#everything you create is a defiant fist shake against the void

[eskelchopchop]

tagged by @mondfuchs! :D

rules: it’s time to love yourselves! choose your 5 (ish) favorite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought into the world in 2020. tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works!

Uh yeeee yay For full effect, imagine me as that red-faced kid giving his presentation at the front of the classroom, talking too fast, avoiding all eye contact, and sitting down immediately before the necessary Q&A portion

5. A Standing Agreement - The one that started it all. Last Winter Break, I did nothing but replay The Witcher 3 and by the end of the gaming binge, I had the initial idea for this fic. It was the first urge I’d had to write fanfic since my Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver days, about... uh, fifteen years ago? I wrote six chapters, realized my plot structure was fatally flawed, put the fic away for five months, came back and rewrote it from top to bottom with a different focus & plot arc. It’s only 44k words, a modest length by the standard of fanfic long reads, but I’ve spent more time working on this fic than anything else that I’ve ever written. 

4.  The Color of the Wheat Fields - I found out about stillmadaboutpetra’s birthday the day before. They deserve gifts and nice things, so I wrote & edited this giftfic in a feverish last-minute fugue state. It was supposed to be a happy fic-- instead, it made them cry. Still feel bad about that. This fic is the reason I get misty-eyed whenever I see @calyxestra’s redheaded Geralt. 

3. Yearlings - Secret Santa gift fic for mondfuchs! I was aiming for a different style with this one-- sparer prose, a lot less inner monologue. I cut 2k words off the first draft, about 25% of the fic. Mondfuchs wanted a subtle fic about the unconditional trust & love that Geralt and Eskel share, so I set out to show the moment that Geskel became what they are-- that transition from bright-eyed kiddos goofing around in Kaer Morhen to the seasoned, jaded professionals who carry each other’s histories with a profound understanding beyond words. I think the fic works. Grateful to mondfuchs for the prompt & inspiration!

2. A Splinter in Time - My personal monster. This is me being my own psychopomp, marching down to the underworld and wrestling with the demons there. The fic’s not done yet; my first writing goal of the new year is to finish it. It may also be too harsh / brutal for anyone to really read, but that’s okay-- excavating that tar down in the deep is already changing me-- stories with happy endings are becoming possible again. Cheaper than therapy, if not easier.

1. After Tedd Deireádh - Artists can get kind of woo-woo about the nature of creativity and where their ideas come from. I get 100% woo-woo with this story. The first chapter poured out from who knows where, and Yen & Eskel did what they did against my own plans for the fic. It would have benefited from some editing after the fact, but oh well-- I love it in all its messy rawness. I needed a story like this. Thanks, invisible merciful muse or whatever, for donating one. 

uhhh yeah sooo I’mma tentatively tag @fayet and @stillmadaboutpetra and @lohrendrell (who tagged me in another post-- consider this a cheerful wave back! :D) and @laurelnose and @inber and @limerental, who can feel free to decline, and anyone else who wants to play because what the hell life is short and 2020 is awful and lets celebrate the good things that managed to crawl out of its toxic cesspit

#writing #everything you create is a defiant fist shake against the void #or maybe it's just for fun and that's great too #don't listen to me I'm already drunk #happy end of 2020