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Top 15 HBO War characters voted by our followers: ↳ #10 George Luz │ 31 votes

Hey Frank, this guy’s reading an article over here that says the Germans… are bad. You learn something new every day, huh?

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When my dad first came home, all I did was bargain with the universe for things to go back to the way they were. But they never did, so…

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Top 10 Tips for Actually Writing

for the writer who can’t seem to write.

Buy a pencil and paper. Get a writing program and a keyboard.

Spill all your ideas into a notebook that will never see the light of day. Write down literally every idea you have that even sort of relates to the scene/chapter/book that you want to write until your thoughts converge on a pointed attack.

Quality vs. Quantity? No competition. Quantity all the way. The more you write, the better you will know your story. Worry about Quality LATER.

Think about where the idea came from. Go there. Set up a cardboard box and live there. This is your home now.

What is the coolest, most self-indulgent thing you can think of? That’s what you want to write at this point, until you get some steam.

Short-term goals, my friends. And by short-term, I mean a minute from now, ten seconds from now. What are you going to do to write RIGHT NOW? Stop thinking about an hour from now, stop thinking about a day from now.

This is not a book. This is not a book. You are not writing a book. You are writing a story. A story is much easier to take bites out of than a book. A book is a big, scary, colossal thing. Stories are fun and carefree.

Get yourself a writing friend. A cactus, an old bottle of nail polish, a fish in an appropriately sized tank, etc. Make them hold you accountable.

Set crazy low goals. Promise yourself you will write ten words today. Ten words and you will be the Best Writer in the Entire World to Ever Exist. Accomplishing things is a morale booster and will urge you to write more.

Just keep writing. I believe in you.

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Journey’s End (2018)

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The Ice Queen

- a downton abbey fanfiction

She stood out, amongst the common horde of titled sycophants and twits, like a flame in the night.

Harold Hepworth, gambler, womaniser and the third Viscount Hepworth to hold that reputation, dug his frozen fingers into the deep pockets of his greatcoat. Around him, the British delegation swirled and shoved. Their feet slipped along the icy deck of the Castalia as they pushed to get closer to the gangway. From the ropes and pulleys above, the sailors watched the proceedings with jaundiced eyes.

Harold, as ever, found himself in limbo. Not in the front of the deck, where the Crown Prince waited in his bulky glory. Not in the back with the rabble and hangers-on. He was too much an intimate of Prince Edward’s circle to be dismissed from the upper deck. Too poor, with too low a title and too little influence to stand right at the front, at the Prince’s elbow.

An outsider in this world of privilege. He wondered, in his idle moments, if she ever felt the same. Was that what drew them together?

Violet Crawley, Countess of Grantham.

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... maybe a bit too much access...

Writing Prompt: Dialogue

“An escort service? Wait, [—-] was a good girl just out of farm country. She was a straight-A student. What would she be doing calling an escort service?” “Maybe her dad didn’t know her as well as he thought. But now… we know where to find her.” “Wait, no we don’t. There was no address. …Oh, wait. You know this place?” “You seem shocked.” “I mean, I figured, you know, a guy like you… good-looking, employed… wouldn’t need to–” “What? Pay for it? …It’s sad, right? …But, you know, sometimes, being a modern-day cowboy, I get so lonely. And I just need a little warmth, the comforting touch of a woman. Yeah. …That, or maybe I know it because I’m a P.I., and it’s not the first time a girl’s run away to there.” “Oh… Right.”

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These. Do all the things.  When you first start editing it can be difficult to know where to start and what to look for. Go through your copy and highlight all these instances, then go back and remove as many as possible! And as always with editing, take it slow.

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Elizaveta Boyarskaya as Anna in Anna Karenina [2017]

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Just because it’s fun to do “research” when writing some Downton fanfiction... 

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Will you...?

It is always incomprehensible to a man that a woman should ever refuse an offer of marriage. ~~ Jane Austen

London, 1890

“Miss Levinson.”

Her mother had told her to act surprised.

“Viscount Downton. This is such a surprise.”

His expression did not lighten. It did not smile. Instead, it hardened, like an old gold-chaser getting ready to haggle dollars and cents with the bank man.

Cora stood, awkward as a flamingo on one foot. Should she sit down again? Should she curtsy? Surely not! This was her home- well, for now. Mother was making noises about moving to the Ritz, claiming the servants attached to this rented London residence were slovenly and badly-trained. But for now it was her home.

Should she wait for the Viscount to bow? Should she curtsy then?

It was so much easier in the public light of a ball. Mother had devoured the English etiquette manuals before leaving New York. Before Cora set a slippered foot on the gangplank of the SS Majestic, she knew to an inch the depth of her curtsy for a duke as opposed to a baron, the ribbons permitted to a second-season debutante as opposed to a first and that the Scottish titles were infinitely inferior to English ones.

Irish titles were not worth the letters that made up their rank.

So, if they had been in a ball, Cora would know exactly what to do. She would be beautifully dressed, her armour pearl-and-white-silk-plated. The scouts- Mother’s quiet hints to matrons and hostess of her daughter’s fabulous dowry- would be already sent ahead. Half her dances would be promised to poor-but-titled barons, lords and knights but if it came about that a better prospect appeared, she had a tried and tested strategy to dismiss her original partner without insult or insinuation. 

She knew how to laugh like a lady, how to flirt without being forward. She had perfected how to modulate her accent to sound less like the mid-western daughter of carpetbagggers and more like the rows of English debutantes who lined the walls and watched every move like cats following a piece of string.

She knew. Here, curled up with her favourite novel, dressed en déshabillé in a skirt and shirt-waist, Cora fumbled around the particulars like a green girl.

He didn’t bow. He didn’t move to sit down. He just stood there, side-whiskers bristling and blue eyes studying her like she was a dose of cod-liver oil.

He was poor. Cora had heard that much. Of course, poverty was relative. The Viscount and his parents had enough to eat, enough to dress in the full regalia required for a London Season. They maintained appearances of a title that was both old and attached to a great deal of land. 

Theirs was not a poverty to equal what Cora could remember of childhood trips with her father to the plains country of Ohio. Then, she could remember barefoot children and hungry faces. Women who were twenty and looked forty; women of forty who looked a hundred.

The Countess of Grantham, that imperious matriarch of the Crawley family, was forty-six. In her diamonds and silks, with her red hair piled in a coronet on her head, she looked ten years younger.

Still, Cora herself knew how appearances could deceive. The title was dying. No number of diamonds or crumbling homes could hide it. The current earl invested unwisely, diverting funds from the home farms to cover a risky gamble in South American tobacco. When it failed to take off, he became a recluse. 

There were rumours the Viscount was in the middle of quiet negotiations to sell some of his family’s masterpieces. Anything to keep the creditors from their backs until the harvest came in. If he didn’t find an immediate injection of cash, they might have to begin selling the family jewels.

It wasn’t surprising that the serious, stiff young man had solicited Cora Levinson, London’s brightest and richest American heiress, for the first waltz at every ball she attended since the beginning of the Season. 

Harold, of course, was being perfectly odious. “Why won’t he work? Do a bit of hard toil for once in his life instead of slithering his way into stealing someone else’s success.”

Mother said Harold had radical tendencies. She encouraged his obsession with sailing in Hyannis Port and Rhode Island in hopes that the physical exhaustion would wear out his acid tongue. Cora sometimes wished her elder brother would be washed over board. 

Viscount Downton glanced at the mantel clock, then the door. Cora, coming to with a blink, realised she had forgotten to offer the tea tray. 

“Would you like a cup of-” 

“I have spoken-” 

They stopped. Cora, blushing. The Viscount caught off guard. He glanced at the clock again. Was he waiting for an appointment?

“I have spoken to your mother.” There was something a little endearing about how awkward the Viscount seemed. Cora focussed on the stray curl of brown that escaped the waves of his pomaded hair to hang over one eyebrow. It made him look boyish, a pleasing contrast to the formality of his navy morning coat and waistcoat. 

It also distracted her from the apprehensive clenching of her stomach muscles in anticipation of what was coming next. 

“Miss Levinson, I am aware our acquaintance is short. Nevertheless, I trust you will allow me to say... that is, I wish to inform you that...  Your...” He cleared his throat. Stopped. 

Cora waited. Her heart picked up. A shallow rattle that sent tremors rippling up her throat until all words choked a premature death. 

When the Viscount spoke again, the boy was gone. The mercantile hardness had returned. Dollars and cents weighed in the balance. 

“I have spoken to your mother in view of contracting a marriage between us.” 

The voice was cold. Like an icicle. It left Cora with a curious numbness and, with that numbness, a clarity of vision. 

She studied the man in front of her, errant curl included. The cool blue gaze met her own without flinching. He understood the bargain being struck. 

“I believe we will deal well together, you and I. She is in agreement. You will be Viscountess Downton and, one day, Countess of Grantham. A position of great honour.”

And you will still have a roof over your noble head come Christmas time, Cora thought. “It is, my lord.” 

He nodded. “I realise our acquaintance is of a short duration. Nevertheless, on refelction, I see no reason that affect-  That is to say, I am confident the marriage shall be a success.” 

“That is gratifying, my lord.” 

Something in her tone must have alerted the English lord to his faux pas. He stopped addressing every remark to the Fabergé clock on the mantel. When he glanced back to her- so quick, it was less than a flash before he turned away again- Cora saw the first uncertainty break through the self-assured facade. And something more. 

Fear. 

Viscount Downton cleared his throat. “Naturally, should you accept, you would make me the happiest of men.” 

Would I? For the first time in a dozen marriage proposals, every one of them made with more wit and greater arodour than this clinical bargain, Cora stopped dismissing the words at face value. 

She traced the stoic face in front of her. The firm, almost pugnacious chin. The shadows that traced under the startling blue eyes. The thick wings of his eyebrows that jutted over his brow and gave him a hawkish air. 

He was a proud man, she thought. The little conversation they had exchanged between dance patterns told her as much. Despite Harold’s mockery, she didn’t think Viscount Downton relished the easy money marriage to her would bestow. To sell himself and his heritage and his title like that to the highest bidder must, she thought, rankle across his skin like a iron claws. 

This offer was a last resort. A decision made after countless sleepless nights spent contemplating ruin and homelessness and the desecration of three hundred years of history. She could read it in his face, in the skin that was too pale and drawn even to be fashionable, in the idle tap of his fingers against his waistcoat. 

The Viscount was exposed to the winds of fortune, like a man on a cliff. All that waited was one last push to send him from everything he had known, everything he had been born to protect, into the seas of humiliation and ruin below. 

Cora could prevent that. 

It wasn’t the marriage she dreamed of as a girl. It wasn’t knights errant or bouquets or sonnets to her eyebrow. It was a business transaction but it could be something more. 

Instinctively, irrationally, Cora knew she could save this proud, vulnerable man, even from himself. 

“Miss Levinson?” 

A crack in the refined voice. A hesitation at the end. 

Cora lifted her head. Putting on her most dazzling smile, she held out her hand. 

“Yes, my lord.” The words were quiet and warm. A sanctuary all of their own. “Yes, I will make you the happiest of men.” 

[amicablealien]

me: write at least 5 chapters ahead so you can update regularly and have time to plot ahead

impatient me: post the first chapter now and get instant validation

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Edith Crawley + Favorite Costumes (Season 6)

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Fanfic Prompt List

Reblog this. Readers send a fandom (and a pairing, if you’re into that) +  a number to your Ask. You write a fic/drabble using that line in your piece. Yay, more fic!

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“You love me as if I deserve you.”

“This isn’t what it looks like.”

“I really wish you’d told me your mother was in town.”

“You don’t believe in an afterlife?”

“I just came to say goodbye.”

“I never say no to a picnic.”

“There’s only one bed.”

“You don’t remember last night at all, do you?”

“You’re wrong and I’ll prove it.”

“A woman’s sexuality is a moving target.”

“You’re a genius with facts, but you’re really stupid with people.”

“I made the mistake of thinking ‘This can’t get weirder.’ Sorry.”

“We’re in love with the same person. Friendships have been built on less common ground.”

“I didn’t know you could dance like that!”

“I found it in the recycling bin.”

“I know what I want, when I want it. So get over here.”

“This is… exactly what it looks like.”

“There’s so much blood.”

“You should see me in my old uniform. I’m pretty sure it still fits.”

“I know you really want to hang it on the wall, but…”

“I hate everything about Christmas except…”

“We bet and you lost, so you have to do it.”

“Is that a tattoo?”

“I could tell it was your favorite book because of all the notes you wrote in the margins.”

“What do you think?  Is purple my color?”

“That is way too expensive.”

“Girls night in?”

“I never imagined myself in a wedding dress.”

“I was scared and I ran.”

“I’m yours, in every way you’ll have me.”

“You’re acting like this is your first threesome.”

“The bow was perfect before, but then I got paranoid and had to check to make sure it was still in there.”

“You might not like me, but you definitely want me.”

“If a zombie bit you, I’d be heartbroken, but I’d also shoot you twice in the head.”

“I’d be fine having sex with the same person for the rest of my life, if it wasn’t the same sex every single time.”

“I want to hike up your skirt and take you right here.”

“I lost the baby.”

“I love you. I just love her more.”

“A package arrived for you, but there’s no return address and the box looks really old.”

“If I die, I’m going to haunt you.”

“I didn’t say “sex party” as in orgy.  I said “hex party” as in witches.”

“You wanted me to walk in on you.”

“This is a totally inappropriate soundtrack.”

“Let’s get wasted and then go piss on his grave.”

“I scalped my Hamilton tickets to pay for it.”

“Hold my hand until it’s over?”

“If you want to get me naked, you’ll have to convince me it’ll be worth my time.”

“I’m a level 72 Rogue and if you tell anyone, I’ll deny it and I will kill you.”

Author’s choice!

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Bossypants || 2011 

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Edith Crawley and Herbert “Bertie” Pelham in Downton Abbey (requested by anonymous)

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The thing is, I’d like to be trapped… and, well I better just say it.