#Probably wrote John out of character anyways

[pynkhues]

I would LOVE to read your analysis of louis as byronic hero as apposed to his reading as gothic heroine. lots of the latter and zero of the former in the fandom.

Sure! Mmm, okay, so –

What are we talking about when we talk about Gothic Heroes?  

When we talk about gothic heroes, we’re really talking about three pretty different character archetypes. All three are vital to the genre, but some are more popular in certain subgenres i.e. your Prometheus Hero may be more common in gothic horror, whereas your Byronic Hero might be more likely to be found in gothic romance. That’s not to say they’re exclusive to those subgenres at all, and there is an argument that these archetypes themselves are gendered (in many ways, I think people confuse Anne being an author of the female gothic with Louis being a gothic heroine, but I’ll get into that later), but this is also not necessarily something that’s exclusive.

Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself, haha, so the three gothic hero archetypes are:

Milton’s Satan who is the classic gothic hero-villain. You can probably guess from the name, but he was originated in John Milton’s 1667 poem, Paradise Lost. He is God’s favourite angel, but God is forced to cast him out of heaven when he rebels against him. As an archetype, he’s a man pretty much defined by his pride, vanity and self-love, usually fucks his way through whatever book or poem he’s in, has a perverted, incestuous family, and a desire to corrupt other people. He’s also defined as being “too weak to choose what is moral and right, and instead chooses what is pleasurable only to him” and his greatest character flaw, in spite of all The Horrors, is that he’s usually easily misguided or led astray. (I would argue that Lestat fits into this archetype pretty neatly, but that’s a whole other post.)

Prometheus who was established as a gothic archetype by Mary Shelley with Frankenstein in 1818. Your Prometheus Hero is basically represented by the quest for knowledge and the overreach of that quest to bring on unintended consequences. He’s tied, of course, to the Prometheus of Greek myth, so you can get elements of that in this character design too in that he can be devious or a trickster, but the most important part of him is that he is split between his extreme intelligence and his sense of rebellion, and that his sense of rebellion and boundary pushing overtakes his intelligence and basically leads to All The Gothic Horrors.

And the Byronic Hero, who as the name implies, was both created by and inspired by the romantic poet, Lord Byron in his semi-autobiographical poem, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage which was published between 1812-1818. The archetype is kind of an idealized version of himself, and as historian and critic Lord Macaulay wrote, the character is “a man proud, moody, cynical, with defiance on his brow and misery in his heart, a scorner of his kind, implacable in revenge, yet capable of deep and strong affection.” Adding to that, he’s often called ‘the gloomy egoist’ as a protagonist type, hates society, is often self-destructive and lives either exiled or in a self-exile, and is a stalwart of gothic literature, but especially gothic romance. Interestingly too, in his most iconic depictions he’s often a) darkly featured and/or not white (Heathcliff being the most obvious example of this given Emily Bronte clearly writes him as either Black or South Asian), and b) is often used to explore queer identity, with Byron himself having been bisexual.

Okay, but what about the Gothic Heroine?

Gothic heroines are less delineated and have had more of an evolution over time, which makes sense, given women have consistently been the main audience of gothic literature and have frequently been the most influential writers of the genre too. The gothic genre sort of ‘officially’ started with Horace Walpole’s 1764 novel, The Castle of Otranto and Isabella is largely regarded as the first gothic heroine and the foundation of the archetype, and the book opens even with one of the key defining traits – an innocent, chaste woman without the protection of a family being pursued and persecuted by a man on the rampage.

The gothic heroine was, for years, defined by her lack of agency. She was innocent, chaste, beautiful, curious, plagued by tragedy and often, ultimately, tragic. Isabella survives in The Castle of Otranto, but she’s one of the lucky ones – Cathy dies in Wuthering Heights, Sybil dies in The Picture of Dorian Gray, Justine and Elizabeth both die in Frankenstein, Mina survives in Dracula, but Lucy doesn’t. There’s an argument frequently posited that the gothic genre was, and is, about dead women and the men who mourn them, and Interview with the Vampire certainly lends itself to that pretty neatly.

Of course, the genre has evolved, and in particular by the late 1800s, there was a notable shift in how the Gothic Heroine was depicted. The house became a place of imprisonment where they were further constrained and disempowered, she was infantilized and pathologized and diagnosed as hysterical, and as Avril Horner puts it in her excellent paper, Women, Power and Conflict: the Gothic heroine and ‘Chocolate-box Gothic’, gothic literature of this era “explores “the constraints enforced [by] a patriarchal society that is becoming increasingly nervous about the demands of the ‘New Woman’.”

This was an era where marriage was increasingly understood in feminist circles to be a civil death where women were further subjugated and became the property of their husbands. This was explored through gothic literature as the domestic space evolved into a symbol of patriarchal control in the Female Gothic.

Female Gothic vs Male Gothic

Because here’s the thing – the female gothic and the male gothic are generally understood to be two different subgenres of gothic literature.

While there are plenty of arguments as to what this entails, the basics is that the male gothic is written by men, and usually features graphic horror, rape and the masculine domination of women and often utilises the invasion of women’s spaces as a symbol of further penetrating their bodies, while the female gothic is written by women, and usually features graphic terror, as opposed to horror, while delving more specifically into gender politics. More than that though, its heroines are usually victimized, virginial and powerless while being pursued by villainous men.

The Female Gothic as a genre is also specifically interested in the passage from girlhood to female maturity, and does view the house as a place of entrapment, but she is usually suddenly “threatened with imprisonment in a castle or a great house under the control of a powerful male figure who gave her no chance to escape.”

That’s not Louis’ arc, that’s Claudia’s arc twice over, first with the house at Rue Royale, then with the Paris Coven, and Lestat and Armand aren’t the only powerful male figures who imprison her.

Claudia as the Gothic Heroine

Claudia in many ways is the absolute embodiment of the classic gothic heroine. Even the moment of their meeting is a product of Louis’ Byronic heroism – his act of implacable revenge against the Alderman Fenwick which prompts the rioting that almost kills her. She’s a victim of Louis’ monstrousness before they’ve even met, and while he saves her, he arguably does something worse in trapping her in the house with both himself and Lestat, holding her in an ever-virginal, ever-chaste eternal girlhood, playing into Lestat’s Milton-Satan by enhancing the perversion of family and ultimately infantilizing her out of his own desire for familial closeness.

Claudia has no family protection before Louis and Lestat – a staple of the gothic heroine – she is completely dependent on them in her actual girlhood, and again in adulthood, never developing the strength to be able to turn a companion, to say nothing about the sly lines here and there that further diminish and pathologise her (Lestat calling her histrionic, Louis making her out to be a burden, etc.). This is all further compounded again with the Coven, and when the tragedy of her life ultimately leads to the tragedy of her death.  

Louis as the Byronic Hero

Not to start with a quote, but here’s one from The Literary Icon of the Byronic Hero and its Reincarnation in Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights:

“Generally speaking, the Byronic hero exhibits several particular characteristics. He does not possess heroic virtues in the usual, traditional sense. He is a well-educated, intelligent and sophisticated young man, sometimes a nobleman by birth, who at the same time manifests signs of rebellion against all fundamental values and moral codes of the society. Despite his obvious charm and attractiveness, the Byronic hero often shows a great deal of disrespect for any figure of authority. He was considered "the supreme embodiment [...] standing not only against a dehumanized system of labor but also against traditionally repressive religious, social, and familial institutions" (Moglen, 1976: 28).

The Byronic hero is usually a social outcast, a wanderer, or is in exile of some kind, one imposed upon him by some external forces or self-imposed. He also shows an obvious tendency to be arrogant, cunning, cynical, and unrepentant for his faults. He often indulges himself in self destructive activities that bring him to the point of nihilism resulting in his rebellion against life itself. He is hypersensitive, melancholic, introspective, emotionally conflicted, but at the same time mysterious, charismatic, seductive and sexually attractive.”

Louis as he exists in the show to me is pretty much all of those things, and I think to argue that he’s a gothic heroine not only diminishes Claudia’s arc, but robs Louis of his agency within his own story. Louis chooses Lestat, over and over again, he’s not imprisoned by the monster in the domestic sphere, he is one of the monsters who’s controlling the household, including making decisions of when they bring a child into it and when Lestat gets to live in it – he wanted to be turned, he wanted to live with Lestat in Rue Royale, and while there are certainly arguments to be made about their power dynamic within the household in the NOLA era, importantly Louis actually gained social power through his marriage to Lestat, particularly through The Azaelia, he didn’t lose it in the way that’s vital to the story of the gothic heroine.

Daniel Hart even said it in a recent twitter thread about Long Face, but there is an element of Lestat and Louis’ relationship that is transactional, and to me, for that to exist, they both have to have a degree of control over their circumstances and choices in order to negotiate those transactions. Claudia is the one who can’t, she’s the one who’s treated effectively as property, and she’s the one who lacks control over her circumstances.

While you could perhaps argue the constraints of the apartment in Dubai lend more to the gothic heroine archetype, I’d argue it as furthering the Byronic trope again by being representative both of Louis’ self-destruction and self-imposed exile. As Jacob has said a few times, Louis does seem to have known to a degree that Armand was involved in Claudia’s death on some level, and it’s that guilt and misery that has him allowing Armand his degree of control. The fact that Louis was able to leave Armand as easily and as definitively as he was I think demonstrates that distinction too – after all, to compare that ending to Claudia’s multiple attempts to leave the confines of the patriarchal house, both in Rue Royale and Paris, which were punished at every turn – first by her rape, then by Lestat dragging her back off the train, and then by the Coven orchestrating her murder.

Louis gets to leave because Louis can leave, he has both the social and narrative power to, and the fact that he does is, to me, completely at odds with the gothic heroine. Louis can, and does advocate for himself, Louis is proud, moody, cynical. Defiance is a key part of his character, just as his exile from NOLA society due to his race, and his chosen rejection of vampire society in Paris, is. He’s intelligent and sophisticated, travels the world, and has misery in his heart, guilt that eats him up, and self-destructive tendencies. That’s a Byronic Hero, baby!  

[aangelinakii]

THEIR TASTE IN MOVIES.

characters written about in this piece : bruce wayne, dick grayson, jason todd, tim drake, damian wayne, barbara gordon, duke thomas, stephanie brown, cassandra cain

note : i lit thought of this last night and wrote it within 12 hours is this my comeback

BRUCE WAYNE

you guys are gonna hateee meee 💀💀💀💀 but i think bruce wayne is an avid documentary watcher. he likes living in real life, likes knowing everything he is experiencing is real. and he likes being in the know of the topics circulating the planet he's living on. he's not a reality tv person though (although he may have a super super guilty pleasure of love island uk that tim and barb found out and he literally threatened them to keep to themselves, but they use as blackmail anyway).

movies i think he would like :

fyre: the greatest party that never happened, 2019. directed by chris smith

how to catch a serial killer, 2018. directed by john holdsworth

athlete a, 2020. directed by bonni cohen & jon shenk

the hatchet wielding hitchhiker, 2023. directed by colette camden

DICK GRAYSON

the total opposite of bruce, i can see dick watching more idyllic things, and just feel good ! he might like a nice biopic, but is really picky (pun unintended) about them. he also enjoys musicals !! but musicals that focus on realism and story instead of theatricals, like i think he'd pass on moulin rouge, just because there's so much going on at one time. also likes media he consumed from when he was younger, he likes the fuzziness of nostalgia.

movies i think he would like :

the greatest showman, 2017. directed by michael gracey

a knight's tale, 2001. directed by brian helgeland

the truman show, 1998. directed by peter weir

bohemian rhapsody, 2018. directed by bryan singer

JASON TODD

jason loves an action movie. he so wouldn't tell anybody, but if he likes a move he's seen in a film, he'll try it on patrol, taking out one of penguin's henchmen, or even when just training in the bat cave. but he loves films where a lot's going on and the choreography is really impressive !! he really admires fight choreographers for being able to make them look realistic, and likes to laugh at the ones that are shite.

movies i think he would like :

bullet train, 2022. directed by david leitch

scarface, 1983. directed by brian de palma

kingsman: the secret service, 2014. directed by matthew vaughn

john wick, 2014. directed by chad stahelski (and all the sequels)

TIM DRAKE

this guy prefers to watch alone, meaning he can experience sadder watched exactly how they're meant to be watched; in tears. he probably struggles to be emotional, so also watching films like these is an outlet for him. i love how with all of these their films are like a guilty pleasure thing they wouldn't tell anyone. i think people's choice in film is very telling though, so...

la la land, 2016. directed by damien chazelle

manchester by the sea, 2016. directed by kenneth lonergan

aftersun, 2022. directed by charlotte wells

dead poets society, 1989. directed by peter weir

DAMIAN WAYNE

we all know damian wayne is an... interesting species. i feel like even though he knows it is an unlikely scenario, he has figures out everything he would do in a zombie apocalypse, but hasn't told anybody, and would actively make fun of someone who has done the same. like he knows what weapons he'd need, where he'd go, how he'd make an antidote. what i'm trying to say is he likes zombie movies, and horror movies. it feels like he's testing himself, on his ability to be scared or prepared in these or future scenarios. even tho he doesn't actually get that scared. also doesn't mind foreign films, he thinks they're better at telling a story.

movies i think he would like :

train to busan, 2016. directed by yeon sangho

split, 2016. directed by m night shyamalan

hereditary, 2018. directed by ari aster

long legs, 2024. directed by osgood perkins

BARBARA GORDON

i can see barbara enjoying older films, like she likes films that show what life used to be like, and why it may have been better then, and why it may be better now. she's a very philosophical person, always thinking about shit like that. might be a black and white fan, but i'm talking technicolour classics ! she likes a good romance as well, but not ones she cries too, ones that are more feel-good and make her crave the love from that movie.

movies i think she would like :

how to lose a guy in 10 days, 2003. directed by donald petrie

west side story, 1961. directed by jerome robbins & robert wise

funny face, 1957. directed by stanley donen

notting hill, 1999. directed by roger michell

STEPHANIE BROWN

this girl will watch ANYTHING like she has such a wide taste. i said that with her music taste too, like i think she could find a way to enjoy anything. she doesn't like film bro films too much, thinks they're poo and they stink and if you're a guy and you like them you stink too and "get no bitches", but obviously that's up to opinion. obviously. although she will watch anything, i think she has a preference for comedies, and that can come in any shape and form!

movies i think she would like :

scooby doo, 2002. directed by raja gosnell

scary movie, 2000. directed by keenan ivory wayans

white chicks, 2004. directed by keenan ivory wayans

mean girls, 2004. directed by mark waters

DUKE THOMAS

duke likes epic films, like if we ignore for a sec that we're in the dc universe, he would love the batman films, especially the nolan trilogy. but he also would actually be a huge marvel fan, i can totally see it. so he likes superhero films, and he's def a fan of comedy, so if it's mixed into one genre, that's a winner for him. he likes movie nights with the family, so sitting down and getting snacks. probably loves the cinema too, so goes to see the new releases every month. isn't too picky.

movies i think he would like :

deadpool & wolverine, 2024. directed by shawn levy

kick-ass, 2010. directed by matthew vaughn

the harder they fall, 2021. directed by jeymes samuel

top gun: maverick, 2022. directed by joseph kosinski

CASSANDRA CAIN

cassandra watches MASTERPIECES. she definitely has a letterboxd account and writes wayyy too much than she needs to about a film, no matter if she loved it, hated it, or was in the middle about it. she adores foreign films, and loves films with a message. she'll watch and enjoy a film with no plot, but can get tired of them. she likes a packed plot that keeps her focused.

mustang, 2015. directed by deniz gamze ergüven

oslo, august 31st, 2011. directed by joachim trier

eat drink man woman, 1994. directed by ang lee

devdas, 2002. directed by sanjay leela bhansali

[i-love-ptv]

“Lana, How I Hate Those Guys” ୨୧

Pairing: Sarah Cameron x Fem!Reader

Fluff, Sarah being the bestest friend ever, slight JJ and Kie slander (srry i love them tho), slight twist at the end ;)

Wc: 1,181 (ish)

An: Woah chat, character unlocked 😈 Why does literally nobody write anything for her?? Platonic or not 😰

Randomly wrote this?? Also way longer than I’d thought it’d be?? Hope you enjoy tho!

Feedback always appreciated bbs! <33

“Oh my god Sarah, like what the fuck does he mean that we were just ‘friends with benefits?’ It sure didn’t feel like it when he’d be practically wrapped around my body during every bonfire.” You exclaim with a huff.

You knew it wouldn’t be just smooth sailing when you met JJ.

You had heard of his reputation of course. A new girl wrapped around his arm every week, touron or not.

But for some reason, you had hoped that you two could somehow be something more. You’d be lying if you said that you hadn’t fallen for the blonde rather quickly. Obviously, every other girl in Kildare couldn’t refrain from falling for JJ’s charm and sweet tone.

You unfortunately, suffered like the rest, that were just tossed aside when he got bored. When you met JJ at the boneyard of the cut, he had called your whole “arrangement” or what not, off.

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, did you know that his name isn’t even JJ? it’s short for fucking John Jay.” Sarah says with a snicker.

“No fucking way, are you serious?”

“Dead.”

She continues, “Like oh my god, John has to be the most generic name ever, plus it radiates dickhead energy.”

“…Your boyfriend also has the name John..?”

“Okay yeah, but we’re talking about JJ right now. Anyways, don’t let it get to your head babe, he’s just a stupid douchebag asshole- sorry can you relax your hand f’me?” Sarah says while she paints your nails.

It’s moments like these where you’re grateful for a bestfriend like her, despite all of the running around she’s doing with the pouges to get the gold, you both know that she’d drop everything in a heartbeat for you.

The two of you have been friends since childhood, originally meeting in the 2nd grade.

You both easily bonded due to coming from similar backgrounds; you were a kook as well.

You look up at her eyes and softly gasp, “Oh shit! Sorry. Anyways, I bet he’s got another girl in his bed right now. Y’know what? He’s probably busy trying to get into Kiara’s pants.”

“No pogue on pogue macking,” you scoff in a mocking tone.

“It’s actually such bullshit, I see the way that he looks at her, and of course I see how her eyes somehow always drift to him. I don’t know if she thinks I’m fucking stupid or if she’s dumb herself, but I figured that it’d pass. After all, didn’t she kiss Pope and John B?”

“Mhm, I think she just strives for attention, y’know? She’s always getting all pissy when I come around, maybe it’s ’cause I’m dating Bee and she’s not.” Sarah murmurs.

“You’re all done, by the way.”

You fall back onto the pillows on her bed.

“Boys are just so dumb Sar.” You groan.

“Definitely. Also watch your nails, hon.”

Sarah also lays back onto her pillows, leaning on one arm.

There’s a few beats of silence between you two, just relishing in the moment while SZA’s ‘The Weekend’ plays softly through Sarah’s speaker.

“That’s it. No more moping and being gloomy. It’s a nice night out! We should do something!” Sarah exclaims.

You look at her with a quirked brow, “First of all, I don’t mope, second, what could we possibly do at this hour?”

“That’s the thing! We can just plan it along the way! That makes thing 10 times more fun.” The blonde says with a grin.

You think for a few seconds, and come to your conclusion, “Actually, yeah! That sounds good. Let’s go.”

Sarah squeals and jumps up from the bed, pulling you with her.

You and Sarah quickly pull on your hoodies, since that night chill will surely get to you both, and the two of you slide your flip flops onto your freshly painted toes.

Sarah grabs her speaker and keys, and put them into her tote bag, the one she had painted the day you two had made your ‘bikini crates’.

The two of you giggle while somewhat rushing down the stairs, without a care in the world.

“Sarah? Where are you two going?” You hear Rose call out.

Sarah looks at you with a glint of mischief in her eyes. She grabs your hand and with that, you both left.

You and Sarah had been running around outside for around an hour, your flip flops slapping against the pavement as you skipped around yelling the lyrics to ‘Melt’ by Kehlani.

You two had somehow managed to make it to figure 8 beach. There was something about it that always lured you and Sarah to it.

Sarah doesn’t hesitate to kick off her flip flops and set down her tote bag.

“C’mon babe! Get in with me!” Sarah shouts as she giggles and makes grabby-hands out towards you.

“But we don’t have any bathing suits!” You shout back, equally as loud.

“Who cares?! It’s just us!”

Sarah strips down and then looks at you expectantly.

You sigh, and begin to pull your hoodie over your head.

“Hell yeah sexy! Free those tittiesssss!” She drags out.

She grabs your hand after you finish, and starts running towards the water.

“Christ Sarah! Slow the hell down!” You shout while trailing behind her.

As you start to feel the water work its way up to the middle of your calves. Sarah looks back at you and yells, “Jump!”

You both dive make a splash, you find one another whilst you're underwater.

You come up with her, with your hands around her neck.

You brush her wet hair out of her face and look deeply into her eyes.

Her eyes remind you of the tree bark that you used to hug and climb when you both were younger, well, the bark that you would climb.

Sarah was never able to do these kind of activities, for her parents were stricter than yours. But this wouldn’t stop her from watching, and cheering you on.

That’s one of the things you loved about Sarah.

How despite your interests somewhat clashing, she still remained by your side.

You grew fond of how she opened herself up to the world and allowed herself to do more, very quickly.

You were never upset when she started hanging out with the pogues, in fact, you encouraged it. You wanted her to be happy, and you hoped that she’d allow you to stick around to see it, thankfully, she did.

Sarah’s whisper breaks you out of your thoughts, “Boys totally suck right? They’d never have this much fun with us.”

“Right.” You say, just as soft.

You continue to stare at her.

“Take a picture, it’ll last longer.”

“Shut up, loser.” You say with a slight grin, nothing but affection coming from your semi-chapped lips.

You’re glad that she drops everything for you in a heartbeat.

But you also wish that maybe, just maybe, she’d look at you differently..The way that you look at her.

But until then, you’ll still remain grateful for a bestfriend like her.

Fuck JJ. God, John B’s one lucky bastard.

[riggedtraps]

IT'S ALL BULLSHIT, IT'S ALL A LIE...

...AND I'M JUST A PAWN IN YOUR STUPID GAMES.

Hi, I'm Amanda. Or you can call me Mandy, I don't care. I'm 29. I guess I'm a woman, but I don't care about that either. She/her or they/them is fine, maybe even he/him if you want. Definition of the 'mean lesbian' stereotype.

I work for Jigsaw, so watch what you say around me. He helped me and maybe He can help you, too. DMs and asks from anyone is fine.

I should probably mention I have BPD. Petulant, impulsive and self destructive. So if I'm rude, it's probably me being a cunt, not you.

that intro better be in character or ill cry </3

anyway ooc introduction!!

i'm gia, i use they/them pronouns. im agender (and so is amanda, she just doesnt know it yet!). i also have bpd too, so yes, will be accurate to my experiences. im a minor so nothing too nsfw or gross.

literally anyone can interact! whether ur a rp blog or not, i will literally roleplay with anyone, even oc blogs (y'all are so cool). send me asks or dm me, whatever works. any ships too, i dont mind, though ofc mandys only romantically interested in women and nonbinary folks, but platonic ships with anyone works! :3C

i'm making this because im obsessed with saw rn its my special interest and i kin amanda so hard <3 first ever roleplay blog ive ran, so excuse any mistakes. gonna try keep amanda in character as much as possible, but may add a few headcanons in here and there. if she's ooc, please excuse that too. 🙏

of course, it's amanda so there's gonna be triggers for self harm, suicidal tendencies, mental health, and then general triggers for the saw franchise. will tag things such as self harm with 'tw self harm' or 'tw cutting' so block those if you don’t wanna see it.

also gonna reblog stuff i think amanda would like, so stuff like punk, goth, music stuff—but also blood, weapons, horror. not full gore but implications of it. will trigger tag them, so block those if you don't wanna see it.

gonna use ❪ ❫ for when out of character. e.g ❪hii!! :3❫

'꩜—mandy rants' : making in character posts

'꩜—gia rants' : ooc posts

'꩜—mandy answers' : tag to keep track of answering asks

'꩜—mandy rps' : for roleplay threads

'꩜—mandy writes' : short stories i imagine amanda wrote as a hobby/vent

my main blog: @messyscarletdreams

'♫—mandy's playlist' : songs i associate with amanda/think she'd like

each blog i interact with will have their own tag of their user for easier tracking

each character i interact with has a tag with amanda e.g '❪ john & amanda. ❫'

my saw oc blog: @poor-impulsecontrol

[wehangout]

Another @shamelessdvdcommentary requested by the wonderful @suzy-queued with questions made by the amazing @callivich! This one is for Slick back My Hair (You know the Devil's in There)! These are a lot of fun, so hit me up if you want to see this for a different fic 😘

Give us some stats - (when you wrote it, word count, how long it took to finish, is it a one-shot/multi-chapter, etc)

Wrote it in 2015! It’s a long one-shot, and I think my second ever shameless big bang.

What was the initial inspiration for your story?

Okay. Took me a minute. I knew this was inspired by a one-shot I wrote for GW2015 that has since been taken down, but I also knew the one-shot was inspired by something and it took forever to go back and figure it out. Anyway, the initial one-shot was inspired by the Day 7 theme of “Imagine Your OTP – go to the website http://otpprompts.tumblr.com/ and choose a prompt!”. I don’t recall what the exact prompt was (I think digging a grave together), BUT apparently I still have the one-shot posted here on tumblr if you wanna read it! So, yeah, the Big Bang fic was inspired by this one-shot which was inspired by GW2015. Phew. That was a novel on its own

If the story is written from a character’s POV, why did you choose this character?

Mickey. Because I am me.

What was your favourite scene to write?

I’m not sure, but reading back, I really like the scenes with side characters as assasins. Sheila, Jimmy, and Angela. Fun stuff.

How did you come up with the title?

Ugh. This was back when iTunes was a thing lmao. I basically went through all my music, picking out songs I thought might fit the fic’s plot, then went through the lyrics.

Are there any little moments or references you hope readers will notice?

Two! I had fake IDs with the names John Foley and Axel McClane which is a reference to John McClane and Axel Foley – Die Hard and Beverly Hills Cop respectively. And I also had this line “Two inches to the right and it would’ve hit your fucking heart, Ian.” "Two inches to the left and it would have missed me completely” which was reference to The Mighty Ducks. Only one reader picked up on these lol.

Was there anything you struggled to write? If so, how did you overcome this?

The Terry fight scene. And, honestly, I just pushed through it.

Favourite line in the story?

Okay, the “My hero” continuation, but also, back in 2015, I wrote, word for word, “Knew you’d come.” I mean, it’s Ian saying it, but obvi why it’s a fave lmao

What are you most proud about in the story? (plot, characterisation, dialogue, twist/cliffhanger, etc)

I wouldn’t call them twists, but the little surprises that turn up along the way – Sheila being a badass, the texter being Mandy.

Are there any ‘behind the scenes’ info you’d like to share - e.g. what’s going on in a characters head in a certain scene or how you came to write a certain line?

At the end, where Mickey goes to save Ian. Ian’s “goodbye” is legit. Dude was sure they (at least he) was going to die.

Reading back the story now, is there anything you’d change or add?

It’s very quick. I’d probably add more depth to it. (also the title shh)

Would you ever write a sequel to this story?

I’ve considered it, but one half of the dynamic duo gets taken in this one. What other plot could there be?

Are there any ‘easter eggs’ in your story - e.g. references to other stories you’ve written, a trope you often use etc?

I think I did the big Oh moment in this, along with a few others. I think that’s about it.

If you’ve chosen your most popular story, are you surprised by the popularity?

This is definitely not my most popular, lol, but I appreciate the love it’s received!

Were you nervous or excited to post this story?

Oh, always excited

Did you have a beta or a friend who helped you as you wrote?

I did! Again, this was back in 2015 when my pal Ella @hubrisandwax was still around. We had similar time zones, so we’d Skype and write at night (poetry, bitch), and have our own little sprints. She was my cheerleader and beta!

Anything else you’d like the readers to know about the story?

I know this is an Ian and Mickey romance, but I actually preferred the scenes after Ian was taken. Getting into Mickey’s head when he’ll do literally anything to get Ian back? Including torture and murder his own brother? That shit was fun.

[leupagus]

Three-Legged Puppy Fics

List five of your least-popular fics, as well as when/why you wrote them.

Home to the Weary: Merlin, Gwen/Morgana, 2010.

I wrote this at the request of a friend who wanted, I think, something Gwen-centric. Because I was not a fan of the show I decided to focus on an AU in which Gwen backflipped out of that whole situation and founded her own sort of kingdom, only meeting the terrible trio years later. It was really fun and was the first time I'd ever tried writing a fic that hinted at a larger world going on around the characters, if that makes sense. This one's a little pretentious but you can definitely see my "style" as it were.

Treads on the Ground: Babylon (not the sci-fi show, the short-lived british cop show), Liz Garvey/Finn Kirkwood, 2022.

This was written during my Bertie Carvel phase where I'd watched "Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell" and was desperate for something, anything, that didn't have him wearing terrible prosthetics or playing a psycho. He still sort of plays a psycho in this show, but he looks super hot and angry all the time which is really all I needed. (Also bonus hilarity: Liz's boyfriend in this show is played by none other than James Lance, playing "louche asshole" to the absolute hilt.) Anyway I wrote this because I really wanted a fake dating AU for these two AND a "Finn is secretly in line to the throne" fic and this was the perfect way to combine these two. I'm still legitimately really proud of thsi fic.

The Bright Relief: 1776 musical, John Adams & Thomas Jefferson (and a little bit of / in there, if I'm honest), 2010.

I wrote this because my friends waldorph and screamlet and I were having the Summer of 1776 Feelings and we all wrote various (wonderful) crimes and misdemeanors in that fandom, mostly revolving all the ways in people who love John Adams make fun of him. That was a truly terrible summer but made a whole lot better by those two, and by William Daniels being the most John Adams to ever John Adams. (I actually rewatched the miniseries a few months ago and Paul Giamatti does a great job but that thing is SO DREARY. Although I will say Stephen Dillane first caught my eye in the role of TJeff, aka once again playing a guy who's down real bad for someone smarter than him (in this case both Abigail AND John). The scene where he first meets Abigail is just nonstop flirting, with John making faces in the background. It's great.)

Happy Tails To You (Until We Meet Again): SGA, Rodney McKay/John Sheppard, 2009.

Oh lordy — probably the worst fic I've ever written, but I can't quite bring myself to delete it. I've been on the periphery of fandom for most of my adult life (what up X-Files yahoo groups and Prodigy Star Trek RP rooms), but SGA was what made me start thinking of writing fic after a long period of only reading it. (Yes, there is college-era gus fic out there. No, I'm not posting it on AO3.) I never quite got a handle on Sheppard or McKay but I did enjoy writing this and the other SGA fic I wrote, but yeah this deserves its obscurity.

Honey Now I'm Not One To Complain: Dalgliesh, Adam Dalgliesh/Kate Miskin, 2022.

Another one of my "Bertie Carvel is extremely attractive when he's sad and/or a cop" flash-fandoms, although I wrote a pretty good primer on the first season that I think gives a good case for the show as a whole. I wanted to write that largely because the show is so resolutely grim and I prefer stories that are... not grim, so I gave myself the challenge of putting these guys into one of the classic tropes. I did toy with the fake dating/marriage trope but honestly I think this was funnier, and I would always rather commit to the bit.

Tagging uhhh let's see, @laiqualaurelote, @themardia, @sadcypress, @auntieclimactic, and @eyebrowofdoom, if they (or anyone else) wants to do this.

[blorb-el]

What is :dhosurro? I saw it in a fic and your post was the only thing that came up with a Google search lol. Also, I'm trying to get into Superman, so do you have any good starting places, or is it better to just bounce around? Anyways, I think you're really cool, and I love your blog. have a splendid day!!!

Anonymous asked: my bad that was YOUR fic please ignore me while I die of shame

OH NO DON'T DIE OF SHAME! it is indeed a word I made up, but the plant itself is canonical - you can read the story in the second story in Superman 236. I suppose I could have just called the flowers surrus, but I liked the idea of there being different species of this flower and this being the most aesthetically pleasing, so I appended the prefix for beautiful, which is :dhoia, to create :dhosurro (pronounced n-doh-surr-oh).

(^ that lady's jumpsuit is sick as hell. Also when I came across this story I immediately went, oh, opioids metaphor. Then like a year later I was like.... weed metaphor??? And then now I'm back to thinking it's an opioid/general addiction metaphor considering denny o'neil (who wrote the story) was pro legalization of weed but apparently struggled with alcohol addiction. Art by Dick Giordano.)

As for starting places! It really depends on how you like to read comics, if you want proper story arcs and context to things or if you're okay with a random dude showing up on the page for whom you have like 6 words of context in an editor's box. I distinctly remember the first four Superman comics I read in high school, on the advice of Some Random List Online: Birthright, All-Star, Superman For All Seasons, and Matt Wagner's Trinity oneshot. When I started getting back into Superman, I initially started with jumping around, and then pretty quickly found out that I loved the older precrisis interpretation of the character the most.

Birthright is top goddamn tier. Best origin story in my opinion. There's a moment about halfway through with a gun that made me understand not just Superman but, like, all superheroes. Mark Waid gets Superman in a way that very few writers do. I liked the art, but it isn't for everyone. If you liked Birthright, I highly recommend the current World's Finest 2022 run, with Mark Waid and Dan Mora. If you thought it was a little out there, the most 'standard' origin story is Geoff John's/Gary Frank's Superman: Secret Origins, and while I personally am a Huge Hater of John Byrne's Man of Steel it was the canonical origin story for a huge chunk of time that many comic fans love (post-Crisis, pre-Flashpoint), has admittedly good art, and is probably worth reading just for the context it gives to the era.

On a similar 'origin story' note I think that all Superman fans should read the first few issues of Action Comics, 1-10 or so. They're amazingly snappy - you can tell Siegel and Schuster assembled the story of Action 1 out of proposed newspaper strips, with the result that said action comes fast and furious. I also adore Action 12, wonderful wish fulfillment where Superman goes after irresponsible driving.

Superman: For All Seasons is a good story, I'm just not a huge Tim Sale fan. If you liked it, especially the art, Superman: Kryptonite is also a great story if kind of tricky to track down. It's in Superman: Confidential.

All Star Superman is a fantastic story and I don't regret reading it as one of my first four comics at all, but I think it works better the more you love Superman - every time I come back to it I get more out of it, and it's out of continuity so you can fit it in whenever. Morrison's stated goal was to write the version of Superman you see on a cereal box, and they get to break down the psychology behind the icon. It's a great book to show you the flawed, fascinating 'man' behind the super. If you liked ASS' (lol) general 'anything can happen' vibe, check out Morrison's N52 Action Comics run for another take on an origin story told out of linear time that has a lower powered, T-shirt clad Superman start with facing down corrupt bankers and end by facing down a cosmic bully. If you were eh on the writing style but liked the examination of how Clark balances being Superman and Clark Kent, the storyline 'Who Took the Super Out of Superman?' is an interesting Bronze Age look at the balance.

The Matt Wagner Trinity is just a really good look at the Trinity and a fun three-issue short story, Superman in particular comes across as really great in it. If you like the idea of short, character driven, self-contained stories, Superman has some excellent Elseworlds/one shot stories. Some of my favorites are Superman: Speeding Bullets (what if Thomas and Martha Wayne had no biological children but baby Kal-El fell in their backyard?), Up In the Sky by Tom King (6 issues: a little girl gets kidnapped by aliens, superman tracks her down), Superman Smashes the Klan, and Faster than a Speeding Bullet in Superman Adventures (2013) by Matt Kindt.

If you liked the focus on interpersonal dynamics in the Trinity oneshot, one of my favorite Superman titles is DC Comics Presents, which is about 100 issues of the Pre-Crisis Superman (my favorite incarnation of the character), where every issue is a team-up. I'd recommend almost all of them, but my particular favorites are #85 with Swamp Thing by Alan Moore, the 3-part arc beginning with #27 with J'onn, Kara, and the Spectre which is Clark's first encounter with Mongul, #41 with the Joker, and #50, where Superman teams up with...Clark Kent? And of course, if you also like Batman, pretty much any run of World's Finest is worth picking up, my ultimate favorite WF issue is the original run's #289, the infamous Kryll Way of Dying. If you like lois, my favorite story with that relationship is the 2-parter Is There a Doctor in the House/Under Enemy Fire from Superman Adventures #11-12 (1996), nominally set in the DCAU continuity but very readable as a standalone. This entire run is pretty great. And if you like the Justice League, the 2000s series is justly famous, also starting with a long Morrison run, and later on including the famous Tower of Babel storyline by Mark Waid.

As for non comics, I have a rec list of STAS episodes here and a rec list of radio show episodes here! If I had to pick just one, for the radio show I'd suggest listening to Clan of the Fiery Cross for its historical value or The Headless Indian for character dynamics. For STAS I would watch the origin if you're not tired of origin stories by now, or the best standalone episode IMO is The Late Mr. Kent. btw in the superbat server we might be starting a DCAU superbat themed curated watchthrough soonish if you might be into that pspsps

The Elliot S! Maggin novels Last Son of Krypton and Miracle Monday deserve a separate bullet point because they are so fucking good. Miracle Monday is one of my two favorite Superman stories. Maggin's interpretation of Superman isn't to everyone's taste but it sure is to mine.

For other Superman media, with the understanding they all have their own flaws, I'd recommend the first Christopher Reeve movie, Justice League: Action shorts, the DCAMU's Death and Return of Superman movies, SOME episodes of DCAU's Justice League (hereafter and for the man who has everything), the 50's George Reeves show's Panic in the Sky and The Dog Who Knew Superman as well as the Reeve movie The Mole Men, Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman's pilot and further episodes if you like the clois romcom vibe, and Henry Cavill in Man of Steel, again with the understanding that all of these are more or less controversial in their own ways.

A note of caution about a few pieces of Superman media in particular: you'll see American Alien recced around. The author has been accused of being a serial rapist and has admitted to being a serial abuser at the point in his life he wrote it. I believe in the general principle of separating the artist from the art, but since this particular story is very self-expressive to the point of almost coming across as self-insert pseudo wish fulfillment, this inextricably stains the story to me. Your mileage may vary, and the author has made a public apology (which I find rather insincere, but again YMMV).

On a similar note the movie Superman Returns was directed by Bryan Singer and stars Kevin Spacey, both of whom have been credibly accused of child molestation. Even before I knew this I had some qualifications about it, but other fans like it. The plot will make much more sense if you watch the first two Reeve movies, as it's supposed to be a sequel to Superman II.

[chaotic-goodsir]

Good morning, might I interest anyone in some hyperfixated rambling re:

1) Me being wrong about Wilbur Cross and John Macnamara's canon ages.

2) The newly explained Mega Bastards SaF lore (I know it's just Actor Curt Mega's headcanon but it's canon to me now)

3) The implications for my hcs about Wilbur being the Spankoffski bros uncle and John being related to Curt?

Keeping it under a readmore so I don't annoy everyone about this, because I have a lot of thoughts.

*

So it turns out I misunderstood John and Wilbur's canon ages in Black Friday.

According to the wiki they're around 42 and around 44 respectively in 2019. I'd imagined them as being 10 years older than this and therefore in their early 30s back in 1998, but in fact they should have been only 21 and 23 in that Saf/Hatchetverse crossover fic I wrote a while ago, and they were only 28 and 30 when the portal incident happened.

The question of whether Wiley can physically age post-2005 makes this interesting, though. Was Wilbur 44 in 2005, making Wiley eternally 44? That would mean that pre-portal Wilbur was a whole 15 or 16 years older than John, which works well I guess for the canon mentor-mentee context but not so well for my own MacNaCross headcanons. I think such a big age difference would change their dynamic a lot, plus I prefer the idea of Wilbur having been promoted at a fairly young age for a PIEP colonel.

For those reasons I'm gonna go with Wilbur being 30 in 2005 and Wiley being technically 44 in Black Friday, whether or not he ages in a normal human way. The most tragic implication of this is of course that I can't call Wilbur/Wiley a boomer anymore, since being born in 1975 makes them definitely Gen X :(

But it would also make the age difference between Wil and Annie (a Hatchetfield OC of mine who is Wil's sister and Pete and Ted's mom) much larger. Ted was born in 1984, so Annie would have to be at least 10 years older than Wilbur.

Having a 10 year age difference between the Cross Siblings would be kinda cool (it parallels the Spankoffski bros age difference!!) but it does mean rethinking all my headcanons about their sibling dynamic. Plus it would make Wilbur less than 10 years older than Ted and an actual uncle since the age of 9.

- Implications for my headcanons about where the Uncle Wiley character/voice came from? Perhaps.

- Would Ted have known Wilbur better when he was growing up? Seems more likely, especially if Annie helped her younger sibling out when he left home.

- What about Ted and Wilbur knowing each other around the time of the Jenny incident and the portal? Or when Pete was born in 2002? Or Homeless Ted's reasons for queuing up in Black Friday?

MUCH to consider and perhaps draw or write about some time.

*

Anyway. On a different note:

Combining Actor Curt Mega's headcanon about Agent Curt Mega having several illegitimate children with John and Wilbur's canon ages, it's completely possible (if you like SaF/Hatchetverse crossovers) for John Macnamara to be Curt's grandson.

If John is around 42 in TGWDLM and Black Friday, then he was born around 1976. So his mother or father could easily have been born in the early fifties as one of the illegitimate children resulting from Curt's spy activities. And it's likely John wouldn't know this, if the truth was kept a secret from him - which it probably would be, if his grandmother's line of work/status was the kind where you end up being seduced for espionage reasons by the world's greatest spy.

Again: Much to think about.

[ruth-writes]

I decided to reread all of my John Green books at the beginning of the month, because (to say this in the style of John Green) 1. I haven't read them in at least five years even though I used to reread them all the time when I was a teenager, 2. it's been a while since I read fiction and I wanted to read something non-demanding and 3. now is the perfect time because I'm on vacation. So I started with An Abundance of Katherines because it was my favorite towards the end of my John Green phase, and I still really like it. Then I started Looking for Alaska, which was my favorite book for a really long time and which I've probably read the most out of all of them, and I realized that while I completely understand why I loved it so much when I was fourteen, it doesn't hold up as well in my early twenties. That doesn't mean it's bad or anything, it just means I'm not the target audience anymore. I also realized that I thought every character was interesting but I found Pudge to be incredibly annoying a lot of the time (and I get that's kind of the point because he's a teen), and I realized how much I loved Alaska as a character and how much I thought she deserved better and how much I would love the book if it was from her POV. So anyway I started writing a fic that's basically the story but from her POV, I don't know if I'm gonna finish it but I wrote what is essentially the books first chapter and I really like it (I still can't decide if the title is clever or horrible but I suck a titles anyway and just want other people to name my things for me)

[hms-no-fun]

I hope this ask doesn't come off as rude at all-- and I apologize if it does!-- but as an aspiring writer, I'm honestly really confused by some of the early choices in Godfeels, and I'm curious if I'm just not "getting it". I saw some posts about it pop up in the tag (and they WERE very shitty and rude about it :/), but I'd love to hear your explanation/take on June's big character change immediately post-realization, and especially the... "Trickster Arc", I guess it could be called? The former I get to some extent, but I'm really curious about the choice to do all THAT so early in the story with the trickster candy.

Seriously love your work, your narration is honestly a big inspiration to me in terms of how meta it gets and how close it gets to communicating directly with both the main character AND the audience!

no rudeness detected at all! this is a great question, in fact it’s one i’ve been kinda hoping someone would ask because i’ve been thinking about this stuff a lot these last few months. but i get the sense that you’re at least a little new here, so uh, yeah, hello, when people ask me interesting questions i tend to answer at great length. so strap in for that after the break lmao. also as a note, there will be some spoilers for all of godfeels here but please don’t let that scare you away, they’re all contextless and, if anything, might honestly make the rest of the story *more* enjoyable as a result.

as far as "getting it" goes, i've talked at length about the how & why of the violence in godfeels in multiple places so i'll try to avoid rehashing that too much here. but one thing i want to emphasize right off the bat is that i never intended godfeels to be an ongoing thing. you talk about the trickster arc happening “so early in the story” but when i wrote godfeels 1 i didn’t plan on writing more. i didn’t even plan on making john trans! my idea of what the sum total of godfeels 2 would be when i started writing it wound up being completely different from the finished work. i didn’t plan to make this thing so long. i didn’t plan for june to accidentally on purpose kill her friends while drunk and then retcon it. i didn’t plan on turning the whole thing into a space opera. it all just happened to me, man. i kept writing because i kept finding more interesting things to say. and it’s important to specify that when i started gf1 i hadn’t written fiction in years. i think if you jumped ahead to godfeels 3 part 1 chapter 8, no matter how you feel about the content we’d at least be able to agree that in the years since 2019 i’ve become a much much better writer. if you want more insight into how my process has evolved, i’ve written so so so much about it, too much maybe even, in the #sarahposts tag.

anyway, now i want to talk about june's "big character change." the extent to which her trickster arc makes sense or feels in character seems to vary wildly from person to person. what always bugs me about "ooc" as a criticism is that godfeels starts six years and change after the end of homestuck. let's remember that the protagonists of homestuck were sixteen when the comic ended. now i want you to ask yourself if you as you were at 16 would think that you as you are now was "in character." or vice versa! probably not, right? it doesn’t even have to have been six years. i was STILL sixteen when i started to get embarrassed of who i was at sixteen!

that should be all i need to say, but it isn’t. and it doesn't really get to the core of the issue anyway. i am not nor have i ever been interested in writing "a sequel to homestuck,” even though it has kind of just become that anyway. godfeels has always been about the meaty existential drama you can tease out through the complicated character dynamics of these fucked up traumatized gods. godfeels has always been my way of analyzing the themes and ideas of homestuck, the existential ramifications of the mechanics of SBURB and the classpects and retcon (let’s remember that i wrote godfeels around the same time that i took over hosting duties on the perfectly generic podcast). godfeels has also always been about me and my trauma. i even used to joke that june was my self-insert character, though i've seen that line repeated unironically by enough people who haven't read godfeels that i've stopped saying it. because it's not true! june is very, very different from me... i just happen to see my life reflected in her eyes.

to immediately rehash what i said i wouldn't, june eg8ert arose out of my frustration with most versions of the june egbert headcanon particularly in the summer of 2019. let's call her "hairclips june." hairclips june is always smiling, usually with smiling friends, she's wearing hairclips and has nonzero tit and is A Woman Now. as i said in my video, while i don't begrudge anyone their comfort food, this simply was not my experience with coming out as a trans woman. and of all the characters, i’d always identified most with john. also i thought, you know, these kids are SERIOUSLY messed up, every single one of them has died multiple times, they've seen things and done things no one should ever have to. and retcon! god, what a mindfuck retcon is.

those are the primal ingredients of godfeels. what if june came out and everyone wasn't chill about it? some folks say that's out of character and, idk, i guess that's arguably true. but i had friends who were very vocal trans allies who’d been in queer relationships who still stopped talking to me after i came out. let me tell you i spent a lot of time fucked up in the head over how "out of character" that was for them, to the extent that i blamed myself for their reaction because surely they couldn't be so out of character. to which one might respond, well, why do this as a homestuck fic then? why not just do my own original thing instead?

and i guess the answer is that i didn't want to and i still don't, really. it's not just about the characters for me. i like the rules of the homestuck universe. i find it interesting how it mechanically reflects being a fictional narrative. and, you know, maybe it's easier for me to process violent intrusive thoughts through a character who is capable of acting on those thoughts and then immediately undoing them consequence-free. retcon is, in fact, sort of the perfect mechanism for exploring violent intrusive thoughts because it lets us play out the fantasy without lasting diegetic harm, such that we can just focus on the existential and moral questions of the phenomenon itself. and like, yeah, that’s not everyone’s cup of tea. but isn’t it still just as valid a topic to explore in fiction as anything else?

like em or not, people have intrusive thoughts. people have violent impulses. sometimes they even act on them. the unpleasantness of a phenomenon shouldn’t dictate whether it is acceptable to depict in fiction-- if anything, we ought to take our instinctive desire to look away as an urgent invitation to look closer instead. as i’ve been wont to say for years and years now, “problematic” implies a problem to be solved. that which is human is inherently complicated. to pretend it’s all good or bad excises humanity from the equation, or at least flattens the range of acceptable humanity. all of which is my extremely soapboxy way of saying (as i’ve said a million times by now), yes, godfeels june is problematic. that is in fact what godfeels is about.

there's an extent to which i think this can be blamed on how rooted we are IN june's perspective in gf1 and 2. i don't think people really appreciate the fact that godfeels 1 is john threatening to commit suicide and almost going through with it. that's the context in which her friends react poorly to her coming out; i mean, she's literally sleeping on rose's couch because everyone's so worried about her! i think that, by being completely within june's perspective for all of these events, we don't really get a good sense of the interpersonal dynamics at play (probably because i didn't even really understand them myself until later). instead we just see people who should know better acting like dicks.

i think whether or not june’s trickster arc is canonically palatable to you depends very much on whether or not you've had a dear friend disappoint you so much that you're no longer on speaking terms.

but if we want to reel this back from the abstract philosophical, maybe it’s enough to say that we just have different interpretations of these characters? they’re not monoliths, you know. different people see different things in different characters. some folks get a lot out of hairclips june and that’s okay. maybe i was a bitch about other people’s headcanons back in 2019 when redditors were calling me and my friends abusive pedophiles for liking vriska, but i gave up that fight when the redditors got what they wanted (to harass a group of queer creators offline and out of their jobs). if someone wants to woobify gamzee, whatever man, go right ahead. that ain’t my cup of tea and i personally don’t think that’s very in character either, but that’s why i don’t read it. it ain’t for me and that’s fine. i like homestuck BECAUSE these characters can mean so many things to so many people. is this variability not precisely the thing that makes the postcanon era so interesting?

i have my idea of who these characters are based on who they were in the comic and i work very hard to keep them in character, but i also don't want them to be trapped in amber. i want them to grow and change and become different people, because homestuck itself is obsessed with inescapable absolute archetypes (ie the ultimate self, or the captchalogue system) and i enjoy troubling that. i enjoy swimming in a sea of weird problematic dilemmas. that’s what’s fun about fiction for me, you can think about and write about all the most difficult and even fucked up things you like, and it definitionally cannot cause real material nonconsensual harm to another human being. and yet we get so tied up in the question of harm anyway! maybe that makes sense when talking about marvel movies, but this is fanfiction we’re talking about. this is HOMESTUCK fanfiction. if i were to go on twitter right now and post “homestuck is good” i’d end the day with at least five comments saying “lol no it’s not.” SOME OF THOSE PEOPLE WILL HAVE HOMESTUCK AVATARS. there are few things as cringe as liking homestuck even among people who like homestuck, so who cares? i like homestuck, i like the epilogues, i like hs2, and i think a pretty gargantuan majority of this fandom are subliterate babies. that’s why i don’t engage with them or make much of an attempt to bridge the gap. i think godfeels and its cool little fandom is all the better for how much work it requires of the reader to “get it” as it were. i wish more people would give it a chance, or at the very least not immediately throw me and a lot of my friends under the bus at every possible opportunity, but what can you do? i just write. people will react how they will react. what matters to me is that it stays true to itself as a work, and that it grows with me and my audience and my collaborators. trying to backpedal or soften the edges would just ruin the whole thing, likely alienate my current readers and inevitably invite even more bad faith readings. no thanks!

some folks stop reading godfeels after june's trickster arc, and i can respect that. if you get to that part of the story and don't like it, chances are you're not gonna like the rest of it! and in that sense, i guess you could say i “chose” to have june’s trickster arc happen so “early on” as a litmus test for the reader. as annoying as it can be feeling like i’m constantly having to address this exact issue, i vastly prefer it to a bunch of people hate-reading something that wasn’t made for them. but again, i didn’t know this was “early on” when i wrote it, because i didn’t plan it to happen. i didn’t intend for june to go on a killing spree, she just did it and i as writer decided, you know what? this is way more interesting than what i had planned. and then dirk became the antagonist because, oops, june coming out fucked up all the schemes he has that play out in the homestuck epilogues. and i guess in THAT sense, the palatability of godfeels depends on whether or not you liked and/or tolerated the homestuck epilogues and homestuck^2. these, too, are not for everyone. but godfeels is not a replacement for them, as some folks like to claim (god bless them). i’m not interested in rewriting homestuck or fixing its sequels. ok well that’s not entirely true, i think the epilogues did jake REAL dirty and that’s become a big focus of mine going forward. but even then, i don’t pretend the epilogues didn’t happen. in fact if you’ve read all of 3.1, you know just how cosmically important they end up being.

but this is, i guess, kind of the crux of the issue for me. june’s trickster arc happens very early on in the story, yes, and that’s deliberately challenging on a lot of levels. june spends a great deal of time being challenged by it herself! but folks who stop there (if they even make it that far) often act like the whole story is grimdark wish-fulfillment violence or me airing out my irrational hatred of Boys (????), and that's just not true. i don’t give a shit about that. we get to june's trickster arc at around the 25,000 word mark, out of the current grand total of over 400,000 words. her violence is functionally the prologue, and she spends the entire rest of this story suffering the consequences of those actions. so if i am frustrated with this line of questioning, a lot of it comes down to the fact that if you just read the rest of the story you’d see that i have in fact had all of the same thoughts you’ve likely had. i know people who think i did dirk dirty in gf2, and i actually kind of agree! which is why dirk comes back and has a difficult, complicated relationship with his past self. people complain about certain characters being ooc, which i can certainly understand because when i started godfeels i really did not have a great grasp on them! but also, if you kept reading godfeels you’d know that the tension of whether or not someone is cosmically “in character” is a huge running theme of this story. june’s friends react poorly to her coming out in part because it seems out of character for her! hell, phenomenologically how *could* june be in character after coming out when she barely even knows who she is yet? her whole thing in gf1 is that she doesn’t know who she is anymore! just realizing that you’re trans changes you, changes how you see the world, how you relate to other people. or it did for me, anyway. risk, dare, X, angel dirk, and silverbark are all sorts of caught up in this question. and if you’ve gotten to the end of 3.1 you’ll know about the concept of denexustic radiation:

and that’s just the tip of the metaphysical iceberg. all of which is to say that this is a feature, not a bug. so it’s always very funny to me when people drop out so early on only to complain about the very same problematics that i’ve spent three years and 400,000 words exploring.

BUT. but. yeah godfeels 1 and 2 are messy. the gf3 prologue is very messy. it’s a serial narrative that has changed shape multiple times over the years, and barring a bit of polish on gf1 around when i started writing gf3 i generally refuse to go back and rewrite things. there’s a lot i would do differently today, but if i had done it differently then the story as it is today would not exist. and i love this story! i might look back on gf2 and feel like it’s rushed and messy, but i know that it was the best i could do at the time. it’s a reflection of who i was as a writer then. i live with the ramifications of that for the same reason i don’t delete the old videos on my channel from before i came out/learned what communism was: because i don’t like to pretend that the present was always present. i’m a different person now, a different writer. i made mistakes, i learned, and i changed. i will continue this process for the rest of my natural life, as will you.

ultimately i guess my answer here is that godfeels is a flawed work written by a flawed person, and the extent to which readers relate to it seems to have a lot to do with how much their flaws overlap with mine. i get lots of people telling me my characters are in character. i get people telling me they’re more in character than some canon! and it’s not that i weigh those comments as more valuable, i just see it as an indication of who my audience is. i’m not writing for people who want more hiveswap, and i’m certainly not writing for people who dismissed hs^2 out of hand. i’m just writing for myself and my friends, and it just so happens that some people seem to get a lot out of it.

i’m gonna close out here by actually finally directly addressing your question with what i think you were ultimately hoping for: some writing advice.

the rules don’t exist. there are things that can make some art better or some art worse but they are not universal. the rules are fake and if you hold every story you touch to those rules, you’re gonna have a bad time. a story is not static and it is never truly yours. you discover it. sometimes you can expand it or alter it in ways but, at least in my experience, doing so more often than not just kills the whole thing-- or at least demands a complete reconceptualization. all of which takes time, and we live in a world where taking time to get in touch with and hone your craft is considered sort of a bad economic decision. but art is what it is and it does what it does and we can either play with it or we can put it in a cage.

what i like about making art is that i am not entirely in control. i have my plans, my schemes, my ideas, but the fun of writing is just putting a bunch of characters in a room together and seeing what they do. quite often they do things i would never expect, that are far truer to their character than i anticipated. my experience has always been that the more you outline a story before you write it, the harder it is to actually write that story. when i know everything that’s gonna happen on a moment to moment level, the whole thing falls dead on the page. but obviously you need to know SOME things! and i’ll say that from the inception of gf3 back in december 2019 to now, very very few of the broad strokes of my plans have changed. if you’ve read all of 3.1 you know there’s a very specific timeline at play in the backstory of a group of characters we’ll be spending a lot of time with in 3.2. there are no questions or mysteries or whatever else i’ve introduced to this story that i did not have at least the sense of an explanation for. but these are simply bullet points that dictate the endpoint of a path and suggest something of the moral/philosophical/emotional arc that needs to occur in order to get there. the real meat of it comes out in the act of writing itself, and that’s what i’m here for. it’s a gamble that doesn’t always pay off, and it does mean that i have almost 80,000 words of material i ended up rewriting or cutting sitting in a doc somewhere, but that’s worth it for me.

if art is to be relevant, it must have the capacity to make an audience uncomfortable. if art is to be essential, it must have the capacity to demand a strong reaction (positive or negative) from everyone who sees it. if art is to be true, it must have the capacity to reflect the disquiet contradictions of simple existence that we desperately wish to ignore in our daily lives. that doesn’t mean everyone has to or should read difficult art, or like it, or make it. but it has always existed and it will always exist, and i think it is essential for writers and critics alike to learn to stop themselves from mistaking a common storytelling method for THE storytelling method. and frankly, most of the art i love most in this world is art that i didn’t particularly like the first time we crossed paths.

and lastly, never forget the inarguable truth that the audience bears quite a lot of responsibility in this equation. you are never, as a writer, inflicting anything on your reader, because your reader can always opt out at any moment they wish. if something doesn’t work, yeah, that’s a problem you can fix. art is a conversation in that way, or at least ought to be. but at the same time, art has no obligation to be perfect, or smooth, or easy to consume. the rules are fake. they exist to be broken. the pursuit of perfection is a dead end. just make shit

okay this one has gone on QUITE long enough lmao i hope there’s something useful in there for you somewhere and uhhhh i hope you enjoy the rest of godfeels if you haven’t already read it!

[blade-that-was-broken]

I genuinely dont know how you can make me go insane with literally all your fics.... like how are all of them so good?????? I literally want to bash my head open and scream into the sky so god can hear how much a love your stories

Anyways, I know you already have like a million wips and on-going fics but the Jd and "hallucination" Clay one is amazing and I need more to survive the winter (also anamnestic Jd and half-life, but again, million wips so I wont actually ask u to write more about them bcs actively upgrading all of this should be genuinely inhumane). The point is..... uhm, love your work youre a genius and I want to affectionately eat your work like a wild dog keep writing 😺👍

Not me almost busting into tears and falling flat on my face. Pffftttt that can’t be me. It has been months and several people and I just cannot for the life of me wrap my head around the fact that people really, actually, like my writing.

I know it's fanfic and the characters aren't mine (I'm really sad I can write fanfic but cannot for the life of me work out a plot for my original characters) but it blows my mind! I'm so freaking glad you like it. It makes me so happy ya'll literally have no idea. Warms this lonely friendless soul LOL (no need to bash ur head and scream, God can hear you just fine haha)

I didn't want to have a million wips but I shouldn't be surprised. The list of original characters I have... the wips are pretty on par with me in terms of numbers haha

When my brain allows, I try to write some Clay and JD stuff cause that just ajdshjsbdejw I love (when it’s not them on opposite sides, that’s not my jam) and it’s just….. hmmm yeah.

Things We Lost has amnesiac JD AND Clay xD lol it’s just a one shot but I went through a bit of an amnesia JD phase for a second there.

Divided Frame of Mind has JD and hallucinations - or rather, JD thinking he does. That’s a reunion one shot fic.

And as much as I shriek about John and Spruce in Half Life… John and Clay are just oooooofffff yes. I’m a bit scared to finish a drawing of them but one of these days I’d like to. Or some kind of drawing. Idk.

As for Something to Remember, I had something written up - just a bit - for them meeting up with Bruce but someone suggested something about Bruce and Clay finding out together so I'll probably scrap it. But I also might throw the snippets out here into the internet void, depending on how I feel.

But I love, love, love answering questions so honestly, if you have a question about anything, feel free. If I feel like it's too big of a spoiler - I'll just put warnings and under a reading break. But like for real, I'm an open book.

Thank you so much though. I am so freaking happy that you like my writing. I was friends with an aspiring author for a really long time and I never really thought of myself as much of a writer. We wrote stuff, of course, and eventually I wrote fanfic (started off in Star Wars. It was a hard hitter haha) but I never really considered myself much you know, writer-y so it's truly crazy to me seeing people like my stuff.

[afewkindsofcrazy]

Bridgerton - A Brain Dump with Theories on Season 4

I skimmed An Offer from a Gentleman (Benedict's book) and am skimming/reading When He was Wicked (Francesca's book) over the weekend. And now I have theories and need to tell someone so I have more space in my brain.

I apologize for the disrespect of skimming, but I have the attention span and or patience of a goldfish. I am working on it. Promise 🤗

Anyway, below is why I think Benedict's book is next. Spoilers(?) below the cut. WARNING: Evidence is thin but hopes are high

In Benedict's book, Violet throws a masquerade ball right before she moves into a dower house which is where Benedict and Sophie meet. Violet moving out was mentioned early on in Season 3 Part 1. (I know they also discussed delaying it. Maybe we'll get more information in Part 2) But this might mean we'll get our masquerade soon 😁

Throughout the book, Whistledown chronicled what I've dubbed The Maid Wars in which everyone is stealing everyone else's lady's maids/housepeople (still calling it The Maid Wars. I should probably finish reading the book). This is also (somewhat) how Sophie comes to work for the Bridgertons. In Season 3 Episode 2, Lord Remington says Whistledown wrote about Lady Houghton stealing Lady Carter's housekeeper. The start of The Maid Wars? Laying the ground work for Sophie's appearance?

Season 3 Episode 3, Violet drops her glove and Lord Marcus Anderson - a potential love interest - picks it up. In the book, Sophie leaves Benedict with her glove as she flees from the ball. A clue? 🧐

My most convincing piece of evidence, though I was inebriated most of the weekend 🤭 Grass and "how it's so green"! 🤗 Season 3 Episode 3, Penelope tells Lord Debling that her favorite thing about nature is grass and that she loves it because it is green. In the book, Sophie tells Benedict her favorite color is green because she likes the way grass feels when she runs through it. Foreshadowing? Mad ramble? Who’s to say?

These points have me convinced that Benedict's story is next. However, in the book, he searches and pines for Sophie for two years. We could get a masquerade ball at the end of Part 2 and a Season 4 of angst. I'm not opposed but I really want to see Benedict get his season. His character in the show and book are so fun and funny. I’m so excited and impatient for his season. 😬

How I feel right now 🤣:

Other random theories if you're still here

Season 3 will end with all three Featherington sisters giving birth. Penelope will be the only one to have a boy and Colin will jokingly be called Lord Featherington by his family for the rest of his life.

We will meet Micheal Stirling briefly or as one of those "Meet my cousin" and then fade to black (Hate when that happens. The cruelest tease really. Though it would fit Michael.)

Cressida will marry Lord Debling and travel with him to get away from her family.

The Stirlings will be re-written as twins. In Francesca's book, they are cousins, but their fathers are twins. Why not put that in the show and capitalize on the acting talents of Victor Alli? (I haven't actually seen his other works. I just like how he plays John.)

The just-for-fun theory - Sophie will be re-written to be the illegitimate child of one of Queen Charlotte's sons. Why write the fantastic line "virgins to the left of me, whores to the right" if you're not going to have fun with it?

Thank you for coming to my brain dump. We'll see how it all plays out. 😊

[papaue00]

confession but i have an inkling arthur and abigail were exes, bbuuut please bear with me as i explain (and honestly feel free to fact-check anything i say here)

but first of all, let me be clear that i hate the whole “who’s jack’s father?” discourse. imo it’s pointless and frankly a boring topic, considering many characters have already affirmingly said john is jacks father. so i’m not here to make a case that arthur is jack’s father actually.

what i wanna draw attention to is the period where john left the gang for a year (which is after jack had already been born), because something roger clark said in this panel (the question starts at 41:43 and roger answers a bit later) caught my interest. basically he said there were cut dialogue that alluded to arthur and abigail’s romance, and by rhetorically asking “who knows what happened [during the 1 year john left]?” it’s hard for me not to think it’s his way of suggesting that’s when the relationship happened.

granted, roger also explicitly said those lines/content were cut, but he seemed to also say rockstar conveyed to the two actors that they (rockstar themselves) weren’t doing away with the “attraction undertone”. and that is very much felt, given how they never actually walk back on the things they let arthur write in his journal when it comes to abigail: conflicted thoughts of wanting to marry her, thinking how she’s “the finest woman” he’s known, saving john from prison “for abigail, of course”.

there’s just this really strangely intimate and possessive undercurrent in many things he’s written about her, in a way that would feel very creepy and ooc if she weren’t his at some point.

and it makes me think perhaps when rockstar decided to cut their content, they only did so out of a desire to avoid being overt and unbecoming (probably bc they figured it could be off-putting for fans and subtlety/ambiguity can be more palatable here?), but this shared past about arthur and abigail wasn’t meant to be erased. basically rockstar themselves actually never fully committed to ditching the idea, just decided to be coy about it, handling it in a way so that there’s room for deniability.

and from a story stand point, i think it does make sense? as a bereaved dad (and let’s face it, somewhat of a deadbeat one, too), arthur would definitely take pity on abigail and jack’s situation. if anything, i think arthur’s attempt (be it a conscious or unwitting one) to integrate with them was initially driven by guilt, then probably morphed into actual appreciation/attraction for abigail. for abigail’s side, well, she was abandoned by her true love who (iirc?) denied paternity to their son, that’s gotta enrage her to no end, but also hurt a whole lot. she would definitely appreciate arthur for stepping up and come to care deeply for him in return, but i don’t think she quite shares his level of appreciation.

though by stating this, i’m not in any way trying to frame her as an “ungrateful bitch” who didn’t properly return arthur’s favor— she doesn’t owe arthur love, and i don’t think arthur showed kindness to her with the expectation of winning her over anyway— it’s fair to say arthur did all this simply because he is, well, a good man. so once john eventually returned to the gang and abigail parted ways with arthur, she would be well within her rights to do so, and imo arthur would never in any way berate him or her about this, bc he would know what he had signed up for. that being said, i also don’t think arthur and abigail’s situation was all or nothing. they might never have progressed into true love, but it’s also not unrealistic to think they started being intimate at some point, if only to cope with their problems or try to move on from their pasts (this is assuming abigail gave up hope of john coming back.)

as a bottom line, i guess i wanna say i wrote all of this to sort out my cognitive dissonance. the idea of arthur/abigail is alienating to me and i used to try to pretend it didn’t exist, but the intent is so undeniably there that i kind of started getting frustrated whenever i see people tiptoe around it, coming up with multiple unsatisfactory explanations and never getting into the meat of it, to the point i think it’s just more sincere and liberating? to just confront it lmao. now i’ve come to regard it as an interesting aspect about arthur.

[gigglemugger]

Mandy Goes to Med School.

Fandom: “Saw” Franchise

Pairing: None.

Synopsis:

Amanda Young had no idea she'd have to become a surrogate cancer doctor, but then again she had no idea she'd start killing people for a living either.

Basically a character study of Amanda, my own take on her, through snippets of scenes from the movies all the way to Saw III.

Word Count: 4,127 (used to be less but I added a few things after a reading pass, lol, nothing major).

CW: All canon typical violence PLUS the horrors of being Amanda Young. So it's a bit heavy on the depression, self-harm, even a little bit of OCD.

AO3 link.

Notes: So not to sound totally pretentious but remember when Joan Didion said that she wrote Play It As it Lays to be a complete blank space of a novel? This fanfic is sort of like that. It's a bunch of snippets like the synopsis says and what Amanda might have been thinking during them. Title is from the Dresden Dolls song where they perform back alley abortions and while Amanda and Lawrence don't go around doing that in this fic, man did I think about writing that too. The timeline was borrowed from the wiki but boy is the Saw timeline complicated. Also things are not completely faithful. I hope you have a good time anyway!

When Amanda decided to join Jigsaw in his ‘business affairs,’ she didn't know that she would double as a medical orderly, but in retrospect she should have known better by the looks of everything.

She was presently standing in the middle of hers and John's shared working space, looking at him as he put one piece after another together in their newest contraption. He wanted to make a chair that twisted the limbs of the person sitting on it. It was still a long way away, this being more of a prototype at this point, and he was working meticulously at it, but all Amanda could see was how washed out he seemed. 

John didn't seem that sick when he met her at her apartment, all those months ago, but now, it was too plain to see that things weren't so hot. He'd cough more often. He'd also walk slower. Sometimes, he'd need longer time to breathe from one project to another. 

When they were preparing the bathroom game, dragging bodies, making sure everything was right and John told her he wanted to be in the center, she remembered being worried about him simply because he was, well, older. Nowadays though, she thought that if he did lay down in another bathroom for hours, he'd probably never get up. 

So, the decision to talk to Lawrence came from her. 

“I see,” John said, briefly looking up from his work, but focusing back on it again soon enough. 

Amanda went from one foot to the other.

“Maybe it could help.”

“I'm dying, Amanda,” he said, slowly. “Nothing can help.”

“I know. But you don't have to suffer just because of that.”

In the background, in the many televisions John and Amanda had in their space, people screamed while having their limbs torn out. 

...

John decided to let her talk to Lawrence, so he knew she was coming. She sat there on a chair at Saint Eustace Hospital, and could see the nurses passing her by, making sure other patients were okay. It reminded her a lot of the Homeward Bound clinic Jill used to run and her arm started to itch.

“Amanda?” A nurse asked. She looked up at a kinder face than hers. “The doctor is free for you now.”

“Thanks,” she said, getting up. No one knew she was Jigsaw, or at least an apprentice Jigsaw, but that didn't make it easier. As she walked, it was as if they knew. She wasn't, obviously, ashamed of it, or at least not as much as her rational brain told her she should be. That being said, the brain is weird, she would know.

Besides, if all the apprentice Jigsaws in this hospital were discovered, Lawrence would probably be in way deeper shit than a former drug addicted felon would be. That brought her some level of comfort.

“Amanda,” Lawrence greeted from his desk when she showed up. He pointed at the chair. “Close the door, will you?”

“Yeah,” she said, doing just that, before making way towards him. She didn't wanna sit down, not yet. “I'm assuming John told you why I'm here.”

“You want to make sure he's OK.” It was a statement. She nodded. “You understand that people go to medical school for years before they can do this stuff right?”

“You're saying I'm not capable of it?” Obviously not. Why are you challenging him? He's a doctor. He would know. Maybe this is stupid.

“No,” Lawrence said, cutting her thoughts. “I'm simply saying that I can't exactly teach you how to operate on someone. Not on the spaces we have,” and she knew he meant “we” as a team here, not “we” as the hospital he worked at “Not with the resources we have. The most I can do is give you books, talk you through treatments John was already going through that ended up interrupted because of his… Well. New status.”

“Yeah. I'd like that.” Lawrence never stopped looking at her. She thought she knew why.

“Alright. I'll see what I can do. I'll gather some resources, I'll… Steal some medicine.” She looked at him up and down, in that expensive suit, the expensive office, the job. The only thing out of the ordinary was the divorce, but then again how really out of the ordinary was it for a man of his age to be divorced from his first wife? Almost perfect or too perfect. And he's was gonna steal meds for her.

Apprentices come in all shapes and sizes.

“Thanks, Lawrence,” she said, and turned around. 

“Wait…” Slowly, Amanda did an about face. She knew her hair was getting longer, but her clothes were still, alternative enough. So she could guess at what he was thinking, or remembering.

“It's ok, you know. I suppose it's not easy to look at the person who kidnapped you and put you in a bathroom for hours. But if this is about him, he didn't suffer. Not really.” You know, apart from the three days of complete starvation.

Lawrence looked relieved. Amanda always thought she probably reminded him of Adam. Well… Who knows what he really thought of her or of Adam. Neither she, nor John actually knew what went through Lawrence's head about that. He hadn't even recovered completely when she went back down to the bathroom to kill him, considering Lawrence had been battling general infection and dehydration at the time. However, the first thing he asked about was him, and when John told him he was dead, he never asked again. Whenever they saw each other, she felt like he wanted to, though. They barely talked, so no chance. Not without John hearing. 

Amanda nodded and left the room, with no more words, but still thinking. John wasn't dangerous. Not really. Still, it was better if he didn't know that Lawrence was still hooked on Adam. Probably. Again, who knew what went through Lawrence's head. Amanda thought he probably caught feelings and snorted through her nose a little bit at a middle aged man's gay awakening being in a kidnapping situation. She'd plead insanity if she hadn't heard him in his sleep before, one time when John let him stay the night. Apparently he had problems with his wife, no new apartment yet, all of that. Amanda had slept with her arms on top of the workbench, her head against the cold metal, all of which helped to keep her sane, so the pain didn't matter. 

He, Mr. Perfect, had slept on the couch, another dent in his façade. 

Lawrence was lucky John wasn't around when he murmured Adam's name. Amanda was, though, half asleep. She wondered if Adam knew that he haunted not one, but two apprentices’ nightmares. That's gotta be worth something. Who knows, maybe he even haunted that little asshole friend of his, Scott whatever, who tried to harass her that one time. John didn't let her make a trap for him, because it would be a waste, but Amanda was increasingly of the opinion that people like Scott are a waste. 

...

Lawrence kept good on his word. He came by the workshop while she was alone. She did point a gun at him, though. It had been a lonely day at that particular workshop. The cop, Hoffmann, was nowhere to be found, and John had to take a break, so Amanda was antsy and stressed by a number of things, John's new treatment one of them. She even forgot she went up to the hospital until she saw him, a ghost with blonde hair and pale skin, almost too perfect to be there in the fifth and rust.

“Shit. Sorry,” she put the gun down, scratching her arm idly, going from one foot to the other, noticing how Lawrence didn't even flinch. She didn't see the usual fear in his eyes, the one she was used to.

“It's ok,” he said, and approached her, cane hitting the floor with each step, handing her a bag full of things: Books, pills, syringes. “How was the game?”

“Eventful,” she said, shrugging. “Joan survived.”

“I'm glad to hear it,” Lawrence said, sounding sincere. She gave him half a smile, before turning around and dumping everything on the metal table with a distinctive loud sound. Both were unimpressed. “Where's John?”

“He's at home.” She stopped herself. How much can I tell this guy? “He's uh… Doing research about a thing, preparing to go to Mexico.”

“Mexico?” Lawrence repeated. “Why?” Amanda shrugged.

“It's a new medical thing. Cause John wants to find other ways to treat his cancer. It's… I just let him do it. It can't hurt. He wants to live, even if these people don't.” Amanda saw that Joan survived, yes. But people like her were an increasing improbability. 

She looked down at everything on the table, the books, the pills and wondered if she was gonna need all of that. If John came back cured from Mexico, or whatever, there might be no need. That would be a relief. She wanted John to live. Still, how much hope could she really put into an experimental treatment?

“We survived,” Lawrence spoke, making her turn her head. “We wanted to live.” Amanda snorted.

“Yeah well, great stuff.” The corpse of Adam might as well have been between them.

“As John's doctor,” Lawrence began, despite the stench of rotting flesh, “I have to say I cannot recommend any alternative treatments…”

“Last time you said that, he put you in a trap,” Amanda said, opening a particularly thick volume. “Maybe it's best if you stay in your lane.” She didn't mean for it to sound like a threat, but increasingly she found that most things she said did. It's better than the desperate, lost tone she had before, she guessed. Lawrence chuckled.

“Yes, maybe.” He then approached the table and Amanda looked up. “Let me teach you how to use some of this stuff anyway. Just in case.”

...

“Just in case” turned out handy, as John's bogus treatment turned out, well, bogus and their trip to Mexico was way worse and much more nerve wracking than Amanda could have anticipated. She was silent looking out the window down to the world below. She wondered how many people in those houses deserved to die. 

“Amanda,” John called, and she turned to look. “Did you speak to Dr. Gordon recently?”

“Right before our trip, yeah,” she answered. John stopped for a second, pondering.

“You were right about asking for help,” he finally said, looking at her. “Thank you.”

She nodded and he went back into silent thinking while she turned her face towards the window once more, trying not to cry.

Amanda really, really, didn't want him to die.

...

John's fate sealed, Amanda watched as he prepared instructions and tapes for a lot of tests to come after he was gone. The tapes were supposedly for her and the cop. He seemed to be around more and more.  

“Do you like that guy?” Lawrence asked one day. They both looked at an unconscious Michael Marks on the table. He was supposedly that fuckass Matthews’ informant. She was happy to kidnap him, to put him in a slab, to make him suffer just a little bit. She wished that he was conscious for his procedure, but John thought differently. In any case, Amanda was there simply to learn how to administer the drugs John needed, how to hook him to a machine, anything that she could while Lawrence was away on a trip with his daughter, which would last a while.

She was also aware she was on tape, but she knew her body and face were concealed from the camera lenses, considering she helped install the thing.

“What? Who, the cop?” Amanda asked, disgusted. Lawrence smiled.

“I guess not,” he said, threading the needle one final time, before he observed his handy work.

“Good job,” she said, strained, in lieu of anything else. 

“Thank you,” Lawrence said, dignified. She looked at him the same way someone would look at a particularly intimidating teacher. “So, shall we?”

...

Amanda is sitting at the Wilson Steel Plant, looking down at her hands, shaking. John's supposed to welcome the cops in a few hours. She's panicking, slightly. 

“Is this comfortable?” Lawrence asked, still there for this last checkup.

“As much as it can be. Thank you.” Lawrence took a last look at the bags and made sure he had enough oxygen in his tank, before nodding. 

“Alright. Guess I'm going now.”

“Yes, go spend time with your daughter.” John said, somewhat painfully. Amanda raised her head to look at them both. “These are precious moments you have with her.”

These are precious moments… The sentence was precisely what she had in mind too. Precious. She needed so much to get up and leave the room for a second, and it didn't matter if John followed her with his eyes all the way outside or if she felt so tired she could barely push the door.

Lawrence met her at the hallway.

“Amanda. It is my understanding that you're going to participate in this next game.” John didn't tell Lawrence everything, just the basics. She nodded anyway.

“Yeah. I'm supposed to make sure this kid is ok. And to make sure everybody knows the rules.”

“A valuable addition,” Lawrence gracefully added. “Who's gonna take care of John while you're gone?”

“No one,” Amanda said. “He's gonna be alone for a while. I trust him, though,” she said this, but looked down. Where she comes from, that was an admittance of guilt. 

“I see.” Lawrence said, knowing she was hiding something. “Well, good luck.”

...

Fuck fuck fuck!

“What happened to him?” Hoffmann asked Amanda as she brought a seriously injured John in.

“That animal Detective Matthews," she shouted at him, vitriol in every word, face horribly contorted. "Or should I say your fucking partner?!” Amanda asked, while Hoffmann helped her with John. “He fucking did this!”

“Amanda…” John murmured. “Don't.” She looked at him, feeling her eyes water, feeling herself to be ridiculous for this. Her only consolation was that Eric Matthews was gonna die. He couldn't survive what she did to him. 

“Where is he?” Hoffmann asked.

“I left him in the bathroom, like you said,” she lied, making sure to hook John into the IV, making sure to look for the right pills.

It's not heroin, but it might take the edge off. It's not heroin, but it might take the edge off. It's not heroin, but it might take the edge off. 

“Here,” she said, bringing the pills back instead of taking them, one by one until she was full. “Give these ones to John, it'll numb the pain. Then we'll hook him on morphine.”

Morphine, morphine, morphine…

“Are you telling me the truth?” Hoffmann asked. Amanda looked up again.

“What are you implying?” She asked, this time the threat being real. As insane as making an unlikely friend in a man you helped tie to a pole, Hoffmann was different. She had no idea why John let him stay for as long as he did. Why did he trust him so much? He smelled like a rat. 

“Nothing,” Hoffmann said with a half smile, and Amanda went back to making sure John not only stayed with them for now, but took some damned painkillers. 

...

Hoffmann disappeared somewhere, thankfully, and Amanda stayed to watch over John. She made sure to count the pills, the few bottles Lawrence brought, plus the stuff they already had, and she made sure to brush up on some reading. Turns out cancer wasn't as complicated as everyone made it seem. Didn't make it easier on anyone's body though, and John being as old as he was and as advanced as he was… 

There's not much time.

That was the crux of the matter. She bit onto a very sensitive skin on her lip until it bled and tasted it. She wondered where Lawrence was, if he and Diana were having fun. He was so removed from all of this, with his little suit and his little medical practice. 

Maybe in another life she could have had a Diana. Not that she felt particularly motherly. Cecil was the last man she fucked and he wasn't really a fatherly type, either. She wondered how it would be to fuck Lawrence and laughed a little at herself, a little secretive silent laugh, while reading the same sentence over and over. It would be like fucking a very specific type of white concrete wall. It would probably suck too. She wondered if he'd cry. Nothing wrong with it, she cried on most days now.

There was no way she could have a relationship like this. John coughed on the slab, and when she looked up his vital signs were stable. It's just a cough to indicate he's dying. No big deal.

...

Gordon is back from his trip just in time. Amanda was working on her own trap, the Angel Trap as she called it. It was supposed to rip a person to shreds unless they could get the key in a minute. It was poetic in a way, somewhat beautiful. John approved of it. What he doesn't know, he can't feel.

She kept working at it so she didn't have to hear the coughing, so it was incessant work by now.

“Amanda.” Lawrence said behind her, and she didn't point a gun this time. Instead, she just turned around.

“Hi.”

“Your hair grew.”

“Yeah,” she said, touching it reflexively. He looked somewhat sad. I look less like him by the day, huh? “How was your trip?”

“Good. Diana was particularly fond of the beach.” She smiled and turned back to her work.

“I liked the beach when I was younger.”

“You went with your dad too?” Amanda stopped. 

“No, not really.” She retrieved a screwdriver from the table. “John wants to talk to you. He's in his office.” There was a pause.

“I see. Thank you.” 

She watched as he made his way towards the door and went back to her work. Her dad really didn't do much good. It was useless to try to talk about him or even think too much . She looked at the office and could see they were talking through the window, wondering what it was about.

“So that's it?” Lawrence was crossing the room. He stopped to answer her.

“I'm supposed to come back for another stitching procedure.”

“I see.” Amanda stretched her back. “Is he OK?” His expression softens.

“Yes. He's alright.”

What a lie.

...

Troy's trap is set. He will not survive. Amanda is giddy, but tries to hide it, when everything goes as planned.

“What a waste,” John says, looking at the footage. He's sicker. More frail. She checks the bottles every day. She makes sure he has enough supplies, enough rest, food, water… 

“Yeah,” she agrees vaguely, pushing John, now in a fucking wheelchair. Everything has been hectic lately. John's worsening, Hoffmann being around more, the cops closing in, the kidnappings increasing. All of that. A Lynn Denlon is supposed to be around next, Lawrence suggested her. Amanda didn't get why, but John told her she's a neurosurgeon. The best. 

How convenient, a neurosurgeon who happens to be great at what she does and who is also throwing her life away. 

Amanda's thinking all of this while reading and looking at her trap from time to time, just to make sure it's still there, as if it would disappear. Turns out the cop is useful after all. He helps her put that bitch Kerry into it and she is elated to see as her creation finally takes her ribcage apart, revealing everything about her, good and bad.

John is wrong about killing. This can't be bad if it feels so cathartic. Some people just deserve to die. 

Did you? 

The illustrations in her medical books are beyond accurate.

...

Lawrence comes back, sews Art and some other guy's eyes shut. Amanda helps. She also helps Hoffmann kidnap a bunch of other people. John says they're human beings, but truthfully she can't remember who is who. She likes when Hoffmann gets a snide comment though. She doesn't like when Jill comes to see them. She can only remember the baby.

Hoffmann is looking at her weird, but Amanda is finishing yet another book, the last one Lawrence brought her. What was it, five books? She read some multiple times. She checked the bottles again.

“Amanda,” John's weak voice awoke her from her counting trance. “Are you resting?” 

“I'm alright.”

“I don't think so. I think you should have a good night of sleep.”

“How can I sleep when you're here?” She asked, distraught. His vital signs were so weak. She couldn't even fool herself about it.

“You have to accept what you can't control.”

“But I can't…” Amanda said, knowing her voice came out as a weak murmur.

“Counting bottles won't keep me from dying, but it will keep you from doing an acceptable job tomorrow. You must rest.”

But the letter was waiting for her. And her knives.

She cried the whole night through.

...

Everything smelled like a hospital. It was just a matter of time. John was laid down, at his likely final resting place. Hoffmann's letter kept ringing through her head.

Kill Lynn Denlon. Kill Lynn Denlon. Kill Lynn Denlon.

“You did a good job,” Lawrence said after checking John's heartbeat. Amanda’s wet eyes went to his face. He had a firm smile. “You could have been a good medical student.”

“Amanda is very bright,” John interceded. “She has a bright future ahead of her.” Lawrence nodded.

“I have no doubt about that.”

...

An hour later Amanda is screaming at a doctor about drugs and having a collapse. The room is somehow green, somehow closing on her and she wondered if these were symptoms of anything at all before coming back to reality.

Too many medical books.

“He needs surgery,” Lynn keeps repeating but honestly she needs to shut the fuck up before Amanda puts a hole through her head. 

She grabs and pulls hair, she cuts, she bleeds, nothing seems to be really enough. Everything is coming down. John is dying in a room, people are dying in the game and Lynn Denlon needs to die too.

Will John even survive? Why would I do what he says when he won't have time to tell him?

Because she wanted to kill Lynn. Why did he keep smiling at her? Why did he choose her? She was the best, right? That couldn't be it. That was one of the reasons, he said.

Then why? Was she special?

Amanda went out to get more drugs. Lynn wouldn't be stupid enough to try to escape. She was a smart type, a pretty doctor. Just like Lawrence, but even more put together. She had brains and even more. Lawrence didn't even look like himself halfway through his game, but Lynn was holding up fairly well. It was sort of impressive. She herself would be a pile of nerves.

In fact, she couldn't even put the key in the ignition. Could she run to Saint Eustace? That would be stupid. 

She tried again. And again. 

“Jesus fucking christ!”

Amanda, get a fucking grip. Now! John's gonna die! Get your shit together!

She drove to the hospital and back in record time, even if people screamed at her from their cars. Fuck them.

...

Lynn cut John's head open like she was cutting meat for dinner. Amanda had been lucky that Lawrence was on duty. Lynn couldn't even suspect he put her through this. 

“How is she?” Lawrence had asked. Amanda shrugged.

“We'll see.”

The machines were beeping. They were so loud. Oh my God. John.

“Amanda, I need your help!” Lynn screamed and her eyes were alert again.

...

Getting shot was as intense as she thought it might be by the looks of everyone else. Not that she had time to think about it as she collapsed to the floor, a relief considering the last few months or even years. Amanda wondered when was the last time she stopped thinking. John kept telling her things. She had failed. She looked up at the counter, at the bottles she had counted. She looked at him, she looked at Lynn. She couldn't see through the tears and she felt the warm blood gushing through her wound, through her fingers. It was her own this time.

She thought about Lawrence. She thought about her dad. She thought about Adam. 

You're dying, Amanda. She looked at John one last time. Maybe he would forgive her before she went.

“Game over.”

Yeah. It surely seemed that way. 

[arunneronthird]

august - fic recs (mature edition)

hi hello and welcome to my first rec list! as i said in previous posts, ill be doing a monthly rec list divided in two posts, a gen/teen and a mature/explicit version (if i have enough fics) and a masterpost where i link all my lists

fandom wise itll probably be all over the place, but i will add the length, important warnings, links and some comments on every fic so u may check them all out!

now without further ado

Fandom: DC

Some Magnetic Way I Move by Shenanigans

words: 11,224 (perfect for an evening)

rating and warnings: M, sexual content (not necessarily pleasant), recommend checking the tags seriously on this one

relationships: Roy Harper/Jason Todd

summary: roy is a kid who wonders near the ocean without any pirpose in life when he meets a creature that seems too good to be true, then life gets in the way, and roy gets in his own way even harder

notes: this fic has been obsessing me since i read it the first time, its dark and fucked up and completely too easy to get absorbed into, roy is a complicated, messed up man with a shitty life and a tendency to completely destroy himself and you cannot look away from him

this story moves along several years of roys life and his growth or lack thereof and its so easy to get lost in the pacing of this fic and just enjoy the ride, as hard as it gets

literally no need to know anything about dc, just read it and thank me later

Heroes of the Squared Circle by Mithen

words: 226,687 (yes, i wrote that right, it takes a good week)

rating and warnings: M, sexual content (theres one whole scene in a thousand pages), nothing past canon typical violence

relationships: Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne

summary: clark is a wrestler, so he follows his heart and joins a promotion where he meets bruce, cue their adventures as they work their way through a retelling of the best dc moments: wrestling edition

notes: OKAY HEAR ME OUT i did not like wrestling before i started this fic, i took a minute to get into it, the moment i got into it i could not stop

this is one of the most fun, most detailed, most passioned fics ive ever read, a love letter to dc and wrestling so vivid and transparent that it genuinely made me excited for it too, all the characters are treated with love and care and the main relationship is so exciting, u can feel the love they hold for each ohter but never overshadows the wonderfully crafted story and the genuinely engaging plot

(cried at the end cause of how much i loved it. i dont cry)

Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender

Below the Sun by CSHfic, VSfic

words: 24,853 (can be read in a long afternoon)

rating and warnings: M, no sexual content, i would consider it T but there is a good amount of injuries

relationships: Sokka/Zuko

summary: sokka and zukko get stranded on an island after a shipwreck and have to learn not to be at each others throats while waiting for rescue

notes: heartwarming and weirdly peaceful, though the inherent anxiousness of sokka being stranded and injured with an enemy nearby does get to you, easy to read and easy to love, honestly a good time through and through and a good reflection on friendship

if you havent watched atla (watch it) you can read this anyway, only minimum knowledge is required for this fic

Fandom: Modern Warfare

i like you alive by kaijusalad

words: 11,254 (another afternoon read)

rating and warnings: M, graphic violence and injuries, no sexual content

relationships: John "Soap" MacTavish/Simon "Ghost" Riley

summary: soap gets really injured in a mission and ghost has to get him out of there, somehow keep him awake, try not to die, and not panic and he is partially failing

notes: intense high-stakes fic, graphic and heart-wrenching and yet somehow very warm, incredibly easy to start praying for ghosts success cause hes... hes trying so hard! once you start reading you wont be able to stop until u reach the end, also anyone typing out accents has my unconditional love

no previous knowledge needed to read this fic, just brace yourselves (btw i dont know why but the tags in this fic are so funny to me)

Doing Time by MildLimerence

words: 53,566 (takes 2 or 3 days)

rating and warnings: M, graphic sexual content plus graphic violence, both to a preeeetty fucking explicit level so please check the tags

relationships: John "Soap" MacTavish/Simon "Ghost" Riley

summary: in a world where soulmates are scarce and sometimes even dangerous to other people or themselves, soap ends up getting himself arrested cause his mark makes him go a bit wild and, to his horror, activates when he finally arrives at prison

notes: listen, i hate soulamates (i love you on purpose) but theres something about the way this author writes them that gets me, the connection between soulmates is more of a telepathic, magnetic connection and the lack of it can make soulmates go completely feral, its not the beautiful thing everyone thinks it is

dont want to spoil much but dont be fooled by the summary, this baby has a whole plot prepared and though the dynamic between characters and dark elements are incredibly fun on their own, i ended up getting actually really hooked by the plot, reeeeally fun read

knowing who the characters are makes it an easier read but i dont think youll get lost if you dont

Fandom: Supernatural

like moses and batman and james dean by saltyfeathers

words: 31,587 (takes a couple days, def a couple breaks)

rating and warnings: M, graphic sexual content, not all of it fun, gets pretty dark so check the tags and the authors notes

relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester

summary: dean used to turn tricks to make sure he had enough money to care for his brother, now that he has met cas, his issues with intimacy resurface with a vengeance

notes: not an easy fic to read, heavy topics are touched and you feel genuinely bad for dean but the characterization is so perfect that i tend to think of deans past here as canon, as messed up as it is

even though the topics are dark, the fic doesnt dwell on the worst stuff, there are no scenes written for shock value, its a tasteful take on dark topics, its just heartbreaking and powerful, it will make you root for the main characters, hard

if you dont know these characters you may be pretty lost but you definitely only need a basic idea of the show

[writingquestionsanswered]

so something i seem to have an issue with is pacing (?) im sure youve got this question before so sorry if its kinda repetitive!

but when i had a friend of mine (who is amazing at writing) read something i wrote, they pointed out that i sort of rushed through it (i’ve already fixed one of the issues that caused this) and that i didn’t really explore the characters’ feelings and thoughts — i suppose you could say it was just showing what was going on from the outside, if that makes any sense.

anyway, i’m not exactly sure how to turn this into a question, but do you have any advice for this?

love your blog btw, you’re doing gods work

Pacing a Story That Feels Rushed

Stories, and scenes, need to be a balance of exposition (narration, explaining), action (things happening), and dialogue (conversation.)

If your story reads like showing things happening from the outside, you're probably lacking exposition, which is used to explore character thoughts and feelings and provide the reader with description and information they need to understand the story.

Here's an excerpt of a scene that illustrates a balance between exposition, action, and dialogue:

The door swung open, revealing Sally in a sequin tube dress. "Sarah, you came! Welcome to my party!" Sally stood aside to let me in, and three feet through the door I was swallowed by a sea of gyrating party goers. The beat of the music pounded between my ears, and special effects lights lit up the makeshift dance floor. I had to hand it to Sally--it was one heck of a party. Too bad I didn't want to be there. A fleshy mass bowled into me, almost knocking me over. "Oops! Sorry, Love... are you okay?" I gazed up into the bright blue eyes of Malcolm St. John, Sally's longtime boyfriend, and my crush since grade school. "Oh, hey, Mal. Yeah, I'm fine!"

Now, let's break this down by paragraph:

The door swung open (action), revealing Sally in a sequin tube dress (exposition/description). "Sarah, you came! Welcome to my party!" (dialogue) Sally stood aside to let me in (action), and three feet through the door I was swallowed (action) by a sea of gyrating party goers (exposition/description). The beat of the music pounded between my ears, and special effects lights lit up the makeshift dance floor. (exposition/description) I had to hand it to Sally--it was one heck of a party. Too bad I didn't want to be there. (exposition/character thought/feeling)

A fleshy mass (exposition/description) bowled into me, almost knocking me over (action). "Oops! Sorry, Love... are you okay?" (dialogue)

I gazed up (action) into the bright blue eyes of Malcolm St. John (exposition/description), Sally's longtime boyfriend, and my crush since grade school (exposition/information). "Oh, hey, Mal. Yeah, I'm fine!" (dialogue)

See how action, exposition, and dialogue work together to accomplish this scene? This is what you should strive toward in building your scene.

Pacing is a special kind of magic that happens when you play with the specific ratio of exposition to action to dialogue, as well as the type, as well as other elements like sentence and paragraph length.

Action and dialogue usually move more quickly than exposition, so a faster-paced scene should probably have a little more action and dialogue than exposition. Exposition can really slow things down, so if you need to slow the pace of a scene, you can make sure to work in a lot of exposition where it's needed. And, although dialogue normally moves quickly, long, in-depth conversations can have the opposite effect. So that's also something that can be used to slow a scene down. For really fine-tuned control, you can use shorter sentences and paragraphs to speed things up, and longer sentences and paragraphs to slow things down.

I hope that helps, but if you need more help, here are some previous posts that explain things further:

Balancing Dialogue with Exposition and Action Balancing Dialogue with Action and Narrative Exposition, Action, and Dialogue, and How to Pace Your Story Slowing the Pace within a Chapter Pacing Feels Too Fast How to Increase Word Count (Meaningfully!)

Have fun with your story!

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

Visit my FAQ

Find answers fast on my Master List of Top Posts

Go to ko-fi.com/wqa to buy me coffee or see my commissions