#Nobody is going to read your fic just because you tagged a billion characters!!!

[shikai-the-storyteller]

Anyone who tags 50000 different characters on their fanfic when said characters are not the main focus / only mentioned once should be hunted for sport

[butterflyinthewell]

I’m gonna lose followers. Oh well... a rant by me.

People who harass others about SHIPPING FICTIONAL CHARACTERS are irksome.

Preface: if you say you don’t want someone role playing a NOTP with you or sending asks about it, or you don’t want secret Santa stuff containing it, if you ask people not to suggest fics with that pairing for your fic collections, if you stay out of your NOTP’s pairing tags, if you choose not to interact with material related to your NOTP, if you blacklist the pairing tag and ask people not to tag your fanwork with your NOTP, if you heed warnings and don’t click something with material you don’t like, I do not have a problem with you.

But if you write novel long posts about why a ship is gross to you and tag the pairing so shippers see it, send people hate over their ships, reblog fanworks of your NOTP with nasty messages to the op of the post, if you make a blog all about hating that ship and anyone who ships it, claim it must be grooming, or if you call people pedophiles or abuse apologists because they wrote something morally heinous in fiction that they will most likely never do irl, I’m not gonna have much respect for you beyond you being a fellow person.

Guess what? Shit you hate is going to exist on the internet. If someone tags their work appropriately or tags with appropriate warnings, you should not be clicking on it and harassing them! They have done what is necessary to protect those pearls you want to clutch.

Banning all questionable material is not going to save people who are targeted by predators and criminals.

Calling people pedophiles because they ship a fictional minor with a fictional adult gives actual pedophiles who go after actual minors a hiding place. These days you can’t tell if someone is an actual pedo or got called one over a ship they ship. Pedos are totally banking on that.

Fiction is supposed to break rules and let people explore dark subjects that are morally messed up because you can close a book or close a website if it gets too weird for you. A child with a predator’s hands on them right this moment can’t click an x or close a book to stop it.

Think about that.

No one is forcing you to go read morally messed up stuff. Not clicking on someone’s creepy fic with your NOTP is nowhere in the same realm as turning a blind eye to actual predators predating on someone.

Running someone off a website because your ass is on fire about them writing a pairing you hate or whatever is not going to stop the bad shit happening in the real world.

Predators and criminals will use anything, so someone’s freaky babyfur smutfic that they wrote to troll a fan website in 1999 is hardly going to normalize bad behavior.

I swear some of you insult the intelligence of people with your moral abuse garbage.

Teaching people to recognize predatory behavior and what to do about it will actually help. Teaching people what is and isn’t a healthy relationship will help.

Remember how people called out Twilight for how unhealthy Edward’s behavior towards Bella was? I’m sure a lot of preteen and teen girls learned to open their eyes a bit more. And I’m sure others still enjoyed the books and movies anyway because it’s fiction. It is the job of parents and guardians to teach their children what is and isn’t healthy in a relationship, but the unfortunate problem there is that can fail if the parents aren’t in a healthy relationship.

That’s why there needs to be more discussions about “this is healthy, that might be fun in a story, but that is not healthy in the real world and anybody who treats you like that is waving abuse red flags” rather than attacking somebody by saying “you’re a monster for shipping that”.

The whole point of art in any form is to create an emotional reaction in the audience.

Fucked up fictional shit exists on the internet. Get over it. I think the fact that people get freaked out by weird stuff in fiction is a clear indicator that it’s not being normalized by that piece of fiction. Flailing about it is not helping anything except your ego. It’s not gonna help survivors who write messed up stuff to cope, it’s going to make them go more silent.

Imagine being someone with an abusive pedo parent who takes comfort in the SessRin ship and being called a pedophile for it, or seeing people in the tag call Sesshoumaru a pedophile. That’s triggering as fuck for somebody.

Imagine being a Starkster going through sexual abuse who takes comfort in the ship, and being called a pedophile for it. Imagine seeing people in the tag call Tony a pedophile. That’s triggering as fuck for somebody.

Imagine having the heinous thing that happened to you being turned onto you as an accusation by people on a moral high horse who forget what pedophile means. That is triggering as fuck for somebody.

Nobody owes you a trauma history in order to be ‘allowed’ to create and post morally messed up fanworks. It’s on YOU to check for warnings and keep scrolling if it’s so offensive to your sensibilities.

What’s better? Discussion of tropes that are harmful if done badly. That’s a place to start. Save the accusations for people who are knowingly doing harm to people and not caring that they’re doing harm.

Go after shit that is actually exploiting actual people right now instead of harassing creators whose trauma you don’t know. Tell pedos their attraction to kids is not a sexuality and they have no place in the LGBTQIA+ community. Warn minors away from MAPs/NOMAPs. Expose predators who have exploitative materials of actual real children. Teach people to recognize predatory behavior like grooming. Find ways to get people out of human trafficking. Question adults if you see them touching or treating a child in a way that doesn’t look right. If you’re a minor and somebody keeps sending you porn material or pictures of their genitalia after you said stop, remind them that you’re a minor and expose the shit out of them. If you’re an adult and know somebody is doing that to a minor you talk to online, help them expose that person. That’s not all you can do, but I can’t think of everything. There’s a lot you can do that will actually help people!

But telling someone not to create something questionable because a predator might misuse it is utter horseshit.

I can bet you anything that every single person who hounds others about their ships has a whole bunch of fucked up stuff they read and never talk about because they know it will get them run off by the same people they use as shields against scrutiny.

I’ve read fucked up shit that I enjoyed because it was done well, but I can grasp that it is not okay to do the same thing in the real world and I would be horrified if I saw somebody doing the same thing in the real world. I am able to experience that moment of being horrified, sit with it and see where the fanwork takes me with that feeling.

I say this after I have just read an awesome morally gray Inuyasha fanfic called “Devour Prometheus” by ladybattousai on AO3. It’s gorey, there is murder, there is abuse, there is exploitation, there are allusions to animal trade and it’s the darkest thing I ever laid eyes on. My stomach twisted several times. It’s a fantastic lens on society right now. (Sesshoumaru’s speech about “don’t hold me to your hypocritical human morality” was epic af.)

And some of you are going to think the author is some kind of violence glorifying freak based only on that.

I feel like a lot of anti shippers and antis in general can’t get past that horrified feeling. They yell that they can’t enjoy the fandom if the material makes a hated pairing canon, so it’s like they don’t want anyone else to enjoy the fandom or the pairing. It’s very immature and scorched earth, and it hurts everyone.

Hey, guess what? I have written pairings with hella huge age gaps. Oh, the horror!

OptimusxMikaela? I headcanon Optimus as being 10 billion + years old, and Mikaela was 18 when they hooked up. Mikaela ages as the stories carry on through the years as my Danceverse series, so she’s in her 30s currently. They fucked and still fuck explicitly.

UnicronxStarscream? Unicron is as old as the universe, so 13 billion + (headcanon), and Starscream is probably 11 million or so (headcanon). They fuck explicitly.

Whouffaldi? The 12th Doctor is 2000+ and Clara is in her 20s. They fuck explicitly.

BeastGojixMiki? Godzilla has been alive for probably close to 65 years in the story, but he acts more like he’s in his 20s and he looks to be in his 20s when he turns back into a human. Miki is 18. They fuck in the story, but it’s written non explicitly.

Bowser JrxOC? Cherry is an oc who is 19. I aged Junior up in that story to be about 20. Their ages aren’t specified, but they’re mentioned to be adults. They fuck in the story, but it’s written non explicitly.

I have written fanfics with rape, abuse, murder, manslaughter, bdsm, stuff that’s morally messed up, etc, and I’m not a murdering rapist who eats children now, am I?

No, because I have no desire to do those things in the real world (because some are not possible...cuz I would date Optimus 😛) and I can distinguish fiction from reality. I can grasp the concept that fiction / art is not always endorsement.

Now get a grip on yourselves, put the pitchforks down and stop policing people’s imaginations.

[gay-jesus-probably]

so today i made the terrible mistake of thinking ‘yknow all memes aside sans sure is an interesting character i bet there’s some interesting fics about him i should go look’

and let me tell you i was SO WRONG because apparently AO3 doesn’t actually have any fics about sans! it honestly might not have any undertale fics at all! IT’S JUST TEN BILLION FUCKING AU’S WITH VARIOUS TWO-SYLLABLE NICKNAMES THAT LITERALLY NOBODY FEELS MIGHT NEED TO BE EXPLAINED OR EVEN TAGGED. I DON’T CARE ABOUT YOUR SHITTY OC SANS CLONES. I’M LOOKING FOR THINGS SET IN THE ORIGINAL UNIVERSE OF THE GAME. THAT’S WHY I SPECIFICALLY EXCLUDED ALL AU TAGS. So why is the search result still flooded with this garbage? Because these braindead motherfuckers can’t figure out how to tag their shit

this might actually be worse than the fucking onceler i mean at least there wasnt really enough substance in the movie to make fics for anything other than the onceler stuff. But this??? Undertale is an extremely good story and god damn it I want to actually read fanfics of it. Instead I’ve got fifty shades of skeleton fucking.

[papesandcigars]

alright musical theatre friends full offense but y’all really need to start respecting your boundaries.

THIS INCLUDES (BUT IS NOT LIMITED TO):

Writing fanfic based on actors. It’s not okay. It’s never been okay. There are no conditions where it is acceptable. And because this has already been said a million times, I guess I’ll rephrase. Imagine going on the internet and finding a website where thousands of strangers are spreading wrong information about you. Not all of these people may be severely harmful, but they are all incorrect in portraying your personality and who you are. You feel weird because the stories these people are sharing are intrusive- they talk about your family and your personal life and things you have the right to keep private. Some of them even talk about what you’d be like in bed, and “ship” you romantically and sexually with people you work closely with platonically. And to top it all off, thousands of people are also agreeing with them. Feel uncomfortable? You should. The reality is that we don’t personally know any of our favorite actors and don’t get to come up with ideas of what they must be like in person. We have no right to create fantasies based on real people. We just don’t. AND THAT INCLUDES WRITING AN ACTOR BASED FANFIC BUT CHANGING THE ACTOR’S NAME TO THE CHARACTER THEY PORTRAY. This is just a way to cheat yourself out of crossing the line. Here’s the deal- you’re not naive; you know what you’re writing. If you’re writing an actor fic, stop. It’s not right. And if you’re reblogging/ liking these fics, you’re just as guilty, because you are encouraging the writers to continue.

Leaving inappropriate comments on social media. You’d think this would go without saying, but it’s not okay to harass people on social media. Yes, it’s harassment. If a stranger spammed your Direct Messages and comments saying things like, “PLEASE FOLLOW ME I LOVE YOU SO MUCH” and “OMG YOU’RE SO HOT PLEASE ANSWER MY DMS”, you’d be uncomfortable too. It’d also suck to be constantly spammed by tags in pictures you aren’t even in. Don’t get me wrong, it’s okay to like and occasionally leave APPROPRIATE comments/ DMs on your favorite actors’ social media (especially if they openly encourage you to do so), but the bottom line of it all is that social media is a way for actors to share their lives with you while still keeping a safe distance. They could go private or delete their accounts altogether whenever they’d like. We have the PRIVILEGE to it. Not the right. Which brings me to my next point:

Thinking that actors owe you something (spoiler: they don’t.) If you’ve read this far and are thinking to yourself, “Well, that’s just what happens when you’re famous, they should be alright with it”, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but you’re wrong. Here’s the deal- these actors have worked their asses off to get where they are because THEY LOVE THEATRE. Not you. Not fame. Not your inappropriate behavior. They love getting to perform. Being “famous” is just a side effect of that. They did not ask for your weird comments and intrusive fanfictions, they asked for the opportunity to share art with you. That is all. As a matter of fact, that is all they are required to do. Share their art to the best of their ability. They are not required to stage door. Or answer your DM. Or follow you back. Or interact with you on social media. “But I flew all the way to New York and spent $4000 dollars just for this trip!”, you say. Great. You saw the show, you lucky duck. A meet and greet was not included in your ticket price. “But I’ve followed and supported this actor for years! They could at least like one of my comments!”, you cry. It’s great that you’ve supported your actor. They do appreciate you for it. But despite the fact that some artists are very interactive on social media, some aren’t, and the simple truth is that they don’t owe you anything. (Remember- social media is a privilege, not a right). Understand that many of them do notice, and all of them appreciate it. But they may need to save their energy on giving their best performance for the next show. And if that means sacrificing stage dooring and social media, then that’s that. 

And for the love of God, STOP ASKING FOR BEN COOK ON OTHER ACTORS’ SOCIAL MEDIA. You all NEVER CEASE TO AMAZE ME ON THIS SHIT. And because it’s been said a billion times before, let’s rephrase by imagining again, shall we? Think several years in the future from now. You’ve worked your ass off, cried, sweat, bled, and nearly gave up several times, but despite all of that, you’re living your greatest dream. Along the way, you’ve had the blessing of meeting wonderful friends who have worked and dreamed just as hard as you have. You’re all so excited to do this thing that you’re really passionate about!! Aaand as soon as you begin to get any kind of recognition for your talent and hard work, it’s from people who are only interested in talking to your other friend. You wouldn’t deserve that, and neither do the actors who just so happen to be friends with Ben Cook. 

BOTTOM LINE, NOBODY OWES YOU ANYTHING. 

I get it. You love these actors. They’ve been a huge part in creating something you love and can share with others. Because of them, you have made friendships, been inspired, and have learned lessons from the characters they portray. This is exactly why they deserve their boundaries to be respected. 

[maternalcube]

i did an art summary so now im doing a fic summary. i was tagged by @jamthedingus also!! ive never done one of these before!! lets go!!!

Rest (13106)

Keith & Lance's Island Adventure (20631)

Atlantis (10014 words)

The Way to a Man’s Heart (6858 words)

nobody's business (2096 words)

leave, and take (557 words)

dead girl walking (1661 words)

the course of fate (1039 words)

who ya gonna call (465 words)

come here often? (806 words)

til kingdom come (1950 words)

stars in the sky (pt 2) (5404 words)

a song of falling (630 words)

Eyes to the Sky (3683 words)

Feet on the Ground (4050 words)

Divergence (6669 words)

homecoming (1426 words)

Window of Opportunity (11144 words)

along that wilderness of glass (3801 words)

string theory (2327 words)

Katt Week (1062 words)

The Pining-Plant (3860 words)

at the end of many worlds (21684 words)

you're my home (19646 words)

Believe Me (3177 words)

Starchild (3568 words)

Summer Heat (2285 words)

third time's the charm (5349 words)

Blackbird (59546 words)

The Sixth Planet (9444 words)

all the infinite realities (1197 words)

Total Fics: 31! (plus one i posted anonymously lmao) Total Words: 229999! (except parts of string theory and the sixth planet were actually posted last year... but still, what a number)

more under the cut!

Ship/character breakdown: i didnt filter out my prompt collection or abandoned wips here so /shrug Ship breakdown:

klance - 6 sheith - 5 shance - 5 katt - 4 heith - 3 pallura - 2 and one each of plance, kallura, allurance, shatt, shkatt, kidge, kidgance, and shunk. and keiths parents lol. let it never be said i am not a multishipper.

and i know gen isnt a ship but it tied with klance at 6 (plus whatevers in the prompt collection) which was a surprise

Character breakdown: man if theres a way to get ao3 to show me ALL the stats, i dont know it. but.

keith - 25 (shocker) shiro - 23 lance - 21 pidge - 17 hunk - 16 allura - 12 matt - 12 and then coran and sam are at 4, and zarkon ats 3 and presumably many others are at 3 or less

Characters that had the main focus: well ~9 were from keiths pov, and ~5 each from shiro and lances povs. i think i also had ~5 from multiple points of view. its safe to say that keith has my heart tho lol

Specifics:

Best/worst title? Best title: i still like “at the end of many worlds.” i weirdly still like “Blackbird” too even if it has nothing to do with anything... Worst title: “Rest.” :/ also like all of the abandoned wips bc i didnt care. and “Keith & Lance's Island Adventure.″ some of my zine fic titles were also... bad. im bad at titles.

Best/worst first line?

Best: Keith & Lance's Island Adventure. ok the title is bad but this line? this really sets the tone for whole fic. you know what youre getting yourself into here.

When Pidge invited Keith to a fully-funded graduation party aboard the Holt family boat (“the smaller one, anyway,” she’d said), this is not exactly what he'd pictured: three of them standing on a wobbly dock, packed bags at their feet, sky cloudy and gray, while the Holt siblings stand on a little ledge off the back of the boat and deny entry.

Worst: ive got two for this lol

at the end of many worlds: even i have to read this a couple times to figure out what i was trying to say. at least you know youre in for pain...

Keith’s mother shows up to interrupt movie night often enough that, this time, Keith almost doesn’t realize anything’s wrong. Almost, because she’s silhouetted by the movie, but she’s clutching her arm and panting for breath, and in the thin edge of light around her he sees a wet and vibrant red.

Divergence: because all your friends being dead is EXACTLY like losing at dodgeball. yeah, theres a reason i abandoned this one.

Hunk always hated playing dodgeball. Not because he was bad at it--though he was--but because he always ended up the last one standing, and therefore the only target for the entire other team. It was due to a tendency to hang unnoticed in the back, he knew, but that didn't change the sickening, empty feeling of looking around and realizing there's no one left but him, and there's no way he can win. Only wait for the inevitable.

This, Hunk decides, is a lot like that, only, like, a billion times worse.

Best/worst last line?

Best: The Pining-Plant. there are a few others that were cute too but this one is also good out of context so

And then the pod swishes open and he's scrambling to catch Pidge as she stumbles out. She clings to his arms to steady herself and his heart swells.

"Falling for me again, huh?" he asks, and she groans loudly.

"Let me go, I'm getting back in the pod," she says, and he laughs. He doesn't let go, and neither does she.

Worst: if im bad at titles, im worse at endings. most are bad. i suspect the ending to “Rest” is terrible but i cant bring myself to even open that shit again so: Believe Me. if weather were a recurring theme in this fic, itd be fine, but as is its just... a weird note to end the fic on lmao

Hunk rocks back on his heels. "We aren't counting this as our official first date, right?"

"I dunno," Keith says, and now he smiles at the rain instead of frowning. It shows no sign of easing up, but whatever—they're soaked anyway. "This seems pretty good to me."

“...All right.” If nothing else, it’ll make a good story. And, Hunk had to admit—he’s pretty happy with how it’s turned out, rain and all.

But next time, he's double-checking the forecast, just in case.

General questions:

Looking back, did you write more fics than you thought you would this year, less than you thought, or about what you predicted?

more than i expected! considering ive been in grad school all year!! i wrote about the same amount wordcount-wise in 2017 which i spent only half in school so. idk how i managed it.

What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted last year?

the anonymous fic was a surprise but im not gonna talk about that lol. otherwise... nah, its all been my usual stuff.

What’s your favorite story this year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you the happiest.

blackbird, probably. i like working on that one. summer heat was also fun, id sort of forgotten about it bc it was a zine fic but coming back to it, i really liked it. likewise with third time’s the charm. and i like t6p a lot even if i kinda hate drawing for it :’)

Okay, NOW your most popular story.

depends on your metric. window of opportunity has the most kudos, keith and lance’s island adventure has the most hits, and t6p has the most comments and subscriptions. 

Story most underappreciated by the universe?

AT THE END OF MANY WORLDS. oh man i killed myself over that fic. it was important to me. but i think the mcd scared everyone off :’)

Story that could have been better?

i realize “all of them” is kind of a cop out answer but like

Sexiest story?

i have written nothing sexy, ever, in my whole life

Saddest story?

i mean, ateomw. considering all the death. blackbird def has its moments too.

Most fun?

i feel like i answered this in the favorite story q lmao. you’re my home also gets a shoutout, that thing was,, super self-indulgent lmao. and id be lying if i said i didnt have fun with parts of ateomw, even if its mostly sad.

Story with single sweetest moment?

man i write a lot of fluff but so much of you’re my home is just tooth-rotting. heres part of the proposal scene lmao

"Lance!" Keith yelps, barely rescuing the ring from falling into the sand with them. Lance pushes himself up on his arms, silhouetted by the sun and glowing with it.

"Really?" he asks breathlessly.

"Yeah," Keith says, and maybe he should've prepared something to say, that's a thing people do, right? Hell, he's winging it. "I know we can't stay here on Earth forever, 'cause we're paladins, and there's still stuff out there we gotta do. And I know you probably want to stay because this is your home—but you're my home, and if we gotta go, at least you'll have me, good or bad." He grins crookedly. "Or rocket science. Whatever happens, I'll be there."

Hardest story to write?

well t6p gets a shoutout, but its not the writing thats the hard part for that. uhhh ive struggled with parts of blackbird. i remember k&l’s island adventure giving me a LOT of trouble, i think i posted late lol

Easiest/most fun story to write?

anything short uhhh for all the infinite realities, i kind of just sat down the other day (actually i was in bed but) and was like “im gonna write this” and then in the morning i just sat down and wrote it in one go. i dunno if id call it fun, but it was easy. t6p is super fun to write but, as mentioned, drawing it sucks.

Did any stories shift your perceptions of the characters?

no... my perceptions probably have shifted but not due to anything i wrote in particular. i did talk myself into liking allurance with a prompt fill, though, but im not sure that was 2018...

Most overdue story?

all the infinite realities lmao. at the end of many worlds needed that happy ending. and another shoutout to t6p, because thats been going on over a year and im still nowhere.

Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?

does posting my abandoned wips count? ive still got some of those hanging around... blackbird was a bit of a risk bc my last longfic was written while i was unemployed and out of school, so like i had the time for it, and now i kinda dont. still chugging tho. ateomw b/c of all the death but it turns out i really like writing whump woops. and writing any sort of kissing always feels like a risk bc i suck at it but im getting better lol... i hope...

What are your fic writing goals for next year?

write more! finish things! do more sheith! i really want to work on this sheith longfic i came up with the other day... but i want to get blackbird over with first.

Tagging: eh! do it if you want to!

[synonym-for-life]

RULES

Always post the rules

Answer the questions given by the person who tagged you

Write 11 questions of your own

Tag 11 people (or however many you want)

I am going to go Harry Potter the Rule Breaker on this and not tag anyone and also not write questions because I feel like everyone already did it/or was tagged and also because I’m at work

My answers are under the cut. Beware this is a looooong post (3 x 11 answers) and, as usual, I ramble a lot.

Tagged by the ever wonderful @dictacontrion

If you could have one billion dollars or the not (or only incidentally) profitable superpower of your choosing, which would you choose and why?  Ugh, this is a tough question. Just imagine all the good that you can do with a billion dollars! But I really think I would go with superpowers because even if they’d be useless it would feel a bit like magic, or like having a bit of magic in you and what Harry Potter fan does not wish to be magical at least a tiny bit?

What article of clothing makes you feel most awesome? First of all, what makes me feel the most awesome is a cool pair of shoes. But, that wasn’t the question so I gotta go with a newly acquired long black high slit skirt that I first wore yesterday and I felt bangin hot.

How did you get into your most recent fandom? Tbh my only fandom is the HP fandom, more accurately the drarry fandom and that’s it? Is that sad? Or does it just make me loyal? It honestly happened by mistake. I was looking through a HP forum in my native language and discovered a link to a page that had hp fics. I stumbled upon some drarry ones, was absolutely appalled by how people could put these two together because omg they hate each other, but then I continued reading them and it made more and more sense with every word I read and I've been a shipper ever since (it’s probs been more than a decade now).

What’s your least favorite/most hated book, and why?  The Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe. I don’t like whiny people and Werther is the whiniest of them all. Just the extreme self-pity pervading those pages made me want to throw the book out of the window. Admittedly, I haven’t read it since teenage years, so I feel like I should give it another try to see if I’ll understand it differently. But let me just describe the scene that was probably a deal breaker: Lotte, the girl Werther has a crush on, or rather a strange obsession fueled by his idealistic image of her, is giving hungry children bread - so you see you have this girl doing what she wants, maybe considers her duty, being kind - and this useless dude is just staring at her instead of helping her and then proceeds to fall to his knees and cry into her lap sighing something like: ‘Lotte, oh Lotte, so kind, so precious, bla bla bla’ being all creepy and obsessed and useless and self-pitying at once. (pls don’t kill me if that’s not exactly how this scene goes, that’s how I remember it and I’m pretty sure it goes along these lines. It’s been years since I read it. I don’t like to hate on things but god I hated this book when I was forced to read it in school.)

Describe a fanwork you’d love to read/see/watch, but don’t want to create yourself, please? I would love a HP series that would go exactly like the books, scene by scene, exactly how it’s written. Otherwise, I would love to read some new Drarry fics featuring old magic and magical properties. Oh, and perhaps more Aurors on a mission abroad fics featuring magic particular to those areas they are in. Just more magical diversity, I guess?

What would be the lineup of your ideal music festival? I will pass this one because I don’t really go to festivals :/

You’re given the power to unilaterally create one law or policy in one country - what is it? Tax the arms and weapons industry until they would go bankrupt, which would cause the world to stop finding excuses to go to war just to fuel that corrupt industry. Also tax rich people so hard like you couldn’t believe.

If you had to commit to living in one place for the rest of your life, what would it be? I am one of the lucky bastards that can say: at home, where I was born. I could live there forever.<3

Thinking about your life a year from now, what’s one thing that you hope will be different? That I will be able to write more and faster and have more free time in general (I have been feeling as if I’m forcibly squeezing time for my family and friends into my tight schedule and I don’t like that. Work is not the most important thing there is to me, but it felt like I was focusing only on that this year :/ )

What’s one thing that you hope will be the same? I feel like my and my family’s health is pretty neat now so yeah...that.

What’s the last thing that made you laugh? Ok, something that made me laugh really hard for days was a thing that happened at work a few weeks ago. This wonderfully dressed man in his 30s comes in. Pants, suit, shirt, classy, elegant, handsome businessman. I work in retail (among other things), most precisely in a shoe shop. It was crowded when he started trying on shoes, so I was running around bringing shoes out to people. Then the crowd leaves. We are left alone and I notice his (most probably very expensive) pants have ripped down the seam of his behind. Like all the way. Like completely ripped to the point that I can now see his black boxers and the top of his thighs. I don’t know what to do. What if he knows? What if he’s just some weirdo in reality and doesn’t care? What if he already came in like that? Tears well up in my eyes, I start smirking, trying to contain my laughter while debating how to tell him. I have to turn away a couple of times. Then he notices. He is sitting down looking at his crotch and just whispers ‘’I ripped my pants.’’ And I can’t take it anymore. I start laughing. Hard. So here’s this dude half embarrassed, half amused and very very shocked and I’m laughing at him. And I can’t stop. You know the hysterical kind of laughter that bubbles out from you when you’re nervous, that’s how I was wheezing at him. Luckily, he too saw the humour in the situation and started laughing along and we ended up kind of bonding over this special moment. He was very chill about it too. He bought the shoes and left still chuckling while clutching a big shopping bag to his butt.

Tagged by the ever fantastic @devinesis

1. What’s something in this world that you just don’t understand and wish you could? I answered this once already (in an ask) and I said: people who don’t like animals. I really don’t get it. Besides that though, I don’t know how it can happen that you’ve been writing and saying a certain word in a certain way for your entire life, but then suddenly in your 20s or even later you figure out you’ve been writing/saying it wrong all this time and nobody ever corrected you??? Like wha?

2. What show or movie does everyone love and tell you to watch but you just hate no matter how many times you try? The Lord of the Rings *runs to hide under the bed* I just...I just always fall asleep *she whispers with a tremor in her voice*

3. The first book you ever really loved? (If it’s HP, cool, but you have to say something else, too. LOL) The first, first book? A tale about a cat that lives in a cat village that has cat waiters, cat butchers and cat criminals. I’m sure it doesn’t come as a surprise that I love cats? (written for children around 5y.o. btw)

4. If you were going to be in a relationship (platonic or sexual) for the rest of your life with a character from the Harry Potter universe, who would you choose? Shit. How dare you do this to me? Wth? WHAT KIND OF A QUESTION IS THAT? a very good one but strangely distressing one Platonic: I want to be Dumbledore’s friend, I think we’d get along. Plus that would be the most interesting friendship ever. I also want to be friends with the twins and hang out with them all the time. That would be so much fun. Sexual: uhh no one? Idk. If I had to choose someone I think I’d be sexually compatible with, I’d probably choose Ginny or, strangely enough, I feel like me and Remus would match quite well hah

5. Your most hated book you were ever assigned to read in school? The Sorrows o Young Werther. Refer to the answer number 4 above for a true rant. Sorry, all Goethe lovers. I also really didn’t like Catcher in the Rye even though most people really dig it. I think it was, again, the whining aspect that bothered me the most.

6. If you had a personal uniform like a cartoon character, what would it be?I really don’t know?? I’m pretty sure I’d have a crop top though. I also imagine lots of leather straps and strings everywhere for some reason.

7. Where is your “happy place”? It tends to change, but anywhere in nature does it. But my happy places are mostly where my most loved people are at that moment so wherever my family or friends are and I’m with them it’s a happy place.

8. Favorite form of exercise? Lifting weights. Most specifically bench press. I really like deadlifts and biceps curls too though ... i already told you i've got too much ‘bro’ influence in my life

9. If you had a crush when you were, like, 12–14—looking back, is it embarrassing, or do you nod at your younger self in approval? It is embarrassing but not because who they were/what they looked like, but because how I acted towards them. I was really dumb.

10. What, for you, are the most hated and most enjoyable tasks of adulthood? I don’t particularly like to work, you see, but I do love being independent, so that’s kind of necessary. xD But the most hated task has got to be making my own phone calls. Yikes. I like to drive though? Does that count as a task?

11. What small-talk question do you most hate answering from strangers at a party? If it’s like a dancing party /club thing, I hate all of them because I came to dance and I cannot dance if I have to talk :D If it’s a mingling sort of thingy it depends on the intent. If someone is just trying to get into my pants or just, in general, doesn’t really care about anything I tell them, then even the most original questions won't work. If I feel like the person cares and the intent is good, then I don’t mind small talk!

Tagged by the ever amazing @serpensthesia

1. Not a question but post a picture of whatever you want.

(yes I took this photo)

Bonus: my cat in a pot.

2. What is something not enough people understand and you want to explain to me right now? Not many people understand that you can be a very outgoing, loud, happy, talkative, bubbly person, but still need enormous amounts of time for yourself. I don’t know whether that means you’re actually an introvert and I don’t care, but I need people to understand that I like being alone.

3. What is your favorite thing that you have ever studied (doesn’t have to be in school, or even studied formally)? Just reading up on quantum mechanics (with my limited knowledge of physics) has been mindblowing. and @serpensthesia I know I owe you an explanation about that already god i’m horrible i WILL explain but it will be long and probs essay-length :’D

4. You are suddenly allowed to keep one real, wild animal as a pet and it’s not going to kill you or hurt you, it’s just going to be sweet and awesome… what animal do you choose? I want a blast-ended skrewt a black panther. Second in line is a niffler sloth. Third in line is a dragon  giraffe.

5. Least favorite activity that you have grown to begrudgingly accept as necessary (and maybe even a little fun)? Writing to do lists/schedule in my planner. I have to mentally drag myself across an endless mental hallway to even begin, but I get such satisfaction out of it in the end. I like to pretend I have my life together.

6. Give past-you a cryptic message - no context, just the message: I don’t even know how to do cryptic. I would just say to myself: Rebel against yourself as much as you rebel against others, you are the final revolution in which you must not fail.

7. Who is your problematic fave and why do you love them so much? I don’t believe in problematic faves tbh...

8. You are trapped on a desert island. There is no escape. No one is coming to save you. You are going to die. What 3 things do you bring with you so that you can die happy? Hmm, a notebook, a pen, and a photo album of my most loved people, so that I will look at them when I’m dying and remember how much I love them and how happy I am that I have lived among them.

9. What 3 dumb as hell things make you stupidly, infectiously happy? I...fine...Jesus memes, ok. They are funny as hell.& Wearing a tiara.& Lying on the floor/ground and rolling around/pretending I’m a starfish. Works on asphalt too, alas hair gets dirtier like that. Only advisable when you can be ugly in peace for the whole day. i just realized i sound absolutely fucking mental jfc i SWEAR i am public friendly

10. What do you create? Awkward silences.

I don’t really, I just think I’m funny. I occasionally try to wring words out from my fingertips by tapping repeatedly on the keyboard and call it writing. I haven’t yet mastered it, but it’s been fun!

11. You’ve gone down the YouTube k-hole and have been binge watching nonsense for the past 2 hours. Where did you start? The last time this happened, I watched this video: Slav King, that my cousin sent me. It’s one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a long time, though it is a bit culture specific. But then...oh god, then I just continued clicking on these weird videos until I was in the part of the youtube where half the comments were in different Slavic languages, but you know that you still manage to understand a bit if you speak at least one of them, and like these videos were full of strange horrible-for-your ears music and awkward white people trying to dance while being all cool. Not to mention everyone kept calling each other tovarishch and comrade in the comments and I kept reading and reading the comments barely understanding anything until I realised in a daze what I’ve been doing for the last 2 hours and I just closed my laptop and stared at the wall for about 10 minutes before I regained any sense of self.

Now, if anyone actually read all of this, props to you. Also, tell me if you agree/disagree with me on any of these things. I love a good discussion!

[midnightstarsky]

VS Cartel AU Chapter 2 Part 1

This is my cross-over fiction of vatanim sensin and the narcos history/tv show. This is the first part of chapter 2. I hope you guys enjoy this!

Note: I don’t own any of the VS characters or narcos characters. These are characters based loosely on history so I any similarities are due to that.

All of these parts can be found under vs cartel au tag on my blog, where you can also find gifs and previews for the story and narcos show. And you can find a mash up trailer.

Hope you enjoy!

This one takes off where chapter 1 ends, hileon arrive in Greece and get into a bit of trouble; Vasili makes his first appearance. 

content warning: This is a cartel fic, so there will be mentions of violence and drugs from this point on from the story. So canon typical violence for a show like narcos is to be expected.

                                             Chapter 2 Part 1

                                             Magical Realism

                                                Athens 2017

              The beautiful green landscape against the deep blue sea, it was beautiful. With the mountains rising high above the waves, it was awe-inspiring and majestic. It truly looked like a land where the myths of Zeus and Poseidon could come to life. Where Demeter brought the harvest, and Aphrodite was born from the water. A land where Morpheus was thought to bring dreams, dreams that could inspire people to the greatest heights. It could create dreams of being an Olympian, to be the finest athlete in the land. These lands could inspire people to become the greatest thinkers or writers in the world, to push the boundaries of reality and thought.

And these lands could inspire people like Vasili to become billionaire entrepreneurs, just not from the taxi company he apparently ran successfully. He only had three taxis, each apparently bringing in around 10 billion dollars a year. No, Vasili’s fortune came from his successful cocaine producing and trafficking business.

“Leon, wake up,” Hilal shook him gently.

              He blinked his eyes open and yawned, “What is it? Are we there?”

              She nodded her head, “We’re close, look how beautiful it is.”

              Leon leaned closer to her to glance out the window and gazed down at the mountain ranges coming into view.

These beautiful mountains hid about fifty labs, each lab set up as a small town with over 200 people working and guarding the areas. These labs were where Vasili was producing about 10,000 kilos of cocaine a week, and with each kilo of cocaine selling for anywhere in the range of 50,000 dollars to 150,000 dollars, considering foreign exchange risk, traveling costs, and the fact that the farther the cocaine got the more Vasili made; Vasili was making about 80 million dollars a day.

Yeah, you heard that right.

CevVas Cartel was bigger than most fortune 500 companies.

Leon glanced as his wife looked out the window, her eyes watching the beautiful landscape coming closer in her view. He smiled as he admired how her eyes matched the blue of the sea, how her loose messy hair from the flight made her look like a beautiful nymph ready to run across the forests below. Better yet, she looked like a fierce Amazon ready to go on a hunt, her hair messy from the wind and her blue eyes shining in eagerness.

He chuckled, Hilal would probably roll her eyes if he said that out loud.

She turned towards him and smiled shyly, “What? Do I have drool on my face?”

It still surprised him how shy she could be about her appearances, he didn’t know how many times he had to tell her she was beautiful before she finally got it into her head. Her stubbornness really could be frustrating at times, most times.

He shook his head as she grabbed her purse and brought out her small mirror.

“I look like a mess, Leon,” she muttered disapprovingly, “You should have at least told me my hair looks like a bird’s nest.”

“I think you looked wild and beautiful like a forest nymph or better yet an Amazon,” he said cheekily.

She shoved him before combing her hair so it at least didn’t look like she had spent the last ten hours sleeping upright, “Stop it, you’re not being cute. It’s too early and it’s been too long of a trip for me to be charmed by your version of flirting, which consists mostly of just telling me long Greek myths that take forever to tell me about the beautiful and strong women that remind you of me.”

He pouted but she just rolled her eyes at him.

“Why can’t I use my heritage and my love of literature to tell my wife I love her?” he protested.

“You can, it’s just you love to really draw out your stories and I need coffee to be patient enough for another hour-long comparison of how I remind you of Hippolyta,” Hilal snapped back but her eyes twinkled with amusement.

“It’s Smyrna and most women would love their husbands to spend so much time waxing poetic in their favor,” Leon pointed out.

“Not when their wives feel gross and anything but beautiful and need caffeine to function,” she returned.

“You look beautiful to me,” he said as he leaned forward to kiss her, “Like the beautiful Artemis, a fierce huntress and the goddess of the moon.”

Hilal pushed him lightly away, “Yes, because my name means crescent moon, as you never forget to remind me through your extensive moon inspired poetry. It’s getting old, Leon. And cheesy.”

“You know you love it,” he returned as he leaned in again for a kiss, but she placed her palm on his chest and pushed him back once again.

“Hilal,” he whined.

“We’ve landed,” she said sternly.

Sure enough, they were on the runway slowly making their way towards their terminal. Finally, they stopped and the passengers could stand and get their things.

Hilal gathered her things as Leon grabbed their two carry-ons before they made their way out of the plane.

“Welcome to Athens, we hope you enjoy your stay,” the stewardess smiled as they passed her.

“I will as soon as our fathers are dead,” Hilal muttered under her breath.

“Hilal,” Leon hissed as he glanced around, “What if someone heard you?”

She scoffed, “Nobody heard me, and nobody knows who we’re talking about or who we are. I’m sure it’s fine.”

Here’s the problem with that, when you’re the most powerful men in the country, it’s not that hard to buy off airport security to alert them if any suspicious Americans enter the country. I didn’t learn it until a little later, but from that moment on I was on the radar of my father. He knew the moment I had entered the country, and later I would learn that he knew exactly why I was there.

Hilal and Leon approached the immigration desk where a young man looked him up and down.

“Passports,” he ordered.

When they handed their passports to him, he glanced briefly at Hilal’s before eying Leon. Hilal glanced up at Leon but he just shrugged.

“You have a Greek last name,” he noted.

“My parents were Greek,” Leon said easily, “My mother moved us to the States when we were young.”

“You have a familiar last name,” he noted, “In fact, some would say you have a very old and famous name.”

“I don’t know anything about that, it was my father’s name and he died when I was young,” Leon lied easily.

“Hmm,” the other man replied as he read over their immigration papers.

In the year since we’d learned about the CevVas cartel, we had also come to learn that our mother had changed our last names when we were young. No doubt she had chosen something unique or chic, mother always had a flare for the dramatic. I wouldn’t realize why the immigration officer had been so surprised at my last name, of what that name meant in Greece. Apparently, Agent Fatma hadn’t considered that information pertinent to the mission.

As it turns out, she was very wrong on that score.

Leon relaxed a bit and leaned into Hilal, “We’ll have some coffee in no time.”

Hilal whispered softly, “I’m not so sure about that.”

He glanced back at the immigration officer to see him reading over his papers for the second time.

“It says here you are going to work as a janitor in the embassy. That’s interesting, I could swear that there was another janitor for the embassy coming through here,” he noted with a dry smile, “Your embassy must be quite clean then.”

Leon gave him a proud look, “You can bet on it, we keep a tight ship.”

“Right,” the man answered.

He was now looking over Hilal’s paperwork, but he didn’t ask any questions. He glanced up at her briefly as he studied her passport and her work visa so she could work at the local hospital in Athens. As Leon had made a request for his wife to join them, the DEA had arranged with the Greek government to find her employment so that she could be productive in Greece and not go mad from boredom. Hilal may have put her foot down to follow Leon to Greece, but that didn’t mean she wanted to be idle while he completed his mission.

“I’m sorry, but you seem to be missing one of your forms,” he finally said.

Hilal’s eyes widened, “That’s impossible, they’re all there.”               “Ma’am, I’m sorry, but you’re missing some information. We need to make sure you have the qualifications to work this job,” he explained.

Hilal was glaring at him, “That’s ridi…”

Leon cut her off, “What do we need to do?”

“My boss can help you, let me take you to his office and get him,” the other man explained as he picked up their papers and passports and lead them away.

They were lead to a small office with a line of cushioned seats and a tv, the immigration officer leaving them to find his boss.

Hilal flopped down and frowned as Leon took a seat across from her, “This is bullshit, Leon. My papers are fine. I rechecked them and even had our immigration lawyer check them, your DEA supervisors even reassured me that there wouldn’t be an issue…”

“Hilal, I’m sure they’re just being cautious,” he reassured her.

She crossed her arms and huffed, and while Leon would normally find it adorable, he could see how tired and strained she was. It hadn’t been a small thing to ask her to move their lives across the world even if Hilal was just as adamant that he should accept the assignment to take down the CevVas Cartel. Leon still felt guilty asking this of her, so he was endeavoring to humor her more often.

He was trying, really.

Leon reached into his bag and grabbed a book, “Here, reading always passes the time.”

She sighed but grabbed the book, “Thanks.”

He smiled softly before he leaned back and closed his eyes, “Wake me up when someone shows up.”

Leon fell asleep to the sound of Hilal turning pages and her soft breathing.

“Leon,” Hilal hissed as she shook him, “Wake up, you’ve been asleep for an hour, they’re still not here!”

He blinked his eyes open and managed drowsily, “What?”

His wife was furious, “It’s been an hour and no one has entered that door, Leon.”

She stood up suddenly, “I should give them a piece of my mind…”               Leon caught her by the arm, “Hilal, don’t cause a fight with the immigration officer, we don’t need to cause a fuss here. Just be patient.”

She jerked her arm away but either she saw his point or she was too tired to argue, because she dropped down on her seat and scowled at him.

Leon sighed and rubbed his eyes, “Hilal, I’m sorry.”

She ignored him to glare at the floor instead.

He frowned before glancing around and seeing the tv.

“How about some tv to improve your Greek?” he teased.

Hilal huffed, “You know my Greek is fine, better than yours probably.”

He leaned forward, “I doubt that, love. Your Turkish is better than mine, I’ll give you that, but that’s because your mother spoke it to you and had a tutor teach you on weekends.”

“Your Turkish is nonexistent,” she retorted.

“But my Greek is still better than yours,” he insisted.

She snorted, “Hardly.”

She leaned forward, “Don’t forget, that I took six semesters of Greek, four of those semesters we shared the same class and I seem to recall scoring higher than you in each of those years.”

“It’s so adorable that you remember beating me in that class, did you take those classes just to catch my attention?” Leon said slyly.

“You’re impossible,” Hilal responded quickly as she glanced at the tv to avoid his smug gaze.

She stood up and turned it on, “Let’s see if there’s anything of interest on.”

The tv showed a huge crowd receiving cash as a female reporter came into view.

“He’s an entrepreneur, a self-made man who has come from modest origins in this very town of Thessaloniki to become a billionaire. And now he gives back to the people, becoming a modern-day Robin Hood.”

A grinning man walked into view as the crowds broke into cheers.

“I’m proud to stand by this incredible man, the Robin Hood of Thessaloniki, Vasili,” she practically sang as she smiled adoringly at the man beside her.

The crowds went mad, holding up signs with his image and name, chanting his name over and over as the man of the hour raised his hand and waved.

“My God,” Hilal managed.

“They don’t even know he’s a drug dealer,” Leon voiced for her.

His wife turned to him, eyes wide, “Robin Hood of Thessaloniki? Really?”

He whistled, “Look, Hilal.”

Hilal glanced back to see Vasili and the female reporter passing out thick wads of cash to members of the crowd. Other men standing near Vasili were doing the same.

Vasili was essentially handing out hundreds of dollars to each person there, no wonder the crowds were chanting his name. He was buying the loyalty of everyone in that crowd.

“How can people just stand there and accept his money like that, money from poison, money that people were killed for,” Hilal said disgusted.

Leon had read enough of similar situations to offer insight, “It’s one of the poorest areas in Greece, and where poverty and corruption go hand in hand, it becomes easy to buy people off. People need to survive, Hilal, at a certain point they don’t care what they have to do to ensure that survival.”

His wife’s gaze hardened but she wasn’t given a chance to respond when the door opened.

Leon and his wife immediately stood up as Leon turned the tv off.

The immigration officer entered behind another man, clearly the boss they had been expecting for the last hour.

“Forgive me, there were some issues I had to handle,” the man said shortly.

Leon grabbed Hilal’s paperwork, “Look, my wife and I have checked and rechecked these immigration forms for her before we even got on the plane, can you please just take care of this for us. I’m sure everything is there.”

The man interrupted him, “I need your passport.”

Leon eyed him as Hilal handed him their passports, “Here.”

The man simply flipped through the two passports before handing back Hilal hers, “Just his.”

“I don’t understand,” Hilal was confused as she glanced at Leon.

But the other man cut her off as he went over to the copier, “I just need his, ma’am.”

Hilal frowned and hissed at Leon, “Something is strange about this.”

Leon took her by the elbow and shook his head, warning her to keep quiet. She pursed her lips and watched as the man scanned Leon’s passport.

He finished and took the paper, setting it aside. He then handed Leon his passport and gave him a sly smile, “Welcome to Athens.”

What a welcome.

[sonatine]

2015

“Where are you going now, Yuri?” Viktor asks, because practice is over and his brain can focus on other things like 1) the hole in his sleeve 2) the impressive gap in Yakov’s eyebrow that he does not want to know about and 3) chitchat with rinkmates.

“I’m going to try this new club,” Georgi announces, like nobody knows he’s just seen his ex check in there. “Seems cool.”

Viktor smiles politely and turns back to Yuri, who has just graduated from juniors. “How about you?”

Yuri gives him this look. The one you give to an adult when they ask how to print an email attachment.

“Seeing my grandpa,” he says. “It’s Sunday. We’re making pierogi.”

This is the most Yuri has ever said to Viktor, and he seems to have exhausted his reserves. Viktor’s follow up questions are all met with irritable shrugs.

2016

Sometimes Viktor says he’s going out but stays in. Sometimes Viktor says he’s staying in to do laundry when he is 100% planning to try out that new bar the next block over.

He doesn’t know why he does this. 

Maybe it’s security. He lives for the grid, loves checking in and being tagged. But.

Yuuri left the onsen, clearly bothered by something, saying, “I’ll be at the rink.”

Viktor looks for him everywhere, in all his favorite places. The beach, the boardwalk, that panini place in the grungy part of town, the hardware store where Yuuri buys polish for his equipment.

“I looked for you everywhere,” Viktor says petulantly when he finally finds Yuuri methodically practicing the salchow.

Yuuri gives him a look. Viktor blinks, thinking for a moment he’s back in St. Petersburg and talking to small Yuri.

“I told you I’d be here,” Yuuri says. He adjusts his gloves. “But since you’re here — when I step out at the end, I’m not sure —”

Yuuri chips away at a problem with the patience of a coal miner. Viktor usually bashes his head at an issue until it’s cracked down the middle and he’s tired to the bone. And then sleeps for twenty-four hours straight.

“Sure,” Viktor says, and walks Yuuri through the snarl in the yarn.

Yuuri watches intensely, carefully. He asks Viktor to repeat himself four times.

Viktor never minds.

2014

It’s Easter Sunday and St. Petersburg is deserted. Viktor woke up early, because his body is cruel, and tried three of his favorite coffee shops and finally slunk to the Starbucks when he was roundly taunted with closed signs.

The place is packed with tourists and Viktor drinks his concoction in grim dignity. He pretends not to speak English to the five people that all ask directions to the Kremlin. He leaves with his drink only half-finished, his paper only half-read.

Sometimes you never know your dad, as it happens, and sometimes your mom dies when you’re twenty-one, as it happens.

You’re legally an adult, so you get an apartment with the sponsorship money. You train at the same rink, with the same coach, and your life still revolves around the same neighborhood, so it’s not so different is it?

Viktor passes by a couple holding hands, two slim guys, laughing quietly about something on a phone. The one guy looks a little like Chris Giacometti and Viktor has an idea for a step sequence that would definitely inch him up a couple tenths of a point.

He makes some good progress at the rink that afternoon and rewards himself with a bubble bath that floods the bathroom in glitter, like he’s Oberon incarnate.

He wakes up later from a dream, something about hands and gold at 4am and can’t fall back asleep.

But the sky is streaked a pretty pink, like Makkachin’s tongue, and he runs to the rink. The ice smells welcoming.

2017

Viktor comes home to his apartment in St. Petersburg.

He passes by the cafe where he first convinced his mom to give him skating lessons, when he was four.

(His mother, who was an engineer for their country — now it was called Russia again, not that it made a difference to whether Viktor could watch more cartoons in the morning — stared at him with her mathematical brain and said, “For what purpose?”

“Any purpose,” said Viktor. She signed him up, provisionally.)

Viktor unlocks his front door with the usual elaborate ballet of wrist turns and shoulder slamming, and sets the groceries on the floor.

“Please,” says Yuuri, from the kitchen. “Please let me replace that lock.”

Viktor abandons the bags to kiss Yuuri instead until he’s blushing and forgotten his cereal.

“I like that lock. It has character.”

“It’s difficult,” Yuuri says, exasperated and fond. His hands are resting on Viktor’s hips, like they belong there, and Viktor feels —

“I too am difficult,” Viktor says.

Yuuri rolls his eyes but humors him. “I’m going for a run before going to the rink. You want to come?”

Viktor rests his head on top of Yuuri’s. He lets himself listen to Yuuri’s steady breathing for a minute and kisses the top of his head.

“Yes! Let’s run by the river.”

“Sure,” Yuuri says.

2012

Viktor is in Canada or Shanghai or maybe Johannesburg, he can’t really remember right now, but he’s wedged into a taxi beside Chris, who is expounding on the virtues of some new blade. Viktor smiles, not attending, and stares at the lights outside the car window.

They don’t hook up that night, but instead play Gin Rummy and дурак in Chris’ hotel room. Then Chris brings out an actual travel backgammon set from his suitcase.

“This game is so boring,” Viktor tells him, still a little drunk.

They’re speaking English, the common tongue of all competitors, though sometimes Viktor can persuade Chris to let him practice his French.

Chris just smiles and shrugs, sheepish over the wire-frame glasses he wears at night. Viktor is a little bored and a little tired, but that’s okay. The backgammon passes the time.

2016

Viktor has an anxiety attack on the plane, in the tiny Hasetsu airport with a smattering of gates, in the uber ride over, and while explaining to the kind but baffled middle-aged Japanese couple what Viktor and his ten billion suitcases are doing on their front porch.

He has another one while soaking in the spring, though it’s probably just a continuation of the slow long quarter-life crisis he’s been having since his thumb pressed the ‘call’ button under YAKOV and his mouth said, “I’m going to Japan to coach Yuuri Katsuki,“ and then the only father figure he has ever known said, “Don’t expect to come crawling back.”

He rests his head on the rocks behind him and dreams of a time when things — anything — felt fine.

But you can’t expect to get a different result from doing the same thing, his mom would have said. Something has to change.

The sliding door to the main building rockets open. Viktor thinks the door actually might derail off its tracks, but he’s distracted by the sweaty, gasping vision of Yuuri Katsuki, in glasses and workout gear, standing above him.

They gape at each other for a minute. Viktor is naked and flushed and not breathing correctly, but Yuuri is at least two of those things too.

“What are you doing here?” Yuuri asks.

He doesn’t pretend not to know Viktor, like the day after the banquet. And it’s the undertone of desperate hope that bolsters Viktor’s confidence.

Maybe two negatives can make a positive.

2016

It’s after the adrenaline crash and flashing lights have faded, and Viktor and Yuuri are alone, in their hotel room, showered and in sweats, perched on the pushed-together beds that Viktor feels an attack coming on again. He hasn’t had one in so long.

Yuuri nudges Viktor’s leg with his foot. There is a hole in the heel of his sock.

“So,” Yuuri says. “Next season.”

Viktor loves him like this, hair still damp around the edges, relaxed and serious. He loves goofy Yuuri too, but this is the calm version Yuuri never really trusts anyone else to see.

“Yeah,” says Viktor.

He misses skating like a missing limb, but he forgot the other side of the coin.

“You scared shitless?” says Yuuri.

An undignified snort bursts from Viktor.

“Obviously,” he says.

Yuuri scoots in, so that he’s wedged snug into Viktor’s side, and pulls out his phone.

“You already have a PS3,” Viktor says as Yuuri sends a message to the craigslist user.

“Yeah, but I doubt your apartment does,” says Yuuri. “Unless you wanted to get a new place together?”

“After all the work I put into decorating?” Viktor says indignantly.

Yuuri kisses Viktor’s neck, just at the juncture of his jaw, tender and unhurried, with a casual possessiveness Viktor never thought he’d know.

Viktor shivers and leans in.

Yuuri’s lips move up the side of Viktor’s face. Viktor can feel them curve into a smile.

“You know,” Yuuri murmurs, hand warm against Viktor’s side, “this grey hoodie blends in exactly with your hair.”

“This is heather,” Viktor tells him, and tugs the edges of Yuuri’s hair — just becoming long enough for a ponytail.

ao3 // all my fic

[symphorine]

3, 4, 11, 14, 17, 22, 25, 40, 45, 49 (on how to start a first chap!!) for the fanfic asks!! also you have the same name as my sister!

really?? i know maybe like 4 people with my name so it’s a funny coincidence :D

3. name three favorite writers

I can’t not name Terry Pratchett, who’s maybe the writer i admire the most. like, ever. other than that i like most of Glen Cook’s books and i grew up with Pierre Bottero’s fantasy series Ewilan, so he’s very dear to my heart.

if we’re talking fanfic writers it’s @tobioslilgiant @authorkurikuri and @topftopf and @candy-harlot​ (yeah i know i’m cheating but HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO CHOOSE HONESTLY)

4. name three authors that were influential to your work and tell why

Terry Pratchett, for reason i could go on for hours about; Pierre Bottero, for writing books that were both formative as a person and a writer (and giving me the female protag and hero in a fantasy world that i fucking deserved); aaaaand though i havn’t read any of his books (yet), Brandon Sanderson. I’ve been watching  his lectures about writing and they’re really interesting and useful

11. do you listen to music when writing? 

rarely, actually. it depends on my mood and on the tone of what i’m writing, so i can’t even really tell you what i listen to

14. easiest character to write

Kuroo probably

(this got pretty long, esp the writing advice, so the rest is under the cut)

17. favorite AU to write 

i’m gonna take that as a plural and say college au, aged-up au, POST BREAK UP AU, space pirates au (which i still have to do but god do i want to), magic au (usually casual magic), and probably more that i can’t remember rn.

i just. really love aus.

22. favorite story you’ve ever written

amongst my fics, it’s Expectations i think (iwaoi with ace oikawa), both because i wrote it like i’d been given divine inspiration and because i met amanda thanks to it

amongst everything i’ve ever written, even if it’s garbage (i wrote it for nano last year) and not finished, it’s areina’s story, which i know nobody knows anything about but it’s my baby

25. favorite line you’ve ever written

actually comes from my leverage fic, but it’s a toss up between two lines, “[...]kids were scary. She knew firsthand how much you could fuck them up for life, and you didn't get a second try” and “She had held gems worth billions in her hands and treated them with less care – and still it felt like something would go wrong any second.”

it’s just. parker with kids, man.

40. which one of your stories would you most like to see as a movie/series

either the numerous assorted issues in the life of tsukishima kei (after a rewrite) because tsukishima’s suffering entertains me, or the star wars au that i’ve started, when it’s finished

45. share the synopsis of a story you work on that you haven’t published yet

ooh for a fic, i’ve got AU, adult, post break-up ushioi who are forced to work together after a few months of total silence. it’s still in beta but if all goes well it’s going to make people hate me for the slow burn lmao

for original writing, in case ur curious after i mentionned areina: areina ran away from her people at age 14 because they were pushing her into a future she did not want. fast forward a lot of shit and about 10 years later, she and her friend hysenk work as bodyguards for caravans. things start to go downhill when jenem, who used to be her friend and was given the place and future areina dreamed of, comes to her to ask areina for help to save their family, and areina accepts (against hysenk’s opinion, which they would like everyone to note, because A LOT OF SHIT HAPPENS)

49. writing advice

i’m not sure if you want me to give you advice on how to start writing a first chapter or what kind of structure to give a first chapter.

if it’s the former, then just... write it. write and don’t look back, just take your story and characters and run with it. maybe it’ll be shit, but you can fix that after, the important part is to get started

now if it’s the latter, you have to make your first chapter interesting, you have to make the readers care about what’s gonna happen, either by obviously setting up things that will have consequences or interesting developments, and getting the reader interested in it, or by using a bait (cliffhanger, mystery, etc) and making the reader stick along to get an answer.

i find that something that’s important to establish is a good first sentence, or at the very least, a good first paragraph. first impressions are important. it doesn’t have to be an action scene with people shooting at each other, but it has to hook people in and make them care/wonder/etc. i feel like it’s maybe less necessary in fanfics, because we’ve got all the tags that tell people what this is about and even if the first paragraph isn’t a work of art most people will keep reading, because they know it’s something they’ll probably enjoy, but it’s still appreciable.

another thing important in first chapters is to give your character(s) personality early. if your characters are bland and boring, people won’t care, and if they look primarily for good characters, they won’t go further, no matter how good a plot you promise. you can make the characters fully fledged people later, when you have time to expand on it, but you’ve got to give them relief from the start. i find that a good way to do that is dialog, personally, but something else might work better for you. again, maybe less necessary in fic, cause we know the characters already, though i find that i prefer to know early if the writer is grossly mischaracterizing my favorite characters or not

other things :don’t use the first chapter to infodump or have lenghty exposition. unless your reader is a nerd who loves being told how your world works (like me), they’ll be bored and move on to something else. you’ll have time to explain stuff later. and try not to give too many proper names, either of people or places. it’s usually confusing (though sometimes it can work or it would seem illogical to skip names, in a conversation for example). again, you’ll have time to tell more later.

TL;DR: use a hook in the first lines, make your characters interesting, and give the reader something to look forward to, even if it’s resolved in the very next chapter

thank you anon!! and i hope the wall i wrote in guise of writing advice helps you ^^’ you’re welcome to come talk to me about writing anytime!