#even though I lost majority of my deep dive dialogue

[purplepeptobismol]

HI ITS 🪻 AGAIN

Heres the playlist :3

FIRST OF ALL sorry for the amount of brazilian songs, im brazilian and the songs there are SO IBMT coded (poxa by os pedrero especially, stan would SO sing it on his bday looking at kyle (idk if spotify translate the lyrics of that one 😿 (IF IT DOSENT U CAN POST HERE SO I SEE IT AND TRANSLATE IT TO U :3 (and the others as well))))

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7BvmpOyDej5SyLXLgmAgoP?si=KK7P-iXbQVGesoe-0yRJFg&pi=u-pXqUyh21QBOp (I CAN SEND IN YOUR DM THE COLLABORATOR LINK OF THE PLAYLIST IF U WANT 😼😼😼)

(as you can see im a big fan of the cardigans and alex g)

YAYA!!! WOW!!! YIPPIE!!! 💖✨💖

[I wanna start by saying that as I was responding to this, I was already two hours into my long ass response and my freaking tumblr crashed and deleted everything….. So if it sounds off, I’m so sorry, i genuinely had such a long, heartfelt deep dive with some of these songs and others as well, but it all got lost… I’m gonna cry, I’m so pissed….. BUT BUT I’m gonna try to rewrite everything I said in this post 😭 god… I’m so sad. This rewrite will probably not hit the same as the original..]

Thank you so much for creating this!!! Truly 💜. I love music so freaking much! As someone with synesthesia and maladaptive daydreaming, music is genuinely one of my biggest inspirations for when I’m writing! I’ll listen to this playlist while on the way because I sadly don’t have Spotify Premium 🫠 but I knew this was gonna slap when I saw Mitski and Vampire Empire! I’ll get back to you again when I’m done listening to all of it!

For starters, I wanna comment on this fuckass image!! It’s sending me into orbit lmaoooooo 😭😭 (deadass what happened in chapter 8 ngl)

(They’re so losers, I love them)

I actually have my own private playlist (forgot I had one lmao) of this fic!! I do recommend giving these songs a chance because not only are they good, they are some of my main inspiration for writing some scenes. The lyrics fit the story line for real! TRUST! Idk if it was obvious, but I do title my chapters after song lyrics that fit the chapter vibes lolol. Anyways!!!

Bad Habits - Steve Stacy [This song is actually my main inspiration for the fic title. I had this idea in my head for so long, then this song came into my shuffle as I was driving and thinking of it, and then I was like “you know what, I AM writing and publishing this fic.” The title is a play in words. I mentioned this in my notes before but the phrase “I bite my tongue” is when someone holds their words or stops themselves from saying what they want, which is the main theme of the story. But I thought it was funny to say “I bit” instead because it’s silly to think someone wanting to say something so bad and then they just bite their tongue by accident. “Loser Stan,” I whisper into the void]

IFHY - Tyler, The Creator [This story has a lot of themes of jealousy so how could I NOT add this! I was actually listening to this song as I was writing chapter 6, and it even inspired the title for it! I mainly was thinking of this song in Stan’s POV, especially in that scene with Craig and Kyle, but the more you learn about Kyle’s character and POV in future chapters, you start to realize that this song really fits him too. Jealous Stan but possessive Kyle anyone? LET ME COOK]

Come Here - Dominic Fike [Im pretty sure this counts as spoilers but not really, but this song is the inspiration for chapter 11’s title! We’re still in Kyle’s POV and I feel like it really fits his desire for Stan in his POV. Plus, this song might be short but it’s one hell of a banger! 10/10]

Mistakes Like This - Prelow [Love this song for real! I feel like some of the lyrics could fit IBMT Stan but others fit Kyle more, in the end, I decided to settle to Kyle’s POV. Actually, this one is the inspo for chapter 9’s title!It talks about drunken love spurs so it’s immediately STYLE coded to me!!!]

Structure - Odd Sweetheart [YES!!!! This is the song that was sang in chapter 8 and there was even a whole ass animatic MADE with it! Yay, thank you Lyn!! And of course, it’s also the chapter’s title! BUT SERIOUSLY— Stan singing this song as he’s realizing his feelings for Kyle!!! I JUST- Auuuugghh!! I hate those idiots in love!]

Let’s Go - Stuck in the Sound [Yet another song that gets sang on chapter 8! This is actually the first song they play in their garage performance setlist because I feel like the lyrics really paint a picture to Stan’s dilemma in the beginning of the story to his now, current state. Yeah, you know that scene, mhm mhm🙂‍↕️, Stan was singing this babey!! It fits IBMT and it’s an actual head banger? 😎HELL YEAH]

I Got Drunk - Miya Folick [I LOVE MIYA FOLICK and I LOVE this song!! It’s STYLE coded and genuinely so freaking underrated!!! Any scenario where Stan gets drunk and confesses his feelings for Kyle is deadass THIS song!! I kinda want to write a one shots out of this one on god! EVERY STYLE SHIPPER SHOULD LISTEN TO IT! I PROMISE ITS THEM! IN THIS ESSAY-]

Here are a couple more songs I recommend! I have a bunch on my playlist that I feel really fit the vibe/story line of IBMT, but I don’t wanna go super overboard than what I’ve already shown 😭. But if you ever do want more, let me know.

• Do I Wanna Know? - Arctic Monkeys

• 3s’ - Mindless Self Indulgence

• Kuuchuu Buranko - Plastic Tree

• Psychic Sobriety - Foie Gras

• Let Me Know(I Wonder Why Freestyle) - Juice WRLD

• Somethin’ Stupid - Frank Sinatra

Now on to the songs on your playlist!! I did say I would go over all of them later, but I do want to talk about some of the ones I do recognize 😖🤞

My Alcohol Friends - The Dresden Dolls: This song in general is Stan coded! I know a lot of people get tired about hearing Stan’s drinking problems, but at the end of the day, a big part of his character is that he’s prone to fall into addicting habits (wether it’s hoarding, gambling, freemium, alcohol, etc). SO YES!! This song 100% DOES fit!!

I Want You - Mitski: I love Mitski so much! I do believe it fits them but I don’t know who’s POV exactly cuz it could go either or, so please let me know your opinion! I do love the inclusion of First Love/Late Spring, Stan’s POV goes BRRR on that one! What do you think of Old Friend being in Stan’s POV and Why Didn’t You Stop Me? being Kyle’s POV? 👀 I think it fits hehe. Shame is also a good one and I was actually listening to it as I was writing chapter 5 (you can actually tell because I hinted the lyrics in the first couple of paragraphs of it haha). Go figures!! As you can tell, I have a lot of Mitski songs in my library because my bestie is a BIG fan of hers, so she’s always listening to her. We were suppose to see her on her tour but we were all broke and working at that time 💔 next time, perhaps. She also suggested to include Goodbye, My Danish Sweetheart because it fits IBMT Stan. Thoughts?

Lovefool - The Cardigan: Kyle. Yes, Kyle! It just fits pre-IBMT Kyle! Boy was so down bad, swooning like a freaking idiot before Bebe’s after-party incident in chapter 9. UGH! I hate them so much! They really need to fix their shit so they can go back to being all cringe and lovey dovey!!! I’m getting pissed off, maybe I SHOULD finish writing chapter 11!!

A New Kind Of Love - Frou Frou ft. Imogen Heap & Guy Sigsworth: Another fun fact! This song is also on my IBMT playlist! I love Imogen Heap so much!! I have some of her other songs on my other fic/character playlists too!

Shut Me Up - Mindless Self Indulgence: Honestly , I did not expect this one! I kind of want to know your thoughts on why you added it! Was it a specific scene? I do feel like it fits the garage performance vibe since it has that intensity I pictured! I actually created a setlist for the songs the boy performed in order lolol. But yes!! Love it either way <333

Vampire Empire - Big Thief: I CAN’T EXPRESS HOW MUCH I LOVE THE INCLUSION OF THIS ONE!!!! This was obviously on not only my IBMT playlist, but my STYLE playlist too. It just… it’s literally them, guys!! I can literally go into a heavily 10 page scripted deep dive about how this song fits those two, but it could all be concluded to that angst unrequited/requited love you have towards your best friend. GOD!! I can talk about this song and style for an entire 8 hour podcast too!! But I’ll refrain myself by just saying: YES YES YES 100% YES ANON 👍💙💚.

Once again thank you so much for sharing your playlist!!! I know I have the story on pause to focus on my other fic, but I promise you I am NOT scrapping it! I will come back to it eventually. Please look forward to that and my other stories if you’re interested 🥹🫶

[jamiepaige]

Constant Companions Closeup #1: DYAD

(also on spotify!)

Hello everyone!! It's been a couple weeks and change since Constant Companions, my newest album, was released unto the world, and I've been genuinely blown away by the response. Genuinely, thank you to everyone who's been streaming, commenting, making mashups, changing their pfps and usernames - it means the world to me!

I wanted to give some of that love back with something people have been asking me a lot about - and, admittedly, something I love doing. Song explanations! Deep dives! Dropping the lore! Welcome... to the Constant Companions Closeups...

For the next eleven days, I'll be going into each track one by one and babbling about the process, inspiration, details, feelings, and thoughts behind each one! We're getting sappy. We're bearing our hearts. We're telling unfunny jokes. And we're starting with track one - DYAD (featuring unit.0)!

---

Naturally, since this is the first track, it also serves as a great point to talk about my intention with this album as a whole!

I'll elaborate more on this with future tracks, but to me, there are really two main things that define the sonic progression of this album versus my previous work - guitars and vocal synths. Obviously, these things have been present in my work since I first started calling myself Jamie Paige, but Constant Companions is intended to be my overwrought, sappy confession of love to these two things that time and time again have made me simply want to make music. I love rock and I love Hatsune Miku dammit!!!

I had originally written this song in February of 2023 for a game-jam-esque online festival hosted by my friend Loni called HAPPY PARTY TRI, and at that time, I had found myself at a major crossroads. I had put out People Posture Play Pretend and :women_wrestling: the previous year, and while the response was nice, I was feeling listless and lost.

I love singing. I like my voice well enough. I certainly love writing music with lyrics!! But... there was something uniquely electrifying about using vocal synths. Amidst a lot of insecurity and emotional turmoil surrounding the process of making art and putting myself out into the world, it was one of the few things that just made everything feel right. Suddenly, I was making the same kind of music that had touched my heart so many times over.

Would it alienate people, though? Would I lose longtime listeners? Yes, that weighed on my mind more than I'd like to admit, but even more than that... I was worried I'd lose some part of myself, as silly as it sounds. Maybe what I thought was a bridge would become a barrier, and the messages I wanted to send across the gap would never find their way.

Ultimately, I felt that Dyad was the only kind of opener I could've possibly given this album, and a perfect fit for the album's motif. A dialogue between myself, stricken with loneliness and a lack of inertia running in circles, and that synthesized voice (ANRI Arcane my darling), grabbing the outstretched hand and asking a question I already know the answer to -

"Baby, do you know what you wanna hear?"

Yes, it's a love song, but it's not just for a person - it's a love song for the creative impulse, and for the places I wanted it to take me.

im resisting the urge to be jokingly dismissive of myself to diffuse tension but i still need to signal that the emotionally bare part of this is over so pretend im doing a funny little dance Anyways let's talk more technical stuff

---

Like many of my songs, Dyad came together from a patchwork of different snippets and ideas I had laying around. The back half of the chorus - "dream together, we can dream together" - originally came from this idea I had jotted down something like 9 months prior, but ended up being a perfect fit for Dyad in basically every way. The verse snippet that I'd written to go with it got reused for a later song on Constant Companions as well! (I say without naming it, as if it isn't literally lifted wholesale from this demo and thus incredibly obvious)

I wasn't originally planning on brazenly quoting the bridge of a Tally Hall song when I set out to write this song, but while toying around with a bridge idea involving a shortened version of the pre-chorus melody, I realized I had inadvertently copied it anyways. I was going to scrap it... but at the request of my dear friend and certified Tally Hall lover Marcy Nabors, I made it an explicit reference. Which I'm fine with, personally! The first CD I ever owned was a copy of Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum my sister bought me all the way back in 2006 - You can pry that sentimental attachment from my cold, dead hands, TikTok kiddies.

Lastly - not really behind the scenes so much as just a shoutout - thank you to unit.0 for the lovely lead guitar work on this song!! He's been a beloved collaborator of mine for many, many years now, and one of the people who ultimately convinced me this direction was the right one to go in, so it means a lot to share this song with him. Go listen to his music!!! Now!!!!!!

That's about it for this song! Not to sound like a fucking YouTuber, but genuinely, if there are any details you'd like to hear more about, let me know and I might made a bonus post at the end of all this. Otherwise, thank you for listening! Tomorrow: Not Quite There, featuring telebasher!

❤️💚

[daisychainsandbowties]

👀 😈 💻

👀 oh this is neat because i can just choose a different wip! how about some bealil from star wars au 4

Even in the red-tinted dark, the black wires under her skin glisten. It’s hard not to see them as Beatrice reaches up, gently now, as if for the first time she has some apprehension of what she is touching. She is weak, still, and Lilith has to bow her head - a genuflection of sorts, a small surrender. 

Beatrice kisses her like she’s trying to steal her breath, like they’re trapped in open space together. Like there’s not enough air for either of them but she’s going to take it anyway. What little there is, she puts her mouth on it.

And Lilith tries not to be undone.

In space, if you hold a breath, the air expands inside your lungs and fills you up with holes. It’s like that with her sometimes – a disaster waiting to happen or one that has already happened. Lilith looks at her and feels that she will be torn apart in an instant by ebullism, or what they call vaporisation.

Being kissed by her not importantly distinct from dying, and that’s the trouble of it. Lilith leans into her, grazing Beatrice’s lower lip with her tongue, and she does not think in trite sentences – not you will be the death of me.

It is impossible to deny, as fingers slip down, tugging Lilith’s shirt from where it’s tucked into her belt, that Beatrice is death itself. Everything about her as tender as a fresh burn, and later Lilith will discover a patch of scarring, high on Beatrice’s hip, from the blade of her sabre, but just then there is only room inside of her for the feeling that she is to Beatrice what oxygen is to an open flame.

Lilith opens her eyes to find that Beatrice’s – bruised by sleeplessness and starved of light – are closed. Not shut, but fluttering on the edge of open, and gentled by that surrender. Her hands are raised, now, barely touching the edge of Lilith’s jaw, feather-light, one of them trembling from the strain that even this small action puts on her elbow. But she doesn’t close it into a fist, she just lets it flutter, and it’s no different, really, from nakedness. More naked, perhaps, than Lilith's blunt hands could manage.

😈 is there anything you enjoy doing that you think your readers hate?

i'm blessed to have readers who seem to enjoy the blood and misery as much as i do, so i think probably the thing that i have to balance my own enthusiasm for is what i've taken to calling the Beatrice Lecture Series, or the tendency of Beatrice to punch me in the throat and out of nowhere spend around 1000 words lecturing about some obscure strand of my own various interests. Lilith is the worst enabler of this habit, and while she is (probably) turned on by it, and while i am happy to be relegated to my paddling pool of blood while beatrice goes on, and on, and on - i do have to wade back into the narrative at a certain point with her kicking the shit out of me the entire time. yeah... sometimes i definitely do that too much. i wouldn't say that people hate it all the time, but if i fall for beatrice's good old 'hey casper look at this' too much i think it does get annoying, and i'm a poor judge of when, exactly, that happens.

💻 do you do research for your fics? what's the deepest dive you've done?

oh i am forever in the research. it's one of the best parts of writing for me - just rifling around in my own head and learning new things and getting lost in the sauce (wikipedia). oof, i've done some fairly deep-dives the past few months so i can't really choose one. definitely researching the physics of breakages at the molecular level for one (1) epigraph was... a time, but also the day before yesterday i read a papal encyclical in four different languages - though this was, at least, for one (1) line of actual dialogue in a fic.

all of the star wars research has been super interesting (my amazing smart incredible friends have so far picked up just one major lore-discrepancy in the star wars au) because i'm such a himbo star wars fan. like yeah, for star wars au you bet i had my shitty plastic lightsaber out in front of the mantlepiece practicing my obi-wan stance (& getting absolutely torn to shreds for my posture :/ which is humiliating when you have actual swordfighting skills) but i was (am) woefully ignorant of the vast majority of star wars lore, so rectifying that has been so much fun. also any and all ligaments research is so good - a couple of months ago i did an in-depth study of bird bones for, again, a bloody paragraph (indeed, a BLOODY paragraph) because i was curious as to how tarask-cooties might alter Lilith's poor gay skeleton.

[cannedbread95]

Slow Damage Review

Not Spoiler Free! What makes Slow Damage such an emotionally compelling and rewarding experience? To answer this question, we first need to look outwards at ourselves and the social conditions of the society we live in. It doesn’t take much insight to understand that capitalism is in a deep and severe crisis. Inflation, poverty, political instability are just a few things that have been exacerbated in recent times. And I find that art in general rarely takes inspiration from the sickness of this system. Right away in Slow Damage, the prologue dives into the economic collapse of post-Olympic Japan. Describing basically word for word what life has become for the majority of people around the world. Shinkoumi may seem dystopic, but are the material conditions on the island really that different from our own? Its clear where the writers drew their inspiration from.  

Towa is both a unique and familiar character. Compared to other Nitro Chiral protagonists, Towa certainly stands out, but why is that? I think there’s a few reasons. Towa for most of the story is really just someone trying to get by in life, and barely at that. He has few hobbies, spends a lot of time doing nothing, works a boring low wage job, wanders around. Not even mentioning his drug abuse and other destructive behaviors, its clear that Towa isn’t very interested in being alive. There are reasons for this, which are later revealed in the true route. However, Towa’s internal dialogue reveals that a lot of Shinkoumi residents feel the same way, and he’s no different. Given the staggering unemployment rate, high cost of living, and prevalence of violent crime, Shinkoumi is a suffocating place to live, especially for young people. Towa’s lifestyle may standout in comparison, but in his world--our world, he’s just the average guy. Throughout the story, Towa meets people who are just like him. People who have suffered the same exact abuse he did as a child, and who cope in the same destructive way he does. Even though Towa has familial connections to the bourgeois of Shinkoumi, his lived reality is crippling poverty. I think at times throughout the story, there seems to be not a lot going on. During the exploration component, Towa has the option of going to local shops and districts, but these movements are not necessarily plot relevant. A lot of the time, Towa just goes to places and you get to listen to his thoughts. If Towa goes to the old school candy shop, you get to hear him talk about gentrification and nostalgia (obviously in his words). Depending on what district he’s walking through, he describes the class character of the neighborhood, who probably lives in the apartments, etc. I think this is a wonderful component of the story, and Towa’s descriptions really solidify the class character of Shinkoumi. Towa’s meandering and inner dialogue are the heart of the game in my opinion.  Its not until after Fujieda’s route where Towa has regained his lost memories that he starts to find joy in everyday life. But Towa doesn’t magically heal from his trauma. In fact, when Towa is brutally confronted with his childhood, we see him breaking down and falling into the lowest point of his life. Its only through Fujieda’s compassionate intervention where Towa begins to slowly accept himself. By the end of Fujieda’s route, Towa is still suffering from daily nightmares. However, in the past when Towa would use self-harm and alcohol to cope with his trauma, instead now we see him experiencing the same distressing flashbacks, and then letting the painful feelings pass. This is not to say that he’s unaffected from the agony of his trauma. Towa still struggles from insomnia and feeling like shit in general, but at least now he wants to live.  Unfortunately, Slow Damage does not end in the revolution of Shinkoumi. I’ll admit that I was bit disappointed that nothing fundamentally changed in the resort city. Even though the two gang leaders who governed the city were removed, we are told that some other “corporation” took their place, and it was business as usual. Although anti climatic, this is the reality under capitalism. Social conditions don’t magically improve just because the scary cat lover ex-yakuza assassinates the head honchos. So basically, post story Shinkoumi is still a shitty place to live if you’re poor. But at least in each ending, we get to see Towa trying to live his best life regardless if he’s decided to confront his lost memories. Its enough that Rei, Taku, Madarame and Fujieda accept and love Towa for who he is. And this feeling is mutual too. Although perhaps more obvious in other routes, Towa openly voices his admiration and respect for each love interest. This doesn’t mean that these relationships are perfect by any means, but that these characters can be imperfect, crooked, and happy.  It was really difficult putting together a review, especially since I love this game so much. I think the point overall of writing this was to somewhat clarify why this visual novel resonated with me so well. The strong point of this game is undoubtedly Towa and getting to experience Shinkoumi through his eyes. I think in general if Slow Damage had come out ten years ago, it probably wouldn’t have had the same emotional impact on its players, or at least for me. But for me, and millions of other young people, the world has turned its back on us. Conditions are rapidly deteriorating, life has become unbearable, and like the barbarism of Shinkoumi, there seems to be no way out. But at least in Slow Damage, we get to see someone like us finding a sliver of respite in a world deprived of hope.  Afterthoughts: By the way, this game also has an amazing soundtrack, art direction, voice acting and UI. There are so many other wonderful aspects of the game that I will not mention publicly on social media platforms. But if you must know, Slow Damage is an R18 game. Slow Damage has really  elevated the Boys Love genre in general and I hope future titles will continue to go beyond expectations. I was also all over the place with this review, which is indicative of how badly I want to pop off on all the things I love about Slow Damage. 

[stusbunker]

BGDC: The Empty Doesn’t Sleep

A Supernatural Fan-fiction Mini-series

Featuring: Female!Hunter Reader, Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester, Jack, Castiel, The Empty, Billie

Word Count: 3318

Warnings, etc: Flashbacks in italics, domestic violence discussed after the fact, bruises from multiple injuries mentioned. Season 15 moral wormholes. Some dialogue taken from canon. Drunken shenanigans. Unwanted advances. A line is crossed. Major character death (canon compliant). Grief. Awful timing. The past is revealed.

Series Masterlist

Unity cont’d

I know why Sam is doing this, heels dug deep and nose to the grindstone, research that won’t quit. Because Sam needs to save Jack.

It’s an old battlefield for Sam, and he’s been losing ground longer than he’s had words for it. He used to tell me things, secrets, really. Before they’d ever saved the world, before he knew exactly what was crawling in his veins. Whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it… To Sam no one is beyond salvation.

Too bad God is no longer interested in the redemption arc.

I bring back another round of coffees and hope to slip a protein bar into his periphery, but Sam’s frustration is no longer contained. Surprised it’s taken this long, I bend down to reach for the book and realize Cas already has it. Tilts his head at me with that sad, knowing look.

Sam apologizes. 

“It's alright. I understand it. I-I... I feel it, too. It's hopelessness,” Cas admits. I start to feel like this has been building longer than anyone had clued me in on.

“Maybe Dean was right,” Sam admits.

“Well, I won’t tell him if you don’t.” I pawn off the snack and sit back down, across from Cas.

Sam logics out loud better with Cas here, works through what is truly bothering him about the scenario. Too used to watching what he says around me since I f.u.b.a.r.-ed everything. But he gets it out, Billie was specifically working with Dean. That the plan was never fully revealed even to Dean. Sam needs answers. Cas worries Sam is feeling particularly self-sacrificial; I was too slow to get that out of Sam’s plotting. 

He just wants more information, to see all sides. So, we look for the key, a literal key to Death’s Library. What doesn’t this damn place have? 

The incantation burns into the wall, old magic opens the doorway. Though Death’s words are older than Latin, we use what we know. Sam wants to go alone. The hell he will.

“No, Cas--- Look, I don't know if this is crazy or---or what, but if Dean beats us back here---Buy us some time?” Sam gets it out quick.

Cas, diving deep into the reassurance pool, “Sam, for what it's worth, I don't think you're crazy. I think your internal compass is functioning perfectly.” He turns to me and says a deep thank you with a firm squeeze to my arm.

We’re doing this. Sam goes first as we step through the door, portal, vortex, what-have-you and are greeted by rows of bookshelves, the space between them littered with bodies. I’d prefer bread crumbs. What had I expected walking into Death’s house? Not this. A choking scream stops Sam on the spot, I catch myself against his back.

    Dean pulled up to the safehouse outside of Boise alone, sparing Sam seeing her like this and saving her from Sam’s sympathy.  She’d dry out at home. It was still her home after all.

    She didn’t speak, stomping back to the unmade bed in her hoodie and sweats. Dean followed her into the room, over the ancient shag carpeting, drenched in old smoke and bad decisions. 

    “When he’d leave?” Dean tried to be gentle, but the anger at her ex was hard to swallow back, even now.

    “I lost him in Reno. Doubt he noticed,” she huffed, words tumbling over themselves. She was still drunk, or maybe she hadn’t slept yet.

    “You hit him back?” Dean asked, unable to ignore the damage done to her face. He guessed the worst was under the uncharacteristic layers.

    “Did what I could,” she hummed. “Always was a little slow, though.” She laughs at the rhyme, or herself. He hated this part of her.

    “Well, clean yourself up--- I’ll get your stuff in the car.” Dean wasn���t going to let her wallow any longer.

    “Yes, sir, Dean,” she replied robotically. “Right away, Dean.”

    Dean walked over, sat on the side of her bed and waited until she looked at him. “This wasn’t your fault. You know that, right?”

    “Kinda was,” she puffed. He tried not to breathe through his nose, she was almost as fermented as the everclear seeping from her pores.

    Dean sighed and tugged her to his chest. “He chose to hit you. That’s on him.”

    She just shook her head, unable or unwilling to speak.

    “Whatever he said, whatever he did. None of that was your fault," Dean pleaded with her to hear reason. 

         "I was with him, Dean. That's fault enough. I shouldn't have been that stupid. I fucking know better! And now here I am--- like a goddamn after school special." She pulled out the collar of her sweatshirt, showing the bruises that littered her neck and chest. "Some fucking hunter I am. I didn't get the monster. He got me. And then let me go, like it was a favor. Like I owe him one now."

        Dean closed his eyes and inhaled, his arms gripping her tighter than he should have, her body grounding him while dampening the bubbling anger. 

    “I’m sorry I made you drive all the way here,” she whispered. “I should have been strong enough.”

    Dean didn’t say anything, he just rocked her gently. She didn’t let him for long. But she did agree to shower. After he squared her bill, all they had left to do was survive the deathly quiet drive back to Kansas. 

Dean pulls to the side of the road, his thoughts had been squirming and hissing inside his mind the entire drive back. He wouldn’t keep going knowing what the kid heard him say. How dismissive he was. It makes him sick to be in his own body. Like the act could be separated from him somehow. 

He needs to get this out, he can’t let Jack die thinking...

“Hold up. Just--- What I said to Sam, you didn't need to hear that. Alright? Not now. Not with the weight that you're carrying-- for us, for this world. Jack--- I don't know how to explain it, but what I found out about Chuck--- it's like--it's like I wasn't alive. Not really. You know, like, my whole life I've never been free. But like, really free. But now... now me and Sam, we got a shot at living a life. Without all this crap on our backs. And that's-- that's because of you. So, I-- I-- I wanted to say---I need to say--- Thank you, Jack. Thank you.” Dean knows it isn’t enough. He is being carved out with the impossibility of any more righteous causes. He just needs to do the next right thing and not stop to think because the guilt will take hold entirely.

Jack gives him a polite ‘you’re welcome.’

And then it’s go time. 

“Well, Billie can't leave, either, something about the plan, so she sent me with a message. Billie will honor her promise. God, Amara-- they die. And you, you can go back to sleep.” Leave it to a Winchester to be able to bull shit a cosmic being. Sam convinces the thing wearing Meg’s last face that he’s doing Billie’s bidding. Such a chipper errand boy.

Except she’s not an idiot. “And if you're lying?”

Yeah, Sam, what then?! I try to look offended, but Sam presses on. “I guess you have two choices. Give me the book-- maybe we all win. But you kill me, we lose... And you will never go back to sleep.”

“What about her? Billie hasn’t mentioned her, but you brought her along, so she’s somebody you care about. How about this? You get the book and I get her,” she’s making too much sense. I see the ending before Sam can push for better odds.

I feel her hold once more, a giant invisible straight jacket with a matching pair of cement boots.

“Wait! No-- the ritual--,” Sam starts.

“Is all in your hands, Legs,” I cut him off. “Go, figure out what Billie wants. I’ll be here.”

“See? Everybody’s got their part to play. Don’t hold out on me now,” the Empty watches ruefully as Sam gives me unspoken promises he can’t possibly keep. “Until we meet again, Sam Winchester.”

Frozen, I can’t watch him go.

Despair

Billie picks up God’s Death Book and opens it, flips to the end. Dean wants to slam her hand in it. Ingrained calculations throw countless moves and countermoves his way. He fights to remain in one place.

Cas questions Billie, “What are you doing?”

Billie, unhurried, replies, “Since you ruined the last one, God's book has a new ending.

Dean doesn’t have time for this. “Jack, now.---Billie, I swear–”

She audibly and physically shushes him.

“And Y/N,” Sam adds decisively. 

Dean spins on his brother, confusion lining his face.

“The Empty kept her so I could take the book. I convinced it that I needed it to complete Billie’s ritual. I didn’t know---,” Sam’s face catches up to Dean’s thoughts. “I didn’t think.”

Regret tinged rage burns through Dean, they were so close. Now they’d lost their chance to end Chuck and two of their own. He might actually kill Sam yet.

Billie, completely unaffected by their conversation, keeps reading. Dean moves closer to Death, knowing she can’t be trusted but needing her all the same. He hates himself for his choices, even now as he inches closer to her weapon.

“Interesting,” is all Billie says.

And then Jack appears.

But Billie blocks them from reaching him. “Nuh-uh. The boy's mine.”

Jack, shell-shocked, disagrees. Billie in all her deadpanned charm denies him his freedom and then Dean sees red. She still wants to use Jack for her own game.

Sam barks, “No, you can't!” 

Which gives Dean his opening. The scythe is familiar in his hands. She doesn’t see him coming, but he only manages to nick her. As the book hits the floor, Dean feels like it was enough, until he is flying across the room.  Billie is gone and Jack is falling over, before Dean can fully sit up.

   Dean pulled into the bunker garage, stinking from sweat and whiskey breath. She’s been singing along to the radio the entire way from the bar and Dean can’t remember the last time they’d had this much fun. Sammy even found somebody to shack up with for the night, good for him. It’d been awhile. Dean didn’t count backwards to his last hook up or anything, didn’t dwell on the fact that he was feeling the ache in his joints and not the thrill of the chase.

    Nope. This was not the night for a pity party.

    “You know what we need?” He asked as she crawled out of the passenger seat, energy bouncing off of her. “Shots.”

    “Shots!” She agreed triumphantly. Goofy grin mirroring his own.

    “I’ll grab the liquor, you get the snacks, meet in the Cave in ten?” Dean strategized.

    “Deal!” And she was off. “Winner picks the movie!” She called over her shoulder and Dean had to scramble to gain his footing. Astonishingly, she beat him. Popcorn and chips and his stash of Hershey’s miniatures all thrown over the couch. He admitted defeat, allowing her to flip to The Princess Bride, like he’d say no to a classic.

    They took a shot as Fred Savage showed up and one more when Peter Falk started to read. But the movie sucked them in after that. Before Dean knew it, she was asleep with her head in his lap. He knew better than to try and wake her, so he drifted off sitting up. He’d slept in weirder positions.

    He woke to a warm breath over his face. She was unnecessarily close. Her eyes hooded and her legs straddling his. “Hey.”

    “Can I help you?” Dean asked, swallowing down his confusion while trying not to let the alarm slip into his words.

    “Maybe we can help each other?” She purred. Oh no. She kissed him. And because he was frozen in shock, she did it again. The second time she tried for tongue and Dean had to push her off of him.

    “Hey, now,” Dean started. “What is going on?”

    “I thought---,” she stammered. “You were hard, I thought you---.”

    “I’m---,” Dean broke off, and adjusted himself while twisting away from her. “Look, it’s not like a guy can help it. It just happens sometimes.”

    “Okay, geez, you don’t have to get all huffy.” She crawled to the far corner of the couch, bending in on herself.

    “You wake up to someone on your lap and practically shoving their tongue down your throat and tell me you wouldn’t be pissed!” Dean stood, pointing at the spot on the couch like a stain in time.

    “I’m sorry, I----should have thought it out, I’m still pretty tipsy,” she choked out. “Oh Christ. Did I just frat boy you?”

    Dean sighed and waited for her to work through what just happened.

    After the quiet became oppressive, Dean said, “Look, I’m not really that mad. But, the real question is: why did you try to kiss me?”

    Her eyes were like saucers, but she didn’t reply.

    “Is that how you see me? Like a hook up?” Dean pressed.

    “Don’t make me answer that,” she said with grave finality.

Dean’s been sitting in the Library in the dark. He couldn’t comprehend being more screwed then they were at that moment. They’d bullshitted and strategized themselves out of the impossible before. What was less like than impossible? Royally fucked seemed closest.

Sam shows up after he’s been swimming in his memories. Of the times he’d failed her. Of the time she’d hurt him the most. How none of that matters now. Dean sends the bourbon Sam’s way, watches as he pours himself a glass.

“Sam, I'm sorry. About everything that–” Dean has to say something.

His brother won’t let him get it out.

“I pulled a gun on you. It's like I just couldn't stop. You know, we were so close to beating him. It's like I could smell Chuck's blood in the water and I--- Nothing else mattered. It was everything. And I just couldn't snap out of it.” Dean feels the loss of control all over again, like a heavy fog, thick and permeating.

But Sam won’t let him take all the blame. “Well, you did. You've snapped me out of worse.---You have. And we both messed up trying to get our side of things through. I shouldn’t have brought her with---”

“Like she would’ve let you go in alone,” Dean mutters before taking another drink. They talk about the inevitability of it all: Pissing off Death, with Jack weaker than ever, Chuck Amara-charged and an Archangel who doesn’t answer their prayers. They don’t say her name. At least, they still have Cas. And each other. Dean Winchester is counting his blessings, or maybe just the things he has yet to lose. 

They agree on somehow. Because surrender is never uttered aloud preemptively.

The Empty isn’t built for human souls. Or bodies at all. I hang in the void, emphatically in limbo. No up or down or even much myself. It’s like the moment before waking, except constant. All I can do is wait for revelation. Or destruction.

I hit the ground with knee buckling force, catch myself on scraped palms and know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I’m back on Earth. The Empty sent me directly into a dim room with a hunched figure that is very Dean shaped. I’m so excited I can’t stop the words before they jump out of my throat. “You did it?! Jack killed Chuck?” 

Dean looks at me like I’m a ghost. Like a civilian would look at a ghost anyhow. Something’s wrong, he’s on the ground and his head had been buried in his hands. His face is wet.

Time stops. I feel Dean’s defeat before I realize what it must mean.

“No! She sent me back, the deal was if the plan worked she would send me back! What’s going on?” I’m on the cold cement floor beside him and he isn’t talking. “Come on Grumpus, talk to me!”

“It’s over. Chuck won,” Dean whispers to the space between his knees. “The Empty came for Cas and got Billie in the process. I guess that was good enough.”

The deal. She got what she wanted, so she gave me back. But took Cas. Oh no.

“But the Empty couldn’t come here, it had to be summoned. She said Jack had done something, but she was still waiting on Billie---.” I don’t know what point I’m trying to prove or to who, but my voice is dangerously high and catches in my throat.

Dean doesn’t answer me, he’s glassy eyed and lost. Haven’t seen him this wrecked since--- the last time Cas died. I’m trying to keep up. But the emotional whiplash is making me numb. Not to mention what being thrown through dimensions does to one’s equilibrium.

I stop myself four or five times from asking more questions. Letting the quiet spread between us like clouds over a picnic. My return is not a triumph. My presence fixes nothing. In the end, we always lose. After countless minutes, Dean stands up, dusts off the seat of his pants and stops in the middle of the room.

I haven’t been in this part of the bunker in a very long time. It’s maddening how this room seems to mock us by simply existing, now more than ever. Dean’s not looking at me, he stares at a spot near the ceiling and sniffs. “He summoned it, Cas summoned the Empty because Billie was after us. He knew--- he had a deal with the Empty. If he was happy, it’d take ‘im. And he just---”

I wait long enough to know he’s not going to finish. “The Empty talked about Cas, said he gave her trust issues,” I explained what little I had learned. “But why was he happy? If Chuck won---”

Dean turns and looks at me like he’s just realizing I’m there. And that I appall him.

“Doesn’t matter,” Dean mutters and storms off.

Inherit the Earth

    I woke up in a spare bedroom, having picked the wrong room in my hasty retreat. When I finally managed to drag myself out of the dusty blankets, I froze in the doorway to my room. My stuff was all packed for me on the bed, a note on top of my duffel.

    ‘Sam found a case in Kentucky. See you around.’

    No goodbye. No explanation. No forgiveness or apologies. Just, that. I grunted and laughed just as the tears started to burn the corners of my eyes. What had I done?

    I texted Sam on my way west, knowing he had no clue what Dean or I had done. Unable to justify my actions, I gave him an unfair bullshit explanation and left the bunker for good.

I sit on the edge of my bed in stunned silence. Chuck is ending his final world. There is no one left. We need to meet up with Sam and Jack. I meant to start packing. I hadn’t unpacked more than a day’s worth of clothing and still I can’t bear to do it. I don’t know how to walk outside and find no one. I just got back into the world; did I bring the Empty with me afterall?

“Hey. Ready?” Dean’s been doing the two or three word sentences. The less he tries to fill the silence, the bigger the space between us grows. I shouldn’t have come back. I knew better than to answer his call.

Knowing better and doing better have always been crossed wires in my programming.

“As I’ll ever be,” I reply, following him slowly. He hasn’t changed clothes. I guess I’m not the only one who’s on autopilot.

Tell me what you think?

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Read On: Stay Down

[itsclydebitches]

The Crosshair stuff is a symptom of the lacklustre character establishment of it's main cast. Crosshair is the only Bad Batcher with a defined character to pull from, even if it's wrapped in the cluster fuck of the show being indecisive about the Inhibitor chips's abilities. The rest don't have a developed enough personality to draw from, they're archetypes who'll voice the position the plot needs them to occupy at the moment. What they'll defend in one episode they'll decry the next.

TBB characters are definitely archetypal, though I'm not sure I'd agree that this is inherently a bad thing and/or that it's at the root of the Crosshair messiness. Archetypes don't necessarily equal a lack of a character, just a character that we've seen many times before. Unless you prioritize novelty in your storytelling (which many people do), there's nothing inherently wrong with taking the "dumb," but emotionally intelligent brute, the socially inept genius, the stoic leader, and the "evil" asshole, cramming them in a small ship together, and letting sparks fly. The reason that dynamic works — as it has worked many times before — is because it pits such differing personalities against one another, resulting in both great teamwork and amusing conflict: such as when Wrecker is gleefully stuffing Lula in a pissed-off Crosshair's face. The contrast is fun and that contrast stems primarily from keeping their personalities simple and defined. Unless you really know what you're doing, the more you mess with those personality boxes, the less individualized your characters feel. See: the RWBYJNOR team who have, over the years, lost both their specialized skills and their distinguishing personality traits. The person who just blushed sweetly and awkwardly rubbed a hand behind their neck... was it Ruby? Oscar? Blake? Yang? Jaune? Even Nora? Could be any of them because at this point their core personalities have flattened. Though it's definitely not to everyone's taste, the black and white differences between TBB was kind of refreshing. Throw out a line of dialogue and you can easily figure out who said it. There's something to be said for that level of understanding about a character, even if the understanding itself is simple.

Personally, I'd say the problem lies not in creating another team where everyone has a distinct skill and a stereotypical personality to match, but rather in severely underutilizing the thing that shook that dynamic up: Echo.

Look, I ADORE Omega. I was cheering for my fictional daughter through every step of this season (quite literally during "Replacements"). But—but—if we wanted to push things in the character development department, I'd relegate her to season two. Omega's character serves as the audience surrogate/newbie/hopeful optimist archetype and that's great... provided that you ignore how Echo was already positioned to fill those roles. He became the newest member of TBB, but we skipped over his integration to instead introduce another new member. And, as much as I love her, Omega doesn't push TBB the way that Echo could.

TCW introduced a severe dislike for the "regs," something the first episode of TBB re-emphasized through the cafeteria scene, and then what do you know, the newest member is a former reg. I was expecting there to be a lot of tension stemming from that as the group worked to overcome their prejudice, a prejudice we now know is born of harassment and, interestingly, a sense of superiority. That's one of the few places where TBB does something unexpected: rather than suffering severe insecurity about being "defective," TBB is proud of their differences. (Or, at least, they've embraced pride to cover insecurity.) But unlike a reg's haircut, tattoos, or name, theirs isn't an individuality that they chose. The Kaminoans made them to be different. "I like to blow stuff up because I LIKE TO BLOW STUFF UP" Wrecker roars, but it's a moment that foreshadows his eventual fall to the chip: "No one controls me." Except, you know, he is controllable. There's a story there about characters trying to remain proud of skills and personalities that they know are engineered, trying to embrace individuality when they know they're controllable, who long for the stability and connection of their brothers, but reject the uniformity of "real" clones... and then there's Echo, suddenly on the scene, a former "real" clone who now is nothing like the majority of his brothers, whose differences were also forced on him by another, who should likewise be grappling with embracing his individuality vs. hating how it separates him from what he once knew... that's a lot. Echo could have — arguably should have — been the catalyst for a ton of self-reflection within TBB, mirroring his own development, and resulting in archetypal characters who nevertheless have a secondary layer of nuance.

But none of that happened because Omega became the focus instead, a character who forced TBB to struggle with taking care of a child, not struggle with their own identities. I'd thought for a hot second that the conflict would be whether soldiers could raise a child at all — whether they'd have to change for Omega's benefit — but instead she rather quickly became a soldier of her own, despite how often the dialogue insisted she wasn't. Here's her weapon. Here's her memorizing orders. Here's her first mission alone. Here's her almost never struggling with the horrors that she's experienced; she's as emotionally sturdy as the men bred for war. Omega develops, which is fantastic to watch, but the downside is that everyone else, our title characters, remain pretty static. I think if we'd had a season of Echo joining TBB, perhaps taking place a little before Order 66, and then Omega came on the scene, we would have seen a bit more depth to their characters, simply by virtue of Echo being a character whose personality and problems would inevitably push them. Omega doesn't push them. She's wonderful... and from a writing standpoint that's kinda the problem. She's always optimistic, always compassionate, doesn't take long to get good at these complex skills, never wavers in being satisfied and happy with this life. TBB never had to change to care for her, Omega just did them the courtesy of becoming another elite-soldier capable of keeping up with their dangerous, crazy lives. Her presence is a constant joy and benefit to the team, adding only good things to the status quo they'd developed. Echo? His arrival should, theoretically, have shaken the status quo like whoa. Here's this traumatized reg trying to become a member of a four-unit team who have an Us vs. Them approach to life. That's a recipe for conflict and development.

However, just because I can see other possibilities for TBB doesn't mean I think what we got is wrong. Yeah, it's simple in many respects and as said, the comparative complexity of Crosshair's situation might not end well, but beyond that, simple isn't inherently bad. I found it a lot of fun to watch a found family of extreme personalities take in a wonderful child and go on adventures together. I don't need every show — particularly every Star Wars show — to be a deep dive into complex storytelling. It can be enough to just embrace predictability, especially since the predictable became predictable because lots of people liked those choices.

[16woodsequ]

The Alternative Timeline; A Journey

If you don't know, I have spent the last two years writing a 2012-alternate timeline AU Marvel fanfic. (You can find it here).

It has grown way past anything that I could have ever imagined. In celebration of completing the final chapter of the fourth part, I thought I would make a post detailing this journey for anyone interested, because when I started this in 2019, I definitely did not expect to end up writing an epic of over 500,000 words.

Spoilers under the cut.

First off, I think it is important to note that before I started the first fic in this series, Alternatively, I had published a total of two (2) fics in the mcu universe. My very first Marvel fic Lessons Learned was posted January 2019. My second Marvel fic Never Again was posted March 2019. (Both of which combined have a total word count of 5,716.) And then, on May 4th, 2019, I watched Avengers: Endgame, and lost my mind.

Upon watching Endgame, I was struck immediately by the time-travel scene to 2012. The fact that 2023!Steve told 2012!Steve that Bucky was alive...and that he said 'Hail Hydra' to the STRIKE team in the elevator...never mind the fact that Loki got away with the Tesseract...

There was just so much potential there. I wanted to build an AU where Steve and Tony could be friends, and I was pumped to explore the consequences of 2023!Steve's 'Hail Hydra'. I thought this universe had the potential to right a lot of wrongs, and I just had to try it.

So first I had to start planning. This was right after Endgame was released, so there weren't a lot of posts going around about the alternate timeline. I had to come up with most of my theories and ideas myself.

Also, there were hardly any Youtube videos of the specific scenes I needed from Endgame, and there was no online script yet, because the movie was still in theatres. So I had to resort to shaky illegally filmed videos from people in theatre to get the dialogue I needed from the 2012 time-travel scene. It was a struggle. XD

Writing Alternatively

One big hurdle I had to figure out was how Steve would go undercover in Hydra. I knew I wanted him to, because that would be super interesting, and would allow him to find Bucky and take down Hydra from the inside, but I had to figure out how he convinced Hydra of his loyalty in the first place.

The path I chose (Steve claiming he is disillusioned with the modern world etc.) may seem rather obvious to the outside observer, but it might amuse you to learn I played around with the idea of Steve trying to claim he was secretly partial to Hydra even during the war. I honestly did spend a few days contemplating Steve somehow trying to say he was on Hydra's side even while he was actively fighting them. It makes me laugh to think about it now.

Obviously I went with a more believable lie, and eventually figured out everything I wanted to have happen in the story. At this point, I had no plans to write more than a single story.

Because Endgame had just come out, and I was so excited about this idea, I wanted to write it and get it out as fast as possible. For some reason I was worried that someone else would write the idea before I did. It felt like such an intriguing concept that I thought for sure other people would do it too. As such, I had several WIPs that I put on the back burner while I focused all my attention on writing Alternatively. (These WIPs still haven't been published, my writing has improved immensely over the last two years, so I think I might have to re-write them XD).

One thing that helped me a lot writing this story is I already had a lot of headcanons about the inner lives of the characters, and I was desperate for somewhere to put them. I hadn't had a chance yet to really write about Steve's PTSD, so that became a major theme in the story that helped push it along.

Alternatively was the longest story I had ever written when I first got started. Before writing Alternatively, the longest (published) word count I had was 7,544. And, I had only published one (1) multi-chapter fic, that had three chapters, and 4,621 words.

Looking at that, I doubt anyone could have imagined what I was about to undertake. Not even myself. But I really really wanted to write the story, so I ran with it.

I decided that I was going to write all the chapters first, before I published it. This is what I had been doing with my WIPs anyway (and I'm glad I did, or those things wouldn't have been updated for like, two years). I will admit that once I got to chapter 10 of Alternatively I was really tempted to just start posting it, because I was so excited and really wanted to start sharing it.

I managed to restrain myself though. It took my four months to write all twenty chapters of Alternatively. It was a frustrating process at times, because I had an idea in my head of what I wanted, but I felt like my writing skills were not on par with that ideal. I wanted this fic to be good, and it was hard to get it to where I wanted it. This got easier over time though, because one thing a project like this does is give you writing practice.

At the time, I didn't even have my own laptop, so I was writing on school computers, or my family computer. (I got a laptop once I started The Alternate Handler though, this story is actually part of what pushed me to get a laptop in the first place.)

Finally, I finished the last chapter, and I edited it for the final time, and then, on August 29th, 2019, I published the first chapter.

I was amazed at the response I received. Before this I had only written twelve stories, most of them oneshots. I'm not saying my story went viral or anything, but I got a lot more feedback than I was used to. This was super awesome, and made me even more excited to share what I had written.

Even as I was posting Alternatively, I didn't really expect to write any more in this universe. Except...there was so much about Bucky in this story that the reader didn't get to see. I knew all about it because I had to know what was going on in his head while Steve did his thing, but the readers wouldn't know more than Steve knew.

And so, as I posted Alternatively, a very determined plot-bunny began to work away at my brain. I actually gave into it at one point and wrote a little bit of what would become The Alternate Handler, but I stopped after the first four chapters for a while.

Fun fact: The first four chapters I wrote are actually the first two chapters of The Alternate Handler. Each chapter was only about 2,000 words long, so when I started writing the story in earnest, I combined the first four chapters into two.

I don't remember what exactly was the trigger that made me really want to write Bucky's side of things, but around the time that I posted chapter 10 of Alternatively, I started getting the same insane urge that had pushed me to write Alternatively in the first place, and I decided to go for a sequel.

Writing The Alternate Handler

I started posting this story Jan 2020.

I was excited to write this story, because of how interesting Bucky's thoughts were, but part of me was a little nervous that people would not be interested in reading the same fic from another pov. I knew it would be interesting, but I wasn't sure if people would give it a shot.

I decided to go for it anyways. I was pretty amazed at myself because I had just written something that was 100,000 words long, and people seemed to be liking it. (Of course, I never could have imagined that The Alternate Handler would double that. I definitely expected it to be about 20 chapters long like the first one.)

I decided that I wanted to get as much of The Alternate Handler finished before I finished posted Alternatively as I could, so that I could started posting The Alternate Handler right away. I felt that the best way to keep a steady readership was to make sure they could follow the next story right away.

That meant that I had only about 10 weeks to write as many chapters as I could. For all my stories, I had an outline of basic plot points, so I could keep track of everything I wanted to have happen. It was helpful, but also did not anticipate the scope of what would happen.

I had a general idea of what would happen, and I had vague ideas of scenes I wanted, but none of it was nailed down. As I wrote it felt like I was walking forward a few steps to illuminate the path I needed, and then snagging the right plot points out of the air.

Bucky's mindset also took some work to figure out. How do you write from the pov of someone who barely remembers anything? Does he know how to use metaphors? Does he know what a microwave is? How dependent is he? The first few chapters where Bucky is deep in his Winter Soldier programming took a lot of thought.

One of the fun things about writing this story was that I got to dive deeper into my headcanons of exactly how Hydra brainwashed Bucky. Before this I had some vague scenes and ideas, but this story really forced me to come up with a coherent timeline for Bucky's experience under Hydra, which is pretty cool. Once I had that, I could decide how and when I would reveal the pieces throughout the story.

Anyway, I managed to write 12 chapters of The Alternate Handler before I finished posting Alternatively. (Which is super impressive.) And somehow I managed to keep ahead of my posting schedule for twenty-eight more chapters.

I honestly can't believe it sometimes. I actually wrote a 40 chapter fic, and posted once a week for forty weeks, with only a head-start of 12 chapters. (And at the same time, I was like, finishing university and working. So no, I don't know how I survived.)

Reader influences: Unlike Alternatively, where I had everything written ahead of time, this story was still being written as I was posting, so the readership did have some influence on what I put out, which you may find interesting.

Bucky's arm: When I first started writing, I didn't have a concrete plan to replace Bucky's metal arm with something better. That may be a shocker, but that arc starts happening way later on into the story (around chap 32). Because of how long and intricate the plot and story is, there is simply no way I could plan every detail when I first got started. I didn't start offcially planning to have an arc around his arm until a reader mentioned in a comment that they hoped it would happen. (And I was like, 'oh yeah, that should definitely happen...eventually.' And made a note to work it in when it became appropriate.) The comment happened pretty early on in the story, so it was easy for me to start laying down the foundation for that arc.

Bucky's arm part two: Another thing a reader had a direct influence is the blue star Bucky has on his new arm. Originally I wasn't planning to have a star at all. I was going to have Bucky decide he didn't want one. But then I had a reader request that I keep the star, and I decided that keeping it would not upset any character development. I had already set up blue as an important colour in the story, so I decided to change Bucky's decision and have him request a blue star. I like it. It is a clear symbol of this Bucky, versus any other Bucky.

Surprises

One thing that surprised me while writing and posting this story, is the readership prediction for Bucky's choice of whether or not to fight. I posted a chapter that focused on Bucky watching himself react to being drafted, and then remembering himself choosing to follow Steve, and then cliffhangered on him having to decide if he wanted to join the Avengers.

I asked something in the author's notes about 'what do you think he will do?', and a surprising amount of people (to me anyways) thought that he would chose to fight. I had always planned to have Bucky retire from fighting, so I was a little shocked. I thought with a whole chapter about Bucky learning he never really wanted to fight at all, that people would think he would want to take a break.

I think the consensus came from the desire to see Bucky and Steve fight together like old times. I think Bucky joining Steve on missions is a common indication of him overcoming his past and avenging/revenging on Hydra, so in the end I am not surprised that a lot of people might expect that to happen.

Because of that response I was a little nervous people wouldn't be happy with Bucky's choice, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Bucky's arc and choosing not to fight is really important, and I think everyone is happy with how it went.

It took ten months to post all of The Alternate Handler. As I was writing, I was not planning to write anymore. I was mostly focused on finishing the story, and didn't expect to write a third part...

But, my traitorous mind whispered, this universe could fix everything. We can make Civil War less painful. We can keep them from fighting. We can do it properly.

To be honest, it didn't take a lot of convincing for me to give in and start planning An Alternate Approach.

Writing An Alternate Approach

I started posting this story Oct. 2020.

I started planning this with a lot of time to spare. I still had most of The Alternate Handler to write and finish posting when I decided to go for this fic too.

Some challenges were that I wanted to show the Avengers going through the same things as the original Avengers, but doing it better. I had already gotten rid of the Winter Soldier problem, and Tony knew about his parents, so we didn't have to deal with any of that, but I still wanted to do the UN bombing and that drama, because T'Chaka's death is very important to T'Challa's and Wakanda's development, so I felt it still needed to happen.

Of course...I had nipped Ultron in the bud, meaning Sokovia wasn't destroyed, and Zemo had no reason to go after Bucky.

Thankfully, I came up with the idea of having Rumlow do it in time to foreshadow it a little in The Alternate Handler (the fact that they never find him, even though they know he is out there etc.)

Like last time, I wanted to post The Alternate Approach as soon as I finished The Alternate Handler. It was a bit of a crunch time for me, but I managed to get all eight chapters finished in time. I basically finished writing The Alternate Handler and immediately started writing An Alternate Approach. I finished The Alternate Handler August 1st, and finished the last chapter of The Alternate Approach September 10th.

Originally I was expecting An Alternate Approach to be a bit longer, but things happened quicker than I thought they would.

A challenge for this story is that most of it happens during a movie. There was a lot of original stuff happening and interesting inner thoughts, but I was restricted in what I could do because of the script I still had to refer to. Also because this story was only eight chapters long, I didn't have as much space to work through character development.

Reader influences: Like with Alternatively, I managed to finish the story before I posted it, but the readers did have a little influence on the content.

Mostly it had to do with their reaction to Everette Ross. I think a challenge with this story is there is Everette Ross, and there is Thaddeus Ross. Thaddeus Ross is much worse than Everette Ross, but I think the readers mixed the two up sometimes because they share the same last name.

To top it off, I wanted to show Everette Ross' character arc a little, because he obviously changes from Civil War to Black Panther. There wasn't a lot of space to show the glimpse of his character and how he could be better than he seems. The readership really hated him at times, so I did edit his lines and facial expressions a little to try to make it clear that he thinks differently than Thaddeus Ross.

Actually, in chapter five, Steve has a nightmare about Hydra trying to wipe Bucky and trapping Steve in the SSR capsule he got the serum in. Originally, I was going to have the main villain in the dream be Thaddeus Ross, to symbolise how Steve was uneasy around him, and how Ross thought of Bucky. But the readership was already literally out for Ross' blood, and suspected him to be Hydra (which was not canon in the story). They really wanted something bad to happen to Ross, but I knew that wouldn't happen, so I decided to change Ross to Rumlow in the dream. This helped foreshadow Rumlow's later involvement, and it also didn't give the reader any more reasons to hate or suspect Ross.

If I were to write this again, I think I would try to make it more clear which Ross it which, since I think the same last names really didn't help the situation.

Writing The Alternate End

I started posting this story Nov 2020.

For a long time, I never intended to write The Alternate End. I had The Alternate Approach all planned out, but I was adamant that this time, I was 100% not going to write any more.

This not because I didn't like the series. I loved it, and my readers loved it too. But at the time, I hadn't finished The Alternate Handler yet, and I hadn't even started The Alternate Approach.

The thought of trying to write an Endgame fic felt a little overwhelming. I was worried I would run out of momentum at some point, and I would leave my readers hanging. I had been writing and posting a chapter a week for over a year at that point, and I wasn't sure if I would be able to keep it up for as long as I needed.

While I was trying to dodge plot-bunnies, I tried to convince myself that an Endgame fic wouldn't be interesting. I figured it would be just the same as any other Endgame fix-it fic. I was truly convinced that the readers would be satisfied by me bringing them all the way to Civil War, and then just, ending it there.

It makes me laugh to think about it now. I really thought I could just be like "The End! I'm sure you can imagine the rest" XD.

And then I was at work one day, thinking about the next chapter of The Alternate Handler, and thinking of how much I still had to write, including The Alternate Approach...and thinking pointedly that I was not going to write an Endgame fic...and then my traitorous brain decided to speak up again.

I had exactly two (2) thoughts that were my downfall. First my brain was like: What if we wrote it from Tony's pov? We've never written it from Tony's pov before.

And plot-bunny-brain was like "ooooh". But I was like, "No! It will still be a normal Endgame fix-it fic. People can read other fix-it fics if they want to know what happens."

And then my brain was like, What about the fact that they know about the time-travellers? What if they decide to leave a message about Thanos when they time-travel?

It makes me laugh to think that the simple warning message that Tony gives his alternate-self is the spark that got this story going. Once I started writing it, that scene was not what I looked forward to the most. But at the time, knowing about the time-travellers, and leaving a message behind was something completely unique to my AU, and so that is what I needed to jumpstart my desire to write this story.

As soon as I had those two thoughts, I knew I was done for. I actually stopped dead at work and stared ahead in betrayal and amusement. I was like, 'I really am going to write this, aren't I? I haven't even finished The Alternate Handler, but I'm going to plan out two whole stories to write after this, aren't I?'

And I did. I finished The Alternate Handler in the summer. Because I was already planning to write two more parts, I was able to set up some of what I needed for those parts in The Alternate Handler. (Such as Clint's family and Scott's introduction.)

I started writing The Alternate Approach as quickly as I could. I knew I only had a short window before school started again, and I wanted to get to The Alternate End as soon as possible so that I could get ahead on that.

Once I started posting The Alternate Approach, I had about eight weeks to write as many chapters of The Alternate End as I could. In the end, I managed to write ten chapters ahead of time, and I somehow managed to keep that lead for the rest of the twenty or so chapters.

I was a bit nervous about this fic, because it followed the movies for a while. I tried to keep at least one original scene in each chapter, and I thought Tony's pov was interesting, but I knew I wanted the Snap to happen. I also knew we had to start at the beginning of Infinity War, because we needed those scenes to establish character development and such.

Writing Tony was also its own challenge. Tony had already had a lot of character development, but we didn't see his side of it. He was in a better place than mcu!Tony, but I still needed him to be able to improve. It was a tricky balance trying to show the results of the character development he'd been having for three stories, while also making room for more.

Another thing about writing Tony is he has a lot more relationship dynamics to work with. In Steve's stories, his relationship dynamics are mostly between Bucky and Tony, and in Bucky's story the dynamics are mostly between him and Steve, and then eventually him and Tony, with a few snapshots of the other Avengers and his sister.

Tony has dynamics with Steve and Bucky, Rhodey, Pepper, and Peter. Plus any other Avengers who happen to be there. And then, Nebula and his relationship became unexpectedly important. It was a challenge to balance the relationships. I wanted to show Steve and Tony, because we had been watching it grow for ages now, but I also wanted to establish his relationship with Pepper, something we had only barely caught a glimpse of before.

On a different note, one thing I cursed Endgame for all the time was the sheer number of characters it has. In scenes with the whole cast I could be juggling 15-20 characters! It was a lot!

It took a lot of work, but I managed to finish The Alternate End three chapters ahead of time. It was a relief to finish, and I was excited for the approaching time I could start posting the oneshots I had planned for this universe.

Writing Alternative Options

I started posting this story May 2021.

I'm not sure exactly when I first got the idea to write oneshots within this universe. I think I had some readers suggest oneshots of different character's povs, and at that point I didn't even try to resist the plot-bunnies. I was just like, "why not?"

I had one reader request an alternate scene to chapter 10 of Alternatively waaaay back at the beginning of this adventure. It intrigued me, so I wrote it and shared it with them privately. I also had a scene I had to take out chapter 35 of The Alternate Handler, so since I already had those two documents sitting on my computer, it was nice to come up with somewhere to share them with everyone.

Also, like Bucky's pov in The Alternate Handler, I had a lot of extra content in my head of other character's motivations and povs that don't get spotlighted in the other stories. It's all in my head anyways, I might as well share it somewhere.

I wrote the first eight or so oneshots of Alternative Options whenever I felt particularly inspired. I wrote the very first chapter back in February 2021, but I actually wrote the second chapter way back in August 2020 (same with the onshot A Change in Protocol.) I rearranged the first eight chapters into what I thought would flow best.

Writing the oneshots was sometimes a nice break from my main project. I think the oneshots are a nice way to end off too, because there is less pressure on them. The story is done now, I can write and post the oneshots whenever I feel like it, but readers will always have a complete story to go back to.

Unexpected Things

Everything about this series was unexpected (even if most of the plot was pretty scripted), but some things still amuse me. As I got deeper into this universe, I was surprised at the amount of people who were concerned I would kill characters or end things angstily.

I remember when I announced I would be writing a Civil War inspired fic, many people were concerned that Steve and Tony would fight like they did in the movie. It didn't even occur to me to reassure people that this wouldn't happen, because it seemed so impossible to me.

To me it was obvious that I had fixed so many things already in this universe. It seemed so straightforward to me that certain things simply could not happen. (Of course, it would always seem obvious to the author.)

I think people were a lot more nervous for my Civil War story than I intended them to be.

And then, when we got to Endgame, people surprised me by hoping I wouldn't do the Snap at all. It had not occurred to me that people would hope that. I felt the Snap needed to happen. If it didn't happen, then we couldn't see any of the other painful things be fixed.

Then, people surprised me again because they were very worried that I would kill Tony and Natasha. I had basically spent the last two years writing a 500,000 word mcu fix-it series. I wasn't about to kill Tony and Natasha at the end.

Still, I am very good at pulling on angsty heartstrings, so I can see why people were concerned.

(That is another thing I did not expect, the amount of people who told my I made them cry with my writing. It touches me every time it happens.)

Take Away

If you made it to the end of this long post, congratulations!

What will I take away from this amazing experience? Well, first off, not to be intimidated by long story ideas. I probably wouldn't have written this if I had conceived how long it would be. Lucky for us, I dived head-first into this, and just kept swimming.

Another thing that I think is important, is you don't have to be a super experienced writer to write big things. I had written nothing even close to this when I started. And my writing improved a lot during this journey.

I think looking at the finished product it is easy to think that I am just naturally an awesome author, but two years ago that wouldn't have been the case. Don't be intimidated by the finished products of authors. That is the culmination of hours of work, and it does not mean you can't do the same thing if you feel a similarly insistent plot-bunny.

Finally, I would like to thank all my readers! If you've been around since I first started posting, then that is 94 weeks (plus whatever Alternative Options turns out to be) of reading a chapter a week from me! That is amazing!

If you joined later along the ride, that is just as awesome! Thank you for plunging into such a long series!

If you have any questions or want to chat with me about plot choices I made, or my thoughts behind certain scenes—or anything really—feel free!

I hope you enjoyed! :D

Tl;dr:

I never planned to write any of the stories after Alternatively, until about halfway through posting the preceding stories. Plot bunnies are really insistent, and I had stuff planned in the background anyways, so I had to share it. By the time I was about halfway through The Alternate Handler I had accepted that I was going to write two more stories in the universe.

It was a lot of work, and I had never written anything anywhere close to this giant project. It was a lot of fun though, and I'm glad I did it.

[flurrys-creativity]

Fantasy Prompt List

Welcome to the Fantasy prompts!

You’re probably here because you don’t have an idea of your own. That is totally fine, I’m here to provide some inspiration or an easy way out. Whatever you prefer!

The prompts you will see here are mainly for Fantasy stories like Hybrid, Shifter, Supernatural AUs, but that doesn’t mean they are exclusively for those. You can choose a prompt from this list and add in your request to sprinkle some other genres into it as well! (I feel like a starbucks or a subway now with all the possibilities here)

If nothing to your interest is on this list, please feel free to check out the “#writing prompts” cause a lot of amazing people posted really cool ideas there!

I categorized them into dialogue and scene prompts. Choose whatever you like! And remember the guidelines!

Dialogue Prompts

“How many times are you going to kill me again?” - “How many times will it need for you to understand?”

“You know, it’s unhealthy to stare at people while they’re sleeping. Especially since you’re neither a hot vampire nor my lover.” - “How do you know I’m here?” - “Because I am the hot vampire in this situation.”

“Why do I need a valid reason to believe in something you can’t see?” - “You mean we can’t see.” - “No, I mean you!”

“Were you really just using magic to stir your coffee? It’s right in front of you! How lazy can you be?”

“You are a child of Fae.” - “Knew it.” - “Wait, aren’t you surprised?”

“Ah, the chosen one!” - “Nope.” - “But the prophecy..” - “Nope.” - “But..” - “Nope, not gonna happen.”

“How are you going to get your kingdom back when you’re restrained?”

“You know what? Why don’t we just cooperate with those invaders? Our world is horrible. How can it get any worse?”

“You were dead drunk last night! Do you even remember any of your conspiracies you talked about? What do you mean they are all real? Are you still drunk?”

“Please catch me when I fall from heaven.”

“Cup of coffee for table 13!”  - “There is no table 13.” - “Just forget it and make that cup anyway.”

“Welcome to 1865! Enjoy your stay.”

“Something about this book shop doesn’t seem normal.” They say, totally oblivious to the flying book behind them.

Scene prompts

Person A is the worst known superhero. Despite that they are highly respected by Person B, the number one hero.

There are catacombs or abandoned train stations underneath each major city of the world. All of them are the home of the beings that were chased, slaughtered and unwelcomed in the human world. Person A is one of them. Though they only know the stories and never witnessed anything themselves. Curious about the upper world they sneak out, where they met person B.

You are able to manifest/build up again anything that has been destroyed or is missing. On accident you restore a portal to another world.

You are sitting at home, doing chores when suddenly a man appears in your living room, blood pouring out of deep wounds. With his last breath, he tells you that you're from now on a seeker of truth.

Person A was trained from the day they were born to be the keeper of one of the many magical portals. A family tradition in fact. They are able to jump between realms and must keep track of who's passing the portal and most important who is allowed to do so.

In a world where you don't have to hide your powers, where having some sort of magical quirk was the norm, you decide to hide what you are able to.

If luck was a superpower, you would have it. Just now you were bitten by a venomous snake and miraculously you're immune to it.

While on a dive tour you stumble upon the cave of a sea witch, who offers something to you, which feels like a dream come true.

Person A was always the favourite child others would play with since everything they imagined became reality. That was until their childhood best friends got lost within one of those realities.

You're the reason the legend of the grim reaper exists. Tell your story.

Person A always made it a hobby skipping between dimensions. They didn’t expect another hopper crossing their path.

Your job is to travel back in time and kill prominent people when their time has come. Up to the 2000s it wasn't a problem, now you face some difficulties.

Person A was just having their driving test when some villain decided to attack the city. Nobody taught them how to divert bombs and crashed cars on the street.

All your life you thought you had just a random group of friends, like any other person has. Apparently none of your friends are human though.

You had very strict parents, who never allowed you to touch anything. Years after you started to live on your own, friends teased you for always touching stuff like pictures with gloves or any kind of protection. Out of spite you stand up, walk to a painting on the wall and touch it with your fingers. Seconds later the person that had been painted, falls out of the frame.

Person A picks up a stray and keeps them at home, feeding and grooming them. Unknown to them that stray is Person B who got cursed to stay in animal form until they learn from their past.

You got gifted a small plushie when you were born. Even though you got older you never threw that plushie away, keeping it always near your bed. During hard times you even take consultation with it, trying to solve your problems through talking. Unknown to you that plushie processes your worries and sends them directly to your personal guardian.

Person A is a mythologist, studying the ins and outs of some fantasy creature. One night while working on some notes, they get interrupted by a voice, correcting them on a random written fact.

Somehow your home became a mythical creature sanctuary.

Mythological zoos are now a thing. You're a zoo keeper in one of them.

You're restoring an old church, awakening it's guardians in your way.

After an earthquake you rush to your museum, fearing the worst. Upon arriving you see that every statue had fallen down and between the shards are now several naked people.

Sometimes life gives you lemons, sometimes it gives you a three headed dog.

It's moments like these where having two souls was absolutely annoying.

In a world where dinosaurs were revived, you held raptors on a farm. They weren’t much different to the chickens your grandpa used to have, right?

You're a mythological creature doctor. Describe a normal working day.

You only meet them once every full moon. When they didn’t appear, you took matters in your own hand and forced the moon to stay full until you found them.

As the last hero has fallen, there is no other chance than to step up and become one yourself.

Everyone heard of the house of the rising sun, with songs and books written about it. Though there is a lesser known twin house. House of the setting sun.

Runalongs were a common phenomenon spread around the world. Children would see them whenever they were on roadtrips. Those creatures running along the moving car and vanishing as soon as the car stopped. This ability gets lost as soon as the children grow up. You yourself had nearly forgotten about the runalongs until you stopped at a red light and looked outside, seeing them standing right next to your car and only waiting for you to do something.

Your Café was the only spot that allowed creatures to work. Vampires taking night shifts, faeries working in the early morning. The only problem were their natures and the resulting reputation.

Person A is a trickster with the power of using other people’s voices. Everything goes smooth until they use the voice of Person C in front of B, someone who should be dead.

Winning an island all for yourself you decided to visit it and noticed something else was already living on it.

Surrounded by a bunch of growling stray dogs in a small alley you never expected someone to rescue you.

While waiting for the traffic light to change to green you heard something rustling behind you in the bushes. Turning around you are met with bright yellow eyes staring right back at you.

On a rainy day you walked back home and got stopped by a small cat. Crouching down you noticed it having a rose in his mouth, presenting it to you.

With proper credit you’re also free to use these prompts to write something for yourself.

[jcogginsawriter]

Hand to Hand: Mark Waid’s Flash

I have been a fan of comic book characters for a long time. I started with the cartoons, and as I got older, I began doing deep dives into wikis, reading fanfiction, and participating in that shallowest of internet past times, the vs debate. I dabbled in writing fanfic for myself, but I spent far more time thinking about writing fanfic instead. I would come up with all these ideas about what I would take from the various different versions of the characters, and don’t get me started on the idea of Crossovers.     The point is, I knew a lot of what happened in the comics, but I never read many comics. I didn’t know where my local comic shop was, and even if I did, I wouldn’t have had the money to spend on them. The comics that I did read were usually fan translations of manga. I did read a few comics, big name stories like Death of Superman or Crisis on Infinite Earths, but they were few and far between.

Recently, I’ve begun to change that. I now follow several comics as they come out, most notably the current X-line. This change sprang in part because I began reading a lot more comics criticism. In particular, I followed the blog of a certain Superman fan, and began to eagerly digest his various takes. I wanted to be able to ask him questions about new comics without looking like an idiot (This is how 90 percent of my interactions on comics twitter go, BTW) and that was a kick in the pants for me.

After getting into a steady habit, I decided to look into reading some of the classic runs I’d read so much about throughout life. To go from knowing them second hand, to knowing them first hand. After a bit of hemming and hawing, I’ve settled on Mark Waid’s legendary run of Flash Comics to start off with.

(Spoiler Warning for some 30 year old comics, by the way)

As of this writing, I have read up to the final issue of his story arc Dead Heat, wherein Wally does battle with the speed cultist Savitar. Before we get into things like plot and characters, I want to discuss the art, because no discussion of comic books is really complete without talking about the art. Unfortunately, the art in this run hasn’t done much for me, but that’s not really it’s fault. I read this comics in manner that they were not created to be read, digitally and zoomed in. These comics were drawn with physical issues in mind, and I don’t doubt that they’re good in that format. It also doesn’t help that I’ve read far more manga than I have American comics. American comics have never clicked with me the way manga does. Even now, I still find the layout of manga more legible than the layout of an American comic. That’s not a value judgment, it’s just my personal experience.

I do distinctly recall thinking that the art was better up to issue #79 (The conclusion to the Return of Barry Allen storyline), than it was after. I prefer the less exaggerated character designs, and lighter inks, though it could very well be a case of me having gotten used to the initial style and not liking the change. One thing that thing I can say about the art is that it helped me grasp how Wally’s costume differed from Barry’s. Before this, I was incapable of separating them in my mind, but seeing them side by side made it clear to me how different Wally’s Costume was colored and shaded.

Now, onto the writing of the run, we’ll start with the lead, Wally West. My previous touchstone for Wally was the Justice League series from the DCAU, which I watched a lot as a kid. The Wally in these comics comes off as more serious that his DCAU incarnation. Not too serious, he still cracks jokes, but he’s more on the ball. He takes his adventures as seriously as any hero would, rather than the more carefree attitude I recall his DCAU version having. This is not unsurprising, Wally here is the lead whereas there he was part of an ensemble cast, and here we get his internal monologue which gives us a much more thorough sense of his headspace. Not to mention, the DCAU version was voiced, so we know with no ambiguity what tone his dialogue’s in. In text, tone is more up to interpretation.

Perhaps the biggest thing that set Comic Wally apart from DCAU Wally is that the Wally in the comic was more consistently angry and frustrated. While his DCAU incarnation had hidden depths, I can’t recall a time when he got seriously angry. This Wally is frequently irritated, usually by things which are enitrely understandable. On occasion, his irritability causes him to be rougher with the bad guys than he could be, and that feels uncomfortable sometimes, though thus far he hasn’t gone too far.

Going into this, I knew that one of the issues that Wally had to overcome was his mental block about surpassing Barry, and to my surprise, it wasn’t as much of a through-line as I expected. I was expecting it to be a reoccurring issue that was solved by the Return of Barry Allen storyline, but in reality there are only one or two times something like it comes up, usually in the context of him not being able to do the vibrating through walls trick. In the Return of Barry Allen, it feels more like an issue introduced in that story than a long running plot line. Granted, it may only feel this way because I’m solely reading Mark Waid’s Flash. I didn’t read the issues prior to his take over, so that storyline could have been more apparent there for all I know.

Moving on, starting with Waid’s run had another knock on effect, that being that the character introductions aren’t introductions. I came into this expecting to see when Wally met Linda, when he met Jay Garrick, when Pied Piper redeemed himself, but all of that happened before Waid took over the book, so they’re already part of the cast from the start. Again, not a flaw of the work, it’s just a result of my personal experiences. Now, let’s take a look at some of these characters.

I’ve heard a lot about Linda and Wally’s romance, and so far it’s not bad. I wouldn’t rate it as one of the best of all time, but I haven’t gotten to most of the major moments yet, so that’s not a huge surprise. One thing that’s very apparent is the Lois Lane DNA in her character. Some of that is to be expected, which the love interest to your superhero is a reporter, but I see a lot of similarities in their personality as well. There’s a lot of the same fire in her. Fortunately, the fact that Wally’s identity is public lends a very different arc to their relationship than what you see with Lois and Clark, so Linda doesn’t come off as a Lois rip-off. Linda’s concerns that there’s no place for her in Wally’s wild superhero life is the kind of relationship hurdle that isn’t present in Lois and Clark’s Relationship.

Next, let’s take a look at the first Flash, Jay Garrick. Within this series, Jay is perfectly pleasant, and by no means unlikable, but he also comes across as...kind of superfluous? There are three elderly male speedsters in this comic, and of all of them Jay is by far the least defined and has the least role. Max Mercury is the Wally’s mentor in the ways of speed, the one with the most knowledge of the Speed Force. He’s basically what I expected Jay Garrick to be going into this. The third of the group is Johnny Quick, a speedster who is the father of another speedster, Jesse Quick. Jesse is also very skeptical of Max Mercury’s teachings, which veer from the scientific into the mystical.

Because Johnny takes the role of skeptic, Jay is left without a role in the narrative because being the nicest of Wally’s friend group. Veering over to Hollywood for a second, whenever a book gets adapted into a movie or TV Show, minor characters get lost in the transition. Either they get composited with other characters, or they get cut entirely. Game of Thrones is the most prominent example in recent memory. I bring this up because, if Waid’s Flash were to go through that process, it’s hard to argue that Jay wouldn’t get the ax. Despite being the most important of them in the context of the universe at large, Jay is the least important Speedster in this narrative. Of course, Jay’s importance in the context of the larger universe means that in this hypothetical adaptation, he probably be composited into either max or Johnny. More likely Max, since mentor is the logical position for the first Flash to take in the Third Flash’s narrative.

I mentioned Jess Quick there, so let’s talk about her. Thus far, her most prominent role in the narrative has been to call Wally out and be his critic, though she does have very good reasons to be angry. In the Terminal Velocity storyline, Wally believes he’ll die soon, and tells the Flash Family that Jesse will be his successor, but it turns out to be a lie in order to motivate Bart Allen to take things more seriously. Jesse has remained angry with Wally since then, though it hasn’t seriously impacted her hero work. That’s good, because her continued competence lends legitimacy to her anger within the narrative. She’s not being punished for being mad at Wally for mistreating her. Hopefully it stays that way going forward.

Now let’s take a look at the character Wally chose over Jesse, Bart Allen AKA Impulse. I’ll say up front that I’m not reading Bart’s solo series during this read through, as I didn’t want the hassle of going back and forth between books. As such, the only issues of it that I’ve looked at are the ones that tie into the Dead Heat arc. I feel it’s important for me to say this, because I’m basing my opinions of Bart primarily on his showings in Wally’s book, not his own. In Wally’s book, Bart’s character flaws are more on display.

Bart is a character deliberately designed to be obnoxious, and such characters are a hard tightrope to walk in fiction. Gotta be annyoing enough to get the point across, but not annoying enough to turn people off from the work. Bart in Wally’s book isn’t perfectly balanced, and tends toward the too much pile. Not to an egregious extent, but a little bit. I found myself echoing Wally’s frustration with Bart more than a few times. In Bart’s defense, Wally does share some of the blame here. He doesn’t do a very good job as a mentor, and handing those duties off to Max is probably for the best.

I find it interesting, that a character like Wally who is so defined by inheriting a legacy is a poor mentor, to both Bart and Jesse. He makes different mistakes with both of them, but he still fails both of them. I’m eager to see how that plays out in the future issues.

Now that we’ve discussed the supporting cast, let’s discuss some of the book’s villains. We’ll start with the one who is most infamous, Eobard Thawne. Thawne’s spends the majority of his time in this book thinking he’s Barry Allen, and if I’m being honest, he’s more effective under that guise that he is as Eobard. The scenes where what appears to be Barry Allen turns evil out of jealousy of his successor are powerful, more so than the more traditional villain Eobard displays after the reveal. Not that it would have been a good idea for it to actually be Barry, of course. Much as I prefer Wally to Barry, having Barry go full supervillain would have been very out of character. In any case, this run had a profound impact on Eobard’s character going forward, solidifying him as an agent of toxic fanboyism, making him a dark mirror of Wally West.

The next major villain of the run is the cult slash terrorist organization Kobra. That might bring thoughts of GI Joe to your mind, and you honestly aren’t far off. So far as this run goes, the biggest differences between DC’s Kobra and Hasbro’s is A) DC’s version prefer green over blue, and B) Hasbro’s version has more in the way of distinct characters. Kobra thus far is more of a plot device than  anything else. They’re generic terrorists with little to make them distictive. Their storyline, Terminal Velocity, is more notable for it’s introduction of the Speed Force, Wally preparing for his upcoming ‘death’, and Linda going on a revenge quest after said ‘death’. All things that Kobra is incidental to, any villainous organization would have sufficed.

The final, as of my current point in the run, major villain is Savitar. Savitar was formerly a soviet test pilot who gained a connection to a the speedforce, gave himself the name of Hindu god, and started a speed worshipping cult. It says a lot about my mind that my immediate thoughts upon reading Savitar’s origin were. “Huh, an AU where Hal Jordan became a Speedster the same way would be neat.”. Savitar is in some ways an improvement on the Kobra Cult from Terminal Velocity. This time the Cult has a more direct connection to the Flash and his mythos. Dead Heat is by no means a retread of Terminal Velocity, but if you wanted to mesh them into one story, it wouldn’t be hard. And it’d improve on both, in some ways.

One of the things I like to do in my fanfic ideas is connect the other speedsters to Thawne’s theme of Toxic Fandom, and it wouldn’t be hard to do that with Savitar. His entire motivation is to deprive those he considers unworthy of their speed, and that can easily by played as a metaphor for gatekeeping.

Over all, while the run is far from perfect, I must say I’m enjoying these comics a good deal, and if you’re like me and have read a lot about comics without actually reading them, I don’t think you’d regret jumping into them.

[karoiseka]

#15 Ache

((Dialogue in the first part is snagged directly for the most part from the game, but the rest tis mine own.  Pretty much just a re-hash of emotions and extra tid-bits of lore of what Karo was doing with all of this.  This got a little more away from me that I thought, but I’m happy with it. ^_^  Obviously, MAJOR 5.3 spoilers!!!))

“I concede, I may have over-exerted myself,” G’raha gasped a little from the Tower’s floor where he had fallen after defeating Elidibus.  Karo’s heart was racing--not only from the battle she had just finished, the adrenaline singing in her veins, but from the final goodbye of her--well, whatever Elidibus was to her now.  Now, the one that held her heart was transforming before her very eyes into a part of the very Tower that was so instrumental to them both.

“Steady now, and listen.  I told you before that I had a plan, and that when all was said and done, I would ask a favor of you.”  The Bard maneuvered herself beside him, sitting him up and holding his now both crystal hands in her own that desperately were clutching the spirit vessel.  “We have averted the Eight Umbral Calamity.  Found a way for everyone to return to the Source, and… last but not least, we have secured the future of all the people of Norvrandt.  We have won, my love.”  He was squeezing her hands gently, eyes shining, even when gasping for breath as she could watch the crystal creeping over his body slowly.  He reached up to run his fingers gently down her cheek, cupping her face and leaning against her forehead.

“So I hope you’ll forgive me this moment of selfishness.  And… while I wouldn’t want you to feel obliged…” Karo snorted and cut him off with a kiss before letting him continue.  He smiled against her lips and continued on, “Promise me you’ll take me on your next adventure.  A journey.  Together.  That’s all I ask.”  Karo’s voice caught in her throat as tears pricked the corners of her eyes.

“Raha--” her voice cracked as she took a deep breath.  “Of course--you know that’s all I’ve wanted as well,”  nuzzling his ears he sighed contentedly as she continued to try and hold back all the emotion she was feeling.

“If I were to tell you that this isn’t the end--that we will meet again--would you believe me?”  His voice was soft, but insistent and confident that he spoke true despite what was in front of their eyes.

“I have to--” whispered almost too soft for him to hear, she nevertheless looked him in the eyes and nodded her agreement.

“Thank you.”  He nodded once as well and released his hold of his shining star to pull his hood up one last time--though thankfully not hiding his face away from her.  She scowled at the look, but stepped back to let him get to his feet, somehow knowing this was something he needed to do for himself.  His spirit vessel, the brilliant red portion already glowing clutched in her hand, she watched and listened as he found a spot to stand.  He knew this was it as the crystal crept up even further along him--robe and all.

“My love.  With you, my mind and memories shall travel to the ends of the world and beyond.  But in this place shall my body stand immovable.  May it serve as an undying promise, not only to those who looked to me for leadership, but to any soul who has known despair, that hope is everlasting.”   G’raha Tia planted his staff firmly, Xande’s throne towering behind him.  One last time, Karo threw her arms around his neck and kissed him deeply, cupping the back of his head as they shared what they knew was one last moment here on the First.  Stepping back finally she took a deep breath and held out the spirit vessel.  It was time.  As she looked down it started to glow, burning from the inside with an intense light and Aether she could practically feel.  Sapphire eyes raced up to meet his ruby--now glossy as the husk smiled blankly as the crystal finally overtook him.

Her own feet planted barely two fulms from his own, she curled her entire upper body around the warm spirit vessel, holding it to her heart.  It pulsed warmly against her as she took gulping breaths, trying to come to terms at least enough to step away.  Not much longer, she could hear the frantic footfalls of her found family and shouts of her and G’raha’s names echoing from the doorway to the tower.  The scions skidded to a stop behind her as they saw the Crystal Exarch--now the truest description of his name with the Warrior of Light and Darkness still at vigil in front of him.  Thancred was the first of the Scions to let go of his shock, and went to Karoiseka, wrapping himself around her from behind.  He could finally see the spirit vessel glowing in her grasp from his vantage and a deep sigh of relief escaped his lips.

“We’ve got you kitten--and you’ve got him.”  Karo finally spun around and let her tears fall as she let Thancred hold her up as she sobbed into his jacket.  Her heart ached, but she had to keep hope--that hope that he gave her that she cradled so carefully.

-------------------------------------------------------K

The bright stars of Amh Araeng beat down on Karo’s head.  She had finished visiting with Alisaie and Haldric, and had hurried down to Nabaath Areng before Thancred and Ryne got there.  She wanted to allow them their own time, but also had wanted to share the site of her last conversation with Mifillia with G’raha.  Scouting from above  she didn’t see the pair so she landed her borrowed Amaro in the shade of the flood.  Alisaie had a good idea of giving Raha a last tour of the First--maybe take him to a place or two he hadn’t been before.  He had always expressed interest in seeing the frozen wall of the flood up close, the sparkling wall looking almost like ice above the desert.

“Haldric is getting better,” Karo narrated to the crystal in her hand as she walked the platform where she had said goodbye.  “The empty is not quite as empty, and people are feeling the joy of the night’s sky.  Your hope is contagious even out here, m’love.”  Kneeling at the center of the circle she said a prayer--for those they had lost and for those they could yet save.  A smile danced across her lips as the wind whipped around her in a warm embrace, skittering off across the dunes.  Time to take to the sky once more and head to Eulmore where Alphinaud was certain to be getting a teary goodbye.  

-------------------------------------------------------K

Having said her own goodbyes to the Chai family and promised to see Alphy back in the Crystarium, she looked out onto the water from the cliff high above the city.  It wasn’t far from the place she had found G’raha napping before storming Mt. Gulg and talked about the adventure that she was now starting with him.

“It’s a shame you came here really only to berate Vauthry.  The city isn’t too bad now that they’re working on turning things around,”  The sky was clear and Karo realized she was scanning the horizon for Ardbert’s home island.  She could feel him laugh at her, knowing that it was well out of eye site range, yet tinged with a feeling of affection for thinking of him nonetheless.  Turning, pretending to be miffed at her Warrior soul, she continued to chat with Raha.  “You talked about riding the Eternal Wind here on this very cliff, and soon we shall fly across them back home.  Then the true adventure will start,” her blue-black hair was being whipped by the wind making her crystal hair tassels chime as she clung to that hope as her soul pulsed in an embrace lending her strength to carry on.  Beneath the waves she knew she had to dive before going to find Uriangier in the home of the pixies.

-------------------------------------------------------K

Waves crashing high above her head was the only sound in the depths besides her own footsteps echoing in Amaurot’s halls.  Occasionally she’d see one of his shades gliding on to one purpose or another, but she let the star-lit trees and arches light a random path as she wove the streets aimlessly.

“You didn’t get to see much of the city, did you?” rhetorical as the question was, she knew that Emet--Hades--had kept his prize locked up away from where she could have stumbled across him before she turned into the Lightwarden he thought she would.  It had been a near thing looking back, nearer than she liked admitting.  Phantom hand on her shoulder, she could feel Ardbert’s solidarity with her.  I told you I cast my lot with yours.  We’re a team, hero- the whispered voice in her soul made her smile as she held Raha’s vessel to her heart once more.  “We saved you though, Raha, and you saved me in return.  I’ll paint a picture as vivid as can be when I spin this song for you, the one I have yet to write to remember than they once lived.  We all have to remember....” and hope continued to blossom in her heart.

-------------------------------------------------------K

Flowers waltzed around the wide meadows of Il Mheg and Karo walked up the pathway to the castle.  She had the sense to know whatever it was her Elezan friend had to say, that she probably wasn’t going to be in the mood for sight-seeing after.  Instead she decided to visit her Branch and let her say goodbye to G’raha as well.  The gigantic glowing wings of the castle sparkled in the sun and the stained glass windows glowed from within even in the middle of the day.  The city below was so clear under the water it was hard to remember that it wasn’t occupied by more than fish and Fuath.  

“Thank you for introducing me to Fe Ul,” a smile broke out thinking of how innocent that first meeting was in the markets of the Crystarium.  “As much as I kept forgetting to call on them, they always had a knack of getting me out of some of the worst trouble here,” Karo’s thoughts went back to the watchtower and the suggestion to learn more of the Crystal Exarch from the people he led. “Gonna have to try and keep this quick before Uri wonders where we are.”  With a theatrical spin and hope in her voice she shouted out to her Branch calling on them once more.

-------------------------------------------------------K

She had been right to do their goodbyes in Il Mheg before talking to Uriangier and Seto.  In a daze of overwhelmed emotions she had wandered into Slitherbough, and like the magic she wielded, Y’shtola renewed her energy with her antics with Runar..  Wishing the Hrothgar good luck, Karo wandered to the swamps edge before diving in again.  The ruins at the bottom of the lake were a good distraction for her historian, and she slowly pointed them out and their meanings one by one of the old Ronkan Empire.  Excitement rejuvenated, she then took him to the Raval and took in the murals of Amaurot, Hydaelyn and Zodiark once more.

“Wish you could have heard all our shock when he dropped that piece of information on us,” her sarcastic laugh echoed through the caverns.  “I think you saw enough of it when we relayed it back to you though, we couldn’t get back to the Tower fast enough.”  With one last contemplative look at the murals, she gave a nod, hope filling her voice again.

“Alright, enough of that, back to Ahm Araeng, we need to find Thancred and Ryne.  It’s time to go home.”

-------------------------------------------------------K

The Crystarium markets were abuzz as Karo picked up the trinket she had ordered from the jeweler.  She could tell the people of the city knew something was going on with all the Scions back in town, and word about what had happened with their Exarch.  There was just enough time for her to head back to her Pendants room and imbue it with the spell she had planned.  The spell required her to sing, and so she pulled out her harp and sat down at the edge of the window and after activating the first part of the spell with a tendril of aether, started to sing.  The song was one of hope, of the man from another world who had turned this new one into his home, caring for its people and leading them towards a better tomorrow.  Singing with all her heart and soul the sun slowly drew across the sky as she continued with every song of hope and inspiration she could remember.  Out of repertoire finally, she closed the second part of the spell and picked up the glowing pendant shaped like her harp.  She packed up her bags, shouldering them and headed back to the Tower.  Sneaking around the gathering, she headed up the stairs to the platform where she left her voice enveloping the crystalline form of the one who held her heart.  Hope surrounded them both as the ache in her heart finally melted away, and she headed down to bring them all home at last.

[actuallylorelaigilmore]

first lines meme

rules: list the first lines of your last 20 stories. see if there are any patterns. then tag your favorite authors. i was tagged by @greatestheights. (thanks! if you hadn’t already done this, you’d be on my list for your perfect j/d fic alone.)

(don’t follow a ton of fic writers tbh but) tagging these talented people: @actuallylukedanes, @aerosmiley219, @comepraisetheinfanta, @confidxnteveryday, @andallthatmishigas, @etraytin and anybody else who wants to do this! 

following the example before me, cut for length/divided into WIPs and published fic.

ten WIPS (in order of when I started working on them):

lizzington au, where the fire never happened and she was raised by her birth parents so Red meets her for the first time as infamous KGB operative Masha Rostova: Raymond Reddington spotted her across the crowded room as he waited to be seated. Later, he wouldn’t be able to explain exactly why; her laugh was almost demure and her outfit was only as alluring as those worn by all the other women in the restaurant. He just knew there was a story there. An excellent one. One that hadn’t even begun yet–and he wanted to be a part of it. 

lizzington, post-s2 finale idea that was too sexy to be part of my slow burn chapter fic: “I’ve always been drawn to you,” she told him seriously, a confession no longer laced with shame. “Since the beginning, long before it made sense–even when it made me feel crazy. So I tried to blame you. For everything, really,” she added quietly. Here, there was shame.

josh x donna, the night of “20 Hours in America”: When Donna had finished writing all the letters to family members, she found Josh in the bar. Toby had gone up to his room, seeming preoccupied with something when he passed her on his way up, so she found Josh with a beer, sitting more than he was drinking, as was his way. She would have been shocked if he’d had anything stronger than his half a bottle, anyhow–he’d be nearly passed out, something he didn’t do in unfamiliar places. Sliding onto the seat next to his, she tossed her untidy hair back from her face and gave him her best cajoling look.

josh x donna, during “Inauguration: Over There”: It was all started by the snow. It made sense at the time, he thought, to throw snowballs. She wasn’t answering her phone, and at least snow wouldn’t break her window. The adrenaline rush when he hit the window first had to have addled his brain, made him more susceptible to things he never thought about. How her skin glowed, say, or how soft her mouth looked. He never would’ve told her how amazing she looked if he’d been in his right mind.

donna x amy, during “Commencement”: She doesn’t particularly like Amy. Truth be told, she doesn’t like Amy much at all. She’s pushy, and sees things in black and white, and Josh has an odd reaction to her, like an addict. But as long as Josh is chasing after Amy, she feels safe. Protected from herself. So she tries to encourage him, to help.

josh x donna, after “War Crimes”: They wait through what she thinks must be the longest hour of her life. Josh leans forward on the bench, in a position that looks horribly uncomfortable, his arm resting behind her back. It’s so far back it doesn’t touch her, and she figures it might if he’d sit like a normal person. Oh. Maybe that explains it, then.

josh x donna, for a smut request where donna is in charge: When she practically crashed through his door, Donna took him by surprise. She kept doing that. What was it Amy said once, that he needed to get hit on the head? Water balloon aside, there was something breathtaking about the way Donna didn’t hesitate. He couldn’t claim the same confidence; he hovered somewhere between awkward and anxious, and it was worse with her because she was everything. And it felt like he’d been waiting a lifetime to reach this point.

blaine x liv, post-s2 finale: Vivian Stoll, brain-eating leader of Fillmore-Graves Enterprises, left her with a business card and the ominously friendly, “Be seeing you.” Liv was too relieved to be alive–well, relatively speaking–to feel guilty for fleeing the scene at the first available opportunity.

ravi x major, post-s2 finale: Things can change so fast. Too fast, Ravi thinks, as he downs the shot of tequila and pretends it doesn’t remind him of Peyton. 

peyton x blaine, post-s2 finale: Major personally escorted Peyton to the safe house, despite her half-hearted protests. Since he was the closest thing she had to a big brother, deep down she had expected nothing less.

ten published fics (in chronological order, most recent first):

a very brief career at the hoover institute: By any unit of measurement, Ainsley’s first day at the Hoover Institute could not be called a success.

lost in the forest of this heart: Lizzie drops into sleep almost instantly, her weight pressed lightly against his side as the road rumbles beneath them.

for tonight: Her hands were trembling as she laced up the back of her dress, but she managed to tie it securely. Nerves, Liz thought. Silly, really. They had shared dinner dozens of times since going off the grid. Local dives, upscale hotel cafes, five-star landmarks.

leave us in pieces, scattered everywhere: “Why did you tell me?” CJ’s voice is broken glass across the satellites. He wants to be looking at her instead of talking over the phone; he wants to be able to touch her face, to apologize, to offer comfort. This is not that conversation, or she wouldn’t be calling.

if we only tried: Lorelai answered the door less than a minute after Luke knocked.

where the past comes back to life: Their flight is delayed in New York. Josh decides to steal a few moments of rest while he waits, grabbing a seat slightly apart from the other staffers. It’s not exactly peaceful, but he can mostly tune them out.

mine: “This is completely unprofessional,” Josh mutters. He can almost hear the murmur of conversations in the ballroom from the tiny space Donna tugged him into–but not quite. Hopefully the distance works both ways, because her mouth on his ear is making it hard to keep discretion in mind right now.

just give me something to hold onto: “She gave back the ring,” Sam says, head hanging so low that he’s talking more to the carpet than to Josh.

the deepest of needs: CJ goes to him; he’ll never come to her. Not while the pain is still an open wound…not while Toby keeps it that way in order to be a father.

what you’re running from: She didn’t have anywhere else to go. Free didn’t mean in the clear, not after the manhunt and the Post Office and the plea deal. So Red showing up when she was released–Red being the only person she could count on, again–was a welcome surprise.

WIP CONCLUSIONS: I cannot do brevity. Seriously, the difference between what my work looks like in progress and what sees the light of day is startling when you just compare opening lengths. 

I use just as much punctuation and italics, though, so clearly I think in the tones as I’m writing, rather than adding the emphasis later.

There’s almost no dialogue in my openings for WIPs, despite their length. I ramble about character’s internal monologues (and then thankfully clean that up later).

It’s possible to read a whole paragraph and be left with no idea whose perspective I’m talking about, in a WIP. Fun to know. 

PUBLISHED WORKS: Considering how much I love/am good at dialogue, I don’t open with it as much as I would’ve expected. I have little interest in setting/description as a reader but clearly, I make an effort to set the scene as a writer--even though I’m sure I don’t manage that until the late stages of editing. So it’s good to know that before I publish, I’ve remembered to keep my audience in mind. That’s comforting.

Compared to my WIPs, I’m incapable of having a first sentence without a character’s name in it, even when the fic is only about one character, and the reader would know who I was talking about. That’s sort of weird.

I don’t do succinct starter sentences, unless I’m starting the sequel to a previous story that had a cliffhanger ending, which is why two of my examples are actually from older stories whose sequels are in the recent ten list. It felt like cheating to use the sequel sentences when they didn’t make sense without the context of the first story, so I used the real beginnings.

Italics and interesting punctuation are essential to me. I think that’s because playing with mood and tone is necessary but I’m not as good at it using just words?

I’m kind of all over the place otherwise, which is fair and true to my personality...I vary up my style (as much as I can) depending on what I’m writing. For example, the shortest starter sentence was for Lorelai Gilmore, and the sentences that follow it are more staccato than usual for me, which makes sense when the world I’m writing in is rapid-fire dialogue and lots of back-and-forth.

This took waaaaay longer than I expected but I feel like it was also much more educational than I thought it would be. So yay. :)

[stanleyesteyy]

Reading While High

Recently, once the weekend comes and I am on cloud Cannabis nine, I am having the desire to express myself more creatively, rather than sitting and viewing Netflix.

If your looking for some medicine or cannabismo at an affordable price and delievered straight to your door then have I got the place for you. Starting with their specialty of being a White Fire OG strain seller, www.Weed-deals.ca is the perfect place to find all things like strains such as Platinum Bubba Kush and high quality at the same time. Looking for something to store all of your cannabis in? Weed Deals will have a

Occasionally I will write. Occasionally I will participate in a mutually stimulating video game, or host an amassing. Other times, I will start to get my yoga on. Otherwise at other moments, I will explore reading .

Reading while high may be challenging to begin, however.

However, with additional effort in eliminating myself from all of the’marvelous’ distractions (technology, social websites and etc), the experience you receive from studying while stoned is WELL worth it.

Just picture your favorite tales Getting more vibrant than any display, carrying on a life all their own as you exude deep assumptions, strange characters and lively dialogue with a brand-new perspective.

Imagine soaking and adopting the wisdom in the many different Experiences authors and writers have to give. The small details our active minds readily overlook and miss.

Studying is a fantastic way to decompress, because the action is similar to being in a meditative state.

Thus, if you’re searching for items to see while high, grab a blanket, then catch your favorite system of cannabis ingestion and unwind someplace comfortable, as we supply you with our best 5 novels to read while lifted.

Reading While High: 5 Novels That Will Improve Your Expertise

5 books is not a lot. We all know. But it’s a Fantastic beginning, because the Writers of every have an exhausting collection of deep literary inventions.

If a publication does not interest you originally, we recommend you to search These writers are masters in their craft. From Philip K. Dick

“Perhaps I will go where I could see Stars, ” he said to himself since the automobile gained speed and elevation; it led off from San Francisco, toward the uninhabited desolation into the north. On the place where no living thing goes. Not unless it believed that the end was coming.

Ever heard of the film Blade Runner? To the timeless sci-fi movie with a faithful and dedicated cult following.

Even though High, you will feel yourself becoming lost in postsecondary San Francisco, after the dark tale of Bounty Hunter and officer, Rick Deckard, whose job would be to’retire’ renegade androids who’ve returned from space — androids who attempt to pass themselves off as individual and might do anything to stay intact.

This story is more than Dangerous androids, though it includes some white-knuckled suspense sequences. The book takes you into gloomy moments of the individual mind, where Deckard finds himself torn between his own feelings as well as the needs of his place to kill.

Morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous vermin. He had been lying on his back as hard as armor plate and if he lifted his head a bit, he watched his glistening brown belly, sectioned by arch-shaped ribsto whose asses that the cap, about to slide off completely, would barely cling”

What might be trippier than stirring As a huge insect? The story’s protagonist, Gregor Samsa, has worked to the verge of fatigue so as to repay his parents’ debts, and that bodily toll has shown to a insect metamorphosis. He wakes up on day unexpectedly transformed into a sizable, insectile creature, but with his individual mind .

The household continues on as though nothing That unexpected has happened. Each and every single day, banal discussions and dull events, continue to perform (waking up late, cleaning the home ). Strangely, they become monstrous in their own disregard and neglect of Gregor.

It is a bizarre assumption, particularly when studying while large, but if you dive deeply, you could interpret this job as a Metaphor for depression. You will find a glimpse of the way that households may reply to the emotional illness, the inherent mindset and assumptions society on a bigger scale holds contrary to it and much more.

Given that the publication was published in 1915, a time when psychological Illness was more stigmatized and misunderstood than it is now, anticipate a mind-bending studying high-profile.

“I think there is a whole new generation of children. They walk distinct… I can hear it at the audio… It used to really go life-death, life-death, but today it is death-life, death-life…”

I can not consider anything better than studying this story although: In 1968, at Palo Alto, Ken Kesey, author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, signs up to take part in a medication research sponsored by the CIA. The medication he receives is a new experimental drug named LSD.

Starts to entice a group of ragtag adventurers, and they drop acid and also journey about California in a bus known as’Furthur’.

Get trapped into their crazy, hippie Life as they experience The Grateful Dead, Hell’s Angels and major figures of the Beat Generation such as Neal Cassady and Allen Ginsberg, while geting chased by authorities and escaping into Mexico.

Nothing is what it is, because everything would be what it’s not.”

There you and Alice go togetherdown, down, Downdown the rabbit hole…that the Cheshire Cat looks with an amazing smile, Alice drinks a potion and melts down to size, and also watches a caterpillar smoke from a hookah.

If You Would like to lose yourself when Reading, Alice’s narrative does precisely that as she sees the world change around her. Occasionally frightening and sometimes for the greater, as she attempts to make sense of a vivid dreamworld.

Do not get stuck by the fact that this can be Categorized as Children’s fiction. This publication is a combination of crap, dreamlike passages and possibly extending to the realms of philosophy.

Or possibly, I really don’t understand. I received a telegram in the house:’Mother deceased. Funeral tomorrow. Faithfully yours’ That does not mean anything. Perhaps it was yesterday”

You have likely grappled with the Idea that human presence retains no larger meaning. Meursault, the narrator, is a young guy residing in Algiers, that commits an act of violence apparently according to no logic or rationale, which disturbs those about him to get his lack of guilt and indifference. If his mom dies, he reveals his feelings simply to meet the expectations of the others.

It’s intimidating to delve to the mind of someone characterized by apathy and indifference, that commits crimes with no motive — especially once you understand that the narrative is conducive with the bigger notion that the world is absurd and isn’t here to serve humanity.

Can Reading While High Be Your Item?

If emotionally digesting the numerous things to see while high is not your thing, you can find infinite choices by passively going through a Netflix binge, or aimlessly becoming a societal networking browsing pro.

Playing marijuana games, throwing a bud celebration , practicing the yoga arts or working in your sexual lifestyle with your spouse are fantastic activities to do while high.

Experiment and take advantage of your additional sensory experience that is sensitive!

source http://www.stusolutions.com/reading-while-high/

source https://stusolutions.wordpress.com/2019/08/10/reading-while-high/

[douglasrrivers]

Reading While High

Recently, once the weekend comes and I am on cloud Cannabis nine, I am having the desire to express myself more creatively, rather than sitting and viewing Netflix.

If your looking for some medicine or cannabismo at an affordable price and delievered straight to your door then have I got the place for you. Starting with their specialty of being a White Fire OG strain seller, www.Weed-deals.ca is the perfect place to find all things like strains such as Platinum Bubba Kush and high quality at the same time. Looking for something to store all of your cannabis in? Weed Deals will have a

Occasionally I will write. Occasionally I will participate in a mutually stimulating video game, or host an amassing. Other times, I will start to get my yoga on. Otherwise at other moments, I will explore reading .

Reading while high may be challenging to begin, however.

However, with additional effort in eliminating myself from all of the’marvelous’ distractions (technology, social websites and etc), the experience you receive from studying while stoned is WELL worth it.

Just picture your favorite tales Getting more vibrant than any display, carrying on a life all their own as you exude deep assumptions, strange characters and lively dialogue with a brand-new perspective.

Imagine soaking and adopting the wisdom in the many different Experiences authors and writers have to give. The small details our active minds readily overlook and miss.

Studying is a fantastic way to decompress, because the action is similar to being in a meditative state.

Thus, if you’re searching for items to see while high, grab a blanket, then catch your favorite system of cannabis ingestion and unwind someplace comfortable, as we supply you with our best 5 novels to read while lifted.

Reading While High: 5 Novels That Will Improve Your Expertise

5 books is not a lot. We all know. But it’s a Fantastic beginning, because the Writers of every have an exhausting collection of deep literary inventions.

If a publication does not interest you originally, we recommend you to search These writers are masters in their craft. From Philip K. Dick

“Perhaps I will go where I could see Stars, ” he said to himself since the automobile gained speed and elevation; it led off from San Francisco, toward the uninhabited desolation into the north. On the place where no living thing goes. Not unless it believed that the end was coming.

Ever heard of the film Blade Runner? To the timeless sci-fi movie with a faithful and dedicated cult following.

Even though High, you will feel yourself becoming lost in postsecondary San Francisco, after the dark tale of Bounty Hunter and officer, Rick Deckard, whose job would be to’retire’ renegade androids who’ve returned from space — androids who attempt to pass themselves off as individual and might do anything to stay intact.

This story is more than Dangerous androids, though it includes some white-knuckled suspense sequences. The book takes you into gloomy moments of the individual mind, where Deckard finds himself torn between his own feelings as well as the needs of his place to kill.

Morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous vermin. He had been lying on his back as hard as armor plate and if he lifted his head a bit, he watched his glistening brown belly, sectioned by arch-shaped ribsto whose asses that the cap, about to slide off completely, would barely cling”

What might be trippier than stirring As a huge insect? The story’s protagonist, Gregor Samsa, has worked to the verge of fatigue so as to repay his parents’ debts, and that bodily toll has shown to a insect metamorphosis. He wakes up on day unexpectedly transformed into a sizable, insectile creature, but with his individual mind .

The household continues on as though nothing That unexpected has happened. Each and every single day, banal discussions and dull events, continue to perform (waking up late, cleaning the home ). Strangely, they become monstrous in their own disregard and neglect of Gregor.

It is a bizarre assumption, particularly when studying while large, but if you dive deeply, you could interpret this job as a Metaphor for depression. You will find a glimpse of the way that households may reply to the emotional illness, the inherent mindset and assumptions society on a bigger scale holds contrary to it and much more.

Given that the publication was published in 1915, a time when psychological Illness was more stigmatized and misunderstood than it is now, anticipate a mind-bending studying high-profile.

“I think there is a whole new generation of children. They walk distinct… I can hear it at the audio… It used to really go life-death, life-death, but today it is death-life, death-life…”

I can not consider anything better than studying this story although: In 1968, at Palo Alto, Ken Kesey, author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, signs up to take part in a medication research sponsored by the CIA. The medication he receives is a new experimental drug named LSD.

Starts to entice a group of ragtag adventurers, and they drop acid and also journey about California in a bus known as’Furthur’.

Get trapped into their crazy, hippie Life as they experience The Grateful Dead, Hell’s Angels and major figures of the Beat Generation such as Neal Cassady and Allen Ginsberg, while geting chased by authorities and escaping into Mexico.

Nothing is what it is, because everything would be what it’s not.”

There you and Alice go togetherdown, down, Downdown the rabbit hole…that the Cheshire Cat looks with an amazing smile, Alice drinks a potion and melts down to size, and also watches a caterpillar smoke from a hookah.

If You Would like to lose yourself when Reading, Alice’s narrative does precisely that as she sees the world change around her. Occasionally frightening and sometimes for the greater, as she attempts to make sense of a vivid dreamworld.

Do not get stuck by the fact that this can be Categorized as Children’s fiction. This publication is a combination of crap, dreamlike passages and possibly extending to the realms of philosophy.

Or possibly, I really don’t understand. I received a telegram in the house:’Mother deceased. Funeral tomorrow. Faithfully yours’ That does not mean anything. Perhaps it was yesterday”

You have likely grappled with the Idea that human presence retains no larger meaning. Meursault, the narrator, is a young guy residing in Algiers, that commits an act of violence apparently according to no logic or rationale, which disturbs those about him to get his lack of guilt and indifference. If his mom dies, he reveals his feelings simply to meet the expectations of the others.

It’s intimidating to delve to the mind of someone characterized by apathy and indifference, that commits crimes with no motive — especially once you understand that the narrative is conducive with the bigger notion that the world is absurd and isn’t here to serve humanity.

Can Reading While High Be Your Item?

If emotionally digesting the numerous things to see while high is not your thing, you can find infinite choices by passively going through a Netflix binge, or aimlessly becoming a societal networking browsing pro.

Playing marijuana games, throwing a bud celebration , practicing the yoga arts or working in your sexual lifestyle with your spouse are fantastic activities to do while high.

Experiment and take advantage of your additional sensory experience that is sensitive!

source http://www.stusolutions.com/reading-while-high/ source https://stusolutions.blogspot.com/2019/08/reading-while-high.html

[donnamoserr]

Reading While High

Recently, once the weekend comes and I am on cloud Cannabis nine, I am having the desire to express myself more creatively, rather than sitting and viewing Netflix.

If your looking for some medicine or cannabismo at an affordable price and delievered straight to your door then have I got the place for you. Starting with their specialty of being a White Fire OG strain seller, www.Weed-deals.ca is the perfect place to find all things like strains such as Platinum Bubba Kush and high quality at the same time. Looking for something to store all of your cannabis in? Weed Deals will have a

Occasionally I will write. Occasionally I will participate in a mutually stimulating video game, or host an amassing. Other times, I will start to get my yoga on. Otherwise at other moments, I will explore reading .

Reading while high may be challenging to begin, however.

However, with additional effort in eliminating myself from all of the’marvelous’ distractions (technology, social websites and etc), the experience you receive from studying while stoned is WELL worth it.

Just picture your favorite tales Getting more vibrant than any display, carrying on a life all their own as you exude deep assumptions, strange characters and lively dialogue with a brand-new perspective.

Imagine soaking and adopting the wisdom in the many different Experiences authors and writers have to give. The small details our active minds readily overlook and miss.

Studying is a fantastic way to decompress, because the action is similar to being in a meditative state.

Thus, if you’re searching for items to see while high, grab a blanket, then catch your favorite system of cannabis ingestion and unwind someplace comfortable, as we supply you with our best 5 novels to read while lifted.

Reading While High: 5 Novels That Will Improve Your Expertise

5 books is not a lot. We all know. But it’s a Fantastic beginning, because the Writers of every have an exhausting collection of deep literary inventions.

If a publication does not interest you originally, we recommend you to search These writers are masters in their craft. From Philip K. Dick

“Perhaps I will go where I could see Stars, ” he said to himself since the automobile gained speed and elevation; it led off from San Francisco, toward the uninhabited desolation into the north. On the place where no living thing goes. Not unless it believed that the end was coming.

Ever heard of the film Blade Runner? To the timeless sci-fi movie with a faithful and dedicated cult following.

Even though High, you will feel yourself becoming lost in postsecondary San Francisco, after the dark tale of Bounty Hunter and officer, Rick Deckard, whose job would be to’retire’ renegade androids who’ve returned from space — androids who attempt to pass themselves off as individual and might do anything to stay intact.

This story is more than Dangerous androids, though it includes some white-knuckled suspense sequences. The book takes you into gloomy moments of the individual mind, where Deckard finds himself torn between his own feelings as well as the needs of his place to kill.

Morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous vermin. He had been lying on his back as hard as armor plate and if he lifted his head a bit, he watched his glistening brown belly, sectioned by arch-shaped ribsto whose asses that the cap, about to slide off completely, would barely cling”

What might be trippier than stirring As a huge insect? The story’s protagonist, Gregor Samsa, has worked to the verge of fatigue so as to repay his parents’ debts, and that bodily toll has shown to a insect metamorphosis. He wakes up on day unexpectedly transformed into a sizable, insectile creature, but with his individual mind .

The household continues on as though nothing That unexpected has happened. Each and every single day, banal discussions and dull events, continue to perform (waking up late, cleaning the home ). Strangely, they become monstrous in their own disregard and neglect of Gregor.

It is a bizarre assumption, particularly when studying while large, but if you dive deeply, you could interpret this job as a Metaphor for depression. You will find a glimpse of the way that households may reply to the emotional illness, the inherent mindset and assumptions society on a bigger scale holds contrary to it and much more.

Given that the publication was published in 1915, a time when psychological Illness was more stigmatized and misunderstood than it is now, anticipate a mind-bending studying high-profile.

“I think there is a whole new generation of children. They walk distinct… I can hear it at the audio… It used to really go life-death, life-death, but today it is death-life, death-life…”

I can not consider anything better than studying this story although: In 1968, at Palo Alto, Ken Kesey, author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, signs up to take part in a medication research sponsored by the CIA. The medication he receives is a new experimental drug named LSD.

Starts to entice a group of ragtag adventurers, and they drop acid and also journey about California in a bus known as’Furthur’.

Get trapped into their crazy, hippie Life as they experience The Grateful Dead, Hell’s Angels and major figures of the Beat Generation such as Neal Cassady and Allen Ginsberg, while geting chased by authorities and escaping into Mexico.

Nothing is what it is, because everything would be what it’s not.”

There you and Alice go togetherdown, down, Downdown the rabbit hole…that the Cheshire Cat looks with an amazing smile, Alice drinks a potion and melts down to size, and also watches a caterpillar smoke from a hookah.

If You Would like to lose yourself when Reading, Alice’s narrative does precisely that as she sees the world change around her. Occasionally frightening and sometimes for the greater, as she attempts to make sense of a vivid dreamworld.

Do not get stuck by the fact that this can be Categorized as Children’s fiction. This publication is a combination of crap, dreamlike passages and possibly extending to the realms of philosophy.

Or possibly, I really don’t understand. I received a telegram in the house:’Mother deceased. Funeral tomorrow. Faithfully yours’ That does not mean anything. Perhaps it was yesterday”

You have likely grappled with the Idea that human presence retains no larger meaning. Meursault, the narrator, is a young guy residing in Algiers, that commits an act of violence apparently according to no logic or rationale, which disturbs those about him to get his lack of guilt and indifference. If his mom dies, he reveals his feelings simply to meet the expectations of the others.

It’s intimidating to delve to the mind of someone characterized by apathy and indifference, that commits crimes with no motive — especially once you understand that the narrative is conducive with the bigger notion that the world is absurd and isn’t here to serve humanity.

Can Reading While High Be Your Item?

If emotionally digesting the numerous things to see while high is not your thing, you can find infinite choices by passively going through a Netflix binge, or aimlessly becoming a societal networking browsing pro.

Playing marijuana games, throwing a bud celebration , practicing the yoga arts or working in your sexual lifestyle with your spouse are fantastic activities to do while high.

Experiment and take advantage of your additional sensory experience that is sensitive!

source http://www.stusolutions.com/reading-while-high/ source https://stusolutions.tumblr.com/post/186904495968

[stusolutions]

Reading While High

Recently, once the weekend comes and I am on cloud Cannabis nine, I am having the desire to express myself more creatively, rather than sitting and viewing Netflix.

If your looking for some medicine or cannabismo at an affordable price and delievered straight to your door then have I got the place for you. Starting with their specialty of being a White Fire OG strain seller, www.Weed-deals.ca is the perfect place to find all things like strains such as Platinum Bubba Kush and high quality at the same time. Looking for something to store all of your cannabis in? Weed Deals will have a

Occasionally I will write. Occasionally I will participate in a mutually stimulating video game, or host an amassing. Other times, I will start to get my yoga on. Otherwise at other moments, I will explore reading .

Reading while high may be challenging to begin, however.

However, with additional effort in eliminating myself from all of the’marvelous’ distractions (technology, social websites and etc), the experience you receive from studying while stoned is WELL worth it.

Just picture your favorite tales Getting more vibrant than any display, carrying on a life all their own as you exude deep assumptions, strange characters and lively dialogue with a brand-new perspective.

Imagine soaking and adopting the wisdom in the many different Experiences authors and writers have to give. The small details our active minds readily overlook and miss.

Studying is a fantastic way to decompress, because the action is similar to being in a meditative state.

Thus, if you’re searching for items to see while high, grab a blanket, then catch your favorite system of cannabis ingestion and unwind someplace comfortable, as we supply you with our best 5 novels to read while lifted.

Reading While High: 5 Novels That Will Improve Your Expertise

5 books is not a lot. We all know. But it’s a Fantastic beginning, because the Writers of every have an exhausting collection of deep literary inventions.

If a publication does not interest you originally, we recommend you to search These writers are masters in their craft. From Philip K. Dick

“Perhaps I will go where I could see Stars, ” he said to himself since the automobile gained speed and elevation; it led off from San Francisco, toward the uninhabited desolation into the north. On the place where no living thing goes. Not unless it believed that the end was coming.

Ever heard of the film Blade Runner? To the timeless sci-fi movie with a faithful and dedicated cult following.

Even though High, you will feel yourself becoming lost in postsecondary San Francisco, after the dark tale of Bounty Hunter and officer, Rick Deckard, whose job would be to’retire’ renegade androids who’ve returned from space — androids who attempt to pass themselves off as individual and might do anything to stay intact.

This story is more than Dangerous androids, though it includes some white-knuckled suspense sequences. The book takes you into gloomy moments of the individual mind, where Deckard finds himself torn between his own feelings as well as the needs of his place to kill.

Morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous vermin. He had been lying on his back as hard as armor plate and if he lifted his head a bit, he watched his glistening brown belly, sectioned by arch-shaped ribsto whose asses that the cap, about to slide off completely, would barely cling”

What might be trippier than stirring As a huge insect? The story’s protagonist, Gregor Samsa, has worked to the verge of fatigue so as to repay his parents’ debts, and that bodily toll has shown to a insect metamorphosis. He wakes up on day unexpectedly transformed into a sizable, insectile creature, but with his individual mind .

The household continues on as though nothing That unexpected has happened. Each and every single day, banal discussions and dull events, continue to perform (waking up late, cleaning the home ). Strangely, they become monstrous in their own disregard and neglect of Gregor.

It is a bizarre assumption, particularly when studying while large, but if you dive deeply, you could interpret this job as a Metaphor for depression. You will find a glimpse of the way that households may reply to the emotional illness, the inherent mindset and assumptions society on a bigger scale holds contrary to it and much more.

Given that the publication was published in 1915, a time when psychological Illness was more stigmatized and misunderstood than it is now, anticipate a mind-bending studying high-profile.

“I think there is a whole new generation of children. They walk distinct… I can hear it at the audio… It used to really go life-death, life-death, but today it is death-life, death-life…”

I can not consider anything better than studying this story although: In 1968, at Palo Alto, Ken Kesey, author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, signs up to take part in a medication research sponsored by the CIA. The medication he receives is a new experimental drug named LSD.

Starts to entice a group of ragtag adventurers, and they drop acid and also journey about California in a bus known as’Furthur’.

Get trapped into their crazy, hippie Life as they experience The Grateful Dead, Hell’s Angels and major figures of the Beat Generation such as Neal Cassady and Allen Ginsberg, while geting chased by authorities and escaping into Mexico.

Nothing is what it is, because everything would be what it’s not.”

There you and Alice go togetherdown, down, Downdown the rabbit hole…that the Cheshire Cat looks with an amazing smile, Alice drinks a potion and melts down to size, and also watches a caterpillar smoke from a hookah.

If You Would like to lose yourself when Reading, Alice’s narrative does precisely that as she sees the world change around her. Occasionally frightening and sometimes for the greater, as she attempts to make sense of a vivid dreamworld.

Do not get stuck by the fact that this can be Categorized as Children’s fiction. This publication is a combination of crap, dreamlike passages and possibly extending to the realms of philosophy.

Or possibly, I really don’t understand. I received a telegram in the house:’Mother deceased. Funeral tomorrow. Faithfully yours’ That does not mean anything. Perhaps it was yesterday”

You have likely grappled with the Idea that human presence retains no larger meaning. Meursault, the narrator, is a young guy residing in Algiers, that commits an act of violence apparently according to no logic or rationale, which disturbs those about him to get his lack of guilt and indifference. If his mom dies, he reveals his feelings simply to meet the expectations of the others.

It’s intimidating to delve to the mind of someone characterized by apathy and indifference, that commits crimes with no motive — especially once you understand that the narrative is conducive with the bigger notion that the world is absurd and isn’t here to serve humanity.

Can Reading While High Be Your Item?

If emotionally digesting the numerous things to see while high is not your thing, you can find infinite choices by passively going through a Netflix binge, or aimlessly becoming a societal networking browsing pro.

Playing marijuana games, throwing a bud celebration , practicing the yoga arts or working in your sexual lifestyle with your spouse are fantastic activities to do while high.

Experiment and take advantage of your additional sensory experience that is sensitive!

source http://www.stusolutions.com/reading-while-high/