#disclaimer im not saying every gay person needs to come out esp if its not safe its just...

[voidinmexx]

SIX OF CROWS COLLEGE/MODERN AU???

(even tho technically they'd all be in highschool following cannon age)

shut up.

oh lord

i love imagining my traumatized little characters in happy worlds,

background knowledge:

grisha arent a thing in this au and there is no current wars

Dorm Arrangements:

Inej and Nina requested rooms together the same day they could, Kaz managed to get a room alone and so did Wylan. Matthias doesn't go to college nor does Jesper.

disclaimer:

i will write more lore about this collige au esp jesper and wylan because we need more gay men in healthy loving relationships

(its me im the gay men)😭

"Hey, Kaz!"

The boy, who was previously watching a particularly ugly bird, looked up to see Inej and Nina. Both of the girls wore matching sundresses.

The five were going swimming today. Although Ketterdam was known for it's dreary and bleak weather, it was summer which meant they got three whole days out of the month of August to enjoy a sunny day.

"Where's Jesper and Matthias?" Inej asked Kaz, as if he could telepathically communicate with the two idiots.

"I think Matthias is meeting us at the watering hole," Nina chimed in. She was typing away furiously on her phone and every so often a curl would fall in front of her eyes and she would angrily push it away, only for gravity to drag the curl right back where it fell before.

Suddenly, a loud chime startled the group, well, not really. Kaz did not only jump but also let out a little yelp as his phone went off. Inej and Nina laughed until they were both a wheezing mess.

"Oh. My. God." Kaz could barely make out the girl's out of breath words. Before she could elaborate, Nina began to have another laughing

fit.

"It startled me, that was all." Kaz grumbled, crossing his arms and pulling out his phone angrily. He had been gifted the device from Inej, it was a Christmas gift. Kaz, ever the old man in a young adult's body, had no clue on how to work the damn thing. Currently, it was the ringer that was giving him hell but last week iMessage was kicking his ass.

"Jesper texted me," he said, "He's asking if we mind if he brings an extra person."

"Jesper?" Nina asked, "With a date?"

Inej, the ever loving and gracious friend, smacked Nina's arm. The latter gasped dramatically and pretended to cradled her arm.

"Don't be rude. It's probably just some poor person Jesper wanted to drag along on an adventure," she shuddered and Kaz shook his head, "He does that too much."

"I agree, we should say no."

"What?" Inej interjected, even Nina raised an eyebrow at Kaz's suggestion, "Let them come it'll be fun. Maybe we can make a new friend!"

Kaz, however, did not see Inej's point.

Nevertheless, he texted Jesper and told him the stranger could come. The things he did for that girl.

Originally, Kaz met Nina junior year of highschool.

She had just moved from Ravka and they were paired together for a science project. The project was complex, it was meant to show an overall understanding of what they learned that year. The two extensively worked on it for two months and proudly presented it. Although they never became "friends" in highschool, both kept contact and Kaz even showed up at Nina's 18th birthday.

"Sorry I missed your sweet sixteen," he said as he handed Nina his gift, "I didn't realize those were an important thing to you." Kaz shrugged, Nina noticed, as he said the last part. I didn't realize those were an important thing to you. He cared, Nina realized that day, he acted like he didn't but he definitely did. Before she was sent to Ketterdam she was not the most popular kid on the playground. Friends were hard to make when you get singled out by someone many people look up to.

For Nina, Kaz was a breath of fresh air. Not that she would ever let him know that. He might get violent.

Behind them, the three could hear a car pulling up. Jesper's light blue Honda Civic parked poorly in a spot nearby. His face peeked over the roof of his car and he began wavely excitedly when he saw his friends. The passenger side door opened "Uhm, where are my keys?"

Kaz, who had been watching this for a second stepped up. In his fingers, the keys swung lazily.

"I'm driving."

Jesper groaned as Kaz forced him out of the truck. There was no arguing with a brick wall.

After Jesper almost ran into a dear, Kaz would not let Jesper drive in a car that he also was in. The group laughed and gossiped on the way to the watering hole, when they arrived Kaz was voted as designated Spot Finder. He was not swimming so he was tasked with finding a place for all their stuff and making sure it's not stolen.

ok im gonna edit this later and add im so sornee rn and CAN NOT breathe😭

[sanchoyo]

thinking abt that text post I rbed like a week or so ago that was like abt being thankful for older butches existing in public. and I cant stop thinking abt it.

like retail def made me more evil and the job itself was miserable but one thing I did like abt working at walmart was the sheer amount of gay ppl there. specifically on my morning team there were SO many older butches. so many. like there were maybe 10-15 of us there on most days on that team and out of us 7-8 were gay and like 5 were older butches it was incredible. im talking like 50-70 yr olds that would tell me they loved my hair and my energy and my weird little pins. they would bring me donuts n tell me abt their wives (actually several couples worked on the team too...so wonderful to see gay love in public)

my manager was even a lesbian and I met her grown sons and her wife once and seeing older gay ppl doing well and thriving and having familes. idk man something abt that.

the other week me and my mom were out shopping and I met one of my cousins for the first time (we have a LOTTTT of cousins on her side of the family so this isnt unusual for there to be ones I've never met, I joke that we're related to everyone in the state, lol) and this was a man older than my mother, shopping with his husband, and my mom told me he was basically the first family member she can recall coming out, like back in the EIGHTIES. we live in such a conservative area and I'd never even heard of this guy, but he's related to us and has been so brave and living his truth for so long...idk I've just been emotional abt this lately.

I wish there was a non-weird way to reach out to older queer ppl and be like. thank you. thank you for existing publicly it means everything to me. I need them to know how much it means to see that.

and I try my best to do the same around my younger cousins too, to use the word lesbian and tell them its a good thing to love who you love and that ill always be there for them too even if some ppl in our extended family are homophobic, that theres more ppl who will love and accept them.

and my sister was telling me she met an older man at the salon who was telling her abt his husband, and my sister was telling her salon lady abt her gf at the same time, and the salon lady was being so sweet abt it.

and idk. im emo about it. I felt so isolated as a young preteen when I first realized I liked women bc I thought there was really no one like me around here. everyone was a christian and id heard a lot of ppl who said they loved me say gay ppl go to hell and. I was so scared theyd hate me and that I would be alone... and its like. no. older queer ppl have been here this whole time. and there will always be people that are accepting, and a lot of the reason my family was okay with it is because of older gay ppl. one of my moms old best friends at the time came out as a lesbian a few yrs before I did and I KNOW that impacted my moms opinion abt gay ppl, bc that lady was amazing and I actually still have a lot of ppg toys she would give us as kids.

im so thankful for every older gay person. I've been out for like 10 years now and I'm still choked up anytime I meet an older queer person... ;_;

[normal-thoughts-official]

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMeHHDBpb/

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMeHHCTwq/

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMeHHUxHb/

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMeHHDxww/

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMeHHCtVm/

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMeHHCvo3/

She's hilarious but there's two videos where she starts to speak more mumblingly

ok first of all these are brilliant and i'm losing my mind and i love you, thank you for curating these to me.

i will transcribe them in a bit but i just felt the need to leave this "little" (it's long sorry) note:

as someone who's been raised catholic i just want to say that she is pretty wrong about almost everything she said about catholics, and i say that as someone who hates catholicism with my whole mind body and soul and who's been traumatized by this stupid fucking faith to the point where i can't get into a church without breaking into sobs dauihdasiuh. the catholic guilt is real but catholics are absolutely allowed to divorce and use contraceptives, and also have sex before marriage. the first one is met with some guilt esp from women altho honestly i think it's more due to mysoginist reasons than religious reasons, and the second and third ones are commonpractice and if you say that it's wrong and bad everyone will think you're a fucking weirdo

and even with the divorce thing, while the guilt is there (im pretty sure half the reason my mom doesn't divorce is because she would feel guilty about it, although again, i feel like that's got very little to do with religion and way more with internalized mysoginy), i cannot stress enough that divorce is allowed, almost everyone i know has divorced parents and they're all catholics. the church's official position is kinda weird (as of now pope francis basically said that it's "morally necessary" in some cases but he also referred to ppl who divorced and remarried as "imperfect", but like, it hasn't been forbidden for years, so much so that people get second marriages at catholic churches literally all the time, and i kinda feel like ppl overestimate how much ppl care about what the pope says. at least here in latam, cuz we've always kind of freestyled religion since it was imposed on us anyway, but like... in my experience the average catholic practitioner is INCREDIBLY less conservative than the vatican and i feel like most people don't even know what the pope says or doesn't say. and i'm saying that as someone whose grandfather almost became a priest and only gave that up because he fell in love with my grandmother, and he's been a ferverent catholic his entire life. also two of his kids divorced, one married a divorced woman, one is gay and living together without marriage with his divorced boyfriend, one never married, and one had two kids before marriage which necessarily means that they fucked, and none of that was ever a problem to him. oh, also, my dad had divorced AND he was a buddhist when him and my mom married. currently he is a spiritist)

i think it might be possible that u technically have to ask for "permission" to the church to remarry in church, but in practice i think it's more of a ritualistic thing than actually asking for permission, cuz i've never met a single person who had them say no. it was pretty much "hey local bishop guy so my husband sucked and we divorced can i marry again" "sure lol". obviously it sucks that you even have to ask, but it's nowhere near as strict as people seem to think

the contraceptive thing is also absurd. like i cannot stress enough that my family would absolutely flip if they found out i DIDN'T use contraception. that was always something that my family reinforced very strongly, ESPECIALLY my grandpa. i've never met a single catholic who does not teach their kids to use contraceptives. my high school was catholic (literally named the Holy Cross, fun times, although they didn't impose the faith or anything. in fact almost half of the students in that school are jewish, but like, still, there was a priest in the school board) and we were taught to use contraceptives, put the condom in a banana and the whole pizzazz during biology class

like yeah the bible says not to but it also says not to mix different fabrics and that doesn't mean it's actually a thing that's reinforced in most catholic communities doaihdaj at least not here in latam. in here non-catholic christians are actually way more hardcore about the puritanism rules than catholics are, particularly evangelicals, which are kind of overtaken the catholics' traditional role of being colonialist fuckers as they are mostly from the US so they come to further US imperialism through religion here. watch out catholic church they're coming for ur crown

and even outside of puritanism, "non practicing catholics" are absolutely a thing like ppl who are catholic but don't even pray or go to church, much less care about that shit douahdsaohj so like the stereotype that all catholics are like the very small minority of hardcore catholics is like the stereotype that every muslim lives by the ultra-conservative muslim rules. it's not true and it's stereotypical and taking the minority ultra conservatives to be the rule when they are not

there's also the fact that there are many different currents of thought inside the catholic church (a little bit like with judaism although way less flexible than judaism is), some of which are very conservative, some of which are progressive. here in latam in particular the teology of liberation is extremely popular (it's the one my family subscribes to, and i'm pretty sure it was actually born here in latam) and it's pretty progressive. for catholics, that is

and like mandatory disclaimer that i am coming from my own experiences with latam catholicism, which i feel is different from other catholic countries - my polish friends for example have experiences with catholicism that are a lot closer to those stereotypes than mine ever were - but since most of the catholic population in the world is brazilian (like me), and second place goes to mexicans, i feel pretty comfortable taking it as a ruler to measure general catholic practices

with that being said, however, the catholic church can choke and die in a fire as it is a symbol of colonialism first and foremost, its proselitism is one of the worst things ever, and even the progressive currents are still way too damn conservative for my tastes. i just don't feel comfortable transcribing something that i know is incorrect and stereotypical (and that in some cases is used to further oppression like with the Irish in the UK or armenian catholics, and i've even had some US-diaspora latinos hear some incredible things from gringos who assumed they were catholic, or, in their beautiful words, "had latino religion". but obviously in most cases catholics are the oppressors, especially here in the third world)

also, her assessment in the third video is absolutely correct. A/B/O IS just conservative gender roles born of christian and catholic imposition transposed to a fictional world where the genders have slightly different names, which is why i, as a rule, hate it dauhdsaiuhdauhda and even though the assessment that catholicism is thaaat much more conservative than other christian religions (it's absolutely not, it's Exactly As Conservative) isn't true, catholicism is still where most if not all of western conservative rethoric is born of, and ugh, it's so refreshing to see someone understand this and put it into words so well

so yeah keep that note in mind but anyway, transcriptions:

[Video transcription #1: in reply to a tiktok question, which says, "now i'm thinking about the catholic guilt that would come with it oh my god". user @Omarsbigsister is saying, "good morning", she then covers her mouth as she starts to laugh, before continuing, "I guess I'm the religious omegaverse tiktoker now. I did not know catholic guilt was more than just sex, I thought it was just about sex, but nO. people who are catholic, if you don't know, they get guilt over every little thing, they get guilty when they eat, they have guilt when, like... [dismissive gesture] they have fun... it's messed up *cut* [mumbling i don't understand, sorry] in which you HAVE to be bonded before... *sticks tongue out* *cut* and catholics, from what i know, uhm, cannot get divorced, so you can't be unbonded, you're stuck for life with that alpha or omega, and then you can't use contraceptives so if you have a heat or rut, good luck, you cannot escape it, and on top of that, they preach abstinence, right, so if you're having a heat or rut in your teen years you just gotta deal with it alone like you are not allowed to be bonded, so, that would be really intense."

#2: in response to a question, which said, "follow up question: if in the real world hijabis are women, in ABO universe would hijabis be omegas of all genders?". the user is shown stroking her chin in contemplative silence for a long time, before she says, "actually, both men and women have to wear a hijab, it's just more visible on women, but men also have to cover from like, the neck all the way down... so like when you see them [mumbling i don't understand, sorry] that's their hijab. *cut* Islam is actually treating men and women, like, fairly somewhat equally, so, I feel like in omegaverse alphas, betas, and omegas would all be held to the same standards, and alphas and omegas would also be held by the same standards but then culture would ruin it, just like western culture has ruined it. for your other question. 'would muslim families prefer betas more, and would betas be spiritual leaders', i feel like everyone prefers betas more, but then also Islam came to like, uplift women [a written note then shows up, which says, "like girls are seen as a blessing to have as kids"], so like omegas would be seen as like, a blessing to have as a child.

#3: in response to another tiktok question, which says, "fun fact bestie you cannot get divorced in the catholic religion even if your spouse is abusive and horrible to you so in omegaverse how would that work?". she replies, "the reason that Abrahamic religions seemingly fit so well into the omegaverse universe is because catholicism specifically and christianity, uhm, all the gender norms and all the cultural norms especially in the west came from catholicism and christianity, they were forced on people, and then you know, people might not be religious, but the norms stay. but now you have omegaverse which is basically just a bunch of like youth exploring the youth through this, like, werewolf fanfiction trope, using all these gender roles that you have in society on their head, so, really, what i'm saying, is that... omegaverse is just catholicism fanfiction"

#4: she looks at the camera and says, "getting islamophobic comments is one thing, but getting islamophobic comments that say that muslims cannot be in the omegaverse".... she then breaks into laughter for a solid 30 seconds

#5: she is shown reading out loud, in a mock-outraged face, a tweet that says, "about to murder tiktok they try to make Ramadan a 'quirky' trend. it's a religious holiday. stop it, get some help. /srsly /g.", then a follow-up tweet, which says, "saw a tweet saying on tiktok they are asking questions about how ramadan would work in omegaverse. i'm done with y'all, just say you disrespect muslims and go". then another tweet by a different user, which says, "i tried to read, i got secondhand embarrassment-" they then break out of character and say, "oh, that's fair," before going back, "if it wasn't ramadan i'd be boxing those people right now. those people should be ashamed to even think that way wtf". then another, which replies, "well i'm not celebrating it, so as a non-muslim, i'll happily box them". then, back to her normal voice, she says, "i really was just making a silly little tiktok and seeing that stuff really hurts... i'm just kidding, i can't keep a straight face. you like minecraft youtubers, what are you gonna do to me? what are you gonna do to me?"

#6: in reply to a tiktok ask, which said, "prince philip was an omega". she slowly films herself as she takes a walk, finds the nearest trash bin, and tosses the phone there, before putting the lid over the box. end ID]

[shitfics]

hi, im a fanfic writer who is trying to break into original fiction and publication. i noticed in the notes of one of your short stories that you were trying to write longer chapters. One of my favourite stories by you, One of These Nights is 90,000+ over 11 chapters. what kind of advice would you give to someone like me who struggles to break over 2,500 words per chapter? how can i work to make my chapters longer and still be interesting like yours? thank you x

Oh gosh, thank you so much! I'm hoping to break into original stuff too, and maybe get published, but don't have much hopes for it yet...still slugging away at my wip. ^^; It's sweet that you hold my stuff highly! And I'm sorry this got a bit long…I'm not good at being succinct when trying to talk about writing things, since I still feel so clueless myself. I’ve put most of the rambling behind a read more. 

For me really, writing longer things has just taken time…not in the sense of taking time to write a story (tho obvs it does), but like, each thing I wrote naturally got longer and longer as I got more used to storytelling, I guess? At this point, I think everything I write is almost too long, so I'm wondering what story it was I wanted longer chapters on…lol. It was kinda like lifting weights in a way, lol…I took a long time before I could get to 90k, and you can kinda see how each story got longer and longer (copy and paste was 12k, synchronicity/book of blood were around 20k, da au was 40k in part one/60k in part 2, and the hyung au was 90kish). 

Ofc I have a few breaks from that pattern, but those were kinda 'side projects' for fun that I wanted to keep short, like the esports ontae. Wherever you're at right now in terms of overall story length, I think writing regularly is the most important for building the "endurance" for longer stories and scenes -- and being as patient with yourself as you can about getting there is ideal. It’s a lot like working yourself up to lifting heavier weights, imo.(And full disclaimer though, my confidence/mental health wrt my writing is generally rock bottom, so I know it's not easy lol.)

Once I got into writing longer stories, I've kinda grown to see writing as having two kinda moods: gut-level writing, stuff you HAVE to get down and are dying to write, and the 'fill-in', less exciting parts or parts you really have to discipline yourself to get through.

For writing fic (especially shorter fic), I know I started with just gut-level writing. And for short stuff, that's generally all you need! I really struggled (and still kinda do) when I got to the point where that wasn't enough to fill in a long story, but I've kinda found a way of dealing it.

I don't know if it's a good habit, depending on how you work and how your ideas come about, but for me, I start by writing as much as possible for the scenes I do have fairly established in my head, then create an outline and fill in/revise the rest. It makes it easier for me to feel like I'm working off of inspiration and not just a rigid outline, so I get a good mix of the story/characters 'developing naturally' and 'not going entirely off the rails.' I will say that I think I struggle with endings because of it tho, since the 'gut-level' stuff for me rarely/never touches that part of the story. I usually have to outline to figure out where I want things to end up or what I want to show last.

For the your chapters question -- I'm not sure if by 'chapters' you might mean scene (since a lot of people break things up that way), or if you just mean in terms of other chapter divisions, but I'm gonna try and address both!

Personally, I don't really think in terms of chapters, if that makes sense? That part comes way later when I'm writing. Like right now, I'll be honest and say I don't have set 'chapter' divisions in my head yet for my wip, lol, tho the scenes might be long enough for stand-alone chapters. When I start a story (either with just inspiration or from an outline), it's a matter of scenes, and then after that, I figure out how many scenes I want in a chapter and what would feel "right" in terms of dividing them.

Usually, when I end a chapter it's either because it's an emotional high-point, it feels like a "natural" place to break (due to a jump forward in time for the next scene/resolution to a current conflict), or it's somewhere I need to change the point of view (if I'm writing a story with multiple). Like, for a high-point, I'd think of ending after the scene in hyung au where Jinki comes out, or in the esports thing, where ontae sleep together the first time. For "natural" break places, it's often a matter of time/resolutions, like…jongyu parting ways before jinki starts japanese promotions in hyung au, or in my current wip, them kinda breaking up for a few months after a fight. Pov changes for breaks are pretty self-explanatory and I could go on forever about how I try to pick which pov to use for a scene/chapter, but I think the most important thing is to use those breaks to avoid confusion.

As far as interest goes -- making sure scenes have enough "meat" to them without dragging can be hard, esp if you're trying to setup a plot. Imo, scenes are interesting when there's conflict or emotional high points of some kind (which can be a lot of different things). Once you figure out which of those you want in a scene, I think it gets easier to write around that.  Like, to go back to hyung au, when Jinki came to visit Jong at Blue Night and they hung out after -- I started the scene just knowing I wanted Jinki to surprise him, because I thought that'd be cute.

So in thinking about what purpose the scene might serve to move things forward…I knew mood-wise I wanted to capture some more of the uncertainty of how to act around each other, now that they're both know the other is gay, have Jinki be torn between making a move/confessing and his fear of changing things for the worse, set them up for some messy revelation of feelings in the next scene, and ofc have them both be horny because how else are you gonna feel being around your crush for the first time in a month.

Once that was kinda setup in my head, it was easier to fill in what the characters say/how they act. Jinki flirts with Jong on air, because that's 'safe' (it can't go anywhere since they're in a studio and it'd be easy to dismiss as not serious since he's in Onew-mode), Jong is defs very

And as another note…. I just think some parts are always going to be difficult to write, because we all have different strengths when it comes to writing. Like, I hate writing setting descriptions, so I don't do it much and generally provide a bare-minimum for scene context -- but when I need more for the purpose of mood or plot or whatever, it feels like pulling teeth. Since it's such a miserable process for me, and that's so long, I assume that means it sucks or it's a real slog for whoever's reading it, but…they don't always correlate.

Not every part of a project is gonna be fun -- which sucks! -- but it's also why it's important to take mental breaks and imo, step away from your story at milestones. It's not great to make yourself miserable for writing, (I say while I doing just that most of the time), but I think going in with the knowledge that it IS going to be hard sometimes can help. The more stories you write, the more you'll be able to hone your instinct for like...if you're struggling because there's something wrong with the plot/scene/prose or if it's just because writing be like that sometimes.

Oof, this got too long, and I don’t even know how much of it is useful, but I hope it might help a bit? Thank you again for the compliment and best of luck with your writing!!