#these poor girls think aging is the worst thing that can happen to a woman

[subway-tolkien]

I hope every single one of these pre-teens buying retinol and acid skincare products because an influencer told them to realizes that they're going to do longterm damage to their skin, because their skin is young and does not need retinol, or acid peels, or any of that shit. Especially since you know retinol makes you highly sensitive to the sun and those 9-year-olds aren't out there wearing adequate sunscreen.

Y'all gonna look like Yzma before you're 18 because you can't think for yourselves and your parents don't care enough about you to do 5 minutes of research into what their kid is slathering all over their skin.

[beastofburdenxo]

Awakening: Hypothermia part 2

here it is, the much-awaited part 2! Emmett realizes what he did in his sleep, how will he fix this?

2.8k words. MINORS DNI tags: fingering, first time, p in v sex, unprotected sex, first orgasm(?) Praise, language

Emmett stirs in his sleep, his heart pounding. “Oh no, did I dream again?” he wonders to himself. Feeling the front of his pants, he has his answer. “Shit.” He turns back towards you, hoping he didn’t disturb you, putting his arms back around you. He notices you slightly shaking, you can’t possibly be cold. He's right by your side, then he notices that your pants are gone. Your panties are all bunched up, slightly damp in the back. “Oh god, what did I do? Did I hurt you?” He sits up in bed, pondering if he should flee when you turn towards him. “Emmett, you awake?” you mutter in the darkness feeling him move. He's speechless, hoping that he didn’t do what deep down he knows he did. Hoping that you are innocent and clueless to his inappropriate behavior. “Emmett, talk to me. I know happened.” Emmett feels like he’s about to be sick at your words, his worst nightmare coming true. You grab his shoulders, knowing he’s going to want to bolt. “I’m not mad Emmett, you were asleep, had no idea what you were doing.” His chest feels like it’s going to collapse in on itself. “Did I hurt you? Did I-”  

“No Emmett, you didn’t hurt me I’m fine.” you assure him, “Nothing big happened, you just moaned a little in my ear and...” You trailed off, suddenly embarrassed at what you were about to disclose to him. Emmett put his head in his hands, “And what? What else happened?” You clear your throat, how do you put this politely? “Umm, well, you kind of humped me a little. Held me tight to you and uhm,” you stuttered this last part, “Groped a bit, and you sorta, used me to get off.” Emmett made an angry sound, “Damn it, I'm so sorry. I understand if you can’t stand to be around me anymore. I'm an animal. Over here having wet dreams about my dead friend’s daughter. Rutting against you like a pig.” You shush his displeasure, “I don’t think any less of you Emmett, you can’t control what your body does when you're asleep.” Before you can stop yourself, you blurt out, “And besides I didn’t hate it. It's the closest a man has ever gotten to me.” Silence fills the room as Emmett digests this information. “What?” you feel his eyes on you, “You enjoyed it? Enjoyed pretty much being molested by a man twice your age?” Your face reddens in the dark. “It felt kind of good honestly, I didn’t want you to stop.” You curse yourself at letting this secret loose.  

“Well, I'm glad I stopped when I did. Hope you got your fill, because this will not happen again. I knew this whole thing was a bad idea.” He turns away, stoney and cold towards you. Silly little tears fill your eyes, you didn’t want Emmett to be upset. You should have kept your mouth shut. “Little girl doesn’t know what she’s saying,” Emmett thinks to himself, “She enjoyed it? The fuck? I used her and she liked it?” He rubs his eyes, “She enjoyed it because it’s all she’s ever had. You are all she’s ever had.” A small voice in the back of his head tells him, “Poor thing doesn’t know any better. Show her there is better to be had.” If he could shut the voice off, he would, “No, it’s wrong. She’s too young. I literally watched her grow up.” “And now she is grown,” the voice replies, “She is an adult Emmett, a poor sexually deprived and innocent woman. Listen, you made her cry.” In the silence he hears your sniffling. “Dammit, I didn’t want to upset her. How do I make this right?” He turns back towards you, nervous that you would blow up in his face. “Hey,” he whispers, “Don’t cry. I'm not mad at you. I'm mad at myself, you did nothing wrong.” His warm hand caresses your shoulder. “Look at me, please.” You refuse. “Come here, hey, come here, don’t cry.” His arms snake back around you. “Hey now, don’t cry sweetheart. I’m sorry I upset you.” 

He makes you turn towards him, his blue eyes dark with concern. “Let’s forget this ever happened, okay? I don’t like seeing you like this.” His thumbs wiping away your tears. “it’s over and done with, water under the bridge alright?” You finally meet his gaze, “I won’t be able to forget, and you won’t either. I don’t want to forget.” With shaking hands, you reach for his beard and try to pull him closer. “No, no, stop sweetie. You’re confused. You really don’t want to do this. Let's just go back to sleep, okay?” With a new determination in your eyes you reply, “You said my name in your sleep, I heard it. Deep down you want this as much as I do.” Your lips are now ghosting over Emmett’s, just waiting for one of you to make up for the distance. “Emmett,” you whisper against his lips, “It’s okay Emmett, please. I trust you. Emmett.” In an instant your lips finally meet, not knowing who finally broke resolve. His lips are soft and tender against yours, not trying anything further. Nice and gentle, like he’s second guessing himself. He holds your face, eyes studying you, like he’s looking for any sign of hesitation. “Are you sure? We can stop right here, no pressure at all.” You put your lips on him, back where they were as your answer. The kiss deepens, his grip on you tightens. You breathe each other in like you were the last source of oxygen. He moves down to your neck, sucking softly on your skin. “I can feel your pulse,” he chuckles, “Excited, are we?” you avert your gaze in embarrassment. “It’s alright sweetheart, mine is the same way. I've wanted this for so long, you have no idea.” Emmett whispers in your ear.  

You reach behind you to undo your bra, but Emmett stops you, “Let me.” In one fluid motion, his rough strong hand has the clasp undone, slowly pulling it off your body. Eye contact is not wavering the whole time, like he’s making sure you’re okay. Half of you is completely exposed to him now, your skin slightly pink with nerves. “You are so beautiful, you know that?” His words just deepen the flush. He bends down to explore this new exposed flesh; your hands automatically go to his hair. Like you're using his scalp to ground yourself, this is not some naughty thought or dream, this is real and now. Emmett takes his time, no need to rush this. His warm mouth finds your unguarded nipple, and you jolt in surprise. He looks up from his work, slight grin on his face, “You good? Not used to that are you?” You lightly slap him upside his head, “No I’m not, but it feels nice. Keep going Emmett.” You don’t have to tell him twice. While his mouth is on one nipple, his hand is working on the other. Eventually trading up. The familiar feeling of suspense returns, like when you were all defenseless against him rutting up against you. But this time, you knew there weren’t going to be any interruptions. You both are panting; he can feel your thighs clench around his waist from being wrapped around him. His hands go to your waistband of your pants. Looking up at you he asks, “Would you like these to come off?”  

Shakily with desire you respond, “Yes, please.” Emmett softly moans at that response, “So polite.” He removes your legs from around him stretching them out straight. With his electric blue eyes on yours, his hands grab your hips, “Up for me sweetheart.” You oblige him, raising your hips to get your pants off easier. He slowly pushes them down, panties with them, eye contact never wavering. “Breathe, it’s okay. You are doing so good.” Goosebumps hit your exposed skin as the fabric is slowly removed from your legs. Part of you wants to just yank them off in frustration at his extremely slow movements, but you don’t. Emmett wants to do this right, knowing your inexperience. Finally, after what feels like forever, you are completely naked in front of him. You want to curl up in a ball, not used to being naked in front of anyone, much less a man. Emmett slowly strokes your exposed legs, “Are you okay?” he asks you. You nod in response, but that’s not good enough for Emmett. He lies down next to you, hand going to your cheek. “Are you okay with this?” he asks again, “I need to hear that you are okay.” You softly grab his hand that is on your face and kiss it, “I’m okay Emmett, just feeling a little exposed right now. It's not fair that I'm the only naked one here.” He smiles at that, running his hand up your thigh, “This is all about you right now, we’ll get to me later.”  

A shaky breath leaves your lips as you realize just how high Emmett’s hand is on your leg. Creeping closer and closer to where you both want him to be. He kisses you deeply again, gently climbing on top of you, his knee between your legs. “Can I look at you baby?” Your eyes get big at knowing what he wants. “I won’t touch unless you let me. Can I see just how pretty my girl is?” You gulp, wanting to please him but still skittish. “Breathe Babygirl, let me see you.” Time stands still as Emmett waits for your answer, not daring to go forward without your consent, still rubbing your legs. Finally, you decide to let him look. “Okay,” you whisper, “Go ahead, I just hope it’s what you're expecting.” Emmett kisses both knees as he gently pulls them apart, exposing you fully to him. His normally crystal-clear eyes turn muddy with lust, “Oh my sweetheart, it’s what I expected and so much more. You are so stunning and..” he comes back up to your face, “And so very wet for me. Just how I want you to be. Perfect.” You turn away from his words, trying to hide your face with your hands. Emmett is not having that, taking your hands in his, “it’s true, don’t hide from me. Get used to me talking like this, because I will every day until you quit shying from it. So pink and dripping for me baby, so pretty and small. Can I touch you baby? I won’t enter I promise, just let me feel.”  

At his words, you feel your body respond even more. Not knowing that it’s possible to be this wet just from his explicit compliments. All you want is Emmett to touch you, anywhere and everywhere. You take his hand in yours, finally doing what you thought about earlier when he was asleep. His warm hand finally reaches its destination. Both of you moan as his fingers explore your warm folds. “There you are beautiful, is this okay?” His index finger finds your clit, slowly rubbing, eye contact never wavering. “Emmett yes.” you manage to choke out, pleasure building at his movements. “I’m okay with one finger if you want to.” He kisses your neck in response, “Are you sure? Don't let me hurt you.” Watching your pleasure ridden face, He slowly enters one digit inside you. You are so wet it doesn’t hurt, just feels unusual having something inside. “Oh baby, you are so tight.” Emmett groans, “So warm for me, you are doing so good at taking my fingers.” In and out his finger goes, watching you the whole time. Emmett loves that he is the one who makes you feel so good. “More,” you cry out, “Please add another finger.” Your request is driving Emmett crazy, “Only because you asked so nicely sweetheart. Tell me if it is too much.” 

Emmett feels like his dick is going to explode any minute as another finger goes inside you. You are doing so good for him, accepting the second digit without much protest. Your thighs begin to shake. “Breathe sweetheart, don’t forget to breathe. I know that feels so good, doesn’t it? Two fingers inside you while my thumb is rubbing that little clit of yours, yeah?” Your voice goes out on you wanting to answer him. That familiar feeling that you had when he had you pinned on your stomach slowly returns. You just hope and pray that it happens this time. “Oh yes, you are so close I can see it in your eyes. Come for me baby, let it go. I’ll take care of you this time. I got you.” Emmett raises you up and holds you close as you orgasm for the first time ever. You cry his name repeatedly into his shoulder, body limp and trembling in his arms as he takes you through it. “There it is, there you go. Yes, good job sweetheart.” he coos, silent tears of relief slide down your cheeks. You wipe them away before he notices, not to worry him. He gently puts you down on the bed again, inhaling your remaining whimpers and moans. One hand goes down to unbutton his pants, finally freeing himself. He sighs in relief. You look down and notice what’s happening as your high starts to fade. “Shhh, I was just uncomfortable is all. Nothing is happening without your say so.”  

“Can I touch you?” you ask him. Curious as to how he feels. “If you want to,” he answers, “But remember, this is about you.” You kiss him passionately as you reach down, fingertips lightly grazing his dick. You feel him twitch at that slight touch. “it’s okay, it does that sometimes. Your hand is so soft, sweetheart. You can grab, it doesn’t bite.” Emmett guides your hand around him. He's so thick you can barely get your hand around it. “Oh, this soft skin is going to be the death of me.” he moans as you slowly start to stroke him. “I don’t know how much more I can take; I want to be inside you so bad.” Between kisses, you stop stroking him and pull him back on top of you, “I want you too, Emmett.” He grabs his dick, sliding it between your folds, “Are you sure? This might still hurt even though I tried to stretch you.” Your eyes close at the feeling of your clit being touched again, “I know, it’s okay. Just go slow.” Emmett’s forehead touches yours, eye contact steady as he lines himself up to your entrance. “This can stop anytime you want it to. Don't lie there and let me hurt you.” You feel the head slowly entering you, as Emmett tries to distract you with kisses. At first you just feel really full, nothing too bad. And then it’s like he hit a wall, your body refusing him any further. You start to whimper in pain, “Shhh, it’s okay. I'm almost all the way in sweetheart. You are doing such a good job” His hand goes back to stroke your clit, “Easy there, that’s it, you can do it. Focus on the pleasure baby, not the pain. It'll go away soon.” And it does, your body responding to his touches, it lets him through. “Oh fuck,” he grunts, “There it is honey, I'm in. Oh, you feel so good. Are you okay?”  

You grab onto his shoulders at the massive intrusion. “Yeah, I'm alright. Just move please, it’s starting to hurt again.” With a deep kiss, he slowly starts to move. Your hands go back to his hair as he continues to talk to you, “Breathe, don’t hold it in. Oh, this is better than I could have ever imagined, you feel so good around me. Oh shit, so tight baby. Just for me huh?” Emmett gets a good rhythm going in and out at just the right speed, sending you to heaven again. “Yes, just for you Emmett,” you manage to squeak into his ear, “Just for you.” At hearing your confession, his hips start to move sloppy. “Oh sweetheart, I can’t last much longer. It's been so long. You just feel too damn good.” Your nails start to dig in his back at the pleasure. “it’s okay, come for me baby, come for me.” you moan. Emmett buries his face in your shoulder, your name coming out of his mouth like a chant. That familiar growl unleashes from his throat as he finally hits his peak, quickly pulling out of you and spilling on your thighs. “Oh yes, like that.” he mutters to no one in particular, “Look so good covered in me.” You shakily sit up and pull him into a kiss, leaning on him as you have no strength left. “Are you alright baby?” he asks. “I’m perfect,” you answer, “That couldn’t have possibly gone better.”  

With a tired chuckle Emmett responds, “Let’s just not wait for another freezing night to do that again, okay?”  

“Okay I'll give you 20 minutes.”

[i-cant-sing]

YAAALLLLL THIS MAN IS SO WHIPPED FOR ME(idk for sure but u guys tell me) AND HE DOESNT EVEN KNOW ME?????

So basically some random dude called me, he doesn't know me or has even seen me or even knows my name, and idk him either. He claims that he was randomly dialing a phone number and dialed mine because he wants to be friends (friends here means dating). I already know this is completely BS so I hung up on him, but after a few more calls from him, I decided to humor him.

So I gave him a fake name and a fake age and a fake career and like I'm telling this man that I am lying for most part and he's like "but why???🥺 I've been nothing but honest to you" and I'm like boy idk u and I don't wanna know u and I don't even trust u or ever will wanna be in a relationship with you. Cause I took a brief interview and he told me that he's 28 (but he sounds like he's 32, maybe 35), his highest level of education is 12 grade and he's working as a "programmer" at a small company (I think it's a clerk job because he calls me during his tea breaks, and then in the evening).

Anyways, he's like "come on, just give me a chance. What's the worst that could happen???" And I'm like no. And somehow the convo went from him trying pursue me to me telling him to go pray to the Lord (like real religious stuff) for help with his career (because I told him that I can't settle for a man who's not smart enough, pr rich enough or handsome enough) and then it went to me telling him to read some of my favourite novels.

Yall won't believe me when I tell u that this man researched fav book (after he figured it out that i took my fake name from that book) and he's proceeded to tell me the whole summary??? And like we've talking for the past 3 days? And everh single time, he asks "do I have a chance with you?" And I give a resounding NO. But I don't stop there, no no. He asked me reason for rejection and I GAVE HIM A WHOLE ASS LIST THAT WAS BORDERLINE MEAN LIKE-

You're wayyyy less educated. I bet you're not even street smart.

You're poor.

We are not in the same city.

You're not handsome (he said he was 6 ft tall, athletic build because he wakes up to run at 5 every morning, and he said his complexion was darkish)

Told him he must have something wrong with him, either the way he talks or looks or treats other woman that no woman in real life wants to be "friends" with him.

My parents would never approve, neither would my "8 brothers", my unckes would kill him.

You get the gist, right???

But he did not give up. He's like calling me up and asking "so what did you do today? What's your fav food? Hobbies?" And I'm like sir we are not at all compatible. I even went as far to tell him "I have a very bad temper. I am very high maintenance. I don't dress modestly. I dont cook. I have a lot of male friends, etc etc" things that were lies and would piss off most people.

But he's like "and???? I'll bear your wrath. I'll maintain you."

And I'm like???? What is he upto?

Anyways, everytime he'd ask me if I'd give him a chance, I'd tell him we are absolutely not compatible, especially because of his lack of education and he's like "so a man needs to be highly educated to date you? Why? Just because you're a doctor, does that mean only doctors can date doctors??" And I said, idk about others but that's my preference. And you know what he said??

"You should've been a butcher instead of a doctor, because you're really good at butchering up my heart🥺" HAHAHAHAHHAHA WHAT IS THIS GUY???

Girl I even pretended to be mad at him at the end of day 2 call, even though I was laughing at his jokes the whole time. Like I pretended to be mad at some of the jokes he made at my expense, just so that he'd leave me alone. I TOLD HIM TO NOT CALL ME BECAUSE I WONT PICK UP and as I was hanging up, he BEGGING and saying he was sorry, that he doesn't know what exactly he said was wrong but he's sorry.

I hang up, he calls a 2 more times before stopping. And I'm like " 👍 great, that's finished."

And the next day, he called me in the afternoon, but I was dead asleep. Then he called me again today in the morning, during his tea break and I picked up for the hell of it, and he started off apologising again and I pretended to just sigh and told him to just drop it.

And he's like "Okay... so how are you? What are you doing? Oh you just finished up with a patient? Oh, so what did you think about me?" And I said "I don't think about you. And I never will. You have a better chance with someone else than with me." And he's like "but I want you. You're sweet and kind and you speak in a gentle tone-" and I'm like THIS IS NOT A GENTLE TONE???

And anyways, he was like so did you eat? I told him no, I haven't ate since yesterday (which is true because I was sleeping non stop after class) and he's like "Oh no! Please do eat, how can u treat patients if you don't eat???" And I'm like alright, I need to go cause I have a surgery to watch (I did not, I am at home). And he said okay, make sure u eat something before u drop dead.

And then he called me again in the afternoon and he was like "so what up? How are u? What are u doing?" And I said I'm at work,have a massive headache and I'm studying (which I actually was) and he's like "BROO???? YOU STILL HAVENT EATEN??? WHY?" and I'm like (get in character) "cause I'm at work. Hospital food is nasty." And he's like "then order something???" And I'm like "No, I can't leave my ward to go fetch food." And he's like "Well it's not like u have told me where you work or live or what city you are in, otherwise I would've delivered some food to you!" And I'm like "really? You would've delivered food to me during your work?" And he's like "I WOULDVE FED YOU WITH MY HANDS!" anyways the convo was short because I needed to actually study so I said bye, but not before him telling me to please eat something.

Anyways, couple of hours later, he calls me again and is like "Hey, you free? I'm gonna get off work soon." And I was like yeah, and we started talking again and the convi revolved mostly around him trying to make me reveal some stuff about myself, I told him no. He's like "that's not fair. I tell u everything true about me." I said that's your choice, idk u. And he was like "u home yet? Did u eat something?" And i was like yeah, i had a cup of coffee at work, now im studyung again and he like loses his mond more "WHY HAVENT YOU EATEN? YOU WILL DIE?" and im like no, im too tired to eat and hes like "is it because youre at mad at me? Or at soemone else? Cause why else would u be skipping meals? Did someone say somwthing to you?" And i was like "no. I do have bad temper though, so if you were to piss me off, i would turn quiet and not talk to you for days" AND GUESS WHAT HE SAID????

"No, not the silent treatment. You can argue, you can yell at me, anything, just don't stop talking." And I'm like DUDEE???????

And then suddenly i remembered I should make him reveal how he got my number because it certainly can't be a coincidence THAT SOMEONE ELSE BEFORE HIM ALSO DIALED MY NUMBER (he was looking for another girl he was stalking but did not belive me when I said I'm not her. Maybe he did, but then he said okay then who are u cause I like u too. I blocked him lol). And I was like, he's gonna keep up with initial lie "i randomly dialed ur number" so I was like I'm gonna ask where he is from, like what city. And he was like "I'm not telling u because u don't tell me where u are from. So its not fair." Which is true but I needed him to answer. So I was like "Alright well, I gotta go." in a dismissive tone which he picked up on. Cause the next second he went on "Hey, hey. Are you mad at me? Look, I'm sorry. But just- please eat something. I gotta get back to work. You'll eat something right?"

And I said "ill eat when u tell me where you live."(like the city, not the whole address)

And he's like "aw come on, don't do that. That's blackmail-"

Me: "Okay, well goodbye."

Him: "no! NO GOOD BYE- I promise I'll tell u everything IF YOU promise to eat and tell me where you're from."

Me: I'm not gonna tell u where I'm from

Him: is that fair?

Me: no. You're right, it's not fair. So, you should go look for someone who will be fair with you. Bye.

Him: wait, wait- don't hang up!

I hang up. He calls again, I don't pick up. The second time he calls, I pick up (cause I'm putting him on the spot and he needs to break under pressure)

Me: yes?

Him: look, I promise I'll tell u everything on the next call if you promise to eat now.

Me: ill eat after u tell me.

Him: look, you're punishing me but this is harming you too! You should eat something. You haven't had anything since morning-

Me: okay, I have to get back to studying. You go back to your important work. Bye.

I hang up again. He calls, i pick up.

Me: yes?

Him: stop hanging up on me! Just- just promise that you'll eat something. I swear I'll tell u everything, all of your questions. I don't wanna lie to you.

Me: tell me now. And don't lie, God is watching.

Him: I know God is watching. But I tell you later-

Me: okay, you need to go back to your work-

Him: I DONT! I LEFT THE OFFICE TO TALK TO YOU. I GOT LIKE 20-25 MINUTES TO TALK TO YOU-

Me: then answer my question.

Him: girl just listen to me-

Me: goodbye then. I actually need to study and pray. Have fun at work.

I hang up.

Now he's gonna call again when he returns from work. Now what do u guys think is going on with this Wattpad character? Is he trying to scam me out of money?

Also, just to be clear before anyone of u cause me of leading him on, I specifically told him and tell him on every call that him and I are never gonna happen and that he should stop wasting his time. He's the one who always calls.

[alwaysmicado]

(You know in your hearts what happened, I know it)

-

awww god damn it.. Joel definitely fucked her then 😂😭

I know they’re not exclusive or anything and he had every right to go on a date and do whatever he wants but bro, my heart 😭😭 like the other person said, knowing how shitty the reader was feeling, sobbing to Tommy over the phone while having to bandage her own hand bc nobody else was there… and he was with another woman 🥺 ouchie. Just ouchie! 😂 (AAAAND! literally only hours after he was with reader too. Like dude! hope you washed your dick Joel, ew.)

And just so I got it right, Jan from the last chapter is the same woman he went on a date with, right?

I know after everything in the last chapter they might finally be able to actually talk to each other and communicate and hopefully work things out but this still makes me sad. Joel saying reader can always call him for anything at anytime (which btw bro.. really. So if reader called while he’s balls deep in another woman he would just pick up? lmao) and reader feeling like she can’t call Joel for anything at anytime… 🥺😭

I saw another ask saying something and I agree so much! That while Joel does have every right to do whatever he wants bc they’re not dating, this definitely didn’t make reader feel like his feelings are actually genuine. Like, how is she supposed to believe he actually cares as much as he says he does when he then turns around and does this kinda stuff? That just basically confirmed all her insecurities and anxiety. Poor girl!

Still holding out hope he didn’t do anything but it’s like…. 1% left 😂 I’m sure it will eventually come out what exactly happened because I’m sure a serious talk between them is gonna happen eventually! And after the bar and seeing Joel with Jan and the mirror punch, I don’t think reader would be able to just let it go.

IM SORRY for rambling. I love this story and I have way too many thoughts and feelings and ugh. I get too invested lmao!

awww god damn it.. Joel definitely fucked her then 😂😭

But have you considered that I might just be messing with you for fun?

Like dude! hope you washed your dick Joel, ew.

lmao you just made my day!! (and I thought the same thing hahaha 😂😂)

And just so I got it right, Jan from the last chapter is the same woman he went on a date with, right?

Exactly. She's Tommy's age and has an adult daughter.

Joel saying reader can always call him for anything at anytime (which btw bro.. really. So if reader called while he’s balls deep in another woman he would just pick up? lmao) and reader feeling like she can’t call Joel for anything at anytime… 🥺😭

Very interesting (and kinda funny) thought 🤔. And yeah, that's exactly what reader is thinking!!

Like, how is she supposed to believe he actually cares as much as he says he does when he then turns around and does this kinda stuff? That just basically confirmed all her insecurities and anxiety. Poor girl!

Reader is convinced he's sleeping with Jan due to her insecurities (Simon & Laura 😑) plus her experiences with guys cheating on ther wives/gfs with her, like you said. But it's still very much possible that she's jumping to conclusions here because she's so disillusioned and just assumes the worst to preemtively protect herself from unpleasant surprises.

And the fact that she sees disappointment in Joel's eyes and assumes he'll leave her when he's literally just worried and continuously tried to reach her says a lot about how her view of herself and the people around her is very much shaped by her insecurity...

And after the bar and seeing Joel with Jan and the mirror punch, I don’t think reader would be able to just let it go.

Reader's MO for the past few years has been to cut and run when she starts feeling attached. She kept Joel at arm's length for a few months, but there's just something about him that made her feel safe enough to let herself fall a bit.

I think that this unexpected possibility of losing him suddenly, has opened her eyes to how much she actually cares about him and that she's in far deeper than she wants to admit.

But she did admit it and now I don't think either of them would be able to just let it go.

IM SORRY for rambling. I love this story and I have way too many thoughts and feelings and ugh. I get too invested lmao!

WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU'RE SORRY?? I loooove that you're invested and have thoughts and feelings you want to share!!! 😍😍😍 Thank you so much for this message, your insight is amazing!! 🤍

[kokomatdoroshi]

wyd when an otherwise harmless confrontation with your gf's other gf becomes a bloody standoff incited by some fuckass walmart brand cthulhu freak and ultimately ends in your death ? 🤨

and wyd when you miraculously come back at the hands of some obscure entity that acts like they don't want anything from you but deep down you know that everything comes with a price; especially these crazy abilities you suddenly have? 🤔

Meet Zar!

(she/they)

Zahara "Zar" Hawthorne

pronouns: she/they

age: 18

dob: December 17th, 2005

death date: January 1st. 2023

resurrection date: January 8th, 2023

orientation: biromantic, aegosexual

general fc: amandla stenberg

starkid fc: tiffany williams

facts n things:

was That Girl™️: popular cheerleader, but nice enough to have a plug in every clique; in the top 10 of her class; had the perfect girlfriend, etc. etc. very sweet girl, just had the worst friends

was (and is) deeply strange by normie standards. hangs out in graveyards and develops parasocial relationship with some of the tombstones. has a serious fascination with life, death, anatomy, bugs, the supernatural, etc.

initially kept that shit to herself bc it's social suicide—total grounds for being a nerdy prude. dying changes ur outlook a bit, though. release ur inhibitions, feel the rain, etc, etc

can be very blunt and outspoken. despite being well meaning and friendly, she'll sometimes say things without thinking but they always apologize as soon as they realize she's stuck a foot in her mouth. all but abandoned her peppy sunshiney half after coming back. she's still in there, somewhere. but it'll take a lot for them to fully trust someone enough again

so, what happened?

their gf's other woman, who I'll name Lou for simplicity, got her to come out to the ol' Waylon place so they could "talk"

many things lead to many other things and an "intimidation" attempt turns into a murder attempt, with Lou being under the influence of Wiggly

ruh roh! snapped out of it, Lou is in a panic and decides to call the mutual gf for advice

mutual gf is the worst person ever, actually. instead of turning Lou in, she helps her cover things up and they dump Zar's body deep in the Witchwood Forest

but wait, there's more! Zar's not quite dead and eventually succumbs to a combination of their wounds and the freezing January night

but not before weakly calling out to somebody, anybody for help

seven days later and She Has Risen! with the help of a currently undetermined entity, but renewed life comes with a price and, in order to live, Zar must do their bidding

it's not all bad, though. they don't ask for things super often (but when they do, there's absolutely no objections. ever.) and have been super helpful in both Zar's revenge plot and honing her newly gained abilities. sometimes she uses her powers for good tho

anywayy, Zar dropped out of Hatchetfield High after being murdered—fair tbh. who needs a GED when you can work at the seedy occult store in town and also be an immortal witch of ambiguous moral standing 🤷🏽‍♀️

but tbh - at the end of the day, they're still just a 18 year old girl. imagine all the cringe 18 year old quirks and throw them into a vat of powerful murder gremlin soup. that's Zar

(after)life goals:

get revenge ✅

join smoke club ✅

resurrect the Victorian Dandy whose grave she hung around the most—they had a tryst in the afterlife and are saur in love 🔳

go on a tour of all the most haunted places in the world 🔳

see Gossip, Babymetal, and MCR in concert 🔳🔳🔳

Zahara and her story draw heavy influence from Jennifer's Body, Lisa Frankenstein, Poor Things, every other goth horror queen and a myriad of tropes I really enjoy. they're my manic murder goth girl, but she's so chill if you're cool 😌

Pre-Death Pinterest

After-Death Pinterest

[hjellacott]

forgot to mention this stuff in the other ask, but I think that, yes women definitely have lots of problems, but Stats prove society shows little mercy to men… and stats show women in particular do the same in causing this suffering with the support of society as a whole. Suicide stats, divorce and who benefits stats, sentencing and length of sentences for the same crimes, custody of children, and the list continues.  Men’s mental health only just became relevant recently but there have always been help programs for women. Women get into careers and schools/universities because of DEI and quotas + affirmative action whereas men have no such thing. I’m no woman hater but men get shafted by society and women in particular too 

I think statistics really depend on year and country and specific departments and as a former psychology student, I know the way of making statistics can be very subjective sometimes, so I'd have to look at specifics. But in general, I think men are shown A LOT of mercy. To put for example the country where I'm from. In my country, a bunch of teenage boys murdered a teenage girl who was the ex of one of them. Of all those boys, most ended-up in other countries, and only one was sentenced and imprisoned, while the girl's body hasn't ever been found (and this was ages ago). More recently, my country has had several cases of men gang-raping women. Not women gang-raping men. And the sentences have always been quite lenient, you're out in a little over a decade, even in cases where there wasn't just rape, but also murder, or where the victim was underage. The only place I can think of where women might have a slight "advantage" is when deciding child custody, that it tends to go to the woman, but that is only because with the huge rates of men not giving a fuck about their children and abandoning them, women are traditionally more trustworthy to lovingly raise their children, not to mention you'd be surprised by the amount of cases in which the man, in a divorce of a heterosexual couple with children, does not want their children more than in the weekends. Like, it's happened in my own extended family, seen with these eyes. As there are also many cases where the man is considered unfit for sole custody (long working hours, or poor salary, or just mentally/economically/skillfully unfit, or worse, violence and abuse) or where they start of with an equal agreement and in the end the man is neglecting his kids so much that he loses his share. And even when violent men are stripped of custody, I know my own country is quite lenient with that too. For example, there's the case of a female friend of mine, who as a child was for years sexually abused by her father, who was violent to her, her mother, and her little brother. The situation ended-up in prison and the father lost custody and was in prison for about a couple of decades or so, before being allowed out. And for as long as my friend and her brother were underage, they were forced by social services to spend time with their father in the company of a social worker who apparently sucked for what I heard, and they were subjected to verbal abuse by their father in these occasions - and still, even my friend who was raped by him, the kids were forced by law to continue with these visits, that left my friend's brother a clinically diagnosed psychopath (poor thing had to continue going long after my friend was an adult and no longer going, because of the age difference, and my friend wasn't allowed to accompany him), and that truly wrecked them, purely on the basis that the man had a right to see his children by law. So from where I stand, if you're a man, you can be literally convicted for sexual abuse of your own family and you'll still have your every right and very little time in prisons that in my country are more like hotels. A woman, on the other hand, loses her sanity in the best case scenario, and her life in the worst.

[msfbgraves]

I got into CK about two months ago and I enjoy it a lot but...the writers of this show can't write female characters. At all. Not even Amanda is a well written character (and how sad is it that her husband has way more chemistry with Johnny and Terry than with her lol??). It's so disappointing to see how poorly female characters are written in this show, when the male characters (except Johnny who has become trash) are given so much depth and nuance. I think Tory and Carmen get the worst of this, and Sam flip-flops back and forth.

Well, Sam's whole deal is that she's in a permanent state of identity crisis, not unlike Johnny. She's terrified of her aggression and not conforming to feminine standards of behaviour and obsessed with another girl - let that poor girl come out as some form of wlw at least. Bi, gay pan - she's just as repressed as Johnny and given that both her parents are so bi coded I can only see this as a form of rebellion. I doubt the writers meant to write it that way but the only blueprint for Sam they may have had was "Pretty rich girl into chick fights." and "Teenage female audience avatar." Since Mary Mouser is now obviously aging out of the 14-17 demographic, they have brought in Devon whose entire personality seems to exist of - does she have a personality, other than not being an asshole about pronouns?

But look. The whole premise of Cobra Kai is "The bullies were right all along" and "Mid 20th century male gender norms desperately need to make a comeback." And modern audiences agree they can't write women, but modern audiences of course don't know what they're talking about. Because, you see, the way Cobra Kai sees women is really, really simple. Women are there for two things:

Enticing a guy to have an orgasm; preferably inside her body

Dealing with the fallout of a man having had an orgasm in the female body.

That's it! Even women can understand that much. Because they all agree! We've asked some women whose salary we pay and one or two who consented to go out with us, what more do you need? And sure, there are some women who do not agree, but we all agree that there is something wrong with them. You know, like our sisters, who we don't want to fuck; which proves our point. And all Amanda's and Carmen's and Sam's and Tory's actions line up exactly with those primary objectives. So they're in fact perfect at writing women at Cobra Kai. Girls fighting girls? Hot. Women bitch slapping men? Yeah, hot. The only girl we actually see fight a boy is Aisha, but she's not mainstream hot and she's not white, which means there's something wrong with her. It checks out all the way through! It's genius. Genius!

And no, logically, a woman like Carmen would not date Johnny Lawrence. But women don't do logic, we all know that. Of course a single woman in her thirties with a medical degree and two dependents would fuck a man with absolutely no prospects who would have, logically, gotten Miguel permanently paralysed. (But disability is - yuck. And it only happens to people who deserve it, anyhow. Or something. I don't know. Gross!) Anyway, ignoring that, she's a MILF! Of course a MILF has babies. It's what women do! No way would she consider abortion, and no way would she consider any other birth control than faulty condoms she'd have to trust Johnny to buy, because otherwise people like Johnny Lawrence would never become shitty fathers and since many fathers are shitty fathers it must be the women's fault because again, all they do, and want, is a man's orgasm... you know, let's not talk about it. We all know how things are. And women never simply... not tell the men when they're late. That would rob the man of that feeling of pride they get when they hit the jackpot. They wouldn't just... take a pill or or make a quick appointment and also miscarriages never happen to anyone ever, right, or entopic pregnancies or, ew, man, this is Cobra Kai, not the Hallmark channel? The point is, these writers are right about everything always and that's how it's supposed to be. And if it isn't, well, that's why they write. Just watch them.

[the-tzarina-alexandra-paracosm]

Ok I have a small free time window in between exams which can only mean one thing:

MY PERSONAL PARACOSM - MASTERPOST

(An almost complete list of all narrative projects I've ever done in my life + personal commentary as I think back on my own writing. Documenting my personal evolution as a writer. From oldest to newest per each category.)

COMPLETED

NOVELS

Aside from my 3 chapter attempt about a year or two previously, I never wrote a novel until the age of 12 and a half, going on 13. It was one of the biggest milestones I had ever hit, and I wouldn't have gotten the confidence to start if it weren't for my mentor who encouraged me, using The Book Thief (1st the movie and then I read the book too) as a prompt. Alexandra, whatever you do, write, write, write! And so I did.

The Image through the Thick Glass (ITTG) - September 2013 - summer 2014 (aged 12-13)

My very first novel ever. 53k words.

The plot revolves around a certain Kaito Hayashi, whose life is genuinely miserable from start to finish. First he's an orphan, then he's bullied (because he's a weird kid, but also a child savant or something), then he suffers in love as it were, aka feels very rejected, he is in poor health and almost dies of pneumonia at some point (hiking trip gone wrong??). He eventually gets with the woman he loves (whose name is Kata but that's not an actual Japanese name)))))) but she kind of stops loving for some very arbitrary reason again relating to his health (ableism???). At this point they have a young kid so it's very sad too like the kid is like wants to spend time with his dad but his mom is like no, and at the end he dies... but it's not completely tragic I guess because some people do mourn for him namely his son and his brother.

The side characters are interesting too like Kaito's older brother, Chang (again that's not a Japanse name but ok) is very protective of him and generally a likeable character, though a stereotypical aloof type etc. And he even has a "meet an adventurous girl and learn to have fun" arc so he's got that going on for him. Kata has a sister, Miku (you can see my inspiration) who is married to an American guy, who is Christian which is a plot point but also kind of not. Like the Japanse characters are vaguely non-religious. Kata and Miku's grandpa is a recurring character; he lives in the mountains but for his granddaughter's wedding he does come to the city, and quite dramatically while he's at it.

Kata also has a neighbour kid who has a weird relationship with her as in... the kid remembers her fondly but Kata literally treats the kid like some sort of ghost because due to some misunderstanding she thought she had died (instead what happened is she got into a car accident and was hospitalised for a while... poor girl...). This was supposed to show how Kata had a crippling fear of death, which would be why she left her husband when he was at his worst health wise. But that's still very selfish??? But I think the other characters do call her out for it. Anyway she herself was disabled (had a severe accident as a child and her legs never healed the right way and she alternatively uses crutches or a wheelchair) so I don't even get where her attitude was coming from.

Kaito himself was my personal blorbo for my entire preteen section of my life. Although in retrospective he's just... sad. Like literally just miserable all the time except select scenes. In the first draft I remember having written him attempt suicide but my parents were like what! You know nothing about things such as depression and the such. And yeah they were right. So I didn't have him do that anymore. But he was still... depressed? And his only support was the fact that at least his brother cared for him, but even said brother, being a responsible adult TM didn't have much time. And Kaito had a job too I guess. He was supposed to be an architect. And as a hobby he was an artist and was a very creative person in general.

Some things I'm still pleased with to this day: the scene in which his bullies, now adults, randomly meet him again and see him spending time with his son, and they straight up apologise to him. And they even socialise in a friendly way with the kid. They had jobs and stuff etc. I like that it was neither the "bullies remain nasty abusive people forever" trope nor the "bullies are punished by fate by becoming homeless jobless deadbeats etc" trope. They just moved on with their lives, happened to meet the kid they used to bully and apologised. I think I wrote that because especially at that age, being bullied a lot, I secretly desired to have that kind of closure.

Another scene I like to this day is the "vacation" episode in which Kaito's son comes to visit him and they play in the snow and have an overall good time together, bonding time etc, but a shadow of sadness looms over because Kaito thinks to himself that he's getting worse with his health etc, but at least for the moment he is happy etc.

Another scene I find wholesome is Chang's date with Yume (that's the name of his girlfriend). Very nice dynamic between him who is very serious and stoic and her who is, to put it this way, office worker by day, adrenaline junkie by night. Her hobbies are very sporty and she even takes him out for a parachute ride of all things! The other side characters all have good relationships too. Miku and her husband get along great, and have a nice peaceful scene together (he comforts/ encourages her about something?? She is a doctor so it might've been her stressful job?). Only the main couple is kinda toxic. Though back in the day I liked drawing them together a lot.

The relationship between the main couple felt very much like. Him trying his best to win her love and her... straight up not doing the same. Like sure during the hiking trip gone wrong episode, she has one of those "Oh no you're hurt so now I realise I've loved you all along" moment, and there are times when they genuinely get along. And she even apologises to him at some point towards the end of the story (for not having been by side during his hospitalisation and other issues etc). But the lenghts he goes to just to impress her and... not even that... just to make her notice him, are quite staggering.

One very painful such episode is towards the end, when she's distancing from him a lot. She's doing laundry etc and some dress or whatever just flies off the window onto a tree or whatever. And here we have a (contrived) chase scene, in which he is very dramatically running after a flying piece of clothing, tripping (and hurting himself in the process) until he finally retrieves the dress. And she's like smh my head, it's dirty now. And man the book is full of such tear jerking scenes. (Another example is a scene in his childhood when he falls face first into the ground but it's treated realistically and he ends up splitting his lip open... which man why friccin describe how he was bleeding like that dude...) Like see how miserable this dude is? Even when he has what he wants it gets taken away from him, nobody loves him and he's dealing with chronic illness on top of it all!

And genuinely. What, girl... Like I appreciate the fact that it was my first novel, and I'm always glad I wrote it. I'll always cherish it and treasure the memories. But the story is not good, though. Or at least not as whole. The message at least is pretty messed up if you try to extract one. Like what is even the message? Fate is cruel? Life is meaningless? Or idk maybe some people live good lives but there are some particular people that literally nobody will love and that's just the way it is?

Thinking of it in a meta way. I think the message, subconsciously, was the last one. In life there are certain people that people arbitrarily will never love, or even outright hate. And yes this story was heavily influenced by the media I was consuming at the time, namely anime and more specifically very dramatic tear jerking anime like Clannad (after story was my main inspiration I think, especially for the latter scenes in which Kaito spends time with his son, but is also slowly dying etc). But even deeper in my subconscious than just my immediate memory of what I was consuming, there was the desperate cry of unloved unloved unloved. That's plastered all over this story. In September there'll be 10 years since I wrote this. It'll be interesting to see the retrospective. A mentor figure I had at the time told me this story feels like it was written by a very lonely person. At the time I rejected such "criticism". But girl that was NOT criticism. It was the truth. The whole story reads like a cry for help. No wonder my parents didn't want me writing this dude contemplate suicide.

Overall self assessment: nostalgia value because it's my very first long form original work, my first novel, my writing debut as it were. There are individual parts of the story that are really beautiful, but as a whole, it's a hopelessly bleak story without much of a purpose than venting, subtly crying unloved unloved unloved from between the lines.

The 5 Books of the Immortals - June 2015 - February 2016 (aged 14-15)

My second ever novel. 73k words. My beloved!!!! The characters from this work were my absolute blorbos, and sometimes still are. This is genuinely a monumental improvement over the 1st novel.

Debriefing. This is not a fantasy, despite the title. It was meant to be an illusion. Start as a fantasy and slowly fade into the real world as the "game"/ innocence of childhood faded away and was replaced by horror. The concept of course is great, and it still lives rent free in my head. One day, I hope to execute it in a way that does it justice. The fact that I didn't manage this is one of the biggest flaws of the novel ofc. But let me talk about the positive things because I genuinely loved writing this so so so much.

The story starts in a college in what we later learn is late 1930s Britain. The main character, Len (should more accurately be Lev but you get the point) is an extremely ambitious chemistry student, the "wizard" among his peers. Except for the dean's son, Zephyr, who is also a genius, but more serious, a foil to Len's rambunctiousness. They become besties tho, and as you can imagine Len gets his friend into trouble a lot. Zephyr has a tense relationship with his dad, which is explored later. Len also meets a girl, Eyline (supposed to be Eileen but bear with teen me and her name giving habits lmao), with whom he is soon quite smitten, and tries a lot of wacky magic tricks to catch her attention (magic tricks = chemical reactions and stuff. On the hallway????????) She's a med student. This info is a tool that we will use later *winks*. She's quite the introvert and a very serious person but she does like him too and find things in common with him. And they become friends which inevitably means wacky shenanigans, and fall in love over the course of the following college years. The scenes between them are just adorable, like one day they stay up late in the library and she just falls asleep with her head on his shoulder etc.

There is one scene at this point which I would totally change now because it went too far in terms of stakes. Len's hubris gets the better of him and he accidentally sets the friccin lab on fire????????????? And it's a very dramatic scene and apparently his sister (coincidentally his lab mate for said project) died?????? And he survived but... he got away with that like. 1 legally and 2. without crippling trauma?????????????? By all accounts this makes no sense and if I were to write this again I would never. I'm not saying he was not affected at all. He's very distraught and gets his own come-to-Jesus moment but... why have such a situation in the 1st place given the drama that is coming for these characters outside college. Anyway. What I was trying to show is that yeah Len is very wacky silly and fun as this over confident character, but his self confidence can get the worst of him and make him do stupid and dangerous things.

At the end of college he marries his beloved Eyline and they have a nice little 1st year of marriage, which to this day I love that montage I did. And now comes the "fantasy fades away" moment. Not by them falling out of love ofc. The fantasy is actually violently ripped away from them as Eyline sees Len, holding his head in his hands, burdened, looking at a letter. He was drafted!!!!!!!!

Because it was actually 1939 all along. Yeyy? And so he prepares for war but Eyline pulls a Mulan and is like no, I'm going to fight alongside you, I cannot be separated from you etc. And he's like nooooo that's very dangerous etc honey you don't have to do this for my sake but she, the original girlboss, is like no, I'm coming because I want to be by your side. If you're going to die at least we die together (or something along those lines). So they went together. And they meet up with Zephyr too ofc. And then another character is introduced, Glinda, who registered as a volunteer out of personal conviction. Later down the line they meet a teen boy who totally lied about being 18 and now they adopt him. I don't make the rules. Adopt as in the found family sense, you get what I'm saying. They're on the battlefield still.

A lot of battles and stuff go down. There is this recurring character Gus who has a vendetta on them for whatever reason and honestly I would remove this character if I wrote this nowadays. This creep follows them around sometimes. Anyway I guess his whole spiel was to be the type of person that views war as licence to kill but... it doesn't really go that well idk. At some point they meet some girl who used to have a crush on Len and she works in the factory to produce weaponry now (which would be the 1st genuinely historically accurate detail so far lmao). But again why is this girl meddling like. This guy is taken. And also this drama has no place during... a war....

Anyway at some point Len catches a stomach disease and is bedridden for a while, which is very much treated as an almost death. Like he has a sort of going-to-Heaven type dream too. Anyway it is during this time that the others get to meet war veterns from ww1, who just so happen to know Zephyr's dad (also a vet). They get some neat little backstory with this occasion. It is also during this time that they meet the teen boy, named Günther (he is half German; he ran away from home for a yet undisclosed reason).

One interesting episode is when Günther meets a girl his age. But as it turns out, she had been coerced into becoming a spy (for the Germans that is), so this was all a ploy. Except she genuinely likes Günther and is friends with him so now he wants to protect him. But she gets caught by both sides as a spy. Günther is helpless to rescue her and she is killed off screen. Again I would write this differently nowadays. It was meant to be a shocking scene like oh no, this is what happens to a double agent. But poor girl was genuinely a victim of circumstance here. Günther is understandably extremely distraught by this.

One of my favourite episodes: Christmas time is coming, which means the soldiers stop by some village and camp etc. They are intent on celebrating. Zephyr meets his cousin, Miles, and they just so happen to stop by his hometown so they stay at his house. Miles is a skilled piano player. The gang has a bit of a breather moment, they play with snow like little kids and have an overall great time. Then ofc the scene gets dramatic real fast but the way I imagined it was always so cinematic. I even imagined using this scene as the trailer for the movie adaptation!!! Miles is playing a familiar Carol on the piano, the camera as it were zooms in on his hands and its almost silence and then BOOM. They actually get bombed, which is supposed to be this shocking scene but also one that (for the purposes of the trailer) sets the tone. Everybody survived except Miles, because that's the part of the house that collapsed. Ok again I would not kill him off if I wrote this today. After finding shelter from the raid etc the characters basically immediately have to go into battle again. It gets dramatic real fast.

Eyline is seriously injured and remains in the hospital for a long time. Len sulks, extremely worried, for a while, but at some point he gets the opportunity to volunteer to fight I'm Stalingrad.... being an ally and all... but remember he himself was Russian (yeah. See the above comment that he should be named Lev for accuracy). So it gets kinda personal. The chapter in which this happens is named... drumroll... the Land where winter never ends. Sound familiar? I thought so. Anyway my dude fights until a heavy snowstorm overcomes him and he gets lost. He remembers a lot of stuff, in a sort of life flashing before his eyes montage? He remembers a lot about his childhood etc. Anyway he survives this ordeal because his (not elderly enough not to fight) uncle was also there, in time to rescue him.

He spends some more time there. Meets a boy about Günther's age named Ivan, to whom he becomes a bit of a mentor figure. Ivan gets killed before his eyes which again is supposed to be for shock value bit dude this is a bit much. Len eventually returns, and, much to his delight, Eyline is alive and also managed to heal in the meantime.

Günther finds his hometown completely wiped off the face of the earth which is understandably very traumatic for him. He assumes both his parents died and deeply regrets having run away from home. He had run because he failed 10th grade + was expelled?? and was too ashamed to face his parents ever again (and he had been a problem student for a while already). I'm not sure I actually wrote this but in an adjacent comic I hinted that his getting failed was more or less due to his teacher being Antisemitic (in the actual text his mother is hinted to be Jewish. But like living in Britain I guess). But the real twist is that his father had gone away from home the night his son was gone in order to search for him.

Guys this is hands down my favourite arc in this story. Like I really like the wife so loyal she'll join the army arc too ofc. Chefs kiss. But father travelling the war torn country, putting his own life in danger to find his son who he has no evidence is even alive anymore? Crying on main my friends... Anyway his dad is crazy dedicated to his pursuit. One day he searches through a forest and falls into a valley, but a lumberjack living there rescues him in time, and takes care of him until his broken bone (arm??) heals. The lumberjack tells the story of how he isolated himself from society once he discovered his wife just up and married somebody else as soon as he was (falsely) declared dead back in the day. And now he's a miserable old man etc. But he is genuinely inspired by this father searching for his lost son, and examines his cynicism a bit.

Zephyr receives a letter from his dad which explains a lot about his own experience during ww1 and basically serves as an attempt to reconcile with his son. There is a nice moment in which Len and Eyline hide from the elements (it's raining hard etc) and have a moment to reflect on the past few years, how they met, how they ended up both going to war etc. It's maybe cheesy with the line delivery but I love the moment itself. They're just genuinely just grateful for each other. There is an interesting callback to a very early scene. Len is all like yeah falling in love is literally just chemical reactions (at the beginning of the story) and now he's like but staying in love that's a choice right here. And he is just genuinely so grateful that she chose to come with him. And she's just glad to be by his side through thick and thin. Guys I'm telling you, one of the couples of all time.

The war eventually ends. Len and Eyline go back home and have a cozy life for a while. They visit his parents (which again is weird in terms of historical accuracy because it wouldn't be very safe to just go to 1940s ussr but ok...). They make several plans for the future etc. Eyline is pregnant etc. Günther is staying with them and tries to find work etc (just what I was saying about them essentially adopting this kid). And everything is normal until suddenly that minor character Gus from earlier comes back with a vengeance and... out of nowhere, stabs Len when he sees him. Eyline and Günther try their best to get some help in time but Len dies and quite dramatically too. Eyline has to deal with the completely unhelpful doctors, and has to assert herself, because they don't take her seriously at all until they learn she was no ordinary doctor but a war medic veteran too. There's an extremely sad flashback/ dream sequence she gets immediately after dealing with his death, with of course the added stress of being ignored like that by the doctors etc. The following scenes are very sad too but I think I at least managed to show the mundane ways in which the characters deal with Len's absence in a meaningful way. The funeral scene is also very sad and Eyline's speech at the end is quite emotional etc. Zephyr crying over the death of his friend, too. But all is not bleak because it is during this event that Günther finally reunites with his dad, and honestly this scene is probably the most emotional of all.

The other characters move on with their lives step by step. Eyline gives birth to a daughter and raises her alone etc. Günther gets a job and takes care of his father as he ages etc. Glinda I think ends up travelling the world or some such. Zephyr reconciles with his father and continues his studies in order to become a professor. There's this moment of parallels between the old generation and the new one (and its more or less the same structure between Zephyr's friend group during the war and his dad's own friend group during the previous war, including the one of the friends dying tragically etc).

Overall assessment: in retrospective, this story was needlessly dark at times. Why kill off characters so quickly and just for shock value??? If I wrote this today I'd change many things, including never even making Gus a character in the 1st place. If Len has to die, it would be in battle. But I'd tend towards him not dying at all tbh. Because I remember quite clearly my mindset as I was writing this "it's not realistic if nobody dies, or if all main characters live". So I was equating tragedy with realism, as well as basically feeling pressured to write a sad ending to make my story more "meaningful". No man it was meaningful enough with its having a group of friends who genuinely love each other a lot, a main couple who are very loyal to each other and a father relentlessly searching for his lost son.

There is so much love and beauty in this story, and it didn't need to stoop to the common denominator of haha sad ending smart. Come on. The meaning is not in the tragedy, it's in the love. What I appreciate is that this story is by a large order of magnitude better than my first in terms of overall feel and message. The plot is more complex and interesting. It's an extremely dramatic story too. It wouldn't be a story written by me if it weren't. But it doesn't feel meaningless anymore. It still does reflect a very key flaw in my minset though, namely the believing that happy endings are too good to be true and in life you just have to get the rug pulled from under your feet just when you're the happiest. Also that happiness is unrealistic and tragedy is realistic. This is a mindset that I'm still trying to unlearn a lot, and it's obvious through the way I used to write and maybe even through the way I write now that I'm an extremely pessimistic person. But overall, this story was a beautiful one. Obviously it had its flaws. Just now I cringed at the sheer teenage way of wording my stuff. I understand that many parts are written immaturely, but hey I was literally 14-15. I love the characters first and foremost. The ideas for the plot could use some work but it's something to start from, its workable etc. I'm extremely happy I wrote this when I did.

My main inspirations were the sheer volume of war movies watched with dad as a child and teen. So any cliche present in those was here too. Also The Book Thief, my beloved!! I loved that book so so much. Generally I was quite happy at that age and I think that translated clearly into the overall tone of the work, as well as the choice of main character (very extroverted, confident, playful).

The Land of Eternal Winter (draft 1 - December 2019 - July 2020 - aged 18-19)

Anatoliy, a prince, namely the king's middle child, takes revenge for his father's death, but he kills an innocent person. This sends him completely spiraling, and he becomes desperate to fix what he did, and also to receive forgiveness from God and the people he's hurt)

Draft 1 available on deviantart and my sideblog in full (written directly in English). Main inspirations: draft 0 (yes, it's a self fanfiction as it were lmao), Hamlet, Crime and Punishment (but at the time I wrote these I basically only knew the sparknotes ver, not having read the actual books until later 2020). My mental space at that time was one of recovering from my depressive episode and finding hope, happiness, peace again etc. And also not having as many horrific intrusive thoughts and constant guilt. Especially my very recent experience with crippling guilt helped me write a guilt torn and forgiveness starved main character. 100% convinced my psyche always heavily influences my writing a lot. That's OK though. This book is very hopeful actually, not hopeless, and sends a good message. I'm currently working on rewriting this from scratch aka draft 2.

NOVELLAS AND SHORT STORIES

With the caveat that short stories is what I've been writing since the day I learned to write, buy actually even earlier because I think oral tradition counts too. As a small child, most of my storytelling was play-based, of course. In about 2009, aged 8, aka about the 2nd semester of 1st grade, I got my first notebook, on which I wrote my very first original pieces. Most of them are very very short but I want to mention a few that were more significant in my development as a future writer.

Short stories from my very first "writer notebook"

Very whimsy page long tales, usually about the "secret life of animals" (anthropomorphic bears, storks, insects and some are just random and others try to mimic a fable structure - mirroring the texts I was reading at school mostly. Many stories are blatant self inserts- a spy story which is just me and my baby brother, or one called "The Storyteller" which is about dad, which I find sweet (irl dad would always tell me and my baby brother all sorts of wacky insane stories that he just made up on the spot and we remembered them and it was a whole cinematic universe as it were). Many stories are very very very closely inspired by stuff I read or watched, like a longer story (3 pages))))) about mini planets which was a lot like Little Prince. Gradually I started doing actual fanfiction, long before I knew what that was.

Vasile Moldovenescu's life story (around 2012 - aged 11)

This was my second attempt at writing a play. It was a comedy. Basically this dude, who talks very much like a Moldovan stereotype (sorry guys I was 11 don't cancel me, love you). But Vasile, despite being seemingly dumb, is a very lovable character. He randomly runs into a pair of spies, Violeta (Romanian) and John (British), who are searching for Anonymous. Vasile is kind of clingy to them and they're annoyed at first but they let him follow along eventually. They also meet a woman only written as "the blonde" in the character list (she later introduces herself as Miruna, and she is rather stereotypical too, but not so much in the dumb sense as much as very tacky.

Vasile gets approached by his "ex" (woman he used to have a crush on) and she tells him he is literally wanted (in the way a criminal would?) in his home country. Vasile talks at lenght about his personal life, some details being inadvertently relevant, but the others assume he's just speaking nonsense. The man seemingly had a million different jobs in the past (he swears he never caused that inundation oh no! And also he is also doing translations from Chinese).

I'll take this moment to mention that John speaks fluent Romanian, but at some point another character enters the scene, tagged first as "The American", (and he later introduces himself as George; he is a fellow spy and works with John and Violeta) and he speaks in English. I was quite good at English even then lmao. George came to announce that Anonymous escaped and they have to catch him etc, with a sense of urgency.

Vasile annoys them one last time and they want to kick him to the curb, and Violeta, in a grand reveal, yells at him that they were secret agents all along. To which Vasile casually replies, oh I was in the FBI once, I have a timed bomb in my cellar btw.

Suddenly Vasile is reunited with his brother Ștefan, who he intentionally avoided all this time etc, they throw a random party (?) and play pocker etc but the brother leaves again. As if that wasn't enough, Violeta mean spiritedly tells him that if she were him she would just go far away such as Egypt, and he, with his bags already made, promptly does so. Violeta hurries to catch up with her teammates to catch Anonymous etc but suddenly receives a letter.

It is literally a letter of complaint on behalf of literally all citizens of Moldova, saying that, because of her, they lost their president, who was none other than Vasile. Curtain falls. Etc.

It is funny, especially by 11 year old standards lmao. But ofc more than that it's a charming story, because it's obviously written by a child. I had much fun rediscovering this one. I was also surprised by how much comedy I was trying to write as a child and how much I just... stopped. That says a lot about me I think.

Oh and see below for my 1st attempt at a play. Yes I did try to make my classmates act it. It didn't work out.

___

The next big step in my development as a writer was a shared imaginary universe between my boy cousins and I, which we used as a backdrop for our stick fights. So basically a sort of DnD. But the cousins only provided very basic details of the plot and their respective characters, while I actually took it very seriously and started writing actual narratives about it. My cousin called our paracosm The Immortals and he even designed an admittedly sick logo, and I kept that name. I was very into FF at the time so I was daydreaming about creating a never ending RPG game franchise. That is why the following are called just The Immortals + their respective number. Only a few have I actually completed, though I had planned like 20 entries for this franchise. At this point I barely took input from my cousins.

The Immortals 3 (summer 2013 - aged 12)

A story I wrote integrally on a sketchbook. A general, named Marshall, is sent out on some sort of rescue mission for a lost princess, which turns out to have been a scam, which annoys him very much. He is, however, stuck with the random girl he mistook for the princess, and they continue their journey together. She, named Barbara, is very much a sort of manic-pixie-dream-girl, and he very cold etc. Also I think there was quite the age gap between the two which... yeah. The two have a sort of enemies to lovers arc but not enemies, more like annoying strangers to lovers. The core conflict is less between the main couple, as between the two students (subordinates), one of them being his ally, and the other having rebelled against him and become the main villain (who lured his old mentor into a trap in the first place, and now intended to kill him). The last scene is a battle, and the heroes get injured etc but survive. The main character is like very regretful about the whole situation, feeling somewhat responsible. But other than that, he and his love interest basically live happily ever after.

The Immortals 4 (August-September 2013 - aged 12)

A stereotypical vampire story that I had very very much fun writing approximately late August - early September 2013. The story centers around a rebellious vampire prince, Vincent. His grandfather is the king, and he is evil. One day the grandfather captures a human girl, Ivy, and has her do menial tasks I guess. Vincent and Ivy have a bit of an enemies to lovers arc but again not at all enemies, they're actually each other's only allies, but in the sense of she doesn't trust him at first due to prejudice against vampires etc. He did like her from the first meeting and was kinda flirty from the start.

Anyways the two gradually become friends as they interact more. And ofc discover that they are allies against the evil grandpa. There are several "funny scenes" such as one day Ivy practices her combat skills aka shooting an arrow and Vincent volunteers to be a target - with an apple om his head. He was ofc overconfident etc. He promptly gets shot and Ivy nurses him back to health as it were, which is a bonding moment. They fall in love etc. They prepare to fight the evil grandpa but Vincent gets caught up in the sun because they didn't make it to the dark inside soon enough. So he literally burns up (not described in a gore way because I was 12 but yeah he doesn't just turn to dust but literally burn). But he dies in her arms so it's this tragic romance moment. And the sequel hook is that she has to fight the evil grandpa alone.

No I have never read twilight and at that age I think I would've actually been banned from it.

Train of thought (2015 - aged 14)

A short story in comic form, written in full on one of my sketchbooks.

This is a world in which the 4 Temperaments, as well as other categories (Pessimist, Optimist) are personified. There is more than one entity per category, and people are grouped into countries based on their category. The story starts with the Realist cynically observing the Pessimist and the Optimist waiting helplessly on the train tracks (both free, not tied up, also standing etc). The Optimist foolishly convinces himself no train will come, and the Pessimist is convinced they will die anyway so what's the point anyway. They get run over offscreen. The Realist, who is an absolutely emotionless being (he is supposed to represent Reason and is completely removed from and opposed to Emotion), so his reaction to seeing those two killed right before him looks like indifference, although he pities them (though with a bit of an attitude of superiority).

He was called to sort things out between the Temperaments, who have some level of international conflict. Specifically Choleric and Sanguine aren't allied anymore and are in some sort of conflict. Realist sides with Choleric and helps him rationalise the whole situation. Choleric comes to his senses and sorts things out with Sanguine and reconciles with her etc.

The problem is that the seemingly extremely rational Realist has been hearing voices all this time, and they grow louder and louder, and suddenly this world doesn't seem real anymore. The scene shifts immediately. It's a hospital room, and a man with the same physical appearance as Realist is in the hospital bed, looking as if having suffered a grave accident. The voice echoing is now clear: it was his wife calling him by his name, Richard, name that he doesn't recognise because he lost his memory due to his head injury.

Once awoken, he learns several shocking news regarding what had happened. The train he was on got derailed, causing a devastating accident. He is suddenly curious to know the other patients in the hospital (which is full of the injured from said accident). He meets at least 4 people with whom he is able to communicate and learn more about what happened. Those are Cole (the Choleric), Sandy (the Sanguine), Melvin (the Melancholic) and Felicia (the Phlegmatic). All four were businesspeople heading to a meeting in which to discuss the relationship between their respective businesses and negotiate trade etc etc.

Richard talks the most to Cole, with whom he is both annoyed, due to his abrasive attitude, but also gets along with eventually, finding a lot in common. Richard also gets a lot of information about everything, but is unable to actually remember it, which frustrates him. Richard falls asleep/ unconscious again and dreams the continuation of the same dream. The Choleric gets shot by somebody trying to overthrow the current government, but doesn't die. Despite the controversy, he once again allies with Sanguine. The Realist doesn't find his place in this world. Richard wakes up. He doesn't find his place in the real world either, with his not remembering anything, except the facts others tell him, which he has to take at face value.

During the following days he befriends the other patients and learns about their lives too. For example, Cole and Sandy were actually together but had a fight about something. Of course now that it was a life vs death situation, they put aside their differences. Richard himself finally gets his memory back when he remembers his wife, Sophia (who also appeared as a constant background character in the dreams too). She is very happy to have him back as it were, but she leaves eventually, in order to let him rest.

This time Richard cannot dream anymore and instead is plagued by (traumatic) memories. He remembers exactly what happened during the day of the accident. His co-workers (and friends, who in the dream appeared as the Optimist and the Pessimist) had actually died right then and there, in a thoughtless attempt to escape. This memory disturbed him a lot. He also remembered having interacted with all 4 of the survivors (that he had talked with at lenght) while on that train ride, as they were seated very close one to another and they even exchanged some words, enabling him to make a first impression of them (and explaining why he even dreamt about them too - for example in real life Richard directly saw how Cole was injured).

The next day they even watch the news and see that the accident is still being discussed. The others, such as Sandy, have other concerns however, such as Cole being rushed to the emergency room again (I'm not good at medicine and was even more so at 14 but bear with me) because his injury either got infected or there was some internal bleeding etc. Although the scene is kind of dramatic, he survives and makes a recovery.

All of them heal from their wounds over time, and, having become friends during this time of hardship, keep in touch etc. Richard ponders upon his tendency to judge people based on first impressions and stereotypes etc etc. Eventually he too goes home, happy to reunite with his wife.

My main inspirations include Inside out which I just saw recently at that time and was very normal about, thank you very much. I was interested in stuff about personality types and read a lot about it (and did every test out there lmao - yes MBTI too - I always get different stuff between INTJ, ENTJ, INFJ, ENFJ so for me it's not accurate but its fun as a concept). The actual starting point for my writing it was this dark joke I heard at the time: in a tunnel, the Optimist sees the light at the end, the Pessmist sees the dark, the Realist sees the train lights, and the train conductor sees 3 idiots on the train tracks. So yeah hearing that joke + my "psychology phase" at the time made me go into a several day writing binge. Ah those are always fun. I get struck by an idea and come back with a fully formed short story.

(Unnamed) - what I now call draft 0 (may 2019 - aged 18)

The first story I wrote after my hiatus/ writer's block/ mental health break. 14 handwritten A4 pages so I'd say... 5k-7k words?? As an estimate.

A young, Elena, princess falls in love with her servant, Kęstas, who secretly turns out to have been a foreign prince all along. The two run away together from her dictatorial brother, the king Anatoliy. Once in the forest, Elena learns the truth about Kęstas, namely that her brother killed his parents, conquered his country and took him prisoner. The two get married in secret, but they cannot hide forever so they return, backed by the people, who revolt. Elena also frees her older sister, Svetlana, the rightful monarch, and they remove Anatoliy from power, sending him into exile. They reunite years later, Anatoliy now a humbled pig farmer. His older kneels to hug him, showing her forgiveness towards him. He sincerely apologises, saying he had been a madman.

The sole inspiration for this was the Hetalia fanfic A Blend of White and Red by SweetVerses (on ffn) that I read in April or may 2019 and it changed my brain chemistry. I was obsessed especially with the winter vibes and tried my best to emulate that. I rewrote the fic as a royal AU as it were, added some other details until it was my own thing and boom. Narratively satisfying ending too. That was certainly very procrastination fueled + inspiration of the moment. But it had been years since I'd last written a full story, and since I had allowed myself to just write without being perfect, so writing this was the single most liberating writing experience of my entire life.

Available on my sideblog but it's handwriting only so I summarised the complete plot here.

The Keeper of the Underwater Graveyard (2023 - aged almost 22)

My most recent piece of writing + most recent feverish writing binge. 20k words.

Žadgailas, a young merman, is treated as if he is a demigod, ruling over the sea and the dead buried in it, but he begins to doubt this and tries to learn the truth. He is very fascinated by the human world above, which he first ever visits on his 15th birthday, meeting a human girl, Lærke, to whom he swears he will never forget her and even search for her again. The two remain loyal to the other, eventually having to suport the other in finding some horrific truths.

Since this was written directly in English and is very available to read, I won't spoil anything else. The main inspirations are Eglė Queen of Serpents and The Little Mermaid, although I changed quite a lot and idk how much it can even be considered a retelling. But I was in a combination of extreme inspiration and extreme procrastination so I just cranked this in like a week. Oh well it happens to the best of us. I think it's a beautiful story in its own right but I think I'm going to inevitably find it flawed soon but oh well.

FANFICTION

I will first say that I've been writing fanfiction since the very beginning. I'm not sure which was first. I scrapped a lot of stuff I did as a tween, because in my early teens I was embarrassed of it, but now I really regret it. During about 2009-2010 I wrote one of my 1st fanfics, namely a Transformers (the Michael Bay one) rewrite + prequel + sequel. Told oh so so dramatically, but also kinda ironically. And a spin-off. I especially insisted upon the sibling rivalry dynamic between Skits and Mudflap... childhood blorbos lmao. I was also doing a lot of comic format fanfics, namely various scenes with Mario characters. One I loved very much but I can never find again, namely their playing football with FF1 characters. And another I even forgot the plot but at the time I was so so excited with it I could literally recite it to my brother.

The coolest adventure of Mario (2011-2012 ish? - aged 10-11)

My very first attempt at writing a play. Mario characters in a mega crossover with other characters, including Lego Ninjago, Transformers, Sonic etc. Peach and Daisy meet in a high-school setting and become friends. They are the popular girls. Kai (ninjago) gets in a fight with Bowser. Mario meets Kirby etc.

Peach throws a party and the villain characters aren't invited etc. The Paper Mario villains show up, as well as the fanon ones. Shadow Queen kidnaps Peach. Mario and Luigi learn of this and go save them etc.

Now the characters being in a more peace time, they go swimming at a water park. Another time they dress up as mafia guys (that one paper Mario thing etc). They compete in the Olympics etc.

But their fun doesn't last because the villains come for revenge so all the heroes team up, but the villains even brought Megatron??? Rosalina appears to help them out at some point. And they use all skills and tools from before, and all characters show up and contribute etc which I find cool. Setup payoff + that's what crossovers are for. Also Optimus casually destroys Megatron with a bazooka. Mario and Peach kiss , curtain falls etc. + party montage lmao.

I took this so so seriously. I did cast my classmates. Really did want to organise this. Some wanted to participate, others backed down. I casted myself as peach and my crush as Mario. The guy was creeped out at the last scene. A lot of kids already thought I was weird so. But hey at the time I did have the guts to straight up write a fanfic play and force my classmates to act in it lmao.

Unnamed FF13 fanfic (late 2012-early 2013 - aged 11-12)

Various retellings of Final Fantasy plots and characters. First one with White Mage and Black Mage from FF1 (as per that game with a Mario crossover). I shipped them a lot frrrr. My blorbos. Basically fluff + Mario crossover. Also a bunch of random drama.

The FF13 again mostly a retelling, but also mostly ship focused. A lot of Lightning + Hope (yeah bro I get it that it's problematic and nowadays I cringe at myself, but I didn't at the time) especially as per FF13-2 etc, a lot of them involving Lightning dying etc. Very dramatic overall. I scrapped a lot of it like legit ripped the pages, cut them up etc.

In my very dramatic phase, which translates into the type of story I liked to write. See my first original novel.

01&02 (2015 - aged 14)

Vocaloid fanfiction in comic form, all on my sketchbook. 50+ pages of comic pages of my longest running comic ever.

The Vocaloids are sentient robots living alongside humans. Rin remembers how she and Len were made by the same inventor a long time ago, and he gave them hearts, metaphorically speaking, as in made them sentient. This was later applied to all Vocaloids.

Fast forward much time later. They live their lives normally, being mostly preoccupied with their performance arts (singing + acting). Many vocaloid songs are reinterpreted as plays they perform, but some get integrated into the main plot. The robots are regularly maintained by the humans, and got them out of trouble etc. These humans were descendants of the original scientists (several generations down the line).

Rin is a gamer/ streamer and makes several online friends, including getting herself a boyfriend (a human tech nerd). But they eventually break up and it ends up badly down the line. In the meantime, Len has a crush on Miku, but she is seemingly more interested in Kaito etc. They even play in several plays together though (like Servant of Evil etc). At some point Miku is also with the same guy Rin used to be with and again it's not good for her etc. However, over time, Len and Miku get along increasingly better, and collaborate on some song/ ad (SPL) and Miku realises she likes him too etc so they get together too.

At this point the story seems like it's mostly romance drama but suddenly they realise something is wrong. The human guy was never so much interested in actual dating as much as gathering data. Now that he had all his resources, he created a virus that affected the vocaloids quite irreparably. It was quite slow acting, however. The human scientists try to find solutions but they don't really manage, despite their best efforts.

Len, Miku, Rin and the others spend a lot of time together like before, but are now more aware of their mortality as it were. Miku one day starts to feel the actual effects of the virus when her voice cracks and it's this shocking emotional moment etc. Len and Miku get married etc and this again is this emotional scene etc. Miku legit just dies. And soon enough every single one of them is infected with the virus with no hope of a cure and they kind of just die one by one. The humans are helpless to find solutions. And the vocaloids are just devastated at their newfound sense of mortality + loss of their friends.

Len dies too, and this affects Rin a lot. She knows she will die quite soon, too, so she sets out on an existential journey. She finally finds the place where her inventor first made her and Len. She looks through his old papers and computers etc, with no hope of finding a cure. She locates her "father's" grave and contemplates her life, the memories she formed with her friends, the miracle of having had this Heart, as well as appreciating life, as she feels closer and closer to death. She falls off her feet, on the ground, next to the graves, but she is smiling and seemingly shedding a small tear.

My main inspirations were: vocaloid songs: Kokoro + the Disappearance of Hatsune Miku, and also a film I saw as a kid about a robot who got more and more human organs until he became human and died. Permanently changed my brain chemistry etc (I loved that movie despite at the time being terrified of robots). I spent like all summer writing and drawing this fanfic, and had great great fun. Literally unrestrained summer fun.

Frozen Parody (april 2016- aged 15)

Frozen retelling as a modern ice skating competition. Comedy/ satire. Only like 10 comic pages so quite short.

Elsa is a child prodigy in ice skating, earning the title of the Ice Queen. However, she has a strained relationship with her sister Anna because of a childhood accident caused by her negligence. While ice skating, Anna broke her back (?) and remained paralysed from the neck down.

Now as adults, they are more independent etc. Elsa runs away to her castle which is actually a private hotel (??) .

Hans is introduced as a "villain" but only in the sense that he's a direct competitor and maybe overly confident that he will win/ a huge sore loser. His main characteristic is not being in power and manipulating others into thinking he's a nice guy, instead being characterised by over competitiveness. He and Anna are in a relationship, but it's very short lived because Anna herself is quite flighty (immature, indecisive) about relationships in general. She almost immediately gets with Kristoff after breaking up with Hans, which makes the latter very jealous.

Desperate to win the contest (as well as maybe out of petty revenge??) Hans cheats by creating a hidden hole in the ice. During the competition, it is Anna who falls in, Elsa having to jump in the cold water to save her (as Anna absolutely cannot swim etc). The day is thus saved. Hans is disqualified from the competition altogether.

Quick flash forward to the future, Anna and Kristoff are married, Elsa happy for them etc. They live at the Ice Hotel (r) (hotel firm owned by Elsa). I just found the notebook at man it's a bit of a mean satire but one joke that stands out is that the trolls (love experts) are refered to as Kristoff's doctor-therapist-fortuneteller parents. I think that should set the tone for how this story is like.

Yeah I was in my "Frozen is cringe and for kids" phase I guess. Ok though but nowadays I like it unironically. No need to mock it lmao. But I'll say only one thing. I gave Hans a more believable motivation in this spoof fanfic than the actual movie lmao.

Do you know what it feels like? (July 2019 - aged 18)

Hetalia human AU, mostly a LietBel ship fic. 14k words.

Two lonely and miserable people meet and think they can fix each other, which temporarily seems to work but it ultimately leads to a very toxic place. Available on my deviantart, ffn and tumblr, so not giving away more of the plot.

I wrote this right in between writing draft 0 and starting outlining draft 1, which was a nice breather (as well as a nice writing binge - I got this out in the span of about 2-3 weeks). I had just read seemingly all fanfic of this ship on ffn (not a lot of it) and was struck by an Idea so I had to write it down as fast as possible. I was in a good place at the time (was writing this in the week before and the one after I got baptised, and I was finally in the summer vacation after a brutal school year namely 11th grade). I think that this reflects in the fact of my writing a story with an optimistic ending, and, while very dramatic because it wouldn't be written by me if it weren't, still full of wholesome moments etc.

UNFINISHED/ ONGOING/ PARTIAL/ ABANDONED

NOVELS

Love is a Choice (summer/autumn 2017- abandoned sometime during mid/late 2018?? - aged 16-17)

My 3rd novel, but it never saw the light of day. It was supposed to be a Christian Victorian romance novel. I only wrote the first 2-3 chapters + a lot of disconnected scenes, outlines (redoing those outlines many times), research sheets etc, concept art etc.

The plot takes place in 1845, in a unnamed town in southern England, not very far from London. The main character is one Ernest, a 30 year old bachelor, the youngest son of a family from the lower nobility/ gentry (so upper middle class to upper class). He is made to marry a certain Jeannine, who comes from a seemingly poorer family but otherwise of significant aristocratic origin (her grandfather was a French marquis but fled France in 1793 due to very obvious reasons). Jeannine was 25 I think and her family was rushing her to get married too etc. Anyway they end up married despite being strangers etc. Ernest is a very neurotic individual, with a clear perfectionistic tendency and general "weird" aura about him. Jeannine is herself very shy and introverted (especially in comparison to her twin sister Georgette), but otherwise a much more relaxed person in comparison to Ernest. He is nerdy and he likes building mechanical stuff like cuckoo clocks etc and Jeannine has more artistic leanings.

Now the main plot was supposed to be their falling in love etc but try as I might I literally couldn't... write anything in the middle, at least not the main plot. There was zero actual chemistry between the two aside from my drawing cute art of them. But I wrote very extensively about the side characters which there were many of. Ernest had several servants, all of which had their own backstory, personality etc, and all of them got along with him very nicely. The main housekeeper/ admin was his old nanny, who just so happened to also be a French immigrant with a sad backstory like Jeannine's grandpa etc. She never had children of her own, but basically adopted Ernest. (The idea here is that Ernest's family was quite bad actually. The mom and dad hated each other. Ernest was never loved by his mother, despite that not being the case with his older siblings, and their father was very absent etc). The cook was married to the gardner, and there was also another couple among them (one of the maids and the stable keeper I think??). The cook's apprentice is an orphan teen that got taken under their wing (Ernest is a teacher figure to her, but he didn't adopt her etc). Generally the household is kind of a found family which is very wholesome. This is meant to contrast the tense situation of Ernest's biological family.

He also has a close friend, Jasper, who is a small business owner (he has an antique shop and I think that's actually how the two met because Ernest was trying to recondition an old clock and looking for parts). He has a wife Gabrielle (you guessed it - also French - I genuinely spent a lot of time researching every detail and yes apparently in the 1st half of the 19th century, it was not uncommon for there to be French immigrants in England, with the French Rebolution + subsequent revolutions + religious persection of the Huguenots) who is a seamstress. (OK now that I mentioned my very specific real world details that I included because I did some research: I imagined Gabrielle was raised Catholic and her parents gave her quite a hard time for having married a Protestant and herself having converted etc. Jeannine and her family I imagined to have been Huguenots - which are basically just Calvinists. Ernest I imagined to be a member of a Reformed Baptist church (at the time it was called Particular Baptist), despite not having been raised that way and ofc, that's just one more thing that his parents would give him trouble for. Given the time + location + already mentioned details, you can safely 100% imagine Ernest would attend Spurgeon's sermons in person).

Ernest had 3 older siblings, two brothers and a sister. The oldest, William, was 40 years old, had a wife Sophia and 5 kids. He was the owner of a factory and very financially successful, but, not unlike his father, was much more caught up in work rather than family etc. He also hung out the wrong kinds of company (doing gambling I think??) and was very much a smoking addict. At some point in the story his health takes a turn for the worse (he faints at some point and he fears that he is developing a heart problem, which scares him back to his senses as it were. He has his come-to-Jesus moment, and then tries to reconcile with his wife and children etc. There's even a montage in which he tries to become healthier so he runs around to lose weight or whatever). The other brother, Frederick, is 38 and is also married, to one Olivia, with whom he has 2 or 3 children I don't remember. He is a believer but his wife is not and that's the beginning of their conflict, but at some point she actually just... cheats on him with some dude. Undergoes a full on Hosea + Gomer arc (and quite explicitly based on that mind you). She realises that the lover she ran away with actually wants to harm her etc so she runs home to her husband, literally in rags etc. And of course he forgives her etc. The sister, Amelia, is 36 and she actually lives far away from the other siblings because she married a northerner. They also have several kids etc, and among all of the siblings, Amelia has the happiest marriage. She was meant to be the good example to the others as it were. During childhood, she was the closest to Ernest, the brothers being rather bullies to him (during adulthood their relationship improved however). The mother was very miserable and bitter despite living a life of comfort and luxury. The father was suffering from some sort of terminal disease (I imagined something like stomach cancer and yes I did google whether they knew cancer was a thing back then - turns out they did but ofc the only solution was to physically remove the tumour by surgery and hope they got it all out basically). The father had also been a very bad parent but now that he was closer to death he was reflecting on his life and feeling regretful etc.

Jeannine's family was much more normal. She had a twin sister, Georgette, who was also unmarried etc (but for some reason nobody rushed to find her a high-class match???) but at some point she falls in love with a gardner/ farmer guy and marries him. The parents were in a good relationship, and were reasonable in the way they raised their daughters. They had no other children aside from them (due to how complicated it was to give birth to twins??). I was undecided in my outlines whether to write the grandpa as still alive or not. Either way he would've been quite elderly at this point. His name was Yves and he ran away because of the Revolution, only fleeing once the king had died (he was very loyal etc). Jeannine's dad was his youngest child (or second to youngest - he had a large family) and he was raised in England his whole life.

Anyway, eventually Ernest and Jeannine fall in love and are finally more of a real couple etc. Part of what drew her to him was the closeness with his servants, and how by being Mistress of the household, she got to be part of this large family too. Most of Ernest's internal conflict was like "this woman I was forced to marry is objectively a good person in every single way but I still can't force myself to fall in love - am I in the wrong here and am I a terrible person for this etc? And he was generally very very very overthinking. Very perfectionistic. Also spending a lot of time feeling guilty over stuff and yeah. More on that later.

The big twist at the end, when Ernest's dad dies (and has a deathbed conversion), is that the reason Ernest was so marginalised as a child is because he was actually his mother's illegitimate son. His "dad" was resentful towards him because his wife cheated on him etc, and his mom hated him because he was a living reminder of her "helpless condition" (cannot just run away with her lover but has to raise child while still living with the husband she despises). However, re: deathbed conversion, Ernest's dad apologises to him and reconciles with him. Some time after the death, Ernest finds that he actually not only is part of the inheritance, but got an equal part to his siblings.

That's where the story ended, and the sequel hook was Ernest finding his biological father etc. On my sketchbooks I drew many scenes etc. But many were of the next generation as it were. The adventures of Ernest and Jeannine's children (4 of them: Alexander, the responsible eldest son, Ada, the rebellious daughter, Justin, also a kind of rebellious son, and Irene, the very sweet daughter. Alexander ended up getting married to Edith, one of Jasper's daughters. She had a crush on him since childhood etc. Irene, maybe by virtue of being the youngest, was closest to her parents. Justin, after finally becoming a responsible adult, got into Law school. Ada, after sorting out her vicious sibling rivalry with Alex, as well as becoming a responsible adult etc, got into journalism. She married a young widower and single father Frank, who ran an independent newspaper. Everybody kind of gets paired off together in some way. Justin is revealed to be the grandfather of Zephyr, from my 2nd novel. Talk about literary universe. Ernest builds a school whose principal he becomes etc. He teaches maths and physics, Jeannine teaches French and History (and over time they get more teachers to hire).

Aside from the unending family trees, the sequel gets very depressing very fast, as all beloved characters just die off one by one. William dies of a heart attack when he is in his mid 50s (despite all the changes he made to better his health??!!!), with a very emotional and gut wrenching scene in which his wife laments how others only find it tragic when a recently married wife gets widowed, but one that was married for 30 years, not so much, despite hurting her much more to know she lost the one she spent 3 decades with. Frederick dies in an accident (gets thrown by his horse). Ernest, now himself middle-aged, with his children grown up (some of them as I said rebellious in their youths, which makes him feel like a bad parent), and both his brothers dead etc, falls into a very deep depression out of which nobody can take him out, not even his beloved wife etc. There is this very dark scene in which he faints due to burnout from how much he had been over working himself, and Jeannine finds him unconscious on the floor etc. But due to how absolutely hopeless and miserable he had acted lately, Jeannine just immediately jumps to the conclusion that he committed suicide, which everybody else believes until Ernest himself wakes up to explain was not the case as he only just fainted after having been awake for several days in a row. He eventually heals after spending some time by the sea and relaxing from his work etc. But I never found a satisfying ending to the sequel. Is that all? Everybody is dead and Ernest doesn't get along with his family anymore? He only barely gets over his depression by hanging out by the sea for a bit?

And this is the moment where I analyse this from a meta perspective. It's almost embarrassing to what degree Ernest's development over the year that I wrote this mirrored my own mental state. At first, I focused on his attention to moral integrity - good! I too was trying to be good. Then I focused on his perfectionism, and guilt. He was feeling guilty for not being able to force himself to fall in love. He was very strict with every detail of his life - in one scene he rearranges his entire library because a book is out of order. Even though he literally commits absolutely no sin whatsoever during the entire narrative, he still acts so guilty like WHYYYY. Why make a character who is morally impeccable but still has the behaviour of one guilty for existing. Oh well he did have a bit of that illegitimate child complex but he didn't even know he was illegitimate until the end so like??? But now in retrospective I'm like oh. Oh. I was very well behaved, unnaturally well behaved for a 17 year old, and still felt the weight of the world with how guilty I felt all the time. I was dealing with horrific intrusive thoughts on the daily, on the hourly basically. I suppose I was aware even then that my Protagonist was basically me in many ways. But I never even allowed him bad thoughts!!! Not even a tiny little "but what if I just stabbed somebody" and have him react in horror or whatever. Which would've explained his guilty attitude etc. But no that's not clean enough for a Christian romance. Yes in hindsight I censored myself a lot in order to fit into that label. Very squeaky clean. No real conflict aside from the side characters who were interesting because they were allowed to have flaws and an actual character arc. But then I started getting art block. Writer's block. My head was literally empty. Except it was very full of all sorts of bad thoughts. But it was empty of my usual ideas etc. I began finding no purpose much less pleasure in my otherwise extremely treasured hobbies. When I did "get inspiration", it was to ruin my main character's happy ever after, make his siblings die tragically, his family life become dramatic and divided, and him be miserable, depressed, overworked and with a middle age crisis, and contemplating suicide. Although he didn't even do that. It would be too inappropriate. So he just fainted from exhaustion I guess. I wrote that scene in December 2017. And then in 2018 didn't manage to come up with much new. I stagnated completely, and almost completely stopped writing and drawing altogether. As you might already know 2018 was the worst year of my life. So it's no wonder I was literally unable to create anything. Sometimes I get sad when I look at my folders and see stuff like 2016 (70 items) 2017 (60 items) 2018 (30 items) 2019 (50 items) etc. Like the decline is so obvious and I know why. But at least, as that "if you have art block that's your brain trying to tell you to do studies", while my original stuff was plummeting, I have some genuine bangers in terms of studies from the summer of 2018.

Overall, the story was supposed to be heartwarming but ended up depressing. It does have all the blueprints to be a beautiful and uplifting one though! The love between characters is still palpable. It only needed to be more real ie not so censored that the main character literally has no flaws, and more of a conflict. Also the sequel was just literally me ruining the source material so I would completely scrap that or at least change it a lot. I'm sometimes very emotional about this unfinished novel. Oh, it was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Its development mirrors my mental state at the time quite accurately. One day I wish to rewrite this. Maybe when I get all my existential questions sorted out, and being more mature I am able to look back at all of this and make sense of it. But I would make it a less squeaky clean story too. I would make Ernest have serious questions about his faith, not this lowkey legalistic lifestyle being treated as "just being a good Christian, let's not ask many questions etc".

The main inspirations were all those period drama films where the woman is married to a husband she isn't in love with so she cheats on him with somebody she is in love with. Trying my absolute best to go the opposite direction of that. Had been reading the Rose of Versailles manga at the time + watching a lot of period dramas. Inspirations from the history I read etc.

NOVELLAS/ SHORT STORIES

The Hacker (October 2013 - with the last additions during spring 2016 - aged 12-15)

A movie script idea I had been writing on and off.

The main premise is a hacker (for whatever reason) trying to create a virus that infects the whole Internet, but one day he passes out in exhaustion in front of his computer and suddenly finds himself in the virtual world. Every app has a human form etc.

The main character, villain-protagonist is a guy named Hans, and the antagonist, arguably a more moral individual, is the mysterious Mr. G. The latter is supposed to be a representation of the entire Internet but a later reveal is that everybody in that virtual world is an isekai'd actual human. And the elusive Mr. G? Is Hans's programmer neighbour, Gerhard. (At first I chose Hans' name arbitrary but then I decided this is actually taking place in Germany because one of the songs I was listening to a lot for inspiration was Berlin by the Piano Guys).

In the virtual world, the virus created by Hans took actual form (it was a black goo/ wave that engulfed everything it touched, destroying it. Whatever it touched, started glitching green then black 0s and 1s, making the characters turn to dust not unlike in infinity war + endgame). The problem was that Mr. G and the others were basically convinced that if they got infected by the virus they would get killed irl too. Said Mr G had two children (teens - the girl representing social media and the boy representing video platforms). Over the course of the story, they both get engulfed by the virus, basically dying. The boy, right before his father's eyes, and the girl, right before Hans' eyes, and he is helpless to stop it, although he had made the virus in the first place. The scene of confrontation between Mr. G and Hans (which I wrote in 2016) hits extremely hard. The rage I drew on his face, as well as the sorrow like man... and if you think about it yeah, this dude really killed Mr. G's children...

At any rate both remember their lives back in the real world (in an early version there was a memory room which showed their flashbacks in video format). Gerhard was a single dad, his wife having left him for whatever reason (mostly to do with his workaholic tendencies). Hans had a girlfriend too and she does make an appearance in the virtual world too, as a sort of mercenary figure (she kind of opposes Hans but not really. She tries to help Mr. G's daughter too but with no success). At the very end, the virus spreads so far that almost everything is destroyed. Mr. G is dying (literally fading away) and shares some last words with Hans. He dies immediately afterwards too.

The two wake up back in the real world, their respective computers not only completely ruined, but literally on fire too. Thankfully, their death in the virtual world doesn't translate into their death irl. But the two still are in danger because the apartments caught fire and they have to escape etc. They make it out alive and mostly uninjured. Gerhard reunites with his children (and his ex is there too, to tell him he cannot look after the kids etc but that gets solved too). Hans goes to prison etc. However, fortunately, it is clear to him that Gerhard finally forgave him. It is implied Hans will get out eventually and resume his life etc, and they'll be friends etc.

The main inspirations were (movies that I had watched for the 1st time in my life at the age of 12 and literally had my mind blown) the Matrix + Inception. I already mentioned the song Berlin by the Piano Guys being used as inspiration etc. And most importantly, because I wouldn't have started writing it if it weren't for reading those, two short stories I read in a Romanian Christian magazine for college students from the early 2000s. One of them was about hacking and the other was about a college student metaphorically rotting away in his dorm room for decades, which to me seemed both horrifying but also a great source of inspiration for the "darker tone" I was going for with my story.

It is unfinished in the sense that I never actually sat down and wrote the script itself. But I finalised the outline back in 2016 so...

Fairy worldbuilding project (starting 2017 ish - aged 16)

Not much of a story but I loved doing worldbuilding. There are fairies who are based on several insects, and each species has a country, its Queen etc. Butterflies are considered frivolous etc but they carry the textile industry. Bees are the hardworking ones etc - food industry. Flies, Moths and Fireflies are nocturnal so they hold meetings at odd hours in order to adjust to the timezone of the others. Ie international meeting between Butterflies and Moths: 10 am but its very early for the Butterfly and very late for the Moth etc. Ladybugs!!! Just all bugs basically fall here. Including scarabs which are like super buff. Actual bugs are stereotyped as dirty etc. Flies are kinda tricksters etc. They get along ish but not really.

The plot if it had one would be internal political conflict in the Butterfly Kingdom. The Queen refuses to step down and let her niece rule. Matriarchal society etc. The Butterfly Queen rules over the others Kingdoms as well etc so it's kind of an Empire. But Ants for example, being mostly terrestrial and wingless, are separate.

This mostly makes sense by looking at the actual artwork. Not much else here. Ongoing forever maybe, it's just for fun. My baby cousins loved watching me draw these.

VAGUE IDEAS

NOVELS

Yet unnamed (January 2023 - aged almost 22)

I wish to rewrite that fanfiction Do you know what it feels like? as an original piece.

NOVELLAS/ SHORT STORIES

Many ideas throughout 2016-2019 but ofc not only.

Untitled medieval story (summer 2019 - aged 18)

Arranged marriage between a prince and a princess. They don't get along at first but eventually fall in love. He was a bit arrogant at first but got better. He had some scars from smallpox as a child etc which is how she gets him to talk about his backstory. He even gets wounded in battle at some point, and by that point she already cared about him etc etc.

In Memoriam (2020/2021 ish - aged 19-20)

A story from the perspective of an old woman seeing her whole life before her eyes. She faints/ almost dies of a heart attack when she looks at the 21 December 1989 memorial, and has a lot of flashbacks in chronological order or not. We learn that she was fervently loyal to the communist party and there seems to be feeling subconsciously guilty over something. The rest would be a spoiler - I genuinely want to write this one day.

I want this to be part of a volume for other short stories, Red Shadows, all in some way related to Romanian communist or post-communist history, all of the characters being at least tangentially connected in some way, thereby unifying the narratives within the volume.

FANFICTION

Untitled (2016/2017 ish - aged 15-16)

A Derpy and Dr. Whooves ship fanfic. Basically combining a human AU with the Pony world. The two meet irl, him being a time traveller, fall in love etc, start a family, but the interdimensional police eventually come after him and catch him, forcibly separating the two. She ends up in the pony world and spends many years there, raising Dinky etc. But one day she manages to reach an interdimensional warp zone and find her long lost husband etc but the police kill him. Thankfully by now she already knew to operate time travel tech so she rewinds time etc before he gets shot and by a combo of time stops, also redirects the bullets etc. They manage to escape from them forever, and live happily etc.

I wish I had written this when I first thought of it, but I basically just daydreamt it and left it.

Betrayed (2018 ish - aged 17)

A Hans fanfic (Frozen) which recontectualises his villain turn not as a random thing neither as a planned thing, but as him going insane from so much betrayal during his lifetime. He tells Anna if only there were somebody to love you not to be cruel, but to make a bitter jab at the fact that he believes her to be cheating on him with Kristoff. Basically Anna's engagement song is taken seriously and not as a joke and Hans is like how can you abandon me so fast etc. He does succumb to madness as it were etc and the events go down and he gets imprisoned etc see the Frozen fever short. So the story would end tragically with him catching some sort of disease, a literal deadly fever, and some nurse being the last person he sees. For a brief moment he remembers the good times with Anna and as he lay dying he calls her name. The nurse, for the sake of comforting a dying man, pretends to recognise him etc and tells him some encouraging words etc. He dies but kind of imagining a more happy version of events in which he just happened to fall sick but at least he saw his fiancee during his last moments.

I did make myself cry with this concept lmao but I never sat down to write it.

The Red Plague (2019 - aged 18)

Hetalia historical fanfic. There is a mysterious lab disease called the red plague. Russia is the first to get sick etc. The plague is supposed to mirror the spread of communism etc and the symptoms are supposed to be both physical but especially psychological, the other characters being horrified at how much their friends chanted for the worse etc.

Yet untitled (january 2023 - aged almost 22)

Maybe I will try that Hamlet with a happy ending lmao why not. I should at least try

____

Of course, there are so so many more stories I have not included, especially the older ones. I will update this every now and again. I hope you enjoy this. I will post pictures too. This masterpost is merely an introduction.

[queenviserra]

Ooh, deep and wild, hungry sea

Update!

Chapter six, Good Night Lord Velaryon 🤭

Summary: The royal hunt began and dangerously drew Rhaenys and Corlys together. What happens when they stay together in a very private place?

Previw: "You look different!"

In a desperate attempt to respect her chastity so that the princess could return to her tent with her maidenhead untouched, the Sea Snake gently stroked her dark hair, hoping to draw her attention to it.

She was a spoiled girl anyway and the truth was that he wanted to spoil her further, to make her dependent upon his care.

"I brush and braid my hair myself, or at least I'm trying to."

Her tone was like an angry little girl speaking, which Corlys found cute and irresistible. Instead of laughing, he turned his attention towards what she said.

"I've had this habit with my mammy ever since I was little. But now she's in Dragonstone, she's gone to see my grandmama. My maids tried, but that was a terrible result. So I made up my mind to do it myself."

"I can do that to you. If I have your permission, of course."

"You?" She stared at him with a mixture of curiosity and embarrassment in her eyes. "How can that be?"

"I've seen a bunch of women brush their hair. Doesn't seem too hard. Well, I haven't been alone all my life, I know some things."

"Have the women who have met your needs had so much ease with you?" Rhaenys scoffed, but Corlys had briefly gone back into the past. To what had been lost once and for all at sea, leaving him alone.

"I had a woman of mine who got lost in the sea. The cost of glory and wealth was to lose my first love and half of my fleet on my third voyage."

"So... You had a wife, weren't you?" The sheer envy of her voice took him back to the present. "I cared for her, but she wasn't my wife. I was never wed, Princess."

"Things can change." She threw herself into his arms, wrapping her legs around his waist yet again. "I feel bad for her, I do, but she can't compare to me either way!"

No. She won't be able to. I don't think she ever would. He kissed her so she wouldn't talk again because her voice made him think she shouldn't be there, and if they were caught together, it would be the worst progress he could have imagined, but a part of himself didn't want to stay away from her.

He got really drunk, not by the wine, but by Rhaenys' scent. The cavern of her mouth smelled of wine and spices, and her skin was so velvety soft to the touch.

If he takes her to bed right now, who's to blame? Prince Aemon is not going to deny him her hand. He's older than her, yes, but he certainly has more experience than the foolish boys of her age and doesn't just want to spend time with her. Rhaenys can give him something that no travel's given him yet. A family.

The image of a babe in her arms made him dream with his eyes open.

He stops kissing her immediately, taking his hands off her, only smelling the sweetness of her neck that is dotted with perfume.

His action disappoints her, but she can understand much more, especially when she feels his cock hardening against her thigh. If she lifts up her nightgown a bit, perhaps he will become bold again;

"Good night, Lord Velaryon. My poor hunting party will need my help this morning. Sleep well!"

Check out the rest of the chapter here.

[petrichoraline]

Northanger abbey!! I adore Cathrine, she's so fun and her intuition is on point, it's just that her imagination is a bit wild but then again she's young so she'd get better at placing her feelings eventually... My favorite thing about henry is his house lol from what I remember nice house surrounded by trees and dogs, away from everyone what's not to love, also he knows about fabrics and colors and novels so... He's funny so I can for give the obnoxiousness and he's responsible which is a trait austen loves in her leading men. I love how austen allows her heroines to be loud and wrong and still give them a happy ending, they have their flaws but they don't have to pay for them, they learn and correct and apologize. Sorry for ranting lol

the timing of this message couldn't be more perfect, i picked up my book and read for about an hour, got on here and i've been scrolling just thinking "gotta get back to it, gotta get back to ittt" 😂 so I'll be doing that once I answer (they're on their way to the abbey with catherine for the first time rn, exciting for both her and me lol)

I am so impressed with how smart she actually is because I was under the impression she might be too gullible. she, however, though a bit too good-natured and thinking the best of people at all times, knows what she likes and what she doesn't. she doesn't get swayed by the compliments of a guy she's decided sucks big time (unlike belle who turns her head in the direction of anyone willing to show her even a bit of attention)(im a bit more of an isabella than a catherine in that regard but we're working on it shh); catherine can be stubborn, she has a backbone, a strong moral compass (reminds me of fanny a bit) and she learns from her mistakes. follows her morals while still worrying about bringing pain upon her loved ones that she has to oppose - the thorpes and james trying to stop her from running and explaining herself to miss tinley after john lied without her permission?? oh I was boiling, the fact she stood her ground till the very end made me so happy and appreciative of her as a heroine and her worrying about their regard towards her afterwards made her that much more likeable, she's just so sweet and considerate even when met with the worst behaviour. sure, she can be too trusting and trying to resolve conflicts in an honest and direct way which is just not how things work in the world she's becoming a part of but she is a girl turning into a young woman. as far as I'm concerned, any mistakes she makes, I forgive.

"my favorite thing about henry is his house" what a valid take lmao i am yet to read a description of the abbey but henry so far is giving me mixed feelings, I checked the ages and they're 17 and 25? so I feel like I'm getting a bit of a condescending attitude from him? but I might be wrong. it would be natural, though, as catherine is a teenager and his brain is supposedly fully developed, that her more childish view of things would call for amused reactions on his side. I don't know, so far really my focus is on "where and how are things going to get messy" because in this book quite a lot of the time nothing is truly really..happening? hahah and I was promised drama from jane austen herself in the first chapters:

"It is now expedient to give some description of Mrs. Allen, that the reader may be able to judge, in what manner her actions will hereafter tend to promote the general distress of the work, and how she will, probably, contribute to reduce poor Catherine to all the desperate wretchedness of which a last volume is capable- whether by her imprudence, vulgarity, or jealousy - whether by intercepting her letters, ruining her character, or turning her out of doors."

I started this book quite a while ago but this has stuck with me and maybe I am misunderstanding and she is actually not going to do these things (I love all the sarcasm but sometimes I have trouble catching it cause, well, non-native english speaker) or I am supposed to be on the lookout the whole time lol but in any case I EXPECT ACTION. PLEASE. it's such a short novel, why are there boring parts 😔

responsible really seems to be the most desirable trait in an austen man but I get it and honestly it's a good thing to consider in dating nowadays as well 🤷‍♀️ as for Henry's other qualities, I forgot he understands fabrics!! thank you for reminding me. that guy has so much sensitivity about him so why must he be such a lil gremlin at times 😂

i agree with you completely <3 austen's heroines are just women being women and i love that though they share some noble qualities they're all easy to distinguish from each other (considering some plotlines are quite similar.) catherine might be, so far, the one most after my own heart out of all the girls.

I may update on how I feel about all of the characters and the story so I'll try to tag in case you're interested in my ranting 😊 would love to hear from you again, it's so exciting receiving a message about this, you have no idea, I usually only discuss shows so my liveblogging of reading the novel actually reaching someone and prompting an ask is such a delight, thank you so much for sending a message and a long one at that 🥰💓

[prettybutter-flyy]

Sza released music! I want to give a review, a deepdive and a journal entry.

I just discovered sza honestly, like 2 weeks ago. I fell in love with Ctrl and when she released a new album just 2 weeks later that cemented her as my new favorite artist. Ive never been to a concert before- i want to go to her concerts. She gives me the vibes of someone i am AND someone i want to be at the same time.

I'll admit i avoided listening to her for a long time bc of her looks- she looked urban she looked impossible, how could i relate to her? But looking at Sza and listening to her is like two different experiences, bc looking at her and hearing her music she is a literal goddess and she makes me feel absolutely otherworldly, uplifted in her rifts and tone..

And then listening to her lyrics... she just like me fr. Like she was clearly a suburban black girl, who was average in her hometown, and grew up being overlooked by everyone, but she always knew she had indescribable talents. And then the fact that she lost weight and "glew up" (even tho she was goregous before) gave me hope that, hey im an average overweight black girl, i could look like her too. Those facts (that i probrably projected onto that poor woman) give her just a sense of relateability.

Sza is a relateable, timeless, sub/urban goddess and she manages to wear all those hats so fucking well in the album.. listening to SOS have me the eternal feeling of sitting in the car with my aunt, who was always unapologetically black, proudly booj-etto, always listening to india Arie and Erykah Badu, thinking "who will i be listening to when im your age?"

That's a really specific feeling, if you get it, you get it, but I'm gonna go into my review now.

Szas album was just what i needed. It was fresh, relateable and revolutionary. We explored so many different genres: rnb, pop, rock, rap, classic rap, and yet it ALL had signature sza (the riffs, the runs, the autotune/filter that makes her voice sound like that, the echos in the background). She exposed herself, to me anyways, as the black girl next door, the older one that i look up to. She knows who she is even when she doesnt. And shes a great antirole model. Bc she can be self destructive but she knows exactly WHY shes destroying herself, very in tune with her feelings.

The song that sticks out to me the most is Special.

I think its bc (im pretty sure im autistic and) i spent a LOT of my childhood just trying to blend in and be normal. And people you wouldnt expect (my mother and siblings) made fun of me for not understanding how to properly be social. And so i threw away the parts of me that made me special bc they made me stick out. Fuck man, i didnt deserve that. Now what? Im a loser with identity issues, struggling to figure myself out: what i like, how to create and enforce boundaries. And i imagine thats all too familiar of a story for many (autistic) people. And the worst part is i imagine that i did it to other pekple who understood even less than me how the world worked. They didnt deserve that either.

For a while, i was trying to figure out if cacooning was something i needed to do to discover myself. Im a very social person so im still not sure it is. But this album did make me realize maybe space is good. Not full isolation but magic happens when a creative gets bored. And i deserve that.

I want to elevate like sza but i want to be me. Bc no one else on this planet gets to have that experience and i think that's really special. Its the main thing im qualified for right?

[iliveiloveiwrite]

Fallin’ For You // Anthony Bridgerton

Request: I saw that your requests were open I was wondering if you could do something with Anthony x reader maybe the reader gets Injured somehow or something? Just fluffy worried Anthony really 😂 - @nicole198205

A/N: More mindless fluff! I’m sorry it isn't more substantial, but I had my first covid vaccine yesterday and I can barely move my arm. Anyway, I hope you all like!! <3

Pairing: Anthony Bridgerton x Female!Reader

Warnings: female reader, injuries, minor injuries, nothing overly serious, worried Anthony. 

Word count: 1.9k

For all of the education allowed to women of your station, even your governess would be shocked at the litany of swear words leaving your lips as you do your best to limp across the stretching, green lawn of Aubrey Hall. 

A morning walk. A lovely, morning walk where you could observe the grounds of your marital home – that was all you wanted, all you had really planned of your day. You weren’t to know of the tree root sticking up from the ground; its limbs gnarled and mangled as it stretches out across the forest floor. 

You felt something rip as you fell to the ground; your left ankle trapped within the tree root, a pained yelp leaving your lips as you scraped the palms of your hands on the rocks littering the floor. Wounded pride, wounded hands, wounded ankle – you took a quick inventory of your injuries as you let the tears fall in privacy before dragging yourself to your feet, briefly wondering how much more damage you would do to your ankle before making it home.

The closer you get to the grand seat of power of the Bridgerton family, the straighter you force your posture, determined to hide the worst of the pain until safely hidden away in your bedchamber where you could release the waiting sobs and cries of agony. The main door is too far away, and the thought of limping to the heavy wooden doors almost sends you to the floor once again. Instead, you hobble to the side entrance to the kitchen where not even the delicious aroma of shortbread could keep the tears at bay. 

“Lady Bridgerton!” The cook, Mrs. Black gasps as she catches sight of your muddied gown and the pained expression on your face. “Are you okay? Should you be walking?”

“I’m alright, Mrs. Black,” You smile painfully, attempting to ignore the piercing pain spreading through your foot and ankle. 

“You’ll tell me anything!” She cries, flapping her teatowel at you. “I’m going to get Jenkins. Do not move,” She warns, fixing you with an unimpressed but concerned look.

“I don’t think I could if I tried,” You admit, leaning against the wooden frame of the doorway for support, relieving your injured ankle of your body weight. 

You let your eyes slip closed, letting yourself fall into the pain for a single moment, slowing your breathing as you feel the first tears slip down your cheeks.

“Lady Bridgerton!” Jenkins’ concerned shout has you opening your eyes, meeting the aged grey eyes of the butler that had looked after you since the first days of your marriage to Anthony. His eyes run over you quickly, assessing the situation with a speed decades in services has gifted him. “Do you think you can walk to my office?” He asks quietly; his voice almost a whisper. 

Mrs. Black answers for you; her Yorkshire accent becoming thicker the more upset she becomes. “Walk! The poor girl can barely stand! Walk, my great aunt,” She mutters, rolling her eyes as she settles her hands on her hips. 

Jenkins closes his eyes for a count of three; letting Mrs. Black have her rant before shaking his head with exasperated fondness. “Mrs. Russell, Mrs. Black – would you please help Lady Bridgerton to my office.”

The order is given, and the respected butler turns away, heading to his office to grab a chair and something for you to rest your ankle on. 

Mrs. Russell and Mrs. Black each take an arm, holding you steady as you hobble your way to the butler’s office. 

The room smells like old paper and tobacco; it puts you at ease as you settle into the chair already set up for you in the middle of the room. Jenkins remains close to his desk; his eyes fixed on your ever swelling ankle. 

“There you are,” Mrs. Black whispers softly. 

“Thank you,” You whisper to the beloved cook.

“It’s no issue, my lady. I’ll bake you something special and sweet for dessert tonight for managing to walk back to the house in your state.”

You smile at the cook; your bottom lip beginning to wobble as she squeezes your arm once before taking her leave. Sighing painfully, you wince as you adjust the ankle resting on the small, green ottoman. 

“What happened, my lady?” Jenkins asks, remaining close to his desk. 

“It’s all so silly,” You begin, “I was on my morning walk as I told you about this morning over breakfast with Anthony. Anyway, I was just beyond the tree line when I must not have looked, and I tripped over a tree root. I couldn’t simply stay there, lying on the floor so I made my way back to the house, but the main door is so far away. The kitchen was closer and I’m so glad because you got to me quicker.”

Jenkins nods once; accepting your story for what it was: the truth. He kneels down beside your injured ankle, meeting your gaze. “May I?”

You nod once, biting your lip to keep from whimpering pain as Jenkins makes quick work of examining your injury.  “I’m going to have to get the Viscount, my lady,” Jenkins sighs, his gaze meeting that of the Head Housekeeper, Mrs. Russell.

“Are you sure?” You question, not wanting to pull Anthony away from his work. You try not to wince as you move your ankle to the left and the right. “See!” You gesture, “I’m moving it just fine.”

Jenkins shakes his head, doing his best to hide a smile at your stubbornness. “With all due respect, my lady, I can see the bruise beginning to bloom. I don’t think you’ll be walking for a few days.”

You sink further into the chair, groaning. “I had so many plans for this week,” You whine, covering your face with your hands as you fight off the first wave of tears. “That damned tree root!”

Jenkins blinks once, twice, three times at your use of such language before releasing an amused chuckle. Mrs. Russell shakes her head at the sight, stepping further into the room. The aged Housekeeper settles a comforting hand on your shoulder, squeezing lightly before uttering, “I shall go alert the Viscount. You do not move from this chair.” 

“Yes, Mrs. Russell,” You promise, flashing a watery smile at the woman as she leaves the room. 

Jenkins’ hand settles on your knee as more tears threaten to fall. “It’s alright, my lady. We’ve all injured ourselves.”

You sniff, drying your eyes with the caring butler’s handkerchief. Jenkins’ shifts back to his desk; resting on the edge of it as he awaits the arrival of the Viscount, knowing full well that Anthony would soon be flying through the door to his office. 

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

“(Y/N)!” The Viscount all but shouts as he rushes down the stairs of Aubrey Hall. Mrs. Russell had explained your injuries, but it had done very little to quash the unadulterated worry settling deep within Anthony’s gut. 

“(Y/N)!” Anthony bellows once more, rushing through the large kitchen to Jenkins’ office where he finds you settled on a chair with your left ankle propped up on a small, dark green ottoman. 

“Darling,” He gasps; the breath rushing from him in one movement. He falls to his knees beside you; his hand coming up to cup your cheek. “What happened?”

“I feel so foolish,” You whisper, voice breaking as fresh tears begin to line your eyes. 

Anthony’s thumb brushes across your cheekbone. “An impossibility. You could never be such a thing.”

“I fell over a tree root, Anthony. Not exactly graceful.”

He clamps his lips shut, determined not to let the relieved laughter fall from his lips. Anthony had only known such fear upon Mrs. Russell’s announcement of your injury once before; the anguished cries of his younger sister Eloise, the one to find their father dead in the garden. To see you sitting in Jenkins’ office, the only injuries being your ankle, scraped hands and your pride, Anthony could have wept in relief. 

“You don’t have to be graceful,” Anthony whispers, “You just have to be okay.”

“I’m okay now that you’re here,” You whisper, leaning in at the same time as your husband. 

Anthony kisses you as if there wasn’t an audience at the door. Unhurried, Anthony holds you close, his hands moving from your cheeks to your neck before settling on your shoulders. 

He breaks the kiss; dropping one, two, three quick kisses to your mouth before pulling away completely. “We’ll call the doctor tomorrow morning. For now, I want you to rest. Let’s get you somewhere comfortable.”

“You can’t carry me all the way to our room!” You laugh, “I’ll have to hop part of the way.”

“Not a chance, darling.”

“I can do it,” You state, crossing your arms stubbornly.

“I’m not saying you can’t, I’m just saying you won’t get the chance because I’ll be carrying you the whole way.”

“Anthony, my love, that’s too far.”

“Watch me, darling.”

With that, Anthony scoops you into his arms, your head resting comfortably against his strong shoulder as he begins the climb to your shared bedroom.

-----------

The bed feels close to heaven as you settle on top of the covers; the lush fabric greeting you like an old friend as you sit back against the headboard. Anthony grabs the first pillow he can reach, gingerly lifting your ankle and apologising profusely when you wince in pain as he tucks the pillow underneath. 

“Will you need help changing, my lady?” Your Ladies’ Maid, Annie, asks, having followed Jenkins and Mrs. Russell through the house as Anthony carried you. 

Your husband answers for you. “No, thank you, Annie. Take the rest of the day off, I’ll look after Lady Bridgerton.”

“As you wish, my lord,” Annie answers, curtseying before leaving the room; Jenkins and Mrs. Russell following.

You fix your husband with an interested look. “What?” He asks, a smirk beginning to grace his lips.

“You’re going to look after me, are you?”

“What kind of husband would be if I didn’t?”

“Touché,” You answer with a laugh, “So you’re going to get me changed?”

“As if I haven’t undressed you before,” Anthony smirks, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively as he begins to undo his cravat. 

“Anthony!” You laugh, throwing one of the many pillows on your bed at your beloved husband. He catches it with ease, throwing it to one side before crawling up the length of the bed, taking care not to jostle your ankle. 

Anthony props himself up by his elbow as he gazes up at you. Your tears have long since dried, but your eyes still show the pain you keenly feel. Anthony frowns; if he could take away your pain, he would – he’s adamant that you should never feel an ounce of pain, but even he couldn’t help the occasional sprained ankle.

“You scared me half to death this morning,” He whispers, reaching for your hand. 

“It’s a sprained ankle, my love. We’ll summon the doctor first thing tomorrow like you said and he’ll confirm our suspicions.”

“Still,” Anthony breathes, bringing your joined hands up to his lips upon which he places a multitude of kisses.

“I have no plans on leaving you prematurely,” You promise, reaching to stroke a hand down his cheek. At the last moment, Anthony turns his face, pressing a kiss to the palm of your hand. He closes his eyes at the feel of your hand on his cheek; he inhales the familiar, comforting scent of your floral perfume. Rose standing out amongst the rest; he lets the scent take him somewhere calmer as his heart finally begins to slow down. 

“No more walking the grounds alone,” He states, eyebrows furrowing with the severity of his words. 

“I won’t need to if you join me,” You tease, “Think of all the trouble we could cause in the great outdoors.”

******

Bridgerton taglist: @heloisedaphnebrightmore @dreaming-about-fanfictions @now-its-time-for-a-breakdown @janelongxox @aspiringsloth20 @wallwriterstuff @magicalxdaydream @darkestbeforethedawn16 @gryffindors-weasley @spideysz @iammirrorball @writeroutoftime @joyfullymulti @nuttytani

Anthony Bridgerton taglist: @multifandomfix

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

What would happen if you were sent back and ended up in the orphanage with Tom Riddle—and say you also had magic?

Oh boy.

Well, there's a lot to question here. Judging by the... spirit of this ask, I presume I'm... pretty much reincarnated. I'm in the orphanage, I'm much younger than I am now and a child, I'm pre-Hogwarts age, and I retain my current knowledge.

For the purpose of this ask I suppose I also retain my current mental faculties. Despite being in the body of an eight-year-old, I'm not The Carnivorous Muffin at eight.

Welp, there's a lot to consider here.

First, I probably don't realize I'm in Harry Potter for quite some time and instead assume I've been reincarnated to some parallel universe. It's the 1930's, I'm in England in the depression, WWI has occurred and the vast majority of major historical events I know about seem to have happened in the right order, and this Earth is eerily similar to the Earth I left behind.

Strange that I appear to remember everything of my past life with my adult mental abilities, but alright universe, I guess that's how we're going to play this.

What I do know is that I'm dirt poor, presumably still a woman which does not bode well for my career prospects, and if I want any prospects in life period I'm going to have to fight tooth and nail for it. It'd be great if I got adopted to help with this, and might be nice to have people in my life who love me, but there's a lot of orphans in the world and a lot of orphans who are much less weird than I am.

The orphanage is the orphanage and not great, Mrs. Cole is overworked, the orphanage is chronically understaffed, and the kids are running wild beating the shit out of each other.

Being a girl, I probably don't have to worry about getting the shit kicked out of me quite as much, but I still probably try to keep my head down and don't aggravate the particularly beefy looking orphans.

Yes, there's some very angry gremlin named Tom Riddle around who will shove you down the stairs in retribution, but that's just a weird coincidence. And then supernatural shit starts happening. Billy's rabbit hangs itself, people get injuries when Tom is nowhere near them, and I start wondering if this is really the Tom Riddle.

I'm in Wool's Orphanage, my matron is Mrs. Cole, Tom Riddle is running around lighting things on fire. It's possible, though it could all be a strange coincidence.

Now, how things go from here depends on how controlled my own magic is. Since accidental magic typically does manifest at least once or twice, it probably does manifest for me for.. something. If Tom Riddle's there to witness it then...

Well, I imagine he's very offended. Here he was, special, different, better than everyone else, and then some girl in the orphanage (who dares to get very good grades on her assignments in school) has it too.

And I just stand there, smiling, going "Tee hee".

He probably confronts me to prove that he's better at it than I am, and he probably is unless the universe hates both him and me, but having someone else with the Shining around probably prompts him to take me as his protégé (in part so he can show off and in part because he's genuinely excited to be able to share this super cool talent).

I am now apprentice to eight-year-old Tom Riddle. Whoop de doo.

Well, I don't remember this part of Harry Potter, so now I'm probably confused as to where I am again. Regardless, I try to advise Tom on how to tone it down and not, say, traumatize Amy and Dennis for life and antagonize all the other orphans forever. He probably doesn't take me seriously. What do I know, I can't even light that patch of grass on fire?

Hanging around Tom Riddle gets me a reputation to, given the difference in genders, probably a fairly nasty one at that. When Dumbledore arrives he's undoubtedly told hot gossip about how eleven-year-old Tom and I have had sex in a ritual to summon Satan. Dumbledore takes this seriously.

Dumbledore probably meets us both at the same time and it's a disaster. I tried my best to prep Tom without revealing I'm a prophet, Tom first doesn't believe there might not be others, then doesn't believe they would be antagonist/anything but amazed by how awesome he is.

Well, Dumbledore lights his wardrobe on fire while I sit there. Dying inside. Dumbledore probably also does something to me too, to teach me some kind of lesson about something.

I imagine he temporarily disfigures me/makes me appear very ugly, then sticks a mirror to the wall, that way I realize that looks aren’t everything/being a whore is wrong. Tom, still traumatized over the wardrobe, is no help and my magic’s probably not controlled enough to do a thing about it.

I spend a day looking like a pig, Tom and I are given just enough money to buy new wands and second hand/barely functioning everything else and given the world’s worst directions to Diagon Alley. Thanks, Albus.

Well, months pass, we get our wands, Tom gets excited for Hogwarts and I... start seriously considering the future. WWII is coming, the Blitz is coming, Tom and I live in east London and must be able to evacuate during the bombing of London (which went on well past the Blitz to the end of the war). I also start considering my future in the wizarding world. Do I now actually have career prospects?

Probably not because I’m muggle born and a woman. My best bet is doing very well in useful subjects and finding employment with the goblins, I can’t imagine they have the same hang ups as the wizarding world.

Tom wants to go to Slytherin, of course, I tell him this is a bad idea. “Gee Tom,” I say, “Not sure how I know this but I have this feeling that Slytherin is filled with people who loathe our very existence and will shank us. Why don’t we pick Ravenclaw or Gryffindor instead?”

No one shanks Tom Riddle! Tom says. Tom is still eleven and while he admits that sometimes I may, in retrospect, have been right about certain things that doesn’t mean he wants to go to the house known for hard work. That’s code word for everyone there being a moron and having no other redeeming features than tenacity. As for the other two, Ravenclaws sound like smug, elitist, nerds and Gryffindors like dumb jocks.

Better to be known for ambition, cunning, and actually being competent.

Well, there’s no talking him out of this one, and goddamn it we’re all each other has.

I’m the closest thing Tom Riddle has ever had to a friend in all these years and in the orphanage the only one who could hold a decent conversation with him. And while it’s not my moral obligation to keep Tom from becoming a domestic terrorist, and there’s no guarantee I even can, dumping him for one of the other houses and drifting apart won’t help.

Not to mention that, after all these years, I’m undoubtedly lonely, I’m in this foreign land, and he’s now the closest thing to a friend I have.

Looks like I’m going to Slytherin, YOOOOOLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOO! I shout as a battle cry as tears run down my face. I may have to convince the hat to put me in Slytherin, but like all human beings I am a mixture of many qualities. I’m not cunning in the least, mind games exhaust me unutterably, but I’m full of ambition. 

This confirms every bad opinion Dumbledore had regarding me and Tom.

For the next several months, Tom probably beats the shit out of dormmates who steal his things/harass him. He beats up mine too because feminism (TM) means that he should treat all people equally when guilty of the same crime. I... am not sure I can win that fight so I just resign myself to having to adopt some of Tom’s tactics to make sure I’m not shoved in lockers, have tampons thrown at me, or pig’s blood dumped on me at the prom.

Once again, everyone thinks Tom Riddle and I are dating. I don’t even know if they’re wrong at this point.

Well, being in class with eleven year olds who seem to have had little to no prior education, Tom and I are undoubtedly blazing through class. I imagine I’m bored out of my mind (the Hogwarts curriculum sounds unbelievably boring) and Tom is... well, probably devouring the library but probably also bored. I decide to try and see if I can find some real history texts on this world (there are probably none, the wizarding world seems to only have two historians and both... have a different approach to history than current modern thought as I know it) and discover what magic even is. That shit is fascinating: wingardium leviosa is not.

Dumbledore likely gives neither me nor Tom points in class, I think the house cup is stupid, so I really don’t care. I have no interest in playing quidditch, neither does Tom, so that doesn’t happen.

The second world war starts up, Tom, me, and the muggle borns are the only ones who give a flying fuck. I work harder on figuring out how to get lodging during the Blitz/the bombing of London. Unfortunately, Mrs. Cole hates me too for being the Bride of Satan, so that’s a no go. Third year, 1939, I probably write her in earnest anyway telling her to PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, send Tom and I instructions for the summer/where the orphans are staying/how they’ve been dispersed to the countryside. As a back up plan, I try desperately to shmooze shopkeepers in Hogsmeade during every Hogsmeade weekend to get myself and Tom part time jobs and lodging over the summer. As a back up back up plan, I spend my time badgering Tom to become very good at survivalist wandless magic and if the Lord has pity on me gain some ability in it myself.

Hopefully, either Mrs. Cole or one of the Hogsmeade shop owners take pity on us. If not, then Tom and I are going extreme camping. Given Mrs. Cole (and the brain damage brought on by Dumbledore erasing memories left and right) and the likelihood of Hogsmeade shop owners just not getting it, Tom and I probably go extreme camping.

(Tom, meanwhile, asks Dippet and Dumbledore if we can stay in Hogwarts over the summer. He’s told no exceptions. London’s being bombed, you say? No exceptions. Toodles. Tom is never the same.)

Me, Tom Riddle, a tent we made ourselves, several rabbits we had to catch and skin ourselves, and the pitiful fire that we can keep going through pure will alone because if we try to use real people spells then we’ll get arrested. It has the benefit of making Tom feel very manly and impressive, catching his own food, but both of us are well aware that this sucks.

But hey, we aren’t dead.

Well, I’m sure Tom doesn’t appreciate that and this is where I imagine he seriously starts talking about violent revolution. I imagine much of my time is spent discussing the merits of not violently overthrowing our ant overlords. I imagine a thirteen-year-old Tom isn’t impressed by my pacifism, but he’s not married to Voldemort yet (probably).

Then I imagine the horcrux thing comes up and... Well, I will argue hard against it. Humans die, it is a truth of the universe, and simply something we have to accept. Horcruxes are not a measure against that, they can be destroyed, given infinite time they will be, and the sacrifice they require is too high: human life as well as the very essence of who you are.

What is a soul? I’m not sure, we never really learn in HP canon, but whatever it is, it is in some way the essence of yourself. If you take half of it and throw it somewhere else, you will cease to be you, someone or something else is walking around in your body while the other half of you exists in endless agony.

If you must chase immortality, create a philosopher’s stone (as I darkly wonder why it was that couldn’t be replicated and what Flamel had to do to make it in the first place). On second thought, maybe we should search for the Holy Grail.

Whether I can talk Tom out of this or not is... unclear. I’m going to say that I can, in part because I imagine he’ll want to show the chamber off to me, tell me when he realizes he’s Heir of Slytherin, and in doing so I can prevent the basilisk incident from occurring. Without that, there’s no dead Myrtle, which means no first victim. That summer, when he goes to the Gaunts, I’ll go with him and convince him that it’s not worth it. He can just turn around and leave these people alone, I hopefully can talk him down. Which means no second victim.

I start writing Flamel to see if Tom or I can get an apprenticeship (Dumbledore probably beats us to the chase and poisons him against us, but it’s worth a shot).

Then, should all go well, I can convince Tom to find employment with the goblins rather than shady antique dealers on the bad side of town. Hopefully, I can convince him to never become Voldemort, and instead we travel the world together looking for the origins of magic or something.

Dumbledore goes around taking people’s memories of us in preparation for when Tom becomes a dark lord and I his lady of the night darkness.

TL;DR Apparently my life would become an SI/Tom Riddle fic. So, thanks anon.

[americangirlstar]

Now that both Courtney books are out and I’ve read and processed them both, I do want to say that I think they’re the least well-written of any of the AG books, but not through any fault of their own- let me explain.

(Note that for this discussion I’m ignoring the Doylist criticisms- Courtney and 3/4 of her friend group being white again, the lack of gay discussion in-text in regards to the HIV crisis, etc. These are valid complaints and concerns, but not what we’re talking about right now.)

The Problem with the Current Book Length

I think the main problem with Courtney stems from the fact her books are so short. American Girl has literally been doing the stupidest things in regards to their books lately, almost as if they’re trying to sabotage them on purpose. First they remove illustrations in 2015- when their target audience is about nine years old. I don’t know about you, but when I was six and getting into American Girl, the illustrations were the highlight for me. Not because I had no attention span and loved pretty pictures, but because it showed me firstly what the girl’s life was like, whether it be 1760s wilderness or 2001 Chicago. It was like stepping into their world, really helping you get into their heads, which was basically what the dolls were supposed to do, to let you know that girls like you exist throughout time and space.

As well as that, the illustrations were free advertisement. I can’t tell you how excited me and my sisters were as children to go to the American Girl place and look at the doll displays, shouting that that’s the dress Felicity wears to the ball! or look, Josefina’s goat looks exactly like the book! AG cut that from 2015 to 2020, as if they were trying to appeal to an older audience- while at the same time changing all the doll outfits, accessories and marketing to appeal to a younger demographic.

Now, this isn’t about the illustrations, as Courtney got those- it’s about what they did to the historical characters after the Illustration Outrage™ happened. See, they’d condensed the historical six-book format into two books- not necessarily a bad idea, parents would be more likely to buy two books for their kid than consider buying six. However, they then claimed that if they put illustrations back, they would have to abridge the books- literally my nightmare.

First of all, American Girl, we know for a fact you can fit all six books plus illustrations into ONE VOLUME, let alone two. You’re just being cowards here and trying to nerf your own stories for... some reason.

So that meant a lot of important things got cut- Rebecca’s Chanukah story, Melody’s cousin’s house search, Maryellen’s Christmas adventure... all things important to the girls’ histories and character.

The Problem with Courtney’s Writing

Now, Courtney was the first doll to be released after the abridging began, meaning her books were released, in their entirety, just as short as the abridged stories. So it basically means she gets four books while the others get six- and unlike the others, Courtney doesn’t even have mysteries or short stories to pad out. (And honestly, looking at her book’s amount of content, I’d even argue that she basically got two while everyone else got six, but I digress.)

The problem with her books isn’t that they have an author writing them poorly (I really feel like her author was doing the best with what limited time she had), but in how cramped American Girl made them. Because, well, Courtney has to deal with a lot in such a short amount of words.

Let’s compare her to Julie, for instance- Julie pretty much has a new 70s thing every book. In order: feminism, rising divorce rates, San Francisco’s Chinese culture, environmentalism, the country’s bicentennial, anti-bullying and deaf acceptance. And adding to this, we also have her own personal journies through her parents’ divorce and move, her basketball team, her friendship with Ivy (and later Joy), overcoming her fear of horses, student council, detention... It’s a lot, and yet her books don’t feel rushed or forced at all. It’s just a year in the life of a girl going through a lot of new and sudden events, and how she grows and changes throughout them. She may not be as deep a character as Addy or Kirsten, but not every girl goes through the trials and tribulations they do, and it’s a good series overall.

Courtney, meanwhile, does feel rushed and forced, because of the short timespan. Instead of fitting everything into a six-book format- or even at two-book format that is the same length and content as the six-book- everything has to be fit into two short books.   Everything Courtney has to cover includes the topics of divorce and stepfamilies, feminist and technological advancement, the Challenger explosion, the HIV crisis, Hands Across America, and the founding of Pleasant Company. And in Courtney’s own journey, she has to cover her learning to stand up for herself, her relationship with her stepsister and Tina’s own character development, her mother running for mayor and how that affects her, how much she misses her Dad after he moves, her friendship with Sarah (note on that later), her basically getting hate-crimed after standing up for her friend... that’s a LOT of stuff, and I didn’t even include the non-AG 80s product placement they shove into her collection.

But without the longer format, everything is pushed together to its detriment. Tina’s development and Maureen’s mayoral candidacy are two plotlines that are literally dropped and almost completely ignored in the second book. The Challenger and HIV issues were handled decently, but the Challenger only lasted a few short chapters, and the HIV topic was not as informative as it could be, leaving out several things like Reagan’s refusal to treat it for so long, and its effect on the gay community. Honestly, the HIV scare was more shifted to focus on the mob mentality of a new and scary disease- which, while needed right now, also ignores many of the bigotry-related reasons it became an epidemic. Pleasant Company’s inclusion feels forced in, and I think was the only resolution she had to her Dad plotline?

And don’t get me started on the Sarah plotline- every Girl of the Year since Kanani- sans Isabelle and Luci- has had the story of “oh no I’ve been ignoring my friend and now they’re mad at me :(” and it’s SO old. Seriously, I counted the contemporary dolls that have had that storyline, and it’s thirteen*. Thirteen times we’ve covered this issue- almost all of it in quick succession- and now we have to deal with it in a historical character book while much more important things are going on! Yes, it sucks when a friend ditches you while you’re being attacked and bullied for something you’re standing up for, but once again, with how much is happening in such a short book, it just feels like a forced-in plotline that we’ve seen a billion times, and with their falling-out happening mainly due to the attention Courtney was given Isaac, it serves to make Sarah seem closed-minded at best and bigoted at worst- it’s clarified that she’s not, she’s just scared and upset with Courtney, but when you put those events so close together, it leads the reader to lump them together and get the impression that, you know, Sarah is a worse person than she is.

*Full count: Nicki (book 2), Chrissa (book 2), Kanani (2), McKenna (1 iirc?), Saige (both books), Grace (2), Lea (3), Gabriela (1 and 3), Tenney (2), Z (1), Blaire (1), Joss (1) and Kira (1).

It’s a bit weird, too, that Courtney’s... what’s the word? Vibe? with her how her story is written and marketed Is closer to the Contemporaries than the Historicals. Am I the only one feeling this? My best explanation for it is that the author, Kellen Hertz, had only written contemporary books for American Girl before- the third Lea Clark book and all four Tenney Grant books, both of which contained the Friendship Issues™ plot. I’m not at all saying she’s a bad author- I honestly love the way the Tenney books are written- and I’m not saying she couldn’t write a historical book, but it’s clear American Girl didn’t ask her to change up her style or content from what she’d done for them before, as well as giving her way too much to cover in such short books.

Conclusion

Honestly, this conclusion should be obvious- American Girl needs to expand their books again. Whether they simply allow the books to be unabridged, or go back to the six-book format, Courtney's books are too cramped to tell an effective story, let alone the poor abridged girls.

The other girls were given six-book length, so if they went back to that length or format, Courtney would have to be rewritten, at least a little- and that’s okay! There’s a lot of things that could use expansion or connection, such as her Summer trip with her Dad that was given basically one sentence in the text. Her growth with her stepfamily could be acknowledged- and honestly? I think that if these books were expanded, her mother’s mayoral arc should either continue through the books, or Maureen should become mayor before the book 2 arc. I’ve mentioned this before, but having Maureen as mayor (or even still a candidate) would put a lot of pressure on Courtney to be perfect so that nobody can say “look at how awful this woman is for doing politics instead of raising her family right”- which means that when the Isaac stuff happens, it has even more stakes for Courtney and her family. Does her Mom still support her with her own reputation on the line, and what does that say about Maureen’s character, how does it affect Courtney and the D’Amicos... that’s all fascinating stuff that was completely missed out on.

And if she was turned into a six-book format- honestly, here’s how I’d do it, just off the top of my head. It would involve a bit of event shuffling, but honestly I think it would work!

Meet Courtney - pretty much the setup for everything happening, her starting to get her Crystal Starshooter plans and her mom’s campaign beginning.

Courtney Learns a Lesson - her relationship to Tina, culminating in the Challenger incident.

Courtney’s Surprise - we move the founding of Pleasant Company over here, since Molly’s basically her Christmas Present. We’ll probably need an additional plotline- maybe similar to Julie, she can have a story on spending the holidays in different places.

Happy Birthday Courtney - end of summer, aka meeting Isaac and her trip with her Dad.

Courtney Saves the Day - Beginning of the HIV arc, ending at her presentation to her class.

Changes for Courtney - Continuation of the HIV arc as things get worse for her and Isaac, ending where Friendship Superhero ends.

Is that a perfect sorting? Probably not, I came up with it in ten minutes. But would it give Courtney space to breathe and more time to explore everything happening to her? Probably!

The tl;dr of this is honestly that American Girl are absolute cowards right now, and need to expand their books back. Their abridging is only harming their stories- which, as Courtney herself points out, are the reason girls got into their company in the first place.

[multimilfs]

Miranda Priestly x Fem!Reader: A Little Nudge

Summary: Anon requested “Could I request a slightly angsty Miranda Priestly X Reader? Maybe the reader is in the hospital (it's up to you why they're there) and they're panicking because they think they're gonna get fired. Miranda can replace them within the hour, after all.Miranda shows up to the hospital after hearing what happened and reassures Reader that they're fine. She confesses to the Reader because she was so scared something horrible had happened to them and she was gonna lose them. (sorry im just in a sad mood and im weak for hospital scenes)”

A/N: It’s been ages since I’ve written for TDWP so be kind to me, please! I really hope you like it!

Tag List: @ghostsunderstoodmysoul​ @multifandomfix​

Warning(s): None

“Why is nobody ready?”

Miranda drawled from behind her desk, glancing at her watch with annoyance. Everyone near her held their breath; nobody having the guts to tell her that it was because you weren’t back yet. 

You were supposed to be back with the accessories from D&G ten minutes ago.

Jocelyn and the run-through team exchanged terrified glances. Someone was going to lose their job today. And knowing Miranda, it was going to be one of them.

They had been relying on the accessories to complete the outfits they’d prepared. An abysmal thing to do, but you’d promised that you would be back early. Now you were nowhere to be found.

Miranda was conveniently unaware of your absence. She was under the impression you weren’t supposed to be back for some time, thanks to a few carefully worded statements from Nigel. If she got wind that you’d gone awol, it’d be hell on earth for everyone in the Runway offices.

Standing beside Miranda’s desk, Nigel saw Serena approach the office. The model stopped when Nigel shook his head. Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

“Talk to Emily.” He mouthed silently.

She did just that, turning elegantly on her heel to see the Brit dialing numbers frantically. Poor Emily hadn’t even noticed that Serena was there.

“Why is Nigel telling me to talk to you?” Serena asked softly.

Emily startled slightly, before looking relieved to have some type of help. She put the phone down on the hook quickly.

“Y/N has vanished,” Emily whispered, “I can’t get her to answer her bloody cell phone and she was supposed to be here ages ago!”

“What do you mean she vanished? She doesn’t vanish.” Serena asked.

“You’re telling me. Jocelyn needed the accessories from the winter collection for the run-through and she promised to have them here. Miranda is two minutes from firing them all if we don’t come up with an excuse.”

Emily let her head fall into her hands, repeating her low mantra that she loved her job. Today was not going to be an easy one, it seemed.

A moment before Serena could suggest anything, Miranda’s cold voice echoed from her office.

“So what I’m hearing is that you failed to prepare? After I gave you countless days to finish a simple task.” Miranda asked.

Everyone winced at the chill in her voice. La Priestly wasn’t known for being warm, but this felt like frost-bite.

“We’re just missing the accessories for a few of the outfits.” Jocelyn offered.

Miranda’s hard gaze settled on the girl, making her regret speaking. Drawing attention to herself was the last thing she should have done.

“‘Just’ the accessories,” The editor said dryly, “If you were to go skydiving, I’m sure you’d be fine without a parachute then?”

Jocelyn shook her head quickly. The only way out of this would be for a miracle to strike. She was mentally kissing her job goodbye.

Then Emily’s cell phone rang.

Scrambling for the device, she could have jumped for joy to see your name on the caller ID. She was furious, mind you, but glad to see you were okay.

“Where the bloody hell are you?” Emily hissed in lieu of a greeting.

“Em, I can explain-“

“I’m sure you can, but it better be good or I’m throwing you La Priestly.”

“I’m in the hospital.” You said.

Emily inhaled sharply. She didn’t miss the way your voice cracked over those few words. It may mean more work for her, but an injury like that could cost you your job.

“What did you get yourself into?” Emily asked.

“The heat today exascerbated something and I collapsed, the doctors are running tests now.” You explained softly, lacking the energy you normally had.

Serena watched worriedly as Emily put her forehead down on the desk, letting out a defeated sigh. This felt like the icing on the cake of an already terrible day. She had no idea how to break it to Miranda. The woman was practically reliant on you and your abilities.

“Em?” You whispered over the line brokenly, “Tell Miranda I can have my desk cleared once I’m d-discharged, okay? I understand-“

“No. You-You don’t get to abandon me so close to Paris. I’ll find a way to fix this…”

“It’s okay. I understand what it takes to be one of Miranda’s girls. Collapsing on the job isn’t part of the description.”

“She can make an exception.” Emily snapped.

You sighed on the other end. It broke your heart that you’d probably lose everything now, but you understood that Miranda was far too busy to accept an injured assistant. Even if you did hope that she cared enough to keep you on.

“Do what you can, okay? Just don’t get yourself sacked. I’m at Presbeterian, room 311.”

There were a few more words exchanged before Emily hung up the phone, looking hard at Serena, who stared back with concern.

“Y/N is in the hospital.” She said quietly.

Serena stood with a look of shock on her face. What could have happened to put you in the hospital?

“How are you going to tell Miranda?” She asked instead.

“Beats me, but someone has to.” Emily laughed bitterly.

She stood and walked to the doorway of Miranda’s office, where the woman was regaling Nigel with the incompetence of her staff, who were standing in the room. Nigel noticed Emily and raised an eyebrow in question, to which she shook her head. His face seemed to pale.

Unsure of what to do or say, Emily remained standing in the doorway. She kept her hands clasped in front of her to keep from ringing them.

“Is there a reason for your hovering, Emily?” Miranda asked, her icy gaze resting on her poor assistant.

“Um, well.” She tried, but nothing came out. She froze.

“Do take your time. None of us have jobs to do.”

The editor rolled her eyes, a devious smirk resting on her face. She drew a sort of horrible glee from seeing her employees squirm.

“Y/N is in the hospital.” Serena said.

Any movement in the room stopped immediately. The run-through team held their breath, looking to Miranda.

Upon hearing the words, Miranda felt her heart drop into her stomach. Her hands gripped the edge of her desk hard. Besides something happening to her daughters, something happening to you had become her worst nightmare.

“Excuse me?” She asked, tone just above a whisper.

“She’s conscious, she called to let me know herself where she was,” Emily rushed out, before anyone could make the situation worse, “Something occurred that caused her to collapse, but-“

“I’ve heard enough.”

Miranda was out of her seat the second Emily mentioned that you were awake. That you weren’t gravely injured or in a coma. Her fear eased slightly, but it wouldn’t vanish until she saw you. She was barreling through the office without a care for what was on her agenda.

“Cancel any meetings for the rest of the day and get Roy here immediately. I want access to her room upon my arrival; I don’t care what favors you have to promise or whose egos you have to stroke, get me into that room.”

She snatched her coat and purse from Serena’s hands, rattling off the demands without slowing her pace. Then she was ensconced in the elevator while everyone looked at one another in shock.

“Do you think she’s going to fire her?” Emily asked Nigel, who laughed.

“I think that is the last thing she plans on doing. Now I’d get on the phone with Roy…”

Eyes widening, Emily let out a yelp, rushing towards her desk. Nigel just shook his head; of course Miranda would hold out on her feelings until you fell injured. She apparently just needed that final nudge. 

———

In your hospital room, you were trying valiantly to hold back tears. Your head was leant back against the pillows, eyes closed. All you could see was Miranda’s face in your mind.

You weren’t sure what happened; one second you were walking down 35th, the next a paramedic was standing over you hounding you for information. If you hadn’t been in an ambulance racing through traffic, you would have demanded they let you out. You had a job to do.

Now, you couldn’t. You had let down the editorial team and Miranda by proxy. It hurt you in a million different ways, but you accepted that you were out of a job. That you would no longer spend the days around the woman you secretly loved.

It sent a pang of pain through your chest. You squeezed your eyes shut against it. Remaining strong, even now, was important to you. It wouldn’t do to let your resolve crumble.

Absentmindedly, you heard someone walk into your room. You let out a loud sigh.

“Look, doc, I told you I’m fine. My head may be throbbing, but I’m not going to die on you. Though I may if I don’t get something other than hospital food.” You laughed.

“I’m sure that can be arranged.”

You snapped your eyes open at the voice that was clearly not your doctor’s. Standing there, looking divine as ever, was Miranda Priestly. The woman you were hopelessly in love with.

“Miranda?”

“No, Donald Trump.” She deadpanned, a smirk pulling at her mouth.

Did Miranda Priestly just make a joke? Your mind asked, though you couldn’t stop the grin that spread on your face. She looked pleased at your reaction.

“You didn’t have to come all this way, you know,” You said softly, reality creeping back in, “I told Emily that I could have my desk cleared as soon as they discharged me.”

“I beg your pardon?” Miranda said, feeling as if the breath had been stolen from her lungs.

“I know how busy your schedule is- Hell, I arranged it. You didn’t have to come all the way here to let me go.”

“Is that why you think I’m here? To fire you?”

“...Isn’t it?”

Miranda let out a hollow sounding laugh, pinching the bridge of her nose. You watched her with thinly veiled confusion. Then she walked to your bedside, hesitantly placing her hand on top of yours. Your heart stopped.

“Silly girl,” Miranda said softly, “Do you think I would come here for something as menial as that? Do you think I’d race here, heart pounding with fear, to fire you?”

You felt like you were in a dream. Given that you were in a hospital, it didn’t seem too outlandish that you were imagining it. But when Miranda leant in and placed a soft kiss on your lips, you knew this was reality. This was no mere dream.

She made to pull away from you, offended at your lack of response, but you wouldn’t let her. Grabbing the lapels of her blazer, you dragged her lips back to yours for a long kiss.

When you finally separated, you felt like you were riding a cloud. This was never what you expected to happen. It was wilder than your wildest dreams.

“So… I take it I’m not fired?” You asked with a cheeky smile.

And so overcome with happiness, Miranda let her normal mask drop, throwing her head back and letting out a joyful laugh.