#anyway this little section of dialogue still haunts me

[severeweatheralert]

Things I learned while writing two novel-length fics in the space of nine months

Or, advice I hope might be of someone use to someone out there, but all brains are different so YMMV. Ironically, this is probably the longest tumblr post I've ever written. Do let me know if you got something out of it!

Planning

You don't need to know every single plot detail at the start. It DOES really help to know roughly where you're going, plotwise and thematically, so it feels less like you're running straight into the great unknown and more like you're headed to some destination. Even if you don't quite know how you're going to get there, yet.

You don't need to know every single character detail, either. Favourite song? Favourite food? I couldn't name my own, let alone my characters'. What is important is a general idea of what makes them tick. What do they want? Why are they here? How do they think? (and if you do introduce details, save them in a notes file someplace, so you can easily find them later).

Outlines are great. Outlines are not the law. If you come up with something that works better than the thing you'd originally planned? Change it.

Scene setting

Remember that you're writing fic, not a movie script. That means you don't have an effects team to pay and you can make the entire environment do whatever you want. Forest fire on the horizon to match your characters' mood? Do it.

Trust that your readers' imagination works. You don't need to describe every single detail to set a scene effectively. Just pick out a few that give off the mood you want, and leave it at that. (Setting dependent, of course- a scifi setting will need more description than a classroom or a hospital room, where most people will have been in their life at least once). This goes for character descriptions too.

Sprinkle scene descriptors through the dialogue/action instead of starting with a whole paragraph of exposition. You'll pull people in quicker.

Research: if you're setting your fic in an existing place, it helps to do (some) research and incorporate that in the work. Simple things like incorporating the name of an existing retail chain or a highway makes your setting feel a lot more real. Google Maps is great if you're writing in a country you've never been to. Just hop on streetview.

Drafting

If you're trying and failing (multiple times) to write a scene, ask yourself if there might be a pacing reason for that. Is the scene necessary at all? Are you trying to start too early in the scene? What are you trying to establish with it, and could that maybe happen elsewhere in the story?

If you get stuck on a phrase/name you haven't picked/word you can't think of/detail you haven't yet researched: put something like [NAME] in brackets. Then keep going. You can come back to it later and you don't need to disrupt your writing flow.

Turn grammar and spell check off. Run a spell check when editing but don't get haunted by the little red line while drafting. A lot of the time its suggestions are bad anyway.

When writing dialogue-heavy scenes, it's sometimes nice to get the actual dialogue out of the way first, then come back later and add actions or descriptions in between to pace the dialogue.

Sometimes you'll have to draft a scene multiple times before it feels right. This is painful, but ultimately okay.

Feel like you should write but don't really want to? I like to set a timer for like 20-30 minutes, give it a go, and if I'm not into it by the time it goes off I'll go do something else.

Editing

Let a section sit for at least a day before going back in to edit. Give your brain some time to forget some of it. You can still draft the next bit in this time!

Sometimes it helps to set the text to a different font or to paste it into a different text editor. Trick your brain into thinking you haven't seen it before, basically. If you're brave, you can even use the editor of whatever website you're posting to.

This is when you run the spell check. But remember: you're allowed to mess with grammar and use words that the spell check says don't exist. "He deadpanned" is a perfectly understandable dialogue tag, for example.

Use a thesaurus! I like powerthesaurus.org because it has a dark mode. The main thing to remember is that you're using it to find synonyms that may fit your meaning/the mood better, not to find more complex words. Especially useful if you find yourself using the same word over and over in a section.

Practical things

Brainstorming on paper works WAY better for my brain than brainstorming digitally, for reasons unknown. Plus you get the fullfillment of using up a notebook.

Have a scraps folder for deleted scenes. Don't actually delete them! You can scrap them for good lines later.

Especially for longform work, keep notes. Things like repeated lines, relevant plot details, things you want to incorporate in future chapters: keep them somewhere where you can find them.

For writer's block: sometimes you need to let a story simmer for a bit. I like going for hikes or chewing on my plot in the shower.

I like having two WIPs with vastly different moods at the same time. One in posting stages, one in drafting stages. That way if I don't want to work on a very moody WIP, I can switch to the other and still get something done.

If you're writing longform work: you'll improve over time. Try to resist the urge to go back and edit the first chapters once they start grating at your perfectionism. Especially if you've already posted them.

Don't write the whole thing in one document if it's longer than ~10k. I like SmartEdit Writer to organize my fics. It's free.

Uploading

I'd recommend having a few chapters' backlog before you start posting. This way you a) know you like the fic enough to keep working on it for more than one chapter; b) have some backlog in case writer's block strikes or life gets in the way of writing; c) can go back and edit in foreshadowing or edit out plotholes as you discover them.

If you have (and want to give) a lot of content warnings, keep a list while you're writing the chapter, so you don't have to figure it out last minute before uploading.

Your works' stats (kudos/hits/subs/comments) say nothing about the quality of your work. This one is hard to internalize.

[wisteriasakana]

You know that indescribable emotion of getting to work seriously on your game projects and seeing Unlimited Bug Works and plot downtimes blossom here and there? I think it's still a positive thing, because it means that you're really working on your projects!

In case your answer was "no", I don't care, I know you crave to know what's going on behind the scenes, so I'll tell you anyway.

Welcome to "Soe does devlog", an occasional release of a completely random series.

Red Riding Hood and the Little Bad Wolf

Run run ruuuuun!

I completed the English translation of the game's current build in early March. That means that about 95% of the total game is translated, I just have to… like… finish the game.

And it was at this point that I finally realized what The Problem was: the last area before the endings didn't quite convinced me. The gameplay was non-existent (You had to check 20+ things mechanically, all in a dark map with running disabled. Exciting, isn't it?) and the dialogues were also quite weak.

What a cute place! What could possibly go wrong? Well, nothing, because it's a boring place!

So, I decided to tear down that section and do it all over again.

At the moment I've fixed the dialogues, improved the map and re-enabled the run. Disabling it was my attempt at creating some sort of atmosphere, but I thought that if I found it in a game, I wouldn't think at it as atmospheric but as annoying.

What I'm missing is not exactly a "gameplay", rather finding a good way for the player to interact with the story in that specific area. (Best explanation ever!) At that point, the game went through a rather long cutscene, albeit with choices, and immediately after that the endings split up: I don't want that point to feel like a stagnant moment. Not crackling or very memorable, just, I wish it wasn't "outdone" by the rest of the game.

The Night of the Candy Apple

To infinity...

There are over 100 switches for a game that can last as long as three minutes and I don't know what to think about it.

The moment I went to betatest it, I realized that I had greatly underestimated my gameplay ideas.

In The Night of the Candy Apple it's possible to explore the entire "haunted house" without completing any puzzles - Either leaving them half done, or one quarter, or three quarters. This, however, implies switch after switch for how many party members are there, to take into account what has been discovered and what has not been discovered, which cutscenes there have been, at what point in the puzzle the player has arrived. Obviously I had already put them, but I had put them for the biggest and most obvious things, I hadn't considered the details and the brief moments in which it would have been possible to leave the room without having completed it first.

Also, I've fallen into the trap of "I'm the author and I know what's supposed to be done." Heartfelt thanks to my betatester, @time-lapse-games, who pointed out many - many - things that probably would not have pleased those who are not omniscient. Maybe, after I release the game (Someday), I'll make a post with all the wtf?s. For now, I can say that there is the "puzzle where you have to recreate a room", and there were 1. two almost identical objects and therefore it was not known which one to put where 2. the possibility for the player to get stuck in the walls of the room - FOREVER.

Another funny thing is the fact that TWO puzzles, once put into practice, proved to be unfeasible.

The first one was a jigsaw puzzle. Simple. The problem is that there are no VX Ace scripts for jigsaw puzzles. I searched in English, in French, in Spanish, in Portuguese, in Japanese, in Italian, but nothing, nobody seems to know how to do jigsaw puzzles in RPG Maker VX Ace. I saw that there is a script to do this, but it doesn't have the check switch, so there's no way to let the game know that you've completed it. If anyone knows of a jigsaw puzzle script for the VX Ace that has a completion check, please let me know PLZ PLZ - They won't get anything but my gratitude, but they'll know that they are a good and merciful person. For those who were thinking that I could replace the jigsaw puzzle with a sliding puzzle, the fact is that I hate them with passion and that I would never self-inflict the pain of testing one on myself or on the betatester. (Nothing against those who love them, uh, I just find them frustrating.) In the end, I solved it by completely changing the puzzle. Easier to do, I still would have preferred the jigsaw puzzle, but I don't mind.

What will be beyond this? It will be possible to find out, because I changed the puzzle to unlock it!

The second one is in the very first "haunted house" room, which is definitely cool. The gameplay involves a series of questions and the idea was that you could stop the questions at any time and just walk away. I've tried everything, but nothing, first the questions ended and then the "leave" event happened (!). In the end, after looking at the horizon and reflecting on my life choices, I opted for a solution that may not be graphically beautiful but it's much more easy and direct.

Among other notable things was seeing that I was having difficulty with my own gameplay ideas. There was the realization that checking EVERYTHING just to see changing flavour texts would be a pain in the aXE, so I decided to put balloons to mark the different flavour texts. Along the same stuff, puzzles are supposed to be solved by a specific party member. It's something I did on purpose, I even discarded a menu I liked because it omitted the "Formation"! Well, once the cutscenes were done, I realized that I had completely forgotten about this. It took me a few minutes to put the switches and variables that were needed, but I still think about the fact that I forgot about the game features that I decided to put on purpose. I am unique and fantastic.

Red Riding Hood and the Little Bad Wolf + The Night of the Candy Apple

There are Galleries in both games, because I made CGs and I want everyone to see how good I am. Once done, I noticed that both Galleries have approximately 40 images and I realized I drew 80+ CGs in a couple of months (December-January). Not professional ones or like a cool artist who knows what they're doing, but my tools are a screenless tablet and Gimp and I think I did my best. They're not perfect, but I'm satisfied.

But why there are so many CGs? Actually, the reason is that I did it on a whim. When I play an RPG game or when I see let's plays, there can be the moment where a book is found or a story is told and often what you see on the screen is the map with 349205 dialogue boxes and that's it. Likewise, there may be Game Overs where "it's supposed to happen something". I personally don't like them. I want to show the player why the character can no longer continue, I want to give a background of some sort to what is being read or narrated. Not that I did CGs for EVERYTHING of course, sometimes I just put a picture of a letter or something like that. Until I did the Galleries, I didn't realize I drew so much. I suppose it's a good thing, somehow?

(Also, does that mean that if my mental health is good 100% of the time I'd be super productive? *Don't exaggerate, now-*)

Now I will read this book and it will last several dialogue boxes, and you will not see the map, but us! It's completely different than usual RPGs, isn't it? Isn’t it...?

And that's it, for April 2023! I hope you had a good Easter and I wish you good luck with your projects!

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*So, when you think you're going to fin-* Shut up.

[cometchasr]

4, 10 or 17 for the ask game?

ask game

this ended up being extremely long so all of it is under cu

4. What's a word that makes you go absolutely feral?

tbh i have no clue. i love writing fluff and angst, but i fucking love fluff. good fluff, and by "good" i mean "fulfills a very specific set of requirements that makes my heart melt". i think some good candidates would be "cuddle" (with adjectives and description of character's emotions) and "(insert thing that means said softly here)". generally i tend to go crazy over specific sections of text more than single words... like, give me soft cute gay fluff written the way i like it and i will die of happiness.

10. Has a piece of writing ever “haunted” you? Has your own writing haunted you? What does that mean to you?

i've never thought of this properly before. what would "haunted" mean? how would it work? i'd feel like it would mean that the work has left a big impact on me and how i do things. it "haunts" me because you will see echoes of it in my work, because i keep looking up to it as a role model unrealistically knowing that whatever i see is after editing, after betas and from someone with more experience, and i'm trying to get raw drafts up to that quality. so fun. anyways, works that have haunted me, in order:

Shadow of the Mind and Different Threads by Firehawk1100 on ffn and ao3. WoF. this was way back when i was writing broken draft 1, because his works were so long (to me back then). i wanted to make my work that long. yeah. then i got into warriors and tdp, and i started losing interest in WoF... so this ended.

the Exile AU by @/troutfur, @/kudossi and @/mallowstep. warriors. as you know utopia is based off this. it was a very important experience, because mallow's use of brackets echoes in my work, and so do the titles, and so does the method of using oneshots. probably one of my most important influences, just because. how much of what makes my writing style what it is came from here. there is only one other fic that reached this level. i thus find it slightly funny that mallow, who is one of the people that have influenced my writing incredibly, has me blocked. it's just a little bit funny

I Am Arthur Wellesley: An Iron Duke SI by Sarthak on alternatehistory.com. it actually didn't influence anything you've seen yet, but it haunts me. i keep thinking about it. it is dead, which i find infuriating. but it was the first AH story i read, and it basically told me how to write an SI fic, in the traditional sense. tdp si is influenced by this. actually you could put a lot of AH.com stories here but IAAW was the first i read, so i put it here. other good contenders are The American Dream by okmangeez and Purple Phoenix Reborn by Sersor.

finally, Warped Skies by @team-ion. in the flesh. DoP, as you know, was started literally because i read this and went "oh shit i want to make something like this". this is the other fic. a non-negligible portion of DoP's worldbuilding is directly taken from there. not a very significant portion, but one large enough that i can't hide it. the only reason the portion isn't bigger is because a) i actually need this to be original and b) i need to ask a lot of stupid questions like "how does primal dialga KGB work" and "what is the feasibility of manufacture of X in PMD world" and "can quadrupeds gain enough breath support to sing". but for me, this is THE pmd fic of all time (that's also because i havent read many others but shhh). it's beautiful. haven't read through the whole thing because it's still long as fuck, but it's beautiful. this is the other fic that made me insecure about word count again, but then i managed to make DoP's chapters three times as long as every other fic's through the sheer power of dialogue, so that got solved rather easily. it's always in the back of my mind because it's fucking good and i quite directly and blatantly based DoP off of it. also we're both on PMDWU and i'm a less effective version of him when it comes to being a writing demon. it's so fun.

that was long as fuck.

17. Talk to me about the minutiae of your current WIP. Tell me about the lore, the history, the detail, the things that won’t make it in the text.

oh boy which one to choose. (spins the wheel) (yes i use a name wheel i have too many things to juggle shush)

tdp si. right. literally just started this, so... yeah. very much based off IAAW. chapter 1 (done, unedited) is just over 1k long, i think. but i dont care! this one's all about the POLITICAL SHENANIGANS and those are later on! >:D

so. stas is adopted by annika and neha. they are an absolute joy to write. imagine how i wrote zanrex, but different. yes, i love fluff. i already said that, i believe. they bring him around everywhere, which means this baby sits through council meetings and everything. of course, he's a baby, so he sleeps through most of them... but he gets through one whole meeting once, beating his body.

also stas is panicking slightly because he knows annika and neha are going to die at some point, and then he has a nine year timer until things go to shit, more or less. depends on how fast viren is able to convince harrow. i know butterfly effect but i actually need the show to happen ok? but right now he's 1 year old and very much wants to enjoy himself while he can.

(what he doesnt know is that annika and neha will die when he's 4)

[justalittlebluetiefling]

i CANNOT believe we haven’t talked about the moment yet what is happening please tell me the things you need to get off your chest like how ‘i’ll see you in the morning’ haunts you

HOW have we not talked about this yet?!?! Oh my gosh there’s so much. I have so many feelings about this conversation.

Uh oh, this needs a cut. Didn’t mean to turn this into an entire analysis of that conversation, but apparently I had a lot I needed to get off my chest.

How are YOU holding up with all this?!?!

I was really worried about you... when you fell. ... This suddenly feels far more serious than I thought it might be.

UMMMMM. His voice?! This whole time. His voice is like... unsteady and rough and he’s quiet the entire time. Fjord tends to be pretty subtle anyway, so quiet isn’t exactly rare for him, but this actually shook him to his core AND YOU COULD HEAR IT. It messed him up so bad that he threw all of his plans to wait out of the window?!

It felt like hell. It felt like torment.

And we have to stop it, right?

I’m emotional about THIS because JESTER?! She lost FIVE YEARS. Not only did she have to see this again, feel it, but she lost five years. And it’s clearly hurting her, but she’s not letting herself worry about it, because there are bigger things to worry about. It’s just the way both of them push their own emotions to the side to be dealt with later in favor of the larger problems at hand. It’s so admirable.

AND HE’S NOT EVEN... okay wait.

I... I may have a... a... a problem.

THE WAY HE CAN’T EVEN SAY IT. He’s so NERVOUS. Because he KNOWS why he’s THERE.

And JESTER. What is it? So fast! She’s so worried! She probably thinks it’s Uk’otoa or Kotho contacted Fjord about Sabian again or something.

I saw you standing on that pillar. It was the first time where I kept myself from... trying to... stop something that was happening TO you and... I didn’t do anything and it’s bothered me.

He has a problem. His problem is that he can’t focus past the fact that something might happen to Jester. THE THING HERE. IS THE EMPHASIS ON THE WORD ‘TO’. “Stop something that was happening TO you”. Like, all of the times throughout this campaign that we weren’t overanalyzing. We’ve made the list a thousand times and I don’t need to repeat them. here

ALSO. Think about how many things in Fjord’s life have happened TO him. He doesn’t WANT that to happen to anyone else. Especially not Jester.

But wait. Like. He didn’t say it, but he really CAN’T focus past the idea that Jester specifically might not make it out of this. The guilt he’s been carrying after the Iron Shepherds. He took all the responsibility of that onto his shoulders and I don’t think anyone realizes that he’s still hanging onto that.

It seems to have exacted a pretty serious toll.

It’s just... his voice! And the way Jester’s face falls!! I’ve been pretty worried about how Jester still seems to be putting up the ‘happy’ facade for everyone and you can truly see in this moment how much it bothers her that she’s lost time.

I want to come out of this and be able to go back to the sea and go back to Nicodranas and go back to where it’s warm and not fucking freezing and...

Me too.

They miss HOME. The poor Coast Kids miss their home. They’re both so sad. But okay. The hilarious thing here? Is that Fjord? Is talking about how he wants to go back. To THEIR home. With HER. And it hasn’t HIT HER yet, because she’s distracted! She has no idea what’s about to happen.

I just don’t know if that’s... I don’t feel as optimistic now.

Me neither. But... I’ll try to be safe. And you should, too. But if it comes down to it, if it means stopping that thing? I want to stop that thing.

AND HERE. What was it he said to her at Travelercon? And you care about people you know, about people you don't know. You cause chaos, but in the end, you don't want to hurt people. You care. This is something that he LOVES about her, but right now, it’s just... okay I’m trying to put this into the right words.

*sharp inhale* I told your mother I would look after you.

Yeah. I’ll be fine, Fjord. We always are.

Continued from the previous thought. HERE’S THE DEAL. Fjord knows he can’t protect Jester from this, no matter how much he wants to. His voice is breaking over that. And Jester’s is, too. They’re saying all these words here, but they’re also NOT. I don’t know. I’m watching the video again while I’m typing this, so this moment is breaking my heart in slow motion.

It’s not even just on Fjord’s side. Jester’s doing that thing right now where she deflects, because that’s what she does and trying to reassure Fjord because he’s never been so worried about her and she doesn’t know what else do to while Fjord is sitting here like we’re running out of time we’re running out of time we’re running out of time. Like, that’s the whole thing. He can see that they’re running out of time on Jester’s face. Literally. It was one thing for him to wait to tell her until after he sorted out his life when they felt invincible. But... out of all the danger they’ve been in before, he’s always been able to follow her. She’s never had to be alone in it, because he was one step behind her. And this time? There was literally nothing to do. He was powerless. He is powerless.

This part of the exchange is so loaded. You can FEEL Fjord about to break. It is tangible on the screen because his voice keeps shaking and he takes that huge breath.

IT’S JUST. He’s trying SO HARD. I always talk about this, but this one specific  time Travis was on Talks lives in my head rent free. The time when he talks about how much Jester’s unconditional and unrelenting support has meant to Fjord and how much Fjord wants to be able to return that. ALL he wants to do is be there for her and she’s still not opening up to him and he has NO IDEA if what he’s about to do is going to work. He has no idea if she’s going to be okay with what he’s about to tell her.

I care very much for you.

Really?

JESTER’S VOICE IS SO SOFT. SO SOFT. AND HE’S LOOKING AT HER. AND SHE’S LOOKING AT HIM.

I’m melting over this moment.

*huge sigh*

Is it because I have chiseled cheekbones now?

It’s the longer horns.

Yeah, it really does it, doesn’t it?

Yeah. It gives you an intimidating look.

YOU KNOW WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS?! Jester saw that Fjord was nervous and she immediately tries to defuse the tension with a joke. And he jokes back. Because that’s what they do together. They’re goofy and silly and they comfort each other and Fjord LIKES that she’s strong.

Listen I’ve got clips saved up from my last rewatch because I want to make a gifset of the times Fjord has been openly appreciative of strong Jester and one day I’m gonna do it.

I mean they’re joking around, but Fjord is like, super attracted to Jester and I really love that for her. But it’s MORE than that, because he’s attracted to her, but the thing that won him over was who she is so every time he talks about how attractive he finds her, it’s just icing on the cake. He doesn’t just want to see her, he wants to know her and I don’t know how I got to this point from this section but here I am, I’m not going back.

C A N I K I S S Y O U

OKAY.

I’m gonna hyperventilate again for a sec.

It caught Jester SO OFF GUARD. AND THEN SHE’S NODDING AND THEY’RE SMILING AT EACH OTHER LIKE THEY’RE SO IN LOVE AND IT’S JUST BEAUTIFUL HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO LIVE LIKE THIS

HOW.

Kissing is a lot more fun when you’re not dying.

Jester!!! She brought up the kiss! THEY SMILE AT EACH OTHER AFTER THIS. LIKE. They both acknowledge the “kiss that wasn’t a kiss” AS A KISS. I never thought we’d hear about this again! But Jester’s been thinking about it THIS WHOLE TIME!!!

I love this though. The first time, he kisses her to save her life so she can get them out of that temple. This time, he kisses her, because he can’t stand the idea of losing her.

BUT ALSO. KISSING IS FUN. Jester!!! Liked!! Being kissed! By Fjord!!!

I want them to have downtime so bad. I want them to be able to spend time walking around Nicodranas and kissing and going on little dates and eating ice cream at the Lavish Chateau and hanging out at the beach with Luc. I WANT THEM TO HAVE QUIET MOMENTS.

I don’t know what to do with myself anymore.

This was so cute! This last part might be my favorite part of the conversation. Because Jester got all flustered and FOR ONCE Fjord didn’t get awkward! He was just so RELIEVED to have told her! And she was so HAPPY?! The CUTEST grin on her face! EVER.

I’VE WANTED TO DO IT FOR A WHILE.

JESTER’S GIGGLE HERE!!!!!!!!!!! I love this for her so much. I just do. She’s been SO into him for SO long and she didn’t think he liked her back and here he is TELLING HER HE’S WANTED TO KISS HER FOR A WHILE. Her giddiness is contagious!

And FJORD! How LONG have you wanted to kiss her?! For some reason, this isn’t something I’ve considered when trying to figure out the timeline of Fjord’s feelings. When is the first time he wanted to kiss her? I think I need to go watch all their big conversations again to see if I think it’s any of them. For some reason, I feel like it’s going to be in one of those silly little moments they have together and I’m going to miss it. Do I rewatch the entire campaign for a third time???? Is that what I have to do?

I’m kind of a big coward.

No, Fjord, you’re very brave.

I am very brave, aren’t I?

You are.

Jester FULLY believes this. She’s just smiling over at him this whole time. But he looks down. Because he still doesn’t think he’s brave. Or he’s brave enough for most things, but there’s ONE THING he knows he can’t do and that’s let her go and I’M. 

Is this all just speculation and guessing and me making stuff up? Yes. Do I care? No. That’s what his face says to me in that moment.

ALL WHILE JESTER IS JUST SO HAPPY. She DOES think he’s brave and she thinks he’s amazing and he just kissed her and it’s not how she thought it would happen, but IT DID and it was so meaningful.

We could get cats and just flee.

I need to get the whole dialogue for this, but I’m tired tbh and I need to sleep, so I’m gonna focus on this last part. How they’re talking over each other to joke around, but it’s really smooth and flows really well between them. But right before this you can still see how heavily the upcoming trials are weighing on them. They feel a little better about EACH OTHER, but there’s a very real possibility that they’re about to lose each other, but they can take this ONE moment of hope?!

And I just love it when they joke around with each other to try to make each other feel better. They’re so good to each other. 

I’ll see you in the morning.

God, the way his voice is just ROUGH and small and quiet and he DOESN’T WANT TO LEAVE and they just SMILE AT EACH OTHER and they’re scared of what’s coming but THEY KNOW THEY LIKE EACH OTHER and they’re SO HAPPY FOR THIS MOMENT. 

And the soft way they say goodnight to each other!!!

THEY!!!!!!!!! make me want to walk into the ocean. In a good way. I SWEAR I CAN’T WITH THIS.

And then the way Jester sighed and giggled after Fjord left! And I can see her leaning back against her door and sighing and looking up at the ceiling and just..... SO. HAPPY.

She doesn’t even ask for a cat cuddle pile!!!! She just stares at her unicorn until she falls asleep. SHE DOESN’T ASK FOR A CAT CUDDLE PILE! 

And then there’s Fjord! Who doesn’t sleep much!

That part makes me a little more angsty. There’s lots of reasons he might be awake most of the night. There are some really cute ones. Like he’s thinking holy shit I just kissed Jester and she kissed me back and she said it was fun that’s good right? And then there are the angsty ones where he could have been laying there thinking about how he doesn’t have any control over the situation and how scared he is. But he did something and he made her smile and that’s all he ever really wants to do. Is make Jester happy. And maybe he made Jester happy in this moment where she was trying to hide that she’s sad. AND THE THING IS THAT HE DID! 

And I’ll leave you with a very short list of random things I expect them to say to one another at one point with no context:

I can’t stand the thought of losing you.

Are you sure you don’t miss the longer horns?

You don’t always have to be fine.

OH. ALSO. 

Get ready for casual intimacy. I’m ready for hand holding. Shoulder touching. brushing someone’s hair out of their face. GET READY BECAUSE IT’S GONNA HAPPEN.

[amispnrewatch]

SPN 1x06 “Skin”

Okay, I’m gonna try to type while I watch this time instead of forgetting this blog exists until the episode is almost over.

You can tell the footage for the previously on segment was saved on a VHS copy instead of the original film that the show was shot with because even in the HD iTunes version I have it looks low quality as fuck. And jumpy in the way that brings me back to my teens watching the WB all the damn time.

I love this song. WTF is this song. Shazam says “Good Deal” by Mommy and Daddy. I… have no comment, except that it sounds like everything I was listening to in college at the time this shit was airing.

Aaaaand not!Dean turns around to face the SWAT team after obviously torturing some woman. THAT is a cold open.

I wanna know what that car is in the background. It’s pretty. Maybe a convertible Impala? They have similar grills. This is not at all important.

Also, I love that with these higher definition versions of the episodes you can see that Sam’s email is lawboy and whatever dot com and that people in the fandom have started calling him Law Boy. It’s hilarious.

DEAN: Well, what exactly do you tell ‘em? You know, about where you’ve been, what you’ve been doin’?

SAM: I tell ‘em I’m on a road trip with my big brother. I tell ‘em I needed some time off after Jess.

DEAN: Oh, so you lie to ‘em.

SAM: No. I just don’t tell ‘em….everything.

DEAN: Yeah, that’s called lying. I mean, hey, man, I get it, tellin’ the truth is far worse.

SAM: So, what am I supposed to do, just cut everybody out of my life? (DEAN shrugs.) You’re serious?

DEAN: Look, it sucks, but in a job like this, you can’t get close to people, period.

Aaaaand now I have Dean and Cassie feelings again and we haven’t even gotten to her episode yet.

SAM: No, man, I know Zack. He’s no killer.

DEAN: Well, maybe you know Zack as well as he knows you.

Aaaaaand now I have Dean and Lee feelings and we’re nowhere near Lee’s episode in season 15.

YOU JUST BLEW THROUGH A STOP SIGN DEAN WTF.

Little Becky. Oi with the reusing of names.

Of course Sam made friends with a bunch of rich kids while he was at college in a desperate attempt to try to be normal.

SAM: You know, maybe we could see the crime scene. Zack’s house.

DEAN: We could.

REBECCA: Why? I mean, what could you do?

SAM: Well, me, not much. But Dean’s a cop. (DEAN laughs.)

DEAN: Detective, actually.

I love that Dean was like “how dare you call me that.”

Okay, after a bit of research, I totally want to take a day trip to Bisbee, Arizona, but it’s already in the 90s here in the desert and it’s not even May so that trip is going to have to wait until… winter or something. There is no way in hell I’m going deeper into the desert when the weather gets hotter.

It’s a historic mining town tourist trap looking place now which is exactly the kind of shit I love.

SAM: Bec, look, I know Zack didn’t do this. Now, we have to find a way to prove that he’s innocent.

I mean, not technically, technically you would 1) NOT FUCK WITH A MURDER INVESTIGATION YOU’RE NOT LEGALLY INVOLVED IN BECAUSE ANYTHING YOU FIND WOULD BE INADMISSABLE IN COURT 2) find evidence to provide a reasonable doubt for the jury that he did commit the crime. You know, like a lawyer would need to do, Law Boy.

DEAN: I just don’t think this is our kind of problem.

When I made my husband watch this show with me (he’s seen it all at least once now over the years) this is the recurring thing that drove him crazy.

You guys can’t even go in through the back door? Or shut the front door behind you? Really?

REBECCA: (tearfully) Well, there’s no sign of a break-in. They say that Emily let her attacker in.

Yeah, that doesn’t even really mean that she knew her attacker. Just that it was someone she let her guard down around or got in some other way. See: The Son of Sam and Nightstalker, etc.

Love the pinup magnet on the fridge. I’d throw shade at that, but I have a pinup magnet on my fridge too so… pot kettle and all that.

Okay, both people in the next couple are gorgeous.

And oh wow those special effects changing eyes… wow.

This poor couple. I feel so bad for them in this episode.

How… how are the police gonna explain the way he was able to beat himself over the head with a bat??? I…

I love that 5:30 in the morning on TV is clearly like… 10 AM.

Okay, this is a really unrelated point, but the graffiti on the dumpster here reminds me of the Teen Wolf fandoms use of the name Void!Stiles when Stiles Stilinski was possessed by a Nogitsune… I just spent way too long digging through YouTube and my Tumblr tags from back when those episodes were airing looking for a few specific videos and couldn’t find them. The TL;DR reason I bring it up here is goofball, bi-coded main character guy getting possessed by an entity set on destroying the people he loves. SOUNDS LIKE THIS EPISODE AND A WHOLE LOT OF SPN RIGHT. I love that all these monster hunting shows call out to each other.

This scene haunts me years later and I don’t even WATCH Teen Wolf. I just watched the fandom on Tumblr collectively lose it’s shit then tripped down a Hale Pack fanfiction rabbit hole.

ANYWAY

Back to Supernatural, a show that also treated its fan base, cast, and characters like garbage! Huzzah!

DEAN: Well, there’s another way to go—down. (They look down and notice a manhole.)

I’m gonna be mature and ignore the double entendre there…

But I love that Dean thinks of the world in 3D. Which sounds like a dumb statement to make, but this is honestly a good example of that in action.

SAM: I bet this runs right by Zack’s house, too.

Really Sam, sewers run by houses? SO WEIRD. I WOULD HAVE NEVER GUESSED.

DEAN: You know, I just had a sick thought. When the shapeshifter changes shape—maybe it sheds.

SAM: That is sick. (DEAN puts the bloody pile back on the ground.)

Guys, there is a WHOLE ASS EAR in that pile of yuck you’re looking at. I think it’s pretty safe to assume the shapeshifter indeed sheds its skin like a snake. A much… gooier snake.

Sam’s friend is rightfully pissed at him for fucking with the crime scene.

This is before the pearl gripped guns?! Wow. I never noticed that before.

Also, this whole episode gives me feelings.

++++

Cool. Tumblr mobile ate a whole section of my notes on this when it crashed for NO APPARENT REASON. Love that.

It always boggles my mind that actors can trust the people they’re working with enough to let people “tie” ropes around their neck or put them in actually dangerous positions in a scene.

SHAPESHIFTER: He’s sure got issues with you. You got to go to college. He had to stay home. I mean, I had to stay home. With Dad. You don’t think I had dreams of my own? But Dad needed me. Where the hell were you?

SAM: Where is my brother? (The shapeshifter leans in close to SAM.)

SHAPESHIFTER: I am your brother. See, deep down, I’m just jealous. You got friends. You could have a life. Me? I know I’m a freak. And sooner or later, everybody’s gonna leave me. (He backs away.)

SAM: What are you talkin’ about?

SHAPESHIFTER: You left. Hell, I did everything Dad asked me to, and he ditched me, too. No explanation, nothin’, just poof. Left me with your sorry ass. But, still, this life? It’s not without its perks. (He laughs.) I meet the nicest people. Like little Becky. You know, Dean would bang her if he had the chance. Let’s see what happens. (He smiles and covers SAM with a sheet.)

This exchange is just… so much. So many feelings. And I will forever (unless we magically get a fix-it fic mini season someday…) be SO MAD that none of this got resolved in that pointless, trash heap of a finale.

REBECCA: Okay, so, this thing—it can make itself look like anybody?

SHAPESHIFTER: That’s right. (She chuckles.)

REBECCA: Well, what is it, like a genetic freak? (The shapeshifter laughs.)

SHAPESHIFTER: Maybe. Evolution is about mutation, right? So, maybe this thing was born human but was different. Hideous and hated. Until he learned to become someone else. (REBECCA looks around, uncomfortable. The shapeshifter’s eyes glint silver, and he smiles.)

It always amazes me how much of this show is a pile of accidental queer allegories parading around in an ill-fitting toxic masculinity suit.

Vulcan mind meld! I love nerd!Dean. Also, I’m rewatching Star Trek: TOS with my husband, because that is what my life amounts to these days, rewatching comfort TV and flailing over the bits I love.

This post does a better job than I can do of pairing up screen caps with the dialogue of this next scene. SIX EPISODES IN. They’re dumping all of this character depth SIX EPISODES IN. FUCK THIS SHOW FOR NOT EMBRACING ITSELF.

Okay, I love that he screams back in her face after he threw the phone. It’s not something to laugh at because the situation is horrifying, but I can’t help laughing at it every time.

AND THE WAY THEY CUT THESE SCENES. Going from him winding his hand back to backslap her directly to him dropping the chains on the table to show how hard he must have hit her without actually making the actors hit each other. Good job editing department!

I… don’t understand the shifter’s motivation for killing people. If he can take over people’s identities without killing them, why kill them? Is it just because he’s a homicidal, rapist piece of shit? Cause that’s all it seems like.

How did the SWAT team even know she was being attacked? Why can the snipers aim no better than Storm Troopers?

Ugh, these kind of transformation body horror scenes are exactly why werewolf stories have never really appealed to me much. Like, I could do without watching your ribs move and teeth fall out, dude.

BUT.

THIS FUCKING SCENE.

I looked up the song that’s playing over shapeshifter!Dean being caught by the SWAT team and then going through the grotesque transformation. (And as far as I know, the iTunes version has the original music from the episodes.)

It’s a song called “Mary” by The Death Riders

Who's your mother, who's your mother here boy // Who's your mother, whos your mommy dear // Who's your father, who's your father here boy // Who's your father, who's your daddy dear

Silently screaming // Where everyone knows // Daddy's always watchin' // Where everywhere - everywhere I go

I don't wanna be a freak show pretty boy anymore // I don't wanna be a full time slave // I don't wanna be your midnight cowboy anymore // I just want to be Mary

This is… a fascinating choice. Here are the rest of the lyrics. The song as a whole has a weird incesty kinda vibe to it? Kinda like when SPN tries to straight-wash itself and misses the mark wildly. (Like Dean’s male siren episode.)

The midnight cowboy line reminded me of 12x11 and the bull riding scene with “Broomstick Cowboy” by Bobby Goldsboro playing over it

Dream on, little Broomstick Cowboy, // Dream while you can; // Of big green frogs, // And puppy dogs, // And castles in the sand.

For, all too soon you'll awaken; // Your toys will all be gone. // Your broomstick horse will ride away, // To find another home. // And you'll have grown into a man, // With cowboys of your own. // And then you'll have to go to war, // To try and save your home.

And then you'll have to learn to hate; // You'll have to learn to kill. // It's always been that way, my son; // I guess it always will.

Because, you know, why not add tons of feelings into the lyrics, right?

Props to the people who can embrace their rewatches and reclamations of the show with ease. Because every episode seems to remind me of how hollow and tragic Dean’s ending was and I just… struggle all over again.

Anyway, back to the episode so I can move on with my day.

REPORTER: An anonymous tip led police to a home in the Central West End, where a S.W.A.T team discovered a local woman bound and gagged. Her attacker, a white male, approximately twenty-four to thirty years of age, was discovered hiding in her home. (A sketch of DEAN appears on the screen.)

DEAN: Man! That’s not even a good picture. (SAM looks around cautiously.)

SAM: It’s good enough. (He walks away.)

DEAN: Man! (He follows SAM.)

(CUT TO: Alley. DEAN and SAM are walking. DEAN steps into a puddle.)

DEAN: Ugh, come on.

I love that we get two tiny little back-to-back vanity moments for Dean here. One commenting on the sketch artist rendition of him being broadcasted on the news and the other tripping in the puddle. There is literally someone running around the city trying to kill people while wearing Dean’s face, but Dean is still concerned with how he looks appears to others. He’s still concerned with keeping up his own performance. The shifter left him with just a t-shirt, so he doesn’t even have his usual comfort layers on and at any moment someone could spot him and call the police or try to kill him for assaulting Sam’s friend. His life is wildly out of control in that moment and the only thing he can try to focus on is his appearance (something semi-controllable) and finding the shifter before any of that other shit can happen.

One day I want to put together a like top 10 episodes focusing on / explaining each TFW character from the series. Like the kind of list you could show someone who’s never seen the show, but has OPINIONS about the characters (or who hasn’t seen the whole show and seen the growth they went through… you know, like the people responsible for the travesty of 15x20). This episode would be on that list. I’m not sure how I could manage to make a list of only 10 episodes to understand Dean Winchester by, but eh.

SAM: What are you gonna do to me?

SHAPESHIFTER: Oh, I’m not gonna do anything. Dean will, though.

SAM: They’ll never catch him.

SHAPESHIFTER: Oh, doesn’t matter. Murder in the first of his own brother? He’ll be hunted the rest of his life. (He picks up a sharp knife and examines it.)

Speaking of season 15 in general, this right here. This was Chuck’s villain story arc thesis statement. AND THEY DROPPED THE GODDAMN BALL WITH IT. I think that’s the thing that honestly pisses me off the most these days (about 5 1/2 months from when the finale aired) is that they tried making the whole thing a tragedy but did such an awful job with it that it just ended up like a deflating condom balloon at a dive bar concert. Disappointing and gross. The finale for season 14 set them up SO FUCKING WELL and it just… didn’t get there.

Becky’s parents are gonna be pissed at how torn up their house is after all this shit…

And you’re not shooting him when you first see him strangling Sam because…?????

I like that he took the necklace back. Also, is this kinda Dean death number .5 of the show? Like it wasn’t him but it was also kinda him. Eh.

At least they left the windshield on Baby this time. Reflections are better than tearing her apart.

[strangerays]

Nothing in Particular Update #2

It’s the Nothing and Particular and Everything update part two: the electric booglaloo. This one is long, so strap in.

It’s been a while since I wrote an update for this story. To be honest, this one gave me a lot of stress, but here I am! Writing this story feels like it is going very slow. I keep telling myself I’ve made a lot of progress (which is true, I have) but for some reason it doesn’t feel like I have? This is likely just my own insecurity. To be frank, I can’t believe I’m still writing this story. If you had told me in February that I’d still be writing this when the weather got warm, I would have laughed.

I am SO excited that I will finally be able to focus on writing now that I’m out of school. I’m afraid to speak the rough deadline that I’ve given myself for this story (the end of August-early September) but now that I’ve spoken it into existence, I hope I can finish! (I hope I can stop watching dumb videogame playthroughs and listening to The Magnus Archives and get something done)

Here is a link to the story introduction and previous update!

TAGLIST (ask to be +/-); @wannabeauthorzofija @a-completely-normal-writer @baguettethebooklover​ @corkytheguar @writeherewaiting

STORY CHANGES/THOUGHTS/IDEAS: 

Here is a big one: I’ve been trying to write this story for myself. I started writing Ray’s story from a place that was personal to me, but I feel like, as that part of myself has begun to heal, I’ve started to think about what a reader would want out of the story. I’m realizing that this is my story so it has to be what I want. Drafts are drafts for a reason, so I’m going to try to get better at letting myself explore what is fun to me.

I always thought I was a discovery writer (I still sort of think I am) but as I’ve finished small sections of the story, I am finding that it’s very helpful to do a rough outline of scenes in upcoming chapters. (I also recommend turning to this if something doesn’t work and you need to retrace your steps!) Just helps me feel more organized!

Jude’s character has got to be one of the most difficult personalities I’ve ever written. Putting her beside Ray just makes it harder. Where Ray is secretive and keeps to herself, Jude is ready to unpack her entire life’s story to anyone. I find that I really have to slow down when writing their interactions. I know this is going to be nowhere near perfect in the first draft, but I think it is a main contributor to my slow writing.

I really like this little narrative I’ve created in the background of the main plot with Ray and Lonan. I love writing these scenes because it’s a way for me to use Lonan when he’s not actively with Ray and to show why Ray is predetermined about things at certain points. Also I love their friendship so much <3

CONGRATULATIONS TO ME on starting to read again because I forgot how much of a help reading other people’s stories can be when you’re struggling with your own oml

I now have a set timeline for the story! Takes place ~4-5 months.

I did that thing where you write a letter from the characters’ perspectives and that was kind of fun

Also just for fun I thought I’d add in that I spent an hour and a half last week filling up a page in my sketchbook with diagrams of the plot. It feels good to be a mad scientist

EXCERPTS UNDER THE CUT!

*At this point, I’m only sharing writing that I am really proud of in order not to spoil the story! This is because I am unsure whether I want to publish this story someday. With that said, that does NOT give you permission to steal my ideas!

CHAPTER: NIGHT CRIES

#1

In the last week of summer, I did everything I could to avoid post-vacation blues. I rode my bike along the gravel roads with no destination, wore my dark sunglasses to people-watch, and fed salami to the minnows that floated on the cusps of boulders. Usually, I sat still for so long that my elbows turned a deep shade of red and the blood in my toes buzzed.

New pockets seemed to open up in Point Blink every day. And with them, came new people. Most of them were older – a middle aged woman who caked her lipstick on, an uncle estranged from his brother, a couple who had miscarried. I hadn’t forgotten about the kids at Mothouse. It was impossible not to think about them. It wasn’t just that I’d never seen them before.

#2

The girl’s limp cigarette bled a trail of smoke that seeped into my Vans. My shirt folded like skin over my bed post. Haunted the room – foiled my mauve sheets and teased my locks. Swept the curtains apart and heated the oak floor. Beams of moonlight leapt to my bookcases; highlighted the posters from various podcasts and bands that I listened to. Wind whistled when I was too still. She forced me to look outside, onto the dark cul-de-sac lit by the reflections of forming rain puddles. No matter whether I sat at my desk or burrowed under my sheets, I felt out of place. She made my bedroom louder. She made my bedroom quieter.

I decided it would probably be best if I never saw her again.

To be honest, I don’t remember much about writing this chapter because it was over a month ago (sorry) but I’m still quite happy with the prose! This comes in after Ray sees Jude for the first time at Mothouse. Based on a first impression, decides that she might want be friends with Jude.

CHAPTER: SORRY

#1 

If you spend any long amount of time with someone, you’ll become a thief to their behaviors. If I stared long enough, trees began to replace all of the people we’d ever seen. Oaks had roots that serpentined the ground like children splashing in the bay, pines with needles like spindly old hands, maples with hollows like watchful eyes – all things Lonan had taught me to observe.

CHAPTER: GHOSTS

Then there was the sea – violent and knowing as it romped within bays and alcoves. She had eaten me many times before, both my father and Lonan too. Gulped them as if they were shining plastic wrappings left behind after a meal. I spited her for inviting me once again. I reached up again to grapple with the next rung. It twisted and offered a low whistle.

In these two chapters, Ray is on a photography trip with her class. This is the first time she’s been on this annual trip without Lonan. She left that morning with a goal of being independent and learning to get on with one of the only people she has felt close to. I realize now that the Ghost excerpt sort of sounds like her dad and Lonan have drowned?? Which was not my intention??

CHAPTER: A DIVINE INTERVENTION

#1

“Do you believe in ghosts?” A raspy voice teased from behind me. Cigarette smoke tickled the words, like they were stuck together with jelly inside of her. The question wasn’t particularly calming, but it strengthened my grip on reality. As if the foiled leaves, bark, and dandelions had sprung from the ground and begun to float, they came crashing back down.

I was made of stone.

“I’m not a ghost,” Jude said. “If I was, a ladder would be a pretty counteractive way to outrun me. I could just float up there and haunt you.”

“Maybe you’re a ghost,” she asked, her voice distant.

I shifted my grasp up and down the sides of the ladder. “What?”

“Don’t you believe in ghosts?”

I was reading back some of Ray and Jude’s conversation and there are so many snippets of dialogue that make me laugh because I totally forgot I wrote them... but UGhhH I don’t know if I want to share them because I don’t know whether or not I want to try and publish the story someday. Speaking of that, it’s sort of because it’s so personal to me? I don’t know (this is for future me to pursue) Honestly though, reading these back has made me really happy :)

#2

I wanted to shake her by the shoulders. She acted as though Point Blink could breathe – as though corpses in the cemetery might pull the grass away like dead skin, neighbors would draw blades, and blood-salt would stain her clothes rather than that from the sea. “Trust me, they’ll forgive you. But, I’m just saying, most people around here don’t care nearly as much as you think so. Most of them are way older anyways, so they’re tired of us.”

“Is that you complimenting yourself?” Jude asked.

“Not intentionally,” I said, “but I will take it.”

She laughed. “You shouldn’t be so nice to strangers.”

I wasn’t trying to be. I just didn’t think I wanted her to dislike me.

#3

“I don’t think it’s a bad thing or a good thing,” Jude said. “Being good gets you tucked into a thousand different memories. Being good makes you live a lifetime.”

I almost laughed, but then I wondered what I was to her now. “I don’t talk to lots of people.”

“Sometimes there aren’t many people to talk to. But I thought you would have loads of friends.”

I wasn’t sure what to say to that. “I thought you would too.”

Alarm like grief lit her eyes, but she laughed. I did too.

“You hardly know me,” she said quietly.

Then the girls explore some old newspapers and letters in a fire tower! Spooky fun!

CHAPTER: YOU LET THIS HAPPEN

This isn’t a major spoiler as it’s literally in the blurb I wrote, but Ray and Jude are caught (targeted..??)  in a fire. Ray is brought back to a field where she is questioned.

CHAPTER: NOTHING HAPPENS

He was quiet for several moments while he painted a picture with what little details I had given him, then said, “It’s unfair. I think that’s why it hurts.”

“Because we almost got hurt?”

“No. Because it came true.”

His gentle, ragged voice made me think I could tell him anything. Sometimes, I think that, even then, he knew I left something out.

Ray talks to Lonan after the fire... She’s being a bit dishonest about what actually happened.

CHAPTER: WHY NOT

I remember how the barest amount of red light glared across Lonan’s entire scalp and washed his boyish curls magenta from the roots out. When Jude leaned back on the counter, she melded into the darkness.

This chapter is just part of the narrative that I created with Ray and Lonan’s friendship. There isn’t much I want to spoil from it, but I liked this paragraph!

CHAPTER: INEVITABLE

“We didn’t do anything,” I said.        

“Someone did. Why won’t you believe me?”

 “I think I would remember whether or not someone was there with us,” I said, “even if we didn’t have the picture.”

This was untrue. I hung lots of photos in my room. A long time would pass before I went to a restaurant again, or a specific coven on one of the beaches, or an outfit that I wore, and I would look into one of my pictures and remember it, and then I would be quite angry with myself that I had almost forgotten that thing forever.

“I don’t think you understand what I mean,” Jude said. I didn’t like the way she’d lowered her voice. She sounded different every time I saw her. She reached out her arm so our photos were side by side and our fingers were almost touching. “I don’t think you want to.”

Ray finds herself alone in the school’s dark room with Jude. Based on the contents of one of her photos, she tries to convince Ray that there is more to the fire than what meets the eye.

CHAPTER: (this one is untitled)

I didn’t mind that he followed me everywhere. Even when he was quiet, I didn’t find it strange to be around him. We sat silently through films and went on walks. Once, he had fallen asleep while watching The Iron Giant in my bed. I didn’t know if I should wake him up once it ended. I tried not to stare at him. He’d rolled onto his side and bundled himself in one of my blankets covered in stars up to his shoulders so only his small face poked out like a baby owl’s. His soft breath messed his dirty gold coils. They were at their longest. Except for the ebbing light from a candle on my desk, my house was asleep – Lonan needed to go home.

For the first time, I wondered if anyone cared where he was.

Another small part of the little friendship narrative! (This really is the part of the story where I get nostalgic for my childhood, isn’t it) Ray starts to discover more about Lonan’s home life in this part of the story, but there’s not much that I think I want to reveal about that for now.

CHAPTER: THE CRUX OF IT

Why did I feel so paranoid? I found myself staring out the window, into the film of blue that the late sun shown onto the grass and trying to remember what summer felt like.

My main problem was that I didn’t know how to talk to Jude unless it was about Sugarfell. I ran from the hush of cigarette smoke behind closing doors and heard her loud voice in conversations. Even though there might have still been a part of me that wanted to be friends with her, I didn’t have much to base that feeling off of. I could have spent hours clicking the little pieces of her that I had together, but the crux of it was that I would never know Jude unless I forced myself to.

For some reason, that really scared me.

I spent all week trying to think of what to say to her. By Friday afternoon, I still had nothing.

I left off writing with Ray actively avoiding Jude’s little investigation into the arsonist. Ray doesn’t want to be involved in this because she feels that it will throw her sense of normalcy off course. She really just wants to learn how to adapt to a life without her best friend. (It doesn’t help that she’s got fresh trauma)

What will Ray decide? I don’t know. We shall see. (just kidding I know)

Sorry this update was longer! I think I would like to start updating more often than once a month just because they would be shorter and those of you reading this won’t forget what happened in the last update. There are thousands and thousands of words that didn’t show up in this update because - like I said - I don’t know whether I want to publish this story ever?? I’ll probably talk more about this in a separate update.

Thank you so much to those of you who read about my story! I hope you enjoy it!

:)

p.s. btw I now have a myWriteClub account! You can check it out here and stalk me as I tragically fail my writing goals!

[the-13th-battalion]

⭐ have a star!!! For that one ask!!!

OK SORRY THIS TOOK ME A WHILE I really wanted to talk about chapter two of Where The Shadow Ends but I had to post it first skdkkskd

Here we go I have a lot of thoughts!!

He sighed wearily as he marched the perimeter of camp. His eyes passed over bunches of troopers huddled together in the mud, some of them lifting gaunt faces or giving him a salute. He tried to look past the battered men as he weaved through drooping, muddy tents and stepped around empty crates once filled to the brim with medical supplies and food. He prayed it was only more mud squelching in his boots, not blood, he had stepped in a lot of blood, too much blood-

He slammed his bucket back on his head. He swallowed against his nausea and forced his feet to keep moving, forced his eyes to keep searching.

Cody reached the other end of camp. He stopped and stared out at the smoke veiled wasteland, broken battle droids and hollow armor stacked in separate piles dotting the burnt landscape. Something quivered in his heart as he looked upon one of too many empty helmets. A blurry image of Obi-Wan's haunted eyes filled the blackened gaps.

He's not made for war. Not like us.

A more urgent thought followed. I have to find him.

He turned on his heel, as sharply as the mud would allow, and continued his circle.

I was talking with my friend about this before I started writing and she said "what if they were losing a battle" and I got this image of a vast, gray landscape covered in smoke and ash and blood, and all these piles of broken droids and neat rows of helmets and I was like "*crying* yup that'll work"

Also I will take EVERY opportunity to mention that Obi-Wan is too kind, too peaceful, for the violence and death he was given during the clone wars :( he didn't deserve any of it!

"Waxer and Boil are tending to the shinies."

This little section of dialogue from Cody is a random thought I had about the 212th. Waxer and Boil are the perfect ones to take over the care and feeding of shinies after their first battles. I can't imagine the absolute horror and grief these poor boys went through... they need some people like Waxer and Boil to talk them through anything bothering them, to help them breathe, to bundle them in blankets or give them food or whatever they need <3

He hesitated. Cody had shaken Obi-Wan from long meditations before, but this time felt different. Cody could practically see the weight resting on Obi-Wan's shoulders. He watched his eyes roam under his eyelids and his heart ached to imagine the horrors he might be reliving.

I can't let him do this alone.

This part here is a reference to a headcanon I share! Cody (and other people who love Obi-Wan) shake Obi-Wan out of long meditations because they're probably unhealthy! No one should spend so much time in their own thoughts, especially when it's most likely sad guilty thoughts :( also I imagine the Force is an ocean and one can actually drown in it...

Obi-Wan's eyes flew open and he let out a startled gasp. He grappled for a hold on Cody's arm, a grounding technique he recognized from watching Anakin interact with Obi-Wan. Cody unclipped his vambrace and allowed it to fall to the ground, giving Obi-Wan an easier grip. He waited as Obi-Wan took one, then two carefully calculated breaths.

This!! Right here!! Apart from being one of my favorite soft moments, this is a reference again to people shaking Obi out of long meditations. I bet Anakin does this more than anyone else, and I bet Cody has witnessed this. Anakin is probably no stranger to panic and needing to be grounded, so I headcanon that he created this method. Anyone who needs to be grounded can just grab hold of his arm. Obi probably has this as pure instinct now and just...grabbed Cody's arm, and then Cody was like "oh crap that's probably not comfy with my armor" and sdkdkks I'm getting sidetracked

Obi-Wan sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.

Cody's chest tightened. Kriff it. I hope Fuzzy still has a stash of his migraine medication.

Honestly I wholeheartedly believe Obi-Wan gets migraines in canon. Also citing this gives me another excuse to yell about F U Z Z Y *sobbing*

"Yes, but sometimes, they are a glimpse of the future." Obi-Wan sighed. His hand went to the bridge of his nose again. "My master believed in visions and prophecies and such, but I never did, even though I had a recurring vision when I was a padawan. He had me seeing mind healers for it. He believed it was some sort of terrible premonition."

Cody imagined a much smaller, younger version of Obi-Wan in a huge chair, his freckled nose crinkled in indignation and his little arms crossed. He began to smile. "What did you think?"

"I thought it was just a nightmare."

This is a nod to the first chapter, but also mostly to headcanons I share about Obi's struggles with visions as a child. I think about it a lot, mostly because it's super dramatic and we all know I'm extremely dramatic lol

also I wanted an excuse to write in angry baby Obi in a big chair

Obi-Wan's smile faded too quickly. He stared down at his free hand, fingers absently twisting in the hem of his tunic. "They're all counting on me, Cody. They're all relying on me to lead them safely through hell. They trust me, and I can't let them down, but sometimes I look at their faces and the weight of that responsibility nearly crushes me."

The admission hung in the air for several heartbeats before Cody spoke. "Permission to speak freely, sir?"

"Granted," came the immediate reply.

"You were not made for this war, but what you've done in it, what you continue to do, is incredible. You have inspired so many people to stand and fight for a peaceful future. You have brought light to the darkest places and joy to the most sorrowful hearts. That's what they see, that's what I see. That's why we trust you. We see a man who fights for truth and justice, but fights with honor and mercy. A man who would lay down his life for a stranger. A man who genuinely cares for the people in this galaxy, for the people he loves."

Back when this fic was just an idea, I was bouncing ideas off my friend and she suggested a part about Obi-Wan discussing the pressure he feels in his position as a general and like a hundred other jobs. I loved it, and it morphed into THIS.

I'm not saying Cody's simping, but Cody's simping.

The storm in Obi-Wan's eyes calmed. "That's rather poetic of you."

Cody's cheeks reddened. "Ah...you left your datapad open once. You were reading poetry when you fell asleep. It...caught my eye."

Obi-Wan laughed. "I'm glad someone else enjoys a good poem. You know, poetry should be read aloud. Perhaps I should read some sometime, to you and the others."

Cody smiled. "That would be nice."

LISTEN!! OBI-WAN READS POETRY!!! He's such a poetry kind of guy HONESTLY

As Obi-Wan's gentle voice lifted into the night air, many of the troopers huddled together to sleep under shared blankets on what patches of dry ground they could find. His voice carried across the camp. Hundreds of hearts beat in unison as the words filled their heads and peace flooded their veins.

Cody fell asleep with his cheek resting on Obi-Wan's tousled hair, lulled by hushed lines of poetry in a Coruscanti accent. Obi-Wan drifted off not long after, his head on Cody's shoulder, their fingers still entwined.

LET THE 212TH CUDDLE 2021

Also I wrote that last paragraph before I wrote most of this fic so like I was leading up to this the whole time... they deserve the hugs <3

THIS WAS REALLY LONG OOPS anyway those are my thoughts :)

[swansstuff]

So uh, I've been thinking about a hypothetical Trucy Wright: Act Attorney and here is the very poorly written outline for it because yeah. No spoilers except the Apollo Trucy thing. Tw death, murder, blood and grieving so yeah.

Trucy's first case is literally her first ever case. This is a flashback case. We follow her as she wakes up, slightly stressed about today, Phoenix gives her cereal and a pep talk and a cryptic message. Trucy asks where Papa is, it is Miles, they are married. Phoenix is cryptic about that too. He stays behind as he "has to buy groceries" so Trucy heads into the office. Apollo greets her, it's clear they know they're siblings, and he hands her a case. Miles is prosecuting. She is fucking terrified. She goes to the crime scene, Gumshoe is the detective and he's educating his teenage sons, constant confusion of who's who, because they are twins and they look very like Gumshoe, it'll be kinda funny. Its a simple investigation. During the investigation, the player can check Trucy's profile and the profile system shows character's middle names now. We get some gems such as Klavier Hyacintha Gavin later on, the reasoning behind this is coz Trucy is nosy. The important one here is Trucy Mia Wright. She says something about how she chose her own middle name when Phoenix adopted her and she chose Mia after learning about her. Yada yada. Trucy wins the case. Edgeworth is very proud, Phoenix is in the gallery and there's a flash of him crying proud tears, Apollo hugs her afterwards, Athena congrats her.

Next case, flash forward three years later, we do not see Phoenix and nobody really mentions him. Thats because he's fucking dead but we don't know that yet. This case is a Fey case, we meet Maya who is married to Franziska and they're technically on honeymoon in Kurain and Pearl becomes the Maya to Trucy's Phoenix. Its another fey murder case. There are a few mentions of Trucy's admiration of Mia, mainly just a mirror of a few lines she's said and a conversation where her and Maya talk about her, Trucy says she would have loved to meet her and Maya explains how her spirit has been dormant for ages now and how she assumes she's moved on.

"If you want I can try and channel-"

"No no no no NO. Its ok!"

This is our first hint that Phoenix is no longer with us, but we don't know until later thats what she means. Sebastian is the prosecutor, the player finds out that Miles is taking a break from prosecuting work, Trucy already knew of course, and Sebastian is dubbed Chief until he comes back, Fran says

"It would've been me were I not on my literal honeymoon right now." We are not told why yet, but it is because of Phoenix. Kay Faraday is the detective, somebody murders someone and frames Maya, no-one is shocked by this. We also get an update on Iris, she's thriving. She wins yada yada.

Next case, a couple of months later, Trucy gets a call from a friend that the player can't identify at first. Its Katrielle Layton. She needs Trucy's legal knowledge because someone is sueing her detective agency because have you seen how they practice. This, of course, turns to murder and we get another surprise when we meet the prosecutor. Who probably has a licence to practise law in England? Simon Blackquill, he is British ok. Yeah, Trucy wins with Kat's help, we meet Ernest and Sherl and Alfendi and Flora if we have time. I miss them. Trucy and Kat have a conversation that cryptically addresses their fathers and their "whereabouts" and living up to their legacy. We see Trucy cry, but only a similar flash to AJ:AA and we do not know why. Yet.

Next case, flashback case. Trucy is the assistant on this case but we still play as her, even in the court sections since Phoenix is prepping her for the bar and getting her to give him the answers. The bar exam is only in three days. Klavier is prosecuting. The case somehow relates to Kristoph and there's the whole mirror dynamic thing of when Phoenix lost his badge. Kristoph is dead by now, but the whole thing is there was a plot inside prison to make Phoenix pay for putting a bunch of them in, Kristoph was the assumed ring leader until he died and the cops now dont know who's running it. Somebody (Godot? That would hurt big time) was their inside man, sent to figure that out, so when whoever it was turned up dead, the whole thing got exposed. We get a bit of a Mia moment in the trial where Trucy tells Phoenix to flip over the receipt (thats evidence for some reason). Phoenix says "I feel like that shouldn't be the second time someone has said that to me". The killer is found, by Phoenix, and put into isolation, as have most of the other participants. We then see Trucy get her badge. They have a conversation and Trucy says Phoenix basically forgot about it for a couple of months. The case closes with a foreboding "and I forgot about it too, until..."

Next case. Phoenix is fucking murdered. Trucy gets a phone call late at night, she hears laboured breathing on the other end and a "don't forget I love you" from Phoenix. Trucy pulls a simba and goes "dad? Dad?!!" And the line goes dead. The player is presented with a choice of who to call. They have two phone calls. Who they choose first makes no difference, but the second time they are forced to choose Ema who will trace Phoenix's phone call. They could call Apollo and he would comfort her, Miles would panic, Maya would say he was just messing around, Athena would sense her distress and say she's coming over etc. You could attempt to call Phoenix back but he would not answer and you would be allowed to call someone else. Ema then traces the phone call and we follow Trucy to the crime scene. We get a truly haunting cutscene where everything kinda goes blurry except Phoenix's face and the blood. Trucy doesn't cry. She stands there in shock. The WAA is there in various states of shock and upset. Return of grieving Apollo I guess. Miles turns up and the look on his face is haunting. Trucy and him make eye contact and they share the thought of something has to be done. And then. "The bar association took me off the case and Papa too, they said we were too close to it. As a result, we never found out who did it... Until now." And we see a determined Trucy face. We jump forward to where we last saw Trucy, she and Pearl are coming back from England and its a bit more cheery. Trucy sends Pearl on a train back to Kurain and heads on home. She enters the house and we see Miles pouring over Phoenix's case. He jumps up and runs towards her.

"Trucy! I think I have a lead, I-"

"Papa, you're tired, go to bed." (Or better dialogue along those lines)

Its clear he's been doing this sort of thing a lot.

"But I do! At least...I think I do..."

He trails off and rests his head in his hands.

"Do I? Or am I just a mess?"

Trucy gives him a sad smile.

"C'mon let's go to bed."

Miles returns the sad smile and fades out like all ace attorney characters do. The player is given the option to look around. There's probably some emotional dialogue and bits that give clues to how she and Miles have been fairing the past 3 years. Answer is, not very well. Examine the pile of papers on the table. Trucy will take a look and then realise her papa may have actually been onto something. Its a diagram of which prisoners knew each other, with an arrow from each leading to a defense attorney we have never met. Trucy is confused, but she calls for Miles anyway. He comes back downstairs and Trucy asks him about this lead he found.

"Well I realised all those prisoners would know this defense attorney (insert name?)"

"Why? And why would they be suspicious?'

"They (pronouns?) Were always the defense attorney who would take on the cases of those Wright had already accused. They gained a reputation of being the doomed defense attorney."

"So... They knew all the prisoners in the plot and they had a grudge against daddy... Papa I think you're onto something!"

And the case continues, since we already know who's been accused, it plays out more like an investigations game, Trucy has to prove it, with Miles' help of course, literally every other character we know and love plays a part in making sure this guy gets a guilty verdict. There is still a courtroom bit and a moment when all is looking dark, Trucy literally has a full on breakdown as the Judge threatens to remove her from the case again. Miles is by her side, they're both technically prosecution here i guess. Miles, however, is too deep in his own mental breakdown to help. Everyone else is in the gallery besides Pearl. Pearl channels Phoenix as a last hope sort of thing. Phoenix comforts her and tells her to keep fighting, he touches her badge and probably says some sort of bullshit about it. The Judge is about to bang the gavel when Trucy and Phoenix object at the same time. Miles looks up and realises whats going on and he objects too, a little later. The battle goes on until it finishes and the other attorney has a breakdown that steals little bits from every other murderer Phoenix has put behind bars.This is the one time seeing the word guilty on your screen feels good. There's a whole heartwarming celebration at the end, Phoenix sticks around for a little bit and everyone gets a bit of closure. Its assumed he's gone since Pearl passes out and Trucy dips out for a sec. She's away from the festivities, staring at the badge in her hand and we see someone coming up behind her. Maya is channelling Phoenix now. He gives Trucy a hug and utters the words "the only time a lawyer can cry is when its all over and, Trucy darling, my light, its over." Echoing both Diego and Mia.

And the screen fades to black with a final hug between father and daughter.

:)

[discotreque]

Disco 3.08: The Sanctuary

This week IRL was a real mixed bag for me: a lot of messy and barely-manageable anxiety about my health, my day job, and uhhhh *gestures outside*—but also I’ve recently fallen in love (from a responsible social distance)—so it’s been equal parts re-writing professional emails to edit the panic attack out of my tone and gazing dreamily at Discord notifications with cartoon hearts in my eyes. It feels like my life is going to hell in the cutest, coziest handbasket—which is to say that Michael Burnham could not possibly feel like a more relatable character to me right now.

I continue to have issues with the writing at a strange medium-level—somewhere between micro, where the dialogue and characters are really good, and macro, where I’m digging the pace of the overall season, it almost feels like something went wrong in the assembly process, and the script ended up a little bit less than the sum of its perfectly good parts. Again.

But that’s such vague criticism as to be nearly meaningless, and it’s hardly the most interesting level to spend time on anyway. If I zoom out, the parallel season arcs of “getting used to the future” and “the mystery of the Burn” are hanging together wayyyyy better than the Red Angel saga did last year.

And if I zoom in? This episode was funny as shit, wtf.

The discourse re: Tilly these past couple of weeks has been bullshit, and I have a whole angry thing to say about it—but honestly, if you can’t appreciate Doug Jones and Mary Wiseman as a comedic duo, I’m not really mad: mostly I pity the lack of joy in your heart.

Everyone on this show is so funny. Doug’s prissy little delivery absolutely slaughters me (“Execute!...?”), Mary will make a face sometimes that has me screaming laughter into my hands, and I’ve gone on before—and will again—about Sonequa Martin-Green’s egregiously underrated comedy chops.

They were obviously casting for folks w/ jokes in the new season too: David Ajada is no slouch in the dry-delivery or the goofy-face department; his energy and chemistry with Sonequa are as suited to comedy as they are to romance (i.e. extremely 🥵). Anthony Rapp and Wilson Cruz we knew about, but Blu del Barrio—a certified tiny baby!!!—holds their own and lands every smartass whiz-kid one-liner just on the right side of “too precious to stand.” (I almost always at least chuckle, and never roll my eyes, and for a “teen genius” character that’s literally as good as it gets.) And living legend Michelle Yeoh is clearly having the time of her life, omfg.

Disco’s not funny-funny like Lower Decks, but they do funny-on-purpose better than any live-action Trek except maybe DS9. They have such a deep comedic bench they don’t even need Tig Notaro—they have her on just to flex, I presume.

(I don’t know if I’m predicting, per se, that Strange New Worlds—with Rebecca Romjin’s deadpan, Anson Mount’s twinkly eyes, and Ethan Peck’s twinkly-eyed deadpan—is going to have a tone somewhere between Disco S3 and LwD—but I mean... it kinda has to, right? And you know they kept the number for Rainn Wilson’s agent.)

***

At the start of this episode, I was “sure, why the fuck not” about First Officer Tilly; by the end, I was completely on board. And to everyone who’s still wringing their hands about “the real military” this (always from people who have no idea how actual militaries work, lol) and “Lt. Nilsson” that (she... already has a job on the ship? And no character traits besides “stoic” and “furrows brow”? Oh, I get it—she’s skinny and blonde)—y’all are kind of embarrassing me.

“Rank” and “position” (and “seniority” and “day-to-day duties”...) aren’t the same thing, in Star Trek or any IRL military. Yes, the permanent first officers of normal-duty Starfleet ships we’ve seen have usually been command-division officers with the rank of Commander—but not always. Star Trek: Discovery-A, if you will, is a unique show about a unique ship in a unique situation: “B-b-but that’s not how they do it on Star Trek!!!” isn’t a legitimate criticism, not of this—it’s the mournful cry of an entitled pissbaby who isn’t having their hand held all the way to the fireworks factory.

Here’s what an argument supported by the text of the first 37 episodes of Star Trek: Discovery actually looks like: Sylvia Tilly is nervous and lacks self-confidence, but once she gets over herself—which she can do pretty much instantly in a crisis, even when hilariously intoxicated—she is competent as hell. In lower-stakes situations, without intense pressure to focus her attention, she sometimes gets sidetracked by her own insecurities; at her best, she channels that anxious energy into ambition, drive, and being scrupulously organized.

The only person Tilly doesn’t always get along with is Stamets, and even Stamets’s husband thinks he’s an asshole. Since Season 1, we’ve seen her easily socializing with the rest of the crew, who seem to universally adore her. And she’s also happy to leave her social comfort zone at a moment’s notice: she aligned herself with Ash Tyler (miss you, Shazad!) when no one else would, and she instantly befriended Po even when Po was in Weird Feral Alien Princess mode and Tilly had salad in her hair. She doesn’t like confrontation, but she’s brave enough to initiate it anyway if she needs to, and she’s compassionate with other people’s feelings while still setting firm boundaries. (Her graceful dodge of Rhys’s tipsy kiss at the party in 1.07 lives rent-free in my head to this day.)

No, Tilly didn’t finish the Command Training Program—but she started it, which is almost certainly more command training than any of the lieutenants whose names we know, all of whom are Ops or Science personnel with, presumably, specialized non-command training of their own. The same could be assumed for any unseen ranking officers on this science ship with an entirely volunteer skeleton crew.

And seriously, about Nilsson: she’s my #3 background bae after Octopus Head and the lady on Pike’s Enterprise with the spiky red face, but her job is Spore Drive Ops, not personnel. If she’s running after Saru with a holo-clipboard, who’s going to look serious and push holo-buttons when there’s a Black Alert? *drops holo-mic* Drumhead!

***

The stuff on Kwejian, though. Ooof. Ol’ Two-Takes Frakes directed this one, and between the kinetic energy he always adds to the camera and the scintillating performances he evokes, things stayed moving so briskly I almost didn’t notice Book’s entire “homeworld” was a rental house outside Vancouver, a couple acres of adjacent woods, and like six or seven people.

It’s a hot mess in retrospect, but in the moment it gave us the intensity of Book and Kyheem trying to hurt each other’s feelings by poking at 15-year-old wounds, which as a sibling with complicated sibling relationships I found both funny and devastating—not to mention Frakes directing “shaky bridge” explosion falls at an obvious intensity of “10” on an outdoor location shoot. It falls apart at the slightest scrutiny, but I can’t lie, on first viewing I was totally along for the ride.

***

I’m dying to see where this Georgiou thing goes. It doesn’t feel like a stretch to assume she got Cronenberg’d a couple weeks ago, probably to get her under the thumb of this century’s Section 31, and that her arc is going to take Michelle Yeoh off this show in a way that sets up the S31 show. But also, I don’t care so much whether I’m right, I just want to watch Michelle Yeoh—and Sonequa Martin-Green, and also David Cronenberg tbh, and bring back Shazad Latif while you’re at it—get wherever they’re going.

It’s also a fun and interesting direction to take the comically-evil comic relief character and show that her performative moustache-twirling is partly habit and partly a transparent emotional defence against very real fear and vulnerability. We’re all products of our circumstances, and a radical enough change in circumstances can afford almost anyone at least the opportunity to change. I can’t say Emperor Georgiou would have been my first choice of protagonist for that storyline, but it’s not like Michelle Yeoh’s not going to fuckin’ crush it.

***

Miscellany:

So the Burn had an origin point, and now that point is broadcasting a signal that’s somehow both a haunting melody that everyone seems to know—but no one can remember learning—and a Federation distress signal. What the fuck, y’all. I have full-body goosebumps just typing that.

Saru workshopping his own captainly catchphrase with the aid of Tilly’s extreme sincerity and organizational skills is probably the funniest thing that’s ever happened on this show—followed closely by the uncomfortably lingering reaction shots when he’s trying them out on the bridge 😂 (And omg please give Rhys and Bryce the dumbass buddy-comedy C-plots they deserve next season, I beg you.)

I would do a little “prop watch” entry on those Kwejianian(?) bolt-throwing rifles, but I’d have to stop drooling over them first. “Curvy polished hardwood” seems to be New Trek shorthand for “extra sleek and futuristic” (cf. the bridge of the USS Titan in the LwD finale), and I have to say: I am fully into it.

Restating my prediction that we will not see Detmer and Owosekun get together this season, because we will find out that they’ve been together for ages. Everyone knew—Pike even knew!—it just never came up in front of the audience before. That would be one of the cutest ways to do it imho, and one of the funniest too, especially as a meta-joke about how much character development didn’t happen in the first two seasons. (That said, if we get to see their first kiss, I will be screaming with incoherent joy for days, so this is a real win-win for me.)

Speaking of cute: IRL spouses Mary Wiseman and Noah Averbach-Katz, both Julliard-trained actors (it’s where they met!), can’t quite hide their chemistry in the scenes between Tilly and Ryn. I loved seeing Tilly be a hardass when Ryn was rude to the captain, but that sparkle in her eyes didn’t quite match the context <3

And speaking of people who are VERY OBVIOUSLY IN LOVE: that last scene with Book and Michael, and his nervous little “yeah, I said it” eyebrow lift, and her irrepressible giggle as she’s walking away... it was almost too much. Especially right after the queer-family scenes with Stamets and Culber and Adira. My poor heart is going through a lot lately, and I guess I’m just glad Season 3’s emotional intensity is melting it with soft sweet scenes like that instead of kicking it down repeated flights of stairs like Season 1.

***

Next week: everyone stops caring about the Burn and starts trying to solve an even more important mystery—why is this (holographic) dude wearing an early-2360s uniform with an early-2370s combadge?

[riceccakes]

Earth, Wind, and Coffee: Chapter Two Analysis

chapter one analysis

welcome back to another installment !! idk if many people are reading this, but i enjoy analyzing my writing so i’m gonna keep doing it :) let’s get started, shall we?

some fun stuff before we start!

the first scene i wrote for this story was the dock scene

usually, when i write, i kind of just start with whatever is the first thing that comes to mind. i’d had the bulk of the story outline in my head, not written yet, but i knew i wanted this reveal about the red lotus attack. so i started with it and wrote as far as i could before deciding i should start the beginning of the fic. most of the original content is there, with some stuff added on, but i took a turn from my dialogue as it didn’t fit the narrative of the story anymore (well get to this point in a later chapter analysis, don’t worry)

not me being heavily inspired by LOVE WITCH by bisexualyoda

around the time that i started this fic and was really writing for it, i found this story on ao3 and literally read whatever chapters were out at that time in a day. it was a story that also influenced me to write in asami’s pov, as a majority of the story is from hers. (this isn’t the only reason tho, but bisexualyoda is a writing god and what else could i do but try to honor them?) it’s a stellar korrasami fic that you should read if you haven’t yet and if you haven’t yet, what are you doing, please go enjoy that masterpiece

and into the chapter we shall go:

i kinda thought it was cool to play off this idea of a barista who can’t sleep but it’s not because of the coffee like you’d expect. 

now, being a diehard korrasami fan, i knew i wanted to apply this to my girls. and, i knew from the get-go i wanted korrasami to meet as if it were more book four, where korra has gone through something really terrible and asami is a really good friend who’s there for her. so i thought it might be cool to put the two together and korra is a barista who can’t sleep. then it was getting to what exactly the trauma was that korra experienced. i didn’t want anything as severe as what korra went through in the series (our poor girl was wrongfully put through the wringer for four seasons) but i wanted something that would stick with her and still haunt her, even after a period of time. my favorite book is book three and i loved the red lotus antagonists, so i played around with their concept and turned it into what’s in the story. i was really pleased when i came up with this and only made some minor changes (i had originally explicitly given korra insomnia. i decided to change this and keep it more ambiguous because i didn’t want to inaccurately describe insomnia and somehow offend anyone who does experience it, i hate doing that) and then i was set to really start the fic.

more about povs:

so, when i first started writing this fic, the idea of multiple povs was an option. in the end, i chose only asami, for a number of reasons, but mostly for one in particular

just like asami, i wanted you guys to gradually learn about korra’s situation. sure, i could’ve went through korra’s pov and been all secret secret about it, but something about that idea doesn’t sit well with me. i liked the idea of gradual connection and in turn concern. i sprinkled some little stuff here and there, to hint that something’s up, but i feel like that’s the hook for you lil fishies to grasp onto. even in that very dock scene, i don’t give it to you right away; i dance around it, just like korra does by talking about tenzin and the temple and i mention the water and korra’s jacket and anything but the reason why korra’s called asami at 2 in the morning to come see her. this kind of tension, this kind of urgency to know what’s going on, i just don’t think would’ve been achieved had i had alternating povs.

something i really love about this chapter is how the first section and third section ends

Makeshift Boardrooms ends with korra being a complete angel and going above and beyond for asami and this presentation:

Asami is speechless. Inside, the tables and chairs have been set up as if it’s a long boardroom, fit with the donuts in the center of the table no one can ever reach. At the far end, a projector screen is set up and a loading screen is displayed on it. Asami stares at the girl, unsure of how to convey how appreciative she is for the gesture.

“Korra…”

“I know,” she quickly speaks up, her fingers behind her back fidgeting even faster, “it’s a lot, but I thought you should get the best kind of practice! And, we hosted a movie night here a while back, I wasn’t sure if Tenzin left all the equipment here but I found it all in one of the cabinets in his office and I,” she’s looking at the ground now, “is it all right?”

“All right?” Asami questions, truly confused as to how Korra could say such a thing. She reaches out, slowly, gently, placing her hand on Korra. The girl’s hands fall to her sides, Asami’s fingertips slowly linger down from the bundled fabric of Korra’s rolled up sleeve to her forearm.

now, A Turn of Events ends like how we know:

Asami falls back onto the couch, ill prepared for the unexpected burst. Korra continues huffing, gasping for air, clutching at her chest and running a hand through her hair. Asami reaches out again and that’s when Korra flinches again. She starts to sob.

“Korra…”

“Get out!”

Asami sits, staring. She isn’t sure if she heard right or not. Korra begins shaking, sobbing inconsolably. Asami just wants to reach out.

“Get. Out!”

Asami grabs her things and rushes towards the door, taking one final glance behind her shoulder. Korra’s hands cover her face, her body flinches and shakes, her sobs ring loudly in Asami’s ears. 

In between each desperate gasp for air, she can hear Korra whisper, “Please, please, stop, stop, please, stop, please.”

Asami feels her heart sink and she opens the door to leave.

i’ve bolded what i love most. it was actually unintentional, i’d only noticed after i finished the chapter and was reading through to edit, but it’s kind of beautiful, bittersweet even. there are parallels here, some less noticeable than others, but parallels nonetheless. the lingering of korra’s name is direct and the events after are strikingly different but in a way connected. in Makeshift Boardrooms, after the mention of her name, korra is sputtering word after word. in A Turn of Events, after the mention of her name, korra only says two words. it’s two sides of the same coin, showing how korra is unfortunately spiraling out and losing control of what’s going on with her. typing it out is kind of hurting me, seeing how korra’s in pain, but im the author and i know what happens later so i shouldn’t worry too much.

now getting onto asami in this section, still, the lingering of korra’s name is the most noticeable parallel. but, in Makeshift Boardroom, after korra responds, asami reassures the girl with physical touch, she’s able to reach out to her. in A Turn of Events, after korra responds, asami doesn’t react, she doesn’t know how to. korra’s in front of her, clearly in pain, and she just yelled at asami, and still asami just wants to reach out to her. once again, unintentional that this happened, but sometimes it’s the unexpected things that turn out for the best. the diction i have here, in repeating the word reach, i think it just further drives home how heartbreaking this chapter’s turned out to be. (shout out to the section title, cause things really did take a turn here) it had all seemed so good, korra was opening up to asami, they were getting closer, and then all of a sudden BAM korra has a panic attack and in a moment of utter fear, she pushes away asami. i know i put angst in the ao3 tags, but now going over it as the author, i see my angst has really gone above and beyond, but hey, i really liked how this chapter turned out

honorable mentions:

in LOVE WITCH, asami and kuvira are basically besties and i loved the idea of their friendship and i wanted to have a go at it myself! finding kuvira’s place in the story, however, was a lil tough to navigate, but when i came up with the bodyguard idea, i really liked it. i hope you guys do too :))

idk if you guys noticed but outside formal fic/writing settings, i pretty much only type in lowercase. however, i do type in complete sentences and the only abbreviation i really use is idk so don’t mind me lowkey projecting onto korra here. anyways, i know most phones have the default setting for texts to be first word already uppercase. i have mine turned off but figured korra would have hers on cause 1) she prefers it this way and 2) even if she wanted to turn it off, she doesn’t know how to. plus, i liked the idea of her enjoying emoticons better than emojis. i love emojis but i always do a lil sideways smiley ( :) ) and to me it’s super cute and i’m sure korra would see it the same way

the end of this chapter is not what i had first intended! truth be told, i didn’t know what exactly was going to happen at the end of the chapter, but i knew what would happen after it, i just needed a bridge. in my og timeline, i had a couple different options: the one i almost went through with was asami suggesting they move into together (which is admittedly super soon and super fast so like, it would scare off korra), another was something intimate that would still scare korra off (this one wasn’t too elaborated on, perhaps a forehead touch, or super close faces, idk. obviously this doesn’t happen, but it had been in consideration), i’d actually even considered something physical, but that was quickly cut off the list, as that is NOT how i wanted this story to go. anyways, because of how this chapter ended, the whole rest of the story changed and i couldn’t be happier.

anything i would’ve wanted to change?

im still super self conscious about the length but at the same time, also not, idk how to describe it. anyways, i think what i actually would’ve liked is keeping something from the Home Life section i took out. when i first wrote it, asami actually had a desk mate and he was flamboyant and sassy and i loved him. looking back now, i would’ve loved to have kept him and the scene with him, but i took it out cause i was scared the chapter was too long. after reading everyone’s comments though, about how they don’t care how long chapters are/longer chapters are better, i gave myself some more slack with the last chapters. his name was ryuichi, rip ryuichi

surprise epilogue is out now too, so enjoy the rest of the fic! if you have any questions, feel free to ask :)))

[derpcakes]

So we watched (nay, Experienced) the BBC/Netflix Dracula series

Brought to us by everyone’s favourite team, Steve Moff and Mark Gatiss, promising to be an innovative and exciting new vision of the classic novel

Boy it was definitely something!!!

First I will say: obviously Moff is not my favourite TV writer and my fam and I did go into this with a bias. I’m happy to report, though, that it’s going to be one of these shows that haunts me forever, because if it had just been bad I could have said “bleh” and deleted it from my brain. But because parts of this were genuinely cool, interesting, and fun, and parts of it genuinely had potential, all the bits that were bad stand out as so much worse and the whole thing feels as cursed as a 500 year old undead count. 

Things that were enjoyable and well put-together:

Van Helsing has been gender-swapped into a vampire-hunting nun and her cat-and-mouse game with Dracula is rife with belligerent sexual tension. I was ready to hate this, and ready for like, Sherlock and Irene Adler 2.0, but their dynamic was actually pretty fun to watch! Their power balance is kept even throughout most of the show, and Helsing is never struck down because of ~womanly failings~ or infantilised. She’s consistently really clever and, even if there are some cringey one-liners, I found her and Draccy’s playful quest to murder each other one of the most fun parts of the show. It could’ve been better, but it was enjoyable! (I also like how Helsing isn’t Young and Hot, but is a capable older lady, and her actor and Draccy’s even seem about the same age. Amazing)

The second episode is a spooky murder mystery/horror mini-movie on a ship, with a cast full of interesting characters who all had different things going on and different relationship dynamics that were compelling to watch. There’s even an interracial gay couple! And they’re like, written pretty sympathetically and to be layered and flawed in ways that didn’t feel too stereotypical! And they don’t die first!! Wack! I understand the bar is on the ground, but it’s still worth a mention

Some fun with vampire lore: Draccy absorbs knowledge and traits from people he drinks blood from (which is how he learns languages. Get Duolingo, dude, stop eating people), leading to the intriguing suggestion that myths like “vampires will die in sunlight” and “vampires are afraid of holy symbols” have kinda become real to him even if they don’t literally work, because he’s swallowed so many people to whom these superstitions and beliefs were law. I’m sure this isn’t the first time this has been done, but groundbreaking or no it was kinda neat

Things that were not enjoyable and well put-together:

EVERYTHING ELSE

Episode 1: a weird speedrun of most of the original novel, feat. weaponised nuns and a weird fixation on whether or not Jonathan Harker and Draccy boned. They did not. Dracula pops out of the body of a wolf and he’s Whole Ass Naked. Him and Van Helsing have a power play where she stands just on the threshold of a convent and calls him a little bitch, knowing he can’t come and get her. A knife is licked. 

Episode 2: aforementioned cool ship horror story. Definitely the best ep. It really makes me think about hbomb’s critique that Moff is pretty good at doing standalone stories (and pilots), but when things are tied into a bigger narrative things get zonkers. 

Episode 3: Things Get Zonkers!!

Let me just. Okay. I have the most to say about this one because this is where things really got batshit. And yet, also really boring? How does that figure? Anyway:

Dracula emerges from under the sea and finds that 123 years have passed and he’s now the star of a Modern AU. Upon setting foot on British sand he is immediately accosted by what appears to be an anti-vampire task force. There’s a helicopter. It is later explained how they knew to pounce on him at this exact moment, but holy god it was wild to watch the entire British Secret Service descend on this one wet bastard in a suit

The editing shifts aggressively in the direction of Sherlock. Mark Gattis is there playing an amazingly annoying character. There’s a fuckign.... Underground Secret Society devoted to studying vampires and they put Drac in a Designated Glass Prison for Smug Geniuses (also as seen in Sherlock). Van Helsing is dead but her great-great-grand-niece is played by the same actress and. Okay. Van Helsing, vampire hunting nun, possesses her descendent and rises through the ether to roast Drac one last time, and he’s DELIGHTED TO SEE HER AGAIN. 

And she has cancer, right, so her blood is poisonous when Draccy tries to bite her, but in the end, right, the end of the episode, right, the final shots of the show, he comes to a place where he’s willing to die, and she’s already dying, and so he drinks her blood and they die together on a table while cinematic metaphor vision shows them having sex in the middle of the sun

There was a badly CGI-ed vampire baby. Jonathan Harker falls from a tower and a scene later they flash back to this event by reversing the footage of him falling down, meaning we just see him go VWOOP up through the air, bouncing off the wall on the way. Van Helsing says the words “come boy, suckle” when she’s goading Drac into drinking her blood. The show sits in a weird middle ground where the characters talk about sex a lot (”dID yOu HaVe sExUaL iNterCOURSE with COUNT DRACULA?”) and Drac is clearly meant to be super magnetic and sexy but the characterisation and cinematography is not horny at all. People have these sexy-type dreams of their lover of choice when Drac is drinking their blood but even those are very boring and weirdly chaste, except of course for the final one where, if I  can take the chance to remind you, Van Helsing and Dracula have symbolic Mind Palace sex inside the centre of the solar system

I can’t speak too much on its quality as an adaptation since I actually haven’t read the book, but splitting the story so that some characters (the Harkers, Van Helsing) existed in the time the story is set, and some (Lucy, Dr Seward) exist in The Modern AU felt very strange. Was there any reason to set the third episode in modern times, apart from the fact that I guess they wanted to do their Sherlock thing again? Or, perhaps, because they wanted to do their Jekyll thing again?? Oh my god, that’s what the editing reminds me of - the small clips of Jekyll I’ve seen. The zooming. The slow-mo. The emphasis on The Monster Man’s weird goddamn teeth

(Also, I don’t really feel qualified to dig too deep into it, but I will say there felt something a bit uncomfortable about Lucy being black in this version, while also being written to be very promiscuous and vain. idk. Also, since it happened in an ep of Sherlock as well, “weedy white Nice Boy rescues the Very Cool woman of colour he has a tragically unrequited crush on” is now an official Moffattis trope)

Count Moffatula is an experience. Its pacing is buck wild. The speeding through the original plot and the mish-mashing of elements in the Modern AU section feels like another expression of contempt for the source material on Moff’s part. Someone says “reality is overrated” in a show set in the 1890s. Draccy quotes a Beatles song. He also makes quippy allusions to having eaten various famous figures and basically winks at the camera every time. Granted, this wasn’t as obnoxious as I was maybe expecting, but there are still too many lines of dialogue where you think “oh, the writers high-fived each other after they wrote that one, huh”. The fact that Moff has such vitriol against fan fic writers is more and more grating every day because this is so, so clearly a zany-ass fanfic that he happens to be getting paid for. The costumes are nowhere near as nice as they could have been, and Dracula’s cape looks like his mum made it for him for the school play in which he is playing Dracula. 

This show is So Much. Watch it to share in this fever dream. Or don’t, and save approximately 5 hours of your life. God. 5 hours. Who was I before Count Maffatula. Who am I now. Why was his cape so bloody ugly. Why did they bone in the centre of the sun

[fernwehbookworm]

Haunted- Chapter 3

“I don’t know what to tell you Kar. There is no one here, no forced entry, nothing.”

“How do you explain the mirror then?” Kara paces in her apartment while her sister continues to check every corner of her apartment.

“I don’t know. There isn’t anything there anymore. Normally smudges like that will stay until you clean it, at least a little, but I tried to fog it up and it's as clean as a whistle.”

“I’m telling you, it was there.”

“I’m sure it was. You don’t overreact. But I don’t know what to tell you.”

Kara collapses on her couch groans, her head hurt from lack of sleep and stress. Kara pinches the bridge of her nose and scrunches her eyes tight. Kara feels her sister sit next to her.

“You can come stay with me. Kelly has been spending a lot of time at the office anyway, helping prep some new technology for Obsidian to release next year.”

“Yeah, yeah okay. I’m going to pack a bag real quick. Can Streaky come? It's supposed to storm all week.”

“The stray?”

“Is he really a stray when he lives his best life?”

Alex laughs “Yeah, he just conned you into feeding and housing him.”

“And he returns the favor with love and affection.” Kara looks at the cat in question, lounging on the loveseat, in a weak sunbeam, purring contentedly.

“If he makes you feel better then yes, bring him. But he pees on one thing and it's back outside.”

“He isn’t a dog, Alex. He goes in the litter box just fine.”

Alex makes a face but relents. Kara goes to pack some clothes and toiletries and Alex grabs the cat’s belongings. Kara was right, dark clouds were already descending upon the city to start the week of rain and storms.

With a bag over one shoulder and a cat under the other, Kara leaves her apartment with her sister. She could be overreacting, but the mirror thing was too creepy to ignore. And Kara had to work on this article, already Snapper was criticizing her rough drafts and decimenting her sentence structure. Kara was already dreading the emails she knows are piled in her inbox from her editor. Kara called off work and just knew Snapper would not be happy with it. In order to keep the screaming to a minimum, Kara was going to have to have the first draft done by tomorrow.

“Okay,” Alex says when they get to her apartment. “Will you be fine by yourself? I have to go to work.”

“Yes. I feel better already.” Kara lets Streaky go and he immediately lands and scurries off to explore the new space.

“If you need it, you still know the safe code right?”

Kara scrunches her nose, “Yes, not that I like guns.”

“You have a Federal Agent for a sister.” Alex rolls her eyes. “It's just in case. I don’t know what is happening but I want you to protect yourself if you need to.”

“I will, Al. Go on to work. I’m just going to work on my article. Maybe take a nap.”

“Yes, please sleep. You look exhausted. Help yourself to food too.” Alex kisses her sister’s forehead. “Goodbye, call me if you need anything.”

“I will. Be safe”

Alex flashes a smile before leaving. Kara does feel better here, in her sister's home. It's full of love and memories of game nights. Also, Kara knows where at least six weapons are hidden that  Alex made sure that Kara (and now Kelly) were trained to use. Kara turns the lock on the door and raids the fridge for snacks and something to drink before settling into work.

After about two hours, Kara’s eyes are beginning to droop and her yawns are uncontainable. “Okay, 20-minute nap. Then right back to work.” Kara mumbles to herself.

Kara settles on Alex’s super comfortable sectional and pulls a blanket off the back of it. As soon as Kara is comfortable, Streaky jumps onto her stomach and begins to purr. Kara runs her hands through soft fur and allows the motion and vibration to lull her into a much needed nap.

Welcome to the Hotel California

Such a lovely place (such a lovely place)

Such a lovely face

Plenty of room at the Hotel California

Any time of year (any time of year)

You can find it here

Kara wakes with a start. The warmth on her stomach is gone and there is music playing.

Her mind is Tiffany-twisted

She got the Mercedes Benz, uh

She got a lot of pretty, pretty boys

That she calls friends

How they dance in the courtyard

Sweet summer sweat

Some dance to remember

Some dance to forget

Kara locates the record player that Streaky is sitting next to and intensely staring at as the record spins round and round. He must have turned it on by accident. The cat tended to be too curious for his own good. With a sigh, Kara stands and goes to turn it off, picking up the car and moving him to the floor. Streaky protests but Kara ignores him. Upon inspection, nothing seems damaged. If Alex would kick Streaky out for peeing on something, she would shoot him for scratching one of her vinyl records.

Awake now, Kara sets back to work, determined to at least finish the first draft before five. Around noon, Kara helps herself to leftovers in Alex's fridge and continues working. Kara is deep into her final paragraphs when the TV clicks on, blaring sound. Kara practically leaps from her chair as the creepy piano plays.

You unlock this door with the key of imagination.

Beyond it is another dimension- a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind.

You're moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas.

You've just crossed over into . . . the Twilight Zone.

Kara feels as if her heart is beating in her throat and her stomach has fallen through the floor. Streaky is on the back of the couch, half laying on the remote.

"Boy… are you trying to scare me to death?" Kara laughs to herself and rescues the remote from under the cat and turns off the TV. Just ten more minutes of work and she will be done. Sending it off to Snapper to be covered in notes and changes and insults. But that is a problem for tomorrow. Tonight, Kara is going to make dinner for her sister and her sister's girlfriend and try and put this morning behind her.

Kara must be more tired then she thinks she is, even with the nap she had. All while making dinner she drops half a dozen utensils and misplaces just as many things. She could have sworn the bell peppers were right next to the cutting board as she chopped the carrots, but when she went to grab them they were on the counter behind her next to the stove. The peeler fell to the floor without Kara even touching it and the sharp knife followed a few minutes later, almost striking her foot on its dangerous journey down.

Kara was clumsy and a bit forgetful at the best of times, adding in only about eight hours of sleep in the last forty-eight hours, and Kara was a God damn hazard. But Kara was determined to make this chicken stir fry as a 'Thank you' to her sister. By 6:30 everything is done and staying warm in the oven and Kara waits for Alex, her sister had texted her about fifteen minutes ago that Alex was leaving work. Kelly would be about an hour more. Another ding of Kara's phone. Kara checks and it's a text from Jess, letting her know that L-Corp released more information to the reporters.

Kara decides to browse the new information while she waits. Picking up the green pen she had taken from L-Corp, Kara sets to taking more notes. She always found it was better to handwrite things first, it helps the information sink into her brain before transferring it to a digital format. Movement out of the side of her eye breaks Kara from her concentration. With a gasp, Kara sees Lena pacing by Alex's balcony door. But as soon as Kara focuses on her, Lena is gone with a blink. A chill passes down Kara's spine. Kara throws down her pen and tries to calmly walk to the kitchen for some water.

"I'm just overtired. That's it. Too focused." Kara mumbles to herself between sips of the cool liquid.

"Hey!" Alex calls and Kara jumps with a small yelp.

Alex throws her a questioning look from the front door and immediately scans the apartment for danger. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah. Fine. Just been working too hard I think."

"You really need to take time off."

"I know. I know. This is just such a crucial time. Anyway… dinner is ready. Chicken stir fry."

Alex's face softens from the concerned big sister to an appreciative hungry woman. "Great, Kelly said she won't be home until like 7:30 now so it's just us.

"So… Sister Night?"

"Sister Night" Alex confirms.

Kara squeals and grabs bowls to load with the medley of rice, vegetables, and protein. Alex grabs glasses for wine and heads into the living room to que up the newest season of Umbrella Academy. They watched the first season together and pinky swore to only watch the second together also.

After an episode, Alex gathers the dishes and disappears into the kitchen. She returns with a pint of Ben and Jerry's for each of them, allowing her sister to pick first. They swap halfway through the containers and Kara hums in satisfaction as she scraps the last of the melted ice cream from the bottom.

Kara ignores the fact that Alex keeps checking her phone. She's waiting on Kelly who is now half an hour later then she said she would be. It isn't until the end of the third episode that Kelly finally makes it home. Alex leaves Kara on the couch as they hear the front door open and the sound of bags hitting the floor and shows roughly kicked off.

"Hey babe! Kara made dinner. You hungry?" Kara hears Alex call.

"No thank you. I'm just tired. But I could go for a glass of wine."

"Coming right up."

Kara can hear the two in the kitchen now, talking quietly as Kara scrolls through her phone, waiting on them to come back. Alex sits in the middle of the couch, Kelly tucks herself into the corner and stretches her feet onto her girlfriend's lap. Kara resumes her position of her head on Alex's shoulder and their arms intertwined. Alex switches the show to something less intense and the Parks and Rec theme song starts.

Kara can feel the vibrations of Alex talking to Kelly about their days against her cheek. Between that and the familiarity of the show's dialogue, Kara can soon feel herself slipping deeper into unconsciousness.

Lena is alone in the lab. It's late, darkness permeates the lab except for the lights around where Lena is working. Lena types vigorously at her laptop, brow furrowed in concentration. Lights are blinking on the machine behind her. Lena is mumbling under her breath. Kara laughs but it sounds weird, muffled.

“Hey, Lena.”

Lena doesn't respond, just continues to type away. From behind her ear, Lena produces a pen to begin writing. A green pen. With gold trim. The very pen Kara had acquired from L-Corp. After a few, what Kara can only assume is, equations, Lena cries out. Kara jumps with the rudeness of it, but then a giant grin spreads on Lena’s face. Lena begins to giggle excitedly while she inputs something into her computer and then Lena practically skips over to the machine and flips switches and turns dials. Then Lena runs back to her computer and the large machine begins to hum, lights flash. Quickly, Lena grabs an apple from next to her computer and places it on the small platform in the middle of the center hole.

Lena is fixated on the apple, only looking away to check her computer. Lena is so focused, Kara smiles to herself. It’s really cute. Kara stays back and watches the scene unfold. She feels excitement build in her chest, matching the excitement on Lena’s face.

Out of the corner of her eye, Kara sees a shadow move. It slides between desks and chairs, nearly shapeless and silent. Lights from the machines make a beacon in the near darkness, making the shadow even harder to see. Lena’s back is to it as she inches closer to the machine. Then the shadow materializes into a human form, completely shrouded head to toe. It reaches a handout and turns a dial out of Lena's eye line. Kara cries out but Lena can't hear her. The shadow slinks back into the darkness and is gone. Something changes in the hum of the machine. The light that had been circling the apple in the opening began to increase speed. Lights began to blink rapidly all over the network of technology. Lena's glee was slowly morphing into terror. Bright white light is building from the center and the hum has turned into more of a whine as it builds.

"No! No, no, no, no!" Lena exclaims as she scrambles to start turning switches and dials to turn off the machine. But it's too late. The damage has been done.

Kara has to close her eyes against the harshness of the light and feels herself get blown backward by the concussive force of whatever is happening. By the time she can see again, Lena is gone. The room is left in the same devastated state that Kara saw when she first arrived at L-Corp.

"Lena!" Kara yells, waking herself up.

Kara looks around to get her bearings. Alex and Kelly are still sitting on the couch next to her, staring at her in concern. Kara leans forward and rests her elbows on her knees, bearing her face in her hands and taking deep breaths. After a moment she can feel Alex rubbing circles between her shoulder blades.

"Bad dream?" Alex asks softly.

Kara nods and continues to try and calm her racing heart.

After a few minutes, Kelly softly asks, "Who's Lena?"

Kara must have yelled out loud and that's what woke her. "The woman I'm doing a story on. The CEO of L-Corp. She died in a lab accident. Well they assume. There isn't a body."

"And are you stressed about that?" Kelly probs gently.

"Yeah. I haven't been able to sleep. I've been up late working and then when I do sleep, I have dreams about her."

"Are they all nightmares?"

"No. Sometimes it's just like she is there in whatever weird dream I'm having. Sometimes we sit and have a conversation. Sometimes in my apartment, sometimes in the lab. That was the first nightmare."

Kara finally looks at her sister and Kelly. Alex looks concerned but Kelly has on her very serious face. The 'I'm psychoanalyzing someone' face.

"Is that the only time you see her?"

"Are you shrinking me right now?" Kara asks with a laugh.

Kelly makes a face at Kara's term. "I'm concerned that my girlfriend's sister is showing signs of stress-related anxiety."

Kara relents. "No. I keep seeing her out of the corner of my eye. Passing by a window, sitting next to me. Across the room. Just snatches. When I focus on her she's gone. It’s so weird. Like, I never knew her but somehow I’ve  imagined entire conversations with her.”

Kelly is quiet for a moment. When Kara looks over at her, Kelly and Alex seem to be having a silent conversation with their eyes. A few nods and Kelly’s eyebrows furrow, Kara can’t see Alex’s face but assumes she is being just as expressive. With a huff of air, Alex turns back to her sister and continues to rub between Kara’s shoulder blades.

“Kara I really think you need to take time off. This amount of stress is not healthy. And this is not a healthy reaction to the death of a stranger.”

“I know. I told Alex I would after the article is submitted I would. But Lena, she deserves this. She deserves to be remembered for all the good she has done. Not for the awful crimes of her brother. Did you know she sponsors several group homes in National City? Not L-Corp, Lena does, personally. She even uses those homes to look for interns and to give scholarships to teens. I just… I can’t let her be forgotten. And all those other reporters, they are just going to twist the story. Or give bare-bone facts. I promised Jess and all the other employees I would write this. I can’t stop now.”

“You don’t have to. But look, maybe you can come to Obsidian tomorrow. We are working on this new virtual reality tech and how it can be used in therapy. Maybe I can help you get past this so you can sleep.”

“But I have to…” Kara trails off when she sees the glare from her sister. “Yeah, okay. I’ll come first thing. Then maybe I can still finish reading through this new research and get a copy to Snapper.”

“Good. It’s settled. I’m going to shower. Alex, get your sister a bed made up on the couch so that she might get some sleep. Goodnight, Kara.”

“Night, Kelly.”

When Kelly is gone, Alex wraps her sister up in a tight hug. “Don’t work yourself to death. I need my sister.” Alex kisses Kara’s forehead and then stands to get the extra blankets and a pillow from the closet.

“And I need mine. That’s why I am here. And your brain doctor girlfriend is going to fix me right up.” Kara tries to joke but it falls a little flat. Alex tries to smile but it looks more like a grimace.

“Sleep tight. We are just in the next room if you need us. Please, wake me up if you need anything.”

“I will. Goodnight, Al.” Kara settles under the fluffy blanket and rests her head on the pillow.

Alex moves about, checking locks and turning off lights before finally retiring to her bedroom. Kara can soon hear the shower turn off and Kelly and Alex talking in the bedroom. It’s too soft to make out words but the drone of it is comforting and Kara is soon slipping back into unconsciousness.

[motherhenna]

Writers Rants: Backstory

How to Smoothly Integrate a Character’s Past into the Narrative

---

If you are even remotely interested in the process of writing, then you’ve probably heard this phrase at least a hundred times over: show, don’t tell.  Such a vague sentiment, but hell if it doesn’t pack a punch. In fact, it’s probably one of the only “rules” of storytelling that ought to be followed as closely as possible and as often as possible—at least in my opinion. But what, exactly, does it mean? In layman’s terms, show don’t tell is a simple recommendation: that authors should actively illustrate a concept rather than passively explain it. Why? Simple. One leaves the reader more room for interpretation and draws them deeper into the action at hand, and the other just…well, tells them what to see and what to feel in the same way a set of DIY instructions describe how to make a quirky set of kitchen lights out of mason jars. While yes, you got a straightforward idea of what to expect, did you actually have fun reading it?

These basic concepts are important to understand if you consider yourself a writer of any kind, as they function as the foundation for a) improving your prose, b) strengthening your characters, and c) forming a flowing narrative that will catch and keep readers’ attention.  And naturally, this also applies to the art of exposition.

Most people with even a cursory knowledge of telling a story know that characters should never be blank slates. If you have any desire to portray even a facsimile of real life, you have to put at least some effort into fleshing out the main characters. And when I say ‘flesh out’, I mean do more than just describing what they look like, a laundry list of personality traits, and what they’re wearing. I’m not going to go into this process deeply, as that’s a matter for another think-piece entirely, but it’s a starting point for the more convoluted parts to come. What I’m building up to is that your characters need a backstory, especially if they’re the one(s) through whom we, as readers, experience the story, i.e., the point of view (POV) character. This applies to both first- and third-person limited narratives, unless you’re going for a more anonymous / incidental narrator, like Mr. Lockwood in Wuthering Heights.

Now, these backstories don’t have to be a strict, detailed, chronological transcription of every year in that character’s life (though doing so certainly doesn’t hurt!) Rather, you should write it much like you would describe your own life if you had to plot it out on a timeline. At first, just stick with the most essential elements: where and when in history they were born, whether they have siblings or present family, and a simple list of significant events from various periods in their life. What specific things have most influenced who they are as a person, for good or ill? Next, it’s time to look at the family, since nothing impacts an individual more than how they were raised and how they were treated during their formative years. Were their parents present during their childhood? What was their parents’ relationship like before and after your character’s birth? Are they natives of the country in which the story is set, or did they immigrate—and if they immigrated, why did they do so? All of these and more are, to me at least, vital to developing a well-rounded and realistic character. I’ve even gone so far as to type out entire timelines for each character as well as their parents. Personalities, quirks, trauma—these are all just as hereditary as one’s genes, though this doesn’t mean that this inheritance has to be through blood. Nature vs. Nurture: they’re both equally important in the formation of an individual.

…So, what to do when you’ve finished all that? Do you dutifully transcribe it into the first chapter of your story? Absolutely not. Copy it into a separate document window and keep it there. A large chunk of this is for your benefit: most likely, less than half of it will make it into the written canon of the novel, and for good reason. All of that detailed history isn’t for the reader, it’s for you to use as a framework. Some of the most powerful elements to realistic characters are the unseen, the implied: all the hidden little things that lie just under the surface, but are never fully visible to the naked eye.

What a lot of inexperienced writers may not realize is that everything doesn’t always have to be stated unequivocally through dialogue or info-dumps. How often, in real life, do acquaintances explain upfront that this specific behavior they often exhibit is a result of how they were abandoned by their father and raised by an emotionally distant mother? Most people don’t psychoanalyze everything, nor do we ourselves do it to others—at least not often! Plus, it’s boring. Getting to know characters over the course of a story should be comparable to meeting a new friend. You find out the surface things at first, but pick up bits and pieces along the way that hint at what lies deeper inside. Little by little, you learn about their family, their hopes, dreams, fears…not always directly, and sometimes even in spite of their desire to keep up a front of normalcy.

With all this said, I think it’s become clear where I stand on backstory: it should be subtle, woven gradually into the narrative rather than stated by the character themselves or described by an omniscient narrator. Not only does this make the process of reading about it flow better and progress more naturally, it’s also far more interactive. Instead of being told why a character acts the way they do, the reader can catalogue said character’s actions, motivations, dialogue, and the way they interact with their surroundings, gradually putting the puzzle pieces together for themselves. In a sense, it’s almost a reward for those who read with a careful, inquisitive eye, and can be just as satisfying as solving a mystery before the detective does in a murder mystery.

I’ve used—and will continue to use—a lot of metaphors in this section because it’s the most thorough way I can to explain this process and why it’s so important. That being said, I approach backstory in the same way I might organize a scavenger hunt. It’s not about a treasure map, but rather an ongoing set of little discoveries without which the ultimate prize can never be found. But in keeping with this analogy, why would anyone want to take part in this if a) they’re just given the prize’s location outright, or b) don’t really care about the prize anyway?

When you’re straight-up told about character’s backstory within the first few chapters, there’s no groundwork for investment. Why should I care about this character’s history if I don’t even know them yet? Investment is a gradual process, and ought to be an interactive process too. One of the best strategies of implying backstory without stating it directly is illustrating how a character reacts to specific triggers. Yes, you can tell the reader in the character’s introductory paragraph that he was almost killed in a house fire as a child, which still haunts him to this day—but how else can you impart this information more effectively and poignantly? For some examples, he might…

Be too frightened to turn on the stove.

Avoid any type of matches or aerosol at all costs.

Get anxious when filling up his car at gas stations.

Constantly check and re-check the smoke detectors throughout his apartment

Panic when he smells her neighbor’s lit fireplace.

Why would we need to explain to readers what made him this way when we have all the evidence we need to figure it out for ourselves? Of course, there’s nothing wrong with, later on down the line, this character actively opening up about this trauma to a friend or therapist, as this is only natural and also supplies us with details we would have never known otherwise. This just shouldn’t be the first way we find it out.

Another efficient and interesting approach to gradual backstory incorporation is through dialogue. The way a character responds to nosy questions, criticisms, or simple observations tell a lot about the kind of people they are and how they’re coping (or not coping) with potentially painful parts of their personal histories / insecurities. For example, Character A can ask Character B, “Why don’t you want to go out tonight?” In truth, B is trying to back out of these plans because she can’t fit into a dress she was supposed to wear for the party, and is trying desperately not fall back into the pit dug by the various eating disorders she has suffered from since adolescence. She is afraid her friends will want to take group pictures, or remark on what’s she’s eating or not eating, or notice the extra pudge in her stomach. She remembers how her mother would chide her for eating second helpings when she was young, or all the times her ex called her fat. But B is not going to be capable of explaining all of this to her partner. So how does she respond?

1.     “I just…feel tired all of a sudden…but don’t let me keep you from going.  I don’t want to spoil your night.” Implication: saving face—she doesn’t want to reveal her real insecurities, so she uses a physical illness as a cover story.

2.      “What’s it to you? If this stupid party so important to you, then you can just go without me!”  Implication: defensiveness—she is uncomfortable being vulnerable, and lashes out instead.

Now obviously these are just two examples of a plethora of different responses a person might have to a question like this. But what matters is that each answer should give the reader some sort of information as to why said character reacts the way they do. And these reactions don’t have to have traumatic roots, either! Perhaps, because Character C’s older sister always encouraged them to stick up for and respect themselves, C is able to take that positive reinforcement and pay it forward, inspired to protect others who may not know how to protect themselves.  Positive change ripples and spreads just as much as negativity, and should never be discounted just because a character has gone through their fair share of tragedy, too.

 ---

In short, there is nothing simple or easy about creative writing—there is so much nuance involved in every aspect, though that shouldn’t discourage newcomers from experimenting and taking everything step by step. There are no absolutes in writing, and every rule can be challenged, so take what I say with a grain of salt. But still, I cannot emphasize enough the importance of backstory when developing strong characters, nor how much more natural a narrative will feel when these things are integrated with subtlety and grace. Your characters should never be objects, concepts, or a means to an end: if you want to make them seem real to your readers, then they must first seem real to you.

...And real people all have their own stories: to find them, all you have to do is watch and listen.    

[whoslaurapalmer]

for the directors cut thingy what are you doing the rest of your life? this is one of if not my most favorite warm fuzzy lemonberryice fic so any part of it you want to talk about, but especially the bit starting with “‘I wouldn’t run,’ I said. ‘And I will thank you not to point out my previous track record of doing just that’”

thank you!!!!!!! also, true to form, this is, so long, cause i just did the whole thing. what else would i do. the tl;dr of it all is that when i write fic, i am always thinking about writing structure and individual characterization and what the point of any given story is above all else, and that consumes a lot of brain power. and that you could give me any line in a fic and i will have an incredibly specific anecdote for it. 

the first lemonberry ice i wrote!! what a time. i specifically tagged it as ‘very little angst and no one dies!!!’ because i’d just posted beatrice like. three months before??? and i said to myself ‘hmm. i don’t want people to think all i can write is angst......’ so i wanted the fic to be like, look! nothing bad happens here this time!! it’s all good!!!!!!!!! and i had wanted to write something happy!! i like fluff a lot!! 

like bertrand, i was also searching for the right sinatra song for this fic. if it isn’t obvious, by now, three years later, i love sinatra a lot. on my previous laptop, the file for this fic was still titled after the first song the fic was supposed to be about, but when i backed up everything in googledrive i titled it properly, so the file name is the proper one now, but i’m, 99% sure the original song was i get a kick out of you (specifically this super jazzy one, not the one with the opener, it’s slower and doesn’t sound the same). but LIKE WITH EVERY CHOICE I MAKE IN A FIC i wasn’t sure it really captured what the fic was about. especially the “you obviously don’t adore me” line, because the fic was certainly more upbeat than that. so i dug around on youtube for one i thought fit better and found what are you doing the rest of your life. for three people, living such turbulent and unpredictable lives, to hear this song about always wanting to be there, for everything, no matter what it is, and for the rest of their lives, to admit that’s possible............ i couldn’t find a recording of young!sinatra singing it, though, which bummed me out a little. nothing wrong with old!sinatra, but you can start to hear more of the.....age his voice, you know? 

since this was 2017, only the first netflix season was out, and we all still had such high hopes for it, and i sure did, and tito puente was mentioned in miserable mill and because s1 was so good i didn’t mind making a couple references to it because EVERYTHING WAS BEAUTIFUL, and i just wound up sticking him in beatrice and what are you doing the rest of your life because his music was great and it was a fun callback! simpler times indeed........

my main goal with the fic was, i think, to try and figure out how i thought the three of them worked in a relationship, since it was my first time writing them. which is why there’s really specific lines like, “A year had gone by and I still wasn’t used to how free Bertrand was with his affection.” and “I grinned, because after all this time I knew when she was kidding. Beatrice’s razor-sharp wit, and the touches of playfulness behind it, was one of my favorite things about her.” they’re lines that i still think are absolutely in character for lemony, and i probably wouldn’t change them if i wrote it now, but i do feel they’re a little too, on point. or not on point, just.....obvious. like, not only did the lines have to make sense in the style, but they had to make sense, for me, as i was writing, as i was trying to figure out their characters and what would show lemony’s nerves alongside bea and bertrand’s habits and their relationship as a whole, and that’s a lot to try and do

“‘Sonnets,’ I said. ‘Beatrice will write sonnets.’” truly. i am truly haunted by this line now. it will keep me up at night. 

oh boy, that section is. a lot. i gotta go through the whole thing. i do. 

“I wouldn’t run,” I said. “And I will thank you not to point out my previous track record of doing just that, because they were all for relatively legitimate reasons.” I liked to think that I wouldn’t do it again, if the sort of situation arose where it was something I had to consider. (i think every writer in this fandom will admit that one of the hardest things to do, when writing a happy fic, is trying to find the line between, ‘i cannot avoid the legit canon events that have happened to these characters and turned them into the people they are, and i need to address that, no matter what i’m doing’ and ‘i want them to be happy and they deserve it’ and i think that’s a lot of what this section is. referencing how in canon lemony runs to not necessarily avoid his problems, but also, mainly, i think, because he believes 1) that’s the only way to protect the people he cares about and 2) that they’re better off without him, and how there’s definitely a gap between him leaving stain’d-by-the-sea and returning to the city, where anything happened, that counts as ‘leaving,’ and it was also supposed to reference one of the giant fics i was working on at the time, where the climax was, of course, and like any good slow burn fic, a misunderstanding that involved lemony leaving before reconciling with bea and bertrand. this fic would’ve taken place after it.) I liked to think that marriage wasn’t one of those things, because it was something I genuinely wanted. (2017!me had no idea what 2019!me would do......) But the uncertainties of the world sometimes made even that lovely thing seem so far out of my grasp that, if I was honest with myself, I had considered slipping away into the night so that I wouldn’t ruin anything else. It was an upsetting thing to think, but I had thought of it as much as I had thought about those musical numbers. (i still think about that, sometimes. lemony and bertrand, proposing like true theater nerds.) 

Bertrand looked out over the water. “Do you think I’m not scared too, Lemony? About the things we do, the positions we put ourselves in, whether this assignment or the next one will be the one that takes one of you away from us?” (my mental checklist of things i write include ‘lulu, is there a moment in the fic where like, The Point Of The Fic Is Made,’ like the moment where it all comes together and, this is what the fic was For an What It’s Supposed To Say, and that’s what this scene was for, and it’s definitely in what bertrand’s saying here.) (but because it’s 2017, like some of the earlier lines, i feel as if The Point is Too On Point. but it’s something i still struggle with, even now.) (it’s still important for bertrand to say it, though.....) 

“No,” I said. “I’m not that much of a fool to think that my fears aren’t universal.”

“Sometimes you act like you do,” Bertrand said quietly. “And I am under no delusion that our feelings for each other will fix any or all of our problems. But they can be a little easier to deal with that way, when you know you aren’t alone. You know that, don’t you?” (i had a lot of characterization notes around this fic (and the giant fic i was writing) since i was, again, just writing them and trying to figure out how they all worked, so i had a little list of like, what each of them do for the other, and parts of it were “bertrand prevents beatrice and lemony from being too dramatic, bertrand prevents lemony from being too self-deprecating, lemony allows bertrand to feel less self-conscious (and probably less worried because bertrand knows someone else shares his terrible anxieties)” and there are things i write differently now, because i’ve been at it for a while, but it was important for me to figure out how they connected with each other and....not what they offered each other, and certainly not how they fixed each other, but how each of them lessened certain canon elements that would make their relationship go differently. because again all my lemonberry ice fics (with the exception of the letter) are written from a standpoint where they would rewrite canon, especially this one. anyway, that’s.....that’s what that dialogue was supposed to do. when all three of them are together, they’re capable of being that support for each other and evening each other out.) 

I wanted very much to believe that, but every time Beatrice or Bertrand said it, it never seemed to sink in the way it should. It is one thing to love someone, or multiple someones, to love them so much you often can’t think of anything else, but another thing to trust them and the things they say and yourself, especially when you live the kind of lives that we lived. (i hate to keep bringing up years i know it’s like. weird but it’s how i sort where my brain was, and 2017 was a great year for analysis in this fandom and i don’t remember who exactly had brought up, that lemony sees a difference between love and trust, especially after ellington (he loved her but he didn’t trust her), and that’s something that’s so true that i’ve never forgotten and that gets brought up in other fics too (bea in the letter loving lemony but not trusting him.....). there are certain headcanons, of my own and of others, that i tend to just get, attached to, so they just. keep. happening.) Perhaps I did forget about it sometimes, the terrible recklessness with which Beatrice occasionally acted, how Bertrand tended to be much too quiet at times, the things all of us did when we forgot we weren’t alone. (yet another ‘line that has to work in the narrative and Say The Point’ because that really is a big thing in how i structure stories. i feel like it’s so necessary for there to BE a point to each thing i write, ESPECIALLY in shorter pieces, otherwise, why???????? and you know what, i need to be less strict about that, really.) The three of us were not perfect people, not by any means, but three imperfect people doing what they can for each other in a turbulent world is sometimes better than three perfect people going through life without a care about anything else. (i rewrote this line a few times, but it’s one of my favorites. this fic really has aged well, especially with lemony’s narration, this line in particular.) 

I squeezed Bertrand’s hand and didn’t say anything more.

speaking of lemony’s whole love vs. trust thing and my rewriting, i tend to keep most of what i cut out of a fic, especially while i’m trying to figure out a certain line (although sometimes i’ll just rewrite over it and then it’s lost to time), and the file has my original attempts for this scene, which still had some good lines -- 

I think it is a universally accepted truth that if you love someone, you trust them, in one way or another, but I have never felt that way. there have been quite a few people whom I loved a great deal but didn’t trust them, or people that I knew I could trust to act a certain way but certainly didn’t love at all. I believe it comes with the sort of upbringing that involves a great deal of suspicion for even the people around you.

the circumstances around you meeting them. but sometimes also because of the things they do. or you can not love someone at all and trust them, because you know them to be a horrible person and trust that they will continue to act in horrible ways, and that at the bottom of every root beer float you drink in their presence there will be a small collection of thumbtacks.

bertrand looked out over the water. “we love you very much, lemony,” he said, “and I don’t expect that to fix any or all of our problems. but do you trust that we feel that way?”

I did. or I wanted to. the thing about trust is that it is a very difficult thing, and as much as I wanted to spend the rest of my life between the two of them, the amount of uncertainty I felt about myself and our lives and even about that uncertainty was a heavy thing.

“what if it’s not enough?”

“maybe it’s not,” bertrand admitted. “but it’s good enough.”

“‘Hey, hey!’ Beatrice said, snatching the plate from him. ‘Don’t be like that with the good plates.’” still one of my favorite actions. still makes me laugh, even though now i think bea would be the one to be reckless with dishware. 

and beatrice talking about their apartment being too small for children is a top favorite fic ending. i love her. so much. 

[dashielldeveron]

hi! what are some of your favorite fanfics?

HELLO. I adore how vague this is, so I’m going to give you more than you asked for. Also, I don’t know which fandom you’re on my blog for, so I’ll give you a mix of things.

Also, I feel called out for how much of this became a “let’s list what i’m attracted to” compilation. 

RLM: Everything @redlettermistress does, but especially In His Kiss and Milwaukee: A Place Both Wonderful and Strange. Though, if you’re not Deep In the Lore of these wonderful men, the fics may not make a whole lot of sense. If you’re not into RLM, I highly suggest reading them simply for the stellar dialogue, loving relationships, and fucking astonishing smut. She has a parking pass to the haunted house in my heart.

Also, Snow Globe, because it’s possibly the most romantic fic in fucking existence. I don’t even ship Mike/Jay due to personal reasons of wanting to marry Mike, but this is a perfect work.

Marvel: Sheena Stalwart’s Spider-Man Soulmate series.

@astronomyparkers‘s Silence (vigilante!Tom Holland AU), because it hits different, you know? It’s nice plot and character work.

Back when Liars and Legends was an unnamed Loki fic on deviantart, it changed my fucking life. This is the fic that started everything for me. It started my writing fic and was early in my introduction to readerfic (about 2012). It’s very “The Avengers was just released in theatres, and the Avengers all live in Stark Tower together,” but this fic consumed my brain for all of high school and affects to this day how I write and approach storytelling in general. Anything tiatodd does is ingenuitive, intriguing, and well-told, even though some of her kinks I do not share. I’ll devour anything she fucking posts. Be sure to check out both her pseuds.

Hades, God of Death is part of a series, but this one is my favourite and hurts my heart. It’s an AU in which Benedict Cumberbatch is Hades, and you’re his side chick when Persephone’s in the overworld. Read it if you want to feel depressed for a few hours.

Embarrassing Undertale Section: A Puzzle Just for Me, an ongoing, super in-depth character study/mystery/smutfest mob au Sans/Reader. Fucking incredible. I’ve never seen character work quite like this. It’s really something. It swops between your POV and Sans’s, both with deep psychological problems and deductions. Not to mention her worldbuilding. Would that I could write like this. 

i thought you were weird but turns out you're just caught in a time loop. Sans/reader. Combines the lore of Undertale and Deltarune, and it feeds my timeline-loving, slow burn, motherfucking soul. 

Broken Promises and Timelines. Sans/reader. Time for consequences of your own actions. It’s fab and sad, and even though there’s a fair amount of smut, I’m already there for the plot alone. It jumps through all of the fucking AUs for Undertale, of which there are too fucking many. 

Winter in Your Bones. Sans/reader. Takes place in Alaska. You can read this without knowing Undertale, so long as you know that Sans is a skeleton. 

Even Worse: A Pokemon Section: I know. I know. But it’s where I am in life, yeah?

Anyway, Roommates is a Spark/Reader (Spark is the Team Instinct leader in Pokemon Go) that is Super Healthy and Developed in their relationship (to the best of my recollection. It’s been a while, and it’s a long-ass fic). 

Shut Up and Dance is my current favourite continuing fic. It’s a Guzma/Reader (Guzma’s a villain in Sun/Moon, which I have not played) and a Dirty Dancing AU. It’s nice, okay? It’s really comforting and well done. It makes me feel a lot.

Not Readerfic: This is the best Harry Potter fic I’ve come across in years. It’s a time-travel mishap done right. Post-series Harry gets sent back in time to his first year at Hogwarts. He’s still mentally in his twenties, but his body is eleven again. This time around, Harry has all of the information and is going to be a little shit about it. Like, when it was described to me, I was sold purely on the fact that Harry convinces everyone he’s not the heir of Slytherin because he hasn’t tried to make a profit off of it. Golden.

Finally, There’s a Place is the fic hidden in my heart. It’s McLennon, which is Paul McCartney/John Lennon. Trust me, they were in love IRL. Message me if you want to know EVERYTHING. This fic is the culmination of their love, I think. There’s a certain line that a friend just has to quote to me, and I get all upset, because it’s so fucking romantic. I want to believe it’s real so badly.

So, these are the fics that linger in my head because of how new and wonderful their ideas are. I’ve honestly been thinking about these fics for a long time. Good writing affects your standards for love and living, you know?

Thank you very much for your ask! I hope your day is excellent! xx.

[heartfulmind]

Do you have any headcanons about Shinsou's classmates we've seen so far? Like the Gen Ed students we see cheering for him during the SportsFest, or the ones who criticized Class 1-A during the cultural festival then apologized.

Hello Anon, I just need to say, thank you for watering my crops and clearing out my acne with this ask, truly, it isn’t that often that people ask about the General Department students so I’m eager to answer this one ♡ If anything, I’m caught up with the main manga and anime so far, so I’ll be basing my response from those two sources (mostly manga). Additionally, I just read a small sample of the light novel so that it could help me bump this response a bit further.

I’ll be splitting this answer into 2 sections: headcanons built from what we can see aka theories and studies, and headcanons I like to imagine or have built from what we gathered aka the “fun” headcanons. With that said, let’s get this bread.

Let’s start with what we do know; Class 1-C, D, and E are all classes from the General Department, the department where UA puts the rest of the hero hopefuls that couldn’t make it to the Hero Department :^) I’m doing this smiley face :^) because I’m feeling salty about that my unnamed children from Gen Ed that deserved better :^) but also, it houses students who just sought out for its high education, it’s what the General Department is. I’m setting this note down because it’s important and relevant, helping us understand why we see the General Education students the way we do. Now seriously, I’ll take us to our first section.

Theories and Studies Time

Here’s what I’m going to do in this section:

Show a shot of the manga/anime.

Describe what’s going on / what we can see.

Then make assumptions.

Chapter 24 (btw, the source I use for the manga is this one: https://www.mangareader.net/boku-no-hero-academia/34/8 )

Here we have Present Mic introducing the Hero Department, enthusiastically announcing their debut in the arena, then plainly announcing the entrances from the following departments. In the left corner, we can see Shinsou looking at his classmates who voice their opinions about the way they are being introduced, evidently unsatisfied.

Here, I got a close shot of the recurring students of 1-c. Now I’ll talk about this panel and what I see. Shinsou, a serious student, shows interest in what his classmates talk about, peeking at them and hearing a conversation he wasn’t involved in. His expression is blank, not mad nor upset, just nonchalant. He isn’t that far from them and the fact he turned a bit at the sound of their voice means that he can hear it all. Not appearing upset and also being attentive at what his classmates are saying, Shinsou is observant of his peers, a trait that can be overlooked or never thought of because of his “lone-wolf” and “I’m not here to make friends” persona. Also, the fella who rants uses words like, “us” and “we”, grouping all of them in the same boat.

Our first study: Shinso is attentive to his classmates and his classmates consider them all equal and undeserving of the low-quality intro they got.

Still Chapter 24

Midnight announces Bakugou up to deliver a speech since he placed the highest in the entrance exam. His classmates, astonished, are given light by the girl from Class 1-C that it was because of the entrance exam results.

The shot in which we see the Gen Ed trio here we see them unsatisfied an unimpressed. Both of the fellas have their arms crossed and look at the hero dept. with narrowed eyes. A sigh bubble comes from the girl. By this point, Shinsou isn’t looking at them, just straight ahead, hands in pockets. But once again, he hasn’t strayed himself far away from them, so surely he hears what his class is saying.

Our second study: The Gen Ed students are tight-knitted; Shinsou doesn’t distance himself from those two and those two don’t keep the brainwasher at an arm’s length. They are comfy with each other’s presence. Shinsou doesn’t mind them acting sassy hehe.

Chapter 34

I’m just gonna combine the explanation for both pages into one paragraph. After Shinsou’s fight with Midoriya and not emerging victorious from it, Shinsou looks down, upset. However, hearing the first cheers from his classmates, he looks surprised and looks up at them. Multiple kiddos from his class and pro-heroes alike are in awe of Shinsou’s capabilities. Shinsou then vows to Midoriya that he won’t give up.

We can see the shadow that casts over Shinsou’s face, but the moment he is given admiration, he is clear of any shading. I think this represents how he became illuminated by their kind words, meaning that he holds them with high regard. And how one of them chimes, “Can you hear them Shinsou?” after the pro-heroes compliment signifies that they keep a note of other people’s opinions from the audience. So if any of them had the audacity to talk bad about him, then that means that the students would’ve kept track of it too. They were attentive about anyone that spoke about their classmate Shinsou.

Our third study: His classmates aren’t wary of Shinsou since they were the first ones to say admiration to Shinsou, almost prideful that they have someone like him in their class. They hold him highly with their praises like how he deeply takes in their words, shortly after their words as if he was inspired. Words carry much meaning in their class.

Chapter 121

Okay uh, I won’t focus much on dialogue since every manga scan translations are different depending on the sources and all that jazz. Anyways, Basically, the Hero Department disrupts the flow of the line and Iida tells them to calm tf down desperately after Shinsou speaks up about it. His classmates follow Shinsou from behind.

We see the 1-c girl peek from Shinsou. Her face doesn’t look blank, but I wouldn’t consider it entirely emotionless. I think it’s more astonished, especially at the fact that her otherwise quiet classmate spoke up. Asides from the Sports Festival, Shinsou is leading them the way again.

Our fourth study: Every since his display at the Sports Festival, Shinsou gained some sort of respect that allowed him to be in the front lines. As if they want him to be representing their class and see him fitting of their role, letting him tell the Hero Dept. to get their act together.

Chapter 171

So this panel introduces two new students from the General Department, Tsutsutaka Agoyamato and Chikuchi Togeike. (I find it interesting that these two have names, but not the other kiddos we’ve seen- Also, we don’t know if they’re from Class 1-C, or if they’re even first years. Although, I don’t think they are from Class 1-C since they were able to freely check out Class 1-A’s show instead of being present in the haunted house, but idk.) Moving on, they basically critique Class 1-A’s decision of making a concert for everyone. They glare at the Class 1-A. Bakugou notices this. They engage eye-contact with Bakugou himself.

Our fifth study: They aren’t intimidated despite Bakugou’s famous aggressive nature. Either that they haven’t witnessed the Sports Festival, or truly, aren’t afraid of him, and nobody from the first years of the Hero Department since they speak at their hearing range. They do not need their approval as they criticize about the fact that the Hero Dept is doing this for the rest of the departments.

Chapter 173

Just focus on the bottom portion of this page. It is Class 1-C preparing their exhibit for the Cultural Festival. We see more new faces. Fellas are carrying boxes and another fella is near a table. The girl we occasionally see from Class 1-C has a sort of tool that helps with cutting wood. She comes at Shinsou with it, but only to look astonished by his strength as this bithc tears up a whole piece of wood with his bare hands.

Our sixth study: Class 1-C girl is amazed at Shinsou’s prowess, and while most of his classmates seemed huddled up, Shinsou might’ve been by himself. Maybe she was with him the whole time and at some point either must’ve told him, “hold up imma be back with the goddamn axe” or walked up to him by maybe noticing him without any tools from afar. For the millionth time, they look out for each other.

Chapter 182

Let’s focus on those fellas that look down on the Hero Dept. Chikuchi says, “At the end of the day, you won’t be pleasing anyone but yourselves.” They remain disdainful at first, but as the show progresses, they turn a new leaf and find themselves moved by the display of the Hero Dept.

Our seventh study: These kiddos are moved easily, implying a soft heart.

Chapter 183

Chikuchi and Agoyamato burst out an apology to Class 1-A, admitting that they wanted to critique their performance. Then immediately they leave.

Now, you see how blushy they look and how nervous they got when they shuffled away?

Our eighth study: This department has soft students that look out for each other and follow one another’s lead. It’s as if their hearts are in sync since both apologized and felt the same way of what they did. They can’t bring themselves to outright hate the hero department. After all, they wanted to be in that department themselves.

Still Chapter 183

This page features the attractions of this event, in the bottom left corner we see Class 1-C’s Haunted House exhibit. Shinsou hangs from the ceiling, successfully scaring students from Class 1-A.

Notice the plain white long sleeve shirt that has handprints? I like to think that the entire class contributed a handprint on that shirt- But on a serious note, Shinsou’s expression is blank. Perhaps his classmates had trust in him that he’d do the right faces. Little do they know that their brainwasher is just, poker-faced.

Our ninth study: Either the entire Class 1-C class was in agreement to ask Shinsou to be their guy for this attraction or Shinsou nominated himself for this role. No matter how it went, it means that this class all cooperated and discussed their display. This signifies strong teamwork and no one was scared about sharing their ideas.

And boom. I’m done analyzing every possible panel of them from the manga. Thank you for sticking with me this far. Now let’s head into the Light Novel. I’ll be using this source: https://shimikonde.tumblr.com/post/184554154892/ua-school-festival-light-novel-pg-52-55-for-my

Y’all should read it if you want more depth but in summary, Shinsou helps his class out with the haunted house attraction and then muses as he takes a small walk on his lonesome. He questions his worth and what would transpire once he moves to the Hero Department.

Okay, now I’m going to extract the notable details from this page. And from the segment of the light novel, I will make a small analysis from the quote.

Watching his classmates laugh, alone, Shinsou picked up the unneeded wood. “I’ll pick up some paint while I’m throwing this away.”

He walked away in silence as the voices of his classmates thanked him from behind.

Shinsou keeps tabs with his peers even if he isn’t around them. He lets them know what he’s going to do and his classmates are grateful when he helps them out with the trash stuff. This might’ve been something new for his classmates since they were quiet at first, but afterward, they thank him! And multiple of them!

It was only after he sent in his application to transfer that he began to grow accustomed to the atmosphere of his class. When should he tell them? He wondered if it would be too late if he waited until the transfer was set in stone.

Shinsou hasn’t told him what he’s been up to. He kept this a secret from his class, which I don’t think that makes him a bad person. He’s just having a hard time wondering when he should break it down to his classmates.

Would he really be able to make it into the Hero Course? He was afraid that once he took that first step, he’d find that he didn’t have any place to place his feet. Unable to land, he’d become like a cloud in the sky, pulled along by the wind, never to be seen again. It was because of this lack of confidence that he’d been unable to tell his classmates about his transfer.

Realizing he’d become pessimistic, Shinsou rubbed the back of his neck a bit and started walking again.

Shinsou is feeling insecure about himself. And it is these negative thoughts that impeded him from telling his classmates about his decision to transfer. He wants to be his best for his class, so he cuts his sad musings in order to get the job done for his classmates.

As Shinsou took in the sights around him, a thought suddenly occurred to him. This might be the first and last Cultural Festival that he does with Class C.

Now this one is really heartbreaking for me- He thinks of Class 1-C, the class that will turn out to be just his freshman classmates, he won’t grow up beside them no more, but with the Hero Department. This is the last activity that he will ever do with this class and he thinks hard on that.

Oh look we’re done sIKE- Horikoshi’s Ultra Analysis Book gives us a whole fucking meal about the Class 1-C: Little does Shinsou know, Class 1-C plans on throwing him a party to congratulate his transfer :’)

I don’t even have to explain it that is already a whole gem.

Phew, now that I’m done analyzing the manga and light novel and the analysis book, we can now move on to building fun headcanons from the studies we’ve made! Let me take us to the second section of this post:

Fun Headcanons

Do you remember how the girl from Class 1-C is the one that often speaks up between her and her buddy and how Chikuchi is always a space bit ahead of Agoyamato? And how she’s been like that with every panel she is with her buddy? It’s like the females from this class play mother hen. They’re queens.

Talking shit about the Hero Department is a conversation that brings them all together-

Class 1-C lowkey wishes to tell Shinsou to brainwash people to do funny stuff with his quirk, but are shy about asking him.

Since Shinsou has a tendency of being by himself and hear convos from afar, the Class 1-C students raise their voices in conversations intentionally so that they can let Shinsou hear them as a way to include Shinsou in talks but not force him in the group.

Whenever Shinsou speaks during class, his classmates make sure that everyone shuts up at that moment. like, “SHSHSHSHSH EVERYONE STFU SHINSOU IS GOING TO SAY SOMETHING-” It doesn’t bother Shinsou since this is their way of giving him respect and he finds it cute-

All of the ladies and the fellas unanimously agree that Shinsou is the cute guy from the class. Only they call themselves plain-looking so that’s why they got mad at Present Mic when he basically labeled them as “fillers”. They acknowledge that Shinsou has a cool appearance.

One of the Class 1-C students said, “Shinsou should participate in the Beauty Contest of the Cultural Festival-” and then the entire class went fucking quiet because they were nervous they were going to set Shinsou off, but then Shinsou shyly replies that rather he looks like something from a horror movie. And then his classmates got inspired by his words to come up with the Haunted House attraction and that’s how it came to be. No, I don’t take criticism.

I headcanon my Shinsou to know sign language so- Anyways, his classmates were impressed to learn that from Shinsou so they only asked him to teach them the alphabet, just a small sample of it. So that when they have multiple-choice quizzes, they lowkey cheat by helping each other out and do the sign language alphabet under their desks to the right answers. When the entire class has obtained the answer, they let each other know by doing this 👌 before they proceed to the next question.

They’re really open-minded! Have y’all seen Agoyamato’s pompadour? Chikuchi’s ponytails? Shinsou? They don’t give a damn how you look like.