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itneverendshere · 1 month ago

Note

Hi Gigi, I hope you’re having a great day. I love your works so much, especially hockey Rafe in your brother’s bsf fic. I was wondering if I can request, like, Rafe coming to her dorm after a hockey practice, and then them taking a shower together, and it gets smutty

only if you want to. Thank you for reading my request :)

pleasure’s a place only we know - r.c (+18)

pairing: kelce's sister x hockey!rafe warnings: smut.

Your laptop hummed loudly next to your textbook, and your note pages were scattered on your desk. You’d been at this for hours — your brain had turned into scrambled eggs, and the stats exam looming tomorrow wasn’t helping.

Another sigh.

Your leg bounced under the desk. Rafe hadn’t texted, not that you were waiting on it. (You were.) He had practice, or lifting. Or some team thing.

Or maybe he’d forgotten you existed because finals week had turned you into a snapping, sarcastic monster.

Fair.

You shoved another handful of pretzels into your mouth, eyes skimming the same paragraph for the fifth time, absorbing nothing. The numbers blurred together — standard deviations, variances, and z-scores. All useless until they were on a scantron.

Your twist-out had frizzed into something unholy, your satin bonnet had disappeared somewhere between your fourth meltdown and the last pack of fruit snacks. You leaned back, stretched, and stared up at the ceiling, hoping God would beam down a cheat sheet through the asbestos tiles.

You knew you were smart. You weren’t failing. But something about finals season had you on a anxiety roll. You were short with everyone, hadn’t called your mom back in two days. And poor Rafe — bless his heart — had gotten the brunt of it.

You were an overstimulated gremlin with zero patience for anyone who wasn’t your stats professor handing you the answer key. You’d snapped at Rafe yesterday when he’d dropped off a smoothie from that place with the good ginger shots. He’d blinked, kissed the top of your head, and dipped before you could apologize.

You hadn’t texted since.

You told yourself you needed space. He’d understand. Except now it was late, the hallway outside was quiet. You cracked your knuckles, got up to pee for the third time in an hour, and when you came back, he was standing in the doorway like a literal hallucination.

Rafe.

Hoodie damp at the collar, hair wet from sweat, duffle bag slung low on his shoulder. His eyes flicked over you — sleep shorts, tank top, socks with little ducks on them — and something in his jaw relaxed.

“You could knock like a normal person.”

“You always leave it unlocked,” he said, stepping inside. “Reckless behavior for a smart girl.”

“Cute. You memorize that on the bus?”

“Missed you too."

You sat back in your chair and turned toward your screen, scrolling through notes even though you weren’t reading.

“What do you want?”

He dropped the bag and crossed to you slowly. “You didn’t text me. You ghosted me after I fed you.”

“I was busy.”

“You were mean.”

“I’m tired.”

“I know,” he said, standing behind you now. His hands came to rest on your shoulders. Your eyes closed when his thumbs pressed gently into the knots at the base of your neck, and you exhaled before you could stop yourself.

It felt good. It felt so good and you didn’t deserve it.

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Be nice to me when I’m being a bitch.”

He laughed. “Can’t help it.”

You turned in the chair then, knees bumping his thighs, and looked up at him. There was sweat still clinging to the curve of his jaw. His hair was wild, that annoying, effortlessly hot that made you irrationally angry.

“You been here all day?”

You turned and kept typing. “No, I ran a marathon and then solved world hunger. Obviously, I’ve been here.”

“I brought you food.”

You pointed at the desk without turning around.

“Add it to the offering pile. You smell like a hockey locker room, by the way.”

You knew you were being impossible.

“I know. Join me in the shower?”

You gave him a full glare. “I’m trying to pass stats. I’ll bathe after.”

“I’m serious. Come with me.”

“I’m serious, too. Go wash your ass.”

“You have two options,” He conceded, calm as anything. “You get up and walk to the shower like a functioning person, or I carry you.”

You didn’t bother looking up. “You wouldn’t.”

He stepped closer. “Try me.”

“I swear to God, Rafe—”

“Nope. God’s off-duty. You got me tonight.”

You turned slowly in your chair, posture full of defiance, even if your spine ached from being hunched for hours and your brain was one bad stat problem away from full shutdown.

“I’m studying.”

“You’re spiraling.”

You held up a finger. “First of all—”

You didn’t get the sentence out before he was dragging back your chair, and you were squawking, legs flailing as he picked you up.

“Rafe! I’m serious—”

“So am I.”

He adjusted you in his arms, one hand bracing your thigh, the other supporting your back like he’d done it a hundred times. (He had.)

“We’re showering. Either you’re in the mood for soap and peace or soap and attitude, but the soap’s happening.”

You kicked your legs weakly. “Put me down!”

“Say please.”

“Please choke.”

He grinned. “That can be arranged.”

You smacked his chest as he carried you through the narrow dorm bathroom door. He set you down on the counter like a princess and started pulling off his hoodie.

You crossed your arms in defiance, pretending you weren’t ogling his physique.

“This is manipulative behavior.”

“Yep,” He nodded, shirt now gone, abs on full display. “Textbook boyfriend manipulation.”

“Gross.”

He stepped closer. “You need a break, baby.”

You didn’t want to melt — you really didn’t — but the nickname came low and quiet, with enough scratch to it that it softened your body.

You rolled your eyes and grumbled a “Fine.” You sighed and peeled off your tank top, glaring at him while doing it. “If I miss a practice problem because of you—”

“Then I’ll make it up to you.”

You paused. “How.”

He kissed your shoulder, then your collarbone, “With my mouth.”

You narrowed your eyes. “Is sex all you think about?"

He shrugged in mock innocence. “You're getting naked. Can you blame me?"

You couldn’t think of anything except how much you missed him, and how awful you've been these past few days. Rafe was between your legs, hands braced on the counter on either side of you, effectively caging you in.

“I’m only doing this because I was gonna shower eventually.”

Rafe held off from smiling.

“You say that like I didn’t carry your whining ass in here.”

You glared. “I didn’t whine.”

His nose skimmed yours. “You did. Like a baby possum.”

You slapped his chest, half-heartedly, and he chuckled, the sound vibrating through your skin. You didn’t want to smile, but you did anyway.

“I have four brain cells left max, and you’re wasting all of them on this,” You pouted as he gently pulled your shorts down. “I need to finish the—”

“Nope,” he interrupted, “You’re done for tonight. Stats can wait.”

“You’re so full of—” You started, but the words died in your throat when you lifted your hips without thinking, letting him pull them off.

His eyes dragged over you with that intense thing he did that always made you feel seen in unfair ways.

“Stop looking at me like that.” You were trying to fill the silence. “I haven’t shaved, my hair’s a mess, and my back looks like a little old man’s from hunching over that desk.”

Rafe dipped his head and pressed a kiss to the center of your chest, one to your sternum, and then the underside of your breast.

You squirmed, fingers digging into the edge of the counter.

“Don’t try to soften me up.”

“Not trying. It’s working anyway.”

Your underwear was gone too, your mouth opened to sass him again—reflexive— but he kissed you, with no real warning, shutting you up immediately. You tried to breathe through it, but you were already rolling into him without conscious thought. You moaned like you hadn't been touched in years, and Rafe only pulled back to gloat against your lips.

“There she is.”

“Asshole,” you breathed, chasing his mouth again.

He grinned against you, hands sliding around to your ass, pulling you flush to him.

“You still pissy?”

You nodded — lying. “Yeah.”

He tilted your chin up. “Good.”

He dragged his lips down your throat while your hands scrambled at his waistband, needing him as close as possible.

“Take your pants off,” You demanded, breathless.

“You’re so bossy when you’re stressed.”

“And you’re so slow when you’re horny.”

Rafe walked back to strip off his sweats in one tug, briefs going with them. Your breath caught at the sight of him, already hard, as if he’d been waiting all day to put you in this exact position.

“You staring, or you joining me?” he asked, reaching past you to flip the shower knob. Steam billowed out instantly, curling into the corners of the cramped dorm bathroom.

You blinked. “I’m still mad.”

“I know,” His hands skated up your sides. “But that mouth’s gonna be too busy to talk soon, so I’m not worried.”

His hands slid down until he was lifting you off the counter.

“You’re such a cocky—”

He interrupted with another kiss, a growl buried in your throat. Your legs wrapped around him instinctively, arms going tight around his shoulders. By the time he stepped into the shower, you were melting all over him, steam clinging to your skin.

“You gonna relax now?” He baited, setting you down carefully under the spray. His fingers moved methodically—slicking your hair back, thumbs rubbing behind your ears the way you loved.

The water was hot, the tile freezing under your toes, but the second he wrapped his arms around your waist, you exhaled as if someone had pulled a string in your spine.

His lips ghosted across the back of your neck, down your shoulder, while his hands slid over your stomach, your hips, fingers finding the spots that always made you gulp. You tilted your head forward, letting the water cascade over your shoulders while Rafe’s hands kept roaming.

You loved that he knew how to dismantle you, that he wanted to. You were all jagged corners, brittle ego, and sharp tongue — and he still chose to be gentle with you.

His hands slid lower, palms dragging down your warm thighs, parting them with muscle memory.

“Rafe…” You warned, though it wasn’t convincing.

“Shhh,” He kissed the shell of your ear. “Lemme take care of it.”

You should’ve said no, remind him you needed to study. That you were too overwhelmed, and this wasn’t the solution. But your body was already leaning into his, your thighs widening under his touch, head lolling back against his chest.

You gasped when his fingers slipped between your legs.

He chuckled and kissed the top of your shoulder. “You don’t sound upset."

You whined when he pressed firmer, your hips tilting toward his hand. “I didn’t shave.”

“I don’t fuckin' care,” He grunted, licking a stripe up your neck. “You could be covered in moss, I’d still want you.”

You choked on a laugh and a moan at the same time — of course he’d say something sweet while his fingers moved expertly, coaxing you open. He pushed you back until your spine met the cold tile, his other hand braced next to your head, creating space that felt both protective and possessive.

You didn’t think about the worksheet waiting on your desk or the unread slides you had pretended to skim. All you could do was arch into him, your thighs twitching as he moved his fingers slowly enough to make you curse and clench around nothing.

You could feel him grin against your collarbone, teeth grazing skin as he teased. You were pulsing, melting. Slipping into that headspace where everything else went far away.

His mouth was at your ear now. “Gonna make you feel good, then put you to bed. You’ll wake up smarter.”

You drew in a breath, the last sound before he dipped lower, dropping to his knees on the slippery tile. One hand still braced your thigh, the other holding your hip as he hooked one of your legs over his shoulder.

“Rafe—” It was more of a plea than a warning. “Stop teasing—”

“Not teasing,” he said, dragging his mouth just shy of where you needed him. “Savoring.”

You whimpered, frustration bleeding into want. He was so annoying when he was like this — patient, too good with his tongue for your own sanity. He kissed the inside of your thigh first, and then his mouth found the place his fingers had left. The tenderness and hunger braided together in a way only he ever managed.

He was slow with it. Messy and confident, a rhythm that made your knees shake and your eyes flutter. He licked a stripe up, then back down. You choked on a noise and slapped a hand against the tile, the other tangling in his wet hair because you had to hold yourself up.

You looked down, your boyfriend was staring up, starry-eyed, mouth dragging lazy, practiced patterns.

“You’re actually—this is—”

He hummed against you, and your whole body jolted. “Focus.”

You wanted to kill him.

Your head fell back with a thud against the tile, and all that tension — the cramming, the guilt, the late-night panic attacks and stale pretzels and short tempers — it all disappeared once Rafe flattened his tongue and dragged it over your clit, slow enough to make you sob.

“Oh my God, Rafe—”

“Told you I’d make it up to you.”

He dove back in, mouth working overtime and only pausing to suck before switching back to his tongue.

When you thought you were going to embarrassingly come too soon, he backed off, slowing his pace, dragging it out. Again. And again, until you were trembling, thighs clenching around his shoulders, toes curling on the cold tile.

Then he started again, this time with two fingers sliding in, slow and deep, curving while his mouth kept working you over. You cried out, loud, not even bothering to keep it together anymore.

It was obscene. The wet sound of his mouth on you, the way his fingers moved in tandem — he was so fucking good at this, and you loved him for it.

He looked up at you with that look and said, “Sit on my face.”

You blinked, heart stuttering. “What?”

“You heard me. C’mon.”

You gawked, mind blank, but your body already knew. He reached up and tugged your other leg, guiding you with confident hands.

He adjusted his position “Take it out on me.”

You didn’t realize you were already straddling him until your knees settled around his neck. One of his hands gripped your ass, the other guiding your thigh up over his shoulder like it weighed nothing.

“Rafe—”

“You want me quiet? Shut me up.”

His mouth met you instantly, needy, like he’d missed it for the past ten seconds, dying to taste you again. You were gone, no thoughts, no complaints, lost in pleasure and the obscene sound of him devouring you like a meal.

He pushed you further into his face, anchoring you with that ungodly strength — big hands gripping your ass, keeping you right where he wanted you, diving right in. You gasped automatically, one hand flying to the foggy glass wall for balance, the other tangled in his soaked hair.

“Rafe—holy shiiit—”

He moaned against you, the vibration hitting you, and then his tongue was everywhere — stroking, circling, dipping, sucking.

You tried to lift off a little, but his grip tightened, pulling you back down with a growl.

“Don’t run,” He tsked into your skin, voice ragged. “Take it out on me. Use me.”

You started to move tentatively, slow grinds against his face — but he loved it. You could feel it in the way he groaned, how he pressed into you harder, mouth moving, chasing every drop.

His nose rubbed perfectly where you needed it, tongue fucking into you with such precision it made your vision go white. The steam made everything hazy, dreamlike.

“Come on, baby. Give it to me.”

You rode his face like it was the last thing you’d ever do—hips rolling, thighs shaking, hands scrabbling for purchase. He let you use him, wanted it. And when the orgasm hit, you shouted, the sound bouncing off the tile walls.

Rafe didn’t stop. Not when you came, not when your legs trembled, not even when you started begging, high and breathless.

“Please—Rafe—I can’t—”

He didn’t care.

He held you down, tongue still working you through the comedown, drinking it in like he was parched. When you finally slumped forward, gasping and spent, he let you slide down slowly, arms catching you with infuriating gentleness.

He kissed the inside of your thigh one last time, a man grateful for worship. “Feel better?”

You couldn't speak, throat sore from all the noises he pulled out of you.

Rafe pecked the hinge of your jaw. “Still stressed.?”

You coughed a laugh and collapsed against him. “Shut up.”

He flashed you that grin that sent heat rushing up your neck, strong arms still wrapped under your thighs.

“Round two, then."

361 notes · View notes

fairlyang · 9 months ago

Text

Greedy 🕷️🐈‍⬛

w/c: 2.3K

pairing: bf!miguel o’hara x felicia hardy x f!reader

tags: 18+ smut. she saves you, starts flirting, seducing, gay panic, making out, cheating but not really (it was a prank!), voyeurism, exhibitionism, miguel was watching the whole time, blowjob, two tongues on him, he fucks you, then he fucks her, creampie, kinda cuckqueen, challengers kiss

a/n: this was a wip from last november 😀 only like the first paragraph which i used for another fic but STILL, enjoy

you were on your way to your apartment after dropping by the nearest bodega to get some snacks. you cut through an alley to get home faster thinking a shortcut would be a good idea but that was your first mistake when you were attacked as soon as you walked past some dumpsters.

you screamed as some men grabbed you, and tried to grab your bags of snacks and your purse but you were holding on tightly to both. “get the fuck off me!”

you stomped harshly on the foot of whoever was on your right and they groaned making another man forcibly grab you then choke you. you let go of your things and grab onto their arm, trying your hardest to pull them away but they weren’t budging.

you could barely breathe, choking up on pleas when suddenly you hear a voice, “hey boys, not nice to pick on someone smaller than you.”

then there’s a bunch of smoke and you hear the sounds of punching, kicks, and groans. the man who held you, now let you go and you coughed and tried to see what was going on when you were grabbed and you were suddenly off the floor.

within seconds you landed somewhere so you coughed, trying to breathe properly again while rubbing your eyes. when you opened them you saw a girl with a silver ponytail and a black suit. you tilted your head to the side and right when you were going to speak, she beat you to it. “you must be the spider’s girlfriend then?”

your eyebrows furrow and she just gives you a smile while she circles around you, checking you out? she ran a finger along your arm sending shivers all throughout your body while she hands you your things with her other hand, “shocked he’d keep someone as pretty as you a secret..” she murmurs then quickly adds, “but i can also see why..”

“how do you know who i am?” you ask and she shrugs.

you grab your things from her and raise an eyebrow, “word gets around quick out here, surprised he’s not keeping a close eye on you.”

“so you must be felicia..” you mumble and she grins, “look at you, pretty and smart.”

“well um- thank you. for saving me.” you say and give her a small smile.

“course, though you can feel free to give me a token of your gratitude.” she murmurs making your face grow hot.

“mm don’t think so.” you say making her pout, “real shame.”

“why's that?” you ask and she smirks, “why not?”

you chuckle and shake your head, “i’m not one to cheat.”

“don’t think of it like that, think of it as giving a proper thank you.” she purrs and you gulp.

you always knew you also liked girls but since being in a relationship with miguel that’s been in the back of your mind since you were taken and monogamous. and she was really testing her luck right now.

just like he said she has in the past. it’s just how she is. she plays around.

but maybe she’s not the only one that likes playing games..

she saw something in your eyes, something that told her you weren’t completely telling the truth. your body language also told a different story.

“spider did always like sharing..” she whispers and stands in front of you and wrapping her arms around your waist then swiftly pulling you in making you drop your things.

“did he?” you ask quietly and she nods, leaning in.

“i wouldn’t wanna share you.. but if that’s the only way then maybe..” she whispers and you could lightly feel her breath on your lips.

“maybe i’ll just have to.” she mumbles and cuts the space between you two.

she kissed you softly, testing the waters at first. her right hand came up to cup your cheek while you remained frozen. conflicting thoughts flashed in your head for a variety of reasons. but it landed on one thing.

fuck it.

you kissed back and wrapped your arms around her neck, letting one hand go further to play with her ponytail. you lightly tug making her squeeze your skin then go down to grope and squeeze your ass. you moaned in her mouth and she smiled through the kiss then slid her tongue into your mouth.

you tug on her hair a little harder and stick your tongue into her mouth earning yourself a loud moan from her. her hands then started roaming all over your body while the kiss just escalated. she put her leg in between yours and gently rub it against you making you gasp.

she pulls away and grins, “think we’ve teased him enough?”

“i don’t know, think he was enjoying the show.” you murmur and you both turn around and look up at the billboard that was on top of the building.

there was your boyfriend miguel just sitting on one of the poles while realizing he was caught. he jumps down to the two of you and he shakes his head in disbelief, “y’know when we said we’d have a threesome i thought we were going to schedule it like normal people not just pull a fucking prank.”

you grin up at him and felicia stands to your side, her arm snaked around your waist as she gives him a smirk, “what and miss out on all this fun?”

“plus it seems you liked it spider.” she adds and points down to his hard on.

he groans and rolls his eyes before looking at you, “well i did schedule it… and we’re all here now.”

“so even getting mugged-“

“you thought i was just stupid enough to go through a fucking alley for fun?” you scoff and felicia chuckles, “our girl is smart.”

“she is not our girl, she’s just mine.” he snaps back and she shrugs.

she lets go of you and you both walk towards him, mischief in both sets of eyes. “i’d never just let her get mugged.” she starts and runs a finger to his chest, “they’re friends, they owed me a favor and news flash she likes getting choked.”

“you’re both unbelievable.” he groans and you pout.

“so you didn’t like our surprise?” you ask and he sighs.

“come on sweetie, of course he liked it.” she says and grabs your hand.

you both get down to your knees in front of him, looking at him through batted eyelashes making him take a deep breath. “c’mon, let us take care of you.” you murmured, making him bit his lip.

he then pressed on the screen of his watch and the suit sparked away, fully exposing his hard cock to you both. you grabbed it and she went up to spit on it, you let it drip down — watching as it went down his vein on the side of his shaft and you started stroking him, “it’s not that bad now, is it baby? i just got a little ahead before you and contacted her so we could do this.”

“you’ve got a good one spider.” felicia murmured and then went down to suck on his balls.

he moaned and lowered one of his hands down to your head to make you take him in your mouth, “mm slow down there baby.”

felicia came back up and she looked at you, you both looked at his cock and got close to it. you stick your tongue out and slap the tip onto your mouth. felicia does the same and you slap it on her tongue while you both looked up at him. his eyes rolled to the back of his head at the sight and his second hand came up but this time to place around her ponytail.

you giggled then let go, going in and licking the side of his shaft while she followed your lead. you both started at the top then went down at the same time earning yourselves groans from the man.

you knew he’d like this idea. why wouldn’t he?

you went all the way down then came back up at the same time. she then grabbed him and took him in her mouth, instantly taking as much as she could while you just watched in awe. you looked at him, eyes shut, cheeks rosy, and taking deep breaths — who knew he’d enjoy this so much.

and it was only just beginning.

his patience ran really thin so he had you both quickly take off your bottoms and first started off by having you bent over the poles that kept the billboard up. he was sliding his tip in and out of you while you pleading him to just fuck you because you were just so horny. “you’re so fucking greedy baby.” he murmured and felicia just nodded, agreeing with him.

“fel, you’re meant to help me.” you whined and she just grinned, “but you are just so greedy, princess.”

he decided you had enough and fully slammed into you while you were distracted listening to her. you whimpered and gripped the pole while keeping your back arched for him, “there ya go, good girl.” she murmured in front of you as he stretched you out so good.

“how’s she feel mig?” she asked, looking up at him and he just grinned, “fucking incredible.”

“lucky.” she mutters and playfully rolls her eyes while he starts setting up a fast pace.

you clenched around him making him twitch and moan, “fuck baby.”

his hands gripped your hips as he thrusted into you hard while felicia cooed sweet nothings to you. your eyes fluttered as miguel slammed into you like there was no tomorrow and felicia took the initiative to kiss you.

you kissed her back prompting miguel to thrust his hips against yours, fucking you for his own pleasure because he was losing his mind because of you two.

felicia pulls away and sticks her thumb out to you, you instinctively sucked on it, “really such a greedy girl, aren’t you?” she teases making you look at you with glossy eyes and nodding.

“if I would’ve known this is how my night would go I wouldn’t have worn my su-“ she says but miguel interrupts her, “alright that’s enough.”

she chuckled and shakes her head, “only playing around spider, come on we all like games around here.”

he groans and grips your skin, the sensation leaving goosebumps all over your body, “fuck- just like that baby-“

“mm you heard her baby, just like that.” she purrs, holding his gaze as he continues his ruthless pace.

“can you pull out when you’re close then fuck her?” you suddenly ask, making them both turn to you.

“god you’re both freaks-“ he mutters under his breath which had you both scoffing.

you then each started deflecting and pulling the blame on him while he started hitting deeper, reaching that spot that always has you seeing stars. you’d stutter while trying to argue but felicia was speaking clearly for you both.

it was going in one ear and out the other but he knew he was fucking thrilled with your idea, hell he knew damn well he loved this whole thing being a surprise to him too but being too stubborn to admit. but you two knew him well enough to know the truth and not believe his lies.

with the sudden realization that this was really happening, he already felt his orgasm coming in. you felt it too with his cock twitching inside you while his thrusts became more sloppy.

felicia had already taken her suit off, she was just left in her undergarments but her panties were off to the side because he had a small taste of you both.

he groaned and pulled out of you then quickly got behind felicia, who had her ass stuck out for him. he quickly slid inside her then wrapped his arms around her as she held on to the same pole you were holding on to.

he slammed into her fast, her tight cunt squeezing like yours did and lord did he love being inside you both. his orgasm formed in his stomach and he started moaning in her ear as she brought a hand up to his face, “oh fuck- feels so good spider!”

you just watched the scene in front of you and rubbed your clit, your own orgasm coming in quick just watching how he held her. felicia had been doing the same when he was fucking you so really all of you had been reaching it together.

felicia’s walls clenched against him as she was the first to cum, squeezing him while he moaned and went as deep as he could then spilled his load inside her. you cried out when yours hit you at the same time and you held onto the pole with felicia.

you were both shaking and all three of you were out of breath, as you slowed down your movements on your fingers and miguel was slowly pulling out. his cock slipped out of her and he quickly fixed her panties so it’d only slip through but not completely spill out.

“fel, i think you’re our girl.” you murmured, walking towards them as she chuckles and just nods.

miguel wraps his arm around you then leans down to kiss you. you pull away then kiss felicia. she pulls away then turns around to face you both, then grabs each of you with one hand and pulling you both in for a kiss. you felt both sets of lips but then one of them stuck their tongue out and it was instantly changed to just tongues clashing.

maybe the prank helped him realize how badly he needed you both in his life. and it made you realize how you could have more than one slice of the pie because it’s what you all wanted.

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lesbianrobin · 2 months ago

Text

observations from grading hundreds of american college students' discussion posts and essays about film

before i get into this i want to be SO clear that this is not meant to be a "kids these days" thing, but more a commentary on the contemporary media landscape and the impacts of new media on young people's consumption habits. i think that young people's expectations of film are primarily a reflection of how they've been taught to watch and process film.

also, i teach intro, so these are not necessarily film or even humanities majors. many of my students are in computer science, engineering, etc. okay yay let's go <3

most american college students have quite literally Never seen a single movie that was not in english, and are very resistant to reading subtitles.

i've had multiple students comment that non-english language films which require them to read subtitles force them to actually look at the screen, which makes them notice more details in the film. they are not accustomed to actually Watching films, and doing so is novel to them. they're used to just turning things on in the background before doing other tasks/scrolling on their phones.

students frequently comment upon whether or not a film was able to hold their attention, and many consider it a failing of the film itself if not. many students also lose interest when they are confused or uncertain about what is happening in a movie, rather than becoming more invested or intrigued.

some do note that they have short attention spans, and will clearly state that they do not watch or enjoy many movies because of this.

things which students see as inherently boring include black and white films, silent films, non-English-language films, and films more than twenty years old. many students were shocked when they enjoyed a film within any of the aforementioned categories.

a lot of students will see all of the pieces of the puzzle, but struggle to put them together. for example: they will note that a detective character seems to care more about pinning a crime on somebody than they care about actually solving it, that the detective is bad at their job, that the detective brutalizes suspects, but they will not quite reach the conclusion that the film is doing these things intentionally. rather than concluding that the film is criticizing the police, they will be upset that the character is so awful.

one student insisted that mad max: fury road is a deeply misogynistic film because the women were treated as objects and wore skimpy clothes. the fact that the entire plot of the film is about said women asserting their personhood and overthrowing the patriarchal order to establish a more egalitarian and empathetic matriarchy was not relevant to her; what mattered was how they looked, and no amount of explanation could change her mind. i don't really have a clear theory of what was going on here, but i wanted to share it because it feels. poignant. in a way i cannot articulate.

many students see "old" films as inherently worse than contemporary films. they will often say things like, "the movie was really good for something from the fifties."

a lot of people have never heard of alfred hitchcock. i don't rly have a take on this it just stunned me.

and this last one isn't necessarily film-specific, but i do think it's relevant to discussing media literacy and the quality of k-12 + STEM-focused university education: so many students do not know how to format a paper, and do not know how/do not think to look up a style guide or even consult the syllabus or assignment sheet.

students often add additional spaces between paragraphs, and/or use 1.15 pt. spacing rather than double spacing their papers. they'll use calibri or arial rather than times new roman, in 11 pt. font rather than 12. they'll write out their thesis separately from their paragraphs, or not write in paragraphs at all, instead writing something that looks closer to stream-of-consciousness bullet-point notes.

it seems to me that many students somehow make it through high school and into university without ever learning how to write a paper. what really concerns me however is the fact that this information is extremely available to them; in the class syllabus, on their assignment sheet, even if you just google how to write a paper. i'm no expert in education and i don't want to be alarmist, but i do think that there is a concerning lack of curiosity and care in many students, primarily those studying in STEM fields. part of this is just the fact that many of my students are used to writing lab reports and this is a different sort of writing, but the lack of flexibility and ability to engage with other subjects is very sad to me.

plenty of my students are curious and read the syllabus and pay attention to the films and know how to write! but the number of those who struggle to formulate a coherent paragraph, let alone paper, who cannot identify basic themes, indicates to me that young people are seriously suffering from shortened attention spans, the lack of popular non-english language film and television in american culture, and the proliferation of "second-screen" streaming content designed to be "viewed" by audiences who are not paying attention.

i don't have a remedy for this. i don't totally know why i'm typing this all out, except that my tenure as a teaching assistant is coming to an end and i felt an irrepressible urge to reflect upon the experience. idk i suppose i hope this will be interesting to somebody. if you made it this far, thank you and i hope you're well <3

#em talks

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jozor-johai · 4 months ago

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Jon’s identity arc in AGOT Jon I

I’m back to working through a reread of the series, this time taking quite a lot of time to take notes and read each chapter twice over. (There will be a lot of posts like this as I work my way through).

Something already very noticeable to me reading the book this way is how GRRM’s short story skills are used to great effect in each chapter, giving chapters an excellent sense of arc and resolution, even if only minor developments are made towards the overall plot. One such that stands out is in AGOT Jon I, where Jon deals with his identity as a bastard and his position in the Stark family.

Jon spends the whole chapter “telling himself” that he’s glad he’s not sitting with his family, and that he’s a bastard. This is such a central focus of the chapter that GRRM makes it the opening line:

There were times—not many, but a few—when Jon Snow was glad he was a bastard. As he filled his wine cup once more from a passing flagon, it struck him that this might be one of them.

As the chapter goes on, though, we get the sense that Jon is actually quite bitter about this and is suppressing his feelings (and drinking heavily to compensate). He comes up with reasons why he should be glad to be where he is he whole chapter long: he’s glad because he can drink unsupervised, he’s glad because he doesn’t have to escort insipid princesses.

GRRM makes the connection to Jon’s drinking when recalling his family finally being seated—all at the dias, far from him.

After all had been seated, toasts were made, thanks were given and returned, and then the feasting began. Jon had started drinking then, and he had not stopped.

As the chapter goes on, the facade of this defense becomes increasingly obvious—Jon has to “tell himself” he’s fortunate.

His brothers and sisters had not been permitted to bring their wolves to the banquet, but there were more curs than Jon could count at this end of the hall, and no one had said a word about his pup. He told himself he was fortunate in that too. His eyes stung. Jon rubbed at them savagely, cursing the smoke.

The first time I read this, I didn’t realize this was GRRM code for: ‘he started crying,’ but it’s an excellent line.

Jon’s identity gets highlighted with Ghost as a proxy while talking to Benjen:

A very quiet wolf,” he observed. “He’s not like the others,” Jon said.

An observation that is immediately followed by a paragraph about how “a bastard had to learn to notice things,” and about how, with no other palce to go, Jon wants to join the Night’s Watch.

This whole time Jon is clearly upset about being a bastard and not like his siblings, and trying to find solace in that but failing as he eventually erupts into an outburst about bastardy and leaves the hall truly in tears.

Jon trembled. “I will never father a bastard,” he said carefully. “Never!” He spat it out like venom. Suddenly he realized that the table had fallen silent, and they were all looking at him. He felt the tears begin to well behind his eyes. He pushed himself to his feet.

This continues on into the Tyrion conversation, which eventually leads to this absolutely brilliant interaction:

“Lord Eddard Stark is my father,” Jon admitted stiffly. Lannister studied his face. “Yes,” he said. “I can see it. You have more of the north in you than your brothers.” “Half brothers,” Jon corrected. He was pleased by the dwarf’s comment, but he tried not to let it show.

Jon’s response here is such genius characterization to show a change in his attitude. After an entire chapter of Jon searching for some reason why he should be happy to be a bastard, Tyrion gives him a genuine reason: something different between he and his family he can be proud of.

In that moment, though, Tyrion groups Jon and his family all together as “brothers,” and this time, Jon interjects to add space and difference between him and his half-siblings. For the first time, it seems clear that Jon is trying to separate himself, rather than making excuses for the existing separation. And unlike earlier in the chapter he’s not trying to convince himself—it’s genuine: Tyrion’s words make him actually proud of a difference he has.

What a great little character arc for Jon—and a testament to Martin’s writing, I think.

#asoiaf #asoiaf meta #jozor thoughts #jon snow #agot jon i #a game of thrones

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godricgryffinsnore · 17 days ago

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I read one of you fics on friedrich. Are u using chatgpt AI? lol, it's so obvious, with the I, II, III, IV, ETC. The lack of emotions and everything just scream AI. You're not fooling everyone in the community boo. It's like dishonoring actual AMAZING writers by posting one that doesn't deserve the recognition that it's getting. Try different prompts next time, add "make it humane or with emotions." 🤯

Hey Anon, please take your time and read.

First of all, thanks for taking the time to read the fic—even if your comment is less about constructive feedback and more about baseless accusations. Just to clarify: I literally mentioned in the post that it was my first time writing for Friedrich and that I had just watched the movie. Of course it wouldn’t be perfect. That’s kind of how beginnings work? I also clearly stated that the fic was divided into multiple parts—I, II, III, IV, etc.—for my clarity, because that’s how I organize longer pieces. It’s not an AI thing, it’s a basic formatting choice.

And honestly, if you’d taken even a second to read any of my other posts, you’d know I’m a huge AI hater. I’m proudly human, thank you very much, and I enjoy the process of crafting words from scratch. I’m confident in my writing, and I know the difference between robotic text and emotional storytelling, because I actually give a damn about what I create.

Sure, I use Google and translation apps sometimes. So do most writers. It’s called expanding your vocabulary, not cheating. And yes, that Friedrich fic was one of my starting pieces. I was just beginning my Aaron Taylor-Johnson masterlist and wasn’t yet fully used to writing his characters. But that doesn’t mean it lacked emotion. It was an angst fic, and if you’d bothered to read the rest of my work, you’d see that I actually wrote only fluff before that one. I stepped out of my comfort zone. That takes effort, not artificial intelligence.

Look—I get that not every piece is for everyone. That’s fine. But throwing around false accusations and acting like you’re some literary gatekeeper is just plain shitty. If you don’t like the way I write? Leave. Seriously. My blog is a safe and comfortable space for people who enjoy my work—not a playground for people who want to tear others down.

I’m proud of how far I’ve come, and I know I’ve grown as a writer since then. If you have the time (and, hopefully, a more open mind), maybe read some of my newer pieces. But if you’re just here to throw shit and go? The unfollow button is right there.

Have the day you deserve. 😊

xoxo, della 🧸

[P.S: This paragraph is also NOT AI but my raw, ‘emotion-filled’ words.]

#della’s inbox 𐙚⋆°🦢｡⋆♡#della rambles ⋆.˚✮🎧✮˚.⋆#like please accusing me of AI is equal to insulting me #I hate AI #andI am proud of my work.#so if you don’t like it? leave #this is a happy and fun blog #fuck ai

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fulgurbugs · 7 months ago

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I love the octodeck SO SO MUCH, would you be willing to share your design choices?? Like I would've expected the noble/rogue classes to be the basis for separation by suit, on top of the black/red divide between octo 1 and 2 characters

sure! i’ll actually go card by card and explain all my choices tbh, so strap in for a long post

first up, spades! my girlfriend was the one who suggested the games be the split between red and black suits, so starting from there we hashed out out placements for suits. honestly, we didn’t choose for much reason other than vibes, so the design choices weren’t much about classes/gameplay. spades is the higher ranked suit, as well as having a symbol with a sharper motif. for this, it felt like olberic and primrose were good fits, with olberic being the oldest/most battle hardened of the OT1 cast, and primrose having a sort of rightful queen motif (and she’s dangerous with a dagger.) with ophilia and tressa being chosen for jack, we decided to put tressa as spades (this one is very slightly gameplay related, she is kind of the best so we gave her the higher suit) and therion got the ace. i explain a lot about the card placements here, so following this paragraph i’m not gonna rehash it too much.

anyways, now here’s some of the design thoughts about these guys!

Tressa: for these earlier spades cards, which were the first suit i sketched, they definitely started with the lightest backround elements. i went in on a second pass and added some more detail, but tressa was the first card i drew and she had no backround at all at first. decided that a pirate ship/sea and treasure were good motifs for her

Primrose: i absolutely loved drawing her card, but then again i love drawing primrose in general. for primrose, i decided her backround elements would be birds and petals. birds are a prevalent symbol in her story, with the crows being her enemies, and primrose herself is a kind of caged bird. initially, i wanted to give her an asymmetrical card that had one half with 3 black birds (crows) while the other half had white birds (freedom). i didn’t end up liking any of the sketches for the black birds, so i decided to just do the white birds instead. still really love this card!

Olberic: olberic was a tough one to pick a backround for. i ended up going for just some vaguely mountainous shapes, but also decided to add in the gate of finis, since it’s located in hornburg. my goal with this card was to make him look regal without looking royal. i think the sword also came out really good, i really like the way the mirroring on this card came out

Therion: Therion was the first ace i drew, and i decided that since ace cards aren’t face cards, i have free rein to do whatever i wanted. and what i wanted was to not have to worry about the mirroring. so all of the aces ended up with this kind of “guy floating in space” idea, which i think is pretty fun without being overly complex. i didn’t want to over complicate the ace cards, since typically they’re pretty minimal looking. my original idea was to have each of our aces holding or interacting with their suit symbol in some way to make it interesting. the spade kind of looks like a dagger, if you stretch it out, so my original idea was to have him wield it as such. however, none of my sketches read clearly, so instead opted to have them instead present their suit as a kind of compromise. since ace cards are not face cards i also opted not to define their faces.

here’s the clubs! when i was getting to the coloring stage, what i decided to do to make things interesting visually was to use a different palette for each suit, while still keeping it clearly black suit/red suit. for the black suits, Spades got the cool grey palette, and clubs got the warm gray pallete!

as for individual notes…

Ophilia: oh boy she gave me a lot of trouble. this was mostly due to the lighting on her lantern, and trying to convey it in grayscale. i think i did a pretty decent job!

H’aanit: decided linde counted as a backround element for the hunters. i don’t have too much to say about this card other than it took me a while to grayscale it so that everything was silhouetted to an acceptable degree to me lol

Cyrus: i had a lot of trouble picking out a backround for him. i thought maybe a library or something similar, but i ended up going with this pretty generic sunny pathway to represent the bright lands in general. the big chunky brush makes rendering small details in the backround difficult (not impossible) so simpler is better if i can swing it.

Alfyn: going back to the interacting-with-suit-symbol idea, my original idea was that the clubs symbol kind of looks like a clover, so alfyn could be kind of inspecting it like an herb or something. however, the pose i first drew was too similar to cyrus, and again the symbol did not read clearly, so i scrapped it lol.

one fun thing about the way we ended up sorting the suits was that each set had 2 pairs that had team up attacks in the ot2 extra battles (olberic/tressa, therion/prim for spades, alfyn/ophilia and cyrus/h’aanit for clubs.) this was by complete accident.

now we reach the red suits! for hearts, i opted to use warm/orangey shades. onto the individual notes!

Agnea: i wanted her braid to be nice and visible in the composition, so i kept her backround elements light. just fluttering petals to fill some space i just love drawing agnea in general tbh

Partitio: i got a good way through coloring this one and decided i absolutely needed to make his coat yellow. it’s too iconic to the design. luckily, the warm red pallete accommodates it pretty well. it’s definitely a more orangey shade but with all the red it reads quite yellow. i gray/redscaled everyone specifically to avoid having to figure out color palettes for everyone that were cohesive and read well, while also making clear distinctions between suits, but partitio had to be a little bit of the exception. i did decide on warm red for hearts for him specifically perhaps….

Ochette: this was the first card i actually executed an asymmetrical design on! one side has akala in the background, the other side has mahina. they’re both right side up, but they can’t coexist. thought it was fun! this is also one of my favorite cards now that it’s finished. i did NOT like it at the lineart stage, but loved it after the color!

Osvald: osvald as the ace of hearts has been a fav placement according to my sources (tumblr tags, comments, etc) my original idea was to have him more ready to start blasting one true magic love super mega laser with the heart at the center of that, but i think having him hold/present it a little more gently is also fitting. maybe like it’s more fragile, even tho being the ace makes him the strongest card of his suit (love can make you blast lasers)

diamonds! these guys got the cooler red/pink palette.

Throné: i’m sure the snake motif needs no explanation, but the idea here was that she was entangled by the snake, like it’s holding her down.

Castti: castti also got a unique color added to her card, though it’s much less noticeable than partitio. the raindrops in her card are purple! (uh. should i exclamation point that? three cheers for horrifying evil super mega toxic rain?) i added clouds to go with the rain, but also a vine that deteriorates or recovers as it goes, whatever way you want to look at it.

Hikari: another asymmetrical card. one side hikari, one side his shadow self. i also offset the mirroring on this card a lot more, and allowed the drawings to extend down into each other more than than the other cards in this way, hikari and his shadow self intersect, but aren’t quite mirror images as much as the other cards. (does that make sense?) as for his backround, i put the castle town of ku. this one was difficult to get to read right, but i think i got it pretty decent.

Temenos: my original idea for this one would be that temenos is interacting with the diamond like the mirror shard, but again, i scrapped that idea. instead, he presents it like the other aces. not too much to say here

jokers! i got a couple suggestions for what to do for jokers, (kit, al, lyblac, oboro, arcanette) but definitely most common was people saying to incorporate caits/octopuffs in some way. i liked this one the best because jokers are wild cards, and they’re also kind of silly, so making them villains or major story characters didn’t quite feel right. with these cards, i decided that i could use any colors i had previously used to color them, so they get to be both gray and red tones. due to the variety of warm and cool tones, i actually had a ton of color to work with, and they almost even look like didn’t i gave myself color limitations on them!

for the cait card, i stared with a more accurate orange cait, but decided that i’d rather make it gray since the octopuffs were gonna be orange (or pink). besides, the cultured cait is gray so it’s fine. as for the octopuffs, i ended up just picking two that i liked and using those. i tried adding more smaller ones as backround elements, but didn’t end up liking how it looked.

and then finally, the backing! there’s a couple things going on here, and this was definitely super fun to draw because doing something more ornamental like this is outside of my usual wheelhouse. i started with the concept of the circle with the 8 base class symbols, in OCTOPATH order of the first game. in the middle is 4 flames, like the 4 that protect solista in OT2. on either side i drew octopuses, because. octo. i ended up giving them the little horns too, making them massive octopuffs. then, to round it out, i added little chubby caits to the corners, and then a smattering of stars to fill out the space, since i liked the way it looked. surrounding the flame, the stars indicate night, a sort of subtle nod to the nightfall endgame in OT2, while the stars being out imply that at least for now, it’s a normal night. the chubby caits have some teeny tiny jewels and treasure surround them, and the sparkles ended up looking like more stars, so i just added more. as the the border, it’s basically just random ornamentation lol.

and that’s it! (for interesting cards, at least. doubt anyone cares about the unchanged number cards) hope you liked the long read, i just like talking about drawing lol

#doodle time 😎#long post

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petermorwood · 8 months ago

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Hi, Peter! I am tossing this question at you, but I hope Diane and some other writers will toss it around, too. Do you still draft your work in longhand? What is it like? I'm asking this as someone who has written by keyboard only for almost 20 years, but started keeping a longhand journal again about four years ago. I'm feeling so blocked that I wonder if I could take up longhand creative writing again.

This got well buried, but better late than never!

I certainly do, much more than @dduane. (She makes a lot of notes in LH, but not much in the way of drafts.)

I've heard / read complaints about longhand (and typewriter) drafting that "you can't correct mistakes". Usually what this means is "you can't delete and over-write".

You can. Use one of these.

The first lays white masking fluid over the error, the other two do it with a strip of white tape, and after a few seconds to let the fluid dry, or immediately with the tape, you can re-write over the top.

I'm sure some people also remember the Tipp-Ex / Liquid Paper paint-pots with brushes, and the little sheets of white-backed correction paper used with typewriters. (Some, like my cartridge-ribbon Smith-Corona, even had a correction cartridge.)

*****

A more usual method with pen or typewriter drafting is strikethrough.

The mistake is still there, of course, and IMO that's not a bug, it's a feature and - so I've found, anyway - makes me think a bit more about what I'm going to write down before pen to paper or finger to key.

Besides, the "wrong" (often first) choice of word may well turn out to be the "right" choice of word after all, once the rest of the paragraph has developed. YMMV, but it happens often enough.

It's also why proper MS format is double-spaced.

In working drafts, this leaves room to add a correction, often using different colours of ink, which can even be done with a typewriter if it has a black-red ribbon.

In a final draft, double-space (and a clear, non-fussy font like Courier or Times Roman) is easier on an editor or test-reader's eyes.

All the business of fancy fonts, typesetting, end of chapter and between-paragraph glyphs * etc. happens afterwards.

*****

* The section-break symbol or "dinkus", can be as simple as one or several asterisks, but may be a fancy little curlicue called a "fleuron" or - if a book has a high enough profile - a appropriate custom design.

#writing advice #drafting in longhand #typographic symbols #dinkus

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tina-mairin-goldstein · 5 months ago

Text

Basic Ao3 User and Etiquette Guide for Beginners, Readers and Authors Alike!

When editing and posting:

First and foremost:

Read the Terms of Service to make sure you aren't breaking any rules!

Make sure to tag everything you think is necessary.

Fluff, Romance, Humor, Dark, Found Family, etc. Also make sure to include warnings about potentially triggering things like rape, non-con, abuse in any form, violence, gore, graphic depictions of such, and so on. The 'Other Additional Tags to Be Added' tag is your friend.

Use your best judgement for rating and archive warnings.

Do not tag for reach or leave something out or use things like r@pe and deth. People have the right and need to filter out their triggers!

Be aware of the difference between / and &.

For relationships, there are two different types. Be sure not to mislabel the relationship between characters and accidentally change the entire tone of your fic!

Platonic/Friendship/Family/Non-sexual: Tony Stark & Stephen Strange.

Sexual Relationship/Dating/Married/Non-con/Rape: Tony Stark/Stephen Strange.

I prefer not to read incest fics (I do sometimes, I will admit it), so I will usually skip or filter out the / between two characters if I don't want to read it. If this was a mistake, your fic will be filtered out, too!

Summary

Not required but appreciated!

Double space in the editing box

Click to the beginning of the next paragraph and click enter twice. Otherwise, your story will be all squished together and harder to read. Some people will think it's 'unprofessional' and click away. This also gives your fic a sleek appearance.

Who can comment?

As of a few months ago, Ao3 automatically set every new work to 'Only Registered Users Can Comment'. If you would appreciate guest comments, then remember to click 'Registered Users and Guests Can Comment'. If you would rather not have any at all, click 'No One Can Comment'.

Preview

It allows you to preview what the work will look like before you post it. If you hit return to work, then you'll see a bunch of code for paragraph breaks, italics, and so forth at the end of each chunk. I recommend clicking the back arrow to avoid this because it can be hard to correct things once those things are there.

Also, every time you preview, a draft is created. These are saved automatically for a month after they are created, so if you don't have time to finish editing, you can go back and finish later.

DO NOT post a fic just because you like the tag arrangement and will come back to it later. This is against the Terms of Service.

Ways to get the look you want

If you have something in italic, bold, centered, or crossed out, it doesn't automatically go that way once you click and drag. There are ways to get it done, and they're easy! Just type the following (the colored words are the words that go between these). Remember to add the / at the end or it will affect the whole fic! These aren't everything, just the ones I know.

<i>Italic words here</i>

<strong>Bold words here</strong>

<center alignment>Centered words here</center alignment>

<strike through>Crossed out words here</strike through>

Type correctly

Please remember to use your quotation marks and periods! Nothing makes me click off a fic faster if these things aren't present; it's hard for me, at least, to read.

The Archive is an archive

Don't post 'fics' looking for fics, advertising for writing buddies or fellow artists, don't post headcanons for discussion. This is against the Terms of Service and you could get reported.

I haven't reported anyone yet, but I do leave them comments to let them know it's against the ToS. If you don't take it down in a timely manner or say fuck you, I WILL report you because you can't ruin it for everyone.

Etiquette For Posting and Reading

What to do

Liked a fic?

Leave a comment! LEAVE A COMMENT! Authors love this! It doesn't matter how old it is- This isn't social media! It's not 'cringe' to comment on old works. You might just get a heartfelt reply and even encourage someone to write again!

The best are the in-depth, going into details about what you loved and what surprised you and everything else. It can be a simple 'I loved it! Thanks for sharing!', but you will be someone's personal hero with a big comment.

You did like that fic, right?

Leave a kudos! Comments and kudos are an author's lifeblood and fuel. Nothing is more discouraging than getting a lot of hits on your fic and no comments or kudos.

For posting, just follow the guide above and you should be fine!

What NOT to do

Oh, you didn't like that fic?

If you can't say something nice, don't say it at all. There's a person behind that story who put their blood, sweat, and tears into it. They having feelings, too.

But I think the fic is gross/wrong/badly written and-

Shut up. Click off. Hands off the keyboard.

But it's-

No.

Don't renew your completed fic just to get on the front page again

Not against the rules, but the archive is an archive. Someone will find your story if they really want to read it, so long as you tagged it correctly! Just be patient.

Don't like, don't read is your best friend

Think a story might contain something you don't like? No need to click on it! Take a turn you didn't like? Back arrow, baby!

It's not a popularity contest

Again, not against the rules, but sorting fics by the amount of hits, kudos, or comments gives you very few results compared to all the fics that exist. Fics only get those rates because people read them. One user or guest can only boost the hit-count of a fic ONCE in twenty-four hours. A kudos can only be left once.

You might be missing some real gems by filtering that way! There is literal buried treasure on Ao3, you just need to expand your horizons and ignore those counts on the bottom.

But this fic is so OLD

So? We read books and watch movies that were made a long time ago, right? Fics are the same thing! Read that old fic! Comment on it! Kudos away!

Hope you find this helpful! Enjoy your posting and reading!

#ao3 #writing #reading #fanfiction #fanfic #long post

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writing-with-sophia · 1 year ago

Note

Hi! Thank you for your blog. It really helps with writing ♡

I have a question throught,

How can you refer to a character without using their name, hair/eye colour, or gender???

I hope this question isn't too difficult or boring. Thank you in advance :))

Ways to refer to a character without using their name, hair/eye color, or gender

This is pretty hard.

Way number 1: Emphasize their role or profession

This is what I often encounter in the short stories I study at school. Authors often use professional terms such as "artist", "driver", "farmer", "engineer", etc. to name the characters throughout the story. Doing so often has two main purposes: one is to make it easier for readers to remember the characters thanks to their most typical characteristics (occupations), and the other is that the author wants to target that character as representing a community or a larger class.

For example, "farmer" is a character representing the peasantry and working class, while "teacher" represents the intellectual class, and "princess" represents the aristocracy. These characters do not represent themselves, but rather the classes or communities they symbolize, so they do not have individual names.

Way number 2: Also emphasize their role, but combined with descriptive phrases

In situations where the characters don't represent any wider community but just the character themselves, you can add some descriptive phrases in front. For example, "the young barista", "the elderly neighbor". Thus, you can both diversify the way the character is called and describe some typical characteristics of that character without revealing gender, appearance, etc.

Way number 3: Employ metaphors or analogies

This is a pretty cool way, but I advise you not to overdo it. Instead of talking about name, gender, characteristics, etc. directly, you can use metaphors. For instance, a leader is "the lion of the group", "the alpha", or a misfit is "the black sheep". It sounds much better, right?

Here is a short paragraph I hastily wrote using metaphors and analogies to refer to the characters without mentioning gender or names:

The melancholic melody of the violin echoed through the room, its sorrowful notes washing over the gathered onlookers like a gentle rain. The performer, a beacon of grace and poise, moved with the fluidity of a dancer, captivating all who bore witness. Long, slender fingers danced on the white keys like a staircase from heaven, weaving a tapestry of emotions that covered the space. Each up and down is a heartbeat, a breath, a silent conversation between artist and audience.

That's all! If you have any questions, please inbox me!

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lauralot89 · 1 month ago

Text

Notable annotations for May 16:

Jonathan makes two Shakespeare references in quick succession: there is the frequently remarked-on Hamlet misquote, but in the same paragraph he also paraphrases the "that way madness lies" bit from King Lear.

So on the night of May 15, Jonathan wrote in his diary in the neglected area of the castle. Was he carrying an inkwell with him? Did the vampire ladies have an inkwell?

The fair vampire is the only one without red eyes (the vampire in graveyard later on is not referred to with red eyes specifically, but the eyes are called blazing and full of hell-fire).

When Jonathan mentions water-glasses, he may have literally meant glasses filled with various levels of water and then played by running a finger along the rim, or he may have meant the glass armonica.

What language are the ladies speaking? English or German? (My personal theory is that when Dracula started to learn English they made it their goal to learn it better and faster out of spite)

The fair vampire's breath is described as mostly sweet but faintly bitter, which is very different from Dracula's.

In Fred Saberhagen's The Dracula Tape, a retelling of Dracula from the Count's POV, Dracula claims that there is not a child in the bag, but a small pig. (I myself am currently reading The Dracula Tape and would add that Dracula further makes clear he didn't steal the pig; it was given to him by a peasant woman who wanted Dracula to do some evil to a romantic rival of her's in return. Of course, this raises the question: If Dracula and his family eat animals, and Dracula keeps horses, why doesn't he raise pigs himself?)

There's a funny bit where the annotator suggests that the "horror" Jonathan refers to is the possibility of something gay happening between himself and Dracula, as opposed to, you know, the part where the ladies jumped on a baby (presumably) and disappeared. I think this annotation just exists to give space to talk about Victorian views of and laws regarding homosexuality.

#Dracula Daily #Laura reads Dracula Daily #Dracula spoilers

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fatehbaz · 2 years ago

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[D]ebt and indebtedness [...] produc[e] forms of spatial enclosure [imprisonment] that do not rely on the spectacular [singular moments of blatant literal physical violence] but are, rather, achieved through temporal openings and foreclosures. To be clear, this frame does not obscure the many forms of carceral enclosure [...]: the prison, the checkpoint, the security wall. Historically, enclosure is understood as the privatization of land. But Wang extends the concept of enclosure to encompass time. Wang demonstrates that [...] mobility is policed through [...] an apparatus of punishment that solicits time as the form of spatial enclosure. [...]

[D]ebilitating infrastructures turn able bodies into a range of disabled bodies. [...] [C]heckpoints [...]; administrative bureaucratic apparatuses that stall and foreclose travel, mobility for work, [...] the capacity to move and change residences - baroque processes to apply for permits to travel [...], absence of public services such as postal delivery [...]; and finally [...] denial of resolution, suspension in the space of the indefinite [...]. In fact, slow death itself is literalized as the slowing down of life [...]. [Land] itself becomes simultaneously bigger - because it takes so long to get anywhere - and smaller, as transit becomes arduous [...] where it is so difficult to travel between areas without permits and identifications. Movement is suffocated. Distance is stretched and manipulated to create an entire population with mobility impairments. And yet space is shrunken, as people are held in place, rarely able to move far. [...]

---

Time itself is held hostage.

This is the slow aspect of slow death: slow death can entail a really slow life, too, a life that demands constant calibration of different speeds and the relation of speed to space. [...]

The suspended state of the indefinite, of waiting and waiting (it) out, wreaks multigenerational psychological and physical havoc. [...]

Time thus is the meter of power; it is one form that physical enclosure takes on. The cordoning of time through space contributes to an overall “lack of jurisdiction over the function of one’s own senses” (Schuller 2018: 74) endemic to the operation of colonial rule [...]. [T]his process entails several modes of temporal differentiation: withholding futurity, making impossible anything but a slowed (down) life, and immobilizing the body [...]. Julie Peteet (2008) calls the extraction of nonlabor time “stealing time” [...].

[T]he extraction of time [...] produce[s] a depleted and therefore compliant population so beholden to the logistics of the everyday that forms of connectivity, communing, and collective resistance are thwarted. The extraction of time functions as the transfer of “vital energy” [...], an extraction that recapitulates a long colonial history of mining bodies for their potentiality. [...]

Checkpoints ensure one is never sure of reaching work on time.

Fear of not getting to work then adds to the labor of getting to work; the checkpoints affectively expand labor time [...].

Bodies in line at checkpoints [...] [experience] the fractalizing of the emotive, cognitive, physiological capacities of bodies [...].It’s not just that bodies are too tired to resist but that the experience of the “constant state of uncertainty” becomes the condition of being. [...]

---

All text above by: Jasbir K. Puar. "Spatial Debilities: Slow Life and Carceral Capitalism in Palestine". South Atlantic Quarterly (2021) 120 (2), pages 393-414. Published April 2021. DOI at: doi dot org slash 10.1215/00382876-8916144 [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. Presented here for criticism, teaching, commentary purposes.]

#abolition #indigenous #imperial #temporality #multispecies #debt and debt colonies #carceral geography #borders boundaries hinterlands frontiers etc #ecologies #tidalectics

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alonelystargazer · 3 months ago

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WIP Wednesday

yay I finally have something to share for wip wednesday! This is definitely the last sneak peek for my ItaFushi postcards fic, Take This Lonely Heart, because it's finally finished and I'm in the process of editing it. I think I'll be able to post it next Monday!

I wanna share some thoughts I've had during this entire writing process.

I know this is technically the correct way to format paragraphs for literature, but I still don't know if I like this style. I'm so used to the 'no indentations and space between paragraphs' style, but I wanted to try it out, and well I've tried it out, but I might change it back.

Honestly, I'm kinda scared that this fic won't get a lot of attention, for one reason or another, maybe readers won't like my interpretations of character or ship dynamic, or the actual premise or plot of the story is boring or whatever. As much as I keep reminding myself that I'm writing for myself first, I won't lie and say I don't want or care about getting attention from readers. I like to believe that I put a lot of thought and care into crafting this world and it would be upsetting if it flopped.

At the same time, though, I don't want anyone, including my beloved mutuals, to read it for my sake or out of obligation because we're friends. Read it because you like it! I won't be offended or sad if anyone were to drop the story at any point. In fact, I think it's better that way because it won't be wasting your time and I won't get my feeling hurt because it's just a pity read.

I say this especially considering I'll be exploring more mature themes, some of which are pretty personal, like my relationship to alcohol, or trouble with career/work or relationships, loss and grief. I'll also make sure to add any content or trigger warnings before each chapter and in the tags.

And something new-ish to me when it comes to my fic writing is showing more suggestive/sexual stuff. I haven't decided at this point how explicit I'll get, but there will be at least some discussion about sex. I know some people don't like it when characters that are 'minors' in canon get aged up in fanfics, especially in M or E rated fics, so if you're not comfortable with that, it's totally fine to skip my story. The JJK characters in my fic will be in their early-mid 20s (the ages they would be currently), they go to uni and have jobs, and yeah they will be talking about dating/relationships/sex/love, but that's not all of it. I want this to be a coming of age type of story.

I have a fic playlist, which I'll be sharing when I post the first chapter. I've also been tinkering with canva to create a banner graphic. It's not that difficult to create, so maybe I'll keep making them for future chapters. If anything, it's just fun to let my creativity flow!

Anyway, if anyone read this whole thing, thanks! And thanks to my mutuals who have expressed interest in my story. Even if you don't read it or like it, I'm just glad for the support I was given, it really helped to motivate me!

#wip wednesday #itfs postcards au #writing #there is a lot of yapping under that read more just a heads up #itafushi

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canmom · 5 months ago

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as a general maxim, when you make art you wanna create contrasts: detail vs simplicity, saturated colours vs grey, organic shapes vs inorganic, long paragraphs vs short, colloquial language vs formal, loud vs quiet, fullness vs emptiness

and you also want to work that on a meta level as well. contrasting between things being the same and things being different. repeating the same thing over and over feels homogeneous but so does everything constantly changing. a mix of some things coming back around and some things being novel keeps you guessing.

and keeps you guessing is an important thing - a purely regular pattern with no variation doesn't tend to elicit as much interest, except when it's placed in contrast to other artworks.

recently in the last few decades it seems that, probably inspired by the parallel discourses of machine learning, neuroscienctists have cooked up a kind of 'thermodynamics-style' theory of how the brain works with what they call the 'free energy principle', which casts the brain as being in a cycle of constantly generating predictions and testing them against sensory input in order to refine its internal model. here's artem kirsanov, a guy who makes pretty good videos on ML theory, with a neat visual summary:

youtube

why do they call it free energy? I guess they're following in the footsteps of Claude Shannon in borrowing names from thermodynamics for similar-looking formulae. (and in fact, Shannon entropy ends up playing a role here.)

I will need to dig more into this to really pierce the mathematical formalism and jargon in this hypothesis; presently I'm reacting to a surface summary and vibes. but musing on the idea, I think this tells quite a cute story about the above maxim for art: things that are hard to predict force us to do more work to develop our internal model, so they provoke us; but there does need to be something to predict, because it's also saisfying to resolve a pattern in the noise.

the interplay of surprise, recognition, and learning, by this theory, somehow drives how we feel about the art, from the feeling of intrigue when you see an intricate visual composition, to the emotional impact that comes from a long-teased resolution in music.

to add a wrinkle to this, apparently individual neurons respond positively to rhythmic stimulation, such that if you're trying to grow a physical neural net, that's how you 'reward' neurons for giving good outputs. (I believe it came up in this video where a youtuber tried to grow some neurons to play Doom.) repeated patterns are in a sense the 'least surprising' input. not 100% sure how that vibes with this theory tbh, I feel like there's a lot of ways you could fit those two concepts together.

music is a very 'pure' form of art in this sense: you establish clearly recognisable patterns and then vary them just before they start to get boring.

games, on the other hand, engage our direct interactive feedback: we can try things and see if the game responds in the way we expect, and in so doing, elaborate an internal model of the game world.

I think this also gives me a lens on my autistic difficulties with social interaction: until I learn enough of the social 'game' in a particular space to understand how the things I say are likely to be received, I tend to feel quite anxious. but once I start to get to know people and get a basic model and feel that I'm not likely to put my foot in it too badly, the feeling flips quite dramatically; it becomes exciting to meet people and learn about all the very specific things they're passionate about.

I don't wanna go too far with this, I distrust 'everything reduces to this simple formula' metaphors, but I formed a connection and now I'm telling you about it!!!

#introspective nightposting #philosophy #ai #not quite sure which of my existing boxes to put this subject in so it gets all three #neuroscience #Youtube

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itscloudsocks · 4 months ago

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Time and Time again - chapter 4

cw: nothing, as far as I can tell (leave a comment if I should add sth tho!) also, INFO: I´ve edited and added a few things to chapter 3 to make it all make more sense (most of it is in the very 1st paragraph) <3

Caitlyn is on her way home from the police Academy when, on a whim, she turns left at the next intersection. She´s not seen Jayce in some time, they´re overdue for a little sibling hangout.

When knocking at his door does nothing, Caitlyn reaches into the pocket of her coat and pulls out the set of keys she has to his place. The small flat is dark when she steps inside and softly closes the door again. The curtains in front of the window are pulled close, the bed beneath it shows the outlines of a curled-up Jayce. Oh. Knowing his sudden moodswings and emotional highs and lows, her shoulders drop. Slipping out of her boots, Caitlyn comes closer quietly, making sure to be sneaky as to not wake her possibly asleep brother. Jayce is, in fact, not asleep. His eyes are open, unblinking, staring at the wall in front of him.

“Hey, you.”

A slow blink is the only answer she gets. With a soft sigh, Caitlyn leans over him to open the curtains a bit. The sun has long set but Piltover is never fully dark. The streetlamps and lights of surrounding shops throws a soft, golden light into the room.

“Want to tell me what´s up?”, she asks, softly nudging his arm. Jayce just hums, keeps staring, keeps blinking. Of course it´s not that easy. Getting up, Caitlyn starts rummaging around, folding clothes and putting dishes into the sink to wash later. It helps, she´s noticed, when she just exists alongside Jayce until he´s ready to turn around, breathe, and look at her. It takes him another hour where, in the meantime, Caitlyn moves to the desk in the corner of his room. She writes a small note for the PLCS to Ximena, telling her that Jayce isn´t feeling well and they sadly wouldn´t be able to make it to their bi-monthly family dinners this evening. The Piltover Letter Chute System usually takes its sweet time, the pipes completely overloaded. Usually, Cait wouldn´t hesitate to just head over to the Talis´ house to let Ximena know, but she really doesn´t want to leave Jayce alone for too long right now. So, hoping for a sprinkle of luck, Cait leaves the flat for a moment and drops off the rolled up letter, closed by a wax seal, at the front desk of the building.

When she comes back upstairs, Jayce is sitting on his bed, blanket around his waist and eyes staring into space, unfocused. His hair is a wild birdsnest of dark strands. He badly needs a trim, Caitlyn notices, and maybe a shave while they´re at it. She doesn´t say that, though, not now, not when he has barely noticed her return.

“You look horrible,” she chooses to say instead,” I told you not to go to bed with wet hair, idiot.”

A corner of Jayce´s mouth twitches up for a moment, eyes still staring into space, unblinking, but knowing that she means well with her comment.

“So, talk now or book first?”

“Book,” rasps Jayce, slowly coming back from wherever he´s been, wrapping the blanket around his shoulders with slow, sluggish arms. “Don´t want to talk.”

“We´ll have to, sooner or later,” reminds him Caitlyn. “You know it only gets worse if you don´t. Come on, you can pick what we´re gonna read.”

They curl up on Jayce´s couch, Caitlyn with a bowl of crackers in her lap that Jayce despises but still buys for when she comes over, and a book in her hands. At some point in life they´ve perfected this nice, easy routine between the two of them. When Jayce feels unable to speak but still wants to spend time with Cait, she reads to him. It´s usually something mundane, books from their childhood or texts Jayce will have to read for class anyways. After some time - Cait´s throat has become dry from reading and the bowl in her lap is rapidly loosing its contents - she looks over. Jayce, still curled up into the smallest ball a man with his height and mass can possibly muster, is fast asleep. His face, finally, looks calm in the good way, with his brows relaxed and the little wrinkle of frustration between them gone. From the way his lips are parted, he must´ve been asleep for some time now. Nodding to herself, Cait closes the book and puts it on the table, together with the snacks, in favour of snuggling up in her spot and closing her eyes as well. It´s been an exhausting day, her arms are tired from combat training, her mind is exhausted and drowning in loose information. She falls asleep embarrassingly fast wakes back up to a dark room and an empty couch, no understanding of time of space for a good minute. While she´s trying to figure out what the hell is going on, a gust of air against her naked arms announces an open balcony door.

And there he is, standing on the balcony, the blanket around his shoulders like a cape and with his arms leaning against the railing. When Caitlyn joins Jayce, still groggy with sleep herself, she starts shivering immediately. It´s not only too cold for her taste, the wind blasting through the street, up from the river is driving her crazy. Jayce doesn´t seem to mind, only staring out into the city with a lonely, forlorn look in his usually cheerfully alive eyes.

“I saw him again earlier,” he murmurs, almost too quiet for Caitlyn to hear. She knows immediately who he´s talking about.

“You were in Zaun?”

Humming, Jayce nods softly.

“Bought stuff for a project, ´s cheaper down there.”

“And Viktor was there?”

Caitlyn remembers the multiple conversations they´ve had growing up, where Caitlyn had been fascinated by her older brothers bravery of sneaking down there. She also remembers the plane incident, where Jayce had been so angry that he´d pushed her to the ground and Ximena had to rock a sobbing little Caitlyn to sleep to calm her. Caitlyn remembers the expression of Jayce´s face, turning from excited and giddy to sad and reserved over the years. She also remembers that he, a few years after the whole plane-drama happened, very timidly had admitted that writing letters to Viktor had become something like a regular thing for him. That he, even without ever having received an answer, still tells Viktor about his day, his thoughts, his hopes and dreams. Years and years later, Jayce is more than convinced that Viktor hates him for never having shown up again, for having been a bad friend. The irony isn´t lost on Caitlyn; the fact that Jayce pours his heart out over letters and, without ever having gotten an answer back, now fully believes that he´s at fault. Not Viktor, who´s never bothered to even send him a leave me alone or anything like that. No, it´s Jayce with his big eyes and soft heart and the neverending love he shares with everyone around him.

“Yeah…don´t know why I didn´t think of that but…he´s working at the store I went to…we used to play there back when…”

“Hm,” nodding, Caitlyn follows Jayce´s eyes out into the city. From here, she can see the river, the bridge, the lights of the night patrol guarding both entries. She still has another year in the police Academy before finally being done, but there are not enough Enforcers as it is so she´s been allowed to join a couple of them for patrol. She´s been standing guard at the bridge, at the latest Progress Day, at the Academy, at riots and festivities. She´s been allowed to join to a trip down to Zaun once and had been glad when she´d returned back home. Her mother, of course, had been less than thrilled. She´s been hating this career path of her daughter, would´ve preferred her staying at home, learning the craft of being a Councilwoman and one day take over as Leader of Clan Kiramman. Her father hadn´t voiced an opinion, something Caitlyn is more than used to by now. Where her mother is assertive and dominant, her father stays in the background, smiles and nods and doesn´t speak his mind. She hates it, she hates knowing that, if things were to turn sideways, her father will always have her mothers back and never hers.

“Did you two talk?”, she asks, because this is about Jayce, because her brother is suffering and she hasn´t found out what exactly has happened yet.

“I…not really? I tried to…explain…but he basically told me to fuck off…so I did…”

Sighing, Caitlyn lets her head drop to Jayce´s shoulder. As publically flashy and confident as Jayce likes to act, he´s deeply anxious of what everybody thinks of him. This is his worst nightmare coming true: the person he´s considered his best and only friend growing up pushing him away because external influences have stopped Jayce from coming back to him.

“That´s bullshit,” Caitlyn grumbles because what else can she say? After he has written letter after letter to the point where, at some point, Jayce hadn´t even mentioned it - the ink staining his hand has always spoken for him, even when he himself hasn´t - but Caitlyn has always known how to read her brother. So, of course she´s angry. She´s angry because Jayce is not, because Jayce has never been angry at anyone but himself. “Want me to down there and talk to him?”

Snorting, Jayce turns to flick her forehead with his finger.

“Don´t be an idiot. You? Young Miss Caitlyn Kiramman going down to Zaun, to do what, bully him into forgiving me?”

“I could!”

“Yeah, and then you´d probably die. Most people from Zaun aren´t really the biggest fans of the police, you know? And I´m pretty sure you´d stick out like a sore thumb down there.”

“I can be sneaky!”

“Sure you can, with your manicured nails and clean clothes. You´re gonna fit right in.”

Chuckling, Caitlyn watches Jayce´s shoulders relax, his eyes turning a bit brighter.

“So, buddy, let´s be honest for a second now,” Caitlyn starts, already noticing Jayce narrowing his eyes when noticing the teasing tone of her voice. “Did you or did you not have a crush on that mysterious best friend of yours, hm?”

“Cait!” Jayce shouts out, having the audacity to blush.

“What? I´m allowed to ask, no? You´re acting like you just got broken up with!”

“I was eight!”, Jayce defends himself. “I didn´t even know what that was back then!”

“That doesn´t mean you can´t feel it,” sings Caitlyn, jumping back when Jayce tries to pull her into a headlock. She laughs when he misses and raises her arms in defence.

“I did not have a crush on him, thank you very much! I just…admired him I guess. I don´t know, it´s hard to explain.” Groaning, Jayce pulls the blanket tighter around his shoulders and turns back towards the railing, eyes finding their way back to the bridge, back to Zaun, clouded in smog just beyond the river. “But he was this skinny little kid with a limp and he just… lived…down there. He didn´t just survive, he lived. He had friends and family and hobbies and favourite places and…I guess that was just fascinating to me…you know, they used to tell us growing up that the people from Zaun were these…dirty and…dangerous people, that they´re killers and addicts and just a bad time. And I believed it, in the beginning... until I met Viktor and …all of these people and they stuck together like family, they looked out for each other, they kept each other safe…and I think part of me envied that…”

Patting Jayce´s arm, Caitlyn sighs deepy, barely able to keep the grin from her face.

“That sounds like you had a big fat crush on him, sorry to tell you- Ouch! Jayce!”

Lifting his foot back up from where he most likely broke a couple of Caitlyn´s toes with that stomp, Jayce just smiles innocently.

“You´re an asshole and I hate you.”

“Hey, right back at you,” groans Cait, lifting her foot to rub it. “You´re such an oaf, goddamnit.”

“Oh, you´re fine, stop whining. Besides, you had it coming for you, teasing me about a crush I never even had. Not like you´re one to talk, anyways. I´m guessing you´re not planning on doing anything about that little crush you have on that redhead in your class?”

Turning bright red, Caitlyn turns and crosses her arms in front of her chest.

“I have no idea what you´re talking about.”

“Oh, sure you do. What´s her name again? Maggie?”

“Maddie,” corrects Caitlyn without thinking twice about it. “And I do not have a crush on her! She´s just a friend. We train together.”

“I´m sure you do,” snorts Jayce.

“Okay, actually, can you go back to being depressed, I don´t like this anymore.”

Laughing, Jayce gives her the finger and turns to go back inside, Caitlyn following close behind.

“Why am I even friends with you?”

“Because my Ma´s your godmother?”

“Right,” Caitlyn nods, floppig back down on the couch. “Fuck.”

“Sorry,” Jayce snorts, sitting on his bed across the room. “You won´t get rid of me that easily. Who´ll call you out on your bullshit, if not me?”

“You know, you don´t actually have to be mean to me all the time? It´s not like a law to be an asshole to your Ma´s best friends daughter?”

“I´m pretty sure it is, though. I´m older, shut up.”

“You´re an idiot is what you are,” grumbles Cait, throwing a cracker across the room and hitting Jayce´s cheek.

“Did you just throw food at me? How mature. Next time, throw something I actually enjoy eating,” grumbles Jayce, throwing it back and missing by a mile.

“And that´s why you´re a scientist.”

“What, because I can´t throw?”

“Exactly!” Sitting back up, Caitlyn tilts her head. “Are you gonna go back down to see him?”

“What? Who?”

“Your man, of course. Now that you know where he works, are you going to go down there again?”

“I don´t know…I´m not sure it´s a good idea, to be honest,” Jayce thinks out loud, pointedly ignoring the your man comment.

“I think you should!”, declares Caitlyn confidently, stuffing her mouth with more crackers. “You know, talk to him. Maybe he´s into guys, too!”

“I´m not gay, Cait.”

“Yeah, no, definitely not.”

Groaning, Jayce rolls his eyes at her. “And what´s that supposed to mean now?”

“I see you staring at Mel,” snorts Caitlyn, watching Jayce turn bright red and avert his eyes. Mel Medarda, as part of the Piltovian council, has been here and there and everywhere. Guest visits at the Academy and the police force, breakfasts with Cait´s mother, meetings with Heimerdinger and Jayce; as both daughter of the Clan Kiramman and a future Enforcer, Caitlyn sees her way too often and sadly also witnesses Jayce´s reaction to her every single time.

“God, I hate you so much.”

“I mean, I get it, she´s gorgeous,” agrees Cait with a solemn nod,” but you´re also very obvious.”

“And you think you´re sneaky with the way you´re looking at this Maddie-person?”

“Maddie´s a friend,” whines Caitlyn, ears turning hot. Traitors.

“Sure sure, you keep telling yourself that. You know that your parents probably wouldn´t give a shit though, right?”

“Give a shit about what, specifically?”

“You being gay? Like, it´s not that big of a deal, you know that.”

“I know but since I´m not gay, it doesn´t matter.”

“Sure thing, sprout.”

“Don´t call me that.”

“Of course, sprout, whatever you say. I won´t tell your parents about your little crush,” Jayce teases softly, no real heat behind his words. Something in Caitlyn´s chest flutters at that but she shuts it down quickly.

“And I won´t tell your Ma that you´re going down there to see your little boyfriend.”

Tag list! (lmk if you wanna be added or removed <3) @frog-fans-unite @jack-of-nearly-all-trades @greatbeautyoflife @potatointhedirt @snowleopardtherebel

#arcane #arcane fic #viktor arcane #jayce talis #jayce x viktor #jayvik #vi arcane #vander arcane #benzo arcane #caitlyn kiramman #ximena talis #ekko arcane #powder arcane #jinx arcane #alternate universe #some stuff´s canon #some stuff´s not #people live

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