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paperficwriter · 5 months

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"Earth Angel" (Vash x Wolfwood)

This is the fic I'm working on for the @vashwoodbigbang! More chapters will be coming over the next week, but this is the first one. I'll also be reblogging it with a link to my AO3 if you want to subscribe for the other chapters.

Cut is for length, but also this story/chapter contains suicidal ideation and suicidal thoughts, so just be aware.

Prologue

As far as plans for suicide went, Wolfwood thought it was pretty solid, but he hadn’t imagined how much work would go into preparing for it.

He cleaned up the shelter first, because it was empty that night, empty since that afternoon when the cops came and shut the place down while he was meeting with the bank, like the pigs had been waiting for him not to be there, because there was no way he would have fucking let it happen. Then, he took all the papers regarding his life insurance policy and put them on the desk in his office. Then, he called Meryl’s phone number, knowing it would go to her answering machine.

“Hey, girlie. I know we’re supposed to meet tomorrow to talk about what kind of options we’ve got. I’m gonna be late, so just…let yourself in. The key’s on the door frame.” He allowed himself a smile. “I know your girlfriend can reach it.”

Those two…they had really done everything they could. They all had, hadn’t they? But at some point, everything might as well have been as much as nothing.

On the way to the apartment, he bought three slices of cheese pizza and two cans of Pepsi with the last five bucks in his wallet. He sat on the bench staring into the street, blurs of yellow taxis going past him, reminding him that he could have made this easier on himself. In this city, he could just walk out into traffic if he wanted to. He went over the numbers in his head, how much they would get from the policy, how far it would get them.

When it ’s all over, I wonder if I’ll get to see Livio again.

The pizza tasted really, really good.

When he got home, Wolfwood put out a huge bowl of food and water for his cat, Kuroneko, giving her a pet all the way to her tail even though she responded by smacking him with her paw. “Oh, you bitch,” he said fondly, putting his whole hand on her head and rubbing it until she let out a crackly mrowr of protest. “Don’t worry. I left my other keys with those two as well. And a note about how to deal with your mean ass.”

The cat stared at him with huge yellow eyes like moons, the pupils slits that cut down the middle. He waited for some sort of sentimentality, some understanding that this was an end between them, but instead she hissed and wandered off to the freshly-changed litter box. Oh well.

Wolfwood locked the apartment and pulled the door closed, running through everything in his head. If he didn’t really think about it, this just felt like he was going on a trip. Did he turn off the television? Was the oven on? Did he have the pills in his bag? The booze? Was there gas in his motorcycle? He knew where he was going: Hoboken. Because he didn’t know anyone in Hoboken. Which meant the person that found him wouldn’t be someone who knew him either.

The New York City sky was thick with clouds. It wasn’t like you could ever see the stars past all the light, but that there wasn’t even a moon out…somehow it felt better, that this wasn’t a perfect night. Something about that would have felt wrong: a perfect, clear night for suicide. Like when tragedy hit on beautiful blue days.

Not that this was a tragedy. This was the right thing to do. This was the one thing he could do.

And he was going to do it, he had steeled himself, he was ready to do it, mounting his bike and about to pull away from the curb and into the cool night…when a sound like a whale song being put through a faulty distortion pedal stopped him in his tracks. It was coming from the sky, and when he looked up, the clouds lit up. Lightning? No, the light was constant, and that sound wasn’t thunder…

Suddenly, the source of the bellow-screech broke through the sky, and Wolfwood didn’t have time to consider what it might be. It was round, and it was blinking, and it was definitely car-sized, and that was as far as his eyes could go because he was too busy moving out of the way because it was coming right for him.

“Shit!” Wolfwood dropped his bike to roll out of the way, and he could feel the air fly across his back as the object passed above him and into the alley between his apartment building and the warehouse next door. Part of his brain thought that there would be an explosion following the descent, but no, it was like whatever it was bounced between the walls, sending chips and chunks of brick into a cloud, and then skidded to a halt against the concrete end of the alley.

Slowly, Wolfwood stood up and walked forward, trying to get a look at what exactly he was facing. He realized as he moved past a busted dumpster and a broken set of crates that this thing did have wings that had gotten sheared off, and when he kicked one with his foot he wondered over how thin the material was. Almost delicate.

So it was a ship. Or a plane, maybe, but he’d never seen a plane like this. A jet, maybe. Some kind of government thing, or…

Nope. He couldn’t imagine there were government tests that involved men being completely naked, stepping out of the broken canopy of a wrecked ship like it was nothing, like it was as simple as getting out of a car. There was a glow coming from inside the ship, but it was beginning to blink, reminding Wolfwood of a flashlight about to go out. That’s what he was seeing now: a tall blond man, muscular, with wide eyes that were trying to take in his surroundings, the only thing shining from his face from where Wolfwood was standing. He was thin, and in the erratic beams from the bent light poles and the skewed spotlights that were used to keep the alley cleared at night, Wolfwood could see that one of his arms was a shiny metal, reminding him of a movie with robots from the future coming to Earth, or maybe like Star Wars when Luke got his hand with all the wires in it.

But those were movies. Those were movies, and this was real life, and this guy in front of him was a human. There was some kind of explanation, and—

Say something, idiot. “You okay?” Wolfwood asked, trying not to let his eyes wander because, again, this was a naked guy in his alley.

Those eyes snapped toward him, and that’s when the man started to glow. Not in one uniform way across his whole body, but with the light following marks all across his skin, for all intents and purposes as though they had been drawn on with a thick marker, a continuous squiggly line from his face to his toes.

“What the fuck are you?”

The ship made a wheezing noise, and the flickering light went out. Wolfwood looked down at it, and when he did, the stranger did as well and for the first time it was like he realized what happened. He made a distressed sound and searched around with the frantic kind of energy that Wolfwood recognized as the I can fix this! dance. He had danced that dance himself, more than once, and Wolfwood knew from experience that usually this ended without fixing anything.

“Yeah, uh…I don’t think that’s going anywhere, friend.”

And then, the man fixed his gaze on him again. This time, he could see his whole face, the glowing lines like a mask. But even beyond that, Wolfwood could make out his expression: lost, afraid, and looking for help.

He knew that face way too well.

The man slowly reached out his hand to him, hanging it in the air between them, and everything telling Wolfwood just to get on his bike and drive off was overwhelmed by the urge to take it.

Suddenly, from behind them came the sound of sirens from down the street. There were wheels screeching, and Wolfwood knew what was going to happen next. That was, again, something he had experienced way too much: cops showing up and making things worse.

He quickly crossed the few feet between them and grabbed the man’s arm. It was cold, and the light brightened where his fingers touched him. A thrumming emanated under the skin, less like a heartbeat and more like an engine. “Can you stop glowing?”

The stranger blinked, and after a second, he went out like a neon sign suddenly unplugged, leaving him looking very normal…if there was anything normal about being naked in an alleyway in New York City in the middle of the night. Wolfwood took off his leather jacket and wrapped it around the man’s waist, and then started leading him to the door to get back in…except he wasn’t with him. He was standing there, touching the leather jacket.

Wolfwood growled as he ran back to his side, pulling him by his hand. “Come on, needle-noggin! Do you want to get arrested?” He took him to the front of the building, unlocked the door and quickly shoved him inside, still holding onto him as he jumped up the stairs, out of sight as the cop cars pulled up.

Killing himself was clearly going to have to wait.

#my paperfics #trigun #vash the stampede #nicholas d. wolfwood #vashwood #vash #wolfwood

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bitchofdarkness · 7 months

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Office Struggles

Pairing: An Jun-ho/Han Ho-yeol Rating: Teen and Up Audiences A/N: There might come more eventually, it's just a prologue for now. My head is full of AUs and this one came to me recently. There is a bigger story lurking in the back of my head. You can also read it on AO3, if you prefer. I's advise to subscribe to the fic on AO3 if you want to be notified for more chapters once I upload. Word count: 502

A loud exhale turned into a groan as Ho-yeol dramatically fell back into his long chair, while Jun-ho was still standing next to the door. After a while he looked at his new secretary, who appeared to be a little lost with this type of emotional expression.

"An Jun-ho," he said slowly, noticing how the other man stood straighter at hearing his name. Right, the young man had absolved his mandatory military service already. "Why do you refuse to follow the concept your predecessor instructed you to use? The files will be easier to read by everyone."

"It makes more sense to me when I do it my way." Jun-ho admitted, "Closer to what I've learned at university."

"You only went one year, how could you possibly know what's easier," Ho-yeol snapped and Jun-ho looked down at his hands. "Everyone before you had a vast knowledge, even had a college degree and I gave you a chance regardless of what my father said."

Jun-ho mumbled something under his breath that sounded like "I still don't know why" but Ho-yeol generously ignored it as he looked out the window. "Sir, it's just….have you ever wondered why there've been so many secretaries before me? Maybe the system that was set out isn't as efficient as you think."

Ho-yeol's head immediately snapped back to look at his employee, "What did you just say?" He wanted to know and sat up. He could see how uncomfortable Jun-ho got, but he didn't look exactly frightened either. "Are you making me responsible because you can't grasp how a simple program works?"

"No!" Jun-ho quickly replied, "It's…" he was lost for words and inhaled deeply before evenly asking, "can I show you?"

That was how Ho-yeol found himself at Jun-ho's desk– a place he'd never sat at before in his entire career and Jun-ho leaned over him from behind to click through the motions. "See? It makes no sense, but if you do it this way, it's much easier and people might understand what those files really entail."

He hated to admit it, but Jun-ho was right. Ho-yeol also noticed that he smelled pretty nice and realized he had to get out of that chair as soon as possible. If he were to have an affair with one more of his employee's his father would fire him– possibly disown him too. At least that was the gist of his fathers lecture that Ho-yeol still remembered. "Are you telling me the program our first secretary invented is complete bullshit?" He asked and turned his head enough to look up at Jun-ho.

Which was a bad, bad idea. The innocent face of his newest employee coupled with the little shrug he gave was almost too cute to handle.

"To put it that way, yeah," Jun-ho said, gaze not wavering under Ho-yeol's inquisitive stare. Damn him to hell. "I think she did it on purpose when you fired her."

Come to think of it, that made an awful lot of sense.

#d.p.#deserter pursuit #office AU #an jun ho #han ho yeol #junhoyeol #d.p. netflix #bitchofdarkness edits #bod edits #bitchofdarkness writes

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willowcatkinblossom · 6 months

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Twenty Questions for Fic Writers!

Tagged by @bbcphile and @extraordinarilyextreme (thank you both so much for tagging me!!)

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

Can't believe it's 44?? O . O (but I think I wrote most of them between 2018 and 2019)

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

167,565

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Mysterious Lotus Casebook recently :)

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Haha I'm going to skip this question actually

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

I do! I always reply at least once. I'm not the best at coming up with interesting things to say, but I'm always so grateful for comments. Just hearing that someone read through a story that I wrote and felt something from my words means a lot.

6. What is a fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Maybe wishes are hopes we want other people to listen to. I've written a couple fics with intentionally sad endings, and I've always found them so much easier than happy endings.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

The White Umbrella has a really nice ending! It's my ghost story for Guardian if anyone still remembers it :D Also this is somehow the only fic of mine that has been read by a lot of people and still doesn't have any subscriptions haha. Not that subscriptions are a sign of anything really, because I randomly subscribe/forget to unsubscribe after reading fics too. But I think this one really had a good ending.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Nope. I've been in really nice fandoms so far though :)

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

Ahh no, I'm just not very interested somehow. I'm not sure I'd be able to anyway

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

I haven't written one before! I've done some where the premise is based off a different source material though.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Oh, I don't think so.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yep! Literally so honored that people have translated some of my fics T^T

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

Yeah, @bluewindfall and I wrote a collab a while back...and we haven't finished it. I think I might be a bad writing partner though. The stars have to align for me to be able to write, and it's like not conducive to communicating with my partner. I, for some reason, cannot write knowing most of the plot beforehand, and that makes it really hard for us to plan anything.

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

Hmmmm this is a hard question. Maybe Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan? But it might also be Wang Lu and Hai Yunfan. And lately the MLC OT3 is all I think about. It's hard to choose one.

15. What's a wip you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

*falls on the ground and coughs blood* ughh there's a few Guardian ones that I still think about, but I think it would be hard since it was a while ago, and what I care about as a writer is a little different now. Also all of my Lingjianshan WIPs ahhhhh it's hard to tell since I've only posted a really short fic, but I've written over 10 different versions of this one WIP.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Ooh so I get told now and then that my writing has nice vibes ✨ haha, but yeah a lot of people have said that my writing has a nice atmosphere or like a melancholy feel to it.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I struggle with writing things that are concrete, and I have trouble with scenes that are very present and involved, like fight scenes.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I don't really have any strong feelings on this. I usually try not to go overboard with honorifics or terms that are not obvious, like I never use footnotes or anything to tell people definitions because I think it's a little less accessible. I do use honorifics sometimes, but I try to keep those to ones that are well known (idk like shifu) or ones that you can infer from the rest of the sentence. It's kind of hard sometimes though, especially when your fandom is really tiny and you can't translate something ('you' as in me because I can't translate anything)

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Guardian :) I think Guardian will always be special to me.

20. Favorite fic you've written?

Ahh right now it's probably my post-canon MLC fic: far from the shore since it hasn't been that long since I finished it. It's embarrassing to admit, but I'm still at that stage where I refresh it daily. But I'm mostly just happy with it because it feels like something that only I could have written.

I'll tag @bluewindfall, @bocje-ce-ustu, @kickassfu, @purplemagpie, @wuxia-vanlifer, @omgpurplefattie, and anyone else who wants to do it :D (sorry for tagging you even if you haven't heard from me in ages)

#tag game

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desertwaterwitch · 7 months

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Hi! I'm doing a school design project and I've decided to have a go at designing a Archive of Our Own app! I was wondering if you might be up for answering some questions to help me with my design (I need to show research in my project!)

If you are, answers to these would be SUPER helpful!

How long have you been engaging fanfiction sites such as Archive of our own, Fanfiction.net and Wattpad?

What are some of your favourite works or fandoms on those sites?

Are you a writer as well as a reader?

What drew you to these platforms and why do you stay?

How long have you been engaging with the site Archive of Our Own specifically?

What does your engagement with the platform look like?

How often do you engage with the platform?

What are your favourite aspects of the platform?

Do you think that you engage with all of the elements available on the platform?

Are there any elements of the platform that frustrate you?

Of the fanfiction sites you frequent, where would you rank the site as a whole and why?

What do other platforms have that Archive of Our Own does not, which you enjoy interacting with?

Are there any features unique to Archive of Our Own that you enjoy?

If Archive of Our Own were to develop a mobile app, what features would you like to see?

Would you like the app to be similar in aesthetic and function to the already established website?

Are there any features you would like to see added to the platform in the app?

If you're not interested no worries! Thanks so much

Hi! Sure, I will answer them as best as I can! (:

1. I’ve been engaging on those types of sites since I was about 16, maybe 17.

2. The Harry Potter fandom is my favorite on that site because of how creative writers get with the characters.

3. Yes I am a writer as well as a reader.

4. I started out on Wattpad as a reader of fanfic. I find it so fun to read the creative stories writers come up with. That’s why I stay on them. I also stay because I like writing on them.

5. I’ve been with archive of our own for over a year now. That’s when I got accepted.

6. My engagement is reading and writing.

7. I go through phases. Some days I will be reading fics all day. Sometimes I go months without. When I’m writing something to post eventually, I only read a little.

8. My favorite aspects are the details. How you can find pretty much anything you want to read. There’s tags which make it easier. I like that you can subscribe to works so you can go back to it later.

9. Yes I think I do engage with them. I’ve looked all over the site and I know it pretty well.

10. Nothing formatting wise I think. It’s pretty easy to navigate.

11. This site is my favorite. There’s more people on it and it’s so great having the tags. It’s so detailed, you can find anything.

12. Wattpad has the ability to easily add photos to your stories and as a title. AO3 does not. There is a way to add pictures somehow but I haven’t figured it out. I think the pictures on Wattpad are important because that’s how I decide if the story seems interesting. Another thing that I love on Wattpad is that after every paragraph break, there’s a comment option. I love reading the random stuff people say about what they just read. I’ve had so many laughs from that! Oh the memories…😂

13. I can’t really think of any that are unique.

14. I would like the same things from the site to be on the app. The tagging, the filters, all of that. It would be cool to even have the option to type up your story on the app, even though I use another platform to write my stories.

15. Yes as I said earlier, I would like it to be similar to what it is now.

16. Just what I said in question 14.

I hope that helped and good luck on your project! I’ll be looking out for that app 😂

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fangirlshrewt97 · 4 years

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The Witcher Fanfic - Give Me One More Chance (Chapter 1)

Author(s): Fangirlshrewt97

Fandom: The Witcher (TV Series)

Pairing: Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier|Dandelion, Geralt of Rivia & Yennefer of Vengerburg, Geralt of Rivia & Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon, Jaskier|Dandelion & Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon

Characters: Geralt of Rivia, Jaskier|Dandelion, Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon, Yennefer of Vengerburg, Roach

Rating: Teen Audiences and Up (Swearing, Mild Gore)

Warnings: None Apply

Additional Tags: Post Episode S01E06: Rare Species, Emotionally Constipated Geralt of Rivia, Pining, Touch-Starved Geralt of Rivia, Whump, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt & Comfort, First Kiss, Getting Together, Canon-Typical Levels of Violence, Monsters, I really put Geralt through the wringer here, but I am ok with that because poor Jaskier did not deserve it, I do acknowledge though that Geralt is multiple levels of screwed up and maybe thought he was helping them both when he was actually hurting them

Summary: After the dragon hunt, Geralt tries to cope with his actions. And misses Jaskier a lot. But refuses to deal with his feeling even when it almost kills him.

Alternate title: 5 things Geralt misses about Jaskier + 1 he didn’t need to

Link to A03: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24389734

*****

As Geralt made camp at the base of the mountain, he covered himself with his thinnest furs, despite the temperate weather. Today had been a disaster from start to finish, from his fight with Yennefer to Jaskier’s interruption. Geralt knew he was probably too harsh with his words, but he did feel justified. The rage, frustration, and most overwhelmingly, the irritating and inescapable bitch that was destiny, had been grating Geralt little by little since Cintra, nearly 15 years ago. Longer if he included Yen. Even longer if he counted Jaskier.

Sleep evaded him that night, echoes of Yen’s horrified realization and Jaskier’s hurt voices making him restless. He tossed and turned well into the dead of the night, finally flinging his furs back when there was the slightest lightening of the sky, packing up his camp. Roach was still asleep, giving Geralt pause. Just because he couldn’t sleep didn’t mean he had a right to push poor Roach that hard. Coming to a decision, Geralt placed all the packed saddle bags by her and walked away, focusing on anything but the lighter weight of his bags without Jaskier’s possessions.

He heard the rush of running water a meager distance away, so he grabbed his water skin and headed toward the sound, putting his senses to practice by classifying each scent and sound he picked up, his eyes spying near invisible trails left by the wandering of forest critters. The running water belonged to a nearly dry stream, the river bed more visible than the water. Bending to collect the water, a handkerchief fell out of his tunic, which he caught by instinct. The perfume the cloth was emitting was strong enough he didn’t need Witcher senses to know it belonged to his wayward bard. He brought the silk cloth to his nose, taking a deep breath. Underneath the harsh scent of vanilla and roses, there lay the softer scent of coconut oil and cedarwood of the bard’s soap.

He was hit with a wave of fierce longing and guilt, wanting the bard to be beside him more than he ever had. No doubt Jaskier would have been having the time of his life seeing Geralt so distraught over a stupid handkerchief of all things. Though he should probably throw the cloth away, he instead crumbled it into a tiny ball and shoved it deep into his tunic. He filled his water skin and walked back to Roach, pace faster than before. Around him the forest was beginning to wake as sunlight started to shine through the half-full branches.

Once at Roach, who thankfully was awake, he loaded her up with all the bags, transferring the incriminating cloth from his person to the bottom of one of his bags. After a second he snatched the handkerchief back out, smoothed the wrinkles, and tied it into the inside of his armor. He jumped on top of the saddle and lightly pulled her reins, encouraging her to start walking. He was a Witcher. He had walked the Path by himself alone as it was meant to be. And now he would do so again. It was the way.

///

As the days bled into weeks, and the Continent started to get colder, Geralt decided it might be a good Winter to spend at home in Kaer Morhen, away from civilization and with only the company of his brothers and Vesemir.

He resolutely did not think about a certain bard begging him year after year to describe the legendary stronghold of the Witchers, but never being presumptuous enough to ask for an invitation.

///

He had punched Lambert before he even knew what was happening, the force driving them both to a harsh landing of the courtyard. All he felt was flesh give way under the force of his blows, the bones breaking under his assault. But his ears were filled with a white ringing that normally only happened in the middle of a Hunt, vision blurry. A half-foreign white hot fury blazed through him. It took Eskel and Vesemir’s combined forces to pull him away from a bloody Lambert, who immediately rolled to the side and spit out blood. Yanking himself out of the hold the other two Witchers had, he made his way to puddle past Lambert. Crouching next to it, he gently put his hand in the puddle and pulled out the soggy item covered in mud.

“You nearly killed me over a stupid piece of cloth Geralt?” Lambert said, though it came out far more garbled spoken between mouthfuls of blood.

Geralt’s glare would have reduced a lesser man to relieve himself on the spot. “It is not stupid.” His voice was laced with venom.

Lambert sensed the still present danger, though it took an elbow to the gut from Eskel to shut him up. Vesemir was the one who approached him, the old wolf unafraid of the pup he had helped raise.

“No it may not be stupid Geralt but it is still not a valid excuse to nearly kill your brother.” Vesemir said, no-nonsense and arguments allowed.

Geralt growled but nodded stiffly. “I am done training for today.”

“Geralt-”

“I am going to meditate in my room.” Geralt said before leaving the snow-covered courtyard and stomping to his room, not stopping until he slammed his bedroom door behind him. He leaned back against the door, trying to dispel his rage. Opening his fist, he saw the handkerchief, muddy and wet. Moving to the bowl he had in the corner of his room, he dunked the cloth, rinsing and washing it until it was clean. Months of travel and being tied into Geralt’s armor had turned the once white fabric into a musty yellow.

Wringing the cloth out, he brought it to his nose, not really concealing the whine that escaped his throat when he realized the only thing he could smell from the cloth was his own scent. It was irrational to expect the bard’s scent to linger so long, but it had been the only sensory reminder he had of Jaskier with him, and now it was gone.

He placed the handkerchief by the fire to dry, and sat heavily in front of it. Closing his eyes, he tried to meditate for a long while, but couldn’t get his thoughts to quiet down. Finally giving up, he removed all his clothes before gathering the now dry handkerchief and laying in bed, the cloth wrapped around his hand. It was only when he convinced his brain that he could smell a trace of that precious vanilla and cinnamon scent that he properly fell asleep, heart an aching weight in his chest.

#the witcher #the witcher fic #my fic #geraskier fic #geraskier #jaskier #dandelion #geralt of rivia #part 1 #i'm done with the fic #will be updating daily #might be easier to subscribe to story through AO3 #let me know what you think!

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ggukkiereads · 3 years

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Hey I was the anon who asked for your ao3, totally fine that you don’t want to share your username so I will gladly accept any tips on how to navigate ao3 🥺🥺 bc I try navigating by just using the guys name or the group name and yeah most of the fics that appear aren’t really my style. ao3 it’s a really overwhelming space 😔 so please help this dumb girl

🌷 hello, AO3 anon! It’s not that I don’t want to share, I just feel like it’s going to overwhelm others (with my 1K bookmarked fics). I am not an expert on AO3 and I’m trying to recall how I navigated through it. Though to be honest, I don’t recall much. I just remember visiting ao3 years ago to check yoonia’s Carousel fic and some other fics I got from those twitter fic recs threads. I sort of took note of the fics separately (like a note app where I list down fics I was monitoring) but AO3 actually has this feature and it should be easy breezy once you get the hang of it!

I tried to make it as understandable as possible. Please see below the cut

🌷 So there are ways to navigate through fics:

1) through the filters per fandoms, per member - this is usually the sidebar portion if on desktop

2) through the tags themselves - just click on any tags you like

3) by subscribing to the author or fic

First, do you need to create an account?

It depends on you. Personally, I tried both. Not having an account, you can still comment but it’s kind of hard for me to keep track of my favorites or fics I’ve already read. Plus if you have an account, you can subscribe to fics or to authors so you get notified every time there is an update. You can also bookmark fics you like or fics you want to read. All up to you how you want to use the bookmarking tool.

I use my secondary email, the one I use for random subscriptions to stuff like games, netflix, etc. I feel more comfortable using secondary or dummy email as I call it.

1) NAVIGATING THROUGH filters per fandoms, per member

I screenshot below the sidebar which allows you to filter content. If you prefer reading FxM fics, then choose that. If you’re in the mood for member x member scenarios then choose MxM.

Additionally, you can adjust settings too for what to exclude. In my example below, say I don’t feel like reading multi-member fics and I just want FLUFFY fics. I can also adjust in the “exclude” settings.

You can also sort them per recent post, per hits, or per comments. I personally mix this because I also like discovering new fics. So, daily or every other day, it’s set to “date posted” so I get to see new fics. Earlier I had an ask re: a fic on AO3 and that was something I was able to read right away and commented on upon its drop (because the filter settings allowed me to see it right away way before it got popular).

The Hits or Kudos or Comments filter allows you to see which ones are already popular among readers and I guess initially you want to try this settings to help you get started. Not all of the choices will be according to your taste though. It doesn’t mean it’s popular that it’s going to be to your liking

🌷TIP:

Once I figured out the filter settings I want (which was more of the recent fics, mostly FxM), I saved or bookmarked the url. I just clicked on the link and it directs me right away to pre-made filter settings (then I’d get to see new fics for the day)

2) NAVIGATING through the tags themselves

So this is helpful when you’re in the mood for certain tropes or genres. Like there was a time I was in the mood for roommate AUs and I just binge-read all the fics in the results

So, for example this particular fic has well-defined tags ( I am reading this fic by the way. It’s rockstar Jungkook lol). Example you want to just read “friends with benefits” fics, you can click the link and it will give you ALL FICS that are under the same tag

This will give you ALL RESULTS (screenshot below shows you all fics from various fandoms, AUs, etc). Repeat after me: the SIDEBAR is your friend. You can filter the results further by choosing the settings you want.

Same process as #1, use the filter and use the settings you need. You want FxM, filter it to BTS fandom only, maybe for relationships you’re in the mood for just Yoongi x Reader?

Take note that sometimes you have to apply the settings first before you can set another filter. For example, I set it to FxM and then BTS fandom first then clicked SORT and FILTER. That’s the only time these relationship filters will show (it’s like funneling. Once you’re in the “BTS fandom filter”, it will show you the other filters available to that category.. So for relationships there will be Jungkook x Reader, Yoongi x Reader, and so on and so forth):

I read all members so I don’t really filter it to any specific members. I really go by the summary of the fic and the tags if they look interesting to me at the moment.

3) Last, NAVIGATING by subscribing to the author or fic

So, I actually subscribed to a lot of authors but they are usually on TUMBLR too. I guess, I read more series on AO3 since it is easier to navigate?

Plus there are authors whose fics are available on AO3 but not on Tumblr. koyamuses for example, has their old fics like River Run (sea serpent!yoongi) and Mangata (pirate!jungkook) on AO3 but I remember their more recent ones are housed on tumblr. Obiwrites, a reader’s favorite, actually started on tumblr but they decided to use ao3 as a sole platform. I think she reposted some of her olds fics (but not all, still waiting for hoseok’s fic depaysement and that yoongi cinderella fic 😭)

There are also authors who have pseuds on AO3 and they post different content. gukluvr, for example, has an ao3 and the fics are different from her tumblr fics.

The beauty of subscribing to an author (say you like their body of work), is you get to see updates as they come. You get an email notif that [ _____ posted fic title ] - I highlighted those with tumblrs too. It’s easier because with tumblr you search for fics manually but here ao3 does the work for you and just send you the email.

Even if they don’t post anything new, it’s just fun to see all the authors you like in one place in case you want to binge read per author. You can access it through your AO3 profile (if you set up an account)

You can also subscribe to a series only (meaning you don’t feel like subscribing to the author yet). If you subscribe to the author, you get notifs on EVERY FIC they will post. So if the author posts for other fandoms like Harry Potter or Star Wars, then you’d get these notifs too. So, it’s upto you

This is me subscribing per fic/work: (though this is not updated, some of these fics are already completed and I should start “unsubscribing”)

per series (though take note some of these have been completed). I am also subscribed to the authors so it’s kind double but you only get one email notif, don’t worry.

ONCE YOU GET USED TO the navigation, you can bookmark the fics you like or mark them for later. Some bookmark fics they want to read while others bookmark their favorites.

In my case, I bookmark all fics I’ve read and categorize them under collections like favorites, etc (but you don’t have to do this; this is just my method to remember fics), I haven’t really updated my bookmarks/collections so 🤷‍♀️. But that’s okay, it’s my own organized chaos so I can easily navigate through it.

For fics I want to read or re-read, I just mark them for later which you can access on the HISTORY page.

Best to try all these on desktop. Once you get used to it, you can just play around on mobile. Sometimes, I just wait for notifs from my subscribed accounts/series; I just read it right away and mark them on my email as done once I’ve read or bookmark on AO3.

Don’t forget to give kudos to writers you like the stories of! I love giving kudos and I comment sometimes =)

Okay, whew! I can’t believe I just wrote down a pseudo tutorial on AO3 navigation 🤭. I really hope it’s an easy tutorial for you to go through. Otherwise, I don’t know how I can further explain it. You can use the search bar of AO3 too! Just type, say “friends with benefits” and it will give you all types of fics. But, I just used this so I can click on the FWB tag (see #2 process)

There are so many fun stories or fics on AO3 too! And there are writers you won’t see on tumblr.

I wish you good luck on your AO3 journey. It might be overwhelming, but it’ll get easier once you get used to it 🌷🧚‍♀️🥰

Enjoy!

#🌷 chats #tutorial: AO3 #lol I hope this is helpful #AO3 anon #anon #asks

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shyneanon · 3 years

Text

And the fic I started about a week ago with a MF one-shot continues! It’s now called The Boss’s Daughter and it’s up on AO3.

I’ll continue to post it here but you can go to AO3 to subscribe or kudos or comment or whatever you’d like. It also just might be easier for people to read the whole thing there, since these chapters are long and the whole work will be in one place. Anyway, enjoy!

---

Your father was an unforgiving man.

As kind as he was to you and your mother, when he went to work, he became a different person. He did not tolerate failure, he did not tolerate deceit, and he did not tolerate disrespect. It was no wonder that he had become one of the richest and most powerful mob bosses in the city. People feared him.

And thus, they feared you.

He called you Princess for a reason. You were very much his princess. And there was no mobster in the city who didn’t know the consequences of making a wrong move around you. If he saw a man as a threat against his daughter-- whether physically, emotionally, or otherwise-- that man was as good as dead. And your father’s definition of a threat was a bit loose. He was a very jealous man. Every gangster knew that.

Well, Sans hadn’t, until Papyrus had gone on a tirade about it at him.

Truth be told, it hadn’t really scared Sans much at all. It was difficult to scare him-- though whether that was because he was tough or stupid, he wasn’t sure. Though it did make him view your encounter through a new lens. When he’d spoken with you, he’d had no idea you were such… forbidden fruit.

Unfortunately for Papyrus, whose… suggestion… was reasonable, telling Sans that you were a literal danger to him had only made you more desirable to him. It was that thrill that causes even the best of people to date partners who are bad for them: The feeling of playing with fire, of doing something despite knowing it was bad for you. You were so pretty, and you had been so much fun, but if he’d known all of this before, the spark of electricity he’d felt at being close to you would’ve felt like a thousand-volt shock. To think that he had held someone virtually unattainable-- had gone so far as to kiss your neck and the corner of your lips-- and come out of it alive?

Hell, now he just wanted to do it again.

Since he had nothing better to do with his time (well, he did, he just liked not doing what he was supposed to be doing), he’d eventually asked some of his men how much anyone even knew about you, if you were so heavily protected. Surprisingly, quite a bit, because your father liked to talk about you a lot. According to him, you were very intelligent. That didn’t surprise Sans at all, it had been pretty obvious. Well, sort of. It had been this look behind your eyes. Like you were always observing things, assessing them. No doubt you were unused to being hit on and yet you had remained cool and collected.

Heh. Maybe you’d make for a good mob boss yourself.

Your father even claimed that you helped with the business sometimes. The record-keeping and number-crunching, anyway. He didn’t like telling you exactly what your beloved daddy was doing during business hours.

It was funny how many small details had stuck with Sans’ men (and probably many others). You were just such an enigma that any information your father threw out was like a piece of a very large puzzle. You liked dancing, although you’d never actually been out dancing before. Papa was too worried about boys hitting on you. You did go out sometimes, with some friend of yours, but only during the day, and only to high-end spaces where the chances of a guy trying to put moves on you were low. An odd detail: You liked little chocolates, particularly the ones with cherry filling. Sans could vividly picture you gently biting into one, the filling as red as those soft lips. Dangerous lips that spelled death for anyone who dared to come near them.

You were just so off-limits that all you did was rile Sans up when he thought about you.

His mind raced with What ifs. What if he had just taken the opportunity to kiss you right there? What if you had agreed to his offer to show you how he could get around without being seen? What if he had been able to bring you somewhere private… and take away that innocence your father had worked so painstakingly hard to preserve?

Heheh. You would’ve been calling out “Daddy,” but you wouldn’t have meant--

“I heard that guy Acerbi is after her.”

“Acerbi? Don Acerbi?”

“No, you idiot, his son.”

Sans was snapped out of his incredibly racy daydream. “Huh? Who?”

Vinnie answered his question. “Adolfo Acerbi, Boss. The Acerbi family’s territory is right around--”

“I don’t care about that, whaddaya mean he’s after her?”

Don answered that. “Y’know, he wants to marry her. She’s an only child, so if he married ‘er, once her dad croaked he’d end up being the heir to their whole business.”

“Fuck, you serious?”

“Yeah. And for now it’d unite the families ‘n such. All that mafia stuff.”

Sans felt a surge of jealousy, even though he knew it was unwarranted. You didn’t belong to him-- well, you didn’t belong to anyone, you were your own person, even if your father wanted you to be his. Still, Sans wasn’t your boyfriend, he had no real right to feel jealous over you. Especially not the level of jealousy he was feeling right now.

But the objective truth couldn’t change the way he felt.

“Hey, Boss,” said Vinnie. “Didn’tcha say you were gonna talk with someone today?”

He was startled out of his thoughts again and checked his watch. “Oh, shit.” He got up. At least he wouldn’t be late. “Thanks, Vinnie.”

“Oh, uh, no problem, Boss.”

“Was he nice?” asked Mindy.

“Of course,” you told her. “He was in front of my dad.”

The two of you were sitting in a small but very expensive cafe and deli, immaculately clean and filled with people in nice dress. It was always nice to be with her, for a multitude of reasons. Firstly, she was your friend. You simply enjoyed her company.

Secondly, the cat monster was your window to the outside world.

While she was wealthy-- most monsters were after having left the Underground-- Mindy didn’t know where your father actually got his money. She was a civilian. Unlike you, she’d gone to college, and she’d been on dates with lots of boys. Ironically, despite being a monster, she knew a certain kind of freedom you’d never known. Mindy actually got around quite a bit, though you didn’t mind that. It was part of what made her interesting. She was wild, so she had a lot of fun stories.

At the moment, though, you were the one telling her a story, about the “nice young man” you’d met at the party. Adolfo Acerbi. Italian, obviously. Your parents had taken quite a liking to him, and you could understand why: He seemed well-educated, he was polite, and he had only said the sweetest of things to you.

You hated him already.

It was all fake. You could tell. He did a good job of hiding it from your parents but it was fairly obvious to you what was going on. You had no brothers. If he could just weasel his way into your father’s favor and wed you, then he could sit atop an empire made of two families’ blood, greed and arrogance. And you would be stuck right there with him. It was a no from you, but unlike Mindy, you didn’t really have any say in the matter. Mafia princesses were called princesses for a reason.

But you couldn’t tell Mindy all of that. She didn’t know where your family got their money. So all you said was, “He just wants my dad’s money.”

“Aw, honey, maybe you’re just being paranoid.” Mindy smiled at you. “Love exists, you know.”

You snorted. “I know that. It’s just… he’s sweet, but… too sweet? Too romantic.”

“Mmm, like he rehearsed it or something?”

“Yeah.”

“Ugh, those boys are the worst.” She shrugged. “Oh well. You don’t have to date him if you don’t want to.”

If only.

You considered telling her about the encounter with Sans and Papyrus-- she’d be bound to find it entertaining-- but you had the feeling that if you did she would just keep teasing you about Sans. Besides, she didn’t need to know anything about mobsters who didn’t really have anything to do with you. Your father didn’t do business with the skeleton brothers, as far as you knew, and chances were you would never speak with them again. Sans wasn’t worth mentioning.

But fate is a cruel mistress, and no sooner had you dismissed any thoughts of Sans than a large shape emerged in your periphery. Near the doorway. The shape was unmistakable.

Sans had been fun. Too fun. As much as you wanted someone in the underbelly of society to make you smile, you didn’t need it. If you had fun, you would forget just how bad your world was, and you would quit wanting to leave. You didn’t need to speak to him any more.

“What are you doing?” asked Mindy.

You realized you had ducked down and held up your menu in hopes of hiding your face. You wanted to relax, but you really didn’t need to talk to him anymore. “Nothing,” you said, though you knew she wouldn’t believe you.

“Oh my God, is it him?” She started to look around unabashedly.

“N-- no, it’s not Acerbi.”

“Not Acerbi-- Wait, is there somebody else? Is that why you don’t like Acerbi?” Her lips curled into a mischievous smile. “Oooooh, there’s a boy you haven’t told me about.”

“No, it’s not like that!” you said. But you couldn’t explain, it had everything to do with your world, and she couldn’t know about your world.

“Oh my, are you blushing?”

“What? No.” Your face didn’t even feel warm.

“Don’t lie to me, I can see it. Your face is so red.”

Well, now your face was warm. Mindy beamed. Thanks a lot, Mindy.

“Hey there, dollface. Fancy seein’ you here.”

… Fuck.

You lowered the menu. You didn’t have to look for him; Sans’ shape on your left blocked out everything else nearby. You tried to ignore the burning on your face and smiled politely. “Hello, Mr. Sans.”

“Hey, sweetheart, I toldja last night, ya can call me Sans.”

You saw Mindy’s eyes widen. Last night, no she’s getting the wrong impression, no no Mindy it’s not like that I didn’t have sex with him I didn’t I don’t even know how we would do that I just met him at a party--

You forced your mind to stop racing. “Right. Sans. Is there anything you need?”

“Just to talk to you, doll.” He winked. His smile was so genuine, so goofy despite the sharp teeth. You felt the corners of your mouth turning up and bit the insides of your cheeks to keep yourself from smiling any more. You’re just making this worse, jackass….

His voice lowered:

“What’s with the red face? Happy to see me?”

You tried to ignore your face getting hotter. “M… My friend here was embarrassing me about something.” Good, a distraction. You gestured to Mindy. “Um, Sans, this is my good friend Mindy. Mindy, this is Sans, my… um…”

Sans raised a brow. “Aww. Tellin’ me we ain’t friends?”

Oh my God, did he learn anything from last night?

“... friend,” you finished. “My friend, Sans.”

Mindy wasn’t buying it even though it was the truth. “Oh, of course. Your friend.” She wiggled her eyebrows. Still, she gave Sans a friendly smile. “Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too, sweetheart.” His grin widened. “You look like the cat’s pajamas.” A wink. “Absolutely purrfect.”

Before you could stop yourself, you snorted, which only made Sans look more enthusiastic. You tried to hide your face again.

Mindy raised her eyebrows at him. “Oh my, aren’t you a charmer?”

He tipped the brim of his hat. “Sure, to the women I want.” His eyelights looked over at you and he winked.

You glared at him, openly this time. You are such a moron. You could literally die. For doing this. You couldn’t defend him forever.

His smile became slightly nervous. Finally, he was getting the message. Why did he have to be so thick? And funny?

“So,” said Mindy, “why are you here? You’re not stalking my friend, are you? Stalking isn’t romantic, you know.”

He chuckled. “Nah. I can’t actually talk fer too long, I’m here tah meet a, uh… business associate.”

Mindy smiled incredulously. “Business associate? What are you, part of the mob?”

You forced yourself to snicker at that, as if the idea was ridiculous. Sans blinked, looking mildly surprised-- he’d probably expected Mindy to know. Thankfully, he recovered quickly. “I wish. It’d be more exciting.” He turned back to you. “I also wanted to give you an offer.”

He nodded in the direction of the doorway and you squinted at him. You weren’t going to leave with him. Was he that stupid?

“I jus’ wanna talk over there.”

You raised an eyebrow, and felt your thumb fiddling with your menu. You didn’t need to speak with him… but you were curious. So you got up and followed him, still inside, by the door.

He dug around in his pocket. “Last night was nice.”

“Which part?” you asked coldly.

“All of it, babe, yer fun to talk to.” He pulled out his wallet and started going through it. “I was thinkin’ I’d like to talk to ya again, if ya ever want.”

He found what he was looking for and held up what was clearly a fake business card for whatever civilian job he claimed to have. He held it out to you.

“If ya ever need anythin’... like, y’know, company… jus’ give me or Paps a call, huh?” He shrugged. “Well, maybe not Paps. But me.” He flashed those shark-like teeth at you.

You just stared. What on Earth was his problem? He could easily go flirt with someone whose father wouldn’t have him shot for it.

“C’mon, babe, you were fun. I don’t meet a lotta fun people.” He held it out further. “Please?”

His pleading smile was seemed so genuine.

Whatever. You smiled politely, taking the card. “Thanks. I’ll keep your offer in mind.”

Judging from the look on his face, he could tell you didn’t mean it. He seemed… disappointed.

You felt disappointed too. Good.

He tipped the brim of his hat again. “Anyway, I’ll let you two ladies keep talking. It was nice seein’ you again.”

“Nice seeing you,” you said.

When you made your way back to the table and sat down, Mindy folded her arms. “So. Mister Sans, huh?”

“It’s not like that,” you said.

“‘Sure, to the women I want,’” she said, doing her best impression of Sans’ deep, smooth voice. She then raised her eyebrows at you as if daring you to offer an explanation.

“We met at the same party where I met Adolfo,” you said. “He flirted with me, and I turned him down.” You left out the part where you let him hold you and… kiss you. The spot at the corner of your lip that he’d kissed suddenly felt tingly. It had probably been the most rebellious thing you’d ever done, despite how much you hated the lifestyle you’d been born into.

“You what?” Mindy said, almost slamming her hands down on the table in outrage. “Why?”

“Because I don’t like him. He’s probably the dumbest person I’ve ever met.”

“Ouch,” she said. “Harsh.” She sighed in mock disappointment. “What a shame. His name is so short. Easy to moan.”

You felt a mixture of embarrassment and amusement. “Why don’t you just go sleep with him if you find him so appealing?”

“Nuh-uh. I smell a budding romance.” She made a sweeping gesture with her hand. “An intelligent girl, wooed by an unlikely man. I don’t want to get in the way of that.”

“That will never happen in a million--”

“Ooh, ooh, before I forget to tell you! Next weekend this… club I know…” She gave you a wink. You knew what that meant-- a speakeasy. “... is having a swing night. You told me you’ve never gone dancing before. We should go!”

You felt your heart sink, the previous conversation instantly forgotten. You shook your head. “My parents wouldn’t let me.” Too many boys.

“Then sneak out. Easy fix.”

“N… No.”

She sighed in exasperation. “Just ask, OK? Please?”

You nodded. “... OK.”

“Thank you.” She looked at the card in your hand. “What’s that?”

“Oh, just some stupid card he gave me with his number.” You turned it over in your hand.

“Mmmm, his number. You gonna keep it?”

“I already said I don’t like him, why would I keep his number?”

You grabbed your purse. Trying not to make eye contact with Mindy, you tilted the bag towards you so that she wouldn’t see the small pistol inside, and tucked the card into a pocket inside the purse. You tried to seem nonchalant about it, but when you looked at Mindy again she was wearing a massive, smug grin on her face.

“I’m going to throw it away when I get home,” you told her.

“Riiiight.” She took a sip of her water. “Of course.”

“I am,” you insisted. You just didn’t want to toss it anywhere. But you told yourself you were going to throw it away.

You didn’t.

#fanfiction #self-insert #reader-insert #sans x reader #sans/reader #mafiafell #mf sans #mafiafell sans #fanfic

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marigoldvance · 3 years

Text

LET’S TALK FEEDBACK

this is not going to be a complaint disguised as a plea. this won’t be a long rant about the barren state of the Comment section on AO3. this is going to be a discussion, open to criticism and debate. my opinion might be an unpopular one but it’s mine and i’m going to share it since, yo, i’ve got enough people reading my shit to merit a chat about this.

as many of you know, i am a Fandom Content Creator; a fic writer and a part-time fanartist. i’ve been in a number of fandoms before i put roots down in The Hobbit. i’ve been participating in fandom culture since i was a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed 13yo.

back in those days, fandom forums were just picking up steam. it was the gold rush of fanfic and feedback; for the first time, people had places to share their content/opinions with a larger group of equally as enthusiastic fangoers. everyone posted, everyone commented, everyone participated. no matter what fandom you Alice’d into, you were guaranteed to find engagement on your works. (with some exceptions. let’s face it, at the time it was really for the eager, in-the-know, tech savvy teens/YAs and what was popular amongst them.)

on a related note, i’d like to mention that Lurkers aren’t new; they’ve been around since the dawn of broadly public fandom *raises fist in solidarity* they may not be the bread-and-butter of fandom but you know shit just got serious when a Lurker comes out of the shadows to drop an opinion.

obviously, time moved things along and the internet became less exciting and more incorporated. people - everyone, fam, not just the “new generation” - started seeking easy-to-digest content. consuming faster than fast-fashion. everything is snap-your-fingers quick these days. and so, expressing one’s excitement for something one just consumed fell to the wayside with the introduction of the Kudos button. it’s not a sense of entitlement, it’s a sense of choosing the easier, faster option. after reading a 30 chapter saga, who wants to bother mustering the strength?

WANNA TALK FAST, EASY TO COMSUME. THIS? THIS ARTICLE? IT’S TOO LONG. I’VE LOST HALF OF YOU ALREADY ... HIT LIKE ANYWAY

with so much content to consume, i’m not surprised. if you’re reading 5 fics a day, or if you’re hella busy with life things, you’re not going to prioritize giving a stranger written praise for their work unless the story seriously changed your life. it takes time, energy, things we can’t often, or, frankly, simply don’t want to spare.

i’m not innocent of placing the same value on Kudos as content creators do on Comments. shit, i am a content creator and i still only leave comments on my friends’ works or on works in the fandom i’m devouring (currently that would be Sterek). and even then, it’s like i said, God needs to have spoken to me through that fic. understand, that doesn’t mean i didn’t LOVE everything i read. realistically, however, not everything had enough substance to stir up a flowery poem of my devotion to the author.

although, if i made it to the end and hit Kudos, the fic was awesome. there’ve been plenty that i’ve raved about to friends but haven’t commented on simply because #butwhytho. i consume free content all over the internet, the ish i interact with is ish i’m a paid subscriber to.

and yet, those fics definitely deserved a Comment. even a “👍 - thx for sharing, brah”.

i’m as garbage as everyone else. it’s the new norm.

STILL WITH ME? HOW MANY HAVEN’T DIVED OVERBOARD??

however. if you be reading a WIP as it’s going up, Kudos ain’t gonna cut it, are they? because you can only hit that gem once. so, please allow me to put my fanfic author’s hat on while i tell you why participation/interaction/engagement is important in those scenarios.

let me start by saying: dudes, i don’t need Comments to sustain myself. they are not actually fuel for my personal validation, i can live/breathe/exist happily and positively without them. but i promise you, without Comments, without interaction or engagement, my interest/motivation/energy will wane and i’ll redirect it elsewhere, in a newer, shinier idea. i’m a writer. i’m always going to write. how consistent i am with WIPs can be measured both in how busy my day-to-day is (i.e: RL priorities), and my commitment to my readers. which, let’s open a can of honesty here: if i’m not feeling the enthusiasm, receiving an inkling of participation, i’m going drop it and find something that gets my engines revving again.

fandom is predominantly a hobby. hobbies are meant to bring a person joy or peace. fandom is also a very public hobby and when you’re a content creator, posting your work, let’s be real: you’re doing so with the intention of receiving feedback. you don’t post things on the internet because you want to keep them to yourself 🙄

we’re all human. we like to share our excitement and our passion. we like to feel validated and valued. it’s normal.

regardless, as disappointing as it may be not to receive that kind of validation we’re looking for, taking up a hobby like fandom means we can’t hate on anonymous strangers and demand they Comment on our jazz because they got used to consuming as it is on every other media platform. fanfic has gone the way of EVERYTHING ELSE on the internet and feedback has been reduced to “leave however many stars you think This Content merits”.

I’M TOTALLY ALONE NOW, AREN’T I? TALKING TO MYSELF ...

therefore, understand consumers, that content creators are then more likely to wander off and find somewhere more validating to participate in. i, personally, think i’d do very well in the baking community...

so, what can be done about it? that’s up to the readers, and whether or not they wanna see a WIP finished or a creator contribute more content to the fandom. but, hey, authors, guess what? it’s okay to do what you can and guide your readers as well, eh? leave a massive, in bold note at the end asking readers to leave a thumbs-up in the Comment section; bribe them, name a star after them, i don’t know, but we can’t slack in that area either just because we’re working our asses off writing. we chose this, we have to accept every piece of it.

on my part, i swear i’m going to get better. even if that means simply leaving a series of emojis; i’m going to practice Commenting more.

engagement is especially important in the smaller fandoms. i mean, come on, we can all tell The Hobbit fandom is no longer the massive battleship it once was. it’s shrunk. it’s a fucken kayak. hence why it’s detrimental to participate; not doing so is how fandoms fade into the ether, only to be resuscitated a decade or two down the line when a big budget, HBO or Netflix remake or series is released.

Comments work in a way Kudos can’t. firstly, it proves people are interested, looking forward to an update, participating. secondly, an author can reply with their appreciation. fam, it doesn’t have to turn into a conversation, just let the author express their gratitude 😆

to those i didn’t lose halfway through, thank you for taking the time; i sincerely appreciate it 😊

xx - Mari 💗

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cristalknife · 3 years

Text

On Comments, feedback anxiety on both the writer and the reader’s side

If one could look into my WIP draw, or take a glance at the fics I’ve actually posted, it becomes clear misunderstandings based on miscommunication is something I seem have a thing for. In all honesty is more of a lifelong study and recurring theme I keep stumbling on or consciously walking into. Preface: I am only human and mistakes can happen, but usually I try to handle the detailed label (also referred as Read the Tin or as written on the tin) of major warning with my writings that is usually missing in any other aspect of life, sort of a lovely user manual/preview so one could know to walk away before getting invested or worse triggered.

Or at least know exactly what they signed up for.

Is it perfect? No but at least it’s there, as a writer I did all I could to avoid unpleasantness, the rest it’s up to the reader’s discretion. Which leads me to the heart of this post: comments, feedbacks, criticism, politically correctness, manners and the anxiety they produce in both the writer and the reader.

The picture is big so I’ll divide in sides, but remember that people are made of multiple sides, and sometimes those sides are at odds or outwardly warring against each other. That’s pretty average for any irrational human being with emotions.

From the POV of an overthinking anxious writer:

1) Ao3′s Kudos are sort of like a watered down thumbs up, after about 4-5 fic posted (or ~15K words of stories out there to be consumed), they became the kind of anxiety triggers feeding thoughts of why so many people/guests left a kudo but the story wasn’t good enough to warrant the time of a comment/review 2) Comments are lovely reminder someone found something in your words that made them react so strongly they felt like sharing that reaction with you was worth their time.

2.1) Comments are also the cause of anxiety about their content before you have the courage to read what they says...

3) Criticisms and feedbacks can be a wonderful tool to improve your writing for the next story. But not if they are laced with insult, personal attacks in that case they are the kind of black hole that pushes people to stop writing all together, or at least stop sharing what they write.

4) single emoji (♥), 2 char long (<3) comments takes years of effort and a lot of conditioning to remember to slip in reader mode and appreciate the effort it took to stop and do even that, instead of allowing doubts to gnaw at the back of your head with waaaiiiiit that’s all? was it good? was it bad? arrrghhh what does it even mean???

5) Statistics and numbers, those are the evilest of the most buggering things and the most vile tempters that will push you to compare your stories against others (a futile exercise in frustration and pointless reason to shred one’s own self confidence to the tiniest of pieces for literally nothing)

5.1) Especially when you have two writing mind frames:

writing the stories you want to read (and usually it is either a niche where you’ve already consumed all you could find so you write it because duh, more content might ignite back the fire please, or you haven’t found yet someone to say it how you want to read it) vs what I simply call

exorcism writing (the kind of free therapy exercise when something is bugging the heck out you and not leaving your mind so you put it down to words and then let them fly free, instead of trapping them on a diary you’d just return to read and start the vicious cycle all over again)

5.1.1) and your exorcism stories become more popular than the stories you want to read, because at the end of your raw ranting exorcism you managed to write something that would end up falling within mainstream tropes. Which just makes you sad because those were not the result of love and planning and endless hours of writing and editing that you put in your other stories.

6) I’m not writing fan fiction to be an educator, it is possible that my day job is being an educator, but unless I’m there writing textbooks, as a writer it is not my responsibility to teach the reader something that has to be authentic, realistic and a good practice. I’m just here to tell a story. Or are you really telling me that you watch superheros movies and series and expect them to appear outside your window? If you just laughed then why are you looking at fanfic smut with the expectation of finding a more interesting and alternative way to have a sex ed lesson? If you subscribe to the school that a story has has to make sense... Let me ask have you ever read some of the greatest literature works like Frankenstain, Moby Dick, The Hobbit, Journey to the center of the Earth, Alice through the looking glass, Aeneas, if you did and subscribe to “fiction as to make sense” then please please enlighten me I’m rady to sit back and hear all the points you can make how any of those are realistic representations of how things go. If you says that those are just stories told oh so long ago... Lets pick more recent ones, the Harry Potters books, Goosebumps, Twilight, The Shadowhunters Chronicles, 50 shades of , all those are listed as fiction which yes sadly too many used as a portrait of theme touched in there as realistic because the story was not set in a fantastical world and made the mistake of treating a work of fiction as a documentary... Sorry people I’m a writer, choosing the right words matters, words meanings and definitions matter please learn to think critically, and learn your words, there is a difference between fiction and documentary 6.1) At the same time it might be that I am the kind of writer who loves to add factually authentic things in my writings, someone who actually had spent hours and hours on research to make sure that what they have been writing is not utter and complete made up rubbish, and that’s ok too. I do not expect readers to assume it is correct or that it is purely made up, and if someone is curious they could use the comment to ask a question, I’ve never turned out a curious question, even when it was difficult to answer it

7) Just because I am writing about something, it doesn’t mean I support it... Again those are stories, not a scientific report on a lab experiment, I can write about abusive relationships, doesn’t mean I support them, I could write about self harm or depression, doesn’t mean I am encouraging those behaviors, in fact those usually come with a Trigger Warning, why? because a reader should have the option to walk away from what should be just a moment of pleasure and relax, not finding themselves triggered because I didn’t want to spoil the surprise of what was going to come in a story posted on the internet... 8) This far I’ve personally chosen to not push for comment, no beg necessary, I decided years ago to be the kind of self centered bad ass who writes for themselves, who’s not going to dangle the promises of more chapters in exchange for comments, I dislike the practice, and I find too exhausting shouting left and right hey hey I’ve written this read it read it... So I do get why my stories do not have such a large audience, it doesn’t help I’ve actually posted way less than what I’ve written over the years. I do welcome comments, though I have no clue on how to respond to short ones, or a single emoji/<3 to all chapters to those I end up answering only to the most recent one of that person and thank for their support. Longer comments are easier to answer because it gives me something to say back or comment/thanks for, though it becomes weird for me when someone speculate on future developments in what they wish to see, and since I’ve recently adopted the policy of posting only completed stories (even for the chaptered ones that will not be posted at the same time, the number of total chapter is not an estimation it is exactly the number of files I’ve divided the story into for reasons) because I do know whether something of that sort will happen or not, and I don’t want to put someone out of my story if they are too invested in see what they imagined happen... Though as I do write stories I’d like to read I’m quick to encourage aspiring writers to feel free to take that what if and work with it, just to please mention that my story inspired theirs and that I’d love to see what they come up with. Constructive criticisms, I do not have a beta for most of my works, I do not work too well depending on other people’s time, I confess even in the past I received criticisms that were not constructive if we push the boundaries and call those criticisms rather than just plain old complains, which is sort of the reason why I stopped explicitly encouraging communication. Because I do expect respect, you don’t know anything about me or what I believe in, you might make some guesses from my profile because I haven’t been shy and pretty open on them, but I won’t accept being personally attacked or talked to in a disrespectful manner just because you didn’t like what I wrote. I have no problem accepting criticisms, as long as they are criticisms and not just whining. You cannot come to me with “I hate your story” and leave it at that, you already took the time to express your opinion instead of simply walking away, the least you can do is explaining why... Otherwise I seriously don’t get why you wasted both of yours and more importantly my time and energies... From the POV of a spoonie reader who barely has the energy to read: 1) Ao3′s Kudos are a life saver that allows you to show your appreciation (even if you are allowed only one as registered user) with only a click (and some times even that click takes so much out of you) instead of relegating you to invisible reader, barely visible number (*coughs*ff.net*coughs*) or forcing you to make a story a favorite/followed

2) Comments are the source of anxiety, because you might want to show support but would they get that or would it sound strange? will the author understand that a a ghsafdgsakdjfh (read: key smash) happened with excitement and love and you’ve no other words to express it? 2.1) also trying to put your support in words when you are in your pj cozily being a blanket burrito and reading from your phone in bed because there’re no more spoon left for the day it’s hard

3) The author asked for R&R, or welcomes comments and constructive criticism. You loved the story enough to spend energies to

point out things that were plain plot hole or downright inconsistency or lose ends, pointing out botched translations from your own mother tongue and offering correction that were not google translated, in ao3 case pointing out lack of some appropriate tags, which would have 1 improved your story’s visibility and 2 allowed the reader to choose whether they wanted to read it or not both points that would have benefit you as author...

Only for the author to react:

- badly with a why are you such a nitpick hadn’t anyone told you that you should just stay silent if you have nothing nice to tell me? - Excuse me you’re the one asking for my opinion not my adoration, I gave you exactly what you asked for, if you cannot handle your work being nitpicked or the holes in your plot being publicly poked then there’re fabulous people called Beta reader who will give you the needed dose of though love in private get one..

- badly with a don’t like don’t read - legit reader’s counter point is I wouldn’t have read it if you had given me a way to know then what I discovered now [personal addendum, on a not that well low energy day it takes me less about 3 mins and half to read 1.5K words don’t came at me on your 1k long story and tell me I could have stopped reading when I noticed it wasn’t that good for me...I was done with it before I could get any warning]

- dismissively because a meet cute clearly is an AU - Bless your heart if you need me to point out to you that there is a difference between an Alternative Universe (AU) and a Canon Divergence and the fact that meet cute is a trope which in fandoms usually implies different circumstances within the fandom’s canon world of the first meeting between the characters in the main relationship but doesn’t automatically include different premises for the character example:

in canon: characters from a magical supernatural fandom one a wizard with magic, one a fighter with superhuman speed and holy weapons, in their first meeting the fighter saved the wizard’s life.

in a meet cute: a wizard and a fighter with superhuman speed and holy weapons meet in the middle of the forest where the fighter was hunting for food failing miserably and the wizard took pity on the fighter and offered to share their dinner, if the fighter dared to step inside the wizard’s home

in a No Power/Human AU meet cute: where there is no magic, one of the two is a barista who uses flirty coffee jokes lines to call the other’s person order, and finally discover they are an accountant so instead they start using math puns to get the accountant’s attention.

Those are all valid stories but as an author don’t came at me believing that just because you mention a trope that is enough to distinguish between the 2° and 3° examples, or that having mentioned the trope gives you the standing to look down at me if I do have my own reasons that you do not know about for wanting to read only stories like the second pitch and get upset but still tell you in a polite way that there are missing tags in your story, especially when you’ve falsely advertise your 3° like pitch as if it was a 2° one and I get upset and let you know about it and do so with the curtesy of signing it with my name rather than leave an guest/anonymous comment

- shrugging off issues with the tags with a Oh but I’m bad at tagging -

then I have 3 things to say to you buddy one) that’s not an excuse if you haven’t learnt how to do it yourself get a beta, get a friend, read more and compare what your story tells with a similar one and how that one is tagged, there’re ways Ignorance is not an excuse;

two) you can’t claim you’re bad at tagging but then refuse to listen when someone is pointing out to you more tags for your story, dud learn how search engines work, searching by tag is basically having a filtered search, the more tags your fit your story the more venues your story can appear in reader’s search for something to read... which means visibility for your work, are you really telling me that you dislike to have that and would prefer less people reading what you post? then sorry but I think you’re doing it wrong and should get a diary instead, not post them on the internet.

addendum: still claiming to be bad at it after having posted over 40 stories and all posted in recent times in the span of a couple of months, just suggest you lack the intelligence to learn how to do things. Which only encourages me to never ever get close to your works, certainly to never promote or share them if not actively discouraging my friends from spending their time on them.

three) and guess what? there is a frikking I'm Bad At Taggingtag for that too!!!

As a reader I might be ranting in this post, but the long effect of those is a growing apathy and increased unwillingness to spend my energies for commenting unless I’d really really really really liked or loved a story, or I have something more than a one liner to share, which while I intellectually know it might be unfair to let the whole pay for the disrespect of few, my own survival instinct is glad I’m not spreading myself even thinner...

truthful disclaimer: in all fairness it has been my experience, that those reactions usually come from authors with already quite few stories or a decent word count out there.

New authors are still very much enthusiastic and happy about even the smallest crumbs of recognition or encouragement, which in return is lovely because it recognise that my own time and energy as reader are worthy, that it does take effort to share an opinion or encouragement or suggestion.

4) The author might never know how that day I posted that single emoji, or two character <3, it was one of those bad days when even opening a small water bottle to swallow down the painkillers was too much, when using a finger to scroll down the page to reach the end of the story had wiped out more energies than I could really afford and yet I still pushed myself to leave a sign that I was there and appreciated their story

5) readers should be allowed to have the “if you thought writing was hard, try commenting other people words” tag... because sometimes especially on older platforms (yes ff.net I’m looking at you) as a reader I can’t find the energies to wipe up something to say so I become a silent invisible reader. And sometimes it’s really that I am able to stand only stories with certain characteristics, personally for example I do not have the emotional fortitude to read more a certain amount of Work In Progress at the same time across multiple fandoms because my brain can’t recall all the details and I might not feel to rereading the story from the beginning every single time there is a new chapter... 6) Maybe it’s because I’m way out of my teens, maybe it’s because even in my teens and before stories were my safe place, my escape, I do not expect things to be factually correct in stories, but I am a logic driven person, I will see those plot holes and I might even poke through 'em if I find your story good enough that I feel it would be a pity not pointing those things out. You cannot tell a classic vampire story (not the twilight kind of sun sparkling vampires but the sun burn me to ashes kind) and have your group of vampires prancing about at noon of a clear summer day without some sort of reason for that to work. I promise you, I’m not picky, I will accept ridiculous reasons like they were standing under and umbrella covered from head to toes and none of their skin was exposed to the sunlight, but do put the effort to give me a reason why I should believe it was intentional, or do not cry and complain if I do decide to point out dude you’ve normal vampires that are sunbathing and did not become piles of ashes that’s not plausible... 7) Stories are just that, something to listen to, they don’t have to have a moral for them to be worthy of being shared, they don’t have to be a mirror of your thoughts, or they could be a mirror of your beliefs, and if I am commenting on them I’m commenting on the story itself not your connection to it. And I do need you to advertise in advance if there’re things that might be triggerish, because what might be just a mental exercise of stepping outside your shoes, if not done might result in me walking into a panic attack while maybe I was just recuperating for one and trying to find comfort or a distraction. While I as a reader cannot know you author and where you come from, unless you want to make an ass of u and me do not assume you know where I am or what path I’m walking in my life as a reader. 8) I despise people telling me what to do, especially if I didn’t ask for an opinion... If someone (who doesn’t have an economical or authorative position over me) demands me to do something the chances I’ll be do it, especially if I was going to do it before, become nil instantaneously. I’ve been running and lurking in writing circles and fanfictions for closer to three decades at the time this is being written, and from the very beginning I found disgusting and deplorable the practice some authors adopted of bargaining reaching certain numbers of comments/kudos in exchange for the next chapter. I can respect an author saying I don’t want to get this or that, but the final result is that most likely I would walk away without commenting even if it would have been a story I would have otherwise supported. There’re few authors I do know personally, at least superficially through other channels, that have this kind of disclaimers and I still comment. But that’s because I have an appreciation and will to support the person themselves who also happened to be authors.

#long post #LLF inspired #LLF Comment Project related #comments and feedbacks #personal rant #listing differences #between what I write and what I believe #between what is fic and what is reality #between writer and reader mentality #between writing the stories you want to read and exorcism writing #talked about with a pinch of humour #ok maybe dark humour #have I spent hours and probably more spoon on this than it was healthy?#probably so #but it was worth it #or so i hope

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savrenim · 4 years

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Hey man, I am just wandering if I should go for another reread of ifmlam, but I wanna tell you that your writing blows my mind every single time, that your story telling keeps me captivted, that the relationship and dynamics created make me cry cause I know it won't last and that the skill with which you play with the what ifs and the world you created makes me smile. Thank you for the effort you put into you work, and please let me know if there is anything else you've done that I can read.

<3 <3 <3 <3 oh my gods this is. aaaah. thank you so much??? I am Crying.

so I still definitely am writing ifmlam -- the Hamilton film reminded me of some of the reasons that I originally fell in love with Hamilton, and even though my feelings about the setting remain Complicated, and ooof I have so many other projects that updates might be Slow, that is a thing that has definitely been spurred and is still happening.

as for other things I’ve written/am writing which oh my gods oh my gods I cannot believe aaaah I’m so??? glad that you like stuff enough to want to read my other stuff?

--- we raise it up is my current fic that is updating most regularly, it is for The Magnus Archives and it also involves future foreknowledge as a super major plot point, bc oops “give characters knowledge of canon and see what they do with it” is apparently my favorite trope. I am usually very not into podcasts because I don’t process purely auditory things very well? (music is fine, which was why Hamilton worked, but also, I could read the lyrics.) but, uh, I read The Magnus Archives bc all of the transcripts exist online and that’s actually a pretty fun collection of interlacing short stories and worldbuilding and plot and gay! and fandom to get into and I think works just as well in a written medium as it does in an auditory one. the fic is major spoilers through season 4 and also kind of.... does assume background knowledge of seasons 1-4 to make sense, but I’m really really pleased with what I’ve written so far and what I’m planning to write I think the world background lore is maybe the hottest take I’ve ever had and I’m very much looking forward to the second half of the fic, that is kind of all about its reveal

-- the wind, the wind, the wind also known as lesbian Hadestown in space fanfic is something that I’ve been working on for oops a year and it’s finally gotten to the point where I’ve been dragged into an obsessive wanting to work on it and only it, which means that it’ll probably??? be ready for posting??? by the end of the week??? maybe two at most??? I’ll defs post a link on tumblr, but it’ll also go up on my ao3 page, which means if you temporarily subscribe to me as an author there you will not miss it. or just, like, check my ao3 page in a week or two.

-- gay murder elf bachelorette is a solo DnD campaign that a friend has been running for me as an experiment to kind of... flesh out I think a period of history in the world that they run a lot of their main campaigns in? anyways it’s been the experience of living in a novel and less like playing DnD, so I, uh, novelized three of the six arcs I’ve been in so far. they are: -- Book 2: Of Wolves And Ravens: As Told By Three Letters Sent From Cloudfall Fort -- Book 3: Tests of Faith (includes only one in-universe letter the rest of it is mostly dramatic storytelling, I might fix it one day but oooof so many writing projects so little time) -- Book 4:To Stare Into Darkness: The Infestation Incident Of Black Lotus Labs, As Told By Four Letters Unsent, Three Letters Sent, And The Official Report Drafted By Acolyte Consecrate Iria Strell there are also canonical in-universe correspondences that can be found here and here that take place in between Books 3 and 4. I...may or may not write Book 5, which if I do will be Book 5: The Knives Behind Their Teeth: As Told By Consecrated Priest Iria Strell's Personal Notes On The Civilized Corpse Investigation that from the title alone you can tell was a banger (it is even MORE of a banger than the title implies. there was necromancy. there was the gay mess of THREE girlfriends all in the same town. there was Everyone Expects the Caedic Inquisition. there was dramatic truth reveals about my sketchy mentor. there was everything) but that is a balance of amount of time it takes to write these things vs Everything Else I Need To Do and I have recordings of the sessions so it’s not like I need them for memory means...??? we’ll see. the books are.... I really like them? I’m proud of my experimentation with the epistolary writing style. I think Book 4 is definitely better than Book 2 because I learned that I didn’t need to include every detail, and it’s definitely understandable to read without Book 2 if you’re willing to accept things in media res, so if you only read one I recommend that one. but they’re all pretty fun.

-- I’m also defs writing some original novels, that are eventually going to be posted for free online and I’ll probably start a tumblr that is just them but they’ll also be announced and linked to here? there’s The Numanok Files which are “bounty hunter punches ghosts in space” and will probably be coming out first, just bc it’s a series of novellas and it’s easier and less complicated to plot, and then trash novel (actually called “Opus” which has some cool in-universe meanings and is not just because this thing is my Magnum Opus, but trash novel in my heart) that is just. entirely self-indulgent written with zero intention of being good and only to be fun for me but in doing so is idk totally trashy but in some sense maybe the best thing I’ve ever written just in terms of it’s unapologetic and it does what it wants, which is what I like most in a story? but that is defs going to be several years because I want it all written before I start posting it and have I written a full conlang grammar structure and now need to write the language for my favorite fictional society in that universe? it’s more likely than you think. Numanok Files I wouldn’t be surprised if the first book is out within a year; it’s been fully outlined and partially drafted and the full drafting and editing process esp for something under 50k doesn’t really take me too long. I’m kind of transitioning from fanfic to original work just because I’m really excited about my ideas, so at this point I think ifmlam, wriu, and twtwtw are going to be the last fanfic I end up writing? but who knows.

this.... got very long but those are all of the things I’ve worked on and am working on in the immediate future, enjoy??? also gods no pressure to look into or enjoy any of them, I’m just so honored that you’ve enjoyed ifmlam to even consider checking anything else I write out

#webbiejones #ifmlam #my writing #if you have 'spoilers' blacklisted there aren't actually spoilers in this post #just a description of what another fic I'm writing is spoilers through

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rotzaprachim · 5 years

Text

in secret, between the shadow and the soul 1/2

Kanej, Inej-centric. Teen ish, marriage of convenience, 3000 words

(About 6 years post Crooked Kingdom)

Read here on ao3

The apothecary asks her how long it’s been since she’s been intimate with her husband, and Inej almost chokes, says no, she hasn’t been in a very long time. Honesty is always difficult in her carse- dealing with her own past, own demons is hard enough without having to watch other people attempt proper emotional responses on her behalf, and maybe the apothecary senses that because she doesn’t ask more.

----

“It’s legal more than anything. A question of economics,” Kaz said, and Inej nodded, because it's kerch and how could it be anything but? Certainly nothing as tawdry as emotion or desire, let alone love, could interfere with so large a life decision.

Only Kerch citizens can hold berths in the water, and its significantly easier to manage bank accounts and conduct major financial decisions of the kind Inej needs to make on the near daily when restocking her ships. There's one route faster than all the others to becoming a Kerch citizen.

Inej suggested it before Kaz did.

She isn’t ready for marriage, she said. She isn’t ready to be tied to a man, to be anything more or less than herself alone. The Kerch made the whole business easy by never referring to this thing they’re doing as a marriage, all the paperwork is about Economic Units, Civil Unions. There’s so many pages of jargon it made Inej’s eyes bleed. Future children held less inches of fine grey type than agreements on pigs and shipping company stocks, and were described in the same economic language.

Kaz went through the whole thing line by line until the shore she was going to call for an annulment before they’d even gotten the damned thing notarized, or else make herself a tastefully rich and very young widow.

“It’s a contract,” he said. “You should know all the details before you sign your life away.”

“For heaven’s sake,” Inej said, irritated by the last several pages about Property Division in the Event of Medium Sized or Larger Storms, Grisha Attacks, and General Flooding, “I’m not signing my life away.”

“When you get married, it might be difficult to annul if you’ve still got a legal Kerch-”

“When I get married?” she shoots back challengingly. “To who?”

“I don’t know. That fire-tongued revolutionary who writes you poetry and will make you a new world. The Kaelish tavern maid who always pours you a free beer in her bar while you sing about the plight of the repressed. Someone hopelessly moon-eyed and optimistic, who thinks the world shits rainbows and knows what you’re worth.”

“You, Kaz Brekker,” she finally sighed, “are a hell of a lot dumber than they say you are.”

---

She doesn’t tell her parents. She’s not ready for that conversation.

---

She doesn’t tell Nina. She’s not ready for that conversation either.

---

The whole thing was finished in a notary’s office in ten minutes.

Kaz’s gloves were off, more because they both need to be fingerprinted than anything else.

He swore a short, official oath of his loyalty to both her and the Kerch market, promising not to cheat in foreign ports and to provide for and any hypothetical children. She thought of the paid-off indenture and the ship and the found parents and berth twenty-two and and her room in the house in bought on the Zelverstraat and thought that maybe he’s better at doing that than he thinks he is.

She swore a shorter official oath about fidelity and staying true and all her children being her husband’s, because to do otherwise would be bad economics and make her a poor investment, a value-destroyer, on the family line. Because it’s Kerch and of course it is.

---

“What are you thinking about?” he asked her afterward in an attempt at being casual. They’d been sipping at warm lukewarm flagons of beer in one of the harbour’s more reputable establishments and looking out at the water for twenty minutes.

“I’m thinking,” she said slowly, tasting her words, “that Alys Van Eyck is a very, very lucky woman that we came around when we did.” She’s still thinking about the various punishments for women who pollute the family line, which even if motivated by economics over faith as such things would be in Fjerda, are not dissimilar in practice. She’s realising more and more the Kerch neuroticism over bastardry probably comes from having so many of the young men gone for half the year at sea.

Kaz guffawed, which was not a sound she was really used to him making. “You never fail to surprise me, Wraith.”

“How is the Vrouw Dazi”

Kaz shrugged. “Not useful to my purposes anymore. Wylan’s got her an Bajan set up in a little cottage outside Pijl with a tidy sum tied to not making too much noise.”

Sometimes she fantasized about breaking into that cottage and putting on a performance similar to the one that sent Pekka Rollins screaming from Ketterdam. She didn’t, because she didn’t subscribe to the idea of the sins of the father and thought Saartje Kazanja deserved a da with his mental pieces mostly intact. But saints take all, she wanted too.

“How’s Saartje?”

“I don’t know. Kid? Looks more like she could be ours than Jan Van Eyck’s, that’s for sure.

The tips of Kaz’s ears went red before he finished that sentence and he stared into the foam at the bottom of his glass, head turned decisively away from her.

“Fine, I think. In school now. No reason to keep tabs.”

They toasted her new Kerch citizenship. Inej swore she saw his hand shaking.

----

Her citizenship documents, stamped with a wax seal of three flying fish and a small Kerch flag came three days later, expedited by Kaz in ways she cannot begin to fathom. It’s only then she realised that they’re for the new Vrouw Rietveld, that she made her vows to Kasper Rietveld. It’s only logical- Rietveld can be the upstanding businessman who only exists on paper in a way Kaz Brekker cannot, all the better for her dowings, but it still feels like a piece of himself gifted to her.

She could forge Rietveld’s name for her own purposes too; they practiced on old betting slips that she then threw into the fire. Kerch women can legally make almost every kind of financial decision and dealing, less due to the Merchers’ Council’s upstanding opinion of the female gender than the portion of the year the men are at sea, the incredible odds they won’t come back.

(They’ve rather flipped that scenario.

“How much cross-stitch will you do do fill up the void of my absences, she chided him. “They say the old sailor’s wives used to knit lace from the white froth of the sea.” Nowadays Wealthy Kerch women waiting for their husbands to come home tended to stick to knitting hats and scarves for orphans. So saints-damned many hats and socks, and yet you could still scarcely move for the number of bare-headed, barefoot orphans come winter. It was one of Ketterdam’s greatest mysteries.

“Inej,” Kaz sayid, eyes closed, genuine concern cutting his voice. Ever more she was picking up a sailor’s sense of gallows humour.)

---

They exchanged rings at the registry. Inej’s was a simple band, no gemstones but she suspected it was solid gold. Inside was etched a wave pattern, an endless strip of open sea.

Wearing it on her finger meant something, soo she looped it onto a sturdy chain that she hid between her shirt and her beating heart. That seemed appropriate, doable. Young sailors often took the bracelets and handkerchiefs of their sweethearts out to sea as good luck tokens; Inej had a gold wedding band.

Kaz’s fingers brushed the chain in the warm dip between neck and collar as he said goodbye to her on the docks, and after she nodded infinitesimally, telling him to go on, finish this chapter of the story, he slowly pulled up the rest of the chain and found the band.

“I thought-” he said, but she looked him in the eyes, square as she could, and he halted. She doesn’t know what he thought.

“There was not and is not and will probably me a different man for me than you, Kaz Brekker.

He swallowed thickly and then slowly lifted her skin-warmed band to his lips, even though he did not believe in luck, had said he believed in nothing but her.

---

The Kerch don’t have seperate words for “husband’ and “man.”

---

“Mijn mann,” she says in response to the curious looks her crew gives her after the band slips free during repair work, and it doesn’t feel like anything more or less than the truth.

“Mijn mann,” she says tacitly when border authorities raise their eyebrows in suspicion at her Kerch passport.

“Mijn mann,” she begins her letters back to him. “Dearest Inej,” his come back, sometimes even “Loveliest Inej,” but he never uses a possessive pronoun form.

---

Having any kind of passport, official documentation, feels alien and strange. She comes from a people without a land, and for her entire childhood they Suli were denied any official documentation of Ravkan citizenship. That’s changing now, but many are still wary, and with very good reason to be.

---

The quick bureaucratic sketch to mark Vrouw Inej Rietveld as a Seetsen Van Det Kerchrepublik, looked absolutely nothing like the drawings on the three individual sets of national wanted posters that keep cropping up in seedy port cities. Absolutely none of the above get her nose right.

“I look white in this one,” she said, holding a particularly egregious example up to Aigerim, who commiserate mightily. “Look how fucking straight this nose is. No eyebrows.”

Hitting the nose furnishes very fun target practice for when her fingers itch to throw knives.

Inej wins a lot of games of darts in a lot of seamy seaside pubs tucked into a lot of different gritty port cities.

---

They dock in Pijl before Ketterdam to catch their breath and do repairs. Ketterdam’s a good place for business and to look for secrets and plan strategy but a shite location to re-sew a sail or patch up a wall, unless you like replacing your supplies every time they’re stolen. The prices of grain and barrels of water and apples are lower are lower closer to the fields as well, even if that involves bartering loudly in a Centraalmarket that smells like spilled cider and pig shit, straw crunching underfoot, rather than the hallowed halls of the Exchange.

It takes her three days to come down with the evil hybrid chest cold-stomache flu of her fucking life. Ameera shoves her back into bed with ginger tea and another blanket. The thing they don’t tell you about awesome pirate ships with awesome international crews is that you also get the full spectrum of awesome international germs.

By the fourth day, she’s putting on all three of her coats and stuffing a wad of kruge and her passport into a pocket to visit the clinic in town.

---

Other people seem to register this whole being-married business than Inej ever does. She just prefers the expedited customs lines.

The splotchy faced, matronly woman at the clinic sits her on a paper-covered table and reads through a list of questions on a clipboard. Nian loves the lab smell of pure alcohol, would probably dab it on as perfume if she could, but Inej only associates it with injury, with being patched and stitched up after a bad scrape, with the white-coated doctor who came in every two weeks to swab Tante Heleen’s girls for disease, with the brown bottle of the stuff she uses to clean blood and worse off of her knives.

“Family history of pulmonary infections?” the woman asks her. “Smoking, alcohol, jurda use?” Every question makes her squirm slightly, as if in the historyof her wheezing lunghs is some sin she’s committed and will only now find out about. Nejn, nejn, nejn. Inej forgot how much she hated being looked at.

No grisha in her family that she knows of- scribble scribble scribble- but a lot of bad eyesight.

“When was the last time you had intimate relations with your husband?” the woman asks bluntly, and that’s the question that knocks the air out from her. The woman’s thin yellow eyebrow quirks up, but Inej manages to disguise her gasp as a particularly bad fit of hacking. She knows its nothing but a bit of intrusive medical questioning, but words can have many meanings and the answers to questions can be both yes and no at the same time and a certain turn of phrase can punch like a fist and cut like a knife. So she just says “six months ago,” and gives the woman her answer for the write-up.

“Long time.”

“He’s a sailor. I cry as I wait for him to return to me.”

“Ghezen’s speed that he does.”

---

She isn’t quite sure the Kerch even believe in Ghezen as anything beyond a bit of window-dressing to their financial affairs and the punchlien to jokes. Not like she honours her saints, the small painted icon of Sankta Inej she also keeps next to her heart, her daily prayers in the dark comfort her her room. She stands with Merjan, one of her crewmates, at the grave of Sankta Mahari, Queen of Mercy and Patroness of the Lost as they read the ancient prayers together, their voices settling into the steadiness of bees. Our queen, protector of our people, give us mercy, pray for peace, pray for us, pray to bring light to the shadows of the things we have done.

Sankta Anastasia, Sankt Dmitri, Sankta Mahari, she whispers into her knuckles, her fingers moving along the prayer rope with the decisive snapping of wooden beats, pray for our safety in the storm and bring us to the shore.

---

If Inej has found her own name, written with a familar jagged hand, among the prayer-knots tied to the Zentzbridge in a plea of mercy from the sea, she will not mention it.

---

Ketterdam is ugly and bright and familiear. You can smell the rotting flesh and beer smell before you see the smoky smudge of the city on the horizon. The crew makes quick work of unfolding the grishaworked official three-flying-fish flag that gives them clearance to enter the harbour without having their decks searched by the council of tides and carefully docks at Berth 22. Considering that the berths are now being numbered out into the two-hundereds, its a plum location, but its also damn close to the action, meaning that she can already see the glimmer of plastic beads floating on the water, the dark smudges of drunkards bobbing along. A few of the crew memebrs are going to get their pockets picked right off the bat. Inej already has a slush fund tucked away for precisily this reason. She’s getting better at this, she hopes, being a leader. Predicting what will happena dn why and when. Being someone that other people- many younger and more vulnerable than her- can rely on.

“AIGERIM,” she screams as she buttons up her city coat, “only two of thsoe pink trinks with the paper umbrellas MAXIMUM. You hear me?”

“Yeah, boss.”

She sighs. She doesn’t want to be anyone’s boss. “If there’s anything like what happened with the canal and the Stadwatch last time happens again, I think I’ll find the decks need a good scrubbing.”

Aigerim gestures wildly. “Course, boss..”

She tries to take deep rbeaths to calm her nerves. Maybe she’s becoming a worried old crone forty years early, but she’s the one who survived this hellhole of a city. She’s the one who survived this far. In this world, twenty-three is a badge of honour.

---

He cuts a familar figure on the docks. THey each have their own webs now, know of each other’s doings three or four times removed, like recognising a faovrite drinking song on it’s third round of translation. The recognition of a familiar trick, hand, murder method. Kaz will read in a news paper of a mysterious storm that’s tripled the price of indigo and sweet-wood fans after a whole line of ships went missing off the Southern Pelagic Reefs and Inej will hear in a greasy Kaelish bar about the shocking downfall of an old Kerch trading family and they will each smile, privately, and admire the other’s handiwork.

But seeing him in person is something altogether different, and she still rushes over the slats of the quay, coat streaming behind her, stopping abruptly when she comes to him. They pause there for a second and then he lifts his arms and they wrap themselves together around each other, hesitantly but then warmly, firmly, sturdy as a sailor’s knot and with all the inevitability of the sea wearing stone to sand.

“I’ve missed you, Wraith,” he says into her hair and she shrugs into him, her head level with his chest. His chin rests neatly on her head now, if he leans down slighlty, and she swears that wasnt the case the first time they embraced, the first time she left Ketterdam. He denies that the Ice Court, Van Eyck, all that happened while he was a boy not finished with growing. Yet she herself’s tried on that first Wraith outfit- a costume of sorts, really, how different was it from the Scarab Queen’s glass-bead veil in the third act of the Komedie Brute- to find it no longer fit, that she couldn’t easily do up the buttons on the front. She has more of a woman’s set of curves to her hips and long, hard-earned muscles on her legs and thighs, and even if she is creating some new kind of legend it is under her own name now.

Sometimes, Ketterdam feels like that too-small jacket; it cannot fit the woman she’s becoming. So she sews herself a new coat from the fabric of the world.

“Mijn mann,” she says, because she likes the way his body flinches and then stills under her fingers with those words, sharp and unexpected as any knife. “I’ve missed you too.”

#my writings #kanej #i'm surreee there's spelling mistakes #kaz brekker #inej ghafa #kaz x inej #kaz brekker x inej ghafa #kanej fic #six of crows fic #grishaverse fic

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lightasthesun · 4 years

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Hey friend! I wanted to know where a good place is to start posting fan fiction? I know Archive of Our Own has so much. That’s where I’ve found some of my favorite things. I just want to ask someone who reads more regularly than I do.

Hey to you too vod! You came to the right person.

While I started reading on FF.net and then gravitated to Wattpad over the years, I personally think AO3 (Archive of Our Own) is the best platform to share fanfiction. It's not only the most popular and well-known one but also has the best features.

You can filter relationships and characters as well as tag if it's a slow-burn or a fix-it fic etc.

You can bookmark a story when you want to safe it or subscribe to it if you want to be notified via email about an update.

You can edit your writing on the website in many ways, even if Wattpad is easier to use in this case.

You can filter topics or relationships that you want to exclude (trauma, ptsd etc) and other things.

I feel like it's way easier to find a specific fic or genre on AO3 but if you want to be on a more personal level with your readers, Wattpad might be your choice.

Now, Fanfiction.net is just incomprehensible to me. I don't know how to search for anything specific whether relationships or characters and you certainly can't exclude any triggering topics, believe me I've been reading fics for years I don't know how people do it.

Having said all that, I recommend AO3 because it's:

The one people use most often

Easy to filter through so readers can find your work again

For free and doesn't have any advertising

Comprehensible and uncomplicated.

I'd recommend Wattpad if you want to regularly chat with your readers and be notified on the website for an update and to edit your writing but being on a more personal level via DM makes you also more accessible to hate, negative comments and whatever else.

Fanfiction.net I wouldn't recommend at all.

However maybe it's worth thinking about posting on both AO3 and Wattpad to share on both platforms! Wattpad is certainly a great way to save your drafts for free that's what I do.

I hope I could be of some help to you and if you have any more questions feel free to ask! :)

#Hope I could help you out!#answered ask #Fanfiction #This is rather long...#Writing

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five-wow · 4 years

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Hi, I'm a fellow writer in the fandom and I admire your work. I wanted to ask, as a popular writer, do you get fixated sometimes on the number of kudos/comments/hits etc that your new work gets, and does this impact your motivation/inspiration? I think comparison is the thief of joy, and I really want to get over this feeling when I post my own work, so was wondering if even popular and regular writers such as yourself feel like this to, and if , what's your secret? Thanks!

Hi! 1) You are so sweet, ahh, and 2) YES, I DO. Gosh, yes, I absolutely do get insecure about those kinds of things, and I think that anyone who says they don't ever feel that way is either lying (to themselves, possibly) or maybe just pure magic, like some cross between a writer and a unicorn.

I love ao3 and I love all of its metrics and I love numbers and statistics, but there’s definitely that shadow side where having all of that easily available makes it deceptively easy to compare your own work to other people’s. I do it all the time! It honestly makes it a little hard for me at times to read h50 fic and fully enjoy it, because I keep... looking at it and wondering how my own stacks up against it, unwillingly. That's not a relaxing experience, and sometimes not even a very fun one. (Another part of it is that I just write SO MUCH for h50 and there is SO MUCH I still want to write, and I don’t want to risk reading something that’s very close to an idea I had and then never being quite sure if what I write after that was influenced by the other person’s work or if it’s really still my idea, because I have this (pretty irrational) fear of accidentally stealing someone else’s work even though one of the really great things about fandom is that it’s a very collaborative process as a whole and being inspired by other people’s stuff is usually totally okay, buuuut that’s a different rambly story.)

And I definitely do also get... some cringey feelings, hardcore, around fics I posted that don't do very well numbers-wise. Sometimes it's expected - fic that doesn't follow traditional formats or doesn't feature Steve/Danny, for example, is always something where I KNOW it won't get as much attention because I know how fandom works and that lessens the sting because it doesn't HAVE to hold up to those other fics that perform way better, because I already know it's not really comparable. The truth is, of course, that most fic is not really comparable to other fic, but it’s easy to fall into that trap anyway. If I post something that seems like my average kind of work and it gets less kudos or comments than usual, I do start to doubt the fic and second-guess myself - is something about this weird? Is it too [insert quality x]? Is it bad? Did I unknowingly do something terrible and people are now avoiding me? The answer to all of those is probably no, and going through it a bunch of times has definitely helped, because what usually happens is that I end up somewhat avoiding the fic in question because it makes me a little ashamed and awkward to think about it (a relative failure! oh no! I'm human!) and then, eventually, I return and reread the fic. By that point I have enough distance from it in time that I can look at it a lot more objectively, and it's way easier to see what works and what does not than when I posted it and I had just read it a dozen times in twenty-four hours and the words were burned into my brain. And upon that reread, inevitably, I realize that, holy shit, it was NOT AS BAD as I had made it out to be in my mind! It’s actually kind of fun! Imagine the ego boost of realizing your most cringy recent work is actually pretty okay, haha, and it's silly, but it's a revelation every time. The quality of a fic is not dictated by how many people read it or comment on it or like it, and intellectually I absolutely know that, but it’s hard to remember when it’s about yourself and you’re still in that emotionally vulnerable place of having just shared your work with the world and it feels like the world is not as into it as you thought (or hoped) it’d be. It’s honestly very, very reassuring to have those experiences to fall back on, but sadly the only way I know to get there is to just tough it out and feel super awkward for a while.

When I’m writing, on the other hand, I usually don’t really think about what other people might think of it. I have the advantage that (pretty much) all of my work consists of fairly short stand alone stories, which means I don’t have to struggle with keeping my motivation up for a second chapter of something but I get to start fresh every time, and that’s nice, because I can just lose myself in the joy of throwing words around and making characters do things that make me giggle. That’s not to say I never think of the outside world while writing - I realized, pretty recently, that I occasionally end up constructing paragraphs or pieces of dialogue a certain way mostly so it will make for a good excerpt to put in the eventual fic description, which might give me a sense of accomplishment because it’s nice when things work out and look good, but in all fairness it’s probably far more motivated by attempts to package the finished work attractively so other people will want to click on it than by anything else. I don’t know if that’s a bad thing. I don’t think so - I don’t feel like it lessens my work and it doesn’t interrupt my enjoyment of it in the moment, which are the key elements for me - but other people might disagree.

But the heart of thing is, just, there are SO MANY factors that influence a fic’s numbers, and not all of them are visible (I’d argue most of them aren’t, in fact), and it always helps me to keep that in mind. It puts things in perspective somewhat and softens the harshness of a black and white kudo count judgment. Numbers can depend on when you post a fic (what day of the week, time of the year, time relative to big fandom moments, whether you’re in the middle of a global pandemic or not), how you pick your title, what you put in the description, how you use the tags, what genres or tropes are popular in your specific fandom, the genre of your fic in general (pwp as a rule tends to get lots of hits and few kudos or comments, for example, making it totally unfair to compare it to G-reated fluff fic with super different ratios), how much you’ve posted before (because if someone likes one of your works, they’re often likely to check if you have more in the same fandom), how many fics other people post around the same time (because yours might be gone from the first page of most recently updated works in a fandom or ship tag very quickly if others push it out), how big your fandom is(!!!) (over two thirds of my works on ao3 are for h50, but h50 only makes it into the top 10 of my most kudo’d works by the skin of its teeth) and definitely also what your fandom’s culture is like (compared to a lot of other fandoms, h50 fans are a-ma-zing when it comes to leaving comments, my gosh, and as a writer I adore all of you), how old your ao3 account is (the longer you’ve been around, the more likely a higher number of people is subscribed to you as an author or has read your previous work or has encountered your name, etc), how long your fic is (under a thousand words in my experience generally does less well than 1-5k, but longer fics might end up with lots of chapters which switches things up because people come back to it when there’s an update, and even if a long work is all in one chapter it will probably stand out for the wordcount and might attract attention that way, etc), whether or not your fic is part of a series (in my experience it will probably get more hits because it’s a chain of fics that leads you to the next one, but the kudos might not go up at the same rate because people might forget a kudo or reread previous works when a new one is added), whether you make a habit of commenting on other people’s fic (I’ve had comments saying MY comment on their work led them to my fic!), if you have social media like Tumblr or Twitter where you can promote your work (it’s advertising, basically), and any of a bunch of random little other factors. Sometimes, I see a sudden little cluster of kudos on an old fic in the daily ao3 kudos email, and I assume someone somewhere maybe recced that fic, but it usually remains a total mystery who or where or even if it happened at all and wasn’t just a weird coincidence to begin with. Sometimes the thing a fic’s popularity depends on is really just whether it clicks with people at that point in time, whatever that means, which is an even more impossible thing to grasp or predict than anything else.

Or you can look at things from a totally different angle and not try to make yourself care less about numbers, but just accept that you do because you’re human and we all crave validation, and instead try to roll with that. A brain hack: when I do start getting down about numbers, it also helps me to focus on one work and just... try to visualise what those kudo (or hit or bookmark or comment) counts mean, if you were to translate them to the real world. While it can be super helpful to remember that there’s a LOT going on that you can’t see and that’s virtually impossible to really explain, it’s also nice to somewhat do the opposite and try to make things as concrete as possible instead. I like measuring in school classes (~25-30 heads, I’d say) and “my fic only has fifty kudos but this other person’s has ten times as many” could easily make anyone sad and demotivated, but “my fic has fifty kudos and that’s TWO WHOLE CLASSROOMS packed full of people that all read my work and liked it so much they wanted to give me a little thumbs up for it” is actually pretty cool and encouraging, I think. Or you could measure in sports teams (I don’t know sports, but soccer has 11 players on the field per team, so as soon as your fic has 33 kudos that’s three teams which means you’ve got yourself a little beginning league! how exciting!) or in DnD campaigns (variable of course, but most of mine have had around four players plus a DM, so if you have twenty kudos? that’s FOUR WHOLE DnD campaigns that enjoyed reading your fic, and it’s fully up to you how many half-orcs that includes). You could apply this method using literally any other measurement that works for you, too. If you have a hard time painting a mental image of numbers, you could even open up a Paint doc or get a piece of paper and start counting out little dots or copy-pasted images of a person, or get a big bag of physically present M&Ms and count them out, or take a good look at your dog and then go around the neighborhood and collect forty-nine more dogs and pile them all into your home and be slightly frightened by the utter delighted fluffy chaos that ensues in your living room. That’s how many people liked your fic! That’s a heck of a lot of wagging tails! Who knew a kudo could bark this loudly!

Disclaimer: maybe keep the dog thing as your very last resort, because your neighbors might not be super into their pet getting dognapped for the purpose of visualizing fanfiction stats. The point is really just to remember that there’s an actual person behind every kudo you get, no matter what the cumulative number is, and even if you have seven or five or three kudos, that’s seven or five or three very real people that hit that button. That’s pretty damn awesome. Also keep in mind how you feel if you read a fic, and take some time to realize that every single person that left you a kudo went through that same process of spending time reading words (the words you wrote!) and experiencing that story and THAT’S why they left that kudo. It’s a real person’s real investment.

This ended up very long and rambly, so tl;dr: You are in no way alone in feeling that way, it's okay and normal and so very very human to feel like that, but you still shouldn't let it get you down, because numbers fake being meaningful very well but are deep down just little squiggles on your screen and they’re more scared of you than you are of them, while at the same time there are real individuals that enjoy your work even if you usually never see them. Your fic is worth posting. That’s the one factor in all of this that’s a constant, not a variable.

(And as a very important sidenote, just be kind to yourself, always. Does it truly stress you out? Are you feeling really bad about it today? Does it make your anxiety spike? Then give yourself room to take a little step back and allow yourself some time away from it. Go watch something you enjoy, or read something nice, or do something else that makes you feel good. Fic is something that should add to your life, not subtract from it. You don’t owe anyone anything, not even yourself in this context, and I used to push myself occasionally to get something finished TODAY, and eventually I started realizing, well, why? Why not instead of reading it over again just get some sleep or watch an episode of something I want to watch, especially if I literally just finished the fic and I feel a little unsure about it and it might actually be beneficial to me and my own feelings about it if I just give it a day or even a week and let it rest and then look at it again and THEN post it, if I want to, whether that’s with some changes beforehand or not? Who set me that deadline that’s apparently looming over me? I did, and it’s fake, and it’s there for absolutely no good reason. Breathe. Put yourself first. Be really really really selfish about your own fic writing experience, even, because it’s supposed to be something you enjoy (that’s what a hobby is!), and the rest is secondary.)

#anon #ask #writing #ao3 #it's very odd to get called a popular writer by the way oh my gosh #nice!!! so very nice!!! thank you!!! but also difficult to reconcile with my own internal image of myself #all the more evidence that brains lie to us all the time #*

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novantinuum · 5 years

Link

Fandom: Steven Universe

Rating: General Audiences

Words: 4.6K~

Summary: In another world, he doesn’t have his mother’s sword or shield to hide behind when Bismuth lands her strike. The bubble pops.

Steven falls apart.

Chapter summary: In which Greg receives some answers, Bismuth faces her consequences, and Steven really needs to go to bed.

First | Last chapter

While I’m cross posting all of these to tumblr, I’d love to have your support over on AO3 too! Plus, it’s easier to subscribe there. A win-win, I’d say. Excitingly, this is the longest chapter yet.

Chapter 5: Onward

“So… hold on,” Greg says slowly, raising his hand to cut off the others’ incessant yammering. “Just lemme- let me take a moment to see if I can properly wrap my head around everything. So you’re saying that—“

He turns on the one they identified as Bismuth, pointing at her with such ferocity that his finger might as well be a— what did they call it again? Oh, yes!— a ‘breaking point’ itself.

“—that she tried to kill my son by smashing his gem?”

“Mmmhmm,” Garnet nods.

As usual her eyes are entirely hidden behind her opaque visor, something that always made getting to know the Gem particularly daunting in those early days, but by now he’s close enough to infer her full disposition from her body language and tone alone. And as far as he can tell from the clipped words and stiff movements, she’s pissed. The full brunt of her anger is thankfully restrained… he imagines for Steven’s sake. He hugs his son closer, the boy currently nestled against his midsection and sitting on the fountain’s rim. Garnet sits on his other side, with Amethyst next to Steven. Pearl, meanwhile, kneels on the ground holding a surprisingly deep-cut gemstone in her lap, the very gemstone that by all rights should be embedded in his son’s navel but currently isn’t. He frowns and tugs at his hair (a bad habit of his, over the decades), finding his thoughts growing more and more fragmented over this by the second.

“But she only tried to kill him because she thought he was Rose… who bubbled her thousands of years ago because she wanted her to shatter Pink Diamond. But then Rose actually was Pink Diamond… all along? And somehow fake shattered herself?”

“Yup, that’s pretty much it,” Steven says with a faint laugh, no amount of falsified cheer able to conceal the conflict brewing within him. Greg watches him clutch at the bottom hem of his shirt, and his heart nearly shatters right there on its own. His boy’s grown worryingly savvy as of late, plastering on a brave face whenever he thinks the others can’t handle the full burden of a child’s stress. He probably assumes he’s getting away with it, too. His mistake. One of the many things fathers grow attuned to over the years is the habits and facial tics of their children. All that said, if this is troubling for him, he can’t begin to imagine how traumatic and confusing this upheaval is for Steven.

God, and he’s only fourteen! He shouldn’t have to deal with any of Rose’s war fallout.

“And then,” Greg continues, gesturing between his son and the pink gem Pearl holds, “before she could actually kill him he split in two?”

“It was almost like he abruptly unfused,” Bismuth supplies, maintaining a healthy distance from the rest of the group.

“But it didn’t feel like fusion at all,” Steven says, and shudders. “It hurt, it hurt really bad.”

“He was unconscious for at least a minute. The half with the gem, the pink one, started screaming and tried to fight me away from him but I knew I had to get him off the forge’s surface so he didn’t burn.” The rainbow haired Gem hangs her head in shame. “I was so worried he wouldn’t wake up ‘coz of me.”

“Yeah, sure ya’ were,” Amethyst spits, and crosses her arms.

Pearl’s eyes narrow with a precise intensity. “Amethyst, please. Not now.”

Contrary to whatever assumptions on her he held before, Bismuth shows no inclination to argue in any vain hope of saving face. Instead she stands stiff before the group, appearing just as haunted by the consequences of her actions as Steven is. While the back-and-forth between her and the Crystal Gems continues, her fingers twitch, desperately yearning for something to tinker with. As someone who frequently seeks out the reliable comfort of strumming improvised chords on his guitar in times of stress, he can relate. Of course, far be it for him to excuse this new Gem’s actions when they almost cost him his only son, but at least she has the decency to express remorse over it. He’s furious at her, he truly is, and yet… He also can’t help but feel a twinge of pity lighten his heart upon hearing her side of the story. Huh, funny. Normally he’s more apt to harbor a stone cold grudge over this sort of stuff. He blames his kid’s influence.

“I was angry at Rose, not Steven,” Bismuth says as he tunes back in to the conversation. “I was so sure that this was all just another one of her lies that I— well, you all know. But when I saw what I’d done…. When they split apart and he fell to the ground, I—!”

Her voice cracks, and he watches her nearly crumble like chalk.

“I- I made a terrible mistake, and I’m genuinely sorry,” she finishes.

“‘Kay, so you’re super sorry and promise never to hurt him again, we get it,” Amethyst says, blunt sarcasm oozing from her words. “But seriously, is no one gonna address the ginormous cluster hangin’ over our heads? Y’guys! New headline! We just found out Rose was a total sham!”

Steven holds up a finger as he interjects. “Actually, we don’t know anything except that she was apparently Pink Diamond, but…”

“Yeah, and Pink D’s like, the bad guy, Steven! She’s the reason they had to fight this whole stupid war in the first place! And then, what? She creates you just so she doesn’t have to deal with the fact she’s a liar?”

The young teen shrinks away from her anger, a lump forming in his throat. Greg’s jaw clenches. His hand tightens around his son’s midsection.

“None of this is Steven’s fault,” Garnet says quietly, firmly placing her sapphire laden hand on the purple Gem’s shoulder to quiet her down. She shrugs away at her touch, lips jutting into a pout.

“Or any of yours’," Pearl says.

Greg’s eyes lock on the slender Gem at her abrupt comment, and he watches with apt attention as her thumb glides across the largest facet of the diamond in her lap. Hearing her voice comes as a surprise, as she’s been unusually absent from this conversation thus far. It seems none of the others want to talk about it in depth right now, but apparently she’s forbidden from mentioning anything about Pink Diamond. It’s yet another betrayal, yet another reason why the sight of the rose blossoms growing wild around them and the delicately carved curly-haired statue at the fountain’s center leaves him with uncertainty gnawing at the pit of his stomach.

And yet… and yet.

What if he’s being a hypocrite about all of this? It’s not like he told Rose everything about his past, either. Rose was a diamond, sure, but— he’s a DeMayo. There’s a number of dark days attached to that name he’d rather let die in the past too. Are they really entitled to the full narrative of the life she left behind? Is anyone?

He scratches at his scalp. “Listen, Amethyst. I understand all of you are upset, and rightfully so. I can’t exactly say I’m thrilled to hear all of this either. But the bottom line is… I know the woman I loved. Maybe not for long, but I grew to know her in ways far more intimate than even some of you. And if there’s one thing I can say for absolute certainty, it’s that… despite her mistakes, despite everything else she probably lied about, her love and respect for all of you was not a sham.”

Pearl nods. “I almost can’t believe I’m agreeing with Greg of all people, but he’s right.”

“And you’re entitled to believe that,” Garnet says evenly. “But no matter what we believe, I still think it’s wise to try not to make assumptions about her in the first place. Either good, or bad. At this point, what we know is what we know, and I can’t see any easy way of changing that in the near future.”

“So, what are we supposed to do about all this now?” Amethyst asks, all her earlier anger dissipated in her exhaustion.

She considers this for a second, visor glinting in the glow of sunrise.

“Nothing.”

“What?”

The fusion doesn’t budge an inch. “We don’t change our tactics.”

“But- but if she was our leader, and we always just blindly followed what she wanted, then—“

“No matter her original intentions, the Crystal Gems, as a movement, is far bigger than one diamond,” she says. “We move onward. We thrive. Never mind Rose.”

Steven squirms in his embrace, and in a small, timid voice— a jarring reminder of the child he still is despite his recent leap in emotional maturity— asks the question he’s sure has been weighing on him ever since he got split apart in the first place.

“What about me, and my—“ he tries and fails to stifle a yawn— “my gem? What am I supposed to do now?”

“We’ll deal with your Gem half when he reforms, and he will,” Garnet says gently. “But right now, you need your rest. We all do. Pearl, Amethyst, help him to the temple and get him tucked into bed. Bismuth, Greg. I need to speak to both of you.”

Everyone nods at the Crystal Gem leader’s directions, and they all act accordingly. His eyes drooping just as much as his son’s despite the pink tinted skies and chirping meadowlarks, Greg helps him stand to his feet. Steven’s knees still quiver but thankfully this time he doesn’t crumple. Pearl loops one of her arms through his, still holding his gem in her opposing hand, and together they begin to plod towards the warp pad they arrived earlier. Amethyst follows them but notably lags behind, guilt written across her face clear as day. She delivers one final glance at Bismuth, razor sharp and flaring with hurt, and then disappears in the orchard’s shadow.

A palpable silence brews between the two remaining Gems then, uncomfortable enough that he’s almost left with sweat beading on his brow just watching them. Eventually doing so becomes too stressful, and he moves to retrieve the downy comforter that’s long since been forgotten on the stone midway to the fountain. He folds the bedding as compact as he can, and drapes it over his non dominant arm, distantly acknowledging that it’ll have to go in the wash. He wishes he could’ve gone home with Steven too. What does she need a human like him for right now, anyways? He’s no fighter, or mediator. The cool grey one blows a nervous puff of air from between her lips and wraps her hands around a few strands of her rainbow dreads. Garnet‘s expression twists into a frown. Stepping towards her, she crosses her arms.

“Bismuth…”

“If you’re going to bubble me away again, just say it,” she blurts out, hanging her head in resignation.

Ever so subtly, Garnet tilts her head as if caught off guard by the visceral hurt pooling in the other Gem's words. In any case, her tone remains steady.

“We’re not bubbling you.”

“What? You’re—?”

“It was avoidable miscommunication that led to that the first time. I won’t let that happen again, especially not to a friend. However,” she says, holding up a finger before the other Gem can interject, “as consequence for striking a fellow Crystal Gem in cold blood, until further notice you are no longer welcome in the temple. You will not seek us out. You will in no circumstance find yourself alone with Steven. If we require your help and you are willing, we’ll call for it. But for now, until we’re ready to begin to forgive, you’re on your own.”

Bismuth’s gaze turns up towards her once more, sober in silent acceptance. She blinks rapidly to stave away the tears, and her lips press together tight. Greg’s unsure if the emotion she’s desperately barring away is remorse about her exile or shell shocked relief that she won’t be bubbled away for another five millennia.

“I encourage you to explore this planet as you reflect upon your actions,” Garnet continues. “I think you’ll find a lot has changed since the rebellion… and I think that with time, so can we all.”

“Am I relieved now?” she asks, voice thick and wavering.

She regards her with a long, searching look as she deliberates. “Yes. You may go.”

At first Bismuth spins on her heels, making to leave, but apparently something else stirs on her soul because she pauses. Taking a deep breath, she whirls back around to face the fusion.

“I know this probably doesn’t count for much after all that happened, but. I truly am sorry, for everything.” She turns to regard him directly, her gaze piercing but sincere. “Tell Steven that I hope he can forgive me one day.” And, to the other Gem: “And tell Pearl I’m sorry for what she had to go through, with Pink.”

“I will.”

“Take care of them, would you? Yourself, too.”

Garnet nods. Perhaps as a final sign of goodwill between old war comrades, she offers her hand. The way she does leaves the sapphire on her palm fully exposed. Greg bets it’s a powerful and evocative gesture to a Gem who is being punished for almost shattering another. It’s a salve, an acknowledgement that you can become better, and I trust that you already are.

Bismuth links her broad fingers between hers, and exhales shakily. “Goodbye, old friend. I hope I’ll see you again one day. And hey, if any of you ever… bismuth me,” she jokes with a weak laugh, “you know where I’ll be.”

She gives her hand a gentle squeeze, and then breaks away. Her eyes can’t quite meet theirs.

“Go in peace,” Garnet says.

Greg and her watch in quiet respect as the rainbow haired Gem turns on a dime and departs from them, leaving both the fountain and the ranks of the Crystal Gems behind as she fades beyond the shadow of the grove. They wait. Not too long after, a bar of pure cyan light shoots to the sky, accompanied by that resonant bell like tone he’s long associated with the warp pads. At the sound some of the tension in his companion’s form finally eases. She reaches to wipe under her visor. Geeze, tonight’s really been a high emotion day for her as well, huh? First she’s reunited with an old friend she hasn’t seen face to face in millennia, and then later that evening she’s met with the terrifying threat of Steven’s mortality…wherein she learns that this same old friend is the reason he’s cleaved apart and cracked to begin with. And then there’s all of Rose’s lies, which— as much as he loved her— he’s sure he’ll also have to wrestle with in the coming season.

She sighs, and turns to him.

“And as for you...”

He scratches at his scalp. “Heh heh, am I in trouble too?”

She chuckles briefly, lips turning up in a soft smile. “No, of course not. The truth is, I need your help. I can’t always… be here, to look after Steven.”

His brow creases. Such oddly specific words from such an articulate person. ‘Be here?’ What does she mean, that she’s leaving the other Gems? That she’s going on some extended mission? And why now, of all times?

“What do you mean?”

“My future vision is clouded, incomplete, but I can sense we’re approaching a crossroads.” She lays both gems on his shoulders, and suddenly her visor flashes away, her three eyes intensely pouring into his, searching, beseeching. It’s the single most vulnerable expression he’s ever seen her convey.

“Greg. He trusts you with matters he doesn’t always trust us with. I know you’ve mostly kept your distance from Gem activities up to this point, but the time is coming when you won’t be able to separate these worlds anymore. I need you to keep a close watch on him. For me. Promise me you’ll do that.”

“O- of course,” he says, mind nervously whirring with an infinitude of uncertain futures based on this new information, and oh golly, does this even lay a finger to what she experiences every moment of every day? “But if you don’t mind me asking, what’s coming? What crossroads?”

“I don’t know,” she admits, her gaze falling wayward. “I can barely see the shape of our future anymore, only faint impressions. And… and that terrifies me. So much has changed so quickly.”

She’s nearly quivering, eyes blown wide, and Greg only now realizes the degree to which he took her unyielding strength for granted all this time. He rocks back and forth on the balls of his bare feet, reaching for an answer on what to do, what to say to support a person who until now, has never been in need of that support.

“Are… you handling things okay?”

Garnet clamps her lips together, taking a moment to ground herself once more. Then with a intentional flick of her fingers, her visor shimmers back into place.

“No,” she says evenly. “No, I’m afraid I’m not.”

He exhales with a prolonged, meandering sigh when the two of them finally reach the temple, solid crystal phasing into existence under his feet in a bright flash of cyan. Despite how long he’s known the Gems, a trip through the warp stream is a rarity for him. In the beginning that was mostly Pearl’s doing— with her staunch refusal of allowing humans anywhere near Gem structures vocal enough to convince Rose to leave him behind. Thankfully Pearl began to tolerate him enough in the later years of the relationship that she lifted the ban. After that he and Rose would occasionally steal away on dates in exotic locations only accessible by warp pad, and while he has many fond memories of his time with her in these breathtaking places he must admit he’s never been a big fan of this form of travel in the first place. He’s not keen on flying for similar reasons— it’s simply too disorientating. What can he say, he’s a wheels to the ground sort of guy.

He carefully steps down from the raised platform. In the loft, bundled under fresh bedding, Steven stirs awake and lifts his head upon hearing their arrival. Dark bags emphasize his puffy, reddened eyes. Greg’s heart seizes at the realization that he’s been crying all on his own, when no one can see him, in the dark.

“Dad, Garnet!” he whispers, forcing a weak grin. “You’re back!”

He tosses the dirty comforter on the floor next to the warp pad, and bounds across the room to him as fast as his weary joints possibly can.

“Hey, buddy,” he says, climbing up the stairs to the loft. He plops himself down at the foot of the mattress. “You all cozy now?”

His son snuggles even deeper under the sheets, clutching one of his stuffed bears to his chest. “Yup, all tucked in.”

“Good, good. I, uh- I’m really glad you’re okay.”

And at these words, exhaustion weighs Steven down like a twenty pound barbell, shattering his brave facade. He visibly deflates, his eyelids drooping.

“Yeah,” he sighs, blankly staring off into the distance.

Upon following the path of his glance, however, Greg realizes that he’s actually not staring at nothing. He’s watching Garnet first and foremost, who’s leaning against the fridge, but more importantly… Sitting smack dab in the middle of the kitchen counter is his inert gemstone, nestled within the cottony folds of a bath towel. Of course. He needn't a second guess of what has him so glum. He leans in to embrace him and Steven immediately reciprocates, flinging his arms around his neck so tight that given the option of comforting his kid or constant, steady airflow he’d choose to forgo the breathing every time.

“Can you sleep here tonight?” he asks, voice brimming with a vulnerability he hasn’t heard from him for a few years.

“Of course. I’ll never say no to a good couch, heh heh.”

“No, I mean— with me, up here. Please. I really, really don’t wanna be alone right now.”

His son pulls away, and peers at him with the most doleful, starry eyes one could muster. He can’t help but chuckle.

“You do know you ain’t gotta pull out the puppy dog eyes on me, right?”

“Yeah, but was it working?”

“All right,” Garnet interrupts, leisurely making her way up the steps to the loft. “Let’s get you back to bed.”

He nods in full agreement. It’s super late, and the kid desperately needs some rest after all the trauma of this evening. Working together, parent and guardian, they help tuck him back, snug and secure. Heeding to Steven’s request, he crawls under the covers as well, leaning against the far wall. Distantly, he notes that he left his van unlocked when Amethyst whisked him away to the fountain, but by this point he’s too comfortable here on this mattress to dream of making the trek across town to fix that. He’ll just have to trust it’ll be fine. Beach City is a small, secluded place, after all. Most residents barely lock their doors at night.

“Garnet, am I even able to fuse with my gem again?” Steven asks meekly, before she can turn to leave them to rest.

She pauses, balling her fist against her mouth as she considers.

“I can’t see everything, but I do know you’ll be alright,” she promises, and reaches down to brush through his dark curls. Delicately, she presses a kiss to his forehead. Steven’s eyes light up instantly. This time, he grins for real.

“Wow, homemade waffles? And we’re all sharing them as a family! Well, except Pearl, of course. But she’s still there with us.”

“That’s right. It’s together breakfast.”

The tension wound through Greg's spine eases at hope’s return to the atmosphere of this household. With a relieved smile, he rubs his hands together. “Guess I’m breaking out the ol’ waffle iron tomorrow, then!”

Steven throws his arms around the taller Gem. “Thank you,” he says, clinging tight. “I really needed that. Can you… maybe stay out here with us too?”

The puppy dog eyes return in force. Any weaker individual (himself included) would surely be powerless to resist this maelstrom of pure Universe charm, but Garnet’s no brittle Gem. From what little she confided to him back at the fountain, he bets she's in want of some alone time right now. True to his predictions, she smiles apologetically.

“I wish I could, but I have some delicate matters that need to be attended to in the temple.”

“Awwwww, man!”

“But I’ll see you at breakfast,” she adds before his burgeoning pout can fully reach his eyes.

This promise seems to placate the boy enough for him to relax into his pillow. His eyes droop as he watches Garnet amble down the stairs. He’s not the only one— Greg’s own eyes are beginning to ache from sheer exhaustion as well. A sudden spike of jealousy overtakes him, upon remembering how the rest of the Gems don’t get tired, and don’t require sleep. If only, if only. Oh boy, tomorrow’s going to be rough, isn’t it? It’s what… at least one in the morning by now? Squinting, he cranes his neck to catch a glimpse of Steven’s alarm clock.

It’s twelve forty-six. Close enough. With any luck he’ll drift off to sleep within the next fifteen or so minutes.

“I love you,” Garnet says from downstairs, directed at Steven. She shapes her fingers into a heart. His lips curve into a smile as he watches this. While he’s never doubted the depth of her affection for him, she isn't often this transparent about it. Perhaps she thought his son could use the reminder in the wake of a terrifying near-death experience.

“Love you too,” Steven chimes. “Goodnight!”

With that, the Gem retreats across the room to the temple door. She holds her palms up to the star insignia. The matching gems light up, glowing a vibrant blue and red, and the magical doorway slides open— almost as if dissolving from the middle— to reveal the private chamber held within. She steps forward and disappears into the bowels of the temple, leaving the two Universe boys bundled under the covers in an uneasy silence. Steven sighs under his breath. Greg can tell without looking at him that something is gnawing away at his son's heart, bubbling up within him like soda fizz.

“Dad?" he eventually asks, flopping onto his side to face him. "Where’s Bismuth? Did she leave from the fountain?”

Yup, there it is. He feared this was coming.

“She’s—“ he pauses, trying to determine how best to phrase this— “Garnet had a discussion with her. She’s not welcome here in the temple until further notice. As punishment.”

Understanding dawns on his face. “Ohhh, so she basically reverse grounded her."

“Exiled, yes.”

“Huh." Steven hugs his plush bear in the crook of his arm even tighter, and stares up at the ceiling beams with a concerningly numb expression. "Well... I guess that’s fair.”

Greg frowns.

“What’s eatin’ you up there, bud?”

“It’s just…" He tussles at the top hem of the sheets, his knuckles turning white. "Even though she tried to shatter me, and that was terrifying and all... I could tell she felt really guilty about it right after. And besides that, she was actually super kind. I hope she’ll be alright on her own.”

“You’re the one who’s super kind,” he says with a soft smile, and reaches out to ruffle his son’s hair. Steven playfully bats his hands away, cheeks flushing at the compliment. “Not everyone your age would ever stop to think about the people who harmed them in that way. Heck, not many adults would, either. I’m not sure I could.”

"But I've also been thinking... Peridot and Lapis tried to kill us when we first met them, too. And now we’re all friends, and it’s fine, right?"

Greg considers this, stroking at his beard. As much as Steven defends their oft-erratic behavior, he's not sure he personally considers those the ex-Homeworld Gems who are bunking in his family's old barn friends yet. The first time he met Lapis, she attempted to steal the ocean and broke his leg. And as for Peridot, she once pushed him off a roof with next to no warning. (God, he would've broken his leg again if it weren't for Garnet's future vision, huh?) But despite his current opinions on them, it's true that they both have a amicable rapport going with Steven (and for the most part, the rest of the Gems) these days. They've made an effort to learn, to grow with the lush Earth around them. Against the very unmovable nature of their kind, they've succeeded in the impossible. They've changed.

"So what if we’re being a little too hard on her?" Steven continues, eyes glistening. "What if it pushes her away forever?”

“Mmm. I understand where you’re coming from, but she didn’t just try to kill you. She almost succeeded. Sometimes there’s such a thing as being too compassionate, you know?” He chuckles, and props himself up on his elbow. “Heh. You really are like your mother, in that way. Y’see, once she told me about the first time she came across a pigeon, and apparently she—“

“Can we please not talk about her right now?” he interrupts, his voice strained.

“S-sure thing,” Greg stutters, mentally smacking himself for not considering the stress the topic of Rose has become for his son before he foolishly ran his mouth. “Sorry, I didn’t think.“

Closing his eyes, Steven snuggles closer to him, scooting under the covers into his arms. “It’s okay,” he whispers, and yawns. “We’re okay.”

Notes:

-Amethyst reacts with more vocalized anger to the Pink Diamond bomb here because she has not yet crossed an integral moment of identity building character development- re: Beta/Earthlings. In canon, she tells Steven after A Single Pale Rose that none of the PD/rebellion stuff should even be their problem, and she’s absolutely right, but here I imagine she’s still at the point where she’s internally making it her problem when it doesn’t need to be. So she lashes out. Wrongfully.

-Meanwhile, Steven’s Gem self hasn’t reformed yet because he was only just healed from being cracked. I figure that takes a lot outta a Gem. He’ll need a bit more time before he’s ready.

Finally, when it comes to the long term plot, I’m very excited to say that I now have this one fully planned out. It’s gonna be a sort of alternate s4, with some original “episodes” and an arc forming the framework of the story. Should be fun. But anyways, your readership and support is so appreciated! From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

#su #steven universe #su fanfic #su fanfiction #garnet #pearl #amethyst #bismuth #greg universe #my writing stuff #crack the paragon

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aliceslantern · 5 years

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Beyond This Existence, chapter 18

Summary: After Xehanort's death, Demyx finds himself unexpectedly human in Radiant Garden. With nothing but fragments of his past and a cryptic statement from Xemnas, he's left to figure out who he is. When Ienzo asks for his help with a project, the two find common ground, but the trauma and secrets in both of their pasts could tear it apart. Zemyx (Demyx/Ienzo), post-KH3 canon compliant Read it on FF.net/on AO3

-----

The weeks wore on, one into the other. Coping with the mass amounts of chaos in his memory never became easier, but at least it was bearable now that he was no longer so alone. Demyx’s days took on a quiet sort of comfort. Studying, songwriting, socializing, and yes, therapy. Telling someone else these things was hard, but keeping it to himself was even harder. Similarly, listening to Ienzo’s own stories was no cakewalk. Their lives had been infinitely complicated and troubling.

With all this behind them, there was a start of a real sort of life, not the odd buffering phase of the previous few months. The castle was no longer so dreadfully uncomfortable, conversations between Demyx and the others no longer so stilted. He was starting to develop real friendships with these people. Oddly enough, Demyx found that aside from Ienzo, he was closest to Even. He’d taken an interest in healing theory as well, though more as a pet fascination than a vocation. Every now and again, Even gave him tests. It was his own way of reaching out.

“... How’d I do?” Demyx asked. He hadn’t had much written education of any kind, but at least the tests were something concrete to work toward. More structured than Aerith’s “give me a call when you finish the book” method of teaching.

“In all? Not bad.” Even passed the papers back. “Chemistry is your worst subject. But you knew that.”

“It’s the math.” Demyx skimmed the results and found that, overall, he’d done better than he’d thought. “I just can’t understand it.”

“Well--when it comes to calculating molarity--it’s typically just memorization of the base compounds.”

“And algebra.”

“For some reason I highly doubt you’ll have to deal much with kinesthetics in your everyday work. And if you do I’m a phone call away. I rather enjoy figuring it out.” He started shuffling through the sea of papers on his desk. “It gives me something to break the endless tedium of my days, anyway.”

“You’re not going to work on the Replica Program anymore?”

Even drew the hair out of his face. “On one hand, I believe that project has reached its peak. The replicas have gotten to a point where they’ve developed their own personhood, and their own hearts. That was the goal, to a degree. I’m of course going to study them as they age to see if they live out the same lives as ordinary humans. On the other…” He waved his wrist, as though dismissively. “What right have I to create new life? Now that I am becoming human, I feel more responsibility towards the way these replicas are treated. It’s as if I were to give birth. I suppose there might be a medical application to the creation of vessels--say, if someone were to be seriously injured or lose all neurological function--but again, what right have I to continue to meddle with such forces?”

“I can’t help you with that one,” Demyx said.

“No, it’s something for me to puzzle over. In the meantime, I’m going to continue to reflect on the ongoing intersection between magic and science within my life. It seems… most apt.”

“Why did you become a scientist?”

“Hm?” The question seemed to throw him off-guard.

“You’ve been with Ansem longer than anyone else. Why’d you do it?”

Even thought about it. “Why is it you play sitar?”

Demyx shrugged. “It’s just part of me. Always has been. If it hadn’t been sitar it probably would have been some other instrument. That one just happened to be given to me first.”

“Precisely. It’s part of your core, perhaps for no real reason. Or many real reasons, if you subscribe to fate or a divine. That is how I feel about my research. I could not separate the essence that is “me” from it. This is merely another phase of my life, and so I need to adjust my work accordingly.”

“To what?”

“Something that I hope is meaningful. I do not yet know what exactly.” He smiled. “Learning to change and grow after nearly twelve years of stagnation is taking most of my concentration.”

“It’s hard, isn’t it?” he mumbled, more to himself than Even.

“Incredibly.” He cleared his throat. “I’ll quiz you on the next three chapters next week.”

Demyx sighed. “No problem.”

----

Demyx was headlong into these chapters when Ienzo found him. With half his mind he was trying to figure out how to make the song he played better, the other half trying to puzzle out the complicated terminology. He wasn’t aware of his surroundings.

“How is it going?” Ienzo asked.

Demyx jumped, a discordant note throwing him off the melody.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Demyx let Arpeggio disappear. “It helps me remember, if I play,” he said. “Otherwise I can’t focus. If I read a chapter enough while playing a certain song, it sticks. I tried it the other way. I don’t know how you guys learn stuff.”

“Everyone studies differently,” Ienzo said. “So you’re really going to do it?”

“That’s the plan,” he said. “She told me to read these before I came to her for the practical stuff.” Demyx shifted the books around.

Ienzo kissed him lightly.

“So what’s going on with you? I figured you were working on something, but I don’t know what.”

“Well, actually, that’s kind of why I came to find you.”

“The score? Ienzo, you realize I can just read it to you, right?” He hadn’t yet looked back at it. In a way, he wasn’t ready, even though he knew what the contents were.

He shook his head. “Not that. Though I would like to know what’s in it, if you’re not afraid to share. No.” He took the lexicon out from under his arm. “I’m afraid there’s something only you can help me with.”

He smirked. “What was it you said? “If you want to be alone with me you need only ask?””

“What? Do I really speak like that? Never mind-- no, this is something else.” Ienzo sighed. His cheeks were pink. “I want to go to the basement.”

Demyx bit his lip. He’d had a feeling this was coming. Ienzo had been making leaps and bounds dealing with his guilt. No doubt he wanted to make true peace with it. “Okay. Two things. First, not a great idea, all things considering. Second, why me? Why not Ansem or Even or someone else who was involved in the experiments?”

“You’ve got a weapon.” Very matter-of-fact.

He felt the blood drain from his face. “So--let me get this straight. You want to go to the basement--where it’s crawling with Heartless and god-knows-what-else, not to mention where you’ve seen enough horror to go gray prematurely--”

“I haven’t gone gray. This is my natural hair color.”

“Babe, the last time you remembered something half as horrible you went kinda ballistic. I don’t want you getting hurt.”

“I’ve healed since then,” he said. “I have this--” he held out the lexicon, “whatever it means. I think the only way I can find peace is by helping them. Talking with them. Maybe I can help them find some little bit of dignity.”

Demyx exhaled, exasperated. “And do you really trust me to defend you? I’m out of shape, and I have no idea how strong the Heartless down there even are.”

He frowned. “What is this really about?” Ienzo asked. “Are you truly afraid of a few Heartless?”

Demyx didn’t know what to say, just that his gut was telling him this was an awful idea. “I guess not,” he said. “I just… I’m afraid that going down there and seeing all that will change how I see you. And I don’t want that to happen.”

Ienzo took his hands. “I know that. And it might change your mind. But I… I need to do this. I hope you understand.”

Demyx knew what had happened in the basement. Maybe he didn’t know all the details--the how or why of it all--but he knew Ienzo had been involved in this dangerous human experimentation. He knew, factually, that Ienzo couldn’t really be at fault, that he’d been a child and too young to accept responsibility, especially since he'd been so manipulated. But at the same time, Demyx knew seeing all of it would be a different story. It would make it tangible. And yet. “You’d do the same for me. Alright. Let’s free some ghosts, or whatever.”

Ienzo kissed him. “I love you.”

“I can’t say no to you. But you knew that.” He marked the place in his book and set it aside. “I’d feel better if we got some supplies. And if you rested. You look exhausted.”

“So tomorrow?”

He nodded. “Tomorrow.”

----

Later that night, while Ienzo read in bed, Demyx headed down to Even’s quarters. Slick, hot anxiety was building inside of him, making him vaguely anxious. He knocked, was let in. Even was folding laundry. “Did you need help with something?” he asked. Then frowned. “You do not look well.”

Demyx didn’t know what to say. “Ienzo wants to go to the basement.”

He paused just the slightest. “Yes. And?”

“Well--what if something’s down there?”

“I thought you could adequately defend yourself now?”

“It’s not me I’m worried about.” He exhaled and pulled his hand through his hair. “He’s got the lexicon. What if he tries using his powers again?”

Even shook his head. “He’s aware of the risk. I doubt he’d try.”

“What if he doesn’t do it consciously?”

He raised an eyebrow. “I had the impression it took a lot of effort for him to traverse your memory.”

“But he couldn’t control it. I don’t know what this is going to entail. If I’m just going to beat up some Heartless, or maybe there’s nothing down there and this is just for closure. But what if.”

“Since when was forethought a strength of yours?” Even asked, almost bitterly. “Boy, now you’re making me worry.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know who else to ask.”

Even sighed. He set aside the socks he was folding. “Come along.”

They went down to his lab. Even pulled out a first aid kit, some ethers, and some potions. He approached another cabinet and took out a vial and a syringe still in its wrapping. He placed them on the table.

“You’re aware of the correlation at this point, of heart failure and overuse of power.”

“Well--yes.” The sight of the medicine made him shiver.

“I’ve been poking through our research. The reason why it struck Ienzo so intensely has largely to do with the fact that he quite literally grew up as a Nobody. Trying to adequately corroborate his humanity with a Nobody will served to heighten the risk. It may not happen again. Perhaps he’s adjusted. At the same time… it may.”

“What’s that?”

“A serum to induce sleep. Should he begin to exhibit the same symptoms, you should dose him. And then call for help. I’m giving this to you as a precaution only.” Even unwrapped the syringe, prepped it, and then capped it off. Demyx caught sight of the label on the bottle. He knew enough by now to recognize it.

“That’s a poison. Not a sedative.”

“Sleep akin to death,” Even said, as though quoting. “Better than actual death, is it not?” He held it out. Demyx didn’t take it.

“I can’t.”

“You must. This is--” He exhaled. “For goodness sakes, you might not even need it.” Even placed it on the table in front of him. “Have you tried convincing him out of it?”

“Yes. But how can we escape it? We live here. He’s reminded of it every day. If it’s not now, it’d be some other time.”

“The boy is… determined.” He sighed. “I’m trusting you with this. With him. Do you understand?”

Demyx nodded.

“So take it.”

He took all the medicine back with him, feeling sick. He hid the syringe in the first aid kit and tried to pretend it wasn’t there.

Ienzo was still caught up in his book. “Did you get everything you needed?” he asked.

“Oh, plenty,” he said breezily. “How do you feel?”

“Surprisingly, not as anxious as I thought.” He shut the book and settled down in bed.

“Can I… stay with you tonight?”

Ienzo frowned. “Of course.” He lifted the covers and let Demyx crawl in. He drew Ienzo close, breathed in his smell. “I’m not sure why you felt like you had to ask. You scarcely sleep in your own bed anymore.”

“Dunno. I figured you might want some time alone.”

“I have spent a lot of time thinking about this alone. I don’t mind the company.”

Demyx looked at him. His eyes bright and alive. He kissed him once. Ienzo settled down against him and was asleep before long.

Demyx did not sleep a wink.

----

Morning. Breakfast. He bathed, feeling vaguely numb and dissociated, slightly outside of himself. When he saw Ienzo in his apprentice’s coat, he almost wondered if this was a bizarre dream. He gathered up their bag of supplies.

“You sure you want to do this?” Demyx asked.

“Yes. I’m sure.”

He sighed. “Lead the way, then.”

He followed him through the corridors, through the familiar, then down dozens and dozens of stairs to a locked door. The air down here was cold, and it smelled dank and musty. Crystal sconces lit everything brightly, but at the same time he felt as though he was squinting in the gloom. At the door, Ienzo hesitated.

“Did you forget the code?” Demyx asked.

Ienzo summoned the lexicon. The soft rustle of its pages barely broke the suffocating silence. Demyx felt his heart in his throat. This was not a good sign. Ienzo meant business. Demyx tried to tell him then what might happen. But he had to know. There was no way he couldn't, right?

He punched in the code, and in they went.

It did not look dissimilar to the containment cells of the Castle that Never Was. Gray floor. Black and silver doors. Stark, harsh fluorescent light. A couple of these spaces were offices, and what looked to be a small lab. Papers were everywhere, all over the floors. Beakers had been smashed, a computer screen cracked. Ienzo took it all in with little emotion.

The smoky, musty smell only ever got stronger. “They smell us,” Demyx said. He brought an arm up in front of Ienzo automatically. He pushed it away.

“Not yet.”

They moved forward bit by bit. Ienzo absently touched the numbers on the cells, peeking inside here or there. Demyx didn’t see anything, but he could taste it. The cells were riddled with scratch marks, places where the floor had been gouged away. A sink bad been torn out of the wall. A mattress ripped to shreds.

“There’s no one here,” Demyx said.

“Don’t speak so soon,” Ienzo said.

A silhouette of pure darkness crawled out of the ground. It looked weirdly human in shape, more like a Novashadow than the little Shadows he was used to. It did not give chase, but seemed to merely watch them.

Darkness began to slither out of the back cells, forming yet more Shadows. “Freaky,” he hissed. The Keyblade snapped into his palm. One rose out of the pool and shuffled towards them. “Stay behind me.”

“Not yet,” Ienzo said. He crouched down, and Demyx almost screamed, but the darkness on the floor didn’t crawl over him like it normally would’ve. “Do you remember me?”

Was he talking to the Heartless? It paused, tilted its head.

“I was little then,” Ienzo said. “Not anymore.”

The Shadow twitched and shuddered. A few more peeked out. “What are you doing?” Demyx asked.

“Giving it the Sora treatment.” He exhaled. “Put that away. We’re not here to hurt you all. Isn’t that right?”

The blade in his hand trembled a little.

“Demyx?” Ienzo prompted.

He let it disappear. Raised his hands, as if to show how empty they were.

Ienzo smiled kindly at the Heartless. “You’ve been here for such a long time, so alone.” The lexicon opened to a random page, of a little girl. “Isn’t that right, Jamie? That’s you, right?” He held the book out to the Heartless. It seemed to stare at the page within, of the photo. “I wanted to apologize for all we put you through. There was a bad, bad man. He made all the people around him sick with evil. And they took it out on you. On me, too. And my friend next to me. That doesn’t make it right, but the bad man’s gone and everyone wants to help you.”

The Heartless seemed to convulse.

“I can’t imagine it’s fun down here. There’s nobody and nothing to play with. But there’s another place with lots of friends waiting for you.”

The Shadow raised a claw.

“Ienzo,” Demyx hissed. Ienzo held out his hand.

The Shadow placed its claw on the photo of the girl. It was not twitching anymore, not in the way Heartless usually did.

“Do it now,” he whispered. “She’s ready.”

He slashed. The Heartless had no defense; it was almost made of smoke. Its heart rose and vanished into nothing. Demyx was shaking. “Oh my god,” he said. “Are you… are you okay? I should’ve given you my coat.” He gave him a good once-over. No threads of darkness, no injury.

“I’m fine. Let’s keep going.”

“How many are there?”

“Left? I’m not sure. But these aren’t ordinary Heartless. This was the genesis.”

The Heartless, having seen all this, did not flee the way they were akin to when their brethren died. They came forward in a lump. They did not attack. They left plenty of space between them and Ienzo.

“They’re making a line,” Demyx said.

“They want to be free.” He smiled. His eyes were watering. “Who wants to know who they are?”

It took hours.

Ienzo gave nearly every Heartless the same speech, but he altered it slightly, peppering in details he must have read somewhere--information about a beloved pet, a favorite color, updates about loved ones who were still alive. Humanizing them. It was only once this semblance of humanity was found that they could go. Peacefully.

Even though the Heartless were weak, the fact that there was so many of them and that this was stressful to watch tired him. He waited for one to break rank, to attack and injure. None did, though.

“Are you alright?” Ienzo asked. Demyx had been standing to his right and noticed his full face for the first time in hours. He was sweating, his complexion washed out. Demyx swallowed. No.

“Just a bit out of shape,” he said breezily. “How are you feeling?”

“I feel fine.”

More speeches. More Heartless. Demyx was wondering if it was just his eyes playing tricks on him, or if Ienzo was looking worse. Pale. Shaky. No blood yet. But soon? The darkness was getting thinner and thinner until there were no more Heartless waiting.

“Is that it?” Demyx asked hoarsely. “I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”

“Yes, that was--” He calculated quickly, then furrowed his brows. “Ninety-nine. There’s one left. Maybe it’s hiding? Can you handle one more?”

“I think. You?”

He nodded. When he stood, his knees shook, and Demyx helped him up. He was getting weak. They had to get out of here, to get medical help. Demyx tried to covertly steer him in the opposite direction. “Why did they forgive me?” Ienzo asked.

“What do you mean?”

“The bitterness… they just let it go. Without fail. There was not even one rogue Shadow that tried to attack.” His eyes were wide.

“They’ve been here ten years,” Demyx said. “That’s a long time to suffer. Sometimes you have to let it go to make the pain stop.”

He looked at his trembling palm. “I see. I… understand.”

Demyx glanced over his shoulder. “I think we’ve found our stowaway.”

It was the humanoid Heartless, the first one they’d seen. They approached it slowly.

“We’re here to help,” Demyx said. “Do you want to go be with your friends?”

The Heartless paused. It twitched irritably.

“Ienzo,” Demyx said nervously. “Maybe start working your magic, yeah? My buddy here seems a little agitated.” He was positive that it was stronger than the last. Strength sapped, Demyx didn’t know if he could honestly take it on.

A hint of panic crept into Ienzo’s voice. “I can’t--” He started manually shuffling the pages. “I can’t find their--”

The Neoshadow hissed. Demyx drew his Keyblade. “Come on. Let’s talk this out,” he said. “I’m offering you a get-out-of-jail free card here, friend.”

Once it lay eyes in the Keyblade, the Heartless screamed. The sound almost incapacitated him, harsh, like razors against his eardrums. It leapt at him.

Demyx found himself awash in darkness.

#beyond this existence #demyx #ienzo #even #zemyx #demyx/ienzo

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