#i have so much respect for both fic writers and like professional writers who have like

[aangelinakii]

DREADFUL WINGS.

— why won't he just drop you?

summary : ever since jason todd had gone rogue, your affiliate, batman, hired you to go undercover into his hidden mob ring to find out what he's planning for gotham. you need to seduce him, but when he actually falls, you decide you want out.

not proofread !

note : this fic contains a female reader, but almost all of my other works are gender neutral, so check out those if that's what you're looking for, or send in a request so i can cater closer to what you'd like !!

second much more casual note : i kind of got writers block like halfway through this so i kind of feel like it declined in quality throughout, so soz about that guysssss :P

third note i thought of when i almost finished writing : thiz turned iut to be a crack fic LOL enjoy

you'd been an associate of the batman ever since he'd seen you out on the field; it had been one versus almost eleven, and you'd taken each one down wirh skill, even when two or more tried to tag-team. it was impressive, and so he'd taken you in as a trainee of sorts; not enough to be family, but enough to have earned their respect.

it had been brought to both you and the bat's attention that his gone-rogue son, jason todd, had been spotted after months.

video and photo evidence showed him engaging in suspicious activity with some of gotham's most dangerous cartel leaders, and it didn't appear that he was taking order from them. no, it appeared that he was the one making the orders.

gone for ten months, and jason'd already made his way up the ranks of the crime underworld. he needed to be stopped, but there was no way he would listen to bruce wayne. even in disguise, he knew him too well. so bruce needed you.

going into it, you knew it would be a long-term job. you wouldn't be able to contact friends or family for as long as it took to create a bond with the leader, jason, and to get him to reveal information to you about his plans.

then you would be out and gone far.

for the job, you'd dyed and cut your hair, changed your makeup and clothing style completely, going from relaxed, casual clothes, to professional attire, and darker makeup. you were completely unrecognisable, and excited to go back to normal.

who knew what a real mobster was supposed to look like? the only ones you'd busted had half their face torn off, or wore a black mask.

when you first started, completely a new person, you began to frequent a bar jason was said to favour, and sometimes made deals in the back of. bruce had given you some cash ("some" being an understatement) to spend whilst under this guise, so none of your transactions went to your personal bank account, and you'd begun using a fair sum of it to pay for a drink to nurse each evening for a week.

on the final friday, you were beginning to grow bored. you were sitting in a bar on the other end of town to your apartment – the dodgy side – without a person to talk to, and those who did, were drunk men with missing teeth who tried to buy you a drink.

until the stool beside you squealed against the floor as it was pulled out. from the corner of your eye, you glanced over at them, clutching your whiskey on the rocks closer to you.

black hair, single white streak at the front, cross-shaped scar along his cheekbone. big hands, knuckles bruised, scared forearms on display beneath a rolled-up white button-up. this had to be your guy. there was no way it couldn't be.

when he ordered his drink, a deep-coloured scotch, he pressed a few bills on the counter. "keep the change," he gravelled as the barkeep gave a hum at the extra money.

no men in this area of gotham would let their change be kept behind the bar; each of them would never every bit of those coins to buy even more drinks, or drugs, or whatever they find on the side of the streets here.

this was a man who was confident in the dollars he owned. someone who pressed k in return for money. and now you just had to get in.

lifting your glass to your lips, you turned to him quietly, a glint in your eye. noting your shift, he looked up at you, still nursing his stout glass.

"you doin' all right tonight?" he offered coolly, voice a deep concoction of gotham street accent.

a hummed laugh brushed past your lips, curling them into a soft smile. "you could say that," you replied, insinuating a flirt.

and that was the beginning of it. slowly, after then, you – well, the slightly fabricated version of you – and jason began to form a relationship. at first, it was as simple as coincidentally meeting each other back at that bar, but then him taking you out every few nights.

he questioned you a few times what you did for a day job, so you opted for getting employed at a bookshop in the nicer end of town. when you asked him about his work, he was incredibly vague.

after a few months of meeting up at a restaurant or a bar, or wherever, and learning more about each other – although you'd had to revise your elaborate, false backstory, and you knew he was not telling the whole truth about his – jason finally asked you to stay round his apartment.

it was nerve-wracking, the entire idea of it. you'd faced worse things than this; actually, one time the penguin had shot you in the back, and that was quite bad. surely something like this shouldn't be so scary. for all you knew, you weren't even a real person; you were entirely made-up in this form of yourself. but he didn't know that.

as you showed up on his doorstep, looking nervously up and down the corridor at the other run-down apartments, you gave a light knock on the door, half hoping he wouldn't be home.

on the other hand, jason knew he shouldn't have gotten so attached. for one, it could get you in danger. knowing his line of work, having absolutely any personal connections could give any rivals the upper hand against him. secondly, this whole thing went against his own moral code; keeping himself safe.

he thought he knew better, not adoring the flow of your hair, the quirk of your lip when he said something in an attempt to be funny, the way you didn't let things get to his head, like your down-played aforementioned reaction to his jokes.

he thought, after everything he had experienced leading up to now, that his heart would be heavier chained-up. but you'd managed to unlock it.

tonight, he was going to make it official, despite everything else telling him not to.

when he pulled the door open, you immediately tried to thaw the frigidness of your nerves, and force a smile as genuine as you could. if this was what you had to do in order to get bruce his information, then surely you would. as long as he paid you when you get back.

"hey, i'm glad you made it," he smiled, gravelly voice the most genuine you'd ever heard it, and he pulled you in with one muscular arm into a hug, whilst his other hand closed the door behind you.

"yeah, of course," you chuckled, trying to cloak your unease with a smile as you returned the half-hug. "i wouldn't miss it for the world."

jason pulled away, and stopped for a moment to size you up with a smile. his broad frame had been fitted with a black t-shirt, which hugged him in all the right places. "i made dinner," he hummed as he turned to walk you into his apartment, and, surely, the scent of rich bolognese filled your senses.

his apartment was quaint, if not slightly messy, but you could tell jason'd made at least a little effort to clean it up a bit. but a messy guy is always messy, which you'd learned in a previous almost-relationship.

as the two of you reached his small dining table, he pulled your chair out for you before walking around to sit opposite you. the aromatic plates of spaghetti bolognese had already been laid out before each chair. the effort he'd gone to tonight was sweet... but this wasn't what you wanted.

nerves kicked in.

"this isn't my natural hair colour, you know," you blurted out, fingers curling tightly around the stem of the fork beside your plate. eyes wide, you stared on at jason opposite you, who returned the look with a bemused glint in his eye.

he gave a shrug, twirling his fork in his spaghetti, which wove around the prongs like thread in a spindle. "okay?" he hummed, slight chuckle in his tone. "what does that have to do with dinner?"

perhaps if you just tried to be as off-putting as possible, he would ask you to leave.

a few beats passed, and you lifted your fork into the food with a shake of your head. "dunno, just in case that wasn't something you'd be into."

"doesn't matter," he spoke, food half-full of bolognese.

now, what was something that would put off a literal mob boss? right!

"you know, i swear, too. quite a lot," you piped up again after a moment, shovelling some spaghetti into your mouth. damn, that man could cook. "and i know some guys find that unattractive."

some sort of snort came from the man across the table as he began to twirl a new mountain of spaghetti, and he looked up at you with a bemused glint in his eye. "you do realise i, myself have the mouth of a sailor? that doesn't matter to me."

there had to be something that ticked him off.

a few more beats passed, and you'd already eaten half your plate, the nerves catching up to you quickly.

after swallowing your mouthful, you placed your fork back down against the rim of the plate, and looked back over at jason. "i haven't told you about my past," you abruptly spoke. "i'm not sure you would want me to come back here if i ever told you."

with this, jason gave a deep breath, and put down his fork. with a sigh, he leaned back in his chair to assess you, green eyes piercing and scrutinising.

"there's a lot i haven't told you, either," he breathed after a moment, leaning forward, resting his elbows on the tabletop. "a lot i've experienced in my life that i'm not proud of, that i wish could have gone... differently. but that doesn't matter to me. whatever happened in your past doesn't change who you are to me now."

for god's sake, why wouldn't he just kick you out of his apartment? each moment you stayed seated at his dinner table, the more you itched to leave, ached to blurt out your true intention.

barely a second had passed when a switch had flipped inside of you entirely, and suddenly you had tears streaming down your face. (that would be another $50 for the hysterics, bruce.) immediately, jason's expression dropped, one of worry and confusion. "what's wrong?"

your face fell into your hands, hiding the crocodile tears spilling from your eyes. "i can't give you children!" you wailed, uttering the first thing you could think of.

jaw cranked open, eyebrows creased, jason gingerly reached out to brush his fingers over your wrist. "i– where did children ever come into the equation? we're just having dinner. i don't care about children right now. not at all!"

and, almost as quickly as they came, your hysterics had halted, and you looked up from your hands, mascara inevitably smeared beneath your eyes. "okay," you stated. "i'll cut the shit."

with one swift movement, you stood to your feet, the chair you'd been sitting on squeaking against the floor. jason pulled away, sitting back in his own chair, eyes peering at you expectantly and curiously.

"i know why you asked me round tonight."

jason nodded slowly. "isn't it obvious?" he quipped, although his tone had grown wary.

"but i can't date you, jason," you stated, fists clenching by your sides. "because i'm not the person you think i am. really. everything i said is untrue, apart from the hair."

as he peered at you, jason's eyes narrowed, as if piecing everything together in his mind.

"i'm here to find out information about your drug ring, which i know all about. i knew about it from the start, from the first moment i saw you, and even before. i just needed to wait for you to trust me."

his mouth had fallen slightly ajar, eyebrows furrowing as he stared on at you. after a moment, the cogs turning in his head, his mouth closed, and he swallowed the dryness away before speaking. "well..." he sighed. "nobody's perfect."

[campbyler]

our chapters average at 27,000 words, the total fic length is already 3x the average novel length, and we lost one of the authors working on this fic. it must be so nice to only have to endure the wait for a chapter to be uploaded so that you can interact with it rather than being the one to actually write it.

im going to be cruel (no pun intended) to be kind: this is such an intense externalisation of blame. you are the ones in control of the fic length; the chapters could handle some heavy editing and it wouldnt make them any less wonderful (such as regarding the descriptions of mike and will's internal thoughts, not the action between the characters themselves). fic is free and its a gift to be able to read works that inspire our hearts and minds while we wait for the show, but then again, when at the stern of a juggernaut work such as this, one that will inevitably have many followers chomping at the bit on tumblr as well as ao3 (as you designed it to have!), you surely must be aware of something that only usually exists in professional marketing spaces involving customers + brand IP: the relationship between consumer and creator, and what they can give each other.

not 'owe each other' - nothing is owed, except perhaps basic human kindness. fans want your work, and its free, so we should be grateful; likewise, you want readers, feedback and clicks, and that should be free, too. but in order for this to work smoothly, there has to be fair give and take. i mean, if you wanted to monetize the fic i'm sure many people would pay to read it, but thats beside the point here.

what fans of this fic simply want is the same honesty and self-awareness from you that they might expect from any artist who has embarked on such am ambitious project. and this doesnt just mean transparency about potential uploading dates (which is already much appreciated by the majority!), or notifications about how hard it is to balance work and life (something most people on the planet struggle with). it means total honesty and hard answers. people like to know where they stand. plenty of writers (both professional and fan alike) abandon works for months, years at a time, and if the work is THAT good, people will always be thrilled to see a return. it's the mucking people about that is what destroys relationships - no matter how good your reasons are.

your fic is wonderful and very, very memorable. you could take a big, undefined hiatus and people would, im sure, return, including me. seeing you admit that you have been prioritizing this fic over your mental health does not inspire confidence either, or even comfort - do i want to read something that has caused the creator such harm?

i think everything about this process would be happier for everyone if you set boundaries that work for you and didn't place blame elsewhere. after all, as you said, it's just a fanfic. it doesnt matter if you don't finish it. it doesnt matter if it takes all the way to s5 for 10.2 to release. everyone would, though, appreciate you taking a stance and being consistent (and therefore fair) to both yourselves and the readers.

please feel free to not post this publicly or do as you wish with it.

hello! thank you for your feedback and for sharing it in a way that is both kind and respectful. you make many valid points that i agree with -- we are in control of the word counts and could stand to edit down more, and we do recognize where being transparent about the reasons behind the chapter delays might not inspire confidence or comfort. i do, however, think that isolating one response/chain of responses to a particular ask is a little unfair, so i'd like to provide additional context.

i do not think that it's fair to say that we haven't been honest, self-aware, or fair, because we have been incredibly transparent throughout the entire run of the fic (over a year) about our writing process. just last month suni said she hadn't been working on 10.2 at all because abby had been visiting her house, and readily took ownership of that fact. there was a 4-month wait between chapters 9.1 and 9.2, and i was very open about the fact that i simply needed a break for at least the first of those months because i didn't want to write it. we have continued to maintain several times that we are not abandoning the fic, even if it takes longer between chapters, and have tried to stay as active as possible on the blog because we know that seeing us interact with asks Does inspire confidence. if you just scroll down and see how we have answered other asks inquiring about the upload, we responded kindly and respectfully.

what you interpreted as externalization of blame in that one (1!) ask response was me trying to provide perspective to someone who clearly lacked it. we understand that people will be frustrated about chapter delays, especially if we keep pushing them back, and this is also something that we have received feedback about before and tried to implement; however, it is also a double-edged sword where if we don't give an estimated upload, people get upset, or we give an estimated upload that we think is completely reasonable for us to achieve and then hurdles get in the way, whether it's writer's block or work or time with friends. i absolutely get the frustration on the receiving end, but something i have learned from being in this fandom for two years is that a pretty big majority of those who are interacting with fanworks are not creating it themselves, hence why my response -- while snippy and annoyed, because i was matching the energy, and will not apologize for that -- was contextualizing the whys behind the chapter delay: the chapters are long, the fic is long, we are down one entire body from where we started. the intention was not to shuck blame off of ourselves, but i get that intentions don't always translate into effect, so it's understandable that it was received differently.

we don't always respond to things perfectly. when we have a million and one asks inquiring about the next upload, one stray one that comes off the wrong way is likely going to set us off, because we are people, and this is not a job. we have set a boundary by disabling anon, and again, i cannot stress enough how much i appreciate that you've come to us with this feedback off-anon and with respect and decency. i get where you are coming from and again, agree with a lot of your points.

the only other thing i want to make clear is that this fic, no matter how much attention its garnered, should not be treated as a creator/consumer relationship that mirrors anything where the exchange of money is involved. not only is it unfair to apply this standard to fanworks, where it is illegal to monetize such content, but the entire purpose of fanworks is to celebrate what you are a fan of together. when you apply expectations on either end -- i am a fan of this work, therefore, people should create timely content for it; i am creating this fanwork, therefore, people should interact with it -- defeats the entire nature of fan-created work as a whole. while we have continued to be vocally grateful for the love and support our fic has been shown, we both maintain that we would continue writing and continue uploading even if we were getting less than half of the amount of interaction that we do. it's nice to have interaction, but not necessary, because we what write and post is done because we love it, and it's shared so that we can look back on it, so our friends can enjoy it, and anyone else who might want to. we are, of course, excited to share that world with anyone who cares -- we created the blog and the promo because we wanted to share it -- but that does not mean that the relationship between us and our readers should have expectations. we are all creating and enjoying this work for free for the sake of love for the characters, as the star trek obsessed housewives of the 60s (and the law) have intended.

i feel like this response is a bit jumbled so i apologize if anything isn't clear or hard to understand. thank you again for your time!

[sanriokamabodo]

Interview with Akaza + Douma (Actor!AU)

A/N: wanted to write this as a full on fic but who am i kidding (not proofread haha..)

“Hi I’m Hakuji Soyama and I've had the honour to play Akaza since the Mugen Train Arc” He gives a brief nod after his introduction. Slinging his right leg over the other, he glances at his counterpart who awkwardly raises his hand.

“...And I play Douma.’’ He states, causing Akaza to erupt into a fit of laughter, the audience and interviewer joining him instantly.

“Well that’s one way to introduce yourself.” Akaza grins, dramatically wiping a tear away from his eye.

“So tell me, what’s it like behind the scenes?"

"I think everyone gets along great, we all have a similar end goal in mind and work hard to achieve that together."

Douma nods before starting. "This is my first big time job and everybody has welcomed me with open arms. The writers even listened to my ideas and we've made some changes together for me to portray him better."

"We've heard rumours about you all doing your own stunts. Is it true?"

Akaza sighs making Douma laugh.

"You know that one scene in the infinity castle where I parkour around like it's nobody's business? That took a week to film, I nearly had to relearn to walk again because I was dangling in the air so much."

"Tch, you're so dramatic." Douma quips.

"You didn't make it any easier for me! You know how ticklish my feet are and you kept taking advantage of it while I was hanging from the ceiling!" He scoffs jokingly. "You guys better appreciate that scene." He laughs, making the audience cheer for the duo.

"How do you guys get ready for a day of shooting? Walk me through the day you started filming the uppermoon meeting."

"Make-up is the first thing we do, during make-up we go over our scenes together."

"Whose make-up takes longest?"

"Hantengu's by a long shot. He's actually really good looking in real life."

"I second that. I think Hakuji's the quickest since he has temporary tattoo's and dyed his hair for the part. He only needs to put in his contacts."

"Muzan's actor is actually really soft-spoken in real life, we had to reshoot the 'Upper Moons' meeting a lot because he would be to gentle with us and we would end up laughing." Akaza chuckles.

"Who do you respect most among the actors?"

"I respect everyone, especially the younger actors! They're super professional. I shot a scene with Ume who plays Daki and she gave me a lot of useful tips."

"The way Rengoku's actor portrays him gave me chills. He did so beautifully! I really respect him!"

"Hakuji came home crying after they filmed Rengoku's death scene." Douma teases.

"It was a long day, alright?"

"Yeah, you guys live together right?"

"We've been best friends since we were like five, so becoming roommates when we both wanted to go to theater school was an easy decision."

"Is your friend a bit like the character he portrays?"

"Absolutely not! When we're not shooting he's cooped up in his room playing video games all day. I don't know how he maintains his figure because all I see him eat is instant ramen. I'm even convinced he's a virgin." He cooes at Douma, pinching his cheek.

"Get off me!" The platinum haired man laughs. "Like you're anything like Akaza, you manwhore."

Akaza shrugs, a sly smirk on his face. "I know a bit of martial arts. That's like my character, I guess."

"The karate workshop we had when we we're eleven? Really, that's your knowledge of martial arts?"

Akaza nods seriously, trying to hold in his laugh.

"Wow, you're really something..."

"We're almost out of time." The interviewer states. "Anything you want to add before we round this interview up?"

"I can't recommend watching Demon Slayer enough! I've never been so proud of a show or movie I've done, this is next level."

"What he said, and hi mum!" Douma says, waving at the camera with a toothy grin.

"Give a round of applause for the one and only Akaza and Douma! Thank you for the interview."

[icemankazansky]

@film-in-my-soul tagged me in this really cool fic meme:

Everyone deserves to toot their own horn and be proud of their work! So, this tag game is fairly simple.

Promote 5 works that you're really proud of and share a little about why you're so proud of it! Then tag as many people as you like. You can reblog this post and add on to it (why not create a giant reclist to throw around?) or steal this header (and border if you like) and make your own post!

The Storm Series

Top Gun, Iceman/Maverick, E

Eight years after Maverick and Iceman meet at TOPGUN, Maverick is running the program and Iceman is badly injured in combat, which finds him sent back to Miramar to teach until he's fit to fly again. Things move pretty fast after that.

I'm proud of many things about Storm. It was my first major work for Top Gun, and I'm really happy with the characterization. The way the characters and their relationship evolve through the series—I'm proud of that, and I'm proud that I was able to pick up the series after eight years and write two more installments that belong in the universe with the first two. Despite all the ways I had changed as a person and a writer in the time between, I was able to slip back into it like an old coat, and that is something you strive for as an author.

Dreams of Impact

Top Gun, Iceman/Maverick, M

Maverick's trip in Darkstar takes him further than he ever imagined possible.

When I was a baby writer, I wrote a lot of really long stories. For several years, I worked with another writer on a collaboration that surpassed 200k words, and we never finished it. That was by far my longest work, but many of my stories pre-2010 are 10k, 20k, 50k.

Now it's rare that I write something that long. Part of that is that I learned how to say a lot without that many words. Pithy was a word I heard constantly in grad school, and I needed to learn how to do that. I have, and I'm a much better writer for it. I'm proud of that.

There are a lot of other reasons that I don't write long, multi-chapter epics anymore, everything from writing professionally to my health, and to be honest, sometimes I miss it. Dreams of Impact offered me a wonderful opportunity to get back to that kind of writing. I enjoyed writing the story very much, and I'm proud of how it turned out. The longer, more-plot heavy story muscles had not been flexed in a while, but I guess I still got it.

the weight of my heart is measured in carats

MCU, Tony/Pepper, G

What's so impressive about a diamond except the mining?

Remember what I said about pith? This one is like a good sword: perfectly weighted, perfectly balanced.

you are the moon that breaks the night for which i have to howl

Willow, Sorsha/Madmartigan, M

Magic leaves a trace, and part of the curse stayed in her blood, and Sorsha never forgot what it was like to be the wolf. Even after her mother transformed her back, the wolf lived still, tucked behind her breast.

I love magical realism, and I love making things into fairytales, and I love finding ways to fit discordant things together so they seem completely natural. I did all of those things very well in this story. It was also a gift for a dear friend who is also an excellent writer, and she absolutely lost her gotdam mind when she read it, and I am proud of that.

running through the underworld into your room

Top Gun, Iceman/Maverick, T

“Most of my grey hairs you gave me,” Ice said, unable to keep the fondness out of his voice even altered as it was. He paused. “You don’t know how much I wanted this. To grow old with you.”

This story is a standalone piece, but it was also—for me—an exercise (an exploration, maybe) in two very specific things. (It doesn't matter what. What does matter is: Not long after I had posted this, I talked to a couple people—dear friends but also writers I respect—about it once they'd read it, and they both told me how well I had done those two things, even though I hadn't mentioned them anywhere. I'm proud of that. It's extremely gratifying to know you can hit a target even if it's a target no one else can see.)

Tagging: @topgunreacts @escritoireazul @boasamishipper @maverickcalf @adiduck @hangsters @thelastplantagenet @andmakeithome

[imogenleewriter]

do you currently have time to read fics yourself, and if so, what were the last ones you read and really liked? like something that stuck with you, or where you laughed a lot, etc… :)

I do! I tend to read shorter fics now because I don't have the time or attention span to read long ones at the moment - as a long fic writer, I'm glad other people do! I wrote the summaries below, but the authors' actual summaries are better than mine, so don't let my shitty ones turn you off the fic!

Somebody's Got Your Trainers On (It's You) by @greenblueish (bluegreenish on ao3) Words: 28k. Almost-exes to lovers. Hospital AU.

Louis is a paeds RN and Harry is a paediatrician that used to work at Louis' hospital. Harry leaves, ending his Situationship with Louis. He returns two years later.

My Thoughts: I LOVED this so much that I commented and then messaged Jill. I honestly don't understand how it's only 28k words because it felt like a whole-arse novel! I work in healthcare (and have worked in paeds) and it was the most accurate description of a ward setting, ward life, healthcare, and paeds that I've ever read. Not a single thing made me cringe. It was paced perfectly and had the right amount of tension and resolution. SO good.

you've set my soul to dreaming @so-why-let-your-voice-be-tamed (we_are_the_same on ao3). Word count: 9.2K. Strangers to lovers. Kind of time travel... kind of.

Harry wakes up one Christmas morning expecting to be alone, like he was when he went to be the night before. Instead he wakes up in his bed, but everything else has changed. He quickly falls in love with his new life and is terrified that it won't last.

My Thoughts: Another fic that felt much longer than the WC (9.2k) because it was so in-depth. I have so much respect for writers who can say so much in so few words! It definitely lived up to the fluff and angst tag. I was almost worried it wasn't going to have a happy ending but it did and even included a short but satisfying epilogue.

Love in Conversation by @hellolovers13 Word Count: 4.9k. Strangers to lovers. Baking phone line.

Despite his protests, Louis has been tasked with making a birthday cake for his younger siblings. The problem? He has no idea what he is doing. After some failed attempts, he stumbles across a helpline for baking mishaps. The other voice on the line does their best to help over the phone, but when Louis still can't get it right, they realise that Louis might need a bit more guidance.

My Thoughts: Just like the premise, this one was super sweet. Both characters were extremely lovable. Just a really cute fic.

Just the two of us (we can make it if we try) by @starryhaze28 (starryhaze on ao3) Word Count: 5.9k. Established couple. A/B/O. Mpreg.

Louis is concerned because his omega has been yo-yo-ing between needy and distant and won't tell him why. As time goes by, he gets increasingly worried. Then he founds out his omega is pregnant.

My Thoughts: Established relationships and mpreg aren't usually my jam, however, this one had enough angst and fluff to draw me in. Very, very sweet.

The Space Between by @alltheselights Word Count: 39.9k. Strangers to lovers. A/B/O. Famous/Non-Famous.

Harry Styles is an alpha and famous rockstar who has everything except for the ability to sleep. When he reaches breaking point, Louis Tomlinson, an omega psychology PhD student, is contacted for his professional sleeping skills. Their relationship drifts into unprofessional territory, though.

My Thoughts: As someone very invested in sleeping - because I also lack the ability - I appreciated this fic. It was another "How did they cover so much in so few words" fic. Had the perfect amount of angst towards the end, a satisfying and lovely resolution.

Something To Remember by @parmahamlarrie Word Count: 25k. Strangers to lovers. Soulmate AU. Famous/Non-famous.

Both Louis and Harry find themselves in an Exclusive Resort in Maui for their respective jobs. Living in a universe where tattoos appear on your skin when you see your soulmate, both of them are surprised that tattoos start showing up. As time keeps passing, getting closer to their departures, they start to fear they'll never actually get to meet their soulmate.

My Thoughts: Not going to lie, I got a bit anxious that they weren't going to meet. You know I love a good countdown and this fic had one... and it served its purpose well, lol. But they do meet, and it's beautiful. Another beautiful fic.

Quiet People Have The Loudest Minds by @2tiedships2 Word Count: 38k. Strangers to Lovers. A/B/O.

Louis is a non-verbal omega and is at a Broadway show, but the alpha next to him is stealing all of his attention, and he just wants him to leave. Until the alpha introduces himself as Harry and offers to leave.

My Thoughts: ANOTHER one that felt as though it had a much longer word count because it was so in-depth. I really like the diversity representation. As someone who isn't non-verbal, I can't vouch for the accuracy; however, from the knowledge and experience I do have, it seemed to be handled really well and respectfully. Extremely well-written and another lovely read.

The next two are both by @zanniscaramouche (zanni_scaramouche on ao3):

My Pleasure (to make you mine), Word Count: 6.5k. Strangers to lovers. Piercing. Praise Kink.

Harry decides to get his nipples pierced, and Louis is the right person for the job.

Your Pain (is mine now) Word Count: 5.1k. Stranges to lovers. Tattoo. Pain and praise kink.

Louis decides to get a tattoo done by Harry.

My Thoughts: I'm putting them together as they have very similar vibes (and are written by the same person, lol). Both have light elements of BDSM and are portrayed softly and sweetly. The writing is amazing! You know how people say, "I've read fics where the writing is better than published books?" Well, okay, that IS a lot of fics, but Zanni 100% fits into that category!

Do You See What I See by @allwaswell16 Word Count: 2k. Mix between Strangers/friends to lovers.

Harry just really cares about lost animals. Really, really cares about them. He cares about potentially lost ones too. Ones that, you know, might not actually be lost. Best to take them to the vet, just in case.

My Thoughts: You asked if I have read any funny ones that made me laugh a lot, and I'm still laughing about this one. It's only 2k words, so I don't want to say too much about it. But awkward Harry is my new favourite thing.

Also, whenever I reblog a fic, that is generally a sign that I loved it!

For transparency's sake, I read a lot of questionable smut that is so questionable that I have not included it!

[farieshades]

What do you think about Geralt and the wolves realtionships?

Forewarning I suppose, that in this case I do ship literally everyone together (with and without Jaskier’s involvement) but for the sake of feigned ‘reasearch’ I suppose I shall try to keep fanfiction out of it for the most part, and in this I’m sticking with Eskel, Lambert, and Vesemir no matter that Ciri could theoretically be considered a Wolf and Gweld does exist in my knowledge, as does Aubry (more so in AWAU than actual reference outside of being killed during the Tournament). Not entirely avoiding fics I suppose, but, you know… 

Geralt and Eskel

Eskel and Geralts relationship starts when they are kids. They grew up like brothers, possibly closer, but many writers take this into them never being far apart from each other. We know Eskel feared for Geralts life when the other's hair turned white, and well, that's sensible considering most times half+ the cohort would be dead. Out of the other two, Eskel is the one that Geralt is probably closest to. His second hand. I’ve not read much in the terms of the progression of their relationship, though I know Eskel mourned him when Geralt vanished and was thought dead. 

Geralt and Lambert

Lambert is that little brother you have that's constantly getting into trouble with the police, probably has fought off a coyote at somepoint, and half the time his stories sound true but you may never know. Lambert's personality is that of an angry cat, all biting and hissing, but when calm, they may just curl against you at the end of the day. Generally, my belief here is that he's protective of what little family he has and to conceal his emotions, he becomes a prick. True, there are great disimilarities, with Lambert, more-or-less hating his fate of being a Witcher while his family has gotten over it (or in Geralts case managed to become famous and beloved somehow). Though Lambert made no secret of his hatred for Kaer Morhen, when the time came to stand in its defense, he did so without a second thought (Journal Entry). He's the bastard of the family who hates everyone but will fight to the death to protect them, and for that, there is some respect. 

Geralt and Vesemir

There is a lot going on with the Vesemir stuff in my head. Vesemir became a father figure to Geralt, but treated all young witchers with harsh affection, a (bad) attempt at both teaching them of the harsh outside world that would await them, and to defend them from 'going soft'. After everything with the genocide happening, Vesemir becomes more fatherly to the remaining Witchers, more... I wouldn't say Kind, but that's the word my brain wants. If we want to believe NotW is factual to the story, which in itself is debatable, he becomes this father figure by force rather than want. Nevertheless, Geralt is respectful of him, probably due to him being one of very few Witchers that Geralt would be looking up to through his life. My very definite, non-professional opinion is that he’s probably a toxic father to have, but also compared to the other Witchers that may have survived the fall of Kaer Morhen, possibly the best one to have survived to train the remaining members of the school.

[linklethehistorian]

Okay, I was determined that I was not gonna make this…until a certain post just appeared on my dash for a second time by a second well-meaning individual who just wanted to share writing advice with followers.

I was originally going to just ignore it the first time, but at this point it is very clear that it needs to be said. I will be making this as a separate post rather than a reblog, because I typically don’t believe in writing argumentative things on other people’s original posts, but seriously.

I am utterly sick and tired of posts that are like “all I’m saying is if you do [x thing that actually, plenty of both normal hobbyists and professional writers do alike], I’m clicking out.” You must really have your head pretty damn far up your ass if you think that what you as a singular reader will personally do if you stumble upon a fic should genuinely discourage a writer from writing the way they want to and how they enjoy, for thinking that they should take your personal preference and your opinions into account in their creations — much less to actually make a post that’s clearly meant to intimidate new writers into conforming to your “one true way to write” bullshit.

No. You’re being fucking entitled over something completely free made out of the love and passion and goodness of someone’s heart, and which you’re lucky even exists in the first place; you don’t, in fact, have a right to see people “learn” a “better way” to do things because there are more people out there doing things the so-called “wrong” way than you’d like there to be.

If you don’t like someone doing a given thing, then go ahead and click out — it’s obviously not for you and that’s valid and you’re free to dislike it on a personal level — but it doesn’t make anyone a bad writer for doing it, or less of a writer, or less skilled; even if it were some kind of rule that was once put in in place to do things the way you’re saying — which it’s not — plenty of famous great authors have broken, are currently breaking, and will continue to break these so-called rules and still go on to be famous and beloved because of it, and be considered great and iconic for those choices.

Also, as far as that one I’ve seen which concerns the supposed “error” of describing a person instead of just using their name or pronouns all the fucking time? Tell me you’ve never written a slash fic without telling me you’ve never written a slash fic — or even one where two characters of the same gender are in the same scene for more than a few exchanges, much less interacting.

And if you have written one of those fics, then guess what? It’s time to turn the tables on you and see how the shoe fits: because, as far as I’m concerned, if you take this advice of yours when writing such things, then your fic is actually the bad one, and I’m going to click out of it without finishing, because it sucks.

…Stupid and rude thing to say when it’s directed at you and what you think is good writing, isn’t it? But it’s true: different people have different tastes. I don’t genuinely think you’re a bad writer or that you should change your ways if you write like this, but I also am serious when I say I would never willingly and knowingly read a fic like that, much less would I enjoy it or think it’s ‘good’ insofar as my own personal tastes and interests.

I think your writing style sucks to read. You think my writing style sucks to read. Neither of us are objectively right, because art isn’t about following a certain set of rules decided by someone else — unless that’s what you personally want your own art to be.

It’s one thing to give advice that you personally think is great and give tips on what you’ve learned in your own writing journey, but rudely and arrogantly proclaiming that if someone doesn’t conform to your hyper specific writing rules, they’re a bad writer and what they’re doing is a bad thing is entirely another.

Learn to be a respectful adult that can behave as such: just say “it’s not for me”, and move on until you find a fic that is, in fact, for you and to your tastes, because that’s all it actually is: it’s not for you. And that’s okay.

Grow the fuck up and realize that the world doesn’t revolve around you, and neither does anyone’s fic.

Conversely, if you want to vent about your personal frustration with the commonality of something you personally don’t like in writing, then do so, but don’t act like you’re just trying to teach people the “right” way to make art, and for the love of all that’s holy, don’t ever fucking tag it as writing ��advice” when it it’s no such fucking thing.

‘Advice’ isn’t “do this or you suck and [at least impliedly] no one will read your shit”. That’s an ultimatum. That’s an order with set consequences for disobedience. ‘Advice’ is saying, “personally I think you should do this, because it’s what I would do/personally think is the best way of doing it, but, you can take it or leave it depending on how you feel it should be done; the decision is yours to make.”

I hate that people keep reblogging this shit thinking that it is anything other than this or any better than a person who tries to dictate what pairings or stories or characters you write — because it isn’t. It’s rude and narrow-minded and helps no one. All it does is try to fit art into a box, making writing and other forms of art just about checking things off a list of “do”s and “don’t”s to make sure you do it the “right” way, rather than a way of self-expression and actual freedom of creativity.

“But I really won’t read a fic if — ”

Then don’t. No one wants you to, least of all the OP. It obviously wasn’t made for you. Keep scrolling, leave it for the people whom it actually was made for, and find something you actually enjoy and won’t go on Tumblr to bite the hands that feed you by whining about how unskilled your fellow writers are like a little bitch.

[some-pers0n]

Two things.

Number one, I'm here from your science party fic and oh my GOD? I adore how you wrote all of the mercs, especially Medic! He's a wonderful balance of silly, scary, and just...Generally unhinged. Wonderful. Amazing. Mwah. Thank you sm for feeding my science party brain.

Number two. I saw your ship post about them and the option to ask abt others. Taking you up on that,,,, what're the other tf2 ships you enjoy? Infodumping can get draining so dont sweat it if you dont want yk: I'm just curious!

!! Thank you so much!! I love writing all of the mercs so much,, and with Medic I put 110% of my effort and energy into  making him the manic and eccentric maniac that I know and love. What a little goofball. Same with the others. They're all so much fun to write with their wacky personalities and such. I'm glad I was able to give something to the other Science Party fans and make more propaganda for the ship. <3

Now for the ships. I've got a lot of neutral opinion, but I'll just ramble about some that I like quite a bit in particular, namely Red Oktoberfest, Sniper/Spy, Speeding Bullet, Napoleon Complex, Boots N' Bombs, etc. They're not going to be nearly as in-depth as with my Science Party ramble, but I just like em'.

Now, onto the others. I really like Red Oktoberfest. It's like Science Party, though I wouldn't say Heavy is nearly as unhinged as Engie. It's sweet and nice, but I prefer Science Party over it just because I prefer Medic and Engie's dynamic. Still really nice. I also love reading that one 13k word essay on Ao3 that goes into detail on all of the content on it every now and then.

Speeding Bullet is another one I like. I like the two of them just being together and goofing around. They truly are the ADHD vs Autism ship. I do like Sniper's more collected attitude and Scout's rambunctious behavior and the two of them butting heads. The ship also reminds me of how Sniper is only four years older than Scout, which is wild to me. I always think of him in his late thirties as opposed to being like...26 when he first meets the team.

In a similar vein, I like Sniper/Spy. I can see the two of them bickering with each other because of the other's lifestyle (Sniper throws jars at people and lives in a van while Spy is French), but overall having some sort of respect for each other because of their professionalism. They do care about each other, even if they don't like saying it.

Boots N' Bombs is a classic. I love how Valve just created an entire update and so much content for these two. They work really quite well together. It's amazing how well their personalities compliment each other and there's plenty of room for both humor and angst. They're really just neat.

Napoleon Complex is just neat. I like it. I find their personalities clash, but really match on another. Engie's laid-back and hardworking salt-of-the-earth nature and Spy's more up-tight and professional vibe is just nice.

Again, most of these I see as being platonic. I do like considering and watching others portray them as romantic, but I overall see them all as close friends. I've got a lot of writing ideas on all of those ships though.

Pyro I don't really ship with anybody mostly because I see them as That Guy. Not exactly a little sibling or somebody who can't feel love or show emotion, but I can't really...see them as ever being involved with anybody romantically. I am an unlabeled any-pronouns single Pyro fan. They just wanna be friends and have a tea party with the whole team.

But, now I suppose is the time where I let the two ships that've spawned from the depths of my psyche out onto the world. I should mention that I'm a delusional fanfic writer, meaning I that when I see a character, my first thought would be how they would react to another character. This is how you get rarepairs, folks.

With that being said, I like Merasmus & Medic and Pauling/Bronislava.

I'm not going to elaborate further.

[vote-gaara]

I came across your oc x Gaara and was mildly impressed that you didn't immediately ship her with him.

I'm all for self inserting with shipping and oc x canon but one of my biggest pet peeves in fan writing is when a character is immediately all over the oc even though it would never happen in canon u.

People do this especially with Gaara. They write their ocs to be friends with him when they are kids or they have him see something special in the oc or something. I hate is when Gaara develops an immediate crush on them too cause it's just not the way his character is.

I just respect your story more for writing that Gaara hated your oc before they became friends cause it just seems more reasonable to me.

I do notice that's a thing that does happen in fics with OCs, but my general rule is that we're all here to have fun.

Personally, I would never point out to an author that they're writing out of character unless they are genuinely asking for honest criticism on how to improve. Again...we're all here to have fun.

I think most people when writing pairings for Gaara tend to lean on tropes to make it easier to get the ball rolling, so that's where you get variations of "they were friends as kids" or "there was something about her that made him feel things."

No trope is bad when executed well, or even used for the sake of just enjoying writing.

Gaara is an extremely difficult character to write for just on his own without adding romance - something he's really bad at - into the mix. It took me years as a fan fic writer to actually come to terms with the idea that, hey, my characters should actually be irritating, annoying, stupid and unreasonable at times. My OCs - who are extensions of me - should have things they're really, really, really bad at.

I find enjoyment out of exploring flaws through characters and having them grow, while some people self insert themselves into canon material in order to build themselves up, feel better about themselves and to write their ideal world to escape from this one (which can be very unkind). I have written both, read both, and enjoy both.

I support everyone in their fic writing, but I'm gonna be honest here and say that I aggressively support women especially, or those who identify as female, self inserting themselves as rock solid, flawless female characters who have naturally amazing and god bending powers because I feel most media allows male characters to be that way without too much gripe. Yet when a woman is naturally talented, then suddenly it's "unrealistic" because she hasn't "suffered for it", or when she is flawed in the beginning and grows to be powerful, suddenly people can't look passed "but she used to be annoying!" (Looking at you Sakura haters out there.)

I am, by quite a huge margin, a lot more accepting of fan works having unrealistic characters than I am from professional media sources, but because people should be able to explore themselves through their interests and to have fun.

They used to use the term Mary Sue for these types of characters, I don't know if they still do because of how misogynistic it is, but honestly I don't have problems with Mary Sues.

A writer didn't write something for me. They wrote it for themselves, and again, unless they're asking for honest criticism, I'm not gonna say anything. Stopping reading something you don't like is completely free, but someone saying something nasty to a fic writer may cost them their happiness and their hobby.

I think it's fine to discuss these things on a neutral blog like mine, but I ask that you please, please PLEASE not post hate on someone's fic.

And in the spirit of OC positivity....Anyone have an OC? Come into my inbox and tell me why they're amazing.

[seb-owns-these-tatas]

7th Dimension (Chapter 7.8)

7TH DIMENSION MASTERLIST (ALL CHAPTERS)

PREVIOUSLY ON CHAPTER 7.7

7TH DIMENSION WATTPAD VERSION LINK (I am entirely ahead on this site now. 7th Dimension on Wattpad has now accumulated more than 10 chapters. There are minimal scenes back in the previous chapters which has been altered there, so sorry about to those who only read my updates through Tumblr because there might be some differences in Satoru's characteristics which has been changed on Wattpad already, yet y'all are bound to read the altercations in further chapters. Heehee.)

。。+゜゜。。+゜゜。。+゜゜。。+゜゜。。+゜゜。。+゜゜。。+゜

Characters: Gojo Satoru x Small!Naive!Fem!Foreign!Reader | THIS IS A MULTI-CHAPTER FIC. THIS IS AN X READER FANFIC WHO HAS BEEN BROUGHT TO THE DIMENSION OF JUJUTSU KAISEN | (Trust me, you'll live. I hope?)

Summary: (Part 9) Mind Training with Gojo Satoru had been beneficial to the both of you. You were given a mission to bake him sweets and in return of earning a 10/10 rating from the Great Teacher Gojo would result for a Shopping Spree treat from the Strongest Jujutsu Sorcerer alive. Additional Summary for this chapter: From your transference of your world to Satoru's have been actually forecasted by an undisclosed diviner that obscured his prophesies in the dark. Nonetheless, what was meant to be envisioned for you had all been a trifling matter because he had seen nothing but a nullity of a future set out as you walk upon Satoru's dimension. Except for the fact that Fukumoto Daichi knew you also were an erudite when it came to the happenings that was set forth for the Jujutsu Society in the near future.

Warnings: Fukumoto Daichi is not a character from Jujutsu Kaisen along with Sasaki Hibito as well. They're both OG characters created by me. | Satoru's still being Satoru. Other than the menace being a menace, none. Just a lil' bit suggestive somehow because Satoru's sexy as heck---*rolls on the ground*

7th Dimension Taglist: @dailystsg (Send me an ask or message if you want to be added or removed, bb's!)

A/N: FEEDBACKS HELP A LOT FOR A WRITER.  REBLOGS, RESPECTFUL MESSAGES SENT THRU ASKS AND COMMENTS MAKE MY HEART TINGLE AND SQUEAL, ISTG. 💙 I DO APPRECIATE THEM ALL. I sincerely apologize how long chapter 7 is. There's another part which is 7.9 but don't worry because it'll be the last part before chapter 8. Thankies! Heehee.

SORRY IF THERE ARE LOTS OF TYPOS AND GRAMMAR ERRORS WITH EVERY CHAPTER I WRITE. I ain't a professional writer! I'm just a potato-hoe! LMAO.

Words: 5.4k+

Disclaimer: PNG's or pictures used in edits, also those posted are not mine especially the GIF's. (I dunno how to make GIF's 😭 Tell me if the GIF's are yours so I could probably tag/credit you, bb's!) I only own the plot of 7th Dimension. But, not Jujutsu Kaisen's storyline and the characters themselves. OG characters are created by me and will be stated during my brief author's notes. I apologize for the typos or grammatical errors by the way! English isn't my first language so I'm so sorry in advance! Character development and personalities are based from my understanding and how I want them to be for the sake of the story.

YOU'VE PATIENTLY WAITED FOR THE TRAIN ON THE SIDE. Another ice-lolly on hand that Satoru has promised to invest you in. His own strawberry popsicle guzzled within seconds. As expected from an unusual man who had a terrible, gnarly sweet-tooth. There wasn't much people that bordered. The veiled excitement balling upon your soles, making you senselessly wriggle those toes of yours inside your shoes, playing along your weight with the heels of your feet as it appeared like a child eager to be taken to the first destination of her field trip.

Bzzt. Bzzt. Satoru could feel his phone vibrate inside his pockets. The default ring tone of his cellphone pealing out loud, over and over again.

He never cared to put it on silent. Unmoved by how it look as though he was definitely needed to be somewhere.

Gojo was doing it on purpose. Ignoring the call, that is. In no circumstance did he bother to answer again as he knew it was either Yaga ranting and raving for his irresponsibleness or Ijichi being chided for his faults that has been put to the assistant director's blame.

"You're not answering that?" your tone seemed mirthful than ever, bringing the stuff toy below your chin while the other held onto the wooden stick. The cold dessert you were clutching onto was now polished off to the ends; the piece of wood aimed directly at Satoru's phone that was kept inside the pocket of his jeans.

You've held a palm out to him, signaling for him to wait as your feet skipped through the cemented grounds, throwing the garbage inside the proper recycling bin. Even though, Satoru did not appear to be looking. He basically was keeping track of where you walked upon.

Filled with vim. Your feet having the springs as you've pranced back, being all smiles and giggly. He'd given you his regard and another of his toothy grins, intentionally ignoring your question.

"You should at least hide your excitement, Tiny-Chan."

The train was fast enough for you to emit a sound of excitement; a faint squeal that went straight passed out of your mouth, heedless that you've ought to say it out loud. The train speaker declared its standard procedures in their native language, stating upon which station they were currently in---where both you and Satoru are located in.

You've taken short, overjoyed leaps through the entryway, snapping your head from left to right once situated inside and saw how there weren't a lot of people aside from a college looking student who had thick, square eyeglasses that sat on the farthest end of the train over the boundary where another hatch were interloping and connecting with the other door, a periphery of the area.

This stranger had his head leaning along the window behind him. He'd audibly sighed his frustration out underneath his breath. Mind elsewhere, currently in a pensive state as he was burdened over complications that has happened with his work and towards subsidiary affairs.

Activities which can be considered as a religion he worshipped. A lone divinity adulated by a faction of individuals they've devoted their lives for, depending on their own scriptures or gospels delivered by a deity they offer all their reliance on. People were of many creeds and cultures. Humanity embodied boundless beliefs. Divine beings reverenced by traditions that were established years before. 

Each one had their own doctrines of predestinations. It was just a matter of faith or a member of the human race to perceive and accept their designated sects with accepted pieties and the sanctity of one. 

"If 'Toru' has a tiny spot of grime...I'm strangling you alive, Satoru!"

You've caught this stranger's attention when you've given a loud, rowdy exclamation of your own irrefutable threat. The man lethargically blinked to himself, keeping his head away from the window before he'd been knocked for six, blinking another as if he couldn't believe his eyes. 

"Is that..." His submerged mind went above the apprehension of reality, own dwellings surfacing in between a quandary that emerged for an unsought time. Incredulity and dread loaded his disbelieving spirits. Own nerves malfunctioning, putting a kibosh on worrying over the mistakes he'd been berated back on a work he'd been receiving money from. 

The faction comprehended him clearly. Six months. Half a year after dooms day, Fukumoto Daichi was to be reborn again. Right after on the succeeding date that every Jujutsu Sorcerer has been oblivious for. An ill-starred time that no one would've been aware of. 

Their world's downfall for only a minute of time where each one was bound to suffer in successive unforeseen deaths. 

Fukumoto Daichi had seen what was written in the stars.

Through every calamity; every stroke of bad luck from every Jujutsu Sorcerer's decisions till the contretemps of what Satoru's dimension provided them with. Natural disasters that couldn't be controlled till the resoluteness of cursed-spirits that has been casted to the sides---thrown towards the tenebrosity of their world because of one's existence. He'd detected them all. They were au courant with the eventualities and incidents. Every member finding utmost trust to his divine providence that he offered to their faction.

But, to his ordinance---a god-forsaken commandment, Fukumoto Daichi had announced his sacrilege was to never stand in the way of what fate had for their dimension.

No matter what it takes.

Undeterred by the laden consequences, deplorable conditions and egregious circumstances that he'd foreseen before his demise.

Even if it meant for their world to collapse into complicated, torn pieces.

Only Sasaki Hibito was the sole person to apprehend what was said between the lines of their overseer in the subject matter of a woman; a substantial commination to the tenets of Fukumoto.

This threat he'd distinguished to be. Fukumoto foreknows everything. The image of your face which had his sanction flabbergasted by the details. Yet, barely laying hold of what you provided for Satoru's world other than the sketches he envisaged because your existence; your life, your motives or plans ahead, to Fukumoto he'd seen nothing but a nullified cloud of obscurity. Withholding bupkis of your astral influence that he could not predict.

Hence, which is why he'd made it intelligible for everyone---to everyone meant that only Hibito had understood the obligation imparted to those who were vacated that you were entailed to be terminated.

It was either to decimate or keep you constrained no matter who ended up escorting you through your unnecessary pilgrimage on their land.

Nevertheless, the scene that he was welcomed with---bringing you with them to a standstill required sedulous care. An all-embracing endeavor and a life of toil for each member of their religion that it would take a chucklesome illusion of pigs flying in the air.

Perhaps, keeping you detained within their grasp would be impossible.

Because you were guided---deemed to be protected and shepherd around Japan by the strongest jujutsu sorcerer in their world.

How fearsome it was to see you with him. Even mind-boggling to get a drift of such appearance that were an absolute reciprocity of Fukumoto Daichi with an opposite gender that they had prophesied for. Though, to no extent did they have any idea where, when and how you would make an appearance.

Hibito's hand couldn't help but shake just by being in the presence of him alone. Those fingers of his that trembled from trying to clean his own glasses with the fabric of his shirt. His lungs that began shaking like a leaf.

Those of the members within his faction who had seen Gojo Satoru in the flesh have been right. It was either you get intimidated or terrorized by the judgements you had for his potentials, exhibit abhorrence for his existence and hubristic side or have a bit of both.

There was no in between if he doesn't plan to keep you close within his range. Physically, mentally and spiritually.

Only those who were of palsy-walsy are to witness what and who Gojo Satoru really was. Apparently, Hibito was not one.

Master Daichi knocked together a plan of action that was paradoxical to begin with if what he depicted were not of an illusion fabricated during his stressed out conditions.

Hibito brought back his glasses to where it was situated in the first place. Lenses all limpid that he'd happen to fall further on his seat. An expected migraine taking place from the image.

You really were with the honored one. The inheritor of the limitless and six-eyes.

"Out of all damned people...She was supposed to be with us," Hibito mentally thought to himself, shunning his eyes away from both you and Satoru who kept bickering like you did not care for the world. He kept his eyes straight, disregarding your presence on purpose.

Nevertheless, his own leg seemed to be jiggle when he began to cross them. His own nerves deceiving him through the thoughts, logics and false providence that followed; his soul outright aware of Satoru who was just meters away from him and knowing he had the capability to die with one phony act he makes when he appears to be like he knew him and his history along the Jujutsu Society.

It would always end up with the question, 'How'. In which, Hibito could forebode their sub rosa patrols that involved time ahead and revealing them all would have him dying first before he could.

"Ooooh. Scary! A threat coming from a teeny-weeny girl," Satoru teased and taunted, shifting on his seat as he leaned his head to the side, sending you a charming, skittish beam, "---A threat that's entirely impossible to happen. Heh." he'd lowly chuckle to himself, leaning closer to your face to offer more of his mischief and irritating taunts, "---I'd love to see you struggle."

"You've already gotten him dirty because you threw him off!" you've groused with a grimace, huffing back to him and taking the stuff toy in between you both, emphasizing your forefinger and drawing beads on where the exact smudges were. Showing him the tiny specks of dust that it has gotten from his previous reckless actions back at the photo booth.

"Eh. It's only a tiny speck of dust. You should've chosen a different plushie then. You had options. Either a black one or the horrid, white one." Satoru nonchalantly stated, his voice light as he leaned his broad shoulders back, crossing his arms but having his legs spread enough for you to chastise him for in which he clearly didn't care about if you were too bothered by it.

"Aren't you sitting too close to me? There are lots of spaces to be seated on! Yet, you chose to sit beside me and man spread like a bitch again!" your verbal horsewhips passed from one ear then towards the other. His grin growing like it was animated enough as Satoru scooted closer next to you, depriving more of your area with his lofty built. Another sally resurfacing that was already prepared to be quipped out in the open.

"Actually, you should be thankful. I get to check the weather up here and that annoying top of your head. Need to check if you're growing a halo or the devil's ears already." His facial expressions turned more of a cock-a-hoop when you've shamelessly pushed his thigh close with your palms, exerting all your energy to it as he let you do it your own. Satoru going on with the flow and letting you have your own fun.

He'd countered all of this perversion with a semblance of bypassing the sense of absurd froth that spumed under that palisade he trusted to be resilient and stout.

"---I realized that it might be a little bit of both though. There's no in between. Are you also like this back in your world?"

"I was once an angel. But, being with you is making me turn into a she-devil!---Satoru, your leg is heavy! Please move! Or just basically give me space then!" You've breathed out the energy used to just allow yourself to sink in further on your seat, being cloth to cloth with Satoru now while he expressed his frisky, obdurate discords with a shake of his head and continuous 'nah's' ,'No's.'  and unsophisticated 'uh-uh's'.

You were being ridiculously more comfortable as you held onto the prize that you both had claimed back at the arcade. Another exhausted breath has been puffed out of your lungs as you've held onto your fluffy, Neko's white ears, making it sit on your lap, aimlessly playing with it, a genuine smile lifting your face.

An involuntary run of the mouth. The repressed thoughts, one that has been too honest to overhear by the latter, "---Also, I've chosen this because this is the only one that has the possibility to look like you!"

Satoru couldn't help the waggish grin that traced his features. His arms folded before him as he was gazing alongside your face, "Ah. I understand it clearly now. Are you saying that you've chosen that Neko plushie in hopes of remembering me whenever I'm not around?"

"---I mean," he started again and went on with his teasing, wiggling his albino brows as he jibed at your abrupt honesty, "---you've basically had him patented with such a marvelous nickname, right? There's no doubt that you've chosen that particular plushie to spare a thought for me."

Damn it. His own reasoning and logic made your body freeze. A bucket of numbing ice seeming to fall above your foolish self. Your hands stiffening from mindlessly playing with the stuff toy at hand.

Caught red-handed. You had to snap your head away after that, fighting shy of his conspicuous, unabating observance. Those palpable Ether that always had your face toiled underneath the broiling sun. With a twisted expression and your tongue poking on the insides of your cheeks, there was no doubt that you wanted to slap your own mouth, turning too free-spoken around a person that you should be through and through attentive of. 

Satoru was left chuckling to your side. The tonality rich and resonant, full-toned enough to analyze that he was probably thinking of taking its meaning to his head. The assumption lingering inside his haughty mind that you've purposely chosen the white cat in terms of remembering him when he wasn't around.

You knew you were right when he started to brag his mouth upon the notion, "Don't worry, I'll always be around you, Tiny-Chan. There's no need for that." Satoru pressed on, his leg now elegantly crossed as he leaned further on your side. Straight off, being cheek by jowl with him. His willowy, athletic weight now leaning more onto you as he hummed teasingly.

"Y-You're putting words in my mouth! I-I didn't say that!" Flustered words toppled one on top of the other, caught in your own incautious reckoning. Those honest statements should've been left unsaid and prohibited only to that angel sitting on your shoulder.

Those off the record kept thoughts should've been written on a locked diary or some sort instead. Yet, this erratic, refreshing solace that neighbored you whenever Satoru was around, the apparent sheltered ambiance that could be felt through him paved those thoughts out somehow.

In which fed to his ego again after all.

"It's okay to be honest with me. I dislike liars anyway. Feel free to memorize my charm and handsome face before I return the blindfolds back," your cheeks were puffed for both, restraining the need to strangle yourself from your genuine dopiness, aware of the piping hot temperature that tarried, falling further down the volcano hole. Your face experiencing to be sizzling in a fiery catch of shame for such an honest retaliation that didn't seem to even be a verbal counterattack from you and also for Gojo's veracity that he was proudly reveling in.

He'd slanted down further, catching you entirely off-guard when the supple of his lips grazed along your earlobe. Those next words of his sounding deep-toned, modulated but a little bit hoarse that was meant to be classified into the titillating side.

What was set forth susurrated below his breath. Warmth carelessly skimming above your skin, "Don't be shy,"

All at once, those hairs on the nape of your neck stood like you've been electrocuted. The electricity going straight down the rabbit hole like it has given you a sensation of something different. One squeezing through concupiscent dreams, worth for a mother to scold the licentious behavior of her daughter. 

It echoed and rang through that flummoxed state you were having, his words being crooned like a choir out in a church. Full and utterly angelic despite of how the devil was probably laughing out of court through your persistence of going through the motions being a paragon of virtue. An angel? Nah. You certainly��weren't. 

This quotation you've heard from Satoru have been mixed within the familiarity that echoed in that fragmented abyss planned to be healed and connected together, filling the cavity of intrigue. Though, the words that came out of his mouth was definitely the first time you've heard them loud and clear. It was as far as you could recall, including that distinct impeccable locution he uttered that has given you a giggle prior when you were forcefully fed by his Shiitake Mushrooms.

"H-Hey! IT'S MAKING ME UNEASY!---you are making me uneasy, Satoru!" Out of the blue, you've loudly protested at the top of your lungs. As luck would have it, there weren't any other passengers except for the college student you've become cognizant of. To some degree, his body stilted upon his own seat like he was situated in a rather confined space when he had all the expanse to take, off in a world of his own. If there were elders, they would've chastised both you and Satoru for being so brash and rowdy. Affiliates to be classified in the boisterous side of the crowd because of the constant rumbustious pleasantries that catapulted high and low from both parties.

The noise would've been considered ill-mannered to their culture especially while riding a public transportation.

You tore hell for leather out of the seat you've occupied in the train, lifting yourself off from Satoru's side, emigrating from his reach without sparing him a glance. Your face uttermost being baked inside an imaginary oven, feeling like it was being scorched by the heat of the stove.

Satoru was utmost tickled pink for such a raucous reaction.

Too entertained that he had to drive more around the bend. He'd given a simper, the ends of his lips stretching wider as he ought to bring his pestilent necessities to use. Satoru was settled to provoke you even more, shamelessly pulling himself out of his seat, scurrying along your side with a playful purse of his lip. The troublesome idea of whispering the phrase again along your ear.

The strongest have made it obvious. Satoru's perverse decisions and plans that were clouded with mischief all the while he scooted next to you and offered his audible teehees.

"Don't be---" His words were cut off, lanky body being at an angle where his breath was capable of giving the summer breeze along your hypersensitive skin. The wariness of his presence stuffing your sentience that you were holding tightly onto your brand new prized stuff toy with a reckless moniker of it having named 'Toru' that you've had the audacity and will power to shove the plushie on Satoru's face in attempts to shut him up.

It would've stopped everyone's tracks; would've ceased Sasaki Hibito if he wasn't intentionally shunning off to both of your existence, it would have also catch Satoru's students on the hop because of a breathtaking and unanticipated incident. An absolute willpower from a non-sorcerer would have raised a furor among everybody who'd wanted revenge given to a menace of the Jujutsu Society. That fixity of purpose from a person who entirely had no sense of cursed energy nor knew any technique in regards to Jujutsu.

All that spunk you've got deserved an uproar. If his students or those people who were constantly annoyed by him were around, you might have received a splendid applause.

Satoru had seen it. His senses knew you were about to give him a smite with your Neko stuff toy. But, he was too busy; too preoccupied with his own guffaws over the bashfulness of your spirits that he allowed it to happen. Your soft toy smacking him in the face, "---Oomph!"

However, Gojo Satoru was obviously quicker than you opined him for revenge. Energetically taking the stuff toy from you and out of your hands.

The annoying idiot literally and proudly chucked the prized possession away inside the train. Within the area of the public transportation that you were both traveling in. The poor white stuff toy kitty heading throughout the width of the train compartment, accepting its hapless fate with a faint squeak of its loss. The lifeless soft toy devoting itself for its sustained defeat for being tossed for a lot of times today.

Satoru Gojo: 2 | Neko-san: 1

Neko-San has earned his well-deserved point by hitting him on the face.

"SATORU!"

This has been one of the loudest exclamation of his name that has been spat out of your mouth, kicking up a fuss for the sorcerer's foolish actions. Those embarrassed expressions you had, the broiling heat gradually melting away when Gojo had to dramatically stood on his towering height. He'd posed like he had a strike over a bowling game. Fists tightened on either side of him. His long-legs slightly bent like he was ready to pounce or give a kick over a cursed-spirit that technically wasn't there to begin with. Stance appearing to be like he was ready for combat.

You couldn't help the tight, firm moue. Those aghast expressions candid to be perceived by anyone, distorting them even more when Satoru had to declare a word out loud.

"STRIKE!"

You've given him the stink-eye, giving his face a once over and scrutinized the widening beam he had. As a matter of fact, you've spotted the slight dinky rumpled streaks of his wispy Ivory hair on the strength of Neko-san's attack. Satoru never took his eyes off your Neko stuff toy that went and flew as far as it did that it fell right exactly before the stranger's shoes whom was sitting silently and minding his own business.

"AH! YOU NEED TO STOP IT! He's as pale as your albino hair! Stop throwing him away like he's some ragdoll! REALLY!" With a stomp of your foot and an obvious, tight wrinkle of your brows clamped together. To the fullest extent were you nettled by Satoru's acts of inconveniences. You've felt your lips twitch on the sides, huffing out an exasperated breath. Holding onto the train's metal side bar to stabilize yourself to stand as you've audibly vouched and dragged your heavy footing along the floors towards your beloved stuff toy.

"---I have to get him again myself!" you've crowed your thoughts out loud, bleats frank enough for Satoru to assess as he continued on with his poses and own glares upon a lifeless dummy he was subtly seeing as an illusionary combatant. "---you've almost had to hit the stranger on the head too! Now, I need to apologize for your behavior when I don't even speak your language!"

The floor seemed nicer to stare at for Sasaki Hibito. How long had he been moored to his seat till his destination? In all likelihood, the time he spent with the both of you around had been ephemeral. Quite not too long ago yet. Granted that, time stood still and had been a suffocating mess when Satoru Gojo has been in the ballpark bordering his vicinage.

Hibito has been eavesdropping, nevertheless. Mentally inscribing synopsis or observations for your existence as well. One he'd taken to footnote was the nonnative language you were speaking. Distinguishing you to be of a foreign woman whom the strongest could decipher. He'd also been hearing you both fighting over something so childish. An irrelevant notation he'd paid attention to when his earwigging was ceased due to seeing a large, white, stuffed cat toy that has been knocked to the ground, right before the tip of his shoes.

This was the thing that both you and Satoru has been bickering non-stop about.

He couldn't help but mentally cuss inside his head. Never risking the profanities to be commented out loud.

"Damn it." Hibito was repeatedly questioning himself if he needed to get it for you. Balancing the consequences if he did or did not. What if he acted and turned a blind eye to the plaything? would Gojo Satoru break his neck for it? 

Hibito technically heard the prior canards through one of Fukumoto's disciples. One of the few and far between strong adherents of his that he couldn't conceive to be happening; confabulating with an eldritch being to start with. He'd listened to the their chinwags over how Gojo granted ruthless measures over a particular unregistered special grade cursed spirit who'd underestimated the strongest. His foe losing his temper for his vainglorious demeanor that he had whenever in the course of a Jujutsu battle. Gojo Satoru was granted that he was verily stronger and had the upper hand before the battle even started. 

The word on the street purveyed in the pitiless aftermath of this certain vier, taking him down a peg or two from grisly pulling his own head off inside Gojo's Domain Expansion that has overthrew his. 

Straightaway and without even realizing his fretful nerves were controlling him all at once, Hibito was coming in for the stuff toy. His subconsciousness screaming how his yips would've made everything conspicuous, yet he had to play the chivalrous and respectful Japanese citizen. He didn't need to look at the both of you anyway, he silently thought as his head bowed when he'd felt that you were at arms length away from him. 

Both of his arms out with the plushie on his hand, offering your soft-toy back without even sparing you a glance. 

This was the first and only time he'd seen whom everybody have loathed and been frightened of. Gojo Satoru whose existence which made every cursed-spirit hid behind the shadows because of his birth. Hibito even had the ill-fate to tolerate upon communicating towards the threat that their worshipped being has forewarned them all about.

The woman of peril that needed to be constrained within their hands.

"Ah---Hm. Arigatou Gozaimasu and Gomenasai. I hope the pronunciation is correct. By the way, mister---I'm with the crazy, albino man child. I'm so sorry." you've kindly thanked Hibito, trailing off for a second as you've glanced at the train's ceiling, reclaiming your soft-toy back from his hands. Your next words gibberish for him to understand as it was beyond any doubt a foreign sentence that he had his brows in a twist. The stranger carried on and hid his face underneath and in between his arms, playing the role of a diffident man who did not want to have a confab with anyone. 

He just didn't trust the constant frets of his fingers and the everlasting instability that Gojo's presence has brought him in. 

"Oi! Tiny-Chan!~" 

Ah, Damn it. Hibito felt himself tripping on the wrong foot when he'd heard Satoru merrily calling out for you. His spirit of inquisitiveness has been changed to stress, stirring an intense amount of agitation when he heard Satoru hollering. The peculiar nickname and honorific he'd used piqued his curiosity. 

He had to continue and bow further as if the floor was really such nice art. Fukumoto's votary wanted you to scram; wanted you to skedaddle that he was pleading to Fukumoto's dead soul that you would leave him alone before his state of nerves could divert Satoru's attention from yours to his. 

However, your nosiness; your snoopy self decided to stay upon your tracks and studied him down in concern, wondering why he wasn't giving you a look, worried that he wasn't all too well. 

You've dwell on further, not wanting to judge the culture that you were still adapting from. Distracted as you appeared to be especially with the visual perception of Gojo, his six-eyes be immersed over your figure as you stood before the unusual, timid stranger. How the echo of his feet were like the drums of death, steadily being clobbered with in hulking thuds. Literally. 

"He knows. He knows that I know him. He knows. He knows." Hibito was cognitively ranting and wordlessly rambling time after time. His mind in a mess and have been on edge that he had unconsciously fished his phone out of his pocket, acting as if he has gotten a text when he could hear Gojo's heavy footsteps echoing closer.

"Didn't I tell you to just stay beside me because it's more fun when I'm around?"

Hibito's breath was being held back. He could feel himself fighting to keep an unstable pattern of breaths to make him appear more composed within the presence of his mind when it has all been the opposite. From his peripheral vision, his line of sight that has been hardly engrossed over the screen of his phone, he could see and feel Satoru closing in within a spitting distance which kept his anguish mid bay. 

"More fun when you're around? Hah! That was very funny. You've been giving me headaches!" you've bewailed with a tepid, sardonic laugh, turning a blind-eye to Satoru's saunters, "---throwing my plushie away since the moment I had him whenever you could. I always had to get it myself! This is all your fault!"

"Hai, hai...Come here now," Satoru droned once he was well-nigh, waltzing within the borderline of your discussion with a stranger you barely knew. "---besides, Neko-san's meant to be catapulted all the time."

"You go wash him then!" 

He'd kept his foot atwix the stretch of margin that kept you and Hibito adjacent to each other, looking as though he was trying to meddle in. Satoru actually was, much to your ignorance. On grounds of Hibito's twitchiness, his own nerves reacting upon his jittery impulse, his foot has faintly repelled when his sight-line and headlong senses seen Gojo's shoes step in between the line. 

It probably wasn't the best idea for his own axons to betray him in such an epoch-making occasion right now. 

You've been too faraway over your own hairsplitting mumbles of complaints over Satoru's actions, those real grouches inwardly interrupted when you've felt the grasp and warmth of his riveting touch that has gently grabbed your wrists, snowed under with his sizeable palm. Indulgent as he always was with you. Gojo have pried you out of the superfluous conversation, dragging you alongside of him and back to where you both seated. 

He's protective over her. She probably has been aiding to what Master Fukumoto has seen her to be. This guy wouldn't keep her with him if she was entirely useless after all. Hibito took his time as he breathed out the air he had been holding. At an apparent snail's pace with each step Satoru took as he yanked you away. The sneaking suspicions settling his ruminative thoughts ahead again. 

Although, he's kinda' too protective to assess.

Unbeknownst to him, The Strongest Jujutsu Sorcerer has given him the side-eye upon his intrusion, sparing him a glance of his fugitive heed when he'd intentionally whisked you away from Sasaki Hibito, the knacks of his scrupulous senses fastening on the infinitesimal buck fever he was having till the mocked-up act he was trying to mask for whatever reasons. Yet, above all was the tiniest scent that he had been around cursed-spirits. His six-eyes never conked out nor diminished him. It was a vague smell that he was inured to after all and even how diminutive this was for Hibito because he hadn't even met Fukumoto's acolytes for today yet, Satoru knew.

Satoru's foremost gut feeling that his restiveness had to be about him. 

That's what he thought because Gojo has been given to understand that you were a nonentity. Thoroughly unidentified and your existence purely being a mystery whom no one in his world knew of. 

"How could we even get ahold of her when it was impossible from the start?"

Gojo has cut those hunches dead, thumbing one's nose over a tangential non-sorcerer whose existence was irrelevant to begin with. 

Through the birth of Gojo Satoru; the balance of the world has been altered. But, to your unanticipated existence and being entirely surrounded by him, alone. Everyone's destiny was guaranteed to be reshaped and tweaked to an extent that should've been left untouched.

Just wanna make it clear that Fukumoto Daichi has the same face with you. He's a man but prolly older. Heehee. He also have his disciples which are Sasaki Hibito and the others---which will be named and introduced soon. 

Think of them as a cult that's supposed to be hiding at all costs because they know some things that aren't supposed to be known that easily.

Satoru just be breathin' and Sasaki Hibito be fainting---LMAO XD 

There's still going to be chapter 7.9 before chapter 8 begins. Sorry if it's too long. I just really wanted this to last and also let them have their moments. Heehee. See you on the next chapter soon, if anybody even reads these fanfic stories of mine. Heehee!

SEND AN ASK?

[lord-squiggletits]

Heyyy, for the emoji ask (I hope you haven't already answered to these and I missed it, in that case I'm sorryyyy) 👀, 🥰, 🤗

👀 Tell me about an up and coming WIP please!

The Blade Called Trust: I'm really looking to writing day-to-day operations for this one. Of course, the main conflict is going to be MegOP related and all the emotional/symbolic things that come from their personal/political reconciliation, but part of that is going to involve showing people from the two factions interacting across political lines. I also want to get into some nitty-gritty of like, cross-faction politics (how do you manage cross-faction fights and crimes? Whose justice system are the perpetrators punished under? What if the accused don't believe the other side's justice system is righteous?) and how those seemingly simply logistical details and petty fights end up spiraling into dysfunction that threatens a whole army. Pretty cool stuff! And I'm hoping to get better at utilizing large casts of characters with this fic, especially utilizing some characters that are my favorites/interesting to me.

TAU: The plot of this one is meant to be a murder-mystery (well, near-murder) political conspiracy fic. The other day I had a realization that rather than writing a really convoluted conspiracy with twists and turns out of nowhere, I could just write one fairly simple conspiracy and have the difficulty in uncovering it arise from the fact that there are so many people/factions with competing interests that they're too suspicious of each other to find the true enemy. :) Some of the people/groups I'm planning on being suspects of the conspiracy are Megatron, Prowl (with Getaway and Skids working for him), the DJD, possibly Starscream, and some neutrals!

🤗 What advice would you give to new fanfic writers that are just getting started?

Consistent writing every day will get you further than trying to "binge" write only whenever you feel inspired.

For that matter, "inspiration" and "the mood to write" are something you create just as often as it randomly falls upon you. In fact, if you've got a lot of stuff going on in your life, this goes doubly so. My experience is that if you don't nudge yourself to write (even when you don't "feel inspired"), you're hardly going to write and the inspiration to write won't come as often. It's like a water pipe that you have to turn on every now and then so that it doesn't get clogged up.

Find a good beta reader and treasure them forever. Only take writing advice from people who are familiar with your writing process and the intention behind your work. Taking critique from random strangers will only give you a lot of contradictory advice from people who (I say this with as much respect as possible) don't really know what it is YOU want to improve on and what YOUR INTENTIONS are during writing.

Read "Imaginative Writing" by Janet Burroway if you're worried about learning the actual technical aspects like imagery and whatnot. Practice your writing techniques by writing a complete chapter/scene, then editing one aspect at a time (e.g. draft 2 you work on imagery, on draft 3 you work on characterization, and so on).

The best way to gain readers or any kind of "following" is to post things consistently. Again, remember that writing a little bit every day will lead you to write more than if you go on occasional writing binges.

Don't shy away from writing obscure, rare, or unpopular stuff. I can guarantee you that the devoted readers/fandom friends you get from writing stuff that a couple people REALLY care about will be worth it more than just trying to chase numbers and trends related to "popularity."

Edit your work for grammar, spelling, and punctuation, and keep your formatting consistent. If you're not good at this, find a friend or beta reader (preferably both are the same person) who is. Get better at editing by reading published books (it doesn't matter what kind, just anything that's been professionally published and vetted) and absorb how to write grammatically correct and beautiful prose by reading things you enjoy.

🥰 How do you feel about reader interaction? Are you open to receiving questions about your fics?

Gosh, please interact with me and ask me questions about my fics. I would really like it if people told me their interpretations, asked me about my writing process/inspiration, or really anything related to my fics...

[miss-m-calling]

Trick or Treat 2024 letter

Dear writer,

Hello and thank you for writing for me! My requests are Almost Famous, Interview with the Vampire (TV), Justified, and Starred Up. I am requesting fic, and treats are enabled. :-)

Please don’t worry about whether whatever you write for me fits Just So within the treat/trick framework! I am requesting both treats and tricks for all my canons, and anyway I see that as more broad hints of preferred general flavor of fic, rather than as strict guidelines.

General likes:

-pre-canon, canon, post-canon, canon-divergent, and missing-scene stories

-character-driven as well as plot-driven stories

-fics which mix humor and angst/serious business (when this fits the canon)

-characters at work and play

-group dynamics, family dynamics (including constructed families), professional partnerships, friendships, alliances, rivalries, intimate couples (new lovers/first times as well as long-term/established couples), UST-ridden couples who are not just UST-ridden but connected in other ways too

-irony, snark, humor, angst – all arising from the characters rather than the plot crowbaring it in

-linear, non-linear, and 5+1 stories

-hopeful endings, happy endings, bittersweet endings, “everything is awful but you’re here and maybe I don’t entirely hate that” endings

-worldbuilding

-spiky characters who keep their jagged edges and spikiness in adversity as well as when their lives are going well, square-peg-in-round-hole characters, tough characters with (maybe not so well) hidden vulnerabilities, characters who are their own worst enemies, characters who manage to get over themselves when the occasion calls for it, characters with conflicting values which may or may not be reconciled/resolved, characters who treat each other with respect and as equals even if they hate/annoy/can’t stand/love to dislike each other, characters who may not be exactly friends and may well irritate one another but manage to rub along to get the job done and maybe even grow to care about one another (much to their surprise/reluctance/discomfort), characters who just cannot get along with each other or find common ground

-workplace stories (this can mean anything from an actual workplace/casefic/procedural setting to anything that revolves around the canon world in which the characters live) in which the characters get to be competent

Shippy and smutty likes:

-(where it fits the characters) banter

-competitiveness or antagonism shading into attraction (this tension need not be resolved)

-”oh god why did it have to be you what did I do to deserve this“

-”come here and say it to my face/do that again/kiss me, you motherfucker”

-bickering yet loving couples

-characters who are serious about their romantic interests

-characters who think they are much better at flirtation than they actually are

-characters forced to work together only to prove much more compatible than they initially assumed

-fics which mix an exploration of characters’ professional and everyday lives with shipping

-characters who are incompatible in some important way (they are ideological enemies, cop and criminal, spies from opposite sides, or there has been betrayal!!!), and while they love and/or want each other, they’re not willing to change sides or abandon/compromise their identity/beliefs for the other’s benefit

-I don’t know how better to phrase this than: smut which fits the characters; how does their canon dynamics spill over into hubba hubba stuff?

-sexual scenarios that subvert expectations a little and surprise the characters themselves

-sexual scenarios that contain an element of competition or antagonism

-“this is a bad idea but we’re going for it hammer and tongs”

-not wanting to admit feelings or show vulnerability except oops it happens anyway, whether the characters acknowledge it or not

-characters getting way more into the sex or being more affected by it than they thought they would

-quick and intense sex, slow and intense sex, rough yet willing sex (when it fits the characters), unexpectedly emotional and/or tender sex

-masturbation while thinking of the other half of the ship (or not wanting to think about them only oops there they are in the fantasy!)

-first time sex

-established relationship, we-know-each-other-so-well sex

-”we’ve both wanted this and now we both know it so here we go diving in headfirst” sex

-you can go as veiled or as explicit as you like, but please avoid excessive medical jargon – I don’t find a lot of mention of “penis” or “clit” sexy.

Ship/smut DNWs:

MPREG, A/B/O, knotting D/s, formalized BDSM, painful sex, hard kinks (holding someone down playfully, hair pulling and such like, the odd spank are a-OK) scat, watersports knife/gun/blood play incest deaging/infantilization, mommy/daddy kink under-16yos in sexual situations humiliation body distortion/horror (feeding/weight kink, come inflation, vore, etc.) unrequested ships/pairings soulmates and soul marks pregnancy and children (can be mentioned if canon, just don’t make the whole fic about them) wedding setting/theme secondary characters shipping the main pair like it’s their job xeno, tentacles, bestiality noncon/dubcon

Other DNWs:

torture and abuse (this and noncon/dubcon can be mentioned, but please don’t dwell on it in loving detail or subject any of my requested characters to it) descriptions of vomit, shit, and piss (”He pissed up against a tree” and the like is fine), toilet humor lots of gore/blood (mention it, yes; lovingly describe it, no), cannibalism, serious illness or injury character bashing genderswap/genderbent characters, characters as kids/young teens issuefic, gender/sexuality/race/ethnicity/religion/ability/identity headcanons death of requested characters hopeless, unrelenting gloom/angst/horror RL holiday setting/theme, RL religions as a major theme (invented fictional holidays and rituals are fine) reference to RL current events 1st and 2nd person POV unrequested crossovers or fusions AUs which have nothing to do with canon fic written in lapslock, poetry as my main gift, AI-generated fic

FANDOMS:

Almost Famous

Russell Hammond/William Miller

I think I osmosed this entire movie over the years but only got around to watching it this past summer. And I loved it, and by the end I shipped them. Then I watched the director’s cut, and I shipped them even harder. I love that William is genuinely just a sweet, uncool, un-smooth guy from start to finish, so earnest in his love for this music and these people, so good with his family while also seeing their flaws and quirks, wanting so much to be with the band but also remain somehow objective enough to judge the quality of the work. And I love that charismatic Russell is a selfish dick, but he too has lingering decency and thoughtfulness, and eventually he does the right thing because he wants to, not just because he gets forced into it. Give me whatever period detail you want, give me any other characters if you want, but give me some of that fine ascendant rock star/budding young music journalist shippiness!

Canon-specific DNW: demonizing Penny

Exception to blanket DNW: underage is a-okay! Let them hook up at the end of the movie or a bit later or so much later than William is an adult, whatever works for you. Don’t make William any younger than 15, please.

Actual prompts? Sure:

-The evolution of their relationship: When and how does it begin? How does it progress? What problems do they have along the way, and how do they manage to keep finding their way back to each other? Russell is doing better now, but he’s still a musician touring a lot with stress/groupies/drugs/younameit (and still needs to see himself through the admiring eyes of others), and William is still “The Enemy” who’s finally internalized Lester Bangs’s dictum that you can’t write honestly and mercilessly about people you feel close to/are dazzled by. How do they make it work? Does Russell even know who he is apart from a rock musician, and would William be as interested in some guy from Troy, Michigan if that guy’s appeal wasn’t tied up with what he represents for the music lover in William?

-Does Stillwater endure (and maybe go super commercial and stratospherically famous after all, or struggle with the time and financial pressures of being a mid-range band), do they break up, does Russell leave and attempt a solo career? Does William again follow them around for work (full-time or moonlighting while in college) or just because he wants to, or does he cover a lot of bands and has to make time for Russell when he can, and Russell gets it but also he liked being special when they first met?

-Does William give up the Stillwater beat so it doesn’t spoil the relationship? What happens if William dislikes a musical direction or experiment Stillwater take? How would this type of music and this relationship fare in the late 1970s or the 1980s? What even is Russell’s musical career in the era of glam rock, 80s big-hair rock and 80s pop, punk, disco, synth-pop and dance music; what would William’s take on some of these new genres be? (By the 1980s, there’s also AIDS, and hard drugs, and I’m not asking for full-on kitchen-sink realism, but I’d love to see how these people and their relationship change with the gritty, a-changin’ times. William still needs to grow up, and arguably Russell does too.)

-Sex! Gimme it! There are no secrets on tour, so do they have to escape somewhere where no-one knows them (well, where no one recognizes Russell) to be together, or make a home they can meet up in when their schedules intersect, or just assume that what happens on tour stays on tour? It can be sweet and awkward, can be “debauching the kid (all at once or in stages) will be a real ego trip but then oops feelings,” can be “wiping drops of come from mustache just before going on stage,” can be the exquisite torture of knowing what you both want while surrounded by people at a party/gig/Doris, can be “keep it down, Elaine will hear us,” can be “There’s Only One Bed, and William’s got into the habit of getting himself off thinking about Russell before sleep, so that’s a problem,” can be a first time, a later time, an established or recurrent good time.* Whatever strikes your smutty fancy!

* First (or second or whichever) kiss, “I love you” (I can totally see Sweet William blurting it out during sex and Russell not being super gracious about it at first, just a thought), blowjob, penetrative sex, Russell deciding he wants to bottom, trip to a public bath or sex club in the Castro or the Meatpacking District but at the end of the night they really just want each other – just whatever takes your fancy.

-Fast forward a few years or many years, William is interviewing Russell again, only now they’re also banging. How does that interview go? Or adult!William writes a book about the music of the 1970s or writes again, with adult hindsight, about his time touring with Stillwater and falling for Russell? I’d actually love to read some of William’s work, if you wanted to include that in the fic. Or how about Russell’s lyrics inspired by William but with plausible deniability built in, or Russell being asked about his private life in interviews with other magazines or on radio/TV?

-The sexual and social mores of the 1970s were changing rapidly, but people in public-facing positions being out would have been tricky and kind of niche. How would any of the other characters react to this relationship? Make it funny and/or heartwarming, make it angsty, make it whatever you want. I’m especially fond of William’s mom and sister, Sapphire, and Lester, all of them wise and hilarious and earnest and weird in their own ways. The other Stillwater guys’ reactions would also be something to see. And I’d be down for William-Penny friendship after all the Sturm und Drang of the movie, and for her to be healthy and happy and to never ever go back to Russell (plus, Russell said she wanted the two guys to be ~~together!). Or what if one or both got publicly outed, or there’s this rumor going around and fans/rival musicians/the media are sniffing around, uh oh?

-Russell quote from the director’s cut: “It’s not what you put into it. It’s what you leave out. . . . That’s what you remember, man. It’s the little things, the silly things. The mistakes. . . . It’s what you leave out. Yeah, that’s rock ‘n’ roll.” Also true of life, often of love, sometimes of sex. Make of that what you will.

-I’m not so interested in ship fic set during the movie (unless we’re talking the very last scene or immediately after it), but if you want a part of their backstory to be that, at some point during the Almost Famous tour William and Russell hooked up (maybe instead of Sapphire and Polexia, Russell popped William's cherry in lieu of giving the kid an interview), and that’s a part of William’s complicated feelings for and about both Russell and the band, and about Penny, ditto Russell’s feelings about William – I’d be down with that!

Interview with the Vampire (TV)

Bricktop Williams

I love this show with the fire of a thousand suns. The darkness, the poetic dialogues, the eroticism, the black humor, the OTT melodrama, the flawed and complex characters and their dynamics, the period detail, the beautiful people and beautiful costumes and settings, the questions of memory and perception, how do we know what happened happened and in such-and-such a way, and how do you ever know that you truly know another person (even if you can read their mind). It’s like someone took everything I didn’t know I needed in one single show and mixed a magic potion to keep me in a state of perpetual bliss. All the characters are fascinating, but I picked Bricktop because she stole my heart in, what, four measly scenes and I really felt the loss of her after the Storyville riot. I loved her self-awareness, her humor, her clear lines about what she will and will not put up with even as a Black woman in her position in that time and place, her fabulousness. Let’s pretend she didn’t die in the riot, or say “fuck this noise” and decamp to another city, okay? Okay!

Canon-specific DNW: I am fine with canon levels of everything, but please no smut-and-nothing-else fic. Smut as part of the fic is cool.

Exceptions to blanket DNWs: violence, gore, character death are all fine in the context of vampirism. Implied or referenced sexual violence and/or sex work are fine so long as you keep them “off screen.” Lestat/Louis as a secondary/background pairing is a-okay!

Prompts:

-More of Bricktop’s relationship with Louis, when she was one of his “girls” and/or later at the Azalea. Even in her first scene, he’s annoyed that he has to deal with the situation but he’s not pissed off at her (much), and later at the Azalea, he trusts her completely as his right-hand woman. He must have seen her potential pretty early on, and as two Black people challenging the Jim Crow status quo, they’d need to be able to rely on each other in many ways. But Louis also keeps secrets, both before and after he becomes a vampire, and Bricktop is smart as a whip and demands a certain amount of respect. What’s her real name and where did the nickname come from?

-I wanted so badly to see Bricktop’s interactions with Lestat. He respects her competence (“Leave the Azalea to the capable hands of Miss Bricktop”) and sounds so amused when he tells Louis “I think she’s onto us” – that must have taken her all of two seconds! She’d need to be able to read people well in her life and line of work, so what’s her take on Lestat (she can tell there’s something… off about him, right? and not just in the way of most rich white men) and/or her take on Lestat/Louis (whom I ship like burning in all their ultra-dysfunctional, amour fou, can’t-live-with-you-can’t-kill-you-(I-tried-)can’t-let-go, FEMA-cleanup-area-levels-of-toxicity glory. They deserve each other, and their chemistry could power the sun).

-Bricktop running the Azalea with a velvet-gloved iron fist as the resident madam/accountant/legal advisor/Louis’s all-around right hand. Sorting out issues with the “girls” or one of the staff trying to steal from the till. How did she learn about business/constitutional law? How does she handle a situation like the one when we meet her, only now she’s in Louis’s position? When one of the rich men she used to service comes around, she has to be respectful and welcoming, but I am certain she finds ways to let them know what she really thinks of them too.

-Instead of saving Claudia from that fire, Louis finds Bricktop gravely wounded during the riot and convinces Lestat to turn her. How long would she put up with being the third wheel in that house? How would her relationship with both men evolve? I could see Lestat wanting to control her but she’s a grown-ass woman, not a kid like Claudia (at first), and her primary connection is to Louis, plus she’s a reminder of Louis’s past life. Is there a (one-sided?) sexual interest there, because she’s gorgeous and awesome, and because it would piss off Louis, and because she can see right through Lestat and he needs to have the upper hand at all times? I can imagine Louis being, how do you say, not thrilled about this, and Bricktop being like “I don’t need this (but dare I piss off my lily-white maker who also owns the goddamn house).” Once she (inevitably, I think) takes off on her own, where would she go and what would she get up to?

-For vampire!Bricktop, have her be the one interviewed by Daniel in 2022 (in this house, we love old!Daniel’s unshakable cynicism, skepticism, lack of illusions about everything including himself, commitment to snark, and stealth vulnerability), either as a follow-up to Daniel’s interviews with Louis or in lieu of those. Let them verbally spar and come to grudgingly respect each other!

-Bricktop’s undeath has been going just fine, thank you. Maybe she keeps in brain-phone touch with Louis in Dubai from time to time, maybe she and Daniel sometimes get Bloody Marys (if they can find two gals called Mary, har har), but mostly she’s living her best undeath without owing anyone anything. Till one day there’s Lestat on a screen, gyrating behind a mic, wearing eyeliner and not much else, belting out lyrics about vampirism and sex with Louis, prompting her to say softly but with great feeling: “aw shit.” She wants no part of this clusterfuck in the making, but as one of Lestat’s fledglings, she doesn’t get the luxury of choice… Basically, gimme your version of S3, now with vamp!Bricktop!

-I am cool with gen fic, or I think she and Miss Lily would be a fun ship, whether Bricktop is human or she’s a vampire (but doesn’t kill Lily either accidentally or on purpose). What would they talk about that’s not just their line of work or all the entitled, messed-up men in their lives – or hey, if you want them to talk about that, that would be great too! Or they could just have a little fun for no-one’s pleasure and benefit but their own.

-If you feel comfortable going there, I am fascinated by how the changes to Louis and Claudia’s race and/or background complicate the characters’ relationships, and especially with Bricktop being both savvy and opinionated as well as having seen some shit, by all means tell me how race and gender play into it all. I don’t need the world or these characters to be better than they are, and I don’t need anyone to give an impassioned soapbox speech about race in America – I just want more of the subtext and occasional text the show gives us. The “fledgling/slave” argument, Claudia mocking Lestat as “massa” and the Bach/Nazis thing, Daniel ribbing Louis about the “in the quiet dark” thing, Bricktop being the ignored voice of reason about Louis’s “business plan” for the Azalea, Lestat blithely sounding off about all the skin tones of the beautiful people of NoLa – I eat all that up with a spoon.

Justified

Rachel Brooks/Boyd Crowder

I adore this show (the plots! the dialogues and rich language! the local color! the insane tribal loyalties clashing with centralized authority, and the people caught in the middle!) and two characters who are so fascinating in their own right and who should have interacted more in canon! I love how Rachel is so non-nonsense, dedicated, and capable, and never passes up the opportunity to point out racial and gender nonsense when she sees it happening and affecting her in her work. And Boyd is just the poetically-spoken, ruthless, manipulative yet sincere, forever outlaw of my heart. I ship them, yes, but don’t worry too much whether your fic is “shippy enough” – I am good with innuendo, subtext, a mutual attraction which ambushes them and is so inconvenient, something implied but maybe the characters themselves aren’t ready to deal with what it would mean for them, or full-on shippiness! Feel free to include any other canon character, I love them all. As for Boyd/Ava and Rachel/her husband, you can work those relationships into the story, handwave them, break them up off-screen, whatever works for what you’re writing.

Canon-specific DNW: anything more intense, sex- and violence-wise, than an M rating; basically keep it to canon levels of violence/gore/sex.

Prompts:

-Boyd has to work with the Marshals (again, or divergence from one of the canon occasions), and this time Rachel rather than Raylan is his contact/minder. Plots and schemes and double-crosses, oh my!

-As in those too-few, too-brief scenes where Boyd tries to sweet-talk Rachel when he’s in a jam, and she blows him off or spells out exactly how she’ll fuck up his life if he doesn’t cooperate, give me more of Rachel laying down the law and Boyd cooperating… up to a point… when it also serves his agenda.

-Rachel once acknowledged Boyd’s silver tongue. Let it get them both out of a bad situation. How does it hold up against Rachel’s unimpeachable stake on the moral high ground?

-Rachel is on Boyd’s prisoner transport once he’s in federal custody. Does she help him escape (shades of Elmore Leonard’s Out of Sight)? What would it take to get straight-shooting Rachel to make that choice? Or does he try to get her to break all the rules, but fails for reasons I leave up to you?

-Spoilers for Justified: City Primeval: once Boyd busts out of Tramble, the Kentucky Marshals’ office calls Rachel rather than Raylan to deal with it. She’s been promoted and moved to a different office, ten years later she might even be working at Marshals’ HQ in the DC area, so how happy is she about having to return to Kentucky to deal with goddamn Crowders? And why did Boyd bust out? And how much trouble can they cause each other, since middle age hasn’t slowed either of them down one bit?

-Boyd trying to pull the wool over Rachel’s eyes and her not having it. Having to work together or Rachel needing to use Boyd as a informant, and how that might shade into flirting, and how Rachel might feel about that, given Boyd’s past (even if, as Raylan said, Boyd’s too smart to really believe in white supremacy, there’s still his lifelong criminality). The beginnings of a good working relationship or friendship or affection, and how frustrating and difficult that would be, because they are who they are. Or the later stages of a relationship, when somehow they make it work, however tense it gets at times.

-For something more explicitly shippy, give me a strong hate/love (Rachel would be horrified to fall for a con, let alone this con!), “I know this is a terrible idea” dynamic. Give me their having to work together and/or antagonistic flirting/confessions of feelings. Give me UST, thwarted desire, angry longing. This may be a tall order, but I’d be super into non-issue-y ship fic which somehow deals with or touches on the fact that while Boyd’s white-supremacy period was almost wholly bull, he’s still the guy with a swastika tattooed on his arm, and Rachel is African-American.

-There be somethin’ spooky lurkin’ in them there hills! Maybe it’s just the usual bunch of hillbillies with more firepower than brains, maybe it’s something genuinely eldritch. Marshals and local crime lords walk right into it, and then these strange bedfellows (ha ha) need to get each other out.

Starred Up (2013)

Oliver Baumer/Eric Love

Yes I do ship it, I do, I do!

Ahem. Don’t get me wrong, I liked what the movie did with the father-son relationship and its influence on both men’s character development – but I really wish they hadn’t got Oliver out of the action before the story’s climax (not like that!). The final denouement with Love father and Love son was great, as was the hint at the end that Eric learned something in anger-management group and has a support network that will help him a lot. But. I would have wanted to see more of the intriguing dynamic between Eric the intelligent, semi-feral, yet not-incorrigible, young thug and Oliver the educated, dedicated, kind yet aware of his own potential for violence (what was he on about with “I need to be here”?), slightly older counselor. They had me at Oliver’s “I want him” and Eric later telling his father that Oliver’s a better man than Love Sr. Also the not-flirting and the push-pull in the scene when Oliver picks up Eric from his cell - yowza!

Exception to blanket DNW: dubcon is a-okay! If you decide to go there, my preferred flavors of dubcon for this canon are: power differential makes it a bad idea but they do it anyway; “I know you want this”; “if the answer’s no/you’re only doing this for a dare or to prove a point, then why are you enjoying this so much [as am I]?”; no no yes a.k.a. starts as dubcon (or one of them thinks they’re dubconning the other), becomes enthusiastic consent.  

Prompts:

-I would love to see Oliver return to holding his group in prison, so the two of them can interact more, either in the movie’s immediate aftermath or years down the line, as it’s implied that Eric will be serving a long sentence. Give me more scenes from anger management or the ribald, honest, free-flowing conversations in group, either with the other men present (I liked Hassan and Tyrone especially, among the group members) or a one-on-one session.

-An oblique or open-but-undramatic admission/declaration that they both know there’s something there, even if they don’t know what to do with it. Or, one or both of them knows exactly what to do with it, and the push-pull that would result from that.

-Dirty talk: used for arousal, as a defense mechanism, as a form of flirtation. Eric using slurs to assert dominance, and Oliver not letting him hide behind profanity, when he can use colorful language to express emotion and/or sexual interest. There could definitely be some verbal taunting/flirting about who wants/is eager to do what or is good at doing something. There may be some sniping comments about logistics and (lack of) condoms and barebacking and what men get up to in prison. There probably wouldn’t be deep discussions about sexual identity.

-An emergency in the prison requires a lock-down, so Oliver gets temporarily stuck in Eric’s cell or another room with only Eric for company. Things get porny and/or emotional.

-Eric is eventually released (you can handwave this so it happens soon after the movie or have it happen years later) and crashes with Oliver while he adjusts to the outside world. You guessed it: things get porny and/or emotional.

-Oliver is sentenced to prison (maybe he gets done for GBH after attacking Deputy Governor Haynes), and now Eric is the more knowledgeable and “well-adjusted” one, the one with skills Oliver desperately needs. The balance between them shifts, so how does that affect this burgeoning something between them?

-How do they get to the point where both can cross that line from friends/whatever the hell they are and become, to lovers? (There’s Eric’s personal history and general discomfort with vulnerability, plus all the ways prison sex can be or make things complicated, and if it helps, I headcanon Oliver as either gay or bi and at least somewhat closeted, at work especially.) Who initiates and “directs traffic”? How does their always-contentious dynamic shift during and after sex? Is the sex an isolated (series of) occasion(s), or a progression/escalation over multiple encounters (how would I love especially an escalating series of encounters, let me count the ways)? Eric might seem like the logical initiator and/or dominant partner as well as using the possibility of sex to manipulate and exert control, but then Oliver might (or might not!) surprise him and is definitely the one more in touch with himself as well as aware of his custodial duty toward the men in the group.

-At some point in their intimate relationship (probably not right at the start, and probably not in prison, though if you can make it happen in prison, more power to you!), Oliver decides he’s going to take his sweet time and make Eric fall absolutely apart with pleasure, while using dirty talk to both arouse and empower Eric to own his desires – by that point, Eric is in a place where he can let that happen and enjoy it, even if he still talks tough.

-Or how about this: Eric gets out, relationship happens or is in the process of being negotiated, and while physical intimacy is a whooooole neeeeeew woooorld, you know what else would be cool? Phone sex. Yep. Or even, Eric gets himself one of those secret prison burner phones (preferably hidden somewhere that’s not someone’s arse), and… phone sex after lights-out and lock-down. Maybe nothing (much) has happened physically (yet), so phone sex can be a building block to that or one facet of that deepening intimacy.

-For smut: any top/bottom (or switching) combo is good. Hand jobs incl. mutual, masturbation, blowjobs, 69, intercrural, frottage, anal fingering, finger sucking, rimming, anal – all good.

[pancake-breakfast]

As a professional editor, some part of me would absolutely love good feedback on my stories, which definitely makes me an exception when it comes to fic writers. But as much as I want good criticism and feedback, as the above noted...

...there is a right and wrong way to critique writing.

See again the part where I want good criticism and good feedback. This isn't, "I don't like this part," or "He would not fucking say that," or "I think this story would be better if it ended differently." Feedback that's constructive requires the person providing the critique to look at the story and understand what the author is trying to do, even if it's not what the person providing the critique would do or even wants from the story, and then provide information that both allows the author to see where they may be falling short of their own goals, and guide them on possible ways to better tell the story they want to tell.

And the fact of the matter is, most people don't know how to provide critique like this.

I've spent nearly two decades of my life correcting other people's spelling/grammar, and also having them look over mine to make sure I'm conveying what we want to convey. (Editing is definitely a team sport, and often includes more writing than one might think.) I've spent far too much of that time arguing with people who insisted I make changes suggested by the automated grammar/spelling checker (even when the suggestion is wrong, which happens quite a bit), or who wanted to keep things worded in a way that that is genuinely vague, incomplete, or in some cases, legally problematic. That said, if all goes well, I'll continue having these discussions for the next few decades. I love my work.

But because that's my job, it's not really something I want to deal with when no one is paying me to do it. It's still tempting to add an addendum to my fic notes saying, "Feel free to critique my work or point out my spelling mistakes!" but it seems doing so is more likely to summon people who won't respect the story I'm trying to tell rather than summoning people who genuinely want to help me tell my story in a better way. And besides, sometimes when you finish a piece, you're done with it. You don't want to go back and keep nitpicking it ad nauseam. You have other projects you want to work on.

Critiquing and spell-checking is for my beta readers. We have a system, and I know I can trust them to provide the kind of feedback I need, respecting the story I'm trying to tell in the process. And if they don't catch everything? Well, if I'm posting the fic on a public forum, it's more for fun than anything else. It doesn't need to be perfect.

Saw this comment on a booktok and I'm wondering what y'all think. I take issue with the idea that if you do want criticism on your writing then you shouldn't post it online. Not everyone writes, especially fanfic, to improve. "Most of these fic authors want to be published authors" no I don't think they do actually, writing fanfic can be about improving your skills to become a professional author; but it can also be about engaging in community or IDK putting your fav characters into situations???

I personally don't leave criticism on ao3, I wouldn't mind it on my work if it was said politely.

"I get these fic writers are writing for free" yes, so you're not entitled to anything from them... if you can't read fanfic without wanting to give criticism then you either aren't reading fics that are right for you or you shouldn't be reading at all.

[sneezemonster15]

I once read a fic where sakura was written exactly in character and when she discovered n and s relationship she immediately got angry at naruto ( like I think she would in canon), but then some people started to flame the author about why are they writing sakura like that, like they're being too harsh on her.

So yeah, I think in some cases authors write H and S more likable so they don't upset anyone and get bullied.

Hmm it's plausible. However, writers usually write what rings true to them, what seems believable to them, otherwise it reads insincere and it shows in their writing. I can't say much in relation to fanfic writers given most of them aren't professional writers, they mostly just write for fun or self comfort.

What I do know for sure is that if one is sincerely writing a canonverse divorce SNS fic in Boruto era, one has to pay attention to the granular nuances that Kishi himself so shrewdly wrote and drew himself in Gaiden and Boruto the movie. He insistently puts repeated emphasis on how Sasuke mindfully keeps physical and emotional distance from Sakura. Their relationship looks dysfunctional, stilted and forced. While Sakura still tries to establish/force intimacy with Sasuke like usual, he still consistently keeps her at a distance, even now when they are married and have a child together, to the point he doesn't even know what his own daughter looks like. Sarada suspects her own mother is hiding something from her about her own father. Kishi succeeded to do one thing that he definitely wanted to achieve with Gaiden. To create doubt, suspicion. To make SS look shady and phoney. Because it just wouldn't have been in character for Sasuke to be happy or content in this sham of a marriage. Because he is a gay man stuck in a het marriage with a woman he doesn't like or respect. He is unhappy and displeased to see her, doesn't even crack a smile, hasn't seen her in years btw. They talk to each other in such a cosmetic manner, calling each other my husband and my wife. Never kissed, to Sakura's great dismay. Does this look like a dynamic that would facilitate Sasuke canoodling casually with Sakura?

Kishimoto insistently shows Naruto idle away his time at his office, counting headbands, even when there's nothing significant keeping him there. Like he purposely doesn't wanna go back home. He sends his clones to attend important ocassions with his family. But for Sasuke, he is always, always there in person. He sleeps anywhere but in his own master bedroom he shares with Hinata. His wife knows nothing worthwhile about him that she can tell to comfort her son about his own father. Instead, Kishi makes Sasuke satisfy Boruto's curiosity that Hinata wasn't able to. Naruto thinks of Sasuke when receiving the love bento and not Hinata who made it for him. His own son reminds him of Sasuke and not his spouse who birthed him.

Both these families are pointedly portrayed as highly dysfunctional. The husbands aren't there more than 90 percent of the time, the women know nothing of worth about their husbands. Sakura doesn't even know if Sasuke wears glasses. They have been married for over 12 years, happy families who have been together for such a long time don't behave like this. Naruto and Sasuke look perennially tired, wretched, and downright miserable.

If two gay men were forced by circumstances to keep appearances, by being married to entitled and self absorbed women they have no love for, wouldn't this be exactly how they would behave? These women who were only motivated by what the boys represent and not by who they really are. Hinata and Sakura don't know their own husbands. And it's in character for both of them. A spouse who wants to possess their object of desire without any concern for anyone but their own selves, wouldn't they behave exactly like Sakura and Hinata? They would.

And thing is, when the boys are with each other, they clearly look like their older selves. Spirited, lit up. Happy. Never with their families.

When writing a divorce SNS fic, one has to at least try to write a believable narrative. And no one has to even look anywhere else, just look to Kishi, he has already given us a lot of material to judge and interpret the characters the way it would be, realistic, believable. Kishi's writing rings true.

Naruto and Sasuke are akin to two outsiders living in a world that doesn't or wouldn't acknowledge their truth. A world where they can't be their true selves. An unfair and prejudiced world. A reflection of the real world as understood by Kishi. Naruto and Sasuke are driven to live in the shadows, having secret meetings. So if one decides to write a fic where they are made to officially unite, they will need to acknowledge the reality of world that had been stopping them until now. Hinata and Sakura are not only part of this world, but are also complicit in Naruto and Sasuke's suffering. So if one wants to portray a narrative that culminates into Naruto and Sasuke taking a stand against the world that had been the reason they were apart till now, then one will need to portray this world in character, including Hinata and Sakura. Otherwise, the narrative will not only not ring true, it will be disrespectful and unjust to Naruto and Sasuke's characters.

And then and only then, will their union look justifiably and accurately portrayed. If Kishi's worldbuilding depicts Konoha to be unsupportive of same sex relationships, and Naruto and Sasuke are a part of this world, then one will have to develop the narrative accordingly to justify their official union. If you write this world, which includes Hinata and Sakura, out of character, then you aren't really doing justice to SNS canon narrative, nor to Sasuke and Naruto's own characters.

Before anyone leaves some whiny, non-sense comment or remark about subjective interpretation on this post, please know that I don't have the energy nor the patience to deal with such comments kindly. Please really think about what I am saying. Deconstruct canon narrative, peel the layers, see what lies underneath. The issue I am talking about is bigger than some sorry ass fic. If you don't depict the challenges and conflicts of the characters in a well rounded way, you will never be able to write a believable or just narrative. Characters are not written in abstraction, they don't come out of oblivion. They are shaped by their surroundings, people around them, their world's weltenschaung, their accepted way of life, a certain philosophy, a belief system. Without taking that into account and building the narrative accordingly, one simply can't write a story or characters that ring true. And Kishi KNOWS this, given he is a master writer. Look to him, be guided by him, if one can't figure it out by themselves. Do your due diligence. Put some effort and understanding in it. Watch other gay media for research, see how these dysfunctional relationships are portrayed. Try and stay true to gay narratives, establish the gay characters' conflict, their struggles, their compromises, their woes, their bitterness with respect to the world they live in. If you wanna write a fic that does justice to SNS and Sasuke and Naruto's characters ie.

[fozmeadows]

race & culture in fandom

For the past decade, English language fanwriting culture post the days of LiveJournal and Strikethrough has been hugely shaped by a handful of megafandoms that exploded across AO3 and tumblr – I’m talking Supernatural, Teen Wolf, Dr Who, the MCU, Harry Potter, Star Wars, BBC Sherlock – which have all been overwhelmingly white. I don’t mean in terms of the fans themselves, although whiteness also figures prominently in said fandoms: I mean that the source materials themselves feature very few POC, and the ones who are there tended to be done dirty by the creators.

Periodically, this has led POC in fandom to point out, extremely reasonably, that even where non-white characters do get central roles in various media properties, they’re often overlooked by fandom at large, such that the popular focus stays primarily on the white characters. Sometimes this happened (it was argued) because the POC characters were secondary to begin with and as such attracted less fan devotion (although this has never stopped fandoms from picking a random white gremlin from the background cast and elevating them to the status of Fave); at other times, however, there has been a clear trend of sidelining POC leads in favour of white alternatives (as per Finn, Poe and Rose Tico being edged out in Star Wars shipping by Hux, Kylo and Rey). I mention this, not to demonize individuals whose preferred ships happen to involve white characters, but to point out the collective impact these trends can have on POC in fandom spaces: it’s not bad to ship what you ship, but that doesn’t mean there’s no utility in analysing what’s popular and why through a racial lens.

All this being so, it feels increasingly salient that fanwriting culture as exists right now developed under the influence and in the shadow of these white-dominated fandoms – specifically, the taboo against criticizing or critiquing fics for any reason. Certainly, there’s a hell of a lot of value to Don’t Like, Don’t Read as a general policy, especially when it comes to the darker, kinkier side of ficwriting, and whether the context is professional or recreational, offering someone direct, unsolicited feedback on their writing style is a dick move. But on the flipside, the anti-criticism culture in fanwriting has consistently worked against fans of colour who speak out about racist tropes, fan ignorance and hurtful portrayals of living cultures. Voicing anything negative about works created for free is seen as violating a core rule of ficwriting culture – but as that culture has been foundationally shaped by white fandoms, white characters and, overwhelmingly, white ideas about what’s allowed and what isn’t, we ought to consider that all critical contexts are not created equal.

Right now, the rise of C-drama (and K-drama, and J-drama) fandoms is seeing a surge of white creators – myself included – writing fics for fandoms in which no white people exist, and where the cultural context which informs the canon is different to western norms. Which isn’t to say that no popular fandoms focused on POC have existed before now – K-pop RPF and anime fandoms, for example, have been big for a while. But with the success of The Untamed, more western fans are investing in stories whose plots, references, characterization and settings are so fundamentally rooted in real Chinese history and living Chinese culture that it’s not really possible to write around it. And yet, inevitably, too many in fandom are trying to do just that, treating respect for Chinese culture or an attempt to understand it as optional extras – because surely, fandom shouldn’t feel like work. If you’re writing something for free, on your own time, for your own pleasure, why should anyone else get to demand that you research the subject matter first?

Because it matters, is the short answer. Because race and culture are not made-up things like lightsabers and werewolves that you can alter, mock or misunderstand without the risk of hurting or marginalizing actual real people – and because, quite frankly, we already know that fandom is capable of drawing lines in the sand where it chooses. When Brony culture first reared its head (hah), the online fandom for My Little Pony – which, like the other fandoms we’re discussing here, is overwhelmingly female – was initially welcoming. It felt like progress, that so many straight men could identify with such a feminine show; a potential sign that maybe, we were finally leaving the era of mainstream hypermasculine fandom bullshit behind, at least in this one arena. And then, in pretty much the blink of an eye, things got overwhelmingly bad. Artists drawing hardcorn porn didn’t tag their works as adult, leading to those images flooding the public search results for a children’s show. Women were edged out of their own spaces. Bronies got aggressive, posting harsh, ugly criticism of artists whose gijinka interpretations of the Mane Six as humans were deemed insufficiently fuckable.

The resulting fandom conflict was deeply unpleasant, but in the end, the verdict was laid down loud and clear: if you cannot comport yourself like a decent fucking person – if your base mode of engagement within a fandom is to coopt it from the original audience and declare it newly cool only because you’re into it now; if you do not, at the very least, attempt to understand and respect the original context so as to engage appropriately (in this case, by acknowledging that the media you’re consuming was foundational to many women who were there before you and is still consumed by minors, and tagging your goddamn porn) – then the rest of fandom will treat you like a social biohazard, and rightly so.

Here’s the thing, fellow white people: when it comes to C-drama fandoms and other non-white, non-western properties? We are the Bronies.

Not, I hasten to add, in terms of toxic fuckery – though if we don’t get our collective shit together, I’m not taking that darkest timeline off the table. What I mean is that, by virtue of the whiteminding which, both consciously and unconsciously, has shaped current fan culture, particularly in terms of ficwriting conventions, we’re collectively acting as though we’re the primary audience for narratives that weren’t actually made with us in mind, being hostile dicks to Chinese and Chinese diaspora fans when they take the time to point out what we’re getting wrong. We’re bristling because we’ve conceived of ficwriting as a place wherein No Criticism Occurs without questioning how this culture, while valuable in some respects, also serves to uphold, excuse and perpetuate microaggresions and other forms of racism, lashing out or falling back on passive aggression when POC, quite understandably, talk about how they’re sick and tired of our bullshit.

An analogy: one of the most helpful and important tags on AO3 is the one for homophobia, not just because it allows readers to brace for or opt out of reading content they might find distressing, but because it lets the reader know that the writer knows what homophobia is, and is employing it deliberately. When this concept is tagged, I – like many others – often feel more able to read about it than I do when it crops up in untagged works of commercial fiction, film or TV, because I don’t have to worry that the author thinks what they’re depicting is okay. I can say definitively, “yes, the author knows this is messed up, but has elected to tell a messed up story, a fact that will be obvious to anyone who reads this,” instead of worrying that someone will see a fucked up story blind and think “oh, I guess that’s fine.” The contextual framing matters, is the point – which is why it’s so jarring and unpleasant on those rare occasions when I do stumble on a fic whose author has legitimately mistaken homophobic microaggressions for cute banter. This is why, in a ficwriting culture that otherwise aggressively dislikes criticism, the request to tag for a certain thing – while still sometimes fraught – is generally permitted: it helps everyone to have a good time and to curate their fan experience appropriately.

But when white and/or western fans fail to educate ourselves about race, culture and the history of other countries and proceed to deploy that ignorance in our writing, we’re not tagging for racism as a thing we’ve explored deliberately; we’re just being ignorant at best and hateful at worst, which means fans of colour don’t know to avoid or brace for the content of those works until they get hit in the face with microaggresions and/or outright racism. Instead, the burden is placed on them to navigate a minefield not of their creation: which fans can be trusted to write respectfully? Who, if they make an error, will listen and apologise if the error is explained? Who, if lived experience, personal translations or cultural insights are shared, can be counted on to acknowledge those contributions rather than taking sole credit? Too often, fans of colour are being made to feel like guests in their own house, while white fans act like a tone-policing HOA.

Point being: fandom and ficwriting cultures as they currently exist badly need to confront the implicit acceptance of racism and cultural bias that underlies a lot of community rules about engagement and criticism, and that needs to start with white and western fans. We don’t want to be the new Bronies, guys. We need to do better.  

[tomatograter]

I saw you mentioning the princess bride in a post and it made me wonder both of what you think of the movie adaptation (as it was practically my entire childhood) and the references to it made in homestuck the comic and whether they serve any purpose to the text. I also wonder if you’ve seen the movie stardust from 2007 and what you think of. Like always, I love to read pretty much everything you write, whether analysing text on tumblr or your ao3 fics, thanks!

OK SO. I should have answered this MONTHS ago but I wanted to properly write down something and… that took a while! I'm sorry it was this long </3 Thank you for your patience! Now on to the meat of it:

These two stories definitely have a fond place in my heart. Early this year I read the original Stardust novel for the first time (then rewatched the movie due to brilliant childhood memories), and I gotta say I have a bit of a strange relationship with it since I did think the book was good, but not nearly as fun or engaging as the movie, and what the movie did to some underused characters-- particularly the ship captain, who is just the extreme blueprint for Jake Harley from tip to toes; BUT. I found out I really liked the book ending better.

The movie is a remix of the book, it takes a lot of the convoluted plots and streamlines them into something that ties together nicely, cuts out characters that don’t add much, & explores characters that were interesting in the original but never given enough time to do stuff. It’s not a masterpiece, there was definitely a scene in the middle where I got really tense and expected to see a violent hate crime happen, it definitely... aged badly in some places (repeated instances of ‘man in a dress’ jokes including the character I mentioned above), but it’s an entertaining movie. It’s got quirky fun dialogue from a time before that became a tryhard hollywood staple. Everyone loves a fetch quest fantasy romp! Most of all, me!

I think what I really liked from the book ending is that we’re shown how the main couple avoids the expectation of ruling the kingdom for actual decades, finding other paths to follow in their very young lives instead of immediately marrying and settling down. It had a very nice, peaceful, sort of pensive bittersweet ending about the star not being quite human. The movie changes how the story approaches immortality, and that's not inherently bad but it’s also not the same y'know. Generally I'd recommend the movie first thing but then add on that the book is worth going through for that different flavor characterization of the story, if you're up to it.

(This comparison also seems very apt, the director of the Stardust movie adaptation famously only convinced Gaiman that he'd be fit to adapt it because he wanted the movie to be "his Princess Bride".)

I love the princess bride movie.

I watched it way before I got around to reading the book and I *tend* to prefer the book version to the movie version 9 out of 10 times, HOWEVER... As far as adaptations go, I think The Princess Bride is a prime example for condensing a story so its heart remains even if a lot of the juicy book details didn't. It also utilizes its respective mediums really well! The PB Movie works because it tells a story through a Cinematic lens, focusing on a satire of the Hollywood romance formula, while the PB Book does the same through the application of literary farce to its greatest extent. It's a prolonged roast of the fantasy literary romance genre - but it's also dangerously genuine.

It is a book that presents itself as not only a narrative, but as a conversation between the reader and the ‘abridger’ of one other fictional text (from a made up writer) while tripling as a confessional for the real life frustrations of said ‘abridger’. A juggling feat that was undoubtedly only made possible because William Goldman, on top of being Princess Bride's original author, also worked as a professional scriptwriter. He wrote both the book and the movie adaptation, and he jokes about this by fully narrativizing himself as a character within the book's text. (And I’m sure this sounds familiar.)

The *medium* through which The Princess Bride is told is given emphasis when you compare where the story starts in each version, who is telling it, and precisely how it is told. This is going to be relevant for that HS comparison if you hang on for a second.

IN THE MOVIE:

(Where) The story begins with a kid sick in bed, and his visiting grandfather, who's planning to read him a book.

(Who) The aforementioned grandfather serves as our main narrator, with some skeptical commentary from the kid.

(How) We get intro montages to quickly establish characters, middle montages to stitch the story beats together, and some narrative interruptions to move scenes along, but aside from that the events of the fairytale roll on seamlessly with the assistance of the grandfather’s kindly voiceover.

It is a very straightforward take. We blur in and out of scenes with the benefit of contextless visuals - the audience is encouraged to fill in the gaps of "missing" information about the world/kingdom/mechanics with generic stock tropes, most of the book's Lore isn't even hinted at. The movie is a tongue-in-cheek subversion of twee romantic films and their inherent ridiculousness - but it's just as helplessly and wholeheartedly in love with the simplicity of the tropes it employs.

IN THE BOOK:

(Where) The book begins with William Goldman (the character) dumping his tormented childhood backstory and emotional connection to The Princess Bride directly upon your doorstep; after he’s reminded of the book's existence on the day of his son’s birthday, and then later discovers the original text is nothing like the cool adventure romp he knew as a kid. That story doesn’t exist. It was fabricated. The official book translation is actually an over-bloated total bore.

(Who) Goldman explains that he will serve as your editor and guide to ‘the good parts version’ of The Princess Bride — a book his immigrant father once read to him when he was utterly delirious for weeks, hospitalized and bedridden with a sour case of pneumonia. The original Princess Bride is said to be written by S. Morgenstern, an avid political satirist from the fictional country of Florin, the historical setting of The Princess Bride, which doubles as a birthplace for Morgenstern, and incidentally, Goldman's immigrant father. He has the Florinese accent, and a connection to the story as a piece of his own personal history. Goldman insists that the best possible version of the book was the version his dad once read to him, and to make sure his kid gets the same experience, the BEST experience, he’s going to essentially edit the whole monster of a book into a proper shape. Alone. With his own two hands.

In total we have about three-to-four narrators; Current Goldman, Kid Goldman, (Arguably) Goldman’s Father, and S. Morgenstein — who’s just Goldman again under a Florinese pseudonym.

(How) The Princess Bride is written in black and red text for ease of readability. Red is reserved for Goldman’s annotations and footnotes; he tries to introduce chapters and then give context to most of the cuts he makes to the book wherever he can, but since these can be very lengthy and merciless edits (think 20+ pages trashed at a time) he uses most of the space for the purpose of ranting or explaining himself. Sometimes he will gossip about S. Morgenstein’s life and critique his narrative choices, sometimes he will vent about his coworkers and his own life, sometimes he will tell you he has written an unofficial missing reunion scene and sequel for The Princess Bride, and is trying to convince the publishing house to let him print it, and would really, really like if you phoned or mailed the company, if you’d like to be in on that sweet fucking deal. (And these outside documents could be actually mailed to you at the time, though currently the only way to access them is through preserved online copies.)

This results in a book that is constantly taking itself apart on its own terms, and that is really funny to read. The humor aspect is played up to its fullest; sometimes S. Morgenstein tells jokes, sometimes the joke is Goldman dogging on Morgenstein (and thus himself), and sometimes, the meta-humor reaches around to being about you being slightly stupefied by Goldman’s reckless self-obsessed oversharing completely taking over someone else’s story - which he had ALREADY been recklessly fucking around with to fulfill a childhood delirium.

The book is a tongue-in-cheek dissection of fairytale romances, chivalric heroes, medieval fantasy tropes, why people read stories, why people *need* stories, disappointment, dissatisfaction, and The General Feeling Of ‘Catharsis’ that can only be found by choosing to look at things a certain way even when Shit Fucking Sucks. And also taking matters into your own hands, when you can. And also, it’s a little bit wholeheartedly in love with the genuine fondness shared between its main characters? (and I don’t mean just Buttercup and Westley, Inigo and Fezzik’s friendship plays a big part)

I think you must already know where I’m going with this, but let’s bring it back to how Princess Bride shows up in Homestuck, aka: okay how the hell does any of this connect with anything?

1- The Princess Bride Movie is in line with Jake’s outlook and approach to storytelling,

And:

2- The Princess Bride Book is in line with Dirk’s outlook and approach to storytelling.

While:

3- Both of them can be associated with the respective narrator roles in each version of the story (The earnest romantic guidance of the movie’s narrating grandfather, the book’s self-obsessed Goldman & history-bloated satirist Morgenstein), and not only that; They are both close to the story’s own protagonists (Dirk as Westley, Jake as Buttercup) and the supporting duo (Inigo and Fezzik’s long time friendship definitely tips towards the softly bromoromantic)

And I believe it’s worth exploring just how we get those Princess Bride lines and fight choreography added into Homestuck in the first place:

Brain Ghost Dirk is misquoting Movie Inigo’s lines (“You killed my father” becomes “You kissed my boyfriend”) to announce his intention of protecting Jake, directly placing himself as a mix of Inigo/Westley in this situation- both these characters embody a take on the chivalric sword-swinging hero motivated by love, which is something Dirk really wants to be, but while Inigo’s core is platonic, Westley only does everything he does in the story because he loves Buttercup, and has done so since they were kids.

But then there’s that extra layer; Brain Ghost Dirk is Dirk’s splinter, yeah, but he’s also Jake’s creation, and as demonstrated by how the rest of this scene unfolds; his physical existence is wholly dependent on how desperately Jake needs him. 

There’s the whole double reacharound of creator-creation, protector-protected, how one depends on the other to keep upright, a theme that is prevalent in The Princess Bride. (Not to speak of the work’s love for satire, especially satire mixed with romance. It’s perfectly in the spirit of the thing.)

For the benefit of those unfamiliar with the story, and a refresher for those who may have forgotten, here's a brief breakdown of the character links and summary;

The Princess Bride is a medieval-fantasy tale that tells the story of Buttercup, a simple-minded farm girl who just wants to fuck around and have a silly little life, but keeps being interrupted by the text & the characters in it ceaselessly preaching about her nebulous “potential”, and how she could be one of the Most Prettiest Beautifulest Women Ever if she just Tried, despite her disinterest. (that’s our Jake)

She’s also got some really fucked up recurring night terrors to do with her arranged marriage and childbirth and her perceived “inherent inability to love” because we already knew she was a jake but I guess it had to be made real obvious. (link from my screencap thread from when I was reading it in april)

Anyway, keeping on: Westley (Dirk) is a boy who works at her parent’s farm and fulfils her every wish because he’s deeply in love with her, but she never notices; until the day a countess makes eyes at Westley, Buttercup gets jealous, and then she finally gets it. Buttercup confesses, and is seemingly rejected by Westley’s total inability to respond. (Common theme with Dirks) She’s bummed out for a bit about this, but then the next day Westley announces that he does love her, he just has to go away to America for a while and work real hard so they can actually be together. He knows he can do this, because he’s trained for this moment; day in and day out he honed his craft in his hovel. He barely even fucking sleeps.

He can speak this part for himself tbh:

Westley departs. Buttercup decides that while she waits for him, she’ll finally learn to take care of herself, maybe even realize that whole ‘potential’ business. Her efforts are laudable, but they aren’t enough. Then one day, Buttercup is told that Westley’s ship was ambushed by the Dread Pirate Roberts; they would never even see his body.

Ironically, Westley’s death and the grief Buttercup suffers from it are the last straw that unlocks her ‘true potential’.

MEANWHILE, the king of Florin is dying, and Prince Humperdinck (Jane) needs to marry to be crowned king. He doesn’t really want to get married, but the law is the law and the new king needs to have a way to make a son and keep the lineage going. Since he’s only interested in the position, but he’d rather have some clout as well, Humperdinck comes up with a plan; he will marry the most beautiful woman alive, kill her, and then pin the blame of this “mysterious attack” in a neighboring kingdom, giving him an excuse to launch a war and conquer a place he wanted to own anyway. Buttercup is also not jazzed about his proposal, but she’s coerced into accepting or dying.

Once everything is settled, three years have passed in preparation to the wedding. Humperdinck hires a band of mercenaries to kidnap Buttercup and leave her body by the neighboring kingdom of Guilder. Those are Vizzini, Fezzik and Inigo. For our point-of-comparison purposes, I’ll only dwell on Inigo: he’s a Spanish swordsman rumored to be the Best Swordsman Alive, on a bloody revenge quest to find the six-fingered-man who killed his father, and slay him in turn. He’s so good, they might even call him the wizard of sword fighting. He also has a bit of a liquor problem. Can’t touch the stuff. (It’s interesting to note that while BGD associates himself with Inigo, and much of the character’s single-drive towards strict training and revenge for a father that was killed in combat is undoubtedly dirkesque, he also has some Roxy features. This is puzzling at first. And THEN you remember that Roxy is the one who ends up killing HIC with Dirk’s unbreakable katana in [S]: Collide as a symbolic revenge for them both, and the mixed nature of his character in specific makes a lot more sense.)

But not all hope is lost. Unbeknownst to Buttercup, Westley was merely taken as the pirate’s apprentice. He’s heard of her upcoming marriage - and now her sudden kidnapping, and the rest of the story revolves around him trying to save her from her captors, dispelling the mix-up about his identity along the way. He’s kinda upset about the whole marriage thing and intends to be very bitchy about it though. (Dirks will do that.)

This is just the movie intro, or the first couple chapters of the book, so if you’re interested in reading it now to see for yourself -- you absolutely should! Some of the jokes have admittedly Aged (this is a book from 1973 after all) but I find they’re mostly clustered at the beginning/modern segments, and in the long run it’s very much worth it to stick with the story. When it's all said and done you can read it as a seamless dirkjake au.