"Vodka/Wine Aunt Vibes"

A devil of a time — very difficult or causing a lot of trouble

Better the devil you know than the devil you don't — used to say that it is better to deal with a difficult person or situation one knows than with a new person or situation that could be worse

Between the devil and the deep blue sea — faced with two equally objectionable alternatives

Devil among the tailors — a firework that emits sparks, stars, and finally whirling imps

Devil-fire — will-o'-the wisp (i.e., a light that sometimes appears in the night over marshy ground and is often attributable to the combustion of gas from decomposed organic matter; a deceptive goal or hope); Saint Elmo's fire (i.e., a flaming phenomenon sometimes seen in stormy weather at prominent points on an airplane or ship and on land that is of the nature of a brush discharge of electricity)

Devil lore — demonology; often: a body of folk belief and custom concerning evil spirits or devils

Devil-may-care — easygoing, carefree

Devil to pay — severe consequences 

Devil's advocate — a person who champions the less accepted cause for the sake of argument

Devil's food cake — a rich chocolate cake

Devil's mass — indiscriminate cursing

Devil's tattoo — a drumming with or as if with fingers or feet

Devil theory —  a theory of history: political and social crises arise from the deliberate actions of evil or misguided leaders rather than as a natural result of conditions

Sell one's soul to the devil — to gain wealth, success, power, etc., by doing something bad or dishonest

Speak/talk to the devil — used in speech to say that someone one has been talking about has unexpectedly appeared

You want it to be perfect. Worthy. You're scared it won't be good enough. But the thing is, everything you write is worthy if you write it with heart.

That fear doesn't make you a fraud, or lazy. It makes you a perfectionist who doesn't write as much as they should because their fear is choking them. Your writing will never be perfect—nothing ever is.

So stop waiting for the perfect moment and go pour your heart out. Unleash your wild—and slightly disturbing—imagination onto those pages. Go create magic that only you can make.

and no, this isn’t me saying “write that messed up, disgusting thing” because while, yes, write it if it’s what you want (I myself enjoy writing dark fics, something I believe would be considered “vile” to a lot of people), this is me saying in a world of censorship and capitalism, ao3 really is a treasure.

The thing is, there’s no way to know where these people are coming from. In the before, when fandom was more in the corners we all knew about, you could search LJ or a message board or whatever social bookmarking site we were using. You could join the community and participate.

You could get a little dopamine hit by seeing someone tell their friends why they loved your story.

Anymore, those recs are hidden in discords, or in tiktoks or instagram slideshows that you can’t search for. They’re inaccessible, not discoverable unless you’re already there. You may never know why 27 people left kudos on an old story of yours, what they liked and found in your writing. You just get the thumbs up and a kinda lovely feeling, cause these could be your people. You could like them, maybe. You could be friends.

But you’ll never find out why they stopped by, or what people are saying about you begging your back, and that’s sad.