#but yeah. if youre part of the group that hates on self insert authors just go ahead and block me

[gaymerasmus]

No bc im so scared of mentioning i read/sometimes write x readers to other readers/authors bc then theyll think im a freak like WHAT?? WHEN DID THIS HAPPEN? I USED TO BE SO UNAPOLOGETIC ABOUT IT????

This is my point exactly! It used to be so easy to sit down and talk with people who are in the same fandoms about what you like to create and consume, then suddenly self inserts were deemed "too weird" like the concept is really that difficult to understand. You put your characters in a situation (general fanfiction) and then you add yourself or a nameless character that readers can view themselves as. And before people come up with that bs "oh it's always smut or a weird concept" please remember that regular fanfics can also be like that! You just point out self inserts because it feeds into the idea that other forms of fanfiction are just better just because it's not self insert.

But I think a big way to start combating this (other than ranting about it at 2 am) would be to Stop being embarrassed about it! People will begin to see that there's so difference when we start acting like there isn't one. Regardless of other people's opinions, at the end of the day x reader fanfiction is just another kind of fanfiction and they can cry about it.

[londonfoginacup]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

I was tagged by @kingsofeverything and @justanothershadeofblue ! …I think. I mean I think that’s what happened. Now I’m questioning it but I’m not backing out of this post

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

Around 122

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

1,118,886

3. What fandoms do you write for?

One Direction 🤗

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Compass to my Soul

Souls; Plural, Parallel

Six Weeks

Frankincense-ational

Through a Mirror Dimly

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

YES!!!! ONCE EVERY THREE TO FOUR YEARS!!! I LOVE COMMENTS I JUST GET DISTRACTED

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

This one

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

THEY ALL GET HAPPY ENDINGS. But also this one

8. Do you get hate on fics?

God yes

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

…maybe I have but you’ll never find it

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

I wrote a self insert once. Does that count?

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Nope! Or at least not that I’ve found. Plenty of art stolen though

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

YEAH ONCE ISN’T THAT COOL

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

I was part of a very large group that wrote a fic and I’m pretty sure I wrote one paragraph in it sjdhhdhdhdhd

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

The Flying Dutchman Larry

15. What's a wip you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

I WILL FINISH IT SO I’M NOT TELLING YOU

16. What are your writing strengths?

Banter! I think. Sometimes atmosphere

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Literally everything else

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

If I knew another language I would love to. I’ve recently discovered a workskin that some authors have used for this so that when you tap on the line in another language, it translates into English. And that’s SO COOL. Maybe someday I’ll know enough Norwegian for that

19. First fandom you wrote for?

ONE DIRECTION BAYBEEE

20. Favorite fic you've written?

:) it changes

HI I TAG @lululawrence @sadaveniren @so-why-let-your-voice-be-tamed

[n7punk]

What is my immortal?

Ohhhh boy. Ok. Sit down.

My Immortal (wikipedia page) is the most famous fanfiction of all time. Couple disclaimers: it's almost not well-written enough to qualify for trigger warnings, but it does touch on a lot of triggers that I won't list off here. It is also, theoretically, tangentially, supposedly, "harry potter" fanfiction. However, harry is now known as Vampire, hermione is now B'loody Mary Smith, ron is Diablo, etc. A lot of the characters are now vampires and everyone is "goth" except the characters the author doesn't like, who are preps and posers. Also in one of the author's notes I think the writer ("Tara") literally says she hasn't read the books and it's based off "the movie". So like, it's connections to harry potter are tenuous at best and I'm not recommending you read anything beyond the first paragraph anyway, just putting that out there.

It's first person, follows a self-insert OC, and is entirely a fabrication of the writer's indulgence. It's one of those things that has gone down in fandom history and most people have read the first chapter, but we hadn't read more (AN: I don't recommend you do) so we had a read in the group chat and I either lost braincells or gained code-cracking skills trying to parse through the misspellings (both accidental and purposeful). A lot of people think it's a troll fic (which like, yeah makes sense) but there's a case to be made for it being a young tween's idea of a cool and edgy story that she and her friend made up and don't understand why everyone is hating on. I also think the world is a more beautiful place if it's sincere. The writer has managed to remain anonymous and undoxxed, which I am VERY grateful for, for her sake, even if I do desperately want to know the "real" story behind it and how she feels about its meme-status. Many people have come forward claiming to be the author and having done it as satire, but every one of them was a lying poser and a prep.

Below the cut is the opening of the famous "first chapter" (which only has a few more sentences in it after this anyway) for your reading pleasure. You really don't need to read any more than that, this is the part that became a meme and it only goes downhill from here. Also, "AN" (or "A/N") is "Author's Note" and yeah people really did used to just stick them in the middle of a fic, at least bad ones.

Hi my name is Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way and I have long ebony black hair (that’s how I got my name) with purple streaks and red tips that reaches my mid-back and icy blue eyes like limpid tears and a lot of people tell me I look like Amy Lee (AN: if u don’t know who she is get da hell out of here!). I’m not related to Gerard Way but I wish I was because he’s a major fucking hottie. I’m a vampire but my teeth are straight and white. I have pale white skin. I’m also a witch, and I go to a magic school called Hogwarts in England where I’m in the seventh year (I’m seventeen). I’m a goth (in case you couldn’t tell) and I wear mostly black. I love Hot Topic and I buy all my clothes from there. For example today I was wearing a black corset with matching lace around it and a black leather miniskirt, pink fishnets and black combat boots. I was wearing black lipstick, white foundation, black eyeliner and red eye shadow. I was walking outside Hogwarts. It was snowing and raining so there was no sun, which I was very happy about. A lot of preps stared at me. I put up my middle finger at them.

[lunarfly]

Honestly, you should check out this Dante Wood fella on Quora. He’s this multi potterhead ship hater who asks many rude and insulting questions on Romione, Harmione, Hinny and Dramione shippers. He’s literally become the bane of their existence. I almost would feel bad for them but then I realize these are the same users/shippers that ask insincere questions to the other ship/shipper. Guess karma is a bitch;)

Hello, thank you for the ask!

Yeah, I checked out his profile and I'm not so impressed. He's hateful and spiteful. But I must admit, he has got a very fair point. Before I talk about that though, I'll just bring up a few things:

Even though he often underlines very important issues with our fandom's "ship wars," his account still shouldn't exist. He's rude and he goes the wrong way about sending his messages. He keeps spitting venom out of his mouth when he should try to be logical and explain his points without any insults and attacks. But when do respectful people ever get anything, it's always the drama and over exaggeration that draws people's attention.

He's hypocritical. He says he hates the fact that shippers constantly generalize the other sides of the fandom but he also generalizes shippers himself. He calls out shippers collectively, as if we were all to blame for a few people's toxic behavior and generalizing tendencies. He generalizes us (the shippers) by saying we all generalize each other (the other shippers).

He hates on Harmione/Romione/Hinny/Dramione and only justifies his hatred by the shippers. But just hating it isn't bad at all, everyone's allowed to hate something. The thing is, he also claims that all of these ships "suck" and are all "garbage." He never presents any arguments or constructive criticism, he just says they're objectively bad ships because they have bad shippers. I'm pretty sure everyone can see the problem with this logic.

Now about his messages. I must say, I agree with him a whole lot. So many people in this fandom tend to generalize everyone. Examples of this?

"Harmione shippers haven't read the books! They only ship it because of the movies!"

"You only ship Hermione with ___ because you use her as a self-insert tool! You ___/Hermione shippers only want to project your own feelings onto her, you don't actually understand her character!"

"All Romione/Hinny shippers are toxic! None of them respect our ship!"

"All Harmione/Dramione shippers hate Ron and Ginny"

And much more.

While many of those claims do apply to many shippers, they don't apply to everyone. And generalizing a group of people while talking about them negatively is obviously wrong and harms both sides of the "war."

The ridiculous argument that "Harmony shippers haven't read the books" started (or gained popularity) in 2005 when J.K. Rowling said this in an interview:

JKR: Well I think anyone who is still shipping Harry/Hermione after this book –

ES: [whispered] Delusional!

JKR: Uh ’ no! But they need to go back and reread, I think.

That one simple comment still affects the H/Hr shipping community to this day, even after JKR admitted the possibility of H/Hr in 2014.. People are still calling us dumb and delusional, people still claim that we haven't read the books - and this argument has been expanded after people started noticing how the movies were sort of pushing a H/Hr narrative - people still make fun of us and many don't take us seriously. But people were shipping Harmione long before the release of the movies and they (including me) have written countless analyses pointing out moments from the books and reasons why Harry and Hermione would make a good couple but this ridiculous generalization, a kind of rumor, is still around and I don't think it's going to leave any time soon.

The Ron and Ginny bashing rumor is more understandable since a huge part of the H/Hr fandom absolutely hate the two gingers and will find anything to tear them down and make them seem as cartoonishly evil as possible. But we still shouldn't apply this to everyone. I, for one, love Ron and Ginny and know many Harmione shippers who feel the same way.

(In the following paragraphs I am talking about the HP fandom generally but obviously these things don't apply to every person individually.)

The majority of the Harry Potter fandom these days only truly accepts book lovers into discussions and their "main" fandom (people who solely make video edits or such are in a different kind of fandom). But everyone who's a book lover and doesn't ship Romione/Hinny or dislikes Ron/Ginny will slowly be forced to either liking these or leaving the fandom. Because, according to most of the fandom, if you don't like these characters/pairings, you haven't read the books, you're toxic and you're stupid. If you like Harmione, you're automatically labeled with "Movie Watcher," "Weasley Basher," "Toxic Garbage." People will start making assumptions about you and your work before they know you. Even if people learn that you're not any of those, these generalizations won't stop. No matter how much you do, no one will take you seriously, no one will care, no one will accept you, no one will explore your work. You will only be acknowledged in the book-loving fandom if you ship Romione and Hinny or if you're an extremely toxic person (that way you'll get mocked for every word that comes out of your mouth, but you'll deserve it if you're really a toxic person). This fandom also tends to misunderstand the words "toxic" and "bashing." Any sort of criticism is labeled with "bashing" and the author of that criticism is labeled with "toxic." Not that there aren't people who are toxic and hateful but our fandom tends to fail to see the difference between constructive criticism and hate.

And there are also those "big" accounts who are praised for every word they say. They can bash any ship or character they want to and the majority of the fandom (the book-loving, canon-ship-loving one that I explained) will agree with it and spread their words around. When they say something about one shipper, it will automatically be applied to everyone who ships that. If they say that any ship with Harry and Hermione that isn't Romione and Harmione suck, the majority of the fandom will accept it as objective truth and since they have most of the fandom supporting them they feel comfortable repeating and accepting these things. As a result of these things being accepted as common knowledge, the people who don't agree feel isolated from the fandom. For example, I do. I follow lots of people who ship Romione and Hinny or love Ron and Ginny because I also feel the same way about these characters and pairings. But I can't go a day without seeing at least one of them degrade Harmione and send hate to the ship + shippers. The more hate my ship gets, the more these rumors, labels and arguments spread around. And Harmione shippers get called stupid for loving a fictional pairing, so I constantly feel invalidated in this fandom, even if no one addresses me specifically. The ideas that Harmione is a horrible ship and its shippers are toxic and so on are so engrained in our fandom that they're seen as almost "rules" of the fandom and no single person can change that. I constantly feel like I'm invalid for liking Harmione and this isn't normal. Our fandom pushes the idea that the only intelligent people are those who support the canon pairings and disapprove of ships like Harmione, Fremione and etc. I understand the hatred against Dramione and every other toxic ship, but I can't for my life figure out why people feel the need to tear down every healthy fanon ship. But they do it anyway. They consider everyone who disagrees with them "stupid" and unintelligent. I feel like I don't belong every time I see comments like "Ugh, how can someone ship Harry and Hermione? They're like siblings, people! You clearly haven't read the books." or "Anyone who ships this doesn't have a brain, they're too strongly influenced by the movies. They clearly don't understand Harry and Hermione." Sometimes I see my own friends calling H/Hr "strange" and such and they clearly don't help me feel any better. I feel the need to go in Harmony-only spaces to recharge myself and regain the confidence and get the validation I need. Otherwise, I feel completely isolated and invalid.

I can't blame only one side of the fandom though. The shippers have been divided for decades now and they have been throwing insults at each other ever since. It's a never-ending war. The bad side of this today is that the book-loving fandom (the "main" fandom) has merged with the canon ships fandom and now these are inseparable. If you like the HP books, you must also like the canon pairings and dislike most of the others, otherwise you're never going to feel like you belong. So now anyone who ships Harmione won't be able to properly interact with the "main" fandom because nobody thinks their opinions that Harry and Hermione are a better match than Ron and Hermione are valid. Same thing with Dramione shippers. Do you see how Dramiones and Harmonians don't really engage in discussions or just don't interact with the "main" fandom in general (unless they're defending their ship)? They have created their own spaces, separated from the "main" fandom and that's where they are most of the time. That's where I go when I need more positivity and validation. I have the discord server and the Harmione subreddit to go to. That's the only place I'm really comfortable in. If I go to a more "general" part of the fandom like the main HP subreddit or some of the biggest HP books fan accounts, it will affect me negatively because I will mostly see Romione and Hinny be glorified and Harmione treated like trash. Not only my ship but also the shippers. Which is probably the main reason I find the fandom toxic. All of this just ties into the stupid generalization and name-calling that causes the rift between OBHWF and Harmione shippers which leads me to seeing both sides of the fandom be attacked and bombarded depending on which space I choose to spend my time in.

I'm not going to pretend that the Harmione fandom is full of angels who are oppressed by Romione shippers. Because whenever I go to a Harmione-oriented space, I will find anti-Ron/Romione/Hinny/Ginny (and their stans) posts. Harmonians will often call Romiones toxic and hateful and will basically do everything in order to insult them. And they return the favor excellently. This happens with the majority of the fandoms so both of the sides just think every shipper is like the toxic shippers they interacted with, causing generalization and all of the problems I talked about above. And that forms a toxic environment.

I generally just talked about my experiences with generalization and insulting but there are many more things wrong with the fandom, so I definitely agree with Dante Wood in that aspect. But again, I don't think every single shipper is toxic and hateful and I most certainly don't think that Romione, Harmione and Hinny are trash (Dramione just might be). I pointed out all of my reasons for disliking his account at the beginning of my post. I just wish he fixed those problems with his account, then he would have such a great one.

I almost would feel bad for them but then I realize these are the same users/shippers that ask insincere questions to the other ship/shipper. Guess karma is a bitch;)

Here's where I get confused. Why did you send me this message? I am not one of those people who go and attack a part of the fandom I disagree with. I don't constantly attack Romione and Hinny, nor their shippers. I actually love those ships. I might criticize Dramione and other toxic ships but I'm not the one at war with them. I know I wrote a post basically calling Dramiones brainless once and I regret that. I think I'm a better person now. No matter how much I hate this ship I won't send hate to its shippers (P*dophilic ships are a different deal though, those ships are even more serious). So how exactly is this a consequence for what I've done when I've done basically nothing? And even if I did, how is Dante Wood's account supposed to affect me? He talks about the toxicity of shippers while being toxic and hateful himself. Am I supposed to take that seriously? He calls us hypocritical and proceeds to do the same himself. That's not the kind of person I take criticism seriously from (ignoring the fact that many of his posts aren't even criticism, it's just hate).

Anyway, thank you for taking your time to send me that message! Sharing my thoughts on Dante Wood's thoughts and account was fun! :)

[finalgirlagatha]

reacting to heathens galore a week after the one year anniversary

uh hi guys. happy fanfic writer friday! today i’m going to be revisiting my most popular sge fic and third most popular fic overall (for reasons i do not understand) so, yeah let’s get into this 

its just trivia and cringe. also it’s long so... beware. 

i don’t understand why people like this fic. i’m going to start off with this. i know it was only a year ago but it feels so much longer and i legitimately can’t get through reading it without shriveling up into a ball and dying 

one time someone asked me, ‘why tagaphie?’ and i genuinely do not know why. the sister twist was dead to me even though this fic came out slightly after acot. i just wanted agatha to be happy. 

i hadn’t read the camelot years at the time, because i didn’t think they needed to exist 

i still don’t, not really, but moving on-

hhh why so many drug jokes. why. whyyy. 

this was drafted in 2018 and i know that doesn’t explain all the drug jokes but i was living in colorado at the time so maybe that’s it. 2018 me needed to get a grip 

yeah i hc hort as a stoner what about it? how else could you explain why he is the way he is

heres the embarrassing moment where i admit i was planning on writing one sided! hophie the entire time but the writer of the first and best horavan fic commented (i almost passed out) and i was like ‘what if... i did a thing’ 

i should’ve made this a nineties chatroom au with the ancient slang i’m using

the any1 hort uses haunts my dreams. i just want to talk :) 

teenagers are mean i’m so sorry teddy

i was not the biggest fan of tedros back then but i’ve changed i swear

chapter one haunts me  let’s move on 

bruh 

feels bad man

is it really a group chat fic if no one makes fun of the use of ‘y’all’ ? 

that link never attached and i’m noticing this now. i think it was supposed to be this tru.mp4 because roasting cowboys is funny to me

ravan gets the most dramatic anime entrance because i love him and HE CAN  

snake charmer is such a stupid username

i was going to do this thing where everyone's usernames were their circus talents but i forgot

this is uma slander and i will not stand for it

the time span between chapter four through chapter thirteen is friday to saturday.

this fic is the reason i started shipping chaddick/ravan. enemies to lovers 25k slowburn you know it 

i’m so ashamed of all the dick jokes i made. i’m like a middle school boy. 

WHY DID I LAUGH THIS IS SO BAD JSHDJJSHD

“im 🙋‍♂️not 🙅‍♂️emo🤬🕶️ i just like🥰😍 a lot of music💽.”- Hort Scourie, 2019

a friend of mine actually told me this once and i have never moved on 

chaddick ships hortrix 😔👏 good for him but wrong universe buddy 

gd i hate it here

reena is my self insert 

this whole fucking chapter is my last two braincells talking to each other during a math test 

chapter six is like a fever dream and i don’t like it, lets move on

my titles authors notes increasingly get more chaotic as the story progresses. chapter seven ‘you all flatter this old woman with your comments, bless you all’  bruh what was i on

nick is such a sweetheart tbh i love him

chaddick=fergie was such a big brain comparison 

i HATE that attack helicopter joke so much i was dreading it 

sorry about chapter eight lemme help you out 

b r u h

i swear this should have been a nineties au 

actually me

i didn’t want to me reminded of the fact that i used to listen to garage rock unironically. but now i am and oh man am i glad someone introduced me to better bands. the song i linked is not as much as a banger as i thought it was back then. 

a woman with taste. ska band coven au? anyone? no? okay. 

I RICKROLLED MYSELF JHSJFHJS WTF I WAS LIKE ‘Oh boy what did i do now” AND KSDJKSHD WHY 

we’re halfway through and i think i’m going to cry this is very accurate to irl groupchats but that doesn’t mean i have to like it 

my jokes peaked here 

chaddick in chapter eleven: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LI4LMWI5o8k

@crackedpepper​ this is for you. i wrote this for you before i even knew you. 

yes, yes he did just type tick tok. 

anyways, i’m gonna stop halfway because i forgot how long this was and i need to recover. part two may be in the making. Have a lovely day. very sorry about this 

overall verdict: being pushed down memory lane in a barrel of nails and awkward jokes 

[discoveringenterprise]

“RYAN WHERE THE FUCK DID YOU GO?!” and other shit you might wonder

First off: I am so sorry for disappearing off of the face of the earth oh my god

Second off: I’m going on an indefinite hiatus as of Sundayish. Yes, you read that right, an indefinite hiatus. All the content on the blog will stay for our enjoyment, and I fully authorize use of my gifs anywhere and everywehre

Third off: if you’re struggling rn, shit gets better, PLEASE trust me on this.

TLDR of this post; I got better, so can you, and I’m heading out.

ENT GC: let me know if you want admin. Do what you want with the blog, and if you wanna make a new group chat, please do so since I won’t be around to add people.

How can I contact you/get your contact info before you go? Dallyn and Daphne have my contact info so if you ever need to reach me and I’m gone... yeah. Like I said, I’ll be heading out Sundayish, so I’ll periodically log in here if you wanna talk to me/get my info before I go.

What’s your actual name? That... that’s a long story, too. LMAO. Especially if you know me. DM me for the story if you know me.

Why are you leaving? So, as you guys know, I started college, which is completely and utterly whack. Everything is changed, everything is different and I have friends now? Like, WTF. I’ve been so wrapped up in work it took me forever to get on here after Dallyn texted me “your account got hacked” so... oops. I let everyone into the ent gc (oh my GOD i look back at that and have a love/hate relationship with it!) and let me know if you figure out a way to make admins on it??? I’m confused AF.

I’m going to be focusing off college and staying off Tumblr for a while. It was 2 am technically today and I was reading all my old posts like “jfc I was so depressed???” and now I’m just... not. I made friends, real friends, over the summer. People who understand and get it (and yes some of them are ent stans.)

Why did you disappear in May and why are you leaving again? Shortly put, and I don’t mean to sound mean, I made real friends. Real as in I will physically interact with them in real life (aka college friends). I kind of weaned off Tumblr slowly, and only kept going back for the ent gc (I LOVE YOU GUYS THOUGH!!!). And it kinda became a drag.

When I came back to Tumblr, it was like late January and early February. I’d just got out of the Instagram rping world and was so tempted to start one here, but I was scared and intimidated, and I’m glad I didn’t. Breaking off rp was the best thing I’d ever done for myself, and the best thing that this toxic girl ever did for me. My shitty mental health had been kinda dependent on this rp, it’s hard to explain, but I was being a jerk and kinda had been since freshman year with projecting my feelings onto my character’s and blurring the lines far too much between me and her. She was (and is!) still hella overpowered, hella perfect, and something that would absolutely never happen in canon.

Honestly, this whole situation was basically the lyrics to the song Clarity ft. Foxes by Zedd. I love that song, go give it a listen.

Point being, I got myself off of that once I realized. The problem had started in January 2017, ran through October 2017, and then took a hiatus until junior year but only started to really manifest itself in February 2019. And honestly, mainly when school started back, in September/October 2019 and lasted until January 4 when she and I had our last fight. (She messaged me again, later- here- and since making that post, we’ve ended things on neutral terms.)

So I came here. Tumblr. I’d been here in 2017 right after the OTHER rp ended, and I think Tumblr became my new outlet then, too. I was a baby in the middle of my freshman year then. And then there I was, coming full circle. As a senior in high school. I read all of my old posts about how I’d never make it, and there I was. I’d made it. The end of HS was in sight.

I straight up vibed through all of May. Now, I was slowly making friends in college already, but it only really took off in April and May, which is when I left. I focused more on those, building those connections. I loved you guys on Tumblr, I still do, but I was definitely going to meet these college friends. And as I pulled my head out of Tumblr, I got a job, an actual paying job , in June- and I was already gone.

As I looked back on my posts last night/this morning I was thinking “oh my GOD what the fuck” because jfc, Tumblr had turned into the place where I vented. And then as I got through the months, I became happier. The pandemic was around, duh, and I didn’t have as much school stressing me out, there wasn’t as much craziness around. I was free, I didn’t have people from high school to deal with, and I got better on my own.

YEAH, I was talking to a college guy. And yeah, that was nice, but it was more of a side thing. He was my friend, and he played me, but I learned to be myself. Learned to love Enterprise wildly and give absolutely no fucks.

And it is oh so nice to give zero fucks. It’s an amazing feeling. I hope everyone gets there someday. And yeah, I’ve had moments where people don’t like me, and moments where I’ve felt down, depressed. That’s not saying life is always perfect 100% of the time.

But what I’m trying to say is: it gets better. And to me, Tumblr was like a crutch. Sometimes you need it to help you stand, but when you think you always need it, and can stand on your own, that’s where the problem is. In May, I became confident enough to let the crutch go. And I’m thankful that I did that.

I still love you guys, everyone reading this post, the people that know me and are going to miss me. It’s not that I hate this website or anything- I just stopped using it as a crutch, you know?

Where can I read this crazy fanfic? DM me, haha. It’s the classic “self-insert but NOT a self-insert” fanfiction originating form a fifth grade idea, reformatted by my depressed fourteen-year-old self. And I wouldn’t change it for the world. Yes, it’s Star Trek.

I also have one for the girl’s relative, too, which IMO is much better. She’s less overpowered, more of a real human being.

So why mention the fanfic and RP? It’s weird; I’ve come full circle. I wanted to be this perfect girl, and then I planned how she’d finish her story (and I’m finishing it. I am, I promise, because she’s a part of me that I wouldn’t trade for anything). As I’ve taken a break from the E/AP-verse (my public nickname for it haha, someone found out here) I’ve realized again, I came full circle.

All I wanted back then was to be happy and I thought a guy would do it. Popularity, a bunch of friends, a “hot body” (btw FUCK BODY SHAMING and you’re all perfect) and all that BS that the media tells you. What really gives you happiness (or at least me)? Confidence. The fact that I know I have friends I can count on here. Yeah, a relationship is nice, but complete yourself before you get into one.

And when I planned my OC’s ending back in February, that’s what she got. She’s married in my head now, to her (and my!) perfect guy, but the important part is that she’s happy, and she’s herself before she got married. Before she got in her relationship.

So, yeah. I think that covers it. In all honesty, if you have more questions, send them to the ask box and I’ll tag them and all this as “ry’s goodbye” and update my nav page. It’s 12:39 AM so please excuse any typos!

Bye, guys. For now, at least.

I love you.

[xenosgirlvents]

The more time goes on the more I despise The imperium and every imperium character thanks to their smug self righteousness. I literally fantasize about imperial guardsmen getting their dicks bitten off, skinned alive and put on hooks. And admech turning into rust as their biological and mechanical parts pull apart. And space marines being forced to kill their “brothers” for slaughtering incoent Xenos children.

I understand the frustration, I mean, I’ve been frustrated by this for a very long time.

Yeah; beyond just the blatant favouritism they receive it is true that it is ENORMOUSLY grating the way, because the authors seem to genuinely not get how hypocritical and awful their characters are, the text often, honestly, situates child murders, slave owners and genocidal maniacs as being ‘right’ or making some or other poignant point and being righteous. I hate it, just insert almost everything about Ultramarines here.

For myself the only way I’ve managed to feel better, so the only advice I can give you, is twofold; find a group of people you can interact with who you can vent with and are understanding, this will never make it stop grating how awfully the setting treats fans of any faction but the Imperium, but it will make it bearable.

Secondly, what I have recently begun, invest in your own content over the official canon. GW and BL have shown they just do not care for anyone who is not a fan of the Imperium and, principally, a fan of Space Marines when it comes to lore. So, instead, turn to creating your own content for yourself as I do on @xenosgirllastarchive I would also suggest to check out Cold Open Stories, they honestly do a great job and are WAY better when it comes to representing Xenos doing ANYTHING.

I hope this helps, I sincerely do, as I understand how you feel. Unfortunately, for us, we just have to accept that the odds are simply too small to ever expect GW or BL to bother letting Xenos or Chaos achieve or succeed in any meaningful way in the lore. In the end all we are is punching bags for Space Marine players.

[deepsought]

permanent plotter call. 

helllo gamers. fancy seeing you here... on this dash where we are all members of the same group—— anyway i’m a thief and i’m copying the latest trend but you know what ?? i have that right. i am the rules. insert other questionable and weird shit gilgamesh says. so yes, if it wasn’t clear, this is going to be a PLOTTER CALL for gilgamesh ! 

as this might get a little lengthy, i’ll be putting the basic relationship ideas i have under a read more. that said, if you like this post / reply with the number you think could work for gil & your muse, i’ll be able to message you with some idea of what you’re interested in ! it’ll also mean you’re open to me sending you memes, you sending me memes, the usual meme shenanigans.

01. aquaintances : started from the bottom and you’re still at the bottom. aka, this is how he would interact with most people. gilgamesh considers himself an adjudicator of humanity and does not like to get overly attached to individuals on that basis. he is an observer, detached from mankind as a being who is divine in origin. as such, he does not establish much of an emotional connection with most of the people he meets. he is still amicable to the prospect of offering guidance or assistance where he thinks it necessary ( and trust me when i say it takes a lot for him to involve himself personally ), so that isn’t to say it is impossible to start Something with him. but it takes quite a bit to move past this stage unless you really pique his interest, so to say. you’re all his subjects, basically, because he’s the eternally reigning king. 

02. friends : can we really say the king has any true friends ? maybe one. but even then, he was summoned in sort of an awkward stage of his life where he isn’t as comfortable approaching them as he might have been in another class. so, he isn’t the friendliest person in the world, if you haven’t already figured that out. certainly not as difficult to interact with as his archer self would be, but at the same time, he is still gilgamesh. at his core, he will always be egotistical and self-assured in his adulthood. that doesn’t mean people aren’t capable of earning his acknowledgement and later, his friendship. he may just never phrase it as such. he’d be more likely to say that you’ve ‘earned the king’s favor’ or something stupid like that. caster is kind of a pain, but he is loyal to a fault to those he cares for ( despite his less than desirable way of communicating it ). a small positive ? 

03. fellow rulers / divine beings / non-humans : i just think it might be neat for him to get to know any fellow royals or demi-gods / gods / whatever else is out there. i mean, like i said before, gilgamesh still considers himself the one true king. so long as mankind continues to exist, they will always be his subjects. but he is also at a stage of his life where he is appreciative of the insights of other rulers. he does not scorn them, nor would he dismiss their status as a ruler. even if he once held clairvoyance and knew all there was to know, he likes to hear the experiences of people from word of mouth too. any individual with divine blood or who was generally inhuman might also interest him depending on their character, as they fall outside of his self-imposed jurisdiction of ruling over ‘humanity’. he has no authority over those who are not ‘human’. oh yeah, but if you’re a god, he would instinctively dislike you - or at the very least be somewhat spiteful. generally speaking, the only god he actually likes is his mother. the rest are either hated, disrespected or just plain ignored ( but he is willing to cooperate out of necessity ). 

04. study buddies : are you a scholar ? a learned individual? do you have a talent or knowledge that would be otherwise useful in nation-building or otherwise ? then gilgamesh would be more open to speaking with you ! he is known to overwork himself on anything and everything. he drafted architectural ideas for uruk, played a key part in developing them, led armies and his people for years and built up a very successful kingdom to the point of being called the ‘sage king’. but as he needed the cooperation of the masses to accomplish this successfully, he has a genuine appreciation for those who have a talent and use it. use being the keyword here. he would honestly be very happy throwing ideas off of someone, no matter the topic, and hearing their own in return. he has familiarised himself with most every topic, scholarly or otherwise, so it doesn’t matter what field it is. 

05. romance : listen. look at me. he’s married to uruk and to paperwork. he’s a single dad to many kids he willingly adopted. chances are romance is the last thing on his mind. i am being very honest here but it’s just... it would take a lot of chemistry to make him think about anything other than working himself half to death. i won’t say its impossible. but it isn’t the most likely thing to occur. of course, people can have crushes on him if they so wish. i hate admitting it, but he’s pretty. i understand. and again, i’m not saying shipping isn’t going to happen. but i just. gilgamesh. 

06. dad noises : okay so listen. gil is not the best guy for interacting with. like, at all. but he does have dad inclinations. i have no other way to explain that beyond ‘dad inclinations’. welcome to my twisted mind. anyway, you don’t have to be a literal child for him to want to offer guidance and assistance where he can. he is just extremely soft on kids - to young children or young adults. his master is one example, as is mashu. his attitude ( or at the very least, his way of speaking ) typically remains the same, but he is nowhere near as harsh with them. instead, he’s much more willing to speak with kids and help them out. sometimes you just be living life and then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, you’re adopted by the king of heroes. 

07. dad noises 2.0 electric boogaloo : please do not question the name of this section either it is the thrilling sequel related to the above and i did not know what else to call it. i just ( points at ritsuka fujimaru ) if you have any association with his master, gilgamesh will make a point of knowing who you are and how you’re related to her. be it as a servant of hers or just someone she’s friends with, it’s an excuse that stands to reason why he’d be interacting with them. he might pretend that he isn’t protective, or that he doesn’t care much for her, but we all know that is a big fat lie ! their relationship is this vine and i will never change my stance on it. thank you.

and that’s all i can think of right now ! of course, if you had any of your own ideas that don’t fit in these, then i welcome them. honestly, these are just. kind of a mess. i don’t blame you. like i said before, if you like this post ( regardless of whether you mention a specific number ), i’ll message you at some point to butt heads and see what we can come up with ! thank you for reading ! 

[yaboylevi]

KS [1] Thanks for the swift reply! I'd like to go private but I don't have a tumblr account, honestly don't feel like doing one if you don't mind. If you don't feel like talking about snk anymore, I understand! If it only causes you bitterness, why bother? I still do it just because it doesn't and it's going to end soon anyway. Regarding your reply, yeah I too meant that the bird was Eren's conscience or connection to nature and not him literally, I just didn't have enough space XD [...]

Hiii...it’s been almost 3 weeks I am so sorry. But between real life being absolute torture, and finding respite in stuff different from snk, I completely forgot to come back to this. I really do not enjoy talking about snk, so I was really overwhelmed by your messages (that I didn’t even receive in full, and that’s one of the reasons why I’d prefer to move the conversation elsewhere - but I don't really wanna have conversations about snk atm anyway. ‘cause you see, I agree 100% with you, it sounds like I wrote these messages myself, but at the end of the day they just remind me of how much I’ve come to dislike the series...so, not really productive, or healthy for my mindset right now (i repeat, real life is just...trying to kill me apparently)).

Anyway, so I’ll just reply quickly to your messages, because you spent a lot of time typing them up, but yeah...this is not the best place or moment to have such long discussions about snk, I believe.

[2] I was wondering more on the implications to that, because thinking about it, I remembered many scenes in the anime's past seasons with birds flying, and it got me thinking if it really was all decided from the start? Maybe by some superior entity? I hope like you that little Ymir isn't just a plot device and has a role to play together with Zeke. I hope this isn't the last we see from Eren pov as well becuase those shots of little him saying 'this scenery' really worried me. [...]

I was thinking birds, besides a white one possibly meaning hope and a black one usually connected to death, are part of nature, just like all things connected through paths. Titans are connected to nature, there has been a lot of discussion about this in fandom for years, so yeah. Also, hope = freedom & life, death = despair. It all plays on the dichotomy that is Eren: he doesn’t want to kill but he doesn’t want to die either. I wonder if one of the morals of the story will be that death is just part of a natural cycle, hence you can be free in death too (but I hate this, because it’s really negative if applied to SnK).

Re-reading some stuff also made me hopeful about this not being the last of Eren’s pov, as far as explanations go. Like, there is clearly more (Liberio, for example, the WHT, etc). As for child!Eren, I think he is totally disconnected from reality, hence he doesn’t see what’s happening, and if he is, he’s also trying to convince himself that, like 19!Eren said in chapter 121, as a child he would take freedom away from people who tried to take his freedom away with little to no remorse - of course, it isn’t the case for adult!Eren, as we saw multiple times.

[3] I just hope we get to see more from him, like War Hammer titan and King Fritz memories, and there's more with Historia as well. I don't really care about shipping so I don't mind if we get EH or if Eren is the father, at least it would make sense for the pregnancy thing to be this dragged out. I just found the Armin/Annie conversation really baffling? What with the timing and the tone of the chapter? What was the point of that? To make us feel sad for Armin if Annie dies? [...]

I feel a couple, in particular a couple with Eren, would be too out of the blue and ruin Eren’s character (and the other party of the pair). Besides, romance has never been part of Eren’s character arc. If it’s just to follow the shonen manga’s trend of the protagonist ending up with [insert female character], then this will finally put snk in the trash bin for me.

I was watching a japanese youtuber’s analysis about the latest chapter and he said something very interesting about the Annie/Armin scene: just like we have child!Eren being happy vs adult!Eren despairing, their little talk repeated the same 2 povs: childhood vs adulthood. Armin’s ““declaration of love”” felt really childish and, as Annie rightfully pointed out, was that really the time for it? People are getting crushed and Armin thinks about such innocents stuff? You could say it’s the same dichotomy of hope - despair, beautiful - cruel, innocence - what Armin later admits: he is not innocent, he also killed people and children in cold blood, ever since the beginning of the story.

I personally don’t think either of them will die, but as the youtuber pointed out, usually these romantic overtones bring one of the pair to their death (I was pleased he brought up as an example yumihisu ahah), so I get why you might speculate as such.

[4] And Eren's pov got me really confused. I kind of understand what the author was going for and I agree with your analysys about his inner conflict and desperation but to me it came out of nowhere? Like you said, it doesn't really make sense for his character. This is what we get by having his thoughts hidden for so long though. At the start of the manga we got those moments where we could see he was somewhat twisted but then he grew out of it and was pretty normal, and now all of a sudden[..]

I think the inner conflict has been there, always throughout the story and in Eren as well, but for me, the problem lies elsewhere, in the sense that there is still no connection (or good enough transition) between “i don’t want to kill people but since i don't wanna die i guess i’ll kill them”. We’re talking about Eren, who wanted to die because people died because of him...who got so angry about being unjustly threatened with death, who stood up against bullies, against all sorts of injustice because he strongly believes in the intrinsic right of being free (WHICH IS THE RIGHT TO BE ALIVE). I get it that the other side wants them dead, but it still feels stupid that he would convince himself to kill the innocent majority, suddenly refusing half of what he has always believed in. If Isayama is going for “hey look, isn’t this tragic? What despair pushes people to do?” like UGH it’s just so annoying, because WE KNOW, snk is ALL about that, but what bothers me in this case, in particular, is, if Eren gets no redemption at all, then fuck off @ this story. See, I’m getting angry.

[5] he has like regressed to his childhood self? If he really hates doing all this, why does he do it? And I think you're right about Eren being demonized by the narrative: the writer made possible only 2 options and forced Eren to choose the rumbling and to him to be the psycho final villain, what with all those exaggerated expressions and shadows to draw him. If he was going with that from the start he should have done it constantly throughout the manga. And I won't even talk about [...]

And yes, the point is Eren changed throughout the story!!! For god’s sake!! Then all that progression was just so that Eren had a more nuanced view of the world so that he could suffer for this choice in particular? Wow, I didn’t know I was reading Tokyo Ghoul...... /s

[6] the predetermination stuff. Did Eren really surrender to the future he saw? Is he really just there in his titan sleeping and wallowing? LOL If Armin turns out to be the hero who can change the future... bleargh. I probably dislike the alliance as much as I do because the narrative is so biased in favour of them. I put my hope in Zeke for that! Please! Let him be the key if Eren is defeated! On the other hand I think it's not so obvious that he will lose as well. on that point, [...]

This is the last one I got, I’m sorry. Anyway, idk if it’s predetermined, or just like, the moment you think of something, the future changes. That would explain how Eren blames himself for this future: only because he dared think of this, then it happened. In any case, I doubt Armin ends up being the hero, I think it’ll be a group effort...remember Isayama was impressed by GotG’s ending....

Finally, Zeke, my lovely bitch, where are you??!?!?!?

He’s late to the party like a true queen.

[writerofmanyfandoms]

Insecurities

Summary: Requested!Han SoloxPlusSized!Reader! Set a little after Solo. The newest addition to the Han-Chewie team, Han somehow manages to wrangle you in to accompany him on a mission. Will things actually run as smoothly as everyone hopes? Probably not, but you have grown accustomed to things not working out exactly the way you would like.

Pairing: Han Solo x Reader

Word Count: 1870

Warnings: being insecure, language, suggestive at times, extra fluffy at the end

Author’s Note: Hey everyone! Hope all is well! I have come down with a bitch of a sinus infection, but I wanted to make sure I could put a story out! I may be getting a new laptop or even a desktop soon, so let’s cross our fingers! I have never written a Plus Sized Reader before, so I hope this is good! I am plus sized myself, and I always enjoy reading Plus Sized reader inserts. Hopefully, I can do more of these in the future! Everyone deserves to feel included.

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars or the characters. Also, I do not own this GIF, found on GIPHY

You stared at your reflection for what seemed like hours. Somedays you felt so confident and loved every article of clothing you were. Other days it felt as if your clothes were too tight and you couldn’t stretch them enough. Unfortunately, today was one of those bad days. In the back of your mind, you knew you were gorgeous, as conceited as that sounded. You had curves and some extra body, sure, but it didn’t make you ugly.

Finally settling into a black flowy dress, you quickly pulled your hair up into a formal bun. As if on cue, you saw Han appear in the mirror behind you.

“About time, Y/N. I always end up waiting on you. You take forever.” He teased, looking at you. He couldn’t help but admire you, his eyes lingering far longer than they should have, which made you feel a bit self-conscious. Normally his glance would have been appreciative, as you normally had the ability to at least act confidence.

You were sure that Han still seemed unaware of your feelings, and if he had known he surely wasn’t bringing it up. Although, you were rather oblivious to his feelings. Ever since you first healed him and Chewie, he had been smitten. He acted as if he didn’t want you to travel along with him, and tried to act as if he was doing you a favor when he ‘finally’ caved.

“Well I am ready, so let’s go.” You said, although a bit too short which caused him to raise his eyebrows.

“Alrighty, someone woke up in a bad mood. Let me just remind you. As soon as we get off the ship, Chewie is going to park this somewhere hidden. We are going to find out as much information as we can on where the Imperial Captain keeps the fuel. I need to deliver that to a potential buyer. As soon as we get out, we will radio Chewie and meet back up with him.” Han told you, as the two of you began to exit.

You didn’t feel comfortable helping him smuggle, but when he asked for your help you practically melted. It hadn’t taken very long for the two of you to open up, which was surprising, especially after he told you about what he had recently been through. Deep in your mind, you wished you didn’t like Han the way you did. Guys like him didn’t want girls like you. You knew that almost better than anyone. You saw the way his eyes would look at those thin, tall, gorgeous women. If it wasn’t so expected. It probably would have hurt your feelings.

Being this deep in thought was never good for you. On your more insecure days, you tended to stay by yourself, but you couldn’t today. And it didn’t help that the top half of this dress was more fitted than you liked, but you were running out of time to change.

“You look really nice tonight,” Han said, his voice soft as the two of you approached the entrance, and he flashed the invites to the security guard.

“Oh shut up.” You mumbled, rolling your eyes as the guard waved you through. Despite wanting to believe him, you were scared that Han was only joking or even just saying that to trick you. You were no stranger to cruel jokes. When you were younger boys and girls would always pay you a compliment, only to run back to their group of friends and laugh it off.

Han could see it in your eyes that you didn’t really believe him. He wanted you to though because he truly meant it. He loved the way you looked, everything from the way your clothes fit your body, to the way your hair would fall down your back after taking it down. You were truly a magnificent sight, and he only wanted you to see it all of the time.

“Okay, so let’s split up. We will do some talking, try to find out whatever it is we can. We will meet up every twenty minutes or so to check on the progress. As soon as we find out what we need, we can get the hell out of here. Agree?” Han asked, you only nodding your head in approval.

The two of you drifted to other sides of the room, and you couldn’t think of how easy Han had it. All he had to do was flirt around with the pretty girls, and he could easily find out what he needed. Honestly, why would he even need you? You rolled your eyes at the thought. Of course, he could just flirt his way, who could blame him? He was definitely charming and good looking, and he could smooth talk any woman who wanted to hear his flattery.

Like clockwork, the two of you would meet up, but neither one of you had found out what you needed. It felt as if Han was so easy at this, you often would struggle at making small talk with large groups of strangers. Unlike Han, you were easy at blending in. You were used to people not noticing you, or forgetting you were around. It was exactly how you found out that he kept his fuel on Coruscant, in a little cantina that was owned by his brother. The ladies were gossiping about it, as you stood nearby.

All of a sudden music started playing, and everyone was pairing off. You couldn’t help but panic, dancing was definitely not your strong suit. You had thought you were in the clear until you felt a hand on your back and the familiar, yet very handsome face of Han Solo.

“Hey, hey Y/N. Not so fast, have this dance with me. Besides, we need to blend in and I am having no luck.” He said, pulling you in close and holding on to your hand.

As you wrapped an arm around him, you realized you didn’t want to tell him the information. Not yet. You knew it was stupid and silly, and probably not a good idea to hold on to it, but you wanted to enjoy this moment for a little while longer.

“Oh yeah? Me either. I figured you would, all of those girls look like they are ready to jump into bed with you.” You teased, faking a grin as he rolled his eyes.

“Just because I flirt with women does not mean I like them. I normally have an ulterior motive. I learned that sometimes it is the only way to get information or for them to lead me somewhere.” Han said, a bit too nonchalantly, and your eyes immediately stared down at your feet as the two of you danced. “But in all honesty, I do like someone. It’s you.” He admitted, surprised as you halted so suddenly.

“What the fuck Han? Is this some sort of sick joke? It isn’t funny.” You said, your voice low but definitely sounded angry.

“Wait, no? Why would I be joking?” Han asked, confusion plastered all over his face.

“Oh fuck off, don’t play dumb. You flirt with all of those women with smaller waists then me, who have the perfect body and can run around naked and no one would bat an eye. So don’t even try and play and act as if someone like me is your type.” You seethed, as you began to storm out. As soon as you got outside you took off running. It didn’t matter where you went, just as long as you were away from Han.

It didn’t take you very long to find a nice secluded park bench, and you quickly sat down. You definitely hated running, but all of the adrenaline you had made it seem a lot easier. It felt like forever until you felt a warm body near you, and you were too exhausted to argue.

“Y/N, why did you run off? And explode like that? Do you really think I am the type of guy to do something like that to you? Yeah, I can be a bit of an ass, but damn. I’m not cruel.” Han said, sitting down beside you.

A soft sigh escaped your lips as you shook your head. You knew Han really wasn’t that way, it was just a part of your brain could not believe what he had been saying. You had been let down a lot in life, and you were just extremely guarded.

“Of course not. But you flirt with so many women, you never once have done that to me.” You said, kicking some gravel beneath your feet, thankful that you had opted for some comfortable flats.

Han couldn’t help but chuckle, rolling his eyes as he nudged you. “Of course I don’t do that to you. Why would I? I don’t flirt with those women because I like them. I do it because not only am I wonderful at it, but because I know some women respond well to my flattery. I knew you would never, and I liked you too much to want to flirt with you like that. I do flirt with you, Y/N, it just isn’t the way you are used to seeing. So you would have never expected it.”

“Okay then, well explain why you like me. Why me? Look at me. I have chub in all of the wrong spots, I can’t run a marathon, or flaunt around naked.” You said, but Han only shook his head.

“I mean, feel free to flaunt your naked body in front of me. I would definitely appreciate it.” He teased, smiling as you laughed and rolled your eyes. “See, that’s why. Because you don’t always see that you are beautiful. I know you can be confident, but I also know when you aren’t, and I want to help make you feel better. We all have insecurities. I don’t think you are fat, I think you are perfect. All sizes are beautiful, and I definitely do not discriminate. You also have the most wonderful smile, and every time you laugh it makes me happy. You are so many things, and I wish you could see those things all of the time.” Han said, leaning in close and cupping your face with his chin.

As soon as he finished talking, you couldn’t help but press your lips against his. Despite him wanting everyone to think he was some rough smuggler, he did have a soft heart. You wanted this moment to last forever, but unfortunately, the two of you pulled away.

“Come on, let’s get to the Falcon. I don’t want to hang around here too long. Plus it sucks that we couldn’t get that information.” Han said, hopping up, holding his hand out for you to take.

“About that, I actually did. It is at his brother’s night club. I just wanted to dance with you.” You said with a grin, laughing as he wrapped his arms around you.

“Y/N! You are the best.” Han said, giving you such a deep kiss that you could feel your insecurities melt away. Maybe some things do work out well after all.

[scifrey]

Improbable Press put out a call asking fan fiction authors how they went from Free to Fee. Here’s my response. Happy reading!

The Story of How I Started Selling Stories

My parents, teachers, and acting/singing coaches will all tell you that I've always been a story teller. For the first twenty four years of my life, I was determined to do so through musical theatre, though I had always secretly harbored the desire to write a hit stage play. My early writing consisted of plays for my friends and I to put on, interspersed with prose that I supposed would one day become a novel, but which wasn't my passion.

I was a big reader, but where this habit came from, I'm not certain. While my mother always had a book on the go - whatever crumbling paperback law thriller or murder mystery she'd been handed by the woman down the street when she was done it, which was then passed on to the next neighbor - my father and brothers preferred sports (either on TV or outside in the yard) over reading. I stumbled into fantasy and science fiction because Wil Wheaton was hot, and his show was on every Friday night, and from there I consumed every Star Trek tie-in novel my tiny rural library carried, then started following the authors of the novels into their other worlds and series.

So you won't be surprised to learn that this was how I found fan fiction for the first time. My "I love this, gee, I wonder what else there is?" muscle was well developed by junior high, and before the internet had come to The Middle Of Nowhere Rural Ontario, I had already gotten quite adept at search keywords and codexes to track down more books to consume.  Imagine my shock and joy when, in the middle of my Phantom of the Opera phase (come on, fess up, you had one too), the internet in my school library told me about not only Fredrick Forsyth and Susan Kay's stunning re-tellings, but of something called fan fiction.

I wasted a lot of the librarian's ink and paper printing out these books and secreting them into binders and pretending to do school work at my desk or backstage between scenes. A lot. And yes, I still have most of them.

And as we all well know, the jump between reading and writing is a short when one is submerged so fully in communities of creators. Everyone else's "What If" rubs off on you, and it's just a matter of time before you find yourself playing with the idea of coaxing a few plot bunnies over to spend some time with you. Not everyone loves to write, but gosh darn it, if you want to give it a try, then you couldn't ask for a better, more supportive community. It doesn't matter how new you are to it, everyone reads, everyone comments, everyone makes suggestions. People beta read. People edit. People co-write. People cheer, and support, and recommend, and enthuse. Yeah, there are the occasional jerks, flammers, and wank-mongers, but on the whole? There's literally no better place to learn how to be a writer than in fandom, I firmly believe this.

So, of course, born storyteller that I am, I had to give it a try.

I started writing fan fiction in 1991 for a small, relatively obscure Canadian/Luxembourg co-pro children’s show called Dracula: the Series.  I used to get up and watch it on Saturday mornings, in my PJs, before heading off to whichever rehearsal or read through or practice I had that year.

1995 brought the English dub of Sailor Moon to my life, (and put me on the path to voice acting), and along with a high-school friend, I wrote, printed out, illustrated, and bound my first “book” – a self-insert story that was just over eleven pages long, which introduced new Scouts based on us.  From there, I didn’t really stop.

1996 led me to Forever Knight and Dragon Ball Z, and from there to my friend’s basement where they’d just installed the internet. We chatted with strangers on ICQ, joined Yahoo!Groups and Bravenet Chat Boards. (Incidentally, a friend from my DBZ chat group turned out to be a huge DtS fan, too. We wrote a big crossover together which is probably only accessible on the Wayback Machine now. We stayed friends, helped each other through this writing thing, and now she’s Ruthanne Reid, author of the popular Among the Mythos series.)  In 2000 I got a fanfiction.net account and never looked back.

In 2001, while in my first year of university for Dramatic Arts, I made my first Real Live fandom friends. We wrote epic-length self-insert fics in Harry Potter and Fushigi Yuugi, cosplayed at conventions (sometimes using the on-campus wardrobe department’s terrifyingly ancient serger), and made fan art and comics in our sketchbooks around studying for our finals and writing essays on critical theory or classical Latin.  I was explaining the plot of the next big fic I was going to write to one of them, an older girl who had been my T.A. but loved Interview with the Vampire just as dearly as I, when she said, “You know, this sounds really interesting. Why don’t you strip all the fandom stuff out of the story and just write it as a novel?”

You can do that? was my first thought.

No! I don’t want to! Writing is my fun hobby. What will happen if I try to be a writer and get rejected by everyone and I end up hating it? was my second.

But the seed was planted.  Slowly at first, and then at increasingly obsessive pace, I began writing my first novel around an undergrad thesis,  fourth-year  essays,  several other big fanfics that popped me into the cusp of BNF status but never quite over the tine, and then a move to Japan to teach English. From 2002-2007 I wrote about 300 000 words on the novel that I would eventually shut away in my desk drawer and ignore until I published on Wattpad under my pseudonym on a lark. It was messy. It was long. It was self-indulgent and blatantly inspired by Master of Mosquiton, Interview with the Vampire, Forever Knight, and anything written by Tanya Huff, Laurell K. Hamilton, and Charlaine Harris. This was fine for fanfic, but in terms of being comfortable with presenting it to agents and publishing houses, I felt that it wasn’t original enough.

By this time I was teaching overseas, and in my spare time (and boy, was there a lot of spare time while sitting in a Japanese teacher’s office for 40 hours per week when one only actually teaches for 11 of them) I started applying to MA programs (where I eventually wrote my thesis on Mary Sue Fan Fiction). I also spent it researching “How to Get Published”, mostly by Googling it and/or buy/reading the few books on the topic in English I could find at the local book store or order from the just-then-gaining-international traction online bookstore Amazon.

What that research mostly told me was “Write and sell a bunch of short fiction first, so you have proof that a) you can do the work and b) you can finish what you promise you’ll finish and c) you have proof that other people think you’re worth spending money on.”

Short fiction. Huh. Of course we’d studied short stories in school, and I’d even taken a short story writing class in university, though nothing I’d written for the class was indicative of the kinds of stories I preferred to tell. But I felt pretty confident about this whole writing short stories thing… after all, I’d been doing weekly challenges for years. Drabbles. Flashfic. Stories and chapters that were limited to the word count cap that LiveJournal put on its posts. I’d written novellas without knowing that’s what they were called; I’d written whole novels about other people’s characters. All I needed was an idea. Short fiction I could do.

Unfortunately, everything that came to me was fanfic inspired. It frustrated me, because I didn’t want to write a serial-numbers-filed-off story. I wanted to write something original and epic and inspiring. Something just mine. I started and stopped a lot of stories in 2006-2007. I’d been doing NaNoWriMo for years by then, having been introduced to it in undergrad, and I was determined that this would be the year that I wrote something I could shop. Something just mine. Something unique.

While I adored fanfiction, I was convinced that I couldn't make a career on it.  What had once been a fun hobby soon because a source of torment. Why could I think of a hundred ways to write a meet-cute between my favorite ships, but come up utterly blank when it came to something new and original and just mine?

It took me a while to realize that my playwriting and short story teachers had been correct when they said that there are no original stories in the world, no way you can tell a tale that someone else hasn’t already tried. The "Man vs." list exists for a reason.

The unique part isn’t your story, it’s your voice. Your lived life, your experiences, your way of forming images and structuring sentences. Your choices about who the narrator character is, and what the POV will be, and how the characters handle the conflict. In that way, every piece of writing ever done is individual and unique, even the fanfic. Because nobody is going to portray that character’s quirk or speech pattern quite like you do, nobody is going to structure your plot or your imagery like you. Because there is only one of you. Only one of me. Even if we're all writing fanfiction, no one's story sounds like anyone else's,  or is told like anyone else's.

That is the reality of being a storyteller.

And strangely enough, the woman who opened my eyes to this was a psychic from a psychic fair I attended, who told me that Mark Twain was standing over her shoulder admonishing me to stop fretting and just get something on the page – but to never forget character. My strength, she said that he said, was in creating memorable, well written, well rounded characters. And that my book should focus on that above concerns of plot or pacing.

Well, okay. If Mark Twain says that’s what my strength is, then that’s what my strength is, right? Who am I to argue with the ghost of Mark Freaking Twain?

An accident with a bike and a car on a rice patty left me immobile for six weeks in 2006, and I decided that if I was finally going to write this original short story to sell – especially since I would need income, as the accident made it obvious that I would never be able to dance professionally, and probably would never be able to tread the boards in musicals – now was the perfect time. I was going to stop fighting my fannish training and write.

I cherry picked and combined my favorite aspects of Doctor Who, Stargate: Atlantis, Torchwood, The Farm Show/The Drawer Boy, and my own melancholy experiences with culture shock and liminal-living in a foreign culture, and wrote a novella titled (Back). It was a character study of a woman named Evvie who, through an accident of time travel, meets the future version of her infant daughter Gwen. And realizes she doesn’t like the woman her daughter will become. It was a story about accepting people for who they are, instead of who you wish they would be, and had a strong undercurrent of the turbulence I was going through in trying to figure out my own sexuality and that I wouldn't have the future in performance that I had been working toward since I was four.

Deciding that I would worry about where I would try to publish the story after it had been written, I sat down and wrote what ended up being (at least for me) a pretty standard-length fanfic: 18,762 words. It was only after I had finished the story that I looked up what category that put it in – Novella. Using paying  reputable markets, like Duotrope, the Writer’s Digest, MSFV, Absolute Write, SFWA, my local Writer’s Union, Writer Beware, I realized that I had shot myself in the foot.

It seems like nearly nobody publishes novellas anymore. SF/F and Literary Fiction seem to be the last two bastions of the novella, and the competition to get one published is fierce.  The markets that accepted SF/F novellas was vanishingly thin I had to do a lot of Googling and digging to figure out who I could submit to with an unagented/unsolicited SF/F novella. If I recall correctly, it was only about ten publications. I built an excel database and filled it with all the info I found.

I put together a query letter and sent it off using my database to guide me. Most of the rejections were kind, and said that the story was good, just too long/too short/ too sci-fi-y/not sci-fi-y enough. Only one market offered on it – for $10 USD. Beggers couldn’t be choosers, even if I had hoped to make a little more than ten bucks, and I accepted.

It was a paid professional publication, and that’s what mattered to me. I had the first entry on my bibliography, and something to point to in my query letters to prove that I was a worthy investment for a publisher/agent.

And energized by this, and now aware that length really does matter, even in online-only publications, I started writing other shorts to pad out my bibliography more.

I tried to tailor these ones to what my research told me the "mainstream industry" and "mainstream audiences" wanted, and those stories? Those were shot down one after the other. I was still writing fanfiction at the time, too, and those stories were doing well, getting lots of positive feedback, so why weren’t my stories?

In 2007 I returned to Canada and Academia, frustrated by my lack of sales, desperate to kick off my publishing career, and feeling a creative void left by having to depart theatre because of my new difficulties walking. I wrote my MA, and decided that if (Back) was the only original story that people liked, then I’d try to expand it into a novel.

Over the course of two years I did my coursework, and  read everything there was to read about how to get a book deal, started hanging out in writer’s/author’s groups in Toronto and met some great people who were willing to guide me, and expanded (Back) into the novel Triptych. I kept reminding myself what Mark Twain said – character was my strength, the ability to make the kind of people that other writers wanted to write stories about, a skill I’d honed while writing fanfic. Because that's what we do, isn't it? Sure, we write fix-its and AUs and fusions and finish cancelled shows, and fill in missing scenes, but what we're all really doing is playing with characters, isn't it? Characters draw us to fanfic, and characters keep us there. Characters is what we specialize in.

Fanfic had taught me to work with a beta reader, so I started asking my fic betas if they'd like a go at my original novel. Fellow fanfic writers, can I just say how valuable editors and beta readers in the community are? These are people who do something that I've paid a professional editor thousands of dollars to do for free out of sheer love. Treasure your beta readers, folks. Really.

“It reminds me a lot of fan fiction,” one reader said. “The intense attention to character and their inner life, and the way that the worldbuilding isn’t dumped but sprinkled in an instance at a time, like, you know, a really good AU. I love it.”

Dear Lord. I couldn’t have written a better recommendation or a more flattering description if I’d tried. Mark Twain was right, it seems. And fanfic was the training ground, for me – my apprenticeship in storytelling.

Of course... what Mr. Twain hadn't explained is that character-study novels just don't sell in SF/F. They say Harry Potter was rejected twelve times? HA. I shopped Triptych to both agents and small presses who didn't require you to have an agent to publish with them, and I got 64 rejections. Take that, J.K.

At first the rejection letters were forms and photocopied "no thanks" slips. But every time I got feedback from a publisher or agent, I took it to heart, adjusted the manuscript, edited, tweaked, tweaked, tweaked. Eventually, the rejections started to get more personal. "I loved this character, but I don't know how to sell this book." And "I really enjoyed the read, but it doesn't really fit the rest of our catalogue." And "What if you rewrote the novel to be about the action event that happens before the book even starts, instead of focusing solely on the emotional aftermath?"

In other words - "Stop writing fanfiction." There seemed to be a huge disconnect between what the readership wanted and what the publishing world thought they wanted.

Disheartened, frustrated, and wondering if I was going to have to give up on my dreams of being a professional creative, I attended Ad Astra, a convention in Toronto, in 2009. At a room party, complaining to my author friends that "nobody wanted my gay alien threesome book!" a woman I didn't know asked me about the novel. We chatted, and it turned out she was the acquisitions editor for Dragon Moon Press, and incidentally, also a fan of fan fiction.

I sent her Triptych. She rejected it. I asked why. She gave me a laundry list of reasons. I said, "If I can address these issues and rewrite it, would you be willing to look at it again?" She said yes. She was certain, however, that I wouldn't be able to fix it. I spent the summer rewriting - while making sure to stay true to my original tone of the novel, and writing a character-study fanfiction. I sent it in the fall. I do believe it was Christmas eve when I received the offer of publication.

From there, my little fic-inspired novel was nominated for two Lambda Literary Awards and a CBC Bookie, was named one of the best books of 2011 by the Advocate, and garnered a starred review and a place on the Best Books Of The Year at Publishers Weekly.

The award nominations led me to an agent, and further contracts, and even conversations with studio execs. It also made me the target of Requires Only That You Hate, and other cranky, horrible reviewers. But you know what? I've had worse on a forum, and on ff.n, and LJ. It sucked, and it hurt, but if there's one thing fandom has taught me, it's that not everyone is going to love what you do, and not everyone interprets things the same way you do. The only thing we can do is learn from the critique if it's valid and thoughtful, and ignore the screaming hate and bullying. Then you pick yourself up, brush yourself off, and go write something else.

 Because a screaming hater? Is not going to ruin my love of storytelling.

But for all that... the day someone made me fan art based on Triptych is one etched in my memory. It means far more to me than any of the emails I ever received inquiring about representation or film rights, or wanting meetings to discuss series.

The lesson I learned from publishing Triptych  - now sadly out of print, but we're looking for a new home for it - is that if I chase what the "mainstream" and the "industry" want, I'll never write anything that sells because my heart won't be in it. I have to keep writing like a fanficcer, even if I'm not writing fanfic, if I want to create something that resonates with people. And if it takes time for the publishers and acquiring editors to figure out what I'm doing, and how to sell it, then fine - I have an agent on my side now, and a small growing number of supporters, readers, and editors who love what I do.

Do I still write fanfic? Very, very rarely. I’ve had some pretty demanding contracts and deadlines in the last two years, so I’ve had to pare down my writing to only what’s needed to fulfill my obligations. Doesn’t mean I don’t have ideas for fics constantly.

Sometimes the urge is powerful enough that I do give into it – I wrote To A Stranger, based on Mad Lori’s Performance in a Leading Role Sherlock AU recently, when I should have been writing the second and third novels of The Accidental Turn Series. And even more recently, I cleaned up To A Stranger  into something resembling a real screenplay and started shopping it around to film festivals and producers because I love this story, I love what I did with it, and I’m proud of the work. If To A Stranger is only ever a fanfic, that’s fine with me. I poured my heart into it and am so proud of it. But I figure that if there’s one more project I could possibly get into the real world, then why not go for it?

The worst thing the festival heads and producers can say about the work is: “No, thank you.” And being an online writer has taught me not to take the “no, thank you”s personally. Applying the values of Don’t Like Don’t Read or Not My Kink to your publication/agent search makes it much easier to handle the rejections – not every story is for every person.

Maybe once every producer in North America has rejected it, I might think about working with someone to adapt the screenplay into an illustrated comic fanbook? Who knows?

That’s the joy of starting out as a writer in fandom – felixibility, adaptability, creative problem-solving and cross-platform storytelling comes as naturally as breathing to us fan writers. It’s what we do.

You may not think that this is a strength, but trust me, it is. I was never so shocked at an author’s meetup as when I suggested to someone that their “writer’s block” sounded to me like they were telling the story in the wrong format. “I think this is a comic, not a novel,” I’d said. “It sounds so visual. That's why the story is resisting you.” And they stared at me like I suddenly had an extra head and said, “But I’m a novelist.” I said, “No, you’re a writer. Try it.” They never did, as far as I know, and they never finished that book, either.

As fans, our strength isn't just in what we write, or how we come to our stories. It’s also about the physical practice of writing, too. We’re a group of people who have learned to carry notebooks, squeeze in a few hundred words between classes, or when the baby is napping, or during our lunch breaks, or on commute home. This is our hobby, we fit it in around our lives and jobs, and that has taught us the importance of just making time.

We are, on average, more dedicated and constant writers than some of the “novelists” that I’ve met: the folks who wait for inspiration to strike, who quit their day jobs in pursuit of some lofty ideal of having an office and drinking whiskey and walking the quay and waiting for madam muse to grace them, who throw themselves at MFAs and writing retreats, as if it's the attendance that makes them writers and not the work of it.

We fans are career writers. We don’t wait for inspiration to come to us, we chase it down with a butterfly net. We write when and where we can. More than that, we finish things. (Or we have the good sense to know when to abandon something that isn’t working.) We write to deadlines. Self-imposed ones, even.

We write 5k on a weekend for fun, and think NaNoWriMo’s 50k goal and 1667 words per day are a walk in the park. (When I know it terrifies some of the best-selling published authors I hang out with.) Or if we fans don’t write fast, then we know that slow and steady works too, and we’re willing to stick it out until our story is finished, even if it takes years of weekly updates to do so. We have patience, and perseverance, and passion.

This is what being a fanfiction writer has given me. Not only a career as a writer, but tools and a skill-set to write work that other people think is work awarding, adapting, and promoting. And the courage to stick to my guns when it comes to telling the kinds of stories that I want to tell.

This is what being a fanfiction writer gives us.

Aren’t we lucky, fellow fans? Hasn’t our training been spectacular?

*

J.M. (@scifrey) is a SF/F author, and professional smartypants on AMI Audio’s Live From Studio 5. She’s appeared in podcasts, documentaries, and on television to discuss all things geeky through the lens of academia. Her debut novel TRIPTYCH was nominated for two Lambda Literary Awards,  nominated for a 2011 CBC Bookie, was named one of The Advocate’s Best Overlooked Books of 2011, and garnered both a starred review and a place among the Best Books of 2011 from Publishers Weekly. Her sophomore novel, an epic-length feminist meta-fantasy THE UNTOLD TALE (Accidental Turn Series #1), debuted to acclaim in 2015 and was followed by THE FORGOTTEN TALE (Accidental Turn Series #2) this past December. FF.N | LJ |AO3| Books | Tumblr

[myheartisbro-ken]

Hi! 💙🌹 Hope you're​ doing well. How's the power reading going? I hope it's not too boring. I once had to read my professor's book because he made it required for the course (kind of self promotion-y) 😐. Anyway, no I've not read the Cursed Child, but yikes...It sounds bad based on your description. I couldn't even get through the first chapter of My Immortal. 💀That's the goth, er uniquely written, fanfic, where the girl loves Draco, right? I haven't read much HP fanfiction though. (Pt 1).

I actually don’t think I’ve read any. No, I read one short one I think, but it was for a crack ship, so I’ll not mention it. ❤🗡 Anyway, yeah. I don’t really like the extra things JK is doing. I feel like the additional school is kind of pointless…I would prefer she just deepen the history of Hogwarts etc. or better yet, maybe just stop adding stuff? I like Harry Potter, so I don’t want it to become distorted. 😅 Probably an unpopular opinion. Idk. I had class today, it was boring. (Pt 2) I don’t know how your semester is going, but at this point (bc we’re almost finished) there’s a lot of wasted time. I hate wasting time. My professor only spent 25 minutes on salient content and wasted the rest. Also, he let people present late–I’ll stop.😥 I hope you and your puppy had a nice day. It’s almost time for the SuperCorp centric episode! I’m excited, especially after that sneak peek/extended trailer. Lena has to know imo. She’s made wayyyy to many Knowing comments/looks. 💙 (Part 3 Hmm, I would be a bit disappointed at this point if she didn’t know. She’s way to bright to not know. Do you think she knows? If Maggie figured it out, so should Lena. 😐 Hope you have a fabulous day and night. 💙🌹😊😄 (End) [Hmm, FMK (if you’re okay with fuck, mary, kill or french? Idk. Whatever you’re comfortable with: Kate Foster *cough* too hot, hot damn, Red K! Kara, she’d have a bit of a soft spot for you, Alex Danvers, before the DEO, so she’s more of a party girl/irresponsible). 😄

Hey!! 🌹  I haven’t started reading (shame) but I did write the article I had to for Monday and I’m pretty proud of that because I was really thinking I couldn’t do it, but then I sat down and wrote it in like two hours. My semester ends in june/july so we’re in the middle of it and starting to prepare for the big group project, and I only have two classes, so it’s kind of random for me, not really rushed or anything and I only have the cool classes without much to do, so I feel like I’m not really a student, it’s kind of like when you take like a language class after school. I hate wasting time but more in the sense of I don’t like when there isn’t class because a bunch of people decided to have a party or when the end of the class becomes a filler wasted hour because everyone decided to leave to go drinking. Since my classes are at night, this happens a lot, especially on Friday. Next month I’ll have morning classes on Saturdays, those are the worst.

My immortal is the greatest thing ever written because it’s the worst thing every written. Does that make sense? It’s ridiculous and hilarious and really really bad. So it’s amazing. It’s that thing that I think everyone should read to know what’s the worst thing someone could possibly write, it’s good to have that comparison. and when you write it’s good to have that in your head like ‘this is terrible, but at least it’s not My Immortal’ and then you keep that in mind to not do that, like you work as much as you can to not make another version of it. Yet it’s kind of brilliant because it’s so bad there are articles to this day, actual journalists, people who get paid to write and analyze stuff, debating if it was made on purpose to be the worst thing ever written and if the author is a character herself, or if it’s for real and the girl is just that brain damaged as to have a love triangle between her self-insert and Draco and Harry “Vampire” Potter and at the same time her self-insert with Draco and Satan/Voldemort who is not the same person as Tom Riddle. So it’s kind of epic.

I haven’t read many HP fics, although I did start my fic reading life with them, but I haven’t read anything since my first year of highschool so like 6 years I guess. I do like a good HP AU though. I also don’t like JK making all that shit. I would be happy with just what she was doing with Pottermore, developing the Hogwarts universe and shit. Like eventually release a book of the history of wizards and all, like George RR Martin with ‘A World of Ice and Fire’ she could have written some of the books that are mentioned as the Hogwarts reading throughout the series, or short stories of the Marauders adventures and even their kids adventures like Rick Riordan did with the Demigod Diaries. That would have been better than whatever it is she’s doing.

Lena has to know. Someone finds out, so I really think it’s Lena, there’s only Snapper and Lena to find out now, and Snapper knowing brings nothing to the story, and Lena has scenes at the DEO and with Kara and her trusty sidekick so it’s kind of logical if she does know, not to mention she’s brilliant and close with Kara and Supergirl, which is how Lois Lane finds out in all versions, she’s close with both personas and she just puts things together. Kara is Lena’s best friend (and only friend in the city since no one wants to get close to a Luthor, especially now) and Supergirl is always around saving her and giving her speeches and all shit, so it’d make sense if she knew. she is a genius after all, and she had that alien detector (I think that could come into play) and Kara is a terrible liar. Maggie knowing still rubs me the wrong way, to be honest, to me it reads a bit like an offense to the 79 years of Superman and Super mythology. The glasses aren’t dumb and the glasses are also not the reason why people don’t know, the show was trying to be a bit self-aware and funny and have Maggie be smart and a good detective, but to me the way they did it was wrong and bashing on what Jerry Shuster and Joe Siegel created. They could have made her joke about the glasses with Kara, tease her about it, but just tell Alex that she found out because of Alex’s relationship with Kara/Supergirl.

Lena is someone who could help a lot, the DEO and Kara, by knowing it. I think it could be good for their friendship if she knew, I feel like they both need that friendship, outside of their line of work (and family crap) but not too far from it. And her quips are too good for her not to know, let’s be real here. 

What are your thoughts on this?

She looks SOOOO GOOD in the trailer, I’m… ugh, I love her, she’s so pretty *cries*  also she’s wearing so much blue (in this trailer they are going to the conference and she’s wearing a blue jacket and in the photos of the conference she’s wearing a blue dress) that I’m a little offended no one made a parallel/comparison with her looks and Cat telling Kara to dive. just saying.

oh god, that fmk is hard because none of them are really my type, like personality wise, I’m not really into that whole wild aggression not caring for anything and anyone above feelings kind of thing they all have. I love Kate, like a plus congrats to her parents for making all that but I wouldn’t date her, so definitely fuck. Although we don’t really know much about Kate, so I could be wrong on that, but she’s too… intense in most of the ep so. Party girl! Alex has room for a redemption and getting better so maybe marry, unless I can take away the redK from Kara then it’s definitely Kara to marry. I’m not gonna say I’d kill Alex or Kara, so…. okay. FMK Morgana, Lena and Kate (take that)

Devil puppy and I hope you have a fantastic day or night 💙 (I don’t really have time to get emojis rn, sorry. heart and flower are copied from you *wink*)

[wellimaginethat]

Safe Haven Chapter One

Title: Safe Haven (Chapter one of four or five, maybe more)

Pairing: John Wick x (female) Reader

Word Count: 1808

Author’s Note: Since there seems to be a lack of John Wick x Reader fics, I decided to have my first reader insert to be a John Wick one. If you have any requests, hit me up in my inbox and I’ll see what I can do.

Trigger Warning(s): Heavy mentions of death. Leukemia. Car accident. Reader’s family is dead (sister’s death is why she is in the support group) And later chapters will mention suicidal feelings, drunk driving, and self harm.

Disclaimer: I do not own John Wick nor am I in any way involved with the franchise. I do not run a support group called Safe Haven, and I am not sure if there is one named Safe Haven, if so; I am not involved with them and never have been. I obviously don’t own you cause you’re your own person.

Summary: After finishing his business, John Wick is left with a decision, whether or not to go back to his former ‘job’. He feels he has nothing to lose anymore, and that it would at least be something to keeps his mind off his loss. But when he finds a pamphlet for a support group for those who have lost loved ones, something tells him to hold off on announcing the end of his retirement until after he checks out the group.

Third Person Point of View (whole chapter, others will vary of POVs)

For the first few months after her death, he had no idea that Helen had prepared for her death much further than just the puppy, and he almost slipped back into his old life. When he’d gone to ‘finish business’ he thought he’d go back into retirement afterwards, but then the thought of ‘what’s waiting for me there?’ and his answer was the dog he’d stolen from the pound. Even with the dog there, he still felt like he need something to do, and at that time his old ‘job’ seemed as good as anything.

And he almost went back to it.

That’s when he got the first letter. Two years and four and a half months after she died. It was a plain white envelope addressed to him in a style of writing he didn’t recognize, but when he opened it and inspected the letter, it was obvious who it was from. And in that moment he knew that the puppy, Daisy, was just the first of what could be many little things to keep him from shutting down completely.

John. I know Daisy is probably great company, but I really hope she isn’t your only company, though I know how you are around people. Please don’t shut the rest of the world out, go out and live your life. I would hate if you were sitting alone at home. I love you and want you happy. Your best friend, Helen.

He fought back the tears, he might be a highly skilled assassin, but he wasn’t inhuman, he still felt. He tossed the letter aside, onto the coffee table and leaned back so far he was staring at the ceiling, knowing if he stayed like that for long he’d get a pain in his neck.

The dog jumped onto the couch and, wanting John’s attention, stepped on his lap and one of his feet hit John in the stomach.

“Oof.” John sat up and looked at the dog. “If you wanted attention you’ve got it now.” The dog just stared at him expectantly and John petted his head before sighing. “Come on, let’s go outside.” The dog hurriedly ran over to the door and looked at John, and John felt like the dog was mocking him for not being as fast. “You try nearly getting killed and see how fast you move in the morning.” He opened the door and the dog trotted out, John following.

He actually found it peaceful in the mornings, especially in fall when the air was crisp and chilly. Today was perfect, for example.

After the dog went back inside, John made sure he had food and water. He then left the house and got into his car (that Aurelio had amazingly managed to fix up) and headed out of town to go ‘hunting’.

Somewhere between there and his destination, he noticed the car was low on gas, which was weird because he’d just filled in up the night before and he knew there was nothing wrong with the car and he hadn’t driven far enough for it to use that much gas.

Nevertheless, he stopped at the first gas station he saw. It was a small gas station that some would dare call ‘vintage’, or like a gas station a really small town would have. It was the kind where you had to pay inside.

He filled the car up before heading inside to pay. Behind the counter was a teenage girl who couldn’t have been much older the 17 or 18. She must’ve been bored out of her mind because she perked up at the sound of the bell above the door.

“I had gas outside.” John told her, motioning out the door to the car.

She nodded. “Uh, 47.36?” She spoke in an asking tone, like she was afraid to tell him the price, she watched him with nervousness in her brown eyes, John could see how she was twitching and it made him frown slightly as he pulled out his wallet and handed her a fifty dollar bill.

He glanced around the small building as she fumbled for change, the store had shelves of food and he wondered if he were to look if any of it would be expired. He turned back around to face her again and his eyes landed on a small pamphlet on the counter top.

Safe Haven was in big cursive letters on the front and there was a picture of people sitting in a circle, he picked it up to examine it, flipping it open he found it was for a support group that helped those who had lost a loved one. Absentmindedly he wondered if this group still existed, seeing as how he was certain he’d been the only one in here in some time.

The girl cleared her throat nervously and he glanced up and saw she was holding out his change to him.

“Sorry.” He mumbled and took it from her, hesitating for a moment before holding up the pamphlet. “Do you know if this group still meets?”

She raised her brows, which didn’t match her platinum hair, and reached out for it. “Um, yeah. I think so.” She looked over it and a frown settled onto her face. “Why do you ask?”

The question caught him off guard and he coughed uncomfortably. “I lost my wife a few years ago, and…I’m not coping in the best ways.”

She looked up with wide eyes. “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry! I shouldn’t have asked!” She was quick to apologize and he shook his head.

“Don’t apologize, you didn’t know.” She handed the pamphlet back to him and wished him luck with it, saying that it would probably be worth checking out.

He left then and began driving again, but this time it was in the direction of home, having a change of heart. Part of him believe in the afterlife, Heaven and Hell, and that part of him told him that this was a sign from Helen. And his heart wanted to believe that.

He called the number on the pamphlet, it rang and rang and he was certain it would say the number had been disconnected.

“Hello?” It was a man’s voice that answered.

“Ah, yeah, is this the number for the Safe Haven support group?” A voice on the other end of the voice had surprised John, because he was certain no one would answer.

“Yes, it is. Hold on and let me get Becky.” The man told him, then probably put him on hold. John waited and soon a woman’s voice came on the line.

“Hello, this is Becky.” She sounded like she’d been in her late fifties.

“Hi, I was wondering about the Safe Haven support group.” John told her.

“Oh yes! We meet every other Wednesday night at 8 o’clock.” She asked him his name and asked if they should expect him at the next meeting that Wednesday and the gave him the address.

—–

You had recently buried your younger sister when you found out about the group. You blamed yourself for her death, even though there was nothing you could have done to prevent it. You sister died of stage 4 leukemia that she had been battling for most of her life.

Since your parents died at a young age and you and your sister had been raised primarily by your grandparents, you now had no one left.

Your boyfriend at the time hadn’t been very supportive, but he did suggest the Safe Haven support group…before dumping you.

You really couldn’t blame him though, because if you had been in his spot you would have dumped you too. You knew you were a mess after your sister’s death, and you constantly beat yourself up over it, which just made it worst.

Now, you had been going to the meetings for six months, only missing one because you had gotten the flu and didn’t want to contaminate anyone.

You weren’t sure how much longer you would be attending the meetings though, because you felt you’d reached your peace with Y/S/N’s death.

You still felt alone, but were planning on moving away from New York, where all your bad memories lived. Maybe if you just left for a little while you could move on, and you might come back, or maybe you’d find that you would be happier elsewhere.

Before leaving your apartment in the city, as you were pulling on your jacket, you took a look around. You loved your apartment. You loved it more when you weren’t the only one there all the time, but you still loved it, it was the closest thing to a ‘home’ you had since your grandparents died.

—–

When he arrived at the meeting place, the basement of a church, he could hear chatting. It sounded happy, and he figured most support groups did before they got to the supporting part.

John stood in the hallway sometime before a lady approached him. “I haven’t seen you around here before.” She spoke bluntly, but it wasn’t an accusation and her voice was soft. Nametag said Becky, probably the woman he talked to on the phone.

“I’m new.” John told her. “I called a couple of days ago, for information.”

When she heard this, Becky’s brows raised and she gave him a soft smile. “Oh! Are you John?”

John nodded and she took his hand, patting the back of it before releasing it and motioning for him to follow her. “The meeting starts at exactly six o’clock.” She explained as she lead him toward the chattering noise.

When they entered he took note of about seventeen to twenty people scattered around the room, some had styrofoam cups and others had paper ones. “We have coffee and water over there on that table, feel free to help yourself to a cup.”

Closer to six, people started taking seats in a circle and John followed suit.

Everything was calm until the door was pushed open and a young woman ran over to the circle of seats.

“I’m so sorry I’m late!” You sounded exasperated. “My car died and I had to walk three blocks to get here.” You quickly explained, leaving some to wonder if you really walked or if you had run to make it on time.

Becky gave you a warm smile and shook her head. “It’s okay dear, we were just about to get started, why don’t you take a seat?”

You smiled gratefully at the older woman and nodded, walking halfway around the circle to an empty seat next to a guy named Fred who had been going to the meetings longer than you had, you had struck up a kind of friendship with Fred, who was grieving the loss of his daughter.

[arielmagicesi]

Hi, sorry. So I am new to the st/efvater world, and I've only read one of her books (raven boys), and like I see you posting stuff about her a lot, but only like little bits and pieces, and I feel like I'm missing something and don't understand what's going on cause I'm not really in the fandom; I've just read one book, and don't really know anything about her. I'm sorry, this is rambling mess, but if you could enlighten me a little bit I would appreciate it.

OK I took a while to respond and I’m gonna try to be objective and polite but there isn’t a whole lot of objective politeness in this soul of mine, but I will try.

Maggie St/efvater (I only spell it that way so it doesn’t show up in her tag and annoy people, I’ll just call her Maggie for the rest of this post) is this fairly popular YA author, and she wrote the Wolves of Mercy Falls series, the Scorpio Races, and the Raven Cycle. Her writing is very good (I have some bones to pick about it as a writer but mostly it’s pretty good) and the Raven Cycle in particular has gained a big fandom because it’s an excellent series. I guess you would know cause you’ve read TRB- the concept is unique, it has cool magic stuff, there’s fascinating character concepts, and the teenagers do a lot of realistic teenager stuff like being annoying and cursing and either doing their homework or not, etc. And if I haven’t made it abundantly clear with my posts, a lot of us in the fandom fell in love with the main characters for many reasons, but especially because they represent parts of ourselves that aren’t often represented. Abuse victims who don’t react in a Good Abuse Victim way, poor teenagers who scrape and claw to get out of their shitty towns, mentally ill kids who have ugly unpleasant symptoms, girls who are feminists but whose feminism is a little messy because they grow up in a terrible small town, etc.

Unfortunately, the development of the Raven Cycle fandom online, like the development of ANY goddamn fandom on the accursed Internet, led to some gross pockets of fandom. In the second book, an abusive character called Ka/vinsky shows up, and some heavy subtext suggests that he’s gay and into one of the main characters, Ronan. He’s absolutely awful and monstrous to Ronan and the others, but you know how fandom is, they started shipping it and being like “Ka/vinsky’s just a misunderstood cinnamon roll uwu” and generally being the worst about it. Additionally, some parts of fandom started hating on the two lower-class characters, Adam and Blue, for not always being sweet and nice about the class privilege of all their wealthy friends, and for reacting "badly” to literal abuse and sexism.  so the fandom is a mess, yeah

In the second and third books, also, (spoiler alert I guess? I mean if you follow my blog you can’t avoid knowing this haha) it’s suggested and then made all but direct canon, that Ronan is gay and has a crush on Adam. So, like, everyone shipped it because they’re a great ship and it was pretty obvious it was gonna be made canon in book four.

But Maggie interacts a lot with the fandom online, and obviously the clashing of fandom issues like this with any author would lead to some mess, but the way she treated it was....... terrible. She would make jokes about Ronan being Gansey’s “dog” and things like that. She milked the whole “writing a gay character” thing for all it was worth, and would never really say “hey, Adam and Ronan are a romantic thing” but would hint at it constantly, which, if you don’t know, is agonizing to watch when you’re desperate for any representation of your identity. She eventually said “I realize you guys are used to being baited, so don’t worry, the ‘other kiss’ will be between the people you hope it’ll be between” or something like that. And she would talk about Ronan being gay, but never address whether Adam was bi, and god forbid those words were used in the books. In the fourth book, although they do actually kiss and presumably get together, they don’t talk about it, and they never use the words “gay” or “bisexual.” Her excuse was that she’s writing for a world without labels. Leaving aside that that’s bullshit and a straight* woman doesn’t get to say that when we are out here in a homophobic world and saying our labels out loud is a sign of pride, she actually didn’t write a world without labels. The aforementioned Ka/vinsky is constantly using homophobic slurs to describe Ronan, boys at the private school make homophobic jokes, Adam’s dad makes lowkey homophobic remarks, etc. So labels are OK if they’re nasty and negative and used against you, but you’re never allowed to say who you are out loud.

When she gets called out on this whole mess- or a number of other things**- her response is to block people, tell people “if you are hostile one more time you’ll be blocked,” to reply to private posts by teenagers, to sic her army of clueless fans on young LGBT mentally ill readers, to claim that she’s being bullied and attacked, to make vague posts talking about “callout culture” and how it’s mature to avoid “discourse,” etc. I talked a while back about how I’ve made several fully thought-out posts critiquing her, but when I sent her a polite ask about her next book, she replied linking me to one of my own joke posts about “hating” her, making it clear that she apparently has me down on some sort of list of haters or something. And at least she responded privately, so that her other fans didn’t attack me, which has happened to other younger fans before.

She claims to be an ally, but she only really wants the ally points. She’ll talk your ear off about how brave she is for “writing an on-page queer relationship” as a straight woman, but when actual queer teenagers critique her for the way she writes it, she throws a fit and absolutely refuses to listen. She doesn’t want to do the work.

Additionally, she is writing a follow-up series called “the dreamer trilogy” which she drops constant hints about on her social media. It will center on Ronan (naturally, because she’s admitted Ronan is her self-insert and has butchered his character development for the sake of giving him a life identical to hers and fulfilling her fantasies of driving fast cars 24/7 and being an asshole with no consequences) and she’s making it increasingly obvious that none of the other characters we all fell in love with will feature at all. And basically any plotllines we enjoyed, she scraps (often out of spite?), and any plotlines we hate, she makes sure to write tons about (I’m talking about the magical artifact community. No one cares. We started reading for the house of psychics and Glendower and Gwenllian, not the fucking Greenmantles and their haunted doll babies or whatever).

The fandom obviously responded with like “ooh! more Pynch!” because like, fandoms like ships, but ALSO BECAUSE some of us are goddamn LGBT teenagers who are starving for representation and we want to see that “on page queer relationship” she brags about. And yet, at every opportunity, she makes remarks like, “This won’t be a romance. It won’t be the cuddle trilogy. It won’t have relationship drama, that doesn’t interest me. It won’t be fanservice. It won’t be lovey dovey, it won’t be cute, etc.” No, I don’t want fanservice or drama or the cuddle trilogy. But given her history, when Maggie says shit like that, I get worried, as someone who’s been baited a thousand times before. Doesn’t anyone see how awful it is to dangle representation like this? To say “ooh, look, someone who has the same identity as you? Juuuust kidding I’m not writing about it?” She can’t just say what we want to hear, which is “Adam will be there. I’ll say the word gay. I’ll say the word bisexual. Their relationship will be treated as real as Blue and Gansey’s or as any other relationship I write. Not the main focus of the plot, but THERE.” Because she’s not GOING to do any of those things, because writing actual gay relationships makes her uncomfortable. But she can’t say that or she’ll lose her sales.

And when she says all this bullshit about “I won’t write a romance” she gets so much FUCKING praise from her straight readers who think she’s the sun and fucking stars because their shit brand of feminism thinks all romances are equal and romance is insipid drivel and that a feminist book, apparently, is one token white girl who has a pink switchblade being sort-of in the background of a bunch of rich boys fucking around. I’m not saying I didn’t like that very book and that I don’t love that girl and her switchblade, but Maggie has to actually LEARN and IMPROVE and not go backwards. If she wants all this credit for gay representation, she has to actually write gay representation. And if not, I’m not congratulating her for “not writing relationship drama!!!!” because all that says to me is “yuck, I’m not writing gay stuff.” She says “relationship drama doesn’t interest me” and yet she wrote pages upon pages of Blue’s mother making out with a hit man. Relationship drama sure does seem to interest her. This isn’t her taking a Stand against romance, it’s her finding a way to make homophobia seem cool and progressive.

So yeah. That’s why she pisses me off.

*I know I know, “she’s never said her sexuality! How can you call her straight?” On the off chance she’s bisexual (she’s married to a man with kids), that doesn’t excuse her homophobic bullshit. She’s acting like an asshole straight person so yeah I’m gonna call her straight.

**Here are some other problems she’s been called out for and her bullshit reactions:

-Blue is basically the only female character and has no female friends or anything. Maggie says “well none of them had friends!” OK so why isn’t there another girl in the group? Why is her family the only other women who have page time besides villains and other relatives of main characters?

-Gansey gives Adam a lot of grief for not being fond of Gansey’s wealth, but Adam never makes Gansey apologize for blaming Adam for the abuse he endured? Maggie doesn’t have a comment on this, I don’t think.

-In book four, Ronan and Adam make racist jokes at the expense of the One (1) character of color, Henry Cheng. Maggie didn’t address this outright because “spoilers” but made a post about it saying that it wasn’t meant to be a racist joke, it was a throwback to some random joke from book one, and any good reader would know that.

-Blue isn’t a very intersectional feminist, which is fine, but it’s never really addressed, apparently because “all the characters are damn fools!” Who never get any character development except for Adam whose development essentially consists of “I stopped being prejudiced against the rich!” (and lots of other personal things but still)

Yeah, that’s about all I can think of. This didn’t end up being very neutral but I have class in 10 minutes and yeah this is hella long I just wanted to get it all out. I hope I don’t get shit for this, but you know what, anons? Go ahead, send me stuff saying I’m a nasty bitch and should stay away from fandom for criticizing poor Maggie. I don’t even care.

OH AND THEBROKENBREAKINGSEAS: THANK YOU FOR YOUR QUESTION. I know I answered in a horrifically mean tone but that ISN’T directed towards you, you were just asking! Don’t take my words at face value, I’m super biased. If you’re interested, you can go read Maggie’s blog and Twitter account, or other fans’ essays on this, etc. I’m glad you asked! And thanks for still following me after all this stuff haha. I’m normally... nicer? I think? Thanks again.

[tillie-bean]

EchoDragon Reads: Predictable Pretentious Pokémon Plot. Chapter 2, Part 2

Hi guys, Echo here. I’m back with more Predictable, Pretentious- you know what? I’m not even going to say it. It’s the worst title ever. EVER.

Well, here we are again. It’s always such a pleasure. In this part, Bitchy McF*ckface decides to be even stupider, and even more hateful, and she abuses a canon character, who is so OOC that I’m not sure she’s a canon character anymore. So, let’s dive straight back into this shit fest.

 I looked up at the sky, a herd of Pidove (I am sure this is the wrong way to describe a group of Pidove, and something like a flock is more appropriate but I honestly don’t know so I am just going to use herd) were flying above, towards the woods that surrounded Nuvema Town.

EchoDragon: WHHAAAAATTTTT? The f*ck am I reading?

With the sun falling across the sky pretty soon the skies will no longer be filled with the dumb looking bird Pokemon, and instead will be filled with disgusting, ugly Woobat.

EchoDragon: Why is Bitchy being given a Pokémon? She clearly doesn’t like them. I actually like Woobat, and Pidove.

“Hey Jas, stop looking up and get a move on.”

EchoDragon: I hate this fic.

Josh was a mile ahead of me ad had long since let go of my hand to storm ahead.

EchoDragon: Yeah, I kind of guessed that he’d let go. Unless you have stretchy arms, like Mrs. Incredible.

I have no idea how someone could run so fast for so long, but he was somehow doing it. This stuffy school uniform wasn’t helping me keep up the pace, especially the tie that seemed to strangle me at times. I wanted to reply, but I was panting far too much and was too out of breath for me to speak coherently and for him to hear me anyway.

EchoDragon: What the f*ck? Half of that is completely redundant.

By the time that I finally caught up to him he was standing up in front of Professor Juniper’s laboratory with his arms crossed, and an annoyed look on his face.

EchoDragon: This guy is such a douche bag. Someone think of a good nickname for him. I don’t have enough brain cells left to think of a good one.

“HURRY UP SLOWPOKE!”

EchoDragon: What the f*ck? Why is he yelling? She’s RIGHT THERE. I hate him. Not quite as much as I hate Bitchy, but it’s pretty close. Oh, and you see that comma in the previous sentence? Yeah, maybe we should move it into this sentence. There we go! Perfect!

I bent over with my hands on my knees, panting heavily.

EchoDragon: Gah! Do not want!

I could feel sweat rolling down my face, and I could feel that the back of my shirt was a little moist.

EchoDragon: Jesus, the wording is just making this worse. I said I wasn’t going to review smut, damnit!

I could already tell that I would probably look like a common slob in the eyes of the Professor. But those were the cards I was dealt with, so complaining about my current state won’t do anything.

EchoDragon: S*it! What happened? Where am I? Why did we change tense all of a sudden? Oh, wait. I know. AUTHOR IS S*HIT AT WRITING AND I HATE YOU SO MUCH!!!!!! *dies*

Once I was upright and no longer panting I brushed my hand through my hair, and it had predictably gone from neat and straight to untidy and messy.

EchoDragon: Guys, there were so many missing commas in that sentence that my word processor freaked out a bit. Seriously, it made a weird noise and crashed. Coincidence? I THINK NOT!

I quickly patted it down, so that I at least looked presentable enough even though I knew deep down that this wouldn’t fix anything.

EchoDragon: This writing. I hate it so much. Everything is filler, and when people speak, author doesn’t even tell us who spoke, or how they said it. Jesus, at least you can identify who’s speaking in Twilight! And I hate that s*it.

“Alright, let’s go… in.”

EchoDragon: *facepalms* See what I mean?

“Finally. You are far too slow”

EchoDragon: Hey, author? Do you know how punctuation works? No? Didn’t think so.

Honestly I think the problem is that he is far too fast. 

EchoDragon: Bitchy. Please. Shut the f*ck up.

We both stood in front of the door, and Josh thrust the door open before he quickly marched in.

EchoDragon: Oh, God. Please stop using words like ‘moist’, and ‘thrusted’. They have overly sexual implications.

I followed him sheepishly, trying to keep the pace with him.

EchoDragon: *weakly* The f*ck am I reading?

As he walked through the very… for lack of a better phrase sciency looking building many people kept trying to grab Josh’s attention, probably to tell him he couldn’t be where he is.

EchoDragon: WHAT? YOU JUST USED THE WORD ‘SCIENCY’. MY COMPUTER DOESN’T EVEN RECOGNISE THIS AS A WORD. IT DOESN’T EVEN HAVE ANY SUGGESTIONS FOR THE WORD. I HATE THIS FIC! *dies whilst flipping off the fic*

However he refused to hear any of it, and ignored all their attempts to get their attention.

EchoDragon: I’m fed up of this. I’m going to start a new count. Department of redundancy department. Trust me, this fic needs it. So, I’ll start here, and give it 1.

Department of Redundancy Department: 1

Also, what the f*ck? ‘To get THEIR attention’? That’s not just a typo, that’s pure stupidity.

I just followed him, and fortunately none of them tried to hassle me, since I would probably have stopped and listened to them.

EchoDragon: *as Bitchy* Then I would have yelled and stropped until they left me alone! That’s just what I do!

We kept marching through, all the way until we got to the back of the building, right up until we saw a very attractive looking woman sitting at a desk, typing away rapidly like she was doing something important.

EchoDragon: Speaking as a scientist, when I’m working, I don’t want to be disturbed by bratty teenagers. If she’s working, back the f*ck away, you little bitch.

She was obviously so engrossed in what she was doing that she didn’t realize we were approaching her, which was shown by how much she jumped when Josh slammed his hand down onto her desk hard.

EchoDragon: He did what, sorry? Not only was that so rude, I can’t even, but he did it ‘HARD’? I don’t know about you, but I think it sounds stupid in this sentence. Also, it sounds vaguely dirty.

“ALRIGHT, WHERE ARE OUR POKEMON!”

EchoDragon: F*ck you! If you wrote that sentence better, you wouldn’t have to use ALL CAPS.

They aren’t your Pokemon, they aren’t even mine yet technically.

EchoDragon: We already established that you only get ONE of the Pokémon, not all three. You know it’s bad when continuity is lost in the SAME CHAPTER.

Juniper recovered from her shock and frowned at the sight of Josh.

EchoDragon: If it was me, I’d have them kicked out before they could even take a breath.

She looked like she was going to scream blue murder (which is a term I have never understood) which would probably be very uncharacteristic for her frankly pleasant appearance.

EchoDragon: So, let’s see how bad this sentence was, hmm? Well, we have a very long winded sentence, a random author’s note, and stupid, pretentious phrasing. I rate this sentence: GOBSHITE! 

I had never seen the professor before but I quite expected her to look… well ugly given the whole ‘scientist’ thing.

EchoDragon: Oh, F*CK YOU. NO. YOU’RE SAYING THAT SCIENTISTS CANNOT BE PRETTY, IS THAT WHAT YOU’RE SAYING? WELL, THAT’S ME F*CKED. I’M A GENETICS STUDENT, AND I DIDN’T GET PERFECT GRADES, SO ACCORDING TO BITCHY, I’M NOT GOING TO GET ANYWHERE IN MY LIFE, AND NO ONE WILL EVER LOVE ME. LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING, AUTHOR. YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW LIFE WORKS. IT’S NOT ABOUT HOW YOU LOOK, OR HOW SMART YOU ARE. IF IT WAS, BITCHY WOULDN’T GET ANYWHERE IN HER LIFE. I HATE THIS, AND I HATE YOU. THIS IS THE MOST INSULTING THING I HAVE EVER READ. I MEAN, SERIOUSLY. I’M CONSIDERING PUTTING A PICTURE OF MY FACE HERE, JUST TO SHOW THAT WHILE I’M NO SUPERMODEL, I’M NOT COMPLETELY BUTT-UGLY, EITHER. I HATE YOU. I HATE THIS FIC, I HATE MY LIFE, I HATE UNIVERSITY, I HATE POKÉMON AMINO, AND I HATE EVERYTHING! *dies*

I mean her hair looked incredibly practical and weird but apart from that, she was almost as good looking as I am.

EchoDragon: *reads that sentence and remains dead*

Anyway, I digress.

EchoDragon: *lifts her head from her desk* Author just wanted to sound smart, and has no idea what it really means. It doesn’t work here.

Juniper looked like she was about to scream about something until she noticed me standing behind Josh.

EchoDragon: What do you think she was going to scream about? He just f*cking interrupted her in the middle of her work!

Once she did her face seemed to light up, like I was some sort of bringing of good news for her or something.

EchoDragon: I’m trying to think of something different to say, but Jesus tap-dancing Christ, what happened in this sentence? Did author have a stroke and hit the keyboard repeatedly? Or was author completely pissed?

It was almost creepy how much her facial changed at the mere sight of me. Then again for someone of my appearance (and probably soon to be stature) I will have to get used to soliciting that reaction from people.

EchoDragon: Woah, woah, woah. Do you know what you just said? ‘Soliciting’. Do you know what that means? I didn’t think it was used right, so I googled it. And do you know what it means? ‘To approach or accost a person with an offer of sex in return for payment.’ Yeah. Bitchy just called herself a prostitute.

Speaking of, how old is Jasmine supposed to be? I assumed that she was around 15, but she implies that she hasn’t grown her boobs yet. Now, I can’t say anything in that respect (I’ve been waiting 20 years for boobs), but if she’s supposed to be, say, 11, then why is she constantly going on about how pretty she is? It’s creepy!

“Well, you are Jasmine aren’t you?”

EchoDragon: oh, great. Our first canon character is completely OOC. I hate my life.

Her voice was incredibly soothing, like her voice was literally giving you a massage. If I was a guy I would be all over this woman.

EchoDragon: Get your hand out of your pants, author. I’m trying to avoid the way she refuses to let her self-insert be a lesbian, because I really don’t want to get into that. I’ll let you guys rant about that.

“Yes, ma’am.”

EchoDragon: Are we done yet?

“Well I assume you are here for your Pokemon. But you are a bit early for it. Fortunately for you I got them ready yesterday.”

EchoDragon: Wanna know something? Every time I type, I try and insert commas where they should be. Then I get sad.

Well, that’s convenient for Josh at least. I was going to say something before that man in question interrupted me.

EchoDragon: Commas are a fact of life. Tell me, author. Why do you hate life?

“Sweet, now can you give me one?”

EchoDragon: Maybe if you ask NICELY, then she might allow you to have one.

The second he spoke Professor Juniper’s face lost its calm demeanour, and once again she had a look on her face like she had just been insulted.

EchoDragon: *sighs* Professor Juniper doesn’t strike me as a woman with a short temper. She’s a POKÉMON PROFESSOR. She is one of the smartest people in the Pokémon world. She doesn’t seem like a woman who loses it over little things. I mean, she could be like that, but a more logical characterisation of her is that she is a little distracted when it comes to real-life, but when she is working in her lab, or with her Pokémon, she is so focused and happy. She comes across as responsible, intelligent and a really awesome person in general. SO WHAY HAVE YOU TURNED HER INTO A PSYCOPATH?

She looked at Josh, and the glare she gave him could pierce steel. It was horrifying, this professor was scary.

EchoDragon: Yeah, you should be scared. Actually, no, you should be intimidated. She’s one of the smartest people in the region.

“And why would I give someone like you one of my Pokémon?”

EchoDragon: Aww, yeah! Go Juniper! Shut that s*it down!

Her voice now sounded chilling, and sent shivers down your spine.

EchoDragon: hey! Don’t assume her voice sends shivers down MY spine. I don’t care what fetishes you have, I’m not into them, ok?

It was a voice that I would expect murders to have.

EchoDragon: Will you stop describing her as creepy and evil? She’s not. She’s awesome, at least in canon.

This new demeanour had definitely gotten to Josh, and he had backed away.

EchoDragon: WHY DOES IT TAKE THIS LONG TO GET A POKÉMON?

“Eh-I… well, ummmmm…”

EchoDragon: What the f*ck? You could say ‘Josh stuttered’, and it would have worked far better.

He was stumbling and fumbling his words, as he tried to explain why he wanted a Pokemon.

EchoDragon: Why didn’t he just ask for one politely, like normal people would?

His plan that he was so eager to drag me out here for was falling apart all because of a scary looking story.

EchoDragon: That sentence hurt my head. It makes sense, but it looks like it doesn’t. Do you know what I mean?

That’s pathetic, and it was up to me to fix it.

EchoDragon: Nice. You call your only friend ‘pathetic’, and you wonder why people don’t like you?

“Well since you are only giving me one Pokemon out of three, and you only give out one scholarship then you have two spare Pokemon. So, since you will have two spare Pokemon that you will probably give away, it makes sense to give it to someone that I, the deserved winner of your scholarship approve of.”

EchoDragon: Oh, for f*ck’s sake! Is she seriously saying that she has the power to dictate to someone who is older and smarter than her, and is doing her a favour and giving her a Pokémon, which she apparently couldn’t do on her own? Great. I hate this fic, and I really hate Bitchy. Please tell me that Juniper drop kicks her out of the lab.

I explained Josh’s plan concisely,

EchoDragon: and repetitively, because you used the same sentence twice in your little speech.

Making the decision to pretend it was mine.

EchoDragon: so you’re a plagiarist, now? Why am I not surprised.

For some reason I thought that would go over better with this angry, female Pokemon Professor.

EchoDragon: Why did you have to emphasise that she’s a woman? It’s not that unusual to find female scientists, you know. We’re two a penny!

And as luck would have it, it did. Juniper was once again smiling as she looked at me.

EchoDragon: Why is Juniper in love with Bitchy? Then again, why is everyone in love with her? She’s not a nice person.

“Well, I have never done it before but given your ridiculous scores in the tests for this scholarship I think I can bend the rules, but it will be our little secret.”

EchoDragon: Why are you letting this little f*ckwit dictate to you? You’re so important, you’re practically royalty!

Juniper winked at me after she spoke. What the hell does she think I am, a five year old or something? Don’t patronize me you bipolar nerd.

EchoDragon: WHAT DID YOU JUST CALL HER? NOPE. I AM SO DONE. YOU ARE CALLING ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT PEOPLE IN THE UNOVA REGION A BIPOLAR NERD. I AM A NERD, AND I AM OFFENED. BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY, YOU ARE USING A MENTAL ILLNESS TO INSULT SOMEONE WHO IS BETTER THAN YOU. DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW HORRIBLE THAT IS? I HATE YOU! I’M IN A RAGE! THIS IS THE MADDEST I’VE EVER BEEN! *begins swinging a cactus around* F*CK THIS S*IT! I HATE IT, I HATE IT, I HATE IT!

                    TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES. PLEASE STAND BY.

 EchoDragon: Have you ever been so mad you started swinging a cactus? Word of warning: Don’t do it. It hurts. But she deserved it! Jesus Christ, how rude can you get, I mean- I’m calm. It’s all fine. So, back to the fic?

The professor stood up, and opened one of the draws in her desk before pulling out three pokeballs.

EchoDragon: Yeah, that’s a really bad typo. This is why there’s a thing called proof reading, author.

She walked in front of her desk, and held the balls up in the air.

“Well, you will get to pick one of these three Pokemon.”

EchoDragon: Everyone says ‘well’ when they start speaking, for some reason. It sounds stupid.

Juniper smiled as she dropped all three Pokeballs onto the ground at the same time. Once the balls fell down they seemed to react to the impact, and they all opened.

EchoDragon: because DRAMA!

Once they were opened the three balls released three small and unique Pokemon that all cried out in unison.

EchoDragon: ‘Ahhhh! It’s a Mary Sue! Run for your lives!’

These Pokemon were an orange coloured pig, a blue sea otter sort of thing and a green legged snake.

EchoDragon: What? ‘a blue sea otter sort of thing’? Are you kidding me?

I knew what these Pokemon were, their names are Tepig, Oshawott and Snivy.

EchoDragon: Of course she knows what they are called! She knows EVERYTHING! Bitch.

“I would love to do this more officially but hey, you are the one that came here early.”

EchoDragon: Umm, OOC Juniper? You could make it more official. You call the shots here, not that bimbo.

I stood there, weighing up the pros and cons of each Pokemon. This was an important decision that I would have to make, which would literally affect everything.

EchoDragon: Oh, f*ck you! I’m sorry, but this is going to drag out forever, and then she’ll pick the cutest one, because she could never have a snake or a button-nosed Pokémon!

However, Josh didn’t seem to understand the gravity of the situation and without thinking rushed over towards the three Pokemon. He was smiling as he picked up the Oshawott and its Pokeball.

EchoDragon: He probably DID think of it, Bitchy. You just didn’t care, and you would mock his choice whatever he chose.

“Alright then, I pick this one. Thank you creepy Professor. I would love to stick around but i have places to go and people to see. Bye bye.”

EchoDragon: WHY DO YOU HAVE NO RESPECT FOR THE WOMAN WHO HAS JUST GIVEN YOU A POKÉMON? Oh, right. This isn’t Professor JUNIPER. This is Professor Stupider. Never mind.

He was already rushing towards the door as he finished speaking, which was the norm for him. However Professor Juniper was going red, and once again looked like she was about to kill someone. This lady was so schizophrenic it was worrying. She turned back to me, and her face was now sympathetic looking. How the hell does one person go from extremes so damn quickly?

EchoDragon: *Stands up*

*rages silently*

*flaps hands a bit*

*sits back down*

I… don’t care for that.

“Sorry about that Jasmine. Why do you associate with someone so rude? You were supposed to get to pick first. I thought that rude child would realize that.”

EchoDragon: He’s the only person who will associate with Bitchy. Not the other way round.

“It’s fine, I wasn’t going to pick the Oshawott anyway, by my analysis it is not the strongest of the three.”

EchoDragon: I hope she’s not saying what I think she’s saying…

I wasn’t lying. From my quick analysis of the three I had quickly come to the conclusion that there was one Pokemon that was significantly better than the other two.

EchoDragon: F*ck. She was saying what I thought she was saying. Well, let me tell you something, Bitchy. THAT IS NOT HOW POKÉMON WORK. You cannot just look at a Pokémon, and instantly know if they’re strong. The only way you can really measure the ability of a Pokémon is by actually battling with them. You are a liar, and I hate you.

I smiled, and walked over towards the two pokemon. I knelt in front of the Tepig and picked it up in my hands. Once I picked it up it smiled, obviously aware of what me picking it up meant. I held it in my right hand as I picked up its Pokeball and stood up. I looked over a Juniper.

EchoDragon: I f*cking hate this. I don’t care about any of this. This is so BORING. You hyped this up for two f*cking chapters, and made it seem like the biggest decision she would ever make, yet now she’s saying that she would only choose a strong Pokémon. Twat.

“I pick the Tepig”

EchoDragon: Called it!

Well guys, there we have it. After two chapters, we finally have the tiniest hint that this is a Pokémon fic. I’m really pissed off. The only thing that got me through this was two of my flatmates doing a very dramatic reading of the last scene. So I didn’t suffer alone!

So, I’m sure many of you are wondering: Is Bitchy a Mary Sue? Well, yes. Yes she is, kids. When I took the Mary Sue litmus test, Bitchy gained a grand total of… 110! She is most definitely a Mary Sue.

Thanks for reading, guys! At some point in the past week, I surpassed 200 followers, so I’m going to do a thing ASAP, which might be fun? Keep a lookout for it!

Bye for now, puddings!

 ~Echodragon