#like. the number of sticky notes i had to pry out of my borrowed copy of frankenstein was embarrassing

[doghartzy]

2 & 24 for the fic asks, if it’s not too much trouble?

of course, thank you!!!

2: do you focus on attention to detail when you read fics? are you more of less attention to detail focused when you write fics?

YES. a thousand times yes. the english major in me is a HUGE fan of literary devices and always, always attempts to work them into my fics. literary details can be so important for getting your message across (especially since i usually try to at least tangentially answer the eternal question of 'but WHY did i write this particular fic?'), for ensuring a strong characterization, or even just for making the reading process more enjoyable. since i love to pick apart approximately every single piece of media/literature i engage with by sifting through its rhetorical devices, i like to leave them in my writing for other people to find as well. and since i try so hard to incorporate those details into my writing and am incredibly tickled when people point them out to me, i try to do the same for the fics i read! i really like pointing out tiny character notes or the Themes of a fic i'm reading, because it makes it more fun for me to engage with it as a work and it gives me ideas on how to incorporate more detail as a writer!

24: which fic of yours do you wish people would ask about more? why?

hmmmmmm. all of them? is that a valid answer? i just really love to talk about writing! also, related to my answer above, i like to leave at least a few details/motifs in each fic implicit rather than explicitly explored, so in my dream world people ask me to elaborate on the Themes and the Meanings and the Why Seriously Why Did You Choose Jeeps of it all. to actually answer the question though, i would love to talk more about ghost ballet au in particular, because there are a lot of dance details and ribs-by-lorde-esque ponderings that i want to explode about, oh, all of the time.

[suit-lady]

PS ~ A Peter Parker Story that Begins with Notes

Summary: This is a fluff piece college AU where reader and Peter are in the same English class. They start passing notes because Peter misses class one morning. And then,,,,,, a study date??? And nervous Peter???

Warnings: Swearing. The first word is a curse word. This is who I am.

Female Reader

Word Count: 2365

Part Two

Fuck.

Peter Parker woke up to the sound of his roommate’s alarm, which meant that Peter was late. He must have been too tired the night before to set his alarm. Sighing, Peter reached for his phone. He knew that Ned showered before class, so maybe he had enough time to—Nope. Class had started about ten minutes ago. There was no way, even if he could get ready in under ten minutes. Begrudgingly, he pulled his exhausted body out of bed and took his sweet time getting ready; he had almost four hours before he had to be anywhere.

Classes flew by as usual, but it seemed incredibly odd to Peter to begin his Thursday without his English literature course. In a passing thought, he hoped that he hadn’t missed anything terribly important. He really enjoyed the material in that class, so he more cared that he missed the quality discussion spurred on by the prof than actually missing any potential assignments. After all, Dr. Terrance always followed his syllabus to a T, so Peter had nothing to worry about.

Regardless, he was sure to set four (more than the usual three) alarms before going to sleep.

-

Peter hurried to get ready so that he could arrive in Dr. Terrance’s classroom early and personally apologize to him for being absent the day before, but the kind professor blew him off and offered a quick debrief if necessary. He declined but made the effort to pay twice the amount of attention in class that morning. Dr. Terrance was obviously appreciative; sometimes, talking about literature at eight o’clock in the morning just isn’t all that appealing to a bunch of eighteen-year-olds.

The bell rang before Peter even realized what time it was, but he was zapped from the classical world by a notebook plopping down on his desk. The spiral-bound book was opened to a page topped with the date and what Peter assumed to be the lecture title of the day before. In the middle of the page was a pale pink sticky note that read “Here, in case you want some half-decent notes to copy.” in your handwriting. He looked up to give a thank-you, but he had no idea who had given him the notebook in the first place.

-

Peter made sure to copy all the notes Sunday evening so that he could return the notebook to the owner before class. Making sure to get there a bit earlier than usual, he set the notebook, which was open to the same page, on the corner of his desk. He got out his sticky notes and scrawled “hey, thanks for the notes” on the pale yellow paper. Then, as an afterthought, he wrote, “your handwriting is beautiful btw” and just signed it with his initial: “-P.” Satisfied, he sat back and waited.

A girl sat in the chair to his right. Peter’s attention wasn’t drawn to you until you cautiously reached across his desk and took the notebook. After your eyes scanned over the note, you looked up at Peter with a kind smile. He smiled back at you, half being courteous, half because he couldn’t help but return a smile as pretty as that.

While you didn’t make eye contact with him for the rest of the period, you passed him another pink note right as the bell rang. You’d folded the note so that the sticky part kept the note closed. As he walked out of the classroom, he slipped the note into his pocket and didn’t read it until he was back in his dorm room. “nah, especially not my note script. Dr. Terrance talks so fast during lecture that my pencil basically flies across the page. –(Your First Initial)”

Peter spent most of the evening wondering what he should write back. He’d started the note, on a classier blue sticky note this time, but he only had “whatever. I like it” and a little emoticon face that had its tongue sticking out. Once he’d finished his homework for the evening, he gave up on coming up with anything half decent. He drew a stick figure shrugging and saying “I don’t know what else to say” in a little speech bubble. Mimicking the folds from the note he’d gotten from you, he folded the paper and placed it in his notebook for the next morning.

-

You had arrived before Peter, so he took out the note and passed it to you as nonchalantly as possible before the bell rang to begin class. He stole a glance at you as you stifled a giggle at his poor drawing skills. After class, you passed him a tightly-folded piece of notebook paper. He unfolded it, filled with curiosity, to find that you’d doodled a little caricature of him during lecture. Underneath, in faux calligraphy, read “Peter Parker”. He was surprised to see his name; this girl that he’d barely looked at before knew who he was. Taking out his notebook, he began to pen a note much longer than any you two had shared thus far.

-

He had to wait until Thursday before he could give you the note (no class on Wednesday), and received a long letter in return at the end of class on Friday. In the letter, you told him all about yourself. You started with your name, your favorite color, and a few other random things. You told him what your major was and what you dreamed about doing after college. Then, you wrote about how to spent time outside of the classroom. Lastly, you said you knew who he was because, according to you, “everyone knows Peter Parker, super smart kid with great humor.” He took it as a compliment.

He wrote a letter over the weekend telling you that he was Peter Parker, even though you already knew that. His favorite color was tied between red and blue, but he might like blue just a tiny bit more on cloudless summer afternoons. While at college, he was studying physics, but he hadn’t really decided what he wanted to do after graduation yet. He spent a lot of time doing nerdy things with his best friend and roommate Ned, like having sci-fi movie marathons or building the newest LEGO sets. He ended the letter with a short apology for not knowing who you were.

-

There was a new spring in Peter’s step as he walked to class on Monday. Over the weekend, he’d learned all about the girl who sat next to him in his English class, and he took some time on Saturday to go to the city and fight a little bit of extra crime. Being the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man in a college town wasn’t all that exciting; he ended up mostly protecting defenseless young women from creepy assholes at frat parties. While it was rewarding, Peter was always itching for something more. He and Ned would hang out in Chicago on available weekends, taking down all sorts of baddies that weren’t expecting any sort of superhero to be there to stop them.

He handed you the note as soon as he sat down in class and watched you from the corner of his eye as you carefully put the note in your bookbag. A smile pulled at the corners of his mouth: he was more than happy to see that you wanted to keep the note both safe and away from your prying eyes. After that, English was thoroughly uneventful, but confusing for Peter. For some reason, he just kept stealing glances at this girl. You’d captivated him; Peter refused to admit it, but he was done for.

That evening, Ned finally couldn’t take it anymore. Peter had been super jittery for straight up a week and a half, and had kept it from Ned. “What’s going on with you?” Ned asked the first time he saw Peter smiling at the ceiling.

“I met a girl,” Peter said definitively, like that was that.

“Okay… Details? What’s she like?”

“Well, actually, she can tell you about herself,” Peter said ambiguously as he pulled your most recent note out of his bag.

Ned read over the letter and encouraged his friend to go for you. “She seems really nice. You ask her out yet?”

Peter coughed awkwardly. “We’ve actually never spoken before. She let me borrow her English notes that day I missed class, and we’ve been writing notes to each other since then.” He pulled out the few other notes he had from you as proof.

“Dude,” Ned said as he shook his head, “you’ve gotta use your words, buddy. She sounds great, and you obviously like her. Are you really just gonna let her slip through your fingers? You realize it’s the end of the semester and you might never have a class with her ever again, right? This university is pretty damn big, Peter.”

Peter’s eyes widened. He hadn’t thought of that. “I’ll ask her the next chance I get.”

-

The next day in class, however, he was too nervous to actually talk to you. His voice got all caught up in his throat, and he felt like he’d been chewing on cotton balls all morning. Sighing as he sat, he decided he’d ask you for dinner the next time it was his turn to give you a note… Thursday. He was so busy contemplating how he wanted to ask that the bell made him jump. When he heard a giggle coming from his right, and saw you covering your mouth, your shoulders shaking. Dr. Terrance had already begun speaking, so you mouthed a quick “sorry for laughing” before paying attention to the prof for the rest of the period. Peter was so embarrassed that he didn’t notice your return letter until almost halfway through the lecture.

The letter said that you were glad to know more about Peter Parker other than that he was a nice and funny guy in your English class. You made a comment about how pretty the skies had been now that the rainy April weather was clearing up and the temperature was getting warmer. You said that you loved studying outside and invited Peter to study with you the next day. You ended the letter typically with your initial, but, underneath, you had written a PS: “text me with a yes or no so that I can tell you where I study x” with your number underneath.

Peter crashed through the door of his dorm room shouting, “NED!”

“What? Did you do it?” excitedly came Ned’s reply from his position at his desk.

“Well, sort of.” A quick pause. “No, not really.”

“What the fuck, Peter.”

“No, no! It’s still great! She asked me to study with her tomorrow!”

“She did?” Ned jumped up and hurried over to where Peter was still standing…in the open doorway.

Peter enthusiastically gestured to the letter and handed it over for Ned to read. As he read, Peter shut the door and began pacing around the room. What was he gonna say? Which subject should he take to study? Differential Equations, to show that he was ahead in math? Or should he take his Spanish homework, to show that he was working on becoming bilingual? Should he even worry this much about impressing you? What if you—

Peter’s thoughts were interrupted when Ned asked, “So did you text her?”

“Oh my God.”

“You idiot. Text her right now,” Ned scorned, returning the letter to Peter.

He texted you, “hey, it’s Peter! I’d love to study together tomorrow!”

You replied within minutes, “Great! I usually sit on the hill by the lake. I bring a picnic blanket, so don’t worry about having something to sit on.”

He texted back something about that sounding lovely, and the smile didn’t leave his face for the rest of the afternoon.

-

The next morning, he picked out a tee shirt that he figured would make you laugh. The shirt had a picture of iron’s chemical symbol and the word “MAN” underneath it. When he was going to be spending time with Mr. Stark, he was always sure to pack that one. He picked out dark jeans and grey sneakers and was out the door.

The late spring sun was hotter than Peter expected, and his black shirt absorbed a lot of heat. His pace quickened, as he worried about sweating too much before greeting the girl from his English class for the first time. He saw you sitting alone on the hill, reading a thick novel of some kind, your face mostly hidden by a large straw sunhat. He took the opportunity to sneak up on you (maybe cheating a bit using his super stealthy spider skills).

“Hi there!”

You jumped a little, earning an accomplished chuckle from Peter. “Oh, hello. I didn’t hear you walk up. Make yourself comfortable anywhere.”

Peter did so, and the two of you sat in a lovely silence as you read and Peter worked on his DE homework. On the way out the door, he’d decided to go with impressive advanced math. You, however, were too invested in what you were reading to really notice what he was doing at all. He listened to music as he worked, but left one earbud out in case you wanted to talk to him ever. After about half an hour of holding his breath every time you turned the page, of waiting for you to say something, he couldn’t help himself anymore.

“Do you maybe want to go out for dinner Friday night?” he blurted, a little too loudly and a little too high-pitched. Fuck. He hadn’t realized just how nervous he was.

You laughed, a beautiful sound, and looked over at him, saying, “That was a bit sudden.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, much quieter, beginning to backtrack, “you just seem so sweet and funny and lovely and I’d really be—”

“Peter,” you said, cutting him off, “I’d love to.”

You both turned your blushing faces away from each other, both afraid the other would see, and worked in happy silence for the rest of the afternoon.