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Fanfic Writers: Director’s Cut

Reblog this if you want readers to come into your ask box and ask for the “director’s commentary” on a particular story, section of a story, or set of lines. 

Or, send in a ⭐star⭐  to have the author select a section they’ve been dying to talk about!

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explain your gender in 10 words or less without using boring words like “male”, “female”, “nonbinary”, “masculine”, “feminine” or “androgynous”.

go!

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This gifset you posted makes such a good point for your Andy + Joe vs the rest of the gang's opinion of uncertain immortality.

https://wickedpact.tumblr.com/post/633518278209355776/nicky-joes-reaction-on-andy-not-healing

Nicky: wait what do you mean she isn't healing?

VS

Joe: I knew this would happen one day

yeah! its interesting how joe doesnt seem surprised (tho very upset) and nicky seems upset for sure, but for him it seems to sink in more slowly. joe’s face especially just strikes me as such a ‘oh of course this is happening now’ expression. hes not surprised, its something terrible that he expected to happen eventually, and its happening at the worst possible time and he cant deal

meanwhile nicky is just like ‘oh shit :(’

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we need to be doing everything in our power to acquire and consume tiramisu

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For the prompt ask - and in connection with your fic from last night - AndyJoeNicky 25 :)

(the fic) i DID write this one the other day as a spiritual fill for this prompt and then fully forgot to put the dialogue in so here is a new and separate thing also. because i love writing about Them

warnings for drowning

25. "You scared us all back there. I... Including me."

For a moment, Andromache sees it. In the murky darkness of the sea, there is hardly anything to see, and yet she sees it, a titan lurking beneath the water. It is just below her. If she dived just a little further she could touch it. Then the screaming starts, displacing the water around her and Andromache feels it more than she hears it but she knows that voice, muffled as it is, knows it as she knows her own heartbeat.

It has been twenty two years. Andromache struggles to orient her body towards it with nothing to hold on to, but she has become a strong swimmer these past twenty two years, in spite of the current trying to pull her up and away. She is an arm's length away from it. How she will get it out of the water does not matter. All that matters is reaching it.

Her fatal mistake is using the last of the air in her lungs to call out, but she needs Quynh to know that she is here, that she has found her and will find her. She strains as much as she can, even though the water continues to bear her away, even though she can barely see it in the darkness. She has never been more certain of anything in her life.

The other thing that she has learned, in all this time, is that the ocean is not kind, nor forgiving. She is unable to control her body's instinct to breathe. Water rushes into her lungs in a cold wave, and the weight of it bears down on her all the worse for it. Drowning is a horrible way to die, but there is nothing she can do to

the current has borne her away when she regains consciousness but her body cannot expel the water from her lungs and the pressure is unrelenting and so this time it is even sooner that she

it is too dark to tell which way is up and which way is down and even if she wanted to she could not get back to Yusuf and Nicolò but even if she could she cannot she has to press on even if she dies a thousand time she was less than an

arm's length from reaching the coffin and if she can break the iron even a little it will give Quynh a better chance of breaking free and if she can get out

and reach the surface Andromache will find her even if she washes up on a distant shore even if it takes centuries Andromache will find her found her once millennia ago and will do so again whatever

it takes but now there is something brushing against her there is something pulling her back even further and she thrashes against it she cannot be trapped down here

what good will that do for Quynh what will it do for Yusuf and Nicolò she has to keep going even if it takes her a thousand

now she is being held and she does not know by whom and they are not moving and she can barely move and

this time she feels whoever is holding her stop moving and it is getting lighter they are getting closer to the surface and further from Quynh and

how many times has she died now what does it matter she has to get back down there but whoever is holding her even in death will not let her go no matter how much she

the light hurts her eyes and the water is still in her lungs and even though she has broken the surface she cannot

the deck rocks beneath her and Nicolò is helping her turn onto her side because they have found it helps clear the water from their lungs and she coughs so violently her whole body convulses but it gets some of the water out and still Nicolò is there, saying something that she cannot hear, and her hands are shaking and behind her Yusuf is dead but gasps back to life after only a moment, and she feels rather than hears Nicolò's sigh of relief, and all she can think of is Quynh.

"I found her," Andromache says, water still bubbling up and out of her lungs with the words, but she has to say it. Nicolò stills where he had been easing Yusuf onto his side.

"You-"

"I found her," Andromache says again, reaches over to grab his wrist. "She's there, I have to go back." She says it again when Nicolò shakes his head, again and again and again I have to go back I have to go back I have to go back. She was so close.

Yusuf manages to sit up but Andromache's body is still recovering and Nicolò grabs a coil of rope that is sitting on the deck, makes brief eye contact with Yusuf, ties the rope around his own waist and passes the other end to Yusuf and then, without further hesitation, dives into the water where Yusuf and Andromache must have come out of it. Yusuf continues to catch his breath, holding onto the rope so tightly it must hurt.

Together, they breathe.

"You should have left me down there," Andromache says with laboured breaths as soon as she has the ability to speak.

Yusuf only looks at her. He presses the heel of his hand to his chest, over his heart, rubbing back and forth as if it will ease his breathing - it does nothing, but it has become a habit of his. His expression is a mixture of incredulity and hurt.

"I saw nothing, Andromache," he says. "I thought that was why you had not come up, but I saw nothing."

Andromache is shaking her head before he finishes. "I could see it. I heard her."

Yusuf is quiet. Then he says, "You did not come up for so long. You frightened us both. If you were trapped down there-" He cannot finish.

"I could have touched it," Andromache says. Yusuf says nothing.

It is a lifetime before Nicolò resurfaces. Yusuf pulls on the rope when it goes loose as Nicolò starts to drift, and when he breaks the surface of the water he is dead. It takes both of them to pull him from the water. Yusuf, as Nicolò had done for Andromache and for him, rolls him onto his side and waits, his hand hovering just over Nicolò's face as if he cannot quite manage to touch it. Andromache has to look away until Nicolò wakes.

"Did you see?" is the first thing Andromache asks.

Nicolò shakes his head. A coughing fit has him bending double before it subsides and allows him to catch his breath.

"Nothing," Nicolò says. "I saw nothing."

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18 or 20, JoeNicky (especially if it’s from the AU where Joe is the eldest and has just lost their immortality)

your wish is my command anon . how about BOTH. could work as a missing/alternate scene to this

18: "Stop. No. Wake up. Wake up! I said wake up!"

20: "Get away! You're hurting them!"

Nicky does not have time to register what the blood on Joe's side means when he and Booker are brought into the lab, nor can he process what Booker's admission of I killed him means to say, because Quynh begins to scream at Booker as soon as she realises it, and Joe lies down on the table beside him, letting his eyes fall closed as the doctor starts to tend to his wound - he keeps an eye on her the entire time, to make sure that is what she's doing - and it is all more than he can handle all at once. It is too much blood, and too much gauze needed to staunch the bleeding, and too many machines and IV drips and monitors that they attach to Joe, for Nicky to be able to understand. What it means is unthinkable, impossible. Joe is the foundation Nicky's entire world is constructed upon.

"Leave him," he says to Quynh, who bristles but does. He wants to scream, too. He wonders whether Booker knew, when he shot him in the side, or whether it was chance that he didn't kill him instantly, forever. Whether it could still be his death, if infection Nicky can't treat sets in. He's not that good of a doctor.

Joe, Yusuf, Nicky's soul, keeps staring at the ceiling and doesn't say a word. He is exhausted to his bones. How long has he known?

The doctor finishes whatever she is doing with Joe's wound - it looks satisfactory, to Nicky's eye, but he is no expert - and pauses, looking between them.

"One of you had it, and now it is gone," she says, with a look in her eye that makes Nicky test again the strength of the restraints holding his wrists down. He has a little movement but not enough: if he could get to the scalpel-

The doctor whistles to her assistants. "Take this one to room 2," she says, gesturing to Joe, and Nicky's world goes suddenly, abruptly quiet. There is only the movement of the assistant preparing to move Joe to another room, where Nicky will not be able to see him, where they could do anything to him and he will not heal.

With the right twisting motion his thumb breaks easily. There are too many guards in here for him to make a real chance at escape, but what he can do is work his right hand out of its restraint, grab the scalpel and pin the doctor's assistant with his free arm around their waist, the blade of the scalpel pressed to their femoral artery. He can do a lot of damage, very fast, and the doctor knows it.

"What is your name?" he says, calmly.

The doctor has both hands raised. "Meta Kozak," she says, drawing herself up to her full height, as if to say, I will not be intimidated.

"Listen to me, Kozak," Nicky says coolly. "I would like to make one thing clear to you. Where he goes I go. If not, I am older than you can imagine. I have broken out of restraints much stronger than these. You will be the first I look for, and your death will not be quick."

For all her earlier bravado, Kozak is unsettled. She gestures to another assistant to move Nicky's table as well, and to readjust his restraints, tight enough that they will probably cut off his blood supply eventually. It will be very unpleasant later, but it is a small price to pay.

He and Joe are wheeled to the same examination room down the hall and left alone for a brief moment, presumably so that Kozak can prepare Booker for torture as she had Nicky, Quynh and Andy. He tests his restraints again, but he will not be able to pull the same trick.

"That was dramatic of you," Joe says. It's the first thing he's said to Nicky since he was brought into the lab, and immediately Nicky's head snaps to the sound.

"I had no choice. I could not have let them take you somewhere I could not see you, not..." He doesn't look down at Joe's wound, but it is close.

"I think you've given that assistant nightmares," Joe says.

Only Joe could make him laugh, now, and it isn't even funny. Nicky laughs anyway. It puts a small smile on Joe's face, even if it fades after a moment. Before Nicky can say anything to him, ask how long and how do you feel and how much does it hurt and what do I do now what do we do now, Kozak reappears, a tray of instruments rolling along with her.

"Let us begin, then," she says lightly, and produces a wickedly long needle. It is the same kind she had stuck between Nicky's ribs earlier. With no preamble, she lifts Joe's shirt, wipes an area of exposed skin with an alcohol wipe as, presumably, a gesture towards civility, and jams the needle in.

Joe doesn't scream, though Nicky knows how much it hurts. He doesn't quite manage to keep himself from making a sound. Nicky considers, half hysterically, how much force it would take to detach his hand from his arm entirely, if that would let him again get to a scalpel again or manoeuvre his own table or at least bleed on Kozak enough to make her stop. He makes a solid effort, lunging towards Kozak as far as the restraints will allow.

"You're hurting him," he snaps. "We will heal, he will not. We still feel pain. The least you could do is anaesthetic. Or is there something wrong with your head or your heart, that you seem so eager to do this and call it science?" He's running his mouth, he knows that, and through the pain Joe gives him a warning look, but Nicky doesn't know what else to do, almost never does this, prefers to sit and wait but he's tied down and helpless and the most he can hope for is distracting Kozak long enough that she'll leave him alone. "Whatever gives us immortality, you will not find it from him. Or me, or any of us. Do you think we have not looked? I have been to medical school seven times over" - lie - "and I have never found anything. We have not died because it is not our time, not for something in our genetic code that you could find and replicate. And if there is something you will not find it in him. Get away."

Kozak pulls out the needle. Joe takes a deep breath of relief. Nicky will burn this place to the ground.

"Your defence of your friend is admirable," Kozak says. "But anaesthetic could compromise the testing."

Nicky wants to scream.

She adjusts Joe's IV. The next needle is not as large, just taking a blood sample, even though he has already lost what must be a dangerous amount of blood, because she cannot see him as a real person who can die. Perhaps she thinks he is somehow faking it, or that his mortality is temporary. Or she does not care that the tests she has already put the others through could kill him.

She doesn't put him whatever poison she'd put the three of them on before, which is a blessing, merely finishes taking her blood sample and leaves the lab. At some point Joe has closed his eyes, his head lolling to one side, and the second the door closes behind her Nicky starts to talk again.

"Joe. Yusuf. Hayati. Wake up." There is no answer, no movement: he is still breathing, but shallow, or is he? This cannot be it, it cannot, Nicky cannot lose him this way- "Wake up," he repeats, in every language they've ever learned together, "I said wake up."

Joe does, with a gasp. Nicky has never felt more relieved in his long, long life. He manages to smile at Joe, though he knows it isn't convincing. "You scared me," he says.

"Sorry," Joe says quietly. His eyelids droop, sparking panic in Nicky's chest again.

"Don't fall asleep," he says, soft. "Talk to me, my love. Don't fall asleep."

"I'm tired," Joe says. He is not just talking about physically. After Morocco, he had been so exhausted - if it had not been for Nile, Nicky would have called for another break, an easier job where they didn't have to die for a little while. That reminds him.

"Tell me about Nile," he says. "I have barely met her."

It's like that, slow and steady, that he keeps Joe from slipping away into sleep. The IV seems to do its work: he seems to grow slightly less tired as they talk, but Nicky keeps going. He cannot help but wonder. How long can he keep him awake for?

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NURTURE II: Chapter 6 - All Secrets

You, without a superior weapon, yet closer to the starting line than most knights, bandaged but stubbornly alive? I will never forget that moment. How relieved I was that you were still alive, and not buried in haste like others. It was like a revelation. A thorn of doubt. Already, I did not want to kill you anymore. I wanted us to live.

What it says on the tin: Nurture, II.

(link)

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New promo image from Netflix! (x)

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very much a fan of this post so i felt compelled to make my own. print it out and give it to your coworkers or hang it in your cubicle and go "don't make me tap the sign"

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📸 by Andrea Pirrello

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sending fandom memes to friends despite not being part of the fandom. Is it good or is it shit tier I don't know but it's Glup Shitto from ur show hope u like it

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For the prompt ask - and in connection with your fic from last night - AndyJoeNicky 25 :)

(the fic) i DID write this one the other day as a spiritual fill for this prompt and then fully forgot to put the dialogue in so here is a new and separate thing also. because i love writing about Them

warnings for drowning

25. "You scared us all back there. I... Including me."

For a moment, Andromache sees it. In the murky darkness of the sea, there is hardly anything to see, and yet she sees it, a titan lurking beneath the water. It is just below her. If she dived just a little further she could touch it. Then the screaming starts, displacing the water around her and Andromache feels it more than she hears it but she knows that voice, muffled as it is, knows it as she knows her own heartbeat.

It has been twenty two years. Andromache struggles to orient her body towards it with nothing to hold on to, but she has become a strong swimmer these past twenty two years, in spite of the current trying to pull her up and away. She is an arm's length away from it. How she will get it out of the water does not matter. All that matters is reaching it.

Her fatal mistake is using the last of the air in her lungs to call out, but she needs Quynh to know that she is here, that she has found her and will find her. She strains as much as she can, even though the water continues to bear her away, even though she can barely see it in the darkness. She has never been more certain of anything in her life.

The other thing that she has learned, in all this time, is that the ocean is not kind, nor forgiving. She is unable to control her body's instinct to breathe. Water rushes into her lungs in a cold wave, and the weight of it bears down on her all the worse for it. Drowning is a horrible way to die, but there is nothing she can do to

the current has borne her away when she regains consciousness but her body cannot expel the water from her lungs and the pressure is unrelenting and so this time it is even sooner that she

it is too dark to tell which way is up and which way is down and even if she wanted to she could not get back to Yusuf and Nicolò but even if she could she cannot she has to press on even if she dies a thousand time she was less than an

arm's length from reaching the coffin and if she can break the iron even a little it will give Quynh a better chance of breaking free and if she can get out

and reach the surface Andromache will find her even if she washes up on a distant shore even if it takes centuries Andromache will find her found her once millennia ago and will do so again whatever

it takes but now there is something brushing against her there is something pulling her back even further and she thrashes against it she cannot be trapped down here

what good will that do for Quynh what will it do for Yusuf and Nicolò she has to keep going even if it takes her a thousand

now she is being held and she does not know by whom and they are not moving and she can barely move and

this time she feels whoever is holding her stop moving and it is getting lighter they are getting closer to the surface and further from Quynh and

how many times has she died now what does it matter she has to get back down there but whoever is holding her even in death will not let her go no matter how much she

the light hurts her eyes and the water is still in her lungs and even though she has broken the surface she cannot

the deck rocks beneath her and Nicolò is helping her turn onto her side because they have found it helps clear the water from their lungs and she coughs so violently her whole body convulses but it gets some of the water out and still Nicolò is there, saying something that she cannot hear, and her hands are shaking and behind her Yusuf is dead but gasps back to life after only a moment, and she feels rather than hears Nicolò's sigh of relief, and all she can think of is Quynh.

"I found her," Andromache says, water still bubbling up and out of her lungs with the words, but she has to say it. Nicolò stills where he had been easing Yusuf onto his side.

"You-"

"I found her," Andromache says again, reaches over to grab his wrist. "She's there, I have to go back." She says it again when Nicolò shakes his head, again and again and again I have to go back I have to go back I have to go back. She was so close.

Yusuf manages to sit up but Andromache's body is still recovering and Nicolò grabs a coil of rope that is sitting on the deck, makes brief eye contact with Yusuf, ties the rope around his own waist and passes the other end to Yusuf and then, without further hesitation, dives into the water where Yusuf and Andromache must have come out of it. Yusuf continues to catch his breath, holding onto the rope so tightly it must hurt.

Together, they breathe.

"You should have left me down there," Andromache says with laboured breaths as soon as she has the ability to speak.

Yusuf only looks at her. He presses the heel of his hand to his chest, over his heart, rubbing back and forth as if it will ease his breathing - it does nothing, but it has become a habit of his. His expression is a mixture of incredulity and hurt.

"I saw nothing, Andromache," he says. "I thought that was why you had not come up, but I saw nothing."

Andromache is shaking her head before he finishes. "I could see it. I heard her."

Yusuf is quiet. Then he says, "You did not come up for so long. You frightened us both. If you were trapped down there-" He cannot finish.

"I could have touched it," Andromache says. Yusuf says nothing.

It is a lifetime before Nicolò resurfaces. Yusuf pulls on the rope when it goes loose as Nicolò starts to drift, and when he breaks the surface of the water he is dead. It takes both of them to pull him from the water. Yusuf, as Nicolò had done for Andromache and for him, rolls him onto his side and waits, his hand hovering just over Nicolò's face as if he cannot quite manage to touch it. Andromache has to look away until Nicolò wakes.

"Did you see?" is the first thing Andromache asks.

Nicolò shakes his head. A coughing fit has him bending double before it subsides and allows him to catch his breath.

"Nothing," Nicolò says. "I saw nothing."

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For the prompt ask - and in connection with your fic from last night - AndyJoeNicky 25 :)

(the fic) i DID write this one the other day as a spiritual fill for this prompt and then fully forgot to put the dialogue in so here is a new and separate thing also. because i love writing about Them

warnings for drowning

25. "You scared us all back there. I... Including me."

For a moment, Andromache sees it. In the murky darkness of the sea, there is hardly anything to see, and yet she sees it, a titan lurking beneath the water. It is just below her. If she dived just a little further she could touch it. Then the screaming starts, displacing the water around her and Andromache feels it more than she hears it but she knows that voice, muffled as it is, knows it as she knows her own heartbeat.

It has been twenty two years. Andromache struggles to orient her body towards it with nothing to hold on to, but she has become a strong swimmer these past twenty two years, in spite of the current trying to pull her up and away. She is an arm's length away from it. How she will get it out of the water does not matter. All that matters is reaching it.

Her fatal mistake is using the last of the air in her lungs to call out, but she needs Quynh to know that she is here, that she has found her and will find her. She strains as much as she can, even though the water continues to bear her away, even though she can barely see it in the darkness. She has never been more certain of anything in her life.

The other thing that she has learned, in all this time, is that the ocean is not kind, nor forgiving. She is unable to control her body's instinct to breathe. Water rushes into her lungs in a cold wave, and the weight of it bears down on her all the worse for it. Drowning is a horrible way to die, but there is nothing she can do to

the current has borne her away when she regains consciousness but her body cannot expel the water from her lungs and the pressure is unrelenting and so this time it is even sooner that she

it is too dark to tell which way is up and which way is down and even if she wanted to she could not get back to Yusuf and Nicolò but even if she could she cannot she has to press on even if she dies a thousand time she was less than an

arm's length from reaching the coffin and if she can break the iron even a little it will give Quynh a better chance of breaking free and if she can get out

and reach the surface Andromache will find her even if she washes up on a distant shore even if it takes centuries Andromache will find her found her once millennia ago and will do so again whatever

it takes but now there is something brushing against her there is something pulling her back even further and she thrashes against it she cannot be trapped down here

what good will that do for Quynh what will it do for Yusuf and Nicolò she has to keep going even if it takes her a thousand

now she is being held and she does not know by whom and they are not moving and she can barely move and

this time she feels whoever is holding her stop moving and it is getting lighter they are getting closer to the surface and further from Quynh and

how many times has she died now what does it matter she has to get back down there but whoever is holding her even in death will not let her go no matter how much she

the light hurts her eyes and the water is still in her lungs and even though she has broken the surface she cannot

the deck rocks beneath her and Nicolò is helping her turn onto her side because they have found it helps clear the water from their lungs and she coughs so violently her whole body convulses but it gets some of the water out and still Nicolò is there, saying something that she cannot hear, and her hands are shaking and behind her Yusuf is dead but gasps back to life after only a moment, and she feels rather than hears Nicolò's sigh of relief, and all she can think of is Quynh.

"I found her," Andromache says, water still bubbling up and out of her lungs with the words, but she has to say it. Nicolò stills where he had been easing Yusuf onto his side.

"You-"

"I found her," Andromache says again, reaches over to grab his wrist. "She's there, I have to go back." She says it again when Nicolò shakes his head, again and again and again I have to go back I have to go back I have to go back. She was so close.

Yusuf manages to sit up but Andromache's body is still recovering and Nicolò grabs a coil of rope that is sitting on the deck, makes brief eye contact with Yusuf, ties the rope around his own waist and passes the other end to Yusuf and then, without further hesitation, dives into the water where Yusuf and Andromache must have come out of it. Yusuf continues to catch his breath, holding onto the rope so tightly it must hurt.

Together, they breathe.

"You should have left me down there," Andromache says with laboured breaths as soon as she has the ability to speak.

Yusuf only looks at her. He presses the heel of his hand to his chest, over his heart, rubbing back and forth as if it will ease his breathing - it does nothing, but it has become a habit of his. His expression is a mixture of incredulity and hurt.

"I saw nothing, Andromache," he says. "I thought that was why you had not come up, but I saw nothing."

Andromache is shaking her head before he finishes. "I could see it. I heard her."

Yusuf is quiet. Then he says, "You did not come up for so long. You frightened us both. If you were trapped down there-" He cannot finish.

"I could have touched it," Andromache says. Yusuf says nothing.

It is a lifetime before Nicolò resurfaces. Yusuf pulls on the rope when it goes loose as Nicolò starts to drift, and when he breaks the surface of the water he is dead. It takes both of them to pull him from the water. Yusuf, as Nicolò had done for Andromache and for him, rolls him onto his side and waits, his hand hovering just over Nicolò's face as if he cannot quite manage to touch it. Andromache has to look away until Nicolò wakes.

"Did you see?" is the first thing Andromache asks.

Nicolò shakes his head. A coughing fit has him bending double before it subsides and allows him to catch his breath.

"Nothing," Nicolò says. "I saw nothing."

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A translation of British sayings, what non-British people think they mean, and their actual meaning.

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I’m gonna do it! I’m gonna do the dishes!