#i can by no means call myself a writer as i have written about -looks at smudged writing on hand- 3 fanfics in my whole life but i i think-

[forsty]

okay so like, I haven't told anyone on here that I am writing my first fanfiction, buttttttt I kinda care about any input you might have so if you have the time, and are interested, would you mind looking at it?

Its called The Unexpected Adventure by GhostFoxGoddess03. Its nowhere near done, but, its centered in Bonanza, and since I have never lost my absolute obsession with all of them, I will be finishing it no matter what.

YES YOUR FIRST FANFIC!!!! I LOVE TO SEE IT!!! also im always interested in Bonanza related things

First of, I'd very much like to suggest that you maybe break your fanfic into paragraphs, it makes it alot easier on the eyes to read. I gotta say I think you did VERY WELL for your first fic!! I'm not really super keen on first-person fics but I did enjoy reading it. HADES IS A DARLING and I really liked the dialouge between the characters! WELL DONE! I HOPE YOU FINISH IT and ngl this inspired me to maybe start writing some oc/Bonanza fics myself....

[achilles-rage]

NSFW Alphabet

word count: 2.0k

A/N: hi besties<333 this is my first time writing so pls don’t absolutely tear me to shreds (just a little bit is acceptable though). i’m planning on making a SFW alphabet for buck soon as well but some of the letters had me drawing a blank lol. also, although there’s not really much mention of it, this is with a plus size reader in mind. as a plus size girly myself, it sucks to read x reader stories and knowing in the back of your mind that it wasn’t written with your body type in mind (although there’s nothing wrong with writers that do that of course). i just thought i would add to the plus size reader community because there are barely any buck fics and i believe in my heart that he loves plus size women. anyway, enjoy <3

warnings: smut (obviously lol), no use of y/n, fem!reader, plus size!reader, race inclusive!reader

MDNI- 18+ Only

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

When y’all finish he’ll wait a few minutes before pulling out, head buried in your neck as his breathing gets back to normal. He’ll kiss your neck and tell you how good you were for him, before finally getting up to clean you up. After that he wants to lay with you and talk, just enjoying each other’s company, maybe y’all will make some food if you feel like it.

B = Body part (their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

His: Probably his arms. He’s worked hard to be as fit as he is and he enjoys using his arms to move you/lift you while you’re having sex. He takes pride in his appearance, he knows he’s hot, but it’s an added bonus that he can lift you up and do whatever he (or you) wants.

Yours: I am of the firm belief that Evan Buckley is a thigh man. He loves how they feel in his hands, he loves how they look when you straddle him, he can’t get enough. He loves to see them jiggle when you move, or when he playfully smacks them. He loves thick thighs and I will die on this hill

C = Cum (anything to do with cum, basically)

This man has a BREEDING KINK OKAY!!! He loves to cum inside you, fucking deep into you and feeling his cum fill you up. He loves watching it slowly dripping out, so he can finger it back in. If that’s not your thing I think the next best place would be on your stomach, watching your face as he lets go, seeing the way he marks you up. He loves your little tummy, how it moves as he ruts into you, so he loves it when you let him cum all over it.

D = Dirty secret (pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

I only call this a dirty secret because he would never tell anyone about this after the last time it happened and he got fired. He wants to fuck you in the fire engine SO BAD. He can’t help but think of the way you would look as he fucked into you quickly, trying not to get caught with your dress up around your waist. He knows it’s not gonna happen, he’d never hear the end of it from anyone in his life if it did, but god he wants to so bad.

E = Experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?)

Girl have we watched the same show?? This man FUCKS!!! We all know (and love) Buck 1.0, and we know he knows what to do. Buck 3.0 might mean him changing into, well, not a sex addict, but that doesn’t mean he forgot his training (🫡). I think he understands that every woman is different, and while he might not get it exactly right the first time, he’s a fast and eager learner, watching what exactly makes you squirm and moan the most for him.

F = Favorite position (this goes without saying)

Canonically, Buck LOVES when you ride him, and I agree. He loves to watch you move yourself on him, able to grab at your thighs, and your hips, and your chest. He also loves to move you on him, squeezing your hips tightly as he sets the pace if you start getting tired or if he just feels like it.

G = Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? etc.)

I mean, he’s Buck, he’s truly a golden retriever of a man and cannot stay serious for long. I think he’s a bit of a mix, he can be serious in the moment, but at the end of the day, he’s still Buck, and Buck is silly goofy.

H = Hair (how well groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes? etc.)

He keeps it nicely trimmed, carpets match the drapes. In terms of his partner, he really doesn’t give a fuck. He’s seen it all and could not care less as long as he feels the way you wrap around him so perfectly.

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)

Buck 3.0 is a man of TASTE, but that being said, I think he only really pulls out the romance during special occasions. Most of the time this man wants to freak nasty, but sometimes when he’s tired, or just feels especially in cuddly/clingy, he’ll be more romantic.

J = Jack off (masturbation headcanon)

He does it pretty often, of course not when he has the option to fuck you instead (and you’re willing, of course), but if you’re not with him and he needs a quick release, he getting right to it.

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

Breeding: I will scream this till the day that I die, this man wants a family more than anything. Whenever he’s inside of you, he can’t help but think about how pretty you’d look with your belly all round with his babies.

Praise: Look at this pathetic little guy, he needs to be praised, he thrives on it. He loves to hear how good he feels, how good he’s making you feel. This goes both ways. He’s in your ear immediately telling you how good you feel, how well you’re taking him, how pretty you look.

Spanking: HEAR ME OUT!! While I’m not sure he would actually bend you over his knee (but honestly the more I think about it he might) he would LOVE to give your ass a nice little swat as you’re riding him. He loves the sound it makes, and the sound you make because you’re not expecting it. I don’t think he’d ever do it hard enough to hurt too much, but I think enough to make your ass a little red would definitely be something he could get behind (lol).

L = Location (favorite places to do the do)

He doesn’t have a ring cutter in the kitchen for nothing<3

I think he likes to have sex at home the most, on the bed, on the couch, on the kitchen counter. You name it, he wants to fuck you there. His favourite is the counter because he loves seeing you being so domestic in the kitchen. Making dinner, cleaning up, whatever, he wants you right then and there and cannot wait. He’ll come up behind you, wrapping his arms around you as he kisses your neck before slowly turning you around to face him and lift you onto the counter to have his way with you.

While he’s moved on from having sex in public places that could (will) get him fired, he’s still into it, but in less obvious places. If y’all are in his car and you’re looking a little too good in his passenger seat, he loves an empty parking lot quickie. Front seat, back seat, whatever you want, he’d be pulling you onto him as soon as he puts the jeep in park.

M = Motivation (what turns them on, gets them going)

Girl ANYTHING gets him going, it would take one look, one touch, one word and this man would be ready to go. I think what really gets him going though is seeing you with kids or getting along so well with the 118. This man truly just wants a silly little family and someone that can get along with the 118fam, so seeing you like that has him making up a stupid excuse to leave a little early so he can take you home and have his hands all over you.

N = No (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

Like I said before, I don’t think he would do anything to hurt you too much, other than the occasional light spanking or biting. He would also not be into any kind of age play or pet play, he’s pro kink but it’s just not for him.

O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.)

This man is a giver and I stand by this. Dear god he loves nothing more than having you spread open for him, hands tangled in his hair as he makes himself at home between your thighs. He loves having his hands gripping your thick thighs, feeling them on either side of his head. When you start to get squirmy from the overstimulation he’ll place a large hand over your lower stomach, holding you still as he pushes you over the edge again.

With all that said, he will definitely not say no to getting head. He loves seeing you look up at him while you’re on your knees, trying to take all of him. He’ll keep a hand in your hair, pulling it softly every now and then, and he can’t help but moan and whine as he gets closer and closer, eventually cumming down your throat as he squeezes his eyes shut.

P = Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.)

It depends on the day, but most of the time he likes it rough and fast. He loves a good quickie, meaning it kinda has to be more fast paced and rough, and he’s pretty easy to get riled up, so when you drop any sort of hint, he’s on you immediately and ready. On other days where he’s feeling extra clingy and lovey, he’ll be more of a slow and sensual guy, but I think for the most part he loves to fuck you deep and rough.

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.)

Like I said, he loves a good quickie. A lot of the time he craves a quickie before work, needing to feel you before his long shift. I think they happen pretty often, but he’d much rather take his time with you, using his fingers and mouth before he fucks you.

R = Risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.)

As long as there’s clear communication he’s down to try pretty much anything, he’ll do anything to make you happy (within reason). I think he’s also a risk taker (also within reason, he has to think about not getting fired again, of course). Buck 1.0 is still inside him somewhere when it comes to sex so he definitely loves a little risk, but he’s grown enough to know where the line is.

S = Stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?)

While he would love to go as many rounds as possible, I think it would realistically be 2-3, lasting about 10-15 minutes each round. I think he would be the type to like having some time between rounds, tension still high as you talk and lay around before he's back on you again.

T = Toys (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?)

Once again, he doesn’t have a ring cutter in his kitchen for nothing<3

He likes them, he definitely owns a few toys of his own. Vibrators, cock rings, some handcuffs or restraints, he’s very open to anything that increases y’alls pleasure.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

He does it sometimes not really meaning to, like he does something and you’re like….dear god…and maybe he doesn’t notice the first time but the second time he does and WILL keep going until you snap. He loves the way you get all squirmy and whiny and desperate for him, knowing you want him as much as he wants you.

V = Volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.)

So vocal!!!! Literally that meme thats like “y’all afraid to make noise in the bedroom?? i be in my girls ear like…” He loves dirty talk (on both ends) and he can’t help but let out low moans when you’re clenching around him. He also loves hearing your breathless whimpers, making him feel like he’s doing a good job, and encouraging him to pull more sounds from your lips.

W = Wild card (a random headcanon for the character)

If he was in a relationship during the whole sperm donor thing, it would be the longest few weeks for both of y’all. I imagine the first time he has an appointment, you make sure you’re waiting for him in a cute little matching set, knowing how excited he was to finally be buried inside you again, hearing you whine as he fills you up. He’s so frustrated when his appointment doesn’t work out that he doesn’t let you know how it went, instead being unpleasantly surprised when he sees you sprawled out on his bed when you get home and unable to do anything about it. He wants nothing more than to rip your pretty little set off your body and run his hands up and down your soft curves, but he can’t, and it’s torture. You apologize (but he will hear none of it because it was a lovely surprise, just shitty circumstances), and instead you change into an oversized shirt and sweatpants to enjoy a completely normal (and not sexual at all) night on the couch.

X = X-ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes)

8 inches, thick, no complaints <3

Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?)

HIGH!!! This man is thinking about sex 24/7, and if he could, his hands would be on you at all times.

Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

Most of the time I think he stays up for a while, just hanging out and talking to you. But if he comes home after a long shift he’s fucking GONE in 5 minutes tops.

notes: likes/comments/reblogs would be much appreciated if you liked this<33

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[kiwi-cult]

PARSELSCRIPT!!

Hi. This is mostly for the people from Discord but tadah! I'm finally making that Tumblr post I've been talking about for months.

(Warning this will probably be very chaotic)

To anyone new who sees this: me and some friends made an alphabet for Parseltongue from Harry Potter, aka Parselscript. I'll take you on a little journey to explain my process and give you some tips, should you want to start writing it.

Disclaimer: I wanted to make this script usable for the writer I made it for so it's less of an actual language and more just some characters to represent the Latin (or ‘English’) letters. Like a cipher. It is not realistic. If I made this realistic I'd have to add all sorts of things to indicate body language and smell etc and also have to figure out what sounds Parseltongue actually has etcetera etcetera. No.

Alright.

It all started when we started talking about Parselscript in a Discord server and I asked my friend Ava to visualise the script because she seemed to have a clear vision of it, so I could use it to go from there.

That's how we got this.

I think we all wanted to go with something flowery for some reason, so we did.

After this I just messed around with brushes and shapes in Procreate for a while, tweaking things and trying to make it more writeable. I ended up with something like this (still a rough draft).

It may look a bit like random squiggles at first, and it kinda was at this point. As you can see there's also a lot of added dots and lines, which can be a bit hard to remember and I see you wondering what it looks like without them.

Well here it is.

I showed this to the people I brainstormed with in Discord and we decided to go with the more complicated version because it looks better lol.

This is one of the final versions.

It says: "Hello, my name is Kiwi Cult. I made this script after reading a fanfic called Terrible, But Great written by Isalise the loml on Archive Of Our Own."

Now, to talk about some of the (boring) logistics.

It is read from left to right, top to bottom.

Every separate combination of squiggles you see above is a separate word. Every word is made up of a starting character, one or more letter characters and an ending character.

The very first character you see in the top left corner, with the three petal looking thingies, is a silent starting character that indicates the start of a sentence. Not word: sentence. The end of the character, that little circle thingy, is a comma. So, the first combination says: "Hello,".

Then, the second combination starts with a kind of hook going down and right. This is also a silent character and more meant as an interpunction, that's why you don't pronounce it. It's kind of just a way to start the word when there isn't anything special about it (aka it's not the start of a sentence, a name, an exclamation or a question. But every character is special in its own right🥲). The same kind of hook can be found at the bottom of the combination, except going up. It has the same use, basically just a way to end the word when there isn't anything special about it. Now, you might ask: why does it go right and not left?

We talked about this a while, because I wanted the direction to have some kind of meaning. We wondered about gender, tone, blah blah all kinds of complicated things but in the end I just wanted this script to be writable so I chose to have proficient writers in Parseltongue make their hooks go left and beginners have their hooks go right.

Now, you might notice that I end my words with a hook going right. That is because I don't see myself as a pro in writing in Parselscript okay? It's hard!😭💀

Now, other than the character indicating the start of a sentence, the circle, and the simple hook, there are a few other characters to start or end a combination (don't worry I'll show them all to you at the end, you won't have to use your imagination for long).

We have a character to indicate a name. Now, the rule is: name indicator over start of sentence indicator. So, if you start a sentence with a name, you'll use the symbol to indicate a name, NOT BOTH. (That's not even possible but I don't even want to see you try and butcher my child).

There is a character to indicate a sentence that would usually be followed by an exclamation mark (!), but at the start of the sentence. Then you’d end the exclamated sentence with a period.

The same goes for a question mark (?): put it at the start of a question, not the end. Again, it wouldn't even be possible to use it at the end of a combination but I DON'T EVEN WANNA SEE YOU TRY.

Finally we have a period (.), which looks a bit like a flower with four petals. You do use this one at the end of a word, and it is always followed by a start of sentence indicator or a name indicator. I know people are rejecting capitals these days in their typing but I don't wanna see it. If you start a word after a period with a hook I will find you.

If a sentence starts with a name that is also a question or exclamation you’d use the question/exclamation mark above the name indicator, otherwise it would take away a vital part of the sentence while a name can still be read even if it doesn’t have its indicator.

So, to put it all next to each other, the symbols we have are: -start of sentence indicator -name indicator -exclamation mark (!) -question mark (?) -period (.) -hook (direction depends on efficiency) -comma (,) (direction depends on efficiency)

I didn't make adjusted characters to indicate a capital letter like we do in the Latin alphabet, meaning that the only things you can kind of 'capitalise' are the start of a sentence and the start of a name.

It is also slightly phonetic. Emphasis on slightly. I made separate characters for almost all letters in the Latin alphabet, so you can just write your word normally with Parselscript characters. The only difference is that I made only one character for the 'f/v' sounds and that there is no 'c' character. If a word has a 'c' in it, you'll have to use the character for a 'k' or an 's'. Also a ‘q’ can be made with ‘k’ and ‘w’ etc.

A few examples: -character=karakter -parselscript=parselskript -crazy=krazy -science=siense

-quiz=kwuiz

I know it looks a bit confusing, but I trust you guys' ability to read context clues and figure out what someone means when you try to decipher Parselscript.

Now, for a word like 'phonetic' or 'decipher' I don't really care whether you use the separate characters for 'p' and 'h' or just the one for the 'f/v' sound. You do you.

I also don’t use any double letters because they basically sound the same and it looks ugly but if you want to use double symbols feel free.

I also made some numbers that do not look like they fit with the rest of the script but I promise you that's just because you're not used to it yet. Our own numbers don't belong with our alphabet either because we nicked them from the Arabs (I think, don't quote me on this) but we don’t notice that either.

Tadah. (Yes I know it’s out of order I told you this was gonna be chaotic af)

Other than that, feel free to ask me questions if I've forgotten anything or if you're wondering about anything. I can't guarantee that I have a good answer because I might not even have thought about it myself, but I can always try to come up with something. I am one person, I'm afraid I haven't been able to take everything about a script into consideration.

Now, without further ado; here is the key.

No, your eyes didn't deceive you: there are two versions. The first has a bit more loose squiggles than the second one. I realised that when I was writing physically, the second version was much nicer to write, so it is kind of like Simplified Parselscript. I haven't decided yet if I'm gonna put some lore behind it or not yet. But I included the og one if you're a tryhard and wanna take it on.

Now, if you're gonna start writing it yourself, here is the stroke order.

I tried to make it as clear as possible but please ask me if you're confused on anything.

Red is the starting point of the whole symbol, the arrows indicate the direction to go in, x marks the start of the small extra's.

Now, I'd also recommend writing on some type of paper with vertical lines like this if you're gonna do it physically.

You can just turn a paper with normal, horizontal lines a quarter to get vertical lines. Also, do NOT write in between the lines. They are meant to help you keep the start and ending on the same line so you don't start going into crazy directions while writing. So, start your sentence symbol or hook or whatever in the middle of the line and try to keep coming back to that vertical line after every letter. As you gain more proficiency you'll probably go straight into the next letter without going back to the line all the time but I think this is a good starting point.

I also recommend writing with a fountain pen or something else that flows well because it’s easier to write that way.

Here is another rough draft I made on physical paper to get a feel for it. As you can see this draft had a lot more different starting characters and ending characters so just ignore that. Hope this motivates you a bit or smth.

Lmk if you want me to post a video of me writing in this Parselscript.

Also please let me know if you know of someone else who's also made a Parselscript because I tried to look for it on Tumblr and Twitter etc but I couldn't find anything.

I also feel like there’s a big mistake I made that I realised the last time I worked on this script but I’ve forgotten it now so if you find out please comment or dm or anything💀

Also feel free to use in your own fic, tho a little tiny shoutout in the a/n would be nice :) I’m @/kiwi_cult on Ao3, @/slvtr_ on Wattpad, @/kiwi cult on ff.net, @/slvtr.1 on TikTok and @/.slvtr on Discord.

Credits:

@natis-balamnimaja @asterialvia and @/zee (who unfortunately left the server and I don't know the Tumblr @ of) for brainstorming with me and @isalisewrites for inspiring us and making the server we discussed this in.

Okay bye :) tell me if I forgot anything.

🥝

[the-cat-and-the-birdie]

The Hobie fandom has a lot of smut, and with a character so accepting on so many fronts, it means so much to me to see trans!readers being taken into consideration.

As a trans guy myself, I love seeking out ftm!smut. But often times, I often can't read them. Many times I'm left feeling unseen, reduced, or even feminized.

And I wanna talk about that a bit, if it's okay.

My take and feelings on FTM!smut - As a Trans Guy

Ngl as a trans guy myself I do feel a bit alienated by a lot of FTM!reader.

I'm gonna be honest - I feel like most ftm smut is written exactly as it would be a cis woman, just with the pronouns changed. Which is understandable, but not really how it works.

Cis women and trans men don't have sex the exact same, just because they're AFAB.

And I feel most smut writers haven't gone out of their way to research the sexual experiences of trans men and how we navigate the world.

Hobie smut is pretty vulgar, and I won't complaining! As a character, he has a high volume of smut, and probably the most diverse range, with Black!reader, ftm!readers, and male!readers being more common than most fandoms.

Black!Reader focuses on the unique experience of black people when in a relationship together. This unique experience is at the basis of black!reader.

But when we approach Ftm!reader - very often, our unique experience isn't reflected.

It's just assumed that because we are AFAB - there's no need to look deeper at the closer unique sexual experience trans men have - or to read up about it.

Most ftm!reader fic does not attempt to use affirming sexual language for trans men at all.

T-dicks - ie, natural clitoris enlargement you get after taking T - is a thing a lot of transitioning Trans men have.

But they're never called T-dicks in fanfiction. Only clits. It's very rare that a ftm!reader is described as having a dick - because so often the only dicks cis people recognize are natal dicks, and surgery-constructed ones.

Many cis writers may never even considered referring to a trans man's clitoris as a dick - pre or post T. They may see it as confusing to the reader, when it's not.

T-Dicks are dicks. Bottom growth didn't give you a full 3-4 inches, but you absolutely have growth and there are trans men that can penetrate with T-dicks - without surgery - if with the right partner.

The words pussy and cunt are used liberally in nearly all ftm!smut, and while many trans men are okay with these terms, I think a lot of cis writers ignore or do not know that often, terms like those can cause heavy dysphoria in a lot of ftm readers.

I don't think cis writers ever question if they might be making readers dysphoric - or showing them in a non-affirming way.

I feel like some writers believe that changing pronouns and calling the reader 'handsome' is really all it takes. Just write usual fem smut, change the pronouns - and done!

In reality, a large part of the ftm community feels uncomfortable with the word 'pussy' - and would much rather stuff like 'front hole'.

A poll on 'What do you call your downstairs?'

And I'm not saying that you can't call a trans man's genitals a pussy. And I'm not saying that a trans man calling his genitals a pussy is wrong.

I just feel like cis writers do not consider the dysphoria of their trans readers, when writing trans smut.

I feel like most cis writers don't actually seek out accounts of trans men and their sexuality.

I don't think they ever consider that these terms, talking about wetness and penetration (which many men on T can have problems with because of vaginal atrophy and dryness), breast, clits, cunts, pussy -

I don't think cis writers ever question 'Is this accessible for ftm readers that might have dysphoria? How can I make this accessible or easier for trans men who have bottom dysphoria?'

Or

'How can I make this more affirming of them as men?'

It's the assumption that, because we're all AFAB, because we have vaginas like cis women - then naturally we must all fuck the same regardless of gender, the only thing changing being the pronouns.

That's not true.

And also - Trans Men are never really written like gay men.

Trans men having sex with men is gay sex.

And even though most writers write trans men with male OCs - they hardly ever write their sex as if they are gay men.

99.9% of the time, it isn't written that way. Its always written as if it's 'straight sex'.

The experience of how gay men have sex is never really taken account into these fics, which makes me feel like a lot of writers don't see it as gay sex at all.

At most, the ftm reader may be described as a bottom - but never as an otter or twink or bear or cub or leather or anything.

They see it as AFAB sex.

Cause If I'm getting strictly candid - I feel like if a writer wrote mtf!smut and kept focusing on the girls 'hard throbbing cock and balls' - we'd all be like 'oh wow that's very intense centering on genitals that may alienate some trans women-'

But in ftm!smut focusing on 'wet tight juicy pussy and thriving clit' is standard. It's never really questioned.

And this is not to say 'oh trans women have it better they get better smut-' No. They really don't. I'm just bringing this up to highlight the fact that we should be making sure that trans!smut is accessible and affirming to the trans people they're about.

Seeing a fic in which a gay trans man prefers to use his asshole, like most gay men fuck, is VERY VERY rare.

I feel like most cis writers never consider the fact that gay trans men may want to perform sex in an affirming, clearly coded, masculine gay way.

It's always assumed we use our front hole, are okay with it being called a pussy, have no problems getting wet, or that we don't have dicks (T-dick is a dick).

And because of that - the lack of affirming language and the lack of affirming transmasc experiences makes it very hard for me as a FTM person to read smut about ftm!readers.

I feel like most of them don't actually take our comfort - or our experiences in mind.

I feel like most don't attempt to actually read accounts of trans guys having gay sex, and what that's often like.

If you're a writer who feels guilty of any of this - you're not a bad person or a bad writer. And I genuinely thank you for including us in your work - from the bottom of my heart.

But I want to highlight this -

Trans men having sex is not a 1:1 of cis women having sex. The same way trans women having sex is not a 1:1 of cis men having sex.

Or experiences are unique - and our dysphoria does affect our sex lives, and how we navigate them.

Please, do not let this put you off writing trans men. But please keep in mind that our experience is unique.

So often I read ftm!reader and feel reduced down to my pussy. Without breasts in the equation, so much ftm!smut focuses solely on the pussy.

If you write ftm!reader please please do not let this put you off, but here's some tips I can give as a trans guy

Please do slight research of ftm anatomy, read an article about gay trans men, or go on r/ftm (subreddit) and read some posts about trans men, read some nsfw posts where trans men tell hookup tales.

Advocate has an great article called '16 things I learned from having sex with Trans Men' - which details and dispels 16 myths about trans men in bed. It's written from the POV of gay men who have been with trans men in affirming ways.

This post is in no way meant to be an attack or subliminal at any one writer. If it was one writer, I wouldn't care.

But this is something I've experienced and seen across fandoms and across writers in this fandom too. I feel the urge to write this because searching for affirming ftm!fics - I often come away feeling even more dysphoric.

Not because of the word pussy or cunt or anything -

But because of the erasure of my experience, the idea that my gender doesn't influence my experience of sex - only my AFAB genitals do.

If you write ftm!smut, I thank you from the bottom of my heart, truly.

But I feel like I had to say this.

If you read this far, thank you! This is one of my more personal venting posts but I'm also trying to raise a point and start a discussion. And you reading through this and giving me your time and understanding is already helpful enough, so thanks!

Here's Hobie.

Bye.

[jesncin]

Lil' musing about Public Domain, AI theft and Transformative creativity

Old essay originally written on Cohost in February 2024. With additions.

I'm putting my thoughts here because I don't want to risk going viral for subtweeting discourse again, here we go! So with the Steamboat Willie Variant of Mickey Mouse going to public domain I've seen the usual cynical pushback over transformative art. Particularly in response to overplayed EDGY DARK WINNIE THE POOH and EDGY DARK STEAMBOAT MICKEY and YOUR CHILDHOOD THING DARK NOW that inevitably happens around this time.

But to group all transformative art as derivative, soul-less, profit-driven, lazy and "reliant on past successes" is frankly just...really silly? I saw a notable concept artist making this over-simplified talking point, and I find it odd that someone can look at the most visible (by being formulaic, provocative and made by rich people) examples of public domain adaptations and just generalize all art ever inspired by a thing as uninventive and compare artists who do that to being "ai-like". It feels like the false dichotomy constantly set between "real books" and fanfiction.

We've seen marginalized people reclaim cosmic horror from Lovecraftian fiction. I've seen queer people reckon with and reclaim the queer history of Peter Pan. There's something special about taking a familiar thing and informing it with a perspective that wasn't present in its original iteration. It takes a whole other part of your creative brain muscles to adapt and reimagine something that already exists. And it can be just as creatively fulfilling as making original stuff.

While it's important to recognize and remember the origin of archetypes in stories or movements in art, I think there's sometimes a misplaced reverence put towards the original version of something. Whenever I talk about how Asian writers like Gene Yang and Sarah Kuhn have more thoroughly integrated Superman's immigrant themes in their re-imaginings of his mythos than their white peers have, I get hit with the constant "hey remember Superman's creators were the sons of Jewish immigrants (who made racist jokes about Chinese people)" and "hey remember, Gene Yang and Gurihiru's Superman Smashes the Klan was based on a radio show arc made by WHITE people first (who made the story about a binary of Good white people vs Bad white people, along with centering how white people feel about racism)".

Especially if it's a means of centering white creatives, people love to dismiss the transformative contributions of marginalized people, but especially that of people of color. It took until 2016 for the World Fantasy Award to change their statuette to not be based after the face of renown racist H.P Lovecraft, after all.

Last year I gave myself the goal to do something "unnecessarily ambitious" with no plan of pitching/printing/selling it. Just "art for art's sake", something really not-algorithm-friendly. And yeah, that ended up being a fully rendered, 40-page martian manhunter fan comic. I did it for no other reason than being a huge fan of a severely unpopular character and feeling like there was a new story I really wanted to tell about the character that would never happen in canon with how little there's been written about him. I don't think it's fair to call writing 40 pages of a new origin story, drawing fully colored pages with unique re-designs, reading hours of martian manhunter comics to tie different aspects of his lore into coherent worldbuilding, putting that comic up for free for the few other Green Justice League Guy fans to read, as lazy, profit-driven, and soul-less.

There's tons of artists who do stuff like this all the time. It just comes off as being very out of touch to view true creativity as only existing one way. That transformative media must inherently be "less". One time a white guy pitched to me some ideas he had for Superman if he ever had a chance to write him, and I said "that sounds cool, you should write a fanfic about it" and another white guy (who felt the need to come to the first one's defense), viewed what I said as an insult. There's something about doing fanart because you enjoy it and don't need to profit out of everything you make that's seen as lesser than having the seal of canonicity from a company.

My motto with making needlessly ambitious fancomics is "You don't need to work for DC Comics to make DC comics". Because canonicity has nothing to do with what makes art special.

To bring this back to edgy Mickey Mouse spin offs, even if you do just want to make cliche mascot-horrified stuff because you enjoy it, then by all means go ahead! I always go back to this video Sagan Hawkes did about petscop-inspired video series. There's a running theme about grappling with the concept of Originality in Art in relation to youtube horror projects (the thesis comes around at 2:04:10), and some valuable words are shared in the collected interviews with web series creatives (2:18:47) in the end. SeireaSong (creator behind Diminish) talks about how misguided conversations surrounding "originality" can be (2:29:43). It's so worth it to watch when you have the time.

Anyway happy 2024! Be good to each other.

[thorniest-rose]

Hi everyone,

A lot’s happened over the last few days and I know that I’ve been under a lot of scrutiny and the subject of conversation, so I wanted to take a moment to talk about it with you. I didn't address it last week when I was told that people in the fandom were posting about me and sharing screenshots of my blog. This was to protect my mental health, but now I want to share my own thoughts.

It's really hard not to lash out in situations like this because of how much it hurts. To go through something like this is shocking and humiliating, it rips the ground up from under your feet. But I didn't want to go on the attack because I knew how much worse that would make things. No matter how opinionated I am, conflict makes me feel sick and makes me want to hide. So instead of lashing out, I've done a lot of thinking over the past few days, not just about what's happened to me, but about things I've done and what could have led to this.

Firstly, I want to apologise to everyone whose feelings I may have hurt when I posted certain things in the past. I want any space that I cultivate to be a happy, positive one for the people who spend time here and at times I think I’ve unintentionally created an atmosphere that has felt combative or alienating. I honestly never consider myself to be a well-known writer or someone whose voice has reach in the wider fandom. No matter how many followers I have or how many people read my fics, I always see myself as a girl just spending time on her tumblr, but that's naive and I should have recognised that in a shared space, all opinions are seen and have an impact. 

Discourse is my least favourite thing about interacting in fandom and there have been times where I’ve let myself be drawn into it. That doesn’t mean it’s ever okay to look down on what other people enjoy and I really regret posting those things now because that’s not who I am as a person. Expressing displeasure and other negative feelings isn’t what I want to engage in and I should remember how easy it is for flippant, spur of the moment comments to be taken out of context. Saying things like “I don’t like this” even on my own blog is immature and beneath me and I’m genuinely sorry.  

I am also in no way any sort of authority on how these characters are written, no one is. A fandom is for everyone. I’m passionate and vocal in my own space because I treat my tumblr as a slumber party with my friends, but in my enthusiasm, there have been times where it seems like I’m saying my characterisations are the only valid ones. I don’t think that’s the case at all, and I genuinely love and admire the creativity in this fandom. I’ve said this before, but just because I have preferences doesn’t mean I want every characterisation to be the same as mine because that would become extremely dull. I believe that any and all interpretations should have an audience.

However, while I take responsibility for the things I've said on my blog, the things that have been said about me in response have been extremely spiteful and damaging. I never wanted a war with anyone. I should know better than to court discourse in such a volatile fandom, even inadvertently. To take issue with me and what I said is fine, I accept the criticism and apologise; at times my comments have been juvenile and mean-spirited. But a group of people targeting me, screenshotting my posts, calling me names and attacking what I write isn’t proportionate at all and encourages a wider pack mentality. I think we should all remember that there is an actual person behind the screen reading the things that we post and that our words can cause real harm. It’s easy to dehumanise an avatar and a username. And I think it speaks to a rot at the heart of fandoms that so many people find pleasure in fighting and where feelings can fester into hatred and vitriol.

I am outspoken and passionate about what I love. I sometimes bristle at things I see that don’t gel with my ideas or at a misjudged tone, and I post about them instead of seeing the bigger picture and moving on. It’s a flaw and something I’m working on, to be more open and less reactive. I don’t want fighting or tension, and I don’t want rivalries. I also don’t ever want to make people feel like their characterisations are wrong/invalid/unworthy or that they themselves don’t belong and that I’m some kind of fandom queen bee trying to ice them out. While that’s genuinely never been my intention, I can see how things have been taken that way and I’m sorry for that too.

Again, I’m sorry to everyone I’ve hurt or alienated with comments that I’ve made. I always want to be kind and compassionate. And while I don’t think what’s happened over the past few days is OK, I can see the bigger picture and why things I’ve said, or the atmosphere I’ve cultivated, has planted seeds of resentment. I've also unblocked the person who's been posting about me, if they want to reach out to talk privately.

I know there are people reading this who have been following me for the past four years, and in that time have seen me struggle, and fall down, and make mistakes, but hopefully grow and learn from those mistakes too. I’m so grateful to you all.

I’m going to take a break from tumblr for a week or so, to spend time away from socials, to connect with friends and other passions and focus on self-care. And to write, of course, because I’ll always be writing, whether it’s here or elsewhere.

See you all soon,

Brooke 💕

[devildomwriter]

*TW*- i*cest, r*pe, g*re, p*dophilia, some general discourse

Ok so I am trying to ask this in the most respectful way because I don't wanna snowball this into a huge discourse; but I wonder if you've been seeing the Dark Content Discourse here on Tumblr?

It basically entails that despite your personal preferences, attacking/ demeaning other ppl who create/ consume dark content is a big no no because it's their safe space to be able to explore these topics. This includes all sort of stuff like i*cest, r*pe, g*re and even p*dophilia. Now you may not agree with any of these things, most ppl don't, and they might disgust you; which is totally fine. But there is a huge leap b/w something that is fictional and something that is real.

Fictional characters are literal lines on a paper. Doing anything with a fictional child does not mean you are harming a REAL child. This might still disgust you and that's fine too. You can block that person so you don't have to look at it again but to call everyone like this and start a campaign against them is well...

I just want you to know that I am not defending that person. I didn't even know them at all before this...Neither I am advocating for anything they are saying or confirming/claiming that they are good irl. I don't know them.

I just want you look at this from a different perspective and know your thoughts about this ordeal. Like for one moment step away from your pre-existing feelings and bias and look at this objectively. Everyone likes something that's even a lil problematic, so if we went on these campaigns every time, literally no one will be left in fandom. I don't agree with p*dophilia but I don't agree with this either...AGAIN THIS IS NOT MEANT TO CONDONE ANY OF THIS BEHAVIOUR! But to paint someone as a bad person for things they do in fiction in their safe space no matter how problematic, is somewhat disconcerting.

I again wanna say that this is not any hate against you or anyone else. I don't want to cause any discourse myself . I think you are an amazing writer and a valuable member in our fandom. Which is why it's important to me to hear your stance on this. But if you'd rather not answer this at all that's fine too! :>

I appreciate your perspective and I sometimes enjoy certain dark content as long as they warn others but pedophilia— fictional or not— should never be written/glorified/accepted. If it’s written as a horrible incident or traumatic backstory (like Lolita) then I understand why it’s written but glorifying or romanticizing it in any way is unacceptable.

If no one is left in the fandom after going on these “witch hunts” then the fandom is toxic, preditory, and unsafe.

As for the huge leap between fiction and reality, everything starts as a thought or fantasy. The more you think about it the more likely you are to commit or watch such an act.

Tumblr should under no circumstances be a safe place for pedophiles.

[bleedingoptimism]

The Stray

part three

Months go by.

Steve accompanies Max to school and back. Goes grocery shopping and cooks the most delicious foods for them.

He meets Lucas a few days in, and contrary to Eddie’s predictions about Lucas getting jealous… he adores Steve. They play basketball together and talk sports while Max and Eddie roll their eyes at them.

He goes to the park with Max and plays the acoustic Eddie lent him while she skates. Saves up the money to buy himself a new guitar.

He meets the rest of the band, the story being that he’s Max's distant cousin who is staying with them for the foreseeable future. Not that they have something to hide, but it’s just easier to explain and the truth makes Steve act all shy and self-conscious.

The guys love him, especially his cooking and his voice- They keep trying to get him to do a collab with the band after they hear him sing. Eddie always agrees, saying they could totally do an acoustic or maybe a rock ballad and have Steve sing it.

Since they just came back from tour, the band is taking some time off. Jeff needs to rest his voice and Eddie, being the main songwriter, has hit a bit of a ‘writer’s block’ so they don't have anything new to work on right now, which means Eddie has a lot of free time that he wastes pretending he doesn't want to spend it all with Steve.

He does sometimes walk with them to school or the park to watch them skate and sing but he has to wear a hat and sunglasses that make him look like an asshole and Steve always giggles and makes fun of him for it. 

He calls Eddie a rockstar in a voice that makes Eddie want to drop to his knees for him and Eddie calls him puppy in return, something that makes Steve blush every single time.

All is good and Eddie gets so used to Steve living with them that he can't even remember what life was like before him. Steve carves himself into their life, their home, and their hearts so easily and unintentionally that it scares him if he thinks about it too much.

And then, one night, Eddie thinks about it too much.

He finds Steve’s notebook inside the case of his guitar, the one where he keeps all his songs, he barely gets a peep, not wanting to intrude, but then he reads a line…

‘I need you to love me,’ 

And he can’t help but read the next…

‘So I can learn to love myself,’

And the next, and the next, and suddenly he’s reading every song Steve has written. 

And he knew… he knew he was in love with Steve, had been probably since the moment he first saw him. But this? This cements it for him in a way that makes him want to keep Steve forever.

Whatever form Steve will take him. Friend, coworker, lover… preferably lover, and if he dares dream, family.

And Eddie is not good with being subtle, or patient, and now that he’s sure he wants this forever, he wants forever to start now.

But when he goes to confess, he finds Steve packing the few things he owns. Dread and confusion take over and the notebook he’s still holding falls out of his hand making Steve turn around. And Steve… his eyes are wet and his nose is red as if he had been crying.

to be continued!

part 1: 🎸

part 2: 🐾

part 3: you are here!

part 4: 💝

coffee?☕🥐💕

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Adrien is Marinette's Therapist, NOT her Boyfriend and it's Gross

Mental health struggles are no joke and, if you have those struggles, then you absolutely need a partner who will support you through them. That's why, at face value, Adrien supporting Marinette with her PTSD and anxiety is very sweet. It's what a good boyfriend should do. The problem is that Adrien is being written like her therapist, not her boyfriend.

Adrien has his own struggles with depression, loss, and paternal neglect. Yet none of these struggles are brought up once Adrien and Marinette get together. Instead, the relationship is all about her needs and struggles even though this season ends with Gabriel's take down, meaning that focusing on Adrien's issues would have made more sense from a narrative perspective. How much more powerful would the final have been if Marinette really understood Adrien, Emilie, and Gabriel's relationship?

But why do that when we can make everything about Adrienette instead? Why bother to mention Emilie when Marinette is a much better point of conflict between Adrien and Gabriel? After all, if we did that, then Adrien would have a life outside of Marinette and that would be, well, sigh, let's get into it, shall we?

In Derision, we learn that Marinette apparently doesn't have some form of anxiety or ADHD or any of the other things that people have theorized over the years. No, vanilla-Marinette is a totally relaxed, go-with-the-flow non-planner who only started planning after Chloe, Sabrina, and Kim gave her PTSD. Does this insult her character and make no sense? Yes, but let's not get into that. Let's just accept the retcon and look at the fallout of Adrien knowing that his new girlfriend has massive trauma that's mainly focused on romance and controlling situations.

The very next episode is Intuition. In it we see Marinette calling Adrien to show off her ability to do things without planning (or, at least, with less planning) and it's clear from context that this is an exercise that they're doing:

Adrien: Well... (his phone rings) Fancy that! Marinette! I like spending time with Marinette. (picks up his phone) Marinette: (on-call) Guess what I'm calling for: nothing! Can you believe it? I'm calling you randomly, totally out of the blue, for no reason at all! Adrien: So you didn't write down everything you might need to say to me based on everything I might say to you? Marinette: Not at all! Well... I did. I really tried not to, you know, but it was too hard! Anyhow, I limited myself to fourteen possible conversations, including this one! Adrien: Congratulations! Marinette: (on-call) Thank you! Adrien: And did you prepare questions for science class? Marinette: (on-call) Not-a-one! Not even for the live video conference we're doing with Max's mom on the super awesome Tsurugi space jet! I, Marinette, will improvise questions, unpredictably, without planning anything!

In the context of the show, this conversation is deeply concerning and I don't know wtf the writers think they're doing. There is no way in hell that a 14-year-old should be guiding his girlfriend through a therapy session or therapy exercise unless he has the guidance and approval of a trained mental health professional.

Seriously look at what Adrien is doing in this dialogue: Marinette tells him that she's called him without planning and he doesn't just say "that's great!" Instead, he asks if that's true, congratulates her for her mild improvement, and then prompts her to talk about another situation where she would plan things out. In other words, he's asking about the therapy homework that he's clearly given her or that they've decided on together. It's also clear that this isn't their first discussion on the topic because he's very comfortable knowing what to ask about to see if she's done her homework right.

Why was this homework chosen? Who knows! It certainly wasn't picked by someone with training! A therapist wouldn't tell you to avoid planning for a school assignment (something that we've never seen Marinette overplan before, but once again, we're ignoring the retcon). This scene would arguably be inappropriate for an established adult relationship, but a nascent teenage one? Absolutely not.

My SO and I have both done therapy and seen wildly unbalanced relationships. This conversation threw massive red flags for us on both fronts. This is not what a healthy relationship looks like. This is not a give and take. This is why you need a therapist to at least guide you through this type of situation or you will set yourself up in roles where person A is not getting their needs met because the relationship has an established dynamic where person A is the giver and person B is the taker.

This is especially true for a young relationship that's just getting its feet off of the ground. They're supposed to be in the honeymoon phase! More established relationships are better able to handle phases where one person needs more support than the other which absolutely happens and is totally normal. However, when those things happen, it's vital for the supporting partner to have their own support since they can't get it from their partner.

Miraculous denies Adrien this suport. In the very next episode, we get this:

Adrien: I've always seen Marinette acting funny in my presence. I thought that was just the way she was. I thought it was sweet. I thought it was just her charm. But now that I know it's because she loves me and she freaks out about telling me, I feel bad. Because it means that this whole time she's been uncomfortable around me, and I haven't done anything to help her. Kagami: But you didn't know. Adrien: It doesn't take away from her suffering. I just wish she could feel more at ease when she's with me. Otherwise, one day, it'll be too late and she'll give up. Kagami: What can I do to help, Adrien? Adrien: Thanks, but it's not up to you or anyone else to help. I'm the one who's gotta do something.

No! Adrien, you are not equipped to deal with this solo. Ask Kagami to help! Ask Alya to help! Ask Marinette's parents to help! There are times when it's okay to involve others in your relationship and this is one of those times! This isn't even a relationship issue! It's a mental health issue! I know we're flipping gender roles here, but it's not somehow cute or healthy just because a guy is trying to "fix" the girl for once. No one should try to take on that task. This is what therapy is for.

If therapy is not an option for financial or other reasons, then yes, sometimes you have to struggle through and loved ones can help, but in TV land? Especially aimed-at-kids TV land? Show the ideal scenario! At the very least, show a support network! And I mean actual support, not Kagami asking to help and Adrien shooting her down! Writers, you are making Gabriel's dislike of Marinette valid! You are making it so that she is dragging Adrien down! Stop doing that!

Adrien deserves love and support, too. Adrien deserves to be romanced. Adrien deserves more than a kiss and an "I love you" that he had to fight to hear! He never even gets one of the presents from Marinette's chest. She did more to woo him before they got together and it's such pathetic writing.

The fun of getting these two together is letting them do all the stuff they've always wanted to do! Let Marinette bring him macrons! Let him bring her roses! Let her enhance his wardrobe! Let him write her poems! Let them be a healthy, balanced, sickeningly-cute couple! It's fine if she's nervous at the start and takes a while to act normal, but this show takes it to a level beyond teenage jitters and it's not funny or cute. It's concerning.

All of these issues start with Derision's romance-based-PTSD retcon and it was the worst thing they could have done for the Love Square. It poisons the rest of the season and is why I just can't ship these two in canon even though I love what they could have been. They have established such a horrifically unhealthy dynamic that I can't see this ending well unless they get couple's therapy in the very near future and that's not even touching on the baggage that will come from the lies and still unresolved Ladynoir trauma.

As soon as Marinette has romance-based PTSD, she was incapable of being in a relationship until after she'd learned to manage her PTSD. (PTSD cannot be cured, btw, you just learn how to manage it and the symptoms can lessen.) The writers apparently knew that. It's why they gave her a therapist to support her as she worked through her issues and got to the point where she can say "I love you". His name is Adrien. Isn't he cute?

[therealsaintscully]

Thank you for the tag, lovely @crepesuzette2023! It's been nice to take some time to think about my fics!

How many works do you have on ao3?

20; 18 are Johnlock (BBC) and two, the most recent ones, are mclennon.

What’s your total word count?

306,378 (I was stunned to see this, I had no idea).

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

All are Johnlock: Mark Your Calendars, my beloved Erosion, Detours, Plus One and Turned - Part I : Queen and Country.

Do you respond to comments? Why/why not?

I try to be very good about it and respond as often as I can, but the truth is I'm a bit of an emotional wreck so when there's a rush of comments I get overwhelmed and over emotional about them, and tend to put it off for a while. I read them ALL, and I often go back and re-read them.

What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

I had to refresh my memory but it's def Every Other Universe ("What if in every other universe John Watson leaves?"). It's one of my very earliest ones and I cringe a little reading it, but it's a very neat idea. Gretna Green Waltz, a mclennon fic, is very devastating if I may say so myself, and was written as such knowingly. It only reflects reality, though, and that's just as devastating.

What's the fic you've written with the happiest ending?

I think Mark Your Calendars has the happiest ending, judging by the numbers of kudos, but for me as the writer, the cosiest, most joy-bringing ending was that of Simon (or: Love Calls You by Your Name).

Do you write crossovers?

The sadly abandoned Turned series is a crossover with Homeland.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Not hate, but some less-than-considerate "when's the next chapter???" comments. I don't bother with them.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Yes I do :)

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Don't think so!

Have you ever had a fic translated?

I remember being asked, but I'm not sure what happened with it! Some of my fics got podficced, though: Mark Your Calendars is available as podfic, and so is I Have not Lingered (thanks to the lovely @helloliriels)

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No, I'm so neurotic and particular I don't think I'm cut out for that.

What's your all-time favourite ship?

Mulder and Scully are DEFINITELY the mothership and always will be. I still sigh about them in a special, exasperated way about three times a week. I'm still here with Johnlock of course, but I'm pretty sure mclennon has been in the back of my mind for decades, but I was too haunted by other ships to fall down that rabbit hole. Look at me, though, here I am.

What's a WIP that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?

Turned, very sadly. So much so that I've considered taking it off AO3 but I'm so proud of what I did achieve with it.

What are your writing strengths?

I think my best writing moments are the ones that hook unto my real, personal experiences, not just a general idea of life situations. Erosion is based on my own personal grief and family losses, and Gretna Green Waltz is a retelling of my biggest heartache. I have noticed readers can tell when you're really putting your heart into a story.

What are your writing weaknesses?

English isn't my first language, which means I have to rely on betas which for me sadly slows me down - I want to be able to just write them and post them otherwise I overthink. I'm also a screenwriter irl, and I noticed a pattern that is another weakness - I always have banger openings, or first acts to my stories/screenplays, but sometimes I don't know the ending and I get lost and hesitant. That's why Gretna Green Waltz was SUCH a surprise - much like Junk, the song that haunts Paul throughout the fic, came to him in one piece, GGW landed in my head as a full story. I wrote it in TWO WEEKS! That NEVER happened before!

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

It really depends on how it's done. If it's 2-3 sentences and they're simple I assume the readers will Google Translate it. Jinglebell stands out as someone who did it really well in multi-chapter fic that's all about Sherlock discovering that John is a polyglot, so it can be done well.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Johnlock (for which I started writing during covid in 2020), although as a reader it was TXF, back in in 90s and early 2000s.

What's a fandom/ship you haven't written for yet but want to?

The X-Files. I've had a Scully character study in my head for years that I just can't get right.

What's your favourite fic you've written?

With Johnlock it would have to be the now-abandoned Turned, and mclennon it would be Gretna Green Waltz. I am very proud of both.

Tagging @menlove, @discordantwords, @saint-mona, @totallysilvergirl @m1ssunderstanding @slippinmickeys @kettykika78 @agrlsname @arwamachine @calaisreno @aggressivewhenstartled and anyone who sees this who wants to participate :)

[writingmonet]

Fives Psychology, part one: heir of the Dominoes

Okay, this may be very, very long, I’m high in caffeine and my brain won’t shut up about this since yesterday. Is this necessary? Only for my sanity. Also, it doesn’t seem to have been written? This is a huge shock for me, considering how popular Fives is (and how underrated Echo criminally is). This is part one. Part two will focus on Rex, Tup, the chip and Echo's return Arc.

Let’s begin chronologically, with Clone Cadets.

SW's chronology is a mess but this episode can easily be placed in 21 BBY at the very early stages of the war. Fives is a member of Domino Squad.

What this episode learn us?

First, Fives closest brother is Echo (he’s his twin, fight me).

And that means a hell of things for us. As @dominosquadsupremacy as pointed out in her own analyze of the episode, Fives and Echo are the closest. Echo wants to change squads? Yeah, sure. But not without Fives. Fives want to change squads? No prob’s as long as Echo’s here. But for that, they have to convince General Shaak Ti.

And guess who speaks for advocating their cause? You guessed it. Not Fives. Fives is not the one talking when he and Echo request to learn of the squad. It’s Echo. It’s Echo who makes the points and Echo who answers Fives' questions when he has one.

Now, Echo does has a reputation of shyness among the fandom, to whom I agree to, toward strangers. Within his squad? Hell no. Echo is the one who calls Hevy on his behaviour. He is the one who engage himself in a physical fight with Hevy because he can’t stand being mock by his older brother. Echo has traits that Fives will display later, but for the current time he does not. Some may argue that this is because the writers didn’t had plan Fives to “die” as it was for Echo and has Hevy was already dead (since this episode is shortly before the infamous Cutadel Arc but was created after Rookies). And you’re probably right by pointing this. But it doesn’t dismiss my point. Quite the opposite I dare to say. Following the “death” of Echo, Fives in his own, was the one who changed of behaviour, encouraged by his closest brother’s death. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Let’s return to our Clone Cadets.

Something I forgot to add is Domino Squad's common ambition: being an ARC Trooper. They all want that, and this will be relevant in the episode ARC Trooper.

During the infamous (absolutely not foreshadowing) fail-test, Fives and Echo are together (as they already were in the beginning), Echo even making a joke at his brother (perhaps to light his mood) assuring him that he’s on his side. It’s a recurring theme among them, being at each other’s side. Wherever Fives go, Echo go. And vice-versa. Until the end of times (sorry, wrong universe.)

Anyway. When they decides to let Droidbait (DB) behind, injured, Fives and Echo are making the decision with Hevy. Cutup is the one staying behind (and does this imply that, if Cutup had survived he would have seen that Echo wasn’t dead? I may overthink it, but for the sake’s of tragedy, let’s say yes). When the test is stopped, F&E exchanges a look (and honestly, Colt was right to be mad at them).

After that, they don't reappear until the end where, Fives and Echo are again at each other's hips, and while Echo takes the Citadel first, he's shortly followed by Fives and the others who cheers.

To the first who tells me that Fives has NO display characteristic traits in this episode, I’ll ask him to rewatch the first 5 mins. Fives get mad at Echo. Since the beginning Fives tends to be angry in stressful situations (as they all are), even toward his twin. Later, more anecdotally but still, he calls on Cutup about his famous girl lie. Again, Fives (I think but this time it’s nearly impossible to be 100% right) is the one stopping Hevy from engaging in a second fight, against Bric (which he would have lost, let us be honest).

To summarises in a nutshell

Fives closest brother is Echo

Fives let Echo do the talking to advocate their opinions, their well-being and ambitions at General Shaak Ti where Fives appears more reserved in front of, more hesitant.

Echo answers Fives doubts and questions. Some might say he's Fives guiding voice.

Fives already has anger (like Hevy and Echo I say) but it's Echo who physically hit a brother

Echo always tries to lighten the mood, not only to Fives.

Being an ARC Trooper is Domino Squad's whole goal. That's what they want.

In addition, while Echo is mainly spoken bout here, the influence of the others, especially Hevy, cannot be denied on Fives. Hevy is the one who considers themselves as just a number when he clearly thinks of himself as an individual. Hevy does not let his brothers down, thanks to 99.

And speaking of Hevy, I present you the Rookies episode.

Now here, this episode is mark by 2 majors events

the appearance of Rex in Fives and Echo's life

The death of all Fives' brother except one

Let us talk about Hevy first. Hevy who dies in a very heroic (but avoidable) way, if only the device had worked properly. Hevy sacrificed himself. We do not have, unfortunately, Fives' reaction to his death, but to say that he was unaffected would be madness.

Because Hevy displays many traits that Fives will also later. They're both bold, impatient, and headstrong. They value their brothers above the republic. Hevy stayed in Kamino to not let down his Dominoes brothers, to ensure their success. He died to protect his brothers, both died doing their duties He also was a man of action, much like Fives.

Much like Hevy, DB and Cutup death has impacted Fives. To honour them he painted a Rishi Eel on his helmet, which he did not change.

Now I think the Rishi is a symbol that represents Domino as a whole. It was the first and only mission they ever did together. It was the last time they were together, free from Kamino's suffocating walls. It was also the place where Fives met Rex.

Rookies introduce us to Rex and Cody meeting the Dominoes. That is major. not only because Hevy, in a few hours, managed to make an ever-lasting impression on Rex, but because Rex decides to take Fives & Echo when he shouldn't have. That's right! Cody presents himself as their new boss. Not Rex. Now, perhaps Cody was simply the boss because he was the superior of Rex. But again, at the end of the day, Rex takes the twins and not Cody.

Fives is not extremely prominent in this episode, but even from day 1 hos closeness to Echo was here. Echo checks on him regularly. Fives do not mock him unlike Hevy & Cutup at the start of the episode (and as they did on Clone Cadets). Echo stops firing in a middle of a fight because Fives is touched, and Cody has to remind him to keep firing.

And, at the end of the day, it's the two of them together. They only have each other's left after Rishi and yet we already see the seeds of Fives changing.

Episode 3: ARC Troopers.

We learn and observe multiple things during this episode. Now, I'm going to analyze this deleted scene, who can still be considered as canon.

Fives is impatient to be an ARC Trooper. Frankly, I guess why. He's been in the 501st so long (we know that this episode happened in 21 BBY too but SW years seem to be longer than ours) and it's frustrating not being able to achieve what was his squad dream is (is: because Echo remains).

They have Hevy's name and iconic canon on their armour. They mourn him, like they mourn Cutup (when Fives tries to make a joke but Echo reminds him that it was Cutup who was good with the jocks, not him) and DB too (even the writers won't state it). Their meeting with 99 also taught them that Hevy let his medal to 99 (I headcanon that this medal is all that remains for Echo to his brothers, along with his and Fives' medals).

Defending Kamino is defending the place where them, as a squad, have grow up. They have no love for the Kaminoans (I mean, who has?) but they'll defend the place no matter what

99's death. Here we can see that it's Echo who reacts the most strongly to 99's death. Again, Echo seems to be the impulsive one, who tends to react strongly to emotions and events (hugging 99's in his arms, screaming his name shortly before that). Fives doesn't. He's growing impatient with his lack of evolution and clearly is ambitious and mourns his brothers but he's not as emotional as Echo can be toward 99's death.

At the end of the day, they are named ARC Troopers to which Echo's first reaction is surprise, while Fives' one is pride. They did it. They accomplished their squad dream: being the best of the best.

Now, it is time (as it always is in stories) to deconstruct all of that.

One simple method for that: Echo's death - Fives' closest brother and twin.

Now this essay lead me to the question of: was Echo's fake death always wanted? From what I understood (by comparing to other clones' deaths and Filoni's comments) it appears that yes.

That led me to the other question of why? Pure tragedy, like Filoni likes? Probably. Continuation of Fives legacy? It may have been the wish in TBB, and - writing-wise, this is my favourite option, although she's imperfect and would deserve a writing commentary on his own, I digress.

I'm gonna spare you all the details but Echo's death is a echo of Hevy one. Death for duty, duty for protecting his brother. As seen in the previous episode, Echo tends to react emotionally, harshly and strongly when one of his close brother is in danger. When he run toward the shuttle I bet that the only thing he was caring for was getting Fives outta here.

Wanna an anecdote? What is the common point between the Citadel Arc, Umbara Arc and TBB final in s3? Matt Michnovetz. He wrote those arcs. And, while Echo is never explainly mentioned in Umabara you can feel his ghost on Fives' changing character.

Fives did not take well Echo's death. I do not invent. First of all his reaction, is strikingly similar to Echo's one at 99's death (a violent scream of the name and, should he have time, he would have stayed with his brother but was forced to walk away). Fives pass the rest of the following episode looking behind him as if his twin could reappear and this was just one, big joke.

(I don't want to end up a wall decoration)

Now on Umbara. The episodes are complex so let us be focus. First there is this quote of rex who might appears as anecdotical but who bothers me.

Rex: good to have you back

Fives: just like old times

So this means that between the Citadel (s3) and Umbara (s4) Fives wasn't with the 501st, as Rex lieutenant? Like old times means that they were doing missions together with Echo, but they didn't for a while? Where was Fives all this time? Did he request to take missions solo? I do not know but this imply that, at some point, Fives was gone from Rex's sight and only came back for Umbara, and this seems to have been the first mission they were doing together just like old times.

Now, Fives has an extremely changed demeanour during the arc who reminds us of Hevy and Echo, and he clearly has some left-to-deal issues.

Fives spoken advocation for his brother's well-being - like Echo

Fives strong and commanding leadership - like Hevy

Fives fighting all authority and calling Rex - like hevy

Fives deciding that "screw up that, I'm outta here!" - much like Hevy improvised plan in front of a desperate situation in Clone cadets, in their final test.

Fives clearly struggling to not go physical with Pong Krell to defend Rex - unlike Echo here

His outbursts of emotions, anger and frustration, are very reminders of himself and Echo as well

His closeness to clones like Rex and Tup and Jesse and so on may come from a psychological need to always having someone on his side, like his twin. I'm not sure Fives knows how to remain without anyone on his side (but this is part 2 mostly, so I leave it here)

Then there's this quote:

Where's the honour in marching blindly to our deaths?

Fives saw DB, Hevy and Echo sacrificing themselves knowing that they had no chance to get out of this alive. They walked blindly to their deaths, and Fives never forgot that. If he can stop his brothers from doing so, he will. Pong Krell saw clones as disposable. Rex was too stuck in his commanding-book nature to react. Fives had enough. I think he threw the book and the rules (if he ever respected them) the moment Echo went out of his life. All his actions on Umbara are a mirror of his dominoes brothers and the consequence of Echo's death on his psychological mind. He's Fives ghost and this ghost will never be able to leave him in peace as long as his brothers are threatened and cast aside. Fives is done with commanding officers like Tarkin and Krell who don't care for his brother's lives ("he is the one who never realizes the cost").

An appreciable detail is the animation. On Umbara Fives look clearly exhausted, as if he hadn't slept for a long time. We can see the progress of the animation here and it's all more fantastic if we consider that, yes, Fives probably didn't have a single good night of sleep since his twin's death.

Personally I only have a face like that when I didn't get my week of goodnight

Okay, this is long enough and I need to go. Don't hesitate to give me your arguments if you think I'm wrong, I would love to discuss it with you. Sorry if this is incomprehensive to you, I wrote that in like one hour and I'm too lazy to do a second lecture.

[v0iddarl1ng]

My opinion on New Helluva boss short "Mission:Weeaboo-boo"

Attention: There will be a lot of spoilers and my subjective opinion, so you can agree or disagree with me.

TW: S*xual harassment

So my first thing I didn't understood is...Why Emeberlynn still lives with her parents even she is canonically 20?

Okay, let's think that's she is a lazy one and still didn't went through a separation process.

But there's another thing:

HOW AN ANGELIC-MADE ACCESSORY( mean of protection?) CAME ON EARTH?

More though, Ember said that is official merch so it's supposed to be more of these, so how??

And then my most hated part started...

EMEBERLYNN THOUGHT THAT BLITZØ CAME HERE TO FUCK HER.

Seriously.

AND BLITZ IS VISIBILITY UNCOMFORTABLE WITH THIS.

And Emberlynn's behaviour shown and supposed to be "funny",Oh yeah! S*xual h*rassment and cognitive distortion of said/done things is DEFINITELY THINGS THAT YOU CAN JOKE ABOUT!

It reminds me of something...

Damn it,I hate this bird prick so much.

Also, Emberlynn calls Blitz "Blitzy-kun" just like Stolas calls Blitz "Blitzy"

But more is...That Ember hits Blitz for doing LITERALLY NOTHING!

It's very weird, especially for 20 year old person to do so. By the way, At first watch I skipped scene with files, I looked at her behaviour and thought that she is 16 or 17. Kinda reminds me of Vivzipop, who can't take criticism and acts like child even when she is grown ass adult.

Maybe it's another little thing but Blitzø talks here about someone didn't liked Lynn's 1ncest art and didn't liked it so that's why they hired Blitz, but isn't that IMP corp help already KILLED or DEAD person to kill their hatred ones?

I KNOW, Pilot is not canon anymore but still, how someone, who is probably still alive, get an IMP's phone number? And I don't think that's hell's media can be used in humans's world like "Sinstagram" or "Envee".

Conclusion: This episode(like any of HB other episodes) was pretty mid for me. I even cringed a bit an Ember's child-like behaviour. I think that writers and mostly Vivzipop tried to make an episode that mocks Vivzie's haters (In sneak peak Emeberlynn have the same setup and similar looking hair) but made it very poorly.

And the most problem is in the short it self! Most of missions and assassinations mostly moved to shorts and main show is slowly becoming a cheesy,bad written, rom com with not funny jokes, mostly about themes that supposed to be spoken about respectively but taken as another joke(Moxxie getting SA by succubi in episode "Spring break" and whole Stolitz drama)

But,what I Liked in new shorts ?

Maybe Emberlynn's sinner design, but she still says that she's found his billboard and screams, swears that she will be on his side. That's kinda stalkerish, don't you think?

I'll repeat that: It's only my opinion, you can disagree with it!!

EDIT: I read some comments, and you're right, maybe Emberlynn still living with parents because rent is expensive. My mistake, I apologise. I think it's me being with imposes thoughts that personally I must live on my own when I'll become an adult

And also comment about cringe comedy: I understand that it's a thin,but not for everyone, honestly I didn't liked it.

Sorry for making myself looking stupid

[ditzydoodiary]

autistic ramble about twilight sparkle because i love her sm and shes my fave autistic comfort character !!!

this took a really long time to make, and im really proud of it, so any reblogs/reshares would be appreciated ! especially if you like mlp !!

when people say she isnt autistic, i always find myself very surprised. i think to myself, have these people even watched the show??because yes, while the writers and lauren faust may not have intended for her to be explicitly autistic, she is very clearly portrayed that way, intentional or not. not to mention that lauren faust (creator of friendship is magic) has recently responded to a tweet saying that she thought pinkie pie being adhd was obvious; lauren faust has adhd herself, so its not surprising that so many of the mlp fim characters also posess many of the same traits as her. and i also raise the question; if she thought pinkie pie was obvious as having adhd, then why would twilight be any different?? she is very clearly autistic, but i dont think twilight's obvious neurodivergence has been addressed by lauren yet (unless im wrong of course, but i just haven't found anything about it when ive searched for it).

anywho, to list just a few of twilight's autistic traits:

- trouble socialising and making friends (this is literally the main plot point of the first few seasons and is even still present in the later seasons, so its not like this was just a one time thing). an example of this would be in the very first episode when twinkleshine, lemon hearts, and minuette invite her to moondancer's party; she awkwardly declines, saying that she needs to catch up on her studying instead. to this the other ponies say, "ugh, does that pony do anything except study? i think shes more interested in books than friends"

- she has a very obvious special interest in reading, books, research, and the study of pony magic. she indulges in these interests to such a level where she often loses track of time and stays awake all night, and often misses out on opportunities to socialise with her friends. when she cant indulge in them, she gets upset. this ties into finding comfort in routines, too.

- taking things literally (e.g: that part in "look before you sleep" where she takes rarity's statement about them getting warmer in regards to playing a game literally). look before you sleep is also a great episode showing her need to have everything planned out; in this episode, twilight has her first slumber party, and uses a slumber party planning book as a guide. she thinks has to follow every single instruction in the exact same order, and when rarity and applejack dont oblige, she gets upset.

- HEAVILY relies on schedules and planning. she utilises all kinds of lists; visual lists, written lists, checklists, etc. when she's unable to stick to her routines/plans, she becomes irrationally upset and/or angry, lashes out at other people and can have meltdowns. this is again shown all throughout the show, but is more prominent in the episode "lesson zero".

- LOVES organising, lining things up, and finding visual patterns in all sorts of things. she'll often just do this for fun and as a way to calm down, while others might find this more of a chore. i suppose this can be done as a form of visual stimming? I don't really know what this is called; but i know a lot of autistic people do it. i suppose this could also tie into needing routines and structure, as organising things can help autistic people feel more in control and can provide a sense of stability.

- she can often come off as insensitive or rude without meaning to, and sometimes she struggles with tone as well as being quite blunt. this is most likely due to her misunderstanding or being unable to read typical social cues. this could also perhaps be linked to low empathy, which is something a fair few individuals on the spectrum experience. this is especially true in the earlier seasons, but still shown in the later seasons as well.

- twilight also struggles with regulating her emotions and having meltdowns; this is typically the result of her needs not being properly met and her routines being changed. and when she's not having full blown meltdowns, she can at least be seen being snappy towards her friends when overwhelmed.

- stimming !!! oh boy does she stim a lot. stomping her hooves, jumping up and down, PACING (this is a big one), teleporting spontaneously when overwhelmed, flapping her wings, etc. in fact, twilight once paced so hard for so long that she made a groove in the floor without even realising !! (this was seen in the episode "its about time" - which is also a good episode that showcases her autistic traits)

- shes also sometimes shown struggling with overstimulation; in the third episode of the series, "the ticket master", twilight gets overwhelmed by her friends crowding around her and loudly shouting, resulting in her running off and snapping at them.

- shes often shown struggling with generalised anxiety, which is another common trait of autism.

and the best part is, this is obviously a common occurrence, and her friends fully support her through her struggles !!! her meltdowns, overthinking and anxiety are so frequent, that her friends know exactly what to do and how to help her.

obviously, this isn't every trait, this is just all the surface level stuff !!

i would have included more video and photo examples, but tumblr has a limit on how many you can add to a post :( i hope i still got my point across despite that !!

all in all, i think she's wonderful autistic representation !! even if this wasn't intentional, i still think it's great and love the way her personality and traits were portrayed. the main character of a children's show possessing these traits is awesome and something you don't see too often !! i hope lauren or at least someone on the production team talks about this, because it means a lot to myself and many other autistic people who love mlp <3

[rk-ceres]

Pretty Girl- George Weasley

Pairing: George Weasley x Reader (Season of love event) Fred Weasley x Reader(platonic)

Timeline: 6 months after the battle of Hogwarts

Summary: Reader gets injured in the war saving Fred's life, after the war she wakes up six months later and falls in love with George who has been taking care of her loooooooooooonggggggg ass fic. had an idea and ran with it mutual pining (strangers to)/friends to lovers I just thought this idea was cute

Warnings: no use. of y/n or y/h/n its just ____, written in first person, crass language, some dirty jokes here and there, nothing physical, slow burn, !FRED LIVES!, reader is a flirt, mentions of death in the war, reader looses a leg in the war, George takes on care taker role for Fred after he gets injured after he was saved by reader, and any others i missed

A/N: decided to take a stab at the season of love event that one of my favorite writers are hosting right now and half way through i really wished i made this a series but i guess this works better as a long one shot with room for more parts. Theres just so much you can do with this imho but it is what it is sorry for the long ass read it was just too much fun to write this ended to where i could add on parts if i really wanted too so if it seemed unfinished i dunno 🤷‍♀️

My eyes fluttered open and hissed at the light in the room everything hurt groaning out in pain as i sat up “oh good.. youre awake. I was getting pretty lonely being in here the only one conscious” Fred called out to me as i rubbed the eye that wasn't covered in gauze “not to be rude or anything but where am i?” i asked moving my hand to rub the back of my neck feeling the popping groaning in some relief throwing a leg over the bed “whats the last thing you remember?” He asked looking at me i rolled my eyes yawning out “I was fighting back to back with one of Percy’s twin brothers… i found him after…. After Penny died…im not sure which twin i was fighting with… i didnt have the time to pick out the differences. Or ask… we were outnumbered ten to three… the minister of magic came in Percy made a god awful joke…. Which we all shared there was an explosion that flew me and the twin i was with against eachother before the wall could come down on us i put up a shield…. And then everything went black” he shifted on to his side “it was me, you saved me.” He smiled “youre Fred?” i asked finally looking at him taking in his broadening smile obviously thrilled that he had someone to talk too “yeah. Im Fred. And to answer your question, youre in George’s bed. We’re at my flat in the shop” he explained “what am i doing in George’s bed in your flat in your shop?" i made a confused face "i know i didn't fall asleep after an intense love making session after a night in the pub so forgive me i am a little confused" i huffed "no. you didn't sleep with my brother. not yet anyway" he rolled his eyes speaking in an amused voice “youre in his bed because after you saved me. The ground gave way under you. And you fell through three floors of the castle, you scratched your face on the rebar on your way down. It missed your eye by a centimeter. I carried you to Pomfrey, You were in a coma for about five months almost six. I insisted that id be the one to help you recover and with your physical therapy after you saved my life. My Fiancėe Angelina would’ve taken care of your injuries for me since you know… im a guy and youre a chick. Then i went and got myself blown up by Bellatrix trying to save my sister… I failed her and now? we’re in the same boat. George turned his room into our recovery room since its the biggest of the two. Angel even agreed to it. Shes really grateful to you. She and mums been taking care of your chest wound seeing as how youre a woman, George handles your eye and… and your leg.” he smiled filling in the details. “What do you mean my leg? physical therapy?” i asked confused furrowing my eyebrows pulling the blanket off of my waist i looked down at my legs to see my right leg had been amputated above the knee “Madame Pomfrey had to take it before you succumbed. Part of the wall fell on it and it was irreparable. I killed the death eater that did that to you” my eyes started to water breathing heavily because it looked like it was so close to killing me i was relieved that i was still alive "love... hey… calm down its okay” he tries to stand but winces falling back to his bed when a loud sob wracks through my lips “shit… GEORGE! GET IN HERE GEORGE NOW!” He yelled suddenly bursted through the door “she just woke up” he told his twin she started to dry heave he wordlessly pulled me into his chest “shhhhh youre okay love its okay.. youre safe.. youre safe.. Pretty girl youre safe.. Percy sat in here with you for two months straight” he cooed they stayed like that as he comforted me when i finally composed myself enough i pulled back slightly  “thank you” i whispered to him “sorry for ruining your nice shirt… i didnt.. i didnt mean to George” i said louder scooting back to leab my back against his headboard “dont worry about that beautiful, its just tears. im sorry you found out that way” he said softly kneeling by the edge of the bed

“Fred was supposed to WAIT to tell you.” He glared at his twin he smiled sheepishly “I didnt expect her to pull her blanket off!” Fred defended himself “that’s enough out of you Fred” he hissed “im George” he smiled at her gently "______ Barebone, I was a ______…" thinking back to my house in school "in your year. Friends with your brother he dated my best friend” “Penny” we said together and i smiled “youre sitting up on your own. Thats a good thing.” He smiled gently at me “is it alright if i checked your eye?” i bit my lip and nodded at him gently. “Can i borrow your owl to write Percy? I want to make sure he’s alright, we both lost Penny" i said barely audible “of course Pretty Girl let me just finish up here i'll get you parchment and a quill when mum and Ange get here” he chuckled He unwrapped the bandage on her face i hissed at the dull pain in my left eye “good… good love, dilation is good. Can you follow my finger for me?” He asked softly “you're tracking well with your left eye sweetheart.” He mumbled he softly covered my right eye with his palm “can you see anything lovely?” He asked “I see your nose… but its blurry” clearly unaffected by his testing of pet names and terms of endearment  he smiled “it looks like the cuts on your face will scar but Fred and I developed a cream that’ll make it go away in a month if you want to use it. I dont have to put the bandage back on… Is it okay if I check your leg?” He asked being extra aware with me being awake and aware of everything he got consent before making physical contact and i nodded not minding the physical contact he slowly cut away the bandages “any pain?” he looked up at me with his green eyes  “just my side” i whispered “yeah, Fred and Percy said you hit a lot of rebar going down after the wall. I’ll let mom and Ange know to up your healing regimen on your side" he sighed looking back at my leg "so wanna tell me why im in your bed and not in St Mungo's right now?" i asked "y'know men usually take girls out to dinner before having their way them in their bed... with their brother watching... never been one for exhibitionistm you know" i teased he snorted "that'd be the voyeur's fault" George winked pointing back to Fred teasingly "thanks for saving him by the way. don't worry Madame Pomfrey stops by every two weeks and she trained both me and Mum to take care of your daily needs. You're in good hands Angel" He added “incision looks good, you can start using the wheel chair youre a little ways away from getting a prosthetic” he smiled “George dear its time to change her….” “Shes up mum” George smiled “I’ll come back in a few minutes with lunch and your potions. I’ll send a quick Owl to Percy as well” He stood up after wrapping her leg then leaving the room giving the women privacy

ଘ(∩^o^)⊃━☆:·ﾟ✧*:·ﾟ✧✯:·ﾟ✧*:·ﾟ✧✯:·ﾟ✧*:·ﾟ✧✯:·ﾟ✧*:·ﾟ✧✯:·ﾟ✧*:·ﾟ

“Afternoon love. You look stunning today” Fred smiled when Angelina gave him a lingering kiss "get a room Voyeur" i stuck my tongue out at Fred he let out a fake offended gasp at me "excuse me ma'am, YOU'RE the one watching ME doesn't that make you the voyeur" he protested "well look at the kettle calling the cauldron black" i retorted "ooh you're just as annoying as..." Molly quickly cut him off before he could mention Ginny pulling the divider so he couldn't see her disrobing “heavens Angelina you're fine shes awake” Molly smiled “Molly Weasley love, ive been taking care of your side. Angies been helping while you were under” she smiles at me "_____, but George has been calling me Love, Pretty girl, Beautiful, Sweetheart, Angel... basically any pet name he can think of. quite endearing" i said with a small smile taking off the hospital gown they put me in “im Angelina, I wanted to thank you for saving my Fiancé” she gently taking off the bandages on my chest “it wasnt an issue I think he returned the favor and then some seeing as how he got blown up just seconds after i saved his behind” i chuckled glaring through the divider "I HEARD THAT BRATT! its not my fault that Bellatrix was a crazy witch out for blood" Fred protested "i fell through three floors for you. i get to have this!" i protested back “he didnt have to do much convincing. George was going to ask you to Yule ball, and any one who keeps that dingleberry alive is a friend in my book” Angie smiled breaking up the sibling squabble we were having “lift your arms for us?” Molly asked when Angelina finally got the bandage off “he was going to ask me to the ball?” I asked wincing when my arms came up armpit height dropping them slightly “ive got you girl” Angelina caught my arms and lifted so Molly could repair the split skin “yeah, he was. George wouldn’t stop talking about it for weeks then McClaggen beat him to it. Sulked for weeks on end” Angie shook her head in amusement "he wouldnt stop moaning about it either" Fred chimed in "he was worse than moaning Myrtle" you could hear the disgust and teasing in his voice “thats sweet. He probably would’ve been a better choice. McClaggen was an arse” i smiled “your cut seems to be healing well, looks like you still have that infection. I’ll add the antibiotics back into your medicine” Molly smiled as she wrapped the bandage back around my chest taking down the divider again Fred promptly flipped me off where i just stuck my tongue out at him again

“Alright George, Fred, we’ll be off” Molly smiled “see you later love, have a good day at work. mum” Fred kissed Angie “call if you need anything George” Angelina smiled he nodded “Take these” George handed her the potions he sat on his bed next to her as he held the empty ones and handed me the full potion phials “how you feeling Pretty girl?” “Like i fell three floors out of a castle” i gagged drinking the potions that tasted exactly like feet "ugh you think that theyd be kind to people who almost die" i choked out  he chuckled “i would’ve said yes by the way” he cocked an eyebrow a me “Ange told her that you were going to ask her to Yule ball” Fred filled in “i wouldve said yes, McClaggen was a dick” i handed him the empty phials as he handed me the full bottles “we can go dancing later if you wanted too, i enjoy dancing i usually go to the muggle clubs on 5th. They have salsa nights, or ball room dancing. You know. to make up for the ball” i smiled his blush grew “i might just take you up on that when youre ready and comfortable enough on your new leg” he fell into a playful flirtation “even with one leg sir, i can out dance you” gaining a laugh from Fred “if youre already joking about having only one leg what was all that crying about?” “FRED!” George tried to scold “Honestly?” i cut him off looking to Fred “i was just glad it was my right leg. I had a bad tattoo that i had to get removed. Someone shouldve told that eater he didnt need to go THAT extreme” i jested “tattoo?” George asked “it was a swallow. It used to match my mom. honestly it really was a bad tattoo” i smiled “you think the healers would let me get a peg leg? OOH! I could even get an eye patch!” They both erupted into laughter “nah im just pulling your right legs since you know i dont have one” “alright alright stop!! It hurts to laugh dick head!” “HEY! Its peg leg to you! I dont have a dick. Or a dick head for that matter. But i will have a fake leg.” i yelled at Fred playfully he just laughed harder at that “ARG MATEY!”  The three share a laugh George catches his breath “who wouldve known you were so funny” he gave her a toothy grin that turned into a closed mouth smile “i make light of bad situations. My brother, ____. He used to call me sunshine and sing this stupid muggle song ‘ive got sunshine… on a cloudy day… when its cold out side, ive got the month of May….’” i laughed “my girl. From the temptations. He used to call me sunshine” “who knew you could sing” Fred Jested “i cant. But he could” i smiled at Fred “you have a brother?” George asked “Had” i smiled “took a curse for me told me to go find mum and dad, Dad died outside the room of requirement, protecting firsties. And my mom… she was tortured near the beginning.” i smiled sadly “Ginny ended up passing too” he smiled sadly she gave him a sympathetic smile squeezing his hand “i was crying because it looked like it came this close to crushing me entirely and for some reason im still alive. Something from the grace of Merlin im alive, i was happy that im Alive” i looked at George who was looking at me with a guilty expression

“come on handsome… wheres that pretty smile you had on for me i worked hard for that you know. Im not a good flirt. I was hoping youd lead, and hopefully ask me to dinner or coffee if i played my cards right. Its not every day someone as pretty as you are is willing to take care of me to laugh with me or at me” i reached up to his face he leaned into my touch chuckling completely red in the face “im okay, we four knew what was going on and what was at risk im okay. Promise.” i smiled softly at him he smiled “Handsome huh?” “You called me beautiful when im obviously a mess.” i shrugged he started smiling again she noticed his dimples and the way his cheeks creased and my face heated up “theres my pretty smile… you have really really pretty eyes… and dimples…. Did i mention i have a thing for guys with dimples.” i smiled rubbing a thumb on his cheek he looked down and back up to my eyes trying to find the right words “youre pretty even if youre a mess” he smiled softly “yep thats it. Ive decided. Youre the handsome twin.” “HEY!” Fred protested “take that!” George smiled laughing at triumphantly like that was an argument theyve had multiple times Fred who was pouting crossing his arms over his chest “youre the nicest twin” She smiled at Fred “acceptable” he smiled at me “im going to get your lunches” he smiled to them “thank you. Can i use your owl again? I need to owl gringots. Get some money for rent and food and care” i muttered to myself “no need. All taken care of” Fred said “you saved me. You dont pay for shit when in our care” he shrugged ending the conversation “do you really want a peg leg?” Fred asked out of the blue “i’ll take what i get.” i shrugged. “At least let me help with groceries” i huffed annoyed “once a month” George bargains “Zero times and shes happy about it” Fred protests “Three times but i let you pay for my prosthetic” she countered “no times, we pay for the prosthetic and she gets what she wants at the shop” fred demanded “we pay for your prosthetic, twice a month, you transfigure your own room, personal care supplies fully yours” George offered “thats a deal i can live with… did you just ask me to move in with you without you asking me out on a date first? When can i expect a proposal? Or should i ask Percy to bring Kingsley and skip to ‘I do’” i smiled at George and he flushed 50 shades of red as Fred snickered “you say youre not good at flirting but this is the third time youve rendered Georgie here speechless” Fred laughed she looked at Fred as he looked back at her “i cant help it i almost died, and lifes too short for me to keep being shy. Theres a first for everything right? Who wouldve known the first man outside of Percy and you i try to actually talk too would flirt with me. He could be my first love, my first actual relationship maybe. He could be my husband one day. Quit butting in youre ruining my shot i dont know how many of these i have you know. Mangled face and peg leg. I wanna get it right the first time! Who knows. Maybe if i flirt enough i’ll get him to fall completely head over heels in love with half of a girl i used to be Perc always told me to put myself out there. What a better time then now?” i shrugged Fred laughed “im not butting out Maam we share a room! Theres no possible way for me to butt out your business IS my business! And with the way youre going Love" Fred called out the way George would say it "he’ll be in love with you by the end of the week” Fred snickered George just shrugged “i had a crush on you in 5th year.” He looked at me it was my turn to be rendered speechless “you wont have to work too hard to make me fall for you Pretty Girl we're already half way there” he shrugged leaving the room leaving me speechless

°✩₊✩°。⋆˚⁺⁺˚⋆。°✩₊✩°。⋆˚⁺⁺˚⋆。°✩₊✩°。⋆˚⁺⁺˚⋆。°✩₊✩☆━(╹-╹’’)

A month had passed Fred was able to start his Physical therapy and Molly wasnt coming by daily anymore “FUCK!” Fred screamed “come on Freddie you can do it!” i cheered him on from my seated position on the bed  “it feels like my insides are going to spill out” He whimpered clinging to Georges shoulder “two more steps Freddie. Just have to make it to the chair” George encouraged “FUCK FUCK” he groaned “almost there Freddie youve got this!” He slowly took another step as i cheered him on "come on Freddie boy make that chair your bitch" i teased  he looked at her and smiled “thanks love.” He smiled taking another step reaching the chair “alright good good sit rest. We’ll go back to bed in 5” he smiles at his twin George looked at me with a smile “time to check my stump handsome?” i looked up to George “yes pretty girl. Time to check your leg, and your eye” he smiled i removed the blanket hissing as she moved further up the bed and turning to throw my leg off the side he sits in the stool next to the bed “any pain?” He asked as he looked at my eye with the flash light “just my side. I think your mom said it was an infection again. Apparently my core isnt strong enough to battle muggle infections.” i shrugged “follow my finger” i watched his finger as he moved it “sometimes it feels like my leg is still there and and its like a sharp pain. But its not there and its weird” i talk as he covers my right eye “i can see your face” i smile at him “she woke up screaming last night” Fred said to the air “she said she was fine her leg just hurt” “why didnt i hear the scream?” He asked as he unwrapped the leg “she casted a muffelito on the room before she fell asleep” Fred ratted her out “tattle tail” i stuck my tongue out at him “brat” he hissed back “Baby!” She teased “toddler!” He yelled back “you have crappy hair!” i crossed my arms over my chest “TAKE THAT BACK!” Fred yelled “MAKE ME YOU CRIPPLE!” George laughed at the banter "PEGLEG!" he stuck his tongue out at me "you two are toddlers" George rolled his eyes  “i… have nightmares. I didnt think it was an issue” i said as he looked at the leg “youre healing fast. Should be able to take the staples out soon, we’ll call madame Pomfrey to come fit you for a prosthetic. Tell me if this hurts” he said as he gently massaged my thigh above the stump i gasped as he gently squeezed “feels great” i said breathily “teach me” i whispered to him he smiled as i placed my hands over his he looked back down putting his hands over mine as he moved my fingers showing me how to ease the pain of the lost leg “it wont hurt forever…” he said softer i smiled at him “thank you George for doing this for me” i looked down “hey. Its handsome to you, Pretty girl, you saved Fred. Its the least I can do.” He kissed the top of my head “youre the kindest person I have ever met… and id get myself crushed over and over again if it meant I got to meet you all over again George. You’re making me fall for you. Is this one sided? Dont make me out to be a fool” i whispered in his ear gently kissing his cheek, his eyes widened in shock at the forwardness and tenderness this girl had for him they’ve only known each-other for about three months at this point he cleared his throat taking his hands off her leg “he's blushing like an idiot again! what did you say to him!” Fred who was watching intently with a bag of crisps “did you accio a bag of crisps?" i furrowed my eyebrows “its not every day i have a front row seat to my brothers love life. There i answered yours now answer mine” Fred rolled his eyes “I told him I thought he has pretty eyes” i fibbed they both know i did he raised an eye brow at me George still staring with red on his cheeks i shrugged

“i didnt lie. He’s…." i blushed looking down “nevermind” i turned over in bed facing the wall he leans over placing a hand on my hip gently and kisses my cheek “youd never be the fool when im with you. Its not one sided. Im the fool love made a whole career out of it. But im also a fool falling in love with the sweetest most beautiful woman I’ve ever met and I’m the lucky one to get to take care of her” he whispered into my ear he pushes off the bed “WAIT WHAT DID HE SAY!!!” Fred groaned eating another crisp “thats for her to know. And you to find out NEVER” George said walking toward him “Come on Fred, lets get back to bed” George hoisted him up after putting the crips off to the side “i was eating those!” He pouted “sod the crisps you need to do this pt!” George yelled gaining a laugh from _____. A month had passed since then, “Afternoon Pretty girl, I need to check your stump��� he smiled setting my plate of food on the dresser “we can get Pomfrey in here to measure you for your leg soon. And your physical therapy with Fred and I” i smiled back “can you massage my leg handsome? Its starting to hurt again….” i whispered “alright love, just for a little” he smiled she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror i frowned as Fred met my eyes mood immediately dropping “I gotta get down to the shop before Lee bites my head off.” He smiled at me and i returned it “have a good day at work Handsome” “thank you pretty girl” he smiled when the door closed my smile faded as i stared into the mirror tears formed in my eyes Fred looked at her concerned “you okay Love?" Fred whispered “I miss my brother” i sniffled “he always knew what to say” “well im not your brother but im in need for a sister… if youre in need of a brother… i think we both qualify to fill each others open positions yeah?” He asked i turned to him looking at him with tears in my eyes “teach me what to say, let me be your brother love" He looked at me with gentile eyes

“tell me im deserving pf love even if im broken and ugly” i mumbled he was taken aback he took in a breath and smiled “love, you’re gorgeous, George sees how pretty you are and youve got him whipped. You deserve him and the love he wants to give you trust me” hours passed when George walked in with our dinners light sniffles could be heard from the other side of the room my back was turned to him he looked to Fred who just gave him a tight lipped smile and walked to the other side of the room after handing him his plate he set mine down next to my un-touched lunch plate on the bed side table “hey pretty girl…. What’s wrong… you in pain?” i shook my head no “what’s wrong beautiful, tell me what’s the matter how can I make you smile again?” He cooed softly “Dont lie to me” my voice hoarse like i had been crying for hours he reached to wipe away a tear ”what do you mean I’ve never lied to you Beautiful” hurt hit me square in the chest “you just did. You always do.. mangled face, missing leg. I stare at the girl ive become all day that mirror haunts me my own reflection is a reminder that im alone. And im no longer beautiful and its sickening you dont have to keep flirting with me because you feel obligated to. No one wants someone like me. Not anymore im not pretty and im definitely not beautiful. I have no one. No ones here” i sobbed more closing my eyes sniffling “I miss my brother. He would be in this bed with me. Holding me. Telling me to cheer up sunshine the worlds cloudy and gray without you please sunshine smile for me? combing through my hair like he always did holding me together while I fall apart but hes gone. My mums gone. My dads gone. I havent slept in four months the nightmares keep coming back and I just want to cry I cant be the girl that flirts twenty four seven with a guy thats too polite to tell me that it makes him uncomfortable when this is all over im going to be alone again just let mw grieve the loss of my leg, my family, and my face. I have no where to go. All I have is an empty house my best friend died, my leg hurts twenty four seven and I just need to be sad for a few hours can you leave me alone for a few hours I’ll be normal again in the morning I dont need your pity” he continued to wipe the tears off my face as he processed what i said “im not going to stop calling you pretty, and beautiful because thats what I see when I look at you Angel, I mean look at you love…” he said softer “just look at you….. i cant take my eyes off of you… youre just too good to be true the sight of you leaves me weak there are no words left to describe how pretty you are sweetie”  lifting my face in his cupped hands “youre stunning you leave me breathless, all those things you just mentioned are fixable, love, half of what you said isnt true, you really think that Fred and Angelina is going to leave you alone after youre all healed up and better? Youve got another thing coming. Theyre never going to stop you have friends. Percy’s been here every day since we owled. Fred and Angie made it clear youre their person” he smiled softly “im not letting you go either im afraid youre stuck with me you still owe me a date, and a dance” he whispered standing up and draping a blanket over the mirror i cried more as she felt the bed dip behind me he pulled me into his side one arm under my head one on my torso pulling me on my back fingers immediately going to y hair “if you needed someone to hold you. You could’ve just said so I would’ve done this ages ago if you needed it” he brushed his fingers through my hair humming softly

“and you dont have to say anything to me at all. I flirt with you because I enjoy flirting with you. You make me happy and light, you render me speechless and no one. And I mean no one can do that. But you can, thats why I do what I do you dont make me uncomfortable love. I miss Ginny too. She was a spitfire and its hard not having her around anymore, and if its alright, I want to hold you while we cry about our siblings yeah?” He asked i turned on my side draping an arm over his torso “im sorry about Ginny… her and Luna were really nice to me” i sniffled “I need you to eat for me… I’ll eat with you.” He pulled the roll off of my plate, ripping it in half handing it to me “im sorry about your brother Pretty girl" he whispered as he ate making sure i ate some of the food as well

ଘ(∩^o^)⊃━☆:·ﾟ✧*:·ﾟ✧✯:·ﾟ✧*:·ﾟ✧✯:·ﾟ✧*:·ﾟ✧✯:·ﾟ✧*:

A few hours later i let out a yawn d he started to get up out of bed my arm tightened around him feeling safe for the first time since ive woken up seven months ago “stay…” i said softly his shirt balling in my curled hand “please stay tonight” i whispered he let himself fall back into the bed “Darling wha… what do you mean?” He asked softly “Sleep here… in your bed…. I…. I need sleep…. And im scared to….. theyll come back and haunt me” i whispered “mate she hasnt slept in months i stay up with her as long as i can but i always pass put.” Fred piped up blush spread across my cheeks and i let him go flipping over to my other side embarrassed that i needed someone to make me feel safe enough to sleep “nevermind its stupid forget i said anything” i sniffled he simply reached over and turned out the light “i’ll stay for as long as you need me to stay Pretty girl" he kissed the top of my head again pulling me back into his chest his arm under my head curling back to put his hand in my hair other hand engulfing mine “i’ve got sunshine…. On a cloudy day….” He sung softly twirling my hair in his fingers “when its cold outside, ive got the month of may.. well i guess you say what can make me feel this way” she fell asleep holding onto his hand tightly

“George dear” Molly called out “SHHHH!” Fred said getting out of his bed hissing in pain “let them sleep for a little while longer this is the first shes sleeping since she woke up” he looked back to the girl who hid her face in his twins chest “lets go talk outside” Fred smiled one last time at them sleeping before throwing his arm over his mom and leaning on her for support as they walked out of the room shutting the door lightly

three hours later my eyes fluttered open looking at his sleeping face our lips were so close i bit my lip as his breath fanned over my face a surge of confidence emerged heart hammering against my chest i leaned up and gently pressed my lips to his, his brows furrowed as he stretched slightly pulling me impossibly close to him eyes fluttering open “i….. im sorry,. I didnt know what came over me i shouldve asked fir…” i was cut off by his lips on mine the kiss was soft and slow “goodmorning pretty girl, thank you for the amazing wake up” he murmured against my lips kissing her again “dont be sorry beautiful, ive been waiting for that” he cupped my face with his hand my face contorted in pain “thanks for staying” “i told you already baby… im here for as long as you need me to be” i let out a tear “whats the matter pretty girl? Nervous about your new leg?” He asked softly “im actually really excited for that really. Its just that my leg hurts… and its not even there anymore” i cried softly  “it wont hurt forever…” he said softer “i barely have pain in my ear anymore” he smiled showing me his missing ear she reached up and stroked the hair that fell onto the hole on the side of his head “i still think youre gorgeous Georgeous if you will.. ear, or no ear youre perfect to me… so perfect and kind and caring…” i whispered as i kissed the side of his head where his ear wouldve been his eyes widened in shock at the tenderness of this moment, just for him. He chuckles “only you would make that play on words huh? so cheesy Baby" he rubs my cheek with the pad of his thumb “baby youre so beautiful, and i want you..” he whispered moving his face closer to mine “leg or no leg i think youre amazing, smart, funny, and kind. Unbelievably beautiful and i dont think you should use the cream on your scars, it shows just how strong you are they dont define you or subtract from how i see you. And i would love it, if you’d accompany me to dinner when youre able to, i’ll ask again later when you get your leg and i help you learn how to walk again i want you” he whispered softly massaging my stump as he talked my eyes widened “i guess what im saying is i need you here with me… in the flat.. with me.. everyday youre the first thing i ever want to see and talk too when i get home from the shop youre the first thing i cant wait to see when i wake up… and i need you to stay here with me? Please? I promise you i wont hurt you.. just stay with me and i’ll take care of you.. whatever you need. Angel, please  ive never felt this way about anyone im in love with you Angel please... stay" he breathed out looking at me his arm snaking back up and around my waist tightening around me “im in love with you too George, and... and i want to stay with you.. you and Freddie...” i whispered he kissed me deeply it was a hungry and needy heated kiss the hand around the stump tightened as he pulled me even cliser to him putting the stump over his hip “baby i love you” looking into my eyes kissing me again

@george-weasleys-girl

[purplecoffee13]

Are You Offering?*

Summary: Adalia, Harry’s former best friend and ex-friend-with-benefits gets drunk on a random Thursday night and Harry feels obligated to check on her.

Wc: 4.5k

Tropes: former best friends with loads of sexual tension. Longhair!Harry

Warnings: overstimulation, degradation, praising, edging, possessiveness if you squint real hard

A/N: ITS HARRY’S POV. This is originally something from a story I had written about twenty chapters for, but it didn’t stick. The smut did, though, so have this in the mean time while I try to get out of the biggest writers block of the century :)

Adalia is drunk.

It’s a Thursday night, Adalia is drunk, and who has to check on her? Me.

Okay so technically I don’t have to check on her, so what? It’s still annoying.

Adalia and I had been in the same friend group for a while. We used to be really close. Our mutual best friend Jordan always joked about her and me ending up together, and it made us realize the tension we had. It resulted in a friends-with-benefits relationship, because I wasn’t ready for a real one.

Then suddenly, she started dating this prick called Tommy. He was an insecure little bitch who ordered her around and she just let him. It frustrated the group to no end, so much that one day I found myself fighting him in an alley.

Adalia blamed me, and distanced herself from me ever since. You’d think we’d grown closer again after she found out Tommy cheated on her, but no. She stayed mad at me and I stayed mad at her for being mad at me.

It hasn’t been much later than two weeks when I’m stopping by Jordan’s house. He has been sick for a week and a half and I wanted to check up on him. He’s starting to feel better, he tells me. Then suddenly, our conversation is interrupted by a phone call.

It’s Adalia, asking something about going to the club together because she needs to get laid. Jordan tells her he can’t today, but will take her this Saturday. I hear a faint groan coming from the other line before they say their goodbyes and hang up.

Even though I stay there for another hour, I can’t get Adalia off my mind. I’m was worried about her and I don’t want her doing anything stupid.

As I'm driving down the streets an hour later, I can't help but think of one face. It bothers me, so I turn the volume of my music up, hoping to get my mind off it.

I find myself unconsciously driving to a house, one that is not mine. I step out of the car and walk up the front door, taking a deep breath before ringing the doorbell. It takes a while before the door opens, but when it does, I am met with wide eyes.

"What are you doing here?"

Is the first thing Adalia asks when she sees me. She is wearing a big shirt with shorts that can only be seen when she raises her arms. She quickly hides her body behind the door, realizing what she's wearing when she catches me eyeing her bare legs.

"Jordan said you were drunk." I meet her eyes.

"I was tipsy, and that was like an hour ago." She explains, her tone shows me that she is suspicious of my actions. "Why are you here? Aren't you supposed to be hanging out with your friend?"

I shrug. "He needed his rest, so we cut it short. Anyway, he asked me if I could check up on you, make sure you hadn't ran off to a random club downtown."

"How much of that conversation did you hear?!" She groans, her eyebrows knitting together in anger and a bit of confusion. I give her a smirk, shrugging my shoulders again before stepping inside her apartment.

It's dimly lit, the television is on but the sound has been muted. On her coffee table, there is a lit candle from which I presume the vanilla smell stems that covers the entire apartment. I scan the furniture with my hand behind my back, taking in the different colors that are scattered through the apartment. It is exactly the opposite from my house, and not at all what I'd expected it to look like.

I hear the door close behind me, followed by some wood creaking footsteps. I can feel Adalia's presence behind me, but neither of us move.

"So?"

"So what?" I ask, unsure about her behavior, as it is not something I'm used to when it comes to her.

"What d'you think?" Her voice is so soft that it could nearly be classified as a whisper. I turn around, and am met with her relaxed posture, I even detect a hint of enjoyment in her eyes.

"Y'know, you're usually a bit more agitated when I'm around." I note, and she hums at my comment.

"Blame it on the alcohol."

My lips quirk up into a grin at her casual words, and I turn around to look at the interior of her house again, hands still behind my back. "So, you wanted to fuck some random guy from a club?"

"Or girl, I'm not picky." She swiftly claps back with a response that I did not expect. "Why? Have something better to offer?"

All of the muscles in my body automatically tense at her suggestive words. I have to swallow before I turn my body towards her and speak again.

"D'you want me to?" I slowly ask.

My voice has already grown more hoarse from the pure energy shift between us. The air has gotten thick, way too thick for me to walk out of here unscathed. I can feel my pants growing tighter with each second of our growing tension. I do nothing but watch as Adalia takes a few steps closer until she is right in front of me.

"Are you offering?"

As soon as those words have left her mouth, I hungrily push my lips onto hers, strengthening the intensity of the kiss by grabbing her face with my hand and pulling it closer to mine. We consist of nothing more than lust as we dance our tongues around each other and clutch to any body part we can find. It's unexpected but I felt it from the start, it's passion fueled by frustration, it's pure sex.

I let go of her face and use both of my arms to wrap her legs around me before I make my way to her couch. From the second I sit us down, her hips start rolling in just the right way to cause friction where I want, where I need it most. My hands clamp to her waist as she mercilessly dances against me, and she manages to get a guttural groan all the way from the back of my throat.

"Fuck.." I whisper under my breath.

"D'you like that?" I hear her breathy and seductive voice that somehow still holds a touch of innocence. I nearly cum in my pants at the sound of it.

"H-how could I not, darling?" I try to keep my composure. "Sweet girl, riding me so well."

The smirk with which she responds to the praise is devilish, and within seconds she stops moving above me.

"Take your hands off my waist." Adalia's sudden demand sounds serious, but I detect she has a plan in mind. I do as she says anyway, curious to see where this is going. She leans forward, her hot breath fanning against my ear.

"Tell me Harry," she softly whispers, and I close my eyes and clench my jaw, trying my hardest not to flip us over and fuck her into oblivion until she forgets her own name. "Do you think you could cum from just this?"

As she forms the sentence, she rolls her hips against me, and I moan at the fierce contact. "S-shit... yes, love."

I hear the small sigh from the mention of my nickname for her, and I have to stop my lips from curling upwards. She might think she's in control right now, but this still proves the exact opposite.

Without another word she begins riding me, fully clothed with the friction of the fabric only making it worse. It takes everything in me not to dig my nails into her waist. I groan and curse shamelessly, enjoying this far too much to keep my cool anymore.

Adalia keeps whispering messy, dirty encouraging words into my ear that singlehandedly make me go feral, and it doesn't take a lot of time before I can feel a high getting close.

"Jesus fuck- Adalia, if you keep going like this I'm gonna fucking cum." I warn her, but for her that seems to be a reason to go faster than before. I throw my head back, accepting that she is really about to make me cum in pants. Or so I thought, because she stops very abruptly when I'm about to tip off the edge.

She edged me?

I look at her with a deeply furrowed brow, her face that has nothing but delight written all over it. She gets off my lap and kneels on the ground in front of the couch, between my spread legs. I look at her, leaned back against the couch,  still coming down from the immense pleasure I was experiencing just a few seconds ago.

She starts fiddling with my trousers, and once she's lowered my zipper, I push up my hips so she can take my pants off. My cock springs out of my underpants and falls onto my lower stomach. I have to admit that I take some pride in the fact that Adalia's eyes still grow wide despite having seen my cock a number of times in the past.

She quickly regains her confidence, though, spitting some saliva into her right hand and reaching for my cock. I hiss when she starts stroking me, shifting in my seat a bit.

"How'd you like me sucking your cock, Harry? Is that something you'd enjoy?"

I simply grin at her and her smug attitude, grazing my hand over her hair. "Well, I was offering, wasn't I?"

She smiles back and lowers her mouth onto my cock. With my jaw set, I moan at the sudden boldness with which she takes nearly all of me in her mouth at once before pulling back entirely. She strokes my dick a couple of more times before applying her mouth again, and when she does, she doesn't hold back.

I examine her movements, in total awe of how she manages to satisfy me in just the way I need with her filthy mouth. My eyes avert from her and I look around the apartment and it's cute, cozy decor. The way her day to day personality polarizes her attitude when it comes to sex might be one of the biggest turn ons I have ever experienced.

"Look at you," I automatically start talking, I can't help it with the way she is so desperately sucking my cock. "You're enjoying this even more than me, aren't you?"

Her moan vibrates onto my dick and I tighten my grip on her hair in response. I bite my lip at the delicious sight in front of me, and a part of me wants to let her finish me up, but I do the opposite instead. With a harsh pull, I take her mouth away from my cock. She gasps, her lips are swollen and a tear drop trickles from her right eye.

"You've had your fun love, it's my turn again." I announce to her. "Take your pants off and come sit on my lap again."

She stays silent as she takes off her shorts and her panties before slowly positioning herself on my lap again. With my cock on my lower stomach, I place her just so she sits by the base of my cock, being able to grind over it if I would command her to.

My fingers hover over to her pussy, and she gasps when I finally touch her. She is absolutely drenched, add that up to the list of panties I've already ruined.

"You're soaked, love." I softly tell my observation to her, and she whimpers when my thumb grazes over her clit. "Enjoyed sucking me off so much, did you?"

"Yes.." she answers, her hips moving at my degrading words for her. It still surprises me how she likes to receive the exact same things I usually like to give, at least it makes us a good pair in one field.

"Fucking filthy... Nearly made me cum just now. Did you need that? Did you need to feel control for a little bit?" I softly stroke her folds, and she nods at my questions, confirming my suspicions.

"I just want you to know love." I grab her chin, and turn her head to me, forcing her to look at me. "You were only in control because I allowed you."

Her eyes soften as I shove my fingers inside of her, and a loud moan erupts form her mouth. A string of stumbling curse words leave her mouth as I push my index and middle finger in and out of her, turning her into a weak mess. She attempts to mumble how good I'm making her feel, but the pleasure is taking too much of her energy.

"Take off your shirt." I demand.

"Take off yours."

A smirk falls from my lips at her bold reply, but I accept it, pulling my fingers out of her (which is received with a disappointed whimper) and rapidly taking off my shirt. She watches with her bottom lip caught between her teeth, which is replaced with a wide open mouth when I slide my fingers back inside of her. She takes off her shirt, revealing her gorgeous, full breasts.

I impulsively react by working my fingers faster on her, and she arches her back in pure erotic bliss. My free hand grabs onto one of her tits and starts massaging them and playing with her nipples, knowing it to be a sensitive spot. She cries out my name, not seeming to care if anyone hears.

"How does it feel, love?"

"Keep going! Please- I'm gonna cum." She whines, her hips starting move along to get her closer to her high. To add a little more pace, I start to rub her clit, which seems to intensify her pleasure even more as she starts to actually scream my name.

So, I stop.

Her legs are shaking, so desperate for a release that all of a sudden won't come anymore. She looks at me, anger written all over her face. Before I even get to bark out my next order, she places her hands on her clit and starts rubbing frantically.

My jaw clenches, frustrated that she is being so stubborn, but a second plan hits my mind, so I let her fuck herself with her own fingers.

Her eyebrows curl upwards and her jaw is slack as she comes all over her own fingers, and while she experiences the aftershocks, her cum drips onto my cock. With her eyes still closed, she doesn't see me placing my cock in front of her entrance, but she does feel it when I impale her on my dick.

"Ah! Harry!" She calls out as I pound upwards into her. Her whole body, still weak from her orgasm, bounces at each of my harsh trusts.

"That's what you get for being a fucking impatient whore." I bark at her, watching her crumble under the intensity of my touch.

I lower myself until I'm completely out of her, and throw her next to me on the couch. She falls face first and I quickly get off the couch as she tries to get herself up with her hands. Without so much as a warning, I grab her hips and guide her until she is standing in front of the couch, bent over for me.

I grab a handful of her hair and pull at it when I enter inside of her again. The pathetic whines that leave her throat encourage me to immediately pick up my pace, which she seems to like judging from her vocal response.

"Y'know you wouldn't get this treatment from a stranger you meet in the club." I tell her as I keep my tempo steady. I can feel the sweat dripping from my forehead, and the skin slapping sounds have risen the temperature of the already warm room.

"It was worth a-  ah! It's worth a try." Adalia stammers out, her breath hitching at every thrust.

"Yeah? You don't want to be fucked by me anymore?" I ask her, and when she doesn't answer I give a harsh tug on her hair. "Want me to stop?"

She stays relatively quiet, apart from the messy whimpers coming from her. I roll my eyes and stop moving, keeping my cock inside of her.

"N-no! Don't stop, please don't stop.." She cries. I immediately start moving again, partly because I desperately need too. I watch as she clamps onto the couch cushion until her knuckles turn white, and by the way her walls are clenching around me, I am indirectly told that she isn't going to last long anymore.

"That's what I thought." I taunt her, slapping her ass. She gasps at the sudden sting and I admire the red handprint starting to form on her ass. I pull out of her again, turning her around so she is leant back on the couch and facing me.

"Want to see your face when I make you cum." I say before entering her sweet, soaked pussy again. Her tits bounce at the forceful way that I ram back into her, and her eyes roll into the back of her head. "Are you close, Adalia?"

She bites her bottom lip, nodding fiercely while trying to contain the volume of her endless sobs of pleasure. Her hands reach for my chest and she digs her nails in, just like she did with the couch cushion a few seconds ago. I groan, my orgasm coming faster now that she is touching me too. My left hand travels to her clit and starts rubbing it, wanting her to cum before I do so she can drench my entire cock with the consequences of the effect I have on her.

"Harry I- Fuck!" She screams so loud that I am now completely sure the neighbors have heard us. Her legs tremble as she comes all over me. I watch in awe at the orgasm and the impact it has on her body. I keep thrusting into her, getting dangerously close but wanting to ride her through her orgasm.

After she has calmed a bit, I softly get my dick out of her, starting to stroke it to get to my own high.

"Cum for me Harry, please, I need it." She begs, knowing it will send me over the edge, and it does exactly that. I moan as my orgasm finally reaches my body, and I spurt my cum over her stomach and tits.

We both take a bit of time to come down from everything, staying in the same position and just focusing on regulating our breathing again. I look at her with a smirk on my face, and watch joyfully as she wipes some cum off her tits and puts her finger in her mouth.

I dive my head into her pussy and her back immediately arches when my tongue comes in contact with her clit. I originally intended to just lick her up and kiss her to taste us together, but her immediate whimpers have me changing my plan.

I flick my tongue around her clit and lick her clean, all while she struggles to get out anything that even sounds like a word.

"H-Harry.. I- oh my god, oh.." Adalia grabs my hair, tugging on it in an attempt to calm me down. I know she is extremely sensitive right now, but it'll make her cum more easily. "I don't— I can't.. ah!"

I take my mouth off her for a second, replacing it with my finger. "Yes you can. C'mon, come for me again love."

It's just the name I needed to use before putting my mouth on her again, and within a few seconds, she's cumming all over my face. A string of incoherent words leave her mouth, and her hand that was tightly holding my hair slowly loosens it's grip.

This time, I solely help her ride out her high. When I come up to see her face, her eyes are closed and she looks extremely weak from the three, or technically two, orgasms I've brought her.

I get up from the couch and walk towards what I assume to be the bathroom, to grab a towel. With one in hand, I hurry back to the couch and clean her up. She is extremely sensitive, flinching every time the towel grazes her skin a little too hard.

After everything has been cleaned up, Adalia lifts herself off the couch to go to the bathroom, her legs shaking with every step she takes. I wait in the living room until she returns.

The toilet flushes and soon enough she is limping out of the bathroom. She has put on a new pair of panties (God knows where she grabbed those), and is walking on a pair of slippers. She seats herself on the edge of the couch and looks at me with a sympathetic smile.

"You don't have to stay."

I stare blankly at her for a few seconds, the words need some time to register in my brain. She is right, I don't have to be here for any longer than needed. I can walk out the door without a worry, I don't have a reason to stay.

I can't believe I don't have a reason to stay anymore.

I swallow, gathering words in my brain but only one comes out. "Right.."

We maintain our eye contact for a couple more seconds before I get up from the couch. I look around the room one last time, unconsciously stalling my leaving, and then start strolling towards the front door.

I turn around, checking if I won't hear any peep from Adalia, but she is just smiling at me. The side of my lips quirk up for a second, casually returning her kind gesture.

"Bye." I hear her sweet voice as I open the door.

"Bye." I manage to say faintly, my voice sounding bored and monotone, when that could not be further from the truth. I walk through the door, letting it shut behind me. I stand still as soon as I hear the click, reaching for my pocket to fetch my car keys.

I feel a pang in my chest when I hear the jingling sound, I didn't leave them inside by accident. My feet feel like cement as I walk towards the elevator, too heavy to carry all the way downstairs. My eyes keep staring into the distance while making my way back to the car. Once inside with the door shut, a groan leaves my mouth.

Frustration runs through my veins. It feels as though this interaction has only enriched the amount of irritation, instead of lowering it.

I didn't have a reason to stay.

The thought keeps haunting my mind, all the way home. Even as I lie in my bed, I stare at the ceiling and it comes back to me. I didn't have that obligation, she didn't expect me to sit there with her. I didn't have a reason because she didn't need me to stay.

So why does a part of me want a reason?

[flanaganfilm]

Hey Mike! First off, it makes me so happy to see you out there fighting with your writer friends to ensure they receive a decent living wage for the amazing work that they do.

As for my question, I would love to hear about some of the inspiration for making Before I Wake. It and Absentia were the last two of your films that I watched, and BIW just absolutely destroyed me. No other movie, including and especially a horror flick, has ever made me bawl like a baby like that. The entire tone of the film is so spot-on, and the climax of the nightmare monster “dissolving” from its evil form after being embraced…. To me that scene just perfectly encapsulates what it’s like to be a parent, and human; sometimes we just need someone to hold us and let us know things will be all right. We spend so much of our time making sure that our children feel loved and cared for, that sometimes we forget about ourselves. And you just fucking nailed it, my dude.

Like I said, I would LOVE to read any backstory or inspiration that you have for this film! It’s so beautiful and underrated.

On the WGA front, don't be too impressed with me - I mean, I'm a professional writer, I've been a member of the WGA since Absentia, so I'm out there fighting for myself as much as everyone else.

But on the Before I Wake front, you know I very rarely get asked to talk about this one, so I'm happy to... fair warning for another long post!

Before I Wake was originally titled Somnia, which is latin for "dreams." It was part of an unofficial trilogy of sorts, comprised of Absentia, Oculus and Somnia. All three of those movies were meant to work together as a thematic triptych.

Ultimately, Before I Wake was brutally sabotaged by its own studio, who drastically undermined it creatively and then destroyed any hope of a meaningful release. It remains a particularly heartbreaking chapter of my career... but a film I have and will always have tremendous affection for.

A lot of people think that Somnia was made after Hush and Ouija: Origin of Evil, just before Gerald's Game, but this is entirely incorrect. It was actually the second "real" movie I ever made, and was actually shot before Oculus was even released.

The basic premise of Somnia focused around a little boy whose dreams manifested physically in the world around him, and was an original concept I carried around for a few years before Oculus got picked up by Intrepid Pictures. In fact, I've talked about my first meeting at Intrepid, where I pitched a few ideas that were rejected... Somnia was the first one I pitched. Trevor Macy opted to pursue Oculus that day, but he ended up producing Somnia right after.

This unofficial "latin trilogy" seemed to fit together well. Absentia was a somber and bleak look at the loss of hope, Oculus was more thrilling dive into the labyrinth of past trauma, and Somnia was meant to take that loss and trauma and end the triptych on a note of hope and healing.

In fact, the script for Somnia was written before Oculus was greenlit. On the page, it was my favorite of the three. I was very taken with the story of little Cody and his personal boogeyman, and of the revelation at the end of the story... that with understanding, even the most monstrous of our fears can lose their destructive power.

Cody's birth mother had died of cancer, and he had seen her just before her death. That final image of her, as well as a misunderstanding about the pronunciation of the word "cancer" had led to the creation of a monster in his mind, who he called the "Canker Man"... a gaunt figure who took away people that he loved. When he finally learns the truth about his monster, and about his mother, he begins to understand it all... and the monster loses its awful powers as empathy and understanding take root.

While Absentia finished its festival rounds and Oculus inched its way toward production, Somnia was my first script taken out to market by my new agency. I had signed with APA just as Intrepid engaged me on Oculus, which was my first studio writing and directing job. Jeff Howard and I finished our first draft of Oculus and turned it in to Intrepid, and immediately turned around and started writing Somnia.

The script got some interesting attention. While some of the more mainstream horror companies balked at the emotional ending and preferred a story that was "more about a boy and his monster" than the emotional wrap-up we insisted on, others understood it right away.

Elijah Wood and his producing partner Daniel Noah sought me out when they read the script. We met for drinks in Venice and I was absolutely starstruck, and we've remained friends ever since.

Jada Pinkett Smith was another big fan of the script, which led to a surreal afternoon at her stunning home where we talked about the story at length and watched an early cut of Oculus in her home theater. Will Smith joined us toward the end of the meeting, and I had a difficult time speaking.

I've written before about the drama surrounding Oculus' premiere and eventual sale to Relativity Media, so I won't rehash that now, but as Oculus raced toward release, Trevor Macy at Intrepid made an offer to produce Somnia for Relativity and I eagerly accepted. My first "real" movie was going to be released wide in theaters, and the same studio was going to double-down on me - Somnia was greenlit by Relativity for a big domestic theatrical release. We'd pre-sell our foreign territories on this promise, and they eagerly snatched the movie up. This was my own Hollywood dream, coming to life.

It wouldn't work out that way. In fact, Somnia would turn out to be the first nightmare of my career.

It started well enough. We had filmed Oculus in Daphne, Alabama, taking advantage of an aggressive tax rebate. We would do the same with Somnia, bringing back a lot of my Oculus crew and shooting in and around Fairhope. We began shooting in the fall of 2013, less than a year after we'd wrapped Oculus.

We hit the ground running. Very little time had passed since we wrapped Oculus, and the movie hadn't come out yet, so at first it felt a lot like we were just picking up where we left off.

Bruce Larsen, who also carved the Oculus mirror, working on a prototype of the Canker Man.

We had casting challenges. I was still a relatively unproven director, my first studio film hadn't been released, and this was an ambitious script. After a lengthy search (driven by foreign pre-sales, a process I knew nothing about and now quite detest), Kate Bosworth signed on to play Jessie, and Thomas Jane - who I admired greatly from his recent work in The Mist - joined the production as Mark. (Funny story - Tom arrived with hair down his shoulders, and vehemently didn't want to cut it. That disagreement put us off on an awkward foot, and I ultimately conceded the point to him... though I do regret that now.)

The major discovery was 7 year-old Jacob Tremblay as Cody. Jake had only made one movie before this, he had a small role in The Smurfs 2. His self-tape audition came out of nowhere and we knew was a a phenomenal talent. Right after we wrapped, I got a call that he was being considered for a movie called Room, and we shared some footage to help him get the part (that movie would establish him as one of the biggest and most sought after child actors in the world... but we had him first.)

We were committed to practical effects wherever possible, and creating a striking suit for our monster. It all felt like it was going to work. But the shoot would prove to be much more challenging than we anticipated.

The shoot itself was challenging for the typical reasons. There was a little creative tension on set with particular actors, we didn't have enough money to pull off our more ambitious visual moments, and we were forced to remove several production days at the last minute, throwing our schedule into a bit of chaos.

But none of these issues were particularly unusual for a lower budget film, and while it was more challenging and frustrating than Oculus had been, overall the shoot was just fine. I felt that our third act was pretty drastically under budgeted, and what was scripted to be a deep dive into a child's imagination was stripped down to a few vines on the walls and some moths... but other than that, I don't really have much to complain about.

(Fun fact: it was also the first time I would work with Annabeth Gish. We were fast friends, and though she was only with us for a few days, I knew we'd end up working together again.)

We wrapped the movie, I got to editing, and all seemed fine. It was a unique story, much less horror-centric and much more of a fairy-tale. This was, of course, by design. There was a delicate vibe to the whole thing, anchored on Jacob's arresting performance, and a shadowy magic. It felt innocent, wondrous, and ultimately cathartic.

Then, Relativity got their first look at the cut, and the problems started in earnest.

We had been clear (and aligned, I'd thought) about what kind of movie this was. But almost immediately, despite these conversations, the studio began to push the film more and more toward being a traditional horror movie.

We had designed a practical monster in the Canker Man. Our creature was tactile, practical, and - we believed - appropriately simple. After all, it was meant to have come from the mind of a child.

The studio kicked hard, and the directive came down to try to make the monster "much scarier."

There wasn't a lot we could do; we'd shot what we'd shot, after all. The decision was made to take our footage of our practical monster and drastically alter it using visual effects.

The Canker Man would be digitally warped and molded into a skeletal, grinning creature. The visual effects artists would be using footage that wasn't captured with the intention of being altered that way, so a lot of the artifice would be obvious. He'd become a little rough around the edges. We told ourselves that this would be okay... it was a dream, after all.

Early camera tests of our practical Canker Man suit

The final VFX-enhanced monster This began to nudge our monster away from our core concept. While our practical suit would always need some help from VFX, this was now tilting into an area that strayed from the true identity of the creature.

Another major sticking point was the plot itself.

In the movie, Cody's adopted mother Jessie is shocked to find a physical manifestation of her deceased son, Sean, after Cody sees his picture. She then goes about trying to "rebuild" her dead son in the imagination of her new foster child, hoping to see and interact with him more... "I just want to hear his voice."

This morally questionable exploitation of Cody was, to put it mildly, the entire point of the story. Jessie goes too far, and when she finally resorts to drugging Cody to force him to sleep in the hopes of seeing her lost son, he is unable to wake up from a nightmare and her husband is killed.

Jessie spends the rest of the film clawing her way back to redemption, and having to atone for what she's done, all while finally focusing on Cody's past and healing instead of her own.

As a character, Jessie does things we do not agree with, and they have serious, permanent consequences. And the moral murkiness of this was, frankly, the point.

The studio was flinching hard. "It makes her unlikeable," they argued. There was a push to try to back off of this, and to pull the punch... sure, she could exploit him somewhat, but they wanted to pull it back. Kate Bosworth's performance began to be altered in the cutting room, flinching away from some of the more decisive choices in favor of a more watered-down, morally generic heroine.

This middle ground would prove to be ill-advised.

As we were battling over the edit, something else happened. Oculus was released in theaters in April 2014.

If the movie was a huge hit, it would mean I would likely win more of these arguments, and Somnia would be restored to something closer to my vision. If the movie bombed, the studio could (and likely would) run ramshot over Somnia, twisting it into a more generic studio horror story and jettisoning things they didn't quite understand.

Ultimately, the movie performed... moderately. It was kind of right in the middle. It wasn't a failure, but it wasn't a hit either. Both sides dug in. And suddenly, Somnia was being twisted into something between two tones.

Citing the "disappointing" performance of Oculus (which, frankly, did just fine), the studio insisted that we write and shoot some additional "scares". Among them was one of the worst studio notes I'd ever receive (well, at least until I started working for Netflix.)

The entire premise of the film was that, when Cody slept, his dreams would manifest physically. When he woke up, they would vanish. This was, to put it bluntly, our only rule.

The note came in: "We need a scare set piece to occur when he is awake."

Now, I can't understate how nonsensical this is. It defied the entire premise of the movie. Their rationale (such as it was) was that the audience wouldn't ever be frightened when Cody was awake, because they knew the monsters only came when he was asleep.

"Well yeah," I said. "That's why it's important that the movie isn't just about scares."

But they were insistent. If a monster showed up while Cody was awake, that would be "truly thrilling" and "catch the audience off-guard."

It was the equivalent of saying "the shark in Jaws only attacks people if they're in the water. We need an attack to occur on land." I mean, that would really catch the audience off-guard.

I had no idea how to address this note.

It was early in my career, I didn't have a theatrical hit under my belt, and I didn't have the ammunition to fight it. So I had to address it somehow, and it had to satisfy the studio, or else we may not get our theatrical release after all.

So I ended up writing a scene where Cody is wide awake, only to be attacked in his bed by the specter of a deceased bully (a previous victim of one of his dreams).

How the fuck were we going to make this make any sense? Well, we had to write a whole other scene - much earlier in the film - where a therapist explains the concept of "waking dreams." Jay Karnes (who was a lovely person and one hell of a good sport) had to randomly say "you know, some people can dream while they're awake" to Bosworth, desperately trying to set up this moment.

It doesn't quite work, to say the least. Cody looks under his bed, sits up, and is attacked by this eye-less specter. Then, he's dragged screaming under his bed, until the attack just... stops, for some reason.

We filmed it, and I thought it was the stupidest thing I'd ever shot (it wasn't, though - the stupidest thing I've ever shot remains the on-screen stalking and murder of a cat in the pilot of Midnight Mass, a truly braindead scene that Netflix insisted on adding.)

Along with this scene, which would become the crux of Relativity's trailer, we shot several other random scares that were peppered throughout the movie. Now, this wasn't enough to tip the film entirely into being a horror film... just enough to make it exist awkwardly in between two genres.

It got worse. The addition of all this new "horror" material made the film longer (go figure), so the directive came down to begin removing other elements to make room. Those elements were character development and context.

The cut began to get bumpy. The fairy-tale tone of most of our original footage was at odds with the overt horror tone the studio was insisting upon. Every time we tested one of these cuts, the audience was understandably confused... they really loved the concept, they really loved Jacob, and they all loved the ending revelation - but along the way, what was this movie? Was it a horror film? Was it a drama? A fantasy?

Even with this, our test screenings were actually pretty good. We were testing in the high sixties and seventies - which is, infuriatingly, right in that middle zone: not good enough to kill the studio interference, but not bad enough to let them take over.

So we kept fighting. And we kept cutting. And we kept testing. And with each screening, the studio forced it further and further into this no-man's land.

There were a few victories, though. Danny Elfman came on board to collaborate with the Newton Brothers on our score. Some of our non-horror sequences, like a scene involving Christmas-light butterflies, were being called out by our test audiences in the best ways. But the tug-of-war over the basic identity of the film was tipping decidedly toward the more horror-centric approach.

Finally, the studio came after the title. Somnia was too confusing, they said. Nobody knew what it meant. So, we added a scene where Jay Karnes - once again having to naturally sell force-fed exposition - literally defines the world "somnia" during a therapy scene (these therapy scenes were basically being used to spoon-feed material to the audience.)

That wasn't enough, though. The studio began workshopping other titles, and they landed on perhaps my most hated of all of the options: the ultra-generic Before I Wake, a title already used by a handful of low-budget thrillers over decades. We conceded after it was made clear that it wasn't really up to me in this case, and we limped into what I consider to be the worst title of my career.

With our new uneven tone, a new and "improved" monster, and a groan inducing title, they finally agreed to stop messing with the movie and honor their commitment to releasing it wide.

You tell yourself a lot of things in this business, and I told myself that the heart of the story - the revelation about where the concept of the Canker Man came from - was still intact, so all would be well. Viewers would be able to look past some of the bumps because the payoff was worth it.

But we didn't know what else was happening at Relativity.

They announced the release date for the film, posters started showing up in theaters, and we were anxiously awaiting our big wide theatrical release... when suddenly everything stopped.

We didn't know it yet, but Relativity Media was having huge financial problems. They were on the verge of bankruptcy, as a matter of fact, and though they weren't admitting it yet, internally they were in a state of absolute chaos.

Without warning or explanation, the studio moved us off our date. The movie wouldn't be released after all. We immediately knew something was very wrong, despite Ryan Kavanaugh's insistence that our date was "just a bad date," and that he'd moved the movie in order to make it "an even bigger success." No, this whole thing stunk. It stunk bad.

They set another date, and we watched and waited. But no trailers. No marketing. And then... that date was pushed as well. Again, they insisted everything was fine. But we knew. Something was deeply wrong with the company, and they were lying to us.

Some of this played out publicly. Kavanaugh and I got into a spat on Twitter when I suggested that the studio wasn't able to release the movie theatrically after all (I still don't regret saying this, and man oh man, was I proven right).

Meanwhile, our international distributors were scrambling. We'd sold a lot of international territories off the promise of our big theatrical release in North America, and they weren't going to wait forever. By the third time Relativity pushed our release date, the whole house of cards fell down, and various international territories started releasing the film haphazardly on whatever platforms they could.

There was no coordinated release strategy. Suddenly, the film was just available in Argentina, for example. Or it was On Demand in Russia. I remember being shocked when a German Blu-ray appeared on eBay without warning.

There was no rollout to critics, no coordination at all. Within a few weeks, it was pirated and available on torrent sites everywhere. And without a proper press rollout, the only reviews available were trickling in from these international markets, or random blogs in other countries. A slew of reviews - many of which were from obscure blogs in Russia and Turkey, not even written in English - hit Rotten Tomatoes. With no counterpoint from any credible critics, we debuted with a 30% rotten rating.

It would stay this way for years.

Relativity finally admitted the truth, declared bankruptcy, and went to court. Our movie was dragged down into the vortex with it. Our abysmal tomatometer score suggested that the movie wasn't released because it was bad, not because the studio had gone bankrupt. This assumption stuck to us like glue as the film languished in bankruptcy court.

Heartbroken, we turned our attention elsewhere. I would write and direct both Hush and Ouija: Origin of Evil before the whole distribution saga of Before I Wake was finally resolved.

In the years that followed, very little would be said about Before I Wake, and whatever was said was absolutely not positive... how bad must this movie be, after all, to be so unceremoniously pulled from the release? Some theaters just left the poster up, still saying "Coming Soon." I know of one theater in LA that had it up for over a year.

By the time Relativity finally settled their mess, and the film was unceremoniously given back to us with the most lackluster apology imaginable, and our chances of a domestic theatrical distribution were entirely obliterated. The film was already available online through piracy and a tiny handful of foreign blogs had defined our critical reception. No other studio would touch it.

We were able to arrange one screening of the film once it was unencumbered... we had a single showing at Fantastia in Montreal, a festival I adore. Instead of a huge worldwide theatrical release, the movie would play exactly one time, to one audience.

It was sold out, it played wonderfully, and it remains one of my favorite screenings of my career.

With Mitch Davis, Fantasia's artistic director, Kate Bosworth, and my wife Kate Siegel.

In the years that had passed since we shot Before I Wake, Kate Siegel and I had gotten married. At the premiere, and in the picture above, Kate was pregnant with our son.

We named him Cody, after the little boy in Somnia... the little boy whose dreams came true.

In 2016, Netflix acquired the North American rights to Before I Wake, and quietly dumped it on the service. There was no premiere, no rollout, no screeners sent to critics. One day it just appeared on the service without fanfare, as Netflix does to so many titles.

It didn't even appear on the New Releases tab.

A few critics found the movie on their own, and slowly some new reviews started to trickle out. Bloody Disgusting led the charge, discussing how the film had been wrongfully maligned over the years, and correcting identified it as a "haunted fairy tale" that was being handicapped by the expectations that it was a horror film.

Our tomatometer began to slowly rise. After some time, it tipped out of "rotten" into "fresh"... and today stands comfortably at 66%. Those early, malicious reviews are still there, the movie is still scarred by them... but despite Relativity (and eventually Netflix's) efforts to rebrand the movie as a straight horror film, most critics were able to see it for what it truly was.

Our audience was as well, for the most part. Some viewers yawning their way through the Netflix original horror feature section would find it, and get something maybe just a little more thoughtful than they were expecting. A few people reached out to me to talk about losing their own loved ones to cancer, or about how the sweeter elements of the story impacted them. I've always been grateful for that.

But ultimately, the movie was just brutalized by its studio. I've never again had so much damage inflicted on a project by a creative partner and supposed collaborator. And while Netflix did the bare minimum when it came to releasing the movie, I am still very grateful that that they even did that much... if it wasn't for Netflix picking it up, I think there's every chance Before I Wake would have never been made available at all.

I'm proud of the movie. It's not perfect, by any means - it was an ambitious sophomore effort and I had a lot to learn about a lot of things - but it has some beautiful ideas and some moments that really work. I see its flaws clearly, too, and while I tell myself some were out of my control (like the awkward scares forced on us by Relativity), others were most certainly entirely on me. Not everything works, and that's okay.

But man, Jacob Tremblay is phenomenal in this movie. And I absolutely adore the final ten minutes.

My son Cody is almost 7 now, exactly as old as Jacob was when he was cast to play his namesake. I hope Cody's dreams come true; that's why we named him what we named him.

Sometimes, our dreams don't come true quite how we might expect.

Hollywood is just kinda like that, I guess.