#after i finish up my essay writing quota

[clerichs-xi]

thinking abt making barbie memes for yves and klaus

[lesbiradshaw]

hellooo you’re one of my fave fic writers and i was just wondering if you have any tips for getting into fic writing? how do you find the inspiration and the motivation to write so much so well & so consistently? i’ve dabbled in writing fics before but i have such a hard time avoiding perfectionism or sticking to long projects or even developing a plot past the vibe or the message i want to convey which leads me to getting too in my head about the whole fic and never being able to bring myself to finish or publish it 😭

oh this is such a nice ask ... can’t believe i’m someone’s favorite! thank youuuu. now i feel the need to preface this by saying that i have no clue what i’m doing and i don’t write seriously (as in i try my best but i’m not concerned with being Novel worthy or anything) which is what i think a lot of people need to remember when it comes to writing fic! i do know fic writers who are more serious about the writing craft and want to become real authors but personally i am not one of them. i write for fun. i write because i love the characters and want to treat them right. i write because it’s a fun little hobby and gives me a good outlet that makes me feel productive! and a lot of my favorite fics aren’t even necessarily high quality, i just like the plots and general characterization. i make like a bajillion typos in my fics i’m always reading over again after uploading to fix and people don’t tend to point them out, so i know my fics aren’t perfect but they are still enjoyable. that’s not to say i don’t hold myself to self scrutinizing standards (i am doing that even as we speak this very second) but every so often realizing that people read and write fic for fun is a good reality check. that’s how i got into it honestly ... i saw other people having a good time but also saw that there a lot were more fics i wanted to exist so i figured why should i not be the one to write them? that’s what happened with my tangled au. nothing better than doing it yourself. as for motivation, i feel like i have a kind of odd way of writing? i’m very much a “do it now or you’ll never do it later because you’ll lose interest” person but i also love procrastination. i have to set due dates and quotas and obligations for myself in order to get the wheels turning. my method right now is setting a number of words i want to write every other day (in the beginning it was 1k, now it’s 5 because i have a lot of free time) so i can move fast but still have breaks in between. that’s probably not normal but ... well. it’s what must be done for me. like i said, it makes me feel productive (and putting into perspective how many pages 1k words make up has actually helped me so much with writing academic essays 😭). inspiration/fic planning is also a fairly messy method for me but basically here’s how it goes: i get the idea and open the notes app. i jot down the general idea/message i want to convey. then i start coming up with details i want to include, like specific items mentioned, imagery, comparisons, even full lines if i like something and it sticks out enough. it doesn’t have to be a full idea either, i have a doc made up of only singular tidbit ideas that i pull into fics upon a whim where they fit if i can’t think of a full idea to revolve around it. from there, once i actually know i’m gonna write the fic, i transfer it to a google doc and start daydreaming the entire timeline of it in my head. which scenes come first, any dialogue i can think of that i want to put in, etc. it’s usually generic but sometimes i do get overly detailed for no reason. basically by the end it’s a messy map that i try to take care of in chunks as the writing process goes on so nothing i want to include gets left out. not the most clean cut process but it works for me! i’m terrified of forgetting things i want to write about so i try and write them down before they leave me. sometimes that includes 5am wakeup moments where everything i type is incoherent. i’m still deciphering what “small soft domestic momrntts loke steve waking up and being able to hear bucky using yhe radio in the garage from the bedroom.., he cant see it but he knows buvkh js singing along” means.

anyways you didn’t request an answer this long but yk i love talking! fic writing is truly a perfect outlet for me and i’ve made so many friends along the way <3 i encourage everyone to get involved in it if they want to. publishing stuff can be scary but isn’t everything we put on the internet scary at the end of the day ...

[the-amazing-spider-bi]

the college au nobody asked for I leta lestrange/newt scamander I 4k I ao3

The roommate AU in which otters hold paws while they sleep, Leta didn’t think she would ever fall in love with someone who can’t even handle his coffee without milk, Credence collects crushes on all of his male teachers like they’re Pokemons, and Dumbledore finds endless amusement in his students’ antics.

Read on ao3 or under the cut!

“Hi,” Leta says. “I heard your group was still missing a member for the Sociology of Fashion project, so I was wondering if I could join you?”

The gaggle of girls in front of her startles, but when Leta smiles, they smile back. She tries to be as friendly as she can - which is difficult since she is more used to projecting a bitch resting face than acting innocent - until they end up exchanging numbers and agreeing to meet at the library on Monday to write their outline.

They go their separate ways when the other girls, who are obviously a group of friends, go see a movie, and Leta pretexts a previous engagement so they don’t have to invite her out of pity. They still wave goodbye, and Leta smiles one last time before she turns around. She tightens her grey and green scarf around her neck and walks away in a flurry of fallen leaves. She is going to get coffee, by herself, and then barricade herself in the coffee shop until she finishes her Power and Privilege essay - for a seminar, it sure involved an enormous amount of work.

Leta isn’t the type of girl people like. According to her classmates, she is posh and weird and standoffish, all of which are true. She doesn’t talk or smile or try enough to please people. She knows she could, really - she just doesn’t care to. It is alright with her, though. She would rather be alone most of the time than go back to the endless string of dinners and playdates her parents used to make her attend back when she was a girl.

So she is surprised when her phone lights up with a notification, thinking these girls are really fast to text.

Newt Dorkmander: did you know otters hold paws when they sleep?

Newt Dorkmander: actually it is to avoid drifting off of course but still

Newt Dorkmander: the thought is lovely

She tries not to smile at her phone as she types, you do know just because it’s a text doesn’t mean this won’t be deduced from your daily animal facts quota, don’t you? - she has to take off her gloves to type, and then when she comes into the shop the sting from the cold metal handle surprises her.

Newt Dorkmander: i do my best to lighten a cold november day and this is how you thank me

Newt Dorkmander: i cannot believe it

“Well someone is uncharacteristically perky today.”

She pockets her phone and does her best impression of her grandmother’s dignified stare. In front of her, Credence the coffeehouse guy is grinning in his green apron, already preparing her cup. Credence the coffeehouse guy is exactly Leta’s type of man, by which she means he is quiet, doesn’t bother her any more than he has to, and brings her coffee.

“I’m not perky,” Leta states. “Take it back.”

“Nah, it’s too late, your reputation is ruined forever,” Nagini, who is almost always to be found wherever Credence is, says from that seat in front of the counter she claimed as hers at the beginning of the year.

Leta rolls her eyes at them. “You freshmen are growing more annoying every year.”

“You’re barely one year older than us,” Nagini points out.

“College years are like dog years,” Leta informs them. “As such, I am fifteen years wiser than you.”

Credence the coffeehouse guy smiles and says, “Americano?”

“Americano,” Leta confirms, and if she refrains from making a terrible The Fault in our Starsjoke, then she will carry this secret to the grave. But still. A genuine John Green reference. She spends way too much time with Newt.

Of course, this isn’t like it’s a recent development - they have known each other since they were thirteen and Newt quite literally stumbled in her life with freckled cheeks and messy hair, then through their teens when he tiptoed around awkwardly with a lanky, ridiculously tall figure and she rushed through everything with the dedicated anger of a rebellious posh girl.

Then Newt had been expelled, and everything in her life went bonkers, but this is the part she tries not to think about.

Credence hands her her coffee and doesn’t make any more comments about who she was texting or how happy she looked, because he doesn’t make it a habit to comment on people - or talk to them - and he really is one of her favorite persons on campus.  

She spends the rest of the afternoon hunched over getting five thousands more words done, and when she leaves, Credence the coffeehouse guy has been replaced by Rita the coffeehouse girl, who she likes a lot less. She takes care to avoid eye contact and pulls out her phone, scrolling through social media feed without really reading anything until a headline catches her eye. She reopens her conversation with Newt, whose last message was an apocalyptic string of texts about being out of tea.

Leta Lestrange: you know netflix just uploaded the new planet earth season

“I know,” he says.

She looks up, startled. “What are you doing here?”

Newt is standing up in his usual blue overcoat and a faded yellow Hufflepuff scarf she gave him for Christmas when they were sixteen. (They had a price limit that time, so she had to knit him the scarf and ended up buying one anyway after a few unsuccessful hours. It’s not like he noticed anyway.) He is so outrageously tall she has to tilt her head to see his face, just so that he can avoid her gaze.

He shrugs and smiles at the ground. “I was on my way from the library, and it’s nicer to go home together.”

She frowns. “And how did you know I was there? Mister Scamander, are you stalking me? Should I check for hidden cameras? Do you keep pictures of me under your pillows?”

“Don’t be silly,” Newt says placidly. “I sleep in the next room. I can just come over to watch you sleep the normal way.”

She laughs. “Always good to know you have a lot of opinions on the best way to stalk me.”

“Well, one can never be too prepared, can they? I could always end up as a handsome brooding vampire if my zoologist plan doesn’t work out. I think I have the smoulder.”

“You certainly dress like you’re from 1910,” she says.

“You’re just jealous you can’t pull off the trench coat detective aesthetic as well as I do.”

She opens her mouth to tell him he has never pulled off anything, ever, in his life, but feels a shiver crawling up the back of her spine and changes her mind. “Just a second,” she says as she whips around to glare at Rita the coffeehouse girl who watching them raptly from behind the class. She scrambles to pretend she is not.

“Being noisy is an understandable flaw, but there is nothing worse than being noisy and bad at it,” she says conversationally.

“If you’ve sufficiently scarred her, can we go now?” Newt asks. “I’m freezing.”

“Bossy,” she complains under her breath.

They walk home together.

Around them, the atmosphere is wet and chilly, and not quite snowy either, which is the worst type of weather, according to her. It feels like the cold slips into her clothes in between the threads to stick to her skin in a damp layer that feels like sweat, only much worse. She doesn’t think twice about leaning close to Newt to protect herself from it, and he doesn’t think twice about wrapping his scarf around her shoulders, still talking about the cool things he learned in Introduction to Zoology module. For the entirety of the trip home she drifts in and out of focus, sometimes picking a specific topic he brought up and asking for more details or an explanation, sometimes daydreaming when he explains some technical part of Neurology he doesn’t quite understand yet himself. By the time they get to their flat, he has moved on to complaining about his Introduction to Physiology, Pharmacology and Neuroscience course, by which he is clearly bored to tears and that he still wants to attend anyway. She doesn’t press him about it but she is pretty sure his scholarship involves perfect attendance.

They walk up three sets of stairs - the place is right outside campus in this tiny brick building, rent as cheap as any flat with three rooms can be, which means no elevators, to Leta’s great despair. Without having to ask she gets in front of him to open the door herself, because Newt always loses his keys inside the holes in his ancient coat pockets, so it is just faster this way.

Immediately as she opens the door a dash of brown fur bounces into the hallway, climbs the sleeve of Newt’s coat, settles his shoulder where its nibbles at his ears.

“Hello you,” she hears Newt coo at Pickett. She rolls her eyes good-naturedly as she goes to take off her coat inside. There is a hot shower she has been dreaming of ever since she woke up this morning waiting for her, and then undercooked pasta in front of an animal documentary.

Whoever said college students weren’t living the dream?

When she wakes up the next morning, Newt is hunched over on their couch, copper hair messed up beyond repair, eyes half closed. She takes in the sight of his plaid pajamas and the squirrel burrowed in his hair, because he keeps spoiling Pickett then being surprised when he doesn’t want to join his siblings in the great wild outdoors, the moron. He looks utterly miserable.

He started up the coffee maker, though, so she can work with this.

“We’re buying tea this afternoon,” she says, before adding, more gently: “Hey, do you want me to do that hot chocolatey coffee you like to survive your morning classes?”

“Yes, please,” Newt says in a tiny voice.

She presses her hand against his shoulder as she goes behind the counter to make him a mocha and make herself an entire Thermos of black coffee. He gets dressed while she pours them their drinks, by which she means puts on the first wool sweater he found and jeans. She does the same while he sips his cup and checks on all his rescued animals of the moment - Niffler the magpie with the broken wing who keeps escaping his hen coop to steal their shiny cutlery or her silver earrings, Pickett who resolutely doesn’t want to leave, and an enormous Maine coon Newt insists on calling Zouwu despite how ridiculous it sounds. When she leaves in a hurry of perfume and long trench coat with her Thermos in hand, Newt looks considerably perkier.

A few hours later, she is considering the pros and cons of the infamous Veggie Salad versus Caesarean Salad case. Since Newt’s class finishes in one hour when her afternoon ones begin, and, well, she doesn’t really have any other friend nor a lunch break long enough to go home, she is planning to get some food from the cafeteria before she goes to her classroom and eats in front of her book. It sounds sad, but it’s actually a very good book, Jane Austen’s Emma, which she had somehow never read before, her high school curriculum consisting only of Pride and Prejudice again and again and again. She is usually more of a gothic, Byronic hero kind of gal, with a bit of sci-fi thrown in when Newt recommends one of his nerdy books to her, but well, it’s Jane Austen.

She looks forward to that lunch alone watching Emma and Mr. Knightly fall in love. The universe doesn’t care about that.

“Fancy seeing you here,” Nagini says behind her.

She turns around slowly. The younger girl isn’t quite smiling, as she rarely ever does, but she looks as friendly as she can be with eyes surrounded by eyeliner and black lipstick, black clothes, black boots, black eye, black everything.

“Freshmen have lunch breaks now? Back in my time-” Leta starts teasing.

“You ate on the floor some gruel right out of the bowl before your Latin class started?” Nagini guesses.

Leta chuckles. “Close enough.”

“Wanna sit with us, or will it ruin your street cred?” Nagini asks, eyes shining with curiosity, or maybe just hunger.

Leta shrugs and pays for her salad at the counter. “If you promise never to use the words street cred ever again, sure.”

At Nagini’s left, Credence smiles shyly. She has never seen him out of his coffee shop uniform, and he is definitely not what she imagined, with a tiny silver cross hanging from a chain on his neck, a rainbow lapel pin on his jean jacket and an undercut.  They move from the cafeteria’s blinding artificial lights to the tables outside - they are already in winter and it is cold out, but Leta is used to avoiding loud, busy rooms, what with Newt’s condition, so it doesn’t bother her all that much. As for the two kids, tables are almost empty by this time of the year, so it doesn’t take a genius to get what their appeal can represent.

Nagini kicks up her feet on the table and leans sideways on Credence’s side while Leta has a wooden bench all to herself.

“So, about your ruined reputation,” Nagini starts. “What was up with you yesterday?”

“Did you see Professor Grindelwald falling down in the street?” Credence asks and takes a tiny bite of his apple.

“I wish,” Leta says, because if there is one thing that unites Nagini and her it is their mutual hatred for Grindelwald. He still teaches one of her classes today and she had him twice last year, once in her Introduction to Political Science class and another time in an Advanced Rhetorics option she picked up and gave up on soon afterward. The university is divided into two camps, really. There are those who think Grindelwald is like a white-haired, mole-rat-looking reincarnation of Jesus Christ or Martin Luther King or whoever teens idolize these days. Then there are people with common sense who see him for what he is, like Leta.

“The other day he took Credence’s phone in class and when he gave it back he changed his lock screen to a picture of him,” Nagini recalls. “Not even a funny picture, just this close up on his face, staring at the camera, Big Brother style. Credence still hasn’t changed it either.”

“What do you want?” Credence says with a self-aware smile. “I have terrible taste in men and daddy issues.”

“Gross,” Nagini whines.

“That’s not the problem,” Leta says. “The problem is out of all the silver fox material in this college - we have Dumbledore and Graves teaching - you went ahead and got a crush on him.”

“Bold of you to assume I don’t also have a crush on Dumbledore and Graves,” Credence says.

They laugh about it. Before an awkward pause can settle, Leta says, picking at her plate with suspicion, “Anyway, no, my roommate just sent me something funny.”

“What was it?”

Leta knows about retelling past jokes and that only waste, you just really had to be there, you know? and fake laughs this way come, so she says, allusively, “Just a fun fact about otters. He’s really into animals. He’s a bit of a dork about it, eats vegan, picks up every stray cat that crosses his path, the whole deal. Zoology students and all that.”

“Oh, that’s cool,” Nagini says. “This school has one of the best programmes in the country, don’t they?”

“Yes, that’s why we chose to come here,” Leta shrugs off, scrunching her nose at her salad, poking it around. It even smells weird. “This is way more disgusting than I remember it to be, isn’t it?”

There’s a silence. When she looks up, the two freaky twins are both raising their eyebrows the exact same way. It’s uncanny.

“That’s nice,” Credence drawls out.

“That my salad tastes like rotten grass?” Leta asks, raising an eyebrow as she grins at him.

“No, though it always tastes like cold garbage, so you only have yourself to blame,” Credence says. “You chose your college depending on your friend?”

Leta is uncomfortable. “He was - is my best friend. We met in boarding school when we were kids, with all the rich posh kids running around. It was hell, so, that makes friendship very intense.” They still look at her weirdly, and she is good with words, but even she doesn’t know how to convey the harshness of boarding schools when you are a bit different, a bit weird , so she adds: “Anyway, he was expelled in the middle of high school, and it was even worse without him here, so we decided we would stick together through college at least.”

She doesn’t talk about being the only black girl in her year, or Newt being diagnosed at thirteen, or how cruel children can be. Sometimes when she thought about it too long she felt so angry, almost as angry as she used to be in these years where she would talk back to the other kids when they mocked her and end up in detentions more weekends than not. She is quieter now, almost free of all of that teenage angst, better, but sometimes she feels like she is only pretending to be tamed, to be something she is not, like Pickett the domesticated squirrel.

“That’s actually very cool,” Credence says. “I can’t imagine living with my old middle school friends. Well, I didn’t have friends in middle school, probably because they were scared by my raw coolness, but even if I did, I guess I just changed a lot since then.”

“I don’t know. I never really thought about that,” Leta surprises herself by saying.

In the end, they move on from the subject to discuss Credence’s thing for every forty-something male teacher he meets, the revelations about a Moscow Trump tower, and salad that tastes like cardboard. When she gets to class, though, she keeps thinking over and over about growing up. She has always prided herself on being more perceptive than others - not even considering that Newt might be a different person as an adult than as a freckled thirteen-year-old is blindsiding her in a way she doesn’t care for.

She tries to forget about it and focuses on getting her degree.

But the thought planted by Credence sticks in the back of her mind, feeling so very foreign to her. It is relentless and invading and points its ugly, alien head at the most inappropriate moments throughout the week, and she can’t help but wonder.

She is the one who picks her roommate up at the end of his classes on Fridays, waiting with a coffee in hand for her and a chai for him. It is part of their routine. She watches the first wave of bouncing, impatient Bio students leave the building, then a second one, even bigger and noisier somehow, until Newt emerges from the lot and walks towards her. For the first time since they were fifteen, she appraises him. He looks like, well, Newt. So ridiculously tall he has to hunch over a little to pass doorsteps, shy smile, hands in his pockets. Then her gaze stays on him just a second too long, and he has the same wiry, messy-haired, freckled figure than when he was a kid, but maybe it looks less lanky now, somewhat. He doesn’t stare at the ground quite as much when he is out, his eyes darting from one point to the other in wonder, and suddenly she wishes she could know about the patterns he sees when he stares at the world like that.  

She still smiles in the same way she always does when she offers him his cup and his fingers brush against her gloved hand.

“Thank you so much,” he says, smiling. “Not to be dramatic, but I think if I have to listen to one more Neurology class, I might gouge out my own brain.”

“Lovely,” she comments. “You talk to Professor Dumbledore with that mouth?”

“Indeed, Mister Scamander,” an older man butts in with an amused expression and sparkling eyes behind half-moon glasses. “If you feel that strongly about my classes, I am always pleased to hear my students’ feedback during office hours.”

He trips over his own feet and stammers his excuses as Albus Dumbledore laughs at him in polite silences, and Leta tries not to be too amused by his misfortunes. If warmth oozes in her stomach, it must be either laughter or the hot coffee she is gulping down. It burns her tongue and her throat and keeps her hands busy not fixing Newt’s half-bent collar.

Newt is still talking with his hands to Dumbledore about his Zoology project when they leave campus. She has never had him in class, and never will, but even if she had never met him before, she would like him for the encouraging way he smiles as Newt talks to him about slugs’ brains or whatever he is explaining right now. Despite teaching one of Newt’s least liked courses - too many human examples, not enough slugs - he is still by far his favourite professor. It is enough for her.

Dumbledore goes home on a scooter, of all things, a Vespa, and Newt doesn’t get how funny it is when she tries to explain.

“I’m sure it’s very practical,” he tells her as they climb up the stairs.

“This is clearly not my point,” Leta says. “You’re just willfully blind because you have a crush on him.”

“What? I-I do not. He’s my teacher .”

Leta raises her eyebrows. Oh, really now. “And?”

“This is- wrong, and ridiculous, is what it is, and I will not talk to you about it any further.”

She stays silent as she opens the door. He gets even more flustered. His entire face is blushing all over, his skin like a sunset from his neck to the tip of his ears, and he fidgets with his sleeves, and it is sort of adorable, really.

“I don’t have a crush on Dumbledore!” he says, too loudly.

Then they go in and Niffler has gotten loose somehow and all of their spoons are in his cage, so he has reasons to get busy, but as soon as they’re sitting on their old couch again with a cup of hot cocoa, she raises her eyebrows again and he almost throws his cup at her. She breaks out laughing.

When she opens her eyes again, he is looking pointedly at his computer screen. This is when it happens. She can only witness in horror Newt’s profile rearrange itself in her head, move away from chubby cheeks and bitten lips, and this is when, as if she has never seen him before, she realizes he is handsome.

In some abstract way, she knew this before. She had noticed defined cheekbones, jawline, eyes with ever-changing colors, pushed him towards a girl or a boy or anyone and told him to just try his luck. It was only theoretical, though. It is like - she knows gravity exists, knows Earth rotates around the sun drawn by its sheer weight, but she also doesn’t know it, doesn’t understand it or feel the push of the sun’s attraction. This is like being in the reach of a supernova.

“Why are you still looking at me,” Newt complains, frowning at his screen.

Shit.

“No reason,” she says, not averting her eyes.

“Alright, so maybe I have a tiny crush on him. Just a smidge. It’s just- I- he’s so nice,” Newt says, turning around to look at her with wide, earnest eyes that look green today. “And a role model. Sort of.”

This is not the crush she is worried about.

[justforbooks]

Tom Wolfe, Innovative Nonfiction Writer and Novelist, Dies at 88

Tom Wolfe, an innovative journalist and novelist whose technicolor, wildly punctuated prose brought to life the worlds of California surfers, car customizers, astronauts and Manhattans moneyed status-seekers in works like “The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby,” “The Right Stuff” and “Bonfire of the Vanities,” died on Monday in a Manhattan hospital. He was 88.

He had lived in New York since joining The New York Herald Tribune as a reporter in 1962.

In his use of novelistic techniques in his nonfiction, Mr. Wolfe, beginning in the 1960s, helped create the enormously influential hybrid known as the New Journalism.

But as an unabashed contrarian, he was almost as well known for his attire as his satire. He was instantly recognizable as he strolled down Madison Avenue — a tall, slender, blue-eyed, still boyish-looking man in his spotless three-piece vanilla bespoke suit, pinstriped silk shirt with a starched white high collar, bright handkerchief peeking from his breast pocket, watch on a fob, faux spats and white shoes. Once asked to describe his get-up, Mr. Wolfe replied brightly, “Neo-pretentious.”

It was a typically wry response from a writer who found delight in lacerating the pretentiousness of others. He had a pitiless eye and a penchant for spotting trends and then giving them names, some of which — like “Radical Chic” and “the Me Decade” — became American idioms.

His talent as a writer and caricaturist was evident from the start in his verbal pyrotechnics and perfect mimicry of speech patterns, his meticulous reporting, and his creative use of pop language and explosive punctuation.

“As a titlist of flamboyance he is without peer in the Western world,” Joseph Epstein wrote in the The New Republic. “His prose style is normally shotgun baroque, sometimes edging over into machine-gun rococo, as in his article on Las Vegas which begins by repeating the word ‘hernia’ 57 times.”

William F. Buckley Jr., writing in National Review, put it more simply: “He is probably the most skillful writer in America — I mean by that he can do more things with words than anyone else.”

From 1965 to 1981 Mr. Wolfe produced nine nonfiction books. “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test,” an account of his reportorial travels in California with Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters as they spread the gospel of LSD, remains a classic chronicle of the counterculture, “still the best account — fictional or non, in print or on film — of the genesis of the ’60s hipster subculture,” the media critic Jack Shafer wrote in the Columbia Journalism Review on the book’s 40th anniversary.

Even more impressive, to many critics, was “The Right Stuff,” his exhaustively reported narrative about the first American astronauts and the Mercury space program. The book, adapted into a film in 1983 with a cast that included Sam Shepard, Dennis Quaid and Ed Harris, made the test pilot Chuck Yeager a cultural hero and added yet another phrase to the English language.

At the same time, Mr. Wolfe continued to turn out a stream of essays and magazine pieces for New York, Harper’s and Esquire. His theory of literature, which he preached in print and in person and to anyone who would listen was that journalism and nonfiction had “wiped out the novel as American literature’s main event.”

After “The Right Stuff,” published in 1979, he confronted what he called “the question that rebuked every writer who had made a point of experimenting with nonfiction over the preceding 10 or 15 years: Are you merely ducking the big challenge — The Novel?”

‘The Bonfire of the Vanities’

The answer came with “The Bonfire of the Vanities.” Published initially as a serial in Rolling Stone magazine and in book form in 1987 after extensive revisions, it offered a sweeping, bitingly satirical picture of money, power, greed and vanity in New York during the shameless excesses of the 1980s.

The action jumps back and forth from Park Avenue to Wall Street to the terrifying holding pens in Bronx Criminal Court, after the Yale-educated bond trader Sherman McCoy (a self-proclaimed “Master of the Universe”) becomes lost in the Bronx at night in his Mercedes with his foxy young mistress. After running over a black man and nearly igniting a race riot, he enters the nightmare world of the criminal justice system.

Although a runaway best seller, “Bonfire” divided critics into two camps: those who praised its author as a worthy heir of his fictional idols Balzac, Zola, Dickens and Dreiser, and those who dismissed the book as clever journalism, a charge that would dog him throughout his fictional career.

Mr. Wolfe responded with a manifesto in Harper’s, “Stalking the Billion-Footed Beast,” in which he lambasted American fiction for failing to perform the time-honored sociological duty of reporting on the facts of contemporary life, in all their complexity and variety.

His second novel, “A Man in Full” (1998), also a whopping commercial success, was another sprawling social panorama. Set in Atlanta, it charted the rise and fall of Charlie Croker, a 60-year-old former Georgia Tech football star turned millionaire real estate developer.

Mr. Wolfe’s fictional ambitions and commercial success earned him enemies — big ones.

“Extraordinarily good writing forces one to contemplate the uncomfortable possibility that Tom Wolfe might yet be seen as our best writer,” Norman Mailer wrote in The New York Review of Books. “How grateful one can feel then for his failures and his final inability to be great — his absence of truly large compass. There may even be an endemic inability to look into the depth of his characters with more than a consummate journalist’s eye.”

“Tom may be the hardest-working show-off the literary world has ever owned,” Mr. Mailer continued. “But now he will no longer belong to us. (If indeed he ever did!) He lives in the King Kong Kingdom of the Mega-bestsellers — he is already a Media Immortal. He has married his large talent to real money and very few can do that or allow themselves to do that.”

Mr. Mailer’s sentiments were echoed by John Updike and John Irving.

Two years later, Mr. Wolfe took revenge. In an essay titled “My Three Stooges,” included in his 2001 collection, “Hooking Up,” he wrote that his eminent critics had clearly been “shaken” by “A Man in Full” because it was an “intensely realistic novel, based upon reporting, that plunges wholeheartedly into the social reality of America today, right now,” and it signaled the new direction in late-20th- and early-21st-century literature and would soon make many prestigious artists, “such as our three old novelists, appear effete and irrelevant.”

And, added Mr. Wolfe, “It must gall them a bit that everyone — even them — is talking about me, and nobody is talking about them.”

Cocky words from a man best known for his gentle manner and unfailing courtesy in person. For many years he lived a relatively private life in his 12-room apartment on the Upper East Side with his wife, Sheila Wolfe, a graphic designer and former art director of Harper’s magazine, whom he married when he was 48 years old, and their two children, Alexandra and Thomas. All survive him.

Every morning he dressed in one of his signature outfits — a silk jacket, say, and double-breasted white vest, shirt, tie, pleated pants, red-and-white-socks and white shoes — and sat down at his typewriter. Every day he set himself a quota of 10 pages, triple-spaced. If he finished in three hours, he was done for the day. “If it takes me 12 hours, that’s too bad, I’ve got to do it,” he told George Plimpton in a 1991 Paris Review interview.

For many summers the Wolfes rented a house in Southampton, N.Y., where Mr. Wolfe continued to observe his daily writing routine as well as the fitness regimen from which he rarely faltered. In 1996 he suffered a heart attack at his gym and underwent quintuple bypass surgery. A period of severe depression followed, which Charlie Croker relived, in fictional form, in “A Man in Full.”

As for his remarkable attire, he called it “a harmless form of aggression.”

“I found early in the game that for me there’s no use trying to blend in,” he told The Paris Review. “I might as well be the village information-gatherer, the man from Mars who simply wants to know. Fortunately the world is full of people with information-compulsion who want to tell you their stories. They want to tell you things that you don’t know.”

The eccentricities of his adult life were a far cry from the normalcy of his childhood, which by all accounts was a happy one.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

[thefaeriereview]

Tour: A Perfect Storm

https://ift.tt/3nKciN7

A PERFECT STORM

Mike Martin Mystery

Sgt. Windflower is back, untangling another swirling mystery, this one bringing the meth crisis and biker gangs to the quiet Newfoundland town of Grand Bank, feeling the sting of their deadly tentacles reaching all the way from Las Vegas.  He’s working with his familiar crew of RCMP characters – but wait, are some of the faces changing? New challenges for Jones, an unknown side of Smithson reveals itself, and what ever happened to Tizzard?  In the midst of putting the pieces of the puzzle together, Windflower and his beloved Sheila also find themselves navigating sorrows and surprises on the family front.

Come back to Grand Bank for more fun, food and cool, clean, Canadian crime fiction with Sgt. Windflower Mysteries.

   MY REVIEW

 5 out of 5

A Perfect Storm is a great mystery. I really enjoyed this cozy mystery following various members of the RCMP stationed out of Newfoundland. Although this is a cozy mystery, it is far from fluffy. There's a wonderful balance between the hard and rough parts and the softer, sweeter side of life. At first I wasn't sure how much I would like the focus changing between characters, but Martin handled it seamlessly, and I was quickly lost in the story. This definitely made me want to read the other mysteries in the series!

Amazon → https://amzn.to/36sHEBz

  Chapter One

Eddie Tizzard passed his card over the sensor and pushed the door open. He flicked on the light. “Holy jumpins,” he said when he saw what was on the bed in his hotel room— thousands of dollars strewn around like confetti. When he looked closer, he saw something else. There, right in the middle of the bed, was a very red, very large bloodstain.

His first instinct was to run. But his years as an RCMP officer got the best of him, and he had another look around. Soon the source of the blood became obvious. It was a man in a suit lying face down in the bathroom with a visible hole in the back of his head. Tizzard should have trusted his first instinct because when he did decide to leave the room, he walked directly into the path of who he would later find out was the head of hotel security.

He was remembering all of this as he sat in a holding cell with a dozen other men in the Las Vegas jail. Tizzard had gone to Vegas for private detective training, having decided on a new career path after leaving the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, or the Mounties. Technically, he was on leave for the rest of the year, but he doubted he’d ever return to his old job. He’d applied for and received his firearms license, but he wanted a certificate to put on the walls of his new office, that is when he got an office. That seemed very far away right now, about as far as he could get from his home in Newfoundland on the eastern tip of Canada.

He’d watched enough police shows on TV to know that he could make one phone call. But nobody had said when he could do that. The duty officer kind of smirked when he pushed him into the lock-up with his dozen new friends and told him, “Yeah, yeah, coming right up.”

Tizzard was confused but tried to look like he fit in with his fellow cell mates. They, in turn, looked like they were measuring his clothes to see if they might be a fit. As long as they don’t find out that I used to be a cop, I’ll be OK, thought Tizzard as he backed up as far as he could into a corner.

It seemed like he had waited forever, but as several of his new friends came in for a closer look, he heard his name called, “Tizzard, Tizzard.”

“That’s me,” he said and pushed by the two large men who had got the closest.

The duty cop opened the door, and Tizzard walked along the hallway to an interview room. He was pushed inside, and the door clicked shut behind him. It was a small, windowless room with a camera in the ceiling, a mirror on the wall, a single chair on one side of a table, and two on the other. Tizzard knew the drill and took a seat on the one-chair side. Then he waited, again. Feels like home, he thought. Just not my home.

On the other side of the continent Mayor Sheila Hillier was wrapping up her town council meeting and was on her way to meet Moira Stoodley who was babysitting her daughter, Amelia Louise. The meeting had been made unpleasant by a couple of contentious issues, including whether the older buildings in the downtown core of Grand Bank should be modernized or restored to maintain their historic character. But Sheila also realized that most of the tension was really about who would replace her as mayor in the election only a couple of weeks away.

Jacqueline Wilson was Sheila’s preference, but there was another candidate, Phil Bennett, who was leading the anti-tax faction of council. Every meeting, Bennett would try to disrupt things to show how influential he thought he could be, but Sheila would have none of it and would put him back in line. Bennett’s behaviour in itself was more than enough reason for her to want to leave, she thought.

Sheila had decided to go back to school part-time, eventually do an MBA once she had cleared up her scholastic records and completed the course load for an old degree program she had started several years earlier. Politics had never really been her thing, even though she was very good at it. She had only taken the mayor’s job to try to improve the town’s economy. And she had succeeded, mostly. The Town of Grand Bank’s fish plant was now operating on a regular basis with a quota for crab and the sea urchins considered a delicacy in Japan and China. The town also had a recycling factory and a solar panel fabrication plant.

Half of the town’s people wanted to not just preserve the past but to live in it. The other half wanted to blow it all up and start over. They had no use for the old and wanted everything to be modern, like the way it was in St. John’s or even nearby Marystown. It seemed there was no middle ground for the residents of Grand Bank, yet Sheila was sure you could have the best of both worlds. Getting others to agree with her, though, seemed impossible.

Sheila gathered up her things and drove to the Mug-Up, which was known through much of the province to be the best little café there was in Grand Bank. That it was the only café in Grand Bank was usually not mentioned. Sheila had owned the place years ago but gave it up after a horrific car accident left her with a slight limp and no desire to stand all day. Moira and her husband, Herb, had taken it over, and it was there that she found Amelia Louise sitting at a table with her Poppy Herb.

“Mama, mama,” she shrieked as Sheila’s heart melted. “Ook, ook.”

“I think she’s got talent,” said Herb Stoodley.

Sheila examined the crayon scrawls on the paper and murmured her approval. “It’s so nice,” she said. “Is it Lady, your doggie?” she asked, making a leap of faith based on the fact that there was one small circle on top of a large mass of scratches.

Amelia Louise smiled and nodded her head up and down emphatically. She had always been able to somehow say no, but now the 20-month-old toddler was happy to signify yes with a grand gesture.

“Well, thank you,” said Sheila. “And thank you, Herb. And here’s Moira, too. Thank you, Moira, for looking after her.”

“It’s our pleasure,” said Moira, wiping her hands on her apron. “I was just finishing off some baking.”

“Em,” said Amelia Louise. “Ook, ook,”

“I can see,” said Moira. “Has Poppy Herb been nice to you?”

“She’s like our baby, too,” said Herb. “It’s easy to be nice to her. ‘Those that do teach young babes, do it with gentle means and easy tasks.’”

“Okay, my soon-to-be-famous artist, let’s go,” said Sheila as she put on Amelia Louise’s jacket. Once outside again, Sheila noticed the November air had lost any tinge of summer warmth, and the wind was picking up, making it a bit of an adventure to walk the short distance to their house. Sheila tried to carry her daughter, but Amelia Louise was determined to walk on her own, while examining every leaf that blew their way.

When they got home, Molly the cat watched them carefully as they came up the walkway. The dog, Lady, was more directly affectionate and showed how much she had missed them both by almost knocking them over in the hall. The only one missing from the happy family was Sheila’s husband and the father of Amelia Louise, Sergeant Winston Windflower of the RCMP Grand Bank Detachment. He was at work, but Sheila expected to hear from him soon because his stomach would be rumbling any minute now, and he’d want to know what was on for dinner.

Mike Martin was born in St. John’s, NL on the east coast of Canada and now lives and works in Ottawa, Ontario. He is a long-time freelance writer and his articles and essays have appeared in newspapers, magazines and online across Canada as well as in the United States and New Zealand. He is the author of Change the Things You Can: Dealing with Difficult People and has written a number of short stories that have been published in various publications across North America.

The Walker on the Cape was his first full fiction book and the premiere of the Sgt. Windflower Mystery Series. Other books in the series include The Body on the T, Beneath the Surface, A Twist of Fortune, and A Long Ways from Home, followed by A Tangled Web, which was shortlisted for the 2017 Bony Blithe Light Mystery Award as the best light mystery of the year, and Darkest Before the Dawn, which won the 2018 Bony Blithe Light Mystery Award. Fire, Fog and Water was the eighth in the series. He has also published Christmas in Newfoundland: Memories and Mysteries, a Sgt. Windflower Book of Christmas past and present.

He is Past Chair of the Board of Crime Writers of Canada, a national organization promoting Canadian crime and mystery writers and a member of the Newfoundland Writing Guild and Ottawa Independent Writers.

A Perfect Storm is the latest book in the Sgt. Windflower Mystery series.

  Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/mike54martin

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheWalkerOnTheCapeReviewsAndMore

via Blogger https://ift.tt/3nKmRQb

[julzealejandre]

To be a Chevener

My childhood was not that smooth sailing compared to other children in our neighbourhood. I was often bullied at school because of my short stature. In primary school, I wanted to be part of the school varsity team in badminton but one of our coaches said that I am short, hence it would be hard for me to smash a shuttlecock. In high school, our prom dance trainer told me that I may be cut from the roster of prom dancers for the prom because I am too short to be paired to other girls. At some point, I thought that my height has something to do with my capabilities and what I can achieve. Until I realised that there are other things that I can be great off — like singing, writing feature articles, public speaking, and excelling in academics.  So, I focused on these things. I became a member of our high school Glee Club, editor of our school publication, chairman of our student council, and represented our school in science quiz bees. All these experiences fuelled my desire to reach my dreams when others think I cannot, when others impose my limits and tell me what I can and cannot do.

In high school, one of my dreams is to study in the most prestigious university of the country – the University of the Philippines. Fortunately, I passed the UP College Admission Test (UPCAT) and got admitted to a pre-med course. Passing the UPCAT was hard, but there were people who believed that I only passed because I chose a “non-quota” degree. There were times when people would ask me what do I intend to do after graduating with a degree in nutrition. They would even question if I will ever get a job. For them, nutrition was purely cooking and feeding the malnourished. But no matter what other people think of my chosen field, I still pursued my university education. I was the first in our family to be admitted in UP, and it was a great honour for them. For my parents, being the first is quite important—being at the top of the cohort has been the norm.

In our society, it is not new when others would dream of being at the top of the game, of being the first in line, the front and the centre of the crowd. The Philippines as a country continue to dream of being the first. We were the first country in the ASEAN to craft and implement a policy on mandatory fortification of staples, the first to have a light rail transit system, one of the firsts to show to the world the strength of the people’s voices united with one goal through people power revolution. Certainly, the first Filipino Chevening scholars who were sent to the UK to study had a wonderful journey of being “the first”. Aside from having a world-class education and the chance to experience the rich culture of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, they set a legacy that we strive to live on until today. They established and passed on a sense of pride that every Filipino Chevening scholar embraces. No matter how small or big the group of scholars are, this legacy is still alive. For many, being the first means being superior and the best. The crème de la crème. But for me, being the first means having the responsibility to lead and guide others so all of us can have the chance to be the first.

Speaking of firsts, my first attempt in applying for the Chevening Scholarship in 2014 led me to meaningful possibilities of self-exploration. I was not accepted on my first try, I was not even shortlisted for the interview. But failing on my first did not discourage me to take other opportunities. Instead, I considered it as a motivation to understand and assess myself on a wider and deeper depth. It gave me the realisation to know my purpose as a leader and as an influencer. The meaningful reason of why I want to study abroad. A realisation that triggered me to question myself if I am applying because of the prestige, or the chance to travel Europe or the feeling of being superior, or because of the sense of selflessness to offer and apply what I learned in the UK here in our country. Within that process, I also realised that God did not give me the scholarship on my first try because He wanted me to do other important things that have greater impact for His people. Things like coordinating the development and implementation of the Philippine campaign for salt iodisation and food fortification, being a volunteer for our professional organisation, and helping organise the Philippine youth movement for the Sustainable Development Goals. If I was given the scholarship on my first try, I will not be able to do these remarkable things and contribute to our country. A year after, I still did not consider applying for Chevening. I made sporadic applications to other grants in Europe, United States, and South Korea but things were not just on their right places. I thought that I am still raw and not ready, but I did not give up. In fact, I focused on understanding and planning for my future. I conceptualised a career goal that I would want to fulfil— of being a public health specialist in the field of health promotion and health policy. Someone who has the expertise on the social and behavioural change strategies for health and nutrition. We need to know our purpose and design a blueprint of our goals. Deciding to apply for a scholarship is not mulled on overnight, someone must be ready, someone must have a plan.

I remember I was in the middle of my birthday backpacking across Indonesia when I received that first #Alphagram from the Chevening Secretariat. It was about the opening of the application season for 2017/18 Chevening Scholarships. Upon reading the mail, my initial question was, “Am I ready? What if I fail again?” There was no day on that trip that I did not think of how to answer my own question. Until one traveller whom I tagged along with for a temple visit in Yogyakarta prompted me to pick up an answer. We were in Borobodur Temple waiting for sunrise, when she asked me if I have plans of studying abroad. And I knew it, that moment was my answer! I also realised that I would never know my chances if will let it pass the second time. After that trip, I rolled up my sleeves, put my game face on, and started my application. Nights became longer as I complete my application documents. My “chill out weekends” became spaces filled with determination to be accepted. While some of my friends were enjoying their Friday nights and holidays with movies, travelling, and hanging out, I opted to stay at home and worked on my essays and application. For almost three months, that routine became familiar. It was a sacrifice that I believed would be all worth it when I reach the finish line. It was 4th of November when I finally turned in my application documents. Excitement and anxiety were always on its peak while waiting for the results of the first cut of applicants. For three months, faith and prayers became the anchors of what I believe in. Waiting was more excruciating and tiring than completing the applications. Sacrifice and perseverance are necessary for success. Others may not understand you, but there will also be people who will support and will try to hold you in place to focus - like your friends, family, and significant others.

It was eleventh of February, when I received an email saying that I got shortlisted for the interview stage of Chevening. I had roughly two months to prepare for it – a time not wasted. From answering possible interview questions, to having mock interviews with friends, to reading interview experiences of past Chevening applicants. I often get comments of being over prepared for a 45-minute interview, but for someone who have invested so much time, effort, and resources, I thought it is better to be more prepared than to be less of it. There is really no formula for the Chevening interview, and it is really up to you on how you will use the time to prepare for the “big day”. In my case, I used to be comfortable on that day, and just to be myself. The feeling of being a step away to the realisation of a dream you worked hard for is really unexplainable. At times, it would give you anxiety, some other time it will make you feel excited, at some point it will fill you with so much hope. What is important is to just take it in, acknowledge it, feel it, and immerse yourself on it. Trust me, those are parts of the process, of the journey �� of #YourCheveningJourney.

The Philippines was one of the last countries that announced the final awardees for Chevening – it was 13th of June. Mixed of emotions filled me up and even spilled over when I finally received my Chevening award email saying that I was #ChosenForChevening. To be honest, I had a great feeling that I will be accepted – probably because of my positivity. When you believe that something great would happen, and if you know that you have given everything you can to make it happen, the stars will align on your favour. Two months before my acceptance in Chevening, I also got waitlisted for a scholarship in France, but I know God chose Chevening for me. I will be taking MSc Public Health and Health Promotion in Bangor University in North Wales. A stunning university town fitted for an outdoorsy person like me. Their program in public health and health promotion is what I have been looking for – something that crossbreeds health promotion with social and behavioural sciences.

Few days from now, I will be starting a great journey which I conceived some three years ago. It is not just my journey but of all Filipinos who dream and who strive to realise it. A journey of hundred million Filipinos who dreams to have the best healthcare system that would improve their quality of life. A journey of every pregnant woman who dreams to give birth to a healthy child. A journey of every farther who endeavours to provide healthy food choices for his family. A journey of every school-aged child who wants to go to school to learn and nurture his knowledge. A journey of every youth who aspires to live in a healthy, safe, and progressive community. I would like to believe that being awarded by a Chevening Scholarship is not a personal feat. It is a victory of every person who became my anchor to be grounded and reminded me of my purpose, who pushed me beyond my limits. I am just a representative of their journey, and I am more than honoured to tell and share their stories.

For now, let me call this #MyCheveningJourney. A journey to inspire other young leaders to dream and to become as great as they dream to be. A journey of an above-average university student and passionate public health servant who wants to fulfil his dreams not just for himself but for others. A journey of a wandering Pinoy Chevener who promises to come back full of passion, commitment, and eagerness to make ripples of sustainable change for his countrymen. Let this be a journey of great and limitless wonders.

[dlamp-dictator]

Allen’s Ramblings XXIII: So What Make a Good Protagonist Anyway?

Can I be honest with you folks? I… don’t think I’ve been writing my stories correctly. Specifically, I don’t think I’ve been writing the protagonists of my stories correctly. I was trying to write chapter 5 and chapter 14 of Violaceous Storm and Reversal Princess respectively, and… I think I went wrong in my approach in writing those stories. I was going back, rereading a few spots in past chapters and I think I’ve just made a bit of a mess. Every chapter felt rushed when I read through them again, and I think my attempts at trying to do a monthly quota’ for these chapters is the cause of it. Especially Violaceous Storm. Jeez, I made a mistake in ending chapter 4 with Reyna having to rest up and imply she’ll be out of action for a while, hell, I think I messed up with the lack of consequences in the ninja attack… eh, well at least that’s easy to fix. And Reversal Princess… Lord, don’t get me started on how I think I screwed up this tournament arc… but I digress.

It’s probably for the best that I not try to pump out chapters monthly anymore. Like I said, doing things this way might make me pump out chapters, but… they aren’t good ones. Not to me anyway, and while I know I’m probably my own worst critic, I haven’t really gotten reviews or feedback to say what I’m doing right or wrong, so I’m just going to have to be critical of myself for the next while.

Anyway, I think I need to plan out everything and have at least three chapter outlines done before I actually post the next chapter to something. Posting chapters monthly isn’t going to work, not for the stories I want to tell anyway.

…

…

…

Oh right, protagonists, that’s what I was supposed to be talking about. Hehe, sorry folks, it’s called Allen’s Ramblings for a reason. -_-;;

But enough of that, time to talk about what’s on the actual title. Like I said, I don’t think I’ve been writing my protagonists properly in the sense that I don’t think I’ve given my readers a good enough reason to root for them and want them to succeed. I mean, Aoi’s had a few scraps and bouts, but nothing was really at stake save for her fight with Kuro. With Reyna… she was punished for her actions in chapter 1, but… not much else has happened in terms of bringing out her personality and her flaws.

I think I was doing this well in Reversal Princess in the beginning when I introduced Aoi’s sister as a rival to her, being someone that wanted Aoi’s position as heir of the Umenokoji Dojo. However… after that I haven’t given Aoi any big obstacles or challenges. The same thing with Reyna, I think I did something good in having her intro be fighting off a bully for the sake of another, but showing how rash she was to start fights in the name of justice and protecting others. I think I went wrong in chapter 3 and 4 by not bringing out that side of her again. I’ve writing protagonists without giving them proper antagonists or obstacles to face.

So, as I was thinking about this I also thought about characters in stories that I did want to see succeed after this. Off the topic of my head I thought of Ragna the Bloodedge, Kenichi Shirahama, Mikoto Misaka, and so on. I’ll spare you all an in depth analysis on these characters and I just tell you all the similarities I found between them all:

They had an unique personality trait that differed from the cast

They had been through great struggle

They were relatable in some way at their core

The antagonist was an utter bastard that honestly needed to be put down

 The obstacle they faced seemed so daunting, but they still tried to face it down

There are a few more things, but those are the basics. I mean, reading these points back to myself now I really feel stupid for how I’ve been writing my characters so far. From this point on I’m going to keep these things in mind as I write the next few chapters of my stories. I wouldn’t expect any more monthly updates for quite some time. I need to plan... and think… and reflect a little… And finished a chapter of an older story that is long overdue.

Anyway, thanks for reading guys. This was a bit of a personal essay, but I hope it helps you guys if you’re thinking of a story to write as well. I’ll try and get that part 2 of the Anime Update done tonight then work on some lyrics in the morning. As always feel free to IM or ask me something if you guys want more about my thoughts on a thing. See ya’!

[witchboyjimin]

fatal if it's not too much can u write some short jikook drabble for me rn ?? I'll be going on a trip and will return after 3 months. I'll most likely not have internet. I just want to read something from you before I leave. It's just that your writing gives me so much joy. It doesn't necessarily have to be a drabble. Like talk about how you see jikook if you want? Anything is fine. Take care

aahhh, oh my god :( i’d be really sad without internet for 3 months but i sincerely hope you have a wonderful trip!!!! i’m…not great at writing on the spot! but i’ll share two snippets of two different wips with you okay!!! idk if they’ll be much but i hope they help and i really hope you enjoy your trip a lot, darling!!!!!

also!!! your english is wonderful. please never apologise for your english okay!!!! you’re doing great!!!

i stuck the snippets under a read more n___n

wip snippet one is from a canon jikook fic:

“You’re staring,” Seokjin comments in what Jeongguk thinks is amusement, the residual notes of patience mixing in. His eyes are burning, the way they always do, begging for sleep, but Jeongguk carries around a craving in his heart, as if there were some kind of quota needing fulfillment. Longing, Jeongguk finds, is more troublesome than the constant exhaustion that trails after him like a second shadow.

“No, I’m not.”

Seokjin hums, corners of his mouth lifting just slightly, like this is a game. Maybe it is. “Okay.”

Jeongguk’s always finds it frustrating how happy Seokjin is to be complacent, gathering up tidbits of information and tucking them between his ribs for safekeeping. He’s nearly as bad as Hoseok, but not quite. “I’m not,” Jeongguk insists.

“I wasn’t arguing,” Seokjin smiles, the amusement reaching his eyes now. At eighteen, Jeongguk hasn’t gathered nearly enough perspective or life experience. Everything worms it’s way under his skin, staying there like a non paying tenant. Most welcomes are overstayed.

Jeongguk hasn’t really stopped staring. Jimin’s asleep, head lolling over the back of his chair, v-neck t-shirt dipping dangerously low. It’s nothing he hasn’t seen before, but his eyes take delight in every sliver of exposed skin anyways. Lately, it gnaws at him, how restless he feels, waiting for something. He’s not sure he even knows what the something is, just that wanting someone’s attention this much might be indicative that he’s in trouble. Time to tap out, he tells himself, hands still chasing to touch.

“He’s not going anywhere,” Seokjin says, eyes now fixed on his phone. Jeongguk has his own in his lap but it doesn’t seem to hold his attention quite as well. Behind them, Taehyung and Namjoon are getting their makeup finished up. After that, they’re off to their first schedule and Jeongguk won’t have the time or the opportunity.

“I’m not.”

and wip snippet two is from a short, fluffy college au:

Jimin doesn’t like scary movies.

He’s never liked them and he never will and he hates his friends, hates that they always want to watch them even though Hoseok always screams through the whole thing. Jimin’s going to end up having nightmares and he could do without the fear of a serial killer with claws for hands lurking in the shadows. Or whatever this movie is about because Jimin’s trying his best not to actually watch it.

“You okay?” Jeongguk asks, nudging Jimin’s shoulder slightly. Jimin’s spent the last fifteen minutes with his hands covering his eyes, peeking through his fingers only when Hoseok stops shrieking.

“I’m fine,” he mutters back, heartbeat in his throat. How much longer could the movie be right?

They’re all holed up at Seokjin and Hoseok’s place, Taehyung laughing every time the main character does something especially life-threatening and stupid. Why would she go into the room? Who does that? Except Jimin knows Taehyung would go into the room himself, curiosity always getting the better of him. He nearly huffs.

The door to the room slams shut behind the girl and she screams, along with Hoseok, the shadows in the room seemingly closing in on her. Jimin startles, more so at the warm hand running up and down his back, soothingly. It’s Jeongguk, his large palm sinking heat into Jimin’s skin even through his sweater. Heat burns in the apples of his cheeks, the steady awareness of how they’re pressed together from hip to knee never quite having left him that night.

There’s heavy breathing on camera, the murderer lurking in the shadows of the hotel, waiting, watching as the girl stumbles through another room. Lightning cracks in the background and Jimin shifts uneasily, Jeongguk’s hand rubbing circles into the base of his neck. He nearly shivers, but finds himself sinking back in his seat, relaxing. Jeongguk accommodates him easily, shifting slightly to the left so Jimin’s back can hit the back of the couch. Namjoon’s sitting on Jimin’s right, chin propped up on his hand as he slumps against the armrest.

Jimin’s not really paying attention to the movie anymore, Jeongguk’s hand dragging down his back until his arm is curled around Jimin’s waist, holding him snug against Jeongguk’s side. It’s hard for Jimin to not curl into Jeongguk, head pillowing on Jeongguk’s chest, the insistent heat of his body seeping through his t-shirt to sink into Jimin. Jeongguk’s hand finds it’s way to Jimin’s flank, palm flat against his skin. Jimin’s t-shirt suddenly feels too thin.

Jeongguk’s thumb rubs back and forth over Jimin’s side and he can’t stop thinking about it, how he fits into Jeongguk so snugly. His eyes feel heavier and heavier by the second…

“Jimin?” 

Something nudges him, his eyes blearily opening and shuttering back close when he finds the room too bright. “What?”

“You fell asleep.” That’s Jeongguk’s voice, rather close to his ear, and Jimin attempts to eopn his eyes a second time, better this time. He’s still curled up in Jeongguk’s side, head resting on his chest. Jimin feels comfortable, warm. Safe.

“Oh,” he offers intelligently, the rest of his friends all stretching and getting up from their seats in the room. 

“The movie was bad, anyways,” Taehyung offers, back arching as he extends his arms up, up, up, willing his body back to life.

“Sorry,” Jimin mumbles, pulling away from Jeongguk but he misses the heat anyways, misses Jeongguk’s palm searing through his skin where it had rested on Jimin’s side.

Jeongguk looks nonchalant but his eyes are focused on Jimin, unwavering. The attention feels like too much, heat rising to Jimin’s cheeks as he quickly looks away. 

“Home?” Jimin asks Taehyung who shakes his head.

“Everyone wants get drinks. You wanna come?”

Jimin wrinkles his nose. “Nah, I’m good. Have fun.”

“What, why not?” Seokjin asks, frowning. 

“Don’t feel like it,” Jimin mumbles, still shaking off the sleep that’s wrapped him up in a blanket. “Maybe another day.”

“Don’t pressure the kid,” Yoongi scolds, pulling Hoseok up from his seat. He looks like a dementor’s sucked his soul out of his body. Poor guy.

“Jeongguk?” Namjoon asks, passing Jeongguk his varsity jacket.

“I’m good too, hyung,” Jeongguk declines, slinging his jacket on. Jimin glances around for his own, is grateful when Seokjin hands it to him. “Got practise in the morning.”

“Oh, shit, that sucks,” Namjoon sympathizes like he’s ever played on a sports team before.

Jeongguk only shrugs and they all head toward the front door.

“Wait, where’s my wallet!” Namjoon yells, patting his pockets all over. Yoongi rolls his eyes as Seokjin mutters a, “Here we go again.”

Taehyung slumps against the wall, hands in his pockets as their hyungs all go back into the living room to look for Namjoon’s wallet. Jimin hides his smile.

“You wanna go to mine and watch Treasure Planet?” Jeongguk asks nonchalantly, fixing his bangs in the mirror next to the apartment’s front door. Jimin slips his shoes on, contemplating the risk of possibly crashing at Jeongguk’s place after the movie. His essay wasn’t due for a couple of days, he could probably afford it.

“Sure,” Jimin smiles, doesn’t think too hard about the way Jeongguk’s eyes soften, smile delightfully small and pleased.

“We can order pizza,” he adds, cracking the door open. Jimin shouts a goodbye back into the apartment at everyone, pretends he doesn’t see the way Taehyung waggles his eyebrows at him. 

When Jeongguk’s past the door, he flips him the bird, and Taehyung laughs, shouts, “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“That’s not very helpful,” Jimin shouts back, shuts the door in his face before he can say something worse. Jeongguk’s waiting by the elevator for him, adjusting his beanie, expression relaxed.

Jimin smiles, feels warm from the inside out.

[idonthavewritersblockyoudo]

Do you like me?

Theme: Repetition to illustrate my relationship with somebody, directed at them as ‘you’.

Topic: My friendship (or not friendship) with someone.

Words: 2,615. 

“Do you like me?” a question I have never asked you, but one I whisper in my mind.

“Do you like me?”

It’s freshman year, first week of school. You joke about a quota of times I can raise my hand in class. It stings a bit too much, not helped by the kids in the back of the classroom who mercilessly tease me about it for the rest of class. The next day you apologize for upsetting me. It’s the only time you’ll see me that upset for well over a year.

“Do you like me?”

Every day it’s a new joke. Your class is rowdy, full of talkative freshman, myself being one of the loudest. Every day it’s a constant repartee between us, as I correct the grammar on your notes slides and skelter the class off topic with my random nuggets of knowledge.

“Do you like me?”

Mid-way through first semester. I sit cross-legged on a desk in the back of your classroom. You joke about my warmups being too long. I say it’s because I have a lot to say. You ask if I like writing, and I tell you I do. Your eyes shine and you ask me to join the newspaper, you tell me to take your class junior and senior year. The first time, I didn’t think you were serious. The third, the fourth, the fifth time, I started to believe you.

“Do you like me?”

You always let me speak in class, always let me speak a piece of my mind, and in most cases you agreed with me, even when the rest of the class didn’t. Even when nobody else knew what I’m talking about, you knew. You never tried to shut me up, or told me to put my hand down, and you were one of the few teachers  that didn’t.

“Do you like me?”

Every morning I come in feeling dead inside, every morning I collapsed dramatically in your room, and every morning you’d laugh, give me a smile and a joke. You’d comment on my coffee cup or over-dramatic sighs. You’d rate me on my stomping ability.

“Do you like me?”

On my birthday there’s a snowstorm, and my birthday is buried under multiple feet of snow. You’ve always given out birthday candy to every one of your students, but you don’t give any to me. It becomes an inside joke between us.

“Do you like me?”

Second semester. I hand you a DBQ essay with five paragraphs, each paragraph being a line complaining about mornings. You love it, you say you’re gonna hang it on your wall. Then you promptly misplace it and I tease you about it.

“Do you like me?”

I finally write something for the newspaper, a book review. It’s small, but I glow with pride at the accomplishment.

“Do you like me?”

I am alone in the world. My family life has fallen apart, my body is revolting against me and I spend more time at the hospital than I do at home. I feel alone and friendless. The only thing that gets me up in the morning is your class, the only thing that gets me to sleep is your class. The only reason I push through is to hear your jokes and do your work and be in your class.

“Do you like me?”

It’s the last day of school and I almost cry as I leave your room. The jokes and the smiles and almost every moment in here was a happy one, except for a day once in a blue moon. The class that had always lifted me up when I was down and kept my head held high at the worst of times, it was over.

“Do you like me?”

It’s the ~official~ last day of school, as the final exam lets out for the year. I see you at the pool later that day, just as I’m leaving, and you say hi to me. I swell with pride. You could’ve easily ignored me but you chose to speak with me. There were twenty other students at the pool but you didn’t speak to them.

“Do you like me?”

You walk into the main office a few days after school lets out to find me in the middle of the office spinning around in circles on one of the desk chairs. “What are you doing here?” you ask, leaning against a desk.

“I’m working here over the summer as a student aide to Ms. Lopez,” I tell you.

“Fun. I’m sure they’ll love you,” your tone is sarcastic but there’s a hint of truth in that voice.

“Do you like me?”

You come into the office with your bag of birthday candy and give it out to the secretaries. “Finally getting my piece of candy, huh?” I ask with a smile. “It’s been sixth months,” I inform you.

“Sixth months? No, it hasn’t been.”

“Yep, two more days and it’ll be exactly six months,”I say.

You retract the bag. “Sorry, you’ll have to wait another two days then,” you joke.

“Do you like me?”

You walk into the main office. “Hard at work?” you ask.

“If you mean watching youtube, then I sure am,” I respond, one earbud in.

“Do you like me?”

It’s a few days before school starts and I wander into your room. “I’m like 9000% percent sure I’m too late, but you coach the soccer team, right? I was wondering if I could still tryout,” I say, my heart beating out of my chest. It had been a week of deliberation for me, over whether to try out.

“You are not late, and you can still try out. What position do you play?” you ask.

“Goalie. I used to play on a team, and took soccer as a class last year. I may have to get used to the bigger net though,” I say.

“Are you any good?” you ask.

“Well, I’m trying to be less full of myself, so I’m not terrible, at least I don’t think so. I’m pretty good.”

“Do you like me?”

It’s the next day at practice, and we’re doing warmups. You’re tossing balls at me left and right. One slips by me and for the fifth time at practice I say ‘sorry, I’m a mess’.

“That’s the first ball you’ve missed out of twenty, why do you keep saying that?” you ask. I shrug.

“Do you like me?”

I make cuts for JV soccer without even realizing it. I’m one of three goalies, and you quietly give me pointers and lend me your gloves so I can practice. Not that it matters anyhow. The trainer at school won’t let me play, telling me until I get a note from the doctor I can’t play. I go to the ER that night and get diagnosed with mono and strep. I emerge from the ER at 4 AM, with an order to quit the soccer team for six weeks. When I tell you, you look disappointed, but you’re accepting.

“Do you like me?”

My new social studies teacher, my AP gov teacher, writes a quote on the board that I made up from one of the primary sources (Federalist 10). You walk into his room and he calls you over, a smile on his face. I’m grinning like a fool, but you just blink and walk away without a notion of care on your face except to say ‘good luck having her first period’.

“Do you like me?”

You walk in to talk to my teacher. I wave at you, happily, and you give no response back, except to say, yet again, “is it fun, having her and her best friend in the same period?”

“Do you like me?”

I walk into your classroom at lunch. You have a stone cold face, with no emotion, no hint of caring. I can talk to you for ten minutes and you’ll barely pay attention, barely note me.

“Do you like me?”

I offer to write an article about the PSAT memes that swept the nation, and you agree to let me. But it never fully gets finished because I got swamped with work. I run into Ravi in the hallway, and she says how she’s going to the newspaper pictures for yearbook. She says she asked about getting a pass for me when you gave her one, but that you told her that I ‘wasn’t really a part of the newspaper’. She made me promise to never tell you that I knew you’d said that. I avoided your room for a week after that, I couldn’t look you in the eye.

“Do you like me?”

“What do you mean you think I hate you?” you ask me, looking almost hurt at the notion. My friends back me up. We all think it. 

“We come in here, every day and say hello and talk to you and you never care. Why shouldn’t we be convinced you hate us?” a friend asks you. You glance at me, and I give a nod of affirmation.

“Do you like me?” 

I write a story for my A.P Gov teacher as an election day present, and I end up inviting you to the big ~reveal~. You film parts of it as Ravi does a dramatic reading of it. It’s a piece of trash, but it’s so artfully written to be a piece of trash. You laugh so hard that tears come to your eyes.

“You should submit that to the literary magazine. Not necessarily because it will be accepted, just to force Pappafotis to read it,” you say with a laugh.

“Do you like me?”

A freshman who sits in your room talks about how some sophmore lives next to her English teacher, and how she just got married. “Oh, Kerri! Yeah, I house-sit her dog while she was in Oregon for her wedding.” I say happily.

“Kerri? You call her by her first name?” you ask me.

“Yeah, I do. We’ve been next door neighbors for years,” I explain.

“Liam Shaffer has lived next to me for five years, and I don’t let him call me Jared,” you say.

“Kerri and I are friends. I’m friends with her kids too. I tried to call her ‘Ma’am’ once, and by her last name, but she just started cracking up” I tell you. I don’t know why it threw you off so much, how I was friends with her so easily. At that point, I had just really started to get close with my A.P Gov teacher as well. But you were still the only teacher I really liked that I wasn’t friends with, and didn’t even know how you viewed me.

“Do you like me?”

I start to see you more. You come into my classroom a lot, with comments for my teacher and jokes. You smile at me sometimes, and the feeling of unhappiness begins to sink away. 

“Do you like me?”

I buy you a mug for your ‘half-birthday’ because your real birthday is before school starts next year. It says ‘yet despite the look on my face, you’re still talking’. I think you like it, but I can’t tell. You keep it on your desk, next to your monitor, so that’s probably a good thing.

“Do you like me?” 

I write an article for the newspaper, about polarization at our high school. You look it over.

“"Something I've observed throughout my life?" Your long, long life? You've reached a wise old age and are here to impart your great knowledge and wisdom at the ripe age of 16?” You ask, laughing.

“Yes, exactly,” I respond.

“Do you like me?”

My teacher and I work together after school every day, him grading papers and me doing homework. We talk and hang out. We’re friends. But I still don’t know where I stand with you. He starts coaching sports and stops being in his room. Lonely in the quiet of his room, I go to your room.

“Do you like me?” 

You tell me I should start a club for kids who ‘are always hanging around school but never have a reason to’ after my second day staying in your room after school. ‘the second home club’ you call it. I hint that it’s better than home.

“Do you like me?”

The second day you prod me for information about my home life. I don’t respond to your questions, your jokes. You still seem curious, but you let it drop.

“Do you like me?”

The third day I sit next to your desk, playing with a paper airplane that sits on your desk. “well, what’s so bad you stay here?” you ask.

“Everything,” I say, throwing it too far and having to retrieve it.

“Everything? well that’s not very specific.”

I tell you about my parents, just a little. About their personalities.

“Well, it could be worse, right?” you ask, as I play with an origami bird. I don’t respond.

“It could be worse, right?” you ask again, after about a minute of my silence.

I give a noncommittal shrug. “I guess it could be.”

You don’t seem very happy with my answer, but neither am I.

“Do you like me?”

The next morning I tell my friends a story about my dad. “and you all know how crazy my dad is,” I say. Your eyes flash with concern, a sudden flash that’s barely noted. But I do note it.

“Do you like me?”

I complain to Ravi about another friend, and she explodes at me. They shout at me in your room, and you register how upset I seem. Ten minutes later I’m sitting in your room sulking, playing a game on my phone.

“Why are you so upset? She was right, you know,” you tell me.

“Yeah. I agree Ravi’s right. I just had a really rough night. I really wanted her to be there for me, and it hurt that I had to be there for her instead. But Ravi was right, I shouldn’t have been upset I was just being bitchy,” I tell you. You look concerned again. The music cuts off and I float out of your room to my first period.

“Do you like me?”

That afternoon. I joke about not wanting to go home and you pick up the torch you had been carrying the day before. You prod me about my home life.You ask what’s so bad, truly, that I don’t want to go home. So I tell you. About how my parents fight, about food and the tv show I had watched that had hit a little too close to home. I talk about my aunt. Your demeanor changes, something I’d only seen flashes of before. It was something I wasn’t able to pinpoint, but now I’m used to that change in you. Concern.

“I don’t like going home,” I tell you.

“Well, this is your home. That’s your second home,” you tell me.

“Do you like me?”

I start telling you about my life. Small things, but what I do say you understand. Even if I can’t get the words out. When I play with the straps of my backpack and can’t meet your eye. You slowly stop joking about me living at school, because you understand. There’s a change in you, something I never saw before. Last year your class had been the only place I could escape my problems, and now your classroom is the only place where I can talk about them.

“Do you like me?” 

“Did you ever actually have mono, or were you just using it to get out of being on the soccer team?” you ask.

I stare at you, open-mouthed. “Of course I had mono! I loved the team. Plus I spent $70 on gear, no way would I quit after that.”

Did you think, did you think for all that time I lied to get off of the team?

“Do you like me?”

I catch a stomach virus and spend a Saturday in the ER, and the next two days recovering. I come in Tuesday and look like hell. You seem worried about me, you and Nappo and Grace. You’re the only three people that seemed to give a fuck. My friends gave passing comments but you all seem genuinely concerned. It wasn’t a feeling I was used to.

“Do you like me?”

I tell you about how I spent five hours in the hospital the day before, and how I have to go back two more times next week for probably several hour appointments. You tell me to go home, looking concerned, especially since I was just in the ER on Saturday. You tell me all day, that I should be home, not at school running myself thin. I know it’s worry that fuels your statements but I already feel like melting into the ground at this point that it doesn’t help. I could sit in your room but I don’t.

“Do you like me?” 

My sister talks to me on the phone, soothing my worries. It’s between your class or aiding for my current teacher senior year. Do I give up journalism for an aiding job I would love, or aiding for a journalism class I would love? 

“He likes you, don’t worry. I think he just has rules about being friends with underclassmen. Go with Dabbo, you’re already friends with him,” my sister says. I laugh at her use of my nickname for my teacher I use on tumblr. But a knot is still in my stomach. I reflect over the past two years, our interactions. Do you like me? Really? 

[yourfriendlele]

long ask

I saw the post you made ( and first of all since I havent watched harley quinn show so I cant comment on the ship ( though I find it ridiculous that you seem to be implying people who are anti korrasami would automatically be anti bb  ( there were people who are anti korrasami but ship bb ) 

and second of all this is what annoys me about ship wars ( where it can get to the point where one of the characters who “get in the way ” of the ship is demonized ) and with ship wars with one being m/f and other being same sex someone will claim homophobia if you ship say black sun over bb and claim that you would ship say bb if one of them was a dude which is baseless  when its a matter of liking the writing or liking the interactions between characters more etc

not to mention the argument  when people point out how a ship say korrasami was forced and had no buildup   certain people go  but there are thousands of straight couples why cant you let us have this one when first of all goodwriting is more important then representation )  korrasami didnt have buildup it was thrown it at the last minute bryke only went to network if they could do at after thinking about how they didnt include rep when they were close to finishing the season finale ( of course they tried to cover their asses  by claiming het lenses when no  the ship  just isnt there it had no buildup or relationship development there had been more buildup / interactions with makorra then korrasami in b4 ( not to mention they fixed their problems with handling  conflict  by b4 which caused problems in their relationship ) compare all asami got in remembrances was going of course we need you youre the avatar (korras problem  at the start was only seeing herself as the avatar and not as person ) mako got a speech about what korra meant to him 

and on bb there is/was no buildup or romantic development to bb v1-v6

( there are people who are debating  on whether rooserteeth made it canon or not and  ( if the v7 stuff is supposed to imply that its forced as hell ) 

  there was no bb moments  in v6 that were  inherently romantic 

 people just try to claim these moments were romantic when they really werent and claim there was no other explanation for tihs like blake holding yangs hand when it trembled as she was facing adam which was a show of Im here for you which yang reciprocated on the plane ( and they try to equate bb on the plane to renora on the plane when no its not besides the fact that renora had volumes of buildup  were alone in that scene  the sun came up and nora did the lean head on shoulders thing) and renora were alone together no one stepped  in contrast to bb who were surrounded and friends with ruby talking to blake ( not to mention trying to claim saying that the bb moments in  v6 were platonic is like saying nora going thats my man was platonic is bs 

Nora was always flagrant about her feelings for Ren. There’s no making “my man” platonic and the hand hold was followed by head on shoulders much like Pyrrha did with Jaune before it. The BB “handhold” is followed up by Ruby comforting Blake as well.

One of the most aggravating things I’ve been seeing in regards to this ship nonsense is people using Adam’s lines (“I will destroy everything you love, starting with her”/“Does Blake make all of her classmates fight for her?”/“What does she even see in you?” ) as evidence that Blake loves Yang over Sun. Oh yes, because the unstable psychopath with a history of being a bad judge of character, especially with Blake, TOTALLY understands how and why she values her friends!

( plus adam  is a racist he hates humans a faunus supremacist  and see a human and faunus teaming up and being friends as disgusting adam barely knew yang he never saw them interact before so those moments would have been the first times he saw blake with those people ( unless he saw  the team fights  and given his surprise about yangs semblance 

(not to mention adam trying to kill her parents a reference to the I will destroy everything you love  which includes friends and family) 

( in contrast black sun has had  romantic development and teases  ( with them showing mutual romantic attraction  v1 scene  where they first met   and the way it was a shot and the angelic choir  the v2 and v3 ( where sun flirted with blake  and blake blushed  and v4 and v5 which had the meat  )etc since v1 and even in v6 there was a hint of reunion  the departure didnt sink.  blacksun  has had too much development  to just throw it away 

the name of representation would just be bad writing the attempts ot justify bad writing with the gay rep excuse is ridiculous and throwing the homophobia card etc around makes a joke of real homophobia same sex ships arent immune to criticism that is equality )  

https://rwbyconversations.tumblr.com/post/179603888501/it-was-never-about-that-or-why-sun-went-to

https://eight-of-pentacles.tumblr.com/post/185944273916

I am really annoyed with how 

certain bb shippers go to accusation to dismiss criticism focuses on their presumption of their sexuality as the issue rather than how its written.   A good love story is determine by how it’s written, NOT by the sexuality of the characters.

“LGBT are historically marginalized and therefore it’s nice they get their main character ship for once.” First of all plenty of media have lgbt main characters now. It’s not groundbreaking. But more importantly, none of that means the relationship is well done. That’s just filling a personal quota. This is a dumb argument. It’s like saying retcon sexualities and ethnicities of existing characters cause we’re too lazy to put the effort in making new ones and you all just get the leftover scraps.

commanderkurama answered:

Yea I mean….its all fine and dandy wanting representation but much the same as they wouldn’t want their first open lgbt characters as villains or killed off, you’d think they’d want their canon couples to be well developed. Most of what they get so hype over about BB is headcanon or trynna reach to connect it to better developed het ships to leech off of their development to make up for the lack of actual substance it has.  because I want to have faith in crwby I will say that v7  was just platonic. ( though more cynical people say they threw blacksun out because they wanted to earn points and get a bit more attention  by having a same sex w/w ship ( which is annoying they could havedone the same thing with freezerburn  weiss and yang werent being teased with anyone and it doesnt throw out any prior relationship teases/development

HEY MAYBE DON’T SEND ME SHIT ABOUT BS BEING BETTER THAN BB etc etc...

Listen, since i’ve posted my comic i’ve gotten plenty of messages saying i’m just not listening to criticism and bb/korrassami/harlivy etc is actually bad and i would see it if i actually cared about good writing bla bla bla.

 And i’ve answered some of them, but now im just tired, bc i came to the conclusion that i’m not gonna convice anyone who thinks they’re above homophobia and heteronormativity (bc they’re too woke for that i guess) that, tho i listened to what they had to say, their arguments just aren’t convincing to me.

So yeah, you think bs (or whatever het ship) is absolutely superior and better written than bb (or whatever wlw ship), bc bb is retcon/forced/pandering/just the fandom reaching etc etc, good for you dude, live your life, write your essay and post it on tumblr.

Just could ya’ll please leave me alone now???

Now, if after reading the comic, you’re very curious about what i think (and not what you assumed i think), here are some links to my other responses:

1. BB is going against Monty’s plan

2. Double standarts i, personally, see with same sex couples

3. Refusing to see bb interactions as romantic

4. Yes it is okay not to like wlw ships (no it’s not alway homophobia, but even if i think you sound like a homophobe when you talk about a same sex ship, i can’t really do anything about it, so yep it is always okay not to like a ship, no one is stopping you) + problems i have with each ship mentioned in the comic

If you still, legitimatelly, wanna talk to me about writing (and by all means, please do, i like talking about writing), how about you start with “hello, how are you? My name is .....” and we can go from there?

[mwsa-member]

MWSA Interview with Bill Riley

Date of interview: 27 October 2019 Bill Riley is a writer and retired US Air Force lieutenant colonel with interests in space exploration, coffee roasting, global communication, intelligence activities, and ancient ruins. Bill was an intelligence analyst during the Cold War. Later, he specialized in strategy and communications. During his career, he’s worked with intelligence and special operations professionals from every service, virtually every intelligence agency, and several friendly foreign governments. Bill’s deployments took him through combat zones across the Middle East where he played significant roles in Kuwait and Iraq, supported joint coalition operations, and helped nations rebuild after wars. He was the first US electronic warfare officer in Iraq for Operation Iraqi Freedom, he led the air force’s largest network operations and security center, and he was the first cyberspace operations officer to receive the Air Force Combat Action Medal. He holds degrees in literature, public administration, and strategic leadership, and he is a graduate of Air Command and Staff College and the Air Force Space Command VIGILANT LOOK program. Bill lives in Idaho, just outside Boise, with his wife and two sons. Find him at billrileyauthor.com Look for him on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at billrileyauthor

Interview

MWSA: How has MWSA helped your writing and/or marketing skills? Bill Riley: I've been a member for less than a year, and MWSA has already directly helped me in two ways. The biggest is networking. In a short time, I've had the opportunity to meet many writers willing to answer my questions and discuss both the art of writing and the struggle to make writing a career. Very well established authors have been generous with their time and advice, and both new and experienced writers have shared valuable tools, perspectives, and approaches with me. The second benefit has been feedback and recognition. These go hand-in-hand, and the review process MWSA offers is phenomenal. The volunteers who conduct book reviews are professional, constructively critical, and provide notes that provide feedback on what worked and didn't. This dovetails into the MWSA Awards program, which represents the genre of Military Writing in the United States. It judges each submission against professional literary criteria, not against the books submitted in a given year. This means we compete against the best standards of writing and storytelling, not each other. Baghdaddy won the 2019 MWSA Founders Medal and Gold Medal for Memoir, and I was blown away. It was exciting and humbling. As a writer, it was a moment I'll never forget. Now, being able to market Baghdaddy as an award-winning author has opened up speaking and media gigs that were difficult to get before. So please submit your work, the feedback is excellent, and you never know what'll happen. MWSA: Baghdaddy is an intensely personal sharing of your life’s journey. At what point and how did you decide it needed to be written?

Bill Riley: I witnessed the effects of Saddam’s rape of Kuwait and his failure to honor the terms of his surrender. Later, I was stationed in Iraq and experienced the unique challenges of trying to rebuild that country while some of its people were trying to kill me. My father tried to prepare me for the worst that life could throw at me. He taught me hard lessons that often hurt, and I resented them. After he passed away, I tried to put things in perspective. I realized that there wasn’t a lot of difference between the skills I needed to survive my childhood, be a father, and go to war. I met some amazing people along the way, and connecting those dots brought me to Baghdaddy. MWSA: What attracted you to intelligence and national security? Bill Riley: I wish I could say I had a noble purpose or a higher calling, but I didn’t. I was the stereotypical enlistee, in a bad situation without other good options, and the air force offered me a way out, an opportunity to prove myself, and a fresh start. Funny story: I entered the air force without a guaranteed job. I was an “open general” recruit, which is another name for “whatever the air force needs most.” A.k.a my recruiter Jedi mind tricked me into meeting his quota. Halfway through Basic, our military training instructor lined us up and said, “I have to send five volunteers to the new special ops pre-qualification course. Who thinks they have what it takes?” You’d think everyone would want in, but no. He got four volunteers, and I was “voluntold” to be the fifth. I was annoyed. It was just one more thing I had to do. But I said, “YES, SERGEANT,” on cue. I figured it would be obvious I wasn’t into it, nature would take its course, and I’d be out. The thing was, it wasn’t bad. Yeah, it was chaotic and exhausting, but there was no yelling, I ran and swam, and avoided the most tedious aspects of basic training. Our ability to observe and improvise was tested, and we wrote short essays to answer unanswerable morality questions as our group got smaller and smaller. When there were five of us left, we were given our final task. Dive in the water, reach the other side of the pool, pick up a mask from the bottom of the deep end, clear it, put it on, and swim back to where we started. All underwater, all in one breath. Problem was, when I’d almost gotten to my mask, some asshole with a padded stick hit me and knocked the mask away. I grabbed it, but another stick knocked me in the head, and I let go. I was running out of air, but surface and you lose, and I was pissed. I swam to the wall just above the mask, and the sticks came at me again. This time I grabbed both and kicked off the wall as hard as I could. One stick came free in my hand, and there was a big splash. I grabbed my mask, cleared and donned it, and swam to the finish line. When I broke the surface to gasp for air, a hand the size of a ham grabbed my head and hauled me out of the pool. It was a huge, unhappy sergeant in soaking wet fatigues. I figured I’d screwed up. I just hoped they’d let me finish Basic. They congratulated me. I finished first in that class and was offered a spec ops class slot. But there were only two slots, and there were three of us. In the pit of my stomach I knew I wasn't the right man for the job. I didn't want it like the other candidates did, and I figured their passion had to mean something. I declined the Pararescue slot I was offered, got yelled at by a major, for what seemed like a long time, then the big sergeant I dunked in the pool came in. He told the major that while he questioned my decision-making skills for not going in the program, I had integrity and grit and he recommended me for an intelligence job that just felt right. No one had ever told me I had grit or integrity before. I stayed because there’s a sense of community in the military that, for me, was like family. MWSA: Your book’s cover art elicits strong reactions. What were your thoughts behind it? Bill Riley: The Baghdaddy cover is polarizing, and I love it. I wanted it to cut to the heart of my story, and with one glance it does. I wish we lived in a world where there weren’t child soldiers, but we do, and they’re a part of this story. The art also captures the warlike aspects of my upbringing, and it feels personal. My father once said, “One definition of adult is surviving your childhood,” and I never forgot it. Each story element meets on this cover. You know the moment you pick it up. MWSA: Baghdaddy provides a firsthand view of war; what are the most common misconceptions held by many Americans? Bill Riley: We see war mostly in snapshots, and not everything gets the coverage or the attention or focus it deserves. There’s been a terrible war in Yemen for years, but the media barely covers it. The same was true of the atrocities of Saddam’s occupation of Kuwait and the campaign of rape and terror employed by Slobodan Milošević during the Bosnian War. Few were interested in investigating and reporting until the world couldn’t look away anymore. The first time I was in Iraq was just after President Bush declared victory. We absolutely met and exceeded the first phase objectives of the war, but even at the highest levels of power, there were misconceptions over what “victory” meant, and unfortunately, an agenda often drives what gets reported and what the public sees. I was with an army signals unit on the outskirts of Karbala, about fifty-five miles southwest of Baghdad. There was a friendly village just off the major supply route, and we encountered a news crew at the burnt and twisted remains of a blown-up semi-tractor-trailer. People from the village were rummaging through the blast field, looking for salvageable spoils. We waved, the Iraqis waved back, and the reporters were busy setting up their shot. We pulled over, and I went to touch base with the news crew just as they were assembling a group of men and boys with slung Kalashnikov rifles in front of the still-smoking vehicle for a picture. Back then, if a supply truck fell out of a convoy along the route, the driver detonated the vehicle and cargo so it wouldn’t fall into enemy hands. The vehicle in front of me, and the reporters was one of those. We knew it, they knew it. The title that ran on the picture in a scathing news story was, 'Insurgents Destroy Military Supplies.' It was a good picture, and insurgents did destroy military supplies, just not that time. If you look closely at the picture, you can see all the boys smiling for the camera. Don't get me wrong, there is still great reporting. Unfortunately, we've also reached a point of manufactured and skewed news saturation. The difficulty in separating the truth from the lies has, more than anything, led to misconceptions. MWSA: You're currently writing a YA series. What can you share about the series, and does it have a connection at all to Baghdaddy? Bill Riley: Absolutely, it does. Thank's for asking about this, I just finished the first book in my new Cypher series. In it, I draw on my military background and time in secret organizations, and while I was raising boys when I was often away doing things I couldn’t talk about. I’ll take readers to places they haven’t seen before in Young Adult Fiction, and it will be a wild and surprisingly moving ride. The first book is called Ashur’s Tears. In it, near-future technology collides with magic in a vibrant world where the government has a lot to hide. An apocalypse-class artifact has been stolen, powerful factions have emerged, and demons are poised to invade the world if a disgraced temple guardian and the three Cypher children can’t find their father and stop it. I love this story, and I can't wait to share it, probably late 2020/early 2021. You can check out billrileyauthor.com for updates and events.