SpookyMoth

The very first fic I posted here on Tumblr makes my toes curl to think about. I don’t often talk about it or reference it, but I reread it before writing this post just to review my old work, and really, given that I was 15, it’s not that bad. Make no mistake: it’s not good, and I genuinely hate it. But neither of those reasons speak to why I won’t ever be linking it here or even on the masterlist I wrote years ago.

More than anything, that fic is so very unlike me now that it near-on hurts to consider it as having come from me.

Even at the time, it wasn’t like me. It was for a ship I felt nothing for in a scenario I wasn’t particularly invested in. I only posted that ship first out of an obsessive need to order that series I hoped to write chronologically, and the ShikaTema one that soon followed was not quite so plastic but was still not what I really wanted. However, much to the chagrin of my current self, back then, I wanted nothing more than for other people to read my writing. I wanted strangers to tell me they had enjoyed themselves. I wanted to know I was doing something for someone. I enjoyed writing for writing’s sake — of course I did or else I’d never have done it! — but when I posted those first posts and people LIKED them?

Fuck me — I felt like I was flying!

I floated into a more authentic vein relatively quickly from there. There was ShikaTema galore on this page, as well as ships that I’ve since left behind but still have slight soft spots for, ships like LeeTen, MetaHima and MiraDai, who I’ve since come to like “rival” ships of quite significantly more. I even hosted a LeeTen week at one point. Madness, come to think of it. But excellent fun, still!

Another stark change to now is that back then, I wrote mostly canonverse type stuff. You’d still be pushed to find me writing true canonverse. There was rarely physical fighting or anything remotely ninja-related. There was divergence or some crude replication of our world shoved in with all the grace of the uncoordinated teenager I was. I had thoughts of writing more thorough and deliberate AUs without knowing how to label them yet, but not knowing if anyone would want read them, I never let them take shape, and eventually (along with those ideas) faded out for a little while and finished school.

I returned to fic writing proper with CHESS in 2018, and from there I think we mostly know the story, right?

I made a bunch of Tumblr posts, then transitioned to ao3. Joined discord servers — one then two then three — that let me look in on different people and culture so uniquely, and even created one of our own with some incredible women in @unioncolours and @thespookymoth. I wrote and beta read for zines, again with my friends (cheers to you always @loknnica !!!) , hosted an event or two, and helped with others, all of it with highs and lows. I moved cities and then moved country (more on that later), where I got to spend so much of my time and real life with the glorious Bex, and expanded my world view so far outside what I ever expected. And all because on 24th September 2015, little teenage Becks was brave enough to press publish on a fic she wasn’t sure of.

Talk about the butterfly effect, eh?

From a writing perspective, though, I only grew out of focusing what other people want to read to only writing what I want to write semi-recently, or so it feels. I’ve gone on about that far enough in the past, so I won’t waffle now, but it’s not lost on me that since that realisation, I’ve also barely posted. I’m more aware of that than anyone, and though all you lovely people say it’s alright and to take my time, I’m aware.

I had even hoped that I might’ve got a GM update for you all today, but that didn’t happen — I’m sorry. Work-life balance is hard at the moment, but I’m chipping away and I hope it won’t take too much longer. Rest assured that it is certainly not because I don’t want to write. I even wish this reflection could’ve been granted more time, but sadly life hasn’t been kind enough to grant it recently.

I will admit here though that the idea of finishing Grandmaster is terrifying. Be it conceptually or actually live on ao3, my darling GM has been a constant for over a third of the 10 years I’ve written for this fandom, and the sort of constant one gets far too comfortable. But, more than that, the GMverse has become a home away from home from me. I can slip into it, at any point in the timeline, no matter where I am physically or mentally, and find myself a tad more steady and at peace, which has been very welcome these past few years.

It must be said with this fact, too, that many people have made GM what it is. While I don’t write for others anymore, it does still light me up to see others enjoying my work and to know it makes people happy or inspired is an honour I can’t describe. To think that the wonderful @twnj has drawn as much for it as she has, that people have read in tandem (love you, book club — thank you again for your patience), that @clumsydragon28 has left more comment parts per chapter than I have in total this past year, and that people have read whole other books and listened to new music all because of something I dreamed up in my old box room in Oxford almost 4 years ago… I can’t fathom it, really. I can’t. I can’t be anything but grateful and honoured for the people who’ve made GM and its associates what it is.

Some of you, I’ve been meaning to message forever to thank you and have chickened out every time. @hoshirosethorncosplay, for example: you have been such a constant in the comments since the start, and seeing your name on my dash or in my emails never fails to make me grin stupidly. Thank you. @bostoncalled — I’ve been working up the courage to thank you for your outrageously kind words for the longest time and failed, so expect me in your DMs soon enough, too. And so many more whose names I don’t know that I know on here. If you see this, know this:

You lovely people are the heart of GM. Wherever you are, whether you comment or not, I’m so grateful for you.

I thought at times, even without it having finished it, about whether I could ever look back on GM with the same sneer as I do my very first fic here on Tumblr. It seems possible that I could, someday, because even CHESS wasn’t safe from that feeling, but that was through the years of ship wars and whatever strange person decided to hate Ino so violently that CHESS became their target.

But anyway I sense that GM won’t suffer that fate. Too much of it is too close to my heart. Like I say, it and its universe is a home.

In particular, GM Shikamaru, will forever remind me of the best decision I ever made. Spending two years with my dearest darling Bex on my doorstep in Finland and getting to invade her world and learn her language, exploring and laughing and nattering into the night together just because we could was magical, and that coming to a close has been difficult. It still is, but when I look at GM — at the welcoming arms of its Finn — I think of my most favourite Finn and I’m flooded with gratitude beyond what I can express.

The last ten years have shown me many good times, but you, Bex, my friend, are at the heart of all of them. Kiitos paljon kaikesta. Sä oot kultainen. I absolutely fucking adore you ♥️

Now, I hoped in my last reflection that I’d be reflecting on finishing GM in this one, and that I’d be beyond just mentioning you to what will come after. Well, oops. Hey ho. But even so, I think that’s enough reflection for now. GM will get its own essay when the time comes.

Ahead is where we ought to look, now, really…

Shock horror: I’m not done with this universe. You might’ve seen something floating around, here or on the blog of the oh so mighty and oh so outrageously talented @twnj (who deserves an entire speech dedicated to the incredible spark she has brought to my life and to our fandom as a whole — you, my friend, are a dream. thank you for being you). Just the other day actually, she posted a dreamy related drawing for Shikadai’s birthday.

That ‘something’ I allude to is what I’ve maybe written the most of since my last reflection, actually. As far as I know, there is around 70k of GMJ (more formally known as Piano Man) tucked away in GoogleDocs, waiting for its moment. It’s been a joy to write, and is very soul soothing, not only for being in GMverse, still.

I’ll say now that I’m sure many of my readers are here for the ShikaTema, and I don’t blame you — I always have been, too — but if you enjoy any of the aspects of GM outside the romance (family, identity, etc.), or just want to continue the post-Strangers ride, I think you’ll enjoy.

Besides, ShikaTema make themselves known in GMJ, too. Make no mistake there.

Many things have inspired me when I work in GMJ — books, movies, and music, of course — but there has been a point of inspiration for that fic that cannot go unmentioned. One thing I’ve failed to capture in this reflection is the sheer amount of fics that have inspired me over the years. For now, though, I’ll mention one that his inspired GMJ particularly, and I don’t think I’ve adequately thanked her for, even now.

@clumsydragon28 wrote a story a few years ago that changed my life and approach to storytelling upon reading it. In the stunning stunning fic that is Plié, she so beautifully captured her love of so many things: of her city, of her love of dance, the love in the power of just listening, and of the love and kindness she has always there for those around her. Perhaps that last one was not intended, but such is the nature of our darling Barb. She really is that excellent even without trying.

Every time I write GMJ Inojin chattering himself stupid, or GMJ Shikadai losing himself in his art, and even in the midst of the chess game scenes of GM before it, I think of our dear Barb, her crafts, and her total devotion to them. To feel someone’s love shine through their words so honestly is to feel them close by, and though I have not (yet!) been granted the pleasure of invading her doorstep in person as I have Bex’s, her work still places me there, heart open.

Thank you, Barb, for being not just my no1 Billy Joel and Sai consultant, but a calibre of person and friend that most people can only dream of meeting in their lives. I’m so very lucky and so very grateful. Love you, mate ♥️

Anyway, to my ShikaTema-focused readers: as someone slowly drawn further and further into the ShikaJin fold over the years by one person or another (you know who you are), I must say it’s a good flavour, and one that I recommend.

Oh, and a note specifically to @servenna — 1) you are a wonderful human being and I’m so grateful for you, and 2) quite some time ago, I mentioned to you having written some GMverse ShikaYoshi. Expect that in the not too distant future — you’ve more than earned it given your patience with GMs “posting schedule”, as have you all. I post here to hold myself accountable, but make no mistake, I’m incredibly excited to share it and all the excess lore.

I fear I’ve nattered on far longer than I hoped to, and probably failed to cover the events of just this year, let alone the 10 I’ve managed here. Clearly, I’m yet to learn the skill of conciseness I set out to achieve years ago, and having chewed your ears off too long already, I will say nothing more than this:

Pressing post on that tumblr post ten years ago was the best decision I ever made. The life I lead now would not exist had I not done it. The person I am would be so much shallower and unfulfilled, simply for the lovely people I’ve come to know from being in this fandom.

Christ, my tumblr can almost go to primary school. How mad is that?!

Thank you all for being around, whether you’ve spoken to me, read me, or just seen me in passing. It’s been a pleasure, and it will continue to be. For 10 more years? Maybe, or maybe not. But I’ll make a dent in that, I’m sure.

Let’s at least get my tumblr to legal drinking age, eh? Then it can finally read the contents of my ao3 without restriction.

Cheers,

At the end of September 2024, I felt like I had crawled out of a grave, maybe one of my own digging, but a grave, nonetheless. I had spent the entire summer trying to remove Naruto and the fandom out of my life because I felt absolutely awful, unsuccessfully. My deadline for deleting my tumblr would have been 22.9.2024. I didn’t delete it, as you see, and managed, maybe as an attempt to forgive myself for trying to hard to remove ShikaTema from my life, to upload the second chapter for we hold galaxies. My fandom anniversary passed, and I felt a bit happier and inspired once more.

I decided for example to say fuck it to my old insecurities about hosting a ship week for Shikadai x Inojin, my boys. I worked on a nice intro post and poster for the week, which was a weekend held 5-8th of December in 2024. I felt very satisfied with how I structured the post and partly out of laziness decided to host the event and the posts on my personal account instead of creating a new account solely for the event, which many hosts do.

I had earlier promised myself that if I wanted to leave the fandom, I’d write a big, epic ShikaTema long fic once more, like I used to do back in 2019-2021, as a goodbye gift.

However, before I had decided to sit down for real to get it written, a new idea crashed into my head and refused to leave. Like lightning from a clear sky, I was inspired to write a fic for the ship Ino x Hinata. I had never written Hinata before, and barely even showed proper interest in her character, but this idea stole my heart, and the character Ino would be in love with in the story had to be her. The main gist of the plot was that Ino and Hinata are both soon-to-be 40 years old, have children, and are for different reasons single. They meet each other, become friends, and happen to fall in love, and the fic ends with them having a new constructed family dynamic.

I tried to start writing what I call “The Suna” fic, the ShikaTema one, but my heart was sold. InoHina needed me, I needed them and their story. So, I wrote.

This was during a time in my life where things were stressful and I moved twice within three months. It was rough. I barely had the energy to write, but what the fic turned out to be, and the points I wanted to share, were so important to me that I still kept on writing. What was so important for me in the fic was to “make it boring”. And by that I mean realistic. Realistic in how life as a parent with a full-time job and other stressors in life, along with a child, works, and then smash the romance the parent experience into their life, and by extension the parent must make that romance also fit into their child’s life. Many people want to read fanfiction as a means to escape their real life, but here I specifically wanted realism to come to the fic. The characters talk about cleaning hair out of the shower drain, ffs, so I mean that level of realism.

I thoroughly enjoyed writing it. I think so many parts fit into it so lovingly and, man, I just love writing parents. That’s probably the least sexy thing on AO3 by what readers are interested in, but man… I think the world needs more caring parents, also in fiction. Especially mothers, who so often are killed off in media.

The InoHina fic, Beneath the Starry Sky, ended up being 35k and 7 chapters long. During the process I had to take a break to write my own works to feature in the Shikajin Weekend event. I decided to write a Shikajin two-chapter, where the chapters were connected to two different prompts.

The core of the fic today you are stubborn, tomorrow unstoppable was the canon injury Inojin suffered in chapter 12 of TBV. He was impaled by a pillar! But survived! And apparently walked after that! And I wanted him to be injured forever! Over the course of my fanfic writing years, I’ve learned a lot about the human body and what it can take and what it can’t, and I’ve fallen in love with the idea of the shinobi body being vincible. A body of bone and muscle and organs and if some of those are damaged, they are damaged.

I wrote the fic of Inojin being paralysed from the chest down as a result of the injury, where one chapter dealt with him receiving the diagnosis and how he takes that, and the second chapter features him and Shikadai years after when he has fully learned to live his life in this new way. I lovingly call that fic “my cake”, from the cake meme about fanfics (“look, two cakes!”), since it’s not the first time Inojin is being written as a paraplegic. Not that many people participated in the Shikajin Weekend, but it didn’t matter, what mattered was that the event existed.

After that fic was done and published, I also published the final chapter of the InoHina and felt like I succeeded in not deleting myself and that I finally could say I was back in fandom after last summer, since I finally, reached my longed-for goal of publishing one million words on AO3. I wasn’t too happy but felt a huge sense of achievement. I published a reflection over this goal in December after it had happened.

Well, now I had got Shikajin Weekend out of my system and the InoHina fic completely published. That meant I could now with one million words under my belt, finally, start writing my Suna fic and ShikaTema, my OG love in this fandom.

But when I was about to write it, something tugged at me. It turned out that… I didn’t want to write it, even if I began it and was satisfied with how the first chapters turned out. It was as if writing the InoHina had turned a switch inside me and it refused to be turned off.

I was constantly daydreaming of writing more fics featuring a F/F couple – or wlw as I like to call them. I made up an entirely new canonverse InoHina fic in my head (which I to this day think is a quite good plot) and I daydreamed about almost every ship between the Naruto girls, but mostly about Ino and the idea of her being a lesbian. That version of her became quickly a sort of comfort character for me. I even changed my profile picture on some of my social media to her with the lesbian flag.

However, along this new obsession came another companion.

Shame.

I felt shame for having this intense of interest towards these ships and I felt like a traitor to my fandom. Then one may say, “Bex, you are like 30 years old, you should stop caring what other thinks. You have written Shikajin when it was highly rare, what’s different now?” If it was so easy to not care what anyone thinks I wouldn’t have had that problem.

What brought up these feelings was a concoction of many different aspects, one of them being the hostile environment that blossomed in heated discussions about F/F ships and fics that I stumbled upon. I have ever since I began writing fics written around two wlw-fics a year, so those ships and feelings I personally have when writing them were not new the slightest for me. What was new was a newly found awareness of what fandom ‘as a monolith’ thought of this genre of fics and especially about those who write them, and of course the fact that F/F ships were the only thing I wanted to write. It felt as if people would see me as a downgrader.

I felt myself mould into a stereotype, perhaps even a parody of said stereotype, that I wasn’t sure I wanted to fit into, yet I couldn’t resist. I began thinking that people saw me as a woman who is “like that” in a negative way, as someone who was annoying. I felt lonely. I never wrote the canonverse InoHina fic because of these feelings. And I know these feelings are wrong and ridiculous to have. That didn’t make them any less real.

I still indulged in works about wlw. I read more F/F fics than before. In late January, I listened to a podcast episode about an elderly lesbian woman who had written a book about AIDS through her perspective from when she lived through those years and I was immediately struck. Right there and then, I knew I had to take inspiration from that novel and write a fic, and I knew just the perfect pairing for that setting.

InoTema. I have written a long one shot about them before and then have them have a situationship in another long fic (which ended with ShikaTema and Saiino), but I’d boldly say they are my fourth favourite ship of the entire Naruto cocktail after Shikajin, ShikaTema and Saiino. Maybe it even shares third place with Saiino. In February I found an event called Femslash Big Bang and joined it with the ambition to write this idea featuring InoTema as the main ship, all while I wrote my Suna fic.

However, writing the Suna fic turned out to be more challenging than I expected and in March when I had around 20k written, I had to take a break. It was partly because of my feelings of shame I struggled with during those months and partly because of low motivation. Instead of ShikaTema, I wrote a chapter about Ino. Not her as a lesbian, but the second chapter in Ino’s Motherhood fic, about her feelings about breastfeeding. I loved it and I love her. The chapter was short and sweet, only a bit over 2k. I published it and then didn’t publish anything for five entire months.

The other part of struggling to write the Suna fic was how the fic needed to be paced. I was crafting a huge canon divergent world where I remodelled Suna as a society from scratch and that took much effort and the depths I went into world building felt like one in need of an editor, haha. I came up with many small world building aspects and plot points that needed to be planted earlier in the story, so a lot of the process was just going back to the beginning and write in small scenes, which was surprisingly tedious. However, with this fic I will withhold most of my begging for a beta, since I already ensnared my dearest darling friend @notquitejiraiya to beta the InoTema fic, which I began writing in April 2025. I had at that point borrowed the book that was going to be used as research material and had made notes.

My biggest reason for wanting a beta was, that since the fic was part of a big event, I firstly found it polite to have worked my hardest on the piece that would be published within the event’s boarders. I wanted the English to be good. The second reason was because of the touchy subject of AIDS and all that came with it, and I felt like it would be a good idea to have someone tell me that “homo” is seen derogatory in English, while it’s in my own language the neutral word for a gay person, haha.

I thought I would write the InoTema a bit on-off during the entire summer, but I fell, predictably, in love with my story and this version of the characters. I wrote it with concentration and dedication for the entirety of May, June and probably a bit of July as well. The process of having a skilled beta reader was wonderful, and I learned much in the process. Notquitejiraya has beta’d me before, but only around 2,5k long one shots. The step to a 25k long fic was big, but it was so very fun. My InoTema fic Spearheading was published in September in lines with the rules for the event and I’m so proud of what the fic turned out to be. I dearly love it. It fulfilled a need I had. The fantastic @twnj drew artwork for the InoHina fic as part of the same event, and I’m very grateful and happy to have seen my fic work as inspiration to her wonderful interpretation!

During the spring I also watched the anime Dungeon Meshi, and very quickly fell in love with it, especially a few characters and the development they all had. I even came up with a fic idea for it, but unlike what Naruto did to corrupt me, no other show but JJK has managed to make me write a fic for it, yet. So far, I haven’t written anything for Dunmeshi, but eventually one day. I’m quite sure that the 7th Majsasaurus year, should we be lucky enough to have that, will tell you all about the Falin x Marcille fic I’d potentially write. They gave me something fun to think about, and I also liked thinking about general themes and stereotypes which were broken in the series.

During the summer I also found fun in imagining Himawari as queer, perhaps a lesbian, mainly due to how she was written to have gone to a pancake café with Chocho, and the idea of it being a romantic date (or unrequited love from Himawari’s side) was too cute to ignore, even if zero to few people agree with me. I don’t know if I can write a fic about it, though I would maybe want to. I don’t know, I just like to imagine it and daydream.

I got a sudden burst of inspiration for my Suna fic and reached 50k of words in August, while also finishing completely off the InoTema fic. I was so proud of it. While I’ve become much less of a snob with it as I’ve matured over these six years, I’m still so happy to see people compliment how well I handle difficult topics.

Within September I managed to crawl up to 60k of Suna fic, wondering and pondering whether I should post the first chapter without the fic being finished or not. In the end, maybe a tad frustrated that I didn’t or just couldn’t write what many people want, I decided to post the first chapter yesterday, on the day before my anniversary day.

A Shadow Facing South, my new long fic, is now live. Wow. To quote what I wrote in the author’s note: “We're getting messy politics, worldbuilding and bisexual mess Temari 😍”. I hope it will be received with love.

So. That was a year, once more. What do I predic the 7th Majsasaurus Year will contain? I predict the entire Suna fic finished and done on my AO3. I also predict another “lesbian Ino”-fic, because I’m not ready to let her go. I think the next time I’ll try my hands at Ino x Karin. I also assume I’ll write another Shikajin fic – maybe one focusing on a villain Inojin because my god that hits different. The newest chapter in the Boruto manga surely might make me. You see, we like the flavour of war criminal Inojin.

Over the course of the summer my negative feelings about my relationship with wlw centric fics evened out and it doesn’t feel bad anymore. I don’t feel ‘wrong’ anymore.

Thank you to everyone who has read and cared. Especially notquitejiraiya for being my best friend for so long and for laughing with me, beta reading and hyping up. Thank you @clumsydragon28 for your dms being open at any time of the day for even the most random small and silly topic.

Thank you.

Back in 2020, when I was feeling the biggest high of being part of fandom, I saw already my newly gained Naruto friends, one after one, say they have or will or want to retire. I was at that time so confused by what they meant, why would they want to retire? In that covid year I wrote the most, over 300 000 of my words were published that year (among them Trial of the Heart and To dance above the Stars), and by the end of 2020 I alredy started dreaming of reaching one million published words. If I could write over 300 000 words a year, simple math told me I'd reach it in no more than three years. I told everyone, self-confidently and annoyingly as always, that I won't retire from fandom before I have reached my goal of one million words.

Now, life isn't as simple as that math, and my depression in 2021 crushed that dream already. I think I got 150 000 words published in 2021, and on that road I stayed, and the yearly output dwindled. I still wanted to reach one million words before 2025. Of course I had a happy civilian life in real life with family and work, but the fandom life has for a longer time felt like slow strangling.

This summer I already tried to quit fandom, lacking only 50 000 words of my goal. It was agonising to want to delete myself from online while still holding onto that dream, and in the end, with the help of my little InoHina idea and #ShikajinWeeked24 I managed to break through that goal. I reached 1, 000, 000 words 12th of December, 2024.

And now, I am free to retire, free of my own silly self-made shackles. Do I want to retire? I don't know. I don't think I want to. But I don't feel genuine happiness right now when it comes to fandom. I still get panic attacks sometimes.

Don't get me wrong, I have one fic I'd love to write, a ShikaTema long-fic, canonverse. But I will let the idea rest for a month. I will gather strength. I will try to make up new goals for myself.

I want to join some fan weeks!

This got a bit sadder than I thought it would be, sorry! You will see more of me later, I dearly hope. I dearly want to.