕💔🔄

↳ When the dog hybrid who visits her bakery starts taking extra food Y/N follows it through the alleys to find out why, but what happens when she stumbles upon an empty alley only to find 6 more hybrids and some very familiar pastries?

Entangled || @caelesjjk🔞✅💯

↳ Jeon Jungkook is Spider-Man.

Hold Me Together || @casuallyimagining💕🔄💯

↳ a collection of drabbles and headcanons featuring seokjin, yoongi, and namjoon and their significant others.... all of whom have chronic illnesses. each piece can be read on its own or as part of a series.

Leaked || @btsficsandsuch💕💔✅

↳ Req by OP's Followers: Hi ,I love your writing so much . Can I request a ot7 × platonic fem reader where they became friends accidentally and she is also their fan but something happens like a misunderstanding of sorts and she is blamed or something then when the truth comes out they ask for her forgiveness but don't make her forgive them easily also include an accident in between story if you can. Sorry if it's too confusing .have a good day

Stars Around My Scars || @vanteggukie💕💔🔄

↳ people are not always what they seem. you learned that the hard way, when you caught your boyfriend cheating, the night that was supposed to be one of the best ones you ever experienced. but on the same night you also learned that in everything bad, there’s always a little bit of good.

Rainy Days || @rklve🔞💕💔✅💯💯

↳ your life choices left not only yours, but jungkook's heart broken in peaces. now you're back in town, and just like pluto, even if it's cold and dark, he tends to orbit around his sun forever.

Taste Of His Own Medicine || @btsficsandsuch💔✅💯

↳ You suddenly have to leave to go back to your home country for a few months. Yoongi decides to ignore you so you decide to show him how it feels when he realizes you’re gone.

The Back Up Plan || @btsgotjams27💕✅💯

↳ one drunken night leads to an agreement that if you and jungkook are still single by 30, you'd marry each other. the only thing is jungkook has been doing everything he can to keep you single.

Aphrodite In War || @jungblue🔞💕💔🔄

↳ Everyone knew about the war that had been brewing on the edge of campus for the past two years. Sorority versus Fraternity; a showdown for the ages. However, when the escalating antics between them yields the consequence of possible suspensions for both chapters, the presidents of each house must come together to try and figure out how to end this battle… Which is kind of hard, considering they were the ones responsible for it in the first place.

Basic Needs || @gggukniverse🔞✅💯

↳ missing sex while being stuck in your apartment with your two roommates during quarantine is being the worst nightmare you could've imagined. fortunately, you're not the only one who's touch starved.

Safety Net || @pradaksj🔞💕💔✅

↳ on new year’s eve, you and jungkook reflect on each other’s entire year together.

Heart-On || @junghelioseok🔞✅💯💯

↳ your one-night stand definitely isn’t relationship material, but maybe—just maybe—your manager’s son is. (this is part of their serendipity series, make note that its not connected. do check out their jjk fic thats part of this series!!)

Territorial || @bonny-kookoo🔞💕🔄

↳ Who would've known that the big bad wolf isn't actually all that bad?

Do check out all of the other BTS Fics that i have reblogged as well!!

** if there is any fics that you guys would like to recommend, please do! i am slowly running out of fics to read **

#bts scenarios #bts fluff #bts angst #bts smut #bts strangers to lovers au #bts hybrid au #bts friends to lovers au #bts roommates au #bts enemies to lovers au #bts established relationship au #bts fic recs #bts recs

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fleetsparrow · 2 months

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An interesting thing I've noticed in my years of being a chronically ill writer is that there are very few resources that specifically give advice to this group. And that could be because of the language barrier.

Often, those of us with chronic illnesses will say, "I don't have time for X" because it's an easy concept abled people can understand. "Not having time" is something everyone runs up against, as time continues no matter what. It's simple to see how we might "run out" of time.

Unfortunately, this often leads to unhelpful advice. Abled writers will say things like, " then cut out Y" or "wake up earlier" which, yes, does generally answer the Time problem.

But we're not really using time as meaning of "finite minutes and seconds". In this context, "time" is quick shorthand for any or all of the following:

Energy

The intro and outro stages of tasks

Task switching

Settling into tasks and spaces

Pain levels

Functioning levels

Because, for the majority of abled people, they do not have to think about these things. When you don't live with a chronic illness, you don't realize how taxing every step of every process is.

To write in the way that is most productive for me, I physically need:

To be seated in my chair at my desk

To have my computer on

To have my keyboard on the desk and in my hands

But on top of that, I also need:

Steady chunk of time

Low levels of pain

High levels of focus, concentration, and functioning

If any one of these is missing, writing becomes that much harder to do.

Now imagine two of those missing.

Now most of them.

"I don't have time" becomes a quick explanation for "the Venn diagram of Time, Energy, and Pain is not correctly overlapping and I can no longer think clearly enough to create".

Which, yeah, the second is more accurate, but it's longer to say and invites the abled to offer more unwanted advice.

#fleet gets personal #fleet rambles #writing

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gatheringbones · 6 months

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[“Coming out was very lonely. I had very few friends. Most of the adult lesbians I knew were alcoholics, chronically unemployed, prone to violence, self-hating, apolitical, closeted, cliquish. Lesbians hated each other. If you found a lover you stopped going to the bar because you could not trust other lesbians; they would try to break up your relationship. My first woman lover went into the military, where she turned in other lesbians so she would not be exposed. One of my dyke friends got a job as a supervisor in a cabinet-making company and refused to hire lesbians because, she said, they were unreliable employees who were disliked by the other workers. The only thing that seemed worse to me than the apolitical lesbian community I came out in was the strangulation of pretending to be straight. I came out only because I could not go back; there was no place for me to stand in the het world. I was driven out.

Moving to San Francisco improved things somewhat. There was more public lesbian space there—six bars instead of one. But it did not alleviate the loathing with which my family viewed me. Nor was San Francisco in the early seventies any sort of gay utopia. We had no gay-rights law, queer bashing was a frequent event, and everyone had lost at least one job or been denied a place to live. It was a relief to be surrounded by other lesbian feminists, but only to a point. Bar dykes and feminists still had contempt for one another. Feminism rapidly became a way to reconstitute sexual prudery, to the point that it seemed to me that bar dykes were actually more accepting of and knowledgeable about the range of behavior that constituted lesbianism. In the bars or in the women’s movement, separatism was pretty much mandatory, if you didn’t want to get your ass kicked or be shunned. Separatism deteriorated into a rationalization for witch hunts in the lesbian community rather than a way for women to bond with one another and become more powerful activists. The lesbian community of that decade did terrible things to bi women, transgender people, butch/femme lesbians, bar dykes, dykes who were not antiporn, bisexual and lesbian sex workers, fag hags, and dykes who were perceived as being perverts rather than über-feminists. We were so guilty about being queer that only a rigid adherence to a puritanical party line could redeem us from the hateful stereotypes of mental illness and sexual debauchery.

What did I gain? I came a little closer to making my insides match my outsides, and that was no small blessing. The first time I met other dykes I recognized a part of myself in them, and knew I would have to let it out so I could see who I was. For a time, being a lesbian quieted my gender dysphoria because it made it possible for me to be a different kind of woman. That was an enormous relief.

For a long time, I hoped that by being strong, sexually adventurous, and sharpening my feminist consciousness, I could achieve a better fit between my body and the rest of me. Lesbianism was a platform from which I could develop a different sort of feminism, one that included a demand for sexual freedom and had room for women of all different erotic proclivities. I had a little good sex and discovered that I was not a cold person, I could love other people. It was as a lesbian that I began to find my voice as a writer, because in the early days of the women’s movement, we valued every woman’s experience. There was a powerful ethic around making it possible for every woman to speak out, to testify, to have her say. But there were always these other big pieces of my internal reality that lesbianism left no room for.

The first big piece of cognitive dissonance I had to deal with, in my second coming out, was S/M. I date my coming out as a leather dyke from two different decisions. One was a decision to write down one of my sexual fantasies, the short story that eventually became “Jessie.” At the time I wrote the rough draft of that story, I had never tied anybody up or done anything else kinky. I was terribly blocked as a writer. I kept beginning stories and poems that I would destroy. I have no idea if they were any good or not. My self-loathing was so intense, my inner critic so strong, that I could not evaluate my own work.

So I decided to write this one piece, under the condition that I never had to publish it or show it to another person. I just wanted to tell the truth about one thing. And I was badly in need of connecting with my own sexuality since I was in the middle of what would be a five-year relationship with a woman who insisted we be monogamous, but refused to have sex with me. So I wrote about dominance and submission, the things I fantasized about when I masturbated that upset me so much I became nauseated. Lightning did not strike. As I read and reread my own words, I thought some of them were beautiful. I dared show this story to a few other people. Some of them hated it. Some of them were titillated. Nobody had ever seen anything like it before. The story began to circulate in Xerox form, lesbian samizdat. I found the strength to defend my story when I was told it was unspeakable or wildly improbable.

In October of 1976, I attended a lesbian health conference in Los Angeles and went to a workshop there about S/M. In order to go to a workshop, you had to sign a registration sheet. I was harassed by dykes who were monitoring this space to see who dared sign up for that filthy workshop. On my way, I had to walk through a gauntlet of women who were booing and hissing, calling names, demanding that the workshop be canceled, threatening to storm the room and kick us all out of the conference. The body language and self-calming techniques I had learned when I had to deal with antigay harassment on the street came in very handy, but how odd it was to be using those defenses against the antagonism of other dykes. Their hatred felt like my mother’s hatred. I am so glad I did not let it stop me.

When I got home from that workshop, I knew that I was not the only one. Not only were there other lesbians who fantasized about sadomasochism, there were women who had done these things with each other. I decided to come out again. If there were other leather dykes in San Francisco, they had to be able to find me, so I had to make myself visible. This meant that I often did not get service at lesbian bars, or I was asked to leave women-only clubs and restaurants. I was called names, threatened, spit at. I got hate mail and crank calls. But I also found my tribe. And because I had already experienced my first coming out, I knew we were not going to be an ideal, happy family. I could be more patient with our dysfunctions, and see them as the result of being scared, marginalized, kicked around. Being a leather dyke took me another step closer to dealing with my gender issues. I could experiment with extreme femme and extreme butch drag; take on a male persona during sex play. I gave up separatism because I needed to take support from any place where it was available. Gay men already had a thriving leather culture, and I wanted to learn from them. I also wanted to have sex with them. It still wasn’t okay as far as lesbian feminism was concerned to be bisexual, to be transgendered, but I could bring those folks into my life and make alliances with them. I could defend them in print. There was even more good sex, and people who loved me and received my love despite the fact that it was dangerous for us to show ourselves to one another. I faced my sexual shadow, and she bowed to me and then danced beautifully in profile against the white walls of my consciousness. My writer’s voice was unlocked.”]

pat califa, from layers of the onion, spokes of the wheel, from a woman like that: lesbian and bisexual writers tell their coming out stories, 2000

#pat califa #bi literature #lesbian literature #trans literature #history stuff #gender stuff #terra preta

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hainethehero · 3 months

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Steve Rogers Trauma: A TED TALK

Why is it that any kind of commentary/analysis on Steve Roger's trauma has to be met with comparisons to Bucky or Tony's trauma? Or most of the fanfics I read completely gloss over Steve's trauma?

Some of y'all legit do not care or are blind to Steve Roger's trauma throughout the Captain America & Avengers films and it shows. And this isn't hate to any fanfic writers but rather an observation of most stucky and stony fanfics which seem to minimize Steve's character & trauma in favour of highlighting their fave's. And of course it's fine that people want to write about Bucky or Tony or even Nat's trauma, but MOST TIMES* I've read these fics and they all have an intentional disregard for Steve's traumas.

And this speaks to the wider discourse around Tony, Bucky & Steve- the three characters most written about in mcu fanfics.

Because why is it that anytime I bring up Steve's PTSD or his illnesses or the hell he would've gone through pre-serum, people always HAVE to add in their 2cents about, "well yeah & Bucky went through worse." Like.???? No, I'm not talking about him.

I absolutely love Bucky and he's one of my favourite characters in both the comics and the MCU but, respectfully, this ain't about him.

I'm talking about Steve and his life. The crap he would've had to deal with both in public and at home. Especially the horrors both he and Sarah would've gone through because of Joseph Rogers who was a terrible person and an alcoholic who beat up on his wife and sickly kid.

And even post-serum when he's completely healthy and living in the future now, I'm still seeing popular narratives about "Yeah he's alive now & hasn't gone through half of what Bucky's endured over the past 70yrs." OR "He's had it easy compared to Bucky who was being tortured by HYDRA."

Um, no one's saying Bucky's treatment under HYDRA was a good thing??? But we're talking about Steve here, not Bucky?

And how he was literally frozen in a state of purgatory & how traumatic it would feel to be ripped out of it and then basically thrown to the new world on your ass without any kind of therapy or help. Most people make it seem like Steve was in a Sleeping Beauty kind of sleep and then woke up completely fine. And I will admit the MCU has been the main culprit of that narrative because they deleted so many scenes that humanized Steve Rogers, that now the gen pop thinks:

he's perfectly fine

has zero trauma

should complain about nothing

hasn't had it hard like Bucky or Tony

is a lesser hero because of all of the above

I recently had a convo with a friend & we were talking abt the scene in Avengers 1 when they were all at each other's throats. And they said that Tony was right about Steve being a laboratory experiment & everything special about him came out of a bottle. And I'm like... yeah nah, that's the lazy ass writing that Whedon perpetuated that now makes Steve one of the most misunderstood heroes & people in the MCU. Because he was special before the serum because of his consideration of others. He was special because not only did he hate bullies, but he also went out of his way to protect those that couldn't protect themselves KNOWING what that confrontation might cost him as a chronically sick person. Tony needed a whole ass arc about literally witnessing & living first hand what his weapons were doing to innocents like Yinsen & his people, to change his ways. Steve didn't have, nor did he need any of that to make him special. (AND BEFORE THE TONY STANS COME FOR ME, I LOVE TONY, HE'S LITERALLY ONE OF MY FAVES IN THE MARVEL COMICS & MCU) But this hatred for Steve is ridiculous.

And once again, it's the MCUs fault because they made Tony the ultimate hero of the Avengers at the expense of Steve Rogers' character. Him being able to prove he was "worthy" all along by lifting Thor's hammer was a cheap payoff in the end, much like the entirety of Endgame was. Thanks for coming to my Ted talk.

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cozy-cinnamon-roll · 13 days

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Stitches (Part II)

(Read Part I Here! used to be We Interrupt This Broadcast... changed the name because I feel like this fits better 😅)

Fandom: Hazbin Hotel

Pairing: Ler!Rosie, Ler!OC, Lee!Alastor (strictly platonic)

Content/Trigger Warnings: tickling, very brief blood mention, medical themes (non-graphic & painless). And again, this is set right after Alastor gets his ass handed to him by Adam, so you can expect some angst (don't worry, he gets better).

If there are any trigger warnings you'd like me to add in the future (and/or to this fic), PLEASE let me know! I am always happy to oblige. 💕

This is a ticklefic! If that's not your cup of tea, kindly move along.

"Almost ready" I said. "Basically finished" I said. Sorry y'all, the Chronic Illness Fairy struck. 😅 I will say this was my favorite part to write, but also the one I'm most uncertain about... bit more angst in this installment and I'm not much of an angst writer lol... but with Rosie in the mix (especially as a ler), angst never lasts long. 🥰

Also I changed the title. Hopefully it's not confusing that way... cuz without Part 1 this fic makes zero sense 😅

One last thing... I'm so happy y'all like Trudy! Was thinking about posting a lil sketch of her at some point (I need a new insomnia project now that this fic is done 😅). I've been having a truly awful few weeks on the anxiety front, so all the positive feedback on Part I has been quite literally making my days 💕

Hope you enjoy!!

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"Ooh, you stubborn little bastard. You're still gonna refuse to laugh?" Rosie mutters.

Alastor doesn't dare try to speak. All he can manage is a defiant shake of his head.

"Look, my friend. If you 'don't mind a little tickling,' and getting all giggly is your specialty…" Rosie tweaks his bottom rib, eliciting a noise that comes just short of a squeak. "What, exactly, is the problem here?"

"I'm supposed to be in control!" he grinds out through his twitching grin.

"You are in control, sir." Trudy abruptly withdraws her hands, holding them up innocently. "You can tell me to stop at any time."

Alastor cringes. He was sorta hoping no one would point that out.

"Which is why I find it so fascinating that you haven't yet." A sly smirk creeps across Rosie's face.

Oh, for fuck's sake.

"I- I'm humoring you!"

"Humoring me?" Rosie tilts her head. "My dear, I hope you're not doing this just for my sake. If you don't want Trudy to check for further injury-"

"No, I do! O-on my terms!"

"This is on your terms."

"Yes, but-"

"In fact, you insisted."

He stumbles again, before mumbling another meager, "…to humor you!"

Trudy shoots her boss a disoriented look - but Rosie, as usual, is hearing her friend loud and clear.

"Alastor." Rosie rolls her eyes, gestures for Trudy to step aside, and scoots over to place a hand on his knee. "Adam is dead. Everyone in hell thinks you're either succumbing to your wounds in some remote gutter or hiding in whatever alternate dimension you just spent the last seven years. You're not even 'on air'." She leans in. "You can drop the act for a moment, if it's what you need."

That certainly hits the mark. For the first time, Alastor's smile falters - not completely dropping, but certainly losing much of the strained quality it's had since he arrived.

"I wish I could, my dear."

Encouraged, Rosie continues. "Well, what's stopping ya? As much as I love spending time with Alastor the Radio Demon… if you wanna take this opportunity to let out whoever's underneath that effervescent grin of yours, you know we wouldn't mind."

Alastor swallows - and for the first time in a decades, Rosie finds his expression difficult to read. "Rosie, I'm afraid I can't really..."

"I mean, you've been holding that same silly show-host-smile for years! Don't tell me you've never gotten tired of it!"

"It's sewn on, Rosie."

"…What?"

He hesitates. "Let's just say today wasn't the first time I've been, ah... stitched up." As he speaks, he gestures to his toothy grin. And for once, there's not a trace of distortion in his voice.

Rosie's dark eyes go wide when she realizes what he means. The cannibal overlord just stands there for a beat, in an uncharacteristic moment of shock.

But, being Rosie, she quickly recovers. "Well, so what?"

"I'm just saying, I'm afraid I can't really drop the act."

"Nonsense! Since when has your act had anything to do with your face?" Rosie flicks her hand, as if brushing the thought aside. "Who cares if you can't show genuine Alastor. I wanna hear him."

"But my microphone..."

"You're doing just fine without it."

Once again, this attempt at reassurance only makes Alastor look more disturbed. "Th-this can't be me!"

"...Well, no. This right here sure isn't the Alastor I know. But…"

Alastor is barely listening to her anymore. His broadcast persona has been his sole identity since he was alive. Now his radio tower has been reduced to rubble, his microphone snapped clean in half, even his carefully-styled clothing left in tatters…

If this is the Genuine Alastor he's now stuck with - panicked, stuttering, weak - he can't imagine how he'll ever be able to face the rest of hell…

But these racing thoughts are once again interrupted by nails tracing up his sides. A sharp yelp cuts the air as poor Alastor just about jumps out of his skin.

"…Perhaps I can offer a little help?" Rosie suggests gently, once she has his undivided (and adorably flustered) attention. "On your terms, of course?"

Alastor just gazes back at her for a long moment. "What do you have in mind?"

"I happen to know something about you that even you can't fake."

The radio demon hesitates… before heaving a sigh and, to Rosie's surprise, giving a small nod of consent.

She breaks into a brilliant (and frankly terrifying) smile.

Before Alastor can brace himself, Rosie's hands have both found his sides and begun working into his waist. Having just watched him squirm around under Trudy's thorough probing twice (and adored every second of it), she already has a pretty good idea of where his worst spots are.

Which is made abundantly clear by Alastor's reaction. Within seconds he's gone from still trying to hold it all in by habit, to giggling into his hands, to cackling hysterically.

And it's the kind of laughter she's spent the last seven years missing. This isn't the confident, taunting chuckle he brings out for battles or brushing off rivals; this is bright, helpless, occasionally hiccuping laughter, the kind that is nearly impossible for him to stop once he starts - and the kind she only has the privilege of hearing when something truly amuses him.

"You can't sew your laughter on," Rosie reminds him. "This is all yours."

Rosie's fingers creep up under his shirt to scribble on bare tummy, adding a couple new sweet spots to her mental catalogue. This technique brings out even more of her favorite little quirks: the way he bats playfully (and completely ineffectually) at her wrists; his repeated attempts to speak around his laughter that only result in frantic spurts of incomprehensible, giggle-laced gibberish.

As she traces her nails across his lower belly she also finds a tiiiny layer of unexpected pudge. Which probably shouldn't surprise her - he's been out of the battle scene for seven years, after all. All those deer carcasses have to go somewhere.

Regardless, she finds it terribly endearing for some reason... and the surge of affection translates into a corresponding surge in the intensity of Rosie's tickles.

"AHaha! Ro- Rosie!" he blurts, his voice jumping a full octave higher than normal. "Stop!!"

Rosie removes her hands immediately. "Stop?"

"Aha- ah- well- I mean, er…" He stumbles breathlessly, and gives a sheepish cough.

"You didn't really want me to stop, did you?"

Rosie resumes with a chuckle, reeling herself in just a little. "How 'bout we say... oh... 'enough,' if you really want me to quit?"

Of course, she has to go and say it out loud.

"M-more of a reflehex..." he admits reluctantly.

Alastor tosses a shaky thumbs-up at her, already too lost in his own giggles to manage a verbal reply.

And he's gotta admit… Rosie was absolutely right. He wouldn't stop her right now for all the souls in hell. There's a reason Alastor has the most recognizable evil cackle of any other overlord. He can't help but find dissolving into laughter as cathartic and exhilarating as always - even if this time, it's not at some poor soul's misfortune. It's a result of his best friend's affection for her darling deer demon.

"As fun as getting your soft little belly is," Rosie muses, pausing to let Alastor catch his breath for a moment, "I can't help but wonder if you're ticklish anywhere else…"

Alastor may be off the air, but Rosie can practically hear the screech of microphone feedback just by the look on his face. "….I plead the fifth."

"Have you considered his ears?" Trudy pipes up shyly. While she'd managed to restrain herself behind an impeccably professional bedside manner earlier, it had taken everything in her power not to stroke Alastor's ears when she'd been close enough to do so. They were just. so. fluffy.

"Ohhh, heavens…" Alastor, for his part, curls in on himself at the mere suggestion.

Rosie grins. "Hey, 'no' is always an option."

A long pause. Alastor can't believe he's considering this. But the sensation of being tickled, as unbearable as it is, does feel awfully pleasant… and it's been so long since anyone has dared to touch him…

And what else does he have to lose at this point, anyway?

"I suppose if you're… very gentle…"

"Are you aware that your ears are the softest thing in the nine circles?"

This stipulation ends up backfiring. When it comes to his ears, gentle is worse. So, so much worse.

Poor Alastor is too busy clutching his stomach and snickering madly into his sleeve to reply.

"I should know, I work in retail. These right here-" Rosie traces her fingers down the feathery-soft edges, sending the radio demon into a new round of hysterics. "-Would fetch a pretty penny."

"They're nohot for saHA-ale!!"

"Nooo, I should say not." Rosie's hapless victim lurches back into the cushions as her fingers find the fluffy region at the base of his ears. Even without the microphone, his cackles have no problem filling the room. "You're the only demon classy enough to wear them."

"And don' you - GAHaha! - f-forget it!" He's so drunk on laughter now that he's beginning to slur his words. His careful elocution has gone the same place as his steady tone, and lack of stutter.

Luckily, he's also far too drunk on laughter to care.

...Right about there, Rosie notices that the faint hum of radio static in the air is no longer just in her head.

He is laughing his heart out for the first time in weeks. Genuinely laughing for the first time in decades. And laughing completely for himself, for his own enjoyment, without need for intimidation or control or image or audience, for the first time since long before he died.

While Trudy typically can't say much for her self-preservation instinct, she's got enough of one to feel hesitant joining her boss in tickling the most powerful overlord in hell (outside the pretense of medical intervention, at least). So she just stands back, watching fondly as The Most Dangerous Overlord This Side of the Pentagram utterly destroys the deer demon.

...At least, until she notices a flicker of green light out of the corner of her eye. Lying forgotten on the end table, the splintered ends of Alastor's microphone are sparking and crackling like live wires.

The surgeon creeps over for a closer look, staring in fascination. And then - just as Rosie gets poor Alastor behind the ears and delivers a scribble to his tummy at the same time - she ever-so-gently nudges the fractured ends closer to one another.

To her surprise, a bright green spark arcs clear across the gap. For a fraction of a second, the whole staff radiates a flash of a familiar green glow.

--------------------------------------------------------------

"Keep him laughing, Rosie," Trudy murmurs over her shoulder. It appears the Radio Demon's downfall will be nothing more than an intermission.

Thanks for being so patient with me y'all! Hope it was worth the wait 💕

💜- Cozy

#lee!alastor #ler!rosie #ticklish!alastor #oh deer he's ticklish #hazbin hotel tickling #hazbin hotel tickles #ticklefic #dr. trudy sawblade #my ocs

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fatphobiabusters · 3 months

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Gotta say, as a fat person and a writer, one of the most healing things I've done is writing fat characters of my own and giving myself the representation I never got to have. My two favorites are: a stereotypical 80's/90's skater guy who calls everyone "dude" or "bro" and fucking loves classic rock and has fluffy bleached hair that always covers his eyes and he's kind of got Bill and Ted vibes, I'm just realizing.

And a chronically ill lesbian whose weight is viewed as super positive because it's a sign she's recovering from her most recent bout of illness and she's artsy and passionate and geeky and her girlfriend absolutely adores her soft, round face because it reminds her of the moon.

We need more fat characters who get to be more than just The Fat Guy, I don't get why people just seem to refuse to give their OCs actual human traits and instead revolve everything around their fatness and how funny or bad it is to be fat.

I'm glad to know there are people who are actively working on bettering the miniscule positive fat representation we have in media currently. I especially love when people make fat characters who are the opposite of all of the stereotypes and tropes forced on us. The athletic character being a fat person whose body has stayed fat all these years, a fat video game character who isn't forced to be a tank, the fashionista character is a fat person who grew up having to sew their own clothes and now is a sewing master with the best sense of style on this side of the Mississippi river. The fat person with an eating disorder who actually gains weight in recovery, the popular girl in school who's fat and not the bully, a love interest who isn't stick thin for once. I hope you continue to write fat characters you enjoy!

-Mod Worthy

#fat representation #royalminty #ask #Mod Worthy

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snaccpopstudios · 10 months

Text

Games Report 06/20/23

Hello everyone! Before we get into the meat of this week's dev report, today's guest artwork of Shaun Durand-Coffer and Moon Pie is by Coda Blue, a black games developer we commissioned to commemorate Juneteenth 2023!

We're also breaking a bit of convention today: it’s Sauce here to do some talking about a frequent (and valid) concern/question we get from fans.

Why so many projects at one time?

There are a lot of reasons that go into it and it’s kind of difficult to break down casually. But I’ll do my best to use the analogy of a relay race with batons!

Each project (Sunny Day Jack, The Groom of Gallagher Mansion, AphroDesia, and DacahaBo) largely has its own team, meaning that Writer A is assigned to Project A while Writer B is assigned to Project B and so forth. In a single Project, when the Writer is done with the script, they pass the baton to the Artist (usually me, in this case) to draw additional art like CGs to accentuate key scenes, while an Editor works to tighten up the sentence structure and spot missing plot points (a Musician may be working at this time as well). After editing is complete and art is at least underway, Programmers and Voice Actors can begin on their tasks. As we near completion, Programmers, Audio Engineers, and Beta Testers make sure the package is nice and tidy for everyone to enjoy.

At least, that's how it goes in an ideal situation.

When you’re working on a production, a large amount of variables (defined as an "element, feature, or factor that is liable to vary or change") are in play. Some of those variables might look like:

When does this team member get off from college, their day job, or other life commitment?

When they're done with those, how much personal time do they need in order to take care of themselves, or even recuperate?

What happens if the person actively working on something has a chronic illness flare-up, gets sick, or has something else preventing them from doing their assignment?

What happens if this person isn't openly communicating about delays in delivering work?

What happens if we can't contact someone because they're not responding to our inquiries?

What if we need to remove someone from the team, or someone we were counting on leaves voluntarily?

What happens if work that was "completed" and already paid for needs to be scrapped entirely and redone from the ground up?

Does someone else from Project C need to fill in and work on Project A to help them catch up?

Does someone assigned to one role in a Project need to take on multiple roles to help the entire team catch up?

Even from this short list of potential hurdles we might face during production, it seems like an easy solution would be to eliminate someone's time spent on outside life commitments! Except, it's not: even BáiYù can't quit his day job because in America, traditional employment often offers healthcare as part of their employee benefits and SnaccPop Studios is nowhere close to being able to provide a full living wage for everyone working with us. Maybe one day! But we’re not quite there.

So as you can imagine, sometimes there will be periods of time when an entire group of people aren't working because they don't have the baton quite yet since the person holding the baton is being held up by life. And this isn't their fault by any means, but a lack of communication about that makes it harder for us to estimate when any single relay race will be complete.

So how do you keep a Patreon filled with content?

We are very fortunate and grateful to receive a lot of Patreon support, especially after our SDJ Kickstarter! But getting all those funds is a huge responsibility. You should attempt to keep it stocked. And that’s what we attempt to do.

SP is made up of different teams suited to each individual property. Different programmers, different writers, etc. Each team is tasked with getting a set amount of work done, and between all the variables listed above sometimes we have really good months and sometimes we have pretty dry ones. Keeping all these teams moving together helps us to put out content while say, a writer is out with COVID and SDJ needs to pause for a week. TGoGM had a technical error that saw the game needing to be rebuilt in a new engine. And at the moment, AD is currently sans an audio drama writer.

These are frustrating problems and we're working on fixing what's in our direct control. But we understand that we also have to USE the money we receive visibly or else people ask us where the money is even paying for. And while we make an effort to put away savings responsibly, we can’t just accept large amounts of money without providing a product, or portions of one, in return.

The "Boring Bits"

There’s also in productions portions I like to call “Boring Bits”. These are moments where everything being done is just exceptionally boring to show off. Either it’s programming and bug fixing, or it’s deep lore writing and scripting we can’t show due to spoilers, or something else like that.

At those times all we CAN say is we’ve been fixing bugs or writing. BáiYù and some of the other team members could give an explanation of what's going on during those times but most of us can agree that it's not as enjoyable as something like a new pin-up or an audio drama.

Sometimes to say more would be a spoiler, or we can’t say anything else. Sometimes, it's all a waiting game.

At the beginning, waiting was the hardest part. It could take anywhere from two weeks to months to get back recordings or audio or art. And we have to respect why these things happen. When it’s an instance of slow delivery, we can ask for more clear deadlines or pay a rush fee, but other than that it’s just a long wait.

So, while we waited, we tried to find other means of providing entertainment.

Productions featuring groups of people all over the world, with very different lives, is extremely difficult. But sometimes people who provide quality work require that bit of patience.

So where is everything in the relay race?

At the moment, the status of our projects is as such:

Sunny Day Jack

SDJ is still being mapped out due to the inclusion of Nick as a love interest, as his character becoming more permanent changes several things in the narrative with the other love interests. To help speed things along, we've asked Gil Finnegan (he/him) from the DachaBo team to work with Biscuwuit to split the character route workloads.

It’s a large game, and their work includes labeling every individual scene as well as planning all the programmable variables. We can’t share ANYTHING more than what we have already shared on Kickstarter and Patreon. No new art assets are prepared because they’ve either been made (BGs, GUI) or we don’t how many sprites we need for the full roster until the plot is reworked completely. We can’t give script pages because of spoiler reasons.

We anticipate that a more robust report cycle will begin appearing once we get to scripting, but as a VN writing is a heavy and very important portion of the game that requires this narrative planning, sensitivity editing, and retcon checking. We will likely be in the writing portion a lot of 2023, which was expected since the game is intended to release in 2024.

Sleepy Time Jack

STJ is our additional companion app that’s seeing its final updates with the Patreon Exclusive “Jacktor” portion currently in progress. Due to some less-than-ideal cloud storage issues, we had to remake certain assets from scratch. Additionally, Steam is currently giving BáiYù the runaround and making it difficult for him to get the page up publicly, but we think we've figured out why they're complaining about the logo (they seem to be afraid of the "Digital Talking Body Pillow" subtitle not being part of the app's name in the system).

The Groom of Gallagher Mansion

TGoGM is expected to be finished soon, with free NSFW content planned for the future, but not until we’ve given it some time to sit. BáiYù has had to not only perform his usual Producer duties across all of SP, but also take on Writer and Programmer duties in this project to keep it moving due to life circumstances surrounding team members.

DachaBo

DachaBo Classic is being maintained canonically and updated by a largely separate team, but mostly only as a cosmetic and stability update. DachaBo: Barks & Mews proper remains in pre-production (Planning lore, connecting dots, and conceptualizing) until TGoGM sees its first release in English.

AphroDesia

AD is currently planning its audio reboot. But as a lore-heavy series, it’s being taken under consideration very carefully. Audio drama writers are key, and our current writer is prioritizing living expense-crucial work.

The "Re-Pilot" has a full outline written that is about seven pages long, with a script to follow after. Priority will re-shift back to this project once TGoGM and STJ are out the door, with a slowly metered development since it is an audio drama/planned comic. This production is more about assigning duties and waiting than any other task.

What about other projects?

Anything else besides these projects and the Bachelor of the Month series (currently on hiatus) is not an official SP project, and funds do not directly contribute to those projects, as they’re considered personal items by individual members.

As has been mentioned before, I (Sauce) also make personal works. And that’s part of why I’m the one handling this.

Many people still consider me a part of SP from a heading POV. But part of why I stepped down as "Boss" was because at the moment I’m juggling a college education, full or part-time employment, and healing from years of untreated mental health. It was no longer feasible for me to manage all of these things.

BáiYù instead is compensated to handle the business aspects, and is more capable to do so at this time. I help with Patreon art, tier rewards, and additional creative work while he's been the one writing the majority of the updates and dev reports. I also work on SDJ sprite art, and additional art assets (Steam page, GUI, graphics, etc.) but with my free time I have begun to prioritize taking moments to relax with some non-game art.

I have noticed people saying my work outside is SP work, or attributing it as such. I attempted to even use a separate alias to separate the two, but I guess my style is recognizable to a degree and tried to make the best of it by declaring otherwise myself.

Anything not SDJ, STJ, TGoGM, DB, AD, or BotM is not property of SnaccPop Studios. I've invited some of the individual team members to talk about the projects they do in their free time or as parts of other game studios as SP has a wonderful platform thanks to all of you, but always be sure to look for the official SP branding or else risk accidentally affiliating unrelated work with us.

That is such the case for me, and it could very well be that way for anyone else.

In conclusion...

At the end of the day, SnaccPop does its best to balance a busy, worthwhile Patreon and quality projects done by persons whose individual circumstances are acknowledged and respected. And we understand that a lot of things at once can look flighty and unfocused.

We really hope this breakdown helps, and we apologize for any issues that not having one up prior may have caused!

Making art is messy. Confining creative and quality visions to jobs and roles can be at the best of times spontaneous. But we’re happy to be able to employ or use our funding to pay and contribute to the lives of many different types of creatives in many different lifestyles.

Again, here's how our projects are looking:

SDJ is on track to arrive in 2024.

STJ and TGoGM are in their final stretches with more content to come after.

DB Classic is being stablized before wide release while DB: Barks & Mews is in pre-production

AD is in pre-production, but the personal circumstances of a key writer are making it a bit difficult!

Thank you all for taking the time to be a part of this! Literally, we could not even do that without you all. This is a privilege we take very seriously. And we’re working very hard behind the scenes to keep you updated, our team members with any work we can provide, and patrons entertained longterm and short term.

#the groom of gallagher mansion #visual novel #somethings wrong with sunny day jack #sunny day jack #minors dni #sdj #dachabo #indie games #game development #snaccpop #snaccpop studios #aphrodesia

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writingquestionsanswered · 6 months

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Writing with Chronic Illness

strigiformthunderstorm asked: Could you advise on forming a writing routine with a chronic illness? I have several conditions that cause a lot of pain and fatigue, and working part-time takes up nearly all of my energy. I used to write daily but stopped while I was in "survival mode", and now getting in my head about the quality prevents me from writing. I've had success with creating multiple routines to accommodate my fluctuating symptoms, so instead of writing out a schedule, I'm kind of choreographing a dance. For example, right now I'm coming out of a flare up so I'm trying to think of adaptations like writing in bed, taking naps between writing sessions, and being less hard on myself about smoking for my pain while writing + just doing brain dumps if that's what I need to get into the flow of things. I'm also neurodivergent. I'm trying to get to the point I'm actually writing the book (instead of world building/planning) and am making consistent progress.

[Ask edited for length]

A few things that might help:

1 - Don't worry about writing daily or hitting specific word counts. Doing things to "move the needle" are just as important, even if that is doing brain dumps, researching, or looking for inspiration photos.

2 - Try to avoid making writing feel like a stressful activity that your brain will automatically want to avoid. The things you're doing are already on the right track, so continue to give yourself grace, give yourself positive reinforcement for anything that moves the needle, and doing what you can to make writing relaxing and rewarding.

3 - Many writers find that writing sprints are a productive way for them to get words on the page. So, for example, try setting a timer for 10 or 20 minutes (or whatever increment works for you) and write as much as you can during that time. Don't worry about quality (we'll get to that in a minute), just get the words down. Do this a few times a day, and it starts to add up quickly. You may also find that you gather momentum and are able to write more per sprint, sprint for longer periods, and/or include more sprints into your day.

4 - Focusing overly much on quality is probably a bigger obstacle for you right now than anything else. This is by far and away the biggest pitfall writers fall into. Remember: writing is a process that requires editing and revision. No one writes a perfect first draft. There's a reason we call them "rough drafts" and "zero drafts." There's a reason we self-edit and revise. There's a reason we use beta readers, critique partners, and editors. It isn't supposed to be perfect at the beginning. Imagine being a sculptor, taking out a lump of clay, squeezing it to shape it a few times, and then being livid because it isn't a beautiful sculpture. That's what you're doing when you allow your brain to be frustrated about the quality of your writing when you're writing a first draft. You're getting mad because your lump of clay didn't instantly become a beautiful sculpture. If you never let your lump of clay be a lump of clay, and something that looks more like a misshapen whatever rather than the thing you're trying to make, then you'll never get it to the point of actually becoming the beautiful sculpture. You have to let the words on the page be ugly before you can shape them into something beautiful when it's time to edit and revise. Have a look at the following posts for more:

Concentrate on Quantity at First, Not Quality Overcoming Embarrassment Over Own Writing Delaying Writing Out of Fear Worried About Writing Style

5 - As far as routine goes, you're actually already doing what I would have suggested, which is to utilize a variety of different routines that are catered to meet your needs in the moment. Doing the things you're already doing, plus what is mentioned above, will hopefully be enough to get you over this hurdle.

Sending you lots of happy thoughts and hope for progress! ♥

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

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#writing tips #writing help #wqaadvice

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teawithnosugar · 11 months

Text

Terrified Her

! Pairings ,' Toxic!Ellie x Chronically ill!Reader ! CW ,' angst, Ellie is kind of toxic???, anxiety??? not the best depiction of a heart disease, open ending ! words ,' 1.4k ! synopsis ,' Ellie is constantly pushing you away and your already weak heart can't take it anymore ! song ,' You're Losing Me - Taylor Swift

"I gave you all my best me's, my endless empathy"

! AN ,' not happy with how this turned out, still practicing after years of writer's block so feedback is appreciated <3

“My god- just fuck off for once!”

The words echoed in your ears like a piercing scream, shaking the fragile peace of your farmhouse. Barely a week had passed since your return from Santa Barbara, yet the tension between you and Ellie had grown unbearable. Each time those harsh words spilled from her lips, they struck your heart with the force of a jagged stone.

“We can’t keep going on like this Els, we need to talk about this, I can help you.”

Your pleas fell on deaf ears, and Ellie stormed out of the house, slamming the door behind her. She never strayed too far, merely pacing around the farm, choosing to sleep beneath the stars instead of finding solace by your side. So you retreated to the bedroom, sleeping alone once again. Silently, tears streamed down your face, just as they had during the treacherous journey to Santa Barbara and back. You had mastered the art of stifling your sobs and sniffles, not wanting to further upset Ellie. That was a mistake on your part, creating a barrier that held her back from comprehending the agony that her relentless quest for vengeance caused you.

The morning arrived, Ellie's absence was noticeable until you found yourself in the kitchen, preparing breakfast. With puffy eyes, you cast a pointed glare at her as she walked into your home. You needed to let her know that this was wrong. But when she gave you a chaste kiss on the cheek and ever so casually asked what you were making, you almost crumbled then and there beneath the weight of her indifference or feigned ignorance of the profound anguish you bore down deep.

You held it together though, as always, and gave her a soft answer, afraid to use too much energy in speaking as it was already taking everything in you to keep it together.

“Some pancakes…it’s all I could make with what we have right now.”

She hummed in response, wrapping her arms around your waist from behind as you cooked. Resting her head on your shoulder, she seemed lost in thought, oblivious to how tightly she held onto you. Her embrace that used to comfort you greatly now suffocated you, literally. She was clearly still grappling with the events in Santa Barbara. Ellie had been frustrated for years, always yearning to seek revenge. Now that she was back home, she felt so alone, and that killed you because you were right there, begging for her to see you.

But now, you were softly begging for her to let go, wincing a little because her grip had opened a few stitches of wounds earned during your trip.

"Shit, sorry," she quickly let go, hurrying to retrieve the first-aid kit from the bathroom when she noticed blood seeping through your shirt. You turned off the stove and perched on the counter, patiently waiting for her to return.

You slipped your shirt off, to make it easier for you both. Once you got a look at the wound, only a few stitches had come undone but you took blood thinners due to the heart condition you had and it caused an excessive flow of crimson.

Ellie wordlessly positioned herself between your legs, tending to the wound with delicate hands and having to do very minor stitches. Her brows furrowed in worry and lips pursed in concentration, guilt filled her eyes as she adamantly avoided meeting your gaze.

In moments like these, you caught a glimpse of the Ellie you fell in love with all those years ago in Jackson—the one hidden beneath the walls you now saw, your Ellie.

Your Ellie, once so tender and serene, always playing your favorite songs and filling her notebook with drawings of you. Now her guitar sits silently in the corner, its strings wounded by her injury. And she had grown weary, devoid of the energy to birth new art. Whenever she opens her notebook, it's only to revisit old memories. Once, she left it out on the table, and it was hard not to notice the prominent tear stains that marked its pages, like a sad reminder of lost joy.

Even when she finished patching you up, she lingered before you, her presence marked by silence, her hands trembling ever so slightly. You couldn’t help but ask a soft “you okay Els?”

In an instant, her expression changed dramatically. She emitted a small, exasperated groan before abruptly leaving the room, a bitter remark escaping her lips, “I’m fine, stop fucking asking.”

You just closed your eyes, trying to steady the resounding heartbeat that you could hear in your ears. You swallowed thickly once you composed yourself, ignoring the pins and needles you felt on your forehead and fingertips.

You quickly abandoned the half-prepared meal and walked in front of her where she sat on the couch. You slipped on a shirt from a pile of clean laundry next to her. Silently, you stood before her, though she made it abundantly clear that she would ignore you, rolling her eyes and meticulously cleaning her already gleaming firearm.

“Ellie…please…we need to talk about this…I’ve been so understanding…let me into the pretty little head of yours.” You whispered softly, voice a gentle plea as you put a gentle hand on her hair, which she quickly swatted away as she rose from the couch.

“How many times do I have to tell you I’m fucking fine”

“You’re not fine!” You shouted, causing her to freeze because you never raised your voice at her before.

“Just…leave me alone Y/N…” she sighed, running a hand through her hair.

“Are you sure you want me to do that? Cause if you want me to leave you alone, I’m going to fucking leave.” Your voice resonated with firmness, but your eyes begged her for any kind of communication, to tell you she wanted you there.

Her eyes widened slightly and her mouth opened and closed a few times as she struggled to find the words she sought but all that left her mouth was a soft and pathetic “I don’t understand.”

“Clearly,” you muttered under your breath before shaking your head softly and sighing. “I’m getting tired Els, I’m here to help you. I’ve done nothing but fight by your side…so stop ignoring me…” You took a few steps closer to the brunette. Every step you took, a warmth blossomed within Ellie's chest, a familiarity she hadn't felt since Joel’s death. It absolutely terrified her, bringing back memories from when she had everything, reminding her of everything she had lost yet again, so she snapped.

You had no idea what she was shouting at you, and neither did she. She screamed at you words that she hadn’t even processed before they left her lips. You didn’t know when it happened but you were now standing, back against the wall as she pinned you, her arms enclosing you in as she spewed words she didn’t even mean.

Her glare alone caused you to instinctively shrink, your heart pounding so forcefully that all you could hear was the ringing in your ears. You wanted to tell her to stop, that you felt like you were going to faint, but you felt frozen on the spot.

You had a heart condition, a condition that demanded caution, and yet you followed Ellie across the country despite the dangers. But it was not the infected or violent people that quickened your heartbeat in an unhealthy manner; it was Ellie, right within the safety of your home. Ellie just had that effect on you

It’s only when you let out a strained cough, doubling over against her, did she finally realize the extent of her rampage and fell silent.

She immediately lowers both of you to the floor, cradling you in her arms.

You desperately tried to breathe and she did everything she could to help, holding your hand and whispering sweet words. She kept you close to her chest, trying to calm you down. As your breathing gradually steadied, absolutely drained, you closed your eyes, falling asleep in her arms.

Ellie fought back tears as she held you because she realized that while she mourned the losses she had endured, you had been silently mourning your relationship which wasn’t even over yet and that was all her fault. Her thoughts spun wildly, attempting to etch the feeling of your weight on her and your scent into her memory, unsure if you’d grant her such intimacy like this again when you wake up. That terrified her.

#the last of us #tlou #the last of us 2 #tlou 2 #ellie williams x reader #ellie williams #ellie x reader

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crimeronan · 4 months

Note

hey what is wwaitsoatl?

oh! it's what we are is the sum of a thousand lies, my most popular toh fic by FAR and the thing most toh people here started following me for. back before i got sucked down the princess luz hyperfixation rabbit hole. it's a fic that takes more work to write than any of my others because it has an incredibly involved drafting & editing process. bc i am a perfectionist.

the premise is a canon divergent timeline wherein belos suspects that hunter lied to him at the end of hunting palismen. and completely wrecks hunter's shit forever. and infects him with curse goop in the process. and darius (who, Very Importantly, does not yet have a friendly rapport with hunter) trips over the kid's half-dead body.

and freaks.

and kidnaps hunter n takes him to the owl house. bc that's the one surefire place of refuge on the isles.

there are a bunch of emotional threads, hence why it's novel-length and not even finished yet despite being about just four characters chilling in a house together.

mainly it's about:

hunter unraveling his cognitive dissonance and cult brainwashing in an AU where he doesn't have all of hollow mind's answers; his feelings are Incredibly complicated and messy & he gets incredibly mean and snarly about it

darius grappling with the fact that his own grief and resentment blinded him to a kid who Very Much Needed Him, darius dealing with the fact that actually he never DID grieve his mentor or his mentor's dead family

darius and hunter developing a rapport in a timeline where hunter very much has Not broken out of all the cop shit that darius disdains So Much. so darius is so fucking exasperated and tired all the time

eda trying desperately to help hunter learn to live with a curse / chronic pain / chronic illness, while having very little faith in herself to begin with

luz feeling Horrifically guilty about hunter's curse and injuries, bc she thinks she should have clocked the abuse and brought him home with her or otherwise stopped it

hunter developing an almost immediate and pathological emotional attachment to luz because of her kindness, which complicates all of his complicated feelings WAAAAAY MORE

eda, darius, AND luz all desperately trying to get hunter to admit that he's been abused and that what happened wasn't his fault. you would not believe how fucking long it takes.

i'm actually really, really, Really proud of it -- it's rare for one of a writer's best works to be their most popular, but this genuinely is one of mine. if not my best work, period. there's a lot of nuance and messiness and emotional complexity and grief and arguing that i'm SO happy with.

also, despite the subject matter, it's often extremely lighthearted. some of the funniest dialogue i've ever written is strewn throughout all these serious emotional threads.

i'd apologize for how long this response is but this story is a heart project and has 67,000 published words on ao3 so far. (the chapter i'm writing rn will likely be another ~8,000 words, then there are a couple more chapters to come.) so there's a lot to say!!

it's my most popular ao3 fic for any fandom, ever, in the 12 years i've been on the site. the response has been WILD. if you sort by kudos, it's the 31st most favorited owl house fic Of All Time, the 7th most popular fic involving darius, and the 5TH most popular hunter & luz relationship fic. again, of all time. which is. insane.

people have been very kind and patient with me having been too sick to work on it for a while. there was a seven-month break between chapters 8 and 9, and if i finish chapter ten soon then there'll have been a nine-month break between chapters 9 and 10. so i don't know how many people are actually going to come back to read it, a lot of ppl have moved on from the fandom and such. but i'm extremely extremely extremely grateful to everyone who's given it a look!

#replies #long post #toh #my writing #horrible mindscape trauma pals #dadrius #darius deamonne #eda clawthorne #wwaitsoatl #hunter toh #luz noceda #i really am in love with this story i like. i somehow forgot how in love i am with this story #but i do i love it so much. i love it So Much. i could talk about it for Ages

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exhaustedrebel05 · 7 months

Text

Whatever the weather

Arcane Viktor x Fem! Reader

a/n: Hi, so this is the first time I post something that I wrote, I hope you like it.

I do not own anything here except the product of my creativity.

⚠️Warnings⚠️: mentioned feelings of despair, chronic illness, fluff, new fanfic writer who wrote this on a whim, and possible bad punctuation.

Tell me if I forgot something pls

Summary: You bring food to Viktor in the lab and end up having a moment.

Definitions: Zaya means "little bunny" in Russian. At least, that is what Google told me.

And here we go...

The hallways of the Academy echoed with your footsteps as you made your way to Viktor and Jayce's lab. Well, more Viktor's than Joyce's now that he was more involved in the political side of progress.

Viktor tried to act like the absence of his friend and fellow Hex tech founder didn't bother him, but you knew that deep down it did. You could see it in the way he was returning to old habits of believing he had to do everything on his own.

Even though he did not, and was not on his own. Especially with his declining health. It is not the best idea to leave him alone for hours on end.

You all understood that it was better if they had a say in the decisions regarding Hex tech's future. In order to ensure that it is safe from ending up in the wrong hands. Hands that would use it to destroy lives instead of improving them.

Nonetheless, it left much of the work for Viktor to go through alone, but he never complained. Your beloved is a man racing against time and fate.

Trying to complete and discover as much as his delicate body allows him to. Powering through all of the equations and push backs that came his way.

However, he could only do so much running on maybe four hours of sleep and the academy's cafeteria food. Which is why you were here, at his lab's door, fully expecting to see him hunched over his current project. Fully focused. Tuning out all of the world in order to improve it.

Knowing this, you don't even bother knocking on the large ancient doors; entering the lab filled with papers and project pieces scattered in a sort of organized chaos throughout the room. And in the back of said chaos is Viktor, sitting at his desk exactly as you imagined.

As you walk towards him, you decide to stand beside him and attempt to make your presence known without giving him a heart attack.

Like you had nearly done that one time.

You swear that man nearly jumped six feet from his chair when you placed a kiss on his cheek. Thinking that he had heard you come in.

No response...

With a gentle sigh, you lean down towards him and call his name in a sing-song voice. Hoping to bring him back to your plane of existence.

You reach out slowly, twinkling your fingers in front of him. He takes notice, chuckling as your fingers gently tap on the side of his face - then his nose.

"Hello love," He says, looking up to you with those golden orbs that make your knees weak. He sets down his work and kisses your hand.

"Hi, care for a break?" You ask, showing him the container of home cooked food you had brought him. He turns his chair to face you completely. His focus filled expression turned into delight.

"Hmmm, I suppose I could indulge." He answers, raising a mischievous eyebrow reaching out to take the food.

You move the container slightly out of his reach. Eyes trained on his expression of confusion that turns into acceptance of your challenge.

"Oh, that's how it is?" He asks, amusement apparent in his voice and expression.

"How what is?" You reply nonchalantly as possible, trying to keep a smile from spreading across your face.

The amusement filled amber eyes became daring as a beat of energy filled silence passed between you both. You were not protected from what came next.

Slender hands find their way to your waist and tickle you with no mercy. You squeal and try to move away, but you are held in place.

"Nah ah ah! Zaya, you are not getting away from me that easily!" He states as he attacks you with another wave of tickles.

"I surrender…I surrender!" You gasp, breathless from your laughter.

He hums satisfied with his victory and pulls you close, looking up into your eyes from his seated position.

Your cheeks are flushed from his little attack, and your eyes are bright from your laughter. The moment eases his mind and body. He wishes the two of you could stay here, like this, forever.

His life is not easy. At times, the pain is too much for his body, and he wants nothing more than for it to stop. To find peace and freedom from his all too delicate state.

But then who will finish all the work?

Understand all of his notes and research?

Progress doesn't happen on its own, and Jayce has his hands full with his new role.

Then there was you…

He never expected anyone to have a romantic interest in him, much less knowing that his time may no- would be limited. That in the end, you would be left all alone...

That is what troubled him the most.

You told him you would cross that bridge when you get there. That you understood what it meant to love him; and he was loved nonetheless.

It wasn't always easy, but that is what it means to love someone. It is standing beside them when times are at their worst. When they are at their worst.

Being there to help them back on their feet and facing the challenge together. He also knew how fortunate he was to have what so many others only dreamed about.

You place a hand on his cheek and brush the wild tousled hair out of his face with the other. Bringing him back from his thoughts, grounding him to the present.

"Hey, come back to me." Your voice is as soft as your expression. Eyes gazing lovingly into his own, which were equally enamored.

He gently tugs your arms, signaling for you to come closer.

"I am here."

His eyes never leave yours as he brings you in for a passionate kiss. He doesn't know what the future holds, but he knows you both will cross that bridge when you get there.

#arcane #viktor x reader #league of legends #arcane x female reader #arcane x reader

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heliza24 · 2 months

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I'm kind of confused about how you feel about Lydia, I didn't think there was anything negative about the portrayal. You say she was just there for a lore dump but the way I see it, she was talking about her own life, an adventure she'd been on before. I didn't see it as dismissing her as a character

The short answer is that there isn’t anything hugely wrong with that scene. But because it’s the only real scene we’ve gotten with her so far, and because she is the most developed physically disabled character in all of D20, it is not enough.

To expand on that: Sure, she was telling the Bad Kids about her life and her previous adventures. But let’s think about why she was doing that in that moment. She was there because the Bad Kids needed to know more about her embedded crystal/metaphorical chronic illness in order to solve their own personal mysteries. She is a (very) supporting character in their narrative. We don’t get to see her go on a character arc, or change, or learn more about her desires as a character. Her disability story, which is very interesting, is in the show only because it serves the story needs of the nondisabled PCs.

Now of course all stories need supporting characters/npcs, and I am happy some of them are disabled. The problem arises when there has never been a physically disabled PC in Dimension 20. So the only disability narrative we see is in service of nondisabled characters. The problem is not Lydia; the problem is that she is alone.

You might recognize this problem with other media and other marginalized groups. To use a kind of simple example, I spent a lot of my childhood frustrated that the only women seemingly allowed in fantasy or action movies were the romantic interests of male protagonists. These love interests existed to serve the story of their male counterpart (often by dying dramatically and sending the male protagonist on some kind of revenge quest). There are still plenty of movies and shows that follow these tropes, but it bothers me way less now in 2024 because we also have a ton of tv and movies with complex female protagonists. The abundance of representation is what has changed.

I think this problem is extra clear on Dimension 20 because they have gotten SO many chances to center a disabled narrative and have not. They get up to six protagonists every season, which is way more than most tv or movies get.

Compared to a lot of other pieces of media that try to add in disabled characters, Dimension 20 is doing a good job with Lydia. They haven’t hired a nondisabled actor to play her (super common in tv and movies unfortunately) and they’ve clearly worked with consultants on her. I really like, for instance, that her persistence with the crystal prevents her being magically cured, which is one of my least favorite tropes. However, there is a huge trend in Hollywood of hiring disabled consultants when they want to tell a disabled story but never actually hiring a disabled writer for a full time, credited writing gig in a writers room. The players on D20 are the writing room. Why has a disabled person never been invited there?

Imagine, for a second, that we got a Fantasy High prequel season. All the adults we know in Fantasy High are teens, and they’re PCs. Imagine a really talented performer, who uses a wheelchair, playing Lydia. Imagine the emotional scenes we would see! Imagine the insight into her psyche we would get, the way her relationship to the Crystal would be developed. That’s what the scene with Lydia in Junior Year made me long for.

(I do have some frustration about the way Kristen reacted to Lydia, and the way that fandom reacted to Kristen. I did find Kristen offering empathy to Lydia in the form of the help action sweet, but being nice to a disabled person doesn’t deserve outsized praise, because we are not objects of pity. I also think the way that Kristen touched Lydia’s neck without permission is reminiscent of the way many wheelchair users are touched and pushed without permission, which is very violating. I don’t think Kristen would have had that same reaction to Sandra Lynn, for instance. Kristen is really Going Through It right now, so I’m not particularly mad at her for doing that. But it is irritating to see fandom singing the praises of the help action without acknowledging the touching without consent that followed).

Thank you for the question! I appreciate the opportunity to have a dialogue about this.

#dimension 20 #d20 #my meta #my crip media reviews #fantasy high junior year #fantasy high #d20 fhjy #ask box #dropout tv #dropout

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