#its the fact that it will switch back and forth in the same paragraph

[weregonnabecoolbeans]

Ghosts of the Shadowmarket refering to him as Brother Zachariah 90% of the time but switching back to Jem when he is thinking of Will and Tessa might be my last straw.

[mulling-over-milgram]

My current Remi theories

Agghhh I’m very late….but here we go ^^;

ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆ ₊°༺❤︎༻°₊ ｡｡ ₊°༺❤︎༻°₊ ｡｡ ₊°༺❤︎༻°₊ ｡༻ੈ✩‧₊˚₊

TIMELINE SPECULATION

Okay so first of all again starting with a timeline. Now Remi’s recordings seem like they could be over the course of multiple years? So since as far as I’m aware we don’t know what year tsumigram takes place I’m going to be referring to the first paragraph of recording one as year 0001 and then if I believe the year changes 0002 so on and so forth so keep in mind I’m not actually referring to the real life years 0001 , 0002 , 0003 ect ect.

“Summer is ending. Let's stop already, how long are we going to chew on this cold food?” End of august

“Spring is ending. We part and come back together, this must be a form of true love for you; though as for me, I'm not so sure.” End of may

“Winter is ending. Closeness never matters; they switch their opinions in an instant, and always, always, always, always choose someone else instead.” End of February

“Autumn is ending This was a game of play-pretending for everyone but me; right, I wanted a place I and others could belong to, but as I've seen through lies, I'm burning down the theatre..” November/December

“Summer is ending. You simply disappeared without a word; I didn't care, did I care? Too many people, I get lost.” End of August again

Now there are two interpretations since the memories from this recording if my research is correct :

-1) the memories take place over the corse of five years which explains why we start in august the 8th month of the year and then go to the 5th , 2nd , 11/12th and finally back to 8th assuming the recordings are chronological then this is the only answer that really makes sense

-2) the alternative would be that the paragraphs are in reverse order so then you’d go 2>5>8>11/12>8

but I personally lean more towards them being in chronological order because there feels like a progression. In paragraph one Remi asks the other why they are still in this relationship? The relationship to borrow Remi’s metaphor had gone cold then in the next paragraph they seem to be on better terms but still not great then 3 we are back to the relationship being strained and getting worse…it won’t make alot of sense for us to start with “you simply disappeared” and end with “how long are we going to chew on this cold food? = how long are we going to prolong this dying relationship?

The only thing really giving me pause is that its such a long time. 5 years! Remi is 18 thats just under 1/3 of her life time…it makes me feel like I’ve made some mistake in my research….

moving onto the second memory

“Year by year, I look back and feel all the same, let me out of this, let me out of this loop! I wonder what kind of person I used to be before. Is it your fault? Changing me so much. Cherry blossom petals, a wave of crystal water covering my ankles, tender girly laughs from all sides.” CHERRY BLOSSOM’S SAVE THE TIME LINE YET AGAIN :D because cherry blossoms were blooming that places this paragraph around late March and early April.

“Ah, my first ever wish made on New Year night was to meet a true friend. I imagined my own friends, and this is how I became a writer, slowly but surely. I met real friends to grow up with, slowly but surely, but all of them were condescending, and I got trapped in a small box of expectations. “ because its new years eve December 31st

“Warm snowflakes falling from the night sky, the stars are never seen in the city; I watch myself looking up from the sidelines, holding onto the lantern as my last hope.” Now personally I interpret the warm snow flakes line as describing the stars rather than actual snowflakes as warm snowflakes is a contradicting description and the fact the next line literally talks about the stars with that in mind the lantern is the only clue as to wear to place the memory now I’m not fully sure on this but the main Japanese lantern related thing I could find was Toro Nagashi now I’m a little iffy on this since from my research Toro nagashi is mostly about the dead and guiding dead souls but I did see a few places mention wishes “Toro Nagashi is a summer tradition in which people make wishes and float paper lanterns down a river” again I’m really not sure about this but its the best connection I could find so far…this slots (assuming the toro nahashi connection is correct) this memory at the 13th - 16th of August or July.

“Running through a chilly meadow, sun rising and I hold your hand, catching lavender clouds as I stay at home.” Chilly = cold // cold = autumn? September December???

“You're squeezing something heavy with your hands, water covering your eyes, so you can't see what's there; sun’s warmth is on your back, a chill feeling spreading over the body.” Warmth = summer???

I’m quite shaky on alot of the conclusions but my overall interpretation of the time line is.

The trial starts possibly some time in December due to 003’s birthday being soon after T1 starts???

ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆ ₊°༺❤︎༻°₊ ｡｡ ₊°༺❤︎༻°₊ ｡｡ ₊°༺❤︎༻°₊ ｡༻ੈ✩‧₊˚₊

FULL TIMELINE THEORY

0001 / august / ?? Summer is ending. Let's stop already, how long are we going to chew on this cold food?”

0002 / march / April / ??

“Year by year, I look back and feel all the same, let me out of this, let me out of this loop! I wonder what kind of person I used to be before. Is it your fault? Changing me so much. Cherry blossom petals, a wave of crystal water covering my ankles, tender girly laughs from all sides.”

0002 / may / ?? “Spring is ending. We part and come back together, this must be a form of true love for you; though as for me, I'm not so sure.”

0003 / February / ??

“Winter is ending. Closeness never matters; they switch their opinions in an instant, and always, always, always, always choose someone else instead.”

0003 / December / 31st

“Ah, my first ever wish made on New Year night was to meet a true friend. I imagined my own friends, and this is how I became a writer, slowly but surely. I met real friends to grow up with, slowly but surely, but all of them were condescending, and I got trapped in a small box of expectations. “

0004 / August / ??

“Warm snowflakes falling from the night sky, the stars are never seen in the city; I watch myself looking up from the sidelines, holding onto the lantern as my last hope.”

0004 / September / ??

“Running through a chilly meadow, sun rising and I hold your hand, catching lavender clouds as I stay at home.”

0004 / december / ??

“Autumn is ending This was a game of play-pretending for everyone but me; right, I wanted a place I and others could belong to, but as I've seen through lies, I'm burning down the theatre..”

0005 / august / ??

“Summer is ending. You simply disappeared without a word; I didn't care, did I care? Too many people, I get lost.”

0005 / August / ??

“You're squeezing something heavy with your hands, water covering your eyes, so you can't see what's there; sun’s warmth is on your back, a chill feeling spreading over the body”

0005 / December / ??

milgram

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THOUGHTS ON HER CRIME

Now moving on to what I think remi’s crime is…..I have not idea! That is the reason why this is so late because I am completely lost on what it could be :)

clearly remi was in some sort of unfulfilling relationship were she felt she was giving more then taking , felt neglected and like it was dying for a long while before it actually ended. So her victim is probably that person?

as for the description

“You're squeezing something heavy with your hands, water covering your eyes, so you can't see what's there; sun’s warmth is on your back, a chill feeling spreading over the body.

It's not the time to listen to yourself. It's never the time, remember?

Your knees and hands seem to hurt, but you keep on pushing, can't give up — now or never”

ummm it kinda gives me the vibes of drowning? Like keep pushing = keep pushing the head under water??? Water coving her eyes could be because she’s also under water…? But I feel like “something heavy with your hands, water covering your eyes,” thats gotta be tears right? Like yes it could be a large body of water was involved if so probably the one implied here “a wave of crystal water covering my ankles,”

Her murder location does look like a lake surrounded but trees to me? But that could just be the distortion. That what go me started down the whole drowning train of thought.

(Gorgeous diagram I know)

but just overall I don’t have a strong theory (this seems to be a reoccurring theme….)

ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆ ₊°༺❤︎༻°₊ ｡｡ ₊°༺❤︎༻°₊ ｡｡ ₊°༺❤︎༻°₊ ｡༻ੈ✩‧₊˚₊

RECORDING/UNDER COVER IMAGES

Once again moving on. Time to tackle these two images , her memory recordings and her undercover.

Starting with the memory recording this is alot more abstract then hotaru’s so I feel like the symbolism in it can be read into more. Remi is in space and I feel like space is probably a metaphor for her relationship. Space is cold and a vacuum you can’t speak or be heard in space (without special equipment and the whole no speaking thing is more that if you open your mouth you die and boil/freeze alive but lets put the logistics to the side for a minute) she is surrounded by other planets (possibly reproductive of the other people like the other people implied by lines like “ tender girly laughs from all sides.” / “I wanted a place I and others could belong to” / always choose someone else instead“ ect) and how planets and other celestial objects go in set orbit going round and around on the same path could be seen as similar to how remi describes the relationship “So tiring. I need to break the cycle.” There’s falling star’s in the bg which could refence wishing stars or possibly the concept of star crossed lovers? Or wishing

I attempted to map the planets from the art to our solar system which again not sure if its ment to be our solar system or just a general space setting but if it is our solar system then perhaps we could read into the fact that in this context remi would be on the outer side of the solar system far away from the sun and in the colder part of the system.

unrelated observations that the shape on the side kinda looks like a wave or maybe thats just my conformation bias talking…?

And this art could also possibly reference a magical girl transformation ??? I feel like I’m reaching to much with those last two points tho…

As for the undecover frame we have already seen remi liken her relationship to food “Let's stop already, how long are we going to chew on this cold food?” So relationship metaphor???

there seems to be strawberries in the picture which according to google in japan has symbolism of love and is a gift on valentines day in japan….? it is also apparently a symbol of the goddess Venus which links it back in with space but idk

ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆ ₊°༺❤︎༻°₊ ｡｡ ₊°༺❤︎༻°₊ ｡｡ ₊°༺❤︎༻°₊ ｡༻ੈ✩‧₊˚₊

MY CURRENT THOUGHTS ON VOTING

I really don’t feel like I know enough to vote her anything….? I went with victim in the end because I didn’t really feel like I had any strong concussion on her situation but I feel like I gotta be missing something cuz it was 50% predator when I originally wrote this section.

[manonamora-if-reviews]

A World Without You by jaunefleur

An Anti-Romance Jam entry. > Note: this entry was submitted as a demo. containing a prologue and 3 Chapters. The review will only reflect what is there. Still the demo is quite long. I maybe needed a few hours to read it all (on playthrough).

Entry - More by Jaune - @jaunefleurwrites CW: terminal illness, impending death, anxiety, death, teen pregnancy

Dealing with a World without You

You are going to die. You know it. Nothing will change from the facts that your illness is incurable and that you only have few moments left before your inevitable demise. You resigned yourself to your fate. But when Damin, a bubbly bubblegum-haired [person] crosses your path, everything you thought about life flips upside down. This is the premise of the project. At the current state of the demo, you've met that person, but sparks haven't quite flown just yet between you two.

From the start, it is clear AWWY is quite anchored in the Tumblr/CoG school of IF, with its custom UI, expected extensive length, and flowery style. However, instead of focusing on branching and choices, AWWY takes a more linear approach with a twist. This makes sense with the story told, considering the MC's fate is sealed - unless a magical cure comes at the last minute, they will die no matter what. So, rather than giving player a plethora choices, the demo subvert expectations by switching POVs within a chapter, limiting choices to one or two for flavour within a chapter. You may start the chapter with your MC, before the story is cut to your mother's POV or your brother's or Damin's. Parsed through those, you are treated to some flashbacks, exploring the different character's pasts, and how those events shaped their present. This creates an interesting dynamic, making the story feel at times more like a movie than and interactive game. The switches between POV or time period are also clearly indicated at the start of each part. Having to control the MC through the eyes of another character was a bit surreal, but in a good way!

Maybe a downside to this approach is the evident lack of player agency throughout the story. Even with the MC referred as 'you' in their POV, you feel more like a spectator than an active participants. While again, this make sense considering the context - you can't affect the end - it does take a bit away from the interactivity of the game, making the project look more kinetic than interactive in nature. This is not an inherent critique of this aspect of the project, as kinetic stories can pull a bigger punch than a choke-full-of-choice game. And I can see this story being one of those. It is just that, at time, some opportunities to elevate a scene through interactivity were missed, which could have made important beats more impactful (like the scene where the MC claims to hate everyone). On the other hand, it did work quite well for the character creation, avoiding any potential choice-fatigue for the player by spreading out those choices throughout the story - only bringing up relevant elements when necessary.

I struggled as well with the pace of the story, as it went back and forth between past and present, and between POVs, making something the sequence of events a bit... confusing. A perhaps good example would be when Damin meets the MC at the butterfly grove*, for the first time it seems, but doesn't seem to recognise the MC (who turns out to be their neighbour) in the next chapter, or whether Damin arrived before the MC into town or the reverse. This resulted in some high-pressure events, like the fight between the MC and Damin, feeling a bit coming out of nowhere (unless it was supposed to be a flashforward?). In the same vein, it seemed like the prose focused a bit too much on (over)telling the player what was happening, rather than let the scene speak for itself. This lead often to repetitions in one same passage/paragraph*. I thought this was a bit of a shame, since there are pretty poetic descriptions of actions/setting, but were drowned in explanations. A bit more TLC on the prose will help the flow of the story. For example, hinting at a character's feelings through action only (instead of the action + description of the feeling) - like breathing a bit too fast or twitching when anxious, or freezing when someone is angry talking to you - or use punctuation and formatting to establish at a tone (instead of describing the tone then the uttered words) - like three dots to show uncertainty or disdain, or a en-dash to choke on words when emotional. *Sidenote: this scene felt pretty magical with the butterflies dancing! *Repetition can be useful, but should be used in moderation for strongest impact.

Underneath it all, there is a good base for an interesting story. The characters, though clearly flawed (good!), feel believable and quite human (especially the moody teenagers). Their pain will still pull your heartstrings. It is set up to be a tearjerker, for sure! Most introduced characters have clear motivations, goals, and challenges to overcome - mainly carrying on after MC passes. It is quite clear where the story is going, and it could make for quite the heartbreaking and bittersweet conclusion. Out of all characters introduced so far, I particularly enjoyed Damin's sassy grandmother. She seems like a treasure, and a needed comedic relief in this heavy story. I hope we see more of (and learn more about) her in future chapters.

Another aspect I quite enjoyed was the addition of assets in the game, particularly the images. The demo gave a neat way of choosing Damin's gender (and inherent design), as well as customising our room (by choosing one of "our" drawing). Seeing our sketchbook getting filled as we move from chapter to chapter, used as an alternative to a written journal, was a nice touch. I hope more are planned for the future, their designs were lovely. Note: I picked the hippopotamus :P

The premise of the game made me thing of The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, which I think it took inspiration from?

There was supposed to be audio according to the credits, but I didn't hear any music during my playthrough. I had some small issues with the game itself, with the OpenDyslexic font not working, or the colour palette not being quite accessible (not contrasted enough) for easy reading. I also picked up on a few wrong pronouns for Damin and wrong names for myself.

[solardick]

While the stories play toss ball. And all the “i didn’t say that” you said that” back and forth is nauseating. Makes fallowing the news. Irksome.

Fear WWW. Get it? World war 3?

But let’s fallow the screws of the news. It’s all new to me.

I think the first cloud portent i witnessed was 21 years ago. It was the hammer and sickle and a syringe.

But, i dint think any of it matters. After all these years think im going to die of lungcancer or sometthing. Anyway. It doesnt stop hurting. And now theybhave me working in a plant where i breathe in toxic dust all day. But maybe ill have one good year. Out of my life time. The christmas present this year of coughing up blood as given me permanent lung damage. If i ever find myself wanting to live. I’ll probably just have the equal stress of worrying and stress of death and sickness anyways. Because its all ive ever known. Always have been a constant external pressure bearing down in me since childhood. But, we’ll see. Im not going to spend the last fee years of my life fighting it internally. As the foreign body switches places from the external to the internal. Its all very depressing.

Facts are. Life is too expensive to live on ones own. One will never be able to afford anything. Even with not smoking. And moving to a new appartment. With the price tag. Ill be making even less than i am now. 800 to 900 a month plus expenses. Yeah. Its not going to happen. No money for retirement. Truth is there is no security. In life. Never has been. I dont know whya that feels like. Even after 40 years of being alive. Just one fucker after the other fucken with me since birth. You dhould have seen them all line up for raping me the other year. They all wanted to see me go down.

I side with the russians. How can i not. I identify with the war effort. Even with the well rehearsed speach putin gave about fighting agaisnt the outside influences of america’s brain washing degenerating media perverting humanity. And the outside wourld threatening my existance with the equilavant of nuclear war. Pluto running the gambit of fear and dominance secretly behind the lines agaisnt me. All my life. To know stability is a fantasy. Love is just anoyher weapon even more costly than hate.

My favourite part of the speech is when is starts speaking about nazi’s and then finishes off the paragraph with. It’s all abunch of lies. But in a way that offsets the impression that what is meant isn’t him openly lying about it. Which was the point. And then even a couple years later. The allied media forces call them nazies. Back and forth. Wonder if there will be open war. What new kinds of technology will be released in the world.

So far its just a bunch of manned RC planes. Increasing the productionnof robotic tenchnologies that will continue on long after the war ends.

At any rate all is good. Play field medic. Gave of easter received of easter. To combine the war effort to personal experience hasn’t changed much beyond leaving it all behind. But, time will see.

Putin cruising his hood.

Rip X

Putin went on at length about the Americans. After stating them as allies. And stresses the neglect of international laws. A large section of the Russian’s declaration of war was against the Americans. Taunting them to attack to witness the consequences. A nation threatening nuclear war, stating they can defend themselves while speaking of technologies. The national threats have a world stepping on eggshells. Wanting to join. Afraid of the consequences if they do.

While at the same time being an antidote for the ills faced by the multiples of one. Removes the power behind the gallows. And solidifies position. The emperor in the tarot. Is up against the upsurge to its decline. Adding in the archetypes. Already set by position. Switches the side of unbalanced influences. Against the rule.

Gotta bring them together.

And truth is a lot of people fantasize about living in a war zone. The zombie apocalypse. Peace and love! Go watch the walking dead.

Fly! My pretties

Be the avengers! You’re all survivors! Ha Ha ha Ha ha.

An empire of lies. Or it is to my understanding. This being. Glimpse of the rhetoric. Or what is perceived to be. And in here lies the problem.

For it has nothing to do with patriotism.

[itswildwinters]

Ask for writers

Thank you @theisolatedlily and @soldouthaz for tagging me, I really appreciate it! This lovely tag was created by @soldouthaz, which I think is brilliant to get to know other writers!! I love it, so thank you Sarah!

This is quite long, but I still hope it’s entertaining!

1. describe how you first started writing and when you first posted: I’ve always wanted to write. I know that I only began publishing this year (January 2020) but years back, I always would open up a blank document and just... write. Lack of confidence and language barriers (I wanted to write in English, but it isn’t my first language and I only became fluent three years ago) have made it so that I would never finish a story. I think we all had our wattpad moment but even on there I would never really publish because the platform just wasn’t right. But then I discovered ao3, where I’d read fics and also improve my English. Then I found out about fests, and I decided to participate in one last year (2019 BLFF) and my first fic then came out! 

And ever since, I’ve been able to write and finish what I start. It’s as if the lock that had been put to block my creativity had been destroyed; posting my first completed fic has acted as a turning point. I was extremely nervous when I first posted, still am, but now I have this need to write and I love sharing what I write and ever since I became a writer, my life’s been a lot better!

2. which of your characters do you typically resonate most closely with? do you base any characters off of yourself?: I switch between Louis’ POV, or Harry’s POV depending on the story; I tend to sprinkle a bit of myself in the characters I write, but then again they’re also completely different from me! I’ve never based a character completely on myself, which I find quite boring (haha); sometime unconsciously, I’d write a character based on someone I knew. I think some examples on how my characters can look a bit like me, is Hamlet in a sea of mist which has gotten his clear-headedness from me; or in my Murder Mystery fic, the way I describe Louis’ fear is heavily based on how I feel whenever I’m faced with something that makes me uncomfortable.

3. where do you often find inspiration?: art (paintings, music), books, quotes, poems and movies!

4. has quarantine helped or hindered your writing process?: having so much free time on my hands has definitely helped; I would seek refuge within my stories, to spice up quarantine!

5. do you listen to music/noise while you write or do you prefer silence? I love love love playing classical music (Chopin, Saint-Saens, Debussy, Yiruma, Einaudi, Faulkner, Schumann, Tchaikovsky, Mozart to name a few) while writing. I can’t write when it’s anything else. But I can also write when there’s nothing; hearing the rhythmic clicking sound of the keyboard as I press over its keys can be relaxing to me.

6. what is your biggest writing pet peeve in your writing or in general?: hm in my writing I guess I tend to write very long sentences, and also I still do grammar mistakes. I hope to work on those points. I also find the way I space my fics very annoying (which is why I’ve begun making outlines!).

7. describe your ideal writing setup: in a couch or a bed with several pillows piled up behind my back, classical music in my ears and a steaming cup of tea next to me.

8. favorite time of day to write?: I love writing when it’s very early, usually after I’ve woken up and freshened up. I don’t like writing when it’s too late because I’m not a night owl; rather an early bird. I especially love when I write and it’s still dark outside, then slowly dawn breaks in and the sky becomes tainted in warm hues of orange, yellow and sometimes even purple and pink.

9. favorite genre to write + one you’d like to try writing in the future?: I love writing fantasy, horror, suspense, action, thrillers. Especially angst and hurt/comfort, as well as slow burn. I’d like in the future to explore sci-fi and magical realism!

10. do you struggle with writer’s block? how do you typically overcome it? I haven’t suffered from writer block so far, which I’m glad!!

11. what is the easiest part of your writing process and the most difficult? writing is the easiest, but outlining (as in, coming up with plot ideas) is quite difficult for me. Also dialogues can be a bit of a problem to me.

12. how do you come up with original characters? (if applicable): I just make them up in my mind, and create them when they’re necessary to the story, giving them personality traits that will help the story develop.

13. what is your favorite and least favorite word? it’s hard to choose cause I have several but favourite: petrichor and least favourite: big

14. what is one thing about your writing that you’re really proud of and one thing you hope to continue working at?: I am proud of the way I describe, which allows me to really settle the story in its verse. I love describing, giving importance to the ordinary. Also feelings; I love describing them and exploring how I can translate them into words, so that the reader can feel them. But I have to work on my dialogues methinks.

15. what work of yours has your favorite ‘verse/world building? how did you come up with it?: those who from the Pit of Hell, roam to seek their prey on earth. I’ve always wanted to begin writing thrillers/Murder mystery fics and with that one I think I managed to? I had read an article on forensic medicine back in the 19th century and it sparked this fic’s plot!

16. what font and size do you write in? single spaced or double?: Arial, 11pt, single spaced

17. what is a typo(s) you find yourself making consistently?: I don’t know if this can be considered as a typo but I tend to repeat, within a paragraph, A LOT my character’s name instead of using pronouns. This is because I’m afraid of confusion when another character arrives in the scene.

18. (if applicable) do you separate fic writing from fandom?: I don’t know if I understood the question properly, but yes? When I use Louis or Harry in my fics, they’re completely different from real-Louis or real-Harry; they’re my characters, they only have the same names, but their personality reflects in nothing real-life Harry and Louis. 

I think to answer this better: I do separate fic writing from fandom, but I still think that fanfics are important to a fandom; I haven’t heard of a fandom without fanfics! Fanfics spice up fandoms, I reckon, they’re important to bring people together.

19. what emotion is your favorite to write? which is the most difficult?: Angst is my favourite thing to write, as well as fear. And I struggle with writing humour, I’m not a funny person to be honest

20. what is one thing you hope readers always take away from your works?: I always hope they like my writing and the plot, also the way I portray my characters. I want my readers to feel the writing, and the story in general. I just want my readers to truly enjoy what they read from me <3

21. what is the best and worst writing advice you’ve ever received?: I was told to always write very specifically and to fit my writing into a mould — don’t write ‘he’s’ but ‘he is’, or write shorter sentences, or stop describing so much. But in the end, there isn’t one way of writing — write the way you want.

22. which one of your works would you most want to see turned into a film/television show?: only one? ahhh this is hard! But I’d love to see those who from the Pit of Hell, roam to seek their prey on earth be turned into a movie. There are also a couple of wips that I could see on-screen but I’ll stick to that!

23. do you write scenes chronologically or out of order?: chronologically. Haven’t explored anachronies (analepsis/prolepsis) at all, but I might soon!

24. how do you handle criticism?: really well!! As long as they’re constructive and not mean, I love hearing what people think. Criticism is the best way for me, a person whose first person is not English, to improve!

25. what is the advice you would give to someone who is looking to start writing?: DO IT!! Honestly, don’t tell yourself, ‘I’m not good enough’. Just do it. Open a blank document and write your heart away, even if it’s not a story; just begin it. Explore your writing style, then maybe try to mould it into a plot. Writing is not limited to a certain category of people; it’s not just for those who can write. Writing is for everyone, and like most things, one must begin before improving (practice makes perfect!!) <3

26. what kind of feedback on your work always makes your day?: anything!!! Just the fact someone clicked on my story, read it, and took time to leave a comment — just that is enough to make my heart bursts with joy. I am so so grateful to every single person who’s ever read something from me.

27. which fic ‘verse of your own would you most like to exist in? which fic’s characters would you most like to befriend?: The verse I’m talking about is still a wip, but the siren/mermaid one that I’m currently building! I’d love to live in it.

28. what do you always enjoy getting asks about/wish people would ask about more?: Anything, really, my inbox is open to anyone and for everything! I love discussing books, movies and poetry as well as quotes, and maybe I wish people would come forth to ask me more about my fics or my wips, if they have any inquiries! Or I’d love to write drabbles! 

29. what has writing added to your life? how has it changed you?: It has made my life so, so much better. Writing has stitched up a gaping hole in my chest. It’s permitted me to improve in English, has made me more confident and has allowed my creativity to flow. I just... I love writing so much. It has also allowed me to meet some incredible people on tumblr, which I’m very grateful for!!

30. why do you write?: for many reasons; to spice up my life, to help me develop my creativity, and because I love it. I’ve always wanted to be a writer.

boost yourself + tags!

1a. share the last sentence you wrote:

The words echo around his head and collide with his temples like truncheon blows.

2a. describe the wip you’re most excited about:

I’m excited for all of them, but I’ll go with my third BLFF fic. It’s very angsty, post-war, ABO, exes to lovers. It tackles heavy topics, it’s such an emotional fic. I’m so so excited for her (she comes out in January).

3a. share the piece of dialogue from one of your works you’re most proud of: 

This is hard. But I’ll go with one from in a sea of mist cause the way Louis answers Harry... I love it:

“I feel like you want to kill me,” he pants out, using his right arm to hold himself up while his other hand comes up to rub at his burning cheek and nose, where Louis had hit him with the sole of his shoe.

“Before our date? No, never,” Louis blinks sweetly, chuckling and climbing up as Harry smiles to himself.

4a. share the best first and last lines from your work(s): I will do only those that are already published:

best first lines are from the hope that warbles in my fluttering breast: There, against the window, was stuck millions of snowflakes, their see-through quality no more as they huddled together, pushed against hard surfaces by the merciless wind. 

best last lines are from in a sea of mist: It takes a while for Harry to go to sleep, elation pumping through his veins so fast that the previous tiredness he felt has flown out of the window. But when he finally focuses on Louis’ heavened out breathing, and when he breathes in Louis’ natural perfume that always acts as an ambrosia over him, he manages to close his eyes, and for the first time in a while, he dreams of a future that’s devoid of any darkness.

5a. link the last fic you read: currently reading sweet like honey by @falsegoodnight and Spoonful of Sugar by @zanniscaramouche and they’re absolutely amazing!

6a. link the last work you published: in a sea of mist

7a. link to your ao3 (if applicable): tomlinvelvet

8a. someone that inspires you: Louis <3 his music and just his personality overall leaves so much scope for the imagination. There are also so many writers (both non-fanfic writers and fanfic writers) that inspire me daily.

9a. a comfort fic/work that you’ve been grateful for this year: even the best laid plans and just a flicker in the dark both by @falsegoodnight as well as eyes off you by @soldouthaz ... these fics are just so amazing, everything about them is top tier

10a. other writers that you’d like to tag! @falsegoodnight @scrunchyharry @hadestyles @mercurial-madhouse @youreyesonlarry @raspberryoatss @jacaranda-bloom @soldouthaz @behisoneandonly @vintageumbroshirt @so-why-let-your-voice-be-tamed @lougendarey @quelquesetoiles <3 no pressure ofc!

[desdemonafictional]

2020 Fanfic Year End Summary

Hey ho let’s go

Nev does these every year and I think they’re interesting, so for the first time I’m gonna give it a go too. I feel like this has been the longest fucking year--the Zine feels like it was two years ago and last January feels like it was ten years ago.

I’m gonna answer some questions and do a little reflection on the year 

This year I technically finished Icarus with 2k words of a 36k story, and after that I went on to produce 197k words not even COUNTING the stuff from GPAU which I do not know how to divide up for 2020. 

That’s 23 fics in one year, 8 of which were cowriting projects. This year has been, objectively, insane. By comparison, in 2019 I produced 17 fics and at the time I thought THAT was doing pretty impressive work. Now it’s not my best year by sheer number of titles--2018 was an oil boom while I was into JTHM and I actually put out 25 fics that year, some of which were short oneshots and some of which were two- or three-shots. But in terms of words? 2020 knocked them all out of the park. Which is absolutely something I owe to my amazing friends who let me ride around in their brains like the parasite I am.

In 2018 I started cowriting with Chokopopo, in 2019 I started cowriting with Neveralarch, and in 2020 I just did a fucking ton more of that with no looking back. It’s so incredibly motivating to have someone to show your progress to! And to have someone to hand the project over to when you’re stuck. If I hadn’t had Nev to bounce off of, most of this fic wouldn’t have been thought up at all, let alone finished. And don’t even get me started on GPAU! Choko and Zephyr and me have done such amazing things with “Welcome! Everything is fine”, and I can’t wait to be able to wrap that up and leave it for posterity.

I switched job positions around July of this year, and it’s changed the way I produce fic. Not sure if it’s good yet or not. I was never actually under a stay at home order this year because I work for a state agency, so to a degree I’ve missed out on the ways that quarantine affected other writers. I think I was fortunate?

Best Title 

Ahhh this is tough, I put a lot of effort into my titles this year--I promised myself in 2019 I was going to stop using song lyrics for fic titles because they make songs loop in my brain and it’s self inflicted torment, which is a promise I... mostly kept. “Dress Your Idol in Gold and Ashes” is the one I put most effort into probably, because I kept toying around with it trying to find something that was evocative of the right pagan imagery, and also the idea that got me started on the fic was a passage in a text book about the daily dressing of an idol statue in ancient Egypt.

“Broke My Last Glass Jaw” gets special mention because I named it after an essay that I wrote in undergrad for my African American Lit course, in which I broke down themes of the spoiled american dream via the lens of 90′s rap.

Worst Title

“Take one for the Team” is definitely my laziest title. It’s just super self indulgent kink fic, no character arc or anything, so I couldn’t find a good image or phrase to bring in for the title. Also I remember I really wanted to post it quickly, since it was a response to some art I was looking at, and I wanted the artist to see. I’m sure I could have done better with the title.

I did end up titling “Fear and Delight” after a song but I forgive myself because I literally only wrote the fic because the song existed first.

Best Summary

Some of these summaries I wrote and a some I did not, but of the ones that I wrote I think.... “ I'm All Full Up on Yesterdays, Don't Sing Me No More Blues” is the best one. It launches you directly into the action, while preserving the surprise reveal at the end of chapter 1. I actually wrote chapter one with this summary in mind, so it was baked in there from the start.

Jazz turned in his seat, cube at his lips, just in time to spot the white pursuit vehicle steaming and panting in the doorway. “Jazz of Staniz,” the enforcer shouted, “surrender the matrix and come quietly!”

Jazz knocked back his drink. “Well!” he said to the open-mouthed bartender, “time to split!”

Worst Summary

I mean, summaries are hard for everyone, right? That’s the thing we all universally struggle with, I think? I usually end up liking mine, and this year I was less afraid to just let a section of the story speak for itself. Anyway the worst one is “ Broke My Last Glass Jaw” by virtue of the fact that I had to come back months later and add another line because I wasn’t satisfied with how it was reaching audiences.

After the war, Impactor is at loose ends.

(They were friends once, weren't they? After all this time, Impactor wonders if Megatron hasn't managed to forget.)

I really wanted that one line to say it all, but honestly it requires a lot of trust in me as the author and most of the people who pass by the fic in the archive aren’t gonna know me from adam. The second line clarifies what kind of story it’s going to be in terms of tone and theme.

Best First Line

I’m pretty ambivalent about most of my first lines. Since Nev already pointed out the first line in “ Apotheosis”, I have to admit, it is pretty good. It gets off to a real jaunty start.

“Excuse me,” Starscream said, striding down the steps of the senate chambers with his cape flaring out behind him, “get your cowcatcher out of his face, you tin-plated amateur despot, he’s with me.”

I also like the audacity of a run on sentence that is the opening to “ Desecrate You”

Ratchet clicks the video because it was auto-recommended, and because First Aid is always dropping hopeful hints that he wants her to watch his show when he’s supposed to be grading papers, and because something about the title (“This is Definitely a Hoax! None of this is Real! Short Cut Footage Episode”) makes her wonder why the hell someone who runs a Ghost Hunting youtube channel would bill their own hard work as a hoax right out of the bag.

Worst First Line

Definitely the least interesting is from “Tantric Sex, and Other Mysteries of the Divine”. I guess it’s another fic where I was really eager to get to the meat of the fic, and so I just went back after I was done with the fic and wrote a paragraph of bare bones setting context so we could move on already.

It’s game night at Swerve’s, and Nightbeat is out in the thick of the crew for once, getting the lay of the land.

I have the same problem in a few fics, which probably arises from the fact that when I read a fic, I often skim the first paragraph or so to see if I really want to commit to the read. So I sometimes write like I’m expecting the audience to do that too. I probably need to work on that. Man, I even did it in Sexy Staycation.

Best Last Line

I like endings! I usually have a good gut instinct for where stories should end, and how to pace that, and what image I want to close the fic on. Often times I’ll be writing a story and feeling really lukewarm about it, and then the ending will come to me, and I’ll feel totally won over by it. That happened with my Suicide Squad fic years ago. So this is for the most part me picking the best of the things I already like. “Broke My Last Glass Jaw” has a good pithy one; I like how it isolates this moment as a moment of choice, and how it’s also ambiguous whether he will change because of this or whether he’s doomed to go back to his predetermined pattern.

And despite the unguarded door and the empty inviting streets beyond, where no one wants or expects anything of him but his feterless bitter trog onward into the next waiting prison cell, Impactor lays down, and Impactor does.

Special mention goes to “ The Sky Dark in its Eclipse : Orange Light Remix”, because the ending section is one of the big changes I brought to the remix, and I’m really happy with how it alters the shape of the narrative and also how it changes the focus of Rung’s arc. Most of the actual words in this fic were written by Choko in 2018, so this is like a collab in slow motion--I changed loadstone moments mostly, some of the framing, all of the backstory, and updated the setting for Cybertron. But the ending is all me.

On the morning of Intro to Psych finals, while Hot Rod hums and taps and scrolls back and forth through his test on the front row of the testing hall, Rung will sit behind his desk and brush the dust from the rotors of his fateful archetype, and start the long process of putting the pieces together once and for all.

Worst Last Line

Again, I like my endings, so this is really the worst of the best. The original ending line I wrote for “ All Our Urgent Restless Sighing” was:

Deadlock’s finials twitched. “...I am a reasonable amount of interested,” he said, “in this topic.”

And in the beta process, Nev came back in and added the line about Ratchet and cuddling, which was a big hit with the readers it seems like. So clearly I benefitted from some help there haha!

Looking back, did you write more or less than you thought you would this year?

you know what, I definitely wrote more than I thought I would. I didn’t see “Don’t Sing Me No More Blues” coming at all, and that was once a month for most of the year. I was hoping that I would be able to write a few things outside of Transformers, because I always worry that my long spans of hyperfixation are driving away my longtime readers... and I did manage to get one hxh thing written that was good, and one hxh thing started that is mediocre so far. So I guess I’ll call that good enough.

 What’s your favorite story this year? Not the most popular, just your favorite.

hmm I’m really proud of the Pharma chapter me and Choko put together for GPAU--the body horror, the tragedy, the lotus eater machine plot. But even though that felt like a whole ass story of its own, I guess it’s only a chapter at the end of the day. So my favorite story would be “Apotheosis”. It’s just SO much, and we had SO many things we wanted to do, and somehow we managed to do them ALL. Corpses! Children! God! It’s got everything! The only thing it doesn’t have is the idea that literally started us plotting out the fic. And that was “ritual public sex with Starscream and Rung”. Oh well. Maybe someday. Probably not.

Okay, Now your most popular story

Ha! I tend to view the success of a fic more based on its bookmark ratio than its hit count, but by the numbers, unsurprisingly, “ Don't Sing Me No More Blues” is my most popular fic of the year at a whopping 3k hits and 113 bookmarks. Well, it is jazz/prowl which means it has a built in audience of considerable size, and it also updated seven times this year which increases its net range, so no surprise. But I think people also just really vibed with it--it’s very much a product of the times we are living in, and I don’t think it could have been written in any year except for 2020. 

“Dress Your Idol” has 58 bookmarks, by the way. I’m extremely proud of that fic for having such a high bookmark to view ratio. I guess the people who did read it liked it a lot.

Story most underappreciated in its Time.

Okay nothing is as under-exposed as the stuff I produced in JTHM, so I’m definitely not complaining. It’s hard to think about leaving TF because TF is such an enthusiastic community. That said, “ Neggnog Cozy” did not get eyeballs. I’m not surprised, it’s short and it’s gen, and Thundercracker doesn’t have the built in audience of say Starscream. Still, I thought it was really funny and cute and I would have liked it if more people would have given it a chance.

Story that could have been better

Oh, “ Melusine Among the Tombs” for sure. I went into that with only the first chapter planned and immediately after realized that I had no idea where the fic was going and also I had lost my grip on canon characterization after a couple years going rusty in other fandoms. I plan to finish it eventually, but I need a better plan than “wing it???” first.

Sexiest Story

I wrote SO much weird kink this year. Like. Shout out to past me for writing some pretty spicy JTHM fic, but this year I really leaned into how weird you can plausibly get with an all robot all alien cast. 

“ The Sensual Machine” is the most unabashedly horny because it was written specifically for a weird kink themed zine that I was an editor on. “Desecrate You” is also quite horny but I almost exclusively wrote the frame device for that, so I don’t get sexy credit lmao. “Fear and Delight” was a big hit with all the hxh readers and I think it has an element of sexiness more so than pure horniness--its has a kind of glamour and style to it.

Most fun story

“Starscream's Sexy Staycation” is by far the most unabashedly comic and sexy and silly and low stakes. It has one of my favorite kinks, a beautiful stupid moment of Ratchet suffering, and Rung calling safeword which is something new and fresh and I want a lot more of it in the world.

Did any stories shift your perceptions of the characters?

“ Lacunae” was given to me as a yule gift prompt with the express intention of explaining who the fuck Carmilla’s mother was, and what the deal is with Carmilla as well. This would have forced me to reevaluate my understanding of the novel except for the TEENSY insignificant fact that I realized I had never finished reading Carmilla, somehow, and ended up reading it for the first time in December in preparation for yule. So uh. Hmm.

I think “ Don't Sing Me No More Blues” made me think about Prowl in a different way. I wasn’t really expecting him to be this hard-edged idealist when I started out on the fic. He was originally going to be much more like the autistic coded Prowl of “The Cop and the Cryptid,” one of my favorite fics ever. Also, I started writing the fic about a month before the riots and police protest kicked off in America this year, and it really caused me to zero in on how Prowl being part of a system like that affects his relationship to the world and other characters.

Hardest Story to Write

“ Elegy for Actaeon of the Hounds” took me a total of six months to write from start to finish. I don’t know why. Well, It’s partly because there are three involved sex scenes and sex scenes are actually very difficult and time consuming for me to write. It’s also partly because I kept wanting it to have a character arc, and I kept getting stumped on how to handle that. Beauty and the Beast plot lift? Have Rodimus be a rabbit? Eventually I settled on the version that kept the cast tightly cinched down around Megatron and Rung, and I’m happy with the result.

Easiest Story to Write

When we were writing “Apotheosis” it felt like we were on FIRE, we were so productive and we started three other projects between us while it was in motion. But “Take One For the Team” was absolutely the most fun to write, it basically wrote itself

Most Overdue Story

“Champagne in the Final Days of Rome” was based off a conversation I had with Nev pretty early on in our friendship--Discord says it was June 2019, so that’s uhhh ten months between discussion to actual writing? And it still didn’t turn out to be the fic we were originally outlining, haha.

Oh god you know what was really the most overdue? The last chapter of “Icarus; or, Look Who's Digging His Own Grave”. It was literally a year, January to January, between chapter 12 and 13. For a while I thought maybe I was just going to have to leave it there, without resolving the time loop problem at all.

Did you take writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?

Writing for the zine was a big risk. I remember Nev had to reassure me at least twice that what I was writing wasn’t too weird or off-topic or embarrassing to be part of the project. Now, of course, I’m very happy with it. But my god I was nervous to post something that was like.... straight up actually bimboification applied to one of the most popular toy characters of all time.

What I learned from this is that people love horny shit, are READY to take a chance on a weird fic when its in the right wrapping paper, and when in doubt you CAN sell people on a kink they’re not really into by making the kink actually a reflection of a character arc. Are you writing this down?

Do you have any goals for writing in the new year?

Finish GPAU!!!!!!

I’d like to FINALLY sit down and do some hard work on my original fiction. I’ve been kind of waiting for the tf hyperfixation to wane so I could move forward, and I think that process is in motion now. But who knows. If Rung shows up in the new comics I might get nerfed again.

Other than that I’d like to write at least one fanfic that isn’t TF, and I would like to get this really crunchy Rung/Pharma fic off the ground so I can make some people CRY

[sebthesnipe]

The Dreamer by Whatwashernameagin an Analysis? Part 2

All portions:

Chapter 1: Part 1 // Part 2 // Part 3 // Part 4

Chapter 2: Part 1 // Part 2 // Part 3 // Part 4

The Dreamer

by @whatwashernameagain

Reminder: Spoilers under cut!

So… Where were we? Aw yes… The desperation for acceptance of a POV which is both unique and far out of the reach of the human populous as a whole. In other in other words, Logan being very lonely and wanting to share his ideas with the world and hoping against hope he will not always be alone in them… heartbreaking…

The next portion of Whatwashernameagain’s work introduces The Dreamer. Going into the work with foreknowledge of the ship and the characters within, we as the readers (or I, rather) know that Roman is The Dreamer and thus know that Logan is referring to him. So, to be completely honest I am not sure if I am imagining this next bit or if it is truly the case (hence why I have chosen to focus more on Reader-Response theory rather than some of the more closed reading disciplines). However, in Logan’s first description of The Dreamer there are a few …. Odd choices in wordings. Eva writes:

“The one thing consistently standing between him and the fulfillment of his plans had turned out to be an outrageously insignificant detail…. This thorn in his shoe showed up at the most inopportune moments, predictably puffing up his chest in his ridiculous, unpractical costume, ready to boldly reassure the public before thoughtlessly storming in to hinder his plans with his irritating presence” (Whatwashernameagain).

There are a number of things in this small paragraph that gives way to yet even more of Logan’s personality, still molding the mental image that the author is painting while still leaving the blanks to be filled in our heads. ‘Consistently’ being italicized, for example, provides me with the mental image of a small tick of annoyance like Logan is mentally hissing the word while his index finger and thumb are pressed together drawing it out with annoyance (kinda like Moriarty during the pool scene in BBC’s Sherlock). Anyways, it immediately pulls the reader back into his frustration but this time… something is different.

Lets recap a moment, So far we know that Logan is a cold calculating man with only his work to keep him company; we know that he wishes for someone to share his view points but otherwise hasn’t really shown any emotional fluctuations (he obviously has emotions, there just seem muted almost) and yet his train of thought here, indicated by the italics is fairly harsh. His choice of words far less calculated than we’ve seen thus far. Here we see him use something akin to an oxymoron calling The Dream ‘an outrageously insignificant detail’. Why would he use so many words when a simple ‘insignificant’ would work? Unless… He is compensating. Many authors will push a thought or description to further lengths than necessary to give the owner of said thoughts a unique perspective. One of the best I’ve ever seen/read would be Robert Jordan in his The Wheel of Time series. Jordan switches from POV to POV flawlessly without pausing to explain it to the reader but as talented as he is at making each so unique the reader never needs the explanation, following along without a hiccup. As much as I would love to say that Eva is there, she isnt... at least not yet… but then again, I haven’t found anyone on par with Robert Jordan’s use of POV and character development as of yet. My point is that she uses the type of flow shifting POV very fluidly without having to spell it out for the reader; and the use of the additional descriptors are a testament to that. (I hope I am making sense I am so very tired #dead).

Logan goes on to talk about the ‘puffing up’ and how ‘unpractical’ The Dreamer’s costume is and his ‘irritating presence’, he talks about grand speeches and attempting to appeal to Logan’s ‘humanity’. The tone of the paragraphs is that of annoyed humor as if it were amusing to think Logan had any humanity at all. That being said… another literary study comes to mind when reading this portion of the work. I will do my best to keep from going too much in depth but basically back in the early EARLY 1900s Sigmund Freud invented psychoanalysis with his publication of The interpretation of Dreams (Rivkin, Julie). Why was it such a big deal? Well, before the publication psychology assumed that what goes on in the mind was limited to the conscious (Rivkin, Julie). What does that have to do with Logan? Well, the revolution was a huge part of history and the strides that were made in psychology didn’t only affect the medical world but the literary one as well. Psychoanalysis wasn’t only limited to a person but the work they created as well; it began to be used as a way of studying literature, analyzing the author through their work. But… I’m veering a bit too far to the left. The reason this is important is because some of Frued’s research was based on the ‘defenses’ that the ego mobilizes against unacceptable libidianal or unconscious material (Rivkin, Julie). I.e. The mind can invert a feeling into its opposite, so that a yearning for contact can become a desire to do violence (Rivkin, Julie). That, of course, is an extreme but we see the same psychological mechanism here for Logan. The Dreamer is a man who represents the very thing Logan is determined to pull down; it would be extremely illogical to have any sort of attraction to the man. There for, to put it simply, he’s in denial. (Yes… I am aware I went into a bunch of Fruedian jargon just to say Logan is in denial and everyone already knew that… He would have approved though so I’m not editing it out. You will just have to deal with it.)

This says a lot about Roman’s character as well. Those who are familiar with the character knows how outrageous the creative man can be, but Eva writes (from Logan’s POV) ‘the idiot was actually attempting to change his mind’ (Whatwashernameagain). This give another shift in the emotional tone of the work, feeding off Logan’s annoyance and dark undertones and changing it into something more hopeful; giving us our first glimpse at the painting of The Dreamer; so far nothing but a symbol of hope (and a ‘thorn in Logan’s shoe’).

Going to reverse for a moment as well. Bringing up the metaphor of ‘a thorn in his shoe’; there is a lot to be said about this line as well. It really puts The Dreamer in perspective from The Utilitarian’s point of view…. At least his conscious one. It shows that Logan wants the hero to be beneath him, that he consciously tries to convince himself that he is. That The Dream is at his feet causing more annoyance than actually damage. I’m a sucker for a good metaphor and this one certainly isn’t a bad one.

Within the next paragraph Logan goes on ranting about The Dreamer being a nuisance, continuing on his rant that really only cements his attraction to the hero. But, once again, the image of The Dreamer is becoming more detailed. Logan describes him as ‘clinging desperately to his ancient, deontological ethics with its rules that mustn’t be broken at any cost’ (Whatwashernameagain). It sounds as if despite the way Logan whines about The Dreamer he sees him as misguided. If he truly believed that the ethics The Dreamer represents were the man’s own then we would no doubt see the frustration we did when Logan spoke about the state of the world. Instead, we see the deflection of the blame from The Dreamer to ‘ancient, deontological ethics. It is obvious that Logan doesn’t blame him but rather sees that he is attempting to simply ‘do his duty’. This provides a sense of honor for The Dreamer which is quite fitting for Roman really.

Logan only cements his denial and affection for the hero but commenting on his concern for the man’s well-being despite his inconvenient presence: “Many a times he’d foiled his operation with simple stupidity, like running into an already unsafe sweat-shop he was about to blow up in order to rescue the industrialist he’d tied up in the vicinity” (Whatwashernameagain). It is possible that he has this concern for everyone that is not directly involved in the crimes he is attempting to shine some light on but it is doubt full.

To add to the growing case against Logan’s inaffection for the man, he actually tries to defend himself! He claims that he hadn’t planned on killing the industrialist, just make a statement and ‘singe his eyebrows’ (Whatwashernameagain). I love this line; it does a lot for the story is so few words. So, first it paints Logan, the cold calculating villain, as a sulking teenager who has been scolded. I love the imagery. It also brings a bit more humor into the work than the subtle outlines of Logan’s denial had been providing. It is makes it even more clear that Logan does not dislike Roman enough to actually want to hurt him; in fact, quite the opposite. It paints Roman as someone he would like to protect, emphasizing the ‘misguided hero’ view of The Dreamer once more.

Now to the good bits: “He knew very well how much the media loved [The Dreamer] with his uniform accentuating his broad shoulders and his lush, caramel hair, his blinding smile and perfect, tan skin” (Whatwashernameagain); Really Logan? Lush, caramel hair? Who talks like that? Only someone with a crush…. And boy do you have it bad! You think he’s smexy with a capital ‘M’! I don’t even have to explain this one… we all know… We all understand.

After that oh so very subtle remark, Eva follows up with a ‘He was a nuisance, is what [Logan] was trying to say’ (Whatwashernameagain)…. Mhmmm suuurrrrree D-E-N-I-A-L. Freud would love you! Just saying!

I think from now on I’m just going to break it down paragraph by paragraph. This is getting quite long and I don’t want anyone having to jump back and forth. So:

“The Utilitarianist prided himself in his polite, calm manners, yet this – man – brought out a temper he was not fond of. How dare this simpleton speak to him about right and wrong? Despite knowing the math advised against it, he found himself drawn into moral arguments repeatedly … and had almost gotten caught by those strong hands several times due to his frustration. He found himself simply unable to refrain from correcting the man when his claims were just so utterly stupid.” (Whatwashernameagain)

We’re going to jump back into Freud’s work now… be prepared. So, obviously Logan blames Roman for Logan’s reactions, his loss of self-control. This is known as projection. In projection, we assign to others feelings or thoughts in ourselves that are unacceptable (Rivkin, Julie). What possible feelings could Logan be having that are unacceptable? Maybe it has something to do with being caught by those ‘strong hands’. -eyebrow wiggle- This is also a good example of intellectualization. In intellectualization, we avoid potentially overwhelming feelings by focusing out attention on things that allow us to exercise that part of our mind devoted to reasoning rather than emotion (Rivkin, Julie): Hence, the arguments.

Before I move on, I want to point out the author’s talent here. Writing characters with a lot of depth can be difficult especially with characters that weren’t originally yours. I say that because I do these analysis’ constantly; I do them for work, I do them for school… I obviously do them for fun on occasion… but, while talking psychoanalysis can be daunting and perhaps a bit boring; the fact that I can apply these theories to a CHARACTER not the author is astounding. That is when you know someone has a great talent for their character formations. Sure, I can slap a few fancy words to describe a character but to actually be able to analyze a fictional character’s psyche… that is when you know that they are fully formed.  

I’m afraid I will need to end Part 2 here. Once again work is approaching. I will be back with a Part 3 When I get the chance, however. Hopefully, I can get through more than 5-6 paragraphs of the work then… Some dialog is coming up so it should be a bit quicker. I am quite enjoying this analysis and I wanted to thank everyone who had read/commented/liked/reblogged Part 1; and for all of the asks I have received. I quite enjoy hearing from you and love answering questions so feel free to drop a line! Special thanks to Whatwashernameagain, as always, for writing so brilliantly and just being a genuinely wonderful human being. Until next time…

 (Please forgive any poor grammar or misspelling. I tend to run short on time so I don’t really proofread)

Rivkin, Julie. Literary Theory: a Practical Introduction. Wiley-Blackwell, 2017.

Whatwashernameagain. “The Dreamer - Chapter 1.” Hello Guys Gals And Non Binary Friends, 8 Sept. 2019, https://whatwashernameagain.tumblr.com/post/187581477262/the-dreamer-chapter-1.

[smkkbert]

Do you remember (4/13)

Eight years after Oliver and Felicity became teenage parents, they have everything they could have ever hoped for and more. They have a good life in a nice house. Their marriage is happy, and a second baby is on its way. The calm they have settled in is interrupted abruptly when a stalker starts terrorizing Felicity.

Previous installments in this series:  - The best mistake - In my daughter’s eyes - To make you feel my love

Rating: Teen

Previous chapters: 1 2 3 or read everything on Ao3

Author’s note: This fic is different than any other I have written. There are a lot of ups and downs. It’s not as even in pacing as you might be used to from my stories. Chapters will hopefully be posted every Sunday. Enjoy the ride!

Sliding back and forth on her chair, Felicity tried to find the right position to sit comfortably. Unfortunately, her baby bump made it almost impossible to stand, sit or lie comfortably. The weight of the bump seemed to pull at her front, causing a slightly dragging pain. The strain it meant for her back left a dull ache there.

Felicity loved being pregnant. She loved being so close to her baby and having this connection that only she could have to the baby. She enjoyed feeling his movements inside of her, whether he kicked or just had a hiccup. As long as the baby was inside of her, he was well-protected. Nothing could happen to him, and there was just something soothing about the thought. That Oliver spoilt her even more than he already did when she wasn’t pregnant was just the icing on the cake.

As much as Felicity loved being pregnant, she couldn’t wait for her baby to be born. Aside from the fact that she couldn’t wait to meet this tiny human-being after all these months, her body could also use the relief. Her back would probably be grateful, and her bladder could need a pause from being used as a trampoline too.

She really couldn’t remember that being pregnant had been this exhausting when she had been pregnant with Mae. The emotional struggle she had gone through at that time had probably covered the physical struggle though.

With a sigh, Felicity leaned back in her chair. It wasn’t exactly comfortable as the baby’s weight was now pressing down on her spine, but at least it was a different feeling now. She let the feeling sink in for a moment, stroking her hand over her bump, before she took the file from the desk and resumed reading.

She had just managed to skim the first three lines of the paragraph when her cellphone rang. Without even looking up from the text, she reached out her hand and grabbed the phone. Rereading the last lines once more, she took the call.

“Hello?”

There was a beat of silence that Felicity barely noticed. Only when a long noise sounded, she stopped reading and frowned.

“Hello?”

The noise continued. Felicity’s frown deepened as she tried to figure out what it was. She shot a brief look at the caller ID, thinking that maybe her mother was calling and the connection from Europe was just bad. The words that showed on the display of her phone made her suck in a deep breath though. Unknown Number.

Five days had passed since Saturday. Everything had been quiet since. She hadn’t received any more texts or any gifts. She had even been able to shake the feeling of being watched. She had thought that whatever had happened last week was over. Technically, those two little words on her display didn’t prove anything either, but Felicity just had a bad feeling about this given what had happened last weekend.

“Who is there?”

Felicity tightened her hand on the phone, listening closely. She tried to hear anything that could help her figuring out who this caller was or where he called from. There were no sounds of a train passing by or a special chime that could only be hurt in one district of the city like it happened so often in the movies. There was nothing but the noise that she soon noticed was heavy breathing.

Unable to take it any longer, Felicity hung up. She took in a deep breath, trying to shake the bad feeling. Without any hesitation, she turned to her phone and switched on the intercom to talk to her assistant.

“Gerry, please send Adrian in.”

Her assistant shot her a look through the large glass walls before he gestured for Adrian, who was standing at the other side of the office anteroom. With large steps he walked towards Felicity door. He knocked briefly before he stepped in.

“Everything alright?”

“I just got a phone call,” Felicity said and waved with her cellphone. “It was an unknown number. Nobody talked. There was just breathing.”

She threw her cellphone towards him without warning, but Adrian caught it one-handedly without much effort.

“I will try tracking this caller, but I cannot promise anything. If it’s the same person that sent you the texts, the flowers and the gift, he won’t get caught easily.”

“I know,” Felicity said, nodding her head. “Just try to find out anything please.”

Adrian nodded his head. “Of course.”

He looked at her for a moment longer before he nodded once more. He tightened his hold on Felicity’s phone, straightened his shoulders and turned around. He reached the door with two steps.

“Adrian?”

Adrian turned around to Felicity with perked up eyebrows. “Yes?”

“Do you think I am overreacting?” she asked honestly, her voice sounding small. “I mean nothing threatening happened, right? There were just texts, flowers, a gift and now one strange call. It’s nothing. I am just freaking out. That’s it. Right?”

For a long moment, Adrian just looked at her. He was scrutinizing her face thoroughly, thinking about how he should answer. Releasing a long breath, he sat down at the chair on the other side of her desk then. He looked at her insistently.

“One of the worst problems with stalking is that it is not taken seriously soon enough,” Adrian told her. “It’s not just about the victims but also family and friends as well as police. Everyone says it’s just letters or just phone calls or just whatever. Of course they are right. It is just that at the start, but that doesn’t mean it will stay like that. Stalkers are unpredictable, and every stalker is different. Wait and see it good tactic at the start, but if it doesn’t stop, you have to go on to the offensive. You feel unsafe, so we have something to do about this.”

Felicity took in a deep breath, feeling a little bit of relief. At least that meant she wasn’t completely crazy.

“What do you suggest we do now?” Felicity asked. “I mean our attempts at finding out who this is didn’t lead us anywhere so far.”

“Experts advise to four steps in handling stalkers,” Adrian explained. “The first step is setting boundaries. It’s easy when you know the stalker, but it will work this way too. You reject gifts. You reject calls. You do not answer to texts.”

Felicity nodded her head. “Understood.”

“The second step is telling people close to you about this, but you have already done this. The third step is to give one last warning and finally call in the police. Since you have personal security through me, that’s a lot of warning and actually close to calling in police already.”

Felicity narrowed her eyes slightly. “You know a lot about stalking.”

“I did a lot of reading about it after Saturday,” Adrian replied with a half-hearted chuckle. “Like you said, it’s a job with a lot of responsibilities, and I am taking my job seriously.”

“Good to know.”

“Really, Felicity,” he said with soft voice, “if there is anything I can do to make you feel better, just tell me.”

“Thank you, Adrian. I really appreciate that.”

Adrian smiled at her briefly before he got up and walked to the door. He had just reached it yet again when her phone rang once more. Felicity tensed immediately, and she felt her heart jumping up into her throat.

“It’s your mom,” Adrian said. “Sorry for looking.”

Felicity smiled quickly. “It’s fine.”

She reached out her hand and Adrian walked back to her desk to hand her the phone. He gestured towards the door with a questioning look like he wanted to ask if he should leave her alone. Felicity just shook her head and gestured for him to sit back down. The phone calls with her mother usually weren’t that private that nobody could be around.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Felicity!” The excitement in her mother’s voice was unmistakable. “Finally, I get a hold on you.”

“Have you tried to call me already?”

“Yes, a few times, but you were always busy,” Donna replied. “How are you? How are my grandchildren?”

“I am fine,” Felicity replied, “though I am impatiently waiting for your youngest grandchild to lay in my arms rather than on my bladder.”

Adrian tried to hide his amusement, but he couldn’t bite back a snort. When Felicity looked at him, he quickly cleared his throat and pretended to be really busy looking at his shoes. He hid his lips behind his hand though.

“You will make it through this. It’s just a few more weeks,” Donna told her gently. “I guess Mae is excited too?”

“Very excited, yes.” Felicity smiled. “She’s going to be the best big sister a baby could wish for. I already know that.”

“Of course she is. She had strong role models for good siblings.”

“That’s true.”

Felicity smiled to herself. Oliver was a great big brother. His relationship with Thea had had its ups and downs, especially since the gap in age. They had always been close, no matter what though.

Felicity had two wonderful big sisters too. Sara and Laurel had really made her feel like she was one of them and like they had always been sisters. She hadn’t been the stepsister. She had been their sister without any reservations. It was why she had confided in them when she had needed someone to lean on during the pregnancy with Mae.

“How’s Europe?” Felicity asked eventually.

“It’s a dream come true,” Donna replied. “I cannot believe it’s only going to be a few more weeks. This tour around the world has been an unbelievable experience.”

“I can imagine,” Felicity replied. “What other destinations are on your schedule for the rest of your tour?”

“We are currently on our way to Munich. After that, we still have Amsterdam, Paris, Madrid and some Portuguese island to go. I forgot the name.”

“Sounds like you still have a lot on your plate.”

“We do, but it’s great,” Donna replied. “I am sure you have a lot on your plate too. With the baby on the way and your last days at Queen Consolidated, you are probably busy. I hope my handsome son-in-law and Moira are taking good care of you.”

“Very good care, yes. I am quite busy though.” Felicity nodded her head even though her mother couldn’t see it. “There is always a bunch of work waiting for me at my desk. It doesn’t slow down just because I am having a baby. Buying all the baby equipment and making sure everything is ready for the baby’s birth – it’s a lot of work too, but it’s a good kind of work. I couldn’t be happier.”

“That’s great to hear.”

Felicity could hear the smile in her mother’s voice and tried not to feel too guilty about lying to her. The only reason she wasn’t telling her the truth which was that she hadn’t really bought much baby equipment yet because she had been too busy at QC and with this newest problem. She knew she needed to make time for that soon though if she didn’t want her baby to come home to an unfurnished nursery and sleep on the floor with nothing but a blanket wrapped around his tiny body.

“Mom, I gotta hang up now,” Felicity said quickly. “Have a nice time and just remember to send Mae as many postcards as you can, okay?”

“Oh, we surely do.” Donna chuckled. “Bye, Felicity.”

“Bye, Mom.”

Felicity hung up with a sigh and held the phone out for Adrian to take it. He did, looking at her with a hesitating expression on his face.

“You really don’t want to tell your mother about this?” he asked. “Because if I had a child, I would want to know about this.”

Felicity shook her head. “No. My mother would just end her world cruise early and come back to Starling to drive me crazy. I love my mom, but she and I do not necessary deal with things the same way.”

Adrian nodded. He didn’t look necessarily convinced, but he didn’t argue with her either. Still, Felicity felt the need to say something more.

“My mom has always dreamed of seeing the world, and this is the first time she got further then Illinois,” Felicity explained. “I don’t want to ruin this for her. This stalker is probably just going to get bored and leave anyway.

Again, Adrian nodded. He still didn’t seem convinced, but he just shot her a smile and walked towards the door.

She could hear her phone ringing from the anteroom once more. Adrian shot a look at the display. This time, he didn’t come back to hand her the phone though. He just tightened his grip and frowned seriously. Felicity didn’t need him to say anything to understand what this meant.

Whatever was happening here, it still wasn’t over.

* * *

A long breath escaped Oliver’s breath when he realized that he had woken up. Frowning, he turned his head to shoot a look at his alarm. According to the LED display board, it wasn’t even three in the morning, so it was definitely to early to even lie awake in bed until his alarm would go off like he did so often.

With another sigh, Oliver turned onto his side. He reached his arms out for Felicity, so he could wrap his arms around her and snuggle up to her back. He always slept best when there was little to no distance between him and her. When his hands found her body, touching her shoulders, he frowned though. All tiredness was like washed away immediately.

“Felicity?”

A little whimper escaped Felicity, and she only trembled more. Sliding to her as close as possible, Oliver wrapped his arms around her and pulled her against his chest. He could feel her rapid heartbeat and her erratic breathing. The back of her top was damp from sweat, and the skin of her arms was cold. Despite the tight hold she had on him, she was still restless, moving and trembling in his arms.

“It’s okay,” Oliver whispered soothingly. “It’s okay, Felicity. I am here. You are not alone. I am here. You are alright. Everything’s alright.”

Despite his soft whispers, Felicity didn’t calm down. Her heart was beating as quickly as it had before already. Her breathing was only getting more erratic. She was hyperventilating to a point that Oliver felt she would pass out if she was awake.

“Felicity, you gotta calm down,” Oliver whispered and stroked his hand over her baby bump. “You are home. It’s alright.”

There was still no reaction though. He didn’t seem to get through to her at all. She seemed to be too much caught in her nightmare.

Oliver felt his heart breaking for Felicity. He knew from own experience how much nightmares could make you suffer and how physically and emotionally exhausted they could leave you when you woke up.

After the Gambit had gone down and his father had shot himself in front of his eyes, telling him to go back to his family and take care of his girls, Oliver had been haunted by nightmares for years. He had relived the moment his father had shot himself and moments on the island, thinking he would die and never see Felicity or Mae, again and again every night. Sometimes, he had dreamed that he died and saw Felicity and Mae breaking apart at the news. Other times, he had dreamed about coming back from the island and being long forgotten. Neither Felicity nor Mae had remembered him. Looking back, he couldn’t say which nightmare had been worse for him to process.

Only therapy had helped him to make the nightmares occur less often though there were still nights that he woke up without knowing where he was. Usually, it was having Felicity right at his side, holding him in her arms and reminding him that he was home that helped him push past the aftermath quickly.

When Felicity’s whimpers grew louder and her trembles turned into spasms, Oliver pressed his lips to the soft spot right under her ear.

“Felicity, you have to wake up now,” he whispered a little more loudly than he had spoken before. “Wake up please.”

With a gasp for breath, Felicity opened her eyes. Even in the darkness of their bedroom, he could see how she was looking around quickly, trying to find out where she was. Still disorientated, Felicity moved her hand to her bump like she wanted to check if the baby was okay. Her fingers found Oliver’s hand that was already resting over her top, and that was the moment she finally relaxed a little.

“Oliver.”

He kissed the soft spot under her ear once more, tightening his hold on Felicity. His hand stroked up and down her baby bump slowly, offering some comfort.

“Yes, it’s me,” he whispered unnecessarily as Felicity was already relaxing against him. “I am here. You’re safe.”

“What happened?” Felicity asked, still being out of breath. “What- I don’t- I’m so cold.”

Oliver pulled the blanket up her body until it reached right under her chin. He put his hand to her arm and rubbed up and down, trying to spend some more warmth.

“Do you want some tea?” he asked her. “Or maybe some soup or just a heating pad. I could-“

“No.” Felicity shook her head firmly. “No.”

There was a long moment of silence. Oliver didn’t say a word. He just continued trying to warm her and give her a little comfort in this situation. He knew that all he could really do was being there for her and wait for her to tell her what she needed.

Felicity took a few deep breaths. Oliver could feel her breathing and her heartbeat slowing down. The tensions in her muscles disappeared completely, and her body melted back against his to a point that it felt like they were just one. Felicity moved her hand to his on her upper arm, lacing her fingers through his. She pulled his hand to her lips, kissed the palm of her hand and squeezed his fingers.

Even without hearing her say a single word about her nightmare, Oliver knew what it had been about. These last days had been a terrible up and down. After there had been a few days that nothing happened and those unwanted gifts had stopped, Felicity had started to receive phone calls. Whoever called her, never said a word. He just breathed heavily. The number of phone calls had increased quickly.

Oliver couldn’t say that he wasn’t unsettled by these developments. He tried not to show it too much because he didn’t want to frighten Felicity anymore than she already was frightened. He tried to be strong for her and for Mae, so they could lean on them. It was his job to do so. Internally, he was going crazy though.

As recently as this morning, Adrian had told Oliver that the way those phone calls he escalated quickly wasn’t a good sign. Within less than a week, whoever was doing this had gone from sending texts to seeking more direct contact through phone calls. If he really meant it seriously, he would soon try to meet her.

“It was just a nightmare.”

“Yeah,” Oliver whispered back. He nuzzled the nape of Felicity’s neck and kissed her shoulder. “I am here. You are safe. It’s-“

“I know,” Felicity interrupted him. “Let’s just go back to sleep. I am fine and-“

“No, you are not fine,” Oliver whispered, “and you don’t have to pretend to be fine for me.”

Oliver considered Felicity to be much stronger than he was. She was better at showing what she really felt instead of hiding it like he did. She confronted her pain because she had the strength to do so. If she tried to cover her emotions, she did so because she thought he needed it. He knew that.

“It’s okay to be scared. I am scared too.”

At that, Felicity turned around in his arms. She put her hands to his cheeks and let her fingers explore his mimics. Unlike Oliver, she couldn’t see well in the dark.

“Are you?”

“Of course I am,” Oliver whispered, tightening his hold on her. “I am scared that someone is trying to hurt you and, with that, our entire family. If there is something that scares me more than anything, it is that someone could hurt Mae, you or our baby.”

“Maybe it’s just nothing.”

Felicity’s voice was small, and Oliver could hear how close to crying she was. In the darkness, he couldn’t see any tears, but he was sure they were already welling in her eyes.

“Do you believe that?”

There was a beat of silence after Oliver’s question before a heart-wrenching throb fell from Felicity’s lips. She moved impossibly close to him, resting her head under his chin and letting him hold her. Oliver did so gladly, protecting her with his strong arms wrapped around her and rubbing his hands over her back that he knew was aching from the weight of her bump lately.

They had tried to tell themselves that it was nothing at the start, but there was no denying that something was going wrong here now. Even if there had just been texts, the moment Felicity had started to feel unsafe, they should have taken further measures. It wasn’t okay for Felicity to be scared. Even if this was just a joke, and Oliver got the feeling that it wasn’t, it just really wasn’t okay.

“I will have to get a new phone number,” Felicity said with a sob eventually. “I get these phone calls every ten minutes now.”

“I know,” Oliver whispered, kissing Felicity’s forehead. “I will take care of a new number for you first thing tomorrow.”

Felicity nodded, sucking in a deep breath. Her fingers were clinging to his shirt, holding onto him as tightly as she could. Her nose was resting against the side of his neck, and she breathed him in regularly.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you for being here.”

Oliver smiled softly to himself. As messed up as all of this was, the little moments he shared with his family gave him the strength to stand through this and help Felicity to stand through this too. At least he hoped that he could help Felicity to stand through this a little.

“There is no place it’s rather be,” Oliver whispered. “Absolutely none.”

“Not even Aruba?”

Oliver chuckled. After they had spent their honeymoon in Aruba, they really wanted to go to Aruba now. If Felicity wasn’t pregnant, he would talk to his mother and ask for the private jet to take them to Aruba, far away from here, as soon as possible. He made a mental note to take Felicity to Aruba as soon as their yet-to-be-born family member would allow them to.

“Not Aruba. Not Bali. No other place on this earth.”

Felicity angled her head back to look at his face. Oliver guessed that her eyes were adjusted to the dark now, at least better adjusted than they had been before. She looked tired and exhausted, but there was a warmth in her eyes that only Felicity could feel with how messed up things were around them.

“I love you,” she whispered. “I love you so much.”

Oliver smiled and brushed his thumb over Felicity’s cheek. He could feel the wetness where the tears had fallen. He wiped them way, wishing the pain that had caused them could be wiped away just as easily.

“I love you too.”

They both leaned in at the same time, so their lips met halfway. Oliver could taste the salt of her tears on her lips, but it only made him want to kiss her more. He wanted to take the saltiness away like he had wiped the wetness away, so he licked over her bottom lip until Felicity opened her lips to the touch of his tongue.

A low moan escaped Felicity’s lips, and it echoed in his chest. Her leg fought itself free from the blanket that was covering her and wrapped around his hip. Propping herself up onto her elbow, Felicity turned Oliver onto his back and climbed onto his lap. Oliver was surprised in the sudden shift of atmosphere, but he held onto Felicity’s hips to pull her even closer nonetheless.

When their lips eventually parted, Felicity licked her lips. She moved against him, pressing the juncture of her legs against his lap.

“Make love to me.”

Her whisper filled the room. Though it was a request, it sounded like a promise. Oliver didn’t need to be asked twice. His fingers already snuck beneath the hem of Felicity’s top, and he straightened up a little, so his lips got closer to Felicity’s. He could feel her breath ghosting over his face.

“Gladly.”

The last sound had just fallen from his lips when he closed the distance and kissed Felicity once more. He wanted her to find herself in him and find himself in her. It was what they both needed tonight.

* * *

“I have fallen into despair.”

Felicity chuckled, opening the door further for Laurel to come in. Her older step sister sighed and hugged Felicity briefly before she went past her into the house.

“I really thought all of these samples of possible decorations would make choosing the decorations a cakewalk because I thought I knew what I wanted, but now I feel like I have no idea what I want anymore,” Laurel said with a shake of her head and sighed. “Tommy is absolutely no help of course. Men usually aren’t helpful when it comes to aesthetic decisions. The only decision Tommy wanted to have a say in was which drinks and food we were offering. Everything else has been up to me, and I am really going crazy here.”

“Good thing you have a real wedding enthusiast here,” Felicity said with a smile.

Laurel turned around to her with an amused smile and perked up an eyebrow. “You mean Mae?”

“Who else would I mean?”

They both chuckled. As much as Felicity loved weddings or had at least learned to love them, nobody came close to loving them as much as Mae did. Felicity wouldn’t be surprised if her daughter decided to plan weddings for a living someday far into the future. She would certainly do so with all of her heart.

“Where is Mae?”

“Coming!”

There was a rumbling upstairs before Mae came into sight. She ran down the stairs, jumping down the last two steps. She didn’t manage to stop soon enough and almost knocked Laurel off her feet when she threw herself at her, wrapping her arms around her aunt’s middle and hugging her tightly.

“Hi, Munchkin,” Laurel said, hugging her back with a chuckle. “Thank you for offering your help with the wedding decorations because I really cannot do this alone.”

“Don’t worry,” Mae replied. “You’ve got me now.”

Laurel smiled at her and pulled a thick collection folder from her purse. “That’s good because I really need your help with all of these possible wedding decorations.”

“I’ve got this,” Mae said and took the folder from Laurel. She had to hold it to her chest tightly and arch her back to keep it from dropping to the floor. “This will be much more fun than helping Uncle Tommy to pick a suit.”

“Girls’ days are always more fun,” Laurel agreed. “You did right to choose your mom and me over your dad and Uncle Tommy.”

Mae already walked ahead to the living room, and Felicity was about to follow her, but Laurel held her back. She grabbed her hand and waited until Mae had disappeared in the living room where she couldn’t hear them before she looked at Felicity.

“I am very sorry I asked you for help in this.”

Felicity frowned. “Why? I told you I would help you with the wedding preparations.”

“Yeah, but that was before all of this stalking happened,” Laurel replied. “It was why I wanted to delay the wedding planning until Donna was back to help me. That way I would have gotten the help I needed, and I could have helped you getting a little rest from your mom. I know you need it sometimes. When Ollie came over last week, he said it might be a good idea to ask you to help me though. I wasn’t sure but-“

“If Oliver thinks it’s a good idea, you can actually be sure that it probably is.” Felicity smiled warmly. “Oliver knows me better than anybody else. If he thinks it’s worth a try to distract me, it is. Besides, you went with me to a birthing class when were still in high school, so I might owe you one.”

“You don’t owe me anything, and even if you did,” Laurel said, scrunching up her nose slightly and shaking her head. “If this is getting too much for you at any time, you just tell me and I will pack in my stuff and give you the rest you need.”

Felicity took in a deep breath, nodding her head. She couldn’t deny that she would have probably told Laurel to please ask someone else to help her with the wedding planning. Since Oliver had explicitly told Laurel that he thought it was a good idea if Felicity helped, she was giving this idea a shot though. Oliver knew her quite well, so this might actually help to distract her a little bit.

“Is there anything new about the stalker yet?” Laurel asked. “The last Ollie told us was that you got a new phone number and that Moira increased your security.”

“Adrian Chase and his team are watching the house 24/7 now,” Felicity replied with a sigh, nodding her head, “in case that guy should show up here.”

“Were there any more calls?”

“Not since I changed my phone number.” Felicity massaged the back of her neck uncomfortably for a moment. “The truth is that I wouldn’t even know if something happened though. Adrian is checking my post and my emails in case the guy tries to contact me through that.”

When Adrian had suggested this, Felicity hadn’t been sure at the start. She knew that Adrian was trustworthy. If you worked in the security branch, especially for a family like the Queens, you had to be trustworthy. If there was any doubt about that, Moira’s thorough checkups of anyone she hired would have brought those doubts to the surface. Still, letting someone go through every piece of her life had seemed a lot.

Since the only other option had been a gasp for breath and a racing heart whenever she received an email or whatever, letting Adrian go through it first had seemed to be the better idea.

“And you still don’t know who it is?”

Felicity shook her head. “I have tried to think of anyone who could do that, but I really have no idea. I can’t imagine that I even know a person who would do that.”

“And Moira’s security didn’t find out anything either?”

“No.” Felicity sighed. “All possible leads led nowhere at the end.”

Laurel tugged some strands of Felicity’s hair out of her face and behind her ear. She smiled comfortingly, squeezing her fingers once more.

“I have no idea what you are going through,” she said, “but I am here for you whatever you need.”

Felicity took in a deep breath, trying to hold back the tears she already felt welling in her eyes. She couldn’t count how many times she had burst into tears or at least been close to doing so in the last few weeks. She felt like she was constantly on edge, always scared that something would happen.

“Thank you,” Felicity whispered. “Since there is nothing we can do to end this right now, I guess distraction is the best we can do instead. Otherwise, I will just sit here and wonder why all of this is happening.”

It wasn’t fair this was happening to them. After everything she and Oliver had already been through, they should be able to enjoy the last time before their second baby was born. They shouldn’t have to deal with something like this.

Felicity had tried to figure out what she had done to deserve this. She didn’t necessarily believe in karma, but she did believe that good people deserve good things happening to them. She was far from perfect, but she did consider herself a good person. Still, it seemed like the most terrible things kept happening to Oliver and her.

Life just wasn’t fair.

“You don’t blame yourself for this, do you?” Laurel asked with a frown. “Because this is not your fault.”

Felicity released a breath. “Then whose fault is it?”

“It’s the fault of that guy,” Laurel said firmly. “He’s crazy. He doesn’t understand the boundaries every other person understands. No matter what you said or do, there is no excuse in the world for anyone to act like this and make you feel like this. Even if those gifts and those texts and whatever were all meant well, it is not okay.”

Felicity sucked in another deep breath, nodding her head. She knew in the back of her mind that Laurel was right. There was nobody to blame but whoever was doing this. It was just easier to blame herself rather than a faceless and nameless person.

“If there is one thing you want to blame yourself for,” Laurel said with an almost amused smile, “it should be being so gorgeous that even a possible stranger just fell in love with you and can’t imagine spending your life without you now, and that’s hardly something that deserves blame, right”

Despite the tears in her eyes, she couldn’t help but chuckle about Laurel’s words. She nodded, wordlessly agreeing that Laurel was right. She wasn’t to blame, and she shouldn’t blame herself.

After a moment of silence, Laurel pulled Felicity into her arms for a gentle hug. Felicity leaned against her older step sister, taking some deep breaths until she felt more relaxed. Only then she pulled back and nodded her head.

“It’s probably just a crazy person,” Felicity whispered. “A really crazy person.”

There was a small part of her that noticed that there was little to no comfort in the fact that the person who was stalking her was crazy. Crazy people were even more unpredictable than sane people were.

“Hey, are you coming?”

At Mae’s call, Felicity took in another deep breath. She wiped her fingers under her eyes to make sure there was no sign of the tears that had welled there left. Closing her eyes for a moment, she took one last breath and finally put on a smile.

Laurel and Felicity joined Mae in the living room. Apparently, while the adults had still talked about the threats the little girl didn’t know anything about yet, she had gone through the entire part of the collection folder that held samples of table decoration. She had used the coasters Felicity had put on the couch table for the homemade ice tea Oliver had prepared for them to mark the pages with her most favorite decorations.

“So what did you choose?” Laurel asked, rubbing her hands together. “I am already so excited.”

While Felicity poured them some ice tea, Mae presented the three table decorations she had picked. Interestingly, she had chosen three completely different sets. The first one had a flowery theme and was held in green and different shades of beige. The second sample looked very noble with crystals and pearls on a light blue background.

“This one is my absolute favorite though.”

Felicity almost burst out laughing when Mae opened the folder on her third favorite. With the pink tablecloth, the pink flowers and pink feathers, it looked like it had been designed by Barbie while she had been high on ecstasy. If the expression on Laurel’s face was any indication, she felt the same way.

“You know, Mae, I think I like the other two just a little bit better,” Laurel told Mae carefully. “Let’s take a look back at the other two, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Granny Donna would be really proud of you though,” Felicity whispered towards her daughter, winking. “She would have had the same favorite.”

Mae smiled happily and browsed back in the book, trying to find her other two favorites again. Since she had taken out the coasters when she had first showed her picks to Laurel and Felicity, she didn’t find them as easily.

Felicity was just about to ask Laurel if she had already decided on the flowers for her bouquet since that could help them deciding about the further decorations. Before she could say anything though, her cell phone rang. She shot a look at the display, thinking Oliver would call her to ask if everything was alright, but her heart stopped when she saw those two little words she had hoped never to see again.

Unknown number.

Immediately, Felicity tensed. She had changed her number only a couple of days ago, and it had seemed to be the solution for her problem as she hadn’t received any more calls. Since then, she kept her number a secret. Only a small circle of people had this number, people she knew she could trust.

Her hand was shaking slightly when she grabbed her phone and rejected the call. She didn’t even have the hope that it was someone else, so she didn’t give it a chance. Instead, she just switched off the phone. She wouldn’t give this person the chance to drive her crazy by calling her every ten minutes again.

When Felicity was finally able to look away from the phone, she saw that Laurel watched her. She turned her head, shooting Laurel a brief smile and shaking her head. There was no need to talk about this yet. They had met here to distract Felicity, so she would let herself be distracted rather than thinking too much about this.

“Okay, so I actually like the one with the green a lot,” Laurel said before Mae could notice the silence. “It’s very simple, but it’s also very beautiful.”

“I agree,” Felicity said, nodding her head. “I think it’s very much your and Tommy’s style too.”

“Yes, that is what I was thinking,” Laurel said. “Besides, since there are a lot of decisions about the wedding that are open-“

The doorbell interrupted Laurel, making her frown.

“Do you expect someone?”

“No,” Felicity replied, “but Adrian or one of his colleagues is outside, so I guess it’s okay. Just continue here. I will go and check.”

Felicity hefted herself off the couch with a low groan and massaged the small of her back. At the start of the pregnancy, she had always rolled her eyes about women who were acting like that in TV. Now, she certainly wouldn’t judge anymore.

Walking into the entry room, Felicity shot a cautious look through the small glass part of the front door. It took her a moment to recognize the man at her doorstep as one of Adrian Chase’s colleagues. As soon as she remembered him, she opened the door though.

“I am sorry, Mrs. Queen,” he said, “but this was just delivered for you.”

Felicity saved the breath she would need to tell the man in front of her that her surname was Smoak-Queen. She just took the small parcel he was holding out for her and scrutinized it. It hadn’t been opened apparently which surprised her. Adrian had insisted on opening every post she got.

“Is Mr. Chase not here?” Felicity asked, looking past the security guy in front of her to find his boss. “When I saw him this morning, he said he was going to be here all day.”

“He had to leave for a brief meeting,” the man said. “Do you want this parcel now?”

Felicity doubted that the man in front of her had much experience in the security branch, at least when it came to personal security, but she nodded her head and took the parcel.

“I will be at my position if you need anything.”

“Thank you.”

The security guy went back to his car, and Felicity stepped back into her house. She walked into the kitchen, turning the parcel between her hands. There was no information about the sender. There was just her name and address written onto it with neat letters.

There was a part of her that knew it would be between to wait for Adrian to come back and let him check the parcel instead of opening it herself. This security guy had obviously not gotten the memo that any post Felicity received wasn’t just looked at from the outside but actually be opened to make sure the content inside wasn’t dangerous or even just threatening.

She knew she wouldn’t get a second of rest until she knew what was inside though. She grabbed the scissor from the topmost drawer of the kitchen counter and opened the parcel.

The first thing Felicity saw inside was an envelope with her name on it. The letters were written just as neatly as the ones on the parcel. With trembling hand, Felicity took the envelope. She turned it between her fingers for a moment and tried to feel what was inside before she opened it and took the card outside.

We are always getting close to each other. Can you feel it?

What Felicity did feel was the threatening meaning of these words. The fear they made her feel pooled in the pit of her stomach and spread all through her chest. It would paralyze her if it didn’t cause a wave of adrenaline to rush through her veins with force.

She grabbed the album that was lying at the bottom of the parcel. The sight of the cover alone, a white background with lots of red hearts on it, made her breathing falter. Despite the voice in her head that told her that she should just hand this to Adrian without spending another minute with this new gift, she opened the album and started looking at what was inside.

Her breathing stopped completely now, and her heart was pumping so quickly that her entire body was shaking from the force. Her fingers trembled so much that she was barely able hold the album. She tightened her hold on it quickly.

The album was full of photos of her and Mae. They were getting out of the car and talking in front of Verdant. They were strolling down the street, hand in hand, to get some ice cream after school. They were standing at the window in Mae’s bedroom and looking at the stars. They were standing at Robert’s grave, hugging each other tightly and so much more.

All of these photos had been taken in the last few days since Felicity had returned from Gotham. They had been taken from right outside this house or somewhere in the Queens’ forest or even across the street from Verdant. Whoever this was, he was so much closer than Felicity had thought he would be, and he was that close to her the entire time.

The other thing there was no doubt about was that whoever did this couldn’t bare the thought that Oliver was a part of her life. He was cut from photos, or his face was burnt out when it was more in the background. It wasn’t any less threatening than the first part.

There wasn’t just a person out there who stalked her. There was a person out there who stalked Mae and her, a person who had come so close to her daughter that he had managed to take photos of them in their home. The same person seemed to have trouble seeing Oliver anywhere close to them.

When Felicity’s legs started trembling, threatening to give out right under her, she quickly put a protecting hand to her bump. The baby was moving strongly, probably feeling his mother’s restlessness. Felicity tried to take in a deep breath, but she couldn’t. Her lungs were unable to take in the air, and panic spread in her chest at the feeling.

“Felicity, I think we need your help in the living room because your whirlwind of a daughter is-“

Felicity turned around, looking at Laurel. Shock was written onto her stepsister’s face as she must make a terrible image.

Before Felicity could say anything, black dots started dancing in front of her eyes. She tried to grab a chair to sit down, but her legs were already giving out under her.

“Felicity!”

Laurel’s worried shout was the last thing Felicity heard before everything blacked out.

@fannaz @promiseyoullbepatientwithme @bytemegeekette @felicity-said-just-in-case @phanseptiic @orangeisorange @mspotatohead14 @whentheheavenfades @emmaamelia95 @smoakingskye @seaolicity @ourwritinginvein @1022bridgetp @felicityqueenforever @leagueofolicity17 @yryssss @myhauntedblacksoul @muslimsmoak @sherlock44 @sinceriouslybea @arrowsalways @olivyflavescentdeer @olicitys-castle @ofnothingcharming @vaelisamaza @smoakedandcharmed @alexisa1206 @mysaudadespt2 @florence-bubbles @addictiontelly @queens-of-arrows @memcjo @hysterical-for-joshifer @oswinelevenforever @olicitylovemaking @bandanab310 @mymusiclove101 @lynslogic @scarletqueen23 @olicityshipper19 @alex-wesley @arrows-4ever @unabashedlynerdypatrol @louehmysoul @ligiapimenta @chattyyana @charlie-leau @coal000 @samcrowleys @ishippolivia @julianegomesqueen @malafle @miriam1779 @charlinert @melaux @ontheolicityship @myshipperlife @wrightainsley @lexi9515 @ladygreenwood @multi-fandom-crazy-fangirl @morinamel @mje-thomas @kebarry @canadianheartgirl @nannett2307 @almondblossomme @paarti12 @kathrynelizabeth89 @imdfabulous @cutearrowgirl @mrt2501 @mecha1330 @arsipaci14 @mzminx @salasvia @brandis91 @cainc3 @morganmiguess @pr0fessi0nal-fangurl @iamisalima @nessafra @jonhdiggle @niki-is-amazing @universed-posts @hopeful-warrior @senoritaswiftie @bellemmie @green-arrows-of-karamel @iheartarrow @olicityovereverything @oliverfel4 @navyaarsha @fandoms-breathe-life @simone4mcswarek @olicity-in-the-heart @fullychippedcreation @geemarie @everything-but-normal-cat @myarroworld @tjmartinez @pleasantfanandstudent @itsmagnoliagirl @j69confessional2 @scentedcolorpirate @icanica74 @javinancupil @tjmartinez98 @certainmentalityface @tatianadamaceno @ryelew @wildwillowzepplin @missafairy @letsplaymurde-r @lipizette @positivepiper @nuttymilkshakehologram @laksagirl @turnupthemusicandscream @pumpernickle93 @onceuponanolicity @1106angel @jaspertown @fadinglands @morganashimi83 @mochababychristy @omglovechrissie @mariejr88-blog @thetaufactor @onceuponanolicity @speakandseethetruth @bri206 @aglasgo @thats0klaroline @geemarie @pineprincess @nerdgirljen @peterpanslostgirl666 @eternal-olicity14 @allyouhadtodowas-stay-stay-stay @lovelycssefan @tsseract @flowerandsunshine @dcnmarvelgamergeek @blondeeoneexox @monetsmark @soaring-cities @bb-olicity @mashamarty @rulerofsilence @erika-amber @felicity087 @i-claim-only-emily @pattid1 @westallenandolicityshipper @babyolicityandwestallen @nothingmorethanmyotps @kayleenyc @tonto16 @olicityfluv @olicitea1990 @olicity5ever @haahaaa2408 @pattid1 @faegal04 @24karatgem

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[thesinglesjukebox]

PALE WAVES - EIGHTEEN

[6.40]

After one 1975 tour, one Jukebox appearance, about seventy-million singles, and, at last, one album, here's "Eighteen"...

Edward Okulicz: This is the one. This is what Charli XCX should have been by combining guitars with gothy obesssions. This song takes all the great things about a murderer's row of good songs and just one-ups them in every way -- two that come to mind are "Clarity" by Zedd and "Heaven Sent" by Killing Heidi, but the list could stretch on for paragraphs. Songs with anthemic qualities that are a little bit doomed at the same time and don't care about that and don't regret one thing. The lyrics to the chorus describe a first love, but as I've got older I've learned that these ideas don't stop being true, and in fact get even more so. Falling in love doesn't change; some of us are lucky enough to get better at it over time, but every time you have that moment where you see someone for the first time, or you see someone in a new way for the first time, it's a revelation, and that's the same whether you're 18 or 28 or 38 or 118. Heather Baron-Gracie is singing the life I wanted at 18 and still want two decades on. The performance is a masterpiece of tension and timing and pop hooks and guitar crunch, but on top of that, it's just a perfect piece of pop songwriting. [10]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: The verses brim with a romanticism that peaks early on: a declaration from Heather Baron-Gracie that she can "finally see in color." The arpeggiating synths and reverberating drums conjure up a dreamlike state that her vocal melody cuts through: a representation of one's thoughts as they transition from "is this happening?" to "this is happening." That she doesn't repeat the melody in the second verse is heartwarming. This absence acknowledges the ecstasy of that honeymoon stage while allowing the ensuing parts of the relationship to feel just as meaningful; the second verse is still dreamlike, still intimate, still life-affirming. The chorus finds the fog clearing, almost blindsiding one with how direct the singing and instrumentation is. Here, Baron-Gracie provides a diaristic recounting of how much her lover means to her, sounding like Avril Lavigne during this endearing confessional. Hearing her profess that she "poured [her] heart out, spilled all [her] truth" makes one want to do the same. The pop-punk spirit of that chorus may scream teenager, but "Eighteen" understands that the people we cherish from those times -- or any time -- stick with us for eternity. [7]

Alex Clifton: "Eighteen" sounds like a lost Killers track full of youthful ebullience. Some songs remind you of being young and have you lost in thought of what that was once like; others put you back directly in the moment, bringing forth vivid sense memories you thought you'd lost. For me, "Eighteen" is the latter, throwing me back to a time when every day felt like a new kind of heartbreak while losing myself in whatever new song I'd found. It's a good kind of ache to remember that kind of youthfulness. I'm never going to be that girl again, but she'll live on in both my memory and in songs like this; in the end, that's all I can ask for. [7]

Thomas Inskeep: Throbbing rock with a Moroder-esque pulse that explodes into Paramore-colored rainbows on the chorus. If I was, in fact, 18, I'd probably be way into this. Since I'm almost 48, I'm just moderately into this. [6]

Juan F. Carruyo: Received nostalgia isn't what it once was. This sounds like third-rate Paramore. [2]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: This is an unholy fusion of Body Talk Robyn, Speak Now Taylor Swift, and Days Are Gone HAIM with all of the interesting edges or imperfections shaved off, leaving the most deeply radical centrist indie pop record I've heard in a long while. [6]

Katherine St Asaph: I continue to dislike "Call Your Girlfriend" on lyrical grounds, but it's still very obvious how crucial the melodic lift on "that you just met somebody new" or "the only way your heart will mend" or "and then you let her down easy" (Robyn has about six per song) is to the chorus, and how flat a similar chorus would sound if it didn't have one. [6]

Nortey Dowuona: Rattling synth arpeggios lift from the ground as searing guitar swings, and then is swept in a big, goofy hug by the limber, devastating drums. The bass silently bridges the gap alongside Heather Baron-Gracie, and both watch the guitar and drums race on ahead, then swing back as Heather rides it on the way to the beginning of her first relationship. [8]

Alfred Soto: For once dampening the synths for a sugar rush of guitars and harmonies, "Eighteen" takes Tegan and Sara into Undertones territory. Like good pop punk, it distills matters to essentials: "I finally felt like I feel for the first time" -- boom. [7]

Josh Love: Pale Waves present a fabulously goth visual aesthetic but their music is closer to brighter synthpop practitioners like Tegan and Sara or Carly Rae (even Chvrches is moodier). "Eighteen" itself engages in a similar bait and switch; at first blush it seems clearly like a rueful lament -- "I was just 18 when I met you/Poured my heart out, spilled all my truth." Yet the lyrics never deliver the expected betrayal or breakup, and so we're surprisingly left with either a love that's still thriving or one that can be looked back upon without bitterness or regret. [7]

Claire Biddles: Pale Waves' debut single (and my Amnesty pick for 2017!) "There's a Honey" was a big ol' perfect ten -- dually a mission statement for their teen-dream goth aesthetic and a self-contained delight. Each single since then (and there have been a lot, thanks to the over-eager contemporary rollout process) has felt like a watered-down version of that initial sharp hit; same shiny Cure-esque guitar waves, same vocal inflections, same song structure, but less magic. "Eighteen" is no exception to the tried-and-very-tested Pale Waves formula. Being a descendent of such crystallised pop perfection means it retains some sparkle. There's a couple of lovely moments -- the couplet "We sat on the corner kissing each other/Felt like I could finally see in colour" is cute -- but overall the lyrics are a little clunky ("Finally felt like I could feel for the first time," yikes) and the transition between sections is too sudden, too formulaic. They've definitely got something but I'd love to see more variety on the second album. [5]

Jonathan Bradley: Pale Waves makes glistening, tear-struck synth-pop that aches like MUNA and quivers like Matt Healy. Even that alone is not nothing -- good bands have survived on finding one sound and doing it well -- and "Eighteen" has more than that. Moments of Heather Baron-Gracie's narrative detail catch on adolescent crisis: "The city depresses me, but you try to be everything I need/We sat on the corner kissing each other," is drifting emotionalism worthy of a YA novel or a teen movie voiceover. Her tones curl like cellophane: gaudy, thin, and brilliant. That this band is capable of sharper hooks and more potently melodic tracks speaks well for "Eighteen"; even when their inspiration is meanly apportioned, it still shines so bright. [7]

Maxwell Cavaseno: As Dirty Hit distressingly grows into a factory of 1975-soundalike music, Pale Waves were merciful enough to grant us a reprieve from that and to give us their single which sounds the least like The 1975! It's unfortunately marked by Heather Baron-Gracie giving one of her worst vocal performances yet, a continuous grating whine and a mix that feels like an amorphously sleek pop-punk drive to earnestness paired with inane, cheesy lyrics. But at the same time, given the fact that the band has been in a subtle danger of falling victim to perception of simply being a vehicle of extra ideas from their label's cash cow, you have to commend the them for deviating just slightly enough from that mold. Should we be so lucky, maybe they'll get even bolder with time and find an identity that may stand parallel, or even superior. [3]

Nicholas Donohoue: On the level of "Eighteen" being a universal anthemic love song I'm not moved, but I fully see the person who would love this and I have no reason not to be happy for them. [5]

Will Rivitz: This song is the Biggest goddamn Mood I've heard all year. Starting off the song -- and My Mind Makes Noises as a whole -- with the line "This city depresses me"? Big Mood. Doing that over an uncompromisingly triumphant major-key instrumental that only gets louder and more expansive from there? Bigger Mood. Encapsulating the entire scope of young love in a fifteen-second chunk, in which "I finally felt like I could feel for the first time" somehow loses all semblance of cliché thanks to a delivery that teeters on the brink of euphoria before the bridge pushes it over to the other side? Biggest Mood. This is the last twelve lines of "The Fish" mixed with Gerard Way mixed with Carly Rae Jepsen, and I do not make that last comparison lightly. Even if "Give Yourself A Try" had lyrics that fit its sonic tone instead of Matty Healy's too-wise-for-you clunkers, it still wouldn't pack nearly the thunderbolt as this, and I gave that a [10] too, so... [10]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]

[yaidenpart-blog]

Handwriting Vs Typing

In this day and age, it’s common practice to write your stories on the computer. Some eccentrics let their 19. century author self-run free by using a typewriter for the Aesthetic, but, in general, most people toe the line. And then, well, we have the rare breed of writers who handwrite. Rumor has it they’re extinct, but daring folks have been known to spot one or two in the wild, building shelters from old notepaper and gnawing at ink cartridges to survive.

….and I used to be one of them.

For years, I swore to handwriting and honestly, I still kind of do. In spite of having switched over to typing, I feel handwriting at one stage in your drafting can be very beneficial to your process. But whether to go through with it completely is a more difficult decision.

And seeing as I’m familiar with both sides of the coin, I’ll aid you in making a personally beneficial choice.

So let’s figure out if handwriting is for you.

Pro’s of Handwriting

Imagine, you’re at your desk and need to write an idea down quickly. You could turn your laptop on, or grab a napkin and scribble in two seconds flat without having to open an app first. Physically move things around when outlining, quickly add arrow and colors, and easily look at several pieces of paper at the same time while writing. It’s simply said a more organic and immediate affair.

And so is revising by hand. There is a reason why many editors still demand printed copies of your manuscripts, I’ve noticed a certain screen blindness overcomes you when you’ve stared at a document for ten hours straight, blurring every paragraph into mush. The distance between the keyboard and the letters appearing on the screen leaves an artificial aftertaste like fake grape juice sticking to the roof of your mouth.

Handwriting not only strikes a more natural connection to your brain but also motivates extremely. Once you filled a notebook up you can hold milestones in your fingers, trace every physical accomplishment you’ve made. Even if the notebook fills up to the brim when you’re only at the half point mark of your story – kind of turning the victory stale as you grope for the next notebook to continue – it still serves as a way to keep track of your project that’s more physical and satisfying than a digital word count.

Speaking of word counts, this brings us to our most crucial point: deleting.

Or more, compulsive deleting and ‘editing’ while in the trenches of writing your first draft, the unspoken bane of all writers. Editing as you go is a terrible life choice for most people, and I thank past me every day for choosing to write by hand so I didn’t have to deal with that burden as a newbie on top of everything else. Basically, editing as you go will prevent you from achieving the peak of your productiveness by trapping you in a vicious cycle of editing and deleting which at the end of the day won’t have gotten you any further along the path of completing your story. However, writing by hand makes it more difficult for this cycle to lure you into its clutches. The only way for you to delete sections in by scratching them out or by drawing crazy mind maps with arrows along the page borders. And this forces you to silence your perfectionist urges and get the draft on paper in one go instead of editing every single line to death and never finishing anything.

Another viable reason to consider switching to handwriting could be your health, many people suffer from carpal tunnel or other issues like eye strain through working on a computer. And there is absolutely no shame in putting your health first.

Cons

Now after waxing poetic about writing by hand for 400 words, it’s time to reveal the big con which prompted me to jump ship after years of dedicated handwriting. It is-

-Dramatic Pause-

Having to write your draft two times when you want it as a digital file.

Which turned into a problem because redoing things unnecessarily like this grew to too much of a strain on my hands, even if it was just writing the story twice. Though I’m aware most people probably won’t encounter this particular problem. So the only thing left to take into consideration for you, my friendo, is the time extensiveness inherited to becoming an ink cartridge gnawer. If you’re especially inpatient having to spend time on retyping your story might not be a compromise you’re willing to make.

One of the pros previously mentioned is actually a con in disguise. The limited line editing capability of handwriting turns into a disadvantage when your issues don’t lie with perfectionism but with underwriting. I like to go back and forth on the page, adding content to paragraphs I’ve written before while simultaneously slapping on new sentences. This method is less accomplishable on paper and leads to underwritten stories being, well, extremely underwritten. At least until they’re through a few edit rounds on the computer, sweat lining your brow as revision evolves into a Herculean effort without your consent.

If you’re an underwriter typing is a blessing preventing you from having to go through hell later on in revision. But does typing have actual cons as well? Probably. Hopefully. Or this post will end on a pretty weak note.

Typing and all that Jazz

The pros of typing are obvious, modern world wouldn’t get by without someone happily tipping away on a keyboard or screen.

I personally changed my process from manual to working on a tablet for several reasons, including the flat screen being the closest to paper I could find while keeping the advantage of not having to transcribe my writing to a digital format.

But for you handwriting might be very well worth it. It does have many benefits, and typing could just annoy you enough to try.

The cons of typing include but are not limited to Enablement of Perfectionism™, as we talked about before in the pros of handwriting. Typing enables by tempting us into editing and editing, backspacing and deleting whole chunks of our work instead of continuing to actually write, giving off the illusion of productivity which later on reveals itself to be hollow when it turns out you only managed to write 50 words in five hours.

So if you struggle with that syndrome, I seriously recommend handwriting, it might sound painful at first not to edit, but constant perfectionism while drafting will be the true fatal foe that’ll stop you from attaining your goals.

Otherwise, pros of typing are the instant gratification of showing someone your work per google docs or other means, as well as the high working speed you’re able to reach. As well as the fact that computers are an all constant, making it easy to sneak a bit of writing in while at work without being forced into rewriting it at home to add it to your original project file. The cons and pros of both methods kind of tangle and interplay with each other, at the end it’s a purely personal decision which you choose, but I hope this post gave you some thought chew about which way is actually best suited to your workflow.

Pretty unsatisfying conclusion, huh? No straightforward answer saying what’s best for everyone. But that’s life folks, everything is all confusing subjectivity and grey areas and then you die.

[kiss-my-freckle]

Assumptions. 

The assumption that the date on the Swan Lake program needs to coincide with the age of ballerina girl is 100% debatable. Especially when you consider the dialogues. Red attends the same performance on the same day every year, yet he carries the same program. 

Liz told Dr. Fulton that she danced on stage when she lived with Sam. This is shown through her claim that she felt a presence, which could only be explained by her dancing on stage when she lived with Sam. Had it been prior to the fire, she would’ve known of their presence, and thus, not require “feeling” it. This is also shown in its very context - feeling a presence at her wedding and her graduation, both long after the night of the fire. So yes, place her dancing on stage after the night of the fire while she was living with Sam. 

If Red attended Liz’s performances, the same performance on the same day every year while she was living with Sam, it’s obvious as fuck that he’d imagine her dancing on stage at the age of ten if what he chooses to imagine is Liz dancing on stage at the age of ten. And he would’ve attended said performance while carrying that same Swan Lake program. 

One doesn’t need to coincide with the other. The date on the Swan Lake program could have its own special significance, and I do believe it does. I will say the same of ballerina girl as I say of bubble girl. Disregard eye color and hair color and consider these two girls stand-ins just as they chose a blonde Katarina in their S2 (and still often used photograph), a brunette Katarina in their 2x22 fire flashback, and a redheaded Katarina for their full-time young Katarina from S3 onward. After all, ballerina girl and bubble girl were shown in S1, and it wasn’t until S2 when they brought in a brunette Masha. Another thing I will point out about bubble girl is a simple in-show canon fact... for those who argue her age simply because of her missing front teeth. The height marks stop at age three. If she were living in that house far past the age of three (as shown with her playing on the front lawn), her height marks wouldn’t stop at age three. They’d stop at age six or age eight or age ten. They put those height marks there for a reason, and they happen to coincide with Dom’s S5 dialogue about Masha. If you want to argue hair color and eye color and age, let me just point out that the woman from Paris has blue eyes and young Katarina Rostova has green eyes. While I’m a Rederina theorist, I’ll again argue color contacts, so don’t tell me Red can’t be Katarina or that ballerina girl can’t be Liz. Physical details shouldn’t be as important as many would like when they’re trying to hide their biggest fucking twist.  

Back to ballerina girl. Their chosen scene cuts - what many choose to disregard. Especially for those who choose to consider eye color and hair color and make a big to-do about it. A prima ballerina dancing on stage, her scenes cut between a self-proclaimed ballerina dancing in the shower with Tom Keen. Red pictures a fair-haired child prima ballerina while a brunette adult prima ballerina dances on stage. Who was a fair-haired child that is now an adult brunette? Liz. OMG... NO WAY! 

It’s also in Red’s letter to Ressler. “And every day, when you wake up, it will be the first thing you think about. Until one day - it will be the second thing.” One could easily assume ballerina girl is the second thing Red thinks about. Or one could assume she’s the first thing. What I’m saying is... no one EVER said Red lost a child. Red himself NEVER said he lost a child. In playing the role of Reddington for the past 30 years, probably best not to have him talk about losing a child even if he did since Jennifer is very much alive. So, while ballerina girl dances on stage, consider her being the first thing he thinks about - or consider her being the second thing. When Red woke after having a bullet removed from his chest, he called out to Liz. When he woke in bed with LouLou sitting next to him, he called out to Liz. Building his criminal empire was all about Liz.  Who does Red think about first? It’s Liz - ALWAYS. So, who is the second person Red thinks about? Consider Liz’s father, Raymond Reddington. Perhaps the date on the Swan Lake program is significant to the real Reddington. “HE’S one of our biggest donors” & “They say HIS daughter was in the show years ago.” Add in an additional piece of Red’s letter to Ressler. “Donald, I want you to know that I DO understand how you feel.” Forget about the unborn child Ressler lost because it’s possible Red had no idea Audrey was pregnant. It’s not as if he spent time with her to notice the symptoms as he did with Liz. What you’re left with is a lost lover, not a lost wife because Ressler and Audrey weren’t married. You’re also left with Ressler’s lover dying in his arms just as Raymond died in Katarina’s. This letter coming at a time when Red is attending a ballet that could be significant to the real Reddington. Hello. 

The assumption that Diane Fowler not only knew Red is an imposter, but also knew his real identity is 200% debatable. A single paragraph would suffice. Even if Fowler wasn’t being watched by Fitch’s people, have you ever seen Red tell anyone he’s an imposter, and do so at any time prior to his imposter reveal? The only time you see him reveal his truth to someone was his whisper in Kirk’s ear. He told Fowler that if she knows the truth, then someone else does too. Red telling Fowler he’s an imposter without telling her he’s an imposter. Perhaps the reason he shot her instead of getting those answers he supposedly wants more than anything in the world, a claim which not only negates what he said to Liz in 1x2, but defies their canon rule. How great is that? 

Now tie all of this together. Best not to assume. Wait for facts. 

Red is showing us two people - the first thing he thinks about and the second. One is stuck in time in the Swan Lake program and the other is still dancing on stage because the child prima ballerina switches back and forth to the adult prima ballerina. That’s why one doesn’t need to coincide with the other, and how the writers are able to mislead even further. 

[printedwinebox]

Often the printing press has a good number of common capabilities that most printing

See more article The printing press provides a number of popular functions that all printing similar products must have. But all these are not the no more than features that make some sort of printing hit different coming from other machines in some sort of similar situation. It offers particular unique qualities of which identify it from another printing device.

The first characteristic of the printing hit that makes it distinct from any other equipment is the press denture. A new printing press plate is definitely a thin steel denture that holds printer on top of the paper. Typically the tattoo, the printer head along with the paper are shoved to the plate by compressing often the metal rollers. Presently there are many forms of hit plates. The most popular types are outlined throughout the next very few paragraphs. But note that the name of the type may vary, based on the model of the particular particular printing hit applied. Die cut making click: These presses can be attached on a metal have. They contain the cylindrical die cut portion that can be raised to make often the shape of the particular published material. After this is completed, the upper part associated with the cylinder falls and even presses the making plate down, making the formed printed materials into 1 solid piece. dies can certainly also be located sideways, parallel or verticle with respect to be able to the orientation of the particular press plate. Movable type publishing presses: As their name suggests, this variety of printing press permits a piece of paper to be printed precisely to the required dimension. The printing process is exactly the same with typically the die minimize pressing style, but the single big difference is the position on the print head. Here your head is mounted on a good movable type base. After branded using the head, it could be easily relocated and repositioned. The moving type printer press can easily be mounted on the table or other function surface to allow typically the operator easier access to help the making press. Wood made block making press: Often the wooden pads are easily inserted into the movable variety base. Following this is done, it is rotated till the required amount of woodblock will be produced. The spinning actions of the woodblock printing click can turn out to be controlled using a wooden switch or wheel. It is possible to use and is a single of the most popular movable type presses utilized in The european countries. It was produced from the 19th century. Counter lithography: This type regarding printing press uses printer rollers to exchange this printed material coming from a good binder or stencil for you to a medium. The ink roller moves back and even forth, switching the printing to the desired surface. It is popular in a pair of different types associated with business, namely home-based writing and commercial making. Typically the offset lithography press provides been developed to produce heavier and darker colors of the initial print. Solitary plate direct contact printing: This type of producing press makes use associated with only one counter machine to produce the quantity of publications runs desired. The process the following is equivalent to that of counter lithography printing except the fact that this makes use regarding a new single click rather of an array connected with presses. The result is the very same as in the past sort of press, only with a decrease production rate. The advantage of employing a single plate direct call computer printer is that this lithographers can change often the speed of the push depending upon the variety of print flows. Movable type or gilded enhancement printing press: The particular adjustable type of printing hit allows the image for you to be enlarged without impacting the quality of the image since the film or perhaps tattoo that is applied for the purpose connected with enlarging will be smooth. The particular image gets enlarged on one side while staying kept in its normal dimensions on the different. This is the excellent technique of printing any kind of image just like a photograph or a poster. The particular gilded enlargement technique can be also referred to as the best approach for making the fine arts as well because maps.

[just-some-other-reviews]

Well, I thought I would pass this drama because I really didn’t like I Can Hear Your Voice – yah, the summary sounds so similar to While You Were Sleeping: lead with ability who helps solve crimes -  (maybe it was just because I was not ready for such drama two years ago, I don’t know if I’ll ever know… This drama left a bad taste in my mouth and I don’t intend on taking it back any time soon), but since both people online and in real life (yes… my friend who liked Bride of the Water God told me it was a good drama when I met her last Friday), I decided to start it a long time after it ended.

While You Were Sleeping is a supernatural crime romance. Hong-Joo sees the future in her dream. One day, she dreams about Jae-Chan, a rookie prosecutor who moves in the house across from hers with his brother. When he prevents one of her dream to come true, she decides to follow him around in the hope that the two of them would manage to prevent all the tragedies she sees in her dreams.  

As always, I tried to put the less spoilers it was possible in the review, but some might have escaped me, so please stay careful as you read.

As said in the first paragraph, I had certain prejudices against this drama when I started it. I must admit that the first dream reminded me a little bit of Tomorrow Without You as well as the goal in general. Both stories are centered on a lead who have the capacity to see the future and wants to avoid his death and the one of the people he loves, but one is well-done, and the other isn’t. Of course, While You Were Sleeping is ten times better than Tomorrow Without You. I think the recipe of its success was mostly centered on the fact that rather than simply following the life of the character who tries to go against his fate, it’s more about solving cases. Most of the cases are quite well-thought and developed, even if I must admit that some of them seemed too easy to solve and others were way too big to be realistic. The cases rarely dragged, which allowed the plot to have nearly no length (yes, it had some, but it was mostly in the romance between the leads). Even if the romance was quite cute, I have to admit that the best part in the plot was the friendship between the leads. Also, even though the drama had quite often a “sad vibe”, the ending was happy for all the characters (well, those on the “good” side), even though some of them went through a lot of shit. I think the main thing I might reproach to this drama would be that sometimes the back and forth between the dream and the reality was a little bit confusing. I mean, the first episode was like “whut… what happened… No… You’re kidding me… Hein... What?” but it was, at the same time, quite good because it showed us the different options their fate could have took depending on their decisions. Also, because of the switch between dreams and reality – and just the plot in general – there was way too much near death and drama. I must say that a few cases were also quite frustrating – I don’t know why, it just bothered me that some characters got away too easily – because the cases seemed to be solvable in one episode, but somehow, they were made in two episodes. Lastly, in the things that I didn’t really like in this drama, I would have to say that I found that the ending left a lot of things unexplained, which slightly frustrated me. Overall, because of how well it was developed, the thought that seemed to be put in all the cases and the plot twists that were, most of the time, amazing, I have to admit that the drama was quite addicting.

I think the character I liked the less in the whole drama was probably the female lead. I saw her as being quite fickle. She believed one thing than two minutes later believed the opposite. Maybe it was just my impression of her, but it made me look at her in a bad light. Most of her actions were quite forceful and cringy. I mean, sure, I can understand that she needed to convince Jae-Chan, but… at the same time… That was way too much. What’s more, she was – after she passed her defeatist phase – quite naïve. She always put herself in trouble thinking that she didn’t need to worry about her life and simply relied on the fact that Jae-Chan could see her in his dream and come save her, which is quite a bad idea if you think about it… I must admit that I didn’t take a lot of notes on the male lead. At the start, he was a little bit annoying because he was portrayed as someone that was really self-centered and dumb, but as the drama progressed he gained a lot of depth and the viewer realized that, in truth, Jae-Chan is a good human being and prosecutor. He wasn’t fully impartial, but he did things well. He knew how to handle a situation and always made sure that everybody who deserved it was treated rightfully. Lastly, the last lead - Woon-Tak - was just a cutie. I absolutely adored him and found him so mature because he decided to valorize his friendship rather that his love for Hong-Joo. In truth, he never really made a move on her, which was quite refreshing - most of the dramas would have opted for a annoying second male lead that turns against their friend simply to get the girl. Aside from the leads, there were a few characters. Some were cuties, others assholes (or half-jerks because they were too agressive, but got better as the dramas progressed). Among those characters, I think the ones who stood out the most were Jae-Chan’s brother, Seung-Won, the attorney, Lee Yu-Beom, Sure, there are a lot of other characters that stand out, but because of my no spoiler policy, I can’t discuss about them. The only thing I can say is that Seung-Won’s new friend is absolutely adorable, and I love him and the ahjussi is a sweetheart that probably have the most unfair ending in the whole drama. Seung-Won isn’t really a complex character, but whenever he’s in the drama he helps lightening the mood, even if sometimes he can be really annoying because he puts too much pressure on Jae-Chan. For what it was of Lee Yu-Beom, I hated him, but his ending was so satisfying since rather than being an all black or all white character, it showed him as a grey character who’s in-between the two sides and don’t know where to stand because of his own mistakes. Overall, I thought that the characters were well-developed, and since they slightly evolved through the drama (Hong-Joo didn’t, but some did) they could be considered as “good” characters.

I’ll stop here because I’m scared that I might spoil something if I continue. For me, the plot would be worth a 9/10 simply because even though it had cons, it was quite good.  The characters would be a 3/5 because they weren’t the best characters I had seen, but they weren’t bad nor could be considered as “okay”. The tearjerker factor would be a 1.5/5 because all those near death (and death) affected me a little bit (just a little bit, not too much).

[nocaptainreuben]

I’m A Bright Girl, Watch Me Change The World

I always love a healthy dose of feminism in my fiction, so I was incredibly happy to see proofs of The Exact Opposite Of Okay, Moxie, and Things A Bright Girl Can Do on offer at YALC this year. Luckily, I managed to get my hands on all three and, with Things A Bright Girl Can Do being one of the earliest releases on my pile, I dove into that pretty quickly. 

Even though I’m very passionate about equality and gender issues, my gravitation towards feminism as a movement has only really happened in the last few years and I seem to have somehow just jumped straight in to where we are now without learning much about the history. Thus, I don’t actually know a helluva lot about women’s suffrage, and I thought a YA fiction book about it would be the perfect diving platform from which to start my education. I don’t usually get on amazingly well with historical fiction – contemporary YA is my jam – but I do think it’s important to broaden your horizons every now and then, and as this is a subject I’m so interested in I was determined to give it a fair chance. I wasn’t prepared for how much I was going to like it!

I was really surprised at how quickly and easily I managed to read this. Something that usually puts me off historical books is how different the language can be. All that “well I say old chap, that’s a jolly poor show!” comes across as really stuffy and (I find) can be quite hard to understand at times, meaning I generally have to slow down and digest things a bit more. However, whilst the language in this book did feel really authentically old fashioned, something about it was just a bit easier to absorb and I didn’t get too put off. Something that really helped me in this respect, was how it was structured into really short chapters and switched frequently back and forth between different characters’ points of view. Whenever I began to get a little tired of Teddy and Evelyn’s formal tone, Nell would swoop in wth her “blimey guv’nor”s and vice versa, and this, for me, kept it continuously refreshed and moving along at a nice, steady pace so the story never got stagnant.

Speaking of these different points of view, I really like the contrast between the three main characters, Evelyn, Nell and May. They are all in completely different situations, from different social standings, with different views on things, so it’s really interesting to see three different approaches to the same issue. What’s even better and more prominent than the differences we see between the girls, though, is how we see that a lot of what they’re going through and feeling is pretty universal. These similarities are highlighted in what I thought was a really clever and poignant way, by the fact that at different points in the story, all three girls express the same sentiment, phrased almost identically.

“Nobody understood what it was like to have your life transformed by something you’d believed to be the most important thing in all the world, and then to have it suddenly pulled away from underneath you.”

That, to me, just perfectly sums up the feeling of being a teenager.

One of the other, authentically teenage, things I loved the most was the relationship between Nell and May. I don’t often do spoilers, but I’m about to here so if you don’t wanna know, scroll past this next paragraph...

Ok, gone? Here it is: they break up. And it’s fine. The world doesn’t end or anything; yes, they’re both sad, but their breakup is just another one of the difficult things they have to deal with in life, and it doesn’t paint their relationship as a failure simply because it ended. In fact, in the last chapter, we even see Nell a couple of years later, appearing very happy, comfortable in her identity and in a new relationship. They did have a really intense, loving relationship and it would have been easy to look at them as “couple goals” or whatever, but – whilst I loved seeing them together and was sad that they had to break up – I was glad the author did it, as it felt so much more realistic to give them separate opportunities to grow and change and live their lives, rather than going with the happily-ever-after that is so common in fiction yet incredibly rare in the real world.

You may notice it’s a bit of a theme, me being completely ignorant of history, but I hardly know anything about the First World War either. In my defence, I never did anything past basic high school history (at my college you could only pick one humanities subject for GCSE, and I went with sociology) and all the focus in English high schools in my day was on the Holocaust. But anyway, as pretty much this whole time period is completely unknown territory to me, it was really interesting to read about and learn so much on a new subject. I felt like this book was such a more valuable education though, for the fact that it didn’t focus on any facts. It was told from such a personal perspective, more about the emotions and the experience of what it was like to live through the war, rather than what was actually happening. And I loved how it was largely focused on the normal people and unsung heroes of the time – the boys who were slightly too young for war and left behind; the mothers who had to step up and keep their families afloat with their husbands and sons off to fight; the young girls who believed and fought for the suffrage cause, but weren’t the famous faces we remember leading the movement; the Quakers who refused to drop their pacifist, suffragist beliefs and support the war – all this meant I connected with it so much more, and really got a sense of what it was like to live through that time as one of the general public, rather than “our brave boys on the front line”, who most of the stories are about.

This book was so different to anything I would have usually picked up, but I’m so glad I did. It made me laugh, ache, learn, swell with pride, and so many other emotions over the course of its 400 odd pages. It’s passionate and political, with amazing representation of women, LGBT people and a widely overlooked faith community, all while being historically accurate and teaching its readers about a time period which seems to get a little forgotten in schools. After reading Things A Bright Girl Can Do I feel like a more informed feminist, a more historically aware citizen, a more empathetic person… This book had a huge impact on me and I honestly feel like it’s sparked something in me; I’m a Bright Girl and I’m capable of so much, so get out of my way and watch me change the world. ;)

[edenfalling]

For the DVD commentary meme - Chapter 7 of the Courting Dance (the wedding scene).

For @bluejayfic, forthe Fic DVD Commentary Meme (which is still open, fyi! just drop me an ask) 

TheCourting Dance: Marriage is a bit more complicated thanquarreling and making it up again, especially for the crown prince ofArchenland and an exiled Calormene Tarkheena. (21,000 words) 

Chapter7 - The Beating of Our Hearts: Running from your problems israrely a good long-term solution, but sometimes the change in environment canbe helpful – especially now that Aravis and Cor are on the same page. (1,600words) 

As @bluejayfic mentioned, this chapter is the one with the wedding scene. What was I thinking,putting the wedding halfway through the story? Well, I was thinking that theplot is as much about politics and worldbuilding as it is about romance, andthe wedding is a major symbol of Aravis and Cor deciding to commit to eachother despite various obstacles. Also, while it resolves their interpersonalproblems, it doesn’t resolve their external problems at all – in fact, itmakes some of them worse. So I figured it would make a good central turningpoint, where we switch from Aravis and Cor being pissed off at each other tostanding back-to-back against the world. 

———————————————Chapter 7 - TheBeating of Our Hearts, with commentary———————————————

Aravis disliked the journey into Narnia, though she had gonewillingly five times during her first year in the north, so that she mightspeak to Queen Lucy and spend a week or two in a place where her role wasclearly defined. The Narnians treated guests nobly and never begrudged herorigin, despite Queen Susan’s ordeal, whereas the Archens held ancient enmitywith Calormen and were rarely sure what to make of her status – somethingpartway between king’s ward, long-term guest, and unofficial hostage. 

This is a little repetitivein terms of story arc – we get it; Archenland has ISSUES with Calormen – butI needed to explicitly establish that Narnia, despite the Rabadash incident,doesn’t really share them. That will be important in future chapters. 

Even in the height of midsummer the mountain road was proneto enveloping fog, and the trees pressed thickly all around like disapprovingsentinels. Hwin and Bree passed the time trading gossip about their respectiveherds and territory negotiations with the centaurs and other grassland Beastsof Narnia. Cor rode silently, seemingly lost in thought. Aravis had nothing tocontribute to the Horses’ conversation and could not think of the right way tobreak into Cor’s reverie, not when they hadn’t spoken properly in so long. Sheheld her tongue until they were through the pass and safely down past thenarrow cliffside path, with the great valley of Narnia spread out before themlike a landscape on silk. 

She sat back in the saddle. Hwin took her suggestion andstopped. After a moment, Bree noticed he was walking alone and turned to eyethem questioningly, his nostrils flared to catch any strange scent on the wind. 

“We’ve crossed the border,” Aravis said. “Nowthat we’re nominally beyond Archenland’s reach, I want an explanation." 

Bree tossed his head. "An explanation of what? Youwanted to run away, Cor wanted to run away, Hwin and I offered to help, andhere we all are in Narnia. What could be simpler?" 

Bree is arefreshingly straightforward soul. *wry* 

Aravis ground her teeth. "I know why I wanted to leaveArchenland. I know why you and Hwin helped. Cor, on the other hand, has spentthe past two months treading dangerously close to denying me, which, after Iaccepted his courting gift, could well be considered grounds for blood feud. Iknow that you love your father and you wish to be worthy in his eyes,” sheadded directly to Cor. “I know why you were delaying, which is why I waswilling to take the dishonor of breaking the dance on myself. Yet here we are,fleeing Archenland as we once fled Calormen, with an even more uncertain futurebefore us. What changed your mind?" 

Context: culturallyspeaking, what Cor did was the equivalent of "it’s not you, it’s me”weaseling out of a betrothal, which is especially insulting after he’d put in afair amount of effort to buy some expensive and not-easily-acquired courting gifts,and by doing so had reinforced Aravis’s sense that he is the only other personin Archenland who shares her cultural background and perspective. Aravis hasevery right to be pissed off at him. 

Cor swung his left leg over the saddle and slid to theslanted ground. It was strange to look down on him from Hwin’s back. They hadbeen of a height as children, but he had three inches on her these days, justenough that she found herself tilting her chin when they spoke face to face. Itwas also fitting that he stand lower now, like a supplicant come to herfather’s court to beg her favor. There was no obligation to respond to theoverture of a dance, but Cor had met her, matched her, and then stepped back. 

“The king is under the law, for the law is what makeshim king,” Cor said slowly, stepping up the grassy hillside with his eyesraised to catch Aravis’s gaze. “Father said that to me on our first nightin Anvard – do you remember? A king in answerable to his country and hispeople. If he forgets that, he becomes a tyrant. I want to do right byArchenland. I wanted to make people see that you’re the best thing in my life,that you could never be a weakness. I wanted to obey the law, to work with theGreat Council rather than against it, and make Father proud." 

Hwin shivered and took a nervous step sideways. Aravisloosened the grip of her legs and held herself straight and strong under Cor’searnest gaze. "What changed your mind?” she repeated. 

“The law in Archenland isn’t the same as the law inCalormen,” Cor said. “It’s about personal honor as much as rules,just like debt and testimony – did you know that? What am I saying; of courseyou knew that. I should have known it, if I’d been thinking. The law is apromise between the people and the king.” He shrugged, a slightself-deprecating gesture. “How could anyone trust me to keep that promiseif I broke a more important one to you?" 

Cor’s reasoning hereis one of the major keys to the story. He is trying to balance two cultures,and realized he’d been swinging back and forth in response to each newstimulus, but really he needs to find his own synthesis and stand there. 

Or in slightly moreconcrete terms: when he accepted Aravis’s Calormene-style flirtation and madeher a Calormene proposal, he acted as if he were still in Calormen (whereAravis’s choice would have mattered a lot since she’s the daughter of a HighLord, and his would have been secondary at best since he was somewhere betweena peasant and a slave). 

Then he realized thatfrom an Archen perspective, he’d just made a huge decision of state withoutconsulting anyone, and that’s bad. (Slippery slope to tyranny.) Obviously theArchens have a bee in their collective bonnet about Calormen, because Aravis isobjectively a pretty good marriage prospect – she doesn’t have an inheritanceanymore, but she’s noble-born and grew up with court politics and such and cantherefore shore up Cor’s weak points, not to mention she and Cor are absolutelyunrelated which matters in the mountain kingdoms (I think their nobles are all cousinsof some sort at this point in history). 

But then Cor realizedthat Archen law is based on personal honor as much as an impersonal set ofrules, and if he broke his engagement to Aravis, he’d be breaking his honor andtherefore creating a hypocrisy at the heart of his kingship. (Plus he reallydoes think Archen prejudice against Calormen is wrong and wrong-headed.) So hefound the place where he said, "This is my line in the sand,” andrefused to be moved any farther. 

If Archenland won’thave him as he is, then they can’t have him at all. 

Aravis swung her leg over Hwin’s back and slid to the grassyearth. Cor stepped forward and took her hands. 

“Do you forgive me?” he asked. 

“We have two witnesses,” Aravis said rather thananswer directly. “Do you have objections?" 

Aravis understandsall the stuff I blathered about a couple paragraphs ago. She’s also bothCalormene (indirect verbal responses) and a fan of direct action, so herresponse is not to answer Cor’s question but to SHOW him the answer byessentially saying, "I not only forgive you, I want to make absolutelyclear that I stand with you, so let’s get married right here and now, and do itthe Calormene way to make an extra point.” 

For a moment Cor looked like the baffled boy she’d firstgrown to know on their journey. Then comprehension kindled a slow fire behindhis eyes, and his fingers tightened around hers. “Bree, Hwin,” hesaid, “will you stand witness to our marriage and attest its truth beforeany court?" 

Bree looked utterly confused, but he nodded his head. "Yes,of course, but don’t you need, oh, a dress, and some papers to sign, and anotherperson to say a bunch of nonsense to make it official? Possibly something withribbons or a fire?" 

The implication ofthe ribbons and fire, btw, is that northern marriages are not church weddingsas we know them; rather, they involve handfasting (tying ribbons around joinedhands) or jumping over a fire while holding hands. There’s probably also avariant where you jump over a broomstick, or just something to do with crossinga threshold, or crossing under an arch of flowering branches. Transitions andbinding, that sort of thing. 

"That’s only if they want to be grand,” Hwin saidfrom behind Aravis’s shoulder. “I saw humans do this in Calormen. All theyneed is themselves and a pair of friends to swear they said the words beforethey got down to mating." 

Horses, Aravis reflected, had a very earthy way of seeingthe world. She caught a blush rising in Cor’s cheeks and was grateful yet againthat her own slight embarrassment was not equally visible to him. "Wellthen,” she said, threading a note of challenge into her voice. “Willyou keep your promise?" 

Cor raised their joined hands to heart-height and said,"In the name of Soolyeh, I take you for my wife. May our marriage bewarm.” He stared into Aravis’s eyes, the slant of the hill putting themexactly on a level. 

Aravis held his gaze. “So may it be. In the name ofGarshomon, I take you for my husband. May our marriage be fruitful." 

The words were familiar. Aravis had heard them many times,for her father had been prone to grant the request of his slaves and thepeasants on his estate that he stand as their witness and thus bring greaterdignity to their unions. She had heard them again when Ilroozeh Tarkheena hadmarried her father, for though the trappings of the wedding might be grandbeyond belief, the rite itself was always the same. And she had been made toembroider them and paint them in calligraphy lessons as she grew to be ofmarriageable age, for no Tarkaan wished his daughter to embarrass him when sheleft his protection to join her new husband’s household. 

But this was a piece of Calormen, not of the north. To hearthese words, to speak the names of Calormene gods in the land of the Lionhimself, was vertiginously strange. 

Which is funnybecause Narnia is full of non-Christian gods and quasi-religious figures:Bacchus, Silenus, Pomona, all the various nature spirits, even FatherChristmas. And yet, it’s also a feeling I got while writing this, a sort ofnagging, "But is this really appropriate?” 

And that’s how I knewit was important to include this. Because religious pluralism is never inappropriate. (If Lewis just rolledover in his grave? GOOD.) 

“So may it be,” Cor said, his voice wavering as ifhe shared Aravis’s feeling of displacement. “In the name of your father, Itake you for my wife. May our marriage be honorable." 

Kidrash Tarkaan would approve of Cor, Aravis thought. "Somay it be. In the name of your mother” – whom she had never met, but KingLune had loved and respected her and therefore Aravis could but assume QueenElwen had been as bright and honorable as her sons – “I take you for myhusband. May our marriage be true." 

Someday I am going toget Queen Elwen textually into a story. Or else! 

"So may it be,” Cor said, and then paused, lettingsilence seep into the sunlit afternoon instead of continuing the last set ofpromises. 

“Is that it?” Bree asked. “Pretty enough, Isuppose, if you like that sort of thing. Only, don’t Calormene rituals go inthrees?" 

"They do,” Aravis said, knowing exactly why Corwas hesitating. She squeezed his hands, her sword calluses rubbing against his,and switched the lead. “In the name of Aslan, I take you for my husband. Mayour marriage be strong." 

She should have said Tash, but while she would alwaysrespect the god of war and vengeance, she had lost his favor when she gaveallegiance to the lands of his enemies. Even if she had still held him as theking of all gods, it would feel wrong to swear by his power in Narnia, and theLion was equally strong and fierce, his power more than enough to hold as asupport. Aravis had taken Aslan for her liege in the wars of heaven and so shewould make her future in his name. She would marry Cor by the ways of Calormen,but they belonged to Archenland too, now. It was fitting that she acknowledgethat heritage in her vows. 

And here again wehave the theme of finding a personal synthesis or balance point between twocultures. 

Cor blinked, and then smiled, a small, private curl of hislips just for her. "So may it be,” he said. “In the names of all the gods, I take you for my wife. Mayour marriage be forever.” He raised their joined hands, sliding hisfingers around to turn her hands palms upward, and kissed the soft inner skinof Aravis’s wrists: a feather-brush of skin on skin, his breath to the pulse ofher blood. His beard tickled across her open palms as he looked up into hereyes. 

I find beards hot,okay? There is no deeper motivation here. 

Aravis swallowed. “So may it be,” she said. 

She pulled; Cor came willingly. She met his breath with herown. 

Which is a veryroundabout way of saying, “they kissed,” but I dunno, this phrasingfeels a lot more emotionally and erotically charged to me. 

—————————————————————————————— 

The post-chapternotes are as follows: 

Cor and Aravis use a tweaked version of the Calormenemarriage ritual. The traditional version goes like this: 

Man: In the name of Soolyeh, I take you for mywife. May our marriage be warm.Woman: So may it be. In the name of Garshomon, I take you for myhusband. May our marriage be fruitful.Man: So may it be. In the name of your father, I take you for mywife. May our marriage be honorable.Woman: So may it be. In the name of your mother, I take you for myhusband. May our marriage be true.Man: So may it be. In the name of Achadith, I take you for my wife.May our marriage be strong.Woman: So may it be. In the name of Tash, I take you for myhusband. May our marriage be forever.Man: So may it be. 

And then they are married. The traditional divorce ceremonygoes approximately the same way. Either the woman or the man can end themarriage at any time by saying, “In the name of Nazreen, I divorce you. Inthe name of Nur, I divorce you. In the name of Azaroth, I divorce you” –again, three times makes it true. It’s not done lightly, since the person whoinstigates a divorce may start a blood feud with that action, but it’s stillpretty simple and egalitarian. 

I guess this would bewhere I explain some stuff about my Calormene pantheon? Okay. There are ninedeities: four goddesses, four gods, and Azaroth who is usually male but thereare some people who say otherwise. (Azaroth’s domain is death. Boundaries getfuzzy there.) The official mythology and theology are those promoted by Tashbaan,but there are hundreds of regional variants. 

Generally, Soolyeh isthe goddess of the sun, of marriage, and fertility/agriculture. Garshomon, thegod of rivers, earth, and agriculture, is her husband. (Soolyeh’s symbol is asun-disk; Garshomon’s is a bull. A sun-disk surmounted by bull horns isfrequently used on their shared temples and as a marriage blessing. 

Tash is the god ofwar and vengeance and generally regarded as king of heaven. Achadith, thegoddess of change, of victory, and of things out of place, is generallyconsidered to be both the queen of heaven and Tash’s wife. 

So the marriageceremony calls upon the deities most associated with marriage, as a generalblessing and also an indirect request for children; calls upon theparticipants’ own families as a reminder that marriage is ultimately a socialinstitution; and calls upon the two most powerful deities to sort of tie themarriage into the legal fabric of the Calormene Empire and also remind theparticipants that there are consequences for breaking their vows. (Neither Tashnor Achadith is a comfortable sort ofdeity.) 

The divorce ceremonycalls upon Nazreen (goddess of wisdom, memory, regret, and liminal periods),Nur (god of education/educated professionals, disease, and medicine), andAzaroth (god of silence, darkness, and death). Nazreen and Nur are also said tobe married, but their domains are more shadowy and associated with endings. 

Sokda and Zardeenah,the remaining two deities, have nothing to do with either marriage or divorce. 

—————————————————————————————— 

And that is pretty much that. :)

[fivewrites]

5557 Reviews Your Fanfic #1: Number Five Privet Drive by GuestPlease

Hello, friends, I am 5557 on Ao3 and I review your fanfiction if you want me to.

This is my first review of the series, so let’s dig in! (I got rid of the numbers, because I felt like they weren’t working. And I’d rather just talk anyway.)

Number Five Privet Drive by GuestPlease

@notherefortheanonhate

Fandom: Harry Potter ( I’m happy to concrit anything, though I cannot speak for character or plot development on properties that I am unfamiliar with. I can only speak to technical work. However, I have read Harry Potter, and am decently familiar with the details. )

Rating: G

Warnings: None

Tags: None

Optional info:

Is English your first language? Yes

How long have you been writing for? 5 years

Are you 18+? Yes

Do you want publish / write professionally one day? No / maybe

Technical Style / Formatting: Mostly good. The spacing between paragraphs is a little odd. It’s not unreadable, but if you’re going for double-spaced format, each new line of dialogue should be double-spaced. Right now, there are groupings of dialogue that are single-spaced, and then a double, and then more singles.

There is an odd tense choice in the second paragraph, “Minerva McGonagall will readily admit that she was one of the most recent hatstalls in Hogwarts history. She does not admit, under any circumstances, that the Hat was quite insistent upon placing her in Slytherin House for a solid three minutes.” is in present tense, while the story is written in past tense. I mean, it could technically slide, but when you switch to present tense for these facts, it sort of implies that the character is “currently alive” and is more first-person-ish than third person. It’s not 100% wrong, but it changes the viewer’s “feel” of the narration.

It’s important to watch tense switching so as not to confuse your readers, but especially so in the first few paragraphs of your fic. The occasional typo or punctuation error throughout a story doesn’t mean much, but you really want the opening to be very clean, because a picky reader might be turned off right away. Show your best work up front to draw them in!

Pace: While the story sets up the plot right away in the very first paragraph and doesn’t meander or wax on, it is a little on the brusque side. The idea is that the Dursleys are horrible, therefore put Harry in a better home next door. I’d like to know just what disgusts Minerva so much. What is the business that she sees muggles doing and what are her opinions on it? We can use this space to get a good view of both the environment Minerva is in and Minerva herself when we get a bit of description of her actions and reactions.

Overall the pace is fast. A little too fast in some of the heavy dialogue areas, but I feel like too fast is a way better problem than too slow. More can be added as needed.

Dialogue: More of a technical note, but I’ll put it here, When splicing action between dialogue, watch the use of periods vs commas. If the sentence is “He’s over there,” she said, reaching for her umbrella, “beside the door.” Then commas should be used instead of periods. A period is a full stop and should only be used if the action of the speaker is separate from the dialogue.

“He’s holding my umbrella,” Minerva laughed. - We are saying that she said this while laughing.

“He’s holding my umbrella.” Minerva laughed. - We are saying that she said this in a normal voice, and then laughed, separately.

Characterization: I like the info about Minerva and the sorting hat. Adds interest to her character.

While I like the idea of a wiley, intelligent Minerva, Dumbledore… well he kinda puts the dumb in Dumbledore. He very passively accepts Minerva’s sudden change of address, even though Dumbledore is a very intelligent man with connections to muggles and the potters. I could see him going along with her but… he just gives up so easily. I need more of a mental tussle between them to believe it. I mean, at least Minerva is self-aware in the next sentence that this is an odd character choice.

I’m interested in who Malcolm and Robert are and if we get more info in these characters after their sudden naming. (I apologise if these are canon characters and I have forgotten)

She felt a sense of duty overtake her, that she should call out to Mrs. Forsythe and demand the baby, but she stopped herself. Nothing good would come of that child in her home, though whether she was thinking of herself, or even of the child, she didn’t know.

Petunia’s sudden reversal is a bit disappointing. Again like with Dumbledore, she gives up without a fight in the very same paragraph, when I want to see her meddle or sneak or spy. I hope she has more role in the future chapters, as it was a bit odd to see her accept her neighbor taking in her nephew without any sort of comment or action. Petunia is nosy and judgemental, and these actions imply that the neighbor woman is saintly in her books.

Flow / Prose Style: There are a lot of clunky adverbs in there, that don’t add much.

“Dumbledore twinkled merrily” “Dumbledore laughed jollily” could easily have the same impact if merrily and jollily were removed. Instead of using an adverb, which is a “tell” try “showing” with an action.

“Of course. He’s been taking care of young Harry all day, they’re nigh inseparable!” Dumbledore laughed, twirling the ends of his long beard with his pinky finger. - This shows us that he is merry and jolly without having to literally say it.

While the dialogue is ok, and seems in character, the first chapter has a lot of back-and-forth and not much action. As said above, it’s nice to weave action in between your dialogue to 1) show how the character feels and 2) gives the reader a sense of where they are and what they are doing. Too long without any environmental description and the reader forgets where we are and what we’re doing. Give us a reminder from time to time.

“I believe so. Sadly, he took Lily and James Potter with him.”

“We’ve all lost someone.” At that moment, a distant roar was heard. The noise became louder as an enormous motorcycle with a matching sidecar landed in the middle of Privet Drive skidding a bit.

At some points, dialogue attribution is not sufficient enough to tell which character is saying what. Just needs a few more tags here and there. As well, the jump to the action is very sudden, to the point of jarring. Give me more blended action and reminders of where the characters are and what they are doing.

the enormous man perched on top of the bicycle, handed a small bundle (about the size of a particularly intricate vase) to Dumbledore.

This is an interesting metaphor. I did a post on this, and I believe it would fall under category 3: Not unheard of, but would it be the character’s most likely reference? Minerva doesn’t seem like a person who has an interest in intricate vases. If the story were from Dumbledore’s POV, it would absolutely make sense. But Minerva is a straight-edged teacher, and I wonder if a school reference would make more sense here. “No larger than a History of Magic textbook” etc.

I wanted to say that the voice overall is very active and urgent and the narrator does not slip into passive voice. It is a pleasure to read prose that stays active and gets to the point, even if it feels a bit rushed in some places. I’d much rather be left wanting more details than slogging through endless exposition.

Or a solicitor, she had trouble telling the two apart these days. Though most solicitors didn’t include infants.

This line is hilarious! Excellent! Very on-point.

Story: This is an interesting plot idea in its simplicity. It’s been done before (but what hasn’t in the Potter fandom) especially with stories like Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. What will make this story unique and interesting is how you handle it and how you handle the characters and their growth over the course of the plot. Focus on the minute details of Harry’s earlier life and how that breaks off into the alternate universe differences in a butterfly effect of cascading changes.