#forcing myself to finish this before I start another project

[banana-pancake5]

Angry lil guy pt2

[kiarastromboli]

I missed u (Matt Sturniolo x Y/n)

Masterlist.

Warning: Smut content, don’t like it = don’t read it :)

Summary: You and your boyfriend Matt haven't seen each other for two weeks, and it's becoming unbearable for both of you.

•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•

Matt and I have been a couple for over a year now. Since the beginning of our relationship, we've always been very close, to the point where I don't think we've ever gone more than 2 days without seeing each other until last week.

I didn't think his absence would affect me so much. This week, Matt has been particularly busy with his YouTube channel, and he and his brothers have had quite a few projects to manage lately. As for me, I've been swamped with work; we're entering the Christmas season, so my job is busier than the rest of the year.

Anyway, it's been more than two weeks now since I've had the chance to see my boyfriend, and I feel like I'm going crazy. I have trouble sleeping without him, and I won't lie about the fact that I really want him right now. I know he feels the same way. The only times we've had the chance to call each other in the past two weeks were for him to relieve some pressure because, according to him, he "can't do it alone."

This leaves me desperate in the situation. I've tried to distract myself by masturbating several times, but it doesn't help. I'm incredibly horny, and the only thing that could help me right now is Matt.

I was quietly in bed at 1 a.m., unable to sleep as usual, when I was alerted by a message from my boyfriend on my phone.

I knew teasing Matt wasn't a very good idea, firstly because he's been just as horny as me lately, so I knew it would frustrate him. Secondly, it would end up frustrating me too...

I could see Matt starting to type and then stopping, as if he was hesitant to send me a message. After waiting for several minutes, I decided to put my phone down when I realized he wouldn't respond.

Well, at least that's what I thought before receiving another notification on my phone...

I got up from my bed to walk over to my wardrobe. I pulled out an assortment of lingerie I had bought a few days ago for this special occasion, especially for Matt. It was a blue lace set, Matt's favorite color. I knew it would drive him crazy to see me in it. The garter belt gave me a goddess-like figure, and the bra held my chest perfectly, although I knew Matt wouldn't waste a second to tear it off. I was already completely wet at the thought.

Barely finishing tidying up my room, he was already there knocking on my door. I hurried to run and open it for him in my little outfit.

"Hi-" he began to say before I cut him off, pulling him towards me by his collar and kissing him as I opened the door for him to enter.

"So eager," he said, disconnecting our lips with a smirk.

He took a step back to observe me in more detail when he saw what I was wearing. I could see his pupils dilate. I spun around to give him a better view, and he grabbed me by the waist after running his hand over his face to make sure he wasn't dreaming.

"Do you like what you see?" I asked, smiling.

His grip on my waist tightened as I locked eyes with him. He licked his lips and bit them, continuing to look me up and down.

"Do you remember your safe word?" he asked, bringing his hand to my throat to force me to look him in the eyes.

"Ketchup," I said, chuckling to tease him. He tightened his hand around my throat, eliciting a soft moan from my lips.

"I'm serious, y/n. What's your safe word?" he said in an intimidating voice, bringing his lips close to mine.

"Hmm, red," I said in a tiny voice, biting my lips. I could feel a warmth building between my legs just from his voice.

His eyes left mine to gaze at my slightly swollen, rosy lips from our previous kiss. A smile played on the corner of his face before he started advancing towards my bedroom, not letting go of my throat.

"Kiss me," I begged when we reached my room, and the back of my legs touched the side of my bed.

"What did you say? I think I misheard," he replied, amused by my impatience and desire.

"Please, Matt, kiss me," I pleaded, frustrated that he wouldn't press his lips against mine again. I looked pathetic, and he loved it.

He took off his t-shirt. "Show me that you deserve it," he said, chuckling before pushing me onto the bed so that I sat right in front of him.

I raised my eyes to him, giving him an innocent doe-eyed look. He looked at me as if he were a predator, and I was his prey. My eyes drifted to the bulge in his gray sweatpants in front of me before returning my gaze to him.

"Don't play shy with me, baby. I know you're dying for it. Take it," he said in an authoritative tone, grabbing my hair in a ponytail to clear my face while licking his lips.

I brought both of my hands to the elastic of his sweatpants, pulling them down to his ankles, leaving him in his boxers. He was bulging in his boxers; I had almost forgotten how sizable it was. Not too big to be unmanageable, but just big enough to fill me where I needed it. However, it had been a while since we had been intimate, and I already dreaded the pain I would likely feel when he penetrates me.

"Stop looking at it like that, suck it before I shove it down your throat, y/n. Don't make me wait," he said, abruptly pulling on my hair, making me sigh in surprise.

I started to palm him through his boxers, looking him straight in the eyes. I could see the intense desire burning in his eyes, making me smile in the moment.

"This is the last time I'm warning you, y/n. Stop teasing me, take it," he said, trying to hold back a frustrated moan when I removed his boxers.

"Or what?" I said, smiling playfully. I wanted to push him to the edge; I knew he wouldn't be gentle with me, and that's what I wanted.

He smiled, licking his lips to suppress a chuckle.

"You want to play like that, huh?" he said, running his thumb over my lips. I quickly took it between my teeth and nodded, looking him in the eyes.

"Fuck, I missed you so much," he said, removing his thumb from my mouth to grasp his member and press it against my lips, signaling me to open my mouth, which I eventually did.

Without warning, he immediately thrust it deep into my throat, catching me off guard and making me cough around his cock.

He chuckled but didn't stop his momentum. He began guiding my head back and forth faster and faster. I tried my best not to choke and to suppress my gag reflex every time he hit the back of my throat.

"I missed fucking your pretty little mouth like this, princess," he said, breathing rapidly. "You're so good with your tongue," he added, throwing his head back, making me moan around his cock.

Tears started to flow down my cheeks due to his constant abuse on the back of my throat, and he quickly noticed, coming to wipe my tears away with his thumb.

"Look at you crying like a baby when you were acting all tough just a few minutes ago," he said with a smirk. I furrowed my brows, unable to help but moan every time he opened his mouth to say something.

I was completely at his mercy, and I loved it. He let go of my hair to grasp my face with both hands before thrusting into me at an inhuman speed. He released moans and groans, and it only excited me even more.

He pulled out of my mouth suddenly, causing me to let out a sigh of relief and frustration. "Why did you stop?" I asked, breathless.

He leaned in to kiss me fiercely. "I'm not done with you, baby, don't worry," he said, smiling against my lips before pushing me to move back towards my headboard. He was now positioned above me, his lips glued to mine without any struggle for dominance; his tongue didn't have to fight for control.

His hand moved from my cheek to my neck, then to my chest, where he paused for a moment to play with my nipples through my delicate lace bra, making me moan again, this time into our kiss. I felt completely intoxicated, drugged by him, by his lips on mine, and his hands on my body. I was on fire, completely consumed by him. I wanted him to do unimaginable things to me.

His hand left my chest to roam my waist, where he sank his fingers before descending to my lower abdomen.

My breathing quickened; he was getting closer and closer to where I needed him. I couldn't take it anymore; I only dreamed of one thing: him touching me.

He started playing with the lace of my panties, frustrating me at the moment. I wanted him to go further, but I knew he was punishing me for my previous behavior. "Matt, please," I said, moaning and closing my eyes. I needed him to touch me; I was dying for it.

"Please what, baby? You're a big girl; formulate a proper sentence, princess," he said with a big smile. He knew exactly what I wanted; he just wanted me to say it. He enjoyed seeing me beg; he loved it.

"Please touch me, I need you. Stop making me wait. I promise to behave like a good girl. Please, touch me, Matt," I pleaded, moaning pathetically. He directed his lips to my neck before finally touching me through my panties.

I let out a sigh of relief when I finally felt his fingers apply pressure to my clit. He made agonizingly slow circular motions, and I began to squirm against the mattress, frustrated because I wanted more. I needed more.

"Matt," I said in a frustrated moan, feeling him smile against the skin of my neck. He slipped his hand into my panties this time, letting out a surprised moan in my ear when he felt how wet I was for him.

"Soaked like a little slut," he said before coming to suck marks on my neck.

"Yes, your slut, and only yours," I replied, moaning when he started massaging my clit harder and faster. I couldn't help but moan at this point; it was stronger than me. I could feel that familiar knot tightening in my stomach; I had been waiting for days to finally climax properly.

But suddenly, and without warning, as I dangerously approached my orgasm, he removed his hand from my panties. I raised my head with a frustrated moan once again. He sat up to look me in the eyes with a satisfied smile. "What's wrong? Were you about to come? Did I stop at the wrong moment?" he said, chuckling.

"Matt," I told him, looking at him with frustration for what he had just inflicted on me. He took me by the waist to switch our positions this time, him below and me just above him.

"You're lucky it's been two weeks since we've done anything. If it weren't the case, I would have left you hanging to punish you for how you behaved with me," he said, grabbing me by the throat before giving me a hip thrust, rubbing his erection against my still clothed pussy.

I let out another moan before leaning slightly forward to rest on my arm placed on his chest. "Take off your panties before I tear them off," he said, smiling.

I moved off him to remove my panties and then straddled him. He directed me towards his face. "Ride my face, baby," he said authoritatively.

I hesitated for a moment before giving in and positioning myself just above his face. His arms wrapped around my thighs as if to prevent me from escaping his grasp. I slowly let myself fall onto his face, and when I felt his tongue on my pussy, I thought I was going to go completely insane.

He began to lick my clit going progressively faster and humping against me which sent vibrations directly against my clit, I hadn't put my weight on his face for fear of smothering him but I could feel my thighs weakening as the minutes passed. He began to lick my hole assiduously, his nose rubbing against my clit which pushed me even further towards my orgasm, his fingers were planted in my thighs when he felt them trembling because they were weakening, he came to press on them to force me to put all my weight on his face.

I tried to resist but I was so obsessed by the effect he was having on me that I finally cracked, leaving all my weight on his face, which caused the pressure of his nose on my clit to increase, making me moan louder than the previous ones.

I started rubbing back and forth on his face controlled by my pleasure it was all just too much for me the sensation in my lower belly started to become unbearable "M-matt- oh my- fuckkkk" I said closing my eyes feeling my orgasm approaching.

I raised my pelvis because I felt that all this stimulation was too much for me, the orgasm that was dangerously close was driving me crazy but Matt had another plan in mind with the help of his arms he came to press again on my thighs to force me to stay in place, he started to eat me with more passion I threw my head back when I felt my orgasm coming "fuck- I'm going to cum. "I groaned, almost screaming, at the pleasure he was giving me, and suddenly the pressure was off again. I came all over his face, shouting his names and a few insults along the way, before letting myself fall onto the bed next to him.

My eyes were closed, I was out of breath and Matt came to stand beside me, kissing my cheek before whispering in my ear "I'm still not done with you", I could hear his smirk in the tone of his sentence.

He straightened up and turned me against the mattress, now on my stomach. "Matt, wait, I'm too sensitive," I said, turning my head slightly towards him. He grabbed me by the hips and arched me so that I was level with his pelvis.

"I don't care you can take it I know you can." he said in my ear before straightening up and rubbing his member against my hole. His free hand caressed the length of my back before grabbing the back of my neck and pressing my head against his pillow.

He knew it'd been a while so he gently pushed inside me and I let out a moan of pain at the burning and stretching sensation, he stopped halfway through to ask me "Are you all right princess?" and I couldn't help but smile at his concern, it was so paradoxical that he should ask me that after fucking my throat like a monster and giving me one of the most powerful orgasms I'd ever had.

"Yes, baby, you can move, I just need to get back to your size," I said, moaning softly. He moved forward again until he hit bottom and let out a beautiful moan.

"I can't believe this pussy is mine." he said as he caressed my ass before starting to stroke back and forth.

"Fuck you're really tight I'm not going to last very long." he moaned clutching my hips as if his life depended on it.

I felt like I'd gone completely stupid because of his cock, it was going exactly where I needed it to go, the only sounds coming out of my mouth were moans and my boyfriend's name, as if my memory had been wiped and those were the things left out of my vocabulary.

He started to speed up the movement and he brought his hand to my clit to play with it was still super sensitive so I couldn't help gesticulating when he did that.

"I'm gonna fucking cum y/n" he said in an animalistic moan his movements had become severely fast he was slapping the bottom like I'd never been able to feel it in my belly.

"Cum with me princess." he said as he felt my pussy clench around him I didn't need to speak he knew my body by heart he knew I was about to cum.

And after a few more thrusts I came for the second time, my vagina convulsing around his cock, pushing it to the edge before he cum inside me.

We stayed in that position for a moment, just long enough to catch our breath, before he pulled out of me and lay down beside me.

With what little strength I had left, I snuggled up to him, "I love you, baby," he said, running his hand through my hair.

"I love you too," I replied in a tired voice with my eyes closed.

"I'm going to run you a bath, my princess, and I'll drop you off at work in the morning, don't worry." he said with a smile before standing up.

Masterlist.

[blueiight]

I want to tell the real story.

In a week's time, in a setting of my choosing, we revisit the project boyish youth prevented us from finishing. Years and thousands of miles removed from the room we shared in San Francisco, I offer, for your journalistic pleasures, my full attention and my life story.

vs.

Props in a play. A play that's been fully designed and rehearsed. And every actor onstage has scripted lines except for us. … Set dressing nailed to the floor.

On one hand, the sham-trial of Louis, Claudia, and Madeleine, is absolutely a mockery of the worst examples of this show’s real-world audience. But in the wider narrative, the trial enriches Louis’s own motivations in 1973 and 2022. Louis wanting to tell the story of his life has an added layer to it simply by the fact that, chronologically, Louis and Claudia, especially Claudia’s, entire lives were made mockeries of on stage first in 1949-1950. The sham-trial is a near-original product of the show, in that what was a straightforward execution in the source material is turned into a public spectacle, where vampires are food to a human audience, and Louis and Claudia are violently silenced as their lives are framed into caricatures of who they were. The rhetoric of two interviews too, are entirely original to the series, but share a common starting point.

Why does Louis, both in 1973 and 2022, choose to begin his life in the year 1910, and not when Louis was a child? Armand opens up his life story with Arun, Lestat tells Paul how he was stolen from the monastery& beaten as a child, Claudia writes in her diaries how her mother died and her father abandoned her to an abusive relative.

It is as much, because Louis truly understands his (and Claudia’s) lives to have restarted with his (their) vampiric turning, as it is the fact that this show-trial takes advantage of Louis’s self-image (and how he relates Claudia in relation to himself) by beginning the story of Louis’s life in 1910, and Claudia’s life in 1917.

Looking at the trial script, and comparing it to the interview in season 1, we see how “the vulnerability within the object” [Louis] is perused. Something to remind is that the sequences I will fixate on are on-script, and therefore, blatantly untrue. The only times we truly go off-script are transparently obvious, even twice-aided with flashbacks, and the only time Louis cedes the narrative to an off-script Lestat only enhance the existing framework of how Louis relates to Claudia.

[SANTIAGO] The accused was a troubled man. A failed sugar farmer, a brothel-keeper.

[LESTAT] Forced into corners by his race, alienated from his own desires. American puritanism mangling his very soul.

[SANTIAGO] Disreputable, cold, violent.

[LESTAT] Louis first accosted me in a pleasure house, and then everywhere I went, as if by happy accident, there was Louis, offering to be my chaperone, his eyes sliding down me. I… a vampire, was being hunted. With every breath, every heartbeat, every sidelong glance, Louis was saying, "Come to me".

In contrast to the scripted debate over Louis’s life, how does Louis relate this aspect of himself to Daniel? Almost as if he’s defending himself, but from who? Daniel who is already familiar with this? The audience of a book in its infancy? Or…The man in the room who pinpointed at the “vulnerability within the object?”.

I was, admittedly, a rougher thing then. You had to be if you wanted to survive. You couldn't look weak on Liberty Street. [ … ] Did I want to pull a knife on my brother? No. But as I alluded to before, you couldn't look weak on Liberty. You never knew who was watching.

I couldn't move. My body was seized with weakness. His gaze tied a string around my lungs, and I found myself immobilized. […] Let the tale seduce you. Just as I was seduced. […] It was a cold winter that year, and Lestat was my coal fire. And I found myself, for the very first time, to anyone other than Paul, confiding my struggles to another man. I was being hunted. And I was completely unaware it was happening.

Here’s Louis on his own race here, Lestat is the one who accosted Louis at the Fair Play Salloon.

Segwaying: This trial is not “Lestat’s point of view”, this is Lestat playing a marionette on stage to revenge himself. His revenge evolves live-on-stage into an attempt to go off-script to save Louis, and only Louis. Lestat breaks script in almost S1 fashion to berate Louis for his reticience to admit his desire, where he admits to making Claudia for Louis, and admits where he broke Louis. [Lestat says the singular “pup”, not “pups”, and this is when Claudia realizes that Lestat did not come for her.] Even bragging about Claudia being the pinnacle of his vampiric self is on-script.

This is Armand, aware of the optics of the kind of men Louis had to wrestle his own legacy from in two lifetimes, creating this script to break & re-shape Louis. “I felt like we were the only two vampires left in the world.” Armand orchestrates this so Claudia & Louis can forever be severed when trying to break Claudia into mad suicide through “My Baby Loves Windows” failed, and Louis still thinks of her even after he turned Madeleine, and Louis can channel his vengeance over his own torture & Claudia’s wrongful death to the coven. What did Armand say in E12… “Don’t you/we have enough to fear from Paris?” Anyways…

If Louis is framed as both the desperate predator and the frigid reticient lover, how does this sham-trial mock Claudia?

Through her words. We are narratively introduced to Claudia’s diaries in Dubai during Episode 4 with Louis out of the room, Armand, docent still as ‘Rashid’, introducing “an alternative perspective on the years of [this interview]’s interest”. Armand in Episode 13 in an attempt to re-gain control over the interview admits to what he and Louis did and did not cut, but to what end? Louis in Dubai has to ask Armand for the missing pages, pages we have yet to see. And chronologically speaking, through the showman Santiago, Armand was the first and last one to use Claudia’s private words to pilfer her narrative and try to break her.

The framing of Claudia as a mad, permanently infantile defect, but also the artfully manipulative entity able to assess Louis & Lestat’s fragile union pinpoints the assumption Armand makes to Louis & Madeleine both: the near inevitability Armand disregards her and treats her end with, throwing her in an infant’s dress to be a character constantly suiciding itself, and Armand calling her a manipulator in the prior episode.

Claudia’s defect caught up to her.

She harmed herself in the sun for attention and followed that up with a killing spree, corpses clogging the bayou, a penchant for human souvenirs.

And what does Louis offer us, in Dubai?

Louis can easily revenge and reclaim his own legacy through the interview, but how can Louis hope to re-pay the smearing and murder of Claudia? Through re-contextualizing the same words she wanted no one but Madeleine to read? “You can put the diaries in their proper context,” he once said. He can never be the one to truly salvage Claudia’s self, which is why the diaries cut out when Claudia finally felt fulfilled, and her last words are kept from our ears. An explanation, to who Claudia once was as a vampire, from Claudia’s own pen, without her will, just as she was turned.

It is through her diaries and Louis’s recollection of her that we realize her trophy-seeking was an evolving project. The boys she killed in New Orleans were her attempt at creating her own vampire companion, only to realize that she cannot create companions of her own bc of the same body she was trapped in, through no will of her own. There is something fascinating about “who” & “when” can make vampires, but that’s another post.

The “artful predator assessing the cracks in [Louis& Lestat’s] union” is in fact, Claudia returning to familiar captivity after being kidnapped and raped repeatedly. What’s interesting is that TdV does not have or launder the pages of the immediate aftermath of her rape, which suggests that Claudia herself tore those pages out [& certainly matches the damage], as ripe predators would see fit to find fault in Claudia for being assaulted.

The showboaters of TdV will die next episode, but what of the architect/s of the trial vs. Louis the architect of this interview? What will be done with Claudia’s diaries after this? The end of this interview poses very interesting questions.

[justporo]

A Night of Staying In

After all the doom and gloom in other writing I really needed some cutesy fluff to feel myself again - and also to give Astarion and Tav a break.

Summary: So have Tav and Astarion just enjoying a cozy night in - also Astarion gets a carrot hurled at his face.

Pairing: Astarion/GN!Tav Warnings: Mention of sex, a carrot gets thrown and then murdered Wordcount: 2,2k

Delicious smells of slowly cooking meats and vegetables, spices and a forgotten mint tea were wafting through the kitchen of your cozy little townhouse.

You were bustling around the well-equipped kitchen. The apron you were wearing was full of stains and its pockets full of cooking utensils – even a half-full spoon absent-mindedly tugged away in one of them. It was slowly leaking through the linen with something on it that looked like blood – but was simply a tomatoey sauce. Your hair was messily put up in a bun, but several strands of hair had fallen out of it and you looked only so far from a mental breakdown.

At the kitchen table Astarion was sitting with a lantern, bowing over an embroidery project. He had the very bright lantern you’d gifted him specifically for this purpose directly next to him, but he was still squinting at his work and holding it so close his nose was almost touching the fabric. He looked a lot less demented than you but still very absent-minded.

Fabrics and threads were strewn all about the wooden table. Different needles were glinting everywhere on it too. One could only hope that those would be remembered at some point – preferably before someone stuck them in their fingers.

Next to him were also laying some loose papers, a feather and an ink pot with lots of writing that was then crossed out again and also some small little doodles on the corners – one for whatever reason happened to be a goose with a knife in its beak.

You had several pots on the iron stove and something about to go in the oven as well. Critically you were moving around between all of these things, clattering with copper pot lids, jars of ingredients and spoons to try the food (always in the same pattern: grabbing a new spoon, trying something, putting the spoon in the dish bowl full of dirty water – then having to grab a new spoon). You had some potatoes boiling and in another pot you had been cooking a mixture of vegetables and beef for quite some time. You wanted to recreate a recipe of cottage pie that you had once tried many years ago in a tavern and had kept reappearing in your dreams. And now you finally had the kitchen and the tools to try and cook it yourself!

But it seemed impossible to get it right, this already being your fourth attempt this week. The vampire had already been moaning that you had basically force-fed him the meal because you had no way of eating that much pie on your own. It was not, that the finished pies hadn’t tasted well, but they just weren’t like you remembered. But you started to think that it might be your memory that was tricking you and not your cooking skills.

You went to try the pie filling again after adding some more spices and dash more red wine (directly from your goblet because you didn’t seem to remember where you put the bottle).

As soon as the spoonful hit your tongue you knew you had done it – finally.

You shrieked and immediately heard another shriek behind you in reply. You turned around to Astarion with glee and saw how the vampire was staring at you angrily and shaking his hand. It didn’t take a genius to figure out your sudden excitement had caused him to stab himself with his needle.

“Darling, can you maybe not scream like a dying goblin, I was concentrating!”, he hissed at you. Your joy evaporated at his flare of anger – so you turned around again, grabbed a left over half of carrot and threw it at Astarion – and maybe a bit more forceful than would have been necessary.

But he was still a rogue and dodged the vegetable easily. It flew against one of the cabinets and then to the ground. There it stayed until Scratch came into the kitchen, drawn there by the sudden noises. The dog sniffed at the piece of vegetable, then grabbed it and went off again.

“Oh really, are we at the ‘I throw stuff at my lover’ point of our relationship now, love?”, Astarion replied to your responsive outburst of anger with a raised eyebrow. “Am I going to have to sleep on the sofa next?”, he continued sassily.

Your hand itched to grab more produce – there were some potatoes still laying around and they made for excellent improvised throwing weapons. But you saw the smirk that played around the vampire’s lips. So you settled for a verbal rebuttal.

“Don’t be such a prick and you can keep sleeping inside”, you said and flipped him off. Then you turned around again to your cooking and grabbed – yet another – spoon and scooped up some of the filling. The vampire mumbled something under his breath about he wouldn’t have to be a prick if you didn’t make him prick himself.

“Oh, that would be so gracious of you, my dear lady, if I was still allowed in your shining presence”, Astarion then said loudly as you were busy with the pots. The tone still very sassy but you heard the playfulness in it now and knew he was now only teasing.

You went over to him, with one hand under the spoon full of hot goodness that immediately started dripping and burning your hand. You winced but kept going.

“Here, try this – I think I got it now”, you said as you stood in front of Astarion who had put down his needlework for the time being. He threw you a pained look: “Love, if you keep feeding me this I think I might actually start to get a pot belly.”

You snorted at him and eyed what you could see of his upper body. “Pretty sure, you will never have to worry about this kind of thing. Now. Try. It”, you answered and insistingly came closer with the spoon.

Astarion sighed, gave you another suffering look and then let himself be fed. His doubtful expression quickly changed to what you interpreted as pleasantly surprised.

“Alright, I take everything back, that was well worth the scream of enlightenment, my sweet. That tastes wonderful”, the vampire said and grinned at you.

“See, wasn’t so hard, was it”, you said and gave him a quick peck on the lips as you could see his face changing to annoyance once more at your petty remark.

You threw the spoon in the dish bowl and rubbed your hands on your apron and started to get everything ready for the final step of the recipe. Meanwhile you said to Astarion: “So, darling, could you write down the following: one and a half cups of red wine and three instead of two sprigs of thyme and just loads of black pepper.”

“Of course, my darling chef”, Astarion replied cheerfully and grabbed the feather and papers laying next to him to write it down. “Any other changes?”

“No, this will be it”, you responded and happily clapped your hands before you put your filling in a cast iron pan, mashed and seasoned the potatoes and then put them down as the topping of your pie. The final touch was some hearty cheese sprinkled on top. Then you put it all in the oven.

In the meantime, you heard the feather scratching over the paper.

“What are you doing, Astarion?”, you asked as you took off the oven mitts from pushing the pan in to cook.

“Just putting the recipe in clean writing for you, my heart”, the vampire replied as he kept looking through older versions and notes on the papers. Brows furrowed as he was concentrating on it.

“That’s sweet, love, thank you”, you said to him but he didn’t reply and probably hadn’t even noticed. Of course – if you said something actually nice you fell on deaf ears.

So you decided to thank him with another gesture. You grabbed another goblet to pour your vampire a cup of wine but as you looked around to find the opened bottle you saw that it had been next to Astarion with an already filled cup all along.

You gave up and sat down across the table with your own cup of wine as Astarion finished up writing. You put one leg up on the bench and hugged it to your chest, head on top of the knee and watched the pale elf.

“Here you go, my sweet”, the vampire exclaimed cheerfully after a few more moments and handed you the finished recipe that was now written cleanly in his neat and beautiful handwriting. ‘Tav’s specialty cottage pie’ stood atop the page and next to it was a little doodle of some steaming hot pie.

You smiled broadly at Astarion: “Thank you, darling.” Then you shortly leaned on the table, almost climbing over it to give him a kiss while carefully trying to avoid the needles.

“Do you sometimes wonder how we ended up like this?”, you softly asked him after you had read through the finished recipe.

“Like what?”

“Well, like this – all domestic. I’m cooking, you’re embroidering, we’re bickering like an old married couple, drinking wine and just enjoying a cozy night in instead of wreaking havoc somewhere out there”, you said and waved vaguely in the direction of the city beyond the walls of your home. Then you took another sip of wine.

“Let’s be honest with ourselves, we’ve been bickering like that from the moment we met”, Astarion answered and looked at you sternly. You shrugged in agreement.

“As for the rest – well, are you enjoying the way we spend our nights like this sometimes? Because if you’re bored-“

“No no, I’m enjoying this an awful lot. It’s just – this is somehow the most unlike turn of events don’t you think? Like, I sometimes can’t believe we actually ended up in the version where we’ll live happily ever after”, you said and cradled your face in your hand not currently holding a cup of wine.

At your words a warm and adoring smile crept onto Astarion’s face.

“Are you though?”, you asked then.

“Hm?”

“Are you enjoying these kinds of nights?”, you asked Astarion again and lifted your head up to look straight at him.

The vampire looked at you, smile still playing around his lips: “Well, my love, after two hundred years full of godsdamned shit I am enjoying this sort of mundanity quite a lot. And I enjoy it even more because I get to spend it with you. I might even enjoy doing the dishes with you later on – unless you don’t splash me like last time.”

You smiled at him too now, broadly – feeling incredibly lucky that you had indeed taken all the right turns that had led you here, to this: sitting at this kitchen table with the love of your life, talking about doing the dishes.

“But if we ever get bored, my sweet, I have quite a lot of ideas on how to spice things up”, Astarion continued afterwards. The smile morphed into a lewd smirk and his red eyes sparkled mischievously: “For example, I could dramatically throw everything on this table to the ground, rip all your clothes off and have my way with you on this table until you forget your own name.”

His voice had suddenly become deep and smooth like dark molten chocolate. You bit your bottom lip as the mental image of his words set in and you just stared into his eyes point blank. Astarion still looked at you, not breaking eye contact, and his teasing smirk only growing.

“Nah”, you made after some more moments, “not tonight. My cottage pie would burn.” Your tone was matter-of-fact and you drank some more of your wine while still looking into the vampire’s eyes.

Then you both broke down laughing. So much so that you had to wipe tears from your eyes by the end and Astarion had his face buried in one of his hands while silent fits of laughter still shook through him.

“Alright”, he said and bit his lip, one of his fangs showing adorably as if he was a cat, “I’ll write it down for another date night then.” You broke out laughing again.

Until you could actually smell your food burning. With an “oh shit” you jumped up and pulled the pan out of the oven – you had saved it just in time.

You got out some plates and forks, and put some generous servings onto them. As you turned around your gaze fell onto the table full of Astarion’s embroidery supplies. Astarion saw your look, then waved it off, dismissing it.

He grabbed one of the filled plates from you and grabbed your then free hand to lead you to the living room. Scratch was there laying on his designated blanket, chewing on his favourite ball. Some telltale orange spots telling the tale of the fallen carrot.

You settled down on your sofa with your food – you swinging your legs over Astarion’s and getting cozy.

And this is where you stayed: eating until you felt like your belly might burst, joking until you were crying again, talking until you got so tired you almost drifted off into dreaming right then and there. And when you had went to bed: holding each other until you woke up in the other’s arms again.

[spockandawe]

And finally, the big conclusion! When I was planning to not really binderary, getting copies of these books was my big goal. And then when I did binderary after all, I, uh, ended up with two sets of two books. And let's not even talk about how late these are in the grand scheme of things, these have been in my plans for literal years, and I originally intended to get them done well before official translations started releasing (I'm doing great!!). But here they are! Thousand Autumns and Peerless! TWICE!!!!

Okay. Okay. So here's the thing. These books are long. Thousand Autumns is something like 450k, and Peerless is closer to 550k. I hate splitting cnovels. I didn't want to sand instead of trimming. I wanted to keep these books as pairs (because Peerless has my favorite danmei ship of all time, but doesn't hit as hard without the Thousand Autumns context, and EVERYTHING hits less hard without knowing that yan wushi is out there. existing.)

These goals are not terribly well aligned with the facts! The facts are that those are awfully big books to fit into a single volume, if I want to use my guillotine! This is another driving force behind my small text theme of the month. It made the typesets a goddamn nightmare, and my initial copies of the books were done on half-legal paper, which I've never done before and may never do again. I finished those, and those are... big, heavy books. Not super portable. Time to see if my eyes are good for four point georgia, and spoilers, they ARE.

Set one, the large set, I wanted to use more of my snake leather. I had this GORGEOUS purple and green and black iridescent hide that i was determined to use, and fortunately I had just enough of the perfect fabric to pair with it.

But.... meanwhile, I've been buying peacock fabrics since 2021 for the sake of Feng Xiao. I had to use at least ONE of them! Fortunately, I've hoarded enough fabric that I was able to find a nice harmonious floral fabric to cover thousand autumns, and then had a nice duo bookcloth to make spines for them both! These books are quarter-legal, and the font is genuinely SO small, but still, pleasantly readable for me, my favorite customer 😂

These books were SO MUCH work to typeset snd bind, but I'm still so excited about how both sets came out! Because of my own impatience with repeating myself like, literally two days later, i redid a number of decorative elements in the typeset as well as the binding. Different chapter headers, different dividers, totally different vibes for the endpapers! This was a big project to ask from myself in such short order, especially when I was starting to flirt with burnout, but I genuinely couldn't be happier with the results :D

[pretzel-box]

Hello everyone.

This will be a rather long post about some things I wanna adress, including the fact that I plan to stop writing for Pressure, my OCS and other peoples Ocs in the near future.

Down under the cut is a list with my personal view, issues and some other things that lead to this decision. Maybe I miss a lot or don't go too deep into detail but the main points are covered.

But before I would like to add that this is MY opinion and MY choice. I let you think of it what you want but I also request that you respect my actions.

The first point is probably already clear from the start. Maybe some noticed, maybe not but I fell out of love with the fandom and the game itself. It became boring to play, the characters lost their charm and I can't come up with any creative scenarios anymore and the ones that already exists have lost their meaning. This may sound like the typical burnout thing and maybe it is but I'm more than certain that I wanna step away from the game and the fandom to focus on other things that bring me more joy. Maybe I start a multifandom writing blog or I just learn another hobby.

The second thing that is close connected to the first point is the fandom of the game, including the community on tumblr. A huge part are super sweet people with a very creative side. I would go as far and say that I brought some of those together with my projects and writing and it really makes me happy to see everyone interact so friendly on my blog.

But something that I haven't adressed is the fact that there are also plenty of hardcore fans, haters and weird people in my askbox or general in the fandom. It is to be expected when someone gains a massive amount of followers. But I do not accept the fact that people judge me based on what I write, who I write for, when I write and if I write at all. I delete those asks. Some telling me that my community project is awful, unserious and pulls other ocs into dirt. Other people are claiming that I don't write Sebastians Character right and oh wow seriously? I am not Sebastians creator, I do not have that ultimate deep lore and mindset to write a person 1:1. I get hate for my own stories and of course the fans could now come to my protetion and say „But Chea don't listen to the haters, you are amazing“ but it doesn't fix the thing in a slightest.

Also regards the people that praise me, some of them ( I won't name anyone) are counting to those weird people that force me. There were 2 or 3 people that acted all sweet in public only to try and take control of some story plots etc.

Also, I started writing when Pressure was first raising to be popular. There weren't many pressure writers out there. I am usually not someone that posts their work online, I don't comment on stuff and I rarely like something. But I really wanted to see more pressure fanfictions. Now we reached the point where there are more than plenty amazing writers and I can quit. There is no need for me to continue something that only makes me hate myself more because everytime I open my notes to write a story for pressure it feels like a mental torture. I leave the writing to the other blogs.

The status for now:

AASB gets discontinued.

Reverse AU gets discontinued.

Streamer AU will recieve 6 more chapters to end the story on a good term.

House of Entities will get continued for a small period of time, probably till I am done with the Streamer AU. There is no plan for the chapter count yet.

All requests in the inbox will get deleted and the inbox itself will be closed after Streamer AU finished.

Any other unnamed project will get discontinued as well.

All stories, one shots, series, drabbles and other works of mine are free to use. Other authors can pick them up, re-write them or just make an own story out of those. I drop all rights for the ideas and I won't demand any credits either. Maybe someone else would like to continue House of Entities as well.

My final word, which may sound repeating: I do not change my opinion, there won't be any motivation talks or sugar coated words that will change my stand in those things. I know some of you will try and comfort me but this is really not needed. I wish for you all to accept the outcome of this situation and move on more or less.

I apologize dearly because this is very sudden and I hope you all will understand.

-Chea

[mjlovescm]

Two green thumbs, Fezco O'Neil

a/n: another super old oneshot idea finally set free from brain !! Reader and Fezco’s love for gardening and making each other sandwiches 

From a young age, you knew you had a green thumb. Whether it was playing in dirt at the park or watching seeds grow for school projects. Plants, seeds, fruits, vegetables and, of course, dirt were all things you knew very well. So when your school started a gardeners club, you were first in line, but after disagreements ending in mud slinging and foul words, you left. By force. 

But that didn't stop you, and not too long after, a second gardening club was formed with you as its sole member. That was before a certain ginger haired boy saw you struggling with carrying around a few large bags of soil. 

"Fuck!" you cursed a bit loudly then you should have for a school hallway.

"You good?"

You turned around with an irritated expression, expecting a member of your previous club behind you. Instead, it was a boy from your math class. The cute, smart one who always raised his hand and wore a gold chain. 

"You need help?"

You nod, breathing heavier than you realized. 

"Grab that end, and I'll grab this one." 

The suggestion is shot down by the freckled boy, insisting on carrying it himself. 

"Yea, these bags heavy as shit." He told you as he lifted the bag over his shoulder. 

You laugh and a small smile breaks through his concentrated expression. 

"I know I've been moving them all by myself."

"I thought y'all had a whole club of people." he asked, curious as to why you were doing this alone. 

The mention of the original gardening club sent you down a spiral, which you unloaded on the boy. As he moved bag after bag of soil, you went on and on. Complaining about changing club hours, disorganized meetings and not considering the weather. It wasn't until he dropped the last bag that you realized you'd been rambling. 

"I get that, my grandma likes to do her own things too." 

His lifting left his skin with a light layer of sweat, to make up for his help, you offer him water and half of your packed lunch. 

"Mm, this is good." a content noise leaves him. "Where'd you get it?"

The compliment makes you smile in a giddy way that's hard to hide. 

"I made it myself" you gloat, "and grew it. The tomatoes and lettuce, I mean."

Together, you ate for a few minutes before getting to work on the soil. After grabbing himself a pair of gloves, the boy joined in. After an hour of hard work, it was time to go home. You both grabbed your bookbags and walked to the front of the school, where an older woman and a baby were waiting. Goodbyes were exchanged and he left.

As his grandmother drove away, you continued your wave and smile, only now remembering the redhead's name. Fezco. 

Years later and the tradition of having lunch with Fezco never died, and neither did the two of you's love for gardening. 

It was a nice spring day, warm and cool. You walked up to Fezco's door with a basket in hand, yet before you could knock, Ashtray swung the door open. 

"Checking my location again?"

It wasn't the first time Ash had been prepared for you coming over. His love for video games made him detest getting up in the middle of  one to open the door for you if Fez was busy. So he watched your location and knew when to take a bathroom break so he could get the door for you. 

"Nice dress." he ignores the question. 

"Thank you, I got it at the mall." you tell him, walking into their home.

It was a blue dress that greatly complimented your figure, it was scattered with flowers and paired with simple blue shoes. 

"Yea, when yall didn't take me."

"It was a date." 

He slips his headphones back on and returns to his gaming chair and game. 

You find your boyfriend in the kitchen eating a bowl of cereal. His blue eyes meet your brown ones as he finishes drinking the leftover milk. He chokes for a moment seeing you, you both jump before rushing for a paper towel to clean the milk that spilled. 

"Damn, baby, you scared me."

"Sorry, I wanted to surprise you." a beat of silence. "Surprise. Well, actually, we have to drive to the surprise."

After a quick outfit change and second bowl of cereal, you two were in the car and on the way to his surprise. The ride is short but filled with conversation and Fezco's questions on where you were leading him and what you had in store. 

"Close your eyes."

Although you're dead serious, he looks at you as if you just told him a bad joke. But after adding a "please" and "baby" he folded.

"You better not make me trip," Fez warns as you guide him, being his eyes. "I'm not tryna fall in front of all these people."

"You're not gonna fall." you assure him, "But I will if your big feet keep kicking me."

"My fault." he apologizes as if his hands weren't currently blocking his view.

It took a minute but once you found your way there you placed Fezco in front of the two garden plots and instructed him to open his eyes. 

"Surprise!" you yell and watch his hands leave his face.

At first, he's confused, understandable. The same way anyone looking at two plots of soil would be. 

Many times, Fezco had told you of his ideal future. A family, a farm and his own land. Although your family was made up of the two of you and Ash. And the land was technically owned by the community garden, it was a small start. Since leaving school to take care of his grandmother and Ashtray, your boyfriend was limited to your garden only, and now he had his own. 

Kisses cover your face and "Thank you baby."'s fill your ears. Fezco's large arms hold you tight and close as he showers you in love and gratitude. 

Once he released you from his grasp, you gave Fezco a full tour of the entire community center. From its large garden and outdoor space, library, and list of hobbies and clubs. When you made your way back to the plots, he was ready to start planning his future plant layout. 

Two and a half months later... It was a hot summer day, overly sunny but saved by strong winds and few clouds. Fezco was returning home with dirty hands and fresh vegetables. After a good wash and cut, he pulled out his phone, taking a picture and sending it to you.

"You hungry? I'm making lunch." he speaks his words out loud as he types them.

He hits send and waits for a response before bringing all of his sandwich ingredients out. Not too long after you arrived at the O'Neil residence, he seated you at the dinner table and asked you to close your eyes. When they open, you're met with a fresh BLT and a smile waiting for your approval. 

"What's this?"

"Try it, tell me what it tastes like. I made it," a beat, "and grew it. The lettuce and tomato, I mean." 

"I know what you mean." 

You lift the hefty sandwich and take a large bite. A content noise leaving you as the rich flavor meets your tongue. Nodding as you chew, Fezco watches you enjoy the fruits or well vegetables of his labor, remembering the little girl who rambled on about dirt.

masterlist Messy, 🍋

[oyeicher]

"The real me is completely different from Wei Zhiyuan. Our personalities, the way we think, they're all very different," says Kurt Huang, who's been described as a "typical leo" by those around him.

Although he seems like the silent and dark type, Kurt Huang actually has a bright and straightforward personality. Since he was young, he has always been very "open" in that he expresses his feelings directly, is very straightforward with his words, and is incapable of pretending. This realness helped him gain popularity through variety shows. But for his acting work, which is what he loves the most, this realness made portraying characters all the more challenging.

Kurt Huang has long known that he's unable to "play" a character. Therefore, whenever he gets a role, he transforms into that character from head to toe. Instead of relying on his imagination or trying to figure out the character so that he can play the role, he lets himself become that person, to give the rawest reactions from a first-person perspective. He explains, "Wei Zhiyuan is someone who does not easily show his feelings, but I couldn't simply be expressionless or wear the exact same expression all the time! So I had to truly "become him" to know how he'd feel and act in each situation." 

In addition to his complete understanding of his character's personality, he also has high work standards and pays a lot of attention to detail, so that he can portray the role as accurately as possible. For instance, he carefully considered how he as a 26-year-old could express the pure emotions of a teen boy as well as the unique brotherhood that's portrayed in the show. He explained, "Many might think that Wei Zhiyuan's feelings for his brother are like that of a family member or a significant other. But that isn't the case. He was abandoned at a young age with no one to rely on, so his brother became his whole world. It's an important difference."

You can read a script thoroughly to thoroughly understand the character, but letting yourself truly become that character in the flesh, is a much greater challenge. In the past, Kurt Huang would find the similarities between his character and himself and use that as a starting point. However, this time round, he wasn't able to find any similarities between Wei Zhiyuan and himself as he doesn't have siblings and is an open book, so what was he to do? Two months before shooting started, he began implementing what he termed as an "extremely twisted" method: to lock his human interaction- and outdoor-loving self at home, and force himself to be still.  

During this time, he was in his room every day taking character notes, which filled eight pieces of A4-sized paper. He also shared that in order to better understand his character's emotional journey, he wrote about all of Wei Zhiyuan's "firsts," such as the first time he touched Qian and the first time he called Qian by his name. In his view, these are the moments that really made Yuan's heart flutter, and doing all this helped him better get into the role.

He can talk about this lightly now, but Kurt recalls that going through that period of repression was very difficult, and at one point he even felt as if he couldn't take it any longer. As he continued to live in Yuan's inner world, even his mother got worried. To make his portrayal as realistic as possible, he continued to live like this once filming started, even when the cameras weren't rolling. "Once we finished filming, I started filming another project and was finally able to pull myself out of this mindset. But when we started promotions (for Unknown), initially, I didn't really want to think back to that time as it was very very hard. But my manager encouraged me and said that thinking about that time and talking about it could be therapeutic in a way, and that helped me find the courage to talk about it."

Note: I only translated the parts related to Unknown.

[herrscherofmagic]

i've spent nearly 47 hours over the last ten days drawing nothing but kiana (and hov)

yeah.

anyways, since I've had about enough of drawing Kiana for the rest of my life (/hj) I'm gonna put a pause on this project; but I'll turn it from a sprint into a marathon and try and work on it occasionally instead of all at once

I want to draw other things again x-x

Close-ups of the drawings below, as well as the reference image set, and some other misc. thoughts

.

Portraits drawn from imagination

Started the process by trying to draw Kiana's head from imagination; then after each drawing I'd pause, look at some references, see what mistakes I made, then put away the references and drew from imagination (and referring to previous drawings) again. I also took breaks at two points to practice drawing eyes & hair before going back to drawing Kiana

For the last 4 portraits, I'd draw a head from imagination as a warm-up to a drawing session, and then do another head much later on instead of doing it immediately. Around halfway through this "phase" I started the other phases at random points, and finished this portion of the process in the first ~10-15 hours of drawing time. The rest of the time was split across the other exercises

Also I gave her an angry expression because I felt it was the easiest for me to do from memory since I've drawn HoV more than just "Kiana" herself. I also used a boring level 3/4 view without much perspective because it forced me to really make sure I was doing everything accurately and with care.

Basically my thinking was that if I could make a boring level 3/4 portrait look good enough, then I'd have no trouble getting it to look good in other perspectives. That seemed to be true when I got to the stage where I was doing expression practice and had to deal with more head tilt and other perspectives, lol

.

Studies of still images from screenshots of gameplay, character art, and stills from animated shorts

Did rough sketches first, then drew with solid color over the sketches on a separate layer. not much else to say here, lol

.

Full-bodies

Started with an anatomy model loosely based on the proportions of Kiana's in-game model, and then two attempts at doing full-body drawings from imagination before realizing that it's bloody insane to try and do that much detail from imagination and I have much better things to do with my life than that x-x

.

Color studies

yaaaay color! yippee!

.

Action sketches/"gesture" drawings

"Gesture" is in quotes because I was way too slow with these for it to really count as proper gesture drawing, imo. But the intention was to start with gesture, and I got closer to that as I went on.

It's way too tempting to start adding detail so I had to metaphysically slap myself with a frying pan to keep myself from getting derailed by that >.>

To get references for this, I did screen recording of gameplay on the PC with OBS studios, then used DaVinci Resolve to play back the recordings.

On PC, when using the mouse controls you can hold the camera fairly still when doing an attack sequence, making it awesome for getting unique angles. For instance, when I recorded Void Drifter's attacks, I was able to get at least 4 different PoVs of her attacks: from the left, the right, behind & above, and in front & below.

Unfortunately, though, it was a bit of a hassle to get good recordings because I had to go into an actual combat stage to record it instead of being able to use an empty testing stage.

With DaVinci Resolve I could "split" clips to make cuts in the timeline that let me easily mark the spots where different attack sequences started, and I could also easily play it in .5x speed to help me figure out how the animations were going from one set of frames to another.

Plus if you close the program after saving, when you open it up again it remembers which frame you were last on and takes you straight there, making it easy to continue from one day to another.

I used White Comet, Herrscher of the Void, and Void Drifter attack animations here, but I also did recordings of Knight Moonbeam and Herrscher of Flamescion, and I might give those a try someday.

.

Facial expressions practice

Started with the set of rough sketches (first image), then did some expression practice from imagination (second and third images) to try and get used to how the proportions of the face change slightly with movement of the eyebrows/eyelids/jaw, since the shape of the eyes and mouth is especially important when doing stylized faces (like the anime style that HI3rd uses)

Then this morning I started working through the original rough sketches and developing them one-by-one, getting through 8 before I decided to call it quits and wrap up the project for now

So the facial expression practice pretty much the culmination of all my practice. All the practice with proportions, the contours & forms of the hair, monochromatic shading, line quality, shape design, etc.

This was also one of the few times I've ever taken stylized references and actually adapted them to some extent instead of directly copying them!

This is especially noticeable in the hair, where I used a more standard style for the hair, in contrast with the variety of hairstyles and shapes used in the various manga references (i.e. black-and-white Escape from Nagazora Kiana's messy hair vs the neat and solid hair in the colored Gratitude Arc, AE Invasion, and Moon Shadow Kiana)

.

Reference images

[sincerely-sofie]

Seeing as you have finished writing the script for your AU thingy, I wanna know, how?

Like, were you motivated the whole time? Or was it a on and off writing type thing?

i'm trying to write but I don't know if I have the motivation...

How did you keep the motivation if so?

Oh man. I have so much to say about writing and creativity that I could make an entire series of posts talking about the subject, but I'll try to keep things orderly and brief.

Disclaimer: I should let you know that I have never finished a writing project before recently finishing my TPiaG AU. Keep that in mind when reading the advice I offer— the tips I give have only been put into work in my own life over the course of the last couple of months, but they’ve proven very effective in my experience!

Sofie Creativity Tips Episode 1, go!!!

Was I motivated the whole time I was writing TPiaG / How did I stay motivated?

Absolutely not. If I hadn’t provided myself a detailed chapter-by-chapter outline for TPiaG before starting the writing process, I would have given up thanks to a mix of writer’s block and absent motivation. Motivation is a fickle muse and prone to ditching me for months on end, so I’ve adapted by trying not to rely on it, but also by creating new motivation rather than clinging to past motivation. I create motivation for myself in two ways: removing friction when writing and being my own fandom.

Removing friction is pretty simple— I create very detailed chapter outlines that remove any fear of writer’s block, set up my devices in a way to make it easy to access my manuscripts and notes, download premade writing playlists that have Pomodoro session break timers built into them, and more. Anything that makes the writing process easier to get into and enjoy doing, I make sure to incorporate into my life.

Being my own fandom is less intuitive, but a thousand times more rewarding in terms of motivation. I make memes of my characters. I write self-indulgent snippets on the side. I make AUs of my own work. I make playlists and save audio clips that suit the characters. I draw comics exploring concepts that might not get into the manuscript itself but that I want to make content for regardless. Basically, I dive in deep into the story, characters, and world, and try to do so with the enthusiasm that I give other people’s projects.

(That part is extra fun, because if I have a headcanon, it automatically becomes canon to whatever AU or original project I’m working on. I have all the power in the world when working like this, and it’s very fun.)

What changed and made it so I finished my first ever written project?

This isn’t exactly what was asked, but because I have eschewed motivation as the main driving force in my writing process, I figured I’d give another insight into how TPiaG went against the pattern of half-started and swiftly abandoned projects that came before it and actually got finished. Late into October, I adopted a new method of producing first drafts. Previously, I would spend weeks polishing the same chapter and would only move on to the next chapter once the current one was perfect. My new method is the complete opposite. I’ve started calling it Writing BFF:

Write bad

Write fast

Write fun

First up, write bad. The point of this is not to waste your time writing prettily during your first draft. Don’t bother agonizing over how to reword that one sentence to be more elegant when it does the job well enough to get its point across. Don’t go off on a 30-minute research tangent in the middle of a writing session because you want to fact-check that one detail and make sure it’s perfectly accurate when you could just put a placeholder detail in brackets and CTRL+F search and plug in something accurate later on. Don’t write pretty, write bad. And be okay with it. You can’t edit an empty page, so fill the page with as much garbage as possible so that you can turn it into gold later on.

Next, write fast. This is only effective when paired with writing bad. Don’t pause, don’t hesitate, don’t deliberate. Write as much as you can and do it as fast as you can. This idea is best illustrated by Chris Fox’s book 5,000 Words Per Hour, where he talks about increasing your WPM (words per minute) and how it makes everything about your writing better. The person who creates a beautiful first draft once every three years is doing okay, but the person who cranks out a complete manuscript every three months learns leagues more about writing than the first person does by the end of three years. The second person has practiced outlining, drafting, editing, publishing, and more with every manuscript completed. The faster you write, the better you get, because practice makes perfect and quantity begets quality.

Finally, write fun. I write what I enjoy, and if I’m not enjoying it, I pivot the project so that I enjoy it again. I like writing deeply personal stories, so pretty much everything I write is heavily based on my life and experiences— TPiaG included. Grovyle’s portrayal is deeply influenced by my experience being an elder sibling who has been a bad example of self-talk, and cleaned up my act because my younger sister started echoing how I spoke to myself. Dusknoir’s portrayal is informed by my experiences with being the therapist / mom friend in different social circles as well as attending actual formal therapy. Twig is the character that my experiences have the greatest influence on in her portrayal, and I joke about her being a self-insert, but ultimately all of the characters are self-inserts to some extent. I also enjoy low-stakes and slow slice-of-life stories that are driven by character growth. If I ever stop having fun with a project, I inject more of myself and my preferences into my work to get it back into my favor.

TL;DR / Writing advice lightning round

Write as badly as possible as quickly as possible, and have fun as you do it. Momentum yields motivation and stagnancy yields doubt. Editing comes only after the first draft is complete. Be your own fandom and your project’s biggest fan. Give yourself direction and ward against writer’s block by making detailed chapter-by-chapter outlines. Make the writing process as easy and enjoyable as possible. Motivation is a lie and if you chase after it instead of making your own, you’ll be writing on hard mode for the rest of your life. Reject perfectionism, embrace flawesomeness.

If I didn’t answer your question right, let me know! I’ll do my best to correct it.

[northwindow]

hey julia !! hope ur doing well... am asking u [instead of messaging!] this bc i imagine u might say some rly cool stuff that other ppl would love to see also lol... but i just wondered if u had any basic tips or resources about like developing a (short-term) writing routine? the context is not fiction writing but like academic but i feel like my academic writing is a creative practice so yeah, hope that makes sense! hope its okay to ask ! have a lovely day <3

hi anna marie! you ask the very question i need answered for myself… i am in a very slow place creatively so i feel silly to be giving advice! but i’ve been thinking about how to get things flowing again. very basic but helpful to me:

getting feedback from other people at a regular interval - i am very shy and this can feel like pulling teeth but it’s so worth it, i am always amazed how much it pushes me to finish things i would have otherwise languished on forever

reading a lot (of course) - it helps me to read a bit directly before starting to write. but also being intentional about it and having a defined list of inspiring works… i recently listened to david naimon interview joanna hedva and he asked them which writers were “squatting over” their latest book which i thought was a good way of putting it! i would like to curate a "squatters shelf" to dip into for inspiration on whatever project i'm working on

distinguishing between writing vs. editing time - this is hard for me because i am a very "edit as you go" type person but sometimes it's stifling! in another interview with tommy pico i heard him talk about his writing routine as very everything-goes, yes-and, accumulation-focused style on monday-thursday and then friday is reserved for finding what was good and refining it. i have always wanted to try this!

incorporating a degree of controlled randomness into the routine - whether it be randomizing where you physically work, what part of the project you work on, or brainstorming new ideas, i really enjoy drawing an option "out of a hat" (i hope that makes sense) at some stage of the writing process. i know i am going to be surprised and challenged by a guiding force even in a small way and want to see what’s going to happen.

something that has helped me a lot with routine in general is “habit stacking” i.e. trying to bundle a new task into something you already do regularly - i have not thought about how to do this with writing, but i have successfully bundled reading into drinking my morning coffee every day and it has changed my life significantly

also: i really like that you specified a short-term routine! i think temporary routines keep things interesting, help mark time, and more fully immerse me in things, so academia might be onto something with semesters etc… i am curious about trying to have a self-imposed writing “season” followed by an “off season” where i chill and eat peaches and watch the sopranos every night or whatever without guilt. (one might say i am chilling right now lol… but it’s definitely guilty chilling!) i also love that you see your academic project as a creative pursuit, i hope you are having a really fruitful time so far! ❤️

[mikewheeleranti]

damn it now i NEED an enemies to lovers garreth fic 😫

freezing

garreth weasley x reader

sypnosis: when you get partnered with the guy who hates you in astronomy, what do you do when he suddenly softens around you? enemies to lovers, forced proximity, garreth being cute

wc: 1.7k

a/n: anon is too real cuz where are the garreth lovers. this is enemies to lovers for a little bit... then its garreth PINING over reader

when professor shah announced the partners for the latest project, your heart dropped to your stomach. you were really trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, but only one memory was playing on a loop in your mind.

'sirius can't be that hard to find. isn't it a dog?'

he was also brash and rude, not to mention disrespectful to professors and supplies. still, you pushed the thoughts of his earlier ignorance and convinced yourself he changed for the better. you were wrong. so, very, wrong. as soon as you walked over to what would be your shared working space, you saw him talking to the new fifth year.

"-bit of a prodigy when it comes to potions, if i do say so myself. so, are you willing to help me out?"

"i see that you are ever so humble, weasley." you soon come to find that he was asking the new student to steal something from honeydukes for him, which was not unusual. what was even less unusual was that they kindly declined, not fancying getting in trouble and losing house points.

"y/n, do you have to ruin everything? i was about to convince them!"

"oh i'm sure. i can't believe i'm saying this, but maybe you should spend some more time on your charm, or your exploding potions, or-" he cuts you off by pushing past you to sit at his seat.

"oh shove off."

when you finally got back to your common room, you were cold, irritated, and angry. it was bad enough that you forgot your scarf in the astronomy tower, which is at least 6 shifting staircases from your common room. what was worse is that it started snowing during your walk, which you're sure is melting in your hair now.

once you've showered and changed into warmer, more fitting, clothes for the weather and joined your friends by the fireplace, the cold mood didn't shift. they eventually caught onto your sour mood and asked you what was wrong.

"what's wrong? maybe the fact i got partnered with weasley-" you noticed the sense of pure hatred in your voice and winced a bit before continuing, "for the astronomy project, who is a complete idiot, despises me, and all he does is ask me for potions supplies! i'm just lucky if i never run into him again after this project." you knew you were probably being unreasonable and a bit unfair, but something about him and the way he was with the new fifth year aggravated you to another level.

luckily it didn't snow on your walk to astronomy today, but it was still freezing and your scarf was still gone. you were hoping you could find it somewhere, being colored with your house, but it was nowhere to be found. forgetting about the scarf, you decided to turn your project in to professor shah. finally going over to your table next to garreth, you hear him mutter something under his breath, and you almost miss it.

"proof that even a complete idiot can do a project." how did he find out? before you could think to say anything back, professor shah started her lesson, and you knew better than to talk during one of those.

when class had finished, you looked over to his spot to talk to him, maybe even apologize when you saw him storm out. fine, if he wanted a problem between you two so bad, there could be one, and seats would be changed soon enough anyways.

you still could not find your scarf, but nothing was stopping you from going to hogsmeade today. you needed to get gifts for your family and you made up for the lack of scarf in the best way you could. you were wearing a unreasonably large jacket and rain boots that looked too small for a 1st year. you were absolutely sure you looked ridiculous, but until you found your scarf, and your gloves that you could not find as of today, this was the best option. on the train, you were seated next to anne, who you've been growing extremely close with for the past year.

"what are you wearing? you must be freezing." was what she decided to greet you with when she sat across from you.

"anne, i'm fine. i'm just glad to be out of that castle for once." anne knew about your situation with a certain ginger and felt for you, a little. you were also sure she was keeping some of the thoughts on the situation to herself, which you begged her to tell you months ago.

'anne, please, please tell me!' she laughed and it echoed through the otherwise silent slytherin common room.

'if i know weasley as well as i think i do, you'll find out soon enough, trust me.'

'so you know something? anne, this is killing me!'

'hm.. i have an estimated guess. honestly, y/n, its obvious. it's your fault you're oblivious.' you're sure that in the moment she had more to say, and you quite honestly wish you let her finish before you threw a pillow at her head (or tried).

"well, you can be out and not look like you're begging merlin to freeze you to death."

"oh please, anne, you are so dramatic."

anne was not being dramatic. surely a blizzard was occurring, a scarf couldn't make this much difference. you were trying to find a store to go into, regretfully finding out most of them had already closed for the holidays. you were still blocks away from honeydukes, the only store you were sure was open. and warm. your search was stopped short when you get pulled into a shop that you don't know the name of, but by looking around you can guess it's some kind of pub. before you could scream, you feel a large hand cover your mouth. you know you shouldn't and every self defense advice given goes against this, but the warmth of the hand makes you relax against the back of-

wait, who is holding you?

"have you lost it completely? what is wrong with you?" you hear a soft but firm voice almost whisper in your ear. turning around to see who grabbed then plainly insulted you, the last person you expect to see is garreth weasley. you were already freezing and tired, the last thing you needed was to be dragged into one of his messes. any grateful thought you had for the mystery person pulling you into a warm place quickly fades.

"what's wrong with me? you're the one who grabbed me!" you go to push him away, not with any real force, but he stumbles back slightly before stepping back. you didn't really want to push him away, but at least he knew you were angry now. still, he didn't respond, but his hand found its way back to your face, this time resting against your forehead.

"you're freezing." you hated the way you longed for the warmth of his hand when he moved back. you also hated the way his voice was soft, losing all roughness he usually has with you. it sounded sweet, and you've come to miss both the sound of it and his warm hands. you watch as he unwraps his gryffindor colored scarf from his neck and places it around yours, throwing it over your shoulder. this not being enough for him, seeing how you are still shivering, he takes off his gloves and puts them on you. the moment shouldn't feel so intimate, because it's not, but it does. something about the way his gloves have so much extra space in them and the way he's looking at you. his eyes look soft, and filled with something that isn't familiar to you.

you eventually manage to utter out a "thank you" which breaks the long silence. you hear a loud bell ring, leading you to snap your head towards the door and garreth finally releasing his hold on you. when you see it's just anne searching for you with her brother and ominis, you relax a bit, but still step a good distance away from the weasley next to you, now bare of a scarf and gloves. anne notices his absence and your sudden presence of a red and yellow scarf and laughs loudly before covering her mouth. quickly saying something to her brother, the group walks back out, dragging ominis with them.

"i better get going... thank you, garreth."

"anne, i don't know what happened! it's just like, his whole personality around me shifted. he was actually nice to me, and he gave me his scarf. it was like he actually cared about me."

"and who says he doesn't? care about you, i mean. i don't know, y/n, but look at the big picture. he was only rude to you after you ignored him, maybe this is defensive. i mean please, he looks at you like you hung the moon and stars."

you should've gotten mad at her for defending him over you, started an argument, wonder where her loyalties lie, but you couldn't stop thinking about her last statement. you also knew she was right, your hatred was a bit unreasonable. it just doesn't make sense, you ignored him once and he decides to act normal around everyone but you?

you spent most of the next day in the library studying, knowing midterm exams were approaching quickly. on your way out, you decide to head out the back door, seeing as it was closer to your dorm. you were stopped in your tracks when you heard the door to the restricted section crack open, and you were once again dragged into an unknown place, and once again by garreth weasley. you're confused and tense up when you hear him mutter "petrificus totalus" offhandedly.

"what are you doing?" you were now looking up at him and he swears he could die there from the sight.

"i'm going to do what i meant to the other day, if you'll let me."

now inching towards you just until you feel him breathing on your face. he looks at you expectantly, but your mind blanks with him so close to you. something screams at you to just nod, so you do. you wrap your arms around his neck to come closer to him, finally meeting him in height. feeling his lips just barely graze yours, you're the one who fully closes the distance between you. the kiss is slow and soft, like he was with you the other day. soon enough, you both run out of air and have to pull away from each other.

"i have to say, i didn't expect you to be the shy type, garreth." smiling a bit up at him, he grins like a madman and pulls you back to him.

"can you blame me darling? you're magnificent."

[nanowrimo]

How to Write Through Second Book Syndrome

Second Book Syndrome is a unique experience that can affect any writer. Today, author Uju Asika talks about what she learned while tackling Second Book Syndrome and gives advice on navigating it.  There’s something immensely powerful about completing your first book. For a brief moment, you feel invincible. After all, pretty much everyone you meet thinks they have a book in them, but not many people actually sit down to write it.

I wrote my first book, Bringing Up Race, in the midst of a global pandemic. Writing my next book, a picture book for younger readers, was a much less stressful experience. So it was actually with my third book, aimed at grownups again, that Second Book Syndrome kicked in.

You’ve probably heard of sophomore album syndrome (see Lauryn Hill, The Stone Roses) aka the sophomore slump that, apparently, can happen to anyone from athletes to second year college students.

Second Book Syndrome isn’t talked about as much and yet it affects almost every author on some level. Whether you’re a million-copy seller, a mid-list author or a relative newbie, you grapple with the same insecurities and nightmare scenarios. How do I write something as good as or better than my last book? If my first book did well, was it just a fluke? If my first book sold poorly, is this book my last shot? Will it meet my readers’ expectations or am I going to get troll-bombed on Goodreads? Am I establishing an author brand or have I niched myself into a corner? Can I experiment with voice or will I get laughed at by critics? Do I even have it in me to write a WHOLE OTHER BOOK?

Now that you’ve finished at least one book, you might feel like you’ve got this shit nailed. But the tricky thing about writing is that every time you open a blank page, you are starting from scratch. And every time you face a blank page, you are forced to meet yourself there, again and again. No matter whether you’re writing fiction or nonfiction. There’s no escaping yourself and that’s what makes it so hard, so vulnerable and potentially, so transformative.

My latest book, Raising Boys Who Do Better: A Hopeful Guide for a New Generation, came out last month. Foolishly, I had it in the back of my mind that writing this book would be a relative breeze. In some ways, it was harder. I had so much Resistance — the negative force that pushes back when you try to do something that matters, as Steve Pressfield talks about in The War of Art.

I also had to deal with the impostor syndrome (a close cousin of Second Book Syndrome) that whispered in my ear that I didn’t have another book in me. That I had used up all my smart ideas and pretty words. That I should stick to short form content and leave the real writing to the professionals.

So how did I get over this? What can you do when you’re in the throes of Second Book Syndrome and feeling like you’ll never write another sentence again? Here are a few things that helped me:

Make a Plan

If you identify as a ‘pantser’ rather than a ‘plotter’, you’re probably shaking your head at this. But it doesn’t have to be a full proposal or outline. Your plan can be as simple as a journal entry, a short mission statement, a sentence describing your premise, or a note to self about what you’d like your reader to learn, feel and experience. Making a plan and reviewing it from time to time can help keep your project alive when you’re suffering from self-doubt, comparisonitis and other symptoms of Second Book Syndrome.

Give Yourself Permission

The only way to release yourself from the pressure of writing your next book is to liberate yourself. Give yourself permission to write badly. I mean, really really badly. Permission to write something that sounds nothing like what you wrote before. Permission to play, to dream, to procrastinate. Permission to research until your head is bursting. For every project, I always keep a notebook so I can write by hand and make a mess and scribble pages of absolute drivel. I can spend hours writing around the edges of what I’m actually trying to explore. I encourage you to start every new project by writing yourself a permission slip. When you give yourself permission, the words might stick and splutter for a while but eventually, they flow. After that, the magic is in the edit.

Drown Out the Noise

We’re surrounded by noise all day, from social media traffic to our own mental chatter to those Amazon reviews (gulp). It��s hugely distracting and can be a drain on your creativity and confidence. Look for ways to drown this out, whether that’s through meditation, writing retreats, long nature walks or journalling. My simplest trick is to put on some noise-cancelling headphones and turn the music up. This might sound counterintuitive but listening to music puts me in a headspace for writing without any filters. Also, as a mother who writes around her family life (the kitchen table is my office), I’ve used headphones for years to signal that I’m at work and to keep the cacophony of my kids at bay.

Get Drunk

When you have another book to write, it’s easy to feel lost at the beginning. What to write and how to say it? When this happens, I immerse myself in storytelling. The poet Charles Baudelaire famously said one should ‘Always Be Drunk’ and it’s a quote that I live by. I don’t mean Hemingway-style binges, I mean being drunk on stories. I consume books, podcasts, films, TV shows, songs, art shows, conversations, eavesdropping, everyday life. I feed my habit and my habit feeds my writing.

Focus on What You Can Control

Creativity is mostly trial and error. Art is subjective and you can’t control how your work will be received by an audience or by critics. Often, success hinges on an indefinable mix of luck, talent, hard work, timing, money, network, reputation and… did I mention luck? Through all this, the only thing you can control is how you show up. I do my best to show up for my readers in a way that’s engaging, impactful and entertaining — both on the page and in real life. Other than that, the rest is not up to me. All I can do is keep showing up.

Track Changes

When you’re editing a piece of work, it can be helpful to track changes on a document. But this isn’t what I’m talking about here. What I mean is keeping track of the changes that happen because you had the courage to put your work into the world. I screenshot comments from readers on social media who tell me my books have changed the way they think about race and identity. I save a file of testimonials from parents who say I’ve shaped how they talk to their children about these tricky topics. I also keep notes on what I’ve learned and how I’ve grown while writing a book. All this is a reminder that so much of writing (and reading) isn’t just about the product or the story but about who we are becoming through the process.

Lean On Your People

Probably the most useful thing you can do as a writer is to find your people and lean on them. Obviously your closest friend/partner/family member who enjoys your writing or offers great advice can be invaluable. But as a writer, your people are other writers and it’s essential that you seek them out. Follow #writercommunity hashtags on social media, join a writers’ group or membership, befriend other newbie authors when your book comes out. You need to be in community with other writers who get it. Especially when Third Book Syndrome comes knocking…

NaNoWriMo Writers Board member Uju Asika is a multi-award nominated blogger, former journalist and TV screenwriter. She is the author of Bringing Up Race: How to Raise a Kind Child in a Prejudiced World and the picture book A World for Me and You (Where Everyone Is Welcome). Her new book Raising Boys Who Do Better: A Hopeful Guide for a New Generation came out on June 1. You can order the book for free worldwide delivery on Wordery: https://wordery.com/raising-boys-who-do-better-uju-asika-9780241608418

Uju is launching a creative writing service for developing and aspiring writers, learn more here!

[sannasruins]

warm winter

sero hanta x reader

type: fluff

warnings: none!

a/n: i was going to make this into angst but i found myself having already written so much fluff that it would have turned into over 5k to add angst, i might do an angsty part two tho. no proofread

word count: 1.7k

You were laying in his lap, looking up at Sero as he scrolled through his phone absentmindedly, his other hand resting on the top of your head, fingers threaded through your hair, and nails gently pressed into your scalp. You were okay with this comfortable silence, happy not to have the pressure to fill it, to just exist next to one another. You loved him so much. 

As the sunlight warmed your skin, and a soft breeze brushes by you, you let your mind wander. On such a lovely day like today, how could you not have lovely thoughts. You find yourself reminiscing how you and your beloved Sero Hanta started dating, winter of your first year at UA. 

♞

Everyone else had gone back to the class 1A dorm, except for you. You had stayed late after class, needing a change of pace from the desk in your dorm, working on a project that was due before the start of break. Engrossed in your writing, you didn’t notice the soft fluffy white flakes as they started their descent from the light gray clouds above that were blocking the sun’s light. The powder started sticking to the ground, and soon the whole world became covered in a blanket of white, but you were unaware. That is until 2 hours later, past when the gentle drifting turned into a flurry, past when you could no longer see the pavement, no you only noticed when you had finished what you had set out to finish that day and started to pack up. The weather reports that morning hadn’t called for snow, but the snow didn’t care and had reached almost a foot in dept. So, you were left at the main UA building, in your everyday loafers and a light jacket, as the weather had been much fairer on your 10-minute walk to school.

You didn’t notice, as you approached the shoe lockers, a snoozing and bundled Hanta, leaning his head back onto the locker he was against. No, your eyes were too focused on the glass doors ahead of you, and the snow that was piled up against it, dreading having to trudge your way through it, the thought of cold snow seeping into your shoes already sending a shiver of despair down your spine. Your groan of frustration and then the sound of you opening and closing your shoe locker roused the raven-haired boy from his light slumber, his eyes finding your figure as you sit on the floor in a huff. He gets up and stretches, his movements almost feline, eyes not leaving you as you grumpily jam your foot into one of your brown leather shoes, a smirk crossing his face as he approaches you quietly. 

“Boo,” he whispered into your ear, his mouth less than 3 inches away from your suddenly very flushed skin. You jump from your seated position, only one shoe on, the other foot being left in just its sock, your fist already balled, feet naturally assuming a fighting stance as you turn, arms raised. Sero threw his head back, a full-hearted laugh ripping its way out of his throat, his chest shaking with the force of it. Your reddened face only got redder as you watched him in his glee, your stance relaxing, and Sero gasped for air, desperate for the oxygen his laugh denied him. It took him a good minute to settle down, his breath slowing until it was back to its normal tempo, but the smile didn’t leave his face. 

“Heya y/n,” his crinkled eyes meeting yours. You met his greeting with an incredulous look, before slumping back down to the ground, putting on your other shoe.

“What are you doing here Sero?” you asked him as you rose up from the floor, turning to face him again, seeing his little smile still there. It caused a slight tingle in your stomach, maybe a butterfly or two, not that you would ever let the sly boy know. 

He thrust a gym bag, that you hadn’t noticed before, towards you. “I thought you might need these.”

You took the bag from his outstretched hand, opening it and peering into its contents. You found a pair of rain boots, a pair of sweatpants, and a jacket, all of which were obviously Hanta’s. You looked back up at him, eyebrows raised.

“Why would I need your,” you paused looking back into the bag, “your old clothes?”

He blushed slightly, one hand reaching for the back of his scarf-covered neck, “Well, I didn’t really have access to your stuff, but I knew you didn’t have warm enough clothes for this weather, so I had to improvise.” He paused, and you observed his slightly awkward demeanor, this shy, dare you say bashful, Sero Hanta was foreign to you. “I brought you my older spares because I figured they might fit you a bit better than my newer stuff.”

You were surprised, pleasantly so, and those two butterflies in your stomach suddenly multiplied, and did not stop multiplying as you felt your heart soar. A smile found its way onto your face without you noticing, as you looked at the gym bag in your hands. 

“Thank you, Sero,” you said, barely above a whisper, an obvious smile in your voice.

“Ye-” his voice cracked, you let out a small giggle at it, “yeah, it’s no problem y/n, anybody would have done it”

 “Maybe,” you looked him in his dark, warm eyes, “but they didn’t, and you did.”

He didn’t respond to you, eyes flicking away from yours as he forcefully chuckled, his hand once again finding itself on his neck.

“Can you hurry it up?” He asked after a second, “I kind of want to get back before dinner gets cold.”

You went back to the floor again, slipping off your loafers, “You can leave without me,” you informed him, “I’ll be fine.”

“Yeah but,” he motioned towards the umbrella stand, your eyes following his arm, showing only one large, clear umbrella, “I only brought one.”

All you could respond with was a quiet oh, the thought of sharing an umbrella with your crush as he walked you home in the snow would be enough to cause any girl’s stomach to turn into a lepidopterarium. 

You stepped into the sweats, pulling them up under your skirt before slipping your feet into the too-large rain boots, making sure they didn’t pull up the sweatpants with them. Then, slipping into the jacket, you were swaddled in warmth. And the smell of him filled your nose, you did your best to not obviously inhale his scent, how embarrassing it would be if you were caught, you thought. Sero silently laughed at the sight in front of him, overly large boots making you shuffle as to not trip on your own two feet. You shot him a light glare, you couldn’t really be mad at him, you knew if the positions were switched you would be chortling at his shoe struggles. 

“Well then,” you started as you met him beside the door, him with umbrella in hand, “let’s get going.”

You pushed open the door, only to be met with a blast of frozen air in your face, the tips of your ears and nose almost immediately turning cold. With one hand you pulled the hood of the jacket over your head, the other firmly placed inside the jacket pocket where it sought warmth. You subconsciously walked closer to Hanta, almost bumping shoulders under the umbrella. 

Your nose was now noticeably red as you two made the trek back to the dorm, and Sero noticed it as he stole a glance at you. He paused in his walking, you making it two steps ahead of him before realizing that he had stopped in his path. Turning around, curious as to why he stopped, you are instead greeted by him handing you the umbrella. Confused, you take one hand out of the warmth of your pockets and grab the handle, watching him let go and reach for the end of his scarf. Your eyebrows scrunched up in a perplexed manner, not having any clue as to why he was taking off his perfectly warm and comfy scarf.

He then took one step towards you, closing the distance that had previously been there, and was now only 6 inches away. Frozen to your spot, you watched him raise his arms, the fabric in hand until they were level with your head. Then you felt it, he wrapped the scarf around the back of your neck, then forwards, once, twice, pulling it up and over your, what felt like, nearly frozen nose, before dropping his hands back down to his sides. 

Unblinking, you looked at him, a different kind of flush once again making its way to your cheeks, and he looked back down at you, and the two of you were surrounded by silence, the world had been muffled by the thickening blanket of snow, and in that white landscape, it felt like only the two of you existed. You reached your hand up, and pulled down the scarf, just below your lips, which then parted, and felt the sting of cold air rush past them and into your lungs as you took a shaky breath in, unsure of what was going to happen next.

But he leaned in, you tilted your head upwards, and suddenly you were kissing Sero Hanta, cold lips meeting one another in what felt like an explosion of emotions. 

The two of you broke apart, both searching for air, and searching each other’s eyes for an explanation as to what just happened. 

“Sero,” you questioned him, “do you like like me?”

“Uh,” a pause, “Yeah, I do. Do you like like me, y/n?”

A grin broke through your lips, and in an excited exhaled, you gave a breathy “yeah.”

And then you popped onto your tip toes to kiss him again, a hand making its way to the back of his head, fingers tangling in the silky darkness. When you broke away from the kiss, you still had a smile on your face.

“Yeah,” you repeated, “I really like like you.”

[blondeaxolotl]

So, what method do you use when drawing to keep going?

I personally always seem to struggle to finish an art piece and can never get myself to fully focus on learning the entirety of anatomy, etc.

I crave to finish an art piece again, I miss the feeling, but I haven't been able to do it in a long long while, I'm just hoping for a little advice, not sure who else to go to cause I don't have any friends but I look up to you a crazy amount so I figured I'd give this a shot, this isn't forced to answer by the way!

I don't want you to feel like you have to answer this.

If you do or you don't, you're still really cool, your art is awesome and inspiring and your aus are as well.

Heck, you're a pretty damn cool person too, art really does reflect artist sometimes huh?

Anyway, I'll get out of your hair, keep up the amazing work <3/p

When it comes to finishing an art piece that you know you want to finish but suddenly lose the motivation to

What I usually do (this might not work for everyone but it somewhat helps me so it helps you as well then that's awesome) is when I'm in the middle of drawing a piece and I suddenly lose interest or motivation, or something isn't going well which is making me lose patience. I just put the pencil down, and go do something else for a while until I get the urge to continue or try again. Example I go play video games for a while or maybe watch a movie or youtube for a bit, just giving yourself a small break from drawing until that motivation to draw comes back and then you go back to that piece and try again. And basically how ever often that happens (aka losing motivation, patience, etc), you just repeat the cycle until you're slowly getting closer and closer to finishing that piece (You can also doodle on the side as a refresher but I don't recommend starting a whole new piece when you want to finish your first one, usually for me I just end up forgetting the last drawing completely because I accidentally started a new project 😭 but that might be a me problem if it doesn't happen to you then it's a-okay) This is mostly what was helping me finish projects since I have a short attention span and often lose motivation and what not so I constantly do this FDSFDSDSF.

Now for anatomy, I'm not the best at anatomy myself but my first advice is don't immediately give up if your anatomy isn't perfect on the first try, it won't always look good on the first attempt which is why it's okay to go through a few trial and errors before you get it to a point you like it enough to continue. Also I'm not a professional and I suck at explaining things and honestly I know jackshit about anatomy I just wing it most of the time. But I can give you small tips that come in handy when drawing poses!!

We're gonna use a reference for this, when you have a reference for a pose you want to use. A good way to get a hang of the pose is by tracing over it with simple shapes (such as cylinders, circles, triangles, etc) and then redrawing it with those same shapes to again get the hang of the pose, you don't have to really do it but it's a good practice so I recommend it. Then, after you have your pose, you can take the lasso tool (or selection tool) and then just resize body parts to your liking so they fit your style more!!! And ofc now you can draw over it and use it as a base for the character you want to use it for.

Now that's the first method, but I have a second one which is fun, I call it "frankesteining", which is where you grab 2 or more images and then take body parts and paste them onto the main reference picture you want to use.

Like here, you like the pose of the first reference, but wish both of the models arms were on the hips? Fear not! Just grab another image of a model who's arm IS on their hip

Then carefully erase the arm/body part on your main reference that you want to replace with another. Select the arm/body part of the second reference with lasso tool, and slowly trace over it so you can copy/cut it out and then paste it onto your main ref

Like this! Now remember, the reference doesn't need to look aesthetically pleasing, after all you're just using it as a reference, so it's okay if it doesn't look perfect!! You can do this with many body parts as you want btw, just keep cutting and pasting until you get the pose you wanted!!

And finally just draw over it! Using the same methods as the first one, shapes, redraw and all! No one will ever know you were playing pretend dr frankenstein with the reference pictures before this!

Now these are the methods I use when posing characters, they might not always come out right the first time but if you keep trying you'll eventually get something you like a lil more than your last ones!! You can also just use a 3d model posing website/app and then screenshot the pose and redraw it from there. But this is if you're one of those people who for some reason just can't get the hang of those damn 3d model posers (aka me)

GUHH THIS POST IS SO LONG IM SORRY, I hope my rambles helped you out at least a lil bit and I hope you continue your journey in making art, believe in yourself and eventually everything will turn out alright in the end stay strong fellow artist 💜

[steddieunderdogfics]

This week’s writer spotlight feature is:  MuseumGiftShopEraser! They have 9 works on AO3 in the Stranger Things Fandom, and 6 of those are in the Steddie tag!

Our anonymous nominator recommends the following works by @museumgiftshoperaser:

Paint the Devil on the Wall

Conversations About Love

Now I'm A Stranger

An Exercise In Denial

Baby, You Were Meant To Follow Me

Her fics are BEAUTIFUL. When I first read Paint the Devil on the Wall I was so obsessed I immediately recced the fic to everyone I knew who would be vaguely interested in a steddie fic. -- anonymous

Below the cut, @museumgiftshoperaser answered some questions about their writing process and some of their recommended work!

Why do you write Steddie?

I stumbled into it immediately after season 4 came out. I’ve felt very attached to Steve as a character from the beginning of the show and I think I was subconsciously waiting for someone to pair him up with. I think they’re both such great characters to explore themes of dealing with expectation (either by conforming, or fighting against it) and that’s something I always love to write about.

What’s your favorite trope to READ?

Absolute sucker for fake dating. Can’t get enough of it.

What’s your favorite trope to WRITE?

Enemies to lovers! Though now that I’m looking through my AO3 I haven’t actually written that much of it. It doesn’t have to be very intense enemies, though. I just like it when characters don’t immediately get along.

What’s your favorite Steddie fic?

My brain has been forever rewired by took you for a working boy by pukner. It’s such a gentle, nuanced queer story. It feels vulnerable to me in a way that really only fanfiction can be. Can I sneak in another one?? Because everyone should also absolutely read the shame is on the other side by scoops_ahoy. It taps into this very specific kind of queer compartmentalizing, that I’ve never seen written this well. It broke my heart and patched it right back up.

Is there a trope you’re excited to explore in a future work but haven’t yet?

I’ve been stupidly busy with my masters lately so there’s probably not a lot of writing on my horizon. I do have a wip called Doll that I’m slowly chipping away at. It’s a little darker than stuff I’ve written before. I know ‘dark’ isn’t really a trope, but I’m excited to see if I can push these characters a little further. 

What is your writing process like?

Absolute chaos. I write non-chronologically, without an outline, all in the same document. I keep writing snippets and scenes until the whole thing slowly comes together. 

Do you have any writing quirks?

Italicizing words for emphasis. I love it so much, you can rip it from my cold dead hands. It accidentally makes its way into my academic writing for my degree sometimes which is a little embarrassing, but I just love the flair of it. 

Do you prefer posting when you’ve finished writing or on a schedule?

I don’t really do schedules, it doesn’t work for me at all. I try to make sure I have a decent amount of the story written before I start posting to give me a bit of a head start, but forcing myself to finish something by a certain date is a surefire way to kill my motivation.

Which fic are you most proud of?

Probably Paint the Devil on the Wall. It was the first time I’d written the entire story before I started posting so it went through way more rounds of editing than normal. I think you can really tell. It’s also the longest story I’ve ever written (in general, even outside of fanfic). The whole project gave me a lot of confidence as a writer.

How did you get the idea for Paint the Devil on the Wall?

I knew I wanted to participate in the Bigbang and the deadline was coming up, but I still didn’t have an idea. I decided to work backwards and try to think of something that would be fun for the artist(s) to draw. I had a vision of Eddie wearing dungarees without a shirt, absolutely covered in paint and I knew I had to write something to make it happen. I set the story in 80s New York because neo expressionism is really the only kind of art I could see Eddie making. I think it suits him very well. I do actually have a background in art, though! I’m currently getting my MFA, but I’ve worked full time as an artist for several years before that. I had a lot of fun working my passion for art (and all those art history classes I had to take) into the fic.

When writing Paint the Devil on the Wall, what was something you didn’t expect?

All of Steve’s character, to be honest. The fic is written from Eddie’s POV and for a large part of it he has a very hard time figuring out what Steve’s deal is. Right alongside him, I also had an incredibly hard time figuring out his character. It wasn’t until I was working on the final chapter that he finally clicked for me. I realized very late, just like Eddie, that Steve liked him from the very beginning. Most of the enemies to lovers premise was all in Eddie’s head.

What inspired Now I'm a Stranger?

Oh boy, that was forever ago! I remember I started writing it while I was camping with friends because I liked having something to do after everyone went to bed at night. I think I had the idea for that very first scene where Steve doesn’t remember Eddie and it all sort of spiraled from there.

What was your favorite part to write from An Exercise in Denial?

That was the very first fic I wrote, right after season 4 came out! I’ve never written something that fast, I think the whole thing took me less than a week. My favorite part was probably Robin being completely exasperated with both of them. They’re such complete idiots in that fic.

How do/did you feel writing Baby, You Were Meant To Follow Me?

Ahhh… I never got around to finishing that one. I probably never will, to be honest. I wrote the first two parts quite quickly and then the idea I had for the plot spiraled out of control and I realized I didn’t actually feel like writing the rest of it. There were going to be a lot of misunderstandings and I learned that I find that an incredibly frustrating trope to write (when done for drama at least. For comedy, I’m a sucker for misunderstandings.) So I guess I felt a little in over my head.

What was the most difficult part of writing Conversations About Love?

The ending! That fic is so incredibly personal to me and I knew from the beginning that I wanted it to have a very sappy, happy ending. It was important to me to write an aromantic character getting everything they wanted, but I realized as I was writing it that I don’t actually fully know what that means. So it took a bit more soul searching than fics typically do, but it was very much worth it. 

Do you have a favorite scene and/or line from any of your fics?

I still think the short little prologue for Paint the Devil on the Wall is the best thing I’ve written. “You don’t draw on things that aren’t yours, baby” is probably the best summary I have for that story.

Do you have any upcoming projects or fics you’d like to share/promote?

Not really!

Thank you to our author, @museumgiftshoperaser, and our anonymous nominator! See more of @museumgiftshoperaser works featured on our page throughout the day!

Writer’s Spotlight is every Wednesday! Want to nominate an author? You can nominate them here!