#writing about writing instead of writing

[a-luran]

What the runaway Arthur au????

it was a short one shot I wrote for a while ago for scoteng week. I ended up publishing The Glasgow Scale instead, so the tone is similar.

I'll go through the set up quickly-- Alasdair is heading up to Scotland for a wedding. He's a boxer, injured pretty bad when he was about to make it out of the amateur leagues. He's still good, though. Always will be, just gets splitting headaches which lay him out flat. He's been away for years, working odd jobs, struggling with the pain, and moonlighting in MMA/boxing gyms.

Here I had two options of how the story was going to go.

Option 1 - He is taking a bus up north overnight. Gets on, it's pretty full, ends up sitting next to a younger guy in a hoodie (Arthur). They've never met before but Alasdair can tell something is up-- his leg is bouncing, he's sunk down into the seat like he is trying to get comfortable to "sleep" but he is so tense Alasdair winces just looking at him. When they're about to pull away a man rushes to the bus station shouting and off his nut, looking for Arthur. He is getting on other buses looking for him and while the rest of the passengers kinda whisper to themselves, speculating about what is going on, Alasdair is paying attention to his seatmate, who is starting to look like he is going to cry or give himself up or both.

He can hear his father's voice in his head telling him not to get involved. But the man is finally at their lane, still shouting, getting physical with the driver, trying to pull luggage out like he is trying to find a specific bag he'll recognise.

Alasdair gets involved and suffices to say he shows up to the wedding with a plus one.

Option 2- Similar set up, only they're on a train. Alasdair and Arthur step into the carriage at the same time. Arthur is tripping over himself, trying to stay calm. It takes every fibre of his being not to run and call attention to himself; Alasdair feels one of his migraines coming on so his eyes are set on the last window seat available.

Arthur beats him to it, hunkers down there with his bag and Alasdair is glaring at him, cursing his luck, when shouting calls his attention. There is a man out on the platform, stalking up and down like he is trying to spot someone inside. Arthur shrinks into his seat, looking for all the world like he is about to pass out. Alasdair's head is really starting to hurt but he can't ignore the situation.

Roughly, but not unkindly, he shoves his coat at Arthur and tells him to put his head down. Arthur is in that state of desperation and paralysis were he'll just follow instructions, anything to get him out of his situation. He slips under Alasdair's coat and presses his forehead to Alasdair's shoulder, like they are travelling together. Alasdair crosses his arms and stares forward. Not the kind of man you'd pick a fight with.

He shows up to the wedding with a plus one

In both versions Arthur falls into a fawn response, slightly. He gets Alasdair paracetamol, switches seats with him. Alasdair shares the food he has on him. It's the dream unlikely and slightly unhealthy relationships are made of. If you've watched Dinner in America, that's the vibe.

[sashayed]

eventually one has to come to terms with the fact that "conceive of myself as a person capable of tackling difficult things" is an achievable goal toward which one can take concrete steps whereas "have things be easy" is Not

[bebx]

*me, checking my own AO3 account to see if I have posted any new fic I’ve been waiting for yet*

[aurumacadicus]

I don't have the words for this but. Art and science are always hand in hand.

The perfectionism of artists has them researching stuff in a way that only scientists can compare. Some artists become experts in biology or anatomy. Other special interests have them going down rabbit holes to make them better at their art.

Disney animators said "we are perfecting the code for this snow if it kills us" and researched and invented code until it acted like real snow in Frozen and snow scientists were like hey. Did we just fucking solve the Dyatlov Pass mystery. And the animators answered no. We made snow. YOU applied the knowledge and did the experiments to solve what could have happened at Dyatlov Pass.

And it was a team effort because of course it was. You can't have art without science. And you can't have science without art.

[akanemnon]

I wonder if she takes cash or credit.

FIRST - PREVIOUS - NEXT

MASTERPOST (for the full series / FAQ / reference sheets)

[mercutio-the-velaryon]

Mel and Viktor being drawn to each other but repelling each other at the same time... Ughhh you know I critique the fuck out of the writing sometimes but someone COOKED HERE

[turnaboutfix]

Let's talk about how Edgeworth addresses Maya, because I think it's super interesting!

"Ms. Maya Fey" when introducing her to the court. He's a professional, after all.

"Maya Fey" on a separate occasion.

Does he ever call her "Ms. Fey"?

No. He does address Mia as "Ms. Fey!"

As a matter of fact, Edgeworth uses "Ms. Fey" to only address Mia. He never addresses Maya as "Ms. Fey".

What about after this trial?

He just calls her Maya!

And to her face? Still "Maya".

And then in 3-5, still "Maya Fey"/"Maya".

Besides reserving "Ms. Fey" for just Mia, I think there's a really interesting reason he calls her "Maya" so informally considering his formal tendencies.

Yes, it involves the Japanese version of the game.

"Mayoi-kun...."

"A. Mitsurugi kenji." / "Oh. Prosecutor Mitsurugi."

In Japanese, Edgeworth calls her "Mayoi-kun" after 1-2, where he addresses her as "Ayasato Mayoi" during her trial. If you have a basic understanding of Japanese honorifics, you might be familiar that "-kun" is usually reserved for men and boys. Maya (and Mia) call Phoenix "Naruhodo-kun", as an example. They both use the honorific to imply that Phoenix is a subordinate (which is a touch scandalous coming from Maya, considering she's both younger than him and not even a practicing attorney, but Phoenix never corrects her.) It can also be used for male classmates in school.

There is a reason, however, that women are sometimes addressed as "-kun", and that's in the workplace! It's common for male coworkers to call their female subordinates "-kun", especially if they are a more familiar coworker.

(Edit, slight correction/addition: addressing a female coworker as "-kun" is more common and even seen as more polite than "-san" for a subordinate in settings like parliament and courts!)

As for Edgeworth, he certainly caught that Phoenix addresses Maya as "Mayoi-chan", but it's probably too familiar for him, so he wants to use a more respectful honorific for her, and something more familiar than "-san", which is similar to "Mr."/"Ms." So, he calls her "Mayoi-kun"! (He also calls Kay Faraday "Mikumo-kun", for similar reasons.)

So I can see why the localizers would scratch their heads as to how they would localize "Mayoi-kun". The nuances of using that honorific can't be translated easily, so between calling Maya "Ms. Fey" (and probably also agreeing that ought to be reserved for Mia) and just "Maya", they ultimately decided to just stick with her first name.

[makingshortstorieslong]

A little zine about how I (still) have trouble saying the word aromantic.

I've never made a zine before! I was inspired to try it because @queerliblib mentioned a zine making night in an email. That hasn't happened yet - its on June 26th - but once I had the idea, I couldn't wait, lol. It was nice to put something down on paper and have the finished product to hold onto.

Image descriptions under the cut:

Page 1: Three tiny speech bubbles say: "Do you have a bf? Do you like anyone? What's your type?" A big speech bubble says, "Oh, I don't date." The big speech bubble comes from a heart colored like the aromantic flag. 

Page 2 says: I could say: "Actually, I'm... ...aromantic." ...aro." ...aromantic asexual." ...aroace."

Page 3 says: But there are a few problems:

aromantic: Has been misheard as "A Romantic".

aro: Opaque if you don't already know the term.

aromantic asexual: A mouthful! And sounds...scientific?

aroace: shares The Big Problem: it may require a vocabulary lesson!

Page 4 says: It doesn't actually come up too often! Which is fine. My coworkers, my neighbors, and strangers don't need to know I'm aroace. I just wish I could say it sincerely when I do want someone to know. 

Page 5 says: I always have to smile - laugh - hedge. "Oh, well, actually, I'm kind of like, aromantic? Basically just not interested."

It's been more than 8 years since the first time I said it out loud!  I'm certain of it, but I still can't say it like I mean it!

Page 6 says: The most memorable time I said "I don't date" the guy I was talking to asked "Oh are you asexual?" and I said "Yeah, actually. And aromantic." And we moved on.

That was nice. 

Page 7 says:

The times I've lead with "I'm aromantic" -- well, there's only one I really remember:

"I didn't use to think that was a real thing." 

Other than that time -- even if I use the word, I always explain what it means first! 

Page 8 says: I just hope that one day I'll feel like I can say, simply, confidently: "I'm aromantic" and "I'm aroace."

The words "I'm aromantic" are big and dark green, the color of the top stripe of the aromantic flag. The words "I'm aroace" are big and bright orange, the color of the top stripe of the aroace flag. Three hearts below the words are colored to look like the aromantic, aroace, and asexual flags. 

[dimeadozencows]

I redrew rambs sprites is there a power strip emoji

🔌 does this count

The descriptions I gave each expression are what they're called in the files :]

Like and subscribe if you'd shed a tear for a bloke who does fuck all

[trickstersaint]

i want to introduce you all to a project that is very close to my heart... or lack of one. anyway. for anyone who has ever wanted to play a poem. i'd like you to meet aromanticism

(link opens itch.io - she'll run on html in your browser! please be nice to her!)

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Historians Hate Him

(Bonus: Lost footage of WWX's death)

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[bebx]

unfortunately, I will write this fic and I am writing this fic are two very different things

[buggachat]

something so fucked up about Chat Noir’s whole deal is that he is in a lot of ways Adrien playing a character. Like Adrien picked up his miraculous and was told he’d be a superhero so he was like “ok, time to act like a superhero!” and he lets himself have fun w it and play up the role and let loose and kind of just allow himself to be silly and goofy and have fun and for once in his life not care about performing Perfection™.

But. But none of the other characters KNOW THAT. So everyone just sees Chat Noir and is like “look at this guy’s ego. He’s so full of himself. Surely it’d be fair to knock him down a few pegs” without being aware of how few pegs he actually HAS. He’s like the “insecure character who overcompensates in ego” trope except he’s really not doing it unironically, he’s just having a fun LARP pretending to have self worth in his off-hours but nobody else is on the same page about it being a game and he refuses to tell them. He just dramatically pouts about it and lets them laugh and pretends like he’s not internalizing it and it is almost 3 am and my brain forced me to write this instead of sleeping I’m gonna take a melatonin

[riminiscensce]

Poor Ajaw bro😭

He will definitely go to you to snitch on Kinich, and while at it, he’ll throw in some make-believe stories that makes Kinich sound like a horrible person.

“Kinich said he’ll feed me to the saurian mountain king!”

“Kinich was going to throw me at the desert!”

“Kinich wanted to sell me to criminals!”

The only thing that makes his claim believable to you is how he was cutely trying to wipe his tears with his tiny, pixelated hands.

And one more thing to make you believe him even more:

“I-I just wanted to hang out with him, I had no one to play with and I thought that m-maybe we could’ve spent some time together as friends…”

That was an obvious lie, he would never say that.

But it works well enough to persuade you to talk some senses into Kinich.

The saurian hunter doesn’t even know what happened when you came barging into his place telling him to apologize to Ajaw, and you weren’t at all pleased to see him.

Then Kinich finds out Ajaw lied about him.

“I didn’t do anything he said—“

“Are you saying Ajaw is a liar?”

“Yes,”

“Hey!” Ajaw growled, but quickly clearing his throat to get back into his act. “I mean—It really happened!”

Then Ajaw decided to pull off one of his secret moves to persuade you:

“D-Don’t you trust me?” The dragon frowns, dots of tears still in the corner of his eyes while clutching onto your clothes like a little kid. “I-It was so scary…! I keep getting nightmares about it and—“

Then he continues to sob on your shoulder, saying how he can’t even bring himself to tell the full story at how terrified he is.

He felt an immense wave of success when you start to comfort him.

When you weren’t looking, Ajaw would sneak a glance at Kinich, quietly laughing at how helpless he has gotten.

And Kinich felt intensely mocked by it.

But before he could do anything else, you left with Ajaw, telling him that he’ll stay with you until Kinich can bring himself to apologize.

As the hunter continues to watch you baby Ajaw from afar, the dragon would always grab any chances he gets to rub it in Kinich’s face.

It was sweet revenge.

[keferon]

So uh..I sure hope no one’s personality reshapes after that experience haha

[superbat-lmao]

Jason travels to an alternate universe where Bruce only cares about being Batman. He took in each of his kids to serve the mission, not be his children.

Now, faced with alternate versions of his family, Jason has to grapple with the fact that his Bruce does care, that he is his father. Because the man in front of him now, trying to send him home, isn’t even close.