#along with allowing you to build on to the b or c plot

[northernember]

oh the things i would give for a midnight sun style rq book, just like a condensed version of the series but from cal’s pov

both for the additional interactions between him and the other characters but also so i can spend the entire read highlighting all the times he thinks/mentions mare that man is down Bad okay

also im so desperate for more cal and maven interactions just P l e a s e i want to see them be brothers and love each other Before the Betrayal™️

[lunarw0rks]

By anychance can you write something along the lines of..

Simon x (fem) reader

Simon who goes out to the bar and leaves with the reader but he thinks she's a prostitute (b/c of the way the she was flirting with him)💀 and leave money on the table and she's sumwhats offended when she wakes up but takes the money anyways.. they hook up again.. he leaves money and y/n gets fed up and tells him she's not.. a relationship sumwhat building off of that

"Say cheese!" 🤵🏾‍♀️📸 👩

What You Paid For // Simon!FemReader

Summary: Simon had no shame indulging in escorts, especially ones who make an effort to flirt with him. Only problem? You're not an escort.

Warning(s): explicit content (18+), strong language, smut, oral sex (g.), p^rn w/ little plot, unsafe sex, fem!reader, no use of y/n

Word Count: 5.8k

A/N: this took forever omg ;') not proofread, so don't mind mistakes

꒦꒷ MAIN MASTERLIST ꒷꒦ GHOST MASTERLIST // have a request? // ao3 ver.

The bar itself is an establishment of contradictions.

The counter is rich mahogany that exudes an air of sophistication, yet its edges are rough and worn, and the crowd is anything but graceful. A collection of vintage chandeliers dangle from the ceiling, but their lighting casts a warm and attractive glow upon the room.

Behind the bar, a vast array of liquors is proudly displayed on ornate shelves, each bottle catching the glint of candlelight. You tap your fingers against the bar, pulling out your wallet. “Champagne?”

The bartender shakes his head, “we’re fresh out, Ma’am, apologies.”

Of course, they’d be out of it, given the sheer amount of people in here. You sigh, blurting out the first common drink you can think of, “I’ll do a Gin and Tonic, then.” You slide a bill across the bar, but there’s another hand—and he’s sliding a greater wad of cash, and quicker.

“Kentucky. Leave the bottle.” The gravel in his voice tells a thousand stories, as does the large shadow he’s casting on you.

You put your cashback in your pocketbook, examining the hand resting on the bar next to you. His forearm is heavily tattooed; skulls, flames, dog tags, the works. “Thanks for paying.” You fist the drink when it’s slid across the bar, finally laying your eyes on him.

His comes shortly after; a burly build, black bomber jacket, and a skull-printed balaclava. Definitely, an appearance you’ll remember with any amount of alcohol in your system.

“Mhm.” His thumb caresses the rim of his glass and his eyes travel you from top to bottom. The man clearly isn’t fond of words, or eye contact for more than ten seconds. It’s obvious he wants something to look at while he works on the bottle, that much is obvious. A man as anti-social as him wouldn’t be standing there if he didn’t want to be.

Your painted lips wrap around the skinny cocktail straw, your tastebuds hit with a mix of bubbles and burn. “You from around here?”

“Here and there.” He’s from Manchester, or somewhere near there, that’s all his vagueness tells you. Can you really be upset at him for eye-fucking you? He hasn’t gotten too close for comfort or gone anywhere near your drink, and those hands, they’re trouble. Though, with a frame like his, you would need to brace yourself before—

Now you’re just getting ahead of yourself. Focus.

You sip some more, a bigger one this time; the drink you ordered is now about half empty. “You don’t belong here, do you?” Perhaps it was the sting in your throat allowing the words to come out more freely.

With a grunt rather than a response, he chugs his shot. “What makes you say that, love?” You can see his cocked brow from under the fabric, and it makes your mind wander again. Going off his lashes, he’s probably got a head of blonde hair. The rest of the ogling? It’s interrupted by his impatient need for an answer.

“You just seem like a… rugged type.” Hot. He was hot.

Needing a distraction, you find the lime slice used as a garnish. If you were being honest, it was a cool-off. You needed to play it cool, try not to scare off the least skittish guy here; something only you could manage. The glug of him pouring another glass replaces his lack of engagement. He lifts the fabric of his mask again, tossing back another. Despite the lack of pacing himself, he’s remained untouched by the shots.

The man smacks his lips slightly, leaning just a bit closer. “Rugged, huh?” You could swear there was a smirk under that mask, and it was driving you insane. Instinctually, you need to find something to occupy your flushed silence with; the lime slice.

You raise it to your lips with a nod at his words, giving the fruit a bite. Your face scrunches from the acidity, though you’ve tried to play it off. Instead of deterring the tension between you two, it only drew attention towards your lips, how they’ve embraced the lime. Some of the citrus pools on your lip, a stray tear dripping down your chin, but you haven’t noticed.

If your goal was to be a tease, consider yourself victorious.

He could practically feel the heat gathering in his core. Though the teasing was unnecessary, it added to your services. They were services, right? The woman he paid for just happened to be an escort—a ravishing one at that.

There wasn’t any shame in indulging, he was never in town for more than a month at a time.

Your fingers find your chin, wiping the juice away with a swipe, not a clue in your mind how arousing that was. “What’s your name?” You have to yell a bit over the bass and lean in closer to his ear. The smell of him is more intoxicating than the array of bottles behind the bar combined.

“C’mon.” He jerks his head in the direction of the door, and he’s already disappeared into the crowd before you can reply. You uncross your legs and get to your feet, slamming the last of your drink before following his path to the door.

You’ve reached the entrance of the bar, still consumed by the volume of the music. Surely, his build would be easy to spot in a crowd. You’re on your toes, neck craned up to see through the crowd, but the other patron’s movements have you dazed and trapped.

Through the paned windows, you spot a shadow cast on the pavement, a still one. Either it’s the nameless man or your flirting sent him running for the hills.

You do your best to shove through the crowd, finally able to breathe when the icy air stings your cheeks. Your panting and searching were cut short by your back hitting a cement wall, an unusually gentle hand placed on your waist to keep you steady.

That scent is suffocating again; mint, tobacco, and whiskey. The nerves of being jerked into an alley settle when your senses answer all the questions.

His thumb rubs a circle against the fabric of your dress, giving some pressure when his voice is heard again. “Simon.” The question you asked in there, is now answered. “Now, answer my question. Either I’m being a knob, or you want something from me, hm?”

His eyes glow in the shadows of the alley and they don’t budge. Of course, you want this, you were only speechless.

You feel yourself nod, though the only sensations you can focus on are his scent and the tingles of attraction his fingertips are causing you.

“Right,” Simon scoffs, slightly pressing his chest closer to yours, “are you gonna take me where you’re stayin’, or are we doing this here?” His head looks left and right, a silent notice of the city oozing with chaotic nightlife.

Your breath is visible in front of you the longer you walk down the street. The hotel you’re staying in is within a minute's distance, and your neediness is thanking you for it. His shadow is close behind, but his head is looking straight ahead, both hands in his pockets.

Finally, the both of you reach the breezeway of the hotel. Simon’s breathing gets heavier, and so close you can feel the breeze against your ear. Large hands slither around your waist, fondling as the electronic beep of your suite door sounds.

The breeze of the heating system clashes with the goosebumps formed on your skin—and they aren’t because of the cold air. His legs nudge yours ahead, daring you to stumble if he didn’t have an arm wrapped around you. He’s so close; the way you had been fantasizing about in the bar from the moment his hand slid across the mahogany.

The bag you were holding finds the floor as quickly as the room door shuts.

Though his hands never leave your waist, he steps in front of you, stopping when the back of his legs hit the end of the bed. His weight settled against the mattress with a groan, then his hands found his belt, impatiently tugging at it.

“Don’t just stand there. Kneel.” His voice is a hungry muffle through the mask, but his amber eyes are all the convincing you needed. With both palms on his toned thighs, your shivering legs buckled until you were level with his bulge.

His fingers peeled back the waistband of his boxers after he shifted his jeans down. Simon wasn’t making an effort of getting entirely undressed, he rarely did. His erection sprung from his boxers, the tip of it dripping in arousal already. Seeing it was much more daunting than visualizing it; intimidating, even. But were you going to get up off the floor? Not a chance.

His fist clamped around his length, giving it a few strokes as he watched your lips intently as if picturing the inevitable lude act ahead of him. The image of the lime juice dribbling down your chin was egging his urges to a high.

You scooted up closer, his inner thighs pressing against your shoulders. Next, your fingers found the base of his length, replacing the strokes of his hands for him. Simon only stared hungrily, lifting the hem of his shirt so it was out of your way. Your lips parted slightly, mouth salivating, as aching and doused as your core. You flattened your tongue along the head, just enough for him to shift his hips ever so slightly. “Don’t be a tease.” His hands grasp around the edge of the mattress, leaning back to get a full view of your tongue teasing his cock.

He says it with such conviction—as if he isn’t the most well-endowed man you’ve gone down on. If you weren’t so blinded by lust, you just might have rolled your eyes at the comment, even come up with some alluring remark about his size. But you’ve occupied your mouth, sliding from his tip to base slowly and mimicking drinking from a straw.

“Fuck…” His curse comes out like a hiss, caged by his gritted teeth. Though it’s only been seconds of your mouth on him, he can’t resist his hands finding the back of your head, nudging forward each pass your warm mouth makes.

Now, the tip of your nose collides with his pelvic bone, a methodical gag with each thrust. Your cheeks hollowed around his thick length, despite the stretch it was to fit him in your mouth. You tease the underside of his cock with your tongue, tracing each vein and small curve with vigor—undoubtedly only multiplying his sensitivity. “You look even prettier like this, swallowing my cock.” Tears have pricked at the corner of your eyes, showing through your hooded stare up at him.

His head pushes increase in speed, and you can feel his tip bruising the back of your throat, causing heavier breaths through your nose. The last thing you’re going to do is tap out for air, not with the attractive sight in front of you. Your scalp burns from the press of his fingertips, but it’s an arousing pain. He’s remained in charge this whole time, but even he can’t conceal his need for release.

Simon’s grunts and groans have grown louder, his head is thrown back, and he’s bucking his hips upward into your mouth to meet his pushes. By now, the muscles in your jaw have given way, enough for you to withstand all the force of his jerks.

“Almost done, sweetheart.” He’s no longer teetering on the cliff of release—he’s there. The hand on the back of your head gives your hair a yank, keeping you in place as he uses his thrusts to finish himself off.

Your eyes flutter shut, hearing the feral moans paired with his hot seed spurting down your throat. “Swallow for me, that’s it.” He watches the muscles of your sore throat muscles constrict and unwind, with no sign of the semen oozing from your lips. Only your own saliva is, a string of it visible when you pull yourself away from his length.

Simon fingers his pocket, finding and pulling out a condom. “Think you can manage this for me?” He presses the jagged corner of the pouch to your wet lips. You sink your teeth into the foil edge, pulling your head back until it rips open. He slides the latex down on his length, stomach still rising and falling from the intensity of his finish.

Before leaning back on the bed, he clamps a hand around your upper arm, pulling you up with him. He shifts himself back to not hang off the edge, re-positioning the both of you with little effort. Then, he lifts up your dress enough to be faced with your soaked undergarments, followed by a slight ‘tsk’ under his breath. You’re eager by this point, now that your tender throat is a constant reminder of what he had been blessed with, and how profoundly you’re yearning for this man.

With some shifting of your legs, you roll the panties off and toss them aside. Once you’ve returned to your original position, hovering over his length as it rests against his stomach, he cocks his head. “You can’t be tired yet, haven’t even touched you.” It’s a mocking, downright patronizing scoff, but it’s bleeding with allure.

You peer down at his twitching length, wrapping your fingertips around the shaft until you’ve guided him in front of your entrance. Simon’s merely enjoying the show, the gears whirling in your head as you work out the mathematics of the act. His tip is being eased by your hands until he feels a small bit of warmth swallowing it, the familiar squelch of your slick core being eased onto his swollen cock. Your eyes flutter shut as you sink lower, feeling both the burn of the stretch and the alleviation of all the aching you felt for him.

His large hands find each of your hips, feeling your shaky hips eventually collapse fully onto his length, gandering a drawn-out groan from his lips. The only part of his face you can see, his eyes; they’ve rolled slightly—now a hooded stare of hunger.

You start to roll your hips, his length is as deep as possible in this position. Each hand resting on your waist rolls up your dress more until everything below your belly button is in his sight. “Knew you would take it all, pretty minx like you.” He mutters, his accent stronger when wasted with ardor.

For now, you’re easing yourself in circles on his length, relishing in the feeling of his tip kissing your cervix. Gently enough to yield no discomfort, but with enough force to kick off the waves of pleasure coursing through you. The burn in your thighs is the only discouraging part about this, only seconds in and your lower half feels weaker.

“Need some help?” He says smugly, an unhurried thrust upwards into you to eliminate your body’s burden of control. The sensation makes you quake, a hushed moan escaping you. It seemed when you were so focused on doing all the work, you hadn’t made a sound. But now, your delight was on full display, deserving to be a stuttering mess by the end of tonight.

His fingers tightened around the fabric of your dress, rutting his hips upwards with more intensity. Your hands switch between grasping the white sheets to palms on his chest, unable to keep upright without the support of a surface. He gives little time for adjustment, only increasing the bucking of his hips with each second. Eventually, your gasps have turned into overwhelmed whines, a fucked-out expression forming on your face.

The sound of skin meeting skin fills the hotel room, overpowered by the sounds of pleasure largely coming from your lips. Simon’s sounds have remained primal grunts and groans, profanities coming through gritted teeth when he bottoms out entirely.

You feel the familiar bubble of release in your abdomen, the clenching of your gummy walls each time he slides in and out of you. His name slips out a few times, gaining an amused, egotistical chuckle. You felt better around him than he could’ve imagined like he was the moment he saw the flesh of your thighs when you crossed your legs at the barstool; the dress fabric constricted them, begging to be wrapped around his waist and bouncing on his cock. And now, he has been granted his short-lived fantasy.

“Keep doin’ that, sweetheart.” Simon tossed his head back again, the sensitivity increasing when you pulsed around him. The warmth around his length, the constriction of your core, the moans of approval—he was doomed to climax again. You’ve gathered enough endurance to move your hips with him. They clash with each meeting thrust, a jolt of electricity every time he pumps so deep. Even if this is cut short by his finish, the feeling of him inside you now is enough.

Your back arches, seemingly stuck with tense muscles as your core endures his drilling. A small portion of your climax has hit you when he changes the angle, making you cry out even louder. He’s gotten shaky and sloppy, and his physical strength is the only thing allowing this amount of speed.

“Gonna—” He begins, rutting with even more aggression, so much you’ve been left at a standstill. His words are cut short by the shake of his thighs, then a slow decrease in his intensity. “Bloody fuck...” Simon’s eyes shut briefly as he finishes, the grip on your waist unyielding until it passes. Your chest heaves above him, his length still embedded deep while you both recover.

The once-arched posture turns into a tired slump, eyes half-lidded as a satisfied sneer spreads on your face. It wasn’t a dissatisfying hook-up, it was one for the books. You can feel his muscles relax beneath you, a twitching cock sliding out of you until it lays flaccid against his inner thigh. His fingers find the hem of your dress and push the fabric back down, and even he’s surprised it didn’t fray from his iron grip.

You swing your legs off him, crawling to the side of the bed occupied with your things. Simon didn’t use many words, and you were too exhausted for them anyways; your legs had turned to putty minutes ago.

You hear the snap of his waistband, then the shuffling of denim being pulled up his firm thighs. With your back turned to him, you don’t see him dig into his wallet and place some bills on the neighboring nightstand, folded in half neatly. Once the suite door shuts behind him, your drowsy eyes have fluttered to a tight close.

————— ୨୧ —————

Things were… complicated when you woke up and saw the money left on the nightstand, next to a scribbled phone number. Were you offended? Yes. Were you flattered? Also yes

Simon wasn’t the type of hookup you just brushed off, enjoy for the night, then forget it ever happened. Vivid flashbacks plagued you the entire morning, as did how you were still wearing last night's clothes, and your makeup had been ruined.

Whoever—whatever he was; he knew how to carry himself.

If you never saw him again, the night would be nothing but an erotic memory. But, it was worth a shot to reach out.

Your finger hovered over the call button for about a minute, hesitancy gnawing at you. He wouldn’t give this to you if he didn’t want you to reach out. Why him, the most mysterious bloke in the bar? Was it too early in the afternoon to contact him? Did you look too available?

Imagining the sensations all over again, that’s what swayed you. Worst case, he refuses the company or doesn’t pick up. 

Each ring had you shaking your head, losing both your dignity and confidence in the bold move.

… “Hello?”

The gravel in his voice told you he had very recently been sleeping off last night’s activities. You practically pinched yourself, cringing at the sound of your own voice when you replied.

“It’s me. I wasn’t sure if I should call right away but… I can’t stop thinking about last night.” You rolled your eyes at yourself, ashamed of the reflection you saw through the hotel mirror. This was ridiculous, right? Downright needy?

A nerve-racking chuckle can be heard as if he was feeding on your humiliation. His voice had a little hint of unsteady as if he wasn’t expecting a call.

“Gave you some sweet dreams, then, huh?” His dry attempt at flirting made your face sizzle with warmth.

His faux self-assurance rang for miles, though it was abundantly clear he couldn’t care less about how he presented himself. What you see, that’s what you get from him.

You liked what you saw. Very much.

“I was thinking,” you began, squeezing the puffy duvet with all your might, “we could get together. Tonight?” You bit down on your lip with so much force, you pricked it with your teeth.

There were a few seconds of silence on the other line, then the faint shuffle within sheets. You impatiently licked away the drop of metallic crimson, expecting the beep of a terminated call.

“Like the sound of that.” His smugness almost had you doing a lap around the hotel room.

You hadn’t the slightest clue what you were in for, but there was not a chance in hell you were bailing on tonight.

————— ୨୧ —————

Why did you feel the need to clean an already spotless hotel room? You didn’t have a clue either. The thought of sending a maid in there had you brainstorming senseless scenarios; the underpaid housekeeper knowing precisely what you were up to.

But you had no reason to feel ridiculous. He agreed, you two were consenting adults, what’s the harm?

Everything looked untouched, almost passable for a vacant room except for your bags. You dug through said luggage and found a more relaxed evening outfit.

He seemed like the punctual type. Looking at the digits on the digital clock, you counted down the minutes. The clock hit six o'clock—then a few additional minutes had you convinced he skipped town.

You almost tumbled off the futon when three faint taps sounded on the door.

6:03 PM

You spread the blinds with two fingers, seeing the familiar broad shoulder resting against the wall, the faint fog of his breath in the bitter evening air. Taking a look in the mirror, you examined your appearance once more—then made your way to the door. With a heavy sigh, the door creaked open, revealing him.

“Hey,” you greeted, stepping aside to let him step in. Any other greeting seemed too formal, yet the one you uttered seemed too relaxed.

You pressed a palm on the flesh of your hips, both hands at your sides after shutting the door. Seeing him so soon, it seemed ludicrous, but his aura was addictive. His boots shuffled against the carpet, footing inside with hands stuffed into his jacket pockets.

“Didn’t have to dress nice for me.” Simon sat on the futon, legs spread wide as he leaned against the backrest.

You settled on the bed adjacent to him, shaking your head to shake away the flushed feeling his rasp gave you. “I wanted to,” you replied, looking up from your lap, “do you want to watch something?” You wanted to smack a palm on your forehead. Watch something? Simon knows why you called him here, and you haven’t been exactly subtle.

“You can put something on. Can’t promise I’ll be watching the movie, though.” He said with the slightest glint of eroticism in his eyes. To cope with the urge to tear his clothes off right then and there, you slid the channel list off the end table, entering the most promising one. It was a dated slasher film, interesting enough to keep your attention. You fiddled with the pamphlet for a few seconds, before setting it back on the nightstand.

His stare hadn’t broken, earning a chuckle from you, “what is it?” You question, running a hand over the tucked bedding. Simon wanted you, right then. Why else had you called him? You wanted more business, it was so obvious to him.

“Never met anyone like you.” What he wanted to say was that he’s never met an escort like you. You were selling the whole quality time and date night act well. And he had fallen for it, spending the whole night yearning for another night with you, to be a few hundred dollars less by the end of the night.

You let out a small scoff, keeping your eyes glued to the TV. “I’m gonna take that as a compliment, Simon.” You were, purely because you pictured that cash he gave you. Had it truly been that good of an experience for him? Someone with more than enough practice in the bedroom?

“Take it however you want,” you heard him shuffle, and then his shadow cast on your frame.

You turned your head when you felt a finger tracing your chin, then running along your bottom lip. “As long as I can hear your voice.” His touch made you shiver slightly, sending a rush of head down your hammering chest. So much for warming up with a movie.

The urge to kiss him had never been stronger, but you didn’t dare reach for the fabric concealing his lips. You couldn’t blow this now, not after a day of picturing the second round with him. “You’re giving me those eyes again. You want something?” Your head nodded, though you were speechless from desire. Simon chuckled lowly, admiring your meek effort to answer him.

His hand tightened around your jaw, taking on the role of the commanding figure in the room. “What kind of prick would I be to keep you waiting, then?” His true nature was to give, it was only fair considering how good you were to him the previous night.

The unoccupied hand slid up your thigh until he reached the hem of your shirt, hiking up the fabric until he gave the back of your bra a tug, releasing the hooks until it slid off. His large hands fondled your breasts, running a gentle thumb over the nipple until you produced a soft gasp for him. When he grew impatient, which took little time, he pulled the shirt off your head until your top half was on full display to him.

Slowly but surely, the positions shifted until he was hovering over you on the bed, his knee between your legs. You rocked against it for friction, the pressure of his kneecap pressing on your clothed clit, now slightly swollen from arousal. “A little impatient aren’t we?” He cooed into your ear, the statement plain hypocritical. He couldn’t even sit through a minute of the film you put on before he was looking at you like a piece of meat on a platter.

He picked up the pace of his hands, indulging your impatience. Within seconds, you found yourself on your stomach, the bottoms you were wearing being pulled down with a harsh yank. He lifted each of your legs until you were rid of all your clothes entirely. Now, you were below him and at his mercy; the opposite of last night.

You raised your hips slightly upon feeling his bulge pressed against your ass, a painful tease considering how needy you were. He grasped one of your thighs, spreading them enough to trace his fingers along your core from behind. “Guess I was right.” He purrs into your ear, inserting a finger into your cunt. Simon slowly pumped his finger in and out, adding a second when enough slick pooled down to his knuckles.

His fingers were long enough to stimulate places only your hands could dream of; a foreign, but insatiable sensation to you. You arched your back and writhed feeling the preparation of his fingers, sliding down a hand of your own to circle your clit. But you needed more; he needed more, and he didn’t want you getting sloppy like last night.

Simon withdrew his fingers, snaking one arm around your midsection to keep you in place. “Keep still for me, love.” He murmured straight into your ear, the low octave giving you the chills. Behind you, he tugs at the waistband of his jeans and boxers simultaneously, exposing his stiff length. He could waste time teasing you, it would be so easy with you this desperate. But you didn’t finish last night, and he was aching to feel you come undone around his length.

With one arm still keeping your lower half in place, he guided his cock to your pulsing core, easing himself inside inch by inch. Your breathing hitched, despite this being the second time you felt him stretching you out. Simon eased deeper, until he bottomed out and could feel the bulge of himself through the hand on your stomach.

His thrusts were snappy and deep, his palm pressing on your stomach to enhance the pleasure you were feeling. A spark of pleasure ignited into a consuming wave, making you sputter and mewl at his expense. This was different than last night, not as focused on him, though he was enjoying this just as much. When he went home that night before bed, spending several minutes pumping his length, he was imagining pumping your tight, sticky walls; his fist didn’t compare, not in the slightest. This was too much. But he wouldn’t stop until you finished.

“You’re close aren’t you?” Simon rutted into you with force, moving the hand from your stomach to the base of your throat, pulling you up so your curved back was against his chest. His lips trailed along the back of your neck, peppering sloppy licks and kisses on your prickled flesh.

Your eyes widened slightly at the realization—he had lifted his mask, maybe even taken it off his head completely.

His saliva coated your neck in small spots, adding to the array of sensations, similar to a violent whiplash of pleasure. It was like the previous night, waves of pleasure with each of his slamming thrust into your needy core. Your gummy walls pulsed around him, drawing groans and rolls of his eyes, a slight nibble on your earlobe to keep his approaching climax contained.

Your words were an inconsolable quake by this point. “Fuck— Simon—” A hushed sniggle came through Simon’s agape lips, urging him to make one final move to push you over the edge. He slithered his hand from your throat until it found the nape of your neck, pushing your upper body forward so only your hips remained raised. The switch allowed him to hit an even deeper angle, his balls slapping against your rear with each deafening thrust.

Though his hands were firm when folding you, his words remained gentle and praising, as if he was enjoying them himself. “Gonna cum for me, hm?” He teased with a deep inhale, both hands now thrusting your hips backward onto his length—not easing up on his intensity.

Fire pooled in your lower abdomen, like a swirling inferno going to burst any second. Everything seemed to burn, with the exception of your core. Your muscles ache and contract, a thin layer of sweat formed on your skin, the indents of his fingertips seared doomed to be seared into your memory for days following.

All the building, tight churning; it shattered within seconds of his relentless pounding. You let out a choked sob of pleasure, squeezing your eyes shut as you writhed and twitched around his cock. The deepness of his thrusts, the speed of them, doomed you to the prolonged climax you were expecting.

“That’s it, sweetheart,” the firm hand on your nape releases once your high ceases, “so good for me.” It seemed the moment you hit your own breaking point, he lost all the stamina he had used to prevent his own. Only seconds later, his thrusts had turned sloppy and slow, easing in and out until he drained every last drop of his seed inside you.

What once was a heat from your high, it was now the warmth of his semen pooling inside of your core, seeping out the slower he went. Your hips remained raised, though your thighs burned and shook from the intensity of the activity. When Simon’s hands withdrew from your hips, you rolled onto your side as he removed his sensitive cock.

By the time you turned to face him, the balaclava had already been pulled down over his face again. If you weren’t so vividly focused on the sensations, you might’ve forgotten about how his lips felt. There was no way, not after he made you finish like that.

He tucked his length into his boxers, then pulled up his jeans again, but didn’t bother to button them up again. “How much do I owe you, love?” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet, peeling away apart his stacks of cash.

You were so caught up in the moment previously, you forgot to mention the elephant in the room. You weren’t an escort, just a woman who hit the hookup lottery. “You know I’m not a hooker, right?” You sat up in the bed, finding the spare quilt and wrapping it around your naked frame.

“Should I be offended?” You questioned again, filling his stunned silence. He was trying to conceal his shock, but his freeze said it all.

He folded his wallet again, tucking it away with a silent glare. Now, you were just plain apprehensive about his answer. At first, the money was flattering, that you were that good for him. But now? What if all he thought of you was a hussy he found in a pub?

When he noticed your crumbling humor about the situation, he scrambled to place a hand on your waist, “this is my bad. You were just— you were plain amazing, sweetheart. I thought you were an over-qualified escort, not some…”

Wow. That could’ve come out better.

The faltered confidence now turned into a grimace, a playful one. His scramble to correct himself, to ensure he didn’t hurt your feelings—it was charming. You couldn’t conceal your snicker as he leaned close, eyes swallowed with guilt.

“I’m not upset, Simon. Not anymore, at least.” You retorted, holding the hand that was on your waist.

Simon let out a sigh of relief, eyes studying you for any sign of doubt. His fingers caressed the fabric of the quilt, brows knitted together with half-seriousness.

You chuckled at his brooding exterior, his whole-hearted attempt at swaying you into being irate. “Was I worth the money?”

He nodded his head sluggishly, the fabric over his mouth shifting as he gave a smirk. “I don’t think any bloke can put a worthy price on that.”

[countlessofvoids]

Talking about/analyzing the warlords is pretty much meaningless since they're kind of a nothing characters but I'll do it anyways:

Firstly, I feel like three of them is too much. With Grimmel, that makes four antagonists in one movie. Of course it's not impossible to write all four well - but with other things the film focuses on such as The Hidden World and the fury romance - even with enough screentime, one of them is bound to be underdeveloped.

I've seen people say there's no reason for them to exist at all. I disagree, I think removing them is arguably worse. They are Drago's allies, him being defeated puts a dent in their plans and makes Hiccup a threat in need of elimination. They have a reason to be there. Defeating Drago should have consequences; building all this up then having no sign of it in the next installment - while the villain is a hunter with zero connection to anything - doesn't make sense for the worldbuilding and would be a backwards progression.

Another thing is the personalities given to these characters. I do like how even though with their limited screentime and depth, we can see they all have their own, unique personality rather than everyone being the same angry brutes. But do said characteristics make sense for their role?

Chaghatai Khan is who I consider the best fit for his job. He's smartest of the three, calm and collected. Unlike Griselda, he doesn't let his frustrations with Grimmel get to him. He seems to know when someone's useful and when they need elimination. All the attributes you need for a succesfull leader are present.

Griselda is what you'd expect from this character archetype. Quick to anger, doesn't respect failure, harsh and a ruthless fighter. I don't think Griselda's dumb, but with how easily irritated she gets, she'd probably start few extra conflicts on her own if it wasn't for Chaghatai stopping her. I kinda wish there was more of her interactions with Grimmel, the tiny bit of their dynamic that we did get sparked some interest in me.

Ragnar makes the absolute least sense to me. He's shown to be cheerful, a bit of a coward and even childish. Not the personality I'd write for this character trope. You're telling me he raided villages, possibly enslaved both people and dragons, build an army and went on a succesfull conquest so barbaric it earned him rank of a warlord? An explanation for this could be him being in a nepo baby situation. But we can't really speculate on that, since there are no canon implications for it.

Now I don't wanna sound like a snob who thinks they know better than THW's writers, because I definetly don't. So feel free to ignore this part. Personaly to avoid having characters who are/should be important to the plot then end up with no development or arc whatsoever, I'd either:

A) Get rid of one or two warlords, making the cast less bloated - which means there are less characters to focus on, allowing more exploration for the remaining antagonists.

B) Have one of them takes on a role akin to Drago. Whoever that would be stays a warlord and becomes the driving force of conflict, meanwhile the other two are reduced to generals. Grimmel has a role similiar to Eret, as in he's under the warlord's command. This way it's clearer that he works for them and is not a warlord himself. You know, instead of like in the movie where he just walks in and bosses everyone around like he's been their leader all along. Seriously, why were the supposed brutal conquerers letting him treat them like insignificant soldiers while they're just standing around pouting?

C) Remove the trio entirely and leave only Grimmel. Either he's a warlord who disguised himself as a hunter, or he used to be a hunter who then became a warlord. Why am I insisting on not keeping him just as a hunter? Like I mentioned above; to me, going from armies and wars to simpler dragon hunters feels backwards.

So in conclusion: The Warlords should've been given a lot more importance to the plot because they have connections to the previous film's antagonist and I believe both them being empty characters and not existing at all is a waste. Think of the possibilities that could've been done with them, like making them pararells to Hiccup's friends/family.

(Feel free to correct me if I got any information wrong!)

[blackswallowtailbutterfly]

There seems to be a real anti-English class (or equivalent in other countries/languages where literature is discussed and analyzed) sentiment, which is coming out in the writing of a lot of people. I get that fanfic allows you to explore emotional connections between characters. It can be cathartic, it can be wish fulfillment. But it's coming out in original works. I'm not sure the state of English or equivalent class these days, but for those who are interested, here's a friendly reminder of things to keep in mind when writing. This may be a bit disjointed as I'm mostly going off memory. Last English class I took was first year college, 17 years ago.

1) PLOT A series of events does not a plot make. If you find yourself unable to find a way to end your story, it might be because there's no plot. Luckily there's a formula: Exposition and Conflict, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action, and Resolution. You begin with:

A. Exposition--This is where you set the scene. Who is your protagonist? Where does it take place? Who/what does your protagonist care about? You don't have to state it in an obvious way (though you can, depending). You can build with little clues. For example, if there's a reference to Bill Clinton as president, then we can probably guess that this is set in the '90s USA (just an example; you may not want to date your story that quickly for whatever reason and you can be a lot more subtle). Not every character needs to be introduced and it may be clunky to do so. They can come in at later points. But you do want a character your audience can follow. Someone to lead them into the...

B. Conflict--What is the problem the protagonist hopes to solve? This can be complex or simple. Probably the character will be dealing with other conflicts when the one that starts the plot comes into play. Does the conflict make these other issues worse, or does it completely overshadow them? What does the character stand to lose or gain? Is it a simple matter of: resolve this conflict and everything else will be fine (nothing wrong with that) or resolve this conflict but it's going to make some other things worse?

C. Rising Action--Your protagonist has a problem. What are they going to do about it? Who do they consult? Who they meet along the way? Are relationships tested? You can introduce your antagonist here if you haven't done so already. If you don't, you should at least be building clues to who/what it is (doesn't have to be a person; it can be an impending natural disaster, for example--understand that this can in its own way be a character). This doesn't have to go steadily up hill, by the way. It can, but the tension can go up and down. The point is you're building towards the...

D. Climax--This is the point of high interest, what it's all been heading towards, simple or complex, this is it. The final showdown. Your protagonist confronts their enemy, the volcano erupts, the bomb is discovered and dismantled, the creature is seen face to face, the protagonist and their love interest have a painful heart-to-heart. But it's not the end.

E. Falling Action--What happens immediately following the climax? How do the characters get out of the rubble? Do they have to now shoot their way out of a building of henchmen after defeating the villain? Do they have to defend themselves in court? How is it all resolved?

F. Resolution--This is where you tie up any remaining loose ends. Maybe the other issue the character was dealing with are still ongoing but the lessons they've learned throughout the story has given them new ways to deal with. Maybe the character has learned to appreciate their life as it is. Maybe it's simply a happily ever. Maybe the lesson is that it's all pointless. Regardless, this is where you end your story.

G. Plot twist!--If you have one. This could be introduced at the climax, during what seems to be the falling action, or even at the supposed resolution. You should have clues here. They may be more subtle than those meant to initially mislead the protagonist (and the audience), but they should still be there to catch by particularly perceptive readers or else on reread. Anyway, this can come in many many forms, but it is your true climax, and some falling action and resolution should take place afterward, even if shorter than the initial one (or longer, depending how you want to do it).

H. Subplots--If the protagonist has other conflicts in their life, they may occasionally distract them from the main plot depending on their severity. These too will have some form of rising action, climax, and resolution, but they will be shorter and simpler, even if the resolution is "I will have to deal with the aftermath of this at some point" that may not be in the main story itself. Sometimes a subplot of one story can become the main plot of another. Something to think about for a series.

2) THEMES Yes! They are important! It's not just "does this have a character I can relate to in every way for wish fulfillment?" It's an exploration. These add depth to characters and your story, even if they're simple, and you can have as many as you want! Though generally one is going to stick out more than the others. Here are some:

A. Innocence vs Experience--Not always as simple as child to adult, virgin to not-virgin, etc.. It involves how your character sees the world from their naievety and how that changes as they learn through experience. This is not always a negative change; it can be positive, or mixed. Regardless, the relatively simple outlook the protagonist has on life will become much more complex. It's not just ignorance, though (however, it can be part of it); there's going to be some kind of naievety or contentment with how the protagonist initially sees things, and it's born of not knowing better. It also doesn't necessarily mean a character goes from being innocent to having experience: it can be a comparison between characters where one if innocent and the other has experience, which the innocent one may never gain, possibly even because of the experienced one.

B. Human vs Wild--Exactly what it sounds like. Positive or negative, the wild will challenge your protagonist, whether they learn to make shelter and find food and perhaps heal inner conflict, or whether a friend is picked off one by one from a bear or freezing temperatures, etc.. Your protagonist will not have easy access to civilization or its comforts. This may be the protagonist's choice or it may happen by sheer accident. It could be someone who's always loved nature and thought they had a handle on it or it could be someone who's never been out of a big city. It could be at sea, in a desert, in the forest, on a snowy mountain, or even in space. Is nature good or bad? Does it antagonize or does it teach--even if a hard lesson? Should humans connect more with nature, or are we better off leaving it behind? Not stating my personal opinions here. You get to decide what you want your story to explore.

C. Good vs Evil--Classic! But what is good? What is evil? How do you show that in your story? Which one does your protagonist represent? All of one or the other? Some of both? Does good triumph in the end, or does evil win out? Perhaps neither do, and the battle will rage on long after the conclusion of your story--remember it's a theme, not the plot, not even necessarily the conflict.

D. Coming of Age--Similar in some ways to innocence vs experience, but not the same. This is usually a child becoming an adult. Their outlook on life may not significantly change, as it does with innocence vs experience. Rather they may take on new responsibilities that they struggle with. They may realize why the adults in their lives do the things they do. They may start to look ahead and realize the possibilities for their own future.

E. Person vs Person--Unlike human vs wild, this is two or more well-developed characters at odds with another. Like human vs wild, this is an excellent way to explore what it means to be human. Who is right? Who isn't? Are all of them? Are none of them? This doesn't mean they're enemies, by the way. It can just mean they're on different journeys. Perhaps one is in an innocence vs experience journey, while the other is dealing with good vs evil. How do they relate to each other? How do they not? Does it ever even come up between? Maybe the only interaction we see between them is when they play their favourite video game. But in their personal lives we how different they are.

F. Human vs Technology--Similar in some some ways to human vs nature and person vs person. What does it mean to be human? Whereas human vs nature may question humanity's relationship to the natural world, human vs technology will question humanity's distance from nature, and their relationship to their inventions. And this can go so many different ways. Did we go too far? Is technology, having been made by humans, who are animals, just nature taking its course after all? Will technology save us? If we manage to make sentient or even sapient beings, what is our responsibility to them? Will technology be the end of us? How do you tell between human and AI? Does it matter? Is it possible to pull the breaks and go a different direction so that we can have some technology without losing who we are? Is it already too late? This can be one human vs an invention they made, or vs technology made and used by others. Or it can be humans generally vs technology at large. But as a theme--remember, not the plot--it's going to explore what it means to be human and the possible consequences to that from technology. Also remember, though, that the human vs technology theme doesn't have to be negative. It can represented positively. I have my personal opinions, but that's not what I'm talking about here.

G. Trauma--Something has happened to your character (doesn't have to be the protagonist; the protagonist can be an observer, or one of many victims). Could be before the story starts, could be during. Could be the death of a loved one, loss of their home, war, a terrible accident, a rape, a betrayal, but it has left your character(s) traumatized. How do they deal with it? Does it tie in to any other themes? What are the effects on the character? Do they develop an eating disorder? Are they out for revenge? Have they lost all faith in humanity? How do they pick up the pieces of themselves? Do they even want to? Do they avoid it and put it away? Or are they unable to stop thinking about it? Is it one horrific event out of a relatively idyllic setting? Or is it the background radiation of the character's life? Are they still in danger? If they aren't, do they think they are? If they are still in danger, do other characters think they aren't? Does it drive the plot, or is it simply something the character has to deal with in addition to the plot? Does the trauma make them stronger or does it weaken them? Does it contribute to their downfall or does it gain them understanding? Is it part of their redemption?

H. Person vs Self--The character is their own worst enemy or else their own foil. This can be written as two personalities in one body (though I'd urge you to be careful with that), or the character's self-talk or intrusive thoughts. Or none of those things. It could be a guilty conscience that drives them to confess vs their own cowardice for the consequences. They will usually be the cause of their own problems. That could mean they've isolated themself with the belief that they are unworthy when in actuality everyone's willing to welcome them with open arms. It could mean they're assholes to everyone and that's why they have no close relationships. You have to be careful with unlikeable characters, though--they still have to be compelling. And if a person vs self character is your protagonist, they had better be. Like the other person/human vs x themes, person vs self can be a way to explore humanity. Once again, what does it mean to be human? But in this case, not primarily in relation to nature, technology, or another human, but one's individual self.

3) CHARACTERS You can write a nonfiction book about themes. You can outline a plot. But you don't have a story if you don't have characters. None of them will be relatable to everyone, so forget that. You can try, but it will be obvious you're trying, and that's not a character, that's pandering. This isn't to say think nothing of making all your important characters in all of your stories straight, white, young, middle class, beautiful, and with no disabilities, but don't force it. If it doesn't come naturally, consider something that does--there must surely be something that does. Maybe your best friend is blind. Surely you've considered what that must be like to live that way. Surely they've talked to you about it. Maybe you've read a lot of accounts from immigrants to the USA. That should give you some insight into what that's like. Write what you know. In any case, you have a cast, and like with themes, there can be overlap:

A. The Protagonist--This is the one who's going to lead your audience through the plot (or subplot; the protagonist of your main plot doesn't necessarily have to be the protagonist of a subplot). You are seeing it from their perspective (if in first person or third person but in their head) or at least closely observing their actions. They should be a compelling character, one people can "get" even if they don't like or agree with them. Important to note: the protagonist not necessarily the good guy. They can be, and often are, but protagonist and hero are not synonymous. In fact, the protagonist can be the villain of the story.

B. The Antagonist--The protagonist's enemy. Remember this doesn't have to be a person; it could be an animal, it could nature itself. It could even also be the same characters as the protagonist (see Person vs Self)! But it is the cause of the main conflict that the protagonist has to overcome or be defeated by. Like the protagonist, regardless of the form it takes, it should be compelling. Does it want something? What is it? Is the protagonist simply in its way or is it directly after the protagonist? Is it a sympathetic antagonist or one you love to hate? Is there a redemption arc (you can have this other characters,too, including the protagonist)? Is this a way to question whether the hero is as good as made out to be?

C. The Love Interest--Not every story has one, and not every story that does is a romance. But this will be a character who occupies a lot of your protagonist's thoughts in a romantic context. And yes, for all you lovers-to-enemies fans out there, the love interest may even be the antagonist! Regardless, this is a good way to gain insight into the protagonist by how they think about the love interest. Is the protagonist obsessive or controlling? Are they misogynistic? Are they delusional? Do they see the love interest as a person or a prize? Do they really know who the love interest is? Do they even care? Do they have an idea of who the love interest is that they refuse to let go of in spite of evidence to the contrary? How does this tie in to the plot or the themes? Do we ever hear from the love interest? Do we ever get in their head? Or it is only through the memories of the protagonist (not necessarily a bad thing)?

D. The Foil--This is not the antagonist, though they can become one, depending. This is usually a friend who's going to call the protagonist on their shit and is going to have qualities very different from the protagonist. Perhaps it's a different outlook on life, or a different skill-set. Something that might annoy the protagonist from time to time. Often they will be close, though, and will resolve their issues within the story and become even closer (though again, not always).

E. The Confidante--The protagonist trusts this character, whether it's a family member, mentor, or close friend. It could even be a pet or a robot. The protagonist will reveal their deepest darkest secrets (yes, the confidante can turn out to be the antagonist) to them. This is a way for your protagonist to show vulnerability. If you're in the protagonist's thoughts, it can also be a way to show your protagonist's true fears or unprocessed trauma if there are things they won't even tell the confidante. This character is someone who listens. If they judge, it's gently, or else the protagonist respects them enough to accept harsher judgment (which they won't from the foil, for example, unless the foil and confidante are the same character). This character (if a speaking one) is also in a position to give advice which the protagonist may not accept from anyone else.

F. Deuteragonist--The secondary characters. They may be the protagonists of subplots, they may become protagonists of other stories. Either way, these are well-developed, important supporting characters of the story. They help or hinder your character along the way. They may even do things that drive the plot. One may even be the antagonist hidden in plain sight. How are they different from your protagonist? How are they similar? Are they friends or foes? How are they different or similar to each other? How would they react if they thought the protagonist was dead? How would the protagonist react of one of them died? Do the secondary characters know one another? Do they know the love interest? The antagonist? What's their relationship to those characters? Are they perhaps enemies to the protagonist but a friend to the love interest? Or vice versa?

G. Tertiary Characters--They don't have much page time but the best tertiary characters still read as people. They could become secondary characters or even main characters in another story. You're only seeing a very small part of their lives and yet it has significance. Perhaps to show the kindness of strangers. Maybe it's someone a secondary character deeply cares about. Maybe it's to very temporarily see a strange place through the eyes of someone who lives there. Tertiary characters can provide insight and motivation to the others even if they themselves aren't a very big part of the story.

4) STRUCTURE I have been looking some of these things up online as a reminder to myself, but this one I can't find anywhere. Maybe it was unique to my region or the English teachers I knew. Which means I'm going entirely by memory here. So the plot, the themes, the characters answer the who, what, when, where, and why of the story. This is the how. How does it all come together? And how do you avoid making your audience feel cheated?

A. The Smile--This story begins happily and ends so, even if there's horror throughout the middle. This doesn't mean nothing will have changed, but it is a distinctly happy ending.

B. The Frown--The story begins and ends on a sour note. There maybe hope throughout, even moments of happiness, but a sense of unease throughout lets your audience know it won't end happily and maybe not even hopefully. This is hard to write well. You have to ask yourself and be able to answer what the point is. Why tell the story. Maybe it's someone awaiting execution they didn't commit or that was arguably justified. Maybe they are almost saved but are still executed in the end. Or maybe they are saved, but someone else is executed and it's equally tragic. Stories like these can give insight into human tragedy but they can also turn off an audience. Tread carefully.

C. The Mountain--This begins badly but ends happily or at least hopefully. This is perhaps a character who has known very little joy in their life, but for some reason, maybe the event that starts the plot, they want it. But it's not going to be easy. Perhaps it's someone escaping the abusive cult they grew up in, or someone scratching their way out of poverty. Unlike the the frown, this story will have tension that the character may end up back where they started or worse, but there won't be that pervading sense of unease that it's all for nothing. The end will be cathartic. Whether the character succeeds in their goal or not, something has changed for the better.

D. The Slope--The story begins happily but doesn't end that way. Probably the hardest to write. If you begin a story happily and end it without even any hope, you run the risk of a very upset audience. But that doesn't mean it can't be done. Maybe it's a natural disaster. Maybe it's a fascist government or alien takeover. It can be a slow slide where things get worse as the characters try to adapt until they can't anymore. Or it can be an abrupt change, maybe the breakout of a war, that suddenly changes life as the characters know it. Either way, they will struggle and try to hold on, but the audience will get a sense of futility, of the problem being much bigger than the protagonist can handle. They will not solve their conflict. Their efforts will be futile. So as with the frown, why tell the story? The themes of Human/Person vs X can work really well here, as can several I didn't cover, such as Human as Animal. It can be a personal tragedy, or it can be extinction, or the end of freedom. It can be particularly useful in the context of past events. It can be a way to tell the audience that things should have been different before the event started. For example, we know the Atlantic slave trade did eventually end, but what does that matter for the people who were born, lived, and died in slavery? The slave trade should never have happened to begin with. Or the bubonic plague. It quieted down eventually but would never have spread so far and wide and not nearly as many people would have died if so many weren't living in abject poverty with poor ventilation and an inability to regularly wash and change their underclothes. So that's why such a story is told. What is happening right now that should be changed before it leads to hopeless and pointless tragedy for countless people?

And that's a question you should ask of any story you want to tell: what are you trying to say? It doesn't have to be one big thing. It can be a lot of little things. Let people read between the lines. Don't spoon-feed them. State explicitly only what you want your audience to know explicitly in that moment. Let people take it apart. Why did you choose to make the curtains blue? If you didn't have a reason, why state the colour at all? If it's not relevant, get rid of it. And don't be afraid to do things differently! Just because blue might mean sadness in someone else's story doesn't mean it has to mean the same in yours. Themes can overlap. Archetypes can overlap. They can be subverted. You can twist and turn. And! You can use all of this even in fanfic--but don't feel compelled; as stated earlier, fanfic can be a way to explore relationships between characters and doesn't necessarily need a plot or themes--just make sure your original works have them.

[nctsworld]

the yuletide boyfriend

✩‌ yangyang ‌x‌ ‌reader‌ ‌|‌ fluff | angst | smut | friends to lovers | ‌college au | 9k

SUMMARY‌ ‌⇾‌ your one wish this year is to not be single during the holidays. yangyang, as your best friend, takes it upon himself to be your temporary boyfriend. soon enough, both parties begin to wish this new arrangement could last beyond the holidays. // part of the x-mas in ncity collection WARNINGS‌ ‌⇾‌ implied ‌anxiety attack (during the first part of dec 24th – skip if need to), smut, mutual m*sturbation, couch s*x, angst, miscommunication, swearing RATING‌ ‌⇾‌ mature TAGLIST ⇾ @infnteen​ 

AUTHOR’S NOTE ⇾ this is my longest fic to date and also... might be my worst b/c i feel like the angst plot points don’t really make sense... but i hope y’all still enjoy!!! 

⇾ gif created by me, please don’t share or repost without credit!

NOVEMBER 30th

“So, anything special on your wishlist this year?”

Your best friend, Yangyang, asks you as you two sit next to each other on one of the many plush lounge couches in the Psychology building. It’s the usual lunch spot where you meet with him during your break between lectures.

The Psych building held much sentimental value for both of you because you met in Psych 101 during first year. Fast-forward three years later, neither of you expected to be the close friends that you are today.  

Chewing your sandwich, you ponder on his question for a bit. Through the transparent glass walls leading to outside, you see the trickle of students heading towards the building since class is about to start for the noon round of lectures. A couple, you assume by the tight hand-holding and nose kissing, giggles as they enter the building, glued to one another by the hip.

“Not really.” You drop your head downward to your lunch container, smiling to yourself. “I’m honestly just happy to have Mark in my life, especially at this point in the year.”

Yangyang nods in accordance and smiles too, understanding the story behind your sentiment.

The boyfriends you’ve had since first year have always broken up with you before the holidays, right before the end of November. Since you only became close during second year, Yangyang’s been around for two out of three of your cursed holiday break-ups.

To have Mark, your latest boyfriend, be with you and it being already December tomorrow, it was truly a blessing for you and a silver lining that maybe this was the year to break the curse. Yangyang was grateful too, wanting you to have the utmost happiness.    

You take another bite of your sandwich and tilt your chin toward the ramen eater.

“You?”

Yangyang slurps a few more noodles before he answers.

“I mean, the new Playstation would be nice,” he hums, mouth full.

Pointing the tip of your sandwich, you joke, “I’ll get it for you, but only if we share custody over it.”

“Mm-mm,” he shakes his head during a mid-slurp. “You know I can’t promise that.”

Both of you laugh in unison, living in the calm before the oncoming storm.

DECEMBER 5th

The E-Sports club for the university is hosting a party tonight and because Yangyang’s on one of the professional teams, he asked a few weeks ago if you and Mark wanted to attend. Of course you accepted; Mark also had some friends in the club.

However, when you text Yangyang in the afternoon, stating a change of mind, he knows something’s off.

Half an hour before the party starts, Yangyang decides to visit you. Thankfully you both lived on campus, but even if you lived across town, he’d still bus out to see how you were doing. He does it all the time to visit his family, anyway.  

In the living room, the two sudden knocks at your door startle you. Peering through the peephole, you see the usual sight of your best friend, his lips curled upward and thumbs tucked in his pockets as he rocks on the balls of his feet.

It feels like an eternity for him when you unlock your door. The hinges squeal as you open it hesitatingly, your face barely appearing through the agape crack.

Immediately, his smile dissolves. Your face is drained and blood-shot eyes avoiding his own confront him.

Yangyang has only seen you cry twice in the three years he’s known you:

Once, when you were freaking the fuck out over potentially failing a course (but, on the upside, you ended up passing the final to save your grade).

The second time was at his house for a family dinner, when his mom accidentally added too much hot chili sauce to her homemade beef noodle soup (let’s just say you weren’t the only one crying that night).

Those were tears of dread and physical discomfort.

But this… this was crying he’s never seen from you before. His chest collapses inward, fearful of the reason behind your tears.  

His voice shakes as he asks, “What happened? Are you okay?”

Neither of you are major huggers and only exchange them on the rare occasion.

However, this situation screams the necessity of it, so Yangyang lunges towards you, the collision swinging the door out of the way. His arms embrace you like a large, warm blanket. Comforting and safe.  

Despite the affection, emptiness has taken over your body. Tonight, you’re a dead, empty shell of who you normally are.

You feel weak to the bone, but you muster up enough energy to scarcely raise your arms over his back to return the hug. Your eyes are dry from all the crying you’ve done all day, but apparently you have more tears left in you to spare.

Your eyelids snap shut and your jaw clenches.  

“Mark broke up with me.”

Your words are muffled into his shoulder, but Yangyang hears it crystal clear.  

You break down, sobbing out of control over the statement.

As aforementioned, Yangyang’s been around for your last two, now three, break-ups. Sure, he’s aware of how grumpy and distant you can get, but you never cried in front of him. You made an effort to never have him see you at your lowest point.

And yet, here you are, drowning him in your misery. Guilt washes over you for drenching his bomber jacket, but Yangyang couldn’t give two shits. His arms squeeze tighter while he rubs your back tenderly.

After several minutes pass and your waterworks abate, you peel away from him. You sniffle and rub your nose with the back of your hand.

“Sorry about cancelling last minute.”

“Hey, no need to apologize,” he whispers soothingly.

“I’m just… so fucking frustrated.”

With fatigued eyes, you drag yourself back inside your apartment. Yangyang discreetly closes the door behind him and hurriedly uses his feet to push off his shoes. As he does so, your mouth begins to run off while you slowly pace around aimlessly.  

“Fucking done with boyfriends, especially when they think it’s so fucking awesome to keep breaking up with me right before the holidays.”

He kicks off his last stubborn shoe and catches you raking your hands through your hair, pulling it back firmly. Your lips are trembling, along with your entire frame.  

“Like I get that I’m horrible and needy and emotional—”

His mouth opens, wanting to cut in to disagree with you with all his heart, but he clamps it back shut and swallows, allowing you to blow your steam off.

“—but can’t they wait until the fucking new year? I don’t know, or maybe just don’t date me in the first place! I don’t know, I don’t fucking know anymore. I’m just cursed, Yangyang...”

You flop down onto the couch and sink into the ocean of shiny pleather, shutting your eyes and trying to stop crying for the nth time. The deep sting behind your eyelids pain you, but it pains Yangyang more to watch the events unfolding ahead of him.  

Unsure of what to say, Yangyang walks around the room. His gaze falls on your laptop screen and he frowns at the mostly bare Word document that stares back at him:  

“WISHLIST:   -KEEP ONE (1) FUCKING BOYFRIEND DURING THE CHRISTMAS SEASON!!!!!!!! GOD FUCKING SDKMFLDS”

There are a few more lines below it with more profanities and keyboard smashing. He quickly darts away, a pang of guilt striking for invading your privacy.

Then, he turns to you on the couch again. You’re now covering your eyes with your forearm, pressing your lips together. His chest twists and his throat is arid as a desert.

You’re in shambles and he’s dying to pick up the shattered pieces of you, wants to glue you back together. On a regular basis, Yangyang’s a talking machine and can talk your ear off for hours, but right now, he doesn’t know what to say to you in your current state. He second-guesses himself, wonders if he’s even that great of a friend if he can’t comfort you in your worst times.

Blowing out a long sigh and removing your arm, you speak aloud, “You should get going to the party.”

Like awakening from a deep slumber, you rise up sluggishly and sit up on the couch, slouched over. The other figure in the room steps closer to you.  

“Sorry about your jacket, by the way,” you say. Your body is still, but your glazed eyes move to the dark spot on the middle of his shoulder. He glances at it and shrugs.  

“It’s better like this anyway,” he says with a gentle smile, and the tight knot in his heart softens at the flicker of your own smile, albeit a small one. Unfortunately, it fades in a few seconds. “I don’t want to leave you like this, though.”

You stare at the used, crumpled balls of tissues scattered on the living room table. Some also ended up on the floor. Break-ups are shit and 98% inevitable, but you know you’ll eventually get over it. You always do.

“I’ll be fine, don’t worry.”

He raises an eyebrow, as if asking, “Are you sure?” The lack of a worded reply causes you to notice the question written on his face.  

“Go,” you plead with a feeble laugh. “Have fun for me.”

Both of you head towards your front door again. Crossing your arms, you lean your head against the door frame and attempt a smile for your best friend.

“Thanks again for checking up on me.”

Yangyang nods with a half-smile, half-pout, “Of course.”

You give him a departing wave prior to sealing your door.

Usually, Yangyang would bus from your place to the student union building, where the party is being held. Instead, he zippers up his jacket and stuffs his fists into his pockets, opting to bear the early winter chill to walk his thoughts off. His blazing self-doubt burns at first, but he overcomes it by focusing on ideas to fix your accursed dating rut instead.  

Halfway through the walk, a light bulb moment occurs. A plan begins to brew on the surface of his mind and he thinks on it for the rest of the week.  

DECEMBER 11th

It’s been almost a week since you last saw Yangyang.

Finals started already, so classes were done for the semester and thus, your lunch meet-ups halted too. On top of that, since you were simultaneously moping and studying, you hadn’t really texted him much, nor had he, besides the occasional check-up text on how studying was going and random memes. Yangyang knew you preferred time alone to heal and he respected that.  

He also thought six days was enough time to get yourself back on your feet.  

Yangyang’s at your front door once again, but this time with two bowls of his mom’s beef noodle soup in tow.  

“Long time, no see,” you greet. Your tone is chipper, but your eyes look heavy, which could be partially from studying, Yangyang thinks. His smile deepens, content that you seem a lot better than the last time he visited.

“Delivery for two,” he raises the bag in his hand.

“And if I told you I already ate dinner?” you playfully retort.

The boyish man shrugs defeatedly, “Then I’ll tell my mom you hate her cooking—”

“You didn’t say it was your mom’s, Yangyang. Oh, my God,” you gasp, half-mockingly. You rush to grab the bags out of his hand and stroll towards your tiny kitchen. “Start off with that next time.”

As you remove the containers from the bag and onto the granite countertop, Yangyang shuts the door and takes his shoes off.  

“So, I’m gonna be upfront and say that I may have come here with a proposal.”

“Changed your mind about the shared custody of the Playstation?”

“I’m still considering that one.” Finally in his socks, he slings his backpack off his shoulder and plops it onto the couch along with his jacket. He stands next to you by the counter. “But it’s on the same page as that. Remember that day we were talking about wishlists?”

“Mm-hmm,” you hum as you rip off the lid of one of the bowls. Blatant wisps fly upward and you inhale the savoury aroma, followed by a heavenly sigh.  

“Last time I was here… I might’ve seen what you wrote on your laptop.”

Your expression immediately changes into full-on cringe. You bring a palm over to your face.

“Oh, God. Let’s not talk about that. That was just weepy, lonely me talking.”

Yangyang pops off the lid for his bowl and steps into your kitchen, rummaging through your drawers for chopsticks. “So you’re telling me you don’t want a boyfriend for Christmas?”

Your hand flies off your face. Eyes widening, you spew, “Do you have a boyfriend in your pocket, ready for me to have?”

In your open hand, he places a pair of chopsticks into it. “Well, actually, I was thinking—”

Sternly, you point the chopsticks at him. “Don’t you dare set me up with your friends.”

He counters and points his at you, “Even better than that.”

With your interest piqued, you slide yourself onto the counter stool and mix the noodles around, anticipating to hear Yangyang’s fantastic plan. Your friend sits on the other stool, facing you. He pauses for a second, taking a deep breath.  

“Why don’t I be your boyfriend for the holidays?”

You freeze, and the noodles’ drips above your bowl are deafening to both individuals. Laughing awkwardly, you break your frozen state to drop your chopsticks and turn your head to look at him.

Sputtering, you say, “What?”

Unnerved, his mouth pinches to one side, thinking maybe he shouldn’t have even said anything in the first place. This was stupid, so stupid, but it’s out in the open and Yangyang already dug his grave—he may as well lay in it.  

“Well, for one, it’s something on your wishlist that I can easily get,” he pauses mid-sentence, glancing upward in thought. “Well, really, fill? Is that a better way to put it?”

He continues, eyes back on you, “And two, I’m not setting you up with a stranger or someone you wouldn’t be comfortable with. I assume you know me well enough that you’re comfortable around me?”

Yangyang lifts an upturned palm and raises an eyebrow, waiting for a response to his assumption. Petulantly, you shake your head playfully and stick out your tongue at him.  

Rubbing the back of his neck, his gaze drops down to the floor for his last point. His voice lowers.

“And, I don’t know, we’d just hang out like we usually do during that time, except we’d do more couple-y things.”

Realizing the implication of his words, he widens his eyes. “I mean, we'll do whatever you’re comfortable with, obviously. We don’t have to do any of the physical stuff—”

You burst into a giggle at his rambling and hold a hand out, cutting him off. “Okay, Yang. I get it.”  

Yangyang watches your next moves carefully. You’re peering off to one side and picking at the tips of your fingers. After a minute that feels like forever, you nod slowly.

“I guess you have a point. We are sorta like a couple already.”

Your best friend sighs in relief, grinning that you’re not outright rejecting the idea.

“So,” you meet his eyes and bunch a shoulder up towards your ear. “We’ll just be a couple until what, New Year’s?”

“Yeah, sure,” he shrugs indifferently. “Whatever you want. It’s your Christmas wish.”

You chuckle and shake your head in disbelief that you two are actually making an agreement for Yangyang to be your temporary, holiday boyfriend.

Honestly, it’s a little crazy... but maybe it’s the perfect thing to get your mind off of Mark and the handful of holiday exes hanging above your head.

“Okay, since my last final is on the 21st, let’s start ‘dating’ then and we’ll play everything by ear, see how it goes.”

Yangyang bobs his head eagerly. “Sounds good, soon-to-be girlfriend.”

He sticks a hand out for you to shake. You take it firmly, sealing the deal and flashing him a grin.

“Soon-to-be boyfriend.”  

Although the night goes on like usual between the two of you, you couldn’t deny how ecstatic you are to finally have a boyfriend during the holidays, even if it was technically your best friend as a stand-in.

DECEMBER 21st

Tonight’s your first date with Yangyang.

That sounds weird to say, you admit to yourself, but it’s the truth.

After you stroll out of your last final of the semester, Yangyang’s waiting for you inside near the main exit of the building with several layers on, including his hoodie over his head and a knitted scarf underneath. His attention leaves his phone and he stuffs it into pocket as he notices you heading over.  

“Hey, girlfriend,” he welcomes you, beaming.

You snicker at the unfamiliar label. You wonder if you’re going to get used to this, even if it’s only for two weeks.  

“Hey, boyfriend,” you grin harder as the word falls from your lips, trying your best not to outright burst into laughter. “Where we heading off to?”

Although you said both of you could play the dating by ear, Yangyang’s been keen on scheduling plans for the upcoming days. You told him he didn’t have to, however, he insisted by saying that he wouldn’t only be a horrible boyfriend, but a horrible friend if he couldn’t make the next weeks fun for you.

Yangyang was anything but a horrible friend, and the fact that he was willing to be your holiday boyfriend to make you happy proved it further. Nevertheless, you gladly let him take the reins.

“I was thinking the movies tonight? See the latest Marvel film?”

Concurring to the idea, you scurry towards the bus stop and are movie-theatre bound to the nearest one off-campus. Arriving at the theatre, Yangyang and you buy your tickets and a popcorn to share, then head into the respective auditorium where the movie is playing. Since the movie’s been running for a couple of weeks, the auditorium is fairly empty, giving you two the chance to snag perfect middle seats with nobody else is in the row.  

Up to this point, aside from the name-dropping of boyfriend and girlfriend, this feels less like a date and more like any other hang-out with him. Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing awkward.

But that changes during a third of the movie.

You’re both so immersed by the screen that neither party notices the other’s hand when both of you reach for the popcorn in Yangyang’s lap at the same time.  

A jolt runs through as your hands brush together. The duo’s eyes tear away from the screen and flit to the action happening in real-time. The touch lingers for several moments.  

“Sorry,” you quickly mumble, drawing your hand back slightly, but still hovering over the popcorn.    

“Uhm,” Yangyang licks his lips and visibly gulps under the screen’s bright glare.

He whispers, his voice almost cracking, “As your boyfriend, can I hold your hand?”

Okay, this is just your best friend, acting as your temporary boyfriend, asking to hold your hand. No big deal, no big deal at all.

Yet, the thunderous knocking in your ears, louder than the explosions blasting through the theatre’s speakers, suggests otherwise.

You don’t even register it, but you’re already nodding in response. Your breathing slows to the rate of Yangyang’s hand inching over. At the anticipated contact, you gasp softly. His smooth fingers clasp over yours. Since the arm rest in the middle of you is positioned upward, there’s no obtrusion and you relax, letting your hands mingle in between the empty space.

Without looking at one another, both of you smile bashfully to yourselves as you try to continue to focus on the screen.

After a while, because you aren’t exactly holding hands, you spread your fingers, hastily doing so because you don’t want him to think you’re breaking the interaction, and twist your palm to properly interlock hands with him. You give Yangyang’s hand a warm, gentle squeeze. He does the same and even strokes his thumb against your skin.

Talk about playing everything by ear. Who knew you’d be hand in hand on the first date?

You attempt to not think much on it, but Yangyang’s hand in yours feels... so right, like your hand was made for this, for his to hold. Like you should’ve done this way sooner.

And if Yangyang’s thoughts could be heard, he’s thinking the same.

Despite the mutual fear of sweaty palms, neither of you desire to let go, so much that you not only hold hands during the rest of the movie, but throughout the bus ride back to campus and all the way until he escorts you to your front door.

With a certain charge in the atmosphere, you exchange sweet good-byes. That night, after the culmination of stress from finals and your worries of your holiday exes, you finally have a peaceful sleep, looking forward to your date with Yangyang tomorrow.

DECEMBER 22nd

“Babe, how do I look?”

“Very pretty, honey.” A bundled up Yangyang winks at you from behind his phone.

The second date is an evening at a Christmas light festival at a botanical garden on the outskirts of town. The lights illuminate so strongly; there was a glowing dome-like hue over the location that seemed to reach the dark sky as you got off the bus.

When stepping foot into the garden, all the encompassing lights mesmerize you. Lights on the various greenery, lights as decorative art pieces, lights lining the pathways. Different shades of colours and shapes engulf the massive area.

Yangyang’s currently in the middle of taking your photo near an arch tangled with dark blue, gold, and white bulbs. All night long, you’ve been mockingly using endearing terms, but, despite the frigid air, your cheeks heat up over something else he just said.

“You think I’m pretty?” you genuinely ask, breaking your pose.  

He lowers his phone a bit, his jaw dangling.

“Uh, I mean,” he giggles awkwardly, nodding softly. “Yeah.”

Yangyang never told you, but he initially sat near you in Psych 101 because he thought you were the most stunning girl in the class. And sure, he was a little disappointed at the time to find out you had a boyfriend, but that didn’t mean you two couldn’t still be friends. Other than the first few weeks he had a crush on you, he’s never thought of you as more than a friend.  

But those feelings are resurfacing, hitting him in the chest like a bag of bricks, due to moments like this one—you’re batting your eyelids, gaze straying elsewhere, and adorably chewing on your lower lip.  

“And you’re not just saying that as my holiday boyfriend?”

Pouting to one side, he shakes his head cutely. “Mm-mm.”

On the flipside, the beginning with Yangyang for you was strictly platonic. You were dating Haechan at the time you met him. When Haechan broke up with you later that fall, you kept a distance from dating for a while, heartbroken from the high school love gone sour. During that period, you never told him, but you did run through the possibility of dating Yangyang since you got along so well... until you met Jaemin earlier the next semester, who stole your heart. Ever since then, you’ve never seen Yangyang under that light again.

Despite that, you can’t deny how attractive he is, and now that you’re single and technically dating him, you embrace the fact with open arms.  

Beaming as bright as the lights, you tug him by the end of his puffer jacket’s sleeve to bring him closer to you.

“C’mon, handsome, let’s take some pictures together.” Prickles rise under Yangyang’s cheeks from the off-hand compliment.  

Holding your phone up in the air at about an arm’s length away, the side of your heads touch to prepare for a few selfies. When you finish capturing them, Yangyang’s hovering over your shoulder as you scroll through to glance through the photos.

“We look good together,” you comment. “Don’t you think?”

In sync, your heads turn to meet each other. Your eyes waver from the blatant clouds of your breaths and over to his lips. The clouds become rapid bursts as you begin to lean forward. So does Yangyang.

“Do you guys want a picture together?” someone suddenly asks. The abrupt voice drags you both apart instantly, crushing the moment into pieces.

“Sure,” you peep, fumbling to hand your phone over to the stranger.

Posing, Yangyang’s hand rests around the middle of your back, which is the norm when you take pictures with him, but he pulls you in snugly. You smile even wider, relishing in the new-level of intimacy and allow yourself to be truly content among his presence.

“You guys are such a cute couple,” the stranger gushes while they return your phone prior to walking away.

“I guess we are, huh, babe?” you jut your tongue out in jest at him. This time, you indulge in the endearing term without a sliver of mockery.  

Yangyang copies you, jutting his tongue out further than yours, and seizes your hand to continue the tour around the gleaming garden.

The almost-kiss isn’t mentioned for the rest of the night, nor is it acted upon, but both individuals dwell on the near occurrence before sleep that evening, staring longingly at their bedroom ceiling.

DECEMBER 23rd

For the third date, you find yourselves at the campus’ dedicated ice rink arena to partake in ice skating.

You’ve skated a few times in the past, but you’re by no means a pro. On the other hand, this is apparently Yangyang’s first time, and he’s already skating circles around you.

“Show off,” you grumble as he does another lap past you. Your gloved hands are splayed out in front of you, careful not to fall flat on your face.

Turning on his blades, he rebounds over to you.

“Sorry,” he pants. His raised cheeks glow an adorable shade of pink. “This is really fun when you get the hang of it.”

Yangyang intertwines his fingers with yours before you can say anything. “C’mon, take my hand.”  

At first, it was sweet to skate alongside your holiday boyfriend, notwithstanding the few times you almost trip. As the minutes pass, you think you’re getting the hang of it, but suddenly, Yangyang unleashes your hand and glides ahead of you, abandoning you to slide at a swift pace that is definitely out of your comfort zone.  

“Yangyang, what the fuck?!” you screech, completely disregarding the handful of surrounding parents with their kids, the former sending daggers your direction. Your ankles struggle to make a T-shape to stop, but the struggling only somehow makes you move faster.  

As he spins to face you, now skating backwards with ease, he says, “See, you got the hang of it-oomph—”

Air’s struck from his lungs when you crash into his body. Thankfully, Yangyang skids his blades harshly against the ice and is able to steady and support you within his arms.

“You little fucker,” you gripe, lightly punching him in the arm.

He chuckles blithely, “Sorry, but it was kinda funny, you gotta admit.”

You breathe a large huff, which makes you note how your hair is falling over your face after the catastrophe. You’re about to lift your hand to rearrange the strands, but Yangyang beats you to it and is in the midst of tucking them behind your ear.

The knocking in your ears reappears with a vengeance and the physical source of the knocking is thrashing violently against your chest.

Your scorching breaths fuse in the refrigerated rink as Yangyang eliminates the inches of space between, his plush mouth ultimately converging with yours.

You have to constantly remind yourself to breathe under Yangyang’s intensity, and remind yourself that you’re in a public space and shouldn’t be making out like this.

But everyone’s skating around the couple, daring to not disrupt the affectionate display.

God, you don’t know when was the last time you’ve been kissed like this. Have you ever even experienced a kiss that was a fraction of this? Yangyang daintily cups your cheeks like you’re glass, but his lips press ruggedly into yours, inflaming your entirety and melting any existence of your figurative fragility.  

You ignore the echo in the back of your mind that reminds you he’s your temporary boyfriend.

The Talk will inevitably occur, but your future self could deal with it. Presently, you’re too caught up, drowning in Yangyang’s embrace.

DECEMBER 24th

On Christmas Eve, Yangyang decides to bring you to an outdoor Christmas market.

Understandably, since it’s the day before Christmas, the place is absolutely packed. For the first fifteen minutes or so, it’s joyous being immersed in the Christmas spirit with the assorted little shops and their respective products. You’re holding Yangyang’s hand tightly, pointing and half-shouting over the bustle about the items that catch your eye.

Unfortunately, someone accidentally bumps against your arms and your hand is gone from his.

Swivelling your head, searching through the crowd, it occurs to you that you officially lost Yangyang.

Your feet come to a halt as your hand attempts to dig into your jacket pocket to pluck your phone out, but the moving crowd forces you to constantly follow the stream.

You yell for him, but words can’t materialize. Your windpipe tightens. Your breath is becoming shallower and shallower. Blood pulses in your ears alarmingly, blocking out the clamour from around you. Your mind’s running everywhere without control.

Where is your boyfriend?

No, scratch that, he’s not your actual boyfriend—where is your best friend?

Did he leave you? He would never.

Right?

But what happens when all of this is over? Will you still have your best friend?

You’ve avoided The Talk long enough, but you didn’t expect to catch feelings for him. Not like this.  

Maybe you’re just destined to be alone.

Is this how it feels to actually lose him?

Tears fight your vision. You hear a faint call of your name, but you can’t urge yourself to turn around, sinking only further into the sea of anonymity. You’re just a face in a crowd, all alone, with no one who cares—

Yangyang grasps you by the arm and maneuvers you aside to a less busy area behind one of the vendor stands.

“Oh, God, thought I lost you there—”

You cut him off, hugging him with all your might and stuff your face in his chest cushioned by the downy layers of his winter jacket. Yangyang immediately drapes his arms securely around you, reading your uneasiness.  

“Hey, I got you. I got you,” he soothes, running a hand through your hair. “God, not my best idea. Sorry for bringing you here.”

You shake your head, wordlessly informing him that it’s okay. You’re just glad to be with him again.

“Wanna go home?”

You nod solemnly, and Yangyang zips you out of there in minutes with his arm tucked by your side,  ensuring he doesn’t lose you in the crowd again.

Fortunately, the jitters mostly disappear when you arrive at your place in the late afternoon. You’re in the middle of rummaging through your keys to unlock your door.

“Sorry I didn’t have anything else planned for today,” he mumbles, leaning with folded arms against the wall.

“Did you...” You insert the correct key and turn the lock, clicking the door open. Your gaze lifts to match his. “Did you wanna maybe have dinner with me tonight? I was thinking of ordering pizza in.”

The grin that reaches his eyes is a sufficient answer for you.

“Wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.” He hangs his arm around your shoulder and plants a kiss atop your head.

After chomping down pizza and playing a few rounds of Super Smash Bros. on Yangyang’s Switch, you peer over to him on your living room couch while he’s figuring out which character he should play next.  

The little mental voice in the back of your mind prods you, reminding that you should really, really have The Talk soon. The Talk that you swept under the rug at the start by saying you’d play everything by ear.

Four dates later, and the thought of this ending scares the living daylights out of you. This not only including the interim relationship, but the dire possibility of the friendship itself too. Is it possible to go back to how you were, flipping it off like a light switch?

But the internal voice is smothered as you’re drawn to his pouting lips in thought. His pouting, oh-so kissable lips. Following the ice skating kiss yesterday, you only shared a good-bye kiss when he dropped you off. Since then, you’ve been itching to have his lips on yours again.

Yangyang eventually detects your lack of focus and finds you gawking at his mouth. Your gaze dashes to his eyes, blinking innocently, but then his eyes flicker to your mouth.

The tension in the room snaps. You two carefully throw the Switch controllers off to one side and attach yourselves together. Unlike the crashing of your bodies at the ice rink, this one is purposeful. Deliberated, as his forehead presses into yours and his tender caress carries your cheek. Your body plummets backwards until Yangyang pins you completely into the couch.

Initially, the lip-locking is gentle and mild. Your fingers lay in the vicinity of his angular visage and sturdy upper frame, in contrast to his hand curling around your waist in a light squeeze.

Soon, hands traverse to other regions—his back, your thigh, his stomach, your ass. Each touch seeking, craving, whining. Tongues slinking and dancing with appetite. Your bodies buzz for more.

Open-mouthed kisses transition from the damp lips to each other’s necks. The touches dig deeper, thriving with hunger. Your back bows, body curving into his. Grinding ensues and his robust desire is blatant against your own pulsing passion.

“You don’t happen to have any condoms on you, do you?” you groan upwards to the ceiling.

He retracts from your neck to swing his head side to side, grumbling a “Sorry, we can stop...” yet you interrupt his apology by cupping his covered length. The guttural groan he exhales into your lips makes you shiver with pleasure.

“Doesn’t mean we still can’t have fun with our hands...” you say slyly.

“Fuck yeah,” he rasps, smirking, before diving in again to taste your mouth.

Clothes are stripped with the assistance of each other, leaving you with only your bra on while Yangyang opts to be completely bare. He tops your body in the same position once more.

On the couch arm rest, your head is perched with his hand clutching the space next to it for leverage. Both figures are too scatter-brained to delve into the exquisite nudity of one another, hands flying desperately to your respective arousals.

Your pretty fingers wrap around his possession almost exactly when he dips two digits into your warmth. In unison, two sharp, quiet gasps pierce the room.

“Shit, you’re so wet,” he hisses observantly. You’re so overwhelmed by the bliss that you can’t assemble any sort of response.

Your mouth’s parted to one side, chest soaring with each plunge. Through his clouded vision, he ambles over your curves and lines and yearns to see your breasts, but he respects your choice of keeping it on and opts to ambush the expanse with kisses. Your chest is launched further into his mouth and Yangyang assumes you’re enjoying this.

Fearing friction burn, you drop him from your grip momentarily, swiping a few licks over your palm. When your hand pumps him again, now drenched with saliva, grunts reverberate against your skin.  

“Yangyang?” you whimper, causing his face to pull away from the temple of your body.

“Yeah, baby?”

“I’m-I’m close.” And he can attest to it; the contractions around him are increasing, harshly squeezing his fingers.    

“Same,” he pants.

Your best friend flicks his wrist with ignition, securing your waves of elation. You attempt to do the same, but it’s difficult when he’s also sloppily thrusting himself into your fist, so you simply clench your grasp harder. His features pinch and choppy moans dribble as he yields to his climax, gushing himself over your stomach.  

Still sucking in lungfuls of air, Yangyang kisses you tenderly before removing himself to clean up the mess he made.

Following the clean-up, while putting on your clothes, Yangyang expresses how he should get going since it’s getting late.

“Did you wanna stay the night?” you pipe up.

His mind races, debating on whether to leave or not, anxious to blur the lines of your relationship even further.

Sure, he’s your temporary boyfriend, thus staying over at your place shouldn’t mean anything. But this agreement is ending next week, and he’s questioning if you two can stay just friends after this, knowing that he’s going to want more. Yangyang has had a taste of the what if, and it’s now irrevocable.

He wants you all for himself. Selfishly, but deeply.

For the sake of keeping this a great thing for you, he shoves his thoughts aside. This is all about you and for your benefit, anyhow.

“Uh, sure, I can take the couch like I always—”

“Yangyang, you just put your fingers inside of me,” you snicker, snagging him by the hand to your bedroom. “C’mon.”

The rest of the night is relatively chaste with some kisses and touches here and there. Eventually, you fall asleep facing each other with your fingers interlocked, excited for the big day tomorrow.

DECEMBER 25th

Normally on Christmas, Yangyang and you spend it with your respective families, but coincidentally, both of your families, your parents being retired and all, ended up vacationing this year, leaving the two of you to spend it with each other.

After getting up around noon, Yangyang heads to his place to grab his gift. He takes longer than you expected because, as it turns out, he also went home to grab baking goods he bought beforehand since he wants to make butter cookies with you today.

The cookies end up fine, but the mess is another story. Besides the chaos on the counter, your faces and aprons are splotched with flour (you swear he started it, but he disagrees and stands his ground that you’re the perpetrator). With a damp cloth, Yangyang aids you to clean, but not forgetting to wipe your face and giving you pecks over your cheeks and nose.  

The baking and aftermath occupies most of the afternoon, so dinner comes in the form of fancy, romantic instant ramen for two. Afterwards, you two sit in your living room and start to exchange gifts.  

Yangyang hands his over to you first. From the size of the gift and the crumpled, oddly-shaped wrapping, you already can guess it’s a stuffed plushie of a cute animal to add to your never ending collection. You hug it tightly with a large smile.

“It’s so cute, thank you!” you squeal, but you change your expression in an instant to a serious pout. “But you can’t steal this one like you did with my Ice Bear plushie.”

“Hey, I didn’t steal Ice Bear, I just forgot to give him back.” You roll your eyes sarcastically and he laughs. “I’ll bring him over tomorrow, if it makes you feel better.”  

Then, when it’s your turn, you head into your bedroom and come out with a large, white shopping bag. His eyebrows raise, unsure of what could warrant a gift this size.

“For being my holiday boyfriend,” you grin, placing the bag in front of his feet.  

Despite the hugest smile on your face, his heart sinks at the label for a second, but he blinks and wills himself to look inside the bag.

His eyes shoot open, so much that you’re scared you might have to stuff them back into his sockets.

Yangyang slips the box out of the bag with precision and stares at it speechlessly.

It’s the new Playstation.

He shifts his eyes toward you. You’re swaying on the couch, pleased by his reaction.  

“Your parents paid for most of it, so I can’t take all the credit.” Sticking a finger in the air, you add, “You just gotta promise to share custody with me though—”

A hand behind your head yanks you into a deep kiss. He’s not the only one left speechless on the couch. He places the top of his head against yours.

“You’re crazy, but I love—” He quickly catches himself from saying something he might regret. “—I love it so much, thank you. Now I feel bad for getting you only the stuffed animal...”

You shake your head softly, brushing your thumb against his cheekbone.

“Thank you for everything.” Your eyes twinkle. “I couldn’t have asked to spend the holidays with anyone else.”

Carefully, like a newborn baby, he safely situates the boxed Playstation to one side and nabs your lips with his again. The scene feels like repeat of last night as your bodies wrestle passionately on the couch.

“Not to be presumptuous,” he mutters between the kisses upon your neck. Your eyelids flutter at the sensation. “But I also grabbed condoms from my place when I stopped by.”

His words sends the two of you leaping towards your bedroom. Under the dim lighting, you fall into the bed as Yangyang pares your layers off, one by one. With each peel, his lips roam the revealing bare skin. You swear he has kissed you from your literal head to toe when you’re fully nude in front of him.

Your companion drags his shirt over his head, throws it off to your floor, and immediately targets in onto your nub with his mouth, finally satiating his craving from last night.

Fingers thread into his hair and over his flexed back. His tongue swirls and his teeth lightly tug on your perkiness, making your eyes roll to the back of your head. And he still isn’t even inside you yet.

After leaving love upon your other bosom, Yangyang fumbles with the condom, forgetting which way it should go on. Giggling, you perch yourself onto your elbows and assist him. Rolling it over his possession, you recline yourself back and spread your legs for him.

Pensively, he sticks his tongue out as he adjusts himself between your sex, easing himself into you, and upon the full impact, you meet his gaze head-on. His stare makes you feel vulnerable and exposed beyond the physical plane.  

But, unlike the others you have been with, you trust him with everything, like you always have, and be free with him. Losing your inhibitions and submitting to your whims, you entangle and become one with Yangyang.  

Behind his hazy vision, Yangyang’s simply thinking how beautiful you are, how he can’t imagine anyone else under his touch but you, how he is willing to give up anything to make you smile.

Well, in this case, he’s willing to give up anything to make you pleased.

However, it doesn’t seem like he needs to do much because you’re howling his name and clinging onto his skin and the sheets in a frenzy, like you’re about to die of exhaustion.

You perish a few times under him before he finally reaches his little death himself, convulsing into the sheath.

When air’s replenished into your bodies, you rest on his chest under your blanket. Glancing up at him, you move some of his tousled hair off his sleek forehead.

“Merry Christmas, Yangyang,” you whisper, snuggling him with a satisfied smile.

“Merry Christmas, babe,” he whispers back, giving you one last peck before you both drift into a deep slumber together.  

DECEMBER 26th

Last night took so much out of the both of you, you don’t get out of bed until about the middle of the afternoon. Yangyang doesn’t have anything planned for today since it’s Boxing Day, since the crowds might be crazy wherever you go, so it’s officially a chill, rest day for you both.

When you step out of the shower in fresh clothes, from behind the couch, you watch Yangyang gaming on his Switch.

The little voice in your head looms, prompting that now is the time to have The Talk, and speaks up on your behalf.

“Do we have to end things next week?” you croak.

You see Yangyang’s shoulders stiffen, then he pauses the game and turns around to face you. His gaze follows you as you step closer to the couch, opting to stand.  

“Uhm.” His Adam’s apple bobs and he shrugs. “It’s up to you, it’s your—”

“Yangyang, that’s not what I’m asking. I’m asking what you think, how do you feel?”

His lips press together and he’s staring at the floor. You can tell the gears are moving, but you can’t read his expression clearly.

“I’m down for whatever you want to do,” he says slowly, eyes still averting yours.

That’s a I’m-your-best-friend answer, you deduce. Not a I-want-to-be-your-actual-boyfriend answer.  

He adds, stuttering, “I mean, I wouldn’t mind doing this a little longer if that’s what you want—”

Your face scrunches in annoyance. “Did you just sign up to be my short-term boyfriend so you can fill my empty heart?”

His eyebrows crease with confusion. “I mean, I never want to see you unhappy.”

“So it’s pity dating then?” you lash, raising your voice.

“No, I—” Yangyang bites down on his tongue, almost letting the one word slip out again. He blows out a lengthy sigh and runs a hand through his hair. “I care about you, so much. I’d do anything to make you happy.”

You’re defining his words as an affirmation of friendship and as an underlying rejection of your love.

You need to know for certain.

“Do you love me, Yangyang?” you blurt. “As more than a friend?”

This is it, Yangyang thinks. This is your chance to let her know how you feel.

But the distress written on your face makes him wonder if he should even go through with it, and it’s intensifying with every passing moment that he’s not speaking.  

If only he knew your distress was deepening because you took his hesitance as absolute rejection.  

Your heart is breaking because of him, and he technically wasn’t even yours to begin with.

You smack your lips together and gulp a few times, trying to make the huge knot in your throat disappear.

“You know what, maybe let’s just forget this arrangement and leave it all behind and forget about the sex and—”

“You wanna stop this?” he utters quietly.

The word “this” hangs heavy in the air. This, carrying the weight of not only being the temporary agreement, but also your friendship.

“Yeah,” you whisper, tears beginning to blur your eyes. “I think I do.”

DECEMBER 28th

Two days have passed since you last saw Yangyang.

That day before he left, Yangyang, feeling guilty for how events unfolded, wanted to give back the Playstation, but you insisted for him to keep it. In spite of everything, it was a Christmas gift to him from you and his parents.

But both of you weren’t sure if the shared custody promise was going to be held up.  

In hopes that things would eventually get better and heal itself, Yangyang thought it’d be best to leave you alone for a while, like how he usually did.

And maybe he was right to do so, but this time is different.

Because he’s on the other end of the stick now; he’s the one who broke your heart.  

Under regular circumstances, whenever you needed space, he was always ready to be there by your side.

But Yangyang’s uncertain if you’re going to let him comfort you this time.  

And you’re uncertain if you even want him to.

DECEMBER 30th

Today, Yangyang finally makes the move to get in touch with you, texting you to call him, but you don’t, so he leaves a voicemail later in the evening.

“There’s a New Year’s party I’m going to tomorrow,” he starts off, then spews the specific details.

There’s a pause and you hear shuffling in the background. You assume he’s pacing around.

“I know you ended our agreement, but I wouldn’t mind fulfilling my end since New Year’s is the last day tomorrow. I’d be really glad if you came to the party with me, whether it be as my friend or my girlfriend.”

Another pause.

On the other end, Yangyang rubs his palm over his face, considering whether or not he should say it. If you picked up the phone call, he was going to do it anyway, but this just felt improper. He wants to say it when he knows you’re listening in real-time, so he ends off the message with:

“I miss you. So much.”

DECEMBER 31st

It’s 8:40PM. Before Yangyang buses out to the party, he’s back at your front door for one more shot. His fist taps at your door, cognizant that you wouldn’t be elsewhere since your other friends are out of town for the holidays. Despite that, you don’t come to the door. Nevertheless, he speaks to you through the wooden barrier.

“Hey, I know you want to be left alone, but I just wanted to see if you changed your mind about the party.”

Still no answer. He lets out a sigh and prays the following will incite a reaction from you.  

“About the question that you asked me that night...”

He closes his eyes and allows his mouth to carry him.

“I do. I do love you. As both my best friend and more. I’m sorry if I hurt you that night by not saying anything, but I love you so much and I think we should give us a shot.”

Still no answer. Yangyang continues.

“Look, I know it’s scary and crazy to date your best friend. I’m scared too, but you know what? I’m okay with being scared. I’ve watched you gone through those assholes over the last few years and maybe you’re scared I’ll end up like one of them, but unlike them, I don’t think you’re horrible or needy or emotional—you’re beautiful, intelligent, and strong for putting up with all those fuckers.”

He leans his forehead gently against the door.

“And even if we ever do break up, and this is a big if because I’ll always try my hardest with you to make it work, I’ll still be your friend. I promise. You won’t lose me ‘cause I need you in my life. I gotta keep my end up for the custody of the Playstation, right?”

A smile breaks over his face from his joke, but still. Radio silence.  

“Can you at least say something?” he begs.

After a few minutes, realizing he needs to probably give you more time to be left alone, he departs and heads to the party.

Originally, you actually were planning on attending the party to see Yangyang to make-up with him.

Unfortunately, out of all the days you had to take a late afternoon nap, it had to be today.

And you overslept. Big time. 

At 10:55PM, you scramble awake, realizing you’re absolutely late to the event. Since the party’s downtown, you know calling an Uber or Lyft there would be fast, but tonight’s the worst night for any share riding service and there aren’t any available drivers. Thus, you have to manage with busing there.

It’s 11:40PM when you finally reach downtown, but the bus can’t take you all the way to the core centre where the party is; hordes of people are out on the streets and traffic is dreadful. God, you’re going to be cutting it close to midnight, but you make a run for it.

You’re grateful the party is on the second floor of a small building because you slide in right through the entrance at 11:58PM. You rush to call Yangyang’s phone, hoping he’ll pick up as you try to find him in the scattered groups of people.

You begin to holler for him in hopes he can hear you, but the countdown is happening, drowning out your voice. Thirty seconds left until the clock strikes for the new year.

When his number finally goes to voicemail, you redial his number. Suddenly, a hand grasps you by the wrist.

Yangyang looks at you, dumbfounded.

“When did you get here?”  

The harmonious chanting around you floods your surroundings.

“Ten, nine, eight...”

Getting closer to him, you practically scream into Yangyang’s face, trusting he’ll hear what you’re about to say.

“I know Christmas is over, but I want to change my wish.”

“Seven, six, five...”

“I know you might not feel the same and I know things might not work out.”

“Four, three, two...”

”But I wish to date you past New Year’s until whenever, however long we last.”

“One...”

“I love you, Yangyang—”

The one you love snatches you by the waist and your cheek, stealing your lips at the last millisecond before midnight.

“Happy New Year!”

A wave of noisemakers, clappers, and hollering erupt around the room. After it dies down a bit, Yangyang shocks you with a scolding.

“Why didn’t you say anything when I came over?!”

Confusion rushes over you. You realize he probably came by when you were sleeping. 

“You came over?!”

“Yeah, I confessed my love for you.”

“Wait,” you blink blankly, unsure if you heard him correctly. “Your love?”

“Yeah,” he nods, giving you his cheesy, adorable smile.  “I love you.”

“As more than a friend?” you clarify.

“Babe,” Yangyang’s thumb caresses your cheek. “I don’t think I could ever go back to wanting less with you.”

Your lips tremble with relief as your gaze melts in his.

“And, anyway, who else am I going to share the Playstation with?”

“Well, I mean, you do have Hendery, Xiaojun, Winwin...” you start to count his infinite list of friends on your fingers.  

“Yeah, but I need you so I can constantly beat your cute little butt at games.”

“You do not constantly beat my cute little butt at games, I’ll have you know that I beat you at—”  

Yangyang shuts you up with another kiss, the one of many for the rest of the night.

JANUARY 2nd

It’s your second morning at Yangyang’s place. You’ve only done it a few times now, but you realize that waking up in his arms is one of the greatest feelings in the world, second only to his kisses.  

In his bed, spooning you from behind, he grumbles into the nape of your neck, “Morning, girlfriend.”  

Half-awake, you mumble back, “Morning, boyfriend,” and sink deeper into the curve of his body.

Content, you finally broke your string of cursed holiday break-ups for good.  

And all it took was to be with the one who was in front of you all this time.

[thespoonisvictory]

Please explain why Schlatt is the best character on the SMP.

(Alternatively, I would be really interested in hearing more about your dislike for Quackity's produced lore. Personally, I love it, so I'm really intrigued whenever someone says that they're not fond of it).

as much as I love schlatt, I think I'll answer the quackity question, because I've been meaning to.

first of all, I think I should clarify that I'm definitely biased, because my favorite streamers, outside of the dsmp universe, tend towards semi lore, or, at least, not whatever quackity's doing. I'm used to it, and people tend to not like change lol.

second of all, I really do like quackity's produced lore, but I don't like certain aspects of it, and find myself preferring semi lore in general. I don't think he should stop doing it so much as I think he should use it as an occasional technique rather than conveying near 100% of his story with it. big q is very talented and I commend him for taking such a bold approach, which I think pays off in some ways.

third, to me, semi lore is any lore that breaks the fourth wall in that it isn't trying to be something other than a minecraft stream, it's all in first person, and none of it is prerecorded. for example: most of wilbur's pogtopia streams are semi (or casual) lore to me, because he'll thank subs and joke with schlatt about getting techno a girlfriend, but it's still largely in canon.

anyway, in true jenny nicholson fashion, let's kick off with a numbered list.

1. this post, by patches, explains a bit of why the lore streams can get a bit disconcerting to me. the dsmp have always had a bit of charming awkwardness in their improv, because these are for the most part just Some Guys acting, and under the guise of a stream where it's just a Streamer Playing Minecraft, it fits. but the highly produced nature just- creates such a disparity between the quality of the cinematography and the acting that it's a little weird, y'know?

2. in some cases, semi lore allows for dread to be built in a unique way. during the exile arc, tommy would have lighthearted streamer jokes and bits, shout out subs, pretend like things were normal. he never acknowledges that his situation is messed up, that his condition is getting worse, that things are falling apart. it's a quiet, sinking, horror that creeps along over the course of weeks. it's important to the viewer that we are there every day to see the slow progress, to understand why tommy gets pushed so far down. besides the impracticality of 14 highly produced lore streams, you would lose a lot of the subtlety there.

the smp is such a unique medium in that the stream style itself is so telling. when tommy actively doesn't acknowledge what's happening, it makes the abuse that's occurring seem so much worse. when wilbur drops little hits about his depression or his plans in between lighthearted, ooc jokes, it lulls the audience into a false sense of security.

imagine a version of the 'forming las nevadas' story where quackity does it over the course of four nights. the slow realization of his manipulation tactics disguised by an unassuming stream format, because it's still quackity, joking around and laughing until he approaches the next person and he shifts into his 'persona'. when he finishes the conversation, we watch his face fall, his smile fade, as he walks back to an empty las nevadas. it would build hype, not to mention taking less work, and letting the audience see a bit more of quackity's humanity.

3. I mentioned it before, but it just straight up takes less time. I'm willing to wait, of course, but there's something to be said about the merits of pacing and being able to throw together a lore stream last minute. take, for example, tommy's death. it wouldn't have been nearly as impactful without the rushed, oddly somber flurry of livestreams that came after. jack didn't need a highly produced montage of him standing by tommy's grave as the seasons passed, of his planting flowers everyday. what turned out to be effective was just- him, walking around, coming to terms with his grief, completely silent for periods of time.

it was mourning. plain and simple, with no embellishment or evil villain music, shockingly earnest.

I don't think you could replicate that raw, undone feeling with a prerecorded, pre-produced, semi-movie. it feels like all of a sudden jack's pov was important enough that he had to stream, and there it was.

you could argue that this could be planned beforehand, but I think more often than not, that's a. not really feasible, and b. going to take away from the organic nature.

we all like candid shots, 'authentic' vlogs and influencers. to me, this is just one more extension of that rule.

4. under the same idea, you can make more. we spend more time with the streamers, and therefore the characters, and get to know their more human side. wilbur, for example, is deeply humanized by little things that you just couldn't really fit into a lore stream: his dynamic with niki, all his little moments of hesitation, his banter with tommy and his true love for l'manburg. who c!wilbur is is built up over hours and hours of comments and suggestions and one-off statements, and we just don't have time for that in quackity's lore. the transitions are snappy, filled with beautiful shots, but they don't allow for as much depth of character as that awkward little walk from place to place, that quiet monologue they do to themselves.

it's not impossible for you to do that, as with c!quackity and c!charlie serving as a 'morality pet', but at this risk of repeating myself endlessly, it's more earnest and organic in a sense.

5. last, I just really like multiple povs. one of my favorite bits from s1 is the fundy spy arc, because of how effectively multiple povs are used. streams where wilbur is deeply, deeply distraught over fundy's betrayal but thinks fundy doesn't care, while fundy is deeply, deeply distraught over wilbur's prior treatment of him but thinks he doesn't care. and you could watch both at the same time! quackity's pov isn't as personal when it uses third person, which is a bit sad because I think it's a unique aspect of livestreaming every perspective.

(I'm so sorry if this isn't coherent or makes any sense I'm very brain dead and tired from speedrunning three essays yesterday)

basically, I think quackity's lore style is good for big, grand events, occasionally. it's very cool to watch, definitely builds hype, and can make certain things easier, such as coordinating a bunch of people or doing special effects.

but for building a plot and establishing character dynamics, I really prefer semi/casual lore.

[number5theboy]

Please elaborate on how Five could've turned into the most insufferable character to watch

Thanks for asking me to elaborate on this text post:

@tessapercygranger​, @waywardd1​ and @margarita-umbrella​ also wanted to see a more detailed version of it, and I ended up writing an essay that’s longer than some of my actual academic essays. So buckle up.

WHY NUMBER FIVE SHOULD BE THE MOST OBNOXIOUS CHARACTER IN TV HISTORY, AND HOW HE MANAGES NOT TO BE

Number Five: The Concept That Could Go Horribly Wrong

Alright, let’s first look at Five in theory in an overarching way, without taking into account the execution of the show. The basic set-up of the character, of course, is being a 58-year-old consciousness in a teenager’s body, due to a miscalculation in time travel. Right off the bat, Five is bar none the most overpowered of the siblings; by the end of Season 2, no one has yet been able to defeat him in a fight. He is a master assassin – and not just any master assassin, but the best one there is – and a survival expert, able to do complex maths and physics without the aid of a calculator, shown to have knowledge of half a dozen languages, has very developed observational skills and, to top that all off, he can manipulate time and space to the point where he can literally erase events that happened and change the course of history. And Five knows how skilled he is; he is arrogant, self-assured and sarcastic, and his streak of goodness is buried deep inside. David Castañeda once described Five in an interview as 90% chocolate with a cherry in the middle, meaning that you have to get through a lot of darkness and bitterness before knowing there is a good core, and I think it’s an excellent metaphor. However, Five is also incredibly, fundamentally terrible at communicating with anyone, and, because he is the only one with time travel abilities, the character a lot of the actual plot - and the moving forward of it - centres around. Also he’s earnestly in love with a mannequin, who is pretty much a projection of his own consciousness that functions as a coping mechanism for all the trauma he has endured. All in all, this gives you a character who looks like a teenager, but with the smug superiority of a fifty-something, who a) is extremely skilled in many different things, b) has a superiority complex, is arrogant and vocal about it, and most of the superiority is expressed through cutting sarcasm, c) has one very hidden ounce of goodness that he is literally the worst at communicating to other human beings, d) is what moves the plot along but is also bad at talking to anyone else, meaning that the plot largely remains with him, and e) his love interest is essentially a projection of himself. Tell me that’s not a character who is destined to be just…obnoxious, annoying, egocentric, a necessary evil that one has to put up with to get through this show. There are so many elements of this characterisation that can and should easily make Five beyond insufferable, but the show manages to avoid it, and I’m putting this down to three aspects.

That Trick of Age and Appearance

Bluntly put, Five as a character would not work if he was anything else than an old man in a 13-year-old body. Imagine this character and all his skills and knowledge, but actually just…a teenager. Immediately insufferable. Same goes for him being around 30, like his siblings, all of which are stunted and traumatised by their father’s abuse. If Five, being comparatively unscathed by Reginald to the point where he explicitly does not want to be defined by his association with his father, were 30 like his siblings, it would just take the bite out of that plot point and also give him a lot less time in the apocalypse, reducing the impact it had on him as a person. And making Five his actual 58-year-old self would make him very similar to Reginald, at least on surface level, with the appearance and attitude. Five and Reginald are two fundamentally different people, but having one of the siblings being a senior citizen that’s dressed to the nines and bosses his siblings around in a relatively self-centred way does open up that parallel, and would take away from Five’s charm as a character. Because pairing the life experience of a 58-year-old with the appearance of a teenager gives you the best of both worlds. You get the other siblings (and a lot of the audience, from a glance in the tags of my gifsets) feeling protective and paternal about Five, but his age and experience also give the justifications for his many skills, his arrogance, in a way, and his ability to decimate a room full of people. It’s the very interesting and not new concept of someone dangerous with the appearance of something harmless, a child. This is also where Five’s singular outfit comes in. I know we like to clown on Five to get a new outfit, but I think what gets forgotten often is how effective this outfit is at making the viewer take him seriously. The preppy school uniform is the perfect encapsulation of the tension between old man in spirit and young teenager in appearance. The blazer, vest and especially the shirt and tie are quite formal, relatively grown up. They’re not something we, the audience, usually associate with a teenage boy wearing; it makes Five just a little bit more grown up. But there is also a reason characters in this show keep bringing up Five’s shorts and his socks, because those are not things that we associate with grown men wearing; they’re the unmistakably childish part of his school uniform. Take a moment and imagine Five wearing a hoodie or a t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers; would that outfit work for him as well as the uniform does? Would he be able to command the same kind of respect or seriousness as a character? I don’t think so; the outfit is a lot more pivotal in making Five believable than a lot of people give it credit for.

Writing Nuance

The other big building block in not making Five incredibly insufferable is the writing. Objectively speaking, I think Five is the most well-written, and, more importantly, most coherently written character on the show (which does have to do with the fact that the show’s events are all sequential for him), and his arc and personality remain relatively intact over the course of the two seasons. More to the point, a giant part of what makes Five bearable as a character is that he is allowed to fail. He is written to have high highs and low lows, big victories through his skills and his intelligence, but also catastrophic failures and the freedom to be wrong. His superior intellect and skillset are not the be-all end-all of the plot or his character, just something that influences both. His inability for communication has not (yet) been used to fabricate a contrived misunderstanding that derails the plot and left all of us seething; instead, it’s a characteristic that makes him fail to reconnect with the people he loves. This is a bit simplified, as he does find common ground with Luther, for example, but in general, a lot of the rift between Five and his siblings is that they can’t relate to his traumas and he does not understand the depth of Reginald’s abuse, which is an interesting conflict worth exploring. Another thing that really works in Five’s favour is that he is definitely written to be mean and sarcastic, but it is never driven to the point of complete unlikability, and a lot of the time, the context makes it understandable why he reacts the way he does. Most of the sarcastic lines he gets are actually funny, that certainly helps, but in general, Five is a good example of a bearable character whose default personality is sharp and relatively cold, because it is balanced out with many moments of vulnerability. Delores is incredibly important for this in the first season, she is the main focus of Five’s humanising moments, and well-written as she totes the line between clearly being a coping mechanism for an extremely traumatised man and still coming across to the viewer as the human contact Five needs her to be. In the second season, the vulnerability is about his guilt for his siblings, it’s about Five connecting a little bit better to them. There’s also his relationship with the Commission and the Handler specifically – which honestly could be an essay on its own – that deserves a mention, because the Handler is why Five became the man he is, and this dynamic between creator and creation is explored in a very interesting way – their scenes are some of the most well-written in the entire show. And TUA never falls into the trap of making Five a hero, he is always morally ambiguous at best, and it just makes for an interesting, multi-faceted character, well-written character, and none of the characteristics that should make him unlikeable are allowed to take centre-stage for long enough to be defining on their own. I know a lot of people especially champion the scenes where Five goes apeshit, but without his more nuanced characterisation, if he was like that all the time, those scenes would not hit as hard.

Aidan Gallagher’s Performance is Underrated

But honestly, none of the above would matter that much if the Umbrella Academy didn’t luck out hard with the casting of Aidan Gallagher. I think what he achieves as an actor in this show is genuinely underappreciated. Like, the first season set out to cast six adults having to deal with various ramifications of childhood trauma, and a literal child that had to be able to act smart and wise beyond his years, seamlessly integrate into a family of adults while seeming like an adult, traumatised by the literal end of the world, AND had to be able to create the romantic chemistry of a thirty-year-long marriage with a lifeless department store doll. The only role I could think of to compare is Kirsten Dunst in Interview with a Vampire, where she plays a vampire child who, because she is undead, doesn’t age physically, but does mentally, so she’s 400 in a child’s body. And Kirsten Dunst had to do that for a two-hour movie. Five is a main character in a show that spans 20 episodes now. That’s insane, and it’s a risk. Five is a character that can’t be allowed to go wrong; if you don’t buy Five as a character, the entire first season loses believability. And they found someone who could do that not only convincingly, but also likeably. As I said, he is incredibly helped by the costuming department and the script, but Aidan Gallager’s Five has so much personality, he’s threatening and funny and charming and arrogant and heartbreaking. He has the range to be convincing in the quiet moments where Five’s humanity comes to show and in the moments where Five goes completely off the rails. Most child actors act with other children, but he is the only child in the main cast, and holds his own in scenes with adults not as a child, but as an adult on equal footing with the other adult characters. That’s not something to be taken for granted. But even apart from the fact that it’s a child actor who carries a lot of the plot and the drama of a series for adults, Aidan Gallagher’s portrayal of Five is also just so much fun. The comedic timing is on point, he has the dramatic chops for the serious scenes, the mannerisms and visual ticks add to the character rather than distract from him, and his line deliveries, paired with his physical acting, make Five arrogant and smug but never outright malicious and unlikeable. It’s just some terrific acting that really does justice to the character as he is written, but the writing would not be as strong if it wasn’t delivered and acted out the way Aidan Gallagher does. He is an incredible asset for this show.

Alright, onto concluding this rambling. If you made it this far, I commend you, and thank you for it. The point of all of this is that Five, as a character, could have been an unmitigated disaster of a TV character. He is overpowered, arrogant, uncommunicative and could so easily have been either unconvincing or completely unlikeable, but he turned out to be neither. It’s a combination of choices in the costume department, decisions in the writing room, and Aidan Gallagher’s acting skills that make the things that should make him obnoxious and annoying incredibly entertaining, and I hope you liked my long-winded exploration of these. Some nuance was lost along the way, but if I had not stopped myself, this would’ve become a full-blown thesis.

[victorluvsalice]

Sims Challenge Wednesday: Fallout 4

And for my second challenge -- one themed around the settlement-building mechanics of Fallout 4! Because that felt like a better fit than trying to do the main plot. . . here we go!

Fallout 4 Sims 4 Challenge

Premise: It was all going – fine, you suppose. Sure, you were living in an embarrassing imperialistic and xenophobic nation, which was fighting a terrible war with the other superpower over the last of the oil reserves in the world, but you yourself were doing good. You had a nice home in a little suburb, you could take advantage of personal domestic robots, you were getting enough to eat despite the food shortages – all in all, your life was pretty okay!

And then some asshole had to go and drop the bombs. By sheer luck, you’d been admitted to nearby Vault 111 mere minutes before the alarm sounded, and you made it there just in time. The staff there was very friendly too, telling you that your new life underground could start just as soon as you were decontaminated in these weirdly-cold pods. . .

210 years later, you wake to discover that:

a) you were totally lied to and you’ve been frozen for the past two centuries as part of some mad experiment

b) you are the only survivor of that experiment – everyone else’s pod failed, and a revolt by the security staff six months into your freezing means they all either died or skedaddled long before you woke up

c) oh, and the revolt was over dwindling food supplies, so you can’t even stay in the vault, you’ll starve

So out you venture into the world, to find – hmmm. People seem to be surviving, but they could probably use some help. Good thing you’ve got nothing but time on your hands. Time and the desire to make proper homes for the new friends you’re finding. Time to build a settlement and make it something this post-War world can be proud of!

Now if only you could shake the feeling you ought to be looking for someone. . .

This is a challenge loosely based around being the Sole Survivor of Fallout 4, specifically being the General of the Minutemen and building settlements. The goals are to build up the world of Brindleton bay from some ramshackle farms into a bunch of thriving settlements, create and manage a club for helping others and improving the world, and defeat the nasties that are making life harder for everyone else.

Packs required: Get Together, Get To Work, Cats & Dogs, City Living, Eco Lifestyle, Cottage Living, Island Living, Discover University, StrangerVille

Your Sim: Create your “Sole Survivor” in CAS. They can be a Young Adult or Adult, and have any traits. However, they are only allowed to have two outfits – a set of everyday wear (for everyday, formal, athletic, party, hot weather, and cold weather), and a set of underwear (for sleeping and swimwear). They will get more clothing as they survive out in the world.

Optional: Rather than start right out of the vault, you may play a brief one-week “pre-War” period with your Sole Survivor to gain some skills and whatnot. The Military or Law career is recommended if you want to follow the actual given backstories of the Fallout 4 Sole Survivors (Nate and Nora respectively), but you’re welcome to give them whatever pre-War occupation you like.

Their World: Set up the rest of the save file as per these guidelines:

Go to Brindleton Bay and wipe out all the existing architecture – you can keep the pre-made families, but not their houses. The apocalypse has happened, and the world has got to look the part! (If you really want, you can keep the lighthouse on Deadgrass Isle, but give a makeover to look wrecked.)

Pick one lot in either Sable Square, Whiskerman’s Wharf, or Cavalier’s Cove to serve as your “Diamond City” marketplace. This should include a small bar, a small clothing store, a grocery stall, a food stall, and whatever other stalls and vending machines you think your Sole Survivor could use to survive out in the wasteland.

In a different neighborhood to “Diamond City,” pick another lot to serve as your “Goodneighbor.” Build a lounge there (The Third Rail) with a bar, microphone for a singer, and plenty of seating. If you want, you can double up and have your lounge in the basement and put a little spa-type building (The Memory Den) up top. Feel free to throw in a goodies stall too.

All remaining mainland lots should be residential, and need to have the “Off The Grid” and “Simple Living” lot challenges enabled. You may enable other lot challenges or traits at your discretion (“Filthy” is recommended, given the state of post-nuke Boston in Fallout 4).

Pick two residential lots on the mainland (in different neighborhoods) to serve as “raider outposts.” Build up these lots to have three or four beds under minimal shelter, and off-the-grid compatible appliances. Each of these lots should have three or four Sims on it, all with either the “Mean,” “Hot-Headed,” “Kleptomaniac,” and/or “Slob” traits. Put all these Sims into a “Raider” club (you may choose your own gang name) and set their club activities to encourage them to “Be Mean,” “Fight,” “Swipe Items,” and “Sabotage Items.”

Set up the remaining residential lots with the bare minimum for survival: If the lot has Sims living on it, make a small hut for them to sleep in, with just enough beds for everyone, and one outhouse with a toilet and sink. No working lights, and they must have only a small fridge or cooler. If the lot doesn’t have Sims living on it, you can only have two beds maximum, and no food source at all. You can build whatever structure you wish there. Regardless of whether or not it is occupied, each residential lot must have a woodworking table, and an outdoor cooking station of some description. Other crafting items (candle-making, juice-fizzing, fabrication machine, robotics station, etc) may be placed at your discretion.

Choose an uninhabited lot for your Sole Survivor to start on – once they are moved in, set their money to zero.

Goals: Your Sole Survivor is looking to complete the following:

Build up every empty residential lot in the world so it can support at least five Sims, one pet, and one robot helper

Improve the occupied residential lots so everyone has adequate food, water, and shelter

Complete the Master Maker aspiration

Complete the Leader of the Pack aspiration as the “General of the Minutemen” and build up the club to full strength by befriending the other “settlers” in the world

Defeat all of the raiders in fights and force their club to disband

Rules:

Your Sole Survivor cannot have a normal job, as those just plain don’t exist anymore. They must earn their “caps” via selling things they have found or made (or, with the right traits, swiped) to other Sims, or via doing Odd Jobs for the people already living in the post-War society.

Your Sole Survivor is only allowed to purchase basic build mode items (e.g., walls and wallpaper, floors and flooring, roofs, doors, windows, columns), animal sheds, chicken coops, and basic pet supplies (food bowls and beds) directly from the catalog. Everything else must either be obtained by scavenging (dumpster diving for items or harvesting wild plants), building it themselves (making furniture at the woodworking table or using the fabricator), or “purchasing” it at the DC marketplace (either by genuinely buying it from a stall or visiting the lot and spending money on SOMETHING to represent a shopping trip). This includes clothing – you may either visit the marketplace once every three days to buy a new outfit for any category, or “scavenge” one by finding something that could reasonably contain clothing from a dumpster.

In order to increase the variety of their scavenging, your Sole Survivor may visit the Bramblewood of Henford-on-Bagley, or go on brief vacations to Granite Falls. Other locations depend on if you can make them look suitably post-apocalyptic (for example, creating a post-apocalypse Newcrest or Forgotten Hollow shouldn’t be too hard, but I think you’d be hard-pressed to justify San Myshuno!).

Your Sole Survivor must build up every lot in their world to the standards of a good settlement – enough food, water, and sheltered beds for all residents, along with power for items that may need it: Food is produced by farming crops and owning livestock. A small crop counts as 0.5 units of food; a tree or over-sized crop counts as one unit of food; a chicken coop with at least four chickens, a cow, or a llama counts as two units of food. (Yes, you are strongly encouraged to regularly trade animals for meat – or, if you feel bad, ingredients and produce.) You must have enough units of food to cover all residents (so a minimum of six). Water is produced by setting up dew collectors or water generators. Each dew collector or water generator counts as one unit of water. You must have enough units of water to cover all residents (again, a minimum of six). Sheltered beds are beds in an enclosed area with a roof. There must be one bed per Sim – you may use double beds, but they only count as one bed for one Sim! (Think of it as making sure there’s “spare beds” for anyone passing through who may stay overnight – Fallout 4 has traveling traders, after all!) Power is generated by generators, solar panels, and wind turbines – each provides one unit of power. You don’t technically need any power on your lots, but it will make your settlements happier if you can actually power things like salvaged TVs and computers.

Once a settlement is set up with all the basics, if it is empty, your Sole Survivor should go out and find homeless Sims to populate it. You may move the Sims in normally, or ask them to be roommates – though given your Sole Survivor will be moving to each settlement in turn to “renovate” it, it’s recommended you move in at least one Sim normally to look after everyone. Once you have all the human Sims, your Sole Survivor should adopt a stray cat or dog, then build a helpful robot to help with gardening, repairs, or generally just keeping people happy. Optional: If you have the Dream Home Decorator game pack, you may, at your discretion, allow your Sole Survivor to join THAT career and make use of it to renovate the lots of settlers who already live in the world. Given how buggy the pack is reputed to be, though, I’m not sure how much I recommend this! (Though I guess if you’re just willing to go room by room, since those gigs seem to work relatively well. . .)

Your Sole Survivor needs to form the “Minutemen” club to help out others in the wastes, by befriending other Sims living in the world and inviting them to join. The club’s required activities should include any of the activities from the following list: Be Friendly Tend Animals Tend Garden Fish Woodwork Work Out Build Robots Fabricate Objects Fight (Raiders)

Related, your Sole Survivor needs to get rid of the Raiders making life harder for the people just trying to survive in this world! Have regular fights between your Sole Survivor and their Minutemen versus the Raiders and keep track of the winners and losers – once each Raider has been bested in at least one battle, disband the club. Your Sole Survivor will then take over their outposts to turn them into functioning settlements. The Raiders themselves can either be moved out or rehabilitated and allowed to live in the new world so long as they don’t start too many fights.

Optional Hard Mode – Expand The Map: More space, more problems – rather than setting up in Brindleton Bay, set up in WINDENBURG. You are allowed two community lots to build up “Diamond City” and “Goodneighbor” in this instance, and a third of your choosing.

Optional Hard Mode – Join The Clubs: Your Minutemen are not the only faction out there in the Wasteland – there’s three others, and oh look, they all seem to hate each other. Set up three other clubs, one each for each of the mainland neighborhoods:

The Railroad – required activities “Debate,” “Hack,” “Be Mean (Institute),” “Be Mean (Brotherhood of Steel).”

The Brotherhood of Steel – required activities “Swipe Objects,” “Work Out,” “Be Mean (Railroad),” “Fight (Institute)”

The Institute – required activities “Build Robots,” “Use Science Objects,” “Fight (Railroad),” “Fight (Brotherhood of Steel)”

All members of these clubs should live and hangout on the same lot (The Old North Church and its basement for the Railroad; the Boston Airport for the Brotherhood (though if you think you can make the Prydwen, go for it); the CIT Ruins and the labs beneath it for the Institute). Make sure they all dislike each other, and make them all “invitation only” clubs. Your Sole Survivor needs to join all of these clubs, work toward becoming the leader of each other, then decide who stays and who goes based on your “ending:”

Railroad Ending – Disband the Institute and the Brotherhood of Steel once you’re the leader. Exile the members of each from the world.

Brotherhood of Steel Ending – Disband the Institute and the Railroad once you’re the leader. Exile the members of each from the world.

Institute Ending – Disband the Railroad and the Brotherhood of Steel once you’re the leader. Exile the members of each from the world.

Minuteman Ending – Disband the Institute once you’re the leader – at your discretion, the members may keep their lot, though they have to give up their basement labs and live in the ruins up top. The other two clubs may remain depending on how friendly their members are with your own Minutemen club. Check everyone’s relationships with each other – if the majority of either club hates the majority of the Minutemen, that club must be disbanded.

Given the size of this hard mode, I would recommend running it in tandem with “Expand the Map” above so you have more room to breathe with each club!

Optional Hard Mode – Automatron DLC: Create a placeholder Sim, get their Robotics up to ten, have them make a Servo, then kill the Sim and either let the Servo live on the lot alone or have them wander as a homeless NPC. In order to get access to the Robotics station, your Sole Survivor must find and befriend this Servo.

Optional Hard Mode – Vault-Tec DLC: One of your lots is not a traditional settlement, but an unfinished Vault-Tec vault! This settlement must be built entirely underground, and does not have any beds, water, or food when your Sole Survivor arrives. However, it does have at least three generators for power! Also, the first Sim you recruit to live there must have either the “Good” or the “Goofball” trait.

[chaos0pikachu]

I was speculating a “second-first time” might be possible due to some of the general novel spoilers I read. BUT, it also seems pretty likely to me that since the content is, in general, rated 18+ they’re not gonna let folks under 18 in anyway with or without NC scenes lmao

Yeah, I don't think it's because there's going to be a sex scene, it's just that the content is 18+ so the audience must be 18+ as well, that isn't going to change just because they're at a cinema in person if that makes sense.

Personally, I think there's going to be too much plot (being in Vegas' house, and I don't think they'll be there for a couple of hours, it may be an entire day at least) and being on whatever mission they sent Porsche to do for there to be a chance for an NC scene.

Yeah I don't think a cinema viewing requiring ID proving your 18 for an 18+ show is any sort of signal or anything.

That said, who knows. Setting an entire hour long episode only in one location will drag. I saw people last week say that the forest arc in the novel is pretty long and speculate it would go on for at least two episodes, but then the actual episode was only that, a single episode.

The translation of adaptions is an interesting one. Like, take the pipeline of manga to anime. One chapter is not enough to make a full 25min episode. Most episodes are at least three to four chapters if not more. That's why shows rely on filler to allow the comics to progress further, as well as, padding an episode heavily with recaps, and filler scenes in between canon content.

I'm rewatching One Piece now and even before I picked up the comics I could tell when the show caught up. Similarly with video game movies, one factor in why they're so hard to adapt is a larger amount of the game time is doing game play. Which you can't translate into a film format. You see this a lot in book adaptions as well. An hour episode can and will cover several chapters b/c it'll cut internal narration - which takes up a lot of space in books.

From the novel spoilers I read, Porsche and Kinn at the hospital and all the cuddling was already a big chunk of an entire chapter. There's also obviously cutting some other moments from this upcoming arc b/c it doesn't fit with who Kinn or Porsche are as characters. Those cut novel bits are where I think they'll fill in with plot relevant to the show - what I'm speculating is the investigation of the minor family.

There's some other novel spoilers I saw that make me think a NC scene is possible, whether it's probable, eh now that I don't know. The show keeps surprising me. I wasn't expecting the final 10mins of last episode, nor the amount of character development they packed into one episode. The show has also done a good job of pacing the overall plot of the show. It's set up all the pieces, now it just has to pull the trigger.

Since we're officially half-way through the series - 7 out of 14 eps - we're at the rising action according to the Ficthtean Curve:

Or at closing in on the mid-point from Blake's Beat Sheet:

Honestly the mid-point is what can make or break a shows season. It's why 22 - 24 ep series have fallen out of style. It takes to damn long to get to the mid-point and then even longer to get to the final climax. It's exhausting.

For TV the climax doesn't have to be one episode either, it can be multiple episodes, building towards the final confrontation and then we can have the falling action followed by the resolution.

Sorry I'm getting way off base lol

My overall point is the show still has a LOT to cover for a show that's halfway completed, tick tock on the clock and all that. Like we have the interpersonal relationships that need resolution, along with the main plot resolution. Beyond Kinn and Porsche there's still a lot of story to deal with and cover (legit I'm wondering if they'll just cut the Time, Tay, Tem thing tbh). So I wouldn't be surprised if Kinn and Porsche pretty much resolve their relationship issues next episode either during or by the end leading into ep08 b/c we'll still need to break them apart for one final conflict by the end.

[rosicae]

Writing tip or something - planning scenes

Writing difficult scenes is always a struggle. Here are some tips to make the process a little easier, and more importantly, actually get something done instead of staring at a blank page for two months (guilty).

First, let's start where you left off. Maybe they're exploring the dark woods trying to find their lost cat and they come across a beast. Great! Battle scene time.

The first thing you need to ask yourself is what you'll get out of this battle. The main points, or plot-twists, if there are any. For example: Maybe the cat turned into the beast and they only realise as it lies dying; maybe one of the main characters die; maybe they find a key in the beast's skull; maybe they spare the beast and it becomes their friend; maybe the beast just dies and that's it. I'm not judging, there's a plethora of reasons you'd do anything in stories. Most scenes should have some sort of lead, whether it be key or death or kiss or whatever, depending on what sort of story you're cooking, but it's up to you.

So, figure out your main point. For simplicity's sake, I'll go with: “They kill the beast, they find a key”. Finding the key will be a clear lead to their next move. But for now, let's focus on the current scene.

You're going to want to order the events. Writing scenes like this off the bat can be pretty hard, so let's just go with what we know first.

I'm not joking when I say a lot of my scenes start out sort of like this.

Now, to build upon this beauty, we have to dig into each segment. Let's start with part A!

PART A - “Rosi encounters a beast.”

What sort of beast is it? A slimy tentacle monster? A catfish-pirate? A deformed bear? Dracula?? Your decision will affect the entire scene, so really think about what you choose. Monsters are super fun, so be creative if your story allows it! I'll pick a duck-faced bear spider hybrid. What does that do? It might help to draw your monster if it's a struggle to think it through. Here's mine!

As you think about their appearance, see how you can use it to their advantage or flaw. You might even already have ideas for certain moves during their fight, or what could be the fatal blow. We'll talk more on that later though.

Next on Part A, how did she encounter it? Was she up in the trees trying to check the sun's direction when suddenly it barreled into her and threw her down the tree? Did she trip over a log only to realise it wasn't a log but an angry treant? Is the forest cursed and monsters just keep chasing after her for no reason??? Maybe she's holding a tracker and the evil villain is sending the monsters after her.... it's good to think about, in the long run. For now though, let's just stick with: "she bumped into the beast"

But try to make it fancy. What was her reaction to bumping into it? Why would she bump into it? Maybe she wasn't looking while she was running and kept bumping into trees, but then one tree was actually the monster. The monster is clearly very fluffy (would probably make a good blanket), so let's make that a clear point.

So now we've got:

“Rosi was running along the forest without properly watching where she was going, when she bumped into a tree - but it was fluffy and warm and beating, not a tree. It was a bear duck spider beast. OOOO! SLAP SLAP!”

Slap slap being “the beast slapped her in her confused daze”, because who wouldn't be surprised if a tree was actually a duck-bear hybrid? This happens to be a perfect initiation to begin battling! On to part B!

PART B - “She fights the beast and kills it.”

This is absolutely the hardest part. It'll take careful consideration and pacing and- oh whatever let's just slap in every action thing we can think of. Even if you think it isn't good, even if it's just little phrases or actions or fancy words or teeny tiny segments you aren't sure about, it's good. Just do it.

-beast slaps her in her confusion/daze and she hits her back against a tree, much pain

-beast snaps its flappy duck beak and honks a bunch, muddling her brain

-rosi throws rocks at it

-rosi somehow breaks off its spider legs, unbalancing it

-beast uses its spider legs to crawl everywhere and be very agile and hard to fend off

-beast stabs her with its stabby legs

-maybe an injury from being slapped around

-rosi tries to run but it's always there

-rosi smacks its beak, very annoyed

-beast forces her to the dirt and pummels her with its stabby paws

-rosi evades its stabbies because the green drippy stuff looks like venom

-venom touches nature stuff and makes it wither

-beast lets out a bellow that shakes the earth and topples trees

-rosi avoids the trees to not die

-rosi scrambles to get up

-the most important thing is to somehow open its skull: plunge a verrryyy strong stick through its eye that tears out the key; or somehow trick it to stab itself with its venom spider legs and it withers and turns to bone/ashes and yay key (I like the second one so I'll go with that, but it's always good to list out your options!)

So I basically just took parts of the forest and parts of the beast's body and natural instincts of someone who is facing death and, adding some creativity, threw together a bunch of possibilites. It might take some practice, but once you're in the flow and have some experience listing this stuff, you'll get the hang of it in no time. Thoughts tend to be short and snappy in quick-paced scenes, so be careful not to go into a whole monologue about their past experiences, but absolutely show some reasoning to the complex things they do if necessary. And leave the monologing for when they're not being killed.

Now let's order them into something that sort of makes sense. It varies depending on what you want, so see if you can make your own unique battle scene out of this list!

-beast slaps her in her confusion/daze and she hits her back against a tree, much pain

-rosi scrambles to get up

-maybe an injury from being slapped around (tree + back + sudden slap = pain, this might be a good time to mention if they already have a flaw like having weak bones or an old injury, but if it isn't your intention to incapacitate them and you want to be realistic, have a reason for them not to insta-die without being op. Maybe she was just slapped into bushes and got little scrapes or a twisted ankle. Maybe she had a plushy backpack that took most of the impact. Remember where your character gets injured too, since pain usually hurts for a while and it's good to add that in wherever needed now and later. It can even drive the story along at times, like a life-threatening blow.)

-beast lets out a bellow that shakes the earth and topples trees

-rosi avoids the trees to not die

-rosi tries to run but it's always there

-beast uses its spider legs to crawl everywhere and be very agile and hard to fend off

-venom touches nature stuff and makes it wither (she notices here and thinks oh no, that is bad, can't let that touch me)

-rosi throws rocks at it (misses because it's agile)

-beast forces her to the dirt and pummels her with its stabby paws

-beast snaps its flappy duck beak and honks a bunch, muddling her brain

-rosi smacks its beak, very annoyed

-beast stabs her with its stabby legs (or tries, let's not kill her just yet if we're deciding on venom QwQ Maybe she uses a plank of wood to save herself last second)

-rosi evades its stabbies because the green drippy stuff looks like venom

X-rosi somehow breaks off its spider legs, unbalancing it (delete because the lower idea is better, but maybe earlier one of the rocks she threw can unbalance it a bit and it jumps on her to attack closer because it feels threatened)

-rosi somehow tricks it to stab itself with its venom spider legs and it withers and turns to bone/ashes and yay key (she tricks it by deflecting it with something strong, like a boulder behind her, she got out of the way just as it does a slash at her, and it bounces perfectly into itself

And just like that, ordering and expanding on every part, you've got yourself an entire fight! Obviously it isn't as easy as counting to ten and opening a pot to a finished piece, but if you just take ten minutes or, better yet, an hour, you'll get somewhere. All you need is the base.

PART C - “She finds a key in its skull.”

Keys are shiny, and if it's daytime, maybe some light can twinkle off it as it falls, or she could just notice it because who wouldn't notice a key trapped in bones? Either way, she picks it up, as you do (unless you want an eagle to swoop in and take it, in which case rosi will have to chase after it and climb a tree and try to take it back from its nest and blahdy blah but rosi doesn't feel like moving anymore after the fight, so let's go with the easier option for now). She might have to wrench it out of bones, but it's fine, she's already dirty from the battle.

So what's the key look like, hmm? Is it rusty and old, or fleshy but firm and warm as suited for being trapped in brains for so long? Or oozing in the same venom, and she has to wipe it off with special fabric only trolls deeper in the forest are capable of making, or throw it in a lake to purify it? Maybe it's short, or missing half that you have to find somewhere along the journey. What does it unlock? Rosi won't know now, obviously, but you'd better have an idea or there'd be no point to it in the first place. Maybe this entire journey is in her mind and she's finding parts of a key to unlock her memory which will be a door to her childhood house. Maybe it's a master key to the villain's castle. Maybe it was accidentally baked in a cookie the beast ordered from a special fish-headed-cat-run bakery, and the little workers will be scrambling around to find the key and be so grateful that rosi brings it back that they hail her as king of fish-headed cats. You never know :D...except you kinda have to, so please have some sort of idea even if it's small.

That's practically all you can do in this part, so next we're on-

PART D - “She questions the key, then goes off to seek reason for it.”

Assuming she collects the key, what are her thoughts? It's all down to personality. Let's say rosi loves keys, and she has a whole collection at home, and she loves shiny things. She'll probably squee at the sight of it and act very excited - "she snatched up the key and chirruped her glee (oh hey, that rhymes!), and after a quick inspection with gleaming eyes, she tucked it safely in her pocket alongside trinkets from the seaside."

Because, you know, obviously she was at the seaside before all this. Or whatever else she was doing. It's your call. It's their personality. It's an optional connection, but a valid one nevertheless. Careful though - if she carries too much, she might get weighed down and drown.

In her case, she doesn't really think too hard on the key. Maybe she's already fought plenty of monsters and gotten a nice treasure trove of stuff. Maybe she's an air-head. Cough. Either way, the obstacle is gone so now she can go off and do what she was doing before - albeit a little more cautious, provided she learns from experience. If there's a clear indicator of what the key is for, or if the character was actively seeking it out, that'll obviously give a different outcome - maybe they'll turn back the way they came (car keys), or head for the town of blue oak (blue key) if that is already in their knowledge database, or ask the next person they see and get guided or tricked.

Finally, let's put this baby together! Let's start simple for now and just slap together this monstrosity with whatever little stuff we think of in the moment and some proper tense. We can build it up later (not here lol I've spent too much on this but you can if you want).

~~Rosi's Magical Adventure~~

Rosi ran along the forest without properly watching where she was going, when she bumped into a tree – but it was fluffy and warm and beating, not a tree. It was a bear duck spider beast.

Fish. That definitely shouldn't exit.

The beast slapped her in her daze and her back slammed against a tree. Despite being in pain, she scrambled to get up. She staggered, feeling the pierce in her ribs, the ache in her feet, the scream in her head that told her to run. It was drowned out under the beast's bellow. The earth shook and trees toppled one after another. Rosi spun on her heel and ran, avoiding the trees that twisted her path.

Even when she thought she outran it, it was always a step behind, a step above, a step ahead. Its spindly legs granted it an agility she couldn't imagine matching. Not only that – wherever the ends of those legs touched, an iridescent liquid spurted out, withering blooming manes and wilting once-proud trunks in an instant.

She shivered. She couldn't let it touch her. Realising that her (flee, running, escaping – whenever you can't think of the right words in the moment, just think of whatever is the closest and use that until you find the right word, or you might waste an hour racking your brains when you could just keep writing) was futile, she pounced into a rolling stop by a mound of rocks. It disoriented the beast for but a moment as she scooped a handful of rocks and hurled them at it. Most missed, or melted into its ragged coat, but a few landed directly against its uppermost legs. It gave an unnerved honk and flung itself at her, forcing her to the dirt, pummeling her with monstrous paws and claws that snapped her skin as she raised her hands to defend her face.

It honked. She grimaced. Her vision blurred and brain muddled with every honk. On impulse, one hand shot out to smack its flapping beak. Its pupils contorted, enraged by her sacrilege, and its spindle-legs shot towards her.

Just in time, she rolled free and pulled herself up, evading the blows that scattered poison over melting green. One hit went into a boulder. The boulder didn't budge. It was ineffective. It sparked an idea in Rosi, but she wasn't sure, so she waited until it happened again, and again it hit a boulder and bounced without damaging the boulder. She danced her way around the clearing, then stopped directly in front of boulder, facing the beast with her lips twisted into a wry smile.

The stabby leg slashed her way, but she ducked out of the way at the last second. Unable to redirect its blow, the leg bounced off the boulder and went directly into the beast's skull. The venom was quick to engulf the beast. Its skin vanished like the trees. It was only (bones, skeletal structure remained) and it fell before her. (If you still aren't sure how to write a part, break it down even further, even if it looks stupid. Keep breaking down everything as much as you need, until everything is plain to see and there are no misunderstandings. Then add on, and keep adding on, until you eventually understand.)

Streams of sunlight (because a lot of the trees died, so now there's some light in the forest) glinted off a surface lodged in the bones. Realising the rusty old metal to be a key, she snatched it up and chirruped her glee, and after a quick inspection with gleaming eyes, she tucked it safely in her pocket alongside trinkets from the seaside. Then she turned and limped her way back home, wondering why she came in the first place as blood trailed after her.

~~The End~~

It isn't perfect – far from it – but it doesn't matter. It's a start. You can work with it. You can keep going. Finish the chapter by repeating this process over and over, then go back and polish it when you've let the experience sink in a bit. Who knows where you'll go??? (ﾟヮﾟ)/

I spent almost three hours on this instead of writing my own book, and I'm tired, so I don't know if this makes sense, but I hope it's helpful a little??? I tried not to make it complex as much as possible so people of many levels can understand and hopefully get something out of it;;;

It's the method I've been using for a long time, especially when I'm in a difficult part or just can't get myself to write anything. Start simple, get something done, and keep going.

….....which I realise is the complete opposite of what I'm doing. Oh gosh what have I done OAAAAAO

….also this is really long and I'm scared so I'm not even going to hard read it over or edit now that I'm done writing.

ROSI OUT

[jackoshadows]

What are your thoughts on Jon-Bran-Tyrion & their relationship in TWoW & ADoS?

I have read that in GRRM original-idea [?] Jon was to rival Tyrion [because of their love over Arya] as well as Bran for the sake of Northern Power [& Arya apparently too, but not in the same sense??]

[No idea what Bran & Tyrion's relationship was suppose to/could look like, don't think GRRM has mention smth]

That being said, I can get behind Tyrion vs Jon, alright. But Jon vs Bran? How is that suppose to look like/work?

Even if we ignore that they think of each other fondly & miss each other, and that I don't see a reason why this would change all of a sudden... Or that Jon will likely gain the support of the North in TWoW, since he rather fit the "perfect image of an Lord", since he is a able-bodied, traditional [swords-] man, grown & proven as Leader/Lord Commander, has the same education as Robb did, is the eldest Son of Eddard, etc....

[Although I guess Lords like Manderly could prefer Rickon, so they can grap power as his custodian/regents? And the whole being-dead-but-not-anymore-&-what-about-the-oaths thing could be a little tricky & stuff😅] while Bran will likely remain longer behind the Wall, won't be able to rally allies & bannermen [Althouse I have read the speculation of Bran, The Blizzard and The Battle of Ice, my main concern is again the pacing:where Bran's plot seems on overdrive, while Jon's & all those around & in Winterfell are on hold in order for Bran to come back. It's the same problem for me with all those "speculations" about Dany & arriving way to early in Westeros] ...

But the thing that makes it so unbelievable for me is: the fricking age gap?! Put aside their feelings for each other, who is more likely to gain poltical support & all of that, Bran will be like 11 & Jon 18-19? Like... a rivalry between a elementary school student & a high school graduate? 😂🙊

I think for certain that there will be some kind of conflict between Jon and Tyrion. Them shaking hands on the Wall and calling each other friends is foreshadowing a friends to enemies arc, IMO.

As for Jon and Bran, it's hard to see this happening, but I am not ruling out the possibility - meaning that I won't be surprised if it happens. As you mentioned, a Jon/Bran rivalry/bitter estrangement was one of the major parts of the story in the original outline.

By the end of A Game of Thrones,------------------------------------- ---------------------------------g--------------- onto the iron throne with a bit----------------premature death, Bran sits free.--Yet his seat is hardly a comfortable one. In the North, Jon Snow is his bitter enemy. Beyond the narrow sea, Daenerys Stormborn prepares her invasion and on the far side of the Wall, the others are watching with cold dead eyes and gathering their strength.

Can this still happen? I think so. I have always said that GRRM likes his themes of dysfunctional families, conflict among family members and the human heart in conflict with itself and again, I don't see why the Starks should be the exception.

But I think it is a mistake to generalize about “the Westerlings,”  just as it would be to generalize about “the Lannisters.” Members of the same family have very different characters, desires, and ways of   looking at the world… and there are secrets within families as well.

GRRM SSM, May 01, 2001

The reason Sansa even exists as a character in the first place is because he wanted family conflict among the Starks.

Arya was one of the first characters created. Sansa came about as a total opposite b/c too many of the Stark family members were getting along and families aren’t like that.

Why would Jon and Bran have a rivalry? That I cannot speculate on, yet. We still have a lot of story to cover. But in the next book, my speculation is that both Jon and Bran would have changed a lot.

Bran is the current Lord of Winterfell/Heir to the North/Robb's Heir and King in the North. Robb's decree legitimizing Jon Stark could be a possible issue between them.

GRRM has said that death and resurrection changes a person and Jon is going to be spending time in a wolf. A resurrected Jon Snow coming back more wolfish and more hungry. Remember this?

He wanted it, Jon knew then. He wanted it as much as he had ever wanted anything. I have always wanted it, he thought, guiltily. May the gods forgive me. It was a hunger inside him, sharp as a dragonglass blade. A hunger … he could feel it. It was food he needed, prey, a red deer that stank of fear or a great elk proud and defiant. He needed to kill and fill his belly with fresh meat and hot dark blood. His mouth began to water with the thought. - Jon, ASoS

GRRM ties in his desire for Winterfell to a deep hunger that then connects to Ghost - his hunger for Winterfell intermingling with Ghost's hunger...

Remember the kings in the North of yore, like Ice Eyes. I doubt Jon Stark is going to hold back much. He's going to be doing some really messed up stuff.

Meanwhile, Bran's heavily involved in the magical stuff beyond the wall. Has connections to Bloodraven, the Children of the forest, can influence timelines (Hodor), unearth past truths and will be one of the most powerful greenseers. Blood sacrifice and human sacrifice is a big part of the dark magic of the north. Maybe they fight over how to defeat the Others? I think Bran's connection to the children of the forest is how they win again this time around - and his relationship with Jon suffers because of that?

Bran ends up King on the Iron Throne and Jon Snow ends up in the lands beyond the wall - just the opposite of what we would expect for these two characters considering where they are now and what we know of them (R+L=J) etc. How does this happen?

Anyways, according to GRRM, TWoW is a very dark book and if there is a Jon-Bran rivalry, we may see the seeds of it being planted in this book.

There are a lot of dark chapters right now in the book that I’m writing,” he said during a Q&A at the Guadalajara International Book Fair, according to Entertainment Weekly. “It is called The Winds of Winter, and I’ve been telling you for 20 years that winter was coming. Winter is the time when things die, and cold and ice and darkness fill the world, so this is not going to be the happy feel-good that people may be hoping for. Some of the characters [are] in very dark places.”

This is why I find all the Dark!Dany stuff slightly hilarious. Is Dany going to do things that go against the Geneva conventions (lol) in the next book? Yeah, I think so. She is going to come back from her sojourn at Vaes Dothrak and be like I have had it with these effing slavers and go all Aegon the Conqueror on them (About time I say, she should have done it a while ago). But I am pretty damn sure most of our characters are going to become darker in the next book. Tyrion is already on a downward spiral, Jon will surely go on a rampage against the Boltons, Bran most probably eating Jojen paste over there and learning dark magic, getting taught by Bloodraven, Sansa participating in the slow poisoning of her little cousin in the Vale and have you read Arya's Mercy chapter? That stuff is dark.

As for the rest, I think we should ignore the age gap like GRRM is planning on doing ( GRRM sees his young people as adults anyway - "Arya has the experiences of a 40 year old, If a 12 year old has to conquer the world then so be it" etc.) and I do think he will include some time gaps in the next two books allowing for travel etc. I am pretty sure Arya will end the books at 14.

Bran, Dany and Arya's plots have to be in overdrive in the next book out of necessity. Bran has to advance a lot in his plot, be used to build up the Others as a big threat, give us more info about the Children, Bloodraven, what is actually happening, Hodor etc. - there's just so much stuff here that GRRM has to write. Same with Dany. Dany has to wind up in Meereen, land in Westeros and start her campaign. Same with Arya. I think that's why they will get the most chapters, and time in the next book.

[nicnacsnonsense]

Been thinking about my hypothetical live action remake of Korra (seriously Netflix, call me, I have so many amazing ideas) and how I would tackle season two since it’s definitely the season that needs the most work, specifically and especially the Unalaq & Raava-Vaatu plotline. I kind of got carried away, like I do, but I’m very excited about it; a lot of good strong themes here. I’m going to start by talking about the changes to the first half, pre-Beginnings interlude, then the Beginnings episodes, then the back half. For the most part, all of the major plot beats still stay the same, at least until the climax, but the way those beats are contextualized are going to get pretty different building up to a radically different climax (no spirit being kaiju fight, yay!).

With Unalaq in the front half, the one major change is I want the religious fundamentalism vibes that come on so strong when he’s introduced to ramp up after the Northern Tribe soldiers show up and especially after Korra finally realizes he’s a bad guy, rather than petering out like happens in canon. I want to actually see him impose strict expectations of behavior in accordance with what he feels honors the spirits on the people of Southern Water Tribe. Let’s get some misogyny and restrictive gender roles up in here. That’s going to be great (from a storytelling perspective, obviously) because it’s relatively low-hanging fruit to communicate that the bad guy is bad, it fits in well thematically with where we’re going and the religious fundamentalism, and there is canon precedent in The Last Airbender that restrictive gender roles are a traditional value in the Northern Water Tribe.

A quick sidebar related to themes, in whatever episode where we first have Unalaq really cracking down on those gender roles, I want a B or possibly C plot with the Tenzin family vacation, where Jinora comes out to Tenzin as nonbinary. She is questioning with regards to the exact nature of her gender, but does say its some combination of both masculine and feminine, though other nonbinary identities – including agender, genderfluid, and a gender that is completely divorced from male-female – are floated. Tenzin is supportive and affirming and also suggests Jinora talk with her Aunt Kya, who he identifies as being a transwoman. (Kya is a trans lesbian in my version; you gotta deal with it.) This obviously serves to contrast Unalaq with his strict gender roles, and continues to build our theme.

For Korra in the first half, I do want to drag her emotional volatility down just a tad as compared to where she’s at in canon for these episodes. I still want her getting emotional and acting rash – that’s a huge part of her character – but I want her anger to feel sympathetic to the audience. Though I do also want at least one moment where Korra gets angry for good reason and starts yelling at Unalaq and he chides her for being emotional and irrational and he’s not going to discuss this with her if she can’t behave calmly and logically, blah, blah, blah, misogyny.

The final and biggest change that we’re making in the first half is Korra does not yet have her bending back. Season one does still end with her talking with Aang and learning energybending, which she uses to restore everyone else’s bending and restore her own connection to the other three elements, but in the opening episode of season two, we learn that she still can only airbend. She says that as far as she can tell everything should be alright and she should be able to bend fire, water, and earth, but obviously she can’t. She also mentioned that while it looks like it should, she feels like there is something missing, or maybe something there that she can’t see. Which my clever readers of course realize is a reference to Raava. After her flashback coma, Korra gains the other elements back, explaining that what she was missing was her connection to Raava had been damaged. Not broken, which is why she could still airbend and do all the other Avatar stuff she was doing, but damaged enough that Raava could no longer switch elements for her or give her access to multiple elements at once.

Moving on to Beginnings, right off the bat, I’m getting rid of the notion that all humans have to huddle on the backs of lion turtles out of fear of the spirits. The two worlds are connected, but humans and spirits co-exist peacefully for the most part. The lion turtles instead act as mediators when necessary, and do sometimes give out bending for humans to defend themselves with, but not as a regular thing every time they need to leave their city. We’ll have to switch up the stealing fire and Chin plot a little to accommodate this change, but somehow or other it happens and Wan gets banished with firebending.

Eventually he comes across Raava and Vaatu fighting and these two characters are getting some major shake ups. First off, in canon Raava identifies as being peace to counter Vaatu’s chaos, but peace is not the opposite of chaos; order is. Now, looking into yin & yang, chaos & order are not aspects that traditionally apply to them, but we’re going to let that addition of order to yang and light and chaos to yin and dark stand. Not everything has to be perfectly aligned. That said, one way in which we are going to switch things to make them fit better is yang is the masculine energy with yin as feminine. We’re switching the voices.

So Wan sees them fighting, and Vaatu calls out for help. And Wan is like, oh no, a damsel in distress; I’ll help you, milady! So, he helps, giving Vaatu the advantage. She beats up Raava, then flies off. Raava chastises Wan, explaining that he is the spirit of light and order, and he has been trying since the beginning of time to defeat Vaatu, but their battles have always ended in a draw. But now Wan has given Vaatu the advantage and if they don’t fix this, she’ll be victorious at the upcoming Harmonic Convergence, sending the worlds into ten thousand years of darkness. To which Wan is like, oh no, that sounds horrible. Well, Mr. Masculine Manly Spirit-Man Raava, I like light and order and you seem like a logical rational person; I’ll for sure help you put that emotional crazy spirit lady in her place. (Have I made the irony here clear enough? I don’t think I can get much more blatant. Though obviously in the show version it would be a little more subtle.)

After that we get Raava & Wan’s training and learning the elements montage, with some encounters with “corrupted” spirits along the way. Corrupted being Raava’s word, and he elaborates to say that all spirits fall under either Raava or Vaatu’s domain, all with varying inherent levels of light & order and dark & chaos to them. Vaatu gaining in power is causing the levels of dark& chaos in these spirits to rise, throwing them out of balance. Eventually comes time for Harmonic Convergence, Raava & Wan vs. Vaatu, and Vaatu wins. Ten thousand years of chaos, baby. With the last of the spirit energy as Harmonic Convergence ends, Wan fuses with Raava, then unleashes a crazy, amazing spirit attack, imprisoning Vaatu, banishing all the spirits from the physical world to the spirit world, and sealing the portals, all as an attempt to mitigate the fall out from chaos ascendent. Since then, the Avatar, imbued with the spirit of order, has fought back against the chaos to try to restore balance to the world.

Korra wakes up and panics. They have to stop Unalaq who is trying to free Vaatu, probably because he wants to destroy the world or something. But when she next has a chance to confront Unalaq, he’s like, not you stupid girl. I’m not trying to destroy the world; I’m trying to save it. Wan was right to side with order, but wrong to think he could stop chaos by teaming up with Raava and destroying it from without. No chaos is inside all of us, the evil infesting every human heart (Unalaq’s words, not mine) and it can only be dominated through one’s own strong force of will and conviction. So his plan is to fuse with Vaatu and then dominate her, destroy her chaos and using her power to allow him to bring his order across all of existence, both in the physical and spirit worlds. Korra’s not too keen on that plan either. She’s still going to stop him.

Korra fails to stop him. Harmonic Convergence begins, Vaatu is freed, she goes inside of Unalaq, and she immediately subsumes him. Turns out you can’t eliminate all the chaos in the world just by willpower, you absolute looney toon. Vaatu explains that even as Unalaq was planning to use her, she was using him to get free and now is going to use him as a meat puppet to help her fight Raava & the Avatar.

So, they fight, and for a bit it’s evenly matched, then Vaatu gains the upper hand. Just as Vaatu appears she’s about to deal the finishing blow, Unalaq briefly regains control and interrupts her – to be clear, he manages this because of his desperate need for order and control, not out of any affection for Korra. While he’s in control he says something in defiance of Vaatu that coming from Unalaq we can hear is clearly some fascist bullshit, but also echoes something that Wan/Raava said back in their battle with Vaatu. And Korra’s like, wait, hold up a second.

Lightbulb turns on for Korra at that moment, and by the time Vaatu has resecure control, Korra has dropped her offensive stance. She tells Vaatu she doesn’t want to fight her; she wants her to fuse with her and Raava. Neither Vaatu nor Raava like this idea. Korra has to go on the defensive holding off Vaatu’s attacks, and has to internally fight against Raava wanting to attack Vaatu all while trying to sell them both on this idea. She explains that too much chaos has been bad for the world, but too much order would be bad too – case in point, Unalaq. Both chaos and order, both Raava and Vaatu are needed for balance. And yeah, they can achieve balance by constantly fighting each other, with every encounter ending as a draw, or they could achieve balance through harmony together. Because even as they are opposites, they are one and the same, a part of a greater whole. A bunch of stuff to that effect, including mentions of the Northern Water Tribe upsetting the balance by trying to dominate the Southern Water Tribe, and also a shout out to Tui and La in there somewhere, the original Yin/Yang Avatar couple. Eventually Korra convinces them, she fuses with Vaatu, and Harmonic Convergence ends in a tie, returning the world to balance once again.

And of course, now that balance has been achieved, Korra leaves the spirit portals open. Remember in this version spirits and humans got along fine, and the separation was only necessary because the world had fallen out of balance. And yes, the rejoining of the physical and spirit worlds was probably something Unalaq wanted too, but we’re not giving him credit for it, because for every good idea a fascist ever had, there’s someone else who isn’t a fascist who had the same idea, but better, because it wasn’t coming from a fascist.

[thewritinggrindstone]

Who Is Your Main Character, Anyway?

Over the last six months, I have noticed a recurring problem in every fiction manuscript I’ve edited and a few other nonfiction projects to boot. It’s a problem that’s both made editing significantly more difficult than the task otherwise might be and it’s killed all of these potentially entertaining novels dead, so permit me to ask you a question:

Who is your main character?

No, really. I’m serious. Do you know who your MC is? Can you point at a single character and definitively say, “Yes, this is my MC”?

If not, you—and your story—might be in trouble.

For reference’s sake, some of the novels I’ve edited since June 2019 include:

A collection of sci-fi short stories tied together with alternating chapters of an extremely and alarmingly abstract, philosophical variety

A contemporary novel revolving around health problems, corrupt management, and struggling teachers in a NYC school

A contemporary novel set in a heavenly courtroom that functioned as a soapbox for the author’s opinions on the current state of the US government

An urban fantasy set in modern-day NYC with trolls, fairies, dragons, and other fantastical beasts

I also edited a memoir about life in Crete during WWII that was told via a progressing series of anecdotes.

All five of these projects, which sound so different from the outside, share the same issue: The author didn’t understand the need for a main character.

But why is a main character important? In fact, isn’t it possible to have more than one MC? I hear the arguments: the MCU doesn’t have a single MC, and look at how utterly lucrative that series has been.

Fair point, and I’ll touch on multi-POV later, but for now, bear with me and treat the idea of a main character as one of the fundamental storytelling rules. And like all rules related to writing, you need to know how it works before you can effectively break it.

So what is a main character?

The typical main character in a novel is, at their very core, the character who both:

Has the highest stakes in the story’s climax

Goes through the most dramatic change themselves (positive/negative arc), or has the most dramatic change on the world around them (flat arc)

If either element is missing from the character, chances are they aren’t actually the MC.

Why is this important?

It’s important because if you don’t consciously determine who your MC is, you’re far more likely to be swayed by other characters who pop up and their respective stories. Suddenly one character has severe anxiety due to a crummy upbringing and all but vanishes after they begin recovering after a failed suicide attempt. Another is stealing medication from the locked nurse’s office to deal with a problem that isn’t quite important enough to actually receive mention in the novel. Yet another character becomes a mouthpiece for a topic the author is passionate about but doesn’t actually tie into the novel’s plot or theme. Suddenly there are characters crawling out of the woodwork, all interesting and unique and playing important enough roles that the author becomes distracted with the shiny and the tantalizing and doesn’t quite realize that they’ve completely failed to mention a character isn’t a human at all and indeed is a troll until page seventy-three. Oh, and there’s no climax to the novel either. Huh. How did that happen?

One consequence of an author failing to identify their main character is that failing to do so often leads to an unfocused story. POVs hop from character A to character B to character C to character D, and somehow we find ourselves at character M before finally circling back around to character A, whose story... I no longer quite remember—or care about, because character G was fascinating and I want to get back to them.

Another consequence is that POV oftentimes is distributed unevenly throughout the story. A concurrent issue I’ve noticed cropping up is the use of omniscient POV in these troubled manuscripts. While that’s a topic for another post, I will say that a lack of main character + omniscient POV = stories that are notoriously difficult to edit effectively because it’s one thick layer of confusion on top of another thick layer of confusion. Trying to determine what the authors want out of those stories requires a frankly outrageous amount of effort compared to a story with a single main character and a limited POV because the editor has to spend so much time and energy guessing what the author truly wants.

On top of that, I’m going to take a wild guess and say that most authors don’t want to tell an unfocused story. Sure, we might want to obscure some facts, might want to leave the occasional little mystery for the reader to enjoy puzzling out, but we want our writing to be understood. We want it to resonate. And it’s difficult for a story to resonate when half its notes are atonal and the other half are outright missing.

Step 1 is to identify who your main character is. Step 2 is to determine what characters are masquerading—temporarily or completely—as the main character. In the contemporary novel set in the school I mentioned above, there were at least eight initial contenders for the role of main character, all with their own unique stories and all with significant POV time, but only one character had any bearing on the climax, and it was a character who didn’t appear until almost a third of the way into the novel but got less POV time than several other characters. This doesn’t work.

This doesn’t work because the reader assumes, particularly in genre novels (excepting romance), that:

the first character we meet, and

the character whose POV opens the novel

is going to be the main character. This isn’t a hard-and-fast rule, and there are absolutely exceptions—such as The Great Gatsby, in which the MC and the narrator are two totally separate characters—but this post is about identifying MCs in particular. Narrator vs MC is a topic for another day.

(In conventional romance novels, the POV is split fifty-fifty between the two love interests. This post doesn’t really apply to conventional romance, but it’s still not a bad idea to check yourself once in a while to make sure you don’t have any characters who are trying to worm their way into being the MC when they shouldn’t be.)

Some of the problems I’ve encountered in the five projects I mentioned above include:

A POV that skitters from character to character, even to characters who have no arc or bearing on the overall plot whatsoever

An unfocused climax or a total lack of climax

Numerous subplots that never resolve and/or never have any bearing on the climax

Significantly lowered chances that the reader will bond with or care about any of the characters

Unsatisfying character arcs and/or plots

Plots that wander to places they never should have gone

Subplots of subplots that have nothing to do with the main character and/or climax at all

Painfully boring scenes that serve no purpose

The author bending the characters and plot to A Message rather than allowing either to exist naturally

The author not understanding what is truly important or interesting in their story

Stories that try to cram way too much information into a single book

The exclusion of details that are vital to understanding the overall story

Before throwing the unfinished book aside, the reader asking the two deadliest possible questions: So what? and Who cares?

That’s a rather terrible and terrifying list, isn’t it? All because each author never chose a single main character for their novel.

So I ask again: Who is your main character? Are they present from as close to the beginning of the story to as close to the end of the story as possible? Are they the most changed (or do they cause the most change around them) of all the characters in the story? Are there other characters around them who have plots or subplots that don’t tie into either the climax or the main character in any way? Is there another character who has more of an effect on the climax than your current labeled MC? More POV time or overall focus?

If you don’t have a main character to anchor your story around, the chances of it wandering, drifting away on every little eddying breeze that comes along, stumbling into dead ends and boring climaxes and unsatisfying character arcs grow with each added word. So challenge yourself to nail down a single main character. Wrap the entire plot around them, tight enough to choke them if you must. Get your facts straight; tie every detail back to them. You might find extraneous loose threads you can pluck out, be they characters or plot elements—but you might also find areas that are weak and need building up. You might even find both coexisting in the same story, because writing is sometimes just like that.

And once you know how to identify and use your main character, you can begin adding other elements to your story, elements that can create a bit of breathing room wherever necessary, all without the story losing its focus or meandering away from you into an area that leaves your reader—or editor—baffled at best, furious at worst.

 That said, of course it’s possible to have more than one MC, but with each MC you add to a single novel, the more work you’re creating for yourself, because each MC needs to have equal stakes in the climax and, preferably, an equal amount of attention throughout the story. Conventional romance, with its lack of a single MC, works because the climax hinges on the two characters who have received equal attention (via POV time and word count) up to that point. They both stand to win—and lose—the same thing, namely their mutual happy ending. Adding in a third main character is possible but tricky. Four? If you can do it, you’re a better plotter than me, friend, and I salute you.

A note: yes, subplots are a great way of adding extra characters or situations to a story that don’t necessarily run through the main plot. Ideally, though, most subplots should be resolved as close to the climax as possible to give the entire climax that added oomph. Again, there are exceptions, and it’s often a per-story situation, but a story can only handle so many notes being played before the sound of it gets muddy. Plot accordingly, and don’t lose sight of who the main character is.

Another note: yes, the MCU doesn’t have a single main character. Even some of the MCU films don’t have a single main character, particularly the Avengers flicks, and discussing how to handle a story that has multiple MCs is not really what I wanted to focus on today. Summarized, those stories are possible but tricky. Please notice the way very few of the MCU main characters get introduced in the big team-up films. Most of the characters get their own films or get introduced as side characters in those films so the audience has to do less work initially investing in them when there is more than one main character present.

[mariamermaid]

Full of Surprises

JJ Maybank x fem reader

Summary: As JJ´s 18th birthday is right around the corner, you take it upon yourself to give him a worthy present…

Words: 2.7k

Warnings: does not follow plot of the show, mentions of blood

A/N: I recently watch OBX and totally loved it! Should I open request for the show?

 Heart of Gold and full of surprises, at least that´s what JJ always said about you. You came into the group of Pogue´s lastly, but you bonded quickly. Your parents were divorced and after living with your mother for several years, you had decided to move to your father´s since your mother was planning on marrying again. You didn´t get along with her new boyfriend, well fiancé, and with his two younger children, you felt like not having a place in the family anymore. More fights erupted and after long arguments, your mother finally agreed. Your father was born and raised in the Outer Banks, knew every inch and every stone and when you finally set foot on the island, you fell in love with it as well. Your father was one of the few middle-class man on the island, enough money on hand to live, have a small house and offer some peace.

It was Kiara who then brought you into the group and when you offered some homemade lemonade with sandwiches and freshly baked cookies, they all made some room for you in their hearts. Close to Miami, where you grew up, you were a city girl, but you enjoyed the island so much more and so did the people there. Most pogues, who had been living there for their entire life, where almost relieved to find you as your father´s daughter. They welcomed you with open arms and gave you a new home.

“Excited for tomorrow?” JJ tore you away from your thoughts and sat down next to you, his feet dangling in the water as well. You chuckled. “It´s your birthday, are you excited?”

“Well, technically my birthday is on Saturday, tomorrow just starts the party”, he replied and you playfully hit his shoulder. John B was driving the boat to the Chateau, also known as his home. Kie and Pope sat in the back, talking about who knew what exactly. JJ´s laughter died down as he became more serious, a rare sight on him. He shrugged. “It´s just a birthday, nothin´ gonna change.” “Eighteen, JJ! It´s a number to celebrate, legal to leave home and shit!”

You always imagined him being ecstatic about this day, the day where he could leave his shitty home and his shittier dad behind. Apparently, you were wrong. Your brows furrowed as you watched his blue eyes travel across the horizon of the swamps. “Where would I go?” He asked mindlessly and it almost broke your heart seeing him that way. It was rare when he showed his weak and vulnerable sides, but you would always be there for him. John B noticed how his friend became around you, how he let his façade slip, at least for some time. He hadn´t talked to him about it, but he knew Kie had begun to notice as well.

“Where would I wanna go without you?”

You arrived at the Chateau, and you cursed John B for not taking a wrong turn, not that he would ever do so by accident. The topic broke off with JJ, but you knew it wasn´t over yet. At a later point you would ask again, and again and again, until he would tell you the truth.

Sometimes it drove the group insane how hardheaded you were, especially when it collided with JJ´s stubbornness, however, your points were usually better and smarter. JJ would also never admit that he sometimes picked small fights with you, just to see you heated in the topic.

There wasn´t a single thing you couldn´t do, at least that´s how it seemed. You were an ace in school, especially languages, biology and psychology. The worst part? You didn´t even study half as much as Pope did. JJ and John B often made bets, who would get the higher score. You had a diving license and once, you made an entire dress for Kiara from total scratch, while being high. It looked absolutely amazing. You picked locks in under 40 seconds and baked the best cookies on the island. Together with JJ you had taken apart the engine of a car, and build it back together. You could open beer bottles with your teeth or a lip gloss and once at a party, you won an arm-wrestle against Rafe Cameron. To add to all of that, you worked part time as a waitress and not once, you forgot an order. You gave Kie all of her piercings and you stitched up both John B and JJ several times with needle and threat. You knew all the words to slim shady and every single song from any Disney movie.

If there was something you couldn´t do, you were at least down to learn it and work hard for it. It was one of the reasons why everyone in the group loved you so much, you always had an idea for an boring day or a solution to the newest problem. It was John B, who called you on the Friday afternoon to discuss a new problem, a few hours before JJ´s party would begin.

“This better be important JB, the lightning in your bathroom is terrible to do my make up in!” You exclaimed when entering his house, your backpack with the essentials for the party hanging over your shoulder. He was sitting at the kitchen table, blood running down his arm. Your backpack fell to the ground as you started quickly inspecting the wound. A branch was sticking in it.

“Why is there a branch sticking in you?” You asked while hurrying through the house to find the first aid kit. “I fell.” You saw how he scratched the back of his neck, an awkward silence following. You kneeled down again next to him, getting ready to pull the branch out. “You fell?”

“Yeah.”

“Doing what exactly?”

“Climbing-“ While he talked, you pulled the branch out and pressed down a disinfecting towel. “Sneaking out”, he corrected himself as he noticed your eyes twitching. You could always tell a lie. “From where?” “I… uhm… I don´t-“, he hissed in pain as you made the first stitch.

“From a girl´s house.” Finally, he had your attention and you raised your eyebrow while continuing to stitch. “A girl´s house? Who?” You wore now a grin and noticed how your friend began smiling as well. “John B? Pogue´s don´t lie to each other! Whose the girl?”

“Promise me not to tell the others, at least not for now.”

“Pinky promise.” “Sarah.” You almost pocked the needle in the wrong place and let out a small scream. “Sarah Cameron?!” “Yes, psht now!” You had just finished your work and while taking a last look on the wound, you leaned back and eyed John B. “So, that´s why you been smiling so lost in the past weeks!” 

“You´re not angry?” “They´re many kooks I don´t like, but Sarah? She´s a sweetheart, she sometimes comes to study when I work.” He sighed relieved and pushed his hair back. “I wish the rest would react as chill as you.” You chuckled. “Good luck telling them.”

“I was hoping you´d help me.” “Your girlfriend, not mine, Johny Boy.”

You pulled out two beers from the fridge and began eyeing the outfits you had brought with you. It didn´t help that the party would start soon, you would just get ready there. “What´s up with JJ by the way?” You asked as you held the red top in front of the mirror. “I was actually hoping you knew.” 

“Me?”

“C´mon, Y/n, he tells you everything! From what he had for breakfast to stories from his childhood, I didn´t even know about!” You hit his shoulder while making your way around the table again. “Oh, I would wear the dress, JJ loves it on you!” You sighed and took the ultramarine dress, changing in the bathroom, door slightly opened. “Okay so what? JJ and I talk a lot, what about it? I still don´t know what´s wrong! Yesterday he didn´t seem excited for his birthday at all!”

Leaving the bathroom changed into the dark blue wrap around dress you started fumbling around with your hair. John B shrugged; he was still leaning on the table. “I guess it´s about his dad.”

You let out a heavy sigh. “But that problem is gonna go away, he´s 18, allowed to legally leave home!” “And where should he go? JJ is too proud to move in with me or you, he thinks he´s a burden…” 

“He is not a burden! Do you know how often I already asked him to move in?” John B chuckled. “When you wear this dress, he´ll be ready to move into your bed.” You threw the shirt you had worn before against his head. Luckily, he didn´t see how you blushed and quickly changed the topic back again. “Whatever he thinks, I have the moving problem solved! Just wait for his present.” You explained with a proud smile, John B furrowed his brows. “What exactly are you giving him, Y/n?” Kie and Pope had JJ´s present discussed, but you had decided against the custom surfboard and wanted to give him something else. “It´ll be a surprise.” “You can´t even tell us!” “That´s what it makes it a surprise.” He gave you the puppy eyes, but you had your make-up bag in your hand and closed the bathroom door behind you. “You´ll see, John B.”

“Always full of surprises.”

 When JJ arrived at the beach, everything was already ready. Kie and Pope had set up fairy lights and brought snacks. A few blankets were spread on the ground, since more pogues would be joining soon. Together with John B you heaved the keg of beer, which was the last thing missing. The second you set down the heavy keg, JJ approached. A huge smile spread on his lips. He wore a light shirt, opened at the front and a cap on his head, looking surfer boy good as always.

“Ready for your party?” Kie asked him as she gave him a hug. Pope looked at his watch. “Three hours left till midnight, till you´re 18!” JJ scratched his back, his eyes looking through the circle of friends. “All that matters that you´re all here with me”, he explained. Laughing you joined for a group hug. “It´s gonna be an amazing evening, promise!” John B exclaimed and you looked over JJ, a certain sadness still hiding behind his striking blue eyes. Within the next hour, more people came. Just before midnight, the group of teenagers outlined  about 30 or 40. You were just talking to some friends from school, when an arm slung around your shoulder. You didn´t even have to look up to find JJ, his cologne and the smell of liquor and smoke was unmistakable. He seemed a good amount of drunk and so did you. Soft music played in the background and JJ pulled you on the dancefloor. You giggled as your hands crossed behind his neck. “You know, I don´t need a present, right?” He finally spoke up and you grinned. “Man, you should´ve told us earlier!”

He let out a laugh. You knew JJ often felt uncomfortable when people made efforts just for him. “Trust me, you´ll love their present.” His brows furrowed at your comment and he slowed down the dancing. “Their?” You nodded slowly, avoiding his glance. “I can´t give you your present until tomorrow.” JJ still seemed confused and you both sat down on a thick branch from a fallen over palm tree. “What have you planned again, Y/n?” He asked smirking, but you shook your head. 

“A surprise.”

Suddenly John B approached, a little staggering from side to side, well a lot. “DUDE it´s twelve o´clock!” With that he pulled his best friend back on his feet and you followed the two, as John B led JJ to Pope and Kie, who held up the present proudly. From the form it was easy to tell that it was a surfboard, but the three had it customized by themselves. The had drawn the five people of your group as silhouettes surfing on the wave in front of the island. It looked amazing. “Happy Birthday!” They all grinned and Kie and you started singing, while JJ looked amazed at the board. “Guys! You didn´t have to!” “Yes, we did!” Kie immediately exclaimed. JJ eyes met yours and you shrugged. “Sorry you still have to wait.” John B sighed next to you. “She doesn´t even want to tell us, can you believe her, JJ?” JJ remained quiet, his eyes lingering on you. “Full of surprises.”

You woke up the next morning, snuggled next to JJ on John B´s couch. Your head still hurt a little, but after downing a glass of water and freshening up in the bathroom, you felt more awake. You barely remembered how you ended up on the couch, but it slowly came back to you. You had tried to bring JJ to sleep, but he was too clingy and made you stay. At that thought, you blushed. Glancing down on him, as you sat back on the couch. He still slept peacefully. Carefully you shook his shoulder and his eyes fluttered open, he started smiling.

“Mornin´.” “Hungover?” He shrugged and you offered him a glass of water as well. “I´ll wake up the other´s.” He groaned. “Why can´t we just stay here?” You threw a shirt, or whatever it was at him. “Your present!”

“LEFT TURN!” You screamed while John B hit the brakes, taking a sharp turn. “Jeez Y/n, next time you drive! Where are going anyway?” JJ, Kie and Pope were seated in the back, they all looked a little ill after you coordinated John B with absolute last-minute directions.  “STOP, we´re here!” You suddenly announced. It had only taken a 10-minute drive from the chateau, but now you were… In the middle of nowhere. You jumped out the van firstly, opening the back door for JJ and the rest. John B took a look around in the mean-time. “Where are we exactly?” Kie asked now as well. A few trees stood around, the water was near, but there was nothing really. You grinned from ear to ear. “You guys see where the water starts? And the post behind the van?” You asked excited and they all nodded confused. Especially JJ watched you slightly concerned. Then you pulled a few sheets of paper and presented them even more proud. JJ took them from you, and while he read them, you watched as his eyes widened. “You´re joking, right?!”

You shook your head. “Nope, this land is officially yours!” JJ let out a short laugh, and looked around again. “It belongs to me?!” “YES!” He couldn´t hold it in anymore and embraced you tightly, spinning you around in the air. “Y/n you´re crazy!”

Pope had taken the papers and nodded approving. Kie and John B laughed surprised. “Now you just need a roof to sleep under!” JB added. You grinned while JJ just didn´t let you go. He looked straight at you, his eyes not once tearing away. “Actually, there is this caravan at the junkyard, it´s in pretty good condition, could use some re-modeling. I think you could get it for a good deal?”

“You´re unbelievable”, JJ breathed again. You shrugged. “I thought you needed a good place to stay, what better than your own place?” He shook his head and just then, you realized how close he was to tearing up. “How can I ever thank you?” He asked whispering, his eyes still watery. “Just let me crash from time to time?” “You can move in with me, if you wanted to! I could live with you for the rest of my life!” JJ exclaimed before even realizing what he said, the group went quiet. You could watch from the corner of your eye, how Kie pulled Pope and John B away from the two of you. Rather awkwardly, you left the hug and JJ scratched the back of his neck.

“I didn´t mean… I didn´t… I... uhm…” JJ started rumbling. “Why not?” You blurted out and he looked up from the ground even more confused. He let out a chuckle. “I´ve known you for like forever and yet you surprise me.” You smirked and stepped a little closer to him.

“Would that surprise you?” You asked quietly and leaned on your tip toes to press your lips softly against his. JJ immediately leaned in and with both hands cupping your face, he held you closer and deepened the kiss. “This is by far the best birthday present.”

[scenerityproductions]

How I Plan A Screenplay

Hello!

I promise that one day, I’ll find a better introduction to these blog posts than ‘good morning’, but I digress. Today, I wanted to share my process when writing screenplays. I will be talking about the process it took me to write my dissertation level script: Divorced, Beheaded, Died.

The most important thing to note is that a screenplay will grow in each stage, changing form in places. I will make sure to highlight exactly how my script changed each step of my writing journey.

1. Outline

For me, the first thing that needs to be done is a one-page outline, describing the plot of the film or television show that you wish to create. I created this outline back in September 2020, having been inspired by my lockdown discovery of Six the Musical. During this stage, I also flesh out my characters by examining the following:

- The character's want. What is it that they desire ultimately? Their one true wish? For Henry King, this want is the power that comes with becoming CEO of Tudor Inc.

- The character's need. Their true goal and what they are unable to live without. If you can make this clash with your character's want, we will find a way to create some juicy storytelling. For Henry, this need is to fall in love. With an assortment of women, it's easy to find women at his disposal. But Henry needs pure, raw, unfiltered love.

- The character's wound - or basically, what fucked them up a bit in the head. Henry lost it all when his older brother Archie died. It's what set him on the path to become CEO of Tudor Inc and get into this mess in the first place.

- The character's mask, how do they hide from his wound? I believed that Henry hides these feelings by sleeping with different women to feel a spark. He knows that the majority of these women only love him for his power and so he struggles to get close with women until he is put on the pedestal.

In the case of Divorced, Beheaded, Died, I used this framework to discover my main characters more clearly. This helped me to understand their motivations throughout the script that I am writing. Of course, along with creating a script itself, these characters can also develop and take a different shape throughout.

2. Beat Sheet

I don’t know what to say here other than I’ve studied screenwriting for two years and I am still not 100% sure on how to structure one. However, I also understand the importance of having one.

I start by using Blake Snyder’s beat sheet, one of the best plot structure templates that I’ve come across. It allows for the writer to break down the story into manageable chunks that have a specific goal for the overarching story (or story A). We start with the opening image, a visual that represents the tone of the story. It also gives the audience a snapshot of the main character’s problem before the adventure begins. We then move onto the set-up: a continuation of this snapshot from the opening image. It also presents the main character’s world as it is and demonstrates a sense of what they are missing from their life. In Divorced, Beheaded, Died, these are demonstrated in the first few pages when Harold King is shot. We are then taken to Henry King partying in London city. He has a string of affairs with women, never truly wanting to settle down yet. He is missing love. This then brings us onto the theme stated, or what your story is about. My story is about love and loss, prioritisation and the position of power.

This is a generalisation of the first few steps of Snyder’s beat sheet but there is a lot more to divulge in when creating your screenplay. Tim Stout, a New York-based writer and editor, has written an easy-to-understand explanation of each section here.

3. Scene by Scene

I will always state that this is the hardest step in planning a screenplay. Essentially, a scene by scene is a rough first draft with no dialogue: only description is used and the key conflict of each scene is written and explained.

I find that this is the hardest because, at this point, we have a couple pages of the key things that happen in the story. Now we need to fill it up with b and c stories, create more characterisation, motivations, build everything up until we've gotten it to an acceptable length. My outline was a page long. My beat sheet was two and a half pages once I had completed a breakdown of all the main beats I had also wanted to include.

My scene by scene was twenty-five pages.

It is certainly a massive jump but once the scene-by-scene is complete, the rest will be a blast.

In a future blog post, I will talk about going from a scene by scene to a first draft and finally ending on a ready-to-submit draft.

I hope you've found this blog post useful. I'll be looking forward to sharing more of my tips and tricks as and when I do. Also remember my messages and ask box is open, as well as contacting me on any of the social medias below the search bar!

Lots of love,

Jade x

[herglowinggirl]

can you see an ending to SOK where yun lives / yun redemption? i've been thinking a lot about the trend of abused kids never getting over their abuse and dying instead, and i feel like FCYee does a good job of writing yun and i don't want to say he's guilty of this trend, but sometimes i wonder if there could've been another ending. sorry if this ask is weird/uncomfy, you don't have to answer. have a nice day!

ok so...I am writing a meta about this (familiar anon i see you) but I feel like it’s worth answering here, too. this is less of a meta and more my personal thoughts so there’s no graphic descriptions of anything but I’ll put it under a cut because it got long, tw for canon typical violence/death.

short answer: yeah, there were workarounds but nothing that wouldn’t change the motifs, themes, plot points of the novels. I think the novels set out to make a different point on abuse than atla (think “it was wrong and it was cruel” as opposed to avatar “the obligation to be more than the sum of her grievances with the world” kyoshi) which isn’t a bad thing, necessarily. also, like, atla was a kids show and the kyoshi novels are ya and they very successfully make points on moral ambiguity and who gets to live and who gets to die. I agree and think f.c. yee handled it pretty well and yun was “meant” to die based on his backstory and evidence discussed below + the fact that he’s emulating the cycle of abuse by the end of the book. could it have been done differently? absolutely. was this story meant to? not really. you already said that it doesn’t feel like yun was killed off instead of writing about him dealing with the impacts of abuse, because the impacts were dealt with and explored just...he died at the end anyway, because of the places dealing with that stuff lead him. quoting a line from below the cut but yes, yun apologism on main. but I very much prefer to do it within canon, I think. 

but would I want to see a version where yun lived? a little, yeah, because I wanted, well, justice for him. I wanted him to reunite with rangi and kyoshi and meet team avatar and live out the rest of his life happy and free from jianzhu because I love yun’s characterization, but as a character he has a bigger part of the narrative than being someone I’m attached to. I think that also begs the question should he have been used in those narratives of abuse the way that he was if someone like me (whose relationships could be classified under “complicated” at the very least) could relate and love him, especially for a YA novel? also not sure. maybe it’s not that deep, especially because what’s already been written and published is all but set in stone (and I am not very interested in writing fix-it fanfiction, just building on canon). 

so those are my personal thoughts summed up (there’s extra rambling on why he was supposed to die + a plot workaround below). when all is said and done, this is a storyline I turn to in order to cope, but if there’s anything similar that perhaps ends with the survivor alive...any recs would be appreciated, from anyone! thank you for asking and making sure I’d feel ok ruminating on it <3 I hope you have a nice day too!

contextual evidence...zoryu going “some people will always change you back to who you were,” rangi asking kyoshi why she didn’t stop yun and kyoshi’s only answer being that seeing him had turned her back to her unsure state, yun trying to rid kyoshi of her fans and all her character growth during the final Boss Battle™...these things are a theme. you can’t strip the books of this touch of some are always meant to end, esp b/c that stuff was set up in trok (I always seem to come back to kyoshi asserting her only duty was to protect her loved ones in yokoya and then her duty becoming something much larger) so I feel like you couldn’t get rid of yun death without significant workarounds in the motifs and plot points in the novels.

that being said, I’m sure there are and were plot workarounds to killing yun. there’s an alternate universe out there where the novels ended with yun being a parallel to lao ge (I’ve talked about how they parallel each other before I think it’s very spicy; here and here), where he becomes jianzhu’s successor and just like lao ge kept kyoshi accountable on the other side of things, this time to the bureaucracy of the earth kingdom instead of lao ge’s agenda. this would also tie up when lao ge said something along the lines of “jianzhu does good work.” the novels are in no way perfect and the ending and pacing in the last third of the book do feel rushed to me (although the last kyoshi pov chapter ends sooo sentimental, enough for me to call f.c. yee a sap) but I feel they do establish the ways that kyoshi is going to cope with being a political figure, but I’ll have to elaborate on that somewhere else, so I digress.

the truth of it is this, and it is very harsh—yun was always supposed to be dead. we see it in how he and kyoshi have very similar backstories and the ways that jianzhu and kelsang are also pitted against each other their kids (well, kelsang’s kid, jianzhu’s pupil) end up dealing with the reasons why they were brought in. kelsang saved kyoshi from the goodness of his heart, he took her in and raised her like his own child (this makes me very emotional...) whereas yun was taken in because he was thought to be the avatar. then it turns out that kyoshi might be the avatar, but she is still kelsang’s daughter first, with kelsang honoring her wishes to keep it secret and letting her comfort him on the iceberg, and then when he believed kyoshi over jianzhu. establishing kyoshi’s humanity is really important in the novels so we can give kelsang a big thank you to him and then later to rangi to make sure kyoshi loves and treats herself well. 

what i’m getting at here is that if yun hadn’t been taken in for being the avatar, he would’ve been dead and it’s a form of uh...narrative checkov’s gun in a way? there’s only so long you can make something of yourself by beating tourists at pai sho. kyoshi and yun both had expiration dates and only by the grace of jianzhu and kelsang did they survive. yun reassures himself that life is a game and “he will survive a turn longer.” his story is always about doing the next thing to survive, to prove he’s worthy of the survival and salvation given to him by jianzhu. kyoshi’s story is not about deserving avatarhood, it’s about becoming the avatar. it’s a key difference in the way the narrative treats them. if he’s hadn’t been mistaken for the avatar, he would literally be nothing. he’d be dead. 

and there’s only so far you can go playing the person who deserved avatarhood if you’re not the avatar, and I think that mainly accounts for discrepancies in the idea of justice and how yun and kyoshi get to act on it because believe me, I would’ve loved to see yun tear the whole thing down. like, to see kyoshi have to kill yun for destroying the system (this is an oversimplification*) and then have her declared the “breakdown of negotiations?” like alright...sure, jan. let the boy kill a few people!! eat the rich!! murder isn’t even that bad anyway (/joking).

*yun is literally declared the residue of kuruk’s generation’s sins by hei-ran. this theme of legacy and cycles of abuse is emulated to him which brings me to acknowledge that yeah, it’s really shitty to see him killed when that theme lives in both him and kyoshi. it is a symbolic ending to the cycle of abuse when kyoshi “puts him away” (did she have to say that!!!) but that shit hurts, man. however the line “I’m sorry I said you would have to live with your pain. Because you won’t,” serves to acknowledge that by the end of the duology, yun himself has become an abuser. he’s shoving kyoshi into boxes, tries to kill rangi (to be fair rangi tried to kill him minutes/seconds earlier but he did try to kill her mom for allowing a man to try to kill him. it’s almost like...a cycle), he holds people hostage, terrorizes and murders several people in his pov chapters...at least lao ge was subtle about his work. 

so yes, yun apologism on main. but I very much prefer to do it within canon, I think.