#If you want to see more fics catered to your preferences then write them yourself | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

loosesodamarble · 10 months ago

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Hello soda, I love your blog. I'm a huge Nacht fan and I want to write a Nacht x reader/oc (haven't decided) fanfic . I'm too shy to post it but I want to write it for myself. Can you give me tips to write fanfic especially about Nacht.

🖤 Anon! The answers you seek are finally here!

It's very exciting that you're writing some self-indulgence! It's one thing to make requests for what you want to see but taking the writing into your own hands is something else entirely! Make the most of it!

(This post ended up being longer than expected so pardon for the rest of it being under a cut.)

First off, reader insert or oc, or heck you could even do a full self insert. Any way you go about it, do what gives you the most fulfillment! You said that you aren't gonna post it but even if you did, your first and most important audience is yourself, so cater to what you want.

Second, when it generally comes to writing fanfic, play to your preferences. Do you enjoy banter or heartfelt dialogue? Then you can easily write scenes that focus more on characters speaking with little sprinkles of scenery and action written in. Or if you prefer prose and detailing the finer details of a moment, feel free to write a fic where you go five paragraphs without character speaking.

(For me, I like fic that's a little introspective. Where prose isn't just about the characters' actions or surroundings but also acts as their inner monologue. And thus, I tend to write fic that's a lot of "their feelings swirled inside of them like a storm" stuff.)

And don't worry about skipping over stuff that you don't feel confident or interested in writing. For me, I can manage a bit of fight scene choreography but it's not my strong suit so I don't write fights often and I usually keep it vague and short. The less interest you have for writing a certain thing, the less you end up writing. (That's not the whole picture since burnout/writer's block can leave you wanting to write but not having the energy or mind to do it.)

Something that I try to keep in mind when writing is the question of "what is the ultimate point of the piece?" It can be anything from a simple "I want these characters to talk/fight/kiss" to a complex "I want to show how a single event is actually a chain reaction of smaller happenings and how they can have massively different effects on people's lives and personalities." For me, the answer should be less a plot summary of the piece you're writing and more your motivation for writing it.

TL;DR for those previous points: write what you like, don't write what you don't like, and know why you're writing (since that can help you stay motivated).

Now when it comes to writing Nacht specifically, I keep these character details in mind:

Nacht has self-loathing issues, making it hard for him to believe he is good.

That self-loathing is projected onto others, mostly Yami.

While he does care for others, Nacht is afraid of loving and being loved. He fears hurting those he loves (see Morgen's death).

Those are probably the most important traits of Nacht's to keep in mind when writing him, pre or post Morgen's death. Although the projection aspect of his personality more shows up afterwards.

I also tend to write Nacht repeating the same mini arc. -He looks down on himself -He resists happiness when he has a chance for it -Someone talks some sense into him -Nacht lets himself be happy

Yes, it's keeping his character kinda in the same arc over and over. But to me, Nacht is a character that I see struggling to accept that he's allowed to be happy despite his dark past. He lets himself be happy but he doesn't want to risk too much good fortune in case it blows up in his face, if you know what I mean.

I think that writing Nacht is about finding the balance between suffering and salvation. He hated and punished himself for the longest time until he finally learned to let go of his guilt. Although I personally like to keep Nacht from fully letting go of the guilt and grief. Because squeezing out angst from Nacht's character is fun. Giving Nacht love and letting him be happy is ultimately more fulfilling though.

Really, like for any character, you have to write what you want for Nacht. And for me it's that ever present sorrow in his life. For you, it could be something else entirely.

You gotta write for you, 🖤 Anon. But hopefully my advice gives you something to work with. Good luck with the Nacht fic and I hope you enjoy what you come up with~!

#questions from the ask box #soda asides #🖤 anon #initially i was going to start the post with a joke of like #i dont write i just black out and a few days later i wake up to a fully written fic #but eh seemed inappropriate #so you get the watered down version of the joke here in the tags #i really hope that what i wrote actually makes sense and helps #there's no real concrete writing advice #like when it comes to grammar or story structure #but that's not what was being asked for anyway

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simpjaes · 1 year ago

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OH! AND I FORGOT TO TELL U THAT I ALSO WANT TO START WRITING FF BUT I DON'T REALLY KNOW HOW, CAN I GET SOME TIPS PLS 😭

-🌊

omg i def encourage others to write!! I'll do my best with tips but I've been doing it for so long that honestly it just kinda comes naturally for me at this point, so ill do my best!

first tip: decide on whether you want to be more free in your writing or more controlled. I switch between the two. For instance I'll have an idea and simply write from a single start point and let the writing and story in my head take me where ever, with no outline or guidance outside of a general idea, and I write until im satisfied with a good end point.

if you want to be controlled, I'd suggest writing an outline. it doesn't need to be super detailed, but mine do tend to be...lmaoooo, like for instance frenzy was VERY loosely outlined, and i mean like, i had like 6 sentences as the outline and a bunch of screenshotted texts from oomf, and that's literally it.

then like, this is me being very specific and controlled: lmao, look at this outline of a fic i've been working on for like a year and a half for my other blog:

so in that outline, literally every line you see there has THOUSANDS of tinier outlines for each chapter, day, and scene. i mean the outline itself is 32k words. and all of this was birthed from a single sentence idea in my head.

it really just depends on how much effort you want to put into writing. no one sees behind the scenes of it, so how you go about planning and progress is up to you and no one can judge you for it (ill kick them in the neck if they got shit to say)

man, this probably isn't making sense. this is probably why im so bad at training people in workplaces lol

anyway

second tip: do NOT worry about word count. Some of us are picky, me included, meaning i don't usually give a fic the time of day if it's under a certain word count unless under certain circumstances. this does not mean the fics i won't read are bad, it's just preference. but you need to be prepared to face the fact that some people will love your fic, and some will scroll right past it.

third tip: make banners and visuals. format your post so it is easy for your readers to find the information they need before reading it. such as warnings etc. this is also to gain interest, specifically so people can choose whether to read it or scroll away. (my marketing background comes into play help)

fourth tip: write a small description of the whole fic before you even write it. like try to sum all of it up in a way that anyone can understand, and alter it or rewrite it once you finish if you need to change it based on how the story actually came out. I find this super helpful to stay on track and to also get a really good starting point. this is why i always have spoilers or a small preview of my wips. even if they are changed by the time i post them.

fifth tip: don't stress. some of the best advice i ever got is to write like only you will read it, and post it like you'll get no notes or feedback at all. this is where passion drives you as a writer, and you become able to write whatever the fuck you want and don't panic at the fact that other people may not like it, or may have some shit to say. more often than not, people will read it. you need to have fun with it, it's not a job, it's a hobby.

we are writing for free, so do NOT cater to people who don't know you. you don't owe them any part of yourself or your growth as a writer, it is a privilege for them to read something you write, not the other way around :)

and LASTLY, don't steal ideas. if you are inspired by someone else, ask them, credit them. this includes writing fics based on someone else's hard thots, and even writing fics based on whore convos you might have with friends. always ask if the idea comes from someone else, especially if you have easy access to them.

#🌊 anon #ask #fic talk #tips

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lorbanery · 4 months ago

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"But that's not a lot of fic!" Hi, you must be new here, yes, welcome to fandom. Most of our spaces are built explicitly as a reaction to There's Not Enough Of The Thing I Want, both in canon and fandom.

Seriously, the number of fics I've seen just this week that had a note on them to the effect of "I wrote this because I was sad to find there were less than half-a-dozen fics about this [fandom/ship/whatever]".

Like there are three solutions to "there isn't a lot of fic that caters to me and my specific tastes!":

Write it yourself. No seriously. This isn't dismissive, this is literally how fanfic started. Folks wanted to see their favorite blorbos in Situations that canon doesn't put them in, so they did it themselves. My most commonly written fanfic genre is "what if something happened that made [characters] actually talk about and process [thing that happened that should've been more traumatizing but got kind of glossed over in favor of the actual plot]".

But maybe you don't really like to write. Get involved in a big fic event. There are a bunch of them. Most of them are exchanges, but not all of them are fic-for-fic, some of them are art-for-fic, and I'd be willing to bet there are others. And the whole point is to request someone else write a fic you want written; most of them have request guidelines that allow you to specify tropes/ships/kinks/etc you want include and which ones you don't want included. Though keep in mind that many of them allow some wiggle room about how many requests have to be met for a single fic. You might end up with a fic that hit every single preference, or that includes some of the things you don't want. But that's just the risk when you ask someone else to write something for you, you're subject to the whims of their creativity and plot bunnies.

Expand your horizons! Check out different fandoms! Do you generally stick to only anime and book fandoms? Take a look at some video game fandoms. Are you a superhero fan? Do you narrow your searches down to a specific media type? Try out the "all media types" tag instead and see what the other adaptation fandoms are doing. Scroll through the search results for a piece of media you love but didn't think you'd be interested in reading fic for, you might be surprised!

I've seen other people say this on similar posts so don't think I'm being original when I say: Fandom isn't mainstream media. AO3 isn't Hollywood. You don't have to just passively consume things and lament that they're not exactly what you wanted. You can also make things!

Anyone can start an account on AO3! It's free. You don't even have to, like, promote yourself if you don't want to. Like, it's not Hollywood, but it's also not, like Youtube. AO3 isn't the place you go to establish a Media Brand. It's a creative outlet. It's a place for people who really like to write about their favorite characters to have a safe place to post what they write without having to worry about bad faith actors sending out legal threats to random teenagers. And if getting positive feedback is important to you, I promise you that there are enough people browsing AO3 every single day and the search function is so robust, that you WILL get hits and kudos on your fic without a single bit of effort beyond just posting the fic. ESPECIALLY if you're doing it in a neglected corner of the fandom.

Like, I don't promote my fics beyond posting a single link to Tumblr (I have under 50 followers) the first time I post the fic and I don't have a single fic that doesn't have at least a couple of kudos.

It's really not that complicated and I promise you will be less miserable that you are sitting around complaining about how horrible and gross everyone else is.

Full offense and pun fully intended, but I genuinely think the very existence of "dead dove, do not eat" was a fucking canary in the mines, and no one really paid attention.

Because the tag itself was created as a response to a fandom-wide tendency to disregard warnings and assume tagging was exaggerated. And then the same fucking idiots reading those tags describing things they found upsetting or disturbing or just not to their taste would STILL click into the stories and give the writer's grief about it.

And as a response writers began using the tag to signal "no, really, I MEAN the tags!"

But like.

If you really think about it, that's a solution to a different problem. The solution to "I know you tagged your story appropriately but I chose to disregard the tags and warnings by reading it anyway, even though I knew it would upset me, so now I'm upset and making it your problem" is frankly a block, a ban and wide-spread blacklisting. But fandom as a whole is fucking awful at handling bad faith, insidious arguments that appeal to community inclusion and weaponize the fact most people participating in fandom want to share the space with others, as opposed to hurting people.

So instead of upfront ridiculing this kind of maladaptive attempt to foster one's own emotional self-regulation onto random strangers on the internet, fandom compromised and came up with a redundant tag in a good faith attempt to address an imaginary nuance.

There is no nuance to this.

A writer's job is to tag their work correctly. It's not to tag it exhaustively. It's not even to tag it extensively. A writer's sole obligation, as far as AO3 and arguably fandom spaces are concerned, is to make damn sure that the tags they put on their story actually match whatever is going on in that story.

That's it.

That's all.

"But what if I don't want to read X?" Well, you don't read fic that's tagged X.

"But what if I read something that wasn't tagged X?" Well, that's very unfortunate for you, but if it is genuinely that upsetting, you have a responsibility to yourself to only browse things explicitly tagged to not include X.

"But there are things on the internet that I don't like!" Yeah, and they are also out there, offline. And, here's the thing, things existing even though we personally dislike or even hate or even flat out find offensive/gross/immoral/unspeakable existing is the price we pay to secure our right to exist as individuals and creators, regardless of who finds US personally unpleasant, hateful or flat out offensive/gross/immoral/unspeakable.

"But what about [illegal thing]?!" So the thing itself is illegal, because the thing itself has been deemed harmful. But your goddamn cop-poisoned authoritarian little heart needs to learn that sometimes things are illegal that aren't harmful, and defaulting to "but illegal!" is a surefire way to end up on the wrong side of the fascism pop quiz. You're not a figure of authority and the more you demand to control and exercise authority by command, rather than leadership, the less impressive you seem. You know how you make actual, genuine change in a community? You center harm and argue in good faith to find accommodations and spread awareness of real, actual problems.

But let's play your game. Let's pretend we're all brainwashed cop-abiding little cogs that do not own a single working brain cell to exercise critical thinking with. 99% of the time, when you cry about any given thing "being illegal!!!" you're correct only so far as the THING itself being illegal. The act or object is illegal. Depiction of it is not. You know why, dipshit? Because if depiction of the thing were illegal, you wouldn't be able to talk about it. You wouldn't be able to educate about it. You wouldn't be able to reexamine and discuss and understand the thing, how and why and where it happens and how to prevent it. And yeah, depiction being legal opens the door for people to make depictions that are in bad taste or probably not appropriate. Sure. But that's the price we pay, creating tools to demystify some of the most horrific things in the world and support the people who've survived them. The net good of those tools existing outweighs the harm of people misusing them.

"You're defending the indefensible!" No, you're clumsily stumbling into a conversation that's been going on for centuries, with your elementary school understanding of morality and your bone-deep police state rot filtering your perception of reality, and insisting you figured it out and everyone else at the table is an idiot for not agreeing with you. Shut the fuck up, sit the fuck down and read a goddamn book.

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aceofbooks-perused-collections · 11 months ago

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Hello Fellow Fandom Enjoyer!

Hello! Welcome to my little corner of the internet dedicated to reading fanfiction! You can call me Ace, I use she/her pronouns, and I was born in the *90s*. You can click here to go to my main blog to see how I use tumblr more regularly and get to know me a little better 🩶

This blog is 18+ out of respect for the authors that I reblog! Some of them are explicitly SFW and may not mind having minors hanging out, but the majority of whom I reblog from are not. This measure is for their comfort.

After nearly 10 years on tumblr, I found myself overwhelmed by all of the fanfiction that I wanted to read by all of the talented writers on this hellsite (affectionate). My main is a bit of a mess, which was hindering my ability to read them. I honestly should have done this a lot sooner. And so this blog was born.

I will not be writing my own fanfiction. That is not where I find joy in fandom spaces. The closest you can get to me writing my own fanfiction, is my ramblings over on my selfship blog, here.

If I end up reblogging something that you would rather I didn't, please please please reach out. I don't want to make you uncomfortable in a space that is meant to be about appreciation and love.

I do have a dedicated tagging system, which you can find here, but it's not particularly detailed. If you would like me to tag something specific (#non-con, #choking, etc.) do not hesitate to reach out.

I do engage with some dark content, and that's all I will say on the matter. If that makes you uncomfy, you can ask me to tag it accordingly, or just not interact with my blog. I won't be hurt by you choosing to cater your own internet experience.

I have my own squicks that I would prefer not to read or engage with. Sometimes I will choose to do so, regardless of the squick, but please don't see it as a reflection on your writing if I choose not to engage with a fic. And I do not believe in shaming anyone who does choose to engage with that content. I do not owe you the knowledge of what my squicks are, and I would prefer not to be asked. This also goes for characters and fandoms that I choose not to read for.

This is a hyper-specific space. It is for me to reblog fics I want to read, and reblogging them again once I have read them (usually with my thoughts on the piece). I will not engage with or entertain discourse on this blog—if you use this space for your discourse (in any capacity), you will be blocked. This is your only warning.

I apologize if you find yourself being bombarded by notifications from me at the current time. As I collect the works I want to read, I put them into my queue to then churn out at a much later date. Depending on how I'm feeling, it might even end up being a fresh reblog and not into the queue. Eventually it will stop, I promise! (the bombardment, not me reblogging in general) 🩶

#ace of books navigates #divider from saradika-graphics

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strawwritesfic · 3 years ago

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Loki Laufeyson x Female!Midgardian!Reader: A Bird in the Hand

Summary: …is surely not worth its asking price.

Rating/Warnings/Tags: All (some foul language; not Thor Ragnarok compliant)

Fic Trade Prompt: “Please, I don’t want to lose you, too.”

A Bird in the Hand

Once upon a time in a realm known as Midgard, there lived a girl. This girl, of course, was you, and you lived as many young women at the time did during that Age of Miracles. None of these miracles ever happened to you. There were no fish oil transformations on your horizon, nor were there any divine calls to adventure. Just like all New Yorkers, you grew use to your daily commute being interrupted by superheroes, to calling insurance companies to argue over their decision to not pay for alien invasion damage to your apartment, and even to carrying an umbrella around with you even on the driest of days in case certain Asgardians decided to visit. Life went on. You had stopped looking for a real miracle years ago.

As well you should have, because there was nothing miraculous about your wedding day. Outside, a seemingly endless mass of dark gray clouds let loose bucket after bucket of rain. Thunder rolled across the sky; lightning flashed–and that, really, was all you could see through the window you had stationed yourself in front of to sulk. If you hadn’t known any better, you’d have blamed the city’s resident thunder god for the disastrous timing of this storm front. As it was, all you could blame was your string of bad luck.

Speaking of bad luck, the door to your parlor snapped open and in stepped the dripping figure of your best friend. Aliyah paused only long enough to adjust her sodden pink hijab before plopping soggily onto an overstuffed loveseat.

“Well, the gazebo is flooded,” she announced, “the food is soaked through, and the caterer won’t bring more to replace it. Your flower arrangements are in pieces, and the band already ran off. I don’t think there’s anything left of your wedding ceremony.”

You did not bother to leave the window, though you did turn just far enough to throw her a sour look. “Do you have any good news to impart?” you asked.

Aliyah grinned. “Your maid of honor hasn’t walked out yet. At least there will be one person here to witness this fiasco.”

“Gonna need a groom for anything to be witnessed.”

Most close friends would offer sympathy when their friend’s fiancé of a year and a half decided to just not show up for the actual wedding. Most acquaintances would feel bad enough when the carefully planned event got rained out. Not your Aliyah. She simply let out a sharp breath and leaned her head back against the couch cushion.

“Can’t say I didn’t warn you,” she said.

You glared at her, which of course she didn’t see, having shut her eyes to listen to the water tumble from the roof to the street outside.

“Thank you. So much,” you said.

“What?” she asked, forcing her eyes open again. “I told you Jared wasn’t good enough for you. Besides, you should keep all the gifts even if he doesn’t stop by. I saw, like, nine blenders in that pile. You’re better off this way, if you ask me.”

“You’re just saying that because you want a free blender,” you said.

“I wouldn’t say no. But, really, you should count your lucky stars. Free stuff and free of your jackass boyfriend. What better start to a weekend?”

“I’d rather be married to my jackass boyfriend.”

Aliyah’s disdain for Jared was nothing new or surprising. He’d fallen from grace in her eyes when he’d got jealous over your fondness for an injured pigeon you’d rescued only a few months after you started dating Jared. Even releasing the bird hadn’t entirely put an end to his complaints about how you spent your free time. On the other hand, you knew one thing that neither Aliyah nor Jared did: Jared’s jealousy wasn’t entirely misplaced.

But that was years ago. This was now. And that bird had always been bad news.

“Are you going to cry about it?” Aliyah asked, peering over at your perch by the parlor’s bay window. “Because, if not, I’d hate to have dragged Habib all the way to America for nothing.”

At the mention of her long-distance boyfriend, you motioned for Aliyah to go on. You preferred to do your moping alone, and Aliyah knew it. She stood and crossed the room to give you a quick hug before she left without another word. Probably you did owe your maid of honor at a least a blender for all the trouble she’d been through on your behalf.

Sighing, you lifted one hand, dug your fingers into your hair, and tore out what was holding it in its elaborate design. Who cared what you looked like now? Even if stupid Jared had shown up, the storm would have ruined your appearance before you made it down the aisle. Now Aliyah had free rein to spend the rest of her afternoon cuddling with Habib, and you had no one else to bother looking pretty for.

Outside your empty room, you could hear the indistinct muttering of your remaining guests. Family, mostly, who had already given up trying to convince you to let them in. What the rest of them were waiting for before they left, you couldn’t guess. Perhaps for you to come out and make an official announcement: The wedding has been called off. Party’s over. You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here. And thanks for all the blenders.

The shame of your situation suddenly threatened to crash down upon you. It would have, if you had remained sitting where you were. Instead, you got up, white dress rustling as you stalked across the room. A quiet shriek of rage was stifled only by your gloved hand pressed to your colored lips. Of all the pathetic, idiotic, insane things you had done in your life! Now you didn’t even have the courage to face your friends and family with the truth.

“Tap. Tap. Tap.”

Hail began to hit the glass behind you, soft and hesitant. Since you had no plans to leave the building any time soon, you ignored this weather development.

Jared hadn’t even called to say he’d changed his mind. You should have known when he hadn’t come home after his stag party the night before. He was probably laughing it up over your stupidity with some blonde bikini babe by the beach that you were supposed to go to for your honeymoon. The thought caused you to kick out angrily at the coffee table, and you heard a quiet rip issue from your skirt in response when it caught on a corner.

You swore.

”Tap. Tap. Tap.”

Now that you thought about it, the sound wasn’t regular enough to be hail. It wasn’t very hesitant anymore either. Still, you ignored the noise as you yanked off your veil, your gloves, and your garter. You were mentally preparing to rip them all to shreds with your fingernails when you heard it again:

“Tap. Tap. Tap.”

That time you did not suppress your shriek. As it faded into the overstuffed furniture surrounding you, you marched over to the window and shoved it open. The wind whistled through the empty space, sending anything in the room not tied down into the air and splattering your face with water. If ever there was a time to reasonably expect an Asgardian thunder god to step inside, it was then. No one was there, though, save for a single bedraggled pigeon.

“Oh, hello,” you said when it hopped onto the sill, and automatically you held out your cupped hands toward it.

The poor thing shivered once, then stepped onto your warm palms. Only when it looked up into your face did you see that it had bright green, very un-pigeon-ish eyes.

Before you could stuff the bird back outside, it lifted itself into the air to half-flutter, half-fly over to the loveseat Aliyah had been sitting on. A flash of light that had nothing to do with the lightning outside filled the room. When you had blinked and cleared your vision enough that you could see again, the pigeon was gone, and in its place reclined a tall, dark-haired, beautiful man, dressed to the nines in Asgardian fashion.

“Hello, darling,” said Loki Laufeyson. “Don’t you look ravishing?”

You were too shocked to contradict him. No mention of your torn dress, mussed hair, or smeared makeup escaped your lips. Instead, you said the only thing you could in that sort of situation: “What are you doing here?”

“Why, I’m here to offer you my congratulations, of course,” he answered, examining one perfectly manicured nail. “Or should it be my condolences?”

“Really?” Your tone dripped with enough sarcasm that it could be heard over the protesting window as you forced it shut. “You disappear for two years, never write, never visit, and then you just happen to pop by to celebrate my wedding to another man?”

“What kind of secret lover would I be if I did not?”

“We are not secret lovers.”

“Well, no, we haven’t been for quite some time. I see no reason why that should stop us from picking up right where we left off, however.”

“We were never secret lovers.”

“Really?” he said, mocking the tone of your earlier question. “That’s not what it seemed like to me. Of course, I had the brain of a pigeon most of the time, but at night when your beau had to work and leave you so very alone–”

“You can’t just show up out of the blue and expect me to want you again,” you interrupted. “And on my wedding day to boot.”

To his credit, Loki looked genuinely confused by your behavior–like he’d expected you to jump straight into his arms, marriage or no. Obviously, they did things differently in Asgard. You were not Asgardian.

“Fine,” he said. “If that’s the way you want it. I was only trying to thank you for helping me, you know.”

“All I did was take in a pigeon that got injured when Thor threw a bunch of peanuts at a flock. It didn’t really deserve that sort of thanking.”

“Ah, but you enjoyed it anyway.” That wasn’t the point. He knew it wasn’t the point just as well as you did, because once he made it, he got fluidly up to his feet to and walked over to stand in front of you. “If you are that disinclined to see me, I suppose I had better get going. If you ever grow tired of being lonely again–oh, that’s right. You don’t know how to contact me.”

You opened your mouth to remind Loki that you didn’t want to contact him, but then something about Loki’s words rang strange.

“Alone?” you echoed.

“Yes, alone. Or do you expect your Prince Charming to come riding up on a horse of white any second now? Better late than never?”

Without thinking, without warning, you slapped him straight across the face.

“Ow!” he snapped, pressing one of his hands to the mark on his face. “What was that for?”

“What did you do?” You lifted your hand for another blow. “What did you do to Jared?”

“Me? Do something to Jared? What should I have to do with that ponderous ass?”

“Did you kill him, Loki?” you asked, voice quavering. Loki could do it. Easily. He was a god, and Jared just…well, just a ponderous ass.

Loki let out a single bark of laughter. “Oh, please. I just got out of Asgardian prison. As if I’d risk going back over the murder of a petty moral such as he.”

That brought you up short. Frowning, you deigned to look at him again. “Prison?”

“Yes, prison. Did you think my absence was due to taking a pleasure cruise?”

“I thought you’d escaped prison when I found you the first time.”

“But you sent me back to Asgard when I started causing trouble,“ he reminded you. "Odin does not forget his son’s crimes easily, nor is he inclined to forgive them. Luckily my brother is far easier to manipulate.”

He had not, you noticed, made any real move to leave. Loki still stood in front of you, looking down as the pink handprint faded from his cheek.

“So…you didn’t kill my fiancé?” you asked uncertainly.

He shook his head. “If he isn’t here, it is because he is a dunce, not because I tricked him in any way.”

“Oh.” All the problems of your appearance seemed at once apparent and embarrassing. To think that this man would see you in such a state, and only because he’d wanted to see you after his release from jail. “Why did you really come, then? Since you knew he wasn’t here. To gloat?”

“The thought did occur to me,” Loki confessed. “I am not often in the position of being the more desirable choice. But,” here his voice turned oddly sincere, “I actually came to ask you to come with me.”

Your mouth fell open. Some of Loki’s usual acerbic amusement returned as he watched you flounder; you could see the faint outlines of his familiar smirk at the corners of his mouth. Finally, you managed a short, “go with you where?”

He shrugged, and started to twist the curtain in between his long, pale fingers. “I don’t know, really.”

“You want me to go somewhere with you without anywhere in mind?”

“I thought we’d figure it out as we went along,” he said. “Travel the galaxies. I cannot return to Asgard and Midgard, of course, is out of the question so long as I do not rule it.”

“You want me to follow you into outerspace?”

Only his silence could tip you off that Loki was actually nervous. He clearly had no idea how you would respond to his suggestion–which was by falling into a nearby chair to gape at him.

“You want me to leave my family?” you asked.

“They live far away and hardly talk to you.”

“And my job?”

“That you’ve never liked. We’re both aware.”

“And my best friend?”

“She spends most of her time visiting mosques in India with her boyfriend,” Loki said with a dismissive flick of his hand. “Besides, there’s no rule to say we can’t come back to visit her every so often. I have no objection. She seems a sensible enough woman.”

“And you want me to leave them all,” you went on as though you couldn’t hear him, “for you, a man I haven’t seen in years because he was in prison.”

Once more, Loki said nothing. His green eyes peered into yours with unreadable depths, just as they had the unfortunate day you had returned home after to work to find your injured pigeon friend gone and a strange man eating all of the meat out of your fridge in its place. You could remember, too, the feel of that man’s skin against yours, the heat of his lips on your neck, the sound of his low voice in your ear–and Jared complaining, always complaining, about how much time you spent with that damn bird.

You buried your face in your hands. “I can’t do it, Loki. I can’t.”

You waited to hear him leave again, to hear the glass move and the rush of the storm and the flutter of wings. None came. All that did was one soft word:

“Please.”

“Huh?”

When you looked up, Loki was right above you. His hands gripped the chair arms at your sides with enough force to make them whiter than ever–but his eyes were not on yours anymore.

“Please,” he said, “I don’t want to lose you, too.”

Another move without thinking or warning: You gently touched his other cheek.

Loki’s eyes closed for a half second before he moved one hand to hold your wrist there. “I have already lost my father, my mother, my home. My own brother has thrust me unceremoniously from both realms I sought to rule. And then to hear that I would lose you, too, to an oaf like that Jared.”

No one could say that Loki losing all of this wasn’t entirely his fault. He had decided to lead an alien invasion into Earth, to try murdering several members of his mentioned family, and to seduce young Earth women under the guise of hurt animals. But part of Loki’s charm was that he never failed to make one doubt that he could be better, maybe, if you only let him try.

“I’m sorry,” you said sincerely. A sincere apology didn’t mean your mind was changed, however, and this, also, Loki knew.

“Do you want me to beg?” he asked. “I am no longer a stranger to begging.”

With that, Loki slid to the wooden floor before you. Stranger or no, it was positive it wasn’t a position he relished being in, what with how stiff his hands were around yours when he made to hold them. He swallowed, took a deep breath, and began:

“I know I am asking a lot. But I, too, have lost a family, a job, and my closest friends. I would not ask you to come with me if I did not intend on paying you pack ten times in kind. If you will allow me to take you with me, I know I can make you happier than you would be here. Together we will find some place to call our own, and you shall be my queen. So please,” he said, “please let me keep one last thing that I love. Don’t make me leave you behind, too.”

It wasn’t the prettiest speech you had ever heard come out of his mouth, but it was probably the most honest. You gave him a tiny smile as you squeezed his hands in return. “A queen, huh?”

Loki smirked. “Or a comfortable, quiet living, depending on what we find, and how thorough Thor is in seeking me out. At least we could be comfortable and quiet for a little while.”

“Can’t imagine that’s going to last long with you around.”

“With you around to look after me, though…”

That got you to laugh. “Oh, yes, I’m sure I’d do a wonderful job making sure you didn’t get into any trouble. I did such a good job before.”

Some of the color returned to Loki’s features. He was starting to hope. Against your better judgement, so were you. A couple of things, however, remained to bother you:

“What if you came here and Jared and I were married?” you asked.

“Then I would have had to resort to kidnapping.”

“And how did you even know I was getting married today to begin with?”

He smiled his Cheshire smile, and that was when you knew you were truly lost. “You really ought to stop talking to the birds on your fire escape. You never know which one would be willing to pass information off in exchange for a couple of peanuts.”

“Oh, and you stalk me. What part of this deal doesn’t sound good?”

“None of it, I should hope.” Standing, Loki kept one hand firmly around one of yours. “We should go, you realize. Unless you want to say your goodbyes?”

You thought of your parents blustering about how you dared to invite both of them to your wedding. You thought of the forlorn apartment you shared with a man that had never really loved you for you. You thought of Aliyah and her instance that Jared would never be good enough for you. You thought of the awkward explanation that would be expected as soon you set foot outside that door–and you grinned.

“Not a chance.”

“Then I believe,” he said, and abruptly pulled you into his arms in an obvious parody of carrying a bride before pushing the window open with his boot, “we have a few errands to go on before we get on our way.”

“Like what?”

“Unless you plan to live the rest of our lives with nothing but multiple blenders,” he began, but was not able to finish over your sudden laughter and the return of the torrent outside.

You latched your hands behind his neck as he dove back into the rain. There were stars somewhere above those clouds, and you would be visiting them soon enough–them and endless other realms. Maybe eloping with a man that could turn into a pigeon wasn’t the best miracle there ever was on Midgard, but it pulled off the most important trick of them all: Against all odds, you lived happily ever after.

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wooahaes · 2 years ago

Text

writing thoughts ig

i think whenever i write my fics, i usually do try to like... ask myself what kind of story i want to tell and what kind of like... reader/mc i would use to tell that story? i think most of the time i try to go gender-neutral with my mcs so that people can project onto them.

like... under the sun deals with identity, but more in a sense of the way that you define yourself based on past and present experiences. i dont see that as something i need to gender in the slightest. the period comfort vernon fic, acts of service, isnt gendered either--there’s just a warning that reader does have a uterus because.. it’s a period comfort fic. not everyone w periods is female. i could have done the same with one word at a time (dad!wonwoo fic) but i think i projected more onto that one with some thoughts and fears about being a mom one day.

like obviously all my birthday fics from this year are gendered because i wrote them specifically for my birthday. i didnt have to, but they were mainly for me and i just shared em for funsies.

the flowers fics were all gender-neutral bc idk i think everyone deserves to get flowers + i didnt really have a reason to gender them.

lonely hearts club was specifically me, a chubby woman, writing a fic that doesnt center on a chubby mc and her weight + me wanting to write a chubby woman being actively pined for and loved bc of who she is as a person. no weird caveats based on weight. both tiger strips + beach body are also chubby!fem!reader because the fat experience does differ depending on the way you present yourself. people who are perceived as women tend to get a lot more shit when it comes to the idea of “making up” for being fat. people who get perceived as men will get shit, too, but its usually in a different vein. i won’t go too much into it, but there’s a reason why i gender my chubby!reader fics and it is primarily bc of that difference.

i think while i do prefer and try to write fics where the reader is inclusive, sometimes i want to write a story for people like me tbh? even if people don’t always read them (lhc has very low interaction on it, specifically--so does beach body, but tiger stripes has decent engagement compared to them), i still think its important to write fics for people like me ig? i like making people happy.

i also like proving you can write a fic catered more toward fat ppl without making the entire plot “i hate my body sooo much im so ugly and fat no one will ever like me because im not skinny :(” and having the love interest go “babe ur pretty” and have that fix all their issues. self esteem can absolutely be a topic of conversation because i was talking with some friends the other day about the way weight gets handled in media (mainly on the topic of weight loss) and fatphobia itself. we kinda talked about a (shitty, according to a lot of ppl) anime adaptation of something where one character gets called fat and proceeds to essentially starve himself + overexercise until hes skinny and then he gets to be happy and confident and “earn” a friend. or media where a characters weight is constantly made fun of the entire time, even if they lose it--it’s constantly used to degrade them or for cheap laughs.

i think the topic of self esteem could be fully approached in writing in general. its not an issue exclusive to fat people, sure, but i think people forget that hating yourself wont just go away because one person loves you--especially if it goes deep. it gets tiring to read chubby!reader fics when so many of them feature a reader who is also depressed and hates themself, especially when it’s just waved away when reader receives love. having supportive people in your life can help, sure, but it doesn’t just... cure it. that’s the shit that happens in badly written romance movies that are definitely written by people who don’t know what it’s like to legit hate yourself and/or the way you look. loving yourself is a hard journey for everyone.

anyway im getting rambley so ill shut up now sdkfhdsf just know i like writing inclusive fic but when i get exclusive its bc thats the way i want to tell a story? lonely hearts club wouldn’t have worked the same way imo had i imagined a skinny reader by default. it would have touched on self-love in a different way + reader’s fears about pursuing ww would have been rooted a little differently. UtS reader outright being a fem!reader would have shifted the dynamic a lot and probably touched more on how it feels to basically feel being the sole female among a large group of men and also it probably would have looked even more similar to m*ze r*nner. reader wouldn’t have been treated any differently imo but “last 14 ppl on earth who care for one another” is still at the core of it, but it would have definitely maybe pulled away from skinship a bit more to begin with before they’d all kinda go “fuck it, everyone needs physical comfort sometimes, we’ll just stay mindful of whats crossing a line with u” or w/e

#wooahaes.txt #this is long and if u read it i respect u sfkhsdf its literally just me rambling for a bit

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spiderling-space · 4 years ago

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Cater is so underrated! Could you do a yandere Cater fic where a fem!MC is already dating him and they’re having an intimate moment (kissing) when she decides to break up with him and he keeps trying to get her to stay (he’s desperate). He wasn’t a yandere until she decided to leave. I hope this is an okay request! Slight nsfw if you’re willing!

I don't know why but writing Cater as yandere was way harder than Kalim.

Achievement unlocked: You made your boyfriend go yandere

Italics indicate thoughts

♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️

Cater Diamond

Warning: Yandere behaviour, toxic relationship

You can do this, (Y/N)! (Y/N) was giving herself confidence-boosting phrases as she firmly made her way to Cater, her boyfriend, well, soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend. He was taking selfies when she arrived at his side. He greeted her with a kiss on the lips after he was done with selfies. She couldn't find it in her heart to return the kiss. To get out of the situation and get his attention, she gingerly patted his shoulder. Lady luck must have been on her side as he withdrew the next second.

"No kissy today?" Cater asked with a cheerful attitude. He didn't even wait for her response before wrapping his arm around her shoulder, pressing their cheeks together, and making a peace sign with his hand. "Say cheese!" She force smiled at the camera instinctively as she grew accustomed to Cater's sudden selfie moments. He took a few selfies and retreated his arm to select the best one in his standards.

"Cater, we need to talk."

"Hmm hmm," Her request, once again, fell into deaf ears as he didn't even acknowledge it. "Just a moment babe, I'm posting our picture #CutestCouple #Sweethearts #CantGetEnoughOfEachOther #Ca(Y/N) #(Y/N)ter"

Oh shit!

(Y/N) launched at his phone before he could post it, being grateful that he was "You need to listen to me before you post it." Only interrupting him posting on Magicam would get his attention since it was all he cared about. “I don’t think this,” she motioned herself and Cater, “... is working out.”

“Huh? What are you saying?” He looked confused, looking at her intently while he was reaching to get his phone back.

“I asked you to meet because I want to break up. It would be better to do it in person." She felt relief wash over her after she told him what she was holding back for the last 2 weeks. "I just ca-"

"That is not cute, totally not Magigrammable." (Y/N) assumed he didn't process what she had told yet considering he was standing in front of her with a blank expression.

"You are amazing and I had such a great time with you. I thought I would be fine with you posting every moment we have on Magicam but I am not." It is better to be straightforward than to beat around the bush. He is going to understand me, I'm sure of it.

"I want people to see how cute we look, (Y/N). Why wouldn't you like it?" He was trying to bargain with her, completely ignoring what she had just said.

"You are too focused on being cute and showing it off to everyone and expecting validation for it but you don't live the moment from my point of view. It is not something I can handle. It just encumbers me." (Y/N) put her hands on his biceps gently, making eye contact so he would see her genuineness. She didn't want to hurt his feelings but the reality was better than living a lie. "I can't expect you to change or force to be different than you already are. It is best if we part ways as a friend. I'm sure there is someone out there who would love every side of you." She let her arms fall to her sides, slightly patting on her thighs as she awaited his response. He was far too silent than usual. She just hoped he accepted her reasoning as a mature person would and now was pondering a way to react.

"That's not going to work." Thank goodness, he understood! "My followers adore our pictures together. They get the most likes! We can't break up!" Damn it, I spoke too soon. (Y/N) was about to reason with him but he suddenly grabbed her arm. "You can't break up with me!" She had never seen his eyes blazing with anger, and it was a sight she ought to not see.

(Y/N) was wriggling to be free of his grip but he was squeezing her arm more and more as she continued her struggle. "You are hurting me!" She grabbed his hand on her, digging her nails on his skin so that he would let her go out of pain.

"I'm hurting you?" Cater ignored her plea as if it meant nothing to him. "You are the one who is hurting me! Are you trying to make me lose followers? Do you want people to dislike me? Is that your goal?"

She stopped her strife momentarily, too shocked to hear what he had said. "Wh-what... What does that have anything to do with how I feel about our relationship?!" He was being too self-centered at the moment, only caring about how he felt. "Listen, I want to remain as friends. We can take occasional pictures together that you can post on Magicam but I gotta go my own way, Cater." She wanted to bite his hand and kick him in the sack but she wagered it would be worse if she pushed forward so she decided to take a passive approach.

"Is that your way of pitying me? You are just like my sisters. So cruel, thinking yourself better than me, taking the best thing from me, and expecting me to be content with the scraps." He let her go abruptly, making her lose her balance and fall on her butt. "But you aren't a cruel person, are you?" He knelt on her level, lifting her head from her chin with his hand. "We aren't going to break up. That is just a silly joke you made."

Was he always delusional? (Y/N) tried to sing his tune but it didn't work. She hastily swatted his hand away. "I thought he would stay as friends but clearly you are too deranged for it!"

When she tried to get up, Cater pushed her back. "I believe you would prefer to continue dating me." He was too calm as he uttered those words while twirling the end of his hair strand with a snide smile on his face.

What the fuck is he on? He better gives me the number of his dealer! "Were you not listening to me?!" The more this drew out the more she got irritated. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

He just smiled at her remark. "I suppose plenty of things but now isn't the time for me. It is the time for you." He unlocked his phone and scrolled through something. He chuckled when she assumed he found what he was looking for. "You would prefer to date me than seeing what I have to be shared on Magicam and for everyone to talk about it." He had a chesire smile as he closed his eyes and waited for her response.

The gears turned on her mind as she understood what he was talking about. She couldn't help but laugh, it was such a weak threat for her to continue dating him. "If you think I'll still be with you because you would share my nudes and you're in for a ride. The moment you share them or are involved in their distribution, my lawyer will call you." She was certain that he would cut the crap now.

Instead of him falling out of his act, he let out a burst of loud laughter. He then turned to face her once more, bopping her nose. "Don't be ridiculous. Why would I put myself at that type of risk? It would ruin my life more than yours." He chuckled, giving her the most devilish look. "I know what you did last summer."

Huh?

(Y/N)'s heart started to pound in her chest. She was panicking, her breathing was getting hitched but she kept quiet this long and she wasn't going to quit the act now. "Nothing besides having fun." Her voice cracked as she spoke, her nerves getting to her.

"I bet you did. Especially with your high school friends. Did all of you agree to never speak of what happened last summer?" He was calm as if he was talking about weather instead of her secret.

"I don't know what you are talking about." She was convinced that he would drop the topic if she persisted to deny it.

"Oh?" He feigned surprise before turning his phone towards her so that she could see what was on the screen. Her breathing stopped and her eyes widened the second her eyes laid upon what was on Cater's phone. How did he learn about that? How did he get that video?

(Y/N) gulped, trying to collect any courage left. "H-h-h-how?" Her mind was racing, trying to find an escape from the situation but failing amazingly.

Cater just shrugged his shoulders, acting as if this was a regular thing for him. "I know a lot of things about everyone. Perks of knowing many people and having a broad network, I say. I have everything to know everything about my girlfriend, don't you think?" He didn't expect her to answer. Even if he did, what could she say? She just remained silent and she tried to process everything that happened in the last 10 minutes. He seated beside her on the grass. He took her right arm and put it around his shoulders. Her arms were limp, not having enough energy to fight back. He inched even closer and wrapped his left arm around her waist. They must have looked like a loving couple from outside while in actuality, one of them was a psycho who just threatened his girlfriend into dating him and the other one was a murderer who kept quiet even though it was just an accident.

Cater looked at her, stroking her face as a lover would. "Now be a good girl and wipe that terrified expression off your face. That's not Magigrammable unless it is Halloween time." He closed the video and opened the camera on his phone, holding it up for another selfie. "Smile for the camera." (Y/N) couldn't even bring herself to fake-smile. She was just looking at his phone with a blank expression. Cater must have seen it too since he pouted after looking at the pictures he took but he didn't fret about it, instead, he moved forward. "Now kiss me. Lovers kissing always gets more attention." (Y/N) turned towards him and leaned to kiss him as he took pictures. After he ended the kiss, he simply turned his attention to his phone. "This is going to get so many likes, (Y/N). See what happens when you stay with me?"

She only nodded in response, not wanting to talk. As Cater was adding tags to their picture, (Y/N) was left alone with her thoughts.

I deserve this. I shouldn't have agreed to stay silent last summer. Now not only I have to live with its guilt but also have to obey everything Cater says if I want to live free. But will I be truly free with Cater?

-------

If someone is threatening you to share your intimate photos, don't bend to their will. You can take legal action which can result in you receiving indemnity from intangible damage caused by them and they can get jail time for the distribution of sensitive personal data (I am unsure of the actual term in English). Just know your rights and don't stay silent.

I love "I know what you did last summer". It is one of my favorite horror movies of all time. I highly suggest it.

#twisted wonderland #twst #cater diamond #heartslabyul #yandere cater diamond #yandere twisted wonderland #yandere twst #twisted wonderland yandere #twst yandere #yandere #ficlet #female reader

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sitp-recs · 3 years ago

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hi liv! you're awesome and ily but this is kinda a confession more than anything else. idk why this happens to me, but sometimes some fanfics that everyone else loved, really don't hit the spot for me. like i appreciate them but i just find myself getting bored and distracted yet when i see other people loving it, i feel so freaking guilty. it feels like i should like it and im missing out but i can't force myself to read them too. it's the most frustrating thing ever and i don't know what to do

Hi anon! First of all I’m sorry you’ve been feeling like this, it breaks my heart to see anyone being guilt tripped into liking something popular just because everyone else does. I’ve mentioned a few times that I’m wary about reccing (what people consider) classics exactly because of that. Of course they’re brilliant and popular for a reason - especially the ones that introduced innovative concepts or headcanons we all love and share today. I love many of those fics but others are definitely a pass for me, and the idea of being required to read and enjoy them to be considered a valid shipper (??) drives me up the wall. I’m happy you felt that my blog was safe and welcoming enough to share this with me without fearing judgment, anon 💜

What you’re feeling right now sucks big time and I assume pretty much everyone has gone/is going through the same dilemma being in a huge, long-standing fandom like Drarry. The amount of available works is insane, there’s no time to check everything that’s going on at once, and I’ve seen a few “gatekeepers” around - whether or not intentionally - putting a lot of extra pressure onto newcomers, casual fans and even old shippers like myself, to read this and that.

It’s completely normal that not every story will would spark something in you. Fic reading is an extremely personal experience and everyone has their preferences, hard nos, squicks and whatnot. It’s virtually impossible to have one single fic catering to every single shipper’s needs, and I doubt that any author has that intention anyway. The heartkick factor is so subjective sometimes you read two similar fics exploring the very same trope, and one works for you while the other doesn’t 🤷🏻‍♀️ imo trying to rationalize and justify reading preferences only leads to frustration, I prefer to accept that my heart wants what it wants, and there’s that!

I’ve mentioned before that Lettered is my fave Drarry author, yes? I wonder how many people will be surprised to learn that some of her fics didn’t work for me at all, I either never finished or never revisited them. Similarly, GallaPlacidia is largerly adored and read - I do love some of her fics but others are just not my jam, mostly because I have no interest in a few tropes. No I haven’t checked every fic Saras_Girl has ever published, and I’ve never read Turn, her most popular one but not a personal fave, more than twice. And it’s okay. It’s all good. Even if they knew I existed, I doubt that Lettered, Galla and Saras_Girl would care as much about it as some readers do lmao truth is, this is a space I come exclusively for fun, and we don’t owe anyone anything. Readers are free to choose and read and enjoy whatever they want, the same way authors are free to write whatever they want.

(Which is why I will never understand anti comments - no one is forcing you to read shit so is there any reason why you cannot close the tab, block the tags and move on? Must you really leave unsolicited criticism after literally wasting your time reading something you didn’t enjoy?! Makes absolutely no sense to me)

If I were to stress over how much I haven’t read or enjoyed I probably wouldn’t have created a recs blog in the first place. I admit sometimes I do feel pressured about not being as up to date and knowledgeable about the fandom as I’d like to - then I remember I’m here to have fun in my very limited free time, and my only rule should be to please me, myself and I. If I’m not having fun or feeling invested in the read, you can bet I’m gonna peace out and focus on something that hits that special spot. There’s nothing more valuable than learning how to curate your experience, and knowing you’re not a lesser fan because of that is an important step, too.

This got too long and I’m not sure if it helped, but I hope you feel better soon! Be gentle to yourself and prioritize your preferences, go after what makes your heart tingle and focus on having a good time. Sending lots of love 💜

#asks #anon #on fandom

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indiaalphawhiskey · 4 years ago

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I respectfully disagree with your last post (as an author). I’ve been in this fandom for 6 years and noticed it’s a little bit toxic when it comes to certain issues that should be normal and obvious to anyone.

I don’t get the “I choose the people I want to take criticism from” part. Ok, so why posting your work on a public page for independent writers where every subscriber will be able to read it and comment on it? Just send it to the people whose opinion matters to you and have a discussion about your work with them. If you post your work on a public page made specifically for independent writers, you are automatically posting it for everyone on that site. And every person has opinions on things and feels invited to express it if that particular thing is public and comments are open (I’m talking about respectful opinions, not slurs and offending someone).

If it was only for you and the people you actually want to get feedback from then wouldn’t it be easier to create an “élite” group where you read your work and then discuss it together? Because your post sends a very negative and exclusionary message to people that are reading your work for the first time or without knowing you as an author. It really seems like you are saying “dear readers, your opinion doesn’t matter to me so unless it’s positive I don’t want to hear it because this fanfic was written for me and this list of people.” Then don’t post it. But why making people feel excluded or bad because they did something normal just because they didn’t know it wasn’t written “for them” as you said in your post. And constructive criticism is just an opinion too as long as it doesn’t contain vulgarities, you don’t have to listen to it. Other’s opinion shouldn’t change the way you feel about your work but you also shouldn’t make them feel uncomfortable and bad for expressing it in a respectful way on a public page.

I know that authors on AO3 aren’t paid and that’s just for fun, but that’s what every page like AO3 is about: putting your work out there for other people to read with the possibility to express their personal opinion in a respectful way (I mean, you CAN disable the comments). Why making it public and then complaining and making other people feel bad for expressing their opinion on it? It’s not a diary or a personal Instagram profile.

So, first off, thank you for saying you respectfully disagree with me. I appreciate that you’re trying to be polite.

There are many different ways I can answer this ask, because there’s a lot to discuss here, however, I’m exhausted by this conversation and have tackled it many times before, so I’ll link things when I see fit and get straight to the point.

My question for you is this: What is the purpose of you posting negative (even though well-worded, polite, and tactful) unsolicited comments on a person’s fanfic? Why do you do it?

That’s not a rhetorical question, I really want you to think about the answer, because, for something to be called “constructive criticism” (which is specifically what we’re discussing here, versus the opposite “destructive” criticism) there has to be a point beyond just the fact that “it’s a public forum” and therefore, you feel entitled to express your opinion, whatever it may be. (That reasoning, btw, is called entitlement. No one said you weren’t allowed to have an opinion, but if you’re saying it to the author with no constructive, bettering purpose behind it, then at worst, your intent is to hurt them, which is just mean, no matter how politely you word it, and at best, you’re saying your opinions and preference take precedent over the author’s own.)

There are three reasons that I assume one can have when posting constructive criticism on work/art:

1. You want to help make them be a better writer, both now and in the future.

I, and other fellow authors, explain why this doesn’t work here and here, and there are more posts about it like this one, if you need to hear it from voices that are not from the Larry fandom (which I assume you do, since you said this is a little bit toxic here particularly.)

I encourage you to read all those posts, to get a better explanation in context, but the gist of them is this: for something to be truly constructive (synonym: helpful), the source, the timing, and the tact is key. Let me demonstrate: There is a difference between telling a friend while shopping, “I wouldn’t buy that dress, it’s not the most flattering on you,” and saying, while you’re out at a club, “Oh, that dress isn’t the most flattering on you, I wouldn’t wear it again.” -- Both are honest, worded politely, and both will achieve the same outcome: she will not wear the dress again -- but only one of them will cause undue stress, embarrassment, and self-consciousness (under the guise of being helpful), and that is all due to tact and timing. At the store, she can change into something else, and won’t assume you think she looks awful the entire day while you’re out. At the club, the damage is done, there is nothing she can do to change it, and you’ve just ruined her night.

The same goes for writing. I have seen people gracefully and willingly rewrite their entire first drafts based on astute and even harsh comments on their work, by their betas. I have never seen someone take down a fic and edit it based on a piece of constructive criticism given by a stranger on AO3. What I have seen based on that scenario, is people taking that criticism to heart and reflecting on whether or not they ever want to write again, because when they made themselves vulnerable, some people looked at it as an opportunity to ask for what would cater best to their own tastes, instead of appreciating the work as a true product of the author’s personal feelings and experiences. That results in less writers for the fandom, less content, and a whole lot of undue discouragement which is not something we want (nor is it actually constructive).

2. You want to engage the author in a deeper discussion of their work.

This is in direct answer to this part of your ask:

It really seems like you are saying “dear readers, your opinion doesn’t matter to me so unless it’s positive I don’t want to hear it because this fanfic was written for me and this list of people.”

You feel passionate (both positively and negatively) about my work? That’s lovely. I say, start a discussion with me. Ask me questions. Learn why I made those decisions. A discussion starts with an invitation to have a conversation (two ways, you say something, I say something, rinse repeat). It doesn’t start with “I didn’t like” or “This could have been better if”, and it certainly doesn’t start in a public forum, like the comments on AO3, where the writer runs the risk of looking like a defensive asshole.

But India, you say, what if I don’t have the means to have a private conversation/the writer doesn’t have tumblr/they’ve long since been inactive in the fandom? The answers are, respectively: leave a polite comment asking if they’re willing to discuss, if they are willing to discuss, leave a polite comment asking how to contact them, and if they’re no longer active, find other friends with which to discuss your feelings in private.

But India, that seems like so much work. It is, flat out. But if you really felt that strongly about something I wrote, you would make that effort to understand it. Otherwise, why not just walk away?

3. You don’t know better.

I found this part of your ask extremely interesting:

“But why making people feel excluded or bad because they did something normal just because they didn’t know it wasn’t written “for them” as you said in your post.”

The reason I found it interesting is because it means that there are people who assume that all work that is public was made for them, to suit their tastes, which is, frankly, a bizarre way to consume art. I do not go into The Louvre, look at the Mona Lisa and say “I don’t see the hype, it’s not something I would hang in my living room.” I look at it and think “What does this piece say about Da Vinci and his life? What has this brought to the world? How has this helped people/art/culture?”

(No, I am in no way comparing my talents to Da Vinci, I am not delusional. But, I don’t think my work deserves any less thought than that of a professional artist, simply because I’m an amateur and it’s on the internet and not in a gallery, and you have the superpower of anonymity.) You asked me what the point was in posting my work publicly if I didn’t want to hear every single person’s personal (negative) take on it, and the answer is this: I post what I write publicly, because I hope it helps someone. I hope my thoughts, feelings, experiences, loneliness validate someone, entertain them, help them through a tough time, bring them comfort. I post because I want to invite people to lose themselves alongside me, heal alongside me, dream alongside me.

(Notice how I said “someone” and not “everyone”. How I said “someone” and not “an élite group that discusses my work”, because yes, I do hope that my work positively impacts someone outside of my betas, my friend group. Does that mean someone can leave negative comments on my work? Yes. But should they? That’s a different question.)

I know my work won’t be a positive experience for every single person, but my goal was never to be relevant to every single person. So, my question is, if I’m not relevant to you personally -- if my work doesn’t touch you personally, heal you personally, entertain you personally, why not just walk away and find something that does? Who does your negative opinion really help? How is it constructive? What is its purpose? Why do you do it?

I will apologize for this, though: I spoke on behalf of all writers, and maybe I shouldn’t have. Maybe I should have been clear that though many writers feel this way, not all do. There are some, such as, I assume, yourself, who do view negative comments on AO3 as constructive, whether or not they are solicited, and I’m sorry to have spoken on behalf of you. However, I do still stand by this, though: it is much better to be kind than be right, and that definitely goes for comments on fic.

#concrit #writing thoughts #constructive criticism #iaw ask #iaw anonymous #iaw opinion #long post

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out-of-jams · 4 years ago

Text

Vesper || jjk

↠ Vesper↞ “There’s a first time for everything.”

Pairing: Jungkook x Reader

Word Count: 2k

Warnings/Genre: doberman hybrid!kook. human reader. explicit language. fluff. PG 13. one shot.

This fic is apart of The Hybrid Collab hosted by @jeonggukkiepabo! A special thank you to Anna for bearing with my idiotic forgetfulness, aka me writing this and then forgetting to post it over my hiatus. 🥴 ᵖˡˢ ᵈᵒⁿ'ᵗ ʰᵃᵗᵉ ᵐᵉ (also it’s a lot shorter now than it had been when i’d written it bc sfw lol)

All works here are purely fiction. Everything I write is my intellectual property and therefore belongs to me. ©out-of-jams. Do not copy or repost without permission. That is illegal and you are stealing no matter if you give credit or not

Cold – adjective.

Definition: freezing your fucking ass off.

You were well acquainted with the word– all but became one with it– what, with how absolutely balls cold out it was. The line to get into Vesper was stretched all the way down the sidewalk outside of the building, and extended out of sight around the corner. Sounds of city life echoed through the streets, cars zooming in between traffic and music leaking out of the bars.

From the crack in Vesper’s backdoor, the beginning’s of a hip-hop song filtered from the expensive sound system. It was loud, eardrum-rattling so, and you closed your eyes, leaning against the brick wall off to the side. A cloud of white left your parted lips as your warm breath hit the biting chill in the air. It was too bad that you were nowhere near drunk enough for the weather not to bother you.

Why you’d chosen to follow your friends out in sub-freezing temperatures was a mystery. You hated clubs, how packed to the walls they were, filled with writhing bodies so close together like sardines. It made you feel utterly claustrophobic, but it was your friend’s birthday and so you couldn’t opt out of following along with the group’s plans for the night. Not that you were ever able to say no to them when they insisted on dragging you out to the place.

Vesper was a popular club that you were sometimes forced to go to, located in the heart of downtown that catered to not only humans, but hybrids as well. It wasn’t the first establishment to do so, seeing as how hybrids integrated into society more than a decade ago. No longer were they as discriminated against as they once were, back when they first came about.

No one was 100% certain on how they’d even come to be; some sort of radiation exposure. The first hybrids had been humans, before they changed, morphed. Due to some sort of exposure to radiation, their cells had multiplied and transformed over the course of a few weeks until half of their genetic makeup resembled animal genes.

While the blatant racism had died out over the years, some, the more elitist members of society, still discriminated against hybrids. Looked down at them because they were born to be ruled more by their animal instincts than their human counterparts. Treated them as less-than because they weren’t completely human, when they were really just misunderstood.

Because of the fact that they were more tapped into their animal side and therefore behaved that way, hybrids used to be seen as beings who could be let loose into society. Who could not “control themselves.” So they took them as pets, tried to tame and sell them.

Shaking yourself out of your thoughts, you fished a cardboard box from the inside pocket of your coat. The sound of you tapping out a white cigarette was in time with the beat of the song pouring outside, and blended in with the cars honking out past the alleyway. Normally, you weren’t one for smoking. But after the stress of college finals week on top of the feeling of the walls closing in on you back inside Vesper, you’d asked one of your friends for their carton in hopes of calming your racing heart.

“Shit,” you murmured as you scoured your pant pockets for a lighter and then groaned when you failed to find one.

Because of course, your luck was anything but lucky and you really didn’t feel like trying to part the sea of sweaty people back inside in search of one. Pursing your lips, you let your head tip back against the brick wall behind you and let your eyes flit over the light polluted sky like it somehow held the answers to all of your life’s problems.

“Need a light?”

The addition of a new voice had you jumping away from the wall with a startled squeak. Hand pressed to your chest as if that would somehow restart your skipping heart, you whirled around. Standing in the now wide-opened back doorway into Vesper was a familiar face. Well, as familiar as a practical stranger could be.

Beneath the single, flickering light in the alley, his black t-shirt with SECURITY printed in white glowed in the surrounding darkness. It stretched itself over his broad shoulders, the bottom tucked into the slim waist of his pants. Your gaze slowly slid up his tanned neck, past his coral colored, pouty lips, sharp jaw, and the straight bridge of his nose. His wavy, dark hair was parted a little off-center, the sides falling over his forehead until it threatened to hide his stare from your view.

Finally, your eyes met his. Framed by long eyelashes, they were a bright, inhuman shade of lilac. Not all hybrids were equipped with the features of one, like a set of sensitive, animal-like ears or even a tail. If a human and a hybrid got together and had children, those kids would end up possessing more human cells than animal. Therefore, their appearances mirrored that.

But they were never completely indiscernible.

Just like every other time you’d ever laid your sights on him, your pulse skyrocketed and your stomach fell through the floor. And also like every other time, you pushed the feeling away and refused to acknowledge it. Because harboring a crush on a man who you’d only conversed with occasionally was a bad idea.

Especially when they were as handsome as he was.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” Jungkook apologized shyly. His voice wasn’t too deep, nor was it high; lying right in the middle. Switzerland

“No, it’s alright.”

It was notalright, if only because the man made you feel flustered.

The only time the two of you really interacted was whenever he’d be scheduled to man security at Vesper’s entrance checking IDs. A small comment about the weather here, a compliment given with a flash of a smile with the reddening of cheeks there. Hell, the only reason you even knew his name was because it was etched onto the heart of his shirt.

“So,” Jungkook began, still standing in the doorway like some kind of club guardian. “Need a light?” He nodded his head at the unlit white stick tucked between your fingers, his parted hair brushing across his eyebrows with the movement.

“Oh. Yeah, you have one,” you asked.

He answered your query by pulling a lighter from the back of his pants pocket and finally slipped away from the door, leaving it open a crack so the two of you wouldn’t get locked out. The music flooding out from inside quieted down to a barely-there whisper. Pressing the cigarette between your lips, you almost faltered when he stepped close to you.

Jungkook’s body heat practically swallowed you whole as he entered your personal space with a cute smile pulling up at the corners of his lips. His two front teeth were a little too big for his mouth and you would’ve suspected his animal counterpart to be a bunny or rabbit of some sort if it wasn’t for his job. The small mammals tended to be pacifists and you doubted working as a security guard counted towards pacifism.

The lighter came to life with a clickand a tiny burst of flame, and you watched from beneath your lashes as he lit the end of your preferred cigarette. As soon as you felt the heat of the smoke sear itself into your lungs, a thought came to you.

“Wait,” you began, lowering the white stick from your lips to dangle from your cold fingers. “Doesn’t the smell bother you?”

Jungkook’s cheeks puffed up beneath the weight of another smile and he stepped back from crowding you to lean a shoulder against the brick wall. “My roommate, Yoongi, smokes. So I’m used to it.” He tapped a finger to his nose.

“If you’re sure,” you said hesitantly.

“I’m sure.”

Humming, you resumed your position of leaning against the brick, your shoulder only a few inches away from his. Hybrid’s tended not to wear perfume or cologne because of their elevated sense of smell, but Jungkook must have been wearing some. Or perhaps it was just the scent of his laundry detergent that drifted from his body like an invisible cloud.

It was comforting. In a way that you couldn’t quite understand.

Glancing at him out of the corner of your eye, you took a slow drag from your cigarette and made care to blow the resulting smoke away from him. “Ditching work?”

He was looking out past the alleyway and towards the busy street beyond. Jungkook’s side profile was stunning even in the near darkness. “Technically, I amworking.”

“Oh?” Your voice was filled with amusement. “Expecting someone to pop out from the darkness like Batman and attack the club?”

He snorted, his tongue darting out to wet his soft looking lips. “Batman would never attack a club.”

“There’s a first time for everything.” Shrugging, you sneaked a peak over at him again to notice him already looking at you. His violet hued eyes glowed brightly as they roved over your features appreciatively.

“How about a first date then?”

You sputtered, choking on nothing except air at his blunt words. “I–what?”

Jungkook broke eye contact for a moment, your reaction coaxing a light shade of pink onto his cheeks. “I like you. And I know we don’t really know each other, but we always end up running into each other, which is why I want to change that.” He looked back at you, expression soft. “If you’re interested, of course.”

“I..,” swallowing, your mouth opened and closed in shock before your tongue finally let the syllables slip. “I would like that very much.”

His answering grin lit up the shadows lingering in the alleyway.

#bts #bts fic #jungkook #Jungkook fic #bangtanarmynet #networkbangtan #magicshopnet #ficswithluv #btsbookclub

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