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randomfoggytiger · 3 months ago

Note

I’ve been an x files fan for years now (since 2008ish) but fan fic has never been my thing. If I wanted to give it another go, what writers or pieces of fic would be a good place for me to start? Thanks! 😊

What a dream request, thank you!

Not much of a fic reader? Hm. I drifted to fanfiction because I wanted a canonical hole plugged in; but it sounds like you're looking for quality.

I'm narrowing these suggestions to long-form fics, and going to try to keep them as "fandom approved" as possible. (I'm also cutting back on the "famfic" recs because that's not everyone's cup of tea~.)

Authors whose works could (one could argue, should) be published as novels, in no particular order:

@amplifyme/Lydia Bower, @aloysiavirgata, @slippinmickeys,

@cecilysass, @teethnbone, @dreamingofscully, @sixhours,

@mashnotesofthemythopoeic/Penumbra, @sigritandtheelves/Darla,

@onpaperfirst, @melforbes, @ghostbustermelanieking/skuls,

Jenna Tooms, @seek-its-opposite, @settle-down-frohike,

@frostbitepandaaaaa, @leiascully, @darwin-xf, Beshter,

@scenes-in-between/scullywolf, @scullylikesscience

Here's a brief rundown on each author, to the best of my abilities:

amplifyme

My mother's embraces are frightening in their intensity, and I can feel her fear as though it seeps from her pores. Mulder's arms hold me easily but fully. And there is a calming effect in his touch. He restores me to myself, makes me strong again. I wish I had taken the chance and discovered that years ago.

-Dance Without Sleeping

One of the OGs. Her writing explores the paths of Mulder's and Scully's minds. The Scully in her stories is pragmatic, matter-of-fact, and protective of her secrets. The Mulder in her stories is tender, predictably mercurial, and secretive, as well. The most direct admittance can be the most damaging, and the most healing. Her longest work is, I believe, Dance Without Sleeping; but my favorite, though short, happens to be Light Don't Sleep. Her Ao3 is here.

aloysiavirgata

“That’s a fair question, Senator,” Scully observes in her liquid nitrogen voice. She leans forward in her seat, just a little, just enough, to remind him that predators have eyes at the front of their heads. Scully crosses her legs and gives the Senator the full force of her blue eyes, the hard angles of her good cheekbones.

She is magnificent, Mulder thinks, smitten. She is Themis, she is Ma’at. One day she will devour the hearts of the unrighteous, his own included.

-Singing of Mount Abora

One of the OGs. She treads the line between poetry and prose so seamlessly you are left, baffled, by her intelligence. Her writing features Mulder and Scully with a little bite: neither are fools, and neither will be trifled with. (They're also wickedly intelligent nerds.) Mulder is Jewish (though that rarely comes up) and was married before (though that only comes up when it comes up.) Canon halts in Season 7, but that doesn't stop her from writing Season 9 masterpieces with Mulder and Scully and their son-- which is where I'd recommend you begin, with By Falling In and In. If that's not your cup of tea, I'd say catch up on her canon divergent Waters of Babylon, Petrichor, and Singing of Mount Abora. Her Ao3 is here.

slippingmickeys

The boy winced and inhaled sharply as her fingers ran over the cleft where the fibula met the talus and she rocked back on her heels, eyeing the darkening horizon. Did he have people nearby? Could she leave him here without guilt? She didn’t really have the time or inclination to take on a project — she and Mulder had tried that before — banding together with other survivors, and it had always ended poorly. And boys his age, as few as she had seen, made her uncomfortable. Her subconscious would scan their features, looking for a genetic echo of the Scully-Mulder’s. Mulder would have to pull her aside and whisper “it’s not him,” and she didn’t have the space in her heart for the guilt. Even now she had to ignore the blue of his eyes and the way his gritted teeth had the same gnathic slant as the only man she’d ever loved.

-North of Zero

One of the OGs. Her Mulder and Scully are practical, capable, sleek survivors. Her writing exists somewhere between the clack of a gun slide and the omnipresence scent of a wild pine forest. She's written extensively on... everything: Colonization, space, POL, case files, mytharc, everything; and well. I'd recommend North of Zero for a starter. Her Ao3 is here.

cecilysass

It’s Mulder, she reminds herself. No matter how long you may have been gone, or what has happened in your absence, you know what to expect from Mulder.

At last he shuffles through the door, and it’s him, definitely him: head bent, looking weary and wilted. He turns to lock the door again, evidently not paying very much attention to his surroundings.

Her heart constricts. “Mulder,” she voices softly.

She can see his whole body go still from behind, but he doesn’t look right away. His back remains to her.

-Pause

One of the OGs. Her Mulder and Scully are weighed by secrets, by their unspoken. Her writing dwells in the silences; and the tones of her work shift depending on the narrative: insular and psychologically exploratory, fast-paced and bitterly overwhelming, slow and unspooling and peaceful-- but always with a bittersweet aftertaste. I would do a disservice if I didn't recommend A Boy on the Beach first; but my personal favorite is Pause (and All the Dead Mulders and Not Orpheus, Not Eurydice.) Her Ao3 is here.

darwin_xf

Mulder. Her genius. Who happened also to be her blithering idiot. A fresh swell of affection overtook her. This is how it was for her, even just talking to him. One minute she was standing in the shallows enjoying or enduring or surviving a day at the beach, whichever kind of day it was. The next she'd find herself walloped and rolled by the rogue wave of her feelings for him. Then she was surfacing, sputtering, salt-blind, struggling to find the steady line of the horizon.

-Vox Mulder: Fired and Wired

One of the OGs. Darwin's writing is clipped and "action" focused. Her Mulder and Scully are fond and quippy and silently torturing themselves with their own repressions or secrets. Vox Mulder: Fired and Wired covers the IVF arc concurrent with Mulder's (secret) brain disease diagnosis; and her notes tearing into canon's handling of the latter arc are incredibly detailed, incredibly satisfying, and incredibly hilarious. Her Ao3 is here.

dreamingofscully

They searched, staying together with Scully’s single flashlight. As she suspected, they didn’t find anything out of the ordinary. The cellar was devoid of sound and light, not a single rat or insect scurrying about. No more traces of the unknown substance.

They followed the trail of viscous fluid back to their room. Their adrenaline-fueled trek left her exhausted, and she was hopeful she would be able to sleep for a few more hours before dawn. Not even her fear could break through the cottony haze that clouded her mind. Collapsing on the bed, Mulder pulled off her slippers.

-Surely, to the sea

One of the OGs. Her writing is practical and pleading-- the veneer that Mulder and Scully front, and the truth. Her Scully has teeth but prefers silence and distance. Her Mulder stubbornly walks the thin line between opening his partner up or closing her back together tighter. Trust-- in each other, in themselves-- can be broken and mended with the right words, the right meaning. I recommend starting with Surely, to the Sea (and my favorite short fic is this one.) Her Ao3 is here.

Frostbite Panda

“I make you a whole person,” she whispers. The slam of sudden memory is heady, destabilizing, threatening to spin her clean from reality.

He leans forward, elbows on his knees, a sound escaping him that she cannot identify. Truth be told, he looks a bit ridiculous— wrapped in a green sleeping bag looking like a dormant pupa, not the wrecked and ruined man he was.

-Four Days on the 63rd Parallel

One of the OGs (I believe.) Her writing is grand and touching, a microcosm of the macro effects Mulder and Scully face alongside, and with, each other. Her Scully is reluctant, doubting Mulder's beliefs but trusting him; and her Mulder is courageous and wallowing, afraid to try for fear of rejection. Four Days on the 63rd Parallel (and its follow-up In a Perfect World) explores what would have happened if Mulder and Scully had been trapped in Antarctica, in a snocat, alone, until help arrived. Her Ao3 is here, and requires you to be logged in.

Jenna Tooms

Then there's the matter of Mulder and his reaction to scissors and the razor. When he was first released from the hospital I took him to his old barber. He made it into a seat, and even let the barber tie the cloth around his neck. At the first flash of the scissors, though, he was up and out so fast for a moment I only stood in the waiting area dumbfounded, the baby in my arms.

He will, however, let me cut his hair and trim his beard--which he grew to cover his facial scars. I let him keep it as long as he lets me keep it neat.

-An Acceptable Level of Happiness

One of the OGs (if I recall.) Her writing is just north of canon, veering off to give us better, brighter spots to land Mulder and Scully. Her Mulder and Scully are soft, seemingly delicate with a touch of steel underneath. They've taken a beating, have internalized that beating, and are being supported wholeheartedly by the other person in their partnership. If you want canon-ish, I'd recommend An Acceptable Level of Happiness; if you want mytharc-ish further down the timeline, I'd suggest Truly, Madly, Deeply, and if you want canon veered off from and returned to-ish after Requiem (16 years later), then I'd strongly lobby for Shooting Star. Her Ao3 requires a log-in, here; but Jenna's works are also on Gossamer (here).

leiascully

“Did you see this?”

She blinked at the screen of Mulder’s phone and gently pushed his wrist until it was at a distance she could focus on. Technology changed but Mulder didn’t. She couldn’t count the near misses with magazines and file folders, the threat of papercuts across her cheeks.

“Ford isn’t going to make Tauruses anymore,” he told her before she’d had a chance to actually read the headline. That was also standard procedure. Mulder was a scrolling marquee of odd headlines and interesting trivia. He was the original clickbait, drawing her in with his promises to change her world and alter her perception.

-Taurus Season

One of the OGs. leiascully's prose captures the essence and magic of ordinary things. Her Scully is secretly a wanderer, her Mulder an errant domestic. There is reciprocity in their strengths and weaknesses; and the world is always more beautifully strange together. I recommend her Visitor series, which rewrites Revival canon along necessary lines. Her Ao3 is here, and requires a log-in.

Penumbra

They slipped among the dumpsters at the back of the building and into the empty quivering night, jaywalking the shadows up the hill streets, ringing the manhole covers. False planetary lights floated about in the foggy sky. Scully opened her fawn umbrella. Mulder glanced often behind them, his fingers pressed into the suspension muscles of her hard young back.

-Bad Radio

One of the OGs. Her Scully is strong and silent and will not be swayed; her Mulder is withdrawn and foreboding. Her most infamous work is Heuvelmans' On the Tracks, but I know her better through this post Gethsemane cancer arc fic: its darkness, its inevitability, its immovable-object-meets-unstoppable-force. Her Ao3 is here.

Prufrock's Love

"He says a horse bit him," Duana translated for her mother. Duana stripped off Lord William's tunic and ruined shirt to reveal the wound. "He damages more clothing..."

Lord William stooped to show Caithrin the twin rows of tooth marks on his left shoulder, still telling his woeful tale....

Not sure what was expected of her and thoroughly intimidated, Caithrin did as she would with her own sons. She made the sympathetic face and clucked over him like a mother hen. Lord William, pacified, settled down on the stool by the fire to let Duana doctor him.

-Hiraeth

One of the OGs. Her Mulder and Scully are messed up, secrets upon secrets, love and miscommunication and chaos towards each other and themselves. Prufrock's prose and dry wit can't be denied; and she's most notably known for Belghor's Prime, a Mulder time-traveling story, and Paracelsus, a Civil War fic that loosely locks into her sprawling, transformative "past lives" series. I, personally, prefer Hiraeth, because the Mulder and Scully I read there aligns (mostly) with my interpretation of canon. Her Ao3 is here.

onpaperfirst

The chip was round and under a microscope the texture looked like fish scales.

The procedure was over in ten minutes. Three tiny stitches at the back of her neck with a gauze pad taped on top. It shouldn’t have worked, but it did.

-Snakebitten

One of the OGs (if I recall.) Her Mulder and Scully are inherently bound, even if the plot has driven a wedge between them. They speak the same language with different words, they work back to each other with lightning speed, they are chummy, they are contented. Their humor is fantastic. Her longest, angstiest work is Snakebitten, a rewrite leading up to The Pine Bluff Variant; but my personal ones are (surprise, surprise) her "part one" and "part two" short fics, Home, Home and Honey Hi. Her Ao3 is here.

seek_its_opposite

She leaves her rumpled partner in the car with the window cracked while she goes to the front desk, glancing back possessively over her shoulder as the woman behind the counter gets their keys. One room, two beds. “I’m not letting you out of my sight, Mulder.”

She keeps seeing him like she found him, on his knees before the ghosts of his childhood. She sees him praying to the barrel of his gun.

-photosensitivity

One of the OGs (I think?) She writes incredible meta on the series; but she's also written one of my favorite short fics, ever (and I have a lot of those.) You can navigate to the rest of her Ao3 through this link, but you'll have to get through photosensitivity first. >:DDD

settle-down-frohike

“I’m fine, Scully,” indignantly going back to the task at hand. And she’d have believed him too, if he wasn’t looking through her, if his pitch hadn’t been a little too high, if he hadn’t forgotten the fact that her shoes were the very last thing to put on and she wasn’t even out of her hospital gown yet. She allowed it out of pity, mostly. Or humor. But his hands shook, fumbling with the laces like a feening alcoholic.

-for the WIP prompt: hospital

One of the OGs. She writes distraught Mulder incredibly well; and balances him with a Scully who is dry, caring, and bouyant all in one breath. I can't rave enough about her short fics (their links can be found here); but I'd recommend this and this and this because they tie together to form a Redux II whole. Her Ao3 is here.

sigritandtheelves

The world is different now, after so much has been lost. It moves a little slower, takes for granted a little less. It is still a dangerous place—because fear is catching and learning that things are not as they seem can make some go mad with denial and rage and terror at the loss of their footing. But it is also more peaceful, in some ways—because loss reminds us to hold love close. Because all the hearts that stopped beating are still felt in their absence. Because people, in the end, come together in crisis. They don’t only tear each other apart.

“I think we did okay,” he murmurs. “With our quarter century.”

Scully leans her head back to look at him. “Just okay?”

“Mm hmm.”

-Advent

One of the OGs. Her writing is pure sensation: cotton and earth and jeans and nine o'clock shadows and soft skin and the tangible grasp of wishes come true. Advent is her longest fic; but I implore you, on my hands and knees, to read all four of her pages on Ao3-- they're not only the gateway drug to other incredible, incredible short fic writers (ghostbustermelanieking, @baronessblixen, @o6666666, all the authors mentioned here, and so many, many more) but are also a shining example of family fic done well-- a very hard skill to pull off. Her Ao3 is here.

sixhours

Back to sleep. Sleep. No big deal. Just go to sleep.

A minute passes, then two. He’s not tired, in fact, he feels incredibly awake. His heart is pounding, a distracting pulse in his ears. The bed is too soft, too deep, too…real. He can hear her breathing next to him, feel the warmth radiating off her body, his senses screaming at the level of detail, the texture, the vividness of it all. Instinct is a dog with a bone, and it won’t let go.

Something’s wrong.

-Lucidity

One of the OGs. Her writing clips along at an even pace, the story driving Mulder and Scully ever forward. Mulder is most often on the outs, Scully most often peering at her partner silently, trying to figure him out and draw him in. But mostly, the two function independently of each other, content to drift further or nearer as long as they are together. I would recommend Lucidity as a primer. Her Ao3 is here.

touchstoneaf

He did not soften, at first. Did not edge away, nor did he lean into her. Much like that awful night when their office had burnt he simply stood cold with shock and while she supported him; the steadfast fidelity of their bond never questioned in the decade that they had been together.

“I was there,” she murmured into his shoulder. /I’ll always be here./ He could accept it now. She was finally able to press her arms about him in the night. Feel the strong bones beneath unblemished flesh; amazed that he was even alive for her to hold after an ordeal that had indeed taken him from her for so long that she had lost all hope. She shuddered and cinched her arms tighter; felt his ribs shift beneath the silky envelope of his skin. They creaked in protest, but he did not move, and she spoke like one driven.

-Amor Fati: Destinata (The Fated Love), Act Three

One of the OGs. So OG, in fact, that the butchery of Season 9's mytharc pushed her to write a mythology replacement. Scully is fearful, anxious, but strong to her core. Mulder is lonely, and loving, and afraid to slip back into dark places. Both push each other to become better than they believed they could be. Her Amor Fati, Destinata (The Fated Love) series is still being written; but it's detailed reconstruction is well-worth the read. Her Ao3 is here.

I separated these two authors out because they're the x and y axes of my personal taste:

melforbes

She falls asleep before him. In some ways, it’s a burden to share a bed with someone, not a pleasure; if he moves, he fears he’ll wake her, but it’s horrible to stay so still for so long, especially when he can’t sleep. But he can see her eyelashes in the dark, and her cheek is squashed against her own pillow, and she checked the room when they arrived to make sure that there were plenty of tissues. Had there been a couch here, even a divan, he would’ve taken to that instead, let her sleep soundly without him. The day of the wedding - he almost tenses at the word wedding, not because he dislikes it but because it feels so strange and unreal, as if it never really happened even though he remembers it so easily and comfortably - they had a makeshift reception in her apartment, just cutting cake with her mother and then sharing slices with the Gunmen after her mother left. If anything, it felt more like a funeral than a wedding reception, so many questions tiptoed around, everything too urgent and human to be a celebration, but between guests, she grabbed part of her slice with her bare fingers and pressed the cake against his face unexpectedly, and he looked at her with surprise, and she laughed in an inward way that made her shoulders move.

-seaglass blue

One of the OGs (I believe.) I have to start here because seaglass blue is grafted onto my heart. Set before Gethsemane, the author based it on a real couple's journey with impending death; and the way she wrote Mulder's POV-- how she kept us always locked in his head each and every day of his honeymoon with Scully-- is forever burned on my psyche. I don't see the emotional damage, if you will, as unnecessary or melodramatic or traumatic-- it's just a window into the slow approach to the end, or a fear of it. (However, if the writing is too "overlapping" or "run-on" for your taste, I'd recommend aloysiavirgata's gorgeously succinct prose, mentioned above~.) All of her works are fantastic; and, oddly, the rest are usually beautifully cozy (if you can find them on her page.) (Note: authors with their own uniquely similar styles include @teethnbone and @enigmaticdrblockhead -- can't recommend their work enough, particularly The Ansted Graft and this list here, respectively.) mel's Ao3 is here.

skuls

They follow Mulder's trail, Scully's heart thudding too hard against her ribs. Skinner is telling her that Mulder wouldn't do anything crazy when it comes, the headache. Pounding against her skull. And then she hears Will crying out: Dad!

Scully bends over, stomach against her knees, clutching her temple. “Scully?” Skinner is saying. “Scully, what's going on?” But she can't hear him over the roaring in her eyes. William is still speaking, rapid-fire in her mind: They're hurting him, Mom, they're hurting him! Make them stop!

In a flash, she can see what William sees. Mulder barely conscious, being dragged outside through the snow. An axe in the hand of his attacker. “Scully, are you alright?” Skinner protests.

-silent conversations

One of the new recruits (I think.) Her writing is an art form: painting broad, sweeping pictures on the tiniest canvases, in the shortest sentences. Her descriptions, characterizations, and dialogue all serve the plot-- not a hair out of place and not a nook or cranny neglected. I will never be over her short fics, but her longer works are crafted carefully, too. If you want a complete rewrite of the entire series' mythology, then the Half-Light universe does it, and does it better; if you want a Season 8 casefile, then snow in april manipulates Mulder and Scully to a very sinister town; if you want Season 7 to properly deal with Mulder's brain disease, encephalon's got you covered; if you want William to stay with Mulder and Scully, William AU (relent, silent conversations, noises echoing, not out loud) bends in that direction; and if you want a complete rewrite of Samantha's abduction, california winter is where I'd start. Her Ao3 is here.

And lastly, do you want to read long-form fill in series? These three are masterfully done.

Beshter

There were few things in the world that Dana Scully could imagine were more arduous in her the world than family dinner night. Perhaps climbing Mt. Everest in the middle of a howling blizzard would be one. Maybe crawling out of the Amazon rainforest with a broken limb would be another. Even walking single-handedly into the desert with just one canteen of water between you and horrible death under the scorching sun could trump the monthly gathering of the Scully clan at her parent's house in Baltimore to have dinner with her parents.

One of the OGs. Her X-files Seasons covers every crack, crevice, and canyon in the show: Scully's life and family separate from Mulder, the journey drawing her closer into Mulder's world, and her own transformation from the green agent she was to the woman of diamond she became. Her Ao3 is here.

scullylikesscience

Over the course of the weekend, Mulder hardly talked at all. When he did speak, he was abrupt, flippant, and sometimes defensive. He still didn’t want to be touched, nor did it seem to Scully that he wanted to touch her. He kept a wall up around him, a protective shield. She tried to give him what she thought he wanted, space and distance, while at the same time trying to let him know that she was there if he needed her. It was a difficult balance. He seemed glad of her company, yet disinclined to talk to her at all.

-Chapter 87

One of the OGs. Her He is the Master of His Fate, She is the Captain of Her Soul series exquisitely fills in Season 7, Season 8, Season 9, IWTB, Season 10, and S11 while filing over and rewriting the incredibly stupid canon decisions along the way. Her Ao3 is here.

scullywolf

Mulder stirred again and mumbled something she couldn’t make out, and she wasn’t sure if he was talking in his sleep or actually trying to tell her something. She leaned over to put her face closer to his, listening.

“They’re not the same.”

She frowned. “What’s not?”

He shifted, blinking up at her. “Moth men. You might think they’re the same as the Jersey Devil, and the circumstances are similar, but they’re not the same.”

“You mean aside from the fact that this is Florida, not New Jersey?”

-Detour

One of the OGs (I believe.) Her TXF: Scenes in Between series plucks one moment from each episode and builds upon it, providing a window into either Mulder's or Scully's psyches. She even tackles Mulder's (alleged) Season 7 brain disease. Her Ao3 is here.

If you want more fic recs, I have lists catalogued under my Collector's Edition tag. If you want even more fic recs, I wrote a fanfic resource post here. And if those aren't enough to appease your hunger, @lilydalexf and @fine-nephrit have pinned master posts that will probably have something for you.

Hope this helped~! And drop back in sometime-- let me know if you read something you enjoyed, or found fanfic still isn't your preference. :DDDD

#txf #fic #mine #rec #thanks for droppin in~#I feel woefully inadequate to tackle this subject #but seriously: drop into their Tumblrs and ask for recs #which of their pieces they'd recommend you read etc.#they love to chat~#long-form fic writers #I'm a short fic lover for life #but these make me want to pull up a chair and read all over again

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moodymisty · 7 months ago

Note

I mean you got anything sweet for Blood Angels...

Though my brain keeps jumping to Flesh Tearers but I feel like that's just me trying to get myself to write for Flesh Tearers (and Lamenters)

(Rambling idea below)

I mean lets be honest Blood Angels are ultimate predators for humans... being so handsome I mean Sanguinius was often called ethereal and other worldly with his beauty. So of course his sons are handsome and all so well bred for the arts... easy to lure in many humans to just listen to their prose or see their paintings.

Just don't show up during your period because suddenly a lot of the poetry is about blood or blood adjacent... they can't seem to find the right red paint... and why do so many of them look at you like they are dying of thirst?

[ 𝕸𝖔𝖔𝖉𝖞𝕸𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖞'𝖘 𝕸𝖆𝖘𝖙𝖊𝖗𝖑𝖎𝖘𝖙 | 𝕬𝖔3 ]

Author’s note: Do I have something for Blood Angels- BOY DO I! Enjoy! I didn't exactly do your idea but I've had this plot in my head for weeks and wanted to use it and you're ask was the only one that let me /sob Not my best work by far, but I hope you enjoy.

Relationships: Unnamed Blood Angel/Fem!Reader

Warnings: NSFW, Oral, Period blood kink/menstrual kink that type of stuff, Is this too weird? maybe I dunno you guys all seem like freaks so hopefully this will go over well? If not I can just return to my dungeon

"Why are we going this way?"

This is a long way around, though some of the Red Tear's maintenance areas. He doesn't answer you however, and with disgruntlement you let the question lie as you return to more civilized parts of the Red Tear.

This whole interaction has been odd, since he had picked you up to escort you back from your duties. Normally he doesn’t act like this; He's stoic and lacks a good bit of emotion yes, but you almost feel as if now he’s taking you to your execution.

"I thought you were missing,"

You had jokingly said, walking closer to him. This planet had been pleasant enough after the Blood Angels brought it under the Imperium, but you're quite eager to return to Terra. Or at least the Red Tear.

He ignored your little comment and stepped closer, but you noticed his face change when he got close enough to touch you. His body became more rigid, and you furrowed your brow as you looked up at him.

"Are you ok?" You say as he clears his throat and nods stiffly. "Yes. We should return to the Red Tear. Our work here is done."

You look up at him again try and get any sort of hint as to how he's feeling, but he only has that same, stiff expression; Though slightly more irritated than usual.

You round yet another corner to see a group of freshly armored Blood Angels leaving one of the armoring rooms. They all perk up at the sight of you, staring at you like something fierce. You get more than a bit uncomfortable under their gaze, until your supposed guardian grabs your arm and swiftly pulls you down the hall past them. He glares at them to keep their distance, and you grab at his gauntlet to try and relieve some of the pressure. You're arm is in pain from how tight he's pulling you along, until you stop in front of a room he opens.

It's not your own, so you presume it's his. He shoves you inside.

"Stay here."

As a diplomat you technically reside outside the command structure of the Blood Angels, but no one in their right mind would disobey an astartes. Especially one that is looking at you with such fire in his eyes. He turns to leave, but your sudden question makes him turn towards you again.

"What is all this? Why are you-" He grabs you tight at the shoulder, and you gasp in pain as the force of it pins you to the wall.

"Why do you smell like blood?"

You pull at his hand and grimace in pain, and at his oddly specific question.

"What? It's just normal, It's that time of the-" He lightly shakes your shoulder and despite speaking relatively quiet, his voice still hits you in the chest with out seething it sounds.

"Every one of my brothers on this ship can smell you. You're lucky I got to you before one of them did."

Even if they did, why does he speak of it like something would happen? Like he avoided it for a reason? He's talking as if you would be in danger if they found you, for something seemingly so simple.

“What would happen if they did?”

You quietly question, watching the expression on his face instantly change. He looks conflicted, like he’s nearly lost in thought. For awhile you think you may not even get an answer from him, until you finally see his lips shift.

“I, assume you’ve heard mutterings of a curse in your time here.”

You have vaguely- even he had cursed it once. At the time you'd assumed it some sort of unfamiliar swear or perhaps just an odd phase adopted by Blood Angels, and so you'd paid it little mind other than the initial confusion. When you hesitantly nod, he continues.

“The curse is real. It has changed our legion. And,” You figure he’s about to speak a secret he shouldn’t to someone like you, so you stay quiet.

“It makes the smell of blood, tempting.” He continues. “It sates a hunger only we Blood Angels possess, and keeps us from going raving mad.”

He quiets, and you feels his gauntlets shift on your shoulders. He changes the subject to something adjacent; You assume he probably feels guilt for confessing a chapter secret to you.

“You’re not hurt?” He says confusedly. You aren’t particularly surprised he knows little about such things, though explaining it to him in this state would take far too long and be far too unfruitful.

“No. I'm fine.” He hums. You think you hear him mumble about hearing such a thing from somewhere, a woman's illness, and the comment would make you laugh if he wasn't looming down on you so intensely.

“Very well.” He shifts his jaw a bit, the scars along it shifting. He seems to have run out of things to say, though it also seems like he can't pull himself away from you. His throat and jaw are tightly wound, like he's holding something back.

“You want some… Don’t you?”

He seems surprised oddly enough; Perhaps by your bluntness and stupidity. Many legions would not take kindly to you assuming things about them, but Blood Angels are remarkably kinder. He is remarkably kinder.

“I," He grimaces. "I would owe you a great deal. Our superiors look at those with the Red Thirst as little more than a danger.”

The Blood Angels have been nothing but kind to you, in their own way. To even just be on the Red Tear is a safety and security you couldn’t repay.

It helps that it's him; You haven't ventured far around the Blood Angels ship alone, and you shamefully feel yourself beginning to get attached. If this curse can be sated by something so seemingly menial to you, then you have no reason to refuse.

“Ok.”

You move to take off your pants hands shaking just barely in nervousness, as he drops to his knee with one heavy thud. The sound startles you, just as your pants fall to the floor.

Once they’re off, and just your underwear remains, you hesitate for a moment. His stare is so intense, and you don't know how to describe it other than hungry. Given what he's told you, it makes perfect sense.

After what feels like and eternity of you being frozen, you finally manage to regain enough control to peel your underwear away. He viscerally reacts to the presumably iron filled scent, and the sight of blood against your now bare skin.

You see the way the knot in his throat bobs just above the black skinsuit beneath his armor.

With a speed that has you almost letting out a scream he grips your hips pulls them forward enough that the angle feels precarious, but he has a solid enough grip that leaves no chance of you falling. He throws your right leg over his shoulder next to open your thighs, your foot pressing against the front of his jetpack.

He hesitates for a moment, and you look away from the sheer intensity of his expression before you feel his hot breath on your skin.

You feel the moment he finally takes a taste and you can barely hold in a whimper, it coming out a tiny squeak as you feel the way his hands shift and tighten against your hips. Any hesitation he had is gone near instantly, as he presses his mouth against your cunt.

His armored hands grip at your hips with a strength that makes you ache and fear bruises, easily keeping your legs spread with minimal effort as his tongue laps at your folds. You can see the blood smear across his face, though he pays no mind. He acts as if this is the first meal he's had in ages, or the last he'll ever have.

But while perhaps your pleasure might not be at the forefront of his mind in his quite literal bloodlust, the way his tongue slips between your folds and teases you still makes shivers go up your spine. Your hands grip his hair and attempt to steady yourself, as his strength pushes you around. It's impossible to stop the way your hips push forward trying to get closer to him, gasping as he briefly brushes around your clit.

Suddenly however he pulls himself away, mouth stained much the same as your cunt and upper thighs are. You can see his eyes are glassy his throat bobs.

"I should stop."

He mumbles something to himself about loosing himself further to the Thirst, as if he's treading a line between sating his hunger or falling victim to it. You, perhaps stupidly, encourage him to do the exact opposite.

"No, no just, just a bit more,"

You breathlessly whisper and attempt to pull him closer. He silently resists for a moment, before the knot in his throat bobs and he returns his mouth to between your legs. You can't stop the loud moan you let out into the barren room, damning the consequences of anyone hearing you.

You're so close to that peak you only need a bit more, and the way his teeth scrape against your skin and nose presses against your clit gets you there. Your hands tighter in his hair and you inhale, trying not to cry out. But even after you start to come down he continues, his mouth overstimulating so many little nerves you feel on the edge of tears. Your face is hot as your fingers grip at his armor, desperately whining for him to simultaneously stop, and never stop.

He pulls away again, and gently emoves your leg from his shoulder to let you stand and wobbly attempt to yourself. Your knees feel weak and so many of your muscles are sore, even though he was exceedingly gentle with you.

Realizing his face is a mess, he uses the fabric of his cape to wipe it; How fortuitous the fabric is red.

"You should still keep clear of my brothers until this, passes. You never know how close one of them is to loosing themselves and hurting you." You'll heed the warning. If they're anything more than what gusto he already displayed, you wouldn't be surprised angels more lost to the thirst would be dangerous to you. He displayed a remarkable degree of restraint, you could tell.

Though, a curious part of your mind wonders what he'd be like if he hadn't.

"Do you at least feel better? I don't know how the Thirst works but," He nods.

"Yes. It is nice to not have my head so clouded. I... Thank you."

You smile, before accidentally letting more words tumble out of your lips that you should've allowed. It seems his presence always seems to makes you accidentally forget how to not act a fool.

"Always happy to help." He takes your phase at face value, though you suppose you wouldn't refuse him if he asked again. It wasn't as if this ended badly for you.

"You are kind, offering yourself to a Blood Angel. Not many would."

Beyond their sophisticated veneer they are still dangerous predators more than capable of killing you with the slightest motion, you understand why any few who learn about their supposed defect would fear them.

Maybe something is clouding your judgement, but you don't fear him; At least not yet.

Adjusting your clothing you watch as he rises to his full height, his cape flowing behind him. You grip your own fingers nervously and look around.

"But, would you mind bringing my back to my own quarters? I'll admit I have no idea where on the ship you brought me, and I'm still a bit woozy." He offers a gentle but stoic smile.

"Of course."

#space marine x reader #warhammer 40k x reader #reader insert #reader #mywriting

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soracities · 1 year ago

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how do you know when you're getting good at poetry? everybody dunks on halsey and rupi kaur's poetry, and i never really got why and idk if that's what i sound like

Honestly, I don't think there's ever a point at which you "know" you're getting good at poetry--I think "good" and "bad" are kind of vague and amorphous (and distracting) categories that don't do much in helping us understand the feel and impact of certain writing, chiefly because they can also be deeply subjective. How a poet views a particular work and how a reader views it will be very, very different because their relationship to the work is different. I also think "good" is a sort of external category that does not (or should not) carry into the act of writing itself--when you make "is this good?" the chief consideration as you write, you're not actually present in the writing: you're focused on the finished product, not the process, but the process is the most important thing: that's where the poem actually meets you. I think growth, in writing, is less about knowing if you're "good" in this regard, and more about being able to have confidence, or simply just trust, in the writing as it happens.

There's a famous saying somewhere that a work of literature is never "finished"--it just stops. I think skill, when it comes to writing, lies in recognising where this point is, in learning and developing how you navigate what it is you want to say, and how you say it. Some poems, eventually, reach a point where you can take them no further and you know there is nothing more to be said in them or through them. Some poems reach a point where you can take them no further, but there is still something left to be said in them. Those poems get revisited, worked, and reworked again, until they (maybe) get close to the first category: this may mean you work on them for a few weeks, or for years--but either way you are prioritizing the process of making the poem, not how it will be received. "Is this a good poem?" in my view at least, is not really the relevant question--what's relevant is "is this true to what I wanted to say?" Leonard Cohen famously wrote over 100 drafts of "Hallelujah"--I don't know if the central question for him here was just a matter of his skills as a songwriter.

Regarding Halsey and Rupi Kaur, I've only been able to read Halsey's poems through previews on Google Books so I don't know what other people's critiques are--based on what I saw, though, I don't know if it makes sense to criticize their quality as "poems" when she is primarily a songwriter and a lot of those poems wound up as songs. I'm more familiar with Rupi Kaur's writing, though, and others like her (Atticus, Michael Faudet etc), and while I have a personal policy of not getting into Kaur online (there's an ask here which is about as much as I'm willing to say regarding my feelings on her writing)--I can get into this trend or poetry "style" as a whole. And to be honest I think the chief issue here with poetry like this is that poetry, by definition, involves a deep and intimate relationship with language: this holds true regardless of whether the poem is simple, or complex, whether it's 5 lines long or goes on for 50 pages. As I said in that previous ask, it's not something you can reduce to a formula, nor is it a matter of mere reportage or a collection of statements: what makes a poem has nothing to do with line breaks (prose poems exist), but everything to do with how the language moves, how the language of a poem engages with its own content, with itself, and, as a result, with the reader.

The kind of work that proliferates on Instagram does not have that kind of engagement with language--they are, to me, pieces of information more than anything else. They reduce language to a series of stock phrases that act, not as actual words, but as images (and I don't mean this in a visually evocative way). It tries to evoke something that requires a thoughtful and sustained examination in order to be expressed, by surpassing the reality of what that examination actually requires. It tries to ape the effect of a powerful poem without the work that goes into actually being able to make that kind of a poem in the first place: and that work is a sustained encounter and confrontation with the language used and its relationship to what it tries to convey, in understanding that words are not interchangeable blocks you move around willy-nilly but that they have weight and intention, that they interact with each other to build up an idea or a feeling or a landscape in the most accessible way (insofar as language can make anything accessible, at least). But this is rarely, if ever, felt in IG poetry because it refuses to recognize or respect the demands and requirements of the medium it uses.

And because it is lacking in this engagement and recognition, these poems are also, for the most part, lacking sincerity--and this, to me, is one of the most crucial things when it comes to writing. I recall one IG poet whose work was in the same class as someone like Atticus, but I also recall one of his poems which genuinely moved me--and it moved me because, unlike everything else on his account, that poem felt sincere: the structure and the language wasn't any different to anything else he wrote, but in reading it, it was not a question for me of whether it was "bad" or "good"--what made the impact was that it was honest: and the difference showed. You can't come into a poem with ulterior motives. You can't come into it without an understanding, or respect, for the language you use. I'm absolutely not policing what people should or shouldn't read, and I'm not saying people are wrong for liking these poems, either, or that Halsey, Kaur, Atticus et al., are wrong for writing them. Expression is expression, and what speaks to you speaks to you. And to be honest, it is a different kettle of fish when you are writing something purely for yourself (and I think allowing yourself to partake in any kind of artform, without worrying about needing to be good at it, is deeply important for the human spirit)--but because they are putting their work out publicly, if we are going to be evaluating what they write and how they write it, that evaluation has to be rooted in an understanding of the art form they intend their work to be a part of.

For me, these are the main issues I have with these writers and their work and why I just do not like them. But I also want to stress that, ultimately, what you sound like in your own poems, anon, does not matter as much as being sincere to yourself does. As I said, I don' like using terms like "good" and "bad" and I think that often they're fairly reductive (and sometimes outright pointless) categories to use when we talk about and assess poetry--more than anything else, the key to building a robust and informed discernment when it comes to poems is to simply just read--read a lot of it and read widely. The broader and richer your repository of poetry (and literature in general) is, the more informed you are when it comes to all the different ways language can move through a poem, and all the different impacts it can have as a result. It deepens and enriches your understanding of all the different ways of looking at something, questioning something, expressing something. Your vocabularly grows and deepens; your net of associations--visual, linguistic etc--strengthens. And when this understanding grows you are able to place the things you read into a much wider and far more informed context. And this in turn allows you to grow as a reader and a writer. I hope this helps you a little, anon 💕

#ask #anonymous #book talks

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hedgehog-moss · 1 year ago

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Loved your mentioning of learning poetry by heart: this is something I haven’t done since school! What are some of your favs that you’d suggest to ease my brain back into it?

(Française ici donc les options 🇫🇷 autant que anglais sont welcome :) merci!)

Hi :) You can look at the poem tag of my quote blog if you want—some of the ones I've learnt by heart (or excerpts from them) include this one by Sara Teasdale - Nanao Sakaki - Velimir Khlebnikov - Wallace Stevens - Rabindranath Tagore - Archibald Macleish - Howard Nemerov - and these paragraphs by Henri Peña-Ruiz which I consider prose poetry... My favourite French verses (from Corneille, Aragon, Anna de Noailles, Hugo, Valéry...) are all alexandrines and I find it to be the easiest type of verse to remember, as the structure is so rigorous and consistent. I sometimes translate English poems into alexandrines (like this one) to make them easier to learn in this more familiar form—I think even after all this time English prosody still feels foreign to me; the patterns of sound and rhythm in French are more deeply embedded in my brain so it can more easily predict what comes next...

Re: easing your brain into it, I guess that depends on your style of learning? For me the best way to learn a text is to spend time with it in written form, be it by translating it, or by writing it down by hand (slowly) and then (sometimes) keeping it for a while in a place where I often stand idle, like taped to my microwave so I re-read it as I wait 1 minute for something to heat up.

One thing I like about learning poems is that it's a costless, always-accessible way to get a sense of personal accomplishment. Beyond that, I've got three categories of poems I like to learn for different reasons—I'll go into some detail in case it can help you figure out what you're after :)

1. Classic poetry, because it's just fun to have little snippets of ancient tragedies or epic Victor Hugo poems living at the back of your mind and accompanying you through your own everyday tragedies—as an overdramatic person who tends to feel devastated or exasperated over tiny stuff, it helps me to take some distance from my feelings. Like if I spill a bucket of manure on my boots and my first reaction is rage and despair and my second thought is a couple of verses by Euripides where Iphigenia bemoans her relentless fate, it's a way to make fun of (and get over) myself.

My grandmother did this a lot, she knew so many poems by heart and often used them ironically. If I went whining to her when I was little she'd recite to me the last few verses of Alfred de Vigny's La Mort du Loup (it sounds better in the original but):

[...] With all your being you must strive To that highest degree of stoic pride [...] Weeping or praying—all this is in vain. You must instead shoulder your long and heavy task In the way that Destiny has seen fit to ask Then suffer and die without complaint.

(Let me tell you, that's just what a five-year-old wants to hear after scratching her knee at the park) But really I admired this treasury of poetry she carried within her, especially as she only went to school until age 14 and came upon most of it thanks to her own curiosity; as well as the way she used it playfully in everyday life, using dramatic classical verse to de-dramatise minor annoyances.

2. Nature poems are great in the opposite way, to magnify minor positive things :) Like seeing a fox and having a few lines by Mary Oliver come to mind, seeing a frog and thinking of that Basho haiku... I recently discovered Jean-Michel Maulpoix and I also love his nature poems, like 'The recovery of blue after a downpour', the way he describes snow melting in the spring, or golden-blue evenings:

[Snow] takes some time to leave, but delicately. She doesn’t insist, hardly persists, never roots… She gives way. No one else dies so merrily With such good humour Unmatched is her disdain for eternity…

L’azur, certains soirs, a des soins de vieil or. Le paysage est une icône. Il semble qu’au soleil couchant, le ciel qui se craquelle se reprenne un instant à croire à son bleu.

3. And then there are the poems that proudly serve no purpose. <3 I mean beyond distilling language in a beautiful way. No deep meaning—or no meaning at all, e.g. surrealist poetry. I learnt this passage from Les Champs magnétiques back in middle school:

La fenêtre creusée dans notre chair s'ouvre sur notre cœur. On y voit un immense lac où viennent se poser à midi des libellules mordorées et odorantes comme des pivoines. Quel est ce grand arbre où les animaux vont se regarder ? Il y a des siècles que nous lui versons à boire. . . Prisonniers des gouttes d'eau, nous ne sommes que des animaux perpétuels. . . Nous ne savons plus rien des astres morts ; nous regardons les visages. . . Quelquefois, le vent nous entoure de ses grandes mains froides et nous attache aux arbres découpés par le soleil.

—and I've often recited it to myself just to enjoy these gratuitously nice sentences that aren't here to deliver information. Like Kay Ryan said, "Poetry makes nothing happen. That's the relief of it." It's a nice break, a way to remember that communicating isn't all language is for; beyond the social dimension there's also an intimate one that relies on our own aesthetic sensitivity. Most of the time we look through language, to access ideas, meanwhile enjoying poetry means looking at language, for a change, appreciating it for itself.

I just realised I'm paraphrasing John Brehm here—in The Poetry of Impermanence he wrote something that can be read as an ode to learning things by heart:

When you read lines that seem especially lit up—that move or intrigue you in some way, or that are simply pleasing or even dazzling—don’t focus on being able to formulate a statement about what they might mean, as if you might be called upon to explain the poem, to yourself or to someone else. Just linger with those poems or passages that resonate with you. . . Rest your mind on them; let them live inside you.

#ask #poetry

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melit0n · 6 months ago

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I wanted to add on to this ask done by an anon on ST confessions, because they are so right and they made something click in my brain. Do go read it before you read this.

First, off, heavy agree that Fall for Me is designed to be a lonely song, both lyrically, and quite smartly, musically. In every single other song Sleep Token has ever done there is music. There is noise, always. Even in times where there should be silence, there never is any. Instead, it's filled by sounds of birds, a taught guitar chord or chewing and biting.

Fall for Me, however, is utter silence. There's no musical reply. No SFX, no subtle drums or bass; no nothing. It's the one of the few songs (along with Missing Limbs, Take Aim and Drag me Under) in which Vessel directly addresses the love he holds for this person. It's not layered in metaphors, prose and an eloquent vernacular, it's straightforward. While his poetry in other songs is used to draw Them in, decorate his love and entice Them, he's done with getting nothing. He wants to be an equal, a lover, but he gets naught.

The reason why, other than the obvious choice of acapella instead of instruments, the song feels so lonely is because it's the only song- overall- that he doesn't get a response to. Sugar is the response to The Offering, Say That You Will is the response to Take Aim etc., but here? Cold, dead silence. No gesture in tongues, no crushing 'affection'; no nothing.

So, to the rhythm of eternity, he will be on that beach, stumbling, crawling and shouting out the same question that he will never get an answer to; won't you fall for me?

However, even though, unlike most songs that get an answer within their album, Vessel gets one in the next. Take Me Back To Eden, therefore, becomes the answer to that question. As well as Vessel's action against it.

@lifemod17 saw you reblog the ask as well, thought you might like this :]

#or rather Vessel attempting to gain an answer and in discovering that- because of the nature of Sleep- he will never become an equal #he finally understands that there is no point in trying for someone who is physically and mentally unable to comprehend giving him the ->#same power They have over him #and his response? His action? He breaks the bough. When I say TMBTE I mean not only the song but the whole album #it's kind of like when Cain kills his brother and he asks God 'Am I my brother's (humanity's) keeper?' and the rest of the Bible acts ->#as an answer to that question #do let me know if I'm making a mountain out of a mole hill though #also add your thoughts! I'd love to hear what you guys think #mel's rambles #sleep token #st #vessel #vessel sleep token #fall for me #song fall for me #tpwbyt #this place will become your tomb #sleep token lore #lore theories #lyric analysis #music analysis

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jesncin · 7 months ago

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please do tell about why woman of tomorrow sucks i love reading your takes they’re always so well written

Sure! And thank you for throwing me this bone because WOOF

(btw it's totally fine for people to like Woman of Tomorrow, and I can even see why! This is just my experience with it that I wish was talked about more)

Quick context: Woman of Tomorrow is about a space farmgirl named Ruthye who seeks revenge on Krem, a guy who killed her dad. Supergirl guides her on this journey so they can learn lessons about grief and revenge.

The biggest flaw of the comic is the narrative prose. Ruthye's dialogue is a rambly, over-indulgent, stylized mix of an attempt at medieval Shakespearian speak, but then in the last few issues the writer remembers she's a farmgirl so he decides she should suddenly say "ain't" more often and speak in double negatives to sound a bit more Southern. I can enjoy wordy comics! But Ruthye's dialogue and narration is blatantly excessive purple prose. So many scenes would hit harder with a less-is-more approach while still being stylized and characteristic. Sometimes the narrations pairs nicely with the art to create layered irony, but most of the time it feels like it's disregarding the comics medium altogether.

The other thing about Ruthye's narration is that it holds the story back. I get that the narration is Ruthye writing from the future, but the way it's done gives us a very passive relationship with the events of the story. We don't get to be with the characters in the action heavy moments because we're reading caption boxes of Future Ruthye rambling about poetry recounting The Battle of Capes. I'm not experiencing grief or dread with the characters, I'm being told about it. All of Ruthye's narrative rants boil down to "Supergirl is really badass, sad and kind. I promise this is deep." and "here's how my farm girl experience is relevant to this". Ruthye also speaks in glowing admiration, idealization and worship of Supergirl; it makes it really hard to get to know Kara in a humanizing way. I'm sure the purple prose hits differently for others, but I personally think the story would have more room to breathe without it.

You know how people like saying "Superman is boring because everything is too easy for him, he's too powerful" yeah that's Woman of Tomorrow. The conflict Kara faces are not challenges to her character, they're inconveniences. The resolutions to each story don't feel clever or earned. Kara just knows where to find the murdered purple aliens, Kara just happens to have a silver age-reference magical horse that can outrun the suffering-ball Krem throws at her, Kara just toughs out 10 hours in the green sun. Why be a smart storyteller when you can just give your heroine the upper hand every single time? There could've been a great bonding moment where Ruthye uses her famer-smarts to build shade for Kara, she could've crafted a salve to protect Kara's skin. But I guess having her guard Kara from dinosaurs is ok. Kara helps of course, even though she's dying because she's so cool, badass, sad, kind, etc.

Kara's internal conflict is that she was hoping that taking Ruthye on this journey would teach the farmgirl a lesson about revenge, but has Kara herself learned to move on? She's still thinking about Krypton after all. The problem with how this is presented is that it's not a flaw that we get to see evolve with the story. We see Kara act mopey, get an origin story flashback and then Kara tells us this- in hopes it'll recontextualize everything you've read before. By the time we make it to the end, the characters act like they've learned so much and I'm just standing here wishing I got to see all this growth they're talking about.

At the heart of it, I feel like Woman of Tomorrow represents the side of Super-fandom that wants to see the Kryptonians deified by the narrative. They hate seeing Kara do silly girly rom-com teenager things, she needs to be SERIOUS and EDGY and SAD and ALONE but like a god would be and not how a young woman would be that way. How else will boys take her seriously? Don't forget to remind the reader that she's STRONGER than her boy scout wholesome cousin! There's potential in a short revenge story about young girls finding hope in seeing a role-model woman survive loss, but not like this.

"You don't think I could've solved all those problems? C'mon I'm Supergirl." I sure love seeing female characters be badass girl-god legends who don't get to be humanized by being unflatteringly flawed people. Anyway the better Supergirl grief+revenge story is "Supergirl: Being Super". I don't think it's perfect because it misses the crucial difference between Kal and Kara among other things- but as a story about a teenage heroine learning how grief shapes her and those around her, it's way better.

Woman of Tomorrow's art is stellar though lmao would get a copy just as an artbook to reference.

#askjesncin #woman of tomorrow #jesncin dc meta #media criticism #there's a whole Ruthye rant where she talks about how superfam stories aren't pointless because they'll meet opponents stronger than them #and then the story proceeds to show supergirl defeating genocide pirates no biggie with help from horse #all she had to do was fight harder

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utilitycaster · 2 months ago

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Would you be willing to share your thoughts about The Salt Grows Heavy if you've finished it by now? When I read it, I was left quite disappointed/it felt pretty lackluster to me on several points and I'm very curious about your opinion, especially beyond the prose style (I have a higher tolerance for purple prose than you, it seems, but at points it could get over the top imo. If I wanted to read flowery words that sound pretty when strung together, I'd read some poetry or a thesaurus and not a prose horror novella.)

So this is a little tough because when it comes to body horror, I tend to have to judge it on the Ebert “does it achieve what it’s intending to do” metric rather than “do I think it’s awesome” because I’m not very into body horror as a genre; either it grosses me out too much or, more often, I’m just like “was there a point to this other than trying to be shocking.” I do like retellings of fairy tales, and I do think the Little Mermaid often gets made too cute, though I think this swung the pendulum way too far in the other direction. I particularly enjoyed the relationship between the mermaid and the plague doctor, and found that the core of truth and real poignancy amid the rubbish of way too many adjectives. I also enjoyed the fact that the mermaid could regenerate, since explorations of immortality are very much my thing and since a lot of Little Mermaid Darker and Edgier retellings lean way more into how she is forever voiceless and hobbled by sacrifice; I like that she has far more power here.

I also came in with truly basement-level expectations because I was so put off by the writing style, so if you were coming in with a lot of hype, that might mean we felt the same but I was pleasantly surprised that it was OK and not awful, and you were disappointed that it was OK and not incredible.

If I can be a little dismissive, the book does seem geared towards the Cannibalism As Devotion Girlies and I find all that shit kind of tedious. Like live your truth and I know we are on the Cannibalism As Devotion/Loyal Like a Guard Dog website but actually I vastly prefer when people are independent and do not throw themselves on a pyre when their love dies; ironically the part of the story that interests me most (the ten years of figuring out how to bring back the plague doctor) gets skipped over. Which I get, because that’s not the story being told, but basically the whole time I’m like “I feel there’s a better story with these characters that didn’t have enough random gore in it for the author’s taste, and they are entitled to that taste, but it sure ain’t my taste.”

This probably doesn’t help you because the above is all extremely idiosyncratic which is why I’ve tried to stress that Khaw’s style is just not for me on a multitude of levels, and reserved my judgements beyond “boring to me specifically but that is just me.” I will say the final bit at the end is maddening (And in Our Daughters We Find A Voice) because it is written more sparingly and it’s MILES better as a result, although Khaw might be going for the contrast.

Would also add. Khaw uses "slants a look" (or occasionally "cranes a look" the way R.A. Salvatore uses "lavender orbs" and I WILL be slanting a look with my olivine orbs at the Laudna book for this phrase and keeping count, bc it's like, if you use this phrase once or twice it's whatever, it could even have an effect depending on context, but using it repeatedly is like. what does this achieve that saying "I look at him" doesn't? This isn't adding anything. I may have lost my attempt to maintain my stance of "it's just not really for me" here, but increasingly I feel like this is one of those writing styles that only impresses the kind of people who have gotten into impassioned arguments on Twitter about how YA and fanfic are the most valid forms of literature and all books for adults are just about middle-aged white people divorcing. The thing about embellishment is that if you use it constantly on everything it just becomes a literal and figurative drag.

#answered #Anonymous

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tvchi · 6 months ago

Text

Echoes of Intrigue: Prt 1

Villan

Lola

Disclaimers: DO NOT COPY OR REPOST MY WORK.

DO NOT TRAIN AI WITH MY WORK.

Warnings: Mature Audiences ONLY: 18+, Minors DNI- Kidnapping and Bondage.

Pairing: black male x black female

Word Count: 1942

A/N: So I'm fairly new to writing fan fiction and new to writing short stories. I began writing poetry and spoken word, then tried my hand at prose. I've been reading a lot of @megamindsecretlair 's stories as well as @thecapodomme 's story and I thought I'd try my hand. I have posted another short story that wasn't really fan fiction on my page before called The Challenge. I didnt cast it or anything this elaborate, but yea. I'm trying to get better at writing more stories and prompts really help. Casting my stories after writing them actually helps to keep me motivated so I thought this was a good marriage of the two forms. This story currently consists of two parts. I will lay the first part out and then link the second part (when I figure out how to do that lol). If these parts get positive feedback, then I'll force myself to develop the story even further and write the third. Your feedback is greatly appreciated because I'm really trying to get better. So Like, Comment, and Reblog if the spirit moves you. ❤️❤️🥰

Tags: @thecapodomme @writers-of-tmblr @melaninpov @spaceslutsworld @nahimjustfeelingit-writes @mymusicbias @the-black-label @master-builder42 @miraculously-dumb-bitch @megamindsecretlair @hopefulromantic1 @tranquilfandomer @thadelightfulone @vivalaorgasm

PART 1

The sounds of footsteps are heard in the distance. They are all too familiar. The cadence of his strides haunts my dreams. Always four evenly paced steps before a slight halt. It’s almost as if he’s deciding, studying, …. calculating. He absorbs me. Maybe that’s how he can take me time and time again. He knows how I squirm, how I walk, how I do my hair, and the next time I’ll need tampons. At least, that’s what happened this time. I went to Kroger to get tampons, while walking back to my car everything went dark.

Waking up here would make this the fourth time I have been dragged here in thirteen months. I’m not sure what’s worse, the fact that I keep getting taken or that I haven't made any strides to stop this from happening. The hard, steel chair that I’ve gotten to know these past couple of months comforts me a bit. It’s about the only thing that hasn’t changed. Every time, there's a different warehouse, dungeon, storage site, or wherever this is. The lights are always dimmed but there’s always a change in hue from the little I can see through the blindfold. The smells are different, sometimes reeking of mildew and sweat. Other times, it smelled of must and concrete. This time it smelled of wood and dust. Every time I would wake up to this familiar cold chair, I rubbed the spot where I scratched lines into the legs with my nails, and that’s when I knew I hadn't been making this up.

He steps closer to me. Barely touching me, he lays something down at my feet. Maintaining minimal contact is a good way to avoid a scuffle and getting his skin under my nails. It’s also a good way to prevent me from noticing a scent or any identifiable body markings, but I have the smell of a bloodhound. Something is different. Something has changed. He doesn’t smell of the usual skin and sweat but of something recognizable. Something that I’ve smelled many times before but can’t quite place.

“Why me? Why are you always doing this to me? Have I done something to you,” I say hoarsely.

I tried my best to keep my voice even. This was an attempt at a conversation, not a cry for mercy or an admonishment. He said nothing. He never speaks.

“I just want to know why you keep taking me and then letting me go. Wouldn’t it be easier just to kill me?” I ask, measuring my breaths in between words. Calm. Even.

He remains silent. That was irritating to me. The least he could do was reveal a sinister plot or threaten to kill me. He wields his power mercilessly, offering me nothing to hang on to not even the next minutes. There is nothing to look forward to but darkness. I can’t plan my prayers or meals or thoughts. I never know when I’ll go; whether this time will be the last.

The heavy thud of his footsteps suggests that he wears construction or heavy hiking boots. He walks beyond me, hopefully, to retrieve some water or food now that I’m awake. Our last couple of encounters have convinced me that he can’t cook worth a damn. Each time even worse than the last. I never look forward to his sardine surprises, and sometimes, he mixes them with canned beans or cream corn. I imagine that he’ll stay away from the beans this time, being that he had to empty two buckets worth of shit last time. I didn’t feel bad or embarrassed either. Fuck ‘im. That's what you get for kidnapping a girl with a sensitive stomach. I’d kill for a sardine sandwich right about now, though.

It fell silent for a while.

That means this room is large or leads to other rooms. The problem is, I never can find a way out. I’ve only been freed because he had let me go. Once, some homeless men found me in an old sewage system. Another time, I was in a forest preserve forty-two miles from home and I hiker alerted the police. Yet another time, I was found by a janitor in the basement of a city mall that was getting renovated. This last time, I woke up chained to a different chair in the expressway facing oncoming traffic. That made the news. No one knew how I got there. No one saw anything. The street cameras were as useless as the people the police interviewed. Each time he frees me it gets more elaborate. This time, I don’t struggle or exhaust myself trying to imagine an escape. No. This time, I should start looking for patterns and motives. Who would do this to me? Who hates me so much to have me kidnapped once a month? I don’t make many enemies as a data analyst. I’ve worked on some high-profile cases recently, but no one gives credit to the data analyst who tracks the numbers and bank accounts of the bad guys. All the credit goes to the men in black or the blue windbreakers. He never asks for any information from me. This can’t be from work.

“Not again,” I think as my heart quickens its pace.

I feel him before I hear him. He walks back towards me. This time another sound accompanies him, a light yet sharp resonance. It is chow time. He sits the food down in front of me and removes the blindfold. It’s dark, with just a stream of light peeking through, reminiscent of those through a pinhole camera, to illuminate the cold plate in front of me. As I glance over my plate, his gaze brooding over me at a distance, I wonder how he could even see in the dark. He could go one living in the shadows, feasting on girls shopping at Kroger, dragging his spoils back to his layer.

My inner thoughts are running wild at this point.

“Ok, focus on what you know, Lola,” I think.

I don’t personally know any creeps who would keep doing this to me. I stopped dating entirely after the first time this happened. After the second time, I was scared to leave my house, so I had a therapist and a psychoanalyst come to my house three times a week to walk me through what happened and get me acclimated to going outside again. They claimed I wasn’t a true agoraphobe, I just had severe PTSD. The third time it happened, a bunch of shitty kids heard about my story and decided to go on social media and talk about how I was probably staging my kidnappings. The videos went viral. The police started coming by less and less and brushing off my case. I was no longer a priority but a possible psych case. I started thinking that maybe I was going crazy and perhaps I was staging these kidnappings, blacking out, and forgetting my elaborate plans for attention. I was enrolled in group therapy and started focusing on healing. After that, I started going out with the new friends I met in group therapy. I even managed to bump into the most thoughtful man on earth.

“Shit, is Max looking for me? Has he called me? Did he go by the house?” my thoughts spiraling.

“You should know that I’m on my period and I need to change my feminine products. Folks don’t think about that when they are kidnapping women. At least, I don’t think they do. You never really see it in the movies. No action movie that I have ever seen had a girl kidnapped in the thick of her menstrual cycle. You should call Paramount about that and show ‘em how it’s done. Representation and all that. Justice for the vaginas. Hashtag: me too, my period is not taboo!” I rambled.

I do that when I’m nervous. I do that when there’s nothing else to do. Maybe it’s because I fear silence. I wonder if the last thing I’ll hear is nothing at all. I take another teaspoon of spam and throw it into my mouth, attempting to swallow it instead of chewing. I feel around for the glass of water he always puts beside the beef, being careful not to knock it over. Once I find it, I chug it down. It would be the last bit of water I’ll have until it’s time to eat again. He walks back to me and takes away the tray with the water and the plate of barely-eaten Spam. I try to look around as much as possible before he places the blindfold back over my eyes. I feel around for any loose object on the ground with my feet, hoping to find something that I could use to get me out of the zip ties he will place back around my wrists. I try to wiggle my way out of the ties around my ankles in a last-ditch effort. I give it the good old college try for tradition’s sake and then give up as his footsteps return. I wonder if he just saw all of that. I wonder if he was looking right at me.

He is back right in front of me now, and there is a pause for a moment, almost as if he is deciding on something. A moment later, he places the blindfold back over my eyes and lifts me out of the chair in one swift motion. We are closer now. And there it is again—Musk, sweat, and …sandalwood. I hold onto that as we walk about twenty paces and then turn a corner. Within five more paces, we come to a door. He opens it and sits me on what feels like a toilet. The lights are dimmed and he places a thin, square object in my left hand and a couple of thinner, tubular objects in my right hand. Wait, are these…are these feminine products? Had he granted a request? That was a …first.

“I’m going to need to see or else there'll be blood everywhere. I would hate for that to happen, especially given what happened last time. We don’t have the greatest track record with bodily fluids,” I jest.

There was a pause. A hare longer than the one before I was carried over here. He was contemplating again. The door slammed in my face when the blindfold was finally lifted, and the surrounding light dimmed significantly. I could tell that he was directly behind the door. He was probably watching, who knows, but I peed and changed. I feel clean and dry for the first time since waking up to this darkness. I am grateful. I also thought about what I could use to get out of those zip ties he’d place me back in once he noticed I was finished. I’ll shove the other two tampons in my boots for now. I’ll figure out what to do with these later. I knocked on the door to signal that I was done. He opens the door and carries me back to the chair. Once at the chair, he places my hands behind my back and zip-ties them. He ties the blindfold lightly over my eyes and places what appears to be extra water by my side before walking out of the vicinity.

“Being extra nice to me, Sandalwood,” I taunt. “Must be the period thing.”

PART 2

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kageygreye-skies · 5 months ago

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didn’t think chappell roan would impact me SO much after finding her and her artistry but she kind of literally made me fully accept that i was a lesbian and showed me there’s space for me in the community LMFAO.

allow me to take you on a fuckin journey lmfao. heres a lil story about a recent revelation about my identity that dominoed from listening to the rise and fall of a midwest princess. lol

i found chappell technically whenever she released pink pony club lol i just had never processed it was her. (i listened to midwest princess for the first time a long while who and when it got to ppc, i paused my phone, and yelled, “THAT WAS HER? THE WHOLE TIME??”), her pop sound and drag visuals were something i found refreshing and exciting. discography went triple platinum in my household fr.

watching a lesbian drag queen rise in the public has been so lovely to see, as a queer singer myself. watching that same woman be so open about her experience as a lesbian, pay homage to other gay individuals and icons, turn down the white house for a pride performance, perform at prides in states where lgbt rights are consistently under threat,,, its beyond inspiring to me! and reminds me to remember what i really want to do with my career as a performer and the people i want to lift up and pay my respects to.

this ultimately caused me to want to brush up on the queer history i knew and start learning about the history i didnt. at that time my focus veered to history about lesbians.. because i wanted to search for lesbians that shared my experience.. if there were any that did.

i have had a strange relationship with my gender and sexuality since i was 13, coming out first as bi at 15, and nonbinary at 17 (although i experienced gender dysphoria long before then). i have used the nonbinary label since, but my sexuality was something i was never sure i could settle on. i flipped between id’ing as bi and lesbian for months until i just stopped using labels so i didnt have to think abt that shit anymore😭

the term lesbian was what felt the most right to me, after years of periods of trying to convince myself that if i jump through strange loopholes and squint a little, that i could potentially like a man. i would worry and think things like, “what if im wrong and i just havent found one that i can maybe like? what if there actually is a boy who is exactly like the idealized anime-ass version of boys in my head who is also soft and girlie and would wear matching dresses with me?” i would have to use plenty of implausible what ifs just to entertain the idea. i did this even despite the fact that i cannot and do not picture a future with a man, i have only questioned my physical attraction to men when they “look like girls,” i am almost always slightly grossed out when men express sexual attraction to me, and have not had any kind of intimacy with guys where i didnt feel almost completely disconnected. i didnt find men fulfilling. it took me very long to realize that if i have to literally FORCE myself into liking them…i dont like them lol.

i have never had to question my attraction to women, butches + femmes,, ever. i could spend hours writing both prose, poetry, music, screenplays,, just fuckin dissertation after dissertation about women.. and sometimes it has taken me hours to list at least 5 reasons of “why i like this guy” that didnt involve him reminding me of a woman. guys, the comphet.. was rough. very grateful i have a therapist lol

once i accepted again that i was definitely solely sapphic, i still felt my more-than-partial disconnect from womanhood excluded me from being able to claim the lesbian label, despite how right it began to feel. i was also worried that the people around me would think i was completely detransitioning to cis,, which definitely was not the case. although i am fine with feminine gendered terms and pronouns, and while my expression and interests lean slightly more feminine, my relationship with “womanhood” has always been messy and complicated. i remember first-ish experiencing dysphoria around when i was 11, although i didnt know what that meant at the time. for as long as i can remember, the concept of “being a woman” was not something i felt was entirely me.

i knew there were lesbians that were gender non conforming, but i was not at all aware of the intertwining of lesbianism and gender identity until i began reading more about lesbian history. realizing there have always been lesbians outside of the binary (the popular sunset lesbian flag was designed by emily gwen, a nonbinary lesbian), people who used lesbian/butch as their gender identity, cis lesbians who use pronouns other than she/her, lesbians who use/have used hrt (like me i used hrt for 2 years👋🏾😀) lesbians who bind or pursue top surgery… they were always there. i am halfway through the stone butch blues now and it has actually changed my life. not only did it increase my already overflowing gratitude for my lesbian and queer elders and their experiences… but it made me really realize there has always been a space for me. when that sank in.. i felt immense relief. and then i cried for a fuckin LONG ass time lmao

since all of this i have felt a lot more sure of myself, and have embraced myself in a way i think i have always struggled to before.

so to recap… i am a lesbian. and its pretty rad. and i also love chappell roan. she reminds me of all the reasons why i love being queer and is someone i want to look up to as i continue in my finally-starting-to-go-somewhere career as a performer. one day we will collab and ill tell her all of this in person (watch out yall! it will happen i can sense it😤)

#thank you to the 2 people that will read this lol #idk i feel like i just re came out even tho i told ppl i was a lesbian months ago lol #lesbian #lesbian community #lesbian pride #lesbian positivity #pride #pride month #nonbinary lesbian #nonbinary #stem lesbian #chappell roan #chappell

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compacflt · 2 years ago

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my apologies if this is too simple or juvenile or personal a question but HOW did you become such a proficient writer? and do you have any tips or pointers to keep in mind? i know you must do a lot of reading and a lot of writing, but your skill is just incredible to me. your prose!! your cadence!! when we get around to talking about it is genuinely one of the best things i've ever read and i'd eat it if i could!!!

this ask was so sweet thank you!! rly made my day when i needed a boost. Hope you don’t mind i took a couple days to think about it cause no one’s ever asked me for writing advice before

idk how i became a “proficient” writer bc I really don’t write that much. something about my fic gave me brainworms and i went into overdrive but that’s…not my usual MO. which is why it’s weird for me too. admittedly i am studying english/creative writing as my second major at uni, but i haven’t learned anything in any of my classes you couldn’t learn by just reading and writing on your own. honestly i should’ve stuck with my IR major instead, i find structured cw classes a complete waste of time. but here are some little tips i thought of that would’ve helped ME:

This is more a “do as I say not as I do” because I’m really bad at habits like this, but keep a diary. You can write about the big events (went to the store, did homework, got laid etc.) but that’s boring—focus on the details (watched someone at west side market throw a glass bottle of olives at a rat, broke a pen and permanently stained my dorm desk and won’t get my deposit back which pissed me off because I move out in a week, this guy’s breath smelled like lemon pledge and it made me wonder if he drank window cleaner before kissing me etc.). Real life is really interesting! How can you write about interesting real life in an interesting way? It’s a good way to practice. You don’t have to do a big reflection at the end of the day or anything. It’s okay to jot down something you saw & then immediately forget about it. It’s the act of figuring out how to translate life into words that’s important

If you type, learn how to type FAST. This is just my experience, but I think typing faster makes your cadence, clause length, dialogue, IDEAS flow better/more naturally. We think in words/sentences, not letters.

This is a super lame tip that’ll make you roll your eyes, but read poetry. Poetry is all about how words/ideas/images sound and interact with each other. Don’t get hung up on one poet—im not really recommending any for precisely this reason—read poetry you love (for me, Ada Limón, Jack Kerouac, Frank O’Hara, ghazals etc) AND read poetry you hate (for me, Rupi Kaur, Emily Dickinson, Whitman, etc)! Read all genres you can get your hands on. (I think there are like “great poetry anthologies” you can find for free online if u don’t know where to start. Also you can’t go wrong with subscribing to/reading a variety magazine like the NYer. It’s pretentious but it exposes you to all kinds of weird topics, ways of writing about them, etc.) Figure out how certain combinations of words and punctuations make you FEEL, and why, and why the writer chose (or not) to make you feel that way. Figure out which literary sounds you like and which ones you don’t. For me, i figured out that I REALLY like alliteration, comma splices, zeugmas, the rule of three, and

“he’s [verb]ing again… yeah compacflt’s characters are [verb]ing again… big shocker”

If you have an idea for a piece, figure out what it is you really want to get out of it—to say something? to experiment with a different style? to see your fav characters do something? to have fun?—and then figure out how, on a technical level, you should write to match that goal (this is where the poetry training comes in handy). If you’re just writing to have fun, don’t listen to any writing advice (incl. mine), because most of it is bullshit and over-generalized and will make you feel bad about yourself. Just take the advice that you think will work for what YOURE trying to write.

But if you’re writing to explore some political idea, then you should think about HOW to best write about that idea. What would be a convincing story/allegory/scene to engage with this idea vs. not convincing. I talk on this blog all the time about how disappointed I am that my very-adult-grown-up attempt to deal with the dynamic of “immovable internalized homophobia vs unstoppable falling in love anyway” is rendered a little childish/immature by some pretty unconvincing plot points like the characters buying a house together—I really should have considered how that plot point would interact with the characterizations I’d built already (hint: poorly). You can think of writing as kind of a military structure if that helps—you have strategy on the overarching campaign (plot/character growth/allegory/theme) level, the battle (scene that advances the above) level, and the tactical (sentence-level construction/syntax/wording) level. They all have to work together. If a scene is failing to properly engage with the idea you’re trying to convey, you’re losing a battle that will weaken the overarching campaign. Same thing if you choose a weird word in a sentence/write in a style or tone that’s weirdly out of place with your idea—it makes your engagement with the theme/idea less convincing. just try to be purposeful and consider your strategy on all levels of your work as you’re writing it!! At the very least it’ll make editing easier lol.

But then again when I read my own writing from just a couple months ago I cringe out of my skin, so like—just also accept that it’s a process and we’re all just making it up as we go along. Be proud of being embarrassed of your old work, because it means you’re growing. Own that shit. When I finished writing WWGATTAI i thought it was the best thing I’d ever written, and maybe it was. But since the day I finished working on it, it’s the worst thing I’ve written since then. That’s a great feeling. Not to be like writing grindset obviously bc it’s supposed to be fun—but if what you want is to get better at writing, the strategy is to WRITE a whole bunch of shit, and then own your embarrassment about how much you’ve grown since you started. And know you’re still always growing and learning. there should never be any “goals” where skills are concerned 👍🏽

#fake it till u make it #the good part about fiction is all you’re really doing is makin shit up #no rules!!!#fiction is just trying to sell a lie right #so it’s all on a sliding scale of convincability (at least that’s how i judge fiction)#and figuring out how to convince people of your lie is where the art is #anyway.#not top gun #asks #writing tips #idk how to tag this #also i love ao3 because trying to get published traditionally genuinely made me hate writing/MY writing #i have indeed had the cliche 100+ form rejection letters experience #unfortunately writing is also one of those things where you can see it as a competition so easily #(admittedly a small part of why i don’t read other TG fics—i don’t wanna read people doing it better than me😭)#BUT you tailor your experience to have a healthy life. it’s not a competition if you don’t make it one. put yourself first

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definegodliness · 5 months ago

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Hi hi. I hope this finds you well. Haha.

Your work is fucking riveting. Just the perfect amount of Perplexing, relatable and You.

I keep wondering, given you mentioned you didn't ever expect or perhaps want, to get into writing how did writing find you and how is your experience. Writing. What does that feel like for you?

And your writing voice. Its so eloquent so... artful..is that something you cultivated or was that simply a natural happening.

Personally I find nyself very disconnected from my work and the experience when i try to actively cultivate or "play around" with technique and prose etc. I naturally have a keeness to word play of sound and feel. Cadence. But the eloquence of your word choice is beauteus. Its something I would love to see in my own work im not quite sure though how to approach that goal whilst staying connected and thoroughly immersed in my experience when writing.

Hello there, Anon,

Thank you for your glowing, upbeat words. They have found me very well today, and I will cherish them. I did not expect to get into writing, because as a young adult my aim was to be successful in a rather narrow- corporate-minded way. I aimed for a job that paid well. So, writing absolutely did not fit my ego-fueled ambitions. A simpleton I was, but fortunately I can blame my inexperience in doing this living thing. I have always been a logophile. A word sponge. I care not for archaism or rarity, what matters is descriptiveness. When I find a word that is oddly particular, specialist, and above all precise, I experience a sense of elation. Even more when I finally get to use such a word. I guess you could say I favor precise communication over clear communication. Ironically, this is instigated by an innate longing to communicate clearly; as to achieve the purest possible connection, with as little as possible noise on the line between sender and receiver.

So, even when I had abandoned my love (for writing) to climb the corporate ladder, she has always kept seducing me, and has always remained part of me. Life, since then, has been slicing away at me. On the one hand, unfortunately, because life would be so much easier if I still had the same ambitions as then, but on the other hand I feel fortunate to have been chipped away, and ongoingly ever closer, to my core-self. Now, I can honestly say The Writer is a core-part. A part of me that blew up when I met my first love.

Without consciously setting out to write poetry, in hindsight, I wrote poem after poem for that girl. Of course, back then, it felt like simply sharing my heart with her. And it was such an overwhelming outpour of love, that, when she was not near, I had to canalize it through writing.

When she shattered my heart, it was very much the same. I developed scribomania, and for years I could not go without writing without suffocating. I always say writing helped me to learn to breathe underwater. However, it was more than catharsis. Prose turned to poetry, and I fell in love with this art form. Aside from getting emotions out, I also soaked in every bit to do with the craft. In that, poetry has given me a sense of purpose. What I love most is that you're never done learning, and therein you are never done evolving as a poet.

Curiosity is key. Reading-wise, when I like a poem, I am always keen to learn the whys. Then, try my hand at it. So I tried a lot of different styles, and when I finally wrote a satisfactory poem in that style, I went back to my own. Still incorporating the things I have learned. I have tried (nigh) every type of fixed verse similarly. Yes, sometimes fixed verse feels mechanical. But when I reread old work I do see my, then subconscious, emotions resurface. It may feel as if you are more disconnected than when writing free verse, but I assure you you are not. The set boundaries of fixed verse should not be seen as shackles, but as a lens; you utilize it to create a focal point.

Still, if you are truly averse to fixed verse, it has been mostly beneficial to me, because counting syllables, utilizing meter, and searching perfect rhymes has often sent me to my thesaurus and dictionary. It helps to hone your inborn skills, like lyricism and cadence. I do think my writing voice is natural, and that any writing voice is — I have never searched for it, doubted, or questioned it — but I also have cultivated it, longing to make it resound as clear as can be.

I think it's great you are confident in your own writing voice. That you know your strengths, and can play around with them. Never let anyone take that away from you. Never be hesitant, worried, or ashamed to write what you feel, need, or just plain simply want to write. Like I said, I love poetry because you can continuously keep evolving, and even if you feel a poem turned out subpar, or bad, or great for you but it turns out nobody else likes it, it is always a step in your evolution. There are many roads that lead to Rome. I now shared a glimpse of my path. But if you stay curious and just keep doing what you love, you will always get where you want to be.

Long answer, but I haven't written for a week, and I guess I am still a bit scribomanic. Your message offered a welcome distraction, and reason to pick up the pen.

For which you have my thanks,

Best wishes,

Mark

#nice people on tumblr

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gilraina · 5 months ago

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How do you choose a fic to podfic? In your expert opinion what makes good audio? Are there particular things you look for and particular things you avoid?

Hmm I feel like the answer to this is both infinitely complex and very very simple? Because it really boils down to "I read what I like to read". If I'm reading a fic and really enjoying it, I will often consider putting it on my to-pod list. Whether I actually make the podfic depends on a lot of other factors (time, spoons, the usual), but it really can be that simple.

That said, I do tend to enjoy fic more when it feels like it would sound good when read out loud. It might be because I like to vocalise while I'm reading (and writing, omg I'm doing it right now), I rarely just skim the text with my eyes. It's hard for me to explain, especially since I'm not much of a writer myself, but if the prose flows well, or the dialogue feels like something a character would actually say and would be fun to read in that character's voice, I will be more likely to want to podfic it.

For a more specific example of something that makes particularly good audio, though, I have a special place in my heart for fics where characters tell each other stories, or read poetry together, etc. I just really enjoy the meta aspect of it, taking a written story about oral storytelling and bringing it into audio format, it's just neat.

Thank you for the question and sorry for my very rambling and not-at-all comprehensive answer lol

Talk Shop Tuesday

#podfic

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taihua · 11 days ago

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real. one of my main gripes about hsr (and genshin especially recently) is how many different ways they try to say the same thing, but more in a purple prose way than in anything that actually contributes to the plot. why do the aeons have 10 million different names. why give different names to the same thing when they're just going to write in the alternate name for it directly above it in a smaller pt font. why do we get put into a 30 minute unskippable dialogue about "Actually none of it happened the exact way you think it did but there's a reason for it all, don't worry we're going to explain it while standing here stiffly in a hallway. have a flashback of another 30 minute dialogue in the middle of this one. ok back to me. now a beautiful 1 minute cutscene. now back to me, standing there with my dead stare talking about what just happened in case you were confused at all about what happened in the past 3 hours. ok here's some flashes of boobs so we grab your attention again."

don't get me wrong, I love a good story and flowery language, but I often feel the hoyo game writers put too much effort into making the story sound appealing but giving the actual story little substance beyond just their default "woah subversion of expectation !!! I bet you didn't expect this !!!" (looking especially hard at genshin story quests where nearly every single one in the past couple years has been about a mentor/parental figure/close friend betraying someone and receiving their just punishment). idk. I agree with you; it's easy to get fatigued by this formula they have, especially when you're just a casual player and don't want to parse through hours of lore just to play the new content.

It especially sucks because the phrasing is very nice and some of it probably could be poignant if there was actually anything in the story to back it up. When they do get it right, it's great--I thought the Misha scenes at the end of Penacony were fantastic, while the 20-minute Acheron introspective was unbearably bad to the point where I never want to see her on my screen again. Aventurine was fine until they showed the exact same picture of his backstory 15 times in one quest chain while failing to reveal anything we didn't already know about him. Someone on the writing team is clearly capable, but I feel like they're just so rushed with their aggressive capitalist update schedule that they can't actually spend time making sure the quality matches the quantity.

I'm not immune to great anime boobs either, but I want them during actual gameplay as a treat, not during someone's 1 a.m. red-eyed poetry speedrun :,(

#haven't touched genshin since last year's lantern rite #fontaine side quests were too boring and put me off and then white pharaoh natlan happened #making elements interact in combat was fun but not worth the unending dialogues

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stinkybreath · 11 months ago

Text

hello

do you trust me to recommend you some books

I read ~170 this year and here’s reviews of my top ten, written for fb and crossposted under the cut in case you’re interested

1: Camp Concentration by Thomas Disch

-I know it’s not obvious from the way I conduct myself here, but I have a very large vocabulary. I was a kid who read the dictionary and also any thesaurus I had access to. So, that said, consider how much it means to me personally that this book taught me 30-50 new words. This isn’t a huge part of the reason I loved this book, but it is a very impressive fact about it that I think will grab the attention of people who might otherwise not read it. This book changed the way I read, the way I think about literature, and the way I evaluate what I have previously read. It’s offensive to me that I lived 30 years as an avid reader and culture sponge without hearing about this book. I cannot recommend it enough. I give it top spot on this list for a very good reason. I’d like to avoid spoiling any of the plot because while I called the twist easily, discovery of each point was so delightful that I want you to have that same experience.

2: Cockatiel x Chameleon by Bavitz

-You all have plenty of experience with me recommending works of fiction published online in formats that deter most readers. This is a normal Najwa activity. I know how it sounds and I know, therefore, that this plea will go more or less unheard, but I BEG you. Look past the fact this was published on AO3. This is one of the most remarkable books I’ve read, period. I mentioned in my worst of how much it bothers me that most writers can’t plausibly write about the internet. This book is the FUCKING ZENITH of writing about being online. It is the absolute peak and I will be shocked if I ever encounter another work that overtakes it. This is a book about people who are so strange they are barely human, but in ways that will be instantly familiar, intimately true, to those of us who grew up on the internet. There is violence and abuse and love and beauty and Chatroulette. There is art and gore and exploration of identity and apocalypse. There is fucking POSTING.

3: Serious Weakness by Porpentine

-Charity Heartscape Porpentine is one of our greatest living authors, opinions of snide Twitter users notwithstanding. I am an evangelist for her Twine game poetry because it is so singular and so affecting. Even a decade on, I can play through Their Angelical Understanding and feel freshly stabbed in the gut. Imagine the thrill I felt when she posted about her completed novel. I would (strongly) recommend this even to people who (somehow) bounced off her games, because her prose style is very distinct from the voice those are in (yet still recognizable). This is an incredibly violent, sick, stomach-turning, difficult, ugly, terrifying book. It’s also ultimately asking the reader a question about love and compassion. If you are sensitive to any trigger in written word about any violent action one person can do to another, skip this book, but if you feel like you have the strength, give her the nine bucks or whatever that she’s asking and devour it like I did. A hook for you: our protagonist has a chance meeting with an embodiment of pain. What follows includes torture, gender, climate disaster, and Columbine. Gorgeous. This book almost convinced me to start doing video essays so I could explain to people the incredible factors at play in it.

4: Negative Space by BR Yeager

-I have been trying to read this book for free for so long that I broke my streak and paid actual money for it. It was one of the better purchases I made all year. Thanks to finally reading some Stephen King this year I now have the requisite foundation to see how heavily his style inspired Yeager in this book, but I would die on the hill defending my position that Yeager does King better than King ever did. There is evil seeping out between the lines of this book. Have you ever had a nightmare that made you feel doomed the entire next day? Have you ever felt you were trapped in your shitty, dying home town? Have you ever been seduced by the excitement of activities that you know might actually kill you? Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night and looked at your own dark reflection? Go back to the deepest point of your teenage depression here.

5: We Who Are About to by Joanna Russ

-One of the shortest entries on this list and so one of the easiest sells, but it is just as full of meaning as any other that made the cut. There is so much implied and unsaid about this protagonist. She feels whole, like this is the last chunk of chapters in a series centered on her, but she represents something universal. She is one member of a group from a crash-landed spaceship, a group small enough in numbers that there’s no way for humanity to last on this planet more than one more generation. Any attempts to do even that are so plainly cruel and self-deluding that she wants no part of them, but the others with her don’t see it the same way. Her story is womanhood under patriarchy, it is life and death, it is self-determination. Brutal. I read this at the airport and cried in public.

6: Carrie by Stephen King

-As much as I hate to say it, I gotta hand it to Uncle Steve (or really to Tabitha). This book very nearly justifies the rest of his career on its own. I thought had picked up most of it from cultural osmosis, but there was a truly shocking depth that I couldn’t have found without experiencing it firsthand. Maybe it’s funny to use this word here, but this book is humanist and compassionate and sincere in a way that King never finds again, particularly with the women he writes. Carrie is so vivid that I felt a protective instinct for her throughout the book even though I knew she was about to discover her own power. She reflects parts of me about as well as Lindqvist did in Little Star, which is the work of art that is THE most personal to me. A classic for a fucking reason.

7: The Doloriad by Missouri Williams

-This year, lots of the books that I read had strange echoes of each other. In this, I can pick out shades of Carrie, of Camp Concentration, of We Who Are About To, and even of Serious Weakness. Rarely if ever are these references by each author, but it has enriched my experience by having unofficial interlocking intertexts for all of them. This book has been very divisive with reviewers, and I understand why, because it is cruel and the prose is extremely stylistic. This is somewhat experimental and fully literary and sincerely philosophical. I get it. Not for everyone. But it was for me. A clan of inbreds at the end of the world with their eyes on their scapegoat, nonverbal and disabled Dolores. It shocked me and it challenged me and I loved it.

8: The Ice Cream Man and Other Stories by Sam Pink

-These short stories did the exact opposite of the thing that pissed me off about The Florida Project. These are about people who are varying degrees of sympathetic but the same degree of desperately, penny-scrapingly working poor. The easy pull quote is “unflinching,” because it turns an eye on very ugly parts of real life for so many of us. I think people who grew up middle class will find some voyeuristic, prurient pleasure in these stories, but they’re not written for you. They’re written for us, the people who have lived this way.

I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman 9

-I don’t need to tell you how great this book is, because the whole of booktok has told you this all year. Instead, what I will say is that it is much stranger and less tidy than you’re imagining when you hear the blurb. It’s a short read and it is one of the few times I haven’t regretted following booktok’s advice.

Only Lovers Left Alive by Dave Wallis 10

-This barely squeaked onto this year’s best of, because I started it before 2022 ended and finished it early in the new year. As I read it, especially in the first 20% of the book, I was confused as to how it ended up on my TBR. But toward the end, and throughout the year as I’ve continued to think about it, I understand more instinctively than intellectually that this is a remarkable work. A short synopsis: in the 80s in the UK, there is an epidemic of suicide, but only by adults. The teens left behind forge their own path.

#Porpentine #Bavitz #Thomas Disch #Dave Wallis #Sam pink #Stephen King #jacqueline harpman #Joanna Russ #Missouri Williams #br yeager #b. r. yeager #charity heartscape porpentine

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