#I ENDED UP RAMBLING MORE THAN I MEANT TO INSTEAD OF WRITING ........ how many times has this happened /nm | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

emptymasks · 6 months ago

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i've had constant aus and self-insert stories spinning around in my head for the past two months that i've been back into spn for, but i wasn't planning on doing anything more with them until i was browsing the fanart tags and discovered so many cool artists on here have been making spn ocs? it just never occurred to me that there would be any, let alone multiple, and to especially see ones being queer and trans made me really happy to see. so i took one of the too many different plots i'd been rotating in my head and made a little character out of it.

august north. he was killed by a demon when he was 26. his body was experimented on with the intent of creating an alternate long lasting vessel for lucifer. but a small amount of lucifer's grace bonded to august's body, reviving him as something not human, but not an angel. he meets the winchesters during season 4 of the show. he has some powers due to the archangel grace in him (healing factor, telekinesis) but it is not to the level of an archangel's power, possibly similar to regular angel's power or a bit less. he is a suitable alternate vessel for lucifer, if he were to say yes lucifer wouldn't burn through him like he does with nick. if lucifer's grace were to be removed from august's body then august would die, it is keeping him alive. the scar on his chest is from where lucifer's grace entered his body.

because of the whole 'boy with the devil's grace label' he ends up bonding a lot with sam, the two of them both being tied to lucifer through no choice of their own, and them both experiencing distrust and disgust from others because of this.

i really don't want any comments telling me that's not how angel grace works, i just liked the idea and it's my self-indulgent au. and august is entirely here for me to ship with lucifer so if that idea or lucifer in general makes you uncomfortable please just scroll on and don't judge me. i can't help falling back in love with this terrible archangel. i actually made a couple shrines on my website for sam and lucifer and boy i ended up writing way more about why i like them than i thought i would. the tldr is that i find things to relate to with lucifer in terms of the whole being cast out, family issues, being the black sheep of the family etc. and i find him fascinating, especially season 5 lucifer.

i'm not 100% sure on the storyline for august and lucifer, but lucifer does want to seek august out, partially because he's disgusted at a human having any of his grace, and partially because since sam is so hesitant to say yes it's nice for him to have this other option. i can imagine him visiting august in his dreams like he did with sam, trying to convince/manipulate him into saying yes, august not being bothered by his presence and instead feels drawn to him and ends up spending these dreams asking lucifer questions, and while lucifer is still trying to manipulate august into saying yes... he is lonely and this dead-alive human-angel boy is looking at him without disgust, isn't flinching when he touches him and he hasn't had anyone react like this to him in a long time and while he won't admit it a part of him is visiting august so often because out of all these hairless apes, this one isn't awful.

wow i wrote so much more than i meant too, oops. i guess that's good though, been a long while since i had an oc ramble this long.

[ID: a digital sketch page of my supernatural oc 'august north'. there's a half-body and full body drawing, with text around them. some of the text on the image i've already repeated in the text under the post but the rest reads: august north, supernatural oc, the boy with the devil's grace, pronouns: he/him, gender: trans man, height: 5'8", orientation: omnisexual, demisexual, demiromantic, nationality: english, occupation: hunter. august has pale brown curly hair that comes down to his collarbone in length, with a grey streak at the front right. he has two little braids going in front of each ear. in the half-body he's wearing a black coat, black long-sleeved shirt, a red bandana tied around his neck, white feather dangling earrings. in teh fullbody he's wearing black pants, black boots with spats over the top that look like little corsets, red with gold ribbon to lace them over the boots, a shirt button up that's unbuttoned and opened revealing the star shaped scar in between his pectorals from where lucifer's grace entered his body. he has two moles on his face, one under the outer corner of his right eye, one above the left side of his lip. his eyes are a blue-ish grey.

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vickyvicarious · 2 months ago

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(I just thought of this one, sorry for sending 3 asks in a row lol)

Maybe a platonic 3 for Renfield & Arthur? Taking place on October 3rd, when Arthur leaves the Harkers' bedroom for unspecified purposes

3. cold hands in warm hands

I was kind of vaguely planning not to repeat any of the prompts, and I did in fact already write something on this theme for Quincey and Jonathan, but there's no way I could turn this prompt down. I love the headcanon way too much. I hope you're braced for pain!

Arthur had experience with watching people die.

The first had been his mother. That was many years ago now, when he was still a young child, and he had of course not been present for the actual moment she departed from this world. But hers had, while an early and unexpected death, had not been a swift one. She'd been sick for months. And for months, he'd visited her in her bed. He'd brought in samples of his schoolwork, recited poetry, shown her pictures he'd drawn. He had wanted badly to introduce her to the puppies that had been born recently, but had been expressly forbidden from bringing them in.

In all honestly, he'd grown bored early on. The room was often dark, she had little to say, and the highly supervised visits had felt like a chore. He had thought she would be better eventually; had not understood how serious her illness was, what it meant. The adults around him had taken pains to shield him from that, and though Arthur knew it had been meant as a mercy, looking back he could not help but feel that it would have been better to have known from the start. That way, he would have treasured his last moments with her properly. He would have understood what it meant when she grew more and more subdued, would have forgiven her for forgetting the puppies' names, would not have agreed when she asked if he wanted to go play outside instead of sitting in the dark for so long.

His maternal grandparents had been dead before he was old enough to remember, and his paternal grandparents both died while he was at school within a few weeks of one another. But his mother's older brother had died while Arthur was at his house. It had not been unexpected; rather the opposite, as he'd been much older than his sister, and had contracted syphilis many years ago while traveling. He had been in bad health as long as Arthur had been alive, but somehow always held on, until the summer he turned fifteen.

They had never been close. Uncle Thomas was not an especially pleasant man – not cruel, but not kind, and they shared few interests. He'd never liked children, and so it was not until that final visit, the first time in years they had seen one another, that they interacted much at all. And by that point, his uncle had become confused, often mistaking him for other people altogether. Sometimes, it was his father, or a cousin that his uncle had played with as a boy, but surprisingly often it was Arthur's mother herself. At times, Uncle Thomas would remember his sister was dead, and would assume her perceived presence meant he was dead too. He would reach out a hand in Arthur's direction, but always shied away from actual contact, his fingers instead petting absently at the fabric of his sheets as he rambled about childhood memories and mourned the loss of the sister he had almost never written to when she was alive.

It had not been a pleasant experience for Arthur. But it had felt like a duty he ought to meet, one that in some way made up for his failure to understand what his mother had suffered in her last weeks. Visiting his uncle had been his own idea, and staying until the end was his choice as well. As little as he liked the man, as little as he really knew him – Arthur had loved him by the end of those two weeks. He had mourned him after it was all over, and especially could not forget the look in his uncle's eyes when he thought he was speaking to his long-lost sister. The way he reached out yet was afraid to touch was haunting somehow in the aftermath, though in the moment it had always been a relief. Arthur found himself deeply thankful that his father had never remarried and he himself had no siblings. He had wanted a sister once, but no longer.

In all honesty, the few deaths he had seen before reaching adulthood were nothing unusual, and in fact he had far less experience with it than many. In all the years since, he had not seen anything die but animals. Perhaps he was too sensitive, then, but he had felt marked deeply regardless.

He had tried to do better when his father's time came.

It had not been entirely unexpected. The man was elderly, and had been getting increasingly tired in recent years. Still, he had thought there was more time. Arthur had thought there was more time. He often had periods of illness, but never before had they been life-threatening. And at first, this seemed no different. He needed Arthur by his side, he needed caring for, but as summer drew to a close he seemed to recover somewhat. He'd sent his son away to enjoy at least a small part of his planned vacation in Whitby. They both had suspected he would not live to see next spring, but he had been supposed to at least make it through autumn. He had been supposed to see Arthur marry Lucy.

Mrs. Westenra had told him about her heart. She, too, had expected to die soon. It had been a blow, as for all he could sense some level of strain to her relationship with her daughter, Arthur had always gotten along well with the woman. He had looked forward to having a mother in his life again. Still, she had prepared him to lose her some time soon – though again, not til after the wedding. He hoped that she lived longer than predicted, hoped she passed peacefully and not due to any sudden shock. He had imagined his and Lucy's first child, and how best to introduce the news of their impending arrival so that its grandmother would stay calm enough to meet it.

Both of them had been supposed to die. But not when they did. And Lucy – nothing could have prepared Arthur for losing her, nothing could have ever allowed him to endure it without something essential breaking within him.

He had closed his father's eyes with his own hand, only to rush away to watch his fiancee die too, his mother-to-be already gone. Of course, he could never regret sitting by his father's side. The man who had raised him with so much love and care had no other family to take care of him, and he had so obviously treasured Arthur's presence in his last days. The conversations they'd had were ones Arthur knew he would treasure forever, and he had entrusted Lucy to the care of his oldest and truest friends with utmost confidence; a confidence fully rewarded by their efforts on her behalf. None of them had known better, none of them could have done better, and yet – in all the days and nights since, he could not help feeling that if only he had been with her more... He likely could not have changed a thing, but it would still have mattered immensely. Arthur did not particularly feel he was a person well-suited to the sickroom, but he would have given much to be able to share Lucy’s for longer.

At the least, he felt immeasurably grateful to have made it to her side in time. Her last wish in life had been for his protection. He had kissed her clammy forehead and the look they shared repeated all the words of love and devotion ever shared between them in an instant. Arthur would have sacrificed his own life for her without question, but if she could not live then he would be the last thing she saw. He would see her in her last moment, he would ensure she died knowing the depths of his love for her. He had prayed that she carried that feeling with her into heaven itself, had comforted himself that at least her suffering had ended. He’d believed her lifelike appearance meant that she was at peace.

He’d been wrong, of course. So wrong that Lucy now counted twice over in deaths Arthur had witnessed. That second death ached in every waking moment, for all that it brought hard-earned certainty that her soul was saved. Arthur could never forget it. What he would not give for that never to have happened… and yet, there was nothing he would trade to not have been there when it did. To be the one to wield the hammer, to feel the impact of it vibrate up his arm, hear the screams echo in his ears. It had meant the eternal rest she deserved, it had meant the saving of her. And, too, it meant proving his love for her at the end again, it was a promise renewed and honor given once more. Death at his hands or before his eyes; it did not matter, so long as she never had to die without him.

The hands in his own were growing limp now. Arthur gripped tighter, blinked hard to clear the tears from his eyes, and watched.

Renfield, the madman. Renfield, who had once tried to kill his oldest friend. Renfield, who allowed entry to monster that killed his wife in the cruelest way so that it could try to do the same to his newest friend.

Renfield, who had remembered his father fondly. Renfield, who had seemed so sane at first, and then so frighteningly desperate. Renfield, who was dying now from trying to save the woman who Arthur had sworn to make the sister he had once so feared losing.

From what he had seen of her in the room he had just left – pale but for the blood staining her face and her nightgown, shaking, sobbing into her hands from the knowledge of what she had just become – Arthur feared Renfield’s fatal effort had been a failure.

He did not tell the man that, however. At first, he did not say anything at all. He had run into the room with the intent of chasing the vampire back out the way he had entered, all the more infuriated after finding the fire burning up the manuscript that had brought them all together. Quincey had parted with him at some point in the hall, most likely to seek their prey outside. Perhaps Arthur should have done the same upon seeing the empty room, but… it was not empty, and that stopped him in his tracks.

Crumpled on the floor, just where they had left him, Renfield lay alone in the dark. His face was in a patch of moonlight, blood pooled around him with footprints leading in and out of it, the Professor’s medical bag abandoned on the floor nearby, and his eyes were gazing at the sky through the closed window.

He was still breathing.

Arthur’s heart was still pounding from the horror and the chase. He could feel it thrumming just under his skin, could almost hear it. And yet, everything else was silent, was still. Arthur realized that all of them had left this man dying alone on the floor, and for some reason the attendant whose report had first woken him had never returned.

Perhaps that was for the better. He could not help but remember the way Renfield asked to be freed from restraints. If he associated the attendants with an experience he so clearly hated, having them at his side when he could not move may have only frightened him needlessly. Perhaps Jack sent his staff away, no doubt a wise choice. They should not be involved in these matters; better to keep them safely away and ignorant of what had passed them by tonight. And yet –

And yet it felt cruel, in some wordless way. Arthur stepped forward into the room, shutting the door quietly behind him, and knelt down into the blood for the second time that night. He tried to make sure that he approached at an angle allowing him to be seen, but Renfield did not react to his presence in any way. He would have doubted the man still lived, if not for the noise his breathing made: a low, labored gasp, repeating unsteadily.

A few moments passed in silence. Then Arthur cleared his throat, trying to find his voice again. “Sir,” he said, too quietly. “Mr. Renfield. Can you hear me?”

Arthur had never witnessed the death of a stranger. It felt shocking somehow, to realize that he did not even know the man’s first name.

“Renfield,” he said again. He leaned forward, placing his face above the other man’s. “It’s Lord Godalming – Arthur Holmwood. I’ve come back.”

The hazy eyes beneath him slowly focused.

“Dreaming… again?” the man slowly breathed. One hand twitched, and one side of his mouth crooked up in a tiny smile. The right half of his face remained slack even as he tried to speak, paralyzed. “Hello, sir… Pleasu...”

The rest of the word faded away. His eyes fluttered, and Arthur felt a horrible pang at how much he had faded away in the time he’d been left alone. He wanted to offer him comfort, but did not know how – the doctors had spoken of paralysis in multiple limbs, and after watching their operation he was afraid to try and move him at all. He knew there was no saving this man, but before that inevitability, if he could only offer some sort of comfort, he wanted to do so.

Renfield mumbled something else, too quiet to catch beyond the word “souls”. His left hand’s fingers twitched again, and Arthur reached out to take both hands in his own. He was cold to the touch, cold enough that if it were all he could go on, Arthur would have thought him dead already. Perhaps that ought to be no surprise, on the stone floor in the dead of night, and after losing so much blood. It struck him anew regardless, making Arthur grit his teeth as he tried to squeeze some warmth back into those hands. He did not know if the man could even feel anything in the one that was paralyzed, but did not want to overlook the possibility.

“...no, no…” Renfield’s vague murmurs slowed at the touch, and his eyes opened once more. His left brow creased in confusion at the sight of Arthur’s face.

“I’ve just come from visiting your friend, Mrs. Harker,” Arthur said. He repeated the name, noticing Renfield’s gaze sharpen at the mention of it. His voice caught in his throat but he ignored that, forcing the words out: “She’s alive.”

“Alive…?” Renfield echoed slowly.

“Yes.” Arthur felt like a liar. He did not know if she would live. He did not know what the line was, did not know when it had been too late to save Lucy. He prayed that this woman would survive where his love had not, but she had been forced to drink that horrible creature’s blood. A dreadful fear was overtaking his heart, dragging him down into a grief not yet proven necessary. The friend dearest to his dear one’s heart, the sister claimed in his own. He did not want to lose her at all, especially not so soon, especially not to this, but… but he feared he would. He feared for her soul. For her husband, that he too would learn the feel of the vibrations traveling up his arm with each impact, hear the screams in his sleep.

But Mrs. Harker was not dead yet. And the man before him had given his life to ensure that.

And he’d been left alone.

“It is thanks to your efforts that we reached her – it is entirely because of you we knew at all.” Arthur told Renfield, squeezing his hands tighter whenever the man’s focus seemed about to fade. “Thank you. Thank you.”

He repeated the words again and again, repeated her name, he did not know how many times. At last, understanding seemed to penetrate; the man beneath him huffed out a single breath of laughter, his eyes bright. Arthur held on tighter, feeling tears fill his own eyes.

“The moon…” Renfield rasped. Arthur glanced up, but though enough light still shone through the window to see by, a cloud had drifted back in front of the moon.

“It’s just hidden,” he tried to reassure, though Renfield was smiling with one side of his face as if pleased. Repeated, “She’s alive,” and “Thank you,” and “I’m here,” for lack of any other words to say.

Although he lacked better words, he did not lack more meaningful ones. He meant them all with utmost sincerity – even speaking of Mrs. Harker’s life. Doubtful though he had been at first, the more he said it the more hope grew within him that it would not become a lie. Perhaps they could save her, still. They knew what they were up against now, they had already been acting on a plan. Perhaps this man, falling limp and silent beneath him now, dying with his eyes still open and grateful company by his side, would be the last casualty they had to suffer.

It did not take long, for him to fade away. Arthur held him and watched it happen. It felt the least he could do. It felt a duty. It felt an honor.

It felt… a private thing, somehow. When he returned to the others, he found himself reluctant to speak of what had happened. Of course, when Harker prompted him, he did not hide the fact of Renfield’s death, but he did not feel it right to mention how it had happened. How minutes had passed, how he had trembled finely, how he’d tried to speak, how his hands had felt so cold.

Perhaps he would tell Mrs. Harker, when he could get a private moment. She might appreciate hearing how much comfort news of her survival had given the poor fellow in his final moments. But Arthur felt it was not right to share the tale with anyone else. Not unless they expressed any regret at Renfield dying alone.

Only then would he tell them – and only enough to reassure that it had not happened that way. That it had not been so lonely as that.

After all, Arthur had experience with watching people die.

That was how he knew already: he would always carry each of them with him.

#dracula daily #dracula fic #arthur holmwood #renfield #cryptid-deity #my fic

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mzannthropy · 2 months ago

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Anne of the Island Book Club Chapter 41

And so here we are, kindred spirits.

The writing in this chapter is so beautiful. LMM put the best of herself into it. The descriptions, the dialogue, everything.

The wedding of Alice Penhallow that Anne goes to is the subject of the short story The Winning of Lucinda in Chronicles of Avonlea collection. One last comment about Mrs Harmon Andrews: Anne remains unbothered by her passive aggressive attempts to rile her, which I bet makes her even madder!

Something I thought about yesterday was: Gilbert was a guest at Miss Lavendar's wedding, though I don't think AOA ever mentioned him being introduced to her; it was just taken as a fact that he got to know her and Echo Lodge. And of course, the lady herself told Anne that she and Gilbert were made for each other. And here we see that Gilbert is also familiar with Hester Gray's garden.

Just a note on the timeline here: he says "old-time rambles through September woods". Is it September already then? It was about late July in the previous chapter. I know it must have taken Gilbert some time to recover from his illness but it seems a bit too much time has passed?

Anyway, so.

The day was beautiful and the way was beautiful.

So simple and yet so effective. And they glance at each other and like how the other looks!

I'll tell you something--asters are among my favourite flowers. Well, not that I have that many favourite flowers, bc when I see a flower, I usually have no clue what it is, apart from the most obvious ones, but I do like asters. They bloom in autumn, so are normally part of my autumnal photography. An example from my photoblog:

“I have a dream,” he said slowly. “I persist in dreaming it, although it has often seemed to me that it could never come true. I dream of a home with a hearth-fire in it, a cat and dog, the footsteps of friends—and you!”

This is one of the best paragraphs ever written in any literature.

Home is a big aspect of LMM's work. Then, I like the thought of the right person feeling like 'home'. (I can't think of many examples other than "do you feel held by him, does he feel like home to you" from Midsommar, which is--obviously--a dark example, and the song Exile by Taylor Swift and Bon Iver "you're not my homeland anymore so what I am defending now?" which is a sad example. Anyone has a happy example?) And it's what Anne told Phil after she rejected Roy's proposal.

I want some one who belongs in my life. He doesn’t.

There was nothing fundamentally wrong with Roy. But he doesn't belong to her life. His proposal was romantic (I wrote a short story where a couple gets engaged in a pavilion). But he was not Mr Right. It's like with those orchids. Anne likes flowers she can live with, while orchids you can only visit. Gilbert knows this. He takes her to one of her dearest places, Hester Gray's garden, to propose to her. It's why I mentioned Miss Lavendar above--he knows all her favourite spots and her closest friends. I think it's also the meaning behind Anne choosing to wear his lilies of the valley instead of Roy's violets for her graduation. (I wanted to post more on that but I couldn't come up with anything clever. I thought it could have been taken also as a sign of nostalgia--Gilbert was her old academic rival turned friend and wearing his flowers could have been seen as a closure on that part of her life. But it's clear LMM meant it as Gilbert being the one.)

So Christine has been engaged to someone else all the while. If Gil thinks she is one of the nicest girls he's ever known, then I believe him. Anne of Ingleside is my least favourite of the series and I never liked that bit at the end, it was written many years later and I see it as the author looking to insert some conflict into the book, so I happily reject it. It's said in this book that during his last winter at Redmond, Gilbert studied very hard and worked towards the Copper prize, so he would have had no time to hang out with Christine anyway. The college rumour mill is not reliable.

Oh and I know it's cool that Phil acts as a cupid for Anne and Gilbert, but... there was no need for that. If Anne was engaged to Roy, it would have been common knowledge. Clearly she's wearing no engagement ring and is not making preparations for her own wedding. (She goes to other people's weddings instead.) Like, if she was going to teach in Summerside in September, then she was obviously NOT marrying Roy. I mean, okay, I think Gilbert realised that but getting Phil's letter sealed it for him more.

And as for the waiting, that doesn’t matter. We’ll just be happy, waiting and working for each other—and dreaming. Oh, dreams will be very sweet now.

*Nods at the screen and wipes a tear like that meme* Thank you, Lucy Maud Montgomery for this gift.

PS I have Paper Rings by Taylor Swift stuck in my head, which seems very fitting. It seems I cannot stop quoting her, lol.

#anne of the island book club #l.m. montgomery #lmmblogging #mypost

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boasamishipper · 7 months ago

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tagged by @film-in-my-soul and @icemankazansky - thanks guys!! ❤️❤️❤️

Everyone deserves to toot their own horn and be proud of their work! So, this tag game is fairly simple.

Promote 5 works that you're really proud of and share a little about why you're so proud of them! Then tag as many people as you like. You can reblog this post and add on to it (why not create a giant reclist to throw around?) or steal this header (and border if you like) and make your own post.

tagging @bornforastorm @lookforanewangle @apartmentsmoke @maverickcalf @saltyfilmmajor @hacash @academicgangster @onekisstotakewithme and anyone else who sees this and wants to do it

Make A Wrong One Right

Top Gun, Iceman Kazansky/Maverick Mitchell, Goose Bradshaw & Maverick Mitchell

Maverick makes a wish and wakes up thirty years in the past. He reacts accordingly.

I've written a lot of Top Gun fics (sixty-three, to be precise, which is insane all on its own) but this fic is far and away the one I'm most proud of. Not only did I get to throw in all my favorite things (angst with a happy ending!! time travel!! magical realism!! back to the future references!!), I got the chance to explore in a more subtle way just how much Mav loves Ice, and tackle fun existential questions like, Would you change the past if it meant you might lose the future you love? And I feel like I balanced all of the above and stuck the landing really well! (Honestly, the whole story was worth writing just for the bit in chapter three where Mav calls Ice 'baby' without thinking and Ice bluescreens so hard he drops what he's holding.)

there's a raging fire in my heart tonight

Top Gun&MCU, Iceman Kazansky/Maverick Mitchell, Carol Danvers/Maria Rambeau, Carol Danvers & Iceman Kazansky, Iceman Kazansky & Tony Stark, MCU/Coherent Storytelling

“Carol, you can’t bring a civilian into this—” “Civilian?” The temperature in the room seems to drop twenty degrees as Ice steps forward, flinty-eyed and deadly serious. “I’m a captain. And I earned my rank, which is more than I can say for you, Rogers. Thanos killed my husband. You want to stop me from helping you out, you’re going to have to shoot me.” Silence stretches out, long and fraught with tension. Then Stark laughs out loud, and everyone turns to look at him. “What?” he says. “I like this guy.”

This was the first Top Gun fic I ever published, and the first Top Gun fic I wrote on my own. (At the time, I was working on baby, baby, i'd get down on my knees for you with the fantastic @academicgangster, without whom I never would have gotten into Top Gun or on the Tom Cruise train at all.) Naturally my first foray into this fandom ended up being this chaotic, complicated beast of a fic, where I wrote my faves Iceman Kazansky and Tony Stark and Carol Danvers side by side, fixed all my issues with Avengers: Endgame, and gave everyone the happy ending they deserved (especially after all the additional angst I put them through). I had a blast writing this fic and rambling about all the details with Cain (without her support this fic would never have left our tumblr DMs). There were a lot of plot points to juggle, and I managed to juggle them all. So though I've definitely grown as a writer in the (oh god) five years since, I still look back on this fic very fondly, and very proudly. And who knows, maybe someday I'll go back to this series and write more of Ice accidentally acquiring a son in Tony Stark and a granddaughter in Morgan. (Famous last words, I know.)

Judge Leon AU

Night Court (1984) / Night Court (2023), Dan Fielding/Harry Stone, Dan Fielding & Leon, Olivia Moore/Donna "Gurgs" Gurganous, Neil Valluri/Gabby

When his court-assigned public defender quits on his first night as an arraignment judge at Manhattan Criminal Court, Leon decides to reach out to his old foster father, Harry Stone, for advice. He finds Harry's widower, Dan Fielding, instead.

shot:

chaser:

I could not tell you for the life of me why the hands down angstiest fics I've ever written ended up being for an 80s sitcom whose plotlines include a ventriloquist's dummy committing suicide and my blorbo getting so horny he had to fuck a firehose about it, but here we are!! Over sixty-four thousand words later!!

In all seriousness, though, I'm extremely proud of this series. I have a lot of issues with New Night Court (I have a post in my drafts about that), namely that it lacks the edge and darkness that made the original so good, and this series gave me the opportunity to restore that edge and really make us feel Harry's loss, as well as the loss of almost all the other main cast members. I get to be goofy (a man holds the gang hostage on the advice of members of his favorite subreddit) and I get to be angsty (delve deeply into Dan's low self-worth and depression and grief post-Harry's death) and in all the spaces between, I get to write about how much Harry and Dan loved each other (and develop Leon and Dan's growing bond), and I do it all very, very well. (Certainly better than the NNC writers. Let me into the writers' room, guys!! Help me help you!!)

Austin Alone

9-1-1 Lone Star, Billy Tyson/Owen Strand

After the reopening of the 126, Billy and Owen give being friends with benefits a try. Inconvenient feelings ensue. / Season 3 AU, Owen-centric.

I co-wrote this fic with the lovely @lilalbatross while season 3 was still airing, and not only were we so in tune with the characters and the show that our fic accidentally predicted the future (exploration of Owen's abandonment issues! Owen getting trapped in a collapsed building!), but this fic set my standards so high that now the show can no longer reach it. (To be fair, this is largely because Lone Star decided to become the Tarlos and Wyatt Show above all else, but that's a rant for another day.) I'm proud as hell of this fic for a lot of reasons - I got Billy and Owen's voices down pat, put them in mortal peril that was realistic to the show, and wrote some banger lines of dialogue and prose that made me take honest to god victory laps around my house. The entirety of (the very long) chapter 6 might be some of my best work of all time.

For A Minute There I Lost Myself

Ted Lasso, Nathan Shelley & Original Male Character(s), Nathan Shelley & Ted Lasso, Nathan Shelley & Rupert Mannion

Nathan Shelley and the road to redemption.

[sigh] Really it's such a shame that Ted Lasso never got a season three and so we never got to see Nate grow and thrive at West Ham and bond with his players and stand up to Rupert and become more confident in himself and his ability as a coach and apologize to Ted and just in general have a redemption arc that was not centered on some random one-dimensional mean waitress or his ability to play the violin. But at least we have this fic!

I wrote FAMTILM for Yuletide in 2021. I'd never written Nate's POV before - all my Ted Lasso fics up to this point were about Sam and Dani - so I'm proud of myself for being able to capture the nuances of Nate's voice and write the slow growth of Nate's self-esteem and realization that he was in the wrong and his affection for his players (particularly Višnjić and Roubeni, who are in my top ten favorite OCs I've ever created). I'm also very proud of myself for taking what could have been a 30k word story and telling it just as well in under 8k, and writing a full Natedemption arc in less than a month that turned out to be ten times better than what Sudeikis and co accomplished in twelve bloated episodes.

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iniziare · 3 months ago

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what is your definition of canon-strict? it seems pretty — well — strict, and i personally have a bit of a hard time wrapping my head around the term specifically because it seems hard to freely make headcanons or explore things outside of canon. would you say canon-strict is on a spectrum of canon-compliance? what are your thoughts on that term, and what's the degree of differentiation you need to consider a muse divergent?

(this is not meant to be a dig or interrogation but a sincere handful of questions, as i'd like to understand you and how to approach you better! i've seen some people argue that any interpretation that touches upon things not addressed in canon is divergent, but then again they're from fandoms where canon material is remarkably barebones for a majority of characters, and even officially licensed manga/shows vary incredibly widely — leading to multiple "canons" or verses with a lot of interpretative freedom. i'd like to know your definition of canon-divergence, and if it ever bothers you when other muns are canon-divergent.)

Hi anon! I'm aware that I'm answering this quite late and I apologize for it, but I wanted to sit on it for a while because every time I've tried to answer, I end up rambling, and I don't really think that's useful! So let me try this one more time, and see how I fare (spoiler alert: I, to no one's surprise whatsoever, did not keep it short).

To me, canon strict means having a very strong adherence to a character's personality, and lore as they're depicted in their original source material. With the term I genuinely, and literally mean 'strictly following canon'. Anything I do has to make sense within the boundaries of my muse's canon material. You should kind of see it as a writing challenge to myself to try and see how much I can expand on a muse's life and experiences within the constraints of canon before I run into a big 'ole brick wall. You see, I used to write characters where I enjoyed the concept of going beyond canon's bounds over and over, do my AUs, and my rewrites of what we were given, and I very much enjoyed that, but then I wanted to do the exact opposite, and I've found very thorough enjoyment in the challenge for years now, so I've kind of... stuck with it. I don't really know how else to explain it to you other than to say that when canon is written as nicely as it is in the fandoms that I'm in, that I want to avoid changing any of it because why should I? I have no need to do so when I enjoy it just as it is. Essentially, any meta that I write should be more so be seen analyses of canon in some way instead of headcanons, but if I do use the latter term, they're there to fill gaps rather than touch or alter existing facts. And any details that I speculate on are rooted within canon logic. My 'non-canonical' dynamics (or ships) work similarly, while the vast majority are technically non-canon, I still choose them based on what actually clicks for the character, rather than potentially let myself be directed in any which direction by what I'd like to see for them. Does that make sense?

Essentially, everything I do has to make sense within the muse's own canon, and they should not change, or influence anything fundamental. Everything pretty much stays within the bounds of plausibility for the character, and I don't reshape them in any way as to accommodate that which isn't in their own canon. It’s in that where I feel like the difference lies with something more akin to 'canon-compliance'— so when you mention a spectrum, let's say it's a scale from 1-10, I could imagine that canon-strict is on the extreme outer end at 10, standing in direct opposite to the full canon-divergence/AU variant sitting at 1, while canon-compliance could sit anywhere in between those two, though I would reckon it's anywhere between 5-9 for many portrayals I've seen.

Now to finish this off with, I don't have any issues with people who claim their portrayals to be canon-divergent, but I could clash a little with them in terms of plotting if they're very liberal with their divergences. And if they go against what is presented within my muse's canon, then I'm less likely to say yes to an idea, though I will generally try to see if I can reach some sort of a middle ground with them. But in all fairness, I very clearly 'advertise' myself as canon-strict everywhere that I can (and I remind people of the extra important things on each muse page), so I assume people generally know what to expect from me and my portrayals, and then can quickly discern whether I'm the right fit for them and what they're looking for. Because while I'm strict in this and may sound firm, I do try to be as transparent as I can be so that people don't run into threads, only to be surprised six months down the line, I don't want to disappoint people in the end after all! I hope that this was at least a little helpful, anon! And I apologize once more for the very late response. Thank you for asking. <3

#[ inquiries: out of character. ] they do not know what to make of me. i have kept to myself; for fear of giving them purchase to cling to.#[ salt. ] should i be quieter next time? / no. no… it's fine. children don't learn unless you shout at them.#[ i only tag this as salt in case anyone uses the tag in their blacklist since i suppose this touches on a bit of an unpopular opinion. ]#[ but yes. this pretty much is... it. ]#[ i guess i am what some might call a lore purist-- the new term that's making some rounds lately. but i suppose i wear it proudly. ]

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confused-alien · 3 months ago

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WARNING: Hyperactive idiot rambling

OH MY GOD okay so I might delete this later for uh safety reasons,

But this book seriously meant a lot to me on SO MANY LEVELS

Idc if it was way more optimistic than things would be in real life, I like to imagine that this book sets place a couple years in the future when things are miraculously better than our current time, or even some time far in the future and it gives me hope for a time like that. And you know what, this certainly gave me so much more comfort and genuine joy than the queer-love-with-a-tragic-ending trope and I feel like we need more books like that because it’s oKAY to fantasise of better times. It’s oKAY to write a happy ending even though it might not be as likely in our current time, but people most definitely wish for it. And I say this as someone coming from a strictly religious Arabic country in the Middle-East, where you basically have to go through 5x more of a headache to get a life you actually wanted (that being if you wanted to live anything out of the traditional). It’s much more riskier and sometimes even life endangering to stand up for yourself and for others who step away from the traditional norms. Reputation made up of spread rumours can easily determine how people would treat you, nevermind if those rumours were initially true or just blatant lies told by others. People would still treat the rumours as if it were really true. Everyone wants to be seen as righteous and is quickly deemed righteous if they start preaching about religion and traditions, being non-flawless is an excuse for them to rip apart at you behind your back and give you dirty looks when you walk by.

You constantly have to put up a flawless facade so you don’t ‘bring your family’s name to mud’. As a girl it’s much more hellish. Being flawed means ‘no man would ever want to marry you’ and you’ll ‘end up all alone’ and you’ve ‘brought shame to the family’. You’ll get picked apart and torn by everyone. It’s so suffocating, when you’re forced to act against your nature just to please others and live up to their standards. Live up to what they want to see you as. And that brings me to why I deeply related to Henry’s character, that “I don’t have a family who will support me” and “I can’t afford to be reckless like you so that the world would scrutinise me and tear me down even more” really hit a deep spot in my heart it actually made me tear up. And seeing someone I deeply related to on so many levels get the life they dreamed of and gain the courage stand up for themselves actually gave me hope, as cheesy as it may sound. It was healing to read those chapters of him meeting Alex’s dad and spending quality time together with June and Nora alongside them, knowing how it must’ve been such a big breath of fresh air for Henry and a massive change of atmosphere. Same with how the world immediately showed massive support for them and that crowd that cheered for Henry outside of the palace even though their emails were leaked, it seriously made me emotional. And so much more, like how Alex has an internal monologue whenever Henry starts rambling about his passion for specific parts of history, their little dance scene in the museum, and oh my god that “Dear Thisbe, I wish there weren’t a wall, Pyramus” letter and the way that people actually stood outside with the “History huh? Bet we could make some” printed on things as a way of support instead of mockery oh my GOD-

Everything about that book was immensely healing and I’ve smiled the stupidest smiles throughout chapters I stayed up at night reading, I’m going to have a long term attachment to this book and I could feel it. 😭

#cherrii.txt #rwrb #red white and royal blue #alex claremont diaz #henry fox mountchristen windsor #rants ‘n rambles #i could already tell #I was going to develop a lifelong attachment to this book #When I started genuinely smiling so often #Amidst reading it late at night #Seriously though #I’d stay up until 5am because I couldn’t put it down

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karliahs · 7 months ago

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fic writer interview!!

tysm @plusultraetc for the tag!! <3

How many works do you have on AO3?

50 exactly!

What's your total AO3 word count?

234,906, almost half of which (110k) was written/posted this year. insane!!

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

darken your door (12,832)

walk a mile (5642)

swan dive (4857)

rescue (3905)

something else to pretend (3,572)

there's a theme here and it's bnha fics i wrote in 2019/2020

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

yes!! with several asterisks i'll get into in a minute. i try to respond to every comment i get because:

i genuinely really appreciate that anyone takes the time to tell me they liked a fic when they could just consume it and say nothing with 0 consequences, so i want to say thank you

some comments have a rly big impact on me - change the way i feel about stuff, contain phrases i remember for a really long time, make me cry, etc - and just like how if someone writes a fic that impacts me then i want to tell them, i want to tell people how much their comment mattered

i often only figure out why i did something or made certain choices in a fic until someone prompts me to talk about it. it's such a useful exercise for understanding my own work better

i genuinely adore rambling about my fics, it's arguably more fun than writing them in the first place

it's really nice getting to chat to commenters and get to know people!

however. there is a 3-4 year period where i didn't reply to any comments at all because i got overwhelmed and then felt like it was too late to try and catch up. this still haunts me a little bit because i got some really lovely impactful comments in that era but it just feels too weird to reply literally like 5 years late 😭

2nd asterisk is some fics i feel kind of embarrassed about and so don't reply to comments on, 3rd is that i'm bad at managing my comments inbox so i'm sure i miss people out by accident sometimes, and 4th is that if i don't have anything nice to say then i won't respond...i get almost no comments i think are intentionally meant to be rude, but sometimes i get ones that rankle for one reason or another and i won't reply if i'm just gonna be tetchy bc again, i don't think they're meant badly

so very much a yes in theory but not in practice 😂

What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

bargaining chips i think. the funny thing about that series is that in some ways i think things would ultimately turn out better than in canon (there's a reason the 2nd fic has akechi promise to contact ren if he does survive, a thing that would have paid off in the 3rd fic i never finished). but as of bargaining chips it's very much...this is the POV of a person who thinks the only power they have left in the world is to hurt people

What's the fic you've written with the happiest ending?

my usual ending is like bittersweet and/or hopeful, so for example i feel a lot of things about the cathertic (for me at least) endings for redux and something else to pretend and unwanted, but idk if they can exactly be called happy.

going to my pure silly fluff fics instead where we pretty much start happy and end happy: to work, to rest which ends with the gang being happy about stickers, or class pets which ends with class a getting three (3) cats

Do you write crossovers?

nope!

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

not really! probably the closest was someone commenting on pathologised with just "WHERE IS YUSUKE?" in all caps 🙄 "why isn't my fave dude in your fic" is not a genre of comment i enjoy, though it's usually phrased more politely than that at least

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

nope!

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not that i'm aware of, though it's apparently fairly rampant in bnha fandom with those "what if deku [x]" youtube videos. i think those are reserved for fics with actual plots though

Have you ever had a fic translated?

i think i've been asked for permission for people to do so before, but i don't think i've ever actually seen anything posted...someone did translate a little section of one fic into spanish in a bookmarker comment once, which was very fun because i remember little bits of spanish from school & years of sporadic duolingo

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

no but i think it would be so fun 👀

What's your all-time favorite ship?

mannnn i just cannot care about romantic ships the way that seems to be so ubiquitous in fandom. even when i try and write romance it ends up as like ambigious tenderness or Friendship With Vibes. the few times i've even written kissing it's been just a build up to a kiss after which the fic immediately fades to black, which is really funny in retrospect like...buddy, is that because you stop caring about what's happening once the kissing starts?

i am fond of erasermic, jontim and shindeku, though i enjoy them as platonic dynamics pretty much the same amount

What's a WIP that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?

it mostly doesn't bother me to have tons of unfinished WIPs, i don't really put that expectation that everything i start will or should get finished/posted.

so the only one that genuinely bugs me is the third fic in seen and not heard, because i feel like i kind of promised it to people and then didn't deliver, and because it would have properly concluded a series i know a few people really connected with...and because the draft got to like 80% done but i could just never finish it off in a way i was happy with. maybe someday though

there's also a more recent bnha fic draft that i am really fond of in some ways, but i just could not take the discourse i think it would inspire. i might finish it just for me someday

What are your writing strengths?

cribbing all these from comments honestly but i think i'm pretty good at real-feeling emotional responses to situations. emotional realism, maybe? and writing introspection/people thinking and feeling things in general.

my characterisation gets complimented a fair bit, which is funny bc i think i actually take a lot of liberties with canon characters, but i guess i'm decent at couching those liberties in a way that makes it pass muster most of the time. like passing off a counterfeit watch as genuine

i'm somewhat good with grounding things in sensory detail, but that's one of those things i think i'll always be trying to get better at

What are your writing weaknesses?

i've never met a plot in my life and i don't want to. i also can't write longfic. in real-world terms i'm a short story writer and not a novelist - all those structural narrative things people do to make a long-form story work are just mystifying to me. part of that is just driven by what interests me though - i don't read a lot of plotty longfic either

i'm also still working on improving syntax and flow in my prose in general, but that's another one of those endless projects i think

oh also having more than two people in a prolonged dialogue scene is wildly difficult to me

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

i have no thoughts on this matter!

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

merlin! i wrote probably bad merlin fic on ff.net back when i was like 15/16. it's actually the reason i joined tumblr in the first place, bc my fave merlin fic writer had a tumblr and i got curious

What's a fandom/ship you haven't written for yet but want to?

i'd like to write more about my silly little video game OCs. i've dabbled in it a bit before but i've never really invested in it because i know no one would read it/care. but i'm getting better at writing for myself and it is really fun to have records of these OCs that i love, so i hope i can write some stuff about the protag i make for new dragon age that i'll inevitably get deeply attached to

it's also kind of wild to me that i've never written for homestuck or dangan ronpa given the impact those two things had on my psyche

What's your favorite fic you've written?

my answer to this changes depending on the day but right now...something else to pretend my beloved

wow that got long. not tagging anyone but if you'd like to do it, consider yourself tagged!

#talking #love to start the day by rambling #feels good feels organic

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dragonflyxparodies · 8 months ago

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hey i just wanna let u know ive reread af,au a bunch of times and i think my favorite piece has got to be laurel evergreen. im absolutely obsessed w the lore you've created for domino, and the perspective youve created for daphne. shes one of my favorite characters just because of the potential she could have had in canon, and youre doing so much with her it brings a tear to my eye lol. but whenever i get to that part in the reread i take extra time reading it, the way you describe her emotions and actions and how they intertwine is just amazing. i eat it up every time. ive said it before i'll say it again im obsessed with it. i love the hand you had daphne deal in the fate of the coven, and the way you write about her rage is just. so good. i know im rambling but its so hard to fond the words to describe the joy this makes me feel. the emphasis you put on daphne still culturally being considered a child reminds me in a way of all of what shes doing in the fic being a temper tantrum of a child. the illogical and creative thought process she takes, the simple rage that fills her, arent things you find in adult povs, but the minds of children who are easily angered when things dont go their way. daphne is undeniably not a kid, but she isnt an adult either and you do a wonderful job of getting that across. i also love the way you accredit daphnes achievements in a way to bloom, that doesnt take away the fact daphne did them. its less, 'daohne did all of this for bloom', and more 'daphne is a person willing to do the impossible for things she holds dear', adding more to a character that we dont really get, instead of centering her purely around bloom. i could go on and on but this is a lot of words so. youre an amazing writer and a bug inspiration. and i love laurel evergreen a lot lol

Aaa thank you so much < 3<3 <3 I’m so glad you enjoy Laurel Evergreen so much – it was one of my favorite pieces to write, and it’s one of the pieces that are closest to my heart.

I feel like Daphne is kind of getting the short end of the stick in this AU as far as, like, reader sympathy goes, just because the POVs of the main cast are so limited – she’s super antagonistic in Field Trip, and Bloom is not having it, but Daphne’s response is wholly reasonable for her position, for what she knows, for what she’s seeing. She’s a complex character with a whole Lot of Shit to deal with (and she’s still a teenager!). Laurel Evergreen was written waaay before Field Trip, but I’m *very* happy it gives you all a real insight into her character rather than how Bloom + Co see her.

I never got the impression that S1 Daphne was meant to center her entire being around Bloom although…y’know, later seasons oof…and I’m glad that carried through to Laurel Evergreen! I think it’s very important to note; it didn’t have to be Bloom, and you hit the nail on the head lol – Daphne would’ve done that for anyone she cared about.

Which, of course, makes the tragedy of so many of those people she cared about instigating the wholesale genocide of her planet, that much more powerful.

Thank you <3 <3 <3 <3

#ask #winx club #fanfiction #fanfic #a fable agreed upon #a fable au #winx #winx daphne #text

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jesterboystrick · 2 months ago

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Tagged by @ghost-maya to answer 20 questions for fic writers.

I was honestly tagged in this way too long ago, started answering a few questions, then forgot about it in my drafts forever until Maya just tagged me in ANOTHER fic tag game. So, now I have to post this one so THAT one can waste away in my drafts for a while instead, obviously.

Y'all get ready, I'm about to ramble more than necessary on some of these because I love to talk. May not seem like it from how little I post here, but oh boy I'm a talker.

how many works do you have on ao3?

41, which is too fucking many considering I only started in august 😂

what's your total ao3 word count?

113,710

what are your top five fics by kudos?

1. With Hearts in His Eyes (in progress ZoSan multi-chap) 2. Dressed Down (ZoSan) 3. What Happens in the Timeskip, Stays in the Timeskip (ZoSan) 4. A Different Sensation (ZoSanZo) 5. Incentive (SanZo) What's really interesting to me is that my top by hits look the same, except A Different Sensation is replaced with Melt. Melt being in my top 5 hits has baffled me since it made it up there a while ago. I mean, I love that, but I'm shocked that a rarer pair beat out 14 zsz fics for the 4th spot. Shouts out to the CrocSan enjoyers I guess! Glad y'all enjoy it.

what fandoms do you write for?

One Piece. I write whatever I get ideas for, so I technically have some wips for other things, but I don't intend to post any of those and haven't worked on anything non-One Piece since I started posting... except a oneshot I just started recently... you might see that one day if I finish it, but maybe not. Don't worry about it.

do you respond to comments? why or why not?

Yup! No real "why." Sometimes a handful of them build up in my inbox before I get around to answering them, but I just like saying at least a thank you for every comment.

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

Was the All Blue Ever Real? probably. I feel like a lot of my other dark or angsty fics have something that brings the angst up a little by the end, like All That's Left and Scum, since they end with a bit of comfort, and ones like Raw Deal DO end decidedly bad for at least one involved party, but I think of those as way more whump than angst, if that distinction matters here. You Stifle Me, I Suffocate might be up there, but it doesn't quite have a real ending. Since all of it is just Sanji remembering something from his childhood, the ending is just "and then One Piece happens". More... sour tasting ending than clear cut angst. So, all that said, quantifying the angstiEST fic ending is a bit weird, but I'll go with Was the All Blue Ever Real? since it's just kinda bleak all the way around, haha. It's also a more... mundane angst, if that makes sense? No one's getting devil fruit tortured or anything, shit just sucks. Is Scum angstier though, despite the bit of comfort at the end? 🤷‍♂️ Idk, you tell me.

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

😂😂😂 I don't really set out to write happy endings, at least not intentionally. Sometimes they do happen to me, but my plot based stuff usually isn't overwhelmingly happy, so the happiest ending so far is probably by default just something that's more smut focused. I guess... What Happens in the Timeskip, Stays in the Timeskip.

do you get hate on fics?

Not yet! The worst I've gotten is one or two comments that were just... a little hard to decipher. They could be, or could not be, lol 🤷‍♂️. There's one in particular that comes to mind that I genuinely can't tell if it was meant to be positive or negative, so in my mind, it's just neutral. 🤣

do you write smut?

Hahaha. Yeah.

do you write crossovers?

Nope. I'll never say never to just about anything, because who knows what I'll feel like writing in the future, but crossovers have never appealed to me much as a reader or writer. Technically, there's been a few times I've started just a little bit of one, but not seriously, more as just a fun little exercise to entertain myself for a single quick writing session, then immediately forget about.

have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge, and I sure hope not.

have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope.

have you ever cowritten a fic before?

Not yet, but I'm not opposed to it! Never done any cowritting, so I don't know how well I do in that sort of situation, but there's a few fic writer friends I could picture myself trying it out with some day if we ever felt drawn to the right idea for it together.

what's your all time favorite ship?

I really don't know. There is no one favorite ship for me. I could tell you what ships I think about the most at any given time, but that changes so frequently that the answer would be different if you asked me again in a week. Easy cop-out way to answer this: If I check my fic reading spreadsheet that I started at the beginning of January, DofCora is the ship I've read the most of so far this year. Make of that what you will 🤣

what's the wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Considering I have probably around 300 things in my One Piece wip folder (not an exaggeration, I don't have an exact count rn, but it's for sure around there at this point in time), there's plenty of answers to this, but to pick something specific, any of my super long aus. I have several au ideas/wips that are basically "rewriting all of One Piece" type aus, and realistically I'm never posting ANY OF THEM. I know that. I only even let myself delusionally pretend i might ever get around to finishing ONE. A few of my faves are a strawhat role swap au, an au that changes all the strawhat's backstories pretty drastically, and the pro wrestling au. I wish all three of those could be epic length masterworks that retell all of One Piece, because that's how I initially envisioned them, but it's just never going to happen. There's a few of those big fic ideas that I might cut up into the more manageable or best parts and post isolated scenes of some day, but I know none of them will ever get written in their entirety and that's a bummer. The pro wrestling au is the one out of the aus I mentioned that I most want to make work, somehow, some way, some day, but we'll see if it ever shakes out.

what are your writing strengths?

Starting things. I have ideas constantly and I start new wips multiple times a week, sometimes multiple times a day.

what are your writing weaknesses?

Finishing things. I have ideas constantly and I'm always starting new wips. I can't finish them all.

I know these last two questions probably mean more the writing itself, not the process of writing, but I honestly don't really know. It feels a bit lame and too broad to say that I feel like I'm good a dialogue and not as good at anything that comes between, but I don't even know if that's true of my writing on it's own, or just an indication of where my priorities lie and what I'm most focused on and interested in when doing the writing. I've gotten a few comments on how I write characters, saying that they feel in character or very "human," and that certain scenarios or the way characters react to them (particularly on darker fics) are very real or realistic, and I think about those comments a lot. I really appreciate and treasure them. So if you believe those comments, I suppose that might be my strength, which isn't at odds with my feeling that dialogue is something that comes more naturally to me. I imagine they're probably connected.

thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I wouldn't do it. I'm not opposed to the idea of it, but I wouldn't do it myself because I'm only fluent in English and have no way of ensuring that I'd be writing something accurately or comprehensibly on my own. If I ever felt a fic absolutely needed it for some reason, I would ask someone fluent in that language to help or I just wouldn't do it at all.

first fandom you wrote for?

Something related to DC Comics, for sure.

favorite fic you've ever written?

Similarly to my answer on favorite ships, I really don't have just one favorite fic. It changes too often to say, and I tend to have a recency bias for newly posted fics or ones I've reread recently. I'd say that since the start of this year, my fave posted fic of mine has cycled most often between Every Time You Kiss Me, I Could Cry, Scum, and Raw Deal, but a good 1/2 to 2/3rds of my posted fics have been my favorite at one point or another, if only for a few days in some cases.

tagging

As always, I don't really know who to tag, so if you see this and want to do it, consider yourself tagged.

#just talking #ask #If you've ever wanted to send an ask about something but didn't because you didn't think I'd answer given how little I post here #you can take this as your sign to ask anyways #i will clearly talk endlessly when prompted to lmao

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nessarose-thropp · 3 months ago

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A Well-Adjusted Person Music Talk

So when I was writing this I decided early on if I was gonna go for it, I was really gonna go for it which meant doing chapter title lyrics. At first I had the way overambitious idea of doing only songs from the year the chapter takes place but I realized within about 5 seconds that I don't know nearly enough music for that. Instead I made a new, less restrictive self-imposed rule of keeping it to only songs that had come out when the chapter takes place, but they didn't have to be from specific years.

On this post I'm gonna ramble about my song and lyric choices if anyone's interested in that. I'll probably update it as the chapters are published and I'll definitely have more to say about some than others.

Chapter 1. all he left us was alone Song: Papa Was a Rolling Stone by The Temptations This was a pretty obvious choice for this chapter to me. If you've never heard this song (you probably have) the lyrics very easily fit John. While John in canon was more physically present than the father in the lyrics, he was definitely a rolling stone. The Temptations version is actually not the original, but it's by far the most famous. I have something of a history with The Temptations. Although for years I said it was The Jonas Brothers, I learned later my first concert was actually The Temptations in Atlantic City. I learned this fact after seeing The Temptations musical Ain't Too Proud with my sister and my grandma reminded us of the concert we saw as kids. I only vaguely remember it but it's still a fond memory. I'm a big fan of Motown music and The Temptations vocals are just incredible in this song. I loved how it was staged in musical too. Tangent to talk about musicals (what else would you expect from me lol) we saw the show student rush on a Wednesday and the entire rest of the theater was senior citizens on a bus trip. It as a fun show and I knew a lot more Temptations songs than I realized. And I made direct eye contact with Jeremy Pope at one point, I swear.

Chapter 2. I’ll share your load Song: Lean on Me by Bill Withers This is a pretty straightforward one if you know this song which you definitely do. This chapter is focused on Bobby leaning on his friends, especially Rufus, in his time of need and obviously the lyrics fit. It has the added bonus of being a song from the 70s when Bobby and Rufus probably met.

Chapter 3. one look at you and I can't disguise Song: Hungry Eyes by Eric Carmen First Dean POV chapter and we're moving to the 80s! This song is originally from Dirty Dancing which we know Dean has seen (Swayze always gets a pass) and it's pretty cheesy but also super catchy and all about desire. I wanted a more lighthearted song for a more lighthearted chapter and along with Dean's arguably canonical Patrick Swayze crush making an appearance, I went with this one.

Chapter 4. strung out on confusion Song: Coming Clean by Green Day A bit of a more contemporary pick for this chapter which goes along with Dean's self-discovery around his sexuality. I really wanted these early chapters to highlight just how young Dean actually is, that being parentified does not actually make him an adult. This song is all about the teenage experience of discovering your sexuality and it fit perfectly. Billie Joe Armstrong is one of the original openly bisexual celebrities since he came out publicly in the early 90s which does come up in a later chapter ;) and this won't be the last Green Day song you'll see.

Chapter 5. let your heart be light Song: Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas I talked about this a little in the end notes, but the original version of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas is very bittersweet song. I thought this was an obvious pick since this is the first safe and somewhat normal Christmas Sam and Dean have ever had together, but it's also still very difficult for them. Ellen and Jo are also grieving since Bill died only the year before. And although many don't know it's originally from a musical, this is the first show tune on our list.

Chapter 6. bring your good times and your laughter too Song: Celebration by Kool and the Gang This is another straightforward one since this is just a fun party for Sam's birthday party.

Chapter 7. we know where we're goin' but we don't know where we've been Song: Road to Nowhere by Talking Heads One of my personal favorites. I really got into Talking Heads in 2020 when David Byrne was on SNL. They became my quarantine jam. I don't think they're really the type of music Dean would be into, but they're great. I really liked the forward momentum of this song and of course the more on the nose aspect of the "road" and the chapter featuring Dean taking back Baby for himself. The lyrics have some interesting ideas about destiny and determinism that aren't super relevant for this chapter, but definitely relate to Supernatural more general. Definitely look up the lyrics if you're not familiar with the song.

Chapter 8. keep smiling, keep shining Song: That's What Friends Are For by Dionne Warwick & Friends Definitely one of my more on the nose picks lol. This has gotta be one the cheesiest songs ever written sung by a bunch of musicians your mom probably loves (to be fair I am also a big fan of them and I'm in my 20s haha). But it's fun and this chapter is all about Dean discovering real friendship for the first time so there you go.

Chapter 9. just leave it all up to me, we could have a good time Song: Kiss by Prince For this chapter I knew I needed something sexy and confident which Prince's music definitely works for. Prince comes up in this fic both in chapter titles and in the actual story quite a bit. We haven't gotten there yet, but many important chapters of this fic take place in Minneapolis, Prince's hometown where he had a huge impact on the music scene. A very interesting and often controversial figure in music, but undeniably one of the most influential.

Chapter 10. honey, you got to slow down Song: Little Red Corvette by Prince Another Prince song, who would've guessed? This song is all about casual sex which is what the chapter is about. I think the song really works for covering both the judgement and the thrill of a one night stand which is something Dean's trying to figure out for himself. And car metaphors always work for Dean lol. Also it's just a jam.

Chapter 11. to face unafraid, the plans that we've made Song: Winter Wonderland by Bing Crosby This is another straightforward one. I basically wanted a winter song that wasn’t about Christmas and this was the obvious pick. There’s plenty of versions of this like with most classes Christmas/holiday songs, but I usually go for the Bing Crosby version.

Chapter 12. gotta get with my friends Song: Wannabe by The Spice Girls Another very contemporary song and the first one that's actually featured in the chapter. Obviously, this song was huge in the late 90s and Dean would definitely have heard it. If his hatred is real or performative is up to you.

Chapter 13. so I turned myself to face me Song: Changes by David Bowie So this may just be me but despite how much more familiar I am with David Bowie’s music now, I can’t help the fact that my first association with this song has always been and likely always will be the Eliza Rocks musical scene in the Lindsay Lohan movie Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen.

Chapter 14. there's nothing halfway about the Iowa way Song: Iowa Stubborn from The Music Man Well if you forgot that I was a theater kid, here’s your reminder lol. The honest reason why I chose this song for this chapter was just that I thought it was funny. A large chunk of it takes place in Iowa including in one of the cities mentioned in the song, Des Moines. Because of how my brain works it was the first connection I made so here we go. Maybe a little tonally dissonant since this is a bit more of an angsty chapter, but oh well. Fun fact, there’s a video of me in my school production of The Music Man performing this song on YouTube. I was a pick-a-little lady.

Chapter 15. when you find yourself in the thick of it Song: Martha My Dear by The Beatles This is a cheeky one. So the song Martha My Dear was named for Paul McCartney's sheepdog, Martha. So I little hidden trivia for you all. Excited for our first Beatles song to feature. I'm a big Beatles fan so this will not be their last appearance.

Chapter 16. workin' your fingers right down to the bone Song: School Days by Chuck Berry This is another straightforward one. Dean is swamped with school (a first for him) so…a song about school. I do love a song like this with a very clear story about something very specific. You don’t get as many of those in mainstream music nowadays. Also anyone remember this song being in Home Alone 3, the one that wasn’t about Kevin featuring a young Scarlett Johansson?

Chapter 17. a sense of pride to make it easier Song: The Greatest Love of All by Whitney Houston So I actually didn’t know before writing this that this song was a cover, but apparently it is. The Whitney Houston version is the most famous by far. If you don’t recognize the title, you probably know it as “I Believe the Children Are Our Future” which gives it the connection to this week’s chapter. It’s also the title of a Supernatural episode, the one with Jesse the antichrist. I know there’s at least one more chapter title that’s connected to an episode title but it’ll probably be a while before we get there.

Chapter 18. time slips away and leaves you with nothing Song: Glory Days by Bruce Springsteen Time to talk about Springsteen!! This song has a very interesting and sort of ironic place in pop culture. I can firmly say as someone who’s seen Springsteen in concert that it’s a HUGE crowdpleaser and in general it’s often lumped in with songs like Centerfield because of the style of music, but the lyrics are very much not a straightforward upbeat baseball anthem. I always recommend looking up lyrics to Springsteen songs because he’s a great storyteller but he can also be pretty hard to understand especially for non-native English speakers. Glory Days is kind of bitter and ironic, starting with a real story of Springsteen running into an old teammate of his who was going on about the “glory days” when they played baseball. It’s always so funny to hear audiences of mostly older men cheerfully sing about “boring stories of glory days”. It’s definitely not the darkest Springsteen song, but it’s not the hopeful wondrous kind of anthem that Born to Run or Thunder Road are. This was an obvious pick once this chapter came together firstly because of the baseball connection but I also connected Dean to the narrator here. He’s a young man surrounded by older adults trying to relive their “glory days” but they’re actually just sad and pathetic. Perhaps a darker take on a fairly lighthearted song considering what Dean has been through, but Springsteen’s music often goes into much darker themes and truths about American life in general so I think it works well here. And of course we will be seeing more of Springsteen both as chapter titles and in the fic itself.

Chapter 19. I’ve paid my dues time after time Song: We are the Champions by Queen Unfortunately, Graduation by Vitamin C came out just after this chapter takes place so it broke my rules, but I did think it would be funny to use. Instead we have definitely a better song if less specific to the situation. This is of course a very triumphant and celebratory song and I think reflects Dean’s state of mind well. He’s not only made it through nursing school, but also everything that came before living with Bobby that was not easy to survive. This is a huge accomplishment for him and I think is probably the first he’s really been celebrated and just been able to feel proud of himself with no criticisms or anything else negative hanging over his head.

Chapter 20. party like it's 1999 Song: 1999 by Prince Ah, another Prince song. This is the last one for a while, but there will be another. This song is fascinating. It's one of the grooviest songs ever written, it's so damn catchy, and then you listen to the lyrics and it's like woah. This song is about the world ending and there's nothing you can do to stop it so you just let loose and party. Of course the phrase "party like it's 1999" is iconic now, but I think this song works for this chapter on a more than superficial level of just Dean having a good time and letting loose before his real adult responsibilities start (and it is 1999). A lot of people in 1999 did think the world was gonna end, with Y2K and millennial prophecies, it wasn't an uncommon thing to hear. I'm writing this fic with decades of hindsight so it's interesting to think about what actually happened. Late 90s the cold war was over, the US had a strong economy and low unemployment, things seemed pretty good, but we know now how things changed not too long after that, so drastically that you may see it as the "end of the world". And of course there's the supernatural elements to consider with this story. No apocalypse is happening at the moment, but that doesn't mean it's impossible ;)

Chapter 21. enough to drive you crazy if you let it Song: 9 to 5 by Dolly Parton It’s Dolly time! Now a lot of these chapter titles I don’t think Dean would necessarily enjoy my chosen music, some of it isn’t even my taste, but honestly I think he would like Dolly. Really, who doesn’t? This is another straightforward pick. Dean is starting his career and feels weighed down by the mundanity and oppressiveness of his job. But I think the “you’ve got dreams they’ll never take away” line is also applicable. This isn’t just another job to pay the bills for him, this is his passion and he’s determined to find away to enjoy it. How that will happen, you’ll just have to wait and see ;) Of course this pick is also a little ironic since Dean like most nurses doesn’t actually work a 9-5 schedule lol.

Chapter 22. give yourself over to absolute pleasure Song: Don't Dream It from The Rocky Horror Picture Show This was an obvious choice for a Rocky Horror focused chapter. Not the most well known song from the movie, but still iconic. Tim Curry is of course incredible and his voice is genuinely gorgeous in this song. I think this song is weirdly touching while still existing in the craziness that is Rocky Horror, which I think describes Dean's experience in this chapter pretty well.

Chapter 23. the fighter still remains Song: The Boxer by Simon & Garfunkel This is one of my all time favorite songs and was my top song on Spotify a few years ago. I highly recommend looking up the lyrics if you're not familiar. It's such a Dean song it makes me emotional. He has been through so much and he had the strength to walk away from the hunting life, from the thing that hurt him so much, but "the fighter still remains." I think this can work two ways, both that his fighting spirit hasn't been stamped out, that he still has that drive and that passion to fight for what's right, but also that that part of him that went through all those things will always be there. He'll always be ready for another fight.

Chapter 24. connection in an isolating age Song: What You Own from Rent It’s hard to pick one definitively, but What You Own may be my favorite song from Rent. If you didn’t pick up on it yet, I am a huge Rent fan. This chapter was so fun to write especially since it truly isn’t that off from canon. I thought this song was particularly fitting for this chapter with the idea of “living in American at the end of the millennium”. While the millennium did just technically end for Dean, the whole beginning of this fic has been Dean trying to adjust to this new world and find his place and sense of purpose. While Dean’s not dealing with exact same things as the characters in Rent, he does definitely relate to losing so many people you love, living with devastation around you and feeling like the world doesn’t care, and now that he’s left hunting, really trying to find his purpose. And of course the end of this song is “I’m not alone” which is the most important of this chapter, dare I say this whole fic. Dean has been so lonely for so long and truly did not ever have real support until now. I think realizing how far he is from that is overwhelming to him like it is to Mark and Roger in this song. Also holy shit the harmonies in this song 💯💯💯

Chapter 25. wish your bed was already made Song: Manic Monday by The Bangles My alternate pick for this chapter was Monday Monday by the Mamas and the Papas but that was a little too focused on the actual day of Monday which in my head doesn’t work for this chapter since Dean doesn’t work Monday-Friday. Fun fact is that this song was written by Prince so he continues to sneak his way into every corner of this fic I guess. Also The Bangles always make me think of Gilmore Girls.

Chapter 26. put the rags to use Song: Coat of Many Colors by Dolly Parton More Dolly! This is a really touching song about Dolly’s childhood and in this chapter I relate it both to Ellen teaching Dean to sew having this bonding moment but also to Ellen and Jo’s relationship. I’m not sure of Ellen’s exact age, but she was probably a young mother and a pretty young widow, I don’t imagine she had a lot but she has always tried to protect Jo above anything else.

Chapter 27. you wake up with yourself Song: My Life by Billy Joel This is a very catchy song that fit the upbeat vibe of this chapter. It’s really about being disillusioned with the American Dream and trying to go your own way (successfully or not is another question) but there’s big theme of not caring what anyone thinks and just doing your own thing which I think Dean has had to do two times over. First, he had to do so with the hunting world by rejecting what he was raised to do and now that he’s in the regular world with a regular job, he’s still finding that he doesn’t always quite fit in and he has to embrace that part of himself too. But I think he’s getting to a point where like the narrator of this song he can just say “I don’t care anymore”. He is who he is and that’s not gonna change.

Chapter 28. my lonely heart calls Song: I Wanna Dance With Somebody by Whitney Houston This is a very music heavy chapter so I wanted to pick one of the songs from karaoke for the chapter title. I Wanna Dance with Somebody was the clear choice. This chapter is all about feeling lonely and out of place at first before finding joy and connection with Marcus's friends. While there's no romantic connections in this chapter, the sentiment of just wanting that joy and connection after feeling dejected is very apt. Also I think it's fun to think about Dean enjoying songs by gay icon pop divas. That's usually more Cas's M.O. but Dean has a lot of gay friends in this fic, he's gonna listen to pop music if he likes it or not!

Chapter 29. insisting that the world keep turning our way Song: On the Road Again by Willie Nelson This is another straightforward one. I needed a good road trip song and well, it's a very on the nose pick.

Chapter 30. the prerogative to have a little fun Song: Man! I Feel Like a Woman by Shania Twain Let’s go girls! This is a song all about letting loose and having fun with the girls which is basically what Dean does in this chapter lol. I do also like the gender fun of Dean finally really letting loose to this song in particular. He's really shedding a lot of his ideas of masculinity and what it means to be a "real man" in this fic, and cheering along a drag queen lipsyncing Shania Twain is literally crucial to that.

Chapter 31. the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling Song: This Land is Your Land by Woody Guthrie This was one of the harder songs to pick given the topic of the chapter. I really did not want to go with one of the overly patriotic anthems that came out after 9/11. Besides just being too on the nose even for me, those songs really don’t represent things that I particularly agree with. I don’t feel particularly patriotic or proud of this country’s actions when I think about 9/11. I just feel sad. I landed (ha) on This Land is Your Land because of its history as a protest song. It was written in response to the popularity of “God Bless America” and was meant as a protest type of song like many folk songs. I’d definitely look into Woody Guthrie and his life and beliefs is you’re not familiar. To be frank, after 9/11 the response from many people was not actually about loving and protecting America, but about hating certain groups of people they blamed for the attack, especially Muslims. This Land is Your Land is the opposite message. This country is not just for white people, or Christians, or documented citizens, this land was made for you and me.

Chapter 32. how many seas must a white dove sail Song: Blowin' in the Wind by Bob Dylan Went with another folk song for this chapter, although one by someone with much more shall we say checkered past. But I think the message of the song still works. This chapter is about transitions, about trying to find meaning and answers after something so incomprehensible. The questions asked in this song are questions I think a lot of people were asking after 9/11. Of course, the answers the government came to are not always things I agree with, but I think Dean has come to some very different conclusions and we’ll see more of that explicitly in later chapters.

Chapter 33. all the leaves are brown Song: California Dreamin' by The Mamas and the Papas An easy one to pick as Sam dreams about going to California for college. I think it’s very idealized in his head not just because Stanford is a good school, but because of everything else about the state, the weather, the culture, and what it represents to a lot of people. It does tend to be one of the places people get away to, escaping their small towns or more dreary cities for that California dream.

Chapter 34. don't be coy, avoid, or make void the topic Song: Let's Talk About Sex by Salt-N-Pepa Possibly my most on the nose choice for this entire fic lol. But the chapter is literally about Dean talking openly about sex so there you go. It was fun to get a different genre in here since a lot of these songs are pop or rock songs.

Chapter 35. a dream or a song that hits you so hard Song: Midnight Radio from Hedwig and the Angry Inch Always happy for the chance to use a showtune in my fanfic. And now Dean has actually heard this one! This song is so joyful and comes at a moment in the musical of embracing yourself and leaving your burdens behind and I think Dean would really relate to that. Seriously if you’ve never seen Hedwig, I highly recommend.

Chapter 36. many a winding turn Song: He Ain't Heavy He's My Brother by the Hollies I think this might be one of the most common songs used in SPN fan media although usually it’s referring to Sam and Dean’s relationship, but in this case is more about Dean and Adam. Without John there to complicate things and make Dean worried about the hunting life, Dean is able to just accept Adam as family, and although their relationship is not the same as his relationship with Sam, there’s nothing complicated in the fact that he instantly loves Adam and sees him as family just the same. Although he has complicated feelings about the situation, Dean never sees Adam (or Sam) as a burden.

Chapter 37. people and things that went before Song: In My Life by The Beatles Finally time for another Beatles song! I think this one is also pretty straightforward. Bobby has lived a long life with a lot of ups and downs, often right back to back. He loves Sam and Dean and I think would say raising them is one of the greatest joys he’s known, but that was only possible because John was so awful and he had to kill him. His relationship with Rufus is also important but born out of tragedy and almost destroyed by it as well. And Karen is the love of his life, but he only got a brief time with her. This chapter is about embracing his past and accepting that he still loves Karen even if she’s gone. This song says that someone being gone and even finding new love doesn’t mean you ever stop loving the people that came before.

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