Mindless Chatter

Oh, Dreamwidth, I've missed you!! I haven't been very active/interested in fandom lately, but I've missed my friends on here and I've missed posting about my writing. I'm trying to do more writing lately, and I'm finally having less writer's block lately!! Hopefully being back on here will give me some more inspiration.

A lot has happened in my real life since I've been gone. I've had a retail job at a hardware store for about a year now, which I never really saw myself doing hahah but it's been pretty good so far! I like my coworkers and the department I work in for the most part, and it's definitely not my ideal career but it's been good for now and gives me good insurance XD

Also, I don't remember if I talked about this before, but I've been trying to get a job at a museum as my Real Big Girl Job. I feel like the universe really has my back lately and is helping me, because in the past few months I've also been working on a project to start a museum collection for a local organization! It's been moving slowly, but it's so exciting that things are finally happening in the museum area for me! If you guys would be interested (and are still around?), I'd love to post more about museum-y things. I don't feel like you'd mind though!

Anyway, that's how my life's been going! Hopefully you've all been well too <3

Ok I had a really hard time figuring out how to post the pictures without them being too large for DW to post. But I finally figured out how to get them to work!!! I'm so glad I got that figured out omg!! Anyway, here are my character designs for Marcus and Lucretia made on Doll Divine! Let me know what you think.






( Read more... )

Very belated Candy Hearts post, but I wanted to talk about it still since I loved my gifts and the story I wrote! Anyway, I received two lovely gifts forcandyheartsex !! :D Both written by Obscure_ramblings, for The Old Guard fandom.

Kiss the Sun at Night - a lovely, angsty, h/c-y look at Quỳnh and Andy's first meeting!! Quỳnh, wandering alone through the desert, dreams about Andy every night and watches her live her life. The dreams are the only things that give her comfort, and she almost doesn't believe it when Andy finds her and they finally meet. It's so lovely and sweet, and I love these two so much!!

Keep You Guessing, Keep You Wanting More - a gorgeous, hot PWP of Nile teasing Andy mercilessly in bed! I love the reversal of their canon dynamic, with Nile in charge, and I love that it's clear that they both know Andy could still take control if she wanted. But she really doesn't want to ;) It's tagged as "Shameless Smut" and "Wet and Messy" very deservedly, and I think that's really all you need to know!!!

I also wrote a gift fic for thraced, A prayer and a dream. It's for The Mummy fandom, which I've realized I really missed!! The request was for Ardeth whump with Evie and Rick rescuing him, and it was very fun to write something like this with a little more plot :D I've missed writing the OT3!

I wanted to write something else for someone but didn't have time, but I might still finish it and give them a surprise gift :D

Dear Candy Hearts Creator,

Hello hello! Thank you so much for agreeing to create something for me for this exchange :D I love the Chocolate Box exchange, and I was delighted to see that there would still be an exchange with a similar theme for Valentine's Day. I'm sure I'll love whatever you create for me, so just treat this letter as a suggestion! If you need more ideas, you can find my past ChocBox letters in my "dear creator letter" tag. Happy creating!

DNWs:
- (Non-canonical or unrequested) Major character death.
- Unrequested trans/gender/identity headcanons.
- Miscarriages or sexual assault as dramatic backstory.
- Current events and modern world politics, including COVID and pandemics in general.
- A/B/O dynamics.
- Kink/smut related: scat, watersports, mpreg, incest, underage (ie, under 18)

Likes:
- I love pretty much all genres: fluff, hurt/comfort, smut, angst, character exploration pieces, more plot focused stories... Feel free to mix and match as you see fit.
- Happy or hopeful endings are preferable, but if it doesn't fit the theme of the story, sad or bittersweet endings are good too.
- Characters having quiet, soft moments — heart-to-heart talks, hand holding, touching foreheads together, cuddling... !!
- Characters being vulnerable with each other!! Maybe one is sick or injured and the other helps them, maybe there is some kind of confession, maybe they're being emotionally vulnerable with each other... Whatever you want to do!
- Supernatural occurrences or ghost stories.
- For smut, I'd love to read everything from cuddly sweet vanilla sex, rough sex, consensual BDSM/kink, all the way to dub-con and non-con. I definitely have preferences for certain pairings, though. I love kissing during sex, neck/shoulder/chest kissing, characters being desperate for each other (even if they're rivals having hate sex), one character holding the other down, hair pulling, scratching each other...
- Characters pining for each other and eventually confessing their love.
- Established relationships and domesticity.
- Devotion/Loyalty kink!!
- Firsts: first kisses, first dates, first times having sex (either with a certain partner or losing virginity), etc.
- Canon divergent AUs/Everyone lives AUs/Supernatural AUs.
- Many of my fandoms have historical settings/themes, so I'd love if you wanted to include historical details in your story. Those are completely optional though, and don't feel any pressure to do this; I'm mainly here for the characters and their stories, historical detail is just a bonus!
- Also, since this is a Valentine's themed exchange, feel free to use the setting of Valentine's Day as a prompt on it's own!


( Fandom Specific Prompts )

I wanted to do the Planner Snowflake Challenge that journalsandplanners  hosted a while back but I didn't have time to get caught up on all the questions, so I was excited to see they're hosting the Journal Jam event now too! Please feel free to join in if you see this, I'd love to have more people on my reading page doing this too. Here's the first post if you're interested btw! (xxx)

Day 1:
Either here or in your own space, answer the following question: Have you ever pivoted/made a pretty big shift in journal/planner usage? What prompted it and what was the shift in usage?

I didn't really use planners very consistently for most of my life, but I started using one somewhat consistently in college. Then I started being a lot more consistent with it at the beginning of 2021, because I'd just found out I have ADHD and learned how important it would be for my life and mental health to figure out how to be more organized than I had been! My mom used the Franklin Planner system years ago, so she got me a Franklin Planner binder and starter set and also started using it again herself. We've both gotten more into the habit of using them, so it's been nice to kinda do that together!

I've really enjoyed it so far and I feel like it makes planning more fun, because they have lots of options for customization and different looks for the inserts you can buy, and I like that it has aspects that emphasize planning your whole life and not just day-to-day stuff. I've also gotten pretty into stickers for customization, too, which has been fun! One downside to Franklin Planner is that it's fairly expensive to get started, but I like not having to buy a whole new planner every year and just getting new inserts that still fit the same system, so I think it's worth it.

 I don't think I've posted about this here, but I signed up for the sunflower_auction  fanwork auction to raise money for charities in Ukraine! There are many different charities it's raising for that help refugees and the war effort itself, and there's a week left for bidding. I'm offering all fandoms I've written for previously, and you can find my offer post here: xxx. 

I'm also going to write for a fanzine somewhat related to The Old Guard - it's to celebrate the other characters played by one of the TOG actors, Luca Marinelli! It is also going to raise money for charity, specifically the charity Pen Paper Peace which was started by Luca's wife and works to build schools in Haiti and other countries. It's the LM Fanzine on Tumblr if you want to find out more.

Now that I'm done with school again, I'm feeling very creative and into writing XD

 I'm signing up for the unconventionalcourtship  challenge! It's a challenge where you write a fic (or create art!) inspired by the summary of a Harlequin or Mills & Boon romance novel, and sign up to post it sometime in June. I haven't done this before, but I heard about it last year and it looked really fun, so I decided to try it this year!

I'm going to write a modern AU of Andy/Quynh from The Old Guard, with the summary of Yours in Black Lace by Mia Zachary:

PI Andromache Scythian just received the latest sexy note from her hot, anonymous admirer.

Signed only as “Yours in Black Lace,” the letters are becoming more illicit with every blazing word. Getting the cards at work suggests they’re from someone in the office, but she can’t be sure, and the not knowing is driving Andy crazy. When her admirer is discovered, she knows better than to mix business with pleasure, but the words are irresistible. And so is Quýnh…

Ngô Thanh Quýnh. Investigator, siren, secret letter writer. Andy knows she should keep a professional distance, but the words Quýnh wrote are unforgettable. And now that Quýnh’s in jeopardy, she isn’t just a colleague anymore, she’s also a client. Andy takes her to an exclusive safehouse, hidden away in the countryside, and she can’t fight the attraction any longer when Quýnh hands her another card. How can they possibly think about avoiding danger with far more pleasurable pastimes to distract them?

They also have banners on the UC page that you can edit with your pairing of choice, but I don't have photoshop so I just decided to use one of another femslash pairing I love! XD

(Also, please clap, I think I f i n a l l y actually figured out how to insert images on here!!! It only took me about 3 years lol XD )

 Fandom Trumps Hate is running again this year, and I'm thinking of signing up, but I'm kind of conflicted. I signed up a few years ago, two times actually, but the last time I did I wasn't able to finish my assignment, so I don't want to promise something I won't be able to deliver. I'm definitely thinking of offering The Old Guard, Original Work, and maybe Merlin, but I'm still very indecisive haha XD

I also just saw something on my reading page about the Smut 4 Smut exchange, and I'm seriously tempted by that too...

Is anyone else doing either of those? I'm just very indecisive and I need someone to convince me lol XD

 

In your own space, Create something. It doesn’t have to just be the written word or a drawing. Creativity is much more inclusive. I enjoy making jewelry. Maybe you are into yarn/thread/fabric. Compose music? Create recipes? (Ooh this kinda reminded me, but I used to do some jewelry making too when I was younger and I had a lot of fun, I'd love to do that again!)

For this, I decided to post something I wrote as a wish fulfillment for jesseofthenorth , about a character being rescued after being out in the cold! <3 It's a little late for this challenge, but I'm glad I posted it tonight because we've had a huge snowstorm and about six inches of snow today, so I'm feeling very in the mood for this story!!

I don't know if you, Jesse, or any of my followers know about this fandom, but it's the show Turn: Washington's Spies! It's about a group of spies during the American Revolutionary War and is loosely based on the real-life Culper Ring. My favorite pairing (Anna Strong/Edmund Hewlett) is predictably tragic: she's a Patriot spy and he's a Redcoat officer... *cries* I'm sure you can guess how that turned out, but they were so so cute and soft together for a while there!!! Good old fashioned rivals/enemies-to-lovers :')

Some general info: They live in the town of Setauket, New York, and Hewlett lives in Whitehall, the house of the town magistrate, because he's the commander of the garrison there. He invites Anna to come stay there with him to protect her from another Redcoat who is creepy af and is also Hewlett's arch-nemesis throughout the show. Hewlett loves horses and astronomy and is a big nerd, and he and Anna have a really cute stargazing date in one episode. I hope that's enough of an intro to make you want to watch it lol, but I think that's all you really need to know for this story! It's just fluff and hurt/comfort!


( Sorry for the ramble, read the story below! )


I might post this to AO3 in a few days after I tweak it a little...!

EDIT: Here's the edited version on AO3: read here <3