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powerovernothing · 5 years

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What would the other two bros do if one of them was really terrified of something?

Dear sweet lovely Anon, I do believe you have just said the magic words. After all, I consider hurt/comfort to be my all-time favorite sort of genre to write about in general, and when it comes to Korbin and his siblings, I rarely do anything angsty without including something near the end to make the pain and the tears all better… so really, what I’m trying to say here is that you really don’t have to twist my arm to get me to answer your adorable question~

In fact, I believe I shall go a step beyond just the regular and long-winded answer I normally do when you send me these wonderful messages and will actually give you a few snippets of my writing based around this very concept! So, in other words, my friend! Buckle up, prepare your feelings, and get ready to do some reading down below!

And, if I didn’t already say it at some point recently, thank you – and everyone else – so very much for the continued and wonderful support! It means more to me than you guys will ever know~!

(*~*Underneath is six different snippets of writing from my Oblivion Verse, some that have actually been unseen as of now on this blog, and all of which involve tons of emotions from all three of the boys. Lots of reading involved, proceed with caution!*~*)

If Korbin Was The One Afraid:

When it comes to Korbin and the subject of fear, the things that he is quite often afraid of is based around the aspects of mental terror. Whether it is because of intense nightmares of past mistakes, or the torment he endures at the hands of Sheogorath and what may happen if he goes against his abuser, those are the things he is afraid of most. So, if he was in the trying process of suffering through either of those outcomes – or both at the same time, imagine that – I believe his chosen siblings would react as follows:

Lucien:

(In the aftermath of Sheogorath’s latest ‘play sessions’ with his Little Raven, Lucien soothes Korbin’s mangled nerves)

“Mydear Silencer, look at me,” He calls to him softly, his voice reassuring andgentle. Yet, when his words are unable to breach through the darkening cloud surroundingKorbin’s mind, his tenderness fades and is replaced with as much firmness as hedares to allow himself to be in this moment. “No, Korbin, you will do exactly asI say, and will look at me when I tell you to.”

It takes a rather long while, butKorbin finally does as he is prompted, and when their eyes meet, Lucien noticeshis normally sparkling gaze is now terrified and filled with overwhelmedtears.

“My brother, you are allright,” He says matter-of-factly, and lowers Korbin’s trembling hands tohis lap, so he might hold them both tightly in his own as their fingers intertwinewith one another. “Simply breathe deeply, and know you are not in any formof danger. Do this as many times as you need, as many times as you believe are required, until you find, and at last grasp the truth behindthe words I speak.”

An extended silence falls over thecamp, and Korbin’s shoulders continue to shake violently; the tears in his eyesfalling from his eyes and down his cheeks even amid attempting to make sense ofhis brother’s instruction. Lucien remains where he is, hardly daring to moveeven an inch from his side, and only squeezes Korbin’s hands when he believes hisSilencer falls prey to whatever unspeakable horror he is attempting to fightwithin his own mind.

And when Korbin is carefully pulled from the depths andrealizes the touch he is feels is Lucien’s own, he grasps onto his brother’s handswith white knuckles, and holds on as though they were truly the only possible thingin time itself that could keep him afloat.

“Can you hear the sound of myvoice?” He asks after a moment.Korbinsays nothing in response to his brother’s questioning, and simply nods; hisbreathing rough and ragged, but calming slightly.Lucien then takes one of hishands away from Korbin’s tight grip and returns his palm back overthe side of his cheek.“Are you able to feel mytouch upon your face?” Another nod, and Lucien’s tonesoftens once again.“And you know for absolute certainthat it shall not harm you?” “…I do,” Korbin finally speaks, and he struggles to find his words.“I know… very well that you… that you would never hurt me, Lucien. Even when… evenwhen I’m like this…”“Yes, very good,”Lucien replies with a genuine smile. “And indeed, you are correct in whatyou say, my Silencer, for I would never think to harm you in any way.”And although he cherishes the soothing words his brother speaks to him, and howthe Madness is beginning to subside the longer he remains underneathLucien’s careful touch, the lingering fear of somehow falling back to sleep, only to find himself suffocated underneath never-ending chains, before being broken from an all too different, and oh-so sickening touch, only causes his shoulder to tense and whatever reassurance he thought to heave leave him almost instantly.“But even if you wouldnever hurt me… I know… I know someone who would,” He pulls away from Lucien’s touch, and wraps his arms around himself. “Someone who did. In my mind, before you came tome. You have no idea what it was like, brother, it was simply…”However, Lucien refuses to allowsuch a thing to happen, and reaches to pull Korbin back before he has a chanceto get too far.“It was simply a terribledream, and nothing more,” He explains in a gentle tone, placing one hand in hishair and the other around his shoulders as he holds him close. “It cannot physicallydo any damage to you.”Korbin shakes his head. “But,you don’t –”“—Silence now, and know Iam here,” He whispers, lowering Korbin’s head to his chest before he thinks to speak another wordand runs his fingers through his brother’s tousled locks of grey affectionately. “Whatsoever yousaw surely does not matter any longer, for you are safe within my embrace, and Ishall never let anything come to harm you, Korbin. Not now, and not even whilstyou sleep.”

Martin:

(Martin tends to Korbin after an ambush by the Mythic Dawn, and Korbin blames himself for needing help at all)“There is no shame indesiring protection, and comfort; or coming to my side and allowing me to healyour injuries, you know that I would never –”

“–You very nearly passed outbecause of me, Martin.” Korbin interjects softly, cutting him off as hefeels the tears pooling in his eyes. “You wasted too much energy, and Iwould have been the reason for you hurting yourself…”

Martin breathes out, andthen begins to stand to his full height; touching both of his hands to Korbin’scheeks affectionately, and carefully lowering his tone.

“And yet do you see merefusing, or turning you away, even if such words were true?”

Korbin shakes his head, attemptsto wiggle out of the touch he does not deserve, but his brother onlyholds him in place.

“No, it is not as thoughyou would slam the door in my face,” He tells him, his eyes nearlyoverflowing. “But it does not mean that you should help me,or that I deserve such…kindness.”

Martin places a hand againstKorbin’s neck, and slowly pulls him forward. Korbin does not fight him, he onlyreaches out and grabs a part of Martin’s robe to clutch onto. Grounding him andkeeping him afloat in this dark raging sea. Just another weakness, just another act born ofshame.

“And just why do youbelieve that?” Martin whispers, allowing his brother to hold on ashe runs a hand through his hair. “Why do you believe that you, mydearest little brother, is unworthy of my affection, or my love?”

Korbin buries his head intoMartin’s robe and chokes out a quiet sob. “…Because what if in thenext instance that this happens, you are with me?” The tears run freelydown his face. “What if you are injured somehow, or you expend too muchenergy, or my own actions cause you to leave me?”

Martin pulls back andgives him a curious stare as he tries to dry his tears with his thumbs. “What do you mean by–”

“–You know exactly what Imean by my words, Martin!” Korbin shouts, jerking back as tears runincessantly down his cheeks. “I cannot bear the thought of my mistakescausing you to die in my arms or turn away in shame and anger! And yet, with asmany missteps as I take, it surely means that is only a matter of time before Istumble down the mountain entirely, and you or Lachance fall along with me! Itonly makes sense! Perfect, terrible, awful sense!”

Martin feels his heart breakinganew, and yet he only moves forward to pull Korbin back against him. He husheshis frantic cries and tries to calm his shaking shoulders.

“…Korbin, neither I nor Lachance would ever think to leave your side,” Martin slowly rocks himin place, attempting to soothe him in action as well as words. “We loveyou far too dearly to ever think of doing anything of the sort.”

[…]

“What I am attempting tosay, however,” Martin slowly turns Korbin’s face back around, and lockseyes with him as his voice turns serious. “Is that even though you may beafraid, and that the path before you may be treacherous, and overwhelming tobehold… there is certainly no shame in how you feel, as you are not alone infeeling them. Nor are you alone whatsoever.”

Martin leans forward, and Korbinis surprised when he places a gentle kiss upon his brow. “And if you find that toohard to accept,” He whispers gently, the firmness in his voice gone as quickly as it had come. “Then simply allow me to fightoff whatever frightens you the most.”

If Martin Was The One Afraid:

Being the chosen heir of the Imperial throne in the midst of the great Oblivion Crisis, there is no limit to the things that Martin would end up being afraid of. From dealing with the constant onslaught of Daedra forces, to knowing he will have to bear the weight of the crown by the end of the Crisis, to even witnessing his brothers constantly putting themselves at risk for his own sake… there are many things that could make Martin frightened for one reason or another. Thus, if something like that occurred at any point, I believe his siblings would react as follows:

Lucien:

(Martin has sleeplessness from the Mysterium Xarxes, and Lucien tends to him)

“When was the last time that you slept?” He says,reaching out his hand and turning Martin’s face to the side with a singletouch. “And slept more than a few hours at a time?”

Martin touches the hand that is on his face and lowers itwith a small – rather nervous, sheepish – chuckle. “Would you possiblybe satisfied in any way, if I told you that I simply cannot remember?”

Lucien frowns in response, quite obviously not pleased in anyway regarding Martin’s words, and he exhales a soft sigh. “Ah, then it is justas I thought.”

Lucien pulls his hand away from Martin’s grasp, and thenslowly begins to shuffle backwards upon the large bed until his back is laidpropped against the headboard. When he stills, he crosses his arms overhis chest, and gestures towards Martin with his chin.

“Then I shall ask you again,” He says, and heshakes his head in knowing that Martin managed to have him repeat himself afterall. “Come here and allow me to rectify your terrible choices atonce.”

Martin pauses, genuinely surprised by what he was hearing,and what Lucien was doing – for him,and not their youngest, more troubled brother for once – and he just smilesfaintly.

“Are you suggesting that I come lay beside you?” Heslowly moves forward, but pauses half way, as though he was awaiting voicedapproval of such actions. “As you would with Korbin?”

Lucien holds out his hand; an invitation. “Do you have issuewith that?”

Martin shakes his head and takes the offered hand willingly. “No,not at all,” He tells him simply. Letting himself be pulled forward untilhe was directly beside Lucien against the pillows. “I was just… rathersurprised that you would choose to do this. For me, that is.”

Lucien wraps an arm around Martin’s back, and slowlyreadjusts the Emperor Priest until his head was laying upon his robedshoulders. He listens carefully to the words in which his brother speaks, and asmall amused chuckle escapes him before he realizes it.

When Martin looks up, due to the sudden sound, Lucien justsoftens and tightens his almost protective grip around him.

“You are my brother, are you not?”

Martin nods, nestling himself further within Lucien’s grip,and finding the embrace of The Assassin comforting despite everyknown reason that it shouldn’t.

“Indeed; or at the very least, I was the last Ichecked.” Martin smiles slightly playfully.

“And you have gone without sleep for many nights;possibly brought on due to a certain Daedra Artifact and its influence overyou?” Lucien turns his head, casting Martin back underneath his darkstare. But instead of the Septim Heir desiring nothing more than to wiggleaway, and escape from Lucien’s eyes, he notices a hint of concern lurkingbehind his elder brother’s eyes.

Martin merely nods and allows him to continue. To piece togetherthe puzzle pieces he had already gathered, and to admit the truth in which wasalready clearly known.

“…Or perhaps, it was not simply that damnable bookitself, but the nightmares seeking to torment you when you longed for asoundless rest?”

[…]

“Lucien?”

In response, almost as though he could sense where thisthought process was heading just from the whisper of his name alone, Lucienhushes Martin, and pulls his brother closer.

“…I am not going anywhere, Septim,” He reassures him,hoping it is enough even as he wraps his other arm around him just in case itproves otherwise. “Sleep and know that I am here. You are perfectly safe.”

Korbin:

(Martin is temporarily blinded by Akatosh’s great power, and Korbin tries to see the bright side of things)“Martin, what in all of Sithis himself were you thinking?!“Korbin shouts, kneeling in front of his brother and grasping onto his shoulderstightly as his concern and anger combine into an uncontrollable emotion seeking to overwhelm.“I told you I would have beenfine! You had no reason to give yourself over to that sort of magic, especially whenyou barely understand such power to begin with!” He shakes Martin slightly in emphasis to his heated words, and then his emotions shift from the intense mixture of worry and rage, to a much more selfish line of thought. “You could have hurt yourself back there! Burned yourself from the extent of the flames, did terrible things to your body, or you could haveeasily died by unknowingly expending too much energy! And just what would I have done then? What would I have done if youdied in the process of protecting me?!”Korbin pulls his hands away, and impatiently awaits a reply. But whenone does not come, and instead his brother simply continues to stare at him blankly, hardly reacting to his words, or even the sudden shaking, his expression twists in frustration.

“Are you merely going to let me ramble on without end? Without hardly saying asingle word in response?” He asks in an offended tone, and then touches his shoulder once againwith one hand, patting it lightly in an effort to gain his attention. “Did you evenhear a single word I said to you at all?”

Martin inhales a deep breath in the hopes of somehow composinghimself, but it does very little to soothe his nerves. His shoulders beginto shake as he desperately scrambles to reach for the hand he feels restingagainst his shoulder. His voice stammers, and his unfocused eyes fill to therim with terrified tears.

“…I can… I can hear you justfine, Korbin,” He tells him when he finds his brother’s hand at last. He turnshis head, and the tears slip down his cheeks as he clutches the hand pitifullyagainst his chest. “It is only because I cannot… see you… that I said nothing. Know that I… that I can hear you just as clearly as I would naturally… but your face… noteven your place in, where I assume, you are in front of me… I can no longer see it… Isimply cannot see anything…”

[…]

“All right, this doesn’t… this doesn’t mean it isn’t something we can learn to deal with, and come to terms with, yes?” Korbin mutters with a nervous chuckle, one hand resting against Martin’s face so that his brother might know he is still there outside of voice alone, and the other running through his hair almost frantically before he stands.

“We have faced all manner of things before now, and dear Sithis, we have even faced the very worst that Oblivion itself had to offer! So, a little thing like… like a sudden loss of sight doesn’t mean it takes away who you are! You are still very much my beloved brother, and I care for you even if you have bright and shining eyes much like my own, or dimmed and faded ones!”

Martin sits with his hands folded in his lap where Korbin had placed him beside what he assumes is the feeling of the heat of the fire lightly warming against his skin as it crackles and pops. He listens intently to his brother as he rambles on and finds it curious how his voice fades in the distance, and then rises in volume at least half a dozen times.

He can only surmise, from behind his still darkened eyes, that his brother is pacing about the grounds of their campsite.

“And if that is not enough to soothe you,” Korbin begins, halting his step and coming to stand in front of his brother with his hands outstretched to gesture. “Then we could always locate a healer of some kind! I mean, there must be some amount of magic, or magical being in this Void cursed world we inhabit that could make you better! I mean, whatever else is that damn magic good for if not for healing! Or, if you simply do not want to involve an alternate means of magic – considering it was Divine tampered magic that caused this to happen to begin with – then I simply stay beside you and help whenever you needed to see.”

Korbin kneels in front of Martin and reaches to take his brother’s hands in his own, and Martin tilts his his head and blinks in surprise.

“After all, considering that my honored title is the Knight of the Emperor, I see very little reason why I cannot be considered the Eyes of the Emperor just the same,” Korbin tells him with a genuine smile. “I can assist whenever you need to pass judgement, or when you need to write out papers, or even when you need to go from one room to the next. Whatever is needed my dear brother, you have me. As long as it helps… and as long as you know, without a doubt, that I am with you in this darkness….”

If Lucien Was The One Afraid:

Now, this is where things become quite tricky, and just a touch complicated in the long run. Mostly because, as the eldest sibling out of the three, there are very seldom moments where Lucien allows himself to be seen as weak in front of both Korbin and Martin. As he deems himself to be their protector, and the one who keeps them safe whenever something dangerous or frightening arises.However, this is also where it backfires on him, as while he is indeed the eldest, that just means he has so much more to lose. Worrying over their safety, and fearing the moment he would be too late, sometimes it just overwhelms him in uncontrollable ways. And while there aren’t exactly many moments where he is the one receiving comfort from his younger brothers, you have just managed to inspire me to create more, my dear Anon!

But here’s hoping these will sate you until that time comes~

Korbin:

(Lucien is haunted from nightmares of his previous Silencer, and his brother’s death, and Korbin calms him unintentionally)

“What good is your trustand love, dear Speaker,” Lara whispers; her fingernails digging into hisforearm and drawing blood, as her lips twitch with a demented smile. “Whenyou knew in your cold and selfish heart that you would never be able to carefor them as much as they cared for you?”

Lucien’s eyes dart quickly fromboth Lara’s bloodied and torn face, to where Korbin stands far too still as heslices his throat with The Assassin’s own dagger, and he feels himselfdrowning. Being pulled under the weight of his own choices, his own mistakes,his own foolish heart that should have never tried to love whatsoever, and allhe wishes to do is scream until his throat is raw.

“Whatever you thought were yours to hold, shall againbe taken!” Lara squeals happily; pulling Lucien into her embrace, as hervoice shifts from playfulness, to quiet anger. Lucien feels a cold sweat formover his forehead as he listens to her words. “And yet, why do you look sosurprised, dear Lachance? Have you not realized by now that your love is simplya death curse written in the bloodstains of those you foolishly sought to carefor?”

Lara finally lets him go, andLucien falls to his knees in tearful heap. Watching helplessly as Korbin chokeson his blood, and falls backwards away from the cliff side, and down into thedepths of the abyss below. As he does, and Lucien’s hand remains outstretchedtowards a brother he knows he can no longer save, he finds his voice at last.

“Dear sweet Dread Father make itall stop!”

[…]

“By Sithis, I surely cannot explainit,” He mutters to himself; his tone quiet, far softer than the mosttender whisper. “…But the mere thought of losing you in any way; why, itis enough to bring me to my knees in sheer grief alone.”

As his hand moves away fromKorbin’s head, a small grumble – caught between another snore and a groan –reaches his ears, and his brother begins to stir from where he lay.

“…Lucien?” He says ashe attempts to raise his head; his eyes still closed as he speaks. “W-Whatdid… what did you say?”

Lucien chuckles warmly despite it all and leansdown on one knee. “Nothing, my Silencer,” He whispers; pulling the blankets back up around Korbin’sshoulders. “Or at the very least, nothing of grand importance.”

Korbin lowers his head back ontohis pillow when he feels the warmth of the blanket envelop him, and he smilessleepily.

“Are you certain?” Comespart of his question, and his head rolls several times to the side and backuntil he is able to find enough willpower to finish what he was saying. “Afterall, if there is… something you need from me, I could try… and assist?”

‘All I need from you, my brother, is for you to simply stayalive.’

It goes unspoken, unsaid, and asLucien muses silently over the thoughts in his own mind, he slowly brushes theback of his hand against Korbin’s cheek in a candid moment of affection.

“Yes, I am quitecertain,” He answers simply; his gentle actions betraying his otherwiseunemotional tone of voice. “Go back to sleep now, and we shall speak againcome morning.”

Korbin nods in response to hisbrother’s commands, incredibly eager to follow them to the letter withouthardly a word in complaint for once. Lucien continues to watch Korbin for amoment, and when he believes him to be back within the realm of sleep, hefinally stands; moving away from the beds before heading back towards thecracked door of their shared chambers.

But before he reaches connectinghallways, he hears a familiar voice sound from the shadows once again.

“Goodnight, brother,”Comes Korbin’s fading tone from behind; already consumed by his tiredness whenthe words leave him, and yet still desiring to have the final word even still.

Lucien merely smiles sadly whenhe hears his Silencer’s incredibly innocent – and yet far too ironic – wellwishes, and he slowly shakes his head as he whispers his faint reply under hisbreath.

“Sleep well, my dearKorbin.”

Martin:

(Lucien breaks down whilst on the search for Mehrunes Razor to save Korbin from Sheogorath, and Martin soothes him)

Lucien buries the sharp edge of his blade into the bark of the tree and forces down the scream rising in his throat. From the corner of his eyes, he sees Martin’s hands trembling in front of him, uncertain as to what he could possibly do to make this moment better. And all Lucien can do is laugh bitterly at the sight.

“…How is it that no one, in the entirety of this unjust and vile land, has come to realize that we, as his chosen eldest siblings, only want him to be safe?! To at last be set free from his seemingly unending torment and have some manner of the peace so wrongfully denied him!” He slams his fist against the harsh bark and cares very little for the blood running down his hand in response to his actions. His eyes are downcast, and he stares at the pebbles at his feet as the memory that drove him to such a state repeats without end in his mind, and he becomes more emotional.

“Is the sight of him lying in broken tears not already enough to feel utterly helpless? Knowing there is very little we can do at this point to soothe him? Is the sound of his near constant begging for the sweet release of death far too much of a grand request in the eyes of for any possible Divine or Dread Father to somehow grant their mercy?”

Another laugh escapes him, and he slowly pulls his hand back to wipe the blood upon the surface of his armor before turning around around and locking eyes with Martin as angry tears slip down his cheeks. When he began weeping, he surely does not know, but he makes no effort to stop them from falling, even when he sees Martin’s own eyes go wide in shock.

“Of all things… of all things that would prompt them to shun us both away they are needed the most… why must it be this? Why must it be him?” He asks miserably, forcing himself not to step back as his brother begins to move forward. He simply remains fixed in place, all his energy spent on giving life to the words, and the emotion, he had kept within him for too long.

“Tell me, oh wise Emperor… For all your knowledge, all your reassurances, and all the Void-Damned hope you continue to carry alongside that ever-damnable Light, merely answer me this…” Lucien feels his legs beginning to tremble alongside his hands, and he hates every part of the weakness he is allowing himself to give into. But it was too late now, and if he did, indeed somehow fall, then perhaps Martin would catch him. Perhaps then, the two of them could make sense of this all, instead of choosing to shoulder it solely on their own.

Perhaps that is what Korbin needed.

“If you are so content to stand silent and bear witness to me in such a state, lost and near breaking just the very same as you, then surely you must have the answer which eludes me,” Lucien shuts his eyes before he continues, allowing himself to shed broken tears. His anger now having faded away, and simply replaced with genuine pain. He takes a breath, and speaks from behind closed lids. “Why is the one thing I know we both truly desire above all else, for our brother to be alive and to simply feel joy once again, why must it seem so utterly imposs–”

His words are cut off before he has a chance to complete his sentence, for he suddenly feels arms wrapping around his shoulders, and his breathing catches in his throat. Rising his head, he opens his eyes, and sees the faint shape of Martin resting against his shoulder. His hands begin trembling more fervently as they linger just above his brother’s back.

“It is not impossible, and we shall fight back againstevery thought saying otherwise, until we are able to finally save him,” Martin whispers softly, pulling the Assassin close, and tightening the grip he has around him. “He will live through this, Lucien, for we will not let him go so easily. You simply have to keep trusting thatthere will come a day where this will at last be over…and he will be his smiling self once again.”

Lucien says nothing, only nods and slowly wraps shaking arms around Martin’s shoulders. The Emperor Priest rubs a hand over his brother’s back in comfort, as he tries to calm Lucien’s raging emotions with whatever gentle words he believes that he needs to hear the most.

“And if such a thing proves too difficult at first, or you are unable to continue to uphold your self-imposed image of unshakable strength for whatever reason,” He whispers into his ear. “Then understand that it is quite all right, and I shall simply believe enough for the both of us…”

Oh goodness, this ended up way longer than I first expected it to when I was first compiling my ideas, but I honestly couldn’t help myself by the halfway point! Your question was so lovely, and I got so inspired by it, that I couldn’t help but give you something special in return for you taking the time to drop this in my askbox! Did I possibly overwhelm you with all the various snippets of writing from so many different scenarios? Most likely, but I hope that even despite that, you enjoyed reading all of this over!

As you may have already guessed, most of these came from different points in the boy’s lives – some during the Crisis, a little while after, and some even post the two-year time skip – so there’s a touch of flip flopping around, and some of these were actually quite old before character development actually set in. Meaning I had to do a little flash editing to make them presentable to how Korbin and his brothers act nowadays. But as I said, I hope you end up getting some feelings while reading, and you are satisfied with all the new information and scenarios involving these three!

If you have any further questions about the boys, are curious about one of the snippets above that you wish to see more of, or you just wish to poke my brain a little further in the near future, please feel free! I am always overjoyed and honored whenever you prompt me like this, and I always enjoy taking the time to answer you in full! Thank you so much again for leaving this message, sorry for making you wait a while – as well as possibly overwhelming you with all my writing lmao – and I hope that your days are filled with lots of love, hurt/comfort, and tons of hugs and kisses!

All the best to you, lovely Anon~ ♥

#Anonymous #TKTEATA Anon~#The Knight The Emperor And The Assassin~#My Fan Fiction~#Korbin and Lucien Related Things~#Korbin and Martin Related Things~#Martin and Lucien Related Things~#Good Lord this thing turned into an absolute monster of a post but considering that I just adored dear Anon's question so much #I had to turn around and give them something special!#Of course going over this I realized just how much I write in one setting and how big my stories can be now and again.#I had to trim a lot of fat and think of the best possible scene to put into this without it turning into ten thousand words of hurt/comfort.#It still wound up becoming quite big -- but hopefully it's a good kind of big.#In any case I want to thank you again for taking the time to give me this message lovely Anon!#You're always the best and I super appreciate you!#I have several other questions still to get to in my askbox but I'm slowly but surely getting around to them!#Thanks so much for the continued support and the patience my dudes~#I always adore and love you guys! ♥#Thanks for reading!

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prettygraceful · 5 years

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ok, i’ve been telling my dad this for months and i thought i’d finally share here. here is my dream scenario for when shadowhunters comes back (since i still keep hope that it will). and by that i mean what should happen- within realistic parameters- that i think would bring the show more general positive reactions, a larger fanbase, and stable success to ensure many more wonderful seasons. so we pick up shortly after where the epilogue left off- with the mains divided into the new york group and the alicante group- and they stay split up. this allows for 2 “A” storylines to run concurrently to allow for a wider audience to stay invested and more character dynamics to be fully explored, instead of shoved into rushed, very limited screentime “B” and “C” storylines. i’m thinking similar to daenerys and jon snow (pre s7) in GOT, aka equally important main leads.

clary remains the hub of the NY squad, as she’s always been. she is the favored female of the fandom, and this still honors the spirit of the books. alec becomes the hub of the alicante squad. he is the favored male of the fandom (tv time’s recent poll had him at more votes than the next 2 guys combined. he had over 700,000 while jace and magnus only had over 300,000 apiece. clary was at over 200,000). ok, we’ve got the chosen by logic “hubs” so let’s talk the “spokes”.

NY squad includes jace, obviously, and simon, izzy, maia. but instead of sizzy or saia, they slowly develop into a polyamorous throuple. this accomplishes many things: 1st, the shippers could make peace. 2nd, maia would have a solid link to who’s always been the center of SH: the lightwoods family. and 3rd, it could trim the fat, so to speak. instead of having supporting character wlw (heline, ollie, sam- all stereotypically characterized tv wlw, who only ate up screentime that should’ve gone to the downworlder mains imo) the wlw rep could be izzy and maia- already fleshed out mains. after spending time together resulting in unlocking some feelings, they could all get together since they both still care for simon too. now they’d have to be bi/ pan obviously- so no lesbian rep- but as a lesbian myself, i’m averse to the idea that every show has to “check every box”. quality over quantity. a trio of only POC is original vs just another wlw pair with 1 white person. as long as it was written properly, it could avoid bi stereotypes.

now the NY squad has all the different dynamic options to explore that this fandom seems to love (clace, climon, clizzy, claia, sizzy, saia, jimon, and jaia. and the jace/ izzy dynamic can finally get it’s dues!) and with a 3 POC to 2 white ratio, it’s better diversity than when things always revolved around the squad of shadowhunters in s1 thru s3. meliorn can join the fun sometimes. clary gets her powers back, but hopefully without the “mary sue” aspect. when the solution for everything was often just being shown new runes and drawing them, where was the earned achievement? (versus like when valentine was defeated, she did that!) generally, self-made heroes- rather than “born special”- are more relatable and inspirational. like arya vs daenerys- who was born able to hatch dragons in fire. she achieved so much, but without the dragons- like clary’s angel powers- none of it would’ve been possible. then again, i know daenerys is very popular, so my preference in hero types obviously isn’t universal. so either way, i guess.

on to the alicante squad (my personal favs)! magnus and luke have obviously already joined alec here, and they’re rebuilding the shadowhunter homebase to be an accepting environment. there has to be an actual lengthy, difficult power struggle here- an extremely prejudiced regime like the clave wouldn’t just topple overnight. maryse is here too and should be bumped up to be a main. then it’d be 4 women to 5 men as our mains- much more balanced. then 1 or 2 new lady characters could be introduced. let’s get some new blood on the show! and to appropriately fit into the already existing dynamic here, it’d be best if they were 30+ in age. (and hopefully they cast taller ladies, cuz aside from the mother roles- jocelyn and maryse- all of them have been 5′2″ to 5′5″ and it’s time to mix it up). they can develop solid friendships with our squad. also the parabatri needs to finally get it’s dues, since we’ve been robbed long enough. ok, and so with 1 shadowhunter, 1 downworlder, 1 sh turned dw turned sh again, and 1 sh turned mundane, there’s a lot of different perspectives here. and the new ladies could have their own unique perspectives as well. so it’d be very interesting for there to be problems they all must solve, but they each have their own ideas on how to go about it. thru compromise at times- and deferring to the one who’s perspective lends a better insight other times- they’d have innovative solutions.

to address why mizzy instead of either with clary, why the new women would probably not be wlw, and why the “hubs” are both white- it’s cuz the point of this post is me throwing in my 2 cents on what changes could be made- in the hands of new showrunners and now that we’re free of the book material- but is still possible, realistic, and viable given the way the industry machine works, and the demographic of this fandom. i’d also like to note that i just really want raphael and catarina gone, since they refuse to let magnus interact with them! they each only had 4 eps with him, yet they’re his “family”? it became beyond absurd! raphael= none in s1. 1 in s3. catarina= none in s1/ s2. only 1 in 3b- 3x22 doesn’t count cuz they didn’t talk at all. and for those who’d balk at alec being separated from jace and izzy, i say- have you never met adult siblings? it’s healthy, normal, and encouraged in society, that when siblings grow up, they go their own separate ways and live independent lives. forge their own paths. it does not mean they love their siblings any less. i have a sister, i should know.

in conclusion, the 2 separate squads would have their own adventures in the first 8 episodes of each half season. i think most everyone agrees that politically driven themes- dealt with symbolically thru this fantasy world- would make for better story arcs rather than just good vs evil (val, jonathan, lilith) all the time (esp since SH doesn’t have the budget to make fantasy elements very exciting). since there is a nice ratio of shadowhunters and downworlders in each squad, the set up for these themes would already be in place. and then much like any show that has divided storylines, at some point you’ve got to bring them all together. this could happen in the 9th episode. a wedding or holiday celebration or whatever. they could all sit around a giant table and have a feast and this ep could just be warm and fuzzy. lightwood family time- including magnus/ jace’s long overdue friendship- and a chance for them all to reconnect, until the last scene of the ep when some big bad guy dramatic problem could arise. then the final ep of the half season could be them all working together (as a whole or separately in smaller groups) to defeat the big bad (save the budget and the big fantastical sets/ creatures for the finales). end on an exciting cliffhanger. ta da!

#shadowhuntersedit #tagged to reach a larger audience #plz no one start drama #just sharing my thoughts #if you like it let me know :)#if not... oh well #meta #like i said this isn't my absolute ideal scenario either #seeing as alec/ izzy is #my 2nd fav dynamic on SH after malec #but overall i feel this would be best #ok i've reread and edited this post #like a billion times for over a week now #i'm not even kidding #so time to just post it already #here we go...

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marauders-fanfilm · 5 years

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Long Overdue Update

Hey everyone! First and foremost, I want to issue an apology. I posted an update at the end of 2018 for the backers on Kickstarter & Indiegogo, but neglected to post it to our social media pages, and that’s on me. We are still here, we are still hard at work, and I apologize for neglecting our Social Media lately. I am making a point to rectify this for the future.

Yes, the project has taken far longer than any of us anticipated, and while it is not any one person’s fault, I will take responsibility here on behalf of the production. And for that I apologize to all of our backers, our fans, and to our cast and crew. We all want to see this project completed, and our Post Production team have been pouring their hearts into doing so. Unfortunately as we all are working as unpaid volunteers, and we all have other commitments we must prioritize- Day jobs, school, families, etc, and as such our availabilities fluctuate week to week. But our team has been generously donating their nights and weekends to the film, and the results so far have been amazing. That said, if anyone has experience in Visual Effects and really wants to contribute, we’d always be happy to have more hands!

Outside of Visual Effects, which is the main thing that has been taking time on this project, the score is almost complete, and is sounding absolutely beautiful. It’s taken a while, as composer Paul Bourque has been quite busy with his own professional music career, but it is going to be worth the wait. There’s also going to be a fair bit more on the Official Score than just what is heard in the film. I truly think you’re all going to love it! It has come to our attention lately that there have been some questions circulating about the film’s budget and how it was spent. This is absolutely fair, and I’m happy to expand more upon that and what’s been going on lately, though I am going to add a cut here before this post gets any longer! TLDR, we’re still here, still hard at work, and while it has taken longer than any of us anticipated, we truly feel that it will be worth the wait -Aaron Director, The Gathering Storm

2017 was largely a year of delays and roadblocks, and that slowed things down a lot. Our original VFX Supervisor (a team of one) finally left the project after almost a year of delays, admitting he just didn’t have the free time to commit to the project. We brought on a new team of VFX artists, but after several months, they too left the project, admitting that they just didn’t have the time with their academic workload. This just left our current VFX Supervisor, Martin Bayang, alone, and essentially still stuck at the starting line.

But with our last update in April of 2018 we began to search for additional artists to help tackle the 350 or so VFX shots of varying complexity in the film. I am proud to say that we now have a team of six incredibly talented artists working on the film, led by Martin, and we are about halfway through the visual effects! I have been personally going through every new shot alongside Martin, and I am THRILLED with how everything looks so far. These amazing artists, who range from a talented High School student to a Visual Effects artist from Game of Thrones, have been working tirelessly to bring the magic to life, and you won’t be disappointed. That said, in the last few months several of our artists have had to leave the project due to a lack of available free time to continue working on it. We still have several active members on our team, and are currently pursuing more. We are working as hard, and as fast, as we possibly can to bring you guys this story, and we really do appreciate your patience. There have been claims lately that the production was not as transparent as we should have been. While there is nothing nefarious being concealed, these claims aren’t necessarily wrong either. While we’ve tried to keep you all updated of the progress on the project, I have kept some of the individual personal issues behind closed doors, and that may have been a mistake. I would like to rectify this by offering an explanation to at least some of this: When we began production back in 2014, I believed the producer we had knew what they were doing. When it became clear that this was not the case (losing one of our key locations just days before filming began), they were replaced by their Associate Producer, who managed to successfully get us through all three rounds of filming. When filming wrapped however, that producer stepped off the project as well, leaving the responsibilities of Producer on me, in addition to my responsibilities as Director. A couple members of the cast stepped up to help, and we couldn’t have gotten this far without them, but they too have careers and personal lives, for the last two years I’ve been doing my best to steer this ship on my own.

Since then, I have done everything in my power to keep things moving through Post Production. Through multiple editors stepping off the project midway, starting us back at the beginning, before finally reaching picture lock. Through numerous VFX artists delaying for months before admitting they hadn’t completed anything and moving on. Through several days of insert & pickup shoots. Through weekly score and VFX meetings and hundreds of hours of video and audio post-production work, and occasionally when I get a chance, updating our Social Media.. I have given up numerous career opportunities, and more personal social plans than I can count. And none of that is meant to be me looking for sympathy. But when I tell you that we are here, busting our butts working to get this done, and that we’re just as eager to see it completed as any of you, I want you to understand how much I truly mean that. In Regards to Questions About our Budget:

It has been brought to my attention that there were some serious questions and rumors circulating regarding the film’s budget, and how funds were allocated. I went back through all of our records, and totaled things up to come up with a total of what the numbers actually ended up being. Filmmaking, especially something like TGS, is expensive. But for anyone with questions, I would like to take a minute to go through the exact numbers: • Equipment Rental: 31.3% Obviously the biggest chunk of the budget, this covered the camera and lens rentals, the steadicam rig rental, the lighting and grip equipment rentals (Dolly tracks, stands, lights, disposables, etc), as well as sound recording equipment through three separate rounds of filming. This ran us more than our Kickstarter estimate, though less than our Indiegogo estimate.

• Transportation: 26.9% This covered everything from truck rentals to haul all of the equipment and set dressings, to shuttle vans for the cast and crew, to gas, to flights to bring back members of the cast who had moved after Principal Photography. While Transpo is usually a significant portion of the budget on major productions, it isn’t on smaller student projects, and this ate a large portion of our budget. But we had locations all over New England, and a significant number of our team were students without their own means of transportation. This was an area where our producers definitely really undershot the budget, unfortunately. • Locations 19.3% Another one of the major factors separating us from other student and fan film projects. To capture the look and feel of Hogwarts, we shot at a number of incredible locations across New England, from a castle, to several churches, and a museum. But venues like that, often used for Weddings, aren’t cheap. We were prepared for that. What we weren’t prepared for was having to schedule additional days in these venues (I will come back to this).

Production Design, Props, Wardrobe, and Makeup 11.6% Self explanatory, but yes. All of the School Uniforms for our cast and extras. Other costumes for the cast, from their casual clothes to the Professors’ costumes, and more. Props and set dressing. Furniture. All the little stuff you likely won’t notice when it’s there, but are what make the scenes come to life. We managed to stay under budget on this one.

Crafty/Meals 6.3% This is one of the categories I’ve seen a lot of rumors and accusations circling around, so I feel I need to explain this: Feeding your team on set is standard protocol. When they’re working 12-14 hours a day, there isn’t time for people to grocery shop and meal prep before work, or for people to venture out to grab lunch (nor was there much around many of these locations). Let alone, all of these people were taking time off of work, unpaid, to be there. A warm meal is the bare minimum we could do. That said, I think there might have been some misconceptions because previous budgets described it simply as crafty, leading some people to believe this part of the budget just accounted for a table of snacks, instead of the reality of this section of the budget covering all food/beverage costs. We actually ended up staying well under budget in this category.

Production 2.4% This one isn’t particularly interesting. Basically miscellaneous. Various little expenses that don’t fall into other categories. Fees, office supplies, legal advice, printing scripts and sides, etc. About what we budgeted on the IGG budget.

Post Production 2.2% While none of our post team are paid, this covers costs like Dropbox, Stock Footage, and the software we purchased for our composer.

When we started this project, almost all of us were students. Students with a dream of continuing the world of our favorite franchise, of telling the story we’d always wanted to see told. But we were students nonetheless, still growing, still learning our craft, still making plenty of mistakes along the way. After this project and several years of experience in the field, I can say there were places where we could have trimmed some of the fat. But beyond the basic costs of producing a film like this, the big thing that drove up the budget was just bad luck/human error. I’ve spoken about it before, but during principal photography, there was a power glitch during a footage transfer that corrupted data and lost us several days of filming that we had to go back and reshoot. And unfortunately during the first round of pickups in 2015, an error by our producer cost us the use of one of our main locations, resulting in us needing to bring everyone back and do a second round of pickups: Re-Renting gear and transportation, booking more days at the location (who decided to jack up their price), etc. Because of this, the crowdfunding budget was spent before we finished that third round of filming. I know that statement is going to upset people, but we’re making a point of transparency here, and it’s a significant piece of what I’ve been avoiding making public. Since 2015, I’ve been covering everything since then out of my own pocket. Because while it wasn’t my errors that cost us, the other producers have all left the project, and at the end of the day, this is my project, my baby, that I am determined to see through to completion. Because you, our fans, and our dedicated team all deserve to see it done. I know the next question following that will be regarding Backer Perks - Don’t worry, they won’t be affected. Most of them are already here in boxes, ready and waiting. However, there are still a couple things remaining, first and foremost the DVDs of the film, which obviously can’t be printed until the project is completed. Because of this, and the fact that the vast majority of backers are receiving DVDs, they’re unfortunately going to have to wait until then to go out. I have been putting money away for the last few years to cover the cost of DVD Printing and Shipping, and it’s all ready and waiting for post to be completed. And I know a lot of you have asked about this - Once we’re at that point, we’ll get in contact with everyone receiving packages to confirm their current address before mailing! So yes, it’s been a long and difficult journey. It’s taken far longer than any of us planned. We’ve had dozens of team members come and go, but no matter what, we’ve kept working. Because we love this world, we love this project, and we love you guys. None of this would have been possible without you. All of the pieces are starting to come together, and I could not possibly be more excited to share it with all of you. Until then, Mischief Managed Aaron

#Marauders Fanfilm #Behind the scenes #BTS

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yougotthatbilly · 6 years

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Dangerously, You’re Beautiful | 01

→ member: lee taeyong → genre: fluff | angst → au: best friends to lovers!au | love triangle!au ↳ summary: ❝If you love two people at the same time, choose the second. Because if you really loved the first one, you wouldn’t have fallen for the second.❞ -Johnny Depp

chapters: 00 , 01

“Stop that.”

You lazily look to your right, shooting Taeyong a questioning look. “Stop what?”

“You’re gonna have permanent wrinkles in your forehead if you don’t relax. Your shoulders are up to your ears and even your ass is clenched.”

You almost make a comment on the fact he looked at your ass long enough to notice, but then you realize that yes, your body is extremely tensed up. Your shoulders drop and the muscles throughout your body gradually loosen as you lean into the podium in front of you.

The store is dead when it was expected to be a lot busier, but that’s what happens when festivals are in town during sales. You barely got any sleep last night (honestly this time) and you’re seconds away from slumping forward or hiding in the break-room and letting Taeyong handle things for the next few hours. Taeil wouldn’t mind. He loves you.

“Want a massage?”

“Huh?” you ask, once again glancing at him because you barely heard him over your thoughts of sweet talking him into being the only manager on the floor for some hours. Taeyong lifts his hands up and wiggles them suggestively. The words no, it’s fine are on the tip of your tongue but who are you to say no to a free massage?

“You know I’m not gonna press you on why you’ve been weird,” he starts after finding his way behind you, his fingertips softly digging into your shoulders, “but you also know I’m here if you need to talk, right?”

Of course you do. He’s always there for you, even when you don't realize you need someone to be. Only a couple of months into your friendship, he was there for you when you thought you were completely fine on your own. Being the observant and kind hearted person he is, when he saw how your feet were dragging and your smile was too fake when interacting with customers he tried to talk about topics that would normally spark your interest and pick up your mood. Months later you don’t even remember why you were feeling so glum that day, but even with him barely knowing you, he knew exactly how to make you feel better. The two of you coincidentally had overlapping breaks and Taeyong stepped behind your slouched form as you were leaned over the counter in the break room, wrapping his arms around your middle in an unexpected hug. And when you straightened up a bit in shock, he only slouched more, rearranging his hold on you so he could hook his chin over your shoulder and hold you tighter. He didn’t ask what was wrong, didn’t force you to speak. The way he felt against you, the feeling of his heartbeat against your back, you remember it all so vividly. Sometimes your mind goes back to that very moment when you’re left alone with your thoughts at night.

His cheeks had a coral hue to them when he apologized after your shifts ended, explaining his actions as a good hug usually brings his mood up because the comfort lets him know people actually care and they aren’t just asking what’s wrong because they feel obligated to. Taeyong asked if he crossed any boundaries or if it possibly made you feel uncomfortable. You felt the complete opposite. You didn’t want him to let go. You wanted to turn around and return the embrace, but in the moment you were too stunned, too overwhelmed yet too comfortable in his hold, enjoying how secure you felt wrapped in his arms. You assured him it was fine, that you realized you really needed it. Then when he, still embarrassed by such an impulsive move, asked if there was a significant other in the picture, seeing that the conversation had never been brought up between the two of you, the sirens sounded in your head.

You shouldn’t have felt the way you did when there should only be one person to have that effect on you.

Taeyong apologized profusely when you answered in affirmative and it took a couple of days for you to convince him everything was fine. He didn’t have any other intention than cheering you up, so he did nothing wrong. He just wanted to be there for you. You were in the wrong with how all rational thoughts about being in a relationship and how Johnny would’ve felt if he saw the scene unfold before him didn’t cross your mind.

Taeyong’s consideration is just another characteristic on the list you deny you’ve made.

You nod. You know.

If you’re in a shitty mood around Doyoung he doesn’t want to be around you because you kill his vibe (maybe you should reconsider the friendship, but then again you’re not even that close). Yuta isn’t the best person to run to when you’re sad unless it’s simply for comfort and not actual advice. Taeyong is the only male aside from Johnny that gives you his full attention and doesn’t come to you with his problems without even checking to see how you’re feeling. When you asked about it, asking why he always asks about you when he’s the one in need of a shoulder to lean on or advice, his response was that friends are not therapists so you should always ask how they’re feeling, too. His maturity and way with words are on that nonexistent list as well.

Maybe it’s just in his nature to care about others (plausible seeing he’s a Cancer), but you can’t help but love the fact that he’s always there and think that maybe you just have a little special spot in his heart like the one that’s found its way inside of your own recently. But then again, there’s a good possibility it’s been there for months but you hadn’t realized it’s existence until recently.

“There’s just been a lot on my mind lately and I’m just trying to figure things out by myself for now.”

“Take your time. Don’t stress too much over whatever it is, okay?” His thumbs work in between your shoulder blades and your eyes drift shut, head falling forward. “Everything will fall into place eventually. You just gotta be patient.”

Another lazy nod.

It’s the typical thing to say to someone in this situation, the only thing he really can say with how vague you’re being, but his words still make you feel a little better.

“In times like this, I drink Jasmine or green tea and it helps a lot,” Taeyong softly suggests. His focus moves to the small of your back, almost making you completely melt into the podium beneath you.

The feeling of a presence in front of you stops your response, Taeyong’s scripted greeting opening your eyes. The holy shit he lets out and his body warmth leaving you lift them. Taeyong is excitedly walking over to a surprised looking Donghyuck, pulling him into a hug.

“Feels like I haven’t seen you in years, kid.” Taeyong sounds excited, like he’s been reunited with his long-lost brother and it’s pulls at your heartstrings. “Why are you here and not in class or something?”

“Winter break,” Donghyuck supplies, Taeyong making a sound in remembrance, “and I’m actually here to see somebody but—”

“But I don’t exist anymore?” you finally cut in, playfully scoffing. Donghyuck’s eyes go wide in your direction, words trying to leave his mouth but all that comes out is stuttering and the boyish smile you’ve grown fond of over the last several years. Taeyong steps back when you make your way around the podium to bring Donghyuck into an even tighter hug than the one Taeyong gave him.

“I didn’t recognize you with your head down and then,” he gestures Taeyong, who’s watching the two of you similarly to how you watched them only moments ago.

You release him to hold him at arms distance by his shoulders, examining him from head to toe. “You’ve gotten taller.” His cheek is warm when you lift a hand to cup it, swiping your thumb against the smooth skin a few times. “And you’ve gotten skinnier. Are you not eating?”

“Yes, I’m eating. I’m just dropping my baby fat,” Donghyuck shrugs sheepishly.

A flash of a memory of his chubby cheeks make you pout exaggeratedly. And then the pout turns into a down curve of disgust when your eyes travel further up.

“What the hell happened to your hair?”

Donghyuck’s left offended and is the one pouting now as you move your finger back and forth between the too big gap between his bangs and his eyebrows. Who the hell got scissor happy with the poor kid?

“I tried to trim my bangs but I got distracted,” he grumbles, glaring at Taeyong when the latter snorts. Taeyong puts his hands up and slowly back-steps into another part of the store.

At least the vibrant red his hair has been dyed is pretty.

“Anyway,” You make your way back behind the podium and return to your previous position leaning against it, “what’s up? And how’d you even know I was here?”

“Well, the semester ended and I figured seeing my precious face would make your week a thousand times better. So here I am.” He gestures himself with a grin.

You squint at him. “Why are you really here, kid?”

“I’m on break and I wanted to see my favorite sister.” Donghyuck shrugs.

“Donghyuck.”

“Okay, fine!” He lifts his hands up. “Mark asked me to visit you since he won’t be back until the end of break, so here I am.”

Donghyuck’s a great actor with a great poker face but you’ve known him since he was seven. “And?” you press once more.

“And I’m here to ask if I can crash at yours for a couple weeks,” he gives you an awkwardly endearing smile.

“I mean, I guess.” You shrug. “But seriously, how’d you know I was here?”

Donghyuck lifts up his phone and wiggles it a little. “We still share locations, dummy.”

Oh, how you missed that mouth of his.

“And your parents don’t care?”

Donghyuck scoffs. “I’m eighte—no they don’t. They trust you with my life.”

Your retort is cut off when an older guy comes into the room with a few shirts and a pair of jeans, you do your job and walk him to a fitting room.

“Where did Taeyong go?” Donghyuck asks when you’re back.

“Probably went to help out in the front.” You shrug. But on the topic of the brunet, the question that was repeating in your mind earlier resurfaces. “How do you two know each other, anyway?”

“Remember Jeno?” You’ve heard name a few times in the last years but you can hardly put a face to it, and it must show because Donghyuck continues. “The kid with the smile,” he deadpans.

“Oh.” The kid from that soccer game your mom forced you to take Mark and Donghyuck to that kept smiling and blushing whenever you said anything to him. “Aw, how is he?”

“Great.” The red-head waves off. “Anyway, Taeyong’s his older brother. If it wasn’t me and Mark, it was me and Jeno. Tae’s like my big bro.”

Huh. With this new information you wonder if you and Taeyong went to the same middle or high school and never crossed paths since the two of you only lived a neighborhood away from each other back then. What would’ve happened if the two of you officially met sooner? Would you have gotten along back then? Would you have clicked so fast and effortlessly all those years ago like you did last year?

Would you be w—

“Talking about me while I’m gone?”

Taeyong’s voice isn’t loud nor is it harsh, but it still startles you out of your thoughts, and your body jerks in alert. Both males laugh at your reaction, only laughing harder when you pretend to buck up at them.

He takes his place back next to you and hands you a warm, large cup before reaching forward to ruffle the red hair on the younger male’s head. Dumbly, you look down at the cup in your hand, bringing it up to your nose to sniff the content inside through the small horizontal hole in the lid. Jasmine and honey. “How did you even…?” A quick glance with a wink leaves you puzzled, and the warm feeling in your insides has nothing to do with the sip you take.

“Kid.”

“Hm?” Donghyuck asks half-heartedly, eyes still glued to the screen of his phone. He doesn’t look up even after you’ve made your way in front of him, hovering. He just raises an eyebrow in acknowledgment, thumbs flying across his screen.

You kick his shin.

Donghyuck lets out a dramatic sigh before locking his phone and looking up and you with an attitude. “Yes?”

“You wanna eat or keep being gross with Mark?”

The ‘tude is wiped off instantly and he’s now blushing. “W-what are you talking about? He’s just updating me on how Cana— how’d you know I was talking to him?”

You open your mouth to let him know he’s only that attentive and smiles that much when he’s speaking to your younger brother, how it’s been like this for years, but three knocks on your front door cut you off, and the quirk of Donghyuck’s lips confuses you.

“I got us some food since you like to starve people,” he winks as he stands up and lightly pushes you out the way to get the door.

The door opens to reveal Taeyong with bags of fast food in one hand and deadpan expression on his face. You can tell even from the distance you’re at that Taeyong’s trying to keep a straight, almost annoyed face at the younger, but you also see the exact moment his eyes change emotions, a defeated smile pulling his lips up with an eye roll.

The power of Lee Donghyuck, basically.

“You’re lucky you caught me when I was about to pass by,” he grunts when Donghyuck hugs him. You’ve never really seen Donghyuck openly initiate any kind of affection with anyone other than yourself and Mark, then Taeyong’s smile gets wider and wow your heart. Just like any other day, Taeyong’s eyes drift to where you’re standing, and he nods in acknowledgment before beckoning you over. “Here,” he passes the bags to Donghyuck when he lets go. “Go eat. I gotta talk to her real quick.”

The smile on his lips transitions into a thin line when Donghyuck is gone and he flicks the side of your head just hard enough for you to flinch and pout. “How are you gonna say the kid can stay with you but have no food and have him starving all day?” he deadpans, tilting his head when you don’t respond quick enough.

“I forgot I needed to go grocery shopping, dad.” The last couple of days you’ve been snacking on whatever and kind of forgot there was a growing teenage boy (man?) in your apartment now. “I was actually just about to take him out. If I would’ve known he reached out to you, I would’ve told him to ask you to get some real food and not—” Taeyong squints and his tongue pokes the inside of his cheek, challenging you to finish that sentence. “I mean, thanks for the food?” You smile cutely.

“Right. Enjoy your food.”

“Aw you got me food, too?”

His glare is back but it only makes you childishly stick your tongue out at him.

“Anyway, I might swing by later to get him on my way back from Jae’s. So if you don’t have plans, you should come along.”

His phone makes a noise, gaining his attention before he squeezes your shoulder gently in lieu of goodbye, then he leans forward until he’s right by your ear to yell his goodbye to Donghyuck. You flinch and swat at his gut because you know it was his intention to burst your eardrum and Taeyong just laughs as he turns on his heels and walks away.

Donghyuck’s food is halfway done and you’d feel bad if you didn’t know he’s always been a really fast eater.

“So are you coming?”

You shake your head, unraveling your food. It’s date night. You’re meeting up with Johnny at the movie theatre to watch that new scary movie he’s been dying to see. You haven’t had a proper date in weeks when you used to have one every Saturday night and you’re excited because this is what you need. The last time you saw Johnny you weren’t in your right state of mind, not thinking of what you should’ve been. Tonight is going to be about to two of you and your relationship with no outside factors clouding your thoughts. You miss Johnny’s big hand and the heat it transfers to your thigh when watching movies, his fingers tensing and squeezing when there’s a jump scare.

“It’s date night.”

“Date… night?”

His confused tone lifts your eyes away from your fries and onto his equally confused facial expression.

“Yes?”

“You’re still with Johnny?”

You nod, still not understanding his tone.

“Really?”

“What do you mean ‘really?’”

“I don’t know, I thought you and Taeyong were a thing,” he shrugs and goes back to his fries.

Your jaw works slowly as his words echo in your mind. “... what made you think that?”

He shrugs again. “Your interactions, your body language.”

“As in our body language towards each other is more intimate than what friends usually have?”

He snaps and sends finger guns your way. “Exactly. Figured you were together or fucking at the very least.”

The last assumption chokes you. “Donghyuck.”

He just smiles and stuffs the last of his fries into his mouth.

The rest of your meal is silent, your mind running wild with the thoughts of how often you lean into Taeyong’s touch, how often you crave it, and just how obvious you might be if Donghyuck noticed within the span of a couple of days.

With your teeth digging into your bottom lip, you pace in front of your bed, phone in one hand while the other scrubs at your eye in mild frustration to save the base makeup you have on. You’ve gotten dressed for your movie date and you were in the middle of adding a touch of highlighter to your high-points when you heard Donghyuck’s phone ring, the latter answering it with a greeting followed by Taeyong’s name. You felt childish pressing your ear against your closed bedroom door to hear his side of the conversation better. He hummed a few times, then told Taeyong that you already had plans and wouldn’t be joining them, and all of a sudden you wanted to join them.

Well, you haven’t seen Donghyuck in close to a year. You’ve barely spent time with him since he temporarily moved in, having been at work earlier and only saying your greetings with a ruffle of his hair while on your way to your room when you got back in. You were exhausted and needed to fall face first onto your bed asap. You should definitely spend some time with him, and now would definitely be the perfect time to do so. You don’t have to plan anything because you’re sure Taeyong has gotten everything planned out already, and then the latter being there is just a little bonus.

You unlock your phone with your thumb, go to your call log, and tap the third contact from the top.

“Hello?”

“Hey, babe. What are you doing?”

“Trying to decide if I want to wear jeans or joggers tonight,” Johnny chuckles.

“About tonight…” you say after a beat, teeth back in your bottom lip. You hope he hasn’t done his hair already.

“Uh oh. What’s wrong?”

“I was wondering if we could possibly reschedule for next weekend?”

It’s silent on the other line for a few seconds, so you move the phone away from your ear to see if he hung up (which you know he wouldn’t do but there’s a guilty conscious for you) or lost connection.

“Yeah,” Johnny sounds unsure once the phone is back on your ear. “Is there a reason?”

You’re going to break skin if you bite any harder.

“Remember Donghyuck?” He hums. “He just came back in town and I’m letting him crash here for a little. It’s been a while so I wanted to take him out tonight, also as an apology for starving him all day,” you chuckle, voice even and believable to your own ears.

Well, it’s not a complete lie.

The tone of Johnny’s voice changes immediately. “Of course, baby. Don’t sound so guilty. I’m sure Donghyuck really wants to spend time with you after not seeing you for so long.” He laughs softly. You can practically see him waving a dismissive hand in the air. “We can just go Friday or Saturday night.”

A small relieved smile tugs at your mouth as a sigh leaves it. “Thanks for not hating me. I’ll make it up to you.”

“Yeah, yeah.” You can hear the smile in his voice, envisioning an eye roll. “Call me when you get back in, ‘kay?”

“Alright. I love you.”

“I love you, too. I’ll talk to you later.”

He’s so understanding it breaks your heart but you’re doing your best to delude yourself into believing you’re really going to this outing just for Donghyuck.

As soon as you hang up the same three knocks from earlier pound against the wood of your front door, startling you. A glance as your reflection in the mirror connected to your dresser makes you grimace, the sight of your half done face and hair not so pretty. Speed walking to the door that connects your room to the bathroom, you push it open and do the quickest winged liner you’ve done and quickly yet carefully put some mascara on. You put and misplaced strands of hair where they belong and barely remember to grab your jacket before exiting the bathroom using the other door that leads into your hallway. You’re just in time to see Donghyuck slipping his shoes on and Taeyong leaning against the door, stopping in the middle of his sentence when he spots you coming towards them.

“Well don’t you look like a snack.” Taeyong wiggles his eyebrows at you, eyes raking up and down your body. “Hyuck told me you had plans so I’m guessing you’re going out with J—”

“With the two of you? Yep,” you cut him off, giving him a quick smile and diverting your attention from his face to your shoes as you slip them on. Your heart is beating loudly from a combination of the rising guilt you feel from cancelling on Johnny and the guilt you feel from being happy you get to see Taeyong again and spend time with him outside of work today.

He eyes you suspiciously, making eye contact with Donghyuck with a brow arched in confusion. The latter just shrugs.

“So where are we going?”

“To the dessert shop that just opened by my place,” he says unsurely, opening the door. “My car or yours?”

“Can I drive?”

You and Taeyong immediately shut down Donghyuck’s request. His lip curls up in offense, but he gets over it and links his arm with yours as you all make your way down the wooden stairs.

“Try this.”

You bring your fork up to Donghyuck’s mouth, feeding him some of your cake. Taeyong opens his mouth and makes a noise expectedly.

A bit of icing gets on the corner of his mouth at the forkful your feed him, so you swipe at the small glob with your thumb then lick it off.

Donghyuck clears his throat. “What happened to your date?”

“Yeah, what changed?” Taeyong ask, attention back on his plastic fork, licking a clump of icing off of it.

You’re momentarily distracted by the way his pink tongue laps at the icing, but then Donghyuck’s shifting body beside you snap you out of your trance. “Oh,” you wave a dismissive hand. “He’s beat from the long shift he worked. And it worked out perfectly because now I can bond with Hyuck,” you smile, pinching the youngest’s cheek as his face goes from confused to a fake scowl.

“Damn, well I’m glad you could be here with us.” Taeyong smiles, reaching forward to steal more of your cake.

“Me, too,” you nod, biting your lip at the thought of if Taeyong was anticipating your company. When he invited you, was he just doing it to be nice since he was picking Donghyuck up from your place? Or did he genuinely want you to come? You shake your head slightly, knocking the unnecessary thoughts out. You shouldn’t be thinking so hard over an invitation to get dessert with a couple of the closest people to you. It’s not that deep.

You and Taeyong tease Donghyuck and ask questions about how college life is, and when things go quiet and everyone’s doing their own thing for a while on their phones, it’s hard not to stare at the male sitting in front of you as he runs a hand through his hair and slumps in his seat, licking his lips as he focuses on whatever is on his screen. He’s just so effortlessly attractive.

It’s also hard to not notice Donghyuck’s intense gaze on the side of your face.

Donghyuck’s eyes either translate to he’s trying to read you, or that he knows something, and when you raise an eyebrow to silently question him, he just shakes his head before asking Taeyong a question, starting up another conversation.

#taeyong scenario #taeyong scenarios #nct scenario #nct scenarios #back at it again with shitty endings #i hope this version is okay rip

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hoodlessmads · 5 years

Text

Bloom Into You Chapter 40 Immediate Thoughts

It was exactly what was promised and exactly what I needed. What WE ALL needed. The only remote complaint I have is that Nakatani-sensei didn’t show the kiss at the end.

But alas, left to the imagination, it was still cute. I suppose. *deadpan look at camera*

Not only was it exactly as promised (or rather, as suggested by the last few pages of chapter 39), but it was exactly what I expected, in the best possible way. This somehow calls to mind that amazing Mr. Plinkett review of The Last Jedi. Can you imagine if Rian Johnson wrote chapter 40 of Bloom Into You? Subverting all of our expectations? (No shade, I jest, I like TLJ.)

Anyway, Nakatani-sensei is as in touch with her own characters as I feel I am in touch with them, thank the gods (or in this case the lesbian goddesses). Yuu and Touko bust ass to get to the student council room, both desperate to see each other. Yuu acknowledges to herself that she is still in love with Touko. Kokoro no ichi ga wakatta yo, as the song goes. But when she gets to that empty room, the adrenaline of the message and the run slips away and she’s left in darkness and solitude, and all of her doubts and apprehension come rushing back immediately. What does Nanami-senpai even want to talk about, anyway? Does Yuu dare to hope? What if what she has to say just breaks her heart all over again? Yuu finds herself waiting and thinking there’s no way Nanami-senpai would run as fast to get here as she did.

Except she totally does, of course. Touko arrives out of breath, sees Yuu’s mistrustful reaction and cuts straight to the chase with a returned love confession. Yuu’s reaction to Touko openly returning her feelings is just confusion at first. Maybe she’s desensitized to Touko saying, “I love you,” even now. Touko just goes on to calmly explain exactly what she means. And Yuu calmly listens. Asks clarifying questions. Works through her own hesitations, her lingering mistrust of the concept of “love.”

The implacable way that Yuu processes her own emotions is always one of the most interesting things to watch. Which is why when she finally, finally cries, it’s so god damn moving. Never in this entire series have we seen this girl cry. Ever. After all the shit she’s been through with Touko, where she’s had plenty of reason to cry, she never did. She locked it away inside. When she gets her heart broken by Touko, Yuu doesn’t cry because she can’t process the pain of it. She describes it as though her heart has gone off somewhere without her. It’s only at the end of the last chapter that she finally allows herself to feel. She’s always struck me as someone who’s quite similar to myself in this way; she refuses to let herself be vulnerable, she heavily dissociates herself from painful emotions and traumatic experiences, and on the flip side she hasn’t been able to find much passion in anything either. She strikes me as the type of person who has rarely cried, maybe in her whole life. So when she cries here, just like fucking lets go and sobs for the first time, finally, I’m dead.

And on the flip side, there’s Touko, who has managed to finally find some peace in her life after the play—but that’s not the instant end of her problems, and that is so important. She’s been living with this unbearably heavy burden for seven years. She’s been living with this pain for so long. It’s not just magically gone. When she holds Yuu’s hands and tells her that she wants to be loved, Yuu even notices this. Her hands are shaking because she’s still scared, in spite of everything. She’s terrified and yet she still pushes forward, because she knows that this is a good thing, and that this is what she wants in her heart. And that’s what I like about her. And when Yuu has her own do-over confession and starts crying, Touko wholeheartedly accepts her and her feelings, she’s there to hold her, not just because she knows how hard it’s been on Yuu bottling it in, but because she’s learning to embrace her own happiness at hearing those words. For herself. These characters are just such good people. So pure.

And don’t even get me started on how fucking cute the scene afterward is! Murder me!

This whole chapter is just one giant long…talk? Like? Characters? Talking to one another? Amazing.

Yuu HUGS her and CRIES and says, “Suki desu. Suki. Daisuki.” “I love you, I love you, I love you so much.” She said it THREE times!!! Not counting the first time!!! DAISUKI, dude!!! I’m dying!!!

Touko KISSES her TEARS. We got a “Geez” up in here!!! We got a “Senpai” and fucking FOREHEAD TOUCH up in here. We got a height difference Yuu-initiated OFF PANEL KISS UP IN HERE. I’m LITERAL MUSH.

What’s going to happen next?! Is the rest of the student council going to leap out of the bushes, yell “SURPRISE! CONGRATULATIONS!” and embarrass everyone? Are the two of them going to take things back to someone’s room and finally satisfy the UST? CUDDLING???

No, in all seriousness, I’m expecting some kind of brief timeskip to at least the next day after they’ve said goodbye for the night and then neither of them can even sleep because they’re so excited and cute, and then…I’m really not sure. Chapter 40 was purportedly the first chapter of Volume 8, which will be the last volume. Last volumes typically have bloated lengths to wrap up series, but not necessarily. So we could have anywhere from four to six chapters left before the end. What’s next for these lovely characters as we hurtle towards the resolution?

My heart really wants this series to remain as grounded as it has always been. Now that Yuu and Touko appear to have resolved their personal issues within their relationship, there is still…you know…the whole gay thing. Two girls in a romantic relationship in a Japanese high school setting is no small matter to gloss over, unfortunately. I want to see them slowly decide how they want to open up to others around them about it, or if they just decide to be up front from the get-go. I want to see Akari and Koyomi and Natsuki find out and see how they react, how inevitably supportive they will be, how fucking cute their friendship with Yuu is, how happy they will be for her. I want to see how Touko’s and Yuu’s families will react, the good reactions and the bad ones. I want to watch Rei physically turn into a pile of mush, just like I did, when she finds out that her hunch was correct and her baby sister has a girlfriend. I want to see the entire school somehow find out via word-of-mouth but ironically no one cares because everyone already thought Touko and Sayaka were lesbians anyway and the only unforeseen factor was Yuu. (And as reactions to the play proved, most people in their school are surprisingly accepting and non-judgmental and it’s precious.) None of this has to be that extensive or dramatic or take up that much time—just a bit of attention would be a nice touch and be incredibly satisfying.

I could watch Yuu and Touko being cute as fuck in a relationship literally all damn week. I’m so excited to watch Yuu finally be able to communicate what she wants from the relationship, to be allowed to show affection, to be as lovey-dovey as she wants. I’m excited to see Touko adjust to that and continue with her process of learning to accept that affection.

I could watch them learn and grow and encounter obstacles together for days, but we have limited time here unfortunately (this ain’t no 30 volume Kimi ni Todoke) and that means we have to trim the fat and focus on the real important stuff that needs to get resolved: HER NAME IS SAYAKA AND SHE DESERVES A GIRLFRIEND.

Sayaka is the UNSUNG HERO of this story. Would chapter 40 have EVEN happened if Sayaka hadn’t had the balls to confess to Touko the way she did and help Touko reach her own emotional catharsis? Sayaka is a selfless and kind soul who is OUT THERE doing the MOST for others. She is precious and her heart has been broken too many god damn times and she deserves better. She just does. This girl deserves a break and in the time the manga has left, my sincerest wish is that she gets one. I want to see her get a happy ending and a girlfriend who is head over heels for her and vice versa. More even than any Yuu/Touko stuff.

That’s my rant. I mostly wrote it the night of the chapter coming out at like 3 am so my feelings were a lot. I don’t even know. I feel like there’s so much more to be said, so much more you could analyze. Like the incredible, INCREDIBLE panel where Touko grabs Yuu’s hand and you can see their silhouettes in the glass, mirroring the exact position they were in last spring in the student council room when it all began. Can you even wait to see that shit adapted for the anime? The kinds of beautiful shit they can do with this scene? And the fucking godly Michiru Oshima soundtrack? I sure can’t. Nakatani’s art, her composition, her use of parallelism…it’s simply gorgeous on every level. But anyway, right now, I’m just gonna post this so I can get it off my chest.

My heart has been fulfilled and I can now survive until May 27th. But I also can’t wait still. :P

#bloom into you #yagate kimi ni naru #i love this series #can you tell?

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gingerwerk · 6 years

Text

snafu and flower meanings

(this was gonna be more of a hc style post but then i started actually writing it and now it’s turned into a full on scene so, enjoy, especially @inarex @discosdeacon)

When it comes to matters of the heart, Snafu’s never been the best with his words and has more often than not had to rely on his actions to explain his feelings. In his experience it’s real hit or miss; sometimes the message comes across clear and other times Snafu still has to square up and attempt to verbally explain what’s on his mind, hating how what’s going on in his mind never quite translates to his words.

That’s why he’s so infinitely grateful to Eugene for introducing him to the language of flowers, how every flower and plant has its own specific meaning, so when the words get stuck in his throat he can always run to the shop and hope that Eugene’s not working the counter and that Bill doesn’t open his fat mouth and blabber to Eugene before he can give him the flowers. Cus fuck does he have so much he wants to tell Eugene but he just feel so damn inadequate when it comes to verbalizing.

Snafu is pretty sure before they even get together that he loves Eugene. It’s absolutely terrifying to think that but in his gut he knows and when has his gut ever lied to him? It’s a thought that is completely and utterly cemented in his mind that morning after they square their shit and wake up next to each other, everything feeling too warm and light to be real, when all Snafu wanted to do was stay in bed with Eugene and never leave. But when Eugene rolled his eyes and smiled softly at him before he gently shoved him towards the edge of the bed, told Snafu they’d have time for more later, Snafu knew without a shadow of a doubt that he was a goner. He knew he didn’t want anything else besides Eugene.

Regardless of this certainty, it took a while after that moment for Snafu to finally pull the trigger and tell Eugene. (Not only was he not sure how to say it at first but, while he wasn’t exactly a relationship expert, he knew it probably wasn’t the best move to tell your boyfriend a day into the relationship that you loved him)

He waited until he couldn’t possibly wait another minute, when he almost slipped up and said it to Eugene casually at the end of a phone call- which he guessed wouldn’t be the Worst way to say it, but now that Snafu’s thought of a perfect way to say it, a way someone like Eugene deserved, he couldn’t blow his shot on a slip up.

While Eugene’s away at his therapy appointment one day, Snafu ran into the shop and bought a dozen red roses from Bill, who, of course, was only too happy to give him a hard time, asking him what he did to mess up now. But Snafu refused to fall to the bait and simply paid for his purchase before he left the shop, climbed into his truck, and drove across town to pick Eugene up from his appointment.

After Eugene exited the building, he stowed his bike in the bed of Snafu’s truck as per usual and climbed inside, greeting him like always with a quick kiss.

Snafu almost chickened out as Eugene rested his head against the car seat, exhaustion clear on his face, but he told himself he couldn’t, not now, not after he went through the effort of buying the flowers. So he told Eugene to close his eyes, that he had a surprise for him; thankfully Eugene did as told only after shooting Snafu a quick, confused look. Heart hammering in his chest, Snafu reached into the backseat of the truck and retrieved the flowers from where he hid them on the floor; he gave them a quick brush to rid them of any crumbs before he told Eugene to open his eyes.

It’s apparent immediately that while Eugene appreciates the gesture immensely- his face lighting up so much Snafu felt for a moment as if he were staring into the goddamn sun -the meaning behind the flowers didn’t immediately click in his mind.

So much for letting the flowers do the talking, Snafu thought before he pressed on, determined to tell Eugene.

“Back… all those nights ago, you said roses got meanings for their different colors,” Snafu spoke, internally cringing at the slight wobble in his voice. “And you said red roses mean love.”

There was a very brief moment in-between the words sinking in and Eugene reacting that Snafu was sure he made a mistake.The moment and fear only lasted a beat before Eugene was kissing Snafu, before he was whispering those three words against his lips, before Snafu was grinning against Eugene’s lips because he had never in his life been so happy before.

They stayed there, parked outside Eugene’s therapist for an untold amount of time, both so deeply unwilling to break away from each other. They only moved when Eugene’s stomach growled at an embarrassing noise level, reminding them both that they had dinner plans already in place.

“You know I don’t even own a vase,” Eugene admitted a few minutes later as they stopped at a red light.

“What?” Snafu responded, sure he misheard him; turning his head, Snafu found Eugene staring intently at the flowers in his lap, soft smile playing on his lips.

“I have ones in the shop for arrangements or for customers but I just don’t have one,” Eugene responded, looking up at him and shrugging lightly, unconcerned.

“What kind of florist doesn’t own a fucking vase?” Snafu teased lightly.

“I dunno, Mer. I guess I just never personally get flowers.”

“Well I’ll get’chu one while we’re out,” Snafu decided firmly, warm smile stretching wide across his face.

“I can just trim the stems a little and use a glass or something.”

“That ain’t right,” Snafu declared as the light turned green and he refocused on the road ahead of him. “You need a real vase, Eugene.”

“Why?” Eugene asked with a slight scoff. “Am I gonna get a lot of use out of it?”

“Yeah,” Snafu announced confidently, deciding in that moment that he would always without fail buy Eugene flowers, not only when he needed help saying what was on his mind but because he always wanted to see that bright smile on his face. “Yeah, you will.”

#kelly writes #flowers and tattoos au #enjoy some soft sledgefu bullshit on this snowy ass saturday evening #im gonna go make some hot cocoa from scratch and lay under the blankets and watch the pacific

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hydrospanners · 6 years

Note

A-Z on the writing meme because I need to know absolutely everything immediately.

WELP okay but just remember you asked for what’s about to happen. meme is here. most of this is under a cut cause i’m longwinded as hell.

A. If you could rec a piece of music to accompany one of your fics, what would you pick? Why?

Um I absolutely was vibing to Lips by The xx when I wrote a wish your heart makes and you should too.

B. Who’s your favorite side-character from something you wrote?

I feel like the answer here is supposed to be Doc because he is not The Main Character in the game but also I have written about him and from his POV so much it feels unfair to call him a side character at this point. So instead I’m going to say this random woman named Cherita who was just trying to make a midnight snack for her pregnant wife from a little eggstra. I thought she had a lot of character for someone I pulled out of my ass for the sake of an outside perspective.

C. Get any good comments on your stuff this year?

I am thirsty for praise and I feel every single comment is a good comment but I think the one that sticks out to me is when I wrote a wish your heart makes someone said something like “if you like doc at all you have to read this” and I don’t remember who it was or where they said it but it really stuck with me!!! If that was you, thank you!!!!

D. Any drawings or pictures that had a big influence on your writing?

No!!! I feel guilty about this answer somehow but it’s true. I think it would be a fun challenge to try to write a piece of fic inspired by someone’s art so I may play with that idea next year (Editor’s Note: it was still 2k18 when I wrote the answer for this one) but for 2k18 the answer is no. :(

E. Who’s your favorite main character you’ve written?

I feel like this answer is obvious but it’s my girl Rea. I’ve reincarnated her as an Inquisitor and a Pathfinder but the OG Jedi Knight is still my fave.

F. What stories are you planning for the future?

I won’t pretend that a lot of planning goes in to my fic. I normally only write short bits so it kind of goes like this: I have a concept, I write the bit I fixate on, and then it sits in my WIPs for five years until I get motivated during some Fictober or something to finally finish it.

I will say I do have serious designs to finally finish the second chapter of the things you do for love are gonna come back to you one by one as that one is a little more complex than stuff I usually write. I have plans to do some kinda flashback-y thing that finally lays out The Velaran Backstory in clear and obvious terms after years of hints and tidbits I’ve been peppering through my fic. I also have a thing planned and kinda partly written about the first instance of horrific violence in the lives of all the Knight’s companions. Also I have a long series of AU vignettes that glimpses into universes where Rea is a Sith or Kira never made it off Korriban or Rusk remained a pacifist or where Rea never joined the Jedi after losing her family the second time. Stuff like that.

G. Where do you think you grew the most this year?

Structure? I’ve been really working on trusting my reader to bridge some gaps and not letting myself get caught up in details that are important for me to know to write the next part but that don’t necessarily need to be in the story. I think I’ve really tightened up my game where trimming the fat and staying focused are concerned.

H. How do you write? Paper, pen, computer? Music, no music?

My fic writing process is very different from when I am trying to write original stuff and is even kind of different depending on the mood I’m going for? I always write fic in Google Drive cause I write fic from a lot of different machines and need the easy cloud saving.

My ideal condition for fic writing is listening to instrumental music or ambient sounds playing through headphones either in a coffeehouse or the library or when I am at home completely alone. Angst and smut are best written at night with the lights low and warm. Comedy and fluff are best written in the late afternoon/early evening after one single alcoholic beverage (any more than and one I am drunk and no longer capable of writing).

Realistically though, I usually write in whatever time I have. Mostly at work. My job requires me to sit at a desk and wait for things to happen. Since I start work at 5am, things usually aren’t happening. Even with me going out of my way to create new work for myself and excel at what work I do have, I have a lot of downtime. I spend it writing fic. I get interrupted too much to have the focus I need for original writing, but fic writing is much easier so mostly I write my fic at this bland little desk under the terrible fluorescent lights with lots of noise and interruptions, occasionally playing a thematic playlist very quietly in the background.

I. What’s your favorite work you did this year? Why?

This is a very tough question. Surprisingly, I published a lot of things that I really liked? ([not pictured: me high fiving me for finally allowing myself to state that I like my own writing]) I think I’ll go with when the wicked play if I have to pick just one. Relative to my other work I think it’s very structurally sound and thematically focused and pretty efficient with its characterization and imagery without ever getting too sparse. Also I’m a slut for examining the commonplace nature of violence and brutality in the Star Wars universe.

J. What are the best jokes you told this year? Any jokes you thought were funny that people didn’t catch? Vice-versa?

I’m gonna say the pun I used as the title for bars and stripes. Honestly the whole fic is a joke and I like it and I don’t care if anyone catches it or not because I know that I am hilarious and no one will ever convince me otherwise.

K. Who have you killed this year? Why did they have to die?

No one, I think? I don’t think I even mentioned any specific off-screen deaths except for shit from the decades old Tragic Backstories. Not even Valkoriate. I’m not an especially murderful writer, maybe because I haven’t had to deal with a lot of that kind of loss in my own life. Mostly I write about things that are somehow adjacent to my own emotional state/journey. That’s why I fixate a lot on the weight of duty and moral philosophy and the nuances and complications of relationships, of how you can hurt someone and be hurt by them and still love them and how messy yet fulfilling the whole thing is. Thankfully--for me--not a lot of grieving the dead in there yet.

L. Which character did you most write about this year, and why do you like ‘em?

Pretty sure it’s Rea. Maybe Doc because of the Docember thing I squeezed in at the last second but I’m still pretty sure it’s Rea. Pretty sure it always is.

There’s a particular kind of release I get from writing her because her whole sloppy person is a part of me that doesn’t often see the light of day. I won’t say she’s aspirational because I like who I am and I don’t have any special destiny or Force powers or anything to save me when the consequences of living like she does catch up. But there are pieces of her that I admire, pieces that are still part of me that I have a hard time expressing, and spending time with her gives me a little more strength to unlock those dark musty corners of who I am, I guess? Writing Rea makes me a little more bold, a little less apologetic, a little less prone to overthinking and anxious fretting and a little more prone to doing. She makes me feel strong enough to ask for the things I want and confident enough to feel like I deserve them.

Also she is a damn good time, even when she’s falling apart.

M. Meta! Have any meta about a story you’re dying to throw out there?

Of course I do. I could ramble for hours about the story behind any single one of my stories. Aren’t all of us creative types like that??? Don’t we all love to talk about what we were going for and why we made the choices we did??? What we liked and what we think needs improvement??? Why we wanted to make the thing we made in the first place???

I could ramble about this for hours and honestly the possibilities are overwhelming so I am not going to go into any detail and just say yes. Obviously I am willing to ramble about the story behind every single story I’ve published but there’s 63 of them so if there’s something specific you want to hear about you’ll have to ask about the specific one!!!

N. Anything you were planning to write that never got written?

Nothing will ever be “never got written” until I am dead and unable to write. I am still going back to WIPs from 2014. I am rewriting garbage exercises I wrote in 2013. I like to think everything in my WIP folder will eventually be moved to my Published folder and I am going to keep thinking that until I am physically incapable of writing.

O. Do you believe in outlines? Show us one!

I believe in them very much and yet I do not practice them usually. I rely on them more with my original work which is longer and more involved and doesn’t already have a convenient structure to follow in the form of 300000 hours of video game. Most of my fic is really short, just a single scene or so. I usually start out by writing the moment that inspired me to write the fic and fill in the before and after. I do have an outline for the second half of the things you do for love are gonna come back to you one by one but I don’t really want to share it for something that isn’t written yet!

P. What are your pet peeves in other people’s work?

This question makes me kinda uncomfortable so here we go with some disclaimers: I write the stories that I want to read or that I really need to tell to satisfy something inside of me and I assume other authors do the same. I don’t want to say anything here that might have a chilling effect on someone exploring some idea they really need to explore, even if it’s tired or cliche or offends my own tastes. Writing is very personal and I think everyone should tell the stories they want to, whether anyone else likes them or not.

That being said, I am always desperately wishing for more media about close, intimate friendships and familial bonds. As someone who isn’t interested in sexual or romantic relationships, it makes me weep basically every time I read a story about characters who are friends or family that give that kind of relationship all of the value and weight and nuance that you see romantic relationships getting. It is a very special kind of feeling to see that it is possible for people to value what I have to offer them as much they might value someone who will romance them and sleep with them. It is very validating to see the possibility of emotional intimacy with people outside of romantic/sexual partners.

But I would never want anyone to feel bad about or stop writing their romances and their smut. That stuff speaks to people and that’s what fic is about. Telling the story that speaks to you. I want everyone to write what they want to write and if that leaves gaps, well that’s why I started writing fic in the first place. There was a story I needed to read and no one had written it yet, so I did it myself.

TL;DR Genfic & friendfic & familyfic is the greatest gift anyone could ever give me, but no one should write to satisfy other people. Always write for yourself first and foremost.

Q. Quote three bits of writing you read his year. Can be your writing, or not.

I keep little quotes everywhere--index cards and sticky notes scattered among all my belongings, snippets on my phone, untitled documents on every cloud service there is, random word docs hidden amongst my many hard drives--but the only ones I can find right now are from @meonlyred‘s Dark Horse so please enjoy three bits from that fic that I loved:

They remained sitting on the floor, Rossa leaned against him, eyes staring into the distance. Her silence might as well have been weeping.

I just love how I can feel the vacant, numb quality of her despair in this line. How it feels more poignant for its lack of drama.

“You're an idiot and I hate your hair,” Jonas said over the rim of his glass.

I mean.... Do I need to explain this?

He had never believed in happily ever afters. Not for him, at least. But the cruelest thing about being with Rossa was that he had begun to believe that maybe, just maybe, it was possible.

Closing his eyes, Theron didn’t expect to open them again.

This little snippet still punches me in the gut no matter how many times I read it. It’s so relateable and so Theron and so painful.

R. If you had to rewrite one of your stories from scratch, which one would it be? What would you do to it?

I don’t think I’d rewrite any of them? At least half of my fic has been completely rewritten once or twice before it ever gets published so I mostly have it out of my system before anyone else sees it.

S. What’s the sexiest thing you wrote this year?

a wish your heart makes. It may also be the saddest thing I wrote this year which I consider an achievement. (I was asked for smut but I literally do not know how to write just smut without anything else going on in the story.)

T. Themes, motherfucker, do you have them? What are they?

The importance and nature of family (it is what you make it and not what you were born with! but sometimes you get lucky and get to choose the one you were born with!)! The cost/impact of violence and war! Failure and coming back from failure! The nature of what is right and what is wrong and how much responsibility any one individual bears for the moral direction of their society!!!!

I don’t think I’ve ever written anything that didn’t include at least one of these concepts and most of my stuff deals heavily in at least two of them.

U. Any stories that took a abrupt u-turn from where you thought they were going?

Yep! I was trying to make a stupid joke about a haircut when I started making take back what the kingdom stole but in working my way backward from the joke I ended up with a heartfelt exploration of my character’s past emotional trauma, her character growth, and the nature of friendship and forgiveness.

V. Which story was the most viscerally pleasing to write? Tell us your narrative kinks.

I don’t know that I would necessarily call the sensation pleasing but, once again, the things you do for love are gonna come back to you one by one was probably the story that made me feel the most, that I was the most connected to. It hit on every single one of the themes I find compelling and I really got to play with telling the story in the white spaces, which is something I really love. I’ve been working a lot on trusting my readers and not over-explaining and I think this story really saw the impact of that work, stylistically. It’s peak self-indulgence honestly.

W. Who are your favorite writers?

Does this mean like authors of original published works or fic writers????? How am I supposed to choose???!!!! Either way my reading habits this year have been abominable. I have really been going through some shit, lifewise, (not bad shit but emotionally consuming and time consuming nonetheless) and I had to let the reading go a little bit.

I have been really into NK Jemisin though. Her stories are complex and challenging and there is so much poetry and power in the straightforward way she tells them. I also was obsessed with the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik. The characters were so textured and real with such clear voices and the relationships and ideas were so complex and compelling, yet the story never got weighed down by the heft of the subjects. She has a very light touch as a storyteller that makes her work so easily digestible without making her tale any less impactful or profound.

As for fic…. I’ve got about forty million fics bookmarked, waiting for me to get around to reading them and I am the worst kind of person because I have not yet read any of them. I’m behind on reading one of my very favorite fics right now. I think I’ve read a total of like ten fics this year and straight up probably only read that many because I was doing a bit of beta’ing.

I’m gonna do better in 2019 and I’ll get back to you on all the good shit I’ve read then.

X. What’s your least favorite work of this year?

crapshoot. It was a really old concept that probably would have been better as visual art than a fic but my artistic talents were too limited so I wrote it instead. It could probably stand a little more meat and a lot more polish, but I don’t have the time to try and turn every goofy image in my head into a fictional masterpiece.

Y. Why did you write? For fun, for a friend, for acclaim?

For fame and fortune obviously. It’s why most of my fic is about a super popular ship in an enormous fandom.

Or, y’know… not. I write for fun and because I have to. Because there are stories inside of me I want to tell, ideas I feel compelled to explore, things I need to say. It doesn’t matter if anyone else hears them or likes them; I need to get them out of me. Also it’s a really great way to work through my own emotional turmoil at a safe distance, so I can engage with what vexes me without being consumed by it.

Z. If you could choose one work and immediately finish it, what would it be? How would you end it?

the things you do for love are gonna come back to you one by one. It’s the most self-indulgent thing I’ve written probably but it means a lot to me and if I knew how it ended I would have finished it months ago. D:

#memery #writing tag #long post #Anonymous

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dipulb3 · 3 years

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The 2021 Porsche 911 Turbo is just as superb without the S

New Post has been published on https://appradab.com/the-2021-porsche-911-turbo-is-just-as-superb-without-the-s/

The 2021 Porsche 911 Turbo is just as superb without the S

A ray of sunshine on a bitterly cold day.

Tim Stevens/Roadshow

I confess to having some unusually fond feelings about winter-driven Porsche 911s. Growing up in southern Vermont in the ’80s, the nexus of East Coast skiing, it was a mighty special thing to see a sports car winding its way along the sand-covered roads of winter. Those lucky enough to have such a toy tended to leave them locked away, sipping from a trickle charger until sometime well after mud season.

Epic suspension

Practicality and mad speed

Eye-popping acceleration

Don’t Like

People asking why you didn’t get the S

But in those rare times when I spotted a performance machine heading up to the mountains, like a bird that had missed its migration, it would inevitably be a 911 — usually with a ski rack perched on the back at a jaunty angle. I didn’t know at the time why it was always the teardrop-shaped German machines that came out to play in the snow, but seeing them soldiering on in all seasons had a strong, endearing effect.

Why the nostalgic preamble? Because, nearly 40 years later, the sight of a 911 sitting in my icy driveway on a set of winter tires was a special thing. It was with no shortage of significance that I strapped my own implement to the roof and headed up to the slopes. OK, so I ride a snowboard instead of a pair of sticks, but the effect was still the same. I had chills all the way up the mountain — and please don’t read that as a knock against Porsche’s heated seats.

Heated seats are just one of the luxuries that you wouldn’t have found in a 930-generation 911 Turbo, of the sort I might have seen in the ’80s. Likewise, the modern, 992-generation 911 Turbo I drove made 572 horsepower, nearly twice that of the fastest Turbos in the ’80s. Intimidating? Not really, because the modern car’s suspension, brakes and, perhaps most importantly, active safety systems have seen similarly huge advancements.

That’s an important thing when you’re wielding a car this powerful on roads as questionable as those found in a winter in the Northeast. My trip to Vermont wasn’t quite as snowy as it had been earlier in the year, when I was lucky enough to make the same jaunt in a crimson 718 Cayman T. A few months of thaws and freezes had compacted the powdery landscape to a slippery sheen. Once-snowy roads were now hard-packed and frozen, as you can see in these photos. (That’s not a frozen lake I stopped on to shoot the Turbo, that’s a parking lot.)

Importantly, those fenders are just as swole as they are on the S.

Tim Stevens/Roadshow

Conditions like this gave rise to the belief that if you can ski the East you can ski anywhere. I’d like to extend that further: If you can drive on ice like this you can drive on anything. The Turbo, despite the lack of studs on its Goodyear Ultra Grip tires, is surefooted and eminently confident when driven in a reasonable manner.

However, dip deeper into the throttle, ask a little more, and the monster within here is quickly revealed. There’s more than enough power to spin the wheels in the dry, so even lightly salted asphalt presents a challenge when driven hard. Ice is something best handled with a gentle right foot and quick hands on the wheel, but the Turbo is a very willing partner. A saucy one, too. I’m surprised how much power the differential continues to send to the rear wheels even when grip has been completely lost. A more pedestrian car would be locking every differential it could or, more likely, just shutting down things completely.

This isn’t the full-fat 911 Turbo S mind you, which I reviewed about a year ago. As such, the yellow Turbo you see here made do with 68 fewer horsepower and 37 fewer pound-feet of torque. On the open road, where law and civility abide, you’d never know the difference. Even on the track I don’t think most folks would tell. The 0-to-60-mph sprint of 2.7 seconds may be one tenth slower than the S, but it’s still plenty enough to dazzle.

Most importantly, the Turbo offers the same wonderful suspension tuning as found on the S, augmented here by the ($1,510 optional) PASM upgrade. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again that the 911 is at its best when driven hard over uneven roads. While the prodigious power offered by the Turbo means you’ll need to be a little careful before deploying your right foot to its maximum extent, this yellow sled absorbed the worst of the heaves and cracks that had formed on the roads throughout a hard winter. I needn’t have been concerned about the low-profile tires.

Fantastic for all four seasons.

Tim Stevens/Roadshow

On more gentle roads, the 911 Turbo is a very comfortable way to get from A to B. Sure, it’s a bit low, but the seats support you in all the right places without squeezing the wrong ones, there’s no shortage of headroom, plenty of shoulder room and, while the two back seats are comically small, between those and the frunk there’s plenty enough baggage space for a week away somewhere special. In fact, I could have stored my snowboard inside the cabin by laying back the passenger seat had I wanted to. But, nobody wants a heavy, sharp-edged implement floating around in the cabin on a spirited drive. Besides that, it just looked too damn good stuck on the rear glass and carbon fiber roof with a Seasucker rack.

That roof was a $3,890 Porsche Exclusive Manufaktur option, just one of many niceties that ballooned this $172,150 car, including $1,350 destination, up to a $220,300 final price. Well, those options and a $1,000 gas guzzler tax thanks to the Turbo’s EPA rating of 15 mpg city, 24 mpg highway and 20 mpg combined. Other notable options here include $5,500 for those lovely 20-inch front and 21-inch rear wheels, $2,770 for the nose lift (useful this time of year) and $3,020 for the Porsche InnoDrive system, which includes adaptive cruise and lane-keep assist.

In fact, you can option the 911 Turbo to have all the bells and whistles of the higher-trim Turbo S if you’re so inclined, even the ceramic brakes and Lightweight Design package. It’s possible, but I’d say if you’re going to go through that trouble you might as well just get the S in the first place. As sweet as this car drives and looks, were I lucky enough to be configuring a Turbo I’d probably go a little lighter on the options boxes. Well, I’d try to, anyway.

The 2021 Porsche 911 Turbo is remarkably good and won’t leave you missing those 68 meagre horses. It was a delight on my sprint to ski country, and not just because I got to live the other side of a special scene I’d witnessed as a kid. It felt good to be bringing smiles to the faces of all who saw this yellow machine slicing through the depths of winter. And really, how could you not smile at this?

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loughlinpatrick · 6 years

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5 Big Mistakes That Can Set Back Your Writing Career

Before you put pen to paper, read this. Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash

If you’re considering getting into writing or you’re just starting out on your first project, then this is exactly what you should be reading right now. No matter what type of writing you’re planning on getting into – whether it’s a fictional novel, a new blog, or something else entirely – all beginner writers are prone to making 5 big mistakes, and these mistakes have the potential to set you back years in your writing career. From the craft itself to your attitudes towards it, reading this article should give you the guidelines for success in writing.

1. Giving Up.

You’re not going to be the next J.K. Rowling on your first attempt.

Acheiving your dreams isn’t something that’ll happen overnight. Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash

Make no mistake: if you want to pursue writing as a career, or even just dabble in it as a fun hobby, it will not be easy. The actual process of getting your thoughts out of your head and onto the page can be extremely time-consuming, and you’re definitely not going to be the next J.K. Rowling on your very first attempt.

I have two friends who tried to get into writing by penning young adult novels, and only one of them still writes today. The first, who was a very proficient writer normally, gave up after being unsatisfied with the first chapter of her novel. Keep in mind that she hadn’t even written a second draft yet; this was her very first draft.

Her main issue was with the plot. In her words:

“I can’t even write a hundred words without simultaneously plagiarising all of the romance novels ever written.”

Thus, she never returned to her novel again.

I have another friend who persisted. Photo by Kinga Cichewicz on Unsplash

My other friend was not as proficient of a writer. Whilst she had ideas for a plot, she had a shakier grasp of grammar, and thus also wasn’t impressed with what she was producing. However, instead of giving up, this friend took a break, came back, and kept persisting. Now, even though this second friend started off at a worse skill level than my first friend, she didn’t give up and is now the superior fiction writer.

The lesson here is clear: keep persisting. Keep writing as often as possible to hone your craft and then eventually – some day soon – you’ll be able to write very, very well.

2. Seeking Perfection.

The best writing happens when you’re in a flow state.

Focus is the name of the game. Photo by Chase Clark on Unsplash

You need to turn off spell-check in whatever you use to write right now.

The best writing happens when you’re in a flow state. This isn’t some new pseudo-scientific buzzword, it’s actually a phenomenon proven and backed by psychology that originated way back in 1975 (before I was born!). In fact, the National Center for Biotechnology Information describes the state as something that “expands self-esteem and the individual’s capabilities through learning new optimisations that increase the feelings of continuity and fluidity in attention and action.” In plain English, this means that when your brain is in a flow state, it can figure how to do do things faster and more effectively.

Be as attentive as this cat. Photo by Mafer Benitez on Unsplash

But what does your flow have to do with your writing?

Well, if you do your best work when in a flow state, then it isn’t ideal to disrupt that by turning your attention to other tasks. Multiple scientific studies even prove that multi-tasking can have a detrimental effect on not only your overall productivity, but also your performance in the task at hand. So, if your goal is to stay in the zone and do your best writing for as long as possible, then multi-tasking is going to be very harmful to your writing. This means that trying to be perfect on your first try by editing as you go is not ideal.

So, how do you stay in your flow state for as long as possible? By focusing on the one task at hand. This means turning spell-check off while you write your first draft and banning yourself from using the backspace button. When you stop seeking perfection and interrupting your writing with impromptu editing, you’ll be able to do your best possible writing for longer.

Essentially, by keeping writing time for writing and doing editing once you’re done, you’ll be able to access your flow state and do your best possible work.

3. Writing Without Passion.

I have a third friend who also tried to get into writing by writing a novella, and she had a very different problem from the first two.

She had far too many ideas.

Sometimes, having a head full of dreams can be a problem. Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash

This doesn’t seem like it would be an issue. After all, the whole point of writing is the act of sharing ideas with audiences, whether the audience is just yourself or as many people as possible. Hence, I didn’t quite understand her issue at first.

However, I now realise that she lacked passion. This is not to say that she didn’t have a passion for writing, or a passion for making up stories; no one has that many ideas with no passion at all. However, she didn’t have passion for ideas on an individual basis.

Every time she would have a new idea, she would immediately stop work on her current writing project – even if she’d just started it – and start writing her new story. Due to this, she never gave her ideas any time to marinate. She never sat with her ideas and gave her stories space to be fleshed out, and as such, she never had time to develop a passion for her current project.

This is what would lead to a perpetual cycle that she went through for several months. She would have an idea, start writing immediately and let the initial passion fizzle out, and then a new idea would come along to replace her lack of passion for the original. However, all hope was not lost.

In the midst of her unfinished ideas, there was something different. Photo by Kristopher Roller on Unsplash

In the midst of the graveyard of unfinished novellas that reside on her devices is a completed short story. It’s an idea that she had sat with, fleshed out and really explored, and thus it became the first completed story that she’s written.

So, never forget your passion; you’ll need it in the long run.

4. Getting Too Attached.

Once you finish writing your first draft, it’s time to trim the fat.

Be ruthless, like this lion. Photo by Ivan Diaz on Unsplash

Before, I discussed how editing should wait until after one is finished writing their first draft. This is a very difficult rule to follow for perfectionists like me, and I’ll admit that I actually broke it several times in the process of writing this article. However, there’s another editing mistake that most first time writers make, and that’s getting too attached.

Many first time writers are prone to get too attached to what they’ve just created. This is completely understandable. After all, writing something for the very first time is a massive achievement that takes a lot of work and I cannot underestimate how proud you should be of yourself for that! There are so many more people who haven’t written a thing, including those who’ve considered writing but didn’t go through with it because they’re too scared to put themselves out there; you should be applauded for breaking out of the majority and rising to the top!

Congratulations for reaching the top of your mountain! Photo by Julentto Photography on Unsplash

However, once you finish writing your first draft, it’s time to trim the fat.

Many writers will justify to themselves why it’s okay to include a certain section of the content they’ve created that is clearly sub-par. I’ve fallen into that trap myself several times, thinking that it’s okay for a scene that isn’t good enough for the final version of my novel to remain because I put so much work into it. However, that is never true.

The editing phase of your writing is not a time for mercy.

You need to be willing to cut out anything that doesn’t move your narrative forward, and this doesn’t just apply to novels. Any phrase, sentence or paragraph that doesn’t provide new information, emphasise existing information, or add to the flow of what you created must go. If it doesn’t serve a purpose, it doesn’t belong in your final product.

Be a ruthless editor, and only let the fittest parts of your writing survive.

5. Not Writing With a Plan.

I have a confession to make.

I have to tell you something. Photo by Kristina Flour on Unsplash

I had the idea for this article while planning out lots of my blog content in advance, and because I was in a flow state (discussed earlier), I had so many more ideas for writing mistakes to discuss. In fact, I wanted to expand this article from a list of five mistakes to a list of seven, because I came up with so many ideas.

Unfortunately, I never wrote any of these ideas down.

This led to me not only forgetting the extra ideas that I came up with to lengthen this article, but also some of the original five that I’d thought of in the first place. Some of the ideas came back to me in the process of actually writing this article right now, but one remained elusive.

Writing mistake number five.

The missing piece. Photo by Ryoji Iwata on Unsplash

As I tried to think of the mistake I’d forgotten in order to finish this article, I realised that I had made a monumental one of my own: I hadn’t written this article with a plan to guide me. This is a massive mistake, as the loss of any idea is the loss of potential. Potential for you to share an amazing concept with the world. Potential for you to improve as a writer. Potential for you to finish an article that you actually expect to earn money from.

When I was writing my novels, my planning documents were some of the most useful resources I had. I used a note on my phone to keep a list of characters in my story, a short synopsis for each chapter I had planned, and then extra details on particular sub-plots that I needed to flesh out.

That’s right – a note on my phone.

Could this be the solution to your planning woes? Photo by Paul Hanaoka on Unsplash

Your planning document can take any shape or form. If you prefer the feeling of physically writing things down, you can purchase a notebook and pen down all of your thoughts in there. If you have a lot of stuff to organise, you can also use a spreadsheet on your laptop, and have different sheets for different aspects of your book. If that all seems a bit overwhelming, you can take the route that I took and just keep a note on your phone with all the essential details you need to know.

Whatever form your plan takes, know this: you have to write it down as soon as possible.

Conclusion

I hope that this list of writing mistakes and how to avoid them helped you out. To recap, here are the mistakes once more:

Giving up.

Seeking perfection.

Writing without passion.

Getting too attached.

Not writing with a plan.

Thank you so much for your time! Photo by Hanny Naibaho on Unsplash

Thanks for reading my article! If you enjoyed this article – or even if you didn’t – make sure to let me know. I’d love to discuss this with you below!

#writing #advice #tips #productivity #writing tips

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weareallkosh · 7 years

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tagged by @lurkz

The last 1. drink: creme soda 2. phone call: a technical review for one of my parts at work. 3. text message: Sent? “This cat is the only thing I have ever encountered that expresses affection by buzzing loudly and nibbling on my elbow.” 4. song you listened to: "Angel of the Morning”, apparently. Go Deadpool soundtrack? 5. time you cried: I can’t remember. I’m absolutely certain I have since then but the last I can remember clearly is the first time I saw GotG2. Have you ever 6. dated someone twice: If you mean got back together with somebody after breaking up, no. If you mean had precisely 2 dates with somebody and never again... well you just described high school. 7. kissed someone and regretted it: Nope 8. been cheated on: I doubt it 9. lost someone special: Yes 10. been depressed: I mean, right now. But definitely worse 2013-2016, I was on medication for it and all. 11. gotten drunk and thrown up: Only once, never again shall I be so drunk. 3 favorite colors 12. blue 13. green 14. gray

In the last year have you: 15. made new friends: Indeed (we’ll assume Tumblr mutuals count) 16. fallen out of love: Nope 17. laughed until you cried: definitely 18. found out someone was talking about you: Well, I know @sithwitch13 shares the dumb shit I do/say with @lurkz, but beyond that not really. 19. met someone who changed you: everybody I meet changes me a little, right? 20. found out who your friends are: In the sense that I found out who a few of them aren’t. 21. kissed someone on your Facebook list: I should think so, I’m married to one of them, she’d probably be upset if I hadn’t kissed her in year. General: 22. how many of your Facebook friends do you know in real life: 91.3% of them, and the others are friends-of-friends I just haven’t met. I keep my FB friends list pretty neat. 23. do you have any pets: two cats, Tonks and Fatty (who is not nearly so fat as he was when we took him in, and doesn’t really deserve the nickname anymore) 24. do you want to change your name: Not so long as people respect my desire to go by my middle name. 25. what did you do for your last birthday: @sithwitch13 and I went to the Hobbit Cafe up in town (exactly what it sounds like), then we went to Dave and Busters with a few friends - @kivat, her BF, some local buddies. 26. what time did you wake up: 6:40 AM, with the alarm and dreams of Tumblr discourse echoing through my brain. 27. what were you doing at midnight last night: For once, I was actually asleep I think. 28. name something you can’t wait for: The Last Jedi 31. what are you listening to right now: Typing from the next room, a noisy dog upstairs. When I’m done with this, maybe an audiobook for a while. 32. have you ever talked to a person named tom: I have a good friend named Tom, though we haven’t talked that much recently.

33. something that is getting on your nerves: the executive and legislative branches of our government (just gonna leave this because truth) 34. most visited website: lately, Tumblr. I also check Jezebel, Kotaku, and RockPaperShotgun way too much. 35. hair colour: light brown, where it’s not starting to go gray from stress. 36. long or short hair: short, but due for another trim. 39. piercings: That’s a hard nope... 40. blood type: Blue (sorry, bad joke, I’m Evangelion trash). I don’t recall the real one, AB+ I think? 41. nicknames: Don’t really have one. We’ll see if @lurkz, @sithwitch13, or @kivat decide I need one after seeing this. I use Ragnarok or Echani as a screen name a lot of places but that doesn’t count. 42. relationship status: happily married, but more romantic partners might be a possibility depending on the circumstances and the right woman or guy. Also... hasn’t been discussed to the point you’d say it’s a QPR or platonic partnership or the like, but she’s family as I see it and that means a lot. 43. zodiac: Capricorn 44. pronouns: he/him, though some days they/them would be fine by me too. 45. favourite tv show: Oh man. Babylon 5, The Expanse, both Star Wars series, Farscape, Neon Genesis Evangelion. 46. tattoos: several planned, haven’t found the artist to do them yet. 47. right or left handed: sinister (left) 48. surgery: appendectomy

49. piercing: only if stabbed

50. sport: to watch? Football (American that is), but only really college ball and only rarely. Playing? I don’t really anymore but I like archery and fencing, and really need to get back into a martial art. 51. vacation: Badly needed. Last that wasn’t just a weekend jaunt was up to NYC to visit. Next might be to Vegas or such. Really want to go back to Hawaii or Italy, or make a nice tour of the UK or Germany. 52. pair of trainers: Hans and Franz? (not sure what this is really asking, but I guess the Sketchers crosstrainers I work out in? Not favorites exactly but I have them so...)

More general: 53. eating: I recently ate some cheese. Before that, fajitas and a popsicle. 54. drinking: water 55. i’m about to: embrace sweet oblivion until another work day tomorrow 56. waiting for: maybe doing character generation for an RPG this weekend 57. want: to hopefully not see the start of WW3 (left because accurate) 58. get married: Already did, so the “get” part is an issue because the government won’t let me do it again unless I get rid of my current marriage first and... no. I could potentially see a commitment ceremony or something though if circumstances merited it. 59. career: rocket scientist (though technically I don’t work on the rocket part, I work on the astronaut part, and I kind of want to stop doing it) Which is better: 60. hugs or kisses: Hugs generally speaking, though sometimes nothing will do but a kiss 61. lips or eyes: Eyes, so very much. 62. shorter or taller: Yes.

63. older or younger: Doesn’t matter, though close to my age is nice.

64. nice arms or nice stomach: matter less than the person, but both are... well, nice 65. hook up or relationship: relationship 66. troublemaker or hesitant: Troublemaker, at least as regards me :-P Have you ever: 67. kissed a stranger: No, not my scene 68. drank hard liquor: Prefer it; only have a drink or two a week though

69. lost glasses/contact lenses: surprisingly, no 70. turned someone down: In retrospect, yes, though I didn’t know at the time that’s what I was doing... 71. sex on the first date: Extremely unlikely 72. broken someone’s heart: Hah, I doubt it. 73. had your heart broken: seemed that way at the time, but I was young and stupid so maybe not 74. been arrested: no 75. cried when someone died: yes 76. fallen for a friend: You betcha. Do you believe in: 77. yourself: I believe in the me that believes in me. 78. miracles: Not really, no. 79. love at first sight: Attraction and chemistry? Yes. Love? No. 80. santa claus: Not since I was very small indeed. 81. kiss on the first date: sure 82. angels: Shinji and Asuka took care of them.

Other: 83. current best friend’s name: Mary 84. eye colour: Kinda shifts between blueish and green depending on what I’m wearing. More green I think. 85. favourite movie: I can’t pick just one. The Matrix, Return of the Jedi, Dr. Strangelove for the top 3 maybe.

tag you’re it: @kivat if you want to, otherwise tag yourself (you’re it!)

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cherry-valentine · 7 years

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Spring 2017 Anime Season

Here’s what I’m watching:

Fukumenkei Noise is one of my favorites this season. We need more shoujo romances like this, with cool, stylish art and awesome music and heroines who actually, you know, do stuff besides pine after guys (and to be clear, the heroine here does pine after a guy, but it’s definitely not the only thing she does, and she’s a refreshingly proactive heroine). The love triangle is particularly interesting because both male love interests seem to have an equal shot at ending up with heroine Nino. My favorite is Yuzu, and his attempts to support Nino and her crush on Momo while also being in love with her himself, and his conflicted feelings between wanting her to be happy and wanting her love for Momo to fail, are the highlights of the series. There’s also the “secretly in an alternative rock band” angle, which provides for some great costume changes and even better songs. Overall, it’s one of the better shoujo anime of the past few seasons.

Royal Tutor Haine is a cute and quirky little comedy about a no nonsense tutor called in to teach four difficult princes how to best prepare to be king (in the event their older brother dies or something, I guess). The charm really comes from the tutor himself, Haine. He looks like he’s twelve, but he’s actually a full-grown adult with appropriately adult-like voice and mannerisms. We see this often with female characters (to justify sexualizing characters that look like little girls, usually) but it’s a bit more uncommon to see it like this. His genuine affection for the princes while remaining somewhat stern in his teachings is surprisingly sweet to watch. The princes themselves are a collection of bishounen stereotypes (the tsundere who’s secretly shy and insecure, the formal and stiff one in glasses, the strong, rough one who’s actually a big softie, and the flamboyant one always surrounded by ladies). I wish they had been as interesting as Haine, but they are at least cute and fun, even as they march down very familiar character arcs. The character designs are, of course, very beautiful (even the castle guards are good looking!) and the music is fine (I can take or leave the opening theme, but the ending theme is extremely catchy - especially in the alternate version with the boy band performing the song in full cosplay of the characters).

Kenka Banchou Otome is a cute little otome series with a silly premise that benefits from the short episode runtime (the episodes usually run under eight minutes each). This effectively trims out all the fat and leaves us with a strong focus on what makes the series fun: attractive male characters getting their asses handed to them by a cute, pink haired heroine who happens to be a badass martial artist (and is posing as a guy), and then said male characters falling for her (or him, from their perspective, I guess). The heroine is great because she’s kind and sweet but she will still mess these guys up if they attack or challenge her. I also have a soft spot for the guy she traded places with, who is supposed to be a rough and tough delinquent but is all too happy to put on a skirt and pose as the heroine at her all girls school (and he has a room full of posters of a certain hot male idol...). This series is basically short, quick bursts of fun.

Tsuki ga Kirei is a sweet, subtle romance that, refreshingly. spends equal time from the perspectives of both parties in the romance. I was a little iffy on the show at first, because it was slow-burning and, if I’m being totally honest, a bit boring. Both leads are so shy and quiet that it’s literally frustrating to watch them in the beginning. You’ll find yourself wanting to scream, “Somebody say something for God’s sake!” But their collective insecurities also make them painfully relatable at times. We’ve all had those awkward moments where we have no idea what to say or, worse, say the wrong thing and have no idea how to fix it. As the episodes roll by, you find yourself rooting for this cute young couple. The art has a somewhat subdued style, with lots of natural colors (hilariously, a side character is the only person with strange-colored hair, which is a fun inverse of the usual trope). Speaking of the side characters, they’re fairly interesting and get some much needed development in the brief, after credits skits that are actually really funny (which is odd since the main story has little humor). I was a little put off by the fact that, despite the characters being in middle school, it’s heavily implied that a side couple is sexually active and it’s also implied that their teacher is in love with one of her students. These aspects are mostly left to the aforementioned skits and are used for comedy, but I found them just a little bit disturbing. Overall, the show is worth a watch if you don’t mind a lot of quiet reflection in your gentle romance anime.

Rage of Bahamut: Virgin Soul is the second season of Rage of Bahamut and it’s one of the shows I’m enjoying most this season. I enjoyed season one quite a lot, but season two has been much better, with an awesome new heroine in Nina, a cute and silly young girl who is super strong, falls in love with every handsome guy who walks into her line of sight, and oh yeah, turns into a giant, fire-breathing dragon. Like in the first season, the show does an excellent job of balancing the humorous nature of its lead characters against the dark and violent world they live in. There are some truly horrific things going on, as the world is wrapped up in a three-way conflict between demons, gods, and the humans who are using a new sort of magic (or technology?) to reign supreme. It’s also interesting that one of the main antagonists from season one (Azazel) is now one of the main protagonists (second only to Nina), and even though I didn’t like him much before (and he’s still not a very nice person at all), the story paints his situation in a such a sympathetic light that I’m rooting for him. The animation, design work, and music are all amazing (go watch the stylish black, white, and red opening theme - you won’t regret it).

Kabukibu is another quirky show, this time about a high schooler starting his own Kabuki club and putting on amateur Kabuki performances. I don’t know anything about Kabuki besides the brief mentions I’ve seen of it in anime, so this was pretty interesting for me. The series follows familiar beats to other “characters trying to start a club so they have to recruit people” stories, complete with characters who continually refuse to join but you know they’re going to end up joining anyway. Despite this, the show is fun and very informative. It makes me want to watch an actual Kabuki play. I also like that the main character isn’t the star of the club. He can’t act to save his life. He plays a behind-the-scenes role (he writes scripts, helps with sound effects and staging, etc.). This was a nice twist on the usual formula. My only real gripe with the show is the fact that a particular female character is consistently referred to as fat or “round” by the other characters as well as herself, yet she looks just as skinny as the rest of the girls in the show. It’s just bizarre, to be honest. Another character does privately think that she’s “not as fat as she thinks”, but that still implies she’s some degree of fat and none of the other characters seem to share this sentiment. It’s basically another example of animators being so adverse to drawing fat girls that they just said “screw it" and drew another thin girl. Still, it’s a rather minor complaint in an otherwise fun show.

Quan Zhi Gao Shou (I hope I spelled that right) is a Chinese series that’s been making waves lately for two primary reasons: It draws a lot of comparisons to Sword Art Online (both feature a player with God-like gaming skills playing an MMO that seems way too important) and secondly, it’s one of the best looking animated tv series I’ve seen from any country, in a very long time. This is significant because pretty much all of the Chinese shows I’ve watched over the past few seasons have had noticeably lower animation quality than your average Japanese anime. Quan Zhi, however, is gorgeous. Everything from the backgrounds to the character models looks fantastic. So what about those SAO comparisons? It’d be easy to write off Quan Zhi as boring, because, at first glance, it’s nowhere near as exciting as SAO. No one is trapped in the game. Whatever happens in the game has no direct physical effect on the players, and even though action scenes in the game are animated as if the players are directly in the game world, it’s made clear that the players are simply sitting at computers and all the dialogue we’re hearing is either voice or text chatting in-game. It’s not even virtual reality! But depending on your age bracket, you might find the first episode of Quan Zhi to be far scarier than the first episode of SAO. This is because there are definitely high stakes for these players, even if their physical bodies are not at risk. What they could very possibly lose are their sponsorship deals and team positions, and losing those means losing their income and livelihood. The first episode is frightening for the adults in the audience, because suddenly losing your only source of income is TERRIFYING. Believe me, I know this very well. The way the series ties itself to themes of job security and economics gives it an air of realism that’s been sorely lacking in gaming-based anime lately. High on my watch list.

Shingeki no Kyojin Season Two has been great. Everyone can say what they want about SnK being “too mainstream” or whatever but the fact is it’s a quality show and it’s brought in a lot of new anime fans. There’s usually a reason a series becomes massively popular, and in this case, it’s beautiful animation, great music, and a tightly plotted story that doesn’t always follow familiar action anime beats. Combine that with a general lack of tired romantic subplots and the fact that the show doesn’t distinguish any difference of strength between genders (if anything, it’s the ladies who are the strongest), and you have a show devoid of most of the stuff people complain about when it comes to anime. The show is not perfect, of course. Some scenes can drag on a little too long and occasionally characters do things in service of the plot that defy logic. But these are rare enough to not be a problem. I was tempted to say I’m enjoying season two more than season one (because I am enjoying it a LOT), but it’s been so long that I honestly can’t remember exactly how I felt while watching the first season. I just know it was one of my favorites in a season full of great shows. If you’re one of those people who are avoiding SnK because it’s “too popular”, you need to reevaluate why you do or do not watch a series.

Boku no Hero Academia Season Two continues to be enjoyable. This is because the series has enough charm to distract me from my issues with it (namely, that it’s faithfully marching down the standard shounen fighting anime path with practically no deviations - the show is basically Naruto with super heroes instead of ninjas and with slightly less angst). The best thing about the show by far is the protagonist Midoriya. He’s just a genuinely nice person that you’ll relate to and root for. Another highlight is his relationship with his mentor, All-Might. It’s just such a sweet, positive relationship, and it’s nice to see that there’s pretty much zero negativity here (I don’t even remembering seeing any good natured ribbing). All-Might takes a very fatherly role here (to the point that another character suspects Midoriya of being All-Might’s secret love child!), which works well for the fatherless Midoriya. In fact, there’s a general sense of positivity permeating the whole show. This is because all of the main characters, regardless of their general attitudes and behaviors, want to be heroes so they can help people. I would also commend the show for it’s variety in character designs, IF that variety extended to its female characters. Seriously, look at all the crazy or weird looking male characters, many of which don’t even look human, then look at the lady characters, all of which, without exception, are human-shaped (and they’re pretty much all the same human shape: large breasts, narrow waist, and curvy thighs). There’s only one that looks the slightest bit strange, and it’s only because of her unique coloring. It’s just a little irritating that even in a show filled with guys with literal crow heads or multiple arms and come in tons of different shapes and sizes, all the ladies are in the default “conventionally attractive” shape. Still yet, the show is a lot of fun and definitely worth watching.

Gin no Guardian is another Chinese series, albeit one that doesn’t look anywhere near as polished as Quan Zhi Gao Shou. The episodes run at around twelve minutes each, which is more common for Chinese shows. Ironically, it actually lends itself much more to SAO comparisons than Quan Zhi does, as it features an online game that characters actually go into and can presumably be hurt or possibly killed in (it’s never specifically said that but it seems to be implied, or at the very least, there are real world consequences for things that happen in the game). The first few episodes were very good, focusing on a couple who come from vastly different backgrounds (a rich heiress and a poor boy doing menial tasks on the school grounds to cover his tuition) playing a game together and connecting in that virtual world in a way they never could in reality. It was actually very well done, and a few scenes tugged on my heartstrings. But then we get a predictable plot twist that effectively shuts down that whole dynamic and turns the show into a more generic action anime with MMO elements. The show is still okay but I have to admit I’ve found myself zoning out while watching the more recent episodes.

Uchouten Kazoku Season Two is, like the first season, a unique and quirky little show full of charm. The show does a great job of developing its own world with its own rules and its own version of reality, to such a degree that even the strangest things seem normal and commonplace here. You won’t question seeing a frog playing shogi, or the most powerful being in the series methodically ironing all his shirts on the roof of a building. And all the strange things aren’t done just for the sake of being strange. There’s nothing pretentious about this show. Everything is presented with an air of gentle amusement. And even though the show has rare moments of violence and death (and they’re also presented in a natural manner - not at all for shock value or to milk some melodrama from the story), the series is overall positive and good natured. It’s helped by the interesting art style, a somewhat cartoonish design combined with rich colors and gorgeous backgrounds. The animation quality isn’t always perfect, but the overall look of the show makes up for any stumbles. And then there’s Benten, hands-down one of the best female characters to come along in years (if a figure of her existed I would buy it in an instant). Beautiful, supremely powerful, and utterly fearless, Benten is a somewhat neutral force in the story (she both helps and hurts the protagonists, at various points), and her only real goal seems to be seeking amusement. This means sometimes she’s flying around the world (literally flying, as she convinced a Tengu to give her his power) and sometimes she’s going down to hell to wrestle Oni for fun. Because why not? I would watch this show for Benten alone, but fortunately, it’s a great series even without her.

Kyoukai no Rinne Season Three is fun and all, because the world of the series and the setup are fun, but so far it seems to be limiting itself to short, one-shot stories (three per episode), which means there’s no overarching plot for this season. One or two episodes like this would have been fine, welcomed even, as they flesh out various characters are are genuinely entertaining for the most part. But several episodes? In a row? And no end in sight? I know the series has a relaxed pace, and I’ve enjoyed that aspect of it, but this is getting a little too relaxed. I really want the series to go back to actual story arcs, or even full-episode stand alone stories, since they at least have a little more development. There’s an important arc that should be coming up soon, as a new character involved in it is seen in the new opening theme, and it’s one I’m looking forward to a lot so it’s a little frustrating every week when I’m met with yet another collection of mini stories. Oh well. Like I said, the show is still fun and entertaining. It could just be a lot better.

#Anime #Anime Reviews #Spring 2017 Anime

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gillywulf · 7 years

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you’re a problem but you’re mine (you’re a winner even though you think you’re not)

The pet Hotel AU.

AO3

Summary: Jason needs a job and PetStay needed him.

Pt. 2 (warning: this does include a dog bite)

It turned out that prepping for mealtimes wasn’t as hard as Jason initially thought. Like Billy, he’d needed to develop a system before it made sense, but eventually, once he’d started separating the labels stating the dog’s name and food into dry and wet, the process went far quicker. He was midway through preparing dinners when the door to the kitchen slammed open and a middle aged man with neat, short hair. He stopped short at the sight of Jason.

“Who are you?” Blunt. Jason held out his hand.

“Hi, I’m Jason. I’m new. Ish” The man takes his hand and it’s surprisingly gentle.

“Tommy Oliver. I’m the trainer here and my kid works the night shift” Jason remembered the walkie chart with Tommy Junior written next to green and nodded.

“Oh yeah, I haven’t met him yet” An odd look crossed Tommy’s face.

“Uh, Tommy Junior is-”

“Tommy! What up, dude?” Zack’s boisterous voice filled the small kitchen, shoving whatever the trainer was going to say out of their minds. “I haven’t seen you in like, two weeks” He set down the stack of used dog bowls and spread his arms, offering a warm hug. Tommy was clearly uncomfortable.

“Good to see you, Zack. Oh, whoops, I have class in two minutes. Nice to meet you, Jason” He slipped from the room with a quick wave.

“I can not figure out why he doesn’t like me” Zack mumbled, perching his hands on his hips. The whole image - the confused face, the posture, the situation he’d just witnessed - as truly a masterpiece. Jason laughed.

“Never change, man”

“Have a nice day” Kim beamed at the pet parent until they rounded the corner out of eye sight. She dropped her falsely peppy face instantly and rolled her eyes to Jason. “‘I ordered a nail trim and a suite!’ They did neither so he got neither. I literally hate people. They over feed and under care and get upset at me when they’re the one who messed up” she huffed, turning back to the computer and tapping in last minute pay information. He laughed.

“I mean you’re not wrong, but that’s like all retail”

“Doesn’t mean I can’t still hate them”

“That’s fair,” he shrugged, “you get off in five minutes too, right? Do you want to go to Krispy Kreme with me and my little sister? My mom’s dropping her off in a bit” Kim twisted the watch on her wrist and shrugged.

“Sure. I bet she’s funnier than you”

“Says the girl who literally can’t make a joke that gets anyone laughing” She scowled and crossed her arms.

“I will have you know, I am very funny”

“No, I think Pearl will definitely be funnier than both of us”

The dog squirmed and wriggled with all its might, crying all the while. The high pitched squeals were definitely starting to hurt Jason’s ears. None of it was helping the nail grind get done any faster. He stepped back with a resigned sigh and punched the talk button on his walkie.

“Red could use some help with a nail grind” The dog leveled him with her best pleading stare. Maybe if she looked sad enough, he would stop.

“Blue to the rescue!” Billy’s voice announced over the radio. Less than a minute later, the boy strolled in and took a firm hold of the dog’s body. Thankfully, it was enough for Jason to finally get a full paw done with the promise of stillness for the rest. He quickly moved on to the next paw. If she wasn’t going to stay this calm long, he needed to be fast.

“Billy, you are an absolute lifesaver” Why did dogs need to much hair over their feet? It just made everything harder and slightly more dangerous. He could get it stuck in the grinder and pull out a chunk if he wasn’t careful.

“My pleasure, Jason. Hey, do you think I’m weird?” Jason stilled, stopped the grinder, and straightened to look Billy dead in the eye.

“I’ve seen Zack eat a burger off the ground even though the bun fell off”

“No, I know- I mean, yeah, that’s kinda weird, but I mean like, you know-”

“Did something happen?” he asked. Concern clawed its way up his throat and the dog sat happily on the table between them, clearly believing she was out of the woods. Billy looked hesitant for a moment.

“I brought Summer up to her mom and I was really excited because we don’t really get all that many Corgis, so I was telling her neat history about their breed, like ‘corgi’ means ‘dwarf-dog’ in Welsh where they originated from and because they are herders, they are the same type of dog that huskies are, which no one really expects because they are so different. And she looked at me like a lot of people do when I start to talk a lot, like there must be something definitely wrong with me” His hold on the dog slackened, his hands instead stroking along her side.

“Billy,” Jason wanted so badly to lay his hand on Billy’s shoulder, to really draw his attention, but he knew his friend didn’t like to be touched, so he reigned himself in, “you are the kindest, smartest, most caring person I know. Hands down. Having a diagnosis doesn’t make you weird, it’s another part of who you are, just like your love of country music” Billy smiled at that and Jason accepted the small victory. “One rude lady isn’t going to change any of the awesome things about you. Don’t ever forget that” Billy’s eyes shone and it looked like he might even cry. Jason wouldn’t be able to stop himself from following if that was going to happen.

“Thank you, Jason”

“Honestly any time. Thank you for coming to me. Now let’s get her finished up, okay?”

It was almost funny watching Trini try and hold back such a fat chocolate lab. Tucker was definitely not built to easy walking.

“Fuck you, dick! Stop pulling!” She grit her teeth and dug in her heels, but it was no use. Tucker was headed to camp at his own pace. “You wanna help at all?” she shot back to Jason behind her.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I have to keep holding Gus to make sure he doesn’t kill anyone. You know, because he’s so lethal” Gus was in fact a toy fox terrier, shaking constantly and peeing himself in fear as Jason spoke.

“Dick, Tucker, stop!” Kim chose that moment to step into the hallway from the relief room. She calmly took in the scene; Trini being pulled by an overexcited fat dog and Jason, with his tiny shaking mess. With a roll over her eyes, she reached out and jerked Tucker’s lead in a direction he wasn’t expecting, surprising him enough to get him to stop.

“Tuck, walk nice” she demanded. “If he keeps doing it, just stop and wait for him to settle. He needs to learn not to pull” Her eyes bore into Trini’s and even from his not great angle, Jason could see how struck Trini was. The girl’s eyes didn’t move away once Kim headed to the grooming room.

“You good?” he asked, almost concerned.

“Fuck, she’s so hot”

When things were busy, things were busy. Jason barely had a moment to breathe between shuffling dogs into their rooms, cleaning, juggling dogs in camp, and a whole host of other duties.

“Red, I need Maximus when you have a moment; he’s going home” Kim’s steady voice broke through his dinner prep concentration. He sighed. He was never going to get anything done.

“Sure, pink” He left the kitchen and speed walked to where he knew Maximus the giant yellow lab would be waiting by the kennel door, his tongue lolling out and his tail wagging non-stop. Sure enough, that was the sight that greeted him. The dog was clearly excited to go home, if the way he pulled at his leash was any indicator. His owners beamed and hugged him while obliviously clogging up the reception area. But of course, there was no time to stand there and wonder whether or not it was just a little too much, another family stood waiting to say goodbye to their German Shepard.

“Jason, could you please take Grant to 211? Thank you” Kim was already staring back to paperwork, highlighting on a chart the days certain services were being received.

“Sure,” he smiled politely to the family and slipped a lead over Grant’s head, his other hand extended for the leash, “I can take him, have a great day” Grant followed him easily to the door and through it, all the way to the door of kennel 211 where he promptly planted his feet and refused to move. “Bud, c’mon, I need to finish the lunches”

The pleading must have worked, because the dog gave in just enough to allow himself to be guided inside the kennel. Jason knelt to pull his lead and unclip the collar. Grant seized the moment. He shot out from under Jason’s knee in a desperate bid to escape. Jason did nothing but act on instinct. His hand shot out just as fast and just managed to grab a hold of Grant’s paper ID band.

The ID band around his neck.

While all Jason could think was to beg higher powers to keep the ID band in tact long enough for his to slip the lead back over his head, Grant wanted nothing more than to be away from him. So he rolled onto his back and turned his head to take Jason’s hand into his mouth and bit. Hard.

For a long second Jason didn’t even register what had happened. He was so focused on holding on that his brain excused the bite like that from a puppy, painful, but only for a second and completely harmless. That is, until his brain caught up with the sheer pain and the sight of blood. Needless to say, he let go.

Grant took off out of Jason’s view. His hand was mangled, that was the only word he could associate with the way it looked. He must not have registered Grant’s frenzied shaking like a chew toy he was on the other end of. He tried to make a fist and failed.

“Hey Jason, what’s taking- holy shit” Trini wasted no time. She marched over to him and took the hand in hers. She whipped the grey beanie from her head and wrapped it as tightly around it as possible. “Keep this tight, you need pressure,” she tugged on her walkie, “birdhouse” she said simply before pushing him off towards the kitchen. “Go wait there. I’ll get him in the kennel and we’ll take you to the hospital”

Jason blinked in awe at her take-charge attitude, but managed a weak nod. She was gone in the blink of an eye, her tiny voice gruff and furious as she called out Grant’s name. He definitely heard an aggressive ‘ass-fucker’ as he headed towards the kitchen.

Billy was already there, gauze and light antiseptics at the ready. He was so careful and gentle and Jason was eternally grateful, he just wished his head was clearer to express that appreciation. He’d do that later when he wasn’t bleeding profusely. Kim burst into the room just as the cleaning stage finished. She did a quick examination before motioning to Billy to continue.

“We’ve already called Grant’s parents. They were only in the parking lot and he’ll be refused for the rest of the month. Okay, wow that’s a lot of blood. Trini’s going to drive you to the hospital because Billy can’t drive, Zack’s stuck in camp, and I have to man the front desk. She’s usually a good driver, I promise” Before Jason had long enough to process the statement and ask what exactly she meant by that, Trini swept into the room and grabbed his bicep.

“C’mon, homeboy, let’s get you to the hospital before you bleed out” The next few minutes are a whirlwind of racing out the store in an attempt not to alarm customers and to reach the hospital as quickly as possible. Kim’s ‘usually’ begins to make sense on the highway. Trini darts her car into small spaces and slams on the brakes and accelerator so often that Jason began to worry a heart attack might kill him before his hand.

There was something incredibly calming about her hard demeanor cracking only enough for her worry to trickle out in barely-there ways, like the way her eyes constantly darted over to him, or the way her hands tightened over and over on the steering wheel. Maybe she did like him. He’d like to be friends.

Jason wordlessly held out the tray of steaming coffee cups while trying very hard not to chug from his own. With a small sigh of relief, Kim took the tray and then the cup marked with her name.

“Zack’s running late” she mumbled after a long sip. Jason laughed.

“Some day, someone who’s not us will realize and he’ll get fired”

“Let’s hope not. We’re still super understaffed”

“Good thing I’m here, right?” The two whirled around to find a girl with closely cropped hair and a grin too bright for the early hour standing on the other side of the front desk, already in the customary PetStay navy polo. Jason and Kim shot one another confused glances.

“Uh, I’m sorry to ask, but who are you? I only have one person for training on my list today” Kim thumbed through her schedule post-it notes, looking for any name she didn’t recognize.

“That’s probably me. I’m Tj” she beamed. Jason couldn’t help but notice the startlingly bright green eyes she had. Kim didn’t stop frowning.

“I’m sorry, I don’t see a ‘Tj’ anywhere” Tj seemed to sag at that.

“Is there a ‘Tommy Jr’?” Her entire body deflated with the question with a resignation so bone deep that Jason thought she might just collapse under the weight of it. Kim blinked dumbly.

“Yes”

“That’s me”

“No it isn’t” Tj rolled her eyes and dug around in her back pocket for a moment until she produced a drivers’ license, complete with her picture and ‘Tommy Oliver Jr.’ printed beside it.

“My dad’s the trainer here. I’m the overnighter. I’m transferring to day shift. I’m Green” Even though the evidence was nothing short of indisputable, Kim’s face couldn’t free itself of the bafflement she felt. Thankfully, Zack chose that moment to sprint up to the counter and diffuse the tension.

“Guys, I’m sorry I’m late-”

“Zack, this is Tj, bring her into Bigs with you” He swiveled on his heel and froze. Jason watched as his face got progressively redder with each passing second.

“Hi- er, hello. Welcome to PetStay. I will be your trainer, or uh, senior, today,” he stopped his rambling, “let’s load up” He shuffled awkwardly to the back with Tj on his heels. Jason took a slow sip from his coffee and leaned against the counter.

“He likes her”

“Two damn seconds in”

“He also forgot his coffee”

On days where there were only enough dogs for one camp, everyone seemed to mill around aimlessly, trying to find something, anything to do. Jason knew that Zack was having plenty of fun in camp, but Trini, Kim, and Billy would all be restless, not to mention himself.

Jason decided to do a little tidying in the grooming room, picking up and throwing out old ID bands, sweeping up shed fur, and bringing dirty, wet towels to the laundry room. Maybe he’d even throw a load or two in. Between beds, blankets, and towels, there was almost definitely enough.

He hefted the pile of wet towels into his arms (while attempting to keep them from soiling his shirt) and march near-blind to the laundry room. Of course, it could never be that simple. He couldn’t just walk in an do his job.

Instead, he was greeted by Kim pressing the full length of her body into Trini, hands wandering and lips moving as one, together.

Of course he had to walk in on them making out. He was happy for them, naturally, but he didn’t need to keep seeing the PDA. Especially when Trini’s hand was definitely undoing the unbutton on the front of Kim’s pants.

Jason turned on his heel and dumped the towels into a nearby cart. He had to stop himself from sprinting to the kitchen. When he walked in, Billy looked up from the dishes and smiled, perpetually happy to see him. The long purple rubber gloves were pulled up to his elbows to keep his hands from feeling all of the left-over food residue.

“So,” Jason began, leaning against the sink, “don’t go into the laundry room, okay?” Billy’s face scrunched up in confusion.

“Why?”

“Kim and Trini are...you know” He gestured vaguely in the hopes that he wouldn’t have to say it.

“I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking” Jason sighed and scrubbed his face, maybe it would dislodge the discomfort.

“Just trust me, you don’t want to go in there for a while. Maybe an hour, just to be safe” Billy’s confusion and suspicion didn’t disappear.

“I trust you”

“Thank you, Billy” The two of them spent the next fifty minutes filling the time, talking about the dogs, the cats, the store, and their co-workers. It was pleasant when Jason’s mind didn’t wander to why they were doing that and not something else.

Kim and Trini stumbled into the room, looking far too disheveled and satisfied. Their grins were too wide and their limbs too loose. Jason crossed the room and laid a hand on each of their shoulders.

“Well,” he really meant the excited smile he gave them, “congratulations guys, but not here, please. I beg you”

District management almost never made in store appearances. Those were reserved for big changes, good news, or bad news. As the entire store was crowded together after hours, Jason couldn’t help but fear the latter. Alvie clapped his hands together for the crowd’s attention.

“Excuse me, thank you everyone for showing up tonight” Zack nudged Jason in the ribs.

“Wasn’t this mandatory?” They sniggered together as Alvie plowed on.

“I want to take the time to thank each and every one of you for your time and dedication into this store” He took a long pause to try and make eye contact with as many people as possible. “However, I regret to tell you all that our store will be closing at the end of the month”

A chorus of gasps, sighs, and groans filled the air and Jason, between fish tanks and dog harnesses, felt his heart break. Alvie continued to talk about what the chain will do for them as if it could measure up to what it would provide if it stayed open. The rest of the meeting went by in a daze. He barely took in more than three consecutive words.

The hotel staff lingered in the parking lot, no one quite sure what do do or say. And Jason had come to a conclusion that these people were his friends, no matter what happened next. He loved the big way Zack felt everything. He loved Billy’s never ending affection. He loved the quiet way Trini expressed her protectiveness. He loved the simplicity of Kim’s humor.

He loved them. Even when he was scooping poop.

“So this sucks” Trini mumbled once they were alone on the pavement. Kim, her arm around the smaller girl’s shoulders, hummed in agreement.

“What the hell are we going to do? I want to keep hanging out with you guys. Forget trying to get someone else to hire me” Zack ruffled his hair and Billy laid a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“What if we all applied at the same place? There’s another PetStay a few miles away. If we don’t all get it, we apply somewhere else. I know it feels like it right now, but it isn’t the end, not by a lot, okay? We’re blue,” he gestured to Billy, “black,” then to Zack, “pink, yellow,” Kim and Trini stood a little straighter, “and red. Take us or leave us” His breathing was labored by the end, but his heart felt big and hopeful. Kim snorted and ducked her head.

“You’re such a nerd. Come on Mr. Leader. Let’s go to Krispy Kreme you guys. I could use some sugar” She threw her other arm over his shoulders, even though it was a bit of a stretch with his height. He shook his head but extended his own arm to Billy, who after a quick deliberation nodded and pulled Zack close.

“I’m the nerd. You play Pokemon Go every day”

“Holy fuck, really? What team are you?”

“Zack, you know it literally does not matter, right?”

“Actually, there have been studies about what the choice says about people, Trini”

“I didn’t know that, B. Tell us about it”

#power rangers #fanfiction #mine

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ask-the-swapfell-crew · 8 years

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SF!papyrus Riffs on “A Day of Thanksgiving” (the 403 followers special)

SF!papyrus: young america films presents a short that no young american will watch, unless someone is making smartass commentary over it. a fake educational short film by eli roth. co-directed by legendary filmmaker lawrence kansas from tennessee. *laughs* nyahahaha! oh, that mallard fillmore! you can't stack taxes up there! *normal* pardon me, let me turn down the scotch…

Dad: I'm Bill Johnson. Around here they just call me "Dad".

SF!papyrus: "dad" is our safe-word…

Dad: I'm trying to read but I just can't seem to do it. I keep thinking about today…

SF!papyrus: national literacy day!

Dad: We Johnsons had a good Thanksgiving. The best we've ever had…

SF!papyrus: grandpa johnson only used the n-word twice.

Dad: … A real feeling of thankfulness. And that's odd too when you consider the shape things were in when I got home from work yesterday.

SF!papyrus: Danny had scattered my papers all over the floor and all I tried to do was pull him up – slight momentarily loss of muscular coordination.

Dad: As kids will, mine were living tomorrow right along with today.

SF!papyrus: all of their trouble seem so far away. now they need a place to hide away…

Dad: Mother instead of me had to break the news to them.

Susan: Tommorow is thanksgiving!

SF!papyrus: billy, it's speaking to us again…

Dick: … and pie and cake.

Tommy: And fruit-salad and whipped cream and cranberries! Gee!

SF!papyrus: and tutti fruttis and crackerjacks and big league chew and a bottle of old harbour and a glass of cane sugar!

Mom: Well, your father and I thought that…… Well, the truth of the matter is; there just won't be any turkey this year.

SF!papyrus: because we want hilarity to ensue like in "the hoboken chicken emergency".

Mom: … pumpkin pie, we'll have plenty to eat but… Well, we just have to get along without turkey.

Dick: Mom, you don't mean it!?

SF!papyrus: next thing you're gonna tell me that women will get to vote!?

Susan: Even the pilgrims had a feast. After all, isn't that what Thanksgiving's for? I don't think it's fair…

Dad: And it was right there that I came in.

SF!papyrus: it seemed like the best time to tell them that christmas had also been cancelled… *talking gibberish* hey, hey ralph! eh show me the bo…! i'm in the wrong house!?

Dad: … Dick, Susan? *a beat* Now what's been going on around here?

SF!papyrus: Why am I the only one who's five whiskeys slighter deep into 3 in the afternoon?

Susan: … no good thing!

Dick: A fat lot we have to be thankful for…

SF!papyrus: Yeah, dad! You're a loser! I overheard mom wondering why you can put in 12 hours at work but can't manage 3 minutes in the bedroom.

Dick: … gonna have it this year. Same as always!

Dad: Yes, we've always had turkey, just as a lot of Americans have had it and we'll keep on having it.

SF!papyrus: Huh, do we look like a family of commies? Ha!

Dad: But what you kids are saying makes it sound as if the turkey is the only thing we have to be thankful for.

Dick: Oh gee whiz. No, dad.

SF!papyrus: Huh, yulk!

Dad: Oh I know, Dick.

SF!papyrus: Father knows dick…

Dad: It's easy to loose sight of what Thanksgiving really means.

Mom: And don't think we're just making excuses, because we don't have any turkey this year.

SF!papyrus: Your father has convinced me that it's all my fault.

Mom: … it'll mean a lot more to us the next time we do have it.

Dick: Well, sure. Suppose we don't have a bang-up feast, we're still a lot better off than the pilgrims.

SF!papyrus: Yeah! Stupid pilgrims – the true victims of the new world.

Dad: Turkey or no turkey, we still got all the freedoms and privileges the pilgrims gave us.

SF!papyrus: Except for witch-burnings. I've been told that tradition is now frowned upon…

Dad: … that pilgrims never even dreamed of.

Tommy: Why, we can make a list a mile long!

Susan: Why don't we do it?

SF!papyrus: And if any of the names are anti-pilgrim/-American we can get them blacklisted from Pilgrim, Hollywood, we sure can!

Dad: You got to feel down deep before you can really be thankful for anything. I tell you what we'll do… Let's take a little more time to think this over.

SF!papyrus: Because I'm not gonna remember this after I pass out in 5 minutes… Your mom is nervous-stirring again, isn't she?

Dad: Your life? Sure, that's one thing you can't get along without. But do you know that there are some places in the world today, where you have to get along without just about everything else?

SF!papyrus: Like properly structuring a sentence…

Dad: I guess I kinda got carried away…

SF!papyrus: Sorry you got to see me like this. Come here swift, I'll beat the memories out of you!

Dad: When we sit down to WHATEVER mother fixes to eat tomorrow…

SF!papyrus: Which will no doubt be garbage.

Dad: … that will really have a Thanksgiving dinner! *Next scene* Well, that's how it got started. The Johnsons didn't have any turkey…

SF!papyrus: And thus I created the original "First World Problems"-meme.

Dad: … to make something special out of a special day. So we fell back on something as old as the pilgrims.

SF!papyrus: Prostitution!

Dad: … the common, ordinary blessings that we had to be thankful for. *Next scene* That night I'd see Dick there, building his model airplane.

SF!papyrus: Often times I as well daydream about dick…

Dad: They'd mellow things over, thinking big thoughts for such young heads.

SF!papyrus *as baby Janet*: Let's see – the pythagorean theorem states that the square of the hypotenuse is equal or… opposite of the two sides? *as dad* Hmmm, on second thought. Funky Winkerbean kinda sucks…

SF!papyrus: As you can see, mother lost the first round of strip-thanksgiving.

Dad: And then… Well, we all knew it. There are some things you just can't say.

SF!papyrus: For instance, why did I agree to so many flowers on the wallpaper and the artwork?

Dad: … and this was a time to think about it.

SF!papyrus: Dearest secretary Khrushchev…

Tommy: I am thankful for getting plenty to eat all the time.

SF!papyrus: But I don't understand the need to always throw up after dinner…

Tommy: Like mom says – I'm hungry all the time anyway and if I didn't live in a country where there is plenty to go around… Golly!

SF!papyrus: FUCKING LANGUAGE!!!

Tommy: And I am thankful for the free public library…

SF!papyrus: Where I can laugh at the homeless people and beat them with a bag of money that I then set on fire.

Tommy: … the way they tell a story is as good as being there yourself. And it's free with only a library-card.

SF!papyrus: Which, according to the internet, the government uses to spy on its middle-class suburban white citizens.

Dad: And somehow, turkey and trimming seemed to matter a whole lot less than he thought they did yesterday.

SF!papyrus: Because he snuck out at 3 in the morning to steal the turkey from the Salvation Army.

Dad: You never credit her with thinking beyond her doll.

SF!papyrus: Since she's a woman, you see…

Susan: I am thankful for having what we need to wear.

SF!papyrus: Mom, was that a bulimia joke in the previous prayer?

Susan: I never thought before how many clothes it takes for all kinds of weather or how it would be to have to do without the right ones.

SF!papyrus: I can't imagine living in a world of mixing blue jeans with black t-shirts.

Susan: I'll go to any church I want any sunday.

SF!papyrus: Except for the protestants.

Susan: I am thankful for my mother and daddy that they're here with us. That both of them aren't too worried about things to take time to have fun with us.

SF!papyrus: Like teaching us about grammar.

Susan: … that families are still important in America.

Dad: I guess Dick, being the oldest, was having some pretty serious thoughts.

SF!papyrus: Dick often has serious thoughts about dick-oriented dick-activity.

Dick: … education. For living where our schools, all schools, open their doors to a guy who wants to learn.

SF!papyrus: As long as his skin is the same color as Jesus.

Dick: Where a guy is rated by how much he knows and a community is rated by how well it teaches him.

SF!papyrus: By the proper size of their family's dicks…

Dick: … banging a ball 'round once in a while.

SF!papyrus: Dick often marvels at how fun it is playing outdoors with his balls.

Dad: Sure, baby Janet…

SF!papyrus: I'M RUNNING ON EMPTY HERE!!! BRING MOTHER OVER TO POP OUT THE RUM-TITS!!!

Dad: … even to tell us the things that makes her happy.

SF!papyrus: She's thinking about the time when she gets older and questions why there was a group of men filming her in the bathtub.

Dad: … thinking about the fun, splashing around in the tub and about how good it feels to be clean.

SF!papyrus: Oh, this doll was sent to us from uncle Ed in Edlery in Warren.

Dad: … she feels in her mother's arms. *next scene* And as for mother…

SF!papyrus: She has no thoughts unless I give them to her.

Dad: Cooking, ironing, tending children daylight to dark.

SF!papyrus: Contemplating would stop the meeting of a razorblade and the wrists.

Mom: I am thankful that my children had the privilege of being born safely.

SF!papyrus: And American and white and not poor and christian and white again…

Mom: I am thankful that I have the privilege of guiding them that they become useful men and women.

SF!papyrus: Soon change their names to "Cowsill".

Mom: And I am thankful for all the things our American system makes possible for the Smiths and the Browns… and the Johnsons.

SF!papyrus: But more so the Smiths and the Johnsons over the Browns…

Mom: Hot water out of the tap.

SF!papyrus *screaming in pain*: AAAARGH!!!

Mom: And a telephone to call the doctor when one in the family is sick.

SF!papyrus: Yep, the rickets again… And pink eye and brown eye. *as dad* I'll be back soon, honey. Gotta meet Woodward and Bernstein and another parking garage.

Mom: I am thankful that when my neighbor drops in to borrow a cup of flour, we got the right to talk about anything we want to.

SF!papyrus *whispers*: My baby is black!

Mom: … future project, the new mayor or Jane Jones' hat.

Annoying cat: *meeeoow!*

SF!papyrus: Yes, they're thankful for you too, cat…

Mom: I am truly thankful for the peace of mind…

SF!papyrus *as dad*: I hope those broads aren't talking about my new hat… *as dad's boss* Yeah look, Johnson… About the turkey-bonus, we decided to send you home with a certificate to the "Jelly of the Month Club"… and you're fired!

Mom: I'm glad dad doesn't work slave-hours.

SF!papyrus: Because if there's one thing our family can relate to; it's slavery.

Dad: That's mother for you…

SF!papyrus: Always passing out at the dinner-table, thinking about slavery…

Dad: And now for me… I've got so many things to be thankful for.

SF!papyrus: Such as a full head of hair and a straightened tie.

Dad: It may need a coat of paint, it has a mortgage but it's ours. A place where we can be together in privacy.

SF!papyrus: With the relatives of the previous owners I've never bothered looking for the potties.

Dad: The happiness here, not just today or on Christmas morning, but on a day-to-day basis all things here…

SF!papyrus: It'll make us happier if we had some turkey instead of POPCORN, DAD!

Dad: … knowing that a knock on our door means nothing to fear.

SF!papyrus: House Committee on Un-American Activities, open up!

Dad: … or kids selling magazines, you never know what to expect.

SF!papyrus: We hear you're hiding turkeys…

Dad: It's not going to be some political gangster coming to drag one of us off to jail because we believe in freedom.

SF!papyrus: Questioning our fine government is a treason of offensiveness in this household!

Dad: … that freedom we've got let's me choose the kind of work I like and can do best.

SF!papyrus: But no one would hire me as a graphic designer, so I fix cars!

Dad: … makes me feel that somebody got to his work or wherever he had to go just because of me. A feeling like that gives me a lot of satisfaction.

SF!papyrus: And makes me, yet again, think of Dick…

Dad: And I am thankful for my newspaper. Just a few sentences and words of printer's ink in paper.

SF!papyrus: It still seems like too much of an expense to print anything from Charles Krauthammer.

Dad: The editor has got the privilege of printing what he thinks and I got the privilege of agreeing with him or not.

SF!papyrus: For instance their questionable use of the term "legitimate rape"…

Dad: And both of us, the editor and I, have the right to act on our opinions on Election Day.

SF!papyrus: No son of mine is gonna share water fountains with albinos!

Dad: And finally…

SF!papyrus: Oh right, this was supposed to be about Thanksgiving…!

Dad: In spite of everything, that somehow someway, the unity we've got here in the Johnson family will someday…

SF!papyrus: My son's name is "Dick Johnson"?

Dad: For all these things we are truly and humbly thankful. Amen…

SF!papyrus: Mazel tov! Mother, I don't want you and neighbors talking about hats anymore! Dick, I'm sorry for the inevitable school-beatings. Baby, we'll come up with a name for you sooner or later! Billy, stop fattening your sister! And remember, this is a Nixon-household! Oh ehm…, THAT'S IT! Our baby's name is Checkers!

*The End*

#SF!papyrus #swapfell #special #riffing

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vintage-story-time · 3 years

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MANHATTAN MADNESS by Chili Peeler

Chapter 11

Here's the scene that met his eyes. For a second he didn't know what he was looking at, it was so weird and beyond anything he could have even imagined. The room was about the same size as the one he'd left his clothes in but it looked enormous because the walls were mirrored from about one foot off the floor to about one foot from the ceiling. The far wall of the room looked like it had a couch pit of some sort and another bar. The two walls perpendicular to where he stood had very low beds with wooden frames and slender mattresses; to Jim they looked like docks you'd tie a boat up to on a lake. The edges of the room were dim as the only lighting came from a recessed light in the center of the room.

There, under the recessed ceiling light, was a narrow bed, about the size of a single. It's frame was made of a dull metal and the head and foot boards were the same; a series of vertical pipes that joined the top board pipe about two feet above the mattress. On the bed, sitting with her legs together and tucked to the side, was Julie's client and Jim was going to have no way to tell who it was. He just stood there for several seconds in amazement. The mystery girl was wearing a full length, bright red, shiny suit that began with heels which seemed built right into the suit, then continued upward over her legs, hips, her torso which sported an outrageously large outline of a pair of breasts, and finally to a cowl that covered the girl's head. The only flesh and blood parts of the girl that were exposed were a semi-circular portion of her lower tummy, her mouth which stuck through a hole in her hood, the bottom of her nose through a similar slit, and a large ponytail of jet black hair that stuck out of the back of the hood. It all left Jim speechless but Julie, who had been standing on the far side of the bed watching his reaction, must have thought he was going to speak. Her finger went up to her lips again, then she began walking around the bed toward where Jim stood. "Your stud is here, Kitten," she said to the red figurette. As if that were her cue, Kitten swayed her upper body and shifted herself onto her knees without the aid of her hands. In fact, Jim noticed that her hands had not come from behind her back since he'd been observing her. What he did see was that the suit was crotchless and the girl must have kept her privates trimmed because he saw no muff down there. "I've really outdone myself this time," Julie continued as she motioned Jim to approach the bed. "Tall, dark and handsome - that's what this stud is made of. He's going to show you a hot time, my little Kitten." Jim met Julie about a yard from the bed and she leaned slightly down to whisper into his ear. "Just follow what I say. She likes things in a certain order." Julie began to turn back to Kitten but Jim stopped her and whispered into her ear, "This is too fucking weird. Are her hands tied?" Julie leaned back and gave him a look, then turned her head to Kitten. "My stud must really like what he sees. His dick is getting soooo hard," Julie cooed as her hand began stroking him. Actually, up to that point, Jim's dick had been flagging from the near erect state that Julie had gotten him to in the other room. The surprise had unfocused him from his mission but Julie drew him back on course. Here he was in what had to be a sex room with all the mirrors, the beautiful Julie talking dirty, and a helpless sex-hungry mystery girl waiting for him on the bed. His cock bloomed into a fat erection as he thought how lucky he was. "Kitten, show your stud that pretty pussy," Julie commanded and the girl slumped down on her left side and she raised her right leg, bending it at the knee. Jim sucked in his breath at the bare pussy nestled between the mystery girl's sleek thighs. The recessed light above shone down on it, edging every detail in his mind. If he lived to be a hundred, he'd always remember it. The soft outer labial cushions that surrounded her neat, pink pussylips, the way they ran up to meet the fleshy hood that held the girl's clit, the twinkling wetness of her slit. 'God, she's already juiced up!' Jim thought. "Oooh, Kitten! I can barely hold this stud back.....I can tell he wants to fall on that pussy......his cock is twitching like a snake!" Julie almost purred; her voice had gotten huskier and breathier. She gave the incredulous Jim a quick peck on the cheek and moved away from him, walking around the bed like a shark circling its prey. "But first, I think I'll have him taste that little slit of yours...you'd like that, huh?" Kitten shook her head in the affirmative but did not speak. Jim could see her tongue wetting her lips in her eagerness. Jim

wasn't that well schooled in going down on chicks; he'd done it a few times but not under the best circumstances, like in the back of cars, etc. But he knew the general idea, what areas to hit. He looked at Julie and saw her give him a wink. "Do it, stud! Sample my Kitten's pussy!" Julie said hotly. She was really running the show; Jim was sure that Kitten was finding it probably more exciting, not being able to see what was happening. 'God, I wonder if he's half as hot as Julie says,' Elizabeth wondered as she rolled on her back and spread her legs in anticipation. Julie had said he was younger than most of her clients and he'd had the necessary paperwork to prove he'd tested clean but hadn't really described him beyond that. That was why Elizabeth enjoyed this kind of work - she could use her mind and fantasize about the man that was going to take her. 'Tall, dark and handsome, mmmmmm, yeah.' In her mind, she visualized the hunky Antonio Banderas getting ready to lick her sex. She felt the weight of the man move onto the lower portion of the bed and felt his hands running exploring her latex-clad legs. "My stud likes the feel of your legs," Julie said from above and behind her. "I think he's going to lick them as well." Then, Elizabeth felt pressure on her left thigh and knew it was the man's face even though she could not feel his tongue. The pressure moved over to her other thigh, then slowly traced its way back to the inside of her knee. 'Come on, come on!' Elizabeth thought as she waited for the guy to get down to business. Her pussy was aching for a good tonguing and Julie probably knew it......Julie was teasing her through the Stud. She hunched her pussy in the air to show her need and moved her hands into a more comfortable position, palms down against the mattress. Her wrists were held by a strap and buckle which could be attached to the back of the suit just above her ass. Actually lying on her back was the most uncomfortable position she could be in in the suit; there was a series of straps and buckles that ran up the back, each of which could be tighten to varying degrees so the suit would be as formfitting as possible. The pressure was moving back up her thigh, coming higher, higher. 'Yeah, come and get it!' Elizabeth silently shouted. The man's hot tongue slid into the naked crock of her thigh and hips, tantalizingly slow it ran backward and forth in that tender area. At the same time she felt a hand slide up her other thigh and his hand move onto her tummy where it began a swirling motion. His elbows were pressing her legs wider, to the limit of what the suit would allow, about halfway to a true split. Loving the feeling of the Stud's oral work, Elizabeth let her right heel drop onto the back of the Stud and twisted her hips in an attempt to get his mouth onto her excited pussy. "You've got her now, Stud......look at the bitch beg for it......she wants that tongue up her pussy," Julie continued her hot talk, her voice much closer this time. Elizabeth could picture her crouched down behind her head, holding the bed railing, watching Stud move his tongue in her crotch. That only heightened Elizabeth's arousal; she loved having Julie watch her with another. Without any further preamble, Stud swung his lips across her lap and his tongue swept onto her crinkled pussy lips. Elizabeth bit her lip and arched her back as the client's tongue delved into her slick slot. "Mmmmmm..mmmmmm," Elizabeth whimpered as the man with no face pressed his tongue hard into her pink inner cunt skin, right over the opening to her sexhole. She humped her crotch up into his mouth and his tongue slid up in inside of her lips toward her clit. "Ooooh, that's it, stud! Eat that pussy....she loves it....fuck her with your tongue!" Julie's voice cut through Elizabeth's delight. The man was running his tongue up and down the inside of her neat cuntal flaps and his nose was pressing into her clit folds. She wanted to scream and tell him to lick

higher but she knew Julie's client might freak if she spoke. Still, she couldn't help small whimpers from escaping her lips. Stud shifted his arms to the outside of her thighs and she felt his hands sliding under her ass, raising her juicy cleft into his mauling mouth. Elizabeth wrapped her legs around his head, crossing her heeled feet in the middle of his strong back. Her fingers dug into the sheets of the mattress as his tongue forced its way through the opening of her cunt and probed inward. "YYYYmmmmmm," she trilled as his tongue jabbed in and out of her sex, squirming in her oily tunnel as his hot breath snorted against her clit. Her thighs squeezed his head tightly as he feasted on her cunt. Julie watched as Jim ate his sister's pussy and it was the hottest thing she'd ever seen and she'd seen a lot. Everything was going as she'd planned thus far. Jim had not recognized his sister in the suit and with a shaved cunny and his sister's sex squeals could be coming from any woman. And as far as Lizzie knew, she was just servicing another client with some interesting fetishes. Julie stood from where she had been squatting at the end of the bed and began slowly walking around the two unknowing siblings. "Suck her cunt good, stud.......eat that sweet pussy.....make the slut come all over your lips!" Julie commanded, loving the power she was wielding over her lover and her brother. Her eyes drank in the sight of incestuous love - Elizabeth's hooded head thrashing around on the mattress, her lips open and her tongue flicking over her white teeth, her ass bucking up into her brother's face, Jim's hands sliding up her side to squeeze the foam-filled breast inserts in the suit as, with eyes closed, he burrowed his tongue up Elizabeth's tasty sexhole, the way her heels were drumming a red spot into his back, Jim's cockhead rubbing into the sheets of the bed as he shifted his knees further apart. Julie wanted to rip off her own clothes and join the two randy family members on the bed. That had been Julie's plan...not today but later in the week. She'd planned to try to convince Elizabeth to seduce Jim with her, using today's session as a way to grease the skids. Give her a 'you've all ready fucked him and loved it, why not again?' argument. On the previous night, in the afterglow of her sex with Jim, the idea had sounded fairly plausible but........ The more she'd thought about it, the more uncertain the outcome had seemed to become. The odds that she could get both to do it again willingly were slim and any of the other possible outcomes could only have bad ramifications. A loss of trust between Liz and herself, a strain on the relationship of Jim and his sister after she'd invited him to New York to try to get back into his life, etc. So, she'd decided to just watch the incestuous sex show before her and keep it a secret. The memories would stay with her as she was sure they would with Jim. What a trip he was having! "He's eating your little pussy like a madman......that's it, stud!....make her come....make the little slut come!" Julie said as she knelt again by the side of the bed to watch the action close up. She was looking forward to having Elizabeth to herself after she dismissed Jim. It would be such a waste not to have some fun with her roommate when she already had the suit on! 'Fuck, she's putting out the juice!' Jim thought as his mouth sucked on Kitten's genitalia. He'd never had a chick get so hot, so fast. He liked to think it was his pussy eating skill but it was probably the whole scene with Julie and the suit that was getting her so hot. He moved his tongue higher and felt it ride over the notch of skin at the top of her slit and Kitten crushed his head with her thighs. "NNNNNNnnnnNNNNNGGGGgggg," the mystery girl groaned and he kept up his attack on that notch, bringing his hands back under her soft ass and then up between her thighs. He pushed her legs apart as he raised his mouth for a moment to study the peak of

flesh that he was sucking on. A reddish-pink button stuck out of a teepee of flesh. "Suck on her clit," he heard Julie's voice almost whisper in his ear. He turned his face and Julie was right there watching, her eyes afire with her own arousal. As he watched, her hand slid down across Kitten's bare stomach and her fingers pulled the teepee of flesh apart, exposing Kitten's sensitive clit even more. Jim dropped his mouth on the sex stalk and began to work it with his tongue. Kitten thrust her crotch up at him, obviously enjoy the team effort. He worked on her joy button for several minutes, mashing his lips on her sex stalk and Julie's aiding fingers as Kitten's gasps and squeals rose in intensity. "Nnnnnnnnnnggg....Mmmmmmmmm........MMMMMMMMMMM!" Elizabeth fought to keep herself from screaming. She had to keep her lips pressed tightly together and that only accentuated the whole experience; it was like wearing an invisible gag. She was close to a good orgasm, she could feel it building and building and building. She wanted it to happen and wasn't going to fight it. 'Suckitsuckitsuckitohyeahyeahyeah!' she chanted to herself as she twisted her crotch under Stud's hot mouth and her roommate's fingers. Oh, she knew those were Julie's fingers. Her roommate and her kinky client were helping themselves to her pussy.....they could eat her cunt all night and day and she couldn't stop them. She focused on how little control she had over events that were occurring and were going to occur and the thought got her off. "NNNNNNNNNNNGGGGG....YYYYYYYYMMMMMMMNNNNGG!" she squealed as her loins dissolved in a deliciously intense climax. Her hips jerked and shuddered under the Stud's sucking mouth as she threw her latex-wrapped head back in delight. "She's coming! She's coming big!" Julie's voice was barely understandable to Elizabeth as her body was blown through her orgasm. "Suck it up, stud.....fuck, I can see her juices coating your lips and chin.....keeping eating her, she's still coming!" Her orgasm crested all too quickly and her unseen consumer ate her down through another two minutes of trembling and twitching until she lay spent with his tongue lapping up the remnants of her love oils from her bald sex.

#MANHATTAN MADNESS by Chili Peeler #Chapter 11

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