same as it ever was

i have very little to report this week and y'know? that's alright! yesterday i had a big mental health assessment that i was very nervous about and i made it through! so now i can move on from that (phwew!), but a lot of my pre-established plans are coming up as well, so that's something i've got to account for. this weekend i'll have to do a lot of prep work for an art market i'll be vending at in a couple weeks, because next weekend is my 3rd anniversary with my partner. i'll need all the work time i can get to restock. so the time is now to consider-- how has "habit" looked for me so far and can i sustain this when there's a few minor bumps in the road?


in spite of my assessment, i still met ONE of my goals from last week! which i count as a big win. i made a good amount of progress on my pwp by hitting it from the final third, which was really fun! there's a bit of a shift in the energy and dynamic from the first 2/3, so it felt a bit like i was starting something fresh-- the same thing from a different angle, i guess you could say. what's more, i had fun working on it and didn't overthink quite so much, so that's great to see. perhaps most epic of all, the bath and body works candle sale came in clutch and i was able to get 5 of my favorite scent (marshmallow fireside i love you baby). that's been really invigorating since, as a reminder, my "cue" for "it's time to write" has been lighting a candle and this is even more incentive lol. i gotta smell the good smell!!

it wasn't a goal of mine, but i also wrote a few fills for threesentenceficathon, which can be found over here. it was really fun and a great way to keep my mind on writing in a low-pressure way. if you haven't written for 3SF yet, it's still going and i highly recommend tossing a fill up! it makes me miss kink memes a lot, also. it's so much fun to fill requests in a low-pressure comment setting!! 

back to goals, though. unfortunately i wasn't able to have a focus session like i planned, nor was i able to continue getting up early. i'd like to keep that going into this next week-- as such, i've only got one goal for next week so as to keep my momentum while also being aware that i have other shit to do:

•  have at least one focus-session this week. make a day of it! have some fun! make writing a priority and work on any project you'd like. i want to treat this as... well, a treat! a break from work-focused art. 

so to answer my previous question: what has habit looked like so far? lighting a candle and writing where i can, finding little pockets of my day in which to channel that energy, has been really helpful. primarily i've been writing at night when i Retire To My Chambers from hanging out with the household, essentially calling the night only a little bit early. that's been where most of my words have been written. my habit is far from consistent but i've been keeping it going, and i think that's the goal at the end of the day. so to answer that second question of is this sustainable? i think so, as long as i continue to be respectful of where my time is needed elsewhere. balancing that with treating writing as a priority is going to be the continuing challenge, but writing has continued to be on my mind in an active way. and so far? i think that's a success. treating myself with grace and a lack of judgement if i can't write every day, if i only write once a week even, is an essential piece to this. as i said in a previous post-- where has shame gotten me, anyway?

but enough about me, tell me about you! what have you been writing this week? do you find it difficult to pick something back up when you've had to put it down due to Life Happening? is it more motivating to write something for someone else rather than for yourself? i'd really like to hear your perspective on this!

i made some Choices last week that have the baseless confidence of eating cheese with a lactose intolerance. don't you know your body just doesn't work like that, that you'll regret this in only hours? well don't i have egg on my face for asking that question and not: why did you bite off more than you can chew from the self-improvement pie?

this week, theemdash wrote an article for the GYWO community titled "tips for writing daily"-- a post that i really needed in ways you might not expect. daily writing isn't one of my goals, after all. but one of the things that particularly resonated with me in theemdash's post was "your writing habit must meet you where you are". when i was talking with deeppainpizza about our habit plans for the week, one of the topics we had mentioned was exactly this! the simple idea that working with yourself and your quirks vs. against yourself doesn't sound groundbreaking on its face, but internalized ableism teaches us that simplicity isn't enough-- how can we arrive at easy answers if "easy" is dismissed right out of the gate?

• write/outline the final third of my current pwp. beginnings are a huge struggle for me but i've got a decent outline at least on the beginning. let's get that back portion filled out-- that's the part where the reason i wanted to write this fic happens. gonna try to channel that excitement!

•  have at least one "focus session" this week. i want to have a "sit down, let's goooo" moment, a writing date if you will. i'm not going to put a specific time limit on it, i just want to make an event of it. have a special drink, a special treat, hang out and do some sprints! i have a pretty big mental health evaluation at the end of this week so i'm nervous about how that will affect the weekend but i'm gonna do my best to be adaptable here. 

•  habit goal for the week: continue waking up a little earlier in the morning and trying to use that time, see what writing i can get done. when i pivoted away from lunchtime writing i started doing this-- only succeeded twice but it was good when i did! i'm a notoriously sleepy person so this might seem against the grain from what i've been talking about before. but in my entire life i've never actually tried waking up early, and i used to have the best creative time on my morning bus rides when i still rode the bus. so i want to see if i can keep that up for the full week and see how that goes. lighting a candle has been a good habit cue for me so far, so i'm keeping with that.

• compile a list of projects i'd like to work toward. i feel a bit creatively bankrupt as far as storytelling goes, but i know that's just because i haven't dug the well deep enough. there's water in these hills, damn it! catch me out here with my dousing rod and shovel trying to find it again like a maniac.

• brainstorm what a habit might look like for me. what time of day should i start out with? how can i incorporate this into my routine? i doubt that i'll have consistency, since i work a full-time job on top of my "second job" with art and social life. with that in mind i have to experiment a bit. roll with the punches and see what works. 

• write at least one day this week. i'm trying to take it easy and stick to journaling (something i don't do already) to get back in the practice of writing. so far this goal has been easy, as motivation is high right now and life is pretty calm. the stretch between christmas and now is the calendar's bermuda triangle. we'll see how it goes when i emerge. 

what do your habits look like? do you have to wait for creativity to strike you, or are you able to pick it up whenever you'd like? i'd love to hear some ideas for habit building from you. and do tell me about the stories that are on your mind if you're participating in GYWO. i think the power of community events like this is in the mutual excitement-- so let's cheer each other on!

dear chocolatier,

welcome to the new year-- im excited to see you here! i'm theultimateburrito over on ao3! it's my first chocolate box and i'm eager to see what you write! i guarantee that i'll enjoy it, so please go hog wild. i encourage you to chase your bliss outside of the prompts i've outlined below, they're just to give you ideas if you're lost or showcase what i like about the ship!

here’s a sample platter of some things that spark joy in me as well as some prompts to get you goin’! but if you have an idea, by all means don’t let me stop you!

general likes:

• surrealism, dream/nightmare sequences, supernatural elements
• body horror, psych horror, literal and metaphorical hauntings
• unreliable narrator, nonlinear narrative, experimental styles
• non-traditional relationships/romantic expressions, "we know how we feel, so we don't have to say anything", complicated/ill-defined relationships, nuanced dynamics
• canon compliance, missing scenes, canon divergent aus, character studies
• "there was only one bed", being in close quarters Alone
• Banter

general do not wants: non-con (dubcon is fine), torture, guro, pregnancy/mpreg, character bashing, eating disorders, body dysphoria, suicide, crossovers, abo dynamics, unrequested AUs


( Read more... )

dear trick or treat author,

i’m very glad that you’re writing for me, i know that i’ll love whatever you create! as i change, and my interests along with me, halloween has become my favorite time of year. i love horror, i love when things can get weird and messy and dark. i love ghosts and spirits and the metaphorical spector we call “guilt”. but i think there’s a lot of sweetness that can be contained in that wonderful 300 word minimum as well, and i encourage you to chase your bliss in whatever direction you’d like. you’ll do great!

here’s a sample platter of some things that spark joy in me as well as some prompts to get you goin’! but if you have an idea, by all means don’t let me stop you!

general likes:

• surrealism, dream/nightmare sequences, supernatural elements
• body horror, psych horror, literal and metaphorical hauntings
• unreliable narrator, nonlinear narrative, experimental styles
• non-traditional relationships/romantic expressions, "we know how we feel, so we don't have to say anything", complicated/ill-defined relationships, nuanced dynamics
• canon compliance, missing scenes, canon divergent aus, character studies
• "there was only one bed", being in close quarters Alone
• Banter
•  

art likes:

• sharp, angular lines
• dramatic lighting
• bold usage of color

general do not wants: non-con, torture, guro, pregnancy/mpreg, character bashing, eating disorders, body dysphoria, suicide, crossovers, kidfic, genderswap/gender headcanons (jem is the only exception to this DNW), abo dynamics, unrequested AUs



disclaimer: you don’t need to include every character in your fill! ship preferences are just for your reference and not required to include! gen is super encouraged, often ideal!

IT is genuinely one of my favorite horror novels of all time. i ate it up in just a week and have re-read it over and over. the amount of dog ears on this book makes it look like a waterlogged phonebook. any sort of exploration of the book’s themes (trauma, cycles of abuse, memory, recovery and what that entails, etc) in any form will bring me so much joy!

trick

• whatever your favorite loser, put them in the worst situation possible for their particular flavor of trauma, but make it some dream surrealistic setting. focus in on ben’s loneliness, how desperately he’s trying to find that sense of community and family that he’s forgotten. put richie in a situation where he has to reckon with his crippling fear of his own mortality (mind my DNWs here, please). take that feeling and make it WEIRD. potential ideas of executing this: the liminal space of a grocery store, recurring nightmares, losing track of time at their respective work.
• there is so much fun horror present in this book, and i adore it. craft your own pennywise encounter!
• what’s it like to mourn a friend you can’t quite remember? how does that grief for eddie, for stan, manifest itself in the losers now that they’ve returned to their normal lives? do they see something and have this gut feeling that it’s something that should hurt in no small way?

treat

• nonlinear narrative. that’s it. just get really funky with time. have snippets from the past inform the present! reverse chronology! dump all the puzzle pieces out and snap them together in a different order.
• post-canon, exploring where the characters go and how they recover independent of each other. do they ever find a way back to each other without the worry of falling back into old roles and old habits? is it better that they don’t? not to be incredibly indulgent with my interests but anything based around this quote from the movie “true stories” 1986—
  • I really enjoy forgetting. When I first come to a place, I notice all the little details. I notice the way the sky looks. The color of white paper. The way people walk. Doorknobs. Everything. Then I get used to the place and I don't notice those things anymore. So only by forgetting can I see the place again as it really is.
• character studies abound… please i never want to stop reading about these characters and how they think and feel. ANY character study is welcome! im particularly interested in mike, in how he believes so strongly in the bonds between himself and the rest of the losers that he feels this sense of responsibility to never forget. what goes through his mind in the years his friends have forgotten each other?

ship preferences: richie/eddie, bill/mike, ben/bev



disclaimer: ship preference is just for your reference, and not required to include! gen is totally cool!

another horror favorite, re-animator has always been a comfort watch for me. i love dan and herbert’s weird dynamic, i love the grounding energy that dan has in such a weird and campy narrative, and herbert is an absolute classic character and i adore his self-absorption. the homoeroticism. tasty.

treat

• au where hubert and dan are 19th century body snatchers (or, resurrection men!). it was a common occurrence for bodies to be exhumed and, hm, BORROWED, for the purpose of medical study! they dig up bodies together but have very different goals when it comes to their purposes.
• honestly some weird roadtrip thing post-canon would be super fun. roadkill motif? picking up snacks at some tiny side-of-the-highway gas station and weirdness following them? having to kill a man!
• any au where dan went along with hubert the whole time. potential character study?

trick

• dan stumbling upon herbert and his gorey exploits earlier that canon, or in different ways. maybe seeing that eerie green glow from the basement in the middle of the night and inexplicably waking up in bed every time after-- dream and reality blending, wondering if he really did see that? mounting confusion and mutual distrust.
• herbert growing way more fond of dan than dan does of him. with how self-absorbed herbert is, i figure that he would be even more upset if his assumption that dan will follow along is…not founded in reality! maybe they try to get rid of each other?
• “came back wrong” au!! something happens to dan where herbert uses the re-agent on him and he’s not… Right. any sort of exploration of that would be fun!

ship preference: dan/herbert

frankly i was just so excited to see Ib on this tagset, and i had long forgotten just why this game excited me so much. the setting is so lovingly crafted, with an entire gallery and art history being built from the ground up, how much each piece matters! ib, garry and mary are characters i still think about, and i hope that these prompts will get you thinking too!

treat

• any sort of happiness for mary. i love her and want the best for her, wherever and however that may be in your mind!
• an older ib and garry still keep in touch and are able to move past the horror they’ve experienced together, maybe they’re even able to go back to art galleries! themes of recovery?
• a tour of guertena’s gallery and works, this could be really experimental and fun! blurbs for paintings? a look into the artist’s process?

trick

• museum horror has such good possibilities, so have fun in that backdrop! really lean into it! i think of night gallery when i think of framing for this-- a piece of art setting the tone for the narrative! but just any of the things you already see within the canon would be superb: being trapped in a place, strange imagery surrounding you, something just out of the corner of your eye. stupendous!
• see my treat prompt for older ib and garry friendship? what if their comfort with going back to the museum is Quite misplaced? what if they really should be afraid?
• lady in red + lady in blue perspective at any canon point. does lady in red, the painting, have any feelings about her associations with the women she was based on? how does she view the events of canon? potential body/psych horror of lady in blue peeling the rose petals off of garry’s rose!

disclaimer: ship preference is just for your reference, and not required to include! gen is totally cool! JEM IS ALSO A "DNW" EXCEPTION FOR ME-- gender headcanons have a green light with any jem fill! (i'm nonbinary and am often nervous to request gender hcs in exchanges because it's so personal, but i feel good and comfy here). nonbinary techrat is personally important to me, but seriously don't feel obligated to approach techrat through that lens!

what else can i say but me and my friends are jem girls? i love everything about this show so unabashedly-- the camp, the characters, the plot. it’s all something i hold so dearly to my heart and would love to see highlighted in all its glory!

treat

• eric/techrat, my kingdom for eric/techrat!! i love their relationship so much-- how defensive eric is of techrat (“techrat is not a WEIRDO, he’s a GENIUS!”) and how much value he places on techrat’s skills. how techrat really is just all in on eric’s schemes and gets a great deal of joy working with him. they ooze chemistry and i would love to see your take on their dynamic. how did eric find techrat? why is techrat so loyal to him when he seems just the opposite? (spoilers: it’s love)
• video and clash backstory! some insight into their dynamic and how they perceive each other! has clash always been the type chasing video’s coattails? their lives went in very different directions, and i’d be really keen to see character study from either end on this!
• anything about astral, she’s my favorite character! maybe write about her college days in the supernatural society? wanting to believe in these things but not being able to find substantial evidence to do so? how she met jem! maybe a little speculative episode had the show continued with her in it?

trick

• pizzazz self-sabotaging her own happiness and relationships. really genuinely caring about the misfits but being near-allergic to showing her hand at sincerity, pushing them away whenever she can. maybe she’s got a one-sided attraction to jerrica/jem (maybe she’s in love with jem and hates jerrica, or vice-versa?). i’d love a real bittersweet tone here, seeing a character we all love just ruin things for herself.
• the misfits send an invitation out to the holograms for a charity ball at this high-falutin mansion, as an olive branch of goodwill. however, it is the exact opposite. the whole place is just a death trap-- literal trap doors, goons hidden in suits of armor with AXES. unfortunately, the plan backfires and they’re all trapped in this horrible place together. the actual show has so much camp and imminent mortality that this really doesn’t feel outside the realm of canon. bonus points here if it’s actually haunted on top of the planted traps.
• jerrica/jem identity crisis. how does this color her relationships-- romantic, platonic, and familial? please, any kind of study on her drought dynamic with rio. maybe some relationship backstory!
• anything in this suspiria-ass setting. i beg of you.

ship preferences: eric/techrat, jem/rio/jerrica confusion, astral/jem, one-sided pizzazz/jem (pizzazz pining)



disclaimer: ship preference is just for your reference, and not required to include! gen is totally cool!

tintin has had a large influence on me artistically as well as narratively! i love the subtle details herge implements in his work, how charming and funny the writing can be, and the characters that are so timeless. it’s all an adventure and i look forward to rediscovering it over and over!

treat

• tintin backstory! how did this scrappy baby-faced detective claw his way to being such a trusted investigator and writer? casefic here could be totally fun, nonlinear narrative is also Prime in this situation!
• haddock and tintin living an idyllic and domestic lifestyle. strolling the gardens, building a home-- content to be together, the two old men on the hill who know exactly what they’re about. real slice-of-life romance with the sense that there is a bigger, louder life outside these walls that their dynamic is a reprieve from.
• haddock revelling in his newfound life and happiness. never pictured himself to be a domestic, to be surrounded by people who care for him, but here he is. it makes him feels like a changed man! showcase that!

trick

• HAUNTED HOUSE!! perhaps tintin is called to investigate some mysterious happenings at a large mansion, belonging to some spiritualist millionaire, and it turns out their paranoid worries are totally founded. hell, maybe it’s marlinspike hall that’s haunted! tintin doesn’t seem superstitious at all, so seeing him trying to explain away the fact that a painting’s eyes are moving or that an entirely library suddenly has all of its books neatly stacked on the floor would be VERY fun. a solo adventure or haddock could be there to be the one reassuring tintin in a role-reversal kind of way.
• captain haddock has this ghost haunting him called “guilt” and he isn’t sure how to deal with that. well, not anymore now that he’s given up drinking. haddock battling his Inner Demons. is it easier having a trusted companion who cares for him? or does that make it harder?
• a case gone WRONG! tintin gets into a lot of scraps and gets out by the skin of his teeth-- does all that get to haddock? why doesn’t tintin seem to care about himself? and what if he came REALLY close to not making it out okay?

ship preferences: haddock/tintin

disclaimer: you don’t need to include every character in your fill!

house is one of my favorite movies of all time. i love the visual dynamism, how it exists in this surrealistic landscape and how well that reinforces its theming. all of the characters charm me so much, and i would adore seeing anything you do in this setting.

treat

• anything exploring the girl’s group dynamic! you see such a small glimpse of it, but i’d love to see any of their feelings toward each other/how they interact fleshed out. this would be ideal with the dramatic irony of what happens to them all later. fantasy and gorgeous have a dynamic in particular that i’m curious about! since they’re the first that are seen together, separate from the group, and are the last who are together with the group all dead.
• alternate perspective! what if any of the girls were the main character? how would that change the way this story is told?
• au where prof and kung fu make it out alive… i just love them very much and wonder what a post-canon in which they’re able to escape the house would look like.

trick

• house 1977 is a narrative about spirit possession (no, not demon possession, that’s boring) and i will die on that hill. has the house stood for so long containing auntie’s grief that it’s become its own entity? (some potential inspiration for that line of thought here). is there a difference between auntie and the house anymore? when did the lines get crossed? presenting the setting as its own character would be wonderful.
• fantasy having dreams that foreshadow the events of canon, maybe she hasn’t been sleeping well and is considering not going but feels that she has to. dream surrealism! maybe that fear creeps into her waking life?
• gorgeous character study where she’s slowly overtaken by the spirit of the house. power corrupts, sure, but other things do too-- sadness and regret and anger. how has the events of her father’s perceived betrayal in remarrying, her mother’s death, morphed her into a person that will be persuaded to become part of the house?

disclaimer: ship preference is just for your reference, and not required to include or even refer to if it makes you uncomfortable! gen is totally cool!

barry is the best piece of television i’ve seen in a decade. full stop, that’s that. i love its themes-- the concept of authoring your own narrative, killing you own shot at happiness at every possible opportunity, what it means to be a good person/to change and grow-- and the execution is flawless. that and my heart is soft for stephen root.

treat

• any comedy writing would be wonderful tbh. back-and-forth banter, over-the-phone miscommunications with comedic results, dark comedy involving a hit (having to hide a body with company coming over!)-- it’s all gold.
• barry/fuches, with the vibe being “you construct intricate rituals to touch the skin of other men”. lots of deep-seeded repression between two men drowning in their (barry voice) toxic masculinity. maybe reminiscing on the precious memory of eating denny’s together and talking about old tv they used to watch together, all with blood still under one of their fingernails.
• fuches character study! i love this pathetic little man so much, so seeing anything about him would bring me a lot of joy. how did he get here and where is he going? how does he take his eggs?

trick

• barry just going over his past with white-out and a pen-- rewriting and recreating himself and being so completely off the mark of the person that he really is. experimental styles would be great here-- nonlinear narrative, reverse chronology, iterative storytelling.
• a job gone wrong, a job that gets progressively worse. that’s really my favorite part of barry, i think, is that when he gets himself into some shit, he just continues to dig the hole deeper and deeper. don’t even bother to resolve it if you don’t feel inclined, i just would love to experience that feeling adjacent to secondhand embarrassment that can only be described as “what the fuck are you DOING?”.
• barry and fuches really just feed into each others’ worst traits, this ouroboros of codependency to a point where they don’t know how to function without each other. anything that showcases this feeling of not knowing what there is for them outside of each other-- mutually-- would be superb.

ship preferences: barry/fuches