#one of my favourite poems i have ever written. maybe my favourite of all time

[t4tstarvingdog]

AND THEN I CONSIDER THE DELIGHTFUL ANDROGYNY OF THE RODEO — timothy l.l.s.h.

because transsexual desire exists in rural towns just the same as cities, and because we love our roots just as much as our queerness.

may be easier to read if you click on the image :)

my poetry tag list (ask to be added or removed<3): @gracekisses @callcenterkilljoy @icantleave @hauntedpearl @chaosnatural @raytoroinmybackpack @carveredlund @pinknatural @deanwinchestersfloralwallpaper @obsessionofspn @destielgaysex @faithdeans @heartshapedcas @howldean @redwinesupernova @cosmosinfinity23 @impala67-aka-baby @samsrowena @aturnoftheearth @themichaelvan @casbeeminestiel @notreallyaroad @littlebitofdiaz @frogstiel @magdaclaire @babyheller @hellergregoryhouse @saintedcastiel @mayfieldarc @how-the-feathers-have-fallen @cmonprovolone @punishercd @raspberryfemme @patchesofwork @wolfinmyribcage

image description underneath the keep reading

[Image Description: a poem that reads

Well, lookit those lovely chick-a-dees, a-meanderin’ and amblin’ and Ignorin’ the Sun shining mightily in their eyes when they’re unlucky, And soaking tan with a red-underbelly into Their neck and shoulders when Lady Luck loves them once more.

My! What a sight, what a thing to love! These young birds take their fistfuls of cash and wads of green  And scramble their way up dusty-side just to reach glory. Oh heavens, the glory of a soda fountain when you have a sweat-soaked Ten-dollar clutched in all ten fingers, the glory of pointin’ With dirt under your fingernails At the largest size they have displayed, and sayin’ your please and thank you ma’am’s In the softest voice you got ‘cause your mouth is already Waterin’ something awful at the anticipation of the cool, fizzy drink.

Don’t guzzle it now, sweet things! Wait for that blessed relief-giving condensation to Settle along the sides of your plastic cup, little pearls, little water-snails Racing down to plop themselves bodily to The boot-ground dust of the Earth. Let them swell their little round shells and then quick! Gather Them up in one swiping palm, one heaving hand,  And smear that dripping prize across your salt-flecked forehead; Let its rivulets tumble over your brow and into your eyes, and Squint against the salt-sting of foreign tears caught In your thick calf-lashes.

Oh, pretty little darlings, have you tasted it? The sugar and dye, sweet-soft and fizzling in your stained mouths, Headaches already beginning to worm low and aching behind Your squinting eyes. Have you memorized the shuffle-step it takes you to alight on your stadium seat? Look away from the water truck soaking the ring, Tear your eyes from the rainbow rising with the dust,  With the water vapor,  With the murmur of your dozen, dozen voices. Playfight ball-caps versus cowboy hats and add a point for each fancy belt buckle, Count the church-worthy button-ups and remember that Everyone has different places  To worship.

And ah, what fat luck, arriving early enough to pick your seats when The stands are still so empty! Take the chance you have to feast yourselves on watching people stream in; Drink them down, the tired-eyed mothers, forehead-wrinkled fathers, Satiate yourselves on numbering the children wandering listless and over-excited around you, And carefully avoid looking too long at The young people with their soft-slender hands and hand-me-down boots,  Their pink-open mouths, flashing teeth as they talk, sweat, swallow down lemonade. As they speak in voices that don’t lend themselves To being masculine or feminine, too caught up in the fat enjoyment of Being young and  Alive.

You’re starving yourself, dear things, by choking down the desire while you Suck down the saccharine corn-syrup molecules just the same. Go ahead, grow into your own shoulders and make eye contact with warm brown and rosy red, Tilt the brim of your hat and let the actor in you embody it as full confidence and Not half-shame. When you shrug beneath the bleachers all too-long legs and too-hunched back,  Let yourself taste the tart lemonade on their lips and ask them to call you something softer  Than the name your daddy gave you. Let them place broad palm on the goose-flesh of the skin of your ribcage, Let yourself be taller than them and let them treat you porcelain-fragile anyways.

Say it with me now, The thunder above your heads is not Sodom and Gomorrah, it is a thousand feet, A thousand hands, A thousand writhing bodies stomping and hollering for  The best bareback bronco score so far tonight, and no one cares that you are missing. No one cares that you have found your existence In the arms of a sexless young thing just like yourself, surrounded by cigarette butts And a handful of discarded and crushed Bud Lite cans and Dust that just won’t die.

What’s the name of your soul, sweethearts? What do you hide away when you’re where the people can see you? The knees of your lightwash jeans are dirty when you crawl back into the world. The cheers of the crowd have gotten just a little less sharp in your ears. You share a drop of your soda with a puddle of gnats and scream for the Oklahoman rider, And no one looks twice At the shape of your hands and jaw.

When the Sun sets in your eyes tonight, you’re too busy putting Your two fingers to your lips and whistling louder than a trainhorn’s shriek To care that your drink has gone flat and Lukewarm.

—timothy l.l.s.h.

/end description.]

[frankensteinmutual]

Sorry to bother you, but dude. You're so fucking cool. Would you consider sharing your top three favorite books (and why, if you feel like it)? Your aesthetic and taste in media is so fucking *it*

Thank you :)

you're not bothering me at all! in fact you just made me smile like an idiot, so thank you 🫀

I think picking a top three is almost impossible for me, but I can do a top 5:

1. we have always lived in the castle by shirley jackson

this is my favourite book of all time. nothing else has ever made me feel like reading this book did. the prose is so beautiful in its raw simplicity, a childish fantasy stated so matter-of-factly you have no choice but to let go of any sense of reason that might prevent you form feeling the words as having sprung from your own mind the instant you are reading them, and the narrator's intimate inner monologue draws you in so magnetically into her enchantingly morbid world of twisted logic and sympathetic magic – it's the sweetest nightmare you never want to wake up from.

2. house of leaves by mark z. danielewski

what is there still to say about house of leaves? it's as good as everyone says it is. I fought for my relationship with this book – we did not get along at all for quite a while – and it was worth it. I think it might have actually made it even better in the end. i feel like this book knows me somehow, like we have a reciprocal relationship with each other in which we are both active parties. I don't think any other work of art has ever given me that. it's the proverbial abyss staring back into you, luring you into its depths and never letting you go again.

3. autobiography of red by anne carson

autobiography of red is a verse novel, so you could think of it as one big poem, and it's beautifully written. the blurring and blending of myth and reality and continuous shifting of fiction and recollection, impression and perception sweeps you up into a tale both ancient and timeless, tragic and hopeful, about a boy who is a monster, or maybe a giant, with three bodies or maybe six hands, a shepherd or a dragon, a son with a red red heart. also, it's gay.

4. piranesi by susanna clarke

piranesi is a bit as if the house from house of leaves cared for you and was also built by plato. it kind of sneaks up on you gently, dangerously but never with malicious intent. it wants to lead you to a place inside yourself that you've never been to or maybe have just forgotten, and uncover what lies in wait there. most of it is love.

5. frankenstein by mary shelley

and for the last one, a classic. I kind of put off reading this for a long time, because I wanted to like it so badly and was very scared I wouldn't, or at least not to a degree that would satisfy, as is unfortunately often the case for me with these kinds of "important" things. but I was so pleasantly surprised. it wasn't hard to get into or inaccessible at all, it didn't bore or alienate me, on the contrary. it touched me so deeply and unexpectedly I didn't stop thinking about it for quite a while. it truly deserves its status in my eyes.

also because I couldn't resist, a visual representation of nine of my favourite books:

I hope you will find something worth your while in at least one of them!

[maxverstappensflatbrim]

Show Me Yours | Matty Healy [46]

chapter forty-six, act six: be my mistake

masterlist

December 25th 2017

It takes Tommie forty minutes to stop staring at the front door as if he’s going to walk right back through. When she finally does leave the hallway her gaze settles onto the wrapped gift still untouched. 

She’s sitting criss crossed under her green Christmas tree with Button on one side and Allen the other.

The wrapping paper has little dinosaurs wearing cowboy hats, which upon further inspection she realises have been drawn on by hand. She tears it open, then folds it neatly and places it to her side. Her eyes tear up, her thumb traces the leather. 

It’s her book. 

Her lyric book she thought lost forever sits right there in her hands with a blue post it note on top.

‘ Don’t worry, I didn’t punch him, Ross did (again).’

She giggles to herself as she takes the post it note and slots it inside to a page in the middle of the book, the one with the first ever draft of her poem ‘show me yours’.

Beneath the old brown leather book is a very similar one. The exact same book instead this one is a dark green colour.

She flicks open the first page and finds a note has been drawn on the inside cover.

‘The day that I met you I started dreaming. Now I write them down if I remember in the morning

-Yours, Matty’

A few pages have been written on, he writes on one side of a double page then leaves the other blank so she can fill in her own thoughts or change what he has written.

They’re songs. Songs he had written in rehab. About her. For her. She’s not sure yet.

Her eyes scan the pages as she flicks through them all, taking note of the titles scribbled in red ink.

Inside your mind Love it if we made it Be my mistake Sincerity is scary If it’s not with you Mine In love Sometimes About you Playing on my mind

She reads them all. Over and over and over. She only adds to one of the songs he’s written. 

She finds inspiration, she writes. She writes a lot, poetry which turn into songs and songs which become poetry. She finds herself finishing songs from her old book that she’d begun writing years ago. Love songs she’d tried to write about Caleb seem to fall together with a new inspiration in mind.

Matty.

Even in the breakup songs she finds ways to reference him in some way.

She can’t help it. There’s a piece of Matty in everything she does. Not just in her writing, she finds herself gravitating towards clothes of hers that he’d once touched. Like her old The Stone Roses shirt he wore once, or the flannel shirt he’d always ‘borrow’ when he came into her room. She buys his favourite brand of tea bags and stocks the fridge with his favourite pop. She listens to his favourite artist and hums a few tones lower to match his usual pitch. She reads books he had recommended and watches True Romance over and over because she can still picture his happy grin as he mimed the words along to the cinema scene. She finds herself stroking the freckle on her collarbone he once kissed. Touching the part of her hairline he would rest his lips against when he held her close. She finds herself thinking of him. Consumed by him. It’s Matty. It’s always been Matty.

She doesn’t stop writing. The words seem to flow out of her unlike anything she’s ever experienced before. Her hand cramps and even then she continues on with ink stained finger tips delicately turning white pages.

She shifts the book from her knee to the coffee table and as she does something falls out from the back of it. Shuffling awkwardly across the floor and raising the heads of the two dogs who watch her, she reaches for the small photograph.

A smile stretches her lips. It’s of the band a few weeks after she first met them. She was young at the time, thirteen maybe if she remembers correctly. Matty is standing directly behind her with his hand on her shoulder and his chin on her head. She’s smiling so big. She misses it. She misses the band. She misses her boys. She misses her Matty.

July 30th 2007

“You’ll be fine.’

Her cousin's words do little to help sooth her nerves as she clutches his hand. “They’re my best mates,” He continues on as he holds the door open for her, “They’ll love you as much as I do.”

“I’m not sure, Ads.”

“It’ll be fine.”

He promises as he opens the door. Three sets of eyes are on her when she enters and she pauses at the doorway.

It’s the tallest one with a buzzcut that comes to her first with a smile. “Caroline?”

“Tommie.” She says quickly.

“I’m Ross.” He tells her, then with a hand on her back he guides her further into the room to sit on the small two seater they have. 

Before he can settle beside her the space is taken by the long haired guy, he throws an arm over her shoulder and places the other in front of her for her to shake. “I’m Matty. Hann tells us you can play guitar, wanna be in the band?”

Ross shakes his head and pushes Matty away from her by his forehead, “She’s like ten leave her alone.”

“I’m not… ten.” She says quietly. 

Matty shrugs, ignoring her quiet comment, “Well, let her decide, Ross.” He turns back to her then, brown eyes looking right through her, “Would you?”

She shrugs, “I don’t know.”

“Leave her alone.”

The third guy who she hasn’t learnt the name of yet drags him to stand and pushes him away, Ross takes Matty’s spot while the guy in the beanie offers a shy smile. “I’m George.”

She nods back to him and lets her eyes go back to Matty who’s rocking back and forth on his feet, “I’ve always said having a girl in the band will do us better.”

“Better how?”

He sighs dramatically and Adam shoots a sharp look to George, “Really? You want him to give his whole speech again?”

George shrugs innocently as Matty clears his throat, “First of all, a girl can hit different notes than me, having one to harmonise-”

“Matty.” Ross interrupts, “The girl’s just got here. Let’s leave her alone, eh?”

He rolls his eyes then turns them back to Tommie, “Favourite song?”

She looks back to Adam, already hating her cousin for forcing her to meet his friends, “I don’t know, um.” She looks around at the walls of the little pool house they’re hidden away in. There’s posters and instruments all lying around, the floor is covered in wires and through a barely covered glass window she can see the pool. “I like that one of the new Arctic Monkey album.”

“Which one?”

“Brianstorm.”

He nods in thought, “Alright. Sit back, relax and enjoy, Thomas. We’re gonna blow you away.”

He ushers the guys up and Ross leans towards her, “This is him trying to convince you. Don’t give in, he’s pushy but he’ll give up eventually.”

Looking back, Tommie’s glad he didn’t give up.

She clutches the photo to her chest and leans back against her settee with a sob of solitude. 

With tears in her eyes she crawls across the floor to her sofa and grips her phone. With shaky hands she lifts it to her ear as the phone starts ringing. 

“Hello?”

“Can you come over? Please. I just-” She niffles and rubs the back of her wrist against her nose, “I really need you right now.”

taglist

@thereisaplaceintheheart, @indierockgirrl, @sofaritsalrightt, @julezs-bl0g, @eaglestar31, @sophinthealpss, @noacfemcel, @if-my-heart-bleeds, @befrwime, @fallingforel, @sexorchocolateorpillowsorclouds, @3terna15unshin3, @1975sophie1975, @thesocraticjunkiewannabe, @littlesoldierelleora, @procrastinatinglikeapro, @beatr2x, @byyourside28, @plantinghobbies, @sinarainbows

-let me know if you want to be added :)

[heartshapedbubble]

some orphy work for a commissioner of mine! 💓 this is 1/2 of their survivor commission - reminder that my comms are always open and i'm currently seeking out comms for atsushi, architect, mio amakura [prioritized!! i want her lots but im f2p] and some survivors/hunters!

orpheus dating/married life hcs📕

dating hcs

if you are too shy to confess first your pre-dating period is gonna be one HELL of a confusing talking stage lol he's incredibly shy himself and is only going to drop subtle hints and acts of affection in hope that you'd confess first

he's going to give in eventually - he'd probably confess to you by writing you a heartfelt letter, i've written before that every single one of his letters are masterpieces but the more "important" ones such as this one are on a whole other level

orpheus doesn't seem like an approachable person at first nor does he particularily enjoy PDA - he enjoys alone time with you away from everyone, it's simply more intimate and makes him calm enough to function

even though he's a bit cold and shy at the beginning of your relationship it's just the fact that he's so overwhelmed by you in the best way possible JDNWNDN

you're his muse, the beatrice to his alighieri, the most prized person in his life yet he struggles to communicate it clearly verbally - he's simply not the person that's good with words on the spot and prefers writing them on paper

orpheus is actually a huge romantic at heart

like literally straight-from-a-book romantic

this man has a permanent rbf but inside his head he's thinking of kissing you and holding you into his arms and all WOAHH he actually reads romance novels a lot (a guilty pleasure of his) and they fuel his daydreaming

when you two are alone together you simply can't get him off of you lol

likes gently kissing your neck and fingertips, tracing his fingers along your neck and collarbones and whispering sweet nonsense in your ear every now and then maybe even lightly biting your neck if youre into that!?!?!?!?!? literal goosebumps from the way this man loves wow

he's a very gentle and thoughtful partner, asking for permission whenever he wants to kiss you and holding your arm under his whenever you two go for a walk together

a true gentleman ofc!! treats their partner like a royal

the dates you two go on are simple and actually happen pretty frequently - he likes picnics, garden tea parties and anything away from the crowd, making it easier for him to focus on you

would 100% write you cheesy poems that make you melt from the inside (/pos) OR little drabbles and push them under your door for the extra suprise factor HEEHEE he can't help the fact that hes a hopeless romantic

whenever he gets flustered his cheeks get really vibrant red and his monocle FOGS UP and he's still going to act like everything is fine

handsy?? but in an awkward way, like he genuinely doesn't know what to do w them so sometimes he just. pats you¿ hes got very nice hands and fingers tho. long, nimble, with obvious writer's bump(s) on both of his middle fingers. will occassionaly wear a pretty silver ring

he smells SOOOO NICE his cologne isn't very strong and numbing but rather with a flowery tone and it smells like heaven whenever you lay your head on his chest

orders bouquets from andrew and emma with all of your favourite flowers each week... hehe...

also a fan of picking flowers and tucking them into your hair whenever you go for a walk together🥺

this man is so so cute yet so fragile please please PLEASE hold his stoic "😐" ass in a hug and gently smooch him or he might break into pieces like fine china

married life hcs

100% the one proposing. "oh but i-" im absolutely not hearing you out OKAY let him have his moment

he has a whole heart tearing speech ready that he wrote himself and a pretty custom ring made just for you you are NOT taking away his spotlight

god he's the giddiest person ever when he sees you walk towards the altar.. he loves you so much and would kiss you right there and then if it weren't for the ceremony

anyways. malewife orpheus is real

you complained about how you're too tired to do the laundry? oh look it's already done. got no time to cook? 5 star michelin meal is already on the table

would even wear an apron while doing it tbh

it's just you and him and he's so happy about being able to focus on you and your relationship more once you're married

he often stays up late writing instead of going asleep so he appreciates extra blankets and coffee sm <3

also he has a lot of moles on his body. like a lot and he often jokes about them being places where he's supposed to be kissed (/hj on his part he's actually into that)

mostly the big spoon - loves intertwining his fingers and legs with yours as he presses his chin onto the top of your head

would gladly read to you until you fall asleep, he's a phenomenal narrator with a beautiful, slightly raspy voice

regarding kids - orpheus 100% wouldn't force his opinion on you nor pressure you into having them, but i feel like he'd really love to have children and that he'd be a great dad

some days you two just cancel all of your plans and stay at home together, curled up in the bed and simply enjoying each other's presence

likes having his hair played with when he's working

or in general you coming up behind him while he's by his desk and massaging his shoulders or carressing his cheeks... GOD he's in heaven

when he's out for longer or stuck in his office for some time he leaves you one of his white silk gloves or hankerchiefs in your pocket while you're not looking <3 he has a habit of putting essential oils on them so they smell beautifully

not tech savvy but i think he'd learn how to operate a camera just to take cute little pictures of you and keep them :) he would put them in a little locket and carry it around his neck or instead of a pocket watch, keep them as bookmarks in his favourite books or simply tucked in his typewriter so you're always near him

one cute thing about him is that 90% of his body is always cold and that 10% that isn't is his chest. he gets very flustered whenever you joke that it's because his heart can only heat up so much of his body

he's an amazing listener and always by your side - you can tell him everything without fearing he'll get mad or react badly, laugh along with him and confess all your secrets and sins to him

he's a wonderful person and an even more wonderful spouse. milo (MAN I LOVE ORPHEUS!!!!!!!)

[goodlucktai]

Out of everything you have ever written like one shots or poems just like ANYTHING what's your favourite?

i’m sorry i let this sit in my inbox for so long but honestly it’s hard to narrow down what work i’m proudest of ! i’ve been writing for a long time and i’ve written a lot 🙃

off the top of my head, i would say the only hoax i believe in is one that’s special to me, because i wrote a lot of myself in it

i’m also really fond of my moomin fics bcus that quiet little era of my life was so peaceful and i wish i could go back lol but particularly all you gotta do’s knock on my door

if we could stay all day in the sun is definitely a personal favorite, and so is traveling so far to get there

i would also add put your faith in what you most believe in aka the humble beginning of my write-sabo-into-everything agenda ☺️

maybe i’ll go ahead and make an authors favorites series on ao3 after all lol

[whatsitcalledfromthingy]

reading tag game!! thanks for the tag red <3 @jonsaremembers

tagging (as always no pressure): @finn-is-in-the-binn @philsmeatylegss @daisyjay887 @homohabu @fromemotoangel @sinistergooseberries

last book i read: ashes in my mouth, sand in my shoes- per petterson, beautiful book about a kid who wets the bed going through shit. my favourite types of book are slice of life books (0 plot whatsoever, just a section of someone’s life) and my favourite characters are clearly autistic young boys who are struggling with life. so yeah i loved this.

book i recommend: carmilla- sheridan le fanu, lesbian vampire story written in the victorian era, need i say more.

book i couldn’t put down: vile bodies- evelyn waugh, this was a difficult one because the way i read books is either it takes me a month or a day so i often do not put a book down but i read this in the space of a few hours. i loved it. i read it because of the film bright young things (one of my favourites ever) and honestly it did not disappoint. it’s a slice of life again and also a classic again. these are going to be common themes i feel. also honorable mention bright young things- scarlet thomas, i read this immediately after vile bodies and it’s another slice of life but this time with a slight plot. it’s written so well i couldn’t put it down either. one of my favourites of all time.

book i’ve read twice: good omens- terry prattchet and neil gaiman, yeah i don’t think anyone’s surprised. my favourite book of all time. not only is it good omens and obviously i love the story but the writing style is perfect to me (i have read quite a lot of terry prattchet i love him so much)

book on my TBR: it’s mainly series on my tbr because i have a lot of time on my hands at the moment. i really want to read sherlock holmes so ill say that.

book i have put down: history is all you left me- adam silvera, i loved they both die at the end so many years later i thought id try another one and no. it was not good. maybe it was the same and i’ve just grown up a bit but i really couldn’t get very far though it at all.

book on my wish list: again i’ve been mainly looking at series so i really want to read discworld (my dad owns the whole series but it’s like really old and i may not be allowed to touch them so it might be searching the library for me)

a favourite book from childhood: hetty feather- jacqueline wilson, this book started my strange childhood obsession with orphans. most books i read for quite a while after this were about orphans, i wanted to be an orphan (don’t read too far into that) and jaqueline wilson was a fav in general plus she taught me how to spell my middle name.

book i would give a friend: stoner- john williams, surprise surprise it’s a slice of life book again. this one a friend gave to me after i was telling her about how i love books with no plot. and i would pass it on to any other friend honestly (obviously this is difficult because i don’t own a copy of the book but shhhh use your imagination) stoner is boring but in a purposeful way and it is such a calming read and i think a lot of my friends need that.

book of poetry or lyrics i own: i’m not sure i really do own one but i was in one when i was 5 . i filled in the blanks to some poem about what i wanted to be when i grew up and it got printed in an anthology.

nonfiction book i own: on liberty (and other essays)- john stuart mill, i’m a philosophy girly what can i say.

currently reading: i’m not. that’s not how i work. when i pick up a book, i finish said book and then go back to being in a liminal space of not reading anything

planning on reading next: the cockroach- ian mcewan, one of the three books i got from the library months ago that is sitting on my shelf (i’ve renewed them dw) this one is about a man who turns into a cockroach

this was fun :)

[aniron48]

20 questions for fic writers

Thank you for the tag, @anyawen! These were so much fun!

Answers under the cut, and tagging @sweetbabyangels, @mr-iskender, @stinastar, @aprettyspy and @thestalwartheart, in case you haven't done this already and it's of interest!

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 30! That number seems astonishing to me now, considering I started writing fic in earnest like a year-and-a-half ago. 😁

2. What’s your total A03 word count? 138,358

3. What fandoms do you write for? James Bond, Glass Onion/Knives Out, and I just wrote my first fic for The Old Guard fandom, which has pulled me in by the lapels and refused to let me go. And the very first fic I ever wrote was for Stardew Valley.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos? 1. A Good Man (Benoit Blanc/Phillip) 2. rain (00q) 3. open line (00q) 4. The More Loving One (00q) 5. Must Love Cats (00q)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? Ok yes I definitely do and I love to *and also* I'm so sorry, I'm 288 days (yes I just checked) behind in responding to comments, because this year has been...something else. So, taking the opportunity to say that a) all of your comments are incredible bright spots for me, and b) I am working my way steadily through and enjoying your comments all over again as I re-read and respond to them.

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? WELP (eyes my pile o' fics warily). If we go based off the fics with "Major Character Death" as a warning, for a certain value of angst, it's a tie between offering and and the wind at their backs. But both of these fics deal with grief, and the complicated emotions that result from the persistence of love even after the object of that love is gone, and there's some hope in that, too, I think.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? lmao most of the rest of them other than the two in number 6? 😂 this is a hard one to answer, so I'll list my RomCom-iest fics for now (Must Love Cats for 00q and in a space that they belong for The Old Guard). Special shout-out to 'tis the damn season, though, because the happiness at the end of this fic feels like some of the hardest fought, to me, and some of the tenderest I've written, I think.

8. Do you get hate on fics? No--I've gotten a few less than diplomatic comments, and a couple people making unflattering notes in bookmarks that I don't think they meant for me to see, but nothing terrible.

9. Do you write smut? ::offers you rain and for the age of the earth, and after as if I am a sommelier presenting you with some very fine wine:: "this one has notes of--" you know what I'm just going to stop there.

10. Do you write crossovers? I haven't yet!

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? No, thank goodness (knocks on wood).

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? Not yet! #goals

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Use. Your. Words., which was a collaborative poem for 007 fest 2023. 😁

14. What’s your all-time favourite ship? I spent about five minutes hemming and hawing about this but you know what, it's impossible to pick. 😂

15. What’s the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? Like Anyawen, I have aspirations of finishing all the ones hanging out in my Scrivener app...someday. Probably the one I have the most doubts about is a 5 + 1 fic where Bond tries out different activities post retirement. I still love the idea and some of the vision I had for this one, but it lives almost entirely in my head, still.

16. What are your writing strengths? I think maybe I have a good ear for language, both in terms of the rhythm of sentences and paragraphs, and for conveying a character's voice or accent. But it's hard to assess your own strengths, sometimes, so that's just my best guess!

17. What are your writing weaknesses? I'm actively working on trying to be better at descriptions, especially in giving details about setting or background. I realized I give these things short shrift, sometimes, and want to change that!

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic? I'll do it with languages I'm fluent in (and have done it with Spanish, since I'm a native speaker).

19. First fandom you wrote for? Stardew Valley, in What Dreams May Come.

20. Favourite fic you’ve ever written? Omg, another one that is almost impossible to answer! I think I have to go with all the flags we've hung. This is one of my least popular fics--it's a rarepair, the love depicted in it is complicated (though no less real), and it deals with light topics like, you know, structural racism in the United States. As one does. But it's a fic that's incredible close to my heart, for many reasons, and I remain so proud of this one.

Phew! If you have read all of this you deserve a cupcake. 💜

xoxo, Ani

[decepti-thots]

sorry if you've answered this somewhere already - out of the books you've read this year, which three did you enjoy the most? and out of the fics you've read this year, which three did you enjoy the most?

All the fics I loved this year I mostly recced as and when on my fic recs tag, and tbh I don't think I read enough TF fic this year to really sort them into a top three- if I loved it, I put it up somewhere, mostly. If I had to pluck three out, I'd say Red Gold (god tier Rodimus characterisation), Your Own Hands (a reread, but still my favourite taraprowl fic, it gets the nod) and... oh actually. Okay, this one isn't Transformers, but I have to give a shout out to this Lupin III interactive fiction Twine fic that is an INCREDIBLE use of form to do something very ambitious with a fic. It's so good! If I do have any even casual Lupin enjoyers following me, definitely take a look.

The books, discounting one I already recommended:

Gilgamesh: A New Translation of the Ancient Epic, translated by Sophus Helle, is probably the single best book I read this year. I love the Epic of Gilgamesh very much, and this is a lovely translation, but what tipped it over for me was his essays after the poem where he discusses it in a way that is both accessible and also gets into the finer points of how to approach and appreciate the poem in a wider context. His discussion of the way gender plays into the power structures of the poem and the overview he gives of contemporary Iraqi cultural reaction to the poem were especially interesting. Especially after the former, I am really excited to read his book published this year translating and discussing all the poems of Enheduanna! Highly recommended. God I love Gilgamesh.

I reread The Invention of Love by Tom Stoppard, a play set in the Victorian era based (very loosely) around the life, death and afterlife of A. E. Housman. It's a really dense play on a lot of levels, mostly well known for being really obtuse. It has about six deeply obscure references to classical scholarship per sentence, twice as many offhand references to Victorian Oxbridge Stuff that go unremarked on, the timeline constantly jumps back and forth, a meaningful chunk of it is a dead guy talking to his younger self on the Styx, and they spend most of that time discussing the minutiae of latin grammar in poetry (with absolutely no dumbing down for the audience) as a metaphor for their unrequited yearning. I believe when it premiered on Broadway, they basically had to provide a book of like. Explanations as to what the fuck every other conversation was referencing. But I love it, even though I understand maybe fifty percent of it, because it's so beautifully written and clever and funny and able to withdraw from the ever-present threat of sentimentality. One of my favourite plays of all time. The 'poetical feelings are a peril to scholarship' exchange gets me every time. On my knees begging for a fucking proshot to be made of a performance one day.

A Play of Bodies: How We Perceive Videogames by Brendan Keogh is my favourite nonfiction by a narrow margin. It's a book that outlines a way to approach analysis and criticism of video games through a phenomenological framework, and it made me completely re-think how I understand what the 'text' of a video game is. This one is very much a work of academia, though it does give a lot more overview of what phenomenology is than, say, the average philosophy text is likely to, since it sits more in the 'games studies' area where that's not taken as much for granted, so it's not totally inaccessible. It made me think a lot about how video games exist as a unique medium in ways that completely diverge from the standard narrative of 'videogames are unique due to interactivity'. It takes a lot for me to be impressed by writing about games, given just how much of it I read/have read, but Keogh never disappoints.

[prettybirdy979]

Neil Gaiman & FourPlay String Quartet (in Sydney)

So last night I was SUPER fortunate and got to go see Neil Gaiman and the FourPlay String Quartet at the Sydney Opera House. It was an amazing night, a two and a bit hour show that is a little hard to sum up as a show. 

So I’ve got some thoughts under the cut (Spoilers for anyone going to the Melbourne show, which will likely be the same or at least very similar). I’ve remembered as best I can but well, only human and there was a lot in a fairly long show

Before that though, some general non-spoilery thoughts:

The things the Quartet could make their instruments do was almost miraculous. Neil described them as a string quartet who is also a rock band and I fully saw that. They all had talent and it was an honour to see them perform live. I hadn’t realised that wasn’t a didgeridoo in one of the songs until I saw the cello perform. 

As you can see in the pics of the stage (none of Neil or the group since we weren’t allowed to take them and I wasn’t gonna break that rule) I was extremely close. Close enough I hear the seal on Neil’s water crack at the start. But they were set up to be visible to all. The show was also sold out

Neil himself was captivating. Everyone shut up to listen when he spoke, regardless of what he was saying. We also had a couple of hecklers but one was helping and the other handled with a sigh and moving on

Nearly every song that they performed, Neil explained how it had come to be either something they had written or something they performed. It was an interesting look into the songwriting process and even the processes of performing (and how much you can learn in thirty minutes

The way it was performed, most of the time Neil was reading words to music or having music performed while he read but at one point he did provide backing vocals for a song and actually sung four of them as the main vocalist

Neil said we were brave for coming, since he struggled to explain it and we all took a chance on coming. If you do ever get the chance to attend one of these shows, I recommend taking it. It was so worth it, i enjoyed every moment of it

The show was professionally recorded! So maybe one day we’ll get to see bits of it (or all of it) for people who couldn’t attend

Now for more specific (and possibly spoilery) thoughts:

They started the show with Clock, which Neil mentioned as one of the few songs they’d be performing tonight that he didn’t write (his exact words a little bit in was that the words were “nicked from Bill” as it’s Shakespeare’s Sonnet 12). Something I noted for a lot of the performance and specifically this song was how he kept his hands always gripped behind his back except when he was talking with them. 

Then talked about how the band met (at the Opera House fourteen years ago) and became friends. He then mentioned the poem he read on 26th January 2011 at the Opera House, which was backed in Tasmania by didgeridoo, which the cellist said he could copy. And thus they came full circle with the song Poem first read on January 26th 2011 at the Sydney Opera House. As mentioned above, the cellist was right

Next song was Mobius strip. Not much to say about this one except that it’s one of my favourites from the album and very gesture filled

So both Neil and the band did something solo, starting with the band. They performed Neverwhere, a song they wrote but named for a Neil novel (with his input) since they believed it belonged on the album

Bloody Sunrise was next, which if you’ve not seen the music video for you should. It’s the one Neil was backing vocals for and they had a vampire come out to play the glockenspiel and 'harrass' Neil for his blood (jokingly). I think the vampire in the show was the same person as the video but if not, she was a very close match. The vocalist for this is Lara Goodridge, from FourString and her voice is amazing 

Next up was a Batman poem which had Neil detail his relationship to Batman through the years while the band possibly improvised music? They mentioned having no safety net for it (which prompted a comment from one of them about Batman not having a safety net) so it was at least one of the lesser rehearsed pieces. The poem was very touching and ended on a note that made me shiver

Song of the song was next; I’m struggling to recall many thoughts about it other than I liked it and it was great to see live

Ended the first half on Psycho by Leon Payne, which Neil sung. Backstory of this one was that they hadn’t had an encore during their first tour so they’d learnt this in a hurry as the encore for Carnegie Hall. The song was great and violin managed to make truly upsetting sounding cords and it was awesome!

This song also prompted Neil to mention the well known joke about Carnegie Hall, which a heckler set up for him (How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice). Then one of the band members (Peter I think? I’m terrible with names) also made the joke about them having proved the joke wrong since their encore for it wasn't really practised but learnt in half an hour at lunch before the show. It’s a running theme

In the first half there was also a running joke performing at the Opera House then going to Tasmania (as you do, Neil said one time) because apparently Neil has done that multiple times

Second half opened with Neil’s solo thing, the reading of his short story Click-clack, The Rattle Bag which was apparently written while he was in Australia 10 years ago staying at someone's house. Partway through the story, as it got spooky, click clack noises were made and it ended on a hell of a note

The Wreckers followed. Neil mentioned it was a poem he’d written for someone very sad

Before the next song Neil mentioned liking our weather, which was miserable that day, because all the rain that falls in his home right now is soft and fluffy. This prompted the next song which he called Umbrella, which had him reading words to the music and had the band sing a chorus he also spoke. Not sure where the words are from but it was a good song

The second sung by Neil song of the night was one he said was written to be a 3am torch song, that used to sung to a bartender. But it’s updated for the modern era so it was called I Google You (which is what you do now when you're heartbroken)

After that was a song they said had never been performed before, only rehearsed. As backstory Neil mentioned the tale of two men (whose names I forget) who’d published a dictionary of well, rude slang in the late 1800s/early 1900s. Neil had gotten his hands on 2 volumes of it to begin with then a 10 volume version and the song, "To suck the sugar sick or up-tails-all" (I think, the second part of the title did not stick in my mind that well), was just various euphemisms for sleeping together used by the Victorians read to music. Including the two in the title! Lara did the vocals for those euphemisms related to women

Next two songs were Signs of a life, and then In Transit as the 'last song'  

Which of course it wasn't. They came out for an encore, with the words “Two songs and we all get to go home, that's the rule” (prompting a heckler to ask “To your home?”. Neil just sighed)

First encore was a song I didn’t recognise but is apparently Makin' Whoopee and was sung by Neil. Apparently not well rehearsed since Neil jumped the gun on the lyrics at one point and said 'clearly we need to rehearse more'

Ended with The Problem with Saints, which is a song he said he wrote during a session where they were trying for eight songs in eight hours and managed six in twelve. Neil implied this one was written at 4am and the only reason he’s the one who sung on whatever first album it's on it is because it was 4am when it was written and he didn't protest

And that was the show! It was a long night (not helped by public transport being its usual trackwork happy self) but an amazing one. Well worth seeing and I hope I’ve passed on some of the bits to you.

[fwoopersongs]

浪淘沙令·帘外雨潺潺 - Waves Washing the Sand (Ditty) · The Sound of Rain Beyond the Windows

by 李煜 (Li Yu, 937 - 978)

帘外雨潺潺 春意阑珊 lián wài yǔ chánchán, chūn yì lánshān Beyond the blinds, strumming rain; Spring’s presence fades.

罗衾不耐五更寒 luóqīn bù nài wǔgēng hán Quilts of silk are no match for the chill of the Fifth Watch.

梦里不知身是客 一晌贪欢 mèng lǐ bù zhī shēn shì kè, yī shǎng tān huān Within the dream, a guest yet unaware, indulged in a moment of joy.

独自莫凭栏 无限江山 dúzì mò pínglán, wúxiàn jiāngshān. When alone, don’t lean on the railings; the landscape of the country extends, infinite.

别时容易见时难 bié shí róngyì jiàn shí nán. Parting was easy then, meeting again is hard.

流水落花春去也 天上人间 liúshuǐ luòhuā chūn qù yě, tiānshàng rénjiān. Waters flow, flowers fall, Spring has gone. In Heaven or the mortal world?

………………………………………………………………………………………….

Notes

I think the most borrowed line in this very famous poem is 别时容易见时难 // the parting was easy, to reunite hard. It was also this line that led me here, though I’ve forgotten which novel was responsible. And even though it is my favourite line, I was quite stuck trying to English 梦里不知身是客 + 天上人间 and set this aside xD Yesterday, @liberty-or-death reminded me of it, so I dusted it off and lo! was struck by inspiration. And here we are!

I love dreaming and I love all my dreams, even the sometimes frightening ones. And hearing what dreams and dreaming is like for others through songs and poetry brings me so much delight. Maybe I should make a tag for this theme.

Background

Li Yu was the last ruler of Southern Tang during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms. We read his last ever poem 《虞美人·春花秋月何时了》 (Lady Yu · Spring flowers, Autumn moon, oh when will they end?) which was written before his death in 978 CE. This one was from around the same period of his life, during the three years of imprisonment by Tang Taizong according to  《苕溪渔隐丛话》 Assembled Remarks by the Fisherman Recluse of Tiao Creek, volume 59, under《西清诗话》.

Keeping this background in mind, let’s go to the translation :D

Translation

A 帘 (lián) is like a blind with bamboo slats as seen in the painting below from the Southern Song Dynasty attributed to Li Tang (1070 - 1150).

(Source)

Here’s an example from a modern picture.

(Source)

The word 潺潺 (chánchán) is an onomatopoeia for running water or splashing according to baidu, and in this case it was supposed to be the sound of falling rain, which didn’t make much sense to me because the word in Mandarin doesn’t sound like anything water makes. So I went to search it up on wikipedia for pronunciations in dialects or old chinese, and got saan4 in cantonese and sɡreːn in old chinese, which was more satisfying. Made a vague gesture in that direction with ‘strumming’ for fun. If I wanted to be a little more accurate, it’d probably be murmur?

Traditional timekeeping at night was announced via a drum or gong sounded by the drum tower in city centers, and by night watchmen hitting a gong in the streets (at least, if cdramas are to be believed xD). Each time point was called a 更 (gēng, watch) and refers to the rotation of watchmen sounding those signals. There were five watches, numbered one to five, each 2.4 hours long. For more detailed information, you can check out the wiki page. (If there’s one thing I love about the passage of time, it’s the increasingly detailed information shared in English that means I no longer have to look things up and explain them thoroughly heehee). The Fifth Watch is the last 2.4 h before sunrise, extending from 4am to 6 or 7am, which also happens to be the coldest part of the day. 

My favourite line is this one:

梦里 | 不知 | 身是客 / 一晌 | 贪欢

Within the dream | not knowing | the self is a guest / in the moment | joyful 

It might not be meant read this way, but I like to understand the 贪 (greed) in 贪欢 as that in 贪玩 (playful), an indulgence in joy. It’s a very relatable line. 

I sort of read 独自 | 莫凭栏 无限江山 as ‘alone, don’t go to the railings (expecting) to see rivers and mountains (the kingdom) infinitely stretching out before’. By the way, here’s an interesting article on types of railings and their designs - it is, unfortunately, in Chinese only… but there are pictures! Li Yu says, don’t lean on the railings, don’t look out. Maybe he is telling himself because there is no kingdom and no beauty of that 无限江山 out there for him. Tells us what he was dreaming of without actually saying anything.

For 别时容易 (parting was easy), this was referring to his lands and all that was precious to him. This sentiment is another relatable one, and has been expressed in various other words, like Cao Pi’s (187 to 226 BCE)《燕歌行》Sparrow Song, 别日何易会日难 // how easy the day of parting, is the difficulty of meeting. Difficult to truly empathize until it happens to you.

My impression of 流水落花, more than unrequited love and defeat, is the physical reminder of the passage of time and the loss that is a natural part of it. Youth has passed like the beautiful season of lively Spring. Flowers fall and wither just as we are on our way to our ends, and relentlessly the river of time flows on. When I think about this, I often feel a bit disconnected. Or when coming out of very fun dream and the realization of reality and all the problems that come with it rushes back in. They existed when I was in ‘heaven’ and back ‘on earth’ too. 

[queer-cosette]

AO3 tag game

Thank you for the tag @apopcornkernel my love kissing u /p

how many works do you have on ao3?

45 right now!

what's your total ao3 word count?

According to my stats page, 781,604! Holy smokes, Batman!

what fandoms do you write for?

Right now, mainly Heathers, but I've also written for Les Misérables, Derry Girls, Monster High, Miraculous Ladybug, Total Drama, Equestria Girls, and Rainbow High, and have posted some original work on AO3 too (mostly poetry).

what are your top 5 fics by kudos?

mArinette (a Miraculous Ladybug easy A AU)

today I woke up wanting to kiss you (plotless Duncney fluff)

Cute Boys With Short Haircuts (Miraculous Ladybug angsty one-sided identity reveal)

Mistlejoke (Miraculous Ladybug christmas fluff)

Waitin' on the Sunrise (shameless fluffy JDonica porn with plot)

do you respond to comments?

I try to lol. Usually I'll respond in batches because executive dysfunction is The Worst

what is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Ooh, does original poetry count? Because if so, Kathryn, a midlength poem I wrote about Kathryn Howard the fifth wife of Henry VIII who was beheaded between the ages of 17 and 22. Or maybe these are times that can’t be weathered (and we have never been back there since then), a story about a Miraculous OC discovering Hawkmoth’s identity.

what's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Personally, I think it’s The Dark Gate, part four of my Les Mis Winx Club AU. The happy ending is really earned and needed.

do you get hate on fics?

Not really since I stopped regularly writing for Miraculous Ladybug. Boy, that was a wild experience. The fandom was really big at the time and it was the post-Season 3 salt era, so Opinions were both abundant and poor in quality.

do you write smut? if so, what kind?

Yes indeed! I was born on the run (but I’ll die holding your hand) and Waitin’ on the Sunrise are both JDonica smut fics that I am very very proud of! They’re… very fluffy. You know that rule about how you see in fandom the stuff that was missing from the source material? Look, I just want my awful blorbos to be happy. And also to bang a lot.

do you write crossovers? what's the craziest one you've written?

Does On Se Sent Comme Par Magie count? It’s really more fusion fic, it’s the characters of Les Mis living out the plot of Winx Club. Look, it just… it made sense in my head, y’know?

have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not as far as I know, and I hope it never happens!

have you ever had a fic translated?

No, but I did write an English translation of a fic I wrote in my native Scots! Never posted it, though.

have you ever co-written a fic before?

I have tried and miserably failed. I just can’t do it, babes.

what's your all time favourite ship?

Probably JDonica. I just… he’d kill for her?? And he does?? Does it get more chewable than that??

what's a WIP you want to finish but sometimes doubt you ever will?

Oh god I haven’t actually written anything for two months. I need to get back to Waitin’ on the Sunrise, The Last Faery on Earth (Part 5 of OSSCPM), and The Mystery Solvers of Derry (Derry Girls SDMI AU).

what are your writing strengths?

According to my beta reader for OSSCPM, readability, characterisation, and cliffhangers.

what are your writing weaknesses?

I’m really bad for run-on sentences - it’s not my fault, okay, I started reading Les Mis when I was sixteen and impressionable, and Victor Hugo did a number on my psyche that I doubt will ever be reversed because unfortunately Vicky Huge-ho lives rent-free in my skull and whispers in my ear to just use more semicolons like the whore he is.

thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I’ve written in Scots before, which was fun! I kind of want to do it again, but the Plot Bunnies aren’t cooperating right now.

first fandom you wrote for?

I think. Technically. It was a documentary about Sperm Whales that had a really sad ending that I saw when I was six and I wrote a little book that gave it a happier ending, if that counts? If not, probably Equestria Girls. Although, thank god, my early fic experiments are all stored on a hard drive that will never see the light of day again.

favorite fic you've written?

I was born on the run (but I’ll die holding your hand)!! Fluffy JDonica smut for the win!!

tagging: @theladyfae @private-bryan @galahadwilder @swxxtcidxr if yous want to xo

[stinastar]

20 questions for fic writers

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 101! Wow! Keep in mind many are short, and one is an even shorter poem about eggs 🥚

2. What’s your total A03 word count? 188,209

3. What fandoms do you write for? I honestly don't know how to answer this properly haha. I still have drafts or thoughts for fics for Good Omens, The Witcher, James Bond, and Our Flag Means Death. I'm currently mainly into writing Jason Todd (Red Hood / Batman).

I just looked in my folder and I also have notes for a piece each for Lord of the Rings and Shadow and Bone, but it's unlikely those will ever be finished and posted lol.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos? Of Dragons and Heartbreak, we’ll rip up the map by the seams, Which Half?, Sweet Truth, The Dumb Brute and the Bardling. So all for The Witcher, unsurprisingly. I don't think this kind of metric means much, honestly. It just means it was a big popular fandom at the time, I was writing the most popular ship, and these had tropes people were after. I think, at least. I by no means think those are my best works, is all I'm saying.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? Of course! I love love love getting comments and so make an effort to always reply to them. If I missed one I promise it was by accident!

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? I think that has to be you’ve got a second chance, you could go home. I'm still quite pleased with it. But people really wanted it fixed, so I did write a follow up :)

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? I honestly don't know how to quantify that 😅 Maybe Fire Me Up? The fic as a whole is very soft and sappy.

8. Do you get hate on fics? No, not really. I had one nasty comment a few years back from a fan that clearly hated a character and wanted to make that my (and others') problem, lol, and have had a few iffy comments here and there, but.

9. Do you write smut? Not reallllly. But I used to only fade to black, and have started dabbling in writing sex scenes a bit, so we may get there. We'll see. I didn't think I would, lol.

10. Do you write crossovers? No (that one crackfic notwithstanding, lol), they don't really interest me.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not that I know of 🤞🏻

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? Not that I know of, but what an honour!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? I don't think so, yet? I wrote a fic that went along with others, once, and I have a very neglected draft that I was working on with @ahh-fxck (sorry friend!), but I don't think I have a fic posted that I wrote with someone else...?

14. What’s your all-time favourite ship? You want me to pick between my precious babies?? lol. I honestly really don't know that I have one.

15. What’s the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? Pffft, sadly and honestly, so many.

16. What are your writing strengths? Dialogue comes quite easily for me, and I think I tend to do it well. The rest has been a WIP lol, but I think I've been improving!

17. What are your writing weaknesses? Everything else. Ha!! For real though. All the stuff in between dialogue lol. Longer stories. Patience (lack thereof). I'm getting tired because kiddo would not GTFTS, so apologies if I'm becoming less coherent...

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic? Thoughts? I mean, I've done it, a tiny bit. I did a bit of researching as well as using online dictionaries etc, and I was lucky to find a native speaker to read things over and give their input before posting.

19. First fandom you wrote for? Good Omens. It honestly happened by accident.

20. Favourite fic you’ve ever written? Oooooh. Possibly Wintersong? I'm quite happy with it. What can I say, I love angst. That one isn't my most favourite kind, but I'm proud of it and love it.

Thank you for the tag @aniron48 💗 Tagging @major-trouble @cicerfics @brothebro @girls-and-honey @holycatsandrabbits and anyone who sees this and wants to tag on 😘

[silently--here]

20 Questions for fic writers

Thank you for tagging me @annanother-thing!!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

13 technically, i have one that is currently anon tho so not on my profile yet

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

59,428

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Harry Potter, i also have one Hannibal poem but I haven't posted it

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Unknown number, my wolfstar texting fic

One Last call, sad angsty wolfstar fic

Secrets, trans remus joining hogwarts late fic with hinted wolfstar and minerva/poppy

Visiting the south of France, good severus fic and background james/lily

Eius Astra, t4t Draco and Percy fic soft sweet get together fic

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

I should but I don't really, to be fair I haven't been posting much but I'm really very bad at replying and leaving comments and it's something I want to improve at

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

Probably one last call , mind the tags on it if you read it

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

Hmm my fic that is currently anon or Eius Astra

8. Do you get hate on fics?

In the past but I just delete it, recently I havent which is nice

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

Yes but I never end up posting much, I want to get round to it but I overthink

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

Nope the closest I have gotten to a cross over was my Glitter and gold fic

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Nope, I am not a good enough writer for that

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope, I have translated my own fic as an exercise in writing norwegian but I didn't post it, it is probably full of errors and wrong words

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

Nope and I don't think I would be very good at it, when I was younger I wanted to but I am happy writing on my own nowadays

14. What’s your all time favourite ship?

I have so many I can't just pick but if we stay within Harry Potter fandom then its wolfstar

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I don't know, I have a lot of things I begin but don't think I will finish but then randomly I will find myself coming back to them but being realistic I have a wolfstar fic dubbed as the lighthouse fic and I don't know if I will ever finish it or put anywhere

16. What are your writing strengths?

I don't know, I am well aware I have flaws in my writing and I could nit pick all day but strengths idk. I don't write because I'm good, I write because I enjoy it and it's a bit of an escape and maybe someone will enjoy what I write but if not it doesn't matter because I don't need people to enjoy my fics

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I am bad with spelling and reusing the same words, I don't structure sentences well and don't know if a full stop or a comma is needed. I don't really understand the rules of writing dialogue. Theres so much and I wont go on.

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

See I never know what the rules are for this and same as Anna I find it annoying when the translations are in the end notes of a fic. I have some wips written with a different language spoken that aren't posted and I have done it with a '/' to separate translation to actual speech. However I do wonder how important it is to my fic that they are speaking a different language or is it not really needed? Idk

19. First fandom you wrote for?

I think it was Harry Potter but idk

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

It's barely written and I can't wait to write more but half hitches and round turns is my wolfstar living on a canal boat fic and ahh i just love it

I'm tagging: @uncannycerulean, @allalrightagain @bluestringpudding and anyone else who wants to do this

[ashwithapen]

poem #8

(this one is a long one and comes with a list of TWs, so the actual poem is below the cut. this one is also a lot more prose-poetry/slam poetry-esque than my other stuff :thumbsup:)

TW for school shootings, trans genocide/transphobia, abortion (mentioned), police brutality (mentioned), suicide (mentioned).

the thing about TikTok written 4 april 2023

y’know, i only opened this app because i saw a clip somewhere of one of my favourite bands. the singer made a joke in Scotland last night, and surely someone had to have posted a better-quality video on TikTok.

it was the first thing i saw when the app loaded, because they just know me so well. i watched it and saved it so that i can watch it again as a distraction or something later. but then i made the mistake of scrolling.

the next thing i saw was a 5-minute video about how people my age and younger were screaming for their lives just across the pond outside of government buildings. they are desperate not to be killed in their classrooms, desperate to live through this semester, desperate to be heard, but the suit-wearing rulers shuffled through their 1000-person sea, one foot at a time like it was dark and they couldn’t see the people my age and younger lining the walls, holding their signs, screaming for change. i watch it, and i have to keep scrolling.

some video about all the shit you can buy for just 8 USD from a gas station in Japan. i don’t watch the whole thing; i keep scrolling.

someone with a cool haircut is sitting on the floor of their bedroom, crying. the sound playing is saying something from a show i haven’t watched about a storybook fox who is sick and tired of living in a hole. they are crying, the tags say that they are trans, and they are crying. their bio says they are just 14, that’s three whole years younger than i am and something in me surges because that is my sibling whose name i don’t know and that i may never get to because the threat of genocide has them, 14, crying on their bedroom floor. not tonight, i think in silence. i do not want to cry tonight. and so i keep scrolling.

and the next video is an indie artist who didn’t exist a year and a half ago, but even so, their new single that when viral drops in a few nights so i follow their page and i hold my breath: should i scroll again? i do, i don’t learn.

and there’s a joke i don’t get with the loudest fucking noise i’ve ever heard. it makes no sense, i scroll again.

oh look, a 9-year-old girl who got shot when she went back to pull the fire alarm so her classmates would know to run. run. run. her face is the centrepiece, her smile from an earlier date something i need to learn to shake off by tonight. i can’t even imagine what being her might have been like. i scroll again.

a cover of a song, sung atop guitar chords; another joke that the comments don’t explain to me either; another reminder of the imposing genocide; abortion bans are being enforced; they’re using force against unarmed protesters again; a poem spoken to me by a person named Lee; more tour clips to distract me; some statistics about teen suicide rates rising in the States; and one of those checkpoints that tells you that it’s time for a break. stand up, stretch, get some water. the song playing low in the background is one i’ve heard maybe a hundred times by now, but i do as i’m instructed, and i take a deep breath.

my curtains are open and i can see through my window. i remember the song i started writing the other day about how people like me seldom live long enough to see their hair turn grey. i remember how i couldn’t finish it off because something salty and wet rubbed the ink off my page and i closed my book and i pretended that i wasn’t upset, like how, in an hour from now, when dinner is served hot in front of me and they ask me “how has your day been?” i will pretend my phone is not heavy in my pocket and that the kids' shouting isn’t plaguing me and that trans people aren’t losing their right to exist and be free and that a girl half my age wasn’t shot because she got unlucky one day.

and i regret opening TikTok every time that i do because i always fail to miss all those kids i heard dance on here. instead, i get singers on stages and artists who speak and kids who know how to barricade doors with desks and bookshelves and how to defend themselves with their trendy metal water bottles, and news about the latest legislation passed that ensures that more kids will be forcefully born into a cyclical mess where they don’t get to grow up without routine checks as to whether they can tell apart a juice box pop and a gunshot.

and there are not enough words to tell you all the things i have heard scrolling through TikTok, where the mothers are gentle with their children until they go to sleep, because then they take off their soft tones and don their broken voices, screaming out in hopes that their kids won’t have to.

it has to be a phenomenon: the ability you need to grow by my age if you want to use an app as unsuspecting as the sound of a clock, TikTok. if you cannot master empathy and apathy and the way in which you must be able to switch between one and the other at the littlest flick of your wrist because what’s funny one minute must always precede the latest tragedy, death giving way to a joke and a smirk from a pretty girl in a skirt whose page a month ago was all about ways you can help in Ukraine, but clearly, she has become a master of this miracle.

and at the end of it all, when it has been hours of hearing about Neo-nazis and the generalised patriarchy and the right or wrong ways to raise bread yeast, i think three things:

one: a simmering roll of “wow”. both my empathy and apathy have been expended, and now, i have nothing left to give.

two: i am never coming back here again, like a hotel where they promise a rest, a break, a chance to get away from your day-to-day stress. one star.

three: oh look, my band said something funny again, and god, i could use a distraction.

[tadpal]

1, 2, 3 for the asks :)

1. what are 3 things you’d say shaped you into who you are?

i answered this here as well and i got super long winded with it so this time ill try to be brief!

my brothers (which if i was feeling cheeky i could just go One Two And Three three brothers three things:) but i wont) it's actually very weird to me that rn all of my friends are brotherless individuals. what do you mean no brothers... no brother real?

then probably my old guard dogs growing up! i written a bunch of shitty poems about them bc they were such a pair: a german shepherd who even when he had arthritis and multiple poorly healed leg breaks (neighbors horse on our property) he would still toddle out with me to keep me safe and a chow who was genuinely feared im the neighbourhood for her Viciousness. her favourite place to lie was under a huge thorn bush. she actively hunted a deer once. something something the lines between guardianship and ownership and violence and love. all intersecting i would say. love those old dudes

and then maybe. reading the hitchhiker's guide to galaxy aged eight. man that fucked up my use language forever and ever and im still not recovered.

2. show us a picture of your handwriting?

description in alt text!

3. 3 films you could watch for the rest of your life and not get bored of?

uhhhh man probably unfortunately emma 2020 - if we're only counting films. if we can also count tv then swap this for emma 2009. man this is tough bc i have immediately forgotten all movies but maybe the two towers extended edition? it's my favourite of the lotr movies and i feel like they deserve a shoutout considering. and then honestly Kung Fu Panda. feels good feels right for me

[crystalcatgamer]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

Tag by @havenotwillnotreadthebooks, lo, Kefi!

How many works do you have on AO3?

122 🎵 I’ve orphaned and deleted a few along the years, though.

What fandoms do you write for?

Uhhhh. Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint (ORV), Boboiboy, Jujutsu Kaisen and more. Currently really, really fixated on One Piece though I haven’t written fic yet, but am cooking so much toxic doomed brothers food (Donquixote Bros)

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Vis la goddamn DSMP phase always going to be my biggest mark in the world. Excluding discontinued fics and stuff I’m not happy with anymore for now…

Run, run (Here comes the boy) 1415 kudos

May the odds (Be ever in your favour) 1203 kudos

There are days where I don’t know the person in the mirror (And there are days I don’t care) 1161 kudos

Hold you in my hands like hot tea 1155 kudos

Knowing I’m safe cause you want me 1052 kudos (A sequel to fourth place!)

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I respond to every single comment I can, though sometimes I might miss some! I’ll catch them months later lmao. It’s always fun to chat with ppl about what’s in my fic

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I’ll call out your name, but you won’t call back. This is an ORV fic, doomed Doksoo (beloved) and since it’s canon compliant… yeah. ‘Twas full of angst that came from love.

What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

The deep blue of summer nights. This was a cute ORV fic born of me wanting to write Secretive Plotter’s birthday being celebrated by ABFD, SWK and Uriel! They’re my fav rare dynamic

Do you get hate on fics?

I think the closest I got was some discourse on my DSMP fic? To be expected, and it was cleared up soon enough!

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I did like years ago lmao, tucked into the depths of the internet. Definitely not on main, for this is a family friendly account sir. It was fun in a way but also I hated writing it most of the time??? More of a reader than a writer I would say. As for what kind… while, I wrote what I liked ☆

Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

I HAVE THREE (3) CROSSOVERS AND THEY’RE BOTH WITH JUJUTSU KAISEN. Maybe I’m more insane over JJK then I thought I was. In my defence they’re easy to cross. Okay so basically my craziest one is this ORV X JJK one (Something blue, something new) in which I wrote the ship Kim Dokja x Gojo Satoru because I was commissioned to

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Nope and I hope I never do!

Have you ever had a fic translated?

I have not, but as long as people ask first I’m always open to it.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

A FNAF fic I wrote with Kefi (the one who pinged me for this game): Many vegetables, one soup, and a work full of original poems with @thenamelesshaven: You are made of the sea and the stars (and one day you are going to find yourself again)

What’s your all time favourite ship?

[glances at my art gallery] Recently, LawLu from One Piece and… Sharron/Maric from Lord Of The Mysteries

What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

We Shouldn’t Be This Kind Of Tired At Our Age! An ORV fic featuring Yoo Mia witnessing Yoo Joonghyuk’s changes with every turn!

What are your writing strengths?

Uhhhh. Being able to churn out stuff at the speed of light. And writing angst (lol)

What are your writing weaknesses?

Actually having a proper outline, ehe. It’s why I usually write one-shots.

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

Uhhhh I? Might do it some day? I’m just a bilingual guy who barely passed Chinese. It’s cool when other people who know what they’re writing about do it in their fics tho.

First fandom you wrote for?

Ehe. VIS LA BOKU NO HERO ACADEMIA (MY HERO ACADEMIA) but the fic’s been orphaned to the void ✌🏻

Favourite fic you’ve written?

Woah. Tough question, scrambling for it… this one! when I look in his eyes, well, I just see the sky. It’s a Black Butler fic I wrote recently for Whumptober (2023), Elizabeth Midford centric! I love her a lot <3