#had to edit this snippet a bit as not to give away a big plot point lol

[inkblackorchid]

WIP Snippet 4 (Ch. 3)

Martha’s eyes wandered to the twins first, then. “Since I know you two tend to stick together, I have a room on the first floor for you two. It’s unlikely to be as big as what you’re used to, but I think it should do nicely. But the bathroom is in the hall, there’s only one per floor.”

Though their expressions couldn’t exactly be called excited, the twins nodded to this, clearly not about to complain about the for their standards unusual bathroom setup.

“As for the lot of you,” Martha then said, pointing at the older members of the group, “I was expecting to be able to put you boys all together in one room, and give Aki her own. Now, with two girls around, we’re going to have to change the setup a bit.”

“One room? For all four of us?” Jack asked incredulously, “Martha, you can’t be serious.”

His foster-mother raised an eyebrow at him, and if that wasn’t already enough to make Jack look a little smaller, her next words certainly were. “Oh? Are the rooms here suddenly not good enough for you anymore?”

While Crow unsuccessfully tried to hide an undignified snort, Jack grew ever so slightly flustered—something only Martha could achieve in this short a time—before aggressively pointing to Bruno, saying, “That’s not—Bruno snores. I’ll wake up from the noise! And waking him up is no use, because he’ll go right back to snoring the second he falls asleep again! Meaning either he catches no sleep because I don’t want him snoring, or I catch no sleep because he won’t stop it!”

Putting her hands on her hips, Martha countered, “Last I recall, Crow used to snore, too, back when you were children. Yet, you somehow still managed to catch some sleep.”

“Yes, because the keywords are used to,” Jack immediately defended himself, “I trained him out of it by kicking him out of bed every time he got too loud.”

“Yeah, thanks for that, by the way,” Crow muttered, throwing his older foster-brother a glare.

“Oh, you’re welcome,” Jack grumbled back.

Martha, meanwhile, shook her head at both of them, in a way that made Aki realise Yusei had to have gotten this from her. “Really now… You’ve gotten a bit picky, haven’t you?”

Stepping forward a bit from where he stood in the middle of the group, Yusei spoke up for the first time, saying, “Not to play devil’s advocate here, but I think stuffing all four of us in the same room might really be a bad idea. If Jack wakes up because of Bruno’s snoring and starts trying to wake him up in turn to get him to stop for a little bit, Crow’s also gonna wake up because of the commotion and will most likely start arguing with Jack about the noise. And I’m such a light sleeper at this point that I’ll probably also get woken up by Bruno’s snoring and have to listen to the entire back and forth…” His tone was slightly apologetic.

“Yeah, not to speak of the fact that Jack’s insufferable when he hasn’t gotten his ‘beauty sleep’,” Crow added, making air quotes at “beauty sleep” with an amount of sarcasm that was nothing short of gleeful.

Martha gave her three boys a critical look, but ultimately sighed before turning to Crow, “And do you lose sleep because of your friend’s snoring, too?”

“As if Crow would wake up for anything quieter than air raid sirens,” Jack muttered.

[gretchensinister]

Venom OT4 for the WIP game!!!

This was started some time between the first and second Venom movies. I've realized that when I have a ship I really like, I often end up writing a fairly substantial fic that focuses on everyone involved getting together. This was going to be that fic for Venom/Eddie/Anne/Dan. It starts with Eddie and Venom going over to Anne and Dan's for dinner after Eddie has told Anne about Venom still being alive--she's decided that Dan also needs to know. I wrote up to the part where Venom reveals himself to Dan. Last edit date was in August 2019 and I can't remember what distracted me away from it. If I did pick it up again I wouldn't change it to account for Venom: Let There Be Carnage. As for a plot? The plot is simply three humans and an alien figuring out a) that they want and b) how to structure a very new, very queer relationship.

I also had the goal of getting more Venom-form EddieandVenom involved in sex with Anne and Dan--for some reason the last time I was actively reading in the fandom threesomes and foursomes with Venom weren't getting weird/creative enough for me (or if they were, they weren't getting on screen enough. Things might have changed since then.

Here's a snippet:

“Eddie!” Dan smiled at him as he opened the door. Eddie waited to feel weird about being welcomed into a place he’d thought of as home for years, but it didn’t come. Of course, his weirdness-meter had been redlining regularly these days, and maybe had been recalibrated, too. This wasn’t even worth a wiggle of the needle, now.

Instead, he felt mostly the bewildered dismay he usually did upon realizing he was going to be spending time around a very attractive person and he had to make sure that said attractive person could never even suspect that he’d had those kinds of thoughts. But, whatever. Anne would only intensify the feeling, and he’d still probably end up giving something away. Her ability to spot things like that was what had led her to ask him out in the first place.

But in the end, that would be another thing that caused barely a wiggle on the awkward meter, because the reason he was here was to come clean to Dan about what he’d come clean to Anne about earlier that week.

And that was what was making him feel intense wariness along with everything else.

Hey, V, could you maybe tone it down a bit? We talked about this. Dan was doing what he thought he had to in order to save my human life.

And that is something I approve of, but he still tried to kill me when we last saw him. And he is standing between us and Anne.

Cut the crap, you know from me and Anne that’s not how good relationships work. It’s understandable that you’re scared, but we’re together now. When it comes to Dan…well, I’ve got us.

Okay, okay. Eddie started to feel less like he was trying to figure out how to decline a vital interview because it was being held on the observation deck of the Empire State Building and more like…well, that he was about to have dinner with his beautiful ex and her handsome new boyfriend and that he was going to tell the handsome new boyfriend some seriously weird shit during that dinner. Which was still a significant reduction in stress.

“Are you okay?” Dan asked. “Look, Anne says you’ve been doing better, and I can see that you are, but if I’m too much of a reminder of…everything that happened, I understand.”

“Sorry, no, you’re fine,” Eddie said. “Anne really thought you ought to be part of our conversations. And she’s right.” He held up the pastel pink box he’d brought with him. “I even brought social grease.”

“A Casey’s cake!” Dan gave him another big smile as they both finally crossed the threshold and headed up the stairs. “What kind?”

“Chocolate Apocalypse,” Eddie said, wondering just how weird it was to be noticing how nice Dan’s ass was at this moment.

We have a nicer ass when we’re together.

Yeah, but who’s going to get close enough to appreciate it?

Isn’t that what we’re trying to investigate tonight?

Uh. No, that wasn’t a conscious desire. No.

Are you serious? It was very obvious.

[renegadesfics]

Omg so sorry for falling asleep on ya last night 😂 But now I'm up and I'm having my coffee and trying to remember all my questions. Okay so

1- how do the adults feel about all this? I feel like Wayne is either completely disinterested or like mad as hell at the reader.

2- What about the Hellfire kids? In that lil snippet Mike seems annoyed but he's also a like 14 year old boy and puberty could just be hitting him like a brick so idk

3- why is reader driving around with no heat in their car????? It's about to be winter in Indiana it's gets below 0° easily get that shit fixed omfg

4- what has Eddie been doing for the months they've been apart? Just sitting in the house being a sad boy? Kissing other girls? Kissing other boys? Or is he like completely love sick and writing the worlds greatest emo anthems on his guitar.

5- ARE THEY GONNA GET BACK TOGETHER????? THEY LOVE EACH OTHER 😭😭😭

6- even if they do get back together what happens after the holiday when reader goes back to school???????

I'm just honestly so invested in this storyyyyyy. It's so well written and genuinely interesting. You're such a good writer. The way you say so much with so little dialogue. I am in awe at your skills, truly.

Oh god! No reason to apologize at all, I'm so glad you got sleep, that shit's like... super important!! Thank you for coming back and continuing the conversation, that's so sweet!! Okay, but onto your questions:

This definitely gets addressed in either part 3 (edit: posted just recently!). In part 4 or after, we may also get reader's parents' take on the whole scenario. Can't keep your personal life very secret in a small town, it seems.

That part's already done, actually, and while I feel like I struggled a bit to capture the kids in fully robust 3D, I also recognize that this is reader's first time interacting with them and First Impressions are a thing. They may pop up more in later parts, I haven't totally settled that one yet. (I’ll give you this much, reader definitely likes at least some of them.)

The heating was just a funny little quirk that I added in the beginning when it was all only going to be one part. It was a like, a throwaway one-liner I had tossed in just to add some depth to the character? But now I'm thinking it's probably something they should get looked at before they leave Hawkins.

I will just go ahead and put out there that I fully 100% invest in the concept of queer Eddie Munson. The personal interpretation of that queerness is up to any one person and how they see it, and I'm not here to police anyone else's perspectives on that. I, however, do interpret him as somewhere on the Bi/Pan side of things. (As a bisexual woman, this could just be me projecting.) Strictly speaking, this isn't relevant to the plot, but you kind of hinted at it with your question and I just wanted to take a second to talk about it. Anyway, my plan is definitely to get a little bit more into how Eddie spent the months reader was gone, but I'm not totally certain when that'll happen.

That's the big question, isn't it? Can't provide much by way of specifics here without big spoilers.

Unfortunately, I also can't give a whole lot away on this one because... I mean, y'know. Have to keep you hooked somehow. But I do plan on at least kind of answering this before I wrap the entirety of TtDS up!

Thank you again for your interest in the series and engaging the way you have!! It means so much and I'm so grateful to have people enjoying reading the story as much as I'm enjoying writing it. Maybe in a slightly selfish way, I love talking about it. So. Anyway, hope I answered your questions as best as I'm able to at the moment and hope you enjoy what's coming!!

[tourneyofashvara]

Writing Update

It's.......... been a while since I've done one of these. I've been doing a lot of writing but it's been a lot of redrafting and editing and nothing has really been at a point where I can share it quite yet. But I'm getting there.

Also, hello to all of the new followers around here! I post original content like once in a blue moon, but hopefully next year I should get some more stuff done once my course finishes. I'm about to reach a thousand followers so I was wondering if I should do anything for it? Maybe a portrait giveaway?

Airi's Song

Airi's Song needs a new title first and foremost. I have done quite a bit of rewriting and editing and am at a stage where I really love the plot overall, but sadly the title no longer works.

I'm on draft 5! Just finished the main rewriting stage of this draft like the day before yesterday and clocked it in at a hundred thousand words.

The ending still needs a bit more work just to flesh out the details but I'm doing a line edit for the first two thirds to give myself a bit of a break and so I can see if there's any other issues with it. Because I've rewritten that section a couple of time now I'm a little worried it feels like it's been patched on at the end/that there's a shift in the writing style. But it shouldn't requite too much work.

I'm hoping to get it to beta readers at the start of next year so I'll start sharing snippets soon. I actually can't wait for people to read it, I think this is by far the best thing I've written. Ever.

Muir-tràigh

I finished a first draft of Muir-tràigh and got about halfway through a rewrite when my old laptop decided it needed a new battery so I haven't done anything to it in a while. I also lost a chunk of time because while I did get a new laptop, I didn't have a word processor on it so that was fun.

But, taking some time away from it meant that I think I've fixed the issue I was having with the narrative? I need to do a complete from the ground up rewrite, starting with my outline. I'm Frankensteining the world building with another WIP I just had the concept for as I think the narrative there was stronger. I'm actually really excited about the rewrite, and getting all of the world building together, I think I'm going to wait however and start writing it once I get Airi's Song out to beta readers so that way I can think about the plot properly and make sure I'm not going to end up like I have with the last couple of drafts for it which have required big structural edits.

[mego42]

Hi!! Was just wondering if you have any Brio fic updates you’ll be posting soon? Obsessed with your writing!

ahhhhh thank you!!! you are too kind!!!

I guess it depends on your definition of soon? I have a lot of stuff I’m working on and am pretty far along into, it’s just been going a bit slowly for life reasons (we’ve been temporarily short-staffed at my job which has unfortunately coincided with bringing on some big new clients so I’m working crazy hours and then also took on a p big freelance project at the same time bc I make questionable choices but also bc it’s a v awesome project and I’m hoping to be able to brag about it soon)

THAT SAID I’ve got a lot of stuff p far along including:

ch 2 of swear! fully drafted, def in need of another major editing pass though. there’s a tension/tone through-line that’s not quiiiiiiite right and I’ve been trying to sort it out by writing Rio POV outtakes bc why not

ch 3 of swear! I’m trying really hard not to post for this fic until I have a chapter banked both for accountability reasons and also bc I’ve got a lot of threads woven into the fic that I’m trying to keep track of and it’s helpful to be able to bounce back a chapter and tweak things to properly set up stuff in the next chapter. I’m about a quarter/third or so into it but I’ve lowkey dropped it for now to focus ooooooooon...

the last chapter of song!! at last! it’s happening! highkey inspired to jump back in by a truly lovely comment @whiskeyjack left me and @xenalovesoq and her group chat’s unflagging enthusiasm, I am about 15K into the draft and *laugh nervously* a third of the way through my outline so that’s gonna be a monster

I’ve also got a bunch of other projects in various stages of outlining and drafting that are v much on my mind but def not a current priority like the others (Beth POV for listening, buffyverse if I can detangle the plot, the pacific rim AU I add a sentence or two to whenever I’m stuck on something else, the sex pollen I wrote half of and then paused to write swear).

so yeah, lots of stuff happening but nothing close enough that I’m comfortable predicting a timeline I’d inevitably fail at anyway. I’m not sure what’s going to get posted first tbh, I’d say probably song because that’s what I’m focused on rn but editing is going to be a bit of a thing given how long it’s shaping up to be (jfc oh god what am I doing) so idk!!

I wish I had a better answer but here! have a (rough, unedited) snippet from song for your troubles!

"What are you doing here," she hisses.

Her eyes dart from Rio's face to over his shoulder, sweeping the midway to see if anyone's watching them, and then back. The corner of his mouth tugs up like he knows what she's doing and it's funny. She locks onto the motion, the shrieking sounds of the carnival around them falling away. Midday sunshine giving way to deep, dark midnight blue in her mind’s eye.

Between her kids and then Rio having Marcus for a few days, Beth hadn't seen him since that night at the bar a full week ago. After she'd explained her plan to his satisfaction, she'd realized it was getting late, and she had to get home. He’d walked her out to the van and the unexpected gallantry of the gesture caught her off guard, and something bloomed, warm and sparkling in her chest. Then, alone in the parking lot, he'd pinned her up against the side of it, burying his face in her neck and pressing his hips into hers. Her moan when she felt him hard against her mingled with his answering one when she rolled her own hips right back, echoed together through the still, silent night. 

Beth thought about yanking open the door of the van and tugging him inside. She knew he wouldn't object from the nearly frantic urgency of his hands gripping her waist, shoving up under her shirt, hot and rough against her skin. He'd cupped her breasts, his thumbs swiping across her nipples and pressing down. She'd gasped and arched against him, her nails digging into his shoulders through his shirt when he'd bit down on her neck in response. 

A part of her wanted that—him—quick and furtive in the back of the van, too desperate for each other to wait. But another part thought of the reality of Emma's Barbie's digging into her back, the graham cracker crumbs she’s pretty sure the seats spontaneously generate at this point embedding themselves in her skin, the smell of apple juice and kid sweat that never entirely dissipates hanging around them and that isn't—she doesn't—

This thing between them feels different now. New and precious and somehow heavier and more fragile than it ever has before. It's a beginning, and Beth wants more for it—them—than a rushed hookup in a parking lot before they go their separate ways. 

So she’d gently pushed him away and he'd let go of her immediately, even if he'd taken a beat to inhale deep against her skin before stepping all the way back. 

When he'd met her eyes, Beth had known she didn't need to explain, and when he reached out a hand, pinky extended, her own had fluttered closed as he'd gently nudged her hair back, tucking it behind her ear.

"Next time."

Impact against her thighs snaps her back to the present, and Beth realizes she's swayed forward into the table between them. She can feel her blush flare, heating her cheeks and chest, but can't bring herself to be too embarrassed when she sees the way Rio's eyes have gone dark and hooded. 

His lips part, and Beth can see the tip of his tongue pressed lightly against his teeth. She imagines leaning in, closing the distance, and sinking her teeth into his full, lush—

“Jesus Christ!” 

[isalabells]

can u pls give me all ur thoughts on clarissa franklin? im legit so curious!!

Let me preface this, anon, by saying that this might be the most challenging ask I’ve received to date. That’s why I let it sit there for more than 1.5 weeks while agonizing over it on every run I’ve been on in between. So hats off to you because dang!

Thoughts on characters in the DDF universe are generally a tricky thing because none of them – not even (or: especially not) our three mains – are designed to be anything but two-dimensional. This of course shouldn’t stop anyone from diving deeper into some kind of character analysis, but personally, I’ve always found it a bit off-putting alas I probably have fewer thoughts and headcanons on the folks inhabitating the Rocky Beach universe than one might think. I don’t even find it that compelling to look at from a meta perspective (where, in contrast, I could spend hours talking and writing about TKKG’s narratives. And in fact I have.) So what’s mainly of interest to me here is looking at Minninger aka the one who invented dear Clarissa, and to speculate about his motives for telling the Franklin stories the way he did.

In an attempt to look at it from an in-universe POV first: Amazing character, most likely the best female villain this series will ever see (food for thought: there haven’t been that many to begin with, and most of the ones we got were either written by BJHW or Minninger. MUCH to ponder on), personally, I find her way more fun than Hugenay, giving her two (or three, if the rumors are true) follow-up stories is more than deserved. Furthermore, her legacy is that she appeared in two absolute killer episodes, which many (rightfully) consider to be some of the best the series has to offer (so do I, but plot twist, the best for me is not Stimmen aus dem Nichts but Rufmord). 100/10, can relate to Bob Andrews bc I already grew infatuated with her and she didn’t even need to hypnotize me for that. A great cunning, devious, manipulative, stone-cold bitch ready to kill a man or two at any given point, it’s what we all need and deserve. Shouldn’t even be that big of a surprise that this role slaps so hard bc the majority of things Judy Winter does gain IconicTM status, it is the law. Ever since @charlyritter brought up the idea that Sabine Vitua would be the perfect choice to play her in a live action movie, I cannot stop thinking about this. (And ever since I mistook a picture of young Sabine Vitua with short hair for Bibiana Beglau I am slightly fixated on the idea that she’d be a great fit as well.)

  From a more sober POV: I’ve talked about this before but SadN is actually a very sloppily edited adaptation (e.g. Katharina Brauren most def was recorded separately, there are a lot of inaccuracies-that-easily-could-have-been-avoided-with-some-proper-research-and-a-capable-editor in the script etc.) AND most of it is just Minninger ripping off other stories published via EUROPA (I know none of you are aware of this bc y’all lack the refined taste to engage with TKKG, but the entirety of getting phone calls from the dead? Please listen to #82 Spuk aus dem Jenseits which got published in 1991 aka six years prior to SadN, which Minninger himself edited, and which imo is actually WAY more creepy, esp bc Wolf played a lot with elements from Hofmann’s Sandmann. While we’re at it, I might also drop that Franklin’s iconic line “Reiß Dein Maul nicht so weit auf, sonst schieb ich Dir eine Faust rein, an der Du erstickst“ also first appears, word for word, in TKKG #8 Auf der Spur der Vogeljäger. Well oops.) NEVERTHELESS I argue none of it matters in the long run bc the adaption makes it worth the while. Minninger himself is a trickster in that regard bc what he lacks in writing skills (lbr he doesn’t have any, his stories are mediocre at best) he makes up for in hedonism. As in: he mainly writes about what interests him most in a DDF setting (queer characters, middle-aged and/or old yet powerful ladies, horror vibes, scary, disturbing stuff bordering on the macabre and ludicrous) and designs his characters specifically so that he can cast all the actresses and actors he admires. (Honestly, that was actually a question I sent to him back in 2004 when his Fragebox at the rbc was still running; I wanted to know if he already knew he wanted JW to play CF, and he wholeheartedly confirmed.)

In this case, he got especially lucky bc I am firmly convinced he had no clue at all that Andreas Fröhlich and Judy Winter would play off each other so mesmerizingly. I mean, how could he have known? JW being great and killing it was not a surprise, sure, but Andreas was a far stretch away from being the hot shit he evolved into ever since. And if they hadn’t sold their two extremely unusual scenes so well… both episode and the character would have flopped, I think.

But it didn’t, and then Rufmord came along and the rest is history.

I have severe problems with Signale aus dem Jenseits ESPECIALLY bc of the way the narrative treats good ol’ Clarissa here, and I rather wish this ep had never gotten published in the first place. I don’t want to blow up this reply even further, but allow me to quote a snippet from the episode commentary I left on the rbc a while ago, as it sums up some of my troubles quite nicely:

“[Die] Wortwahl einer „Demontage“ Clarissa Franklins hat mich ins Grübeln gebracht. Vielleicht soll genau DAS die Krux der Sache sein – den Abstieg und Ruin einer Figur nachzuzeichnen, die einst bereit war, eiskalt über Leichen zu gehen und die selbst in Situationen, in denen sie auf den ersten Blick die Machtlose zu sein scheint, doch alle Fäden in der Hand hält und Menschen spielt wie Marionetten. In dem Fall wären die abgeschwächten Anleihen/Rezitationen/Referenzen an die Vorgängerfolgen natürlich geschickt (und bewusst?) gewählt und verstärken den Eindruck, dass Clarissa Franklin tief gefallen ist und mittlerweile nach jedem ihr sich bietenden Strohhalm greift (= Schmierenkomödie als Rache an drei Teenagern). Soll dies eine legitime Lesart des Textes sein, dann ist das Narrativ für mich allerdings falsch aufgebaut, weil es sich in zu vielen Nebenschauplätzen verliert.”

From the pov of my fangirl heart and all critical thinking put aside: Clarissa Franklin probably was the first character I was truly obsessed with!? In a way that I spent my entire Easter holiday break reading and listening to Rufmord 24/7. Thinking about her and her encounter with Just, Peter and Bob for hours each day. Desperately longing for more content with her. While my teenage self as evolved a bit, I’m still fond of her. So as much as I want Minninger to just let her rest, I am also hoping that his forth story featuring her only got postponed and not scratched entirely. The heart wants what the heart wants.

[helenarasmussen87]

Writing Asks

This the post where I know no one is going to ask me anyway.

1. Describe your comfort zone—a typical you-fic.

Something that is like a “Oh hey, what happens if we do THIS!” and go from there. Usually ends up having loads of emotions, comfort, angst, introspection, loads of kitchen sink dialogues, not too much action. Families, happy endings.

2. Is there a trope you’ve yet to try your hand at, but really want to?

Fluffy stuff and humourous stuff. I am a little too serious for either one and my humour is drier than the desert and very odd. So no.

3. Is there a trope you wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole?

Teacher and Student relationships. Necrophilia, abuse of all sorts, underage. Just not my thing. I’ve gotten unable to stomach a lot of grimdark and super dark stuff as I get older so I won’t write it. But go ahead if that’s your thing.

4. How many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? Care to share one of them?

Two, since I can’t have more than two on the burner. Learned THAT early on and they’re Terror AU’s One is a fixit, but with health complications and angst. The other is a Modern Day AU which has two professors falling in love after one gets injured and the other worked as an EMT and helps to take care of him and they fall in love.

5. Share one of your strengths.

I can offer insights on what flows and what doesn’t. I can also happily shred my own drafts if they don’t work. 

6. Share one of your weaknesses.

Action. I work at it, but it’s not my favourite. Or war writing. 

7. Share a snippet from one of your favorite pieces of prose you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

“Danny had to turn his head away to hide his smile, because he knew that it was a legitimate concern for Jose. Most of the time, he had jumped into bed with his partners first and then did the mating dance. 

Although extremely smart in other aspects, dating and social interactions were always a bit skewed, because he was always second-guessing himself and nervous as hell.

“That’s actually how things work out in these situations. At least it did for me and my ex and for me and Claude.” Danny explained calmly, making Jose nod and take another pull of his slurpee.

“So what do I do? Like is there a time when I bring up the possibility of us sleeping together?” Jose asked, the words slightly mumbled as he chewed on the straw.

“You don’t bring it up. You’ll just know when the time is right for it to happen. Sex isn’t what a relationship should be built on. Yes, it’s nice and it’s part of it, but it’s not the end all to be all. Trust me on this. It will happen if it’s meant to happen.” Danny explained, hoping that he had put it all in the plainest and simplest terms he could for his friend.

I am proud of this because it was majorly borrowing from life and I can see the difference from earlier writing. 

8. Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

“Sergio laughed shortly. “I’ve already done enough of that, and look at where it’s gotten you. Yeah, legally I hold claim over you. I could make the club buy out your contract and sit at home all day, having litter after litter.”

Iker’s blood froze at that and he turned to look at Sergio to see if he really meant it, but Sergio’s face gave nothing away.

“Or I could sign your rights to the club and let them sell you wherever or to whomever. Take you out of Spain, or sell you to Getafe or Malaga. All of these things I could do. The club actually did bring it up at that meeting you didn’t show up for.”

Iker blinked, his hands going numb as Sergio’s wickedly honed words hit home.

“I’m not telling you this to hurt you. Or make you feel indebted. I’m telling this to you because you’re this close to losing your spot and that’s the last thing I want for you. But there’s only so much I can do for you.”

He sighed and looked at Iker dead in the eyes.

“I miss him too, Iker. I miss Antonio every fucking day. And I miss you.”

Iker swallowed hard as Sergio abruptly turned and left, slamming the front door and freeing him from the command so suddenly that Iker fell onto the couch and curled up in it.

He had no energy to do anything else. Not when he was all too aware he’d fucked up and fucked up big and needed to fix it.

Borrowed from life again and it was more of a dialogue that needed to be had when you finally realize how much you fucked up and how much you need to stop coasting and make it right. 

9. Which fic has been the hardest to write?

ALL OF THEM! Kidding. I want to say the one I’m working on right now. I was lucky enough I got a ton of help fleshing it out. I can see the end of the 1st chapter and I am having a hell of a time writing Goodsir’s chunk. He’s turned out more emo and romantic than I was expecting. 

10. Which fic has been the easiest to write?

The QuiObi prompts for the prompt week. Took me like two hours to knock them off and post. 

11. Is writing your passion or just a fun hobby?

Its a passion and a hobby. It helped me through a lot of rough patches and keeps me sane. 

12. Is there an episode above all others that inspires you just a little bit more?

Mostly music or a change in life. I tend to write when everything is in flux with me.

13. What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever come across?

Just write. Worry about editing later. Once you have something on the paper, fixing it up becomes easier. 

14. What’s the worst writing advice you’ve ever come across?

Edit as you write. You don’t get anything done.

15. If you could choose one of your fics to be filmed, which would you choose?

Oooh. I think it’s a toss up between my Qui-Gon/Jango fic in a pastoral setting where they have put their pasts behind and are farmers on Concord Dawn. Or the Werewolf fic I wrote during my RPF phase.

16. If you only could write one pairing for the rest of your life, which pairing would it be?

Bloody hard. I would have to say Fitzier (Commander Fitzjames/Captain Crozier)

17. Do you write your story from start to finish, or do you write the scenes out of order?

Depends. Sometimes I go straight from beginning to end and sometimes I end up writing the middle and not figuring it out until later.

18. Do you use any tools, like worksheets or outlines?

Outlines. I have notebooks I jot down point form notes about the characters and the plot.

18. Stephen King once said that his muse is a man who lives in the basement. Do you have a muse?

Mine is a librarian or an alchemist trying to figure out answers and how things fit in.

19. Describe your perfect writing conditions.

A good playlist. Alone, in my room.

20. How many times do you usually revise your fic/chapter before posting?

I revise it along the way when I sit down to write. Then before I post, I give it a once over to make sure it flows and makes sense. 

21. Choose a passage from one of your earlier fics and edit it into your current writing style. (Person sending the ask is free to make suggestions).

All my old fics are honestly gone so I’m skipping this one. 

22. If you were to revise one of your older fics from start to finish, which would it be and why?

Honestly? The Duo and Heero one I wrote about them being in an abusive relationship where they split up, then got back together again. I was again writing from life, and I have seen couples who did overcome it, but looking back, I think I should have written it that they separated and went their own ways. 

Keep in mind I was very young when I wrote this, and I was in an abusive relationship myself and didn’t realise it at the time. He hit me once, apologised and never did it again. But he did end up manipulating me, gaslighting me, and emotionally abusing me until I finally had enough and left. 

23. Have you ever deleted one of your published fics?

Yes. Loads of them due to me not wanting to finish them. Or the hosting sites going under. 

24. What do you look for in a beta?

Someone who is honest, someone who knows the way I write, and has suggestions to fix those said things. But someone who is themselves is the best. Because they know what they want. Same here. 

25. Do you beta yourself? If so, what kind of beta are you?

I do, simply due to lack of steady betas. Flow and story telling, but I also look for syntax and formatting as well as grammar. I will miss typos, so I run spell-check too. I mostly use a mental rubric. Teacher training.

26. How do you feel about collaborations?

I haven’t had a successful one due to the second person always deciding that they can’t follow through or up and disappearing. So I don’t do them.

27. Share three of your favorite fic writers and why you like them so much.

Oh my God! I read so much and so many different people that I can’t pinpoint three. I usually end up reading a fic or two, so I can’t say why I read the author.

28. If you could write the sequel (or prequel) to any fic out there not written by yourself, which would you choose?

I haven’t done that. I do admit to having inspired by fics. I wouldn’t ever presume to do that. It just feels like a snub.

29. Do you accept prompts?

Not really. I can’t tailor write stuff consistently. 

30. Do you take liberties with canon or are you very strict about your fic being canon compliant?

Oh always! I end up liking the characters that somehow never make it until the end. And in the Terror, unless you want to write angst all the time, you HAVE to ignore canon. And I mean BOTH the book and the show, since the book is nasty. The show is amazing, but oh my god is it depressing.

31. How do you feel about smut?

Yes damned please!

32. How do you feel about crack?

Depends on how well it’s done. Sometimes it is needed. Sometimes it’s like “Why?”

33. What are your thoughts on non-con and dub-con?

A bit tricky. I don’t mind non-con, but it has to be handled well. Dub-con, especially in A/B/O happens within context and it is usually dealt with. So I can tolerate that more than the first. Outright abuse, no.

34. Would you ever kill off a canon character?

Yes. Not often thought. But yes. I usually try and keep as many alive as I can though.

35. Which is your favorite site to post fic?

AO3, its a wild place and I love it for that reason.

36. Talk about your current wips.

It’s an AU where two professors that live in the same building and work in different faculties get thrown together and start to get to know each other. Due to circumstance, one gets injured and the other kind of volunteers to help take care of him, where they fall in love. The others in the vicinity do also. There’s Canadian shenanigans and baking. 

37. Talk about a review that made your day.

That they really liked how I wrote Frank Randall and would like to see more with his son, an OC I created for the story.

38. Do you ever get rude reviews and how do you deal with them?

I either delete, or give a generic reply and leave it. I’ve got stuff to do.

40. Write an alternative ending to [insert fic title] (or just the summary of one).

Nope. It just doesn’t work for me.

*somewhere I fucked up on the number but here you are*

Whoever wants to do this.

[cg29]

40 Questions — Meme for Fic Writers.

Thank you to @soniabigcheese @gumnut-logic @onereyofstarlight and Anon for the ASKS you sent my way. Since I wanted to answer in detail, I’ve had more than 1 question, and I’ve not had a lot of spare time today I thought I’d answer all in this one post…

So first up @soniabigcheese sent me: ‘How about ... 9 ... 15 and 19? Please.’

9: Which fic has been the hardest to write?

All have been challenging in their own individual ways. Yet, really thinking about it I’d have to say GONE. For various reasons – It was my first Thunderbirds Fanfic, the longest story I had ever written, at this point the one I’ve had to do the most planning and research, and finally because of the emotions that needed portraying. However, the elation at finally finishing the story was amazing and has certainly inspired me to continue.

15: If you could choose one of your fics to be filmed, which would you choose?

Oh my God, that would be amazing! I would definitely have to go for Bad Day (Virgil’s day keeps repeating. What will it take for it to end and a new one to begin?) I had so much fun writing this, it’s one that I’ve reread a few times since competing, and it still makes me giggle. I’m sure I’d be in stitches if I got to watch it on the big screen. Although due to some of the contents towards the final chapters it would definitely need a UK PG or 12A rating.

19:  Stephen King once said that his muse is a man who lives in the basement. Do you have a muse?

For Thunderbirds fanfiction my muse is definitely Virgil, The-Virg, It’s definitely his creativity and those eyes, plus that mouth, also those eyebrows, and his muscles… Sorry getting distracted – Actually, thinking about it, Virgil’s more of a distraction than a muse. Especially with my new mobile screensaver which I keep staring at.

Okay, back to the question. I don’t think I’ve got a muse – just a little voice in my head that won’t shut up when I have a story idea until I’ve written it down.

…

Next we have @gumnut-logic who asked: ‘Writer meme question thingy - 1 & 12.’

1: Describe your comfort zone—a typical you-fic.

I always seem to revert to the family dynamics rather than a full-on rescue story (which is probably why I’m struggling with two of my fics which need to  have rescue bits written in) Basically, I love to go deeper into the descriptions of the physical/emotional whump, and how the family deal with the situation (hidden feelings, tempers, how they bond) during and afterwards.

12: Is there an episode above all others that inspires you just a little bit more?

Yes, for both TOS and TAG.

The original series: There’s a few – Terror In New York City (Yep, the beginning in particular) The Perils of Penelope, Sun Probe, The Uninvited, Edge Of Impact. After thinking long and hard to narrow it down I’d have to say that while Terror In New York’s my favourite. The Perils of Penelope inspired my naughty fic The Night of Anderbad (Penelope & Virgil pairing) plus the idea of Virgil having a secret crush on her in later chapters of The Tracy Family and a few other one of fics.

TAG: There are a few earlier ones which have inspired fics – Grandma Tourismo, Flame Out, Hyperspeed, SOS pt. 2, Signals pt. 1, Upside Down. There are probably others and these last few episodes have been really inspiring. However, I think I would definitely have to go for the more recent SOS Pt 1 & 2 and Signals Pt 1 & 2. (I’m sure the finale of Season 3 may change this answer)

…

Third we have @onereyofstarlight who asked: ‘2 and 37 for the ask meme.’

2: Is there a trope you’ve yet to try your hand at, but really want to?

Yes, I would like to have a go at Were Virgil at some point. Also, would like to try doing the boys ages differently to see how the dynamics changed – Alan as the eldest, next in line is Gordon, then Scott in the middle with John then Virgil as the youngest.

37: Talk about your current wips.

Lol, I have a few so this could take a while :D

I will start with ones that I’ve posted on FF.Net & A03 (Probably also shared them here at some point.

1. Avalanche: TAG.

This story began as a prompt that suggested a story that begins and ends with the same line but the meaning/feeling of the line changes. I started it with the intention of writing just 1 chapter …hahaha… of course I ended the story on a cliff-hanger and couldn’t leave it there, so it’s been continued and I’m so glad I did because I personally feel it is nearing the top of my best written list. The story itself is set when the boys are just children and focuses on the tragedy of the Avalanche and the emotional repercussions. I’ve just reached chapter 14, and probably have another 2-4 chapters left.

2. Lucille: TAG

Synopsis - A story about the unseen woman who watches over International Rescue."I am a wife, I am a mother, and I am the one who watches over International Rescue, making sure I am there to catch them whenever they fall. My name is Lucille Tracy and this, well this is my story!"

A story told through the eyes of the boy’s mother. This is one that I keep stopping and starting, most likely because I hadn’t planned it out. It’s currently on-hold until I finish some others, but I will complete it.

3. The Games: AU - Thunderbirds Are Go mixed with the concept of the Hunger Games. (Although, only Thunderbirds characters will make an appearance)

Here’s my synopsis - Climate change, famine, war. In the end another major war lead to the richest creating the Global Defence Force and 'order' was restored. To celebrate and keep control the Hunger Games were created. This was the 100th games.

The fic started from the Whumptober Prompts and I decided to continue it, wrote half of the 2nd chapter then promptly forgot about it. I’ve recently been looking at this again and have started to reread The Hunger Games for inspiration. However, like Lucille this fic is currently on hold.

4. Virgil Drabbles: TAG.

Started out as a challenge to see how much I could get across in just 100 words. All chapters are based around the lovely Virgil - TAG (but with him being the middle child – started before the Grandma Tourismo episode and apart from a few fics where I write it the other way around I prefer it this way)

The story starts from Virgil’s birth and I’ve now got him attending Denver. I still have a fair few chapters to write but the rest is now all planned out.

5. Reflections: TOS.

Set after Virgil's crash during the Season 1 episode 4 of 'Terror in New York City.' Short reflections from each of the family on nearly losing a brother and son. (Previously Titled, Fallen Brother)

I had always wanted to write something based on my favourite TOS episode. Then Shane Rimmer passed away and this was inspired. Slow updates on this one but I’ve finished telling myself the story just need to edit/rewrite that into something coherent.

And now we’re onto the ones that I may have posted snippets for or just 1 section for on here, but nothing officially posted as yet.

1. Two Untitled Prompts: TAG.

Both prompts were given to me at the end of November and I actually wrote out both (Plotting, thoughts, and telling myself bits of the story) Then December knocked me sideways and my writing suffered. Back to working on these 2 again now and really enjoying them. Without giving to much away, the one features a heart-broken Alan and the other (which with Avalanche is at the top of my pile) features Virgil having a day from hell with added whump.

2. Two Whumptober Fics: TAG.

Posted 1 or 2 chapters for each of these back in October and decided that they could possibly be extended/completed before posting. (All short fics)

The first one is titled Coffee Shot: Virgil gets shot in a café and emotions will run high. Fully planned out but decided to finish some others before I continue working on this.

The second is currently titled Ransom and is set when the guys are children. Scott and Virgil get kidnapped – Only done some basic plotting for this and it’s currently towards the bottom of my WIP pile.

The third is untitled and at the moment my word file is saved under the imaginative title of ‘Virgil Whump’ (Posted 1 snippet that I wrote in 15 mins at the beginning of October then left it because of other projects) In this one the guys are all extremely busy with call-outs and Virgil needs to go to a rescue on his own that involves Fischler. Unfortunately he ends up getting trapped, injured, and because its Fischler left on his own. Fully planned out.

3. Working Title – Shattered Hope. TAG

A story idea that came to me over a year ago, written some short bits, planned out most of the story but because of one small element I need to wait until TAG Season 3 finishes.

Here’s a bit from it that did get shared to Tumblr…

‘How had it come to this?’

Just a short time ago they’d been happy, enjoying some rare downtime in the sun, five brothers together. It shouldn’t be like this… With him cradling one brother who was bleeding from a bullet wound after saving the youngest from certain death. The other two close-by. One with a dislocated shoulder, the other with a broken leg, he himself had a stab wound to his arm... All of them with numerous other injuries… Beaten, bloodied, bruised… And praying that someone would rescue them!

…

Fourth we have anonymous who asked for ’35, 38 and 39.’

35: Would you ever kill off a canon character?

I’ve killed poor Scott off a few times HERE ... HERE and another time as an old man where Virgil also got killed off. (The fic scarred me – But, at the same time I think it’s the best short I’ve written - It’s called White Light if you want to give it a read)

I’ve not killed any of the others yet, and I keep telling myself that I won’t do it again, but it will probably happen again at some point…

39: Do you ever get rude reviews and how do you deal with them? 

I’ve had a couple, but they are usually anonymous ones. I normally just delete them and move on because people like that have nothing better to do and are not worth any upset. But if it does affect my confidence then I’ll reread a couple of nicer comments, then when I’m ready I’ll continue writing. I think there was only one that really knocked me for six and that was an anonymous rant on my Bad Day fic because I’d dared to pair up Virgil and Brains. (I’m sure you can imagine the content)

38: Talk about a review that made your day.

Even though 38 comes before 39 I wanted to save this one for last.

Every single comment I’ve ever got. No matter how short or detailed has brought a smile to my face and helped inspire me to continue writing – If I had to single out one then it would actually be a private message that was sent to my Fanfiction.Net inbox. It was over 2 years ago and unfortunately I can’t find the message now but whoever sent it to me said that they’d loved my Fics, in particular Gone which they had read several times and that I was their favourite writer. I was beaming for weeks afterwards.

So, whoever you were thank you - and to all who comment, re-blog, like or kudos my stories. Thank you from the bottom of my heart… Seriously you all make this fandom such a lovely place to be!

All my current posted fics and their status can be found via my: Thunderbirds Fanfiction Masterlist 

[alo-piss-trancy]

What Lurks in the Shadows (P/5 Omo Snippet #7)

((BIG BIG PLOT SPOILERS FOR P5 BELOW!!!!))

((This was going to be a 3 part omo whumpfest about Akira's time after captured by the police/Akechi. 1st chap would be his time in confinement w/Sae and then the car ride with her after escaping aka normal playthrough, 2nd was the Bad End w/Akechi which was going to be absolutely brutal, and THIS was Chapter 1.5 (took place directly after Sae's chapter which had 1 wetting. Makoto stays the night in leblanc to keep an eye on him since Sojiro and Sae can't. Akira is super fucked up from all the injected drugs, Tae's meds, and the trauma. Out of all my snippets this is the one I was most invested in and would love to finish if I ever had time/motivation.))

((Forgive the not-so-accurate injuries, I had planned to research and edit those to be more realistic/close to canon after the basic draft. Same with his paranoia it was gonna be more fleshed out.))

The haze of sleep had faded as he gradually became aware of the various signals coming from his body. His head was pounding... he wasn't sure how much was from the man's foot kicking into it when he'd first woken up in that cell, and how much was a side effect from the drugs still coursing through his veins. It was enough to make him feel nauseous, but the churning in his stomach was nothing compared to the sharp stinging every time he tried to breathe. His sides and back were killing him. 

Everything hurt… he just wanted to drift back off...

But there was one other thing he was aware of that would make that impossible. His bladder, heavy and aching badly enough that he had to squeeze his thighs together, huffing under his breath. Right. Normally he was fine during the night, but after what had happened earlier and all of the fluids he'd had to drink to combat the dehydration, he guessed it made sense that those muscles would be weaker than usual.

Licking his lips, he reached towards the nightstand, fumbling around for his glasses. His sides were screaming in response to the simple movement, but he finally managed to get his shaking fingers to grasp them. As soon as he put them on though, he swiftly wished he hadn't.

His vision was still bleary anyways from the sleepiness, but the slight bit of extra focus he gained made the darkness of his room seem much more threatening than it had been a few moments ago. It had been hazy before, but now he could make out sharp shadows and bulky figures, some of which he swore would move the moment he turned his head. He couldn't gain a clear image, but they were there, lurking in the edges of his vision, the briefest flashes of legs or arms, shined shoes, smug faces. Sharp teeth, inhuman masses, bloody necks without heads.

Shadows can't manifest here, can they?

Arsene. Arsene, can you hear me?

He couldn't sense the rush of unrestrained power, that rush of confidence and flair that let him know his Persona had come to the forefront of his mind. He couldn't feel anything but his heart beating faster, the tremble of his shoulders as he pulled his arms closer to his chest. 

Another flashing face out of the corner of his eyes and he was forced to clench them shut. How many of these things were there? Where were they coming from? Ow, sitting up like this really hurt... every inch of him hurt...

There's too much I'm trying to focus on... I can't think clearly enough to contact him…

Nibbling his lip as he squeezed his thighs together against his body's insistent nagging, he risked a glance towards the left side of the bed. Makoto was still lying there, sleeping peacefully. The sight was somehow both comforting and painfully lonely. Yes, it was nice to know someone else was here with him, but if they weren't actually awake to see the danger in the room...

But... she's always aware of things.  She's the one who triple-checked the door, and made sure both our phones were charging. If there was really an intruder here, she'd wake up immediately, right?

There's nothing here. There can't be. We're the only two things alive in here.

Those things that he was seeing... they must just be hallucinations. Terrifying, but not real. He fought monsters weekly anyways. He could handle a few spooky apparitions.

Taking a breath, he forced himself to look back at the rest of the room, his eyes straining to see what the strange forms and shadowed areas could be. Well, he knew some of the lumps by memory... the crafting table, and all of the junk on that one shelf...

I can feel my way through the rest.

But just as he started to work up the nerve to shift his legs, he caught sight of the door. The doorway, cloaked entirely in darkness, and leading the way down into a pitch-black café. The café everyone had been gathered in so shortly ago...

Someone could have seen Sae's car... And if Futaba had bugged the place once, surely the much more advanced resources the police had access to could do the same... They could have followed him here, and they could be waiting, right down there, and he'd come down and they'd pin him again, and he couldn't fight back, not like this, and they'd-

His breath quickening, he'd finally let himself lie back down, pulling the blanket over his head. He couldn't risk it, he couldn't go down there, not when there could be an ambush...

Just listen to yourself! You got away! You had that whole plan, and it worked, you know it worked! Makoto's here, Sae's on our side... you're safe here…

He knew he should trust logic. But... if there was the slightest chance that they could be here, that he could go through that hell again...

He could wake her, ask her to walk down with him...

But if he was right, then they might beat her, or drug her, or do something even worse, and he couldn't allow her to be put through that...

And if he was wrong, which was just as likely, then she'd just think he was wasting her time and being paranoid, and he was their leader, he was supposed to be confident and strong and totally not scared about the way their plan had gone, because if they knew he had doubts, they wouldn't focus, and then they might not be able to stop Shi-

I can't ask her. I can figure something out.

Well, he couldn't hold it until morning, and he definitely wasn't going to piss himself, so he'd just have to suck it up. Whatever was waiting down there, he'd just have to brave it. 

Just run down there, it'll take two minutes tops. You'll be back up here in no-time, and then you can go back to bed and sleep it all off.

He couldn't bring his legs or arms to move. They were just frozen in place, paralyzing fear running though his body. 

The pulses were getting stronger and stronger with every minute he stayed lying there, each steady throb forcing him to bite down on his lip harder, forcing his hand to squeeze his crotch tighter. He wanted to squirm around so badly, but he couldn't risk waking her. Squeezing his watery eyes shut, he rocked his hips a little, nearly rutting into his hand in a desperate effort to take the edge off. It wasn't helping, damn it, nothing was helping, it was just getting worse and worse...

It's just a room away, damn it! Just get up! All you have to do is get up!

He couldn't help moaning as another urgent spasm sent pain ramming through his abdomen, a slow trickle of warmth dripping out for a few seconds before it stopped, not enough to give him any relief at all. He was already in enough pain, and yet this hurt so badly...

Just slide off the fucking bed. The plant's right there, you don't even have to go downstairs. Just stand up and walk a few feet.

The dim noise of a dog barking outside assaulted his ears, and he clutched himself tighter, his crossed legs shaking as his bladder continued to spasm, waves of pain rolling through him as he fought to breathe quietly. He needed to go worse than he ever had in his life, and yet he was stuck laying on his side, panting into the pillow. He couldn't even work up the nerve to throw the covers back and sit up, knowing they were his only shield from everything else outside his protective bubble.

If I go out there, they're going to kill me... Akechi's going to be there with a gun, or they'll wrestle me to the ground and cuff me again first…

Another burst of warmth started streaming into his boxers, leaking through to wet his sweatpants. His face was blazing hot, sweat starting to drip along his skin, and he groaned, pressing his face harder into the pillow. He felt sick. It felt like the room was starting to spin, and he could barely find the strength to clench himself off before he leaked any more.

I can't piss myself again... I... I can't…

But I can't get up, not when they're right there…

It was too easy to hear the voices floating up from downstairs, those deep tones and firm orders, heartless, merciless. It was too easy to feel the sharp toe of a boot against his ribs, or the cold metal pressed against his head, the sting of more needles jabbing into his skin. He could taste the copper in his mouth, the warm heat bathing his tongue as he tried not to swallow mouthfuls of his own blood...

His entire abdomen was throbbing and pulsing, shudders running up and down his spine as he whimpered under his breath, squeezing as hard as he could against the burning in his crotch. The wet fabric rubbing against his skin kept teasing him, and little spurts kept slipping out to soak them further. 

Please... if I can just hold it until the sun comes up…

If he could just wait until Sojiro came in the morning... it would prove he was safe then...

A new jet shot out to flood his thighs with warmth, coming out so harshly that he had to bite down on his knuckles to muffle the gasp. When he breathed it caused the fabric to shift slightly, little dribbles of the liquid sliding around on his skin. He could feel every inch of his lower body throbbing, the stinging urge to release aching at the very edge of his member. Grinding against it wasn't doing anything to ease it anymore. If anything, it just made his need worse, forcing tiny leaks to drip out with the added pressure.

If I could at least slide off onto the floor, that'd be easier to-

Bang!

The click of a gun, aimed at his head as Akechi walked through the door, striding over to find him on the floor and helpless. 

The creatures were still flashing at the edges of his vision too, dancing around in the dark patches. One could easily be lurking under the bed, waiting to drag him under and rip him apart.

Another harsh burst started pouring into his pants, and he tightened the grip on his mouth, hoping to imprison the sob trying to escape. Sojiro was going to kill him for this.

I can't... I just can't...

No matter how hard he tried, he just couldn't hold it anymore. It was gushing out now, heat drenching between his legs, his thighs, and pooling around his waist. The muffled hiss against fabric sounded way too loud in this room, and he squeezed shut teary eyes, praying nothing was attracted by the noise. It felt so good to go, but the relief only made him feel sicker, his stomach twisting into knots as he felt the blankets around him and the sheets below begin to soak into a pool. 

He was trying his best not to sniffle too loudly, nose running from the light smell that was trapped under the covers, but he felt the bed shift as what he dreaded most began to happen. Makoto was moving, starting to stir with a soft groan, and he was nowhere near finished.

Stop, please stop... please stop...

But no amount of shame was going to force his body to put itself in more pain just to spare his feelings, and he could only lay there in dull fear as urine kept gushing out of him.

"What... What time is it?" It was the softest of slurred voices, but he still flinched as Makoto sat up. She was probably rubbing at her eyes, but he wasn't about to risk making eye contact to check. No, he was keeping his eyes firmly closed, doing his best to try and shut out whatever visual horrors lurked around him.

"Why is... The bed feels..." His breath hitched despite his best efforts, fresh pain shooting through his chest, and that was enough to awaken her more fully. "Akira? Akira, are you crying?"

He didn't answer, trying his best to keep quiet even though it was impossible. His breathing was becoming more ragged as his nerves and the pain caused by them set in, and a few of those shameful tears were sliding down his face. He couldn't wipe them with both hands busy.

"Akira?"

((He's ashamed, but is still too panicked by everything else to be too upset about the actual wetting. She's very gentle when she comforts him, listens to why he couldn't leave. ))

((when she finally helps him move to sit in the floor, he's in agony from his injuries and still dizzy from the drugs.))

"You're wet..." She yanked her hand back from where she'd been touching him, squinting in vain as she tried to inspect her skin in the dim glow of moonlight. "You shouldn't be wet there."

"Sorry... it was kind of a lot, so..."

She shook her head quickly. "No, it can't have been that, it's too high up. Let me see your shirt." 

Before he could protest, she reached out to grasp the edges, tugging the cloth up until it was just below his armpits. He shuddered, both from the pain of having to keep his arms stretched up out of the way, and because of the chilly air hitting his skin.

"Akira, you're bleeding!" The moment her fingers stroked the bandaged area (light as her touch was) he flinched, gasping and gritting his teeth to try and trap a mewl of pain. 

"Oh, sorry, I'm so sorry! That's near where your ribs were broken... I'm going to have to change your bandages though, and get another look at that wound. I think all of your moving earlier pulled open the scab."

((takes him downstairs to clean up in the bathroom, washes him very carefully and avoids his privates. He hates that she has to see his injuries in full, but has no choice.))

((after he gets re-bandaged, she quietly suggests he wait in the booth while she fixes him a snack because he didn't eat earlier (he chooses to hide out in the bathroom instead, still paranoid about the door. She agrees to stay in there with him) ))

((At one point while they're downstairs, Morgana and him make brief eye contact through the shop window. Mona desperately wants to come in and comfort him, but Akira signals for him to stay outside like they originally planned. Mona knows the best way to help Akira is to stand guard seriously, even if his heart is being torn to pieces seeing what a wreck his best friend is...))

~~~

"I told you, I'm really not hungry..."

"Just some light broth, and a few noodles. I'll go fix it, stay in here and rest until I come get you."

((when she comes with his food and some light pain meds, he sees her eyes are bloodshot and puffy. She's been bawling in the kitchen, but forces herself to be calm for his sake.))

((they can't do laundry for the bed at 4am, so she fetches some clean blankets from the closet and they lay bundled up on the floor ))

((makoto tries to comfort him with sympathetic story of Kaneshiro's harassment and calls, when she was terrified he was going to break into her house and how she dealt with the paranoia to keep from breaking down since she couldn't tell anyone.))

((More angst fluff and both trying to hide their emotional anguish from each other as they fall asleep huddled on cold tile bc I am nothing if not a cruel bitch))

[scribblesnblues]

11/11/11 tag

Tagged by @azucarosito, thanks!

1) Do you have a favorite OC?

Okay so in the original edit of “The Lost Child”, back when it was called “Return of the Titans”, there was a character named George Washington. He was (spoiler alert!) Zeus in disguise but acted as the magical pet goose of the MC, Frankie. I really liked writing his mannerisms, as well as offering snippets of his secret identity throughout the story.

2) Which WIP has changed the most? Why?

“The Lost Child”, most definitely. I had the idea for it when I was almost out of middle school but didn’t write it while I was on a break from writing until I was a sophomore in high school. From there, I made a short story called “Rack City” that had its basic idea: a girl, named Frankie, with antlers. From there, I furthered the plot to fit a longer narrative, but it went through MANY renditions. One time, she and a group of other young girls were tasked with fighting supernatural creatures. Another time, I delved into Sumerian mythology. But none of it really stuck until I got to its most recent edition, which closely resembles its current state, save for a few changes. This is because although I really loved it, I realized that it was a bit too close to Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series, and I wanted something that was similar, but not a carbon copy. That’s where “The Lost Child” comes in, and (hopefully) will stay.

3) Do you enjoy worldbuilding? Do you consider yourself good at it?

I like certain aspects of worldbuilding. When it comes to creating entire countries and territories, I love it and excel at it, as it broadens my perspective of the world. But when it comes to creating a culture, that’s like my kryptonite.

4) Have you ever made a conlang/fictional language for a WIP

Nope, and I don’t plan on it! lol

5) Do you like to keep faceclaims of your OCs? Do you find them online or draw them yourself?

I LOVE faceclaims. They make characterizations and writing descriptions so easy when you have a visual representation of your character. The problem is that not everyone looks the way that your character does, and the people who are most mainstream and everyone knows and recognizes oftentimes excludes certain groups. In this case, I try my best to use models for my faceclaims, but whenever I can’t, I get commissions from artists.

6) Has anyone ever made any fanfic or fan art for you?

I did host a contest a while ago for tLC’s past edition on Wattpad and someone did write a short story for it, but nothing else besides that.

7) Who is your writing buddy/confidant you always come to about your work?

My sister, who’s a fellow writer. Right now, I’m beta reading one of her stories, and every now and then, she sneaks a glance at mine lol

8) Big or small cast?

Preferably? Small casts, but that depends on the project. If it’s one of my anthology series or short stories, then small casts are best. But for my novels, I like going for big-ish casts to strengthen the story and give it more depth.

9) Were any of your characters inspired by others you saw or read about?

Phew, where to start? Francine’s obviously based on Peter Pan, for my love of the original story, as well as Disney’s Hunchback of Notre Dame and Hercules. Jameson’s based on the artist Jidenna and Benjamin’s a mix between the Cowardly Lion and the Scarecrow from “The Wizard of Oz”. The only people that I can think of who isn’t based on anything or anyone are B’onca, Thalis, and Balthasar.

10) Favorite trope(s)?

(Had to look it up for a sec lol) The “It’s Not What it Looks Like” trope. I love the comedic element of it and how it can lift even the heaviest of scenes.

11) How do you waste time not writing?

YouTube and Netflix are my homes away from homes, and sometimes I get inspiration for my writing while watching the show.

Tag list: @mysticwitchnatty @serphics @michaelbjorkwrites @gemini-writes @jmgdwrites @chris-the-dragonslayer @ultraviolentpeace @cookiecutterwrites @lilywrites01 @chavawrites @heyabella

[scribeofred]

2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41, 43, 47!

2. Whatis your latest fandom?

My latestfandom is Batman in terms of fic. There’s a wealth of reading material in it,and it is almost perfectly suited to my preference for brothers-relatedmaterial. There are also some very very very good writers to be found, and I’menjoying being able to consume in a large scale again, at least when I’m notsick of reading due to work.

3. Whatis the best fandom you’ve ever been involved in?

In termsof “this is my ideal place and I am never leaning,” absolutely Thunderbirds. It’salso a… very small fandom, and for a choosy consumer such as myself, that’sbeen a serious problem over the last year or two, what with the departure of alot of my favorite writers. Nevertheless, the world and the characters have embeddeddeep in my heart, and I’ll always be around somewhere in the fandom in one iterationor another.

5. Whichfandoms have your written fanfiction for?

A few! Ihave published fics for TRON: Legacy, Assassin’s Creed, FFVII, Star Wars, Sherlock,Thunderbirds, FFXV, and VLD.

As far asentirely unpublished fandoms… I have an enormous Merlin AU completelyoutlined, but I only wrote snippets of it. Too bad, because it was going to beSO GOOD. Alas, I am no good with monster projects, so it languishes, probablyforever. Unless I post the outline here. Hmm. I could do that…

7. Listyour NoTPs from each fandom you’ve been in.

Oh man. Well.Let’s see. Automatically anything incest or slash, they’re just not my mug ofpomegranate juice. Other than that, I’m relatively fluid when it comes topairings and tend to go in for anything that’s well-written and has dynamicsthat are to my taste, so I rarely hit upon pairings that make me nope entirely out.I tend to just not care about anything that doesn’t strike my fancy.

11. Whois your current OTP?

As notedabove, I am not a hardcore shipper. Favorite pairings come and go depending onmood and whether they’ve become boring due to overuse/overexposure/passage oftime or not. If I had to pick, I’d say I still default to Scott/Penny, though,because I’m still writing ’em.

13. Goon, who are your BroTPs?

Mostrecent fandoms only, in no particular order: Shiro & Pidge, Shiro &Hunk, Keith & Pidge, Keith & Hunk (VLD); Scott & Virgil, Scott& John, insert-all-possible-bro-combinations-here (TB); Dick & Jason,Jason & Stephanie, Jason & Cass, Cass & everyone, Jason & Damian(Batman).

17. Whatship have you written the most about?

I am stillinfluenced a ton by TOS, so as of the last five years, it’s Scott/Penny. They’rethe ultimate power couple, both heirs to enormous fortunes, and let’s face it:they look incredible on each other’s arm. The dynamics are lovely between them,very arch, very clever, and finding ways to make them relax around one anotheris just genuinely my favorite.

19. Anyships which you surprised yourself by liking?

Nyx/Araneafrom FFXV came out of the blue. I think I saw someone had written it once duringone of my only glances at the fandom’s AO3 section, and it lodged in my brain. Imean. I’ve read exactly one (1) fic for them and have written an equal numberof fics with them, and I don’t really think about them on my own time nowadays,but they did click with me, at least very briefly. I also super wasn’texpecting to like Shiro/Allura from VLD, but they touched hands in S2, and Idid that little flappy hand thing and made The Noise, and I knew I was InTrouble.

23. Whatfic do you desperately need to rewrite or edit?

See, I dothis thing. Where once I’ve posted a fic, I am disinclined to reread it withoutsome serious—usually external—prompting. Not because I hate it! But because I’vejust moved on to new ideas—that one has had all the hooks it had in my brainreleased by way of posting the story, and I don’t need to think about it anylonger. I’m not very interested in rewriting old material, although last week Idid reread Three Towels and a Tracy for the first time in a couple years, and Imade a few tiny tweaks to the AO3 version for improved readability. I edit soheavily while I initially write a story, though, that I really don’t leavemyself much room for editing/rewriting at a late date.

Arealistic answer would be “probably the first ten or so stories I posted becauseI know So Much More about writing, especially the technical elements, now thanI did then, and there are undoubtedly many missing/misplaced commas int them.”

29. Whatinspires you to write?

Sometimesit’s vivid mental images that I Must Put Into Words (an upcoming FFVII story);sometimes a piece of art or a song compels me to put words down. Imagery is abig thing in my writing, so it tends to be something visual that sparks aproject, although occasionally combinations of words just *sing* to be put downsomewhere. Truth told, I write for SS and no one else, so yeah, she’s myinspiration.

31. Doyou listen to music when you write or does music inspire you? If so, which bandor genre of music does it for you?

Music inand of itself rarely inspires me these days, with one notable exception, but I dousually listen to it while writing. Anything instrumental gets at least tried,but I lean toward film/game/TV scores (Hans Zimmer yaaaaaasssss), smooth jazz, epicproduction music, and some electronic music. If music is too much for onereason or another, I will pull up a soundscape generator—myNoise is amazing; I’vebeen all over the Black Hole soundscape recently—and let that run on animatefor an hour or two.

37. Doyou use established canon characters, or do you create OCs?

I alwaystry to write canon characters unless it’s necessary to create a person for aspecific scenario. OCs can be hard to connect with unless you’re very good at makingreaders care, so they’re a bit risky. I know I prefer to read about canoncharacters, though, so that drives my thinking when I create plots/scenarios.

41. Listand link to 5 fanfiction authors who are amazing:

@preludeinz is just… one of the best writers you’re ever going to find. The way she’sable to take literally any scenario or characters and make them interestingbaffles me even years into knowing her, and you will not find a better writer todescribe clothing. She’s as brilliant at handling character interactions as sheis at describing lasagna food. Also, her dialogue is A++

lurkinglurkerwholurksis another complete package. Everything about their writing is engaging andfeels so polished, and they have an enviable ability to capture characters’ voices.I’m constantly blown away by the quality of their work, and I’m waiting withbated breath for the next chapter of Nature and Nurture.

@headspacedad writes some of the best stream of consciousness I’ve encountered. The firstchapter of their story Falling took my breath away, and subsequent updatescontinue to knock the air out of me. Writing a character who’s lost a primarysense is no easy feat, but they make it incredibly easy, and indeed the storyis so rich with details that it’s 100% better that way.

If youwant a writer who’s going to challenge you with each chapter, each scene, eachparagraph, each sentence, pollywantsa is absolutely the writer for you. I’mperhaps a tiny bit traumatized by one particular work, but in general every storyis worth reading. There’s a sense of weight to each piece, a gravity that goesbeyond fandom trappings and sinks into your very bones, lives like mercury inthe bottoms of your lungs, dragging you down into the unshakable truths that areinescapably human. Real people make wrong decisions, destroy other people orthemselves; they are crude and profane and selfish and so very beautiful intheir imperfections, and polly will remind you of that with each tone-perfectword they’ve laid down.

Roundingout the list is @velkynkarma. Unusual stories and unique situations that I neverwould have considered reading are some of my favorite stories because of VK’sskill at finding the engaging threads to pull into the light. Space mouse vsCoran? Amazing. Keith + space mouse shenanigans? Incredible. Zarkon + eldritchhorror? Terrifying but so engaging. Slav and Sven AU? Worthy of popcorn. Heapsof Shiro angst? Sign me up. The high quality of both storytelling and technicalskill are not to be missed, and every new story and chapter updated is a TREAT.

(honorarymention: @deepwaterstars for being the sunbeam to my moonbeam <3)

43. Whatship do you feel needs more attention?

Uh… I’mnot sure tbh. I’m not a “shipper,” and I tend to read gen fic as a wholesalerule. I wouldn’t mind seeing a bit more Virgil/Penny, I guess?

47. Doyou leave reviews when you read fanfiction? Why/why not?

Mmmm.See. This is the thing I’m trying to get better about. Because I tend to go ALLIN when I comment and drop a solid 300–500 words, and that takes time, even ifthe words are flowing. I find it hard to write something more modest, because Iknow exactly how much I drool over the writers who leave me enormous comments,and I want to give them the same feelings. I tend to only comment whensomething has truly moved me, especially since I’ve tried to move on from the unasked-forcritique-style reviews. Maybe one day I’ll find a happy middle ground.

ask me about fanfic!

[someobscurereference]

schools been eating me alive so I haven’t had a chance to check out your blog in forever but I love your fe14 stuff!! If it’s not a bother, are there any plot bunnies/headcanons that you’ve been thinking about lately that you want to share/talk about?

“School’s been eating me alive” I’m right there with you, anon, no worries, lol

I’m so glad you like my FE stuff! Thank you! And asking about plot bunnies and the like is never a bother, aha! Hmm, let’s see…

I have about 30K of another spooky horror AU outline + actual scenes written out. It’s been about two (2) weeks since I’ve touched it, however. Bc school. But I do want to finish it at some point! I’ve nearly finished with the outline and then would just have to finish writing the scenes themselves. It’s a bit slower going than most projects because it’s so large though. Also there’s more interpersonal conflict than in my past fics because I wanted to try writing something where characters have like. Actual personal flaws and handle things badly sometimes, since I think that’s something I tend to shy away from. But I also worry a bit about how readers would interpret characters being big jerks sometimes since I never write it, so I think that slowed me down too. That, and school. But I do wanna finish writing that because I love horror! I won’t give too much away, but water is a big theme ;D

I haven’t done a ton of plot thinking recently bc school but lowkey I’ve been musing about Keaton/Laslow modern AU (sort of Teen W//olf-esque, lol) where Keaton is So Very Obviously a wolfman who loves to bug Laslow about garbage and gross bugs Laslow hates and just be Generally Wolfy. Meanwhile, Laslow is trying to very hard to ignore the Very Obvious Signs that Keaton is a wolf person because he just doesn’t wanna be a part of crazy nonsense, lol. But it’s so obvious and Keaton thinks he’s doing a good job of it. He’s not. Laslow is just giving him a crazy amount of leeway.

Also I talk with @kimium about this a lot but one day, modern au or canon AU, I’m gonna write about Odin’s relationship with food. Or just him loving food. Or being an amateur baker or his SO being a chef/baker. Just Odin and food all around. Because I read his and Noire’s Support and never forgot it, and now I wanna feed him all the time. This boy eats whole boxes of strawberries as a full meal. He’s always up for extra dessert. Or any dessert. One day. I’ll write this one day.

Also Reincarnation AU/Amnesia AU/Reincarnation + Amnesia (one person remembers while the others don’t or vice versa) is literally always on my mind. So is Mistaken Character Death (because I love that desperate “please don’t leave me” feeling in those scenes. I’ve written them before but I’ve never really gotten, like, crazy desperate with it, which is a goal at some point. Because I live for that.) Also my standard ships are generally in the background too, but I’ve also been feeling different combinations of Awakening Trio OT3 recently. Nothing specific though. 

Aha, so not a lot of HCs this time then. And not a ton of specific plot except for Spooky Water AU (which I don’t want to be too spoiler-y about atm). But these are a few general things that have been floating in the back of my mind as of late! I hope they’re at least a little interesting, lol. Thanks for the ask!

EDIT: ALSO! I’m so very into the concept of some of the Nohrians seeing scenes from the Trio’s life in the Bad Timeline via literal physical flashback or Actually Going There via some Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban-esque time travel and just like. Realizing/Seeing Firsthand how wild and different things were there. Whether it be their SOs that see this/go there or its their future kids, I’m into it. Idk how I would do it, if it would be a snippet or a full fic. But I think about it all the time.

[cookiefonster666]

Thoughts on the Homestuck Epilogues (Tumblr Edition)

I predicted the future!

Might as well adapt this Blogspot post I made about a week ago into Tumblr form, why not. With a few minor changes. I don’t like using Tumblr but I figure it’s a good additional platform to share my surprisingly positive views on the Homestuck Epilogues.

The epilogues have a lot of controversial content, most of which I avoid talking about here.

BRIEF SUMMARY

4/20, read through Meat: epilogues pretty good

4/20, started Candy: what the fuck

4/21, stopped: aaaaaaaaughhhhh bluh i hate everything

4/24-ish, continued Candy: epilogues alright i guess also i am sad now

4/27-ish, finished: I LOVE HOMESTUCK

BRIEF-ISH SUMMARY

Meat was a wild ride that started as cool plot stuff and things that make you go "OH FUCK", continued as basically chapters 7-9 of Detective Pony (which I naturally enjoyed a lot), and ended as a mess of sheer chaos and destruction. My thought process ended as, "oh duh, this is the bad ending, candy must be the good ending". I was in for quite the nasty surprise.

I quit reading Candy just a few pages in. It didn't take long for it to suddenly become the weirdest fanfiction ever. Frustrated, I started skipping and searching through later parts and got rather salty when it turned out both sides were the "bad ending". I saw firsthand what vfromhomestuck meant by "clear your whole week": this is not something most people can just read in one sitting. Then I recovered a few days and read Candy in earnest, in a somewhat anachronous order and with many parts read multiple times. Slowly, I started to hope that the epilogues would be followed up with a true happy ending for real this time. I may or may not have written a snippet of some form of fanfiction paving the way for a happy ending.

Once I finally accomplished the equivalent of reading Candy as intended, I got hit HARD with feels. I accepted that the epilogues have many issues but as a whole (not just the sum of parts) are an absolute masterwork, sometimes because of those issues. It didn't take me long to realize the brilliant duality either. Meat is a side-splitting metafictional farce that (for me at least) is impossible to treat as anything resembling a story of people doing things. Candy is a tale of FEELS, and I don't use the word FEELS lightly. FEELS means I almost cried, like I did when I watched the Futurama episode Luck of the Fryrish.

DETECTIVE PONY AND METAFICTION

Before I move on and talk about the CHARACTERS, I'm going to discuss the meat epilogue's resemblance to sonnetstuck's Detective Pony. I love everything about Detective Pony, more than almost anything else in existence. My abnormal love for that godlike fanwork probably skewed my perception of Meat a bit. Starting from page 17, Dirk takes over the narration then fights over it with god tier Calliope; both do rather questionable deeds and Dirk was hit hard by fans as a result. Seeing other fans react towards that character with such hostility gave me a very distinct feeling of "what, am I missing something?" Dirk's takeover felt like a lengthy work of comedy to me; a story that never strips away from the fact that it's fiction, in a vein near identical to that of Detective Pony. I like to think I am in the right for perceiving that arc this way, because I think everyone who has read Homestuck should read Detective Pony. One of the epilogue authors read Detective Pony after writing the epilogues and was struck by it; I take this accidental mirroring of (post-)canon as proof that sonnetstuck understands Hussie's ways through and through. I like to think I have a solid understanding of Hussie's ways by now, but this guy is on a whole new level.

That said, the meat epilogue gets a bit carried away with metafiction to the point of making me think, "god when will things go back to normal". Towards the end of Detective Pony, Dirk goes through an existential crisis followed by a powerful revelation, and then resolves to do whatever it takes to erase his abominable creation. But the meat epilogue ends with (both figurative and literal) crashing and burning; no ultimate redemption for our poor Strider. Homestuck doesn't usually have much of a problem with getting carried away with stupid nonsense; maybe a few rare occasions in cases like Hussie's self-insert scenes. But getting carried away is a major criticism I have with cool and new web comic. I love that comic to death, but the parts that take a long time to dwell on the cool and new characters being creepy or weird are a chore to go through. o (the author of CaNWC) seems to have improved in that regard; the cool and new trolls' arc is much more to-the-point with such nonsense.

Meat getting carried away with metafiction is a major cause of my initial burnout shortly after starting Candy. I was sick of this mass dump of metafiction and expected Candy to be a refreshing change of pace. Haha, if only. My fault for reading Meat first. At night I sometimes ponder in envy of the parallel universe me that started with Candy. Actually I don't do that, I just thought it was a funny thing to say. Though I have on more than a few occasions sat in bed fantasizing about how awesome my life probably is in some parallel universe. What point was I making again? Oh whatever, it doesn't matter. I guess I should write a similar overview of Candy's narrative nature. Here goes:

LUCK OF THE FRYRISH AND SADSTUCK

Sad things are sad.

^ There, that's my candy overview. How hard was that?

With the two summaries out of the way, I figure the best way to dump out my residual thoughts on the epilogues is going character by character. I won't do every character, mostly just the ones who played large roles and were already characters in Homestuck proper. I'm sorting these characters in tiers of how well I think the epilogues handle them, mostly from worst to best.

N-TIER

N is not the lowest tier; it's the tier that cannot be ranked. N stands for two things here: "Not Applicable" and "Narrators". Naturally enough, two characters fit into that tier.

Dirk Strider: I've already talked about this guy quite a bit. I have a fondness for Dirk's character and I think his dialogue and narration in meat do a good job portraying some ascended, ultimate version of his character without straying from his voice, the tone that makes him Dirk. That said, I'm a bit peeved that "normal Dirk", the one iteration of Dirk Strider that isn't total bonkers and just wants his friends to be happy, doesn't exist in this story. In Candy, Rose suddenly loses the memories of her alternate selves, but for some reason Dirk keeps those memories and soon after commits suicide; he's left out of the picture until Candy's postscript, which I guess is a reasonable balance considering his indulgence throughout Meat. But why is only one of the succulently verbose Strilondes let off the hook? Some readers imagine Dave as the comic's protagonist and Dirk as the antagonist; I've toyed with that idea myself and can see it symbolized, but it just feels so wrong to me. Maybe the authors did too good a job writing Dirk for me to be complacent with such a shift in role. His conversations with Rose were just as delightful as I had hoped and they aren't weighed down too much in light of his shift in role, at least not for me.

Alt Calliope: The narrative rival to Dirk, as I mentioned previously. I'm not totally sure what to say about her, other than that one could see her as a counterpart to let's say Anna Harley; a necessary piece in the Detective Pony analogy. Alt Calliope's narrative arguments with Dirk were hilarious and that's all there is to say on the matter.

G-TIER

I'm lucky Gamzee's name starts with a G, because this means I can give him a tier of his own worse than F. As an individual arc that is; he'd get a much higher rating when taken as part of a whole.

Gamzee Makara: Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. I despised reading every word that came out of this guy's mouth as soon as his """redemption arc""" started. But I can clearly tell that was the point and that the suffering that is reading his words has a much greater purpose. Before you deem me a masochist or the kind that insists everything is "bad on purpose", know that I am neither of those things but really do mean what I say here. Gamzee's role in Candy draws tension between individuality and the whole. Reading this guy's hogwash is suffering in and of itself, but ultimately it serves a role of showing us how fucked up the world of Candy is and helps the reader experience John's existential crisis with him.

F-TIER

As before, these tiers are strictly about character arcs in isolation and not the big picture. This tier is home to none other than the legendary...

Jane Crocker: Boy did I predict the future on that one. A bit like Dirk, I would've liked it more if in only one epilogue did sweet innocent little Jane become such a monster. No way in hell am I going to run through the asshole things she does; it's a load of sensitive topics I'm not comfortable discussing in any capacity. Instead, I'll say that if I had to choose only one epilogue where Jane ran through her crazy presidential campaign it would be Candy; as with Gamzee's arc, this campaign serves well as a part of John's existential crisis. What's weird here is that in Candy she originally cancelled all this, but later ended up basically doing it anyway with Dirk gone. I can imagine Jane going back to normal in Meat, maybe? Or in the hypothetical "true ending" I discussed prior.

D-TIER

Better known as "meh" tier. Mostly the characters that don't do much and I wished did more.

Meenah Peixes: Needed more screen time, god damn it. She survives the Furthest Ring apocalypse, nabs the Ring of Life, then makes her way to Candy Earth and joins Karkat in the rebellion. Maybe it makes sense that her and Karkat teaming up in war is relegated to the background, to show how far the shouty guy has come in comparison to everyone else. I'll come back to this point when I talked about Karkat.

Roxy Lalonde: Doesn't do too much in either side, but does go through some touchy topics I'm not sure what to think about; I'm most certainly not ready to talk about those topics now. And regardless, Roxy's role in the epilogues is better discussed when I talk about John and Terezi a few tiers up.

Calliope: Doesn't do all that much either, full circle to being the exposition alien with mysterious morality. I'm actually pretty OK with that. Certainly beats out the slog of endless "ur pretty" conversations. Calliope pretty much fades into the background on both sides, which is sad but fitting.

(About pronouns: I'll keep referring to Roxy and Calliope as "she" unless I find reason to talk about the little those two do in Meat. I just avoided using pronouns in those paragraphs above.)

C-TIER

Better known as "meh" tier, but with a more positive "meh" than before. It's the "meh" that indicates lukewarm satisfaction rather than annoyance at mediocrity.

Jade Harley: Really should be on a lower tier, because she did dick squat other than being horny and painfully oblivious to all the nonsense going on. But I'm a sucker for Jade being "Jade" and was happy to see even a trace of that early in Meat. As before, I'll avoid the controversial topics surrounding Jade in the epilogues, aside from pointing out that this post reads very different now.

Karkat Vantas: This guy's a bit of an odd spot. His leadership role is addressed in the absolute last way I expected. Could've gotten more attention from the story I suppose, but damn if his character arc didn't get the most triumphant return imaginable.

Kanaya Maryam: I touched upon Rose and Kanaya's relationship when I discussed the "buddy system" in my first epilogues post and I still stand by what I said there. Her strong attachment to Rose is integrated well into Meat without seeming like fluff or defining her entire character, because she actually does other things there too. In Candy they remain a stable happy relationship and I guess I'm cool with that.

Aradia Megido: Role is the same as ever and I'm fine with that. Death fangirl who works for predestination and has ambiguous morality. Her arc with alt Calliope ends with a cliffhanger that is easily the biggest reason to hope for a follow-up to the epilogues; if such a follow-up were to happen, I really look forward to hearing more from Aradia.

Sollux Captor: Sollux is by nature the other guy, that's an immutable fact of life. He doesn't do much other than snarking at whoever's nearby and I can't imagine it any other way.

Jake English: If not for a scene near the end of Candy, I'd put Jake at D-tier. Through all of Meat and most of Candy, Jake's role is one of the oddest spots of all and it's pretty hard to pinpoint what the authors were going for, lest I dabble in controversial topics some more. But Jake's scene with John near the end of Candy is uniquely touching and makes the most out of his role as a second John. He moves in with John, bringing his son Tavros with him, and encourages John to reconcile with his former wife and make amends of sorts, ultimately giving a small portion of the cast a pseudo-happy ending. That whole part of Candy made me tear up.

Talking about the really GOOD parts is a perfect point for me to move on to...

B-TIER

Stuff that didn't make it into A-Tier, which I've reserved for what struck me HARD.

Dave Strider: In both epilogues, Dave's behavior generally seems based on how he acted in Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 5, which is actually a LOT better than it sounds and hell if I know why that is. Dave's rants about politics and sexuality now have a charm I can't quite describe. His absurd fixation specifically on the economy matches shockingly well with the nature of Homestuck. The three-way romance between him, Karkat, and Jade goes in very different directions on either side, which I'll discuss a bit later. The epilogues even made Dave x Karkat an actually decent ship, how crazy is that??? The writers deserve a big badge of honor for doing that. Not sure what to say about specific things, but Dave was really well-written in an unexpected way.

Rose Lalonde: Again not sure what to say about anything in specific. Just really enjoyed reading Rose on both sides of the story. Shoutout to the heartwarming moment with John near the end.

A-TIER

Oh boy. Oh boy. Time for the big guns.

Vriska Serket: My mind hurts to process just how good Vriska's appearance in Candy was, after leaving the Furthest Ring and landing on Earth. First she talks with John rather aggravated, then she brutally murders Gamzee, then she sits down and has an honest talk with her ectobiological clone raised by Rose and Kanaya, and in the end gets in touch with Terezi which leads to a cliffhanger. The story somehow created the PERFECT balance of sincere reflections and typical Vriska flavor, which was deeply lacking in A6A6I5 with its horrific polar opposite versions of Vriska. Two Vriskas converse once again late in Candy and this time it's incredibly endearing and almost feels like an apology for the controversial Vriska/Vriska encounter back then. I accept the apology with open arms. Why is everything always so wonderful?

John Egbert: <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3. WHY IS EVERYTHING ALWAYS SO WONDERFUL? John gets a deep meaningful existential crisis arc in both epilogues; both cases I easily latched onto and found a bit of myself in. I absolutely loved seeing him and Terezi interact as a duo of people with some perception of canonicity; I'll get back to that point soon enough. John's marriage to Roxy not working out is a testament to both his issues with canon and Roxy's issues dealing with harsh situations. Roxy latches onto John and their son as a huge carefree pushover and he doesn't like that at all. And that's actually cool with me because John x Terezi is better in every way, as the epilogues made me realize. If that wasn't enough, the end of Candy spoils our little hearts by having John reconcile with Roxy anyway and give hope for a better future. Though a part of me does want to see a true happy ending where John and Roxy date with their delightful dynamic from their first interactions, I'm beyond pleased with the epilogues' handling of John either way. Swaying deep into some rather sad territory while remaining 100% faithful to his character that I've always loved so much.

Terezi Pyrope: FUCK YES FUCK YES FUCK YES FUCK YES FUCK YES. Every scene with Terezi in the epilogues was so goddamn awesome. Her interactions with John were such a blast to read, with exactly the mix of humor and touching aspects that make both of the big John/girl ships what they are. How did the authors pull it off, making deeply emotional scenes without ever sacrificing that goofy Terezi flavor???

S-TIER

S in rating systems these days is way misused in my eyes. Normally A is meant to be the highest rating and S is used for the very rare absolutely exceptional case A doesn't do justice. But now you see shit like SS, SSS, SSSS everywhere like one S isn't the ultimate badge of honor? S is a rating I'd gladly give Detective Pony and may or may not give cool and new web comic. Same goes for my very favorite Futurama episodes. I'd give a few of Neil Cicierega's works that rating if I'm feeling up to it. In this post, I've reserved the S rating for:

Barack Obama: THE BEST PART OF THE EPILOGUES, HANDS DOWN. His conversation with Dave near the end of Candy is perfect in every way, it really transcends words. Humor, emotional touching, plot revelations, and straight up "Homestuck feel" are blended into the most delicious melting pot imaginable. When Dave confesses that he might be gay and explains troubles in his three-way romance, Obama responds with a truly inspiring speech about identity that raises an excellent point about the differences between the epilogues involving aspects of people that may seem immutable to some. I think Obama's speech leaves a powerful message I never expected Homestuck of all things to convey so well. I hope readers take that speech's message into account, though I know many will probably be a bit naive about it.

If you refuse to read the epilogues at all costs, then I implore you to read Dave and Obama's conversation anyway. You won't be disappointed.

CONCLUSION

epilogues good

that’s all there is to say on the matter

though if you don’t like them that’s also fine

[getoffthesoapbox]

[SW:TLJ] First Impressions - A Flawed Triumph

After a few days of careful consideration, I’ve decided to divide my initial review of The Last Jedi into multiple parts for clarity and ease of reading. I have only seen the film once at this time, and these are my initial impressions. Once I see it again, any future impressions or predictions will be covered at that time separately. This series of posts is solely to cover my initial thoughts about the movie.

To keep from overwhelming anyone’s dash, I’ll be posting one impression a day until they’re finished. A list of upcoming titles and where we are in the series can be found below:

[SW:TLJ] First Impressions - A Flawed Triumph ← we are here

[SW:TLJ] First Impressions - The Thematic Heart

[SW:TLJ] First Impressions - Finn & Rose

[SW:TLJ] First Impressions - Luke & Rey

[SW:TLJ] First Impressions - Luke & Kylo

[SW:TLJ] First Impressions - Luke & Leia

[SW:TLJ] First Impressions - Rey’s Trajectory

[SW:TLJ] First Impressions - Kylo’s Trajectory

[SW:TLJ] First Impressions - Rey & Kylo

[SW:TLJ] First Impressions - The Romantic Heart

[SW:TLJ] First Impressions - Misleading Love Polygons

[SW:TLJ] First Impressions - Schrödinger's Futures

The remainder of this first behemoth can be found under the cut. We’ll slay the rest in due course =)

Before I get into the narrative and the themes and the character development, I’d like to cover the more technical aspects of the film, the way it was constructed, and my general impressions from the initial viewing. Be warned, this is my significant complaints post; the remainder of this series will have some nitpicks, but on the whole my impression of the film was quite good, despite how bleak it is. ;)

The Last Jedi is on an objective level a mixed bag filmmaking-wise. There are some aspects that are positively stunning and some aspects that are disappointingly amateur for a director with such a fine reputation.

Prior to TLJ I’d never seen any of Rian Johnson’s work, but he appears to be well-respected in many corners of the internet, and I was hopeful that he could not only make up for the concerns I had about JJ Abrams as a director for The Force Awakens but also bring something new and original to the franchise. This I believe he did do, but in a haphazard fashion that isn’t entirely a credit to his talent.

Let’s start with cinematography. Many shots in the film are absolutely stunning and will probably be remembered by Star Wars fans long after the flaws are forgiven. The sweeping, epic location sequences are particularly notable--especially the Crait scenes. The Red Room sequence is Oscar-worthy in my opinion, despite some questionable editing choices in certain parts. The final sequence with Luke facing the sunset is unbelievably poignant and heart wrenching. The shot of Luke walking in on Rey and Kylo burned itself into my eyes like some of the best scenes of classic movies. The shot of Kylo and Luke facing each other down would go straight to the heart of anyone who loves westerns or samurai films. There is so much to love here in the cinematography. There is a great attention to detail in many scenes--especially on Ach-to--where you get the sense of life being greater than the characters and moving on in spite of their shenanigans, which is in my opinion a wonderful touch.

Unfortunately, there’s quite a bit that fails to meet the mark as well. Having seen only one of Rian’s films, I can’t speak for his general style, but my impression of his focus is that he has a knack for action and long establishing shots, but he has a tough time capturing relationships. Worse, this is a relationship film, not an action film. Relationships are one of JJ’s strengths, and despite TFA’s flaws (which are many), JJ was able to capture the charm of the characters with just the right framing, distance, and shot choices. Rian seems to struggle with this, especially in the pivotal Rey and Kylo scenes that are the heart of the story. Perhaps he hasn’t had much experience with crafting compelling relationships, which is JJ’s forte, or perhaps he merely choked due to the overwhelming responsibility of a film like this, but in a film where these two have to be sold as a compelling, growing relationship, this is a significant and unfortunate flaw that I find hard to overlook.

In general with romantic scenes, you want very little confusion, very little cutting, and room for the viewer to absorb what’s going on before you start moving in to close ups and building intimacy. With Rian’s Kylo and Rey scenes, we get the opposite, which works fine for the first force bond moment (meant to be disorienting for both the characters and the viewer), but not necessarily for the later ones. I found the scenes slightly disorienting, which made it hard to follow pivotal dialogue and fully comprehend the wonderful emotional nuance the two actors’ were clearly displaying in their performances. I realize Rian didn’t have much time to explore everything he wanted to in the film, but I didn’t feel the Poe scenes with Holdo were nearly as jarring as the Kylo and Rey force connection scenes. We really needed more time and lingering shots to help catch our brains up with the breakneck pace of the information being exchanged between the characters. On top of this, many of the shots are too busy and distract from the important interactions happening between the characters. Rian seems to have been trying to cram so much into the film in every shot that he didn’t know what he should emphasize and what he should downplay in certain pivotal points.

This brings me to Rian’s greatest flaws in this film, and the items that to me mark him as unprepared to enter the big leagues--the pacing is poor and the music cues are underwhelming and dull. In a blockbuster film like TLJ, we should not have these issues; these are a mark of an independent filmmaker who hasn’t figured the magic out yet. The viewer is given whiplash as we race between four plotlines (A, B, C and Darkside), never taking a moment to breathe or rest. Even TFA, a briskly paced film if ever I saw one, took its time to breathe and absorb the scenery or allow us to drink in the characters’ emotions. In TLJ, we zip through character deaths, zip through Rey and Kylo interacting, zip through Poe and Holdo, zip through Finn and Rose, zip back to Luke and Rey, onward and upward. We’re never in one location long enough to get a grip on it and get into it; the moment things get interesting, we cut away to another plot without fully delving into what these interesting moments mean for the characters.

What’s interesting is that this breakneck pacing, because it’s used in every scene of the film, actually deflates the effect of the battle scenes, which is where such pacing should be emphasized! The battles in TLJ feel oddly stilted, slow, and awkward with no tension and no stakes despite what the narrative implies. There’s one distinct moment where the First Order’s just hanging out watching the Resistance while the Resistance members are having a group chat and not fighting them! It’s the classic “villain stands and waits politely while the heroes get their shit together and transform” moment. My only answer to that was a facepalm in the theatre. The final battles are embarrassing--we have this wonderful initial set up of the new walkers moving in, and then we get this bizarre cannon (whose beam Finn is able to drive into without being incinerated, answer me that one), and rather than doing anything with them, they just sit there the entire film and attack single characters. Truly Rian’s heart was not in this part of the story, and it shows.

The slapdash editing doesn’t give John Williams enough time to work with to create compelling themes for the film, unlike what we received from him in TFA. This soundtrack is sparse and dead. It relies solely on the nostalgia factor of short snippets of music from the original trilogy. The most interesting song is the Canto Bight theme, and we only get to hear it for about a minute before we’re arrested and shuffled off to another dingy location where the sound design is forgettable! It’s a complete travesty when compared to the glory and beauty of the TFA soundtrack, where we received Kylo’s and Rey’s themes and compelling new resistance motifs all remixed throughout the film. For there to be nothing new for the Kylo and Rey sequences, or for the Finn and Rose sequences, or even for the Poe sequences is a travesty and one of the greatest flaws in the film as far as I’m concerned. At the very least Kylo and Rey should have had a new variant on the Force Theme to symbolize their connection, not a rehash of the same theme that was Luke’s! For goodness’ sake. I’m deeply hurt that the gorgeous, beautiful themes from the second trailer didn’t make an appearance in the film. It’s nothing but a shame when the best piece of music is a custom-made trailer theme that never receives its due in the film proper. This is one area where I’ll be glad to have JJ back in the final film--at the very least the man knows how to direct properly for sound.

And last, and probably least in that it’s far more forgivable, Rian just couldn’t resist the cheese. The two scenes I found the most laughable in the whole film--and they should not have been given their importance and narrative weight--were Space Leia and Rey vs. Snoke. I’ve never been a fan of asian flying films, but most of those were far better done than these two bizarre flying characters. What a disgrace to Leia’s legacy and to Rey’s importance. There were many other ways to make Snoke a terrifying character without having him fly Rey about the room in an awkward CGI manner, and the less said about Space Leia the better.

My complaints aside, let it not be said that there is nothing of value in this film. What Rian fails in pacing and musical timing, he more than makes up for with set design and color scheme. The red theme in key scenes is mind blowing. The salt flats are some of the most memorable locations I’ve seen in a film in a long time. The journey of Rey’s hair and clothing choices is perfect. The final shot between Kylo and Rey is the pinnacle of heartbreak thanks to lighting and set choices along with the performances. And although Canto Bight gets only a small cameo, the opulence and majesty of the scenery is truly a sight to behold. Rian pulls out all the stops for beauty, and it’s readily apparent. My only wish is that we were allowed to soak in and enjoy the scenery before getting shunted off to the next location. =P

If I were judging TLJ on presentation alone, I’d probably give it a C at best. Rian is so, so lucky his narrative has enough substance to make up for his insufficiencies as a filmmaker, though there are certainly flaws in the narrative as well (that I’ll be covering in future posts).  That’s how much power the themes and the story and the characters have in this narrative--they’re able to overcome amateur filmmaking and plot pitfalls. That’s a powerful movie. And that Rian can be proud of, even if I think he probably should reassess some of his choices on this one. =P

Up next, we’ll be diving deeper into the narrative and tackling the general themes! The narrative and the characters and their relationships are where this film shines, and I won’t be able to do it justice without multiple posts. If you enjoyed this, I hope you’ll enjoy the rest!

Until next time!

[lextenou]

Mirandy Fic Rec Reviews 2017-07-11

I had a couple friends ask for some fic recs for Mirandy. I will be posting more as time allows. Fics are not rated by me - if they’re listed and I’ve written about them, I recommend you read them. I have also included my own thoughts on these stories and my favorite quotes from them. As these are reviews, there are spoilers ahead. Also, heads up - assume that all fics have happy endings unless I specifically say otherwise. 

A Chance Encounter by smhfiction

Summary: Takes places five months after Paris.

When Andy is unexpectedly thrown headfirst into Miranda's life, none of them will ever be the same again.

Words: 46490

Ah, classic hurt/comfort. Andy witnesses the horrifying accident that almost claims Caroline's life, and manages to record what could easily be her last words on her cell phone, in addition to capturing footage of the accident itself. She drops everything to be with the Priestly family in their time of need, despite not having had any contact since that fateful day in Paris. Through ups and downs, including Andy's unexpected pregnancy after her one night stand with Christian, quitting her job instead of handing over the video of Caroline, and Miranda, the two of them come to a greater understanding of each other.

Though it begins as hurt/comfort rather dramatically, there are immediately strong domestic fluff elements. Touches of angst sprinkle through, with robust communication helping to pave the way to a happy ending. Anyone would have drama after being in a fatal rollover car crash, and Caroline is no exception. It comes out all good in the end, and the journey there is entertaining. There is strong dialogue throughout, which can be off putting if you're expecting more prose or examination of what is inside their heads.

The prose is tight and enthralling. Each revelation comes naturally and explains further their personalities and decisions. Characterization is dependent on if you believe that Andy had grown up after leaving Runway. If you do, its spot on. If you don't, it will be difficult. The difficulties that Andy has with her family over the pregnancy and her coming out are deftly handled. The movie that plays in my head as I read this one is incredible. Plus there are great fluffy scenes sprinkled throughout between moments of angst and terror. There are a couple of minor typos - "luck girl" instead of "lucky girl" for instance - that do not detract from the story. Some words are misused but their meaning is clear - alluded instead of eluded - with contextual clues giving more than enough understanding. These minor issues are easily overlooked if you don't get tweaked by them. If you do, steer clear.

Favorite part of the story: Andy's shiny steel spine. She stands up for herself and her child, she remains firm regarding her relationship with Miranda, and states clearly who and what she wants. It's delightful.

Favorite quote: “Look, Miranda. I am sorry for Paris and everything that you’re going through. I won’t pretend to know how that feels.” Miranda arched her eyebrow, but didn’t say anything. “I would like to be your friend, see where this takes us, and I will be there for you and both of your daughters.” She nodded satisfied with where this was going and clutched her yogurt to her chest. She could feel the tears beginning and fought them back. She seemed to cry over the stupidest things. “But, this is the last vanilla yogurt, and I’m sorry, but you can’t have it.”

How to Become a DragonMaster by dhamphir 

Summary: After walking away from Miranda in Paris, Andy decides to make her way on her own terms and finds professional success in an unexpected way. This is her story. Question is, will it end the way she wants it to?

Words: 10960

Documenting Andy's determined personal growth after leaving Miranda in Paris, we see the ways in which Andy forcefully navigates the course of her own life. Eschewing anything from the world she knew, Andy is bound and determined to NOT owe Miranda a damned thing. Granted, this is hard since she wants to be in publishing. She makes friendships, and reaches great personal success because of the friends she makes along the way.

A bit dramatic, definitely slice of life, this one has strong character growth as the driving factor of its plot. If you want to see the way that someone can go from former second assistant to successful, this can show you the way. Lighthearted, but with a touch of gravitas, it does a lot in a compact story.

What I really enjoy about this is that it shows a natural progression of character growth. Andy's journey reads quickly, but is highly enjoyable. No real issues with this one - its well written and edited.

Favorite part of the story: That they come together as equals. Its something that is missing from a lot of stories, but is captured very well in this one.

Favorite quote: “I’m 53 years old.”

Andy’s smile widened into a grin. “Did I mention I like older women?”

Dogs? Really? by jehc

Summary: Miranda discovers that Andrea writes fan fiction.

Words: 23883

A sequel of sorts to "Cats? Really?", this story treats the first one as a fanfic that Andy writes during her downtime. For context, I do recommend reading the first. It gives much additional depth to this story.

Definitely comedic, with some of the best utilized crack elements I've ever seen, this story treats its subject matter with tongue firmly in cheek. It is almost as though we're part of a great big in-joke with the characters throughout, especially if you've read other Mirandy fics. It reads like a long form love letter to the fandom that still achieves its main accomplishment of allowing Andy and Miranda to realize they're head over heels for each other. I definitely recommend reading some other fics before delving into this one - it will make the experience all the more enjoyable. Don't let the humorous nature of this one fool you - there's still sprinkling of angst and idiots in love in these pages, up until the point that they properly communicate.

Switching back and forth in perspective between Andy and Miranda, this story does a lot to expand on their relationship in a fun way. The rollicking romp does a masterful job at keeping them in character and allowing them to explore further. Emily is wonderful in this as well; the little snippets of her are a riot.

The way that Miranda is presented is fascinating. Andy figures it out in a great line. "Most of the shit she does is a total goof on all of us. It’s like she is so smart that she is bored and she amuses herself by scaring people." The guessing at what jehc stands for is similarly riotous. It's fun, downright fluffy, and it just plain works.

Favorite part: the exploration of the Devil Wears Prada fanfic world. It is absolutely hilarious to read Miranda's responses to fanfic. Runner up: that Cassidy and Caroline write fanfic. It's delicious.

Favorite quote: When Emily realized what she had said all color drained from her face. Andy had been sure the Brit was about to pass out. Miranda had then silently locked eyes with the younger woman and after letting her stew for a moment reached out and patted her on the cheek.

“Well, Emily you have finally found the women’s section of the La Perla catalogue.” Miranda’s voice was low and silky. After another short stare down she said, “So pull up your new big girl panties and find me a new assistant!”

Like Andrea, Like Family, Like Life, Like Love by GinStan

Summary: Andy realizes Miranda is acting oddly and is determined to help her ex-boss.

Words: 30786, 48748, 99444, 295898

This series is one of the longest in my collection. Its epic length is outmatched by only a few in my entire library. It is definitely worth the investment.

Starting with Andy realizing there's something wrong - namely that Miranda has put out an all brunette issue of Runway - she inserts herself back into Miranda's world to find out what's wrong. Problem is, the thing that's wrong goes deeper than one might initially suspect. Angst and laughter inhabit this world, as does a memorable duet dance to Madonna's "Vogue" and a regrettable devotion to Cincinnati chili. The full fledged exploration of not just Andy's family, but Miranda's as well, is something I didn't know I wanted until I read this. The twins are threaded throughout with great effect, and the subplots are great.

Featuring some fantastic cameos by everyone's favorite beleaguered Detective Jo Polniaczek and her socialite/CEO wife Blair Warner (originally from “The Facts of Life”), the progression in this series is natural and enthralling. I've re-read it multiple times, and each time its a wonderful journey.

This is a story about family, love, and taking or making life as we want it. There are all sorts of things included in the mix - drama, comedy, angst, thrills, romance. From the start, it's clear that this journey isn't one that will take long to get them together - it is the domesticity and journey forward that drives this one. Family action and reaction is a major point of this story as well, with a cast as broad as is presented, there are numerous subplots that are able to be explored.

There are fabulous delvings into realistic responses. The biggest "gimme" in this fic, as in the thing you accept without question to make the story work, is that Miranda is so open from the start. The drugging makes it clear why this would be, and as the story continues, we’re given further explanation of just how devoted Miranda has been to Andy since before the start of the story. Miranda normally is so controlled with her displays that Andy wouldn't trust what she sees until she gets hit with a clue-by-four. In this case, that starts with the all brunette issue of Runway and gathers steam from there, so Andy gets on board quickly enough.

This series is one of those that is bandied about as a classic. It truly is. Not just for the length - that makes it epic. The story itself, the buildup of their relationship and how it grows and deepens...THAT is what makes this a classic.

Favorite part: Its hard to pick just one thing. Its so well built upon what comes before, but I'd have to say probably Andy and Miranda's families. The subplots with them make what is already real into so much more. Tante Louise is a hoot and a half.

Favorite quote: "Oh, Jo… When you tell your wife that you met Miranda… tell her, you wore the Armani, and that Miranda gave you a nod. You got that? A Nod. It's very important."

"What's so important about it?"

Andy grinned. "It's going to get you so laid." She laughed at the look on Jo's face. "Trust me."

It’s All Relative by Hawkbehere

Summary: Andy Sachs revisits her Runway past and finds the landscape changed.

Words: 214720

Ambushed outside of work by her fellow journalists, Andy is surprised to be told that Miranda has been shot. So begins this broad, riveting tale that spans everything from a hideous belt buckle, Dalton scholarships all the way to a moose head named Charles. 

Miranda’s motivations are clearly elucidated in this one. It’s clear to us as intelligent readers exactly why Miranda is so insistent that Andy not leave - and when it’s discussed in the text, Andy sees it too. The mutual respect and uncertainty between them is explored, as is the need for them to find their own balance. Throughout, we’re given glimpses of a truly wicked sense of humor in Miranda. I about die laughing every time I read the following: Miranda lowered her voice and said in an accent straight out of Brooklyn,  “You go big and you pay de tab—it’s de kissa death to guys like dat.”

This is one of those stories that leaves you with deep impressions and that you think about for years afterward. Between the varied cast and the incredible pacing, we’re introduced to characters that feel like family. It is a sadness to reach the end and no longer be able to spend time with them. 

Hurt/comfort, drama, touches of comedy, domesticity, angst, family, altruism, the Dragon in full force - this story has it all. Subplots of other characters coming together and embracing what it means to fall in love are threaded through this, to great effect. This has one of my favorite Serena/Emily subplots. It also has fantastic medical research done for it, and it shows. Terminology and protocols are well portrayed. It also has a curious thread throughout - Miranda is the matriarch of an ever growing family, because Andy is there. It is downright heart-warming.

There are so many great parts in this story that it’s hard to winnow down which ones to discuss. This is one of those stories that you run across right before you want to pass out at 1am and spend the rest of the night reading. It remains one of the best novels I’ve ever read.

Favorite part: Miranda’s vast and varied accents are definitely up there. Jesus. So are all the characters. But my favorite part of all of my favorite parts is Emily’s wedding speech. To delight in the improbable is a gift.

Favorite quote: Caroline looked up into Dr. Allen’s eyes and saw something she hadn’t seen yet in this jovial tough-talking stranger. She realized it looked something like anger.

The woman leaned down and whispered, “I live emergency medicine. Unless you go into my field or off to war, you will never, ever see a fraction of the brutality or horror or sadness or bravery or goodness or sheer fucking grace of God that I do every day. That’s great for you but you know what?”

Caroline’s eyes began to sting but she jerked her chin so the doctor continued, “Sometimes? Sometimes God is really damned kind and a 30-ton truck doesn’t hit you or you don’t fall off the 10th story of a building. Sometimes, He sends exactly the right size enemy—something or someone you can beat if you’re willing and brave. He gives you a choice and a chance. When God’s feeling real generous? He sends someone like Andy a rat but sends someone like your mama that piece of shit who shot her.”

She lowered her voice another notch, “They both stood up and bled for the people they loved, you hear me girl? I have seen way too many people die who met something too big for them. Don’t you dare disrespect them. Not if you love them. You should thank God, Caroline. If they had to bleed and suffer, and evidently they did, you should thank God they met something they survived.”

[theawkwardterrier]

Fic roundup 2016

Buffyverse All Work The Closing Distance To Question, Squirrels and Books

Gilmore Girls Heads, Hands

Harry Potter (Enough Misadventures) To Last A Lifetime The Biting Yesterdays In the Neighbourhood As Yourself

Leverage Sanctuary Space In the Gray Light

MCU The Madcap Underground Withdraw Their Shining The Job At Hand This Bright Future Homemakers Stand Together Burdens Had The Question At Hand All the Days Woman Borne With Gentleness and Time Duty Bound Like Gravity

The Newsroom A Rousing Debate

Veronica Mars Untitled celebrity/fan AU The Blown Job

1. Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d predicted?: Considering I didn’t write a damn word for nearly half the year, much much more. I was super surprised when I did a “last 20 fics” thing in October-ish, and found that they were all in 2016. And I also feel like I actually got a decent balance between longer oneshots, little snippets, and at least one decently sized (for me) chapter fic. It also helped that I got less anxious about asking for prompts, and people were nice enough to step up and give them to me.

2. What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January?: I never ever would have expected Steve/Peggy and the MCU to take over my life and my writing as completely as it did. I have literally no concrete memory of how it happened, but suddenly they were just there, and I’ve found them honestly delightful to both read and write.

3. What’s your own favorite story of the year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you happiest? Homemakers. Homemakers. All day, every day. It’s just the right level of fluff, sounds authentic enough, flowed nicely, has humor and sweetness and a solid relationship and a plot but also a bit of a “glimpse into the life” thing. One hundred percent. Homemakers.

4. Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them? Started writing Woman Borne even though The Ninety-Nine Percent had burned me out so badly. Finished writing Woman Borne even as I realized that I likely wasn’t equipped to do so. On the one hand, I’m proud of the way I handled the act of writing and posting it- I remembered to finish the whole thing ahead of time, I had it read over at an early stage to see if I should keep going and then had it read when it was complete by someone lovely and knowledgeable, I looked over each chapter before posting and made edits if they felt necessary rather than feeling that what I’d written had to dictate the way it would go- but I don’t think I would write something so heavy and controversial and out of my personal experience like that in the near future. Although the readers were overall lovely, it was stressful as heck.

5. Do you have any fanfic or profic goals for the New Year? Just, keep writing. If I could finish a few of my WIPs, that would be nice (especially the Very Large Cameron/Chase one) but I’m pretty satisfied to take things as they come. I think my experience with The Blown Job this year was actually really helpful to me- it was a fairly old WIP, one that I’d put down as a goal to finish this year, and without even pushing myself to do it, I just picked it up and chipped away at it until it was done. It just needed to rest in my folder and in my brain for a while, and when it was ready to be done, I finished it.

6. From my past year of writing, what was… Story Most Underappreciated by the Universe: I think that things mostly got noticed in proportion to how they deserved to be noticed- Woman Borne is long so it got more, Homemakers is actually pretty good so it got props even though it was shorter- but some of my smaller fics sort of sank without a ripple. Part of it is my fault because I’m terrible at self-promo, so they were posted once on tumblr, and maybe on AO3, but I feel awkward trying to be noticed, which means that they weren’t. I’m tempted to say Head, Hands, which was my first Rory/Logan story in a while; or either of my Parker/Hardison attempts, but in the end I think I have to go with Like Gravity, which was my last fic of the year and my Steggy Secret Santa story. I don’t know if it was weird tumblr stuff or if the unevenness really put people off, but I didn’t think it was a bad story and it just seemed to go gently into the fanfic ether.

Most Fun: I think The Job At Hand. Homemakers came out so smoothly and I really liked writing all the showgirls in Stand Together, but there’s just something about the hilarious frustration of trying to keep Steve Rogers under control.

Most Disappointing: Maybe In the Neighbourhood, which was my first Ron/Hermione story. I think the characterization was okay but nothing stellar, the writing wasn’t spectacular, and the situation was a little basic. Overall, it was serviceable but lacked any kind of sparkle.

Actually, I take it back. As Yourself, one of my Lily/James fics. The idea is good and even the individual elements are good. I’m really proud of the title, too: it refers both to the quote “love your neighbor as yourself” and the theme of presenting yourself honestly. But the pacing is all wrong. I rushed it, and it shows.

Most Sexy: Oh good gosh. For years I have been answering these questions and I have never succeeded in this one. I know that there’s a lot of ways to be sexy. I write fluff and angst and everything in between. But my sexy is like “do the characters make physical contact at any point?” I’d say This Bright Future, most likely.

Hardest to Write: Woman Borne is probably the easiest answer, but although it took several months to write and had a LOT of big things tangled in it, it didn’t feel that hard in the scheme of my chapter fic experiences. I struggled with getting through The Closing Distance- I’ve had trouble with Buffy/Angel stuff for several years- but I was really surprised by how hard Like Gravity was. It was the only Steve/Peggy fic I had a particularly hard time writing, which was especially strange considering it wasn’t an extraordinarily complicated AU.

Most Unintentionally Telling: Maybe the fact that I like Homemakers so much and have reread it so many times. Although is it a reveal if my love for fluff is well known and publicized? As is my frustration re: bread-making. And that part was written with full and vocal intention, so...not sure

Choice Lines:

Harry (so normal; James’s dad would have loved that) looks around, pulling on a gray t-shirt. “What’s happening?” he says eyeing the cauldron, his mother, and James eyeing him.

“Your dad had a little incident,” Lily says. She hands Harry a muffin, shrugging when he looks from it to her. “Pre-incident baking.”

“Alright,” Harry says easily. He takes a bite. “‘M going to Ron’s for Quidditch.” He sticks the rest of the muffin in his mouth and leaves the room as Lily pours some of the cooled teal potion into a glass and sets it in front of James, who doesn’t move for a moment.

“Woah. Didn’t mean to step into the morning after.”

“Well you did, and now you’ve got it all over your shoe.”

“That’s fucking bullshit.” Steve considered adding ‘with all due respect, sir,’ but he didn’t think it would have mattered at that point, and he also didn't think it would be honest.

...Peggy Carter is controlled and capable and brilliant, but the only thing that’s stone about her is the strength of her right hook.

Steve thinks of courts martial and the way Peggy's uniform fits her so easily. His chest feels splayed open. “I'd love to come with you,” he says, the words breathing out of him.

He wants to hug her, to hold her against him, calculated and risky and stunning. Instead he finds her hand where it lies in the sand between them and presses it delicately…

...Steve, eyes downcast, gifts Peggy with a drawing- simple charcoal on lovely, thick paper- of what she recognizes with some surprise as her own hands. One is in a fist, the other spread wide like a shield.

She buys a frame for it and hangs it in her office the next day.

“Shut up,” she says, fierce and polite, and swings him around and kisses him. He’s stunned still for only a moment.

He is, in fact, a frankly lovely kisser.

When she pulls away after a few moments, he stands there dazed, and then mumbles something that sounds like, “Seniority.”

“Oh good God,” Peggy says, and kisses him again. When she’s satisfied he’ll be quiet, she says, “Phillips is ancient and crotchety and hasn’t changed his textbook in twenty-five years. You, meanwhile, let them look at naked art and stand up to their parents and are bloody gorgeous. And even if you were useless, you’ll shut up and take it. I’ve earned this.”

“You really have,” he says, and kisses her this time, his hands smiling on her back. And then, long minutes later, “By the way. Who’s the HR/PR Disaster now?” His voice is glancingly smug, which cannot be allowed.

“That was four dollars worth of ingredients,” Steve says dazedly several hours later. He is coated lightly in flour as if he has forgotten to come out of the snow.

Peggy eyes the lumpy dough creature and says, “I’m afraid I’m going to have to shoot it.”

They are two highly capable, mostly rational people. They have wedding rings and work and dinner dates and outings with friends and occasional couple’s espionage. They can cook nearly anything else by this point. There is no reason to be frustrated that they cannot conquer bread.

The next batch comes out of the oven looking perfect. It tastes only and exactly of yeast.

They host Thanksgiving because Bucky’s family wanted Christmas.

There are neat pieces of sushi as appetizers, a huge bowl of excellent mashed potatoes, and three perfect kinds of bread.

The turkey is half raw.

Bucky laughs ‘til he cries.

The girls are leaving first, so Steve stays with them while they pack up, the familiar trappings of the Star Spangled Show disappearing into crates, the familiar faces blurring beneath coats and hats.

The chaperone, Miss Lindon, is staring something fierce at him. (They’d almost driven off a cliff one midnight on a twisty road in California. Everyone else was squeezing hands and praying. Miss Lindon, firm and tidy in tweed, just turned the page of her book with a careful finger.)

He knows that Peggy is ninety-two years old. He knows that she just moved into a new nursing home last week. He knows that she is standing right in front of him, no more than a few years older than when he went into the ice. Dark hair, dark lipstick, dark jumpsuit, and his shield on her back.

Later, watching this Peggy, a shade away from what he knows, he realizes that she reminds him of no one as much as himself, shielding himself from the familiar and the unfamiliar and the memories most of all.

Having someone who understands is a very difficult sort of wonderful.

Natasha is the most off-put by how well Peggy knows them. Her stories have come slowly to Steve, each one a trust-gift. Peggy has her own collection, but for Natasha they are weapons held by someone she does not know.

No one could identify with the loneliness of waking up after the ice like Peggy could, the futile anger of knowing that everyone was gone and it was only him, surviving and surviving and surviving.

The next time Steve sees Thompson, he has fading bruises on either side of his jaw, and actually avoids Steve. As if Steve would hit him if he was just minding his own business.

“-And she said I needed to cut out half my footnotes, even though so much of the good stuff is there, and who doesn’t like extra footnotes? They’re like little knowledge presents!“ Willow finished, turning off the overhead light and enjoying the sound of her slippers shuffling against the carpet. Buffy was still out; she had a midterm the next day and Giles was quizzing her. She held the phone against her shoulder and pulled the covers down.

“Did you check for antennae? She might be a footnote hating alien.” It was the first time Oz had spoken in a while and she could hear the noise of the party the other Dingoes were having, but Willow never worried that he was getting distracted when she talked. The tone he used now was equilibrious as always, but the kind that curved upward a little in her mind and meant he was smiling.

She woke one morning with Steve’s voice, warm and content and loving, full of wonder, still settled over her like a shroud.

There were things that Peggy had not even known she could miss: slicing apples, newspapers, the moon and rain, handshakes, calendars.

There was a tenement sort of grimness to his voice that spoke of gritting teeth through long winters.

He had become less formal in her presence, knees and elbows expanding outward as he sat in a way that made him look somehow smaller, or at least softer.

She gripped at her tea. The all-purpose English remedy, she and Monty used to joke. Apply liberally to anything from gunshot wounds to heartbreak. It didn’t seem to be working.

Peggy reminded herself that she had quite handily survived a world war, and that there was no reason to behave swoonily just because Steve was being very visibly attractive in front of her.

Peggy tried to forget that the world war hadn’t prevented just the same thing the first time around.

“‘‘Twas I who chopped down the cherry tree’ and all that?” It sounded accidentally Shakespearean in her accent despite her wry tone.

Steve grinned in a way that was startlingly unrestrained, making Peggy realize just how much it had all been weighing on him. She hadn’t seen that grin since early 1945, and it was shameful for it to have been hidden so long.

“Fine,” he said, the way he did when things were not fine. It wasn’t that he was lying, but that he hadn’t yet realized that something was wrong.

Steve ran the miles home. The idea of cars felt condensed and awful.

She saw Barton farther down the street, half sitting, half sunbathing on top of one of the fire trucks.

In the bleary dark: “Why have you done so much to help us?”

A pause. “Because I can’t remember a time when I wished someone would help me.”

“Well, Evans, the thing about that man you married- and I love him like a brother and would kill anyone else who said this- is that he’s not very bright and sometimes exists with his head firmly hidden up his arse.”

“Hey, man, respect the skills of others. Maybe I can’t do any of that either, but I laugh in the face of the blue screen of death.”

There’s a feeling in her chest that reminds her of seeing Michael in his uniform for the first time, a ragged beat swallowing her thoughts for just a blank moment, whispering how much it would hurt to lose him.

He tells Peggy this after they’re adjourned for the day. She does not try to build him up or placate him. “They used to bury suspected vampires with stakes in their chests and bricks in their jaws even after they’d died,” she says instead, tilting her chin up at him.

She has the feeling that he’s from the type of family where handshake lessons were given on Monday from 2:30 to 4.

This woman sounds like she could buy and sell him a couple of times over, and he’s not entirely sure if he means literally or metaphorically.

“It’s good. I like it,” and somehow that’s worth paragraphs and paragraphs. It settles around her heart.

But Angel has had a few centuries to get used to how quickly things shift. He has no more lamentations for the eyeblinks that mean a change. Killing a young girl, seeing one on sunlit school steps; these things took seconds and changed everything.

His voice is hoarse and he speaks slowly, but his Russian is perfect, as if the language is something he stored in an attic chest, one he just creaked open to find it pristine.

Because although she has more responsibility than anyone he’s ever known, the weight of lives and lives, she also has her own, and it is such a young one. He wants to be sure that she doesn’t look with regret on these months spent with him, the cliffside love with someone whose life is endlessly futureless.

She’s been missing him all these months, she hasn’t even been tempted, never in all that time, and she’s not totally hideous, so there were some people trying to tempt. But she’s been waiting, it hasn’t even been a question, and he’s apparently been questioning all over the place if he was going to break his word, the last thing he said to her.

She goes Bronzing with the gang. She spends a couple nights hanging and talking with Will, where they dissect Oz’s latest three words, and try once again to figure out Cordelia and Xander, and don’t talk at all about Angel or about how this feels worse than the entire last year because they finally got to choose and they both chose to be apart. She gets a B+ on her English quiz.

Despite herself, Veronica is disappointed. She had wanted the rush from figuring out a puzzle, from outthinking a group of criminals with rap sheets long enough to ride the big roller coasters without a parent. Now she’s facing a woman who’s pulling the criminal equivalent of faking cramps to get out of gym.