#and school tried so hard to get me to care about poetry but i just Do Not with poetry

[cherryblossomshadow]

This summary is factually incorrect, but I saw this post and I just wanted to make a silly, low-effort meme about one of my favorite witcher fic universes. And now I'm off to go reread my favorite installments

The OG: With a Conquering Air by inexplicifics (@inexplicifics)

And an incredible Geralt POV remix: For the Asking by gremble (@abeautifulblog)

[prettyboysdontlookatexplosions]

i hope this isn't a weird ask, but i'm looking for some hope. i consider myself really fucking stupid. i don't think i have good "critical thinking" skills, or even good reading comprehension. do you think it's possible to get better at those things?

as i mentioned earlier, my answer is yes. as i also mentioned, i genuinely think that the fact that you are less than confident about your skills in these areas is itself valuable and not as common as it probably should be. i have worked with a fair number of kids, both in the elementary school classroom and in the upper grades for test prep stuff, whose reading comprehension isn't great, but who genuinely do not seem to notice there is anything off about their reading until they have to answer questions about it. they're in the habit of just glossing by a lot of stuff and not noticing. i have met kids who would swear to you they love to read who cannot accurately recount what actually happens in the scene they just read, but who seem pretty confident that what they're doing is reading. so if you're going around reading stuff and thinking, "hey, that's confusing" - congratulations! you are great at self-assessing your own comprehension. this is REALLY HARD for a lot of people to do.

i also think it's actually important to NOT think of either reading comprehension or critical thinking as a binary on/off switch, where you're either good at it or bad at it. both of these things are spectrums. in addition, both of these things are context dependent. there are a lot of things i have pretty good reading comprehension for. there are also types of text where my reading comprehension is straight-up bad: scientific papers published for other scientists to read; philosophy or literary theory of any kind; poetry. i tried to reread laura mulvey's original "male gaze" essay because i suspected people were using the concept wrong both in its favor, and i couldn't meaningfully follow its argument (although i think i am probably right because i don't really believe that many randos are so much better at interpreting freudian film theory than i am, lmao). these are all examples of texts where i don't have a lot of background knowledge in the subject area or a lot of experience reading this kind of thing. they are also mostly things i don't care enough about to put in the time and effort to get better at. (sometimes i think about trying to do this with poetry, but i have not prioritized this yet, to say the least.)

critical thinking also depends majorly on familiarity with a topic or at least with a field. i'll give you an example. on the podcast maintenance phase, the hosts attempt to apply critical thinking to common perceptions of scientific research. some of their points are good, and many of them sound convincing to me, a person who doesn't know a lot about science. but i soured on the podcast over time largely because on the subreddit for the show, an attempt at a scientific deep dive often brought at least one person who was like, "i have some expertise in this field and they are wrong." sometimes this is about interpreting a specific study (or, uh basic factual shit like the definition of a word), but a lot of times it's about big picture stuff that is hard to think about if you don't have experience in the field. one recent example that interested me was regarding a study done on ozempic. the hosts mentioned that in the trial, (iirc) two people died. sounds scary and not great! someone on reddit pointed out, though, that this was a very large study that recorded deaths for any reason - it's probably not statistically anomalous that two out of however many people died, and there's no evidence to indicate that ozempic had anything to do with it. i appreciated this science-minded redditor because i definitely listened to the episode and was like, wow! scary! but when i read that explanation i was like, oh, okay, yeah.

i am not any kind of expert, and i guess you didn't technically ask for advice, but here are some things that may or may not be helpful.

with regard to reading comprehension:

struggle is a normal part of reading, especially of reading complicated texts. if you are struggling with a text, it does NOT mean you "have bad reading comprehension" or are fucking up. it indicates you have good self-awareness about your own level of comprehension.

i don't have research on this one. this is speculation. but my hunch is that for people who have a certain baseline level of reading comprehension, reading things that are challenging to understand over time increases the amount of stuff you can read easily. i was definitely better at reading books by historians at the end of my history degree than i was at the start. and honestly, i was also better at it after i spent like a year obsessively reading books about new york city history than i was when i graduated!

related to that, it's okay to understand something mostly but not all the way!

it's also okay to determine your own goals for understanding, and spend your time appropriately! i have a terrible visual imagination so to really fully "comprehend" any passage in any novel that describes the layout of a room, i would have to get a notebook out and draw it. i'm not gonna do that. (weirdly, though, i often love reading that shit anyway, haha.)

there is a lot of research out there emphasizing the importance of background knowledge to comprehension. (natalie wexler has written a book about this i haven't read, along with some articles i have read.) the scary way to look at this link is, "oh no, how can i learn all the things i need to know?" the awesome and exciting way to look at it is, every time you learn something, it widens the circle of things you can read, which means it widens the circle of things you can learn about, which means you can keep leaning.

you can also google stuff. one time i was confused by a book's explanation of a government policy so i googled and found some articles that covered it in more detail. (and also discovered that the specific example the book had used had been phased out of the law by the time it was published, lol.)

there are some strategies that have been found to increase reading performance, but the research around these is mostly around them as teaching strategies. my favorite reading guy timothy shanahan has speculated that the thing the strategies all have in common is they're ways of getting kids to actually pay attention when they read. the main strategy i think has value for people who want to get better at reading on their own is summarizing. every so often, take a moment to put into your own words what you've just read. how often will depend on what you are reading and how challenging it is. every paragraph is a often a good benchmark for something dense, especially as you are getting used to reading like this. every page or every chapter might be more appropriate for something like a novel. there have been times when i've done this sentence by sentence because something was really fucking dense! (a general note: this can also help people who feel their reading comprehension is mostly fine but have a lot of trouble remembering what they read. when i started doing this kind of thing consciously it improved my recall a lot, and i had a decent memory for textual information to begin with.) (if you REALLY want a power-up, taking notes is great, but most people understandably don't want to do this for their recreational reading.) over time there is also a good chance that you'll start doing this more fluidly and automatically as you read and not have to choose to do it consciously as much. but if not that's ok!

a strategy that is not always a natural fit for reading on your own but can be useful for certain kinds of reading is setting yourself questions to answer and then seeing if you can answer them. obviously, this typically makes more sense as a teaching strategy because how can you know what a text will contain until you read it? but there are times you can make a pretty educated guess, or stick to a really basic thing like "what is [thing this is promising to explain]?" i once picked up a particular NYC history book because it had been cited somewhere else as containing an account of the consolidation for the five boroughs. it was a really dense book and i decided that while i probably wouldn't retain many of the details its covered, i really wanted to learn from this book the author's answer to why the boroughs became one. four years later i still remember most of the reasons he gave! (harbor maintenance; economic competition with other large cities; a belief in some quarters that brooklyn would be a good influence on the manhattan political machine; i think there was one or two more but i'm 95% sure those were the ones cited as being most important.)

look up words! honestly tutoring has made ME realize how many words out there i "sort of" know but can't provide great definitions for, lol. a site i always recommend for my students doing vocab is learnersdictionary.com, which is by the encyclopedia britannica people and aimed for kids. it's a pretty full dictionary, but the definitions, while still accurate, are a lot more "user-friendly" than most dictionary definitions, which can be technical in a way that makes them less than illuminating.

for critical thinking:

honestly at LEAST half your battle is won. the main error i see people make in the realm of critical thinking is believing they are qualified to assess information they are not in fact qualified to do. the name of the game is humility.

i think my own critical thinking skills have really benefited from times when i've been able to read multiple perspectives on a fairly narrow topic. when i was in my NYC history era (i really gotta get back on that train), one thing i did was that every time i finished a book, i popped over to JSTOR to see if any scholars had reviewed it. i specifically wanted scholarly reviews because those are the people who can point out things i would NEVER have thought of because i did not have their years of expertise. for example, i read this one jill lepore book that was... fine... but there was a review of it that was like, "it's weird that based on her sources she didn't consult the largest and most important archive related to this place during this period, and as a result is mistaken about how common or uncommon certain things she describes are." i have never heard of that archive so i am glad someone pointed that out!

you can't always do that, obviously, and also sometimes you don't want to. but i think doing that regularly for a while helped me increase my intellectual humility and build the habit of filing things i read as "interesting if true" while leaving room for the fact that maybe they're not. (honestly the maintenance phase subreddit felt like a podcast version of this, lol, and i appreciated it a lot!)

idk. there is a fad these days for teaching "critical thinking skills"; as i mentioned in the post i assume prompted this, there is also debate about whether this is even a thing. in grad school, i felt like i saw a lot of people who had learned to mimic what they thought of as critical thinking by asking things like, "what about kids who belong to [a particular underrepresented group]?" or "how does the author have bias?" and those are good questions to ask, but knowing to ask those questions is not the same as thinking critically. if i were to try to give a shorthand question that guides my own attempts to think critically, it would be something like, "how does this person establish that what they claim to be true is actually true?" the sources they use are part of this, yes, but, again, asking "what about the sources???" is not, in and of itself, critical thinking. you also have to think about things like, "they go from this idea to that idea, but does idea 2 actually follow from idea 1?" and the number one bias you have to watch out for is your own.

i want to state again here that this is not a binary and the goal is not to be good at it, it's to keep getting better. years ago, i read an article in the atlantic by a professor of math education about the importance of counting on one's fingers in early math. i was like, wow, that's so cool and interesting. i had a first grader who was really struggling with some very basic stuff, and i did some exercises from the article with him because i thought they might help. maybe three years later, if that, i came across the article again, because i had just looked up something else by the author and been like, "wait, what? this seems blatantly not factual?" i remembered that i had liked this thing she had said about finger-counting, and i went back to try to figure out if that one had been better or if i had been mistaken, and i was, like, horrified that the atlantic had printed this and that i had once read it and nodded along like "so true bestie." the article was full of leaps in logic that sounded good but weren't actually supported at all. i'm sharing this story because if you feel like you are bad at critical thinking.... like, me too, sometimes!!!!! everyone is!!!!! if someone tells you they are super awesome at critical thinking all the time, that person is a fucking idiot and you shouldn't trust them for shit!!!!!

one other thing i can't not address: i once not too long ago made a post to the effect of "my life got a lot better when i accepted the possibility of being stupid," so i did not want to harp on this off the bat or too strongly for fear of being a hypocrite, lol, and i don't want to argue with you, a total stranger, about your perception of yourself, because i am allergic to people doing that to me. however, i would feel wrong not to mention that the specific phrasing and language you use in your ask suggests to me that when you think of yourself as "really fucking stupid," there is likely a significant emotional component in that belief and the emotions that it brings up in you, and i would be pretty surprised if it were not at least partly a reflection of your general relationship with yourself. i am telling you this because it reminds me of the way that i used to think about myself in my brain. i reliably performed well academically when i wasn't having a nervous breakdown, but i thought of myself as deeply stupid until mid twenties. there are a couple of factors i can point to regarding why i don't feel that way anymore, but by far the biggest, i think, is just that i don't hate myself the way i used to. thinking of myself as stupid in the particular vitriolic way your ask reminded me of was never actually about my smarts or lack thereof. it was just a manifestation of my deep and painful self-loathing. so i encourage you to cultivate a way of being kind to yourself, of forgiving yourself, of letting go of the shame you might be carrying about your skills or about other things that might seem unrelated. my final answer to your question is that there's hope for your capacity to grow, but it's also okay for you to be where you are. this is about reading, but it's also about everything else.

finally, if you are confused about anything i've written here, feel free to ask for clarification. i am good with words and i've tried to be clear, but one of the writing-related skills i suck MOST at is being able to gauge whether or not i have written something in a needlessly confusing way, lmao.

[singularattitudeofasafetypin]

How You Get the Girl

Masterlist

Summary: Eddie's had a crush on Reader forever but doesn't know where to start when talking to her. Luckily for him, she has the perfect advice and he's in just the right place to overhear it!

Word Count: 3.8K ish

Warnings: none really. Spoilers for Star Wars original trilogy and my maybe controversial Star Wars opinions.

A/N: This isn't based on the Taylor Swift song of the same name, but I've recently listened to 1989 for the first time and it's my entire personality now! Listened to it a lot while writing and it's too good of a title not to steal for this! I had lots of fun with this idea, I hope you enjoy reading!

Please don't copy my work

'I just don't get it!'

It was a quiet afternoon in the middle of Autumn. A few solitary customers meandered between the shelves, but Family Video was almost deserted. You stood behind the counter, arms folded, while you endeavoured to solve the enigma of why you best friend couldn’t get a girl.

‘Is your hair not cool enough or something?’

Steve scoffed. ‘Look, it’s not about the hair!’ He mirrored your stance.

Despite your friendship, you couldn’t help but laugh at the irony. In high school, girls would have given anything just to be seen with him. Maybe he’d lost his touch? Maybe high school just didn’t matter after all? Either way, King Steve had lost his crown.

‘What’s it about then?’ you relented, seeing his face drop in defeat, ‘How’d you get the girl?’

He stuttered, struggling to condense his elaborate, and frankly shoddy, wooing methods into coherent sentences while you watched him flounder.

In truth, he was different now. Steve wasn’t looking for some meaningless hook-up anymore. He wanted something deeper. Something built to last,

And that was a whole different ballgame.

Unseen between the shelves, Eddie Munson smirked. He wasn’t pretending to browse the selection of tapes he told himself, he just couldn’t help but listen to the two of you go back and forth.

Especially you!

Your voice was music to his ears. He could hardly decipher the words so it wasn’t technically eavesdropping! The melody alone was enough to overpower him.

Eddie had been crushing on you hard for almost three years now. You’d been friends of friends for a while, hanging out in the same group with Steve, Nancy, Robin, and usually Dustin Henderson.

He’d almost asked you out a thousand times but something always make him chicken out. It was ridiculous really; flirting was something that had always come easy to him. Poetry and showmanship were his weapons of choice but something short-circuited in his brain whenever he tried to talk to you. The words stuck in his throat.

You scared him, okay? You were classy and confident, so sure of yourself. You were never ever afraid to speak your mind and you didn’t care what anyone thought of you!

Kind of like him, he thought. Except he did care. Eddie really cared what you thought of him!

‘You’ve got to be joking!’ your disbelieving tone cut through the clouds of his thoughts.

‘What?’ Steve retorted.

You shook your head hopelessly, ‘Act like you don’t care?’ you mimicked, adding sarcastic air quotes, ‘Wait for the… ‘electricity’? No wonder you aren’t getting any girls!’

He threw his hands up in surrender, ‘Well you’re a girl!’

‘Yes, well spotted Harrington!’

‘Go on then, tell me what to do!’ he contested, leaning back on the counter, ‘What makes you see a future with someone? What makes you want to go out with someone, and stay with them?’

Eddie’s ears pricked up. He couldn’t help it.

You agonised, ‘You’ve got to care Steve! You’ve gotta make her feel wanted! Remember the little things about her, compliment her! Not just quietly but when other people can hear!’

Eddie rummaged in his bag for a pen and paper. He couldn’t believe his luck! After years of not knowing where to start to show you how much you meant to him, here you were, unknowingly giving him a step-by-step guide! Tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth, he started scrawling madly across the page as you spoke.

‘Ask her about her interests and listen to her! I mean really listen!’

Easy!

‘Get her flowers! Show that you’re thinking about her!’

Eddie never stopped thinking about you.

‘Invite her to spend time together doing things you both enjoy!’

Piece of cake! (Ignoring all the times he’s failed to do just that!)

‘Be honest about your feelings for her!’

Now hold up. His pen froze, hovering in mid-air. If talking was an Olympic sport, Eddie would win gold but he’s never been great at talking about how he felt. Not that he didn’t have feelings, he supposed he just had too many.

‘That’s so much work!’ Steve whined and you laughed. The sound refocussed Eddie’s despondent mind.

‘True love takes work, Harrington! You’re not some fairytale princess!’

The conversation went on in the background but he didn’t hear the rest. You were right. If he wanted this, wanted you, he was going to have to work for it! No more backing down! No more shying away! No more running!

‘You okay over there, Munson?’

Eddie snapped out of his trance, nearly knocking the shelves over. ‘Yeah!’ he choked, resolve shattering. He stuffed his paper and pen away and grabbed the nearest movie, stumbling over to the desk and your smiling face. Incapable of looking you in the eye, he shoved the tape onto the counter. ‘Please don’t be anything weird!’ he prayed to no one in particular as you turned it over.

Your customer service smile split into a real one, ‘Oh no way! I love Star Wars!’

‘I-uh-,’

‘Say something Eddie!’ he thought furiously, shifting his feet and wishing the ground would swallow him whole, ‘Yeah… I thought it was about time I got round to watching them!’ he managed.

‘You’ve never seen them?’ your face morphed into shock then mock offence, ‘But they’re the best!’

His mouth moved but nothing came out. ‘Ask about things she’s passionate about!’ a small voice whispered in his mind.

‘Which… one’s your favourite?’

‘Oh, I don’t know!’ you rested your elbows on the counter, head in hands and thinking hard. Eddie stuck his hands in his pockets so you wouldn’t see them shaking. You really were breath taking. The way you frowned slightly, the way your eyes narrowed and lips pressed together like this was the most important decision in the world. It made him giddy.

‘Everyone says Empire’s the best,’ you said slowly, ‘But I think Jedi’s my favourite! You just can’t beat the ending!’

‘Is that the one with the teddy bears?’ Steve chimed from the back room, giving Eddie time to pick his gaping jaw off the floor.

You rolled your eyes good-naturedly turning over your shoulder, ‘Yes, well done Steve! For the last time, they’re called Ewoks!’

Eddie couldn’t help laughing. You shook your head with a smile, ‘You’ll have to tell me what you think of them!’

‘Yeah!’ he choked, ‘Absolutely!’ His head was reeling from what must be the longest conversation he’d ever had with you.

‘Well, I’ll see you round, Munson!’

‘Yeah… yeah!’ he grabbed the tape from between you, turned heel and hurried out of the store grinning like an idiot. Step one complete! Gone, were the days of wistfully hoping you’d take notice of him! Now he had a battle plan and this film was his way in!

If he’d turned around, he’d have seen the small smile spread its way over your mouth. Steve poked his head out of the back room and wiggled his eyebrows. You moved to shove him and he ducked out of the way, a grin of his own stretching his face.

***

Sharp Autumn wind made you hug your cardigan closer. Leaves crunched and puddles splashed underfoot as you trekked the familiar streets to work, your favourite song blaring in your headphone

‘Hey! Hey, wait up!’

Fumbling with your headphones, you twisted round. Barrelling toward you was Eddie, his tongue poking out as he tried to balance two takeaway cups in his hands while running at breakneck speed.

You couldn’t help but smile.

He skidded to a halt in front of you panting wildly. ‘Here!’ he thrust one of them out at you and you took it. The cup warmed your cold fingers and your name was scribbled on the lid in black sharpie.

‘What’s this?’ you asked as he slurped his own.

‘Hot Chocolate,’ he answered, ‘You like that, right?’

‘Yeah…’ a sigh of laughter passed your lips, ‘I meant what for?’

Eddie just shrugged, ‘You mind if I walk with you?’

‘I’m on the way to work.’

‘I know, I’m headed there too!’

You started walking and he fell into step beside you. After a long sip of hot chocolate that warmed you right down to your toes you spoke. ‘Did you watch the movie?’ He nodded excitedly. ‘And?’

Eddie pretended to think for a second, ‘Uh and it’s amazing!’ He meant it too! The movie had blown him away, had him on the edge of his seat the whole time. He couldn’t believe it had taken him this long to see it!

But even if that wasn’t true, even if it had been the most boring movie he’d ever experienced, he’d watch it over and over just to see the light that shone in your eyes when you talked about it.

‘Sorry, I’m probably being really annoying!’ You caught yourself in the middle of a tangent.

‘No!’ He couldn’t reply fast enough, ‘I love hearing you talk!’

‘Really?’ the words made your heart skip a beat. Privately, you’d never been sure about Eddie. Sure, you’d hung out before in groups but whenever you’d tried to talk to him, he always seemed to shrug you off. From his short, usually monosyllabic answers, you’d just assumed he found you irritating. Disappointing, because you might have harboured a bit of a crush but there was no point pursuing someone who clearly wasn’t interested.

Yet all of that seemed to have changed. Now, he was trailing after you to work, listening to you babble on about some sci-fi movie and hanging onto your every word. It was nice. Really nice!

From there you talked about everything. He asked about your music taste and hesitantly shared his own. You found out he played guitar in a band and made him promise to tell you when his next gig was so you could come and see.

The video store approached. He stepped in front, opening the door then letting you go first.

‘You after Empire then?’ you asked, taking off your hat and scarf and hanging them in the backroom.

Eddie nodded, ‘This is the one that everyone says is the best, right?’

‘Yeah,’ ducking under the counter, you searched for the tape, ‘It is really awesome! There’s lots of surprises!’ He noted the knowing look in your eye. At last, you found it, holding it out with a smile, ‘Enjoy!’

Your hands touched a bit more than maybe they needed to as he took the video.

‘I’ll be back!’ he promised, tucking it in his bag and scooping up your empty cup for the bin.

***

First thing the next morning, Eddie crashed through the doors yelling at the top of his lungs. ‘What the hell?’

You jumped out of your skin and so did the customer you were serving. Your face split into a smile. You hurried the transaction but Eddie was still hollering, gesturing wildly with both hands. ‘You never told me Darth Vader is Luke’s fa-! ‘

‘Eddie!’ you cut him off, barely able to control your laughter, ‘Spoilers!’

The rest of the store suddenly solidified. Everyone was staring, some shaking their heads in disapproval.

‘Sorry!’ he winced. Tiptoeing up to the desk he leant in, comically close, ‘You didn’t tell me he was Luke’s father!’ he repeated in a stage-whisper.

‘I know!’ you giggled, matching his theatrical tone, ‘What did you think?’

‘It was amazing! I honestly don’t know how anything’s gonna top that!’

You grinned, ‘Well you’ll have to wait and see! You want the next one right away? I put it aside for you!’

‘You did?’

‘Course I did!’ Without waiting for an answer, you slipped away into the back to find it. Eddie took a shaky breath, missing the closeness. Anxiety twisted in his stomach.

‘Come on, Munson!’ he chided himself. ‘It’s now or never!’ He fiddled with his rings, wrists resting on the counter.

It didn’t take you long to come back, holding the video case aloft in ceremonial fashion. ‘Here ya go! The thrilling conclusion!’ setting it down. He managed a grim smile. ‘You gotta come by tomorrow and tell me what you thought!’

A lump stuck in his throat and he grimaced, ‘Oh well… I uh… I was wondering-,’

‘You okay?’

‘Yeah!’ he chuckled awkwardly. This was going great! ‘I was just wondering if… if you maybe wanted to watch it… with me?’

That was it! The words were out in the open now, he had no way to recall them!

The invitation took you by surprise, eyes widened and a small ‘Oh.’ Was all you could manage before he rambled on. Words, previously impossible, now wouldn’t stop.

‘I mean just because you said it’s your favourite! I was thinking we could get pizza or something! I dunno. We don’t have to, I know we haven’t really talked much before but I just thought-,’

‘I’d love to!’

‘-it would be really cool to maybe-!’ he stopped, it took a second to hear that you’d spoken and longer still to process your response. ‘Wait what?’

You smiled and repeated yourself.

He was gobsmacked. Was this real? He never thought he’d get this far!

‘Right! Yeah, cool!’ the words stuck again, ‘I’ll uh… I’ll see you at six, right? …At mine.’

‘Sounds great!’

Somehow, he made it out of the store, clutching the video in both hands. He waited ‘til he was out of sight behind his van before punching the air. Finally! After years of failed attempts, he did it! The drive home was a haze; it was a miracle he made it back in one piece.

At some point he must have ordered pizza because some kid in a yellow shirt showed up at his door at a few minutes to six. All afternoon he’d been floating on air. Now he was freaking out.

What if he messed something up? What if he said something weird? What if you changed your mind and didn’t show?

What if? What if? What if?

***

You arrived a few minutes before he’d said to, giving yourself time to figure out where to park and glance at yourself in the rear-view mirror.

Steve and Robin had teased you relentlessly for dressing up. Claims you categorically denied, of course!

Sure, you’d made an effort. A light dusting of makeup made it look less like you’d worked the late shift for the third night in a row the day before and you just liked the way your favourite sweater made your eye colour a bit more vibrant. That didn’t mean anything! Besides, it wasn’t like he meant anything by it! It was just a movie! Pizza and a movie!

So why were you nervous?

He opened the door almost immediately after you knocked, ushering you inside from the fast-falling dusk. His trailer was cosy and inviting; from all reports, you guessed he must have tidied up significantly. The lamplight enveloped you in a warm glow and the intoxicating smell of pizza made your tummy rumble.

‘You still like pepperoni, right?’ he asked, opening the box, releasing a plume of steam into the air.

‘Yeah,’ you breathed in the scent, ‘How did you know that?’

He looked at the floor suddenly embarrassed, ‘I uh… remember that one time in eighth grade when we had that pizza party? I remembered you were sad because they didn’t have pepperoni.’ He looked up, assessing your response before backtracking hastily, ‘I’m sorry that’s so weird!’

‘No, no, it’s amazing!’ shaking your head and picking out a particularly cheesy slice, ‘The only thing I remember from middle school are those crazy outfits you and your band wore for the talent show!’

‘You remember that?’ He grinned at the memory, ‘Super metal, right?’

After loading a plate each with pizza slices, he slipped the movie into the player and settled next to you on the couch. For a while you didn’t speak much, eating and absorbed by the movie. That was until Obi-Wan’s ghost revealed that-

‘Leia is Luke’s sister?’ Eddie shot up, knocking his empty plate to the floor.

You giggled at his outburst, ‘I know!’

‘How many more reveals are there going to be? Hey! And they-,’ he wrinkled his nose in disgust. You could see a specific scene from the last movie replaying in his mind.

‘I know! It’s so gross!’

‘I don’t believe this!’ he sat back down, ‘I’m never going to recover! Never!’

You elbowed him, ‘Watch the damn move, Munson!’

Was it your imagination, or did his breathing hitch. You’d scooched much closer than before, practically laying your head on his shoulder. Was he uncomfortable? Were you too forward? Your worries were put to rest when he draped his arm around you, slow and tentative, as if giving you a chance to pull away.

You didn’t.

The rest of the movie passed by in comfortable quiet, interspersed with Eddie asking excited questions and you berating him to be patient! You couldn’t stop yourself giving the odd bit of trivia or behind the scenes insight and to your delight, he actually seemed to care!

Eventually the credits rolled. He didn’t move right away so you wriggled to look up at him. He was starstruck, open mouthed, and more than a little misty eyed.

‘So?’ you asked cautiously.

His eyes switched from the screen to yours, forming a breathless smile. ‘That was amazing!’ You laughed. ‘I mean it!’ he said, ‘It was so epic! That final duel on the Death Star was just… and Anakin’s death? Wow! And the ghosts at the end? You were totally right about the ending being the coolest thing ever!’

You laughed with him. The mile wide grin on his face lit up his eyes like a thousand stars, sending butterflies whirling in your stomach. He felt like a different person. Secretly, you’d worried he wouldn’t enjoy it, that he’d think it was silly or it just wouldn’t be his thing but he gave you no doubt! His enthusiasm was the most genuine of anybody’s you’d ever seen and you realised then, you’d give anything to see it again and again.

Eddie started to clear away the plates and pizza box. While you helped, a question kept gnawing at you. A question you were almost afraid of the answer to.

‘Why are you doing this?’ you asked, stopping before you stooped put your shoes back on. He froze like you’d caught him doing something wrong.

‘Doing what?’ his voice failed to imitate nonchalance.

‘Being… nice to me all of a sudden.’ It was the only way you could describe it. He really seemed to care, to actually want to hear your opinions, share your joy.

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ he continued clearing up but he hid his face behind his hair.

‘You’re a terrible liar!’ you moved closer and saw his shoulders tense, ‘Tell the truth!’

He didn’t speak. All the light from before extinguished, something closed him off again. Maybe you’d crossed a line? Said something wrong?

‘You know, you aren’t as mean and scary as I thought you were,’ you tried gently, anxious to get the other Eddie back. He smiled a bit, though still not looking at you.

‘Neither are you!’

‘You thought I was mean and scary?’

‘Not mean!’ he clarified, ‘But scary as hell!’

You couldn’t help but laugh and a small chuckle escaped his chest. ‘Why?’

‘Because!’ he gestured at nothing in particular, ‘Because you’re you and you’re so sure of yourself and you don’t care what anyone thinks! And…’ he stopped.

‘And?’ you asked when he didn’t continue. He didn’t want to tell you, not yet. He was only just getting started! There were still so many things he had left to do before…

‘Be honest with her about your feelings!’ wheedled his brain. It was a struggle but he forced himself to meet your eye. Looking like a man about to risk it all, he wet his lips and took a steady breath.

‘And…’ he continued, voice low, ‘I’ve had a massive crush on you since… forever!’

Oh!

The words hung in the silence between you. They echoed in your head and in your heart.

Before you could respond, he tore on, ‘And I never knew how to talk to you before because I was scared that you’d… I don’t know… laugh at me or something? Because I know, I’m a colossal disaster and I don’t know how to say romantic things or anything when I’m around you!’ He stopped to draw breath.

‘What changed?’ you cut in, still trying to process his confession. All this time you’d worried he didn’t like you and now he told you he felt all that?

Eddie hung his head. He raised a hand to his neck, rubbing furiously as a flush rose in his cheeks. ‘Um… You remember like a month ago? You were talking to Harrington about why he couldn’t make a relationship work?’

‘Yeah?’ the interaction seemed so small, so inconsequential.

‘Well… I might have been listening and I wrote down all your advice and planned to use it on you!’

His nose scrunched; shoulders tensed. At last, everything was laid out on the line. All he could do was wait for your response.

Worst case scenarios, none of them remotely in character, fired through his mind. You being super weirded out and never wanting to talk to him again. Laughing in his face and telling everyone you knew that the big scary metalhead was a hopeless romantic sap in disguise.

To his surprise, you reached up and cupped his face in your hand, rose on your tiptoes, and kissed his cheek.

He looked down at you, eyes wide. You held his gaze. He hardly dared hope.

‘I guess I give really good dating advice!’ you murmured.

He breathed out slowly, and a bright shining smile graced your lips. ‘Yeah?’

You nodded. ‘You should tell Steve it worked! Maybe then he’ll listen to me!’ Eddie let out a laugh, relief washing over him.

Your eyes found each other’s again. For a moment you just stood there, admiring his features up close. The faint brush of freckles over his nose, his slow, steady breath that moved his chest up and down, the way his eyes widened when he looked at you. Like they were seeing the whole world at once. You noticed them flicker to your lips and your heart fluttered.

‘Do you want to kiss me?’ your voice was quiet but earnest.

He blushed at the question, then, almost imperceptibly nodded. You smiled, moving ever closer, until you were practically nose to nose.

‘Go on then!’

***

Thank you so much for reading! Feedback and reblogs are so incredibly appreciated! It makes me all warm and fuzzy when I hear that you enjoyed a story I wrote! Let me know if you want to be tagged in anything else I write!

Tags: @sadbitchfangirl

Masterlist

[blushblushbear]

sorry..... me again...… you can choose to ignore this if you feel like it's too much

(not trying to guilt-trip you, please don't feel pressured

uh maybe... Nimh? Nimh is cute I like Nimh

if you don't feel like doing him, maybe Poe or Anon?

*blows the dust off this ask* oops this one's pretty old

I already did Nimh so Anon and Poe it is

Anon

Okay not to call the scott a drunk

but I'm about to call the scott a drunk

he's not too bad, but he is a little picky about what he will and will not drink

low key judges people for their choice of beers

side eyes people who order basically liquid candy as a drink (for a cocktail at least, he will rot his teeth on mountain dew don't get it twisted)

he mostly does pints but his fav mixed drink is a moscow mule

or a spiked energy beverage

speaking of drinks he always has a crazy amount of them

g-fuel, red bull, monster-- every energy drink type thing you've seen he's probably got

also drinks prime

also mountain dew

a lot of it

I joke about his teeth rotting but in all honesty he takes good care of them

that's the one gamer stereotype he does not fall in town

he's low key germophobic so his apartment and battle station are SPOTLESS

he defo has those touchland hand sanitizers cause he's a boujee bitch

speaking of boujee he's actually p well off

started trading stocks young and did crypto till it tanked

he doesn't like to talk about his crypto days (he was a hard crypto bro at it's peak)

usually his drunk rambles are about crypto

also conspiracy theories

also video games

his parents are decently well off too but he doesn't talk to them much

they don't have a bad relationship but it's definitely one of those 'you see the family only around the holidays' kind of deals

he has a lot of internet buds but I think deep down he's bad at making real connections and actually gets pretty lonely

likes watching animal videos, WOULD NOT get a pet

rarely has people over to his place, took him a while to fully mentally accept having you over

he was determined to get over it though cause he really wanted you around

would never shower with someone cause that just feels unsanitary-- the shower is for CLEANING

would maybe get a snake-- they're pretty clean

once went 3 days without sleeping

actually lost a lot of sleep to stardew valley when it first came out

his farm is AMAZING

loves to troll at video games but not in a run face first into the enemy team and ruin it for everyone kinda way

more a does a 360 no scope on you right when you think you're safe

you mad bro??? lol

sends lots of memes about liking his s/o cause he's really bad at saying how he feels

favorite director is Edgar Wright cause he's a man of taste and culture

regularly cleans and buffs his nails

has at least one to two drinks chilling in every room of the house

really wants to get an ear piercing

really vain about his looks even though he dresses like garbage

just tell him he's handsome, he's legit too proud to beg but he needs that validation

listens to a lot of underground bands and artists

also a lot of djs

owns 15 pairs of headphones

5 have animal ears

showers at least once a day unless he's in a gaming trance

once tried to write you poetry, felt like an idiot, removed all evidence of it's existence and would deny it fully if you ever found out

Poe

Probably not a surprise to anyone but he got bullied a lot in high school

Has been writing poetry since he was 10 and has notebooks full of poems and short stories from over his life

really wants to write some kind of vampire mystery series centered around a brooding poet vampire but also he's bad at writing mysteries

I've sad this before but he's in a book club with Nimh and Cashew

he keeps trying to get them to read romantic novels

Cashew was game until he realized Poe meant like Lord Byron romantic

Mary Shelley Romantic

thinks Mary Shelley losing her virginity on her mother's grave is the coolest thing ever and is high key jealous

Mary Shelley is honestly his hero

secretly got addicted to soap operas

he wants to stop so bad but he can't

he doesn't have a pet but if he did he'd be that dude you can totally tell has a pet cause he's always covered in fur

not that Poe would even care

Poe actually never much cared for birds and is still salty about becoming a magpie

owns so many Victorian/Edwardian style coats

and vests

he's just one color palette/slight aesthetic change away from just being steampunk

owns so many bits of jewelry, it mostly just floats around his living spaces and he chooses what he's wearing that day at random

all the people who headcanon Poe as trans, you're correct

constantly painting his nails and it's always chipping

his nail polish is actually pretty jank but he doesn't care so long as his nails are black

his living spaces are a mess

lots of papers, lots of random odds and ends, lots of clothes and book and forgotten mugs everywhere

does actually partake in the music aspect of the goth culture

most of his fav bands are ones you haven't heard of

he doesn't actually like horror much

at least not this modern jumpscare nonsense

he likes his horror dark, dramatic, and poetically gorey

Saw??? more like pa-shaw he can't stand those movies

the closest thing he gets to liking more mainstream horror franchises is Chucky

Tiffany Valentine is his favorite (*jennifer tilly voice* ~Jennifer Tilly~)

he can always get down with halloween, but only the first one

he can fuck with Tim Burton and Guillermo Del Toro though

crimson peak is his shit

also Jane Austen bitch?!

he loves him some Jane Austen

Emily Dickinson

Mary Shelley obvs

he low key hates to be basic but fucking

read Emily Dickinson's poetry and tell him you're not simping

he legit does simp for Shelley and Dickinson

legit loves the Kira Knightly Pride and Prejudice will all his heart

Sylvia Plath

He's trying so hard not to be basic but he loves Wednesday Addams

that line about her being allergic to colors--- he felt that

regularly listens to sounds of rain and fireplaces

ye I think I'll end it here lol XD

[ace-and-ink]

[i turn 20 this year and the aspect scares me]

[i turn 20 this year and what can i say for it? / all i have to my name is some shitty internet poems / and i can’t even show them half of where i’d like to / because my school will stop believing me that i’m not suicidal anymore / sometimes i look at the world and i stop believing me that i’m not suicidal anymore]

[i turn 20 this year and i’ve had half my hobbies ruined for me / my art teacher’s pitying smile will be behind my mind / no matter what i draw until i stop / and she’ll tell me all that should’ve made it stronger / and that i’m not portraying what i want to portray properly / and she’s the professional / she has the experience / so i’ll just scribble it out / and let the sketchbook gather dust for a month or two / i haven’t felt not guilty playing a game in years / because i see the way my dad smiles when he walks in on me playing one / and the shift in his voice when he speaks / and how i know he believes i’m wasting my time / and i believe i’m wasting my time / if i’m not doing something else too while it loads then the time’s a waste / if i don’t spend my time making something else then i’m a waste / if i don’t spend all my time doing something productive then i’m useless / if it doesn’t make me feel like a child again it might make me feel worse]

[i turn 20 this year and i’m still a child / i feel the same excitement and joy i did when i was 9 when i play a new pokemon game again / i just want to love my friends / and i don’t understand why some people feel hate by default / and i don’t understand why we hate our differences / and i don’t understand why they have to mean anything other than things we can admire about each other / and i don’t understand why everything has to have a price both capital and physical / and i miss the things i used to have / the games i used to play / and i miss the time i had to play with them / and i just want to have fun / i want to have the job i enjoy / the job i would daydream about in the shower / i still daydream in the shower]

[i turn 20 this year and i still have no clue who i am / another decade older and people still ask about my backup plan / and tell me my dream is going to be too hard / a decade older and i still dream about throwing half of it out to do something i haven’t done in a decade / i still fantasize about singing on a stage in a way i enjoy / but see the hobbies section: / i can’t sing anymore without fear / i am two decades old and still figuring myself out / who knew i liked geology like that? / who knew goth music was that cool? / who knew my ex’s imprints on me still keep me from seeing some people as anyone but them? / i turn my second decade old this year and i have no plans / this was a decade i never saw myself being / and as i tried to write “i still can’t see myself getting all the way through it” / i started crying / so i guess i hope i do]

[i turn 20 this year and i’m still living in the background of my own life / my headphones work to the brink of death because i’ll never let my music disturb someone else’s silence / i sit on the edge of the room because who wants this girl sitting and eating alone in the center of it all / i write a collection of poetry but it never goes anywhere but my desktop because who really cares about it / that age feels like i’m supposed to know so much, do so much, and yet i don’t / turning the big 2-0 and i have nothing to my name / no stories despite all i’ve written because it’s never good enough to go how far i want it to because who wants to read that / i don’t have a pop star’s voice but i want to sing like i do but who wants to hear that / my friend got published when we were in middle school / billie eilish is 22 and she was a hit at 17 / at 17 i was still getting tripped on the lacrosse field / and i was never enough then either / you could always be better sure but i never even hit that minimum criteria / at 17 my sister was modeling / at 17 i started to learn that i hated my stomach / at 18 i couldn’t look at pinterest for more than a few minutes at a time every month because those outfits would never fit me like them because i have too much of a stomach in comparison / at 19 i’m still struggling to stare myself in the eyes in the mirror and say “i love you, thank you for keeping me alive” / because there’s hair i didn’t know women would grow there and now i’m too nervous to wear bikinis / and i turn to the side and suck it in because wow, it really shows when i’m wearing gray or leggings / i’m a little more and a little less than a woman but i still shave underneath my chin twice a month because i hate the comments my dad and stepmom make about it / i got tan and thought it would hide the stretches on my thighs but they only got easier to see but i didn’t bring pants with me on vacation]

[i turn 20 this year and that’s a number that carries such weight / that’s not old at all, i know / the world is my oyster still but i don’t know what it is / that number isn’t me / i could never see myself as 20 / 21 as the oddball in the family who won’t celebrate it by getting drunk / 22 just to say it / 23 to maybe be in that band / 27 as the year i’ll never make it to / i hope i can say the same for 30 / but i hope by then i’m more important / i hope i’m not a cog in the machine but if i am i hope i have a name / turning twenty and i still can’t describe the way the songs i loop make me feel / i hope i’m maybe making music that makes someone feel that way / turning twenty and there are still poems that have stuck with me that i think about for no reason / i hope my words maybe stick that hard with someone else / turning twenty and i still think about my characters doing things to entertain myself to fall asleep / i hope maybe someone shuns their sleep to read the things i make them do to / turning twenty and maybe i’ll just be looking at cool rocks by then / that sounds fine to me too]

[i turn 20 this year and i started crying trying to write this poem / if you can really call all this that / and i don’t know where to go from here / but i’ve always dove in blind / so maybe i’ll turn around and close my eyes anyway to walk backwards over the edge / make it funny for someone else because that’s what i’ve always done]

[i turn 20 this year and i’m terrified and crying and surprised and wishing i could tell 17 year old me / “we got this far, at least, so there you have it / we’ll have to sit through this decade together and see if we make it again / in the meantime, congratulations / you turn 18 this year”]

— 2004

[dungeonsdragonstdelinquents]

Hii, saw your post about dps fics being really poetically written, do you have any favourites or recommendations? Have a good day!! :D

Hi thank you for the ask!! Oh goodness my favorite dps fics…I will include in general fics that I liked, but the ones that I have placed an asterisk with are pieces that had me–for lack of a better phrase–crying, screaming, shitting on the floor from how poetic they made me feel. Which really doesn't make much sense, but when i say poetry within me i just mean this strange feeling that is difficult to describe. Also these are all anderperry because i am a basic bitch, so apologies if you were looking for any other pairs! Maybe after finals I will look into some of the other pairs and put together a list for them too :) also I tried formatting this the best I could, I typed it all out on google docs so apologies for any fuck ups.

(in no particular order)

What We Stay Alive For **** by PiscesVanity on ao3, 18/18 chaps, 66,485 words.

Summary: “Do we get second chances in this life, Todd?” Neil asks him like he expects a negative answer. Todd doesn’t give that to him.

“Yes. we do. I know it.” 

“Do you?” Neil grins, playfully elbowing him. “Did you at least wait to take it? That second chance? Until the world was more peaceful? More kind?” 

Ten years after the death of Neil Perry, Todd Anderson wakes up with a second chance.

My notes: This incredibly crafted piece of art was the first dead poets fic I ever read. It honestly set the bar for me, for future reads. Also i didn’t have the chance to reread this one because this baby is long as FUCK and as much as I love long fics to read, I have to study for finals today so I can’t right now. I’m like 80% sure this is the fic where they confess by the lake and say something along the lines of “if you feel something even similar to what i feel…” but again i can’t be sure. Either way all I remember is that this fic is fricken good. Just for context, this is a time-traveling fic, but the type of time travel that happens in 13-going-on-30. Todd prays for a second chance on the eve of the 10 year anniversary of Neil’s death and he wakes up in his 17 year old body, on the day that he started school at Hell-ton. I think in general I just love the dead poets fandom because it combines some of my favorite tropes in any form of reading–50s/60s time period, boarding schools, and well…being gay. It is a fix-it so there is some angst, but there is a happy ending. But it will hit hard, especially since it comes close in the end so be wary. When I first started it, I was concerned about my own interest dwindling because the fic was going to cover the entirety of the movie, and since I have issues rereading or rewatching pieces of media when I know the end or the majority of it, I didn’t know if I was going to last. But the author of this stunning work (I know it sounds cheesy BUT IT IS) crafted it in a way that didn’t leave me bored. Even though several lines were pulled from the movie due to it being a time travel fic I still felt involved and captured by the story. It was comforting at the beginning to see how Charlie and Todd took care of each other after Neil’s death, and it was also intriguing to see how Todd almost started where he left off with Neil when he went back in time. He was more open than he had been prior, but eventually had settled back into his ‘old’ personality that he had before his first encounters with the poets. 

to be alone with you by wordshakers on ao3, 1/1 chaps, 3,602 words.

Summary: “Thursday evenings were, unequivocally, Neil’s favorite part of the week.

On the surface, the explanation for this was simple enough. It was his opportunity to turn his focus entirely to the topic that made him happiest: Shakespeare. He savored the time he was able to spend sitting out on the dock, overlooking the lake, reading and reciting the words he loved so much.

The other reason–perhaps the more prominent one–Neil wasn’t able to explain quite as easily. In fact, he could hardly admit it to himself. Thursday evenings…they meant being alone with Todd.

An anderperry first kiss fic, set in a near-canon universe of the film (minus the death). Fluffy mutual pining.

My notes: I can’t recall everything about this one because my mind has been scrambled the last few days, but it is fluffy, it is cute, and it has Todd and Neil practicing lines together–what more could you want? 

letters to my dearest beloved ****by UniversalSatan on ao3, 4/4 chaps, 34,162 words.

Summary: 

“My dearest beloved,

It is with great relief that I finally write to you. I think it doubtful for my words to ever reach your ears, but spare me this chance to lend you a piece of my thoughts–and only a piece, for I must write with caution lest I be discovered.

Neil, amidst his own internal emotional conflict, accidentally stumbles upon letters Todd had been writing in secret to an unknown recipient. Neil (an idiot) continues to intrude on Todd’s privacy by reading each new letter in secret, continuously agitating over their purpose.”

My notes: I’m not 100% sure how well this fic is known because as I stated in the post you mentioned I am extremely new to this fandom, I think I only watched the movie the Saturday before last. Let me tell you, my heart was beating all over the place during this. I cannot believe the audacity of Neil! I don’t want to spoil it because it’s literally a masterpiece, like this should be published and printed and given awards to–the letters and the imagery in them were so *shakes author like a squeaky toy* I LOVE YOUUUU RAHHHHH. Anything i have to say just will not convey how fucking amazing this fic is. Please go read it if you haven’t. And also Neil is an oblivious little man in this fic, the best type of Neil.

A Midnight Summer’s Dream: A Story of Hope (chapter 2 specifically) by cc tinselbee (thearchivistonmars)

Summary: (my words) an almost main au that will tear your fucking soul from your body. Beautiful, amazing, life altering, makes me cry in the best way. The bittersweetness of it all is POTENT. It is an Almost Maine au (I am scared to look into almost maine now from how heartbreaking this fic was. I have only read the SECOND chapter, I’m sure the first chapter is magnificent but as of now I am in the midst of finals so I will check it out when I am done.)

My notes: Someone printed out this fic, tied it to a brick, and threw it into the window of my heart, shattering my soul into pieces. How could you do this to be, author? This piece has me able to physically feel my brain putting up barriers to stop thinking about the ending that is implied. Nope, nope, nope. If you are one for incurable angst, please go ahead and enjoy. It’s a wonderful story and it evoked emotions in me that I couldn’t even stand. The author is very talented for this and I’m manifesting that alternative/possible happy ending they mentioned in their notes/comments. I haven’t read the first chapter, so this is specifically about the second one because up until a few moments ago I didn’t realize that there was a first chapter–I clicked on the link to the fic from the author’s tumblr and was sleep deprived and thought it was the beginning of the fic 🙂

Gentle Lover, Remedy ****by violet_sunset on ao3. 1/1 chap, 13,135 words.

Summary: “Todd’s first semester at Welton marks the moment he stops going to church. There are regular Masses offered in the chapel, but whenever Todd thinks about going he’s overwhelmed by nausea and has to hover in the bathrooms until he is sure he won’t vomit. When he was a kid and he thought God was just a pair of arms open in embrace, he would have jumped at the chance to attend, to sing from the hymnal and listen to homily and absorb the sacrament of blood and body. Now, God seems like a distant thing.”

My notes: HOLY FUCK, RELIGIOUS GUILT MY BELOVED. That’s one of my favorite tags to see in a work, and it isn’t often that I have seen it in some of the pairings that I like. Of course, with religious guilt comes internalized homophobia and period typical attitudes–the fic actually made use of words used in that time period that were used to refer to queer folk, so if any of those trigger you please be wary as well. I love, love, LOVE the usage of religious metaphors and words that are littered all around in this piece as well as the descriptions that show Todd’s pathway of his beliefs. As we know Todd has a deeply ingrained inferiority complex and WOW does it shine in this fic. It made me cry feeling the second-hand guilt that Todd feels. Also, the author tackled the controversy of appropriation in the film–meaning Charlie’s preference of the name Nuwanda–and expanded on his ethnic background which was really nice to read. They also touched upon Charlie’s relation to gender and (semi-canonical?) non-binaryness (it's a word because I say so) in a beautiful and delicate way that is very rare in most works that I have seen. In general there are very few fics that I have read that have included Charlie as being anything other than cisgender, so it was wonderful to see it included in this work. As well as this, Todd having a panic attack/sensory overload when a certain ginger starts being homophobic was incredibly well written and it felt like it captured those feelings that you have during an overwhelmingly stressful moment, though that is an understatement. Todd’s inability to realize just what the fuck is going on and being sort of spacey during it all–been there and done that baby. This author is so fucking talented, and this is probably my favorite dps fic of all time. I dont have the words to effectively describe how amazing it is, so if you are able to, I highly suggest reading it to experience it for yourself :)

It’s Rotten Work by cc tinslebee (the archivistonmars) on ao3, 1/1 chap, 2,774 words.

Summary:

 “I was hoping…” Neil peered back up at him with those fervent eyes before he broke his inconspicuous character and cracked a smile, “my favorite scene partner would help me test it out?”

In the midst of Todd’s continual crisis of what exactly Neil’s ‘no’ means, Neil asks him to read from a scene from Orestes. You know, for practice.

My notes: Short and utterly sweet. I love reading pieces that just show how much characters love each other whether it’s platonic, romantic, or somewhere in between. I’ve always been one for a slowburn, and it wasn’t until I realized that I was aromantic that the reason I love that trope is because in between the first ‘hello’ and the inevitable kiss, that love that I read about was similar to how I felt. Just a simple fondness that the characters had for each other that made them feel alive and safe etc. I could go on forever about that, but what I mean to say is that this fic captured that feeling of affection in a fleeting moment between Neil and Todd, and I think it’s lovely.

The Pepper Ghost Effect by Anonymous on ao3, 6/6 chaps, 19,472 words.

Summary: 

“1964. Todd Anderson, now a successful playwright, whisks away an old flame from a horrifying mental asylum. That old flame, Neil Perry, becomes Todd’s new muse.”

Notes: Beware of the tags. It is a very angst ridden fic that addressed Neil’s mental health and the possibilities of what could have happened if he survived his first attempt on his life. Key word, first attempt. There is period-typical homophobia, past abusive partners, and ableism and abuse stemming from the sanitarium that [spoiler] is placed in for some time. There is a happy ending, so it’s not just angst and I feel that this fic is severely underrated. There are like only 24 kudos on it right now and 4 comments which?? What?? It’s an absolute masterpiece, and effectively captures the feeling and emotion of hopelessness and depression of a situation. Neil’s emotional response and numbness to everything around him resonated with me and I felt like it described my own brush with darkness from the lower points in my life. Read at your own risk and don’t push yourself if any of the tags may be triggering, but if you are able to this is a wonderful read that will elicit all sorts of feelings in your heart.

In the Subjunctive by ghostlin on ao3, 1/1 chaps, 5682 words.

Summary:

“The night the play opens, Neil turns left.”

My notes: This is a sort of fix-it fic with Neil coming back to the dorms after his fight with his father. It leaves off sort of ambiguous–and I do adore a good ambiguous ending–leaving the reader to imagine a happy ending. I consider it a happy ending because Neil is alive, but he is less than well mentally as of what he has endured. It also centered some on Charlie and Neil in the aftermath of it all which I enjoyed because I feel that sometimes fics forget that they are all friends. Todd wasn’t the only one mourning Neil–they all were. Also I liked the way the author captured the surprise of Charlie’s acceptance of Neil’s sexuality amongst the blunt hatred of the time. Often I feel like some fics don’t try to keep the edge of fear or vulnerability that that time period called for–which is totally fine! You do you, boo. I just have a preference for it because I feel that it almost adds to an ambiguous read of a situation. I also liked how the author wrote about Todd’s perception of Charlie and how he perceives him–whether or not Todd is supposed to be unreliable (I think it’s made somewhat clear that Charlie likes Todd–he wouldn't be encouraging Neil to spill his feelings if he didn’t) in his narration.

Also as a side note i love your pfp ive been needing to read the picture of dorian gray but ive been so busy 🙁 and you have a good day too !!❤️

[pacifymebby]

Do you have any fave LGBTQ+ literature, tv, movies, content creators?

Okay so I'm still trying really hard to find queer books that I like because beyond Allen Ginsburg in college we weren't taught any LGBTQ+ authors/poets (except Carol Ann Duffy but the only thing I'd recommend about her work is to stay away because I hate it haha)(I probably hate it because of school tbh, sorry Carol) so anyway yeah, when it comes to this I've had to do all the searching myself and I don't really know how well I've done.

But for books:

🍂 Orlando / Virginia Woolf

I kind of can't believe Virginia Woolf wasn't on my other recommendations because The Waves is one of my favourite books (again I think you have to have a lot of patience but it is beautiful) and this one is brilliant too. A man wakes up in a woman's body and gender roles are revealed to be a little bit silly.

🍂 Thérèse and Isabelle / Violet Leduc

Erotic novella about two girls at boarding school, low-key spoke to me as a bi girl who kind of started realising her bisexuality when exploring sexuality was sort of thrust upon me by female friends at school I guess. It's just a good example of feminine sexuality and desire written by someone who knows.

🍂 Chelsea Girls / Eileen Myles

I'm very into Eileen Myles as a poet and these stories are so so so so so fucking good too!!!!

🍂 In The Dream House / Carmen María Machado

I got into this because it's what Google recs when you finish The Dangers of Smoking in Bed / Mariana Enriquez and honestly, I didn't enjoy it as much but it was still amazing. It's gothic horror af but also a really important work on abusive relationships within the queer community which the author has personal experience of and thinks isn't spoken about enough. Its really haunting, did fuck me up a bit but ultimately in a good way. But be careful because it does chronical abuse and that can be upsetting.

🍂 On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous/ Ocean Vuong

Another one where I love their poetry and think they can do no wrong tbh, I haven't finished this yet (I keep getting distracted but don't be put off by that I'm just really easily distracted!!) And I think it's wonderful idk. It's also written in quite a cool style which is always a bonus I find.

🍂 Our Wives Under the Sea / Julia Armfield

I actually only read this because I read an essay on the Exorcist and body horror by the author where she talks about her experience with having a cyst that had to be operated on twice. The essay was so stunning that I was like damn, gonna have to read that book everyone's talking about now and bestie, was worth it. The books class also.

🍂 Sister Outsider / Audre Lorde

I just think everyone should read Audre Lorde, Audre Lorde should have been on the curriculum instead of endless Simon Armitage idk. I read this and Your Silence Will Not Protect You as a 19 year old and they changed the course of my life idk.

🍂 Communion / bell hookes

Read this and broke up with my shitty ex boyfriend. It's not entirely about lesbianism but more kind of, love in general, platonic, romantic, what it really means to love. She talks about the feminist choice to choose lesbianism which was a phenomenon in the 70s and also discusses a lot to do with how misogyny impacts womens ability to love and be loved. It was a really important read for me, made all the more important because when I picked up the book my boyfriend ripped into her name and tried to be like lol what would you read her for...and then I read it and was like oh HE'S the problem.

Poetry:

🐇Howl / Allen Ginsburg

I know he's problematic but for me Howl was the prototype, the first massive poem I read and loved as an adult, the first one where language really sounded musical to me, the first poem I heard that Hurt. If you can you should listen to the YouTube of him reading it in San Francisco,that's amazing.

I also really like A Supermarket in California.

🐇 Sappho

Just all of it I guess, I think we're all eventually pushed towards Sappho and for good reason.

🐇Emily Dickinson

Read her letters to Sue, Open Me Carefully. I read these one summer between school years and I think they changed me. Her poetry in general is wonderful, some of it occasionally comes off as very old fashioned (shock horror our girl was born in the 1800s) but there's much to savour there. Also apparently there's a TV series about her life on Apple TV, I don't have Apple TV though so I haven't seen it.

As for TV and movies I don't think I have anything at all. I don't watch a lot of TV and I mostly only watch the same 5 old man movies on repeat. I think books have always been my thing, I can concentrate on reading in a way I can't concentrate on TV and also just the fact you can put your book in your pocket and get it out on the bus, in the staff room, at school, at the pub when you're waiting for your pals etc... I was always a headphones and books gal so I don't really have any recs for TV. Sorry :/

EDIT: Kill Your Darlings!!!! As in the movie, if you're into the beats you should watch it, it's very good and a real insight into what was in reality a pretty nasty little scene.

[saharaadesertt]

Genshin University Headcanons

included: albedo, childe, hu tao, kazuha, xiao, yoimiya tags: modern au, university au, headcanon

note: as a senior in uni now spending the summer doing research sometimes i wish i was a business major HHAHAHA i am also slightly drunk right now so i hope i don't make grammar errors :///

Albedo

chemistry major with an emphasis in organic chemistry, philosophy minor

studies EXTRA hard, makes straight A's consistently

president of the chemistry club

probably tutors as well

likes to post on his studying based instagram

because of his studies lives on coffee, more specifically cold brew with a splash of cream or just plain black

you can find him in the uni library, his hair caught up in a ponytail, looking through formulas and equations for the upcoming exam

basically lives in the library

tends to be more introverted and reserved, but occasionally has study buddies

dresses very preppy, always dons a pair of round silver wire frames with a long coat

barely sleeps bc his coffee addiction

Childe

marketing major, polisci minor

the type of person who never shuts up in class

the leader of debates, always answers questions

fulfills any participation point requirement in a matter of days

exteremely extroverted, has a friend group he always is with

plays sports (probably something with water like swimming or water polo)

not the most studious person but gets his work done and gets decent grades

Bs and Cs get degrees!

his dorm room is a mess.

also probably dresses like a frat boy.

he probably is a frat boy.

Hu Tao

biology major with a concentration of mortuary science, chem minor

probably a ta in bio or chem, probably with aldedo

also tutors with him

for someone who in in STEM, she dresses really well

loves to wear plaid and dark browns and reds

it's giving dark academia

probably popular on instagram for her outfit inspos and day in the lifes

the type to do well in classes sometimes and struggle in others

but always tries her hardest, especially when it's a class she isn't the best at but truly enjoys

probably scares her bestie Zhongli when he comes over because she's talking to spirits at night but he can't see them

so he thinks she looks crazy

it's ok she learned it in class :)

Kazuha

creative writing major, english minor

aspires to teach in poetry

incorporates his past experiences and friends into his works, gaining a solid reputation among the poetry community

has won a few awards for his haikus

only cares about his major classes, GE's can cease to exist

he did discover a love for music through his fine arts GE though

he began to play guitar because of it

he occasionally thinks of songwriting as it is in a way another form of poetry

drinks milk tea to concentrate on his studies which he does in private

he spends most of his time alone as its where he can focus the most

Xiao

psychology major, sociology minor

now hear me out

xiao is interested in human behaviors and customs

what better time to educate yourself in university?

probably on a sports team, i can see volleyball despite his shortness

very introverted but also attracts many people due to his mysterious energy

dresses very grunge

probably wears eyeliner here and there

doesn't care much for class

shows up late or prays there's a recording instead so he can sleep and procrastinate

but does enjoy learning from time to time

people are interesting, he'll think

and their food can be ok too... sometimes

Yoimiya

marketing major, communications minor

because she loves to talk to people and expand her firework business

has a tiktok for her business

will appear on shark tank and WILL get a deal

she's a smooth talker like that

super popular,everyone loves her positive and bubbly personality in a place where many people are stressed and always on edge

often shows up late to class but everyone forgives her because she makes the class lively

is in cheer and tumbles

volunteers often to serve the people around the university

especially enjoys visiting the nearby elementary school to read books to them

she loves children and considers taking up a teaching career to spread her happiness to future generations :))

thank you for reading! feel free to comment suggestions!

[leonstamatis]

7, 14, 54, 81?

7. tell us about the plot of the first fanfic you ever wrote

god i love this question and like, specifically, i love that you have asked me this question hedge because you'll get it. the first fandom i ever wrote for was naruto, back in 2006. i didn't publish the first one anywhere because it was just for my school friends, who played naruto with me at recess sometimes.

(technically i wrote fic before that, but i didn't know that's what i was doing. i'm not counting it. this is the first time i was aware of fanfic and intentionally doing it.)

so anyway, we were all ninjas in the naruto world, and we had romantic subplots with the characters we liked best -- if applicable -- and i don't remember much, other than i was in a fight with a friend at the time, and so my self-insert sneeringly referred to her self-insert as a "prep." the sickest burn i had, at age eleven. she was furious. plot was not a concern of mine, but that sure was.

14. what’s your worst writing habit? 

i don't edit for shit. if you read a fic from start to finish just one time, congratulations, you have done it more than i have. half the time i straight up do not remember what's in there, if it took longer than a couple days and is more than 1.5-2k words.

(this is not quite true for longer works, which i will read through for typos or repeated phrases once, after it has been published. and anything over 20k usually gets at least one read, but i actually don't have many of those. so.)

54. what’s a common writing tip that you almost always follow?

i try not to start my works with the word "the." and, in fact, i try to be careful about starting any sentences with "the," because i took poetry classes in college and my professor once tore into me (affectionately) because my lines never started in interesting or dynamic ways -- i put line breaks in natural places in a sentence, which meant lines started with conjunctions or new thoughts, which was very basic and standard and didn't push me very hard. often, my poems as a whole, started with "the." ever since that was pointed out to me, i've tried to avoid doing it out of habit and to really consider how a sentence starts and ends. (i'm not great at this. but i try!)

81. if you could go back in time and give your younger self a piece of writing advice specific to you, what would it be?

just fuckin write, man. i had so many things that never got written because i would spend all of my time thinking about them and planning them out, and never actually writing them down. i still do this with longer works, but i'm better about just putting pen to paper -- or finger to keyboard, as it were -- in order to get some damn words on the page and get things going. a perfectly plotted daydream won't become a fic; a less than perfect paragraph in your writing program of choice just might.

[lgcheewon]

hi hello and thank you for the warm welcomes. i'm new (they/them) and i'm... new lol more importantly, this is heewon and he's an aspiring rapper who likes coffee and cracking the type of jokes that make you laugh before wondering "wait is he ok?" i have a tl;dr under the cut, but you can find an even shorter one on his stats page here. feebly cobbled together some plot ideas too!

i don't have a twitter or anything of the sort, but if you're down to plot and don't mind doing it the old-fashioned way in ims, feel free to like this post and i'll hit you up when i can (or feel free to im me first)!

heewon (you can also call him won) is not an interesting guy. or so he'll tell you! he doesn't like it when people have too many expectations of him. makes it too easy to disappoint, y'know?

born and raised in nyc, he's the eldest of three and the kind of prodigal son that parents who put too much money into cram school and the like weep about. he's born to a well-off family, but has no real interest in anything but music (and this is apparent early on), and even that's a stretch.

he doesn't really think about pursuing anything as a performer himself until he auditions for lgc on a whim and actually gets invited to be a trainee. by then he's kind of on the older side and it feels like a crapshoot, but hey. it's almost been three years. maybe he's doing something right? or wrong? who tf knows lmao.

he's chill, mellow, laidback, easygoing, etc. and he very much so floats on by at his own pace. he comes across as pretty aloof sometimes, but he doesn't mind small talk and he doesn't mind meeting new people! with the obligatory downside that he probably won't remember your name. no hard feelings, really. it's just hard for him to care enough! (ok. sorry. maybe some hard feelings?)

he is a hard worker when it counts but he's never joking when he asks you to keep your expectations low. he doesn't like disappointing people and it's easier when the bar's closer to the ground. does he work hard? yeah. but does he want you to know that? not really. he cracks a lot of jokes at his own expense to mask the weird kind of self-esteem issues he has. perks of being the failed first son, am i right?

fiercely private when it comes to his personal affairs or emotional issues, he'd rather you think he has very few cares in the world. no hard feelings (for real, this time) or anything. it's just the big brother in him kicking in.

on a lighter note, he's kind of pretentious in the way he likes foreign films and poetry and film photography and pretending he knows a thing or two about loose-leaf tea, but he's also the kind of guy who likes doing a little bit of everything. he's down for most things too. it's hard to embarrass him. everyone has to be "bad" at something, right?

WANTED VIBES

event... stuff.... (pretending like i know what's going on)

childhood friends — he went back and forth between korea and america pretty frequently, especially during the summers. his family has a separate home in seongbuk!

high school friends — he went to high school in korea for about two years (at a foreign school, but he's fluent in korean and english!) before going back to the states for university and then coming back to korea to join lgc.

trainee friends — i'd imagine he probably has a lot but maybe only a few that are actually close-close with him. he's not a cold or frigid person by any means, but he's certainly a lot private and he likes to keep things as lighthearted as possible. he's a nice person to have around! and even when he's less than delightful around his closer friends, he usually tries to keep the sad vibes to a minimum.

antagon???istic??? — ample question marks because he likely would not return any strong negative emotion. please feel free to resent him for literally anything but he's really good at ignoring the things (years of practice, baby) that he doesn't care for so don't expect any sparks!

KEYWORD CONNECTIONS

sugar — did i say no negative emotion? well, i lied! just kidding. but he does resent you a little. it's not really your fault, but for whatever reason, the barista in the company building keeps getting your order confused with his. maybe it's because you two are the only ones who seem to be there at that awkward mid-morning hour? either way, he's getting a little sick of your drink. is it even human to consume something this sweet...?

past — (similar age) hello to the ex he still cares a lot about! he's the type of person who says "sure" to anyone who confesses to him. bad habit? maybe. but what's the harm in giving it a shot? well, maybe there's a little harm when he actually catches feelings. the relationship ends almost as quickly as it starts, and maybe it's because you started off as (and thankfully stayed) friends, but he does think, privately, that in another life, he might have given it a little more effort to make it work.

sibling — his brother/sister has the biggest crush on you and he's been tasked with getting your autograph. but he's bad with faces and even worse with names. isn't it funny, pal, the way his baby sibling's celeb crush has the same stage name as you? the world sure is small—oh.

dawn — he goes for a jog every morning. just because routine keeps him sane and all, and because the rec soccer team he plays on on sundays is way more serious than he thought it would be. while his runs are often pretty uneventful, it's on one morning in particular that he turns a corner too quickly and crashes right into you. did you roll your ankle? sprain it? well, fuck. say the word. he'll be at your beck and call until it heals in penance. consider it good karma.

puppy — (younger) for whatever reason, you have a crush on him. you should get your eyes (or brain) checked when you can, by the way. you've definitely got a screw loose. he's not so inattentive that he doesn't notice, but he sure doesn't want to break any hearts—so he'll pretend he doesn't know. all while pushing you to find someone else to set your sights on. for your sake.

coffee — he likes people watching. he especially likes watching your reaction every time you drop by the coffee shop he works at just to bravely try some of the shop's best (but woefully un-sweetened) coffee. next time he catches you in the legacy building, he'll treat you to some coffee milk. lol. baby.

close — (same age or older) of his best and closest friends, you are his best and his closest friend. it's not by a long shot or anything (he wouldn't want to offend the others, after all), but if there had to be a tier or a hierarchy, you'd probably be at the tippy top. he's comfortable around you. and you make it easy. probably why he's caught some feelings, right? no worries—he wouldn't dream of risking what you're sharing with him. sooner or later, the palpitations will fade. hopefully.

photograph — (similar age) it's a shame you're not really friends anymore but it's always easier to stick with the people who share the same level of ambition and drive as you, huh? he's an overly sentimental person, though. and while he's okay with the fact that you're orbiting different stars now, he still keeps that stupid polaroid of the first sleepless night spent practicing in an eerie studio together in his wallet. or he did. where did he drop it...

[evilwickedme]

I have a question!!! I really like your fics so I wanted to ask how you find the time/motivation to write your fics? I’m still in the thought process of planning the plot of my very first one and it feels so daunting. Is there any specific process or method you do when you write? Sometimes I get around to writing and I only get a few hundred words in before I’m exhausted. I’d love your advice :)

Hey thank you for asking this and for enjoying my writing!

I'd love it if there were any easy answer to this question, but the truth is the answer is simple and really fucking hard: to write a lot, you just have to write. Sometimes it's going to be easy, other times it's going to be hard. Sometimes I start writing and I blink and suddenly there's two thousand words on the page, other times I sit and stare at my screen for hours and all I've written is two sentences. And I'm not the first one to say this by any means, but the secret is - it's all writing. All of it is writing, even when you end up not writing anything.

Here's the thing though, is that I decided I wanted to be a writer when I was seven years old. I've kept a journal off an on for almost two decades. I wrote poetry for elementary school assignments and I had a blog for my writing in middle school and I wrote short stories for high school projects and I started writing fic when I was 14 and I published my poetry book last year at the age of 24 and it was all just writing and writing and writing. I went through dry spells when I was depressed that last months or even years and I've had periods where I was writing so much it's a wonder I kept up with it. And then I got a degree in screenwriting, where I HAD to write because such and such amount of pages were due by such and such a date, and the industry doesn't care if you're in a rut and neither did my professors.

Nowadays, writing is basically a habit. I have so many poems in my phone notes, because I'll have a thought on the go and suddenly there's a poem - so many phone poems ended up in my book, fyi, some of them barely edited. I can force myself to write something halfway decent just by sitting myself down in front of a Word doc, because I have the neural pathways set up that way from, oh, 18 years of writing. So a lot of my methods regarding writing involve just being like, okay, today I'm going to write something.

For example, I just published the final chapter of the mental health fic in my DC series, which is for now probably going to be the final work in that series (I have a couple more ideas, but they're shelved right now). That final chapter was sitting in my Google drive with about two sentences written in it for weeks, and it was weighing on me. I haven't been feeling very creative recently - I'm fully aware I'm in burnout - but I hate the feeling of being uncreative, so I said to myself, okay, let's fucking finish this. It took a couple of tries - first try I ended up only writing a paragraph describing what everyone was wearing and that's it - but eventually, just the act of me being in front of my laptop rather than facing a tv or buried in my phone made it so I finished it.

There's a story I heard when I was a kid that I can't find right now that basically informed my entire life philosophy, which was this kid went to a baseball game and met his favorite player who agreed to sign a ball for him, but nobody had a pen. Not him, not his parents, not the player, nobody that passed them by in the stadium, none of them had pens. Devastated, he started carrying a pen around with him everywhere. The final quote goes something like, "and if you carry a pen with you everywhere, eventually you start using it." And then he started writing.

To put it another way. In January, I only read two books. And the thing is, like, I genuinely really like reading. Like it's one of my favorite things in the whole wide world. And I asked myself, why didn't I read in January. And again, I know I'm in burnout, I know that's why I watched all that mediocre TV. But I didn't enjoy it? Like at all? So I looked at all that time I spent watching criminal minds and on TikTok and Tumblr and in February I made a concerted effort to read. When I sat down in my living room I asked myself what I was planning to do with my free time, and I realized often the "plan" was just to scroll through TikTok for six hours. So I listened to a five hour audiobook instead. Or read a 300 page book. Or finished a manga I was in the middle of. Or... And I read nine books in February! Which is not a lot for some people, I know, but what an improvement on January!

My point is, if you want to be doing something and you're not doing it, ask yourself why you're not doing it. I found that the time I was spending not-reading and not-writing wasn't getting used up by cooking or cleaning or going to work or meeting up with friends. It wasn't even being spent on something relaxing that I enjoy, like watching a comfort show. In November when I wrote the vast majority of hang on 'til the chaos is through I simply did not spend as much time on Tumblr or on TikTok cause I was writing instead. After I was finished with that, however, I pivoted so hard in the other direction that I didn't do anything I enjoyed at all in an effort to relax. That's honestly not even that relaxing.

So like, here's the thing. When it comes to my "method" of writing it varies so much that it's actually not worth listing out. With hang on the whole fucking thing was outlined in detail. With Of Three Times Lily Evans Changed Her Mind About James Potter I had the endgame in mind and a couple scenes written in advance, but the whole thing got written over 4.5 years and I was improv-ing basically the entire time. With I'm a mess (but I'm the mess that you wanted) I was texting @random-fandork in the middle of the night like, what if next chapter I did this, and they responded with ooh what if you did this, and it got written so fucking fast because we were constantly exchanging ideas. With the timkon jealousy au I just know I want Kon to be jealous of timber, and that's legit all I know, I'm absolutely pantsing it.

Sometimes I write with music. I have character playlists I usually listen to just like any other playlists, but also get used to write sometimes, but I only made my first character playlist around a year ago and I've obviously been writing fic for way more than that. Sometimes music helps get in the mood or helps distract from outside noises, and sometimes it distracts you from finding the right words. I usually write in bed, but I usually do everything in bed because I have chronic back pain. I usually write at home, but I also write in my phone on the go.

But I think you get it, right? Like there is no method. I certainly don't have one. Terry Pratchett famously wrote 300 words every day. I don't know what Erin Morgenstern is doing while working on book three, but I promise you it's not 300 words a day because it was six years between The Night Circus and The Starless Sea and it's been four more years and we still haven't gotten our spring or summer book. Every person finds they work best in different environments - I've tried to write in coffee shops and libraries, it's just close to impossible for me, but for others it's the only way to get motivated. But the point is the stories don't write themselves. Everyone loses steam, everyone gets in a rut, everyone writes bad things that they don't like and scraps them or edits them so thoroughly that they become unrecognizable. But things only get written because you write them, and they'll only get done if you keep at it.

My assumption is that you enjoy telling stories. Yeah, writing is hard, sticking to something is hard, finding motivation to write when you're tired or depressed is hard. But if you don't write, it's not going to get written. So I just try to remember that I enjoy storytelling. That I would be having more fun working on my teacher!peter/dadpool au than watching criminal minds (seriously, I'm not going to finish this show, 2.5 seasons was more than enough; sorry to keep shitting on it but I spent much of January watching it and honestly I've never considered watching a show a waste of time but this was an absolute waste of time).

I also want to reiterate that it's okay if you sit down to write and all you write is a couple hundred words! It's okay if you only wrote two! The turtle wins the race after all - you just gotta keep at it. Just remembere that if you write ten words enough times, you end up with a whole ass book.

[iheartmisty]

“she has everything” is probably what people think when they look at me.

look at me. I have cute & perfect outfits. i wear short shorts and try hard, brushed hair, glasses, great manners, im kind, helpful, smart, and caring. I put others first. I’m shy. I’m quiet, but observant. i’m a deep thinker. I’m in all honors classes. I’m incredible at art. I write beautiful poetry. I’m a great singer. I play guitar and piano. some might even say im pretty. I have a roof over my head, food, and money to buy whatever I’d like.

does that diminish everything I’ve been through?

how about you see me instead. listen to my real story. when I was little, I had a friend group of five. we all loved the same music, the same colours, our parents were best friends. it was perfect. ooooh but I guess we all grew up now, cause I’m left here loving them and wanting them and they’re here giving excuses to not see me. then I moved. went to a new school, met some new people. thought everybody was my friend; and everybody loved me because I was nice to them. turns out, im just stupid and clueless and people aren’t what they seem to be. I got my heart broken, twice. and it hurt a lot more than it should’ve because they both were not very nice people. they were manipulators, and haters, and apparently bullies too. I thought I was brave for confessing. twice. after covid, none of my hundreds of friends even texted back. I guess we weren’t friends. my good friends never asked me to hang out, and were somehow always busy. I got framed, cyberbullied, harassed online, rumors spread. and this didn’t happen once, but at least like 10 times. my friends didn’t care. they just left. they left me there. they added fire to the flames. now im left with attachment issues and the fear of abandonment. [insert most preposterous thing I would never do that makes 0 sense]. then I get bullied for that? oh then I tried to ask my best friend to defend me, please, and she was like “ur making my mental health worse” “im suicidal now” and starts getting her friends to bully me more and curse at me for quote on quote, “ruining her life”. I’m sorry that I wasted my time trying to help her and her relationship. I’m sorry I spent so much time on her when she did that to me. its so unfair that she gets to be posting about it and gets people wishing her and supporting her when I never got support when I was doing the same. I was bullied more if someone ever found out. i hated myself more and more. I cut myself more and more. no one noticed. no one cared. my grades slipped.

I think that’s really funny cause first of all, she lied, second of all, I love how she gets all the support in the world for her fake story of a paper cut and I was out there bleeding to death from stab wounds that would never ever heal. but its whatever. then, another one of my best friends comes over, body shames me, calls me ugly and calls me out for every single thing and made me feel more insecure than ever, and then walks out after telling people that im the one who body shamed her. oh im oh so sorry for defending you while you were getting bullied, but this is my return gift, thank you? now I cant run away from my anxiety or anxiety attacks and I’m still alone. i wish I wasn’t. I wish someone understood. I’m really not who you think I am. my friend once told me that the way i dress would give off the impression that im a “popular girl”. that I’m materialistic. that I’m shallow, and cold-hearted. maybe thats the girl ive been trying to portray. im really not materialistic, or shallow, or cold-hearted. im the opposite. maybe ive been trying to hide away and blend in the shadows. maybe ive been trying to pretend like im a pretty girl. I havent ever told anybody that. maybe part of me wishes karma would get it over with already, because they all seem to be doing better than me. I think being a good person doesn’t have many rewards, unless you keep doing it, even through this. and I will, because thats just who I am.

now lets see more about me. things someone could maybe actually love. uhh, the way i always give others the bigger half. or the cup with more water. the way I’m always smiling or maybe my favourite songs. maybe a poem I wrote about someone I love. im my favorite quotes and the colour of my room and the movies I watch. and I found people who love me for all of the above. the first impressions. the dark parts. the beautiful ones. and I hope to never let them go. i hope to never let myself go.

[pedropascalito]

I sent this ask on my old blog and can’t find who answered it. If it was you, can you please let me know?

—————————

If you have any time for asks, I'd love to hear how each of Pedro's characters would react to their S/O waking up to a panic attack? I suffer from these and even talking about them makes me anxious so I'd love to read about them in a comforting context. (If you'd think they'd be comforting, that is.) 

Javi ~ he’s definitely got a lot of his problems, from years of a stressful job and never quite knowing what to expect. Sometimes he has a hard time too, often leading to you comforting him as well. It’s a sort of…unspoken thing between the two of you. If you were having trouble sleeping, and woke up to a panic attack, he’d absolutely try his best and get you to relax, wrapping his strong arms around you, and pulling you into him, and burrowing his head into your neck and try to talk you through it. I think he’d be a very supportive partner, and even if he didn’t understand it all, he’d always help you however you needed.

Din ~ he’s been through a lot throughout his life and although he’s learned to handle himself well, there are times he’s experiences his own panic. It’s not often, but he knows the sighs, including when it happens to you, even if you don’t say anything. He’s used to silence, having spent many years alone, so perhaps he’s not the best with words, but he listens to you, and uses his touch and embrace to comfort you, however long it takes. He’s gentle and patient in touch, and attentive to your needs. 

Whiskey ~ he’s very old school in a lot of ways and he won’t even pretend to understand how panic attacks work or why they affect you so. But that doesn’t matter - he’s all in for you, all in for making sure you are properly taken care of. If he’s away and you call him in the middle of the night, he be alert within in seconds and try to talk you through as best as he can, making it a point to remind you how much he loves you, and how you’re everything to him. If he’s there, he’s awake as soon as you are, getting up and getting you a hot chocolate or something he knows you fancy before holding you and getting you through everything.

Oberyn ~  he’s an attentive prince, lover, and friend, and he admitted to you, and likely only you that he often suffered from the same things that plague you now, back when he learned of his sister’s untimely demise. He doesn’t question you, or try to make you feel bad, instead tries to talk you through it, pulling you into his lap and holding onto you as tightly as possible. If you don’t want to speak, he’ll just hold you, and sometimes he’ll just read to you, poetry or prose, whatever you like, until you’ve calmed down and start to feel better. 

Ezra ~ he’s never really experienced any sort of anxiety or panic attacks, not until he had to have his arm removed. After that, for some reason, he started to experience some for himself. You’d had a history of them, knowing that they could be terrible, so you often would help him through his, and in turn, he learned how to help you through yours. It was…a type of bonding, a mutual affection and learning process. They never fully went away, but it helped when Ezra was by your side, his warm voice always making things better.

[heroes-fading]

tumblr did eat this but as a wise poet once said “honey i rose up from the dead i do it all the time”

so i feel like i have been slowly entertaining in the back of my head for a year or two now the idea of writing again. it started with like, writing bad poetry in journals. i’ve been consuming media, but in a lot more of a disconnected way. engagement was like, reading reddit and twitter threads for a day and putting it back down. then episode 8 happened, and i was like FUCK i’m unglued.

to put in perspective what kind of shit i was up to in high school: i wrote half a million words of like...once upon a time fanfiction. and in that i found lots of lovely connections to people but amidst a sea of other factors: being a literal teenager who still thought i could be the smartest person in the room (spoiler: never), having no real social net outside of the internet (and i will say my internet friends -- many of whom i still love and talk to today -- got me through some of the WORST times of my life), and having a very fragile ego. probably related to points a and b. everything felt like the biggest thing in the world because my world did not feel very big.

now i look back at it like...holy shit you wrote a goddamn novel. who cares if it was like, literature or not? 

to be honest one of the things that got through to me was this cj the x video, especially their point which i’ll recap here:

“We are under the impression that art is something special people do, and to do it well makes you a genius, and to do it poorly is embarrassing. This sectioning off of the art world for artists from regular life and regular people is completely artificial and it is bad for the soul of your society.”

and they talk a bti about the Terrifying Ordeal of Being Known and perfectionism and just the amount of fuccccckin mental blocks we put around what’s good art and bad art and we spend so much time agonizing over what’s good and what’s cringe and you know what? embrace cringe! who cares! none of us will live forever!!! sharing art is the way we sustain ourselves in the long run.

i always have an internal voice saying something’s not good enough. i’m Always like “damn, these metrics ain’t metricing like they were earlier...” and then i’m like fuck...am i doing this for the Idea of Fandom Success or because of my fun silly lil hobby? my fun silly lil hobby? aight guess i ought to just embrace the Terrifying Ordeal of Being Known and accept that silly lil numbers ain’t what’s fufilling, it’s the practice of writing and sharing and going at the end of the day “at least one person liked this, and being known isn’t the Most Horrific Thing Ever”.

another thing i Never did when i was a teenager is tell anyone i wrote fic in real life. now my husband and friend and sister-in-law know (the latter involved either alcohol or being confined to a plane, which is a lot like alcohol) and you know how much they think i’m embarassing? they don’t. oh and actually a co-worker. they just go “lol, this is My thing” and it’s a novel they tried to write in college or fanart they post on a secret instagram or a monsters inc page they ran in high school (all real examples) because everyone has some kind of thing they care about, some artistic expression, and we’ve conditioned people to think trying is embarassing. trying is vulnerable and the point, i think! no matter how cringe! 

and vulnerability is this awfully stingy thing because sometimes when you think about it for too long it’s not unlike putting your hand on a hot coal. like, fuck, laying awake at night knowing that people know You Tried and what if they still didn’t like it? humiliating. awful. please schedule me with the goddamn firing squad. you didn’t get the metrics you wanted. or worse, you did and now people don’t think you deserve it. they’re gonna find out you’re just a big fanfiction writing fraud.

but maybe that’s the point! i don’t know! vulnerability is hard and painful and growth and sincerety is almost WORSE. but there’s also something lovely and cathartic about it and at the end of the day knowing that other people feel that, too. can never get too lost in either sauces of thinking you’re the worst thing ever or the best and the only one who gets it. just gotta accept the vulnerability of it all~

i’m back in my daydreaming era, i think fic gave that back to me. i shut her off for a little while, but she’s still there! and it’s not the worst thing, having overwhelming creative ideas on the treadmill or in a hotel lobby or furiously writing in a google doc in the middle of the night even if it does feel Silly. sometimes it does make the world a little more magical, framing in a narrative. 

(my therapist at some point has made comments about my narrative framing skills in the context of my life and getting out of a shitty family situation with a lot of embedded generational cyclical fun stuff to a point i have a lot of the things now i used to dream about despite it, my pathological need to write my way out also applying to my life and maybe it’s not the worst way of moving a locus of control inwards. i used to dream about feeling safe and being respected interpersonally and professionally because it’s something no woman in my family ever really got and i get that now. anyway, as i said, radical vulnerability!)

narratives are powerful and meaningful and art is too, i don’t care if it’s fanfiction at the end of the day! we’ve all felt something or gptten something or felt community and that’s meaningful enough. 

this is a very long-winded and frankly chaotic way of saying sure, i’m a writer enough!

[wafflesdenweasels]

Me: *beating myself up because I only am moderately good at most of the things I can do and have a hard time staying focused on one thing*

Literally anyone, doing the thing or not doing the thing: Oh that so cool! I’d love to try that/Wanna do the thing together sometime?/ Wanna see the thing I’m good at

Moral of the story, people don’t think about how good you are at something, they just think it’s cool that you do the thing. And if they ARE dicks about it, they aren’t worth your brainspace. I mean, I’m learning bass. O know some super talented bass players who are just thrilled that I’m even picking up the instrument on occasion. They don’t care that I’m not great and that I’m confused. They often teach me things.

When I first started writing, no matter how shitty it was, my grandpa, who is a professional writer, always told me I was doing amazing. So I kept writing. And ya I know I could have never published what I wrote before, but I got better, even though I was only writing little bits at a time.

When I started voice, only one person tried to put me down. A few years later and I had almost ruined my voice, and had totally lost the ability to properly balance it, and was getting swelling in a tendon in my neck because of the tension I was putting on myself to please this person who I was never good enough for. So I walked away and found someone who taught me the skills I needed to bring my voice back to where it should be. Turns out I’m not an alto 2. I’m a soprano 2.

I just took up roller skating. I thought it would be embarrassing learning something new now that I am legally an adult. Turns out people, skaters and non skater, just think I’m cool for even owning them.

I’m going to be starting school for sound tech this fall. I am terrified because I know nothing about it. All I have is my background in music and a few songs I wrote because I like poetry. When I was on my tour, the guy told me “ya know, I only knew a few chords on guitar when I started here” and now he teaches at the damn school.

My brain likes to tell me I’m not good enough to do something. That I need to be the best at it to even do it, so I have to constantly fight with it, and teach it to do things because I enjoy doing them, and not because I need to be good at it. Being good at things comes with time, and even when I am good at something, I don’t really see it anyway. I don’t know if anyone relates to this, but it’s been on my mind a bit and I thought someone might need to hear it too.

I can tell my brain perfection isn’t possible a million times over and never get through to it, but when I give it a thought out, logical reason why, that it can’t refute or spin into some shitstorm, I can actually do things I enjoy without worrying about judgment or harping on myself about being shit at it.

[hotchley]

🐨 Hello hello! It’s been a minute! I kinda forgot to send stuff. Let’s see, what’s going on….

In three months, I turn eighteen, and in five months (how is it only five months??) I graduate high school. That is insane and a little terrifying. Like, I’m ready to be done with high school, but at least I know high school, you know? College is an unknown variable and I don’t know what’ll happen. I’m optimistic about it, but it’s hard not to be dreading it a bit.

The poetry is going well! I had another poem accepted by a literary magazine, which I was super excited about. Speech is also going well. I’m giving a speech about heteronormativity, and it’s been really amazing to get to talk about something that I care about so much and have people listen. I’ve tried to explain to so many people so many times what heteronormativity is and why it drives me crazy, so it’s nice to feel like I’m actually doing something, even if it’s something small as a speech.

Oh! Guess what? I won my first ever speech tournament!! We were in another state and me and my roommates stayed up watching late night shows because I love those, and it turns out they do too! And the road trip was chaotic and amazing. Hearing my name called as first place and my teammates cheering and getting a standing ovation (that’s just speech etiquette, but still felt very cool!) was seriously amazing.

I’ve finished all my college applications, so now I just wait. I’ve heard back from a few…all positive so far, but there’s one with a 6% acceptance rate that’s my dream school but it’s insanely hard to get into. I’m thinking I’ll go into journalism. I love writing, and I want to do something that’ll help people/make a difference, so. It seems like a good option. But I have four years of college to figure that out, haha.

I’ve always wondered the difference between a barrister and a solicitor! In America, we have different types of lawyers like attorneys and prosecutors. It can get a bit confusing.

I get to go to a wedding in a few months! My karate senseis. We’ve known they’re getting married for awhile, but we got our official invitations at class last night, so that was cool. I’ve never been to a wedding before, except for one when I was 4 that I don’t really remember. Both the senseis are really awesome people, so I’m excited to get to go and celebrate them.

I was looking through your other blog again…I still adore your writing. Your poetry is so powerful. It definitely inspires me and my writing! And I’m still keeping a Happy Jar on my phone :)

Hi. Hi. Hi. Ummmmm... there is no reason for why I haven't answered asks apart from the simple: I haven't. I have no idea when you sent this but it was an embarrassing amount of time ago. I am hoping it hasn't been three months?

It's always terrifying! I felt the same way because I spent seven years at the school. I was genuinely terrified I wouldn't be able to handle being away from there because they have always kept me okay. But it's been several months since I left and I'm doing okay. Things settled. So be cautiously optimistic, and like I always tell kiddos, your education will always be waiting for you when you're ready. That's how it works. So there's never a rush.

Ah that's so good! I'm so glad you get to do it on something you like. And it's not just a speech. When I was in year eight, I did a speech workshop that was also a competition and I talked for a minute about the value of a human life. People cried. People three years later still remembered it. Our words, whether written or in passing, impact people. Something my friend said months ago that she's forgotten about has stuck with me. It'll be a good speech. It will have impact.

And congratulations on winning!! That's amazing and so cool and you really deserved it!

Journalism is so cool! I mean, you've tried to get in. Rejection is always hard, and if it happens, you need to let yourself feel sad and cry and whatever, but the knowledge that you didn't get in is infinitely better than the sadness of not even trying. I promise.

It's more that barristers go to court and solicitors usually don't. The main reason there hasn't been fusion is because of tradition and also the way people are paid is different- barristers are self-employed, solicitors usually aren't etc.

I LOVE WEDDINGS! I went to two last year, and I also went to the pre-wedding functions which was an experience. One was my cousin- her and her husband are the sweetest- and the other was my dad's friends daughter. That was during my A-Levels, which was chaos, but it was also my first English wedding so that was super cool! Weddings are fun for me because i love love and speeches and the dressing up and aah.

Awww. I think that's the nicest compliment I've ever been given about my writing! The Happy Jar has migrated to a notebook for 2023 and it's much, much easier now so the phone was the way to go!