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all-about-the-tea-parties · 2 years ago

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What I do thoroughly love about House of the Dragon so far is it’s unreliable narration. Right from the very beginning, we’re being given a false sense of history, memory, and knowledge.

It opens with script, much like that of a history book, and then narration - from Rhaenyra Targaryen. This is House of the Dragon, so it makes sense, easily goes by unnoticed as a highly important perspective choice, but the rest of the episode puts everything into question. It is demanding the viewer to ask *why*. It doesn’t seem like it at first because the dialogue, while good, isn’t as witty as game of thrones.

But that’s part of the unreliability of our supposed objective experience. In the game of thrones, we get to see intelligent people unleash their tongues on each other, try to trick each other - but we tend to have all the context for the why. We can guess who is good, bad, in it for themselves, or simply being a dick. Here though, we’ve been framed as if we’re being shown events of the past, as they’ve transpired. But remember, George R R Martin enjoys unreliable narration as a style, it’s extremely present in A Song of Ice and Fire - it never truly carried over because Dumb and Dumber don’t actually understand the story. They know that each character tricks other characters, but they don’t realise they’re supposed to also trick *us*. (Where’s my dialogue of Sansa recounting her last moments with the Hound incorrectly?)

House of the Dragon writers seem to know this.

From Daemon’s speech being cut away from, to the Maester pulling Viserys aside, to Otto’s overt worry about King’s Landing, to Aemma casually saying how exhausted she is, and Rhaenyra’s voice over; we are being set up to make assumptions: Daemon wants power, the maester is unassuming (misogynistic maybe, by consulting the man first, but that’s pretty normal), Otto is a good councillor, Aemma is sick, and Rhaenyra is the titular hero. She is going to tell us the truth.

What is the truth? Who controls the truth?

This is a show based on a book written as if it were a historical document. A book in-world called the Dance of Dragons, and by George R R Martin as Fire and Blood.

We’ve been given a false sense of history, memory, and knowledge. We are falsely secure in our ability to perceive the objective truth.

The seat of all knowledge in Westeros is that of Oldtown; the home of the Hightowers, yes, but also the maesters. (YES im back on my bullshit, paranoia is the flavour of the season! A person commented on one of previous posts before and said there’s big suspicion toward maesters in the fandom and now I’m holding red string and pointing violently at a board.) Maesters are loyal to whom? A king or a lord? The sanctity of knowledge? Money? A god? Victors write the history books, for sure… but who actually *writes* the history books? What gets left in? What gets left out?

As someone with both an English and a history degree, this thrilllllllls me. I could absolutely go on a RANT about how the positioning of the written storytelling tradition as the supreme form of historical archiving in large scale civilisations is a control tactic that weaponises the accumulation of knowledge by maintaining a status quo driven by a literacy line, forcing the illiterate to take ppl at their word about history and tricking the literate into assuming that something is honest and accurate simply because it’s written. Oral tradition is the oldest and most common form of knowledge sharing in human history, yet in literate communities it’s viewed as inherently biased and low class.

(I mean you can even *see* this being discussed in episode ONE w/ the way the Targaryens value their mother language, openly engage in it, how Viserys and every! king! that! came! before! him! safeguards a propechy through memory alone, and how Rhaenyra tears a page in half to the shock of Alicent who values it above all else. Alicent who adores history, clutches the proof of it in her hands, a priceless manuscript that she only even has access to because of her status, while Viserys curates the proof of his city into tangible and accessible art, no doubt a piece of work that any person could engage in, while the Targaryens feel the proof of their ancestors in their language and their stories. *Culturally* we are shown that Oldtown and Targaryens are at odds with one another and how they exert power. Oldtown through literacy, Targaryens through magic. Propaganda vs military strength.)

(Dragons may be otherworldly, but fire power is just a shield. Dragons, as weapons, are a recipe for disaster. The establishment of a literacy culture that actively *prevents* just *anyone* from being able to access or curate this knowledge isn’t just a weapon, it’s a noose.)

If you started reading this thinking I had answers I am so sorry. It’s gotten a bit away from me. I feel like the throw dog sketch.

No answers.

Only theories.

We are not meant to take each characters word for truth, I believe. Instead, we are only meant to view them as human. Capable of misinterpretation, miscommunication, assumptions, and prejudices.

This shits going to be complicated. I doubt there will be a straight answer. Nobody will be easily likeable when it’s done.

#paranoia is the flavour of the season #who are the hightowers #what do the maesters have on them #who is manipulating who #the targs come off as the hurt party in the books #but ARE THEY???#I actually just don’t trust the maesters #you’ve got a giant library and you simply don’t share?#it goes against all my Irish instinct #I come from an oral tradition older that the Christian manuscripts that correct us #I haaaaaate the belief that written trad > oral tradition #esp since it shits on indigenous cultures #can’t gatekeep memory #hotd #hotd spoilers #hotd theories #house targaryen #house of the dragon #theories

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graffitibible · 4 years ago

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Do you have any advice for writing or creating regularly? That’s hard for me and I’d like to get better at it.

it boils down to what works best for you personally tbh. i’ve got a system to write semi-regularly (or i did......restricted movement hours have kinda forced me to restructure that lol) and it works for me but that’s just how my brainyot works. i’m a routine-based creature so working writing into my routine was how i got myself to write semi-regularly.

ive also had significant Brain Junk for most of my life and was gradually able to navigate how best to create in spite of that but im also like, medicated for it and the like so self-care was a factor. i couldnt create shit while i was too busy lying in a pool of my own filth having fits of paranoia about the nature of reality so i was hardly about to make myself try and create stuff when that wasnt even on my radar.

i can share some of the things i do to keep myself writing though! like again this isn’t something that’s for sure gonna work for everybody cause everybodys wired differently but i hope some of it helps!

1. daily wordcount - i’ve mentioned this before but i have a daily wordcount that i do for my original fiction. i don’t apply the same standard to fic-writing because that risks making it an arbitrary barrier that puts too many numbers on my internal list. that being said, it’s very small. i make myself do 200 words per day. if that gets me going and writing more than that, awesome. if not, i still got a little bit done. 200 words is small, and it’s not overwhelming to catch up on if i miss a day. no matter how shitty im feeling i try to get in 200 words.

2. routine - since i’m a routine-based person by nature i basically found ways to finagle creative processes into all that. it’s not hard and fast because that kind of rigid structure makes me balk and i’m not that disciplined lol, but it’s usually something like “i have an hour-long lunch break at work and literally nothing else to do during it so i’ll write in that time period” or “i have thirty minutes of sitting by the stove making dinner so i’ll write until it’s ready”

3. momentum - or what my housemate fondly calls “The Juice.” if i have The Juice of inspiration i keep that going for as long as i can. if something’s not working for me i don’t scrap it or toss it right away. if i’m having trouble with a scene i make a note to myself and move on to a different one. example of this from my latest wip, which is part iv of mayhem

i hadnt worked out what was gonna go there and nothing was coming to me easy in the moment so i stuck the note there and kept going. my works are full of this shit. if i can’t think of a name or if there’s a statistic or a character i haven’t worked out yet i don’t wanna break my focus and momentum so i slap a note in the first draft and keep going. at a first draft stage the important thing is getting the words Out so it doesnt matter if theyre perfect. ill go back and fix them later, revise all i need to. first drafts dont need to be good, they just need to be there so i can spruce them up later.

on the flip side do not be like me and commit to this momentum so bad that you forget that you are a human being who needs to eat and consume liquids. i do that sometimes because of who i am as a person and it is a serious flaw of mine, do not be like this. sometimes getting some food in you is what you need to get The Juice flowing again and that sounds kinda gross and i am sorry

4. planning and hangups - this ones dependent on how you create. i forget where this analogy came from, but i’ve heard it said that some writers are architects who need a blueprint of where they’re going before they end up there and some writers are gardeners, who don’t need a set plan so much as they need to keep going. i’m definitely an architect - a lot of my works start out as bulletpoints of what scenes i wanna cover, what topics i wanna explore, etc. - though i have on occasion simply Written without any set destination, usually to force myself out of a creative slump. me being a big planner used to be one of the biggest barriers for me creatively because i’d spend hours agonizing over minute universe details and never start the dang story. this still happens from time to time. like heres what my organizational folder looks like wrt “pray for disaster”

that is not even all the files in there. why do i have two dictionaries. jesus. like i make these giant ass fuckin....tomes of stuff i like to keep track of, which i like to call “bibles” lol. except i could tell that getting too organized was gonna be an uphill battle with very little payoff so by the end i just made a “MISCELLANEOUS BULLSHIT” doc and for now i throw everything in there if it doesn’t fit into something like a dictionary or timeline

shit like this is why i like to just sit down and write without a clear destination in mind if i’m having writer’s block. that’s one of those things that goes hand in hand with the way i take advantage of my own momentum - if i reach a certain point where i’m just picking at details and not doing any writing i just go “ok motherfucker sit down and write shit. we will work out the details later.”

5. motivation - the ways i tend to motivate myself are weird so idk how true this is for anybody else but i’ve been writing for a pretty large part of my life. i went to college for english/creative writing and got a whole dang degree cause i still wanna make this my vocation somehow. one thing i cannot ever turn off is the writer part of my brain that’s going “oooh huh that’s not how i would’ve written that” in literally every piece of art i consume - tv, movies, books, songs, etc. sometimes that’s enough to inspire me into doing something on my own time. most of the time though if i’m feeling stumped i tend to crack open some of my personal favorite works, like books or fics that have really resonated with me, to fall in love with the art all over again. seeing the way different authors and artists do their craft helps me get in the zone of wanting to write more cause i get this nice feeling of “damn, these people really did those things with those words.....that’s fuckin amazing.....i wanna do that.”

you do risk falling into the trap of “ugh i can’t write like them though” but that’s the beauty of writing. nobody can write the way anybody else does. ofc i can’t write like terry pratchett, only terry pratchett can write like terry pratchett, and if i compare myself to terry pratchett i’m only gonna get sad and mopey. but i can write in a way thats totally unique to me so i should not try to write like terry pratchett because that’s just impeding my own creative energy in the interest of trying to cookie-cut myself into someone else’s zone. only terry pratchett can write like terry pratchett but only i can write like zero graffitibible.

i hope that was helpful? like this is all stuff that works for me so no guarantee it’ll work for everyone else.

oh right and idk how many of yall are minors because let it be known that i do not condone underage drinking; i am an adult who occasionally will get crunk because i like to write drunk and edit sober. if you too are an adult who can legally consume alcohol feel free to write while buzzed because that is a nice way to write with zero fuckin inhibitions. i dont get blackout drunk or nothing just a little buzzed and sometimes what i write makes no sense but i am at times at my most productive at 2am while mildly buzzed. its a thing.

like again i’m not really an authority on this by any means - this is just what works for me. but if it works for you too, great!! find your zone and all that

#anon #ask #z speaks #alcohol mention cw in case anybodys got that blacklisted #theres nothing as liberating as writing after having consumed 1.5 beers and feeling like a gOD #i say 1.5 but realistically its more like 1 #i am a tiny person who cannot hold their liquor #and beer really is just mulled fartweed but thats all right #creating is pain and pain is living and sometimes that entails drinking mulled fartweed cause itll loosen you up enough to really Write #i dont lean on this too much btw #its just like if i happen to get buzzed ill usually go 'you know what i should totally do. write.'#it is at times incomprehensible

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jeannereames · 5 years ago

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Hello, Dr. Reames! I love your work (and am very excited to read your novels very soon!). I am thinking of doing a phd (not history or classics, but maybe sort of related to Alexander) but I'm scared that I'm not going to have the motivation to go through with the whole thing... Do you ever lose motivation and get discouraged when researching/writing and how do you deal with it? I know that this is completely unrelated to Alexander/ancient history so feel free to ignore it☺

Hi, there! This reply is going to be in 3 parts. First, about my own motivation…

I think everybody (even Alexander!) has periods of feeling discouraged. It’s part of being human. This is especially true when something you put days, weeks, or sometimes *years* of effort into doesn’t work out, or isn’t well-received, or comes back with “revise and resubmit.” Ha.

So, real life recent example: About a year and a half ago, I finished an article that took me (literally) 5 years to research and write, because it combined research into two different areas, only one of which is my research area. It took a huge amount of reading, and I’d even presented it at a couple of conferences, where I received good feedback. It was supposed to be published in conference proceedings, but that fell through (not my part of it, the entire publication didn’t happen because the editor quit). So I had to shop it around to journals. It went out to three readers, and all three returned it with “Revise (substantially) and resubmit,” + large *additional* bibliography (mostly not in English) in the area not my field. Two of the readers thought my chief point was valid, but needed more support. (The third just flat disagreed with me, but it’s academia; that happens.) But that was after it had been presented 3xs already, and revised after each.

OTOH, I was pretty discouraged. But OTOH, the suggestions and reading lists were helpful. These are blind reviews, so it wasn’t personal. And the entire point of peer review is to help a book or article improve. Lord knows, nobody wants to put out something that will get you laughed at. But after all the time I’d already spent on it, it was still really discouraging as I’d thought it in pretty good shape.

Almost everybody in academia is going to have an article or three turned down, or a book refused, etc. And after a while, it can be really hard to keep trying. And it’s not just in academia.

Do you know how long it took me to sell Dancing with the Lion? 15 years! I got my first serious query from an agent in 1996. (The first words of the novel were written in December of 1988–that’s how old it is.) That agent eventually decided it wasn’t for her. I’ve had a couple others since…same thing. I’ve sent out probably around 500 queries to agents or publishers. In fact, I’d put the book AWAY and started a completely different trilogy (which I’m in the middle of now), because I figured it would only sell later.

Then I happened to read comments about Madeline Miller’s A Song for Achilles written by an English professor and new acquisitions editor at Riptide. She liked it, but there were a couple of things she really didn’t like. And they were the very ways (I thought) my novel was different. So I emailed her. She asked for sample chapters, then the whole thing, and finally, Riptide offered me a contract. They’re not a major press, they’re a Romance publisher primarily, but they were willing to take a chance on my coming-of-age historical, so I grabbed the opportunity. Now the book is out (well, the first half is), and it’s getting pretty decent reviews.

So persistence can pay off.

That said, if someone else had told me that story 10 years ago, I’d have snorted and said (in my mind), “Maybe it did for you. Maybe I’m just a bad writer and I’ll never succeed.” I’d also just been through a divorce and was having trouble selling my house in the housing bust, etc., etc. So a lot of things in my life were pear-shaped at the time, and that can make it really hard to keep trudging.

The “Dark Night of the Soul” is a real thing, and we all go through it.

The only way I get through it, myself, is to remember things in the past that went well, times I succeeded. Plus, I’m just a really stubborn SOB. Ha.

But discouragement is normal, and there will be points in everybody’s life where not just one or two things are going wrong, but it seems as if EVERYthing is going wrong and you’re just a total failure. You have to believe it’ll get better.

Now, part #2, about motivation to complete a degree. It’s a bit like the AA motto: one day at a time. Or really, one semester at a time. One hurdle at a time. When I first got to Penn State, the long, long road ahead made me freak out a little, but Gene Borza (my advisor) told me to take it in bites. And to remember that other people had made it through; I could, as well.

Also, don’t let yourself get thrown by “Imposter’s Syndrome.” This is the feeling that you don’t belong somewhere: in grad school, in a PhD program, in a department (or really, ANY arena). You’re not as good as the others. Minorities, women, and first-generation college students are those most likely to suffer imposter’s syndrome, but it can hit others too, such as the children of academics (I’ll never measure up to mom/dad), etc.

Last, part #3, and this may seem an odd coda to all the above rah-rah cheerleading. But as a (now former) graduate program chair, I would be terribly remiss if I didn’t put out a warning.

Not only is the field of humanities in trouble right now, in the US and Canada, and elsewhere, too, but the entire university system is changing. This latter is especially true in the US, but I hear rumblings from other places. Partly, this owes to the rise of online education. But even more, it’s what I call the “Wal-martization” of the university, where tenure-track lines are being replaced by a bunch of part-time instructors who have to teach 6 classes just to make enough to EAT. “Adjunct” professors, even those with PhDs, are paid a pittance. It’s absolutely immoral and ridiculous.

Universities are turning into profit more than education, with a degree seen as “job training” instead of learning to think critically and exploring Big Questions, which are increasingly viewed as a waste of time. Administration levels are increasingly bloated with deans, assistant deans, supervisory boards, etc. They’re (mostly) not teaching, but their paycheques are high. Tenured faculty positions are being eliminated. Colleges and unis realized that they could turn over a lot of (especially intro and survey) courses to part-time instructors for a *fraction* of what they paid tenured and tenure-track faculty, but still reap high tuition.

When I was finishing up in the ‘90s, I was teaching as an adjunct while writing my dissertation, then for a bit after, as was expected for “teaching experience” before being hired. The phenomenon of the “Visiting Assistant Professor” (or VAP) was *starting* to gain traction, but was still usually just a year or two until these people would find a tenure-track position (VAP is not tenure-track). But now, I know people who’ve been VAPping for YEARS. And some just give up. Also, adjuncting like what I was doing has gone from “teaching experience for a real job” into “the only lane for employment” for a lot of PhD (and some MA) graduates. Especially women PhDs get caught in that trap.

These are the realities of where we are right now.

And THE MOST USELESS DEGREE ON THE PLANET is a PhD in the humanities. I say that as one who holds it. With a few exceptions, a humanities PhD prepares you for pretty much one job: being a professor. And those jobs are winking out of existence with frightening speed. This is a change that has accelerated over the last 10 years, and especially over the last 5. We’re turning out PhDs with no available positions. Museum studies, Classics, archaeology, philosophy are in even worse shape. SOME history PhDs are more popular. This year, H-Net has a bunch of Latin American positions open, for instance.

An MA in history (or related) is still useful. There are certain jobs that like them, ranging from state jobs like the Park Service to the FBI and CIA.

But a PhD? Think loooooong and hard before investing that time and money. This is not a matter of *you* not being able to do the work to get one. It’s a matter of the university system as we’ve known it crumbling away under our very feet. I have no idea what the American university will look like in 10 years. And once you have a PhD, it educates you out of most other jobs.

So that’s the unfortunate bad news. And I’d be a very irresponsible advisor if I didn’t tell you the truth. IME, people who really want a PhD will ignore me and go after it anyway. But at least you’ll go in with your eyes open.

#encouragement #dealing with discouragement #imposter's syndrome #academia #PhD track #Adjunct Hell #Think twice (and then a third time) about getting a PhD these days #Humanities tenure track jobs are drying up #asks

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augujerdeer · 5 years ago

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🍎👠🎃🌆👂😱💬!!! Feel free to not answer any of them!

IM CRYING BECAUSE YOU ACTUALLY SENT INE THANK YOU jnsjshdjhsdjh

🍎what are yall’s favourite foods?

I think this is gonna be a long post now that I think about it, but i’m asking everyone what their favourite food would be if they could only pick one or two (not everyone answered or can but >:0)

Mine (Jamie) would be pancakes! or grilled salmon! OR SPICY TUNA SASHIMI!!!!

Kris, Chara and Matthew immediately just have chocolate as their answer dicenksfvjk but kris says “anything” and he lives up to it sometimes

Jaiden says gummy bears and gummy worms (all he eats is CANDY)

Kobe says flowers,,,,

Sal is picking between pizza and cheesecake smoothies

Peter says he doesn’t have one yet ;;

👠how difficult is it for y'all to agree on one cohesive outfit?

So this kind of depends on how many people are out, but I usually follow whoever wants to wear something if only one person is requesting something (Like when Kris would screech and ask for me/us to wear the pink hoodie or his sequins sneakers)

But if there’s multiple people, (usually Kris, Chara, or Matthew) it might take a while ksjskjskjs but generally everyone would go rock-paper-scissors or let the other person have us wear what they want! Usually because they deserve this turn or we take turns :0

🎃how many head mates could be considered scary?

HMM,,, I guess I would say Severous first. He’s a 8+ foot werewolf man, he is a BEAR

his fur is PITCH BLACK especially at night and his eyes and drool glow white (so he has no pupils, that’s his entire eyes), so if you’re in the forest in Providence in the middle of the night, you’ll just see a scary OwO face in the dark

HE DOESNT DO THE OWO FACE BUT ITS NOT LIKE I CAN COPY IT IN TEXT FORM

he always stands on two legs unless he’s SPRINTING , but honestly??? HES BABY and we all love him, Kobe calls him “PUPPY” and even drew him a few times while fronting ;;;;;;;; He’s actually a dad to one of our littles Penny and is gay and dates someone from one of my partners’ system

Also he doesn’t speak very well? He used to speak fluently but overtime and he was recovering from being a persecutor, his ability to speak was kind of, disintegrating? So he only speaks in SUPER SHORT and almost broken english sentences. if you visit him you can catch him reading children’s books and practicing to read and speak again,,, he’s baby,,,,

Chara (from undertale) could be considered scary inspace becaus ethey can go goopy- they’re not a scary person but if they want to scare you, (especially if you don’t know who they are i mean), they will be intimidating and stuff ;; when i first met them, they did spook me, and their eyes are very bright red

Sal (from Sally Face) I guess could be considered spooky because i was drawing him in class one time (prosthetic ON of course) and my friend said he looked scary ;;;? poor sal;;; he’s not scary at all

🌆what does your headspace look like?

*clasps hands together* goodness it’s a good thing i made this map. it’s VERY OLD but it’s still the same except imagine everything is WAAAAAY more spaced Out!

honestly i need to move the teleporters and mansion higher up (and the main tree closer to them) but this is it!!!

The most common places people go to is The Mansion, The Bunker, The Farmhouse, and The Picnic Ground! People when going for walks in the forest usually stick around the Picnic Grounds-Cave Pool-Farmhouse Triangle but usually can go anywhere- the forest is SO big though (alven took me flying once and it stretches to the horizon)

The Mansion is where most of us live! Here you can find Jaiden and the kids (Kobe, Aco, and Penny– and Carla (Carla is an NPC [who is aware of the outside?] but we don’t care she is family). Alven is also here with his lab, so is Joseph and Louise!! (and their dog, Troy). On the outside, you can’t see the mansion, only two giant doors (nobody ever uses kdndckdocsl we honestly just use the teleporters to go anywhere– Also, everything you see INSIDE the meadow excluding the bunker was what our headspace FIRST looked like!!! it was the start of everything ;; Jaiden made the mansion. The mansion has two main rooms- The Main Hall, and The Tall Corridor. There’s a looooot of history here

The Farmhouse is where I (Jamie) live! But i’m not inspace a lot so it’s honestly empty until i meditate there ;;

The bunker existed and is a place some people permanently moved to because we started having some Bad Refuses To Do Good Persecutors, or just bad people. They were VERY violent so half of us went to hide- and eventually the entire system actually moved to the bunker for almost a year and a half before moving out- and then some people stayed- mainly Matthew. People who live in the bunker are Matthew, Kris, Peter, Jade, Chara, Liam, and Sal! Icari should be here somewhere but i think she’s still hiding ;;

Most of the time if we have a new person, they move to the bunker right away. There’s a teleport system almost all over the frequent spots in the headspace so they can easily leave and enter! Matthew lives one the second ground below the 1st ground below because of some bad things that happened- he never leave the bunker because being outside scares him a lot- especially with the entire headspace being a forest :( you need special access to get down there

The Picnic grounds isn’t very special to me personally but Jaiden made it so people can have picnics!! It’s honestly SUPER pretty oh goodness, and no matter what time of day (unless it’s night) the sun is always shining nicely and it’s so pretty there, and people actually go there!!

The only people that don’t go there are Joseph and Louise because we had one bad person hurt them badly in that area,

Also the Ruined City i didn’t mention because– no one goes there- but we all know it exists. Basically it’s a purely grey/monotone/greyscale land? Like the moment you enter, the world transitions to black and white (not your body but the environment) and the only things that have colour are the miss and greenery in the background (mostly grass and parks, not a lot of trees). all the buildings are collapsed or destroyed in some way- so imagine a big area with degree and rubble and standing building but there’s so many destroyed parts like one building is missing an entire second floor and another has a giant gaping hole not eh side, etc.

we also don’t go there because it’s dangerous- there are giant SPIDER robots that patrol the area- we still don’t know why, but they shook lasers! (come back to this post later because I WILL add a picture of what i’m talking about!! i just don’t have my phone on me)

ANYWAY THERES MORE BUT ITS TOO MUCH TO PUT HERE

WE ALSO HAVE ANOTHER PLANET

👂What kind of music do y'all like?

Jamie - what do you mean people have favourite music? i’m just kidding uksdeijfdkj i like indie and broadway!!! pop is pretty cool but it’s not my first choice at all ;;; rock and metal hurts my ears

Chara - they have 4 playlists on spotify! One playlist is called Soft Knives for calm music (it’s usually happy but there could be some sad ones there- but no angst songs- imagine songs you can sleep to or calm down with). Blunt Knives is for angsty or apathetic moods- and Angry Knives is for ANGRY LOUD music. The have a 4th playlist called Chara’s Classical Collection. Chara can range from Classical music to indie music death metal and rock. They usually hate pop

Kris - he loves rap and r&b! though he loves a lot of music besides those! He loves tally hall and kid bloom :0 mostly chill or music that makes you go aW YEAH (his words) he also has Classic Songs in his playlist. So if you have it one shuffle, you’re listening to some sick bops and then all of a sudden Rockefeller Street Nightcore comes on and you get whiplash. doesn’t like metal or rock. He has a second playlist called “it’s Saturday Morning” for stuff like heo soul or “music you can dissociate to but not in a bad way” (Listen to Sugarcoat by Kid Bloom or Different State of Mind (some artist) for a general idea)

Matthew - rock and stuff similar to chemical romance and panic! at the disco. they like metal and rock but he says Sal’s and Chara’s are too aggressive for his taste- and hen you find out he sometimes listens to screamo

Sal - honestly i find his playlist super weird ? Some music sounds weird to me but otherwise his playlist is full over a lot of genres ! It’s kind of wack and funky- not the genre- but the amount of variety he has. And in his 2nd playlist is death/metal and rock- a bunch of loud music that can be fast sometimes too- is not afraid to head bang in public and do air guitar

Peter - We’re not sure yet but he likes music from his time- plus old music- specifically New Wave for now!his playlist is super new and he hasn’t been here a while so we’re not sure o>o

Jade - Soft calm or upbeat and happy music

Kobe and Aco - they are babies- Kobe still sings the ABC’s everyday so

😱do your headmates have any phobias?

i don’t think any of us has phobias- because it’s defined as “irrational fear” actually wikipedia says it can be CAUSED so nevermind dkjjkfd

Honestly these feel like triggers more than phobias butnit first thendescription of a phobia so;; i’m putting POSSIBLE because we’re not sure

Chara - Possible Nyctophobia (fear of the dark, but specifically extreme pitch blackness for Chara), Possible Ecclesiophobia (fear of the church -either building or what it represents])

Matthew - Agoraphobia most probably (fear of going outdoors/leaving the house, some say wide open spaces)

Sal - somewhat Cynophobia but wants to overcome it (fear of dogs) ((likes dogs but is afraid of them honestly))

Kris - Monophobia/Autophobia (Fear of isolation and abandonment) ((this is a big one))

That’s all i can think of for now

💬free space! one cool fact!

uuHHH,,,,,, i can’t think of any, but i know one thing: i love our system and i can see everyone’s trying really hard to take care of each other or are doing a lot to process their own memories and feelings ;;;

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eligrantbooks · 6 years ago

Text

gotta vent about my day real quick

highlights of the day

> be professional ghostwriter.

Agreed to edit a 25000 word segment of a finished manuscript for a much loved regular client, who said the MC’s dialogue needed to be punched up. Easy enough. I figured it would take a few hours.

Was briefly excited to discover the manuscript was for a concept I had outlined and written several chapters for a few months ago.

Excitement rapidly dwindles as I realize that beloved client has hired another ghostwriter to write the majority of the book. Which would be fine, except this other ghostwriter has no fucking idea what they are doing.

Formatting is a god damn disaster and I spend several hours just getting the document into a workable condition.

You ever open a word doc, look at the navigation pane, and just see a wall of blank links, because someone applied the header formatting somewhere and then just hit enter a million times instead of using a page break like a civilized god damn human being?

in the middle of this forest of blank headers, actual chapter titles are scattered at random, and also they only applied the header to roughly one out of every five chapters or so, you know, just, when they felt like it. when the spirit took them. when the stars aligned. when the feng shui was right.

Also, apparently they like the way first line indenting looks but don’t know how to make word do that (spoiler: its easy as shit and takes like two clicks) so every once in a while they start manually hitting tab before every line, until they get distracted and stop for a while, luring you into a false sense of security before they remember and start doing it again.

Sometimes, when a scene transitions but they dont want to just end the chapter for some reason, they break it up with spaces. Other times, they like to use asterisks. Once or twice, just for flavor, they throw in one of those page width lines that word makes when you type a line of hyphens.

There is random highlighting in places, for no discernible reason.

Once I have the document formatted in a way I can bear to work with, I start actually reading through it. About the first seven chapters were written by the client. They’re cheesy but solid.

Then I get to chapter eight, and the suspicions i had begun to form while putting the formatting through traction (namely that whoever did this was a fuckwit) quickly crystallized into a shining certainty that my beloved client had mistakenly hired An Ass Clown.

Not just An Ass Clown, but An Ass Clown who thought 50 Shades was a beautiful love story, actually.

And they gave This Ass Clown, this literary reprobate, this paste eating remedial english mother fucker, my outline.

let me clarify that i did not expect to have sole control of this story when i produced the outline for beloved client, and I was okay with that. That’s how it works. If I’d been dead set on writing this myself, i wouldn’t have sold the outilne to beloved client. but it really rubs salt in the wound to have spent hours of my life crafting the bones of this story, which i really liked and was excited to see take shape

and then find out it has been put into the pie fondling hands

of An Ass Clown.

first hint that something has gone drastically wrong: the arrival of completely unnecessary and ridiculous fantasy names for things.

“oh we dont drink coffee in this book. it’s kofee. at least until three chapters from now when i forget and it becomes kofe. Oh, and watch out for those thornaby bushes! I’m going to misspell that one literally every time I use it! It’s entirely possible that this isn’t a fantasy name at all and I just have a small seizure whenever I try to type the word thorn bush!”

second omen of my impending anuerism: phonetically written accents which are so comically stereotypical and inaccurate that native speakers of that accent should be entitled to financial compensation, except they can’t even stick to the stereotype accurately, producing gems such as “It’s not safe in that there pen with ‘em swine, young miss.” I don’t even know what accent that’s supposed to represent. To top it off these accent abominations are sprinkled in with all the consistency and reliability of a lactose intolerant cheese enthusiast’s bowel movements.

But this, I tell myself, moving on, is not my problem. I just need to punch up the mcs dialogue. It’ll be fine. I can do this. I just need to take this shit: “A fond idea, but I doubt I have that ability.” I joked. “I can’t imagine living without true sunshine. Even the triplet moons must shine less brightly without their sister sun.” and make it… not like that.

Except, and here’s where I start hitting the real roadblock guys

this book is in first person.

essentially, the entire novel is the MC talking.

So sure I can change the spoken lines, but her internal monologue

which is, i remind you, the entire narrative

her internal monologue is going to keep being maggie gyllenhal’s character from The Secretary if her copy of the script had been swapped with just a binder full of sonnets written by a middle school english class during the Shakespeare unit.

I get to chapter ten around three in the afternoon. I have been working steadily, with an unusual degree of focus thanks to my recent adderal prescription, since ten in the morning.

this is where shit begins to go truly bananas.

this is a YA beauty and the beast type fantasy

that good fun indulgent shit that’s almost as enjoyable to write as it is to read

usually. previously. before i had to endure this traumatic twelve hour experience.

Chapter ten is the first big “dinner” scene. this book isn’t being shy about pulling from the source material, but that’s fine. the beast “apologizes” (heavy quotes there) for having earlier used magic to force the heroine to answer his questions truthfully. They talk and almost seem to making progress for a bit, and then have a fight and storm off. Standard stuff.

Except, uh, the beast’s apology is, essentially “Yeah I shouldn’t have done that.” “so you’re apologizing?” “no but it’s the best you’re going to get so deal with it.”

and the headstrong, independent heroine who wears pants and wrestles pigs and dont need no man

just kinda rolls with this. There’s giggling.

They have their big dramatic fight, exit stage left, much angst and todo.

The next morning heroine wakes up to find the beast has (presumably) snuck into her room while she was sleeping and dumped a bunch of new dresses on her. he has also (apparently) replaced her brain with Bella Swan’s more vapid cousin.

She forgives him instantly. Because pretty dresses. She also starts calling him master, because why not. She has, over night, become the darling submissive Tumblr doms dream of.

This is not a bdsm book. I am eighty percent certain it doesn’t even include soft core smut. I’m telling you this so that you understand this transformation was not a contrivance in order to facilitate kinky sex. I have written a contrived set up to a sex scene or two in my day. This is not that. This is Not what is in the outline. I know, because i wrote the outline. It is My Outline.

No, The Ass Clown just… decided to do this. Apropos of nothing. I’m beginning to think the Ass Clown’s decision making process involves whipping pies at a comically large dartboard. And all the options on the dartboard are just “lol whatever”

By the time I get to chapter eleven, wherein our newly lobotomized heroine is “excited to wear a new frock and please the master!” - direct quote I have given up any pretense of editing dialogue and I am just straight up rewriting shit using the previous garbage as a loose outline.

I have eaten, maybe, three bites of a bowl of oatmeal all day. I have not taken a bathroom break since before noon. I have missed my deadline. Beloved client is concerned. I’m sure I can still do this, I just need a few more hours.

the words sound like truth but my soul knows i am a liar

I frantically restructure scene after scene, deceiving myself each time that it will be the last, and I will be able to get this crazy train back on the rails. But this crazy train has no interest in being on the rails. It’s a direct line no stops right off the edge of the cliffs of insanity.

The beast jumps unpredictably from homicidal rage and threats of violence to jokes and flirting as though he did not just declare her his property and threaten to rip her tongue out a few paragraphs ago. Heroine swoons and sighs and giggles regardless of whether she is dealing with Dr.Jekyll or Christian Gray on PCP.

But I’m still sure I can do this. I’ll just adjust these two full chapters to make her appropriately scared and angry, and then replace this weird conversation here with a heartfelt apology from him and an effort to do better. That will totally work. Unless, you know, it turns out that conversation I want to replace only starts out with them joking and laughing together, and turns into him berating and abusing her mid paragraph of a fuckin montage a page later! But, haha! Why would The Ass Clown ever do that? It would be completely irrational, tonally jarring and out of character! Only a seltzer slinging rainbow suspender-ed peanut butter fumbling son of six fucks would do that.

so of course The Ass Clown did that.

It’s eleven at night. I know when I’m beaten.

I inform beloved client that the Ass Clown has bested me and I can do no more.

She is very understanding.

I send her what I managed and I check the added word count while im at it

i added a full 6,000 words to that manuscript just trying to patch up this sloppy motherfucker’s lopsided prose and gossamer thin understanding of narrative structure

son of a bitch had about as firm a grasp of romance as i currently have on the trembling shreds of my sanity.

their grip on character writing could not be more tenuous if they had first dipped the target brand Hulk Hands which I assume they always have on their person into a barrel of adult-film-grade silicon lubricant and then taken their Leapfrog 2-in-1 Leaptop Touch down a waterslide.

Do you know how much I usually make for 6000 words?

$180.

Do you know how much I made for enduring this ass blasting, which I naively believed I could tackle in a matter of hours?

$100.

You owe me $80 Ass Clown. And I aim to collect.

Also I lost my damn mind for a minute and said the words "i dont know shit about fuck my guy” to my actual father on facebook

so there’s that.

#reposting from my rp blog #i need to get better about not using it as a personal

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voidfishersong · 6 years ago

Note

Fallane and Eliza Fate, please

Alright, these two are from different ‘verses just fyi. so any supernatural elements are very, very different, as well as social situations.

WARNING: Fallane’s contains reference to some things that might be triggering. nothing in-detail, but please be advised.

Full Name: Fallane

Gender and Sexuality:

male-ish but with a rising intonation and a hand-wiggly gesture. sexuality is definitely just a hand-wiggly gesture, we think he has a slight preference for men but tbh no one cares

Pronouns:

he/him. if you used other ones he probably wouldn’t object but if you asked he’d say ‘he/him’

Ethnicity/Species:

Egyptian. and he’s like,,, vaguely a demon but not actually. he’s

supposed

to be one of the generals/servants/sextoys/whatever of AN ASSHOLE who reincarnates every 30 years or so, possesses a young girl, and makes everyone’s life hell but he said ‘nope that’ and (mostly) left. so he’s not actually a demon but that’s what his kind got characterized as by various mortals and usually he doesn’t correct people

Birthplace and Birthdate:

like literal ancient egypt in like 2,700 bc or smth

Guilty Pleasures:

I don’t think he’s guilty about any of his pleasures.

that came out way more sexual than I intended

I just meant that he likes things and he’s not ashamed of it

Phobias:

ahhhh this ‘verse is so dark help. I’d say sexual assault is pretty high on the list. I think he’s also a bit claustrophobic. more than a bit. he’s very claustrophobic he just doesn’t get into many situations like that

What They Would Be Famous For:

he could be a model? like actually. he wouldn’t but he

could

. he’s got a wicked fashion sense and is really good at makeup. ooh he could model makeup too

What They Would Get Arrested For:

can u get arrested for smoking indoors? he would. or shoplifting. he likes petty crime because either a) ‘this shouldn’t be privately owned and private ownership is just a social construct’ or b) ‘haha what are u gonna do, catch me?’

OC You Ship Them With:

Sam!! Sam Reeve x Fallane is best ship. you could also ship him with Kai but Sam is most perfectest. I made a ship name for them but it’s lame and I’m not sharing unless u dm me. I also ship Fallane with a healthy lifestyle but that’s never gonna be canon so

OC Most Likely To Murder Them:

does Nara canonically murdering him count? there r a lot of ppl who want to murder Fallane so I feel like this is an unfair question. Kai genuinely hates him for a large part of the story. ahaha Kai canonically kills him too jesus christ Fallane you’ve been killed three times you gotta chill. but I think Nara would be more likely to succeed than Kai so. the answer I pick is Nara. in a sarcastic way tho it’d be Mista, who is so done with his shit and she’s the type to say ‘im going to murder you’ when he like, puts his feet on the table or something

Favorite Movie/Book Genre:

mystery? anything he can sarcastically criticize the plot of, tbh. maybe horror

Least Favorite Movie/Book Cliche:

if he’s a horror fan, then it’d be where any time someone says ‘dont do this’ the person does it and dies. I think he definitely dislikes the ‘aliens are always technological experts’ cliche like what if the explorers are anthropologists with no clue how their ship works?? did you ever think of that?? no you didn’t

Talents and/or Powers:

his main talent is sarcasm. he’s very gifted with picking up languages and accents, and he has a high appreciation for all forms of art. in the supernatural realm, he’s got a lot. he’s a natural low-level empath, and then he got powers on top of that, which made him nigh immortal, gave him rly cool wings, and magical charisma (which is like subconscious suggestion, except,, magic) which he mostly uses to convince people he’s paid for shit he

hasn’t

paid for. in the name of disabling capitalism, of course, and not because he just wants the pillow. then he’s also got some extradimensional abilities which are often interpreted as a kind of telekinesis but isn’t technically. and his empathic abilities get turned up to eleven until he can project so hard he can accidentally (or purposefully) kill someone

Why Someone Might Love Them:

if you’re about grey moralities, ambiguity, and anti-heroes, you’ll probably love Fallane. he’s also very protective, and a single dad of energetic twins so there’s no shortage of relatability, either. but I think a lot of his charm comes from his interactions with other characters, because he feels very strongly and brings many things other characters are afraid to say. there’s a weighty sense of honesty with him, and a real desire to do right by the world and help the downtrodden. he also struggles with trauma and mental illness and he’s really, really messed up but he

tries

and sometimes he fails and I think people will find a surprising amount to identify with. Fallane is my ultimate walking contradiction, but I think it works.

Why Someone Might Hate Them:

I feel like he’s a character people would be just indifferent toward UNTIL people started being apologists and saying he does nothing wrong and then he’d be one of those characters that the fandom just splits on, as polarizing ends get increasingly more argumentative. he can be manipulative too and I think people might take issue with things like that, but I feel like most people who would actively hate him would be misinterpreting him. he’s not supposed to be a paragon of good morality

How They Change:

in the first few waves of this ‘verse Fallane was a definite villain, if a hero-aiding anti-villain. then I decided villains were overrated and now there’s no villains, just a complicated mess of varying degrees of grey morality. in canon, this is reflected. he goes from a certain ‘I can’t do anything substantial about it so I just won’t bother’ to someone who

acts

on his desire to combat discrimination and abuse. he also gets his family back, and gains a little sister, and he’s constantly learning how to love (in every way) and how to

live

Why You Love Them:

honestly?

because

he’s learning how to live. much of Fallane’s backstory (and his role-switch from anti-villain to anti-hero) came from when I got over being suicidal, so he’s sometimes a comfort character. ngl, I also love his aesthetic. I’m also a bit biased because he has ocd and I have ocd and that’s relatable too and it makes his aesthetic

extra

relatable. he’s also incredibly emotional and that’s always an adventure to write. I really love Fallane guys.

also this ao3 tag is like the greatest descriptor of him:

Full Name: Eliza Fate

Gender and Sexuality:

female, bisexual

Pronouns

: She/Her

Ethnicity/Species:

English. and she’s a vampire so uh yea

Birthplace and Birthdate:

England and uh….. like…. idk….. a long time ago

Guilty Pleasures:

both slow and fast jazz music. also she’s surprisingly good with children - I like to think that sometimes, she volunteers at daycare-like-places in the shadier parts of town where there’s too many kids and not enough workers and she just helps out these toddlers and teaches them to jazz dance, the way you teach little kids anything, which is hold them and pretend they’re following anything you’re saying

Phobias:

I don’t think she’s phobic of anything, but she’s afraid of losing her family. they’re very important to her and I think her deepest fear is that someday she’s going to wake up completely alone. she’s not afraid of any one person leaving (obviously she’d be upset), it’s just the idea that

everyone

could disappear

What They Would Be Famous For:

she’s kind of famous within the criminal underworld because she’s like a mob boss, and she’s mostly famous for having a very large family, and for being independent. she went almost two centuries without a right-hand man/woman/etc which, especially as a woman, was quite unique

What They Would Get Arrested For:

I mean she already murders ppl and runs a mafia so that

could

get her arrested, but if she ever got caught it’d probably be something like she murdered a child abuser or something really,

really

violently and not well-planned

OC You Ship Them With:

Itsuki, who’s her canon boyfriend, and Andrea, who’s her canon girlfriend. she’s poly and her relationships are usually open relationships, including with those two. I also ship her hardcore with Katsumi, although that’s a very different dynamic (1960s lots of drugs and alcohol and free sex and it’s about pushing each other further and further and not always healthy but they know that and it’s okay). I feel like Eliza would be really great for romance fanfic because you can go with many time periods!

OC Most Likely To Murder Them:

Rin. boi Rin has wanted to murder her since he met her probably, he just hated her on principle and then Eliza went and decided she liked Itsuki so Rin hated that and

then

she started dating Katsumi too and so she’s in love with both his roommates and that pisses Rin off. it’s funny.

actually it’s often really depressing because they end up blaming each other for Katsumi’s death and just about everything else and I think Rin might actually wish she had never existed but

usually it’s a sarcastic ‘I would murder you right now Eliza I swear’

Favorite Movie/Book Genre:

slice of life. I think she likes the variety and the normalcy of it all, and she usually thinks the couples are cute. her least favorite genre is probably mystery

Least Favorite Movie/Book Cliche:

love triangles. they’re way, way overdone. also they invalidate the possibility of poly or open relationships. on a less serious note, she hates any mystery story that ends with like ‘the detective was the culprit all along!’ there’s not really a reason why she hates that but. she does. I made her I make the rules

Talents and/or Powers:

powers: well, she’s a vampire. talents: charisma. she is very good at getting people to understand her viewpoint, when she puts her foot down on something, which is rare. she’s also good at dancing. and very good at sex too apparently. she’s good with children too! but only really smol ones, once they get above like 5 they’re usually assholes

Why Someone Might Love Them:

she’s strong, and independent, and I think she’s over all a good person. she doesn’t take shit from people, but she doesn’t assume that people

are

giving her shit. she’s quite easy-going, all-in-all. she’s also really loving to her family, and in many ways she fulfills feminine roles, but the way she does them and the way she thinks about them are empowering, I think

Why Someone Might Hate Them:

when Eliza was first conceptualized in mid high school, I was terrified that people would see her as bad representation because she’s not morally straight

and

I worried that making her bi and poly would make people angry. but I think I’ve mostly gotten past that? idk. but I definitely think people might dislike her for her constant relationships - she doesn’t do well if she doesn’t have at least one datemate, and people might see that as too dependent or needy. she sometimes comes across as needy, so there’s that. I think there’d definitely be Eliza Fate stans and Eliza Fate haters

How They Change:

you get to see her progression from the civil rights era to present day, and she does change a bit, but overall she’s one of the most stable characters in this ‘verse. she really learns to accept rejection, and since she adopts a literal child (Nayeli) into her family and doesn’t raise Nayeli with any expectations of her joining the Family, I think she learns to work with people during their formative adolescent years, too

Why You Love Them:

Eliza is a character from the second wave of this ‘verse, so she’s quite old to have changed so little. I also love how she can differ depending on the time, so her roles change depending on the context. her personality doesn’t really change between any of them, but she’s a very complex character (a side effect of having been in my head for at least 5 years) and you can actually

see

all her facets. also she’s a mob boss mom??? like that’s cool idk she’s super suave and i’m gay

#ocs #eliza fate #fallane

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rebclheartsarchive · 7 years ago

Text

god my ass is so pumped for modern au event, y’all have nO IDEA. this is gonna be so exciting agshdhkgakjfdshjaf. anyway, here’s a quick rundown of all my babies in the au world. also a psa that i’m gonna keep mica while the event is on and then once it’s done he’s getting officially retired.

cordelia

so my girl had a shitty upbringing. she grew up with an abusive father and her mama died when she was young after giving birth to her youngest sister. she got her justice tho bc she fuckin deserves it and got him thrown in jail for his abuse. after that her little sisters and her went to live with her aunt and she’d just turned eighteen and it was kinda the first time she didn’t really have the responsibility of taking care of her sisters? she could start focusing on herself and she started going to therapy, started actually healing. delia also got really interested in law and ended up being accepted into oxford. her twenties was basically spent studying and being vocal in class and spending her nights in clubs and waking up with Regrets. was hired by a hot shot law firm straight out of oxford and she honestly became such a fucking asset to them. delia was made to argue with old white men in court and fight for justice. mainly takes on cases defending victims of sexual assault and domestic abuse, but tbh she’ll take on any case as long as she believes her client to be innocent. she doesn’t do guilty. she’s actually won most of her cases and is arguably the best lawyer at her firm. lowkey imagine that she makes a shit ton from her cases but she isn’t really materialistic?? mainly buys nice clothes to wear to court and work, but otherwise she saves her money.

delia’s aesthetic is definitely tight pencil skirts, blouses and high heel. also rarely seen without red lipstick. which is a funny contrast bc her at home is casual af with a messy bun. this bitch honestly lives on coffee and whiskey, loves visiting her favourite pub with her best friend. personality wise, she’s a bit more open than she is normally? like she doesn’t care if people know she’s having a shitty day and she opens up to the people she cares about with more ease. she went through a shit ton of therapy and still goes to sessions every now and then tbh to keep herself moving forward. she is defs more stubborn tho, also more sarcastic and takes zero shit. will 10/10 call you out on your bs. she also recently married her best friend’s cousin and she’s happier than she’s ever been. is in a v happy newlywed bubble rn and she’s kinda juggling the idea of starting to have kids. she so wants to be a mom, but she also doesn’t want to give up her career to do it and she wants to enjoy being married first.

lukas

my boy lukas had a pretty happy childhood? his parents were always lovely and got along with almost all his siblings really well, so his childhood was p simple. he was one of those jocks in high school that was really popular but also really nice. also such a nerd for science. such an english and history nerd honestly my god. spent so much of his time writing stories and reading poetry, was such a nerd. was also kinda a fuckboi tbh. he slept around a lot and went to a lot of parties, wasn’t really thinking a whole lot about anything after high school at that point. he went to uni to become an english teacher after high school and then boom, simple life came to an end when his dad got shot dead. the loss really devastated him and it kinda changed his perspective on his life. he wanted to do something more meaningful than that, so he actually dropped out of uni to join the police force, mainly bc his dad’s killer never got caught. kinda started as a vengeance thing mixed with wanting to protect people. rose in the ranks over the years to chief superintendent and he’s hoping to end up as commissioner one day. he’s also a little bit shady?? kinda uses his position in the force to keep his father’s case open and keeps looking into it, he just can’t let it go.

when he’s not in uniform, his style kinda is just whether his clothes are clean or not. wears a lot of jeans and shirts and converse. he’s a pretty chill dude most of the time, fairly patient kinda dude but once you get on his nerves you’re kinda there forever. can definitely hold a grudge, tho he avoids conflict like it’s the damn plague. is kinda a single dad atm, is separated from his wife and only really sees her when he’s picking up his son. . is currently having a mid life crisis because of all the shit going on with sabinah, definitely has started listening to more bruce springstein than normal. can also be found sitting in parks writing poetry when he has spare time bc he is such a Nerd .

violeta

y’all know that violeta couldn’t be anything but a stone cold bitch even in au. she’s a fucking trust fund baby tbh, her parents own a multi-million dollar oil company that originated in spain. she lived there for most of her life before papa and mama delgado moved the family to london to broaden business opportunities. violeta was highkey Bitter about the move bc she loved spain and didn’t really want to restart her life. honestly toughened her up a bit tho and she was pretty popular at school? lowkey became a bitchy queen bee, won prom queen, was on a million committees bc she loves bossing people around. her parents put a lot of pressure on her to be perfect, hence her being a major over achiever. this also played into when she got a little older and went into the family business. her parents always wanted one of the kids to take over for them and considering vi always idolized her dad, she wanted to be the first choice. she got a business degree and aced all her classes while she made her way up in the company, eventually ending up second in command. papa delgado basically started grooming her to take over and then when he got sick, he promoted her to ceo, bitch.

in modern au she’s less on the cold side, and more on the bitchy side. she has a high opinion of herself and her worth, honestly that line from that ariana grande song “but something just keeps telling me i’m better than the rest”. also major fallon carrington vibes. highkey wears power suits and dresses and heels, probs always wears sunglasses so people don’t see her rolling her eyes every five seconds. hates most people unless she considers them intelligent. also has no issue with the fact that she’s. basically. poisoning the environmwnt bc she cares more about money asdfghj. which is funny that she ended up married to a guy who loves the environment and nature and they now have a newborn daughter.

michel

used to be such a sunshine child. he was always really quiet as a kid and often either had his nose in a book or was doing craft by himself. was always such a loner nerd, probs got teased a lot in school for it. also has always been pretty reactive, so once someone pissed him off you can bet that he started swinging. he always kinda just kept to himself and cruised his way through school, graduated and didn’t really know what to do with his life from there. he did know though that he wanted to join the army. he looked up to his brother a lot and thought dedicated some of his life to helping others was a good idea, so he spent two years in afghanistan. he came home by choice after realizing that war was not at all what he thought it would be. he had some major ptsd after some of the shit he saw and did and had a really hard time assimilating back into everyday life. goes to tomas’ meetings and that’s how they met. also goes to therapy and actually talks about his shit? probs took him like two years to actually open up about anything, but anyway. also enrolled in art school bc he wants to be a painter, works a shitty job to pay the rent on the apartment he and anton live in.

his aesthetic is literally just black jeans, white t-shirt, leather jacket and boots on repeat, i swear this boy owns nothing else and is so fucking minimalist. he’s forever got paint stains on various parts of his body bc he’s always painting. he’s a p quiet guy, doesn’t really talk a lot, kinda hates most people aside from his boyfriend and his family. he lives on black coffee, smokes way too much and rides a motorbike bc he is a thrill seeker okay. also red wine is his Religion, but he drinks vodka when he’s out. he lives on ramen noodles bc he can only really cook like, two meals, it’s obvs that anton does most of the cooking in their house. is also the dad of a black cat named yoda bc you can’t be a gay art hoe without a cat. he and anton have been together for like, 4/5 years now? both of them are broke ass bitches bc they just had to be artistic. also mica has been keeping a wedding ring in the back of his sock drawer for like a month now and is trying to find the right time to propose.

and yah, those are my kids! this got really long and rambly, i’m so sorry and if you read this i love you. also feel free to like this and i’ll slide into your ims for some plotting!

#me: okay short blurbs #me: *writes more than a short blurb*#crowns.auweek #abuse tw #ptsd tw #murder tw

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zoemurph · 7 years ago

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to have a friend, chapter 9: $202

on ao3 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8

that noise you hear? its me. screaming. college is horrific and im super screwed please write this essay on the decameron for me

im ALMOST done with nano!! (as you can tell from the wordcount) there might not be a chapter update by the end of the month but i will hit my goal! wow magic. little bit of a shorter chapter this time cause uhhhh ive never claimed to be good at this

shoutout to my lovely friends for all their contributions to this fic. particularly thank you to cam for the amazing project name

warnings: anxiety, hints of bad eating habits

enjoy!

Evan pulls off his scarf and hangs it in his locker.

It’s finally snowed.

It snowed a few times before, October is notorious for it’s random snowstorms, but this is the first time this year it’s stuck. It started snowing Sunday morning and almost an inch gathered by mid afternoon. It was pretty light and uneventful, but Evan still made a point to send a picture of a snow dusted tree to Connor. Connor had replied ‘aesthetic’ and sent a picture of a plant Cynthia put in the living room that was mostly just dying.

Evan hangs up his coat and shoves the mittens in the sleeves. November is ending and only now does he really need to wear a coat to school. And take the bus. It’s hell.

“So this is why you have a locker,” Connor says.

“You have a locker too,” Evan reminds him.

Connor laughs. “No I fucking don’t, not if I can’t tell you which one it is.”

Evan shakes his head. “You’re just lazy.”

“Yes.”

“But if you ever need to hang up a coat you’re welcome to use mine.”

Connor tilts his head. “Ev, what makes you think I’m weak enough to wear a winter coat?”

Evan stares at him. “The fact that tomorrow it’s supposed to be like six degrees out?”

“We die like men,” Connor says simply. He pulls Evan’s spanish textbook out of the locker and hands it to him.

“You die,” Evan says pointedly. “And your hands are freezing.” Evan stuffs the textbook into his bag and zips it shut. “Do you own gloves?”

“Cool fingerless gloves because it fits the aesthetic,” Connor says, wiggling his fingers.

Evan closes the locker. “You’re the worst.”

Connor bumps their shoulders together. “Come on, Ev, admit they’re cool.”

Evan shakes his head. “They really aren’t.”

“Don’t lie to me,” Connor says as he opens the door to the stairwell.

“Do you think I lie to you?” Evan asks, stopping to look Connor in the eye.

Connor stares at him.

Evan holds his breath. He doesn’t lie to Connor. Nothing he does is a lie. The question is will Connor figure that out. And if he does, will he hate him for it.

Connor rolls his eyes. “You just haven’t seen them yet. They’re cool.”

“Whatever you say,” Evan mutters. He starts down the stairs. “Has Jared started yet?”

“Started what?”

Evan opens the door at the bottom of the stairwell and holds it for Connor. “He has your phone number right?”

Connor frowns. “Yeah? Is something horrible about to happen?”

“What’s your definition of horrible?”

“Evan.”

“What?” Evan stops walking. “Don’t you go down?” He nods to the stairs.

Connor shrugs. “Yeah, but I can go the long way with you. What is Jared going to do?”

“Thanksgiving is Thursday,” Evan says slowly.

“Thank god. I don’t know how we’re getting through Wednesday but I’m fucking dying.”

“We have a half day, Connor.” Evan steps closer to him to squeeze past a group of students crowded around a locker.

“Who cares.” Connor looks down at him. “Anyway, what shit is Kleinman up to? And what does Thanksgiving have to do with it?”

“What happens after Thanksgiving?” Evan asks.

“People try to kill each other over jeans?” Connor suggests.

Evan snorts. “I-I mean, yeah, but it’s Christmas—”

“Jared is Jewish,” Connor interrupts. “I’m also Jewish. You’re Jewish.”

Evan glances up at him. “I know. He has this playlist of Christmas songs that he blasts in his car. I don’t know why. But he also has a playlist of Jewish parodies.”

“I’m sorry what?”

Evan sighs. “There’s one that’s called Shalom and he sang it for like a week. Basically, December is Jared’s favorite time of year because he can be an asshole under the guise of being ‘festive’.”

Connor groans. “Please don’t say he’s going to send me links to all these videos.”

“He will. I’m warning you.” Evan pauses. “Uh, this is my stop.” He motions to the classroom to their right.

Connor nods. “Cool. I’ll see you later, I have to go block Jared’s number.”

Evan smiles as Connor walks away and takes a deep breath before he goes into the classroom and sits down.

His pocket is light.

It’s Monday. Connor didn’t pay him today.

Evan rests his chin in his hand and hides his smile.

Maybe Connor just forgot. But it feels nice. Like this is real.

That’s what Evan wants.

—«·»—

“I’ve been talking to Baz,” Alana says, flipping through her notebook as she walks. Evan nods. “I think she might be a good advisor for the club? Students typically feel relatively comfortable talking to her and I know she’s discussed mental health at the beginning of the year before.”

Evan tightens one of the straps of his backpack. “Okay. I, um, we need a name before we talk to her?”

Alana shakes her head. “I think we can just discuss the idea with her, even if we don’t have all the details solidified yet. If she’s against the idea, regardless of the current state of the details, we have to find a new advisor.”

“Oh.” Evan steps away from Alana to let someone pass between them. “Do you… Like… Does it ever feel…not worth it?”

Alana furrows her eyebrows but doesn’t look over to him. “What do you mean?”

“You won’t even be around for the club, n-not really?” Evan shrugs. “It’s…a lot of work for something you won’t be around to see, I guess.”

“Well…” She slows her steps. “I mean, hopefully it’ll start next semester, and if not we can always say we took the step to start a discussion of mental health in the school but…it could help other people?”

Evan’s ears burned. “I didn’t mean—”

“I know you didn’t,” Alana says. “I’ve wondered it myself. There’s no glory in getting the details perfect if you aren’t there to run it, but if we help other people, I think it’s worth it in the end.”

Evan walks up to his locker and puts in the combination. “Y-you’re right, sorry I just— sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s valid to think about.” Alana taps her nails against her notebook. “Now if only we could come up with a name…”

“A name for what?” Connor asks.

Evan looks up at him in surprise. “Isn’t your next class on the other side of the school?”

Connor shrugs. “Who gives a shit?”

“A name for our club,” Alana says, fixing her glasses. “It has a focus on mental health and starting a conversation about it in our school.”

“This club,” Connor says. He tugs on the strap of his bag. “What are you working with for names?”

Evan and Alana exchange a glance.

“Nothing,” Alana says after a moment. “I was thinking maybe we could have the word ‘project’ in the name, but I haven’t come up with anything that’s stuck. Do you have any suggestions?”

“The Fuck Project,” Connor deadpans.

Evan covers his eyes with a hand.

“We are not calling it the Fuck Project,” Alana says.

“It’ll get people’s attention,” Connor points out.

“Not in a good way,” Evan mutters. He drags his hand down his face and looks at Connor, who’s grinning at him.

“We do need to get this approved by the principal,” Alana adds. “And that name will give people the wrong idea, that is absolutely not what this club is about.”

Connor shrugs a shoulder. “Temporary name, congrats, I helped out.”

“Not really.”

The warning bell rings and Alana glances over her shoulder.

“I should go,” she says, “but I’ll text you about Baz?”

Evan nods. “Y-yeah that’s— okay yeah. I’ll see you later?”

Alana smiles and hurries down the hall.

Connor watches her leave. “Baz?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Um, yeah.” Evan grabs the books he needs and closes the locker with his foot. “We need an advisor and Lana thinks Baz might be willing to help? Have you had her?”

Connor shakes his head. “Baz teaches the CP kids, usually. I’ve been, uh, honors.”

Evan blinks. “Oh yeah, I forgot college prep was a thing. She taught regular english sophomore year.”

“You had her?” Connor asks.

“Uh…kind of?”

Connor furrows his eyebrows. “What do you mean?”

“Bad semester,” Evan mutters. “I, uh… There weren’t a lot of classes I…went to?”

Connor nods. “Got it.”

“Don’t you have class?” Evan asks quickly. His head is starting to spin.

“Yeah, I just.” Connor steps closer and Evan’s heart skips a few beats. “I’m sorry I forgot this earlier.” He presses a bill into Evan’s hand.

Evan closes his eyes.

Right.

Right. Right, of course. Connor just forgot. He didn’t mean anything by it. He’s sticking to the agreement.

Evan feels sick.

He crumples the bill up in his fist. “It’s fine, don’t worry about it,” he mumbles.

“It won’t happen again,” Connor promises.

Evan’s hand feels like it’s on fire.

—«·»—

Jared tosses his bag onto the couch and disappears into the kitchen. “Have you gotten any better about keeping food in your house?” he shouts.

Evan rolls his eyes. “Why do I need t-to buy food when you do it for me?”

Jared leans out of the doorway. “Fuck off, man, you never buy the chips I like.”

“Exactly.”

Jared glares at Evan and ducks back into the kitchen. “Hungry?”

“Not really.” Evan reaches into his pocket and grabs the ten dollar bill Connor handed to him earlier. “Meet me up in my room?”

“Sure, stealing this chocolate, B-T-dubs.”

“I can’t stop you,” Evan mutters. “Bring up your bag! Don’t leave it on the couch!”

“Don’t tell me what to do!”

Evan leaves Jared to pull apart the kitchen and heads up to his room. He leaves his backpack on his bed and pulls open his closet, pushing aside sweatshirts to get to a shoebox he’s buried. He pulls the ten out of his pocket and stares at it for a moment before he takes the top off the shoebox and puts it inside. Then he covers it back up with his sweatshirts and closes his closet door.

Now he can pretend it doesn’t exist.

When Jared kicks open the bedroom door with popcorn in one hand and chocolate in the other, Evan is sitting on his bed with his laptop open.

“Wow, lame,” Jared says. Evan glances up at him. “I’m kidding,” Jared says quickly. “That’s exactly what I did yesterday.” He drops down into Evan’s desk chair. “How’d you spend your weekend?”

Evan shrugs. “Same. S-some homework and uh…spent Friday with Connor.”

Jared opens his bag of popcorn. “I’ve been fucking dying to know, what have you spent all that money on? Murphy has to have given you a shit ton at this point.”

Evan stares at his laptop screen, rubbing his hands on his pants. “N-nothing yet it just…it feels weird.” He can feel Jared’s eyes on him and feels a panic build in his chest. “It feels weird! It’s just— it’s in a box in my closet.”

“Sweet.” Jared stands up.

“Jared!”

“Okay, okay, yeah, that was kind of dicky.” Jared falls back down into the chair. “I wasn’t going to take it, I was joking. Your money dude, you earned it with your weird uh…situation.” Evan makes a face. “Don’t fucking do that with your face, you know this is weird.”

“Shut up,” Evan mutters. He could go into a coma right now and that would be fine.

“We can start a list of things you could buy with it.” Jared throws a piece of popcorn into the air and tries to catch it in his mouth. It bounces off his right lense and lands on the floor. “I’ll get that later. Anyway. List.”

Evan glances to his closet.

“One, not shitty sneakers. Two, shirts that aren’t polos. Three, so much candy. Four, a video game. Five, multiple video games even, I don’t know how much money you have. Six, something nice for your mom cause you’re a real momma’s boy. Seven, a fuck ton of yugioh cards—”

“Yugioh cards?” Evan interrupts.

“Yes.” Jared throws a piece of popcorn at Evan. “Let me finish.”

Evan shakes his head. “I think I get it.” He closes his laptop and swings his legs over the side of the bed. “You don’t want the money sitting in my closet.”

“No shit.” Jared tosses Evan the chocolate bar. “You can have half. But yeah, you’ve got money, dude, it’s not gonna fucking collect interest if it’s in the back of your closet or anything. You’re spending all this time doing this bullshit job, why not actually use what you get paid?”

Evan opens the chocolate bar and breaks it in half before handing the half in the packaging back to Jared. “I-I already told you. It feels…weird. I don’t know.”

“You know,” Jared says as he takes the chocolate, “this is kind of a sugar daddy situation.”

Evan immediately goes red. “Oh my god.”

“Minus the sex stuff,” Jared says casually. “And the age difference, cause I don’t think Murphy is that much older you, is he?”

Evan is ready to melt into the ground. Or die. Or both. Both would be perferrable. “Jared, please—”

“Sugar buddy,” Jared says, snapping his fingers. “Connor is your sugar buddy.”

“This is the worst.”

Jared takes a bite of chocolate. “Do you have a better name for this?”

Friendship? Evan wants to just call it friendship. That’s totally not the case but—

“We can call it platonic prostitution if you want.”

“If you say that again I am kicking you out of my house.”

Jared holds up his hands in surrender. “Valid. That is totally valid.”

Evan starts breaking up his half the chocolate bar into smaller pieces. “I just… I don’t know. It’s weird. It’s a weird situation. But let’s not call it…that.”

“Yeah,” Jared agrees. “Fucking weirdass… Kind of regret helping out with it, honestly. It feels like a trainwreck I can’t look away from.”

“Really comforting there, Jared,” Evan mutters.

Jared spins in the desk chair. “I’m just saying, what started out as a funny ha ha losers thing has gotten decidedly less funny.”

Evan furrows his eyebrows. “What was this funny?”

“Dude, come on, at least the first week was fucking hilarious,” Jared says with a crooked smile. It seems forced, but it’s still there.

Evan grimaces. “It wasn’t.”

Jared loses the smile. “Okay. It wasn’t funny, my bad.”

Evan makes a strangled sound. “Do you talk to Connor?” Some of the chocolate is starting to melt. He pops a piece of it into his mouth.

Jared snorts. “Hell no. We coexist, are you really going to ask more of us?”

“No,” Evan admits. “But if I tell you something, you won’t tell him?”

Jared gives him a weird look. “Tell him?”

Evan stares at him with wide eyes. “You’re already judging me!”

“No I’m not!”

“Yes you are!”

Jared throws his hands in the air. “I don’t even know what I would be judging you for!”

“I want Connor to stop paying me.”

Jared stares at Evan.

Evan’s hands start to sweat and his heart races. He looks down at the chocolate in the palm of his hand and eats it before it can melt any more. He wipes his hands on his pants. Then he wipes them again.

“Yeah, no shit,” Jared says once the silence is too long and too awkward and too uncomfortable.

Evan groans and collapses on the bed. “I just—”

“Want to be friends?” Jared offers.

“Um…yes, but also—”

Jared sits up straighter. “You didn’t.”

Evan pulls on his fingers. “I…what?”

“You’re in love with him!” Jared shouts.

“No!” Evan almost falls off the bed as he scrambles to his feet. “No, I don’t—”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes! It’s just— it’s just a crush oh my god, Jared.”

Jared raises his eyebrows. “You said crush.”

Evan’s face gets hot. “Uh, yeah I— it-it’s not… I mean… I don’t think… It’s not like a big…deal? Or anything?”

Jared stares at him. “Evan, it’s a big deal.”

Evan laughs awkwardly. “W-we don’t have to make it one.”

Jared squints. “Okay… I still have to kick your ass in Mario Kart. You ready?”

Evan takes a breath. “You’ve never been able to beat me, Jare. Especially since you keep choosing Rainbow Road.”

Jared jumps out of his seat. “Hell yeah I do, I’m going to mop the floor with your blood.”

Evan smiles. “Okay. If you say so.”

—«·»—

Jared loses. He swears aggressively as he reaches for his wallet to buy dinner.

“I hate you,” he hisses as he shoves a box of mozzarella sticks at Evan.

“Thanks,” Evan says. “Let me know when you want a rematch.”

Jared flips him off and grabs his sandwich off the table.

—«·»—

Heidi comes home as Jared is getting ready to leave. “Jared!” she says in surprise as she puts her bag down on the kitchen table. “I had no idea you were coming over.”

Evan and Jared look up from the television.

“Hey, Heidi, just wanted to steal your TV.” Jared tosses his Wii controller onto the couch.

“Your bag is still in my room,” Evan reminds him.

Jared shoots a fingergun at him. “Thanks.”

“Don’t leave on my account,” Heidi says, pulling her hair out of its ponytail.

“Nah, I have homework,” Jared says. “The moms want me home soon anyway.” He checks his phone and makes a face. “Yeah I should go, but thanks for letting me invade your house.”

“Anytime, Jared,” she says.

Jared grabs his bag from Evan’s room and bumps his shoulder against Evan’s as he goes to leave, wiggling his eyebrows.

Evan rolls his eyes. “Shut up,” he whispers.

Jared mimes zipping his lips. “See you tomorrow in hell.”

When Jared is gone, Evan finds his mom doing the dishes in the kitchen. “Can I help?” he asks.

She holds out a pot. “Dry and put away?”

Evan nods and takes it from her.

“It’s nice that you’re hanging out with Jared again,” Heidi muses. She washes a cup and sets it aside for Evan.

“Hm?” Evan dries off the pot and puts it in the cabinet next to the oven.

“You and Jared. You haven’t really spent a lot of time with him lately.”

“Oh.” Evan grabs the cup. “He’s been over. We…hang out and stuff.”

“That’s great.” She smiles at him. “It’s good that you have a friend.”

“Friends,” Evan corrects quickly, feeling guilt twist his stomach. He should be better at this. This friend thing. He should be making more progress than he has.

Heidi looks at him in surprise. “You’ve never mentioned anyone else before.”

“Uh, yeah.” Evan keeps his eyes on the dishes he’s drying. “Connor.” He says it and then tries not to think about it. “And um…Alana?”

“Oh!” Heidi puts down the dish soap. “Well that’s great! We should try to have dinner with them sometimes.”

Evan ducks his head. “Mom.”

“I want to meet your friends!”

“I— uh…okay, I’ll um, ask them about it.” Evan decides he should never speak again. He keeps digging his holes deeper and deeper.

Evan talks with Connor by his locker. He walks with Connor in the halls. He smiles and laughs and pretends his chest isn’t constricting.

Connor looks at him and sometimes it feels real.

The ten isn’t in Evan’s pocket anymore, but Evan can still feel it’s presence.

They sit together at lunch and Connor pokes at Evan’s jello with a straw and Evan tries to keep his heartrate under control. Connor rambles on about something that happened in AP Lit — which is apparently the only class he pays attention to in any way — and Evan mostly just nods. Connor keeps looking at him and he kind of feels like dying.

Evan feels like he’s dying and then Connor smiles at him and better and it’s worse and Evan hates every part of his existence.

Connor bumps his shoulder against Evan’s and the butterflies in Evan’s stomach fluttered.

—«·»—

Evan sits at his desk and does homework. He hates it but it gives him something to do. His phone buzzes from where it’s plugged in next to his bed. Evan glances at his Spanish textbook. He gets up and checks his messages.

From: Connor To: Evan can i call?

Evan’s throat immediately feels like it’s closing him. There’s an anchor wrapped around him and it’s dragging him down. Down down down—

He tries to type out a response but his hands are shaking.

Another message pops up on the screen.

From: Connor To: Evan fuck its not bad shit i just realized how that sounds im home alone and larry just got back and i dont want to talk to him if im on the phone hell probably leave me alone

Evan takes a deep breathe and presses his palms against his eyes. It’s fine. It really is fine.

He replies as fast as he can, but it still takes him a minute to calm down.

From: Evan To: Connor YEah fo course sorry for takin g so long to rpely

Connor’s response is almost immediate.

From: Connor To: Evan you didnt take long at all ev youre fine sorry if i scared you gonna call now

Evan stares at the screen of his phone. As soon as ‘Incoming call from Connor’ pops up, he hits answer.

“Hello?” Evan sits down on the edge of his bed and grips the blankets.

“Hey,” Connor says. He sounds kind of tired. “Sorry if I freaked you out, didn’t think before I sent that.”

“It’s fine,” Evan promises. He doesn’t want to think about it anymore. A moment of panic. They can move on. “W-what do you want to, um, to talk about?”

“Don’t really know,” Connor admits. “Nice to talk to you, you sound different over the phone.”

Evan smiles. “So do you.” Connor’s voice sounds a bit deeper. Maybe rougher. “Someone thought I was a dad once when I had to call to cancel an appointment.”

“What?” There’s laughter in Connor’s voice and it makes Evan’s head spin. “How the fuck?”

“I don’t know. I-I just— I was trying to cancel and they were like ‘the patient’ and I was confused but was too scared to ask and then they asked my relation to the patient and were like ‘are you his father?’ and I was just kind of like… Well no, I’m the patient.”

Connor snorts. “Amazing. I’m proud of you for cancelling your son’s appointment.”

Evan leans back on his hands. “N-no they— we sorted it out. I almost threw up afterward but uh…probably could’ve gone worse.”

“Phone calls aren’t your thing, huh?” Connor asks. “Sorry for making you do this. If it’s easier for you we can stop.”

Evan shakes his head and then realizes that Connor can’t see him. “No it’s fine. Really, it’s okay with you. It’s nice.” Whoops that was more than he was supposed to share.

“Okay, if you’re sure. Let me know if you want to hang up.”

“Of course,” Evan murmurs. “Uh… I asked you this like…three hours ago, but how was your day?”

“Pretty shit,” Connor admits. “Right now I’m uh….eating grapes.”

“Well that’s good. You didn’t eat lunch.”

“I never eat lunch.”

Evan hums. “Okay, that’s true.”

“What about you?” Connor asks. “Have you eaten anything today other than shitty cafeteria food?”

“Uh…no,” Evan says slowly. “I’m not super hungry.”

“Get a drink or something for me.”

Evan smiles. “Are you trying to parent me?”

“Fuck, Zoe’s rubbing off on me, isn’t she? How the fuck?” Evan imagines Connor dragging his hand through his hair.

“Her and your mom,” Evan points out. “They aren’t that similar, you know.”

There’s a slight pause. “I guess you’re right. I don’t notice that shit. Zoe’s just…Zoe. I don’t know.”

“Outsider’s perspective,” Evan suggests. “I also don’t live with them, so I might be wrong.”

“Huh.” There’s a pause. “Okay but hydration.”

“I’m going,” Evan promises. He stands up from his bed and heads down the stairs. “Are you staying hydrated?”

Connor clears his throat. “Uh…” Evan smiles as he hears Connor’s bed squeak as Connor stands up. “Yeah of course.”

“You’re going to get a drink, aren’t you?” Evan asks. He walks into the kitchen and pulls a cup from the cupboard.

“No,” Connor says quickly. “Definitely not.”

“Okay.” Evan fills the cup with water and takes a sip. “So uh…sports?”

Something on Connor’s end shuts. “I’m gay.”

Evan rolls his eyes. “Okay. Then you choose the conversation starter.”

“Okay. Did you know that eggplants are fruits?”

“Yeah.”

“Fuck there goes my fun fact.”

Evan laughs. “I’m sure you can think of something else.”

“Don’t have faith in me, Ev, it’ll end badly. But give me a second.” Evan drinks his water as Connor thinks. “Okay. Want to hear lots of random shit about Ancient Egypt? Zoe and I had a phase.”

Evan sits down in a kitchen chair. “You know I do.”

“Well get comfortable, because this is going to be a while.”

#evan hansen #connor murphy #deh #convan #tree bros #my fics #to have a friend #death level: 100000

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stylessemantics · 8 years ago

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11 Questions Tag

Rules:

1. Always post these rules. 2. Answer the questions given by the person who tagged you. 3. Write 11 questions of your own. 4. Tag 11 people.

I was tagged by 3 cuties and I’ll be answering all their questions. Under the cut cause it’s 33 questions. Also I’m reposting my same questions cause not a lot of people have answered them, and I want to tag different people and have them answer the same 11 questions I came up with the first time I was tagged so... Let’s go! :)

@fairylightsstyles aka T’s Questions :D

1. Who is the person you admire the most? I’m going to go with my mom. cliché I know but she’s amazing. I also admire Ed Sheeran, Harry Styles, Emma Watson, etc etc etc.

2. If you could be in any television series what would it be? The Flash. I want to have super powers lol. Or maybe Sherlock Holmes or some comedy sitcom.

3. Best childhood memory? I’m going to go with going to New York for the first time ever. It was a long flight for 9 year old me (assuming i was nine, i can’t remember. Have to ask around)

4. Favourite song at the moment? Escuela De Calor by Radio Futura. It’s old and I’ve loved it for a while but recently I made a Guitar Hero 4 playlist with all the songs I loved to play when my brother and I jammed out and I was reminded of this hit. Play it first when I go to take a shower or whatever and put on that playlist. It’s such a dance-able song I’m very in love and know every beat and drop to it and always dance it very sexily.

5. Where is the place you feel most at home? Home. I wish I had some awesome thing I can say like some tree house or some hill or whatever but we don’t do those things here or live close by to one. Also I was never a leave my house walking to go over to some hangout place with my friends type of person. No one in this country is really. Specially when young. So I’m saying home feels like home. In my room. I hate being home though. Also my cousin’s place in Miami feels a LOT like home. Second home it is really.

6. What is the country you want to travel to the most? *brain from pinky and the brain voice* Same as it’s been the past 11 years, lovely: England.

7. What plans do you have for the summer? Summer? What is that? I go to college, I study in the summer :P But the plans are hopefully London in June or July. The opportunity struck and I’m almost fainting at the thought.

8. 3 guilty pleasure songs? No Reason Boner - NSP (i know all of it i’m sorry. Any NSP song really is... god damn. Also Dan I love you.) Persona 5 OST. (my brother’s fault. Completely) Undertale OST. (specially metaton’s theme, Bonetrousle and asgore’s theme... Oh and Final Sans fight theme... SORRY THIS GAME IS GENIUS) whoops.

9. If you could say something to the whole world, what would you say? LOVE LOVE LOVE. SPREAD LOVE IT’S NOT THAT HARD AND IT MAKES THINGS SO MUCH EASIER!!! TREAT OTHERS HOW YOU WANT TO BE TREATED. ALSO STREAM SOTT AND BUY HARRY’S ALBUM.

10. What is the best meal you’ve ever eaten? OMG I don’t know if it’s the best meal but it was the one that popped up the quickest, and technically I didn’t eat it, it was my mom’s plate; but there’s Peruvian place here and UGH! Apparently Perú has like THE best cuisine (according to my parents that have travelled quite a lot) and jesus lord everything we have eaten there is so good. Mom had... this amazing Salmon in fucking PASSION FRUIT SAUCE OMG PASSION FRUIT SAUCE GOES WITH EVERYTHING GUYS UGH NOW IM CRAVING IT.

11. Do you believe in ghosts? yes and no. if they are for real well then i don’t think i’ve done something wrong to anyone enough for them to spook me, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to be moving into some “rumour has it this house is haunted” place. If they aren’t real then good, but I’m not gonna go testing the theory and getting myself into some dark magic/spirit shit or using some ***** board (I’m not even saying the name of it)

@cheshirepuddin‘s questions <3

1. Who’s your role model? My Mom, Harry, Ed, Emma Watson, My Cinematography Language teacher, My Concept Art teacher, My Art Direction teacher.

2. What’s something you want to accomplish in the short term? Is losing weight a short term thing? Let’s go with that or finally finishing some of the million and one fics I’ve got collecting dust in my files.

3. What would you like to ask Harry? WOW uhm... On the spot I can’t think of a good enough question. I would ask him to recommend me one thing for every branch of art. A book, a song or artist, a movie, a painter or painting, etc etc etc. I would also ask him if he’d like to hang out later on and teach me things. Get your heads out of the gutter I mean it in the sense of teaching me art, writing, something he loves, something he thinks is his expertise. To spread knowledge with me. If he’d allow me to be with him as a little grasshopper for a while.

4. If you could travel through time once and then come back, would you prefer to travel to the past or the future? Why? Neither. I have a lot of things I would love to change but I also am kind of a believer that every single decision, no matter how small, makes you who you are. And although I could be a lot better, this is my life and I guess it’s not half bad. Also seeing the future scares me and I would hate to spoil my own ending to myself. Based on that thing about decisions, today my future can be one thing but tomorrow, based on what I do, it could be another. Also FLASHPOINT PARADOX GUYS. LORD TIME IS SO INTERESTING. Is there even a past to go back to? You’re telling me the past is happening RIGHT NOW in some other time and I can go to it? Or the future? Then why isn’t it happening now? What defines past and why can or would we be able to travel to it?

5. Where’s your favourite place you’ve been to? None of the places I’ve been seems to catch my eye enough for me to call them anything close to a favourite. That’s so sad wow.

6. Would you like to get married and have kids someday? yes yes yes. Would love to marry. Would love to have (3?) kids. Would love for one of them to be adopted.

7. Do you have a motto you live by? I thought I didn’t but I like to think I go with the treat others how you wish to be treated thing. Also I’m always telling my friends that emotions demand to be felt. That’s like my line. Emotions demand to be felt; even bad ones. What I will not allow you is to feel the bad ones for any longer than you have to ;)

8. Have you ever been in love? Are you now? I don’t think so. Unless we consider Harry and even I - with all my hopes that maybe someday we will meet and he’ll find me interesting enough to keep me around - can’t call this love. I don’t know him to be able to love him like... proper love him. So I don’t think I have been, and I don’t think I am now.

9. Which song reminds you of some time/someone/something very important to you? Any old song that my mom has ever shown me reminds me of her, cause she has amazing taste in music. Same with my dad or my mom or my best friends. There’s a song that reminds me of something important that has yet to happen though. My wedding. There’s a few songs I know I NEED to have at my wedding, and when they come up they make me think of me dancing them on that amazing day if it ever happens.

10. Do you pay attention to fashion trends? yes and no. I’m not up to date with fashion in general. I just see something I like and would love to try and I try to do it. I never rock anything so I go back to what I already know and call my comfort zone. I pay attention to them to some degree. They look great on other people and I never quite get to try them or buy anything similar, and when I do I don’t rock it so I don’t keep trying.

11. If you could change anything about your life, what would it be? Everything. Goes against my travelling in time answer but lord would I change it all. whoops. I would change a lot of it. Not all of it. Specially bad things.

@legend-waitforit-harry aka J’s Questions :P

1. What’s the name of your autobiography if you write one? I think it’d be a guide on how to laugh at yourself both because you’re a pity and because you have to let go of things. And I’d call it something like “Do as I say, not as I do. A guide to living with your damn brain.”

2. One incident you will never forget. STORY TIME! When I was a kid, around 6 years old maybe less maybe a bit more, no more than 8, I used to take afternoon english classes at the same school I went to in the morning. After classes were over we would run around and play with the rest of the kids that were in tutoring or english classes that were also out of their class already and waiting to be picked up. There is of course a “no running in the hallways” policy in pretty much every school. While playing something silly like tag or something we were chasing someone and I took the empty hallways as route. I had sandals that were slippery and I was running very fast. Right as this guy Ivan - who is a year younger than me and the principal’s secretary’s son- walked out of the classroom he was at. I can still remember it went in slow motion. Me putting my arms out and trying to stop running, him looking at me and going wide-eyed. Both of us screaming. My feet slipping and being unable to stop. And then black. LITERALLY. BLACK! You could have added the little hit signs they add to cartoons when people crash into each other. I opened my eyes and my vision was blurry and a teacher was helping me up. I was ok. I don’t quite remember how or where I landed. Ivan was crying and in pain. He had fallen on the very edge of the little step that divided the cement hallway from the actual court where we could play. I only had a scratch, a bit of pain in my arm that I think was what collided with him. I was fine and wondering why Ivan didn’t get up and continued to cry out “ouch ouch please”.

Ivan had split the back of his head open on the step. Just a bit. I think he had 10 stitches total. His mom arrived short after; like really short after. I think she was on her way to pick him up when it happened and arrived to the school to find his child wallowing in pain on the ground and with a cracked skull bleeding out. I hid. God I hid. I was so scared of my parents finding out, of Ivan’s mother finding out, of my parents having to pay Ivan’s then seemingly difficult operation (i was like 6 I thought the guy would die cause of me)

Ivan knows I guess, and his mom is the absolute sweetest woman ever and she never resented me for it, if she knows it was me. If they know it was me; they never showed. To this day my parent’s don’t know. Or I think they don’t. Ivan and I get along good and we were friends while we were in school. Don’t know if he even remembers it was me who accidentally crashed into him. The next day at school all of the kids that were there that afternoon (we all went to the same school the ones who took classes in the afternoon there) were called to the principal’s office and I remember my principal asking “who crashed into him?” and the second grade teacher legit pulling my by the shoulder shoving me in front of the group and I was almost weeping. I don’t think I got any punishment other than a warning and an obvious lesson.

Do not run in the hallways.

3. Lyrics that means a lot to you. Que todo tiene su hora, debajo del sol naciente, ya viene tu amor bendito de nada vale ser impaciente. Juan Luis Guerra’s Todo Tiene Su Hora

You can’t bribe the door on your way to the sky. You look pretty good down here but you ain’t really good - Harry Styles’ Sign Of The Times

It’s alright to cry, [...] It’s alright to die cause death’s the only thing you haven’t tried [...] So live life like you’re giving up, cause you look like you are. - Ed Sheeran’s Even My Dad Does Sometimes.

4. You’re winning a Nobel Peace Prize. What’s the cause you worked for? Nothing lol I’m definitely not winning one of those. I’m thinking equality. Gender equality, race equality, culture equality, respect for human rights. That or some psychology topic I expressed in some book (NOT SELF HELP I HATE THOSE) in a way that makes it relatable and everyone laugh. Like why be happy when you can be normal? (that is an actual book)

5. If you are given all the money in the world but need to have a new identity, who are you and where are you? I’m still me and I live in England. Don’t ask.

6. Mountain or ocean? Both. Never been to a mountain tho but I want to go and I’m not sure it will mark a significant decision over these two. I’m always going to like something that is not staying home.

7. If you were asked to do something out of your comfort zone, what would it be? Definitely Model. Whatever it is, taking photos of me, my face, my body, my hands, my feet; whatever it is you could model... Just no. I’m terrified of the thought and I would be so uncomfortable knowing the results would be awful and everyone would hate them or that at least I would.

8. If you can kill anyone without any repercussions who would you kill and why? No one. I don’t think I will kill anyone. You can joke all you want about someone being very nasty and whatever but I would never. If you give me a repercussion-free bullet, I hope and pray I never have to use it. I only would in defence of my family and loved ones.

9. Any childhood nightmares? My parents suffering some accident in one of their many travels. To this day I think that’s the biggest nightmare.

10. A song that makes you cry. Even My Dad Does Sometimes - Ed Sheeran Fall - Jonas Brothers. Supermarket Flowers - Ed Sheeran Cuando Te Beso - Juan Luis Guerra.

11. Recommend me: a song, a book and a movie. (Sorry, Iv! Stole your question) YOU THIEF! No jk, it’s fine. Uhhh. A Song: look at my song rec tag I don’t think I have a good one right now. I love too many songs. Let’s go with Harry’s unreleased tracks. I recommend those. Also To Die For by the Bohicas cause it just came up.

A Book: My teenage-self is screaming at me to recommend you Elizabeth Scott’s Bloom, or Heather Brewer’s The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod (THAT I STILL HAVE TO FINISH, GOD DAMN)

A Movie: it’s sad to admit but I don’t have a good movie to recommend you. Maybe The Green Mile if you want to cry and have your life shaken up, watch it. It shattered me. That movie fucked me up. I still have flashbacks to it and fucking weep.

I’m tagging: (different people than i did the last time): @team-styles @honeyskins @moonchildstyles @stylesprimes @yeshaddy @weeklyfangirl @stylesunchained @a-butterfly-on-his-tummy @secret-rendezvous1d @cuddlemusclestyles @whoopsharrystyles

My questions: (once more):

Do you have a favourite pet name? What is it and why, and if you don’t have/don’t like pet names; why?

Tell me a Joke:

Are you a plant inside the house person? If yes; fake or real plants. if not: why?

Take me down memory lane and tell me a first. (first tattoo, first kiss, first time you saw the colour pink idc, just take me with you)

Pick one of Harry’s 8 unreleased songs and give me a prediction. What does it sound like? What is it about? Get creative and write a verse of the song if you want. Just for funsies!

You’ve just won a Grammy/Oscar/Emmy/IDK. Thank you speech? Go:

Fill in the blanks: I instantly smile when _____ because _____

Favourite Harry Trait? #AHarryLovePlatform.

What don’t you understand? (besides this question, come on, be creative) ((example: IDU how people don’t like Harry Styles))

If a sandwich was named after you, what would it be called (your name or something else)? What did you do to earn that honour? What’s in it? (taken from my 1 page at a time daily creative companion book)

Recommend me: a song, a book and a movie. (they can be Harry inspo or not. Just give me art!)

#11 questions challenge #11 questions tag #tag #i was tagged #tumblr shenanigans #tumblr shenanigans with people i love #I'm sorry #this is long #about me #personal

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limejuicer1862 · 6 years ago

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Wombwell Rainbow Interviews

I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me. I gave the writers two options: an emailed list of questions or a more fluid interview via messenger. The usual ground is covered about motivation, daily routines and work ethic, but some surprises too. Some of these poets you may know, others may be new to you. I hope you enjoy the experience as much as I do.

Magdalena Ball

was born in New York City, where she grew up. After gaining an honours degree in English Literature from the City University of New York (CCNY), she moved to Oxford to study English Literature at a postgraduate level. After a brief return to the US, she then migrated to NSW Australia, where she now resides on a rural property with her husband and three children. While in Australia she received a Masters degree in Business from Charles Sturt University and a Marketing degree from the University of Newcastle. Magdalena runs the respected review site Compulsive Reader. Her short stories, editorials, poetry, reviews and articles have appeared in a wide number of printed anthologies and journals, and have won local and international awards for poetry and fiction. She is the author of the poetry books Unmaking Atoms, Repulsion Thrust and Quark Soup, the novels Black Cow, and Sleep Before Evening, a nonfiction book The Art of Assessment, and, in collaboration with Carolyn Howard-Johnson, the Celebration Series poetry books Sublime Planet, Deeper Into the Pond, Blooming Red, Cherished Pulse, She Wore Emerald Then, and Imagining the Future. She also runs a radio show, Compulsive Reader Talks. In addition to her writing, Magdalena is a Research Support Lead for a multinational company, and regardless of what she’s doing, will usually be found with a book or two in one form or another, sneaking time for reading.

The Interview

1. When and why did you begin to write poetry?

I honestly cannot remember a time when I wasn’t writing poetry. It feels very natural to me to express myself poetically, probably because I grew up with a lot of poetry around me, from Dr Seuss and Maurice Sendak to the songs my mother, who was in a rock band, was writing and singing or the poetry my uncle set to music including literary giants like Edna St Vincent Millay, Frank O’Hara, WB Yeats and Emily Dickinson. Poetry has always been part of my environment. I created a lot of handmade ‘zines, themed booklets and celebration poems for friends when I was growing up, but my first official publication was a full centre-page spread in a Greenwich village magazine while I was an undergraduate. I’ve lost the publication now though I kept the clipping for years, but the buzz of that first publication was pretty intense.

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

I think I’d have to say my parents. They both read to me a lot – and there was poetry in the children’s books I loved (Sendak and Seuss come to mind immediately because I also bought and read many books by those two authors for my own children, but there were many books I loved when I was very young like The Story of Ping by Marjorie Flack, Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown, and Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crocket Johnson, all of which became introductions for me to what language can do as an art form, and how poetic language in particular can convey complex ideas in ways that jump past the intellect using rhythm, correspondence and imagery. I always had a visceral response to the books that were read to me, perhaps because my parents were very good readers and tended to act out the work and engage me in the process by talking to me about what they were reading, letting me fill in words and take over when I was ready. I’m deeply grateful to them for this early gift, which to be honest, I didn’t properly recognise until I was much older. Beyond being read to, I was pretty heavily influenced by my uncle, the composer Ricky Ian Gordon, who not only set a lot of superb poems to music – the sound of which formed a backdrop to my childhood as I spent a lot of time at my grandparents’ house where Ricky, who is only 10 years older than me, was growing up, but also he was always recommending and gifting books to me. I remember a book pack he gave to me when I was around 12 after he read some of my poems. I still have the books, which include Plath’s Ariel, Sexton’s Live or Die, Brecht’s Manuel of Piety and Rimbaud’s The Drunken Boat – none of which were age appropriate (!) but they certainly left a mark on me – like many young women I became a bit obsessed with Plath in particular for a while! Even now, when I see him he’ll usually recite a poem by heart to me from someone he personally knows or has recently discovered which will immediately blow me away.

3. How aware were and are you of the dominating presence of older poets?

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t suffer from imposter syndrome regularly as a writer. However, I have always been a confident reader. The delight I take in other people’s words is something that has bolstered me since I was very (possibly too) young. I think it’s fair to say that nearly all writers, no matter how famous, need and love attentive readers and reading is my happy place. So whenever I don’t feel like I’m writer enough to match the company I’m keeping (and that company may be on the page rather than in the flesh though I have been lucky enough to meet some intimidatingly good writers), I’m always able to fall back on the joy of delighting in the words of others. It’s a great privilege I think to be able to just pay attention to art that is exquisite. The sheer joy of that deep engagement is something that I think transcends age, fame, and even genius. It’s connection that is very primal and powerful and wipes out jealousy, intimidation and domination. That said, I’m always actively seeking diversity in my reading as I’m conscious that the “dominating presence of older poets” is really partly determined by a canon that isn’t necessarily very diverse. I’m actively trying to read as diversely as possible, not only because it is healthy to be exposed to what challenges you, but also because nuance and exquisite beauty can often be found in under-represented writers that isn’t so easy to find in some of the bigger, more famous names that are treated as “classics”. So I will sometimes deliberately resist that domination.

4. What is your daily writing routine?

I think it would be a rare day when I didn’t write something, but aside from that I just write whenever I can, often in brief snatches here and there, or while everyone else is watching television in the evening once the hubbub of the day has eased off. I have done things like pulled my car over to the side of the road to write something down that came to mind; written poems during business meetings; stirred something on the stove with one hand while writing with the other – you get the idea. I have three children and a day job so can’t really be precious with the time. Poetry is particularly flexible that way and can be fitted into a tight schedule but I have to admit that fiction is harder for me to write in short bursts which is why I’ve been writing a lot of poetry over the past few years.

5. What motivates you to write?

I’m not really sure what motivates me! It’s kind of instinctual. If I don’t write almost every day I find I’m not at my best – I get cranky – some variation of hangry – like there’s a hunger that needs satiating. Being able to sit down, even for just a few minutes, and put something down in writing is part of what my body needs each day – like food, water, exercise, sleep. It’s just part of how I live in the world. I get a lot of pleasure from extrinsic motivations like publication, praise (poets seem to me to be particularly supportive of one another and I’m so grateful for the gorgeous community I feel very much bolstered by), the odd tiny financial reward, and being able to perform/read/connect with readers – they’re all really wonderful perks, but the practice of writing is something I do regardless of those things.

6. What is your work ethic?

I was born and raised in New York, and it may just go with the territory but I think my work ethic has always been a little bit too strong. I have really tried to ease back on my work ethic – to be more present; to take more time on quality over quantity; to slow down a little bit and not feel like I have to be ticking every box on a daily to-do list. That said, I’m always feeling the tug to get one more thing done today. I’m trying to plan a little bit less, and to be more open as I get older.

7. How do the writers you read when you were young influence you today?

See question 2. The writers I read when I was young have had a massive influence on me – they’ve helped formed my identity and not just as a writer. I honestly don’t think I’d be the same person if I hadn’t read so much Maurice Sendak as a child. I still get a little shiver of excitement thinking about Little Bear’s trip to the moon or that wordless page of the wild rumpus in Where the Wild Things Are. I also was heavily influenced as a young adult by writers like Czesław Miłosz who I saw perform at Princeton when I was about 17, and I used to hang around the St Marks Poetry Project around that time hoping one day I might just end up having a conversation with Patti Smith, Jim Carroll, Allen Ginsberg or Anne Waldman. I was always too shy to approach them (see question 3), but I knew very strongly then that this was a place I felt at home and that theses were voices that resonated with my young self. I took a lot of that in and it helped form my identity.

8. Who of today’s writers do you admire the most and why?

I love so many writers that the answer to this question could go on for about 20 pages! It never fails to amaze me how much superb work just keeps coming out. I’m very lucky to be a book reviewer and so I get a lot of books. I certainly don’t like everything but I get at least one book a week that is excellent, often by someone I never heard of before. I know that the minute I commit a name to paper I’ll have missed out someone critical or maybe I’ll read someone tomorrow and by the time this goes to air I’ll be sad I didn’t include them. So instead of answering this question I might just ‘gather some paradise’ (to steal a phrase from the wonderful PoemTalk podcast) and talk about a few poets that I’ve recently read whose work I like. Please note that this is a snapshot of the work I’ve been in contact with over the past month or so and is in no way comprehensive! Tracy K Smith’s latest book Wade in the Water is just so good. You can read the title poem here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/147467/wade-in-the-water Another poet whose work gets me everytime is Danez Smith’s Don’t Call Us Dead. I don’t even know why but the book has brought me to tears several times and even now, I’m thinking of the title poem. I’m right in the middle of reading Anne Casey’s Where the Lost Things Go which is just so warm and lovely – so rich with empathy and compassion, and so very relevant. Another book I recently read and loved was Ali Whitelock’s And My Heart Crumples Like a Coke Can, which is hysterically funny, raw, sad and uplifting all at the same time. Both Anne and Ali are people I recently met and immediately became friends with – it was like we’ve known each other for years and we instantly began planning collaborations, tours, tweeting about one another’s work, etc. I’m so happy to give their wonderful books a shout-out.

9. Why do you write? Probably answered in question 5.

10. What would you say to someone who asked you “How do you become a writer?”

At the risk of sounding like Yoda (it wouldn’t be the first time), there is no ‘become’ – if you want to write, write. Don’t waste too much time dreaming about it or making elaborate promotional plans (something I have been guilty of). Just get on with it. Write what you like to read best or what you feel compelling to write. Or pick a competition and begin working towards a submission. Push asdie the doubt and discomfort and that stupid “monkey” voice at the back of your head that says you’re not up to it, and just get on with it. No one is a ‘natural’ – first drafts are almost all bad, every writer no matter how well-respected is struggling with what they’re working on now, and the only way to get good at writing is, like anything, regular practice. You have to fail. It’s part of the learning curve – so get on with the failure, accept it, become comfortable in its presence and keep going. When you’ve got enough material or when your material fits a market, submit it somewhere. Then repeat the process. The one other thing you must do is to read, a lot, and diversely. If, like me, you’re nervous about promoting your own work or you’re uncertain that what you’ve done is great, then promote someone else. Shine a light on the wonderful, especially where it’s underrepresented. Everyone has the power to do that these days – leave a review, buy someone a book for a present, talk up what you love. Then get back to the table and make your own beauty. There’s no magic formula and raw talent that isn’t utilised is nothing. (may the force be with you…)

11. Tell me about the writing projects you have on at the moment.

I’ve just had a poetry book published by Flying Island Books titled High Wire Step, and I’ve got another one coming out in April from Girls on Key Press titled Unreliable Narratives. Neither of those were planned this time last year and I’m really pleased with how they came together and the incredible editorial support I had on both books (I’m very grateful to Kit Kelen and Anna Forsyth respectively). I’m still a bit in promotion mode for these two and there are launches and performances planned at the Newcastle Wrtiers Festival this year and throughout the early part of 2019. I have begun working on a new book of poetry (I’m always working on a book of poetry ), and I am still working on my third novel, a sci fi which is proving to be quite difficult. One of my resolutions for 2019 is to either finish the thing or call it. Every time I sit down to write it strikes me as being too good and too far along to abandon but then I get distracted and it drifts away from my mind and the desire to work on it recedes. This is the year I either finish, or make the call. I also have quite a few multimedia/anthology collaborations in-hand, which I’m very excited about. I can’t divulge, but good things are on the horizon.

Wombwell Rainbow Interviews: Magdalena Ball Wombwell Rainbow Interviews I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me.

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topicprinter · 7 years ago

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Amazon FBA courses have been all the rage lately, with lofty promises of a lucrative digital nomad lifestyle. There are hundreds of courses to choose from, but 3 stick out from the crowd. It might be due to their high price tag, or maybe its the individuals behind the course. Either way, you cant scroll through any Amazon forums with seeing these courses being discussed. So I went ahead and took all 3 of them. I didn't really intend on dong a review, I just got them so I could learn. I started my journey 2 months ago and today my first product arrived, with 2 more on the way :D Here is my in-depth video review:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bD58vSR2Pv4 I will also post the script for the review here in case you prefer not to watch the video at work, or you dont want to use data :) Please keep in mid that the punctuation might be weird because I write my scripts how I talk as opposed to proper English lol. I have fully completed all 3 of these courses. Now full disclosure, I did not pay for amazing selling machine, I had a friend lend me all the videos and files for it. It is however asm 7, so its the newest version. I would also like to add that before taking these courses I knew NOTHING about amazon FBA. Nick just told me how much he was making, so I jumped right into tanner course. So I have have the complete beginner's perspective on this. lets get to it. FIRST UP, Amazon Seller mastery.Price: $498 USDTotal Watch Time: 2 hours 11 minutes= $3.80 per minute So tanners course is the cheapest of the 3, but it is also the shortest. He’s had many successful students come through, including youtuber james bowen. However this course really just skims the surface. There are a total of 5 modules, but I felt like they were all bare bones. Especially as someone who knew nothing about amazon FBA, I finished the course with a bunch of questions. For example, module 2, titled “suppliers and shipping” only contains 2 videos, totaling just 14minutes. To be fair, after finishing that module I felt like I knew all there was to know on suppliers and shipping and I thought “seems easy enough”, it wasnt until I actually tried contacting suppliers that I realized I was still in the dark for some aspects. Overall, tanner does a good job at teaching the material. Its very obvious that he knows what hes talking about and he instructs pretty clearly. That being said, you can tell the production and time spent editing was cut short. He doest cut out beginings or ending of the videos, and some mistakes that could be edited out are just kept in. It feels like he was just winging it for the most part and didnt have too much of the structure pre-planned. Theres even a part where he’s talking about shipping terms, and he straight up says “you can just google what they mean”. Now yes, thats fine and its common sense if you’re making any regular youtube video, but it wouldn’t be that hard for him to google it first and then provide a PDF for student resources. And finally, this might not bother you guys, but for me me it was a little annoying.. None of the videos in the course were captured in full screen. His window was always minimized, so you could see his desktop background. Again not a huge deal, but for a $500 course it just didnt float my boat. So lets get on to Kevin Davids Amazon ninja materclass. Price: $1,250 USDTotal Watch Time: 9h 50min= $2.12 / Minute So Kevin’s course is much pricier than tanners, but as you can see its still a better value per minute of actual content. He also gives you the option to buy each module separately. Now I do like the idea behind separating the modules, but it causes a little bit of overlap for someone that has the full course. What I mean by that is, in some modules, he’ll re-explain some things that he already covered in a previous module. Im sure hes doing it to cover the bases just incase someone bought the module separately, but when you’re watching them consecutively, it just leaves parts to skip. Kevin also has a little underwhelming video production for a 1200 dollar course, some videos his cam is way too big and actually blocks important information. In this clip hes talking about the display ad on the right side, but you cant even see it because its under his webcam. However other than that the visuals arent bad at all. The biggest issue I had with this course was that it wasn't totally sequential or chronological. Yes the modules are in order from product research to facebook marketing, but the content in the modules were all over the place. They werent following (for lack of a better word).. A storyline. Thats actually one thing I liked about tanners course. He starts with the lockpick set and carries on the process for that product in a good step by step order. That being said, Kevin does do long videos to end every module that kind of put the pieces together, but overall its like has all these superb bircks of information on a topic, and then it just all goes into one bucket as opposed to laying them out piece by piece. Now lets get on to what I love about kevins course. First off, and probably the most important. Its loaded to the brim with super insightful information. He goes a lot into the actual mindest or thought process behind what he does and why. And what I like even more is that he doesnt just say “you should do this or do that because im the master”. His vibe is more open ended, like “this is what I suggest you do based on all my experience, but dont blindly take my word for it” which I appreciate. The course is also very practical and inspiring, he doesnt have any fluff, and he’s a great communicator”. On his site he says its the only course you’ll ever need, and I cant say hes wrong. He goes way beyond Amazon in the later modules. Covering in depth facebook ads, instagram, getting onto blogs, and even virtual assistants. With the Ninja Masterclass I’d say the pros heavily outweigh the cons, and its the only course I really refer back to when I run into problems with my new FBA business. But before I crown the champ, I have to talk about the biggest course of them all. Amazing Selling Machine! Price: $3,500Total Watch Time: 36h 53m= $1.58 / minute Now of course I left the big fish for last. Amazing selling machine is longest running and most expensive one of the 3 of courses, and probably of all fba courses in the world. Along with the video lessons, ASM has huge events every year with tickets ranging from $400 to $750. But lets talk about the videos. With nearly 37 hours of screen time, it is definitely a lot to take in. I believe the actual course makes you watch it throughout 8 weeks, but since I just had all the video files already, I decided to binge it. Now I did not watch all the coaching calls, but I finished all the other modules. And I do have to say, compared to the other two, these videos are very dry. They provide lots of info, but they do so with text. I’d say 50-60% of the videos are taken up by this blue screen with white text. As opposed to just showing the practical stuff, they have a lot of fluff. They spend a few minutes before every video explaining everything thats going to happen instead of just diving straight into it. Now you might be thinking “well that makes it great for notes”, but they already provide all these bullet points in the form of PDFs. And thats honestly what bugged me most. Every single video had a pdf to accompany it, which is great, but the guys in the video were just reading off of it. Its almost like they wrote an awesome amazon FBA book, and they’re just reading it to us, instead of a cut to the chase kind of course. Here you can see the PDF, and beside it the video. Its line by line. Now that may be appealing to some people, but for me it was just filler. With tanner and kevin, it felt like you were learning from a friend or mentor, With mike and Rich, its more of a classroom vibe, less passion more rules. And that another thing, their rules or guidelines are very firm. Unlike kevins who i said leaves it at “this is what I suggest, based on experience”. ASM is very much “this is what you need to do to be successful. Use the ASM criteria”. With all that said, there’s still brilliant content inside. The most surprising to me was their product research, being new to FBA, I really thought that jungle scout was the only way to do solid product research. However in ASM they use DS quickview, and a method that heavily relies on a products BSR. While it seems like a little more work than using jungle scout and 999 track, I thinks good to see another perspective on product research, and its something I will add in the future just to be extra sure on my products. They are also the best when talking about having a sequential or chronological order. Its VERY beginner friendly with everything laid out nice and neat. I would even say that you could jump into the ASM course without ever using a computer before, thats how comprehensive they get with their explanations. However the one thing that separates ASM from all the rest in my opinion his how they give you actionable steps at the end of every video. Just like homework. The intention is so that you actually follow along with them as they go to ensure you get results. Of course this can be hard if you dont actually find a product after the product research module. But like I said it was designed to be dripped throughout 8 weeks, not 8 days. So what would I suggest? Well I can starting as a beginner, I feel like I definitely got my degree in FBA after all these courses. They all have a different and unique spin to them, and all of them offer their own little gold nuggets that the other doesn't. However this is just like goldilocks, One of them is too little, one of them is too much, and the other is just right. So, with all things considered, I would have to give the crown to Kevin Davids Ninja MasterClass. Its not the cheapest per minute, but its the most practical, It doesn't have the most content, but it cuts the fluff, and id say he gives the greatest perspective on incorporating amazon into your everyday lifestyle. He talks about how gets great product ideas outside of amazon by just being more observant or talking to people. And its that outside the box thinking that I think sets a good seller apart from a great one. His course actually dives deeper into the facebook and marketing side than ASM does, he could have almost sold that as a separate course. He also has the best tricks in terms of keywords and ranking. As for me, I started watching these courses last month, and today I have 3 products on the way. I can't confirm yet if the products are any good, but one of them gets in tomorrow, so we shall find out soon and update you guys once sales start coming in.

#/r/entrepreneur #reddit

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sleepy-peachie · 7 years ago

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Paris Day 3: Pro-tip if you wanna see the catacombs book that like 3 months in advance and show up at like 9 am

This morning we woke up around 9 again and walked outside and found a flea market which was pretty cool since we couldn’t go to the one on Saturday. There was nothing very cool there though but we didn’t linger long at any tables since the sales folks get pretty pushy if show any interest and it was mostly yardsale garbage. We walked a little bit looking for a cafe for breakfast and the first place we looked at had coffee for 10 euro so we peaced out of there real fast and went across the street to le lithographie which actually looked pretty fancy but was a little more reasonable. I ended up getting a mint tea and croissant and ariel got a fruit salad and coffee. This croissant was the best bread i’ve ever eaten i’ll never be able to eat the crescent rolls mom buys again and my tea came with a little kettle full of hot water and it was adorable. We got a seat outside again but under the awning so we could get the sun off of us since it was already getting pretty hot. It was so nice to sip tea outside so early in the morning and just watch everyone around us. Our waiter was really nice and spoke english and laughed when we still said “oui” instead of yes. There was also an old woman getting her hair and makeup done at the table right next to us?? like she had a makeup artist/hairstylist putting her hair in a french twist with hairspray and everything and was taking up tables with the cosmetics all spread out. It was odd but at the same time i strive to be that woman.

We walked on to find the catacombs and walked past the montparnarsse cemetery and it was gorgeous. We walked inside for a little bit just to see the little tombstone/house things. All the graves were beautiful but we didn’t stay long since our feet were still sore from Saturday’s excursion so we walked on to the catacombs. We could see two different spots where crowds were fro the catacombs so we walked to where there were signs and asked the man where we could buy tickets and at first he asked for our tickets an we said no where do we buy them and he said “the internet is closed” and we could buy them there so we walked away confused and listened for english from the people in line and asked a random family and tehy said you have to wait in line then buy tickets so were like oh okay cool and walk on to find the end of the line. and then we turn a corner and are still looking for the end of the line and then we turn another corner still no end. until finally we end up at the original crowd we saw. This line wrapped around a whole garden area and building. We decided since it was somethign we were both really looking forward too we would wait we figured it would be 2 hours. The line grew pretty fast behind us so at least we weren’t those people. Then it had been an hour and we hadn’t turned the corner yet but we’d already invested one hour. Then it had been 2 hours and we said okay were too invested to quit but maybe we should and by this point we were out of the shade and in the 90 degree sun and my feet were on fire. Then it had been 2.5 hours and we started talking to the family in front of us and they said maybe another hour so we decided to keep waiting and we heard people behind us say it could take 6 hours some days and some parisians said the line was always this long and that it’s always just tourists. We started talking to the people around us though and the guy in front of us was from Colorado and was getting ready to start college. Him and his parents had rented a car and were driving around europe after a wedding for ~two weeks and were leaving for home the next day. We also started talking to the group in front of them who were a bunch of study abroad students that had just happened to meet in a hostile that weekend. ONe girl was from the same town in Utah that Ariel’s family lives and it was crazy. This town is so small and they didn’t recognize anybody either of them knew but it was still pretty cool. There were two other students from Japan also just traveling. I kept on talking to the colorado guy and he was pretty cool. His parents took it as an excuse to leave him holding the spot in line so they could get out of the sun. we ended up being in line a total of 4 hours and the last 2 hours we spent talking to strangers and it was really cool and honestly made it worth it. We all cheered when we finally got to the front of teh line and took selfies and ended up talking while walking through the catacombs too. We got to the catacombs half hour after they opened at 10:30 and didn’t get in until after 2:30. lesson learned there

The catacombs themselves were really cool and it felt soooooo nice to get out of the sun. Some of the bones were growing moss from the lights and some were sparkly and its so strange to think all those skulls had faces and all those faces had lives and stories and names. There were an estimated 2 million parisians in there moved from teh old cemeteries. I ended up buying a patch from the giftshop and its probs my favorite souvenir so far. I wish my feet hadn’t hurt so bad or we’d have walked a little slower through the tunnels but honestly wanted to cry they hurt so bad. Also added that guy on fb and he talked to me for a couple days afterward over messenger. He’s definitely enjoyable to talk to but it’s a bit strange since he’s only just graduated high school and lives in colorado so i dont know what the intentions were there but whatevs.

After the tunnels we started looking for bubble tea. We wanted to try it the day before but we only saw it after we had just eaten so we didn’t want to buy any, but boy were we thirsty after standing in the sun for 4 hours again in 90 degree weather. We walked awhile and ariel had a picture of a map pulled up so we were trying to find it, i couldn’t find it on the maps app so we were just hoping for the best. We finally found it though and it was like a mirage. The room was air conditioned to boot so we just died a little inside it was so nice. AND TEH TEA was so good, i got peach tea and the bobas were actually good. I expected them to taste like chalk but it was actually like sweet jello and i loved them. I liked it so much i ended up ordering a second one to drink while we walked, this time i got “jade” which had jasmine tea and kiwi, it wasn’t as good but i still enjoyed it. Also this little Bubble T Paris had the best wifi we’ve experienced in all of France.

At this point it was about 4 o’clock so we started looking for somewhere to eat supper, we figured creperies would be our only option and we knew there were some near our hotel so we walked that way and stopped at a small place on the street. The guy serving us was really nice and he understood Ariel’s gluten allergy so we stayed, but the crepes were not great. Kind of gross actually, i got chicken and cheese and it was a no go. We went back to our hotel after that and used the wifi and bathroom while we waited until ~6 to go to our trainstation.

The trainstation was crazy as usual but we found the rolled ice cream stand miraculously and with ease. We have very good luck with directions and finding things this whole trip and rolled ice cream is as good as it looks. I got apricot mint with pralines on top and 10/10 delicieux. We found place to sit and were eating it when i felt eyes on me so i looked to my left and on the bench next to use 2 older men were clearly talking about me or us and i even made eyecontact and the older man who was closer to me maintained eye contact and continued nodding while listening to what the other man was presumably saying about me. I was very uncomfortable and im imaging Taken scenarios. Then they say excuse me, excusez moi and I answer and the younger guy asks where were from because they were discussing my accent and wondered if we were Englisha nd were surprised to hear we were American. Then they asked why we were here and i was like “in Paris??’ like what kind of question is that. I dont remember what i sadi but they asked if we liked it and i said yes and ended the conversation. Then we left and waited on our train.

They waited until the last minute to put the gate on the board but as soon as they did we fast walked for it since we were in car 16. It was a forever walk but we got there we successfully found our train and could just relax for three hours. This train ride felt much longer than when we were going to paris. We could see the releif on sebastien’s face when we got out the train car though. They gave us the morning off from the lab since they had meetings and we were exhausted, which was a huge blessing ‘cause i have never been so groggy in my life. When we got back to the crous the wifi was out and it was around 11:30 so i went ahead and colled home to them i made it back safe, conveniently dad answered so i was able to wish him a happy fathers day and i told him all about paris for awhile. i usually talk to mom so it was strange to talk to dad on the phone that long but it was nice. When Pascal and sebastien saw us the next day after lunch they were like “We couldn’t sleep all weekend! Were in charge of you!” I was so out of it though, i could hardly focus and i jsut felt so strange. I had slept 11 hours and taken a benadryl to help get to sleep that night so that could be why or it actually was a result of walking 26 miles in one weekend and standing in the sun for 4 hours in addition to that. My feet hurt until Wednesday.

#thoughts #studyabroad #france #paris #catacombs

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