#but 20 year old me wasn't the best writer ;-;
Explore tagged Tumblr posts
Text
𝒲+𝒜 (circa 2017)
#The Sims 4#Sims 4#TS4#TS4 Edit#Sims 4 Edit#intramoon#They've been on this blog since#2017#and still haven't done their wedding#one day#although not sure I'll ever story tell again#Found my old folder of the first time I made Wednesday#and omg so fucking scary I'd share but it's so rough lmao#I didn't realize how much of comfort characters#these two are until I worked on this edit#just looking at it brings me so much joy#even if its just me#I thought about starting their story over again#like am I insane#but 20 year old me wasn't the best writer ;-;#I want to do it justice
124 notes
·
View notes
Text
Before writing more stories, I want to help people come to terms with the "identity death" and heavy themes in the animal HRT comics, and as a writer, want to explain why it isn't ACTUALLY death, but a form of renewal. Because I see it on all of my friends posts.
"I am just concerned about this loss of self thing, it sounds like identity death and I don't like it" is the common comment.
But in all of these comics, it is less about loss of self, but more about leaving behind who you were. A sign of extreme change and showing their own way of moving forward, and the start of a brand new life. A willing change to a new start.
Identity death is an unwilling change. All choice was stripped away from them and a new identity forced on them. This is also different from a transformation that leads to acceptance of the new form.
But in the animal HRT comics my friends put out, it is a willing change to a new form and cones with mental changes they are willing to go through. That isn't the same as a death. But a new start to their life they can start living to the fullest. It's also why some choose not to start anew, to bring one journey to a close and begin a new one. They choose to have that be part of the same journey. A new chapter instead of a new book if you will. In either case these are willing changes.
It can seem terrifying to some, but a total rebirth of yourself CAN be a slightly scary theme. It is terrifying to choose to take that new life.
But let me set up an example here:
When I first came to be, I thought I was going to be a visual artist, because Ashe was and that's what I remembered. When I was locked away by my own doing in the headspace I was stuck in a perpetual cycle of misery. It was terrifying to take the step to discover myself. To lower the barrier I had created, to rediscover myself.
But when I came to be, Ashe said I could be anything. A new sense of self outside of her. A new life. I tried to draw first, but I couldn't. Visual art was not my thing anymore. It never was. I just held on to memory of being a copy of Ashe. When writing my introduction I realized I love the feeling of writing. I have my own form. My own life. My own identity. A new start.
So let me ask you: Should I have not taken that opportunity to completely cast off who I was to embrace who I am? Should I have left myself in misery and fear as something I'm not? All for the sake of not casting off who I was and my life before? No.
Now while I do remeber all of what happened before my change, none of that shapes who I am now, because that life wasn't mine in the first place. This isn't a death of my identity, but a new start to an identity I chose. And I am happy to be able to live it with my new sense of self and build NEW memories. A new life.
Which also leads to the second heavy theme in those comics. Shortened lifespans. Outside of the fact that we are told time and time again HRT can lead to a shorter lifespan (which is a false average) starting a new life also means you are probably starting in the middle.
Our body is almost 30. That is 30 years of my lifespan gone. Yeah, I was around for 15 (almost 16) years of that, but my new life began a week ago. Who I am began just last week. And even though in the headspace I am early to mid 20s at best, that is still a cutdown lifespan.
So should I just have not bothered with the new start?
Absolutely not. The gift of life, new or old, isn't about how long it lasts. But how you live it. It is hard, it comes with problems, but for as long as I have of it, I will cherish the new memories I build, the new start I have, the ability to just... exist. For as long or short as that may be. And through this new start to my life, the people who love and care for me are still here. Still stand by me. And that is a great thing.
So please, don't be too offput by heavy themes in our stories. Even my stories will have some rough parts. (They'll always be tagged)
Hope this at least helped ease why those themes are there, and why some people choose to have them.
Also, don't worry about "adding to the fuel used against us" because we could sneeze and they'll find a way to use that against us. The fact is, with the Animal HRT series, actual HRT does come with some discomfort, pain, downsides, and problems. And like the heavy themes in the comics, we determined it is worth it for us to keep going despite them. We knew the risks.
"Everything is a risk. Life's boring as hell if you don't take them JUST because there is potential problems. Just make sure you understand them." - a line chaos told me the day I formed
It does less good to show everything as risk free and painless, because then nobody is prepared for the risks they are actually taking. Or the comic is based off the creator's life to that point, and they DID experience a lot of pain. So retelling their story (like mine) might be painful at spots.
My point of all of this is, the heavy themes are required to tell these particular stories. And while not every story requires dark spots, the dark spots help to accentuate the brighter picture. Otherwise it can just be blinding. So please go easy on the artists/writers behind them. As it is usually something personal for them.
(This also might not apply to all of them, some people just like writing horror, and we should respect that too.)
Next story should be sometime within the next couple weeks. Just needed to get this out there. It's been on my mind since releasing the short story with Iris.
-Aqua
592 notes
·
View notes
Text
Unfortunately once again I've only had time and mental energy for very short fictions that could fit in a commute or two this month. But, as it's always the case, there are a few wonderful gems among these!
Please don't be fooled by the number of Kudos! Ao3 is not Amazon!
As always I'll tag the writers whose tumblr usernames I know. If you're a writer and you want your story removed from this list please let me know.
And now, without further ado, let me tell you about the wonderful stories I've read this month, and the things I loved about them! ♥️
November’s Notable Fictions
WIPs:
Wavelengths & Frequencies, by @shadesofecclescakes and imposterssyndrome @maaikeatthefullmoon Rated E, chapters 15/?
This story is such a warm, cozy, comfort blanket. Enemies-to-lovers human AU where Aziraphale and Crowley work as DJ for the same media corporation. They have a history, but we don't know what it is at the beginning. Great story, great humour, great characterisation, great fuzzies, absolutely great banter! I look forward to every update and do a little joyful dance every time I get an update notification. This fiction is becoming one of my all time favourites.
You're The Bad Guys, by Nebz_AlphaCentauri @alphacentaurinebula Rated E, chapters 20/?
Cold war human AU in which Aziraphale is an MI6 agent and Crowley is a KGB agent. Each of them is assigned to a mission in Berlin, from opposite sides of course. Great characterisation, suspense and references to canon.
My own WIP, And I Did, rated E, chapters 14/15 (nearly there!)
In my not-a-summary I say that this is a story about faith, about love, and about choices. Which is true. But I have come to think of it also as my apology dance to Crowley. My headcanon about Aziraphale has always been clear, but at first I wasn't sure about what Crowley would do after the final 15. I didn't see Crowley drinking himself oblivious or taking a road of self destruction. But I didn't know what he would do. Then it hit me, and that was when I started writing And I Did. I knew what Crowley would do. Crowley would do what Crowley does. And what does Crowley do best? This is a story about faith, about love, and about choices. Aziraphale is Supreme Archangel, Crowley is Grand Duke Of Hell, and they have to bring about the Second Coming. And of course they're not talking.
Complete stories:
The Small Ad by ladydragona and SylWritesStuff, rated E, 32k.
To overcome boredom, Crowley offers his services as a hired partner. Aziraphale is need of someone to pretend to be his partner. The rest is history. This is a lovely, hot, and sweet fake relationship fiction. Very interestingly, the POV changes at every paragraph, and because the story has two authors it left me wondering whether one wrote Crowley and one wrote Aziraphale, but kind of in real time.
The Angel’s Gambit, by Augenblickglotte, @dragonfire42 , rated T, 9k.
Aziraphale has been playing chess with the angel of Death for over 1500 years. You'll have to read it to find out why. I loved the banter between Aziraphale and Azrael.
Percy, by Jackie Thomas (Jakie_Thomas), not rated, 10k.
This is the story that touched me the most this month. It's set 100 years in the future. Aziraphale leads a quiet existence in a cottage. When Adam Young dies of very old age, Crowley picks up Aziraphale to go to his funeral. He doesn't stay after that, and you'll have to read it to find out why. The story does have a (kind of) happy ending. Or a hopeful one, at least. But it digs deep in some of my very real, very human fears. Fear for the planet, fear of growing old, fear of growing apart, fear of everything ending without us ever getting a second chance of fixing things. I really loved this story and will go back to it again. It also gets extra points for reversing the roles of how the fandom usually see Aziraphale and Crowley! Top marks!
Caramel Delight, by AJ_Constantine, rated E, 16k.
Lovely neighbours to lovers human AU. Crowley is instantly attracted to the new neighbour and his -oh, lord- forearms (and, I mean, who wouldn't?). But he's determined not to make things awkward, they are just friendly neighbours. That's why Aziraphale keeps knocking on his door for more of that caramel sauce Crowley makes so well. One of the tags in this fiction is: Aziraphale is bad at flirting. I very much beg to differ.
One shots and short stories:
Can I Have Your Number? by AppleSeeds, rated G, 1.8k.
Aaawww. Aziraphale goes to order drinks for him and Tracy, and writes down his number for bartender Crowley. Crowley asked for it, right? RIGHT?? All well that ends well, this story is brief and sweet.
Angels Don't Blow Their Own Trumpets, by shaggydogstail, rated E, 8k.
This story had me cackle! Crowley poisons himself by accident (well, by trying to be cool, point is he didn't mean to) and there's only an antidote that can save him. Please DO READ the tags for this one.
Anthony J. Crowley, Retired Demon And Airbnb Superhost, by TheOldAquarian, rated G, 3k.
A selection of reviews by guests who rented Crowley's flat on Airbnb. Very funny!
Proving One’s Loyalty, by @indigovigilance , rated E, 4k.
Set towards the end of season 1, Aziraphale goes to heaven to speak with a higher authority only to find that Gabriel has taken Crowley prisoner. Aziraphale has to torture him in order to prove himself to heaven. Smut ensues.
You Can't Un-See A Dog, by Dannye Chase (HolyCatsAndRabbits), HolyCatsAndRabbits @holycatsandrabbits rated T, 4k
This was one of the highlights of my month, fiction-wise! Crowley is summoned by two humans to be offered in sacrifice. Aziraphale knocks on their door within, like, 3 minutes. I just loved this story: The light banter and the interactions between Crowley and Aziraphale are chef's kiss; the adorable domesticity of their relationship shines through in a situation that really is not domestic at all; Aziraphale is being his incredibly brilliant self; AND there's a little mystery-solving thrown in for good measure! Top marks!
Hold The Phone, by theRavenMuse, rated E, 1k.
Crowley listens in on Aziraphale having intimate moments by himself. But phones work two ways. Lovely and hot!
Plausible Deniability, by GayDemonDisaster (scrapheapchallenge), rated E, 5k.
This story was so, so lovely! Set before and after the first failed Armageddon and not season 2 complaint, but to me it really feels like it goes very well with my personal headcanon regarding season 2 in general and the final fifteen in particular: they do communicate and they don't need words. The story itself is about Aziraphale denying to himself that things are happening by pretending it's all a dream. The writer illustrates their deep connection and mutual understanding beautifully.
The Co-Pilot, by beardo @e-rated-beardo rated E, 4k.
Incredibly hot human AU. Eh, I say human AU… incredibly hot AU. Tony is attracted to Az, but is afraid of acting on it because of what the author describes as an ‘overfamiliar demon’ who sometimes took the wheel for a minute. So he's content to just chat to Az at the pub. Yeah, like Az is ever going to shy away from an encounter with Crowley's inner demon.
Presque Vu, by NaroMoreau, rated E, 9k
Human AU. College student Aziraphale sees his ex Gabriel at a party he didn't want to go to to begin with, so of course he hides in the kitchen. Until his (and everybody's) impossible crush offers to pose as his boyfriend. This story is incredibly lovely and heartwarming!
Masturbation (Doesn't Count As Sex, Surely?), by Hellsgardener @hellsgardener01 (I think it's you?) rated E, 1.3k.
Very few fictions manage to convey such intense feelings of sweetness and hotness alike in such a short tale as this one! Aziraphale asks Crowley if he's ever had sex and reminisces about his own solo experiences.
To Bind Them, by LCwrites, rated E, 5k
Human AU with a lovely enchanted/supernatural/faerie element. Aziraphale is tipsy at Anathema’s Halloween party and when he overhears Crowley talking on the phone he wants to find out what he's up to. But that's not even the half of it.
Our Homeward Steps Were Just As Light, by On1OccasionFork, rated T, 7k.
I've seen this little gem recommended a lot recently, and with very good reason! Human AU where Pepper works in a nursing home. Anthony is a beloved guest prone to causing trouble, Aziraphale is a new guest. It's tender, deep, funny and original. Stirs things in you, a fiction like that. I loved it. Extra points for being in Pepper’s POV.
Hot Blood, Hot Thoughts, Hot Deeds, by Supergeek21, rated E, 3k.
This story was really up my street! Crowley is a vampire in search of a bride. Aziraphale should be scared, but he's too busy being aroused instead. Sweet, funny, and sexy.
A Newsworthy Affair, by @waitingtobebroken rated T, 1k.
A funny, adorable, fluffy fiction told through newspaper ads that the editors of the newspaper never authorised publishing. If you're in need of something to put a big smile on your face, this is it!
Merry Christmas, Hellspawn, by Libbyfay, rated G, 4k.
Beautiful Warlock’s POV fiction. It's the first Christmas since nanny and brother Francis left without a word, and Warlock feels lonely. He goes to what used to be brother Francis’ shed, goes through the box of Christmas decorations and reminisces about the past, until someone knocks on the door. I am quite partial to the few, precious Warlock’s POV stories, and the author does an excellent job at depicting the pain of an 11 year old and that casual, matter of fact way 11 year olds deal with great pain. This story is delicate, and beautiful and deeper than it might seem.
Series:
Wrong Number AU, by GaryOldman, rated T.
This was the loveliest, sweetest, fluffiest series. Best to read the stories in order to fully enjoy it. In Text From An Unknown Number (12k) Aziraphale text Crowley’s number by mistake. They hit it off straight away, but of course things are never that simple. Most of the story is told via the texts they exchange (between themselves and with others) and it’s amazing how the author manages to convey excitement, feelings and a little angst in that way. I loved this fic, but I feel I have to give a little warning that the Harry Potter series is heavily used and referred to in this story. Sorry, Right Number (2.5k) is the super fluffy Christmassy continuation of TFAUN. Aaaaww, lovely! He's My Wrong Number, (1.6k) is possibly the fluffiest of the three and it's a real treat to read! A very happy ending to the series!
Poems:
DEATH Grinned-HE Didn't Have Much Choice, by @isiaiowin rated T.
Very evocative and powerful poem about Death.
Thinking Of Nanny, by @the-ineffable-dance
Another incredibly beautiful Warlock's POV fanwork to end this list. Warlock is all grown up and goes for a walk in St. James’s Park, where he sees someone familiar. The only complaint I have about this poem is that it was so difficult to read through the tears, really.
October's list here.
#good omens#fictions I've read and what I love about them#November's notable fictions#good omens fanfiction rec#good omens fiction#good omens ao3#ineffable husbands#good omens fanfiction#good omens fanfic#good omens poetry#good omens poems
124 notes
·
View notes
Text
Some Honor Bound Acknowledgements
Today I want to highlight the amazing jobs that lots of people did to get HONOR BOUND where it is. It wouldn't be anywhere near so polished without their hard work!
My editor Abigail C. Trevor pushes my games into shape from concept to release, from big-picture feedback to meticulous edits.
Abby has a particular knack for teasing out the potential of an idea and pushing it further. At the very early stages, the PC was assigned to Ozera because of an injury but not because of any particular other issues, and Elene's Prospect was not the PC's hometown (and therefore there was no prior connection with Denario)!
Abby also writes games! Her first game, Heroes of Myth, is about a con-artist called to really fix a magical crisis. Her latest, Stars Arisen, is a fantasy doorstopper about being the child of an immortal deposed tyrant queen who wants you to seize back control of the city-state. Highly recommended!
Kris Lorischild copyedited this 595K word monster. This would be a massive undertaking even without my tangles of code to deal with and Kris truly polished Honor Bound to make it shine.
Kris was narrative co-lead/localisation producer on Cozy Grove, created You Are Jeff Bezos and more, used to be Senior Curator for Critical Distance, and has copyedited 20 CoG games. Check out their itch page here!
Adrien Valdes aka @defenestratin did the cover art. Adrien's illustrated three of my games now and knocks it out of the park beautifully every time. He's also illustrated many other CoG and all of the Heart's Choice games. See more of Adrien's work here!
I don't know all the names of the continuity readers, and although I've tried to thank the playtesters directly, I may have missed some—but from finding bugs, to noticing typos or awkward sentences, to letting me know where I was falling short of my goals, their work was invaluable.
Jason Stevan Hill, Mary Duffy, and Dan Fabulich from the Choice of Games team worked wonderfully on this release. Special shoutout to Rebecca Slitt's editorial review of the full draft which guided me in expanding and enriching a ton of moments that needed it.
These days Rebecca is mostly an editor and runs the Heart's Choice label (and many of my favourite games were edited by her), but she also created Psy High, a brilliant teen-psychic CoG game!
Shortly after Honor Bound was released, my friend and fellow writer Eiwynn passed away. You can find out more about her here. Eiwynn was a tireless pillar of the ChoiceScript interactive fiction community, helping writers and players old and new. Ever since I started writing with ChoiceScript, she gave me support and encouragement, and I know she did this for many, many more writers.
Thank you for everything, Eiwynn. Your warmth and kindness will be sorely missed by me and countless others in the community.
Finally: my wife Fay Ikin is my first reader even at the concept stages and helps me arrange my ideas as well as helping me untangle when I'm struggling (in writing and in life!).
Teran is loosely based on her TTRPG campaign from many years ago. I'm very grateful that she let me steal her setting!
Fay isn't on social media, but she makes interactive fiction as well. She's best known for her intense gladiator-pit romance game HEART OF BATTLE in which you can fight and/or romance your fellow gladiators, a magic medic, or a fabulously wealthy patron. It's a brilliant game, and I would say that even if I wasn't married to her! She also made ASTEROID RUN: NO QUESTIONS ASKED, a gorgeous and very underrated scifi thriller.
Thank you to everyone who contributed to making HONOR BOUND what it is!
Steam | Google Play Store | Choice of Games on Android | Choice of Games on iOS | Choice of Games on Amazon | Webstore
39 notes
·
View notes
Text
It is obvious to me that Zeb Wells is only writing ASM because no one else wanted to. I'm old enough to remember the early 00s when Wells first started writing Spider-Man. He was essentially a fill in guy even back then. He was never deemed good enough to get an ongoing to himself. His stories back then were mediocre at best, the one exception being the origin of Jameson, which was legitimate good but also notably not actually about Spider-Man himself.
Then he was one of many rotating writers during the Brand New Day era of 2008-2010. In theory this was a promotion of sorts as he was actually writing ASM. But the nature of the tri-monthly set up sort of meant that inevitably there were gaps to be filled, they just needed material. Roger Stern himself did a few issues here and there in that era, but not many. Yes, Wells was working alongside people who (at the time) were either big names (Mark Waid, Joe Kelly, Bob Gale) or (again, at the time) fan favourites like Dan Slott, so in theory he was being elevated. But to my recollection they tended to give the BIG stories in that era the other writers. Slott opened BND, did the first event story New Ways to Die and did ASM #600. Joe Kelly reinvented the Rhino, reintroduced Black Cat and (ugh) resurrected Kraven the Hunter. Fred Van Lente reintroduced Chameleon and Mary Jane. And Waid did...I forget but he did something significant.
In contrast the only BIG story I recall Zeb Wells taking point on was Shed, which was to the Lizard what One More Day was to Peter. The absolute character destruction wherein the Lizard (in his lizard form) is at least implied to have raped a human woman and is confirmed to have eaten his own human son. The story concludes with Spidey being shocked that the Lizard is capable of talking even though he's been able to do that since the very first Lizard story. It was such a catastrophe that Marvel had to steadily walk it back through at least 3 different stories, two of which were by Slott. When even Slott is like 'um...this went way too far', you really went too far.
By rights Wells should have been in Spider-Man writer's jail forever after that, but instead he got to be a lead writer on an era where ASM was again tri-monthly, except this time with only 2 other writers, none of whom nowhere near the fan favouritism nor had the Big Name clout of the original BND era. And to top it off, it wasn't even about Peter it was about Ben Reilly who was suddenly Spider-Man again, following a run by Nick Spencer which had blatently tried and wanted to undo One More Day but was forced to awkwardly change direction. It was obvious that this was thrown together last minute out of desperation, Ben Reilly was basically just Peter Parker's understudy.
Then after all this Wells, the old man (at least compared to the other writers from the Beyond era), the guy who's most famous contribution was something Marvel walked back, a guy's who's best contribution was an obscure story and from 15ish years ago gets the top job? Meanwhile the former writer goes off and starts a substack?
It reeks of desperation. It reeks of 'No one but this guy WANTED the job'. So, ironically, despite it being over 20 years, even when Wells gets the biggest job in Spider-Man you could have, one of the biggest jobs you could ever have in the industry, he is still just a fill-in writer. The fact that his run' is incompetence at best, cynical spite at worst, speaks to why he wa not deemed good enough for the top job until the point where no one else wanted to do it.
And why does no one want one of THE biggest jobs you could have in comics, arguably in American literature?
Because of One More Day.
Because Marvel's narrative that writing a married Spider-Man was just soooooooo hard and such a turn off to potential writers was probably lie back in 2007 and definitely an exaggeration.*
Because it has been close to 20 years since One More Day and these all time great Spider-Man stories have not materialised. And even the ones people (rightly, and imo generally wrongly) regard as really good (like Superior) either didn't require Spider-Man to be unmarried/single or they would've likely been better if he had been married.
Because making Spider-Man unmarried did not attract back lapsed readers who disagreed with him being married.
Because making Spider-Man unmarried did not attract new readers in significant numbers, indeed the scant new/younger readers they got were happy to read about him being married (as evidenced by Renew Your Vows and the current USM's success).
Because One More Day and their anti-marriage agenda is SO bad that the fandom has NOT let it go all these near 20 years.** And never will. We have, and we will continue, to bring it up, complain about it and that wound will only be reopened every single time anything like Dan Slott or Zeb Wells run crops up.**
So, Marvel are in a lose-lose situation.
The pro-marriage writers (of whom there will likely be more and more as the younger generation who grew up with it roll in) do not want to write ASM because they will not be allowed to undo it and their work to even alleviate it will either be derailed during their run, or else reset ASAP, as happened with Nick Spencer.
Meanwhile anti-marriage writers (of which there were not that many and their numbers ever dwindle) do not want to write ASM because they know their work will also likely be interferred with and more poignantly they will have to deal with us fans very loudly (and louder than ever thanks to modern technology) yelling at them for reinforcing the anti-marriage/anti-Mary Jane agenda.
Simply put, most writer's, especially if they are talented, can make an easier buck on anything other than Amazing Spider-Man, regardless of whether that is one of the Big Two or indie.
And so, what Marvel are left with is desperation cases like Wells and Slott or talented people who come in for short bursts like Joe Kelly.
That is, of course, unless they give their customers what we have wanted for over 16 and a half years!
*As evidenced by the fact that in 2007 we had THREE Spider-Man writers, Straczynski, David and Sacasa, who were all pro-marriage and wrote generally good stories, often leveraging Mary Jane and her marriage with Peter in the course of doing that. In fact one 2007 comic specifically about their marriage was nominated for an award.
**And, in fact, many writers for Marvel (like Nick Spencer) can be counted amongst those fans unhappy with it.
***Indeed, for those younger fans who maybe knew little of pre-OMD Spider-Man or only know about Spider-Man comics from Youtube and social media, Wells run has them believing and perpetuating that Spider-Man has now been ruined. It was ruined long before now of course, but Wells via Paul and the rest of his run has spawned a new generation that despises Marvel's treatment of Spider-Man. Paul has essentially become a meme!
#zeb wells#mj watson#spider marriage#marvel#marvel comics#spider man#spider-man#peter parker#mary jane watson#mary jane watson parker#one more day#brand new day
42 notes
·
View notes
Note
So the ‘straight with one exception’ shit that was so prevalent with straight women in fandom a few years ago. Do they find it a romantic notion? I’m bisexual so growing up in the 90s and 2000s most the queer content I could find was fan made. And don’t get me wrong I am grateful for the fandom moms of old for making queer content as a young guy in the 90s figuring myself out there was a lot of fear and self loathing but I always had fandom to make myself feel more normal. But yeah that straight with an exception thing, always really ruined my fic experiences a bit. But I’ve actually started reading older fic because it avoids a lot of the shit I find annoying about modern fics. Can’t escape this trope though it’s like negative nostalgia lol. I know you’re queer but I want to get why straight women love this trope so much. Is a bisexual man so unattractive?
--
Anon...
I hate to break it to you, but when I started interviewing slash writers from the 70s, I heard more than one story that was like "And then I had all these weird feelings for my best friend I was writing with..."
Decades on, these women may have picked some other word than 'straight', but plenty of them did experience You're My One Exception.
Even the horny and self-aware people often find One Exception stories hot, whether it's a villain only being nice to one person or someone who has only experienced attraction one time or someone who is attracted despite their usual orientation. Like 90% of het romance novels include some barf-worthy "It's never been like this before!!!!" observation when they finally get together as though love is more special when you can put down every past partner. People just really, really, really like this trope in all its forms.
The fact that you would think this is a sign of a straight or female writer shows that you are amazingly clueless.
--
That said, yeah, I too found the ubiquity of this in 90s fic annoying. Not a huge fan of the internalized homophobia that everyone was kinking on back then either.
I don't think it's specifically about bi men being attractive or not within fandom, though there is a massive real world double standard against bi men on, for example, OK Cupid.
I think it's more about One Exception as a general trope plus a lot of people being profoundly clueless about bisexuality in the 90s even if they were allies and activists for gay causes.
That was the era of Anything That Moves precisely because the queer community wasn't very hip about bi stuff yet. (And arguably, in recent years, we've backslid, but that's another story.)
--
~Fandom moms~. Yeesh. A lot of those big authors were probably in their 20s in the 90s.
153 notes
·
View notes
Text
First Kiss (Race 15)
A strollonso AU where 18 year old rookie Lance Stroll falls helplessly in love with the notoriously mean world champion. (1.3k words, seblance, so cute, then ANGST. but then fluff?) [@v3lnys @biancathecool] {I don't like the end of this but fuck it we ball!!! and now writers block starts}
last part - masterlist - next part
Lance walked into the grid with Sebastian, he was going to be driving for Sauber during free practice so the two got to catch up until then.
They'd been in karting together for years before Formula 1 was even an atainable goal for the boys but now that one was a race winner and the other was negotiating a contract it was insane. Sometimes Lance wondered if him and Nico got on so well because he'd practically grown up with Seb and the two were pretty similar.
"Scared?" Lance asked, looking down at his friend as they just wandered around the paddock, it felt nice today.
"Should I be?" The German boy laughed, overgrown blonde hair being blown all over the place as they walked
"Five Germans on the grid today, I'm scared." He laughed as well, grabbing his shoulder in response to his friend smacking him
"Piss off" Sebastian groaned, speeding up to pass Lance, smiling as he heard his foot steps speed up, the Canadian pleading for him to slow down
Sebastian did well during free practice, Lance going to the Sauber garage straigjt away to congratulate his friend
"Kumpel" He called, pulling the shorter boy into his arms as he patted his back "Good job, Sebby"
"Sebby is insane." The German laughed, hugging his friend back
"Expected you to crash" He added, smiling once Seb pushed him away, cursing at him under his breath "Joking, joking, I knew you'd do good."
Qualifying came to an end, Lance in 8th, Fernando in 10th, and Nico in 19th. A very diverse group.
"Nando" Lance said, having found his boyfriend first because he'd been to busy with Sebastian to find him any earlier
"Hola, Lancito" The Spaniard smiled, it looked like a weight had been lifted off of his shoulders just because he saw the Canadian. "How are you, mi vida?"
"I'm good" He nodded, Fernandos smile contagious. "Are you okay?"
"Si, why wouldn't I be?" Fernando questioned, not caring what place he qualified now that he was talking to Lance.
"Brad told me Quali wasn't the best for you are Fisichella, I figured you'd be upset."
"Am fine, just slower than usual. Engineers are looking at my car, not sure what is wrong." Lie.
Lance and Fernando spoke for a little longer before they began lining up on the grid, both Renault's in row 5 behind him and De La Rosa.
The race got off to a much better start but only 10 laps in Brad told him Nico was retiring, driveshaft issue, but his car seemed to be perfectly fine.
He didn't respond, just nodded to himself like Brad could see him.
In the next 20 laps both him and Fernando had managed to go up 3 and 4 spots, in 5th and 6th place respectively. Yamamoto and De La Rosa had also retired so now it was down to 19.
Another 13 laps went by smoothly, Lance and Fernando now in 4th and 5th until the Spaniard lost control and his engine blew, leaving a cloud of smoke and a worried Lance on the track
"Is Fernando okay?"
"Is Alonso the renault whos off the track?"
"Yes, is he okay?"
"He is, now focus, Lance." Brad said, unsure if the man was okay but he knew telling the Canadian that would just hurt his performance.
Lance ended the race in 4th, 8 seconds behind Robert but he couldn't bring himself to care as he went straight to looking for Fernando, his engineer telling the boy where he was.
He knocked on Fernandos drivers room, waiting for a second with no response so he knocked again "Nando?"
The door opened right away and before he could speak the Spaniard was hugging him
They spoke for a bit, going over the race together.
"You did so good, mi vida, so impressive for a rookie."
"I'm sorry about your race"
"Is okay, I do not care anyway." Lie. Fernando shrugged, simply brushing off the fact that his engine blew on track and he didn't finish.
"You don't care?" His eyebrows furrowed, wearing his emotions on his face.
"Lancito, am not sure why exactly you are upset, you finished the race in the points. I do not care about me not finishing, I simply have to try harder next week" Fernando was calm, how was he so calm. Michael Schumacher was 2 points behind him in the world championship. A seven time world champion was 2 points behind him in the world championship.
"Exactly, Nando, that's the problem! We're so close to the end of the season and you're so close to winning the world championship again and you just- you don't care? How can you not care?"
"The championship doesn't matter to me, all the media and hastle of being on the podium, is not what I look forward to, I love my job, Lancito, you know I do, but is not the only thing I have anymore." Lie.
"I know, you've said it a hundred times, Fernando. Of course I know you love racing. But I just- god I feel like it's my fault distracting you, I hate knowing that you're okay with losing because you get to see me, I hate to see you lose, you were born to win, you're too talented to give it up because of me."
"Lancito-" Fernando paused, running his hands through his messy hair "am sorry but you are wrong, that is not why I am fine with not winning, you are not at fault here, mi sol." Lie.
"Fine, but that doesn't change the fact that you have something good here, Nando, being a two time world champion is fantastic, I just-" Lance knew what he meant he just had no idea how to put it into words, he felt like the Spaniard wasn't understanding where he was coming from. He didn't want Fernando to throw anything away, he didn't want him to make any decisions where he considered Lance before his career. He loved having Fernandos attention, he loved being alone with him, he loved loving him, but the championship should be more important than that.
"Is that really what this is about? Me winning the championship?" Fernando asked, knitting his eyebrows together, somehow not surprised that the world championship is what Lance is most worried about "If this is about the title, Michael can take it. I don't want it without you."
"Fernando. Don't waste your talent because of me. You have a hunger." Lance shook his head, stepping away from him as the Spaniard desperately came after him "You're brilliant, you want to win, you want to be the best, and you are. Don't settle for second because of me."
"Okay, am sorry." Lie. He spoke softly, just wanting to end the conversation as his arms reached out and pulled the Canadian to him, one hand on the small of his back as the other stroked the boys hair, feeling how shakey his breaths were, he almost regretted lying about being sorry but now part of him was. "The rest of the season I'll be on that podium for you."
Lance didn't respond, he just settled his head in the crook of the Spaniards neck, eyes shutting as he took in the scent of the older man, embarrassed at how worked up he'd gotten himself over another persons race
"I'll win again, I'll win for us." Fernando said with false confidence, truly not caring whether he won or not. It was weird. He'd never cared about anything how he cares about Lance. He's never enjoyed losing but now he didn't mind it as long as he got to see Lance when it was over. But now he knew to never admit that to Lance so he would lie, just a little white lie.
#idk what this is#i had the end prewritten#for like a month#so if it doesnt make sense#suck my balls#f1#formula 1#lance stroll#fernando alonso#aston martin#ls18#strollonso#fa14#first kiss au#rpf#au#ff#fanfic#f1 rpf#pink lance and renault nando
51 notes
·
View notes
Text
Okay, I have finally girded my loins and am going to watch the saw trap finale of Sherlock for the first time since it aired. I was 20, living in London, and my flatmate was interning for the BBC where they got so many complaints it almost crashed the website. Most of what I remember is that the show ends with the two of them jumping into the air and doing a freeze frame. Let's dive in.
Opens with Mycroft drinking in the dark alone mouthing along to old black-and-white movies. It's fun when two siblings are gay but in very different ways.
This is not how repressed memories work
The writers are all "Sherlock and Mycroft's sister (who we’ve never established before) is a genius beyond either of them. She’s so smart she can hypnotize people into killing themselves she’s basically a god." And then it cuts to her babbling amazing genius gems like:
She's also like "I can tell Sherlock's a virgin because he doesn't play the violin like someone who knows how to fuck"
Steven Moffat loves one thing and one thing only; little girls creepily singing English poems.
THIS IS NOT HOW REPRESSED MEMORIES WORK
They really skate by the "at 16 years old mycroft told everyone his sister died and his parents asked no follow-up questions" of it all
MOLLY HOOPER SHOULD GET TO STRANGLE EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THESE MEN WITH HER BARE HANDS INCLUDING THE WRITERS
The wig they used to cover up BC's Marvel haircut really isn't doing it's job
You have to imagine at one point Andrew Scott was on a short list for a Doctor Who villain because otherwise the camp "I Want To Break Free" dance break is extra gauche
THIS IS NOT HOW REPRESSED MEMORIES WORK
Doesn't John have a baby? When he has to solve gay murder riddles does he just leave her with that woman from the bus he was having an emotional affair with?
They're in a cell that sometimes has glass and sometimes doesn't with no explanation. This is not the level of show that's smart enough to pull that off as subtextual.
JOHN GETS THROWN DOWN A WELL LIKE BABY JESSICA
Whose sister hasn't killed your best friend and then everyone told you she killed your nonexistent dog instead and despite being a famously curious person you just accept this for thirty years? Typical sister move tbh
THIS. IS NOT. HOW. REPRESSED MEMORIES. WORK.
The whole episode they're trying to save a little girl in an unpiloted crashing plane and my brain was like wait a minute I know this trope he uses it all the time it's not going to be a literal plane and then guess what. It wasn't. It was a metaphor for the sister's isolation but somehow she was broadcasting it, in reality, through a radio system with a child's voice for an hour of the episode. To quote Bob's Burgers, it's not a twist, it's a lie. A lie is not a twist!
I was right about the freeze frame. It happened to you. To me. To this country.
23 notes
·
View notes
Text
You know, I thought we were done with the ageism in fandom thinking that its purely for teenagers? Because it doesn't help anyone to have the attitude of this (now blocked) anon. People don't stop having passions and being fans of things just because they get older. Fandoms thrive BECAUSE older people put in the effort to MAKE them thrive. Do you really think that 100k word perfectly written epic fanfic that you adore so much was written by a 16 year old? Because I guarantee it was more likely to be written by a 35 year old mother of 2.
That amazing cosplay of your fave character you saw at a recent comic con that took phenomenal skill and probably a good deal of expense to look perfect wasn't put together by a 17 year old high schooler, it was perfected through years of passion into a hobby that more than likely required a full time job and a savings account to afford.
That amazing fanartist who has the BEST art of your OTP that captures their likeness in a really gorgeous style? They weren't born with that talent. It takes years to develop a personal art style, and capturing a persons likeness in art is a skill that has to be nurtured. The best artists are the ones who've had years to develop their skills. They aren't school kids. I have had mutuals on this site for a decade now and I have seen how much their art has improved and become absolutely beloved. These are people who at their youngest are in their late 20s now. Most of my mutuals are in their 30s, some of the best fanfiction writers I know are in their 40s and 50s. The meta writers I know are also in my age group. Hell, do you think teenagers run AO3? You'll be surprised just how many "old people" make the best fanworks. If you removed them from fandom spaces, I guarantee you would remove most of the talent, because no offence to you kids, but that talent is something that is nurtured over time, and time and aging go hand in hand i'm afraid.
The people who make fandoms what it is, the ones running events, pouring themselves into analytical posts, providing the best fanart, coming up with the amusing memes and textposts that go viral? Do you REALLY think they are all school kids? Fandoms are made up of PEOPLE, and newsflash assholes, people AGE.
This attitude always amazes me. There isn't an age limit in fandom. This isn't fucking Logan's Run (bet you the kids won't understand that reference) and honestly if these kids genuinely think they need to give it up and quit at a certain point in their future I just pity them.
Fandom thrives because of the older people that have nurtured it for years and carved out a space where younger people can enter in comfort and safety. Which are only possible BECAUSE older people built online fandoms and continued to put in the work to keep them going. If we all had to stop caring and leave fandom at some specific cut off date, the fandom landscape would be a vastly different space - and probably a lot worse for being predominantly run by hormonal teenagers - heh, I guess it would be a lot more like TikTok and we all know how dreadful TikTok has been for fandom so far. If nothing else that alone proves my point.
At the end of the day, no one can stop the passing of time. Even the horrible children who send adults nasty anons. Eventually, they will be the "fandom elders" and receiving their own anon hate from a future generation of brats, I personally can't wait to be the very old lady laughing at them when that day inevitably comes.
40 notes
·
View notes
Note
What other Yugioh ships do you like?
Only small handful of others really. Mostly ones I've had since I was a kid, I don't really delve much into shipping like I used to, though the ships I do ship I ship hard lolol
I've also only watched DM, GX, and 5Ds so there's that too on the quantity subject.
I've always been a champion of Yugi and Téa, peachshipping champion since day 1 baby I love them, the childhood friends to lovers angle is on of my favorites and I mean, look at Téa's duel with Crump in the virtual world and her and Yugi in that and him giving her his jacket cuz she's cold after that before they find Joey even though he's also freezing his ass off, they're just so sweet with each other 😭
I'm also a fan of Tristan and Serenity, when they're older. Like maybe they get together in their early 20's or something because she definately likes him back, but she's a little young. She's not that much younger than them, but still. When they're both older, super cute together. But also conversely to this......... I'm a massive chaseshipper.... I love Tristan and Duke.... I want them to kiss... I'm just saying, Duke only started showing interest in Serenity after Tristan made it clear he liked her from my recollection. He was just trying to make Tristan jealous and get his attention. That's my delusion and I'm sticking to it. Plus they are always getting pushed together in groups and they've slept up against each other more than once.... I'm so delusional right now it hurts akskksks
And when I was a kid I loved Atem and Mana. I loved the idea of them. It's one that's a really low-key ship for me I don't have any particularly strong opinions or stance about it but I'll probably take it with me to the grave regardless.
I've been screamed at for shipping Yugi and Atem with Téa and Mana and not each other when I never even cared much for that ship anyway I just don't interpret their relationship as romantic, so yeah. That turned me completely off of that ship I just wanna say. Also why I don't really engage with the DM side of the fandom anymore, especially when we're talking about shipping.
I used to be a fan of Joey and Mai as a ship when I was a kid, but not as much these days. I mean, if she wasn't like 10 years older than him, that would be one thing. But she is, so that kinda wrecks it when he's not an adult as well... y'know..? Even then, 10 years is a bit too big of a gap for me regardless haha
--
In GX I really only ship spiritshipping and stormshipping. I mean, Jaden and Jesse was the only ship I really shipped for a while.... then my third eye opened and now Chazz and Atticus have my entire heart and are now my entire creative brand mostly so akskkskslzlzl
I also like the idea of Bastion and Tania, but I feel like I need more information about her before I can commit to shipping them or not. Like... I don't know how old she is, you know? That makes me hesitate a little bit haha
Also shoutout to Nightshroud and SoL!Chazz!!! LaDDshipping you fuckin' hit!
Bonus shoutout to Sheppard and Dorothy, stop it they're so cute!
--
The ship in 5Ds I like the most is Jack and Carly, bar none. Scoopshipping supremacy is my middle name! I shipped them before I even watched then show, dude. I watched it because of them. And they did not disappoint....... until the writers took their relationship out back and shot it by basically pretending it didn't exist in the 2nd half but shhhhhhhhhhhh ignore that!!! The best het ship in the original trilogy of shows argue with the wall.
Also a big fan of Yusei and Akiza, but like with Tristan hilarious cuz Tristan and Yusei are both voiced by Greg Abbey 🤣 I also ship the fuck out of Yusei and Bruno. I have cried thinking about them. Jack and Carly and Yusei and Bruno have made me sob profusely.
Also shoutout to Trudge and Mina! She doesn't deserve him with all her Jack bullshit but dammit love it anyway!
--
So yeah, those are the only ships I personally ship or I guess have shipped in the past *cough* Joey and Mai *cough* . Just a small handful really, like I said. Never been a massive shipper by way of quantity. I latch onto things too hard to have a billion and 1 anyway 😂😂😂
#low-key scared of puzzelshippers so I'm sorry guys please don't yell at me again 😭#yugioh#yugioh gx#yugioh 5ds#aberooski asks#peachshipping#ardentshipping#chaseshipping#vaseshipping#polarshipping#spiritshipping#stormshipping#laddshipping#tigershipping#scoopshipping#faithshipping#toolshipping#dunno if sheppard and dorothy and mina and trudge even have ship names tbh 😅
10 notes
·
View notes
Note
writer questions meme: 8, 13, 20 if you please
13. What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever come across?
It wasn't explicitly writing advice, but I can tell you where I learned what my specific style would be. There was a fic in the Dresden Files fandom called "Cross" by LightGetsIn. LGI was a tremendous writer and a very kind mentory-friend who I attended my first fan convention with. Extremely accomplished adult who I looked up to when I was barely an adult.
"Cross" is a story about the limitations of perspective. It was the first story that really drove home the idea that Character A would not have the same knowledge and understanding of the world as Character B.
In "Cross", the POV character is John Marcone, a non-magical mafia boss who is deeply entrenched in the magical world. He has a lot of factual knowledge of how magic works, but he's an Italian-American Catholic. So when he's pulled into doing magical rites to bring another character back to life, he specifically doesn't pick up on the more pagan symbology of what he's doing, but filters it through a Guilty Catholic filter. Hence the name of the fic, "Cross."
And that story, which isn't even my favorite LGI story, probably taught me the most about how to write Close Perspective Third Person, which is my default style. When I'm writing in a characters POV, I rigorously limit what the POV character knows and picks up on. I will plant clues and information that the audience will understand, but the connections a character makes, the reference pools they pull from, their morality and ethics, all of those inform that POV, and what you and I know does not.
That is probably the most important lesson I've ever had in creating my own writing method.
20. Describe your perfect writing conditions.
8 hours of sleep, small breakfast snack like a croissant, decaf beverage, one dextroamphetamine, and no one fucking talk to me for about 2 - 4 hours. I will write 4,000 words.
8. Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.
Lets put this under a cut, and I'll give you some DVD commentary. This is from chapter 2 of you'll need a new name to survive this. It's the point where Benji realizes Ethan is stalking him and does that trick to lose him in the bookshop, then sits outside waiting for him.
Only five minutes later, the door opened, and Bell took one step out before freezing, his eyes falling on Benji.
Got you, Benji thought with a sharp little smile. "You didn't even buy a book? Bit rude."
One of the goals of the early chapters of PT AU was establishing Benji's character as boldly as possible because we were essentially telling a story that canon does not. This is YEARS before MI3, where Benji gets two gd scenes.
To me, the tightrope walk was that I wanted Benji to have a reasonable grip on authority, to be shiny and new and out of his depth but still empowered because of his accomplishments. He has managed to land a good job working for the US government, he successfully emigrated before he was 30 years old, he has an apartment and a cat, he's new to everything in the spy world but he also has a steel spine that frankly he's fucking earned.
Which is a long-winded way of saying that Benji is a bitch and I love him so much.
Bell's face was blank, but Benji could almost feel how fast his brain was moving, weighing his options. Eventually, he settled on huffing out a little chuckle and stepping closer to Benji. "Hi."
Meanwhile, Ethan. MI1-era Ethan is very very smart but very very traumatised. His skillset is rooted in controlling people and predicting them. So Benji, a fucking civilian, catching him off-guard like this is like waving a red flag at a bull. Or dangling a steak over a lion enclosure. Benji doesn't know it yet but he's setting himself up to be a tasty treat for Ethan Hunt circa the late 90s.
"Are you going to kill me or something?" Benji asked. "Is that your spook job, are you a hitman?"
The flash of expression on Bell's face was offended. (This makes me laugh every time. Ethan Hunt is not a killer unless he absolutely must be and he will go out of his way to avoid it. Being an assassin is gross and he doesn't want to be perceived at all bc he's a spy but if he MUST be perceived jfc don't assume he's a HITMAN) "What, no. I just…" Grimacing, he looked away, eyes scanning the other pedestrians around them. "Okay, I'm screwing this up, I can admit that. Can we talk somewhere private?"
Benji didn't even have to think about it. "We can talk somewhere public."
Benji is never going to be an IMF agent but his instincts are wildly correct. And that knowledge comes from a different place! He was a gay punk rock vagabond who dropped out of law school, he knows how to keep out of trouble. He is probably the guy who told his other punk friends "if you are arrested do not say a goddamn thing, just ask for your public defender, don't joke, don't be a smartarse, keep your mouth shut."
The smile that took over Bell's face was lovely, transforming his whole face from storm clouds to something more seasonal. "That's honestly a very smart answer, doc. C'mon, there's a bakery nearby. I'll buy you a coffee. Least I can do."
It really was, so Benji nodded and followed him.
They didn't speak until Bell opened the glass door to another shop and held it open for Benji.
"Wrong hand," Benji said, noticing the small wince Bell let out.
"Inside, doc."
If it isn't obvious, all of the observational skills Benji has canonically have been funneled into his preternatural observation of patients.
Basically, if Benji as a character has a specific set of SPECIAL stats, all of those are the same, he just has different tagged skills in this universe.
Canon Benji is probably.... Guns, Science, and Repair. PT Benji has Medicine, Barter, Speech.
"Not a doctor," Benji said. "You know I'm not a doctor."
"What do you want to drink, doc?"
Ethan is being purposefully annoying and I could write a whole post about Ethan's soft power and the way he manipulates people, but that'd be another post. Short version: some people you seduce, some people you act like a wounded gazelle at, and some people you annoy.
Inside the bakery was loud. It was a strangely open floor plan. A long pastry case cordoned off the seating area for the customers. On the other side was just… the bakery. There were ovens and industrial mixers and rolling racks of cooling bread. In the corner, the espresso machine howled with noise as the milk frother worked.
It smelled divine, like living inside a baguette during a spring shower of dark roast coffee.
It also was a constant racket, which Benji mentioned to Bell as he sat down and slid a dark tea with vanilla syrup across to Benji.
"That's the point," Bell said, slouching back in his chair. "It's very difficult to eavesdrop in here."
Well, he wasn't wrong. Looking to another occupied table nearby, Benji briefly tried to pick out a word of what was being said by the woman seated closest to him. Nothing.
"Right, then," Benji said, attention back on Bell. "Why are you following me?"
"Why?" Bell seemed taken aback.
One of the many moments in the early chapters that establish that Ethan's perception of Normal is not anything approaching actual normal.
"Yes, why."
"Normal intelligence collection."
"On your physical therapist?" Benji asked with a barked laugh.
"Yeah." Bell leaned on his elbows, one hand cupping his own jaw and holding his head up as he made uncomfortably direct eye contact. "You really don't know who I am? Or why some of the appointments on your calendar come with no information?"
Pursing his lips, Benji shook his head.
Blowing out a whistle through his teeth, Bell grinned. "Sorry, that's just… it's new. I'm surprised Dr. Falsion didn't clue you in, but I guess she's not technically supposed to." Lifting his mug, he looked down into it. "People do shit they're not technically supposed to all the time in this town."
Ethan's major trauma at this point is being targeted by Kittridge and the Mole Hunt, and his trust in people to do their jobs is at a critical low that it'll never recover from.
"I don't even know your name," Benji sighed, sipping his own drink. It didn't taste at all like iocaine powder, so he was probably safe for the moment.
Bell rested his temple against the knuckles of his hand, his gaze so intense that Benji didn't know how to look away without making it patently obvious he was unsettled. Whatever Bell saw, it made his lips curve up slight. "Alright. Yeah. My name is Ethan. I work for an organization that shouldn't legally exist, so that's why you don't get anything on me. Even CIA jackboots manipulating local governments are realer than I am." He blinked once. "Also, I was an unprofessional shitheel last session, and I apologize."
Ethan apologizes here because Benji has earned his respect. And also by earning his respect, Ethan is also aware that Benji is not going to be so easy to maneuver around, so he fesses up that he was a prick, softly setting up a different tactic with Benji.
Benji felt his eyes going wider and wider with every sentence until it was a little hard to breathe. So his patient wasn't the American equivalent of an MI5 or MI6 so much as an MI8?
That did sort of start to explain what a pain in the ass he was.
"Shame," Benji managed after a moment of sitting fairly gobsmacked. "I was getting attached to 'Bell.' But I appreciate… all that. Thanks." He frowned. "Are you saying all this because you're actually sorry or are you sick of being stonewalled?"
Benji has a much more cynical mind than Ethan is the funny thing. Benji gets arguably more accurate reads on people than Ethan does. Or, Ethan gets accurate reads but he is continuously poisoned by the hope that people will be better than he expects. So FUNCTIONALLY, Ethan is an optimist and Benji is a realist.
Bell— Ethan— grinned. "That's a very good question. You actually have great instincts, doc. You did a surprisingly good job of shaking me when I was tailing you, especially for a civilian."
One of my favorite running gags is Benji being impossible to tail, so I'm glad we really drove it home the first time it happened. I love consistency in longfic.
"Again: thanks. Don't suppose you'll answer my other question?"
Ethan sipped his coffee, his smile visible around the edge of his cup.
"Right," Benji sighed. At least this felt like progress. And at least he probably wasn't going to be disappeared by a government assassin. That was a relief.
So this entire bit is Ethan reassessing Benji and pivoting his methods and tactics, setting up for a better way of handling Benji. And also being kind of charmed by him.
19 notes
·
View notes
Text
20 Questions For Writers
This was sitting on my notifs for a few days and i finally took the time to do it. Thank my darling @takadasaiko for the tag!! 💕💕
1. How many works do you have on AO3?
I have 88 works in total, 31 of which are for Star Wars.
2. What’s your total AO3 word count?
574,873 words.
3. What fandoms do you write for?
Currently, I'm only writing for Star Wars. But I used to write for Arrow and Supergirl, and ASoIAF, Dark-Hunters and Chronicles of Nick are in standby. I'm waiting for right motivation to come back to any of the last 3.
4. What are your top five fics by kudos?
I'm only talking about Star Wars fics here...
Kadala (The Mandalorian) [and 4th place in most kudos of all my works]
Rough Awakening (The Bad Batch) [and 5th place in most kudos of all my works]
Welcome to Yavin IV (Rebels)
An Explosive Situation (Rebels)
Rescue on Ryloth (The Bad Batch)
And the the rest of my all-time fics with most kudos are
Take Your Breath Away (Arrow)
Undisclosed Desires (Arrow)
Made For You (ASoIaF/Game of Thrones)
5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?
I try my best, but sometimes I forget, and then it's been weeks and months since I got the comments that I'm embarrassed to reply them after so long. Even though, I think it's important that a writer let the reader/commenter that they appreciate it, even if it's with a simple "thank you" or an emoji. I know I'm being a hypocrite here since I fail to do what I preach, but it doesn't make it less true.
6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?
I think that would be Drifting, because it's kind of open ending, left to be interpreted, so it could end however the reader wants. Although, I left an author's note at the end saying what's my preferred ending, which always will be inclined to the happy side.
7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?
High Above the Ground because is the happy ending i want for Commander Fox and Riyo Chuchi. They deserve only the best!
8. Do you get hate on your fic?
No, not really. I've gotten only 1 stupid message of someone criticizing a fic, but that was years ago when I still posted on FF dot net. The joke was on the reader because I moderated all the comments there so I just deleted it and nobody saw it but me. Honestly, I just laughed about it cuz their argument was just stupid.
9. Do you write smut?
I do, all kinds -from the most tame thing to the most perverted. But I used to wrote way more in my old fandoms, especially for Arrow. I think for Star Wars I've written just 1 or 2 smutty fics, and tamed at that.
10. Do you write crossovers?
I've tried a couple of occasions but never finished them. I'm not opposed to them obviously, but I do think the combination of fandoms has to be just right to work. Or at least, when it's me doing the writing.
11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?
Yes! Many, many years ago in the first fandom I ever wrote for. It was awful and hated it! You see, this was in the stone age of the internet when fandom specific sites abounded and not everyone had an account on FFnet yet (and Ao3 was not even a dream). The site I published on was split in 2 sections because the ships war in the fandom was bloody and ruthless, so to avoid the slaughter, I kept myself in my preferred side. But one day, a friend who read fic on both sides told me that someone stole my fics. Avoiding to get caught, the person who did it published them under a pen name that was almost exact to mine, she only added a period at the end, which could easily go unnoticed. Oh, and she interchanged characters names so it'd fit the other ship.
At first, my friend thought I had posted them but she knew I'd never write for that ship, like ever. In the end, it turned out that I wasn't the only one who had being plagiarized. Several people ON BOTH SIDES were. Thankfully, the person was caught and banned, but we almost burned the site down because of the whole shitshow.
12. Have you ever had a fic translated?
By me, yes, several. All into Spanish (my mother tongue). By others, not that I know of.
13. Have you ever co-written a fic?
Yes! A couple of times for different fandoms, and I loved it. I hope I'll do it again. The thing is that you need to find the right partner for it, or it can be a nightmare.
14. What‘s your all-time favourite ship?
I don't appreciate this question, let me tell you. It's hard to choose. But I think I have to go with Olicity. I love them still (even if the show ending ruined it for me). Close second would be Braime (and I'm glad that there's still hope for them on the books, because as usual the show fucked them so but sooooo bad)
And as Star Wars specific, I don't think anyone will be surprised if I say it's Kalluzeb, right 🤣 They're my babies and I adore them!
15. What’s the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?
Anything for Arrow or Supergirl. I sworn off those fandoms after their respectively awful endings.
No promises, but there's still hope for all if my unfinished works for Star Wars 😅
16. What’s your writing strengths?
Coming up with ideas. So, so many ideas. All the time and I want to write them all.
17. What’s your writing weaknesses?
Finishing writing the above-mentioned ideas. I tend to splay myself too much when I'm writing, and it takes me forever to get to the portion I really want to write (usually the idea that sparked the whole writing process) and I lose steam. That's why I have so many unfinished WIPs. I wish they'd write themselves.
18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?
It's ok if used sparingly. A word here, a phrase over there is fine, but if a wall of dialogue that the reader needs to scroll down to the notes or click on a tooltip to find out the meaning it's the worst!!! A better solution for a writer that really needs/wants to have a whole conversation in another language for plot reasons or whatever, then all they need to do is to say once that the characters are talking in the other language and put the dialogue in the same language they've been writing the rest of the narrative and in italic.
The characters who don't speak the language won't understand what's being said, but the reader will and their reading will be more pleasant and fluid.
19. First fandom you wrote for?
An Argentinian show called Floricienta. A modern retelling of Cinderella.
20. Favourite fic you’ve ever written?
I don't like this question either! All my fics are my babies! How do you want me to choose?!! There are so many I'm proud of. I guess I'll point the most recent one: Feed Me Poison, Fill me till I Drown I really like how this story is coming along. It's not done yet (what else is new? 😅) but what's coming is so so good!
Tagging (no pressure): @renee561 @thecoffeelorian @genericficerblog @airlockfailure @mistr3ssquickly @insertmeaningfulusername @fanfictasia
#20 asks for writers#ask game#the mandalorian#the bad batch#sw rebels#kalluzeb#braime#foxiyo#mare writes star wars#and other things#olicity#long post
32 notes
·
View notes
Text
These photos of Robert Smith of The Cure sat forgotten in a negative binder for over 35 years until I rediscovered them last fall while looking for something else. I had, in fact, done my level best to forget about them, as they were evidence of what I remembered as a massive fail made during my earliest years working as a photographer. They were a major stumble on a steep learning curve, and I was sure all evidence had been lost. But let's start at the beginning, when I was assigned to interview Robert Smith and The Cure when they were passing through town on what was apparently called the Beach Party Tour, playing the Kingswood Music Theatre just outside Toronto on July 13, 1986 with 10,000 Maniacs opening.
Another writer at the magazine, Perry Stern, was a huge Cure fan and phoned begging me to let him do the interview; I agreed, provided I still got to take the photos. (I also asked if he could give me a ride to and from the venue.) I had an idea: I'd seen an article in a photography magazine showing how you could get interesting colour washes on your backgrounds by putting complimentary coloured filters in front of your lens and flash. This might have produced interesting results if I bothered doing a test shoot, but I was too cheap/rushed/arrogant for that sort of thing, so I showed up with green and red filters on my Pentax Spotmatic and my Vivitar flash and shot away in a fenced-off grassy area beside the stage.
It's worth talking about the unusual look Robert Smith was rocking during at least part of 1986 - trainers and golf shirts and jeans and short hair. If I still had the transparencies I shot that day including the rest of the band I'd be able to tell you if the Cure as a whole were taking a vacation from their Goth image and dressed down similarly, and if this was one of the few artifacts attesting to a brief sportswear period in the band's history. But the results were awful - overexposed, with a greenish tint, mostly because I had no clue what the ideal ratio between the bright sunlight and the flash strength should have been. The magazine might have reluctantly printed one remotely salvageable frame but my ambition had definitely overstripped my skill and I tried to forget about this shoot.
But at some point a few months after my disastrous Cure shoot I thought I might be able to salvage the results by converting the slides to black and white negatives. I either found someone who could produce an internegative or borrowed the gear to do it myself, but inexperience won again and the four portraits of Robert Smith that I produced were too overexposed for me to work with all those years ago, so I filed them at the bottom of a negative sheet and forgot about them.
Until last fall when I found them again and decided to see if they could be saved with scanning and the neural filters that were recently added to Photoshop. The film grain that was so hard to deal with back in 1986 suddenly became a feature, adding to the retro feel the shots had acquired either with time or in my own mind. With some judicious application of the restoration filter these frames cleaned up nicely, but I decided to push things one stop further by using the colorizing filter as well - making sure Smith's signature smeared lipstick wasn't just retained but highlighted. Now I like to imagine that these shots were taken in 1937 with an old Kodak folding camera like my Jiffy Six-20, and hand-coloured by some underpaid darkroom assistant working for a developing lab in a building down in the warehouse district of town. It's certainly a better story than the one about the kid photographer who screwed up on a big job nearly forty years ago.
#robert smith#the cure#1986#portrait photography#portrait#photography#photographer#film photography#portraiture#black and white#old photos#early work#adobe photoshop#ai filter
135 notes
·
View notes
Text
Matt Damon (& Co.)'s interview w/ GQ (18 July 2016)
The Encyclopedia of Matt Damon
As Matt Damon returns to the Bourne franchise, we decided to assemble this handy guide to the habits, quirks, and inner life of an honest-to-God screen legend, as told by George Clooney, Martin Scorsese, Ben Affleck, and the other titans who know him best
By The Editors of GQ | Photography by Sebastian Kim | Illustration by Joe Mckendry
Matt Damon is, scientifically, the most liked man in Hollywood. He is serious, and he is funny. He is approachable-seeming and often jacked. He has been in six of your ten favorite movies in the past 20 years, and he's met a bunch of people along the way who like him a whole lot. But for all his familiarity, he's still elusive (which is how he likes it). So instead of asking Matt Damon dumb questions about the new Jason Bourne movie (out this month!), we got Damon and those people who like him a lot*—George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Tina Fey, Ben Affleck, Martin Scorsese, and Co.—to tell all the stories about him that you haven't heard.
-
Accent, Boston
Matt Damon: I was sitting at George Clooney's pool in Lake Como, and Brad Pitt walked in, sat down next to me, and said, “Do you want to do a Martin Scorsese movie in Boston?” [Brad] was a producer on The Departed, and he felt like he had gotten too old for those roles. It's one of the most absurd things that's ever happened in my life.
[Marty] said to me early on [in production], “I don't know Boston. This is your town.” So I would show up with stuff that I'd write and give it to Bill [Monahan, the screenwriter]. and say, "Do you like any of this?" The first time I rehearsed with Jack Nicholson, he went over to get some coffee, and he turned around [and said], “You know, I never would have made it this long if I wasn’t a great fucking writer.”
Martin Scorsese (director, ‘The Departed’): He comes from Boston; he's familiar with that world. When we were cutting The Departed, my editor, Thelma Schoonmaker, used a term to describe Matt's presence on-screen that's stayed with me: He's seated as an actor. He enters a movie grounded and at ease in his character and in the world of the story.
Bill Simmons (Bostonian; host, ‘Any Given Wednesday’): [Jimmy Kimmel] had this Super Bowl party, and Damon was there. He was like, “I'm readin' ya book! It's fahckin' ahsome.” [Matt's Good Will Hunting accent] is the greatest Boston accent that's ever been captured in a movie by an actual actor. The Departed is a catastrophe of bad Boston accents. Leo just gives up halfway through.
Sarah Silverman (co-star, “I'm Fucking Matt Damon”): We are all Boston-area people. I don't know how Matt talks so pretty.
-
Artist, The
Julia Stiles (co-star, ‘Bourne’ films): After The Bourne Ultimatum came out, there was a premiere in London. Prince actually came to it, then got tickets for the cast to come see him [perform]. We were summoned into a room to meet him [after the show]. Matt said, “So you live in Minnesota? I hear you live in Minnesota.”
Damon: Prince said, “I live inside my own heart, Matt Damon.”
-
Career Precedent
Damon: I always thought the goal was William Holden. To just be in a lot of good movies.
Harvey Weinstein (producer, ‘Good Will Hunting,’ ‘Dogma,’ ‘All the Pretty Horses,’ ‘The Talented Mr. Ripley,’ ‘Rounders,’ ‘Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back,’ ‘Project Greenlight,’ ‘The Brothers Grimm’): Matt Damon is the closest thing we have to James Stewart. Matt can be funny, Matt can be charming, but there's an idealism in Matt, like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington or It's a Wonderful Life. But Jimmy Stewart also did those very tough Westerns. He wasn't Bourne, but you get the idea he flew 40 missions over Germany as an Air Force commander. [He's] that kind of great man with tremendous integrity.
Michael Douglas (co-star, ‘Behind the Candelabra’): [Matt] reminds me of me a lot, in terms of the kind of range of parts and things that he does. He always looks to what's the best script, what's going to make the best movie, and what isn't. He has a real sense of what it takes to make a good movie. Having the best part in a bad movie doesn't help you.
-
Face, Matt's
Scarlett Johansson (co-star, ‘We Bought a Zoo’): The most amazing gift about Matt's physical appearance is that he can walk into the hair-and-makeup trailer looking like someone who slept directly on his face for seven hours and emerge a bona fide movie star. He has a great makeup artist.
George Clooney (co-star, ‘Ocean’s Eleven,’ ‘Twelve,’ and ‘Thirteen’; director, ‘Syriana,’ ‘Confessions of a Dangerous Mind,’ ‘The Monuments Men’): He looks swell in a Speedo.
-
Face, Pitt's
Damon: I don't look like Marlon Brando. I remember Ben and I having a realization early on. Like, we were watching Brad [Pitt] in a movie, and one of us turned to the other and said, “I haven't heard a thing that guy said in five minutes. I'm just looking at him.” And we realized there's a good and a bad [that comes with that]. It'll mask one of your lesser performances, but it also detracts from your best performances. Because Brad has been legitimately brilliant in some of the things he's done, and he doesn't get the credit as an actor that I think he deserves. I never had to carry that water.
-
Friend, Best
Tina Fey (creator, ‘30 Rock’): People would be like, “[Matt and Ben] are so cute!” And I'd be like, “They're J.Crew sweaters. When you see all the colors next to each other, they look cute, but when you get one home, you're like, ‘Damn, I just got an orange sweater.’ ” But now that is withdrawn. In person, Matt holds up.
Damon: Ben is the orange sweater.
Ben Affleck (co-writer, ‘Good Will Hunting’; best friend): The quality that has allowed Matt to maintain the illusion that he is Mr. Nice Guy is that he found a young TV actor who was just a pretty face and made friends with him so he would always look good by comparison. Matt is very media-savvy and manipulative in that way. He's like a mix of [O. J. Simpson defense-team members] Bob Shapiro and Alan Dershowitz.
Kevin Smith (writer and director, ‘Dogma,’ ‘Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back’; co-executive producer, ‘Good Will Hunting’): Matt made pretty thoughtful choices about what roles he wanted to play and the directors he wanted to work with after Good Will Hunting, which made Ben's more commercial choices easier to put down for some folks. The assignation was that Matt chose to be a serious actor in films, while Ben chose to star in movies. That script flipped when Matt was Bourne and Ben became a filmmaker.
-
Friend, Brother of Best
Damon: Casey moved in with us [when he was 19]. He would walk in the room, and I'm like, “Is that my shirt?” It got so bad with the Affleck brothers that I was at the point where I wanted to label all of my stuff, 'cause it would just fucking show up in Casey's drawer. And if it's there long enough, then it's like some version of squatters' rights, where suddenly he's like, “No, dude, this is mine. You saw me. I've been wearing this since December.” Like, that doesn't mean it's yours! Just because you washed it doesn't mean it's yours.
-
Good Will
Billy Bob Thornton (director, ‘All the Pretty Horses’): I did Armageddon with Ben, and I knew 'em before they made Good Will Hunting. They talked to me about it: “Hey, we got this script.” And I'm like, “Yeah, yeah, whatever.” Wish I hadn't have said that.
Steven Soderbergh (director, ‘The Informant!’; ‘Ocean's Eleven,’ ‘Twelve,’ and ‘Thirteen’; ‘Contagion’; ‘Behind the Candelabra’): I was looking for rewrite work, and one of the open assignments was for Good Will Hunting. I said, “What's it about?” And they said, “Math.” And I said, “Well, I'm terrible at math, so I'm the wrong guy.” Let's put it this way: Word was out on Reservoir Dogs at the script stage—I remember hearing, “There's this fucking great script out there written by this guy.” There wasn't that kind of thing about [Good Will Hunting].
Damon: Harvey [Weinstein] hadn't seen it—somebody lower down the ladder [at Miramax] had passed. And we were fucked. We had made a deal with Castle Rock where we had to sell it for a million dollars and whoever we sold it to had to allow us to star in it. If we didn't, it was gonna go back to Castle Rock and we were out of the movie. We asked [Kevin Smith] to direct it, and Kevin wouldn't. He goes, “I'm not a good enough director.”
Smith: I asked Ben to FedEx a copy of the script and hit it in the bathroom, intending to read a few pages while on the bowl. Two hours later, I came out of the bathroom crying [because] it was so good. [Co-executive producer] Scott Mosier said, “You were in the bathroom for two hours, and now you're crying. Should I call an ambulance?” I said, “No. We gotta call Harvey.” And we gave it to Harvey and said, “Remember when you picked up the Pulp Fiction script from TriStar in turnaround? This is like that. Especially the Oscars part.”
Weinstein: Kevin Smith gave it to Jon Gordon in my office. Jon Gordon gave it to me. I loved it.
Damon: Every Oscar weekend, the three big agencies host parties. In 1998, [the year we won an Oscar for Good Will Hunting], the CAA party was given in our name. Like, “Ben Affleck and Matt Damon invite you to the CAA party.” We called it “our party.” It was incredible. I talked to Tom Cruise. Even a movie like Cocktail, which the critics didn't particularly dig, was a hit. An agent said to me, “There's no career that's ever been like this. Everyone has ups and downs. This guy's never had a down.” He was the movie star's movie star. And I remember the way he talked about the business: He was not owed anything or could count on anything. And I was like, “Oh, my God. It's an insecure business for Tom Cruise!”
Simmons: I was dating this girl who moved to Chicago, and I was living in Boston. I was making, like, $200 a week writing a column and bartending, and it cost somewhere between $300 and $450 to fly to Chicago. So I went to see Good Will Hunting in Cambridge by myself. And at the end, he goes to see about a girl, and I was like, “You know what? I like her, but I don't know if I'd go to see about a girl.” We broke up within 12 hours. And my next girlfriend was my wife. That's why I always defend Matt Damon.
-
Grimm, Brothers
Brian Koppelman (co-writer, ‘Rounders,’ ‘Ocean's Thirteen’): The nose [in Ocean's Thirteen] originated because we had heard this rumor that Matt had wanted to wear a weird nose in Brothers Grimm. He wasn't able to, so we decided we were going to give him an even bigger, uglier nose.
Terry Gilliam (director, ‘The Brothers Grimm,’ ‘The Zero Theorem’): He's got that cute little retroussé nose and a big bony head, and I thought his head needed something stronger. So we put the bump on, and he suddenly became like Marlon Brando—he was sexy, he walked different. And then we had a huge fight with the Weinsteins and they threatened to close the movie down if I put that bump on his nose.
Weinstein: Oh, my God. Matt and Heath Ledger, may he rest in peace, just on bended knees said, “Can you finance this movie?” And my brother said, “It's Terry Gilliam—let's just do it.”
Damon: I remember the night that Terry shattered a wineglass in his hand because he was in an argument with one of the producers. He said, “I'm not gonna fucking…,” and snapped the wineglass in his hand, and then went storming out. And Heath [Ledger] and I just immediately got up to follow our fearless leader. Terry goes, “I think that went well! Where are we going for dinner?”
He was deciding whether to refuse to shoot over the nose issue. And he came into the makeup room at five in the morning and said, “They gave me the money that I need to make the movie, but we have to not do the nose. What do you think?” And Chrissie Beveridge, who still does my makeup, pulled out the nose and put it on the table. And we literally looked at it and just started laughing.
Chrissie Beveridge (makeup artist): Terry [said], “Would you talk to Bob Weinstein?” I didn't.
Damon: It was a $3 million nose.
Weinstein: Ironically, it's Terry Gilliam's highest-grossing movie he ever had in the United States. [Editors' note: Actually, ‘12 Monkeys’ is.]
Soderbergh: So on [Ocean's Thirteen], I was like, “Dude, we can do it. Like, we can give you the nose.”
Damon: And in Invictus, I ended up wearing the actual [Brothers Grimm] nose.
Beveridge: It was a slightly different nose.
-
Ledger, Heath
Gilliam: Matt is mathematical at times, and that's both a strength and sometimes… I think that's what it maybe was between him and Heath. Because [Heath's] heart was on his sleeve, and that opened up a lot in Matt.
Damon: He was too bright for this world. Coming off [The Brothers Grimm, I was] telling everybody that I just worked with the best actor I've ever seen. And people were like, “What are you talking about? The guy from A Knight's Tale?” And I was like, “You just wait. And wait until you see what kind of a director he's gonna be.”
There were things that he did where I couldn't have got there in three lifetimes. And there were ways in which he was like a puppy dog. You wanted to protect him.
[His death was] just fucking pointless. I called Terry when I found out, and he was like, “I'm sitting here in Vancouver. I'm looking out the window, and it's a beautiful sunny day, and the lights are turning red, and the lights are turning green, and cars are stopping, and cars are driving. I am surrounded by mediocrity. And he's gone.”
-
Maaaaaatt Daaaaamon
Damon: The most common head shot that I'm asked to sign is pictures of that fucking puppet [from Team America: World Police]. And they always say, “Will you write ‘Maaaaaatt Daaaaamon’?” I'm like, “Okay. Matt, with, like, 16 *a'*s in it.” [Trey Parker and Matt Stone] are legitimate geniuses. But when that came out, I thought, Wow, is that what people think of me? That I'm really dumb? So I remember asking friends of mine, and they all told me that it didn't really make sense that I was dumb. I was like, “Are you just saying that?” And then [my wife] Lucy heard an interview with [Matt and Trey] where they said the puppet showed up the day before they were supposed to shoot with it, and it looked like it had special needs, and they didn't have time to change it with the budget. I don't know if they made that up subsequently.
-
“Matt Damon, I'm F#©%ing”
In 2008, Sarah Silverman and Damon starred in a music video called “I'm Fucking Matt Damon” to “inform” Silverman's then boyfriend, Jimmy Kimmel, that she was “sleeping with” Damon.
Jimmy Kimmel (host, ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’; nemesis): [The video “I'm Fucking Matt Damon”] was supposed to be a present for my 40th birthday. Just to make sure the punch in the stomach hit a kidney.
Silverman: [When the show premiered,] Jimmy was literally getting guests like the man with the longest arm hair. So as a joke, he would say at the end of the night, “Sorry, Matt Damon. We ran out of time,” because Matt Damon was the biggest movie star he could think of.
Damon: We had done The Bourne Ultimatum [spoof] with [Kimmel sidekick] Guillermo [as Jason Bourne]. Like, now Jimmy's kicking me out of my own movies? And we all were just like, “How do we keep this thing alive?” And the guy who directed that called with this idea that Sarah had given him.
Silverman: Matt came in, learned the song in a closet of the hotel we had, and then we had three hours with him to shoot because he had his daughter's Halloween pageant at noon.
Damon: It happened really fast, and then suddenly I was in the car. I was like, “Holy fuck, I'm going to a parent-teacher conference. I can't do shit like this anymore.”
Ben Affleck: As soon as I saw “I'm Fucking Matt Damon,” I knew I would be doing “I'm Fucking Ben Affleck.” So I called Jimmy, and they were already putting it together. Having Josh Groban yelling out, “I'm fucking Beeeeen. I'm fucking Ben Affleck!” remains a high point of my career and life.
-
Mojo
Soderbergh: When [Matt] hit us on the Ocean's set, he said, “I really feel like I've kind of lost my mojo.” He'd just come off a couple movies that didn't work commercially [All the Pretty Horses and The Legend of Bagger Vance], and they were not finished with Bourne—they were gonna go back and reshoot more after we wrapped. And I remember George [Clooney] and I saying, “We can do that with this. You're going to have a blast.”
Damon: I showed up like a drowned rat and just stumbled into the room [with Steven] and George. Steven says, “This is the movie where you're gonna get your mojo back.” And they had a big party because it was the “We have arrived in Chicago” party. They rented out a bar with the whole crew. And then we shot the next day, and then they rented out a bar and had a huge “We're leaving Chicago” party. And I'm like, “Wow, maybe I am gonna get my mojo back on this shoot.”
-
Parenting, Matt's
Fey: Some people are lying when they say they want to go be with their families, but I think Matt actually really does like his family—his lovely wife and his 26 daughters.
-
Parenting, Matt's Mother's
Soderbergh: One of the first thoughts I had when I met Matt was, Okay. This guy was very well raised. I don't mean that in a pejorative sense. I was just like, “He's a good kid.” Like, “They raised a good kid.” Which is what you would want anybody to say about your child.
Julia Roberts (co-star, ‘Ocean's Eleven’ and ‘Twelve’): Matty's a good boy.
-
Pilot, Carol the
In 2010, Damon began a four-episode guest arc on the NBC sitcom ‘30 Rock’ as Liz Lemon's boyfriend, pilot Carol Burnett.
Damon: Lucy and I started watching on the first episode and were like, “This is our favorite thing.” I literally went up to [Tina Fey] at the SAG Awards and said, “Look, your show is so great, and if you ever have anything on it, I would love to do a guest spot.”
Fey: [Matt] was like, “I wanna be on the show! I wanna be on the show!” We immediately flew back the next day and called WME, and the agent was like, “He's not doing this!” And we're like, “No, no, he told us he wanted to do it.” And you could tell his agent was like, “Faaaaaaahhhhhhck. He's too good for this!”
Damon: Yeah, that was one that Patrick was like, “What the fuck? What are you doing?”
Patrick Whitesell (Matt's agent): I wasn't opposed to Matt doing it. I thought it would be a fun thing. The only thing was I wanted it limited in the number of episodes.
-
Scheduling Conflict
Douglas: [When I first heard about Behind the Candelabra,] I was recovering from a Stage IV cancer bout and was so unbelievably fortunate to look at this Richard LaGravenese script and go, “My God.” And Soderbergh's involved, and then Matt, who wanted to do the other part. And then when we were getting ready to go do it, both of them—both Steven and Matt individually—said, “You know, we've got conflicting schedules right now. So let's put this off for a year.” And my heart sunk. I thought, Oh shit, it ain't ever going to happen. The truth be told, I was so happy to be alive that I didn't recognize the fact of just how underweight I was. And I think both of them looked at me and said, “He's not ready to do Liberace.” And rather than in any way make me feel like it was a problem, they simply lied and said, “We have other projects,” and waited a year, until I got back on my feet and my strength was there.
Damon: I'll take it, but I did have a scheduling conflict. I think that Steven certainly knew that more time on the mend would not hurt at all. They replaced Michael from the neck down with a concert pianist, but Michael's arms had to be at the right place at all times or it didn't work. The amount of hours [that took], I don't even know. It was this virtuoso performance. And he said to me the last night [of shooting], “I couldn't have done this last year.”
-
Sweating
Koppelman: We write [Rounders] on spec, and Harvey Weinstein buys it. Then we get a call that he wants to show us ten minutes of this film [Good Will Hunting] with this guy Matt Damon, who [they thought] should star in [our movie]. We immediately love the idea.
So we happened to be down at [the L.A. casino] Hollywood Park, and we started talking to these guys and mentioned that we'd written this poker movie. They go, “Matt Damon's our best friend.” And I said, “Oh, really? Matt Damon's your best friend?” Twenty-five minutes later, Matt and Ben come storming in. Neither guy had played casino poker. Matt was immediately like, “Tell me stuff I need to know.” So we got a table and [co-writer] David [Levien] showed Matt how to riffle chips. Within 10, 15 minutes, he's sitting at the table riffling like he's an old pro.
David Levien (co-writer, ‘Rounders,’ ‘Ocean's Thirteen’): He took poker very, very seriously then, and obviously Ben got bit by the bug. We said, “If you really want to learn about this, come to New York.”
Damon: I started getting in and sweating the games, which means sitting behind a player who agrees to show you their hole cards so you can watch how they play the hand. And these were rounders, the people who were making basically ten bucks an hour sitting there with no health benefits, just hoping that somebody new would come in so they could chop him up.
Edward Norton (co-star, ‘Rounders’): Matt and I got coaching from top poker pros, but also from some guys in the underground poker scene who were experts in working a game as partners with coded signals, because that was something our characters did in the film. We decided we'd see if we could actually pull it off in a game, and we cut it apart. Then we walked down Sixth Avenue a few blocks and chopped up our collective winnings. We agreed that our commitment to the craft of acting justifiably forced our ethical standards into the backseat. And most of the money we clipped came off Harvey and Bob Weinstein, so we agreed that was good for humanity.
Alicia Vikander (co-star, ‘Jason Bourne’): We were shooting [Jason Bourne] in Vegas, and I learned to play craps [the night we wrapped]. I asked Matt [for advice] because of course he and Ben are kind of known for that. I said that I was going to bed, and then I said that I was just going to have one drink. It happened to be quite a few.
-
Sweating (More)
Damon: I've sweat some great directors for the last 20 years. When Ben was doing Gone Girl, I went over and visited the set and sat behind David [Fincher] while he was directing. There was a scene where Ben and Rosamund [Pike] walk into a bookstore and end up coming towards the camera through one of the aisles and kissing each other. So before the door opens and they come in, an extra walks by at the end of the line of books. David instantly starts monologuing: “Who fucking walks like that? Are you fucking… Am I wrong? Like, who fucking walks like that? It's ridiculous. I mean, he fucking looks like an extra in a movie. What the fuck?” Meanwhile, Ben and Rosamund are acting their hearts out, and I know they're gonna go again, no matter what they do, because this person fucking blew it. So David goes over and gives them notes, and they get ready to do it again, and Rosamund's makeup artist comes walking in to touch her up. David's looking at his monitor, and he goes, “Now, that's how you walk.”
Joshua Donen (David Fincher's manager): David denies that this ever took place, but out of respect for the talents of Mr. Damon, he has decided not to take legal action.
-
Teeth
Roberts: He does have nice teeth.
Kimmel: I mean, they can't be real, right? They're so perfect. They're obviously something that some Hollywood witch doctor put into his head somewhere along the line, possibly on one of his jaunts to China where he disappears for six months and suddenly has a whole new look. One day he's Jason Bourne. The next day he's Liberace's fiancé.
Damon: True.
Larry Rosenthal, D.D.S., declined to respond to multiple requests for comment.
-
Thing, Best I've Ever Been a Part Of
Damon: [The 2000 Cormac McCarthy novel adaptation All the Pretty Horses] failed the critics and failed to find the audience. I'm not over it 18 years later or whatever it is, so I'm just clearly never gonna get over it. It really fucking depresses me. I only saw Billy [Bob Thornton]'s cut once, and I just remember feeling like, “Oh, my God, this is the best thing I've ever been a part of.” It was Daniel Lanois's music that did it—it was all Daniel on this old guitar.
Thornton: The studio made us take Dan's score out.
Weinstein: It's great, but there were studio executives who fell asleep during the screening. The movie cost $48 million. You [ask], “Am I going to put a four-hour movie out?”
Damon: I was in Paris working on The Bourne Identity, and every night after work, I'd come home and I'd have a conference call with Harvey and Billy Bob. I would pace in this living room in this apartment I'd rented as I was talking to them. Billy's heart was fucking breaking. [When] he relented, he said, “Harvey, I have a chance to do four, maybe five great things before I die. And what I'm hearing you say to me is this isn't gonna be one of them.” And my knees literally buckled.
Thornton: You live with it. They did offer us the opportunity to put [my cut] out on DVD with the original music. But Dan felt like, “If my music wasn't good enough for them to put in the movie, then I don't know if I wanna put it in there on the DVD,” so I stood by him. I'm not gonna ever go side against an artist.
Weinstein: I've said to Matt, “I'll put up a million dollars any day of the week to restore it. I don't even care if I get the money back.” And I'm happy to sit down with Matt and Billy and do that. We've tried to resurrect that on a number of occasions, but the composer didn't want to let us do it, and he has strong rights. I understand. But time softens everyone. It's time to re-approach him.
Thornton: I think maybe one of these days I'm gonna just have a party over at my house to show it to 20 or 30 people.
Damon: I would love it if he did.
-
Wife, Krasinski's
John Krasinski (co-writer, ‘Promised Land’): The day I met him was the scene in The Adjustment Bureau where he kisses my wife [Emily Blunt] in a very big way. And so when I went up to him, he turned to me, and the first thing he ever said to me was, “Hey, man. I was just totally tonguing your girl.” And I went, “Oh, okay. Cool.” And he saw my face and he just cratered. He said, “Oh, my God. I am so sorry. I am so sorry.”
Damon: A reason to do that movie was to meet those two. They're just the best.
Emily Blunt : I have never played a board game with the Damons. The four of us hang out constantly and drink way too much together. Red wine for the three of us, and John's allergic to red wine, so he has to take down the bottle of white by himself. Which is not an issue.
Damon: That allergy is recent. He used to not be allergic to red wine, so we were perfect dinner companions. Now everything is off.
-
Worship
Chris Hemsworth (friend; Norse god): [I was going to be on the cover of GQ, and] I was like, “Shit, what do we do [for the story]?” Matt goes, “You should go bike riding! You can use mine.” So the next morning, I didn't want to bring the writer [into Matt's home because] I didn't want Matt to be uncomfortable. And Matt was like, “No, bring him in!” Matt's cooking pancakes and telling all kinds of interesting stories and quoting all sorts of interesting people. And I was sitting there going, “I just lost myself the cover. I can just see the cover turning into Matt's cover. This is the worst thing I could have done with this thing, introduce the writer to Matt.” I felt like I had a new girlfriend and I had introduced her to my cooler friend or something.
Blunt: It's almost sickening, actually. He's like the most universally loved person I've ever met.
Jessica Chastain (co-star, ‘Interstellar,’ ‘The Martian’): When I was going to go work on The Martian, everyone was going on and on about what a great person he was. You always wonder, like, “Okay, is the reputation accurate?” And with him, it was.
Jeff Schaffer (executive producer, ‘Seinfeld,’ ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’; co-creator, ‘The League’; Harvard classmate): “Great” gets thrown around a lot. Like, if you hate a movie, you go, “It was great!” In L.A., “great” means it's shit. So I have to drop down one to “good.” He's a good man.
Matthew McConaughey (co-star, ‘Interstellar’): I remember a late night in Laurel Canyon after A Time to Kill came out. Matt shared a genuine excitement for the success the film and I were having. He's always been like that, as far as I know—confident and self-assured enough to appreciate a peer's success while still paving his own path.
Krasinski: You look at him and think, Wow. You've maintained staying grounded with a career like this. For people who don't have even half the career of you, if we're not as grounded as you, we're just jackasses.
Paul Greengrass (director, ‘The Bourne Supremacy,’ ‘The Bourne Ultimatum’; director and co-writer, ‘Jason Bourne’): He is a really superb, aggressive, fast driver. Somewhere deep in that soul there must be a Jason Bourne lurking.
Simmons: If you're at a party and somebody's like, “You know who I fucking hate? Matt Damon,” people would be like, “What? Why do you hate Matt Damon? Did he fuck your girlfriend?”
Kimmel: He had sex with my girlfriend and then made a song about it. I think he's more devious than [his character in The Talented Mr. Ripley]. More diabolical. Matt Damon in real life is more of a pure evil.
Soderbergh: You could walk around town with a checkbook offering to pay people a million dollars to say something bad about Matt, feeling secure you'd never have to write a check.
Reported by Zach Baron, Lauren Larson, Anna Peele, Clay Skipper, and Caity Weaver.
#matt damon#good will hunting#all the pretty horses#30 rock#behind the candelabra#the brothers grimm#ocean's eleven#the adjustment bureau#interstellar#rounders#GQ#interview#photo#2016#originals
7 notes
·
View notes
Text
20 questions for fic writers
tagged by @thenookienostradamus, quyanaa!
1. How many works do you have on Ao3? 22 :)
2. What’s your total Ao3 word count? 237, 409, yeehaw!
3. What fandoms do you write for? Magic Mike (allegedly), Always Sunny (allegedly), Killer Joe, True Detective (season one, I get too weepy if I think about season four too long but someday!), Midnight Mass, Shadow & Bone, Tell Me Your Secrets, Loki, and I've got an original work snuck in there, too
4. What are your top five fics by kudos?
5. Do you respond to comments? Typically! I have a habit of hoarding my favorites in my inbox so if I take a week or three months to answer you it's because I've been thinking about kissing you on the mouth. Comments really make my day so I do my best to show gratitude to those who take the time to make them.
6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Maybe Sinhound? I don't set out to write angst.................. ever, but ending with Mildred's funeral wasn't what I was expecting either.
7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? All of them :) I'm a sucker for love and happy endings :)))))
8. Do you get hate on fics? no and that gets more and more shocking each time I post a new work lately as my ao3 becomes a pit of depravity while I work through everything I can't put in my novel manuscript.
9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? hell yeah fuck yeah. I like playing in varying degrees of consent, unhealthy or unbalanced dynamics, girls who come too fast and have weird relationships with sex, yada yada. I have a really supportive husband who I am disgustingly, deeply in love with so a lot of genuine warm and fuzzy feelings for one old man in particular generates a lot of material.
10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? I simply don't have the mind processes for it and admire those who can mix media like that.
11. free space / no question here, send me an ask with one instead please :)
12. Have you ever had a fic translated? Not that I know of! would be awfully neat though.
13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Oh man, I had a fun star wars piece I was writing with my dear friend, Jess, when impostor syndrome struck too hard to finish-- I still have the embroidery she did of our title (the inverse must also be true) in my office hanging below my first rejection letter :)
14. What’s your all time favorite ship? every goblin couple that make out nasty style, so uh, rust/sugar :( they're so special to me and pulled me out of a Hellacious writer's block
15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? My only wip is Sunday School Dropout because I sort of forgot where I was going with it, it'll come back with light voyeurism, blood drinking, virginity taking, the usual order
16. What are your writing strengths? I feel like this is question to really sell myself but honestly, hell if I know, creating place? mannerisms maybe? Beyond my general insecurities, some of the nicest compliments I've gotten are for things I did unintentionally so hard to say! I have crafted some fuckin nonlinear bangers I'll give myself that much.
17. What are your writing weaknesses? I DON'T KNOW HOW TO MAINTAIN TENSE and I HAVE NO WORKING KNOWLEDGE OF SENTENCE STRUCTURES, which annoy me and are my father's biggest complaints so I can't take them seriously enough to consciously attempt to improve on them yet. Lately, I've been smoking weed and flipping vocabulary flashcards before bed because my diction feels stagnant, a bit repetitive across pieces like.
18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? I can't even speak english well enough to write coherently I'm not going to fuck up further with google translate. I did some ballet au's a few years back that I know have some french in it but I think I did a firmly okay job with the sprinkles of dialogue-- I know damn well my terminology is correct.
19. First fandom you wrote for? technically game of thrones, I have a sansa/sandor reunion very angrily tapped out in my notes app when season eight skipped it. The first work I posted was Seduction of Odile after I saw a post here about the potential of a rey/kylo blackswan au, reached out and asked if I could give it a try and here I am 22 works and years later :)
20. Favorite fic you’ve written? I'm going to be corny but I have a soft spot for every fic that connected me with other writers who are so talented and inspiring and force me to be better so I feel like I can talk to them lmao
tagging tagging tagging @the-heartlines @labyrinthphanlivingafacade @littleredwritingcat @abeadofpoison @teeth-ing @itstendereye @barbie-nightmare-house
#it's spring and there is rain on my metal roof and peepers peeping in the swamp#i'm v happy and the will to write is strong again :)#mads levshakoff
10 notes
·
View notes
Note
Really loved your Beauty and the Beast Au! Youre an amazing writer, and it drew me in with like the first sentence! I know Lance is bitter about his situation (gosh love that langst) but I'd love to see how long and how the castle inhabitants would react to Lances situation. Is there more Langst? Found family fluff? What makes Keith a beast??
Thank you for creating!
ooooooou thank u for asking bc this forces me to get into brainstorm mode (so i might actually update lol). this got super long so im gonna put a readmore
yes lance is super bitter about his situation and he absolutely has a right to be. he, like belle, is most definitely the town outcast/weirdo, but unlike belle, he's not the smartest person in town?? like he's not a huge reader, he's more of a math person but even still. he's not strong like his brothers so he doesn't work well on the farm. he doesn't articulate himself well so people generally think he's dumb, even though he's really not. he gets frustrated at school because the way he makes sense of things doesn't line up with the way he's supposed to do things, so he doesn't do well. he has excellent aim, but he's a horrible hunter because he refuses to kill any animals (he loves them too much). he's kind of the disappointment on every end, and he knows that, and he hates it
he wasn't necessarily SURPRISED that he was chosen to be the one to be sent up for the beast, but he's hurt anyway. it hurts him more because it was up to the ENTIRE TOWN to vote, and his family has nine people besides him, and literally only three people (veronica and his niece & nephew) didn't vote for him and that hurts him so so bad. he feels super betrayed by his family, and it's worse bc he knows they love him and they try their best to include him & do what's best for him but they genuinely don't know what to do for him so the relationship is pretty strained
the inhabitants are very used to lance's situation, at least initially!! the way i have planned out is that keith's parents died when he was around 6, and so keith was made king, but obviously the poor kid was miserable and grieving and in WAY over his head. his uncle, zarkon, was gunning for the throne obviously, and as keith's new guardian he kept trying to convince keith to give up his rights to him, but keith never even heard a word from him like he would just scream at every person who so much as looked at him wrong. none of the staff could handle him, with the exception of shiro, the oldest squire of the kingdom(late teens) & keith's only friend/older brother figure, and even that was strained, but shiro loves keith and did what he could to support him. however since zarkon wanted that throne so bad, he made a deal with an iffy enchantress, honerva, who came to the castle one rainy night and begged for shelter. since, again, keith was 6 yrs old and literally had the worst possible thing that could happen to him happen, he was horrible to her, so she cursed him -- he would look as beastly as he feels inside, and if he doesnt find someone to fall in love with him & marry him in 20 years, he was gonna be stuck that way. all the workers of the castle got stuck as household objects w him too bc zarkon, who sucks, paid her extra to make that happen, and then dipped before he could be affected.
to try and save themselves, the kingdom staff came up with a plan -- they would invite a noble kid keith's age to be his betrothed, to come live with him for a while and be keith's royal consort basically when they were old enough to get married. common occurrence! except...keith is not only still grieving, but now he's literally cursed AND he's feeling hefty guilt about how the rest of the staff is cursed only he has no idea how to express himself so it just comes out as rage. obviously the noble kid backs out after like a month of being near keith. this happens again, and again and again, until the staff (namely shiro & adam) had no more noble kids to choose from, so they trickled down to the townspeople. over the years, this info passed from town to town, and evolved into a lottery that each town did when it was their turn: they would send a young person around the prince's age to be betrothed to him. should this young person manage to find the prince agreeable and marry him, regardless of the lack of royal blood in their lineage, they would become his equal, and their family would be treated accordingly. (so it makes SENSE why lance was sent. lance knows that by marrying the prince he will do more for his family than he ever would be able to otherwise. still hurts a bunch.)
shiro & adam and everyone else in the castle is well used to a new person coming to win keith's heart. keith is rude & jaded & honestly kind of mean (he's traumatised), so they're also used to no one lasting more than two months before quitting.
lance, of course, is a special case, because he is the most stubborn person alive. most people who come are afraid of keith. lance is fuckin' mad at him. lol.
yes there will be found family fluff!! and, also, lance's family situation is stupid complicated BUT he still loves them and they still love him and there WILL be a nuanced perspective. this fic will be about CHOICE, even when that choice is hard as shit.
feel free to send me more questions!! i will have an update soon hopefully
#i love these kinds of asks theyre my fave#vld#voltron#lance#lance mcclain#langst#keith#keith kogane#keith angst#klangst#klance#broganes#lance's family#longpost#my writing
64 notes
·
View notes