#i think i got like 3 hours left (out of about 14 total) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

zeestarfishalien · 6 months

Text

My Graveyard Song Ch. 14

(Totally got distracted and forgot to post this to tumblr. It's been up on ao3 for a few days now)

[Masterpost]

Jason looked at the two empty bowls and one empty plate of food Danny had polished off and promptly decides to take him to Rosa Lee’s Diner. They always serve extra large portions of food that stands up to even Alfred’s high standards.

As he urges Spooky into one of the jackets left by his siblings, he shoots a text off to Cass.

[BCC plz 4 Spooky u wel 2 IOU 1 🏠🍝 ur chc]

By the time Cass gets there, Danny is starting on his third plate. Mind you, she got here in under half an hour and Danny is not in fact a speedster, but at the rate Danny is going, Bruce is certainly going to think someone fed a speedster.

Jason is really not sure where all this food is going. By all rights, his spooky friend should be on the verge of exploding from eating more than his body weight in food.

Even the waitstaff are watching this little meta-looking kid down pounds and pounds of food.

Cass passes Jason an unmarked black credit card and sits next to him in order to better watch Danny scarf down his waffles.

Five minutes later when their waiter swings by, Jason orders a platter of beignets and Danny orders Rosa Lee’s own personal special, a breakfast that comes with four slices of ham, a mountain of cheesy scrambled eggs, two pancakes, four breakfast sausage links, two biscuits, and an apple turnover.

At this point, the waiter doesn’t even blink, just asks if he’d like anything to add or substitute.

He asks for 3 extra pancakes.

By the time he's halfway through his stack of pancakes -the last thing left of his Rosa Lee Special- it dawns on Jason, that maybe Danny shouldn't be eating this much when he hasn't eaten regular human food in a long time.

But then again, what does he know? The world is a great big mysterious place and you cannot treat every humanoid looking being by the limitations of humans.

Danny is watching him now, an openly curious look on his face. There's a question in the air between them, even Cass picks up on it.

Carefully slow, Danny sets down his fork and finishes chewing the bite in his mouth.

"You're worried," he croaks, tapping his index finger on the table to emphasize his words.

He pauses, distracted, and looks down at his hand, repeating the motion of tapping his finger on the table while studying it closely. Jason almost breaks into laughter when Danny’s head tilts in an oddly animal like fashion.

If he needed any other proof that Spooky the dog is Danny the spirit sitting before him, this would do it.

His glowing eyes flick back up to Jason.

"Amused," he rasps out barely above a whisper. There's still that unspoken question in the air.

It finally clicks. The emotions Danny is naming are Jason’s. The question he wants to know is 'why'.

"I wasn't sure if you could get sick from overeating. Humans need to ease back into eating normal amounts but you're not human so I don't know what standard to hold you to."

Danny nods absently, his finger tap tap tapping away on the table.

"Hard to say," he says finally. His voice still sounds like gravel, not unlike Cass' own voice.

"Ecto fills in gaps. A temporary fix. Rebuilding with the right stuff now." He gestures vaguely to the empty plates stacked on their table. "Ecto is fast. I'm probably fine."

"Sorry," Jason half mumbles. "I just worry."

All movement from Danny freezes, like someone pressed pause on the TV. His eyes go wide in realization and alarm.

"Jazz..."

Jason blinks and then it hits him with the speed and force of a freight train.

"Oh shit! Jazz!" He scrambles for his phone. "Do you remember anything else about her that might help?!"

~•~

Bill would like everyone to know that he works very hard to be a good hench person.

He's not dumb. Now he may not be book smart like half the big baddies in Gotham, but he's not dumb.

He would have died long ago if that were the case. He's worked for the Red Hood for a couple years now —it's one of the best decisions he's ever made; the guy knows how to treat his hench people. What more can Bill say?— and he's avoided asking questions just like with all his hench jobs before this.

But he'd really like to ask one now that he's stuck watching years worth of security footage...

What even constitutes suspicious activity in a cemetery?

Now most people would automatically say, graverobbing, but Big Red is a Gotham native. In Gotham, no one is buried with their valuables, not unless your grave is in a super secret spot. Gothamites can smell money and anytime there's a possibility of it, people will dig up the grave in question.

Hell, the cops don't even stop for it anymore, they just keep on rollin' even if it's happening right before their eyes.

Point is, graverobbing can't be the suspicious behavior he's supposed to look for, but Bill really isn't sure what exactly does quantify as suspicious behavior to Big Red.

Everything here has been run of the mill, graverobbing, teen/young adult vandalism, or drug deals.

Yes, he considers goth teens/young adults having sex in a cemetery as vandalism too. Vandalism on his eyes, if nothing else.

He hits pause on a big white van and rubs his eyes tiredly. Perhaps it's time to call it a night. He's losing focus, getting caught up in his own thoughts.

His hand hovers over the mouse about to drag it over to close out of the program when his brain catches up to what his eyes are seeing.

The van, big, white, armored...

Now that IS unusual. Black or gray vans are the favored colors in Gotham and anyone, who knows anything about Gotham, knows that you NEVER armor up a suspicious color and type of vehicle. Not if you don't want the cops and vigilantes breaking down your door.

He can just make out two people in bright colors inside the van. They're grainy but not grainy enough for Bill to doubt the color of their outfits.

It's too bright for any regular gothamite. The only people in this city who dress like that are the big shot villains and their cronies.

The two disappear into the cemetery, out of sight of the camera with tools in hand. He scans forward a few hours (less time than he expected honestly) and slows back to normal speed just in time to watch them unload what seems to be some sort of coffin, except it's metal with glowing lines and patterns on it.

He pauses the video again and with elbows resting upon the desk he presses clasped hands against his mouth to muffle his sigh.

Well, if that doesn't constitute suspicious activity then Bill will hand in a letter of resignation and go flip burgers.

Well...time to let the boss know.

Yall thought I made up the part where Bill the Henchman comes in, but I definitely, absolutely had this planned from the beginning. [Lying]

Okay, gonna be honest, I may have had a plan for Bill, but it either was lost in the shuffle or there never actually was a plan for scenes with Bill. Considering I can only sometimes keep my dream memories from mixing with my awake memories, any hope of recovering any potential memories is nigh on impossible.

HOWEVER

I can always make new plans. AND I HAVE! So yes, we have Bill now and I'm going to pretend like this was planned all along.

Oh yeah! So Jason’s text at the beginning says: Black credit card please, for Spooky. You are welcome too. I owe you one homemade meal, your choice.

Also can you imagine being a vigilante? Bc you have at least 10 very important things you have to juggle on just an average Tuesday. This is not including sudden family disasters like a family member getting trapped in a burning building and having to go save them, plus more wild revelations about your funky supernatural roomie. So like, cut a guy some slack, I know I'd be floundering some days. Attempting to prioritize must really be a bitch some days. Just...oof...

#my graveyard song #dpxdc #dcxdp #church grim danny #black dog danny au #jason is doing his best okay?#and look! he delegates things!!!

51 notes · View notes

cosmerelists · 11 months

Text

Cosmere Characters: Would They Be Fun To Take A Road Trip With?

[Main spoiler is for Way of Kings! Oddly enough. Some spoilers for Stormlight as a whole.]

You're planning a road trip, and you want to bring a Cosmere character with you! You know, as one does. But would the following Cosmere characters actually be a good road trip buddy?

1. Dalinar: Yes

Dalinar's whole dang philosophy is that it's the journey that matters. He'd be stopping at interesting roadside attractions, enjoying good food, watching sunsets, and generally enjoying the trip. What a great person to have on your road trip with you!

2. Adolin: Yes

We saw road-trip-Adolin in Shadesmar--he's great! Organized, interested in making sure everyone is doing well, good conversationalist. You'll have a great time.

3. Kaladin: Depends

To be fair it was a stressful situation, but when Kaladin and Shallan "road tripped" through the chasms, he basically just marched off with his long Alethi legs and left her to scramble along behind him. I feel like that's equivalent to, like, being really particular about the radio or something. Plus, he totally thinks he knows the way and ain't asking for directions. On the other hand, if Kaladin has warmed up to you, then I think he'd be an okay travel buddy. He'll definitely pull you out of the flaming wreckage when the trip inevitably turns into some sort of dramatic life-or-death situation, at least!

4. Vasher: No

You're like, "Oh look! That town has the country's largest cow statue! Wanna stop and take a look?" and he's like, "No." It's the first time he's spoken in 45 minutes.

5. Tress: Yes

By the of her book, Tress is all about adventure and she's a literal delight to everyone on the ship. Plus, if your tire got flat or something, Tress would absolutely learn how to change a tire on the fly and get you back on the road.

6. Teft: No

Teft will fight to his dying breath to protect you, but I do not think he'd be fun to sit in the car with for eight hours a day. He'd be a grumbler, I think.

7. Kabsal: Yes

He'd bring amazing car snacks, potentially homemade ones. He seemed like a good conversationalist too. Now it's true, he might try to assassinate you or inconveniently fall in love with you--or both!--but, like, the rest of the road trip will be lots of fun.

8. Navani: Depends on the type of road trip

Navani would, I think, make for a very organized road trip buddy. If you're trying to get somewhere on a time table, Navani would be great. You WILL be up at 8:00am and you WILL get to your destination on time and in one piece. But if you're hoping to, like, chill out and enjoy the scenery casually, then maybe not so much.

9. Elend: No

Elend is great 'n' all, but has a plan of his ever worked out in his life? There's gonna be a huge traffic jam caused by, like, political sabotage or something. And all of his books on tape are about philosophy, too.

10. Mare: Yes

She's definitely a "cow! cow!" type person, I think.

11. Eshonai: Hell yeah

Eshonai loves to travel and is delighted to meet new people. She's going to get chatting with some fruit vendor and the next thing you know, you've both been invited to dinner and are about to have the absolute best homecooked meal of your life.

12. Raoden: Yes

I feel like Raoden is very likable and cares a lot about how the people around him are doing. He'd make sure you had a good time and would be very thoughtful.

13. Lirin: Depends on whether Hesina is coming too

I feel like on his own, Lirin would be a very...stressed road trip buddy. Concerned about the speed limit, about not being too unhealthy, about doing the road trip right. But if Hesina were there, I think he'd be able to chill out a lot more. Because Hesina would want the trip to be fun, and I think Lirin would let it be fun with her around.

14. Lezian: Hell no

The FIRST person who cuts him off in traffic is gonna spark so much road rage in Lezian. Now you're weaving erratically through traffic in pursuit of that truck he's mad at, and you're only like 30 minutes into the trip.

15. Raboniel: Well...

At first she was like, "I am the driver here. You will address me only as the Lady of Roads and will know your place" and you were like, "Wow. This is going to be the worst trip of my life." But by the end, the two of you are singing together and crying for some reason, and now you think she might be your soulmate.

So...50/50?

#cosmere #cosmerelists #Dalinar #Adolin #Kaladin #Raboniel #Navani #Eshonai #Lezian #Hesina #Lirin #Tress #Teft #Mare #Elend #Kabsal #Raoden #Vasher

145 notes · View notes

weatheringtea · 1 year

Text

FMA Cafe

While I was in Japan, the FMA cafe opened up :D I've never been to an anime cafe before, so this was perfect! I went once a week (so 3 times in total) so I could try a bunch of different dishes and collect coasters lol

I tried to put this under cut because it's long and full of pics, but adding the read more ruined the formatting of the pics so I'll leave it.

The first trip was March 22, kind by accident LOL. I was in the area to see Shinjuku Gyoen and the cafe was on our walk back to Shinjuku stn. The lobby was empty, so I gathered my very out of practice JP skills and asked if it was possible to get a seat as a walk-in. They said yes :D

Word hadn't gotten around yet it seems, so it was very empty upstairs too LOL. Great for pics :D

There's a ¥1,000 sitting fee and you get a drink with that. There's a QR code given to you for the menu (it matches to your table number so your orders are tracked). Menu was a bit clunky, probably because my JP reading skills are in the toilet, but I figured it out! They played the same 10 minute video the entire time (for the FMA mobile game).

Because I showed up late I only bought one thing to eat (last order for food was 18:00 and I didn't really sit down and get things figured out until 17:45-ish), and it was Lust's chocolate cake. It was very good (and very heavy lol). I got the Edward Elric drink first and the Roy Mustang drink second. Both came with mystery coasters. Ed's drink was better imo.

At the end the couple of us on the 2nd floor snuck up to the 3rd for pics before leaving.

I went back the day before I left for Osaka :D (27th)

Word had gotten around by now about the cafe and merch shop and it was busy this time! I popped in at 12:15 and asked if they had any seats available. No, they're full. He offered to book me in for 14:30 though! So I putzed around Shinjuku for 2 hours and went back :D

It was packed this time!! On both floors.

Winry's pie was alright. Heavier than I was expecting. Ed's fries were fun! They came with a white paper bag that you transfer the fries into, and you add whatever mix of spices you want from the spice cups it came with, then shake in the bag. Neat! Also tasty.

Drinks were Olivier's, Bradley's (with matching coaster!) and Ed's drink again (I should have gotten Roy's again dammit, I tried to take his glove hand home from the first time, but it got wet, the ink bled, and it ironically fell apart...)

Olivier's was the neatest looking drink, but also my least favourite. Bradley's was my favourite drink - very good!

I went back on April 4 before I went home ;A;. This time I made a reservation. I asked for a seat on the 3rd floor, since my first 2 had been on the 2nd, but I think seating is actually based on how early you get in line. I got in line early and noticed everyone in front of me also got 3rd floor, so I think they just fill the 3rd before dealing with the 2nd.

ANYWAYS

Great seat. A+. My spot had 2 table numbers and I asked if it was okay and they just were like "yeah yeah it's fine no worries". Okay!

By this point they must have been besieged with tourists. Poor woman hosting the floor couldn't speak English to save her life (and half my floor was tourists). She got to me and tried to suffer through a few English words and I stopped her. I'm fine with the instructions in Japanese :') please don't suffer more on my account.

Bradley's drink again, Ed's Milk Hater drink, and the classic FMA drink BECAUSE I CONTINUE TO FORGET ALL ABOUT ROY...

Ed's milk drink though... you pour the milk into the mug filled with soda(??) and ice. It tasted like a float without the cola?? It was unique... the most interesting drink to try for sure (Bradley's still my favourite).

I bought the mug at the gift shop :')

LET'S TALK ABOUT THIS AL PUDDING. This was amazing and fun. There is a little cake, there is a little ice cream, there is a little pudding, there's a little idk what it was but it was chocolate and good, and there are cat themed cookies under the pudding cup LMAO. Then there's the blood seal inside the tin. A+ Al wins. That was so much fun, I'm sad I left that until last, I probably would have gotten it again.

You could have totally sold me on this mug too if it had been for sale.

Look, I did remember Roy sorta :') I got his doughnut. It was HEAVY and the icing was so thick on top it was rock hard. Sticky, messy finger food.

So that's it :D I've run out of picture space lol. I wish I'd gotten to taste test things in the second round later in April (ARMSTRONG'S HASHED BEEF ;____;) but I hope they enjoy all the money I gave them while I was there LOL. I had some neat food and had fun doing it :)

#Fullmetal Alchemist #FMA #Café #Hagaren Cafe #anime cafe #Edward Elric #Alphonse Elric #Winry Rockbell #Roy Mustang #King Bradley

115 notes · View notes

prettygoododds · 1 year

Text

20 Questions for fic writers

Thanks @wellbelesbian for tagging me. Such fun questions! Tags below the cut.

How many works do you have on AO3

68! Wow, I did not realize this.

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

134,335

3. What fandoms do you write for?

The Carry On Series aka Simon Snow fandom aka Snobaz

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

When the Ink Dries

Can I Change My Mind (this one blows my mind, how it continues to stay at the top)

Namaste Away

Every Lover Has A Little Dagger In Their Hand

We're So Starving

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or Why not?

I try to, but I'm very bad at it. It's something I need to work on.

6. What is a fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

We Were Pity Sex, Nothing More and Nothing Less It doesn't even pretend to be kind.

Also, I'm Right Where You Left Me It's short, but cuts right to the bone.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Most of mine do have a happy ending (when I go sad, I go hard). If I had to choose a few, I suppose:

Where Did the Party Go?

Believe

Namaste Away

8. Do you get hate on fics?

No. Had a few recommendations on how to tag a few works, or to make it more user friendly but everyone has always been very kind with those suggestions. The Carry On fandom is a really good fandom.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I'm slowly dipping my toes in that water. I've posted a few works that have smut, but I'm still very tentative about it. I don't know what kind really. Regular?

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

I do not

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I'm aware of

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not to my knowledge

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I have not, but I'm not opposed to it.

14. What's your all time favorite ship?

Snobaz, hands down. It's the one I come back to every time. My comfort ship.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I have 2 WIP currently and both of those will be finished. My other WIP not on AO3 are just sitting in my google docs, where no one can see them shivering in the corner, neglected.

16 What are your writing strengths?

Oof. I'd like to think I'm good at dialogue.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Descriptions and setting a scene. I'm working on it though, and that's the important bit I suppose *shrugs shoulders in Simon*

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

Not something I've attempted. I won't say I never will, but I will probably not unless I absolutely have to

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Somewhere, in the depths of fanfic.net are my abandoned Twilight fics. And that is where they will stay until the death of the planet.

20. Favorite fic you've written?

I have a few and when I'm questioning why I think I should be doing this at all, I read them to remember I started because I wanted to write the stories I wanted to read.

When The Ink Dries - I started this fic waaaaay before I ever posted it and it was the reason I decided to participate in my first Carry On Big Bang. It's my fic first born.

I'm Not A Pitch - This fic popped my AO3 cherry. I posted it before I could second guess myself. It's full of errors, but I wouldn't change anything about it.

Vibe Check - I wrote this in a few hours when I was feeling silly and it is still one of my favorites

Who Wants Ramen? - My friend and I giggled endlessly when I plotted this one out.

You Can Call Me Babe for the Weekend - I spend a lot of time listening to music and plotting out the story that a 3-4 minutes song can tell. 'Tis the Damn Season was an immediate movie in my head and as soon as I could plot it out and put it on paper (so to speak) I did.

And last but not least Sugar, We're Going Down Swingin - This is pure self indulgence. I got into hockey, I wanted the boys to be hockey players...bam, here's a fic with almost no hockey in it, but sometimes they talk about it.

I'm don't know who's already been tagged, so sorry if I double up:

@facewithoutheart @imagineacoolusername @artsyunderstudy @shemakesmeforget @ivelovedhimthroughworse @ionlydrinkhotwater @rimeswithpurple @aristocratic-otter @cutestkilla @blackberrysummerblog @nausikaaa @supercutedinosaurs @nightimedreamersworld @valeffelees @iamamythologicalcreature @shrekgogurt @ileadacharmedlife @martsonmars @you-remind-me-of-the-babe

#tag game #big thank you to all who support my fics #seriously #it means the world to me #prettygoododdsfic #prettygoododds #snowbaz #simon snow series #carry on fanfiction #carry on fandom #snobaz #simon snow #baz pitch #carry on series #simon and baz #simon baz

38 notes · View notes

shootingstarpilot · 11 months

Text

Fic Writer 20 Questions

Thanks for the tag, @merlyn-bane!

1.) How many works do you have on ao3?

Eight!

2.) What's your ao3 word count?

217,911

3.) What fandoms do you write for?

*sobbing* Star Wars, my beloved. The brainrot is real; I am consumed. When I was still on FF.net, though, I had stuff up in Harry Potter and How to Train Your Dragon.

4.) What are your top five fics by kudos?

back then, i was dauntless

how to bring him home

if i don't make it back (from where i've gone)

though some would harm you

like lightning changing hands

5.) Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I absolutely do! I feel bad because I know I've gotten some lovely comments on chapters that aren't the most recent one, and those tend to get lost in the inbox, but I promise I'm working on it- if you get a response from a comment you left a year and a half ago, don't hold it against me 😅

I do it because I want so badly to build community here! I love getting comments from people, responding to something with a wee hint of a tease because I'm AWFUL and then getting a keysmash of a response and then exchanging snippets in the comments, truly, it fills me with delight- and I've met some absolutely wonderful people who I got introduced to by responding to comments-

Anyway. Community. That.

6.) What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Oh. Hm. Hm.

I... guess it would have to be though some would harm you? Although I'm not sure if I feel confident in that designation, because it's very much part of a multi-work series. And I'm too much of a sucker for happy endings to write a stand-alone fic that doesn't have one, I think.

7.) What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Oh, neural plasticity, for sure! Short and sweet <3

8.) Do you get hate on fics?

A bit. I can brush off the "actually the Jedi were the real monsters" assholes easily enough, but honestly, the comments that hit the hardest are the ones that clearly come from people who think they're offering ✨constructive criticism.✨ Not only because I didn't ask for it, but also because saying my work is "fatiguing" or "I'm sure there's a decent story here, but it's being buried under what you're trying to do with it-" there's nothing constructive there.

Side note: the person who left that last comment deleted it about half an hour later, because when I went to reply, it had vanished from my inbox. I don't know if they did that because they didn't want me to be able to reply, or if they realized that what they said was unhelpful and mean, but if they ever happen to see this-

I still got the email, prick.

9.) Do you write smut? If so what kind?

Write? No, I haven't quite worked up the panache to try. Reading, on the other hand...

10.) Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

I do have snippets of one crossover that I actually posted in an anonymous collection, ha- an old BBC Merlin/ Good Omens/ Supernatural fic that I dug out of my old documents. Other than that, no- unless you count the Prequels and the Clone Wars as different enough to qualify as a crossover.

11.) Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of!

12.) Have you ever had a fic translated?

Also not that I know of- very much open to it, though!

13.) Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

Since I don't think taking drabbles in tumblr chats to ridiculous lengths counts, I'd have to say no- I'd like to, though!

14.) What's your all time favorite ship?

Codywan. Fiercely, unwaveringly Codywan.

Just to reinforce this- 292 of my bookmarks consist of Cody/Obi-Wan. The next most common romantic pairing (Aziraphale/Crowley) has less than half that, at 121.

I'm a goner, and I can't even bring myself to regret it.

15.) What's a WIP you'd like to finish, but doubt you ever will?

OKAY SO I've written snippets of a modern AU focusing on Helix, Needle and Stitch, and I'm totally gonna take this opportunity to rage about it. I'm probably never gonna finish it, but it gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling, so, hey- what else is fic for, really, if not for indulging yourself?

At first, it's just Needle and Stitch. It's just been the two of them, for as long as Stitch can remember. Needle's only a few years older than him, but he's raised him, kept him in school, kept a roof over their heads and food on the table-

Food on Stitch's plate, at least.

Then, one night, Needle does not come home.

A hit-and-run, the nurse tells him, although the words will not trickle through until much later. A coma.

He will not, they say patiently, come home for some time.

(There is so much that needs doing.)

Helix, meanwhile, is studying physical therapy at the local community college and working part-time at his brother Ace's bakery.

It's during one of these shifts that a skinny little twerp comes in and hands him a job application.

(Rent and bills and Needle Needle Needle-)

It doesn't take Helix long to realize something is... off.

Ace tells him not to push it, but-

The kid's a good worker. Great, as a matter of fact. He's never late. Stays past closing, too, if they've had a rush. He tells Helix about his brother and nothing else.

(His brother hasn't come to visit.)

Everything that's not sold at the end of the day gets packaged up and given out. They only toss in the dumpster what's really, truly inedible- stuff that got dropped in the kitchen, scraps left over from customers-

He thinks it's raccoons, at first, until he peers in and sees Stitch flatten himself against a heap of bags in the corner.

They package up leftovers for him, after that. A bit more than leftovers, maybe. Ace sets aside sandwiches. Helix buys him a thermos and tells him it's been in the lost and found for over a year. They make sure he eats.

(Needle's getting transferred out of the ICU.)

Stitch is trying. He's doing everything he can, and more besides. But Needle's life is too expensive and he's buckling under the weight.

(He hasn't even grieved. Not really. No room. No time.)

Eventually, something has to give.

He does.

(He hadn't expected someone to be there to catch him.)

Featuring:

Helix stumbling into adopting first one, then two idiot kids

Ace being a supportive brother

Needle finding his way home

Mace Windu as Needle's (unfairly attractive, Helix thinks) neurologist

Obi-Wan as a hospital social worker who gets assigned Needle's file

Cody as Obi-Wan's husband, Helix's cousin, and children's book author (Stitch's favorite)

(listen I am WEAK for author!Cody, truly)

(Helix was totally the one who got them together and he regrets it every day of his life.)

Sheev Palpatine as the epitome of the evil of the American healthcare system

The Melidaan crew running a long-term, non-profit care facility that offers both in-patient and out-patient rehab services

16.) What are your writing strengths?

(I'VE PUT TOO MUCH THOUGHT INTO THIS. SHIT.)

17.) What are your writing weaknesses?

I am, apparently, really good at writing breakdowns. >:3

18.) Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

Dialogue does not come easily to me. I have to work a bit to hit my stride. But I think it turns out well enough!

Hm. Coming from a purely technical perspective here, I think the reader should be able to understand everything that's spoken in a fic. If a character says something in another language, then I think the best way to convey that is, "X muttered something Y didn't catch," or, if the listener recognizes that it's at least in another language, "X muttered something in French."

If the reader should understand it, then something along the lines of: "'I knew we shouldn't have trusted him,' X muttered in French."

If the POV character doesn't understand the language, it doesn't make sense to provide the reader with a perfect transliteration of what the other character is saying. The character wouldn't have that knowledge. It can really take me out of the fic when two characters suddenly start conversing in written-out sentences in another language, and I have to scroll all the way down to the footnotes for translations.

19.) First fandom you wrote for?

But then again, that's just my opinion- I'm sure others have their own thoughts on this!

20.) Favorite fic you've ever written?

Harry Potter.

Hell, I have to say like lightning changing hands, if only because whatever fic I'm writing at the moment is my favorite. It's the act of creation that does it for me!

(Also because it's such a good opportunity to explore so many relationship dynamics.)

No-pressure tags for @jedi-enthusiast, @themonopolyhat, @shadow-pixelle, and @foreverchangingfandomsao3!

#shoulder the sky #me: let's summarize this lil nebulous au for sharing! :D #also me ten minutes later: shit. it's grown legs.#personal #my writing

28 notes · View notes

eyra · 11 months

Text

20 questions for Fic Writers

thank you to everyone who tagged me and I'm sorry it's taken me a month to do this.

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

25 plus a few that I've posted anonymously. bonus points if anyone ever finds them.

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

348,031

3. What fandoms do you write for?

just HP/marauders these days

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

A Brief History of Dragons - people like this Remus I think.

Beneath a Big Blue Sky - my love letter to Yorkshire.

Statten Park - an old one but I do actually still like this, it's a lot of fun.

Sunshine on Leith - can we knock this out of the top five already please.

And a Hedgehog in a Pine Tree - I'm so surprised that this is here, it's such an inconsequential little thing. people like Christmas I suppose.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

oh god I try I really do, every email that comes through with a new comment makes my day but I'm terrible for leaving them all unanswered in my inbox. I'm sorry to everyone who has ever left a comment that I haven't responded to.

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

The Proctor House for sure. A Winter, Forever Ago is pretty bleak too.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

most of them! probably the most joyous is something like Beneath a Big Blue Sky because you've been on a decent journey to get there. that goose threatening everyone's happiness and all.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

not really. one comment I do get sometimes is that the way I write Remus/Sirius is OOC and yes I agree, it absolutely is. Remus in Beneath a Big Blue Sky has nothing to do with e.g. Remus in Ullswater. those men have never even met in a bathroom. James in A Brief History of Dragons is an arsehole compared to living legend James in Beneath a Big Blue Sky. Sirius in Statten Park is a complete stranger to Sirius in Heartstones. none of them, really, have much to do with their canon counterparts. just bits here and there but I haven't read the HP books in well over a decade and I don't really remember what these characters are actually like beyond the surface-level stuff, so a lot of what I write is fairly OOC. it's all done knowingly and intentionally and I'm not going to change that.

9. Do you write smut. If so, what kind?

oh gosh a little bit a little bit. please understand that I'm a repressed Englishwoman and I'm trying my hardest. Seventeen Hours and Statten Park are both fairly smutty. I'd like to write more but I'm awkward af.

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

no not really my thing but I do like to take other stories and plonk marauders characters into similar worlds - Ullswater was very much inspired by If We Were Villains.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

no but people keep nabbing them to get them printed and then apparently sell them? so actually maybe yes. grow up.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

no because I'm a control freak and I don't allow my work to be replicated. sorry about it. I think people have done it for personal offline projects though and that's absolutely fine.

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

back in the day I used to co-write with my then-partner but it was just bits and pieces, not full fics. again, I'm a control freak so I'd struggle with this. I need to get my own way always.

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

right so I should say Remus/Sirius but honestly... Remus/James just reaches places other pairings simply cannot. so it's a toss up.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

oh god how long have you got. I think one of the reasons I dislike Sunshine on Leith so much is because I put that stupid note at the end promising a third part in a few weeks. that was in 2020 and I've still not done it. help.

16. What are your writing strengths?

description, particularly when it comes to: natural landscapes, buildings, food, weather. I think I'm alright at witty dialogue too.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

actually writing anything down. also action, can't do action to save my life.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I don't think I've done it but I'd give it a go.

19. First Fandom you wrote for?

I think it was LOTR and yes it probably still exists somewhere on an old desktop computer at my dad's house and yes that thought keeps me up at night.

20. Favorite fic you've ever written?

The Proctor House and Beneath a Big Blue Sky

#ask game #ask

16 notes · View notes

1rsoldiersince2012 · 2 years

Text

Bound by Law (Matt Murdock x Reader)

Words: 2420 (chapter 14)

Summary:

You and Matt met in the courtroom. Now, you may think that Matt was a knight in shining armour and defended you in the name of all United States laws, but that was not the case. Matt was totally destroying your client, and you wanted to tear him into pieces right then and right there, because with Murdock as your rival, your head is on the firm's plate with each case. Did Matt care? No, he only cared about bringing justice, he was a human-machine, driven by the need to bring righteousness no matter the cost. Or was he just that? What happens when you get involved in Fisk's business and Daredevil's lies against your will?

UPDATES EVERY FRIDAY

Find my other accounts on ao3 and wattpad! <3

ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1rSoldierSince2012

wattpad: https://www.wattpad.com/user/1rsoldierSince2012

14. Back When It All Made Sense

Matt was furious and felt like he was literally burning inside. Pretending to be calm while he left the radar of your car, he pulled into an alley known only to him and probably some drug addicts, he stopped and started breathing through his nose like an angry bull. The dumpster became a scapegoat to absorb all Matt's anger, which he vented by hitting the side of the dumpster repeatedly until he felt the metallic smell of blood in the air and on the tip of his tongue. Todd had to yet to face the wrath of the devil, but here Matt faced a problem - neither he knew how this scumbag looked, nor he knew where he lived. He can't ask Foggy to find him. In fact, he can't ask anyone at all.

After leaning face towards the wall for a while, and releasing a long breath, a thought finally occurred: what would someone like Todd do on Friday evening? Go to a bar and try to get laid. He remembered you mentioning Josie's, so perhaps luck will be on his side again tonight.

Yes, Matt called you in his arms, even for a moment, luck. He couldn't deny anymore that he felt the need to breathe in your expensive perfume once again, he couldn't lie to himself that you were his biggest mystery now. He wanted nothing more than to hold you tight in his arms and protect you from this world, although you were more than capable enough to kick someone's ass if needed.

Matt slightly shakes his head to himself and finally pulls away from the cold wall, wiping the bloody knuckles into a handkerchief and making himself presentable again. He had to focus on how to make Todd pay. He could just beat the shit out of him, but it would be too suspicious on how he learned about the whole thing and Matt would push you into a very uncomfortable situation, again. Slowly dragging his feet back to his apartment, Matt was debating on his choices and weighting each outcome, convincing himself that he would do the same for anyone else, although deep down inside he knew that all this effort was only for you.

***

Not in the mood for food, only for alcohol and still burning with anger, you were lost on the Internet, reading and re-reading the legislation, all which you knew almost by heart. Kitchen turned out to be once again the best place for work, although personal matter shouldn't be called work, you treated it like another case, because you knew how quickly feelings got the best of you.

A couple of hours later, you managed to pull out some good stuff, and decided to call your dad. Just for assurance, you told yourself. Although, you just wanted to talk to someone who understood you better than anyone else. Three rings later, a rough voice was finally heard in your ear:

"Yeah?"

"Hey, dad, it's me." you smile immediately.

"Oh, hey, honey."

"You still didn't put the names on your contacts, right?" You tease and a heavy sigh on the other side is heard along with your mother's laughter somewhere far away.

"You know that I don't understand how to use that damn thing."

"Dad, you're not that old to not know how to use a smartphone."

"I only use this because you gifted it to me. Through mail, by the way." He scolds slightly, not letting you forget that you haven't found enough time to visit them in the past couple of months.

"Dad, I already apologized like a million times, complain to Hogarth for giving me a case on your birthday."

"I don't care about that woman, I only care about my daughter, who has the audacity to not visit her parents and hides behind her work."

Now it's your turn to sigh heavily, and take out a beer bottle out of the fridge. "Dad, I'll come for the Holidays, I promise... Maybe even earlier, since I no longer work regularly."

"What do you mean by that?" The interrogation skills from years working in the police force kick in, and you hear a change in his voice, which becomes strict and professional.

"They offered me a new way of working. I work as a sort of assistant now." You sigh again, opening the beer bottle loudly, which doesn't go unnoticed by your dad.

"What's in it for you?"

"They promised to pay more."

"Have they?"

"I only started like a week ago, or maybe later..." you try to remember how long ago you were brought into another affair in the firm, feeling like all the days are the same and nothing makes much sense, "it doesn't matter, honestly." You finish desperately before you concern your father any further.

"I'm sure they are afraid to lose you now, especially after that trial was shown on a TV."

That meant - I'm really proud of you, daughter, but my manliness won't allow me to be so expressive. However, you had to admit, your mother managed to soften your dad a little over the last couple of years.

"Yeah, I guess... Listen, dad, I'm kind of dealing with a case now-"

"On a Friday evening, you should be going out, y/n!" Your mother shouts loudly in your ear, and you almost drop your phone on the counter.

"Jesus, mom, no need to shout, it's a new phone."

"She's telling the truth, I want to live up to see your husband." Your dad says in a scolding tone again, and you roll your eyes slightly.

"So you could put him in a cell on our wedding night?"

"My biggest dream, that's for sure."

"Dad, I thought you got rid of that dream, I'm not 17 anymore."

"Doesn't change the fact that I can easily do it, all I have to do is call Robert, and he would deal with everything." He huffs a laugh, and for a moment your thoughts wander to Robert - a boy from your neighbourhood, who thought of your dad as a hero, after he managed to put in jail the biggest gang of the 90s, and said that one day he'll be just like him.

"Robert? How's he doing?" You ask cautiously, not trying to raise suspicions on why you suddenly became so interested in the man from the precinct.

"He's actually running for sheriff's office in Brooklyn."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, chances are big he's going to win, so much charisma in one place just can't go unnoticed. In fact, I saw him the other day."

"Really? You what, went to Brooklyn?" You laugh.

"It's not as far as you imagine, kid, a couple of hours in the car, and you're in the Bronx. Rob came to visit us." Your father falls silent, and you know what that silence means - the guy bothered to come all the way from Brooklyn, and you can't come from Hell's Kitchen.

"What was the occasion? Meeting the force buddies? I thought Robert was too young for those things." You huff a laugh and take a big gulp of cold beer, savouring the feeling of it going down your throat.

"No, he came by to visit, asked about you too. I assume you're no longer in touch after what happened." He says this as a statement, not a question, and it takes you a moment to realize that this was just a disappointing tone.

"Yeah, I thought you already knew that, 5 years have passed since I last saw him." You say, saddened a bit.

"You do remember that you were merely a guest at home during college, right?"

"Yes, dad, I do." You sigh again, this phone call turned out to be more depressive than you expected.

"He's grown into a nice man." Of course, your dad always wanted you to marry Robert, and obviously he wasn't going to let go of that thought any sooner.

"What'd you tell him?" You disregard the last statement swiftly, closing the computer with Todd's mugshot-like photo on the screen.

"I told him that my dear daughter is so busy that she forgot her old man-"

"Daaad, please-"

"I also gave him your contacts, because he wanted to visit you."

"You- what?" You stand up from the stool, and start pacing in the kitchen.

"Listen, you have to open yourself up for others, enough time has passed."

"I am opening myself to others... At least starting to." You softly bang your fist against the cold window, enjoying the dull sound, thoughts wandering to Matt, then to James for a split second.

"Just... Be nice to him if he comes, although he's quite busy with the campaign now. Remember, he was there for you when-"

"Okay, okay, got it, not to be myself then. Dad, I..." You inhale sharply, realizing that this conversation is no longer in your favour. "I'll visit you sometime, goodnight."

"Think about what I said, night." He turns off his phone, and you drop yours on the counter loudly, cooling off before you have another breakdown.

***

"So, I told him, either you stop whining like a baby and show them that you're the man I presented to the court, or you rot in jail for 10 years, guess what he chose." The annoying voice stands out among the chatter of the full bar, and Matt puts his focus on it for a moment, leaning on the chimney on the rooftop of Josie's building.

Few seconds later, a soft voice of a woman answers, "the first option, right?"

"See, honey, you're smart, not only beautiful, but have brains too, because poor Charlie didn't have any." The man fakes a sigh, and then laughs, "that idiot really chose jail, just because he thought that his wife would forgive him in the end."

"Listen, Todd, maybe we should call it a night, I'm not really feeling this place."

Matt smirks, jackpot.

"I paid for three drinks, and now you're not feeling it?" Todd fires up.

"I told you before, I was getting ready to leave-"

"Whatever, just get out of my sight." Todd snaps suddenly, the girl hesitates to do anything. "LEA-ve" he lowers his voice mid-word, but the girl flinches nonetheless, quickly grabbing her things and leaving the table. "Bitch." Todd scoffs when he's left alone again, and finishes his drink, "who cares about them when I got eyes on the big prize."

Matt clenches a fist, intently listening to where Todd is going, already creating scenarios of him lying and begging for mercy. Todd chooses to take the main street, avoiding dark alleys, and hoping to catch a girl on his way home. Matt slightly curses under his breath, yet decides to follow him through the rooftops.

***

Robert. Your first 'love', the embodiment of goodness and a perfect guy to grow old with, and practically every girl's dream. Yet, you didn't find it in your heart to love him back as much as he loved you. Friends since childhood, you spent every day together until he confessed to you his love in high school.

Robert was your father's favorite kid in the neighborhood, of course, after you, although sometimes you felt that he preferred Robert's presence to yours. How could you say no to Robert, when he came to your garden with a bouquet of wildflowers that he picked on his way from the old lady on the corner of the street, and he said that he'll love you forever? How could you say no, when you knew that your father was watching you through the window? How could you possibly say no to Robert when he was your father's favorite? How could you say no, when you wanted to please your father with 'good' and 'mature' decisions?

Even now, all those years later, you blamed it on yourself, breaking poor man's heart, not once, but twice, you didn't have a will to meet him again, because you knew that he will soften you just like he did before.

You didn't even feel how half of beer was already gone, and your computer was about to die, and Matt was making a plan on how to approach Todd, because the latter was just a block away from his apartment. And James? Long forgotten today, was making another deal for Fisk, taking all the work so he could get his mind away from you.

Suddenly you felt as if you were in the middle of everything - Hell's Kitchen, New York, hell, even in the middle of world, knowing that every decision will lead to another problem, no matter what you choose. The curse of knowing that you still can't cross over yourself and finally open up for love, instead of running away from it, because you were simply hurt too deep.

You dreaded the thought of seeing Robert again. You know that he asked your father to tell him everything about you, and knowing how welcomed Robert was in that house, it wasn't too hard. Why did he decide to do it now, after all those years that you spent fighting your hardest battles alone and needed a shoulder to lean on more than ever? Why now when your life was finally going the right way?

You chuckle to yourself. The answer to the first question was as clear as the night sky in Hell's Kitchen - you were the one who pushed him away, and then convinced yourself that he wasn't interested in you anymore, because that hurt far less than the truth. You caught the thrill, as bad as this sounds, and just couldn't imagine yourself living in the suburban house with three kids and a perfect police officer Robert, who would take out all his awards to show at any given chance. The thrill haunted you throughout the college, suppressed and hungry, it was about to be unleashed with the person you only saw through eyes of burning rage, until now.

***

Luckily for Matt, Todd lived on the floor closest to the roof. What really put a smile on devil's face was the habit of Todd's - not smoking inside, instead, he went on the rooftop, and that was his biggest mistake of the evening.

Just as Todd closed the door of the corridor, he wasn't met with the cool air of the night, instead, he was met with a punch to his face, which briefly knocked him out.

Matt squats in front of groaning Todd, "let's have a chat, shall we?"

#matt murdock #foggy nelson #marvel daredevil #matt murdock x reader #netflix daredevil #matts superhearing complicates things for you #matthew murdock #karen page #wilson fisk #james wesley #lawyers #bound by law #daredevil #marvel

49 notes · View notes

harrison-abbott · 3 months

Text

Most of us were young and almost

All of them were loud. You were by

Far the quietest and thrown into this place

Of mayhem. With the steam and shouting

And the radio music, and the different

Accents whizzing about. The job was dull

But it was easy and there was never a non-

Eventful shift … You learned how other

People talk in a manic environment and

You learned to raise your voice a bit.

It was hard at first but you got there.

You met other people who were interested

In music and you got jamming with them.

You met girls and learned how to speak

To them and you’d always been super shy

Around that lot and so this was beneficial.

You learned how to stay stuff that was

Funny, and how to avoid saying things

Which were mean. You wrote songs on

The side in between this and university.

Almost every night you’d head out on

The town and drink the beers and you’d

Go home at 3 a.m. and the bakery was

Open with its yellow windows. And you’d

Be able to head into work again without

Being comatose. All of the colleagues

Were ace. There was loud bantering Dave,

And mischievous Steven, and foul-mouthed

Tracy, and big chubby friendly Calum,

And flirtatious Joe, and half-serious half-

Fantastic Pawel, and mentally ill Katia,

And stick-thin Lewis who played electric

Guitar and who joined me on stage; and

Irish Laura with the dyed hair who became

His girlfriend; and Katie with the ginger

Hair and baritone voice; and Scott who

Was totally useless with his job and

Never put any work in but everybody

Loved him because he was funny. That

Was all back in 2014. And I’m remembering

It now because it was ten years ago this

Summer. And the World Cup was on in

Brazil. And they gave all of the staff these

Little mini Brazil tops. Just cheap things.

That was the good thing about soccer.

It brought cultures together. And even

Though it was only a part time minimum

Wage job cleaning dishes it was fun and fine.

Was a real lively environment in which to work.

…………………………………………………

And the World Cup ended and then it slipped into

The autumn and things began to change. First thing

Was that Steven left the kitchen, and a lot of

The banter died with that. He was replaced with

Zoe, who was okay at first. But she got heavily

Overworked because a few other chefs left

Too, so she had to work about 70 hours a week.

She got ratty and she took it out on the colleagues.

And Joe left, and that took a lot of the humour

With him; and the manager friendly Calum

Was replaced with another manager who changed

A lot of the rules. And then the manager above

Him made us close an hour later at night, whilst

Also cutting our hours. So we had less money

And we had to work longer into the night.

And then loud bantering Dave left too.

And so it was just me, Zoe, and a handful

Of others in the kitchen. We had to put up

With Zoe’s wrath, whenever she felt like it.

Lewis and Laura were on the floor staff team.

Lewis got her pregnant. She went four months

Without knowing she was pregnant and then

They were shocked when they found out and

They didn’t feel they were equipped enough

To keep the baby so they decided to give it

Up for adoption. And many of that old 2014

Team left the city altogether. So they weren’t

Even around for pints in the evening. Those

That had replaced the old team weren’t into

Hanging out after the shifts. Lewis and Laura

Had the baby and then they passed it on for

Adoption, and then they left the city too.

And so it was pretty much me left in the joint.

That would have been in the autumn of 2015.

It’s crazy how much can change in a year.

Whereas I had been cheerful going into

Work the previous summer it was all but

Miserable now. I stayed on (miraculously,

Now that I think about it) for another couple

Of years, only because I needed the money

And because I was still studying. And there

Were a few colleagues who came in who

Were sound enough. On the floor team,

A few other cats who were nice folks.

It’s just that that ’14 period was never

Reincarnated. Lost forever. I miss it.

#writeblr #creative writing #writers on tumblr #poem #poetry #tumblr writers #spilled ink

2 notes · View notes

that-ghosts-art · 2 years

Text

The Other Way Chapter 14: The Portal

Chapter 1 - Last Chapter - AO3 Link

To those who are reading my fanfic I hope the wait was worth it ;3

~~~

The fading light filtered down through the thick layer of leaves. How long had they been out here, Dipper wondered, searching the forest for the way home.

It had been at least a few hours since Alcor had brought them to the forest surrounding Gravity Falls in search of the portal, and now here they sat infuriatingly close. Unfortunately there were also a bunch of heavily armed, multiverse hating cultists in the way that wanted to destroy his and Mabel’s home dimension, and probably them as well if what Alcor said was anything to go by.

If there was one thing Dipper was taking away from his little interdimensional ‘adventure,’ it was that there were cultists quite literally everywhere here.

The three humans were waiting in a small clearing while Alcor went ahead to get a feel for the situation, with Wren keeping an eye on the twins.

Dipper glared up at the dusken light from his spot sprawled out on the grass, letting out an annoyed huff. “If I never have to deal with another cult, it’ll be too soon,” he grumbled quietly, mindful of the headache that had stubbornly remained after his last attack. It was like the dull thumping of a heart, beating in time with the unknown force that resented his dual presence in this dimension. An ever present reminder of the time limit hanging over their heads.

Looking up from cleaning her strange looking gun Wren raised an eyebrow at the sulking pre-teen. “Another? How many cults have you two met?”

“This’ll be my second and bro-bro’s third since getting here,” Mabel said, before looking thoughtfully at nothing in particular, nothing that Dipper could see at least. “Though I guess all up it’d be third and fourth if we include that memory erasing one from back home,” she added, shrugging and looking up at the demon hunter with that characteristic Mabel smile, if a bit smaller than it usually was back home.

“Damn, that’s a lot of cults for four days.”

“Three actually, and that’s including today,” Dipper corrected, slowly sitting up.

“Crazy to think it’s only been three days, with everything that’s happened it feels like it’s been ages since we got here,” Mabel mused, and Dipper silently agreed.

Since first falling in that hidden portal and appearing in that alley they had been captured, saved by Alcor, played an, in hindsight, rather ridiculous amount of DDnMD, temporarily believed Alcor murdered a family and stole their home only to then discover that actually he was an alternate Dipper, leading to him, the original human Dipper to run off and get captured again, saved by Alcor again, learnt about Alcor’s past, and finally ended up in the Gravity Falls woods where they met Wren and located the portal home. Just one more obstacle to get past and this would all be over.

There was a small feeling that could only be described as a ‘blip’ and the trio looked up to see that Alcor had returned, face scrunched up in thought and feet decidedly off the ground.

Putting her weapon down Wren got up and approached the demon. “What’s the status Alcor? Will I be needing to help out?”

“Probably,” he admitted, absentmindedly rubbing the back of his neck. “There's only nine cultists total, three guarding the perimeter, two by the portal itself and three more going over what looked like data they had collected.”

“But?” Mabel prompted from her spot on one of the larger rocks in the area, fiddling with the hem of her skirt.

Alcor sighed, running a hand through his hair. “While normally I’d be able to handle these guys easily on my own, I need to focus and put my energy into making sure that the portal’s safe and will actually take you two where you need to go.”

“I suppose that makes sense,” Dipper grumbled, scratching the back of his left hand as he layed back down. He’d found that lying down made the throbbing in his head easier to deal with.

“How do you know about these weirdos anyway?” Mabel asked.

“An older faction of them summoned me a couple hundred years ago in the hopes I would open a portal for them,” he answered, beginning to pace back and forth in a manner Dipper recognised as being not too dissimilar to his own habit. “Honestly I’m surprised they even still exist,” Alcor added, almost as an afterthought.

“So, did you?” Wren asked, eyebrow raised and arms crossed. “Open a portal for them?”

Alcor stopped mid - step? Dipper wasn’t sure if it counted as such given his feet remained hovering above the ground - and gave Wren a deadpan look. “If I couldn’t open a portal now for two kids I actually want to help what makes you think I could, or even would, for a bunch of nut jobs that think they’re capable of destroying other universes?”

She shrugged, quietly mumbling “fair point,” before returning to cleaning her gun.

“Hey, wait,” Dipper said, sitting up again, ignoring the dull protest from his head at the sudden movement. “If they already have access to the portal, you don’t think they already-“ Breathing suddenly became very difficult, panic filling his lungs with each attempt. Surely these people would not have the ability to do any damage to his and Mabel’s home, but paranoid ‘what if’s’ consumed Dipper’s thoughts like a virus.

Alcor was already shaking his head though, feet landing on the ground. “Oh no no no! I highly doubt they have the means to destroy an entire universe,” he interrupted, kneeling down and making abortive hand motions. “Maybe give a couple solar systems some strife but no actual danger. From what I saw it looked like they were probably still testing the portal out, seeing what they can do with it,” he added with what Dipper assumed Alcor thought was a comforting smile, but it was difficult to tell with his shark-like teeth.

“You think so?” Dipper asked, uncertain but wanting desperately to believe it.

“Of course!” Alcor said, standing up again.

“I mean, you say that but we don’t actually know how long they’ve had access to that thing,” Wren interjected, mostly focused on the last part of her gun that had yet to be cleaned.

Alcor glared at her, crossing his arms. “Hey! I’m trying to be reassuring here! And besides, last I checked they were all still mortals without universe destroying powers.”

“Yeah!” Mabel said with a chuckle. “They probably don’t even know how to go through the portal,” she snickered.

“Oh definitely not.”

The two started laughing, much to Dipper’s frustration.

“Okay that’s great and all,” he said, “but do you think we could maybe get back to figuring out what our plan is? It’s not like we can just wander out there with all those cultists around.”

“Right, yes, plan. You guys have any ideas?” Alcor asked, sobering up, hand moving up to rub his chin.

“Maybe I can go ahead,” Wren offered. “Distract them while you three get to the portal and do whatever it is you need to do,” she said, waving in Alcor’s direction.

“No, as good a fighter as you are, I don’t think you can take on nine destruction happy cultists all at once.”

“Try me!”

As the two bickered about the general usefulness of a single stun gun against nine cultists, all with significantly more deadly weaponry, Dipper realised focusing on what they were saying had suddenly become more difficult than it should have been. He ignored the feeling of pins and needles that had appeared in his left hand as he tried to focus through the headache on what Alcor was saying.

“I guess I could go ahead and deal with them all beforehand but-“

Alcor paused, probably in thought, but for half a second it looked as if he might have flinched. Dipper knew Alcor had said that his presence there would not have an affect on him, but perhaps-

Mabel’s gasp interrupted Dipper’s train of thought - it was probably nothing anyway -, and when he looked over to see what was wrong was met with her terrified face staring down at him.

“Dipper your hand!” she cried out and they all looked at it, only to find the tips of his fingers steadily fading away. Dully Dipper heard the frantic and panicked exclamations of the others, but all he could focus on was the pounding in his head as he stared in terrified silence at his vanishing hand.

With that realisation his headache decided now would be a good time to remind him why they could not take things slowly as the dull throbbing abruptly became a sharp pain that spread through his head and down his arm to the hand that was now barely there.

A quiet “oh,” was the only reaction Dipper could manage before he felt his vision fade.

Soon the only thing he was cognisant of was a ripping sensation, like the individual atoms in his arm were fighting to leave his body. His head felt as if it was being split in two, or perhaps merged into one? Afterall there were already two of him there. As it was, whatever thoughts he might have had were drowned out by the burning, the pulling, and the crushing feelings overcoming his every sensation.

When the feelings resided to a more bearable level Dipper saw Mabel, Alcor, and Wren hovering over him, fear, concern and panic clear on all their faces.

“That, was definitely worse than the last one,” Dipper croaked.

“Screw this, we need to go, now,” Alcor said, eyes dark and shoulders tense. “Wren we’ll go with your plan you go ahead to distract the cultists I’ll get these two to the portal and make sure they can pass through it safely. Let’s get moving people!”

As Mabel helped him up Dipper was dimly aware of Wren running ahead and Alcor gently ushering them forward. All Dipper could focus on though, was his left hand, and the pain emanating from it. Well, where his left hand had been.

What had vanished leading up to the attack had not returned with its passing. It had only gotten worse.

~~~

Mabel, Dipper, and Alcor moved as silently and as carefully as they could towards the clearing that gradually came into view. Wren had already run ahead to distract the cultists, and Mabel could just see her in between the trees.

“It’ll come back, right?” Mabel heard her brother whisper, still staring at the slowly fading stump where his left hand had been not that long ago. It looked, Mabel thought, like someone was trying to erase him, and she could already see other small spots and pockets where Dipper was starting to fade away, tiny dust-like specks falling away from him. She felt the hole in her stomach fall deeper with each smudged spot she saw.

Alcor’s crouched form stopped as he looked over his shoulder at the two of them, his eyes screaming worry and fear, and not a small amount of tiredness. As Mabel looked at Alcor, her alternate brother, she wondered how true his claim was that he would be fine. Had he always looked that exhausted? Not to mention that odd little moment he had immediately before Dipper’s last attack.

“Of course!” he whispered with a soft smile. “I’m like, ninety nine percent certain it’ll all be okay.”

“But, not a hundred?”

Alcor’s smile became softer still, as he cautiously placed a hand on Dipper’s shoulder. “I’m sure that once you’re both back in your own dimension everything with right itself and it’ll be fine, there’s no reason for things to not fix themself as soon as you’re home,” he said, looking at Mabel as well. She appreciated the effort to comfort them both, and gave him a small smile of her own.

“Now,” he continued, “please stay quiet, we’re almost there, and we need to be ready to run as soon as Wren start’s distracting these guys.”

Mabel nodded her head, a look of steely determination falling on her face, and she could see out the corner of her eye Dipper doing the same.

The trio stopped just shy of entering the clearing itself, staying just out of sight. Mabel could see five cultists from their hiding spot, but knew the other four must have been somewhere nearby. They hardly mattered though, because across the clearing, barely any distance at all, all things considered, the shimmering light from the portal was winking at her.

They were so close, after all this time finally seeing their ticket home was a welcome sight.

The large guns were significantly less welcoming.

They waited in nervous silence for Wren to make her move. Fortunately they did not have to sit there long, as less than a minute later she burst through the trees on the opposite side of the clearing, screaming and firing her weapon at the cultists, bursts of sparkling blue light knocking down three of them before the rest could react. The last of the nine cultists appeared as they all started firing at Wren, the tallest of the group barking orders at the others to get her.

In that moment of confusion Alcor started making his way to the portal, Dipper and Mabel following closely behind, staying quiet as they moved swiftly across the clearing. Before they could make it halfway though, Mabel heard a pained gasp behind her, turning just in time to see her brother collapse once more, almost his entire left arm already gone from view.

Panic flooded her system and froze her in place. “Dipper!” she called out, getting Alcor’s attention. He was by Dipper’s side in the blink of an eye, carefully picking him up and making his way to the portal.

Mabel forced her body to unfreeze - Dipper would be okay, as soon as they went through that portal it would all be okay, it had to be okay, he had to be okay - and followed behind at a slower pace, her legs shaking far too much to go any faster without falling over herself.

She could hear the blood pumping through her ears, the sound rising and she pushed forward, eyes darting quickly between their last hope and what little of her brother Mabel could see from behind Alcor. ‘Everything will be okay, everything will be alright, everything will be fine’ she thought to herself, a mantra she refused to let wander to the terrifying ‘what if’s’ that lurked on the edge of her mind.

Ahead of her she saw Alcor reach the portal, gently placing Dipper down before bringing all his attention to their only hope of returning home.

The sight helped Mabel to push past those stupid doubts and began to move faster as her legs began to feel more solid and less like her special brand of Mabel Pasta™ (like regular pasta but with more glitter and rainbow coloured yarn) when a rough hand grabbed her right arm.

“Hey! Where do you think you’re going?” the cultist grumbled, their grip tightening.

Mabel’s eyes widened, her throat closing up, and sweat beading down her face. As the looming cultist yanked her closer to them, a knife glinting in their other hand, Mabel’s mind went blank, instinctive fear freezing her in place.

This could not be happening, she was supposed to go to the portal and stay by her brothers side and go home and this was not the plan this was not the plan what was she supposed to do she didn’t have her grappling hook as it was back home she didn’t have anything she could use to fight back she-

“MABEL!” That was Dipper’s voice, he must have woken up from his attack and she tried to force herself to focus on him but all Mabel’s panicked mind let her fixate on was the large hand holding her arm, and the shimmering knife that got closer and closer with each frantic heartbeat.

Suddenly an angry scream drew the cultists attention away from Mabel, the hypnotising knife pulling away it time for her to see Wren running up to them. Before Mabel - or it would seem the cultist - could realise what was happening, Wren punched them in the face, startling them enough to let go, Mabel stumbling to the ground in awe.

“Hands off!” Wren yelled as the two began fighting.

Alcor appeared at her side, his wings curling up protectively around her as he picked Mabel up and brought her over to Dipper and the portal.

“Are you okay?!” Alcor and Dipper asked in unison, bringing a smile to Mabel’s lips.

“Y-yeah I’m good,” she stuttered. “Let’s get this thing going!”

“Right!” Alcor said, concerned eyes lingering on her for a moment before returning his attention to the portal.

His hands moved over it methodically, his fingers twitching as if playing the harp, small wisps of blue flame dancing around them. A frown began to form on his face the longer he worked, his eyebrows coming together and nose scrunching up.

Mabel could see Dipper open his mouth, she imagined to ask what was wrong, but before he could a startled shout from Wren grabbed all their attention.

“Look out!”

Running their way was another cultist and surely, surely, there were not that many left.

Yelping Mabel jumped out of their path, seeing Alcor grab Dipper and jump out the way himself just in time for the cultist to skid through the portal, their angry cry cut short.

“Is that going to be a problem?!” Dipper shrieked, the three of them staring wide eyed at the portal.

“No, you won’t have to worry about them,” Alcor said, letting go of Dipper’s shoulders.

“Cause it’s connected to a different dimension now?” Mabel asked.

“Ehhhhhhh.”

“R-right?”

Alcor averted his gaze, scratching the back of his head as he seemed to look anywhere but the two of them. “Uhhh, yeah yeah totally!” he said, moving back to his previous position in front of the portal, hands starting to work again. “And definitely not because this thing currently has the same internal structure of a blackhole and ripped their fragile fleshy body into a million exponentially smaller pieces,” he muttered and wait what? That could not be right. Looking at the odd expression on Alcor’s face, Mabel figured it was probably for the best if she pretended she did not just hear that.

“What was that?” Dipper asked.

“Nothing!” Alcor said with a wonky smile. “Time to make sure this thing will, safely, get you guys back to your dimension.”

~~~

It had not taken too long for Wren to dispatch the rest of the cultists after that. Alcor watched out of the corner of his eye as she tied up the last one before wandering over to the three of them huddled around the portal.

It was wider now, almost circular in shape, with a near hypnotic swirl of rainbow colours slowly spinning around its edge.

“Are you sure that’s safe now?” Wren asked, eyeing the portal with distrust.

“Oh definitely,” Alcor said, sticking his arm through it as if to prove so before pulling it back out.

“I realise given my powers that probably didn’t actually prove anything but I promise it’s perfectly safe now,” he added, awkwardly rubbing the back of his head with the same arm.

Mabel could not help but laugh at his sincere awkwardness. To think Alcor being an alternate Dipper had been a surprise when they first found out. She couldn’t help but let out a little laugh at the absurdity of that.

“So this is really happening? Can we really go home now?” she asked, the hope that filled her heart making her small smile grow ever larger.

“Is this actually it?” Dipper added, a cautious hope of his own seeping into his voice.

Alcor merely smiled and stepped aside, moving his arms as if presenting the portal to the both of them. “You guys ready to leave this dimension and finally go home?” he asked with a dramatic flourish.

“Yes!” the twins cheered in unison, making the two adults laugh.

“Good luck you two,” Wren said. “I still don’t a hundred percent understand what exactly is going on with all this but I’m glad I could help out. Here’s hoping Alcor isn’t lying about you getting better when you go through that thing.”

“Hey! I would never!” Alcor protested, much to everyone else's amusement.

“Thank you, both of you,” Dipper said, looking up at Alcor, tired and tentatively optimistic eyes meeting human ones, before sharing a small smile.

“Yeah! We couldn’t have done this without your help,” Mabel added, her smile the brightest it had been since this whole ordeal had started.

Alcor let out a small chuckle. “Well I’m happy to have helped, and all things considered it was nice meeting you guys,” he said, ruffling Mabel's hair.

“You too!”

“I guess you weren’t that bad, in the end,” Dipper mumbled with a smile.

At that they all laughed, enjoying the moment.

The twins stood before the portal and gave each other a smile.

“Ready?” Dipper asked.

“As I’ll ever be!”

With one final wave goodbye, Dipper and Mabel stepped through the portal.

~~~

Bright sunlight shone overhead, its light sprinkled over the forest floor through thick leaves, the subtle glow from the thin sliver of torn reality mixing with it. The portal rippled, suddenly growing wider as two small forms stumbled through, collapsing next to each other.

Mabel instantly jumped up, looking at her familiar surroundings, the same trees and rocks she had seen just days before. The deep pit that had previously settled in her stomach dissolving instantly with the growing sense of recognition, her true smile finally returning.

Dipper watched as his arm and hand rapidly returned, flexing his fingers as they re-materialised. He looked up at his sister who’s smile said it all.

“We’re finally home,” Dipper said, the realisation truly setting in as he spoke.

The two began rushing in the direction they remembered the Mystery Shack to be in, neither able to stop the smiles from pulling at their cheeks, not that they would have cared too. As their home away from home came into view, they knew it really was all going to be alright.

~~~

A/N OH MY GOD I FINALLY FINISHED!!!! After almost THREE YEARS I can FINALLY say I've finished the Other Way :D Thank you everyone who decided to give my little fic a read and an especially big thank you to all of you who commented I love each and every one of you SO MUCH!! I can't promise I'll write anything after this cause if I've learnt one thing from my experience writing this it's that I do not have the patients to be an author haha, but who knows maybe in three years from now I'll appear out of the void and share something new ^-^ (but probably nothing with more than one chapter, at least for now, I've learnt my lesson haha)

Thank you all so much seriously if it weren't for all of you this thing would not exist and despite it's flaws and a chronic lack of proper editing or proofreading I'm really proud of what I achieved, so I truly cannot thank you all enough ^-^

#transcendence au #reverse transdimensional au arc #gravity falls #dipper pines #mabel pines #alcor #fanfic #the other way #IT'S FINALLY FINISHED #Oh god I just looked at the post for the previous chapter and I joked about the next chapter taking 8 months #oh foolish me for thinking that was a long time #meanwhile 3 years later xD #If you're new the rest of the chapters are on AO3 under thatdisastrousfangirl #and on my now abandoned writing blog thatdisastrousfangirl-writes #both of which I have linked above :3

26 notes · View notes

theyhaveacavetroll · 7 months

Text

Tagged by @pazithigallifreya. Thanks, I love doing these!

Tagging @partiallypearl, @imfunnyandrude, and anyone else that wants to!

1 How many works do you have on AO3? 90 works

2. What’s your total AO3 word count? 585,148

3. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Cure for Sorrow

Cup of Their Deserving

As a Stranger Give it Welcome

Reclamation

To the Upper Air

Obligatory disclaimer: I'm only proud of three out of these five, but I'm glad that people are still getting something out of the other two. Cure for Sorrow and As a Stranger were written when I was a different person and well before the finale of Black Sails. 'Nough said.

4. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I try to, yes. I sometimes run out of time and energy because I work a full-time job where I'm out of my apartment 12.5 hours a day during the week.

5. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

I don't write fics with angsty endings. Battle Raven comes the closest and even that isn't angst, it's just not sunshine and roses. If you want dark fic or real angst, I'm not your girl.

6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

I think most of my fics have happy endings. If I had to pick a "and then they all lived happily ever after" fic it's probably most of the stuff in my Fate The Winx Saga works.

7. Do you write crossovers?

Yes, when the idea occurs to me! I'm particularly fond of You Steele Know My Name, which I WILL finish, I swear.

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Not hate. I've received weird comments and "when will you update" no other feedback given comments, but nothing truly mean.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Yep! I've written kink and what I'd consider vanilla, or at least nothing to write home about. I've gotten better at it over the years.

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I'm aware of and that is NOT a challenge.

11. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Again, not that I'm aware of.

12. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yep! I have quite a few co-written fics with various people.

13. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

In terms of what rewrote my DNA? Probably Flinthamilton but in terms of a ship that I always come back to where I have no negative fandom associations and endless, endless need to fix canon? Bagginshield.

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

And the Sea With Its Deepness, aka the Black Sails fic where I faked everyone out with the first chapter specifically to enjoy the screams of "wait, that's WHO that got nabbed?!!" I want to come back to it but... yeesh, the fandom. I left for a Reason, and then there's the fact that I just can't with writing a certain character anymore.

15. What are your writing strengths?

Plot and dialogue. I'm one of the best damn mimics of character voices you'll ever meet and that's just facts.

16. What are your writing weaknesses?

Action scenes. Action scenes are the bane of my existence, and I have a tendency to end paragraphs on an em dash too often that I've been trying to curb. A few is fine but there is such a thing as excess.

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

I like to do it but only in short bursts and for languages I can be confident I'm getting right.

18. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Probably Star Wars when I was very, very, VERY young indeed.

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

Does it count if I have an unpublished WIP already? If so, then Downton Abbey and The Hobbit. If not, then honestly I have no idea.

20. What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

Ironically, arguably my favorite is one none of you have even seen and might not because I have no idea if I'll ever finish it. It's long, it's sprawling, and I've worked absurdly hard on it but it's just. so. much. As to finished fics, though - probably Reclamation. It's got Themes and everything.

5 notes · View notes

taihua · 10 months

Text

20 questions for fic writers

Tagged by @gekidasa whose answers were excellent to read at 2am when I couldn't sleep <3

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 91

2. What's your total AO3 word count? 437,726

3. What fandoms do you write for? TGCF obviously is the main one, and Tolkien fic is something I regularly write because it feels like going home. I dipped my toes into Genshin fic this year and I've been known to randomly drop one-off fics for other fandoms when the brainworms hit!

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

After Hours. The magnum opus. Deserves its place at the top.

I Want to Ki** You. I never expected this fic to get so popular so it amuses me that it's still near the top.

Further Precautions. Dumb humor win!

Carved in bone, heart engraved. The trope inversion amnesia fic!

Bet On It. So near and dear to my heart that I have spent the last two years trying to scrub off the serial numbers for publication and if that ever happens, it'll be amusing to see who recognizes it.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? I used to, but then a depression era hit and now I have Inbox (666) and it fills me with dread to look at the number. I do read each and every comment and 9 times out of 10 I start tearing up even if it's something short like "loved this, thanks!"

6. What is a fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? I'm too sappy to do actual unhappy endings, but Still Have Time sort of implies a cycle of toxic breakups that can't be fixed.

... I also forgot that I have that one Celebrimbor/Annatar pre-torture fic, which is objectively much worse than breakups now that I think about it. Does it count when Tolkien is the one who wrote the death-by-torture ending for Tyelpë, though?

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? All of them!!!!! But I'll nominate Money Maker, because it's the only fic I think I have ever written, for any fandom, that involves the couple getting married at the end. I bullied them so hard in this AU that I decided they earned it.

8. Do you get hate on fics? Never in the comments themselves, but I saw people being dicks about my writing on Twitter every now and then, which is the unfortunate downside of having a well-known fic in fandom. Not everyone has to like my fics, but like... I can see what you're saying on the public forum in the community that I myself am active in, guys.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? *gestures at my AO3 profile*

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written? The most I've done is throw in a cameo from other MXTX fandoms, and I guess that one self-indulgent Sk8/tgcf fic that lives in my drafts and will never see the light of day. I just don't find "they meet!" to be enough of a plot to be worth reading or writing. The thought of writing all that introducing sounds like hell, sorry.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Yup, there was that time the person almost word-for-word replicated Still Have Time. They claimed it was an accident and apologized before taking it down when I commented, but that wasn't fun. I felt like a jerk for commenting even though it was blatant theft; they even left kudos on my fic :/

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? Yes, I have a handful of my fics translated into Russian thanks to some Twitter pals!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Sadly no. I always thought this would be fun, though, so if anyone wants to try it sometime... just sayin'........ my inbox open....

14. What's your all-time favorite ship? 300,000+ of my AO3 wordcount is for Fengqing and they're always going to be one of the most specialest ships ever for me for many reasons, but I also feel like I have to give a shoutout to Maedhros/Fingon in Tolkien fandom for being my longest-running ship? I got into them in high school and they're the ship that I feel I can just sit down and write something for them whenever I want.

15. What's a wip you want to finish, but doubt you ever will? There was that Fengqing police AU I started and I thought it would be good, but it ended up not really feeling like them and that was part of what pushed me to focus on original writing instead of fanfic this year. Funnily enough, I Frankensteined some of the concepts from that AU into Constellate, which is to date my only unfinished WIP on AO3. I never really had a plan for what I was doing with that fic and I thought I could just power through it, which failed miserably.

16. What are your writing strengths? Humor, probably! It's hard to be funny in writing, but I do try.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? I have about a year's worth of fic that needs to be line edited and reposted because I was cueing--sentences like "He felt that he was afraid" rather than "His heart pounded in his chest" etc. A writing teacher pointed it out to me this summer and I've been consciously trying to fix it, but I know a lot of my fics are worse because of this.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic? I never see this done well in fic. Personally, if I'm writing Chinese characters in China in an English language fic, it's implied that they're speaking Chinese, so there's no need to stick "Hao jiu bu jian" in quotation marks, yknow? It only makes sense to change languages if it's implied that this section of language is different from the rest of the narrative, and even then it can be distracting in a bad way to have it written out rather than saying "'Hello,' he greeted in French."

19. First fandom you wrote for? Lord of the Rings probably. I'm not going to look at my FFN profile to check.

20. Favorite fic you've written? I have lots of favorites for lots of reasons, but I'll give a shoutout to No smoke without fire this time because it's my only OC-centric fic and I'm happy that people like it anyway even though OCs aren't really a thing in danmei fandom.

Tagging: I will take the lazy route and say steal it and tag me. I like reading answers to these

#meme answers #i miss fics so bad... rattling my cage rn!!!!

6 notes · View notes

charlesandmiranda · 8 months

Text

Arrival!

Writing to you this morning from our hotel breakfast! Just wanted to fill in everyone about the rest of our trip before we start our first full day. I doubt we'll be able to post EVERY SINGLE DAY WE'RE HERE but we're definitely gonna try and keep it frequent enough to be interesting!

From our last post, we were heading from Baltimore to Toronto, which was a very quick hour and a half-ish flight. From Toronto, we headed straight to our gate to which started boarding shortly thereafter, so it was a pretty quick turn around. It was almost kind of a shame because airport was actually kinda pretty, and I wouldn't have hated a few extra minutes to look around at all the really lavishly decorated restaurants and stuff.

Then came the 14 hour flight. It IS a very long time, don't get me wrong, and by the end my back was VERY achy and my legs definitely craved stretching but also they keep the windows closed and the lights low for most of the trip so you honestly kind of lose track of how long you've been on there.

Charles and I both watched some movies on the flight; we started the first two episodes of Severance (which was also provided on the flight and I've been curious about for a while anyway -- anyone else here seen it?) and played games on our Switches. I also read a lot; I loaded my e-reader up before we left. In a weird way it was kind of nice to have such a long, uninterrupted time where there was nothing to do but leisure activities even if you're doing them in a mostly uncomfortable way --I think Charles and I (Charles especially) struggle with justifying how we spend our free time, always feeling like there has to be something else we can be working on or doing, but it's kind of a bad habit and terrible mental state to always be in, so we're working on it. Unfortunately, neither of us managed to get much sleep on the flight despite our best efforts, I think I managed maybe 20 minutes total?? So it wasn't super restful for sure.

Thankfully, our flight was kinda ahead of schedule, and we ended up landing around 5:00 PM / 17:00 which is like....3:00 AM for those of you in the Eastern US timezone! We're 12 hours ahead of y'all, so when I'm writing this, I'm writing to you from the future!!!

After getting through customs and immigration, baggage, etc. we were stopped by a news crew from a show called Why Did You Come To Japan? They seem to stop tourists at the airport pretty regularly, and we ended up talking to them for a while. Charles said that as someone who used to be a camera guy himself, he always tries to stop for folks filming stuff like that, because he knows how hard it can be to get people to talk to you and work with you. They were very interested in the fact it was our honeymoon, and that we got engaged here, and even more interested that we were really into Oishinbo, which is a food manga from the 80s/90s. It's not super popular in the US although personally I love & recommend it, and I kinda get the impression from the crew we spoke to that it's a classic but kinda old fashioned here. They said in all their years of doing these interviews, it was their first time having a foreigner mention it. They gave us a card and a slip of paper and asked us to contact them again, because they may be interested in meeting up with us again later in our trip to film more for the show (!?) so we'll see how that pans out I guess!

Speaking of, after we finally left the airport, we took the Skyliner train to Nippori, and then transferred to a JR Line train to get us to Shinjuku station. We've stayed in Shinjuku for at least part or all of our trips in the past, and it kind of feels like a home base for us now. We usually stay in or around the Kabukicho area, which is known as an entertainment district with lots of nightlife. If you want brilliantly lit signs and that crowded cyberpunk-y look, Kabukicho is a great place to be!

NOT THAT IT SUPER MATTERS, BUT the card in the photo, with Hello kitty and other Sanrio characters on it, is a Pasmo card, we each got one. Basically it's a little card that you can add money to, and you can use it to pay fare on most trains and buses, as well as lots of vending machines and stuff like that. You can top it off as you go as well.

We checked in to our hotel, the Shinjuku Gracery, and IMMEDIATELY needed to stretch out on the bed and shower the sweaty airport off of us, haha. The Gracery is built on top of a Toho Cinema movie theater, and the whole hotel has a very classy Godzilla theme to it. There's a to-scale Godzilla head built on top of part of the building, looking like he's about to demolish it, and he roars and blows steam out of his mouth, haha. To be honest, a night in the Gracery is one of our "we're on our honeymoon, we deserve this!" splurges -- it's one of the more expensive parts of our trip, given the rest of the time we'll be staying in smaller hotels and airbnbs and the like. We dished out a little extra cash to stay in what they call a Godzilla view room, where you can see the head of Godzilla that is mounted to the roof of the hotel from your room! Totally cool. I had to include specifically a picture of the shower, because I loooove these big hotel showers!

(sadly the filter for this exhibit not only doesn't fit my phone screen but also insanely reduced the image quality LOL)

We took a rest, then headed out to get a bite to eat. We hit up a ramen shop we'd been to in the past, and spent a while walking around the Kabukicho area, including the micro-bar district, Golden Gai. It was interesting to see what's changed and what hasn't since we were here last; for example, they were in the process of demolishing a VR arcade when we were last here, and now there's an ENORMOUS, lux-looking hotel in its place!

We ended up in the unfortunate position of feeling physically very tired but mentally pretty awake, and even though we spent time in our hotel room soaking in the bath, it was probably 1 AM our time before we actually fell asleep, meaning we were up for like....32 hours straight, I think?

Today, our plan is to check out a few shops in the area around Kabukicho, and a little later we'll be checking out and moving on to Akihabara, where our next hotel is. It's well known for being crammed with electronics and used and new like....nerd stuff, and is pretty close to a district jam packed with guitar shops, so we'll have a pretty full day! Stay tuned I suppose!!

Til next time!

4 notes · View notes