#I thought it was the draft version I forgot to delete (it was not)

[myossssss]

Quick drawing to celebrate the 22nd anniversary of Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney \o/

[airosuiren]

𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔒𝔫𝔢𝔰 𝔚𝔥𝔬 𝔑𝔬𝔱𝔦𝔠𝔢𝔡 𝔗𝔬𝔬 𝔏𝔞𝔱𝔢

A/N: Okay, so… You ever walk into a room where you were once unwanted, and every head turns because suddenly you’re everything they’re not? Yeah. That’s this chapter. 😌 This one’s for the readers who’ve leveled up in silence. Who were counted out too early, who walked out of the fire looking dangerous instead of damaged. This is [Y/N] stepping back into the space that broke them—and not breaking this time. Let’s be clear: this isn’t a reunion. This is a revelation. Grab your tea. Let’s shake a few foundations.

Thank You @arislia for this Idea!

And I'm sorry for not making this longer because I had this planned (I plan my series in google docs after tumblr deleted my old drafts). These will be shorter BUT, the next series I promise to make it longer!

𝔓𝔞𝔯𝔱 1, 𝔓𝔞𝔯𝔱 3

You weren’t supposed to stand out. That’s the irony. You had trained yourself to be unseen, unheard, unfelt—because the moment you started to feel, you started to hurt.

But when the League summoned their families to a secure location, the world you built in the shadows was forced into the light.

You arrived alone.

Lois had offered to fly with you. Clark had said they’d wait at the entrance. But you declined. You wanted them to see you walk in under your own power. No crutches. No borrowed names. Just you.

When you stepped through those doors, the reaction was immediate.

The Queens lit up like someone had flipped a switch. Ollie pulled you in for a hug, Thea waved you over, and even Dinah looked proud. Clark’s face softened. Lois’s arm went straight around your shoulder like it belonged there.

And the Batfamily?

They stared.

Not with joy. Not even with confusion.

They stared like you were a ghost. Like they were seeing something they’d buried come back to life and demand retribution.

You didn’t smile. You didn’t greet them. You turned away from them the way they once turned away from you.

Because if they wanted to pretend you never mattered, then they didn’t get to matter now.

Still, their eyes followed you.

And then the meetings started.

The League began dissecting the threat. Hackers. Leakers. Global-scale blackmail. Someone had infiltrated systems that were supposed to be airtight. It wasn’t just about identities anymore. It was about dismantling everything.

You knew how the media would spin it. You knew how Gotham’s elite would react. And most of all, you knew how fear worked when it had the public in a chokehold.

So you spoke.

You laid out a counter-strategy like you’d done it a thousand times. Because you had. In Metropolis. In Star City. Behind the scenes of political campaigns and corporate power moves. You’d sharpened your teeth while the people who threw you away forgot you even had a bite.

The room listened.

Clark deferred to you. Lois backed you. Oliver vouched for you.

Bruce stayed silent.

But you caught the flicker in his expression when the others nodded along. When Diana praised your foresight. When J’onn said you understood humanity better than most.

The others? Dick tried to pretend he wasn’t surprised. Tim’s stare was surgical, dissecting you in real time. Damian looked like he’d bitten glass.

And the new girl? She finally looked at you.

With fear.

You weren’t the quiet reject anymore. You were something else. Something dangerous. Something they didn’t make—and couldn’t control.

Later, in private, Alfred brought you tea. You almost cried at the gesture.

Almost.

He said nothing about the past. Just, “You’ve grown.”

You wanted to scream, I had to.

But you just nodded.

The truth was, they needed you now. And you were going to help. Not because they deserved it.

Because the world did.

And even in the darkest parts of you, that mattered more than revenge.

But they would never forget this version of you.

Not the one they raised.

The one they abandoned.

The one who rose anyway.

𝕭𝖔𝖓𝖚𝖘! (𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝙳𝚊𝚢 𝚈𝚘𝚞 𝙻𝚎𝚏𝚝)

(this is kind of a bonus I thought of while writing...)

It had been late. Quiet.

The kind of quiet that seeped into your bones. The kind of quiet that made your footsteps echo like they didn’t belong.

You were fourteen. Maybe fifteen. You don’t remember the exact age—only the feeling. Raw. Unseen. On the edge of breaking.

Your ribs ached. Your shoulder throbbed. You’d taken a hit meant for Damian—an instinct, not even a choice—and landed hard on a rooftop ledge. Rolled too close to the edge. Limped all the way back. No call of concern. No one on comms. No “Are you okay?” Just silence.

It should’ve earned you a lecture at worst.

Instead, it earned you her.

The new girl.

Barely two weeks in.

Bright. Perfect. Adored.

You limped into the Batcave, helmet tucked under your arm, dried blood crusted over your eyebrow. You expected quiet, maybe concern, maybe just the acknowledgment that you existed.

What you got?

Laughter.

She was in your seat. At the computer. Wearing your gear.

The armor you'd trained in. The one Alfred helped custom-fit after months of trials. The one you’d stitched, cried in, bled into.

And she wore it like it had never belonged to you at all.

Tim leaned over her shoulder, pointing something out on the screen. Damian hovered close behind. Dick was saying something about how “clean” she moved in the field.

And Bruce?

Didn’t even look up.

You stood there, waiting. Expecting. Begging, in that small, desperate way you told yourself you’d outgrown.

Then, finally—his eyes flicked toward you.

And his voice cut through the cave like a scalpel.

“You’re benched. Permanently.”

Just like that. Like a weather report. Like an afterthought. Like you were a dented weapon tossed in a drawer.

You opened your mouth—“But—”—

And then Alfred was there.

With a tray.

Tea and towels. The same ritual. The same script.

But this time, he didn’t meet your eyes.

Not once.

You watched him walk past you like a ghost.

And then—then—came the final blow.

The girl in your gear turned to Bruce, tilting her head with practiced innocence.

“Was I a mistake too?” she asked softly.

A test. You knew it was a test. A way to secure her place. But you didn’t expect the knife that followed.

Bruce didn’t even hesitate.

“No,” he said. “But she was.”

He didn’t mean for you to hear it.

But you did.

And the sound it made in your chest wasn’t a crack. It was a shatter.

You stood there for maybe another full minute.

No one turned. No one asked you to stay. No one noticed the way your fingers curled so tightly around your helmet that the edge dug into your palm and drew blood.

You went to your room. Packed your gear. One piece at a time.

You stood in the center of that tiny space—bland walls, no posters, a bed that had never felt like yours—and realized you’d been living in a house, not a home.

You left the suit on the bed.

Left the tracker on the desk.

Left your voice in the hallway.

And shut the door behind you.

You never opened it again.

A/N: Whew. They called the meeting to fix a crisis—and walked into their biggest one yet: the ghost they buried came back golden, angry, and smarter than all of them combined. And let’s talk about that power shift. She didn’t gloat. She didn’t lash out. She just existed loudly in the place that tried to erase her. And they couldn’t handle it. This wasn’t revenge. This was justice with restraint. Power without apology. Presence that didn’t ask for permission. Next chapter? Let’s make them earn the right to say your name again.

—Your eyes-still-wet, hands-still-shaking, soft-but-spiteful author 🖤💫

Taglist: @feral-childs-word, @trashlanternfish360, @astro-girly1, @suneaterscape, @thatcatladywrites, @arislia, @kittzu, @ottjhe, @tinybrie, @wpdarlingpan, @ryuushou, @simpingpandas, @lettucel0ver, @moonxmio, @kneelforloki, @sirenetheblogger, @xzmickeyzx

Let me know if I missed someone!

[beyourownanchor6]

20 questions for fic writers ✍️

Tagged by my dear @spotsandsocks 🩵

How many works do you have on ao3?

249!

What’s your total ao3 word count?

1,588,699 ummm guess i really never can stfu 😅

What fandoms do you write for?

mostly 9-1-1, but also teen wolf. debating another but we shall see..

Top five fics by kudos

if i lay here, would you lie with me (forget the world) (over 3k kudos 🥲)

nobody can do everything

i want to love you (but i don't know how)

five + one (istg i'm gonna come up with a title for this so i don't have to see this embarrassment of one anymore 💀)

if i asked you to stay, would you?

Do you respond to comments?

always! i appreciate people taking the time to leave them <3

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

—uhh either of these since they're both mcd ooop 🫣

dancing after death (you and i)

come back home (version 2)

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

—mm i'll go with chris doesn't come back au since it was full of angst and everyone suffered 😂

wake me up (i'm drowning)

Do you get hate on fics?

no just annoying/unnecessary comments sometimes 🙃

Do you write smut?

i may have written a few....

the slutty suit (i think this one's self explanatory 😏)

upstairs/downstairs (pwp on a rainy day in the fire station)

i'll let you fire my hose if you merry my christmas (author!buck writes pwp x amatuer model eddie for his book covers)

beautiful drama series (buddie meet on a dating app and start up fwb)

Craziest crossover:

uhh, well there's my step up au: let me lose myself

or there's my divergent au: crossfire

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not that i know of...

Have you ever had a fic translated?

i don't think so. someone asked once, but not sure what ever happened with that

Have you ever co-written a fic?

yep, with my wife @loserdiaz 🫶🏻 (i think i know what our next one shall be 👀)

—no body, no crime

—this is my idea of fun (playing video games)

—i don't want to keep secrets just to keep you

All time favorite ship?

buddie ofc 😌

What's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

—uhhh probably the buddie fwb buck 1.0.2 that i started, deleted, but still have the notes for....rawie look away

What are your writing strengths?

keeping them in character and metaphors, according to my lovely readers 🥰

What are your writing weaknesses?

keeping things short 😭 (idk i could make a whole list but don't feel like tearing myself apart atm lmao)

Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

—to each their own

First fandom you ever wrote in?

teen wolf!

Favorite fic you’ve written?

i hate picking between my children 😭

i'm gonna go with duck buck, just bc i've been thinking about her lately 🐥 (and i'm sure y'all are tired of hearing about my favorite one 😂)

the ducking of evan buckley

—so i definitely forgot this was in my drafts hfurnj. if you’ve already done this just ignore me <3 tagging: @loserdiaz @monsterrae1 @redlightsandicedtea @honestlydarkprincess @bi-buckrights @onward--upward @elvensorceress @daffi-990 @wikiangela @hippolotamus @wildlife4life @eddiebabygirldiaz @confetti-cupcake @queerdiaz @jackluvsdaniel @ronordmann @spaceprincessem @underwaterninja13

[okayth3ndeku]

So quick question: how do i report plagiarism/stealing on ao3??? Or can I even request them to take it down? Rundown of the situation:

Last year I briefly befriended someone and bc we had initially gelled well I agreed to work on a fic (and several other projects) with her as a beta reader. This is not what ended up happening. she would send me these drafts that were vaguely coherent, riddled with spelling errors, tenses in the wrong place, rambling sentences. basically, it was a hot fucking mess, and she put no effort into self-editing at all. so, I would take her mess and basically rewrite the entire chapter for her. this took me hours per chapter. I honestly feel like I put more work into the fic then her and that I was just crafting this girls stream of consciousness thoughts. Then we had a falling out over something irrelevant to this and she basically ghosted me and halted work on all our projects together. and since there was nothing in writing that made anything binding I just kind of took my losses and kind of forgot about her. Until today, when I happened to notice that the fic was no longer there in my bookmarks. So, I looked to see if she had deleted the fic or what was up and lo and behold, the fic was reposted. I figured she had rewritten it since the summery was different, I clicked on it to read, bc despite not being friends with her anymore I was invested in the plot of the story I had spent Hella hours working on. but as soon I read the authors note I knew she just copied and pasted the chapters. so of course, I opened my copy of the draft (I was conveniently removed from the master copy) and its word for word my work. I don't want her to use my writing. I don't want her to take credit for my work, and this girl is a compulsive liar, so I know she is taking credit for it or minimizing my involvement with the process if im mentioned at all. but the thing is she's already posted the chapters I've worked on, so I'm kind of curious how this is going to play out. bc there is honestly no way that girl can copy my writing style when she can barely structure a sentence together. so Tdlr : i worked with someone on a fanfic, had a falling out and now shes using my work in a reuploaded version of the fic. wtf do i do?

[beauzos]

Had this thing in my drafts since forever and have filled it out a bunch and then go nahhh and delete it as I am terribly wont to do with charts for some reason but anyway, here's my progress on @batmanisagatewaydrug's book bingo (blank template here if you'd like to play) for 2025!! Here's a breakdown of my progress and ratings, as well as my plans for future reading under the cut:

Literary Fiction: A Council of Dolls by Mona Susan Power | 2.5/5 ⭐

"But I can’t imagine anyone keeping Mama down, not even Dad, a Marine with medals. She’s the only person I know who grows when she gets mad, gets bigger and bigger until it’s like she fills the whole room, and there’s no air left to breathe."

Really disappointed by this one since Mona Susan Power wrote my favorite book of all time, The Grass Dancer. The first chapter of ACOD is a masterpiece and was originally a standalone work, then converted into a novel. The rest of the novel does not live up to the quality of the first segment. I highly recommend simply reading the first segment, Naming Ceremony, which can be read right here. Extremely raw and real.

This woman knows how to write complicated women with astonishing depth, I just feel the rest of the book tries to copy what made the first segment work and it's just a worse version every time. But she's a brilliant author. Read Grass Dancer. There is nothing like it.

Sequel and Graphic Novel/Manga/Comic: the second Warrior Cats graphic novel | 5/5 ⭐

"meow"

I like Warrior Cats. I know I'm not supposed to double up on squares with the same book but I forgot and I don't feel like fixing it currently lol. Also I just very rarely read sequels. I'm not really a series guy a lot of the time.

Anyhow, I think this one is a bit better than the first graphic novel. I think the art has improved a little, it's very dynamic, very nice-looking. I think it adapts the books pretty well, whereas I felt like the first one, in its attempt to streamline the story, left out some very important plot points.. I really like this one. Excited for the last one.

Fantasy: Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell | 1.5/5 ⭐

"This revelry was a kind of fear, for hatred was the fear people let themselves enjoy."

I thought I'd like this book but I was majorly diappointed. Purports to be a monster romance but there is virtually nothing monstrous about the monster, really. She just acts vaguely antisocial and knows way, way too much about human culture and the intricacies of human sexuality despite being a weird monster in medieval times (How does she know the words allosexual and enby?). I've spoken at length about why I don't care for this book, so I won't go on.

Instalove, they don't even discuss getting together, they just are and you'll wish they weren't, amen. Shame since I actually like the romance trope of monster x a human who loves them despite their monstrousness, but that's not really what this was.

Animal on the Cover: The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones | 4/5 ⭐

"What I am is the Indian who can’t die. I’m the worst dream America ever had."

One of his best works. A bit slow, takes too long to get going since a lot of the early portions are repetitive. But as the person I am I cannot resist the allure of a supernatural horror Western, nor Native fiction. I've been begging for a Native-written Western for literal years. Dream come true. The ending makes up for the slow pacing. It's so good and so weird, very SGJ.

Set in a country you've never been to: Grey Dog by Elliot Tish | 2/5 ⭐

"A good woman. How odd that the phrase has such a particular meaning. One might say 'a good man' and mean anything — there are as many ways of being a good man, it seems, as there are of being a man at all. But there is only one way to be a good woman. It is such a narrow, stunted, blighted way to be that I wonder any woman throughout history has been up to the task."

Took place in Canada, I think. They don't really make it clear but that's how I understood it. Neat concept, but virtually nothing happens till the last 50 pages. Very underwrought, portrays itself one way but is a completely other thing, a significantly worse thing. There are way, way better "female rage" stories out there. Horror was far too sparse. I signed up for fucked up animals and there were barely any. A victim of its poor marketing, really, which is a shame. This happens a lot with books where I would have maybe been more receptive if the summary, well, summed the book up more clearly.

Science Fiction: The Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich | 3.75/5 ⭐

"This is how the world ends, I think, everything crazy yet people doing normal things."

Every common criticism of this book is basically true. It's kind of complete nonsense, very badly explained, like 0 explanation on certain things that are portrayed as integral to the plot, yet are never seen at all basically. Said integral thing could, quite literally, be removed from the book and it would have no impact upon the plot. But I like this book, I don't know why. I just like Louise Erdrich, I think. I think it's a better and also worse take on The Handmaid's Tale, which I was not a fan of, but Handmaid was a more coherent book. To quote Benoit Blanc, "It makes no damn sense... compels me though."

Nonfiction: Custer's Trials by TJ Stiles | 5/5 ⭐

"And how much he suffered merely to appear in his own eyes what he wished to be!" –Leo Tolstoy

Read the explanation for this square after but like. Okay I learned something new here I'm counting it LOL. Anyway, I've read this one before. I am clinically insane about this book and anyone who follows me knows this. It's my favorite nonfiction book of all time and it is probably one of the best Custer books ever written. I still learned some new things because I'm just forgetful. What did I learn... oh, I learned he, Sheridan, Grant, and Sherman competed to see who could kiss the most women at an army reunion for some reason. Very funny. Excellent book. I'm sure I learned something more important but I don't recall.

Romance Novel: Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey | 1.25/5 ⭐

"When there's people around that we don't trust, we let them think we're the kinds of people who are allowed to exist."

This is not a hardcore romance book but the romance undercurrent is strong enough I'll include it. I understand this won an award and people were nuts about it, but for me, it is probably one of the only books I've ever read where I don't like a single thing about it. Can't think of anything. The writing is fine though, but the entire book just does not work for me sadly :( which is a shame because it's a sci-fi Western with queer themes and I think that's cool as hell.

Romance is forced. You're telling me this woman's girlfriend was executed for being gay in this world where women, especially queer ones, are severely oppressed and like a week later or something she's over her trauma entirely and pining over someone else with no guilt at all? Well, the guilt is mentioned once but nothing is done with it, because it would get in the way of the hamfisted romance. Like, it'd be fine if the romance was worked towards slowly, like this woman opening up again and falling in love slowly with someone she admires and connects to, but it's forced into basically their very first interaction. Let this woman HEAL first my GOD.

It's a real short book and it feels like an outline, not a novel. If it was like 400 pages it might've been a more coherent experience and probably would've made the romance flow a lot better than trying to shove it into an 160 page book. Clearly it worked for other people, just not me sadly.

Horror: American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis | 5/5 ⭐

“There is an idea of a Patrick Bateman, some kind of abstraction, but there is no real me, only an entity, something illusory, and though I can hide my cold gaze and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable: I simply am not there."

Different and yet not from the film. It's fire. Book is definitely an acquired taste, especially writing-wise, as it's dense, repetitive and monotonous (intentionally), and filled with twisting passages that blur reality and fiction constantly, but everything worked for me. I love it. Strongly recommend checking trigger warnings for this book before reading it, even if you've seen the film. But if you can stomach, it's pretty brilliant, at least to me.

Historical Fiction: God's Country by Percival Everett | 3/5 ⭐

"He's white and I'm black and I was fightin' him and two-hundred white witnesses can't convince the twelve I'll never see that I didn't kill him."

It's alright. I like Percival Everett's style a lot, it made the book extremely readable and I sped through it within a day. He's an excellent writer and I plan to read James eventually, which would fill out the 2024 award winner square for me. This book just, like, goes off the rails about 70 pages in and never gets back on, and to me that makes the book kind of unsatisfying to read. Just detour upon detour, and detours from detours from detours. Can't say it isn't fun to watch how wild things get, though.

That said, the portrayal of race and the way Black, white, and Native lives intersected in the West was brilliant. You should read this book for the social commentary alone, because the plot is all over the place anyway.

Bookseller Rec: The Magpie Coffin by Wile E. Young | 2.75/5 ⭐

"When you traveled as much as I have, seen and done things that I’ve done, you learn that under the skin we’re all meat. It just comes in different flavors."

Counting this as a bookseller rec. My coworker who showed me this book hasn't read it, but she recommended it to me because she knows I love Westerns. It was alright LOL. It's my first splatterpunk novel and I don't think he went nearly hard enough. Expected more out of the violence than what I got. There's one really solid, visceral scene I liked and made me uncomfortable (a success, therefore!) but that's as far as it goes. Characters are all just kind of terrible people and that's fun. Interesting world; I really love Weird Wild West books. Westerns with speculative elements bring me great joy. It's a novella, could be longer, etc etc. It's just kinda there but it was fun. Something different.

WHAT'S NEXT?

Reread a childhood favorite: I plan to pick up and reread Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery. I've had this deep urge to read it again for a while and I really need to pick it up. I love this book and I could use a little joy in my life right now.

2024 Award Winner: James by Percival Everett, as previously mentioned. I have every plan to read this, I just don't know when. I love his style and I think I'll really enjoy this as someone who enjoyed Huck Finn.

Published before 1950: I plan to reread Dracula by Bram Stoker eventually. That, or read Moby Dick by Herman Melville for the first time.

Social Justice & Activism: One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad. I have this, just haven't gotten around to it yet.

Short story collection: The Rock Eaters by Brenda Peynado sounds good, so might pick that up sometime soon. Otherwise, I've been debating revisiting Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado.

20th Century Speculative Fiction: The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle. Been meaning to check this one out, my dad owns it so I'll see about reading it sometime.

Umm that's all I got for now. Okay bye

[my85volvo]

Prompt!

Okay so I reblogged this a few days ago and accidentially posted the unfinished version instead of saving it in my drafts, then accidentally deleted it, which is embarrasing but whatever. So here it is again. I didn't follow the prompt exactly but I was so inspired by all this angst!

Thanks @faladrast for the inspo!

"I...didn't think you'd come," Stiles whispered to the ground.

He was still tied to the iron chair that was bolted to the floor, his wrists and ankles burning from the tightly bound rope. The dead bodies of 3 hunters lay across the dimly lit cellar, and Derek stood over them with his claws unsheathed, soaked in blood. His eyes were glowing a deep Alpha red, brighter still against the contrast of the poorly lit room.

"Of course I came," the wolf spat out while striding toward Stiles. "Why the hell wouldn't I?"

He seemed...angry. Derek moved behind him and cut through his restraints.

"I'm sorry," Stiles said, voice shakey.

When Derek came back around to face him, he was still panting from the effort of ripping the captors apart. Stiles could tell he was concentrating on pulling back his shift, because he took a few breaths to close his eyes and sheathe his claws.

Once Derek opened his eyes again, they were back to the hazel green that Stiles remembered. Derek moved his hands to cup Stiles' face and rest their foreheads together.

"What the hell were you thinking? Don't ever run off on your own again. I thought--" Derek choked on his last words, choosing to gulp down the rest of his sentence rather that say it aloud.

When Stiles felt the pain in his aching muscles and raw skin start to fade, he pulled away from Derek's hands.

"I'm okay, really. You don't have to."

Derek scowled, but he stepped back to let Stiles stand on his own. He was a bit shakey at first, then managed to take a few steps with only a slight limp. What hurt more was knowing Derek came here and risked his life for someone he didn't even want to be with anymore. Stiles was glad that Derek still saw him as a friend, but he chastised himself since all he seemed to know how to do these days was be a burden on the wolf.

"Come on," Derek said, heading toward the door. "Stay close, there's probably more coming."

Stiles followed dutifully up the stairs, measuring his every breath, trying with all his willpower to just be good. He wanted to crack a stupid joke about being a damsel in distress or hug him so tight that Derek's stubble would imprint on his cheek. Honestly, he was so damn happy to see him that he almost forgot how much Derek must hate his rambling and clingy-ness.

Suddenly, Derek stopped in his tracks. He tilted his head to listen for something, then reached back and grabbed Stiles' hand to pull him along. The pair moved silently the rest of the way up the stairs, through the kitchen, out a sliding glass door, and into the dark tree line past the back yard. Derek didn't let go of his hand, and he didn't speak a word until they reached Stiles' rental sedan parked on a dirt path 20 minutes later. He noticed that his duffle was packed and tossed in the backseat. Derek must have found it at the motel, where it was left behind when Stiles was taken.

Refusing to hand over the keys, Derek sat on the driver's side and waited for Stiles to buckle himself in before speaking.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Derek asked with a frown. "Why did you just leave?"

"I just thought that it would be easier for you, if I left. I'm sorry that I...I'm sorry you had to come all the way out here."

"Why the hell would leaving make things easier for--" Derek stilled, his knuckles going white around his clenched fists.

When he turned toward Stiles, his face was blank. He opened his mouth as if he was going to say something but must have thought better of it. Stiles waited, expecting more anger or annoyance or disappointment or all three. Instead, he stared at Stiles with an unreadable expression for several moments before finally speaking again.

"I see," replied Derek.

He started the car and slowly made his way down the muddy dirt path, eventually hitting a narrow, paved road a few minutes later. Stiles had no idea where they were, somewhere inland in Nova Scotia based on the lack of the salt-brine smell in the air, and they rode the entire way in silence. Derek would flex his hands and occasionally growl under his breath, but otherwise kept his eyes on the road. Stiles let quiet tears fall while he looked out the window, grateful that Derek didn't comment it.

Derek drove extra carefully, seemingly unconcerned that they would be followed, and ended up taking just over 3 and a half hours before pulling in front of a small cottage. It was going to be awkward staying here together, after everything. Stiles made a mental note to find an alarm and wake up early, so they could get out of here and to an airport as soon as possible. When they were parked, Stiles unbuckled his seatbelt but made no move to get out. Derek just sat there, staring straight ahead, frozen with a clenched jaw and rigid back.

"Just tell me what you want," said Derek.

"What?"

"Do you not feel safe with me? Do you need more space? I won't climb in your window anymore, if you want. I can also get you an apartment--something that's just yours, without me or your dad. I'll hire a coven to ward it, too. We can even install mountain ash frames if you need them." Derek turned toward him, his stern eyes transformed into ones of hope and longing.

"No, Derek, that's not--"

"Were you afraid to talk to me? Did you think I would get violent? Because I would never, Stiles. I would never hurt you, no matter how angry I got." Derek reached out to grab Stiles' hand, but withdrew before the touched. "I can go to therapy, or we could go together if that would help. I know I have a hard time talking, but I'll be better. I can learn, I can be better for you."

"Derek, you're fine. You don't have to keep trying. It's okay, really."

"Maybe it's okay for you, but it's not okay for me. Please, Stiles. Just tell me. Tell me what I have to do to get you to stay."

Stiles didn't want Derek to stay with him out of pity or obligation.

"Derek, you..." he started, unsure of how to continue without breaking down into sobs. "You deserve happiness. You don't have to stay with me because you think it's the right thing to do."

"...the right thing to do?"

"Look, I won't run off on my own again, okay? I really wasn't going after those hunters, I just needed to get away for a while and see the aurora borealis, but I guess one of them saw me at a bar and thought they could score some points with the Argents. So, if you want to be with someone else... I won't let it affect the pack. I just needed a bit of time to, you know, adjust to the idea."

"Stiles, what the hell are you talking about? I don't want to see anyone else. I want you, and not out of obligation. Because I--I love you."

They had only been together for a few months, and Derek never even said he liked him. Never said anything close to that, really. They just sort of...fell into bed together after a particularly close call with a pack of chimaras, and when Derek kept sticking around, Stiles thought they could be something more. But then the phone call, and the date, and...it made more sense that Derek would find someone better.

So, when Stiles heard those 3 little words come out of Derek's mouth, his heart felt like it was trying to leap out of his chest. He made a noise somewhere between a gasp and sob, and then the tears came. Derek dove across the bench seat and held him, pressing his face into the crook of Stiles' neck.

"I'm sorry," Derek said. "I'm sorry if that was too much, we don't have to be anything you don't want us to be. Just stay, Stiles. Please. I'll be whatever you want me to be."

"B--but," Stiles stuttered between sobs. "You s--said I was t--too much, and--and that woman, she--you looked so happy with her."

"What woman?" Derek pulled back to look Stiles in the eyes. "I never said you were too much, why would I ever say you were too much?"

Stiles wiped his eyes and looked at Derek. He seemed so vulnerable, so broken, and Stiles was only just beginning to realize that it was his fault. He was so, so wrong.

"I heard you on the phone talking about me. You said, 'He's too much, all the time, and I don't know what to do with him,' remember? Then I saw you on a date, smiling at some woman... you barely even smile at me, so it just seemed like... you were happy with her."

Derek sighed and rubbed his forehead, letting out a light chuckle.

"The thing that was 'too much' wasn't you. It was my instincts every time you left. Did you know I had to stop myself from following you home every time you walked out my door? Obviously I kept failing, because I was at your window every other night."

Derek lightly held Stiles' hands and looked straight into his eyes. Stiles listened in disbelief and tried to tamp down the constant flutter in his chest.

"And the woman? She was a party planner. I don't know how to... I wanted to do something nice for your birthday. Something you would really love. So she asked me to tell her about you. Our meeting was supposed to be 30 minutes, but I spent nearly an hour just talking about everything you like and how amazing you are."

"I'm sorry," Stiles threw himself at him, wrapping his arms around his back and clutching onto the leather jacket as tightly as he could. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry--I love you, I love you so much, and I thought you didn't want me anymore, and I didn't want to be a burden, and I was so miserable since I left, and I couldn't find a decent burger anywhere in that stupid little town, and I just thought of you the whole time and how I missed your cooking and the smell of your loft and how you liked to hold my--"

Derek stopped his rambling with a kiss so desperate that it had Stikes reeling. It wasn't gentle by any means, but it still felt like he was pouring every single ounce of love and want and need into his lips. Stiles melted under him, letting his mouth go lax as Derek held onto his jaw and guided his tongue where he pleased.

When he finally pulled away, they were both a little out of breath.

"If you ever thought I didn't want you, then that's my fault. One I will remedy immediately. And frequently," Derek said as he slid back to the driver's side and opened the door.

The slam was a bit excessive, but Stiles had no time to dwell on it because Derek actually leaped over the hood to open the door for him, then grabbed him around the waist and headed him over his shoulder.

There were many playful protests on the way into the cottage, but Derek didn't set him down until they were in the bathroom. He stripped him, somewhat rudely, and herded him into the shower. Derek removed his own clothes to join him, and he spent the next 20 minutes gently scrubbing every single inch of Stiles' skin. When Stiles made a move to turn their shower time into something much sexier, Derek pushed his hand away and continued to clean like he was on a mission, despite the very obvious growing situation between his legs.

Derek barely let him take a step the rest of the night. He got him dried and dressed, then bundled up and fed, then tucked into bed. If Stiles had any doubt about Derek's desire for him, it was squashed that night. The wolf spent hours worshipping his body with slow fingers and measured licks. He marked his pale skin with little bites and bruises covering his neck and shoulders. When they finally, finally made love, Stiles cried and begged and melted into him, and Derek whispered a never-ending stream of 'I love you' and 'you're perfect' and 'you're mine.' They didn't leave the little cabin all week.

I love misunderstanding fics.

Teen Wolf Sterek Prompt:

Stiles and Derek are in an established relationship. Stiles then overhears Derek on the phone, saying something like “I don’t know what to do about him.” Stiles assumes Derek is talking about him, and decides to surprise Derek during his lunch break and change his behavior because he assumes Derek is getting sick of him, when he sees Derek laughing with some girl. 

Stiles assumes Derek has been trying to break up with him/was cheating on him, and so he leaves Beacon Hills to go to Europe for a while, leaving just a note for Derek that says something like “Be happy.”

Derek is freaking out, not understanding what is going on, (because he wasn’t cheating and wasn’t talking about Stiles on the phone)

Nobody can get in contact with Stiles, but finally someone finds out where he went and Derek goes after him. 

There are a few just misses of almost running into each other. Maybe Stiles is practicing his magic or research skills with the packs he is running into or something. 

Then they meet. Maybe Derek saves Stiles’ life, and its super confusing what Stiles is talking about while they are still fighting the monster, before Derek figures out what happened, somebody kills the dang monster, and then there is lots of comfort and fluff and better communication all around. 

[demonio-fleurs]

As a sewist who got her start in cosplay, I would love to hear about your handmade Spider-Gwen suit!

mfw i completely forgot that i ever said something about that on this blog (it doesn't help that the day this was sent i had mentioned/showed the suit to customers at my store so i was like "ah shit, did they find my tumblr??")

so yeah! i made a handmade spider-gwen suit before the pandemic. sadly, it was never completely finished. the only thing i had left to do were the legs, but i had also slightly fucked up the collar and arms so like, a month before the pandemic i decided to restart. and then the entire world shut down, i went into a deep depression that i am only just now clawing myself out of, and sadly my gwennie cosplay has sat in a box gathering dust for the last three and a half years. but lemme walk through my process anyways!

unfortunately, i can no longer find the instagram account of the cosplayer who inspired me to make my own cosplay. i don't know if i unfollowed her at some point (unlikely) or she deleted/got deleted, but in 2019 there was a fairly popular cosplayer on instagram who made her own spider-gwen costume from scratch, and posted her progress updates, which helped me out a lot!

but basically, i started with a simple spandex/zentai hero suit pattern that i bought from joanns, and modified it to fit my needs. my method for making the black/white contrast was, instead of just sewing the black and white parts together/hemming them together, i would use reverse appliqué to make it look more seamless and cohesive. you can see an early version of this here . i would make two versions of each piece for the torso -- one white, one black -- sew them together, then trim away the white and reveal the black!

it was HARD! doing a ^ turn on a sewing machine is incredibly difficult, and i had only a few months practice. but it was so much fun to troubleshoot, and when i finally got it "right" i was so happy! unfortunately, i only focused on the torso portion of my bodysuit, and not the rest (which will come up later) and once i felt like i got the reverse appliqué and the technique needed to do those harsh turns on a sewing machine, i moved on to the expensive materials.

for the fabric, i used yaya han's scuba hexagon stretch fabric in white , and then simple four way stretch fabric in a black faux leather for the black and a basic pink fabric designed for leotards for the pink undersleeves. it was pretty simple and easy to use, although very nerve wracking to make those first cuts! i also spent a LOT more time focusing on the back of gwen's suit, as i felt like in my practice run it didn't feel right. i was OBSESSED with the comics, so i spent hours just studying how robbi rodriguez drew gwen, how the lines worked, and i think i went through 3-4 drafts before i finally settled on a pattern for the back that i felt "fit".

the entire process of building what i thought would be my final suit was slow but rewarding. for the pink undersleeves, i basically made a simple square pattern, traced it on a massive swath of fabric, then went thru with puff paint and spent an hour painting the fabric! that kinda bit me in the ass when i was assembling the suit, as the puff paint was hard to sew through. if i had to do it again, i would just do the puff paint later or find some alternative method of making the blue spider lines stick out. once the torso, arms and collars were done, i sat down one day to assemble the entire upper half, and ended up with this! as you can see, it isn't the best and there's a lot i could have done the better (the entire gap at my arm pits and collar stick out the most to me) but it actually looked really good when i put it all together, i am incredibly proud of how the lines ended up, and how smoothly it all came together.

at first, i wanted to still assemble the legs together so i could have a semi-functioning suit for sakura con 2020. but i already had at least two easy/casual cosplays i could do, so my second plan was to do another attempt at a spider-gwen suit. you see, after discussing it w/ some other friends, i came to the conclusion that the problems i had with my suit stemmed from the fact that i took a pre-existing pattern and made modifications to it, when the existing pattern was not designed for that. if i was going to make a home made suit that worked, i'd either need to spend a lot of time w/ cheap fabric and pattern paper to make my own pattern, or find a pattern that could be modified to how i needed it to be without having the same problems. i then found this pattern on etsy, bought it, and began working on it. i bought new, cheap fabric, resigned myself to the fact that i'd want to do a full test of the pattern with the cheap fabric and not just the torso, and started working on it! i got the torso cut out and ready to go....

right as the world came to an absolute freezing standstill in march 2020. and sadly, despite making promises to myself again and again i haven't touched my spider-gwen cosplay since. i fell into a really bad depressive spot, lost my entire living situation, and just haven't been able to get that drive back. my commute to work is also significantly longer than it was pre-2020, so i am gone from the house for 10hrs a day and i don't really have the time i used to. i have made a promise to myself to at least start casual cosplay again in 2024, with the plans to revamp my 616 Gwen Stacy cosplay in the next couple of months (although that means having to trim bangs again -- uGH). i do not know if i will ever go back to a handmade spider-gwen cosplay, but if you want, you can always look at my highlight reel on my insta (linked above) to see the full process of me making my spider-gwen suit.

[friend-of-giants]

Director's commentary on a scene of your choice 👹

Heyyyy! Just for you, I'm going to dive into the original backstory of Miss Wren, and a scene that I had written long ago but ended up scrapping and sadly, no longer have.

Originally Wren was going to be raised by Nords. I had actually based this on some of the early sketches I had done of her, in which she had longer, braided hair, which I thought was fitting of Nordic culture. My very first rough draft of the Raven Rock chapter included this idea, complete with dialogue from Wren such as "by Ysmir" and a brief exchange of Teldryn telling her she sounds like a Nord, and her responding that her family were Nords.

I even went so far as to write a whole scene where her Nord family found her when she was very young, which is the scene I deleted a long time ago. It began with a Nord couple with a young son of their own doing some work outside the house one day, when a commotion was heard in the distance. The father (whose name I forgot, but he did have one) went to investigate and found a wagon being attacked by bandits. After scaring them off (because bandits are cowards), he found the driver, a Dunmer man, riddled with arrows and very obviously dead. In the back of the wagon were two other dead Dunmer, one being a younger child and the other a woman, with the only survivor being a baby girl who was partially shielded by her mother's body. The baby was of course Wren, and upon discovering she was still alive, the Nord man realized he didn't have the heart to just leave her there, so he took her home. His family initially disagreed with taking in an Elf child and suggested they take her into the nearest town to give away to a more fitting family, but by the end of the chapter he had talked both his wife and son into keeping her, and they had all grown a little attached to their new family member.

After a while I decided I didn't like the "raised by Nords" idea and decided instead to have her raised by a Dunmer family but one that lived in Skyrim, and that she would run off later to grow up with bandits. Sometimes I regret changing this, as the idea was pretty cute. It's a theme I may use in future non-TES writing, though. For now, you are all stuck with the version of Wren that I've been writing :P

[theresa-of-liechtenstein]

@lavstar i was so incredibly stupid and i deleted your ask while i was drafting it… i swear i didn’t forget to do it 😭 anyway i’ve FINALLY finished it so let’s jump into the compilation of the most planes i have ever brainrot ❤️ because no ❤️ you cannot expect me to pick one ❤️ it is impossible ❤️

two airbus A320s taking off from parallel runways, five nautical miles apart ‘cause they’re not gay!

btw i genuinely do not care about military aircraft (never have, prob never will) so these are all to do with civil aviation. also huge disclaimer i did all the commentary off the top of my head (i did have to wikipedia some of the stats im not martin fucking crieff) so if i mess up a term or something that’s on me

of course no post about my favorite planes cannot leave out the OG. my first love, the most plane i have ever ridden; the one, the only, the increasingly irrelevant due to industry shifts, the beloved Airbus A380.

(L) just look at this big beautiful girl! + (R) a view of i believe scotland? as approached from the north

i don’t know why i love this plane so much, because lots of other people certainly don’t for a lot of reasons. her size makes her the main character out of necessity at every airport she comes across, and she’s an inconvenience for air traffic controllers for that reason. her origin story is [twitter stan account voice] a bit problematic. given changes in industry trends, she is also quickly becoming irrelevant. airbus my beloved please just admit that the four engines thing was nostalgia and go. she’s a marvel of engineering sure, but when all is said and done…the B747 came, she served cunt, and then she got phased out. the A380 was made with the intention of doing the same…unfortunately, she didn’t really complete the second step.

wait holy shit. i know why i love this plane so much. it’s because this plane…is me ❤️

—

and now for thee og in terms of famous big-ass planes that everyone loves: the B747. everyone loves the 747. even if they say they’re not into planes, they are. for me, not gonna lie: a very big reason for why i love the Queen of the Skies so much is mark vanhoenacker’s book, skyfaring. he flew the 747 for bri’ish airways (when they still had them) and loved that plane so much and man who am i to blame him.

(L) i think i teared up when i saw her through the big windows for the first time bc i was like oh my god. i am going to be on her. this icon of aviation, the arguable symbol of commercial aviation. so much history, so much significance… + (R) the past, the present, and the future of british airways in one image 🥺

i was on a 747 twice in my life. once on a cathay pacific flight to the philippines, and on my last flight abroad, on a british airways flight to heathrow. little did i know i was flying one of the last of their 747 flights—they phased them out completely the following year, a bit earlier than anticipated due to the pandemic.

as enzo ferrari once probably said, “ask a child to draw a plane, and certainly he will put a hump and four engines on it.” in terms of sheer iconic power and energy, the Queen (and she is the only earthly being to whom I shall ever refer as such) would far and away be the top on anyone’s list, save for the fact that i don’t have a top to this list and i have other planes to get to dear god this is getting long do you know what you’ve got yourself into!! the Queen really said “flight belongs to the people now” and the airlines just had to shut up and listen!! she is truly the main character!!!

genuinely don’t remember what river this is except that it’s in the UK… 🙈

i feel like everything else i say about her is just going to be a pale imitation of how evocative skyfaring was, so honestly i really recommend the book it’s so good and it’s one of my favorites. my copy is sort of falling apart now bc i kept bringing it around to places 😭 anyway, the number of airlines using her for passengers is decreasing, but you know who still use converted versions of her as well as purpose-built models? cargo airlines! anyway, ups and their brown planes my beloved 🤎

—

this slot was going to go to the B767 and 757, and i was going to rhapsodize about how aesthetically the 767 looks like a nicer plane to me because of Chonk, but the 757 is really endearing because it’s a narrowbody jet and it’s got landing gear that is long in a useful but unusual-looking way, which in essence what i’m trying to say is that if the 757 were a person, it would be esteban ocon.

so i was getting ready to write all of this down in much more words than i needed, but i remembered suddenly the very reason i was making this post in the first place. and that, my friends, is the B777.

honestly you don’t fully understand how big the 777 is until you see it in person. because we are all acclimated to think of like the 747 when we think of ‘big plane.’ but the 777 is massive. even i forgot about it when i wrote That Fanfic.

the 777 and 787 are the future of long-haul commercial aviation (and i say this as an A380 stannie). widebody jets with 2 big-ass engines are most likely what we’re going to see in the sky going forward when it comes to long-distance travel, and the pandemic pretty much confirmed that.

that aside, i love the 777. so much that i wrote a whole fanfic around one making an emergency landing ❤️ i really pretended ETOPS (the thing where a plane can fly for a long time on one engine) did not exist for six chapters and an alternate ending and i think that’s just very quirky of me aha 🤪

dear god do not mind my hat i literally bought it because of fred fucking thursday of endeavour… what the FUCK was teenage me on 😭

the 777 was supposed to be a trijet (one with three engines, two under each wing and one built into the vertical stabilizer) but as the mcdonnell douglas and lockheed martin trijets (cba to look up the numbers) were not projected to continue to be successful, they got rid of the trijet 777 idea and instead made it have two engines. another thing i think is neat is that all the examples of the 777 that you will see in the wild right now don’t have winglets bc the wings themselves are so long and raked back that they’re not necessary. which would be a weird thing for me in particular to find neat, because if you know me well you know i have a thing for winglets. (the 2022 f1 car’s front wing my BELOVED WAKSKDKSJSJ!!!!!) i also think the way the wingtip lights are incorporated into the wings are so neat. the upgraded version they’re trying to make now, the 777X, will have foldy wingtips so you can DIY your own winglets and i think that’s hilarious (and also cool).

—

genuinely i think i’m the only plane person that likes this last aircraft: the Embraer ERJ-175. i like her for purely nostalgic reasons. she reminds me of how i returned to my roots and decided to pursue engineering.

so okay this is going to have nothing to do with the plane, but i was lucky enough to be given a visit to the flightdeck after landing back home from a weekend trip. i was so excited to be allowed to sit in the first officer’s seat, and got to poke around the flightdeck for like ten minutes. which was cool, but all this was with the sinking realization that even operating a regional jet might be too physically demanding (read: unsafe) for someone of my… [exhales knowing EXACTLY what i’m about to walk into] height.

that is one fully glass cockpit. also those yokes are specific to embraer, boeing’s look more like f1 steering wheels with stuff cut out of them i think, and airbus’s are operated by side stick. it’s almost funny especially when watching flightdeck videos of the a380 cause it’s like… you’re doing All That *gestures vaguely at plane* with THAT *gestures at thing that looks like a chicken drumstick with semiconductors implanted in it*

so that was piloting as a career done with for me (much to my family’s relief.) and then i thought “hm i don’t have to be flying planes all the time to be working around them…why don’t i work on developing them instead?” and i was passively interested in matsci already, so that’s how and when i decided to pursue engineering, with hopes of working for airbus or boeing and in civil aviation.

we’ll see how that pans out, i say as i side-eye the exponential growth of my interest in motorsport.

thanks for the ask! i’m so sorry i was stupid and deleted it but i hope you like this very long, drawn out, and frankly deranged response 💚

[tallstars-rewrite]

If you don't mind sharing, what were some of the ideas you had for this rewrite that changed over time or never made it to the final draft?

UUH oh geez to try and parse out everything without specifics would be like. a multi-part post lmao

My approach to this project changed a lot from conception to completion. The themes changed, the focus changed... it went from “i’m going to be as canon compliant as possible, as if this version could be slipped into canon in place of the og, and change just enough to make the story more satisfying to me” and steadily shifted to “whatever, I do what I want and I’m scrapping all of Dawn of the Clans for starters--” And i’d probably restructure it all again if I could, one way involving combing Woollycloud and Dawnstripe into one character, which I seriously thought about doing a year ago before realizing it would have required rewriting the first 50,000 words

Some big ones are the matter of Palebird and Woollycloud's kit's changed around a lot. I kept pushing back when she would have them because it felt too soon. First it happened at some point when Tall was gone, then it got pushed until after he got back--somewhere in that time skip when Jake was hanging around camp. Deadfoot was a part of her litter (this wasn't a conscious change, I just misremembered and thought that he was Palebird's kit in the og) and I was going to keep some of those scenes with Tall bonding with his little brother as a way to heal a rift he has with his blood relations (I still wish I could have kept his scenes with Hopkit, I just didn’t feel like I had time). Then it got pushed allll the way until the last chapter, where in Palebird’s discussion with Talltail she reveals to him she is pregnant and wants him to be a part of her new family. That didn’t get cut until the final edit, because eventually I realized it is just too soon. Because Palebird and Woollycloud's relationship is in the background and you can't see exactly what is happening with it, and Palebird's depression has deeper roots than just Finchkit, there was no way for me to put them into a relationship and end with Palebird suddenly pregnant without it looking like...idk, suspect? I couldn't reason how she would sensibly dive back into that in a healthy way, I can’t see her deciding to even think about having kits again until after she tried to make amends with Talltail, not before. And I think Woollycloud would know better too. So while i'm sure she and Woollycloud still have a litter some day, it must be quite a ways into the future.

A smaller one is originally Ryewhisker was cut entirely from the story. I thought her siblings were a more memorable pair and she was just...the extra third one. This is why Fallowspring gets together with Shrewclaw instead of Ryewhisker, it's leftover from when Ryestalk's character was just going to get deleted, so naturally I put him with the other sister instead. Then when I thought of a personality I liked for Rye and stuck her back in the story, I forgot that I'd taken her mate away and given him to Fallowspring...but by then I was more invested in his potential dynamic with the Fallowspring character I created anyway so I figured, whatever I'll just leave it. The Ryewhisker I made is too sensible for Shrewclaw anyhow. (plus, it's not as if Ryestalk and Shrewclaw in canon had any emotional weight to their relationship, it was just a signifier to show time had passed while Tall was a way. And to give Shrewclaw legacy kittens i suppose.)

And, speaking of Shrewclaw... ok I’m going to walk you through one of my many struggles with trying to write this, which generally i think is a bad idea, but now that this project is done, I am ok with it and feeling much less insecure then I was when I was still posting it. One of the biggest changes I made at the end was Shrewclaw not dying. That was *literally* a last second change. It was one of the reasons I was struggling so much with chapter 47, and a major reason for the long pause before the final chapters were posted. 

So, in canon they create this little parallel between Shrewclaw and Talltail at the end, where Shrewclaw was also pursuing vengeance for the death of a parent, and because he went through with it, it got him killed. I suppose it was to sort of mirror to Talltail what he could have become if he had followed his angry impulse, and tie together why “murder revenge is bad actually and not worth it”. It was sort of an underdeveloped parallel, but warriors doesn’t bother with things like that very often so I was impressed it was there at all, and I thought it was neat in concept and wanted to keep it in. After all, my approach with this rewrite was to keep as many pieces of the canon story as I could, but shift them around in execution to make them more satisfying to me. (This is why, for example, when I thought ShadowClan’s attacks were a silly and a not-very-good attempt at foreshadowing the two clans future bad blood in the og, I attempted to take that idea, expand ShadowClan’s involvement in the conflict and tie them into the rest of the plot, rather then simply cutting them)

So, I intended to keep that parallel between Shrewclaw and Talltail, and keep his death in a battle with ShadowClan. Part of why i built ShadowClan’s meddling up was so I could have that final confrontation as climax, and Shrewclaw would die in a big battle. It was a HUGE deal in my head, like it was devastating, it was one of the first things I thought of, I cried just thinking about it. 

But upon actually writing out the story, I became less sure of the idea. I became less sure of a lot of things. 

For one, Talltail is supposed to want to come home. Now is the time where I’m supposed to be showing him re-discovering the things he loved about his home, things that he had been unable to focus on for so long due to the unfair pressures put on him. Him returning home and immediately being hit with this tragedy is kind of the opposite of what he should be feeling right now. It makes the ending feel really bleak, like he’s staying out of obligation rather then desire and Jake still has to leave him. So...I’d have to kind of gloss-over Shrewclaw’s death, make the major grieving happen off screen in a time skip, and basically tell the audience “ok forget about all that, now is talljake time’ because their goodbye scene is more important. i dont know about you, but nothing makes me angrier then when stories i’m engaged with skip over the characters working through a major emotional moment and just have it happen off screen because they want to get on with the Main Story. So doing that myself felt like a dick move, especially since Shrewclaw ended up getting more screen-time then I initially thought he would. I can’t brush off his death that easily, but I don’t have time to grapple with the impact it would inevitably have when i’m trying to wrap up so many other things.

Then there was also the matter of the battle itself. At first the battle started RIGHT when Talltail gets home, like he catches the battle patrol on the way to the border. Essentially, his original conviction was “i’m going to return home to warn them and fight alongside them.” Yellow/Ratfang’s involvement with helping Talltail and warning him felt...really pointless if Talltail couldn’t do anything about it and there was a huge bloody fight immediately after anyway. Ending in a bloody battle also felt antithetical to what I wanted Talltail to be learning. I admit, I do not remember much of Tallstar’s personality outside of this super edition, all I clearly recall of him is the whole Onewhisker-Mudclaw deputy switch. If I wanted to foreshadow how he turned into the type of cat who was willing to take risks for the sake of peace and ultimately dreams of a world where the clans aren’t always fighting (which seemed to be his motive when he realized Mudclaw would never contribute to his clan being peaceful like he wanted), how does him returning to his clan all gung-ho about helping them do a big battle contribute to that? Is that a fitting end to this story?

So, for starters, I had to rewrite that chapter into being at least an attempt at talking things out rather then just a big battle but...I also still had to make some fight happen or else how can Shrewclaw die? But then if Talltail’s attempt at a peace talk fails, that just makes his efforts feel even more like a waste of time. I want him to successfully do something, feel like he’s capable of creating positive change after spending so long believing himself to be a failure only capable of harm. If he fails now, what's the point?

 I had considered not killing Shrew multiple times before in the past, but I kept reasoning a way into keeping it. It was too big a change, I had been planning it for too long, I had it in mind throughout almost all of my writing. But I just wasn't happy with how the end of the story was playing out at all, and when I have no faith in my writing, its hard to motivate myself to work on it. But I also didn't think I had it in me to figure out how to NOT kill him, I mean, that whole Shadowclan confrontation was supposed to be a stage for Shrewclaw to die in! It’s already been toned down into a some-what failed peace-talk, if he didn't die, this confrontation between the clans that I already don’t like anymore has even less reason to exist. But I cant just delete the confrontation (even though I high-key wanted to at this point), it’s become too much of A Thing demanding some kind of resolution thanks to how heavily Brokentail/Darkpaw's meddling played into causing the plot, and I can't just get rid of that because ShadowClan’s shenanigan's was Sparrow’s whole motivation and was basically the main thing tying a bunch of different plots together, and I can’t just dial back any of this because it would require another slew of rewrites that could set me back another year or more and-- *distant sounds of me screaming into a pillow*

So I am super mentally checked out and ready to be done with this story at this point, and I’m telling myself "no damnit I want to be done no more changes! no more overthinking! just POST it who CARES if its not perfect, it’s fine" i did not want to make any major changes like suddenly removing a death I had been planning for years at the literal last second--but not removing it was making me hate those chapters so much that I physically couldn't make myself work on them!!  And look, the parallel that I initially wanted to keep isn’t even necessary anymore because I ended up creating more of an emotional parallel between Sparrow and Talltail anyway, which frankly I was more invested in, so this final parallel with Shrewclaw Dying To Prove An Extra Point To Talltail is. extraneous! not rly necessary! even though it had been in my head all through the first act! I mean, good lord, how many parallels and connections and callbacks do I think I need to make in one story? Do I not have enough yet???? so his death doesn't even really successfully do THAT--so this was the point i snapped and said no matter how much I want to be done, I CANNOT post these chapters like this i HAVE to rewrite them again. 

the first scene in chapter 48 when briar and tall are visiting their cemetery was originally them going to visit Shrewclaw's grave. Naturally that had to be quickly rewritten so they visited Brackenwing instead. This is also why Shrewclaw is mentioned but does not really *appear* physically in those last chapters. I tried to write an extra scene where Talltail went to see him and they had a conversation about... Idk, something. i couldn't figure it out, so I decided I needed to just move. Fallowspring was also initially pregnant with his kits, same as canon, so Mudclaw could be born. So her kits were running around with Meadowbreeze’s litter in the end chapters too. Naturally since Shrew wasn’t dying yet, I didn’t have to stuff her into the nursery so quickly (it always felt a little ooc anyway. Also, now I can fix that plot-hole from the main series where Mudclaw is said to not have been born until after Talltail becomes leader, so I guess bonus point for that)

ANYWAY, writing is hard. That is just a couple of the things I could talk about. This was not a smooth process asdasfsfdgdfgyh

[mostlysignssomeportents]

20 years a blogger

It's been twenty years, to the day, since I published my first blog-post.

I'm a blogger.

Blogging - publicly breaking down the things that seem significant, then synthesizing them in longer pieces - is the defining activity of my days.

https://boingboing.net/2001/01/13/hey-mark-made-me-a.html

Over the years, I've been lauded, threatened, sued (more than once). I've met many people who read my work and have made connections with many more whose work  I wrote about. Combing through my old posts every morning is a journey through my intellectual development.

It's been almost exactly a year I left Boing Boing, after 19 years. It wasn't planned, and it wasn't fun, but it was definitely time. I still own a chunk of the business and wish them well. But after 19 years, it was time for a change.

A few weeks after I quit Boing Boing, I started a solo project. It's called Pluralistic: it's a blog that is published simultaneously on Twitter, Mastodon, Tumblr, a newsletter and the web. It's got no tracking or ads. Here's the very first edition:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/02/19/pluralist-19-feb-2020/

I don't often do "process posts" but this merits it. Here's how I built Pluralistic and here's how it works today, after nearly a year.

I get up at 5AM and make coffee. Then I sit down on the sofa and open a huge tab-group, and scroll through my RSS feeds using Newsblur.

I spend the next 1-2 hours winnowing through all the stuff that seems important. I have a chronic pain problem and I really shouldn't sit on the sofa for more than 10 minutes, so I use a timer and get up every 10 minutes and do one minute of physio.

After a couple hours, I'm left with 3-4 tabs that I want to write articles about that day. When I started writing Pluralistic, I had a text file on my desktop with some blank HTML I'd tinkered with to generate a layout; now I have an XML file (more on that later).

First I go through these tabs and think up metadata tags I want to use for each; I type these into the template using my text-editor (gedit), like this:

   <xtags>

process, blogging, pluralistic, recursion, navel-gazing

   </xtags>

Each post has its own little template. It needs an anchor tag (for this post, that's "hfbd"), a title ("20 years a blogger") and a slug ("Reflections on a lifetime of reflecting"). I fill these in for each post.

Then I come up with a graphic for each post: I've got a giant folder of public domain clip-art, and I'm good at using all the search tools for open-licensed art: the Library of Congress, Wikimedia, Creative Commons, Flickr Commons, and, ofc, Google Image Search.

I am neither an artist nor a shooper, but I've been editing clip art since I created pixel-art versions of the Frankie Goes to Hollywood glyphs using Bannermaker for the Apple //c in 1985 and printed them out on enough fan-fold paper to form a border around my bedroom.

As I create the graphics, I pre-compose Creative Commons attribution strings to go in the post; there's two versions, one for the blog/newsletter and one for Mastodon/Twitter/Tumblr. I compose these manually.

Here's a recent one:

Blog/Newsletter:

(<i>Image: <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:QAnon_in_red_shirt_(48555421111).jpg">Marc Nozell</a>, <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en">CC BY</a>, modified</i>)

Twitter/Masto/Tumblr:

Image: Marc Nozell (modified)

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:QAnon_in_red_shirt_(48555421111).jpg

CC BY

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

This is purely manual work, but I've been composing these CC attribution strings since CC launched in 2003, and they're just muscle-memory now. Reflex.

These attribution strings, as well as anything else I'll need to go from Twitter to the web (for example, the names of people whose Twitter handles I use in posts, or images I drop in, go into the text file). Here's how the post looks at this point in the composition.

<hr>

<a name="hfbd"></a>

<img src="https://craphound.com/images/20yrs.jpg">

<h1>20 years a blogger</h1><xtagline>Reflections on a lifetime of reflecting.</xtagline>

<img src="https://craphound.com/images/frnklogo.jpg">

See that <img> tag in there for frnklogo.jpg? I snuck that in while I was composing this in Twitter. When I locate an image on the web I want to use in a post, I save it to a dir on my desktop that syncs every 60 seconds to the /images/ dir on my webserver.

As I save it, I copy the filename to my clipboard, flip over to gedit, and type in the <img> tag, pasting the filename. I've typed <img src="https://craphound.com/images/ CTRL-V"> tens of thousands of times - muscle memory.

Once the thread is complete, I copy each tweet back into gedit, tabbing back and forth, replacing Twitter handles and hashtags with non-Twitter versions, changing the ALL CAPS EMPHASIS to the extra-character-consuming *asterisk-bracketed emphasis*.

My composition is greatly aided both 20 years' worth of mnemonic slurry of semi-remembered posts and the ability to search memex.craphound.com (the site where I've mirrored all my Boing Boing posts) easily.

A huge, searchable database of decades of thoughts really simplifies the process of synthesis.

Next I port the posts to other media. I copy the headline and paste it into a new Tumblr compose tab, then import the image and tag the post "pluralistic."

Then I paste the text of the post into Tumblr and manually select, cut, and re-paste every URL in the post (because Tumblr's automatic URL-to-clickable-link tool's been broken for 10+ months).

Next I past the whole post into a Mastodon compose field. Working by trial and error, I cut it down to <500 characters, breaking at a para-break and putting the rest on my clipboard. I post, reply, and add the next item in the thread until it's all done.

*Then* I hit publish on my Twitter thread. Composing in Twitter is the most unforgiving medium I've ever worked in. You have to keep each stanza below 280 chars. You can't save a thread as a draft, so as you edit it, you have to pray your browser doesn't crash.

And once you hit publish, you can't edit it. Forever. So you want to publish Twitter threads LAST, because the process of mirroring them to Tumblr and Mastodon reveals typos and mistakes (but there's no way to save the thread while you work!).

Now I create a draft Wordpress post on pluralistic.net, and create a custom slug for the page (today's is "two-decades"). Saving the draft generates the URL for the page, which I add to the XML file.

Once all the day's posts are done, I make sure to credit all my sources in another part of that master XML file, and then I flip to the command line and run a bunch of python scripts that do MAGIC: formatting the master file as a newsletter, a blog post, and a master thread.

Those python scripts saved my ASS. For the first two months of Pluralistic, i did all the reformatting by hand. It was a lot of search-replace (I used a checklist) and I ALWAYS screwed it up and had to debug, sometimes taking hours.

Then, out of the blue, a reader - Loren Kohnfelder - wrote to me to point out bugs in the site's RSS. He offered to help with text automation and we embarked on a month of intensive back-and-forth as he wrote a custom suite for me.

Those programs take my XML file and spit out all the files I need to publish my site, newsletter and master thread (which I pin to my profile). They've saved me more time than I can say. I probably couldn't kept this up without Loren's generous help (thank you, Loren!).

I open up the output from the scripts in gedit. I paste the blog post into the Wordpress draft and copy-paste the metadata tags into WP's "tags" field. I preview the post, tweak as necessary, and publish.

(And now I write this, I realize I forgot to mention that while I'm doing the graphics, I also create a square header image that makes a grid-collage out of the day's post images, using the Gimp's "alignment" tool)

(because I'm composing this in Twitter, it would be a LOT of work to insert that information further up in the post, where it would make sense to have it - see what I mean about an unforgiving medium?)

(While I'm on the subject: putting the "add tweet to thread" and "publish the whole thread" buttons next to each other is a cruel joke that has caused me to repeatedly publish before I was done, and deleting a thread after you publish it is a nightmare)

Now I paste the newsletter file into a new mail message, address it to my Mailman server, and create a custom subject for the day, send it, open the Mailman admin interface in a browser, and approve the message.

Now it's time to create that anthology post you can see pinned to my Mastodon and Twitter accounts. Loren's script uses a template to produce all the tweets for the day, but it's not easy to get that pre-written thread into Twitter and Mastodon.

Part of the problem is that each day's Twitter master thread has a tweet with a link to the day's Mastodon master thread ("Are you trying to wean yourself off Big Tech? Follow these threads on the #fediverse at @pluralistic@mamot.fr. Here's today's edition: LINK").

So the first order of business is to create the Mastodon thread, pin it, copy the link to it, and paste it into the template for the Twitter thread, then create and pin the Twitter thread.

Now it's time to get ready for tomorrow. I open up the master XML template file and overwrite my daily working file with its contents. I edit the file's header with tomorrow's date, trim away any "Upcoming appearances" that have gone by, etc.

Then I compose tomorrow's retrospective links. I open tabs for this day a year ago, 5 years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, and (now) 20 years ago:

http://memex.craphound.com/2020/01/14

http://memex.craphound.com/2016/01/14

http://memex.craphound.com/2011/01/14

http://memex.craphound.com/2006/01/14

http://memex.craphound.com/2001/01/14

I go through each day, and open anything I want to republish in its own tab, then open the OP link in the next tab (finding it in the @internetarchive if necessary). Then I copy my original headline and the link to the article into tomorrow's XML file, like so:

#10yrsago Disney World’s awful Tiki Room catches fire <a href="https://thedisneyblog.com/2011/01/12/fire-reported-at-magic-kingdom-tiki-room/">https://thedisneyblog.com/2011/01/12/fire-reported-at-magic-kingdom-tiki-room/</a>

And NOW my day is done.

So, why do I do all this?

First and foremost, I do it for ME. The memex I've created by thinking about and then describing every interesting thing I've encountered is hugely important for how I understand the world. It's the raw material of every novel, article, story and speech I write.

And I do it for the causes I believe in. There's stuff in this world I want to change for the better. Explaining what I think is wrong, and how it can be improved, is the best way I know for nudging it in a direction I want to see it move.

The more people I reach, the more it moves.

When I left Boing Boing, I lost access to a freestanding way of communicating. Though I had popular Twitter and Tumblr accounts, they are at the mercy of giant companies with itchy banhammers and arbitrary moderation policies.

I'd long been a fan of the POSSE - Post Own Site, Share Everywhere - ethic, the idea that your work lives on platforms you control, but that it travels to meet your readers wherever they are.

Pluralistic posts start out as Twitter threads because that's the most constrained medium I work in, but their permalinks (each with multiple hidden messages in their slugs) are anchored to a server I control.

When my threads get popular, I make a point of appending the pluralistic.net permalink to them.

When I started blogging, 20 years ago, blogger.com had few amenities. None of the familiar utilities of today's media came with the package.

Back then, I'd manually create my headlines with <h2> tags. I'd manually create discussion links for each post on Quicktopic. I'd manually paste each post into a Yahoo Groups email. All the guff I do today to publish Pluralistic is, in some way, nothing new.

20 years in, blogging is still a curious mix of both technical, literary and graphic bodgery, with each day's work demanding the kind of technical minutuae we were told would disappear with WYSIWYG desktop publishing.

I grew up in the back-rooms of print shops where my dad and his friends published radical newspapers, laying out editions with a razor-blade and rubber cement on a light table. Today, I spend hours slicing up ASCII with a cursor.

I go through my old posts every day. I know that much - most? - of them are not for the ages. But some of them are good. Some, I think, are great. They define who I am. They're my outboard brain.

[fizzingwizard]

asdfghjkl; I'm so glad Google Drive has the restore version history function urrrrk

I accidentally deleted the outline for Fox bc I had pinned it to the bottom of the latest draft for easy reference, took it out to upload to AO3, and forgot to put it back afterward. At first I thought its ok, i dont need it, it was only a partial outline, I can remember it. Then I remembered a couple things not quite as clearly as I'd like... thank heavens i could get it back, I was about to be sad :8

[omisbreakfast]

i rank every summer outfits from a3! because??

because i can. also fuck you.

the first version of this was deleted by tumblr in my drafts and now i have to re write it entirely and i fucking hate it here... anyways.

i’m biased as fuck

sorry it’s a long post

harugumi :

itaru : yeah no actually it’s pretty fine. ngl itaru is kinda hot when he dress correctly so there’s that. also, he’s often in pink. it suits him, but i don’t like it. still.... cute. but it’s also itaru so not too much praises. 9/10

citron : why.......... the shoes.... what the fuck are those shoes.... where did you even find them..... do you wanna fight or something.... this fills me with rage... you’ve disappointed me, citron... also hate the shirt. 3/10

tsuzuru : casual, soft, classic boy... nothing much to say here. but WHY THE FUCKING HAT??? IT RUINS EVERYTHING...... at least wear it correctly PLEASE. YOU DUMABSS. and the shoes would have been better in another color. i just,,,,, why tsuzuru, why the hat... 4/10

sakuya : i can’t bring myself to say bad things about sakuya. (also the fact that i don’t remember what i wrote before the first version of this post got deleted in my drafts pisses me off) but like,,, he’s cute. i mean it’s a classic outfit. tho the choice of the shirt is questionable as fuck. also HES SO TINY BABY. 6/10

masumi : yeah no actually i like it. i really like the shirt for some reason, it suits him. BUT BUT BUT the pants looks weird as hell LMAO?? like... it makes him looks like a crotch less ken doll??? it’s,,, really weird. also the shoes are.... hmmm.... overall good balance but there’s some weird stuffs going on. 7/10

chikage : garbage boy stink man. fucking looks like a rich white boy coming home from tennis and i fucking hate it here ™ if i’m objective about this it’s actually NOT bad but it loses several points for the sole reason that it’s fucking chikage and i won’t take shit for it. 6/10

natsugumi :

kazunari : why. why do you do this. why. why. how am i supposed to ever learn how to love when you backstab me like this, kaz ? what do we do now ? i trusted you and you betrayed me. i can never find love ever again............ yeah ok. pls let’s skip to the next one.... 2/10 (and two points is because it’s kaz and i just can’t bring myself to truly hate him.)

yuki : it’s not bad but i hate this dress. like. his outfits are usually ok but this? no. YOU LOOK LIKE A GOOD CHRISTIAN BOY, DAMN IT YUKI. are YOU GOING TO CHURCH TO PRAISE THE LORD TODAY TOO? also the colour of it... no. 4/10

tenma : congrats you rich boy you finally have a decent outfit ! though i don’t understand the concept of your zip being infront but ok. bet his stans like it smh. also i like the color of his jacket. very nice. 8/10

muku : baby i love u so much but u look like the pinterest girls who take aesthetic pictures in flowers fields and are smiling like the sun @ the camera.......... which is not per se but it’s a whole vibe. also stop wearing orange. it doesn’t go with your hair well........ ilu cutie. 8/10

misumi : my sweet boy. why are you wearing an hoodie with a jacket. why. it’s summer you idiot. you’ll get overheated. stop. but overall he looks very nice. idk i just think he’s neat......... i. i love u @ misumi. 9/10 (don’t look at me)

kumon : he... he looks like.... a j-j-j*ck..... which he is............... i just........... oh my god. i love kumon but he IS a jock i JUST ???? LALFKGKK. also his fucking shoes makes me lose my mind because this is so fucking bullshit ???? so ugly it hurts my eyes.... he’s lucky he’s a good boy. 4/10

akigumi :

juza : nah he hot as hell in this pass on it. if you’re asking yourself why he looks so good, here’s your answer : his arms. his arms are great. i can excuse his sandales this time cuz IT IS summer but yeah. yeah no he’s cute and- yeah. ok. yeah. hm hm. 9.5/10

taichi : so the thing with taichi is that his style is NOT bad per se but like. he’s a skater boy. so my standards are already very low for him,,,, like no offence i love taichi so much but,,,, that’s how it be.... his shirts are usually so big he looks like a GOD DAMN FLAG i can’t with this. and i don’t like how baggy his pants are but yeah,,,, it’s just a whole look.... anyways................ 6/10

omi : in which yosei boys decided to fucking test my patience by putting on classic, good looking clothes and decided to absolutely ruin my entire hopes and dreams (if i’m being dramatic ? no i am not.) AND their WHOLE outfits adding an useless stupid fucking hat thay doesnt seems even to be worn properly. omi, tsuzuru, you’ll pay for this. 7/10

sakyo : (i’m tired as heck and i almost forgot about sakyo when he’s right in the middle) actually i like this. it’s color coordinated and i think that’s very nice. but i wish his pants would have been a little bit longer. yeah no that’s it for real. also idk what’s about this outfit but he really shows how skinny he really is LMAOOO. shithead sakyo. 8/10

azami : the thing about azami is that usually his upper half is pretty well dressed, or whatever, but when we look at his pants/shoes its where everything goes to shit. Like ???? what the fuck man you could have done so much better if you didn’t decide to put this gigantic pants who looks like you’re gonna fly with it or fucking whatever (i don’t need to make sense i’m TIRED) also his shoes bothers me. can’t believe he’s fucking 15 like shut up. 6/10

banri : ...... *inhales* FUCK YOUUUUUUUUUUU. fuck you and your ugly ass little hat and your zombie like haircut i. fucking despise you. if he were standing right infront of me, no he wouldn’t be because he would deck him so hard. YOU HAVE THE MONEY TO BUY CLOTHES AND THE TIME TO TRY AND MAKE IT LOOK GOOD ?? SO WHY???? what’s going on in your ugly ass little head bitch. THANK YOU god he isn’t wearing any animal prints in this, thats one thing. imagine this awful outfit with the ugly shoes and stUPID FUCKING HAT that i hate, with a leopard print shirt.... yeah cursed. i know. sorry banri stans i cant hear you over the sound of your man fishing with joe and bertrand on a sunday morning at 6am. 3/10

fuyugumi :

tasuku : ... idk man. he’s just there. why is... his shoes... so flashy........ bruh...... also he looks like a very straight man and idk how to feel about this. we know u gay bitch. 7/10

hisoka : except for the fucking weird ass pants it’s actually ok. he looks.... very comfy. 10/10 would CUDDLE...... pls hisoka.... i’m tired... fluffy boy..... ugh..... i don’t have much to say about this ok he just.... spare some cuddles. 7/10

actually i like it. well. there’s two things that bothers me. GREEN. DOESN’T. SUIT. HIM. PERIOD. if u think otherwise i’m sorry. it’s just awful with his purple hair (or whatever color it is) imo. and the second..... the square should have been a triangle. i won’t take no’s. 8.5/10

tsumugi : ngl tsumugi gives me little lost boy looking for his mommy vibes. at first i thought it was his outfits but no, it’s just his face. and this ? doesn’t make it better. idk how to explain but how he wears his shirt makes it look like he’s floating and it’s kinda cute in a... special way. he’s just a very sweet boy. 7/10

azuma : i can’t bring myself to even say bad things about azuma... it’s physical. i just can’t. i have a theory his power is that strong and therefore i cannot critizice this beauty. he just. is. ya know........ sigh...... 9/10

guy : if he dresses like this, that’s.... that’s not your man, ladies. that’s your loving, hardworking and dedicated husband who just went to pick some flowers in the prairies next to your little farm in the middle of the nowhere but who’s still paradise on earth cuz it’s the two of you and you couldn’t ask for anything more. deadass. fucking peasants. 4/10

[isshuns]

the progression of things - discarded scenes

this is a dump post for scenes that were in the original draft, but never made it to final version of the fic. they bear no connection to the final version of "the progression of things”, but i liked them enough that i couldn’t bear just deleting these scenes (TPOT underwent a lot of editing and rewrites) ;_; they were part of the original premise where I wrote Miyano as ace/demisexual, but in the end it didn’t work out ;_;

click on the “read more” link if you’d like to read them, but take note, they’re were part of the rough draft, hence are extremely unpolished. 

Miyano remembers being fifteen, his school bag heavy on his shoulders, but his heart heavier in his chest. Every day he looks at the mirror in his bathroom and wonders why he was cursed with such feminine features, a smaller build than the rest of the boys in his school; everything on his face seemed wrong as though nature forgot to switch its genetic code back to “MASCULINE, MALE” when constructing his face.

He couldn’t blame his parents, they never had any say in what he’d look like when he was born, and his mother would be heartbroken to hear that her son, bearing such resemblance to her looks, actually hated his own.

But as slightly estranged as he was from his middle school classmates when his looks came up as a topic of conversation, Miyano still heard Things whispered amongst his peers, seen Things even, when his classmates included him in their weekly get-together to ogle at printed materials meant for a demographic way beyond their age.

In the flush of youth, where the boys in his class pondered over their body anatomy, fascinated with nature, and looked to adult magazines (stolen from their older sibling’s stash) for enjoyment, Miyano pondered over the harsh reality of his feminine features, upset but resigned with nature, and looked to fashion magazines (taken with permission from his mother’s collection) for pointers on how Not to appear even more like a girl.

(His father’s copies of Business Weekly helped a little too, even if only to remind Miyano how top businessmen in the country dressed for a business photoshoot with the press – suit, tie and expensive watch peeking from the cuffs.)

When the passage of time came and went and Miyano entered high school, he discovered the world of Boys Love manga and dedicated his free time to understanding the intricacies of this fascinating genre. Being a minor, the type of print he could obtain were fairly sweet and innocent, nothing too explicit save for some scenes that took place on a bed, the protagonists’ modesty preserved with a flimsily drawn blanket over their nude bodies.

Occasionally, a book or two with explicit content would make their way to his collection. The internet was also a place full of wonders and possibility, and once or twice Miyano would (secretly) look up the famous series promised with rave reviews, but somehow, Porn Without Plot never really stuck to his repertoire.

Even after becoming of age, Miyano still finds himself gravitating towards the safety that comes with the PG-13 books. There is a strange sort of comfort in consuming fiction that depicts love as something simple and uncomplicated, straightforward and representation that love– intimacy did not necessarily come hand in hand with sexual acts. Intimacy could exist with or without sexual acts and vice versa, whatever floats your boat, really.

For Miyano, it was always the build up leading to that ultimate confession scene (at the rooftop, under the cherry blossom tree by the school yard, the back of the school gym, endless options) that grabbed him by the feels and punted him into the sun. That’s where the highlight is!! He once told Sasaki, unable to hold back on his excitement that twinkled in his eyes.

And identifying all the event flags leading up to that very moment of their first kiss? Unparalleled. Truly the best of all scenes there is. Peak romance. The bedroom scenes (few and rare in his possession) are really just a bonus.

So, while his peers continued to chat about going through the motions in bed, the closest miyano could ever try to relate to during those conversations was the intimacy that came along with the idea of sexual intercourse.

-------------------------------------

The moment Miyano is done with the last of his midterms and bids his notes goodbye (for now), Sasaki magically appears beside him and whisks him away to the nearby izakaya for a celebratory dinner.

“For getting through the first midterm week of your life~” His giant baby boyfriend coos, ever so sweet like the cakes he bakes.

Miyano pretends to be exasperated, shoulders dramatically slumping over the sticky izakaya table, but his heart knows better. It’s been one month since he’s started college (the one Sasaki also so happens to attend, not a coincidence at all), and the privilege of having more time to spend with one another makes Miyano giddy with happiness.

Gone are the days Miyano can only meet his favourite senpai for a handful of hours after club activities until the reality of their courseload slaps them in the face; gone are the days they have to rely on telephone calls and text messages, where the minutes and seconds flashing across the screen serve as an unforgiving reminder of the time they have left before they have to part ways.

It’s all gone now. Sasaki sits before him, in the flesh, and Miyano has always felt that seeing Sasaki’s smile in person would always be different from seeing it on screen. The grainy pixels on his phone can never do those handsome features justice, nor can it the warmth blooming behind his breastbone whenever Sasaki threads their fingers together and walks him all the way back to his dorm.

The freshmen all share a common dormitory block separate from the rest of the college students, something about building connections and getting to know each other better, so Sasaki insists on walking Miyano back to his room before he makes the trek all the way back to his own. The night is young, the dorms are peacefully quiet, and everyone is probably still out in town having a good time.

---------------------------

Loathe as he is to do so, Miyano makes the executive decision to drop by the bookstore one afternoon to try and consult a few adult BL manga. It’s the worst idea he could ever come up with, he hates comparing his own relationship to silly BL manga tropes, but nothing short of an apocalypse would push him to ask the people around him whether it’s normal to… not think about sex in a romantic relationship. While the internet is a wondrous place full of answers and possibilities, Miyano figures it probably wouldn’t hurt to take a peek at how society tackles his questions through the lens of BL manga.

Hurriedly, just before his date with Sasaki, he randomly picks up one of the highly rated R-18 series, heads over to the payment counter quickly, and bolts out of the store the moment the cashier bags his purchases. He makes sure to stuff the damned volumes deep beneath his bag, out of sight, before he heads over to the café to meet Sasaki for lunch.

And when he’s finally back in his own dorm later that night, his roommate blissfully unaware and asleep, Miyano retrieves the book from his bag, cautiously peels away the plastic wrap before he settles down for the night to take notes.

His efforts are all for naught. Halfway through the series – one Junjou Romantica –, it takes Miyano all but 3 volumes before he calls it quits and and promptly closes the book. Guess there’s no way he can redeem his money now, unless Sasaki is into dubcon…? Well, that’s a thought for future Miyano to ponder on. Current Miyano just wants to sleep and wash the images out of his mind with bleach.

-------------------------------

he has no care for sex, but nothing compares to the tender happiness that comes along with partaking in something sasaki enjoys and yearns for. sasaki’s language of love has always been touch and spending time partaking in activities of common interest.

today, sasaki has picked a soothing lo-fi playlist as their background music. they’re seated on the bed, warmly nestled against each other as they browse through their respective manga

his eyes may be on inked pages, but his heart is long gone. he discreetly observes his boyfriend, the curve of his jaw, long lashes almost curling against the high of his cheekbones as his honey-gold eyes flit across pages and pages of content.

the fingers flipping through each page is steady, long, and miyano suddenly wonders how it would feel to have them splayed across his body, touching him in places his own hands have never ventured before.

“what’s wrong, myaa-chan?” sasaki smiles at him, eyes impossibly fond and kind.

well, fuck it, there’s no going back now.

“senpai, what do you think… about… BL with explicit content?”

sasaki blinks. miyano tampers down the urge to kiss those parted lips.

“you mean books with sex scenes in them?”

“yeah.”

“oh.” sasaki turns away, the hand that’s not rested on miyano’s shoulder has found a place on top of sasaki’s mouth. he’s embarrassed, miyano realizes, and somehow that makes him feel ten times more endearing than usual.

sensing that this was a topic his boyfriend wasn’t going to let go any time soon, sasaki clears his throat and returns miyano’s gaze head on.

“i’m fine with it. why do you ask?”

“i… well.” while miyano struggles for words, sasaki hand starts moving up and down his arm, soothing him.

“are you starting to read rated manga? it’s normal, at least, ogasawara’s girlfriend says so. so there’s no need to be shy, myaa-chan! if you want to recommend any, you know I’ll read anything you lend me. no judgment here.”

it should have been reassuring, but the thought that ogasawara’s girlfriend discussed with sasaki about explicit BL manga like it’s the fucking weather has miyano choking on his spit. what the actual fuck.

do people actually talk about these things? is miyano the abnormal one instead for never entertaining the thought of doing things with his significant other?! has he been missing out on some code of relationship couples ought to follow?! the BL mangas he read never said so!

“myaa-chan? are you okay?”

“you- you talk with ogasawara senpai about these things?”

sasaki’s cheeks colour a lovely shade of red. from his looks, he’s starting to catch up with where miyano wants the conversation to go. that’s a relief, because miyano honestly doesn’t know how to tactfully broach the topic without sounding like a dumb dumb about these things.

“yeah, i do.” sasaki admits, “but only once or twice, because ogasawara needed to vent about things. sorry, does that weird you out? i can stop. i don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable.”

“no, no, it’s fine. totally fine, senpai.” it must be a common boys topic that somehow eluded miyano and friends during high school. at this point, miyano’s face must be burning with the hot flames of embarrassment and shame, he’s pretty sure sasaki’s fingers can feel the heat all the way from where they are, stroking his cheek absently.

“what brought this on, if you don’t mind me asking?” sasaki asks a moment later, when the weight of silence in the room gets a little too much to bear.

“just… some friends talking about it the other day.”

“friends.”

“yeah… fine, classmates.”

“are you… thinking about it?”

at miyano’s surprised expression, sasaki backtracks immediately.

“forget i asked.”

“to be honest, i don’t know what to feel about it.”

“it’s okay, we don’t have to do what you don’t want to do.”

it’s so painfully awkward yet endearing at the same time.

“do you think about it, senpai? about us… doing those things?”

sasaki’s lack of an answer is extremely telling. the shade of red coloring his cheeks is probably bright enough to rival miyano’s own face.

“does it matter? i am happy with doing whatever myaa-chan wants to do.” sasaki finally says, but his eyes have shied away from miyano’s gaze, and something within miyano snaps.

“of course it matters. it’s you, sasaki-senpai. i want you to be happy too. i want to do things that you want to do too.”

something akin to hope blooms across sasaki’s eyes (surprisingly moist).

“thank you, myaa-chan. that thought alone makes me happy enough. let’s leave it here for now and let things progress as they naturally would, how about that? we don’t need to rush into anything. i’m really happy with where we are now.”

he knows that sasaki has caught on to his sexual orientation, no doubt. it’s been a year since he became of age, and yet the BL manga he still buys have never ventured into the explicit genre. briefly, he wonders if sasaki actually keeps his own stash of porn somewhere below his bed, like normal boys would do.

they aren’t in high school anymore. it’s been years, and yet until this point, the thought of doing something more than kissing and cuddling has never crossed miyano’s mind. he wants to cry at how respectful his boyfriend has been all this while.

“myaa-chan? myaa-chan? oh no, yoshikazu, don’t cry. i’m sorry if i said something wrong-”

oh fuck.

miyano has always been uncomfortable with displays of affection and attention, preferring to bask in the comforting arms of his daydreams and fantasies, but his love for sasaki burns greater and he will do anything he can to ensure that sasaki receives equal, if not more, affection and care than the amount his boyfriend showers him in.

scene ends with sasaki hugging miyano tightly, reassuring him and planting a kiss at the side of miyano’s temple. but it does nothing to seep away the frustration gnawing at his bones.

END

[ettawritesnstudies]

WIP TAG GAME

I was tagged by @wordsofpaintandsmoke!  This is going to be so long I’m so sorry this is all of my writing from junior year when I lost my thumb drive and had to start from scratch but there’s a lot of funny stuff in here.

Rules: post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Send me an ask with the title that most intrigues you / interests you and I’ll post a little snippet of it or tell you something about it!

General Writing folder:

Blanks

GETTING MY LIFE TOGETHER

how to edit

writing schedule thingy (excel)

writing tracker (also excel)

half baked ideas:

Brownie Stories

Creative ideas

Fantasy steampunk idea

musings about car trips I should turn into an audio thing

Not Enough - weekly existential crisis

Random Writing Ideas

Real World Sequence

Runaways

AI-Lia Antares:

DnD character idea for space campaign

Log Entries

Outline and Characters

Vampire Plauge Docs

buddy cop vampire pauge doctors

character intros for buddy cop vampire pauge doctors

Storge

climax edit 3

deleted scenes

epilouge

first draft - actual version

HALF STARTED CLIMAX

New climax edit maybe

the anarchists plan a riot

2nd draft

completed first draft!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

9V batteries

reunion fight scene

modern AUs

aesthetic - word association - characer exploration - idek

character plots

outline 2.0

outline 3.0

outline

stuff I forgot from older drafts

voice

worldbuilding

After the story

final first draft

some editing lists

storgecomicsans.ppt

The Laoche Chronicles:

brainstorm for the rest of the series

character outlines

leaving from maaren from Maddie’s POV

OUTLINE laoche chronicles

Rude awakening

stargazing

thought dump

General Laoche World:

brain dump from ages ago...

Camp NaNoWriMo 2019 winners certificate FUCK YEAH.pdf

drabbles

some thoughts on magic and physical symptoms

TROPES

worldbuilding brain dump

I really ought to organize this RIP. edit: this destoryed my formatting the first go around so I fixed it to be easier to read

Tagging (if you want to play) @inkwell-attitude @andiwriteunderthemoon @fictional-semantics @silverink-and-ichor 

[oriigami]

heart symbol n scissors symbol for your wings au!!

ooo yes! thank you!!

♡: my favorite part

ahhh there’s a lot of parts i love to be honest but i think maybe my favorite is nami’s scene in running against the wind! both her thoughts about arlong and bellemere and her conversation with luffy about his brothers and how her feelings about him start to change as a result, i’m just really proud of how that whole part came out. 

my favorite part of it is this bit towards the end:

Luffy snickered. “I’ve got two big brothers!” he explained. “They both set out to sea before me, though. Sabo first, and then Ace second. Sabo had bluejay wings. Yours kinda remind me of them, Nami!”

Had, Nami thought, and thought of Nojiko- solid blue wings, tipped with black. Thought about the osprey feather tucked away in the very back of her dresser in Cocoyashi. “Yeah?” 

“Yeah!” Luffy said. “They’re really pretty! And glittery and blue, like the ocean!” 

✄: something i deleted before the final draft 

i actually forgot about this until i went back just now to look through past versions, but before i decided that running against the wind was gonna be more backstory-focused, i started with the idea of just rewriting the different strawhat introductions, so i wrote this scene before i changed my mind about the way i wanted to take it!

When Luffy first saw Zoro, his wings were matted and dirty, lashed roughly to the pole at his back at an uncomfortable angle, feathers askew- and yet, despite all that, undeniably impressive. His feathers were dull brown and dirty white at first glance, but under the sunlight they had a certain shine, even through the dirt and dust that caked them. 

Coby made a hilarious squeaking noise at his side, eyes widening, and whispered in a shaking voice, “Those are eagle wings!”

“Really?” Luffy said, not looking away. “Cool.”

“No! Not cool! He’s a bounty hunter, and he’s got bird of prey wings, he’s gonna kill us-”

“Well, I think he’s cool,” Luffy said decisively, and hopped the fence before Coby could get another word in edgewise. “Hey, you! Join my pirate crew!”

It wasn’t until several hours later that they got to see Zoro’s wings fully spread. Between the rattling echo of gunshots, there was the soft impact of ropes finally falling to the dusty courtyard, and a blur of brown feathers and sunlight on steel.

Zoro’s wings snapped open as soon as the restraints were off, and although they were dirty and bedraggled from the long dragging days spent tied to the pole, a few of the marines stumbled to a stuttering halt in their tracks nonetheless as the expanse of white and brown feathers spread out to their full width. 

Once, Shanks had told Luffy that bird of prey wings tended to be bigger. “Awesome,” he breathed under his breath, starry-eyed, his own wings fluttering excitedly at his sides.

Then Zoro took a running lunge towards the marines, silver swords and gold-shaded wings flashing in the afternoon light, and his wings snapped back to give him a burst of momentum. Faster than Luffy could even blink, the marines were all frozen in place, Zoro’s three swords perfectly positioned to catch their blades midair.