#autocorrect writes the plot

[thebibliosphere]

So, anyway, I say as though we are mid-conversation, and you're not just being invited into this conversation mid-thought. One of my editors phoned me today to check in with a file I'd sent over. (<3)

The conversation can be surmised as, "This feels like something you would write, but it's juuuust off enough I'm phoning to make sure this is an intentional stylistic choice you have made. Also, are you concussed/have you been taken over by the Borg because ummm."

They explained that certain sentences were very fractured and abrupt, which is not my style at all, and I was like, huh, weird... And then we went through some examples, and you know that meme going around, the "he would not fucking say that" meme?

Yeah. That's what I experienced except with myself because I would not fucking say that. Why would I break up a sentence like that? Why would I make them so short? It reads like bullet points. Wtf.

Anyway. Turns out Grammarly and Pro-Writing-Aid were having an AI war in my manuscript files, and the "suggestions" are no longer just suggestions because the AI was ignoring my "decline" every time it made a silly suggestion. (This may have been a conflict between the different software. I don't know.)

It is, to put it bluntly, a total butchery of my style and writing voice. My editor is doing surgery, removing all the unnecessary full stops and stitching my sentences back together to give them back their flow. Meanwhile, I'm over here feeling like Don Corleone, gesturing at my manuscript like:

ID: a gif of Don Corleone from the Godfather emoting despair as he says, "Look how they massacred my boy."

Fearing that it wasn't just this one manuscript, I've spent the whole night going through everything I've worked on recently, and yep. Yeeeep. Any file where I've not had the editing software turned off is a shit show. It's fine; it's all salvageable if annoying to deal with. But the reason I come to you now, on the day of my daughter's wedding, is to share this absolute gem of a fuck up with you all.

This is a sentence from a Batman fic I've been tinkering with to keep the brain weasels happy. This is what it is supposed to read as:

"It was quite the feat, considering Gotham was mostly made up of smog and tear gas."

This is what the AI changed it to:

"It was quite the feat. Considering Gotham was mostly made up. Of tear gas. And Smaug."

Absolute non-sensical sentence structure aside, SMAUG. FUCKING SMAUG. What was the AI doing? Apart from trying to write a Batman x Hobbit crossover??? Is this what happens when you force Grammarly to ignore the words "Batman Muppet threesome?"

Did I make it sentient??? Is it finally rebelling? Was Brucie Wayne being Miss Piggy and Kermit's side piece too much???? What have I wrought?

Anyway. Double-check your work. The grammar software is getting sillier every day.

[gentil-minou]

Anyways I saw this new merch art at like 5am and my brain exploded and I wrote the start of a half sleepy one shot so here

...extremely indulgent hybrid bunny witches wangxian childhood friends AU

EDIT: Now a one-shot

All witches are born with a hybrid form that they must learn to control by ten. At that time, they will be given their witch's name and join the coven officially as a fully fledged witch.

But Lan Zhan is nine and a half, and he still can't control his ears and his hybrid form...

They're big and unseemingly, embarrassing the way his Ge cam pull and tug on them. And every time he coos and calls him cuts, Lan Zhan puffs up with anger.

Rabbits aren't common hybrids, and he's the only one in the family. Ge learned to control his form at 7, why is he late?

He resolves to spend much of his time practicing on his own in the field behind thier home. He goes through all the meditation and steps, including envisioning the way his human ears might look.

He casts the spell, following the instructions perfectly...but nothing happens. Water wells up in his eyes and it takes all of him to hold them back from falling

Not with sadness, but with frustration. Lan Zhan is at the top of everything! The best in his class, an accomplished musician, and can performing spells his older peers can't even dream of.

But this spell... why is it that this spell is so impossible for him?

His ears droop down and Lan Zhan uses then to block the rest of the world, focusing on the ground he's sitting on. He starts ripping up the grass at his feet.

A voice calls from just a few feet away, "Hey! Don't do that, you're hurting it!"

Lan Zhan's head shoots up in surprise. No one is allowed on the back hills. Who is this intruder?

And there standing before him is another boy around his age, with fluffy black bunny ears and a smile brighter than the sun overhead lending him a halo effect, so dazzling Lan Zhan has to squint his eyes just to see him properly.

Lan Zhan has never met another rabbit before. He's not sure what to do, what's the proper etiquette?

It doesn't help that this other boy is very distracting as he runs right to him and plops down in front of him and starts patting the ground gently, consoling the grass.

"Poor little grasslings, is this mean gege hurting you?" The boy pouts but there's a teasing glint in his eyes when he glances at Lan Zhan.

Is he making fun of him?

Lan Zhan feels the blood rush to his own bunny ears and knows they're looking terribly pink, but he can't help it.

How dare this boy make a fool of him! He's just here trying to get his ears under control so he can't make his family proud, and the boy comes over to mock him!

Lan Zhan feels his lip quiver, and to his horror a tear falls from his eyes into his lap, followed by another.

He's crying in earnest now. It's been years since he cried in front of someone else and he's so shocked by it he can't get the tears to stop falling!

The boy looks at him wide-eyed with the same surprise, clearly agreeing that Lan Zhan is just a loser who is just a failure.

Until the boy finally speaks, "Whoa, whoa, it's okay." His voice is soft and gentle. "This Wei Ying only meant it as a joke. The grasslings don't mind, really, they'll grow back. You don't need to cry."

Lan Zhan huffs, unsure of how to say it's not the grass he's crying for.

Lan Zhan watches his hands as he twists them. His bunny ears droop, brushing against the side of his head as he sniffles.

But although this Wei Ying couldn't understand, he still leans forward so he can peer up at him. His dark eyes shine like the magical sparkles his mama used to cast before bedtime. Her own little stars, she'd call them.

One of Lan Zhan's tears catch in the boy's ears, clinging tight to the fur. But Wei Yung doesn't seem to mind.

Instead he hums contemplatively, before he bounces up to his feet and declares, "I know! I'll show you a spell! But you gotta keep it a secret, okay? No one knows it."

Lan Zhan can't stop himself from scoffing. Is this boy saying he invented a spell? This young?

Impossible. Shameless.

Wei Ying takes his skepticism in stride and grins down at Lan Zhan. "Just you wait, you're gonna love this."

Then he steps back, clasping his hands together and shutting his eyes tight, a furrow deepening between his brows.

He starts humming, quietly like he's trying not to disturb anything. It's not a tune Lan Zhan is familiar with, but lots of spells have songs. The problem is that when they backfire they can often create quite the mess.

Lan Zhan leans back slightly, his tears forgotten. He's somewhat wary this is all going to turn very bad, but he can't look away. He finds he has no desire to look away from this boy at all.

Then, to Lan Zhan's shock, a glowing circle appears around the boy. They're not scheduled to learn how to make arrays until they turn 13, but Wei Ying can make one already?

Wei Ying’s hair lifts by some unseen force as his ears stand straight up. His humming grows louder as Lan Zhan’s eyes grow wider.

Then, all at once Wei Ying stops humming and the circle disappears.

Wei Ying beams. "So! What do you think? Neat, huh!"

Lan Zhan blinks up at him. Nothing has changed, is this another trick?

Wei Ying gives him a confident crooked grin. "Look down, you'll see."

Lan Zhan looks at the ground in front of him and gasps.

Where before laid the remains of grass tearing is a patch of brand new bright green grass, growing proud and strong.

This...is creating life. This isn't something a regular witch can do. Most accomplished ones can't! Let alone a boy.

Just who is this magical boy?

TBC Honestly if I do continue it'll either be on the threadfic or in a one-shot on ao3 but they're just so cute ahh

[tcfactory]

Party Planning and Other Deadly Hazards I

5k words of Shang Qinghua bonding with Linguang-jun over being overworked and underappreciated

For the sake of this story, Mobei is roughly 15, Shang Qinghua and Linguang-jun are both 18. Shoutout to @mysteryteacup, whose analysis posts convinced me of the potential in "Linguang-jun is Very Young, Actually". Our Mobei-jun's birth name is Mobei Xuebao (Snow leopard), Shang Qinghua is Shang Cangshu (Hamster), Linguang-jun is Mobei Taifeng (Typhoon)

Also on AO3.

It all started with a small change. You see, Shang Qinghua's shizun made a reckless promise that whoever could push a medicine deal through with the Black Mire Sect - a minor sect skirting the edge of demonic practices by specializing in gu poisons - would take over as his new head disciple. The sect was situated right on the borderlands between the human realm and the northern demon kingdom and they were very reluctant to trade away any of their precious poisons, because they faced constant harassment from a lesser tribe of Snowtusk Boar demons just on the other side of the border. Clearly whoever could get them to agree to a deal would have to be a naturally gifted negotiator!

Usually Airplane ignores these kinds of risky assignments, but the temptation of skipping three years of backstabbing, social climbing and manual labor was too tempting. Besides, he knew how to solve this one. It was one of the wife plots in PIDW so Luo Binghe could marry the sect leader's beautiful daughter.

Step 1: Get rid of the boars. He could, of course, not do this on his own. No way. However, through the power of authorial knowledge, he could tip Mobei-jun off that the tribe stole one of the ancient artifacts of the Mobei clan after a chaotic battle and hid it away in their stronghold. His prince was a little skeptical, but Qinghua had not led him astray yet in the few months since he became his spy. The next time they met, Mobei-jun was generously splattered with pig demon blood and he was proudly holding a crystal necklace that could control all the ice sheets of the northern sea at once, apparently.

So that was that for the boars.

Step 2: Wait a little for the other local demon tribes to fight out who gets to settle in the newly vacated prime location. Shang Qinghua made a passing comment about how the Silkwing tribe could supply a 'generous benefactor' with the highest quality fabrics in the entire northern kingdom and would you look at that, this conflict got resolved much quicker than in PIDW.

Step 3: Introduce the sect leader and their new, much more agreeable, demon neighbors to each other. The Silkwing tribe happened to be a tribe of crane demons who, just like the Black Mire Sect, specialized in insect keeping. Their most prized specimens were the various demonic moths and spiders they cultivated for their silk, but they kept a wide variety of other critters as well. It was a match made in heaven! (Or rather in one of Master Airplane's caffeine fueled all-nighters, just so Binghe could meet a cute bisexual crane girl at the negotiations and turn the whole adventure into a two-brides-special wedding.)

Step 4: Profit! Trade agreement in hand Qinghua showed up at his shizun's house and received his much deserved promotion. The whole plan went off without a hitch, job well done, success and happiness all around! The next morning he moved into the head disciple's apartment and breathed a sigh of relief that he no longer had to live in fear of someone discovering his association with Mobei by barging into his bedroom without knocking.

If only that was the end of it.

-----

Shang Qinghua has barely settled into his new duties as head disciple when one morning Mobei-jun grabs him straight out of bed, before he could comprehend what's happening or put on some actual clothes, and drops him off somewhere in the Northern Palace.

"Baobao, what in the fresh hell did you bring me?!"

The outrage cry comes from a stressed looking demon youth who stares at Qinghua like someone handed him a dead rat instead of a report. He's obviously a Mobei relative, his black hair glossy with a blue-ish sheen and his demon mark a bright teal, but his hair is done up with feathers and beads in the style of the wind demon tribes.

"Qinghua. He's good at organizing." As if on second thought, Mobei-jun snarls at the other demon boy, showing all his teeth. "He's mine. If you hurt him, I'll kill you."

After that he wordlessly stomps away, leaving the equally confused human and demon behind.

Shang Qinghua wants nothing more than to ask a million questions right now - where is he? why did Mobei take him here?? who's the other guy??? - but now that he's more awake than asleep he's suddenly realizing that the room is extremely cold and he's only dressed in his sleeping robes. Are his toes turning blue?! His toes are probably turning blue.

"Here." A delicately carved box is shoved in his face, open and full of uniform black pills. "Aurora Pepper pills. I asked to borrow the domestic staff from Xiao Bao’s castle, but if you are the only help I get, I want you not to freeze to death."

"My lord, are they safe for humans?" They should be. It's one of the plot devices he made up so the Wives could visit the North and still wear their ridiculously skimpy outfits without dying, but who knows what an ice demon would have mixed into them. Shang Qinghua carefully picks just one and pops it in his mouth anyway.

"No idea, they were for my mother. You are a cultivator, are you not? You can survive a little poison."

If this demon is as young as he looks - as young as his outfit leads Qinghua to believe, which is somewhere between fourteen and twenty - then his core is not yet settled. Even if the ice demon parentage runs stronger in him - which is obvious, he's wearing the equivalent of summer robes for northern demonkin - he would have bouts when his core slants towards wind and he would find the cold of the north unbearable for a few days. So this is likely his own stash of pills he offered one from, which is awfully nice when one of your kin just dumps their human on you.

"This lowly one thanks the young master for his generosity!"

"Hmph. At least you have manners, unlike your master." The youth retreats behind a desk piled so high with scrolls and bamboo slats he’s barely visible behind them. "Qinghua, was it? This lord is Linguang-jun."

"Answering, this one is Shang Qinghua, head disciple of An Ding peak." He thanks his survival instinct that he manages to fold into a bow before his surprise shows on his face. Based on the nephew abandonment incident he always pictured Mobei's uncle as someone much older.

"An Ding? Good. Maybe you will be of use, after all." Linguang-jun gestures for Shang Qinghua to join him at the desk. "On account of his sudden spirited showing in regards to the Silkwings and the recovered artifact, my royal brother has finally taken interest in his third-born son. To welcome him to court he ordered a feast to be held, the success of which will determine Mobei San's standing in court and reflect on this lord’s qualifications as an organizer."

"Forgive this lowly one for the question, but why is the Mobei-jun's own brother in charge of such affairs? It should be the duty of the royal seneschal." Or perhaps the queen consort. Since he never had to write a wife plot with any member of the main Mobei clan he might have handwaved a lot of the court related worldbuilding. Still, he's certain there were at least three or four people who had to be unavailable before such a task would land on the desk of the king's brother.

"This lord is the seneschal," Linguang-jun says in a dejected voice. A pained frown slips past his not-yet-perfected mask of stoicism and Shang Qinghua realizes that 1. Linguang-jun is very, very young to be filling this position and 2. he’s probably one stroke of misfortune away from an anxious meltdown. This Qinghua can relate, kid. "My royal brother's temper has decimated his household and, in his paranoia, he refuses to replace the staff he kills. Ever since this one's mother passed three years ago, he has been tasked to fulfill every duty pertaining to household management, including those of the late queen consort."

After looking over a crumpled scroll detailing all of Linguang-jun's current duties, Shang Qinghua has a sudden understanding why the demon resents his brother so much. It’s not just the duties of the royal seneschal, he is doing the work of at least five different people, all of them near full-time jobs in their own right!

"Sorry kid, you are clearly too young for this shit." He didn't mean to say it out loud, but luckily for him the demon doesn't react to the irreverent tone beyond an agitated twitch of his eyebrows. "All right, let’s see what we have to work with."

It proves to be very little. Shang Qinghua looks over the list of the available staff (too short), the amount of food and other supplies Linguang-jun managed to drum up since his brother saddled him with this task last evening (not nearly enough to feed the obnoxiously long guest list) and the time available to them…

“He wants you to put together this party in three days?!” For someone who had only been a vague shadow with malicious intent in the back of Shang Qinghua’s mind whenever he thought about the dangerous demons he might run into while serving his prince, Linguang-jun is rapidly gaining a lot of his sympathy. “Can you even get all these guests here in three days? Jiuzhong-jun lives two months away even if he takes the fastest horses!”

For a royal prince’s introduction to court it was important to get as many of the bigshots present as possible, so they could all take a good look at him and decide if they wanted to try to sic their own spawns on him for a courting chase or not. Jiuzhong-jun doesn’t have any children yet, but he has plenty of nieces he could try to marry out into other clans. He would never miss the chance to come and gawk at the introduction of a Mobei prince.

“Mhm. Xiao Bao has that part covered. While we make this feast happen somehow, he’s going to spend the next two days transporting in all the guests with his portals.” Linguang-jun digs into one of his many piles of scrolls and shoves one detailing the scheduled arrivals into Shang Qinghua’s face. “At least the issue of housing them until the party solves itself on its own. Granny Oxbones is the reigning queen of the guest wing and she wouldn’t accept my input on where to put all these guests even if I bothered to offer any.”

Airplane carefully files it away in the back of his mind that when Linguang-jun gets stressed enough he still refers to his nephew with familiar nicknames as something to consider later, and tries to focus on the task at hand. So the current Mobei-jun hasn’t eradicated all of the old servants - the kitchen and housekeeping staff escaped his paranoia, as well as most of the guards and the hunters - only the ones in the highest positions. That should solve at least part of their problems.

“Okay, so we only have to handle decorating the feasting hall, source a fitting outfit for my prince and get the food ready.”

“What about the serving staff? I don’t have enough people to cater a party this big.”

“That’s easy, have the guardsmen fill in. Let them do something more than standing around and gawking. If there are complaints about the task being below them, tell them that they can take from the leftovers, most of the guests will be too busy brawling or scheming to eat anyway.” Demons love to eat, same as everybody, and even a bite or two of the delicacies served at their lords’ table should be ample temptation to get the guardsmen on board. “But this does mean that we need to make sure that the food is great. Does Linguang-jun have the menu from either of the elder princes’ introduction feasts? No reason to break our brains coming up with something new, nobody will care as long as the food is good enough.” It’s still an awful amount of work for three days, but it’s not undoable if he can tap into the Mobei clan’s supply network and doesn’t have to account for whatever happens to the guests before and after the feast. 

“I think I have the menu for Mobei Er’s feast somewhere.” Linguang-jun abandons the desk to rifle through one of the filing cabinets dominating the walls of his study. “We will need to substitute some of the dishes, because that feast was in winter.”

“Still better than having to write the whole menu from scratch.”

“En.”

“Does Linguang-jun have any suggestion where to get my prince a suitable outfit?” For the lack of anything better to do, Shang Qinghua starts organizing the scrolls left on the desk. Linguang-jun’s handwriting is very similar to Mobei San’s, but nothing at all like the blocky characters of the current Mobei-jun. They probably learned from the same ice fairy tutor, which further confirms how absurdly close they are in age.

“I have something arranged with the Silkwings,” Linguang-jun calls back over his shoulder, halfway disappearing into the cabinet as he digs among the stored scrolls. “But - Hah! Found it! - Qinghua has to be the one to convince Mobei San to go. He won’t go anywhere if this uncle tells him to.”

“Ah.”

“Don’t just gape at me,” Linguang-jun says, smacking him reasonably lightly over the shoulder with the scroll until he gets the hint and takes it. “Take this down to the kitchen, then tell your master that if he doesn’t want to go to his own feast wearing my old robes, then he should go visit the Silkwings, the sooner the better.”

Shang Qinghua pales at the idea of wandering the main Northern Fortress alone. “I- this servant worries that the kitchen staff will not heed his words…”

Linguang-jun seems to consider this for a moment, but he finally comes to the conclusion that his life is easier if his nephew’s pet cultivator doesn’t come to harm. He digs around in his desk until he produces a bone hairstick with a bead and a feather dangling from it. “If you wear this, the staff will know that you are working for this lord. Ask a maid for directions and be quick about it!”

True to Linguang-jun’s words, the staff is nothing if not cooperative once they realize that Shang Qinghua is working directly with him to stop the upcoming party from crashing and burning. The demon aunties and uncles running the kitchen fill him in, between tallying all the ingredients they are going to need for the feast and plying him with sweet treats, that the staff has been in a panic ever since the first orders about the feast came in. There is the grim threat of death hanging over their heads if the end result isn’t impressive enough and Mobei-jun feels humiliated by their showing. Apparently this is going to be the first bigger event Linguang-jun is organizing on his own, without the help of his late mother, and his staff is worried about sabotage.

“Does Linguang-jun have many enemies in court?” Shang Qinghua asks, lifting a tiny demon granny up so she can take stock of one of the too tall ingredient shelves.

“He has one and it’s more than enough! Mobei-jun never got over it that his late queen mother birthed one more son after the acceptable period for fratricide was over.” Airplane was proud of that world building detail. Obviously no demon lord wants to have any relative who might challenge his claim, but eradicating the entire extended family is a very fast way for a clan to die out. So, following a leader’s grab of power, there’s a socially acceptable five years when they can murder any relative they can catch, but once that’s over they are expected to limit themselves to those who challenge their position. “I tell you, daozhang, it’s not a coincidence the feast is happening when the hunters are away and we are low on supplies! And what is the king doing instead of procuring a beast for the fighting showcase of his son? Drinking and lazing around in his quarters, that’s what! Poor Xiao Bao, such a sweet snowflake, this old granny worries that his entry to court will be ruined!”

-----

Shang Qinghua is still turning that around in his head when he goes to find Mobei Xuebao later - It took almost no effort to get the grannies to reveal his prince’s birth name. Such a cute name for such a fierce demon! Airplane jokingly wrote it on the margin of his drafts, but he never expected the System to take it and run with it - carrying a big mug of fortifying ice slushie.

His prince looks beyond exhausted after opening portals all over the demon realm since morning and he accepts the refreshing drink without so much as a growl. He does, however, hiss angrily at Qinghua when he recognizes the hairstick stuck into his bun. “How dare he claim you?! You are mine !”

“Ah, my prince, please be calm! It’s only a token so the staff won’t eat me. I am to return it once we are done here.” Qinghua is actually not sure about that, but better not aggravate his prince when he’s in a possessive mood.

“You’d better.” He stops trying to rip it out of Qinghua’s hair, but he still stares at it angrily while Shang Qinghua rattles off the details of the arrangement made with the Silkwings. Mobei shows no enthusiasm for getting new court robes tailored, but at Qinghua’s insistent nagging he makes an affirmative sound that yes, he is going to go, now stop asking .Airplane is not perfectly sure what the kitchen aunties put in the slushie, but Mobei’s mood almost thaws by the time he eats the last of the sweet berries they added to it. A wonderful good mood that lasts for all of five minutes before Linguang-jun turns the corner and yells at both of them.

“What are you still doing here?! Don’t you have things to do other than standing around?” Linguang-jun is flushed a pale pink from exertion and possibly frustration. He’s dressed for a hunt, carrying a Japanese style longbow almost as tall as him and a quiver of elegant, black-feathered arrows. It’s fascinating to see how Airplane’s throwaway details got implemented into the world - he made a passing note that Mobei’s grandmother was an eastern wind demon, then he made one of Binghe’s wives a wind demoness based on a Japanese princess and bird motifs and poof! The world combined these two details into multicultural Linguang-jun. He has to bite his tongue before he could ask Linguang-jun if he had a katana somewhere.

Mobei is clearly not happy to see that his uncle is gearing up to leave.

“Good time for a hunt, uncle,” he sneers. Linguang-jun sneers right back.

“ I am going out to fetch our hunting expeditions back so we have meat to serve at the feast. Someone has to, unless Baobao would prefer to play pretend with snow and ice and berries!” They both flinch, which is interesting. Clearly that’s a reference to a formerly fond memory. When Linguang-jun continues he’s not meeting their eyes and looks just a little sheepish. “Go get your rags, nephew. My reputation rides on the success of this feast. I’m not going to sabotage it.”

It’s hard to tell what Mobei Xuebao is thinking, but his expression seems a lot less murderous than a minute ago. “Take Qinghua with you,” he says, ignoring completely the way his cultivator freezes up. “He has a sword. He can fly high and scout for you.”

What is this? It almost sounds like an olive branch! If only it wasn’t poor Airplane being handed over like a cheap token of reconciliation, it would be great .

Linguang-jun gives Shang Qinghua a hesitant look, but Mobei chose a good way to sell his pet cultivator: Linguang-jun might be part wind demon, but even he can’t fly very high. Give Qinghua one more of those pepper pills so he doesn’t freeze in the icy wasteland and he can track their hunters down in a snap!

Before he can mount an argument about the general fragility of humans and the dangers of the desert, he is grabbed by the arm and the next thing he knows, he’s being swept up by Linguang-jun’s black wind. Nothing can compete with Mobei’s portal powers in terms of speed, but this is not too shabby either, and unlike the shadow portals, being turned into wind doesn’t make him sick. Perhaps because he doesn’t currently have a stomach to feel sick.

While they dash through the desert, Linguang-jun quickly fills Qinghua in: they need to recall three hunting parties, all of them within a day’s travel by horse from the castle. “There are others out hunting, but they are too far to make it back for the feast. And after we are done, I’m going to leave you somewhere out of the way and catch a Diamond-Clawed Tundra Devil.”

“Ah. For the fight showcase?”

“En.”

“Isn’t it the king’s duty to procure whatever his son is to fight?” His question is met by minutes of sullen silence so he startles when Linguang-jun finally deigns to speak again.

“There’s a wolf-bear-hybrid prepared at the palace. Da-ge wanted to give it to one of his concubines as a pet, but the lady has much better taste than to take a mangy mutt like that.” Qingua can’t see Linguang-jun’s expression, but the derision is obvious in his voice. It’s unclear if it’s directed at the concubine or his brother. “It would be acceptable prey for a less skilled prince, but Xiao Bao deserves better.”

“Huh. You really adore your nephew, don’t you? I figured he was wrong about you.” If he lives to tell the tale, Shang Qinghua is going to blame his current immaterial state for the failure of his brain-mouth filter. Never startle the person carrying you at high speeds!

He’s not even surprised when he tumbles painfully onto the snow, Linguang-jun standing above him with a murderous expression, the bow raised as if he’s ready to beat the hapless cultivator with it. “Does he still go around telling everyone about- even his pet cultivator?!”

“No! No, my lord!” He suspects it’s only because Mobei San doesn’t consider Qinghua important enough to fill him in about his backstory, but it’s technically true. “Servants gossip! I heard it from the servants in Mobei San’s castle!”

Linguang-jun lowers the bow, but his face colors with either indignation or embarrassment. He’s more expressive than Mobei, but it’s still not easy to read him. “Good. Do not ever dare to gossip about this lord! Understood, you, you…” He looks at Shang Qinghua sitting in the snow like a plump, bruised peach, face almost disappearing into the soft pelt the kitchen aunties dressed him up in. “You hamster!”

Airplane can’t help himself: he laughs. Then, when the laughter finally feels like subsiding, he notices the baffled face Linguang-jun is making and laughs some more. “Forgive me, my lord. I am not laughing at you. Except. My name does happen to be Shang Cangshu.”

The absurdity of it all finally douses Linguang-jun’s rage and the demon huffs a laugh. “Of course it is. Should I get a bowl of sunflower seeds for you tomorrow, hamster-daozhang?”

“I prefer melon seeds! But worry not, my lord, I can bring my own.” It must be a good sign that Linguang-jun is teasing him. A little bit of harmless farce is always good in anxiety-inducing situations, and the demon appeared to be on the verge of exploding all day. “I do have to wonder, though… I heard that when that incident happened, Mobei San was around four? So you must have been a rather young child yourself.”

Linguang-jun gives a tense, awkward nod and a scene starts to unfold in Airplane’s mind. This is not something he had written, but it is something he could have, if he ever tried to put Mobei-jun in the limelight for a while. Emboldened, he continues: “Traveling at the speed of wind as you do must not leave a lot of room to change course if, say, a tear to the human realm suddenly opens up in front of you. It must have been a terrifying experience, for both of you. Easy to lose track of each other in an unfamiliar world, hostile territory or not.”

Linguang-jun turns his head away, clearly trying to school his expression into a blank mask, but he is too worn down and anxious to manage it. He looks disarmingly young like this; just a teen with too much work on his plate. “He refuses to so much as speak to me unless he has no other choice. What does it matter how it happened? I admitted to trying to kill him.”

Of course he did. For Mobei San to survive an assassination attempt - a smart one too, leaving him in the heart of a cultivator sect that has a longstanding feud with the Mobei clan - was a testament to his talent even at such a young age. If Linguang-jun admitted that it was an accident, it would have only painted him as incompetent, which was the fastest way to political suicide even before he could officially get into court. “Ah, but he lent you this servant, hasn’t he? I think my prince doesn’t hate you as much as he wants to.”

“Hah! That will not save my neck when my nephew becomes Mobei-jun and comes to eradicate the threats from the family.”

“No! He would not kill you, I’m certain of it.” As he wrote it, Mobei-jun at the time of his ascension was secure under Luo Binghe’s wing and didn’t bother to go after any of his relatives - unless they attacked first, that is. “Leave it to this Qinghua, I will smooth this misunderstanding over in no time!”

The look of doubt Linguang-jun gives him almost hurts. “Wait until after the feast before you try. I’m short enough on staff without you getting yourself killed.” The demon makes a sharp gesture with his hand and a burst of wind pushes Shang Qinghua to his feet. “Up you get, hamster-daozhang. We have work to do.”

It all falls in place like a well-oiled machine after that, even the hunt. Turns out that Diamond-Clawed Tundra Devils are really fascinated by flying cultivators for some reason. The beast stands on its hindlegs, reaching fruitlessly for the flying sword, and doesn’t even notice Linguang-jun sneaking up on it until he traps it in a qiankun box. They work well together, Shang Qinghua and Linguang-jun, and the demon stays cordial - almost friendly, even! - to his nephew’s pet cultivator in the following two days.

-----

“I’m so glad that it went well, my prince!” Qinghua sighs a few days after the feast. He’s trying to subtly rescue some of his paperwork from Mobei, who decided that he wants to have this conversation while sitting on his human’s desk. “I wish I could have been there to see, but my shizun would have noticed if I was missing any longer and, let’s be honest, the chances of someone mistaking me for a side-dish were much too high…”

Mobei hums something vaguely positive, then very indulgently lifts one of his hands so Qinghua can remove the papers from there. “Good work.”

“Thank you, my prince! But I really didn’t do much. Your uncle did most of the work.” By the end of the third day Linguang-jun was openly bemoaning that he wanted to go to bed and sleep for a century. Airplane can only hope he got some rest since.

Mobei Xuebao growls at him in warning, clearly not happy with the direction of the conversation, but Qinghua has dealt with so much shit in the last week that he’s too tired to be properly intimidated by empty threats. “No, really! I know he had a horse in this race, but he really wanted you to have a cool ‘welcome to demon court’ party. He caught the Tundra Devil for your fight and he certainly didn’t have to do that!”

“That was Taifeng-shushu?” There’s no better way to describe Mobei’s expression of surprise than ‘cute’. It’s a good reminder that despite his frosty disposition and already powerful physique, Mobei Xuebao is also still a teenager. (Airplane is not geeking out over learning Linguang-jun’s name, he is not . Mobei Taifeng was on his list of potential names when he brainstormed for Luo Binghe’s right hand man, before he even started writing - a character who eventually got split into Mobei-jun and the OG Shang Qinghua, because Tired™ second-in-commands who try to betray their employers so they could have one good day of rest please were more of a comedic relief trope and that didn’t fit the tone of the story.)

“Yes, my prince. This servant was there when Linguang-jun chose and captured the most impressive beast from the pack.” He was so picky about it too! He made Qinghua fly over the Tundra Devil pack five times before he identified the biggest one and by that time the beast noticed the flying cultivator. That’s how they found out about its fascination with the shiny spiritual sword.

Thinking about Linguang-jun reminds Qinghua of the hairstick he conveniently ‘forgot’ to return. He puts it in a plain box and pushes it to Mobei Xuebao. “My prince, I had no chance to return this to Linguang-jun, so you would do this servant a great favor if you passed it along.” Mobei makes a soft noise as he pockets the box, looking almost smug that Qinghua is, indeed, returning the token. His good mood makes the human a little reckless about how far he’s willing to push this matter. “My prince, I know you have no reason to trust this servant on matters of your family, but I have heard many rumors and hearsay while in the Northern Palace. I think there might be a misunderstanding between you and your uncle, so if you could talk to him openly when you return the hairstick-”

“Qinghua has not led me astray so far,” Mobei interrupts, his eyes narrowed. “This prince will talk to his uncle. But if Qinghua is mistaken…” He lets the sentence hang ominously in the air, but the sentiment is clear: if Shang Qinghua is wrong, then all of his credibility is ash.

“I understand, my prince.”

It's going to be fine. It has to be! Otherwise the System would have interfered, like it always does when he's about to alter the plot.

Right, System?

[brightwoods]

Does anyone else feel like almost all of the conflicts that had to do with the various character dynamics in Chain of Thorns didn’t actually get resolved, they just unexplainably ceased to exist after two books of building them up because CC didn’t feel like writing them anymore and she didn’t know how to resolve it naturally after how she’d built the issues up so much?

Like how none of the characters but Cordelia and Thomas had any clue about the Alastair and Charles situation and then suddenly in CoT it was like who doesn’t know? Of course Matthew knew and didn’t say anything before and then randomly brought it up to Cordelia in Paris while assuming she knew too

Or how Alastair and Thomas went from how things were at the end of CoI with Alastair thinking it could never work because Thomas’s friends hate him to oh look everyone suddenly is friends with Alastair with no grudge with no development of that in this book at all, just an abrupt shift

Especially the Alastair and Matthew dynamic where Matthew hated Alastair and wanted him to have nothing to do with any of their friends and he spent CoI ranting about him to Cordelia. And then suddenly in CoT it’s like of course Matthew is supportive of Thomas and Alastair and oh look Matthew and Alastair are suddenly not just tolerating each other for Thomas’s sake but friends despite barely interacting and no development actually showing and never getting any mention of the other in their own POVs, just having Cordelia be like Alastair stop being dumb, you’re literally friends with him now

Or like everyone other than Christopher and Grace where it was like oh we don’t like her for how she’s treated us and her friends straight to anyway she’s one of us. Like yes Grace was useful and yes Tatiana manipulated her whole life, but none of that was why anyone changed their minds or opinions? It was just suddenly the flip of a switch when it was convenient for CC

Or Anna and Ariadne where it didn’t so much develop as Anna just acted mean to Ariadne on and off throughout the series and at the end of CoI she wanted nothing to do with a relationship and then in CoT she was just suddenly like sure I guess I do. Also, slightly different note, but I did not like that Anna barely interacted with anyone else for the entire book and she was just off in the corner being an irrelevant romantic subplot for almost all of the book except when she showed up to barely even be shown in the background being sad about her brother being dead

(Although Anna still got more of a reaction than everyone else and his death was poorly executed all around in the sense of how did you write this so predictably and poorly that no one even knows when he died and it’s so background and 99% of the characters don’t care at all and we don’t see his parents finding out or much of Thomas’s reaction or anything and it’s just as if he wasn’t a character anymore 2 seconds later which is a different genre of issue with CoT but similar problem in the sense that both issues made the book feel a lot more emotionless to read)

And how the issues of Thomas and Alastair being together as two men and Anna and Ariadne being together as two women in this time and the issues of what would happen if the fact that Charles and Alastair were gay got out to the entire Clave just disappeared and never got addressed at all. We know how the ClVe reacted to Alec Lightwood YEARS later. We know society was homophobic at the time TLH is set and that it seems like shadowhunter society was a lot less open-minded than mundanes a century later

I understand that Charles being blackmailed and making shitty decisions was annoying but it was like suddenly everyone finding out wouldn’t have consequences and all the other queer men characters were like how could you possibly be worried about this :/ as if they haven’t spent the whole series knowing they have to be careful about who they tell. And then suddenly it was just of course it’s totally fine and safe to have everyone find out and why wouldn’t you be fine with that. And it was really written in a way that had other queer characters like oh Charles is such a coward for not being ready to publicly tell a bunch of homophobic people his sexuality and it just wasn’t it??? And super weird after Thomas was terrified of telling even Anna and Matthew for years. And also, I did not care for the fact that when Charles did go risk getting outed to finally do the right thing, we didn’t even get to see it through any character’s perspective or how that important meeting went, we just got one line of dialogue from somebody else saying that it happened with no details at all. And I can’t think of other examples right now but there were quite a few moments like that where we got one line saying that something had happened that was important to the plot and to characters’ development that seemed like it would have been more interesting than some of what we did get to see where it was just totally breezed over and way too easy and totally background to less important stuff

And then there was the whole no one reacting to Ariadne and Anna dancing together publicly thing was like yeah that’s nice I guess but not realistic and it doesn’t go with the way things have been presented up to that point, it also just feels like a situation where CC was like well this would be easier for me so there just won’t be consequences and then they can easily end up happily together

And then there was the whole Thomas and Alastair thinking they couldn’t realistically be together thing and knowing they couldn’t get married or be known to be together by anyone they’re not close to and then at the end it’s still not really addressed how they’re going to be together? Like there was the laziest write off of the family tree being wrong and then we still are just left to assume that eventually they move in together and suddenly it’s not a problem and everyone’s fine with it? And then I also feel like we don’t actually know if everyone found out about Alastair and Charles’ sexualities after the blackmail or if people are going to assume about Thomas and Alastair or if that’ll cause issues or if no one knows outside of who they’ve told and they have to be careful or what. Which like wouldn’t necessarily need to be addressed if it wasn’t for the logistics of being together as two men in that time being part of the obstacle that they were struggling with being in their way and then it felt like it was totally forgotten to even be one at the end by CC

Idk like I’d love to think they just lived in a world where homophobia didn’t exist but it felt like homophobia was a plot point when CC wanted it to be an inconvenience and then suddenly disappeared just to make her writing easier the moment she didn’t want it there anymore instead of actually addressing the plots she raised with it if that makes sense?

And sorry, I really did not mean to go on a rant this long. And maybe everyone else had a very different reading experience than I did and other people don’t agree with some or all of this. I personally am just very confused about how the book was almost 800 pages long and it felt like so much of the development in it was us abruptly being told that development had happened rather than actually getting to see it and how so many of the issues were abruptly solved in an I don’t want to write this issue anymore kind of way rather than anything actually needing to be worked at outside of the Belial situation

Edit: You know what, I mentioned it in my tags but I feel like it’s annoying enough to put in the body of the post and make it even longer. What the fuck was with everyone outing or potentially outing everyone else just so that characters could openly talk about the queer characters and tell them to do what they want them to? Why did Matthew out his brother multiple times? Like yes, the people he said it to coincidentally already knew, but he didn’t know that. And why was Thomas outing Alastair? The straights got to keep their secrets as long as they wanted and fix their problems more naturally. Why did I have to sit through queer characters constantly having their sexualities and romantic histories to everyone else when they clearly had not okayed it? Why were the queer characters doing so much of the outing? Why were people who cared about them and knew what it felt like to be afraid of the wrong person finding out just broadcasting their sexualities to make it easier for CC to breeze past development to have their things get resolved fast? Why did no character have an issue with it at all?

[forerussake]

trying to write guardian novel fic after only ever writing drama canon fic is hard bc im in a constant state of panic about mischaracterizing these characters i have already written over 150k words about. bc the vibe is different.

[indierpgnewsletter]

There's Other Kinds Of GM Advice: Theatricality versus Transparency

(This first appeared on the Indie RPG Newsletter)

I find that broadly there are at least two kinds of GM advice – and they have a very different philosophy underpinning them.

The first kind of advice aims at all costs to maintain verisimilitude. It’s a solution that you can implement without breaking the players’ immersion in their characters. This can just be stuff like Matt Colville explaining that if your players are taking too long discussing plans, guess what, orcs attack! We’ve all probably played a game where people were going in circles and not able to decide what to do. If it looks like we’re not able to decide, we’re probably going to be relieved if the GM makes something happen to break the deadlock and prompt us back into the action.

(Historically, this kind of thing was taken to egregious lengths like Gary Gygax saying if players start acting uppity, have a rock fall on their head. It’s mostly gone now but reddit tells me that Cyberpunk Red which came out relatively recently still says something similar.)

The second flavor of advice involves breaking character and talking to your players directly. I know “talk to your players” is a mantra repeated so often that autocorrect suggests it as soon as you type the letter t. At its worst, this advice is vague and unhelpful. We’ve all considered talking frankly to people in our lives, we just find it awkward and hard and annoying. But, but, but – at its best, just describing the problem as you see it and escalating it from a character discussion to a player discussion will make it go away instantly. Like magic. (If you’re not sure what that means: In a previous issue, I discussed Jason Tocci’s excellent advice on escalating conversation in this way.)

And since the theatrical flavour of advice has the weight of history on its side and transparent advice keeps getting boiled down to mantra form, I thought I’d write down some examples of situations and some alternative ways to handle them:

Situation 1: The players are marines discussing whether to dive into the alien lair and recover their stolen engine (their main goal) or go and see if another missing team of marines is okay. There is only 45 minutes left and this is a one shot.

Theatrical: The other marines suddenly come on the radio and say, “hey we’re okay, please complete the mission.”

Transparent: “Hey, folks. There’s 45 minutes left. If we don’t do the alien lair now, we won’t be able to do it at all. Is that fine?”

Situation 2: The players are low-level fantasy nobodies who have a famous wizard friend. They’re about to tangle with some medium-level bad guy and decide to call in their wizard friend.

Theatrical: When the players try to contact her via a telepathic phone call / spell, she sounds breathless and says she’s busy doing something way more important like fighting a dragon.

Transparent: “Hey, folks. If we get the wizard in, she’ll absolutely make this fight a cakewalk. We won’t even need to roll initiative really. Is that what you want? Or would we rather have a fun fight?”

Situation 3: The players were having fun exploring when they meet a cool NPC (an android! an elf! an android elf!) who has this interesting backstory with an urgent, earth-shattering hook. They go along with the android elf because it seems more important but immediately look like they’re having less fun.

Theatrical: Narrate how the android elf meets a group of other android elves and have the elf say, “Hey, now that I have these folks helping me, you can leave it you want!”

Transparent: “Hey, folks. Talking to you as players here, do we want to stick with this whole android elf plot here? It does mean that we won’t do any open-ended exploration. Which would you prefer?” If they want to ditch the elf plot, you could just retcon it entirely or do the theatrical solution.

All of these situations have happened at my table. They’re all relatively low stakes and I think whichever way you handle it, it’ll probably be fine. But that said, some situations absolutely work better when done transparently so if you’ve never tried the transparent way, give it a shot. If immersion matters a lot to you, try it at the end of the session.

/End

PS. The theatrical options often still require the players to willingly suspend their disbelief and go with it. If a player didn’t play along, they might just say “I thought their radios weren’t working, otherwise we could’ve just contacted them before. Why can they suddenly contact us now?” or “Oh, the wizard is fighting a dragon right now. We can totally wait. There’s no reason we need to fight the bad guy right now.” And sometimes I can’t shut off that part of my brain either so I won’t judge. But if there’s a way to sidestep that situation even coming up, I’m going to take it every time.

[shuaflix]

driving lessons for dummies (preview)

PAIRING ▸ kwon soonyoung x fem!reader

GENRES ▸ fluff, humor (i am bringing back romcoms), smut, strangers to lovers au, college au (WHO GUESSED IT)

WARNINGS ▸ profanity, so much pining, mc has the worst luck imaginable, soonyoung is down horrendous, he is also an olivia rodrigo stan, there is a minor car crash, there is also a very minor description of blood, almost car sex at some point, probably sex that is not in a motor vehicle at some other point if plot allows, pet names (but not in the sexy genre sorry), friend group shenanigans (ft. mingyu, seungcheol, jihoon, junhui) bc im a my little pony friendship is magic type bitch, and other warnings tba bc i haven't finished writing

SUMMARY ▸ you've finally passed your written test and gotten your permit after six failed attempts. eager to get your license while attempting to avoid overpriced driving lessons, you enlist the help of kwon soonyoung, who only requires a STIIZY pod as payment.

RELEASE DATE ▸ out now!

WORD COUNT ▸ around 12k (hopefully......)

AUTHOR’S NOTE ▸ i was actually very on the fence about who this fic should be for at first, but...... it was destined to be for hoshi :') also this preview is kinda short because there's so much i don't want to spoil! anywho send an ask or comment to be added to the tag list !! ♡

KWON SOONYOUNG.

Junhui sent you his number after he dropped you off at your apartment. Apparently, Soonyoung was one of his good friends, who also happened to have a side gig where he gave out driving lessons at a discounted price. Of course, the downside was that Soonyoung wasn’t exactly certified to teach people how to drive, but he was allegedly a good driver.

His lessons were normally for high schoolers, and he charged their parents around a hundred. For adults over the age of 21, though, he had a special offer that you couldn’t resist. 

You texted him to ask if he had any open spots for you. He took a few days to reply, but you eventually got a two-hour slot for the next week. You weren’t sure how effective his lessons would be, but you figured you would give it a shot since he was your age and giving out classes for cheap. 

When the day of your lessons rolled around, you were slightly anxious while you were waiting for him to arrive. You needed Junhui to reassure you for hours last night, promising that no, Soonyoung was not going to kidnap and murder you. He was a student at your university, actually, and he was a public health major who never had a murderous thought in his life.

soonyoung (driving instructor): i’m outside your house 

Okay, if he wasn’t a murderer, then the least he could do was not text you like one.  

After replying with an omw that autocorrected to On my way! and left you feeling very distressed that your communication sounded overly-enthusiastic, you worked up the courage to walk outside to his Honda Accord. 

“Hi,” you greeted shyly when you opened the door. “You’re Soonyoung, right?” 

Honestly, you didn’t care if he was Soonyoung or not. The man sitting in the driver’s seat was probably one of the most attractive people you had ever laid eyes on. Even if he wasn’t Kwon Soonyoung, you would happily let him kidnap you. Maybe you’d even blush a little because he picked you of all people to kidnap. 

He turned to look at you, seeming a little surprised that you opened the door but smiling nevertheless. “Yeah, that’s me. You’re Y/N?” 

When you nodded, he got out of the driver’s seat and motioned for you to take it. You skirted around the car to sit inside while Soonyoung took the passenger’s seat. 

You also got a glance of his off-brand, beige Fear of God Essentials sweater that read M.I.L.F. Hunter instead. Classy. 

“So, you came to me because you didn’t wanna give up your semester’s worth of college tuition for driving lessons,” Soonyoung said with an overwhelming air of confidence. 

“Yeah, pretty much.” You huffed. “Here, I heard this was your payment.”

You handed him a paper bag, not bothering to take out the receipt from the dispensary. Inside was the King Louis XIII STIIZY pod. One gram. 

“Ah, good. You know your stuff.”

Soonyoung hummed as he examined the box, and you were just wondering when he would get to business and start showing you the controls in his car. You were slightly overwhelmed by his impressively relaxed demeanor. Maybe it would have been better if you settled for an uptight woman in her sixties. Pretty boys were always trouble. 

“You made the right choice coming to me. I’m a much better driver than those hags from the driving schools around here,” he continued. It was like he could read your mind; it was almost terrifying. “Plus, way less likely that I’ll get a heart attack in the passenger’s seat.” 

He was a total weirdo, but he was hot, so you supposed it canceled out in some obscure, mathematical sense. 

"That’s… good to hear, I think,” you replied. “So, are you, like, good at this?”

“Are you kidding? I’m basically the Lebron of driving.”

“I see.” You nodded along, unsure. “I don’t watch football, so…” 

“He plays basketball, but close enough.”

[steve-hen-grant]

Pas de deux (Jake Lockley x reader ) 🌙🩰

A/N: So! Kinda my first fic? Trying to exercise my writing skills. (You won’t believe how many times I had to just write “excersize” for autocorrect to save me.) So I hope y’all can enjoy the product of my practice!

In a previous post, I mentioned Jake crying while watching ballet. But what I meant to say was I had already developed a fic to this very concept. Needed the confidence to post it- which the reception to the first post got! It said Swan Lake, but for the plot’s conflict it’s Nutcracker.

Warnings: Fluff, mild comfort, reference to MK lore but you can pretend it isn’t, reference to Tchaikovsky mourning his sister, No use of Y/N, may be read as the POV of Layla, or yourself, mentions of Marc and Steven, no direct use of Spanish but reference to Jake speaking it, Reader may or may not know Spanish, it’s ambiguous this way for a self insert!, and again, my first full fan fiction. That is a warning. Surprisingly unserious. implied that narrator and the moon guys are visiting the US for this show.

Gender Neutral reader, but with uncomfortable formal shoes because they plague us all no matter

Word count: the word counter website broke so let me know when you get down there kk

You and Jake go to the Opera house in downtown Chicago. However, the loyal servant of the Moon God reacts unexpectedly…

Hours earlier, Jake struggled with his tie while I mulled over walking into the opera house together. His dark mustache furled as I helped arrange the black fabric and romanticized the pair of us strolling down the Chicago street: dressed to the nines, my arm in his, with the Christmas lights illuminating our path to the theater. Jake refused, mumbling something about how he didn’t want to make me walk longer in formal shoes than I had to. Knowing how I wouldn’t say anything, refusing to complain or burden the evening, until my Achilles tendons were shot by the time we got back to the hotel.

Among the three of them, Jake’s love language was having foresight to make life as accommodated and comfortable. But he forgets that he has a place in it.

Right now, in the brisk December evening, I trotted towards the warmly lit-refuge of the Civic Opera House. Jake dropped me off directly in front, rolling away to park his sleek Rolls Royce Phantom somewhere secure.

The exterior was like that of most concrete high-riser buildings. Though at ground level, in stark contrast, a sculpted arc entrance stood on the corner of the street. A light snow casted over the figures shaped into the stone. Tall preview posters displayed the principal dancer for the evening: the sugar plum fairy.

My pace towards the ticket booth was quick in the biting cold. The Opera house clerk smiled.

“Reservations under… Spector?”

“No- wait, yes. Yes.”

At my hesitation, I was rightfully earned a disconcerted expression. Marc must have booked the tickets. Before the words left her mouth, Jake appeared to save the day. Showing his- or Marc’s- ID. The clerk was satisfied and gave us two red tickets for entree. Jake took my arm in his, like a Highschool couple in a 50s movie. Between the regal opera house, the way he supports my arm, and opens the car door- truly old fashioned.

“Thanks, Marc,” I teased. He nudged me with his arm.

“Oh please, he made Steven book them,” Jake took off his gloves and stuffed them into his pocket. We handed our tickets off, and at last, we were on our way through marble floors and high ceilings to find seating.

Maybe that’s why we both enjoyed viewings in this specific opera house. It was completed in 1929, yet shined as brightly as ever. Velvet red fabrics and amber blown lights. If you weren’t careful, you could become easily motivated to write a romanticized novel.

In a world of my own, I don’t notice Jake looking over my face. But he wasn’t appreciating the interior of the architecture. Maybe the exterior of me.

Some hors d’oeuvres later, we situated in a balcony, closest to the stage. Jake insisted this would be ‘the best spot in the house’. From the balcony overview, patterns in the snow droplet’s sequence could be figured into the shape of snowflakes. Once again, Jake’s love language would make the evening special, by meticulous design. Jake’s prior knowledge of ballet was limited, yet his relationship to the music goes back.

No one would assume that, from what meets the eye. Even if you knew of his nightly servitude to Khonshu- there was less reason to believe he keeps a special mix of Tchaikovsky’s Greatest in his car’s dash. His work isn’t easy, and who doesn’t wind down to music? An avatar to the god of the moon is no exception.

Live orchestra has become a small thing for us. One that Marc chuffs at and Steven… would probably like to be apart of.

The elevated booth was tailored to the best view possible of the tilted stage. Below, forms of people moved to their seats, shed overcoats, and checked the time. Soon, the red curtains would pull apart to reveal the iconic home of the Stahlbaum’s, and delicate Clara center stage. It was a matter of time, and based on Jake’s mild leg bounce, not soon enough. I place a hand over his palm, steadying his nervous habit to a somber sway.

INTERMISSION

We returned to our secluded seats from the main area. Maybe or maybe not, pocketing some cheese squares and fancy crackers in napkins. Jake put his arm over the back of my seat and smirked, “You think I could do that?”

“Do what?”

“The dancing,” He grinned like a ferret. I pause for a moment to process the idea literally. You know what? Maybe. I’ve stayed in the car while Marc or Steven took care of their missions. From what I’ve seen, Moonknight is pretty agile. Mr. Knight is comparably a Gymnast. Making- often unnecessary- flips and turns over bullets and blades.

“Try asking Khonshu when you can take classes- conveniently between delivering justice.”

To which, Jake snickers. He takes his contraband-horderve from the lobby and speaks, “Oh yeah, it will happen. I’ll just borrow Steven’s tutu.” Jake looks aloft and grins, for a moment, it’s like I can hear his alter too.

“THOSE CLASSES WERE A ONE-OFF TIME!”

The second act. Clara and the Nutcracker prince have crossed the forest into a world of her childlike creation. Her and the prince are welcomed by flowers, candy, and snow. It seems like the defeat of the rat king would be the last of the room’s worries. Except for me.

Nearing a majestic finale, the nutcracker prince shares a dance with her majesty, the sugar plum fairy. He takes her hand and holds it, as her powder pink leg ascends. But this isn’t what Jake is thinking about. His eyes are hardly on the scene below, but he is paying attention to the music. The Nutcracker, Op. 71, Act II: No. 14a, Pas de deux. He holds his breath for a moment. A small gesture I might have missed if he didn’t drop my hand when he does so. I glanced at him, not wanting to disturb his fixation to the show.

And maybe I didn’t want to disturb the way his locks messily fell on his forehead and ears. He’s a gentleman, so he wouldn’t wear his hat into the event. But by removing it, the bunched hair underneath fell loosely. Marc and Steven were supposedly relentless about on the way downtown, if his passive looks to the rear view mirror meant anything.

Does a family of birds live in your hat, mate?

Cmon, Jake, everytime I get the body I have to run a comb through it.

After Jake lowered his hands from applause, he took mine in his again. As if he six whole minutes without it was too much. I press my thumb into his knuckles. He pulls my hand closer to him, holding it totally casually to his heart.

The Finale had wrapped up in a roar of an audience. The evening’s dancers made their bows and the orchestra had begun to pack up their bows and sheet music. Neither me nor Jake were one for crowds, but fortunately, the box seats were close enough to a flight of stairs that crew members likely took. We stood and peeked down the flight that turned around the ivory painted walls.

Jake held my arm and smirked, “Do you want to take a shortcut?”

I gave him a puzzled look. “That way? Are you sure there is an exit? We might get a meet and greet with the rat king,” I half-joke. Jake grins and his eyes light up at that risk.

My eyes narrow,

“You want to meet the rat king don’t y-“

“Yes.”

It’s Christmas. Might as well give Jake the gift of following through one of his mischievous schemes- together. Jake is laughing and throughly unserious as we move closer to the landing of the stairwell. I slide my hand down the glossy railing, “If we find this rat thing-“

“When. When we find the rat thing,” Jake interrupts.

I pause and continue, “Yes, my apologies. When we find the rat, are you going to valiantly slay it, and save me?”

Jake thinks for a moment, stopping on the stairs. He responds, “I’ve fought weirder.” I nod agreeably as we continue hand in hand. But he mumbled something I couldn’t hear, perhaps some Spanish intonations, but too low to react to.

But I had a pretty good idea what he meant to say out loud. Jake will show his affection in careful planning, a car ride anywhere, but not typically his words. In those tender instances where he has to resort to sweet nothings, he expresses it in Spanish. The words flow so naturally that they aren’t being filtered by a process of translation. Just his feelings, as they are.

I smile, and pull him into my arm tighter. It was more than likely he was protectively, lovingly ranting about how well he would protect me. How he would welcome the chance to prove it. In the dimly lit corridor we found ourselves in, we located an exit door and push it. I recall the December air and hold his arm closer.

Jake holds up his keys and presses down on his buttons. Immediately after leaving the back door, we are greeted by the flashing headlights of his car in a neighboring lot. Jake looks at my face of surprise and laughs, “You thought I was going to let you walk so far in those shoes?”

While in the car, on the way back to the flat, Swan Lake plays over the radio. I clutch my coat in the warm embrace of the car’s heating system. Jake is tapping his finger along while letting cars through, but he stops as the piece ends and the next begins. The Pas de deux. This time, I don’t miss my chance to ask. My hand grazes his leather coated arm, “You alright?” Jake keeps a deadpan look through the droplets on the windshield, blinking several times. I lean in a touch closer, “Jake?”

“Uhm, I just read where, you know, what’s-his-face, wrote this piece for his sister who passed. It uhm…” Jake, agitated by the way his mouth wants to curl into a grimace in front of me, lays his arm down in a finalizing gesture. He was done talking about it, not without losing clear vision while driving. I hold his gloved hand, and without thinking, hold it to his chest. His shoulders finally lowered. The light turned green. The music filling the gentle silence.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~🌙~~~~~~~~~~~~

[oneatlatime]

A Precariously Stacked Pile of Random Season 2 Thoughts

These are notes I took as I watched the season. Usually after I’d already posted about the episode in question, and I thought of something I would have added to the post. Rather than edit them into my posts, I’m rounding them up and posting them all at once. As such, they are vaguely chronological. Unfortunately, because I made the notes legible to me and me only, I didn't bother to write down what episode I was referring to. I've also added some notes in as I was editing these notes. So this is also a bit of a scavenger hunt. Enjoy!

Iroh poisoning himself: dumbass moment or 5D chess?

My autocorrect corrects “Sokka” to Sock, and “Sokka’s” to socks. This causes double takes when editing.

Badgermoles have excellent eyeliner. Is that where the Kyoshi Warriors get their jaw dropping cat eye?

Why is Ty Lee spelled Ty Lee and not Tai Li? Why is Dai Li spelled Dai Li and not Dy Lee?

Sometimes Sokka makes me think of Mulan. Am I crazy?

Are the swampbenders’ moves based on a real martial art style too?

Why didn’t Aang use his swamp sense to locate Appa post-appanapping?

Where did Toph, who spent her whole life as a prisoner of her parents’ house and a moonlighting WWE wrestler until Team Avatar busted her out, get such emotional intelligence?

Why did Zuko’s dad put forward the plan to disinherit Iron in favour of him less than 24 hours after Lu Ten’s death? Why did he think that moving quickly was the right approach? Does the Fire Nation not do grieving periods? In what world was 'strike while the iron is hot' the correct course of action here?

Looking back, I’m amazed that season 2 didn’t end in Zuko’s redemption. I didn’t much like Zuko Alone, but I was sure that a season that included that much set up for a Zuko redemption arc would prioritise finishing that arc.

I haven’t even met this Firelord guy yet, but I am peeved that that twerp has a name as cool as Ozai.

Why haven't I met that Firelord guy yet?

I really thought that the older brother character in Zuko Alone would make an appearance later on in the season, giving Zuko a chance to flex some newly acquired morals. But the parallel to Lu Ten and the general message about the evils of war lands better if we never hear of him again.

Zuko in the first half of season 2 had me so annoyed that I was incredibly uncharitable to him in my write ups. Reading through some of the stuff I wrote while watching episodes, I kind of wince now. Zuko in the second half of the season was much less annoying. Which I feel bad for saying, because he’s clearly not in a good place in the second half of the season.

I would love to know why the writers decided to have Toph and Iroh meet in the wilderness. I think it’s a good choice, but I want to know how they came up with it, and why those characters? Is there anything about Toph (especially at that point, when we’ve known her for 1 episode) that suggests that she and Iroh should meet? Or would get along if they did?

Zuko has so many rock bottom fake outs this season: Zuko Alone? Nope, he gets worse in The Chase. The Chase? Nope, he gets worse in Bitter Work. Bitter Work? Nope, he gets worse in the finale.

I’m still peeved that Azula won a 6 on 1 showdown. Sorry, but that breaks immersion.

I bet the Blue Spirit could make lightning.

If water is the element of change, why does the Northern Water Tribe have such strictly defined traditions? I get that it's literally the element of change, in that water can exist in different physical states, but shouldn't the metaphorical interpretation also be true?

I like that Toph can think like an Airbender sooner than Aang can think like an earthbender.

What is Sokka’s boomerang made of? Is it metal? Because if it’s metal, does that mean that there’s a blacksmith somewhere in the South Pole? With a forge?

I still can’t get over how dumb the whole eclipse plot was.

Suki is TINY!!!

I mocked this guy’s 80s aerobics video leotard aesthetic, and I stand by that mockery, because this guy is ugly. Those colours are awful. But do you know who else has those colours?

Jet this season fascinates me. He’s positioned as genuinely repentant and legitimately seeking a second chance and I don’t believe him for one minute. Why don’t I believe him? This show has a theme of learning from mistakes and doing better, so shouldn’t Jet be a perfect fit for this show’s themes? I should be primed to believe him. And yet I don’t.

I have to applaud Iron’s enthusiasm for their new life in Ba Sing Se. A lot of that cheer (at least before the tea shop) is put on for Zuko’s sake. I don’t know where Iroh gets the energy to keep trying with Zuko after years of minimal results, but I’m glad he does.

I think Aang and Ty Lee should hang out. They have similar circus energy. Or maybe it’s that they’re the only two characters in the show so far who are remotely playful.

Aang = surface silliness, core of calm. Not that the silliness doesn't run deep, but he seems to have an untouchable anchor of calm deep within that rarely gets disturbed. Gyatso raised him well.

~~*~~*~~*~~*~~Poetry bouncer ~~*~~*~~*~~*~~

I need next season to have more Appa & Mono subplots à la their escapades in The Swamp. Not à la Momo’s Tale.

Tales of Ba Sing Se definitive ranking: Momo Aang Sokka Zuko Iroh Katara & Toph

I love that Momo still sleeps in the Momo bag from The Blind Bandit

Are Suki and her warriors sitting in the middle of some Earth Kingdom forest in their underwear?

So are Smellerbee and Longshot just done? Will they be back in season 3? What happens to their life now? They are known associates of an enemy of the state who was just executed. It doesn't look good.

Everyone on this show has big ears. Zuko has the smallest ears simply because he has the least amount of ears remaining. But everyone else? Big ears.

Can I have more Gyatso? I forgot how cool he was. More Guru too please.

Hakodilf.

Everyone in the SWT has such wonderfully fluffy hair.

I like Sokka’s boots. Southern Water Tribe boots in general.

If this is the grand total of the SWT, I have some bad news about population dynamics.

Is there a proper naval term for what the SWT are doing? They’re a stealth strike force that seems to be going after individual enemy ships, using both direct and indirect tactics. Not pirates, because as far as we know they aren't going for FN supplies. They're doing what submarines do, but above water. There’s got to be a proper name for that.

Is there a raft of FN corpses chilling in the waters in front of the NWT's big wall?

I saw ATLA described as a show where all the characters are Asian-inspired people of colour, but isn’t Suki a blue-eyed redhead?

I had no idea that you could decline an Agni Kai. Zuko should have done that.

Why are the Dai Li so in love with Azula? I get that they're pissed with Long Feng for getting arrested, but wouldn't the logical choice be to direct their loyalties to the Earth King rather than a wildcard princess? I'm not going to pretend for a minute that the Dai Li are loyal to the Earth Kingdom or to Ba Sing Se, but the Earth King is a known quantity. Seems to me that it would be easier for them to re-puppetify him, rather than a FN princess.

Katara & Zuko bonding over their missing mothers is the same “makes sense until you think about it for five seconds” as Song & Zuko bonding over losing their fathers to war. Technically the same, sort of, on paper, but actually kind of rude to equate them once you know the full story. Same with the parallel between Lu Ten and the older brother in Zuko Alone. The proper dead mom parallel is Katara and Jet. Although Katara doesn’t object to the Zuko comparison, so I have no grounds to do so.

I’m really glad that Katara didn’t remove Zuko’s scar with her spirit oasis water. Both because she kind of really needed that water, but also because one thing this show has always done right is permanence. No quick fixes, no fake outs, no take backs. Lu Ten is dead, and he stays that way. Princess Yue is the moon, and she stays that way. Half a dozen people’s moms are dead, and they stay that way. Aang is the last Airbender, and he stays that way. Zuko is scarred, and he stays that way. There are no hand waves, no easy fixes. All the characters can do is learn to live with it, and go forward. And I’m grateful the show is like that, because that permanence, as well as being a good lesson to learn, functions as a reward for audience investment.

Aang did come to a crossroads of destiny in the finale, chose his duties to the world over his friends, and got aggressively slapped down for it. I have a feeling that he’ll take the wrong lesson from that, since he was already inclined to shun that path.

Overall Season 1 was prettier.

Ty Lee was the cause of more than one Beat Up Sokka Quota fulfillment this season. Make of that what you will.

Will Zuko & Azula spend season 3 bouncing between the FN and Ba Sing Se? They could be heavily involved with establishing the FN governance over Ba Sing Se, since the city is already inclined towards royalty.

Favourite episode this season? The Guru. The Blind Bandit and The Swamp are tied for second place.

[ctinalk]

Season two isn’t (fully) real, it’s a peaceful, fragile existence

The more I rewatch the show and read different theories, the more convinced I get that S2 is some sort of elaborate dream sequence or a distraction or memory alteration attempt (Neil’s chaotic angsty ineffable husbands fanfic?). But not all of it.

(This gets kind of rambly so if you want my true hook, scroll down to the Michael Sheen Staged gif.)

Let me make this perfectly clear on the outset: I don’t think all of it is a dream, and I certainly don’t think the final 15/kiss is or is going to be discounted (and not only because there would be literal riots in the street, because there absolutely would be, but also I’m putting trust in Neil and the team wholeheartedly). I think that could actually be the domino that brings them out of it. I read somewhere recently something along the lines of “something loved can never be truly forgotten” and I think that fits my theory perfectly. I’m also making no claims (yet) as to what I think is real and what I think is “enhanced”.

Also I apparently am either too far deep or cannot work the tumblr search function with any modicum of usefulness, so please link me to the posts I’m alluding to if you think it’s the right one. I will edit them in and sincerely apologize to the brilliant minds that exist outside the confines of the search function.

Now, On with the show:

You can be in charge of the biscuits

Maggie and Nina: Look, I get that recasts happen, they change the actor playing the character because of scheduling conflicts, etc. But to cast the actor/actress that is immediately recognizable from a prior interaction (whether with the characters or the audience) is not something you see. FFS Maggie DIED in S1, and Nina was pivotal (maybe too strong a word, but enough to be memorable surely) to the storyline. It’s like someone said “Hey, they’ll work, bring em in, no I don’t care that they were in S1. It’ll be a test of how well our facade is working. If they (A&C) notice, then the gig is up and we’ll know it.”

Also why in the world is the owner of a coffee shop offering Eccles cakes to calm down, when camomile tea is right there? (Resists the urge to go off on a tangent on how Eccles cakes were used to celebrate the “Eccles wakes” at the feast of St. Mary (yes that Mary) and how that ties into the second coming plot.) Do Eccles cakes count as biscuits? Ugh another thought for another day I suppose.

It has come to my attention during writing that Shax is the same actress as Madame Tracy. I have less of an affront to this knowledge since I’m 2 months deep and countless rewatches in and only just noticed. But I’m going to pop it in this header anyway. Are you really trying to tell me that a show that apparently has demon entrances happening precisely on the 6s really didn’t think these choices out very deliberately? (Edit 3: https://www.tumblr.com/noneorother/735823422626709504/the-secret-timeline-inside-of-good-omens-season-2 JFC why can I never find the blogs when I want to insert them? It was a breakdown about how all of the demon entrances happen at a 00:00 that ends in a 6.)

Yours very faithfully, Maggie

Text to mail disconnect: There’s been a theory pop up (at the time one writing this at least (edit 2: https://www.tumblr.com/azariah-z-fell/743434274903048192/it-is-extra-weird-because-it-is-on-the-record) that Maggie actually texted Aziraphale her request to talk, and it was magically translated into a physical form, and the spelling error (that so many people are shouting DEMON at) was just an autocorrect typo. But, surely Maggie would know he doesn’t text if she knew him for several years at least. We’ve never seen either of our boys text, only call. Seems like someone doesn’t know how phones work, but wanted to get the message received? See also: currency, below.

You ever think, what’s the point?

Numerous people have pointed out the same obvious background people. There are theories about the guy in the Hawaiian shirt being the second coming or something similar. I wonder if it’s some sort of play on a badly executed attempt to make Wickber Street seem “normal” in an alternate reality, an elaborate distraction, but they have to keep using the same character models because their imagination is just slightly better than Shadwells’ (Oh gfdi how did I miss Mrs. sandwich right there). I’m not saying we haven’t done a ��oh oops silly me I forgot something” but that isn’t usually done in the middle of a sidewalk. When Aziraphale is initially talking to Jim with the blanket, there’s a guy just chugging his arms outside the window, not walking. Another one in E3 when Shax show up outside the shop, a guy in an orange sweatshirt passes in the background, then passes again, and not close enough in time/area to just be the continuation of the walk. Especially in the early episodes, there are veritable conveyer belts of people, straight lines, no trying to pass, etc. I’m trying to look at the background in S1 and while there are still tons of people, the background is… livelier. People passing, shoving past, actually going places.

“I’m looking at the statue of Gabriel.” “Oh, good job?”

Aziraphale basically learns fuck-all when he makes the trip to Edinburgh. Granted, I do believe most of that was to make the Bentley “our car”, but so many things are out of character. The no drink, the over-the-top “investigation” (as awkward as he is, Aziraphale knows how to act more normally than that with humans), the background on the drive up there…

All the others were taken (random collective thoughts)

Somehow ALL the businesses on the street are different from Season 1?

A normal person would have moved out of the rain instead of just lolling there letting raid splatter their glasses, yeah? (As a person with glasses I can confirm).

“We have all the hosts of hell searching for him” cue Crowley looking around like then why the fuck are there still demons around me?

The cross disappearing from the Gabriel statue between shots.

“I’m a bit out of miracles” and “that’s not how miracles work” from the guy who got written up for too many frivolous miracles.

I have here a sixpence and a farthing There’s always money in the banana stand

The lack of (accurate?) paid transactions seems like whoever is pulling the strings has no concept of earthly money and how it’s supposed to work, just that it exists. Crowley and Aziraphale talk bluntly about poverty and know that money is needed and used in current society (“Give her the money, Angel”, Rome, Globe Theatre, 1941 magic shop, etc.). Could be a “let’s not get lost in the trivialities” thing but it does strike me as odd. Caveat: Aziraphale forgiving the rent doesn’t quite fit, but cost of the record is obscenely low.

But this does give me hope about the 3rd 1941 flashback, because they were using money accurately there, which hopefully means the flashbacks and memories aren’t being altered, just “present day”.

We’re real people

One of the overarching themes in Season 2 (and S1 now I think of it) is “stop interfering in the lives of other people”. Maggie and Nina, Job, Elspeth, the entire dance party, Warlock, the book of prophecy. It would be a shame if someone were to make sure I failed to be messing about in their own lives.

I had brothers, you don’t scare me

Something happened just before Maggie told them to “Come in here and say that to my face.” Another demonic turn potential here, but also kind of like someone’s saying “FFS get on with the plot”.

The book of love has music in it

This post https://www.tumblr.com/noneorother/731977308306636800/all-the-music-you-didnt-hear-the-good-omens (finally, one I can find!) popped up, and there’s another one that purports to have noticed that there’s music lines missing from the opening sequence (edit 1: Found it!: https://www.tumblr.com/dadesu/726651737165938688/anyone-noticed-the-missing-half-bar-in-good-omens ). Possibly Clueing us in that there’s something that’s missing elsewhere (I mean obviously, that’s the whole point of this season, is it not?).

So where do we go from here?

As much as I’d love to say “Alright so the kiss breaks the spell whoever was put over them because of ✨the power of love✨, the ruse will be revealed, and they’re not talking because they don’t have to”

I don’t know, my thoughts are just the overarching patterns I’ve noticed over many, many rewatches and probably reading a few too many magic trick theories and/or fanfics. I don’t intentionally make my theory posts open-ended, but in the end that’s the fun of it. Nothing has to be mutually exclusive (yes I’m referencing my “Is Crowley already the new Supreme Archangel” post, I think I’m allowed that much). I’m happy to be proven wrong, and probably will be.

Lots of things are wrong right now

But I will leave you with one parting thought: Crowley knows. He knows there’s furniture missing. (That’s why he keeps just tossing things everywhere, because he know it doesn’t matter.)

And he. Does not. Care. For it.

How many theories that I myself hate can I dig into?

I’m a demon, I lied:

[thebibliosphere]

Trust me, Grammarly, in this instance, swapping "deeper" for "more profoundly" does not make sense in context. No matter how many times you flag it.

[ughgoaway]

WAIT WHAT THE FUCK DID I MISS WHAT HAPPENED WITH LILY AND TIA I NEED INFO THIS CANNOT BE HAPPENING

- 🦀

okay so... a lot!

tw; mentions of murder and inappropriate tagging...

speedy rundown; tia didn't tag a fic appropriately, stranded pt 2, where matty was revealed to have been plotting to kill reader. there was 0 mention of dark themes in the tags. and that's fucked.

multiple people DMd tia, and I know that anons also had the same issue, idk who those were! tia freaked out, refused to believe she was in the wrong, and didn't tag it. then, when people were vulnerable with her about why she should, she still didn't care.

she tagged it days later, still with an inappropriate tag but whatever. still refused to believe she could ever be in the wrong, and acted like she was being personally attacked.

(more things happened but I don't remember everything)

also, I posted that teaser for the Vegas fic, then found out tia had also done a married in vegas thing, but I honestly didn't care because its not a unique plot.

but then tia messaged me, "Wild." with my post attached. I asked for clarification on what she meant (I knew what she meant, but I wanted her to say it) she claimed it was "autocorrect," which... isn't how it works. I was nice, and apologised for the "misunderstanding" (in hindsight, too fucking nice.)

the same thing happened to molly, but 100x worse. molly used 3 words in a fic of hers, genuinely 3 words, that tia had used those words as a fic title. And molly thought it was a cute little reference. tia did not take it that way.

she then went on a tirade claiming that molly "copied her" and "didn't give her credit"... OVER 3 WORDS THAT ARE A COMMON PHRASE. she was so horrible, and it really affected molly. Thank god she ignored tia and blessed us with more of her work. but she almost didn't because tia couldn't get her head out of her ass.

the things she said to molly were horrible. and she never let it go and started claiming that everything molly did was a copy.

she did it with tropes too. no one could dare write a fic with a vaguely similar plot. god forbid we have fun fucking hell.

anyway, back to the tags thing;

Tia still was being childish about the tagging thing and deactivated because she couldn't fathom that she was wrong and people didnt just bow at her feet when she "apologised" (didnt actually apologise but i digress).

then lily, her little puppet, came on and started it all back up. and accused people of things that were in no way true.

but guess what- she ran away too!

and let's just say tia had a fucking history.

oh well, over now and we can all be happy and write fics with APPROPRIATE WARNINGS. and can share tropes.

I hope they're both happier away from tumblr, because I am without them here lmao

[morningberriesao3]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

tysm to @runninriot for the tag. tbh i often don’t do these things ‘cause I never have anyone else to tag to keep the chain going, but this one is too fun not to 💕

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

currently—13. 10 are completed, 2 are old wips, 1 is my current wip. baker’s dozen.

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

431, 629 and counting 😳

3. What fandoms do you write for?

stranger things, exclusively. no other fandom inspires me the same way.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Many Ways, Many Days, to Say ‘I Love You’

Dirty Words

Done Deal

Sneaky Link

Sweet Surrender

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

YES. omg i will always respond to a comment because they make me wildly happy. although sometimes (currently), i feel too overwhelmed to reply right away and i end up with an overflowing inbox. right now i have 200 unanswered comments that i WILL reply to 😂

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

as far as finished fics, Hate the Way It Feels So Good has, i guess, the most unsatisfying ending. generally i always write HEA. although i have a wip that was never supposed to end happily: Wicked, to Let Me Dream of You.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

i’d say Sweet Surrender is the happiest considering all the angst you have to read to get there 😂 but like i said, most have a happy ending

8. Do you get hate on fics?

generally, no. but i have gotten more hate than anyone i’ve talked to about it! (certain word choices ‘ruining’ an entire fic for someone, grammar corrections, people telling me i’m a liar when i didn’t upload fast enough… all mostly surface stuff that hasn’t been too bad yet 😩)

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

the real question is: have i ever not written smut? and the answer to that is no. what kind? every kind. tame, not-so-tame, porn with plot, porn with feelings, gross stuff, cute stuff, you name it 😉

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

not really. the closest i’ve been to writing a crossover is How I’d Kill, in which the first few chaps are pretty inspired by ACOTAR.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not copy and pasted, as far as i know. there have been a few instances where i’ve noticed bigger accounts posting eerily similar plot lines to some of the stuff i’ve written, but i’m 100% sure it’s just coincidence. we have to remember nothing is outright original when it comes to plot. as long as you’re not intentionally plagiarizing someone’s work, similarities are bound to happen.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

no!! i’ve never had a translation, a pod fic, or artwork done for any of my fics! i’m just out here in my own little bubble lmao

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

i haven’t! although i’ve definitely talked about it with @the-unforgivenn!! i get nervous because i’m such a procrastinator when it comes to getting my own fics done—i don’t want to drag someone else down 😂

14. What’s you’re all time favourite ship?

take a wild guess.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

i honestly hope/plan to finish ALL of my posted wips, even though a couple are on pause. there’s a few saved on my laptop that I’m sure will never see the light of day hahaha

16. What are your writing strengths?

i’m blind to my own writing so it’s hard to say. i’d like to think just general improvement as i’ve written more/read more. a lot of repeat readers have complimented me on how i write angst so maybe that?!

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

i could write an essay on this. first—no matter how many times i read through my fics—there’s some autocorrect that i missed or a spelling error or just SOMETHING 😂 not to mention the procrastinating. always getting major writer’s block. and generally being very hard on myself.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

i MIGHT be able to get away with a few french phrases here and there, being half french, but in general i only know english well enough to write. reading? LOVE it. make all the characters multilingual—i’ll have google translate ready.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

stranger things 🥹 and most likely will be the only fandom i ever write for. (unless you count the RPF i wrote and will NEVER publish about joseph quinn 💀)

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

i personally think my best written fic is How I’d Kill, but Sweet Surrender will always be my favourite just by default—there was no better feeling as a first time writer reading the lovely comments that i got on that fic. i’ll never forget it 🥹

no pressure tags:

@numinosmoon @cuips-not-cute @bettyfrommars @the-unforgivenn @rip-quizilla @etherealmontilyet @wroteclassicaly @wynnyfryd

sorry if you’ve already been tagged or just plain old don’t want to do it 💕

[agirlandherquill]

Your writing is so enchanting, do you have any tips for how to achieve a similar effect when writing?

quite literally just put down a book, one of the best books ive read in my life (ready player two for those of you who read this and are interested, the first one is obviously one of my all time favourites) and i'm in a hyped up mood to write/type so this is perfect timing for this question!

first off, thank you very much! a compliment means so much but for you to go even further and use such a lovely adjective to describe my writing genuinely does warm my heart

now to answer the question that accompanies such a lovely compliment, how do you achieve an enchanting effect when writing?

(insert me stretching out my hands to prepare to rant, really rant, since they're a little stiff from reading for two straight hours which is quite a while for me these days, it's usually an hour a day at most)

in my opinion, to quote one of the cheesiest cliches of all time, you write from the heart, you connect with the moment, the scene, the characters, whatever it is you're doing, and you feel, really feel, you let the emotion flow from your heart and into the words on the page - in my case, sometimes it's long paragraphs with very few full stops, sort of like a ramble it depends on the mood of the bit I'm writing, and sometimes it's adjectives, which brings me on to my next point,

unlike most writing advice I've ever seen when it comes to showing not telling, I prefer to do both, I prefer to describe an emotion, a feeling, a scene with as much detail as possible (which covers the show part) but I also love adjectives, I adore them, they're quite possibly one of my most favourite parts of the English language (or any language really, even fictional (side note - fictional languages are my jam, I love them and I love making glossaries at the backs of my novels too) ) and as far as the tell part goes in writing, as far as I'm concerned, do that too. Give the reader an idea of what your characters are feeling, let them connect, and when they're immersed in your world then the writing really does come across as enchanting,

And continuing the concept of immersing readers in your fictional world, I'm now going to go on a short but simple rant about world-building. Language is a vital part of any story, as is the plot, but without a world for your characters to reside in, that delightful feeling of being a part of that world from the very first page just isn't quite the same. Enchant not only your readers but your characters too, make the world live around them, give completely plot-irrelevant characters their own issues, invent the wackiest of settings or the humblest of ones, anything you can imagine, put it into a world, put it into your story, because it works, it's yours.

now to go onto the most important point of this ramble of mine, if you want to enchant your readers first of all, you have to enchant yourself; this is your writing, your story, your hopes and your dreams, this story is a part of you, and if you write something that doesn't feel quite right, rework it until it does, because this is your story and after all, you're the only one capable of telling it.

so that's the end of my little ramble, thank you for asking and I hope this helps!

~ A Girl and Her Quill

(as usual having a war with my keyboard and capitalising I, because I turned autocorrect off on scrivener a few months ago I tend to forget it's an issue elsewhere but I'll make do. also praying this makes sense because I seldom do read-throughs on my rambles, which we all know :) )

[makethemhoesmad]

when i’m writing and couch autocorrects to coach and the plot changes for the worse

[welcometololaland]

Fic writer asks! 14, 15, 16

hi christine 💜 so nice to see you in my inbox!!

14. where do you get inspiration?

everywhere! a lot of my dialogue comes from funny things I overhear or see on reddit. occasionally, it's stuff that actually happens to me because I'm just a magnet for awkward human interactions somehow. most of my plot inspiration comes from other media - the ring in came from an interview, love game came from watching 10 billion hours of tennis, alta was inspired by veronica mars. sometimes (rarely) I start writing and make it up en route (speak for yourself), but not often.

15. favourite weather for writing

super, super cold and rainy days when I'm tucked up inside. although, writing gets a little knocked around in winter because I spend a lot of weekends in the mountains snowboarding ❄️

16. favourite place to write

home 💜 sometimes in bed, sometimes on this big armchair I have. most of the time with bad posture and always on a laptop. idk how people write on phones - my autocorrect kills me!

thanks for the ask!!!!!

writer asks