#maybe I’ll finish it up and post it as a deleted scene

[azrielgreen]

Prism Deleted Scene: post-Nancy’s house after dinner party

as requested, the missing scene from Jon's POV

Jonathan Byers and Eddie Munson sit in Eddie’s new truck.

They meet around this time some nights, just sitting together smoking, catching up. It’s not business, but it’s never fully social either. Eddie is mostly social with Jon in front of other people.

Jon doesn’t mind.

He’s not social, he doesn’t require friends the way Nancy does. Eddie is perfect for what he needs. He knows Eddie as well as he wants to. He likes him. They see one another to a degree that allows closeness, friendship, loyalty. Jon also doesn’t know Eddie, not really.  

He thinks he knows him better than most. In some ways, better than Steve.

But Eddie’s actions, just sometimes, make no sense even to Jon.

So this night after they’re done talking about this new dealer Jon has helped get set up, Eddie’s gonna run his usual stuff through the guy, Callahan’s poised to look the other way, none of the boys from Last Light have come near Will again, nor have they made waves… shit like that, they fall quiet.

Eddie’s just… got his eyes closed, face forward. It’s like he’s meditating or some shit, like he’s fucking zen, just chilling or maybe thinking a thousand things, Jon knows enough about how his mind works to understand it’s usually a frightening combination of both.

Jon finishes the cigarette, tosses the butt. They’re outside the Harrington house. Steve is presumably asleep inside. Eddie had told Jon to walk here later, have their little catch up.

‘Why’d you do it?’ he asks before he can change his mind.

Silence.

Jon looks at him. It’s like he’s asleep almost, only Jon knows better.

At length Eddie says, ‘Do what?’ without opening his eyes.

‘You told me Steve was a model,’ Jon says, not really choosing his words, but there’s ways to speak to Eddie and he knows most of them. ‘You mentioned it that day when we did the wallpaper. You said he was a powerhouse, a big deal.’

‘He was.’

‘Yeah but, you said it after I told you Nancy was putting together a package to attract investors for the magazine.’ He stares ahead, can’t see whatever Eddie sees behind his lids, doesn’t think he’d want to. ‘You knew I’d tell her, or remind her. Why’d you do it?’

Eddie opens his eyes. ‘When are you going to tell her?’

Jon almost sighs. It’s so like Eddie to shut down a question he doesn’t want to answer with a question aimed at you instead. ‘When I get the offer letter, I guess.’

‘Spring?’

‘Yeah, maybe. I don’t know yet. I’m worried about leaving Will.’

‘You know I’ll take care of him.’

Jon looks at Eddie. ‘Yeah, I know. I might take him with me. Just the three of us, new city. Might be good for him.’

‘Hopper’d flip his shit.’

‘He’s not our real Dad and he can’t handle Will on a good day.’

‘That’s ungenerous.’

‘You knew it’d make Steve upset when she mentioned it,’ Jon pushes, talk of Eddie taking care of Will ruffles him just enough. ‘You knew he’d panic like that at dinner. Why’d you do it?’

Eddie looks at Jon.

It’s like… sometimes it’s like being underwater and looking all around and seeing nothing and then you turn around and there’s this fucking massive shark… just staring, still, inches away.

Jon likes sharks.

He likes Eddie.

But even he’s not stupid enough to think he’s indispensable.

He’d know.

He helped bury Tony Amato, after all.

Not far from where Eddie helped Jon bury a body of his own, many years ago.

Eddie asks, ‘Why haven’t you told Nancy you’re moving to New York?’

‘Because it’s not certain yet.’

‘Liar.’

‘You should talk.’

Eddie snorts, looks away. Jonathan relaxes slightly. ‘I did it because I wanted to see how he’d handle it. I wanted to see what would happen.’

‘Not to put distance between Nancy and Steve?’

‘That’s not what happened.’

No, it’s not. Steve was on the floor of Jon and Nancy’s den playing with Eddie’s ankle and was so drunk he’d probably have said yes to a foursome.

Nancy would tell Jon sometimes how sex addicted Steve was, back when they were together.

Eddie’s eyes are closed again.

‘Don’t worry about Steve.’

‘I’m not. I was just curious.’

‘And don’t ask me shit in front of him again. He’s too smart for that.’

Jon nods slowly. ‘Sorry.’

‘It’s fine. You got the radio frequencies for the next few weeks?’

‘Yeah, all here.’ Jon hands over the notebook to Eddie. All the copland frequencies so Eddie can scan and tune in as he likes. Jon gets them every few weeks from Hopper without the older man knowing. ‘You could have Steve get ‘em from now on.’

‘No, he likes what he does there. He’s making good changes. That’s important.’

Jon doesn’t ask. ‘Hargrove wrote to me.’

‘He wants to know about Steve?’

‘And you.’

‘Tell him what he wants to know.’

‘You sure?’

‘I want him to trust you.’

‘I don’t think he trusts anyone.’

‘Nah, he’s too dumb for that. Be his guy for a bit. He always liked you down at the ring.’

Jon remembers.

Munson’s legit, Jon had told Billy when he asked about Eddie. Sells quality stuff, but get what you need and get out. Don’t turn your back on him.

Advice that Billy had not taken.

‘He’ll hear we’re friends eventually.’

‘And you’ll say you hate me and you’re scared of me and he’ll like you even more.’

‘You probably should’a ganked him if he’s this much trouble, though.’

‘I like trouble.’

Jon rolls his eyes. ‘I know.’

‘He’s useful.’

‘For what?’

‘Don’t worry about it.’

‘You just want to go taunt him.’

It’s too far, Jon can tell the moment he’s said it.

Eddie takes a sharp breath in through his nose, smiles too bright.

‘Right as always, Jonny Boy.’ He looks out the window to the topmost room where Steve is asleep, the only source of soft light. ‘Right as always. Except about Nancy. She won’t go with you and when her plan falls apart, she won’t be able to bear you getting that offer in New York. You’ll go alone, and you’ll be happier for it and when you call Will, he’ll talk about me and Steve and you’ll know he’s safe and fine even with you in New York because your little brother,’ Eddie says, clapping his thigh, ‘is always safe with me.’

Jonathan blinks rapidly. ‘Eddie, I didn’t mean—’

‘I know what you meant.’ The older man gets out, doesn’t look back. ‘And I appreciate your honesty. We’ll talk soon.’

He closes the door.

Jon lets out a shaky breath.

‘Fuck.’

[annexx27]

some fans organized a q&a with ron nyswaner earlier today using twitter space and it was so lovely! he offered some great new insights so i’d definitely recommend to try and find some of the things he said on twitter if you want to know what was being said, because some fans have been tweeting about it! :)

i’ll try to add some things i remember him saying to this post:

- ron talked about the scene in episode 8 where tim tells hawk to go home, and hawk says “it’s not…” and he never finishes his sentence. ron explained that hawk did this because he didn’t want to burden tim. he was gonna say something along the lines of “it’s not what you think it is” (meaning — he goes home to nothing, since lucy had left him). he didn’t want tim to change his plans for him. so that’s beautiful growth in my opinion!

- ron reaaaally loves hawk and he’s so real for that

- ron talked about hawk breaking up with tim. about that it wasn’t just cruel and convenient, but he was also protecting tim. but his big dilemma is that he loves tim. he fears his love for tim. ron also talked about that scene in episode 1 where hawk tells tim to lock the door behind him. he explained that hawk wanted to protect tim from himself, he didn’t want to repeat what happened with kenny.

- ron talked about a deleted scene between marcus and hawk where they talk about how they first met. they met when they were both wounded during the war. if i remember correctly he said it was something about hawk looking at marcus from behind a curtain in the hospital bed. and the dialogue in the scene was something along the lines of hawk saying “i thought you were jerking off” and marcus replying “you hoped”.

- he talked about seeing many people talk about possibly deleted scenes from the beach scene in episode 7. he said the scene wasn’t longer or whatever than what we saw. (i don’t remember this exactly, so i could be wrong!)

- he talked about being a practical writer and constantly wanting to move the story forward (i believe?) so for example that’s why he made the choice to let hawk have a scar. so tim could ask about it and they could have a conversation about it.

- he said his favorite time period was the 70’s because it was relatable for him, and he loved the way the characters looked during the 60’s (especially tim).

- he and jonny had a long conversation about tim’s faith and jonny said that tim’s faith was his anchor.

- he talked about his favorite scenes from each time period. from the 80’s it’s the scene of tim and hawk in the hospital bed, from the 70’s it’s the scene where hawk has a breakdown and tim comforts him & the conversation at the pool, from the 60’s it’s the ending scene where they stare at each other when tim leaves because of the yearning and from the 50’s i’m honestly not sure anymore! maybe someone else can remember :) edit lol I remember again: i think it’s the scene where tim and hawk argue at the cozy corner in episode 1 about their beliefs.

i might add more to this because i’m trying to remember all the things he talked about!

[cainanders]

wildfire 005

[001] [002] [003] [004]

warnings: oral sex, daddy kink, spitting, dirty talk, hand kink, biting, a little bit of praise kink, lots of teasing, fluff (i think that’s all, i’m sorry if i’ve missed anything).

a/n: the penultimate chapter of wildfire! sorry for the delay. it’s shorter than the last parts. hopefully i’ll be able to get the final part posted sooner rather than later, and be open to inspiration for new works. please enjoy!

Four days have passed. Four excruciating days, during which Cody made your life a living hell.

He always made sure to brush up against you when he would walk by, sometimes placing his hand on the small of your back. You would often catch him looking at you from across rooms of people, his eyes half-lidded and his bottom lip between his teeth. Sometimes, you were sure you’d see him run his hand over himself, rubbing at the bulge in his pants.

Cody would never be alone with you, but would still invite you to his hotel room each night, a playful glint in his eyes every time. You’d turn him down, thinking that would give you the upper hand, but judging from the way that Cody would grin after each time you deny him, you were playing into his hand.

Monday rolls around, and you’re tasked with photographing a few promo shots in the hours leading up to Raw. This keeps you away from Cody, but your mind stays on him. You try to stay focused on your work, making sure to talk to all of the superstars that you hadn’t had the chance to catch up with yet.

When you finally finish the promo shoot, you pack up your equipment, and make your way around the arena to take a few behind the scenes photos. As you find the locker rooms, you find Cody’s room, with the door open a few inches.

“Cody?” you call out, knocking lightly on the door. “Are you in here?”

“Yeah, come on in,” he replies. You slip into the room, immediately moving to set your bags down but keeping your camera in your hands. “Busy day?” Cody’s voice comes from behind you.

“Yeah, it was boring, though,” you laugh, turning around to face him.

You’ve seen Cody shirtless before, sure. So has the rest of the world. And you’ve seen Cody after he’s showered. But you’ve never seen Cody, moments after stepping out of the shower, still slightly damp, with a towel wrapped around his hips. Maybe it was because any time you’d see Cody even remotely underdressed, it was when you were still playing at being friends. But now that the truth is out, the sight of him sends a flush over your whole body, your hands squeezing your camera and inadvertently snapping a picture.

“Fuck,” you mutter, looking down at the camera as though you forgot how to use it.

“Uh-oh,” Cody teases. “What happened there?” You shake your head, glancing back to Cody briefly to see his hands on his hips.

“Sorry,” you mumble, pressing through the menu in the camera to pull the picture up on the screen. Cody was blurry in the picture, barely in frame as it was shot from waist high, so you quickly delete it, hoping to erase the memory along with it.

“If you wanted me to do a Playgirl shoot, you could have just asked,” Cody jokes, with a smirk. “I think I’d be a better centerfold than HBK, don’t you?”

You look back to him again, biting your lip when you see that he’s now grasping the towel where it’s wrapped. He loosens it enough to push it just past his hip bones, pausing for a moment to make sure you’re still watching him, before he pushes a little further until you get a glimpse of trimmed hair just beneath the towel.

You pry your eyes away from Cody’s towel, looking into his eyes as you start to raise your camera slowly towards your face. Cody grins wider, allowing you to take a photograph of him.

“How’s it look?” he asks, as you check the screen of the camera to view the picture. As you part your lips to respond, Cody creeps up beside you, pressing against your side so he can look as well. “Not bad,” he whispers. “I’ll drop the towel if you want to take another one.”

“No, no,” you chuckle, taking a step away from him. “I’m not falling for this shit.”

“What?” Cody replies, trying to feign shock at your response but he can’t help laughing.

“I know all you’re gonna do is tease me and then leave,” you say. “Because you think you’re funny, or whatever.”

“You can’t handle a little teasing, babe?” he grins, tilting his head to the side and peering into your eyes as he steps closer to you.

“Cody, I’m serious,” you warn, holding your hand out towards him. “Listen to me. We’re less than twenty four hours away from being able to have some genuine time alone together. Let’s not forget who was the one who decided that we were gonna wait. Now, I love that you tease, and usually, I’ll give it right back to you. But right now is not the time. If you keep doing this shit, I’m not going anywhere with you tomorrow, and you’ll have a nice, fun three days to spend with your fucking hand.” When you stop, you notice the smirk on Cody’s lips almost immediately.

“So, you’re counting down the hours until we’re alone together, huh?” Cody says. As you begin to tell him off again, he shakes his head. “I’ll stop teasing,” he adds. “I’m sorry, I just love watching you squirm.” Cody closes the distance you put between the two of you, placing his hand on your lower back to keep you close only for a moment. Dipping his head down, he gives you a soft kiss on the lips, before pulling back. “That was kinda hot, by the way,” he whispers. “You telling me off like that.”

“Well, don’t get used to it,” you say. “I hate being that person. You just know how to get under my skin.”

“After this week, I’ll know how to do a lot more than that to you, babe,” Cody says.

“C’mon!” you exclaim, slapping him playfully on the chest, which causes him to recoil with a laugh.

“Last one, I swear!”

For the remainder of the night, Cody keeps his hands and his comments to himself, acting as though you were just friends. You’re mostly thankful for this, however, a small part of your brain wants him to keep teasing.

At the end of the night, you make sure to leave the venue before Cody can find you, heading to the hotel to settle in your room. While you are changing into your pajamas, you get a text from Cody.

I thought you’d stay in my room tonight, so we can leave together in the morning.

You don’t trust Cody to leave you alone that night. As much as you want to be in that hotel room with him, you know he would keep teasing, because he wants to see you break first. With a deep breath in, you let Cody know that you’re going to stay in your own room and will see him in the morning.

You climb into the bed, settling down in the covers to get comfortable. Your phone buzzes at your side, but you ignore it for a moment, to turn off the light on the side table. Briefly, you think you might continue to ignore the text that’s undoubtedly from Cody, just to give him a taste of his own medicine, but you decide to check anyway.

You know that you shouldn’t be surprised, but when you open the message to find a shirtless mirror selfie of Cody, you’re tempted to roll your eyes. Instead, your mind wanders, thinking of the possibilities the next few days hold. You decide to call him, without thinking of what you might say - he picks up after one ring.

“That desperate, huh?” he asks.

“You’re the one who picked up in one ring, Cody,” you reply. “And you’re the one trying to bait me into your room. I think you’re the desperate one.” He lets out a chuckle that turns into a sigh.

“Okay, full disclosure?”

“Go for it.”

“As much as I’m looking forward to the other stuff,” Cody says with a small laugh. “I missed you, babe. I missed sharing a hotel room with you, talking to you, watching stupid movies.” He lets out another chuckle before continuing. “I missed waking up to you saying my name,” he adds.

“What?” you ask, confused.

“In your sleep,” he replies. “You’d say my name a lot. Well, more like whimpering and moaning.” Your cheeks flush at his words, not having been aware that you’d had any dreams that would make you do that. “It wasn’t always like that,” Cody continues. “Sometimes, you’d sound scared.”

“Scared of you?”

“No, not at all,” he says. “More like you were having a nightmare or something. So, I’d hold your hand and tell you that you were safe, and you’d calm down.”

“You big softy!” you tease. “Why didn’t you tell me that before? That’s really sweet, Cody. You’d hold my hand?”

“Mhm,” he hummed. “I always want you to feel safe with me.” The tears threaten to well up at your eyes, but you wipe them away.

“Are you trying to manipulate me into coming over there by saying cute shit?”

“Of course not,” he laughs. “Why, is it working?”

“A little,” you respond. “Honestly, the picture was more tempting.”

“Oh, yeah? Why?”

“I don’t know…” you trail off, finding yourself unprepared to talk dirty on the phone at that moment.

“It’s just me, babe.”

“I need to get my hands on you.”

“And I’m the desperate one?”

“I guess we both are,” you reply. “But I’m not going to come over there tonight. We’ll just have to wait until we get to your house tomorrow.”

“Hmm, I suppose you’re right,” Cody says. “I did make you wait a whole week, I guess I can wait a few hours.”

“Nine hours,” you say. “And I’m all yours.”

“You’d better get some rest then,” he responds. “You’re gonna need your energy.”

“Goodnight, Cody,” you laugh.

“Goodnight, baby girl.”

——————

Cody’s house is bigger than you expected, especially for a man who lives alone. You assume it’s the same house he shared with his ex wife, but opt not to bring it up right away, in an effort not to spoil the mood.

As soon as the two of you arrive at his house, Cody explains that he needs to run to the store for a few things, and encourages you to explore the house to feel more comfortable. You wonder if he can sense your nerves and wants to give you some space to get acclimated without him watching. You do as he suggests, and wander through every room in the house.

On your journey through the house, you see a baseball hat that catches your eye. The black hat with white lettering that says ‘call me Daddy’ makes you think back to the night that Cody called you. You wonder if he purchased the hat afterwards as a joke or if it was something that he owned for a while.

After you change into some boxer shorts and a t-shirt, you settle onto the sofa and scroll through apps on your phone, waiting for Cody’s return. You feel yourself become sleepy from sitting in one spot, staring at a screen, so you maneuver onto your back with your head on the arm rest. You aren’t sure how long you lay there before falling asleep.

You awaken in Cody’s arms as he’s carrying you bridal style up the stairs. For a moment, it doesn’t feel real, but when he glances down at you with a chuckle, you feel it rumble through his chest.

“Go back to sleep, baby girl,” he mutters. “I’m bringing you to bed.” As soon as Cody lays you down on the bed, and you see that he’s still wearing your favorite suit, you grab his arm to stop him. You sit up on your knees, your hands fumbling with his belt buckle. “What are you doing, hm?” he asks, still grinning at you.

“I don’t want to sleep,” you whisper.

“What do you want, then?”

“I want you, Cody.”

“How bad?” he asks, gently stopping your hands. “Hm? How bad do you want me?”

“So fucking bad,” you reply, voice weak. Cody grins, unfastening his watch and crossing to place it on the dresser. He sits at the foot of the bed and removes shoes, taking the time to put them away in the closet. You can tell he’s trying to drag it out still. “C’mon, Cody,” you whine.

“Okay, babe,” he chuckles, leaving the rest of his clothes on and finally maneuvering onto the bed. He urges you to lay on your back again before he kneels between your legs.

Cody kisses you without warning and you inhale sharply, grasping his shoulders. He takes your breath away with the kiss, causing you to pull away sooner than you would like. You hold his face gently between your hands, peering into his eyes, as if you’re trying to read his mind. He laughs softly, leaning back in for another kiss.

Cody kisses as though he’s just as desperate as you are, his teeth coming in contact with your lips, nipping so hard, you wonder if you’ll taste blood. When he kisses across your cheek towards your neck, leaving bites in his wake, you feel how swollen your lips have become already. As Cody reaches your pulse, he bites down harder than you expect, and you let out a strangled whine.

“Fuck!” you gasp, arching your back to press against his body.

“Are you mine now?” Cody asks, kissing your neck, hands grabbing your thighs to hold them snug against his hips. “Hmm? You belong to me?”

“Yes, all yours,” you breathe. Cody hums, gently biting at your pulse this time and grinding himself against you. “Fuck, Cody,” you whine, grabbing handfuls of his jacket.

“Mmm, no, no,” he mumbles, leaning back onto his knees to look down at you. “You know what I want to hear.” You bite your lip, your heart pounding in your chest.

“I’m yours, daddy,” you whisper.

“Damn,” he grins. “It’s even better in person.”

Cody licks his lips, eyes wandering over your body, your boxer shorts and t-shirt making you feel exceptionally underdressed compared to his black suit. His eyes keep traveling down until he looks down at his own pants, noticing that the damp patch that you left on his crotch from when he was grinding against you. The sight makes you blush, embarrassed by how wet you are from such minimal action.

“What’s got you so fucking hot, hm?” he asks, wiping the dampness from his pants with two fingers.

“The suit,” you reply without thinking, too lost in the sight of Cody cleaning the taste of you from his fingers. “Fuck.” Your face heats up more as you realize how desperate your voice sounded. Cody grins wider, rubbing his thumb along his bottom lip.

“So it’s that fucking easy with you, huh?” he whispers, taking hold of your thighs again. “All I have to do is put on a fucking suit, and you’re drenched.” Cody yanks you by your thighs, pulling you closer to him. “Any other kinks you wanna share with me, baby girl?” he continues, leaning down to kiss your neck.

“Not yet,” you reply, nuzzling your head against his and slipping your arms around his torso beneath his jacket. Your fingers dig into the fabric of his waistcoat feeling the warmth of his skin radiating through the layers.

“What if I told you…” he begins, slipping his hand under your shirt to cup your breast over your bra. “That I want to eat your pussy? You’ve been so good this week, putting up with all of my teasing…let me show you how it’s supposed to feel.”

Your breath comes out shuddered, which you don’t expect. Cody’s fingers tease your nipple through your bra, as he continues to bite your neck. You’re desperate to find your words to respond to Cody, but when he grinds against you, all you can do is moan. You grasp Cody’s face, pulling him back so you can peer into his eyes once again.

“I don’t have to,” he says, softy. “If you aren’t comfortable with it.”

“I trust you, Cody,” you whisper. “Ever since you first brought it up last year, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about what your tongue would feel like…and your fingers...” Cody smirks, listening to how breathless you sound before you’ve even started.

“Yeah?” he asks, sitting back on his knees, peering down at you. “Let’s get these off then.”

Cody begins to tug your boxers and panties down, so you lift your hips to allow him to remove them. You sit up quickly, tugging your shirt over your head and tossing it away. Cody leans in to kiss you, his hand moving behind your back to unhook your bra. As soon as the clothing is off of your body, Cody moves off of the bed, yanking your body so your legs hang off the edge of the bed while you rest flat on the mattress.

As he removes his jacket, his eyes are on you, tilting his head to peer between your legs. When he rolls up his sleeves, the gaze he sets on you makes you feel vulnerable, so you instinctively begin to pull your thighs together.

“Uh-uh,” Cody says, leaning over to rest a hand on the bed beside you and using his other hand to ease your legs apart again. “Don’t be shy, baby girl. It’s just me.”

Before you can respond, you feel Cody’s fingertips teasing along your thighs towards your core. As soon as his fingers come in contact with your slickness, pressing to your clit for a moment, you inhale sharply which makes Cody smirk.

“You haven’t been touched in so long, huh?” he asks, bringing his fingers to his lips. He parts his lips and sticks his tongue to lick the taste of you from the pads of his fingers, maintaining eye contact with you. When he wraps his lips around his fingers, sucking every last taste of you from them, you grasp his wrist, pulling his hand away from his mouth so you can kiss him.

The taste of yourself on Cody’s tongue makes your head spin, and you find yourself desperate to have his head between your thighs. You place your hands on either side of his face, pulling him back so you can kiss along his jaw towards his neck. His hand finds its way back to your clit, teasing it softly but enough to make your body twitch.

“Cody,” you whine against his skin. “Please.”

“Please what, baby girl? Tell me what you need. I’ll do anything you fucking need me to do.” When Cody’s fingers start to rub circles on your clit, you respond by biting his neck to stifle your groan. “Fuck,” he whispers in your ear, bumping his head against yours. “Tell me.”

“I want you…”

Unable to focus due to Cody’s fingers still toying with your clit, you trail off with a soft moan, pushing Cody to lean back enough to see his eyes. You hope he can read it in your face, but he just stares back at you with his lips parted, waiting for you to speak. You urge him backwards, trying to guide him where you want him, so he kneels on the floor between your spread legs, waiting.

“Say it,” Cody commands, hands resting on your knees. “If you say it, I’ll do it.”

“Fuck, please eat my pussy,” you beg, cupping his jaw. “Please, Cody.”

“Anything for you, baby girl.”

Cody pushes your thighs further apart, before he leans in, giving a gentle bite to your inner thigh. He cuts his eyes to your face as his tongue begins to tease your clit. His tongue moves tenderly, ghosting as if it’s not even there, traveling to your entrance to push the tip in just for a moment. He flicks his tongue over your clit again, which causes you to roll your hips against his face.

“You taste so good,” he breathes against you.

Cody takes his time, teasing your clit to make sure you’re as wet as possible. His breath comes in soft pants against you, his tongue working with precision. You can’t help the way you moan, desperate and loud, grinding yourself against his face to urge him on.

“Calm down,” he whispers. “Just feel it.” You listen to Cody’s instructions, relaxing into the bed to focus on what he’s doing.

The concept of time escapes you, seconds stretching out into minutes until you feel like Cody’s been teasing you for hours. Slow and steady, his tongue swirls and laps, open mouth breaths escaping him. When his tongue pushes into your entrance once again, this time deeper, your body lurches in surprise, your hands grabbing for him.

“Easy, easy,” Cody mutters. “I’ll give you what you need.” As you feel his fingers slowly creeping around your entrance, you spread your legs wider, making Cody chuckle against you. “You’re fucking desperate when it comes to my fingers, huh? Why is that?”

“I don’t—”

All words escape you as Cody slips one finger inside of you, still teasing your clit so slow it’s maddening. You can hear how wet you are as his finger pumps into you at a snail’s pace. Cody’s free hand reaches for you, lacing his fingers with yours. Wiggling your hips and pressing your heels into Cody’s sides, you hope he takes the hint to stop teasing.

“Mmm,” he hums, giving you a quick glance. “Are you rushing me? Got somewhere else to be?”

“I just fucking want you,” is all you’re able to reply.

“You have me, baby girl. Now, let me concentrate.”

This time, when he dips back between your legs, his tongue is pressing harder, more urgent as it swirls around your clit. The way his tongue moves, flicking faster and with more expertise than you imagined possible, makes your body tremble. You’d never felt anything quite like it, and already you feel the tightness beginning to form within you. Cody, as if he senses your approaching orgasm, starts to suck on your clit, much to your surprise. Your gasp turns into a moan, overwhelmed with the sensation.

“Oh, fuck,” you moan. “Cody, fuck, don’t stop.”

You hate to admit that Cody was right. You hadn’t felt like this whenever anyone else had gone down on you, but you don’t want to tell him. While you’re briefly distracted with your thoughts, Cody slips a second finger inside of you pumping faster. Your back arches off of the bed, pushing yourself closer against his face.

“Fuck, daddy,” you moan, letting go of his hand and threading your fingers through his short hair to tug him closer. Cody growls against you, never faltering his pace. “It feels so fucking good,” you mutter, grabbing for Cody’s hand again. “Fuck, fuck!”

Cody curls his fingers, pumping faster as he continues to lick your clit. With a breathless groan, you peer down at him to see that he’s looking up at you already, his eyes devious. You tug his hand towards you, slipping two of his fingers into your mouth. He leans away, kissing and biting your inner thighs while his fingers continue to pump into you.

“You look so good right now,” Cody mutters. “The way you’re sucking on my fingers, moaning like that, you’ve got me so fucking hard.” You pull his fingers from your mouth, knitting your brows together as you try to make your voice stronger than you feel.

“I wanna suck your dick so fucking bad,” you pant, as Cody uses his now free hand to tease your clit.

“Yeah? You do?” Cody smirks, biting your thigh harder. “Maybe I’ll let you…maybe.” You know his eyes are still on you so you relax onto the bed, running your hands over your stomach and your breasts. Your fingers toy with your nipples and; even though you’re trying to put on a little bit of a show for Cody, you find yourself responding to your own touch. “Feels good?” Cody’s voice is slightly strained, as if he’s losing his composure.

“Mmhm,” you hum, peering back at him.

“Ya’know, you’re squeezing my fingers so fucking tight,” he whispers, kissing your inner thigh. “I don’t think you’ll be able to handle my dick.”

“Please, c’mon,” you whimper. “I wanna…I wanna come!”

“Yeah, you’re close already, I can tell. But you know what? I think I can make you squirt without even using my fingers. What do you think?”

Without warning, Cody pulls his fingers out of you and dives back in face first. He uses his fingers to keep you spread so he can focus fully on your clit. Your body is trembling and your breath is coming out quickly, missing with moans and pleading Cody’s name.

Both of Cody’s arms hook under your thighs, pulling you even closer to him as he sucks and licks your clit. You tighten your thighs around his head, grinding against his face as your climax approaches.

“Oh, God, Cody!” you exclaim, grabbing onto his forearms.

Even with your legs clamped around his head, Cody’s own moans are loud enough to be heard along with the sloppy way he eats you out. His fingers dig into your thighs firm enough to leave bruises, keeping you from wiggling away as you finally begin to unravel.

You’re reduced to moans and whimpers, spouting out pleads that barely make sense. Cody keeps working you through your climax and you immediately worry he’s going to keep going to get another from you, so you try to pry his hands away.

“Please wait,” you gasp, finding his grip to be much stronger than you have the capacity to overpower. “I need a sec, baby. Fuck!”

Cody chuckles, finally letting you go so he can sit back and peer up at you. Looking down at him through half lidded eyes, you can see the mess you’ve made of him. His face is wet, along with his shirt and waistcoat. You bite your lip, slightly embarrassed at how sloppy you must look.

“Fuck, that was beautiful,” Cody grins. “Better than I ever imagined.” Your body continues to tremble, as you ride through the residual waves. Your eyes slip closed, your lips parted to let out quick pants. “Talk to me, baby girl,” Cody whispers, kissing your inner thigh. “You okay?”

“I’m…fuck, that was so good, Cody. I really liked that.”

“I could tell,” he laughs, continuing to kiss and lick softly at your inner thighs. “I wanted to get another one out of you, but I think I got a little carried away for your first one.”

“Come here,” you whisper, reaching for him.

Leaving one more kiss on your thigh, Cody moves so he is leaned over you, bracing himself on the mattress with both hands. You gently take hold of his face, pulling him in for a kiss. The kiss stays tender at first, soft and sensual, until you are overcome with desire, leading you to kiss and lick along his jaw and neck. You taste yourself on his skin, and you follow the trail down to his throat.

“You’re gonna leave marks,” Cody mutters.

“Do you want me to stop?” you breathe against his neck.

“No,” he chuckles.

“Does that mean I can leave marks wherever I want?” you ask.

“I don’t have a match until next weekend, so I’m all yours.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

With all the energy you can muster, you push him gently to stand upright, and urge him to switch with you. When he sits on the edge of the bed, you kneel in front of him, fingers finding the buckle of his belt.

“Hey, you don’t have to—”

“I want to,” you reply, glancing up at him. “Believe me, I really fucking want to.” He smirks, and nods his head, so you continue to undo his pants. “Jesus, Cody,” you mumble, pulling his length free and finally getting an eyeful of what he’s been bragging about.

“I told you,” he grins back. “I would have let you have it a long time ago.”

“I’ve wanted you since the moment I met you,” you reply, your hand gently wrapping around his erection. “I would have let you fuck me over a fucking pinball machine at that arcade if you wanted to.”

“Yeah?” Cody smirks wider. “I bet you fucking would have. You’ll let me do anything to you, won’t you?” Nodding your head slowly and peering up at Cody from beneath your lashes, you run your thumb over his tip to collect his pre cum. Making sure he keeps his eyes on you, you raise your hand to your mouth and lick the taste of him from your thumb.

“Mmm,” you hum, blinking slowly, teasing Cody. “I can’t wait to taste more.”

You stroke your hand over Cody’s slowly, sitting up higher on your knees so you can slowly spit to coat over his length. He lets out a soft him, and you glance up at him to see him loosening his tie and unbuttoning his top two shirt buttons. With your eyes still on Cody, you tease the head of his erection with the tip of your tongue.

“You’re so big, I don’t know if I’m gonna be able to handle it,” you whisper, licking from his base to the tip, making sure to get a taste of the pre cum that’s leaking. Cody lets out a small hum, spreading his knees a little wider for you, inviting you in closer.

You swirl your tongue around his tip before taking it between your lips, sucking softly while your hand strokes lazily over him. Listening to the way Cody’s breathing starts to falter only slightly from your actions, you decide to take him a little further into your mouth.

Cody hums, putting his hand on your shoulder briefly, his fingers curling slightly behind your neck. When his thumb presses softly against your throat, you let out a small whimper, thinking about Cody choking you. You pull back, looking into his eyes to see that teasing glint you’ve grown accustomed to.

“You’re distracting me,” you whisper, still stroking your hand over him. “And I really, really want to do this. Please.”

“Are you…begging to suck my dick?”

“Does that turn you on?” you ask, sitting up higher to lean towards Cody’s face. “Me, on my knees, begging for your dick? Because I’m so fucking desperate for you?” Your hand starts pumping faster, adding a twist along with each stroke. Cody nods his head slowly, letting out quiet panting breaths as though he’s trying to maintain composure. “Please, daddy,” you beg. “Let me suck your dick. I fucking need to.”

“Need to,” Cody echoes, his voice low. He keeps his eyes locked with yours as his thumb runs across your bottom lip, then slips into your mouth, easing your jaw open. When you stick your tongue out of your mouth, Cody cuts his gaze to the action before back into your eyes. Leaning a little closer to you, he spits onto your tongue, before pushing your mouth closed. “Good girl,” he breathes.

You rest back into your haunches enough to take Cody’s length into your mouth, bobbing your head along with the motions of your hand. You’re sure you can feel Cody’s eyes on you, undoubtedly watching your every move. When he groans, you move faster, adjusting your jaw just a bit so that your teeth gently scrape. The action makes Cody inhale sharply, and you notice one of his hands grab a handful of the comforter below him.

“Damn,” he chuckles. “You love this, don’t you?” You hum a ‘yes’ in response, purposefully dragging out the hum to send vibrations through Cody’s shaft. The small moan that he lets out is vulnerable, completely uncharacteristic of him, but it only drives you to move faster.

Each movement takes Cody deeper into your mouth, so you place your hands on his thighs, opting to only use your mouth. Your pace quickens, bobbing your head, and hollowing out your cheeks as you try to take him as far as you can. Relaxing your throat you feel yourself taking him deeper than you expected, so you bring one of your hands back to steady him at the base of his shaft.

As soon as he hits the back of your throat, you pause, holding him as deep as you can for as long as you can. The noise that Cody releases is between a whimper and a moan, strangled as he tries to keep composure.

You keep still as long as you can, longer than you imagined you could given Cody’s size. When you pull off of him, you drag in a deep breath, spit dripping down your chin as you try breathe. Looking up into Cody’s eyes as your hand starts to jerk him again, you feel your heart skip a beat. His mouth is open, breath staggered, his eyes on you with a look that you’ve never seen from him before.

Desperate to get him off, you take him back into your mouth, picking up the pace even faster than before and using your hand to stroke what you can’t fit into your mouth. Cody’s groans of your name mixed between breathless expletives let you know he’s getting close, so you take your free hand to cup him lower.

“Fuck,” is Cody’s strained response as you massage his balls. His legs are restless, one of his hands resting on the back of your head, fingers pressing down.

When his climax hits, you can’t help but moan along with him, swallowing everything he gives as you work him until he tries to push you away.

“Jesus Christ,” he pants. You look up at him, wanting to remember the way that he looks, knowing that you were the one who made him feel that way. “Holy shit,” Cody says, looking down to you. “That was fucking incredible.”

“You taste good,” you say. He leans down to kiss you gently, and you can feel him shaking slightly from the waves of his own orgasm.

“I think you taste better,” he whispers against your lip. “Better than candy.” When you bite your lip, Cody smiles, a softer, less cocky smile than he normally gives you. He reaches for your shirt that lays on the floor and uses it to wipe your chin. “So, how about a shower?” Cody asks, tucking himself back into his pants.

“Together?”

“Of course,” he replies, helping you along with him so you’re both on your feet. “We can go for a drive, and then come back home so I can make you dinner. How does that sound?”

“Really good,” you mumble. “I love you, Rhodey.” He smiles and kisses your forehead.

“I love you, too, baby.”

[henswilsons]

lafd updates kissing booth scene 😙

hi hi hello !! i was fortunate enough to get featured on an episode of @dispatchpodcast with the simply wonderful @burnthatbridge and had a truly delightful time, cannot recommend enough. i mentioned i had a few deleted scenes from lafd updates 2 and said “hehe maybe i’ll upload them during christmas”, and then as soon as rachel and i hung up i immediately forgot i’d said that so did not in fact upload them on christmas. anyway so better late than never? hope u enjoy hehe

this is lafd updates 2.5: kissing booth. aka will mia ever stop milking this verse (probably not)

Eddie has served two terms in the army. He has fired guns; he has killed people. He left his wife and his newborn son to do a military tour in the Middle East; he has lost countless people on the job.

And yet, somehow, this is his lowest moment: standing behind a kissing booth, wearing an LAFD shirt two sizes too small and a $5 FOR A KISS! badge.

It makes sense, he thinks resignedly to himself as the next woman steps up the booth. This is probably just karmic retribution for all the terrible things he’s done in his life. He’d thought he’d paid it back, by moving himself and Christopher to a new state where they’ve both thrived, taking a job that focuses on saving people instead of milling them down, but apparently not. Just when he thinks the universe has finished taking its turn laughing at him, he falls through another new, impossibly worse trapdoor of shame.  

He just didn’t realise this one would mean potentially contracting Covid or beard burn.

“Hello,” he says, anyway, because he’s nothing if not a diligent protector of state. Also Buck has promised him the mother of all blowjobs if he cracks eight hundred dollars. “What’s your name?”

The latest woman blinks at him, a little owlishly. “Um, Alice,” she says with a blush. “Hi, sorry, I just can’t believe it’s really you. You’re so handsome in person.”

“Ha, really,” Eddie says, as though ninety percent of the tax-paying public willing to spend their daily latte budget on a smooch haven’t said the exact same thing to him. He’s honestly starting to get a little offended on behalf of his station portrait; he didn’t think it was that bad. At least not the point where people are insultingly surprised by his apparent good looks. Maybe it’s the hair? “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Alice. I’m Eddie.”

“I know,” she says. “I’m a big fan.”

Eddie reiterates: he posted about traffic and sandstorms. “Well, let’s give you your money’s worth.”

Behind manning a kissing booth, probably one of the more mortifying experiences of Eddie’s life had been discussing the parameters of what constituted a five-dollar kiss with his coworkers and captain. It’s good to know that at least two of his top five most humiliating moments have been solidified within a day; economical, probably, even if it means he needs to go into hiding for at least a week. Chimney had begun the team brief with, “Okay, but do you use tongue?” which was how Eddie knew he was in for a long afternoon. Or, the big banner outside the station with MR LAFD UPDATES MAN KISSING BOOTH INSIDE!! had been an inkling, but he’d been mostly optimistic.

“Like French kissing?” Bobby said.

“No one calls it French kissing anymore, old man,” Buck said. “It’s making out.”

“I,” Eddie said, “am not making out with people. I’m going to get the kissing equivalent of rug burn.”

Chimney had looked concerned. “A peck isn’t worth five dollars.”

“I didn’t tell you to charge five dollars per kiss.”

“Uh, if we want to beat out Station 19 for biggest donation, we’re gonna have to pull out the big guns.” Chimney then gestured at him, as though Eddie was in danger of forgetting that the culmination of the rivalry between the 118 and their biggest rivals rested on his shoulders. And tongue, apparently. He’d been having stress dreams for weeks.

“Yeah, you’re probably gonna have to use tongue,” Ravi said, not sounding apologetic at all. “Everyone in my mentions is talking about it.”

Maybe today would also encapsulate the third worst moment of Eddie’s life. If he played his cards right he might be able to hit all five. “About my tongue?” he said, tiredly. Three months ago, he would have been dismayed. He’s older and wiser to the whims of Twitter now; he’s resigned to his fate.

“#LAFDKissingBooth is trending,” Ravi said. “You better mint up.”

Eddie sighed anyway. “I liked it better when you were riding the coattails of my fame.”

“Oh, I still am,” Ravi said, and flashed his phone screen. “I run an LAFD Updates Man Updates account where I mostly just report on everything you’re doing.”

Hen was pretending not to find this deeply hilarious. It was fine; Eddie was used to being betrayed at this point. “Why?”

“Because I’m at, like, sixty thousand followers,” Ravi said. “By the way, everyone sends their best wishes about your defeat in Mario Kart yesterday.”

Buck said, “Ha!” like this was tremendously funny. “Update-caption.”

“Don’t you have anything to say about this?” Eddie said. “We’re dating.”

“And you’re about to make us hundreds of dollars,” Buck said kindly. “If you kiss them the way you kiss me we could probably charge eight or nine dollars for a kiss.”

“Oh, gag,” said Hen, at the same time as Chimney perked a finger up and broached, “Now, that’s not a bad idea.” There had also been a talk about Covid protocols and the implications of a kissing booth in the metropolis of California, as well as an agreed-upon number of seconds a kiss should last (six seconds, which Eddie had fought tooth and nail down from fifteen, what the fuck, Chim) and a loose script Eddie would follow, because apparently money in a box and then a smooch was “unromantic”, or whatever. “It’s the Mr LAFD Updates Experience,” Chimney said, emphasising the words in a way that they probably all started with capital letters, like a board game or bad dating simulator. God, it’s only a matter of time. “We need to generate good press for our charity auction in Christmas so hopefully we can sell off a date with you for over a grand.”

“We could start a farm in the mountains,” Eddie said to Buck. “Raise goats.”

Buck, who was an asshole for still sniggering at him, but also the love of Eddie’s life, said indulgently, “Goats are cool. Do you think we could make our own cheese?”

Their hideaway in the mountains where Eddie does nothing but spend time with his son and boyfriend making cheese and babying goats has kind of been the thing keeping him going through the afternoon. Even now as he leans in to kiss Alice, counting to six in his head (and keeping his tongue in his mouth, thank you), he lets his mind wander a little: pictures Buck in overalls and nothing else, milking cows and chewing on wheat. Mm.

It's not until she pulls away that he realises to his mortification he’s sprung to half-chub. Quickly he quickly slides the donations box in front of him.

Alice wipes her mouth on the back of her hand, looking a little dazed. “Damn,” she says. “If I pay another twenty what will that get me?”

Eddie tries for a smile. “Probably several rounds at Whack-A-Mole and maybe one of my captain’s smash burgers.”

Alice leans forward across the booth. “Just a smash burger?”

Eddie coughs. “Um, well. And Whack-A-Mole.”

“Lady,” someone loudly says in the queue behind her. “You got your turn. Stop holding up the line.”

Alice scowls, but drops twenty dollars in the donations box anyway before disdainfully swanning away. Eddie is sort of pleasantly surprised by this; he busies himself smoothing the bill down, does a rough estimate in his head with the amount of people he’s kissed across the afternoon and reckons he’s probably very near his eight hundred dollar goal, then looks up for his next customer.

And smiles.

“Well, hey there, cowboy,” Buck says, which is a poorly timed choice of words considering the trestle table they’ve got set up is only just covering Eddie’s boner at the thought of Buck murmuring yeehaw into his ear as they slow-fuck against a haybale. “I heard you’re giving out kisses?”

Eddie raises an eyebrow. Goat-rearing fantasies aside, he hasn’t forgotten it was Buck’s big mouth that landed him here. “It’s gonna cost you, you know. Five dollars.”

Buck pouts. “I don’t get a boyfriend deal?”

“You’re right. Ten dollars.”

Buck barks out a laugh, but pulls out a ten-dollar bill anyway. “Deal,” he says, tucks it into the box that only yesterday he and Christopher had spent an hour decorating at the kitchen table as Eddie fried gorditas at the stove. He leans forward, bracing his weight on the table with both hands. “So?”

“Well, let me give you your money’s worth,” Eddie recites dutifully, and it’s worth it for the way Buck laughs when he closes the distance, tasting his smile. Kissing Buck is familiar; grounding in a way, amidst the probably hundreds of strangers he’s kissed today. Buck tastes of the candy corn he’s definitely been sneaking behind Hen’s back, of the protein shake he and Eddie had shared on the car ride in; Eddie counts six seconds, but keeps a hand around the lovely curve of Buck’s face, where he can fit his thumb against the pulse in his neck. Buck bites a little at his lower lip; Eddie is on second twelve of fuck it and opens his mouth enough that he can lick his way in, chase out the bubbling laughter.

Behind them, someone wolf whistles.

Abruptly, he pulls away. Buck is still leaning forward, looking kinda dopey, mouth curved in that indulgent little smile of his whenever Eddie fucks up flipping pancakes or holds his hand in public. “Wow,” he says.

Eddie wipes his mouth. “Come again.”

“Oh, I will,” Buck says, who is predictable as the day is long. “Best ten dollars I’ve ever spent.”

He’s such a piece of shit. There’s no one Eddie wants to escape to the mountains to more. “Go help Bobby with his burgers, slacker.”

“And after I’ve made such a generous donation.” Buck leans away, and Eddie catches a glimpse of the people in line behind him, all gaping. Half of them have their phones out. Eddie altruistically lets this be tomorrow-Eddie’s problem. “How much have you raised?”

“With this?” Eddie flaps the latest ten-dollar addition. “I think this makes it eight hundred dollars.”

Buck grins. “Well, how about that, hey.”

“How about that.” Buck still doesn’t move away. Eddie sighs, but it’s mostly (read: all) for show. “What, Buck?”

Quick as whip, before Eddie can blink, Buck leans back in again over the table and pecks him, soft and slow. “Love you,” he says, and then darts off, leaving Eddie blinking after him.

The next person in line looks impressed. “Damn,” they say. “If I pay you ten dollars will you kiss me like that?”

“Sorry, boyfriend toll,” he says, and they good-naturedly snap their fingers. “But hey, nice to meet you. What’s your name?”

[thunder-shadow]

ive got many!!! 1, 4, 5, 8, 17, 21, 27, 28, 37?!

Thank uuu <333333

Do you daydream a lot before you write, or go for it as soon as the ideas strike?

Oh boy, yeah I daydream a lot haha - usually I get an idea and write down the bare info for it (like the ship and maybe one or two scene ideas) and then I just let it marinate for a bit, usually listening to music or reading! Then ideas usually pop in from there XD I'm a daydreamer all the way

4. How do you choose which fics to write?

Usually it's just whichever one I feel needs attention at the moment? Or whatever my brain latches onto haha

Like yesterday I meant to edit the GHE chapter so it could be posted, but instead I wrote the Earthcury one-shot turned multi-chap (which I wanna finish b4 I post it)

It's very wishy-washy is what I'm saying LOL

5. How many wips do you have?  What fandoms/pairings are they for?

All of WIPs are for SolarBalls haha I can only write for one fandom at a time XD

Okay, so obviously I have the GHE fic, the Jupixturnus fic, the Vercury fic, and now the Earthcury fic (those are all multi-chaps); then I have my oneshots, of which I plan to write Vars, Vearth, another UraEarth, a fluffy Jupiturnus one, a Poly Rocky planets one, and I still have a Sol & Nemesis one with snippets, as well as the post-paranoia Luna fic that still needs its chapter two LOL (and then I have a titanearth smut + jupixturnus smut that i'm thinking abt but shhhhhh)

That doesn't even count the random ideas I've just jotted down in my notes app LOL

8. Post an out-of-context spoiler from a wip.

Oh gee, lemme find one I feel like posting!! I don't have any spoilers to be honest, bc i haven't written since i posted the ghe one or i would've used that 😭 so just have a snippet from my latest wip

I actually posted this the other day but deleted it like immediately LOL but here! from my earthcury college AU

‘Okay,’ Earth thought, narrowing his eyes. ‘First midterm is in 7 days. One week. You’ve got this,’ and he pumped his fist, ignoring the weird looks a couple of people threw at him. ‘Just need to study. Actually study for once.’ Then he looked down at the multitude of papers spread out in front of him, his laptop propped open to a chemistry video from a Youtuber he’d found on line, and groaned, letting his face fall onto the table. Across from him, Mars let out a laugh, flipping another page in his book. “Earth, I don’t know what your definition of studying is, but putting your head on the table and giving up is not studying as far I’m aware.” Earth looked up at him through his lashes, sending him as much of an annoyed look as he could muster before groaning again. “Organic Chemistry is going to kill me! Why did I decide to become a biology major?” “I don’t know. Why did I decide to become an Astronomy major?” “Because you’re weirdly obsessed with aliens?” “Wha-” Mars spluttered, putting his book down and looking at Earth. “No!” “Because you weirdly like math?” “No, Earth, because I enjoy astronomy! I like learning about it!” Mars rolled his eyes, taking a sip from his water bottle after a second. “And I know you’re the same way about biology because we’ve been roommates since freshman year!” “Ughh,” Earth whined in response. “Just let me melt into a puddle and evaporate away so I don’t have to take these midterms.” “You could just study for them, you know.” “That was my plan! But that involves studying…” “Oh, wow,” Mars said, throwing him a stare that just dripped with disdain. “Studying involves studying, I really didn’t know that, Earth.” “Fine!” Earth stood up, shoving his stuff haphazardly into his backpack. “I’ll go to the library! And this time, I’m going to actually study!”

17. Do you have a writing routine?

Nope! I literally just sit down and start writing oop

21. Do you prefer writing chaptered fics or one-shots?

I prefer writing one-shots just bc it feels simpler, like a one-and-done LOL but multi-chaps can be fun too!!

27. What area of writing do you feel strongest in?

Being able to write a lot 😓 and body language, I feel quite confident in body language LOL

Also my grammar and language use, despite my copious use of em-dashes, semicolons, and ellipses I otherwise really just innately understand most grammar bc of how much I read when I was younger ‼️

28. What area of writing do you want to improve in?

DIALOGUE 😭😭😭

37. What fic has been the hardest for you to write?

The GHE fic hands down, it just feels so complicated 😭😭 I'm slowly chugging a lot, we're nearing the last few chapters :D

[traineecryptid]

NPSS Weibo Q&A (20240831) Part 3

This is a Q&A session held on Weibo. People will tag their questions with the hashtag #南派三叔藏海花在线答疑# (#NPSS Zang Hai Hua Online Q&A#) and NPSS will look through the tag to pick some to answer. The event started at 1500 hours on 2024 August 31st.

Folder with screenshots and big compilation google doc is here. Part 1 is here. Part 2 is here.

1554

Q: Shu, you and Xu Lei and Nanpai Sanshu living well together is more important than anything. This is the real Iron Triangle. 

A: I can act in three roles from Identity V by myself, right?

1555

Q: When will Flowery Night be released? Actually movies aren’t a bad choice. What do you think, Sanshu? (but please choose Ji2 please)

A: I will work hard to do movies!

1555

Q: It’s really too hard to say goodbye. I want to ask what do you think about saying goodbye? A: I never say goodbye, only ever die suddenly.

1556

Q: Shu, have you thought about going on variety shows? I feel like your recent mental state is very suitable to say something [at variety shows].

A: Heh heh heh heh, no one will invite me.

1557

Q: Have you seen the Yucun play? A: I’ll go see it in a few days.

1559

Q: I want to know what the others [in the tomb raiding circle] think about “because of Wu Xie, the worth of Zhangs rose”.

A: Just like in the entertainment industry. They think guzhuang idol dramas could make people famous, so they all went to act in guzhuang idol dramas. 

1559

Q: I feel like Sanshu is replying rather quickly. You're answering questions everyday. Last time it was Douyin, now it’s Weibo. I’d say that all the sets in ZHH are all pretty good! I’m awed. I could tell that there’s heart in them. But that transition from young Wu Xie into Wu Xie a few years later shocked me. I was just telling my sister that this young Wu Xie is so handsome and just as I finished talking, the person changed. How did you come up with the idea to make Wu Laogou play Wu Xie? A: Maybe this represents a sort of heart demon. (T/N: heart demon is like an obsession, something that bothers a person a lot and they would always circle back on it and it would affect everything they do etc.)

1559

Q: Is the beginning of Flowery Night them going to Iceland together? Will there be clues about the brass box there?

A: There will be.

1601

Q: (T/N: original question was deleted but according to the comments…) Will you act as Wu Xie in a drama?

A: For you, I will surely do it.

1601

Q: Shu, did you know that Qin Hao laoshi’s profile pic is still Sha Hai Wu Xie!!!! If you don’t answer me, I will A: I know. I’m teary eyed.

1602

Q: Shu, ZHH is really not bad! Are you happy with the current data and reviews?

A: I’m really quite happy. So this is how it feels to have a good response. I’ve grown numb after being scolded for the past ten years. I’ve forgotten this feeling.

1603

Q: Shu, which scene in ZHH left the deepest impression on you?

A: Three days of silence.

1604

Q: Sanshu, are you still writing the 2nd ZHH novel? Which novel are you updating now?

A: I haven’t turned around yet. (T/N: this probably means that he hasn’t managed to switch tracks from working on other things back to working on writing yet)

1606

Q: Shu, what do you do when you hit a plateau? Would you lose sleep? Or would you imagine what Wu Xie and the others are doing?

A: I don’t hit plateaus. I’m just lazy, lacking self control and cowardly, and I like to procrastinate and run away from reality. Although I have a lot of weaknesses, I’m greedy at the same time. Sigh.

1608

Q: Shu, I want to know what else left a deep impression on Wu Laoban when he was in Tibet. A: The dry toilet on the cliff. (T/N: reference below)

Another 15! Some shorter questions this time. And part 1 to part 3 covers the first hour of Q&A and some change. Good news is that NPSS's pace is still slow for now and I'm slowly catching up. I do have a few more posts worth, but I figured that I should space them out so we don't get tired of them.

[signed-sapphire]

Hiiiiii! 😁 Hope you're doing well! You know how you helped me with rewriting "Welcome to Rosas"? Well, it turned out so well, that I'd like to ask for your help again, this time with " This Wish"!

I've already finished and posted Chapter 2 last week, so now I'm currently setting up Chapter 3. AND ITS GONNA HAVE STAR!! ⭐ Its going to be the last test chapter before I ask on how readers feel about it so far.

So the way the structure is going to go is that it starts with the evil royals attempting to grab the a star from the sky and start to become a looming threat on the Hamlet. Then it would transition into a dream sequence for Asha. When she wakes, she finds that Sabino has gotten really sick ever since he lost his wish. So when she has the singing moment, she's basically venting and fed up feeling powerless and trapped. Wanting to do more for him and her people, she wishes on a star in the heat of the moment. Not long after the song ends, Star comes down, in a rather reckless way. 😅

Let me know what you suggest to do! 😉

Ooh, Rascal! I forgot for most people, “This Wish” happens near the beginning lol. The song happens near the third act of TFS, almost didn’t realize that other people didn’t change that lol

Of course I’ll help! You’re writing so fast, wow (and yay! Star is coming soon! Little glowing rocket of energy)

I like how you’re going back to that one deleted scene where the royal couple attempts to pull a star from the sky. What would the dream sequence for Asha be? That situation?

Did she connect Sabino losing his wish to his illness?

Anyways. Under a cut bc it’s pretty long!

Maybe something like “they promised that they would set us free, give our wishes to them and they’d be safe. So naive, little did I know, that they had lied, that the truth was so far off” or something idk but change the “isn’t truth supposed to set you free” since your Asha wasn’t gullible

I think the “when I speak” part could be kept, maybe tweaked a bit, up until the “look up at the stars to guide me”

I think the “throw caution to every warning sign” should be changed. I get what it’s trying to mean, but it’s not the smoothest

Some phrases that may fit are “grow a spine” or “something divine” or even “take this as a sign”

I think the “I never knew I needed room to grow” should change since it seems sort of conceited with everyone except TFS!Asha. Only because for her, it tracks

Maybe add something about her saba? How she’s raised her and why he’s important to her?

“All these years, my saba cared for me, kept me safe, from vicious royalty. But now, it’s my turn to be, the shield for them all, protect my family!”

If you change that part, maybe also change the “past dipping my toes in” as well

“And I’ve got reservations and hesitations on where I should even begin, but I’m past staying and hiding, and now it’s time to fight and win!”

Idkkkk

Also, the end beat should be a belt imo. Give me that “Part of Your World” callback, you know? Idk the setting of the song, but if it’s at the Wishing Tree, the events could similarly follow the movie with the bright light and crash if needed

Hope this helped! Please let me know if you need anything else!

[gulliblelemon]

Hey hey 💜,

♡ SMALL THINGS: pick a fic and I’ll tell you my favorite minor detail from it!

♬ THEME SONG: pick a fic and I’ll share a song that reminds me of it (and why!)

✄ DVD BONUS: pick a fic and I’ll describe or write a deleted scene!

(for see you soon)

Hi Sophia! 🌻

♡ SMALL THINGS: pick a fic and I’ll tell you my favorite minor detail from it!

Hmm… it’s been so long since I wrote See You (Soon). But probably… Erik. He’s a bit more supportive that I thought he might be (even before s3), but I like how he was able to be a grounding voice for Wille, listening to him but also making him think about everything. He said the things Wille didn’t want to hear but probably needed to, whilst also being a horrendous tease.

♬ THEME SONG: pick a fic and I’ll share a song that reminds me of it (and why!)

Oh fuck. @iwouldnevergetintofanfic will tell you how rubbish I am at soundtracking. My brain is currently static and I can’t think of anything - sorry! 

It’d be great if someone else could jump in though, if someone else thinks “Oh my god I can’t believe you didn’t think of ___”

✄ DVD BONUS: pick a fic and I’ll describe or write a deleted scene! (for see you soon) 

I have lots of deleted scenes from this fic! (I’ve just checked - 34 pages 💀 - although most of that did make it back in in one way or another). I’ve shared a few before but I can’t remember which ones. Mainly because in earlier drafts I had them exchange contact details a lot earlier, which led to some wonderfully awkward text flirting. It was hard to get rid of that, but I preferred the tension of them not having really spoken to each other much. I’ll put a little snippet under the cut. 

(Side note: this is also the only fic I’ve ever started posting before it was fully finished. And the fact that it had the most scene changes shows how stressed I got with the idea that people already had some of the story and WHAT IF I NEED TO CHANGE SOMETHING?? I’ve never done it again since 😅)

Thanks for the asks! I hope you have a lovely day.

(I'm still answering these and these)

The next morning, Wille groaned himself awake and searched for his phone that he’d flung away from himself dramatically the night before. He held his breath for a moment before checking his notifications.

Instagram Simon Eriksson (@simmeee42) has requested to follow you. 1 new message

Wille moved quicker than he thought possible to scrabble his phone into his hands whilst sitting up. Unlocking it, he navigated to the Instagram app. He accepted Simon’s follow request and opened his messages, holding his breath.

Simon (23:46) Hi.

Wille stared at his phone. And then he stared at it some more. And then he clenched it so hard in his hand he was worried he’d snap it. 

Hi.

That’s all it said. Wille tried to read between the lines, but there weren’t really any lines to read between. Except. Simon hadn’t ignored him. If Wille was being honest with himself (which he rarely was), he had hoped that Simon would at least follow him back. But a message was more than he could ever have hoped for. Even if that message was not particularly verbose. It was an opening. And invitation to connect. A gesture that said I don’t mind talking to you some more and maybe even I don’t think you’re weird and awkward for seeking me out at two public events and then saying almost nothing. Hmm … maybe it didn’t quite say that last one.

[zenkindoflove]

Do you have any advice for making yourself just sit down and write?

I really want to start writing again (I have not written since high school[and I’m old]) and I have so many ideas in my head but for some reason I can’t make myself write them. It’s not even writers block. It’s like fear? And not even fear about the quality of the writing. I’m super delulu and think I’ll be good at everything on the first try 😅

It’s like stage fright over writing even if it’s only for myself. I think if I can just make myself start I’ll find a groove. But I can’t make myself start.

Hey anon!

First of all "I'm super delulu and think I'll be good at everything on the first try" - Hello are you me? LMAO, this is me and my big, unnerving ego. I'm always like "oh, I think I'd fucking EAT." Even counter to evidence.

First, I want to say I relate a lot to the state you are in now. I wrote a ton when I was younger. First original stuff as a pre-teen/teen and then when I was around 16, I started writing fanfic regularly in my first fandom. I would say I wrote and posted (though I've deleted a lot of these fics since then) regularly from 2006-2012. I then had some pretty big life altering stuff happen, and I only wrote very sparingly up until late 2023 after I finished ACOTAR.

I've always thought of myself as a "writer" but during those 10 years where I wasn't really writing (fiction that is. I was writing plenty as an academic scientist going through graduate school, postdoc, and then the few years of adjuncting trying to keep my career afloat) I kind of thought that it was all just something I used to do. And then I got a new obsession with Elucien and felt like "oh, I can definitely write about this." And here I am. And I think I'm doing really well. I've really shown myself that being a writer never really leaves you. You just need the motivation, space in your life, and some discipline to do it.

Okay, but to your question, how to get started writing? Well, the answer is truly "just start writing". Which sounds like I'm blowing you off, but I think I have a few tips that might help you.

Take those daydreams that you keep having to chase away the crazy pain of life and jot down little details about them. Don't think of it as you're writing the story down. Maybe you're just making a bulleted list of the things you like to fixate on. Maybe it's capturing a cute moment with a few vibey words. Maybe you're really inspired and you write out a outline of a basic plot. Some of these may end up becoming a story down the line as you build momentum.

And if you do feel the urge, just sit down and write 100 words of a scene. No one is watching. No one will read it. It's just you and your computer. Who cares if it's fragmented sentences and half baked thoughts? And then when you return to it, maybe you realize "Oh, I could add some here, and maybe a bit there." And suddenly you're actually writing out a one-shot.

I also highly recommend looking up prompts for when you feel like your ideas are tapped out or you need just a little push to get the ball rolling.

For me, I have also made it a point to write a little bit each day or every other day. Some days nothing will happen and that's okay. But now that I've started again, writing has become a rush for me. I've really found myself again. I had such an identity crisis during the pandemic. I became a mom completely alone and isolated from friends and family. I became disillusioned with becoming a professor which I had been working towards since I was 18. And sure enough, coming back to this hobby that I did in my teens/early twenties really grounded me in the person I always have known. I just needed something that was only mine to have again.

I hope you can start that journey too, anon! And if you ever want to come off anon and chat, my DMs are always open!

[blackberrysummerblog]

I would love to hear more about married by the crucible, anything you feel like sharing, including process. I also must ask about egf dead darlings!

It’s so nice of you to ask! Egf dead darlings is the ‘working from home’ snippet I posted for six sentence sunday a while back here: https://www.tumblr.com/blackberrysummerblog/710338583387586560/six-sentence-sunday. There’s a bit more where Simon is waking up and deciding to call in sick before it all goes to hell when Baz gets home unexpectedly 😂

Aaaah what can I say about married by the crucible. I’ve taken a very gentle approach to writing the fic considering how attached I am to it. I think about it all the time and try to make notes on my phone when I have an idea, because otherwise things slip away. I’ve been self-forgiving in that I’m not really forcing myself to write in my usual point A to B way; I’ve written part of the ending, part of the beginning, tons of things in the middle. It’s a new way of writing for me and clearly it’s not working quite as well as the old way, when I used to finish things in a timely fashion, but I just don’t feel like being stern with myself about it because it’s kind of fun? I’m trying to trust that I’m doing it this way for a reason, and that I’ll get it together in the end. At a certain point I’ll force myself to.

I’m enjoying the basic story and the relationship development. Simon and Baz privately agonize over their obligations to their households, all the while finding it more and more difficult to even pretend at not being head over heels for each other. The dynamic is very:

“You can’t just say things like that to me, and then the other half of the time you’re all, ‘I have to kill you, Snow.’” He looks taken aback by my impression of him—it was pretty good, I think.

“Excuse you!” Baz leans up on one elbow and pushes at my chest, not hard enough to hurt. “I do have to kill you.”

My favorite parts involve them really backing each other up and being real partners to one another. There’s a bit the first night where Baz instinctively defends Simon against his father, which he later tries to brush off as not tolerating an insult to himself. Then maybe my favorite scene to write, which came smack between two major relationship development scenes, when Simon and Baz team up to try and earnestly convince Baz’s parents that Simon is going to lay eggs that Baz will help hatch into:

“Seven curly haired little winged nightmares, mewling for scones.”

“I wouldn’t mind a few pissy dark-haired kittens, maybe with widows’ peaks.”

They know they’re not convincing anyone, but that just makes it funnier to them (and me).

And omg, I have accidentally inserted a poll again, and I can’t figure out how to delete it. I can’t post without making options, and if I close out I’ll probably lose my entire ask/answer. This is so humiliating 🤦‍♀️

[skyward-floored]

I….I couldn’t decide so I’m giving you 3 options and you can either do all 3 or just chose 1 for a snippet or any random facts you want to tell me! My brain will love anything you throw at me! I love all 3 of these so much! No pressure also! 💜

Incredibles au

Royal castle town wedding

Courage of ages

I will gladly talk about all three, you underestimate my ability to blab about my projects hehe

Incredibles au

INCREDIBLES AU WOOO Been working on the main fic on and off, was feeling kinda discouraged, and then I actually reread all of what I’ve got and was like “okay this actually isn’t so bad”.

I’d love to start publishing it, but the literal first chapter is so full of action scenes that I can’t write it very fast 😓 Plus there’s some (kinda important!) plot things I’m still trying to make work, and haven’t figured out yet. So eventually! Just not yet. Here’s a bit of it though!

“Hey Warriors!” Wild called from the table, then spat an entire mouthful of water at him from across the room before Malon could tell him not to.

Warriors lunged forward and shot some ice from his hands, freezing the water and catching it before it could hit the ground. He held it out to Wild with a grin, and he took it with a slightly disappointed expression.

“Aw... I like it when it shatters.”

Time grabbed his coat from the hanger as Warriors made the rounds and asked how everyone was doing, before ruffling Legend’s hair and making him squawk.

“How you doing Ledge? See you’re still crazy about carrots,” he teased with a look at his plate.

“And I see you’re still insufferable as ever, uncle freezer burn,” Legend snapped back, whacking his hand off his head.

“Aw, I love you too.”

Royal Castletown Wedding

I’m going to put the other two under a cut so I don’t take up everyone’s dashboards 😅

Castletown wedding! It’s only got another chapter or two left, then it’ll be finished! I’ve got a few deleted scenes from it too I’m hoping to maybe post once it’s finished. I honestly just need to sit down and finish the silly thing, but lately other things have been taking my attention heh.

Here’s a section of it :)

“Poor Cia...” Artemis murmured, pity in her eyes. “She’d never truly returned after all. She was merely a shadow, a tool like everything else...”

“Well shadow or not, she sure made a mess of things” Legend grumbled. “Good riddance.”

The others nodded, though Warriors seemed oddly subdued still, his eyes glazed like he was looking at something only he could see. Then he shuddered, and shook his head, snapping out of whatever daze he’d been in. He noticed Wind was looking at him, and gave him a faint smile, but Wind turned away.

Courage of Ages

Coa my beloved 💖💖💖 My own Links meet au thing, I’ve got so many random scenes and interactions (and aus heh) with these guys written down that may or may not actually end up in the alleged main fic. I always welcome questions about them! :D

But here’s a bit that’ll probably end up in the main fic at some point, or might just be a scene I’ll post by itself. We’ll have to wait and see :)

“Who all do you have back home Cloud?” Gloam asked once Windy had finally quit pestering him.

“You got anyone like that?” Light asked, wiggling his eyebrows.

Their resident cloudy hero blushed, and scratched the back of his neck. “Well. Yes. I mean...”

He held up his left hand, tugging off the glove atop it and revealing a wedding band around his finger.

“...I do have someone waiting for me back home.”

Gloam clapped him on the shoulder as a few ooohs went up from the others. “Well wouldn’t you know it, one of us is hitched! You’ve been holding out on us! What’s her name? You been together long?”

Cloud’s face turned wistful, and he sighed. “Zelda. And it hasn’t even been a week. I was on my honeymoon.”

Several glances were exchanged at the name, but Windy merely looked dismayed.

“Oh no, that’s terrible Cloud, this must be awful for you!” the sailor exclaimed, and the chosen hero smiled a bit despite the sad look in his eyes.

“Yes. But at least I know she’s safe.” His expression turned dismal. “She likely has no clue what happened to me.”

[rachelbethhines]

60 Years of Doctor Who Anniversary Marathon - T. Baker 4th Review

Lost In Time - Video Game

Look a game that’s actually available to play!

Sure is a shame that it sucks.

Okay let’s get this out of the way first and foremost...

This not a ‘pay to win’ game. This is a ‘pay to not play’ game!

The gameplay centers around this asinine collection system. You upgrade stuff to make the collection of other stuff go faster and to complete missions, so that you can collect more stuff to upgrade more to collect more stuff. ect. ect.

The problem with this is threefold.

First, it takes way too damn long to collect the stuff that you need. This is intentional as all of the in-game-purchases are build around skipping out on the game play itself. Thereby defeating the purpose of even having a game to begin with.

Second, the mission system is contradictory and borderline unattainable without busting out the cash money.

You’re constantly asked to upgrade stuff, which cost resources, yet at the same time you are asked in other missions to collect certain amounts of resources. Which means that if you go for the upgrade missions you can’t complete the collection missions. Yet you have to complete missions in general in order to obtain certain resources. It’s a no win situation, unless you buy the resources with real money. (or watch tons of ads, but even these are limited)

The third problem is that you have to start from scratch each round. All those upgrades and resources you busted your ass for last round are completely gone come the next. The only thing that caries over is the character upgrades, which still have to be reactivated using more resources that you now have to recollect.

This means there’s no real sense of accomplishment. The gameplay doesn’t get easier as you go along and it’s not made interesting with new challenges. It’s just the same repetitive shit over and over again, just each time it gets longer and more unnecessarily drawn out.

I will give the game two things.

If you step away from the game it will keep collecting even when not logged in. Meaning, if you’re patient, you can put it down and then come back to it for maybe 15 to 30 mins, and then put it back down again. You also get free rewards each day you log back in which will allow you to complete a hand full of missions relatively quickly.

This still means that you’re waiting like 24 hours for just a single minute of cut-scene time. The further you go along the longer you’ll have to wait to complete episodes/rounds. A single ‘episode’ can potentially take up to a week to finish and there’s so far like 30 episodes.

I don’t think it’s worth it, but it is possible to get through the game without paying anything if that’s the route you want to go.

The other thing I’ll give the game credit for is the blend of New Who and Old Who characters. Unlike Legacy, we get classic Who characters from the start and they get to interact with the new series characters. Martha and Liz even team up at one point!

Yeah, in the beginning there’s more favor given to the 70s era of the show over the 60s or 80s, but I feel pretty confident that this will be rectified as the story progresses.

Shame I’ll never get to watch it, as I’ll be deleting it off my phone. Hopefully one day a dedicated Let’s Player will post the story to YouTube or something.

[thornthehellhound]

What’s up gamers, I will post some art soon maybe … I’m not making new stuff atm (I definitely have a collection of batshit The Lost Boys images in my archives, but I’m not sure the world is ready for some of them *looks pointedly at Hatsune Michael in the corner*)

Anyway!! Idk if anyone has done this yet but I’m almost finished an edit of the TLB film that includes the deleted scenes, it was just for me and my friends but I think I’ll share it on here too. So I’ll probably drop a link to that at some point 🤙

[toastybagel-fanfiction]

Deleted Scene - Tell Me What I Want To Hear

[i’ll be so real with you guys i don’t remember writing this scene, i don’t remember what chapter it was supposed to go in, and i don’t remember why it was significant to the plot. but i found it in my google docs and it’s interesting so i wanted to post it here! enjoy!]

The New Year’s Eve party was fun, though a bit overwhelming when the only person Scott knew particularly well had planned to be out of town for the week. In addition, it was nothing like the other parties he had been to in the past; everyone here just seemed tired.

The night was saved, though, when Michael Afton walked through the glass doors of the pizzeria.

“Michael!”

Scott raced toward the doors, where he nearly met Michael for a hug before he abruptly stopped.

“Hey.” Michael smiled back at Scott, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

“Hey, I- uhh-” Scott couldn’t help but glance at the floor to escape eye contact. “I thought you were still in-”

“Yeah, I left early.” Michael idly tapped a foot against the carpeted floor. “Dolly’s still there, though.”

“Oh, that’s nice…”

The sounds of the party were deafening compared to the silence that hung over Michael and Scott as they stood in the doorway of the pizzeria, attempting to act like normal coworkers.

“Michael, there’s something I need to show you. It’s really good news, and I just have to share it with someone.” Scott pulled an envelope out of his pocket, turning it around in his hands. “I also- um- think it might be a sign that we should work out whatever’s been going on. We should go back to being friends, you know?”

“Scott, I-” Michael began, prepared to finally tell Scott how he felt before becoming suddenly aware of all of the people surrounding them. “Maybe we should talk about this later- in private, I mean. What news did you have for me?”

At the mere mention of the news, Scott’s eyes lit up. He took Michael’s hand, heading for a table near the wall. “You’re not going to believe this,” he said, beaming as he took a seat on one side of the table and pulled Michael into the one on the other side. “I got this letter from Vincent today.”

“Really? I-” Michael paused when Scott handed the envelope to him, gently taking it. “I haven’t heard from him in forever.”

“You can read it if you want, but I’ll give you a summary. He says that he finished school early. He’s coming home this summer.”

“He is?”

Scott had already torn the top of the envelope, so Michael could easily slide the letter out, unfolding it and taking a minute to read it.

“You’re the first person I’ve told, by the way. I just- I know how important he is to you, even if you won’t admit it,” Scott said softly, finding Michael’s hand on the table and holding it.

When they heard footsteps approaching the table, though, they quickly pulled their hands apart.

“Good evening, Scott.” William Afton walked past the table, stopping in front of it. “Michael.”

“Hello, father,” Michael muttered, folding the letter and slipping it back into the envelope.

“You’re home early.”

“Yeah,” Michael looked up at his father, who was looking over both of them with his arms crossed over his chest. “I am. I wanted to be here for the party.”

William pointed to the envelope. “What’s that in your hand?”

“Oh- uhh-” 

Michael turned to Scott for reassurance, or at the very least, permission. He was grateful that Scott seemed to get the hint, turning his gaze up at William.

“I got it in the mail yesterday. It’s just a letter from an old friend,” Scott replied with a smile.

“That’s nice.” William’s voice was devoid of any tone as he caught a glimpse of the return address every time Michael turned the envelope around in his hands. “Scott, I came over here because I need to talk to you about something. It’s work related, so we should probably take this somewhere else.” He pointedly made eye contact with Michael, who only glanced back, his shoulders turned slightly inward.

“Oh- I-” Scott glanced from Michael to William, standing up after a few seconds. “Okay, sure, we can talk.” He stopped at Michael’s eyes, which seemed to be pleading him not to go with William. “I’ll meet you after I’m done, okay?”

Michael’s gaze dropped to the table, where he traced the colorful pattern on its surface with his finger. “Okay. I’ll meet you here.”

The walk to William’s office was short, as it was just down the hall from the dining room. William let Scott walk into the office first, closing the door behind them.

“Some party…” William muttered to himself as he walked past Scott, taking a seat in the chair behind his desk.

“Yeah, it’s- uhh-” Scott realized he was still holding his drink, peering down into it. It was no more than some spiked kool aid that wound up on the snack table. “It’s nice.”

“You can tell the truth here, Scott. I’m not the one who puts this thing together every year.” William picked up a stack of papers that was on the desk, sliding them into a drawer before resting his arms on the cleared part of the desk. “I wasn’t out there for long, but before Michael arrived, you looked lost, like you were waiting for someone.”

Scott shrugged, avoiding eye contact.

William cleared his throat at Scott’s lack of a response. “So, how did you know Vincent? You got the letter from him, so you must have been-”

“I dated him in high school,” Scott muttered, tapping his fingers against the side of the red solo cup in his hands. “Basically, we made this promise when he left for college that we would get back together when he got back to America, and now he’s finally coming back.” He sighed. “I’m glad he’s coming back early; I just wish it could be sooner.”

“You’re engaged?” William asked, seemingly out of the blue, but then he pointed toward the ring on Scott’s right hand. 

“Oh, this?” Scott took the plastic cup in his left hand, turning the ring toward him. It seemed to be staring back, wondering why Scott still wore it after Brandon left. Truthfully, he knew exactly why he wore it. “No, we’re not- I’m not engaged to anyone. I just like the ring.”

“What kind of stone is it?” William didn’t seem to be looking anymore, though, reading through some papers that were sloppily stapled together.

“I’m pretty sure it’s amethyst.”

William hummed, setting the papers down. “That’s nice. Mine was sapphire.” He didn’t waste any time turning the subject around and getting straight to the point he originally intended to make. “I called you in here in the first place because I have a proposition for you.”

Scott looked at William curiously, his eyebrows raised. “What is it?”

“Scott, you’ve been good to me- to all of us- for the past year. I’d like to promote you, but unfortunately there aren’t any positions open.” William stood, approaching the other side of the room. “I wanted to give you this anyway, though, since I feel like you deserve to have it more than anyone else.”

After grabbing something from one of the shelves against the wall, William returned to Scott, wordlessly dropping a pair of keys on a keychain into Scott’s hand.

William continued, standing over Scott, “I’d like to give you a raise and a few more hours. You’ll just have to unlock the doors in the morning. As soon as someone quits, though…” William laid a firm hand on Scott’s shoulder, a grin on his lips. “You’re the first person in line for a real promotion.”

“Thank you, Mr. Afton.” 

Scott couldn’t help but smile at the whole situation, from getting a pay raise to being seen as important to the feeling of William’s hand on his shoulder, in that moment, he really felt like he was in a good place. He felt needed, but not in an exploitative way like had in the past. This was real.

He dropped the keys into his pocket.

“You’re welcome, Scott. You can go back to the party if you’d like,” William replied, going back to the papers he was reading earlier. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Scott was at the door within the next second, turning the knob and stepping outside. “See you tomorrow, Mr. Afton.”

After the door closed behind Scott, William set the papers down. He hadn’t been working, anyway; he just wanted to avoid the party. He would do anything to not admit that another year had gone by and that all of his friends and family were right.

The restaurant wasn’t the same without Henry.

William tried to find people to fill in the gaps- he wanted to promote Scott for that very reason- though no one could do it. Even after trying for well over a decade, he could never return the pizzeria to the place it was when he had first opened it with Henry, even with all of the people at the new year’s party.

At least Scott wasn’t wearing one of those garish, shiny headbands with the new year- What was it? Oh, right, 1992.

It was just another year of William drinking alone in his office, waiting for some horrible miracle.

“At that new year’s party- right before I promoted you- I noticed that you drew fredbear on your cup,” William began, a hint of amusement in his tone. “It was a good drawing. Did you watch the cartoon?”

“Yeah, I did. My sister would always turn on the TV after school and I’d watch it until our mom got home from work.” Scott leaned against the safety rail, both physically and mentally exhausted. “I don’t have a lot of good childhood memories, but a lot of the ones I do have are from watching that show. I just drew Fredbear because I was bored at the party.”

William mirrored Scott, his elbows on the metal rail. “What about the others?”

“In the others, I was hanging out with Michael or Vincent, but never both of them.” Scott turned to look at William. “They always fought when they were together.”

William looked at the ground with a quiet chuckle. From his point of view, Vincent and Michael’s quarrels were no more than childish. “I remember that. Vincent was nothing but trouble.”

“Yeah…” Scott stopped leaning against the metal rail, sitting up. “You know, I meant to ask you earlier,” he continued, making eye contact when William turned to face him. “Why did you never like Vincent?”

“There were a lot of reasons, Scott.”

[authortobenamedlater]

My conclusions about Infinite, which I keep meaning to post and not posting:

Definitely more fun to play than Halo 4. But my old junky piano with a cracked soundboard was more fun to play than Halo 4.

For real, though, this was one of the more enjoyable games in terms of just playing for me. The grapple shot makes moving around and keeping up way easier and was handy when I ran out of ammo and needed to stun a few bad guys.

Jen Taylor should win an award for playing Cortana, Weapon, and Halsey in one game. I enjoyed Esparza’s Just Some Guy Forced To Rise To The Occasion vibe, though I do wonder why they were so cagey about his name until the final scene.

Infinite should have started with a doomed mission to defend Infinity so we can get an idea of just HOW BAD things have gotten. The last thing we saw was Lasky’s “we’ll run until we can fight” line at the end of Halo 5. Clearly they couldn’t fight, so let us see how desperate things are. Maybe drop some info about the general state of the universe after a year of Created rule. An explanation about how Infinity lost 11000 crew in one year (I have my Opinions about this number but this is not the place). I know things are rough under Cortana’s undid iridium fist but geez. Show us the Banished boarding and ripping through Infinity like she’s tinfoil. Bonus if we get Chief and Palmer both stopping Lasky from launching himself at Atriox. We all know this happened. Make us understand how Infinity fell in four minutes. THEN give us Atriox going Hulk on Chief’s Loki.

The game could be kind of…repetitive. The side quests were all pretty much the same: Liberate FOBs, find Spartan cores and audio logs, boss fights, assassination missions, take out propaganda tower. But it’s pretty. 4 was ugly and 5 was…alternately oddly dark and OK-looking.

I liked how Chief’s relationship with Weapon is sort of inverse to his relationship with Cortana. Cortana always knew more than the Chief, but in many ways Chief knows more than the Weapon. Like in CE it’s Cortana who tells Chief about Halo’s purpose and in Infinite Chief has to tell Weapon. And, Chief chooses the Weapon. Not the same way Cortana chose him, but he still chose her when she said “You should just delete me.” It’s a good way of doing the same thing over again without doing the same thing over again.

I wish the gameplay would pause during audio logs because they’re staticky to begin with and I only heard about half of the logs while I was fighting bad guys.

Big questions:

Palmer and Roland are conspicuous in their absence from any audio logs. Where are they?

I’ll ask again what will happen to the Weapon in seven years. I have ideas but just. Do not put us through another Halo 4. Please Microsoft.

All this Endless stuff makes me think we’re nowhere near done with the Master Chief’s story. Steve Downes is 73. I hate to be morbid but what are they going to do if he dies before the story is finished?

I don’t know what to think about Weapon naming herself Cortana. It makes sense and I’m not sure I want it. Also wouldn’t be surprised if that “I think I have the perfect name” line turns out to be a bait and switch since Microsoft has commitment issues when it comes to storytelling decisions.

How will those little time travel portals become important? Weapon didn’t talk about how they traveled three days into the future just for fun. Read on for my theory.

Are the Endless the new Flood?

Headcanons and such:

Esparza’s family is not gone. We’ll eventually find them and Chief will get adopted into the Esparza clan against his will.

Whenever the time comes Weapon will find a way to cure or delay rampancy. Or we’ll just exist in a 6.5 year time loop for the rest of the games. Because again, one Halo 4 is enough.

Infinity is either drifting aimlessly in space or crashed on Zeta Halo, but she will rise again.

Next game we’ll find a bunch of Infinity crew, notably Lasky, Palmer, and Roland, through one of those time travel portals. For them it’s only been a day or two and they’re all like “Wow, Chief, that was fast” and Chief has to tell them it’s really been more like two years. I have a fic idea or two about this.

[amtrak12]

Fanfic Meta: First Draft vs Final Draft w/ Examples (1/2)

Does anybody remember those LiveJournal posts on fanfic meta? Like not actual fanfic, but meta on how to write/post a fanfic? There was a whole big table of links that I can no longer find, but I HAVE tracked down synedochic's posts on dreamwidth. These were hands down the most helpful things I've read on story structure until I discovered Helping Writers Become Authors years later. Just INCREDIBLE work.

Anyway, you still see meta on how to post fic on Tumblr, but you don’t really get writing meta much, unless someone is analyzing the text of a specific fandom. So now that I’m finally hitting the point where I can write to the level of my tastes (or near enough to enjoy reading my own work), I thought it might be fun to bring back that vibe and share some writing meta. Maybe some other fic writers or aspiring writers will find it helpful :)

My current WIP is a Lucifer story called “Can We Keep Her”, and it’s a full sci-fi/fantasy novel length fic. Like it’ll be 190k words long when all is said and done, easy. (And there’s still two sequels planned oops.) It’s my longest fic to date BY FAR, and I am utilizing every skill I’ve ever learned and still learning five more with every chapter. One of the biggest techniques I’ve been utilizing is using multiple drafts to take the story from concept to final draft. Now, I am not following the common writing advice that says to write the entire story first before editing. Maybe if I wasn’t writing fanfic that could work? Or maybe if this wasn’t my first story over 100k words? But right now, that common writing advice is firmly not for me. Instead, I’ve settled into a pattern of drafting several chapters (anywhere from 2-4 with several more outlined in detail) and then going back and editing them into a state that I’m happy with. Then, when they're edited to at least "readable", I go back to drafting. This pattern is working for me and, as a result, means I’ve gone through the outline -> first draft -> second draft -> final draft stages many times over the last few months. Which is why I figured it was a good place to start with fanfic meta :)

Some caveats on my writing system for this fic before I begin:

I did have a broad strokes outline (the major plot points) completed before I started the first draft, and certainly I had those before I started posting any chapters on AO3.

I might be an underwriter when drafting, but I’m an overthinker when outlining and editing so I don’t really struggle with plot holes. It’s more likely I’ll be able to fill in a plot hole later because of some detail I had already slipped into the story.

“Can We Keep Her” is by far my longest fic, but it isn’t my only novel-length fic or my only plot-heavy fic. I gained a decent understanding of what works for me when it comes to multi-chapter fics from my previous attempts.

All that is to say: your mileage may vary on editing chapters as you go vs writing an entire draft start to finish before editing. But the information I’m covering here should apply no matter when you prefer to edit.

It just so happened that Chapter 10 in “Can We Keep Her” provided a prime example of first draft vs final draft. I had a to rewrite the final scene in an entirely new POV, and as a result I still had the original first draft preserved in a separate document. (Typically, my first drafts get absorbed into final drafts through editing or else they get straight up deleted after I rewrite.) So I’m going to provide the first draft of the scene in this post below the cut, and then I’ll share the final version in a separate post (linked here and at the bottom of the post). Separate posts isn’t ideal, but Tumblr formatting doesn’t allow for better options. This way, though, you can open the posts in separate tabs (on desktop at least) if you prefer to view them that way.

At the end of each version, I’ll share my thoughts about them and cover things like why I chose the original POV, why I changed it, what my goals were for the scene, how the second version supports those goals better, and where I still think it could improve but ultimately ran out of time before it needed to be posted. I hope you find these thoughts helpful or at least interesting!

Original closing scene for Chapter 10 behind the cut:

Chloe was late for lunch. After waiting hours, watching time drag on, a family member of Joey Pillegi agreed at the last minute to speak with them over his lunch break. Chloe wore every professional mask in her arsenal to hide her impatience. Dan knew her too well to be fooled, but she didn’t think the grieving brother noticed. Unfortunately, the interview didn’t lead to another clue. The brother didn’t even know where Joey had been living the last six months, let alone that he’d joined a mob.

At least, Lucifer had finally texted after his therapy session had ended. ‘Apparently pink was the missing feature of the infant’s car seat’ wasn’t the most descriptive message, but it offered a few insights. Lucifer had bought a new car seat for Rory, and Rory liked it. Now hopefully, the rest of their morning had gone as well.

The penthouse elevator opened to the sounds of Rory’s happy chatter against the backdrop of the television. Lucifer spotted her immediately, but Rory remained out of sight, presumably tucked inside the largest blanket fort Chloe had ever seen.

“You two have been busy this morning,” she said.

“Hm? Oh, yes the fort.” Lucifer frowned. “The infant has this frustrating tendency to scoot herself underneath the couch. She’s bound to get herself stuck if she keeps that up!”

“So you made a blanket fort instead?” Chloe’s mouth quirked up into a smile. He’d done this before: complain about something and then do something incredibly thoughtful and sweet under the guise of removing an annoyance. She shouldn’t be surprised at this point, and yet it still managed to impress her every time.

Rory finally noticed her arrival and came crawling out of the blanket fort. “Mommy!” She sprinted over and Chloe dropped to her knees to catch her in a hug.

“Hi, baby!” Chloe grinned. Relief crashed over her as she got to hold Rory in her arms again. The morning had lasted way too long, and she was so glad she could check on Rory again. “Did you have fun with Daddy?”

“Lucifer,” said Devil corrected her. “Get her to use my name.”

“Right, sorry.” Though, internally, Chloe rolled her eyes over his continued denial.

Rory bounced excitedly on her toes. “I saw Aunt Linda!”

“I know you did. Were you good while you were visiting Linda?” Chloe stood up and asked Lucifer, “Did she give you any problems?”

“Yes,” Lucifer said. “She accused me of not listening.”

Given the context of therapy, Chloe wasn’t entirely sure who he meant. “Who did, Linda?”

“No, the infant!”

Chloe bit back a smile.

“She also accused me of arguing with her which I wasn’t doing,” Lucifer gave Rory a pointed glare, “until she said I wasn’t listening.”

Chloe leaned down to talk to Rory. “Was Lucifer not listening to you?”

Rory gave her a conspiratorial smile. “No, he didn’t listen at all.”

“At all?” Chloe gasped. When Rory giggled, she grinned.

Lucifer was far less amused. “Okay if the little demons-in-training are going to team-up together then you’re not allowed to gang up on me too.”

“I’m not making promises,” Chloe said, crossing her arms. She smirked at Lucifer’s annoyance.

“Mommy, Mommy!” Rory tugged on her jacket.

“What is it?”

“All of Charlie’s toys were gone!”

“They were? Oh, no!” Chloe had no idea what toys Rory was talking about. They might be toys back at her mother’s house or at a friend’s house or even a daycare her mother had taken her too. But playing along with the girl might get her more answers than asking direct questions.

“Yeah, they were all gone because Charlie’s mad at me.”

“You think someone’s mad at you?” Chloe asked.

Rory nodded. “Charlie is.”

“Why would Charlie be mad at you?”

“Because I flew without him.” Rory pouted either in a mimicry of how she imagined this Charlie must feel or because she didn’t like the idea of someone being mad at her.

“I see,” Chloe said, though Rory’s responses had only generated more questions. “Well, maybe we should just keep our feet on the ground and not fly for awhile. What do you think?”

“Maybe,” Rory said, stretching out the word in a very unconvincing agreement. Chloe hoped Lucifer was right and that Rory couldn’t truly fly with her wings. She seemed to grasp hiding her wings when they were in public, but if she could fly, Chloe feared the temptation would be too much for the little girl to resist.

She turned to Lucifer and in a quieter voice asked, “Who’s Charlie?”

He threw up his hands. “I have absolutely no idea. I thought she was trying to say Charlotte at first, but either that’s wrong or the girl has a poor grasp on gendered pronouns.”

“No, she seems to have pronouns down,” Chloe said, remembering Rory’s firm correction that Roger Bear used ‘she’.

“My only other guess would be an imaginary friend,” Lucifer said. “Apparently young children can have those.”

“Yeah, an imaginary friend is possible… or,” Chloe braced herself as she suggested, “it’s someone she knows back home with her mother.”

Predictably, Lucifer’s face twisted in disagreement.

“You think she was still made by your parents,” Chloe said.

“It’d have to be my father if she was,” Lucifer said. “Mum doesn’t have a way back to our universe. But I still don’t know why my father would try making a baby angel.”

Or why that angel would think you were her father and not her brother, Chloe thought as Lucifer walked off towards the bar. She could almost understand why he was having such a hard time accepting the obvious. If an angel child being born was so impossible (and for Rory to be Lucifer’s only child over the course of humanity’s entire history, it certainly seemed like angel children were pretty damn impossible), then why couldn’t something equally preposterous like God creating a toddler angel on his own be a valid explanation for Rory’s existence? The problem was, they weren’t trying to determine which explanation was more or less likely to have happened. They were looking for the explanation that best fit the evidence, impossible or not.

Rory desperately wanted to give her a tour of the blanket fort. Chloe assured the girl, she could show it off soon and they could even eat lunch under it, but first Chloe needed to talk to Lucifer. After pulling a pinky promise out of her, Rory toddled off to continue her Fringe episode, and Chloe walked over to join Lucifer at the bar.

A large stack of paper rested on the countertop, but Lucifer leaned on his elbows beside it, staring off into nothing.

“Celestial craziness or not,” Chloe began, “maybe you should start looking at this like one of our cases. Keep your mind open to all of the possibilities and follow the leads until you can rule something out.”

“Not everything is possible,” Lucifer said.

Chloe replied, “In Rory’s case, it sounds like none of it is possible. But she’s here, so there has to be some explanation for her.”

Lucifer sighed. “I know.” He turned his gaze down towards the stack of papers, but he didn’t touch them.

“What is that?”

“Just some names I need to look into.”

That was purposefully vague. Chloe reached across him and pulled the stack towards her to read.

“They’re just some names, Detective,” Lucifer repeated.

He sounded concerned, but he didn’t stop her from taking the papers or try to pull them back. Chloe really hoped he hadn’t backtracked to hunting down the mysterious Sinnerman he was so obsessed with. He had a daughter to worry about now.

The stack was indeed a list of names printed out on computer paper, but each name had a date recorded beside it.

“What are the dates for?” she asked.

“It’s when I last saw them,” Lucifer explained. “It’s probably a fruitless endeavor.”

All of the dates were from 2014. Three years ago and some change. Now, Chloe understood what this list was.

“You’re looking for Rory’s mother.”

Lucifer pulled away the stack of papers. “Like I said, it’s probably a waste of time. She might not even have a mother.”

The denial wasn’t as strong as he wanted it to be. He did realize Rory being his daughter was the only explanation that fit. He just wasn’t ready to accept it yet.

“It’s a pretty big list,” Chloe said.

“My printer can’t print on both sides,” Lucifer replied.

Chloe wasn’t commenting on the length of the list specifically. She remembered all too well just how many people he managed to sleep with in [a week? Two weeks?]. Multiply that out to an entire year since they didn’t know Rory’s birthday, and Chloe almost expected the list to be longer. Then again, not all of his sexual partners could’ve given birth, so that would’ve narrowed down the list.

“Give me half.”

“What?”

“That’s a long list to go through on your own,” Chloe said. “I can help, so give me half.”

Lucifer shook his head. “You have a murder to solve. At least one of us should get to investigate something fun.”

“That murder investigation is stalled until we can either analyze those hairs we found or someone comes forward with information. There’s nothing ‘fun’ to do on the case right now.” Chloe held out her hand for the list. “I bet I can get through my half first.”

“Really?” Lucifer said. “You think turning this into a competition will get me to hand the list over?”

Chloe shrugged. “I mean, it’s not really a competition when I have every California and federal database to work from and you’re just crawling through social media.”

“I am very adept at finding information on social media,” Lucifer argued.

Chloe smirked, already knowing she’d won. She leaned in again to split the stack of papers up. “Here, I will take the bottom half so you can continue where you left off in the beginning of the list.”

“You don’t know that I’ve already started investigating,” Lucifer said, but it was nothing more than his game night protests as he searched for a loophole in the rules that allowed him to not actually lose. He was an extremely sore loser.

“Uh oh!” Rory left her castle-sized blanket fort to run over. “Fringe stopped, Daddy. Look.” She pointed back to the TV where the current episode had ended and the question of whether they wanted to continue watching had interrupted the end credits.

“That’s because the episode’s over,” Lucifer said.

“Fix it.”

Chloe answered, “Hey monkey, how about we get lunch first? Are you hungry?”

“I want more Fringe,” Rory said, glancing back to the paused TV.

“We can watch more Fringe, but let’s get food first, okay?”

It took a little more coaxing and challenging her to a race to the kitchen before Rory pulled her attention away from the television. But then she grinned and ran off down the hallway with Chloe while Lucifer yelled after them about falling. His list of names hovered in the back of Chloe’s mind all through lunch. She didn’t know which of them would ultimately find Rory’s mother, but if she found them first, that mother was getting such an ass chewing for giving the girl up. Chloe didn’t understand how anyone could look at Rory and decide she wasn’t worth fighting for. She’d been away from the girl for just a few hours and had still missed her desperately. How could Rory’s mother not be frantic after days apart? It was infuriating.

---------------

My Thoughts:

Yes, I do use the square brackets for notes to myself. :P I told y'all this was the first draft version!

So I went with Chloe’s POV originally for several reasons. First, I just kind of default to her POV? I tend to default to women characters in general in my fandoms (maybe because I’m a woman, maybe because I’m queer, maybe both). But also Chloe’s POV is a little more clear-headed and therefore easier to show the reader what’s going on. I do step out of her POV when she becomes super emotional like in Chapter 3 when she learned Lucifer is the Devil. (If a character is too emotional, it can be hard to portray their POV so I like to swing outside of them in those scenes.) But if Chloe’s present in a scene, she tends to be my default POV.

But there’s also a downside with being more clear-headed and not as emotionally invested in the plot (yet): sometimes it means you have less interesting things to say. Which is exactly the problem here. Chloe has nothing real to add in this scene.

Well, she has exactly one thing to add and that thing is the other reason I chose her POV initially: she missed Rory while she was at work and I desperately wanted to show her relief at getting to see her again. I’m more than a little obsessed with all the parental feelings in this story, and Chloe definitely has the stronger parental feelings in this moment since Lucifer is still in conflict over Rory being his daughter.

Except Lucifer’s conflict is exactly what we need to see at this point.

In addition to showing Chloe had missed Rory as if she was the girl’s mother (the dramatic irony, of course, being that she is the girl’s mother), I also wanted this scene to end with the decision to search for Rory’s birth mother. Which it does! Technically. But it doesn’t do it very well, and I always knew I’d have to smooth that out during editing. And while it wasn’t the primary focus here, I always want more Rory cuteness (the family domestics is kind of the whole point of this fic) and I wanted some glimpses into how Lucifer and Rory’s morning alone together went. This version of the scene covers both of those things, but again, not very well. And if I want to show how Lucifer and Rory’s morning went, then why wouldn’t I use Lucifer’s POV to show that more directly?

I realized pretty quickly when I went to edit this scene, that I should switch POVs. So go check out my second post over here to see what changed when I used Lucifer’s POV. Or if you’ve already read it because you’re reading “Can We Keep Her”, then just scroll down to the bottom and check out my thoughts on the changes.