#for some reason today i also challenged myself to write a story entirely from one POV and lemme tell you that hasnt happened in a while

[hipsofsteel]

"I really don't want to write fanfic for Star Wars," I say while lovingly curating my Star Wars sideblog. "Like, I love a lot of Star Wars, but do I really want to put my toes in that particular set of waters? It's not the best thing for me to do right now," I try to reassure myself as I read approximately 183 stories about my dearly beloved blorbos and most problematic of faves, and also have eight separate Google Docs open with story ideas and scenes already jotted down in them.

[notquitedeadpod]

Today Not Quite Dead turns 365 days old!

A little over a year ago, feeling very disheartened and a little depressed, I decided to take the story about vampires I'd been piddling away with in the background of making Spirit Box Radio and turn it into a single narrator audio drama.

When I did that, I came up with a bunch of anti-rules:

I'd only work on episodes when I felt like it would be fun to do so

I'd make decisions about the story based on what was most emotional to me in the moment, rather than letting myself get stuck in the process of writing something with very restrictive plot goals

If I wasn't asking myself if I'd gone too far at the end of every episode's writing process, I wasn't going far enough

And so, the show was born.

This approach is radically different than pretty much every other writing project I've completed, and that's by design. At the time I started making NQD, I'd faced a pretty big set back with SBR and was struggling to work on it at all. I had a very clear vision for the show which at times made writing it very challenging and restrictive as an experience, and when I was faced with altering that vision, though I'm now convinced it worked out better that way anyway in hindsight, it was really difficult. It made me really rethink my entire approach to working on audio drama.

Writing NQD this radically different way was really good for me. I felt excited and giggly most episodes, and it was the first time I started to feel partially confident about my vocal performances. I noticed it was having a positive impact not just on my relationship with the writing on SBR, but how I felt about its quality overall. By working on something so different that required such a different energy, I came to value SBR more, and by the end of the show's run, I was in love with it the way I was at the beginning.

There's also the fact that I absolutely LOVE vampires. I always have. They're my favourite horror monsters, for reasons which are probably obvious to those of you who have listened to the show. They are almost indistinguishable from humans at a glance, they can live among us undetected, for the most part, but they are NOT human. They're different in importnat and unresolveable ways. As someone who has always struggled to fit in, this has forever resonated with me, and for most of my adult life, I've had an unserious vampire project or two being whittled away at in the background.

There were also some problems with how I wrote season one. NONE of the dates, times or ages lined up properly, and I frequently found I'd written myself into very boring, unfunny plot corners I'd have to spend a lot of time reasoning my way out of, which is no fun at all.

Something interesting, but not really good OR bad, is that LOTS of people found the show felt very trans to them, though none of the characters are transgender in canon. I'd not written the show this way intentionally, but it was very cool to see that other people had found this thematic thread buried in the story.

By the time I got to the end of Season One, I had to admit to myself that despite my best intentions, I had written a show with plot and themes. This was entirely an accident, but I was pretty happy to realise it. I also found that this show, something I'd written primarily for myself, had a real audience. This was a delightful thing to realise. You're all freaks, and I adore that for you, and I hope you're incredibly proud of yourselves, and I mean this entirely seriously. I am a freak too, otherwise I would not be able to write the show at all.

Anyway. We're over halfway through Season Two now, and my approach to the show has changed quite a lot. Though it has remained a project that is predominantly vibes-led, I've also found it exciting to spend some serious time thinking about the show's arcs and future and really indulging in making it As Much As Possible. As you will see over the next several episodes, that is So Much, actually.

On this year's first anniversary of Not Quite Dead, I find myself once again disheartened and depressed, because it's the slow slide into the long nights of winter, and as much as I love the cold and the dark, I struggle with my mental health year-round and this particular change of seasons is the one I feel is the hardest. But I'm also damned proud of this show, and not despite it's silliness, but BECAUSE of it. It's made me a stronger character writer, a better performer, and it's been a disgusting amount of fun.

Here's to another year of this ridiculous show about vampires.

Live. Laugh. Bite.

[sweet-star-sketches]

WIPs from June 27th and March 12th, 2023 I'm in one of those mind states where it takes me literal hours to make myself upload my WIPs, even though that's the entire point of this side blog :') Not that I dislike these, rather I received some bad (but unrelated) news today/yesterday and that always ramps up my insomnia. I'm up WAY too late again and my mood has been awful all day, so this was inevitable

It's been a while since I uploaded a completely new design for Starglass Zodiac (as in a completely new character rather than just a redesign of an already made one) and I'm not entirely sure why. Like the last one was over a year ago??? I still have way more to do so I'm not sure why I stopped for a while, even when I was still doing art for this project rather than switching to another. I have a massive folder of WIPs still so maybe I got decision paralysis or something, idk. These are far from done but I did come up with some cool new scenes with them so that's neat!

The less specific or more basic constellations are usually the most fun but also the most challenging to tackle, because it can be hard to make the concepts interesting if there's no pre-existing mythology associated with them, which is the case for both of these and many others. A lot of the constellations, even among the official 88 modern ones, boil down to an astronomer somewhere being like "put a [thing] in the sky" without anymore specificity or reason. Custos Messium is a defunct constellation to boot, but the idea of a "harvest keeper" gives me a lot of cool visuals to work with at least. I'm particularly proud of their sickle and scythe arms that form a C and M, respectively. Plus with the defunct constellations I get to design their symbols :D Not super happy with the bodies for either of these yet, but I like their heads so that's a good start. Horologium is inspired by those awesome looking astral clock towers with multiple faces, but with that in mind I want to make its body more tower-like. In the story, it's the constellation of the clock that was given artificial life after being lost and corrupted by void magic, so I want it to look like the pieces of the tower itself got transformed into this hulking beast over time. Overall I just want to have more non-sapient creatures inhabiting this world for variety's sake and to create bigger threats for the cast as stuff ramps up in later chapters. Defeating Horologium in particular is going to be quite the feat, but I am excited to finish writing/drawing that part of the comic at least!

[aquadestinyswriting]

Hi Aqua! How does your writing reflect and/or challenge the values you grew up with? These could be cultural, family, and/or personal values and beliefs.

Hi friend, thank you very much for the ask. Answer is under a cut since this is definitely going to get quite long.

I had to give this question quite a bit of thought because there's a bit to unpack here. I'm a 90's kid (born mid-80's but obviously cannot remember much of that time period as I was far too young). I think most of my writing reflects the values I ended up with, with only a few coming from the time I grew up.

The values I did grow up with that I've kept in my writing include:

Being kind to people, no matter their circumstances. This was partly instilled by my parents, and partly through the intense observation I did in order to attempt to fit into my peer group. Both Selene and Meredith (being roleplay characters and, thereby, extensions of parts of myself) both try to embody this. Meredith is much more successful at it.

Family is more than the people you share blood with. I was fortunate enough to have a close relationship with the family on my mum's side as I grew up in the same town as the majority of them. However, my parents also had myriad friends that they remained close to that I considered aunts and uncles throughout my childhood. Pretty much all my characters maintain close friendships that become found family at one point or another, though the format of a D&D campaign lends itself very well to this concept to begin with.

The sins of the father are not the sins of the child. My parents did their best to halt the cycles of generational trauma that haunt both sides of my family. They weren't entirely successful, but I did grow up with the idea that mental health problems were just as serious as physical ones and that they deserved treatment and compassion and that I also held no responsibility for the actions of my parents or grandparents. I also learned that it's perfectly okay to cut out the toxic people in your life. The value above is far more apparent in Meredith's side of the story than Selene's, mostly through the lens of Yoruk's relationship with his mother, though it also applies to Meredith's family history. This is also a thing I explore in The Ouroboros of Destiny series through the viewpoint of Llachlan, Meredith's youngest son

There are some values I do challenge in my stories as well. Mainly through Selene, though Meredith gets subjected to some of this as well.

If you're not busy with something you're being lazy. It's not obvious in my writing (I probably do need to hint at it a little more tbf), but part of the reason Selene burns out so hard towards the end of the first half of her story is because she subscribes to this philosophy. I was only recently diagnosed with ADHD, and have come to realise it's pretty prevalent in my family. Unfortunately, the above was my mum's mantra when I was a kid. It kind of still is for her. I'm digging into challenging this through Edwin's relationship with Selene and his attempts to help her through her issues.

It's okay to disagree with my decisions. Until it isn't. The embodiment of this kind of thinking in my stories is Schreiber. I despise arbitrary social rules even today, and I'm having a lot of fun unpacking that through this medium that I love. Now, to be fair, Schreiber's rules of social engagement make complete sense to him and most of the council of Toreguarde. They don't to Selene. So most of her time around him is spent trying to figure out what is okay to disagree with him about that day since, to her, that changes every time she has a Triumverate meeting and is entirely at Schreiber's whim. The only thing she knows for certain that is not okay to disagree with him on is the Edict (and she does anyway, because Fuck The Edict). All else is, apparently, up to chance. What do you mean I'm projecting onto my characters.

That's all I can think of for the moment, honestly. I'm not the best person at seeing all the values and themes I write about, but the above are probably the most obvious ones to me.

[concerningwolves]

A Long-Overdue Writing Update

I know things have been quiet on the writing front lately. I crashed and burned in December (/had been crashing and burning in slow motion for several months beforehand), and I've decided to stop trying to scrape myself back together with the reasoning that my writing brain probably needs some time to simply be a splattered unproductive mess. I haven't even had the spoons to put my newsletter together.

Ultimately, all plans and tentative schedules here could be purely academic (hah), because I'm starting a Certificate of Higher Education on January 27th and that's probably going to gobble up most of the time I set aside for writing. Also, top surgery is now rather closer than on the horizon, and don't yet know what to expect in terms of recovery time. Regardless, here's how things are looking writing-wise as of today, 11th January 2024:

The Kindness of Ravens (Wyrdseren, book 2)

The Kindness of Ravens draft 3 is so so nearly finished. It's also probably what took me out in the first place, so it's currently sitting there, shelved mid-scene. The final climax is done, which leaves me with the aftercare resolution to write, and then I can say this draft is finished.

There is really very little left to do to the story itself. I've got all the events ordered as I want them, and I'm finally back to feeling enthusiastic about it. (Which is particularly nice considering that at one point I was seriously considering pulling the plug on the entire thing!). Yes, I did take on more of a challenge than necessary, but I do think it has paid off and I'm genuinely so excited to (eventually) bring the finished story to everyone. Still don't want to give anything concrete by way of a release date/schedule, though.

The Blood Enigma

TBE got beta-read back in June/July. It's in fairly solid shape, and I've got a firm plan of action in place for it. Granted, said plan is on hold right now and I didn't manage to get the book released in 2023 as I'd intended because Ravens takes priority, but I'm not beating myself up over that (<- said through gritted teeth). Once I finish the current draft of Ravens and give the beta reader feedback another look-over, I'll be able to come up with the time-frame for the rest of the work I need to do on it.

Falling Stars (series)

In more exciting news, once TBE is published, I'm going to start drafting the first book in my (*deep breath*) high fantasy zombie apocalypse environmental horror slow-burn polyamorous romance series (more streamlined pitch pending). I felt like I had more to learn about handling fantasy and series in general before I could tackle this one, and I think the story has really benefited from having time to gradually congeal while I worked on other things. I'm unbelievably hyped to start working on it properly.

Misc. Updates

I'm slowly chewing over two more potential WIPs: first, I've made a tentative plan for adapting my short story The Seal Daughter into a novella or novel set in the same world as The Blood Enigma, because there's definitely more I want to explore regarding transgender selkies and the idea of "seal children" as opposed to seal wives/seal husbands.

Secondly, I've recently been highly enamoured with trying my hand at a historical fantasy, (or at least pulling history into a fantasy setting), specifically one inspired by the Viking age and viking culture. Do I have a plot? Possibly. Or at least, I have a first chapter planned out and I know what the consequences of the events in said first chapter will be. Mostly though, I have vibes and sea monsters, which I think is a great pairing to bring with me into the new year.

[ahiddenpath]

For the ask the fic writer meme!

3, 4, 24, and 26!

Hi Sloane, thanks for the ask <3 Answered beneath the cut :D

3.) Describe the creative process of writing a chapter/fic

I have a neat writing process post here! It basically goes like this:

-Idea dump, mostly focusing on themes, where characters are now vs where I want them to be, what everyone is feeling/struggling with, etc

-Several drafts

Check the post out if you're interested, I included the entire process for a chapter of PdA with PDFs of the idea dump and drafts.

4.) Where do you find inspiration for new ideas?

I hope this doesn't sound too weird, but I'm not a big... Fan of? Believer in??? Inspiration. Ideas are a dime a dozen, and everything has been done before. What matters is the execution, which requires showing up and doing the work reliably- and never waiting for lightning to strike with ideas or a certain mood/desire to create.

Yes, I'm painfully aware that I'm the least exciting human ever, lol!

Generally, my issue is deciding which of an endless pile of concepts to work on. Once I've done that, the concern is effective project management. How do I see this new concept to its completion in a (hopefully) reasonable amount of time?

Allocating finite time is probably the most challenging part of life in general!

24.) Worst writing advice anyone ever gave you?

Ohhh man, this one is really fun!

My blissfully naïve fourteen-year-old self made the mistake of printing the first few chapters of my novel in progress and taking them to high school, where I showed them to my friends. I received an absolute cacophony of feedback that ranged from strange to mean, but most of it was simply... People projecting the story they wanted onto the story I was writing for myself.

The bit I remember today concerned my main character. She was young and had lived a physically pampered but emotionally neglected life. Circumstances sent her on a journey, and she chose a calm, sensible horse as her mount. And though she had only ridden in leisurely group settings, a friend insisted that... Um, well, if I didn't plonk her onto a stallion that no one else could control, I was bowing to the patriarchy. Yes, my friend wanted a horse girl story, lmao!!!

Joking aside, exploring strength in women and girls is the most resounding theme of my writing. I'm not looking down on the badass woman character type, but I am keen to show that there are so many kinds of strength. Obviously this is true for everyone, but women are so often neglected in entertainment, and their stories are the ones I most want to tell.

What I'm getting at here is that you should never mistake someone else's preferences for meaningful criticism/advice. The ability to deliver meaningful writing criticism is learned, and not many people are trained in it. Most audiences regurgitate their own preferences when asked, and that has nothing to do with your story.

If that sort of dialogue interests you, pursue it! But I'm generally wary of seeking criticism unless I have some sense of the person's literary background and how they engage with media.

26.) Which of your fics would you call your wildest ride?

Hahaha, in terms of writing it? Probably Voices. Voices was a year-long exercise in developing character voice. I followed the six oldest Chosen and Eimi through a Japanese school year, writing a journal entry from one of the kids every day. EVERY DAY. FOR A YEAR. A JOURNAL ENTRY.

I leaned heavily on tropes because there was no time to plan, lol! I flew by the seat of my pants for a whole danged year!!!! In a lot of ways, it's my least favorite fic, because there was just no time! But it was a huge challenge, and frankly, audiences love tropes. It was popular with a lot of my readers. It's also probably one of my more shippy offerings?

Seeking Resonance is a stand out for me in the sense that it took me three years to nail the climax and decide how I wanted the last 20% of the story to wind down. THREE YEARS of thinking and exploring and simmering! But I genuinely could not have made a product I was happy with without quietly tending to it. Honestly, sometimes I think we need to... I don't know, grow or learn something or experience something??? Before we can be where the story needs us to be, as a person.

Oh, but that doesn't mean we should wait to start the story! The three years of thinking on it were definitely work and part of the process.

So You Were Alive was an interesting one in that I sat down and wrote the whole dang thing in under two hours. Like, within two hours of starting, it was published, with all the images and everything. At the time, the Kizuna feels were strong. The imagery and some of the dialogue from the first reboot episodes fed right into the Kizuna feels, and before I knew it, I was clicking the publish button!

Note that none of these are my favorite or best fics, in my opinion. But they are standouts in regards to the process.

Thank you so much, this was fun!

[ben-talks-art]

Gonna talk a bit about my first novel!

Since I'm finally done with my favorite fictional characters list I'm just gonna start talking on this Tumblr about random stuff I like or random stuff I make until I find something better to discuss.

Gambit of The Living Weapon, is my first attempt at writing a web novel after getting really into this type of media during the start of the pandemic.

It's an "Isekai" story about a young girl named Evlin who gets sent against her will to a land of magic, demons, gods, and knights and is now forced to learn how to become a mage in order to journey through this new world and hopefully find her way back.

The concept of Evlin was heavily based on Nanahoshi from "Jobless Reincarnation" since one thing that kept crossing my mind as I read that novel was "Oh my God, why wasn't the book about her!??"

I wanted her to be someone who, unlike most isekais, just hated this new world. She hates magic, she hates monsters, she hates being at risk of losing her life every time she steps foot outside her house... Basically, just someone who hated being in my story and desperately wanted to return home.

But I also wanted her to be someone who the reader would have fun following. I tried to give her a very sarcastic sense of humor as her coping mechanism to deal with all the dangers she faces as well as a very no-nonsense attitude so the story could move at a decently fast pace.

One of my favorite parts about Evlin was coming up with her powers. Something I knew from day one was that I wanted her to have earth-based powers since I feel it's the least represented of the four elements, and the justification I used for that was that each mage had some sort of magic affinity and hers was transformation which meant she could transform the ground around her and even herself.

And from then on, the entire novel is just me trying to come up with ways to challenge this character. What kind of threats would be fun to see her face? What kind of characters would be fun to see her interact with? What kind of problems would be fun to see her try to deal with?

For some reason, anytime I tried to ask myself "How can I ruin Evlin's day today?" plenty of ideas would start flowing. I don't know why, I just have a really easy time coming up with ways to corner my characters.

The hard part is later coming up with solutions to get out of these corners that don't feel like Deus Ex Machina, and to do that, I usually would rely on expanding the lore of my world with things like "You see, this whole time there was this really convenient thing you could do to help out your situation!" in a way that felt organic, or by having some character development for other members of the cast so they can help out her situation in their own way.

Sometimes it could be as simple as just listening to her worries, or sometimes offering a different point of view that nobody else thought of, to show why we need others to survive.

The story is basically divided into three major arcs.

The first one "Lost Girl in a New World" is about Evlin and her friends trying to find her a way to get back home while dealing with monsters and demons.

The second one "The Mage's Niece" is about many antagonists from the first part coming back for revenge as well as new ones in the form of spirits that can take over people's bodies, and all of them going after Evlin's loved ones.

And the final one "My Own Personal Hell!" is about a dragon showing up that has a personal vendetta against Evlin and her special magic, and is doing everything he can to make sure all the magic of the word is erased from existence.

The second arc is my favorite by I love them all in their own way. Writing this novel was a very fulfilling experience and one of the things I'm most proud of doing.

There is a total of 300 chapters divided into 29 volumes. If possible I would ask you to give at least the first volume a try and see if it's your kind of thing!

It means a lot to me, and I hope it could mean a lot to you too!

Link to the novel>>

[humansun]

i am v v v v v privileged. and im processing that. AF

Written September 30th, 2022 at 10:54PM

OK. Unpopular but low-key popular opinion - don’t giant words make you feel like the person who’s using them is pretentious? I feel like it’s significantly worse when it’s coming out the mouth of a white man because I already have pre-made judgements there. LOL

I think my white people patience has gotten lower over the past couple events, but that’s okay, because I still have love for the nice ones, but I’m learning how to best protect myself against others and how to keep an eye out for when I am being treated unfairly.

Apart from those random tidbits, today was a jam-packed day. Yesterday night, I almost wrote, but decided to confide in a friend about what I was feeling. I definitely have fear in me about employers mistreating me, so I want to be conscious about this in the future. Toxicity shows up in insidious ways, so being on guard from time to time is reasonable.

I’ve been devoting a lot of time to work because I have a lot of heart, I’m realizing, and that’s good, but I don’t want to overdo it when I don’t have to. Working with the person I am working with now is the closest thing to a dream job. I want to keep doing film, Asian American stories, and I want to grow wiser every single day. There are so many people in the world - that’s what I was thinking about today!

Yesterday night I binge watched random Youtube videos about celebrities being silly and funny TikTok compilations just so I could feel something (lol) and it made me think really deeply about celebrities and people in general. This in combination with what happened with my supervisor calling me out on a mistake I made made me think so much about the Emmy’s or red carpet events or places and spaces where there is an honoring of the most talented and amazing people in entertainment.

To a certain extent, yes. I think that a lot of the people in these rooms are talented and are extremely deserving of their awards and recognition. But, I also think about how much some of them already were set with a certain amount of privilege to even get further in their path. Same goes for me. Being an American citizen has an incredible amount of global privilege whether traveling, living in a different country, or pursuing a career and becoming successful at it. And this is not to say that folks in other countries cannot pursue their own careers and make amazing lives for themselves, but sometimes their opportunities look different than folks who grew up in the U.S. for example. (I am also acknowledging how ethnocentric this whole entire realization could be, and I welcome all perspectives and folks who challenge my thoughts please!)

My privilege is just very salient right now. After watching all those random pop culture videos. Like some of the people in those rooms aren’t even that talented. This sounds so mean, but like! I feel like people in Vietnam or Ghana are so freaking talented and amazing, but they don’t get the platform that all of these dumbs Americans do. You get me. So like, all of these shitty Americans are living so lavishly and while being dumber and less informed about the world, while there are folks who are so bright and can fuck anyone over because they’re whip-smart.

I don’t know. Lots of thoughts. Tonight was super fun. I love love love having discussions about movies, art, writing, philosophy, politics, and society. I learned so much about indie filmmaking in the past two months and I feel like I was struck with a thunderbolt of luck to be able to work on a mainly Vietnamese-American female production. It was bound to happen. Biggest takeaways:

There is an endless amount of ways you can tell a story. You just have to do the best you can to do a story justice.

Once you make the movie - whether half or the whole thing - you will still feel like there are things that are undone and incomplete. 

Even when you finish the movie, you can still feel like: now what?

There is always ways to learn. I love that about Elizabeth. I want to always keep this same essence. Take all criticisms not personally but ways to improve in every way!

Favorite feedback from the night: Don’t let the story answer before the audience gets to ask the question. The reason why this feedback hit really hard for me is because I have been told this with my own writing from my sister and I want to learn how to do this better and I know I will master it one day. Give me some time! Or I guess I’ll give myself some time.

Being intentional about your storytelling and working away at it everyday to craft it into what you want exactly is the best way to make the best piece of work that you can.

I am so inspired. I can’t fucking wait for more life. I love living even when things suck. I’m going to be so great. I’m already so great! Happy end of September. <3 Cue Earth, Wind, & Fire please.

P.S. One day I feel like this blog will be discovered and like..I’ll get shamed or just like, denied from society. But the thing is, the real ones will know that this is really just me writing about my human experience. Get me?

[bts-weverse-trans]

201128 Weverse Magazine ‘BE’ Comeback Interview - Namjoon

RM: “I spend a lot of time thinking about where I am now” BTS BE comeback interview 2020.11.28

The story of BTS’ new album BE started on April 17, 2020 when group member RM announced its production on the BANGTANTV YouTube channel. In the seven months that followed until the album’s release, RM’s mind was full, his thoughts flowing in and out of his head.

How do you feel about the unique approach you took to making your new album, BE? RM: The other members were a ton of help to me. My lyrics made it on the album, but the music I composed didn’t, so I’m really thankful to the group for the music. How should I say this? I feel like everyone is doing a great job. There are so many parts in these songs that I’m indebted to them for. “Stay” was originally going to be the title song on Jung Kook’s mixtape, but everyone liked it so much, and they all agreed to put that on our album. That’s how much influence they had. I’m really happy my room idea was chosen to be the album photos. Since we’re spending a lot of time in our rooms because of COVID-19, we laid out the idea of each of us decorating a room in our own style. I can’t remember for sure (laughs) but I think I’m the one who came up with that. I made a comfortable room, one that’s modern and warm because that’s what I like.

There’s a painting in the middle, and symmetrically arranged figurines. RM: The figures are from my own collection. I wanted to show one of my paintings, but that didn’t pan out. But still, those are the things I hold most dear to me right now, so I let the room embody the things I wish I had, too.

It’s well known that you like art and frequent exhibitions, but how do you feel when you look at art in your home or another space where there are no people, like in the album art? RM: Someone said, “You don’t have to buy this painting; it’s yours so long as you’re looking at it.” That’s my favorite sound bite these days. What I most envied about painters was that, even after they died, their work would be hanging up somewhere, maybe even in another country, still defining that space. Musicians leave behind their songs and videos, too, but it’s only through fine art that viewers in the future are able to completely meet artists from the past. I’m envious that this is only possible for painters. These days I’m trying to find spaces where I can have more relaxed viewing experiences.

There’s a full experience involved, from the time you get ready to leave your house until the time you’re actually looking at artwork in the gallery. RM: That’s perfect to me. There’s art you can keep at home, and then there’s art that should always be viewed in museums.

What effect do you think that type of experience has on your music? You didn’t compose any of the songs but instead participated in writing the lyrics to all of the tracks. Did that experience affect your lyric writing in any way? RM: I think it’s helped me develop a way of thinking using all the senses. I used to be attuned to speech and focus on language and auditory textures, but now I can look at my thoughts from many different angles. That’s why I spend more time studying art now. I’m waiting for the day that it all comes to the surface, like when you paint the base on a canvas over and over so the colors pop. It’s hard to answer in one word if it has a direct influence on my work, but I think people who create music develop a way of seeing the world through their personal experience and their creative process. Painters naturally exhibit their art over a very long period of time. I think it gave me an eye for looking at the world in one long, continuous stroke. So now it’s become a little challenging for me to write lyrics these days. I’ve become more cautious.

Why is it so challenging? RM: I used to have so many ideas pouring out that it was hard to pluck one out. So I would stack them up like a Jenga tower and ponder over which one to remove. But now, it’s hard to even add a block to the stack. I’m not sure why but, when I look at these artists whose works span their entire lives, I sense that the rhythm of my creativity is slowing down more and more. That’s the source of my dilemma. I’m only 27 years old. I still need to wander around and get tripped up a little. But am I just trying to imitate what the fine artists are doing? Or maybe BTS experienced so much in the past seven years, that now it’s time for us to take a breather? I’ve got so many questions, I feel like my hair’s turning white. That’s why none of my songs are on the album. I wrote some, but they were too personal to use there. I don’t exactly like myself like this, but I have to see through to the end in this direction and find the answer.

Maybe for that reason, your rapping has shifted focus to the lyrics more so than trend or musicality. It emphasizes the feeling of the words over a particular format or beat. RM: Exactly. In—was it 2017? Pdogg was talking to Yoongi, Hobi and me about our style, and said, “Namjoon, it feels like you’re becoming a lyricist,” and it really stuck with me. I have a lot of thoughts lately when I watch Show Me the Money or listen to hip hop songs from the Billboard chart. My music started out all about my life as a rapper, so I spend a lot of time thinking about where I am now.

So you’ve started to ask yourself who you are as a musician? RM: I listened to Lee So-ra’s seventh album again today. I keep changing my mind but, if I had to pick between her sixth and seventh album, I like her seventh a little more. And then I listen to the most popular songs on Billboard, and I feel kind of thrown off. Um … There’s something Whanki Kim said that’s been running around in my head lately: After moving to New York, he embraced the style of artists like Mark Rothko and Adolf Gottlieb, but then he said, “I’m Korean, and I can’t do anything not Korean. I can’t do anything apart from this, because I am an outsider.” And I keep thinking that way, too. That’s my main concern lately.

You can feel that on BE. As the members take on more prominent roles as songwriters and producers, characteristics of old Korean music—the kind of music you likely listened to in middle and high school—gradually entered your sound. But your music isn’t from that era, and it sounds like pop, but not quite. RM: The sound has to fit with the whole album so I couldn’t incorporate that feel into BTS songs, but the songs I’m listening to most lately have been Korean. Songs like P-Type’s “Don Quixote,” Dead’P’s “Spread My Wings,” Soul Company’s album The Bangerz. The impressions the songs from back then have left on me, the lyrics from back then and the lyrics from now, they’re different. So BE is both Korean and pop; it’s very unique, in my view.

I think that’s especially true for “Life Goes On.” It’s got a pop melody, but compared to “Dynamite,” it has a very different feel. It doesn’t slip deep into the sentimental, instead allowing the melody to flow naturally. RM: Exactly. The chorus is totally pop, and one of the writers was also American. But the song doesn’t really follow American music trends, weirdly. So I don’t know how “Life Goes On” is going to be received. It’s really calm, almost contemplative. So there’s lyrics, like, “Like an echo in the forest,” and, “Like an arrow in the blue sky.” The song kind of feels like that: It could just float off and disappear. It might even come off as bland next to “Dynamite.”

If nothing else, it seems the song will stick around for a long time. Maybe kids now will listen to it later on in the future. RM: I hope so. That’s the one thing I really hope for, people in the future, thinking back and saying, “Oh, right! Remember that one song?” That’s what my favorite artists and other people who leave a lasting impression on me have in common. One thing common among the songs that have affected me a lot, like Lee So-ra’s seventh album, is that the lyrics they utter in their voice along with the overall sound stick with me. I hope when people look back, my words uttered with the sound of my voice, echoes for a long time in an auditory or visual way, or even throughout their entire lives. But that’s the dilemma: We have all these bling-bling symbols of our success, but we’re not that kind of team.

And yet, BTS’s career path is even more “bling-bling” than ever. “Dynamite” was the top song on the Billboard Hot 100. RM: I was the first one to check our position (laughs) but I didn’t want to get too excited about it. I was scared of facing disappointment so I put the brakes on out of habit, and restrained myself. But on the other hand, I feel like I should relish this moment. This is a once-in-a-lifetime thing; shouldn’t I enjoy myself a bit? But I disliked that sensation of only feeling elated so I tried to be as objective as possible. I was just one small part of everything that made this happen.

It reminds me of that part, “Running faster than that cloud of rain /  Thought that would be enough / Guess I’m only human after all,” from “Life Goes On.” RM: “Only human” sounds so appropriate for me right now. One time, I saw a dark cloud over the N Seoul Tower while I was walking along the Han River. I was with a friend and we talked about where the border between where it’s raining and where it’s not might be, and suddenly, we came up with the idea to run and find that spot. But after running for 10 minutes, the cloud was even further away than it had been. At that moment, the puzzle pieces snapped into place. You think you can go faster than that dark cloud? No. That’s what I realized then. And I just like what Whanki Kim said, that maybe I can’t do anything not Korean, because that’s what I am. I used to work late and then stay up all night when things weren’t working out, sometimes walking from Samseong to Sinsa station, thinking everything through. But now, like the saying, I realize that maybe I can’t do more than what I am.

On Weverse, you said that you gained some muscle from working out. Could the change to your body improve your creativity in the long term? RM: I started to think I better change myself a little, physically or mentally. I’m talking about being steady. I used to bombard myself with challenges and worries and just get over them, but now I think it’s time to find that one sturdy thing and plant myself there. The best choice was working out, and I think it’s changing my behavior a lot. I’m hoping that, if I keep working out for a year or two, I’ll become a different person.

Music is your job, but also your life. Like you expressed in “Dis-ease,” how would you say you feel about your work? RM: This is my job and my calling and I feel a great sense of responsibility. I think I’m lucky and happy that I can solely worry about my creative process. And I feel very responsible to those people who put their trust in me, so I try not to cross any lines, judge myself honestly, and always be professional. Those are the responsibilities that come with the job—the things I have to do and the promises I won’t betray. But if I’m going to do it, I’m going to be happy while I do it. That’s not always going to be possible, but that’s generally how I feel.

Well then, how do you feel about BTS at the moment? RM: BTS is … Well, it’s really hard to tell. (laughs) When BTS started out, I thought, “I know everything there is to know about BTS,” but now it’s, “I don’t know a single thing about BTS.” In the past, I felt like I knew everything, and that anything was possible. Call it childish or ambitious. But if I were to ask myself, “What is BTS to me?” I would say, we’re just people who met each other because we were meant to. But it feels like the stars aligned and a startup company became a unicorn, with perfect timing and lots of smart people. Looking back, there were a lot of ironies and contradictions in this industry. I thought I figured them out one by one, and then finally understood the whole thing. But now I feel like I don’t know anything at all. Anyway, to sum up: My young, reckless twenties. The events of my twenties. There were a lot of contradictions, people, fame, and conflict all tangled together, but it was my choice and I got a lot out of it, so my twenties were an intense but also happy time.

And what about you, as one individual person? RM: I’m a real Korean person. (laughs) A person who wants to do something in Korea. I think millennials are charging into society stuck between the analog and digital generations, and what I chose is BTS. So I try to integrate myself into our generation, try to understand what people like me are thinking, and try to work hard to capture that feeling without being a burden on them. This might be another kind of irony itself, but this is who I am. I’m a 27-year-old Korean. That’s what I think.

Trans © Weverse

[hugespace]

Therapy helps rhett realize that all of those "I'm dead" UFC moves were actually just a way to fulfill his need for physical intimacy at a time in his life where he didn't feel it was acceptable to ask for it, especially from another man. Now that they're both adults and completely different people than they were in college, rhett decides it's time to explain it all to link and let him know that he actually misses that physical contact with him.

It took me a really long while, but I finally finished this one! I really loved that prompt, so thank you so much for giving it to me, lovely Anon. I was initially going to write it as a platonic/romantic friendship kinda story, but it seems I'm determined to write a hundred different first kiss + feelings realisation scenarios, I simply enjoy those way too much.

*** 2,5K ***

Let me hold you

He’s done it again.

Not so long ago, Rhett promised himself not to bring it up in front of cameras or a microphone unless he talks it out with Link, privately.

Especially not as a joke.

And he’s failed already, he scolds himself short after the Ear Biscuits episode is recorded and they’re both out of the room, heading back towards their office.

He thinks he could have just omitted it, shouldn’t have mentioned anything. It simply wasn’t necessary to mull over it again, even with the topic of the episode revolving around their college experience. It wasn’t a big deal, he said it himself, countless times. Every time they talked about it on the show.

So, every time.

There’s never been a conversation in private about that incident or anything that preluded it, never in the absence of people to entertain, never not around at least one recording device. Because why would there be? It wasn’t a big deal. A funny story, s’all.

He’s also never been able to just let things go, though, and thanks to that inability, the lore of wrestling and the “I’m dead” move had to live on. It was an innocent story, a funny albeit embarrassing one – their unofficial brand after all, an easy misunderstanding and a fun little anecdote, not his carefully curated version of what happened, nor a watered-down one, not just a part of the entire story devoid of any feelings associated with it, not a big deal-! And most of all, not… true. Not true.

Rhett isn’t sure if Link has been consciously going along with that wordlessly agreed upon version of what their UFC phase looked like, repressing the truth behind it, or… simply never realised what it meant for Rhett and genuinely thought of it as a humorous yet insignificant part of their friendship in the past.

Most likely the third option, he has to assume. After all, why would Link attach any meaning to it? It’s not like anything actually ever happened, not outside of Rhett’s mind at least. Frankly, he himself went decades without understanding his own motivations, more than once confused by why the memories of wrestling with his friend and laying on top of him felt both shameful and deeply comforting. Why even long after they grew up, stopped being kids, and as a result retired all their UFC moves, the only way he could describe what he felt thinking about that time was longing.

Until therapy happened.

Just like with many different things in his life:

There was something in the darkness, and then therapy shone a light on it.

It was like there were countless situations he navigated solely on instinct, without paying much thought to the reasons behind why he acted a certain way, and once therapy equipped him with the ability to do so, he unearthed an entire deep layer of feelings and emotions that were always there. Just hidden, even from himself.

The wrestling being one of those things.

So, he thinks Link doesn’t know.

And he’s finally determined to change that.

Why now, when he’s had so many chances to talk to Link over the years ever since he started being more in touch with himself? He doesn’t really have an answer; it’s just that after talking about it with such levity again, after repeatedly making a joke out of it, it feels like he might explode if he doesn’t say anything, doesn’t confess to Link what it was really like. And most of all, it feels like the yearning has become stronger lately, and the conversation yet again playing it all off as them being young and silly only ignited it, made the flame inside of Rhett burn brighter, threatening to make his heart combust.

“I need to talk to you about something that’s been on my mind.” Rhett says easily once they’re in the office. It’s not an unsure statement or a nervous plea with words tumbling out of his mouth before he can lose his cool and change his mind. It would have been all that and more a couple of years ago, sure.

But he’s a different man now. He’s not afraid to tell the person who’s been with him for almost the entirety of his life what he feels.

Link, however. He does look unsure, a bit alarmed even, when he looks at Rhett and responds.

“Sure-? What is it? Do you wanna talk now?”

It’s just like him to worry. Run a hundred different scenarios in his head, most of them negative, trying to prepare himself for every possible outcome of a serious conversation before it even began. It’s an anxious survival instinct that makes Link resilient to even the worst that life has to offer and able to face it all head on. But right now, it’s nothing scary. Rhett doesn’t want his friend to be worried, so he quickly says as much.

“Don’t worry, s’not bad. Just something we talked about on the podcast today.” The blonde sits down on the couch and pats the cushion next to him, hoping he appears to be as calm as he truly feels inside and that it might dissolve some of Link’s concern, still written all over his face.

The other man takes his place on the sofa and looks at him expectingly.

“Right. So-“ Rhett’s calmness doesn’t completely evaporate once Link gives him his full attention, but it’s suddenly laced with some nerves. “About the wrestling. You know, in college. And before that. And- Especially about my ‘I’m dead’ move. I’ve been thinking about it, and-“

“Rhett, I swear, if you made me sit down for a talk only to tell me you’d like to make it a part of our conflict resolution again, then ha-ha. Very funny. I’d like to go get myself some coffee now.” Link cuts him off with an unamused look in his eyes and almost makes a move to stand up.

Rhett is quicker though and grabs the brunette’s arm before he can really move, effectively making him stay in place.

“What? No. That’s not what I’m saying. Like, at all. I-“ He realises he’s still holding onto Link’s arm and instinctively wants to retract his hand, but that same feeling that led him to initiating this conversation in the first place makes him reconsider. “I’ve been thinking about what it all meant and why I did that, especially when we fought or you were angry with me, and-“

“Because we were young.” Link quickly answers what wasn’t even a question. “We had too much energy and neither of us really wanted to hurt the other by punching him or- or fighting in earnest. What else would it mean.”

“Link can you let me talk? I’m trying to say something important.” Rhett squeezes Link’s forearm. “So, as I was saying. I mostly did it when you were angry or I was feeling unsure, and I didn’t realise it back then, but- But I know now, that I just… needed reassurance. You know, physical contact.” He explains, looking straight into Link’s eyes and trying to interpret his reaction before it comes.

When nothing happens, and the brunette just stares back at him with a furrowed brow, he feels compelled to continue and elaborate.

“Like when people… hug after an argument-?” His brain almost challenges him to make a different comparison, presenting a parallel between laying half-naked on top of your best friend and another activity people often partake in to make up after a fight. But that’s not- It’s not what he’s trying to say. It’s not like that.

The face in front of him frowns in confusion, blue eyes squinting and mouth opening and closing again, only letting out a puff of air and no sound at first.

When Link finally responds, his voice is unsure, like he suspects that he’s not understanding something right. “Are you trying to tell me you wanted to hug me when we bickered, so you pushed me to the floor and laid on me till I was even angrier, instead…?”

That’s not fully what Rhett meant, but it’s close enough, so he nods.

“What the crap, Rhett-? You're not making any sense.”

“Okay, listen…” He decides to go for a different approach. “We still don’t hug after arguments. We never hug hello. I think I could count on my fingers how many times we’ve actually hugged each other as adults, outside of the show!”

“Yeah! That’s just not what we do! We’ve never done those things, it’s just not a part of our relationship- I still don’t know what you wanna tell me here Rhett.” Link throws his hands in the air in a gesture of resignation.

“I want it to be a thing we do, okay?! I always did, but I was afraid to ask for it so I just took what you could give me without talking about it. Can’t have actual intimacy? Make up a UFC thing so I can be close to you! Can’t hold you when I’ve made you mad? Better lay on top of you till you give up and have no choice but stop!” Rhett pauses to finally take a breath.

“That time that guy saw us- I’m sure you remember I stormed off right after-? I panicked, it was like him seeing us and thinking there was something else happening almost made feel like it was something else, and since I started it, it also felt like I wanted it to be something else. I got so angry at myself for even trying and I never did it again. I’m sure you remember that, too!” Words flow out of Rhett in a hurried and increasingly loud cascade, while Link’s eyes grow bigger and comprehension dawns on his face.

“I know how stupid it sounds. But you know how I was. We were well into our thirties when I still refused to get close to you. And it’s not that I didn’t want to, it was the opposite – I wanted it a lot, man.”

„But I thought...?” Link seems to be turning a thought over in his head. “I thought you just never liked it. That the wrestling thing was about you… asserting dominance. That’s what it felt like at least. Like you trying to act like an older brother or somethin’.”

“No- It was me wanting to be close to you and not knowing how to ask for it. My very convoluted way of expressing love, you could call it. And I’m sorry it took me-“

“What changed-? I mean, what made you wanna talk about it?” There’s urgency in Link’s voice when he cuts Rhett off.

“I… I realised I miss it. I told you, we still don’t really hug or get intimate, however that sounds, and I’m not gonna just topple you and pin you to the ground again. We’re too old for that. For once, I don’t think either my back or your shoulders would survive if we started wrestling every time I wanted to be affectionate. But also- We’re over forty, Link. What does it say about me if I can’t just ask a person I love and have loved for almost four decades to hold me when I need it and would resort to, well, aggression-? That’s not how it should work.”

Link ponders Rhett’s words for a few beats before opening his mouth again, only to let three breathy words escape. “You love me-?”

It seems like the wrong thing to focus on, Rhett just opened up to say he not only craves physical intimacy now, but also struggled with that same need when they were younger so badly, he had to invent an entire intricate system allowing him to be closer, and Link questions the one thing he knows already. Because of course he knows, Rhett’s said as much dozens of times, of course he loves him. But it appears he has to say it anyway, judging from the weird look in Link’s eyes.

“I do, of course I lo-“ The blonde begins, yet he doesn’t get a chance to finish and ask whether Link heard the other part of his confession at all, because at once, his mouth isn’t free to keep talking and there’s no air left in his lungs as the man who was just sitting right next to him plunges forward and collides with him, lips first.

Oh. Rhett manages to form one more coherent thought despite being startled and entirely taken aback. Link misunderstood. That’s why he got hung up on the love confession. That’s not what Rhett meant, that’s not what he was trying to say, it’s not like that-

He feels like he should clear things up as quickly as possible. Logically, he should be panicking, racking his brain for a way to straighten things up, to explain to Link that it wasn’t what he was trying to say without making things worse, without ruining everything and making his best friend feel miserable and embarrassed, until…

Until Rhett realises his body went rogue and started responding without his conscious decision, his lips are moving against the other man’s, one of his hands is cupping Link’s face, while the other strayed away and is caressing his back. And it feels like his heart is trying to break out of the ribcage with how hard it’s pounding in his chest, along with his stomach doing wild summersaults. And he’s not panicking, not at all. And it’s not a misunderstanding, how could it, when he loves Link with his entire soul, with his whole being- And exactly like that, it hits him. Starting this conversation, he thought he already understood everything, but he didn’t– there was still that last puzzle piece missing.

They come up for air, panting from the intensity of that first kiss, foreheads flush with each other. Rhett finishes the sentence he began before Link’s move changed everything. “Of course I love you.” He means it now, he means it exactly like Link took it and can’t comprehend how he didn’t think of it before, but it’s perfectly obvious now.

So he hugs Link. He encircles the man’s body with his long arms, squeezes, and holds him, feels his friend snuggle into him, nuzzle his face into the crook of his neck and breathe deeply, holding Rhett's larger body in return.

All he needed was ask for the closeness.

He asked, and he got it.

He got all he wanted and so much more.

So, so much.

[purlturtle]

⭐️😃

Thank you for asking, and sorry it took me a while to get back to this! So today I wanna talk about Strata, my road trip story! And just like with the other asks/replies, I'm gonna put it under a readmore so that the post doesn't get super big!

How did Strata get started?

Believe it or not, by watching Going The Distance! It made me want to write a Road Trip Story myself - first I wondered if I wanted to rewrite Going The Distance somehow, have it be a fluffy little comedy where it's Myka driving the RV across Canada - but that idea didn't have the staying power somehow. Then I thought back to one of my old "fallbacks" - find a way to prevent Helena from turning on Myka (and the others) in Egypt. And I figured that the forced proximity of a road trip might give their relationship a strong enough boost that Helena would stop herself - so the story would be a vessel both for road trip fluff, and for Bering and Wells angst, and also for my favorite thing: emooootions! All the feels!

How did I develop the story?

So, speaking of feels - now I'm not great on story analysis, but even I know that road trips are vehicles (haha) and metaphor in one. You start out in one place, and you end in quite another. Along the way you find out stuff about yourself, gain some clarity on things, have a whole entire journey of your own.

And so when I set out to write Strata, I had a pretty clear idea of the kind of journey I wanted to take the both of them on. I also was pretty sure pretty early on that I wanted this story to be from Myka's POV only, to keep the ambiguity about what is going on within Helena as long as possible. (Mostly because, to be honest, that is one of the most difficult things for me to write from Helena's POV! I can get into her head in a lot of ways, but that one? Is really hard.) But also because not knowing what exactly was going on in Helena's mind is really good for tension!

The next question then was, from where to where? What's the reason for the trip, and the destination? I think the idea of going after caches of low-stakes artifacts wasn't my original one, but I can't think right now of where I read it. And I wanted the trip to be low-stakes to, so to speak. No glitzy destinations, no showing off of tourist spots - or at least not the big names. Biggest ball of twine? Yeah, let's do that kind of thing. Also, I like the Midwest. My wife is from there, too! And that also meant friends that I could plug for interesting spots along the way.

Figuring out destinations and routes was a mix of browsing Roadside America and those friendly suggestions. I love spending time on Google Maps - loved to spend time with actual paper maps too, when Maps wasn't a thing yet. Love finding towns with interesting or funny names, love imagining driving down that road that goes straight for 40miles straight (you better believe I also looked at dashcam videos and Streetview! For research!) And because I like that stuff so much, I figured readers would also be interested in things like routes and maps and whatnot.

And because I bitch so much about how Warehouse agents seem to be able to cross the entire country within half an hour (like driving from South Dakota to a high school reunion gone wrong in Colorado in a very, very short time when that kind of drive takes the better part of a day!), I also put the distances and Google's time estimates in my spreadsheet, and padded them more or less liberally with break times and whatnot. I still took some liberties, putting Bering and Wells in places rather sooner than they should have been even with the emptiest of streets, but, you know. If the actual show can do that (and to a much more blatant degree), then I can do it too!

So the mapmaking was fun, but what was the biggest challenge?

Pacing, I'd say. What to reveal when, how to balance talky talk and thinky thoughts with travel descriptions and actual destinations and Stuff Happening. I think I got it pretty tight, but as per usual, I'll always be a bit self-conscious about if I really did well.

Also, speaking of not having Helena's POV: I hope that I managed to portrait her journey well too, even though we don't get her internal monologue. That was a challenge too, not gonna lie, and with this one as well I can only hope that I did a good job.

So what's with the title then - Latin? Nerd.

Yeah, so, I'm a smartass who took nine years of Latin in school? And I knew that strata means "layers" (as in, the layers of truth and trust (and deceit) Bering and Wells discover about each other and themselves as they go on) and also is the root of both the German word "Straße" and the English word street. What better title for a road trip story, huh? I just had to add a little author's note for those readers who didn't know this, because I wanted everyone to enjoy this little nugget of a perfect fit.

Why Myka's internalized homophobia?

It is another layer, and one I've wanted to explore for a while. She is from a conservative state and city, and has had a rought upbringing in terms of high expectations and pressure from her dad. Conformity, including heteronormativity, is part of that. You could even argue that internalized homophobia is more realistic than her being a-okay with not being straight - it's just a matter of where we meet Myka Bering in her particular journey. Also, when you remember how uncomfortable she was about identifying an attacker as a woman because she "touched her" - "it's totally fine to be gay, just, I'm not; why would you ever think that?!" fits with that.

Also, narrative drama! Ramp it up by adding another axis of conflict!

And... what's with part two?!

Working on it! It will be told from Helena's POV, and won't be a re-hashing of Strata's story, but a true continuation. It's not a road trip as such, but a journey nevertheless, both in terms of character development and in terms of actual physical travel. Paris! England! Prague! Hong Kong! Here, have a snippet:

Helena found the key card where Myka’s note had indicated. Her phone, next to it, informed her that it was twenty-three past seven in the morning, on September twenty-first. The date made her huff a brief laugh; she was a hundred and forty-four today. Truly, she had outlived her days twice over. And yet here she was, somehow still alive, after all that had- Her thoughts stopped cold. Her birthday?! That couldn’t be right? The last thing she knew- A wave of nausea washed over her, and she barely kept herself from vomiting right there and then. She hastened through the room’s other door, presuming correctly that it led to the bathroom, and stood in front of the sink for a while, propped up on her arms and breathing very carefully to calm her stomach and keep its contents contained. Her eyes flickered here and there, and in doing so eventually fell upon her reflection in the mirror that spanned the length of the wall. There was a white streak in her hair, high above her right temple, easily one inch wide. She slowly raised her hand to touch it, and saw the action clearly reflected in the mirror. What on Earth had happened? Weeks gone, her hair with a white streak - and she herself with no recollection? Had she come under the influence of an artifact? Her fingers found her locket and grasped it tightly; at least it was still there- but it felt different. Enough was enough.

I hope you liked this! If you wanna know more, about Strata or in general, please go right ahead and ask! :) I'm always happy to talk about my writing - thanks for giving me the chance to do so!

[idontwanttospoiltheparty]

first of all i want to say i absolutely love i'm looking thorugh you and i'm excited for the next chapter. now on an unrelated note i want to ask have you seen sarah z's new video on fanfiction? if you have, what do you think?

Hi anon, thank you so much!!! My exams are starting in 10 days and in 5 days I'll be seeing my sister for the first time in one and a half years, so I'm gonna really try to find space to finish up Chapter 8 very soon (perhaps today [not including editing time, but everything currently written has been gone through once already]) so that I can justifiably step away from it again to focus on my exams and spending time with her, before returning to it. (which probably won't be before September)

I hadn't seen it and haven't watched any of her videos in a while, but I did upon seeing this ask. (I find her long-winded and generally she doesn't say much I haven't thought of myself; watched it on double speed lmao)

I agree with her on most points, I think. Fanfic is clearly art, I think that's honestly a stupid thing to even debate about. Also, it's first and foremost a medium with intrinsic qualities that can be either used to the story's advantage or disadvantage.

While there's value in original fiction having to rise up to the challenge of building characters and setting from scratch, a narrative meant to be understood with foreknowledge of "canon" can actually inherently tell a different type of story. Like, it's kind of one of the points I'm trying to make with I'm Looking Through You; demonstrating how the story both parallels and diverges from what actually happened, which would be difficult to do in a satisfying and engaging way if I had to establish the first "timeline" within the story as well, if that makes sense.

That being said, I think Beatles RPF (the kind that doesn't take place in AUs) is sort of interesting in that respect: if you're writing fic for a book series or a movie franchise or what have you, in most cases you can expect the reader to have come across the entire canon (say with the exception of monster franchises like Discworld or the Star Wars EU). But in the case of a story based on a real history, which draws from many books and accounts as well as pictures and film, it's kind of difficult for me as an author to suss out what I can reasonably expect my readers to be aware of. Usually, when I tie in some recollection of a real event (example off the top of my head: I mention Paul getting Dot Rhone pregnant in chapter 3) I try to formulate it in a way that if someone wasn't previously privy to that particular fact it would still be understandable to the extent it's relevant to the story. The only thing I in general assume to be known is their discography. So in a way, the concept of fanfic not requiring any skills in establishing anything isn't quite accurate. I'm also kind of a big show don't tell truther, so I kind of think if you follow that principle perfectly (not saying I do btw, it's pretty difficult) with your characters, you're more or less doing the same thing whether the characters are known to the audience already or not.

I think the main thing about fanfic and the perceived poor quality of it is due to, as mentioned in the video, there being zero barriers of entry but also to the fact that constructive criticism is just not really welcome on fanfic sharing platforms. For better or for worse, in 90% of the cases, people are only gonna comment on a fic to praise it. I think that's fine in the sense that most people aren't aspiring professional writers, but it doesn't make for the best environment to improve and grow as a writer more than simply practicing the art would help anyways. If you're lucky, someone will specify the reasons they enjoy the story, but just like we can't expect everyone to write perfectly, we can even less expect all readers to spend half an hour writing a carefully worded review. I kind of wish there was a setting on ao3 where you could mark a fic as "open to criticism", so people who are just writing for themselves can just keep doing their thing unbothered, but people interested in honing their craft could get more nuanced feedback than "OHHHH MY GOOOOOD I LOVE THIS".

The kind of funny thing for me is that all original fiction I've written or attempted to write up until now was very much based around my own personal experiences, so writing from the perspective of men in the 60s who had insanely different lives from mine actually really forced me out of my comfort zone in a way? And the work I put into the historical research is considerable, so I just think that really doesn't match up with what fanfic-haters imagine the genre to be?

Of course, a bunch of stories do match up with antis' expectations of it, but alas that's not fanfiction as a medium's fault and there's nothing inherently wrong with stories written with their main purpose being escapism. I mostly think people should be aware that that's what they're consuming and if that's the only thing they consume, they might be missing out on more challenging ideas.

[whatwouldvalerydo]

November rain list

Usually in November I set myself a goal in terms of how much I want to write as part of the Nano Camp challenge, however I will be taking on my new role at work this month and I know I won’t be having time for myself between learning everything and trying to keep a cool head.

With that being said, as October is almost over, out of the list, the only thing I haven’t managed to do was Talia’s revamped profile as I feel I really need to dedicate a day to making a proper one that will not include spoilers and so on as her story is still ongoing.

I have also spent this past month thinking about my ongoing stories, how much they are worth it and if they actually bring any joy and contribution and believe me, it has been a real struggle. While I am not 100% certain on some parts, I am in a much better place let’s say and hopefully will manage to finish everything and not end up deleting entire stories.

Without anymore ranting this is the plan:

Develop more on the relationship between Angela x Vinny @hogwartsmysteryho and Victoria x Oliver @kc-and-oc. I feel like I have yet to wrap my head properly around these and actually find a voice for them, so hopefully we can talk more and see where it takes us.

Make profiles for the new HPHL and HPMA kids as I have yet to do so (because I hate making profiles). Usually I have characters presented in stories so there wasn't ever a need for one, but yes, they are an exception as neither have their standalone fic

Publish Late Night Enchantments twice a month (this will be the schedule for it). While I have written in advance I want to stick to a schedule as time won't be my friend and I have yet to finish writing arc four.

Today's Special will wrap up around 30 chapters or so and I will post at least twice a month for it as well, unless inspiration hits more and you get a bonus.

Late night curses will also benefit from two chapters a month unless inspiration says otherwise however I have yet to set a number of chapters as there is a lot to unpack.

The circus is coming to town, some well known characters making their appearance in a Circus AU. There will be small one shots for everyone as detective Winger goes on to question the staff at the circus. I am also making art for this so it will be a slow process, but we will get a glimpse of it this month

With all of this I have to add I might miss some things or sway from the schedule because I know what comes next will take everything out of me.

I will be posting rarely and not be as active so take this as an apology in advance.

Another reminder for anyone out there: my stories are usually angsty and dark, covering a spectrum of subjects some might not find to their liking. Considering all chapters with a mature warning. Just in case.

Anything I do, be it art or fanfiction is something I do for free and on my own time. If I cannot deliver for whatever reasons, I won't and I hope you can understand. Life takes its toll on all of us so shout out to the content creators, you are doing a brilliant job at your own pace.

Be nice people, the world is fucked up as it is.

[canyouhearthelight]

The Miys, Ch. 125

I am so sorry that this is posting late today!! I didn’t realize my queue ran out, or that I didn’t load these in there.

Thank you, every day, to everyone who helped me hang in there as long as I’ve been lucky enough to write this story.  As much fun as the weapons expo was, I swear we are working towards everything else that has changed in the time skip!  I would love to hear what y’all are most excited to find out about.

Shoutouts always go to @baelpenrose, @charlylimph-blog, and @the-raven-fae for all your encouragement, plot bunnies, and beta-reading.

The day after the weapons exhibition, the air on the Ark was still crackling with excitement. Every time I overheard people chattering over a specific performance, I smiled to myself.  That particular event had been the first that Parvati and Hannah planned without my help, and hearing the overwhelming approval for it was something I would be all too happy to convey back to them.  They really had done a great job.

Sebastian ended up bowing out after the first year, because he was unable to balance the demands of the mentorship and the Undine.  As the only one of the three who could not just change their job responsibilities, he had chosen his passion - which absolutely no one was upset about.   Parvati had even joked that we had backup Councillors, but only one Undine.

The response I received from my mentees when I shared what I heard, however, was underwhelming. Hannah gave a small smile and nodded, while Parvati waved off the praise with a scoff. “We were essentially following a template,” she pointed out.

Hannah nodded at me with a rueful expression. “Unfortunately, she’s right.  There wasn’t much of a challenge, there.”

Just as a full pout was settling into my chest, Alistair breezed in and took off his scarf - for once, I couldn’t tell myself it was just for dramatic effect, as the climate controls in public areas were phased in to mimic what was projected for seasonal changes on Von.  Currently it was the cold season, and Alistair was miserable about it. “Of course it wasn’t a challenge,” he scowled. “You both have been assisting Madam Reid since the exhibitions began. However, it is profoundly rude to ignore the feedback you received.” He glared at Parvati and Hannah, who managed to look sheepish. “One of you will be Councillor one day, and your responsibility will be things just like this. You should be pleased with a job well done, not resting on your laurels.”

I nodded and didn’t bother hiding my grin. “He’s right, you know. Besides, don’t forget that this is when the hard part starts.”

Two sets of eyes widened at me, with Hannah adding a gasp of horror. “Oh gods. The feedback…”

“Yep.” I popped the last letter as I took my seat and the coffee that Alistair offered, noticing that he did not retrieve any for my mentees. Apparently he was really miffed by their attitudes before. “And, along with coordinating the event on your own…”

“Sophia, you’re joking,” Parvati glared.

“I am most certainly not,” I shook my head. “Every event, you have to read the feedback. You can filter it all you want, narrow down the categories, whatever. But I strongly recommend that you read all of the negative feedback if nothing else.”

“But you’ve always had help,” Hannah pointed out calmly.

“I did,” I admitted, “but that doesn’t mean I ignored or delegated the important parts.  Having people who you trust to do a pulse check of what is being said unofficially is an extremely valuable tool. However, at the end of the day, the performance of the events, or the projects, or the staffing balances, comes right back to this office and only this office. I can listen to Tyche, or my partners, or other Councillors until my ears fall off. But if something went wrong, or could have been done better, I’m the one who catches fault for that. Which means, eventually, it will be one of you.”

With a deep breath, both women nodded and opened the files in question. After simply staring and scrolling for a few minutes, Parvati sat back and tapped the side of her chin. “Can we filter out all comments under five words and comments with only positive adjectives that do not contain a conditional statement?” She glanced at me and I nodded my approval.

That seemed to spark an idea in Hannah. “Prioritize comments including the words ‘dangerous’, ‘barbaric’, or synonyms of.” When her co-mentee gave her a quizzical look, she shrugged. “It’s good to have at least a count of people who object to the weapons exhibitions, and if they are just a small number at least there are guaranteed to be a few in there that are pretty funny.”

Parvati still looked like she wasn’t convinced, so Alistair spoke up. “If you do not enjoy the weapons exhibitions, why are you attending?”

“Ahhh,” she smiled. Clearly the thought had never occurred to her, which was entirely unsurprising.  Parvati hadn’t dated Xiomara as long as she did by harboring a secret grudge against self-defense and proper applications of force.

Now that they found a starting point for weeding through the feedback, it was clear they were engrossed in gathering information.  Periodically, I would hear one make a considering noise before jotting down a note to come back to later.  I quietly moved to my desk and observed how differently they handled the process - When I went through feedback with Alistair, we shared it on the table emitter so both could see.  Parvati and Hannah, however, sat across from each other, on their singular data pads, flicking particular pieces of information back and forth to each other without even glancing up.  The partnership they had developed over the last four years of working with me was astounding to watch.

“What you are feeling now is exactly what it feels like to watch you and Tyche,” Alistair murmured, startling me out of my reverie. When I glanced at him, he simply lifted an eyebrow and tilted his head. “Even after working with you both for so long, there are moments where it is clear you both are working on some sort of wavelength the rest of us are not aware of.”

“Charly is pretty tuned in to it. And Arthur, when he wants to be.”

“Miss Harper is a force unto herself.” The corner of his mouth lifted in one of his rare, fond smiles. “As for Farro, I am beginning to believe that Reidish is one of the languages he learned for historical manuscripts.” Snark dripped from his tone out of old habit - if there had ever been any animosity between the two, it was long gone.

Although, apparently the hypothetical existence of ‘Reidish’ as a language was still bopping it’s merry way around the Ark.

“Noah,” I pointed out. “They understand us perfectly well.”

“Yes, let us all congratulate you two, not only on the fact that a mind-reading alien understands your communication better than your own species, but also on the fact that you have tainted them with your mannerisms.” The sarcasm would have stung, had he not felt the need to demonstrate by tipping his index finger and thumb over his eye in imitation of an eyebrow with one hand, while making a sock-puppet nod with the other - both of which were gestures Noah used as filler for human body language. The contrast between his words, the gestures, and the absolute deadpan expression on his face sent me into hysterics.

I didn’t realize we were being watched until Hannah’s voice broke through my laughter. “Derek actually taught them the eyebrow one.  That wasn’t Sophia or Tyche.  He started doing it because he can’t just lift one eyebrow, and Miys started mimicking him when they saw how useful it was to convey tone.” When Alistair only stared at her in disbelief, she huffed and turned to her datapad before flicking a recording to the table emitter.

Sure enough, there was Derek, adjusting Miys ‘fingers’ and repeating the gesture for them to imitate. After several adjustments of where the vomu was held, Derek seemed satisfied and flashed a double thumbs-up, which was returned in triplicate.  As the recording ended, Hannah turned back with the smuggest expression I had ever seen on her gentle face.

“I’ll be damned.” Alistair’s voice was soft with surprise and a hint of admiration.

“Hannah, how do you have that?” I asked, concerned for Derek’s privacy.

She waved me off. “Zach was doing routine security sensor testing, found that in the process, and asked Derek if we could keep a copy of it. Derek said it was okay, and asked for a copy for himself.” She shrugged. “I’d never seen him voluntarily touch someone that much before, and even without that, it was adorable.”

“I’m glad he knows you have it,” I sighed in relief. “But yeah, it makes sense, honestly.” Hannah nodded in agreement, while Parvati and Alistair were clearly waiting for an explanation. I started ticking off reasons on my fingers. “Miys is very careful of personal space because they know how large they are, and Derek hates having his space invaded without permission. Miys is never ‘too loud’ for Derek, or touches without permission, or even speaks to him without Derek speaking first. There’s no pressure for eye contact, even just in Derek’s head, because Miys doesn’t have eyes.”

“Your mind is a strange and wonderful place,” Alistair stated drily before turning to Hannah and Parvati. “I hope you two have been taking notes on it. I happen to know what your next event is, and you’re going to need that level of insight.”

Arching an eyebrow at him, Parvati did not even look away to pull up her calendar, dragging it into her line of sight. Her eyes widened suddenly.

“You have three months,” I pointed out.

She reached out and shook Hannah’s arm vigorously. “Han.”

A quick glance and a second horrified expression looked at me from the table.

“Three months.”

“Sophia.”

“You’ve both helped me with it, for at least the last four years.  And you said you wanted a challenge.”

They both groaned comically, but I struggled not to smile at their antics.  I knew they weren’t really as worried as they pretended to be.

Alistair leaned over the whisper again. “I thought Tyche was the evil one.”

That did get me to smile.

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[nealiios]

The Supernatural 70s: Part I - Corruption of An Innocent

"We're mutants. There's something wrong with us, something very, very wrong with us. Something seriously wrong with us - we're soldiers writers."

-- with apologies to the screenwriter of "Stripes"

Dear reader, I have the darkest of revelations to make to you, a truth when fully and wholly disclosed shall most assuredly chill you to the bone, a tale that shall make you question all that you hold to be true and good and holy about my personal history. While you may have come in search of that narrative designer best known for his works of interactive high fantasy, you should know that he is also a crafter of a darker art, a scribbler of twisted tales filled with ghosts, and ghouls, and gargoyles. I am, dear innocent, a devotee of horrors! Mwahahahaha!

[cue thunderclap, lightning, pipe organ music]

Given the genre of writing for which most of you know me, I forgive you if you think of me principally as a fantasy writer. I don't object to that classification because I do enjoy mucking about with magic and dark woods and mysterious ancient civilizations. But if you are to truly know who I am as a writer, you must realize that the image I hold of myself is principally as a creator of weird tales.

To understand how and why I came to be drawn to this sub-genre of fantastic fiction, you first must understand that I come from peculiar folks. Maybe I don't have the Ipswich look, or I didn't grow up in a castle, but my pedigree for oddity has been there from the start. My mother was declared dead at birth by her doctor, and often heard voices calling to her in the dead of night that no one else could hear. Her mother would periodically ring us up to discuss events in our lives about which she couldn't possibly have known. My father's people still share ghost stories about a family homestead that burned down mysteriously in the 1960s. Even my older brother has outré memories about events he says cannot possibly be true, and as a kid was kicked off the Tulsa city bookmobile for attempting to check out books about UFOs, bigfoot, and ESP. It's fair to say I was doomed - or destined - for weirdness from the start.

If the above listed circumstances had not been enough, I grew up in an area where neighbors whispered stories about a horrifically deformed Bulldog Man who stalked kids who "parked" on the Old North Road near my house. The state in which I was raised was rife with legends of bigfoots, deer women, and devil men. Even in my childhood household there existed a pantheon of mythological entities invented explicitly to keep me in line. If I was a good boy, The Repairman would leave me little gifts of Hot Wheels cars or candy. If I was being terrible, however, my father would dress in a skeleton costume, rise from the basement and threaten to drag me down into everlasting hellfire (evidently there was a secret portal in our basement.) There were monsters, monsters EVERYWHERE I looked in my childhood world. Given that I was told as a fledgling writer to write what I knew, how could anyone have been surprised that the first stories I wrote were filled with the supernatural?

"The Nightmare" by John Henry Fuseli (1781)

My formative years during the late sixties and early seventies took place at a strange juncture in our American cultural history. At the same time that we were loudly proclaiming the supremacy of scientific thought because we'd landed men on the moon, we were also in the midst of a counter cultural explosion of interest in astrology, witchcraft, ghosts, extra sensory perception, and flying saucers. Occult-related books were flying off the shelves as sales surged by more than 100% between 1966 and 1969. Cultural historians would come to refer to this is as the "occult boom," and its aftershocks would impact popular cultural for decades to come.

My first contact with tales of the supernatural were innocuous, largely sanitized for consumption by children. I vividly remember watching Casper the Friendly Ghost and the Disney version of the Legend of Sleepy Hollow. I read to shreds numerous copies of both Where the Wild Things Are and Gus the Ghost. Likely the most important exposure for me was to the original Scooby Doo, Where Are You? cartoon which attempted to inoculate us from our fears of ghosts and aliens by convincing us that ultimately the monster was always just a bad man in a mask. (It's fascinating to me that modern incarnations of Scooby Doo seem to have completely lost this point and instead make all the monsters real.)

ABOVE: Although the original cartoon Scooby Doo, Where Are You? ran only for one season from 1969 to 1970, it remained in heavy reruns and syndication for decades. It is notable for having been a program that perfectly embodied the conflict between reason and superstition in popular culture, and was originally intended to provide children with critical thinking skills so they would reject the idea of monsters, ghosts, and the like. Ironically, modern takes on Scooby Doo have almost entirely subverted this idea and usually present the culprits of their mysteries as real monsters.

During that same time, television also introduced me to my first onscreen crush in the form of the beautiful and charming Samantha Stevens, a witch who struggles to not to use her powers while married to a frequently intolerant mortal advertising executive in Bewitched. The Munsters and The Addams Family gave me my first taste for "goth" living even before it would become all the rage in the dance clubs of the 1980s. Late night movies on TV would bring all the important horror classics of the past in my living room as Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolf Man, the Invisible Man, the Phantom of the Opera, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, and Godzilla all became childhood friends. Over time the darkened castles, creaking doors, foggy graveyards, howling wolves, and ever present witches and vampires became so engrained in my psyche that today they remain the "comfort viewing" to which I retreat when I'm sick or in need of other distractions from modern life.

ABOVE: Elizabeth Montgomery starred in Bewitched (1964 - 1972) as Samantha Stephens, a witch who married "mortal" advertising executive Darren Stephens (played for the first five seasons by actor Dick York). Inspired by movies like I Married a Witch (1942) and Bell, Book and Candle (1958), it was a long running series that explored the complex relationship dynamics between those who possess magic and those who don't. Social commentators have referred to it as an allegory both for mixed marriages and also about the challenges faced by minorities, homosexuals, cultural deviants, or generally creative folks in a non heterogeneous community. It was also one of the first American television programs to portray witches not as worshippers of Satan, but simply as a group of people ostracized for their culture and their supernatural skills.

Even before I began elementary school, there was one piece of must-see gothic horror programming that I went out of my way to catch every day. Dark Shadows aired at 3:30 p.m. on our local ABC affiliate in Tulsa, Oklahoma which usually allowed me to catch most of it if I ran home from school (or even more if my mom or brother picked me up.) In theory it was a soap opera, but the show featured a regular parade of supernatural characters and themes. The lead was a 175 year old vampire named Barnabas Collins (played by Johnathan Frid), and the show revolved around his timeless pursuit of his lost love, Josette. It was also a program that regularly dealt with reincarnation, precognition, werewolves, time travel, witchcraft, and other occult themes. Though it regularly provoked criticism from religious groups about its content, it ran from June of 1966 until it's final cancellation in April of 1971. (I would discover it in the early 1970s as it ran in syndication.) Dark Shadows would spin off two feature-length movies based on the original, a series of tie-in novels, an excellent reboot series in 1991 (starring Ben Cross as Barnabas), and a positively embarrassingly awful movie directed by Tim Burton in 1991.

ABOVE: Johnathan Frid starred as Barnabas Collins, one of the leading characters of the original Dark Shadows television series. The influence of the series cannot be understated. In many ways Dark Shadows paved the way for the inclusion of supernatural elements in other soap operas of the 1970s and the 1980s, and was largely responsible for the explosion of romance novels featuring supernatural themes over the same time period.

While Dark Shadows was a favorite early television program for me, another show would prove not only to be a borderline obsession, but also a major influence on my career as a storyteller. Night Gallery (1969-1973) was a weekly anthology television show from Rod Serling, better known as the creator and host of the original Twilight Zone. Like Twilight Zone before it, Night Gallery was a deep and complex commentary on the human condition, but unlike its predecessor the outcomes for the characters almost always skewed towards the horrific and the truly outré. In "The Painted Mirror," an antiques dealer uses a magic painting to trap an enemy in the prehistoric past. Jack Cassidy plots to use astral projection to kill his romantic rival in "The Last Laurel" but accidentally ends up killing himself. In "Eyes" a young Stephen Spielberg directs Joan Crawford in a story about an entitled rich woman who plots to take the sight of a poor man. Week after week it delivered some of the best-written horror television of the early 1970s.

In retrospect I find it surprising that I was allowed to watch Night Gallery at all. I was very young while it was airing, and some of the content was dark and often quite shocking for its time. Nevertheless, I was so attached to the show that I'd throw a literal temper tantrum if I missed a single, solitary episode. If our family needed to go somewhere on an evening that Night Gallery was scheduled, either my parents would either have to wait until after it had aired before we left, or they'd make arrangements in advance with whomever we were visiting to make sure it was okay that I could watch Night Gallery there. I was, in a word, a fanatic.

ABOVE: Every segment of Night Gallery was introduced by series creator Rod Serling standing before a painting created explicitly for the series. Director Guillermo del Toro credits Serling's series as being the most important and influential show on his own work, even more so than the more famous Twilight Zone.

[nekoannie-chan]

Secret memories

Pairing: Brock Rumlow X Mutant!Reader

Word count: 650 words.

Summary: You could see and smell the memories, but Brock's were very different from other people.

Warnings: Mention of Brock’s past.

A/N: This is my entry to @just-the-hiddles​’s 3500 Followers writing Challenge with the scent #21:

“Antique lace: Nostalgia encapsulate”

And my entry to @that-damn-girl​’s the next chapter-Writing challenge.

Reader is mutant.

My native language is Spanish so I wanna improve my writing skills in English if you notice any mistake please let me know and I will correct it.

I don’t give any kind of permission that my fics be posted in other platforms or languages (I translate myself my work) or the use of my graphics (my dividers are included in this), I did them exclusively for my fics, please respect my work and don't steal it. There are some people here who make dividers that anyone can use, mine is not this type, please look for the other's people. The only exception is the ones I gifted 'cuz now belong to someone else. If you find any of my works on a different platform and is not one of my accounts, please let me know. Reblogs and comments are always welcome.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Marvel's characters (unfortunately), except for the original characters and the story.

My other media where I publish: Wattpad, Ao3, ffnet.

If you like it please vote, comment, and give me feedback to improve my skills and reblog.

Tags: @navybrat817​ @angrythingstarlight​ @shield-agent78​ @saiyanprincessswanie​ @charmed-asylum​

You sighed, you put a hand in your head, you felt overwhelmed, not because of the people who were disappearing but because there were too many memories that belonged to the people who were staying, the worst thing was the smell, people didn’t know it, but each type of memory had a specific smell, the best were the happy memories, although they were usually nostalgic. Still, they did not compare to the fragrances of the potions that used to use.

However, there was something specific that caught your eye, Brock's memories, they didn't use to be happy, but they were also only in black and white, while the others were coloured. You knew he was worried about something, he never talked about his past, he always avoided talking about his childhood and so on.

You saw this watch, Brock should be training in the gym at that time, however, he had to know once and for all what had happened.

You went to the room you used as a studio, Brock knew some of your powers and abilities, but not all, you walked to the closet, you opened it and took it out a briefcase, which contained inside many jars, started to look among all you have looking for the one you needed, as soon as you found it, you took it, you loved the name it had.

The ‘nostalgia encapsulated’ had been very useful several times, not to say that it also helped Steve and Bucky when they needed it, even though you didn't use it because you wanted to, but it was a Fury’s request. Maybe it would also help your boyfriend against whatever happened in his past.

It was very simple magic that was used, you were immune, but as soon as Brock came in and the fragrance was inside his body when he smelled it (he wouldn't even notice it) it would be easier as it was scattered throughout the room.

You conjugate the spells while opening the jar and starting to spread the fragrance, Brock would never suspect anything that was going to happen, he would probably blame the alcohol he would drink over dinner, that excuse always worked.

Brock came into the house, still feeling overwhelmed by what had happened, they still didn't have a plan for how to continue or how to fix things, however, as soon as he saw the dining room, he felt pathetic when he saw the decoration, everything was ready for a romantic dinner, he swallowed saliva with difficulty at the possibility that he had forgotten some important date.

"I think is a good idea to have a special dinner today,” you said, entering the dining room.

The expression on Brock's face relaxed, at least you weren't angry, he wouldn't have to do anything to fix things, so the night promised it would end very well and wonderfully, or at least that he believed.

After you finished dinner, Brock started talking, where you learned about his entire past, how he was orphaned and other misfortunes in his life, everything was starting to make sense.

One of the effects of the spell was that the person would fall asleep, but they wouldn't remember what they had said, you managed to take him to the room and accommodate him in bed so he could keep sleeping.

You hug him and caress his face, now he understood because Brock behaved like this, also the reasons why he was so terrified when people began to disappear, Brock was afraid of the possibility of losing you, he just no longer wanted to lose anyone he loved.

"Never mind, I love you and I will help you heal, everything will improve, my love. The future is going to be much better; I promise.”

Gradually you two starting to create cheerful memories, now Brock’s memories were beginning to be colourful and have a very pleasant aroma