#I wrote this back in 2014

[ailelie]

Real Magic (Nick/Louis; from 2014)

​"Watch the coin, love," Nick slurred, carefully folding a 10p coin in a tenner. "Call this a 10 in 10. Terrible name, really. Don't know why I don't think of something better."

He gave the folded square a little shake. "Good and trapped now, isn't it? Go on, feel it. Funny, isn't it. Whenever you think you've gotten something good all properly sewn up, it just slips away from you."

He folded it in half right over the missing coin and laughed. "Fingers never forget, I guess. Here, for the drink."​

It wasn't that Nick didn't like close magic. Like many magicians he'd started with cards and coins, making up stories while hiding his Jacks on the top of the deck. Patter came easy to Nick, even when his tricks failed, he kept his audiences engaged. Got compared to David Devant and Ricky Jay now, didn't he?

But Nick didn't dream of small rooms and table-tops. All he'd ever wanted to be was on the stage, thrusting swords in a box and conjuring rabbits. The big illusions. The real magic.

But, under stage lights, his hands, so sure even when he was dangerously tipsy and edging on drunk, faltered. His mouth would keep running, but his tricks would break down into little disasters.

He'd told all this to Harry last year, even though he knew Harry, so popular at children's parties and known for the long, entertaining rambles that somehow tied his tricks together, couldn't understand. 

Harry had slow-grinned like he had a brilliant idea and said, "My mate's an Assistant. Sort of."

His mate had been Louis. Clever, bright, frustrating, infuriating, wonderful Louis. 

"Of course," Nick said to the bartender, "I buggered it all up." 

He pulled the 10p from his pocket & spun it on the bar. Suddenly, he slapped his hand down and when he lifted it back up, the coin was gone. "Palming," he said, turning his hand over. "Good enough and you can pick things up without anyone the wiser. Took me a full year to learn the trick of it." Took nearly as long to realize he was falling for Louis.

Louis hadn't liked any of Nick's ideas, called them boring. No one worries when you stab a sword through a box anymore, without the fear where was the awe? 

When they performed, Louis improvised. Nick got so caught up in keeping up with Louis, he forgot about the lights beating down. He kept up the patter, did tricks out of order, and coaxed the audience into belly laughter. He and Louis argued over it and the role of the assistant after, but, honestly, it was the best show Nick had ever done. All their shows were.

Nick flicked the coin into the air, caught it, and then immediately opened both hands wide and empty. 

"Down your sleeve," the bartender said. 

Nick smiled. "Nah," he said, "You snagged it from me." He tapped her hand. When she moved it the coin was underneath. 

"How?" 

Nick shook his head. "Secret, now, isn't it?" 

The bartender rolled her eyes. "So why're you here then?" 

Nick's smile pulled down. "Coin's not the only thing I've got snagged from me. You ever hear of the Pendragons?"

It didn't take Nick long to realize that, like Charlotte Pendragon, Louis was a magician in his own right. Bit of an escape artist, he worked that into their tricks, always upping the awe. And Nick would catch him at odd hours practicing, running through steps, picking locks. He was better than Nick at stage magic, good enough to go solo. But when he'd told Louis this, his grin turned brittle and he didn't talk to Nick, except on stage, for a week. Eventually Harry explained.

Louis, too, had dreamed of being a magician, but no one took him seriously. He'd tried to use the assumptions against his audience, but hecklers still asked when the real act was showing up. No matter how good he was; people saw what they wanted to see. As an Assistant, though, he was allowed. Small and agile enough for box jumping, strong enough for lifting, talented enough to keep tricks moving, magnetic enough to charm and distract the audience--he was everything a magician could want.

"So of course," Nick said, walking the coin up and down his fingers, "I threw it in his face." 

Harry had mentioned friends of theirs returning from overseas and possibly doing a group act & Nick had struggled to breathe because Louis hadn't said anything and Louis was going to leave. So, that night, he'd turned routine bickering into a row. Told Louis he was replaceable. Said people didn't come to magic shows for the scenery. Not a single drop of drink could drive Louis' surprised hurt out of his mind.

"Hence tonight's disaster." Alone on stage, he'd forgotten every trick. He was never going to catch that magic again. Nick flipped the coin in the air again, but another hand grabbed it. 

"You gave me top billing," Louis said, handling the words like a knife. 

Nick shrugged. "Wanted to make sure they knew who the real magician was." 

Louis stared and it was like he'd stopped time altogether. Even now he was bloody magic. "I'm still very angry with you," Louis said, slipping the coin into Nick's pocket. "Why'd you do it?" 

"Scared to lose you, I guess. Scared to admit I already had." 

"You're an idiot." He curled his fist in Nick's collar like he was preparing for a punch and then dragged Nick down for a biting kiss."Partners?" 

"Yes." No hesitation. He wasn't losing this again.

[sunlight-shunlight]

i love how epler acts like criticisms of him are unfounded when he was one of the devs mocking fans over the world state choices in dav. and was caught LYING about the world state in the very first q&a. not to mention the whole reddit q&a thing... and all of his documented contributions to veilguard. he might actually have the most documented contribution to the game because he literally wont stop bragging about them. not to mention all of the stuff fans found datamining the game where he once again mocked solas fans. i dont even like solas that much but it feels like he had it out for his fans... him insisting on making solas an unsympathetic villain made it even worse imo. the build up from seeing how elves are treated from origins to inquisition and learning why its that way, the buildup and foreshadowing of the veil falling... just for dav to strip solas of his motivations and cast aside his army of former slaves and city elves... like what message is that trying to send exactly? what a copout to say "its rough out here" when you actively made the decision to have your game say absolutely nothing about the current state of the world. and the crazy thing is we wouldn't even know about any of this if he just didn't run his mouth.

i'm nodding solemnly. agree with all your points.

i do sympathize with the inarguably Terrible corporate environment surrounding vg, i'm sure it would've been a far better game minus all that, and the amount of layoffs and disruption to people's lives for this game is absolutely unconscionable.

but... actively going out of one's way to mislead people, or have this oddly hostile attitude towards the genre and fans of the game is... inappropriate.

also i truly think developers should not be checking tumblr for their work, it's weird to vagueblog about criticism like this dhjsfhs. either be quiet, or get into a real debate and defend your choices in the public forum!! and the tumblr critique is generally not the same as the unhinged youtube sphere of misogynists/terfs/racists either, so complaining about that is a bit petty.

and at the end of the day, i'm still a bit bewildered that they have it in them to make manosphere jokes but. could not write a single allied female character with a personality that isn't Mild And Gentle. girl help. put the memes down and let morrigan be rude again...

[hersurvival]

Five years since the cathedral fire,

Renovations yet to be finished,

We fell to our own ruin.

Where I once made a wish for you

And cried as it came crumbling down,

I am now rebuilding on my own.

@nosebleedclub September 20th - French

[nygmatic-wound]

i like giving emotional lore to characters who are just evil/villains. i do believe josef is just manipulating his victims to lure them into his trap. but at the same time i like to believe that there’s more to him. if you don’t agree i don’t mind but keep that to yourself :3 bc this is real to me

josef (if that even is his real name) has had mostly mediocre kills in his life. or later in his life as he hints at in creep 2. he builds relationships with his victims before doing his thing but it’s just an act. it’s mundane and the relationships don’t really give him anything exciting to work with anymore. even though we haven’t seen josef’s other victims (other than dave) it’s clear that aaron and sara were something completely new to him. and even though we haven’t seen the mediocre kills, these feel special to us too

in my mind aaron and josef had something romantic going on between them. josef was in awe that someone really cared about him and listened even after every red flag. and aaron did really care. i feel like josef’s last video to aaron was completely genuine. you could just watch this film through the lens that aaron is stupid (which he definitely is) and extremely easy to manipulate. or you could watch it through the lens that aaron is still stupid but somehow always genuinely there for josef. and josef’s never had that. and that is new territory for him. none of his past victims have reciprocated the feelings back to him this well. and we can even see him try to create a romantic bond with dave. trying to repeat the feeling he had with aaron. and that was his proudest work. he even shows sara his masterpiece (that gay guy who can’t shut up about his ex)

like aaron, sara was completely new to josef. but in a very different way. she was confident and fearless. i think josef knew that aaron was afraid of him. but josef really thought sara wasn’t afraid of him. well we as the viewer know she was at times but she put fears aside and faced josef with confidence. josef met his match. someone who wasn’t fazed by his theatrics. who was there out of pure curiosity. who tried to one up him. in the jacuzzi scene you can see how speechless josef is that sara climbs in with him, clothes and all, and gives him (a very sexual) massage. he just told her about his first kill? and she’s now making sexual advances on him? he hasn’t ever been out crazied like that. and it amazes him

with both of these of course it doesn’t matter how different these victims were because they still became victims. in the end, relationships don’t change his wants and needs as a murderer. these are only slight bumps in the road that might set him back and make him think “could this be different”. but that thought never stays around long enough to stop his need to kill. but it does stick with him

[thelaurenshippen]

for some reason, I've decided to clean out my tumblr likes on my fandom blog and going through them really is a slow walk backwards through every obsession that had me completely unhinged for months at a time. also recipes.

[yansurnummu]

TESfest day 4: thief

Mirvyn, my sweet little disaster. He was my first Skyrim oc I ever took seriously, and thus became the reason I ended up here in the first place back in 2014. It's all his fault.

[lozeyart]

Junjo Romantica fanfiction thoughts below the cut

Back in highschool in 2012 (13 years ago now oh god) I wrote a Junjo Romantica fanfiction titled "Below Our Feet". It took place in 1847 and Misaki was a farmer in a small mountain village and Usagi-san was one of the local aristocrats. They meet and slowly fall in love. Anyway, it has 6 chapters and took me 2 years to write and I never technically finished it because as I continued writing, I fell a little out of love with JJR and moved onto other things.

Also. I did. Zero research.

Its poorly written, not my best work, I never even edited the first two chapters, its a mess. I later readapted Below Our Feet to star my own original characters, changed the story up a bit, changed the personalities and looks COMPLETELY, and now its its own thing. I'm allowed, I wrote the fanfic in the first place.

I also based the culture off of Victorian England because highschool me just... Was lazy, and that was the best thing I knew, so its all very westernized.

All of that to say is that I would actually love to rework this vague idea I had back in highschool and make it something actually based off of Japanese culture during the 1840-1850s which is towards the end of the Edo Period. Problem is, I'd want to do a lot of research before attempting anything like that. But I also thought it'd be fun to throw in some fantasy elements. I had a dream about this idea (after I fell asleep at my desk) where Misaki was known as the boy who swallowed a star. I have no idea where to take that one weird train of thought, but I'd like to work it in somehow.

Do I have time for this? NO! I'm writing a book, working on art, and have two jobs!

Will I make time for this? PROBABLY, WHO'S GONNA STOP ME? NOT YOU

[littleapocalypsekitten]

Is anyone on here beside me familiar with fanfiction.net? I have a lot of old, mostly crappy in my current opinion stories on there that I keep up for nostalgia purposes, archival purposes and the like - on the site that time forgot and advertisers took over. (It used to be a regular fanficiton site, much like Ao3, now it's swarming with ads, as is typical for dead / dying sites). Anyway, I am being flooded with artist-spam - people who say "Your writing is so inspiring, I want to do an artwork for it" but they don't mean for free fandom-exchange... (and I don't even think that most of them are bots, I actually talked to someone who PMed me, a real person, whom I had to AGGRESSIVELY say "NO!" to. I'm poor and I like doing my own illustrations, thank you). Anyway, there is a lot of that going around, according to a friend, I'm not the only one experiencing it. While Ao3 has a blocking feature, I do not know if fanfiction.net does. I don't think they do. I have a recollection of having a red hat covid conspiracy theorist leaving a comment on one of my fics - he got scary with me when I told him that what he was reading into my story did not exist as I wrote it half a decade before 2020 even happened and I recall being afraid of having something happen because I had no ability on the site to block him and I knew that every mod / authority there left to be out to lunch ages ago. I don't want to take my old fics down, but I do not know what to do. If anyone knows of any kind of block or even "turn PMs off" feature that I somehow missed, please tell me / guide me through it! I'm sick and tired of getting this damn artist-spam in my email inbox!

[charles-snippy]

Going thru the reg show tag and seeing all these people creating geneson content… where were y’all when I was 14

[danthropologie]

a points gap clause………. you just made me 🤯

honestly i don't even know if that sort of thing exists, i'm fully just talking out of my ass, but hypothetically.......if there WAS one......perhaps it would advantageous to max to secure every last point possible if he wanted a change in teammate.........idk 🤷‍♀️

(referencing)

[spectascopes]

What does it say about me that my favorite character from Homestuck was Equius Zahhak

[reflectionsofgalaxies]

fuck I ran out of space in the tags so now I’m writing up here.

anyway. poem about the feeling of loss that comes with not being able to reminisce about a person, place, or relationship because no one left in your life shares those memories, and sharing it with someone new just isn’t the same.

putting ‘ personal ’ up here in hopes i can find this post again since it won’t fit in the tags

[weirdly-specific-but-ok]

for whom good omens is being written

Hey maggots and the rest of the fandom, it's the Good Omens Mascot here. Today I read a post about this tweet:

The accompanying video genuinely made me cry. And I've been thinking about this for a long while, as far back as February, when I saw a lot of conflicting opinions on what people wanted from the third season. It really is true that no matter what you do, some people will be dissatisfied. But what matters is that Neil is writing this for Terry.

And I was reminded of some paragraphs from the Good Omens TV Companion, which I'd read in Amazon's sample excerpt of the book. I know this is a long post, but I really truly do think you all need to read these, I've done my best to select only the most important parts. Here you go:

'His Alzheimer's started progressing harder and faster than either of us had expected,' says Neil, referring to a period in which Terry recognized that despite everything he could no longer write. 'We had been friends for over thirty years, and during that time he had never asked me for anything. Then, out of the blue, I received an email from him with a special request. It read: “Listen, I know how busy you are. I know you don't have time to do this, but I want you to write the script for Good Omens. You are the only human being on this planet who has the passion, love and understanding for the old girl that I do. You have to do this for me so that I can see it." And I thought, “OK, if you put it like that then I'll do it."

'I had adapted my own work in the past, writing scripts for Death: The High Cost of Living and Sandman, but not a lot else was seen. I'd also written two episodes of Doctor Who, and so I felt like I knew what I was doing. Usually, having written something once I'd rather start something new, but having a very sick co-author saying I had to do this?' Neil spreads his hands as if the answer is clear to see. 'I had to step up to the plate.' A pause, then: 'All this took place in autumn 2014, around the time that the BBC radio adaptation of Good Omens was happening,' he continues, referring to the production scripted and co-directed by Dirk Maggs and starring Peter Serafinowicz and Mark Heap. ‘Terry had talked me into writing the TV adaptation, and I thought OK, I have a few years. Only I didn't have a few years,' he says. 'Terry was unconscious by December and dead by March.'

He pauses again. 'His passing took all of us by surprise,' Neil remembers. 'About a week later, I started writing, and it was very sad. The moments Terry felt closest to me were the moments I would get stuck during the writing process. In the old days, when we wrote the novel, I would send him what I'd done or phone him up. And he would say, "Aahh, the problem, Grasshopper, is in the way you phrase the question," and I would reply, "Just tell me what to do!" which somehow always started a conversation. 'In writing the script, there were times I'd really want to talk to Terry, and also places where I'd figure something out and do something really clever, and I would want to share it with him. So, instead, I would text Terry's former personal assistant, Rob Wilkins, now his representative on Earth. It was the nearest thing I had.'

(...) As Neil himself recognizes, this is an adaptation built upon the confidence that comes from three decades of writing for page and screen. But for all the wisdom of experience, he found that above all one factor guided him throughout the process. 'Terry isn't here, which leaves me as the guardian of the soul of the story,' he explains. 'It's funny because sometimes I found myself defending Terry's bits harder or more passionately than I would defend my own bits. Take Agnes Nutter,' he says, referring to what has become a key scene in the adaptation in which the seventeenth-century author of the book of prophecies foretelling the coming of the Antichrist is burned at the stake. ‘It was a huge, complicated and incredibly expensive shoot, with bonfires built and primed to explode as well as huge crowds in costume. It had to feel just like an English village in the 1640s, and of course everyone asked if there was a cheap way of doing it. 'One suggestion was that we could tell the story using old-fashioned woodcuts and have the narrator take us through what happened, but I just thought, “No”. Because I had brought aspects of the story like Crowley and the baby swap along to the mix, and Terry created Agnes Nutter. So, if I had cut out Agnes then I wouldn't be doing right by the person who gave me this job. Terry would've rolled over in his grave.'

And, finally, this paragraph:

"Once again, Neil cites the absence of his co-writer as his drive to ensure that Good Omens translated to the screen and remained true to the original vision. 'Terry's last request to me was to make this something he would be proud of. And so that has been my job.'"

I think that's so heartwrenchingly beautiful, and so I wanted you all to read this, too, just in case you (like me) don't have the Good Omens TV Companion. It adds another layer of depth and emotion to this already complex and amazing story that we all know and love.

Share this post, if you can, please, so that more people can read these excerpts :")

Tagging @neil-gaiman, @fuckyeahgoodomens and @orpiknight, even if you've definitely read these before :)

[brokentoys]

The notes on this is absolutely insane and it's really telling why the RPC is "dying" or not as "active" as it once was. Some people say the RPC isn't as active because it's a manner of "being busy" now because we're all ✨adults✨ I think it's more so what this community has become.

Was the RPC perfect? No. It never was. There used to be a stew of anon hate going around (and sometimes, still does) but it is getting to the point where it's full of backstabbers, and people that will run you off the site -- people that will create drama and lies (or take things out of context) while claiming they're doing it for a "good reason" because you uhh wrote something they didn't like or you had a falling out with them or you write with someone they loathe or they're just insecure and jealous of you.

And I'm not even talking SUPER dark themes either (like incest or rape) you can write anything even slightly controversial, and someone (or even MULTIPLE people) will condemn you for it. I'll never forget when I wrote a post of my teenage muse saying it's normal for dads to hit their kids ('cos that's what he experienced) and sb OUT OF CHARACTER made a vague post IMMEDIATELY saying "bad post op" (deleted it after i pointed out that I'm not my damn muse)

Or even on this blog, I've talked about how I've experienced people getting legit angry at ME because my muse is a jerk and it somehow hurt their feelings OOC. How I've had people unfollow me because our threads had (gasp) conflict, and my muse often argued or insulted theirs.

Hellll, I've had times when ppl got mad or "uncomfy" at me when I write smut threads. One time I only had 2 smut threads at a time and someone messaged me saying "err. feels like sexualization." (it was literally just vanilla smut too lmaooo) I've had ppl get mad at me ooc because I've said a very minor thing in dms. (like one time sb followed me and had triggers listed in their rules that conflicted with my blog, and when I pointed that out they were like "so? i'm not asking you to censor your muse" even tho... i' mjust.... i'm just curious as to WHY someone with such triggers would follow my blog)

Even anons are scared now! I've noticed anons are becoming more scarce, and they're quick to apologize if they think they've done anything wrong. Which i don't blame them. I've seen ppl actively get furious with harmless anons. I've seen ppl call them annoying or even assholes because these anons sent msgs commenting on their threads *in character*. When it's like, if you don't like an anon? Just delete it. Like no WONDER why everyone's struggling to write with ANYONE in this community anymore when it's so so aggressive now.

When you feel like you HAVE to be constantly walking on eggshells, and that all your threads are just "no conflict ever! :) our muses are happy and everything goes well all of the time and we all love each other and we never hurt each other or say anything bad!! :)" Then yeah... people will get desperately bored of this hobby. Especially on this website.

I recently found a blog from 2012 that I once wrote with. Twelve years ago when I first started roleplaying on Tumblr. It was an adult fandom with heavy adult themes. We used language that's 'unacceptable' today, we wrote plotlines that are easily 'cancelled' today, we spoke to each other only through Tumblr asks and fanmail (remember that??). Going through the blog, I had a wave of nostalgia and happiness like I've not had in a long time. The comradery and goofy plots, not one person bothered by the mad shit we wrote. For me, that was the best time in roleplay. I know that there were a few rotten apples and I know that discord and IM are great for active plotting and communication. But back then, things were just different. You wrote on the fly and you wrote in character which prompted you to think on your feet more and wing more plots. The only partners you spoke to ooc were the ones who you really grew close to. You didn't just blindly add every partner on social media. You weren't worried about what you posted because people didn't care back then about words - it was much harder to offend people then as it is now. I miss those days so desperately and when it comes to rp, what I wouldn't give to experience that fandom and that feeling once more. It can't ever be recaptured unfortunately, but it was heart warming to see a little reminder of it. Wherever you are now, writing partner from twelve years ago in a small, numbered title of a popularish game series, I hope you're doing well and thank you for the memories.

[lvemenow]

in desperate need to dig out my old ipod and manually put all my favourite albums and songs into specific playlists

[damnedance]

when i think that the last time i wrote doctor who muses was on 2016,,,,