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⌈ Secret Post #6952 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


01.


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 39 secrets from Secret Submission Post #993.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 2 - posted twice ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

I went to another interesting theatre experience this evening. This time there were four pieces, all small cast or single person, and all partial shows.

The first was about a boy/man who is angry at the prospect of going bald like his father.

The second was about pollution and about the woman who was trying to help being perceived as a witch. Probably the least advanced, and rather loose, but with potential

The third showed a boy/man who learned how to become invisible. The actor created his childhood self, who was given a magic set but wasn't very good at magic, his adult self who could get the magic right, and his teenage self, with a bully. Lots of audience interaction.

The fourth was a woman character doing improv for the first time. Lots of physical comedy and a long stretch with no dialogue at all—very brave!

There was an online survey asking us to fill in three words to describe each piece, two words to describe how I felt after watching it, and giving an opportunity to ask a question.

Afterwards, we were offered a drink and an opportunity to discuss anything of interest with cast members. I did compliment the improv woman, but did not convey my thoughts (although I had them) to anyone else from the cast! However, it was again very interesting.

*

Snowflake, er...#7 LIST THREE (or more) THINGS YOU LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF. They don’t have to be your favorite things, just things that you think are good. Feel free to expand as much or as little as you want.

I like my ability to write. I learned to read when I was three and always had my head in a book if I possibly could, so I absorbed the rules of English without ever thinking about them. I very rarely get tripped by the technicalities of constructing coherent prose, so I can concentrate on writing the story. Or the newsletter, or the email, whatever.

I said to my husband just yesterday that my life would be a lot less organised without him in it. And his would be a lot less varied without me in it. I like my ability to feed us a reasonably interesting, healthy and varied diet by buying ingredients and being able to open the fridge, see what's there, and figure out what to cook. That's not the only kind of variety I bring to his life, but I'm happy that my Beast is not doing what he used to do (ie eating the same things all the time because food is just fuel). I like my butterfly-mindedness, that prods me into doing something different. I can provide variety in entertainment, too, not just food, but food is every day and important.

I like my artistic ability. I'm not a great artist, or even particularly skilled—I'd love to be better at drawing or painting what is in my head, but I find it very hard. However, I can produce interesting, tasteful things, whether those be cards, shawls, pictures or something else, that benefit from having 'a good eye' involved in the production. As I say, I'm not a great artist, but I can usually produce something a bit more enjoyable to look at than someone without 'a good eye' would produce. I like that.

And, while I'm at it, Challenge #8: Talk about your creative process.

My creative process is mostly 'let's see what happens'.

I've never been a planner. Stories do not get planned in advance. They just grow. Some discipline is imposed eventually, but not until I know what the story *is*. It starts, usually, from an idea. If I get a scene, or a moment, or a phrase, or a plot, or some kind of notion in my head that wants to be a story, that's a good enough germ for the story to start from. It might be "Lance and Adam are two different kinds of gay", for example (see Bouquet). Or, a scene in which Chris has injured both his hands and is wearing some kind of foam protective mittens and Lance goes to him and how exactly do they figure out how to have sex? (That one was particularly interesting because it spawned an entire story of which I am very proud, but did not actually happen in the story (The White Room). That's my 'this is how to write a story' brain taking over from my 'this is how to write fanfic' brain.)

Mostly I just start writing. I've been working on a romance lately, and I just started writing, and my viewpoint character emerged as I wrote and I liked her very much.

Prompts, therefore, are good. I wrote so many stories to prompts on LiveJournal's fic_requests community, because there they were, and they sparked a ficlet, and that was all I needed.


It's mostly the same with more artistic/crafty creations. I used to make quite a lot of LJ icons, and it was just a matter of doing a crop that I liked and then experimenting in Photoshop to see what happened. Sometimes I'd have an idea, but mostly I'd see what tools and resources came to mind, and proceed from there.

With knitting, it's a bit different, because I'm frequently working from a pattern. Frequently not, though—I make quite a lot of impromptu shawlettes and scarves which just involve me picking a bunch of colours that work together, and getting on with it.

Card-making, too, depends more on what mood I'm in and which of my seventeen thousand crafty bits and pieces is top of mind/closest to hand at the time. There might be layers of different papers, or shiny bits, or a glasspainted 'window' or a glasspainted topper for a stack of papers, or lace, or whatever. I don't generally set out with a plan. Which is sometimes a bit of a shame, as I would do better to get the ingredients together first and make something for a specific card and a matching envelope, but hey. I have fun exploring/experimenting.

[ SECRET SUBMISSIONS POST #994 ]




The first secret from this batch will be posted on January 24th.

RULES: 1. One secret link per comment. 2. 750x750 px or smaller. 3. Link directly to the image. More details on how to send a secret in! Optional: If you would like your secret's fandom to be noted in the main post along with the secret itself, please put it in the comment along with your secret. If your secret makes the fandom obvious, there's no need to do this. If your fandom is obscure, you should probably tell me what it is. Optional #2: If you would like WARNINGS (such as spoilers or common triggers -- list of some common ones here) to be noted in the main post before the secret itself, please put it in the comment along with your secret. Optional #3: If you would like a transcript to be posted along with your secret, put it along with the link in the comment!

Talk about your favorite tropes in media or transformative works. (Feel free to substitute in theme/motif/cliche if "trope" doesn't resonate with you.)

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So to me there are 3 categories of favourite tropes: the ones i love to write, to read and both. Note that obviously i do like everything I write when it comes to tropes, but i'd say not all of they fall under the favourite tree. Sometimes some things are a lot more fun to write than to read about.

( tropes i love to write )

( tropes i love to read )

( tropes i love to write and read )

My nephew's not-yet-fiance sent me a Christmas card wishing me happy holidays from her and my nephew and included two photographs - one of her and her two dogs and one of her and my nephew. Oh and the envelope had two return address stickers - one on the back and one on the front - same address so, of course, I Google mapped the shit out of that. Google says most of her online presence is Facebook so my journey ended. It's ok, I know enough. I'm flattered to be included but it's still kind of weird.

Both cats are in the dog bed. I think it's all good under there.

Elbow Coffee was pretty good all things considered.

And now everyone but me is hunkered down waiting for the game to start. Assuming an hour of pregame crap, they have a couple of hours to wait yet.

Event: A Hand in the Hole Flash Exchange
Event link: A Hand in the Hole
Pinch hit link: Fandoms Requested: Creator's Choice of Fandoms
Due date: 6 PM CST, January 19th

If claiming, please email the mod at themonstersoflove@gmail.com.

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Challenge #9 at  snowflake_challenge 


Talk about your favorite tropes in media or transformative works. (Feel free to substitute in theme/motif/cliche if "trope" doesn't resonate with you.)

I cheated and read an article online that listed a bunch of tropes and these are my findings. I like hidden worlds and secret societies, but I strongly dislike chosen one stories. And I don't read a lot of fantasy, so I don't tend to encounter hidden worlds much. I guess I just like the idea of their being a secret mirror of our society. I've written a couple of fics where various pantheons of gods intersect with modern society and with each other because I like imagining what might be going on that we don't see. 

I LOVE me an amateur sleuth. That's why Miss Marple has always been my absolute favorite, closely followed by Jessica Fletcher. Right now I'm reading Three Bags Full where the sleuths are the ultimate amateurs - a flock of sheep whose shepherd has been murdered! I also like amateur spies like Tommy and Tuppence and Mrs. Pollifax.

If I like the source material, I will try almost any type of AU. The only kind I tend to bounce off of are set in school; as a teacher, I find them so unbelievable that I can't suspend my disbelief.

I'm also very fond of crossovers. Sometimes I'll see someone bigging up a crossover on the AO3 subreddit and, even if I know nothing about either canon, I'll give it a try. I also really enjoy writing crossovers; it's like weaving together two different fabrics or putting together a puzzle. 

And while we are on the subject of things I like, I love writing and reading drabbles. I enjoy a fic where someone has provided a link to a playlist. I like when people play around with form and experiment, even when it doesn't quite work. I like an author with audacity. 

Challenge #9.
Talk about your favorite tropes in media or transformative works. (Feel free to substitute in theme/motif/cliche if "trope" doesn't resonate with you.)

I'm one of those people whose mind goes momentarily blank when asked "what are your favourite X?", so normally it'd take me a little while to think of this LOL. Luckily, because I signed up for a few challenges this year (most recently seasonsofdrabbles , still open for sign-ups for one more day), I had a list of tropes ready to be copypasted and, why not, expanded upon!

-Amnesia. I am a sucker for a good memory loss plot. Especially when you add angst and manipulation to it. I.e. what if someone did it purposefully? What if someone takes advantage of a character's lack of recalling of XYZ event that would've otherwise make them less trusting? And so on. I have a WIP in the works (so like, maybe for 2028 lol) that centers around such a premise, specifically in the DC fandom, with Jason and the bats. It starts with a Jason who, after being on the wrong end of a psychic attack, had Bruce heal his mind... and take some creative licenses while he was at it. Shortly after I first started developing the idea, Gotham War came out. My story would work very differently, but for a moment there, the coincidence was hilarious. 

-Time travel/loop. Especially when it doesn't fix anything, when it offers you a view of a past you can't fix, or that you can't keep. Unsurprisingly I do have some ideas involving that trope in DC, most notably one inspired by a post about Damian traveling in time and meeting a younger, carefree Talia (the time travel would be part of a larger story where I would reimagine and rework a lot of what canon does with the al Ghuls and that I don't care much for, but still).

And, well, time loops just have GREAT potential for character exploration. You can really get deep inside a character's fears with one!

-Exploration of canon historical settings, lore, worldbuilding, etc. I love it when fics explore what real events in a particular era would've been like in canon, when they get deep into the intricacies of the setting's world, etc. It really enriches the experience, and I hope my future fics can do that, at some point.

-Canon divergence. In general, I love reading and writing stories that explore "what if" scenarios, sticking close to canon up to that point so that we get to see what would diverge... and what wouldn't. When those steps are done with care and forethought, it can be incredible.

-Adapting to disability. I joke about how I love hitting characters with the stick of disability, and I do LOL. I have WIPs in the works (also, again, mostly with DC xD) where I blind characters, paralyze them, cut off their limbs, give them chronic illnesses, terminal illnesses... Or explores the ones canon gave them, too. I love stories that are... less about whump (though that too, sometimes; it's just that I feel it's not a balanced phenomenon, tbh), and more about how the character deals (or doesn't deal) with the changes

-Angst. I'm here to suffer. I want to read stories that leave me melancholic, despondent, shaking, crying. There's nothing like a well-written bittersweet or tragic ending.

-Unusual forms of fics (epistolary, outsider POV, interactive, etc.). It's incredibly fun what people can do with it! I still think about the minesweeper Murderbot fic...

-Adventures, heists, escapes, etc. It's just FUN. And it's plot. I love a navel-gazing character study as much as the next gal but sometimes I want to read and write A Story Featuring My Blorbos.

-Lovers to enemies. Incredibly underrated trope because nothing hits like this, IMO. Again, I obviously like to get my heart broken by fiction xD

-Betrayal. Another angsty trope that hits just right. I love especially to see the aftermath of it: how do the characters move forward? Can they move forward? Should they move forward? It's easy to see why Black Sails is one of my favourite shows lol; I've never seen it used so extensively and yet so differently and so well every. single. time. And I don't watch Doctor Who (I've tried, multiple times, it just doesn't stick), but every once in a while I think about this scene between Twelfth and Clara I've only seen out of context (used masterfully in a Silverflint gifset here btw).

-Mourning. Loss is a terrible and I want more stories that deal with the full scope of it, that truly make you feel it. Pluribus has certainly done it well, in depth, and in all manner of ways, and it's one of the reasons the show stole my heart as quickly as it did.

-Mind control. And specifically characters fighting it, navigating it, having to deal with the consequences of it. In general, stories about compromised agency and how the characters deal with it are my favourite thing in the world.

-Abuse aftermath. The above relates to this: characters with compromised, diminished, and stolen agency and how they fight, fawn, confront, deny, heal, stunt... all of that is catnip to me.

-Role reversal. A particular form of "what if" that can be fascinating if done right! If everything was the same except with this two characters swapping places... what would happen? What would change? What wouldn't? I don't have plans to write it, but I have thought about a role reversal AU for Jason Todd and Mia Dearden (Jason becomes the second Speedy; Mia becomes the second Robin) a lot, ever since a mutual talked to me about his (as yet unrealised, sadly) version of the idea. Even explored it a little bit here.

I could continue, but I feel that the list is more than long enough :P

Today's prompt is: smart

• You have 2 days time to submit an icon for this prompt (in other words, until prompt 2733 gets posted)!
• Prompt 2729 have been closed.
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First, a quick announcement before I get into the challenge: threesentenceficathon  IS LIVE! Go and leave prompts, fill prompts, it's a ton of fun! Even if you don't think you'll like it, you may surprise yourself. It's also a great, low pressure, quick and easy way to get the creative juices flowing (which fits in with Snowflake Challenge #8, the creative process).

Challenge #7

LIST THREE (or more) THINGS YOU LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF. They don’t have to be your favorite things, just things that you think are good. Feel free to expand as much or as little as you want.

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Ok everything is positioned and velcro'd down and cameras placed and fuck is it dusty under there. I had a coughing fit like I haven't had in ages. But it is all done. Biggie is happy. Julio is going in and out - not willing to commit.

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Crossposting icons I did for fandomtrees so I can keep track of what I've made here.

Note: These icons are created for the usage of the people I've gifted to! If you want to use one, ask them first. If someone says no, please respect that!

Fandoms: Stock, Ultraman Arc

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fandomtrees has revealed and I was gifted some great fic and art: Kevin Can F**k Himself moodboards from pattrose, a Hudson & Rex drabble from lomelinde_laurea, and a really fun Murder, She Wrote/Midsomer Murders crossover from cornerofmadness!!

Check them out at my tree and please tell them how wonderful they are!

Hello to all members, passers-by, curious onlookers, and shy lurkers, and welcome to our regular daily check-in post. Just leave a comment below to let us know how your current projects are progressing, or even if they're not.

Checking in is NOT compulsory, check in as often or as seldom as you want, this community isn't about pressure it's about encouragement, motivation, and support. Crafting is meant to be fun, and what's more fun than sharing achievements and seeing the wonderful things everyone else is creating?

There may also occasionally be questions, but again you don't have to answer them, they're just a way of getting to know each other a bit better.


This Week's Question: What are your crafting goals for 2026?


If anyone has any questions of their own about the community, or suggestions for tags, questions to be asked on the check-in posts, or if anyone is interested in playing check-in host for a week here on the community, which would entail putting up the daily check-in posts and responding to comments, go to the Questions & Suggestions post and leave a comment.

I now declare this Check-In OPEN!

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