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phoenixtakaramono · 8 years ago

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For the writers numbered questions, how about 8, 9, 13, and 15? By the way, I absolutely ADORE your work☺

Ohhh. How sweet! Oh my goodness. Thank you sincerely for the compliment, dear!

In regards to the “✍ Finally, an ask-meme for writers! ✍”:

08: What’s the best piece of feedback you’ve ever gotten? Hmm. It depends on what “best piece of feedback” would be defined as. If it’s about effectiveness, I would mention the time someone told me that my life would be happier (and more productive) if I simply concentrated on myself and not focus on those around me. I take this as my philosophy in life as well as my works: there’s no point comparing yourself to others. Be inspired, but don’t copy. There will always be those that are better. Focus on your own improvements, be yourself while discovering what makes you “you,” and market yourself as a brand that you’ll want others to see your persona as you see it. It’s alright to take inspiration from those around (do your research/ see what your competitors are doing), but ultimately you’ll still have to give your works your interpretation to avoid plagiarism. Nothing is creative anymore technically, so it should be an interesting challenge for any creator to undertake. There are already plenty of ideas existing already. So, to stand out, what new innovation can you bring to the table?

If it’s about feedback that’s made me the happiest, I hold a lot to my chest fondly. But off the top of my head, the ones that have touched me all involve someone mentioning how they were skeptical at first about the premise but after reading it through, they were won over. It tickles me when I hear from others about how a project of mine is not their usual reading material but it somehow became one of their exceptions after giving it a chance. For me, this really means a lot.

Feedbacks that are long and well-thought out, analyzing my content to share their story theories aloud also tend to make me giddy to continue sharing with strangers this world that I’ve built in my head. I’ve sometimes had remarks and questions that’ve inspired me to make necessary edits, making me realize any plot holes or how something has been (mis)interpreted. I adore when someone makes a deep, insightful analysis, even more so when it’s on the mark.

If it’s about suggestions others have gotten that resonates strongly with me on the most part, it’s these cardinal rules of writing: 1) show, don’t tell, 2) be genuine; don’t write what you don’t write just to please the fans/ pander to them, 3) do your research; know your readership, 4) avoid Mary Sues/ Gary Stus unless your intention plays on the overpowered archetype, 5) avoid cliches and don’t be cheesy, 6) avoid currently trending slang because chances are your dialogue will seem dated once time flies should you rely on lingo that’s popular at the moment since, unless that is your intention, you’d usually want your writing to come across as timeless for mass appeal, 7) as good as you think you are, you’re not infallible; don’t be arrogant and think you’re above taking advice/ help and 8) you have to be excited about what you’re producing.

09: What’s the worst piece of feedback you’ve ever gotten? Worst feedback…would be by impatient readers who have lost credibility and/or respect. With our educational standards, I’m also taken aback by a person’s inability to factcheck when making persuasive arguments. While not everyone is a writer, understandably, as someone who will be hiring others, I am stunned sometimes when I get bollocks that also isn’t impartially, formally written. When one forgets who is the writer and who is the consumer, it…can result in quite the misunderstanding, even if you give them the benefit of the doubt. These usually come in the form of entitled readers who form quick assumptions without doing their research and reading all the way through, who then type out unhelpful complaints. It comes across as more of a scheme to convince writers to change what was written and will write in order to satisfy this personal ideal in their head. They’re so frighteningly attached to this ideal, I’m alarmed whenever they’ve become uncompromising to any other creative alternatives and are at the point where they only want to win the argument to feel validated instead of wanting to be exposed to a unique perspective. My patience is tested even further whenever someone follows up with juvenile rhetoric, or they pretend to be someone else 100% supportive and defensive of their online feedback (despite how suspiciously similar their syntax is, as well as how convenient the timing is). No one likes being taken for a fool.

The instant one demonstrates that they don’t know what they’re talking about, trust is lost.

13: What’s your favorite writing quote? “If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” -Toni Morrison

"Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” -Anton Chekhov

15: What would you say has inspired you the most? Factors in my childhood to where I am now. Writing became one of my strengths, aside from art, that gave me confidence and soon became a hobby. So, two answers:

From early childhood, I’d say it’s mainly due to the odd notion of having consumed adult novels throughout primary school, only being exposed to fanfiction later in my teens. No one thought much of my writing skills―even my English tutor from France―until something that I wrote was announced to have won a national writing competition and would be among those published. The faculty, and even to the extent of the principal, noticed me more, treating me like an adult and being friendly. My tutor, who used to sneer at my purple prose and emulation of authors’ writing styles, turned a new leaf and commended my writing exercises. My artistic parents finally had something else to boast about other than how their daughter was so quiet, artistic, and obedient. Relatives became more inclined to gift me books. It was also something that set me apart from my parents and my STEM-oriented peers. All in all, that event was a turning point in my life.

Another answer: nowadays it’s other people’s works or the lack thereof. The works by JK Rowling and Nora Roberts (and her other pseudonyms) paved the way for me, showing how immersive worldbuilding and fictional romance can become. Fanfiction exposed me to more possibilities, infinite worlds created by others like me, and the popular trends. The latter has shaped what I appreciate in my reading material and molded me into the writer that I am today. If it's about when I realized the power of fanfiction and good storytelling, I would say the first most impactful would be the 'Child of the Night' by Scribe. She'd reimagined the Dracula characters so vividly in a way that I'd never envisioned any fan could come up with for any franchise. So, one can say she is a rolemodel.

That’s all! :)

#01paige01 #ask #writing meme #phoenixtakaramono #phoenix talks #admittedly I break Rule 1 routinely #so I have to remind myself often #This makes me curious as to which work #of mine that you stumbled upon hahaha #thanks!

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robininthelabyrinth · 4 years ago

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Delight in Misery (ao3) - part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8 (interlude)

The Lotus Pier was a free and unrestrained place in comparison with the Cloud Recesses, and there was no similar prohibition on raising pets. This was a good thing, largely because Lan Wangji had recently started to think of his little found family primarily in animal metaphors.

It was, he concluded, because of the way Mo Xuanyu followed Jiang Cheng around like an imprinted duckling, with stars in his eyes and an unfortunate tendency to try to emulate his actions while possessing exactly none of the temperament required to pull any of it off.

Indeed, watching him wheezing his way through a threat to break Jin Ling’s legs was a sight worth seeing, especially with Lan Sizhui patting him on the back and encouraging him when he temporarily got stuck stuttering on the word ‘legs’.

Jiang Cheng, for all his faults and imperfections, could be terrifying when he wished to be, the blood of the battlefields of the Sunshot Campaign forever impressed upon his bones; with Zidian to hand, he could look commanding and fearsome, decisive and harsh, and with his sharp looks and sharper scowl, he cut a fine picture - even if Lan Wangji knew the truth, that behind all that sharpness was the soul of a grumpy marshmallow.

Mo Xuanyu, with his wild thatch-like hair that couldn’t be controlled no matter their joint efforts and even wilder and far more questionable taste in appearance, couldn’t hope to match him, and really ought to stop trying.

Naturally, Jin Ling looked about as convinced about the threats as he ever was when Jiang Cheng said it, meaning of course that he didn’t care one whit, but despite their initial concerns, he took to Mo Xuanyu quite well. Lan Wangji was initially puzzled by it, given their conflicting personalities, but Jiang Cheng insightfully (for once) pointed out that it was most likely that Jin Ling was willing to forgive quite a lot in exchange for having another person dressed in Lanling Jin gold around to make him feel less awkward about it.

The two of them together were two little goldfinches strutting around in a sea of purple – or, perhaps more accurately, two golden roly-poly puppies bounding around, tails wagging, trying to befriend the Jiang sect’s army of sleek haughty purple cats. They were accompanied, of course, by a small, gentle crane with a most un-Lan-like taste for spicy fish with radishes and absolutely no head for water travel.

(They were working with Lan Sizhui on that. He lived in the Jiang sect now; he couldn’t spend his whole life being seasick!)

“What does that make you, then?” Jiang Cheng asked when Lan Wangji – after incessant prodding – mentioned his thoughts on the subject of their growing nest. “Master Rabbit?”

Lan Wangji glared, but didn’t object to the characterization; regardless of his personality, there was good reason to make the association. This was largely because Lan Xichen had recently embarked on a mission to capture the rabbits Lan Wangji had been – not raising, precisely, because pets were forbidden in the Cloud Recesses, but feeding on occasion when he had the time. He had brought them to Lan Wangji’s new “residence” at the Lotus Pier as a housewarming gift.

(Lan Wangji had no intention of moving out of Wei Wuxian’s bedroom, of course, but Jiang Cheng had long ago exercised his authority as sect leader to clear out the rooms just beyond it to create a small additional courtyard for him, in which he could exercise and meditate without being too far from the main quarters of the Jiang sect leader. As a result, the only change involved in his new, public, and above-board decision to reside in the Louts Pier was adding a new entranceway to make it appear as though they lived in separate albeit adjoining houses rather than living together in just one. Of course, it being the Lotus Pier, the new entranceway involved constructing not only a gate but a new bridge…)

“What exactly are we supposed to do with a bunch of rabbits?” Jiang Cheng had demanded at the time, staring down at them - there were rather more than Lan Wangji had remembered there being, but he supposed that was the nature of rabbits.

“I have no idea,” Lan Xichen had replied, smiling broadly. “But Wangji likes them.”

Lan Wangji had pretended that neither of them existed, and also that he was urgently needed elsewhere.

Later, Jiang Cheng had cornered him, demanding an explanation or else the rabbits would be sent down to the kitchens to be repurposed, and Lan Wangji had reluctantly confessed that they were from the burrow first established by the two wild rabbits Wei Wuxian had caught for him all those years ago.

Naturally there was no more talk of repurposing after that, and three sets of rabbit coops – far more than the rabbits Lan Wangji actually possessed required – mysteriously appeared in his small courtyard the next day.

“Wouldn’t want the stupid things to drown,” Jiang Cheng had grumbled when confronted with the evidence of his sentimentality. “If they attacked your garden and tried to burrow down they’d only hit water, and then where would we be? Awash in bunny corpses, that’s where, and that’s just unsanitary. I have a duty as sect leader to preserve the public health, you know.”

Lan Wangji had initially had some difficulty determining what type of animal Jiang Cheng was. He was as prickly as a porcupine, as standoffish as a hedgehog, as fickle as a cat, as graceful and vicious as an angry goose…

Recently, however, Lan Wangji had met a merchant from the south who had been selling a type of bird he called zishuiji, or purple swamphens – the merchant claimed that they were descended from the famous zhanniao, the poisonfeather zhen bird noted for their purple bellies, scarlet beaks, and deadly venom. Although Lan Wangji was moderately certain that the man was exaggerating for the sake of a sale, he had found himself compelled to purchase several sets to house in one of the empty rabbit coops, now moved to be placed in the main courtyard, nominally to be nearer to the waterways but mostly so that they’d be easily accessible to everyone - and, of course, to subtly harass Jiang Cheng.

It turned out that zishuiji could apparently be treated in much the same way as chickens. They were highly adaptable, but thrived best near water; they were generally shy around humans, but vicious in defending their territory, capable of biting and mobbing when provoked; and they preferred to raise their eggs with company –

Truly, he had found the right bird for Jiang Cheng.

(Not to mention the euphonious imagery of a purple hen strutting around with its purple lighting, zishuiji with zidian...truly, a picture meant for the ages. Lan Wangji determined at once to make a painting of it and insist Jiang Cheng hang it on some wall. Maybe even one of the ones in the main hall, where strangers could see.)

“Some of these are getting used for food,” Jiang Cheng insisted with a glare. “Some of the rabbits, too. There are no rules against the killing of livestock here, you hear me?”

Mo Xuanyu fell in love with them immediately – Jiang Cheng’s theory was that he was entranced by their iridescent feathers, while Lan Wangji’s view was that he recognized the innate Jiang Cheng-ness of them – and quickly took charge of their care, although Lan Sizhui and Jin Ling routinely assisted in collecting eggs.

Jiang Cheng reluctantly admitted, after some time, that the purchase had been a good one, if only because it served to settle their little awkward duckling into place, finally allowing Mo Xuanyu some sense of stability, as if having some type of small duty for which he was responsible was all he needed to believe that he wouldn’t be forced back to Lanling or to Mo village, his original place of origin, which he somehow feared even more than the backstabbing snakepit of Koi Tower.

(“You need to stop calling him a duckling,” Jiang Cheng said, quivering with laughter. “Do you know that could also mean…no, I’m not saying it. Anyway, he’s such an impressionable brat. Did you see what he did with that make-up he bought? He really does look a bit...”

From this, Lan Wangji inferred that the nickname was both extremely apt, extremely unfortunate, and had permanently stuck.)

In fact, despite initial concerns, it had been surprisingly comfortable to bring Mo Xuanyu into their lives at the Lotus Pier.

He was grateful and happy to be there, which helped; Lan Sizhui was welcoming, and Jin Ling somewhat reluctantly accepting, each for their own reasons, which helped more.

Best of all, he was at just the right age to be a regular disciple, and the current Jiang sect was especially welcoming to outsiders, having been cobbled together from a wide range of previously rogue cultivators and the small handful of survivors of the previous sect’s massacres. It improved Mo Xuanyu’s mood tremendously to be around boys and girls his own age, doing the same thing as them, without the weight of Lanling Jin’s expectations on his shoulders even if he sometimes wore their colors.

“He’s never going to be the most martially inclined,” Jiang Cheng opined after a small period of observation. “But he might make a decent administrator.”

Lan Wangji glanced at him sidelong in silent question, since Mo Xuanyu had not displayed any especially notable scholastic talents either. He had started cultivating fairly late, although obviously not as late as Jin Guangyao, but he lacked the other man’s genius for organization and management. Moreover, while his studies did admittedly exceeded the low bar set in Lan Wangji’s mind by Nie Huaisang’s miserable performance, that was a very low bar indeed.

(Nie Huaisang wasn’t stupid, he reminded himself once again. He was in fact extremely clever. And yet, even knowing what he knew, it was so easy to forget…)

“He’s kind and thoughtful of the well-being of others,” Jiang Cheng said, averting his gaze and pretending his cheeks weren’t tinting red. “Calligraphy and math, people skills, that can all be learned, but at least he has the important part down…I told you to stop doing that.”

Lan Wangji ignored him and continued to smile.

“Freak,” Jiang Cheng muttered, then shook his head. “I can’t believe anyone actually listens to you. Least of all me!”

Lan Wangji rolled his eyes. That part was Jiang Cheng’s own fault – he’d been using Lan Wangji as a sounding board more or less from the beginning, and started making him do some of his paperwork as soon as he’d been regularly awake for more than a shichen at a time under the barely plausible claim that it was good for him to exercise his hands. Now that Lan Wangji was officially out of seclusion, Jiang Cheng had promptly shoveled even more work at him – despite the fact that they were supposedly at each other’s throats.

The Jiang disciples that had not been in the loop – most of them, to Lan Wangji’s mild surprise – adjusted quickly, especially after they noticed the long-suffering expressions on the faces of Jiang Cheng’s immediate deputies. They had remained wary for a while, possibly expecting Lan Wangji to seek to implement the Lan sect rules at any moment, but after a time he had managed to win their confidence through his efficient administration and respect for their customs.

He did…rather a lot, actually. He reviewed the sect’s accounts along with Jiang Cheng, managed certain negotiations, oversaw the continuing reconstruction efforts, reviewed submitted proposals –

All things that the Lan sect did as well, but which had never come to him before. Lan Wangji suspected that in many cases, they did not even come to his brother or his uncle, who were nominally in charge of such things; the Lan sect disdained such worldly affairs, while the Jiang sect embraced them.

Although while he was on the subject of being above worldly affairs, it occured to him that he had not had an opportunity to take Bichen out recently, and it would be good to do so. He would need to come up with some excuse to insist on Jiang Cheng accompanying him for a night hunt sometime soon, some reason that would stand up to scrutiny from the outside.

As for convincing Jiang Cheng himself, however, that would be no problem.

“We are going night-hunting soon,” he informed Jiang Cheng, who looked appalled by the very thought.

“You’re joking, right?” he demanded. “Do you know how much work we have to do? The yearly update with the dyer’s guild is –”

“Not for another two months, and preparation typically takes only two weeks.”

“Reconstruction –”

“Does not require constant supervision at this stage.”

“The – there’s training –”

Lan Wangji attempted to convey his feelings on the validity of that excuse entirely through his facial expression, and it must have worked because Jiang Cheng crumbled at once, grumbling to himself.

“Who’ll we leave the children with?” he tried. “Especially with Xuanyu being so new – oh, all right. It’s weak and I know it, you don’t have to give me that judgmental look of yours.”

“If Jiang Wanyin believes that his skills have gotten so rusty that he would be unable to keep up…”

“I’m going to break your legs,” Jiang Cheng hissed at him. “I’m going to – to – oh, wait, actually, there is a reason we can’t go just yet. We’re expecting honored guests!”

Lan Wangji arched his eyebrows.

“You wouldn’t have seen the report yet, it’s still on our desk,” Jiang Cheng said. “You know of the Baixue Temple, right?”

Lan Wangji looked askance, indicating that he had of course heard of the temple, a renowned place of learning, but that he presumed that that was not what Jiang Cheng meant and also that perhaps Jiang Cheng would like to get to the point at some time before their deaths from old age.

“Fuck you too,” Jiang Cheng said conversationally, having learned the nuances of Lan Wangji’s expressions by now. “It was attacked recently, and rumor has it that it was Xue Yang that did it. Yes, the same Xue Yang who did the Chang clan massacre, the one the Jin sect was protecting before they washed their hands of him.”

Lan Wangji frowned.

“They made it through with relatively minimal casualties,” Jiang Cheng assured him. “Out of luck, mostly – when Xue Yang disappeared before his trial, the Nie sect made sure word got out everywhere, and Lianfeng-zun, who might’ve quashed it, even helped spread them, instead. From what I understand, Xiao Xingchen and Song Zichen returned to Baixue Temple to make sure it wouldn’t be attacked over their part in Xue Yang’s initial arrest, as it later turned out to be - truly, evil is mundane and predictable. They led the defensive efforts and saved many lives.”

Xiao Xingchen and Song Zichen –

Lan Wangji had heard Jiang Cheng speak of them before, of course. Rogue cultivators of considerable fame, who had refused all offers to join any of the sects, major or minor, but instead professed a desire to start a cultivation school of the old-fashioned sort, valuing affinity and merit over blood relation.

Not that that was what had caught the attention of Lan Wangj, or of Jiang Cheng for that matter.

Rather, it was said that Xiao Xingchen was a disciple of Baoshan Sanren, the famous immortal that lived secluded on the mountain. That made him Wei Wuxian’s martial uncle, and both of them were shamelessly interested in all things relating even tangentially to Wei Wuxian, however indirectly.

Jiang Cheng had sent several invitations for a visit back when the Chang clan disaster had happened. None had been accepted, which was probably all for the best – he had had to stop inviting them on account of how they’d angered the Jin sect over the matter.

(It had caused Jiang Cheng no end of nightmares, the feeling of complicity in a massacre just like the one that had destroyed his own sect sending him into a spiral of self-hatred, questioning his own morality and righteousness, wondering if his ancestors were judging him and finding him wanting, wondering if Wei Wuxian was –

It had not been a good time, a thankfully temporary reversion back to the bad days closer to the start. But Jiang Cheng was better now.)

“Why accept an invitation now?” Lan Wangji asked.

“They’re planning on hunting him down, I think, and having learned a little bit from last time, they want to get as many allies on board as possible in advance,” Jiang Cheng said, and shook his head at the depressing need to account for worldly politics when seeking to live a righteous life. A lesson hard-learned, for both of them. “They wrote to me first, this time. In return, I plan to indicate that they are welcome to come to the Lotus Pier to try to convince me – we’ll agree to help them, of course, but it’ll be nice to share a meal with them. Maybe some stories.”

“Mm,” Lan Wangji said. “And entertainment, of course.”

Jiang Cheng looked at him.

“We should take them night-hunting,” Lan Wangji elaborated, and Jiang Cheng scowled at him.

“There are oxen less stubborn than you! Donkeys! Geese!”

Lan Wangji was not a goose. A crane, perhaps, like Lan Sizhui – gentle and graceful and well-educated, with a sharp beak that most people overlooked.

He suspected Jiang Cheng would argue instead for the goose.

“I will write to my brother,” he said, opting to change the subject. “Xue Yang is a sensitive subject for his sworn brothers, as you know. It would be best to prepare him should they resume their fight with each other.”

“Oh, that’s just what we need,” Jiang Cheng grumbled. “Lianfeng-zun and Chifeng-zun at each other’s throats again…did I tell you about the series of small but extremely irritating disasters that happened that time I was at Koi Tower? The room flooding, the too-thick incense, the – the thing with the cat –”

“I also recall you coming back from a night-hunt with Chifeng-zun with an expression suggesting that someone had put the fear of death into you, yes,” Lan Wangji said.

“It’s Chifeng-zun. Don’t think I haven’t noticed you avoiding any circumstances where he could have the same talk with you!”

Lan Wangji did not deny it. As he was not a sect leader, he could avoid such things with much greater ease than poor Jiang Cheng – who was glaring again.

“You should try harder to get along with him,” he remarked, and Jiang Cheng’s eyes narrowed even further. “You have many things in common –”

“Lan Wangji. You are, as A-Yuan’s father, permitted to set up as many playdates for him as you’d like. You are not permitted to do the same for me.”

Lan Wangji nodded, indicating that would give that all the consideration it deserved, namely none.

Jiang Cheng made a sound not unlike the whistling of a boiling pot.

Lan Wangji decided that a triumphant but timely retreat was appropriate.

#mdzs #lan wangji #jiang cheng #mo xuanyu #my fic #my fics #delight in misery

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btsmosphere · 4 years ago

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Crossfire | KTH

Moodboard Masterlist

~summary: The night your life blew up sent you on a collision course with the campus bad boy, Kim Taehyung. Though you were well aware of his reputation, it was his doorstep you ran to when you were bleeding with nowhere to go.

~word count: 5k

~gang!au, mafia!au, college!au, angst, fluff, action, strangers to lovers, friends to lovers

Warnings: swearing, mentions of cheating (warnings apply to each part individually, please read them)

~a/n: this week our gal gets some shit done and comes to a realisation due to Yoongi... also I am once again thanking everyone for supporting this story💜💜love you all,, n for those of you who haven’t heard I’m going to be posting a spooktober story soon so stay tuned...

“I want to help.”

Tae paused in the doorway, a steaming plate in each hand, staring at you with a dumbfounded expression.

“Huh?”

“I want to do something to help, you know, with the plan,” you eagerly pressed on.

“Oh,” Taehyung nodded, but a pout remained on his face as he kicked the door shut gently behind him, “the plan with Shinhyuk?”

“Yep.”

Nervously eyeing him as he shifted onto the bed, you waited for him to speak. Instead, he just passed you one of the plates and began to tuck in.

“Taehyung?”

“Mmm,” he hummed indistinctly, looking up at you, cheeks full of food.

“So… can I help?”

For just a moment, his bewildered stare was all that greeted you and his chewing slowed.

“Mmhmm,” he nodded, as if it was obvious.

“Oh. Okay.”

Admittedly, you hadn’t expected it to be that easy. As you began to eat yourself, Taehyung quickly went back to devouring his own meal without a second thought.

For once, the two of you were inside together during the day as it was the weekend and he wasn’t required for anything except a meeting, which was happening at his place anyway. With him here, you didn’t really need anything else to pass the time, but he had still vowed to bring you some more books soon, given that you had worked your way through the first pile completely now.

After last night, and if you were honest with yourself, even before that, any worry about being around Taehyung had faded away. Not only could you easily pass the time chatting, you very much enjoyed your time with him.

However, once you had both finished your food, it wasn’t long before there was a knock on the door announcing the arrival of the boys and the start of the meeting.

Only four had come as Jimin and Yoongi were out, doing ‘something’. You didn’t ask for details.

Taking the seat furthest from the window, hopefully hidden by Taehyung who sat beside you, you simply stayed quiet for most of the conversation. They didn’t need your input anyway; the plan sounded like it was progressing as well as it could be.

First of all, Jungkook and Namjoon confirmed the first members of Shinhyuk’s group they had managed to pick off, including the leader of a base inside his territory, though the rest were low-level: drivers, informants, dealers, fighters. Not enough to make his gang disappear by any stretch.

Not yet anyway, as Namjoon kept saying in encouragement.

As they resolved to keep digging through rival members, the real challenge was finding an in within Shinhyuk’s immediate circle – the ones who apparently were mainly stationed at what used to be your house.

“All I have is names,” Jungkook sighed, “even though I’m one of them, no one reveals anything about themselves.”

“Even the names might be fake,” Jin reminded him.

“I know,” Jungkook jammed his hands through his hair, “and there’s one – Jintao – he really doesn’t trust me. Makes it difficult for me to do anything. Always has his eyes on me.”

“Y/N can help,” Taehyung cut in then, causing four heads to turn sharply in your direction. You refused to squirm under their glares.

“Tae…” Jin was the first to speak, “it’s dangerous. I’ve been staking out Shin’s clubs and I’ve almost been caught so many times trying to talk to people-“

“She doesn’t have to go out on missions,” Tae reasoned, “a lot of snooping can be done from inside, and since she doesn’t have much else to do…”

“We have access to hackers, Tae,” Namjoon dismissed.

Biting your lip, you looked down. Since Tae had accepted your request to help so easily, you weren’t exactly prepared for this analysis. Perhaps it was stupid to think you would be able to assist these boys.

“She’s just as much a part of this as we are,” Taehyung surprised you with the ferocity in his voice, “she’ll be able to help. And I’ll let her even if you guys don’t.”

Namjoon in particular looked shocked by the younger boy’s unwavering words, but you watched in relief as he gave his assent with a nod, the others raising no further argument.

“What raids are coming up, Jungkook?” Hoseok brought the meeting back on track, prompting Jungkook to relay all the dates Shinhyuk had deals or attacks planned.

You listened as the boys decided which to focus on, though again they were frustrated by their lack of progress. Until Jungkook felt safe again, they weren’t going to counter any attacks, but they could make sure no one would be in the target properties to keep their allies out of danger.

Overall, the meeting left each of you feeling unsatisfied. This war with Shinhyuk was like having an unbearable itch while your hands were tied behind your back. You could only hope their careful preparation would eventually lend them the upper hand when they felt confident enough to retaliate.

With restless minds but nothing to do, Taehyung asked his friends to stay and a movie was agreed upon. As you had observed before, the boys relaxed remarkably quickly, and you were soon laughing with Hobi and Tae as you poured out snacks in the kitchen.

As you collected the packets, Hoseok returned to sit down. You and Tae had barely set foot around the corner when Hoseok let out a yell.

Startled, your head whipped around to find Yoongi standing silently in the doorway, leaning against one side, arms folded and a murderous expression.

“I didn’t see you there,” Hoseok breathed, laughing with a hand over his heart.

Before you could stop it, a snort escaped you, barely choked back, remembering exactly what you had said about Yoongi the night before. Luckily, you weren’t the only one, as you heard Taehyung beside you laughing through his nose, more successful at suppressing the sound.

“I hope there’s good news from the meeting,” Yoongi glared at you two, “I’m going bloody insane dancing around Shinhyuk like this.”

Everyone switched straight back to business mode around you, but you made the mistake of glancing over at Taehyung.

As soon as you made eye contact, neither of you could control yourselves and you had to fight to keep in your mirth. The dark warning glances from the other boys did nothing but fan the flames. Taehyung bit down on his lips as they threatened to break out into laughter; your cheeks ached.

Sinking onto the sofa, Taehyung looked pointedly away from you, shoving his fist into his mouth, shoulders still shaking.

With the tears brimming in your eyes, you didn’t care to listen to Yoongi as he talked about whatever he and Jimin had just come back from. When Jimin came in, a strangled laugh leapt from your mouth before you clamped it shut again, but you had set Tae off again.

The orange-haired boy across the room stared at you both like you were crazy.

“What’s your problem?” Yoongi’s sour face only made it harder to remove him from the ridiculous cartoon stereotype and Taehyung finally broke, guffawing loudly with his head thrown back, before falling against you and clinging to your shoulder, tears running down his face.

Shocked to find Taehyung’s head suddenly pressed into the crook of your neck, your breathless laugh was finally cut off. All you could do was stare down at him with a smile as he pulled himself together, wheezing dramatically the whole time.

At last, he seemed to realise himself and abruptly let go of your shirt. Pulling back, you were face to face for a second, expressions reflecting each other’s surprise, before he closed his mouth and turned back to Yoongi with a flawless poker face.

“Nothing.”

And then you were laughing again.

The prospect of Yoongi almost definitely hating you now didn’t bother you anymore. In the days following the meeting, you had begun to work through the list of names Jungkook had scribbled down of the members of Shinhyuk’s current inner members:

-Gi Beomho- has a Gwangju accent?

-Chaewon/known as Seb

-(Lee?) Minho

-Soonjae

-Jintao

Taehyung had told you his laptop password and you began trawling through the internet for any traces.

Though you were by no means a hacker, one of your friends at college, Jake, had once showed you a few things he knew how to do from his course in computing. Not to mention you were able to stalk someone very efficiently on social media from investigating the hot guy Lisa had seen on the street, or finding Soo’s mysterious girlfriend she refused to introduce to your group.

Now, though, there were no friends laughing around you as you tried to take apart the gang that was living in your house.

After your first afternoon of searching, nothing fruitful came up. When Taehyung had come back in the evening, you were more than happy to abandon the task and join him in your usual dinner routine, falling asleep soon after when you settled down together to watch a film.

But as the days progressed, you became more determined and frustrated in equal measure as you came across few things. You had worked your way through 3 people, giving up only after you had exhausted every avenue you could think to investigate.

Lee Minho took you even longer than the others to rule out, though you suspected from the beginning it was an alias since he shared the name with the famous actor, meaning there was an immense amount of unrelated material cluttering any path to finding the gang member, no matter what you searched.

Slumping back against the headboard, you set the laptop aside and flipped it shut.

Your attempt at working your way through the newest stack of books Taehyung had brought you was much slower than the first time around. Until he came back home, you barely took in the words.

At your side, a notebook containing the few possible leads consistently stole your attention instead.

You had managed to gain access to a couple of police reports on a Gi Beomho in Gwangju, but you would have to verify with Jungkook whether the photo was of the right person, or if you were barking up the wrong tree entirely.

When Tae finally arrived, you anxiously greeted him. Today Shinhyuk had planned his largest attack yet, on a shop that was a front for gang activity, and you knew all the boys had been on standby.

Taking in the scattered books, paper and laptop on the bed, his shoulders slumped.

“Nothing yet?”

“No, sorry,” you confirmed with a sigh.

“Don’t apologise,” he reached out and rubbed a hand along your upper arm to your shoulder. There it lingered, fingers slowly massaging for a moment.

“Were you hurt today?”

In only the short time since he came in, he had only squeezed out a smile once as he tried to reassure you.

At the shake of his head, you felt a knot in your chest release. But he still wasn’t happy.

“So what happened?”

“We didn’t go in at all. It was a lost cause,” he sat on the bed and kicked his shoes off without energy, “he shut the whole place down. It’s done for.”

With another huff, he fell back to lie on the bed. You did the same.

Weighty silence hovered over you both.

You had no idea how long you merely stared up at the ceiling, paralysed, before Taehyung moved. Slowly, he reached his hand out, fingers finding yours. As he intertwined your hands where they lay between you, you simply let your eyes slide shut, squeezing back.

“I know you’ll find something.”

Though you appreciated his support, he said it to assure himself as much as you.

Whether he could see or not, you nodded.

Just then, Tae’s familiar ringtone chimed in the silence. Pulling his phone from a pocket, he held it above him, checking the caller. Deciding it was worth it, he reluctantly pulled his had from yours to push himself up as he swiped across the screen and held the device to his ear.

Sitting up too, you could hear Jungkook’s voice crackling out from the phone.

“Hyung, I think I-I messed up-“

“Woah, Jungkook, what happened?”

“I was in Shinhyuk’s car, and I saw a file in there, he was looking through it, and it had you guys in it! It was labelled ‘bangtan’ and it’s full of information on everyone- I didn’t know he had that, but I just- I panicked, and I stole it, and now I have it but Shinhyuk’s leaving before me and he’ll notice it’s gone and- fuck-“

You caught Tae’s eye as you both listened in horror to the scared maknae.

“Where are you Kook?” Tae demanded, eyes breaking from yours.

“Um, at Y/N’s,” he replied, “the others are just packing away-“

But before he could finish, you had reached over and pulled the phone right out of Taehyung’s grasp.

“Jungkook,” you hissed into the receiver, “there’s two loose floorboards under my wardrobe at the back, they’re pretty quiet to move, can you hide it in there?”

“Uh, yeah,” the boy responded, “thanks.”

You lowered the phone to return to Tae, but suddenly brought it back to your ear.

“And don’t look at any of the stuff that’s already in there!”

“Oh- okay,” the boy sounded startled, but Tae seemed to find your miniature panic hilarious as he took the phone back and hung up.

Saying nothing, he wiggled his eyebrows and smirked at you.

“Oh, shut it,” you ignored the heat rising in your cheeks and shoved him lightly back onto the bed, where he only laughed louder.

“It’s not even- oh you are ridiculous,” you cried as he pulled you down on top of him, only making you turn redder.

In your embarrassment, you tried to wriggle away from him, pushing on his chest, but he grabbed your wrists, bringing you back down, grin ever-present on his face.

“Hey!” you protested, and then, “Ya! Stop! Tae-“

His hands reached down to tickle your sides, and you squirmed away from him again, only to have him follow, ending up on top of you as he mercilessly continued his attack, enjoying himself far too much.

“Ohmygod, ahh, Tae, please, aaaahahaha…”

Struggling, you writhed around, legs kicking out as you shrieked in protest before you finally reached his sides and exacted your revenge. He curled in on himself, giggling and apologising to get you to stop. You did, eventually, only to throw a pillow right at his face, though he easily caught it in the hands he had held up in surrender.

Both collapsing back onto the bed, you turned your head to one side, but you found he was already looking back at you. His laughter had dissipated into a smile which you returned.

“Thanks for helping out Kook,” he said earnestly, eyes boring into yours, “I told you that you would be helpful.”

This time, your heart soared with his praise.

You weren’t hopeful about finding ‘Soonjae’, or anything that could bring him away from Shinhyuk. Having gone through half the list already, the remaining two were the people Jungkook had the least information on.

Trudging through the morning, you were reluctant to take to the computer and be met with more inevitable defeat. Today you felt particularly tired, which didn’t help.

It was strange since you had slept for a long time, waking only after Taehyung had gone, leaving you missing his presence, even if you barely touched him while you shared a bed.

Nonetheless, you found yourself sifting through links and articles online, far from the first page of Google filled with celebrities and international news. With the little information you had on the man, you ended up reading through anything and everything containing the name Soonjae. Facebook profiles, comments on newspaper articles, a GoFundMe page…

Taking a sip of water, you scrolled idly to the bottom of the GoFundMe, which was for a child after all, no gang member, and read the ‘recent’ donations (the most recent being over a year old) and comments. Nothing.

Clicking on ‘show more’, you pulled up the full comment list and scanned through. For what, you weren’t sure. Most donations were small bits and pieces, but among the ones from three years ago, one was a little more sizeable. Along with it came an interesting comment: a woman called Sara was apologising for her ‘previous words’ and wishing the boy well.

You frowned as you read it. Though it was almost certainly unrelated, you were undeniably curious as to what she might have said to target an ill child.

Clicking next on the woman’s account, you decided to try and log in. After employing the password tricks Jake had showed you, you made it. The account had been created the same day as the donation was made on little Soonjae’s page, and appeared untouched since. You supposed this tangent had come to nothing, though you were certainly pleased with your skills after getting into the account.

Closing down the tab, you searched next for ‘Soonjae GoFundMe’. There was the campaign you had already seen, followed by a few that proved to be unrelated as well. You selected ‘next page’ with little hope.

Then something caught your eye.

About halfway down, the name Sara.

Quickly selecting the page, you found yourself on Facebook instead of GoFundMe, but what you found was certainly interesting. It was the same woman from the earlier page. This time she had posted a status:

If anyone on here donates to Soonjae’s fucking gofundme get ready to be cut out of my life XD cheaters don’t deserve your pity

That was certainly interesting. No wonder she had apologised to the boy – it also explained her big donation – probably given out of guilt.

But re-reading the status, you realised she couldn’t possibly be talking about the boy. Unless by ‘cheater’ she meant that he had cheated on a test in school, but you suspected that was not the case.

You clicked on her profile.

Her profile picture showed her holding a little boy that must be around ten, standing on a beach. Flipping through her older profile images, they stopped three years ago. Perhaps she had deleted all previous ones?

Only friends can see Sara’s photos

Only friends can see Sara’s timeline

“Not just friends…” you muttered, getting to work.

Unluckily for Sara, she had used the same password as on her GoFundMe, so you logged in easily.

The first thing you saw was that she reportedly lived in your city: a promising start. Scrolling through to three years ago, you saw only one other post close in time to her attack on Soonjae and his fundraising page:

Sara is feeling: heartbroken X(

That lead you nowhere, so you made your way back up her feed, seeing photos of her son and meals with friends. Few stuck out as anything but happy, all possibly related to the mysterious events of three years ago.

That’s right, delete your fucking facebook. I don’t need to worry about blocking you now XD

Sara is feeling: defeated☹: Just got out of court. Nrs

What was the point in all this? Just to prove something? Well you did, you proved I was right all along

Now you really were intrigued. You needed to find out what was going on, she was definitely linked to a Soonjae in your city, so you had reason to investigate further. Still, as you clicked on the messages icon, you felt very much like a trespasser.

Searching for ‘Soonjae’ at the top, two conversations were pulled up, both from three years ago. One with ‘Park Soonjae’ and one with ‘Help Soonjae’.

First choosing ‘Help Soonjae’, recognising the profile picture as the same image used on the GoFundMe, you read the exchange of messages.

Sara: What the fuck is this?

Sara: I can’t believe you’re pulling the pity card after what you’ve done

Help Soonjae: Excuse me?

Sara: You know what I mean

Help Soonjae: Ma’am, I don’t know you but please calm down. I will block you, this page is only trying to raise hospital funds for my son. I’d thank you to explain how this is ‘pulling the pity card’

Sara: Wait… Oh my gosh, I am so sorry!

Sara: I can’t apologise enough, I thought this was my husband’s page, he has the same name as your son! I didn’t check the page before messaging, I didn’t mean to offend you or your son

Sara: I’ll make a donation to your page to make up for this. I wish your son the best

Read 15:47

And that was the end of that. Wincing with second hand embarrassment, you quickly moved on to ‘Park Soonjae’.

Soon, you realised that the message history was long, but it all ended three years ago. You gave up on scrolling your way to the top, seeing that most messages consisted of ‘I love you’s and reminders to buy milk. The final conversation, however, gave you a lot more information.

Sara: What the fuck is this?

Then followed a screenshot of a GoFundMe page: Help Soonjae win Custody

Sara: You cheated. Maybe you should write that in your description.

Soonjae: Sara, I’ve told you I’m sorry

Sara: And I’ve told you that’s not enough. We are over

Soonjae: I can understand that. I just can’t understand why you want to keep my son from me!

Sara: HOW CAN YOU NOT TELL?!?!

Sara: I never want to see you again, and I don’t want kai to either

Soonjae: How can I make it up to you without going to court? I can’t afford the fees and you know it

Sara: You can’t ‘make it up’ to me. And it’s not my problem anymore if you can afford it or not. I’m blocking you

And that was it.

You wasted no time in opening Soonjae’s profile in a new tab, before taking a screenshot of the messages and logging out of Sara’s account.

Soonjae’s account was indeed deleted, confirming him as the target of Sara’s earlier status update. One search for new profiles under the same name showed no one promising. Your ‘breakthrough’ seemed more trivial now you had taken a step back from it. Without a picture of the Soonjae you had found, you couldn’t confirm if you were on the right target.

You had one last option, and searched for the GoFundMe Sara had sent a screenshot of. At last you found it, though it took a while as it had been declared finished and was from so long ago.

But, once you opened it, it turned out Sara’s screenshot hadn’t included the full photo at the top of the campaign. It had only showed a baby cradled in someone’s arms, but on the site, the full photo extended to show the man’s face.

This time, you did not scroll down.

You just stared.

There would be no need for Jungkook to verify if this was the right man. Those eyes had stared at you before from underneath a hoodie in your own bedroom not so long ago. And the hands that held his son had given you the wound in your side.

“Holy shit…” you breathed, taking a screenshot when you recovered from your shock.

Then you proceeded to scroll down. And it seemed like you had hit the jackpot.

The description had been updated, and the last lines read:

Thanks for the generosity. This page will be deactivated as I have now sourced funding from a private benefactor. Will update those who donated on the court result.

“Tae! Oh my god-“

You froze on the stairs.

On hearing the door opening downstairs, you had presumed Taehyung had returned, but instead, Yoongi stood in the hallway.

“Hi,” he said coolly.

“Sorry,” you murmured, but didn’t retreat back upstairs. Staring back at him, laptop and notebook clutched in your arms, you felt the need to share your breakthrough.

After a few seconds glaring at you, Yoongi moved away down the hallway. Taking a breath, you followed.

“Um, sorry, I thought you were Tae,” you spoke from the door.

“Ok,” came his short reply as he rooted in the fridge.

“Actually, er,” you pushed, making the boy at least turn around and acknowledge your presence, “I wanted to show him something. But… I can show you instead. You know how I was searching up Shinhyuk’s closest members, well, I think I found something.”

His unimpressed face vanished at least a little, and he nodded, taking a swig from the drink he had picked.

“Okay,” you placed the laptop on the island and opened the screenshots you had saved, “so I found this woman’s messages with a Soonjae in the city, they were getting divorced but he couldn’t afford the legal costs to fight for custody of their son.”

Yoongi leaned forwards to read the screen and you stepped aside, worrying your lip. Watching him read, you leaned against the counter to support your tired legs.

“Bastard,” he muttered.

“Pardon?”

“He cheated on her,” he said simply, gesturing towards the screen, drink in hand.

You hummed in agreement and flipped onto the second image.

“He set up this GoFundMe, but see how it says he then received funding from elsewhere.”

“Could be Shinhyuk, definitely,” Yoongi agreed, “I can send Jungkook this guy’s picture-“

“Actually, you don’t have to,” you cut in, “I, er, I recognise him. He was one of Shinhyuk’s that broke into my place.”

“Shit,” Yoongi breathed, turning to take a look back at the man on the screen, “good catch.”

“Thanks,” you couldn’t help but smile, “so… what now?”

Setting his drink aside, Yoongi bent over the counter and opened a new tab, sending the images to his own email, along with a final one of Sara’s details on Facebook.

“I think we have enough to work with. We can use the details for leverage and approach him.”

“Nice,” you couldn’t keep yourself from smiling. Even if only Yoongi was around to see it, you were just proud to have hopefully helped bangtan get another rival under their belt, and get closer to defeating Shinhyuk.

It seemed Yoongi had finished with the laptop, even though he hadn’t yet left the kitchen or even picked his drink up again. Awkwardly, you stepped closer to shut the laptop and slide it off the counter.

Taking a stride back towards the door, you hesitated.

“Well, erm, thanks, I’ll just- yeah.”

“Wait.”

You turned back around, surprised at just how small Yoongi’s voice sounded. Not knowing what to say, you waited as he stood shuffling his feet.

At last he cleared his throat and spoke.

“Listen, I’m sorry for, you know… trying to kill you that time,” he said. His voice was quiet, as if a lower volume would allow him to pretend he never said it.

“Well there’s a sentence I never thought I’d hear,” you chuckled.

“No, I really am,” he spoke stronger this time, actually looking at you, “I know I haven’t been the nicest and-“

“No, it’s okay,” you flashed him another smile, “I know you were just trying to protect Tae.”

He fell silent again for a moment, and you thought that might be it. But something was still on the tip of his tongue and he looked down, one hand coming to scratch his ear.

“I want to tell you I’m happy for you guys. You seem… well, really nice, and I know Tae thinks so too, and I trust him, so… yeah.”

Gulping, he looked up at you, trying to hide his mortification at the barrage of emotion he had just released. You just stared back at him, lost for words.

Maybe he had said something wrong?

“A-and, thank you for doing this work on Shinhyuk’s gang, it’ll really help us. What you did was really impressive-“

“I-I’m sorry,” you finally spluttered out, “what did you mean when you said you- you’re… you’re happy for us?”

Looking back at you, his eyes widened.

“Shit, are you guys not-“

You tried to swallow down any signs of how flustered you were, clutching the laptop tighter in front of your chest. Perhaps he didn’t mean what you thought he might-

“I thought you guys were dating. Shit.”

You couldn’t agree more with that last sentiment.

Just as you opened your mouth, without knowing what you planned on saying, you were saved by the bell. Or rather, the door.

Tae had finally come home. It would be an understatement to say he was surprised to find you and Yoongi together, in conversation too apparently. Hopefully Yoongi had finally quit his tough act and exposed his softness that Tae had insisted you would find eventually.

Yoongi was quick to inform Tae of what you had dug up on Soonjae. Taehyung put his hand on your shoulder, sending you a proud grin that made your heart race as he told you he knew you could do it.

The whole time you were aware of Yoongi watching the interaction, and you excused yourself as soon as you could, leaving the boys to themselves.

Practically running up the stairs, you were left panting as you closed the door to the bedroom. Just one short burst of speed had knocked you out, but that concern barely crossed your mind as you surrendered to the mattress, thinking only of what Yoongi had told you.

He thought you were dating? Ridiculous…

But then why had the suggestion got to you so much? Sure, you shared a bed with the guy, and you enjoyed being with him, and liked it when he held your hand or hugged you…

Fuck.

Reblogging is the best way to support me! Comment or message me to be added to the taglist!

Taglist: @kim-ji-hyeons-world @preciouschimine @just-a-dorito @ireallylikefoodandyoutube @tatastaetaemainblog @enchantingbrowneyedgirl @veronawrites @ironica-m8 @min-shadow @harleygirl808 @aianloveseven @rjsmochii @vantooru @un2-verse @pimentelssmile

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jedimordsith · 4 years ago

Note

Why do you hate the Hemingway app? I used it at one point and found it unhelpful, so I’m curious why you don’t like it

Important disclaimer: I sincerely appreciate that writing apps of all kinds are available. Especially free and obviously well-intentioned ones. That said, I am required to use the Hemingway App for my job and it routinely makes me want to stab someone, which is precisely what predicated my earlier post on the subject. My complaints are as much social commentary as they are frustrations with the actual app, so please take the following with a bucket or so of salt.

Reasons Why I Hate The Hemingway App

1. Its rules are apparently $%^& arbitrary. So let’s just kick it off with the biggest problem, shall we? Sure, there are a couple of basic rules about sentence length dictating whether your sentences are “hard to read” or “very hard to read”. But after that who the hell knows??

I have personally watched the program change the grade level of a piece when I: - Hit the space bar - Deleted half of a word - Typed half a of word - Deleted/typed the second half of a word - Moved a sentence, unchanged, from one three-sentence paragraph to another While I am sure that there are complex algorithms managing how the program ranks things, those algorithms have no actual or discernible connection to coherent writing. This is not only infuriating, but it also makes the app stupidly hard to use. (See #5)

2. It discriminates against parts of speech with a legitimate use (passive voice, adverbs) with no exceptions. If I start ranting about the fact that adverbs exist for a reason and that most of the nice connecting words that give your writing flow are adverbs we’ll be here forever. Instead, let me give you a nice, simple example of why this kind of arbitrary discrimination drives me nuts. I recently wrote an article about domestic violence. Specifically, what charges you can face for domestic violence, what the difference between charges is, and what the penalties are. Because of the way the law works, there was a lot of occasion for sentences like “if x criteria, you will be charged with y.” “Be charged with” is the correct legal phrasing for how that works… but Hemingway flagged it as “passive voice” every time, thereby “failing” the article. I was able to reword enough things to make it work, but the end result was less smooth, less concise, and overall worse writing than if I’d just been able to use the standard industry terms.

3. It contributes to the dumbing down of the populace. Look, I’m all for accessibility. I believe that anyone who needs to look information up should be able to find it in an easy-to-read format they can understand. But we also know that people live up or down to expectations and that exposure to new words in context can help people learn and expand their brains and vocabularies in healthy and empowering ways. So what, exactly, happens when we as a society quietly dictate that nothing posted for public consumption online can be above a 9th-grade reading level? (Which, I should point out, is already lower than what would have been expected of 9th graders a couple of generations ago?) The answer: nothing kriffing good. Do you have any idea how many new words I’ve learned reading books and even fanfic written by people with stellar vocabularies? Do you know how many readers I’ve had leave me overjoyed comments because I used words like “gelid” in my fic? People don’t need (or want) to be treated like they’re stupid. There’s a difference between writing ostentatiously for no reason and writing intelligently but accessibly at a 10th- or 11th-grade level… but not with Hemingway.

4. Following its rules often makes writing worse. Compound sentences exist for a reason. Often, they make it possible to put together two ideas in a fluent way that neatly and powerfully expresses ideas and makes connections… but not in Hemingway, because they’re almost always necessarily so long that they rate as “hard to read.” This is true even when trying to break the idea down into separate, shorter sentences completely bastardizes the whole thing and turns it into repetitive-sounding gibberish. Along the same lines, it’s not uncommon to need to break a sentence listing several related things into a bulleted list instead in order to come in at the right grade level — even when that screws up the mental and visual flow. Similarly, cutting out your connecting words because they are Evil Adverbs makes writing choppier and less pleasant.

5. It’s hard to use. Ideally, Hemingway should be like Grammarly in that you apply it to whatever program you’re working in instead of having it be its own thing. But that’s admittedly minor. My real beef is this: it doesn’t give you any information on WHY it ranked something the way it did. I have spent entire days of my life at this point trying to mangle a perfectly good piece I’d written to all the other required standards in a desperate attempt to make it hit a 9th-grade reading level. About 90% of the time, it is a completely random change that makes it work. I can zero out everything Hemingway measures and sound like I’m talking to a toddler and the rating doesn’t budge. I randomly add a space somewhere and BAM. Done. It makes no sense, it is infuriating, and it wastes insane amounts of time. But there are no guidelines, no hints, nothing to tell you what moves the needle on the algorithms. You just have to guess… and guess and guess until you stumble on the right answer.

Finally (and the whole reason I’m ranting about this today), it’s inconsistent. I can literally work on something in the app, copy/paste it back to the other program I’m working in, then copy/paste it back and get a different rating, even though nothing changed. It’s freaking maddening and I just want to boot the entire app into the sun every damn time it happens.

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logical-little-lies · 5 years ago

Text

Soft Kisses in The Kitchen-Little Vlogs (chapter 3)

Tag list: @stimmingsides @smollilsanderssides @novacloudcat @analogical-agere @fairyhuman2000 @aphandgflover@softastarlight @littlesapphygem @softflowerinmyheart @virgietheprincess @babeyalstar @b3an-spr0ut @babeyvoid @lgbtqiaemo @because-were-fam-ily @lonelysoul43

chapter summary: After a few weeks on being friends, the four are comfortable with each other. After a stressful week at work, Roman and Virgil decide to spend their weekend off work at Patton's. Some romance plays out as a certain boy realizes all four of them were beginning to fall for one another.

Virgil walked out of the Hot Topic, looking around for his boyfriend and Logan. He found them conversing, walking his way from the bookshop. They fell into a routine, Logan picked them up and dropped them off, somedays Roman did. Either way, Virgil just ended up riding along with whatever car was getting him to and from work. Today though, Roman and Virgil had ridden with Logan, so he was also dropping them off.

"Roman!" Virgil threw himself into Roman's arms, hugging him tightly.

"Hey there, my emo disaster," he chuckled, kissing his forehead. Roman caught Logan glancing at Virgil, seemingly admiring him. "Don't you gotta boyfriend, you Flirty Dork?" he teased.

Logan blushed lightly in sync with Virgil, whose heart exploded at the idea of Logan looking at him in a romantic sense. At this point, their hangouts were full of Roman and Logan flirting, Virgil admiring Logan (and for some reason, he couldn't get Patton out of his head), and Patton cuddling everyone. Unknowingly, all the boys were developing feelings for each other.

"I'm poly," he muttered lightly. Virgil could practically feel Roman's want to break out into a victory dance, but Roman restrained himself from acting that dorky in front of his freckle-faced crush.

"Gay and poly..noted," Roman gave a wink to Logan, but it was so quick that the intelligent and professional man had no idea if it actually happened.

"Hey, gay disaster number 1 and 2, I want to get out of here before I literally die of boredom," Virgil snapped his fingers to get Logan and Roman to stop their very gay flirting. Logan looked towards Virgil, giving him an indecipherable look.

"Emo and sassy...noted," he hummed, and Virgil gasped, going quiet.

"So," Roman stepped off the sidewalk and began leading the other two through the parking lot. "Me and Logan were talking-"

The intelligent man in question corrected him, "Logan and I."

"Irrelevant. We were talking, and were thinking. If you're okay with it, why don't we spend this weekend at Patton's?" Roman rested his hand on Logan's car door handle, waiting for the 'beep' to let him know that it was unlocked.

"I don't have an issue with that. I have this weekend off, we got a new worker, some teenager whose barely old enough to apply for a job. So if it works out, I won't have to work on weekends," Virgil climbed into the back seat, Roman doing a dramatic 'whoop! whoop!'.

Logan and Roman got in, both of them buckling their seat belts. "Seat belt, baby," Roman reminded lightly, and Virgil was quick to listen to his instructions.

"So, we'll head over to your place to get whatever you guys need to sleepover, and then drive to my place," Logan decided. Logan and Roman organized this because Logan had this weekend off too, so for once, they were all free. But honestly, sleepovers even with work the next day were becoming semi-normal. It had been about a month since Virgil met Patton in person, and they had all been hanging out nonstop.

'papa..kinda feel small.'

Virgil was to shy to say it out loud, quietly messaging Patton as Logan drove towards their apartment complex.

'Make sure you let Roman know, grab your little stuff!! We've been irls for a month, and I still haven't seen little you in person!'

Virgil giggled lightly, "What'cha laughing at, Vee?" Roman asked. Virgil shook his head lightly,

"Nothing. M' fine," he tried to keep his voice level, making his absolute best effort to sound big. Roman nodded, but seemed suspicious.

'to shy, don't wanna. I'll stay big!'

Virgil listened to Logan and Roman converse about their job, throwing in some flirty comments here and there. He felt his phone buzz lightly in his lap a few minutes later. They were only a few streets away from their apartment now.

'Now, little one, that isn't a good idea! You haven't been small in a few weeks, and when you have it's only for a little bit. I know your worried you're gonna bother Roman, but I'm sure your dada won't mind!'

Virgil typed out a response, promising he'd tell Roman that he was regressing, but he still didn't say anything right away. "Okay, we'll be back," Virgil was snapped out of his thoughts when Roman opened his door. He realized that they were in the apartment parking lot.

He took Roman's hand, getting out and waving at Logan. Their apartment complex was set up simply, so locating and entering the building was easy. "Pack enough clothes for two nights, two days, and don't forget your hygienic stuff," Roman reminds, unlocking the door and letting Virgil in. Virgil was quick to pack clothes, and the essentials. He purposely picked out his daytime clothes to be more childlike, hoping Roman would notice. His boyfriend, however, only glanced and ignored it.

Virgil sighed as Roman zipped up his bag, seemingly being able to pack his electronics, clothing, and everything else into one bookbag. "What's wrong, baby?" he looked at Virgil, shouldering his bag and coming closer. Virgil only whined in response, so Roman hugged him. "Don't think I didn't notice you were little, Vee. I was hoping you'd be able to say something and speak up for yourself, but you're anxious, I understand."

Virgil nodded, sniffling slightly. "None of that, there's no reason to cry," Roman assured wiping the tears of his face before reaching to Virgil's side of the bed, handing him his stuffed kitten. "Let's get some little stuff together, hmm?"

Virgil cheered up quickly, rummaging around the apartment and figuring out what little gear he'd need. One sippy cup, a stuffie, a pacifier, and a coloring book later, they had prepared for the sleepover. Virgil was speaking openly in his little voice before the exited the apartment, but when they got back in the car with Logan, he tried to talk big, hiding his face in his stuffie.

"Sorry we took so long, we had to grab little gear for the baby emo back there."

Virgil whined at his teasing, biting at his lip. His pacifier was in his bag, which Roman had set in his lap in the front. Logan played soft music through the aux cord into the radio as they drove, and it was only minutes before the little in the back seat fell asleep. "He takes naps very randomly when he regresses, sometimes in weird spots," Roman lightly chided.

Logan nodded, "Patton is so energetic, but it's adorable. He's never bratty, but when he is, it's because he's full of energy and forgets what rules even are," he chuckled to himself. "What are Virgil's rules?"

"Well, Patton and I have some random stuff. Like, bedtime by ten pm but that's always changing because of other things, listen to your carers, stuff like that. We've never, like, written them out though."

Logan made a turn, "You've never had a whole day where Virgil could be little, have you? He's never regressed long enough to break a rule, has he?"

Roman shook his head, "Virgil works all week. That's why I'm hoping this new worker stays and Virgil gets weekends off."

Logan and Roman continued talking, about work, about their littles, about the upcoming weekend. It wasn't long before they were in front of Patton's house, the the pastel-purple-haired boy in question was quick to run outside. Roman and Logan took the bags inside, while Patton woke Virgil.

"Hey, buddy, let's get up and go inside, hmm?" Patton lightly shook him, his eyes flying open. He felt around for his bear, which was nowhere in sight. "Hey, hey, don't panic. Roman took him inside for you," Virgil pouted in response to this. Patton chuckled, helping him out of the car, and taking his hand so that he didn't manage to hurt himself while going up the porch stairs.

Virgil ran to Roman, "Vani! Gimme Vani," he demanded in a toddler-like voice.

"Please, say please," Patton corrected, letting Logan lock the car before he shut the door and locked it behind him.

"Sorry papa! Please?" he tilted his head, and Roman chuckled, handing him the stuffed bear. Virgil found himself biting on the ear on the bear as he climbed onto the couch.

"ah-ah! No biting your stuffies," Logan jumped in, looking at Roman. "What bag has his little stuff?"

Roman zipped open one of Virgil's bags, pulling out the black adult pacifier. Virgil took it in his mouth quickly, pointing to his Nightmare Before Christmas sippy cup, whining lightly. "I know what you want, but I'm gonna need you to verbally ask, Vee." Roman knew he had trouble asking for something when he needed it, it was something he was trying to work with him on.

"Juice, please?"

"Of course, honey!" Patton took the sippy cup, "Grape, right?"

Virgil nodded with a light giggle, Patton disappearing into his kitchen. "So, Patton always films tons on the weekends, he plans all week and then films on the weekend. I don't know if he's still doing that or otherwise."

Logan began talking with Roman, but Virgil wanted Roman's attention. He made grabby-hands, grabbing the attention of his boyfriend and carer. "Cuddles! Cuddles!" he reached for Roman, who obliged and took his spot next to him on the couch.

Logan sat on the other side of Roman. "He's quite cute," Logan mumbled, blushing with wide eyes when he realized he said that out loud.

"It's okay," Roman assured, "Virgil and I are poly..so flirting is free grounds. I don't have an issue with it."

Logan nodded, still blushing lightly. Virgil had confirmed the fact he was poly with Roman, both of the boys admittedly crushed on Logan. And Roman thought Patton was cute in a 'you're-so-precious-I-wanna-protect-you' type of way, while Logan saw Virgil the same way. During all this, old feelings from high school were coming up for Patton, and Virgil was confused as to why he felt his heart speed up around Patton.

"Patton would kill me if he knew I told you, but he thinks you're cute. And he's had a crush on Virgil since forever, he's actually the main reason he realized he was poly. He had feeling for Virgil, but found himself able to like other people."

"They go well together, I will admit. But I don't know if Virgil likes him back or-"

"Look at this little Storm Cloud! He said that you two were talking grown up stuff, and he snuck into our kitchen," Patton came back into the living room, holding hands with the emo boy, who held his disney sippy cup.

"Sorry...Logan and I were talking and got distracted, I didn't even realize he left," Roman sighed, giving Logan a look that said 'this conversation isn't over'.

"I can let Virgil in my little room, he can play with any of my stuff, it'll keep him busy for a while," Patton offered, and Virgil nodded enthusiastically.

"That sounds good, we can make some snacks and then head up there, yeah?" Logan said. Patton nodded, giving him a look before leading Virgil up the stairs.

"So if I've thought about this correctly,then all of us are poly, right?" Logan asked, only a slight hesitancy in his voice as he got up and entered the kitchen. Roman followed him, feeling the weird nervousness in his stomach.

"Uh, yeah. Virgil didn't officially identify until recently when-" his eyes widened and he cut himself off. Logan smirked, opening a cabinet and grabbing a few plates.

"When both of you guys started crushing on me?" Logan gained a sudden burst of confidence, but he didn't face Roman to see his shocked face, he just continued preparing sandwiches and cookies for the two boys upstairs.

"I-uh..who said that?" Roman swallowed, his face quite red.

"The fact that both of you are extremely obvious and gay. Just so you know, you're cute too, Roman."

Roman was blushing, and there were a few moments of silence. "So..theoretically speaking, if all four of us were interested, would you be open to going out?"

"What do you mean?" Roman questioned.

Logan began spreading jelly on a slice of bread, "Like, a date. All four of us, we can go somewhere," he suggested. Roman was squealing inside of his head.

"If the other two are up for it, I'm definitely not against the idea. H-have you spoken to Patton about this?" Roman came close to Logan,leaning against the counter while he cut a sandwich into triangles, setting it on the dinosaur themed plate.

"Yeah, obviously. He likes you, and his old feeling for Virgil are coming back. They're best friends, but he's interested in something more. I think, we all should get to know each other, hmm?"

Roman nodded. "Is Virgil allowed to have chocolate chip cookies?" Logan asked, "I always make sure to give Patton a main thing, and then a cookie if he eats all of it."

Roman just nodded again, watching Logan set two cookies in between the sandwich slices, moving on to grab a bowl to make something for Patton. He settled on ouring a bag of chips for him and Roman, and prepared a similar plate to Virgil for Patton. "When Virgil's big, I'm sure Patton will offer the date-idea. I'm glad you're open to it," Logan smiled, making eye contact with Roman.

It wasn't uncomfortable though, both men smiled at each other. Roman felt something going off in his head, telling him this was wrong. That he was cheating on Vee somehow, but he had made sure to make it clear to Virgil that he was interested in Logan. They agreed that if there were any moves pulled, or they got the chance to do something, then they should go for it. Roman had full permission to do what he thought Logan was gonna do first.

"Patton's okay with this, right?" Roman mumbled, realizing their faces were closer now. When did they lean in?

Logan nodded, "Virgil, too?"

Roman nodded. And then they kissed. It was quick, sweet, and soft. It made both boys smile widely when they pulled away. Logan was the first to break eye contact, making a light coughing sound before handing Roman the bowl of chips. "We can do more of that on that date I mentioned," he said, causing Roman to blush lightly at the thought as he picked up the two plates.

Logan and Roman made a silent agreement to pretend the kiss didn't happen until Virgil was big and they could all talk about it.

But internally, both men were looking forward to the theoretical date. And not just for each other, Roman might've been originally attracted to Logan, but he found himself slowly crushing on Patton. Even when big, he was quite adorable, and Roman wanted to do nothing less than pull the precious boy into a hug and kiss him softly. And Logan? Logan wanted to hold Virgil close and whisper his worries away.

These idiots were all slowly falling for each other. Only time would tell how they would finally get together.

A/N: THE KISS WASN’T PLANNED OOPS, it just popped in my head and all I remember was ten minutes of keyboard clicking and suddenly I had written the gayest scene ever. I’m trying my best to not only focus on the agere aspect, but also the romance, these first chapters will continue to be romance-based until they all get together officially. after that, more agere stuff will ensue. Until then, enjoy they four disasters quickly falling for each other. also this is about 2500 words

I’m still figuring out this taglist stuff, so if you want added then lmk (ask, messages). I hope you enjoyed the chapter!!

#ts virgil #ts logan #ts roman #ts patton #Polysanders #LAMP #CALM #The Agere Channel Lamp AU #The Agere Channel AU #logince #ts agere #little virgil

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geometricalien · 4 years ago

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oh dear i'm super duper late but I have a lot of questions about your wips!! I wanna know more about sick Akashi, nekoma pirate crew, BoKuroo/BokuAka midsommer, Pining + Jacket, The truth burns and destroys, feeling good, Punk Noya, Strawberry Blonde, sunspot and the merman au!!! Thanks babe <333

Hi Vee!!! This is it, I spent wayyyyy too long on this, I think my finger is cramping from typing. But thank you for asking, I love sharing my ideas, sorry if it’s incorherent.

This is super long so it’s under the cut, saving people room

Sick Akashi

So, it’s based off of a line prompt “I’d like it if you’d stay” and as the title suggests, 3rd year Akashi gets sick, sorry Vee it’s not fatal, Furihata comes to Rakuzan to check on his friend after he doesn’t answer his phone. The entire premise is Akashi works himself sick with his various responsibilities he takes on as “perfectionist who can’t show any cracks at all”. I don’t want Bokushi Akashi showing up so it’s minus the mental break elements. (also technically in canon terms it's after they have merged so yeah) I feel like they deserve a cute little “nurse” the other from a sickness ficlet. And… maybe… sick Akashi confesses…….. It’s almost a writing challenge for me because Akashi has a more polite sophisticated way of thinking and speaking, so cough yep

The rest are Haikyuu aus so buckle in

NEKOMA PIRATE CREW

Admittedly this is more loose, less of a solid idea. It’s Yaku centric, and how he went from a merchant from his grandfather’s company searching for lost merchandise and became the first mate who keeps track of the ship's finances and keeps their captain Kuroo on track. Other things of note, he meets Kuroo first as a pirate on another ship who stole his merchandise, Kenma is a sea witch (is that science or magic? That's always the question), and about halfway through the adventure they get Lev on board as a new member. So yeah! Kinda a fetch quest but on of my favorite fanfics is legitimately a fetch quest so it's okay fjdkaljf

BoKuroo/BokuAka Midsommer

This is based off of a fanart by desdelasombra my friend Shayla showed it to me and we threw this idea around together, we really don’t want to write it but it's also spectacular. So it's the movie Midsommar, right? Bokuto is a “gatherer” bringing his friends to come join in his village’s rituals. But we didn’t want anyone to die (except for Kenma sorry he’s dead as the substitute for the main character’s sister), so a grieving Kuroo comes with his boyfriend Bokuto, joined by their friends the smart studious and jaded Oikawa and bright bubbly Hinata. Obviously the three react badly to the first ritual and Bokuto doesn’t understand because for him it’s always been a joyful experience and he wanted to share it with his friends. A Lot of things happen, but most important is Akaashi and Kuroo dancing under the may pole together. BokuAka was in the past when Bokuto was home so part of this is them coming together as poly and escaping the final scene of the movie. Again this is very painful but that art is beautiful and the world is better for it being created

Pining + Jacket (KuroLev)

Again this is a line prompt about lending a jacket because it’s cold and it had so much potential for pining and who is the most pining bastard that I know? LEV and Shayla told me about KuroLev and somehow this happened. It’s currently going to be a sequence of drabbles of Lev pining after Kuroo, what else could you ask for? Uh? Lev confessing to Kuroo and them going out??? Sorry I can’t hear you over the exquisite angst and pain of one sided love that I want to explore

The truth burns and destroys

GOOD CHOICE, I began this on saturday night and it has earned a very special place in my heart. Sometimes I fear that my writing is like a lazy pool, sure it's nice and easy and smooth but there isn’t an intensity or raw emotions, BUT THIS this accomplishes what I want. And I’m really glad, its metaphor and imagery heavy but it really captures their emotions and thoughts without it sounding like I’m a 7th grader writing my first fanfiction glances to my abandoned wips from that time. Okay, Vee, I am a glutton for punishment and angst and I choose to pursue cheating fics. But specifically where and how they build the relationship up again after finding out. So, I was reading a KageHina cheating fic and how the character’s reacted felt off somehow so at midnight I wrote this snippet to fullfill my craving, you know what they say the best fanfiction is self indulgence. Here is a short excerpt,

He wants to brush this aside and continue their lives. He wants to wake up next to Tobio and still be seen the same way. He doesn't want anything to change.

Tobio is his favorite book. He has read it time and time again. Highlighting, underlining, cherishing. So Shouyou is able to read the silent begging in his eyes. The right clenched fist.

"Shouyou," a deafening pause "What is this?"

Please lie to me.

…

It stretches on. The eternity of silence. They sit together holding on to the last hope they have. Shouyou memorizes those beautiful hands, each crease and bump. Hands that helped shape him become who he is and that reached out unwaveringly.

Tobio sighs a world ending sigh.

Shouyou was the one who created their world, it's only fitting that Tobio is the one who destroys it.

In summary I like angst, I want to feel something

Feeling good

AAA, okay uh, This is a BokuAka pop star au. Akaashi sings “feeling good” at a big charity event hosted by Akashi (... yes I am AkaFuri trash and I can and will sneak them in anything and everything I write) while he is singing he walks down a big staircase remembering moments in his relationship with Bokuto, how much they have grown and how much he loves him. I love the concept! But I tried to write smut in the beginning of it and OOF THATS A NO. I actually have the majority of it written but I do want to add more emotions and thoughts (the lazy pool writing) and make it Ao3 friendly because I have all of the lyrics for feeling good in it as “post signs” for what he sings and that’s against their rules. 1 major aspect of this fic is it's all leading up to the point where Akaashi says “I love you” for the first time to Bokuto after finishing the song, on stage, in front of everyone and on every screen broadcasting it.

Punk Noya

I have a love for feral boys, especially feral alternative punk boys (and girls and humans) so this whole idea is that Noya goes to another school for high school, embraces more punk aethsetics, and on the first day of the preliminary tournaments he hears the rumors about a high schooler in a gang, getting up to nasty things, and he decides to confront them. He finds Asahi, rants him out and leaves. The plot then follows canon, at the winter tournament Karasuno faces Dateko, Karasuno loses even more badly because Noya isn’t there. Asahi quits volleyball, BUT Asahi and Noya run into each other at the store and talk leading to friendship which leads to romance. Idk man, I want more punk haikyuu characters, it gives me life. Alt Yamaguchi is my favorite but onwards we go

Strawberry Blonde

!!!! So this is Mitski’s song and to give a vague idea this is a pining Kageyama fic where he tries to pull away from Hinata and that back fires. (I do have more to say but I’ve been typing this for over an hour and I’m getting really tired fjkdaljl) There is one paragraph that I love, so here it is! Kageyama and Hinata are practicing by themselves outside of school and they are playing pepper (its a volleyball warm up practice routine where you partner up with someone pass, set, and spike the ball to each other sesquentially) Hinata goes to spike the ball and for a moment Kageyama sees it,

They are at nationals and they made it to finals. The crowds are screaming, but everything except the court is thrown into shadows. They are at match point of the final set. Everything is at peak intensity and at the center is him. Flying in the air. Orange hair waving with the momentum. His loud take off echoing in the gym. Arm poised for the kill. Eyes sparking with ferocity and passion as he aims. And finally, tipping the world over is the loud slap of his hand, sending the ball to the far side of the court-

This was actually going to be finished and posted in time for Haikyuu season 4 coming out and the manga wrapping up.... clearly I failed my goal fjdaklfj

Sunspot

You don’t know this about me but I love royalty aus, and this is BokuAka Prince Akaashi and Knight Bokuto. This was a short snippet of this grand idea I have for them where they run away from Akaashi’s inherited destiny together. It has potential to be really wide and expansive with the differnet teams as different kingdoms (AGAIN ILLUSION OF CHOICE, that fic really influences me doesn’t it fjdskalj) But this was a short glance at Akaashi taking a break from studying and watching Bokuto and the other knights practice duel. The title comes from the fact that Bokuto is a sunspot in Akaashi’s life, and his day is substantially better basking in his golden shining light.

Merman au

I’m so glad you asked about this and its technically the one I’ve written the most for since it's actually the one I posted on my haikyuu writing side blog. But brief recap, long term it’s a BokuAka little mermaid au but instead of a sea witch it’s an underwater deity who makes “wishes” (it's a deal) with every royal who is born. And Akaashi has a lot of siblings: Ushijima, Oikawa, Suga, Terushima, and Hinata, and its in that order. So I have information on every sibling’s deal, what they wish for, what they give for it, what happens to them in the future, romantically and otherwise. But, this is the one I haven’t updated in over a year, I am working on it!! I’m currently on Koushi’s (suga’s) wish/deal, its just taking forever. If you want to learn more about it I’ll link it in parts 1 2 3 4

BUT I will work on Suga’s part and then Terushima’s and then to the meat of the idea with Akaashi.

If you have made it this far, thanks, you are cool as always. My brain and fingers is ded.

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moderndaybard · 4 years ago

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2020 Weekly Ficlet 42/52(? We’ll see?)

Ever At Your Side, Part 4/7 (Uhura) [New Trek/Pokemon Crossover. Because Why not.]

(Part 1-Kirk; Part 2-Spock; Part 3-Bones; Part 5-Scotty; Part 6-Sulu; Part 7-Chekov)

Beginnings:

Long-term, deep-space missions, it turns out, are long stretches of routine bordering on monotony, interspersed very occasionally with the strangest—and often most dangerous—of exceptions. But despite the long stretches of ‘it-was-a-normal-day-see-previous-recordings’ sorts of log entries and confined quarters aboard ship, it was still somehow remarkably different for Lt. Uhura and Commander Spock to align their off-duty time with any consistency.

(The downside of an over-achiever dating a workaholic, mused more than once.)

Still, they did make the effort, and when they managed to pull it off, they made the most of the time that they had—which was why Uhura was now desperately trying to ignore the rivulets of not-sweat trickling down her back as she joined Spock in his meditation.

With their minds so close, Uhura knew that he would feel the flicker of her distractions, and so tried to stay present—to no avail. As soon as she’d noticed the physical sensation, there was no going back to the moment. The prankster had won this round.

With a silent apology to her boyfriend (who she knew was aware of the situation and finding his own meditation disrupted) she pulled away from the link that Spock and T’Kay had opened, opening her eyes and whirling on the ‘stealth master’ behind her. “I warned you that you’d get bored—I said that you could stay in my room or in your ball. You couldn’t have waited just a few more moments to ask for attention?”

Whatever expression the pokemon behind her bore at the moment was obscured behind the ‘scarf’ that covered everything below is eyes (the ‘scarf’ being, in fact, his tongue, a fact that seemed to throw most people when they learned and/or remembered that fact), but Uhura had been with her partner for so long that she could read the mischievous grin, hidden though it was. Utengo had no shame, at times.

The communications officer continued to glare at her partner Greninja, but she couldn’t help noticing how off the water-type looked in the room set to mimic the dry-heat of Vulcan for its occupant. This time, when she held out the pokeball in invitation, her partner did not sulk, pout, or refuse.

He did, however, lob one last ball of water into the air before he was recalled, which burst and showered the two trainers and other pokemon.

“To be fair, that is a way of showing he likes you,” Uhura offered to Spock.

“I am…aware,” the half-Vulcan intoned calmly. He, too, was used to certain…antics…of the pokemon in question. “Though, by that metric, one could argue that he likes quite a few aboard the Enterprise—if not most.”

She sighed, but couldn’t fully hold back a smile, either. “Unfortunately, he does.”

-------------------------

Meetings:

It’d been so many years ago—she was still a teenager still home, Starfleet Academy still a distant someday she was pursuing with all the force of her already-legendary determination. Language was already her passion, xenolinguistics the field she already had her eyes set on, and she’d already mastered three languages with another two not far behind.

But starship assignments were still a long way off, and prodigy though Nyota was, she knew there was still so much about the world—about herself—to be discovered, to be decided. And there was time for all of that.

Today, though, the only choice that mattered was which pokemon she’d be leaving with: who would be her partner in the years and decades to come. She had some ideas—being her, she’d done her research and done it thoroughly—but unusually enough for her, she hadn’t come with a set plan.

Which was good, because the little blue frog blinking up at her was not common in that part of Earth, so she hadn’t originally considered it.

She knew of the Froakie line, of course, knew the final evolution was prized by stunt performers, security officials, daredevils, and some in less-than-savory occupations. Additionally, water-types were not uncommon in Starfleet, especially since some experts (and ‘experts’) liked to claim that trainers that gravitated towards that type were more likely to be cool, rational, and quickly adaptable.

Personally, she thought that was ridiculous—even if the type-to-trainer-personality theory had any actual basis (which she was not convinced of), the young girl privately thought that the water-type lent itself just as easily to impetuosity, storm-like fury, stubbornness undaunted by any obstacle, and even to…

She saw it, in the little Froakie’s eyes, behind what most saw as the wide-eyed perpetually-worried expression of the line’s first stage; and he saw it in her, too, in the dark brown eyes of the girl regarding him thoughtfully, one praised for her intelligence and drive and thought mature beyond her years by those who never took the time to look close enough to see—

—the twin sparks of mischief, the mark of the schemer, the prankster. They’d get where they wanted to go, no question, but they’d reach it on their own, if unexpected, way.

(Not to mention, certain traits of his final evolution seemed like to good a joke for the future communications officer to pass up.)

She’d get questions in the days, months, even years to follow about what obscure language or dialect she’d turned to for Utengo’s name. “English, if you look at it right,” was the answer—and the joke—that so few seemed to get.

Seriously? It’s not that hard a scramble…right?)

-------------------------

(2009)

So much and so little had changed in the intervening years: Uhura and Utengo had grown up—the Frogadier that’d entered Starfleet academy at her side having evolved at last into a Greninja early in her (their) final year—and both had found, through trial and error, that it was when the other cadets, the professors, and the officers saw them as the mature, calm, rational, and adaptive water-type and -trainer they wanted to see that they were taken seriously, accepted.

So the twin sparks of mischief were dampened—though not doused—and set aside for the moment in favor of finding and excelling in (if not exceeding) in the expected paths for a Xenolinguist and her partner, learning the rules and expectations, what grey areas were and weren’t safe, observing the Academy staff politics to see who actually had clout, and how they’d gotten it. Uhura told herself that it was easier this way—there was no need to break new ground constantly if a sure path already existed.

Water will follow the channels dug for it, after all.

****

Kirk likely thought that her reluctance to ‘crew’ his third attempt at the Kobayashi-Maru was due to purely personal reasons (namely her unconcealed dislike for his brash attitude—which, admittedly, did contribute a little). He therefore probably wondered why she agreed to do so anyway.

(Career-wise, there were some bridges it did not do to burn, personal personality issues aside, and perhaps the most annoying thing about James T. Kirk’s flippant, arrogant persona was that he had the skills and smarts to back it up—his career would definitely be fast-tracked if he managed to avoid pissing off the very people inclined to do so.)

In truth, it was the test itself that she despised even more—Academy rumor mill being what it was, every cadet knew it was an unwinnable scenario going in. And Academy students being who they were, nearly to a person, they went in believing that they could be the one person to spot the loophole that would win it anyway.

To date, Kirk was the only one who’d tried more than once.

(Continued on AO3.)

#Star Trek 2009 #uhura #spock #pokemon #pokemon crossover #hypothetical pokemon team #well really just one partner #because its fun #my post #writing challenge

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comicteaparty · 5 years ago

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March 28th-April 3rd, 2020 Creator Babble Archive

The archive for the Creator Babble chat that occurred from March 28th, 2020 to April 3rd, 2020. The chat focused on the following question:

How many hours do you work on your comic per week, and how do you manager to balance that with other responsibilities?

Holmeaa - working on WAYFINDERS

heheh So we are.. cheating a bit Both me and my coworker are unemployed, and is working on hour comic, like was it a full time job. It is our passion project, and dream that we can work and live of makeing comics. In Denmark you can apply for grants from the government, but you need to have releashed a book before that is possible. We are useing the comic, to show potentional clients in the future what we can do. For now we are working on it from 09:00-17:00 ish (with a long lunch break) while applying for other kinds of grants, and also does all the things we are supposed to to get our unemplyment money, and searching for jobs, and freelance gigs, gathering the courage to start our own small company (not right now though) and yeaah time will tell

carcarchu

@Holmeaa - working on WAYFINDERS that doesn't sound like cheating to me? more like using the tools at your disposal to turn your passion into a viable career

Holmeaa - working on WAYFINDERS

hehe it feels a little like cheating! there are some debates about if it is okay or not, but we think that strengthening our skills is a good use of our time

eli [a winged tale]

Haha also not cheating! It’s great you’re using the time to chase the dream I’m curious what’s your breakdown for those time working on the comic? As for me, usually 1-2 hours a day with a bit more on the weekend if time permits. These days with the quarantine it’s about 2-3 h a day

DanitheCarutor

Since I'm unemployed until who knows when I've been working on my comic between 40-50 hours a week about 6 to 7 days a week... most weeks. Some days, like update day or chore day, I hardly work on the comic or don't work on it at all. Admittedly I'm not the best at balancing drawing with other responsibilities, sometimes I get so into it that I forget about daily house chores, other weeks I do the opposite and only do house chores which makes me totally behind of comic stuff. I can't seem to find a good middle ground, it always turns into completely focusing on one or the other.

eli [a winged tale]

Yeah when I get in the zone, time flies and life gets put to the wayside

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

So I have no school or work, so the webcomic has become almost a fulltime project for me

I average about 10 hours per day working on it, not counting on chores and exercise

Another thing I worry about is the possibility of carpal tunnel syndrome, which is why I've been relentless with exercise, too

I guess it's just a combination of relentless reminders and also sheer willpower that gets me to do other responsibilities haha

@eli [a winged tale] also I know that feeling

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

So since my school had to cancel, I have to be more responsible for my online course. Sometimes I give myself 2 days off each week to work more into my upcoming webcomic but I have to switch my mind for school work, online classes. Also extra time for food. I need to get back into exercise or I feel exhausted more easily. I keep a wall schedule so that I make it a routine to write what I'll do every 3 or 5 days, to keep my active brain reminded(edited)

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

I spent the majority of last year (fun)employed (partially by choice, partially not! my previous job let me go rather unceremoniously... and I needed a hiatus anyway... so it worked out) so I poured a lot more hours into that chapter of Phantomarine than I usually did. I worked on it almost every day - at least for a couple of hours, but sometimes up to a full eight-hour day. That number has dipped tremendously since I’ve gone back to work, but I’m spreading the same amount of time out in a broader way. I’m trying to get a good buffer during my hiatus, so I can work and draw in a healthy balance. I don’t have crazy overtime at my current job like I did at my last one, so that’s already a comfort. I’m confident I’ll be able to hit a good stride once the comic returns in June (edited)

eli [a winged tale]

Can’t wait Lady!!

Feather J. Fern

Two part time jobs, and school killed my comic, but I been working on getting one panel done a day, which is around 30minutes to an hour if possible.

eli [a winged tale]

My routine used to be rendering on the commute but now just once in am and once pm until this limbo time is clarified

That’s awesome Feather! It’s so rewarding when everything comes together after putting effort everyday

Feather J. Fern

Once school is done in two more weeks I will be more free to do things so I hope to get maybe two panels done in a day XD

Online school, stupid quarantine

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

Due to the pandemic im mostly off school and my part time job so i spend like 4-5 hours on my comic per day. Still would like try to get a page done per day but lmao digital painting is slowwww

eli [a winged tale]

What’s everyone’s tips for breaks/stretches/balance? I feel like I certainly need to revisit these to avoid burnout and continue feeling motivated!

Feather J. Fern

Actually there was a cool manga artist who's tip was literally he only worked working hours. His mornings are free and since manga was his job, he worked form 12-6, giving him 2 hours to do other work he needs to get done, and takes morning walks and stuff.

Another person I know had "No working weekends" as a thing becuase they are a freelancer.

I personally have try to make sure I ahve a routine, and actually, stretch before drawing.

Streetch before, during a break, and then after, to keep that body nice and warmed up

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Health-wise there's this hing for your : every 20 minutes, look at something 20 feet away for 20 seconds. I'm not good at following this, but when I do it, it helps a lot.

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

Despite the current pandemic, my work-life hasn't changed much (unless you count stress getting in the way). I am currently "unemployed," but I do consider comicking my full-time job. I am also not very good at balancing work and life. Something's always gotta give. Last year, I worked at a job that basically ruined my ability to work on my comic. I worked 30-40 hours typically, ruined my sleep schedule, took work home sometimes, and was constantly exhausted. This is what resulted in my year and a half long hiatus, and it's what drove me to work like hell on my comic when I quit. Now (when I'm in the groove and not suffering from art block), I typically spend 60-70 hours on my comic and get 2-3 pages done: - 30 hours sketching (I know, ridiculous) - 5 hours filling in base colors - 20-25 hours painting - 5 hours adding text, speech bubbles, sfx, and finishing touches - 1-2 hours formatting for Webtoon I also spend some time throughout the week typing up the script, doing concept art for things coming in the future of the comic, and preparing for conventions, but I can't tell you exactly how much time.

eli [a winged tale]

Thanks for the breakdown! I’m always keen to learn from everyone and seeing how the workflow is like for different people

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

oh don't forget to do wrist stretches!

eli [a winged tale]

Ahh formatting time is always so tedious for me!

Yes wrist exercises! Any recommendations?

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

hmmm well the easiest one is literally just shaking it out

like every hour

and I also like to hold my arm out parallel, point my fingers up and using my other hand to pull the fingers back so i'm stretching the wrist

then I point the fingers down and pull on the fingers until my wrist is stretching

eli [a winged tale]

Awesome. Will be adopting those!

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I'm pretty fast. 2-6 hours per page, depending on how detailed it is. Average of 3-4. I could probably do 2 pages/ week easily enough, but don't want to do more than that. I'm the kind of person who always needs to be doing a million different things. I need to leave time for my other hobbies and my paintings and my academics and extracurriculars. Otherwise I'd get burnt out doing one thing only

Holmeaa - working on WAYFINDERS

@eli [a winged tale] So since it is both me and @Q (Wayfinders: Off Course) working, we start with working on a rough each, our goal is one step (so rough, ink, color) for two pages pr day, pr person. So in a weak the goal is four finished pages a week, and then we upload 3 pages per week. So it is divided that in the morning we start at 09:00 in the morning, maybe checking mail, being practical or whatever. Then we work until 12:00 were we eat lunch, go for a long nice walk and then we go back to work between 13:00 and 14:00 ish and then work until 17:00 when we begin to prepare dinner. Then of course breaks inbetween

Q (Wayfinders: Off Course)

It’s pretty wild to be able to dedicate your entire day to comics like that

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

damn you all work fast

do you guys have any tips on how to work on a webcomic faster?

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

Lol, I wish!

Still looking for those magical secrets

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

@shadowhood (SunnyxRain) You know the 80-20 rule? You can get 80% of the result with 20% of the effort? My comic is very messy if you zoom in. I don't spend time making sure the linework or the coloring is perfectly clean. Also, I'm pretty fast at drawing figures. I used to practice figure drawing a lot by rushing to draw strangers irl before they moved, or by drawing a bunch of fast figures from the free figure drawing model websites online. I've also taken a figure drawing course (didn't even have to pay because it was part of my university! Even if you don't have that option you can probably find free life drawing sessions on Meetup or similar!) which really helped me streamline my process for drawing people

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

Oh I see! Yes, I used to take life drawing classes too! And your response makes me feel a lot better

I tend to be a bit messy with inking, and since i'm a perfectionist a lot of my time is wasted on editing/clean up

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I've seen cronaj draw, and while I think the results look excellent, I think her method is a kind of inefficient. She draws like a printer, nearly finishing one detailed body part before moving on the the next. I think maybe if she drew in a more classical way, going from a gesture drawing to progressively more detailed, it might help her be faster and her poses more cohesive and dynamic. Maybe working on 1 or 5 min figures would help? Practicing things like this?

eli [a winged tale]

Yeah I try to do figure practices for efficiency

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

I heard that there are some online life drawing vids you can follow too

but what are your experiences with online life drawing vids versus the real thing

like is there a real difference?

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

found some of my old 1 minutes

To me there's not too much difference

I've heard some people say that life drawing is either way easier or way harder though. Because of your depth perception when looking at a real person

But the bruises on my legs can attest to my horrid depth perception haha. That might be why I don't notice a difference

Actually those previous sketches might be 30 seconds? I don't remember

I would recommend you try both but right now we pretty much only have the online option haha

eli [a winged tale]

Yeah I’ve done both and I think irl creates complexity with depth and the interactions with others etc is helpful but online is my go to for flexibility

I think having a process streamlined will make things more efficient. The downside is that it might feel tedious and I do switch it up from time to time for variety

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Might feel uncomfortable but that's how you know you're improving

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

There is a TON of difference for me. I HAVE to look at a physical model in front of me.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Can't get better if you always do the same things

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

This is what my brain does.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I wonder- could drawing yourself in a mirror be a decent substitute?

If youre lucky you might also be able to ask an SO or roommate to model for you. Should probably pay them back by cooking for them or something though

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Brain: sees a real model in front of me Brain: translates 3D to 2D, result: drawing Brain: sees a photo/video of a model Brain: SHIT. That's supposed to be 3D, isn't it? Brain: Translates 2D to 3D (basically re-constructing it in my head, or attempting to re-construct) so that it can translate it back to 2D Brain: BSOD

There's some online resources out there that have "3D" photos... you know, two near-identical images side by side, so if you look at it cross-eyed, it becomes 3D?

But I can't do those because I get a headache X'D

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Just thinking about drawing from that makes me dizzy

eli [a winged tale]

Oh interesting!

Yeah maybe looking out the window to draw people would be the way to go...

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

But maybe figure drawing in VR exists?

eli [a winged tale]

Balcony figure drawings

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I live on the top floor so those are going to be some very small figures

eli [a winged tale]

For ants

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Once this coronavirus thing is over, there's lots of ways you can do gesture drawings from just random people -- bus stops, cafes, museums (I have not done this, but people who have done this report this is really good because others assume you're drawing the artworks. XD)

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I've done this a lot

Sometimes I've even shown people drawing of themselves if they've turned out particularly nice

They've always taken it well

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

I like drawing my professors because they use hand gestures a lot when they talk

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Airport was REALLY good for finding people stuck in one pose indefinitely

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

they alwayas laugh when I show them

eli [a winged tale]

Shadow omg I do that too

Draws classmates

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

yeah the only issue i have with drawing classmates

is that they're always doing the "i'm using my phone" pose

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Become the master of drawing people on their phones

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Maybe try drawing children on the playground?

This works better if you're a woman

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

oh thank jesus

I also like going to the zoo or the museum

or the aquarium if i'm feeling adventurous

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I am a University student so I also have some pretty interestng drawings of people asleep in weird poses

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I really need to start going to weekly figure drawing sessions once this is over (there's one here... 20 min drive... 8AM Saturdays )

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

ditto or just go to the park and draw

and @Eightfish (Puppeteer) I've had some.....weird poses from all my profs

one guy was incredibly hard to draw; he was VERY enthusiastic about showing us knife skills

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

The parks here are too spacious, to a degree where it's weird to get close enough to people

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Bring binoculars

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

Don't worry ma'am I'm an artist

nothing sketchy

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

(except my sketch)

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

A+ pun right there

another place to go for figure drawing

theaters

like.....opera/plays

I once tried drawing the men dancing in the Newsies musical

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Tried that once, but it took me out of the performance

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

same i was dazzled by dancing men

aaaaand then i abandoned sketching at all when they started throwing newspaper strips into the audience

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

But they were giving you free paper!

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

THEY WERE

i'll take what i can get

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

@Eightfish (Puppeteer) While I agree that my method of drawing is "inefficient," I do not draw like a printer. There are videos of people drawing like a printer and it's not what I'm doing. I have done gesture drawing before, but it always looked incredibly abstract, and not quite like people, which is fine, but not what I'm going for. I treat gesture drawing like a warm-up exercise. It doesn't really do anything for my end result, but gets my drawing muscles stretched out.(edited)

eli [a winged tale]

Gesture drawings are definitely a good warmup!

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Perhaps it was an inappropriate analogy. What works for me I guess wouldn't work for everyone. I was trying to offer advice because whenever you talk about how much time you spend on art and you work life balance it's commendable but also dismaying. I hope you find something that works for you in the future

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

Oh god.. I sometimes work 6 hours a day. I guess thats like 30 hours a week? Crazy to think about, it's like a full job

Oooh you guys are sharing figure drawings... I swant to show some of mine

Behold

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

My figure drawing usually breaks down into like, medical anatomy study. I feel like I understand body shapes better by including the muscles & bones

carcarchu

ABS the most important figure study

Deo101 [Millennium]

ah figure drawing? I love figure drawing ^^

I do like a lot but this kinda thing is most of it

anyways as for the question at hand, I do a lot of different things for my comics weekly. My millennium pages take me 2-6 hours i would say, but I also have patreon things I need to do so I'd say i spend 10-15 hours on it a week. for my other comic, I spend about 6 hours an update, and it updates every other week. but honestly, all of my free time goes to assorted comics. If i'm not working on school work or chatting with people, I'm working on things for patreon, potential merch, or other comics I want to start sometime.

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

Oooh nice poses!!’

Deo101 [Millennium]

thanks!! I have a ton of gesture/figure drawings but these ones are my most recent that I have saved to my computer i think

10 minutes im pretty sure. very good for speeding up

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

Those look really nice, good values

Deo101 [Millennium]

thanks ^^ I really hate working in charcoal honestly, it kinda always winds up hurting my body somehow, but its very quick sooooooo

kayotics

My answer for the prompt question has changed a lot since I started quarantine lmao... I used to do about 10 hours of work throughout the week on my comic page (usually after work, I have an office job) but ironically it’s gotten harder while I work from home. I’ve been struggling to find time since I don’t have a separation between work and home now, and putting the boundaries up of “I’m not always available” to coworkers is difficult.

Also on figure studies: they’re a great way to practice speed. I use the concepts of figure drawings all the time.

RebelVampire

@kayotics As someone who always works from home doing remote contract work, I have to say I think this is something a lot of people underestimate about work at home life. In that it's sometimes really difficult to establish boundaries with ppl and make them understand you aren't always available and also aren't gonna work billions of hours of overtime. So I'm sorry to hear that's affecting your comic work.

Shadowmark Productions

I work anywhere from 6-8 hours a day on comic stuff. That’s an average though. Sometimes I slack and need to pull all nighters to make up for it. Yes, I am terrible at time management. They say entrepreneurs are the only people willing to work 80 hours a week for themselves so they do not have to work 40 hours a week for someone else. I guess webcomic creators are the only people willing to work 80+ hours a week so that they can... go to work for someone else afterwards

AntiBunny

4 days of procrastinating, 1 of procrastinating and hating myself, and 2 of actual comic drawing seems to make up my weekly comic making schedule. :p

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

I can only imagine how stressed I would be if I forced myself to update weekly

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

This is a hard question to answer because it varies a lot depending on my energy levels. Ideally I’d spend several hours a day on comics, but realistically I draw as much as possible when I have the energy (5+ hours a day for as many days in a row as I can handle it) and then go weeks or months too tired to do comics. On average, barring any long periods of exhaustion or other interruptions from RL, I spend about 20+ hours a week making pages for my comics.

sagaholmgaard

I prefer to work on my comic for about an hour ever morning and maybe 2-3 hours in the evening, that's the ideal routine for me. Right now I sadly have a lot of schoolwork to do (writing my thesis) so i might get less than 30 minutes in the morning and then feel rlly tired in the evening so I dont get as much time then either. but oh well!

I can still work for 4-5 hours on the weekends so I manage ^^(edited)

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

The whole stay-indoors order's currently completely wrecked my pattern, but before that I did between 3-4 hours a day.

Shadowmark Productions

Can’t imagine the stress of a daily or even weekly posting schedule. Hats off.

#ctparchive #comics #webcomics #indie comics #comic chat #comic discussion #creator babble #creator interview #comic creator interview #comic tea party #ctp

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tunafishprincess · 6 years ago

Text

Blue Moon Rising, Chapter One: Becoming: Part 1 (I)

Summary: In a twist of fate, James Lake Junior disappeared mere days after his tenth birthday. His body was never found.

Five years later, Atlas is a normal teenage boy, who just happens to work for a murderous secretive organization of shape-changing trolls. It's not so bad though. The healthcare is free at least.

Until he finds a magical amulet.

This must be some sort of mistake. Atlas can't be the Trollhunter. Merlin was insane. He worked for the Janus Order for Pale Lady's sake. What was that stupid wizard thinking?

Suffice to say, things get...interesting.

(Updates every other Friday.)

Chapter One

The morning sun peaked up from the edges of the city, another sleepless night coming to a close.

Sunrises in Arcadia really were the best. Not that he had been anywhere else. Traveling outside of the town's perimeters was forbidden. It had been a quiet watch for the teen, which was rare, considering the company he kept.

It was chance that he stumbled on the scene. Normally he was inside by this point, away from prying human eyes, however something made him stray from his usual routine.

Perhaps it was boredom. After all, Atlas had little to do at the Janus Order outside of his regular duties. He could have trained, he supposed, but that would mean getting beaten within an inch of his life (changelings did not pull their punches) and he was already smacked around enough in his daily life.

So, when he came upon the fight between Bular and the Trollhunter in the canals, suffice to say, he got a little sidetracked.

He felt for the Trollhunter, he really did. Bular was a monster in every sense of the word. Even now, nearly six years later, he still shuddered in fear whenever he crossed paths with the troll. It was no surprise to anyone at the Order that when Bular showed up, Atlas was out.

Still, the Trollhunter held his own, better really.

“Yield, Kanjigar.”

“A Trollhunter never yields.”

Atlas resisted the urge to roll his eyes, because in all honestly, who said that in real life?

Wait. Scratch that. The image of his mentor came to mind.

Pulling out his snack, the boy watched in open curiosity as the fight continued. The leaves kept him hidden from view of the trolls thankfully. Not that they would have noticed. Both trolls were completely engrossed with killing each other.

Atlas had to hand it to the Trollhunter. He was a formidable fighter, able to match most of his blows with the larger troll's. Still, matching was not winning.

Bular kicked the other away, the Trollhunter’s sword ripped from his grasp, sliding underneath the morning light. Atlas winced when the Trollhunter went for it, his hand burned by the sunlight. That had to have hurt.

His fingers itched to help, to throw the poor troll some sort of bone, but he knew it would be all for not.

The Trollhunter would probably have baulked at his offer anyways. Atlas frowned, looking down at his smaller claws. He was just some changeling’s bastard, the unfortunate offspring of a human and changeling. As a hybrid, he was useless. At best, he would simply be a minor distraction, another reason for Gunmar’s son to kill him. At worst, he would be killed before he even entered the battlefield. While fast, he was considerably weaker, lacking the monstrous strength, durability, and access to magic that other trolls had.

As the sun rose, so too did the battle, with the Trollhunter running up the canal to the underside of Arcadia Bridge, Bular trailing close behind.

As entertaining as the battle was, it looked like it was coming to a close, as was the window of time before Atlas had to return home. The sun was getting mighty high in the sky, which meant he had duties to attend to soon enough.

He bit into his meal, the apple crisp and sweet. If he were an optimist, he would be cheering this “Kanjigar” on. It wasn’t often someone could go toe-to-toe with Bular. He seemed like a courageous fellow, someone Atlas could have admired on a good day.

But today was not a good day.

Instead, he felt sadness for the troll. Bular knew his surroundings better than the Trollhunter did and would take advantage of any opportunity before him. The Trollhunter had lost the moment he exited the underground in search for the monster.

His thoughts soon proved true. Bular cornered Kanjigar to the edge of the bridge, forcing half the other’s face into the sun. This would not be pretty.

“It’s me or the sun.” Bular said. “Either way, you’re doomed.”

To Atlas’ surprise, the Trollhunter did not yield. Instead, he said, “No. The amulet will find a champion. We will stop you and your master. I may end, but the fight will not.”

And then he threw himself off the bridge.

Atlas lurched forward on instinct, then caught himself by grabbing onto one of the tree branches. There was nothing he could do. He watched, stomach rolling as the troll fell, turning into rock in record time. The sound of stone cracking and breaking apart against the bottom of the canal nearly made Atlas vomit.

Not even Kanjigar could defeat Bular.

He shook his head and turned away.

Atlas pitied the poor fool that amulet chose as its next victim.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sneaking out was easy; sneaking back in was the hard part.

Especially when your minder was Nomura.

The walk home had been far less exciting than the morning’s previous affair. The tunnels to the Janus Order were complex, but Atlas knew them like the back of his hand these days. He’d snuck in through one of the unguarded passages and headed for the kitchen.

Gable, the head (and only) cook at the Order, had grumbled at the sight of him. Atlas ignored the changeling, instead focusing his energy on his task.

He scrambled to make a nice light breakfast; some toast with butter and jam with a side of fresh oatmeal sprinkled with cinnamon and brown sugar. It was not his best work. Still perfectly edible, but certainly not up to Atlas’ standards (which, in all honesty, were higher than most). He only hoped Stricklander was too busy to notice.

Too bad he forgot about Nomura.

She caught him in the hallway to Stricklander’s office, her gaze unreadable, yet penetrating.

Nomura immediately blocked his path.

“You’re late,” she said, arms crossed over her chest.

His shoulders rose instinctively. He looked down, embarrassed. “Sorry, I got distracted.”

She began to walk ahead of him, her heels clicking against the floor. “Stricklander has been looking for you.”

He matched her pace. “What for?”

“Bular was approached by the Trollhunter during the night.”

“Oh really?” Atlas said, his voice a little too high.

Her eyes swept over him, searching. “What do you know?”

“Only what I’ve seen.”

“Which is?”

He put a finger to his lip playfully. “That’s classified information, Nomura. What will you do for me?”

Admittedly, that was probably not the best thing to answer back with.

She moved quick, her arm underneath his neck, slowly tightening like the hold of a anaconda. As much of a warrior as Atlas liked to think of himself, he was pretty much defenseless against Nomura, troll form or not. The woman knew his weak points to a tee. He struggled to keep his tray upright, the orange juice perched precariously at the edge.

“What’s Rule Number Three, brat?”

He gagged, “Don’t fuck with Nomura. Please don’t kill me.”

“Are you going to tell me then?”

“Okay, okay,” he gave in, face turning red. “Just...need...air.”

Loosening her arms, he stepped away, giving himself time to breath. She tapped her foot impatiently.

He opened his mouth to ask ‘what the hell, Nomura’ but closed it. Now was not the time.

Normally, the Changeling would have smirked at his reply and smacked him upside the head, not try and put him in a choke hold.

If she was this on edge right now, then something must have happened.

Something big.

“Well?” She asked.

“I may or may not have watched some of the fight between the Trollhunter and Bular.”

“Some?”

“Okay, like all of it,” he admitted.

“Stricklander will kill you if he finds out,” she pointed out, checking her nails. “You were supposed to be back before dawn.”

He opened one of the doors for her, leaning his back against it. “Which is why Stricklander isn’t going to find out about that part.”

“What is Stricklander not going to find out about?” A British voice echoed from beyond the door.

He straightened up as the man of the hour appeared.

Ah oh.

He shook his head at Nomura. Please don’t tell him, he silently tried to tell her through his wide eyes.

Nomura paused, as if considering it, then smirked. “Atlas was out past his curfew,” she said.

His mentor, tall and imposing, looked down at the teen, clearly unimpressed, but thankfully not angry. Yet.

“It was an accident,” Atlas confessed. “It won’t happen again.”

“That’s what you always say,” Stricklander said, face deadpan. “What was it this time?”

“Well, you see—” he began, only for Nomura to talk over him.

“He was watching the fight between Bular and the Trollhunter.”

Stricklander clicked his pen.

“And was that an ‘accident’ as well, young Atlas?”

“It wasn’t on purpose...” he muttered under his breath.

His mentor sighed, then waved his hand at Nomura, “You can go now, Nomura. I’ll deal with him.”

The woman nodded, smacking the kid on the back as she left. “You’re in trouble.” She said in a sing-song voice.

Atlas slowly mouthed the words 'traitor.'

The door shut behind, leaving the two of them alone.

Stricklander’s office was spacious, one of the bigger rooms at the Order. Atlas walked over to his desk, setting the food down, then swerved around to sit in the smaller chair on the other side. He knew the procedure. They all did.

The wait was the worst. Stricklander took a sampling of Atlas’ prepared breakfast, first biting into the toast, then taking a sip of the glass of freshly squeezed orange juice. Using a spoon, he daintily scooped up a bit of the oatmeal and blew on it, not once, not twice, but three times, before finally putting it into his mouth. He rounded the desk towards Atlas, then leaned back against the desk in a poised manner.

The man relaxed, his expression fond. Finally, he said, “You know you don’t have to make me breakfast every day, young Atlas.”

“I know, but you enjoy it.”

Stricklander smiled, “That I do.”

“Does this mean—”

He gestured at the boy with his pen. “But this doesn’t excuse what you did. What have I told you about going off on your own without my permission?”

Atlas rolled his shoulders, ears lowering in guilt. “That I shouldn’t do it?”

“Precisely,” he sighed. “You put not only yourself, but the rest of our kind, in jeopardy when you do not follow orders. What if another troll saw you? What if a human did?”

“Sir, I was caref—”

“I’m not finished. Watching the fight between the Trollhunter and Bular was foolish. End of story.”

Atlas rubbed his arm absentmindedly, back hunched. “I know.”

“Your punishment will be decided at a later time at my discretion, is that understood?”

He nodded, quietly remarking, “Understood, sir.”

The Changeling bent slightly forward, hands brought together in a steeple. “Now, report. What did you see?”

Atlas sat up straighter as he gave his account. “I arrived at the canals between approximately zero four hundred and zero five hundred hours. I stayed out of sight in the tree line above. Bular fought the Trollhunter right below Arcadia Bridge. He cornered the Trollhunter on the bridge, however the Trollhunter sacrificed himself to the sun.”

“I see,” he commented, taking another drink of his orange juice. “What of the amulet?”

“If I’m right, it is still within the Trollhunter’s remains, sir.”

Stricklander stood, moving around the desk to the boy. “Someone will need to retrieve it then.”

“Let me do it, sir,” pleaded Atlas.

He gave the boy a bemused look. “You? During the day? Absurd.”

“I’ll be careful,” he assured. “I’ll use the sewer tunnels. No one will see me, I promise.”

Stricklander folded his arms behind his back, examining Atlas. “This won’t subtract from your punishment, young Atlas.”

He nodded. “I know, sir. Let me do it.”

“Why?”

The teen clenched his hands into fists. “I-I want to do more for the Order. Everyone else is doing their part and here I am doing nothing.”

“You’re not doing nothing, young Atlas. You’re my faithful assistant.”

“That’s just it, sir. The others, they don’t accept me like you do. I want to show that I’m useful, that I’m not some stupid useless half-human.”

Stricklander stilled, moving closer to the teen. His hands rose from their position and came down upon Atlas' shoulders. “You...is that how you think of yourself?”

Atlas shrugged, looking away. “What else should I think?”

“Young Atlas, you are a valued member of the Janus Order and nothing anyone says will change that. Our Lady would be honored to have you as one of her followers if she saw you half as much as the way I do.”

“Then let me do this, sir,” he said. “I’ll be careful. I promise.”

Stricklander brushed Atlas' bangs away with his index. “Alright. Fine. I expect you back at the base as soon as possible however. Is that understood?”

He grinned, nearly jumping out of his seat. “Perfectly.”

Yes! Atlas almost pumped his fist. It was rare for Stricklander to give the teen tasks outside of his daily mundane ones, like feeding the goblins or polishing the man’s ancient sword collection. It warmed the boy’s heart that the man trusted him so. With luck, he would be back within the hour, amulet in hand.

Perhaps the changelings would think better of him. Maybe even Bular would lay off trying to knock his head off as much.

Too bad Atlas had terrible luck.

#Trollhunters #Blue moon rising #jim lake junior #tales of arcadia #fanfiction #troll jim #changeling jim #trollhunters au #walter strickler #nomura #jim works for the janus order in this #but mostly as Strickler's assistant lol

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freerange-rude · 6 years ago

Text

Updraft Chapter 2: Home Is Where Nobody Takes Your Side

It was beckoning me to be continued! So here we are!

you can read chapter 1 here and leave kudos and comments for this one here If you really liked it, why not consider buying me a ko-fi

For most of Adam’s life, he was considered a changeling. A goblin child. His parents weren’t happy with his golden birthmark, and his odd, observant personality.

He wasn’t normal, and in his village, that meant dangerous. As Adam grew, along with his loneliness, he met a traveler. A transient that many of the villagers refused to associate with. Except at night, around the large winter fires. He was full of tales, and many gathered around. Adam was just a teen when he heard the stories, and it ignited his imagination. Stories of those with birthmarks and a special gift. A gift to speak, and dance, with dragons.

The villagers scoffed at the idea of dragons. Yet Adam felt a pull in his chest, and an itch he had never felt. It made his birthmark tingle. He wanted to leave, to find the source of these stories. Even if he didn’t find anything, at least he could say he tried. His parents discouraged the idea initially, but admittedly they wouldn’t mind having a break from being the goblin parents. They gave him what supplies they could spare, and at sixteen, Adam was off on his adventure.

Adam didn’t do well on his journey. With little for supplies, and no knack for adventure or hunting, many nights he went hungry. When he would find a town, he was lucky to have enough practical wisdom to help merchants and other sellers get the best Vfarda for their product. In return, he got a cut of the money. It was enough for lodging, and food. That was until he made it further west, to the home of the transient that visited his childhood village.

It turned out he wasn’t as much of a transient as everyone said. In fact, he just enjoyed traveling. He had a home, nestled passed the city of Orethal, and his home was nice enough, and he was nice enough. He let Adam stay with him, in exchange for help with chores. Admittedly Adam was not good at it, but fell into a routine. As long as the routine was kept, the chores were done precisely as needed. The kind man, who he learned to be named Elar, taught Adam what he wanted to know.

Books lined the walls of the home. Some of them about the stars, which Adam really enjoyed, some of miscellaneous content, but most importantly. Dragons. Dragon riders, dragon tamers, the speech of dragons. These books in particular filled shelves and shelves of Elar’s humble library. Elar was eager to teach him. He had raised dragons many years ago, when it was much more common to see them. Now that they were endangered, he thought it best they stay in the wild. This wouldn’t satisfy Adam though. He had to see them. He had to find them.

It was illegal in the city of Orethal to take and raise dragons. For once though, Adam did not care about the law, or the rules. Elar had discouraged him, after all, dragon taming was risky business. Still, he provided him with the materials and books required. After a year of learning from his mentor, Adam made a three day journey into the mountains to find what made his birthmark burn, He had found a lone egg. Abandoned. He had sat around for an extra two days to see if anyone would come back and care for it. When he was sure it was abandoned, he took his chance and scooped it up. He wasn’t sure it would even be viable, but he had to try.

This was how he had found Galaeth. He kept him hidden in Elar’s home until he was too big to fit. Elar had helped train the little beast, and began teaching Adam the true husbandry of dragons. By the time Galaeth was too big to fit inside, they had built a connection, and Adam felt confident in letting him go learn to be a real dragon. It wasn’t easy for him. Adam wanted to keep him forever, and not let him run away. What if he never came back? Elar tried to comfort him, and remind him how the dragons worked. It didn’t matter in Adam’s mind though. Galaeth could leave him now, and it scared him.

Galaeth never ran away though. Only at one point did he lose contact with Adam. It had sent Adam into a full meltdown, screaming and tossing anything he could get his hands on. Elar had tried to calm him, but it had only made him worse. He only calmed when he heard a deep rumble somewhere within him ask,

“Why do you cry, little one?”

That was their start, both outsiders, both abandoned. Perhaps that was what bound them together.

Now they were on their way down off the mountains. Nigel was clinging to one of the spikes on Galaeth’s neck, eyes screwed shut. There had been a short debate on where Nigel would be sitting on the way back. The most practical was Nigel seated behind Adam, but that meant he would have to hold his waist. Adam would have none of it.

He was quite entertained at the man’s fear. Flying was second nature to Adam anymore. It felt good to finally be superior at something that no one else was.

“Are we almost there?” Nigel grumped, still clinging on.

“Almost,” Adam had to yell, which he didn’t like. Another perk of having Galaeth. He didn’t have to speak, he just heard him. As he yelled it, Galaeth started to descend. At first it was a slow descent, but that just wouldn’t do.

“Show him.” Adam said, being a bit spiteful in that moment. Galaeth’s reply was to fold his wings in, and allow them to start hurtling towards the ground. The wind whipped his long curls back, and he had to close his eyes to keep them from watering. Amidst the loud sounds of the wind, he could have sworn he heard a shriek from in front of him.

Galaeth corrected, opening his wings for a soft landing at the base of the mountains. Nigel straightened, trying to compose himself. “Wasn’t so bad.” He mumbled, as Adam slid off onto the ground. He busied himself getting the satchel of eggs down. Nigel stayed right where he was.

“He doesn’t know how to get down.” Galaeth rumbled a dragons laugh, and Adam smiled.

“Just slide down, just like I did.” Adam explained. Nigel attempted to do it just as gracefully, but landed with a heavy grunt, knees buckling.

“Stay close, just in case, please.” Adam requested, then started walking back to Elar’s cottage. Galaeth’s mighty wings took him back into the air, and out of sight.

The walk back to Elar’s was quiet. Adam preferred it that way. He made Nigel carry the eggs, nearly fifty pounds worth of them. Could he have divided them between the two? Of course, but he didn’t like this man, and he wanted him to know it.

“Does your friend have food at his place, by chance?” Nigel asked, and Adam’s gut jumped from the break in the silence. His only reply was a nod. Whether Elar would share it was up to him. He wasn’t going to tell him that though. He didn’t want to have to carry the eggs alone.

At Elar’s, Adam knocked before entering.

“Elar? I’m back.” he called. There was a fire going in the fireplace, a pot boiling over it. The house was filled with the smell. Both Adam and Nigel’s stomachs growled.

Elar emerged from his library, his glasses still on, and a book in hand. “Hello, Adam. Who is this? You’ve made a friend?”

What little of Elar’s hair that was left was long and wispy, starting to turn white in some spots. He had just enough facial hair to keep his face from getting cold. With no wife to see that it was trimmed, it too was quite scraggly. He had a low voice, that was starting to rasp with age. He shared the same golden birthmark with Adam. His was up on his shoulder, hidden from sight in the winters.

“He’s not my friend. He was trying to eat the eggs.” Adam grumbled, which made Elar smile ever so slightly.

“Adam, not all of us understand them like we do.” He reminded him. Elar always had a gentle hand with Adam, a welcome change for the now twenty year old. Adam didn’t like that Elar wasn’t taking his side,

“He shouldn’t be able to eat eggs!” His fists balled, and Elar sighed, mumbling something draconic under his breath.

“Well, I’m feeding him something. Put the eggs at the nest.” He instructed, then went to get some bread from the cellar to go with their soup.

Adam was quite disappointed that Elar had not sided with him, or berated Nigel. He didn’t understand. Nigel had almost done a bad thing, a very bad thing. He should be in trouble for it. He sunk himself down in a chair in front of the fire, sprawling out to pout.

#Adam Raki #Nigel #Spacedogs #AU #dragons #high fantasy #my writing #fanfiction

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morningsound15 · 6 years ago

Note

au game for astury queen octaven specifically:)

fuck ok you know what i’m going to answer this because i literally HAVE THEIR STORY ARC ALREADY WRITTEN for that fucking story but i can’t motivate myself to write the rest of the story AROUND their arc and like proper scene transitions and shit like honestly at least for like the foreseeable future so you know what?

i’m just gonna post what i have written for them here. because fuck it.

this is gonna be a long fucking post sorry in advance.

1.)

For the past week, Octavia had been spending her lunches not in the hospital cafeteria, not in one of the many break rooms, but rather inside room 307, with her legs tucked up under her as she folded herself into the uncomfortable chair in the corner that she was coming to see more and more as belonging solely to her.

She wasn’t exactly sure why she started doing it. The first time it happened she just happened to be checking Raven’s vitals right as her lunch tray was being delivered, but after that… well, she wasn’t exactly sure how it started happening, but that first instance turned into another, and then another, and now it had fully become a part of her routine. Octavia would bring her bagged lunch up to the third floor — or she’d bring up a tray from the cafeteria — and the two of them would eat together, sharing companionable conversation. Octavia even started buying those individually-packaged pudding cups to trade for Raven’s Jell-O (because apparently Raven couldn’t stand Jell-O), and what started off as a one-time deal had become something quite unexpected.

On this particular day, Octavia had really pulled out all the stops and sprung for something special (and smuggled in from outside). Not that outside food wasn’t allowed in the hospital — it definitely was. But Octavia was pretty sure that Abby wouldn’t approve of her feeding a recovering patient fast food, no matter how delicious it might be.

Today, they were sharing a sampling of every kind of fry from the fast food restaurants that sprinkled the area. Octavia had managed to snag no fewer than six different varieties, and they were working through them slowly, providing carefully thought-out ranks for each new batch.

Raven picked up one of the thicker, drier options. She eyed it suspiciously, like it had personally offended her, like she already knew she was about to be disappointed. She popped it into her mouth anyway. She chewed slowly, contemplatively, taking on her role as Supreme Fry Judge with an air of deep solemnity. When she finally swallowed, it was with a grimace and a shake of the head.

“Nope,” she said seriously. “That’s the worst one. Sixth place. Take it out of rotation.”

Octavia laughed but did as she was told, sliding forward the next group. “As you wish, Your Honor.” She bowed her head slightly, and Raven returned the gesture with an elaborate flourish of the hand.

Octavia grabbed another container and started munching happily, a small smile on her face. She was happy, here; she was happy doing this. It was nice. Hanging out with Raven and sharing a bunch of fast food fries was a lot of fun. For most of her adult life, Octavia’s only real friend had been Clarke. Having another person to talk to — someone she didn’t live with or work with or spend every waking hour with — was honestly a treat; something unprecedented; something novel and exciting.

It was nice. But admittedly, Octavia knew that it also wasn’t exactly the most professional thing in the world she could be doing. But she was a surgical resident, and Raven wasn’t even technically still a patient of hers. Now that she was in recovery, the general residents and attendings were responsible for her care and well-being. And there were no rules about when or where Octavia was supposed to take her lunch breaks; she could visit a friend on her down-time. There was nothing wrong with that at all.

(So why did she still feel so weirdly guilty about all of this?)

They sat in comfortable silence as they ate their food. The room was warm and bright; the air dry. If Octavia inhaled strongly enough she could pick out the scent of flowers wafting over from the pile overflowing on Raven’s dresser (Sinclair made sure to drop by every other day with a new batch from him and his wife, just because). Octavia leaned back in her chair, her legs crossed at the ankle, and allowed herself to sink into the feeling of being in this room, of being around this woman. She allowed herself to sink into the feeling of comfort, and just breathe.

It was quiet for a few more minutes when Raven finally spoke. “The doc says I’m gonna have some pretty gnarly scars,” she said softly, her fingers toying with the edge of a napkin, her eyes downcast.

Octavia’s face slipped. She swallowed, her appetite suddenly disappearing. She wasn’t sure what Raven’s sentence was supposed to convey. She wasn’t sure if it was accusatory, or self-pitying (though Raven didn’t seem the type for either of those emotions). She wasn’t sure how to respond, so instead she said, “Have you looked, yet?”

Raven shrugged and picked up another fry. “Not really. Kinda been too scared, kinda been too grossed out.” She took a bite and smiled, seemingly pleased. “Plus, it’s hard to check yourself out in a mirror when you need a nurse to help you shower every day.”

Octavia bit her lip and spoke almost without thinking. “Do you want to see?” Raven’s head jerked up. “The one on your back’s the biggest. I could take a picture?”

Raven didn’t move for a few long moments, and Octavia felt a wave of panic overtake her. She did something wrong. She said something wrong. She was being completely inappropriate, offering to do something like that for this girl she barely knew, and she’d made Raven uncomfortable and she had to come up with an apology quick or else risk—

“Sure,” Raven said, and Octavia’s internal, panicked monologue fizzled out as quickly as it had erupted.

Her fingers felt a little thick and fumbling as she wiped them swiftly on her scrubs. But even with her rubbing, the tips of her fingers still felt oily; the palms of her hands still felt dry. She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do about that.

“Okay,” she said, standing up slowly and trying not to look as uncomfortable as she felt. “Um, I guess I’ll just… help you out?” Raven nodded, and Octavia put her hands gently on the woman’s shoulders, turning her slightly away from the bed. She didn’t move her too quickly, ever-mindful of the sutures still in Raven’s skin, so it seemed to take eons before Raven was laying on her side, facing Octavia completely.

Octavia smiled at her, a little nervously. “Sorry, I’ve never done this before,” she apologized.

Raven smiled back. “I’ve never done this before either.”

Right. Obviously. “Want me to use your phone or mine?”

“Mine,” Raven answered easily. “I’ll text them to all the guys at the station. They’ll probably get a kick out of it.” Raven used her chin to gesture towards the bedside table where her phone lay, undisturbed.

Octavia wiped her hands furtively one more time before she picked it up. She moved around Raven’s bed until she was behind her, grabbing one glove from the box next to the sink on her way. She slipped the blue latex onto her non-dominant hand, the hand not holding the phone, as she rounded the bed completely. She then used her now-invisible position to take one quick breath in, before she let her hand reach out and brush against Raven’s side.

The woman twitched under her touch, and Octavia grimaced. “Sorry about that,” she apologized into the silent room. Only the steady whirring of the air conditioning unit and a few of the machines around the room kept it from being completely absent of noise. But still, it was remarkably quiet between them. “Also my hands are probably cold,” she said as her fingers carefully undid the ties on Raven’s hospital gown, “so… sorry for that, too.”

Raven hissed as soon as Octavia’s knuckles brushed the skin near her shoulder. “Geez, they’re like ice. What do you do all day?”

“Poor circulation.”

“Jesus,” Raven muttered, “I would die.”

Raven’s skin was warm. So warm it was almost hot. Octavia pushed her gown aside, pushing the split open so that most of Raven’s back was now exposed to the air and to her line of sight.

She paused, for only the tiniest of moments, at the image that greeted her.

It was only for a moment, but Raven still noticed.

“I’m sorry if it’s disgusting,” she said quietly, her voice almost a whisper.

Octavia shook her head, though she knew Raven couldn’t see her. “Raven, I’m a doctor. I’ve seen worse. Plus, I helped make this one, so.”

“Right.” A chuckle. “Always forget that.”

Octavia placed her gloved hand on Raven’s scapula, just to the right of the jagged line marring her otherwise flawless skin. It was still wrapped in gauze and held shut with staples. If Octavia moved her thumb just an inch, she’d brush up against the wound. “You always forget that I’m a doctor?” she mumbled, her voice low.

“That you’ve seen worse than me.” Raven’s voice was just as soft as hers. “That there’s been worse than me.” Octavia’s hands slowed to a complete stop.

When Raven spoke next, it was with a surprising degree of sincerity — perhaps because, with Octavia perched behind her, she couldn’t see her eyes. “I can’t walk,” Raven said, and Octavia forced her hands to restart their task. “I need help to do everything. It hurts to just lay down. And someone has to come in here every two hours and turn me over so that this stupid thing can ‘breathe’, or whatever.”

“The air is good for your back.” Octavia fumbled only briefly with the cellphone in her hand, but she managed to take a not-too-blurry picture without embarrassing herself.

She carefully closed Raven’s hospital gown, her fingers applying barely any pressure as she tied it shut. With one more quick brush to Raven’s shoulder, Octavia quickly cleared her throat and pulled away. She rounded the bed and peeled off her latex glove, using the opportunity while her back was turned to take one more quick, steadying breath. God, but that was a completely inappropriate reaction. She was not acting professionally in the slightest.

“Can’t wait until I can wear real clothes,” Raven said from behind her. “These hospital gowns do absolutely nothing for my figure.”

Octavia smiled and held out Raven’s phone to her with hands that didn’t shake at all. “When your back’s better I’m sure they won’t have any problem with you wearing your own clothes. Just make sure they’re loose and won’t interfere with your mobility.”

Raven snorted. “What mobility?”

“When your physical therapy starts.” Raven scrunched her face, looking skeptical. Octavia shook her head. “I know how you feel about physical therapy, Raven, but they’ve got a really great program here. And it really will help a ton. Now, look at the picture I worked so hard to take, please.”

Raven chuckled. “You drive a hard bargain Blake, but okay.” She unlocked her phone and immediately pulled a face. “Oh, gross.”

“Obviously it won’t look like that forever. Once the stitches come out—”

“No, I mean it’s cool-gross. I like it. I’ll look like the freaking Terminator. Or Doc Oc from the Spiderman comics. Nice.”

“You have a remarkable attitude about all of this. Most people don’t react that way when they see their scars for the first time.”

“Well, I’m not most people, am I?”

“No. You definitely aren’t.”

“Besides, chicks dig scars.” Raven winked, a drawn out and exaggerated motion that nonetheless had Octavia’s stomach doing somersaults. She fought to keep her face impassive. “Isn’t that right, Doctor Blake?”

“That’s what they say in the movies.”

“So, a girl can dream.” They stared at each other for what felt like an eternity then, the silence stretching between them, charged with… something. Something that felt big. Something that felt too important and too significant for 12:45 p.m. on a Thursday afternoon. Something that—

“French fry taste-test?” a voice said from the doorway and Octavia jumped, immediately pulling back. She had started to lean forwards, to lean towards Raven, without even really noticing. She tried not to look guilty as her eyes flicked to catch Clarke’s kind and smiling gaze.

“Clarke. Hey,” she said, standing quickly from her seat. “We were just—”

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell the boss,” Clarke said with a wink, taking a few steps into the room and snagging some of the food from Octavia’s tray. “Just wanted to see when you were off. I’m headed back to our place, and thought maybe you’d be my favorite person in the entire world and drive us home?”

Octavia immediately started cleaning up the mess of fries, containers, and napkins that littered Raven’s space. “Yeah, of course. My shift ended like an hour ago, so no need to wait around.”

“Oh,” Raven said, clearly surprised. “You didn’t have to stay, Doctor Blake. I didn’t know you were on your own time.”

Octavia shook her head. “No, no it’s not a problem. Had to wait for Clarke, anyway.” She smiled against the anxiety swirling in her chest. “Plus, you’re great lunch company.”

Clarke wrapped her arms around Octavia’s waist from behind and gave her a firm squeeze. “And to think, that used to be my job.”

Octavia flushed and turned away, brushing Clarke’s arms away from her. “Knock it off, Clarke,” she muttered, dumping the trash in her arms into the trash bin by the door.

Raven was shooting her a strange, semi-indecipherable look from the bed. “Sorry,” she said slowly. “Who are you, again?”

“Oh!” Clarke took a few steps forward and stuck out her hand. “I’m Doctor Griffin.”

Raven took her hand tentatively. “I don’t think so. I know Doctor Griffin.”

“Common mistake.” Clarke smiled, one side of her mouth pulling up higher than the other. “She’s my mom.”

“Oh.” Raven looked at least moderately-surprised. “And you and Doctor Blake… live together.” She didn’t say it like a question, but Clarke answered her anyway.

“Yup! Since college.”

“Right.” She still had that inscrutable expression on her face, and it was making Octavia increasingly more uncomfortable. “Sorry.” She shook her head again. “Sorry, I didn’t… sorry.”

For some unknown reason, Octavia felt compelled to twist her hands together. Clarke frowned. “What are you sorry for?”

“Nothing.” She cleared her throat and bent slightly forward, peering at Octavia from around Clarke’s body. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Doctor Blake?”

Octavia nodded, her throat dry. “Yup,” she croaked. “Ready to go, Clarke?”

Out in the hallway, Clarke slid her arm through Octavia’s elbow. She squeezed tightly, knocking their shoulders together. “She’s cute.”

“She’s a patient, Clarke.”

“She can still be cute.”

Octavia rolled her eyes. “Will you lay off, maybe? You already make me drive you andfrom work, we do everything together… I can’t have one friend that isn’t you?”

Clarke pulled back. “Woah, okay. Testy. What’s going on with you today?”

“There’s nothing going on with me,” Octavia shot back shortly. “I’m fine.”

2.)

It wasn’t long after that that Octavia started dating Atom. She met him at the gym (story of all fascinating stories), and truth be told if you really pressed her for details she had to admit that she wasn’t sure what it was, exactly, that ultimately compelled her say yes when he asked her out. Maybe it was something about the way her stomach turned any time she thought about her earlier interaction with Clarke. Maybe it was something about the way Raven had become more emotionally withdrawn from her in the past few weeks, sharing fewer personal anecdotes and cracking fewer jokes. Or maybe it was the way Raven smiled at her now, always soft and mild and politely-interested but lacking the warmth and sincerity Octavia had come to expect from her. Maybe it was some combination of the three.

Either way. He asked, and she said yes.

She waited longer than she probably should have to tell Clarke. But could you blame her, really? Atom was exactly the kind of guy that Clarke always freaked out about, worried over, frowned disapprovingly at. Octavia just didn’t need that kind of stress weighing over her right now.

At least, that was the excuse she used to justify keeping the secret for a month and a half.

When she finally did tell Clarke, it went over about as well as expected. Which is to say, not well at all.

She listened to Clarke rant at her for a full seven minutes before she’d finally had enough.

“Would you stop, please?” she cut in quickly when Clarke paused to take a breath. “I get it, okay? He’s the sketchiest dude you’ve ever seen, he’s not ‘boyfriend material’, I shouldn’t be wasting my time with him… I get it, alright? So can you cool it with the lecture?”

Clarke frowned at her, her earlier anger and annoyance immediately melting away into genuine concern. “Are you alright?”

“I’m just…” Octavia sighed, pushing a hand roughly through her hair— “I’m sick and tired of being alone, Clarke. I haven’t had a serious relationship since… since college, and… Jesus Christ, I’m just tired of being alone.”

“But this is…” Clarke looked almost pained, now. Whether it was at Octavia’s clear emotional distress or because of her own personal desire to voice her full opinions about Octavia’s occasional-sexual-partner, uninterrupted, it was impossible to say. “Octavia, this isn’t what you want; you know that, right? This is… I mean this Atom guy isn’t any—”

“Can you stay out of my business for once, maybe?” She bit angrily, jaw clenched and eyes burning.

Clarke huffed. “I’m not trying to be in your business, I just—”

“I don’t exactly have a lot of choice in who I date right now considering the person I actually want to date is—” Octavia stopped speaking abruptly, flushing darkly, and looked down at the too-large scrubs engulfing her small frame.

“What was that?” Clarke prodded in a low voice.

Octavia shook her head and turned away, busying herself as she gathered her clothes. Clarke took a step forward, wanting to place a comforting hand on her roommate’s upper arm but not knowing if she should.

“Who do you want to date, O?” Clarke asked quietly.

Octavia rubbed hand over her face and her eyes brimmed with unshed tears. At least Clarke couldn’t see that part; she was relieved for that. She hated crying. She hated when people saw her cry. “You’re not going to approve.”

“Try me.” When Octavia still did not say anything, Clarke ventured, “This doesn’t have anything to do with that cute patient in 307 who you spend most of your lunch breaks talking to, does it?”

Octavia flushed and shifted on her feet but did not deny it.

“Why would you think I wouldn’t approve?”

“Because she’s a patient, Clarke; a patient I operated on and a patient I—”

“You weren’t even chief surgeon, you just assisted. My mom was the one who… You have to know that what happened with her leg wasn’t your—”

“I know it wasn’t my fault but she’s still… God, how unprofessional would it be to… to sleep with her or date her or…?”

“She isn’t going to be a patient forever. Probably not even until the end of this week. After she’s discharged, you should ask her out. I’m sure she wants to go out with you.”

“You think?”

“I have a pretty good idea.”

3.)

“So, what do you say to getting some food someplace far away from here that isn’t served in Jell-o form?”

Raven laughed, pulling her coat over her shoulders. She adjusted the brace on her leg and winced as it pinched against some of the skin of her upper thigh. “As long as you’re buying. I could really use some good food and since I live alone and can’t cook for shit…” She trailed off, a smirk present in her eyes and on her lips.

Octavia beamed. “Yeah, yeah sounds good. What do you say about Friday?”

“Sounds great, Doctor Blake.”

“You can call me Octavia now, you know; I think we’ve reached that point.”

Raven beamed. “Octavia it is.” She grabbed her crutches and adjusted them on her forearms, testing her balance. “I’m looking forward to it. I’ve lived here two years and still I don’t think I have more than three friends, and I work with all of them.” She smiled and reached out to grip Octavia’s upper arm. “I’m really glad we’re going to keep seeing each other. I’m kind of in desperate need for more friends.”

Octavia kept the smile planted on her face even as something in her stomach sank with what felt strangely like disappointment. “Of course,” she said, “I’m happy to help.”

4.)

Octavia tried to be just-friends with Raven. She tried. She tried to respect Raven’s boundaries for the sake their existing relationship.

She really did try.

There was just only so much she could take, in the end. Only so many late night Netflix binge-sessions she could sit through, only so many not-dinner dates she could go on, only so many times she could make sexual-tension-filled eye contact with Raven across a room before she finally broke.

She lasted all of about three weeks.

“Do you want to go out with me?”

Raven looked up from the cup she had been playing with. Her brow furrowed. “What? We… we went out tonight.”

“No, I mean, like…” Octavia took a step forwards, reaching out and brushing her fingers against the soft skin of Raven’s wrist, “like go out with me. Like on a date.”

Raven pulled back, looking (confusingly) very shocked and more than a little concerned. “Octavia I… I mean I don’t—”

They heard keys in the lock and seconds later the door swung open. Clarke stumbled inside, dressed in dirty scrubs and looking utterly exhausted. “Hey babe,” she said, kissing Octavia on the cheek as she passed them on her way to the kitchen, “do we have any beer? Anya was on my ass today and I really need a pick-me-up.”

“Yeah, check the fridge!” Octavia called out, her eyes never leaving Raven’s face. “So, what do you say about that date?”

Raven flushed and stared back at Octavia, eyes wide and mouth open. “I don’t date women who are already in a relationship,” she hissed, her eyes glancing furtively towards the kitchen. Octavia just looked confused. She couldn’t understand where this reaction was coming from, because her thing with Atom ended weeks ago and there definitely hadn’t been anyone else who might have— “I’m not a slut, Octavia, Jesus.” She turned and made to leave, limping steadily and cursing the ache in her leg. She grabbed her crutches from their perch by the door before it finally all clicked in Octavia’s mind. She wanted to slap herself.

“No… hey Raven wait!” Octavia darted past her and blocked her path to the front door.

“You really aren’t who I thought you were. I mean… Jesus, Octavia, your girlfriend is right—”

“Wait wait wait.” Octavia held up a hand, effectively stopping Raven’s tirade. “Wait. No, you’re confused, I’m not… Clarke is not my girlfriend.”

Raven blinked. “What?”

“She isn’t.” Octavia shook her head furiously. “We are not, nor have we ever been, seeing each other.”

“But… but I thought…” she blinked rapidly a few times. “You live together.”

“She’s my roommate.”

“She calls you ‘babe’. She kissed you on the cheek when she walked in! She was… she was always coming to check on you during your rounds, I… I thought…”

Octavia laughed and took a step forward, hand moving to cup the back of Raven’s neck. “Well, she’s currently banging our boss, so if we were dating then that would make all of this really awkward.” Raven spluttered. Octavia laughed again. “I’m not dating Clarke. I would like to be dating you, though… if you’re feeling up for it, and if I totally haven’t misread all of the signs these last few months.”

Raven stared at her for a few more seconds before she lunged forward, claiming Octavia’s lips in a fierce kiss that knocked them both off-balance. Octavia stumbled, crashing back into the apartment door as Raven’s body fell on top of hers, pinning her in place, lips still moving at a breakneck pace. Octavia smiled into the kiss.

“Hey are you guys okay? I heard a — woah, okay, yeah, cool, you look busy. I’ll just…” and they were sure Clarke had backed out of the room and back into the kitchen, but neither one pulled away to check.

5.)

It wasn’t easy. There were days when Raven woke up and forgot her leg no longer worked, and she only remembered once she came crashing to the floor with a sharp yelp of pain and agony because she had tried to put too much pressure on her useless appendage and it had collapsed under the unexpected weight. There were days when she got so fed up with having to lag behind her friends as they walked in front of her that she found herself crying and punching at walls in order to feel something besides helpless. There were days when her joints were so stiff she didn’t think she’d ever feel good again. There were days when she missed being able to lift heavy boxes and walk up several flights of stairs without getting breathless or needing assistance. There were bad days, as there always would be.

But there were good days, too. There were days when she would feel almost as good as new, brace on her leg and hardly any hint of a limp in her walk. Days when she could forgo her non-weight bearing crutches and just walk. There were entire days she spent hanging out on the couch with her sister, and when she had those days she forget all about the injury that ended her old career. But she had a new one, now, that she loved very much, and most of the time it was easy forget that she had ever truly had something she loved taken away from her.

There were days when she would stay at the lab until the wee hours of the morning, bent over some project or invention, when her boss would pat her on the shoulder on his way out and say, “Don’t forget to lock up, Reyes,” and she’d realize how acutely fulfilling her life was now. There were days when she would be at Octavia and Clarke’s apartment, when her knee would get stiff or her muscles would spasm, and she would groan in pain, and Octavia, without needing to be asked, would lift her bum leg onto her lap and start rubbing at the joints and the muscles and kneed away the stiffness without breaking her concentration on the television or on her readings for her rounds the next day. There were days when Raven would wake up, arms wrapped tightly around the girl she was slowly falling in love with. There were days when Octavia would kiss her breathless against the wall outside of their favorite bar, murmuring in her ear about how beautiful she looked, how badly she wanted her, and Raven had never believed any words more sincerely than she believed those.

There were bad days, sure, as there always would be. But there were good days, too. And the good days with Octavia were slowly drowning out the bad. She was with her friends, she was wanted, she was loved, she was doing a job she adored, and she was having amazing sex almost every night of the week. There were good days.

And Raven loved them.

And on some days, she really couldn’t even find it in herself to be upset that she no longer had the full use of her left leg. She was that happy. And besides, ruining her leg brought her to Octavia.

She couldn’t hate anything about that.

Send me an AU and I’ll give you 5 headcanons for it

#octaven #astuary queen #au game #headcanon #anonymous #asks #long post

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mansfocus · 4 years ago

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How to determine if your business idea is suitable for your future or not?

As a little business idea consultant, I'm often approached by people who think for a business and need my thoughts on whether it's an honest idea. I find that I give those people a bit of equivalent advice almost no matter their idea or who they're. In a nutshell, I tell them, "I'm sure your idea is ok. The questions you ought to be asking yourself is, how will you create your business successfully, and are you the person to try to do it?"

So, let's break down that little bit of advice into its parts. There are three: Your idea, your strategy, and you.

1) Your Idea

How does yours rate during a world seemingly busting at the seams with both good and bad ideas? Many first-time entrepreneurs feel that finding the proper idea is analogous to the grail quest. It is not. My favorite example of this comes from the movie "Office Space," where the thought of the Pet Rock is discussed, "Sure it had been [a good idea]. The guy made 1,000,000 dollars." Funny, perhaps, but probably shortly from the reality. Gary Dahl, the inventor of Pet Rocks, made money selling Pet Rocks and even sold Pet Rocks' rights recently as 2009. Arguably an awful idea, Pet Rocks actually had much quirky charm because the marketing around them was crammed with puns and plays on words. It had been this, not the sale of rocks at incredible markups, which netted Dahl his profits.

The Idea is like exercise and diet routine. The point is that ideas rarely have much value, a method or another in and of themselves. It's nearly impossible to mention one is sweet while another is bad. We all have that friend who shouts from their couch at commercials that the merchandise is stupid or that they thought of it years ago. What's the difference between them and the person making all that cash selling those products and/or services? Effort.

When considering a business idea, ask yourself if you're an inexpensive and intelligent person capable of arising with a sound business idea. If the solution is "yes," then you've got what could also be a successful business idea, regardless if it's an honest or bad one.

2) Your Strategy

Next is your strategy. The strategy may be a funny word because it essentially gets boiled right down to having a sound approach. Tons of meaningless terms get used and misused within the world of business strategy. My personal favorite example is "first-mover advantage." actually, "the first-mover advantage" is usually the "first-mover disadvantage" as you'll hit every roadblock along the way, et al. get to find out from your mistakes. Don't let little truisms and phrases be the building blocks of your strategy.

Ask yourself, now that you have a thought, how are you getting to really make it a business? The foremost common misconception here is that you have seen strategies deployed at an existing business will have any about your new business idea. There's an enormous difference between what's commonly mentioned as Corporate Strategy (which is what most any business has been around for quite 2-3 years use) and New Venture Strategy (which is what you and your new business idea will need to use to urge started).

The new venture strategy you employ is paramount to your idea's success—much more than the thought itself. But, don't expect most people to understand how to play the new venture strategy game. it's unique and subtle but are often mastered by really thinking deeply about how you'll get your idea ahead of the people that might pip out. "Market Acquisition" (admittedly, another overused and sometimes misused strategy word) are going to be the foremost crucial aspect of what you are doing to form your idea into a successful business. As of day one, nobody knows who you're or what you are doing. How does one decide to change that you can actually do a business out of it in such a dramatic way?

Make sure to run your ideas by many people and gain the maximum amount of feedback you most likely can. If you recognize a successful entrepreneur, definitely get their thoughts as they're going to be invaluable. this is often also an exquisite time to find out among the foremost important rules of running any business, no matter size, to make sure you're not just asking people that confirm whatever you tell cause you to happy. Critique and refining of your plan are the keys to doing this part right.

3) You

Last, but most vital, are you? There are countless samples of entrepreneurs with seemingly great ideas and wonderful strategies whose businesses never see the sunshine of day because they're not those to bring their idea to the planet. Do some honest reflection. Not almost who you're, but who you're within the context of your business idea. Are you actually the person who can make this concept a successful business? Does one know the industry or a minimum of have relevant contacts? Probably most vital, does one have the time, effort, and dedication actually to see this through?

So, What do you think? Is your business idea is best for you?

If you are interested in a case study, you can check this website ( https://mansfocus.com ). The author wrote an article about how his small business idea can make you a high income earner.

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prxcticallypxrfect · 7 years ago

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1, 10, 27

multimuse asks -- accepting!

1. is there a muse that you wish gets more attention?

There are actually several! I only routinely write for a handful of muses -- probably partially due to the fact that I have too many, and some of them are pretty obscure or minor -- but the ones I’d really love to get to write more with are Ruby, Karolina Dean, Sam Arias, and Linnaea Luthor, who, admittedly, probably doesn’t get chosen because she’s an OC, haha.

10. which muse is the most fun to write for?

Honestly, they’re all a lot of fun, or I wouldn’t write them! Ruby and Linn are both a lot of fun, though, and Ridley and Gwen are probably tied for second! Can you tell I’ve got a thing for snarky muses? ;D

27. is there a rule that someone keeps breaking for your muses?

Nope! I’m pretty light on rules overall, so I haven’t run into a problem with this so far!

#loathedlineage #( answered. )#( ooc answers )#{ thank you so much for sending this! }

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watchmist1412 · 7 years ago

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Break the Ice - Chapter 2

Co-written by @bloodredruby and @watchmist1412

Full cover

Words ~ 4000

Rated K+

Summary: Figure Skating AU. After an accident Gray, a professional figure skater, has to take some time off to heal and he’s not enjoying it AT ALL. What he didn’t expect was meeting Juvia, a swimmer tired of her career, even less ending up as her coach. Lucy, an aspiring figure skater, came to realize it was a whole new experience with a pink haired weirdo and his equally weird cat by her side.

Fanfiction.net

<<Previous Chapter

“3…2…1…GO”

Juvia dove into the pool and her vision was filled with the faded blue of the water. She felt the familiar buzzing in her ears and the warm water on her skin.

She had done this so many times by now.

Water was her element. Not many could surpass her in speed and duration while in the water. That’s why she had so many medals at home.

She had done this so many times.

Juvia didn’t know how much more she could stand doing a sport she disliked. Oh, yes. A professional swimmer and many times gold medalist who disliked swimming. What a great combination!

Well… it wasn’t that she disliked swimming in general. It was mostly the competitions and endless practicing that bored her out of her mind.

Juvia touched the wall of the pool and pushed her body on the opposite direction.

Since she was a little girl and her parents discovered her talent for swimming she had been dragged from competition to competition and practices every day to become who she is now. It didn’t help that both of her parents were famous gold medalists in international swimming competitions. That meant even more pressure for her to follow their footsteps.

Juvia touched the wall of the other side of the pool and stopped. She looked up to see an arm extended towards her. She took it and she pushed herself out of the pool.

Her coach smiled at her and gave her a towel. Juvia took it and pulled off the protective googles to wipe her face of the pool water. That thing was really starting to disgust her.

“Great time Lockser! I swear you’re getting faster every day! You’re going for the gold once more this year! As expected from the Lockser family.”

There it is again. She was always being compared to them.

“Juvia will try her best!” She tried to sound excited but it came out so forced and fake. She just couldn’t be excited for things like this anymore.

“Atta girl! You’re free to go now, that’s enough practice for today.”

“Juvia will be off then. Goodbye!” she turned to leave the room.

“Bye kid!” she heard from behind her.

Juvia was glad it was finally over. These days practicing felt even more like a chore she had to do. Needless to say she wasn’t enjoying it at all. Not anymore.

She loved being in the water, she really did, but not on a competitive level. She could spend hours in the sea just floating in the water or diving and exploring the seabed. There she could be free! There were no medals to win, no chlorine in her skin and no expectations to meet. She could just be herself, something that she found hard to be these days.

Juvia desperately wanted to quit everything. She wanted to stop going to practice almost every day of the week and just stay home or go outside. She would prefer anything but going to the pool again.

But she couldn’t do that. Her parents, her coach everyone expected her to continue her career and keep placing first, follow her parent’s footsteps. And she would just do that. It wasn’t like she had another alternative.

The blue haired swimmer opened the door of her apartment. She hadn’t realized when she arrived being lost in her thoughts. The apartment was pretty close to the pool where she trained so it was a quick walk from there.

“Juvia is back!” she shouted as she closed the door and locked it.

A tall man with long black hair and piercings all over his face poked his head from a room. “Hey rain woman! How was practice?” he asked

“It was ok… just like every other one.”

The man stared at her “You know you don’t have to lie to me. If something is wrong you can talk to me about it.”

“Everything is fine, really! Juvia promises.”

Gajeel knew her better than anyone. He had been her best friend since middle school. Their personalities were complete opposites and no one expected them to become friends but it had strangely worked out and they had managed to form a strong bond. He was like the brother she never had.

After ‘Phantom Lord’ Juvia’s previous training center had been shut down due to the manager’s debts, she was forced to move to another city with a suitable pool. Her coach and parents decided that Magnolia was the right place for that.

Gajeel decided to follow her to study in a workshop as a mechanic. That way she wasn’t alone on a new city and she had someone to share the rent with.

He sighed “Fine, if you say so. I’ll have you know that I’m not convinced though.”

“How is your project going?” Juvia tried to redirect the subject

Her friend’s eyes sparkled. He was always excited to talk about his work. “I’m almost finished. I’ll probably have it done by tomorrow.” said her roommate proudly.

“That’s great! Juvia will leave you to finish then.”

“And you should go get some rest.”

“Juvia’s not a child! She can take care of herself.”

“Yeah right! If I leave you alone you’ll just overwork yourself. Do you want me to remind you what happened the last time?” he grinned

“That’s in the past, Juvia is older and wiser now.”

“It was 6 months ago!”

“Exactly, in the past.” She smiled sheepishly.

“Seriously though promise me you’ll be careful.”

“Yes, yes.” She said as she went into her bedroom. Juvia opened the lights of her small room and let her bag slide off her shoulder to fall on the floor. The room was quite simple. It consisted of a small bed, a TV, an office desk and a closet. The walls had a light blue colour and were almost completely covered by posters. The posters varied in size and some of them even seemed handmade but every one of them had the same person depicted on them. All of them were of the same black haired man whether he was alone or in a group picture.

She walked towards her closet, took a change of clothes and headed to the bathroom for a quick shower. She had taken a shower in the pool but it wasn’t enough. She let the hot water take away the feeling of chlorine in her skin and relax her muscles. After finishing she headed to her room again and collapsed into her bed.

Juvia felt something crumple under her cheek. She sat up and pulled a flyer from her pillow. She had forgotten about it. The flyer had Fairy Tail written in bright colors and sparks all over it. It definitely caught her attention.

Fairy Tail was Magnolia’s local ice skating rink and possibly the most popular in Fiore. Juvia had picked up the flyer in hopes of visiting the rink. She checked the time on her phone, 19:30. It wasn’t too late and she didn’t feel tired. Maybe a visit to the ice rink would clear her head.

Juvia had never been into ice skating before. It wasn’t that she hated it, she just didn’t know much about it and had never tried it before. She didn’t have time for other hobbies after all, she had to focus on her swimming. She respected the sport but never felt the need to try it. However, as much impossible as she thought it was, ice skating or more accurately figure skating became a big part of her life.

It all started when the figure skating nationals were broadcasted live on TV. Juvia didn’t have anything better to do and the other channels weren’t showing anything interesting so she decided to give a chance to the figure skating sport. It could turn out interesting.

Apparently, it was the turn of the man who placed first in the previous competition, Juvia didn’t catch his name. He was tall, with spiky jet black hair and what seemed like a toned figure. He was admittedly handsome but at the moment he didn’t seem very special.

And as it seemed he wasn’t very professional either. He looked like he was arguing with a pink haired man and they were butting heads. A red haired woman had to come and hit them both in their heads to separate them. They immediately hugged and pretended to make up while still hitting each other behind their backs.

Juvia chuckled. How could they be so childish and carefree? They were in the middle of a competition. Though she had to admit they were a bit amusing.

She was tempted to close the TV or change the channel at that point but the black haired man skated into the middle of the ice. What was his name again? Gary…no, that’s not it… Maybe Gabe! No that didn’t seem right at all, well it didn’t matter anyway. It wasn’t like she would see him again.

However, when the camera zoomed on the skater Juvia was taken aback. A few seconds ago he was goofing off with his friends but now he was completely focused and his gaze was cold and serious. He was like a different person.

Then the music started playing and Juvia’s world was turned upside down. The choreography was beautiful and each movement was in sync with the song. The skater’s movements were fluid and each and every one of them was precise and calculated. It was absolutely breathtaking.

Juvia’s eyes were glued to the screen. It was like a magic spell had been cast upon her making her a prisoner of this skating routine. When the music stopped and the skater took his final pose it was like the spell had been broken and she woke up from her daze.

The audience started clapping wildly and throwing roses on the ice. The man grinned and waved at them satisfied with his performance. He then got off the ice and headed to a small area with someone that Juvia guessed was his coach.

The judges announced his score and Juvia finally learned his name. Gray Fullbuster.

She searched videos of his old programs and watched him perform for hours, not even one of them failing her expectations. She researched figure skating so she could understand the point system and the competitions better and she ended up learning the rules by heart. As Juvia got involved more and more into the ice skating world she realized she had fallen in love with the sport.

She begun watching other skaters and kept track of the competitions and their scores. All of their programs were beautiful but in her eyes no one could surpass Gray Fullbuster. Some of them came pretty close though.

At some point, the girl decided to try skating herself at her local ice rink. She was terrible at it at first. She kept clinging on the sidebars for the whole visit and she moved at a snail’s pace. It wasn’t as easy as she thought after all.

Then she decided to go visit again. This time Juvia bravely let go of the bars on the sides of the rink and tried skating out in the open. She fell right on her first try. The swimmer soon found out it was hard to keep her balance on the ice.

She couldn’t count the times she slipped and fell right on her butt. Her knees just kept shaking and she would end up on the ice yet again. Then she decided to try to gain some speed so that way she wouldn’t stay on one spot and fall over and over again. That was an admittedly bad decision. Once she started moving she couldn’t stop and she hit many innocent people on her way only to bump face first into the sidebars. That… was an interesting experience.

But she didn’t give up and she went again and again on the small ice rink in her free time, slowly and steady she got the hang of it. She even got protective gear to guard her from her numerous falls. She even tried some of her favourite programs, of course with significantly less difficulty. She couldn’t jump right into the hard moves but she could manage the beginner ones. She had watched the programs so many times she had almost memorized them in her mind so is with watching a lot of tutorials and practicing whenever she had time she could sloppily skate to some of them. At least she didn’t fall on the ice that often anymore.

She tried to persuade Gajeel to go skate with her once but he repeatedly refused. He said he didn’t trust anything but the ground under his feet. However, he did turn up on the ice rink a couple of times to watch her skate.

It was like a whole world had been opened up in front of her and Gray Fullbuster was the one that showed her the way. He may not even know her, but she was grateful to him for bringing ice skating into her life, for bringing color in her dull world.

Needless to say she was devastated when she saw his accident on the last figure skating nationals. It really hurt her to see her longtime idol falling apart.

That day Juvia had called Gajeel in the middle of the night crying and he scolded her for hours after that for making him worry. Juvia was never one to contain her strong emotions. She just wished her Gray would get better soon.

The blue haired girl felt so lucky that the area her coach decided to move her team was in Magnolia. Not only did it have Fairy Tail but it was the hometown of none other than Gray.

Sometimes she daydreamed about actually meeting the man. He would fall in love at first sight with her and ask her on a date and it would be the most romantic thing ever and and…

Juvia always stopped herself. Everyone dreamt about meeting their idol but that didn’t mean it might actually happen. She didn’t even know if he had been completely healed yet to go to the ice again. Well… nobody knew anything about the matter, she researched a lot. He and his coach were being really secretive about it.

————————————

Juvia stared at the building complex in front of her. It was huge! She did expect Fairy Tail to have big facilities but that was beyond what she was used to, compared to the small and decadent rink she first used. The leaflet said the complex was constructed of 3 ice rinks, a small gym for warming up and it even has an open area with benches and a small cafeteria for the visitors to relax. It even had a lake there! The lake was frozen in the winter and apparently it was used as another public ice rink.

It was the place of her dreams!! She hoped there wouldn’t be many people visiting at this hour so she could have more space for herself. It was a little difficult to practice with a lot of people around her.

She walked inside through the automatic glass doors and looked for the reception. She spotted the receptionist in a small desk a few meters away and approached her. The woman had white hair and blue eyes and she had familiar characteristics. Juvia couldn’t figure it out but she was almost sure she had seen the receptionist somewhere before.

Once the woman noticed Juvia she smiled kindly at her “Hello, welcome to Fairy Tail! How can I help you?”

“Hi… umm… Juvia is looking for the ice rinks.”

“Of course! Have you booked a rink?”

“No Juvia is just visiting.”

“I see… you can go to rink 2V. Is it your first time here?”

“Yes.”

“Well I hope you will enjoy your stay! Go to the room right there to pick up your skates if you don’t have your own.”

“Thank you.” Juvia headed to the direction the woman pointed her and choose a pair of skates in her size. Then she went out to find her ice rink.

As she was walking down the corridor she passed in front of the private rinks. One of them had the door slightly opened and she could faintly see movement from that little gap. Juvia would lie if she said she wasn’t curious to see the person skating. She hadn’t had the opportunity to watch a professional skater up close so naturally she wanted to take a peek at the skater.

She knew it wasn’t nice to peek on strangers but if they didn’t see her there would be no harm. She would just take a quick look and then leave, she promised herself.

Juvia slowly opened the door a little wider, just enough that she could see clearly, careful as not to make any noise. Then she saw him.

She couldn’t figure out his characteristics clearly as he was too far away. All the detail she could make out was his spiky black hair. The man moved elegantly in the ice like it was second nature to him. He danced with no music on but Juvia felt like she could hear the song through his movements.

He was amazing! Juvia wondered if he was someone she knew.

The man moved on to do a sit spin lowering his body down. In the middle of the spin his leg wobbled and he fell ungracefully to the ice.

Juvia winced. She expected him to get up and continue skating. That’s what everyone does when they fall on the ice from what Juvia had seen. It wasn’t uncommon even for the top skaters. However, seconds went by and the man was still on the ice looking almost defeated.

Without a second thought Juvia quickly put on her skates and approached the fallen man. “Umm… are you alright?” she carefully asked

The man got startled and turned around to look at the source of the voice and for the first time Juvia could see his characteristics. She let out a small gasp in realization. No way, it couldn’t be. She must have been dreaming. Yeah, that’s it. She went home from practice and collapsed in her bed falling asleep instantly. Everything was fine, it was just a dream. She dreamt about meeting him all the time.

“Hey, are you listening to me?”

The man’s voice brought her out of her thoughts. It wasn’t a dream! She was actually in front of her idol. Who probably thought she was pretty weird after interrupting his practice and silently staring at him. Awesome…

Quick, she had to say something “Huh?” Great job Juvia! You made it so much better!

Now Gray was starting to look a little irritated “I asked what you are doing here. This is a private practice area. Did you come into the wrong rink?”

“Ahh no… ummm… Juvia was just… she just saw you skating and she swears she didn’t mean to spy on you or to interrupt your practice! Juvia’s really sorry!”

“Whoa slow down… you didn’t do anything bad. Just… could you please leave now? I need to go back to practicing.”

“Are you alright? Juvia saw you falling down and she thought you were hurt.”

“Oh you saw that.” Gray rubbed the back of his head. “That was pretty embarrassing, forget about it. I wasn’t hurt anyway.”

“Ok… are you going to start competing again?” she asked innocently. That question had been bugging her for quite some time now.

Gray pressed his lips together to form a small line “I don’t know. Look… I don’t want to be rude but could you please leave now?”

Juvia panicked internally. She was so stupid! Why did she have to go and ask that? It was obvious it was a sensitive matter. None of this happened in her fantasies. She should apologize. No, she should ask for an autograph and then leave.

Gray stared at her expectantly. Oh no! Now he was annoyed and tired of her! She should just silently leave and drown in self-pity after. But what if she never saw him again? What if this was a one-time chance and she blew it up? She had to think of something to fix this. She had to find a way to meet him again. So she blurted out the first thing that came to her mind.

“Please, would you be Juvia’s coach?”

And that made the situation so less awkward…

———————————

~Bonus~

It was late. Late even to Gajeel’s standards, and that was saying something. He should be at his bed right now not at his workshop.

It wasn’t his fault! The man had a reputation of losing track of time when working and that is what happened yet again. He wanted to finish the project he had been working on and by the time he looked at his watch it had been 4 am.

He had been scolded many times for this habit mainly from his best friend, Juvia. That was pretty ironic since his friend couldn’t even follow her own advice and ended up overexerting herself.

The black haired man tried to repress a yawn failing to do so. He should really get going now. If he stayed anymore there was a high probability of him ending up asleep in his desk and that wasn’t a comfortable place to wake up to.

Suddenly, the familiar tune of his ringtone filled the once silent room. Gajeel glared at the small device. Who could it be at this late hour? If it was an advertising company Gajeel was ready to give them a piece of his mind.

He reached for his phone and looked at the caller ID. It was Juvia. He repressed another yawn and accepted the call. “Juvia, do you have any idea what time it is? What is it?”

The other line was silent but he could hear faint sniffling. Now he was a little worried. “Juvia? Are you ok?”

“It’s… it’s…” now the woman had starting lightly sobbing and Gajeel could only make out bits and pieces from her words.

“Gra…ma… fell and… broken… critical.”

Now he was really worried. “Juvia calm down, can you tell me what’s going on. Did you get hurt?” he started looking for his coat in case he needed to go to help her.

“N… no Juvia’s fine. But… but Gray-sama isn’t!”

Gajeel stopped dead at his tracks. “What?”

“Gray-sama was doing his free skate but then he tried to do a quadruple flip but he slipped and fell and he wouldn’t get up and then he fainted and they moved him to a hospital and what is going to happen now? What if it’s serious? What if he won’t skate ever again? What if…”

“Wait, wait.” Gajeel cut her off. “Gray as the skater you have been obsessed over with for months?”

“Yes!”

The mechanic took a big breath. “Are you telling me you called me at 4 in the morning crying your heart out all for a stupid skater? Do you have any idea how worried I was? I actually thought you might have gotten hurt! You seriously have been crying for something so stupid?”

There was a moment of silence and Gajeel knew at that moment he had messed up. He didn’t want to sound so harsh and he knew his friend was sensitive. In his defense he was sleep-deprived and the woman really worried him for no reason.

So he had managed to make the situation worse and Gajeel spent the next hour trying to calm Juvia down, who had turned into a sobbing mess again. He kept reassuring her that her idiot idol was going to be alright and that he wasn’t mad at her, he was just tired.

Gajeel swore that day that if he ever met that ‘Gray-sama’ he owed him a punch in the face.

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Hey guys, we hope you enjoyed the new chapter and the little bonus! We look forward to reading your thoughts about it! Thank you for the likes and reblogs we appreciate all of them!

We drew a scene from the bonus in this chapter that you can find here. We have made a couple of fanarts for the fic that you can find under the tag “break the ice” right here

This chapter was very fun to write especially the bonus! Hmm I wonder how Gray will respond...

See you next chapter!

#fairy tail #ftfanfic #gruvia #Juvia Lockser #gray fullbuster #gruvia fanfic #ft #ft fanfiction #break the ice #bti chapter 2 #my writing #collab fic

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