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juniejunes · 2 years

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so...hi!

hello :) so first of all, i'm mad because in the middle of writing this letter to you, the website was lagging and it DELETED my previous draft (DUCK THIS SHEET) so lemme just...cut the introduction short because this DUCKING website made me DUCKING angry 🦆 let's get to the point cuz my patience is running frickin low right now

soooo...hi, namjoon! :)

you can call me June, same as your name, but with an "e". so, June with an e. i don't even know if you're reading this, but if you are, thank you. i don't want to turn myself into a fool thinking you notice me, but if you're reading this, i think i can die peacefully at this very moment, right now.

to be honest, writing this makes me feel so...exposed. it's so different from spamming your instagram dm. it feels more formal, and intimate in a way, and i feel...a little embarrassed, i guess. i get to express my feelings and thoughts more openly, and i do feel like you are attentively listening to me rambling, no matter how long it takes. it makes me feel appreciated, because i love it when there're someone who listen to me without any questions and arguments happen in between. it's great when they just listen and understand, though it sounds a little bit selfish of me to do that to them haha :)

anyways, this letter is dedicated to you and my little adventure in s.korea last october. it's a bit long, but i'll try to convey everything without making a part 2 so...bear with me lol

my first stop was busan. and i guess i'm in love with this city.

i cannot recall anything that i don't like about this city. if i ever to make a comparison, busan is like the youngest child in the family that everyone adores. busan welcomed me with the prettiest sceneries and most beautiful weather the moment i stepped foot in gimhae airport. it makes me jealous because, weather here in my city is so...weird, i even got seasonal allergy because of it. but busan, or s.korea in general, autumn is amazing, lovely and enjoyable.

everything here makes me feel...familiar somehow, or s.korea does, not just only busan. the people here are so nice and amiable, i even love busan "satoori", though many people say that it sounds heavy and agressive, i find it lovely and friendly. taxi drivers even recognized me and my friend were ARMYs and they tried to hold little conversations with us, despite my poor korean lol.

📍haeundae blue line park the sea cabin car experience was soooo worth it. i got to enjoy such breath-taking view of the ocean, also beautiful greeneries alongside the coastal line.

the sceneries were straight out of a movie. i've seen them so many times on pinterest, instagram...but never have i ever thought that one day i got to see them with my own bare eyes. they even look better in person i swear.

i guess i miss everything about s.korea, especially busan because maybe i won't have the chance to visit this lovely city again in a long time. i miss the haeundae beach, the way coastal wind blew my hair messy, and of course the highlight of october, or the year 2022 even, the BTS Yet To Come concert in busan.

i've got to say this, the concert experience was MIND-BLOWING. this was my first time going to a BTS concert ever, and i'm so glad i went. i got to feel the atmosphere, see the ARMY Bomb sea and the amazing performances. so DUCKING lit and eyes-popping. it's quite sad because now everything is just a memory, seeing you and BTS in real life, screaming your names on the top of my lungs and singing throughout the whole concert... this means so much to me because not only it was my first time but also, this happened in the year i turned 18. if i could go back in time and told my 14, 15 year-old self that i'd go to a BTS concert in 3 years, she'd call me crazy and a liar haha. but it really happened, and it truly amazed me because, so many things could happen in such a short period of time and most of the time, we'll never know what would happen next in the future. it almost feel like dream, a miracle. a dream come true. this concert is so meaningful, because it was BTS's last concert before you guys enlist. listening to all members' messages to ARMYs makes my heart warms. we believe in you and we hope you guys believe in us to, that we'll be here waiting for you to come back and continuing our journey for the next 7, 10, 20, 30... years. me personally, i won't ever stop being an ARMY, i promise.

credit to my friend for taking this beautiful picture! she was in the standing area while i was on the 3rd floor :)

and we ate ramyeon after getting back from the concert, while watching BTS's live haha

i guess from now on, whenever "busan" or "2022" is mentioned, i'll always be reminded of my first BTS concert experience. i can't wait to go to many upcoming concerts of BTS if i ever get another chance. see you again.

next and last stop is, seoul.

i have so many mixed feelings about seoul. because unlike busan, it was my second time visiting seoul, and the experience was very different from the first. my first was in 2018, when i was 14 and signed up for a package tour (the worst decision in my life ever tbh but it was the only choice back then). but the on the second, i feel like i was living a seoul-person, "seoul-saram"' life, though not quite, but close. i took buses and subway like everyone else does, going for the longest walk i ever took in my 18 years of existence (yes, i took nearly 20.000 steps a day when i was in s.korea, here at home i only take around 3.000 steps per day max) and got to experience the whole city by myself.

if busan feels familiar, seoul feels like a second home.

i really don't know why i feel like that, but seoul is like home to me, because for some reason i don't feel like an outsider in seoul. i may not speak korean fluently, may not fully understand korean culture, but somehow i feel seoul has a place for me. seoul welcomed me as a long-lost child coming back home, i guess.

it is making me confuse because i've never felt like this before. after coming back to my country, my city, i long for the day i "come back" to seoul, to s.korea again. not "go" or "visit". "come back". like in, "come back home". i know, it's...weird. how come i feel belong to a city so much, despite not being a part of it since birth?

maybe i like it because seoul has you.

your history, your origin, your story...almost everything of you is attached with seoul. to me, seoul is you, you are seoul. so i love seoul, means i love you. it sounds a bit crazy, but there's a saying that goes, "sometimes loving a place is not because of something but someone".

these are some photos i took (minus the one that has me in it, it was taken by my friend ><) during the days in seoul. the last picture was taken at the same place you went to, near the gwanghwamun square? (i don't remember exactly). i was so mad after seeing your instagram post though, nearly same pictures, taken at the same place at the same angle, yet i couldn't meet you. clearly destiny is playing with me and i don't like it >:(

the rest were taken at hanok bukchon village, i got to wear the prettiest purple hanbok ever! (both me and my friend decided to go for purple cuz it reminded us of BTS haha)

i also visited places that you went to before, like this bookstore which has a really nice retro, 80s vintage vibe to it, and also 운경고택.

and lastly, i took a look at the old neighborhood that BTS used to live in, nonhyeon-dong.

i've been an ARMY since 2015, clearly have been by your side for 7 years already. visiting this neighborhood makes me feel nostalgic for some reasons, even though i wasn't the one who actually going through all the hardships and all. but these places, the old company building, the old dormitory...again brings me back to the freshly-debuted BTS and your very first few years, and maybe even reminds me of the 화앙연화 era that i love so so much.

7 years with BTS has helped me grow a lot, as a person, emotionally, mentally. to be honest, if it wasn't because of BTS, i couldn't have stayed this long. you are my motivation to keep going, fighting and living. in some moments when life was just too much to bear, i thought of BTS and keep telling myself, "you have to stay, so one day you can attend BTS concert". now it has come true, but yes, for the best is yet to come, i'll have to overcome so many other things. yet i'll continue to remind myself that "once is not enough, i want to meet BTS again".

i'd say, and i meant it with all my heart, "i love you in every universe".

let's meet again, in 2025. a promise i'd never break. i hope we'll grow old together, BTS and ARMY.

november 6th, 2022.

Jun(e).

p/s: i want to attach my playlist~ some song recommendations i guess :) might not be your taste but i hope you can at least check some of them out:

let you break my heart again - laufey

seoul (prod. HONNE) - RM (i like this one the most)

love me that way - sabrina sterling (literally me if i couldn't marry you)

the only exception - paramore

berlin - yerin baek (this song is perfect for winter)

i also wanted to mention some taylor swift's song in her latest album but i guess you've already gone through them all lol, besides my favorites are midnight rain, anti-hero and lavender haze.

it took me 2 hours to write all of this so i hope you read until the very end. and if you are reading this sentence, i'd love to give you a super big applause and lots of love >3<

thank you, and good night/day!

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cayenne-twilight · 4 years

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Professor Layton Iceberg Explanation

As I said in the tags of the original, the iceberg I made was a meme consisting of both real theories and satire/parodies/fandom memes. If anyone is interested, I can work on an unironic version that only has real theories.

Buckle in because this post is LONG and heavily saturated with lore and information.

Actual theories

Parallel universe 1960s where the world wars didn’t happen. There’s an unused file in Curious Village that shows the year as 1960 and the time machine from UF is set to 1973, ten years into the future. The series canonically takes place in an undefined time period (hence the technological inaccuracies and fantasy elements), but it’s based off the 60s. There’s more evidence but we don’t have time to go over every little thing. I linked my “no wars” theory below but TL;DR the outdated airplanes and underdeveloped medicine in the Layton series imply that the world wars may never have happened. https://cayenne-twilight.tumblr.com/post/632205992162099200/outofcontextdiscord-timegearremix-zonosils-war

The real meaning behind the statue in Future London. In UF, the purpose of the statue is to spark Layton and Luke’s conversation about their friendship. Luke is stressing out about moving overseas and sees himself and the professor in the story behind the statue, but in the bigger picture, Clive must have been the one to commission it. Some theorize that the little boy is Clive and the man is either his father or the professor. One idea I’ve seen is that Clive wishes he could be Luke for real, while another is that he wishes he died ten years ago, and another is that he’s literally terminally ill explaining why he doesn’t care about consequence. Personally, I think “the boy succumbed to his illness” refers to his mental illness seeing as he wanted the professor to save him from his madness as he saved him all those years ago.

True location of Monte D’Or. there are no deserts on the British isles to my knowledge, so it makes the most sense for Monte D’Or to be in Southwest USA where English is the default language, they have a desert, and there exists a city famous for flashy hotels, casinos, and entertainment. What makes it odd is that nobody ever mentions overseas travel, and all the major characters are from England.

Loosha’s origins are not explicitly explained if I remember correctly, but the implication was that her prehistoric (supposedly) species was sealed away along with the garden, allowing them to survive all the way to the time of LS until Loosha was the only one left. The garden provided a good habitat and protection from predators, and it’s logical that they’d slowly die out anyways, but there’s no explanation of any specific factors that led to Loosha being the last.

Beasley is not a bee I wrote a post about this one as well, but TL;DR Beasly lacks several defining bee traits whilst having several human ones. He is not human, yet, by definition, not a bee. It’s possible that he is the result of Dimitri’s testing, but whatever his untold story is, he remains an enigma of nature. https://cayenne-twilight.tumblr.com/post/632381715250282496/theory-beasly-isnt-a-bee

Subject 2’s identity is currently unknown. There is a subject one (parrot) and subject 3 (rabbit) so there has to be a second. For a long time, people suspected Beasly to be him seeing as he’s a bit of an amalgamation and definitely not a regular bee (see above). After the release of LMJ, though, people began to suspect Sherl, the intelligent hound who could speak to certain people but not others. That being said, it’s possible for one to be subject 4. Sherl’s memory of a bright flash matches up with subject 3’s memory of being electrocuted. They never explain why the animals were being experimented on, but it was probably Dimitri making sure the conditions of his machine were safe for humans before reliving the incident from ten years ago.

Lady Violet died from the plague from DB. There’s no evidence for this or anything, it’s just an idea. People say she died from the flu but I don’t remember them saying that in the game, at least the US version. Extending off my “no war” theory: it’s theorized that the Spanish Flu was spread by the travlelling soldiers, so if that’s true, it’s possible for the epidemic to have been averted for some decades. Maybe the Spanish Flu reached England later than in real life. The hole in this is that DB’s plague must’ve been close in time to 1918 while Violet’s death was much later, so it would’ve had to stick around.

Bill Hawks is working with Targent and Arthur Cantabella. There was a force in the shadows buying the time machine technology from Bill. Someone with a ton of money who helped him cover up a freak accident and get away with it completely, a feat that involved shady means like violence by hired thugs. Some theorize that it was Targent, seeking power over time in exchange for a little mafia magic. The Labarynthia project was sponsored by the UK government, so as the PM, Bill must’ve known about it. He probably supported dubiously ethical, high stakes (witch pun) psychological experiments like Cantabella’s and helped him stay in the shadows.

All the NPCs in St. Mystere and Folsense are dead. I make fun of this type of theory later, but they’re admittedly captivating. I’m pretty sure the canon in CV is that the villagers are Bruno and Augustus’s OCs that they made robots of and built a town around, but it’s more interesting to think that the village was there before, and the townspeople died of a plague and were replaced like Lady Violet. In Folsense, there really was a plague and they never explain the NPCs there. They’re either real people who appear way younger than they are due to hallucinations (even the ones who already look old ?), or they don’t exist at all, which is pretty spooky. This part of the story is a gaping plot hole. In a similar vein to CV, the edgy yet plausible theory is that they used to live in Folsense but died of the plague and now live on as hallucinations.

Hershel seeing everything as a puzzle is a coping mechanism for all his trauma. This was a joke but I thought about it for more than five seconds and it makes way too much sense.

Plot holes and unexplained questions that we like to overthink because it’s fun

The downfall of the Azran was vaguely explained in canon by people being so greedy that it lead to the civilization collapsing. It’s not a stretch to imagine that happening, but it would’ve been more interesting with a little more detail.

Layton and Luke are programmed to routinely forget how to walk. I didn’t know whether to list this in the joke section or not, but it’s odd that the characters actively participate in the walking tutorial (as opposed to showing a little memo to the player) as if they didn’t know how to before, especially when they go through this several times a year.

The truth behind Pavel. He’s simply a joke character who teleports, is a polyglot (sort of, at least he wants us to think he is) and is mega confused all the time. He’s a fun character to make crack theories about because of his cryptic nature that even he doesn’t seem to understand.

Miracle Mask deleted scenes. The first trailer for MM featured animations that were not in the final game. One was the Randall falling scene, except in a slightly different style than the one we know. Others were completely foreign, like Layton and Luke pacing across a theatre stage as if Layton’s about to expose someone with a dramatic point. Cut content and “could’ve beens” are always curious to think about.

Evan Barde: secret mastermind. Arianna and Tony’s dad is a mysterious character who died under mysterious circumstances. I think the canon is that his death was a genuine accident, but concept art of him making a creepy evil face suggests that maybe he originally had a larger role in the first drafts of LS than the finished game.

The secret to how Paul and Des pull off their disguises is unclear and will remain unclear. There is no plausible explanation for their shape shifting. Unless Paul is just a little dude wearing a human suit like that one Wizard of Oz species and Des is the best quick-changer ever and hides his naturally feminine legs under his cloak.

Alfendi’s mom. When LBMR came out people scrambled to piece together who Hershel had a kid with, but there’s no way alfendi is his biological son. This happened with Kat as well and her biological parents turned out to be brand new characters, so I’m sure Al will get an adoption backstory if his arc continues, be his parents old major characters or nameless, faceless NPCs.

Granny Riddleton and Stachenscarfen are omnipotent deities. Idk which section this fits best under, but these two characters have some serious power. At first introduction, they’re implied to be robots, but they appear everywhere in later games. They follow the Professor wherever he goes and assist him on his adventures, GR collecting puzzles and housing them by some odd magic, and Stachen teaches you how to walk. They both introduce and supervise the gameplay. By extension, I guess this idea could apply to Albus as well in the prequels. GR and Stachen even had the power to appear in LMJ, something no major character could do. I consider them akin to the velvet room attendants from the Persona games.

Clive’s kill count is a vague subject in the game for the sake of keeping it PG. I don’t know if anyone’s ever mathematically estimated the damage he caused, and I sure don’t want to try, but the game appears to push the idea that he didn’t kill anyone at all, saying they stopped him in the nick of time and things like that, even though we watch him raze the city. If they ever want to bring him back post-time skip, I can see them twisting it so that the mobile fortress cutscene wasn’t a linear sequence of events, but instead a compilation of scenes over the course of hours so that London neighborhoods around him could be evacuated and have it make sense. Knowing Level-5, it’s more likely that they wouldn’t think this deep and do something more lazy, though.

Memes and references

Post-time skip Flora is real references the famous L is real theory from Super Mario 64. Like Luigi in SM64, Flora was also a highly anticipated character who didn’t appear in a new game, in this case LMJ or LMDA. In the end, Luigi did become real in the DS port so hopefully Flora is real will be realized as well.

Hershel can’t read is a veteran fandom meme referring to how in the first few games, especially Curious Village, Layton asks Luke to read every document out loud for him. Perhaps this was an exercise to improve Luke’s reading skills and independent thinking, or perhaps he was just too lazy or preoccupied to do it himself, but this grew into the joke that our genius Professor was actually illiterate this whole time.

Layton’s smash invitation is hidden in PLvsAA. It’s no secret that the fandom would kill a man to get the Professor into the smash brothers franchise. In PLvsAA one of the puzzle artworks features a goat eating a familiar white envelope with a red stamp, sparking the joke that either Layton or Wright got the invitation their respective fans desired, but it got lost along the way.

The science board is the mysteriously vague organization Don Paolo got kicked out of for the crime of being evil. It’s the epitome of liberal arts majors and art school graduates trying to bs their way around not knowing any science and failing miserably. “He was very good at all the sciences, but then the CEO of science told him to stop because he was using the power of science for evil science”. They do this again when “Dr. Stahngun” describes his time machine what with the soolha coils and whatnot.

Hoogland is death cult initiation is a parody of “Mario 64 is Freemason initiation” which is ridiculous, just like the creepy human sacrifice subplot of AL.

You can see the reflection of someone watching you in Aurora’s eye references the famous, creepy Talking Angela theory. In retrospect it would’ve been funnier if I said Angela instead of Aurora.

Every copy of Professor Layton is personalized references the famous “every copy of Super Mario 64 is personalized”

Clive’s fat ass in HD is a meme that originated from the announcement of UFHD, saying that half of the excited fans wanted to cry again while the other half were simply attracted to Clive. If we want to enter real bottom-section-of-the-iceberg-chart territory then let’s say Clive’s character has some sort of psychological siren properties that draw people to him like a magnet and/or Harry Styles.

Things I pulled out of my ass for shits and giggles

Infinite hint coin hack: I’m sure a tech savvy cheater could hack the game for infinite hint coins, but there’s no easy or interesting way. I don’t know why someone would do that though, considering a lot of the hints suck and there are puzzle guides on the internet.

Cringy, unused Randall villain monologue. This joke is derived from the actual scrapped MM content as well as deleted content being a popular element of iceberg charts, but it’s sadly not real. Would’ve been hilarious, though.

Last Specter Puzzle 031: Light Height tracks and records children’s intelligence level. It doesn’t, but it’s always fun to make fun of arguably THE most ridiculously difficult puzzle in the franchise. (Seriously, do they expect 7+ year olds to know trigonometry???)

Hershel struggles with tea addiction. Hershel from the games drinks tea in moderation, but the manga begs to differ. He has a tea set in the Laytonmobile, and an attempt at teatime while driving causes him to crash.

Folsense is a metaphor for Alzheimer’s. This is inspired by those edgy kids’ show theories where everyone’s in hell or something, but nobody has ever said this.

London Life is reality and the plot of the games is all in Luke’s head. That’s one way to fill every plot hole. How funny would it be if Luke made up crazy characters and stories based off his fellow townspeople Sharkboy and Lavagirl style. “This dude who lives in a castle and asks people to give him all their money for nothing in return is a vampire from 50 years ago involved in a tragic love story”.

Secret ending encoded into Tago’s Head Gymnastics. It’d be crazy if there was, and Dimitri would hound Tago for the secret to time travel. If you didn’t know, the Layton games started as an adaption of Akira Tago’s puzzle series, except they decided to add a story to make it more interesting and marketable.

Daily puzzles datamine your DS. I’m bad with technology but is it even possible to datamine a DS??? Idk, but I think my DS lite from 2008 is safe.

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pregnant-javert · 3 years

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fic writer review!

1. How many works do you have on ao3?

2. What's your grand total ao3 word count?

3. How many fandoms have you written for?

4. What is the first fandom you ever wrote for?

5. Is there a fandom you would like to write for but haven't yet?

6. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

7. Do you respond to comments? Why/why not?

8. Which of your fics has the angstiest ending?

9. Are any of your fics pure fluff?

10. Have any of your fics ended differently than you originally planned?

11. Do you write AUs?

12. Do you ever write smut?

13. Do you usually try to stick to canon?

14. What are your favorite tropes to utilize in your writing?

15. Have you ever received hateful comments on a fic?

16. What is the nicest comment you've received?

17. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

18. Have you ever co-written a fic?

19. What is your all-time favorite ship to write for?

20. Is there a WIP you want to finish but don't think you ever will?

21. What are your writing strengths?

22. What are your writing weaknesses?

23. Are there any of your early fics that you wish you could go back and change?

24. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in a fic?

25. What is your favorite fic that you've written so far?

**Tag another writer if you want!**

I'm putting the answers under a cut because it is very long. :P

1. How many works do you have on ao3?

143 works, with three drafts O.o

2. What's your grand total ao3 word count?

295,376

3. How many fandoms have you written for?

Ten fandoms (Game of Thrones, Deadpool, Jurassic World, Anne with an E, Star Wars, Extraordinary You, The 100, Kakegurui, The Haunting of Bly Manor, and Snowpiercer)

4. What is the first fandom you ever wrote for?

Game of Thrones, in November 2018 :P

5. Is there a fandom you would like to write for but haven't yet?

I toyed with the idea of writing for Shadow and Bone a few months ago but never really went anywhere with it. (As much as I love the Darkling, lmao.)

6. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

when i need someone, it's always you and you are mine, i am yours (Kakegurui) are the top two at 338 and 221. People are still kudosing them for some reason. Then all three of my Daenerys/Sansa fics take the third, fourth and fifth spots :P

7. Do you respond to comments? Why/why not?

Yes, I respond to every comment I get. If people are gonna make an effort to comment, I want to reciprocate that since they're doing it to be nice :)

8. Which of your fics has the angstiest ending?

What defines angst? I guess it could be yoake OR dassen, because both Melanie and Alex die in those fics.

9. Are any of your fics pure fluff?

I'm not a huge fluff person, but I'd have to say the Melanie/Audrey/Alex christmas fic :P

10. Have any of your fics ended differently than you originally planned?

With ferrous liquid, I originally thought I wanted Zarah to leave Audrey completely as she was too resentful of Audrey's emotional burden. Then I realised that it was just too sad!! So they get back together.

11. Do you write AUs?

Only if it's canon divergence. I don't really enjoy writing college AUs or anything like that.

12. Do you ever write smut?

Yes. All the time. Used to hate writing smut, love it now.

13. Do you usually try to stick to canon?

Yes and no. Depends on the canon events. Most of the ships don't occur in canon anyway so it's difficult to stick to it :P

14. What are your favorite tropes to utilize in your writing?

Angst, hurt/comfort, violence. Anything that makes you feel sad :)

15. Have you ever received hateful comments on a fic?

Yes, very early on. Haven't gotten any in years but when I did, I just deleted them immediately. Who cares :P

16. What is the nicest comment you've received?

This comment from @olivish on humanity:

This is beautiful. I love it. The 'Of Mice and Men' reference is so on-point. I never gave Bob much thought, but you've really made him into a person in this fic, like, even as Bob himself is observing his own lack of humanity, the reader feels exactly the opposite. Like, the fact that he is still motivated by kindness is something of a miracle, isn't it? Also Wilford's MO of keeping his victims isolated from one another shines so clearly here. He's trained Bob not to interact with others. The deformities on his face and the sheer size of him go a long way to accomplishing this goal. Audrey is different, she's a person magnet, so the way to isolate her is to make others loathe her through envy. But that doesn't work on Bob, whose status on the train is assured and what he longs for most in the world is human connection. The more I think about it the more compelling it gets. Just wonderful work with a character I never paid much attention to.

17. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not entirely, but there have been some portions of other peoples' fics that look very similar to what I have written O.O

18. Have you ever co-written a fic?

No, but I hope to one day ahahaha

19. What is your all-time favorite ship to write for?

Well Melaudrey is up there because of the Memories™️ but honestly? Audrey/Zarah. There's so many aspects to their relationship in canon that are just so fun to explore :))))

20. Is there a WIP you want to finish but don't think you ever will?

I'm trying to get through it, but probably mel and allie steal a train. I got some weird comments on it when the first chapter came out and it just tanked my motivation HARD (and they were pretty nitpicky comments, to be honest) Found it extremely difficult to keep going, even with an outline and a solid idea of where I wanted the story to go. Not to be self-pitying, but I was looking forward to writing it too :( I might continue with it, but it'll take months. Maybe during summer when I have more time to think about it?

21. What are your writing strengths?

I guess that I can get into the heads of the characters really well? I love doing this. I love dark and psychological fics where I can pick their brains apart O.o I'm also good at writing emotionally. So there's that.

22. What are your writing weaknesses?

I tend to over-rely on dialogue, and I REALLY struggle with just...not writing dialogue. I can't explain why, but I need the characters to talk so I can move the story forwards. :P I also struggle to end fics well. Suzanne Collins syndrome lmao

23. Are there any of your early fics that you wish you could go back and change?

As silly as this sounds, I wish I could go back and change certain aspects of tsukamu, the pregnant!Melanie crackfic. It's quite rushed in places and some of the timelines don't make sense (if it was Ben's kid, and she was in the research station for a month, there's no way Wilford could have imprisoned Melanie for nine months). Alas, I already published it in a book, so I can't change it now.

24. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in a fic?

Ehhh it seems a bit iffy, have never done it before but like...I assume this means if a character is speaking in another language that the POV character doesn't understand? If so I'd just say '[character] said something in [language]' and leave it at that.

25. What is your favorite fic that you've written so far?

ownership. It's dark, it's angsty, there's medical stuff and also some comfort there as well. Chef's kiss :))

#ask

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igarbagecannoteven · 3 years

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well well well! I'm curious about M, E for superhero au (another installment, not necessarily a sequel), G, S, then T and V as well! -hazel

hi there hazel! i hope you're doing well!

M: got any premises on the backburner you'd care to share? i have so many premises on the backburner it's a miracle my stove hasn't been crushed under the weight of them lol. one that i don't think i've talked about is that i'd love to write a "she loves me" au! i'm not sure if it's ever going to happen bc it'd be a longer project and also the logistics of adapting a stage musical to a fic would be tricky, but i think it could be really fun! there'd be the opportunity to have it be half epistolary fic half normal narrative which i'd *love* to do. plus it's an enemies-to-lovers story i can actually get behind and i think my dream goal is to be able to take that trope (which usually isn't my cup of tea) and write it in a palatable way in multiple fics through multiple strategies so that could also help with that project :)))

E: if you wrote a sequel(/another installment) to superhero au, what would it be about? so. not going to lie to you i've been a bit stuck on continuing this au (it's going to happen i promise i'm just not certain which direction i want to take the overall arc of the au) but! i have multiple fic ideas for it! the one involving all characters y'all have met so far is that i'd love to write a prequel of sorts that takes place when calum gets his powers for the first time and is sort of taken under ashton's wing (no pun intended lol). that's the simplest idea for a continuation i have; i'm afraid the ones revolving around malum are all rather complicated rn and i'm not certain how i'm going to go about it so i don't have hints on that front. (other than that there's probably some angst in their future, so uh sorry about that.)

G: do you write your story from start to finish, or do you write the scenes out of order? i tend to start off writing from the beginning and then things get a little haywire and writing chronologically tends to fly out the window at a certain point. it also doesn't help that i do multiple drafts, so even if the first draft was written largely from start to finish, i'm almost definitely not going to edit that way and then any scenes that get added or deleted in later drafts will have been written out of order for the most part.

S: any fandom tropes you can't resist? like, for 5sos in particular? ummm i'm not sure! i do like writing ashton as a caretaker figure which is a common trope i think, but i also really enjoy flipping that on its head as well (even though it can be a lot harder to write lol). also i'm not sure this counts as a trope but i love writing about the friendship between the different members! that's probably one of my favorite things about 5sos fic is that due to the group dynamics there tends to be solid friendships outside of a fic's main pairing and i just love friendship and writing friendship and reading friendship so much y'all.

T: any tropes you can't stand? oooohhhh yeahhh there are. lots. especially once we get down to a fandom-specific level. i won't go into all of them but my personal pet peeve (and the thing that makes me click out of fics the fastest) is when people write luke as being this really two dimensional airhead like nothing fills me with seething rage like that. it's especially frustrating when people use that as an excuse to write this character where if they were using she/her pronouns would be considered totally sexist and just straight up bad writing but because he's a guy it's "fine" and i just. hrgh. like i feel like some writers have decided that since luke dresses less along the traditional gender binary than maybe the rest of the group (if i'm using the wrong terminology plz feel free to correct me this is not my area of expertise) then they can just label him the "girl" in the relationship which is uh. problematic for multiple reasons! i've started trailing into vent territory so i'm going to shut up now and move on to the next question lol.

V: if you could write the sequel (or prequel) to any fic out there not written by yourself, which would you choose? ohhhhhhhhhhh this is a hard one! i'm pretty bad at pinpointing which styles i think i'd mesh with well so i'm just going to ignore that as a factor (unless anyone wants to perceive me and tell me who i'm most similar stylistically *eyes emoji*) ummm i have thought about how fun it would be to be able to play in the sandbox of @anxietycalling delete this transmission fic because the worldbuilding is so incredibly rich and endlessly interesting, but it'd be such a big act to follow i would never have the guts to even think about it lol.

fanfic ask game!

#ha! megs tv! i see what you did there :)))#i'm sorry i kinda went off on t there i have a feeling i'm going to regret that vent down the line #but it's fine!#we're all chill here right y'all are all chill #anywayrs #thanks for sending these in hazel they were very fun :))#ily hope things are all good in your corner of the world #answering mail #hazel #oh and you'd be happy to hear everything went well with the newman club lady!#so that's one less thing to worry about :)

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whumpinggrounds · 4 years

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Febuwhump Day 2: “I Can’t Take This Anymore”

these prompts really did work out sort of rather well for exposition purposes. anyway, Mara will be v important later on so forgive me for writing this more angsty than whumpy

CW: referenced violence, discussion of pet whump, discussion of trafficking, discussion of a lot of things but nothing explicit

“I can’t take this anymore.” Mara says it, with perfectly calmness, to the empty room. “I can’t. I won’t. I quit.” There’s no one around to hear her, but the words still have a final feeling to them, an ominous ring. If only there were someone around to hear them.

She’d been doing well for so long – she really thought she was making progress with Hank, and maybe even Travis. The former seemed to be wrestling with the ethics of pet ownership as a whole, while Travis hinted nervously that maybe WRU’s recruitment wasn’t as aboveboard as it seemed. This was why she’d applied for the job at WRU, why she’d gone through the intensive interview process and left all her friends and family to move to a new city. If she could flip just one handler, get some hard evidence of the kinds of abuse going on within these concrete walls…that could be more effective than a hundred individual rescues. It was the kind of thing lib workers dreamed about. And Mara could do it. If she got these handlers to trust her, she really thinks that she could do it.

But how long would something like that take? How long before Hank turns against the company he’s worked for a decade or longer? How long before Travis works up the nerve to take some covert cell phone footage? And how does Mara guide them in that direction without blowing her cover when she’s supposed to be the goddamn company therapist?

It’s not the timeline that’s really bothering her, either. Mara’s more than happy to wait these people out months or even a year while she and their consciences work to turn them. But the other handlers, the way she has to listen and empathize and help these people…

For some it’s pedestrian workplace drama, or the miserable stuff of everyday life. Half the facility can’t stand Jackson, and Jackson insists they all hate him because he works miracles with stubborn pets. Tracy’s father died this year, and she’s been having a rough go of it, now that both parents are gone. Dwayne can’t understand that it’s his own constant posturing that’s getting in the way of a long-awaited promotion. Stuff like that, Mara is more than equipped to handle.

But sometimes Jackson walks in her office bitching about how the other handlers must be fucking with his new trainee just to make him look bad, because the boy has started wetting his pants every time someone yells at him. Or Tracy complains that her new Romantic is supposed to act all virginal and the male handlers keep teaching him shit regardless. Days like those, Mara hates even Travis, who comes and sits on her couch and whines about how guilty he sometimes feels, leaving bruises on a teenager’s face. Mara wants to slap him.

Worst of all is always Arthur Collins, with his swagger and his sadism, throwing himself down on Mara’s couch to talk about his overactive aggressive streak. He was insufferable enough back before he respected her, with all his long sighs and rolled eyes, but one day he’d been complaining about a trainee and Mara had made one single offhand comment about a study done in the 60s, how depersonalization affected prisoners…

Collins had come into her office the next day singing her praises. “It worked! It worked! Doc, you’re a genius, it totally worked!”

“Sorry?”

“What you said yesterday! It worked!” Mara shook her head, still confused, and Collins lets out a fond kind of huff. “You said in session yesterday that in that old experiment, they stripped these people of everything that made them unique, yeah?”

Nodding slowly, Mara wondered with kindling dread where this was going. “Yes, I think I said something like that.”

“Well, it got me thinking. What does this brat kid still have that we haven’t taken from him, you know?”

“Okay…”

“His hair! It was long, doc, like, all the way down past his shoulders, and it was pretty, but I just had this feeling I could use it to break him, you know?”

There was a queasy feeling in Mara’s stomach. “You cut his hair.”

“I shaved his head! And when he saw himself, man, did he cry. He hasn’t cried like that a single time since he got here. I thought, you know, maybe it’s a fluke, because I worked him over pretty good that day, but in training today he was just…he’s been perfect. An absolute doll. All the fight gone right out of him.” Handler Collins shook his head, still grinning at the memory. “Something as small as hair. Good for you, doc! Didn’t even leave a mark.”

Mara’s smile looks more like a grimace. “Yes, well, I’m glad I could help.”

“You helped, all right. You helped me a lot.”

Since then, Handler Collins had sung Mara’s praises. Since then, handlers had started to come to her with questions about just how to break a stubborn trainee.

And Mara never answered right away. She always told them she needed to do some research, or maybe think about it for a while. Often, she told them that what she knew wouldn’t work on pets, because she was trained to work with people, and that flimsy excuse got them to leave her alone. But some of the handlers, especially Collins, just kept coming back. And eventually, Mara has to tell them something.

Management is thrilled with her work. Workplace satisfaction has gone up, now that employees have a dedicated professional to talk to, and it’s a selling point on Facility 7’s website. A brightly colored little blurb featured on the “About Our Staff” page now informs prospective buyers that their Box Boys and Babes are being trained by only the most competent and stable professionals. Not only that, but handlers can come to a professional therapist with questions about any unusual behavior from trainees! It isn’t what Mara was hired for, or something she’s studied in the slightest, but the Director is all too happy to advertise this new perk. Apparently, there’s been a little corresponding upswing in sales.

It’s making Mara furious. Counseling handlers is disgusting enough. She doesn’t want to make any of these monsters feel better about their job, far less make them any more effective at it. Mara came here to flip handlers to the lib cause, not to make them into better torturers. Her friends back home would be horrified, even more so than when she announced this stupid plan. Five times in her first month, Mara drafts an email announcing her resignation. Five times she deletes the thing, unsent.

It’s Hank and Travis she’s still stuck on. A strong therapeutic relationship, necessarily confidential, could be the thing that makes the difference. Mara knows she can do it, can use her training to make them see that what they’re doing is wrong. The only question is if she can stand the job long enough to finish it.

#febuwhump #febuwhumpday2 #referenced violence #pet whump #lost cause jude

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complacencyavp · 3 years

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AvP: Requiem Revisions

Most of the below isn’t going to be seen or mentioned outside of maybe a prologue for the fanfiction that I doubt will ever progress beyond an overly detailed draft and some snippets, focusing on fan characters. I’m not all that happy with what I have below, but hope it makes a bit more sense then the movie. I am really confused by the timeline of it something I hope I addressed here.

I tried to focus on human character interactions, relationships, and the fall of the town as they preoccupied far too much of the screen though aren't memorable. Let the two who lost their partners bond early on, the brothers reconcile, use the army woman and the ex-convict brother as foils for each other.

The death of the child(ren) and pregnant woman is something that I’d much rather have been implied rather than shown. If you're going to show such things let it have an influence and not just be ceaseless violence. Regardless, I prefer AVP:R to what we got with Shane Black’s The Predator (I am on the spectrum myself).

Gunnison, Colorado plays a big role in one of my fan characters, Andreanna’s story. Her mother lived through the event and though she moved to the cities hoping to escape it, she is still tied to the town. Her daughter, Andreanna, is driven to find out what happened and due to custodial concerns ends up living with her grandfather and frequents the cordoned area frequently which eventually leads to her “abduction”.

The destruction of the town leads to a war on terrorism in my fanfiction furthering Weyland’s, Yutani’s, Borgia’s, and others' progress. She goes on to mention Gunnison a few times with some rather disturbing connotations.

The following is canon divergent with what occurred over a few nights occurring over a far longer period. Once again, I’d much rather have a lot of some of the more horrible scenes be implied not shown.

Day 1.

The Yautja ship crashes in the woods. Dallas Howard, a recently released convict in a case for burglary gone wrong is released. Molly (army mom) also gets off at the same stop, having been away for a few years she is unaware of his history among the town and talks to the other about missing her kid and asks him if he is missing anyone, Dallas mentions his brother fondly.

Sam (the kid, 8-10 years old with heterochromia) and Buddy Benson (his middle-aged? dad) are out hunting deer and find the Yautja ship. Fearing for their safety they flee but are implanted, disillusioned, and lost they spend a night out in the woods waking up and trying unsuccessfully to find their way home. The chest bursters emerge the following evening, day 2.

The face hugger that got shot ends up elsewhere.

Day 2.

Darcy (Sam’s Mother) reaches out to file a missing person’s report, she mentions that they were out hunting deer to the police officer Ray. And that every time they went camping previously, they usually called her every night, if not the following morning. Both parents looked pretty old so Sam is their miracle baby.

Ray, expecting his own child,promises to look into it and heads up to where she said they usually camp, doesn’t find anything and radioed the others to set up a search later that day.

The police officers set out looking for them. Eddie Morales, a corrupt or at minimum a shady sheriff goes and talks to the pair of homeless men that call their storm drain their home. The other cops stop searching at 8, when the sun goes down but Ray doesn’t.

Ray is skinned by the “predalien”. In some deleted scenes the three Yautja, predators, on the ship were skinned by the abomination. If there was an infestation I don’t think Wolf would waste the time unless he did it first thing so I'm skipping over that.

Day 3.

Wolf arrives and lands his ship in a swamp, upon realizing what aided in bringing the ship down and killing the crew. Wolf determines that he is unprepared and salvages what he can. He instructs the other ship to detonate before setting off in search of the serpents tracking their secretions. He findings the across the first two to be hosts and takes the time to close their eyes before dissolving them. Disgusted by Ray's corpse poorly skinned draped over a tree and gives it the same treatment.

Another search party with volunteers is quickly organized (tourists getting lost is common); they aren’t able to find either the first two victims or Ray. Carrie, Ray’s pregnant wife comes to the scene as well as Darcy, both mothers are distressed.

High school drama occurs with Ricky’s keys being stolen by bully Dale and tossed into the storm drains. Show some government stuff going on in the background or at least company with stereotypical vehicles. Only Darcy and Dallas notice.

The remaining three face-huggers attack the two men (Harry+other) and woman in the sewer. The one on the woman is about to implant itself when it is ripped away from her face and tossed aside by the abomination. Given the spirit of AVP:R, their dog was probably “repurposed” too.

Day 4.

Ricky and Dallas go into the storm drain but are spooked by hissing and a “large snake” and leave. Morales (shady cop) finds them leaving and is confused, confronting the older brother after dropping Ricky off at his job.

He brings Dallas (ex-convict) to the “Breakfast All Day Dinner” where much to his surprise Carrie is working, unable to sleep. She becomes distressed by the other's presence and the uncertainty of what happened to her husband and retreats to the back room.

Morales has some level of responsibility in Ricky and Dallas’s situation, and feels responsible for Ricky’s care on some level?

Jessie stops uninvited by Ricky’s house. A bad storm hits, Jessie and Ricky get to talk about how they figured their lives would have been different- her home was one robbed by his brother's gang which resulted in the end of their friendship(?). They flirt.

The fight in the sewer occurs causing the hive to scatter after Wolf kills some more space cockroaches.

Wolf tracks down the hive’s new nest, late at night, but there are only a few present, he also gets impaled in the process. The town's power supply is damaged and begins to fail. Though it’s after closing Carrie stays behind with Richie to try to get the generator working for the dinner. She starts it and heads back in only to be accosted.

Army couple has difficulties in their marriage as Molly, struggling to relate to her daughter, contemplates returning to duty. The power has been out for a while and their argument is disrupted by Kelly (their daughter) who is distressed seeing a monster, she often sleeps with her light on and only has a flashlight, her mother opens the closet but doesn't find anything.

Day 5.

Darcy becomes concerned about Carrie (old student of hers?), not answering her calls, and goes to the dinner- the closed sign is still up but the backdoor is open so she goes on in, it's not pretty. She hears something rustling before she gets the lights on.

Darcy calls another police officer in hysterics. The other police aren’t sure what to make of things but, agree with her that Dallas’s return is suspicious, her testimony put him away before. Unable to find proof, that he did it but, with him having an alibi they don’t charge him despite Darcy’s insistence. Dallas stays in jail on some other charge another cooked up(improper vehicle license?). Chaos sets ins once it starts to storm.

That “no monster” scene occurs where the child’s dad, Tim, is killed and Molly, mom drags her out of the house though bottoms out on a weak stretch of road that had caved in from the fight earlier; heads to the police for aid.

Shady cop goes and gets Dallas’s brother worrying for his safety, reuniting the family. Molly is wary of Dallas after hearing what happened but wonders if it might be the same thing.

Day 6.

National Guard arrives at 2 am the following day and begins trying to evacuate those outside certain areas, it causes additional panic and strain upon setting the boundaries, not helped by Darcy’s fear-mongering at church.

The power in the hospital starts to go out forcing the doctors and nurses to rearrange patients to care for them using the emergency generator- xenos get in late at night.

Orders change and the national guard goes to keeping people contained causing riots and shootings. Shady cop and older brother rob a gun store have their first real confrontation with the monsters. Jessie's ex-boyfriend (show/mention him being rash) puts the group in danger and dies.

Xeno ambush in town.

Day 7.

Chaos and the storm continue though everything is strangely silent and clear, Morales connects with Colonel Stevens who tells them to rendezvous in the center of town for an airlift. Kelly takes an abandoned tank and figures the gov is lying to them. The order changed and they want to keep the creatures contained (where they would be bait). Morales stays with the group (having some loyalty to the brothers), Darcy leaves with another small group to the center of town.

The hospital is a mess, doctors and patients are corpses. The walls are weird as is any cramped, enclosed area, the reception area is startlingly clear. The elevator doesn’t work and thus they have to use the stairs. Ricky is skewered and is still bleeding badly despite the armor.

Looking for bandages they stumble across the pediatric center, it is frighteningly still, the nursery is empty, but they persist and enter into a room with hollowed corpses. They hurry off once one that is intact twitches.

Wolf ventures to the hospital pursuing his prey. His presence pisses the xenos off. Molly and Kelly see the “one with eyes” amongst the halls fighting the others. Jessie is killed by a wayward shuriken from Wolf.

Humans try to make it through the roof but, are nearly swarmed. Ex-con steals fallen alien weapon on the roof seing the other use it. Shady Cop chooses to save the group by pulling a fire alarm, an unexpected surprise.

Wolf and the predalien fight, Wolf takes off his mask and the thing waits. US gov nukes the area- explodes, sets off Wolfs bomb-implodes leaving the area decimated.

Day 8.

The helicopter is quickly found though their fate is up in the air, they've made it out, at a cost, and even then that's not a certainty. Yutani receives the gun.

Other Notes:

Sewers/storm drains are built far larger as it was intended to be the site of the nearby army base though the contract fell through once significant faults were identified.

The bombing is passed off as a terrorist attack with it being said to have been sent to target the nearby army base. The US used this to push a war.

Schisms occurred amongst the hive, with slightly different appearances in build and growth rates across those spawned by the abomination (12 hours) versus those from the face-huggers (18-24 hours). Perhaps there was infighting amongst the sections of the hive hence why there were a few “nest site locations”.

The alien-predator skinned the cop and waited which may imply at some level of remembering, all the more reason why they are terrifying to Yautja.

If you have suggestions or questions feel free to leave them in the inbox.

#complacencyavp #avp #aliens vs predator #yautja #xenomorph #avp:r

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fmdsooaharchive · 3 years

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full lyrics credits for suwei and alice’s mi amor.

summary: sooah doesn’t know how to approach this song so she has the brilliant idea of going to a café to work and it helps her a lot. wc: 647 without the lyrics.

The fact that this is a remake makes things so much more complicated to Sooah and her never-ending anxiety that she might not be qualified to do a job like this.

It’s not as if she was forced into this with no previous preparation of the work she had in her hands, but when Sooah said yes to the challenge, she didn’t expect it to be as difficult for her as it turned out to be. So, yeah, maybe she was feeling a little pressured and, on a deadline, as well, but she wanted this song to turn out as sweet as they first intended and sound as good as she needs it to be.

Sooah has been escalating in the past year with her new projects and things that made her feel like somehow, she was starting to grow. She didn’t want to have a relapse and make something bad. She wants to be satisfied with her work, and until now, every time she tried to work on this song, she ended up with more deleted files than any other project she ever worked on.

It’s not because she doesn’t know how to write romantic songs, that much she knows. She had written things that felt very romantic even recently, so she knew that wasn’t the problem she’s having. There aren’t enough fingers in her hands to count how many times she listened and read the lyrics of the original song. Multiple times, over and over to the point she had a draft with the lyrics translated (poorly) to see if that would help her (it didn’t). So Sooah settled with a change of scenario. Not her apartment, and much less the studio in Gold Star’s building. She packed her things covered herself up in the best way she could and, headed towards a café far from home. She needed a change of perspective.

Everything flew surprisingly well after that. It wasn’t a miracle, but at least she wasn’t hating on the lyrics as soon as she wrote them down.

Sooah writes stories through her lyrics. The things she knows and things she has heard from others before, and she makes them a nice fairytale. This time, despite everything, isn’t different. She sits in a corner, and she sees all types of people coming and going. People in a rush to get their drinks and leave to work, school kids having a quick break before they go back to studying, couples out on dates, and enjoying each other’s company.

She tries empathizing because that’s the best she can do since she never felt like she fell in love with someone before. She tries gathering all the things she had heard before and everything she watched from dramas to this day and does what she knows best. She creates a story.

When I open my eyes, I miss you so much Just by saying your name My cheeks burn and my heart floats

It’s cheesy, and if she didn’t know she had written things more cringe-worthy lyrics before, she would be tempted to erase that from her iPad and pretend she didn’t do anything. But it’s fitting for what she has in mind and from the discussion she had with the rest of the staff who were working on this song, she was going in the right direction.

Mi amor, I’m out of breath Te quiero, I can’t stop, Te amo With your black eyes, tell me you love me Mi Amor, so this dream won’t end Te quiero, hold me in your arms, Te amo With your red lips, tell me you love me, mi amor

The original lyrics have so many more touches of Spanish, and Sooah wasn’t familiar with that many terms before starting to work on this, so she thinks she shouldn’t overdo it and stick with things she knows better. Maybe in the future, when she starts studying more about the language she was still so unfamiliar with, she can feel like she’s not doing a disservice to the people who speak it by butchering it in a song. But it feels right and feels nice. It feels like not something that sounds off, and Sooah’s more than pleased with that when she turns off her device once she’s finished.

On this beautiful night Dance with me Forever Mi Amor

#fmdverification #『 .. creative claims. 』#『 .. relationships: suwei. 』#『 .. relationships: alice. 』#( queue )

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thejts3 · 4 years

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Does Anybody Still Use Tumblr?

I don’t.

Quite frankly, I never did. Apart from an embarrassing Markiplier/Jacksepticeye ego phase (yikes) all the way back in 2017, I’ve kinda left this site alone.

Made this blog with the ill-fated intent to post on it regularly, as a way to put something out there. A way to get out of my comfort zone, or at least flex my writing muscles.

With that in mind, I’m back here in the year of our lord, 2020, to try again. It’ll be quite a miracle if anybody reads this at all, for two reasons.

1. I probably won’t post it. I did at least try to draft a post a couple times when I first made this blog all those years ago. My nerve, however, always deserted me in the eleventh hour, and any chance of my thoughts being thrust out into the internet was discarded along with the words I pressed delete on.

2. I’m not sure anybody would see it even IF I posted it. Not exactly sure how tumblr works, and my one follower appears to be a bot? So it may be I’m yelling into the wind and nobody will ever see anything I post here. That might be for the best haha.

But, if somehow you’ve broken through the barriers highlighted above and are reading this now, thanks.

I’m Jay. Just turned 18 a couple weeks ago, and I’m currently completing my final year of high school.

I’ve always enjoyed writing, recently became a Resident Evil nutter, and spend way more time on the internet than I should.

I don’t quite know what kind of things I’ll be writing about on this blog. Mostly my thoughts, maybe a couple more creative pieces if I’m so inclined, perhaps even a journal.

If that sounds remotely interesting to you, then I invite you to stick around! Drop a follow. What’s the worst that can happen? Who knows, you might like what you see.

If I post at all.

Which I might. I might not.

But I might.

More to come... Maybe...

- Jay

#first post #hi #blog #thoughts

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emptymanuscript · 4 years

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One way to REname a character with internal story logic

I want to talk a moment about Zephyr.

Not the wind.

My character.

(He wishes he was this tough) Not even really the person but his NAME itself, Zephyr, and how it changed.

One of the things I don’t mention too much just to avoid trouble is how extremely different Knights of Day is now compared to how it was originally. At its early height, Knights of Day peaked at 4 authors. The goal was in no way to publish or publicize any of it. It wasn’t even really meant to be any sort of cohesive story. Or even to consist of cohesive stories rather than “adventures” for fun. I’m not even sure I can tell you WHAT it was. It wasn’t quite a piece of fiction, it wasn’t quite a table top rpg, it wasn’t quite rp’ing. It was just its own behemoth of a thing that included all of those. Compared to 1 book and 1 book in progress now.

Case in point: Fun Adventure #3 was ~

Kinda John Edward but real & real evil

Set up: Most Mediums are terrible people who fake their powers to rip victims off when they’re at their most emotionally vulnerable. Because when you’ve just irrevocably lost one of the most important people in your life you’ll pay anything or do anything for the even the illusion of getting them back.

What if: Imagine someone who can really do everything they say they can do… but they’re still a terrible predator trying to take advantage of people when they’re at their most emotionally vulnerable - they just have more power to make it even worse.

Mission: Save young suddenly widowed mega-rich heiress Helena Lawson from real Medium but still conniving con-man Kenton Dean. Because the greedy, racist, no goo Ted Lawson doesn’t want Kenton Dean to get the money instead of himself. And Ted is willing to pay exorbitantly to make sure it doesn’t. So James and Zeferrello are tasked with finding any reason to separate Helena and Kenton.

Twist: Yeah, Kenton Dean CAN summon and control the dead but it’s so much worse than that. He can summon and control the GOD of the dead. Assuming, of course, that all of this isn’t the god of the dead actually controlling Kenton Dean for its own purposes.

Which Became The Hidden and the Maiden. But instead of a climactic conflict between James, Zephyr, Kenton Dean, and Kherty-Aken decided by force, force of will, and clever use of all magic available inside the seat of Kenton Dean’s power, his theater, “Kinda John Edward but real & real evil” ended with a mildly tense chat between James and Zefferello versus Kherty Aken just kinda hanging out, tensely, next to an ambulance. James points out that Kenton Dean has reprogrammed Kherty Aken like a computer to just believe all this BS. Kherty Aken realizes, Oh Shi-! he’s right, and flys away. Next day, paper says Kenton Dean is dead. So the general idea is there but just not at all the same when you look close.

As an aside, this is by the way why most writing teachers dismiss ‘ideas’ as the least important element of story telling. One version of this ‘idea’ I stuff under a rug and pretend doesn’t exist. The other I sell in paperback for $10 a pop. If the fundamental idea hasn’t changed really, why the vast difference in price? Because of the execution. And if execution is more than infinitely greater in effect 0 -> 10 why bother putting that much effort into the idea when, even if you only go to 5 through execution, that will have more effect than any idea will. I am not 100% convinced by this line of reasoning but it’s not meritless either. A bad idea well written will just get more in the marketplace of ideas than a good idea poorly written. A bad idea badly written is doomed. A good idea well written may or may not do as well as the mediocrity. So, I disagree that it is of zero importance but I do think it is certainly not the most important element for 3/4’s of all story types. Ok, that’s another post, enough asides.

The real thing I’m actually thinking about is the Zefferello to Zephyr change. Zefferello was Zephyr’s original name. The author who created the original character said specifically her thoughts were that she had never had any character under any situation whose name started with Z. So she wanted a Z character and she plucked the rest out of thin air because. And because it didn’t matter, that was cool enough. So he was Zefferello for the first few years of life. No particular reason why. Never mind that nothing in any back round of anything anywhere would give Zefferello as a name.

It was only as I was moving from the first to the second draft of The Hidden and the Maiden that it was really bothering me about this Korean-American dude with the abusive Super Whitey Mega Rich father, the utterly absent and possibly dead Korean Trophy Wife mother, and the abusive DID having ghost but still white mother. Why would any of them give him that name?

Well, the father might do it just to torture his son throughout life. He’s that kind of asshole. As little as he is in it, I actually think of Zephyr’s father as the Antagonist for Knights of Day because he is just pure dagnasty evil because he likes it. He may not appear most on the page or wield the most power - partially because he’s just not my favorite kind of villain, at all, his side-kicks is way more my speed - but there’s no denying he does the most damage. BUT, the father is also very image conscious. Part of what he likes is doing terrible things while other people praise him for it. For making people suffer but having no one believe them because he is such a paragon of virtue. One of his side kicks actually got James to just start punching him toward the end because he kept talking about what a saint Zephyr’s father was and all the haters just didn’t understand what a wonderful person he was and how hard he worked when he never had to to improve the life of others. If I recall correctly James literally held a knife on the guy and pointing to Zephyr: ‘you had to fucking know what that motherfucker was doing to him! You evil lying sack of fucking shit!’ So… torture wasn’t going to work for a reason.

So I’m looking for any great people in history with the name Zefferello. Nope. Nada. Is it by some miracle a Korean name that Eun Ae Gwon might have given him? Nope. No dice. And slowly all eyes turn to JJ. JJ is nuts. There’s no getting around it. But I’m rarely happy with that as an explanation. Especially with JJ because most of what she does that SEEMS nuts, isn’t. The fundamental rule I made for JJ fairly early on is that she is ALWAYS up to something. She is playing every angle. She is working every leverage. She is a survivor in a way that most people will never be. She’s dead and she is still playing to win. So she will do things that appear unreasonable at point A in time in order to increase her odds of getting what she wants in point B in time.

And I’m looking at that name. That ello. That’s sounds latinate to me. And masculine. I already knew Zefferello’s real name at this point, and it had a Jr. at the end and I started wondering if maybe, just maybe, JJ gave Zefferello a different Jr. name. A name for the father that she wished Zefferello had. Instead of the one he did. He’s hers, and what better to claim a baby she would never hold than to rename him into a family that she wanted to exist but never did. That’s very JJ.

At which point I’m reviewing JJ’s history. It’s sparse-ish at that time. But I know when she got pregnant and I know more or less what happened to her from that point until she died. And there’s nothing in there to hint at a Zefferello Sr. But… there were already some hints about there maybe being a Zefferella. And of course that’s not a name either. But fiddle with the spelling and drop the “el” sound and you do get a Greek female name: Zephyra \

And that was the lightning bolt of inspiration and change. That JJ’s second and last love of her life was a fellow prostitute named Zephyra, and IF JJ could rewrite reality to be anything she wanted then her son would also be Zephyra’s - that they would be the family unit and the other would be the ghostly illusion. And with Zephyra as a real name, I also had a male equivalent: Zephyr. Sounds similar but much more plausible that he might somehow obtain it. Plus, with the idea of Zephyra, his name also becomes a key to unlocking tons of emotion and backstory.

And you’ll know it’s important the second that this repressed little guy walking around giving out the name of Zephyr Wayne, shamefully cringe-admits that his legal name is Peter Bailey Jr. That that exists at all says that there is a story to find down in there and that it isn’t a simple one.

So that’s one to rewrite a name based on the internal logic of a story. Zephyr’s name was researched and found but never picked out of a name directory. It was back-engineered to tell the story I wanted to tell and avoid the random story I didn’t. By following the logic that might lead to a name like his, I was able to find the one I thought was right for him.

And, since the original Cup Bearer was one of the winds, that also worked to my advantage… though it is generally considered the wrong wind. Oy. Which I’ll probably just end up deleting because Zephyr’s name is better for a story hook than anything I made with Thulebelore being the General of the Western Winds.

If you actually got here. Wow. Thank you. If you ever want to solicit writing advice, dropping a question in my ask prompts me better than whatever happens to occur randomly to my head. So, you know, that’s there.

#Knights of Day #Zephyr #The Hidden and the Maiden #Writing advice #writeblr #writeblogging #unsolicited advice

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science-lings · 5 years

Note

Crazy AU maybe? Tony is a King who keeps pissing off his court by not having an actual heir, just adopting multiple poor orphan kids and making them princes/princesses. The more the court complains, the more kids he accumulates

Okay so, first of all, this ended up a lot longer and a lot off prompt than I originally planned, second, it’s important to note that this is in my already established fantasy AU world. Honestly, I just wanted a reason to write more for it. I actually tried to write it in the Tumblr reply box thing but it kept on getting deleted. Those were the more on prompt drafts so I apologize for not making the prompt my complete priority. However, I think you’ll like what’s in store anyway.

The prompt was just so much already part of the original AU itself that I had to just continue with it. I hope you guys enjoy! the rest of the AU can be found HERE

Lord Anthony Stark had always been a strange but brilliant man. Even when he was just a squire he was too intelligent and inventive to be wasted as a knight. His father, Lord Howard Stark was a retired knight of the king. Given countless sacks of gold and his own section of the kingdom to rule over so that the lazy king wouldn’t have to do it himself.

Anthony grew up like a prince. A clever and envied boy that was much more than his parents ever saw him as. He was trained to fight, even if he wouldn’t be a knight. He made a friend of the son of a farmer, who would eventually become Anthony’s greatest ally.

Before he was old enough to be coronated, his parents were killed by men sent by the king. The king had grown tired of Lord Howard’s greed and lacking of loyalty and hoped that his only son would do better. He had never met the boy but if he was smart, he would stay out of the king's way.

So, Anthony Stark became a Lord and molded his little section of the kingdom into what he thought was best rather than what his father would’ve wanted. However, the king's eyes were always on the young lord, in the form of a large man named Sir Obadiah Stane. He too was a knight too old to fight, but he didn’t want land like his old friend, he wanted to bide his time to gain all he could from the golden goose that was the last Stark. He made himself the Lord's advisor with only the word that he worked with the boy's father.

When the boy became too much for the old knight, Sir Stane decided to get rid of him. He gave the Lords gold to a group of notorious bandits to attack the man while he was out traveling. Little did he know that the last Stark was much more than a beautiful prince.

Anthony Stark came back with not only his life but with an infant scarlet and golden dragon gripping onto his shoulder and several mystical eggs in his bag. Stark had cared for the baby dragon until it could help him out of his prison with its breath of fire.

Lord Stark imprisoned Sir Stane and everyone lived happily ever after.

The End

Lady Virginia Potts finished her story as she rocked her baby in her arms.

“You’re boring her my lady.” Her husband whispered from the doorway, the only light being a candle he was holding.

“She loves dreaming of dragons and hellfire my lord.” Virginia smiled as Lord Stark approached her.

“Just like her mother.” Anthony leaned down and their lips met for a brief sweet moment.

“Is everyone else settled? It would be a miracle to herd them all to rest.” Virginia said as Anthony took their child from her mother and set her in her crib, knowing that her godmother Margret would be but a room away.

“I handled it. It turns out that convincing squires who have been training all-day to have exotic pastries was not too difficult. I’m mostly sure that they’re at least preparing for bed now.” Anthony said as he took his wife's hand and walked with her in the castle halls.

“Are you going to be stationed outside of Peter’s room again, in case he has another nightmare?”

“I’m planning on being nearby, as you said, just in case.” He admitted.

“I admire your intentions but you need sleep too-” Lady Virginia was interrupted by a servant stumbling towards them. He had the kings crest of a gold fist surrounded in violet. Sir Rhodes and a female guard followed loosely behind.

“I apologize, my lord and lady, I’ve been sent by the king.” The young man stumbled. The Lord and Lady shared a look and looked at the king's servant, knowing that their lives were likely about to get more complicated.

-----------------------

In the morning, they all set off for the king’s castle. Their horses were clearly marked in the gold and scarlet cloth embroidered with dragons, signifying their adopted family brand. Only little Morgan was left at the castle, with dozens of maidservants at her side as well as all of the lord's dragons.

The eldest member of their odd family was sat straight on her horse, Margret’s graying hair still immaculate in the early dawn. Harley and Riri leaned heavily into their steeds and yawned at increasing intervals. Peter was more used to strange sleeping schedules so he seemed fine but he led the group with the knowledge that his magic could predict the worst before his words could warn them.

It took two nights of travel to get to the king's castle. Two long nights of storytelling and playing with magic so that they didn’t die of boredom. Two very long days and nights of slowly getting more and more sick of sitting on the back of their horses.

They were almost relieved when they got to the king's castle. Almost. The king was an asshole so they weren’t that excited.

The king's daughters were waiting outside of the castle in dark purple dresses trimmed in gold. Princess Gamora had long dark hair in gold ribbons and darker skin than what was common in the region. Her adopted sister Princess Nebula had no hair at all and odd blue tattoos on her pale skin. They both had stone-cold expressions and neither of them looked comfortable in extravagant dresses.

“Your highnesses,” The lord greeted with the mask of a charming smile.

“Lord Stark. It is a pleasure to meet you and your ward. The king is waiting.” Princess Gamora said. Anthony saw something more behind her eyes, he knew she was hiding something.

“I suppose we shouldn’t keep him waiting then.” Lord Stark suggested as he dismounted from his horse. He helped his wife off of her horse and watched as Harley tried to help Riri and almost fell to the ground. Margret rejected Peter’s offer of help and hopped off of her own horse with no trouble at all.

The king’s guards accompanied the group into the towering castle. Anthony noticed Gamora’s eyes wandering around nervously before snapping back in front of them. She walked by Lady Virginia and at one point discreetly slipped something into her palm. The lord didn’t make a scene and only placed the information at the back of his mind. He was about to introduce his whole family to the most dangerous person in all the kingdoms after all.

The throne room was a little dramatic, even through Anthony’s eyes. There was no lack of gold in intricate designs and decorations. Violet cloth and colorful jewels were placed everywhere they could fit. Images of the king completing his conquests decorated the walls like a proud pharaoh. A single glorious throne sat at the end of the room. In it, was the king, in his large armored glory.

King Thanos was larger than any normal man, many people thought him half giant. No one would dare say it out loud as there would be consequences for slander against the king. Scars adorned his face like he had gotten into an altercation with a lion. He had no hair but his head was covered by a gaudy crown with jewels every color of the rainbow.

“Lord Stark! I was beginning to lose hope that you were coming. I was looking forward to meeting your ward. You do have… quite the assortment.” Thanos said, his booming voice filling the room easily. His tone suggested polite friendliness but Anthony knew better than to trust the king.

“I could say the same about you my liege, it’s a pleasure to be invited back.” Lord Stark forced out. “However, I don’t think you invited me over just to meet my family…”

“You’re right. I invited you here to take your family. You’ve become a problem.” Doors slammed closed and the dozen guards and the princesses all pointed their weapons at the visitors. The Stark’s mostly stood unwavering. Anthony, Riri, and Harley all drew their swords in an instant while Lady Virginia held a small knife that none of them recognized. Margret pulled out a small handheld automatic crossbow wielding poison darts and paralyzing toxins. Peter stood weaponless in the center, knowing that revealing his magic would be a death sentence if they couldn’t beat the king’s forces. The king wasn’t one to throw away anything he could use, he would keep them alive if they gave him any sort of advantage. A man who could sooth a raging dragon was an advantage.

Lord Stark stood unafraid with a fiery look behind his eyes, full of rage at the sheer audacity of the king to threaten his family. Actually, he was afraid. He couldn’t stand his makeshift family being in danger. But he did know that they were a force to be reckoned with. Even without dragons.

There was a moment of tense silence. Those on the kings side waiting for orders and the Stark’s were not going to start the fight, even though the fight was inevitable. The king seemed to enjoy the fact that the Stark’s were completely surrounded, outnumbered, and moments away from permanent captivity.

“I let you get away with so much, I refuse to be any more lenient. You should be grateful, I’m keeping you alive, you’re still useful to me. Your children however… will only stay alive if you behave. I do not want to waste dungeon space on them…” the king said in that infuriatingly condescending way.

“We surrender. Just don’t hurt them.” Lady Virginia dropped her knife and made momentary eye contact with Princess Gamora before looking straight at the cruel king with the same steely expression as her husband.

Lord Anthony dropped his sword, hoping that he was making the right decision. He would do anything to keep his children safe. The Stark’s surrendered. Even Margret grumbled as she put down her handheld crossbow. She muttered something about being able to take them.

And just like that, the Stark’s were defeated. For now. It wouldn’t last very long.

_______

Peter sat in his cell with his eyes closed. He was trying something. It wasn’t working. The elders in his village would do this thing where they could remove their spirits from their bodies and contact the other clans of magic users in the land. But there were no more elders and no more village and Peter had no idea what he was doing. He had never done anything like this before and he didn’t know if he even could.

He wished he could talk to the dead. Talk to his parents or his aunt and uncle, the elders, just someone who could help him. He wasn’t that kind of magic user though. There were necromancers out there that could but Peter wasn’t born with that kind of magic. He didn’t have any help. That made everything a whole lot harder.

After what felt like the thousandth time of trying, he got a little frustrated. It’s not like he couldn’t get out of the cell, he totally could do that easily. But right outside his cell was way too many guards that he wasn’t sure he could beat with his current energy level. It turned out sleeping on the ground for a few days and trying to nap on a horse wasn’t the best way to get enough energy for a big fight.

He could barely see Lady Stark and Harley through the little windows in the side of his cell. Everyone else was too far away. He tried to think of a way to get them out of there, but the slight sluggishness of his mind made it almost painful to try. He was tired of putting all of his energy somewhere that bore no fruit.

Peter slumped down against the rough stone wall in exhaustion and found himself dozing off. His head hurt and he was only alive because the king thought it would motivate Lord Stark to do something for him. He wished he had stayed back at their own palace with Morgan. Then he could at least bring the dragons to the rescue. He had only just barely gotten them to trust him and they were still weary of the servants and anyone that wasn’t a Stark.

He fell into a momentary sleep against the wall until a loud noise woke him up. This loud noise ended up being a guard yelling for him to wake up. He scrambled to his feet before actually being able to perceive the situation.

The princess stood outside of the bars that kept him in. Instead of a dress, she wore dark leather and had her long dark hair down in perfect waves. She looked just as cold as before as she spoke.

“The king has asked for you Peter. I’m here to escort you to him.” Gamora said calmly. “If you try anything, I have been ordered to kill you.”

“I understand,” Peter gulped nervously. The door to his cell opened and a guard yanked him out.

“Are you sure you want to take him alone Princess?” The guard asked.

“I can handle a child. Do you doubt me?”

“Of course not your highness.”

“Good. I will take him to my father now. I would keep my mouth shut if I were you.” The princess hissed and grabbed Peter’s arm. As she led him away, he looked back to see his everyone except Lady Virginia looking alarmed. Lord Stark was grasping the bars of his cell like he was willing the metal to bend for him. Everyone else looked like they were trying, and failing, to hide their worry. Peter smiled a little in an attempt to ease their worry but he was sure that they were right to fear for his safety. The king was known for his hatred of magic. If they knew he had magic than he was likely headed to his death. Fun.

Princess Gamora led Peter through the endless halls of the castle, but not towards the throne room. The princess avoided the guards to a point of pressing him against the wall and using her body to casually hide his when they went by. This was when he realized that she may actually be helping him.

She snuck him up the tallest steeple of the castle and led him to a dusty room that she unlocked with a rusty strange key. Peter was shocked when he recognized what the room contained. There were crystal balls and magical artifacts thought to be lost in the destruction of the king. Weapons that could only be used by people with magic in their veins and even a full alchemy setup. He had never seen one so complete. Even Uncle Ben only had a partial set.

“Why are you helping me?” Peter turned to the princess.

“I want the king dead. I want to live in a way that I do not have to fear for my sister’s life and I am sick of seeing the destruction he brings. I want to be free.”

“Then I am glad to be of service. I’ll do my best to repay my debt to you.” Peter smiled as he saw a small relic. He recognized it immediately. It was an orb of contact. It was used to contact the sorcerer supreme and the leaders of each tribe of hidden magicians. Needless to say, he grabbed it immediately.

The room around him disappeared and he felt completely weightless. A well-lit table appeared in front of him and each seat had a symbol that mirrored the tribe whose leader sat there. Peter stayed at the head of the table. At the other end, he appeared. The sorcerer supreme. A tall angular man with a black goatee and streaks of white in his hair. He wore a large scarlet cloak and an eye amulet around his neck.

One by one, they began to appear. The strongest magic users that Peter had only heard about. This was when he started to get nervous. Maybe this was not as urgent… fuck it, he was in the kings castle, the king who enjoyed commiting mass genocide on people with magic and as far as he knew, was the last survivor of his magic tribe. He needed some help from these people.

The famed Scarlet Witch sat in the seat representing the tribe Mutae, A woman wearing purple robes and massive bright red hair sat in the seat representing the tribe of the Inhumans, An asian woman with scars all over her face and simple clothes sat in the seat for the tribe of the Kree, Captain Marvel, not a leader but a powerful magic user sat in one of the seats, Freya of the Asguardian tribe, and a dozen more sorcerers that Peter couldn’t even name.

Every seat was taken except for his tribes. Conforming to him that he was the last one left. He looked up at the most powerful people in the world and straightened his back.

“I am Peter Stark. The last survivor of the Tribe Arachne, and I need a little help.”

_________

Gamora shut the door to the witch's quarters. It wouldn’t be long until her father found out what she did. Someone would notice. She just hoped that she could give the kid enough time. She didn’t know what he was doing but she knew that it was time for a new king. She kept her palm on her sword’s hilt and casually strolled down the spiral staircase.

On the way, she ran into her sister. Nebula looked at her sister expectantly.

“Do you have the kid?”

“Does it look like I have the kid?”

“You know what I mean.” Nebula hissed. “The Black Order noticed that he’s gone. I think they’re onto us.”

“I’ll get them off our tail, just make sure they don’t get to the kid.” Gamora ordered, receiving a quick nod from her sister.

Nebula ran up to where the boy was and found him floating in the air and looking up at the ceiling with his eyes glowing gold. He was also holding a strange colorful glass sphere that had a strange white glow to it. She had seen the object before but it had never glowed. Moments later, the kid gently landed on the ground and his eyes faded a little. Now only his iris’ glowed. He smiled at her in that kind of optimistic way that somehow lightly eased the sense of dread she had ever since they came up with the plan.

“What do you have?” She asked.

“I have help.” Peter held out the hand that didn’t have the orb. In it was a glowing orange stone. Peter looked around the room before picking up a golden jeweled staff, He put the gem into the end of the staff and it started to glow with the same energy.

“What is it going to do?”

“It’s going to send the king somewhere where we will never have to worry about him ever again. Can you help me get to him?”

“Yes. Stay behind me, don’t do anything stupid.” She ordered. Peter just shrugged. It took a little bit of waiting before he could actually do something, but now that he could, he was nervously ecstatic.

While he was talking to the sorcerer supreme, he asked what it would mean for the kingdom if he were to reveal his magic and if his pseudo father took the throne. The man had just smiled at him and said that with the dragon king on the throne, they would be free. He said that he had seen what would happen to the kingdom with the Stark’s on the throne and reassured him that everything would be okay.

All he had to do was defeat King Thanos.

Piece of cake…

_________

After Peter was taken away, Lord Stark felt sick to his stomach. What were they going to do to him? Did they know he had magic? Is he going to come back? Anthony was not a stranger to overthinking but this was a little excessive. He may have been spiraling.

When Princess Gamora came back down without his kid, he only got more worried. He obviously wasn’t the only one by the sound of Harley and Riri’s frantic whispering. It was Margret who spoke first though. It was actually more of a demand.

“Where is Peter! Where did you take my grandson!” Gamora looked at her calmly with a tiny hint of a smile behind her eyes.

“Leave us! I have some words from the king for the Starks.” The heavily armed guards looked at each other before bowing to their princess and leaving the room.

“Peter is safe, I’m getting you out.” She said when the king's guards were out of earshot. She took out a ring of keys and started to unlock Lord Stark’s cell.

“Why are you helping us?” Margret asked.

“Because… the king… stole me from my family and killed my parents in front of me. I never thought I would meet someone as powerful as him. And then I heard about the son of a knight that rose from the fire of dragons. And the rumor came to light that he made a horse grow wings and leave an entire camp of bandits dead on the ground.” Gamora started to unlock the other cells.

“So you want us to kill the king?” Harley questioned as he was released.

“No, I want him to.” Gamora turned to Anthony.

_________

Thanos was in the throne room waiting for them. No visible guards and no weapons even though he clearly knew they were coming. Naturally, Lord Stark was pretty cautious. The king must have something up his sleeve. He would never just stay out in the open like that unless he genuinely didn’t know he was coming. Peter thought that was unlikely.

The king was incredibly intelligent but as proud as the king of everything could be. The king had conquered everything. He had conquered everyone. Everyone except the Starks. No one could conquer the clan of dragons. At least not with Anthony as the head.

The king was proud. He believed he knew what was best for everyone and was the ultimate authority. He believed himself to be a god. Everyone else was under him, either for him to crush or to force into compliance. He feared magic because there was a chance that people who had it could become more powerful than him.

The king had the largest army of magic hating barbarians in the history of the kingdoms that forced those with magic to completely go into hiding. The initial massacre was massive and successfully make every magician fear the king. Even the Sorcerer Supreme disappeared. They got used to living in the shadows and never being safe. The genocide of Peter’s tribe was only another reminder that they were never safe from the king.

After all of that, Peter stood in the throne room with only the king's youngest daughter behind him and a new powerful weapon that Peter barely knew the extent of. He didn’t know if Gamora was coming back or if Thanos’ personal guards were on their way.

It didn’t matter. Peter had so much rage pumping through his veins just seeing the king that it made his fear slip to the back of his mind. It took a moment to realize that it wasn’t all his rage. It was the rage from the stone. The Sorcerer Supreme called it the ‘Soul Stone’ so Peter felt that the rage came from the souls of the magic users that Thanos had killed without mercy. He had never felt such fire in his soul. It was like the mind-numbing fear he felt when he watched all he had ever known burn to the ground was replaced with pure anger.

Peter was never a destructive person but at that moment, looking into the king's soulless eyes, all he wanted to do was burn the castle to the ground and hope Thanos was burnt to a crisp in the process. His body felt too small for the unwavering rage inside of him.

“Welcome back child, I was wondering who would be first to escape. You Stark’s, are quite… stubborn.”

“I think you messed with the wrong people. My people.” Peter growled. “And I think, it’s time for a change. A change in power.”

Peter’s eyes glowed with the fury of every soul the king had destroyed. Every witch he had burned, every person defeated in battle, every civilian of every village he had set ablaze. Peter felt all of them. They were all with him in the little glowing stone. There was a lot of power in not being alone. There was a lot of power in so much pain. Peter was born from pain as all the Stark’s were.

Golden ribbons of light sprouted from Peter’s skin. The energy swirled in the air and created an image around him. Lines of warm yellow power outlined a massive reptilian head in front of his own. Small curled horns grew from the forehead of the light creature and the rest of its body emerged from the base of its skull. Around Peter was the body of an adolescent dragon made out of magic. In a flash of light, the dragon gained scarlet and blue flesh and its golden eyes faded to reveal Peter’s warm brown ones.

Dragon Peter roared and for a slim moment, he saw fear in the king's eyes.

_______________

Once everyone got their weapons back, Lord Stark and Princess Gamora led the group up the stairs, heading towards the tower, where she last left Peter. Servants and maids hid behind doors and pressed themselves against the wall. But they weren’t afraid, they didn’t intervene. They didn’t tell any guards and only sent curious glances their way.

Everything was tense but calm until there was the muffled sound of a screaming roar that Tony knew better than any person in the kingdoms. It was the roar of a dragon. He had no idea how a dragon got there and the slight shake of the grounds made his heart jump.

“The boy-” Princess Nebula sprinted towards the group. “He went to confront Thanos.”

“By himself?” Harley exclaimed.

“That’s not exactly out of character for him,” Riri muttered.

“A dragon is a little bit dramatic don’t you think?” Lady Virginia suggested.

“He’s been hanging around us, what did you expect?” Anthony shrugged as they walked quickly to the large doorway leading to the throne room, which was more of a titanic hall than a room. It was large enough to hold a dragon pretty comfortably anyway.

Gamora opened the door quickly to the sight of the back of a dragon the colors of Peter’s favorite outfit. Red and deep blue with a little bit of gold. The dragon whipped its head towards them and Lord Anthony got a glimpse of its eyes. They were brown and human. No dragon had brown eyes. No dragon had slitted pupils. This wasn’t just a dragon, it was Peter.

“Kid?” The lord muttered as the dragon nodded. Dragon Peter then turned back to Thanos and roared again. The king himself had gotten a hold of a massive stone-crushing double-bladed sword and he held it in front of his stupid bald head as some sort of sheild from Peter’s burst of white-hot flames.

________

King Anthony Stark was not just a great man, but a great king. The kingdom sighed in relief when the previous king was confirmed dead and his daughters released from their torment. The specifications of which the tyrant king was defeated were only known to those who had laid eyes on the event.

Followers of Thanos crept into the darkness and were sure to return but for the moment, the Starks were alive and at the center of the kingdom. The new royalty were mostly accepted among the people. The new king didn’t threaten them harshly if they questioned his questionable law. The new king had several advisors and was planning to have a group of qualified individuals at his side to help protect his kingdom.

Witch hunters went out of business in a flash as the most aggressive magic hater was out of the picture. The new king spent a mountain of his fortune on keeping as many magic users safe as he could and banned hate crimes towards them as a whole.

The deep violet and the golden fist that decorated the castle was replaced with rich scarlet and images of dragons. The fear that was gripping everyone under the king’s rule had eased and it was like the sun had risen for the first time in decades after everyone had gotten used to the constant darkness.

Of course, just because the king was dethroned didn’t mean that all the evil was defeated. The black order had vanished and there were still plenty of allies of the old king that were hiding across the ends of the land. They would be back, the new king was sure of it, but they would bide their time. The Starks were powerful enough together that approching them now would be suicide. They defeated the single most powerful man in the land without the dragons they were known for.

For now however, they were safe. Gamora had packed all of her things and was determined to find an adventure. She said goodbye to her sister before setting off on the dangerous roads towards the lands of Asgard.

Nebula had nowhere to go and she wasn’t planning on following her sister wherever she was heading. King Stark was happy to let her stay until she decided on what she wanted. Unlike with Thanos, she had a choice. It meant more to her than the man who gave it to her would ever understand.

Anthony didn’t expect to become the king when he left his castle, in fact, the idea hadn’t even crossed his mind until well after Thanos was defeated. He only wanted his family to be safe. Becoming king was not exactly part of his plan but with neither of the princesses wanting the throne and Lord Stark being part of the previous king’s assassination, was the obvious choice for the role.

Of course, the Lord accepted, if not for the fact that anyone would be a better ruler than Thanos, but because he was wise enough not to rule alone. Anthony was aware that he would never know what was best for everyone. There were things that he didn’t understand. Things that he would never fully understand. Because of that, he had the idea of making a team, a ‘knights of the round table’ kind of team. He wanted to get the best of everyone and they would help him protect his kingdom.

King Anthony Stark sent out the wax-sealed invitation letters only a day after being crowned King by Princess Nebula herself. No one else was qualified and it implied a peaceful transition of power even though Thanos wasn’t exactly dethroned peacefully.

And so, the reign of the titan king was ended and the dragon kings began. As long as the dragon king sat upon the throne, there would be light.

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sleepingwithinkink2-0 · 4 years

Text

The lost astronaut and the Hummingbird last log:

I was gonna permanently delete this account,

Bury it,

With all my other worldly treasures,

And trinkets ,

To be forgotten,

As the sands of time,

Kept adding grains..

But I decided after days of staring at my ceiling,

With glazed eyes

to just delete it off my phone,

To cut my fingers off at the tips,

To prevent me from mummifying the idea,

That I had a chance..

These words ,

I have no right to destroy,

To hold them under water for mutiny,

Because

They won't exist without you..

Despute the pain each brought forth,

There is beauty hidden beneath the fibers,

Codes and clues,

Only we could decipher.

Everyone who stumbled across them,

Admired them for their own selfish reasons,

Mine,

darlin was because they brought me closer to you..

What kept bringing you back?

I was gonna write you one last poem,

One last serenade,

To express myself,

To expose myself

But

Decide to let it rot

and

fester in my draft box with all the other half unfinished poems,

Things I couldn't say,

Didn't know how to say..

I realize that if you combine everything,

I've ever written

posted

They

Already tell

our story,

How I feel.

Myabe one rainy day,

You will find the courage, to start from the first post,

Reading,

analyzing,

quotes and pictures.

Tear me apart,

But this time don't be afraid to hurt me,

I want you to understand,

That

You will always have a part of me no one has,

The part most people forgotten.

You will always have the first pick of the candy

The first person I want to tell my adventures to.

I remember when I caught my first fish,

You were the first person I wanted to tell.

There's so much to tell you,

You only know the outcome,

Of most actions,

not what set them into motion,

What's hidden behind the curtain,

Maybe one day I ll tell you everything,

But for now with the time I have left,

Let me explain ,

why,

it was hard to let go of the idea,

we could be more then the sum of these words,

Memories..

I can taste them on the tip of my tongue as if they were created yesterday,

I remember,

Them as vivid as the stars above me ..

Behind the laundromat,

Legs dangling off the bridge.

Tiny Christmas trees,

In new shirts,

losing your shit when I asked you to help me button my cuffs.

Meeting your pawless duck,

For the first time.

You were so cute..

Thrift store shopping,

little kid's jacket,

We both thought was adorable,

you bought it.

With a hint of sadness in your eyes,

But darling,

miracles happen every day.

The time you texted me in the middle of the night,

To met at our spot,

How you fall asleep in the back of your Jeep,

Your hair on my arm,

Left me paralyzed..

And

We met again at the same spot,

Different day

When you went shopping with your mom for a car,

You told me she stressed you out,

And being around me helped,

It was the same day,

I kidnap you to go out to eat with my sister and her husband,

How you were laughing so hard you were crying.

I remember these moments,

As nothing else mattered..

I remember

The morning,

On the couch,

You were afraid to hurt me,

But I wanted you to ripe me part,

To taste your flesh between my teeth.

I remember

When I got my car stuck in the snow bank at the gate house,

How embarrassed I was .

Valentine's day

You were frustrated,

Trying to paint the image on the poster,

The stool breaking the same way it did,

When I broke the other stool,

Days before.

When you slept over for the first time,

Wrapping my arms around you ,

Falling asleep,

But I got scared that if I kept holding you I won't be able to let you go,

stoping myself.

The wedding,

The gazebo,

Your tattoo,

I have dreams of the story you softly told

Stealing books off tables,

Each taking one home.

( I still have mine cupcake wars)

Hurricane road,

Stumbling upon a book case

(It's not there any more )

Four wheeling,

In your element..

How you caught me,

When I lost myself in your presence.

Caked in dirt and mud,

You still was the prettiest.

Laying on my carpet,

Reading some silly sentences underneath my TV stand.

You tolde you could have layed there for hours, beside me..

Painting on my wall,

one in the morning..

Doug's birthday,

In the shed.

Piano,

Your long slender fingers glided over the mouth of the piano,

Lost in the melody..

There's so many memories ,

So much silence in between

And

Yet I remember them as vivid as the stars above me..

They haunt me wide awake

And

Yet I can't help but smile,

Knowing time spent with you,

Was worth every second .

I promise I never meant to fall for you,

I was always scared of heights

Know that I didn't need you to fill a void,

Nor was it ever what you could do for me,

Or about money,

I simply enjoyed your company,

There was someonthing you told me once,

That when you were little,

You asked your mom what was the point of going to school.

It was that simple question,

That give yourself away..

There's so much I want to tell you,

That one poem can't capture it all,

Spilling over the edge ,

Like blood seeping through clutch fists.

By the time you read this I will have left,

This house of ink and paper,

But I know more then ever ,

That our lives are forever ilinked,

You know where to find me.

08.31.20

Forgive me.

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gomustanggirl16 · 5 years

Note

What's your favorite scene that you've written for With Love From The Hastings

I have no idea when you sent this or why I haven’t answered before, but so far my favorite is a scene is a tie between two I actually never used. And have been waiting and trying to integrate for over a year now, but unfortunately tbey just never fit. The first was supposed to take place a little bit after the first hospital visit and I ultimately decided not to use it because I took the chapter in a different route and the second takes place in Chapter 13 right before Sharon shows up. I didn’t end up using it because it was an early draft that took place in a happier setting and was before I decided to have Nat find out Steve was reporting back to Fury on her. I also thought I lost them due to the Great Deletion of 2018, but I didn’t! So that being said here they are:

“HeyNat?” Steve said getting Natasha’s attention.

“Yeah?”Natasha looked up giving him her attention.

“CanI ask you something?” Natasha smirked.

“Technicallyyou already have. Twice.” Steve rolled his eyes and she kicked his leg with herfoot playfully. “What is it?”

Stevehesitated a moment trying to find the right words, like he wasn’t sure heshould be asking what he was about to ask.

“Yousaid before the start of all this, before we agreed to take it on that younever really planned on having kids. Why? I mean I think I know why anyone inthis business wouldn’t want to, but still.”

Thatcaught her off guard. Why wasn’t she interested in having kids of her own? Wellbesides having that option taken from her? Her entire life is reason enough.

“I’msorry, I shouldn’t have asked, it’s just-and no I’m not being stereotypical,but the girls really take to you and I don’t know maybe I’m just trying tofigure it out for myself to.”

Natashasighed setting aside her tablet.

“Well,besides the job? I’ve got a ledger full of red and a long line of people who’dlove nothing more than to watch me suffer. It just seems selfish and cruel toput a child in their line of sight like that all because they came from me.Besides, I wouldn’t even know what to do with myself.” Simple, neat, andstraight to the point. Steve nodded.

“Yeah,you got a point there, but you seem to be finding plenty to do.” Natasha smiledshaking her head.

“Becauseit’s a mission directive. It’s an order. To actually want this on my own? Noone giving orders, creating this life myself?” She shook her head. “It’s awhole lot different.”

“Youknow for someone who calls themselves a spy, you talk a lot like a soldier.”

“GuessI’m a bit of both.” Natasha returned, “My turn, why don’t you ever go out onthose dates? I mean I know you had someone back then, but not even one just totry? So, what if it doesn’t turn out to be more at least you put yourself outthere and maybe gained a friend.”

Stevesighed taking a sip of his beer.

“Yes,that’s all true, but the thing you gotta understand Nat, is that for me? Iremember hitting the ice, I remember losing consciousness and it was just likeI blinked and suddenly I’m waking up at SHIELD. Two, maybe three minutes tops,was what it felt like for me. Not seventy years. It felt like I closed my eyes,I’m not fully asleep, but almost and what was meant to be a short half hour napturns into twelve hours. Some days I still have trouble comprehending it all.Afraid that I’ll wake up back there and learn this was the dream. Trust me,I’ve thought about it, but I feel like I should have it more together before tryingto start something like that.”

“That’sfair, I guess,” Natasha never realized how jarring waking up really must havebeen for him. How haunting it must be. It’s an honest to god miracle he’s asstable as he is.

“Howabout you?” Natasha raised an eyebrow.

“Whatabout me?” Natasha countered.

“Idon’t think I’ve ever heard about you going out on a date once. For someonewho’s constantly trying to set me up, you seem to be lacking in that areayourself. Ow!” Steve laughed as she punched him the shoulder.

“Youknow it’s rude to ask a lady about her love life.”

“Iknow, but I was referring to you-hey!” Steve blocked her next punch that was alittle off thanks to her laughter.

“You’resuch an ass!”

“Stilldoesn’t answer my question.” Natasha groaned sitting back again.

“Wellif you must know, I don’t really do the whole dating thing. When your codenames the Black Widow it tends to scare people off. I’ve had a few one nightstands here and there in the past, but it was usually a quickie in a clubbathroom. Goes along with my earlier statement.”

Shecould tell she’d caught him off guard with her honesty, but it was true. Whenyou’ve spent your entire life seducing people into bed only to off them afterthey’ve given you what you want, having a real relationship just doesn’t feelright.

“Holdup! Are you telling me you’ve never in your life been out on a real date?”Natasha frowned.

“Really?Out of everything I just told you that’s what you get stuck on?” He shrugged,and she rolled her eyes. “Of course, I’ve been out on a date! More times thanI’d like to admit.”

“Thosewere all for a mission. You just said you don’t date.” Natasha’s mask falteredas she realized her slip up. Steve seemed to realize it too.

“Natasha…whenwas the last time you actually kissed someone? As you not the Widow, or for SHIELD.” Steve was challenging her, shecould see it.

Natashashifted in her seat trying to come up with something, anything. Well the last guy she kissed as herself was also the lastguy she fucked, which if she recalls was Clint’s farmhand Paul at Lila’schristening three-oh god.

“Okayso it’s been a little while.” Natasha said into her drink and Steve put hishand up to his ear.

“I’msorry I didn’t catch that.” Natasha mumbled into her drink again before Stevepulled it away and she huffed.

“Fine!Three years happy.” Steve’s eyes went wide, and she nearly smacked him again.

“Andyou’re the one questioning me about the last time I kissed someone?” She glareddaggers at him.

“Isuggest you sleep with one eye open tonight Rogers. You might wake up with someundesired damage done.”

“Oh,come on Nat…seriously though, when’s the last date? You don’t really strike meas an on the first date every time person.”

Natashatried to recall if she’d ever actually dated, but she couldn’t. She was raisedto be a weapon to make a life for herself.

“Ihaven’t.” Natasha answered timidly making Steve’s brow furrow in confusion.

“Youhaven’t what?”

“Haven’tbeen on a date.” Natasha huffed.

“Ever?”

“Never.”Natasha said, lips in a taught line and Steve’s expression fell. Natasha sighedrunning a hand through her hair.

“Alright,come on let’s have it. I’m sure you’ve got plenty to say.” Steve shook hishead.

“So,your first date was with a mark?”

Natashanodded.

“Firstkiss?”

Anothernod.

“First…”He couldn’t finish that one, but she nodded knowing what he was asking, unableto hold his gaze any longer.

Momentspassed as he watched her, and she felt like she was in front of a firing squad.No one, not even Clint had asked her about that, well besides the SHIELD shrinkshe’d been forced to see, but everyone else just didn’t think about it ordidn’t ask. She doesn’t remember pulling her legs up to hug herself, but shealmost felt like she couldn’t breathe.

“How…”

“Twelve,maybe thirteen.” Natasha responded in a whisper.

“Iwas gonna ask how long you worked for them, but…” Steve let out a harsh breathand she looked at him out of the corner of her eye. He was mad, no he waspissed.

“Pleasesay something.” He opened and closed his mouth a few times and she began toworry what he would think of her now. Would he look down on her? Sure, hedidn’t before, but clearly, he never anticipated for her to have gotten such anearly start. Would he be disgusted by her?

“Whatthe hell did they do just kidnap you up off the street?” Natasha looked back upat him, nodded and watched as his face fell completely. She watched theemotions flash in his eyes, horror, disgust, anguish, fury…

“God…Nat-”

“Don’t.”Natasha said cutting him off before he had the chance to give her the usualsentiments. He nodded leaning his elbows on his knees. Neither spoke for quitesome time not knowing what to say. She was still shocked at how easy it was forher to tell him those things. Then again, it’s easiest to keep a secret when noone wants to know.

“Thankyou.” Natasha frowned looking over to Steve.

“Forwhat?”

“Fortrusting me.” That shouldn’t have been as much of a relief as it was, but stillit made her feel a little lighter and she gave him a hint of a smile.

“Youhave no idea…”

Lancaster was a little over an hour’s drive west of them, but the roads were open andtraffic minimal for a Saturday. All around them were tall oak and sycamoretrees with pine and maple mixed in painting a beautifully calm scenery. The airwas different, not stale like the city or stuffy, fresh and clean (besides theoccasional waft of manure). Everywhere you looked you could see for miles,large stretches of farm land and mountain ranges. Lexi would stretch pointingout the window at the many horse farms they passed excited by every single one.

She’d done some research last night looking at whatthey could do deciding to just spend the day. Steve was fine with it and whileyes, she could be mission focused, she loved just walking around the cities andstreets of the places she went when she could. You could tell a lot aboutpeople by the way they live. Either way she’d bought tickets for the StrasburgRail Road thinking maybe Lexi would like it and Steve though, she more or less wantedsomething to tease him about.

They arrived at the railroad and saw a few dozen otherfamilies walking around. She could feel Lexi bouncing in her car seat andlooked back to find her tugging at her seatbelt. They got out of the car andLexi looked around, jumping a bit at the sound of the trains whistle. Natashagrabbed Ellie from her seat and put her hat on before allowing Lexi to pull herforward because she absolutely knewwhere she was going or why.

“Open car?” Steve asked as they boarded the train andLexi hopped into the seat closest to the window. “You know that hats gonna flyright off, right?”

Natasha scowled.

“The hat stays on. It’s a steam train from themid-eighteen hundred, it’s barely moving faster than you drive.” Steve chuckledshaking his head as he sat down across from them.

At Natasha’s insistence, Lexi sat down as the trainstarted moving as she mimicked the sounds of the whistle laughing. Sure enough,Lexi stood up again and Natasha quickly grabbed her by the waist to keep herfrom falling out the window. Steve just raised an eyebrow and she knew he waswaiting for the damned hat to go flying.

“It’s not coming off.” Natasha repeated, and thebastard just smiled and returned to pointing at things for Ellie as she stoodup on his legs.

It was halfway through the trip that Lexi just sohappened to lean a little bit forward and the hat caught wind. Natasha snatchedit though quickly stuffing it next to her.

“Told you.” Steve smirked.

“It doesn’t count if you catch it.”

“It still came off her head.” Natasha glared sittingLexi on her lap to keep the girl from leaning more over the side.

“This was a good idea.”

Steve said later that day as they left the localfarmers market. It was hard to find good fruits and vegetables especiallyaround this time of year. Not to mention she found out that bargaining gets youeverywhere. A lot of the market consisting of Amish farmers who were more thanwilling to barter with you for a fair price.

So far, she’d found peaches, grapes, raspberries, mostgreens, eggplants she had plans to use tonight, gorgeous air loom tomatoes,along with ripe fresh ones she planned on canning with the peaches and pears,and a small basket of apples they’d gone and picked right off the treethemselves. Lexi had a lot of fun doing that as she sat on Steve’s shoulders toreach the best ones to put in the little basket the lady at the entrance handedher.

“Thank you.”

Steve chuckled.

“Your welcome, but I have to ask what on earth are youplanning on doing with all that?”

She considered her baskets and bags she’d brought tocarry everything.

“Canning, the late season finds and baby food for Ellie,maybe applesauce and were having Eggplant Parmesan for dinner.” Steve nodded inresponse and as they were about to leave, an older man stopped them.

“Might you guys like a photo before you go?”

“Yes.” Lexi answered for them and Steve looked up ather from where she still sat on his shoulders.

“Sure.” Natasha said pulling out her phone.

They stood against the backdrop of the farmers marketas she held Ellie and Steve slipped his arm around her waist. They all smiled,Lexi and Ellie’s cheeky.

“Such a beautiful family! One more, how ‘bout a kissfor your wife?” The man asked, and Natasha instinctively tilted her head up tomeet Steve’s lips.

He reacted almost instantly this time and her breath caught as he pulled her a littlecloser by the waist. It was slower this time and she was a little surprised tofind his lips moving with hers. It didn’t last long though as Natasha heardLexi giggle and parted from Steve’s lips as Lexi laughed for whatever reasontwo-year old’s laugh. She accepted her phone back from the man before theyheaded back to the car.

I have so many more, but these are the ones I remember the most XD I have fill in and all that, that I simply didn’t have time for or just didn’t fit in, and I hope to use some of it eventually, but most likely won’t. Anyways thanks for asking!

#the hastings #steve rogers #natasha romanoff #romanogers

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