Back from the Grave

sometimes I write Ao3: Locally Sourced Ghost My main writing interest is Jason Todd but I'm not opposed to mixing things up

[locally-sourced-ghost]

Howdy! I'm Ghost! I occasionally post fics on ao3 under the user Locally Sourced Ghost (Speaching)

I mostly focus on Jason but I've been thinking about writing some other things too.

Quick guide to my tags:

#Speaking beyond the veil: is just all posts that I've made

#writings from the grave: All my writing including links to my fics and drabbles that are only on tumblr

#My Gravestones: Are specifically my fics on ao3 like With Time, Operation Holiday, etc

#House Hauntings: Fics/writings I've written for other people as gifts

[iguanodonwildman]

Hey! Just a reminder! AO3 does NOT have an app. This garbage was made by theives who steal fan artist’s work and sell it back to you.

“Oh, but it’s free!” There are ads. They are making money off of this. They are stealing from the creators you love and you are hurting those same creators if you use this app or any similar app.

Don’t use it. Report it at every opportunity.

[kyra45]

To summarize it overall:

App acts like a browser but paywalls offline reading while reviews state it’s full of intrusive ads and lacks basic functionality such as commenting. Do not use this app. Use the ao3 website. The app uses Gen-AI content for imagery on categories and is essentially forcing people to pay if they want to read your fics offline.

By the way you don’t have to pay anything to read fics offline. You can do it for free using easily accessible resources that don’t cost anything.

You do not need to pay $1 every week, $2 every month, or even $18 a year. It can be done free! By anyone!

You can also turn ao3 into an app itself by adding it to your Home Screen. You don’t need to download shady apps.

[adulthumanproblem-deactivated20]

The way to read fics offline is by downloading them onto your device. AO3 lets you do this, in multiple file formats, right at the top of the page:

If you don't have a PDF reader on your phone, there are any free ones (I personally like ReadEra). Or you download it as HTML.

AO3 doesn't have an app, and doesn't need an app. Don't fall for this. There's no telling what they'll do with your login data.

[helpful-writing-tips]

if you're trying to get into the head of your story's antagonist, try writing an "Am I the Asshole" reddit post from their perspective, explaining their problems and their plans for solving them. Let the voice and logic come through.

[locally-sourced-ghost]

WE'RE SO BACK!!!!

[luna-azzurra]

Quick Tips for Writing Descriptions

⟢ PICK THREE DETAILS MAXIMUM! your reader doesn't need to know every piece of furniture. Give them the broken clock on the mantle, the smell of cigarettes embedded in the couch, the water stain on the ceiling shaped like Italy. Their brain will fill in the rest. You're not writing an insurance inventory!!!

⟢ Use the senses people forget. Everyone does sight and sound, but what about: the metallic taste of fear, the way humidity makes your clothes stick, the phantom itch of being watched, that gross feeling when you touch something unexpectedly wet. GET WEIRD WITH IT

⟢ MOTION IN YOUR DESCRIPTIONS!! (Please?) don't just tell me the curtains are blue, tell me they're "shuddering in the AC blast" or "hanging limp like they've given up." Static description is a sleep aid. Make things MOVE

⟢ Your narrator's voice should COLOR everything! A depressed character won't describe the sunset as "beautiful mauve and amber streaking across the sky," they'll think "the sun's dying again, doing its whole performance art thing with the clouds"

⟢ Stop with the mirror descriptions! :( "She looked in the mirror and saw her auburn hair and green eyes" NO. Banned. Forbidden. Find literally any other way. Have another character notice. Show through action. Slip details in naturally. The mirror thing is lazy and we all know it

⟢ Similes and metaphors: COMMIT OR DON'T DO IT! "like" is not a get-out-of-jail-free card. "Her anger was like a storm" is BORING. "Her anger rolled in with the methodical inevitability of a hurricane, and he was standing in a trailer park in Florida" now we're TALKING

[7-inches-of-satanic-panic]

shoutout to that one headcanon fic writers carry with them into every fic. like even if u missed the authors name or don’t recognize the style u see the headcanon mentioned and it’s like, oh yeah, i know who wrote this, certified banger from them once again

[locally-sourced-ghost]

A Not So Happy Holiday

Words: 1.7k

Fandom: Batman - All Media Types

Characters: Jason Todd, Dick Grayson

Tags: Holidays, Holiday Special, Jason Todd's Bad Childhood, Jason Todd Needs A Hug, but doesn't get one, Dick Grayson is Bad at Feelings, he's trying, Miscommunication, Selectively Mute Jason Todd, no beta we die like jason todd, Angst, Angst with No Happy Ending, Mental Health Issues, Mentioned Catherine Todd

Jason just wants winter to be over. It's cold, and he can't grab hold of the holiday cheer everyone seems to radiate. Jason deals with the errands that are keeping him from his warm bed and hopefully dodging Dick's attempt to celebrate the season.

[ticklefighthockey]

for your hockey writing reference: a detailed article about gameday schedules and morning skates by a seattle kraken beat reporter

[locally-sourced-ghost]

For the WIP game: I am VERY curious to know what "Sick" is all about 👀✨

Thanks for the interest!! :D

Sick (a placeholder title) is an older work that I haven't gotten around to completing. It follows Jason Todd dealing with being sick while he's acting as Red Hood early on. He doesn't have anyone to support or help him but still has to run his criminal empire. He can't take a break, and continues to push himself, despite becoming more ill, until he's falling after a misplaced grapple.

I mostly haven't finished it because I wasn't sure where I wanted to take it from there. Whether I had him get involved with the Batfamily, have to continue running his criminal empire alone, or hell if he just died from the fall or something. It's one I'd like to come back to if I come up with what happens next/how it ends

I hope this is a satisfying answer ^-^

The WIP game

[locally-sourced-ghost]

WIP GAME

Thanks for the tag @gremlinscogs (doing this on my writing blog. Main blog: @speaching )

RULES: make a new post with the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous and tag as many people as you have WiPs. People send an ask with the title that most intrigues them, then you post a snippet or tell them something about it.

Some of these are more complete than the others. I also have chapter 3 of With Time on here even though it isn't standalone (I promise I'm working on it)

A Not So Happy Holiday

With Time (chapter 3)

Supernatural AU (not the tv show)

Tic Fic

Sick

A Valentines to Remember

Jason Gets Arrested

Died, Revived, Thrived (Rewrite)

Feel free to participate but no pressure!

@traditionalartist @meebsy342 @waywardkingdomdreamer @wrdn-tabris @sanguisvergilii @leafynib @acxa-kogane @the-flaming-nightmare

[uglynavel]

I wanna know where people have lately gotten the audacity to leave comments on fanfics talking about how much the fanfic sucked and negatively critiquing an author's fic like it's a published book review.

It pisses me off cause I've seen authors abandoned or delete their fics because of this.

You're getting fanfics for FREE! No one asked for your opinion.

I hope y'all know as authors we get email notifications when you comment so we see EVERY comment that's been left.

We also can see the negative reviews you leave when you bookmark our fics

[robinweek]

Welcome to Robin Week!

We're hosting a week-long event dedicated to celebrating the flippier and quippier half of the Dynamic Duo!

Each day is going to spotlight a different Robin: Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Tim Drake, Stephanie Brown, Damian Wayne, We Are Robin, and a free pick!

The aim is to spread some love to Robins from all flights of life! This could mean anything from your favourite Robin bobbin' along in their very own cape, to focusing on their relationship with one of the other bats, to examining their relationship to the mantle itself, or something else entirely.

This event will run from April 20th - April 26th. Prompt voting is currently: OPEN.

If you have any questions, check out our Rules and FAQ, or send in an Ask to hear from us directly!

Robin Week Schedule

Prompt Submissions: January 1st - January 10th Prompt Voting: January 10th - January 20th Prompt List Posted: January 20th Working Period: January 20th - April 20th Event Posting: April 20th - April 26th

April 20th: Dick Grayson Day April 21st: Jason Todd Day April 22nd: Tim Drake Day April 23rd: Stephanie Brown Day April 24th: Damian Wayne Day April 25th: We Are Robin Day April 26th: Free Pick Day

For the free pick day (April 26th), you can make a fanwork for any Robin of your choosing! That could be one of the mainline Robins (e.g., Dick Grayson), an alternate Robin (e.g., Carrie Kelley), or even another DC character who has never been Robin before that you would like to try your hand at putting in the cape for a day!

[locally-sourced-ghost]

Sorry for neglecting my fics yall. I promise I do have things in the works, but alas, The Demons™ persist

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

every day I learn bot comments on ao3 are stooping lower and lower

anyway if you get a comment like this, chances are that they are bot and their goal is to do whatever it takes to get you to delete your work, most certainly (from what I’ve heard) it’s because they want to “safely” steal your work, use it to train their ai without you being able to rightfully claim ownership of your work since “there’s no proof that the work was stolen/was posted elsewhere first by you” because the original source has already been deleted.

THEY ARE ALL BOTS. at first it was “ao3 is deleting fics and your entire account will be affected unless you delete the fics yourself” then it was “this work contains contents that are illegal and they have already reported you and your fic to the police” (yes, that’s how desperate these bots are), and now it’s this.

report their comments to ao3 for spam—in this case, specifically, I think you may be able to report them for harassment too—and don’t pay attention to them, most importantly don’t delete your works, don’t feel discouraged by their comments. remember that they are bots and they mass comment something like this on people’s works at random to get people to delete their works. (or even if they’re not bot, they are still pathetic bullies who don’t deserve your time or attention.)

MORE ABOUT BOTS AND SCAMS PLAGUING AO3’S COMMENTS SECTION HERE

[unnieu-deactivated20251230]

People keep saying lock your works, or turn off guest comments, no, I refuse. I'm going full balls to the wall and raw dogging this. Bots wanna come and leave hate on my works (when I actually get around to posting, I'm a slow writer 🫠) I'm going to show my dominance by completely ignoring them. Their hatred fuels me, their spam comments fans my fire to keep going.

Like hell I'm going to let these bots dictate on how I present my works on the website. If my story is only filled with spam or hate comments so be it, I don't care. I'm not going to let some sad no life bot creators bully me into changing my settings on my works in hopes of limiting the bots interacting with my work. They can get bent.

[lereadinggrinch]

Just found out you can change the kudos message on ao3 and honestly? Best day of my life

Every time you leave kudos on one of my fics, you’ll get one of these messages:

[locally-sourced-ghost]

Yeah!! These are the ones on my one-shots (doesn't really work on multi-chapter fics)

[locally-sourced-ghost]

I wanted to make potentially a continuation of Operation Holiday, but I'm feeling a little too angsty related towards the holiday spirit. So if somebody wants Jason holiday angst, I'm definitely all ears for ideas.

[prokopetz]

The reason your fantasy pantheon doesn't feel authentic is because you're starting from the wrong end. Real-world polytheism is syncretic – just deities from neighbouring cultures getting smashed together at high speed and leaving it for nerds with too much time on their hands to figure out how it makes sense. You are yourself a nerd with too much time on your hands. Don't start out asking yourself what domains make sense together. Pick domains at random and work backwards to invent a theology and metaphysics whereby of course the god of war is also the god of baked goods. What kind of silly question is that?