#I’m like actually amazed at some of these notations

[allwehearisradiosilence]

A note I found in my annotations of radio silence 2 years ago:

Chapter: Awkward

“We don’t talk about the connections between the neurodivergent coding of Frances and Aled and their relations to masking, dissociation and appealing to different people with moulding. Fauna”

[vodika-vibes]

*breaks down your door in the middle of the night* first kiss in A/B/O AU with Alpha-17 and inexperienced F!Omega reader (not in a weird way ya know?) whose never been anyone’s first choice and is completely blown away that someone as awesome and amazing as Seventeen actually wants her romantically and not just physically. He makes her feel pretty and cherished and loved and she gives it back to him tenfold in return. (Not to show all my emotions at once. P.S. I read your fic with Keeli and it pulled at my tender heart strings it was so cute, yes I’m cross faded as a mf and fighting for my life this took me over 30min to write)

I See You

Summary: You’ve spent your whole life knowing that you’re not as important as the people around you. You’ve never been anyone’s first choice, not a day in your life. And that doesn’t change when you start puberty and realize that you’re an Omega. You’ve come to accept that, at best, some Alpha will pick you for your body, which will be the end of it. And then you meet Alpha-17, and for the first time in your life, you wonder “What if?”

Pairing: Alpha-17 x F!Reader

Word Count: 1585

Warnings: ABO AU, Reader is slightly insecure

A/N: So, full disclosure, I have no idea if this was a request or you just coming into my inbox to discuss it. So I made the decision that it was a request and wrote it! I hope you like it!

Join my taglist: HERE

There are some perks to living on Kamino.

Like the free suite that you can decorate how you like and the biweekly food delivery that allows you to cook whatever you want. Not to mention, you get free medical attention and as many blockers as you might need.

Plus, and here’s the biggest perk, you never have to see your “family” ever again.

Naturally, there are some downsides to Kamino too.

You work constantly and can be called into the lab at any hour of the day. There aren’t many places where you can spend your generous pay on Kamino (you have to order your clothes online and have them delivered). And you’re one of only a handful of human Omegas on Kamino. 

You’d think that that would force all of you to get together now and then to chat or whatever. But, the truth is, you have no desire to interact with the other Omegas.

Popular fiction tends to make people think that all Omegas are soft and demure and good. Honestly, you wonder if the authors have ever actually met an Omega or if they’re just fantasizing about what an Omega should be like.

Honestly, Isabet is as mean as a rancor with a toothache, and twice as violent. And she’s not afraid to take that temper out on anyone who gets in her way. Including you on several occasions.

You’re pulled out of your thoughts at the sound of the door to your lab opening, and you slide your gaze away from the machine that you’ve been staring at and willing to work faster.

Even clad in armor, it takes you less than a second to recognize the man standing in the doorway. 

No one on Kamino is quite as big as Alpha-17, after all.

A thoughtful frown pulls your lips down, and you turn away from your machine to pick up a nearby datapad to scan the information on it. Alpha-17 never comes to the labs unless he’s due for some testing. 

You scan the schedule, and then set the datapad back on a nearby table, “If you have an appointment, I’m afraid that no one notated it in the schedule.” You say apologetically.

He tugs his helmet off and sets it on a table near the door. “I don’t have an appointment,” Alpha explains as he rolls his neck with a slight grimace.

“Oh.” You watch him a moment longer, “Are your implants acting up?”

“They ache when it rains.”

You shoot him an odd look, “It’s always raining, Alpha.”

He tosses a grin in your direction, “I know what I said.”

A heavy sigh falls from your lips, “Alright. Take your armor off and hop up on the table and I’ll see what I can do. But you really should make an appointment, Alpha.”

He obediently strips out of his armor and peels off the top of his blacks, before he lays on his stomach on your examination table. “Why would I do that? We both know that you’ll see me even without an appointment.”

“What if I had been busy?” You ask as you step over to his side and scan the cybernetics with your eyes first, before grabbing a scanner and turning it on, “Or had an appointment with one of your brothers?”

“I’m more important.” Alpha counters as he turns his head to watch you work.

“Well, someone certainly has a healthy ego.” He laughs and you press your hand between his shoulder blades, “Lie still Alpha. I’m trying to scan your cybernetics.”

“Sorry, sorry.” He doesn’t sound very sorry though, “But, come on Doc, we both know that I’m just going to have to live with the pain.”

You frown at him, “I might be able to do something. I don’t want you in pain, Alpha.”

He catches your free hand and squeezes your fingers, “Which is why you’re my favorite.”

You shake your head with a soft laugh, “You don’t have to try and flatter me, Alpha. I’ll help you without it.” You slip your fingers from his grip and start the scanner.

“And why do you think I’m just trying to flatter you? Why can’t I mean it?” He asks as he tucks his arm back under his chin while you work.

You shake your head with a sigh, “Men like you don’t say stuff like that to women like me, Alpha.” You eye the scanner and scowl at it, “It says everything is connected properly, you can sit up. I’ll find some topical pain gel—” You trail off, your mind racing as you try to come up with ways to lessen his pain.

You’re so lost in your ponderings that you don’t realize that Alpha has sat up until his large hand wraps around your wrist and he lightly tugs you around to face him.

“Yes? What’s wrong?”

“I’d like some clarification.” Alpha’s dark eyes scan your face, and his severe expression softens, slightly. “What do you mean by ‘women like you’?”

“Oh,” You pause to gather your thoughts, “I’m just…” You hold your free hand to the side, “Not enough. Not smart enough, not clever enough, not pretty enough, not charming enough.”

Something forbidding slides across his face, though his grip around your wrist is still gentle enough that you could pull away if you wanted, “And who, Doc, told you that?”

A soft laugh falls from you, “Only everyone I’ve ever met. Well, barring you.”

“They’re wrong.”

“It’s fine, Alpha.” You try to reassure him, “I’ve long since come to terms with my lot in life.” He shoots you a puzzled look, so you clarify, “I’m never going to be anyone’s first choice. That’s just how it is sometimes.”

Alpha huffs, “Fine. We’re doing this then.”

“Beg pardon?”

“Not smart enough? You’re a doctor. A specialized doctor. How much smarter do you need to be?” Alpha lists, “Not clever enough? I know I saw you exchanging barbs with Vau the other day and you won. Not pretty enough?” Here, he pauses and scans your face, “Whoever told you that must be blind or stupid or both. As for not being charming, I happen to think you’re very charming. So they’re wrong about that too.”

“Oh…ah…” You blink at him, and you can feel your face burning, “Thank you?”

“Honestly,” His voice is light, “I find it absolutely shocking that you haven’t chosen an Alpha yet. Stars know you have to have your pick.”

“No one’s ever shown any interest,” You reply honestly.

Alpha-17 mutters something under his breath, though you can’t really hear what he’s saying even as close as you’re standing to him.

“Alpha, I need to find the ointment for you. Can I have my wrist back?” You ask as you touch the hand wrapped around your wrist gently.

He scans your face for a moment before something seems to settle over him. He’s always been a confident man, settled in his skin, but he suddenly seems more, and you’re not sure why.

“Alph—?”

“Can I kiss you?”

His question shocks you into silence, and you blink at him dumbly for a moment, “I…what?”

“I want to kiss you,” Alpha says as he releases your wrist and moves his hand to gently brush his fingers against your chin. And then he flashes a wry smile, “Well, full honesty, I want more than that. But I’ll start with a kiss.”

“I don’t—”

“I want to be your Alpha.” He clarifies, “I want you to be my Omega. But if you’re not interested then this will be the last time I bring it up.” Slowly he presses his forehead against yours.

And you stare at him, kind of feeling like you’ve been hit over the head with a sledgehammer. “You’d…pick me?” You ask.

“Yes.”

You believe him. He’s not the sort to lie to you.

“I’d like a kiss,” You whisper up to him.

He grins then and tilts your head so he’s able to press his lips against yours.

And it’s good. Better than good, it’s perfect.

You’re not able to help yourself from stepping closer to him, moving to stand between his thighs, and wrapping your arms around his neck. Alpha’s arms wrap securely around your waist as he tugs you as close as he can and he holds you tightly, as if afraid that someone might rip you from him.

When he breaks the kiss, you’re breathing is slightly unsteady, something that makes him smile smugly. “We can go as slow as you want,” He murmurs, his lips brushing against your cheek, “But you are mine now, little omega.”

You hesitate for a moment, but then you smile at him, “And you’re mine?”

Alpha laughs then, “And don’t you forget it.”

Slowly he releases you, and you take a step back. You take a deep breath to steady yourself, and then take another step back, “If you still want that pain ointment, Alpha—”

“Maybe later.” He stands, “I have ARCs who need training.” Alpha glances at you, “If I chrome by your suite tonight, maybe you can give me some options to handle the pain?”

“I can do that.” You reply with a small smile.

Alpha lightly brushes his fingers against your cheek, “It’s a date.” He ducks his head to kiss you one more time, and then he leaves. And you’re left with butterflies in your stomach, and excitement in your heart.

You’ve never been anyone’s first choice. 

But Alpha…he’s different. And now you know it.

@bad4amficideas @justiceandwar98 @Mira-Loves-Star-Wars @tiredbi-peach @dukeoftheblackstar

@trixie2023 @kimiheartblade @padawancat97 @falconfeather23435 @etod

@bb8-99 @kiss-anon @continous-mistakes @imabeautifulbutterfly @n0vqni

[wine4thewin]

you’re so incredibly talented and i am in love with every inch of your work. with such phenomenal writing i’m extremely curious to know what your writing process is like and how you even come up with some of your plots/au’s in the first place. and have you made any hard or challenging writing/story choices as of late?? it’s such a treat to read your work and you’re so so so amazing.

☺️☺️☺️ I’m so utterly flattered, thank you x1000🥰 I’m glad my writing has been a source of entertainment!

My writing process has changed so much over the years and it’s always developing. I used to fly by the seat of my pants, but I realized that wasn’t what worked for me 😅 I couldn’t finish anything without a real plan!

~

Let’s start with ideas. That’s where things begin, right? I’ll be struck by a plot bunny or a character (usually spawned by a setting, like Zombie Apocalypse, Creepy Fairytale Vibes, Medieval Magic, Space Opera Horror, or Modern Very Dark Problematic Romance) and then I’ll try writing out a “book summary” to see if that idea might sound compelling. I think in terms of: what is the core drama, who is the main character, and who is their villain? (lol but make it enemies to lovers)

I want to know:

Where does this idea start? Why does a reader care?

Where is it taking us? What are turning points in the plot along the way?

How does it end?

✍️

I always think in terms of beginning middle end. 3 simple parts of an idea that make the idea a possible story. Sometimes, it takes me time to see the ending, so I start writing scenes to look deeper into the plot, waiting for an ‘aha’ moment.

I have written & completed massive fics just thinking in terms of 3 chapters. The starting drama, the middle crisis, and the final drama. Magically it grows from there as scenes appear 🤣 I think the 3 chapters is wishful thinking on my part.

~

It took me a few years to figure out I’ve always been a scene writer. This means I mentally work through a story in moments of time. I write out scenes that are important to me, even if they are completely out of order. It helps me shape the story as more scenes appear and I begin to place them in the beginning middle or end.

I sometimes outline in Excel, chapter by chapter. I notate time passing, what happens in each chapter, and what The Goal of each chapter is. I also try to incorporate character arcs. I do this mostly with my Original Fiction, because those are works upwards of 120,000 words.

If I outline in Word, I will bluntly write out a dry summary of what happens in the chapter and also any dialogue that I know off the bat is going to be critical. I mean, literally just write out what happens in each chapter in one doc. It feels strange, because you will want to elaborate, but this gets you writing without worrying about being perfect! Get the idea out there. The scene. The key moments. This helps find pace and purpose to each chapter. Every chapter must have a point!

Feelings: I want my reader to feel when they read. I will note in outlines what the goal is for the chapter, but also how people should feel. Are they disgusted by a choice the character has made? Or are they falling in love right alongside the character? Are they full of hate for the antagonist and whatever act they’ve just committed?

I consider the relationships and how they will change. Where they begin and how they end in the outline. I’m aggressive about seeing change in characters and their relationships…and it must make sense. I despise instant love and I hate when a morally grey character suddenly becomes a teddy bear after a few chapters and is “actually really nice” 🙄 That’s fake and unsatisfying. I will find ways to drag characters through emotional trials so that when they come together, the reader is like, “they feel like real people”.

I edit like crazy. Sometimes it takes hours. I will look at a chapter and determine if the emotional impact has been met or not. Does the change present look organic? Etc. very stressful shit and my eyes get so tired.

I will reiterate…there must be A Goal for each chapter. Do not ever write filler shit. No one likes it and you either lose readers or they skip it.

*

For inspiration and fun, I love finding pretty journals to use for anything that I want to work deeper on. This is for my original fiction. I’ll dedicate sections to a story and just work on what the story is about, who the characters are, dedicate entire pages to characters and their past, decorate everything with cool washi tapes and art stickers. I might draw out the rising drama diagram to visualize plot. I’ll even draw maps. It makes for a beautiful body of work to look back on and be like, ‘wow, I should go write that story!’

~

I like Masterclass for learning tips and tricks from different authors. For instance, I learned some interesting things from Neil Gaiman’s class a few years back that made such an impact. While I do not share the same writing process as NG at all, I took to heart a few key things:

*Dialogue & Voice: speak your lines of dialogue out loud. If it sounds unnatural, it’s probably something no person would say, therefore making your dialogue flat.

*Brainstorming: In your journal, write down everything you know about the story. Words. Places. Themes. Relationships. Symbols. Worldbuilding. Points of contention.

*“What happens next? And then what?”: Keep the reader turning the page. Do not write a chapter that does not keep your reader thinking. If it’s boring even to you, then you probably lost readers.

I always suggest at least doing a trial of Masterclass! There are so many great writers and you can find new ways of thinking just by listening to them. Some things are useful, some things aren’t. While I like Neil Gaiman’s class, I actually resonate with James Patterson far more, especially in process.

~

As for recent challenges, that usually revolves around my original fiction. I have projects I need to finish and I get distracted by writing fanfiction, which is fine because fanfiction is relaxing and less high stakes 🤣

As for fanfic, I have one project I’ve been stewing about doing and it’s something literally no one has asked for but me, so we’ll see if I ever post it lol. I had an ‘aha’ moment thinking about it last night. It was for the key turning point to reach an ending and it was diabolical. That character does not want me to bring them into the story, but oh well.

[wordsaficionado]

I think a great piece of advice for people who want to learn, but don’t know what to learn, is to take advantage of Wikipedia.

However, the second half of this advice is use that specific feature where some words are highlighted, and fall into rabbit holes. The best part about this is you don’t have to have anything super specific to search.

Say, for example, I was in the mood for some ELA type stuff, but I don’t know what kinds of stuff there is. I simply go on Wikipedia and search English. Admittedly, that doesn’t bring up much, but there IS a blue link to a page about the English language.

From there, I can click on things like “Indo-European language family” and “early Medieval England” and “British Empire” if I’m in the mood for more history things. Or, if I really want to learn about words, I can click the vocabulary section, or the phonology section, or the orthography section, or even the grammar section.

There’s so much to be learned in this one broad category, and it’s the same for every other subject you learn in school, which is a great place to start.

Math (mathematics)? Empirical sciences, number theory, and set theory are just in the opening paragraph. Not to mention the sections titled “relationship with astrology and esotericism” and “symbolical notation.”

History? Well, from history we can get to History of Earth, and it’s not hard to guess how much is there. There’s also anything that could be the History of; History of Mankind, History of Dinosaurs, History of Philosophy, literally pretty much anything you could want to learn about is on Wikipedia.

The point is, Wikipedia is an amazing tool and source of knowledge. This strategy is a great way to actually access that knowledge. Have fun!

[jonathankatwhatever]

It’s before 6AM 23 Apr 2024. I have been having a lot of religious thoughts, but what I want to talk about is I recovered a conversation with Jesus. Or two. One is that I asked about details and I figured out he said that he couldn’t access them and showed me how I couldn’t remember details of my own life and I’m currently living it. And there was more, but it only made sense when I realized, accompanied by images, that this models as a Triangular. The legs are to me and to Actuality of Jesus, and these legs or flailing arms in D-structure connect through a mediating End which faces both ways. You can see the thread of Actualities loses detail.

I’m being bombarded with images, very clear ones. There is a mediation cost. Oh, I see: imagine a great rotating ring of mirrors which spins around and presents a flat face, a grid square face, to you. And it has another End where the same occurs. Now you can see that one can’t connect to another’s past, unless and until you connect in higher dimensions, because the Actualities of Things are internal to Things, which is why life infuses. I’m afraid that was a confused mess. It’s difficult to translate chains of images.

One way to say it may be this: the Actual path is not only remote from the communicative present but is statistically lost to it, so it is no longer possible to tell which version is Actual. Remember, perspective is Thing based and this particular Actual layer of that Thing has a personal, not global perspective. There is a chain of events but the events themselves are local, and then that locality breaks down to the locality level of participants. This double level is the double IC, meaning it’s the lesson learned from 04-04, and is why we have seconds and minutes or the other way round: locality layers. The best you can do is communicate not with your actual past selves, but with a version.

That’s fascinating because it means you can changed the version of you in your own head. And it says that this process occurs all the time, and that’s why we develop strategies to avoid doing bad things. We did part of this before, when we first figured out the permutation pathways concepts. So here is where Actuality diverges from Pathway. I think the idea is of a thread thickening, and as that occurs the Actuality develops lots of Attachments, which means lots of Ends spinning around to serve up information, and these Attached Ends develop into Things. This models like the creation of the universe, doesn’t it? Let’s see. That develops a statistical model in which the building blocks of matter are buried in the past. And that leads to a meaning of gsPrimes - is that new notation? - because you can’t break those completely apart. A prime preserves the potential, the permutation potential available when that particular instance or object is counted. It’s a 1, an atom, and that’s true in ways we can now describe.

Did not think that was coming out until it did.

Where was I? Talking to the Jesus voice. A lot of the detail was lost because of translation as well. That is, imagine there are lines or vectors of some kind connecting End to End in Triangular. In other words, imagine a straight line with 3 points. Can label them -1 to 0 to 1. Put the Ends at each End, meaning you flicker their existence so the share this single existence, Alternation in and over a gsSpace. Yes, I think that’s the first statement of that, and it’s clearly true that we’re loading a Thing over a gsSpace and thus we achieve Alternation and generate values like Pi, which now is truly descriptive of the Boundary concept. Amazing how clear that becomes.

Now shift those Ends to make a bT, and you see the translation necessary to connect the Ends which occupy the same gsSpace to connect. You also see the layerings. That it is easy to connect superficially because there’s less work to touch the ideal Triangular relationship of a bT.

So to be clear, the mathematical understanding came directly with understanding how Jesus would talk to me as a child. And what I left out is that I had been thinking about you immediately before. That’s what you mean to me. Pretty much everything except the Actuality. If I were sitting directly next to you looking at the same wall, we would not know the Actuality. That is uncountable and the process of reducing uncountability to countable to finite is the SBE process of the locality shifts.

I’ve been having random thoughts about this process, but they only last long enough for me to ask if I can remember what we came up with. I guess I do. So there’s an End and it’s uncountable, and there’s a 1Segment extending from that. It’s actually a 1-0Segment but the comprehension or ordinality or other ordering and counting conception is limited to counting, meaning I suppose that it’s the underlying cardinal function. That is, it’s cardinal counting because it can be counting very large or very small Things, and thus questions about size of what you’re counting, which is cardinality. Nice to figure that out. Couldn’t get it before.

This means we identify a locality and then a locality because the second locality has larger local comprehension. Not sure I get this, but let’s forge on. I’m getting kind of woozy tired. Don’t trust my thoughts. I’m concerned about the inversion here, that larger local comprehension - oh, it means the count is orthogonal to the other. Works both directions. So we have cardinal within cardinal, organized in layers which point in different directions, which became Irreducible, which relates Irreducibility to the fabled march of time.

I need to put down the keyboard. Been at this for an hour.

[leonisdumbasallhell]

Oh boy @priscilla-a-moreno​ ashdkjaskhdj, hello you have activated my nonsense. I was just yelling abt this at @doomednarrative​ akhjsdjasd

House of Leaves is a novel by Mark Z. Danielewski. It’s an ergodic new weird horror novel that’s well known for being just. Utterly insane, and almost ARG like in it’s structure. I’m moving rn, so my copy is in a box, but here’s some examples of page spreads I found online, just so you have an idea of how it’s formatted.

However, what I mean by House of Leaves ass book is less abt the structure (though, I fucking ADORE ergodic lit, one of my favorite things ever and if u wanna know more abt it, this video is amazing) but instead abt the actual narrative, which is this nested story of a publisher editing a transcript of guy going through and notating the notes of a researcher who was researching a nonfiction documentary abt a guys house. But the house is expressly weird, in that it’s bigger on the inside. It gets. Fuckin wild, I love it. But I really love like. Strange house horror? I’m a big new weird freak, and absurd and abstract/surealist writing, and I’ve been having a lot of thoughts abt the relationship between the body and a home. In relation to resi, abt the ideas of ownership and agency over the body, cause that is a theme of the games, even if the games don’t pay attention to it all that much. And I just. Want to write about a fucked up house and fucked up bodies and how they are the same.  :)

I wanna write a weird fanfic. A house of leaves ass fanfic

[ceilingfan5]

14 w taakitz :O?

Taako is trying very, very hard to ignore the way he feels about his roommate. It’s a problem, is the thing. It’s standing very much in the way of his scheme to get the powers that be to allow him to actually room with Lup next semester, co-ed rules be damned. Because at the beginning of the semester, Taako wanted to hate him, wanted to hate his fucking guts for coming between him and the only person he’s ever trusted.

But he can’t hate him. Kravitz is sweet and kind and funny and dorky and a little bit of an asshole in the best way. He’s let Taako copy his notes from necromancy 101 when he couldn’t get out of bed before. And he’s kind of, almost, maybe just a little, wormed his way into the Taako zone of trust. Not that he’s about to tell anyone that. No, he cannot allow himself to have feelings for his roommate.

He’s failing that about as hard as he’s failing celestial trigonometry.

Most days, he can at least keep it contained, lock it up in his ribcage like an embezzling bluejay, but today he’s woken up and heard the most fucking miserable sniffles he ever did experience in his life. And he and Lup have been through some shit.

He tiptoes out to the living room and finds Kravitz burritoed up in a blanket on the couch, looking ashen and nauseous, his arm hanging limply by a box of tissues on the floor. More tissues are scattered near him, and one of his feet is peeking out of the blanket, which he’s staring at like it’s betrayed his whole family and sentenced him to a life of cold pinkies.

“Hey Krav,” Taako tries, a little cautious. “You been up long?”

“Mnhh?” Kravitz’s reaction is almost in slow motion, looking at Taako, realizing he’s there, eyes widening. He tries to shove his used tissues into a little magicmart bag and nearly rolls off the fucking couch. He whines as he moves his head, and clutches his temples like they’ve started offering eldritch god services on the weekends.

“Buddy, and I mean this, you don’t look so hot.” Taako goes and sits on the arm of the couch, tucking the poor bastard’s foot under the blanket as an afterthought. No one deserves cold pinkies.

“M’ okay,” Kravitz mumbles. “Just, I think it’s a cold. Maybe dragon flu. Which one makes you throw up?” He looks at Taako and frowns, like he’s having trouble getting him into focus. Oh, this is just hard to witness.

“Dog, if you’re under the weather, we’re gonna have to go ring the tornado sirens, ‘cause this is not good, not good at all, and-” Taako jabs a finger in his direction. Kravitz goes a little cross eyed to stare at it. “If you fucking get me sick, I will end you, got it?”

“Maybe you could end me anyway?” Kravitz warbles. He coughs, and whines, holding his head again.

“Fuck. I can’t believe I have to fucking make you soup.” Taako gets up, shaking his head, and he starts yanking ingredients out of their fridge.

“You don’t have to.”

“No, I’m gonna.”

And he pulls out their contraband crockpot and goes to town. His back is to Kravitz, and Kravitz can’t hold much of a conversation, but they chat as Taako chops veggies and thaws chicken stock and so forth, and it’s...nice. He’s nice. He’s fun to talk to, even on the verge of death as he is. And Taako likes him. He likes him a lot.

Bad, bad, terrible, not allowed at all.

But instead of disappearing back into his room when the soups all set to simmer, he pulls up the armchair and watches Kravitz’s comfort series with him, a weird and cheesy drama that Taako picks apart and Kravitz, even ailing as poorly as he is, defends like his life is on the line. And when he falls asleep, Taako props his chin on his hand and totally doesn’t stare at him, because that would be creepy, but he does glance over every once in a while, you know, to check on him, and for no other reason.

He feels awful waking him up when the soup is ready, but the guy needs to warm his sad pathetic bones, and Taako’s got just the flamethrower for him.

“Hey, Krav. Wakey-wakey.”

“Mnguhhhh.”

“I know, I know. You gotta sit up. Hot delivery coming through. You don’t want no lap soup.”

“Huh?” he asks, but he pushes himself into a sitting position anyway. Taako brings him the little table and a piping hot bowl of chicken noodle, and he watches with great pleasure as Kravitz hesitantly takes a bite, and then begins scooping it down his throat as fast as sickly-possible. “Holy shit,” he murmurs. “This- Taako, this is incredible. Is there- did you- is there magic in here? What spell did you use?”

“No spells, homie. Just plain old folk magic.” Taako cracks his knuckles. “I may not know my notations from my tribulations, but fuck if I don’t know how to make a guy feel better.”

“Oh my gods, Taako, my sinuses- I- my head- you’re amazing. I think I’m in love.”

Taako feels an arrow make a meat donut out of his still-beating heart.

“Yeah, yeah,” he teases, wishing and wanting and yearning and aching. “That’s what all the soup boys say.”

[potato-with-hair]

Social Media

Y/N and Bucky were still laying in bed, just barely waking up when FRIDAY interrupted your lazy morning with the announcement. Tony had called a team meeting at 0930 and attendance was absolutely mandatory. Rolling over to look at the clock, you saw that it was almost 9 am, and you started to throw back the covers to get out of bed, when Bucky pulled you back to his chest kissing your neck and holding you close, you were immediately able to feel what his intentions were pressed hard against your leg, you smiled and rolled over to kiss him deeply, figuring you could shower together to save time and what could a quickie really hurt?

At 0929, you and Bucky both rushed into the makeshift conference room, acting like kids and swatting and laughing at each other, Tony rolled his eyes, Nat and Wanda smiled and everyone else just chuckled and went back to paying attention to Stark who was ramping up to give his “announcement.” “Settle down kids, I have just gotten word that Big Brother and The US Government would like for us, The Avengers, to become a more family-friendly brand of superheroes and they would like us to become active on Social Media. Now I have no time for such frivolity, so I will be hiring a PR rep for myself, and I will also have them work with Bruce and Thor because nobody wants Banner Hulking out when he cannot get his Instagram to work and Thor would not know how to send a tweet if his life depended on it.” Tony announced.

“I assume it involves that bluebird on everyone’s phone that makes them angry all the time? I don’t want a part of that, I like that one where people bring you food though, and can I do that one instead, right” Thor asks interested.

“No, you can’t that’s not Social Media, but I am seeing a possible sponsorship deal in the future and possibly a Thor meal with toys for the kids. FRIDAY, ask Ms. Potts to call some fast food places about Avenger Meal sponsorship deals.” Tony notates. “Okay, so I want you all to get some candid, FAMILY FRIENDLY, I’m looking at you Barnes and Y/L/N, photos and start setting up some accounts. Do not launch them yet. We will launch all of them at once next weekend at, you guessed it, the Avenger Social Media Launch Party, hosted by Yours Truly.” Tony looks turns to focus on Natasha, Wanda, and yourself, “I cannot believe I am saying this, but, Ladies, if I see too much cleavage, thigh, or one iota of a nipple, there will be consequences.” All the men except for Rogers ‘Booed’ at this, Tony again just muttered I cannot believe I just said that, “Okay, get started, and get out of here.”

Wanda and Nat pulled you along with them, you looked over your shoulder winking at Bucky and shrugging your shoulders, mouthing “I’ll see you later,” to which he just shook his head smiling and mouthed ‘See you soon’. Wanda, Nat and you started coming up with ideas immediately. You wanted to do a silly take on your favorite movies and TV shows and add the Avengers in as characters from the originals. Nat wanted kickass Princesses’ and Wanda wanted you all to be different types of Witches similar to a remake of the 90s movie The Craft that was one of her favorites. You could only imagine what the boys were doing. Photos of their workouts with them all sweaty and gorgeous, and making them all teen heartthrobs. You chuckled to yourself at the thought of Bucky or Steve ever being comfortable with women throwing themselves at them. It was hard enough to get Bucky comfortable with just you openly flirting with him.

The following week, at the Avengers Social Media Launch Party, the whole team was present and dressed to the nines. Tony actually had a movie screen set up on the veranda and made a highlight reel of each member's top 15 or so photos that would be appearing on their pages. Everyone had some amazing shots. Most everyone had group shots and candid shots, including pictures taken around the compound of each other, some of them taken when the others were not aware they were being photographed. A few of the photos, after closer inspection of what was happening in the background, were deemed inappropriate for family viewing, including one of you and Bucky in a rather passionate kiss that included you straddling his lap during a particularly heated game of truth or dare after a nerve-wracking mission and a few hours of shots to wind down with the team, and Tony could not even be angry because if you looked hard enough you could see him in the background in his Iron Man suit and yea, that blue piece of clothing on his head, Peppers bra. Thor’s photos consisted of him eating at a bunch of different restaurants. The launch went well, the photos were released, the pages became accessible to the public and the comments started to roll in.

You all went to bed and woke earlier than normal for some reason, you had a notification of over 400 messages on one particular photo, a photo the three girls did, in tasteful roller derby, set with the three girls dressed to look like the girls in the movie Whip It, one of your favorite movies. Some nice comments were complimenting the three of you, and then some were beyond lewd. Some messages made you blush and you thought that living with the boys here, you had heard it all. You looked over in the bed and noticed Bucky was not in bed with you, you got out of bed and threw on a pair of Bucky’s boxers and a tee-shirt and went to look for him, hoping that he had not seen some of the more suggestive comments. You checked all around the places that he normally went when he had nightmares and could not sleep and he was nowhere to be found. You then thought of where he would go if he had seen the comments; you immediately thought of the gym. He would be looking to hit something, and the heavy bags were the only thing you could think of in the compound that would work for him right now. As you approached you could hear him grunting and hitting the bags, making an almost animalistic growling sound, and the hitting sound produced when he hit the bags was louder than you had ever heard it before. You pushed open the gym door and saw that he was not only hitting the heavy bags but attacking them; he had already split open two of them and was working on number three. You approached cautiously.

“Hey babe, what’s got you so riled up this morning?” You ask trying to act nonchalant and like you had not even spared a second thought to the launch of the photos. Without even looking at you or taking any of his focus off of the heavy bag Bucky questions whether you happened to look at your social media pages this morning, and if not, he asks if you would please go ahead and do that before asking him any more questions about why he is seething with rage right now.

“Yea, I saw some of the comments on the roller skating one and they were pretty tasteless, I will go on after I shower and delete those, no need to get so upset, it’s probably a bunch of young teen boys acting out their hormones.” You respond, trying to get him calmed down and hopefully relaxed enough to maybe join you in the shower then after breakfast you can take the comments down and limit comments to friends only, so you can avoid lewd posts like this in the future.

“Doll, that is not what I’m this angry about. Those I don’t like, I mean I hate some little snot-nosed shit-talking about my girl like she’s some common streetwalker, but I know that you don’t get too bothered by that stuff and you, Wanda and Nat just laugh that stuff off, I am talking about you single pictures with on your information page. That whole ‘All About Me Page,’ where you tell a bit about you and your Avenger story. I’m talking about the fact that 10 different ex-boyfriends, at last count, all got on there comparing at what point they knew you and where in your sexual history they fell. I know you were a normal American girl growing up with boyfriends, but I’m from a different time and you had more ex’s comments on your page in the past 12 hours than I had before I went to fight in the war. I know were wild when you were younger, but I don’t need to read their side of things and hear all the details from these guys.” He proceeded to hit the heavy bag with his metal arm and break open yet another one. The grain and sand filling poured out onto the floor and Bucky just hung his head frustrated.

“Baby, I did not see those, I am sorry. I will figure out a way to block those. I cannot change my past, I WAS wild, and I did some things that I am not particularly proud of. Every one of those things made me who I am today though. Every single experience made me appreciate what I have with you and made me know that you are the only one that I want. I don’t want anyone or anything else. You are it, you are my life, I would do anything to keep you in my life. I can say these things with 100% certainty because I have gone through all the shit, and heartache, and bullshit I did. Please believe, they are less than nothing to me. They are the past and I left them in the past because they were not worth bringing into my future; YOU are my future.” Bucky finally looks at you, seeing that you are wearing one of his tee-shirts and his boxers, and starts walking over towards you, the heavy bag was forgotten. He doesn’t say a word to you, just looks you up and down, you know that he is quickly going from anger to feral, his rage has left him it seems and now it appears he is still frustrated and looking to release that differently. You smirk at him and blow him a kiss, and you are off toward the locker room and the showers.

With a 20 foot lead, and being quicker than him, you make it into the locker room a few precious seconds before him, shedding the tee-shirt and leaving it on the bench near the lockers by the entrance. You are in the third row of lockers on your way to the showers when you stop to listen for him, seeing if you can keep the little cat and mouse game going a bit longer. Peeking around the last locker in the row, you see Bucky is also listening closely to see if he can figure out exactly where you are. You silently slip off the boxers and toss them over the lockers to land almost directly in front of him. He picks them up turns immediately to the right and sees you, you wink and race to the showers.

You allow him to catch you before you get to them and he carries you into the large stall Stark had installed should Bruce ever Hulk out during training. You remind yourself to thank Tony for having a solid, sturdy bench installed in here so that Bruce / Hulk could sit under the waterfall shower and calm down. You and Bucky made good use of it this morning, first with you riding him because, well when he chases you like that, it tends to get your blood pumping and you get a little wild and feral yourself, and then Bucky decided he wanted to take control and work out his frustrations from behind you while you were on your hands and knees and the shower floor was not too appealing for that particular position. Afterward, you and Bucky shared long kisses while you washed each other and talked about what you wanted to do regarding this situation.

You came up with a plan that you hoped would work. You and Bucky gathered Wanda and Vision, and Natasha and Steve and found out there were some issues in their respective relationships as well with the Social Media release. Nobody was particularly happy with the comments that were left on their significant others' pages and they felt hopeless to say anything because an Avenger berating a civilian would come off as uncouth. When Pepper heard about what you were going through and then looked at Tony’s comments, she was immediately on board with your suggestion 100%. As soon as you had Peppers' support and approval, you knew there was nothing Tony could say or do against it, that Pepper would not deflect. So you called the photographer that Tony hired for his, Bruce’s, and Thor’s pages and had him come out to do another photo shoot.

In the photoshoot, you arranged all the couples to go ahead and portray great lovers through history. It didn’t matter if they were real or fictional, as long as they were known to be a couple that was basically all that mattered. No one actually came out and stated that was the topic or the theme, but anyone who knew anything at all about history could figure out the theme. There were representations of Sonny and Cher, Jack and Rose of Titanic, Marc Anthony and Cleopatra, Adam and Eve, Henry VIII and Catherine Parr, Napoleon and Josephine, Paris and Helen, John Lennon and Yoko, Baby and Johnny from Dirty Dancing, Wesley and Buttercup from Princess Bride, and then there was the two that you and Bucky insisted on. You chose Nick and Nora Charles from the Thin Man movies that you and he loved to watch together because it was a film he remembered seeing when he was younger, before the war, and you both joked that you acted like the couple in the movie often, and he insisted on Han Solo and Leia from Star Wars, since you told him once when you were little your only goal in life was to grow up and be Princess Leia and marry Han Solo.

The pictures were posted to their respective owner's pages and although comments still came in that were rude, those comments were quickly dealt with after Tony hired a team of image consultants to keep track of the pages, and delete the comments and block the senders, at the Governments expense since they insisted the pages stay up, and Tony insisted those comments were not ‘Family Friendly.’ Everyone on the team was happy with how the photos turned out and it was pretty clear that certain members were ‘closer than others to each other, without coming right out and blatantly announcing it. Everyone was happy with how the photo diary turned out especially Pepper, which fundamentally meant Tony was happy as a clam as well, and yes, if you are ever in New York, you can most likely find Thor in one of his favorite photographed restaurants with his very own namesake meal, which he has about half a dozen now. Welcome to our lives, feel free to look around our world, but remember, being mean is not welcome here.

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Intrinsic: Jameson in Therapy

Prompt from Anon:  If you're still taking prompts... "Have you tried NOT doing that?"

CW: Noncon survivor discussing future consensual spice, Jameson’s masochism, frank references to noncon and pet whump, brief internal victim-blaming, world-building detail about WRU

Dr. Berger tucks a bit of graying hair behind one ear, smiling slightly at Jameson from her place in the soft armchair she uses during appointments. “Well,” She says, thoughtful, “have you tried not doing that?”

He looks up at her from where he sits curled up on the long sofa, knees to his chest, picking absently at loose threads across the knee of his baggy blue jeans. As always, she is careful not to let her eyes move to the places where hair is slowly growing back in over bald spots where the straps of a leather muzzle had rubbed, careful not to look at the scars he wears on every inch of exposed skin - she’d made the mistake of being caught looking, however briefly, and had discovered that the newest of her clients was deeply insecure about the visible evidence of his captivity.

She’d apologized, but it had taken time to develop enough trust to come back from her initial mistake. She would not jeopardize that now, after they’ve made so much progress and she’s begun to see a shift in how he talks about and relates to his new life, his world.

He even told her the name he chose for himself, and that he’s been telling the others in the house, one by one. Accepting that it won’t be taken from him like his original name was - that it belongs to him, and is his to share or not. 

She would never, ever admit it, but... Jameson is one of her favorite clients to work with. He’s working so hard, every week that they meet he trusts more and more that the path he’s on is one that will move him forward. 

“What?” 

His voice is slightly rough - someone who has screamed enough to have permanent vocal chord damage, she thinks. She makes a note to speak to Jake Stanton about having a physician check on the potential for nodes or other issues that might pop up later. She’s not a medical doctor, but… well. She’s had a lot of clients with vocal chord damage in the sixteen years she’s been working in the pet lib movement, and you start to pick up on the little signs and symptoms they don’t necessarily declare out loud.

“My question is really just me being a little facetious, I won’t lie, but I do want to talk through the spirit of the question. When you mention feeling guilty that you are having a physical response to your housemate, that you are attracted to them and have been struggling with... well. I’d like to really dig in to where that guilt comes from. Now, I am aware that adjustment houses tend to discourage relationships between household members during their time in residence to cut down on the chance for conflict, but that’s not where your guilt lies, is it?”

He goes back to picking at the hole slowly wearing through his jeans. Dr. Berger waits, giving him the silence and time he needs to think his way through the question and the possible answers. After a long time, he says softly, “No. It’s not. I don’t give a fuck if Stanton wants me to hold somebody’s stupid hand or not.”

She has to force her smile not to widen, wondering if Jameson is aware of just how like Jakob Stanton he really is. No wonder they don’t always get along. “Okay. So can you talk to me about just what you sense of guilt, this worry you feel, is rooted in?” 

She watches with some small surprise as the angry, defiant recovering Box Boy who has spoken frankly and openly to her about being maimed, injured, treated as an object, referred to as an animal... blushes.

“I want-... It’s not the, um, the response. That I hate.” He won’t look at her now, and he’s one who loves to stare her down whenever he thinks she’ll be shocked or disgusted by what he has to tell her. But this… this, he’s ashamed or embarrassed to say. “They’re fucking gorgeous, that’s... anybody would like them. It’s… it’s what I want from them that... scares me.”

“You are accustomed to a certain level of unwanted physical attention, it’s not at all uncommon in Romantic rescues to continue to feel sexual attraction and desire after freedom-”

“No. It’s. It’s not that I-... I know that’s normal. It’s… I want…” He shifts, uneasily. “I want… I want Allyn to hurt me.”

The last sentence is whispered. It’s not sharing a thought, it’s confessing what he feels is some kind of sin he is committing or intending to commit. Dr. Berger sometimes feels like a priest in a confessional booth, although she’s never been one to suggest atonement - no, fear of oneself is where the core of most of her clients’ pain lies, in her experience. Instead, she works on reconstructing the impulse or fear from its foundations, breaking apart the horror of its weight and reconfiguring it so it’s easier to understand. 

To take control of, to direct.

She helps them to own themselves, not to fear the prospect but to see in it freedom they have always deserved. 

Fear is the absolute last thing any of her clients should ever have to feel again. They have been taught to devalue and debase themselves, to fear what their bodies can be made to do. If she does nothing else, Dr. Berger hopes she is able to help them be just a little less afraid of the bodies they live in.

“You want your housemate to hurt you?” She asks, gently. “Do you mean in the sense of a serious injury, or…”

“No. Um. No, I fucking… I think about them, um. Hurting-... like… like they used to do. Biting me, or... or scratching... I th-think sometimes about Allyn h-holding a... never mind. Just. Hurting me. I’m-... made to be hurt.”

“You are made only to be yourself,” Dr. Berger reminds him, her voice low and without any hint of judgement. “We’ve talked about your captors before and how you were held. You believe that you were made into a masochist as part of your training, and so you’re frightened that your mind is thinking about your housemate in ways similar to how you were once forced to think about your captors.”

His nose wrinkles - he’s more dismissive than most of the language she uses, and early on delighted in insisting on using words like owner, handler, master. Things he thought might shock her. But Dr. Berger has heard nearly everything she thinks there might be to hear, by now. She only smiles slightly at his expression, jotting quickly down on her notepad a few notations. 

Finally, he offers hesitantly, “I-I guess. Allyn is… good. They’re soft, and nice, and they’d never-... but I want them to. And it’s-... it would make-... them be like Robert, or… wouldn’t it? It’d be… treating them like… I don’t ever want to be what I was again, so why the fuck can’t I stop thinking about it?” 

He is so rarely vulnerable. Dr. Berger doesn’t take for granted the gift he gives her by letting her see past the wall of anger and derision he has built to keep himself safe. In many ways, he reminds her of when she saw Jake Stanton after his own brush with WRU’s handlers and their methods. Bristling, defensive, and with wounds that cannot be bandaged. They instead need to be exposed to the light.

“Intrusive thoughts that contain elements of your captivity are absolutely normal. You are still in the early stages of making progress, and progress is never linear, Jameson. There is no starting line, no ribbon at the end of the race. There is only moving forward, bit by bit, even if sometimes we move back.”

“You mean I move back,” He says, sullen now. “You don’t do shit. You’re already fine.”

“Mmmn, that’s not… quite accurate. I actually see someone myself, you know.” Dr. Berger smiles at his obvious, visible surprise. “My mentor once told me he never trusted a provider of therapy who did not themselves seek it out. I have my own progress to work towards, just as you have yours.”

“Problems are probably real fucking different, though.”

“Well, that’s true.” She allows herself a warm laugh - and is rewarded when he doesn’t bristle or assume mockery like he used to, but relaxes and even gives her a very small smile in return. “But I would advise you not to compare yourself to others. Your situation, while not unique in some ways, is still unique to you. You’ve been through a kind of horror that no one else has - even if others have experienced some similarities, the traumatic events they experienced will never be entirely like yours.”

He nods.

“But-” She holds up one finger “That doesn’t mean we can’t use what we know as a framework, a foundation you can build your own way on. Think of an ancient Roman road paved into a highway in modern Italy, for instance. The foundation was there, a path laid by people who came through before. But you can take what you need and use it to find your own way. I know that you’re scared of your thoughts, I know that you are frightened of wanting to find gratification or satisfaction in pain because you think it means a return to how you were treated before, or that you are inherently changed in damaging ways by your captivity, but…”

When she trails off, he leans slightly forward “But?”

She chooses her words carefully. “Jameson, would you be willing to consider something that may make you a little uncomfortable?”

He looks at her, depths of feelings in his brown eyes, and slowly nods. “Why not? I’m already fucking uncomfortable. All the time.”

His thin shoulders under the oversized band shirt he wears make angles under the fabric as he shrugs, although in the time she’s been seeing them those sharp edges have already begun to round out, the lines of his jaw and cheekbones are softening.

She’s seen it over and over again, the physical changes reflecting the rebuilding of an entire life. It never ceases to amaze her, how hard each and every one of them works. 

“Okay. This may be hard to hear at first but I think it will help you.”

Eventually he nods. “Yeah,” He half-rasps. “Yeah, okay. Just say it. Everything… everything else you’ve said has helped. Go ahead.”

“Okay. So, what I would like you to consider… perhaps what you see as an enforced flaw, a crack that was put into you, a danger you present to your housemate due to your conditioning and mistreatment… it might be in fact an intrinsic part of your sexual expression, and simply an aspect of your attraction to them, and the wish you stated to me to perhaps escalate your current relationship.”

He swallows. The color drains from his face, except for two spots of bright red high along his cheekbones. “What?” His lips barely move. 

“Jameson…” Her tone dips, reassuring and soothing. “I know what you were told. I know you were likely given a series of half-truths and whole lies designed to engender dependence and teach you to loathe yourself and therefore disconnect from your body. But… that body? It’s very real, and it’s entirely yours. I think that we need to look into the possibility that you already had certain tendencies that were exploited and twisted. Those tendencies are not inherently unhealthy or damaging if you learn to pursue them in a safe environment.”

He blinks, once, twice, his eyes glittering. 

She’s made a misstep and she knows it immediately, clear as the tears Jameson never allows to fall. She didn’t time it quite right. They should have spent more time working up to it…

“Are you saying I’m just-... like this?”

“Not the way you are suggesting,” Dr. Berger says softly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t express myself clearly enough. Please let me elaborate a little.”

“I fucking hope you d-didn’t mean that I’m-... that I’m just fucked up,” He says, looking away from her, down at the floor. She pretends she doesn’t see one hand go up to curve around the side of his neck, recreating some of the weight of the collar they are so often taught to rely on for a sense of safety.

“I absolutely did not mean that. One thing WRU excels at - one of the reasons they have been so successful - is that they utilize very effective techniques that encourage a sense of complicity and responsibility in the people they abuse and violate. I’m going to hazard a guess that you were told that you chose what happened to you.”

“I signed up for this,” Jameson whispers automatically, rote and robotic, without hesitation. At least, Dr. Berger thinks, she’s been doing this job long enough that hearing that no longer gets to her like it used to. “I wanted to be some rich asshole’s-”

“Yes. That. One way I think they are able to convince so many individuals so thoroughly isn’t only because of the standard methods of sleep and nutritional deprivation, the repetition, memorizing, the mistreatment… no, I think one thing WRU does is find in each of its victims a core truth they can exploit and cause you to fear in yourself, making you more vulnerable to the idea that this company is somehow saving or helping you by ‘making use’ of it. They find your weak point and use it to shatter you, but what WRU never realizes is that the very weakness they exploit is also often the same piece of you we can recover, that we can reclaim. In your case… Jameson, have you ever heard of consensual masochism?”

He’s hooked, she thinks, on this line of logic. On the lifeline she’s thrown him, something to grab onto. A way to begin to believe, in some small way, that he isn’t ruined. They all think they’ve been ruined, by the time she meets them.

None of them is.

“No, I-I haven’t. Does this mean… there are people like me who aren’t, you know, fucktoys-”

“Recovering Romantics,” She corrects, gently. “And yes. Masochism is a not-uncommon mode of expression that many people engage in consensually in the context of healthy sexual expression.”

He swallows, hard. She watches his throat move. Sees the look in his eyes, the minute changes in his expression. The hand pushing against the side of his neck slowly drops. She can see the gears turning within him, a shifting point of view maybe. She can see what he doesn’t want to speak out loud.

There’s another silence. This one is more comfortable, and as always she gives him all the time he needs. 

“How-” His voice cracks, and he clears his throat, blinking rapidly again. His knees slowly uncurl and his feet, clad in old hand-me-down sneakers, find their way to flat on the floor. Without his ever-present scowl, he looks years younger. Terrified.

Hopeful.

“How can I-... how do I-...” He takes a deep breath. “If it’s just… part of me… how do I make it safe?”

-

@astrobly @burtlederp @finder-of-rings @whump-tr0pes @raigash @moose-teeth @orchidscript @doveotions @pretty-face-breaker @eatyourdamnpears @boxboysandotherwhump @vickytokio @whumpfigure @outofangband @downriver914 @justabitofwhump @thehopelessopus @butwhatifyouwrite @yet-another-heathen @nonsensical-whump

[anne-writes]

Yaoi Fandoms; Representation or Fetishization?

1,305 words, 5 min~ reading time. Seperated into 25 paragrpahs for easier reading/writing. I worked on this while very sleep deprieved so comment an edits uwu. Essay under the divider. 

TW: Sarcasm, slight meaness (from me and others), inappriopriate messages to minors, censored cursing, babies?, I’ll update if I figure out any more.

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It seems whenever a thing in the media with plenty of men in it (youtube groups, bands, shows, ect.) will eventually come out with an MLM ship. This isn't inherently bad because men loving other men is amazing. Good for them. I'm so proud. The problem comes from the stans focused on this ship/couple. 

Stans, am I right? The majority of unneeded cancel-culture and cyber-bullying. (Note how I say unneeded) I don't actually mind a lot of stans, probably since I don't use Twitter often. 

Now my problem with stans is they find a content creator (musician, artist, YouTuber, ect.) and they try to make this person fit into their specific box of expectations via bullying, and fear of being cancelled and their career ruined. 

This sucks for many reasons, because, these content creators are still human, right? Stans don't usually seem to know this and put these people on an unreachable pedestal. Kind of like your parents who expect you to stay the same gifted kid throughout your life. It eventually gets exhausting. Let's put this train of thought on hold for just a few minutes.

Now all of that brings me to my point of writing this. Are yaoi fandoms a good thing or a bad thing? Are they asking for representation or fetishization of their faves? Are they trying to get more LGBTQA+ creators known or are they looking for their uwu gay babies? 

I think the question boils down to, who is writing the majority of the fanfiction and what kind of fanfiction is it? Are straight women writing your gay man smut for other straight women to enjoy? I think this is a good telltale if your yaoi fandom is good or bad. 

Now, I don't mind straight women writing gay characters having sex, having angsty sex, discovering themselves and falling in love, and straight women reading it,  because good on you for not caring about what kind of romance story it is! Everyone loves a good romance story for the many different tropes, I'm partial to enemies to lovers. 

I do have a problem when it's not really meant as romance and more something for straight women to get their rocks off if you catch my drift. Getting off to a gay relationship because it's gay is really weird in my opinion. (I'm looking at you, straight boys who watch lesbian porn). 

It's quite weird to get off to these kinds of relationships and leads to fetishization. We already are trying to tell the straight boys this, but the gays aren't around for straight people's porn-watching pleasure. It's the same as women liking gay men for being gay. Or men liking lesbians for being lesbian. 

I feel that a lot of Yaoi stans aren't asking for representation more so are they asking for two men making love for their pleasure. This leads to the box of expectations that seem to come with every stan. (I told you we'd come back to that earlier point) 

As soon as the ship is adopted by stans, it seems to always get joked around by the content creators associated with it. Examples can include, Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson, and Dream and GeorgeNotFound.

There's now the notation of 'well they brought it up so it must be true!'. And so, if the content creators continue making jokes about their shipname, the more of a cultish following grows and the more expectation for this to be real. 

This is pretty dangerous, as whatever one of those men gets a girlfriend, or a partner that isn't this specific person? Then the fandom turns against the 'traitor' and tries to solve any problems standing in the way of their ship. See Babygate. Whether or not you believe in that situation, the way they (stans) treated the families was just downright terrible. 

I mean sending porncaps to an underage minor? Just because you think the actress might also be the same girl that the minor's brother got pregnant, wtf. (Apparently, those larries aren't very approving of sex workers and porn actors/actresses /maybekidding,whoknows)

As terrible as that situation was handled and everything, it does show what kind of people those stans can be when something or someone gets in the way of their perfect ship. 

They also share the argument of 'this man is in love with another man, so he is gay' which makes me think they're even less so wanting representation. Because representation at its finest would be all sorts of sexualities, genders, ect. not just one specific sexuality.

Representation can come without fetishization. Many content things have been able to accomplish this. For example, some nice MLM webcomics can be found on Webtoon. Blades of Furry is quite cute, and perfect for all my furries out there. Boyfriends is about a Poly MLM group of 4. (Kiss it goodbye, Not So Shoujo Love Story for you WLW in need) (I wanna be a cute anime girl for my trans cuties.) (The Four of Them for a story about a group of kids discovering themselves.)

You can ask for representation without it being about the actual sexual component. LGBTQA+ smut is good for communities with these kinds of ships, but it shouldn't come at the cost of sexualization. Their relationships shouldn't become all about sex, because a lot of people do actually have the ability to keep it in their pants y̶o̶u̶ ̶h̶o̶r̶n̶y̶ ̶f̶*c̶k̶s̶. 

Posters being obsessed with their top and bottom components and how this person has to act a certain way because they are a top or a bottom are just the same people who think dom and sub roles need to be in every relationship. Who cares about who's the top or bottom when we can just care about their love? 

I'm not here to tell you not to ship MLM ships or WLW ships, or any of that. Honestly, that would just be hypocritical of me. I just want people to realize that by allowing yaoi fandoms to sexualize these kinds of relationships, you are solidifying a point in your brain, and other impressionable people's brains that gay people are only for sexual enjoyment. 

Whilst I think that IRL ships are pretty weird, everyone is going to probably do that anyway. Just allow that person to be straight, or any other sexuality, allow them to have other partners and don't make their entire life and career around one little thing. 

Don't expect people IRL to obey/act how YOU want them. They're humans too, and relationships are complicated. Maybe down the line, your fave comes out of the closet, but you shouldn't force them to come out just because you can 'sense' it. 

It's their life, it's their sexuality/gender/identity, allow the choices to be theirs. Forcing someone out of the closet makes you a d*ck. No matter what. No 'but it was so obvious!'. No 'well it was true!'. Forcing someone to reveal a private detail about themselves is creepy and d*ckish. Who cares if you're right, you could've harmed that person's homelife or anything. Maybe they wanted to keep it secret because who are you, as the fan, to dictate what they can share with you. 

And so, I leave you with some final words. Not everyone has to be gay, as much as, not everyone has to be straight. Sexuality and Gender identity are a spectrum and you cannot decide anyone else's. Allow people to be who they are, and don't stalk people. That's f*cking weird. 

I hope you all have a fantastic day/night/whatever. And next time, think about if your actions will be helping the community or not. I'm sure no one means to harm it, but it's ok to check in with yourself and your actions every once in a while to better yourself.  

[appassaddle]

In worldbuilding, one of the best touchstones you can give people is in arts. Music is especially great because it’s one of the longest lasting sense-memories people have, so giving that to your fictional characters makes them that much more real and relatable. ATLA, as a great fantasy world, makes great use of this (how many times have you sung a song from the show? be honest.) so this is a list of possible musical influences that could be part of the various nations outside of the music we’re given in-show. The musical possibilities with bending and having benders has just... so much cool potentital, because look at what we’ve got without even having powers!

Check it:

Earth kingdom – lithophones

The Earth Kingdom would have absolutely sick lithophones (instruments made from resonating stone).

Lithophones are also some of the oldest dated musical instruments, going back to prehistoric times, and can be found in locations/cultures around the globe (singing/ringing/sonic/resonant rocks of different types are everywhere) in both natural and man-made settings. (Musical caves/stalactite organs vs carved or shaped settings)

Some examples:

Bianqing: (also known as qing, biên khánh in Vietnam, and pyeongyeong in Korea) A stone gong originating from China, played in a set (or singular) hung on racks, with a characteristic angular shape. (Not to be confused with bianzhong, which are metal bells, often played together with bianqing.)

          [example] [example] [example]

Ðàn đá: a stone mallet instrument from the western/central highlands of Viet Nam. They are a historic instrument and got a revival in the 1950s, so they are fairly common in the modern era as well.

          [example] [example]

          If you’re interested in checking out the work of Viet musicologists, check out their website: https://www.vienamnhac.vn/home-page

For a look into how stone based instruments can be made, check out this report from a small town in Japan that specializes in a specific type of musical stone (sanukite): https://www.kensanpin.org/en/report/no47/

Some examples of instruments made from sanukite: [example] [example]

(I can also totally see towns in the EK having stones specific to their region and their local musical tone.)

Post metalbending revolution they would probably partner up with…

The Fire Nation likely has a strong lean towards metallophones. In Western music the most well known of these would be vibraphones, glockenspiels, and bells. (In the ATLA soundtrack, a notable metallic sound is Azula’s signature sting.) But for the FN, more likely influences could be along the lines of:

Gamelan: this is a genre/type of ensemble from Indonesia, the main three styles being Javanese, Balinese, and Sudanese. (Styles depend on island of origin and cultural purposes.) It has a rich history and cultural importance that cannot be done justice in a few lines her, but it’s absolutely amazing music. Gamelan is used for religious/spiritual purposes, dance, puppeteering/storytelling, theater, general concerts, community gathers, and more. Ensembles range in size and instrumentation, but the main timbre is in the various metallophones (barred, gongs, cymbals, etc.), as well as drums, strings, woodwinds, and singers. [example] [example] [example]

[If you’re interested in learning more, the Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamelan actually has whole video modules via youtube to learn about the various styles of gamelan and multiple sources both print and online to access!]

Steelpan/steel drums: Originating from Trinidad and Tobago, these instruments have a very universal popularity for their bright tone and accessibility. There are many variations on steelpan such as the hang drum, handpan, steel tongue drum, and others. [example] [example] [example]

For the polar Water Tribes, I’d imagine they’d have a much stronger oral/vocal tradition than instrumental, with the exception being portable/durable instruments like hands drums, bone flutes, etc. (So this section is a little less instrument based and more appropriate vibes.)

Vocal/oral tradition: It’s hard to find a culture that doesn’t have some form of oral or sung tradition, but with the cultural influences behind the Water Tribes, I’d guess that a strong tradition would be in throat singing. Throat singing is found in multiple indigenous cultures around the world with various styles of overtone singing (producing more than one tone at once). Some examples are:

Inuit - [one] [two]

Tuvan (Mongolian) - [one] [two] [obligatory plug for The Hu bc they are some of the coolest people on the planet]

Tibetan - [one] [two]

Italian - [one] [two]

Ainu - [one] [two]

Tan Dun, Water Music: Tan Dun is a composer who has done film scores and currently focuses on what he calls “organic music” where the main focus is using naturally occurring materials/sounds. [performance]

Water drumming: One of the coolest ensemble performances, just straight up using water as an instrument. These examples are from Vanuatu and the Baka people of Cameroon. [one] [two] [three] [four] [five]

Sea Organ: Located in Zader, Croatia, this experimental instrument is played by the tides and waves. [video]

Hand drums/frame drums: these styles of drums can be found around the world, throw a dart at a map and there’s probably a style of hand drum from there. They are among the simplest style of drum to make, needing a round frame and hide to stretch over it. Here are just a few examples: [one] [two] [three] [four] [five] [six]

Air Nomads probably had a hug musical tradition between the temples, skybison herding, and traveling. Both singing and wind instruments were probably very popular (we see Aang being able to play multiple instruments). Simple flutes make good travel instruments and being able to share news and information via song when stopping at towns would be a valued skill (in communities before reading was a common skill, it would usually fall to either dedicated criers or bards to pass along information in an understandable and memorable way).

Singing/chants: Learning songs from around the nations would be fun for those who travel, it’s easy to imagine an informal song competition for the most variety or strangest or most locations or dirtiest ones learned during their travels. But given the strong influence of Tibetan Buddhism on the Air Nomads, some traditional Tibetan vocal music examples (a couple of other examples are under the Water Tribe section as well)- [one] [two] [three] [four] [five]

(Tibetan musical notation is also regarded as some of the most beautiful in the world, I’d strongly recommend taking a look.)

Sheng- This is a free-reed mouth organ from China and it has an incredibly long history. Traditional shengs are handheld with few keys, more modern versions vary in size, number of pipes, and keys. It’s a pretty delightful instrument imo. [one] [two] [three]

Panflute: There a lots of different kinds of panflutes found around the world, the most famous being the Greek and Peruvian styles. Some different kinds include paixiao (China), wot (Laos, northern Thailand), nai (Romania, Moldova), siku (Andean), and kuvytsi (Slavic). Variations include the cut of pipes to produce the sound, arrangement of the pipes, and materials used.[siku] [paixiao] [wot 1] [wot 2]

It would also be very cool to have carvings into the mountains that could be played by airbending oh man.

All of these are, of course, just barely dipping a toe into the vast amounts of beautiful musical cultures out there, but hopefully it helps inform and build on what is there. If something tickles your fancy, please feel free to go digging and find more about it! (If you aren’t sure where to start, I’m happy to help, just drop me a line and I can at least point you in the right direction. I make no claim to be any kind of expert here, but I can get you to them!)

[razieltwelve]

Notation (Final Rose)

“The problem with relying on speed,” Yang drawled as she straddled Neo and pinned her arms above her head. “Is that once you’ve been caught, you’re in a great deal of trouble.”

Neo glared up at the blonde.

“Heh.” Yang patted Neo’s cheek and then ran her hand down the other woman’s neck. Despite the anger in her gaze, Neo couldn’t help but tremble as Yang traced her collarbone before beginning to undo the buttons of her shirt. “Now, what should I do with you?” She smirked and then yanked sharply. Neo’s shirt tore, and Yang leered as Neo’s chest was exposed. “No bra? My, someone’s a naughty girl.”

Blake cleared her throat. “Did you have to rip off her shirt, Yang?”

Yang continued to leer at Neo’s chest. “It was in the way.”

“Yang, you’re supposed to be a piratical miscreant seducing the heroine. I hardly think ripping her shirt off is all that seductive.”

“Hey, I don’t hear her complaining,” Yang replied.

Neo raised one eyebrow.

“Oh, you know what I mean.” Yang scowled at Blake. “And, you know, you’re kind of sucking the romance out this yourself.”

“I’d like to point out that I was the one who suggested this scenario in the first place.” Blake drew herself up regally. “After all, it’s supposed to be inspiration for my newest book.”

“More smut?” Yang snickered. “Not that I’m complaining.”

“It’s romance,” Blake replied archly. “Romance.”

“It’s totally porn,” Yang shot back. “I read your last one. It was five hundred pages long. I swear like four hundred of those pages was pure smut. I’m actually amazed any of the main characters could actually walk by the end of it, they were having that much sex.”

“The smut is critical to the plot,” Blake growled.

“Blake, I love you. I really do. And I think you’re a wonderful writer. But the plot was basically just two rival female warlords almost kill each other, get stranded in the wilderness, and end up falling in love and screwing each other’s brains out in basically every conceivable position on every available geographical feature. Oh, and this was after they’d already tried to seduce each other to secure victory.”

“...” Blake huffed. “You are grossly oversimplifying what was a highly complex and convoluted narrative.”

Neo wiggled her hips, and Yang glanced at her for a moment before shifting slightly. The difference in size meant it wasn’t comfortable for Yang to rest her weight on Neo’s belly. On the other hand, had their positions been reversed, Yang wouldn’t have minded in the least. 

It was pure smut. The words appeared in glowing writing in the air, courtesy of Neo’s Semblance. Fantastic smut. Smut we had plenty of fun re-enacting. Smut that outsold basically everything else in the market. But, yeah, it was smut.

“Seriously?” Blake looked toward the fourth woman in the room who had, until this point, remained silent although she was very visibly struggling to hide her amusement. “What do you think, Winter?”

“Blake, I hate to gang up on you, but I have to agree with Neo and Yang.” Winter gestured at herself. “I mean... you’ve got me in leather with a whip. I’m pretty sure that's not necessary for plot reasons.”

“I told you that leather is a perfectly serviceable material to wear, and you’ve got a whip because it just so happens to be the weapon that your character uses.”

“So the fact that you want me to ‘punish’ the heroine with it is a complete coincidence?”

Somehow, Blake was able to reply with a straight face. “Yes.”

Neo couldn’t help it. Her shoulders began to shake as she laughed in near-silence. Astride her, Yang giggled and then gave Neo a mock stern look.

“Quiet, wench,” Yang threatened. “Or the Lady Winter shall have to discipline ye most thoroughly. It’ll be a flogging for ye... a flogging or a fucking.”

That was too much for Winter, who also burst out laughing.

Blake glared. “Can you three take this more seriously?”

“I’m sorry.” Winter covered her mouth with one hand. “But, Yang, that was awful.”

“I think it was rather witty.”

“No, it was awful.” Winter shook her head. “But I suppose that’s part of your charm.”

Maybe we should just gang up on Blake for real. Neo’s Semblance created a red arrow that pointed straight at Blake. She’s getting pretty bossy. It wouldn’t do to let her get too full of herself.

“Instead,” Yang added, letting go of Neo’s wrists to point some finger guns at Blake. “We should get her full of us.”

“...” Winter stared. “That was even worse.” She turned toward Blake, and the whip snapped out with a crack, only inches from the Faunus. “But it’s not a bad idea.”

Blake’s eyes widened. “Wait just a -”

They sprang.

X     X     X 

Diana tilted her head to one side. “I really need to start charging you more for household repairs.” She eyed the devastation in the bedroom with a sigh. The bed was kindling. The furniture was scattered all over the room, and there was even a whip imbedded in the ceiling. And that wasn’t even taking into account the ripped clothes everywhere, and the menagerie of dents and holes in the walls. “Because this is ridiculous. What were you even doing with that whip?”

“Nothing.” Blake gave Winter a scowl. “Absolutely nothing.”

“Hmm...” Diana rummaged through her pockets and looked at Neo. “I will give you this cookie if you tell me what happened.”

“As if that will work,” Blake shot back. “Neo isn’t Ruby.”

“Which is a good thing,” Yang muttered. “I love my sister, but the things we did to Neo...”

Neo smiled sunnily at Blake and took the cookie. Whip. Ceiling. Spread.

Diana nodded. “Interesting. Creative.” She gave Blake a sly smile. “Totally going in your next book, right?”

“Oh, shut up.”

X     X     X

Author’s Notes

Blake takes her writing very seriously. And so do the others. Kind of. Maybe. Who knows? And, yeah, this is before the twins and other kids show up. By then, they’ve invested in various technologies to minimise property damage and minimise noise etc.

If you’re interested in my thoughts on writing and other topics, you can find those here.

I also write original fiction, which you can find on Amazon here or on Audible here.

[docholligay]

I need to show you the most amazing thing.

SO I have just gotten into the phase of pregnancy where the fact that I don’t have a lot of square footage as a human being is very very clear to me, and this is leading to more discomfort than I would care for. 

This is particularly galling when I’m trying to sleep, as that seems to be when it’s the worst. 

Enter @jedilora​, and this thing: 

Holligay, that looks like some kind of academic notation. NO IT IS A BODY PILLOW AND IT IS AMAZING. I can balance my stupid belly on it while sleeping and it has a spot for my arm and goes between my legs, and honestly I’m short enough that even on my back it makes things more comfortable so I can actually fucking sleep. IT’S A NEW YEAR’S MIRACLE. I don’t think I’ll give it up even after I’m done being pregnant ahahah. 

I got it a few days ago and already my life has improved tenfold. THANK YOU JEDILORA

[jonathankatwhatever]

The question of identification as gender came up. As in why that? I remember a lot of discussion about this, that we divided the self into 2 perspectives, 2 pairs that map into a grid and thus to a gs. This either enables or is enabled by the generation of higher dimensional ideal forms, the n-gons, which we can now see express nSquares. As in, a pentagon is a count of 5, which can be fit together in the ideal solution, which ideal expresses the associative power within the nSquare, which then is again, orthogonal to the 1Square.

It’s really amazing how this defines groups, now that I see it. We see the normal subgroup, the count of the 1’s that Attaches to the orthogonal nSquare structure. So when I see 12 as a cube, I see that as an nSquare structure. Oh right, that means a cube or any higher power of n (or x, etc.) is also an nSquare form, exactly like we did this morning, which seems a long time ago.

It feels weird to question what I’m doing when it just generated that depth of understanding. That is a brand new conception which explains what groups are, and how they work. No wonder I used to struggle with the subject: look where we had to go to see the Ends appear which contain the literal simple!

Alright, alright, but you’re still going to do it.

Okay, so the conception is becoming that what is required for human progress is to recognize the nature of your self-construction. This is not the same as psychological analysis. It means identifying the various forms that conflict, that identify themselves through expression or suppression. Teach the characteristics. This is actually leftist and rightist, which is weird, because it’s only through this that we reach a higher cooperative level, and that level starts to align individuals better with their needs and wants. In some ways, a sort of do this, get this relationship which, again, would also satisfy a libertarian because this enables more free choice.

And that follows from the extreme, which is the total identification of an individual with another outside the field, so you’re both on the same team. Gee, these metaphors seem tailor-made for the occasion. The I in team is the I//I of the individual to individual, individual to individuals, both on the same side and then in the contest. It’s always the Irreducibles underneath, which tie to the physical, to the tangible because Actuality constructs. Turns out Actuality is a really good piece of notation, because it signifies the concept of something actually occurring as if we had every angle, every perspective, and they were all composed into a single view which is searchable because it orders. This is why lying ocurs and why people push lies to further beliefs: you can construct meanings, can believe in those meanings, even though your meanings have little to do with the Actuality, but instead reflect the permutation Pathways you can see, and which you choose to highlight. This is startlingly close to the arguments over the manipulation of statistical significance through massaging p-values, ignoring noise, etc. to construct a path that leads to your conclusion being relevant.

But why gender? I only have a few minutes before it’s back to toting and lifting stuff.

Because women bear children and men fertilize the eggs inside a woman. Those roles are assigned physically, so there is the perspective of the physical self. We define that as an End on a 1-0Segment stretching to the core perspective. Like the conception of Christianity developed in the early Creed, these exist unmixed but not separate within your single nature. They extended this idea up and down so Jesus is the passageway connecting the human side to the divine side within him.

The core perspective is easily seen in the image of a point expanding to a circle or ball. We can also consider this a cone, so the point is actually disappearing or appearing (since it can be pointed away or at in the ideal). This also maps to an fD. Boundary. So we can imagine a simple system in which the Boundary is like a snake’s surface and each tiny portion reports what it senses, and that goes to a limbic center which reacts. I think in a snake, that simplifies the process because the limbic refers to the other process center, which enacts the category of behavior the limbic translates. That would explain the strange defensive reactions of snakes. Or how cats seem to not be thinking while waiting for the action to appear. Billy literally stands next to me until his brain says sit down. It takes a while. He sometimes doesn’t even displace behavior into other activity, like no noise or asking for affection. He’s more like my mother sitting in the half-light while her brain wanders off into another reality, except Billy is just standing there, listening, etc. while that processes.

The idea then was that the core can align or not align with the external. That’s an obvious segmenting. And that follows from this: when we have the shell perspective, it has to reach some effective End or we have no feedback loop and nothing occurs. And since we loop, that invokes SBE2, etc., and that invokes the perspective embodied in that 2, in that End which now receives and transmits, which Inmanates and Emanates its character, which passes through thoughts, actions, etc.

So for me, having my right and left scrambled was a big clue. Unscrambling that revealed that gender identity at least in me associated with how the shell self operated, that by giving the right side the lead functions, my core perspective became something else. Switching back invokes that same 2. And yes, that means the 2Square, the nSquare, the associative space.

Big step forward. Huge stride. Need to move on to moving stuff.

[mightbewriting]

Your writing is superb! Wait and Hope is now an all-time favorite fic of mine! I especially admire your ability to write dialogue. Do you have any tips on how to write distinct character voices?

Oh wow, thank you so much! I’m so happy you enjoyed W&H! Dialogue is actually one of my favorite things about writing so the fact that you liked it makes my heart pitter-patter! 

I apologize for sitting on this ask for a couple of days, but I wanted to actually think about some tips for character voice as it relates to dialogue! I do enjoy occasionally nerding out about writing… so without further ado, I’m about to nerd out A LOT (seriously, A LOT). I got a little carried away, but this was so much fun to think about! So, here are some of my thoughts on writing dialogue and using it to support distinct character voices.

The biggest tip I have on how to improve writing the way people talk is to listen to how people talk. Seems obvious, I know. But I mean how real people talk, not scripted movie and TV…which I think is often what comes to mind. I learned more about how people talk in the couple of months I did freelance transcription work than I did in the entirety of the first twenty-something years of my life. You don’t have to actually do transcription work to practice this, just find unscripted video or audio of people talking (interviews, vlogs, streamers, podcasts, whatever!) and type out it out.

The first thing I noticed when I actually had to transcribe real life conversations is that people often make NO SENSE when they talk. They have false starts, verbal pauses, non verbal pauses, they repeat words, they stop mid sentence to start another thought, they fumble with word choice, and so on. This is why professional transcription services offer VERBATIM transcription and NON VERBATIM transcription (I have a point to this, I swear!). Verbatim transcription is how it sounds, you have to type exactly what you hear:

Speaker A: “As I was— I was saying, ah, um, I think we should do— Mary, did you have thoughts on that? No, um, okay [cough], does anyone have any other thou— opinions before we move on?”

Like, what does that even mean? 

Non verbatim transcription teaches you to edit out the stuff that makes real life speech mostly unintelligible (I’m eternally amazed that we’re able to make sense of stuff like that on the fly! Brains are amazing!) and it turns the sentence above into something more like:

Speaker A: “Mary, did you have thoughts on that? No, okay. Does anyone have any other opinions before we move on?”

This is a pretty heavy handed edit, but I’d argue that the first 13 words of the verbatim sentence is nothing but a false start. I also removed the verbal pauses, the coughing notation, and the switch between words mid-speech. What I’m left with is something that looks and sounds more like what you might see in scripted dialogue. 

All of this is to say; when writing, for coherency’s sake, it’s helpful to write in a non verbatim style so you can be understood. BUT, I love throwing in the occasional false start or thought change mid-sentence, or even a rare verbal pause because I enjoy the bit of realism it adds. I know not everyone will agree with that, but that’s just how I enjoy dialogue.  

Character voice comes into play with dialogue in a lot of ways. If I could boil it down to two things; it’s about WHAT they say and HOW they say it. The WHAT involves things vocabulary: words one character might use that another wouldn’t, or a word they might know that another doesn’t. The HOW involves things like your dialogue tags and the associated actions and narrative surrounding the actual speech.

Rapid fire tips for the WHATs: people speak almost exclusively in contractions, they typically only saying things like “can not” and “do not” etc., for emphasis. Read dialogue out loud; if it sounds weird to hear then it’s probably not right. Character motivation is key; what someone says should make sense for their personality, traits, and history. People don’t always answer questions directly, or say what they mean. Less is usually more, unless someone is especially verbose or engaged in a debate, people don’t tend to wax poetic in long monologues all that often. 

My tips for the HOWs are less rapid fire because I want to talk about dialogue tags and that’s, idk…divisive? Here’s the thing; ‘said’ and ‘asked’ (or their other tense counterparts) are pretty much invisible and are used mostly to indicate who is speaking so a reader doesn’t get lost. Less is more with dialogue tags, too.

Alternative dialogue tags aren’t inherently evil (things like: whispered, shouted, grunted, grumbled, mumbled, growled, exclaimed, ordered, etc. have a place when used judiciously) but they are almost always a stand in for what could be a more interesting use of character voice. It usually ends up being a situation where a writer is telling the reader how to interpret dialogue instead of letting the dialogue speak for itself. So I try to use alternative tags very sparingly; you can actually see my evolution in this throughout W&H and then in S&S and my newer stuff, because I went from being subconsciously aware of it to more consciously practicing.  

Consider this real life example of something I wrote from Ron’s POV:

Malfoy forced them out of his office.

“Now you two figure out the details amongst yourselves; I have work to do,” Malfoy ordered.

I used ‘ordered’ knowing I was using an alternative tag and thinking to myself ‘it’s not so bad here, Ron would think Malfoy is ordering him around.’ Which isn’t necessarily wrong…but it’s not all that interesting. My rewrite, after being rightfully called on my bullshit for being lazy about it, looked like this:

Malfoy forced them out of his office.

“Now you two figure out the details amongst yourselves; I have work to do.” Malfoy waved his hands to dismiss them like they were elves he’d had more than enough of.

This version has a stronger character voice; we get Ron’s interpretation that Malfoy is treating him like an elf and we can imagine a physical movement from Malfoy showing how he’s speaking. I think that’s both more interesting to read and has a stronger sense of voice. When and where possible, I would say that substituting some kind of physical action or observation associated with dialogue usually results in a stronger sense of voice, either from the narrator or the speaker, or both! 

This response has gotten…lengthy. I’m sorry for that (but also, not sorry because writing is so interesting xD). In conclusion, writing is subjective and everyone has their own style. I don’t mean for this to be prescriptive advice, these are simply things that are on my mind when I’m writing dialogue and that I think lead to a stronger result. If nothing else: experiment. Write something exclusively in a verbatim style, write something exclusively with alternative tags, write something with no dialogue tags at all, write an enormous monologue and then figure out how to break it up. Try all sorts of different things to see what doesn’t sound right and what does. Learn the rules and then make your own.

Mostly, have fun. <3

[silenthillmutual]

2020 Creator Wrap

I was tagged by @stvlti to do the 2020 Creator Wrap: Favorite Works tag! Thank you, sm!! c:

Rules: it’s time to love yourselves! choose your 5 (or so) favorite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought to the world in 2020. tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works!

Tagging: @lawliyeeeet​ @soupcans @kunoiichi @milk-teeths @darkpaladin and anyone else who wants to!! Though there’s no pressure to do this if you don’t want<3

So... according to my AO3, I seem to have published or updated 63 works in 2020, which is just a whole hell of a lot more than I usually do! So I’ll pick the going from oldest to newest that I’m most happy with :)

CONTENT WARNING though, under 18 please do not read below the cut as two of the fics are M and one is E. Additional content warning: two deal with self harm and one with intrusive thoughts, and one with pregnancy.

01 || Communication (T)

I think this was when I really hit my stride with understanding how I wanted to characterize Daniil, specifically, and more generally when I worked out how I wanted to write his relationship with Artemy. I tend to focus on the ways in which they communicate differently, and I think I pulled off their voices relatively well.

Favorite moment, when I managed to slip some autism into my characterization:

This is a flaw of his - a messy, embarrassing secret, this inability to distinguish jokes and sarcasm from serious discussion. He masks his insufficiency with a flat-toned seriousness. People find it harder to separate the sarcasm and the jokes from his regular speech when he makes no vocal distinction, and he enjoys the discomfort it brings in others. He considers it, to a degree, payback. A taste of their own medicine. And when he wants to make it clear where his feelings lie, he’ll be picky with the words themselves. He is, if absolutely nothing else, exceptional in the area of verbal self-expression. 

02 || sine sole sileo (M)

This is one of my older works and it is far from being my best, it’s terribly out of character and woobifying, but I’m fond of it as my first really long and more emotional work for the fandom. I had fun writing the first chapter out as a Twitter thread, and then expanding on it. It’s multi-chaptered and actually finished, which is something I have a hard time with!

Favorite moment, which I still actually kind of like, despite everything:

He knows the silence behind the doors, too. It’s a stillness that makes the tips of his fingers buzz. How many days has it been now? Three, four? Artemy though he’d changed the sheets, added new notations. Welcomed in the vocals, the strings, the what-ever-else accompanied performances like this in the Capital. His verses hadn’t been well-sung, but the band had started to play with him. He’d come to anticipate the thrumming percussion. A heart with its own rhythm. Footsteps that rose and fell. Words that lilted, that lead, that brought the symphony to a heightened frenzy.

But silence is a kind of noise too. Where the heart doesn’t beat. Where the voices don’t speak. Even when there is nothing, there is noise.

Artemy has to take a breath before he opens the door. He knows he won’t like what he sees, but he’s seeing so much more in his mind than will be there to greet him. His eyes shake and jostle him to great many things: a gun, a hook, a rope, stained bedsheets and curtains ripped from windows. He sees death even before his eyes adjust because he can smell it, and because he can hear it.

Twelve, he thinks.

03 || o tempora, o mores (M)

This fic was my baby! I wanted so badly to write a character struggling with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder the way I do, and while it’s not my best-performing fic for the fandom (I haven’t kept track of which one is, actually) it’s probably my favorite. I worked so hard on this one, trying to replicate what it’s like to struggle with OCD, and it felt so gratifying to do. I’m currently working on a follow-up to this one, and I’m very excited for it as well!

Favorite moment is really the whole thing, but I do like this in particular, because I feel it really resonated with how intrusive thoughts and compulsions work for me:

The self-talk gives him enough of a boost to get him through the doors of the hospital. It feels safer here, where there’s only the ill and the dead instead of the thousand living eyes trying to touch him. No one comes to bother him here, just him and Artemy and sometimes Clara and Rubin until a few days ago –

YOUR FAULT. HE IS SICK BECAUSE OF YOU. HE IS IN TROUBLE BECAUSE OF YOU. IF RUBIN DIES, IT IS BECAUSE OF YOU. “Stop it, stop it, stop it,” Daniil mutters. THE EYES KNOW THE VACCINE DIDN’T WORK. THEY ARE WAITING FOR YOU TO ADMIT IT, ADMIT THAT THERE IS NOT ENOUGH TO PROTECT THEM SO THEY CAN HAND YOU TO THE DOGS. THEY WANT TO RIP YOUR BODY OPEN AND DEVOUR YOU. CANNIBALS, ALL OF THEM. AND YOU CAN’T RUN FOREVER. “Stop it,” he repeats, and tries to dig a jagged nail into his wrist.

It won’t go. Too slippery from the ointment Victor applied. He has something in his bag to help, another jagged edge, a rusted pair of scissors lost to their original purpose. The Morae were busy here, he’d thought the first time he saw them, and had laughed at his own clever joke. But now he feels the red string is his skin.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven.                                  (it is starting to hurt these could be infected they are dirty they are rusted,) Eight.                                     (but it has to be ten he has to get to ten it has to be even) Nine.                                     (has to be a multiple of five but even always even, no odd numbers in sight)

04 || vita in motu (E)

Heheh I’m in danger (chuckles).

I’ve only managed to get one piece of hate for this fic which I figured would draw way more ire and make me orphan it, and I’m glad I haven’t had to because I’m stupidly attached to the concept. I was trying not to go for E rated fics for this, but this fic meant so much to me to write and for something marked explicit I put a lot of thought into how I wanted to characterize Daniil for it.

So. Yeah. Publishing it was scary as hell but I’m glad I did. I also got some really nice feedback on it, and more than I expected to. I’m very happy with how it turned out.

Favorite moment was actually much longer at the start of it, though kind of like with o tempora, o mores I actually really like how the whole fic turned out. But I really liked this part because I view Artemy as someone who would be very grounding for Daniil to be with:

“Stay in the moment,” Artemy tells him, and kisses him again, kisses him slowly. “Stay here with me. I love you.”  

 It should be utter nonsense, to give in so quickly to this, but Artemy makes it easy. Daniil would never have seen this in his future, would not have even made this as a joke. Something had to beat down his resistance to the emotional, a pro to outweigh the cons he associated with vulnerability. Keeping tightly bound was the safest bet, the easy one. He could say he lacked emotion, and anyone would buy it. Nothing short of a miracle could drag him back to the land of the living – but then again, nothing short of a miracle could have saved this town. Artemy Burakh is a man who manufactures miracles.  

05 || it’s sacrilege, you say (T)

This is the last fic that I wrote out that I took a lot of time planning instead of going “hey, I think this idea would be neat” and slapping it onto paper. And I think it turned out really well!! I almost wanted to do something darker with it, more akin to Silent Hill, but I have other ideas in mind for that kind of AU that I’ll play with later, one of which will be a sort of crossover with TMA.

Favorite moment is when I actually implied the twist, though I’m not sure you can call it a twist at all when I used proper tags:

Her eyes drift from Daniil to the wall, pivoting to look through the window. “No,” she says. “I don’t know why he made you.”

 The center of Daniil’s chest feels like a flower, budded but unopened. Smooth, perhaps, but heavy to move, and his petals are made of something sharp. Crystal, maybe. And he can feel the petals start to part with her words, though they make so little sense to him. He steps forward, closer, half expecting Aspity to recoil from him, but she stays unnaturally still as he approaches. He reaches out to wet his lips, dry as sand, before he speaks. “Made me?” There’s no tone in his voice. “What do you mean, made me? And who are you talking about?”

 She doesn’t turn to face him. She blinks, and lashes fall on sunken cheeks. “Do you remember how you got here, doctor?” He opens his mouth, but she’s faster. “Not to my home. To Town. Think: Can you remember how it is you came to be here?” Daniil grinds his teeth on the side of his tongue, sharp edges digging into the flesh. The flesh.      The flesh    . “Take your time,” she says, but it sounds like a joke. “The last train that arrived brought the menkhu, and no one else aboard it. There are no other ways into our Town.”