#hm now i just dk how to fully feel

[achilleslyre]

i’m on ep 72 of shippuden now and i at least like yamato/tenzo thus far. uhm also my confusion has been settled bc when i saw yamato show up i was like “oh cool i think thats tenzo from what i’ve seen :D” and then they called him yamato and i was like. ok 😐😐 ig i’m an idiot. then kakashi called him tenzo and i was like ohhh. they’re. they’re the same person. gotcha 👍👍. but anyways i at least like one new naruto character which i was stressed i somehow wouldn’t. i like the unhinged look in yamato’s eyes. it has sex appeal.

[7-teen]

SWEET NOTHINGS | k.m.

CHAPTER 2

minors do not interact

genre: seventeen collage au

pairing: mingyu x reader named romi (i hate y/n)

series warnings: minors do not intereact : feel free to let me know if im missing any (warnings for specific chapter will not be crossed out) swearing, drugs/weed and alcohol, violence, disordered eating, self harm, toxic relations, explicit sex scenes, slut shaming, body shaming, suicide ideation, light bullying, insecurities (body) mention of weight loss / weight gain

wc: 2.36 k

description: moving across the country for college to get away from your controlling parents, you never imagined the kind of people you would meet. when one boy in particular begins to pester you to no end, you are almost ready to throw in the towel until one day all of it changes.

note: you can find chapter one linked below, or in the masterlist linked below. please let me know if i am missing any warnings. also please let me know how you are liking it! also i would be more than happy to add anyone who wants to be added to the taglist to it!  minors do not interact

1 | 2 | 3

link to masterlist

anxiety raced up your spine once you saw the four to five vehicles that were parked in the parking lot, just off the highway. the realization that you didn't know how many people, and that you didn't know any of them, was beginning to settle in. you took a deep, shaky breathe.

you took dk's hand as he offered it when you opened the car door. the path that him and cheol led you two down was almost past the definition of off the beaten path. there were rocks, and tree branches scattered across the path; dk would offer you his hand every time you guys reached a larger tree that laid across the path.

when the trees broke, it brought you guys to more of a really large pond than a small lake. there was a large dock that floated out into the water, and there had to have been at least ten people there. you weren't sure whether to feel relieved or panicked by the number of people.

"dk and cheol!" a shorter man called with arms out as we walked towards him.

"woozi! this is romi and harlow," dk introduced you guys as you all started moving towards the lake as a group.

"so you're the girl that gave mingyu some trouble?" he said in a sarcastic tone that told you he wasn't fully believing the story that mingyu was sharing with everyone. you chuckled slightly.

"he incriminated himself, i never mentioned his name once," you shrug as you watch harlow strip out of her clothes and run to jump in the water with cheol.

"that sounds like him," woozi nodded as you stopped at the end of the dock. you dropped your bag beside harlow's before removing your own clothes and shoes.

"you gonna come into the water?" woozi asked you as you sat on the edge of the dock. your toes just skimmed the surface of the water.

"no, its not really my thing," you tell him with a shrug.

"suit yourself, it's fucking hot out today," woozi laughed as he hopped into the water.

once you are settled on the dock, dk had disappeared to find one of his other friends, you finally allow yourself to relax a bit. the cold of your toes touching the water sends a shiver down your spin. but your relaxation does not last long.

"well, if it isn't the little bitch from earlier," you hear mingyu chuckle as he sits beside you on the dock, way too close to you.

"you're famous in our group now," the other boy that was with him laughed. he sat on the opposite side of you from mingyu.

"hm great," you mutter as your eyes scan the lake. harlow and cheol looked as though they were having the time of their lives.

"i'm dino," the one boy said to you, holding out his hand.

"like the dinosaurs?" you ask in a monotone voice, ignoring his hand. your patience for them was nonexistent.

"you really are a smartass," he muttered while dropping his hand.

"why aren't you in the water? you're missing out on all the fun," mingyu asks, as his hand slips onto her back.

"you know, my hair," you don't even look at him as you say it. your eyes continue to can across the water for cheol or dk, or even woozi to no avail. they were all doing their own thing.

"there is nobody to save you now," mingyu whispered close to your ear before he pushed you into the water.

you didn't even have time to panic before someone grabbed you by the waist and pulled you to the surface. you struggled in their grip and gasped as you broke the surface. you turned around in their grip and your nose was almost touching his.

"are you okay?" he asked. he had kind eyes that were a beautiful dark brown, that looked almost golden in the sun.

"i think so," you gasp, still trying to catch your breathe. you're grip on his upper arms is like a vice.

"i thought i would come help you. it's never good when someone is stuck between mingyu and dino," he laughs halfheartedly as he takes one of your arms and drapes it over his shoulder. you instinctively pull him close as your other arm wraps around the other side.

you were becoming increasingly aware of how much further the two of you were floating away from the dock. your panic began to rise again as you realized that the only thing preventing you from sinking to the bottom of this lake was this boy that you didn't even know the name of yet. your grip around him tightened.

"i'm joshua by the way," he said after a few moments of silence. you looked back at him, almost bumping your nose on his as you did so. "i heard about your little encounter with mingyu earlier."

"yeah, not my brightest moment," you huff as you begin to notice your arms cramping from hoe tightly you were clinging to joshua.

"i won't let you go," he whispered, leaning in slightly. "also, don't worry too much about mingyu and dino. they are pretty much walking sex shops; nothing but sex runs through their brains."

"i'm amazed any girl would ever want to be with either of them," you mutter as you watch cheol and harlow over joshua's shoulder.

"well that's less competition for me," joshua laughs half way through his sentence. "not that that is the motivation for having saved you."

"god, men are so insufferable," you roll your eyes as you finally relax. you taken in just how beautiful this small lake is.

"we try our best," joshua chuckled slightly as he begins to slowly make his way over to the dock again. mingyu and dino have long since gotten up and left.

"i'm sure you do," you mutter as you guys reach the edge of the dock. you grimace slightly at the sight of the slimy, green algae that coats the underside of the dock.

"hey, vernon, mind helping little lady out of the water?" joshua calls to one of the two guys standing just off the dock.

he comes over to the edge with a huge grin on his face. as he takes your hand, you can't help but notice his grip slipping in yours due to the water. you squeeze his hand tighter.

"don't drop me," you warn as he takes your forearm with his other hand.

"don't worry darling, we got you," you can practically hear the smile on joshua's voice as he grips your hips to help boost you up.

once you were fully out of the water, you stumble slightly into vernon's chest. he grips your elbows tightly to help steady you.

"i'm sorry," you smile sheepishly at vernon as you finally get your feet underneath you. his slowly dropped his hands from your arms.

"you're good. you seem to be having a good day," he says as i go to my back and grab my towel.

"y'know, it's been okay. i would have rather stayed dry but it is what it is," you shrug as you pull your shirt on.

"not a fan of water?" he asks you, and just as you're about to answer someone comes up from behind you and picks you up, spinning you in a circle.

"i see you've been for a swim," dk laughs as he sets you down on your feet. "and that joshua was your night in shining armour."

you look out into the water and see harlow and cheol splashing each other. it looks like they are having the tome of their lives, and you can't help but wish you were able to swim so you too could enjoy it. but you also couldn't complain about spinning in small circles with joshua keeping you afloat either.

"he wouldn't have had to be if it hadn't been for mingyu and dino," you groan as you, vernon and dk all make your way to the edge of the dock. you sit on the edge of it between the two boys.

"honestly, why are they even in out friend group still?" vernon asked once we were all settled on the edge of the dock.

"because they are childhood best friends to jun, wonwoo and cheol," dk seemingly recites as if he has said it a hundred times.

"still, they treat most people like absolute garbage," vernon mutters as he kicks at the water with his feet.

"there is obviously some redeeming factors about them that are unknown to me, i doubt they are just being dragged alone despite it," you mutter while leaning back onto your hands.

you almost kick joshua in the face as you feel his hands slide around your ankles and up the back of your calves. you had been paying so much attention to dk and vernon's conversation that you hadn't even noticed him come up to you guys. you gasped as your foot narrowly missed his perfect nose.

"i am so sorry," you bury your face in your hands as you say it, and only move them once you hear him laugh.

"you're all good," he assured you as he swings your ankles back and forth slightly. "are you coming to the party tonight?"

"i think dk would drag me to it if i didn't. are you going to be there?" you laugh. joshua's eyes light up more, as if it were even possible.

"i'm at every party, i will be there," joshua smiled at you.

"oh wow, look at joshua. he is moving on to the next girl already," you look over your shoulder to see mingyu laughing to dino as they pass behind you guys.

"don't listen to him," vernon snaps immediately. you look down at joshua, who is avoiding your eyes. all the brightness that had filled his earlier had left them.

"don't worry," you lean forward and whisper as you ran your hand through joshua's wet hair, effectively messing it up. you giggle as it sticks up in different directions. "i wouldn't ever listen to a word that mingyu says."

you watched as his eyes slowly moved up to your face, and the brightness filled his eyes again. there was something about how kind and soft his eyes were that drew you in. he had something about him that made you instantly trust him.

"i will for sure see you at the party?" he double checks as he slowly legs go of your ankles.

"you will for sure see me there, don't worry," you laugh as you watch joshua swim away, to a boy you haven't met yet, with the biggest smile spread across his face.

"you guys are going to make such a cute couple," dk laughs as you bring your attention back to him.

"god, as if i could ever pull a man like him," you almost scoff as you say this. joshua was such a beautiful human, and you could never in a million years imagine him actually wanting to be with you.

"are you joking? do you not see the way he looks at you?" vernon cut into the conversation.

"he is just being nice," you argue despite the fact that you could see that it was useless.

"no, joshua isn't like that with people he isn't interested in," dk affirmed.

"we've known each other less than twenty four hours and you already want to get me with your friend?" you laugh, leaning back onto your hands while kicking at the water with your feet.

"you're my best friend now, of course i am," dk leaned into you with his shoulder, and you rolled your eyes.

***

you climbed into the back of dk's truck with your  bag in tow. you and harlow had climbed in with just your tee shirts pulled over your bathing suits as they covered you both enough that you guys felt comfortable. you were just about the close the door of the truck when someone ripped the door from your grasp. you pulled your hand away quickly, rubbing at your fingers.

"hey dk, mind giving me a ride back?" mingyu asked as you glared at him in frustration. you caught dk's eyes in the mirror and he had an apologetic look on his face.

"what is wrong with who you came with?" dk asked as mingyu climbed in beside you, practically pushing you into the next seat as you moved too slow for his liking.

"they are heading to the party early, i have a few things i need to get done before it starts," mingyu informs him. listening to this interaction, you could almost see why they hang around him. he seemed so nonchalant and normal.

"alright," dk mumbled as he buckled up.

"look at you," mingyu mumbled, his tongue sliding slowly across his bottom lip as his eyes wandered down to your legs.

"who did you come with? walking back to my dorm from the party to get ready sounds better than spending an hour with you," you mutter, trying to pull the shirt further down your legs.

"jun, minghao and chan. i am sure chan would love to see you," he shot back.

"romi, climb into the front. i will sit in the back," cheol says as he gets out of the front seat. you awkwardly climb over the center console with dk's help before you settle into the front seat with your feet tucked up underneath you.

"thanks cheol," you look back to him and smile.

"gyu, i am not even kidding, if you say anything else like you just did, or do anything to piss her off, you will be hitchhiking back to your place," dk warned as he began to drive out of the parking lot just as the rest of the group got back to their vehicles.

"not my fault she isn't wearing any pants," mingyu tests under his breathe. dk slams on his breaks just before he went to turn out onto the highway and mingyu's face slams into the back of your seat as he wasn't able to get his hands out in front of him in time.

"i am not joking," dk warns once again before he pulls out of the parking lot. cheol had been rummaging through your bag and had found your shorts. you smile at him as you wiggle into them.

taglist: @jiminsfiilter​

[displacedleylines]

Science of Magic: Undeath in Azeroth

So I’m a gigantic nerd that really loves meshing science into fantasy settings. Largely because what’s scientifically impossible for us here on this Earth is doable in these other worlds. Which means the laws that bind us to not being able to shoot fireballs from our hands don’t apply in worlds like Azeroth. Which means if you really like science because figuring out how the world works is really fun and exciting for you, then a fantasy world that breaks so many real-world rules is like being invited into Wonka’s Factory.  It’s no longer...”Oh, we just can’t shoot fireballs” to “Hm. I wonder how magic does the thing?”

Arthur C. Clarke is a science fiction author who has penned three laws, the third being wildly cited and referenced in popular media. My first introduction to these three laws was when the 7th Doctor quoted that ever-popular third law: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.“ For the sake of completion, and because they’re relevant to this post, the other two laws are: “When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, they are almost certainly right. When they state that something is impossible, they are very probably wrong.” “The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.” Moving on! To say that there’s science to magic isn’t trying to discredit or get rid of any mystique magic has on Azeroth. Spells and things affect the world and the people there just like any other non-magical force here on Earth. So this is less of trying to say that magic isn’t real, it’s all science, but more of using science to theorize about the effects of Magic. You’ll see what I mean in a bit. Undeath is easily one of the most influential pools of magic to have shaped Azeroth since its introduction to the world. There are even various ways to be dead and you can still have some form of brain function despite your level of decay. Or, seemingly lack thereof. Anyone who has rolled a Death Knight or paid attention to the massive amounts of NPC’s of that class running around would know that there are many Undead out there that aside from the eyes and the voice, and sometimes skin tone, you’d have no idea they were dead. This seems to play into how they became a Death Knight, or how soon after death they were raised. There are also non-DK NPC’s that also fall into this boat, so consider them included in this tirade. We all know that how quickly a body decays depends on a lot of different factors. Was it embalmed? Was it buried? Is the body lying in a desert? Water? Forest? Etc. And many critters also play into this, I’m looking at you, maggots, bacteria, carrion beetles and sometimes the occasional deer! Among others. So it stands to reason if your Undead is looking pretty good, it’s because they were either slowly corrupted into undeath or they were raised not long after death. Potentially even right away in the middle of a battlefield. But then, if they’re resurrected instantly and have no chance to properly decay what makes them Undead and not just....alive? Simple! (And it can even play into the status of Undead that are further along in their decomposition too.) When resurrected, it restores brain function (in some form or another) enough so that the Undead can do things like move, talk, see, hear, etc. And it restores the cells in a body -partially. Bacteria doesn’t eat us alive (aside from the rare strains) in part because our skin is always replenishing itself and because human cells are too darn big for them to consume. It’s after death when the cells start to burst that the bacteria get to wriggle in and work its decomp magic. So, once you get that good ol’ yoink from that Necromancer, your cells return to doing what they do best. With one exception. They no longer divide and replenish. Because they don’t need to.(And also because no Necromancer is that good.) Even if your heart is beating out of reflex or some magic mishap, it doesn’t matter because you don’t need your blood to transport oxygen anymore. Hell, you’re only taking breaths because you’re so used to doing it. You’re talking, you’re walking, you’re using magic yourself and your cells are functioning just enough to prevent you from decomposing in the best case scenario. Necromancy is like the magic version on embalming! With the added bonus of pulling your soul back out of that afterlife and into a strangely preserved body. Might not even be yours if the person who raised you is experimenting or if a Warlock is involved!  Unlike being resurrected by the Light, Nature or Spirit based magic, Necrotic magic doesn’t restore you. It really is just shoving you back into your body and using magic to do whatever needs to happen to keep you from decaying further (or at all) and falling apart.  I’d say a really good or powerful Necromancer, if able to instantly raise you can probably ensure your undeath is comfortable and maybe even leave you feeling a bit free. So then, if you’re looking as good as Sylvanas why would death be awful? Or painful? Why feel the need to proclaim how badly you’re suffering? Simple. Like any other spell, the magic probably doesn’t last forever. Unless brought back by something that embodies death itself, and just like embalming, eventually the bacteria WILL get to work. There are items and allusions to this in game, that there’s a bit of upkeep to staying undead. Unless you were personally raised by the Lich King right after death or given special attention by a Val’kyr.... You’re going to need some work done sooner than those lucky ones. “Lucky”, being used loosely here. Not to mention, you can’t go to the light anymore to get fixed. It hurts now. As seen with. Bolvar. The light and light-based healing will try to heal the corruption of undeath, and not actually restore life to you.  Like you know when you put bactine or salt or lemon on an open wound? But it doesn’t heal anything? Yeah. Like that! Being ressurected by the light, I’d say, would be like being resuscitated in a hospital. (You can get resurrection sickness in game, but that’s a topic for another day.) It brings you fully back to life, restores you completely. Yay! The light won’t hurt. Being resurrected into Undeath would be like being filled with embalming fluid before being resuscitated by a doctor. Fantastic, you’re thinking and moving again but your body is devoid of normal fluids and is preserved and won’t age. Or. cell divide. Or function in ways that a living person would do. And when you come in contact with the light, it will try to purge that embalming nonsense out of you and it will hurt like a bitch because ultimately it can’t. TLDR; Necromancy is the magic version of emblaming a body after death, with the added ability to either return a soul to the now preserved corpse or to allow a ghoul, abomination, other mindless undead thngs, to move and function in some way, without restoring actual natural life to the body. In a really, really weird way, Necromancy is anti-bacterial. Which I’d imagine is really good if you’re an Unholy Death Knight. Or Heigan. It’s probably also how Scourge minions can be such effective carriers of death causing bacteria without out it decaying them right on the spot, or causing further decay if they already are. This post can also double as a PSA that after-death care could be something that exsists on Azeroth and that your DK should make that appointment soon. ;) In all seriousness, if you want to take “Plague Doctor” OC’s to the next level and have them provide services to Undead to upkeep their elbalming spells to prevent unwated rot and decay it could be a really fun twist on your traditional Necromancer OC. I could go further into things but this post is already really long, and if there’s anything specific about Undeath you’d like to see talked about in another post, feel free to let me know!  Or if there’s any other kind of magic on Azeroth you’d like to see mixed in with science tell me about that too! I’ll do more of these for sure, regardless. Just wanted to hash this one on. Might refine later.

[adhd-ahamilton]

Joy To The World, 1, 4 and 5!

Hoo boy, so many questions!!! I hope you’re prepared for the deluge that’s gonna result...~ I’ll answer these tonight and finish the ones in the other messages tomorrow morning!

1. What inspired you to write the fic this way?

So. Over the last five or so years I’ve been writing fic, in all but the second year, I’ve written a special Christmas-related fic for Christmas. (And I did two the first year, so.) Christmas is a really important holiday to me and I really love Christmas-related stuff (the cheesier and sillier the better), so it became kind of a tradition. But this year, I was at a little bit of a loss. I knew I wanted to write Lams, because that’s my big thing right now. But how would I write Christmas Lams? Did they even properly ‘celebrate’ Christmas during that time period?? Or should I just go for an AU?

I researched it, and thankfully it turns out that the 18th century is around when people did start to celebrate Christmas in the modern sense (and it’s also when carols really started to come about, which is great because per tradition all my Christmas fic are titled after a carol), but that was just the beginning of the issue. When exactly would it be set? Valley Forge? But, uh... I highly doubted they would be really doing all that much at that point. But I couldn’t really think of any time outside of Lams AU that they’d be together. (And then I found out afterwards that Ham wasn’t even there for Christmas 1777, so, welp.) And I really couldn’t think of any kind of actual plot. I could have done a kind of meditation on their relationships to religion, but I didn’t know that much about which specific form of Christianity they belonged to, and I thought it was something that could be and HAD been done much better by other people. (Plus that’s not really my fave kind of fic to write to begin with.)

So, it wasn’t really working out that well. But still, I really kept trying. Through November, my working plan became almost set in stone: I’d do a combined historical and modern AU fic, switching back and forth between scenes, comparing themes (supply lists in VF compared with finding money for food over Christmas break in modern AU), sorta casually looking at the differences. When I gave it up, it was partly out of lack of interest in the themes, but my conscious reason was ‘I just don’t really care about modern AU Lams.’

...which came to the crux of the problem all along: I’m not really an AU person. Or rather, I’m very not an AU person. I’ve written very few AUs in my time, and almost all of them were historical AUs - certainly not modern day ones, and definitely not school AUs. I don’t have any, like, moral opposition - I can fully appreciate the transformative potential of full-setting AUs and find very interesting the interdependent communities that develop around AU-heavy fandoms as they essentially create their own accepted canons - but I just...don’t tend to like them. I’m very analytical!! The idea of just...MAKING UP not just one character or setting but basically a whole story just always seemed simultaneously too easy and too hard to me!!! Plus, I like to write really interesting and unusual things and try new styles, and one of the most basic points of interests for me in writing is asking what makes these characters and relationships unique, based on their precise personalities and backstories and combinations of traits. None of that lends well to full-setting AUs.

But. As I was mulling this terrible problem over, as usual, I was also running over in my head all kinds of various different characterisation ideas. This time, I was thinking about how it was interesting that Hamilton always seemed to be written in opposition to Henry Laurens, when IRL it seems they had a pretty decent acquaintanceship. And I was thinking about it, and I really started to think that, actually, someone in Hamilton’s point of view - who was constantly abandoned by his father, and desperate for his attention, and incredibly ambitious despite the circumstances of his birth - would be one of the WORST people to understand that an overly-controlling, overly-interested father who expects extremely highly of his son could be a negative influence. Which also added to another thought I’d been having. I always liked one quote from Chernow, that Laurens must have seen in Hamilton what a man who makes himself can do, and it always made me think that Hamilton must have been the same way - that he must have seen in Laurens the man he had always aimed to be. So, Laurens grew up in a good family, acknowledged and promoted by said family, with plenty of money and a great deal of opportunity. To Hamilton... yeah, it’d definitely be hard for him to see the problems with that. (And, you know, there IS a lot of privilege there!! It’s just, y’know, that mental illness doesn’t always listen to that.) But, those thoughts were kinda moot, because I really couldn’t think of any way to contrast these different experiences with fathers in historical verse.

And that’s when it came to me. What if I did a modern AU where Hamilton came down to visit the Laurens family for Christmas?

I didn’t have the time (or, really, the interest) to develop a full-on world for everyone, and a uni AU just seemed to be the most appropriate for this one, anyway. And it also did have a bit of appeal: it always kinda bugged me that in the AUs I read, Hamilton and Laurens never seemed to be studying law, even though that’s historically what they did do. As a law grad, I figured I might as well be the one to write it. (Though law in Australia is p different from in the US - there’s no separate law school, we just study it straight out of high school like anything else - but whatever.) And once I was doing THAT, it was hard for me to escape the fact that, in the real world, studying law hadn’t...exactly always been the best experience for me. Given that Laurens didn’t really want to study it either, it seemed appropriate to lean on those experiences a bit.

Aaand that’s where we really get to the meat of the inspiration behind it, heh. Which is to say: this is possibly the most autobiographical thing I’ve ever written...? I’ll say outright that a lot of it WAS entirely invented - my relationship with my family is nothing like John’s was in this, at all. But my anxieties over studying, and my worries about the future and what a career in law would lead to... yeah, that came from me haha. Because, to get kind of personal about it... well, I graduated July 2015. And in the time since then, I have been employed for about 2.5? months, total. The job scene here, in general and especially for law grads, is just that bad. (And, uh, there was a fair bit of personal fault in my lack of preparation for after I’d graduate? But, seriously, I was really anxious already...) And ever since then - particularly 2016 to the present - I’ve also had a lot of anxiety and depression and stuff going on. At the time I wrote the fic, it was in a position of leaning worse rather than better. So...I honestly don’t know if there was ever, like, a dispassionate fic in there safely cordoned off from my own projections, but if there was, it didn’t last long.

So, I got the idea, and wrote it all up pretty quickly in early December, just kinda ridin’ that catharsis of getting all that stuff out. (And it turned out to be even more relevant than I thought, as ‘trying to enjoy Christmas like you usually do when you’re really not happy’ also ended up a very autobiographical theme.) And that’s how it happened!

As for one or two other things:

I really really didn’t wanna get too into politics in the fic lmao. I don’t feel comfortable with more than the broadest strokes of Hamilton’s beliefs (I’m gonna GET THERE but Im still well rev-verse in Chernow) and I always feel uncomfortable about portraying historical figure in any better light than they deserve when it comes to specific matters. But I also wanted to have Laurens and Hamilton at least as POC because I also think it’s important to increase racial diversity in fanfic in the rare cases that we really get a clear choice. So, I tried to kinda portray that without really getting detailed about any activist stuff or whatever. Which is why in Ham’s argument with Henry he’s really not siding with anyone, he’s just an economics wonk who gets mad when people on both sides of the political aisle don’t make sure their numbers add up, lol. That was my best compromise. (And Philly kinda nudged me when I still got too far off-course;; haha!)

Hamilton has ADHD because: again, I wanted to actually officially write up neurodivergent characters into fic when I had the option of being specific (my Ham is always neurodivergent but obv I can’t explicitly write that into the text of historical verse), and it’s ADHD because......well, I could write a really long thing about that alone lmfao. And I feel like I kind of should in some ways because I know that a lot of people aren’t rly familiar with how ADHD tends to actually, like, feel, for real-life people, and if you aren’t then I KNOW this must sound like a really arbitrary or misguided HC. And I’d really love to write it up and expand education and all, but. It’s also something that hits really close and personal for me and, as someone who can be anxious for days straight over opening entirely innocuous tumblr messages... I just DK I could do it, atm;;;;; Someday I will though, I hope!!! (Tho I will say that I’m totally for all neurodivergent Ham HCs and that honestly my Classic Ham is also influenced by BD and BPD things so I’m p flexible about it.) (Actually I guess I CAN say that my HCs for Ham all involve disorders with extreme moods and mood swings and stuff and ADHD in its lesser known symptoms can absolutely include that, esp with Rejection-Sensitive Dysphoria, so yeah. That’s basically the large part of my reason for that headcanon right there lol.)

4. What's your favorite line of dialogue? 

HM OH MAN, I’m not sure!!! Lemme skim it again real quick.

In terms of sheer characterisation efficiency, I always liked the idea of Henry Laurens’ introductory sentence being to complain about John not calling often enough. It’s just such a perfect combination of a) genuinely cares about his son and wants to hear from him, and b) is an asshole who has no idea whatsoever of the pressure he’s putting on his son without offering any concurrent praise or reassurance. 

...so yeah I think I’ll leave it at that actually, since this thing is long enough already lol.

5. What part was hardest to write?

I was sitting here trying hard to remember if I really had trouble writing any part of the draft because there was one bit where I stalled briefly but it wasn’t really that bad and I couldn’t even really remember it and apart from that it was super smooth...until I remembered that editing counts as writing. And hoo fucking boy.

I was lucky enough to be able to have my fic beta-ed by Philly! Which I’m super grateful for and the fic is undoubtedly better for it! But it was a really difficult process for me because of my anxiety. And I needed to do it rather quickly, because of course I had to have it finished before Christmas, and my family actually was going away for Christmas where we wouldn’t have internet access.

So I get through almost all of the fic. It’s finally almost done. And then right at the end there’s a bit where Alex and John quickly exchange gifts on Christmas morning. Super short scene. And Philly pointed out that, actually, wouldn’t the rest of the family be taken-aback at them exchanging gifts without them?

And I kind of read that and sat back and. that was right. That was 100% correct. So like. What do I do??? Do I involve the other characters? But the original scene was like, three lines. and I don’t wanna have to write a whole new scene lmao. Do I take it out? But in a earlier scene, I’d had John express a worry that the present he’d gotten for Alex was awful and he really regretted it, and I kinda liked that in this final scene we see that actually he’d just forgotten WHY he’d bought it (he’d remembered Alex saying something about it), and I thought that was a nice thing about how anxiety can really fuck with even your memory and stuff bc in the end there genuinely was no reason to worry. It wasn’t necessary to the fic, but it only came about in the writing - I’m pretty sure the outline was just like ‘and then they exchange gifts or somethign??? IDK’ - and I didn’t want to get rid of it again. But then how do I justify them exchanging gifts alone??? 

And so that’s how I ended up just sitting there mournfully or pacing back and forth like p LEASE just SAVE ME, just GIVE ME AN OPTION, I have a HOLIDAY TO PACK FOR and THINGS TO DO and I just want this damn fic to be EDITED and DONE ALREADY. I came up with soo many possibilities, none of which satisfied me,lmao. and eventually after wayyyyyy too long of trying to figure it out I settled on something that seemed mostly plausible and then just. wrote it in and skimmed the rest of the fic and posted it lmao.

Which, honestly, is pretty typical proceedings. I tend to have the general ideas come pretty easily to me, and the actual writing is normally pretty smooth - it’s usually the editing where I start rocking back and forth and cursing myself for ever trying to write :’) (Luckily, at that point I’m close enough to the end that I can usually force it through...!!)