#i actually finished chapter 17 in literally just a week which is crazy!

[laugtherhyena]

Writing something with a lot of dialogue is crazy because i feel like i've written a lot already but then i check see it's just roughtly over 2000 words so far

[nyxocity]

Fic Writer Questions!

Thanks to @redmyeyes for the tag!

1) How many works do you have on AO3?

82, although that's not even close to my actual total. There's a bunch on LJ that have never been transferred (all shorter works)

2) What’s your total AO3 word count?

1,780,805 (over 2mil on LJ)

3) How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Mostly three, plus a couple dips into a few other pools. X-Men Comic Book fandom, Buffy & Angel fandom (they kinda count as one since it's the same universe), and Supernatural & SPN RPF. Dips have included Dragon Age, Firefly, a tiny bit of TVD, a Sons of Anarchy crossover.

4) What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

This is tough if I go by numbering. Homework Verse has the most kudos scattered across all parts, but Stranger Than Fiction has the most as a single story. Anyway...

Homework Verse (J2 RPF, 200k+ words) - My very first RPF fic, Supernatural or otherwise. Two of my online fandom friends basically TOLD me I was going to write Teacher/Student J2, and I kept protesting that I drew the line at RPF. They didn't care. 200k later, here we are. This story was a game changer for me; it made me fandom famous. I still love those boys with my whole heart, and they still talk to me sometimes.

Stranger Than Fiction (Sam/Dean, 50644 words) - This story idea took root immediately following the episode The Monster at the End of This Book. I quit the Big Bang I'd already begun writing for that year (which was Who Watches Over Me, which I finished and posted for BB the following year) to write this story. It just took hold hold of me and took over. I wrote it in 6 weeks and it was easily the most fun I ever had writing anything--I cackled like a madwoman most of the time.

Who Watches Over Me (J2 RPF, 96591 words) - This story was, at the time, the toughest thing I'd ever written. Little did I know that would become the norm and not the exception, as I began to write more complex stories. It was by far the longest story I had ever posted all at once in its entirety (rather than chapter by chapter) and I had no idea if people would like it. Fortunately a lot of people did.

Like Staring Into the Sun (Sam/Dean, 23243 words) - Ah, my very first hardcore Wincest fic. I remember writing the first chapter of the story (meant to be a one shot honestly), and just sitting there, at 5am, being terrified to post it. It was twisted, dark and intense and SO porny I was scared people might think I was weird. There wasn't anything like it out there at the time. As it turns out, people loved it so much I ended up writing eight more parts.

Like a Fish Out of Water (Sam/Dean, 59498 words) - I have a lot of love for this story. It didn't come to me easily, but it was fun to write. I remember smiling a lot and just having a nice, warm cozy feeling the whole time. I had no idea if anyone was interested in reading this many words of what amounted to a dramedy curtain fic

Of course there are other stories that I feel deserve love, but I can't argue with these.

5) Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I do. And by that, I mean I try. I don't always succeed in answering them all, but I answer as many as I have time and energy for. Life is busy and there is writing to do as well. I read every comment I get (multiple times) and I feel guilty for all the ones I don't answer, because they mean SO MUCH TO ME. Like you took time to leave this beautiful, well thought out comment, or even a keysmash, or a heart, in response to something I wrote. That means the world.

I WISH there was a reaction function for comments on Ao3, so I could heart things, or laugh in response. Replying with emojis without words feels weird. So yeah, a reaction function would be amazing. But in the meantime, I do my best.

6) What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Hmm. Probably A Touch of Evil. Interestingly, it's also a HAPPY ending, so there you go lol. It's a serial killer love story with a happy ending that comes at an exorbitant price.

8) Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

I'm not sure why the OG post skips from 6 to 8 lol . So, yes, I have written a few minors crossovers. Mostly Faith in the SPN verse with the boys, nothing too crazy, because she fits right in. But for long stories, I have written all of ONE crossover. It's Dean Winchester/Jax Teller (SPN / Sons of Anarchy). My crossovers so far have tended to make sense to crossover, so I don't think any of them are crazy.

9) Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Yes. I got some hate on a Buffy/Xander fic back in the day. I got really excited and had fun with it. Like yeah, now I'm SOMEBODY! You're no one til someone hates you lol Most of that was people who were haters of the ship, or were like, gross, they're like brother and sister (they weren't, they were FRIENDS). I've gotten nasty comments here and there on some of my SPN fic. My favorite was the person who accused me of having a "Top Dean Agenda". I STILL laugh about that one. I don't respond to that crap.

10) Do you write smut? If so what kind?

Have you MET ME? LOL If I ever post a story without smut just put me out to pasture, because I'm done. And all kinds. Het, Gay, PWP, Plotty porn, mostly super kinky but some vanilla (but intense). I used to challenge myself regularly to see if I could up my kink game--like hmm, but could I write THIS? I haven't written really kinky sex in a long time, though. Might be time to do that.

11) Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Several times. Who Watches Over me was stolen by someone and converted to One Direction Lourry fic. Literally just did a name change. Someone else stole a bunch of my one shots and passed them off as their own. I know there were a couple other instances but I only vaguely remember. I never got too deep into it, most of the time the people who discovered the theft already told everyone else too, and the plagiarist had been hammered by them so hard that I didn't have to step in before they took it down.

12) Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes. I used to get requests so often that I just posted my usual response in my profile for people to read instead of replying. Definitely into Russian and Chinese for most of the stories listed with most kudos above.

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

A few times on one shot fics. SO MUCH FUN. I love co-writing with people.

14) What’s your all time favorite ship?

Sam/Dean. Easily. Hands down. I just love their unique relationship, bond and love so much.

15) What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

Well I finally finished A Touch of Evil after posting 3 chapters in 2009 and never touching it again until 2017. And I never thought I'd finish that. So never say never, I say. That said, there's the third and final part of my X-Men comic book epic that remains unfinished by about five (shorter) chapters, and it HAUNTS ME. But I don't think I'll ever finish it.

16) What are your writing strengths?

NOW we get to the hard questions. I'm really good at dialogue, bouncing banter back and forth between characters, and I have a sense for how long a scene should be. I just KNOW when it's going on too long, even if there's more that needs to be said, and I try to tighten it up in that case.

A friend of mine once told me "Porn is my gift". I don't write as much of it as I used to, but yeah, I shine in that area.

17) What are your writing weaknesses?

So I always reach a point after writing so many words in an unpublished fic where I'm like, I have no idea if this is even any good/makes sense/hangs together etc. Beyond that, I've been writing for so long that I've had so much practice that I've strengthened a lot of my weaknesses. I'm sure I still have some, but I don't FEEL them like I used to anymore. That said, there are things I simply will not write. Like historical pieces. Because I would research the fuck out of every detail trying to get it perfect and then I would still doubt myself completely.

18) What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I mostly try to avoid it, because there's no way I would ever get the language correct. I usually write it in English and then explain that they're saying it in another language. Like, "What are you doing?" the man asks, speaking in Chinese. Then reiterate in the continuing dialogue in various ways that they're speaking in Chinese.

19) What was the first fandom you wrote for?

X-Men Comic Book fandom. I was reading a lot of Remy/Rogue fic back in 1996-1997, and one day I was like, you know what? This person did a pretty good job on this story. It's not great, but it's pretty good, and if they can have the guts to put it out there, then I can do it, too.

20) What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

This is a tough question. I don't love all my children equally, but I love them all a lot in different ways lol

Remembering favorite is different than which one I think is BEST... Homework Verse is probably my favorite. I was learning so much about writing then, I was really growing, and discovering, and pushing my limits. Those characters lived and breathed in me, I swear they spoke through me from some alternate universe. They feel so REAL to me. There's so much of what I've learned in life in that story, like really, big, life changing ideas and understandings that happened to me that I put into that story. There's so much of me in that story, and yet there's so much of THEM, too. It's their story, but it's also mine. It's raw and not entirely perfect and it feels like home to me.

--

So that's it, that's my piece. I feel like EVERYONE has been tagged since it took me 3 days to have time to do this, but I'm basically tagging any of you writers out there who haven't done this yet!

[bluegarners]

fanfic writer 20 questions

tagged by the wonderful and lovely @biromantic-nerd 

1) How many works do you have on AO3?

I have 18! 

2) What’s your total AO3 word count?

171089 words! that’s crazy tbh considering one fic comprises of 46% of that number

3) How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

on ao3, I’ve published for only two fandoms: DC/Batman and Marvel/Spider-Man~ it used to be three, but i ended up discontinuing (maybe?? idk it’s been over three years dkjfhskjdfb) a Naruto fic. honestly, it should just be one since 17 out of 18 fics published are for DC lgjslfjdfs

4) What are your top five fics by kudos?

a storge for you ~ 670 kudos (DC)

Tomorrow Is Not Tonight ~ 344 (DC)

mainstay ~ 304 (DC)

Enmity ~ 264 (DC)

even atlas crumbled beneath the weight (but i won’t) ~ 245 (Marvel)

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

yes!! i make it a point to respond to every comment i get because it means the absolute world to me that people read my stuff and even take the time to tell me that they liked it! personally, i get so excited whenever an author responds to one of my own comments, so i like to do the same!

6) What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

oof, tough one.... i think it’s a toss up between Natural Disaster and approbation for the dead since both of them are largely surrounding how Dick dealt with the news of Jason’s death. honestly though, i have been told that most of my ending are angsty (true) so it could really be any fic alfhslkdjf

7) Do you write crossovers?

nope! i’m just not into enough fandoms to actively want to write a cross-over and publish it. a couple years ago when i was super into Naruto and Marvel, i had a lot of wips for a crossover between those two but never got around to fleshing them out

8) Have you ever received hate on a fic?

hmmm once or twice? when i was on ffn more, and i was still actively publishing for that Naruto fic i more-or-less shelved completely, i would get a few harsh criticisms, but it wasn’t really hate. i hadn’t gotten any on ao3 until about a week or two ago where someone commented and basically complained about the premise of the fic (of which i am 100% sure they either didn’t read or just skimmed through) but i wouldn’t really call it hate

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

nope! i am not comfortable writing sex related things, at least not to the point where it’s called “smut” and i don’t think i ever will be

10) Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not that i’ve come across!

11) Have you ever had a fic translated?

nope! i think it’d be really cool if it happened one day though... just the idea that someone liked the fic enough to want to spread it around in another language so someone else could read it is soooo amazing

12) Have you ever co-written a fic before?

nope! honestly, i am very exact with what i want to happen in a fic, so i don’t think i’d be a very good collaborate concerning that... i did used to beta a lot back in 2018 and 2019 though, and the main person i beta-ed for did a lot of world building and i helped them with that, so i am going to say, yesn’t

13) What’s your all-time favourite ship?

hmm i’m not too big into shipping but i do adore Dick/Kori. i’ve seen them across so many different forms of media and their dynamic is sooo good every time. i feel like they are just made for each other, their relationship is so beautiful

14) What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

ahhh there are so many, but i started writing a Banana Fish fic and i have an entire plot on my phone, but i just don’t think i’ll ever have the time to actually get anything down for it even though i would really love to

15) What are your writing strengths?

i’d say emotion? or maybe characterizations? i really love getting down and dirty into the minds of the characters i write, and since my plots are typically very angsty and hurt/comfort, i have been told quite a few times that the characterizations make people tear up (in a good way!) and that they can see said character actually doing/saying the things i’ve written for them

16) What are your writing weaknesses?

getting to the point, probably. i get long winded with the fics i write because i focus so heavily on character rather than actual plot. so, fics that shouldn’t have been longer than 2k are 7k or more, and my biggest example for that weakness is a storge for you. the average chapter length is about 9.8k and i know for a fact that what was supposed to be a single chapter somehow evolved into a 50 page mess, so i had to split it into two

17) What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in another language?

when it’s done well, and i think a lot of @/dustorange’s fics do this wonderfully, it is so brilliant and heartfelt to read. when it’s done for the sake of shoving “hey look this character is bilingual” in your face, it honestly feels a bit cluttered and unnecessary. i don’t really mix languages together in my fics because i don’t really know much else other than English and Latin, so i don’t want to be disrespectful by throwing words of a language i don’t speak into random dialogue

18) What was the first fandom you ever wrote for?

Naruto! i absolutely hated that Sakura got nerfed so hard in the show/was portrayed as really weak because she was compared to people with literal *hacks* in their genes, so i was obsessed with bamf sakura fics. and then i got bored after reading all of them and decided to write my own kjdfhskhfd i really liked the time-travel aspect of Naruto fics, so i decided to incorporate that too but then the plot got wayyy too big for me to handle, and that’s one of the reasons i kind of.... dropped it. and because i keep hinting at it, here’s the fic: War Happened

19) What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

it’s gotta be a storge for you. it is my literal baby and i have sooo many plans for it. i’ve been pretty pleased with the way it’s going and how it’s been received so that makes me love it a lot more! i think The Call is a very, very close second though because it was the first fic i ever published for DC and it holds a very special place in my heart

20) Who do you tag?

i would love to tag:

@daringyounggrayson & @newsical & @ckbookish

[allhailthemightyquattro]

Laura’s Deckerstar Fic Recs (Part 18)

You can find the complete list (minus rec notes) at my Ao3 Bookmark page.

Disclaimer: These recs have no real ranking and are simply being shared in the order in which I bookmarked them. And just because I say more about some than I do others, does not mean that those fics are “better” or that I like them more.

Red-Handed by Storycat9

Rating: Not Rated Status: Complete Word Count: 3,495 (1 chapter) Author’s Summary: The Devil is not in the habit of forgiveness. Returning to the LAPD is not the same as forgiving the Detective. While he wouldn’t admit it to himself or Dr. Linda, Lucifer knows that working with the Detective also allows him to see to her punishment.

Rec Notes: This is one of my favourite examples of season 4 angst. It has a very in-character Lucifer trying to “punish” Chloe by flaunting his relationship with Eve and it fits into canon perfectly. And despite all the angst, the author still manages to effortlessly slip in a family fun day with Lucifer, Chloe and Trixie which highlights the fact that Lucifer very much still loves Chloe and is punishing himself just as much as he is her.

P.S. Although this fic is part of a series, it can easily be read as a stand alone as there aren’t any direct references to its prequel at all.

To All The Griefs I Left Behind by Pokimoko

Rating: Teen Status: Complete Word Count: 44,300 (10 chapters) Author’s Summary: It's been weeks since Lucifer returned from Hell, and Chloe couldn't be happier. They are together and—after so many years of ups and downs—everything is finally perfect. Even if the world seems a bit weirder than usual. Even if the ghosts of Lucifer's past are coming back to haunt him. Even if Chloe feels like she's losing her mind. But it's fine. It's all fine.

Rec Notes: Another angsty one. And I mean really angsty. This is a good one if you are in the mood to cry. It is also highly underrated so I implore you to give it a go and show the author some love.

The Royal Treatment by elleflies

Rating: Mature Status: WIP (last update: 3 March 2021) Word Count: 40,812 (6/9 chapters) Author’s Summary: Chloe and Lucifer aren’t married, but try telling that to the supernatural community of Los Angeles and the infernal plane full of demons ecstatic to see their boss finally tied down, literally or otherwise.

Rec Notes: This is a fake married fic unlike any other. For a start, it’s set when Lucifer is back in Hell after the season 4 finale, so he and Chloe don’t even interact (or at least, they haven’t yet). The fake marriage is the result of a prank by Maze in which she fakes documents, making it seem that Chloe and Lucifer are legally married. Word gets around and before Chloe has a chance to sort things out, the supernatural community starts calling her the Queen of Hell and she sorta has to roll with it. And down in Hell, the demons also learn of the “marriage” and are very eager to throw Lucifer bachelor parties and create gifts for their new Queen, so he too goes along with the rumour. Both Chloe and Lucifer are unaware of what the other is dealing with, and it creates some great parallels.

As hinted at in the summary, this fic has heaps of different mythical creatures (including vampires, pixies and Fae) but they don’t eclipse the story - it’s still very much Deckerstar centric - so don’t worry if you aren’t too into that sort of thing.

Time’s Up by HiroMyStory

Rating: Teen Status: Complete Word Count: 2,025 (1 chapter) Author’s Summary: Lucifer is dying. Chloe will do anything to save him.

Rec Notes: This one isn’t actually in the "Chloe Decker/Lucifer Morningstar” tag... but it’s close enough so I’m still including it in my rec list. It is an alternate take on the season 4 episode “Expire Erect” and it has all the angst and whump you would expect. But its most unique feature is its open-ended ending. It’s so good that I simultaneously want to read a sequel and leave the fic exactly how it is. (Though I actually have started writing a sequel to it which, if I finish it, I might ask the author for permission to post.)

Believer by JCBeckett

Rating: Not Rated Status: WIP (last update: 2 March 2021) Word Count: 129,783 (17/? chapters) Author’s Summary: There are three things Chloe Decker knows: One, she is in love with the Devil. Two, the Devil loves her back (even if he hasn’t said it yet). And three, “celestial craziness” doesn’t even begin to cover what she’s gotten herself into.

Picks up right after the cliffhanger in 5A. Fluff, angst, and shameless amounts of Deckerstar within.

Rec Notes: This is a post-season 5a fic and it incorporates the few behind the scenes details we have been given about season 5b and then carries on to its own action-packed story. It’s super-angsty but balances it out by giving us small break with fluff and humour. I also love the focus on Chloe and Lucifer’s relationship and how they are still dealing with insecurities but ultimately know that they are better together.

P.S. This fic does have ties with the comics but you don’t have to have read them to understand the story (I haven’t read them, and it hasn't affected my enjoyment of the fic in the slightest).

[colour-outside-the-liness]

First of all!! Loved the MoU fic update! left you a comment on AO3 and all. 10/10 ratings haha.

Secondly, moving countries is great you should try if you ever get a chance. I've always wanted to do that and jumped in on the first opportunity I got to make that dream come true, and I recgozine how lucky I am to be able to do so. It's definitely not easy but I'd do it again if I could (in true sag fashion 😎 haha). Where would you want to live? You ever been outside the UK?

Hahaha you and I in a team would be a nightmare to play against I think. Oh come on you absolutely do not deserve people questioning your intelligence! I like to play dumb in addition to the taunting so people underestimate me, they never see it coming when I win. They never see the cheating coming either, my friends are always shocked when they find out, but I do it almost every single time! 😂 I'm competitive too but I like to play it cool especially If I lose I'll be like "it's just a game calm down yall" but if I win I'm like "in your face losers!" (very mature I know).

I love your drunken story, though does sound like it was very dangerous so I'm glad nothing bad happened to you two! Ah I love yalls nordern accent (me and everyone in this fandom 😂) haha your friend's sense of humor is golden.👌 I'm glad you enjoyed my worst drunken experience, that was the last time I did something like that, I felt bad bc my best friend had to take care of me the whole night and you're right she should've told me it was just a rock! Lucky you you didn't get a hangover the day after, I certainly regretted drinking too much that night however fun it might have been haha.

Like I said before your niece is a really cool kid haha I'm glad you have someone to talk to about Bly Manor, don't know anyone who watches the show and my friends don't like scary stuff so I have to talk to myself about it 😂 and now you! Thank you for entertaining me ;) and I only watch the parts I really like now, I'm tired of crying every time I watch the whole show haha.

Do you do random accents really badly like Dani too? 😂 it is kinda funny your mom said it like that yeah hahaha maybe she just meant the good bits? And I mean, do you think you need help? Lol

I have a sneak peek of that damie fanart here, don't think I'll ever finish it tho. I want to do a medieval AU inspired fanart. Maybe it will also inspire someone to pick up the idea and write it haha.

How's your weekend been so far? My neighbor is making me watch Grey's Anatomy season (???) 500 idk but I wish I was reading that pirate AU instead 😂

Awwh thank you so much!! I will get around to replying to the comment on AO3 tomorrow when I reply to the others I've had a very busy day today though so haven't even had chance to read any comments yet but thank you so much for giving it a 10/10!! I wanna do it as soon as I get chance but I know it's gonna be hard and that I am gonna need a bit more money behind me first but I definitely wanna do it when I can... yeah I've been out of the UK twice- one time I went to France for the weekend when I was doing my A Levels and was like 17 the college I was studying at took some of the art kids and since I was doing a photography A Level I got to go and then a couple of years ago I went to LA for a few weeks which was great but I've never been out of the UK for longer than that!! A nightmare for everyone else but it would be hilarious for us I just know it would haha... I sometimes do I have said some dumb things, I actually used one of my dumber moments as a funny little story in one of my fics- people still laugh at me now for what I said and it's been 10 years... my roommate will not let me live it down!! See surprising people that way is always brilliant like when people just expect you to lose and then you win? That's the best kind of win in my eyes!! I don't cheat at games I am just ridiculously competitive and can't stand losing unless it's something like a video game I am okay with losing those but board games I can't stand losing and I am also a terrible winner my roommate won't play games with me anymore!! I can't say anything about anyone being that kind of a winner because I know I am and one of my sister's is terrible too we literally make a song and dance over winning Oh it was so dangerous and we were so dumb to do it like anything could've happened and we both sit and look back at that and go "man we were dumb" but I also sit and go "oh my god she's gonna be a mum in like 4 months" because we've done some crazy / stupid stuff!! My roommate is without a doubt one of the funniest people I have ever met and she's not afraid to tell it how it is... I'll admit because I have a Northern accent Jamie is like the only character on Bly Manor to not have an accent to me so when I hear people talking about her accent I'm always a little like "what?" Because to me that's just how people talk around here haha I did enjoy your drunken story and honestly we've all been there I have had to be taken care of on more than one occasion for being too drunk like to the point of people having to help me into my pyjamas and everything I've been in some bad ways haha!! She should've definitely told you it was just a rock and not a turtle!! Yeah I've only had one hangover and that was after a night of drinking where I blacked out and don't remember any of the night!! Yeah the night of the drinking is always fun- the hangover isn't though and often makes you wonder if it was worth it haha She's so cool like genuinely just a cool and funny kid and she just asks all the questions about shows she's watched so with me its Bly Manor with her mum and dad it's Stranger Things she asked me about it once but I had to tell her I'd never watched it she didn't seem impressed but yeah I'll talk to her about Bly Manor any day of the week- and you too now honestly I will talk about it to anyone that will listen... I can't not watch it all if I watch it because there's just so much about it that I love even if it makes me cry... episodes 4,6, and 8 are my favourites though and are probably the ones I have watched the most!! Yeah I do random accents all the time and they're always terrible but I always find myself really funny- I had this friend at Uni that had a slight southern English accent because he had spent most of his childhood there before moving up north and he still said certain words in a southern accent and I used to do his accent all the time but it was always terrible!! Oh yeah my mum is pretty blunt with stuff like she'll say things sometimes without thinking about how it sounds that or she just doesn't care like she's said

somethings haha I am sure she did mean the Dani thing in a nice way though because she said she liked her- Dani and Owen were her favourites and I mean some help for me wouldn't be a terrible thing I'll admit haha That fan art is incredible!! Like seriously amazing!! I would love to see some medieval fan art for Damie!! I have been sent a few medieval prompts for Damie and I have started writing some of them but it's taking time to actually get full chapters together but once I have and once I have more time from wrapping up other WIPs I'll make a start on editing and uploading those because medieval stuff is always great!! It's been good thank so far today I went to a little beach town with my mum, 2 of my sisters their partners and two of my nieces (my cool niece was one of them… not that my other niece isn’t cool but you know what I mean) and me, my two brother in laws, and my nieces all played a game of crazy golf while my mum and sisters went to a cafe and had cups of tea... they didn't wanna play with us but we still had fun while we played (I came second which I was very happy with)!! I hope you enjoy Grey's Anatomy and that you get chance to read the pirate AU soon!! It's soo good!! ☺️

[horansqueen]

You & Me : chapter 33

A Niall Horan fanfiction ; rated MA

Sequel to AM CONVERSATIONS

CHAPTER 1 || CHAPTER 2 || CHAPTER 3 || CHAPTER 4 || CHAPTER 5 || CHAPTER 6 || CHAPTER 7 || CHAPTER 8 || CHAPTER 9 || CHAPTER 10 || CHAPTER 11 || CHAPTER 12 || CHAPTER 13 || CHAPTER 14 || CHAPTER 15 || CHAPTER 16 || CHAPTER 17 || CHAPTER 18 || CHAPTER 19 || CHAPTER 20 || CHAPTER 21 || CHAPTER 22 || CHAPTER 23 || CHAPTER 24 || CHAPTER 25 || CHAPTER 26 || CHAPTER 27 || CHAPTER 28 || CHAPTER 29 || CHAPTER 30 || CHAPTER 31 || CHAPTER 32

NOTES:

-one chapter is her pov, the next is his. -4.1k -im sorry, i never proofread, i hate it. -there WILL be smut. but not only smut. -this is a romance, comedy, smut story. -for the summary, check my MASTERLIST.

- notes: i actually enjoyed writing this. but i feel like i forgot something and i cant put my fingers on it.

if you want to be on the list of blogs i notify when this is updated, just message me :)

requests! : here they are! hope you like them! changed the second one a bit tho

Chapter 33 : His chapter

NIALL

March 29th, 2018

Ninteen days. Nineteen long days without her and I was back again in Dublin for a show before I could take a plane to her and spend over two weeks with her. If I wanted to be honest with myself, these past weeks had been horrible. I waited for her calls like a dependent and crazy boyfriend and it made me think that perhaps, it was how she felt when I spent so much time at a bar, back then. I could pretend I was not scared that the feelings she had for Dylan would somehow change and become stronger than the ones she had for me, but deep down, I knew It was a fear of mine. They say 'out of sight, out of mind', right?

I didn't know if I should worry or not because despite the fact that she has loved me for as long as she can remember, I was well aware that feelings change. After all, she hadn't broken up with Dylan for me, she had made that clear and I knew anyway, which meant that going back to him was always an option. I shook my head, a bit lost in my thoughts, as people around me were laughing and preparing the show. I didn't want to go out there and sing, I didn't want to be here. Not if she was somewhere else.

I did everything like a zombie, feeling a bit numb, and finally grabbed my guitar and putting a smile on my face. I jumped slightly when I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned to see a blond head, making me smile more.

"You alright?"

I blinked a few times and just nodded before turning around but suddenly, I felt my heart jump in my chest.

"Jules?" i asked loud enough for her to hear me. "Where's Liv's note? I was sure I put it here."

Julia frowned and started looking around before shaking her head. "Are you sure you left it here?"

My heartbeats started accelerating. I knew I had to be on stage in less than two minutes and I had completely forgotten about the note. In fact, my mind had been blank for a few hours. Julia and I both started searching everywhere and I was literally starting to panic. I knew it was not that big of a deal if I missed opening her envelop one time, or even if I walked on stage 10 minutes late, but for some reason, it stressed me so much it made me want to puke.

I don't know how long it took but I saw Julia run back to me, her arm up in the air, holding a pink envelop, zigzagging to dodge people on her way to me. I sighed and felt the stress falter. She got in front of me and I snatched the envelop from her hands before pulling her into a tight hug.

"Thank you!"

She chuckled and pulled away before grabbing my phone and licking her lips. "Okay, open it, I'm filming you."

I chuckled and rolled my eyes, feeling suddenly a bit more relaxed. The show could wait and if I wanted to be honest, I was impatient to smell Olivia's perfume from the paper, to see her horrible handwriting and the little hearts she always draw everywhere. It was the boost I needed before going up there to spend two hours singing songs that reminded me of her. I needed it. It became more than an habit, I was fucking addicted.

Quickly, I teared the envelop and let it fall on the floor as the scent of honey and vanilla filled my nose. I glanced up at the camera and noticed how big Julia was smiling. I hadn't told her that Olivia and I were more than friend but she had heard the whole story and somehow, she had pushed me to go back to her. I never followed her advice because I knew Olivia was with Dylan but now that it was a secret, I felt bad for lying to her. I had told her about the letters Olivia gave me but hadn't mentioned that they were filled with dirty stuff and love words, and now that she was filming, it was going to be tough answering whatever Liv had written in that note.

"Hey petal." I said in a soft tone, looking at my phone. "Last letter of yours before I fly back there! Hope you're ready for pubs and movie nights because I fucking am!" I laughed and looked down to read the purple glitter words on the pale pink paper, my face changing more and more as my eyes scanned the letter.

'Niall James Horan, I love you. I want nothing but to be with you right now. And maybe I actually am. If you look carefully, you may see me.'

I frowned and looked up at Julia who chuckled a bit. "Turn the sheet."

I did it quickly and noticed she had written something else. 'Yes, dumbass. I'm here. I took a plane to you. Now go on stage. I'll hold you in my arms as soon as your show is over.'

Julia kept filming and moved closer to me, snatching the letter from my hand and pushing me toward the stage. I tried to resist, my eyes looking around to see where she was and Julia laughed more.

"Go, Niall! You'll see her soon!"

I frowned and turned to her, my eyes getting bigger.

"You knew?" I asked in a shocked tone, making her shrug. "Wait, where is she?"

"Stage!" Julia said with her soft light voice, trying to be firm. "Now!"

I kept looking around but finally walked on stage, starting with the first song. I knew the song by heart and didn't really have to think much. It was good since all my thoughts were taken by my best friend, wondering if she was really here and if yes, when would I be able to take her in my arms. I finished the song and when I turned around, my eyes caught someone on the side of the stage. No one in the crowd could see her but when our eyes met, her lips curled more. She hadn't changed at all. She tilted her head and pressed her lips together and even though I shouldn't have, I literally ran backstage, held my guitar to the first person I saw and wrapped my arms around her neck as she wrapped hers around my chest.

"Fuck, you’re really here." I whispered, leaning my cheek on her head before kissing her hair and holding her tighter.

She chuckled but I felt her shake in my arms as if she was sobbing and she squeezed me harder, rubbing her cheek on my shirt a few times before gripping it in my back. It took her a few minutes but she finally sniffed and tried to get out of my embrace.

"You need to go back." she pointed out in a low tone, but I still heard her voice break.

"Just a few more seconds." I replied, pulling her back in my arms.

It was torture to not be able to kiss her and tell her how much I loved her but I moved my head down, bringing my lips very close to her ear.

"I fucking missed you. I can't believe you're here." I whispered, feeling my bottom lip brush against her ear. "You're the best gift I ever had."

She chuckled and pushed me away gently again, wiping a tear on her cheek and moving her chin in my direction. "Go!"

I hesitated but finally got back on stage to sing a few more songs but when I started Flicker, I couldn't help but glance at Olivia over and over again. The memories of writing this song and of the falling we had at the end of our relationship started flooding me and I suddenly felt myself tear up. I had to stop near the end of the song and just walked off stage again, going back to her. This time, I didn't even take the time to put my guitar away, I just moved it in my back in a swift movement and gripped my best friend again, pulling her against me.

"I want to kiss you." I whispered as she nuzzled my neck, feeling tears fall down my cheeks despite myself.

"Me too, Niall."

"I love you okay?" I added quickly in a low tone, my eyes closed, trying to stop crying. "I love you and that song is so fucking tough to sing."

I heard her swallow hard and she brushed her nose on my neck. "I'm here now. I'm back. And I'm not leaving."

"I'm not leaving either. Never again."

                                                ----

We ended up backstage after the show and all grabbed a beer. Olivia was laughing with Julia a bit afar and I couldn't take my eyes off her. I wasn't even aware that these two actually talked to each other but watching them interact made me feel good for a reason I ignored. Perhaps, the fact that Olivia was ready to get to know more of my friends made this whole thing easier. Back then, she only really hung out with Louis or the people we hung out with before I was famous. She never really showed interest in meeting my other friends or hanging out with people I met as a singer and even if I understood she didn't feel at ease, it still made me sad.

They both turned to me and looked back at each other before laughing together and I suddenly got curious. I got up and walked to them, bending slightly between them and raising my eyebrows.

"You guys are talking about me?"

"Were we?" Julia asked with a frown, a big smile still gracing her lips and a dimple digging in her cheek.

"We were talking about how incredible Julia had been. She was so discreet you didn't see it coming." Olivia replied, turning to me and sending me a smile, too. "I think she's officially my favorite friend of yours, now."

I looked at Liv as she turned to Julia again and they both laughed some more. It was horrible that I couldn't just grab her and kiss her but I still moved my arm around her waist and I could have sworn her smile got bigger.

"Yea, well done." I admitted, shaking my head. "And now I have two free weeks and we can spend it here. What do you say?"

"I only have a few days, Nee, I'm sorry." she admitted, her facial expression turning into a guilty one. "But I can join you in France when you start your tour again? I asked that week to go see my parents."

My eyes roamed on her face and I felt something break inside me. It took me half a second to take a decision.

"I'll just go back to Cali with you." I let out in a low voice, moving a bit closer to her. "Maybe I can go to one of your filming days?"

Her lips curled and she glanced at Julia, making me suddenly remember that we were not alone. I turned to Julia too and saw her try to hide a smile by pressing her lips hard together. She turned around and walked away to go talk to someone else and I turned back to Liv, raising my nose up in a grimace.

"Oops, sorry." I whispered, holding my breath. "You think she knows?"

"If she's not completely stupid yea. I mean, the girl has two functioning eyes and two clearly great ears, if I trust the way she sings. So yea, she knows." Olivia pointed out with a chuckle.

"You're not mad?"

She tilted her head as she stared at me, her amused smile turning quickly into a fond one. I felt my palm burn on her back, over her shirt, and she sighed low.

"Niall, I think it's time you bring me back to your hotel room, what do you say?"

I didn't have a hotel room. In fact, I was ready to leave right after the show to catch my plane but now that plans had changed, I had to think about something, and there was no way I was going back to sleep at my parents'.

"I'll find one."

I quickly grabbed my phone in my pocket and called the hotel I stayed in the night before to reserve a room. I sighed in relief when I found out they weren't all taken and finally hung up and turned back to her.

"Done."

Her lips curled and she nodded and quickly, we said our goodbyes to everyone. No one insisted that we stayed or followed them to a bar and we just took a cab and left. She didn't kiss me until the hotel room's door closed behind us and I didn't try to force anything, but I couldn't pretend the whole ride was not painful.

Her mouth crashed on mine after she dropped her bags and I finally let mine fall too as she deepened the kiss. I could feel her smile against my lips and chuckled, bringing both my hands to her back and slipped them under her shirt.

"Watching the nudes you send while I jerk off every fooking night isn't enough." I admitted, trailing kisses quickly down her neck. "I want to bring you with me for the rest of the tour, I miss your body too much."

She giggled like a school girl and it made me smile more. "You want me to follow you everywhere so you can use me whenever you need a good fuck?"

"Yes, petal." I admitted in a whisper after letting out a groan. "How much would you like to be my little cum dump? How much do you want me to just grab your hair and fuck your fanny until I cum every fucking time I need it?"

"Mm, someone is in serious need of a good fuck." she pointed out, running her hand on my cock, over my pants. "You're being very nasty."

"You love it, don't even pretend otherwise."

She chuckled against my mouth and quickly worked on my pants. I unbuttoned hers and slipped my hand in her panties, making her head fall back slightly and her eyes flutter.

"You like that, princess?" I asked, brushing my lips on her jaw and neck. "I really need to fuck you hard and fast. You're so wet I'm sure you can cum fast, yeah?"

"Too horny for love making tonight, I see." she whispered with a smile, making me groan again.

"If you want me to make love to you petal, I will." I groaned low. "That shows how much I love you because I'm so fucking horny I don't really want to go slow."

She pulled away slightly and her eyes met mine. She tilted her head and stared at me for a few seconds before licking her lips.

"Fuck me hard and fast, then." she proposed. "We got all night anyway, yea?"

"Pet, if you allow me to fuck you 10 times tonight I fucking will."

She started laughing and I shut her up by pressing my lips against hers and immediately deepening the kiss. I loved the taste of her tongue and when she grabbed mine to suck on it, I slipped a finger inside her and started rubbing my thumb slowly on her clit. She moaned in my mouth and I felt her body tense, making me smile more.

"Apparently, I'm not the only one who needs a proper fuck."

It took us less than a minute to get naked and when I sat on the bed, she quickly straddled me and sat on my cock. I wrapped my arms around her as she let out a low whimper, closing her eyes. I grabbed her hair from behind and pulled on it, making her moan again as I brought my hand between us right after licking my thumb. I pressed it on her clit and she squirmed a bit, making me hold her hair tighter.

"It feels so fucking good to be balls deep inside you, pet."

I ran my tongue on one of her breasts and felt her nipple harden against it. I loved the way her body reacted to every single one of my touches. She squirmed a bit and I groaned as I felt her throb around my cock before grabbed her other breasts hard.

"Missed your tits so much." I slapped it gently and she squirmed again. "You're so fucking horny baby you're dripping on me."

"Please Niall." she let out in a mix of a whisper and a whimper. "Let me ride you."

I stared at how fucked she looked and finally let go of her hair. Her lips pressed against mine half a second later and she started moving over me slowly at first and then harder and faster. I didn't know how long I was going to last and I breathed through my teeth before she bit my bottom lip.

"You always do that when you're really horny don't you?" I asked with a smirk, pulling my upper body back to look at her.

She sent me puppy eyes, her chin moving down as she stared at me through her eyelashes. It made me want to own her even more and be rough with her.

"I do that because I really really want you."

I let my hand run on her back and when I reached her ass, I spanked her hard enough to make her tense. Her movements faltered and she moaned low, cupping my face and kissing me deeply again.

"I'm really really close, Nee." she murmured against my mouth. "I'm about to cum all over your cock."

I already knew that. I could feel her clench hard around my dick and I pulled away slightly again to look in her eyes. There was nothing I loved more than watching her squirm over me as she came.

"Do it. Show me how good of a little slut you are." I pressed my thumb on her clit and she started moving over me again, bouncing on my cock as I rubbed her clit hard.

It took her half a minute to start shaking and I felt her nails dig in one of my shoulders. The sight of her coming undone made me reach my orgasm too and I gripped her waist harder, my fingers sinking in her skin as I spilled inside her. We both were panting messes as we came down from our highs and she leaned her forehead on my shoulder, letting out a few satisfied whimpers.

"You're mine, yeah?"

"What part of me do you want?" she asked low, running her mouth on my neck and making me smile.

"Your heart, petal." I whispered, turning my head her way, searching for her lips. "You know it,"

"Mm, you're so full of shit." she whispered with a chuckle.

I grabbed her waist and threw her on the bed as she let out a high pitched scream and I quickly moved on top of her, holding myself with my arms on each side of her head.

"I ain't lying." I pointed out, raising my eyebrows as I looked at her.

"I thought you wanted my ass." she let out, half-joking with a smile.

I stared at her for a few seconds, my smile falling slowly and breathed in before sighing.

"I already have that." I explained. "I'm just hoping you can give me your heart at some point, too."

I felt her hand reach for my face and her fingers slipped in my hair. I didn't know how long we stared at each other but after a while, her lips parted.

"My heart has been yours since I was 6 years old, Niall James Horan."

For some reason, her words made a shiver cross my back and I quivered slightly over her. I glanced at her lips and slowly, I moved down and kissed her. I didn't know what I could answer to that so I just remained silent. She moved her knees up, trapping my body between them, and I knew we both felt safe in our happy bubble. It was my favorite place : with her.

"You think everyone knows we left to go fuck?" she asked, making me chuckle.

"I mean, they think we're just friends right?"

Olivia grimaced and I laughed more at how cute it was to see her button nose move up childishly.

"No one ever really thought we were friends, I mean, even your parents made a bet."

It was my turn to grimace. "Please, don't remind me."

"I'm glad I messaged Julia. I was a bit jealous of her before I started talking to her. I mean she spends all her time with you and I know you two are close."

I raised my eyebrows in surprise. I didn't think she could feel threatened by Julia.

"Says the girl who literally gets rides from her ex fiance after acting as his girlfriend all day!"

"Touché." she laughed. "But there's really nothing between Dylan and I anymore."

My eyes roamed on her face and I sighed. "I love you, Liv, but we both know that's not true." i just said, making her frown slightly. "Of course you still have feelings for him. I wouldn't expect you to just forget about it after a few weeks. And he probably loves you too. And I would lie if I said it doesn't stress me from time to time, especially late at night when I'm waiting for your call."

I thought about the song I had started writing which was once again, about her. It was once again about how much I loved her, but it was also about how painful it was not to know what we were and how she felt. It was about how easily she could hurt me and that if it was the only thing she was able to give me, that I wanted it anyway. It was about how I was all hers and that I was not sure she really was mine. I didn't want to sing it to her, because I didn't want her to feel guilty about the feelings inside me, but I had to write about it, if only to evacuate the pain from my body and mind. She didn't even know how hurt I was sometimes, it didn't even cross her mind, I knew it.

She sent me a fond smile and my heart melted again. I could have moved to lie down next to her but I didn't want to. I wanted our bodies pressed together. They had been away from each other for so long and it was insane how much my skin missed her skin.

"Nothing to worry about. I always think about you."

I smiled. "Nothing to worry about when it comes to Julia either. Or any other woman. Or men. Anyone. My mind, heart and soul are with you 24/7."

"And your body?" she asked with an amused smile.

"Right now it's with you, too. So you've got all of me."

We remained silent for a while, just looking at each other. I focused on the way her body felt beneath mine, and on how well it fitted with mine, like two pieces of a puzzle, and even if I knew it was cheesy, I knew we formed a complete puzzle, me and her. The more time I spent with her, the more I had hope that we would be together again. Officially and forever.

"What are we gonna do tomorrow?" she asked in a low voice.

"Go back to Mullingar and fuck. Pretend we're not famous. Meet with old friends. Go to a pub and fuck. Go see my mom. Fuck. Get a hotel room and fuck again."

She laughed, moving her chin up and closing her eyes, and it made me smile.

"Alright, but just to make sure, are we gonna fuck?" she asked jokingly, making me smirk.

"Yes."

She laughed again and I shut her up by pressing my lips against hers. I didn't want to think about being away from her again. I didn't want this distance thing to become something normal between us. There was no way I could ever get used to being far away from her for weeks. I also knew it was meant to happen again and it made something stir in my stomach but I tried to push the thought away.

"Good plan?" I asked, my lips brushing against hers as I talked before she nodded. "Perfect, Now let's fuck again."

[kerikaaria]

If I Never Met You: Chapter 18

(??? X Reader) Idol!AU, Manager!Reader

Genre: (PG13) Fluff

WC: 3.2k

Warnings: Slight stalker-ish behavior (It’s there but really it’s not anything super serious or dangerous)

Series Masterlist

Chapter 17 | Chapter 18 | Chapter 19

The following days were hectic as ever. They were spent at broadcasting stations for the nightly music shows, going to other short events in between rehearsals for the shows, and the boys squeezing in practice whenever they could. It was like we barely had time to breath.

The fan reception and general reaction to BTS so far wasn’t bad at all, but unsurprisingly their lack of popularity didn’t win them any awards on the music shows. We weren’t disappointed, we had fully expected that in all honesty. Winning the shows wasn’t our goal, but rather getting them more publicity was.

After about two weeks of moving almost nonstop, we finally got a day where we could all rest. Sejin and I worked a little extra on whatever else we needed to do during the times we weren’t as needed at the boys’ schedules, in order to make sure we would be able to take this day to relax with them.

By the time I woke up, it was already 11 am. I looked in disbelief at my phone, wondering how I managed to sleep in that late – even if I was completely exhausted when I went to sleep the night before. While I was eating breakfast, I got a notification from the group chat.

Hobi: Noona~ You’re stopping by today right?

Taetae: You can’t hide in your apartment all day just because you have the day off. 😋

Jimin: Yeah, noona! We haven’t gotten to properly hang out at all since we’ve been so busy 😟

Yoongi: Sorry for them, noona. You do what you want today, don’t mind them.

Kookie: Noooooo. Noona, please? Pretty please come over? 🥺

Jimin: Why isn’t she responding?

Hobi: Noona are you okay?

Jin: She’s probably still sleeping. She was just as exhausted as we were, you know.

Joonie: Yeah guys, stop it. You’re probably going to wake her up from all the messages.

Taetae: Well, you’re texting in the chat too, hyung 😋

Joonie: Only one time.

Jimin: Well now it’s twice.

Jin: Guys, come on. Just leave it be. She’ll reply when she can.

Me: You guys live together and are probably all sitting next to each other. Why on earth are you talking to each other via text?

Taetae: Noona! You’re awake! :D

Me: Yes, I am. You guys sent the messages so fast I couldn’t keep up, haha.

Jin: Did you sleep well, darling? 🤗

Me: Yes I did, sweetie. 😘 How about you guys?

Joonie: Not having an alarm to wake up to was amazing.

Jimin: Noona~ When are you coming over~?

Yoongi: You don’t need to come over, noona. Just relax today.

Me: Oh okay, I see how it is Min Yoongi. You don’t want to see me. I understand. 😔

Yoongi: What? No. That’s not what I meant.

Taetae: HYUNG HOW COULD YOU? YOU’RE SO MEAN! 😭

Kookie: Wow, hyung.

Jimin: Yoongi hyung, why would you hurt noona like that?😟

Yoongi: -_-

Me: Don’t worry, I’m coming over lol. I’ll be there in like half an hour, okay?

Hobi: Yay! See you soon noona! 💓

I chuckled to myself. They were all such dorks and I loved them for it.

I finished breakfast and dressed in something comfy but presentable before walking across the hall and knocking on their door.

Jungkook greeted me with his soft smile as I walked into their house. I sat down in the living room next to Yoongi and Kookie sat next to me.

Suga peeled his eyes off of his phone to glance at me. “Oh, you’re here?”

“Yes, I’m here. Although I’m sure you’re not happy to see me,” I teased.

Yoongi huffed and shook his head, turning his attention back to the device in his hand.

“It’s okay, noona. I want you here,” Jungkook said as he placed his head on my shoulder.

“Thank you Kook-ah, I appreciate that.” I chuckles and placed a hand on his head.

Taehyung walked out from their bedroom. Once he noticed I was there, he rushed over yelling, “Noona!” and forced himself in between me and Yoongi.

Yoongi groaned in annoyance as he moved over so his brother wasn’t sitting on him. “Yah, can’t you sit somewhere else?”

“What?” Tae asked. “It’s not like you wanted to see noona anyway.”

“Why do you guys keep putting words in my mouth?” Yoongi asked. “I never once said that.”

“Whatever,” Tae said as he hugged me from the side.

I returned the embrace as best I could without making Jungkook move. “Why are you guys so excited to see me anyway? We’ve literally been spending entire days together for the past two weeks.”

“Yeah, but we haven’t really been able to talk or just hang out,” Hoseok said as he entered the room, sitting across from us. “Any downtime we had was basically spent catching up on sleep.”

“That is true,” I said with a chuckle.

I wasn’t used to being social before I met BTS. I would spend most of my time on my own, relaxing and just enjoying the quiet. It was a huge change for me once I started to spend most of my time with them rather than by myself, and it took some getting used to. But I had to admit that by now, I was used to the company and spending too much time alone made me actually feel lonely more than anything now.

We sat in silence for a little while, just being content with each other’s company and relaxing. Despite how much energy the boys usually had, they couldn’t run at 100% all day every day so I had a feeling today was going to be calmer than usual. They were completely exhausted but I could see how happy they were as well, being able to start living their dream even if it may not be perfect. I thought about how lucky we were to be here right now, no longer concerned about if they’d be able to debut or not.

When I was called up to Mrs. Choi’s office that day, she was fully honest with me about what had happened. They originally canceled on us because there was another group from a different company that was more promising. They ended up prioritizing them over our boys, which was also why they weren’t budging on giving us a date again at first. But the other group’s company decided to postpone their debut, so the date opened back up. That had happened just a couple days before I sent her the dance video, and with the date being so close her boss decided we would be good enough to fill the spot after all.

Although of course I told Sejin about it later, I hadn’t mentioned that to the boys, worried that it would make them feel worse. They already knew how much of underdogs they were, and I didn’t want one more thing to rub that in their faces.

“Noona,” Jungkook broke me out of me thoughts.

“Yes, Jungkook?” I asked, turning towards him.

“Is it going to be this busy every comeback?” He lifted his head off of my shoulder.

“Hmm, I can’t say for sure,” I said. “But probably. I know it sucks, but you know how busy this industry is. There’s so many other groups, we have to do what we can to help get your guys’ name out there.”

“It’s not like we didn’t know what we were getting into,” Namjoon said. He had entered the room at some point while I was lost in my thoughts.

“I wish I could make it easier on you guys,” I said. “I don’t like making you so busy. I want you to be able to rest more.”

“Don’t worry about it, noona,” Tae chimed in next to me. “Like hyung said, we already knew what we were getting into. Besides, if we work hard now, then hopefully it’ll all pay off later.”

“Yeah,” Jungkook said. “I’d rather work as hard as I can now than regret not having tried my best later.”

I ruffled both boys’ hair. “You guys never cease to amaze me.”

“We love you too, noona,” Jimin suddenly said from behind me, making me jump.

“Don’t sneak up on me like that!” I said as the boys laughed at my reaction.

“You’re so easy to scare,” Hoseok said, laughing.

“Says the biggest scaredy cat out of all of us,” Jin retorted from the kitchen, earning more laughter from us.

-----

I decided I wanted to cook for everyone today, partially so Seokjin could get a break from being the main chef and relax. But also because I had been practicing my Korean cooking skills over the months and wanted the boys to tell me what they thought. There weren’t too many groceries in our fridges since there hadn’t been much home cooking happening recently, so I ventured out to the grocery store. Jungkook decided to come with me so he can help me carry the bags.

Of course Jungkook had had a mask covering his face to make sure he didn’t draw any attention, but I didn’t bother with one. Face masks were just constricting and hard to breathe through (and I felt so bad for celebrities who needed to wear them all the time), and no one knew me so there really wasn’t a point.

As I was browsing through the different types of noodles to find what I was looking for, Jungkook went to the snack aisle to stock up on their dwindling stash. I found what I needed and went to look for Kook so we could finish up with the shopping and get going back to the house. When I turned into the aisle he was in, I noticed he was rather oblivious to the stares of a few girls who were watching him very closely.

As I walked past them, I heard one of them whisper, “Yeah, I’m sure that’s him. It has to be Jeon Jungkook.”

Great. This is wonderful. I was worried for a moment, but they did seem to be keeping their distance so I pushed it aside, thinking that they seemed like they wouldn’t cause any trouble. All we needed to do was get home.

“Hey,” I said as I approached Kook but made sure not to address him by name, just to be safe. “Almost ready to get going?”

He turned to me, holding a huge armful of snacks to place in my basket. “Yup! I got all the hyungs’ favorites and this should last us a while.” He noticed the girls staring, quickly turning away once he saw them. “Do you think they know me?” he asked me quietly as we walked the opposite direction down the aisle.

“Yeah, I heard them saying they thought it was you as I walked past them,” I responded just as quietly.

“That’s crazy, I’m getting recognized at the store,” he said, partially excited but mostly nervous.

“Not to be rude, but I think it’s better to not intentionally approach them,” I said.

“I know. Don’t worry, I’ll be careful,” Jungkook assured me.

We made it through the checkout and divided the bags between us to carry back to the dorm. Without making it obvious, I paid attention and listened carefully to see if the girls were going to follow us out of the store.

Unfortunately, they did. We couldn’t go home if they were following us because then they’d find out where we lived and that was the last thing we needed. They stayed probably about 10 feet behind us, and I could hear them giggling. I would feel so much more at ease if they just approached us to ask if he’s Jungkook and maybe for an autograph and just walk away. But it didn’t seem like they were going to.

I grabbed my phone to text one of the other boys to let them know we were running late so they wouldn’t worry. But in the middle of typing the message, my phone died. I cursed at myself for forgetting to charge it earlier today.

“Jungkook, can you let someone know we’re on our way home but running a bit late?” I quietly asked him.

“Okay.” He reached into his pocket, but seemed confused when he didn’t find his phone there. He felt around his other pockets, but was unsuccessful in finding it. He took a moment to think before a look of realization lit his eyes. “I forgot my phone at the dorm.”

“Darn,” I said. “Well I guess we’ll just have some explaining to do when we get back.”

I started to feel more and more nervous as we walked, not necessarily heading towards the dorm but rather just in any direction to wait until they stopped following us. I decided we should cross the street, hoping that if they stayed back far enough we could lose them after the light turned. We jogged across the street when the light was close to changing to make it hard for them to be able to follow.

I subtly glanced back to make sure the attempt to lose them was successful, and luckily they were unable to cross with us. We kept moving quickly, making sure to make a few turns before they could fully catch up to us just in case they kept trying to follow. When I felt sure there was no way they could have kept following us, I finally relaxed.

“Think we lost them, noona?” Jungkook asked.

“I’d be shocked if they were able to keep up with us,” I said. “Come on, let’s actually get home now.”

On top of the time we already spent to throw them off, it took us another extra 15 minutes to get back home. I kept looking behind us to make sure they hadn’t managed to find us again, and luckily it seemed we had shaken them off.

When Jungkook used his key to open the door, we were immediately bombarded with a worried BTS.

“What took you guys so long?” Jin asked, almost yelling. “We were worried something happened to you!” Before I could react, he pulled me into a hug. He must have been really worried because he held me really tight as if he was scared to let me go.

“Are you guys okay?” Namjoon asked as he examined Jungkook, who nodded in response while taking his mask off. “We tried calling you, but noona’s phone went right to voicemail and Jungkook you left your phone here.”

“Sorry guys,” I said. “My phone died.” Jin loosened his grip on me.

“What happened?” Jimin asked. “Grocery shopping shouldn’t take that long.”

“Some girls recognized me,” Jungkook said. “They kept following us and we had to walk around to try to lose them before heading home.”

“Did you take your mask off?” Yoongi asked.

“No, he was careful,” I said. “I have no idea how they could tell so easily.”

“Well, we’re just glad you guys are okay,” Hoseok said as he helped me take the ingredients out of the bags. “Oohhh, you got a lot of stuff, noona. What are you making?”

“You’ll just have to wait and see,” I teased.

“Can I help?” Tae said, shuffling over to me in the kitchen.

“No!” Jin and I said in unison.

Taehyung was a little taken back at our reaction.

“No, Taehyung,” Seokjin said. “You are not going to be making the kitchen a mess, nor are you going to sabotage the first meal noona is cooking for us.”

“Sabotage?” Tae said with a pout.

I placed a hand on his shoulder. “Taetae, there are many wonderful things about you. But cooking is not one of your strong points.” He frowned, but nodded in agreement. “Just leave it to me,” I said with a smile.

Everyone left me to my own devices while I worked on our meal, except Jin who occasionally came to see what I was doing. But he didn’t ask to help, knowing I was adamant about doing this on my own for them. While I stood at the stove waiting for the last bit of the food to finish cooking, he came up behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist and leaning down to rest his chin on my shoulder.

“You know, we were all super worried about you guys,” he said.

“I’m sorry, Jinnie,” I apologized sincerely. “I tried to let you know but that’s when my phone died.”

“It’s okay,” he said. “Just don’t do that again. You’re lucky it was just a few fangirls and not someone who wanted to hurt you.”

“It was irresponsible of me to not have my phone charged,” I said. “I’ll be much more careful from now on, I promise.”

“Good,” he said as he let go of me and placed a kiss on top of my head. “Looks like the food’s done. Can I help plate it?”

“Yeah, of course,” I smiled at him.

I watched everyone as they took their first bites of the meal I made for them, anxious of what they’d think.

I saw Jin’s eyes grow big after chewing a piece of meat. “Wow, this is really good, (Y/n)!” he said. “The seasoning is just right!”

“Oh my gosh,” Jimin exclaimed after finishing his bite. “Noona, you really should cook for us more often.”

“I agree!” Taehyung said. “This is up to par with Jin hyung’s cooking.”

“Well, he was my teacher for the most part,” I said while rubbing the back of my neck, shy from the compliments. Everyone seemed to agree that they enjoyed my cooking, which made me really happy. I was nervous with it being a style of food they grew up with but I was new to. “Thanks, guys. I’m glad you like it.” I smiled, watching them enjoy it.

“Noona, aren’t you hungry too?” Jungkook asked. “You haven’t eaten anything yet.”

“Oh yeah.” I was too busy watching everyone else I forgot about eating. I started to dig in, pleasantly surprised with myself for how much I liked the food as well.

By the time everyone was full, there wasn’t a single piece of food left. I didn’t know why I was surprised because despite having cooked a lot of food, there were seven of them and they also tended to have bigger appetites.

We all worked together to get everything cleaned up to make quick work of it.

“Thanks for the meal, noona. It was amazing,” Joon said.

“I’m glad you guys liked it,” I said. I looked at my (now charged) phone and saw that it was getting pretty late. “I’d better get going back home. We don’t want to stay up too late, we all have to get back to work tomorrow.”

As I got ready to leave, Jungkook came up to me, looking nervous.

“Is everything okay, Kook?” I asked. He nodded and then slowly wrapped his arms around me in a hug. “What’s this for?” I asked.

“Thank you for being smart about the situation earlier,” he said. “I would have just thought to go straight home, but that would have been bad.”

“Of course,” I said as I stroked his hair. “It’s my job to be responsible for you guys. That’s what I’m here for.”

He let go of me and smiled. “Good night noona.”

“Good night, Kookie,” I said, ruffling his hair. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Series Masterlist

Chapter 17 | Chapter 18 | Chapter 19

Tags: @calling-dips-on-j-hope​ @misohime​ @netflix-batman-sleep​ @smallbaby-cat​ @leitholdwithlove​ @ramyagovindraj​ @leesalts​ @rjsmochii​

Send me a message or ask if you want tagged! And also feel free to leave comments or send asks to just talk to me!

[sincerelymarinette]

A Recorded Life (17/50) - Miraculous Ladybug

Words: 1841 Chapter Summary: Chat Noir and Ladybug watch the video Chat got to be in, and he is excited out of his mind! Following that, Marinette gives Alya a fun gift for their friendship anniversary- does she regret it? Even if she does, her fans will still freak out over the gift. Author's Note: i LOVE writing the comments on Mari's videos. they're so much fun to just fangirl and i live for it. also i went from having no pre written parts to like 5 so yall better be ready some shiz is about to start

Prev / Next / Masterlist

Alya Made Us Do It...Reading Fanfiction

---

Ladybug walked the rooftops as she waited for Chat Noir to appear. She knew he would, he was so excited about the video, and she knew he wanted her to see it.

It was only a few minutes of Ladybug walking around until she heard Chat Noir land behind her. "Ladybug! She posted the video!" He called out to her.

"Why else would I be out here? I want to see it," Ladybug replied.

"Perfect," Chat Noir nodded to the bag around his shoulder. "I brought a screen a little bigger than your yo-yo," He chuckled.

The two found a secluded spot so they could sit and watch the video, and Chat Noir was buzzing with excitement. He was grateful that Marinette decided to upload the video, despite all the people that would ship them together. He, as Adrien, knew she was unsure of posting it, and he was glad he could convince her to go through with it.

He pulled his computer out of the bag and quickly pulled up the video. "Hey! I'm Marinette!" The video started, a big smile on Chat's face. Marinette had already seen this video a hundred times through editing, but it was a whole different experience hearing Chat Noir talk about everything that went on and pause the video every few seconds.

Marinette had yet to look at many of the comments, since she had only posted it a few minutes before, but she was sure it was already flooded. She saw the few before she transformed, but she was sure more were produced by the second.

She was excited that Chat Noir was so happy with the video and she knew he would be talking to her about it for the next month.

---

Directly following Alya's birthday was her's and Marinette's friendship anniversary. They had a nice dinner together and watched all the movies they could get in on a school night, bringing it back to the times before life got crazy.

But now, a day after, it was the real-time for Marinette to give Alya her present. She told Alya a few weeks ago she could choose a video topic for them, and she was not going to veto it. Marinette got her a real gift as well, but this was a bonus. She regretted it immediately when she saw Alya's sinister smile.

For some reason, Adrien and Nino were also there for the video. This only worried Marinette more about what Alya picked to do.

"Hi! I'm Marinette!" She greeted the camera as her three friends sat around her. "And I have no clue what we are doing today. For our friendship anniversary, I let her choose a video, and I had to go through with it. All I know is that she has a sinister look, a bulky folder, and Nino and Adrien are here," She said as the boys waved and turned to Alya. "Would you care to explain?"

Alya rubbed her hands together and held the folder against her chest. "I've seen a lot of YouTuber's do this, and I have been dying to get you to do it, but I knew you would never agree," She set up the scene. "I love your fanbase; everyone is great. I scoured the internet for the best things for this video, and have selected five. We are reading fanfiction about us," Alya declared.

"What?" Marinette screamed as Adrien and Nino started giggling in the background.

"Trust me, boys, neither of you are safe," Alya confirmed to them. "And Nino, just because we're together doesn't mean you get it easy. There is only one Alya 'x' Nino, and it's in the background of an Adrienette story," Alya winked, then turned back to the camera. "Yes, I have read these to make sure they are suitable. And yes, I have a secret Marinette fan account."

Marinette sat in embarrassment with her head in her hands, not sure how this whole event would go. Alya opened the folder and passed around scripts. "We'll start easy," She said, and on the top of the paper, it read ALYANETTE. "The only ship in this is Marinette and me; you guys are just extra characters."

Nino sat back in his chair. "Oh, thank god."

"Just wait, Nino," Alya joked to her boyfriend. Adrien was quiet, not sure how to react to this whole situation. He was surprised Marinette was actually letting Alya go through with this.

"Let's just get this over with," Marinette said as she tried to hide her beet-red face. "Who's narrating?"

Adrien looked up. "I can," He volunteered. And with that, the story began.

Marinette felt like she was having an out of body experience reading the lines and acting out with her friends. She had ideas of what Alya could have chosen, but nothing prepared her for all that was to come. The one between her and Alya was adorable, and she wasn't too nervous, but it was when she brought out the one with ADRIENETTE written on the top. Marinette had mainly got over her crush on Adrien since they are such good friends now, but the butterflies in her stomach proved different.

Alya started narrating as the scene was being set up and she could tell they were getting nervous to read their parts. Luckily, it started out with Nino and Alya talking about getting the two together, so it gave them some time to prepare mentally. Alya was eating this up, because she would do this exact thing in the story if she could. Marinette knows her plans and can stop her before she even starts, trying to prove she doesn't like Adrien like that anymore.

Between the tomato colored faces and slight stuttering, Alya was sure this was going to cause never-ending stories about them, and she was perfectly happy with that. She did, however, let them finish the story a little earlier because it was becoming a bit much. "I'll let you guys off the hook this time, but that's become I'm about to pull out the big guns!" She pulled out her next story, with a big MARICHAT written on the top. "Of course, I will be playing the role of Chat Noir. I have figured out the Ladybug and Chat Noir fanfiction writers have come up with how they are outside of costume. And for some reason, they believe Chat Noir's name is Felix. So, I will be portraying Felix Noir," Alya winked at Marinette.

Adrien felt a sigh of relief wash over him when Alya said she would be reading for Chat Noir. Sure, she had no reason to make him read for Chat, but it was still freaking him out with the possibility. He's pretty sure he blacked out while that whole story was being read.

The team suffered through Alya's evil plans as they finished reading the stories. The second Adrienette story was more fluff, and it seemed like it was an all-around friends story, it didn't hit too much romance, which was a nice break. The last story came out of nowhere: A Nino and Marinette story. Some people really liked the idea that they've known each other the longest in the group and would write about that. There were only a few, but all of them were adorable. It was probably the most fun for the group to read.

"And...that was my last one," Alya announced and let the group breath. "For now. If the people like this though, maybe we'll do one of those Tumblr things where we look up our names and ships to see what people post! Right, Marinette?" She pleaded, making puppy-dog eyes.

Marinette sighed loudly. "If it's what the people want," She gave in. "Make sure to leave a comment if you'd like us to do something like this again in the future. And don't forget to like and subscribe for more! You can check out all our social media with the links on our faces, or all of our information in the description. Thank you guys for watching, and this was a lesson never to give Alya control over a video again!" Marinette ended, getting up to shut off the camera.

Switching back into French mode, she grabbed a pillow and screamed into it. "NEVER LET ALYA CONTROL THINGS AGAIN!"

"But it was so much fun!" Alya argued, also back in French.

"Interesting is the word," Adrien said.

Nino sat there, staring as he waited for this whole day to be over. He was scarred.

---

ALYA KNOWS WHAT WE WANT AND WE WANT FANFICTION i need them on tumblr next

i literally ship all of these this was the best video i have ever watched thank you Alya you are a god

im still stuck on the fact that Alya says she has a fan account for Marinette. She's among us. you can't trust anyone!!!

I have a feeling Marinette knows Chat Noir's true identity. When Alya starts talking about the fandom's names for them, she tensed up when she talked about Felix. Is this a hint that his name is actually felix? Or confirmation that it isnt? Either way, she knows

So marinette when are you gonna tell us you and chat noir are a thing

mariNETTE DO YOU KNOW WHO CHAT NOIR IS? ARE YOU GUYS TOGETHER?

i would literally do anything for her to tell us she knows who chat is and/or confirm the rumors of their relationship

You aren't even trying to hide it anymore that you and chat noir are dating, are you? First, the video with him. You always defend him to the end. Then we get some pictures of chat leaving your balcony. Now we get you reading a fanfic of you and him. give up the secret already!

Me: I love adrienette and would die for them You: *indirectly makes it clear that you and chat noir are dating* Me: I love adreinette and would die for them

To all you people saying marichat is a thing, don't you realize they only read one marichat fic but TWO adrienette fics? If anything, adrienette is more likely. that or alya is just pushing them lol

marinette please confirm or deny your relationship status. it's tearing the fandom apart with all the debates. please. also, the fandom is exploding bc people think you know who chat noir is. please confirm or deny before we all split!!!

Marinette sat back in shock as she read the sea of comments on the fanfiction video. Where was all of this coming from? What did she do to imply she knows Chat Noir under the mask, let alone make her fans think they are dating? She was freaking out, and as much as Tikki tried to calm her down, nothing was working. She needed to talk to someone, and knew Alya was stressed about school and probably sleeping. Scrolling back up past her name, she clicked the second "A" contact in her list. She just needed someone to talk to.

---

@lady-of-the-roses-and-lilies @bookishserendipity03 @avatheexceed @gkz10 @coccinellegirl @kat-thatoneweirdo @strawberryblondish @snow-swordswoman @lilgaga98 @evufries

[thewritewolf]

Eating Habits Chapter 9: Warmth

The incoming chill of late fall might be making Paris cold, but the love of friends and family keeps Adrien and Marinette warm. 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 (Final)

Enjoy!

Read on Ao3. 

The letters in front of Marinette swam as she tried to focus on them, her laptop screen getting blurry intermittently as she blinked away the gnawing tiredness at the edges of her mind. Between her exhaustion and the lingering after effects of her cold from last week, she was having an awful time studying. Maybe she should have tried getting back onto a regular sleep schedule, but there was too much to do after being bed ridden for a few days.

Thankfully, there was the power of energy drinks to save her. The caffeine was probably the only reason she was even still awake right now. Not that being conscious was a huge help if she couldn’t process what she was reading. After a few more minutes of unsuccessfully staring at her screen, she sighed and leaned forward, rubbing her forehead.

Once she wasn’t hyper focused on her work, her attention drifted to a conversation from a couple boys at another table. They weren’t very loud since they were all in the campus library, but she could still hear them pretty clearly. Without meaning to, she listened in.

“...Crazy, right?”

“Man, you’re super lucky. That would’ve been just the thing to make calculus less dull.”

“What? Haven’t you had a class where that Agreste kid just waltz in with a boxed lunch?”

Marinette froze. They couldn’t be talking about…?

“He’s been in so many frickin’ classes but of course he doesn’t show up to any of mine.”

“Bummer, dude. It’s pretty hilarious, and kinda cute.”

“Well, he was a model. Or is he still one? That was pretty ambiguous-”

“No! I mean he brings the lunches for his girlfriend.”

“Aw, that’s sweet. Feel bad for his girlfriend though. Must be a little embarrassing, ya know?”

Meanwhile, Marinette buried her scarlet face in her laptop, being careful to keep it between her and the two boys while they kept talking. Maybe it would be worth eating proper meals just to keep Adrien from these over the top antics.

Despite her embarrassment, Marinette’s stomach growled treacherously at the thought of his boxed lunches. She wondered where he was right now...

------------------

“Geez, dude, can’t even go easy on me for a minute, huh?” Nino threw his control down in faux anger. “Have I even one a single match yet?”

“Hm…” Adrien tapped his chin as he pretended to give it some thought. “Well, you did beat up my character when I went to the bathroom. Does that count?” Adrien ducked out of the way of a playful punch aimed at his arm. “Ooo, too slow, turtle boy.”

“God, you’re such a smug dick,” Nino said with a grin. “Can’t believe I ever thought you were an innocent homeschooled boy.” He leaned back, settling his controller on his lap. “How’d you even get so rockin’ at this game?’ His eyes narrowed and he pointed a figure into Adrien’s face. “And you’d better not say ‘natural talent’ or I’ll send M that clip of you drunkenly crying to that one Inuyasha scene.”

“We’re all friends here, shelly, no need to pull out the big guns.” Smirking, Adrien held his hands up in surrender and shrugged. “Well, you know how Marinette is into the Mecha Strike series. Ever since we started dating, every time a new title would come out, I’d get it for her. Then we’d play it a ton. Early on, it was after dates, but after I moved in, we’d stay up late and fight into the early morning.”

“Sounds like you were having a ton of fun,” Nino said with a small smile. “You ever actually win any of those matches?”

“Hell no. Why do you think I like playing against you so much? I got years of pent-up frustration to take out.” They shared a laugh. Adrien stared wistfully into space. “But yeah. It was like a sleepover every night with the person I cared the most about.”

“Harsh, dude.”

“Hey, you’re a close second! And that’s saying something since she’s literally the love of my life and light of my heart.”

“...Yeah, I can see how you two and your over-the-top ideas of love mesh together.” Nino snapped his fingers. “Speaking of crazy acts of love! Weren’t you making tons of trips to M’s university? What happened with that?”

To his surprise, Adrien blushed and he rubbed the back of his neck. “About that… Turns out, doing it once is cute. Two or three times is adorable, but getting annoying. But apparently two meals a day for three weeks - minus her sick break - is crossing a line.”

“Bummer. So she chewed you out?”

“If by ‘she’ you mean ‘all of Marinette’s professors’ then yes.” Adrien sighed dramatically. “Now I’ve been banned from interrupting all her classes, at least for the semester.”

Nino laughed at a pouting Adrien. “Uncool of them, but I get it. Can’t have some stray cat runnin’ around, getting everyone all riled up.”

“Anyway… at least she got a few weeks worth of regular meals out of it. I just wish it could have gone on for a little longer.”

“It is what it is, big cat. You did what you could and that’s what’s important.” He pulled out his cellphone and started composing a text.

“Who are you talking to?” Adrien craned his neck over, shamelessly reading over Nino’s shoulder.

Nino leaned away from his prying eyes. “It ain’t for nosy cats, that’s for sure. If you gotta know, its for my babe. She’ll think you getting banned is hilarious, and I gotta be the one that tells her.”

“Oh sure, laugh at my pain.”

“That’s the plan, dude.”

Adrien shook his head, but there was a glimmer of mirth in his eyes. He stood up and walked to the kitchen, leaving Nino to send his message in peace.

-------------------

A few days later, the apartment was quiet once again. Nobody had come over to visit, which was more the norm for his life. On some level, the stillness bothered him, like there was something missing. Or maybe it was just because it was harder to distract himself if there wasn’t any noise or energy in the house.

Either way, today Adrien didn’t mind as much since the solitude would make this a little easier. He didn’t want word of his plan to leak out before he was ready or else Marinette might catch wind of it and clam up. Which wouldn’t help anyone, least of all Marinette herself.

Adrien hung up the phone and took a seat at his kitchen table. Normally at this hour it would be covered in fresh ingredients for whatever he was planning on making that day. But where chopped vegetables usually sat was instead advertisements and a few bank statements. The latter was probably unnecessary - he knew without looking that’d he’d have enough for what he was planning. But it was reassuring to see, at least.

Knowing Marinette, it was good to have as many loose ends tied up as possible, and leave nothing to chance. He loved her to pieces, but she could work herself into an anxious lather if he let her.

“Are you sure this will work out?” Adrien worried at his lip as he sightlessly looked over the papers.

“Listen, kid,” Plagg said as he gnawed at a wedge of cheese. “You want to help her, right? And she isn’t budging despite everything you’ve done so far, yeah?”

“Yes…”

“Then trust me. I’ve known more than a few Ladybugs in my day and most of them are way too stubborn for their own good. And we both know Pigtails hasn’t bucked that tradition in the slightest.”

“I know, but… it’s a big step. Shouldn’t we talk it out as a couple?”

“Maybe. And I’ll grant that Pigtails is a great planner.” Plagg gulped down the last hunk of his cheese, letting out a satisfied sigh once it hit his stomach. He shook his head and looked back at Adrien. “But she’s also her own worst enemy. If it isn’t urgent, she’ll just plan and plan and plan forever without actually doing anything.”

Adrien smirked, remembering the times Marinette had shared - after some help from a bottle of wine - some of her more… creative plans to confess her love to him. At least, until he beat her to it. Maybe Plagg had a point.

“We can always plan together later,” Adrien said with a nod. “I just need to make sure she doesn’t reject it out of hand.”

“That’s the spirit, kid. Now, onto the important matters - where’s my second dinner?”

-----------------

Tonight was their anniversary, a chilly December day, and Adrien wanted to make sure everything was perfect. He’d gotten permission to leave the bakery early. Probably way earlier than he’d needed to, but Tom and Sabine had insisted that he take the whole afternoon off. Especially Tom, Adrien remembered with a smile, who could barely hold back the tears as he waved Adrien off.

A quick stop at the market for fresh ingredients and Adrien was home.

As much as he had wanted to go out to a fancy restaurant or do something special with her, he knew that the best way to spoil her now - after the semester she’d been having - would be a nice relaxing night at his apartment, eating a home cooked meal and cuddling in front of the television.

And by all the kwami was she going to get the best meal and the most snuggly cuddles he could possibly make. She deserved nothing less.

He became a man possessed, putting all those cooking classes to good use as he crafted the greatest lasagna he could make. While that was cooking in the oven, he began gathering all the softest blankets and pillows he could find and stacking them on his couch. Half the fun of a pillow fort was making it with someone else, but he knew she’d rather be able to collapse into it as soon as she got there.

It was just as he placed the finishing touches on the fort that he heard a knock at the door before it swung open.

When his eyes met hers, a big grin spread across his face as his heart raced. She wasn’t even a step inside before he’d rushed across the room and swept her up in a hug, holding her off the ground with his arms just below her waist.

She laughed as she pressed her hands against his shoulders for support. “At least let me put my stuff down first, you ridiculous man!”

He simply grinned up at her, eyes sparkling with happiness as he slowly let her down just enough to put them face level. He kissed the corner of her mouth and whispered:

“Happy anniversary, bugaboo.”

[kidchameleon92]

“life story” 1

i’m not going to edit this at all going along. typos, bad grammar, mistakes. doesn’t matter. this is spontaneous thought.

disclaimer: i changed the word to “spontaneous” from “spurious” which means something completely different, so the first paragraph is already a lie.

anyway, it’s been a really weird and sort of bad couple months for me. mostly in my state of mind. i feel very stuck and very immobile when it comes to my art and career. and that is having a very negative effect on my brain. even though i’m putting out my favorite songs i’ve ever written. i’ve been meaning to write for awhile. i used to post when i lived in los angeles several years ago, just journaling my day to day life. but i haven’t for awhile. i guess i also used to write in a notebook while on different tours. but i think i’ve since thrown that away or hidden it somewhere.

point is: i just want to write to get things off my mind. and hopefully, maybe, it’ll help you (if you care to) get to know me a little more and on a more personal level. even if we haven’t met. and maybe it’ll make what i make (if you care about it) mean more to you. either way, mostly, i just want to rant a bit. so, this is my life’s story. i guess.

chapter 1: kid

i was born in a suburb of the twin cities in minnesota. my parents both grew up in minnesota and lived there their whole lives (until my mom recently moved to tennessee). my mom was a mortician, and my dad was an accountant. also an alcoholic. he cheated on her and left her and i when i was one year old. i remember growing up going to stay with him on weekends, except it was with him and his girlfriend at the time. except he was drunk a lot. and would drive drunk with me (a baby) in the car. so, that’s cool. anyway, my mom was really depressed, and that was not a good time (or so i’ve heard, because i was a baby, so idk).

i stayed with my grandparents a lot, because my mom worked full time. my maternal grandparents lived on a ton of land. my grandpa and i would ride motorcycles and four wheelers and sleep in a treehouse and all that. my other grandparents lived in the same town but in a small house. i used to go up to their cabin during the summer and go fishing and swimming and boating and all that. different g-parent vibes, but loved both a lot.

anyway, when i was three, my mom married my step-dad. he is from india and has had a lot of unique and challenging experiences, so that certainly brought a lot of particular lessons and outlooks into my life. i went there once when i was about 14. it was wild. but so, yeah. that kinda solidified my family unit. my dad got remarried later on as well. but the older i got, i saw him less and less.

so ... i loved video games. i played them all the time. a big part of my childhood. mostly nintendo. explains a lot. as a kid in school (4 years public, 3 years private, 1 year home, 3 years private, 1 year PSEO [look it up]), i was never popular whatsoever. i always wanted to gain some sort of acclaim or attention from my classmates, but was pretty much always looked down on for one reason or another. i remember in elementary school, i was the kid who was literally terrified of storms. probably because i had been in a tornado when i was six. but the moment it would thunder, all the kids would look at me to see if i was gonna cry. usually, i did. and the school nurse would take me outside and we’d walk around as a sort of therapy. i guess it helped sorta. i still get nervous in storms. but i don’t cry.

i also remember a time specifically that i got made fun of for wearing a denver broncos t-shirt. this kid just railed on me because it wasn’t a minnesota vikings shirt. so, one: i don’t even give a fuck about sports. but two: it stuck with me for some reason that someone would be a massive jerk over a t-shirt of a sports team. i guess that’s just because we as humans are messed up things.

anyway, in middle school, i started becoming semi-interested in music. i listened to the radio every night, listening to the top 10 countdown of big songs from that week. kanye, weezer, the click five, black eyes peas, green day. those were some anyway. besides that, i was just listening to like kelly clarkson and relient k or something. my mom had a steven curtis chapman cd in her van i thought went hard. but i started getting into popular music around then. i also started to write my own music. i used to take piano lessons from when i was like six or seven until i was 14 or so. but after i started writing my own songs, i hated practicing assigned pieces. i didn’t care. i wanted to play my own. so, the teacher said if i quit, i couldn’t be her student again. so i did. that’s fine. she said i was her most talented student. but i didn’t work that hard. so, that goes to show that natural talent and hard work have different roles, i suppose. 

chapter 2: girls and high school and such

in high school, i started LiKiNg gIrLs and stuff. i also was still not very popular. i also had started a band (with jack). i wasn’t very good, but i was just as obsessed with it as i am now. anyway, i liked this one girl from my church, and we talked all the time. but because we grew up in a pretty fundamental church culture, we weren’t allowed to date. which honestly, i fine, because looking back, no one knows what they are doing at 16 really. i definitely didn’t. i still don’t know what i’m doing. anyway ...

so, this girl and i half-dated for a couple years, and i was really clingy and annoying. but that’s just how i be. and i thought i was gonna marry her and stuff, because in a fundamental church context, you over spiritualize everything.

[[disclaimer: i am a christian, and i still go to church, but my theology and ideology on a lot of things has just evolved and changed a lot since i was young and since leaving the ultra-americanized/ultra-fundamental “christian” realm. main point being: we all are effed up bro and need saving. i’m an idiot always!]]

but now we’re back. girl “dumped” me and started dating another guy named “patrick” right after, even though she technically wasn’t allowed to date until she was 18. but apparently, she just wasn’t allowed to date me. so, that was cool. anyway, i was angsty, but then i got over it. because i was 17, so life big time goes on.

then i met another girl from canada while i was finishing school and going hard at my band stuff. we hit it off, and i started visiting her up there. and she visited me and all that. it was cool. and then all of a sudden, she really started hating me. and to be fair, i was weird and clingy and sort of a lot to deal with. but we kept dating. all the while, i was sort of leaving behind music to try to get into nursing school. yep, nursing school. but i got rejected, which is great. and so, i decided to go to audio engineering school in canada. and she was gonna go to college in the same city. this is great! so i thought. she dumped me (well, i sort of broke up with myself for her) about a month after we were living in the same city. wack. but it made me buckle down and work my ass off in school. i was top of my class one semester. yeah, i’m not that dumb. sometimes.

towards the spring of the next year, i happened to meet a girl who was at my church with one of my friends. she seemed chill. just talked a little. nothing crazy. happened to hit her up on twitter just to say hi. no intention. we talked a bit. nothing after that. then all of a sudden, a couple months later, i was tweeting about reading harry potter for the first time (note: fundamental upbringing). she happened to tweet me back about it. and long story short, we went out on a date. a sort-of-date. and what was supposed to be a lunch turned into an all day and half the night date. anyway, we got married a year later. after a lot of immigration paperwork and expenses. that’s a whole other post. that sucked. it’s a lot. and it’s why i feel bad for people who have nothing who are trying to come here to flee danger in their own countries. again, another post.

chapter 3: married, and other hard things

so, i forgot to say that before we got married, i lived in los angeles for a year after school. i was doing more sound for film work. on set stuff, post-production. got to do work with like ... james franco, matt damon, emma roberts, william shatner. some cool stuff. but jack’s old band came through on tour, and i saw two shows. and i was like ... bruh. i gotta do music, what am i doing? so, i literally moved back to minnesota within like two weeks, worked as a nursing assistant for a little bit and got married. then moved to nashville like two weeks later. i guess i could’ve stayed in los angeles. but nashville felt like the move at the time. everything happens with a purpose.

so, we moved here, and she couldn’t work for three months because of immigration stuff. so, i was like, well, guess i need a job. so, i got a job managing a home for a couple people with intellectual disabilities. it was super hard. mostly because the company was really, really bad. so, i got another job working as a staffing coordinator in an office for a home health care agency. that was a little better. still tough. but less overwhelming. a couple months after i got that job, i got an offer to go on a country tour playing bass for someone. and i was like ... well, this is why i moved here. so, i quit and went on tour. and shawna actually took my old job. interesting.

i was gone for three weeks, and it sucked and the pay was bad, but at least i was doing what i wanted. but then i got an offer from my friend to do some tech work on a much bigger country gig. i hadn’t done it before, but it was better pay and a better position. and on a bus and nice things and all that. so, i went for it. i pissed the other girl i was playing for off. but that’s show biz, baby. but like, i found a replacement for myself and paid to fly him out to her shows and stuff. so, really she won.

anyway, i toured with this other artist for four years. and i learned a lot. it was very, very challenging, both mentally and physically. and some people are just hard to work with. but i still gained so much valuable experience and insight into touring from that. i also started playing guitar for another artist who was small at the time, but has now had a couple number one hits. but his label fired me because i didn’t look country enough. we’re still homies though, so it’s literally fine. because i do indeed not look country enough.

at the same time, i was doing my own solo music and also producing and writing with and for other people. i’ve had the opportunity to write and produce for everything from independent artists to major label to billboard charting albums to whatever. songs on major television networks. i’m still very un-rich though, if that tells you anything. 

but really, i just wanted to do my own music. and i literally couldn’t get it to go anywhere. i had no idea what the “secret” was. what was i missing? money? connection? power? actually probably all of that, to be honest. this industry is wacko. i was pretty close to giving up.

chapter 4: milkk

i read a satirical article on vice.com about “how to start a trendy band” or something. i thought it was funny. so, i called jack. he had just been kicked out of his old band for no reason. i was like, “bruh, let’s do this article.” and he was like, ok. so, we sort of did. and i’m not gonna go into all the early details, because i’ve done a million press interviews about how our band started. and i don’t wanna say it again. google it.

this was the first time that i actually saw people care about my music. it was a high. it was like a dream. and we hadn’t even had any big song or anything. just the fact that people were listening and engaging was mind blowing to me. but just like with anything, the more things went, the less i found satisfying. the more “likes” or “follows” on socials didn’t feel like enough anymore. the streams didn’t seem good enough. the chart positions on the debut album didn’t seem that great. the hype wore off a little after the debut album hype. and that made me insane. probably because we as humans are not built to be satisfied by the things in our life. “Vanity of vanities!” it’s in ecclesiastes. like the bible one.

chapter 5: now

anyway, that’s bad. i had (and have) let my mind convince me that i have to achieve something in order to be happy or fulfilled, when i know that that stuff will never fulfill me. i could play the biggest stadium and have the biggest song in history, but after a burst of dopamine and excitement, it would be empty. and i know that nothing here will do that. at least, that’s what i believe. my hope is outside of myself.

but that’s hard to internalize when you are so passionate about something, and have been for so long, and all you want to do is create things for other people that they can appreciate and be influenced by. but it’s probably also selfish. like i openly admit i like the idea of fame and presence. and it probably ties all the way back to wanting acknowledgement and attention as a kid, from being unpopular and ridiculed and, honestly, left by my dad. maybe i just therapied myself.

but regardless, i know i can’t put my identity in all this stuff. it’s hard, and it’s harder when you create stuff. because it’s so deeply tied to you. but it’s still not “who i am.” i know who i am and what i believe, but i’m still a mess, so i can’t enact that in my brain perfectly. in fact, far from it.

anyway. it’s late, and i’m going to post this and attempt to not worry about how it does on social media. stupid!!! i just want this out in the world for you to read. hopefully it’s helpful for you in some way. but mostly, it was just cool to write this out, for my own sake.

i’ve been blessed in some amazing ways. my family. oh, yeah i forgot that i have two kids. i love them a lot. i don’t talk about them on social media much. but they are very special to me. and we’ve always been taken care of, even when times were tight or i didn’t know when the next paycheck was coming in or i thought my wife was about to die or whatever. the Lord provided for us every time. and i am grateful to have what career i have. it may be “small” and nothing to look at by the big industry standards, but i believe in what i make so much, and i’m just grateful that anyone cares about it at all. and i will continue to do so until the day i die. because i have to. 

it’s what i was born to do, for better or worse. and no one can tell me otherwise.

[13tying-you-to-me]

Dear, @taylorswift

I'm Adriane, I live in Acre, northern Brazil, I'm 24 years old today, but when I met you, I was only 14 years old. I would like to tell you a little about myself, I am not fluent in English, so I needed to translate this into some translator. Forgiveness for the mistakes. That is if they come to you one day.

The first time I saw a picture of you was in a Brazilian teen magazine called Capricho, with an approach "have you heard of Taylor Swift? No? Then it's time to meet the little princess of the country". I remember it as it was today, its long, bulky, shiny gold curls. It didn't take long for me to fall in love. In the same year, you made a cameo in a movie singing your song Crazier and it became my favorite song for years.

My God, that was the beginning of a great love.

At various times in my life you have been there. Your music was there and helped me stand when I thought it would no longer be possible.

I didn't mention it before, but by 2008 I had already lost my father due to depression and he ended up committing suicide. And the year after I met your work and started buying a lot of magazines that dealt with you, my mother was a victim of murder. Just the year you launched Speak Now. And I was Haunted. But I needed to move on, I was still 15 years old and despite all the pain I carried, there were my grandparents and my uncles who also felt the same pain of loss that I felt and I needed to be strong for them. I needed to finish my studies and move on.

But it was not easy.

2010 was not an easy year.

But the music helped, otherwise I would freak out, no? After all what a 15 year old girl is without her mother? Your confidant? Then I listened to you.

The song Soon You'll Get Better breaks my heart because I just understand you.

Continued... I looked for ways to import your CDs, because here in Brazil was not so easy to get them. It was 3 now and I get the deluxes too (yes, baby).

But depression caught me and I cut myself. Not because I wanted to die, but I can't say why either. Maybe because I had no one to talk to. Maybe because I knew that everyone had their pain and I didn't want them to have to deal with mine either. So in 2010 and 2011, I was torn between her albums, Grey's Anatomy, my 3rd year of high school, and my wrist cuts to ease my emotional distress.

Then came 2012, I went to college, I was going to be 17 years old. By now everyone knew I was crazy about you, but I didn't know about my self-mutilations. I won the RED album from a college friend and cried a lot thinking about my first love listening to The Last Time and I Almost Do. Because how many times I almost call him?

4 albums, a growing love in my chest. Permanently marked.

2014. Shake It Off. I missed class at college and missed that live in August, ops! I was so excited! Loved every second of the video release. JUST SHAKE IT OFF, B A B Y!

But in 2016 came one of the worst moments of your life and, coincidentally, mine too, which lasted until mid-2017. Luckily, you were reborn from the ashes, and I also managed to get back on my feet. It was also the last year I self-mutilated.

I remember the ecstasy of reputation, it was wonderful. Each phase of yours is. Your maturation over the years has been impressive and I appreciate the lessons you have given me, helped me endure the most difficult times of my life. Lover in 2019 is sublime. One of your best creations, I dare say. I love all your songs without exception. All of them have made me feel a lot of unexplained emotions, but the album Lover is something different. Extraordinary. No matter how many times I listen, how many times I sing, how often I play the songs in my car while driving, I always get goose bumps. I simply love it... It's like everything that's missing in my life so far. In fact, his works cause this sensation in me. Whenever you release something new, it's like it's all that is missing for me and I can't imagine how you can excel in your next chapter and you excel. EVER. I would like to be like you. You inspire people. I love you woman. You are wonderful. Today, despite everything I've been through, I'm fine. Actually, I was fine. But now I'm afraid. I live with anxiety and I am afraid of depression coming back. The person who killed my mother will get out of jail this year and I don't know what to expect. The only thing I know is that next week I will try to get tickets for your concert in Brazil on July 18 in Sao Paulo. I look forward to achieving it. Otherwise I will cry a lot. It may seem silly to love a person I don't even know, but I feel I know you because of your works of art that live in my heart and fill me with love and hope.

My dream is to meet you in person and take a picture with you, literally. I have dreamed of this moment several times, but it is frustrating to wake up and know that it was not real and probably never will be. Another thing I would very much like to tell you and which I find funny is that you have no idea how happy I am when I see that you are happy. You seem to be in the best phase of life and it fills me with happiness. I hope that is true, because there is nothing I hope for more in life than for your happiness!

With love,

Adriane

15.10.2019

[comicteaparty]

March 28th-April 3rd, 2020 Creator Babble Archive

The archive for the Creator Babble   chat that occurred from March 28th, 2020 to April 3rd, 2020.  The chat focused on the following question:

How many hours do you work on your comic per week, and how do you manager to balance that with other responsibilities?

Holmeaa - working on WAYFINDERS

heheh So we are.. cheating a bit Both me and my coworker are unemployed, and is working on hour comic, like was it a full time job. It is our passion project, and dream that we can work and live of makeing comics. In Denmark you can apply for grants from the government, but you need to have releashed a book before that is possible. We are useing the comic, to show potentional clients in the future what we can do. For now we are working on it from 09:00-17:00 ish (with a long lunch break) while applying for other kinds of grants, and also does all the things we are supposed to to get our unemplyment money, and searching for jobs, and freelance gigs, gathering the courage to start our own small company (not right now though) and yeaah time will tell

carcarchu

@Holmeaa - working on WAYFINDERS that doesn't sound like cheating to me? more like using the tools at your disposal to turn your passion into a viable career

Holmeaa - working on WAYFINDERS

hehe it feels a little like cheating! there are some debates about if it is okay or not, but we think that strengthening our skills is a good use of our time

eli [a winged tale]

Haha also not cheating! It’s great you’re using the time to chase the dream I’m curious what’s your breakdown for those time working on the comic? As for me, usually 1-2 hours a day with a bit more on the weekend if time permits. These days with the quarantine it’s about 2-3 h a day

DanitheCarutor

Since I'm unemployed until who knows when I've been working on my comic between 40-50 hours a week about 6 to 7 days a week... most weeks. Some days, like update day or chore day, I hardly work on the comic or don't work on it at all. Admittedly I'm not the best at balancing drawing with other responsibilities, sometimes I get so into it that I forget about daily house chores, other weeks I do the opposite and only do house chores which makes me totally behind of comic stuff. I can't seem to find a good middle ground, it always turns into completely focusing on one or the other.

eli [a winged tale]

Yeah when I get in the zone, time flies and life gets put to the wayside

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

So I have no school or work, so the webcomic has become almost a fulltime project for me

I average about 10 hours per day working on it, not counting on chores and exercise

Another thing I worry about is the possibility of carpal tunnel syndrome, which is why I've been relentless with exercise, too

I guess it's just a combination of relentless reminders and also sheer willpower that gets me to do other responsibilities haha

@eli [a winged tale] also I know that feeling

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

So since my school had to cancel, I have to be more responsible for my online course. Sometimes I give myself 2 days off each week to work more into my upcoming webcomic but I have to switch my mind for school work, online classes. Also extra time for food. I need to get back into exercise or I feel exhausted more easily. I keep a wall schedule so that I make it a routine to write what I'll do every 3 or 5 days, to keep my active brain reminded(edited)

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

I spent the majority of last year (fun)employed (partially by choice, partially not! my previous job let me go rather unceremoniously... and I needed a hiatus anyway... so it worked out) so I poured a lot more hours into that chapter of Phantomarine than I usually did. I worked on it almost every day - at least for a couple of hours, but sometimes up to a full eight-hour day. That number has dipped tremendously since I’ve gone back to work, but I’m spreading the same amount of time out in a broader way. I’m trying to get a good buffer during my hiatus, so I can work and draw in a healthy balance. I don’t have crazy overtime at my current job like I did at my last one, so that’s already a comfort. I’m confident I’ll be able to hit a good stride once the comic returns in June (edited)

eli [a winged tale]

Can’t wait Lady!!

Feather J. Fern

Two part time jobs, and school killed my comic, but I been working on getting one panel done a day, which is around 30minutes to an hour if possible.

eli [a winged tale]

My routine used to be rendering on the commute but now just once in am and once pm until this limbo time is clarified

That’s awesome Feather! It’s so rewarding when everything comes together after putting effort everyday

Feather J. Fern

Once school is done in two more weeks I will be more free to do things so I hope to get maybe two panels done in a day XD

Online school, stupid quarantine

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

Due to the pandemic im mostly off school and my part time job so i spend like 4-5 hours on my comic per day. Still would like try to get a page done per day but lmao digital painting is slowwww

eli [a winged tale]

What’s everyone’s tips for breaks/stretches/balance? I feel like I certainly need to revisit these to avoid burnout and continue feeling motivated!

Feather J. Fern

Actually there was a cool manga artist who's tip was literally he only worked working hours. His mornings are free and since manga was his job, he worked form 12-6, giving him 2 hours to do other work he needs to get done, and takes morning walks and stuff.

Another person I know had "No working weekends" as a thing becuase they are a freelancer.

I personally have try to make sure I ahve a routine, and actually, stretch before drawing.

Streetch before, during a break, and then after, to keep that body nice and warmed up

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Health-wise there's this hing for your : every 20 minutes, look at something 20 feet away for 20 seconds. I'm not good at following this, but when I do it, it helps a lot.

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

Despite the current pandemic, my work-life hasn't changed much (unless you count stress getting in the way). I am currently "unemployed," but I do consider comicking my full-time job. I am also not very good at balancing work and life. Something's always gotta give. Last year, I worked at a job that basically ruined my ability to work on my comic. I worked 30-40 hours typically, ruined my sleep schedule, took work home sometimes, and was constantly exhausted. This is what resulted in my year and a half long hiatus, and it's what drove me to work like hell on my comic when I quit. Now (when I'm in the groove and not suffering from art block), I typically spend 60-70 hours on my comic and get 2-3 pages done: - 30 hours sketching (I know, ridiculous) - 5 hours filling in base colors - 20-25 hours painting - 5 hours adding text, speech bubbles, sfx, and finishing touches - 1-2 hours formatting for Webtoon I also spend some time throughout the week typing up the script, doing concept art for things coming in the future of the comic, and preparing for conventions, but I can't tell you exactly how much time.

eli [a winged tale]

Thanks for the breakdown! I’m always keen to learn from everyone and seeing how the workflow is like for different people

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

oh don't forget to do wrist stretches!

eli [a winged tale]

Ahh formatting time is always so tedious for me!

Yes wrist exercises! Any recommendations?

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

hmmm well the easiest one is literally just shaking it out

like every hour

and I also like to hold my arm out parallel, point my fingers up and using my other hand to pull the fingers back so i'm stretching the wrist

then I point the fingers down and pull on the fingers until my wrist is stretching

eli [a winged tale]

Awesome. Will be adopting those!

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I'm pretty fast. 2-6 hours per page, depending on how detailed it is. Average of 3-4. I could probably do 2 pages/ week easily enough, but don't want to do more than that. I'm the kind of person who always needs to be doing a million different things. I need to leave time for my other hobbies and my paintings and my academics and extracurriculars. Otherwise I'd get burnt out doing one thing only

Holmeaa - working on WAYFINDERS

@eli [a winged tale] So since it is both me and @Q (Wayfinders: Off Course) working, we start with working on a rough each, our goal is one step (so rough, ink, color) for two pages pr day, pr person. So in a weak the goal is four finished pages a week, and then we upload 3 pages per week. So it is divided that in the morning we start at 09:00 in the morning, maybe checking mail, being practical or whatever. Then we work until 12:00 were we eat lunch, go for a long nice walk and then we go back to work between 13:00 and 14:00 ish and then work until 17:00 when we begin to prepare dinner. Then of course breaks inbetween

Q (Wayfinders: Off Course)

It’s pretty wild to be able to dedicate your entire day to comics like that

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

damn you all work fast

do you guys have any tips on how to work on a webcomic faster?

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

Lol, I wish!

Still looking for those magical secrets

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

@shadowhood (SunnyxRain) You know the 80-20 rule? You can get 80% of the result with 20% of the effort? My comic is very messy if you zoom in. I don't spend time making sure the linework or the coloring is perfectly clean. Also, I'm pretty fast at drawing figures. I used to practice figure drawing a lot by rushing to draw strangers irl before they moved, or by drawing a bunch of fast figures from the free figure drawing model websites online. I've also taken a figure drawing course (didn't even have to pay because it was part of my university! Even if you don't have that option you can probably find free life drawing sessions on Meetup or similar!) which really helped me streamline my process for drawing people

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

Oh I see! Yes, I used to take life drawing classes too! And your response makes me feel a lot better

I tend to be a bit messy with inking, and since i'm a perfectionist a lot of my time is wasted on editing/clean up

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I've seen cronaj draw, and while I think the results look excellent, I think her method is a kind of inefficient. She draws like a printer, nearly finishing one detailed body part before moving on the the next. I think maybe if she drew in a more classical way, going from a gesture drawing to progressively more detailed, it might help her be faster and her poses more cohesive and dynamic. Maybe working on 1 or 5 min figures would help? Practicing things like this?

eli [a winged tale]

Yeah I try to do figure practices for efficiency

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

I heard that there are some online life drawing vids you can follow too

but what are your experiences with online life drawing vids versus the real thing

like is there a real difference?

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

found some of my old 1 minutes

To me there's not too much difference

I've heard some people say that life drawing is either way easier or way harder though. Because of your depth perception when looking at a real person

But the bruises on my legs can attest to my horrid depth perception haha. That might be why I don't notice a difference

Actually those previous sketches might be 30 seconds? I don't remember

I would recommend you try both but right now we pretty much only have the online option haha

eli [a winged tale]

Yeah I’ve done both and I think irl creates complexity with depth and the interactions with others etc is helpful but online is my go to for flexibility

I think having a process streamlined will make things more efficient. The downside is that it might feel tedious and I do switch it up from time to time for variety

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Might feel uncomfortable but that's how you know you're improving

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

There is a TON of difference for me. I HAVE to look at a physical model in front of me.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Can't get better if you always do the same things

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

This is what my brain does.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I wonder- could drawing yourself in a mirror be a decent substitute?

If youre lucky you might also be able to ask an SO or roommate to model for you. Should probably pay them back by cooking for them or something though

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Brain: sees a real model in front of me Brain: translates 3D to 2D, result: drawing Brain: sees a photo/video of a model Brain: SHIT. That's supposed to be 3D, isn't it? Brain: Translates 2D to 3D (basically re-constructing it in my head, or attempting to re-construct) so that it can translate it back to 2D Brain: BSOD

There's some online resources out there that have "3D" photos... you know, two near-identical images side by side, so if you look at it cross-eyed, it becomes 3D?

But I can't do those because I get a headache X'D

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Just thinking about drawing from that makes me dizzy

eli [a winged tale]

Oh interesting!

Yeah maybe looking out the window to draw people would be the way to go...

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

But maybe figure drawing in VR exists?

eli [a winged tale]

Balcony figure drawings

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I live on the top floor so those are going to be some very small figures

eli [a winged tale]

For ants

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Once this coronavirus thing is over, there's lots of ways you can do gesture drawings from just random people -- bus stops, cafes, museums (I have not done this, but people who have done this report this is really good because others assume you're drawing the artworks. XD)

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I've done this a lot

Sometimes I've even shown people drawing of themselves if they've turned out particularly nice

They've always taken it well

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

I like drawing my professors because they use hand gestures a lot when they talk

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Airport was REALLY good for finding people stuck in one pose indefinitely

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

they alwayas laugh when I show them

eli [a winged tale]

Shadow omg I do that too

Draws classmates

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

yeah the only issue i have with drawing classmates

is that they're always doing the "i'm using my phone" pose

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Become the master of drawing people on their phones

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Maybe try drawing children on the playground?

This works better if you're a woman

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

oh thank jesus

I also like going to the zoo or the museum

or the aquarium if i'm feeling adventurous

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I am a University student so I also have some pretty interestng drawings of people asleep in weird poses

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I really need to start going to weekly figure drawing sessions once this is over (there's one here... 20 min drive... 8AM Saturdays )

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

ditto or just go to the park and draw

and @Eightfish (Puppeteer) I've had some.....weird poses from all my profs

one guy was incredibly hard to draw; he was VERY enthusiastic about showing us knife skills

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

The parks here are too spacious, to a degree where it's weird to get close enough to people

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Bring binoculars

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

Don't worry ma'am I'm an artist

nothing sketchy

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

(except my sketch)

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

A+ pun right there

another place to go for figure drawing

theaters

like.....opera/plays

I once tried drawing the men dancing in the Newsies musical

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Tried that once, but it took me out of the performance

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

same i was dazzled by dancing men

aaaaand then i abandoned sketching at all when they started throwing newspaper strips into the audience

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

But they were giving you free paper!

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

THEY WERE

i'll take what i can get

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

@Eightfish (Puppeteer) While I agree that my method of drawing is "inefficient," I do not draw like a printer. There are videos of people drawing like a printer and it's not what I'm doing. I have done gesture drawing before, but it always looked incredibly abstract, and not quite like people, which is fine, but not what I'm going for. I treat gesture drawing like a warm-up exercise. It doesn't really do anything for my end result, but gets my drawing muscles stretched out.(edited)

eli [a winged tale]

Gesture drawings are definitely a good warmup!

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Perhaps it was an inappropriate analogy. What works for me I guess wouldn't work for everyone. I was trying to offer advice because whenever you talk about how much time you spend on art and you work life balance it's commendable but also dismaying. I hope you find something that works for you in the future

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

Oh god.. I sometimes work 6 hours a day. I guess thats like 30 hours a week? Crazy to think about, it's like a full job

Oooh you guys are sharing figure drawings... I swant to show some of mine

Behold

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

My figure drawing usually breaks down into like, medical anatomy study. I feel like I understand body shapes better by including the muscles & bones

carcarchu

ABS the most important figure study

Deo101 [Millennium]

ah figure drawing? I love figure drawing ^^

I do like a lot but this kinda thing is most of it

anyways as for the question at hand, I do a lot of different things for my comics weekly. My millennium pages take me 2-6 hours i would say, but I also have patreon things I need to do so I'd say i spend 10-15 hours on it a week. for my other comic, I spend about 6 hours an update, and it updates every other week. but honestly, all of my free time goes to assorted comics. If i'm not working on school work or chatting with people, I'm working on things for patreon, potential merch, or other comics I want to start sometime.

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

Oooh nice poses!!’

Deo101 [Millennium]

thanks!! I have a ton of gesture/figure drawings but these ones are my most recent that I have saved to my computer i think

10 minutes im pretty sure. very good for speeding up

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

Those look really nice, good values

Deo101 [Millennium]

thanks ^^ I really hate working in charcoal honestly, it kinda always winds up hurting my body somehow, but its very quick sooooooo

kayotics

My answer for the prompt question has changed a lot since I started quarantine lmao... I used to do about 10 hours of work throughout the week on my comic page (usually after work, I have an office job) but ironically it’s gotten harder while I work from home. I’ve been struggling to find time since I don’t have a separation between work and home now, and putting the boundaries up of “I’m not always available” to coworkers is difficult.

Also on figure studies: they’re a great way to practice speed. I use the concepts of figure drawings all the time.

RebelVampire

@kayotics As someone who always works from home doing remote contract work, I have to say I think this is something a lot of people underestimate about work at home life. In that it's sometimes really difficult to establish boundaries with ppl and make them understand you aren't always available and also aren't gonna work billions of hours of overtime. So I'm sorry to hear that's affecting your comic work.

Shadowmark Productions

I work anywhere from 6-8 hours a day on comic stuff. That’s an average though. Sometimes I slack and need to pull all nighters to make up for it. Yes, I am terrible at time management. They say entrepreneurs are the only people willing to work 80 hours a week for themselves so they do not have to work 40 hours a week for someone else. I guess webcomic creators are the only people willing to work 80+ hours a week so that they can... go to work for someone else afterwards

AntiBunny

4 days of procrastinating, 1 of procrastinating and hating myself, and 2 of actual comic drawing seems to make up my weekly comic making schedule. :p

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

I can only imagine how stressed I would be if I forced myself to update weekly

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

This is a hard question to answer because it varies a lot depending on my energy levels. Ideally I’d spend several hours a day on comics, but realistically I draw as much as possible when I have the energy (5+ hours a day for as many days in a row as I can handle it) and then go weeks or months too tired to do comics. On average, barring any long periods of exhaustion or other interruptions from RL, I spend about 20+ hours a week making pages for my comics.

sagaholmgaard

I prefer to work on my comic for about an hour ever morning and maybe 2-3 hours in the evening, that's the ideal routine for me. Right now I sadly have a lot of schoolwork to do (writing my thesis) so i might get less than 30 minutes in the morning and then feel rlly tired in the evening so I dont get as much time then either. but oh well!

I can still work for 4-5 hours on the weekends so I manage ^^(edited)

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

The whole stay-indoors order's currently completely wrecked my pattern, but before that I did between 3-4 hours a day.

Shadowmark Productions

Can’t imagine the stress of a daily or even weekly posting schedule. Hats off.

[mirkwoodshewolf]

Mother dragon (4); Winchester brothers x reader

*Author’s note*

Okay so here we go the last part I have for you guys. Again I apologize for the shortness of this chapter but I think after all that I hit you with with the last chapter, you’d like to decompress and read a short chapter now. Just a bunch of fluff between our Mother dragon and Deacy dragon. Enjoy my lovelies until next time :)

Taglist:

@onebigfangirlworld

_____________________________________________________

Part 4

*Present day*

“By the time I got out of the system, I raced back to the woods hoping that I would find Deacy back at the house, but it turned out that it had been burned down from the forest fire when I was 17. For months, I spent looking for him but he was gone. And with no hope of finding him, I did the only thing that I was good at. Hunting. To keep me distracted from my failure.”

“And that’s when we found you.” Finished Sam.

“That was literally my first hunt after I had given up on the search.”  Deacy nuzzled his head into my lap trying to comfort me while I stroked my hand through his long hair.

“So now that you’ve found each other, what’ll happen next?”

“Well for one thing he can’t stay here. I ain’t letting no fire breathing lizard stay in my Bunker.” Dean stated.

“Dean!” I snapped.

“Look (y/n) I know you felt sympathy, hell you were just a kid. You didn’t know better, but now that you’ve seen more than your fair share of monsters you’ll be better off if you kick this thing to the curb.”

“Dean Winchester you even think about kicking him out and you’re gonna have to deal with me. You remember our last training session?” He face paled a little remembering how I suddenly went all Natasha Romanoff on his ass and took him down in just three seconds.

“First of all dragons hoard things. And I don’t want him going out in the middle of the night kidnapping virgins or stealing gold from the jewelry stores and then have us be the scapegoats while he gets away scot-free.”

“I’ve never taken a virgin girl.” Deacon stated. “The clan I found has worked a way on how to survive without drawing attention to ourselves.”

“Ahh how cute, you’ve gone cold turkey. Well news flash dragon-boy beings like you never change.”

“And what about Benny?” questioned Sam.  Dean stopped and he said.

“Benny’s different.”

“And how is Benny different from Deacy?!” I demanded as I stood up and walked towards Dean, staring him down even though I was shorter than him.

“Because he—he’s had his thirst back in Purgatory. He made his promise that he wouldn’t go killing again and he hasn’t.”

“How can you know that for sure? One spill of blood and he’s off the wagon.” I stated before backing away from him going back to my son.  “Deacon is my son, and as his mother I know my boy. If he says he hasn’t taken anyone then he hasn’t taken anyone. But if I see you threaten or even harm one hair on his head, I swear to you Dean I’ll show you just what I did in order to protect him out there when he was a dragonling.”

I took my son’s hand and led him to my room. After slamming the door, he flinched and he said.

“I forgot how threatening you could be mum.”

“That Dean can sometimes be such an arrogant asshole. He thinks he’s always right even when he’s wrong. Thinking that that vampire he spared and brought back from Purgatory could still be good. I’ll believe that when I see it.”

“I can handle myself mum, you don’t have to always protect me.” I sighed heavily and said.

“I know but I can’t help it. Old habits you know?” He smiled and extended his hand out for me.  I smiled softly and walked towards him before taking his hand and he brought me down beside him and let me lay against him.  “You know what I just realized?”

“What?”

“Your accent’s changed. It’s what British now?” He smiled softly and said.

“Yes.”

“How did you end up across the pond?” I teased in my horrible British accent which made him laugh before he explained.

“After the rangers took you away I did do as you said. Kept hidden and didn’t let anyone see me. Four weeks later I decided that enough was enough so I tried to find you. But the city was so big full of different smells that I couldn’t pick up yours anywhere. I—I thought that they had…..killed you just like my birth mother. I debated whether or not to just leave, hoping that maybe somehow I could survive on my own, but I always had a feeling that somehow you were alive, but I thought I was kidding myself. So I took off.”

“Oh Deacy,” I wrapped my arms around his right arm and nuzzled my head into his shoulder.

“I flew and flew until I just couldn’t fly anymore. After resting and getting some food it turned out that I had landed in Leicester. Since it had more rolling hills and wooded area than it did back in (s/n), I thought that there would be safer, so I did. Soon I actually met other dragons there.”

“Wait, wait. There are more dragons?” I asked in shock.

“Yeah. Dragons rarely take refuge in America because of the growing cities and the insane amount of hunters, there’s not a lot like there’d used to be but there are more dragons like me. Hundreds in fact. We’ve almost got a thousand in my nest.”

“Oh my god.” I muttered.

“Are you upset?” he asked as he looked down at me.

“What no, no of course not. I’m happy that you were able to find more of your kind out there. It’s just—a shock to know that there are still hundreds if not 1000 dragons left.”

“Believe me I thought I was the only one left after my birth mother.”

“Were—were they nice to you when you found them?”

“By nice if you mean rough housing extremely with claws and teeth, then yeah.”

“Aww my poor baby.” I cupped his cheek and stroked his jawline and he said.

“It’s alright though. I made good friends in the nest and they taught me everything I needed to know in order to be a dragon.”

“Yeah because they would know more in that area than I would.” He chuckled softly and I just had to say, “Okay but I’ve got to ask; do you have a girlfriend? A mate?”

“Fortunately for you no. Not yet. No female dragon has taken the time to get to know me.”

“Aww now don’t say that. Look at you you’re a handsome dragon. Any girl would be crazy not to fall in love with you.”

“I don’t think so. You should see my friends; they get the girls better than I do.”

“Hey, you underestimate yourself. You’re sweet, loyal, funny, and you’re the toughest dragon I’ve ever met.”

“Mum I’m the only dragon you’ve met.”

“Even if I met any other dragons, I’d still pick you over them for being the toughest and cutest dragon alive.” I said as I wrapped my arms around his neck and brought him down to kiss his cheek.

As night fall came around, I just got out of the shower wearing my black and white stitched button up robe drying my hair with the towel to see Deacon lying across my bed on his stomach.

“Shower’s all yours now.”

“It’s fine mum, I’ll shower in the morning. I found this in the kitchen.” He held out a bowl of fudge brownie ice cream, I smiled and sat down on the bed and said.

“Got an extra spoon? This is my favorite flavor.” He pulled out a second spoon and I said, “I love you.”

“I know.” I took the spoon and the two of us had a late night sweet-tooth snack.

“We gotta make sure to not let Sam see this, he’s always trying to snoop around if I’ve taken any unhealthy snacks and try to make me eat better food.”

“And what’s wrong with eating stuff like this? It’s heavenly. I still remember the first time you introduced me to ice cream.” I laughed softly and continued to eat the ice cream.

Eventually there was only one spoonful left.  We both looked at each other and I held the carton out towards him.  He stared at it before placing his hand over mine.  At first I thought he’d take it but he pushed it back towards me and softly smiled at me.  He nodded and I took his offering and ate the last bite of ice cream.

As Deacon left to put the spoons away in the sink and the empty tube of ice cream in the trash, I got changed into my pajamas and brushed my hair.  By the time I finished, Deacy came back in and I turned around to see him getting in my bed.

I stood up and lay down on my bed and he immediately lay his head down over my heart, his arms wrapped around my waist. I wrapped my arms around him and kissed the crown of his head gently scratching his scalp which enlisted some deep purrs out of him.  Soon I fell asleep.

*Deacon’s POV*

I soon felt the difference in the rise and fall of my mother’s chest, I slowly looked up to see that she had fallen into a deep sleep.  I slowly got out of her arms and covered her up with her covers.  She stirred but cuddled deeper into her pillow, I smiled softly as I brushed some of her hair out of her face before lying close to her, close enough to feel her breath against my face.

I revealed my right wing and wrapped it around the two of us and held her closer to me as I lightly kissed the crown of her head before I too fell fast asleep.

[let-it-raines]

Second in Command (Epilogue - Part 5)

Summary: Life as the "spare to the heir" isn't all that it's cracked up to be when you're the supposed screw-up of the family, but people don't know what really happens behind closed doors.

Rating: Mature

A/N: I’m splitting this chapter up into two parts if only because I didn’t want it to be crazy long, and I didn’t want you guys to have to wait weeks when I had the first half finished! But I hope you like this new addition to the sequel that’s not a sequel but totally a sequel :)

Also, I just ask that everyone be kind to each other. Whether that be online (which is still real people with real feelings) or in real life. Life is so much better that way, and why wouldn’t we want to make the world a better place?

Found on AO3: Beginning | Current

Tumblr Chapters: | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14| 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 

Epilogue Parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

Tag list: @nikkiemms @resident-of-storybrooke @kmomof4 @wellhellotragic  @ekr032-blog-blog @bmbbcs4evr @onceuponaprincessworld @jennjenn615 @a-faekindagirl@mayquita @captainsjedi @captswanis4vr @kristi555 @teamhook @skyewardolicitycloisdelena91 @branlovesouat @dreadpirateemma @alys07 @andiirivera 

“Wait,” Graham laughs, his lips twitching up into a smile while Ruby turns as red as her namesake and the highlights she has in her hair, “you guys met how?”

“Emma, please don’t tell him this story,” Ruby begs, clasping her hands together and resting her forehead against her knuckles.

“Oh no, Rubes,” she chuckles before taking a sip of her water and adjusting herself in the restaurant booth, “you have embarrassed me in front of Killian for years. Actual years. Graham needs to hear this. It’s, like, basic boyfriend initiation.”

“We’ve been dating for almost a year. He doesn’t need to be initiated. Granny already gave him a hell of a time.”

Graham looks absolutely besotted with Ruby, like this is the best conversation he’s ever been a part of, and Emma can’t help her amusement at his laughter and Ruby’s displeasure. “Please tell me, lass. It’s got to be better than Killian and I meeting in school.”

“Oh it is,” she promises before setting her glass on the table and clasping her hands over her stomach. “So, I’m eighteen and have just moved here from Maine. I kind of hate the world at this point in time. And because I’m an angsty teenager, I take these weird long walks into different parts of the city to learn about my new home. And on one of these walks, I run into your lovely girlfriend.”

“Emma, I beg of you, stop.”

“And I run across this girl,” she continues, completely ignoring Ruby, “walking down the street as confidently as anyone I’ve ever seen can walk down a cobblestone street in heels. She’s very obviously flirting with this guy who is selling some sort of homemade necklace, and as she’s propping her boobs up, her heel gets stuck in the ground and she busts it, falling onto her ass right then and there.”

Graham looks almost perplexed, like he’s not quite sure why this is an epic story, but then Ruby sighs, cupping her cheeks in her hands. “Tell him the rest, Ems. And be thankful that you’re five months pregnant so I can’t kick your ass.”

Well, at least the having to pee all the time is worth one thing.

“And when she gets up, the back of her jeans are absolutely ripped apart. That’s why we met, actually. She’s exposed to the world and to this guy she obviously likes, so girl code being girl code, I jog over there and offer her my sweatshirt to tie around her waist.”

“And we’ve been best friends ever since,” Ruby rushes out, the words almost sounding like they are one with the way she doesn’t take a breath in between them. “So let’s talk about something else. You experiencing any farts, preggo?”

“Oh my God,” Emma snickers, placing her head in her hands and shaking her head back and forth. “Seriously? That’s how you’re going to get payback?”

“That was a pretty low blow, darling,” Graham laughs, reaching over and rubbing his hand over Ruby’s back. “I mean, I think the story of how you two met is endearing. And it’s not like I’ve never seen your ass.”

Emma snorts while Ruby’s face continues to grow red. Ruby is never this embarrassed, and as bad as it is, Emma is living for it. It’s like payback for everything Ruby has ever put her through, and she’s really starting to like Graham. He’s always been nice when she met him through Killian, but he really comes out of his shell when he’s with Ruby, which is good. She needs someone who can match her wit.

Or come close. No one can truly match Ruby.

“I hate both of you. Seriously. I’m going to find a new best friend and a new boyfriend.”

“Ah no, Rubes,” Emma laughs as movement happens in her peripheral vision, Killian coming into focus as he steps into the restaurant with Thomas behind him. “You can’t replace me and Graham. We are irreplaceable. The Beyoncé song is not about us.”

“Hey,” Killian greets her, leaning and down and kissing her forehead before turning and clapping Graham on the back and kissing Ruby’s cheek. “I’m sorry I’m late. Traffic was like hell from dad’s.” He slides into the seat next to her, his thigh hitting hers while his hand grabs onto her jean-covered knee. “What’d I miss?”

“Nothing,” Ruby blurts out while Emma and Graham break out into laughter.

“Ah, so something to embarrass you then. Sounds like payback from when I was dragged into a restaurant to meet you.”

“Hey, I know things about you that very few other people do, mister. I’d watch yourself and that curved dick that you may or may not have. And it doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. Just saying.”

God, she’s so glad she has Ruby in her life no matter how ridiculous and outgoing she is. Actually, she’s damn glad she has her because of all of those things.

She’s totally lying about the curved dick thing, though. Just for the record.

They finally order food, which she thought was never going to happen with Killian being nearly an hour late. She’d already eaten half of a bread basket before he got there. But the four of them finally settle into a rhythm, mortifying stories left behind for lighter conversation. It’s not often that she and Killian get to go out and do something normal like having lunch with their friends, so she really appreciates this. She appreciates it more when her pasta salad arrives and Ruby moves on from her earlier embarrassment and is back to her normal teasing self.

When the lunch is over, everyone leaves, saying their goodbyes before loading up into separate cars and avoiding the few people that are gathered outside of the restaurant. It irks her to no end that people follow she and Killian around trying to take pictures. Really, what could be so interesting about them walking out of a restaurant? They’re literally just walking to the car with the possibility of food crumbs on their shirts.

She and Killian are meeting her parents at their new house that they finally closed on. She thought that they would never find a new place after so many years of debating it, but they found a small house a few miles outside of London. She already knows they’re going to hate the commute between home and work, but if all else fails, they will still have the apartment upstairs to crash in when needed unless they decide to rent out the place to Will so he can take up more responsibility.

“You take a left up here,” she tells Killian when he’s looking down at his phone for directions since he hates looking the navigation up on the screen in the car for some unknown reason that she doesn’t think she’ll ever understand. “It’s near the back of the neighborhood.”

Killian nods before taking the left and turning onto her parents’ street, their car sitting in the driveway with a moving van out front. She loves this house. It reminds her of the ones that they lived in back at home, a two-story brick home with a mint green front door and fenced in back yard. Of course, they’re not minutes away from the ocean, and there’s no eclectic neighbor who has a million lawn ornaments in the front yard.

Maybe they’re eclectic in other ways or the lawn ornaments will come out soon.

“This is nice,” Killian compliments as he turns off the car, getting out while she does the same. “Do I need to carry in anything from the truck?”

“Yeah, we can get a few boxes.”

Killian raises his eyebrows and looks down at her. “Do you just forget that you’re pregnant?”

“When I don’t have to pee, yes.” She walks past him and lifts the door to the truck, stepping inside and going through her parents’ boxes until she finds one marked for throw pillows and grabs onto it. “There’s a box of their books that you should get so they don’t have to carry them in, okay?”

“Got it, love. Should we ask Thomas to help?”

“Nah, let him sit in the car and eat his sandwich in peace until he decides we’re in the all clear. You know that’s what he’s doing.”

She and Killian transport a few boxes to the front door, leaving them by the doorstep so that they’ll be easier to get inside, before she rings the doorbell and waits for her parents. Her dad opens the door with a smile before hugging her, cupping the back of her head and ushering her inside.

“Wait, dad, we have boxes.” She turns around and grabs one, lifting it and carrying it inside while she hears Killian close the truck door. “Just so we’re not totally useless coming to visit while you guys are moving in. Where’s mom?”

“She is on the phone with Allison. I’ve got no idea what they’re talking about, but your mom gets infinitely more British when talking to her. Just saying.”

“Well, you get infinitely more American when we go home to visit your family.”

“Hush,” David laughs, nudging her to go inside while he follows her in. “You can put that in the living room, okay? And I’ll go get the rest of the stuff. Have you guys eaten lunch yet?”

“Before we got here, yeah.”

She puts the box down in the living room, their old couch looking almost out of place in the new room, but she likes it. She likes that they’re doing this and making themselves finally be at a home of their own after uprooting their lives to move to London. She hears her mom’s voice somewhere else in the house, and after running her hand along the built-in bookcase, she listens out for her mother until she finds her in the dining room standing on the table messing around with the light fixtures all while her phone is on speaker strapped under her bra.

“Yeah?” Mary Margaret questions, unscrewing a light bulb.

“Absolutely,” Allison promises through the speaker. “We’ll have to bring Alex and Lizzie over. They’re a surefire way to break in a new home. I swear to you, Mary Margaret, they can get scuff marks on the wall without us even seeing them near it. It’s insane.”

“Hey, Mom,” Emma interrupts before standing in the archway long enough for her to be officially eavesdropping. “Hi, Allison.”

“Oh hello dear,” the both say at the same time, which is about weird as it gets. Her mother and mother-in-law should not be that in sync. “Allison, I’m going to let you go. Emma and Killian are here.”

Mary Margaret hangs up the phone before squatting down and sitting on the table, her small legs dangling off the table until she’s standing on the floor and walking over to her, hugging her waist in greeting. “Hi, sweetie. I didn’t expect you guys here so soon.”

“We’re technically late. Why the hell are you standing on a table adjusting lights that are brand new?”

“Because I always have to have my hands busy. How are you today?”

“Good,” she promises, instinctively cupping her stomach. She’s not very large for someone who’s almost six months pregnant, but it’s a weight she’s not used to carrying. She doesn’t know how people do this when they’re further along, but she guesses she’ll find out. “Oh,” she gasps, standing perfectly still to see if the movement she just felt will happen again. It was a small movement, like a small flickering sensation, and she wants to feel it again. She hasn’t felt the baby at all, and Dr. Hudson tells her that’s normal because it’s her first pregnancy, but she wants to feel him to know that everything is okay. It feels like a slight fluttering in her stomach, almost like a fish is flopping around in there. Maybe Alex was onto something when he suggested they name the baby fish. Not that she’s going to do that.

“What?” Mary Margaret questions, her eyes full of concern. “Are you okay? Is everything alright?”

“Yeah, yeah,” she promises, running her hand up and down her stomach again, trying to coax movement out of him. “I just felt him move for the first time, and I’ve been waiting for that forever. I was starting to get really freaked out.”

Her mom looks glassy eyed, always more emotional than her about literally everything, so she’s not surprised she’s crying while Emma isn’t. “You’re having a boy?”

Oh shit. She just messed up, didn’t she? That lasted for a whole of three weeks, and she really thought Killian would be the one to mess it up too. He nearly slips up every time they’re around other people. They probably shouldn’t have found out, but she doesn’t think she could take the anticipation of waiting. There’s already enough to deal with when it comes to this.

“No,” she lies, looking up at the ceiling until she realizes that’s a dead giveaway. Her mom might be oblivious to a lot of things, but she knows when Emma’s lying. When she looks back at her mom, she’s got one eyebrow raised while her lips tick up into a smirk, the cat very obviously out of the bag…which is a ridiculous phrase when she really thinks about it. Why was the cat in a bag to begin with? She kind of feels like that’s inhumane. “Okay, so it’s a boy, but you can’t tell anyone, mom. Dad can know, but that’s it. No one at the pub. None of your friends. Literally no one, do you understand?”

“Of course,” Mary Margaret nods her head before hugging Emma again, squeezing a bit too tight. “I’m just so excited. I think you may be the first person on my side of the family to have a boy. We’ve all been girls. Do you have a name yet?”

“No, we haven’t talked about it yet. But enough about me. Show me the house. It already looks so different than when I saw it online.”

Her mom shows are around the house, giving a much too long-winded tour of every room like they’re walking through a museum, but this is a big deal to her parents so she listens intently. Her dad and Killian must have decided to bring the rest of the boxes inside because she doesn’t see them and only hears them coming in and out of the house with muffled curses and loud thuds. They’re both going to throw out their backs, and she absolutely can’t wait for Killian to complain about it for the next few days.

After she’s seen everything inside, her mom takes her outside. They’ve already got the patio furniture from the pub’s roof set up out back, and it almost looks the same…just with grass instead of concrete.

“This is nice. Your fence is kind of short, though.”

“Well criticize it why don’t you, sweetie?”

She chuckles before walking over the wooden fence and standing next to it, the wood not even coming up to her head. “It’s too short. I’m not saying you guys need to do it now, but when he’s older, you’re going to need more of a privacy fence if the baby is going to stay here sometimes. Maybe some trees too. I can talk to Killian about us paying for it since it’s our fault you’ll have to get the new fence when this one is fine.”

“It’s not your fault.” Her mom squeezes her shoulder before rubbing up and down her back, her nails tracing in patterns like she used to do when Emma was a kid. “I didn’t even think about that.”

Emma shrugs, not really sure what to say. “I am an expert in privacy now. I could probably write a book about it.”

They head back inside to find her dad and Killian slumped down on the couch with sweaty foreheads and an entire room full of boxes stacked up by the front window. They look ridiculous, like they’ve just run a marathon or something, and when she suggests that Killian go help put together the crib when they get home later, she thinks he might start whining at new levels.

Men are impossible sometimes no matter how much you love them.

They stay at her parents’ house until after dinner, stopping their unpacking to eat, but as much as she doesn’t like admitting it, she doesn’t have as much energy as she used to, so they leave to go home. As much as she loves spending time with Ruby and her parents, it’s been a day full of it, and she wants to settle into bed and not talk to anyone or wear pants that have a button.

So that’s exactly what she does when they get home, letting Indy in from the garden and feeding her before heading upstairs and getting ready for bed before eight even if all she’s really going to do is watch TV and scroll through Pinterest looking at nursery ideas. It’s currently the only thing that doesn’t freak her out about giving birth (the more she knows, the less she wants to know), so it’s kind of soothing. Plus, people do absolutely ridiculous things for rooms that the baby doesn’t even really spend time in for the first few months, and it’s the tiniest bit entertaining.

Maybe she’s a bit sadistic.

Maybe she’s also kind of excited to finish building the nursery.

Killian walks into their room with Indy at his heels an hour after she settled down and after changing into his sweatpants and stripping off his shirt, he settles down next to her, crossing his legs at the ankles and scrolling through his phone as well. She feels the baby move again, and it’s then that she remembers that she never told Killian. It was such a big moment, and she completely forgot.

“Hey, so I have two things to tell you.”

“Yeah?”

“First, I accidentally told mom we’re having a boy.”

“Oh thank God. I told Liam last week, and I’ve been waiting for you to mess up too.”

“Hey,” she laughs, reaching over and slapping his shoulder, “you messed up before me. There was no guarantee I was going to screw up.”

“Eh, debatable.” Killian leans over and brushes a kiss against the corner of her lips while Indy begins rearranging her blanket on the floor, dragging it across the floor until she finds an acceptable place. “What was your second thing, love?”

“I felt the baby move for the first time today.”

His eyes blow wide, the light blue shade that she loves the most showing up, and his lips stretch into a smile that reaches his ears and makes his eyes crinkle. She loves that too. “You did?” he questions, shuffling over to her and propping himself up on his knees so that his sweatpants tug down and expose his hip bone. That’s not distracting at all. “Darling, that’s wonderful. When was this?”

“At the exact same time I told mom that I’m having a boy.”

“Ah,” he sighs, reaching down and lifting her shirt to expose her skin to the cool air conditioning before he places his warm hand over it. “Is he moving now?”

“A little bit, but if I just felt him, and I don’t think you’re going to yet.”

“Pity. Hey, my little love,” he speaks to her stomach, leaning down and giving her perfect access to run her hands through his hair. She loves his new haircut, but she kind of misses the flippy ends that she could easily run her hands through. “You want to let me feel you? You’re letting mummy have all of the fun, and that’s just not okay when we’re supposed to be best buds.”

Oh God, she’s going to cry. She does not want to cry right now, hating the way her eyes get puffy and her throat feels like it’s constricting. These hormones are not her. They are, but they’re not. She’s not ashamed of crying. She understands that it doesn’t make her weak or insecure. It simply makes her human. But sometimes she does feel a little ridiculous.

But as she watches Killian very animatedly have a conversation with her stomach, she reminds herself that it’s okay to be ridiculous. Following standards have their time and their place, but she’s never been one to always do what’s expected of her. So if she wants to cry, she can damn well cry.

“Love?”

“Huh? Yeah?” She looks to see Killian smiling up at her, his lips thinned to into a sympathetic smile.

“Did you not hear me?”

“Uhhh…no. No I didn’t.”

“I asked what it feels like when he moves.”

“Oh,” she chuckles, leaning back and scooting down in bed until she can find a comfortable position, a pillow stuck under her ass finally making it cozy, “the only way I can describe it is like a fish moving around in there. It’s not super hard, just, like, a light fluttering. Abigail told me that it’ll feel like I’m being punched later on.”

“Sounds pleasant.”

“Yes, well, I always knew that the product of your sperm would be evil.”

“Ha ha,” Killian deadpans, pinching her thigh underneath the covers until she smacks it away. “You keep talking like that, and I really will be his best buddy.”

She hums before grabbing his hand and pulling him closer, his eyes fluttering closed before she leans in and glides her lips over his. Her hands stay wrapped around his wrists, thumbs tracing over his knuckles, while his thread into her hair. She sighs into it, her breath intermingling with his, and for a few minutes she forgets everything but the feel of Killian’s lips on hers and how after all of this time he still makes her feel like she’s twenty years old and has the beginnings of a new crush.

When she needs air, she pulls back only for Killian to bite at her top lip, tugging her back toward him with a low growl.

“I love you,” she breathes, her chest heaving while her heart begins to calm.

“Aye, and I you.” He quickly brushes his lips against hers again and rests his forehead against her, his warmth invading her. “You are consistently the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“Well, I wouldn’t want to be upstaged.”

“That is a possibility. I had a great time with Graham today, and I have known him longer than you.”

“Shut up,” she laughs, moving away from him and scooting down in the bed until she’s turned on her side, her constant companion of a pillow moving with her and resting underneath her stomach.

Killian moves with her, settling down behind her and burying his face in her hair while his legs tangle with hers and his hand finds its way under her t-shirt, resting on her stomach but occasionally moving to run his fingers on the underside of her breasts. They talk occasionally, small comments and laughs, and she snuggles into him, pushing her ass back against him. She can feel his length pressing into her, how much he still wants her evident, but he doesn’t make any move for more. She’s exhausted, and she kind of has to pee, so she’s not sure she would even have it in her if she did. So she’s grateful for them to just rest, the day catching up to the both of them.

“I like you a lot better than I like Graham. For the record and all that.”

She snickers under her breath, grabbing onto his hand and resting it in between her breasts. “Oh good, I was worried about that. I thought Ruby and I were about to have a Grace and Frankie situation on our hands.”

“I know that you’re referencing something, but I’ve never seen that show so I don’t know what that means. But okay.”

“Never change, babe,” she sighs, patting his hand and squeezing. “Never change.”

“We need to talk names.”

“What?”

“For the tiny human that pushes down on my bladder five times a night.”

“A name?”

“Goddammit, Killian, yes, a name. He can’t go around nameless.”

“Well, I know that.”

“Then why do you seem so confused about the concept?”

“Because we were not talking about anything related to names two seconds ago.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve been making a list. We can name him whatever, right?”

“I’ve never heard of a child with the name ‘Whatever’ but sure.Whatever you want, my love.”

“Shut up,” Emma giggles, slapping his chest from her spot next to him at the kitchen counter. “I’m being serious. We don’t have any restrictions on the names, right?”

“Nope,” Killian answers, taking a bite of his oatmeal while she becomes acutely aware of how much more freedom she and Killian have compared to Liam and Abigail in the small things, “another perk to being the spare to the heir. Dad doesn’t have any regulations. Though I’m sure we can’t name him Apple or something like that.”

“Okay,” she sighs, fumbling with her hands and twisting her wedding band on her finger before grabbing her phone off the counter and pulling up the notes on her phone where she’s been jotting down baby names every time she hears one or reads ones she likes. “So obviously the name might not be on this list. It’s kind of small, and I want you to have the ones you like too.”

Killian reaches over and rubs his hand up and down her back in soothing circles. “Show me, love. I’m sure they’re all bloody brilliant.”

She hands over her phone, biting down on her lip in nervous anticipation all while Killian’s gaze is trained on her phone screen, seemingly studying each and every letter on there.

“Jones?” he questions, looking over at her with a quirked eyebrow.

She shrugs, her cheeks flushing a bit in embarrassment. “It’s your mom’s maiden name. I also did mine and all of your middle names. I’m not huge on naming kids after other people, but I know that’s tradition with you family.”

Killian leans to the side and presses a lingering kiss to her temple while he continues to rub her back up and down. “Thank you, love. That’s so thoughtful of you, but I agree. Maybe we can do one for a middle name, though.” His eyes trail away from her and back to her phone. “I like Oliver, Andrew, and Brody. Knowing you, though, I bet you have a favorite.”

“I do.” She’s practically jumping up and down on her stool, the giddiness over Killian picking the name she likes as one of his three making her feel like it’s just right. Naming a human being feels like some kind of giant responsibility. She obviously knows raising one is too, but they’re not there yet. The name thing is enough. “I like Andrew. Andy for short. I think it…fits.”

Killian hums beside her, and she wonders what’s going through his head. He’s always thought things through more than her, used his logical thinking to reason through things instead of her rashly jumping into decisions, so she’s sure he’s thinking of every possible pro and con that goes with it.

“Andrew,” he mutters, seemingly testing the weight of the name on his tongue. “Andy. Killian, Emma, and Andrew. I love it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” He dips his head and quickly slides his lips over hers. “It’s perfect. And now we can call you stomach something.”

“Correction. We can call what’s inside my stomach something. I don’t think we need to name my stomach.”

“Well why not?”

“Because that’s weird. We don’t name your stomach, Hugh Jackman.”

“Why the bloody hell would we name my stomach Hugh Jackman?”

“Because it’s hairy like wolverine.”

“Oi,” he chuckles, getting up from his stool and wrapping his arms around her neck, “you are a minx, and you’ve never complained about my chest hair before.”

She leans her head back and nips underneath his chin, kissing his stubble. “If only because it gives me something to hold onto.”

“Sweetheart, you are one of a kind. What do you want for breakfast? We’ve got to leave in an hour and a half, and we’ve still got to shower.”

“I think I’m good with toast or something with some fruit. I don’t need something big since we’re going to be moving all over the place today. Also, was that a hint for me to go shower while you cook?”

He ruffles her hair likes she’s their dog. “You’re so smart.”

She huffs before rising from her stool and walking out of the kitchen and down the hall to walk up the stairs and shower. She knows they’re going to be late, especially with how long it’ll take her hair to dry. But she takes her shower, rubbing her body wash over her skin and shaving her legs. It’s already a bit of a struggle to do it now, and she’s already dreading when she’s not going to be able to bend over and shave her own legs or put on her own shoes. But hey, Killian doesn’t have to suffer through this, so if she needs help, he knows how to work a razor and she’s pretty sure he’s been putting on his own shoes for nearly thirty years.

Or at least she hopes. That would be strange if he hasn’t been, and it does not bode well for Andy’s chances at being as normal as possible.

Andy.

By the times she’s finished, her phone says they don’t have long, so she hurriedly pulls on a pair of yoga pants and a pullover that covers her ass. Kidding A Goal does a hell of a lot of good, but she’s allowed to wear pants with no zippers when visiting the facilities, so it’s honestly at the top of her list for the good things about them right now. Killian comes into the bathroom with her breakfast twenty minutes later, placing it on her vanity and brushing his lips over the crown of her head before hopping in the shower.

She drives them to the facility when they’re finished getting ready, and as she’s pulling into the parking lot, she sees that they’ve managed to make it with two minutes to spare. So suck it, Killian. She’s not always late.

She really does love her husband, but damn sometimes he can be annoying about things like that.

They’re ushered out to the main outdoor facility where kids are running on the track while others are kicking a soccer (or as she’s supposed to say football) ball. There are supposed to be coaches out here today since Killian wanted to observe the day-to-day proceedings. Really, he should have just shown up unannounced for that, but he probably didn’t think that through.

She feels Killian’s fingers brush against hers as they walk toward the track, and she interlaces their fingers, his palm warm in the slight chill that’s still pervasive in May in the early mornings. It’s like a physical comfort for them to be connected like this. She’s not nervous to spend time with the children or the coaches, but it’s been a habit for the two of them to stay connected in some way during most events. She wasn’t born to do something like this as her job. She was born to tend a bar or do something that keeps her mind and body engaged at all times, and while sometimes this job is something she loves, there are times when she’s uncomfortable in it.

But you make sacrifices for the people you love just as they do the same for you, and so if she’s had to learn how to be a public servant who always says the right thing instead of a bartender who curses at her patrons for spilling beer all over the floor, she doesn’t mind too much.

“Bloody hell,” Killian mutters under his breath, “this looks fantastic.”

“It really does. You’re doing a good thing here, babe.”

His cheeks redden, and he shakes his head back and forth. “I come here a few times a year. I’m not doing anything.” She stops walking, tightening her grip on his hand so that he pulls back when he realizes she’s stopped. Killian quirks an eyebrow while his eyes scan her, obviously trying to figure out why she stopped. “What’s happening? Are you okay?”

“How could you possibly think that you’re not doing anything?”

His face scrunches up, and he uses his free hand to scratch behind his ear while his hair moves in the wind. He clicks his tongue, the self-deprecating side of Killian obviously showing up a bit today. “Because I’m not, Emma. You know that. We’re figureheads, and yeah, sometimes I feel like we’re doing good, but it’s not…we’re not…we’re pretty faces.”

She releases his hand and reaches up to cup his face, her thumbs stroking over the apples of his cheek. She knows everyone is watching them, but for this moment, she doesn’t care. “While you do have a very pretty face, my love, if I remember correctly, you spent years creating this foundation. There were days when you spent hour upon hour sitting on the floor of my room answering emails and drawing out this facility. You’ve made such a difference in these kids’ lives.”

“I know but – ”

“No buts. You’re the man who talked me up while crying over my jeans not fitting and helped turn that into the beginnings of me doing something I’m passionate about to help other people. You make a difference even if we have the weirdest job in the world.”

Killian closes his eyes and nods his head up and down before turning his cheek and kissing her palm, almost sighing into it. She knows that their lives are ridiculous and that they are basically figureheads, but for Killian to think he’s not doing good in the world is ridiculous.

“Thank you, love.” He smiles then, his lips twitching up and his eyes crinkling. “Now let’s go have a bunch of kids show us how much more athletic they are.”

She and Killian are walked through the facility and shown all of the different drills and practices that everyone is doing. All of the kids are in one of the uniforms they’ve provided. She’s never been a big fan of uniforms personally, but Killian pointed out that since most of the children are from poorer families, it makes them all feel the same. No one is showing up with sneakers with holes in them or shirts that are too small. They all get the equipment they need for whatever sport they’re signed up to play. It’s a wonderful touch, something she would have completely overlooked, and yet Killian still thought he wasn’t making a difference.

After talking to some of the coaches and a few of the older children, Killian agrees to participate in a race on the track. He’s fast, but she’s been watching some of these older kids run, and they are absolutely insane. But then the lineup ends up being a group of children who can be no older than five and six, and she knows this is about to be something else.

Sure enough, when Coach Blevins blows the whistle, Killian takes off full speed ahead while lots of little legs follow him at a slower pace. She laughs as he keeps looking back over his shoulder as if they’re about to catch him, and when he slows down to an almost turtle-like pace while the children sprint past him, all she can do is shake her head from side to side while he huffs and puffs over the finish line…as the last person over the finish line.

She sticks her fingers in her mouth and wolf whistles at him, and while he’s high fiving all of the children, he looks back at her and winks.

Ridiculous.

Killian races again and again with all of the age groups, changing up his speed and pace to be competitive with teenagers and playful with the young kids. If she wasn’t six months pregnant, she’d be out there with them. She could run, has been going to the park and running with Indy some mornings, but it’s a comfortable pace and not a race with kids who might accidentally trip her up.

When he’s finished with all of the races, actually huffing and puffing from the quick stops and starts, he makes his way over to her. Before she realizes what he’s doing, he wraps his arms around her waist and rubs his sweaty hair into her neck.

“Gross,” she groans as his sweat begins to stick to her, but she can’t even move with the way he’s holding her. “Killian, now I’m going to smell bad for the rest of the day.”

“Mhm,” he hums, laughing into her neck before pulling back and separating the two of them as if he’s just remembered they’re in public. “Now you have to shower again later, and we can do that together.”

“Ah, yes, because that’s such a comfortable thing to do.”

He chuckles before pecking her on the cheek and wrapping his arm around her shoulder. “Come on, love. Let’s go talk to all of these future gold medalists. We can say we knew them when.”

She pats his chest. “I think you may have a future in track as well, babe.”

“I’m simply going to pretend you’re not teasing. I’ll have you know that I let all of these kids win.”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night.”

“It’s sure as hell not you and your fidgety legs and tossing and turning.”

Her head recoils while she slaps his chest again. “You are walking on thin ice, my man.”

“No, darling, I’m running on it.”

[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

[jmhwritesstuff]

That writer ask game: #'s 6, 13, 17, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 33, 34, 38, 44, & 45. :D

Holy.. thanks @missvalerietanner xD

6.   Single or multiple POV?

I prefer single POV most of the time. But in cases like the Throne of Glass series, where I was invested in (almost) all the characters, I didn’t mind multiple.

13.  Describeyour writing process from idea to polished

Um … a lot of the time (in the past anyway) my ideas stem from a single character, or sometimes I’m lucky enough to have a title before literally anything else. I’ve come up with titles before that just sent my brain into overdrive and THEN the story ideas came after. Otherwise, I note things down, such as character descriptions, some archetypes, possible names, etc. then I build the hero’s purpose and create the plot from there. 

I’ve never done a complete outline for a book; my brain just can’t seem to make it that far. So I make a bunch of notes about random shit and then just pants it. This probably has a lot to do with me never finishing anything.

I don’t have an exact process. A lot of the time everything remains in note-form. And, to be honest, my approach to a story is different depending on what I’m trying to write. 

17.  Whatwriting habits or rituals do you have?

I wish I knew! I’m too unfocused; I’m always changing the surroundings that I write in, or what I have in arm’s reach that I might need. Sometimes I listen to music, sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I refer to notes, other times I completely ignore them.

I guess the only things that stays the same is the font type/size I write in.

23.  Favouriteauthor

At this point in time, Sarah J Maas. But for her Throne of Glass series, not ACOTAR (at least not the third book or the novella).

24.  Favouritegenre to write and read

I like to write Fantasy and Contemporary. I try to dabble in other stuff but I’m not very good at it. And I love YA Fantasy/Fantasy. There’s a lot of hills in Fantasy that I will gladly die on.

25.  Favouritepart of writing

Emotional or intense scenes between characters, whether it’s the hero and their friends or love interest, or the good guys vs the bad guys. It’s just such a rush getting all the angst or anger or hate or intimacy on the page. Even fight scenes - I love writing fight scenes.

26.  Favouritewriting program

I just use Word. Always have.

27.  Favouriteline/scene

From something I’ve written? 

He wanted to find whoever had murdered the woman he loved, and he wanted to watch them burn for what they had done. For the hole they had left in her chest when the soldiers had found her. For the beautiful soul they had reaped from her body. 

For the gaping emptiness they had wrought upon his life now that she was gone. - The Divine

Love that moment, and I was so into it that it’s become one of my favourite chapters. 

28.  Favouriteside character

Probably Ronan Quintus. The excerpt linked doesn’t do him any justice at all, but he plays such an important role in the universe of The Divine that to go into it would just ruin everything. In fact, I think the excerpt I shared has a spoiler in it if you read carefully. 

29.  Favouritevillain

ROURKE. That evil, slimy bastard - I love him. And also Kane … oh man, the levels of psychotic he’s waiting to bring down on the world.

30.  Favouriteidea you haven’t started on yet

This one! But I’m keeping it at a distance for now because I have other stuff to write and finish first. But one day … 

31.  Leastfavourite part of writing

Constantly. Getting. Stuck. 

33.  Haveyou ever killed a main character?

Yes. Lots of times. I try to make sure it makes sense for the story, though, and not just kill them for the feels and tragedy of it all. I like tragic heroes, but it has to be in the right context. 

34.  Whatwas the hardest scene you ever had to write?

When I first wrote Freefall (all of which, by the way, was difficult to write) there were two scenes that broke me, and I had to take a week or two away from the story just to get back in the right frame of mind to even consider continuing it.

I don’t see the point in keeping this spoiler-free so … the first was the suicide scene, and the second was Lexi’s panic attack when she realises that she’s about to lose everything she waited her whole life to have. 

They were two scenes that resonated with me so deeply that I’m not sure I could even begin to explain why. That novel is extremely personal to me, more so than anything else I’ve ever or will ever write. There’s a lot of raw emotion, and it’s taken me 10 years to look at it again and say, “It’s time to re-write it.”

38.  Weirdeststory idea you’ve ever had

I don’t think I’ve ever had one, if I’m being totally honest. I like reading weird and crazy stuff but it’s not really something I consider a strong point in writing. I think I’m too straight-laced to try writing anything weird or funny!

44.  Howmuch research do you do?

Okay, time for the shame …

I barely research unless it’s something very specific. While research can be important, I’m definitely of the mindset of just allowing yourself to be creative and just write what you want to write. There are plenty of ways to mark certain things you’re not sure about as you’re writing (and go back to it later), but I don’t like to keep stopping just to look something up. And I don’t believe that people research absolutely everything before they start - I called bullshit on that with a teacher once and I stand by it. 

I find the problem with research is that it never stops. At most, I like to read a little bit about creative writing to see if I can apply certain methods to my ideas, but it kinda ends there.

45.  Howmuch world building do you do?

… again, not a lot. And for someone who writes Fantasy, that’s a bit of a hindrance. I get judged for this one quite a lot actually and it sucks. 

I made a proper effort with The Divine because, even objectively, the world was small, it didn’t make sense, and there was no depth. All my focus went to the characters, but they ended up in a world that may as well have been four walls and a roof. I’m definitely not at epic levels of world-building, but I’m better than I was this time last year for sure.