#Also how do I look up stuff on there tags make no sense

[ladyeyrewrites]

WIP Wednesday

tagged by @unhingedangstaddict

This is a snippet from my BuckTommy mpreg fic featuring trans Tommy. It doesn't have a title yet and I don't know when I'll finish it.

It seemed Tommy wanted to look anywhere but directly at Buck, which was just another thing Buck had lost. Buck blinked against threatening tears as Tommy glanced around Buck’s loft, eyes taking in the subtle changes that had taken place since they’d broken up, until his gaze settled on the mess that was Buck’s kitchen island. “You’ve been baking.”

Sure, Buck had baked with Chris before to help out with a school bake sale since Eddie was so culinarily clueless but he hadn’t really done it in his own time until he’d found out about Tommy’s sweet tooth. He’d been practicing to make something for Tommy’s birthday but then Tommy had to go and dump him. Bitterness spiked through him. “Yeah. Anytime I get the urge to call you, I just I channel the impulse into something positive, like baked Alaska.”

Tommy’s face twisted with regret, eyes growing glassy. Buck wasn’t sure if that had been his intention or not, but maybe it would be good for Tommy to really see how much Buck had been thinking about him. So, Buck walked over to the fridge and pulled out three loaves, making sure the fridge door was opened wide enough for Tommy to see the extent of Buck’s foray into baking and how often he’d been thinking about reaching out. “Here, you should take some.” He plopped three loaves into Tommy’s unprotesting arms. “Here’s a lemon loaf, and a walnut loaf, and a pumpkin loaf.”

“That’s a lotta loaf,” Tommy managed to say. “Buck, I—”

“Hang on, let me go grab those shirts,” said Buck because hearing Tommy call him by his nickname rather than his name made him want to scream and he didn’t want to do that, not when Tommy looked like anything could cue the waterworks at any moment. So, Buck might have fled his kitchen, jogging upstairs to grab the reusable tote bag of Tommy’s tee shirts and flannels he’d accumulated over their six months together. That bag had been haunting him every night as he lay in bed – alone – trying to fall asleep, wondering if Tommy was also alone or if he’d already managed to find a rebound.

Buck hefted the bag and his heart panged. Once he gave this stuff back, Tommy would well and truly be gone from his life. There’d be no excuse for Buck to reach out. No trace that Tommy had ever been in his life save for the indelible mark he’d left on Buck’s heart. So, Buck did something maybe a little impulsive and indulgent; he snagged one of Tommy’s flannels out of the bag and shoved it under his pillow. He was absolutely not going to bury his face in it and cry himself to sleep later.

As he was engaging in some of the most pathetic breakup behaviour ever, his kitchen timer went off downstairs.

“Buck, do you need me to do something?” Tommy shout up the stairs, voice carrying over the shrill timer beep.

“Yeah, could you just grab the baked brie out of the oven?” he asked. He snagged his favourite Tommy t-shirt out of the bag and stashed it with the stolen flannel too. If Tommy was allowed to unceremoniously dump Buck then Buck was allowed to steal his clothes and not return them.

Buck gave a satisfied nod and started down the stairs to join Tommy. He was halfway down when he heard Tommy gag. Buck looked up from his feet in time to see Tommy turn literally green before unceremoniously dumping Buck’s baked brie on the counter, bee-lining for the sink and vomiting down the drain.

Buck raced down the stairs, rushing to Tommy’s side and rubbing smoothing circles on his back before he even realised what he was doing. “Are you okay?”

“Are you sure that cheese is okay?” Tommy asked catching his breath. “It reeks.”

Buck frowned as he got down a glass and filled it with tap water for Tommy to rinse out his mouth. “Uh yeah,” he said. “And brie’s not a stinky cheese.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Tommy sagged, leaning against Buck’s counter. “But my sense of smell’s been really weird the last few weeks.”

A sinking feeling filled Buck’s stomach. This all sounded very familiar. They’d always been so good about using protection and between birth control and testosterone Tommy hadn’t had a period in well over a decade. But there’d been that little lapse before Tommy had found his new doctor and oh, god they’d definitely had unprotected sex that one time when they were both a little tipsy after getting back from babysitting Eddie. “You’re pregnant,” Buck blurted before his brain could send his tongue anything more tactful to say.

[ranticore]

Now that you mentioned it in the tags; I really enjoyed how you did the queerness of characters in-text and I saw you mentioned more than once before how they consider/call themselves gay or anything and I was wondering if you'd be willing to elaborate on that (in Ironwall, MVF etc), but more from a writing standpoint than a worldbuilding one. Hope Im making sense lol

i looked up the invention of the word 'homosexuality' and found that it was invented 6 years after stbh is set

ghksjdg i mean there's more to it than that but it meant that my language was constrained, which also means that the characters' language is constrained as well. i have to think about ways i want this to come across to the reader. at the time i was thinking about how the basic concept of "btw this character is not straight/cis" is communicated in some of the stories i'd read, and one that stood out to me was a comic i read in a fully fantasy setting where the writer brought the narrative to a juddering halt to explain exactly how gender & sexuality are handled by the people here. as in the characters essentially turn to the camera and give the main character a lecture. i really didn't like it, the author's hand was too visible behind the panels.

but i took it as a learning exercise as well on what i didn't want to do. i didn't like the neon signs pointing at any instance of non-heteronormativity and i also don't like stories that market themselves based on the characters' gender identities, particularly stories which do not involve a coming-of-age/character learns to discover themselves narrative. it's a book about two trans men but it's not a book about being trans. that's none of the reader's business, that's hidden from you (particularly in islin's case, intentionally). i never wanted to foster a sense of voyeurism towards trans people particularly knowing that most readers, statistically, will not be trans. crucially the characters are stealth to literally everybody but like 3 people. their transition is done.

i never wanted a coming out moment, or an "i'm here i'm queer" moment either - not even because Society in the setting just because i don't like those things. to completely normalise it in the narrative between these characters is the goal - almost to the point of never even pointing it out at all except when it has to be. the vibe i wanted was like... hanging out in not necessarily a gay space, but with gay people, talking about random other stuff. i didn't even like the One coming out scene i had to put in (senca being like "i only fuck women" to bowman so that he would stop hitting on her)

so when writing i had a pretty good idea of what i didn't want. for the setting i had some strict rules to follow as well. characters would not identify as gay or bisexual or even some fantasy equivalent because those were not identities, they were acts. and heterosexuality wasn't an identity either, it wasn't even "the natural way of things", it was the means by which wealth could transfer between generations. if you do not marry, then you are not conforming to your gender. the four unmarriagable men in mvf are all denied entry to normative manhood for many de-gendering factors (disability, unmanly hobbies, vow of chastity, etc) but the culmination of those factors is that they can't marry, which is the whole POINT of being a man. three of them are entirely denied generational wealth - forcing them into poverty (it's not a coincidence that gay people are overrepresented in the criminal organisation)

from a writing standpoint this leaves them in a grey zone. when writing i tried out different language to see if it read nice to me (19th century equivalents to 'boyfriend' etc) and they all rang quite false, because outside of the whole 'can we put a label on something that doesn't officially exist in society' thing, the characters themselves are not the types of people to think that way. Bowman was dating Léa but he was never dating Félix. you can't date another man. the only people who date men are women, and Bowman is not a woman. therefore he is not dating Félix. to give just one example. ultimately for the language used i found that just leaving it as-is worked the best for me.

so after working all that out i wrote tha thing and then wanted to kind of explore - at what point does it become romantic? is there an actual border between romantic and platonic when you've kind of already fallen between the cracks in society into the grey zone where nothing is defined because it doesn't affirm the power of the ruling class. and in these particular friendships, where they've already been all things to one another, they've already done everything together, good or bad, does adding 'romantic love' to that list of things wildly recontextualise it retroactively or does anything change at all? just like the ending reveal of stbh says: who actually is the guy we've been thinking of as 'félix ortega' ? does it recontextualise everything we've just read? no, right? (or does it?)

the usual 'will-they-won't-they' romance plot isn't a factor in the book, we already know they will, they have, they won't, and they refuse to, all at once.

(jean-baptiste thinks of himself as an invert because he is Learned and has read some fascinating journal articles about cutting-edge sexology, and his relation to his sexuality is very very different. it's not something he shares with his closest friends in spaces without scrutiny; his entire life is scrutinised and his social system is predicated on marriage. like i think i said in the book, probably, i don't remember: he and renard are two guys clinging to the same life raft. they hate each other! but if you push the other guy off the life raft, then you're just one guy alone at sea, forever.)

[kimikitti]

Ok I am bad with social media. But can someone explain to me like what exactly you are supposed to do with mutuals? Like I follow them and then they follow me back. Are we... supposed to do anything after that? Do I DM them afterwards? I'm very confused.

[bacchuschucklefuck]

doing chibi is a good design exercise bc it forces u to think on shapes n essential details, essentially thumbnailing ur designs. its also a terrible design exercise bc it ends up looking cute no matter what

[biblically-accurate-dca]

vanweek day 2 - knife

does anyone else remember the knife game or have i finally gotten too old

[sadkois]

10 mins later after majima convinced nishiki to go out on a guys night :)

10 YEARS IN THE JOINT

KIRYU WITH NISH EXPRESSION JUMPSCARE

[silusvesuius]

this tree from my new drawing looking goated afffffff 👑👑

[ghost-bard]

Love being an arcane warrior in dao i love swinging a giant maul around and being in armour but also casting walking nightmare and horror on my enemies i think swords are cooler but the affect of a maul is funnier than big sword in my opinion. I have like 3 affects (at the minimum) going on at all times and then i do an aoe chug some lyrium just in case and bludgen some guy to death. What.

[hsslilly-blog]

shirt with a heart and child of divorce written on top but then there’s a picture of huntclaire. you wouldnt get it. i do

[doubleedgemode]

I wanted to go on a drawing spree yesterday, but I could only muster these two before dozing off.

First one, even if I'm not that sure about how I drew her face shape in this angle (and most importantly I forgot her neck and torso bandages OOPS) I do really like how most of the drawing came out. And at least it isn't a bland bust this time, though I'm pretty sure I've already drawn a pose like this before. (Oh no the next drawing is a 3/4 bust again..)

Second, yesterday I saw an artist draw some of the coolest redesigns ever for a different media piece, and thought about the many awesome gg redesigns I often see so I wanted to give A.B.A a spin... Except I was out of ideas so most of this drawing is her regular design haha. I got too tired to even try to attempt to draw the rest of the body and half-assed the key but I like the vibes and pose (even if I.. think I made her neck a bit too long? Old habits die hard... Necks are my enemies when drawing!)

I like the idea of her having a key take on the classic frankenstein bolts (though wait, her head key is referred to as a screw. Would this also be a screw or key shaped bolts??-)

[mithomite]

had the most braindead repetitive conversation/argument with my parents. buzz cuts are too masculine but if you dye a design on it it become effeminate which is bad because then you look weak and if youre weak then society falls apart (all societies ever that have fallen apart for any reason are actually because of feminine men) and we start sacrificing babies. and also all mental illness is invented because only 4 people had anxiety in the 90s and covid was made up so that we would all become gay and trans and then the government can control us better and be joe biden's little sex slaves. and also i need to keep my hair long because my father finds it attractive. what

[nomairuins]

like i wouldnt mind like. Not having new linear games post 5 its judt that sims 4 wasnt even supposed to Be The Sims 4 it was a last minute pivot and the base code is so outdated and was broken On launch so like. i just wish we could have the final actual sims game be like. one that was always intented to be a major sims release AND be intended to be so long term . yk

[sunshine-1nc]

Just when you thought I finally kept a design for Linzer- Listen I'm very indecisive and cookie designs are so hard for no reason to me.

Also happy pride month! I'll probably be posting some Timekeeper and Linzer stuff later this month when I get time! Spoiler: they kith

[triglycercule]

i want to headcanon the mtt having absolutely terrible hygiene and struggling to keep themselves clean (this MAY... just QUITE POSSIBLY.... only in the SLIGHTEST bit be projection) but i think it would be too gross and man EVEN I dont wanna think about that

also killer canonically smells good and i actually really LIKE that idea so oh shit there goes that idea out the window. horror and dust youre my only hope please let me make you smell bad for reasons you won't understand

[army-of-bee-assassins]

i feel like this season of h/dm has gotten considerably worse but also i'm not 100% sure i'm remembering the previous seasons correctly. i remember mostly liking them and just finding some things weird. but maybe it was just as bad as this season and the amount of time that's passed since i watched them has simply made me forget how much stuff i didn't like

[randum-famdoms]

I find it pretty funny how at least half of my posts have tags as long or longer than the post itself