cynicwrites - Tumblr blog

[cynicwrites]

Types of AO3 Summary

Option 1 - The Excerpt:

The quickest, the easiest! Find a section of your fic that contains the main premise of said fic and also showcases your writing. Copy paste that into the summary box. BOOM! Done.

Best used for any fic, unless it's so short the excerpt would be the whole fic.

Option 2 - The No Frills:

Just a description of the fic. No need for drama. No need to complicate matters. Keep it simple, keep it safe.

Example: "A short character exploration of Blorbo's thoughts after Daisy leaves."

Best used for short fics, poems and fics where the style/format is more important than the plot. Or fics that tie directly into a scene/episode from canon or another fanfic.

Option 3 - The Hook:

Draw the reader's interest by giving them a set up with no conclusion. Introduce the main character(s), introduce the status quo, describe an inciting incident, leave a question in the reader's mind.

Example: "Blorbo is a barista at a coffee shop, struggling to pay their bills, but after handsome rockstar Obrolb walks into their coffee shop they find that they have to decide whether a chance at love is worth the cost of fame."

Best used for mid to long fic where there's a strong premise and follow through. Especially good for AUs. Can be expanded for more complex plots or used multiple times in one summary for multiple characters or subplots.

Option 4 - The Sitcom One-Liner:

"The one in which [over simplified description of one of the main plotlines]" This is essentially 'boil your plot down to the very simplest statement you can, oversimplify if possible. The more bizarre or unhelpful the better.

Example: "The one in which Blorbo learns to like cake".

Best used for fics with at least a little humour in them.

Option 5 - The Rule of Three:

Three is a magic number. Find three key moments in your fic and just list them. That's it. Often ends with 'not necessarily in that order' if used for comic effect. If it's an AU, establish that quickly (i.e. 'Star NHL player Blorbo…').

Example: "Blorbo makes a friend, falls in love, and almost burns to death, not necessarily in that order."

Best used for anything, really. Three is a magic number. The human brain loves things that come in threes.

Option 6 - The Trope Lure:

Why bother describing the plot? We all know AO3 readers are here for the tropes. Similar to The Sitcom One-Liner just using tropes instead of plot. Often followed by the phrase 'that nobody asked for'.

Example: "The Space western/ABO/Mail Order Bride fic that nobody asked for."

Often tacked on to the end of The Hook or The Excerpt as a tl;dr.

Best used for fic that plays its tropes straight with no shame or second guessing.

Option 7 - The Pre-emptive Strike:

(Not recommended) You just wrote this fic, the self doubt is consuming you. You feel the need to apologise profusely for your existence for no apparently reason. You feel cringe, you think the fic is cringe, you want everyone to know that you think the fic is cringe in case they don't like it and judge you for it.

Example: "So I fell in love with this pairing and had to write this. It's weird and terrible. Lol! I suck at summaries! Sorry!"

Best used for no fics ever. I cannot stress this enough.

(Seriously, I am begging you, don't do this. If you're planning to use this option, rethink it and do one of the others. I guarantee you more people will want to read your fic.)

Sometimes added on to any other summary as a strange disclaimer. (srsly. don't.)

Option 8 - The Unapology:

Embrace the mayhem, embrace the deep dark depths of your soul. The opposite of The Pre-emptive Strike. A combination of The No Frills and The Trope Lure that truly gives no fucks.

You have committed crimes and you are proud of them. You know what your USP is and you're going to make sure your target market finds you. Look upon my works, ye readers, and despair!

Example: "There aren't enough tentacle fics in this pairing, so I had to write one myself!"

Best used for fics with controversial/polarising tropes with all relevant details already clearly stated in the tags.

Option 9 - The Interrogation:

What if you wrote a summary entirely in questions? What if your readers had to read the fic to discover the answers? Who knows what will happen if you do this?

Example: "What happens when Blorbo McBlorbo gets his wish and Daisy doesn't make it to the plane on time? What happens when Obrolb finds out? How will this change Daisy and Blorbo's friendship?"

Best used for... I honestly don't know. This style of summary does not vibe with me. Mystery fic maybe? Sorry guys.

Option 10 - The Multipack:

Got a bunch of shorter fics in one work? No way of summarising them all without a wall of text larger than the Great Wall of China? This one is similar to The No Frills in that you're not describing the plots themselves and similar to The Trope Lure in that often broader genres and tropes are mentioned. What links those fics? Are they all in the same fandom? The same pairing? The same challenge? Just slap that right in the summary. A chapter list with 1-2 word trope/pairing summaries can be included or not.

Example: "A collection of Blorbo/Daisy/Obrolb fics based on Tumblr prompts. Chapter 1: Regency AU Chapter 2: Werewolves vs vampires Chapter 3: Ghost!Daisy Chapter 4: Space pirates!"

Best used for (obviously) works that are compilations of fic.

Option ? - The Void:

I said The Excerpt was the quickest and easiest summary to do. I lied, well... I didn't exactly lie. What is quicker and easier than not having a summary at all? After all, that's what the tags are for.

Example:

Best used for... nothing? Write a summary, guys. Please?

[cynicwrites]

How to create chapter treatments

Here’s how I create my chapter treatments, and why they’re a great way to regain control of your project if you get stuck halfway through.

Want a fresh approach to organising your project?

Try creating chapter treatments. Here are my best tips

📚 What are chapter treatments?

They’re basically a breakdown of your book by chapter. This means you would plan out how many chapters your book would have and what happens in each of them.

📚 How do you do that?

This method of planning is not for pantsers, so if you’re setting out to create a chapter treatment, you should already have some form of outline that touches on all your major plot beats.

With an outline, you can then easier judge where to separate out your chapters.

📚 What else do you need?

A typical chapter treatment can be as detailed or as vague as you like, but I personally like to include:

a chapter summary

the main point(s) of the chapter

this answers the questions of why does this chapter exist and how does it move the story

narrative perspective(s) it’s told from

scenes & locations within the chapter

any important beats

research & notes for future drafts

📚 Scenes & beats

To go further into the treatment, you can lay out your scenes (these are determined by each location change), and even break the scenes down into beats (every important change or event that occurs during the scene).

📚 You can also make chapter treatments retroactively — after you’ve already finished your draft, or written a large chunk.

This can help to ground your story and gain a bird’s eye view of your project, as well as spot any plot holes, gaps or problem areas!

I usually recommend chapter treatments to my clients when they’re about a third of the way through their draft.

💜 Grab it alone or as part of my Writer’s ToolBoox through the [link here] or below!

[cynicwrites]

all the dialogue tags you'll ever need

said

mutter

groaned

grumbled

clarified

screeched

mumbled

murmured

clarified

scolded

reprimanded

begged

retorted

replied

blurted

confirmed

protested

laughed

exclaimed

disclaimed

agreed

relented

babbled

gushed

chortled

rambled

declared

shrieked

recalled

grunted

concluded

realized

consoled

offered

noted

rasped

spat

whined

cried

proposed

assented

jabbed

sneered

hissed

moaned

demanded

cajoled

insisted

lamented

sneered

glowered

cried

wailed

breathed

ordered

boomed

promised

swore

cursed

gasped

chimed (in)

threatened

warned

questioned

queried

quipped

[cynicwrites]

WEBSITES FOR WRITERS {masterpost}

E.A. Deverell - FREE worksheets (characters, world building, narrator, etc.) and paid courses;

Hiveword - Helps to research any topic to write about (has other resources, too);

BetaBooks - Share your draft with your beta reader (can be more than one), and see where they stopped reading, their comments, etc.;

Charlotte Dillon - Research links;

Writing realistic injuries - The title is pretty self-explanatory: while writing about an injury, take a look at this useful website;

One Stop for Writers - You guys... this website has literally everything we need: a) Description thesaurus collection, b) Character builder, c) Story maps, d) Scene maps & timelines, e) World building surveys, f) Worksheets, f) Tutorials, and much more! Although it has a paid plan ($90/year | $50/6 months | $9/month), you can still get a 2-week FREE trial;

One Stop for Writers Roadmap - It has many tips for you, divided into three different topics: a) How to plan a story, b) How to write a story, c) How to revise a story. The best thing about this? It's FREE!

Story Structure Database - The Story Structure Database is an archive of books and movies, recording all their major plot points;

National Centre for Writing - FREE worksheets and writing courses. Has also paid courses;

Penguin Random House - Has some writing contests and great opportunities;

Crime Reads - Get inspired before writing a crime scene;

The Creative Academy for Writers - "Writers helping writers along every step of the path to publication." It's FREE and has ZOOM writing rooms;

Reedsy - "A trusted place to learn how to successfully publish your book" It has many tips, and tools (generators), contests, prompts lists, etc. FREE;

QueryTracker - Find agents for your books (personally, I've never used this before, but I thought I should feature it here);

Pacemaker - Track your goals (example: Write 50K words - then, everytime you write, you track the number of the words, and it will make a graphic for you with your progress). It's FREE but has a paid plan;

Save the Cat! - The blog of the most known storytelling method. You can find posts, sheets, a software (student discount - 70%), and other things;

I hope this is helpful for you!

(Also, check my blog if you want to!)

[cynicwrites]

How to Write Indigenous Characters Without Looking like a Jackass:

Boozhoo (hello) Fallout fandom! I'm a card-carrying Anishinaabe delivering this rough guide about writing Indigenous characters because wow, do I see a lot of shit.

Let's get something out of the way first: Fallout's portrayal of Indigenous people is racist. From a vague definition of "tribal" to the claims of them being "savage" and "uncivilized" mirror real-world stereotypes used to dehumanize us. Fallout New Vegas' narrated intro has Ron Perlman saying Mr. House "rehabilitated" tribals to create New Vegas' Three Families. You know. Rehabilitate. As if we are animals. Top it off with an erasure of Indigenous people in the American Southwest and no real tribe names, and you've got some pretty shitty representation. The absence of Native American as a race option in the GECK isn't too great, given that two Native characters are marked "Caucasian" despite being brown. Butch Deloria is a pretty well-known example of this effect. (Addendum: Indigenous people can have any mix of dominant and recessive traits, as well as present different phenotypes. What bothers me is it doesn't accommodate us or mixed people, which is another post entirely.)

As a precautionary warning: this post and the sources linked will discuss racism and genocide. There will also be discussion of multiple kinds of abuse.

Now, your best approach will be to pick a nation or tribe and research them. However, what follows will be general references.

Terms that may come up in your research include Aboriginal/Native Canadian, American Indian/Native American, Inuit, Métis, and Mestizo. The latter two refer to cultural groups created after the discovery of the so-called New World.

As a note, not every mixed person is Métis or Mestizo. If you are, say, Serbian and Anishinaabe, you would be mixed, but not Métis. Even the most liberal definition caps off at French and British ancestry alongside Indigenous (some say Scottish and English). Mestizo works the same, since it refers to descendants of Spanish conquistadors/settlers and Indigenous people.

Trouble figuring out whose land is where? No problem, check out this map.

Drawing

Don't draw us with red skin. It's offensive and stereotypical.

Tutorial for Native Skintones

Tutorial for Mixed Native Skintones

Why Many Natives Have Long Hair (this would technically fit better under another category, but give your Native men long hair!)

If You're Including Traditional Wear, Research! It's Out There

Languages

Remember, there are a variety of languages spoken by Indigenous people today. No two tribes will speak the same language, though there are some that are close and may have loan words from each other (Cree and Anishinaabemowin come to mind). Make sure your Diné (you may know them as Navajo) character doesn't start dropping Cree words.

Here's a Site With a Map and Voice Clips

Here's an Extensive List of Amerindian Languages

Keep in mind there are some sounds that have no direct English equivalents. But while we're at it, remember a lot of us speak English, French, Spanish, or Portuguese. The languages of the countries that colonized us.

Words in Amerindian languages tend to be longer than English ones and are in the format of prefix + verb + suffix to get concepts across. Gaawiin miskwaasinoon is a complete sentence in Anishinaabemowin, for example (it is not red).

Names

Surprisingly, we don't have names like Passing Dawn or Two-Bears-High-Fiving in real life. A lot of us have, for lack of better phrasing, white people names. We may have family traditions of passing a name down from generation to generation (I am the fourth person in my maternal line to have my middle name), but not everyone is going to do that. If you do opt for a name from a specific tribe, make sure you haven't chosen a last name from another tribe.

Baby name sites aren't reliable, because most of the names on there will be made up by people who aren't Indigenous. That site does list some notable exceptions and debunks misconceptions.

Here's a list of last names from the American census.

Cowboys

And something the Fallout New Vegas fans might be interested in, cowboys! Here's a link to a post with several books about Black and Indigenous cowboys in the Wild West.

Representation: Stereotypes and Critical Thought

Now, you'll need to think critically about why you want to write your Indigenous character a certain way. Here is a comprehensive post about stereotypes versus nuance.

Familiarize yourself with tropes. The Magical Indian is a pretty prominent one, with lots of shaman-type characters in movies and television shows. This post touches on its sister tropes (The Magical Asian and The Magical Negro), but is primarily about the latter.

Say you want to write an Indigenous woman. Awesome! Characters I love to see. Just make sure you're aware of the stereotypes surrounding her and other Women of Color.

Word to the wise: do not make your Indigenous character an alcoholic. "What, so they can't even drink?" You might be asking. That is not what I'm saying. There is a pervasive stereotype about Drunk Indians, painting a reaction to trauma as an inherent genetic failing, as stated in this piece about Indigenous social worker Jessica Elm's research. The same goes for drugs. Ellen Deloria is an example of this stereotype.

Familiarize yourself with and avoid the Noble Savage trope. This was used to dehumanize us and paint us as "childlike" for the sake of a plot device. It unfortunately persists today.

Casinos are one of the few ways for tribes to make money so they can build homes and maintain roads. However, some are planning on diversifying into other business ventures.

There's a stereotype where we all live off government handouts. Buddy, some of these long-term boil water advisories have been in place for over twenty years. The funding allocated to us as a percentage is 0.39%: less than half a percent to fight the coronavirus. They don't give us money.

"But what about people claiming to be descended from a Cherokee princess?" Cherokee don't and never had anything resembling princesses. White southerners made that up prior to the Civil War. As the article mentions, they fancied themselves "defending their lands as the Indians did".

Also, don't make your Indigenous character a cannibal. Cannibalism is a serious taboo in a lot of our cultures.

Our lands are not cursed. We don't have a litany of curses to cast on white people in found footage films. Seriously. We have better things to be doing. Why on earth would our ancestors be haunting you when they could be with their families? Very egotistical assumption.

Indigenous Ties and Blood Quantum

Blood quantum is a colonial system that was initially designed to "breed out the Indian" in people. To dilute our bloodlines until we assimilated properly into white society. NPR has an article on it here.

However, this isn't how a vast majority of us define our identities. What makes us Indigenous is our connections (or reconnection) to our families, tribes, bands, clans, and communities.

Blood quantum has also historically been used to exclude Black Natives from tribal enrollment, given that it was first based on appearance. So, if you looked Black and not the image of "Indian" the white census taker had in his brain, you were excluded and so were your descendants.

Here are two tumblrs that talk about Black Indigenous issues and their perspectives. They also talk about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people of Australia.

However, if you aren't Indigenous, don't bring up blood quantum. Don't. This is an issue you should not be speaking about.

Religion

Our religions are closed. We are not going to tell you how we worship. Mostly because every little bit we choose to share gets appropriated. Smudging is the most recent example. If you aren't Indigenous, that's smoke cleansing. Smudging is done in a specific way.

Now, a lot of us were forcibly converted. Every residential school was run by Christians. So plenty of us are Catholic, Baptist, Anglican, Lutheran, etc. Catholicism in Latin America also has influence from the Indigenous religions in that region.

Having your Indigenous character pray or carry rosaries wouldn't be a bad thing, if that religion was important to them. Even if they are atheist, if they lived outside of a reserve or other Indigenous communities, they might have Christian influences due to its domination of the Western world.

Settler Colonialism and the White Savior Trope

Now we've come to our most painful section yet. Fallout unintentionally has an excellent agent of settler-colonialism, in particular the Western Christian European variety, in Caesar's Legion and Joshua Graham.

(Addendum: Honest Hearts is extremely offensive in its portrayal of Indigenous people, and egregiously shows a white man needing to "civilize" tribals and having to teach them basic skills. These skills include cooking, finding safe water, and defending themselves from other tribes.)

Before we dive in, here is a post explaining the concept of cultural Christianity, if you are unfamiliar with it.

We also need to familiarize ourselves with The White Man's Burden. While the poem was written regarding the American-Philippine war, it still captures the attitudes toward Indigenous folks all over the world at the time.

As this article in Teen Vogue points out, white people like to believe they need to save People of Color. You don't need to. People of Color can save themselves.

Now, cultural Christianity isn't alone on this side of the pond. Writer Teju Cole authored a piece on the White Savior Industrial Complex to describe mission trips undertaken by white missionaries to Africa to feed their egos.

Colonialism has always been about the acquisition of wealth. To share a quote from this paper about the ongoing genocide of Indigenous peoples: "Negatively, [settler colonialism] strives for the dissolution of native societies. Positively, it erects a new colonial society on the expropriated land base—as I put it, settler colonizers come to stay: invasion is a structure not an event. In its positive aspect, elimination is an organizing principal of settler-colonial society rather than a one-off (and superseded) occurrence. The positive outcomes of the logic of elimination can include officially encouraged miscegenation, the breaking-down of native title into alienable individual freeholds, native citizenship, child abduction, religious conversion, resocialization in total institutions such as missions or boarding schools, and a whole range of cognate biocultural assimilations. All these strategies, including frontier homicide, are characteristic of settler colonialism. Some of them are more controversial in genocide studies than others." (Positive, here, is referring to "benefits" for the colonizers. Indigenous people don't consider colonization beneficial.)

An example of a non-benefit, the Church Rock disaster had Diné children playing in radioactive water so the company involved could avoid bad publicity.

Moving on, don't sterilize your Indigenous people. Sterilization, particularly when it is done without consent, has long been used as a tool by the white system to prevent "undesirables" (read, People of Color and disabled people) from having children. Somehow, as of 2018, it wasn't officially considered a crime.

The goal of colonization was to eliminate us entirely. Millions died because of exposure to European diseases. Settlers used to and still do separate our children from us for reasons so small as having a dirty dish in the sink. You read that right, a single dirty dish in your kitchen sink was enough to get your children taken and adopted out to white families. This information was told to me by an Indigenous social work student whose name I will keep anonymous.

It wasn't until recently they made amendments to the Indian Act that wouldn't automatically render Indigenous women non-status if they married someone not Indigenous. It also took much too long for Indigenous families to take priority in child placement over white ones. Canada used to adopt Indigenous out to white American families. The source for that statement is further down, but adoption has been used as a tool to destroy cultures.

I am also begging you to cast aside whatever colonialist systems have told you about us. We are alive. People with a past, not people of the past, which was wonderfully said here by Frank Waln.

Topics to Avoid if You Aren't Indigenous

Child Separation. Just don't. We deserve to remain with our families and our communities. Let us stay together and be happy that way.

Assimilation schools. Do not bring up a tool for cultural genocide that has left lasting trauma in our communities.

Wendigos. I don't care that they're in Fallout 76. They shouldn't be. Besides, you never get them right anyway.

Skinwalkers. Absolutely do not. Diné stories are not your playthings either.

I've already talked about drugs and alcohol. Do your research with compassion and empathy in mind. Indigenous people have a lot of pain and generational trauma. You will need to be extremely careful having your Indigenous characters use drugs and alcohol. If your character can be reduced to their (possible) substance abuse issues, you need to step back and rework it. As mentioned in Jessica Elm's research, remember that it isn't inherent to us.

For our final note: remember that we're complex, autonomous human beings. Don't use our deaths to further the stories of your white characters. Don't reduce us to some childlike thing that needs to be raised and civilized by white characters. We interact with society a little differently than you do, but we interact nonetheless.

Meegwetch (thank you) for reading! Remember to do your research and portray us well, but also back off when you are told by an Indigenous person.

This may be updated in the future, it depends on what information I come across or, if other Indigenous people are so inclined, what is added to this post.

[cynicwrites]

do you have any advice in writing horror?

SHOW, DON’T TELL, BUT MOSTLY FEEL. This feels more like just generic writing advice, but I feel like it’s especially important when one is writing horror. It’s not enough to say that a woman is standing in a red room. You have to place the reader in the room, engage all of their senses. Talk about the texture of the walls, the floors, the smell (and, by extension, that gross back of the mouth feeling some smells give you), all that can be heard and felt against the skin and in the mind. Really put yourself into the room. If you as a writer can’t see it, your reader most definitely can’t.

FOCUS ON THE HAUNTING, NOT THE SCARY. A lot of horror flops, in my opinion, because the author/director/whoever is focusing on what makes people jump and not on what makes people shiver. A quick flash of a scary face is scary for that one second. Having a monster chase you is scary, a serial killer is scary, a ghost is scary, but what’s underneath it? Nothing, in most cases. Think, truly, about what terrifies you. What’s the sort of horrible, horrifying thing that sticks with you, that makes it hard for you to sleep? Change the focus from the scary face in plain view to the scary face just out of sight, lingering on the edges. With horror, the less you know is better (though, side note, can we not be like H.P. Lovecraft and just point to vague somethings that make people lose their minds? People want to see the horrible, maddening creature! Describe the creature!), and the more you write what makes you anxious instead of what makes you scream, the more your horror Hits.

Alfred Hitchcock sucks, like he was a terrible man, but he had a point with his bomb under the table quote.

GROSS OUT AND GORE IS NOT A SUBSTITUTE FOR SUBSTANCE. This is the most important in my opinion. Lots of horror fails because there’s this huge focus on grossness and gore, violence without substance. Reading a Stephen King novel to read about minorities being savagely murdered is the norm. A horror film flashing near-pornographic images of white women and Black men being brutalized is what most people think of when they think of horror. While I do like to see a little gore in my horror (hello, who would ever turn down buckets and buckets of fake blood/the imagery of rooms awash with red!), mindless violence and gross-out shots of killing CANNOT and IS NOT a substitute for truly intriguing horror. If you have to lean on grossness to tell a story, the story is either a) not worth telling or b) you’re not the person to tell it.

BE MINDFUL OF WHO’S HAUNTING WHO. Oh, no, wait, this is the most important. Horror, historically, has been a very racist, xenophobic, homophobic, transphobic, ableist, and misogynistic genre. Up until recently, horror has been ruled by cishet white men (and cishet white women). Every “classic” horror novel and movie I can think of has some instance of overt anti-Blackness and misogyny. It’s a trope, at this point, that the Black person dies first, that the woman who has sex is the woman who gets cut to bits. The villain is always disabled in some shape or form, “crazy” in that vague way that punches down at the schizophrenic and people with psychosis.

So, be careful! Be mindful about what you write, be careful about who’s doing the stabbing and who gets stabbed. Is your villain an ableist trope? Do the people of color suffer for the sake of suffering? If a marginalized person read your piece, would they feel seen and safe, or would they feel targeted? Make conscious decisions with your writing because nothing exists in a vacuum, and every choice has a reason behind it, you feel?

[cynicwrites]

Writing advice #?: Have your characters wash the dishes while they talk.

This is one of my favorite tricks, picked up from E.M. Forester and filtered through my own domestic-homebody lens.  Forester says that you should never ever tell us how a character feels; instead, show us what those emotions are doing to a character’s posture and tone and expression.  This makes “I felt sadness” into “my shoulders hunched and I sighed heavily, staring at the ground as my eyes filled with tears.”  Those emotions-as-motions are called objective correlatives.  Honestly, fic writers have gotten the memo on objective correlatives, but sometimes struggle with how to use them.

Objective correlatives can quickly become a) repetitive or b) melodramatic.  On the repetitive end, long scenes of dialogue can quickly turn into “he sighed” and “she nodded” so many times that he starts to feel like a window fan and she like a bobblehead.  On the melodramatic end, a debate about where to eat dinner can start to feel like an episode of Jerry Springer because “he shrieked” while “she clenched her fists” and they both “ground their teeth.”  If you leave the objective correlatives out entirely, then you have what’s known as “floating” dialogue — we get the words themselves but no idea how they’re being said, and feel completely disconnected from the scene.  If you try to get meaning across by telling us the characters’ thoughts instead, this quickly drifts into purple prose.

Instead, have them wash the dishes while they talk.

To be clear: it doesn’t have to be dishes.  They could be folding laundry or sweeping the floor or cooking a meal or making a bed or changing a lightbulb.  The point is to engage your characters in some meaningless, everyday household task that does not directly relate to the subject of the conversation.

This trick gives you a whole wealth of objective correlatives.  If your character is angry, then the way they scrub a bowl will be very different from how they’ll be scrubbing while happy.  If your character is taking a moment to think, then they might splash suds around for a few seconds.  A character who is not that invested in the conversation will be looking at the sink not paying much attention.  A character moderately invested will be looking at the speaker while continuing to scrub a pot.  If the character is suddenly very invested in the conversation, you can convey this by having them set the pot down entirely and give their full attention to the speaker.

A demonstration:

1

“I’m leaving,” Anastasia said.

“What?”  Drizella continued dropping forks into the dishwasher.

2

“I’m leaving,” Anastasia said.

Drizella paused midway through slotting a fork into the dishwasher.  “What?”

3

“I’m leaving,” Anastasia said.

Drizella laughed, not looking up from where she was arranging forks in the dishwasher.  “What?”

4

“I’m leaving,” Anastasia said.

The forks slipped out of Drizella’s hand and clattered onto the floor of the dishwasher.  “What?”

5

“I’m leaving,” Anastasia said.

“What?”  Drizella shoved several forks into the dishwasher with unnecessary force, not seeming to notice when several bounced back out of the silverware rack.

See how cheaply and easily we can get across Drizella’s five different emotions about Anastasia leaving, all by telling the reader how she’s doing the dishes?  And all the while no heads were nodded, no teeth were clenched.

The reason I recommend having it be one of these boring domestic chores instead of, say, scaling a building or picking a lock, is that chores add a sense of realism and are low-stakes enough not to be distracting.  If you add a concurrent task that’s high-stakes, then potentially your readers are going to be so focused on the question of whether your characters will pick the lock in time that they don’t catch the dialogue.  But no one’s going to be on the edge of their seat wondering whether Drizella’s going to have enough clean forks for tomorrow.

And chores are a cheap-n-easy way to add a lot of realism to your story.  So much of the appeal of contemporary superhero stories comes from Spider-Man having to wash his costume in a Queens laundromat or Green Arrow cheating at darts, because those details are fun and interesting and make a story feel “real.”  Actually ask the question of what dishes or clothing or furniture your character owns and how often that stuff gets washed.  That’s how you avoid reality-breaking continuity errors like stating in Chapter 3 that all of your character’s worldly possessions fit in a single backpack and in Chapter 7 having your character find a pair of pants he forgot he owns.  You don’t have to tell the reader what dishes your character owns (please don’t; it’s already bad enough when Tolkien does it) but you should ideally know for yourself.

Anyway: objective correlatives are your friends.  They get emotion across, but for low-energy scenes can become repetitive and for high-energy scenes can become melodramatic.  The solution is to give your characters something relatively mundane to do while the conversation is going on, and domestic chores are not a bad starting place.

[cynicwrites]

One of the best tips for writing descriptions of pain is actually a snippet I remember from a story where a character is given a host of colored pencils and asked to draw an egg.

The character says that there’s no white pencil.  But you don’t need a white pencil to draw a white egg.  We already know the egg is white.  What we need to draw is the luminance of the yellow lamp and the reflection of the blue cloth and the shadows and the shading.

We know a broken bone hurts.  We know a knife wound hurts.  We know grief hurts.  Show us what else it does.

You don’t need to describe the character in pain.  You need to describe how the pain affects the character - how they’re unable to move, how they’re sweating, how they’re cold, how their muscles ache and their fingers tremble and their eyes prickle.

Draw around the egg.  Write around the pain.  And we will all be able to see the finished product.

[cynicwrites]

I know I’m a lil dead on this blog rn, but if you’re interested in my writing, maybe check out this thing I’m in that got published!! 

Hey so remember this post a while back? Well “As Told By Things”, the anthology I submitted a piece to, got funded so I’m officially a published author now I guess?? My good friend @transaizawa also has a piece in it and we’re super pumped and a lil in awe at the situation lol.

There’s a page for it up on Goodreads. You can also find the e-book up for pre-order on Amazon so feel free to check it out if you’re interested.

[cynicwrites]

Title: The One Hundred Million Yen Idea Series: JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond Is Unbreakable Character(s): Okuyasu, Josuke, Koichi, Yukako, & Tomoe Pairing(s): Josuke/Oku, Koichi/Yukako Notes: A very late posting of my contribution to Rejoice, the Okuyasu fanzine put out by my friend @transaizawa​ last year. 

As per my MO,  trans hcs abound Word Count: 2802 

Relax and do nothing after beating the big villain. There was nothing more to do after that other than hang out with friends and goof off with her boyfriend. Or that was what Okuyasu thought.

She scowled down at an unassuming piece of paper, the kanji across the top reading “Future Aspirations”, boxes filling the middle with things like “Desired Job” and “College Choice #2”. Choice number two? She hadn’t even given a thought to number one!

Okuyasu was already halfway through her second year of high school and never had she thought she’d really have to, well, think about her future. At least not one that didn’t involve the immediacy of fights with other stand users, fighting serial killers, and worrying if she was going to die on the spot.

Sighing, Okuyasu got up from her bed and walked over to her dresser. She placed the sheet of paper next to a few crayon drawings and tiny clay sculptures. The paper wasn’t even due in for a week. She’d put it aside for now and worry about it later.

A week passed. And Okuyasu was left staring down at the still empty “future aspirations” sheet. They were due today and she wasn’t able to turn hers in. Of course she got called in after school by her home room teacher and was scolded for not taking the assignment seriously, for being lazy, for not wanting to go anywhere in life.

Okuyasu shuddered. Being scolded by that teacher always reminded her way too much of very similar past situations. A hand nearly slamming itself down on her shoulder brought her out of her head.

“Oi, Okuyasu! Did you not hear me calling you?” Josuke’s voice boomed in her ear.

Okuyasu turned her scowling face towards Josuke. “I might not anyomore with the way you’re screaming in my ear.” She stuck a finger in her right ear and winced for emphasis.

Josuke burst into laughter. “Is that anyway to speak to your boyfriend,” he teased, bumping his hip into hers. “Hey, what’s that?” Before Okuyasu could react, he reached over and grabbed the paper out of her grasp. “Oh, is this that future life stuff sheet?”

“Yeah,” Okuyasu replied, picking imaginary lint off her jacket. “Have you…filled yours out yet?”

Josuke grinned at her. “Of course! Mom and I pretty much had stuff planned out since I was in middle school.” He winked. “I guess there’s at least one draw to having a teacher as a mom.”

Okuyasu took the paper back and frowned. “I don’t really know what to put down. The homeroom teacher already chewed me out about it…”

“Don’t worry about it!” Josuke threw an arm around Okuyasu’s shoulders. “We’re still second years anyways. You’ve got time!”

“Nijimura-saaaaaaan!” A voice called out from behind them. Okuyasu and Josuke turned around to see a young girl wearing a familiar kindergarten cap and uniform running towards them.

A big grin split Okuyasu’s face. “Oh, Miki-chan!” She knelt down just in time to catch the sprinting girl in her arms. “How have you been!”

This prompted a long string of excited sentences from Miki as she told Okuyasu about everything from her classmates to her mom being pregnant. After a while even Josuke got pulled into the conversation, less reluctantly after the girl complimented his hairstyle.

A few moments later had Miki sprinting back down the sidewalk to meet up with some of her friends, waving and shouting back over her shoulder. Josuke stood up and exhaled. “That kid sure can talk a while. How do you even know her?”

“Ah right, I forgot to tell you but after Tomoko-san put in a good word for me around town, a few parents started asking me to look after their kids sometimes.” Okuyasu turned and grinned at Josuke. “It’s pretty nice money.”

Josuke laughed. “Careful! Morioh Day Care might come after you for stealing their business!”

A few days later found Okuyasu occupying Josuke’s bed instead of her own. She still hadn’t turned in the sheet, as evidenced by the now severely crumpled paper sitting in front of her, almost as if it were mocking her. Okuyasu collapsed backwards onto the bed, brushing one of Josuke’s stray binders out of her face before letting out a loud huff.

Ringing out from the hallway, a voice snapped her out of her thoughts. “Okuyasu-chan? Are you here?”

Popping up, Okuyasu turned to see Tomoko smiling softly at her from the doorway. Okuyasu couldn’t help but return the smile, even if she wasn’t really feeling up to it. “Ah, Tomoko-san! I didn’t know you were going to be here so soon.”

Tomoko displayed the bag she was holding higher on her shoulder. “School got out a bit earlier than expected. I decided to take the opportunity to come home and get some grading done.” She walked into Josuke’s room. “Where is that boy of mine? What’s he thinking, leaving his cute girlfriend all by herself?”

Face growing hot, Okuyasu coughed. “Josuke went out to the convenience store. Said he’ll be back soon.” Taking a deep breath, she showed Tomoko the aspirations sheet. “I was hoping you could help me out with this?” Tomoko was not only a teacher, but she’d been around Okuyasu a lot for nearly the past two years. Surely, she’d have some idea of what Okuyasu would be good at.

Tomoko peered at the paper. “Ahh, how nostalgic.” She gently took the offered paper and smoothed out the wrinkles in the sheet.

Okuyasu felt her heart jump up into her throat. She couldn’t even explain why she felt so nervous, but it froze her solid. “W-what,” Okuyasu cleared her throat. “What did you write down when you were in school?”

Tomoko hummed. “I don’t think I ever actually wrote anything.” She placed the sheet down in front of Okuyasu. “Most of my friends just wrote down some nonsense.”

Frowing, Okuyasu picked the paper back up. “I don’t want to write down just anything, though. I want to write down something I mean.” She looked up at Tomoko, eyes pleading. “Do you have any ideas of something I could be good at?”

Tomoko leaned down and patted Okuyasu on the hand. “This isn’t really something I can help out with, dear. It’s not like a math homework assignment. There’s no way to tutor for this. I think you’ll just have to take a look at things you love to do, subjects you’re good at, and see if you can go from there.”

Just as Okuyasu opened her mouth to reply, a rattling noise came from the entryway. “I’m ba~ck.” Josuke’s voice echoed a bit down the hallway.

Tomoko gave Okuyasu a smaller smile than before. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be much help this time, Okuyasu-chan. I really do think you’ll figure things out.” She grabbed her hand and squeezed it. “I’ve gotta get started on work, but feel free to come and talk to me anytime!.”

As she left, Okuyasu glared down at the sheet, sure it was mocking her now.

A loud huff was her only warning before Josuke reached across the table to snatch the ever familiar paper from her hands. “Stop worrying so much about it, Okuyasu! Just write down anything! It’s not going to really matter anyways.”

Koichi sipped his drink and gave an absent nod. “I have to agree with Josuke on this one, Okuyasu. It’s just a piece of paper.”

Okuyasu clenched her jaw. Like usual, she was hanging out with Josuke and Koichi at a nearby cafe after school. Yukako had seen them and of course latched herself onto Koichi, inviting herself along. Okuyasu was trying desperately to just enjoy herself like normal but wasn’t succeeding.

“It’s not just about the damn sheet,” Okuyasu mumbled, chewing on her straw.

Josuke turned to look at her. “Huh? You say something?”

Okuyasu glanced up to see everyone looking at her. Gulping the rest of her drink, she shook her head. “No, I didn’t say nothin’.” She started to look back down and made eye contact with Yukako.

Yukako gave a slight nod and quickly rose to her feet. “Nijimura-san, it’s time to go.”

Koichi blinked up at her. One of Josuke’s eyebrows shot nearly into his hairline. “Huh?” Josuke looked back and forth between Okuyasu and Yukako before settling on Okuyasu. “You got plans with Yukako?” Okuyasu looked up at Yukako, slightly stunned. She rolled her eyes and huffed. “You remember we had to talk, right?” Yukako just barely nodded to the side, her eyes darting in the same direction.

“A-ah, right!” Okuyasu grabbed her bag and stood up. “We had to talk about that thing.” Yukako pursed her lips and Okuyasu fought the urge to wince. “We’ll see you boys later!”

Koichi and Josuke both gave stiff waves. Not even a kiss on the forehead from Yukako broke Koichi out of his stunned state. Okuyasu in turn patted Josuke on the shoulder as she moved away from the table. She hoped the wave and smile she gave was convincing enough.

Okuyasu and Yukako weren’t even a foot away from the table when the boys’ loud whispers started.

Yukako cleared her throat. Okuyasu jolted and looked over only to find Yukako nearly glaring at her. ‘What do you want!’ Okuyasu wanted to scream at her. Instead, she mumbled a “thank you,” hoping that was what Yukako was looking for.

Another huff. “I don’t want your thanks. You really ought to speak up more.”

They continued in silence for a while longer when Yukako spoke. “You obviously taking the aspirations sheet more seriously than the boys, hm?” She held up a hand as Okuyasu started to speak. “And you have every right to.”

Okuyasu felt some of her nerves drain. “It’s just that I never really thought much about the future. I figured I wasn’t good enough for college and I guess I always knew I’d have to work but… I just never gave it much thought. An entire year of fighting for our lives sorta distracted me, I guess.” She sighed. “I’m realizing a regular, normal life isn’t just something that’s possible but something I’ll have to actually prepare for.”

Yukako nodded. “While I can’t say I completely understand your situation, Nijimura-san, I can sympathize. Being under such extreme pressure without much of a support system at home. It’s all very daunting. You’re forced to grow up much faster than your peers.”

Yukako blinked and refocused her gaze on Okuyasu. “Which is why it’s that much more important that you rely on yourself to figure this out.” She gave Okuyasu a warm smile. “You’re a brave woman, Nijimura-san, more than I think you know.”

Okuyasu had never been more grateful for a sunset before now since it helped to hide her bright red face. “T-thanks.”

They walked in companionable silence a little longer, stopping at an intersection. A group of women stopped beside them, chatting loudly.

“Oh my! Is that Nijimura Okuyasu-san?”

Okuyasu turned to face the women and her face brightened. “Ah, Kanda-san. It’s been a while!”

Kanda turned to her companions. “This is the person that I was telling you ladies about. Tomoko-chan suggested I talk to Okuyasu-san to look after little Miki.” Kanda turned back to Okuyasu, a warm smile on her face. “Miki always asks when she’s next going to see ‘Oku-nee’. Thank you for always taking such good care of her.” Kanda gave a small bow.

Okuyasu rushed to return the bow. “It’s no problem at all! Miki-chan’s such a good kid!”

One of Kanda’s companions gave a small bow in acknowledgement. “Kanda-san speaks nothing but good about you, Nijimura-san! I was wondering if you would be able to take care of my Kenta-kun as well. I live close to Kanda-san and Kenta-kun and Miki-chan are good friends.”

Kanda’s other companion gave a soft giggle. “I believe you’ve looked after most of the children in my neighborhood as well. You may as well open your own day care, Nijimura-san.”

The polite chatter continued on for a few more moments. Okuyasu exchanged contact information with Kanda’s companions and they all parted ways at the next intersection. Before Yukako turned down her street, she touched Okuyasu’s arm and gave her a soft smile. “Take care of yourself, Nijimura-san.”

Okuyasu went through the rest of her day on automatic. She made food for her father, helped him feed Stray Cat, ate dinner herself and cleaned up. It wasn’t until she was getting ready for bed that she took another look back at the drawings and figurines on her desk.

They were all things she had received from children in the short time she had spent looking after most of them. She had received so many that she might even have to think about making book for them soon. Her favorite depicted her in a bright yellow apron surrounded by children and smiling, a rainbow behind them and the sun in the corner grinning down on them.

Okuyasu glanced back at her school bag. It was about time she filled out that aspirations sheet.

Okuyasu stepped out of the teacher’s room after school. She gave a small bow and called out “excuse me” before shutting the door. There was a notable bounce in her step and her face felt like it could split in half with how big of a grin she had on her face.

As she rushed towards the school entrance, she passed by Yukako. Okuyasu threw a thumbs up as she passed her. Yukako responded with a small smile.

Josuke was leaning against one of the shoe lockers when she got there. She rushed to change out her shoes and walked over to him. “Thanks for waiting! Sorry it took so long.”

He grinned at her and ruffled her hair. “No problem at all. You get everything figured out?”

“Yup!” Okuyasu felt her grin grow impossibly larger. “I know what schools I’m gonna apply to and everything. Even got some other study materials and information.”

“Really? Guess that homeroom teacher is good for something, eh?” Josuke chuckled.

Okuyasu hurried a few steps ahead of Josuke. “C’mon, let’s hurry up! I wanna tell Tomoko-san all about it!”

Shaking his head, Josuke matched his pace with Okuyasu’s. “So does this mean that we’re gonna have a huge family when you become a kindergarten teacher? I mean, those kids might as well be yours, right? ”

Okuyasu stumbled and nearly fell to the ground. “Oi, Josuke!”

“Oku-mama and Josuke-papa! Has a nice ring to it!”

“Josuke, shut up, I mean it.”

 “I mean we can still have our own kids if ya want but I like the idea of kids we don’t have to always take care of ya know?”

[cynicwrites]

Title: An Ideal Date Series: Yowamushi Pedal Characters: Toudou Jinpachi, Tadokoro Jin, Makishima Yuusuke Pairing: Tadotoumaki Notes: A (late, very late, i’m so sorry) birthday fic for @spacepiratepines! Happy belated birthday, dear! They wanted a nice, fluffy tadotoumaki fic, which I can hopefully deliver after all this time ;w;

And as always, I crammed it full of my trans hcs. 

Warnings: some food mention Word Count: 574 

“More rain?!” Jinpachi glared out the window.

Jin chuckled, taking the bowl of mikan from the counter and moving it over to the kotatsu. “Why are you so surprised? The weather report said so.”

“AH! Is that snow! Why is this happening!”

Jin measured some tea into their cast iron kettle and poured the hot water over it. “Calm down, Toudou. It’s not like it’s the end of the world.”

The scowl on Jinpachi’s face morphed into a pout. “But we were going to go to Disney today!” They slunk over to the kotatsu and shoved their feet underneath the futon, accidentally jolting a snoozing Yuusuke. “I wanted to wear matching Mickey hats.”

Yuusuke blinked. “We were supposed to go out today, huh...” She said it to herself more than as an actual question.

But Jinpachi still took it upon themself to answer. “Yes! It was going to be fun. And we were all going to look cute! And I wanted to take a bunch of selfies.” They bent over, chin resting on the table and huffed.

Jin came into their small living room with a tray of three steaming cups, gingerly placing one down in front of Yuusuke and Jinpachi. He took a long sip. “To be honest, I’m kind of grateful it's cold today.” A mikan was half peeled in his hand. He offered the peeled section to Jinpachi.

Jinpachi looked betrayed. 

Jin shrugged and continued. “I mean, sure I wanted to go out on our date, but...” He glanced at the low-energy Yuusuke and the agitated Toudou.“Maybe we needed a day in?” He popped a piece of the winter fruit in his mouth.

Yuusuke, ignoring her tea, had slumped down from her sitting position, stretching out under the futon. “Sounds nice.”

Jinpachi turned their look of betrayal onto Yuusuke, despite her eyes being closed. “You too, Maki-chan?”

One long limb snaked out from underneath the futon and waved at JInpachi. “Come lay down. It’s nice and warm.” 

Pout slightly diminished, Jinpachi scooted around from their side of the kotatsu to where she was. “Shouldn’t be warm in here because of a stupid kotatsu. It’s already May,” they muttered. But still, they were happy enough to cuddle up under Maki’s arm.

Yuusuke cracked one eye open and looked at Jin. “Wanna join?”

Jin finished the mikan and his tea. “Let me clean up first and take off my binder. I’ll be back in a bit.”

“We’ll be asleep in a bit.” Jinpachi’s voice floated out from where they had buried themself into Yuusuke’s side.

Jinpachi and Yuusuke floated in and out of sleep for what felt like hours before they felt Jin come and join them. He gingerly sat behind where they were laying, back braced against their small couch, and shifted so the two of them were now resting against his chest. Jinpachi and Yuusuke both faceplanted onto Jin’s stomach and threw an arm around him. 

Jin turned on the T.V., making sure the volume was low enough it wouldn’t disturb either of them, and half-focused on whatever variety show was playing. 

The rain beat a steady rhythm against their apartment. Within minutes, he could tell Jinpachi and Yuusuke were fully asleep. Though trying to fight it, Jin yawned, lulled into relaxing even more with Jinpachi and Yuusuke’s comfortable weight on top of him. 

'Going out is fun, but this is really the best,’ Jin thought before drifting off to sleep. 

[cynicwrites]

Title: Close to the Heart Series: Michiko to Hatchin Characters/Pairings: Atsuko/Michiko (probably more one-sided in the end) Notes: I wrote this a few years ago for femslash february, but I never really published it. But I’m still fond of it (plus more black wlw ships need to exist) so I spruced it up a bit. Warnings: food mention, potential underage (i didn’t intend to have it read in such a way, but it could be) Word Count: 252

As much as she hated to admit it, Atsuko had always held a soft spot for Michiko.

It might have been because when they first met, Michiko only dug her fingers into Atsuko’s afro in wonder and told her it was pretty instead of pointing and laughing.

Or it might have been a few months later, when Atsuko quietly admitted to Michiko that she liked girls. Atsuko was expecting the same overtly negative reactions she got from some of the other girls. But Michiko had just grinned like they were sharing a secret before winking at her and running off.

Maybe it was after Michiko had convinced her to run off into town and steal a few pieces of fruit. She later leaned over and kissed Atsuko square on the lips as they were resting on the roof of a nearby building. There was still guava juice smeared around their mouths, growing sticky on their fingers.

It could also have been because Michiko was Atsuko’s first intimate experience. They were young, inexperienced; but despite all of their awkward fumbling and messy open mouthed kisses, it left them giggling and curled around one another, staring into each other’s eyes.

Which was why no matter how much Michiko irritated her, no matter how many times she’d chase after a dead beat man who didn’t deserve her, or how many times that woman broke the law doing so, Atsuko could never really bear to cause her any harm.

Michiko was Atsuko’s first love after all.

[cynicwrites]

Title: Christmas Cheer  Series: Until Dawn Characters/Pairing: Jemily (Emily/Jess) focus, some mentions of the rest of the squad Notes: This fic is a gift for Bax ( @flowerkingofangmar​ )! Hope you like it, dear! I included the song I thought of Emily singing towards the end in the fic. It’s one of my old faves. 

Also, i guess this is a slight AU where josh lives @ the end. Not important to the story I just...like Josh alive.  Word Count: 806

The first time Jessica heard any sort of musical tune coming from Emily was when they were in middle school. It was close to Christmas (which Emily would never admit is her favorite time of the year), and she was happily singing Christmas carols everywhere. In the halls, during downtime in classes, in gym, on the walk home; it didn’t matter where they were.

But the only thing was that she would sing them not in English, but in Japanese. In fact, Emily confided to Jessica one wintery night, that was the only language she really knew Christmas songs in because her maternal grandmother would play them over and over for her when she still lived in Japan. It wasn’t until she moved to the States years later that she would hear her first English language Christmas Carol. But by then, they were stuck in her head in Japanese.

Jessica thought it was fascinating. She thought anything Emily did was amazing, but knowing another whole language much less being able to sing in it was awesome. Unfortunately, and yet unsurprisingly, the other kids in the school didn’t feel the way Jessica did. They teased Emily, called her vicious names and hurled slurs at her left and right.

Emily didn’t sing much after that. 

It wasn’t until after the tragedy of losing Beth and Hannah and the near tragedy back on the mountain a year later that Jessica would get to hear Emily’s singing voice again.

Jessica had taken to living with Emily after the incident. Her injuries went deeper than what had lied on the surface and the incident had left her with a permanent limp as well as (hopefully temporary) issues with her memory. She didn’t last long with Mike. She found that she craved the companionship she had before with Emily, and since the two didn’t get along -- ”He nearly shot me, Jess!” Her sobs still rang in her head. The guilty silence from Mike made it worse.

Well, let’s just say it made her decision to stay with Emily much easier.

Emily and Matt had...tried to stay together. But even despite what they went through together on the mountain, they just felt they weren’t right for one another. They managed to remain friends, however.

Christmas Eve Eve found Jessica laying on the couch, Emily’s fat cat Genji cradled on her chest. Emily was in the kitchen making a strawberry shortcake to bring to the Christmas party the group was holding tomorrow. Jessica’s mind was floating, thoughts not sticking onto any one thing in particular, and scratching the cat absentmindedly behind the ears when she heard it.

It was soft. And it was muffled. But it was definitely there. The sound of Emily singing. 

It was a mellow tune, jumping from long, drawn out syllables to fast, bouncy ones. It didn’t sound like any of the familiar yet slightly different Christmas songs Jessica remembered Emily singing when they were younger. Emily’s deep and lovely voice floated into Jessica’s ears.

All of a sudden, Jessica sat up, disgruntling Genji and causing him to totter off to find someplace else to lay. Emily froze, staring at Jessica. She cleared her throat and turned back to the bowl she had in front of her. “I thought you were asleep,” Emily muttered, embarrassment evident in her voice.

“Keep going?”

Emily turned around again, an eyebrow raised. “What are you talking about--”

“The song just now. Keep going, please?��

Emily simply looked at Jessica for a moment. Sighing, she turned back around and started humming.

Jessica grunted and stood from the comfy couch, slowly making her way over to where Emily stood. “No, no, no. Sing it, like you were before.” 

The humming stopped. Silence hung thickly in the air. “Just be grateful I’m even humming for you.”

“But I want to hear you sing,” Jessica huffed. She moved to lift herself onto a nearby empty space on the counter. 

Emily glared at Jessica out of the corner of her eye. Jessica gave her a big grin in return. After a minute, Emily gave in, giving a long and exaggerated huff. “Fine. If it’ll make you happy, I guess.”

“Thank you, Em.” Jessica reached out and grabbed Emily’s hand. She yanked her closer and gave her a kiss on her cheek. “Mwah! Love you!”

Jessica could just barely see the red tinge on the tips of Emily’s ears. “Yeah, yeah. You’d better.”

Emily’s voice flowed as strong and clear as pure water, surrounding Jessica. She got so relaxed she nearly fell asleep and slipped off the counter. Emily forced her to retire to the couch. But Emily made it up to her by letting her lay her head in her lap while Emily continued singing to her, stroking her hair and face as she drifted off to sleep.

[cynicwrites]

Title: Gencio Week Days 6 & 7 (Cold Weather & Christmas) Series: Overwatch Characters: Genji, Lúcio Pairings: Gencio Notes: Another short & simple piece bc the past few days have been pretty tiring in the US. I just wanted to put some fluff out into the cosmos

Word Count: 400

“Achoo!” Lúcio shivered, rubbing his hands frantically up and down his arms. He was bundled head to toe in multiple layers, but the cold still felt like it was stabbing directly through everything.

He was walking out in the snow in the northern part of Japan during the Winter of all times. And why? Because of a certain cyborg ninja dude who was currently walked a few steps ahead of him. 

“Genji better appreciate that I’m out here in this mess for him,” Lúcio mumbled under his breath.

“Genji does appreciate that you’re out here for him.” The voice was closer than he anticipated. Lúcio squinted up through the snow seeing that Genji was now walking beside him. 

Lúcio huffed, a small cloud escaping from between his lips. “How much further is this place?”

Genji looped an arm between Lúcio’s, careful not to pull his hands from where they were shoved in to the pockets of his jacket. “Not far to go.” He leaned down and bumped Lúcio’s head with his own. “We’ve only been walking about 10 minutes.”

“Yeah, 10 minutes in the freezing cold.”

A tug on his arm almost made Lúcio lose his footing. “Here we are!”

Lúcio looked up...

And was actually impressed to see a cute little japanese style house right on the outskirts of a village nearby. Lúcio had forgotten it was Christmas Even until he saw it was decorated with little lights and a wreath outside the door. Genji pulled him inside where they both slipped off their shoes and showed him around.

The entire house was decorated with Christmas decorations. Lights and tinsel sprinkled everywhere. There was even a little tree in the corner of the sitting room. “I didn’t realize Christmas was such a big thing in Japan,”  Lúcio said, knowing he couldn’t keep the awe out of his voice. “You did all this?”

Genji removed his visor and mask so Lúcio could see the huge grin on his face. That definitely answered his second question. “It’s more a couple’s holiday here. I wanted us to spend our first Christmas together doing something special,” Genji explained.

Lúcio smirked up at him. “Wanted to whisk me away and have me all to yourself, huh?”

“Of course.” Genji grinned. “We even have our own private hot spring in the back.”

Genji could barely finish the sentence before Lúcio sprang and jumped on him. 

[cynicwrites]

Title: Gencio Week Days 4 & 5 (Alternate Universe & Comfort) Series: Overwatch Characters: Lúcio, Genji; brief mention of Zenyatta & Angela/Mercy  Pairing: Gencio Notes: I couldn’t really think of anything to write for just the AU prompt alone so I decided to combine it with the prompt for today. This is just an AU I cooked up which I might try and expand on later? We’ll see. Also, I threw in a bunch of my Lúcio hcs in here sorry, not sorry. Warnings: Not explicit medical stuff mentioned (Lúcio recovering from top surgery); food mention Word Count: 744

Lúcio stood by the stove, stirring the curry in the pot. The rice cooker had beeped a while ago, but he was mostly killing time until--

“Shouldn’t you be resting right now?” A mock-stern voice floated in from behind Lúcio. He grinned.

Turning around, Lúcio smirked at Genji, who was now leaning against the doorway to their small kitchen. “You’ve been asking me that almost every day for the past two weeks.” He walked over and gave Genji a kiss on both cheeks. 

Genji tried to pull back as Lúcio leaned in to kiss his more heavily scarred side of his face, but two quick hands shot out and held his head in place so he could kiss him properly. “You know I worry.”

Lúcio grinned. “Yeah, too much.” He gave Genji a final peck on his nose before turning back around and cutting off the heat to the stove. “Food’s ready.”

Genji peeked over Lúcio’s shoulder. “Curry again? Isn’t this the second time this week?” The complaint was definitely weak as Genji quickly grabbed a plate and popped open the rice cooker. “You could have eaten without me.”

Rolling his eyes, Lúcio bumped Genji out of the way with his hip and began fixing his own plate. “It wasn’t that long of a wait.” He looked back at Genji who was eyeing Lúcio, eyes focused on his arms and chest. “Oh, go sit down. I’m fine, Genji.”

Pouting, Genji walked over to the kotatsu that sat in the middle of their small living room. “I still don’t think you should be moving around as much as you are.”

Lúcio joined him a second later, raising an eyebrow. “Genji, you know I not only got the best care from that surgeon in Thailand, but both Angela AND Zen were fretting over me that entire first week of my recovery.” 

Genji opened his mouth. “But--”

“Plus!” Lúcio cut him off, “Not only am I a nurse, myself,”

“In training...” Genji muttered around a mouthful of rice.

Lúcio glared at him. “But I’ve still got another week or two to fully recover before winter break is over.” He brandished his spoon at Genji. “Besides, medical technology has come such a long way. Recovery times aren’t so bad anymore!  Two weeks in and I can already sleep on my side. We’ve got you and your partner to thank for that.”

Genji tapped his spoon on his plate, half of what was there already gone. “My teacher and I aren’t the only people working to push medical science and technology further into the future,” he mumbled. 

Lúcio set down his spoon and reached across to grab Genji’s empty hand. “You give yourselves too little credit. I still forget how young Zen is sometimes when you call him your teacher.” 

“He has wisdom far beyond what his youth and appearance suggest.” Genji said as he went to grab for Lúcio’s empty plate. 

A spoon-wielding hand reached out and gave him a light tap on the wrist. “Ah-ah, you stay right there. I can see that you’re already starting to feel not so hot yourself.”

Genji sighed and laid his cheek down on the warm spot left by his plate on the kotatsu’s table. “You noticed that, huh?” He tried not to focus on the aches that always seemed to reach his very bones around his implants. 

“I told you about going so long without resting, haven’t I?” Lúcio returned to his seat beside Genji. The dishes could wait. “You gotta give yourself a break every once in a while. I could give you a massage?”

Shaking his head, awkward while his cheek was still firmly planted on the table, Genji murmured, “No, I know you’re starting to feel a bit sore as well.”

Lúcio hated how perceptive Genji could be at times. “We could jump in the bath?” He gave Genji a grin and waggling his eyebrows.

Genji snorted. “That didn’t go so well the last time we tried it. Even without your legs it was a tight fit.”

With a huff, Lúcio scooted over to Genji’s side of the kotatsu. He pushed and tugged until Genji was laying down, most of his body settled underneath the warm comforter, and moved to lay behind him. “We can do this, at least.”

“Can you even see the TV like this?”

Lúcio slipped his arm under Genji’s and griped him tighter, poking him in the stomach for good measure. “Shut up.” 

[cynicwrites]

Title: Gencio Day 3: Music/Relaxing  Series: Overwatch Characters: Genji, Lúcio, brief appearances by Hana and Zenyatta Pairing: Gencio Notes: Tbh I didn’t really have a solid plan for how I wanted this one to go, but I wanted to do something to try and break i guess a typical idea of what relaxation could be. Or maybe Genji trying out Lúcio’s way of relaxing?  Warnings: Alcohol & recreational drug use mentioned Word Count: 664

“Woo hoo! Where are we going next!” Hana skipped around in small circles in front of rest of her group. She was surprisingly steady for someone her size who drank as much as she had. Hana crossed her feet awkwardly and stumbled before righting herself and throwing her arms in the air. Ah, he would have to take that statement back.

Genji himself hadn’t chosen to partake in anything. But just the lingering feeling of the heavy bass drumming in his chest from the club they just left was enough to leave him feeling a little bit high himself.

He looked down at Lúcio, who seemed to have a permanent smile on himself, more than likely more intoxicated by the music than anything else. Lúcio was keeping a keen watch on Hana as they made their way back to the hotel they were staying at. She just turned 20 and wanted to go out and celebrate by going bar hopping and clubbing. 

At first, Genji was hesitant. It had been a long time since he had done any sort of similar activities. And he was definitely a different person now than he had been then. But Hana and Lúcio attacked him with their twin sets of puppy dog eyes and he couldn’t resist. And they were at least close enough to Numbani where he wouldn’t feel as out of sorts as he would in any other area. Clubs and bars where omnics, humans, and those who fell in between like himself mixed were not all uncommon here. Genji agreed to go only under the pretense of looking after them.

“Did you have fun with your chaperoning duties tonight?” Lúcio practically hummed from beside him. Genji looked down and was met with a playful expression.  Lúcio’s hands and fingers were still moving rhythmically, as if he were replaying the music they had just heard.

Genji nodded. “It was...more enjoyable than I anticipated it could be.” He reached a hand down and grabbed Lúcio’s. “Thank you.”

The fingers of the hand he held wove themselves between his own. “Just enjoyable?” Genji could practically hear the smirk. “You seemed to be even more out of it than Hana and me at times.”

Genji cleared his throat. “I wasn’t aware music could have such a meditative effect on me.” Chaperoning turned more into an effort to fight the pleasant buzz of drowsiness that hit him once they entered the club. “I’m sure you did more of a job of chaperoning Hana than I could have at that point.”

Lúcio chuckled. “I’ve probably got more experience in this area than you do.” He squeezed Genji’s hand. “Nice to see you relaxed, though. Who would have thought that all it would take to mellow you completely out would be some loud EDM and a nice bass beat.”

They fell into a comfortable silence as they continued their short walk. A few moments later (and a few moments of Hana turning around every so often and making kissy faces at the two of them) already found them at their hotel. Zenyatta was there in the lobby, one hand raised in greeting. Hana skipped over to him and high-fived him. Genji winced and hoped she hadn’t hurt her hand. 

Lúcio gave Zenyatta a sheepish smile. “Sorry for having you look after her tonight. I’d normally do it but...”

Zenyatta shook his head. “There is nothing to apologize for, my friend. It is always a joy to meet with Miss Song.” 

Hana giggled and threw an arm around Zenyatta. “Let’s leave these two lovebird losers alone. I’ll play you a few rounds of tetris!”

“You’re on!” Zenyatta and Hana made their way back to Hana’s room, her poorly hushed giggles echoing down the hallway. 

Lúcio tugged on Genji’s hand. “C’mon, let’s go lay down. They’re both in good hands for the night.”

Genji unraveled his fingers from Lúcio’s and wrapped one arm around his waist, pulling him in close. “I am as well.”

[cynicwrites]

Title: Gencio Week Day 2: Pets/Family Series: Overwatch Characters: Genji, Lúcio, Lúcio‘s significant amount of extended family, Hanzo mention  Pairings: Gencio Notes: This one is super short. I thought I had a good idea for this one, but I couldn’t really flesh it out w/o ruining it. (I thought about trying to slip portuguese in here for interactions between Lúcio and his family but my expertise lies elsewhere & I don’t have any brazilian portuguese speaking friends so I just decided to stay in my lane for this one.) Word Count: 192

Watching Genji run around, gingerly kicking a ball, surrounded by children of a variety of ages made Lúcio’s heart do some funny things. 

“Looks like you caught a good one here, my little frog.” Lúcio turned around to see his auntie. Well, not his blood related aunt, but a woman close enough to him to be referred to as “auntie.”

Lúcio leaned back into the arm she threw around his shoulders. With his standard pair of legs not modified by hard light tech, he sat at his proper height, shorter even than some of those kids who were now dog piling on Genji, having gotten bored with their game of football. He grinned. “Yeah, I guess I have.” 

She patted him on the back. “Better go rescue your boyfriend. Dinner’s almost ready. The rest of the family is eager to meet him.” 

Smiling as he watched her slip back into the house, Lucio exhaled. First approval was a success.  Lúcio turned back around to Genji, now holding two armfuls of laughing kids with several more still surrounding him. Approvals two through ten, also a success. 

Only about two dozen more to go.