#also the use of semicolons in this one is absurd

[gallavictorious]

Fic: Foreign Country

For fuck’s sake... So I got an ask in response to this comment, wherein the lovely nonnie suggested that Ian and Mickey’s reaction to the Kash and Grab would be a reverse sort of situation, with that place holding very happy memories in spite of being a site of trauma (because Kash shot Mickey there). I’m paraphrasing here, obviously... And I spent over a week trying to write the fic that this ask (unintentionally) inspired and now when I posted it Tumblr was messing with the ‘Read more’ so I, stupid and/or tired bastard that I am, deleted the thing to repost it but of course that means the ask is gone aaaaand yeah. I AM SO SORRY NONNIE! :( Hope this one finds you all the same.

Anyway, here’s my resonse:

Ah, yes. Yes! Nonnie, I applaud your dedication to sparking joy and thank you for sharing this delightful reflection! <3 And, uh, it got me thinking about the Kash and Grab and its role as the site of so much that went down with Ian and Mickey in the early years, and yeah, now there’s a ficlet. It involves a trip down memory lane, some angst, some fluff, and a rather startling number of I love you:s. It’s also the reason why it took me so damned long to get back to you… Sorry about that!

Did you ask me to write this? No. Does it stay completely true to your observation rather than carelessly running with it? Also no, but with slightly more regret.  

---

Never returning had not been a conscious choice. Neither was going back.

---

Chicago, on a Thursday afternoon in early October, and the air is unusually crisp when Ian steps out from the ambulance station. He's been working the early shift and now he pauses on the sidewalk and turns his face towards the sun, considering. No one's expecting him for another few hours, and it's a fine day: maybe he needn't rush home. Maybe he could walk for a bit.

It's an idea. He's feeling restless, though not the sort of restless that heralds the on-set of a manic episode (or so he thinks, but he makes a mental note to keep an eye out for other signs, and maybe mention it to Mickey). But yeah. He could walk for a bit, then maybe find a station for the L when he tires.

So he walks. Walks and walks and doesn’t tire, and eventually he finds himself on a familiar street and outside a familiar store and he realizes with a start that he hasn't been here in years. Hadn't even known the store was still open, but the sign on the door proudly proclaims it so, and above it the name remains the same, white letters on red: Kash and Grab.

Huh. Without making a conscious decision to, he's stopped walking and is just standing there, staring at the store. The sight of it brings a strange jumble of emotions, and the quietly jarring mingle of familiarty and distance that comes from returning to a place where once you did belong, but belong no longer.

The last time he stood here was the day before he ran off to join the Army, leaving Linda with nothing more than a short message on her phone. That’s more than what his family got, so he hopes she wasn’t too upset. He never asked; never came back; never really thought back – until now.

He hesitates for a moment, then walks up to the door and steps inside. He’s running low on smokes anyway.

It's the smell that hits him first. It hasn't changed, and brings him back to the days when it would cling to his clothes and follow him home, a not unpleasant but distinctive whiff of frozen food and sweet spices.

The interior hasn't changed much either. There’s a kid behind the counter that looks to be in his early teens, and Ian wonders if it’s one of Kash’s sons, if Linda's still running the store. He could ask, but who knows what Linda's told her kids about the teenager who fucked their closeted father before he ran off?

He glances at the boy again – and yeah, he could be Kash's, there's something about the eyes and the chin – and wonders if he ever looked that young when he manned the register. Wonders if that's what he looked like to Mickey, when he'd come into the store to just take whatever the hell he wanted, wether it was chips or, later, Ian's fucking breath away.

Ian Gallagher. You messed with the wrong girl.

And just like that, it's like no time's passed, and he's 15 and 16 and 17 again; he's doing it with Kash and he thinks he loves him; he excels at ROTC and dreams of Westpoint; his mother is alive and he doesn’t yet know that Frank isn’t his father at all – it hardly matters anyhow, because Fiona is there, as she has always been there, as he still thinks she will always be.

She got out and good for her. If she'd stayed here, she'd never been free of her role as sister-mother – never free to be Fiona. And as for him... he'd mourned the army dream when it died, but knows now that it was an uninformed dream, one he would not have cared to live even if  given the opportunity.

Glancing at the counter where he used to open his trigonomy textbook he feels no regret, though perhaps a twinge of sadness for the loss of that optimistic, determined kid, who had not had an easy life by any means, but who had yet to take any real blows, any blows that truly mattered. Those had come later (had come in this very store, some of them) and standing here, where he'd spent so much time as a child and none as a man, he feels something of that kid returning. Remembers the weight of the hundreth can put on a shelf; feels the ghost of a (too) easy smile on his lips; sees himself as he moves between the backroom and counter and fridge.

And everywhere he looks, there is Mickey. Mickey, in a dirty coat or a security west, angry and rough and funny and sometimes with the briefest flash of something softer, sweeter. He is stealing and scaring of thieving kids and restocking the shelves and plotting to murder Frank and moaning as Ian pushes into him.

He is on the floor, too, cursing Kash but otherwise strangely unaffected by having been shot. Ian thinks he might have been more scared and upset than Mickey. It strikes him now as a moment of innocence lost; your lover shot by a jealous ex, a real gun and real blood and what if Kash had had better aim? This was a thing that happened in the world, and if that could happen – anything could.

It strikes him, too, as a turning point: Mickey going away could easily have spelled the end of their intense but brief affair. For all they knew each other's bodies they hadn't really know each other back then, and while Ian had been crushing hard he had not yet loved Mickey. Perhaps they might both have moved on, found other lives and loves. Perhaps that had still been possible, then.

Or perhaps not. It was the first time they were separated and the first time they found their way back to one another, but not the last. It's a dance of coming together and coming apart and coming together, again and again, and they've traced its steps for close to a decade, never once stopping, not truly.

Because even in the absences, Mickey had been, is; there, always, in the stretches of time when he was locked up in juvie; in the eager hours of wating for him to show up at the store; in the exact distance between them at any given time.

Ian can still feel the jolt, like a punch to his gut, like electricity, of looking up from stacking oranges and finding blue eyes staring straight into his.

He remembers the last time they were in here together, when him and his siblings had been taken away by the CPS and Mickey invited him to crash at his place. He remembers his giddy delight at the question, his excitement at the realization that Mickey wanted to spend time with him. He had been so nervous, and looking back, knowing what he now knows, he thinks that Mickey might have been fucking terrified, but there'd been such ease to that evening and night; such familiarty and tenderness. And oh, the sex had been fantastic.

He tries to remember only this, not what came after with the morning light and a door suddenly slammed open –

Mickey had never returned to the store after that, and a few months later Ian had left for the army. Not really for the army, though; what he'd been moving towards had not been nearly as important as what he was moving away from.

Stings, still, that memory; but less than it once did, and as he strolls down the aisles, noting where the pickled cucumber jars have been replaced with tins of tuna and where the small bottles of cheap olive oil still remain, he is surprised to find himself... okay. For a long time, so much of his past had been a painful, tangled thing he did his best to forget, and even after he made his peace with it, he made a point of looking forward rather than back. Now he thinks that maybe, if you're happy with where you ended up, the hardships of the road which led you there are easier to bear.

Doesn't make everything that happened right; just... yeah. Easier to bear.

He buys a pack of cigarettes. The kid behind the counter is eyeing him suspiciously, but Ian thinks that has more to do with him walking around the store and staring at random things rather than with the boy recognizing him from some lurid tale of Linda's. Ian almost asks him to say hello to her from him, but nah. Let old dogs lie.

Outside, twilight is coming on, and there's a slight chill to the air now that the sun is sinking. Ian lights a cigarette and sucks the smoke deep into his lungs. This, too, is familiar, and for a moment he feels unthethered, unsure of when he is, who he is.

Without really thinking about it, he picks up his phone. Mickey's still working but can't be too busy because he answers on the second signal: “Hey.”

“Hey,” Ian says, and then he doesn't say anything else for long enough that Mickey asks him if he fucking wanted something or he's just being a creepy ass phone stalker.

It makes Ian smile. Grounds him. “I love you,” he says.

A beat. “You called me at fucking work to tell me that?” And Ian knows that the gruff disbelief is partially an attempt to cover Mickey's surprised delight at the proclamation.

“Yeah, I guess I did,” he says. Waits for a moment, but Mickey is silent. “You gonna say it back?”

“You fucking serious?”

“Kinda need to hear it.” Because he gets to say that; gets to ask for that. They're not kids not anymore and they don't need to hide. They’re fucking married.

That is real. That is now.

“Jesus Christ, Ian.” But then Mickey, as Ian knew he would, relents. “I love you,” he says, and Ian doesn't know if he's already alone or if he just doesn't care who overhears him, because he doesn't lower his voice or take the time to move somewhere more private.

A brief silence as neither of them speak, but simply rest in the warmth of the words, the truth of them.

Then: “Are you okay?” There's a trace of real worry in Mickey's voice now, and there's a part of Ian's that immediately annoyed because he hates that people worry about him so easily – but a larger part of him has made his peace with it; knows and accepts the reason for it; loves that Mickey loves him enough to worry.

So he offers a brief smile, even though Mickey cannot see it. Hopes it translates into his voice.  “Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine, I promise, it's just... I'll tell you when you get home, okay?”

“Okay.” And maybe Mickey isn't convinced but he takes Ian's word for it. Trust. That's another thing they've been doing better with. “I'll see you in maybe an hour then? I get off at five.”

”Yeah, I'll see you then.” And, because he can, because it's true: ”I love you.”

“Yeah, yeah, you fucking said that already.” A brief pause, then quietly: “I love you, too.”

They hang up. Throwing one last look at Kash and Grab before he walks off, Ian is pleased to realize that he feels nothing but a vague sense of affection for the place. Some things withered and was left here, sure, youthful dreams and ambitions and most of his naivite – but the best thing about it he kept, and Ian will see him soon and hold him soon, and this time he will neither leave nor let him go. Their new dance will move to a different beat.

[internalsealpanic]

Explosive Chemistry

Summary: Chemistry labs can be a bit tedious. Nothing laser vision can’t fix though. 

A/n: You can all blame @birdy-bat-writes​ for this fluff and @knightfall05x​ for the amazing mood board. This might feel a little rushed so apologies and Clark is kind of hard to write (ope). Anyway, here is your regularly scheduled comedy.  Thanks again to @knightfall05x​ for proof reading!

warning: swearing, reader’s terrible moral compass, and some injury

masterlist

You met Clark- Well, ‘met’ might be too formal a word for what happened. 

 You discovered Clark during a mundane Metropolis afternoon. Taking a break from your studies (read: a group project that had not been going smoothly), you hopped on to a trail car to go to your favorite sandwich shop right across from your favorite diner. 

 The sandwich shop itself was nothing too special, not in a good way at least. It was even what your delicately paletted father had politely described as ‘subpar’ which as far as you knew was the worst insult he could give. Frank- the owner- was, of course, inclined to disagree. You were, on the other hand, inclined to agree with the opinion especially after biting into a raw piece of chicken in one of their “famous” chicken sandwiches. But it was cheap and it offered the best view of the diner across the street. 

In truth, you liked the food at the diner better. Their blueberry pancakes were absolutely delightful, at least, on Mondays.  But more than anything you found more delight in watching its contained chaos. You’ve watched people propose, get divorced, have fights, and everything else in between. The sheer absurd theatrics of it all captivated you. It was people-watching at its finest. Frank just thought it was creepy to which you simply nodded and nibbled at your sandwich. 

As you watched the usual ensemble cast in the diner, you witness a tall, handsome guy with black hair and blue eyes get mugged. Ok, well, almost get mugged. He was a big boi so you weren’t entirely surprised when he was easily able to stop the scrawny knife-wielding assailant. What did surprise you were the proceeding events. To your utter disbelief (and amusement); instead of throwing the guy into the gutter as custom dictates, the buff guy just guided his assailant to the diner and had a chat with him. You chew your sandwich slowly as you watch them talk as if nothing strange had occurred minutes before, digesting the odd comedy unfolding before your eyes. 

 Moments later and a few tears shed, they parted ways. You frowned thinking that would be the end of it and you were about to whine to Frank about how anticlimactic that was. But then it just kept going. 

 He got mugged. 

 Again.

 And again. 

 And again.

 By the fourth time, Frank sat beside you to watch finally leaving the spot he was polishing alone. Repeated muggings were weird enough but the guy kept inviting them to talk. You choked every time but made no move to intervene, only nibbling at your sandwich and watching with near clinical interest.

 After the fifth mugging, Frank raised a challenging brow at you as you continued to chew on your sandwich. You shrug at him as if to say ‘I’m eating what do you want me to do?’. Frank’s eyes didn’t leave you even as another mugger approached the buff guy. You cut him a look and chew a little faster. For a guy running what is most likely a money-laundering scheme, he sure was noble. 

 Having finally finished your sandwich, you wave your hand halfheartedly to Frank, your middle finger extended skyward. Kicking the shop door open and jamming your hands into your hoodie pockets, you made your way to the other side of the street ignoring the cars driving past you, blowing and whipping the skirt of your dress every which way. 

 Neither of them pays you any mind as you approach them, which was just as well. You shifted the strap of your backpack on your shoulder deciding whether to use it. Your laptop was in there so probably not. You decide to christen your new flattops by giving the man a good harsh kick in his nether regions. He goes down with a squeak. 

 “Scram!” You snarl, baring your teeth. In a surprisingly well-coordinated motion, he does, looking honestly scared for his life. You pivot to the guy who you assume is some kind of tourist. 

 Most people would say that Clark towered over you but the truth was that no matter how tall Clark was he couldn’t really measure up to the height of you. Nothing about you was inherently intimidating, especially as you stand before him in flat tops, hoodie, and short dress, except maybe for your shoulders. But that had less to do with their actual shape and more to do with how uncommonly broad they were compared to the rest of your body.  Some people say it made you look like an angry dorito to which you unfailingly replied with something Clark would rather not repeat. At least, not in polite company. 

 You regard him with a pinched brow which makes Clark straighten as you openly assess him. You memorize the angles of his features, all the sharpness and corners of it not noticeable due to the softness of the way he carries himself in a typical hometown boy kind of way.  You note your university’s logo on the edge of his sweatshirt.

 You reach your hand out. “Y/n L/n but just call me Y/n”

 “Clark Kent” He answers, shaking your hands. You note the distinct midwestern shape of his syllables which explained a lot.  

 “Yanno muggers aren’t exactly good speed dating partners, right?”

 Clark smiled at the, admittedly, terrible joke. By the way, your eyes flash with interest, he’ll be seeing a lot of you. 

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

 Your foot bounced erratically against the metal bar serving as your stool’s footrest. You watched the thermometer with a pinched face and a ticking brow as the mercury in it remains unmoving. Your mounting frustration amusing Clark making him cover his mouth. You fix him with a look and the door actually whistles “innocently” and looks away, pretending to be intently reading the procedure as if you two haven’t been reading it for the past half hour trying to figure out why your solution wasn’t boiling. His baby blues none-too-subtly flicking in your direction. You give him one last scathing look, which he easily glances off, before turning back to your solution. His eyes have been flickering at you as if he’s been meaning to ask you a question. That question likely being ‘could you possibly stop looking like you’re going to murder the molecules in our solution’. His eyes flicker again to watch you seethe and pout at the liquid and it takes everything in Clark not to tease you about being cute. 

 Bouncing your leg again, you gently turn the hot plate’s nob until the screen reads 1000 F. Clark makes a choked sound, finally tearing his attention away from what you assumed to be a particularly interesting semicolon. Clark reaches over and turns the damned thing back down to 300 F. You glare at him before, violently, turning it back up to 1000. Clark just as quickly turns it back down. 

 Click

 Click

 Click 

 You two continue on like this for a while ‘til your instructor, pinching his nose, strolls over to your lab bench to politely tell you to knock it off. With a shrug, you two settle on 650 F as your compromise. You, however, continue to glower at the solution while Clark peruses through the next lab distinctly reminding you of someone in the waiting room of a dentist’s office which makes you scrunch your nose and worsen the impatient ticking of your limbs. “Glaring at it won’t make it go faster,” Clark chuckled in his Midwestern sweater voice. You had the urge to pour the hot acid of the flask on to him but you suppressed the urge mainly because it wouldn’t actually hurt and pouring it on him meant starting over and that just sounded tragic.   

 You place your hands primly on your lap and spin your chair towards Clark. “Not all of us can watch grass grow, Paul Bunyan.” You snip. Clark shakes his head at you, whether it’s from your tone or the nickname you can’t tell. All you could discern was that it irritated him and some petty part of you was satiated the way old gods were when someone made an acceptable sacrifice. 

 “Is that what you think we do in Kansas?” Your first impulse is to say ‘yes’ even if it wasn’t the truth. You thought better of it though. Picking a fight with Clark Kent was a terrible idea, superstrength or not. You were, of course, familiar with Kansas as a concept the same way you were familiar with Mars. Both seemed equally distant, equally alien, and equally irrelevant as such you never dedicated too much thought to it. The last one might have changed a bit with your chance encounter with Clark. You remember him mentioning going home for Thanksgiving Break. You also distinctly remember wanting to ask if you could come along. After all, you didn’t have much in the way of killing time during holidays seeing as most of your relatives were overseas and the relatives you did have here were indisposed either due to work or due to other families. You felt silly thinking about it now and even sillier contemplating how you would explain the special brand of unpleasantness of being bored over the holidays. Maybe you should get a boyfriend- your eyes flicker to Clark but you shake your head- or a girlfriend or maybe friends who weren’t either foreign exchange students or farm boys from Kansas with laser vision. 

 You whip your head to Clark who was mumbling something about not staring at the grass. He frowns at you, not finishing his sentence.

 “You have that look.”

 “What look?”

 “The bad idea look.”

 “I do not”

 “Ok, let me rephrase. The let’s do something stupid for science look.”

 You huff indignantly. Clark looks unfazed and a little smug. You did not have that kind of look and sue, you’ve asked once or ten times to use his powers to do something ridiculous but this was a matter of importance. 

 “Use your heat vision”

 “Wha-”

 “Heat vision. Flask. Go faster.” You punctuate each word with a wild flick or gesticulation of your hands. 

 Clark moves his glasses up and pinches the bridge of his sharp nose.“We’re not going to use my heat vision-”

 “-Yes, we are.” 

 “No, we aren’t. Do you want me to list the ways this could go wrong?”

 “Relax, my human shield is invincible.”

 “You’re horrible.”

 “Yup.”

 “I really can’t convince you?”

 “Nope.”

 “What if I just don’t?”

 “Then I dip out and break into a different lab to get a bunsen burner.”

 Clark laughs, shaking his head fondness seeping into his smile. It made your heart melt and your face heat. You know you’ve won when Clark moves his seat closer to you. For some reason, Clark always insisted on sitting just a little farther from you no matter the circumstance. 

 You two lean in. Clark gives you a side glance. “For the record, I said this was a bad idea.”

 “Fine, I’ll quote you on that once I’ve won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry.”

 Clark snorts. He removes his glasses, the blue of his eyes shifting to an angry red. It makes your breath hitch every time being reminded just how dangerous your sweet, gentle best friend really is. 

 You watch the liquid in the flask begin to boil and you make a noise of triumph, throwing your arms up in the air in delight. Clark smiles at you and you feel a little embarrassed by your reaction but the smile on your face doesn’t disappear.   You both lean back and you toss him a smug smile. He huffs at you amused and rolls his eyes. 

 “Fine, not all of your ideas are-”

 Crack. 

 Shatter. 

 Shards of glass fly everywhere as the flask shatters. You yelp high and surprised. Clark pulls you into his arms shielding you from the glass and hot acid. You hiss when a shard cuts against the delicate skin of your forehead. You’re numb as you feel the blood trickling staining Clark’s shirt. Your senses were more focused on the way he wraps his arms around you and how safe you feel despite the graze on your forehead. 

 “Y/n, Clark, are you two ok?”

 You hear the frantic footsteps approach you but neither of you pulls away. You just focus on how tightly Clark holds you against himself.  You feel the flex of his large muscles as he pulls you closer. 

 “We’re fine sir but I think Y/n needs to go to the clinic.”

 Do you? 

 Your fingers rise up your forehead and your stomach drops a little when they come away red. You’re aware that you’re bleeding but it takes some time for the knowledge to fully sink in. Your professor is practically shoving you out of the room by the time you even make any move to react. 

 “Y/n, I-”

 “I swear to god if you say I told you so I’ll punch you in the face-” You look into his eyes, your voice amazingly calm. He opens his mouth again. “- and if you say I’m sorry I’ll punch you in the dick.” His mouth closes and you both fall silent even as you go down the hall towards the university’s health office which was just a glorified clinic with the addition of counselors and a waiting room with Rubix cubes instead of magazines. Clark doesn’t loosen his grip on your shoulder even as you wait for the nurse to come out and treat you. 

 Your mind feels far less frantic than it did a few moments ago. 

 “I told you it was a bad idea.” Clark jokes offhandedly.

 You snort at the remark and glare at him without any real venom. “You really aren’t as nice as people say you are.”

 “Nope.”

 “Jackass.”

 This draws a tired laugh from him. “Well, I’m sorry. Why don’t I make it up to you then?”

 “Unless you’ve got a Porsche in your back pocket”

 He winces. You snort again. 

 “How bout coffee?” You blink at him. “Or maybe dinner? This Friday?” He adds with a hopeful lilt. 

 “Just as long as you don’t invite a mugger to come along.”  

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

THANKS FOR READING

taglist:  @batarella, @anothertimdrakestan, @lucy-roo, @multifandomgirl-us, @idkmanicantenglish,@birdy-bat-writes,  @boosyboo9206, @americasmarauders , @l-horizon11, @arestorationofbalance , @cloudie-skay , @wunderstell

[jr4de]

Fic Writing Meme

@redcap3​ tagged me, and I always love things like this!

What is your total word count on AO3?

844536, coming up on a year of writing. I was kinda hoping to break a million words in a year, but things at work and in real life have meant a fairly slow month so that may well not happen. However! I suppose I have two or three chapters of several things written, so I guess I could always post those if I wanted to pad it out XD

How often do you write?

I try to write every day, but that doesn’t always happen. Usually I can get some out, though - and amount written varies from day to day of course. Some days I’ll go at it in all the free time I have and only end up with a thousand words, sometimes I’ll knock out a complete 7500 word fic in an hour and a half, just depends, heh.

Do you have a routine for writing?

MUSIC! That’s about it, really; sit somewhere - at home, coffee shop, what have you - and put on some headphones and start playing some music. I joke that playing it louder forces words out of my fingers faster (because of the increased pressure in my ears, right? XD).

All kinds of music, usually just shuffling my library or a large chunk of it - lots of people say they need instrumentals, but I’m happy with whatever. Vocal, instrumental, pop, rock, synth, classical, all kindsa stuff. Often I’ll tailor the musical selection somewhat to the subject matter - SoaOW was written to lots of Depeche Mode, Shiny Toy Guns, Fad Gadget; slightly strained and synthy stuff to go with the neo-dystopian setting, y’know?

What are your favorite kinks/tropes/pairing?

Hmmm. Well, I suppose I’d say “not necessarily”. I don’t think I’d say that I’ve written particularly much in the way of kink-driven stuff, although what I’ve considered has been rooted in character anyway in a way that- well, I don’t know if it’d exactly count, but I suppose someone can tell me when I write it, heh.

Tropes? I like some tropes, I like when they’re used fairly subtly; one that I think will usually be found in my works is that the good guy wins. People don’t die (and stay dead) for no reason!

(...and yes, the “and stay dead” is definitely important because I am known to occasionally kill or nearly-kill good characters for uh... well, just go read BSN or SoaOW if you want to see XD but they don’t stay dead!)

Pairings? Oy, just fuck me up. I love ‘em. I've got a soft spot for polyamorous groups given my own real-life Venn intersection there, heh. One that has a special place in my heart, certainly, is Winston/Orisa - for two reasons: one, I have written the only fic with that ship so far on Ao3, and two, every single person who has ever commented on it has said the same thing which essentially amounts to “Okay, when you said Winston/Orisa, I was dubious, but these two are so freaking cute!” And you know what? They really are.

Do you have a favorite fic of yours?

Oh dear, favourite? “Favourite ______” is a sure-fire way to make me waffle for a good long time, haha!

I think my favourite in general will probably be “Both Sides Now”, for now - almost a half-million words of action and interpersonal relationships, weaving in backstory for Overwatch’s earlier days and fall. I don’t think it’s the be-all and end-all, though, not nearly.

I think... my favourite underrated fic of mine is “Used to Be”. It’s a shorter thing, introspective and reflective, Fareeha sitting at Ana’s grave and wondering over what their life was like, and wondering why she hasn’t cried since the funeral. I just really like how the portrayal of Ana as a beleaguered and wearied mother and soldier came out, and the way it dealt with grief. I like the turnaround and how the ending mirrors the beginning, and several little turns of phrase in it, and I think it’s not got particularly much notice because there’s no romantic ship involved. Just a daughter and her mother who she misses, but doesn’t know quite how to deal with that feeling.

Your fic with the most kudos?

“Both Sides Now”, hands down. “Streets of an Orphaned World” is holding at around two-thirds of that, my nearest contender, but it’s been finished so long that it’s highly, highly unlikely to close the gap in my opinion XD

Anything you don’t like about your writing?

Honestly, it depends on the day. When I’m having good days, then it’s all pretty great - but when I’m having bad days? Uh, everything. The description’s somehow simultaneously pedantically excessive and still inadequately sparse, the dialogue’s choppy, the prose is stilted, words are overused, aaaaaand basically it sucks XD

...but that’s just the bad days. Most days? Most days I like it pretty well, but I’d say a commons ticking point with me is this: the length.

Don’t get me wrong, I like being able to write longer things, but I would also dearly love the ability to write short ones. I can write a 20k fic in two days, and I have done as much, but writing something short? Writing a chaptered work that doesn’t break sextuple digits? That’s really fucking hard for me. I would love to be able to write shorter stuff, but it just takes an absurd amount of effort for me to do so.

Now something you do like?

Hmm. I think I have some good lines. Some good points. Overall, I’d say... the flow. I think I have fluid writing, that can kinda sweep you away if you let it - to the point where you maybe don’t think about how long it’s been since somebody talked, or how long this paragraph of thoughts has been carrying on, where you don’t think about the chapters and the pages and the words until you realize that you’ve read a hundred thousand words already and yet, still, you’re only a quarter of the way through.

I like that.

I like my dialogue, even though I know a lot of what I write in it is stuff that, it is said, should not be written in dialogue. I have misspoken words, and epithets, and pauses and lots and lots of punctuation - em-dashes and semicolons, chunks of word broken up by actions, italics and emphatics because that is how people speak in my world. The people around me gesture. They squint. They get halfway through a word, stop, frown, shake their head and start again from the beginning. They shout. They make up words. They use pet names, or teasing ones, or whatever else.

I like that.

Most of all, though, I think what I like about my writing - what I hope for, and what I always love to hear confirmed when I get feedback - is that it makes people think. Somewhat, sometimes, about some things. Or at least about some thing, singular, because I want it to be fun and enjoyable but I’d also like it to do something.

If someone can read my Satya/Symmetra, and walk away with maybe just a slightly more in-depth view of what Autism might entail in an everyday space, what it’s like maybe when their classmate or friend or family member or lover is having a bit of an issue, a bit of A Problem, and if that person can then maybe bring that understanding and make things a little better, that’s what I want. I like that.

If someone can read my Amélie/Widowmaker, and gain maybe a bit of a deeper understanding for trauma or sociopathy, that lack of what we might sometimes call basic human empathy, and realize that lacking that doesn’t inherently make somebody a bad person - that’s what I want, I like that. If someone can read any of my old guard - Torb, Ana, Rein, Jack, Gabe - and see something new about PTSD, or see the same in Tracer; if they can get some calm from Zenyatta or some hope from Tracer or some anything, from any of them, from me, then that’s what I want.

What do I like about my writing? That people take it away with them. That they take it, and they cut out the bits that they love, and they carry those bits around right next to their heart.

I love that.

Tagging people! @madame-kiksters @oinkyblanketpig @thesoundofthunderstorms @app-jelly @twoheartedalien2-0 Sure, those seem like some good folks; do this if you want! If you don’t, don’t! I’m not your real mom. XD

[sayrj]

Year of Exams

Two days ago I bought some flowers from the reject corner of the grocery store and a very fancy notebook. I had just lost out on an apartment I wanted, a change I had been counting on. Housing that I might actually want to live in. This post is an extension of the notebook - two products of growing anger that the main reason I am in Kansas is the last thing on my list time and again because of the banalities and dramas swirling around me.

The first thing I’m putting in this notebook will be conversation notes, which I won't document here. I take notes religiously, not because I take great notes (I don’t) but because it helps me to actively pay attention when I am reading or in class. But I’ve realized I talk to people all the time and never document any of it beyond post-it notes, which is absurd because so much of why I moved here was to talk to people. I will also write about my thoughts related to my research, starting with thoughts about my exam fields, which this post and hopefully the posts that follow will reflect, with some omissions and additions. It’s not meant to be a transcription. Then, and more often than not, I want to post about what I am reading, with or without commentary (1).

I need a space of my life that is about my project even though I “don’t have one.” I need an outlet that doesn’t have to be aesthetically beautiful or well written, and something that is distanced from the rest of my social media that requires (”requires”) balancing the personal, entertaining, and political, always with great care for the “friends” who can see this or can’t see that. I want to be one-note, selfish, and rambly. This space is public enough for a level of accountability, I think, but still private enough in the sense that I know no one will realistically be reading. Posting here also doesn’t require any distracting web building on my part, which I know could easily bog me down instead of lift me up.

So now (and something I’ve been avoiding thinking about as I “get settled” for six weeks), my fields... I’ve been playing with them self consciously because they do feel like huge commitments/opportunities to get familiar and find where I fit, but also, and most importantly, because the idea of trying to be an expert in anything is nauseating (2). 

But I’ve been playing with (in blips, nothing sustained) my bookshelves. All these giant presences in my life, little rectangles staring at me in my tiny, used-to-be-a-porch bedroom/office/storage facility at the co-op I’ve been staying at for almost a year now. I actually stacked up all the fiction I have on my desk to get it out of the way the other week. So first, a recent revelation. Last spring and this spring I’ve TA’d for my advisor who assigns Du Bois and Richard Wright early on to mostly first years in an intro American Studies course. It’s my favorite week. It inspired me to assign Invisible Man + the same Wright reading to my students last summer. It reminds me of taking my senior folklore class where I read Richard Wright, Alice Walker, Ralph Ellison, Randall Kenan, and Ernest Gaines all for the first time. This was the same year I read Toni Morrison’s work too, just (”just”) Beloved and Paradise. Part of what I loved about American Studies as an undergrad was all the literature. What isn’t given any space to breathe seems to bubble up elsewhere, screams like a kettle too. It punctuated my last bit of time there in a very particular way I didn’t expect (thinking semicolon, maybe ellipses). I looked back at the stack of fiction on my desk and thought “not everybody’s bookshelves look like this.” I’ve been breezing past this influence when thinking about my research interests, even as it shows up everywhere else.

So I owe it to myself to take this more seriously. I am still hesitant, though, because then I wonder where does Poe fit, and the “closets of their own” I wrote about in a paper ages ago when I was still checking off boxes (3)? Where does Lemus fit, the author of the book I’ve spent a year writing about with hopes of publishing (4)? And the quieter worry that I’m straying from the queer studies work I promised, or at least promised myself. That word that’s been ripped away from me, before I was born it looks like, that makes me wince when I read it, shift in my seat when I hear it, increasingly disenchanted. Ashamed to use it. 

I remember the first theory, if I can call it that, I learned in an American Studies class. A term pulled, not out of an explicit piece of theory but from a short piece by Wil Haygood that talks about the “ears of whites” being “placed at awkward angles” (5). The class was on the ethics of stand up and we talked, sort of, about what it meant to have one’s ears at “awkward angles.” That concept is something I have carried with me for some content-specific reasons. More broadly, though, and leading to how I found what I think might be another field, it taught me a particular freedom while reading. I have been taught and teach others now the skill of pulling central arguments from texts. But what about that tiny word, in this case a phrase, that lights up? Or something “off topic” or secondary that feels central? Something that stretches you or preoccupies you. Along with recognizing that tilt of the head, the power of that twinge of discomfort... focusing on that single phrase gave me permission, a model, that I could latch onto things, notice things, value the details, zero in and then magnify.

Last June, I read Seth Kotch’s book on the death penalty in North Carolina (6). I don’t remember why I read it at that particular time so intently, just that I ordered it specially from the Raven and picked it up after dropping off Kelsey Carls after our Kansas City commute. The part in particular I’ve been consumed by is less than a paragraph, a tiny moment that states that burglary was a capital crime in the state until the 1940s because it implied rape, at least (”at least”) attempted rape (by a black man, towards a white woman). The potential was actionable, conveniently leaving the white women’s virtue in tact. 

What I have been struggling with is whether this is a striking fact that expands my understanding of the already substantial existing scholarship discussing black masculinity and white womanhood, or if this a jumping off point? 

In this and a stack of other texts the logic has its foundation in public (white) sentiment. I am interested in the distribution of surveillance and privacy, and the power surrounding it that is so consistently rooted in vague “feelings,” unsubstantiated “fears,” that are given more credit than any material reality. And does this recurring, viciously powerful “public sentiment” mean I can, or should, show up at the door with all the affect I’ve been torturing myself with reading?

I don’t actually agonize over figuring this all out or making all the right choices on the first try. But there is finite time and finite money, and I have to start somewhere, and I’m excited. It’s already March for heaven’s sake. Nothing else I write here will be this long or I’ll never get a move on.

__________________________________

1. What I don’t need is a public diary and what I definitely don’t need is another venue to wax about teaching, funding, coursework, or various dramas. All valid, all important, all interrelated, and all hard to keep from eclipsing conversations about my work.

2. And I mean anything. I can come up with an excuse for why anything is not appropriate. Anything that feels like it’s none of my business, anything that feels stereotypical or trendy, anything over my head, just anything. Which leaves me with nothing, which makes sense. Because it doesn’t feel right that I would be or aspire to be an expert of any kind. Because people like me shouldn’t be experts (or, inevitably, pretend to be experts) in anything. So that’s a cloud over everything that’ll choke me to death if I let it. 

3. Poe, The Murders in the Rue Morgue.

4. Lemus, Trace Elements of Random Tea Parties. The helicopters, ya’ll, damn. 

5. Haygood, “Why Negro Humor is so Black.”

6. Kotch, Lethal State: A History of the Death Penalty in North Carolina. 

[earlyfanatics]

CW's Upcoming Shows - Dynasty, Valor, Black Lightning and Life Sentence

The CW had their upfront presentation in which they announced series that were renewed as well as the pickups for their upcoming schedule in the fall. Trailers for their four new pilots were released, and while sometimes they can be misleading, here's a recap and first impressions of these new shows Dynasty  Official description Fallon Carrington is charismatic, cunning, and poised to become the new COO of her father’s global energy empire – or so she thinks. When her father, Blake Carrington, summons Fallon and her brother, Steven, home in Atlanta, Fallon is horrified to learn that the reunion isn’t to announce her promotion – but rather to make the acquaintance of their stepmother-to-be, Cristal. Family dynasties flow through blood, and Fallon would sooner draw blood than call Cristal “Mom.” Elizabeth Gillies looks like she can totally carry this show to be a success, however marketing it with "welcome to the 1% of the 1%" in these times is a bit tone-deaf. The bright side? If there is anyone that can pull off being white and rich and make it a hit is the executive producers that gave us The O.C and Gossip Girl.  Verdict: I'll give it a chance on the CW app Dynasty Twitter Black Lightning Official description Jefferson Pierce is a man wrestling with a secret. Nine years ago, Pierce was gifted with the superhuman power to harness and control electricity, which he used to keep his hometown streets safe as the masked vigilante Black Lightning. However, after too many nights with his life and his family on the line, he left his Super Hero days behind. Almost a decade later, Pierce’s crime-fighting days are long behind him…or so he thought. But with crime and corruption spreading like wildfire, Black Lightning returns — to save not only his family, but also the soul of his community.The trailer looks great and I hope the same character complexity that is shown in those bits is indicative of the show's tone. Like the other CW superhero shows it will be interesting to see possible crossovers. Huge shoutout for having not only a POC lead but also kickass WOC (and, fingers crossed, get to do awesome stuff and not be reduced to being sidekicks). Verdict: Will definitely watch Black Lightning Twitter Valor Official Description An elite unit of U.S. Army helicopter pilots called the Shadow Raiders are sent on a top secret mission that goes terribly awry. Only two members of the team return safely: Warrant Officer Nora Madani and her commanding officer, Captain Leland Gallo. Nora and Gallo grow closer, and soon find themselves torn between duty, honor and desire.Out of all the military-themed shows that were announced this upfront season, I think this one has the "sauciest" storyline. The fact that the lead is a woman adds some points too. Come this fall, we will see if that's enough to keep audiences entertained. Verdict: Will DVR or watch on the CW app Valor Twitter Life Sentence Official Description Stella has spent the last eight years living like she was dying (because she was). But when she finds out that her cancer has been cured, she is suddenly forced to face the long-term consequences of the “live in the moment” decisions she made. With a real future suddenly in front of her, Stella’s cinematic life snaps into reality, and instead of living like she’s dying, she will have to learn to live like she’s living, and help her family and friends do the same.Lucy Hale has enough charisma to make me like this show, despite the absurd premise (or at least what's shown on the trailer... also, I'm not gonna get into the look-at-witty-semicolon in the logo title). Verdict: Will give it a chance (just for Lucy) Life Sentence Twitter http://dlvr.it/PH70Wr

[rieshon]

Fall 2016 Power Rankings

I thought this was going to be a fat season, but somehow I ended up not finishing very many shows... Alas.

1. Occultic;Nine: In what is surely one of the biggest upsets in recent memory, not only did a semicolon anime turn out to be good, and not fall apart halfway through, it was actually one of the best shows to air this season. I say "one of" because it was really a dead heat with Flip Flappers, but Occultic;Nine takes it by a fraction due to having an actually satisfying ending. The show probably benefits from being based on a novel rather than a videogame, and its multithreaded plot is convoluted but never so much that you get lost among its nine separate major actors. The way the story's central mystery is slowly woven from this disparate threads is captivating, not least of all because of the show's always-up-to-11 pacing which puts you in danger of missing something important if you so much as blink. The result is a truly absorbing anime, and my show of the season.

2. Flip Flappers: Speaking of absorbing, for about six to eight weeks I was ready to call Flip Flappers one of the best anime ever made. The opening act of this series is some of the most creative and daring storytelling I've seen on TV, a masterclass of both short-form narrative construction and visual art. Five of the first six episodes are conceptually rich enough that they could have formed the basis for an entire series on their own, and Flip Flappers keeps coming at you with one after another. Unfortunately, after six episodes Ayana Yuniko left the show and it turned into a bog-standard adventure anime, complete with overly evil antagonist and copious flashbacks. Still a good one, but hardly "one of the best ever made."

3. Hibike! Euphonium 2: The sequel to my AOTY of the previous year didn't disappoint, for once. Eupho continues to be an emotionally rich and satisfying coming-of-age story. There were some missteps for sure, namely the story arc about Touyama Nao's character and the fact that Kumiko and Reina never had gay sex (actually their relationship is unfortunately kind of neglected in this second series) but it was overall an enjoyable conclusion. Not least of all, Kurosawa Tomoyo's performance as Kumiko continues to be some of my favorite voice work ever; her range here is the dramatic fulcrum on which the entire show pivots.

4. Girlish Number: You had to know an anime about seiyuu would be up here for me. Sore ga Seiyuu! was good, but let's be honest: much like Shirobako, its view of the industry it tries to depict is very rose-tinted. Watari Wataru's depiction of the seiyuu industry, he being an outsider looking in, is -- well, it's still rose-tinted, but it has a cynical undercurrent that is very appropriate. A self-interested egomaniac like Chitose really seems like the appropriate lens by which to view the anime industry in 2016.

5. Shuumatsu no Izetta: I didn't expect this to be the better fantasy World War II anime this season, but we'll get to that later. Izetta starts stronger than it ends, which is unfortunately a common theme with anime lately, but it never really goes "full spaghetti" and has a satisfying ending if you ignore the last 50 seconds or so. The concept, a pseudo-historical WW2 where one of the small countries Nazi Germany invades discovers magic and uses it to change the tide of the war, is actually interestingly utilized rather than just window-dressing, although the political chicanery stretches the limits of believability towards the end. The action (especially in episode 3) is fantastic and the soundtrack is one of the best of the year, plus there's some nice yuri subtext (how long has it been since I wrote that phrase in a review) between Izetta and Fine to round things out. Oh, also erotic evil Ten-chan voice.

6. Stella no Mahou: One day there will be a game design anime where the characters make something other than shitty visual novels. This is not that day. That bit of whining aside, Stella is one of the better examples of this type of show recently (certainly better than Shoujotachi wa Kouya wo Mezasu, which you probably forgot about already) featuring an endearing cast of characters that genuinely grow on you as the series progresses. Yep, this cute girls doing cute things anime actually has character development, and it's satisfying watching Honda-san going from a shy dweeb with no confidence in her art to leading her own game project.

7. Bubuki Buranki Hoshi no Kyojin: Bubuki is a hard one to review because it was a little bit of everything. It has a huge cast of characters and goes from hot-blooded battle anime, to harem comedy, to horror-tragedy, to mystery... Surprisingly, it's still a cohesive whole. The whole framing story about the Burankis is a little out there, but if you focus on the characters, its a satisfying adventure. I probably mentioned this when I reviewed its first cours, but it also deserves special commendation for being some of the best-executed fully CG anime out there.

8. Keijo!!!!!!: The rump zone taken to the next level. For as much as this was decried as the most heinous thing ever put to film, Keijo isn't even much of a fanservice anime. Yes, there are titties and ass everywhere, but it's entirely in service of the shounen-style power-level-and-hissatsu-waza-driven sports anime that it really is. I love lewd anime, but I wouldn't even really consider Keijo a lewd anime. What it is is a great over-the-top sports anime that will if nothing else make you laugh your ass off at the absurdity of it all.

9. Shakunetsu no Takkyuu Musume: Speaking of sports anime, this show is almost literally Saki but with ping-pong. As a sports anime it's serviceable, and there's some great animation in the table tennis action sequences, but ultimately the characters fall a little flat, possibly because despite it being a sports anime there are no real stakes throughout the series. The story culminates in... a practice match... so it's hard to get excited about much besides the top-notch animation. Oh, and the gay, because the yuri is up to Saki levels in this series as well.

10. Okusama wa Seitokaichou!+!: They put straight up porn on TV now. I watched an anime man jizz in his pants. In close-up.

11. Brave Witches: There have been a lot of disappointing anime in the last several years, especially of the sequel variety, but Brave Witches just might be the worst of all of them. The original Strike Witches series, especially the second season, is one of my favorite anime of all time. It has everything I love: cute girls doing badass things with crazy technology and out-there sci-fi plots. Brave Witches ostensibly has all that too, but it's done on a shoestring budget which just lets the air out of the balloon far too often. The action sequences were one of the main highlights of the original series, and here I found myself wishing they would just get them over with and move back to the character stuff because the copiously utilized 3DCG was just so bad. Apparently they're redoing some of the worst CG cuts as hand-drawn for the BD release, which might make the show more enjoyable, but ultimately Brave Witches as it aired on TV was a letdown. The story starts out extremely weak but comes together alright at the end, and some of the characters (Nipa, Sasha, and Naoe) are very enjoyable, so it's a shame because this show could have been alright.

12. Lostorage incited WIXOSS: This is a disappointment too, but it's one I saw coming. With a different director and writer on board, I never expected Lostorage to capture the magic that made selector one of my favorite anime of 2014, and indeed, it failed. It pays lip service to the dark and brooding tone of the original, but the plot is completely asinine, based around a completely worthless antagonist who has no motivation other than "is evil." This is creative writing 101 level garbage. The nods toward continuity with the original series were probably what I enjoyed the most, purely on a nostalgic level. Well, that and Iguchi Yuka's angry voice.