#so a longer snippet as I have ZERO idea when this will be done

[ejunkiet]

wip wednesday~

marco brain rot has been real. here is a snippet of a sequel to say it again / bioluminescence , as my theory about marco having a praise kink is still going strong >:3

blood moon if ( @barbwritesstuff): marco/mc. post-game, some spoilers!

--

You’re doing so well, Marco

You don’t miss the hitch in his breath, or the way his eyes narrow at you, piercing blue over the heads of the rest of your pack. You don’t miss the subtle shift in his scent either, the tang of it sweet on the air, or the flush that rises to his cheeks as Addie snorts, throwing you both a knowing look.

There’s a thrill to it, working him up in a space like this. Knowing that he can’t act on it, can’t do anything but wait.

(There’s a lot of work left to do, he’s going to be waiting a while.)

You’ve never minded getting your hands dirty. Hell, after the mess of the last few months, the confrontation with Blackwell and its aftermath, it’s a relief to be free from the stench of undead blood. A little sweat and exertion is nothing.

Besides, it’s a good look on him. Marco has always been stronger than he looks, wiry muscle on a lean frame, but there’s no masking his strength now, the loose tank top he’s wearing leaving little to the imagination. You can see everything, the way his muscles flex as he moves, tight with the motion and the heat of late summer.

(The dark lines of the roses tattooed on his skin gleam under a sheen of sweat, and you can’t help but remember how you’d mapped the shape of them last night, with lips and teeth, the taste of his sweat sharp on your tongue.)

You swallow around the thought, flexing your grip on the sledgehammer in your hands. But your distraction doesn’t go unnoticed, and Marco pauses, his nostrils flaring as he breathes in, deep, before his blue eyes find yours again, and he gives you a sharp grin.

“Okay, that’s enough.” You blink as Addie pushes herself to her feet, her steely gaze stern over the thin wire frames of her glasses. “You’re both too distracted for this work. Out.”

“But-”

“No ‘buts’. If you two are going to keep making moon-eyes at each other, someone is gonna have an accident.” 

Marco winces, a flush rising up the pale skin of his neck, vivid under the fluorescent lights, and you want to taste it, feel the heat of it against your lips. 

You shake your head, banishing the thought as you raise your hands, palms out, in surrender. “I’m sorry, Addie. We’ll do better, I promise.”

She lets out a low huff, her eyes sharp and disapproving as she glances between the two of you. The flush spreads across Marco’s cheeks, until you think he’s gonna burn beneath it, but just before he cracks, she relents.

“Look. We can handle the rest.” She shakes her head as you open your mouth to speak, a wry smile tugging at her lips as she shuts you down. “You’ve both done good work, and you’ve earned a break. Now go.”

--

tagging- you, reading this! also (no pressure!): @evilbunnyking @serenpedac @androleda @pinksparkl @romirola @dominimoonbeam @glassbearclock @slushrottweiler @lovelylonerliterature @k9rage

[popotobun]

WIP Wednesday!

Lately I've been working most on my SVSSS fic that's basically a "What if Shen Yuan was a little older and a little more competant". That's it, that's the fic. I have zero idea where it's going to end up, but I've got two chapters worth scribbled down, so that's something! I've also got an outline for a Tangled-inspired Liushen AU that I don't want to start because once I do, I think I'll keep going until it's done and I want to get more done on the longer fic first xD

I've still got plans for the post-MLC fic I'm working on! I really should finish that, since it doesn't have anywhere to go and should just be the one chapter... Who knows. I let words get away from all the time.

I've still got a couple of FF14 WIPs too, though the MSQ follow-along will always be slow going... I do want to finish the Dark Knight fic, but my WoL was in a Not Good headspace when he started that, so it's on a back burner too.

Feel free to Ask me to work on any of these and I'll post a new paragraph~ but either way, enjoy the snippet!

The entire night passed while he read, the morning only making itself known to Shen Yuan when a knock sounded at the entrance to his room and Ming Fan’s voice announced, “Shizun, I left breakfast at the table for you. Please let this disciple know if there is anything further needed.”

“Nothing but privacy, Ming Fan. I am only to be disturbed by meals for the next three days.” While he recovers is not spoken aloud, but carried in the silence that he lets linger a moment longer than it needs to. “Unless another Peak Lord requires my presence.”

Ming Fan bowed and started to leave after confirming the instructions, but was stopped by Shen Qingqiu’s voice adding, “Perhaps I will meditate in the gardens today. If I am not here, let it be known that I am unavailable for company.”

That should cover most possibilities. He was sure Mu Qingfang wouldn’t be back by so soon, but he couldn’t say the same for anyone else. With the worry from Yue Qingyuan that Mu-shidi had mentioned or potential curiosity as to his recent visitors, anyone could come by! And he didn’t want them seeing him practicing basic sword forms like someone who’d never held a sword before.

Since that was exactly what he planned to be doing.

After breakfast of course.

[poupeesdecirque]

General Update

Just a heads up, I mainly write for those who got snippets the last days and are maybe (quite) concerned and worried about me.

So, the last few weeks at work have been literal hell.

More under the cut, this gets long.

This week especially, we worked with 6 people understaffed (out of 16, might be not that bad if you work in an office but if you work with humans, especially children/toddlers even it's... difficult), I won't get much into detail but weeks we have the bi-weekly meeting mondays before work mess me up already but then 3 more people calling in sick made everything worse. It didn't help that my annual employee-feedback talk was coming up on wednesday and that turns me into a pile of anxiety of its own.

The tuesday in before had me crying in the bathroom at work after just 1,5 hours of a 8+ hour day without real lunch break (just fyi last summer I went down with hours to be less stressed... I got in more than two days worth of work in overtime the last month). I work there for 10 years and this is the 2nd time I cried and this time it was just because of the pure stress. I won't go into detail here but I went beyond my limit so often the last weeks I am merely a shell and just do creative things to cope somehow.

The annual talk went .... good. No, good is an understatement, it was one of the best I had, there is basically zero critique on how I work, boss is very satisfied and the only thing is that I am told to tell my coworkers when their decisions stress me. haha. yeah.

Then there is our street... it's a construction site since February but now the whole thing is closed down, last week I almost didn't manage to get to work bc they closed down another road and I had no way to get through left q_q...

The work week was just 3 days (luckily) and we went into a long weekend bc of the public holiday. I decided to take the thursday slow but, yeah I know it better, the point here is when you go from 200% to maybe 10% your mind will crash and that's what I got.

I am so under stress my body has no idea where to put it and tries everything, I can't sleep well, just for a few hours and then I am wide awake.

Aside that I am basically done with the redraw project which took me almost a year, then my fic 'Warmth' is done too, it's just one final scene and that's the epilogue with the final conclusion, I have been working on this for 2,5 years now and it's part of my evening routine.. the redraws are part of my morning routine... I changed a few more things and well I managed to mess up my entire routine but I NEED IT TO FUNCTION.

I felt it coming but well.. you guessed it right, depression hit me hard on friday evening (I have seasonal depression, it gets worse the longer the days become, higher temperatures are often enough to trigger it, then the lack of sleep, two big projects ending, etc) and yesterday before the con I didn't even want to go there despite the Con being the only thing keeping me going the whole week.

I'm exhausted, tired but sleeping doesn't work as my body is "I DON'T KNOW WHERE TO PUT THE STRESS". I am really mean towards myself and I am trying hard not to be an ass and we don't talk about the fact that I need days to like... put away the laundry, put groceries into the cabinets or have crafting materials scattered around everywhere. It's just a real mess in here.

Overall I just... pour energy into crafts bc I have no idea where to put it. I would love to just go for a good old inline skate round but I don't want to carry my skates through the landscape for 10 minuted bc we have no streets q_q;

I know I stacked on a lot and less would be better (heck I challenged myself to cook more variety again and ofc I got competitive with myself but went out of my comfort zone and then wasn't able to estimate things anymore... if you know me closer you know what that means), but right now it's about finding the balance here as when i do nothing it just ... gets worse.

Concluding this means I am on a tightrope with things and there is not much needed to make me fall (again). I have projects to work on, but I get too invested and then overdo it which means ~ more stress~ ... good thing I can't work on Lenalee unless the new zippers arrive and sewing in general is not really appealing to me.

But I prepped everything for sewing for her and Maple, I have cut parts for the Allen Clown Cosplay, even started the buttons (& remade those already bc first attempt left me unsatisfied), I made the cover for the next fic update but I don't want to post everything at once.

Don't forget the situation at work made me an expert in how to get a lot of shit done in very little time and to use every minute I have to get the most results out of the time I have. Slowing down is a real issue I have to learn.

This entry doesn't make much sense but if you have read until here just know I thank you for your attention. This month is mainly DGM themed everything as the series turns 20. I have photos with OC dolls queued up and once I have the mind for more sewing I will work on Maple.

There is cosplay progress from a while ago, cosplay photos, drawings, lots of doll progress from Kanda to come and in general some very pretty photos I am found of.

Oh and the travel blog regarding the HanaCon is written I will post it soon, maybe not today bc it's enough already.

[hey-michael-young-history]

December 7th, 2021 2:09am

While I was writing Further Risks and Complications, I was going to add a collection of snippets of life in the Lin Kuei, in hopes of maybe catching some fluffy moments between the boys as they supported each other from adolescence into adulthood. But it quickly turned into Bi-Han slowly losing his sanity and humanity, and I had enough sad emoji faces in this series. And when I write Omega Kuai Liang too much, he ends up soft and OOC.

This one I may come back to someday - it was part of an idea that was going to evolve into something longer than I had time for. Once again, just a first draft that never got finished.

Lunchtime!

“Sub-Zero is bringing Tundra with him,” Cyrax announced.

Smoke raised an eyebrow, but Sektor didn’t look up from his food.

“You mean… here? Out in the open? With other people around?” Smoke asked.

“Yup.”

“Did he forget what a disaster it was last time he tried this? I don’t think I can take another meal restriction punishment,” Smoke complained.

“He’s not doing it because he wants to. Tundra is fifteen. He’s going out on his first solo soon, and the elders want to be sure that he can handle himself around other people,” Sektor explained.

“Well, here comes our favorite ray of sunshine and his little cloud now,” Cyrax said with a sigh. He couldn’t see this going well, but even Sub-Zero couldn’t ignore direct orders from the elders.

Bi-Han approached with Tundra behind him. He glared down at Sektor and demanded,  “Move.”

Sektor rolled his eyes but got up and sat next to Cyrax so the cryomancers could sit together.

“Sit. Now.” That order was directed to his brother, who obeyed and kept his head low as he rubbed his eyebrows.

The pheromones they were both releasing were stressful.  The angrier Bi-Han grew,  the more fearful Tundra felt. Smoke could see that his right eye was bruised, and there was a swelling cut on his cheek. His hands stumbled as he peeled his orange, and he dropped it. His brother almost crushed it when he retrieved it and slammed it back on the tray.

Cyrax didn’t know what Tundra had done to piss Sub-Zero off, but he couldn’t help but feel sorry for the kid. It didn’t take much to get Bi-Han annoyed or angry, and Kuai Liang took it personally every time he was subjected to it. Cyrax’s attempts to bring this up had been… less than successful.

“Did Sub-Zero do that to you?” Smoke asked, touching his cheek. He had reached out before he even thought about it, and it got him a disapproving look from Cyrax.

Tundra jerked his head away at the contact and immediately turned to Bi-Han. “Could I return to our room?”

“You can’t fall apart every time an Alpha touches you,” Bi-Han snapped. “Answer his question.”

Tundra looked down at his food. “Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, Bi-Han-”

“Sub-Zero.”

“Yes, Sub-Zero hit me.”

“And why did I hit you?”

“Because… because I didn’t respect your time,” he mumbled, rubbing his eyebrow harder.

“He’s your brother. Did you really have to hit him, Bi-Han?” Smoke asked.

Cyrax sighed, and Sektor just shook his head. Another round of Sub-Zero and Smoke arguing over Tundra. This was exactly what led to them all being put on meal restriction punishment the last time Sub-Zero had tried bringing his brother with him.

“Kiss my ass, Smoke. I know what works and what doesn’t with him.”

“Well, fuck you, Sub-Zero. All you know is locking him up and punishing him.”

[riathedreamer]

You asked for it: live thoughts from Ria and @creatrixanimi​ watching RvB Zero.

So, after having a movie night the day before (third movie night in a week, actually, we are very productive) watching Neil Breen movies and “Cool Cat”, it was now time to touch upon Zero. Sadly, Zero does not belong in the “so bad it’s good” category, but alas, Ria had to spoil Haley’s innocence.

This is not a proper edited review, but just snippets of our live reaction while watching the thing together. We are not drunk, but this continued way past midnight for Ria, so maybe her brain isn’t fully functioning. Also, Ria is a potty mouth because cursing is easy when it’s not your native language. Enjoy.

Episode 1:

Ria: I can’t figure out if they were trying to do a Grif and Simmons parallel with those two random guards talking outside, the ones with the Wash retconning.

Haley: Their armor doesn’t cover their noses. 

Ria: That’s gotta be cold. Frostbitten noses.

...

Haley: There is no exposition. Like, it feels like the writers had their idea and know what is going on, but we don’t so it just feels weird and random. It feels like a Marvel movie.

Ria: Is that a compliment? I haven’t watched Marvel.

Haley: Not a good one.

 ...

Ria: This episode isn’t that bad in itself. But it’s just there to establish that the OG characters can’t beat this new villain, but the new guys can, and, urgh.

 ...

Episode 2:

[The shot focuses on One’s behind.]

Ria’s dirty mind: Ass.

 ...

Ria: STOP CALLING HIM DAVID.

...

Ria: I like this character, but I don’t remember his name.

Haley: Raymond.

Ria: This is why we need a name system like with the Freelancers and states. Should’ve just been numbers all the way through. Except Eleven, you fucking whore.

 ...

Haley at the sight of Raymond’s phone: It’s so big.

Ria: It’s the future. I can believe it.

 ...

Ria: Here’s the thing driving me crazy. Axel is a normal name in Denmark. But like, only old people use it. I know two Axels and they are both older than eighty. So that’s when I think of when I see Axel.

 ...

[After the whole training montage where we are introduced to the characters, we are still confused.]

Ria: I can’t remember their names.

Haley: Well, they didn’t show all of them. They didn’t show One.

Ria: They did!

Haley: They did?

Ria: Wow. So we got all that tell and no show, and we are still confused.

 ...

Haley: When it comes to genre, it’s actually not that bad with the narrated tell and don’t show. If it wanted to be a cheesy/bad action movie, that’s a trope that’s used relatively frequently in the genre. It’s a bad action movie. But it’s not RvB. It’s kinda like a particularly bad Marvel movie.

Ria: You’re really not selling me on the Marvel movies tonight.

 ...

Ria: I know I’m just a sucker for Joe, but I keep thinking of s15. Like, here they just use the files as a cheap way to introduce the characters. But like, in s15, Dylan just read out loud Grif’s file, and it was not to introduce him, but like, to show the complexity of the characters and go against the files? I don’t know, it just seems way cooler now.

 ...

[After the whole “what’s East’s deal” scene, we were so confused. Literally paused for five minutes trying to figure who was whose dad and why and what. How many daughters did Axel have? And where are they? We were just lost. Future Haley: Him waxing poetic about his daughters while watching the two girls in his team train confused me like I thought he was talking about East and One and couldn’t count sdfghjk. Future Ria: I’d even watched the show before and I was still confused.]

Ria: I can’t figure out if they’re too fast or if we’re just stupid.

Haley: It’s like I’m trying to remember the details but it all slips through my fingers.

Ria: The whole Zero experience is to feel too old for this shit.

 ...

Ria: STOP FUCKING CALLING HIM DAVID

 ...

One: This is how it’s done, grandma.

Ria: Fuck you.

 ...

Episode 3:

Haley: People would like it if they love dumb action shows. It works as a mindless action show.

 ...

Haley: So this is a temple?

Ria: I hate the worldbuilding. Is this the same planet as before? Like, Chorus had temples, but it also had lore about it. Is this the same sort of temples?

Haley: So shouldn’t this temple have its own key? Why do they need to include Tucker? It makes no sense for the temple to require a totally different sword from a different planet.

Ria: So they could beat him up ‘cause OG characters are weak now.

 ...

Haley: I don’t like the training scenes. They are so long and boring.

Ria: This is like the third episode where they are training. Holy shit.

 ...

Haley: It’s not that bad. But if you like Red vs. Blue, it’s not something for you. They aren’t really comparable.

Ria: I just don’t understand what they wanted to continue for Red vs. Blue. Like, it’s not the worldbuilding or the plot or the characters. I just don’t get it.

 ...

Haley: Raymond is the best character.

Ria: I like Raymond.

Haley: He’s RvB. He should be the main character.

 ...

Ria: Did East just use the “I’m not like the other (girls)” line?

Haley: I don’t like her. She’s a brat. Why did Carolina have to apologize? They were just training, this is something she’s gonna have to deal with on a daily basis lmao.

Ria: Didn’t Carolina have a cast on her arm? It’s gone now. I can’t keep up with the timeline. So, she’s healed, but how long was Wash gone? They are so vague about everything. Worldbuilding, timeline, motivations.

 ...

Ria: …Did Carolina just say she’d suit up? While wearing a full armor suit?

 ...

[And this is where the cursed part takes place. To talk, we’d often pause the thing. Here, I randomly paused during the introduction for Starlight Laboratories. There’s a desk in the shot. With a fucking marker on it.]

Haley: That’s a Crayola marker. That’s a Crayola marker on the table.

Ria: Glad we can appreciate the details by pausing.

[Haley then missed the entire Axel flashback scene because she was too busy looking up pictures of Crayola markers. When this is revealed, Ria lost it for like, three minutes]

Haley: I had that marker as a kid. 

Ria: So 4/5 stars for the marker?

Haley: They were supposed to smell like blueberries or something but they just smelled like chemicals.

Ria: This is the most excited we’ve been about Zero so far.

[Future Haley: I was literally laugh-crying you dont understand. This was the best part of the show.]

...

Episode 4:

Ria: They all have super powers. It’s so weird.

Haley: I keep thinking they are gonna explain stuff. But they don’t. So I’m just confused.

 ...

[Haley has now brought forth all the markers in her room to find a Crayola one. She drops them all on the floor. Ria loses it again.] [Future Haley update: I found a yellow one it smells like lemons :)]

 ...

Ria: They are all glowing and have super powers. It’s weird. Like, I know we had super powered armor before but that was all connected to AIs. I don’t get how all of this works. They don’t have AIs.

 ...

[We both agree that we enjoy Raymond and Tiny. Bless them.]

 ...

Ria: It’s weird. The dialogue is so oblivious, it comments on its own mistakes. Like, Carolina just acknowledged Wash has had a computer in his head before. But they don’t acknowledge the whole canonical lore about his trauma regarding computers in his head and why he’d hate this. Same with the name David. They just noticed that it’s his first name and that’s how they’d show how close Carolina is with him, but they didn’t acknowledge the canon lore that Wash dislikes people using his first name.

 ...

Episode 5:

Haley: Why didn’t they use Locus’ sword instead. It’d make more sense. He’s the one travelling around planets and wanting to help people?? 

Ria: What’s the worldbuilding here? Is Tucker on the same planet? Is this Earth? Chorus?

 ...

Haley: Gotta love it when they make Tucker hit on teenagers.

Ria: Oh god why did they make East 18.

 ...

Haley: They should have done something with the Warthog song, even if that’s a Red Team thing.

Ria: I miss Red Team.

 ...

Ria: Wait, so if these three swords are connected, why can the two first ones move by themselves and they have like super powers connected to them? When Tucker’s sword is just boring? They didn’t even make a joke about how the two new swords are longer than Tucker’s.

 ...

Tucker: I’m fine, I have my sword.

Ria: That line is so tragic in hindsight.

 ...

One: It’s Tucker. He is dead.

Carolina: Oh my god.

Haley: *laughs her ass off*

 ...

Haley: I don’t understand why anyone is doing anything.

Ria: Your brain is still thinking about that fucking marker.

 ...

Episode 6:

Ria: The dialogue did it again! Wash just said “amazing medical tech”. Like, he points out a plot hole. Because that amazing tech can heal brain injuries and bring people back from death, but East had to be tortured for years to heal her vague illness? Like, why couldn’t their amazing tech fix that.

 ...

[While watching the design of the temple.]

Ria: It looks like those are just plates glued to the wall. Dinner is served.

 ...

Haley: There is no logical reason why they brought in Tucker. His sword isn’t even from this planet.

Ria: To lure in fans.

 ...

Haley in a very sad voice: The speech wasn’t good.

 ...

Episode 7:

Ria: Is all of this happening on the same planet? They keep driving. The worldbuilding is so weird. At least earlier RvB made a joke about how they could just drive everywhere. This is like a big desert, a training base, laboratory, city and temples and Tucker’s workplace, and I don’t know if it’s even on the same planet.

 ...

Ria: Diesel is just standing there waiting while they outfit Carolina.

Haley: It’s like a video game.

 ...

Ria: The temple’s walls are filled with runes.

Haley: It feels like a free/bought asset. It doesn’t even look like the temples on Chorus. It looks like something in WoW or something like that.

Ria: It’s driving me mad. I can read runes! Imagine a big boss fight and the freaking alphabet is plastered on the walls. That’s what I’m looking at.

 ...

Haley: Zero is such a boring villain. It’s not interesting when we don’t know what this “power” actually is or what he wants to do with it.

 ...

Ria: That’s the helmet Spencer wore.

Haley: Oh god I forgot about him.

Ria: So did the writers.

Haley: Spencer should have been the real villain.

 ...

Haley: *sees the random model of the temple guardian alien* I miss Santa.

 ...

Episode 8:

Ria: The aliens are just dancing in the background while Carolina is fighting Diesel.

Haley laughing: Oh my god, they are. They are just jumping up and down.

 ...

Ria: So, the villain just turned overpowered, and the solution is that Raymond just flicks a switch we haven’t heard about and now the heroes are overpowered too?

Haley: It just makes them shiny. And like... they don’t even use the “power”, they don’t fight him with their powers which only some of them have, they just shoot their ordinary guns at him while doing unnecessary flips.

Ria: I just remembered Church’s dick switch. That had more dramatic buildup.

 ...

Axel: You’re too cocky for that.

Ria’s dirty brain: Cock.

 ...

Post Zero thoughts:

[Ria returns from bathroom break and Haley is proudly showing off her marker over video cam.]

Haley: There was too much going on so I just focused on the marker.

Ria: So how many stars would you give it?

Haley: It’s really bad.

Ria: How many stars for marker representation?

Haley: Three out of five. It was only there for a second.

 ...

Haley: In the beginning, it wasn’t that bad. It was dumb, but also fun and sorta cool. But then it just went on for too long and they didn’t explain anything properly and it stopped being fun really fast. But I can see why some people might enjoy it. Like, you’d love it for its action but only that. Not for plot and/or the character writing.

Ria: I think my biggest problem is the worldbuilding. They kept everything so vague because they didn’t want to connect, not really. Like, where is this happening? When? Why are Carolina and Wash there? Like, the motivations for all the characters were so vague as well.

 ...

Haley: Raymond was great. He had personality and some good lines. And he felt like RvB. Like, he used his brain and actually got shit done, but he also wasn’t over-powered. He followed a similar character arc to what the Reds and Blues had. He sucks at fighting but he’s efficient and smart in a practical way with his rocket launcher. He does the most and he doesn’t stop being a goofball! Even Zero was focused on stopping him the most at the end. And he didn’t need to do any stupid flips.

 ...

Haley: The borrowed assets annoyed me. It ended up looking stupid, like, the temple felt more like fantasy than science fiction. And nothing like Chorus. And normally, RvB doesn’t have to worry about being cohesive because all of the designs are from Halo so it all makes sense and it’s connected. But this is just so random it feels distracting, I feel like this is a big reason people felt that Zero was so jarring… but on a subconscious level. It just felt off and there was no cohesive design. Also everything looked like it was made for video games and not modified at all for the show.

 ...

Haley: Honestly I was optimistic at first but then I got confused really fast and it kept getting worse because it was so fast. They didn’t explain stuff properly or at all. Like, they made it too big. Should have been smaller. I thought going with the “Starlight Labs is evil and needs to go down” plot would have been A LOT better and would have tied together multiple aspects of the story that the temple plot didn’t.

Ria: If I had the power which I don’t, I dunno, but I if the main point was to introduce new characters, I’d keep them tied to lore and worldbuilding we already know. So we don’t get so confused and it doesn’t feel so disconnected. Like, I’m still in love with the idea that it should have been Carolina on Chorus dealing with these soldiers who have been fighting all their lives and now don’t have to do that anymore. But maybe Chorus still needing an army, and that’s why she is training it. I don’t know, but like, familiar, build on what we know. And then they wouldn’t be superpowered, but like, just competent-ish but normal soldiers and we’d get to know them better, but I just think Zero just wanted them to be these super cool soldiers even better than Carolina so they could pull off all the fight scenes. ‘Cause it’s all Zero has going for it. The fight scenes. It’s its strength and weakness ‘cause they sacrificed everything else to look cool. And it does. But it’s boring and there is nothing else going on.

 ...

Ria: I’m still so annoyed about the temples. Why are they there? Like, on Chorus it was a big thing, also plotwise, but it had lore connected to it and the worldbuilding explained it. So, where are these temples? A different planet, right? Is it the same aliens? Are people just cool with the temples? Why haven’t they been explored before. Chorus made sure to explain all of that.

 ...

Haley: The West and East scene-

Ria: Feast.

Haley: Confused me. ‘cause West didn’t really regret anything. He just said why he did it. And then all of the sudden East forgave him and rejoined the team. It was so weird. He doubled down on the thing she hated him for so much I was like “Wow he’s kinda an asshole” and then all of a sudden she was on his side? What?

 ...

Haley: Zero does its job if you want action and nothing else. And it’s not RvB. Don’t watch it if you like RvB. And I just want to acknowledge that we are nitpicking. Quite a bit. I’ll admit that. But, I wouldn’t nitpick the other RvB seasons the same way because the old RvB never took itself seriously the way Zero did.

Ria: I agree. We are nitpicking. But like, that’s why we have the movie nights.

Haley: But we are also allowed to criticize it. You can do that with any season. And with the other seasons, you could nitpick it and you can find stuff you don’t like, but there are always stuff you do like or that other people like. I just can’t find anything about Zero that I like. Besides Raymond.

Ria: Yeah. Like, I really love 15. And it had so many flaws people pointed out. And when it comes to criticism and Zero, I just don’t see many points about why people like it. They are allowed to do that though. But, like, we could have a movie night where we watch the Chorus seasons and we’d nitpick so much because we both have issues with it, but there is still so much stuff we’d still like.

Haley: I like Raymond though. He’s like Grimmons lovechild.

Ria: No. Fuck you. Don’t put that in my brain.

 ...

Haley: Raymond being in this… I want to say it feels like the Freelancers seasons but if Grif was part of the team or something. But that’s just “Hit and Run”. *laughs*

Ria: NO! That’s cursed. Shut up. Also, the Freelancers were way better written.

Haley: And those seasons made better sense.

Ria: And like, the Freelancer seasons did the thing with change of tone and have these new and super cool characters and fight scenes. But they kept half of the seasons to be around the Reds and Blues so we still had the humor and the dumbasses, and Zero just, it didn’t connect.

 ...

Haley: So, I have some thoughts on Zero.

Ria: I know, you fuck, I had to write them all down by hand.

Haley: I like bad movies, actually, but Zero didn’t stay fun, so no, I didn’t enjoy it.

 ...

Ria: Do you forgive me for making you watch Zero?

Haley: Yeah.

Ria: What should we watch next?

...

Also, Haley dressed up her dog for the event and you all deserve to see her:

[surrealsunday]

A Christmas Mood Tattoo snippet…

Notes: Merry Christmas to anyone celebrating! Enjoy this little snippet from our Mood Tattoo babies. It takes place just a few months after they’ve moved in together, but before they go away to Japan and get engaged.

There should be a part 2 of this coming that I intend on being longer – that will be NYE themed. This was just a little intro to get me into the writing zone again. I hope you enjoy!

* * * *

“Eli, it’s freezing.”

Eliott turns back to look at Lucas. From how his boyfriend is bundled up, scarf wrapped around his head in a way that allows only his eyes to be visible above it, one would think Eliott had dragged him out in the middle of a Russian winter. The temperatures have dipped below zero, but it’s hardly as cold as Lucas would lead someone to believe. Eliott’s just thankful the scarf is blocking the pout he knows lies beneath it. It’s impossible to resist Lucas when he pouts. As it is, he’s doing a pretty impressive job of conveying that pout with wide-eyed, watery eyes. But Eliott is determined enough to resist him… for now.

“Baby,” he begins, delighted by the way Lucas immediately huffs, “it’s not that much further. But if you want to turn back now, we can.” He knows exactly what he’s doing, and maybe it’s a little unfair. He knows Lucas won’t ask to turn back when Eliott is excited to go, but offering the option still feels like the right thing to do.

Lucas doesn’t answer. Making a small sound beneath his scarf – definitely a harumph – he grabs Eliott’s gloved hand in his own and continues walking. “Tell me about this thing again. ‘Cause if we wanted to watch a movie, we could have done it at home, under a blanket, with hot chocolate and blowjobs.”

Eliott chokes on a laugh. “God, I love your idea of a night in.” Lucas glances over at him, a smile clear in the crinkles beside his eyes. “And it’s not a movie. It’s a sound and light installation,” Eliott continues. “Remember that patient a week or so back who had the meniscectomy? She told me about this. She knows someone involved with the set up. Laura.”

Lucas nods. “The one who wanted to bone you.”

Eliott snorts immediately. “She did not want to bone me.”

“She definitely wanted to bone you.”

Eliott sighs, too charmed to be annoyed by Lucas’s stubborn belief that everyone Eliott meets wants to sleep with him. It’s hard to be mad about it when it really just comes down to Lucas’s belief that anyone who doesn’t want to sleep with Eliott must be a moron. “She was at least ten years older than me.”

“Yeah. And she wanted to get herself a piece of that.”

Eliott laughs, unable to help himself from stopping and reaching for Lucas, pulling him closer by his coat. “Get herself a piece of that?” He teases. “A piece of me? What piece exactly?”

Lucas rolls his eyes. His scarf has slipped down slightly to reveal the tip of his nose and his cheeks, both rosy pink from the cold. Eliott moves his hands up to cup his face, brushing thumbs against the flush of his cheeks.

“Don’t know why she’d want to,” Lucas grumps. A piece of his hair falls down, catching in his eyelashes and Eliott moves a hand up to brush it back, tangling his fingers in the strands. “Pain in my ass, you are,” Lucas continues with a huff, “dragging me around in the cold when we have to be up to work a full shift tomorrow and it’s Christmas, so you know it’s gonna be extra hellish and –” Eliott cuts him off with a kiss, pressing their cold lips together in what was meant to be a soft and gentle peck, but turns deeper almost immediately. He couldn’t even say whether it’s him or Lucas who does it, but it’s suddenly soft and slow, open-mouthed in a way that has a buzz vibrating just beneath Eliott’s skin. He pulls back only when he feels Lucas’s tongue licking at his lips. Lucas’s eyes are wide and dazed, his lips pleasantly puffy. But it’s only a split-second before they narrow in suspicion. “Did you do that to shut me up?”

Eliott laughs. “No.” It’s the truth. Any moment spent not kissing Lucas feels like a moment too long. And a grumpy Lucas, skin flush from the cold? There’s absolutely no way Eliott could be expected to resist such a formidable test of his will power. “And you get all my pieces. For the record.”

Lucas’s nose scrunches. He means it to be a look of disapproval – an objection to Eliott’s choice of words. He only manages to look even more adorable. “You make me sound like a serial killer – collecting body parts or some shit.”

Eliott snorts a laugh. “Remember when you said that before?” Lucas quirks an eyebrow in question. There’s a ninety-nine percent chance he remembers too and just wants to hear Eliott recall the moment. Eliott’s more than happy to oblige. “In the hospital. Both of us covered in puke. You pretending you didn’t want me as badly as you did.” Lucas rolls his eyes. It only makes Eliott smile wider. “You said our idea of a good time was cutting people open. That we sound like serial killers on a good day.”

“I said psychopaths.”

Eliott tries not to let his smile become too smug but it’s a losing battle. “You do remember.”

“You followed it up by nearly braining me on the tile of the showers. Hard to forget.”

Eliott sighs wistfully, flashbacks to wet and naked Lucas more than welcome. “Yeah.”

It makes Lucas laugh as he turns away again, pulling Eliott along by the hand. “Ok, so, this is a fancy movie. Still a movie.”

Eliott sighs, his breath puffing before him in the cold night air. Lucas’s shameless efforts to play dumb when it comes to all things art shouldn’t be as charming as they are. “A sound and light installation is totally different,” Eliott begins, throwing just the right amount of pompous indignation into his tone. “It combines totally different disciplines, art and engineering, and it’s more than watching a film. It’s multi-sensory and interactive, and –”

“God,” Lucas interrupts with a laugh, looking over at Eliott with such affection in his eyes, it still – even after so many months of being together – catches Eliott off guard. “You really were meant to be some pretentious art student, hunh? Just got turned around in the halls one day and ended up in medicine.”

Eliott grins, releasing Lucas’s hand to wrap an arm around his neck instead, hauling him closer. “Got me you.”

Lucas makes an amused sound. “Bad enough dealing with surgeon you. Not sure I could handle even more insufferable artist Eliott.”

“You would have thought I was hot.”

“I already think you’re hot.”

Eliott tries not to preen too obviously at that. “Hotter.”

“Not possible.”

Eliott glances sideways at Lucas, suddenly wondering how loudly his boyfriend might object to Eliott dragging him into the nearest shadowed corner to do unspeakable things to him. Normally it wouldn’t be something he’d need to question. In this cold however, Lucas is likely to give him a bit more lip. “Baby –”

“Holy shit,” Lucas’s awe filled voice cuts him off and Eliott turns his head to look in the direction of his gaze.

They’ve rounded the corner and the installation has come into view. Streaks of different coloured lights stretch into the night sky, moving in slow tandem. There are sounds – single notes – that play each time one of the light beams moves. Together the notes have formed a haunting sort of melody. The source of the light beams is several projectors, housed in larger, futuristic looking black boxes that showcase external digital, interactive screens. There are a number of other people milling about, pressing various buttons on the screens. “You didn’t say it would be this!” Lucas moves out from under Eliott’s arm, hurrying towards the installation.

“I said sound and light installation,” Eliott laughs as he follows. “That’s what you’re looking at.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t say it would be this cool.” Lucas stops at a lightbox, staring at the screen and then up into where the blue light stretches into the sky..

“Pretty sure I did,” Eliott mumbles, coming to stand beside him.

“What does it do?” Lucas asks, turning to look at Eliott rather than read the instructions and artist statement to the side of the lightbox.

Eliott smiles. This is the part he’d been most excited to tell Lucas about. “Remember how I said it was interactive?” Lucas nods. “So, these numbers,” Eliott points to where you have the option of typing numbers into set lines on the screen, “control the lights. The numbers you put in match coordinates in the night sky. The numbers can be random, but they’ll find something up there – a star, a constellation, a planet… something. But not our sky. Or not exactly.”

Lucas looks away from the sky towards Eliott, his nose wrinkling in confusion. “What do you mean not our sky?”

“See. It’s moving,” Eliott points out as they both take a step back to watch as the beam of blue light slowly tracks across the sky, sounding a singular note to join the others. “It’s not us doing it.”

Lucas stares at it in wonder as it comes to a stop. “Who then?”

“There are matching installations in other major cities across Europe – Rome, Berlin, Antwerp, and other places, I think. They control our light beams. We control theirs.”

Lucas looks to the screen in front of him on the light box. “So, the numbers I put in… they’ll change the direction of the light somewhere else?”

Eliott nods, answering out loud when Lucas’s eyes don’t move from the screen. “Exactly. Someone else will be watching the spot in the sky you chose.”

Lucas turns to look at him. The blue of his eyes catches the reflected glow of the light beam, making them appear even more ethereal than they do normally. Eliott’s breath catches in his throat. “But why?”

“I’m not sure,” Eliott admits, tearing his gaze away to look towards the various beams of light moving together. “Maybe to remind us we’re all connected – we’re all looking up at the same night sky? That the choices we make affect others?”

“Wow,” Lucas whispers, turning to watch as other lights track across the sky. “It’s beautiful.”

Eliott turns to stare at his profile. “It reminds me of that thing you say… about parallel universes.”

Lucas glances back to him surprised. “It does?”

Eliott nods. “Like there could be another Eliott and Lucas in Rome, watching the lights tonight just like us.”

Lucas laughs lightly. “But this is our reality. The lights exist in different cities in our universe.”

Eliott knows that’s true. He’s not sure how to explain what he means exactly. “Yeah, but –”

“Eliott,” Lucas cuts him off, stepping into his space and reaching for the lapels of Eliott’s jacket. “I know what you mean.”

“Yeah?” Eliott breathes, leaning down to press their cold foreheads together.

“Mmhmm,” Lucas hums, his eyes slipping closed as he presses into the contact. “Lots of parallel universe Eliott and Lucas’s freezing their asses off to move light beams for one another.”

Eliott snorts with a laugh, pushing back to see Lucas looking up at him with a smug smile. “Brat.” He turns them both back towards the screen, moving a hand up to thread through the back of Lucas’s hair and tug gently. “What numbers should we put in? Birthday?”

“Nah,” Lucas denies, leaning forward to brush his fingers against the screen, “that’s boring.”

“Random then?”

Lucas nods. “Yeah, or like… I could put in a date. Like… the day we met?” He doesn’t look at Eliott, staring down at the screen in what becomes apparent is an effort to seem nonchalant.

Eliott smiles. “That’s awfully romantic.”

Lucas glances at him quickly. The flush in his cheeks is just a little deeper now. “Shut up.”

“Let’s do it,” Eliott agrees, rubbing a hand against Lucas’s back to prompt him to enter the numbers. “You remember the date?” Lucas doesn’t answer, leaning forward instead to input the numbers. Eliott watches him, his smile growing. “And you say I’m a romantic cornball…”

“You are a romantic cornball.” Lucas finishes, pressing the submit button, and stepping back. He allows Eliott to move behind him, wrapping him up snuggly in his arms. Eliott leans forward to press the cold of their cheeks together. “It’s a bit weird thinking someone somewhere else is watching it move for our numbers,” Lucas comments, looking up at their blue light, still and crisp in the night sky.  

“Yeah,” Eliott agrees. “There,” he raises a hand to unnecessarily point at the light beam moving, “they’re moving it back. It’s like they’re talking to us.” He brings his hand back to brush against Lucas’s arm. His tattoo is buried beneath layers and layers of fabric, but Eliott can picture it there. “It’s like magic.”

Lucas turns his head to nuzzle the tip of his nose against Eliott’s cheek. “Thanks for bringing me.”

Eliott squeezes him even closer. “C’mon, that’s not all. Let’s warm up.”

“We’re going somewhere else?” Lucas asks, looking sweetly disappointed.

Eliott shakes his head, turning to lead Lucas to a nearby bench. He drops the backpack he’s been carrying to the surface and motions for Lucas to have a seat. “I brought us hot chocolate,” he admits, smiling again when Lucas does, “and Bailey’s.”

“Now we’re talking,” Lucas laughs, happily taking the empty cup handed to him.

“We can warm up and watch the lights for a little bit longer.” Eliott sits next to him on the bench and goes about filling up both their cups from the thermos he packed, topping the cups with a little Bailey’s as Lucas hums in approval. He hands his own cup to Lucas while he pulls out the small throw he’d packed as well. It won’t provide much extra warmth, but it was all he could fit in the backpack. He spreads it across Lucas’s lap, leaving just enough material for himself, and he tucks them closely together under it, reaching one arm to wrap around Lucas’s shoulders, and reaching for his cup with the other.

They both sit for a moment, sipping happily on their drinks and watching the light beams glide through the sky.

“I brought something too,” Lucas says into the gentle silence between them.

“You did?” Eliott looks to him in surprise.

“Mmhmm,” Lucas nods, not looking away from the lights. “You said I wasn’t getting in the Christmas spirit.”

“Yeah,” Eliott agrees. “And you said it was hard to get in the spirit when we would be celebrating Christmas with cramped hands from doing sutures all day in the ER for – and I quote – morons who can’t even manage to stop being morons on Christmas.”

Lucas grins, looking at Eliott now. “And I’m right but…” He shrugs, suddenly looking a little bashful and sweet. “I haven’t really wanted to get into it since my mom was around. It’s different this year.”

Eliott swears he can feel his heart physically swell in his chest. “Yeah?”

Lucas nods, glancing away and back to the lights. “And you love all this shit, so…” He motions a hand towards the backpack.

Eliott grins, reaching for it and rooting through the pockets until he finds an opaque plastic bag in one of the front pockets. The smell of gingerbread wafts from it the moment he pulls it from the pack. “You made gingerbread?” He might sound a little like a child on the cusp of teendom whose crush just said hi in the school hallway… but truly, no one could blame him. Lucas made him Christmas cookies. Lucas, who has been working shifts just as exhausting and back-breaking as Eliott, had taken the time to make gingerbread cookies because he knew Eliott would love them.

“Sof helped,” Lucas admits with a shrug.

Eliott stares at his profile, smiling so wide his cheeks ache with it, until Lucas – with a huff, of course – turns back to look at him. “You made me cookies.”

“Well, you deserve them.”

“Lucas,” Eliott begins prying the bag open, “that is so sweet, so thoughtful, I –” He cuts himself off as he stares down at the cookies looking up at him from the bag. “Lucas…”

“Yes?” Lucas’s eyes have widened with false innocence. He could not look more like the bratty bane of Eliott’s existence… love of his fucking life…

“You made dirty gingerbread cookies…”

“Excuse me,” Lucas sniffs. “They were wrapped up carefully. They’re quite clean.”

Eliott looks up, one eyebrow raised in disbelief. “You actually took the time to make gingerbread cookies…” Eliott glances around them for any nosey listeners before adding, “fuck.”

“Language,” Lucas gasps, so obviously enjoying himself. His eyes are lit up with mischief. “Those are Christmas gingerbread cookies. They’re innocent. You should know better.”

Eliott lifts one cookie that appears to be one gingerbread man taking another from behind. “Oh yeah. Definitely scream innocent.”

Lucas grins. “I liked that one.”

“Can’t believe Sof helped you make these.” Eliott can’t even picture it but the very thought makes him want to laugh and just not stop.

“He helped make ‘em. Idriss helped me find the cookie cutters online.”

Eliott gapes. “You bought sexual cookie cutters?”

“‘Course,” Lucas nods with faux authority. “Now we can get use out of them for years to come. It can be our tradition.”

Eliott stares at him. Count on Lucas to make something so ridiculous, so goddamn sweet, all at the same time. “You’re something else.”

“Thank you,” Lucas sniffs, reaching for a cookie of his own. He chooses the one very clearly depicting one gingerbread giving the other a blowjob. Gingerbread cookies are never going to be the same. “You like them though, right?” Lucas doesn’t sound insecure. Not really. But there’s a caution in his voice which is likely more a reflection of how much he knows the holiday means to Eliott – and his own desire to be part of that in his own, bratty, ridiculous way.

“Yes.” Eliott twists slightly sideways and doesn’t resist the urge to pull Lucas into a kiss. He pulls back with a gentle smile, moving his free hand to brush back the strands of hair fallen down over Lucas’s forehead. “I love my dirty gingerbread men.”

Lucas smiles. “Good.” He places his cup next to him on the bench and turns to wrap his arms around Eliott’s waist in a sideways hug, tucking closer into his embrace as he presses his head beneath Eliott’s chin. He reaches forward to tap his own cookie against the one held in Eliott’s hand. “This your way of saying what you want later?”

Eliott snorts, motioning towards Lucas’s own choice. “Was that yours?”  

Lucas shrugs, letting out a happy sigh as he snuggles into Eliott’s hold. “Guess we can have both.”

“How generous,” Eliott laughs.

“I am. Quite,” Lucas sniffs, sounding hilariously pompous.

Eliott takes a bite of his cookie, humming happily as he chews, leaning back to watch the lights for a moment, warm and more content than he can ever remember being. “I love you, Lucas,” he says, eyes tracking the colourful beams of light in the night sky. “There’s no one else like you.”

“Not so average?” Lucas asks after a moment.

Eliott laughs lightly. “No. Definitely nothing average about you.”

“Well,” Lucas sighs, his arms tightening around Eliott, “I think you’re pretty ok too.”

“Pretty ok?” Eliott snickers. “A high compliment.”

“Mmm. Only the best for you.”

Eliott leans down to press a kiss to the top of Lucas’s head. “We’re going to have lots of traditions together. This can be one.”

“Freezing our asses off with dirty cookies and hot chocolate while we watch a light show?”  

“Yeah,” Eliott agrees, near bursting with happiness. “Exactly that.”

“Ok,” Lucas agrees, more easily than Eliott expected. “Eliott?” Lucas adds after a moment of silence.

“Mmhmm?”

“I wouldn’t make gingerbread cookies fucking for anyone else.”

Eliott laughs, pressing his mouth down into Lucas’s hair. “I know.”

“I love you.”

Eliott breathes in the words, closing his eyes as he presses his nose down into Lucas’s hair and soaks up the way ginger and chocolate and other spices have somehow mixed with that uniquely Lucas smell. Eliott didn’t know he could love the way someone smelled quite this much. Lucas. His Lucas.  

“I think you’re pretty ok too.”

* * * *

* * * *

End notes: 

- I’ll post this to ao3 once I have the second part up

- The whole light installation was inspired by one I saw when I lived in Montreal. It wasn’t exactly like that but quite similar and I hope the way I described it sounded cool because it really was! 

❤❤❤❤

[just-the-hiddles]

Writer’s Spotlight | myoxisbroken

Happy hump day, peeps!  This week’s spotlight is the queen of a historical fic, AU or canon.  The maven of food porn in a fic. And the reigning champ of teasing me with smut @myoxisbroken​ !  Let’s dive in!!

The Basics

MASTERLIST HERE

Any other names you want people to call you?

Miss Ox, myox, whatever you feel like!

How long have you been writing fic?

2 years.

What fandoms and/ships do you write?

MCU (Loki, Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes), other Tom Hiddleston characters (Pine, Conrad, Sharpe, Buxton, Nicholls, Plumptre, and ever-growing), and just branching out into Pedro Pascal with The Mandalorian; I also have a few Doctor Who fics in my Masterlist (Ten/Donna Noble)

How did you get started writing fic?

I was reading a ton of Doctor Who fic and enjoying the Doctor/River Song stories. Then I rewatched DW season 4 and was so depressed about Donna's ending that I immediately watched the David Tennant/Catherine Tate version of Much Ado About Nothing. And then I started to ship the Tenth Doctor and Donna.

So I read a bunch of their fic and thought, "You know what would be awesome? If someone wrote a WW2 AU where Donna's a single mother and the Doctor is an injured fighter pilot that she takes in as a boarder." And then I started to get snippets of dialogue in my head, and ideas for scenes, and I wondered if I might be able to write a story myself. I hadn't written anything in years, but I decided to give it a try. And a few months later, I had my first story completed, a 14-chapter Doctor Who AU.

 After that, I had the writing bug and I haven't been able to stop coming up with ideas and working to put them into words!

Story Recommendations

Which of your stories are your favorite?

It is honestly so hard to choose. I'm only going to choose completed works, because I always love the WIPs I'm working on. So, let's see: You Bring Me Home is one of them, because it was so fun to just jump into a sexy vacation romp with some playful kink exploration for James Conrad (Kong: Skull Island). With Brooding Wings was my first attempt at a vampire story using multiple Tom Hiddleston characters, and I really enjoyed playing with the dynamics of different personalities and settings in that world. 

 In A Restless World Like This Is is another, because I had such a great time writing a fluffy love story for Steve Rogers and an older OFC. It started as a spite project because of someone's objections to older characters and turned into such a lovely experience. It was one of the easiest I've ever written in terms of how quickly it flowed from my brain through my fingers. I'd loved writing for Loki (An Excellent Suggestion was my first Loki story, and my first time writing smut) and for Bucky (We Are All Victims of Physics Sometimes was my first dip into capturing Bucky's quiet reserve and depth of emotion).

I honestly could go on and on about stories but would only sound more conceited.

Which story are you most proud of?

I think A Pursuit of the Heart. It was my first time writing in the Regency/Georgian era, and I did a TON of research for it. It was also my first novel-length story, and I didn't even know if I could take on something that big or write a historical romance convincingly, in a way that felt era-appropriate and true. I was so proud of the finished product.

Which of your stories do you think is the most underrated?

Let Your Heart Be Light, a Bucky/OFC story with a Christmas theme - its companion piece, Kissing The New Year In, also didn't get much traction. But I loved writing them!

Someone is new to reading your stories, which story/stories should they read first?

It depends on what actors and characters they like, really, as well as if they like smut or fluff or both. For a smutty one-shot, I'd recommend An Excellent Suggestion (which has a one-shot sequel). For a swoonier longer fic with smut, I'd recommend either You Bring Me Home or my fake relationship Steve Rogers fic The One Thing You Can't See. 

For fluff, An Unforeseen Outcome is a Loki one-shot with both fluff and a little emotional hurt/comfort. Interestingly, I've written more not-smut fluff for Loki than for any other character. I think I just want him to find connection and love and acceptance so much. 

And if you are a fan of historical romance, I'd recommend either my Thomas Sharpe AU A Compromising Situation, or if you like your fics with a healthy dose of angst, Beside Us When Beauty Brightens, my William Buxton (Return to Cranford) story about what happens after he loses Peggy.

Which Story did you do the most research for?

A Pursuit of the Heart, since it was my first one set in the Georgian era and I had a lot of catching up to do! I research for most of my stories, and definitely for my multi-chapter stories. Even if they're contemporary, I still look up resorts, locations, restaurants and local foods, things to do, etc. I can't help it. It's like I'm addicted to research.

Which Story was the easiest to write?

For a multi-chapter fic, In A Restless World Like This Is. For a one-shot, probably my Loki Christmas fluff All I Want For Christmas Is You.

The Writing Process

What is your favorite part of writing?

When a scene I've had in my head just flies out of my fingers and onto the page, and I can read it back and think, "YES! That's just how I wanted it!"

What is your least favorite part?

When my brain is too scattered and unfocused to actually allow me to do any writing.

Describe your style in 1 to 2 sentences.

Well-researched stories that use the information to make you feel like you're there and that incorporate sweetness into even the smuttiest scenario. Also, food porn, and porn porn.

Who are some of your writing idols and/or influences?

For published novels, Mary Balogh and Sabrina Jeffries are two of my favorite historical romance writers, and I think that reading them has helped to make my writing better. In terms of fic authors (some of whom are also published), @nildespirandum​ and @caffiend-queen were two of the first I read in the Tom/Loki fandom and their excellent quality and intriguing plots are an inspiration, even if I will never be able to write plots as twisty as theirs. Also, reading @yespolkadotkitty​'s stories helped me push myself to get better at setting scenes and at incorporating the various senses into stories, because she is so good at both of those things and so much else.

What programs do you use to write and/or edit?

I use Google Docs. I have also been dancing around buying Scrivener for an original novel I plan to write and shop around, so I'll be doing that soon.

Are you a plotter or a pantser?

Plotter, for sure. My brain would implode if I tried to pants my stories.

Do you write RPF or not?

I have a few chapters of a Tom Hiddleston RPF in draft form but haven't proceeded with it. I'd kind of like to write a Pedro Pascal RPF one-shot. I love reading RPF but feel odd about writing it for some reason.

Who is your favorite character to write and why?

Again with the tough questions! It might be Loki, because he is such a chameleon and there are so many hidden depths to him. I really want to write some multi-chapter Loki stories, because so far I have done one-shots and one 3-chapter short fic. I'd like to explore a longer character arc for him.

What do you think are your writing strengths?

Authenticity because of my research, realistically depicting emotions, and writing in a style that feels genuine to the setting and era.

What do you struggle with?

PLOT. I do think that there is plenty of room for all kinds of stories, and I like to tell stories about relationships. But I would like to get better at adding outside conflict and other types of plot to my stories.

Favorite Trope?

It's so hard to choose between There Was Only One Bed and Fake Relationship. I think those are my top two.

What is the best piece of writing advice you have heard?

Write something. Anything. Even if you think it's crap, get your first draft done, because you can always go back and rewrite something that's bad and make it better. Also, if you're stuck on your WIP, write something else - a piece of another story or one-shot, a description of something you saw, a character profile, a bit of personal journaling. Keep writing and don't let a temporary roadblock turn into a long-term one.

What would you say to a new fanfic writer starting out?

It's hard when something you wrote doesn't get a lot of attention, especially when you love it. We share stories in the hopes that other people will discover and enjoy them, but you have to at least partly do it for your own satisfaction, or it will get pretty discouraging if the likes/kudos, comments, and reblogs just don't happen.

What is a random bit of research you have not managed to work into a fic yet?

Ladies' drawers (underwear) were not commonly worn until the mid-1800s. They were thought to be gentlemen's garments and it was thus vulgar for a lady to wear them. Yes, ladies of the Georgian (incl. Regency) era were generally commando beneath their skirts, petticoats, and shifts. But that was still a lot of layers.

Any goals or WIPs you want to share?

My goal is to write an original novel (series) set during the Napoleonic Wars. My hope is to get it researched, written, and put in final draft form so that I can send query letters out before the end of 2021.

This or That

Fluff or Angst

Fluff AND Smut

Reader Insert or  OC

Canon Divergent or AU

Pepsi or Coke (Neither: Cherry Coke Zero)

Coffee or Tea (Neither: Cocoa)

Sweet AND Savory

And that is it, until next week, remember to check out the masterlist here.  And your new fav fic is just around the corner!  Until next time, toodles!

[ginger-and-mint]

Happy birthday Myx! 🥳🎂 Have Several questions because I Want To Know Things. ^^; Illness & Injury 6 for everyone, Whump 2 & 3 for everyone, and Writer's 2, 13, 19, and 46 for you!

thank you Mel! ♡ and oh my gosh I’m so delighted by this abundance of questions!

6. What is their go-to remedy for an upset stomach?

Kara and Bramley both like some warmth on unhappy tummy. They’ll make themselves tea, more for the warmth than anything else, and sip it while taking it easy. Kara is likely to get herself a little warm pack too if she can.

Malia tends to go straight for medicine or a tonic. She doesn’t like to be slowed down by her body, and so will opt for whatever she thinks will be most effective in the shortest amount of time.

Si, being a song-mage, was once surrounded by fellow song-mage friends they could ask to cast a stomach-settling healing spell on them. With that option off the table, they'll also look for a fast-acting medicine or tonic.

Grayson and Elliott both try to ignore an upset stomach for a little while in the hopes that it’ll settle. When that fails, Grayson will go get himself a tonic and complain to his friends until it kicks in, while Elliott will either try sitting quietly and sipping on water or tea, or if he can get away, just sleeping it off.

Ryder is knowledgeable enough to take a different approach depending on how upset his stomach is. For something minor, he’ll make himself a digestion-easing tea, like mint or chamomile. If he knows that won’t be effective, he’ll go straight to a tonic. When it’s something he’s eaten that’s not agreeing with him, sometimes he’ll just go make himself throw up to get it out of his system.

2. What is their pain tolerance? Do they close their eyes and block it out, or go into a full blown panic?

Grayson really hates tolerating pain, but if he has to, he can take a lot. Most of the time, he will remove himself from painful situations as quickly as possible and complain bitterly about anything that hurts. But if the chips were down, he would turn out to be a lot tougher than anyone expected.

Bramley is a Sweet Baby and We Do Not Harm Him is not really used to enduring pain and has a low tolerance for it. He would close his eyes and block it out rather than panicking, but not really be able to do anything except sit there and block pain until he was Helped. c’:

Kara is Pure Sunshine and We Do Not Harm Her Either has a pretty high tolerance for acute pain and doesn’t panic about injuries, but she has been known to get faint from them. She’s also easily worn down by chronic discomfort, like being too hot or cold or just having a constant dull ache of some kind.

Malia is the opposite. She can put up with low-key pain or discomfort for a long time, but an acute injury would freak her out a lot more than she’d like to admit.

Ryder has a high pain tolerance on all fronts, honestly. As soon as he feels pain, he looks for a solution to ease it, and if there are none to be had, he’ll grit his teeth and block it out.

Meanwhile, poor dear Si is not great with pain. Song-mages are primarily healers, and so Si is really used to having even little hurts soothed quickly and easily. They don’t panic when in pain, but they do get extremely miserable.

Elliott has a very high pain tolerance when the pain feels within his control; he can power through even the worst headaches or stomachaches, for example. But as soon as the pain feels out of his control (i.e. he gets injured), he panics.

3. How long do they typically take to recover from illness or injury compared to average?

Ryder and Kara, by virtue of Robustness and Being Sensible People who largely take care of themselves when under the weather, are quick to recover.

Grayson and Malia both heal quickly from injuries, but take a little longer with illnesses. With Grayson, it’s more a matter of him not being back to himself until his symptoms are completely gone (he is very much a Man Flu type of guy.) Meanwhile Malia will treat an injury with appropriate care, but is likely to push herself back to full capacity before she’s fully better from an illness, leading to a slower recovery.

As big and strong as Bramley is, he’s actually a little more delicate immune system-wise. He tends to be a slow recoverer, even though he’s good about looking after himself when sick or hurt.

Elliott and Si also tend to have slow and uneven recoveries, but in their cases, it’s due to hooliganery. Si takes good care of themself during the uncomfortable phase of their illness or injury, but as soon as they feel 90% better, they’re eager to leap back into life with their usual zeal. That’s not always a great idea and can lead to them prolonging whatever is afflicting them. Elliott, on the other hand, is just a stubborn idiot who doesn’t take care of himself. He’s particularly bad about this with injuries, often aggravating them and even making them worse because he won’t give them the rest they need to heal.

2.     Are you a pantser or plotter?

Usually I lean more towards plotting, although I do leave a lot of room for the new directions and ideas I know I’ll discover during the process of writing itself. But Ginger and Mint is the big exception -- I started writing it with zero plan whatsoever. I do have an outline for it now, but I was probably eight or nine chapters in before I made it.

While the final product is definitely not as a polished as it would’ve been if I’d planned it from the start, it was honestly super refreshing to not worry and just write. I’ve been trying to bring a little of that experience over into my more serious writing -- it’s so easy to get caught up in plotting and forget to leave room for writing itself to be a generative process.

13.  Describe your writing process from idea to polished

Have idea. Whee!

“Mark out” the things I want to happen in the story or chapter:

I usually do this by writing out short snippets of prose or dialogue related to the ideas I’ve had about each moment. For example, let’s say I know I want a moment where Grayson talks to Ryder. I’d type up a couple lines of dialogue and/or maybe a line about Grayson encountering Ryder and noting what he’s doing or how he’s looking -- whatever’s relevant to the scene. Basically, whatever ideas I have about that scene will be represented in writing in the “mark.”

I have all these marks ordered in the document in the same way the scenes will eventually be chronologically ordered. For me, having visual space is important for my ability to think, so I hit the enter key enough times between the marks that I can see only blank space when I want to work with a certain moment.

Build out each mark until I have a full scene. I do try to go roughly start to finish, but definitely jump back and forth depending on what I’m feeling most inspired by or what my brain seems to be spitting up ideas about. I also skip ahead whenever I feel stuck, which is both a blessing and a curse.

Go back and string the scenes together. Add transitions, fill in any missing pieces, etc.

Re-read the full thing from start to finish and make final edits. Yay, done!

19.  How do you keep yourself motivated?

goooood question fam

I struggle with this as much as the next person (see: 2.5 year G&M hiatus). I haven’t discovered a foolproof method of motivation yet (pls advise if you have), but I do tend to feel inspired whenever something reminds me why I want to write this story. That could be thinking about a scene I’m really excited to share, re-reading a scene that reminds me why I enjoy portraying a certain character or environment -- anything along those lines.

46.  Do you reread your own stories?

Yes, the ones that I like! Some things I’m not particularly proud of and don’t go back to very often, but re-reading pieces of writing I do like helps me feel motivated, inspired, and confident.

[druid-for-hire]

new Hadestown au, ICARUS!ORPHEUS, wherein orpheus is not the world’s greatest musician but rather the world’s greatest inventor/mechanic/tinkerer. his creations are wondrous and beautiful and a miracle. Orpheus his mission is to create something that will repair the world--take what’s broken, make it whole.

Orpheus is still very much an artist--only his art in this AU is visual instead of auditory. and he’s still poor! not everything he makes is immediately useful for survival and y’know, hardly anyone has the money to buy things, and he has a propensity to just. give things away, especially the smaller trinkets he makes. and they take a Long Time to make. so he still works at hermes’ bar

SO!!!

this orpheus is body pain solidarity KDSKFJH

he has a fucked up back from all the heavy lifting he does around the workshop, being hunched over while he works on stuff, and being stuck in weird positions for extended periods of time when he’s working on machines and whatever, especially the bigger ones

also he’s got a wrist brace

he has a set of gear he wears a lot especially when he’s in his workshop

1) his wing pack! he built it himself and he’s proud. the pack was also made to help with his back problems. he doesn’t wear his mechanic gear when he’s working at the bar, but sometimes he’ll leave the wings on because back hurty. also, following w icarus, the wings are kept smooth & together and waterproofed w wax, kinda like a gloss. he reapplies every so often

2) his goggles! every part about the design is impractical (the red lenses and the beak) but i like them. they protect his eyes from flying bits and sparks and sawdust etc. when he’s working and wind when he’s flying

3) his boots! they’re sturdy workin’ boots, and have a talon function to clasp onto and lift things up. especially useful for moving bigger things around the workshop, up to higher levels and what have you, and he gets to flit around the whole space with minimal usage of ladders. (yes, they’re inspired by Vulture’s boots from Spider-Man: Homecoming)

(ALSO. the model of his wings are white crow wings, bc of the myth of Coronis)

because in greek mythology, crows started out white and had beautiful voices and the reason they turned black and got croaky calls is because a crow had to tell Apollo that his lover, Coronis, left him to marry a mortal 

and Apollo got so upset he burned the crow and then burned Coronis to death, or burned the crow and then turned Coronis into a crow, depending on the version

(thanks to @princessponies81 for helping me figure this bit out)

so there are some... parallels here

also, IIRC crow wings are elliptical-type wings, meaning they’re good for a lot of control and maneuverability in tight spaces. good for the workshop

also he makes automata too! he has this little mockingbird to help him around the workshop. lots of calls for lots of signals, like how a car will have diff beep signals for low gas or parking brake on or door left open or key left in etc... little bird can measure and alert for lots of things

he’s also less noodle-y than canon orpheus because of how much he uses his arms and legs doing lifting, work, and flying

he’s not like. Built or anything. but hes got some strength to him

he doesn’t just make really good machines either; he’s absolutely as skilled in fine, delicate things as much as the big pieces—he sees the details himself, has to make it himself, he’s as skilled in silversmithy or goldsmithy as he is in mechanics, and i imagine he has skills in metallurgy too. maybe even a bit of glassblowing? just for piece assembly. all his pieces will fit most perfectly if he makes them himself

things like the Silver Swan automaton (i’d link a video but external links are illegal on tumblr)

also... i don’t know if they manage to get married this time, but they at least get the wedding bands

lover, tell me, if you can--who’s gonna make the wedding bands?

@supercantaloupe: the river gonna give us the wedding bands -- he draws the mineral, the stones from the silt, and crafts them himself

SO, he charms eurydice with one (or many) of his dazzling creations that also have usages in practicality and survival

as is the youzhe, she leaves when he gets to obsessive with working on something, holed up in his workshop instead of like. Surviving the winter

they last longer into the winter this time though because again, he does have a couple of machines good for tiding over the winter and surviving, and eurydice can operate them. but he’s too caught up with creating something to fix the world to repair them when they break down

when he leaves, he leaves his mockingbird to take care of his workshop while he’s gone. make sure there’s not leaks or fires, etc., keep everything in working order

the trip to hadestown still takes a long time, but less time than in canon, given that orpheus gets there on a pair of wings, though he gets grounded plenty of times due to bad weather. plus, his wings aren’t really meant for long-distance

so in the end the time still matches up; the events underground still happen on the onset of proper spring

he sails over the wall of the Styx on his wings, but it’s a feat easier said than done; it really is high and wide, just... hundreds of feet tall, and i headcanon that the “wall” is in fact seven layers of fortification because some myths say the River Styx wraps around the underworld seven times

and he is not a high altitude flier

uhhhhhhhhh blah blah something something ... i’m not clear on all the details but here are a few things:

orpheus gets the shit kicked out of him in Papers as usual and the fates hold his wings over him instead of his guitar

i have no idea how If It’s True goes

SOMEWHERE there’s Hey Little Songbird II (thank you to @supercantaloupe​ for authoring this idea);

it's Hades to Orpheus this time. Ironic, as he sings and flies, a real songbird.

and orpheus, that inspired inventor, that mechanic, that engineer, blessed by Hephaestus himself, being tempted to stay. It's a marvel of engineering, those factories. But they're rough around the edges, dirty, inefficient, unrefined. Imagine all the work he could do. Imagine how grand it would be, with just his help. And imagine how much fun it would be to fix it all!

but since he's fallen in love - and lost her once already - he has to pause and think. it's too good to be true, isn't it? Is it true? Can he really stay here forever, with parts and tools and endless projects worthy of his skill and attention - at least, without her?

ok back to me writing stuffs

there is no Epic I / Epic II / Epic III; the titles are now Trial I / Trial II / Trial III, like trial runs of prototypes, and on the third one it has a double meaning as a trial of judgement

Trial III goes as such:

(and thank you to @ferretteeth for this)

Hades orders him to build.  An impressive invention in turn for his life – a chance he gives only because his wife is smitten with interest. 

Orpheus gets three days and no more, and when he is finally ordered to come before the throne of basalt and steel he brings his invention. And Hades gives a curt, mocking laugh, because all Orpheus has in his hands is a simple box of bronze, cheap and adorably human. 

 He almost orders for Orpheus' death the moment he sees it, but then the boy lifts the lid and reveals a mechanical flower. Petals made out of metal rusted rosy, nectar of flecks of fool's gold. 

Delicate and beautiful; extremely finely spun, as if the metal were only woven fibers. It is as soft as any silk.

"Where did you get that," the king snaps in a hurry. "How did you know–" 

And then, with the twist of a key, the invention reveals to be a music box and long lost chords fill the Underworld.

(i originally had the idea that he builds a planetarium that replicates the summer above, a caught snippet of the thing that hades could never make on a large scale. a beautiful thing with flowers that blossomed and played the old song as hades brushed his hands across them, sun above. but i figured it’s probably more in line with the sensibilities of Hadestown if orpheus had created something less... grand)

so eurydice and orpheus are granted their chance to leave.

i’m not sure what the test is, because he’s got to fly out with eurydice clutched in his talons, and i want him to be as much a victim of his doubt as in canon

but he has to follow this flight path with absolute perfection, down to the flap. you fly too high, the flames of hadestown will catch him. he flies too low, the flames of hadestown will catch her.

i think, in his paranoia, he flies too high, and his wings catch fire

his wings are on fire--his arms are strapped in to them. he’s burning up. he’s burning.

he’s slowing down in his ascent. in a moment, he knows that if they’re going to make it, it’ll only be one of them, and... he’s not going to drop eurydice. he can’t do that to her.

when his wings can no longer climb, he throws her the final distance to the surface. she turns around and reaches desperately for him, but he’s too far away.

he falls. a comet.

he breaks.

the fact is, he dies

but he dies in hadestown. so now he’s just... well, one, no chance of going back aboveground. two, now he’s... sitting at the bottom of that long climb, broken and in pain, surrounded by the charred skeleton of his wings, broken and burned feathers, drips of melted oil and wax, and blood

he’s... there for a long time, just suffering, before someone comes to see if they made it out, and finds him at the bottom

hades sees this as an opportunity to bring him back, let him heal, and put him onto projects, perhaps “to get your mind off of it all,” but. orpheus doesn’t want to work. he doesn’t want to do anything

thanks to supercanteloupe again for co-authoring this section:

Hades says he'll squander his god given talents to just sit around all day but Orpheus won't listen

hades has just zero fucking clue how to deal with a depressed human

"have I not given him all he could want, metal, tools, a workbench? Bed, bread, fire? Strength in his bones? And yet he refuses still? The boy must be mad," he cries, angry

@s-aint-elmo: "i got a new mechanist" 

“you ruined a perfectly good talented young man is what you did. look at him, he's got depression"

persephone herself is a mess (less so after Trial III) but she has at least some sense—she is more in touch with mortals than him, spending time with them up on the surface and throwing revels, but also greeting those who lost their lovers/sisters/brothers/mothers/fathers in the winter before

persephone encouraging orpheus to build, not for her sake or for Hades', but for his own. little flowers, little birds, wind up toys and music boxes. something to keep him going

s-aint-elmo: she brings him pressed flowers from the surface, little trinkets, tokens of the green. orpheus only lets the first few wilt and rot at the corner of his table.

flowers bloom until they rot and fall apart

it's a sad, painful reminder

he eventually has the resolve to rebuild his wing pack—better this time, because really, he feels crippled without them after living w em for so long

edit: (and the feathers are black, a la the crow myth)

when hades first sees him like, passing by w wings on his back, he turns to persephone like “what have you been saying to him?” “only what he needs to hear, husband”

he has a great fear of actually getting off the ground at first, though

he’ll perch at the edge of a rooftop, but... doesn’t move. it’s a leap of faith he doesn’t feel like he can take

he always saw air as just a medium to move through, that it would support him, as easy as swimming

now he sees straight through it to the ground

he has burn scars across the entire back of his arms, hands, and fingers

it’s a reminder every time he gets to working

rough patchy skin. calloused fingers from work

big sigh

eurydice goes home.

there is the empty shell of his workshop. his many machines and trinkets and tools and his hundreds of unfinisheds and thousands of scraps of plans, and… his bird left to care for the shop after god knows how many weeks or months.

it flies down and greets her, some string of whistles and beeps she only half understands. then it asks for orpheus

she tells it that he fell; he’s not coming back, it’s too late

the bird sticks by her from there on out, the last “living” remnant of her lover, besides his shell of a workshop

ok i haven’t thought farther than this, please have fun with this au i think it’s a new favorite alongside Unswayed AU & Apartments AU

[nblesbianbenhanscom]

Will you get mad at me if I ask you to answer ALL of the fanfic Day questions because I just really enjoy your writing and I want to know everything I can. ♡.♡

OMGosh Lock, lol. Nah, I’ll answer them all. Lol.

It got long, surprise surprise, so I put it all under the cut.

What is your favorite fic you have under your belt?

I mean, the all time favorite one I’ve written is It Was Only a Kiss from my Teen Wolf days because of all the emotional hurt/comfort. 

For It, I think, other than Death Is Just So Full, it has to be I Want to Hold Your Hand. It’s a preslash reddie fic that’s just so fucking soft.

What is your favorite snippet of dialogue?

I... Have such a hard time remembering what I wrote once it’s up. Lol. I’m looking over my fics rn like..? I wrote this?

The only thing that’s coming to mind is from my unfinished steddie fic, Leaning Out for Love-

It will be a cold day in hell before I fuck someone in a public bathroom, Eddie told the voice.

What inspired Fresh Raviolis?

You! Lol. Um. If I’m not mistaken, I think that was another @dysregulardyke​ helped fic. I was going to try and write some angst, and it was like. I don’t wanna write angst. I also think I just really liked the idea of Stan being the needy one. Usually it’s the other two, but like Stan always seems so solid, or at least the way I write/interpret him.

Do you prefer writing long or short fics?

So. Dijsf is actually the longest fic I’ve finished. When Leaning Out for Love is done, it will probably be longer. Historically, I have written much shorter fics, the longest coming in around 40k. It just depends on my mood. I’ve been writing a lot of short fics/drabbles lately because I don’t have the emotional energy for the bigger ones and I get bored easily. I do need to get back to that steddie though. It’s so good.

What’s your favorite headcanon you use in fics?

I’m just gonna say it. It’s. It’s unpopular. I’ve been avoiding saying it out loud to anyone but Lou. I’ve vague posted about it A LOT, but like. It is a common theme in my writing...

Richie’s parents don’t like him. They don’t get him, they think he’s weird and a freak. They don’t like that he’s queer. They just want him to be Normal.

Do I appreciate fics where Richie’s parents are loving and caring and so forth? Yes. I’ve read lots of drabbles and short fics where Went and Maggie are great parents, love him, and support him, but like. That’s not what I saw. That’s not how I took it.

Richie’s parents aren’t in the movies/miniseries. We have absolutely no idea what they are like. In the book, from what I remember, they have zero idea as to how to handle him. I know, I know that just because a parent doesn’t know how to handle their kid doesn’t mean they don’t like him, but. *shrug*

I don’t know if it’s even a favorite headcanon, it’s just one that seems to come up a lot.

What’s the detail you wait on bated breath for readers to notice?

The stuff I want people to notice is almost always stuff my first readers don’t get, so it usually gets cut. Like in dijsf, I had a part where Richie was going over stuff in his head and was like “A happened, and 2 was wrong, and c none of the above,” type something and both Lou and my other friend were like THIS MUST BE CORRECTED, and I did a sad.

How much do you like symbolism in your fics?

I don’t? I am a chaotic writer. I do not use outlines. I just write. The closest I come to outlines is making a calendar but that’s filled in as I go so I can have some idea when things happened.

How often do people catch onto your little details?

I honestly have no idea? No one mentions anything. I think sometimes I ask Lou about stuff, but like my brain is so not remembering shit right now about little details that I may have wanted people to notice.

What’s the fic you like the least?

... My most popular It fic Not Gonna Lose Me. Like I have no idea why. It’s good, it’s really good. But... I don’t like it. I almost didn’t even publish it, but both Lou and my other friend were like, it’s a solid fic, so... ??? I have no idea.

What would you change if you had it all to do again?

... i killed stan in dijsf and i felt so guilty about it i started writing Leaning Out for Love.

Like, my friend was over halfway done editing when I was like, I should- I should rewrite this. I should rewrite this so Stan lives, because I love Stan and he deserves to live.

Lou had to tell me very firmly that the fic would not have been the same if I kept Stan alive, and let me tell you, Leaning Out for Love is SOOOOOO different. It’s like literal polar opposite.

What’s a fanfic idea you haven’t done yet?

Any of the Losers as trans, nonbinary, asexual, or aromantic. There’s... thoughts that swirl around, but I hesitate. I wrote a lot of stuff like that in my Teen Wolf days, and they were good and I know helped people, but like. I don’t know. I don’t know why I can’t quite do that here. I probably will someday though.

What’s the hardest thing to write for you?

Describing what things/people look like. I have no ideas. Also sex positions?? And often emotions.

Do you have a favorite character to write for?

Eddie. Eddie spaghetti. I love Eddie so much. He’s fucking everything. Stan and Richie are close seconds though.

What’s your favorite shipping fic you’ve written? Favorite gen fic?

If we focus on It and push dijsf aside, my favorite shipping fic is probably my streddie fic We Won’t Settle for Less. The proposal scene is just... pure delight, lol. My favorite gen fic is I Want to Hold Your Hand. It’s just... So Good. So pure. Like. Just Richie and Eddie going on their first (not) date when they both only kind of know it’s a date? I don’t know. It just warm fuzzies.

Give us a snippet of something from your WiPs!

Have something from Leaning Out for Love-

Eddie smiled a little as he leaned up against a tree. He bit his lip as he looked around. He still couldn’t believe how much had and hadn’t changed in the Barrens. Stan leaned close to Eddie but didn’t touch him. Eddie grabbed his sleeve to pull him close, but Stan pulled away, shaking his head.

“No, talk to me,” Stan said.

Eddie shrugged a little. “There’s nothing to tell.”

“Clearly.”

“What? What do you want me to say? That I’m fucking terrified that I’m a disappointment? That I’m scared that you don’t actually like me? That I’ll never be good enough for this? For- For-” Eddie yelled, his voice raising with each word. He wrapped his arms around himself as he stared down at his feet. Stan didn’t say anything, just stood there watching him. “For you,” he whispered. He took a deep breath and chanced a look up at Stan who was just watching him, clearly lost for words. “Well are you going to say something?” Eddie snapped despite himself.

Stan opened his mouth and closed it. He started to reach for Eddie but stopped.

“Eddie, you’re- You don’t need to put so much pressure on yourself,” Stan said. “You’re one of the best people I know.”

Eddie huffed. “Yeah, I’m really fucking great.” He shook his head. “I live with my fucking- with fucking Sonia. I don’t even have a fucking job or savings! I’m a twenty-four year old gay man who’s most serious relationship was with a woman just like my mom!” He laughed again. “Real fucking catch.” Breathing hard, he looked down at his feet again.

“Hey!” Stan growled. He grabbed Eddie’s face roughly, his fingers digging into Eddie’s cheeks so Eddie would look up at him. “You are great. You are a catch. You are so fucking caring, and sweet, and hot. And strong.” Eddie tried to pull away, but Stan shifted, pushing him back. “You’re so fucking strong. You’re one of the strongest people I know. Yeah, life sucks right now. I get it. Mine does too. But it’s not going to suck forever.” A tear trickled down Eddie’s cheek. “It’s not going to suck forever.”

Eddie sucked in a deep breath. “I just- I don’t even know what I’m really doing here.”

“You’re doing your best,” Stan said gently. “And your best is good enough.” Eddie sighed, all the fight leaving his body, and he brought his hands up to Stan’s wrists.

[egg2k16]

40 Fanfic Q’s Answered

the server wants answers, and they want them now!!! from this post

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

Smut and pining all the way. Also, falling in love via laughing

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

Eh...I don’t think so, I’m always 100% self-indulgent, so what u see is what I want

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

Anything that has to do w mega sadness, I just Don’t. I can’t write anything sad, and if I do, there’s certainly gonna be A Lot of comfort afterwards

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

I have 91 wips, motherfuckers!!! My latest wip is a daddy month fic!

5. Share one of your strengths.

I think, since I’ve been trying to be sparser in my words, I’ve been able to better emphasize what isn’t being said

6. Share one of your weaknesses.

No action scenes from me are ever good, lmao

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

It was late at night, when he started to cry.

He didn't want to cry, but he did.

It's been years since he's last let himself feel, or was it since he was last allowed to feel?

He choked on his sobs, uncomfortable with his tears. He's forgotten how to properly cry. His entire body is shaking, and the connections between flesh and wire hurts.

He stops crying. He starts crying again.

This continues for another few minutes, until he feels as if he can't possibly have any more tears.

He wipes his face, pulls the covers up to his chin, and falls asleep.

(from Twilight on the Sea) I really like this bcus I don’t think I’ve ever really typed out crying in this way, n I tried to make it feel like it was a lot

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

Cass was quiet for a moment. “... you know what? Maybe I’ll just go up there and surprise you.”

“If you do, then you already ruined the surprise, haven’t you?”

“Eh, I dunno about that. Seeing my beautiful face is a shock for many people.”

“Oh, I’m sure of it.”

“Hey, Koda? I don’t know about you, but it’s really late here.”

“Really?” Koda asks, then remembers that time zones exist. “Oh crap, what time is it over there?”

“It’s midnight. What about you?”

“It’s eight o’clock. Only four hours difference?”

“Oh hey, that’s not so bad.”

“It reduces our time,” Koda said, a bit whining.

“Not if I have anything to say about it.”

“What are you going to do? Move here? Send for me?”

“You’ll see.”

(from Together) This was a gift for one my best friends on here, @suncatchr​ , and it’s about his ocs!!! I love this a lot bcus while it’s a soulmate au, it’s not ur average soulmate au, and I tried making it as original as possible! And this blurb, I just wanted them to effuse so much love w/o having to say love...cries

9. Which fic has been the hardest to write?

If this is by posted fics, then I remember writing Look What You’ve Done to Me was very very difficult, bcus, since it’s also a gift, for @daniel-bryan​ , I wanted to write it Good, n since my buddy usually wrote from the love interest’s pov, I felt a weird pressure to write Daniel Bryan’s pov as good as I could

10. Which fic has been the easiest to write?

2 of my fics in Spanish!!! My oc centric one, Rayos y Centellas, and my shyan one, oye cariño, solo pienso en ti ! Turns out writing in ur native tongue makes everything easier

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

It’s a very passionate hobby!!! I just!!! try to pour all of my love into everything I write!!!

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

I’m not sure!!! I just watch movies n quietly scream to my gay lonesome bcus No One Ever Watches Movies ;-;

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

To just keep writing n not stop for details or forgotten lore, bcus it’s important to write down what’s firing u up Right Now. Of course, it’s very difficult following that ;;-;;

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

“No adverbs!” “No ‘said’!” “It has to make grammatical sense!” sometimes things Need those

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

Was gonna say my rewrite of the end of The Rover, but actually, my SPN fic Ube . Shit was peak inspired

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

Eridirk (Eridan Ampora/Dirk Strider from Homestuck) all the way. The one otp that’s stayed thru thick n thin <3

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

A little mix of both, and tbh it depends on the fic, but I tend to write chronologically

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

I’ve started bullet pointing my ideas out before writing my fics, and so far, it’s been helping me be more streamlined n get my things written out faster n clearer!

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

Is the need for representation in all the niche movies I keep watching a muse?

20. Describe your perfect writing conditions.

In my dark room, w music blasting from my laptop, the TV w a soft hum, I have the perfect playlist to get the mood right, curled up in my blankies, n my plushie Sweet Pea by my side

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

Zero, we rely on autocorrect & editing while typing and die like men

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

YOU DON’T SEEM SCARED.

Del Rio shrugs. “Working as a cop, it makes you numb to some things. It’s good, it lets you react to things as you should, and not how you’d want to.”

YOU SOUND SAD ABOUT THAT.

He makes a noncommittal noise. “It is what it is.” He eats another spoonful of his ice cream, then gets a thought.

“Can you show up?”

HOW SO?

“Can you,” he tries, waving his spoon around, “Manifest?”

I DON’T KNOW. I’LL TRY.

“I’m sure you’ll do just fine,” Del Rio assures, and he can feel the air around him smile. The...world, he thinks, around him shifts just slightly, and there seems to be a chink in the armor for a moment before it goes away, as if someone had wiped the glass clear. He realizes that this is her, trying to show up in a physical form, step out of the phone.

He doesn’t know where to look, but then his confusion wanes when a butterfly shows up, fluttering towards him. It lands near his phone, skitters a bit, flaps its wings.

“Lucy?” he asks, transfixed on the butterfly. Its orange wings are bright under the sunlight.

I THOUGHT I’D TRY SMALL, FOR MY FIRST TRIAL.

“Well, you certainly nailed it.” He smiled warmly at the butterfly, and he had the crazy notion that it smiled back at him.

(adapted from The Policeman , the first fic I posted!)

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

Yeah, probably The Policeman lmao, I remember it today n I cringe a little at the very obvious refs to other fandoms I made. Despite that, it continues being one of my best hits!

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

Never

25. What do you look for in a beta?

I’m just thankful to have gotten a beta in general in life at all

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

I beta’ed once, and since English is my 2nd language, I pointed out syntax confusion, typos, n continuity errors

27. How do you feel about collaborations?

Can be done, it’s just that I am frightened. Tried doing that, it fell thru, n the new thing that came up, I still have to hold up my end of the bargain ;;-;;

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

cries omg ok so!!! Chancy_Lurking ( @lurkerviolin​ ) is one of my faves, n we’ve become friends, n their Felix+ Sense8 series is the reason for it all, and u know it’s good if it managed to make a friendship that’s last its good while, and also they’re so nice, and we vibe so well!!! thegoatz ( @daniel-bryan​ ) is also now one of my bestest friends ever, and I wuv him so much, he is such a good kid, n he’s so enthusiastic about writing, and I hope that spark never goes out!!! And adamwhatareyouevendoing ( @skatingthinandice​ ) bcus she’s doing a rewrite of The Last Kingdom where it’s all gay where it should be and vnjkdfsnvkd God, what a wonderful friend!!!

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

I actually technically am working on a sequel to @rettaroo​ ‘s A New Kind of Touch ! Another promise I have to hold up eventually ;;;-;;;

30. Do you accept prompts?

Sure!

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

I try to follow canon as much as I possibly can!

32. How do you feel about smut?

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

33. How do you feel about crack?

Eh, it’s alright. I don’t normally look for it, so I don’t really have a solid opinion on it

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

I don’t want to read it, but I have so far encountered it twice very amicably: once here in a ficlet, and another in a longer fic on AO3, and they were both very good

35. Would you ever kill off a canon character?

Probably not, I don’t like sad things!

36. Which is your favorite site to post fic?

AO3! I’m RedLlamas on it!

37. Talk about your current wips.

Lmao which one. The one I’m currently working on is an impregnation kink turned “oh no I actually do wanna have a family” feelings fic!

38. Talk about a review that made your day.

Gonna be real w u, the best comments I’ve gotten have mainly been from my friends, who either write a paragraph or two going into detail of the fic, or just send a one sentence comment that’s just “screams!” I’ve gotten very few paragraphs from other people, n they’re always so!!!

My friends are the realest :’)

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

The perks of being a rarepair writer is that the only people who read my fics are the ones actively looking for content!!! And they can’t complain about my work because No One Else Is Writing For It!!!!!!

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

All my fics are masterpieces, so I’ll do a summary change! For don’t you just know (exactly what they’re thinking?)

Dakota finds himself in unexpected heartbreak, and the universe decides to bring him in the direction of a night club with a dancer with stars on his skin.

[a-cai-jpg]

“what do you think is the biggest issue plaguing our society?”

hm. capitalism? or this idea that life is a zero-sum game? or the blatant disregard for human life that isn’t our own? or the prioritization of our wants over other people’s needs?

READING LIST:

The New Jim Crow - Michelle Alexander Fatal Invention - Dorothy Roberts The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks - Rebecca Skloot The Case for Reparations - Ta-Nehisi Coates (and bruh, if you're too lazy to read a book, check out the nice Instagram graphics)

Today, I heard a song that I used to listen to a lot when I drove to and from work. In the past three months, memories of work have muddled and swelled and distorted until they become small snippets in my dreams that have increasingly made less sense as quarantine drags on. The frequency at which I speak of my students and teammates at the dinner table have decreased, even more so in the past week as the program ended and we are no longer obligated to get up around 9 in the morning and sit in a half hour to one hour call with each other.

Parts of me miss it. Although I like being able to lounge in bed until the sun is begging me to throw my covers off and wash my face, I am somewhat wistful for the structure that those days had offered me.

But the thing that gets me the most--the thing that makes me suddenly interrupt the comfortable silence in the ktichen with a sigh or the thing that makes me accidentally press the brakes a little too hard when I'm driving--is the fact that my work e-mail is now terminated. I now have no access to the lesson plans I've created for my students, the student profiles that I still sometimes think of when I'm alone and want to add to, the OneDrive that my laptop screen has been so accustomed to hosting. With a "Log-in Denied" screen, the disconnect between my students and I had become permanent.

Someone recently asked if I was going to write about my experience, and although in the beginning (like really beginning, like August 2019 beginning) I had planned on doing it, as time wore on, I realized how measly my written account would compare to the actual experience.

See, what made the experience worth it was the smallest, most trivial interactions with my students and my teammates. It was the delirious mornings before 7:15 AM, the semi-hysterical 10 minutes before 3:00 PM, the weariness of 4:30 PM when a student is still chatting and not leaving the classroom, and the restlessness of a Friday afternoon. It was when a student wandered into our classroom during class (uh oh) or right before the end of lunch just to update us about something or when a student showed up for our after school program and all of us cheer and the student takes an even longer detour to walk over to our table because they were lowkey embarrassed. Fuck, it's when a student fell off his chair laughing but the process of falling took over a minute so I didn't notice until he was physically on the floor, when another student and I hid in the back of the classroom to play Super Smash Bros and I was so stressed because I swore the substitute teacher knew we weren't doing schoolwork, when a student kept saying these two words that I didn't get and after asking him to repeat it so many times he was going "MISS STOP PLAYING" I realized he was saying "cookie jar," when a student tried to play Battleship against me but underestimated by psychic powers, when a student finally understood mRNA transcription and protein translation and gained confidence in himself and in biology as the year goes on, when a student was causing a ruckus but then we waved hi and he beamed at us and came up to greet us like we have made his day, when a student tried to tell me I have a chance in marrying Jackson Wang because we're about the same age, when a student screamed "Congratulations miss" across the classroom because he thought it would be appropriate for the beginning of English class, when a student conspired very obviously with my teammates to play "Happy Birthday" for me on my birthday, when a student found a two-person game to play with me even though I suck at computer games because he wanted to include me in whatever he was doing with his friends--see.

I can list all these memories, but what they actually mean wouldn't make sense to anyone but me and my teammates.

And there are other things that I can't really describe in a sentence. Like the contours of a connection with a student, how it starts off from hello's and compliments to their hair, and then becomes conversations about racism and sexism.

Sometimes I ask myself, Annette, you spent a year supposedly serving to alleviate inequity in schools. Why are you not talking more about whatever the clusterfuck is happening right now? The racism, the discrimination, the white supremacy clusterfuck that's apparently ripping apart families (to which I applaud).

In the beginning, I talked about systems and inequity a lot. I remember a friend and I literally sat in a Jollibee's all the way in West Covina, debating angrily and passionately about racism until the sun set. I would have lengthy text message conversations about it, sit in cars and talk and feel angry but also like I was doing something.

But fuck, as the school year went on, I just got more and more angry.

Fuck talking about it, I would think as I drove home near tears. Fuck talking about it if no one is going to do anything.

I suddenly hated talking about systemic inequity. It was just such a jarring feeling, sitting in a classroom discussing inequity and not fucking being able to do anything about it. I was so pissed that superintendents, policymakers, all these people with important titles would talk and talk and talk and fuck all would happen in the schools. I felt like a fucking hypocrite, talking to the students about systemic inequity and then not being able to do anything about a racist teacher or a punitive administrator. It was like fighting a damned uphill battle with just your 8-person team when it was promised that everyone else--schools, programs, fucking lawmakers--was fighting the same damned battle with you.

I was pissed that money and programs flood the schools, but fuck all is happening in the community or all the money is being used in the wrong places and there's inequity in literally whatever the fuck we were doing as we march into schools declaring that we're alleviating inequity.

And honestly, I'm still fucking pissed.

I ride a thin line between being an elitist about systemic inequities and having a holier-than-thou attitude and being fucking pessimistic about the world. It was sitting in that classroom, that I finally felt, for the first fucking time, utterly hopeless.

And it was a weird feeling, because I didn't really know how to talk to other people about it, because the fuck do I know about systemic inequity, living in my sheltered ethnic enclave, cruising through innocuous YouTube videos about sewing or some shit?

See, the thing I can't fucking stand about people who talk big ideals and policies and shit is that human beings become a statistic. They become a damned number or a martyr or a beneficiary.

Don't get me wrong--I'm a numbers, data-oriented person, and being able to have statistics to back up my claims about racism makes me feel safe. BUT why the fuck does a person have to become a damned statistic before they matter?

(yes i know there's a cause and effect that happens, but that's not right. no one should have to fucking die for people to realize damn, yeah this shit's messed up.)

I remember in sophomore year, I attended a race seminar, and was called in to chat with the two seminar leaders a little while after the seminar ended. After a while, I just kind of fell silent and stared at the table for a while, and one of them asked, "Annette, what are you thinking?"

And I said it fucking pissed me off that people die and become a statistic and then suddenly so-called change happens and people start caring but what about that person who died? And maybe it was the first time that I fully recognized the value of a human life and the potential of a human life, and that was why I was so distraught. Because I had been seeing Black men killed by police as a damned statistic, but during that week when all we did was talk about race and protests and riots and Ferguson, all I could think about was what if Michael Brown hadn't died, what he could have done and what color he would have had in his life.

This is such an elementary and rudimentary point to make, but fuck, people don't get it. A human life matters.

Period.

A human life matters.

So what if there is a criminal record? So what if he isn't a college graduate? So what if she is a sex worker? So what if they were intoxicated and in a stolen car? Fuck you, none of that constitutes a fucking death sentence, and who the fuck are you to indict them anyways?

(wow this took an unexpected turn.)

But.

I think it's important to talk about systems. To recognize the political implication of the BLM movement, to understand the historical and political context of racism. You can't fight systemic racism without that understanding. But all of it has to be rooted in viewing each person as a full human with full dignity. There cannot be White saviors in politics, fucking old, White men who are honestly both sexist and racist being hailed as heroes because they're fighting for minority rights like no calm the fuck down that's literally what they're supposed to do.

Like yes applaud them but fuck, applaud the minority women in Congress who are doing so much fucking more.

I think everyone needs to have that kind of reckoning, where they sit and fucking realize that damn yeah, Black people or poor people or trans people or gay people or fucking women are like.

People.

With potential and dignity and life and are wholly deserving of potential and dignity and life.

And to have that cut short by something that was a product of the very fucking system created to strip away potential, dignity, and life is unjust and not something that should be ignored.

And once you have that kind of reckoning, you can move on to understanding the system and how American history was literally shaped by racist, White men with the overarching goal of creating a society where they would always be in power.

And maybe the two learning processes have to happen in conjunction. It probably should happen in conjunction. But regardless of how it happens, nobody should just sit back and say "Yeah, I'm a good person, it sucks that so and so was killed or arrested," because that does fuck all.

If you can't do anything about it, at least feel fucking pissed about it, so pissed that if one day someone said something dumb as fuck, you will have the courage to tell them they are fucking dumb as fuck.

(ok maybe don't put it that way, but honestly, if you're righteously angry, who can determine how you are to show your anger?)

READING LIST:

We Were Eight Years in Power - Ta-Nehisi Coates The Health Gap - Michael Marmot The Color of Law - Richard Rothstein

(books to be read by me)

[lena-in-a-red-dress]

Fanfiction Ask Game

Posting the ba test kitchen ask meme recently, I was reminded that I dislike waiting for people to ask these questions, so again I am just answering in full! This one is by @wornquillsandspilledink, so as always if you want to reblog, please do so from the OP.

A: How did you come up with the title to [insert fic]? Okay, so maybe this one will have to be asked...

B: Any of your stories inspired by personal experience? Not so much my full fics, but a lot of the tumblr ficlets for sure. They’re a great way to process emotional hardship or confusion. Pretty much anything to do with mental health headcanons are inspired by my personal experience.

C: What member do you identify with most? Lena, for some reason. We have very little in common, but she’s who my heart went “that one” and somehow feels most like my emotional state.

D: Is there a song or a playlist to associate with [insert fic]? I can officially say that I don’t have any specific playlists to accompany my fics, but I do use playlists to get the mindspace of a fic I’m writing.

E: If you wrote a sequel to [insert fic], what would it be about? this would have to be asked, I guess. I could extrapolate sequels to almost anything, so...

F: Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it. Like, anything from Making Waves. It’s the pinnacle of difficult but mature adult conversations.

G: Do you write your story from start to finish, or do you write the scenes out of order? I try to start with a primary action, from which everything else flows towards the finish. But I do jump around if I find myself struggling with a certain part. 

H: How would you describe your style? Emotional. I tend to write character-driven stories, even when there’s quite a bit of action. It always comes back to the quieter moments where the characters are processing internally.

I: Do you have a guilty pleasure in fic (reading or writing)? I wouldn’t call it a guilty pleasure, but if I don’t catch myself, I have a tendency to turn ANYTHING into a whump fic. It’s a problem.

J: Write or describe an alternative ending to [insert fic]. Oooooohh... ask me this one-- if you dare.

K: What’s the angstiest idea you’ve ever come up with? Y’all will have to tell me. I’ve written a lot of angst, and it’s a stiff competition between character death and a permanent supercorp breakup.

L: How many times do you usually revise your fic/chapter before posting? Lately? Zero. In my prime I was doing two revisions before posting.

M: Got any premises on the back burner that you’d care to share? Only a hundred billion thousand. 

N: Is there a fic you wish someone else would write (or finish) for you? Noooooo... because that runs the risk of it being done wrong. What I need is for a story to spring fully formed from my brain like Athena emerging from Zeus’ forehead.

O: How do you begin a story–with the plot, or the characters? I guess it’s characters? But more specifically, it’s usually a single spark of an image or snippet of document around which everything else forms to make it happen.

P: Are you what George R. R. Martin would call an “architect” or a “gardener”? (How much do you plan in advance, versus letting the story unfold as you go?) “Architect or gardener” bish just use plotter or pantster like the rest of us. Shorter bits are pantsed, longer fics are vaguely plotted just to keep on track.

Q: How do you feel about collaborations? I think they are the pinnacle of creative expression. To see two artists working together to manifest a joint vision is just *chefs kiss*

R: Are there any writers (fanfic or otherwise) you consider an influence? Oooooh... There’s one writer in the stargate fandom that really made me want to step up my game. Rachel500 had an ongoing companion fic that had chapters to accompany every SG-1 episode that read like a goddamn novel. I’ve read it multiple times and was like “that. i want to make stuff like that.”

S: Any fandom tropes you can’t resist? Whump for sure. Hurt comfort.

T: Any fandom tropes you can’t stand? Certain pet names. In this fandom the worst offender is Maggie Sawyer’s “Little Luthor.” Fck that noise. 

U: Share three of your favorite fic writers and why you like them so much. I’m way behind on reading, but I will say that I fall in love with any writer who builds a rich world (often found in the truly amazing alternate time period fics), and is able to really capture an image of the characters that I recognize and identify with.

V: If you could write the sequel (or prequel) to any fic out there not written by yourself, which would you choose? Actually, not really. What I enjoy about reading other fics are hearing other authors’ voices. So there are plenty of fics I’d love to see sequels to many fics, I want it to be a sequel from the original author, because they are what helped made me like it so much.

W: Do you like more general prompts, or more specific ones? Depends on the mood. Some are vague, but seem to have something specific in mind, and I have anxiety trying to guess what they’re really after. But there’s something gratifying about truly general prompts where I can just run with it, and maybe turn it on its head.

X: A character you enjoy making suffer. Lena Luthor.

Y: A character you want to protect. Lena Luthor.

Z: Major character death–do you ever write/read it? Is there a character whose death you can’t tolerate? I do. Only for characters I like. I can’t tolerate deaths of characters the AUTHOR clearly can’t tolerate. It feels too gleeful, and it’s rare that there’s any kind of emotional fallout for it. If there’s a CD, there BETTER be fallout.

[bryonysimcox]

The internal battle of forced monotony: Week 13, Spain

The negative emotions associated with isolation have reared their ugly heads this week. Amid tales of homemade ramen, torrential rain and a new film we’re working on, this post also reflects on the less positive moods that lockdown has gifted us.

Life feels more surreal as each week passes. The end of our sixth week in lockdown also marks a quarter of a year since we set off from England in our freshly converted campervan. When I frame it like that, our overland adventure to date both stretches back into eternity and only feels like a couple of days ago. Little did we know that ‘life on the road’ would entail confinement indoors and restrictions on all kinds of activities, like going to a cafe, seeing friends, making videos and driving through Europe.

There’s certainly something deep within me that is inherently optimistic. Even though if I was realistic about it, I knew that the ‘State of Alarm’ here in Spain would likely extend beyond the date of 26th April (which had already been extended twice), I had sort of psyched myself up towards regaining some of our freedom on that date. So when one morning this week, I flicked my phone onto the website for EL Pais (a major Spanish newspaper) and Pedro Sánchez had announced he was set to ask congress for another extension until the 9th May, my heart sank.

If there’s one thing I’ve wanted this weekly blog to be, it’s authentic. I’ve wanted to use it as a record of where I’ve been - not only geographically, but emotionally, and that means reflecting on the lows as well as the highs.

It’s hard putting into words the feeling of being so helpless in your own life - the feeling I’m experiencing now in lockdown. I guess one way that this helplessness has taken effect is in my increased empathy and consideration for people who live much larger parts of their lives facing uncertainty and helplessness - whether that be living under an unstable dictatorship, drought and famine, civil war or poverty. It’s not that I’ve only just started caring about these people, but in experiencing a fraction of the emotions that they must be going through, my sympathy deepens into something much more.

I’m so used to being in control. I trust that I will wake up tomorrow and night will turn to day; that I will put my keys in the ignition and the van will start; that I will be safe from persecution and oppression and that I will be able to access food and water. Even the element of my life which is the most uncertain as we undertake this overland adventure, which is money, is usually tempered by the knowledge that George and I have the skills and resources to find work, even if it has to be something we don’t particularly like. And yet now, life has thrown us a curveball. Coronavirus has left us spinning out of control.

Not feeling in control of my life has sapped my motivation. I still manage to get out of bed, and get various things done for our film channel Broaden or just general life admin, and I still eat well and exercise where possible. But things have lost their shiny glow, and I lose the energy to focus on a task for long.

It’s not like every waking moment I’ve spent has been devoid of positive energy. Back at the start of the week we ventured out to the supermarket on foot which was a welcome change of scene, I sat out in the sun and bleached my hair with lemon juice, and George learnt to eat crisps in a handstand. We laugh, we have fun and we create little activities like this to pass the time. But somehow, even investing in positivity like this can be tiring. You spend one day trying really hard to be grateful for what you’ve got in this time of crisis, and focus on celebrating the silver linings of copious free time, only to wake up the next day with your energy reserves run dry. Is anyone feeling this too? I know I’m not alone. 

(images, left to right) Bleaching my hair with lemon juice, filming snippets for our upcoming ‘Place Portraits’ video and learning to eat crisps in a handstand.

Meanwhile, frontline workers continue to fight for us all. To save our lives.

The juxtaposition of the chilling images we see on the news about Covid-19 against the confines of the little cottage we’re currently staying in is bizarre. Each day I read new statistics about people dying, articles about PPE shortages and quotes from global health authorities telling us the worst is yet to come.The boredom and helplessness I’m feeling shrink in comparison to the intensity of this global pandemic. My emotions seem petty and mundane, perhaps even pathetic. And yet, something tells me these emotions are still legitimate. That all of our emotions are legitimate, as we each attempt to process the situation and what it could mean for the future.

The future is no longer a thing which feels predictable. We have stepped over the cliff edge, and as each day that the pandemic unfolds, we are in new territory. Of course, one of the opportunities presented by such an enormous global event is the chance to reassess how we live on this planet, redefining the new ‘normal’. 

I have always been interested in the study of the future, and using different approaches to imagine how it may play out. And yet whilst there are opportunities amid the crisis, right now, I’m terrified by what I see. Yes, there are clues and behaviour changes that we can use to project future scenarios, but most of what is in front of us is completely unknown. We don’t know how long we have to work from home, furlough our staff, keep our children educated and occupied indoors or talk to loved ones through a screen. We don’t know what horrors tomorrow’s headlines will bring.

It feels like the world is staring into a dark abyss, reaching out for something to hold onto.

From a selfish perspective, not having any control over the future is a huge spanner in the works. Driving across Europe in a van and working as freelance videographers is the least ‘essential activity’ there could be, and we are conscious that governments have much more to focus on than two British travellers running out of money and desperate to continue their adventure. But it’s still so disheartening to be at the whim of something, something bigger and greater than you, particularly in light of the arduous year we spent preparing for this trip. There have certainly been a few tears here this week, and waves of the same emotions I felt when building the van and knowing there was a chance we would have to give up.

The weather really hasn’t helped lift the mood either. This region of Spain faced endless days of torrential rain this week which rendered the garden inundated and the road flooded. We couldn’t even get out to the supermarket and even worse, a leak developed in the roof of our van! It all felt rather doom and gloom.

(images, left to right) Torrential rain turned the road into a river, the point where we had to reverse all the way back home and couldn’t get to the supermarket, and a neighbouring lane which is closed off by Police.

One of the other realisations that brought me crashing down this week was sussing out that we’ll still be in lockdown for George’s thirtieth birthday. He’s not even someone who cares much for birthdays, but it had always been such an important milestone in my head and I was really looking forward to doing something nice together - going to a restaurant or watching live music or mooching around a city. Hilariously, back when we left Sydney we made a plan with our friends to have a reunion for George’s 30th… in Goa, India! It’s actually quite amusing to see how monumentally wrong we were in predicting the future, as we are thousands of miles off India right now.

All that said, George has been a cornerstone. Not just to comfort me about his birthday, but to be there through this all. We sort of balance one another out, ready with a positive mindset and hug when the other one is feeling super low.

If there’s one thing life in lockdown has strengthened, it’s our relationship.

On a lighter note, George embarked on a grand mission to make the best homemade ramen on Sunday. It all started with the broth, inspired by a zany French chef he follows on YouTube, and by mid-morning the cottage was filled with the smell of this incredible broth combining vegetable peelings with burnt garlic, ginger, miso paste and soy. What started as a broth-making test unfolded across the day, and saw him make handmade noodles, a sticky garlic and sesame sauce, soy soaked eggs and grilled tomatoes. Needless to say, watching George’s ramen odyssey was definitely the most entertainment I had all day!

(images, left to right) George’s homemade noodles (as food stocks were running low), the finished ramen, and the delicious oily and fatty broth in progress.

The two of us have also been working on a new video that will be released on the Broaden YouTube this Saturday (25th April). It’s a far cry from ‘The Hundred Miler’, but hopefully will be well-received nonetheless. It’s called ‘Place Portraits’, and we filmed it back in Paris, in the first week on the road back when temperatures lingered around zero degrees. Whilst we haven’t been as excited about making videos as we usually would be, I continue to be grateful to have a creative focus amid the pandemic, and being stuck inside is forcing me to get inventive with ideas for upcoming projects.

I also love seeing things that people have baked, sung, written, built and performed across the world each day online. The internet can be an incredible place.

As I write this, I reflect on a rocky week battling the internal voices and contradictory emotions of lockdown.

It’s a strangely tiring combination: of not knowing what the future looks like and trying to make sense of a world devoid of human contact or normal routines. Each day, let alone this whole week, has been filled with so many highs and lows that by the evening, I’m left feeling exhausted and churned up inside. 

But we made it. We made it another week in lockdown and I’m so glad I have this blog as a place to reflect. I hope it’s also a place where my honesty (and in this week’s post, my negativity) makes you not feel so alone in your emotions.

As if she knew I needed her right now, Mother Nature has finally blessed us with glorious sunshine and I can already feel my mood lifting. Perhaps the pain associated with this period is also signifying something else: growth. As we face this together, and all of the ugly emotions that come along with it, we learn more about ourselves and human nature, and in doing so, we grow. 

p.s. apologies if this week’s post was all doom and gloom! If it was, may I redirect you to last week’s ‘photo essay’ as a soothing antidote.

[bookworm-2692]

Reader ask meme: A10, B6, C4 and D2?

Questions are from here!

A10: Who did you have your first fanfic-related conversation with? What was it about?

I… don’t remember? First irl conversation? Or online? Online would be someone from the Salad on Dreamwidth in the comments section in like 2014??? Real life… maybe my sister @adrift-in-eden or my friend @lebannabell or another friend who doesn’t use tumblr. Or maybe… wait I remember when I was young and my dad downloaded these “James Potter and the X” ebooks (here is the first on Goodreads), as well as Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality or something? It’s only now in hindsight that I realise they were fanfic lmao. I read the James Potter ones, I remember enjoying them. My dad talked about the Methods of Rationality all the damn time! He found it absolutely hilarious, tho I never read it. I think those would have been the first conversations about fanfic, given that I remember not knowing that term in those days (a couple of months ago my sister and I were talking about this fic at the beach in the ocean and my dad overheard some and started talking about Methods of Rationality again (bc we tried to make him go away by saying “hp fanfic” but he didn’t and instead started relating to us) and it wasn’t until that moment that I was like “hey that’s fanfic… those James Potter ebooks were also fanfic… wtf”, so I clearly didn’t know the term fanfic back when I first read them). 

Looking on the Goodreads now, JP1 was published 2007, JP2 in 2008, JP3 in 2010 and JP4 in 2013. JP5 wasn’t published until 2017. I definitely read 1-3 all at once, and definitely did not read #5. From the title on the Goodreads I feel like I recognise #4? Nope ok so I went into iBooks, and I have 1-3 but not 4 or 5. So my dad downloaded them somewhere in 2010-2013? I remember being disappointed it stopped at number 3 lmao. Trying to work out exactly, but all the other ones of his I read were published in 2008 so that doesn’t help. It was definitely after I read the whole series, and I know I started after the last book came out in 2008, and had definitely finished the series multiple times by year 5 or year 6 (2010/2011). So I would’ve read my first fanfic in maybe 2011 or 2012 lets say, at the age of like 12 or 13, and the first fanfic conversation would’ve been with my dad, and would have been about that fic he sent me lmao

B6: What is your favourite story trope? Why?

Um idk about trope?? But I really like stories where it’s like… one tiny thing changed, which changes the entire plot. Canon divergence fics. For Want Of A Nail I think it’s called on TV Tropes? Like all the NDRV3 fics where (spoiler alert) Akamatsu isn’t executed, because Saihara lies that he killed Amami and Monokuma rolls with it, or because he actually killed Amami, or instead Chapter 1 goes as canon, but instead Saihara is the second victim, or changes to Chapter 5: Saihara is Ouma’s hostage, or both Ouma and Momota are in the Exisal, or if they play by the rules in Chapter 6. I also really enjoy when canon mentions a thing happening, but not in any great detail, but then a fic goes over that event in great detail. For example, the First Nonary Game in Zero Escape, or the events of VLR from Phi’s POV, or the audition process in NDRV3 and showing how they actually “become” their characters. Also wasn’t it mentioned somewhere that Hongou went through Gordain’s Game? Dammit this is almost turning into a rec list from me. I guess I just really like long detailed fics with a good plot? 

Since some of my favourite fics didn’t manage to fit into the above: (Danganronpa) after the events of DR1, Naegi is kidnapped by Ultimate Despair, (Danganronpa) a time loop AU where we see the loops that lead to the canon timeline, rather than that one being the first one, (Harry Potter) Salazar Slytherin’s brother crawls out of his portrait during Harry’s fifth year ready to be the competent teacher Hogwarts needs (here is my longer recommendation to this fic that I posted a few days ago), (Harry Potter) Harry gets adopted by loving Muggles as a baby and raised in a loving home, (Harry Potter) Draco and Harry another others are 24 and professors at Hogwarts, this expands on the ideas of wizarding Lords and Ladies and has super amazing worldbuilding/characterisation, (Harry Potter) a series of wonderful “what if AUs”, (Harry Potter) 19/20 year old Harry wakes up in a 14 year old Slytherin body in 1942 - deals with Slytherin politics in such a Gryffindor way, it’s absolutely beautiful, (Harry Potter) a Muggle becomes the Weasleys new neighbour, and they all think she’s actually a witch, (Zero Escape) the boys are playing DND over Discord and now a real life mystery is occurring, (Zero Escape) snippets leading up to Dcom, and also during the experiment, (Zero Escape) a look at what happens after ZTD, and how they try to continue saving the world (it’s very good), (Zero Escape) random scenes from every timeline, (Zero Escape) a complete AU, Crash Keys are doing crime, it’s good stuff, (Zero Escape) the story of 1904 Phi (also really good)

I’m now getting tired but if you want more fic recs then please just ask! Also if you have your own fic recs please send them to me!

C4: What thing that fandom loves do you actually kind of hate? Why?

To be honest? The shipping. Like I’m not an anti-shipper, I’m not trying to stop people from shipping. You do you boo. But I just sort of dislike when shipping gets shoe horned in unnecessarily? Similar to how I dislike romance subplots and love interests being added to mainstream media “for the sake of it”. If it’s needed for the plot (or extremely well done) then it’s absolutely fine. But if it has no bearing on the plot, or is badly written, or feels OOC or something, then it annoys me. Generally it’s fine though, but.

D2: Who/Where did you get your last fic rec from?

I think my sister?? When she was reading a lot of Harry Potter fic, she’d send me the best of them and I’d open the links and just have the tabs open until I got around to reading them. I was at uni and busy, so I just kept on accumulating links, and she wasn’t even sending me every single thing I read! She’s since moved on to reading another fandom (and hence hasn’t been sending me any fics in a while), but I still haven’t caught up on all she sent. Some of them were really good though, super amazing.

[tubaterry]

adhd time management practice

Hey so how do you keep track of the shit that you need to do in the next few days?  Luck?  Zoning out and stressing that you’re falling further behind? A series of task management tools designed for neurotypicals that only add “paperwork” to the overhead of getting your shit done?  (You know the ones - 800 customization options, complex scheduling and rulesystems, complete disconnect from any other computer systems you log into at work, 22 step process to get from “I need to do a thing” to “The computer will make me acknowledge that the thing was planned”)

if you’re ADHD like me and especially if like me you have issues with time blindness or won’t ever finish any-fucking-thing without a deadline attached, check this shit out. Ages ago when I was helpdesk our scheduling system worked kinda like this and I’ve been missing it bad since then.

Check out this fuckin’ drag and drop( task -> calendar ) app: TrevorAI

Make a new task, typing only as much as you need to remember what it was you needed to do.  “Take out the trash”, or “Call Dr. P about the wrist thing”, whatever.  Hashtag it if you really want organization.

Take that new task, and drag it onto your calendar. Repeat until you’ve got like... a day and a half to two days of work scheduled out.*

As the day goes on, either set aside the task for later (by creating a new task to be scheduled later), or finish the job and move other tasks to accommodate.

When you finish, resize the task on your calendar so it matches how much time you actually spent.

Later on: look back and see how many tasks you checked off.

* this is meant for short-term day-to-day. Scheduling out too far makes it harder to adjust and adds stress

Tips

These are small tasks: if it’s gonna be more than an hour, two tops - it’s a project.  Tasks are a single action or repeated action.  Projects you keep separate but pre-plan by breaking them into smaller tasks in a text file/email/whatever document storage you’re using.  When you run low on tasks, pull the next few in from your in-progress projects.  

Example: catching up on yardwork would be a project. A task might be ‘pull weeds in back rock garden’, or ‘mow back yard’.

Example 2: Update car registration might be “print registration form and fill out”, “get registration forms, fees, IDs in backpack”, “drop off at DMV”

When setting it up, i recommend setting the reminder time to “at time of event” so your upcoming task doesn’t intrude into your current task’s space.

If you prioritize at all, make prioritizing into its own task. In the moment, it has to be “I have time to schedule, I will drop the first item on the list onto my calendar.” Honestly you might get solid results just by going “top of the list goes to the next available calendar slot that will fit it”. No decision here, just pattern.

What do you get out of it?

A low friction task management system. Type like 4 words, drag to calendar.  You can schedule an entire day in 5 minutes and adjusting on the fly doesn’t feel like a task in and of itself.

Well, microdeadlines are fucking phenomenal for minimizing my executive dysfunction.  They’re also hilariously low-key.  Like, what better way to confront deadline anxiety by having a few no-consequence ones each week? Like, what happens if any random task gets completed half an hour later than you planned? Honestly: you planned it for once so it probably got done faster than usual

Which, another great point: The looking-back especially shows you how much you got done in a given day.  And after a while it’s probably significantly more than you think.  Especially if you’re ADHD and got the usual “lazy\spacey\unreliable” bullshit from people who should have been better at loving you.

Why does it work?

I’m not a sciency type so this is me pulling an idea out of my ass and subsequently yeeting it the fuck into the wind: It meshes well with my ADHD brain. it plays to our strengths.

I’m drawn heavily towards patterns, especially habits.  This gives “plan your day” a distinct pattern

The low effort required, combined with the rote pattern makes it feel more like part of the tasks you’re doing rather than its own task, it doesn’t trip off my executive dysfunction activation threshold. (You know: too much to do, must shut down. can’t do anything now)

Same with the weird memory recall issues I have. (I’m done with this thing, it no longer exists) If you don’t finish something in the time you have, you create a new task (remember, you need to credit yourself for the work you’ve done so far) to complete the first. And that can happen before you move on and the context drops.

Like “zero-based budgeting” it intrinsically acknowledges that the reality is more important than the plan.. It also establishes a pattern that makes it easier to habituate your own version of healthy responses to disruptions of plans in low-impact, low-stress ways.

Speaking of: also great low-key practice for decision-making, time estimating, all that jazz.(especially since the deliberately minimal prioritization system makes it as easy as “what is the next timeslot available?”)

Looking back at a full week is some hella satisfying dopamine rush especially since you probably spent a total of half an hour that week managing your schedule.  (and probably even less once you get used to it)

idk, I just think tools like this fit the patterns that work well for us ADHD folk better than a lot of more typical time management apps/systems.

Again, important note: I’m full of shit, but I do hope I’m right.

anyway, check out this schedule snippet from today.  Even looking at it I don’t feel like I did this much. And this computer isn’t synced up to my work email so it’s missing a couple meetings!  (Side note: “What’d you do yesterday?” “well...”)

If you use Gmail or the Mac outlook, your calendar here can be fully integrated the rest of your calendar, showing up as a separate calendar category.

Idk just like the other day I got mad at myself for having stared at a wall or otherwise entirely lost YET ANOTHER WORK DAY, forcing myself to play catch up.  I got fed up and poked around and as far as I can tell, nobody else is doing this RIGHT (at least RIGHT... for my needs).

Give it a shot.