#also i LOVE when disney messes something up cause then they compensate you

[richardgrimes]

i’m home

[introvertguide]

The Apartment (1960); AFI #80

The next film on the list that we reviewed was the one of the last black and white films to win best picture, The Apartment (1960). The film actually held the title of last B&W Best Picture winner for 50 years until The Artist came along in in 2011. Along with Best Picture, the film was nominated for 10 Oscars and won Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Art Direction, and Best Editing. The film also won Best Picture from the Golden Globes, the BAFTAs, the Director’s Guild Awards, and the Critic’s Circle Awards. Truly a great synthesis of acting, directing, cinematography, music, and story, this movie is one of the lesser known greatest films of all time. I have more to say about this film, but I want to go over the story in all of its excellence. But first...

SPOILER ALERT!!! THIS COMEDY HAS LEGITIMATE SURPRISES AND SUBJECT MATTER THAT WOULDN’T FLY TODAY!!! TRULY A GREAT FILM THAT NEEDS TO BE SEEN!!! I STRONGLY SUGGEST WATCHING IT INSTEAD OF JUST READING THE STORY LINE!!!

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An opening run of establishing shots with a voice over by the main character lets the audience know that he is a drone accountant at a giant firm with little chance to move up in the world. C.C. Baxter (Jack Lemmon) is a lonely office drudge at a national insurance corporation in New York City. He has lucked out and found a way to leverage his home in order to climb the corporate ladder. Baxter allows four company managers to take turns borrowing his Upper West Side apartment for their extramarital liaisons, which he manages with a detailed schedule. Baxter has not seen any movement, but he is constantly offered the promise of a promotion since he is a “team player.” 

One of the serious down sides of this ploy is that his apartment is in constant use and the bosses are making a mess and drinking all his liquor. C.C. has no place to go some nights so he stays and works late. Because C.C. is constantly going in and out and people can hear women in his apartment, he is starting to develop a different kind of reputation with the other tenants. While unable to enter his own apartment when it is in use, his neighbors assume that their neighbor is a playboy bringing home a different woman every night.

C.C. is able to get glowing performance reports from his four managers and he is able to submit them to the personnel director, Jeff D. Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray), in hope of a promotion. Sheldrake promises to promote him, but demands that he also receive use of the apartment for his own affairs, beginning that night. As compensation for such short notice, he gives Baxter two theater tickets to The Music Man. After work, C.C. asks Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine), an elevator operator in the office building, to go to the musical with him. She agrees but goes first to meet with a "former fling," who turns out to be Sheldrake, and let him know there will be no more meetings. When Sheldrake dissuades her from breaking up with him and promising to divorce his wife for her, they go to the apartment as poor Baxter waits forlornly outside the theater.

Later, at the company's raucous Christmas party (there is dancing on the tables and the lamest strip tease of all time), Fran is told by Miss Olsen (Edie Adams), Sheldrake's secretary, that Sheldrake has also had affairs with her and other women employees. Later at Baxter’s apartment, Fran confronts Sheldrake with his lies. Sheldrake maintains that he genuinely loves her, but that he has no intention of splitting up with his wife. He then leaves to return to his suburban family as usual and Fran is so depressed that she finds sleeping pills in the apartment bathroom and attempts suicide.

Baxter learns through finding a dropped hand mirror that Fran is the woman Sheldrake has been taking to his apartment, so he goes to a bar and lets himself be picked up by a married woman. When they arrive at his apartment, he is shocked to find Fran in his bed, seemingly dead. He sends his pick-up away and enlists the help of his neighbor, Dr. Dreyfuss (Jack Krushen), to revive Fran without notifying the authorities. I should not laugh, but it is pretty funny that the doctor goes straight to slapping Fran in the face to wake her up. The actors did not hold back; he is slapping her in the face really hard, so much so that you can tell her cheeks are reddening even in black and white. Baxter makes Dreyfuss believe that he was the cause of the incident and, scolding his neighbor for his apparent philandering, Dreyfuss advises him to "be a mensch, a human being."

As Fran spends two days recuperating in the apartment, C.C. takes care of her, and a bond develops between them, especially after he confesses to having attempted suicide himself over unrequited feelings for a woman who now sends him a fruitcake every Christmas. While they play a game of gin rummy, Fran reveals that she has always suffered bad luck in her love life. As Baxter prepares a romantic dinner, one of the managers arrives with a woman. Although Baxter persuades them to leave, the manager recognizes Fran and informs his colleagues. Later confronted by Fran's brother-in-law, Karl Matuschka, who is looking for her, the managers direct Karl to the apartment out of jealousy. At the apartment, Karl's anger at Fran for her behavior is deflected by Baxter, who again takes responsibility. Karl punches C.C. (and interviews with Lemmon revealed that the punch did land), but when Fran kisses him for protecting her, he just smiles and says it "didn't hurt a bit."

Sheldrake learns that Miss Olsen told Fran about his affairs, so he makes the poor choice of firing the woman who knows of all his dealings, and she retaliates by meeting with Sheldrake's wife, who promptly throws her husband out. Sheldrake believes that this situation just makes it easier to pursue his affair with Fran. Having promoted C.C. to an even higher position, which also gives him a key to the executive washroom, Sheldrake expects Baxter to loan out his apartment yet again. Baxter gives him back the washroom key instead, proclaiming that he has decided to become a mensch, and quits the firm.

That night at a New Year's Eve party, Sheldrake indignantly tells Fran what happened. Realizing she is in love with Baxter, Fran abandons Sheldrake and runs to the apartment. At the door, she hears what sounds like a gunshot. Fearing that Baxter has attempted suicide again, she frantically pounds on the door. Baxter answers, holding a bottle of champagne whose cork he had just popped in celebration of his plan to start anew. As the two settle down to resume their gin rummy game, Fran tells C.C. that she is now free too. When he asks about Sheldrake, she replies, "We'll send him a fruitcake every Christmas." He declares his love for her, and she replies, "Shut up and deal."

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This film is one of the most praised movies of all time, but it is not one of the most generally well known. This is probably due to the subject matter, although It’s A Wonderful Life also deals with suicide and is one of the America’s most popular family films. The problem is most likely that extra marital affairs by big company management as a normal thing was highly frowned upon. With the whole #MeToo movement, it seems that this kind of philandering culture might very well have been a known problem for decades. A movie based around the premise that office managers need a nice place to have sex with secretaries and elevator girls would not have been acceptable under the Hays Code. This is also the second film on the AFI list where Fred MacMurray plays a bad guy before being the understanding patriarch on My Three Sons and the first person honored as a Disney Legend in 1987. Fun fact, MacMurray was an uncredited extra in a film called Girls Gone Wild in 1929.

Billy Wilder knew that this was going to be a divisive film due to content, but he also had the confidence that everything would work out following the massive success of his previous film, Some Like It Hot. Wilder had considered a film based on adultery back in the 1940s but was unable to get funding at the time due to the Hays Code. The film was also based on a real life Hollywood drama in which an agent was shot by a producer over an affair (in which a low level employee apartment was used) as well as a friend of a co-writer who returned home to a dead ex-girlfriend following a break-up. 

It is amazing to think that this film is described as a comedy. There are office politics in which mid-level managers use local celeb status to take advantage of their subordinates. There are half a dozen cheating husbands that string along their affairs. There are characters so hurt that they would rather die than deal with what is done with them. There are raging parties at work where everyone gets massively drunk and dance on the desks. Women are treated like objects that either need to be protected with violence or thrown away. And yet the film is legitimately fun with characters that are worth rooting for.

Some of the success rides on the fabulous acting of Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine and the witty dialogue written by I.A.L. Diamond. In fact, the dialogue and limited characters feels a lot like a stage play, which come to fruition in the form of Promises, Promises on Broadway by Burt Bacharach, Hal David, and Neil Simon. Dealing with real sets and locations, however, resulted in some colds and sickness since the actors were really out in the New York snow. Some other realism in the film came from both lead actors taking blows for the film: Shirley MacLaine got proper slapped by the doctor and Jack Lemmon was really punched by the brother-in-law.

A stand out aspect for me in this film which I talk up quite a bit is the cinematography. I have used many screen grabs from the film and used them as my avatar. I identify with the feeling of being used for something which made a mid manager look good while allowing them to do bad things. In fact, I am sure that everyone has felt like a Baxter at some point, and it is great to see him stand up for himself. Here are a couple of screen grabs (besides the top photo above) that I have used:

That lonely man in the middle of countless empty desks, that look of frustration when others are using your things to live a better life than you, and that time that love makes utility become fun and gadgets seem pretentious. It is very easy for me to get lost in how much I love this film. It has been far and away my favorite find from the AFI Top 100 between when I first saw the film in 2014 and now.

So, should the film be on the top 100 list? It has the awards and the history along with being a fantastic film. Of course it belongs on the list. Would I recommend it? Yes. This film is the type that makes people like me want to go through lists like this. I had never heard of the film in 2014 and it floored me how good it was. Each time I watch I appreciate it more, and the whole film project becomes well worth my time and effort. This film is so good, it affirms my life choices. I invite and implore you to check it out for yourself.

[today-only-happens-once]

still. always. (unsteady pt. 2)

Title: still. always. 

Word Count: 1395

Summary: Roman stands on the other side of the door and tries to get Virgil to talk to him. Platonic Prinxiety. Part 2 of an episode tag to “Dealing with Intrusive Thoughts”. You can find Part 1 here. 

Warnings: crying, self-doubt and self-deprecation, spoilers for “Dealing with Intrusive Thoughts”, struggles with self-worth, vague mentions of Remus and Deceit, brief misunderstanding, cursing, hurt/comfort (of the self-indulgent variety, tbh), please let me know if I forgot anything. 

A/N: So.... yeah, I know I said I definitely wasn’t going to write a Part 2 but then I was reminded that the other Sides canonically know that Virgil used to be a Dark Side and well. I wrote this instead because the end of the last episode is all i can think about anymore apparently? Tagging peeps that asked to be tagged if I wrote a part 2. Edited by yours truly, so all mistakes are mine. 

Tags: @analogical-mess, @noon-shadows, @tothestanders, @captaingutterboots-fandoms, @10solicitude01, @poems-art-darkness-n-more, @sociallyawkwardaliensworld, @potterheadsanderssides, @iampengwing, @actslikeacat, @approximately12lbs-of-ducks, @bunny222, @lcrnbw, @letthefandomsbegin, @never-hydrated, plus also a few others: @randomslasher (since I tagged ya in the first part), @creativenostalgiastuff

...

“Virgil?”

He knows that voice; he can tell in the softened lilt. It’s Roman. Even through the door, Virgil can hear the tiredness that radiates from him in waves. Roman had seemed tired a lot, recently. They all did.

“I’m…” Virgil’s voice wavers—the words buckle in his chest—and he clears his throat. He tries to find the steadiness again. “I’m really not… in the mood, Roman.”

There’s a hesitation. Virgil can see Roman’s shadow under the doorway. “Can I come in?”

Virgil huffs a breath and shakes his head. He scrubs a hand across his wet eyes. “I’m fine.”

He hears a quiet thump against the door, followed by a faint hiss of pain. “Shouldn’t have done that…” he hears Roman mutter, as if to himself. Then a bit more clearly, “If you’re fine, there’s no reason why I can’t come in.”

“I’m… tired.” It’s not a lie. Virgil is tired. None of them got any sleep last night because Thomas didn’t get any sleep. The exhaustion is weighted into every one of Virgil’s muscles. He sinks his head into his arms again.

He hears Roman sigh. “’You and me both, chief.’” The Meet the Robinsons reference does not go unnoticed by Virgil, though it doesn’t sound as spirited as the majority of Roman’s Disney references. There’s a pause. “Please, Virge. At least tell me what happened.”

“Why do you care?” The suddenly bitter words scratch Virgil’s throat as they leave his lips. They are unpleasant, and a painful, venomous reminder against Virgil’s teeth of then. Before acceptance, before family, before… He doesn’t know if he wants to take them back. Perhaps it is better to embrace that he will become an enemy once again.

Silence meets his question. Just like Thomas’s silence after Virgil told him—

“Why do I…? Because I care about you.” There’s a huff of frustration. “Virgil, I’m coming in. I’m not having this conversation with you through a door. We’re not Anna and Elsa.”

Virgil waves a hand to let the lock click open. Roman opens the door, looking startled as Virgil’s discarded sweatshirt is wedged underneath and stops it halfway open. Roman frowns as he pulls it loose, and Virgil averts his gaze.

He’s suddenly aware of the state he’s in. His black eyeshadow has doubtlessly run and been smeared across his face. His hair disheveled. He feels small and bare without his hoodie and with Roman’s confused, piercing stare bearing down on him. He didn’t want to be seen like this. Why did he unlock the door?

“Virge…”

In his peripheral, he sees Roman staring down at the hoodie in his hands. He remembers suddenly Roman’s awed look when he first showed them all what he’d come up with. That design…

“I, uh…” Virgil coughs as if it would loosen the hard lump in his throat. It doesn’t. “I… told Thomas.”

“You told Thomas w—oh.” Roman shuts the door behind him, then moves and sits on the floor beside Virgil.

Virgil makes a noise that might’ve been a laugh if it didn’t sound quite so defeated. “Yeah.” He sighs, and begs that Roman is too surprised by the news to realize just how shaky the breath is. He squeezes his eyes shut. He’s so tired of crying.

“Was it because of my brother?” Roman asks, his voice quiet and uncharacteristically even.

“No. Well… I….” Virgil groans, and leans his head in his hands. “I don’t know. It… Thomas deserved to know. All this talk about him being more honest with himself and not hiding things and being a good person…” Virgil trails off. He blinks, feeling wetness land on his palm. Damn it. “I guess I just wanted him to hear it from me instead of… Y’know.”

There’s a long pause. Then, Roman growls with surprising vehemence, “I hate him.”

Virgil doesn’t have to ask to know who he’s talking about. “He’s your brother.”

“He’s everything I don’t want to be. Everything I’m afraid of becoming,” Roman replies immediately. Virgil glances over at him and sees Roman shaking his head, his grip tightening slightly in Virgil’s hoodie in his lap. “Including someone who hurts Thomas.”

Virgil runs a hand quickly down his face, barely containing a self-deprecating laugh. “Yeah, well. Don’t worry. I did plenty of that for everyone. And then I did it again.” He doesn’t know how to make up for all the hurt he’s caused. All the hurt he continues to cause.

He can feel Roman’s gaze on him. “You mean by telling him that you used to be one of them.” Virgil’s silence is confirmation. “Virgil—”

“Roman,” Virgil interrupts quickly, and then stops as he says the name.

Because it occurs to him in that moment that beside him is Roman. Roman, who used to be the loudest part of Thomas that hated him. All of the insults hurled at him, the name-calling and growls of frustration thrown at him, the glares and threats… that had once come from Roman. The same Side who just stood outside his door and refused to leave until Virgil opened the door and talked to him.

The same prince who, just moments ago, openly admitted to caring about him…

“Can I ask you something?” Virgil asks.

“Anything.”

“And do you promise to answer honestly?” Virgil’s gaze flickers over to meet Roman’s.

“On my honor as a knight,” he answers solemnly with a single nod.

Virgil swallows, his hands curling together in his lap. The question simmers deep in his chest, making the air tight and cold. Virgil’s eyes sting again, but he’s clenching his hands together to keep them from shaking and he doesn’t wipe at his blurring vision. The question rushes from his lungs with a desperation that scares him.

“Do you think I’m redeemable?”

There’s a pause. A hesitation. Virgil shuts his eyes as Roman replies, his voice sounding oddly choked. “Redeemable? Virgil…. Why would even ask that?”

Of course. Of course it is an unfair question—and Roman’s response is answer enough. Virgil cannot be redeemed of his flaws because he is himself a flaw. He is the part of Thomas that regularly hurts him the most, and no amount of ‘pretending’ to be anything but something that lashes out against the very thing he swore to protect could redeem him from that fact.

“Wait. Hey, look at me.” Roman breaks into his thoughts, ducking his head into Virgil’s still-blurry vision. “Virgil… you have nothing to be redeemed from.”

Startled, Virgil looks at Roman. “I—what?”

Roman is giving him a softer look than Virgil can ever remember seeing from him. “Virge… you have to have done something wrong in order to need redemption. You haven’t done anything wrong. Remember? You make us better.”

“I hurt Thomas.”

“If you’re talking about last night, you didn’t mean to.” Virgil shakes his head and opens his mouth, but Roman continues firmly, “And if you’re talking about telling him you used to be one of them… that’s not something you have atone for. I promise.”

The world around him feels suddenly unsteady again. “I don’t…. I don’t understand—”

“I know,” Roman replies and something in his voice sounds a little bit broken. “I know you don’t. But I promise, Virgil. I promise, you don’t have to compensate for love you think you’ve lost because it hasn’t gone anywhere. We all love you. Still. Always.”

Virgil blinks, still trying to piece together meaning from Roman’s claim. Things are blurry and he’s exhausted and nothing about what Roman makes sense to him but he finds himself clinging to the words like they can save him from the drowning certainty of Thomas’s resentment.

“I… how do you know?”

“I just… do,” Roman is saying, and his voice still sounds a little pained to Virgil’s ears. “I… God, Virgil, can I hug you?”

We all love you. Still. Always.

Virgil nods and practically collapses into Roman’s chest as the Prince wraps an arm around him and pulls him close. He feels one of Roman’s hands thread through his hair, rubbing his thumb back and forth softly against his scalp. A moment later, Virgil feels something warm and soft wrap around his shoulders. When he opens his eyes—when had he closed them?—he realizes that Roman wrapped his hoodie around him.

We all love you.

Still.

Always.

[creideamhgradochas]

Thanks to the lovely @marvelatmytrash for taking the time to answer these! Get to know more about lovely Bee, go give her a follow and then show her some love!

These questions are from this list. You should check it out, there’s 50 questions all together and they’d be great to ask your favorite fic writer!

1) How old were you when you first starting writing fan-fiction?

I think I had just turned 22, I was fresh out of undergrad and wanted a way to keep my writing and editing skills sharp while I job hunted.

2) Do you prefer writing OC’s or reader inserts? Explain your answer.

I think I’ve only written reader inserts. I usually leave their physical attributes nondescript but I definitely create intense personalities to all my reader inserts. I think I do this because I want my readers to imagine themselves as these strong, kickass females, who are also vulnerable, but have weak spots, the same way all of us do. I put a lot of effort into creating strong female characters that still have flaws, no Mary Sues for me!

3) What is your favorite genre to write for?

I love writing Marvel. I pretty much only write Marvel, predominantly Canon because I have so much comic book knowledge, plus I love writing fight scenes.

4) If you had to delete one of your stories and never speak of it again, which would it be and why?

Oh lord, probably Compensation and Consequences, its just a small little one shot that I did as a request but its a Game of Thrones AU. It definitely has some problematic choices in it, I totally shoe horned the sex and attraction into it. Overall it’s just trash.

5) When is your preferred time to write?

I always find myself writing at 1am or onwards. A lot of the time I’ll just knuckle down around 1am and do what I call a writing sprint, where I’ll write all the new parts for whatever stories I’m working on and get them all done in one night, then edit the next day and start queuing them up.

6) Where do you take your inspiration from?

This is so embarrassing but I get most inspired by listening to musical soundtracks. There are a couple of my stories that have direct song quotes from Waitress and Heathers. Musicals are so rich and overdramatic, they have always been a big part of my emotional development. So whenever inspiration strikes I have a whole playlist of angst songs or love songs from various musicals that I just play in the background on repeat and I will shamelessly pull lines directly from them.

7) In your Divided series, what’s your favorite scene that you wrote?

Ooo that’s such a tough one, honestly that whole series is just one of my absolute favorites. But if I had to choose, I think the chase scene in Bucharest. It’s so dynamic and there is so much happening and I honestly watched that scene frame by frame for a week and worked this original character into it step by step.

8) Have you ever amended a story due to criticisms you’ve received after posting it?

I’ve never changed the story itself. A couple times I’ve changed the formatting at peoples suggestions. I didn’t chunk my paragraphs well when I first started, but someone suggested I break it up more so I did. It’s little changes like that, but I would never change what I write because someone dislikes it. My writing is for me, I’m just sharing it with others for fun.

9) Who is your favorite character to write for? Why?

Bucky. Absolutely Bucky. Though I am warming up to Steve. He has such dimension to him, he’s been a favorite of mine ever since I started reading comic books. His story is so sad and in-depth and there has always been room for new details and development in every reboot. He’s such a dynamic character and that makes him such a treat to write.

10) Who is your least favorite character to write for? Why?

Hahaha I guess Thor, but I actively avoid writing him cause his tone is so hard to get right without over doing it, so I’m not sure if he counts. Tony is tough too, cause you want to be quippy and clever without being over the top, and that’s a very fine line.

11) How did you come up with the title for the Divided series?

I am a big fan of one word titles, maybe I am just on the Disney train with Tangled, Brave, Frozen, etc. I love it when one word can encapsulate what the series is about and also when the word has more weight than just it’s basic meaning. Aftershocks, my first series, is a good example of this. The main character has suffered from shock torture and has a lot of scars and residual issues from it, but Aftershocks is also a psych term sometimes used to refer to the radiating effects of PTSD on the victim and those around them. Divided was the same way, it encapsulated both the theme of Civil War which is the changing and division of Tony and Steve’s relationship and also shows how Bucky and Steve, though still perceived as a unit are Divided now by not only their different experiences but their competition for the same woman.

12) How did you come up with the idea for Divided series?

I’m honestly not entirely sure. I had this basic idea of working a reader into Bucky’s story in Civil War, but the original plan didn’t have Steve involved at all and definitely wasn’t on the level that Divided eventually became. Once I decided that the reader would start with Steve, it immediately raised the stakes of the whole story and this character of The Scorpion began to take shape. After that, the whole thing got pretty easy, she was a fully formed character and a lot of what happened in Divided was just me asking myself what choices this character would make and how the surrounding characters would honestly respond. I try really hard to just develop my characters thoroughly and then let them make honest choices, I think that’s the best way to keep a story real and authentic.

13) Do you have any abandoned WIP’s? What made you abandon them?

Oh yes, my hidden shame, and it haunts me. It’s called Royal Flush, and it currently has 3 parts. It’s a T’Challa fic and a lot of people have found it and liked it and I feel so guilty that it hasn’t gone anywhere in a year. Honestly, this mess up is totally on me. I never draft out my stories, and I know I should, I usually just make it up as I got along and sometimes I just hit a blockade with where it’s going to go. I definitely want to finish that fic, but just have no idea how, so if anyone has any ideas or suggestions, throw them my way!

14) Are there any stories that you’ve written that you’d really love to do a sequel to?

I’m going to say Divided, just because it is one of my favorites and I so deeply love Scorpion as a character. Her struggle in Divided was so hard and I hate to leave her there just heartbroken. I have drafted a couple followups for that story, but after how Infinity War ended, I feel like it would just be cruel to put her through losing Bucky all over again.

15) Are there any stories that you wished you’d ended differently?

I am happy to say that there are none that I would do differently. I’m extremely content in how they all ended.

16) Tell me about another writer(s) who you admire? What is it about them that you admire?

I mean first and foremost, I have to talk about @imhereforbvcky, she was my first real friend on here. We started talking when I was writing Aftershocks and I eventually convinced her to take a crack at writing herself and she finally did and wrote this incredible fic, I’ll Be Good. It honestly is so amazing! Mee specializes in the fem fatale, she writes these incredible badasses that are all dark and twisty, I honestly don’t know how she makes violence so elegant, but she does.

@denialanderror is another one, her Melodies series is so perfect and lovely, she gets this beautiful vulnerability to Bucky that just attacks my heart. It’s such a wonderful change of pace from the way that I write and I always reread it whenever I need to be reminded of the soft parts in his personhood. I honestly love it so much and recommend it to everyone. Plus she is an amazing friend and such a fun person to send memes back and forth with.

Finally @bitsandbobsandstuff just full on destroyed me as a person with Safe With Me. That story honestly puts everything I’ve ever written to shame, her deep understanding of Bucky as a character is just like nothing else I’ve ever read. It’s such an in-depth story with an incredible slow burn, if you haven’t read it yet, you are missing out.

17) Do you have a story that you look back on and cringe when you reread it?

I cringe a little bit with Aftershocks, my first series, but I also see a lot of value in it. Whenever I get stuck or think my writing isn’t good enough, I reread it and remind myself how far I have come as a writer, and that always helps to get me back on track.

18) Do you prefer listening to music when you’re writing or do you need silence?

Both, sometimes I just have the same song playing on repeat in the background, other times I need complete silence cause the monologue in my head is flowing so quickly. I definitely edit in silence, I cannot hear my tone or catch my mistakes when rereading if I don’t have silence.

19) Have you ever cried whilst writing a story?

Hahaha I have, I cried while writing a couple parts of Divided, that story is very close to my heart cause the love triangle in it is unfortunately something that happened to me, and I accidentally hurt someone I cared for a lot.

20) Which part of your Divided series fic was the hardest to write?

Hahaha probably the one or two sex scenes I snuck into it hahaha. It was just not a story that really leant itself to smut. Like you’re not going to be running for your life, camping out with fellow teammates and just quietly have a fuck in the dirt. So squeezing those sex scenes in there always felt a bit funny to me, but I think in the long run they both fit and were put in at appropriate times.

21) Do you make a general outline for your stories or do you just go with the flow?

I probably should make an outline but I always just go with the flow, I honestly have no idea where my stories are going till they get there. But I do reread my story whenever I get stuck so that way I can tie things back in or close up lose ends.

22) What is something you wished you’d known before you started posting fan-fiction?

To breakup my paragraphs and use the keep reading button hahaha

23) Do you have a story that you feel doesn’t get as much love as you’d like?

I am currently feeling that way about a story I just started called Siren’s Soldier, so I paused it for a little bit to see if it was worth continuing but it recently got a bunch of love while I was in Italy so it might be time to come back to it.

24) In contrast to 23 is there a story which gets lots of love which you kinda eye roll at?

Nothing that I’ve written to be honest. There are a couple of exceptionally problematic stories that have an absurd amount of notes and that bums me out, just because I don’t like seeing those kind of relationships idolized or modeled. To clarify, the issue I have is that these kind of stories have a lot of gas lighting, self harm, non consensual sex, and sometimes even violent relationship dynamics. I work very hard to make sure that my characters model healthy relationship habits and positive communication because we need to stop romanticizing rape and abuse in relationships, so it bugs me when fics that do that are popular.

25) Are any of your characters based on real people?

I model my readers off of specific parts on my own personality. I essentially take one side of myself and just exacerbate it into a whole character. I am a very independent person and a feminist myself so a lot of my female characters have those similar qualities of independence and confidence. Especially when doing reader inserts, you want to make the character someone that you yourself want to be, your alter ego, someone to escape to. That’s why I’ll let my characters, be selfish or shitty communicators but I’ll never let them get down on themselves, we do enough of that in our real lives, lets not do it in our fantasy lives.

26) What’s the biggest compliment you’ve gotten?

Hmmm this is a hard one, @imhereforbvcky sent me a very disarming compliment the other day that totally moved me to tears. But most of the ones that really hit me are when people recognize the amount of effort that goes into everything, or when they message me to talk about my story and see all the little easter eggs I’ve tossed into the early chapters. I also live for every reblog you’ve ever done, they always make me feel so loved and valued, I’ve honestly have gone back and reread your reblogs when I’m feeling down on my writing and they always pick me back up. It takes a lot of time to create a world and characters and tie everything together in one neat story and having that recognized always makes my heart sing!

27) What’s the harshest criticism you’ve gotten?

I haven’t really gotten a lot of harsh criticism, I’ve gotten bullshit anonymous messages that are just mean, but no real criticism. I’ve gotten constructive criticism but a lot of that has been kind and helpful so I don’t take that personally at all.

28) Do you share your story ideas with anyone else or do you keep them close to your chest?

@imhereforbvcky and @denialanderror and I have a group chat on instagram so whenever I’m particularly jazzed about something I drop the premise into that chat and get their feedback but most of my big twists or turns I keep close to my chest so that way they can be a surprise to everyone.

29) Do people know you write fan-fiction? In my real life?

Some people. My best friend knows but she’s never read it. My boyfriend knows and sometimes reads the smut I write and will use it against me in bed. He frequently likes to quote some of my own lines to me, he thinks its funny, I don’t find it as amusing. But he is a lot of my inspiration for writing positive relationship dynamics, we work really hard at having a healthy, communicative relationship and that manifests in my writing frequently.

30) What’s you favorite minor character you’ve written?

I really like Om, this character I wrote for Siren’s Soldier, they are non binary and do not have a set gender identity so that was fun to play with and extrapolate on, especially because their non-binary personality had a lot to do with their power so that was really cool to explore to explore.

31) What spurs you on during the writing process?

I generally get really excited when things are free flowing so I guess I spur myself on. I take a lot of joy and pleasure in the things I write and feel my stomach twist when I’m writing suspenseful parts, so a lot of it is just my own enjoyment.

32) What’s your favorite trope to write?

I’m a sucker for the slow burn, so I love writing the enemies become lovers trope. Usually I don’t actually start them as real enemies, but they never start close or as friends. I’m not a big fan of the falling in love with my best friend trope, as I have a bunch of guy friends that I have never once had an urge to fall in love with haha.

33) Can you remember the first fic you read? What was it about?

Oh god, I honestly can’t. I wish I could. I didn’t start reading fanfic until after Civil War came out and I graduated from college. I remember being in a place where I was just disenchanted with porn but I was super into marvel so I went looking for marvel smut on the internet and found the Bucky smut rabbit hole. I remember reading a lot of different stories and never finding exactly what I wanted and also finding a lot of problematic sexual relationships. At that time I was working as a sex education teacher and I remember thinking that I could write better smut with healthier relationship dynamics, and I did. That’s how it all started.

34) If you could write only angst, fluff or smut for the rest of your writing life, which would it be and why?

Ooooh blimey, this is impossible because I write a combination of all three most times. I guess I would have to say angst, causing it doesn’t get boring so easily. There are so many angst tropes to explore and play with. So yes, definitely angst.

[shadowmaat]

Compliments

Every once in a while a post will cross my dash from artists “complaining” about compliments they receive and attempting to school people on the “right” way to tell an artist you like their stuff. There are at least a half a dozen different versions I’ve seen, ranging from ridiculing people for the “common” things they say (”I love this!” “Cute!”) to implying that your compliment is actually a horrible insult (”It looks like something from Disney!”). And every time I see one of these posts it makes me less inclined to ever say anything to an artist at all.

Look, we ALL have our insecurities, especially the creative types. We all suffer from bouts of “my stuff is shit and everyone knows it.” But you can’t expect everyone to know exactly how to phrase something. I’m a writer and even I don’t get my phrasing right all the time. Also, this is the internet, not some academic review board. You can’t expect high-quality informed observations from a bunch of random people of varying ages and backgrounds.

Learn how to take a compliment the way it was intended rather than trying to teach everyone else the “right” way to say things to you (especially when you varies from person to person). Sure, sometimes educating folks to understand things better is a good idea, but you’re never going to correct everything and you have to learn how to prioritize. Maybe concentrate on actually harmful behaviors instead of chastising people for saying stuff you KNOW was meant to be nice. Other people can’t be expected to compensate for the way your brain twists things. And honestly, there are times when NOTHING sounds right, no matter how carefully worded it may be. But then again if people say nothing at all that can be taken as a negative, too. Sometimes there’s no winning.

The other day I actually apologized to someone for commenting on their fic. I hadn’t realized it was a one-shot and said I was looking forward to seeing where the story went and they wrote back to say they hadn’t been planning to do any more. I was MORTIFIED. I’ve seen posts about that, too- writers who rant about people asking for more when they consider a piece finished and how it makes them feel incompetent and pressured to do more than they wanted.

I have a really hard time interacting with people. I already have a lot of internalized fear about saying the “wrong thing” to someone and so it’s tough for me to make the jump and leave a comment on a fic. It’s even harder for me to reply to comments on my own fics even though people are saying nice things (and I take them as nice things). Posts complaining about people for trying to be nice make everything worse. I go through periods where I’m afraid to leave any tags on stuff I reblog for fear I’ll say the wrong thing or that the things I do say aren’t “original” enough. I’m afraid of offending people with my attempts to be nice. That is... pretty messed up, TBH.

This world is full of horrible people saying and doing horrible things. ACTUAL horrible things. I just read an article about some white college girl who was contaminating her black roommate’s belongings and causing her to become physically ill in an attempt to get her to move out, and there are so many stories about people being murdered and rallies for white supremacists and every word out of T’s mouth making things worse but now you can’t even say something nice without it being twisted into something bad. I have enough trouble handling my own anxieties, thanks. I try to be considerate of others, but there are limits to what I’m capable of managing and I can’t walk on eggshells all the damn time. If I know someone well enough I can make allowances and educated guesses, but if some random person’s stuff crosses my dash there is literally no way for me to know if my compliment will cause offense or not. Sure, you can say it’s easy as long as I don’t say this, this, this, or this, but what I hear is that it’s better to keep my mouth shut and not say anything at all. Trying to be nice shouldn’t be a minefield.

I’m not always good at taking compliments, myself, but I never once blamed other people for it.