#my english has improved so the next fic will be a lot better

[evelynhug0]

you have fics?? whats your account omg

here you go :) i will upload a new evelyncelia fic before the end of the year

[flyiingsly]

The Jedi and the Captain

Square : Jedi

Pairing : Howzer x f!jedi!reader

Warnings : Violence, a lot of angst, mention of the Order 66, implied PTSD, reader being strangled, this one is really dark and not fun at all

Wordcount : 3,3K

Summary : After rescuing Howzer and his men from the Empire's ship, you decided to pay them a visit to make sure that they are fine. But when he realizes what you are, the clone Captain suddenly turns into an unexpected menace for you.

A/N : Here is my sixth submission for the @clonexreaderbingo ! Well, I’ve broke my own heart writing this, but I’m happy about how it turned out. Since the beginning I was thinking about giving this fic a sequel, I’ll probably figure it out after submitting all of my CFB’s works. So don’t hesitate to tell me if you’re interested in reading more about what will happen next between these two ! 😊

Disclaimer : I'm still struggling to understand English grammar properly, English is not my native language and even if I have proofread my writtings several times, there is probably still typos in it. I'm very self conscious about it and I apologize for it in advance, but I'm doing my best to do better and I'm actively working at improving my writting skills !

So if you spot a typo, feel free to point it to me so I can correct it, it will be much appreciated :)

After addressing your report about the mission to Rex, you came back to the hangar to check on the men you had just rescued. When you arrived, you could see from afar that Echo and Senator Chuchi were already here, talking to one of them.

She was an old friend of yours who you became close to during the War. You’ve reconnected with her since you had joined Rex’s resistance network with Echo, for she was still sitting at the Senate and sharing the same concern as you about the fate of the clones, and was willing to defend their cause.

The men were sat in a corner, their backs against some containers, talking with Gregor and sharing a comforting cup of caf. They were looking exhausted and distraught. They had probably spent months trapped in a prison cell and the mercy of the Empire, wondering what was going to happen to them. It broke your heart to think about it. You stay here, staring at them for a few seconds before a call pulled you out of your thoughts.

“Hey, (y/n) !” you turn your head at Gregor’s voice, who has get up from the container he was sat on to come to meet you, “Come here, we need to introduce you properly to our guests !”

You headed toward him, and as you get closer, you noticed that the man who the Senator was talking to was a familiar face. You had seen thousands and thousands of clones while fighting among them for the Republic, thousands and thousands of men sharing the same face, but you had always been able to tell them apart. Even without specifics tattoos or marks on their armor, they all had a unique force signature that helped you recognize each one of them. But him, despite his peculiar force signature, was easily identifiable by his haircut and scar on his left cheek.

“Captain, this is (y/n), one of Rex’s most valuable agent ! (y/n), I present to you Captain Howzer !” Gregor exclaims.

“Sir !” you saluted him respectfully, “I’m glad we finally have you and your men here all safe and sound, Sir.”

Of course, he was familiar … You had met him on Ryloth before, on another rescue mission that wasn’t supposed to be a rescue mission in the first place. Things didn’t go as planned this day, as often with the Batch, but neither you nor the other could resigned to let a child alone and frightened, desperately needing her parents back. You made the right choice that day, but unfortunately, your actions were the reason that led Howzer and his men to get arrested and imprisoned by the Empire. You were mostly responsible of their situation, and you knew it.

“Thank you so much for rescuing us” he lets out, looking at both Echo and you, “we owe you our lives, we’ll probably be dead by now if you hadn’t found us …”

Those profounds dark brown pupils were easily recognizable. You recalled coming across them right before you could escape from the Empire's prison. You had your helmet on, so he probably didn’t realize that you were looking at him right in the eyes back then, but still, you were.

It was at that moment that he decided to not stop you from escaping with prisoners. That moment he finally understood that what had been done with the Syndulla family wasn’t right, that it wasn’t what he was supposed to be here and to fight for. It was the very precise moment when he decided to regain his free will and step up against the Empire for the sake of what he used to believe in. His eyes were so clouded and solemn, they seemed to carry so much weight, so much guilt. He must have already understood what was coming for him after that.

You couldn’t help but replay those memories when his gaze met yours again. Except that this time, he could see your face.

“Actually, we already met each other before …” Echo speaks carefully, causing the Captain to look at him with curiosity, “On Ryloth.”

The connection was made pretty quickly in his head.

“Indeed, now that you say it”, he replies thoughtfully, “how could I forget, you were one of those who freed Sham Syndulla …”

You instantly started to feel bad about it, and you could tell that Echo was embarrassed too. Howzer noticed it, for he gave him a kind and reassuring smile.

“I know what you think about, but it’s okay, don’t worry. You had taken the right decision and choose the right path, something I should have done long before too … I was skeptical about the Empire methods for some time to be honest, but crossing your road definitely made me open my eyes … It was some hard times for all of us for sure, but it had to be done …”

He seemed lost in thought for a few moments, taking his time to process the situation. A strange silence fell over the fifth of you. Memories from Ryloth were still washing over your mind, not only from the last time you went there, but from your previous missions on the planet during the Clone Wars as well. Every of your missions with the Batch reminded you of another previous one from back in the days, and you couldn’t help it.

Then, suddenly, you started to feel something strange, some sort of great disturbance in the Force that you couldn’t explain. Something was wrong.

Like if some serious realization had just hit him, his glance landed on you, and he started to insistently staring at you, examining you meticulously. His brows furrowed, and he seemed surprised and confused.

“Wait, you were on Ryloth too, right ? I’ve recognized your armor, and your voice …” his words break the silence as his eyes locked with yours again, but more intensively than before.

“Yes, I was …” you answer hesitantly.

You could feel that something was off with him, something had abruptly changed in the way he was looking at you.

“But you’re not a clone …”

Your entire body began to tense as you could guess what words were coming next. You knew, by the way his eyes were starting to shimmer, that he will soon be coming at a conclusion about what you are. A shiver ran through your spine, his eyes had become darker, and his glare was piercing through you like arrows. He wasn’t himself anymore. You flinched, trying to anticipate his next move, hands ready to defend yourself.

“… I saw what you did earlier, when we were escaping the ship …”

He took a step toward you.

You started to internally panic, you could swear that his body was starting to shake. Echo and Gregor became tensed too, and you caught an expression of incomprehensibility and concern growing on the Senator’s face.  

Everyone around knew that him and his men still had their chips on. You were frightened. Since the incident with Wrecker on Bracca, no other clone had tried to attack you, even when they still had their chips on. You and Rex had started to think that maybe their effects were declining over time, and that maybe they weren’t really functioning anymore.

Rex had managed to come back to the junkyard planet to collect the scanner and surgical instruments from the abandoned medbay, so he’ll be able to free his men and recues from this awful burden, just in case it could still be active in some way. But even before the extraction, none of them had ever been violent or menacing toward you. You used to feel safe around them.

But right now, all you wanted to do was disappear, to step backward, to turn back and run away from that situation that seemed doomed to end badly. But you couldn’t move any of your limbs, you were completely petrified. Your heartbeat accelerated, and your breath became more ragged.

“… I know what you are …” he whispers aggressively.

He took another step toward you, silent. He was now just inches from your face, still looking at you right in the eyes. He was so close, he was so handsome. You had saw that face so many times that you knew every detail of it, but you still found it as attractive as the first encounter. It was like staring at every one of those you had loved, then lost. It was heart wrenching and beautiful at the same time.

“Howser, please, calm down …” you hear Gregor says as calmly as possible, but nervousness was still palpable in his intonation.

“It’s ok, don’t worry, I got this” you cut him with the same calm, trying to keep your own voice from stuttering.

Nobody around seemed able to move neither. Everyone seemed like crushed under the weight of the tension. You saw Gregor’s hand slowly reaching for his blaster at the corner of your eye, and Echo gesturing to the Senator to stay behind him. No, you thought, you didn’t want anyone else to get involved into this, you didn’t want more injuries, more suffering, more panic, you just wanted everyone to be safe in this place, like it had always been.

You wanted to escape, but you were too mesmerized by those eyes, and still tetanized by fear. You had already seen that expression before, that look of pure hate and anger, how could you forget … Flashbacks came back to your mind. Flashbacks from the moment when everything changed, flashbacks of the incomprehension, flashbacks of the terror and despair, flashbacks of the Order.

“You shouldn’t even still be alive, you’re a traitor !”

You felt his breaking point becoming closer as his body prepared to take his final step toward you, and then, in a flash, he was on you, reaching for your neck with both of his hands.

“No !” Echo screams, jumping toward you, while Gregor had grabbed his blaster, pointing it at Howzer.

No, you thought again, no more suffering, no more fight, no more brothers hurting each other, not again. What happened with Wrecker was still vivid in your mind, and you didn’t want to go through that again. It was between you and him now.

You pushed them back and disarmed Gregor with the force, keeping Howzer out of their reach, preventing anyone to get injured. His hands were like ferocious claws around your soft skin, squeezing it with all of his strength.

You didn’t even try to fight him, but placed your hands on both sides of his head, which he didn’t seemed to notice in his rage. You were suffocating, but did your best to remain focused. You always had that special ability to ease people’s minds when they were troubled, to influence and calm their emotions. It was a real gift on battlefields to soothe panicking injured soldiers. You wanted to use it on Wrecker, but you didn’t get the chance to, for he was too strong and impossible to control, you couldn’t get close enough from him. You had no idea if it was going to work, but you had to, at least, try.

You kept your eyes planted in his, energy flowing through the palms of your hands. You were absolutely frightened. You could feel the beating of your heart ringing through your ears. It was so loud you barely heard Echo yelling your name. Your vision started to blur and your limbs started to feel numb, your whole body was feeling weak and fragile.

This is it, you though, this is how it’s going to end, by the hands of one of those you considered as your family, trying to make him regain his mind. You instinctively gasp for oxygen, but it was pointless. You felt lost, and on the edge of fainting, but in a last rush of adrenaline, with a pleading look and what was left of air in your lungs, you managed to find enough strength to breath out a couple of last words.

“Please … You … don’t have to … follow orders anymore … you … are free now …”

To hear your voice again, even barely audible, worked like an electroshock on him. You saw the exact moment when his mind switched back to reality. You caught a flicker in his pupils, the light coming back to scare away the darkness.

You felt his sudden realization of what he had just done, and you heart broke when you noticed the tears slowly forming in his eyes. His grip around your neck slowly loosened up, allowing you to finally take a deep live-saving breath before collapsing on the ground, coughing and shaking, your legs unable to support you anymore.

“What have I done ?  I’m sorry ! I’m so sorry !” he screams, before falling to his knees right in front of you, sobbing uncontrollably.

Without even thinking about it, you were picking yourself up from the cold concrete to get closer to him, pulling him in a tight and comforting embrace, as Echo and Gregor were hurrying toward you, an alarmed expression on their faces.

“(y/n) ! Are you okay ?” the Arc Trooper asks you, in a complete state of panic.

“It’s ok, I’m ok …” you answered, giving him a nod and a reassuring look to let him know that you had the situation under control now. He immediately understood and stopped in his tracks, keeping Gregor from getting closer.

“I’m a monster …” you hear Howzer mutters between his clenched teeth. You felt so bad for him that you could barely retain your own tears anymore.

“Don’t say that, please” you whisper, trying to calm him down as violent shivers were washing over his body, and trying to prevent your voice from breaking, “it’s not your fault.”

He didn’t answered, unable to speak anymore. You were only wearing the bottom of your armor, and he had grabbed your shoulders by sliding his arms under yours, and was holding on to them so firmly that you thought that his fingers were going to pass through the fabric of your blacks.

There was a moment of hesitation when nobody in the hangar was moving or talking, not knowing what to do, stunned by what they had just witnessed. All you could catch was Senator Chuchi leaving the hangar, escorted by Pantoran guards, a devastated expression on her face, and a glimpse of Gregor and Echo’s muffled conversation.

“We need to bring him to the operating room, he needs to have his chip removed as soon as possible, he’s a danger …” Gregor lets out with concern in his voice.

“Can we at least let him a few moment to calm down ? He looks traumatized, he probably has no idea of what had just happened to him, we’ll need to explain it to him, but right now he’s not ready at all.”

A few second of silence passed over them, then the commando finally answered.

“You’re right, we’re gonna bring him to see a medic first, he’ll probably need a few sedatives after that ...”

A lump grew in your throat as you heard their steps coming toward you.

“(y/n) ?”

You raised your head to look at them, Echo’s gaze was heavy on you.

“You need to let him go, we’re gonna take him to the dispensary.”

“I know, just let us a few more seconds, please.”

He nodded, then turned his head toward two clones standing nearby, gesturing to them to come closer.

“Hey”, you whisper to Howzer, pulling him off of you softly so you can see his face. He looked at you with watery eyes and a desperate look, still attached to your shoulders as you settled your hands on his, gently stroking them.

“I know you’re frightened and confused, but you’re gonna be ok, we’re going to help you, I promise. You’re gonna be taken to the medbay, you need to be examinate, the medics will explain to you what had just happened and why it happened. But don’t be afraid, nobody will judge you for that, it wasn’t your fault.”

“I’m so sorry General …” he breathes out with a trembling voice. You could feel that he was starting to calm down as his hands slowly untightened from your shoulders and fell on his lap.

“You don’t have to, Captain, I’m not mad at you, and I don’t blame you for anything, I just want you to feel better, and you will, right ?”

“Right, General, thank you.”

“Let’s go then.”

You get up on your feet, offering him your hand to help him stand up. He took it, but he lost his balance, and you had to catch him to prevent him from falling back on the ground. He seemed exhausted, and soon, one of the men that Echo had previously called took your place to help support him.

“We need to go, Captain, I’ll come with you.” Gregor tells him.

“Yes sir …” he murmurs, before looking back at you, “General, will I … Will I see you again ?”

His voice was low and hesitant, like if he was ashamed of what he was asking, and afraid of the answer, but desperately needed to know at the same time. You weren’t expecting that, and it make your heart skipped a beat.

“Of course, as soon as the medics will allow me to visit you, don’t worry about that.” You answered with a soft smile.

“Thanks General.”

Then the two clones led him out of the hangar, closely followed by Gregor, who gave you another concerned look. You answered with a nod, meaning that you were fine, and keep watching them until they were out of sight. You were so lost in your thoughts that you didn’t even noticed Echo getting closer and nearly jumped when his hand settled on your shoulder.

“Sorry, I didn’t meant to scare you, are you okay ? You’re shaking …” he asks worryingly.

It took you a moment to be able to answer, you were still in shock and processing what had just happened. You absent mindlessly bring your hand to your throat, rubbing it to get rid of the persistent feeling of being strangled, eyes still riveted on the hangar door.

“Yeah, I think that I am, I’m just … I’m just worried about him … It’s the first time that this kind of thing happen since we’ve started the rescues. I was so sure that the effects of the chips had faded, I wasn’t expecting … That.”

“I know, none of us really were, I think … But don’t worry, he’ll be fine once his chip will be gone. He’s going to have a hard time accepting what he did, but I’m sure you’ll find the right words to help him. But for now you need to rest, our last mission was difficult and you need to take some time to recover, don’t you think ?”

You finally looked at him, meeting his gaze. He was sincerely worried about you, and you knew that the said last mission had exhausted him as much as you.

“Yeah, you’re right, and I think that you need some rest too.”

“I can’t deny it … I think that we both deserve a good nap now.” he chuckles.

You smiled at him, you were so glad to have him around in these hard times.

“We do, but I’ll take a shower first !”

As you were both heading toward your quarters, you couldn’t help but keep thinking about the desperate look Howzer gave you while being carried away, and you promised to yourself that you’ll be by his side when he’ll woke up from his surgery.

[itneverendshere]

NEED NEED NEED TO KNOW HOW U PLAN AND WRITE YOUR FICS PLSSS CAUSE HOW ARE U WRITING SO MANY LONG FICS???? 😭😭😭😭 (I still have to read sm of your content but I've seen how do many of them are so long and you defo deserve all the praise you're getting!!!) any kind of writing advice will be helpful 🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️

First of all thank you so much 😭😭❤️❤️ means a lot 🥹 the last three months have been kinda chaotic here but I love it (going from 300 followers to almost 1.5k is crazy work)

And second of all: I take veryyyyy long breaks tbh 😭😭😭😭 I spent almost two weeks writing absolutely nothing, until this week.

I tried to write for a few days but it just wasn’t working so I let myself take a break. I find it easier to write without putting pressure on myself and also outlining basic ideas for the plot or lines that I know for sure someone has to say!

And tbh sometimes it still doesn’t work because I have entire series on hold, I genuinely don’t know what to write next, but I know I will eventually. I just need to give myself as much times as I need to figure it out.

I also find a lot of inspiration watching couples and multi couples mv’s on YouTube, especially when they’re inspired by books (I love watching fancasts lmao). I’m also very hard on myself sometimes so it takes me like four tries to get the writing and the plot right.

For example, I’ve rewritten part three of you said I have to trust more freely about four times now and I still hate it 😻 so there’s that ahahahah. Also took me about three weeks to finish the other side of paradise because that last chapter was dragging my ass though the mud.

And it also depends on my mood unfortunately 😭 some days I wake up I know I want and need to write and some days it feels like a chore so I can’t bring myself to do it lmao.

I personally looove long fics idk why it’s easier to make the plot more plausible especially if it’s just a one part thing y’know? It’s kinda self indulgent 💀💀 and also I great way to practice my English writing skills because it’s noooot my first language, so I’m kinda learning along the way.

Idk if any of this helps but yeah writing down all my ideas helps a looot. Then I just figure out how to connect things and it’s a lot easier.

Requests are also life savers for me tbh, it’s just easier when people tell me what to write and I don’t have to come up with an entire plot by myself. It can get a little overwhelming because I obviously wanna please whoever asked for that piece but at the end of the day, if they asked it’s because they enjoy my writing and even if it isn’t perfect….I know it’s still helping me improve and next time it will be better ☺️

Love you 🫂

[callsignfrostbite]

dancing in the moonlight | robert ‘bob’ floyd x pilot!reader

summary: an admiral’s daughter gets a confession after receiving unsolicited remarks.

warnings: mentions of drinking/drunkenness, hangman being a dickhead (i’m sorry), small use of y/n

word count: 1.5k

reader’s callsign: Glacier

author’s note: my first fic??? omg??? just a little warning, english is not my first language, so there will most likely be grammatical errors. however, i strongly believe that everything is a learning experience, so if you see anything that needs improvement, please let me know!

——————————

Only the best of the best are going.

You dressed up in your decorated khaki uniform and pulled your hair into a low bun.

Drinking? On a night before work? For you, that was a hard no. One man, and only one man, is the sole reason you're going: Bob. You two shared many interests and quickly grew close when you both joined the navy.

You didn't give your feelings for him any thought, until one drunken night when he changed your sheets and helped you clean up after vomiting. It wasn't until the next morning when you had that 'Oh. Oh,' moment when you saw him sleeping on your couch.

It would be an understatement to say that you miss Bob. It’s been months since you last saw each other. While you stayed in San Diego, he went back to Lemoore. You thought your feelings for him would go away, but, truth be told, they only grew stronger. So, when you found out that he was being called back too, you were over the moon.

"Dad, I'm going to the Hard Deck to meet everyone," you informed your father, Admiral Tom "Iceman" Kazansky.

Proving to your fellow naval aviators that you are just as good as they are, if not better, was a big challenge. Being Ice's daughter sure has its perks, but if there's one thing you stand for, it's achieving something without having someone pull strings for you.

Take care, Y/N, he typed on his monitor. Don’t come home with a drunk man, understand?

“Yes, dad. Don’t worry. I know how to handle dickheads,” you giggled at his remark before kissing him on the cheek and leaving.

A few recognizable people greet you as you walk into the bar. As you move through the sea of mildly inebriated naval aviators, you spot him. The one and only. Robert “Bob” Floyd.

Filled with excitement, you yelled, “Robby!”

Setting his most precious peanuts aside, he turned his head after recognizing your voice. “Glacier! How are you?” he welcomed you with a hug. A tight one. His hands encircled your waist as you wrapped your arms around his neck.

“I’m good. I’m good,” you reply, still in his embrace. He doesn’t see it, but you have a smile on your face that could light up the whole room.

Despite being in uniform, you can feel the warmth emitted by his body. Your hearts parallel to each other. You waited so long for this. The hug lasted for god knows how long, exchanging a lot a few “hi’s” and “hello’s”, and earning stares from almost everyone in the room.

“Oh, look,” a southern voice interrupts. “If it ain’t daddy’s little princess.”

Breaking away from the hug, you turned towards Jake Seresin, crossing your arms, your smile disappearing. “Hangman,” you greet him in a flat tone.

"Tell me," he grins as he walks closer to you, "how does it feel to have everything served to you on a silver platter? No offense intended.”

Bob knows how much you hate comments like this. He puts a hand on your shoulder, letting you know that he’s there to back you up if you need him to.

“Yet somehow, you always manage,” the WSO contested.

“You know I’m right,” the blonde counters.

“Seresin. I don’t know much about you, but based on how you treat women, I know for a fact that you sleep with one beside you,” you pause. “But wake up all alone.”

Hearing a few chuckles from Fanboy and Payback, Hangman straightens his back, “Speaking from experience, Glacier?”

All you managed to blurt out was an annoyed "whatever" because you know better than to satisfy a self-absorbed son of a bitch. Hangman winked at you as he walked away.

“Well he hasn’t changed,” Bob complained.

You agreed, “He definitely hasn’t.”

After then, there was a brief moment of silence to let the tension dissipate. You had been looking forward to seeing Bob again for months, only for it to be interrupted by Hangman.

“Can we ta—”

Before you could continue your conversation, a chorus of "boo's" and "hey's" filled the bar after someone unplugged the jukebox.

The complaints turned into cheers as Rooster began playing the piano intro to "Great Balls of Fire.” The pilots and the rest of the crowd drew closer to him. All but you. Bob tried calling your name but failed as he got dragged into the clump that is Rooster's audience.

As the crowd sang, you swiftly made your way outside.

Despite how much you detest them, "silver platter" remarks never get on your nerves. You know you're a great pilot; you worked your tail off to get here, but now, you're holding back tears.

Perhaps it's because Hangman is one of the best pilots in the game and he thinks you didn't put any effort to get to your rank. Or maybe it’s because there’s a hint of truth in what he said. Maybe.

Body numb, you closed your eyes and let out a deep heavy breath. As water began to collect at the bottom of your eye, you feel your head hurt. Your brain is telling you that you’ve been holding your tears for too long. It’s time to let go.

You sat down on the veranda, knees pulled to your chest, sharply sucking in a breath. Training hasn’t even started, yet you’re already tired. I don’t deserve to be here, you thought.

“Hey,” a comforting voice said as you felt a hand on your shoulder.

Bob.

Oh, sweet Bob.

“Come here,” he says, offering his hand to help you stand up. You took his hand, propelling yourself upwards. Seeing your tear-stained face, he took his handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped it down.

“I’m a mess,” you uncontrollably sobbed.

He doesn’t say anything. Instead, he took your hands again and pulled you closer to him. Your bodies were so close you could hear his heartbeat.

Inside the bar, the jukebox was plugged in again, and “Dancing in the Moonlight” by King Harvest was now playing.

He placed your right hand on his shoulder and held your left one tight, placing it against his chest. Putting his left hand on your waist, he started swaying slowly.

We get it on most every night

“Just sway to the beat, okay?” Bob said quietly.

When that moon gets big and bright

You stared deep into his eyes. Those bright goddam eyes that are so easy to get lost in. You can see a faint reflection of yourself on his glasses, lightly fogged up by his and your breath.

It’s a supernatural delight

“But you hate dancing,” you stuttered.

Everybody’s dancing in the moonlight

“I know, but there’s this girl I like, and I think she’s the only one who can make me dance like this,” he confessed.

Bob, who watched reruns of your favorite show until it became his favorite too, likes you. Bob, who will leave the lights on on the tiny balcony of his apartment to let you know he’s there if you need a place to crash, likes you. Bob, who will place a hand on your shoulder when you’re down, likes you.

Bob, the person you like, likes you back.

And oh so carefully, you lean in. Your lips brush against his a few times, breath fanning across each other’s faces.

Then, he fully closes the gap between the two of you. Placing your hand on the back of his neck, you pulled him impossibly closer towards you. Your need for him becoming more and more obvious.

His lips are softer than anything you can imagine. It felt like fire. Burning. Igniting. But, it also felt like water. A need. A necessity. Life.

A small gesture, enough to let you know you can’t live without him. Enough to let you know he’s yours forever.

When you finally decided to pull away, all of the things you wanted to say to him made their way towards the unknown. You couldn’t utter a single word, as if your brain was malfunctioning.

All you needed to say was in that kiss.

“I missed you,” he began.

“Yeah. Figured that one out,” you smile, looking at his lips. “I missed you too.”

—————-

BONUS!!

It was 2 AM.

Sneaking a boy into your house used to be a piece of cake. Bob tried his best to make as little noise as possible, but he couldn’t help but giggle at your current situation. You both felt like high schoolers.

Your room was on the ground floor of your house, meaning you wouldn’t have to tip toe for too long. Just as you were about to reach the door handle, Bob froze as a voice gnarled.

Ahem. Your dad.

“Admiral.” Bob salutes.

“Dad, I thought you were already slee—”

“Shh!” Tom silenced you.

He walks closer towards the both of you, your heart beating faster and faster. Much to your confusion, your dad sniffs.

“Oh my G—,” you laughed as you came to a realization. “He is not drunk!”

[luchicm04]

lost in the forest - part 17

Masterlist

Summary: A new day brings arguments, culture shocks and awaited visits.

Pairing: Senju Tobirama/Original Female Character

Tag: #lost in the forest fic

posted on ao3

Word Count: +4k

Overall warnings: canon-typical violence, adult content, time skips, angst, kidnapping

It’s difficult to reach an agreement when you only have solutions for a topic. She huffs and crosses her arms to constantly massage her forehead so that the headache doesn’t increase as she glares at the person who doesn’t understand her point. 

“You’re not a baker.” Valid observation from an indignant man when she wants to give some points of improvement in his process. She sighs... the poor man maintains his demeanor from a past moved among the shinobi ranks and today retired for some reason. 

“I know I’m not,” the woman reluctantly admits. 

“So what right do you think you have to tell me how to make by bread?!” Indignantly, the unkind man refutes between the corridors of the busy village. There are many people coming and going and above all the facades are beginning to be decorated as a symbol of the visit of someone important. 

Karen hasn’t been involved, busy with Tobirama’s obsessions... yet she has these little moments of respite, where she thought it was a good idea to give part of her mind to that guy. 

One that didn’t take it very good. 

“I know I have no right, you do a very good job, I would just consider having the correct yeast and putting only corn or pure flour in your bread so that it doesn’t become tough... in addition to maintaining the correct temperature and time in the oven.” She doesn’t know a lot about this job, but sometimes she worked in a supermarket store in the bakery section. 

She knows there are important things so that it is not so hard. 

“Tch...” 

“Karen?” Someone calls next to her. Hashirama blinks between the two people standing there almost in the middle of the passageway that leads directly to the main house.  

“Hashirama-sama.” With a tone of respect, the beaker breaks the tense silence between them, still focused on her. “This woman wants me to change my recipe,” he growls reluctantly. 

“I didn’t say it would change... just that you could make it cleaner and the rest that I told you,” the civilian dismisses calmly and with a not hidden sigh. “I don’t know how he can’t just take it as an improvement... something to work with.” 

“You are insolent.” 

“I’m not.” 

“You are,” the baker states confidently when Hashirama sighs, raising his hand. 

“It would be better if we left things here... Karen, please try not to make comments that could be misinterpreted to our people,” the man with long hair comments, making said woman raise her eyebrow firmly and with a gesture of ‘are you seriously telling me that?’. “And Kantarou, just take this as something innovative. The lady here has some very good comments.” 

As a leader he is remarkable... but as a mediator, she supposes it is the only thing she will get. 

“Well, I just wanted to point that out,” Karen raises her hands calmly. It’s been a little time since she started so she wants to keep her profile low for now. 

“Of course, Hashirama-sama.” The baker glares at her for the last time to leave and enter with a hollow sound from the door. The civilian sighs and looks at the one who continues trying to decipher her with great curiosity. 

“What?!” The woman grudgingly blurts out with a soft snort. 

“You are coming out of your confinement... and are you seriously provoking people?” Hashirama says with a mocking tone, changing to English easily. He no longer struggles like before and he is confident that many do not understand what they are talking about. Continuing her walk towards the main office, she sighs... she does not comment on the shameless detour that is taking that leader. 

She lets him be. At the end of everything, she hears from Mikami that his fiancée will come these days. He is surely anxious and looking for anything to divert his tensions. As long as Tobirama does not tell her off, his presence does not bother her. 

“It’s not my fault. I just commented on the obvious.” 

“You are a civilian, and considering what they say about the death of...” The leader sighs. “You should not say anything else.” 

“I know that I have a lot of work with Tobirama, but there are things that with a simple adjustment would be... the bread is hard, it doesn’t taste like anything and I know it can improve.” 

“How?” 

“Well, it has to do with the flour, the temperature and many factors that I only have in theory. But I never made the dough from 0.” 

“Huh?” 

“Usually where I worked, the dough was already made. We only made sure that the oven was good, the time and the materials to be made with certain recipes already in place...” She shrugs remembering those young days. “So that’s all I know.” 

“Without being a baker, you are saying those things to mine.” 

“Sorry for making comments about continuous improvement,” the civilian complains, continuing her walk without explaining what she means by that comment. “By the way, have you finished reviewing the processes?” 

Hashirama gives her an amused laugh at such a shameless turn of talk. He snorts to look at her again. “Tobi is working right now with the latest adjustments... I’m sorry he has been bothering these days.” 

“He is always annoying,” the woman admits shamelessly. “Although the next time I want to kick him out, I will ask him about the origin of your war... or simply things he doesn’t want to answer.” 

“He told me that you asked... would you seriously have a solution knowing that?” 

“Something like that... By understanding the basis of the problem you can usually skip to a good solution... only it is complicated and most of the time one of the nations loses.” 

“Nations?” The man asks horrified. 

“Sorry, I just put it into what I know,” she raises her hand easily. “I’m just... I’m saying that well, many times things are lost due to pride, revenge, money, power and everything else.” 

“Mmm... From what you said about your world.” Hashirama blinks a few more times... he looks hesitant for a while, which makes her return to a question she usually has on days when she has too much time to think. 

“You know... despite the hard start and the way you treated me, I have always wondered... are yu happy with me being here?” 

“I think you already said that differently,” the shinobi accepts. 

“Well, one thing is why and another is that if you agree with me being here... even though you don’t know anything other than I’m not...” She remains silent, not willing to say it out loud. More than a year later it is still difficult... but the months go by quickly and with that the light experiences that she has become accustomed to. 

She doesn’t want to admit it... but she already considers this clan a safe place. 

“Just... are you guys really okay with that? ...Considering how paranoid, traditional and sharp you are,” the woman blinks with confused intention without losing the rhythm of the step. The leader snorts, crossing his arms with a thoughtful gesture. 

“I don’t think this is the time for that.” 

“Mmm... why?” 

“We won’t get anywhere if you keep thinking too much,” the man laughs with a sunny attitude. “Besides, I’m sure there are better things to do, right?” 

“Rude.” 

“Why?!” 

“For changing my conversation... I seriously don’t know if you’re the only idiot.” 

The man arches dramatically. Karen wonders if this drastic change of atmosphere is natural to huff amused. The pout is worth remembering in someone whose age she estimates to be more than 20 and less than 24... how old is he exactly? 

So she doesn’t hesitate to pat his head like she used to do to her sister. She smiles softly. “Fine, I’ll leave the topic for now... I’m grateful that you don’t ask me about the truth.” She feels the tension in the adult, a few rare seconds that her take off her actions and look ahead. “So? ...who are you running from?” 

Hashirama blinks, composing himself. He smiles again with his broad attitude, denying any dark plans to get around his responsibilities. 

They were weird sometimes. 

──

She never had to see her gender as a work impediment. Of course there are some things that must be taken into account when being a woman in the modern world, not only because of the complexes, traditions and observations that have been dragging for years like a chain that begins give up weight... the social pressures of being single at 30 years old and how loneliness was her best weapon when they talked about a romantic topic. 

She saw it as a hindrance, a thing that distracts from her true potential as a modern woman. Karen prioritized her profession, family... never the third type of balance. 

If you are successful, you must always sacrifice one or two of the three concepts mentioned above. 

She didn’t have much free time either... but she valued the little she had. 

But now, she just huffs crossing her arms, annoyed at having some hateful comments about how she should be married. Touka is not the best company... she’s annoying and a ninja very focused on bringing up the topic of her wedding or engagement. 

Not to mention, old Hiasha wasn’t the only one who saw her as a future prospect to bring children to the clan. 

“Don’t you have another topic to talk about?” She complains angrily when she is chased on one of her few visits to the main house with other scrolls in hand. Tobirama has left them and sent a message to Kaori to bring them. 

He’s an idiot... That never goes away. 

“No, the truth is I’m just curious,” the kunoichi shrugs with agility and a happy hum. She supposes that whatever she interpreted about that day they talked about their feelings changed something in their dynamic. She thought it would be worse, but apparently it was quite the opposite. “ It’s just that being so old... I mean, how old are you? ” She is dubious... quite nosy and direct. 

At least she hasn’t asked Hashirama, who is the only person who knows her age. 

“Not relevant.” 

“Of course it is!” The girl complains with a pout. “For example, I will soon turn 18. Oba-sama says that she will soon start looking for my fiancé,” she says it with a strange gesture that she does not want to pay attention to. 

“Seriously... you are very young.” 

“I’m not. Actually, I waited a long time...” She looks towards the main house with a feeling that she guesses. 

“Why don’t you talk to them?” She decides to ask. “I mean, if you don’t want to marry someone else, sometimes being direct is the best.” 

“What are you saying?!” Horrified, the kunoichi blushes. Who would have thought that someone as infamous as the woman could change her mind so quickly... as always when she touches what her heart points to, as clear as water. 

She obviously likes the clan leader. 

Karen laughs amused at the juvenile drama in her eyes, unnecessary when she has a lot to work with. Plus, the kunoichi still has a surprised gesture at how easily she says things. Maybe she should think twice before she gets into real trouble because of her tongue, like with the baker whose case was only observations that he still does not apply. Rude. “Good that you are direct with what you feel.” 

“He is engaged.” 

“I know. However, just so you can go on, turn the page and see the future.” 

“For a civilian, you say very strange things.” 

She glares, offended by such disregard for her own contributions. Doesn’t she have another person to bother? “If you don’t like it, you can go with your friends from the clan.” 

“They are all married or on missions,” she shrugs with a light pout. Even though they are all familiars, sometimes the dynamic really reminds her of the corporate ones she used to work for. Complicated. 

Touka sighs defeated. She may be a civilian but she still doesn’t do anything physical anymore, at least she lowered the intensity of her interactions and bad temper. “Just... well, Oji-san always told me it could be, but then... the Uzumaki clan is powerful... a family with a great bloodline,” she remembers as if it were the truth, one she cannot overcome. 

Karen thinks that they have the old teachings. She sighs because the value of blood can be a special case with their magic, considering the fact that Hashirama is the only one who can make trees and all those wonders that he told her one of those days. 

She scratches her chin. “And what do you expect from the future?” She decides to focus better on Touka, who is blinking lost. “I mean, I know you want to get married but... what then?” 

“I will have many children,” the woman easily accepts, marveled at her goal. She cannot blame her when it is clear that they instilled this type of value in her, although she has to give them credit for making them shinobi in some way less lethal than men. 

Comparisons that she continues to draw with her mind raised in a different civilization. 

Gender defines your role within this small society. Seeing Tobirama greet her at the door was strange, even more when Touka simply disappeared without leaving any kind of trace. She blinks, stopping awkwardly. She assumes she has warnings regarding what she did last time. 

Especially when said annoyed albino crosses his arms with his judicious and hard red gaze, like when he tries to decipher what she says or does. She snorts, not saying anything and passing by to focus on the adjustments she brings. 

She knows it will be a long afternoon. 

The infamous ninja had many comments regarding what should be considered. 

The man is difficult to please. 

──

They usually argue for hours about the issues of the moment. Karen raises her chin, not at all intimidated by that fatal look that she is the object of from the indignant man who looks at her as if he were going to put knives on her. The crumpled paper on the floor is a symbol of the work they have been redoing due to the foolishness of someone seeking to improve what she has planned. 

It’s not that she’s against it... but she doesn’t like being told that she’s a civilian idiot. 

“Seriously...” She sighs, trying not to give in to violence when she knows she would lose. She is a leader, she reminds herself bitterly with her many emotional intelligence courses that she begins to review in her mind... some that failed at the beginning of all this mess. 

The idiot is god at getting on her nerves... driving her mad. 

“What you say is silly. No one would dare to burn our entire land, it is unnecessary to have shelter areas.” 

“I thought we were over this part,” the woman complains with a determined crossing of her arms. That room is the only one they own and where they work together. A clear example is the large table in the middle along with several parchments, ink and brushes. 

She hates this type of organization and is too sleepy for her patience to be at its maximum. 

It is not. 

“I am just stating the obvious.” 

“I know you are proud of your clan, family and your job... but it doesn’t hurt to have a plan B for everything. Identifying safe areas to protect, leaders as we had proposed... what changed?” 

“It does not matter.” 

“Tobirama, you have made me review what you did. Right now, between the two of us, we have made considerable progress for you to say that you do not need an evacuation place for any disaster. I am not saying that you are weak.” 

“You imply it.” 

“If I remember correctly, among the village there are many children, small non-combatants who cannot run between branches like the older ones do, nor possess your speed...” Karen purses her lips. “Including me... I know that I will die if I get wrapped up in this.” 

Tobirama snorts, but remains in his thoughtful position. At least now he is considering her point, although he is somewhat proud, he has a good head on his shoulders when he explains in detail what he means. 

It would be easier if he didn’t have that character, but she supposes not everything is possible in life. 

“Consider it... and this way, you can work on at least one evacuation route.” 

He exhaled tired. “I do not promise anything.” 

“I’m just saying... it’s your village we’re talking about.” 

“Mmmm...” Tobirama frowns slightly his expressionless face. 

“By the way, how are you going with the organization of the types of work?” 

“I already discussed it with Hashirama.” 

“Oh...” 

“It is not your business now.” 

“I see.” She doesn’t want to feel used, but as a civilian she assumes there are things that she can’t be informed about no matter how much she has helped in the process. “So... can I go now?” 

“Mmmm...” The albino grunts, but gives the sign. 

“Good,” she sighs, massaging her neck lightly. “Seriously man, you should be less intense... and eat.” 

The albino does not give her any kind of look when she passes by him. 

“And sleep... things won’t get better if you don’t sleep.” 

“I have better resistance, remember?” 

“Sane people don’t last more than two or three days without sleep. Then the hallucinations begin...” Karen remembers an old article she read regarding this, as well as a case in her police program where a girl killed her roommate as a result of her spending more than 6 days without sleeping a wink. 

She remembers it... and being a shinobi, she believes it will be worse. 

Tobirama gives her that ‘it’s not true’ look that he doesn’t express. 

“According to a study, a regular human cannot last more than two days without sleep. It causes cognitive, logical and other problems... It’s problematic,” she sighs, explaining in detail what she means. “Imagine if we add your magic to the equation.” 

“Chakra,” corrects the man. “And we are stronger.” 

“Sure, sure... just consider it, sleep.” 

“You are not my mother.” 

“No, but I know that you are more annoying when you are intense and without sleep... so make my life easier,” the woman complains, understanding a little of the routine of the obssesive shinobi, very different from his brother who she does not mention. She doesn’t have enough energy to continue talking about some kind of thing that will hardly be believed. 

She sighs looking at the beautiful stars above her head... at least the view is the best ever. 

──

Her days are opportune exactly on a certain day of that year. She feels alone... empty and without the desire to get up, almost like the depressive days she lived here, as a former civilian from a completely different world... There are times when the fact of being far from home falls on her head a lot. 

Right on her birthday, the second with this resigned destiny... How quickly time passes... she was never expressive about it, she didn’t like people to know unless it came up talking, because celebrating it is not exactly what she is looking into when there have been intense days of fighting not only with what Tobirama/Hashirama is looking for... but also with the council who wants to marry her to a close relative. 

An alliance with the aristocracy... damn the fact that the idea didn’t die with the impudent old man who grilled her. 

She snorts. 

She is in a bad mood. 

“Karen-san?” Mikami, as one of the few people who agree with her, looks out the door. She doesn’t know how timely she is on those days of the month... providing her with cloths for her use and bringing tea with her for her nerves. 

Before, she didn’t have these afflictions... now she just doesn’t why it hurts more. 

“I’ll be fine,” she complains, keeping her discomfort to see said kunoichi thoughtfully. “Is there something wrong?” 

She blinks confused to smile at her. “No... nothing.” 

“Mmmm...” She blinks, noticing that there really is something going on. “I know that I am a civilian and that I have many things that differ from your customs, but tell me... at least to me, I think talking about it is the easier solution.” 

“Uh..." She looks restless, like every shinobi she sees the distrust... the habit of locking up her problems to look at her lap a bit. The firm woman who was previously a witch when instructing her in manners looks uneasy... strange considering that she has been around for a long time treating her. 

“Well, whatever you want.” She doesn’t insist any longer than necessary. 

“No... just,” she sighs. “Ryu-san... he proposed to me.” 

“The man from the food warehouse?” She raises her eyebrow because the old man has finally made his move. She sighs... the age difference is marked but she doesn’t see that there is a problem within the clan. In the end, everything is handled differently. “And what do you think?” 

“I... I have not forgotten him,” she looks at her hand calmly, the one that surely remembers the coldness of her loved one’s body on that disastrous day. 

“I see.” 

“It is very soon... I feel like...” She looks into the distance. “Oka-san thinks it is time to settle down, take care of the garden and look after my family, for the clan.” 

“Mmmm...” She can say a lot about what she is against, but she sees the traditionalist point of it all. “And what do you want?” 

“To wait... I do not know,” she blinks, looking directly into her eyes. “When he proposed to me... I was happy. Now however... I do not feel anything. Oka-san says that feeling something is not necessary... that my age is passing.” 

“You’re not that old.” 

“For the clan I am, and I do not want to take certain missions... so I have no choice.” 

“There are always options.” 

“You do not understand,” Mikami says with a soft smile. “It is something different than what you think.” 

“Ugh...” She doesn’t like being told that she doesn’t understand. “We are women. I know how difficult perspectives are when they believe that we are only good for doing work that men wouldn’t do and giving birth, but we are more... we have feelings and they can’t force you.” 

The former instructor smiles. 

“But I’m giving you my opinion. You are a kind, strict and very good at what you do. Whatever you decide is your path and I will support you in whatever you like.” Karen still remains expectant. She is firm in her conviction to help the one who she believes is closest. “You are my friend and as such, I will listen to you when you need... I regret giving my opinion on the matter, just... if you don’t want to, they can’t force you.” 

The kunoichi looks at her with calmer eyes. The civilian sighs to give her a long, uncomfortable hug to who is not used to this type of touch. 

“I know you will be happy... and I hope you can still come back.”��

“Of course,” the woman simplifies, looking lighter. “It will be better to prepare your hot bath. Hashirama-sama has arranged a suit for today’s event, the first group of Uzu has just arrived.” 

“Oh...” She blinks at the information and looks at the woman who composes herself and shows her true teeth. The manners and etiquette are hers, so when she left the bathroom, she was greeted by the elderly Kaori with a slightly more elegant yukata, it was not abnormal. 

She sighs... she hopes it goes better than the time of her presentation. 

Right on her birthday. 

The second far from home. 

A/N: As you see another day has passed, ending with the arrival of Uzu with the fiancée of out beloved Hashirama... politics, the role within a type of culture of this style is somewhat traditionalist in a firm way, so being a feudal society is no different from what they expect from Karen, like cattle willing to be exchanged if they meet the price.

By alliance.

Our dear OC is also somewhat nosy in certain processes that she believes she can improve, even if she only has snippets of a theory... unintentionally offending those who practice their trade with dedication.

Thanks for reading

Author-chan out! 

[psylunari]

Comments: thoughts, types, how-tos, and etiquette (part 2 of 4)

This is better read sequentially, but you can skip to any section. They are as numbered:

1) The basics

2) Thoughts on comment culture

3) Types of comments

4) Writing cohesive and coherent comments

5) Etiquette

6) Technical questions

7) Short-answer questions

8) Long-answer questions

Part 1: Sections 1 and 2.

Part 2: Sections 3 and 4 (you are here).

Part 3: Sections 5 and 6.

Part 4: Sections 7 and 8.

PDF version here, containing the whole thing. It has a table of contents and cute formatting.

♥ 3: Types of comments ♥

Comments are detailed below with a description and examples. I wrote all the examples. They might be based on comments I’ve seen, but aren’t real ones left by readers.

3.1 Emojis, keysmashes, second kudos, and not-so-verbal comments

Usually short. Might be hard to make heads or tails of them. If it’s all emojis/kaomojis, the comment is likely trying to express the reader’s emotions. The keysmash is internet “slang” for speechless or at a loss for words, but strong feelings about the thing, often positive. Second kudos are also emojis, but heart emojis, imitating the kudos/favorite button.

Example(s):

“😭😭😭😭😭😭” “ヽ(♡‿♡)ノ” “skjhgsdkfljgsdlkgfsjdh” “❤️” “!!!?????!!!!??????”

3.2 Short positive comments

One or two sentences expressing appreciation about the whole fic or some aspect of it.

Example(s):

“Loved it, thanks for sharing!” “This chapter is everything. Good to see this pairing more often in the fandom.”

3.3 Medium and long positive comments

Longer than the previous ones. Might delve into detailed opinions, quote the fic back to the author, and contain a deeper analysis of something.

Example(s):

“I’ve been reading this fic since day one. The writing is stellar and the characterization is on point. It’s good to see things getting finally resolved. Those two deserve peace and quiet in each other’s arms, after all.” “Ok, so it’s 3 am and I totally should be sleeping. My finals start tomorrow, and I was scribbling a few notes for an assignment, but I couldn’t resist this update. 5k words? How come?? The plot twist was SOMETHING ELSE. I don’t wanna spoil the other readers who might see this, so take my word for it and GO READ. When we thought we were done getting into her flashbacks, we get THAT. OH MY GOD. What will be of me until the next update? (probably a sleepless mess because broke college student juggling two jobs) LOL see you anytime, your writing is a blessing to this world.”

3.4 Constructive criticism (concrit)

Concrit points out flaws in whatever the reader can find them, and provides ways to improve the fic. Ideally, it’s a polite, considerate comment, but might not be.

Example(s):

“While I love the premise, worldbuilding, and first act, I think it’s a bit dragged out from chapter 5 onwards. Stories like yours could use faster pacing and less domesticity. If you trim the less relevant scenes and turn them into extras (maybe posted as one-shots in a series), it’ll flow a lot better. Also, be sure to use a spellchecker. English is hard. I know you’re not a native speaker, so that’s why I’m suggesting it. This fic will be a hit, you just have to polish it, to make it shine its brightest. HMU if you need help, and good luck!”

3.5 Pure criticism

Simply state an opinion, not ways to improve. Ideally, it’s polite, but might not be.

Example(s):

“It reads very amateurish, repeats many clichés from the fandom, and the characterization is off. I was in for the tags, ends up it’s not great.”

3.6 Hate/harassment, demanding updates, unwanted comments

Comments that try to bring the author down, attack them, demand faster updates, are impolite in general, or outright creepy. Might contain swear words and threats.

Example(s):

“lol this fic is trash, don’t waste your time” “I bet you live in your mom’s basement to this day and will never get a girlfriend” “Why don’t you post the next chapter already? It’s been a month. We’re all waiting” “Ugh, such disgusting content, what to expect from shippers of that pairing?” “Write even one more chapter, and I’ll doxx you” “Quick question, do you have an OnlyFans?”

3.7 Requests/prompts

Ask if the author could write a specific thing or suggests ideas for a fic.

Example(s):

“Could you write more one-shots of them? I need this pairing in my life.” “Put them all in a high fantasy AU, each one from a different race, competing for the throne. Three parts minimum. It’ll be awesome in your style and I want to see it.”

♥ 4: Writing cohesive and coherent comments ♥

AKA “I don’t know how to write X type of comment, help me”.

If you need further help, check the Long Live Feedback (LLF) Comment Builder.

4.1 Types I’m not going to cover and why

I’m not going to teach you how to write “pure criticism” and “hate/harassment” comments. Section 3 had a guide on identifying them, not encouragement to write it.

Pure criticism can be “an opinion”. Sure, “critic” is a job, like film critics, book critics, etc. There’s also such a thing as a nice opinion. However, I’d like to keep it positive. I don’t want to teach you how to tear a fic down without teaching you how to tell the author ways to do better. It might scare people away from fandom, especially newbies and/or insecure writers. Avoid criticizing total strangers (do it to friends who take it well, and it’s none of my business). You don’t know who’s behind the screen and the hardships they’re facing. Be kind.

I don’t need to go into detail about why teaching how to bully and harass others online is a bad idea. It’s unavoidable to come across hate comments on the internet. Anonymity makes people think they’re free to say as they please. Be the change the world needs to see.

If you do end up spreading hate online, I hope you face consequences, learn from your mistakes, quit doing it, and find something healthier to pass the time.

4.2 Not-so-verbal comments (emojis, keysmashes, second kudos…)

Emojis/kaomojis: send the ones that best represent your emotions.

Keysmash: type lots of incoherent letters without any words.

Second kudos: send heart emojis, maybe with “second kudos!” written as well.

4.3 Short positive comments

“Loved it!” or “great/amazing fic!” are fail-proof. You can also add “thanks for sharing”, “Love this [ship/plot/trope/other]”, “your style is great”, and other things you can think.

4.4 Medium and long positive comments

You can open comments with things like:

What you were doing when you found the fic (at school/work? procrastinating? looking for a rarepair? looking for a specific tag/theme?);

What time of the day it was;

Stating if you’re a newcomer to their works or not;

Other things you can think of.

There are a few things you can praise:

Writing style;

Characterization/development;

Plot;

Pacing;

Dialogue;

Being engaging;

Being original;

Other things you can think of.

You can proceed with:

Quoting your favorite lines of the fic;

Mentioning if you usually read that type of fic or not;

Saying if a scene made you cry/laugh;

Saying if a scene will stick with you for a while;

If it’s your favorite fic of that pairing/tag/theme;

If it’s your favorite fic of that fandom;

If it’s your favorite fic ever;

Other things you can think of.

4.5 Constructive criticism (concrit)

This one needs a little more structuring.

Create a document somewhere. Google Docs, Word, Notes app, etc.;

List strengths. Writing style? Characterization? Plot? Character development? Pacing? Dialogue? Spelling, punctuation, grammar? Being engaging? Being original? Others?;

List weaknesses. Same list as above;

Try to come up with ways the author could improve on the weaknesses. Grammar and the like? Spellcheckers. The plot structure is on the weaker side? Studying storytelling and structure. Robotic dialogue? Paying attention to real conversations, and so on;

Then, use a model like this if you want:

[These are all the things that I think are good, and don’t need to change.] [Next, these are the things I think need more work.] [These are ways they can do it better, and solutions for the problems I found.] [Here, you wish the best of luck to them, reassure them you’re doing it out of liking the fic, and state your intention to help them if they need it again.] [If they need further feedback, and you’re willing to do it, leave your contact info.]

4.6 Requests/prompts

If the author hasn’t stated publicly that they take requests/fill prompts, don’t send them uninvited. Always ask first. If they respond positively, proceed. If they don’t, it’s nothing personal. Some aren’t good with prompts or have no time/desire to write them.

Some authors provide sheets for requests or list things they will/won’t write. If there is a sheet, fill it out and send it. If they don't write something, don’t insist they do.

If it’s a request, be polite and non-demanding. Phrase it like “could you write this?” or “would you be open to writing that?”. Never “5k fic of this/that character doing this, ready by tomorrow night”, you’re not their boss. Preferably, thank them for their time and effort.

If it’s a prompt, provide enough information, not too much information. Don’t go overboard on details: the author won’t be able to elaborate with their personal touch. You’re asking them specifically to write it, so in theory, you want their take, not just your ideas.

If you want a specific thing to be out of the fic, state it, especially if there’s a chance the author could add it because it’d fit the context. For example, in a car accident prompt, someone dying isn’t out of place. Don’t want any deaths? Tell them.

An example of a weak prompt:

“Write a one-shot about Main Character.”

An example of a well-rounded prompt:

“Three years after canon ends, Main Character and Side Character #1 see Character Dead in Canon walking on the street on a Friday night. Character Dead in Canon didn’t seem to notice them, then entered the most suspicious nightclub. No smut/incest, please.”

An example of a too-detailed prompt:

“What if Main Character woke up, checked their phone, and there is a text message demanding they get to work at 7:35 am? Their former boss requested they deal with this, this, and this activity they used to do. However, they’ve been retired for years, since they were deemed unfit to work. Thing is, their boss has a miracle solution for the health issue they’re facing, but their boss isn’t going to tell them about the solution until they arrive at the office. I’d like it to be 30k words minimum, it should include spicy scenes here and there, but nothing explicit. Their car should be red. Their cat is a Maine Coon named Salt. They are dating me specifically. I am 165 cm tall, my weight is 60 kg…”

Part 1 // Part 3 // Part 4 are waiting for you.

[thyandrawrites]

You mentioned being Italian, how did you learn to speak or at least write English so well? Your Japanese translations are also pretty good too! I want learn Italian so what would you recommend that would help learn to read and write another language?

Thank you!

The genuine answer? Fandoms. Really. I've been studying languages for most of my life (english since elementary school, french in middle and high school, german since hs and japanese since college) but so far I've only gotten truly fluent in the only language I didn't just approach from a textbook learning angle. My fluency probably also comes from speaking english the longest, but what really improved my proficiency was consuming and engaging with my passions in my target language. Something that I struggle a lot with is staying motivated in the long run. I tend to run out of steam after a while, and I lose all the progress I made. But fandoms feed on my passions, so engaging with them helps me find the motivation to keep going, while also making it less like a chore that needs to be taken care of.

I was a B1 until I graduated high school, but then I started reading copius amounts of fanfic and meta in english, and began writing my own. Reading taught me a lot of common new words I had never encountered before in my textbooks, as well as several idioms, and the longer I kept at it, the more stuff I assimilated into my vocabulary. I spent a couple of years just reading ff, not thinking I had it in me to truly begin writing in my second language, but then it sort of... Just happened. I got a fic idea late at night and wrote a 6k oneshot in one sitting during an all nighter. The fact that I was tired and inspired probably lowered my remaining inhibitions and temporarily muted that part of my brain that was self-conscious. But suddenly, english didn't seem so scary anymore. When I reread what I wrote the next day, after getting some sleep, it wasn't as agrammatical and terrible as I had feared, and that motivated me to keep doing it. I find that a lot of the time what stops us from improving is the fear of making a fool of ourselves. I also didn't comment on fanfic for years in fear of outing myself, and on the rare occasions I did, I always prefaced my comments with an apology for my english. But when you finally get in the mindframe that people don't really care about any mistakes you might make, it was really liberating. Honestly, just have fun! Who cares! Native speakers make tons of mistakes too! I can see that so clearly now.

This was around the time I got into Tokyo Ghoul meta and timidly approached my first analyses. Meta is fairly different from creative writing, but it also helped me improve because it taught me essay writing better than my english teacher marking my mistakes in angry red. When you're trying to explain a concept so that others understand it, rather than just to get a passing grade, you will attempt to break it down into easier concepts and pace it better, instead of just paying attention to SPaG. This also had the side effect of teaching me how to better sort my thoughts and get them across clearly, which has always been a struggle for me in spoken conversations. My thoughts tend to be messy, and I trip over my words a lot (in my native language too), but thinking about going from point a to point b like I'm writing an essay helps me a lot, personally.

The last step was joining a discord server in 2019. I can't stress enough how language is constantly evolving, and how slang and everyday language isn't something you can passively learn from textbooks or online courses. Those are only good as the foundation of your skills. They teach you the grammar and the basic vocabulary, but then you have to engage with real people, you know? I've always struggled to hold a conversation because I'm socially awkward, but discord is useful to me because it is a group chat, so there is less pressure on my end to keep a conversation going. Interacting with people from all over the world taught me to be less self-conscious about my skills, and meeting people of different age ranges taught me a variety of slang expressions to pass for a not-boomer myself, at least at first glance :'D

Moral of the story, do follow courses and use textbooks (those are important!), but also keep in mind those are not the be-all end-all of language proficiency, like school and academia tries so hard to teach you. If you find yourself hitting a wall and not getting any better anymore, take it as a sign your grammar is good enough to take the next step in your journey. So then, try to think of something you have fun doing. A hobby of yours. And then think of ways you can engage with it in your target language.

I had different phases in my life where I explored various things thay way. I got obsessed with a band in middle school and started watching and rewatching the videos they posted online, trying to understand everything they said. This improved my listening skills considerably. Years later I got really into WoW and I learned vocab by playing it and by looking for tutorials online. If you read a lot, consider looking for titles in that language you want to learn. Stuff like this. Listening to music, watching movies or tv series with subtitles (esp if the subtitles are in your target language too). All this stuff helps a lot! And the added plus is that for however challenging it might be at first, you'll stay motivated because it relates to something you already enjoy

[missmaywemeetagain]

How did you learn how to write? Did you ever take any writing courses? Or is it just something that's one of those "if you know, you know" things? You have such a beautiful way with words (There are so many uber talented Elvis fanfic writers out there, I swear. This community is the best) and I aspire to be like you! You make me want to become a better writer.

Any tips? Humble me!! <3

Baaaaaaby Darlin’, oh my heart. ❤️😭 That is incredibly lovely of you to say and makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside! 🥰 And I wholeheartedly agree that there are some AMAZING fic writers in our community (including you!)—it’s incredible, really.

And boy, what a question. I’ve loved to write pretty much since the beginning, and I will say I excelled in it in school. That, coupled with my love for reading and stories in general, had me double majoring in English and Theater in college, so I took writing courses back then for sure! But that was awhile ago… 🫣 but I would consider myself a “lifelong learner.” (Though now that I think about it, I’m guessing that being an actor/studying acting REALLY helped me in terms of how to build a character…) In many ways, writing has come naturally—things like structure and form and character empathy are fairly intuitive for me, and I’ve always had an intense imagination…so perhaps there’s a bit of nature and a bit of nurture involved there?

But honestly, I think a lot of it comes down to practice and consumption. For many years, I didn’t write unless it was work-related (boo 👎🏼), but I definitely still had stories living inside me, and I have always loved consuming/participating in stories in a variety of ways. And the more I’m participating in those things, the better the writing becomes.

My biggest tips (from a decidedly non-expert): Read a ton, fic and more traditionally published works in different genres. Watch TV and movies and plays. Listen to music. I didn’t realize it until recently, but my consumption of stories has really helped me internalize story structure and beats and character to the point that I often don’t realize that it’s so deep in me they’ve become intuitive. I’m not sure if that makes sense. If nothing else, all those stories give you a treasure trove of ideas to draw from!

My other tip is just to write. Write anything. Daydream. Keep a dream journal if you remember your dreams. Start things you don’t finish. Play around with different genres, different voices, different POVs, different tenses. I have a ton of documents that are all of those things. Pink Scarf was born out of one (that I then heavily revised but the seed was there lol). If you are a visual person, you could draw out things, make storyboards or mood boards or other aesthetically minded things. Take courses if that works for you! Take an acting class or script writing class. Listen to authors talk about their works and actors talk about their character process.

Just know there’s not one right way to write. There’s lots of things that work for different people. (Perfectionism is my eternal struggle and I have to remind myself of that regularly, and I think this is often what gets in the way for many writers even starting!)

I’m not sure if that’s in any way helpful, but I hope you can glean something from it! Like I said, I’m certainly not an expert and have about a million things about my writing I can and do pick apart and could improve at. 😂

Thanks for stopping my, my darlin’! Can’t wait to see what you do next! 💜💜💜

[alsey]

Author's Commentary – Prench Tale Part 1 (spoilers)

Chp.0 | Section 1

    • ‌This was my third novel-grade production, and the first one written in English. No wonder these first chapters can get pretty rough around the edges, I'm always tempted to just go and edit it all into something a bit closer to my current standards.

    • ‌Writing in 1st person wasn't something I had much experience with before this story, and not much more with present tense either; I've improved quite a bit since then, but here there's still a lot of characters just describing what they're doing or thinking instead of just... *doing* and *thinking*. This story was focusing on how each character was perceiving their own change, so being privy to their inner thoughts, and how they were being altered, felt like the better option. I suppose it does mesh with other Five Score stories, too.

    • ‌"*Focus*, dammit..." – This was a real gamble in my eyes. I knew I'd probably lose a number of readers with lines like this one, but that way those who stayed knew what they were getting into.

    • ‌Each of the three characters has its own little language idiosyncrasies, like saying 'toward' instead of 'towards', 'I suppose' instead of 'I guess', en-dash instead of semicolon, and so on. In this little introductory flash-forward, I tried to stay relatively vague on these so that it wouldn't be immediately obvious which of them was speaking.

    • ‌I know it's pretty stupid, but my focus on avoiding repeating words extends to avoiding beginning subsequent paragraphs with the same letter. I've tried to be a little more lax with this rule since then.

    • ‌All of Part 1 was planned, scene by scene, before I started writing. Therefore it wasn't too problematic to include in the Prologue this scene from a later chapter, but I was still a bit nervous if it would really feel natural once back in its 'native environment'.

    • ‌A great, great many more ellipses yet to come...

    • ‌The goal of putting this scene here was simple: reassuring readers that yes there *would* be ponies, even if the next few thousands words would be pretty human-centric; and that even though the following chapters would be very character-focused and kinda slow, there *would* be action and danger and excitement to come.

    • ‌"*sigh*" – Another gamble here, with these 'stage direction'-like inclusions. Not making as much use of them as I could.

Chp.0 | Section 2, Ambre

    • ‌Ah Ambre. Silly, silly Ambre. Wasn't sure how well that'd work for readers, but I liked giving a clear personality to her prose.

    • ‌Trans Ambre: I was purposefully indirect in how I revealed Ambre's transness here. My hope was that readers that wouldn't catch the significance of her 'treatment' would get to know her a little bit more before the fact is laid out plainly later on.

    • ‌Here we can see how much I was breaking with the conventions of present tense 1st person, having Ambre detailing her backstory in such an unnatural way. Sadly this wouldn't really improve until later in the fic... At least I was somewhat aware of the issue, hence the ‘I’m thinking to myself about how I’m thinking to myself’ bit as a way to give some kind of explanation for it.

Ch.0 | Section 3, Sarah

    • ‌Fun fact: Sarah was initially called Soraya, her name changing shortly before publication (her pony name and design changed a bit too).

Ch.0 | Section 4, Laurence

    • ‌Of the three characters, by far the easiest one to write for – the grumpiness helps, a lot.

    • ‌Generally speaking, it's pretty wild to read this first chapter, to reacquaint myself with these initial versions of the characters, so different from what they've all become now!

Ch.1 | Section 1, Ambre

    • ‌I'm currently working on an updated version of this cover art, which will become the cover for the whole of Volume 1. This first Part will have a brand-new cover instead. The cutie mark point-of-view markers will also receive an update.

    • ‌I must admit that the info-dumping, though far from elegant or pleasing to my current ways of writing *Prench Tale*, has the advantage of getting the reader up to speed on the characters' state of mind early in the narrative. A necessity, considering I wanted a strong base for the human characters before the change would start – it's all a question of contrasts, so you need to have a clear idea of who these people are.

    • ‌It's been noted, and I can't avoid seeing it now: there's a *lot* of French loanwords all over the place. It's possible I may have pushed for it because of the 'haha, French' aspect, but it could be just as well that I was just limited in my vocabulary (despite extensive use of a thesaurus). In this specific case, Ambre is supposed to have a more upper-class speech compared to the others, sure, but that's still stretching it a little.

    • ‌The whole 'limits of transhumanism' discussion is of course a nod to the main themes of the story... And may event hint at some future developments.

    • ‌Gosh that prose can be so clunky and lame and overcomplicated at times, past-me would really benefit from a good editing pass from now-me...

    • ‌“It doesn't even look like a tattoo... The lines are too regular, the colors too uniform... Actually that's...” – Here, as you may've guessed, Sébastien was about to suggest it looked like a cutie mark, but he stopped himself. He's more of a closet brony at that point.

    • ‌Ambre behaves pretty maturely, and seems to have a good head on her shoulders, don't you think?

    • ‌There may be a pattern to Ambre deciding to stay behind to help Sarah out, and Sarah feeling despondent and unsure what to do in a difficult situation... As well as Laurence just checking out.

Ch.1 | Section 2, Laurence

    • ‌"Stupid Sarah and her stupid drinks and stupid Séb and stupid Amber for making me talk so much I had to drink and stupid me for..." – A proof if there ever was one that I use 'stupid' as an insult far too often in my writing.

Ch.1 | Section 3, Ambre

    • ‌"Hers are clearly less abstruse" – Seriously, who use words like 'abstruse'..? That thesaurus was a mistake! More seriously, this is a consequence of me having a very long-and-complex-and-unusual-words-skewed vocabulary in French, and simply checking translations when I want a specific word. Nowadays I try to write a bit more ‘naturally” ‘cause it’s just more believable, instead of how *I* would say it.

    • ‌All this prose feels so *heavy* with unnecessary words and complicated sentences... I remember why: always afraid that I wouldn't be able to convey precisely what I wanted to convey, that the reader wouldn't get a perfectly clear picture of what I was seeing, so no choice but being extremely precise. And it makes for poor prose. I've got more trust in my readers' deductive abilities now, fortunately; it also makes for more dynamic, ‘punchy’ prose.

    • Beetroot. Yeah I know it’s usually just ‘beet’ in US-English, but just saying ‘beet’ feels... lacking. Maybe I should just use ‘beets’, plural, that could work.

    • “Does yours mean anything to you, Ambre? I don't know, likes or dislikes, past history, special talent..?” – More signs that Sébastien is suspecting cutie marks, even if he’s not ready to admit it.

Ch.1 | Section 4, Laurence

    • “Pff... Smoke smells even worse than usual.” – Just like Ambre feeling antsy about being left alone during the previous scene, this is another sign that their brains have started to transition towards their pony selves’ – Laurence’s pony brain isn’t used to cigarette, and so the positive association between smoke and nicotine high has been lessened.

    • “fioriture” – This right here is a word I commonly use in day-to-day life, in French, but that isn’t really seen as ‘common’ for most people. It feels even more bizarre in English, seriously what was I thinking? I mean, it conveys *precisely* what I wanted to convey, but it’s far from reader-friendly.

    • “even if for some reason I feel slightly off-balance” – Same as earlier; her handedness is changing, which conflicts with her usual stances.

    • ‘Professeur’ and ‘tireur’ are official terms for teachers and practitioners of French-style boxing.

    • “But I know I've found my equilibrium, and it would be unwise to upend it.” – Portend of things to come...

    • This whole boxing scene may not advance the plot much, if at all, but it’s important for laying some more groundwork for Laurence’s character. We’ve seen her grumpy in the Prologue, then asocial/introverted plus emotionally vulnerable earlier in this chapter, now we see some of her strength.

Ch.1 | Section 5, Sarah

    • I’d been tempted to add an earlier scene, either during the Prologue or in this chapter, with Laurence catching a glimpse of some kind of altercation, but not intervening despite her justice sense tingling because of anxiety and such – to contrast it with this here scene of Sarah being ‘saved’ by Laurence. It didn’t really have a natural place though, and I felt her character was going to be controversial enough as it was.

    • ““Your eyes are not supposed to be magenta.”, Laurence states bluntly.” – Laurence is my vehicle to convey the *precise* colors of things, she likes to be precise (and helpful) like that. Ambre could’ve identified the color too, if it’s ‘common’ enough, but for Sarah it’d only be ‘light purple’ or something like this.

    • It’s funny how even for the Sarah scenes I end up talking more about the other characters than herself. Not too surprising, as she’s the character I’ve got the less affinity with, and the hardest to write for.

Ch.2 | Section 1, Ambre

    • “my night was plagued by vague nightmares, full of a sense of danger, or helplessness...” – I’ve stayed purposefully vague on the content of these nightmares at first (see also previous chapter, mention of having had a rough night for the same reason). This is in part because the dream of one character will be plot-relevant, and will thus need to be directly shown, so I didn’t want to get too repetitive. Also, I often start scenes with characters waking up, which is kind of fitting for 1st person narration I guess.

    • I’m honestly tempted now to depict Ambre’s troubles with a constantly growing super-mane while in the middle of serving customers their meal. Maybe that could make a fun mini-comic...

    • “Kilo” – Not so sure it was a good idea, but to add a little more Frenchie flavor to the whole thing I often use the metric system, and local currency. It can be seen as a sign that what we’re reading is originally in French, but then why would the units not be translated along with the rest? Maybe it’s also kind of revenge for being always confronted to inches and miles and pounds and so on when I just wanna read fanfic. ;P

    • “It also happened last evening. (recounting follows)” – Again with the direct, inellegant exposition dumb. We could maybe imagine it more as Ambre *picturing* the memories, rather than verbalizing them as written, I guess. Getting more creative in how I’d convey ‘known exposition’ may be one of the factors that contributed to increasing wordcounts.

    • “I remove my glasses, looking over the object that helped me see the world as it should be seen, something that could, in a sense, be considered a part of me just as much as my natural kinky hair... I will have to relinquish them to their case, for now...” – Not so subtle parallel here between the glasses and Ambre’s whole human existence, of course.

    • “*Ambre, you alright? You had us worried here!*” – Putting ‘non-standard’ speech in italics isn’t fully satisfying as a solution, but it’s better than nothing. As it is, italics have been, or will be, used to mark dialogue heard through a phone’s speakers (like here), or said in another language, especially English.

    • “*We got weird eyes and hair yesterday, and freaky ears and tail during the night.*” – It was fun to scour the original story for exact times when the Mane6 had their changes occur, and take into account time zones to determine a general timeframe for our French characters’ transformation. Moreover, I considered that mainland Equestria shared the same time zone as Dubuque; I based this on the facts that Rainbow is cursed late at night, and that Dave’s birthday is similarly late at night – suggesting very similar timeframes. Consequence: the Prench crew can be awake and aware of some of the changes that occurred while the Mane6 were asleep, and vice-versa.

Ch.2 | Section 2, Sarah

    • Another gamble: none of the main characters are knowledgeable in pony matters. This is in part to contrast with the original story, but also to represent how FiM just wasn’t as much of a thing in France. This is also the first element of one of the big thematic through-lines of the whole fic, which could be boiled down to ‘Know Thyself’ – they have everything to learn, about themselves, about their place in the world, and have to contend with what the world tells them, or doesn’t tell them, they are or how they should act/be.

    • Sarah clearly hadn’t fully found her voice yet back then; nowadays she would be using much more ‘down to earth’ vocabulary and expressions, and I would know how to better avoid using uncommon words just to avoid repetitions.

    • I actually don’t remember if the ‘being easily transfixed by the show on first exposure’ was something I’d found somewhere or if I came up with it... The idea behind it wouldn’t be that the visuals by themselves would hold some kind of mind power or anything, but instead that being exposed to a bunch of little authentic details in short succession – names, concepts, events, some aspects of look/animation of places and creatures – would evoke some inscrutable feeling akin to nostalgia or yearning or simple subconscious recognition, *especially* once the ‘memory gates’ have been reopened following the cutie marks reappearing. This could be used to explain why many of the Five Score protagonists are fans of MLP – they went through a similar, maybe less powerful variant of this effect, that got them into following the show and/or fan productions, or helped them keep on being fans after the show’s end. Of course, this is a mostly ‘first exposure’ thing, the effect lessens more and more with exposure as the brain can relies on fresher, more easily-explainable memories of pony stuff, and Equestrians-in-human-form don’t necessarily have the same ‘threshold’ for the effect to kick-in in the first place, depending on the nature of the stimuli and how much they correlate with what little buried memories manage to percolate closer to the surface. Here specifically, Ambre and Laurence got drawn in early by aspects of Canterlot and Royal Guards, while for Sarah it happened a little later once we got to the more agrarian Ponyville.

    • “I ball my fists, ready to jump to my feet” – Sarah feels a bit aggressive, huh? She may be playing up the nonchalance most of the time, trying to avoid thinking too deeply about the situation, but clearly the uncertainty and upended normalcy still affect her. Maybe there’s also some new hormones starting to brew inside... Well, that’s one way to see it; if I were to edit all this again, I’d tone it down, make it more natural and understandable; I don’t like the implication that she’s somehow more aggressive or violent than the others, *especially* as it’s a frequent stereotype, when it’s mostly supposed to be impulsiveness.

    • “neither of our symbols are present in the show itself” – Gambling once again, with the main characters being OCs and thus inherently less relatable/engaging from the get-go, as they don’t come with a preexisting rapport to the reader. Multiple reasons for this: first off, I enjoyed the high degree of freedom this afforded me in crafting the looks and background of the pony characters; second, it played again with the ‘Know Thyself’ theme, this time with both characters *and* readers – they don’t know who they’re turning into, and we don’t know what to expect, adding another kind of mystery dynamic to the plot; and third, even if, as one reviewer put it, most of the cool ponies were already taken, I just wouldn’t have felt comfortable making heavy use of a canon character, with all the expectations that’d come with them. Hence, OCs. Though as we’ll see later on, I did find ways to go around some of these issues...

Ch.3 | Section 1, Ambre

    • First of the ‘Content Warning’ mentions. I was unsure if it were really needed, if maybe it spoiled a bit too much what was gonna happen, but I didn’t want to take any chances – we’re depicting pretty heavy stuff, with just a Teen rating. Plus, the vague warning can also help build up suspense.

    • Interesting how brash and impulsive Sarah suddenly becomes all ‘huh, neat’ seeing this gruesome physical change happening on her in real time, no? This kind of response to overwhelming events/situations will have its consequences...

    • The switch from Sarah’s to Ambre’s perspective here is very purposeful; like mentioned just above, the way Sarah reacts to this type of event would make for a very ‘succinct’ description, if any description at all, while Ambre stays a lot more lucid and can thus tell us what’s happening with some details. In fact, for this same reason we won’t have much of Sarah’s internal perspective on her transformation at all – denial’s setting in thick. As for Laurence’s perspective, well...

    • “She stutters incoherently, eyes wide, staring in turn at Sarah's hooves, my own hooves-to-be, and her slippers-clad feet” – Laurence noticed what was implied earlier – there’s a specific sequence to how the changes play out, first Sarah, then Ambre, and Laurence last – and seeing her fate galloping towards her, she panics. Better to *choose* to harm herself and rob the change of a target, than to see herself be harmed without any way to stop it, in her eyes. We’ll come back often to this issue of control with her.

    • Sarah’s denial, Laurence’s control, what of Ambre then? Well she has both enough introspection, like Laurence, and enough flexibility, like Sarah, to navigate this situation without falling down into one extreme or another. It’s also why she’s our main viewpoint character, wordcount- and scenes-wise: aware enough to describe what’s happening, functional enough to not break down from it.

    • “Sarah looks dazed, and unsure, leaning against a wall, fiddling idly with her pants' waistband.”/“(...), concurs Sarah as she keeps twiddling with her pants” – For those familiar with the sequence of Five Score changes, you may have a guess what could make her feel slightly uncomfortable in her pants right now... The implication gets even more overt a bit later on.

    • “Poor guy looks drained, and I doubt it's only because of his injury” – Sébastien is awesome, but he's only human; felt important to still acknowledge that for all the strength of his friendship, he's still affected by what's happening. Ambre can see it too, and thus tries to give him some respite.

    • “I force the shoe to accept my changed foot with a brief ripping sound and fasten the laces; it'll do!” – A metaphor for how Ambre's trying to deal with things; trying to make things work, even if it's not easy and can't ever 'fit in' again.

    • Laurence opening up about her feelings over her self-harm attempt, how she must be stronger, not yield so easily, the stress of the situation being no excuse, being put against herself... It goes beyond a need for control, even though she hasn't learned the reason herself yet.

    • “a mad scientist and/or an exorcist” – I seriously spent a long time deciding if I'd dare use that slash or not.

    • For the scene of Ambre going to the bathroom, I tried to stay pretty vague, focus on her emotive response rather than on the physicality of it all, but it's still one of the two likely reasons I was asked to add the 'Sex' tag to this story before publishing.

Ch.3 | Section 2, Laurence

    • “The only upside of this insidious transformation is that it has sped up quite substantially the healing process” – Don’t remember if it’s something I came up with or not either. My rationale was that, basically, the curse reverting is coded to recreate the pony’s body in *exact* detail (which is the only way I can explain that it would give back ponies their exact same manestyle, age, and so on), and so as long as it’s still running its course, limited damage to a zone that is still in the process of being changed can be ‘healed’ as the transformation progresses. Not ‘healing’ *per se* then, and more the curse seeing the wound as more stuff to replace as to recreate the pony’s body. All this to say, that it gave me a convenient excuse so that Laurence’s injury wouldn’t matter much health-wise.

    • “at a rate of a little less than two centimeters every half-hour” – Yup, I did the math; it’s not a random number.

    • “Séb's warm voice pulls me back to the here and now” – In a lot of TF stories, including some Five Score ones, humans are to be avoided, or they’re antagonists. Human friends and family are often barely relevant, if at all mentioned. Here I really wanted to see what would happen if we kept a human friend of the protagonists right in the thick of it. I’m sure Laurence’s grateful at any rate.

    • Speaking of, I’ve heard from some reviews that Laurence’s despondence, constant grumbling and general passiveness in these chapters could get old pretty fast. Honestly I can see it; she’s passive and self-focused in chapters that are already action-free and focused on the characters’ inner conflicts, with a big dose of domestic trivialities. However, her behavior wouldn’t change much, if at all, if I were to go on my editing spree, first because of character growth reasons (we need to see her at her lowest), and second because these scenes of her struggle were the primordial seed from which this whole story grew, it all started with this vision of a Five Score transformee rejecting their fate. Maybe I just wasn’t a good enough writer back then to properly frame and convey my ideas. Maybe, like some of my characters, I should learn how to let go of the stuff that just doesn’t work.

    • “I didn't even recall bringing down my copy of *Old Man's War*” – For those unfamiliar with this great space military SF series by John Scalzi, it deals with, among other things, questions of an individual’s identity in a setting where it’s possible to switch bodies, a kind of technological reincarnation with imperfect or latent memories, and what makes one human. For example, in the first book the main character, the titular ‘old man’ finding himself into a new, youthful body, is confronted by a clone of his deceased wife, devoid of any of her memories.

    • I tried to not get too preachy with Ambre’s trans monologue, or have it take too much space – hence being heard from Laurence’s critical perspective. It’s only really relevant in the context of Ambre and Laurence bonding over shared pain, of deepening our understanding of Ambre’s character and where she’s coming from, and of laying down some more thematic parallels and distinctions between trans and TF dynamics, especially in the Five Score context, which was the initial seed of Ambre’s character.

    • This other book series mentioned by Ambre exists too, it's the *Tamír Triad* by Lynn Flewelling (which was split into six books instead and given a new title for the French edition, from what I've seen). It deals with prophecies, dark magic, ghosts, a usurper to the throne, and like she said, with a protagonist unknowingly living in a masculine body not her own, until her growth and the demands of the plot have her assume her feminine identity and her true destiny. Sounded fitting for helping crack the egg of a young trans person, among other things.

Ch.3 | Section 3, Sarah

    • I actually mapped episode runtimes on Sarah’s day activities to see how much of the show she could consume during this time, and it was a nice coincidence that this scene could occur as she was watching ‘*Sweet and Elite*’. Beyond the little tidbit of opinion on Canterlot elites, it was a fun opportunity to have this *very* subtle cameo of Jet Set and Upper Crust, considering their both have not-so-distant relationships with some of the original characters in this story’s continuity. On the other hoof, we missed Sarah’s live reaction to the two-part premiere of season 2...

    • “It's not because I've suddenly grown a pecker that I can't control myself!” – The *other* thing I suppose could’ve led to a mandatory ‘Sex’ tag. And beyond that, poor Sarah clearly needs a bit more time to get used to her new hormonal cocktail.

    • Right at the end we finally get a glimpse of Sarah’s true emotional state, now that she can’t focus on something else, like binge-watching the show.

Ch.4 | Section 1, Ambre

    • “Gosh Sarah snores like a train engine” – Sleeping while your nasal cavity is still being actively remodeled will do that to you, especially with the schnozzle she’s going to end up with.

    • Pony height: I did some research to determine the general height of ponies in the Five Score universe, and fortunately it wasn’t too hard to figure out – a good rule of thumb is that a medium-sized pony’s eye level is aligned with or slightly lower than the waistline of a medium-sized human, which makes a fully-rearing pony about as tall as a human. This is shorter than my personal headcanon, but it fits well for more easily describing proportion changes from TF, and for most ponies to still be able to wear some human clothes. In Ambre’s specific case, her “my new eye level reaches much higher than my [human] groin” comes from the fact she started pretty tall at 5′11″, while her pony form is ‘only’ 3′5″ at from the base of her hooves to the top of her head.

    • Pony proportions: I was still fiddling a bit with those when I wrote this part, but the generalities are still the same. I go for pretty horse-like ponies, in that their anatomy is as biologically believable as I could make it while maintaining that pony ‘feel’ we know and love.

    • “Pff, and I thought waiting for the Dejean's coffeemaker was tedious!? – ”The whole coffee-making scene drags on a little, but purposefully so – this is meant as calling back to the Prologue and Ambre fixing herself some coffee. Back then it only took a couple minutes, but now that she’s a pony, it requires a lot more time and efforts; she’ll need to get used to her new situation, and find how she can go back to being fully functional, if it’s at all possible.

    • “slowly stirring the dark liquid with my reddish spoon” – A very subtle hint that for all they’ll still have to learn and re-learn, our ponies still have some instincts to help – foreshadowing the end of this chapter. Because you see, Laurence doesn’t have colored spoons. But you know what’s red..?

    • Ambre really starting to mull over her situation; it’s precisely why I wanted a trans character to go through a Five Score transformation, though she doesn’t have all the pieces of the puzzle yet...

Ch.4 | Section 2, Sarah

    • Tried something here with the dream narration, being past tense instead of present tense like the usual narration. I wouldn’t be surprised if it were a bit jarring, but I feel it’s thematically appropriate. And we’re finally getting a glimpse at the bad dreams and nightmares our characters have been mentioning for a couple chapters now.

    • “Well, as they say, *quand faut y aller, faut y aller!*” – I really don’t get why I thought putting a French phrase here was a good idea. It’s not like ‘when you gotta go, you gotta go!’ was on vacation and not available. Definitely something I’d edit out, it clashes with the implicit convention that non-italicized English counts as French.

    • Pony scents: a little bit of headcanon, probably not that original, with each pony having a personal scent, but beyond this simple fact, other ponies perceive this scent through some form of maybe-physiological, maybe-magical synesthesia. Here, Sarah likens Ambre’s scent to firecrackers, though like she says, more to the *idea* of firecrackers than any specific scent. And the thing is, another pony would probably describe Ambre’s scent differently, because it evokes slightly different things to them.

    • “from my lower position I catch sight of my poor snapped bracelet on the floor... Forgot to take it off in the end, it must've broke during the night.” – Another case of using items and such as metaphors for the character’s circumstances, past, present and/or future. Right then, the message is that staying in denial for too long (here ‘forgetting’ the situation, when one knew the potential consequences) leads to one’s human existence (represented here by this fruit of one’s hobby, and a gift to oneself to celebrate a personal milestone) being damaged.

    • In a previous chapter I mentioned how different the main trio felt so early in the story, but now with this first scene of them together, all ponied up, their group dynamic is really taking shape.

    • “Is it really *that* important if I feel good right now?” – It was very purposeful to have Sarah declaring that she didn’t really care about her potential gender issues. Is it denial? Is it plain truth? Who knows, in her eyes it’s not important right now so *we* won’t know for sure. The goal was to include this perspective that I’m usually pretty frustrated with in TG stories, that despite the characters changing in major ways they don’t seem to question their situation or think too much about the implications for their personal identity – just going with the flow. I suspect that it’s mainly a question of ‘don’t overcomplicate things when we could get to the good stuff quicker’, but when it’s almost *always* how it goes, yeah it gets frustrating. Thus Sarah, representing some of these aspects so that I can discuss them.

Ch.4 | Section 3, Laurence

    • “Sainfoin is at my side, ever faithful, enduring my clumsy attempts at petting him with my deformed right hand” – One of the boons of first person narration is that we can play with how each character sees the world; for Laurence, she perceives her body more as ‘what it should be’ than ‘what it currently is’, hence using ‘hands’ and other human-specific vocabulary to describe her body. It may be a bit confusing for the reader at times, but it is the intended effect – highlighting the profound disconnect between Laurence’s mind and body.

    • This idea that for most ponies the change isn’t that much of a big deal is meant to explain why we don’t have many characters like Laurence in Five Score (she’s not the only one though; thinking notably to this soon-to-be-pony who chose suicide rather than complete the transformation, briefly described somewhere in the Dust-verse). Basically, the fact that the brain changes along with the body ensures that some subconscious aspects come back, including the general feeling of ‘yes this is my body, nothing unusual’.

    • “That's the pragmatic thing to do” – One of Laurence’s catchphrases. The meaning she puts behind ‘pragmatic’ may not be the exact same as the dictionary definition though...

    • One of the goals of this ‘let’s go make lunch’ scene was actually to have a good excuse for literally putting our three characters side-to-side to compare them. I wanted to play around a bit with body types with my characters, considering it’s something that’s often forgotten about in both the show and fan works.

    • “an apple that she... somehow... holds with a hoof.” – Precisely because Sarah's not asking herself questions, she can manage better at using her hooves, letting subconscious muscle memory do the job.

    • “Just try not to change it into a carriage, or make it explode.” – *wink wink*

Ch.5 | Section 1, Laurence

    • “Oh just coming out of an episode with a character I really don't like, no big deal.” – As may be guessed, said episode was ‘Keep Calm and Flutter On’.

    • Our ponies spend lots of time in the kitchen, but it’s to better track their progress in managing to reclaim being functional after the change, through this pretty relatable activity. Besides, it allows me to give a little more weight to my little headcanon for how ponies built a civilization on par with humans, despite lacking hands: what one human with a pair of hands can do, two or more earth ponies may need to work together to accomplish; hence a greater emphasis on community and friendship.

    • The meat thing: I’ve always been curious about this idea that ponies would be strict vegetarians, to the point of getting sick from meat, that can be found in the fandom. It’s not *directly* suggested by canon, and it doesn’t make much sense from a physiological point of view... so I wanted to play a bit with it! I consider here it’s a deeply-ingrained cultural taboo, born from the centuries of ponies working closely with very smart animals but within a highly-curated ecosystem rather than someplace truly ‘wild’ like the Everfree. But more than that, we know that at least bovines are quite sentient in Equestria, so eating beef in particular would feel revolting from a purely ethical point of view (I do have a whole headcanon on the administrative and legislative aspects of ‘smart’ and ‘sentient’ animals in Equestrian society, but that’s neither here nor there). As Laurence proves, ponies are still perfectly able to eat meat products.

    • “Is this body making me dumber or what!?” – One of the first real signs of Laurence being more of a scatterbrain after the change. More generally, while still neurodivergent, she’s now so in slightly different ways that she’s only beginning to notice.

    • “shut up, it's magic” – The French (‘ta gueule, c'est magique’, or TGCM) equivalent of ‘a wizard did it’.

Ch.5 | Section 2, Sarah

    • ““Well then Fido,” Sébastien quips as he unties me, “knock yourself out!”” – ... I can *not* believe I didn't have a ‘hey, wasn't talking literally!’ after that... I *may* have decided to highlight more Sébastien’s concern than his wits? Still, such a missed opportunity.

    • “At the end of the fifth and last season of MLP... Discord takes over Equestria.” – This was written before the updated version of Five Score changed this to instead have the taking-over at the end of season 9, of course. At first I was thinking about updating in kind, but then, the change to the original didn't add much to the universe beyond some small contradictions, and went against pretty much all the universe that had been built around its original version. So I decided to keep to the 5-season thing. Two interesting consequences: I can now play with canon characters that the readers know about but the characters don't. And I like the potential surprise and foreboding feeling this could give readers who know the show isn't *supposed* to end so early.

Ch.5 | Section 3, Ambre

    • Getting precise with how magic works can easily backfire. There's lots of non-compatible headcanons on the subject. But considering where this fic will go, it was necessary to give details.

    • “it feels wrong to leave to their own devices somepony who's hurting” – As the pony names get more common, we're also seeing somepony/everypony crop up – but only in thoughts, to reflect that there's no equivalent of the words in the French dub of FiM (‘everypony’ is usually replaced by ‘my little ponies’), and so they don't have a French word to use while speaking either.

Ch.5 | Section 4, Chad

    • “Brian is in the kitchen” – Apparently this is, like, a stock phrase widely used during English classes in French schools, or at least it definitely has reached meme status as such, and is often used to comment on how French people are pretty bad at English in general (because it’s the only sentence they know and understand, you see).

    • And here we get the main reason for this chapter being titled ‘Fractious Impulses’ – beyond the tensions between the three that threaten to pull them apart, it's Chad's impulsiveness that manages to fracture the group and get them all in trouble. Other reason for the title: being the fifth chapter, and published on April 2nd, which is Five Score Day, hence starting with an ‘F’ for ‘Five (Score)’.

Ch.6 | Section 1, Ambre

    • “a freaking magical laser beam” – Thought it was interesting that many unicorns could obtain pretty advanced spells that way, just like Shining did in the original story, and that it could be used as a way to evaluate the reality of the dreams.

    • “Compared to my first day here, getting myself a glass is laughably easy – thanks magic!” – Those cheating unicorns! More seriously, it’s on this note that we end the succession of ‘kitchen moments’ for our characters, from their initial routine as humans to the trouble they had to adapt as ponies, and now the new normal, just as functional, only not in the same ways.

    • “Darn it, he *did*!!” – Through Volume 1 I tried to never italicize the punctuation following italicized words, but it doesn’t look especially pleasing visually; I’ve decided to change that come Volume 2.

    • “Laurence stomps a forehoof, cutting us off” – And here we are, the pivotal moment when Laurence shakes off the passivity; she’s got something to focus on, and she shall not dither.

    • “Oh, and the password is Je_Veux_Être_Ton_Oisillon.” – A pretty obscure reference, even more so translated in French, but I know some got it.

Ch.6 | Section 2, Chad

    • And here we’re really beginning to see how we end up with chapter with high wordcounts and number of sections: switching character perspectives often for advancing the overall plot.

Ch.6 | Section 3, Laurence

    • When I was working on Part 1’s structure, at first this Charles dude was just a random jerk for Laurence to ‘save’ Sarah from, but then his role extended quite a bit once I realized that he’d also fit naturally in this position in the plot.

Ch.6 | Section 4, Chad

    • And so we have our first song, yet another gamble! Gosh that was an ordeal... ‘Cause you see, I’m just plain bad at rhyming and I never had to write lyrics before. And I was rushing through this mammoth of a chapter to get it published on time. Not perfectly happy with it, and it’s a bit on the short side, but it does the job. Initially I was supposed to have a lot more time to work on it thanks to my buffer of two to three chapters, but after I’d been forced to publish everything I had, I only had the one week to get everything ready – or as much as I could, at any rate. I’d dreamed of actually producing the music (which is partly written), but alas.

    • Oh, and we meet Crispy! Probably not as much of a surprise as she could’ve been, her existence having been introduced in Chad’s dreams. Still, another meaning for the fourth chapter’s title, ‘Four on the Floor’, beyond ‘four hooves on the floor’: four *ponies* on the floor.

    • Sweetchard – or Chard. Like with Sarah/Soraya, the original name was ‘Bilberry’ (and his mane was blue instead of green).

Ch.6 | Section 5, Ambre

    • Our ponies spying on the Brigade meeting was a slightly clumsy way to have the antagonists’ motivations made a bit more clear to both characters and reader, something that’s sometimes a bit problematic when you keep to first person narration and don’t have the time for long, complex detective work for the information to come up more naturally. Rushing things also makes them sound maybe a bit cartoonishly evil, but they’re not the worst offenders in this chapter...

    • “Now, you all probably heard about what happened in Grenoble on Monday...” – These events are relevant for at least one other pony character in the story, though they probably won’t be discussed much in the future (though now that I think about it, I see how I could organically bring some light on these events...).

Ch.6 | Section 6, Sweetchard

    • Ah, old man Laterrade and his religious spiel... So cheesy, and not much time to make his ‘arguments’ breathe a little more. It would’ve been interesting to have earlier Crispy scenes, to see how he descended from a strict but well-meaning father figure to a broken shell of a man, holding on desperately to whatever absolute truth he thought he could fall back on, with his only son lost to such devilry...

    • Crispy putting herself between Chard and her father is also significant, though we won’t know why quite yet.

Ch.6 | Section 7, Ambre

    • Eeyup, that’s a car chase scene alright. Slow beginnings, but we’re rushing towards the conclusion with a good serving of action. I’ve tried to improve on that point later on.

Ch.6 | Section 8, Sweetchard

    • Laurence’s ‘running up a wall while beating wings’ was inspired by one of the hypotheses that had been proposed for how land-bound dinosaurs progressively developed arboreal habits and then flight.

    • Laurence’s choice can be disputed for sure. Unfortunately, her decision wasn’t motivated by tactical matters only.

Ch.6 | Section 9, Laurence

    • And here we’re back again, now with proper context...

    • This whole scene was written in one go, outside editing, something that’s unusual for me (it’s usually more bits and pieces that are then tied together). My first real fight scene, and thus once again a gamble. I hope it worked as intended.

Ch.6 | Section 10, Ambre

    • A somber note to end on, for sure... Especially as it was a full week before next chapter back then.

Ch.7 | Section 1, Laurence

    • “I push through the oneiric veil, tearing the dreamscape apart” – Must have been some nightmare...

    • The transfusion issue is another clue that the transformation wasn’t random, that the bodies came with a history of their own.

Ch.7 | Section 2, Sweetchard

    • This scene, outside of the ‘starting to put the pieces together’, was the beginning of my attempts to improve rhythm on a per-chapter basis – adding a little tense scene or some action to each one, so it’s not just all talking.

    • Interesting how these two seem to know each other so well, no?

Ch.7 | Section 3, Laurence

    • I wasn’t sure if I should include this scene here or in the next Part, but it fit well enough here, and was important for Laurence’s character.

Ch.7 | Section 4, Ambre

    • And at last our conclusion. Trying to put a little thematic bow on the previous events, so that Part 1 would feel like a slightly more cohesive whole, while still serving as the first step into the greater story. Very far from perfect, and perhaps not the best way to catch new readers’ interest, but it is what it is. Onward!

[daryfromthefuture]

😈🛒✨🛠⛔🙋‍♀️💖❌ 🤗🤯 for the ask thing (sorry I got a lot of questions!)

oh god, that's a lot! let's see what we have here

😈has there been a point in a story where you did something just to be playfully mean to your readers?

oh, all the time. many of my reader friends open my next chapter with great caution because i tend to be a little mean to my main characters sometimes (without warning, too). sometimes i also like to make already pretty bad conditions even worse for fun <3 i love my readers

🛒what are common things you incorporate in your fics? themes, feels, scenes, imagery, etc.

at this point it's pretty much impossible to find a fic of mine that doesn't involve a doc and marty found family trope, and i love when they hug, so that also does happen all the time. it's a crime that they only had two hugs in the entire trilogy. bob gale, what the hell?

aside from that...emotional hurt, fluff. friendship. these things. i'm not a huge fan of romance, so i tend to stay away from that (except if it's necessary for plot purposes)

✨give you and your writing a compliment. go on now. you know you deserve it.

awww. that's sweet. let me think.

as much as it frustrates me sometimes, my writing is pretty solid in english for it being my third language. i sometimes reread my stuff and think that this is a style i'd also gladly read.

🛠️what tools/programs/apps do you use to write?

i use libreoffice and google docs for the most part! but if i'm in complete writers block, this website helps me a lot! it actually makes me write lmao

⛔do you have a fic you started, but scraped?

yep. i had a bttf prequel fic i wanted to write, but i eventually scraped it because the plot was pretty lame. also my brain was overtaken by other projects that matter more to me now, so it's not a big loss ;)

🙋‍♀️do any irl people know you write fanfic?

in my irl friend group, i usually disguise fanfic as "stories that go nowhere" instead of admitting that i post them for the enitre internet to discover and read. some friends know that it's specifically fanfic, though. my family knows nothing and i'd like for it to stay that way lol

💖what made you start writing?

personally, i've been loving to write since forever. i used to write short stories for myself, up until i discovered fanfic when i was 10. my drive to write fanfiction usually comes from my love for fandoms and characters, and the urge to add my own touch to already existing stories and put those characters into interesting scenarios. you can do so many things while keeping the characters you know and love, and that's really fun!

❌what's a trope you will never write?

y/n or oc x canon. i appreciate everyone who managed to insert y/n or oc into canon so well that the story still makes sense and is well written, but personally i could never do that. the already existing characters bring me enough inspiration to come up with stories, and i'm perfectly content with writing for them.

🤗what advice would you give to give to new fanfic writers that are just getting started?

don't be afraid to start! things like "but others are better than me" shouldn't stop you. yes, others are better than you. they will always be others who are more successful and have a different writing style that you may think as being better. but you will improve, and be proud of your own work. fanfic is something you write for yourself and also for free, it's your time you're investing and it's perfectly fine to be proud of the stories you tell! and there always will be people who genuinely enjoy what you write :)

wow that was a lot

🤯what's a genre you struggle with as a writer? (ex. romance, action, etc.)?

while i've slowly gotten a hang on romance, i stuggle with action scenes (simply because i tend to focus on emotion rather than plot). also horror? angst, yes. horror? no, nope. don't know how to write that.

thank you so much for the ask!

[brighteststar707]

Ahhh, Faye, how have you been? I was going through the "For You" thingy on Tumblr and came across your post.

My January has been alright, actually! Some meh stuff here and there. I'm currently sick but I'm getting better, thankfully.

School has been quite rough, I can't focus on studies at all but I'm trying my best to do at least SOMETHING 😭✋✋ I honestly can't wait to finish and do some things I planned!

I think I should be able to pass the exams, at least enough. In my art school, they even reward you with an okay grade if you are QUIET because boys there are so loud and ruin the class for everyone SMSMSK so that gives me an advantage, I get to draw and be quiet during class and I will probably get an okay grade. I'm getting them officially the next month and then some more months until final exams msms

My plans for the future are probably: me getting a blood test to check if I have anything.

Me doing an English test to see where my English level is. If I'm very good at English, they'd be willing to hire me since in my country, it is REQUIRED to have it learned since we have so many people from other countries visiting or even living here! I believe I'm very good at it and I'm hoping to get the highest rank or at least something like that! I'm still not sure how it works here yet but I know you're supposed to give a test and see where you are.

I'm actually planning on becoming a barista as well, I love making coffee for my mom and some drinks for my family or even for myself (chocolate milk) and it low-key calms me down soo!! I'm going to aim to start drinking coffee as well (God knows I'll need it in the future probably) and my best friend told me I should try it with coffee and as time goes on, I should lower it, when I get materials or be able to go out on my own officially, I can't wait! I also heard you need to take lessons but I'm willing to learn!!! I found out it's one of the jobs that makes me feel actually excited for.

The fact it's also a job that is in the morning hours (at least from what I've read) i think it's awesome! I think I'm a morning person and I think I'd just be too afraid when it starts to get dark.

I have some more plans but they will need time before I actually go through with them! Like getting a house and having a good income as well. So I'm planning on also buying a digital drawing tablet to start practicing more my art, which has improved a little bit I think!

I also got some emulators and I've been playing Pokemon a lot, I'm able to pet a Charizard now!! No, I'm totally not obsessed what are you talking about-

I wanna get back to writing but I'm not sure yet T_T

But man, it's been a rollercoaster, I've been years on this app and I'm becoming 18 soon AHAHAHAH-

Have a nice day, Faye! Happy hearing from you again!!^^

Hey! It's so nice to hear from you again ☺ this month has started off feeling like a rollercoaster but my god am I hanging in there.

I feel the same way about writing at the moment! Trying to find something that really captures my attention but is small enough for me to ease back into writing with. Though, this break I've (accidentally) taken has been really nice.

I'm sorry to hear that school is hard to focus on at the moment but it's very exciting that you don't have little of it left! That behavioural grade sounds nice too - I used to love getting rewarded just for being quiet (read: shy) in class. Also, judging by your fics and messages, I have full faith that you'll ace the English exam! I'm rooting for you 💕

I'm so happy you've found a job that excites you! Being a barista sounds like it could be so rewarding, especially if it's something you've been interested in for a while. And it's even better that the hours line up with what works for you.

I'm currently in the process of applying for a teaching license. It has taken me a course and two exams to get here and I'm relieved to be through it. Now I have a feeling all that waits for me is annoying paperwork.

Despite the chaos of these first few days of February, I'm so grateful for the people around me who make me feel cared for and supported even when I'm struggling.

I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day /week/month! It was so nice to hear from you again! 💕

[rigelmejo]

Notes today o3o)/

1. Chinese

I am 5/12 chapters through 第十二封情书 and I also recommend this as an easy-ish read, especially if you want to pick up some school related words. School related words are a weak spot for me lol because I never needed to learn 班长 is class monitor. The writing is fairly straightforward if you wanted to guess word meanings they're fairly clear from context.

Where this fic shines is its words about feelings/ideas/reasons since it's half in rhe form of introspective "love letters" Zhang zhijun never plans to send, so it's him writing how he feels and wondering if he's nervous or worried to tell his feelings, if he wants to stop the feelings and move on, if people you like become perfect in your eyes, etc. All really good conceptual words on thoughts and emotions which would help one figure out how to word their own feelings in a conversation, in a journal, or if you plan in the future to read stuff where the narrator does get self reflective.

I checked out the 200+k story 你喜不喜欢你, and although Heavenly Path ranks it as Upper Intermediate, Readibu is giving me an hsk 4 comprehension 83% and hsk 5 comprehension 93% for it, which appears to be comfortably in my Extensive Reading zone. So i may read some of that next... though 撒野 is equivalent in difficulty because of Length reasons at that point, and similarly easy language for me. 你喜不喜欢你 supposedly has ghosts though... and I love me a modern supernatural story. See: my favorite pingxie fics ToT 寒舍 and 半夜寒衣. Which, I would read those 2 pingxie fics next but. Readibu stats put them as harder (hsk 4 comprehension 77%). So while I've read them before and know a lot of THEIR specific words, on the other hand I'm reading "easier" stuff right now just to get a lot of reading in. More reading practice = more improvement, so I'm not exactly dying to slow down my progress lol.

On the other hand though? Reading stuff with more unknown words/stuff does increase opportunities to learn things I have a weak spot in. For example I'm reading this school focused thing, which is definitely filling in my high school/college vocabulary gaps. Reading a business setting with economics discussed would fill in gaps I definitely have, etc. Like... I will ultimately NEED to read stuff I'm unfamiliar with, to become familiar with it. So it's not a bad idea to push myself into Unknown vocabulary territory every so often.

Yes, I'm still trying to find out if that 9000 pages in your target language makes u able to read better ToT. One day ill get to prove that claim true or false. One day ToT

I am still reading dmbj 1. But it's slower going cause those chapters take me 20-30 minutes a piece. And of course... once I finish I've got a LOT more fucking dmbj novels ToT. Which... I might do 云村笔记 next, since it's got useful words and it's mostly a slice of life novel so I don't need to keep reading another 30 chapters of our dudes scared in a tomb! (I tell you what though: if you want to get comfortable with tomb genre words read dmbj... I feel like after this first novel, the majority of new unknown words will be sand/water setting related or names, because the vast majority of other words in dmbj are scary/reaction/tomb/old stuff antique/bugs/tomb gear which the first book is covering and getting one familiar with).

2. Japanese

I started Yakuza Like a Dragon yesterday, with Ichibian!

And like every single fucking time I start a Japanese game, my brain goes into overdrive to remind me of what's familiar but I fucking forgot ToT, what I don't know yet and desperately try to guess, what I remember but needs to Snap Back into place again, and how much I just wanna Get Better At Japanese so the task of me enjoying comparing the japanese to the English translation gets easier. (Don't ask why I enjoy so Much comparing japanese original with translations, but wow do i, I'm absolutely overwhelmed with doing it automatically and loving it a lot whenever I stumble into japanese again ToT).

The thing is. Every time I remember jjapanese, the Chinese word for things usually zooms right out of my active vocabulary and gets replaced with the japanese. This spring I played through several yakuza games and my japanese recognition and new learned stuff increased (I got to the point I kept forgetting how to converse in chinese and the japanese sentences were all that were fucking coming to me... 时间shijian was GONE and replaced with 時間 jikan ToT and nanren was replaced with otoko it was a mess, I truly couldn't remember something as basic as nanren ToT). But it just shoved my active chinese vocabulary right outta my brain - which to be fair, I was doing no chinese studying in the spring to KEEP it active.

Meanwhile, this past week I read 5 chinese stories and I'm going on 2 more. So my chinese active vocabulary I forgot this spring came right back, and now I can remember how to chat in chinese (which is good for particular personal life reasons at the moment) but that also means I blanked out on all my old japanese active vocab. Nanren replaced otoko, haizi replaced Kodomo, jiehun replaced whatever the fuck wedding was in japanese but I forgot. (I do notice my mental active vocab seems to replace the hanzi/Kanji cognates the worst, I think cause my brain just hates multiple pronunciations for a given character so it doesn't like conceptualizing multiple... which is part of why hanzi clicked so easy for me with their usually only 1-2 pronunciations, versus Kanji which I STILl fucking struggle to pronounce with their usual several pronunciations). So yeah, my chinese is great again rn... but just playing a game with japanese audio, my brain goes into overdrive trying to remember again lol.

I find it so funny. I find it so funny things can be so easy yet so hard. That u can learn more and be eons past where you used to be in progress, and then realize how much you still don't understand and must learn. Then you learn more, get aware of New things you never realized you didn't know, and the process repeats. In japanese I was OVER THE MOON last year when I realized I could read manga finally, without a dictionary! Then I was over the moon this spring, listening to Final Fantasys X audio and just able to actually PLACE each scene I heard, follow some of the dialogue meaning. Now it's fall, I've "progressed" and I pick up Guardians japanese translated novel... I slog through the intro character page, and realize just how brutally few Kanji words I know how to pronounce, how much I'm leaning on chinese hanzi knowledge to "guess" what I'm reading. I start playing some yakuza, and realize how HYPE I was in spring to understand "I'm going to get Oden, yeah he'll kill you, ikuzou etc" when now I hear a solid 4 words I don't know and get So antsy i can't grasp that part lol! That I realize now I can follow that daily life stuff so it doesn't blow my mind to understand anymore, it's not progress that blows my mind anymore to just manage to reach (though it used to), now I've moved on and my brain insists its Frustrating to not grasp new particular details.

It's just. So funny how it's both SO motivating to be on the beginning part when you feel you made a breakthrough and comprehend more! Then it's almost demotivating to realize the new things you Still Don't grasp and desperately want to (even though objectively it's a good thing - you're making more progress if this is happening). Funny what the brain gets happy versus frustrated over.

Which is happening with me for chinese too right now. At lightning speed! At the beginning of this month my brain was DELIGHTED I could read a novel in 2 days and know almost every word! OVER THE MOON I could grasp so much, when I've read stories fully before and Never Comprehended them with such detail as this week. And now, toward the end of this week? My brain is acting frustrated if I try to read and skip or guess an unknown word! Just 1-2 unknown words feel frustrating! When I know good and well I've seen 10-20+ unknown words a chapter in rhe past, ans EASILY read, grasped main idea, and enjoyed. I know that literally earlier this week, I read a story extensively and didn't know maybe 2-5 words a chapter, and it didn't bother me at all! But now it's the end of the week, and my brains going "Oh this feels so hard to read! It has a handful of vague words (that I could definitely guess if I put the effort into and aren't hard to quickly look up)". It makes me wanna force myself to slog through something MUCH harder, if only to remind myself it's not actually a big deal that should make me STUMBLE AND STOP if I don't remember 情致 and 感情s difference absolutely perfectly in a sentence. Or if i dont remember specifically how touch 触碰 and 触摸 differ. Lol its not a big enough deal to actually impede understanding of main idea, and yet now that it's the end of the week these "vague confusions" and driving me up a wall! Lol if I went and read 默读 or 杀破浪 without a dictionary I would quickly realize how much it doesnt fucking matter if I know the specific nuance, and I'd just be grateful to see words I recognize to help me guess all the words I DONT.

Anyway it's. Funny and ridiculous to see the process. How a brain doing something Super Hard acts like it's amazing to successfully understand, but a brain doing something reasonably easy is like "oh but I'm not doing it perfectly so I wanr to give up!"

I also watched 2008 ep 1 of Legend of the Condor Heroes last night in chinese only and uh. Nothing like some huge dialogue chunks of wuxia 4 hanzi wordings to remind me I don't know shit, I can follow a much more confusing story line to me than I think I can ToT. I followed it fine, though yeah it was a bit of a struggle. It reminded me I followed Word of Honor in chinese, and to be so Grateful word of honor was actually mostly fairly modern straightforward dialogue except for a few things Wen Kexing, Prince Jin, and the big sect leader said. Versus Legend of the Condor Heroes 2008 where the first maybe 20 minutes is all several fighters saying lots of 4 hanzi line phrases with just a little relief of action and direct sentences like Tie and Guo fighting and dying. Then finally it flashes 16 years forward and I was so relieved it was regular spoken kinds of everyday stuff again like shoot the black bird/save the white bird/my daughter X/etc is coming.

Anyway back to japanese! I yet again wanna go thru my japanese old audio glossika files. So I can know more of the fucking words I'm hearing in yakuza. Though, knowing me, the words I'm gonna pick up wouldn't even be in glossika. Like I doubt kill is in that course ToT, but I sure had to learn it to follow a lot of yakuza lines.

[a-witch-in-endor]

Hi! You write so beautifully that I was wondering what your writing journey was like. Have you written fanfiction for a long time and in what ways have you seen your writing improve over the years?

Hi! This is a very nice question, thank you for asking. :-)

I used to write fanfic (and original stories) a lot as a teenager. I also used to read pretty much any fiction book that was put in front of me. However, I then went through about a decade in which I put fic (and most written fiction) down, because I decided I was a Serious Person who would Change the World. I collected several degrees, travelled all over the world, worked a bunch of really weird and wonderful jobs, etc etc etc. And then I came back to fic. 

Now, to be fair to what happened, I never stopped reading fic. I basically considered it my guilty pleasure. I was reading academic books instead of fiction, but I would often go to bed with a good fanfic, because I could read short stories and... well, it was comfortable and I liked it. But then I found myself really stressed out - I was working two jobs (one of which was very demanding), studying fulltime and taking extra classes for “fun” (i.e. because I am a nerd), living thousands of miles from my home country, and trying to make decisions about my career. And I found myself sitting in a Starbucks, halfway through an essay, pile of books next to me, replying to work emails... and I just broke. I sat and poured out a ridiculous Marvel fanfic in a very short period of time, and I felt better. And then I realised that writing fic is a great stress release for me.

Anyway, as I broke through “I’m so stressed and I don’t know what I’m doing with my life” to “I have figured out my career path and I’m stressed for containable reasons”, I decided to stop pretending fic was a dirty secret and embrace it. I like fanfic. I like writing - it’s fun. I like reading - it’s comfortable. A bunch of people in my life know that it’s a hobby, some read my stuff, and the most negative response I’ve gotten is the reminder that I probably need a hobby that isn’t actually productive. So yeah, I’ve gotten over needing to be a Serious Person Taken Seriously, partly because I’ve gained enough qualifications that I no longer really care, and now I’m re-embracing the same things I enjoyed when I was a teenager.

Looking back at what I wrote as a teenager is interesting. I’m not sure I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting on that, so thanks for prompting it! 

I think there are two significant ways in which I was a better writer when I was young: 

1. I only spoke one language. I had a pocketful of phrases from my parent’s native tongue, and a handful of prayer phrases from my religious institution, but I was not an early linguist. I think my writing process was more fluid then, because I would have an idea and then I would express it. Nowadays, I sometimes find myself going “oh, that’s not a phrase in English, but that’s the emotion I’m going for” and needing to work around it. I also sometimes just... forget how English works. 

2. I had so much more time and energy. Nowadays, I write in fits and spurts. I finish an email and I have ten minutes until my next meeting, so I open up whatever is at the front of my mind and I write a little, or I flesh out an idea. I mostly write late at night after stressful days (I just can’t really write while relaxed, which is not great). I used to work something and then rework it until it felt right. I don’t do that anymore; I finish writing and then I post, sometimes with a cursory glance-through for typos, and sometimes without even that.

But there are some significant ways in which I think my writing has developed for the better:

1. Life experience. Ugh, I know, that sounds awful and patronising. I don’t mean that I’m a grown-up now and that I was a kid then. I’m sure that in ten years I’ll look back at what I’m writing now and feel similarly. But drawing from experience instead of simply imagination does change things, I think.

Take for example ‘this is a gift (it comes with a price)’. That is a story I could imagine working through as a teenager. The premise wasn’t unreachable for me: I could have come up with the idea of a ghost story which is really about astral projection when I was seventeen*. But since then, I’ve spent years working in the anti-human-trafficking field, I’ve worked in hospitals with people dealing with their lack of bodily control, I’ve worked with people in other emotionally damaging situations, I’ve led dialogue groups across a war-torn border, and so on and so forth, and all of that informed the journey through the story (even if I didn’t really think so while writing it). It’s not that I couldn’t have imagined it before, it’s that I can feel it now in a way that I could only have imagined before. 

*This is only kind of true. ‘this is a gift’ is in some ways a metaphor for dissociation as a survival tactic, and I’m not sure I really would have understood that back then. But the basic premise would have worked anyway.

2. I just don’t care anymore? I know this sounds counterintuitive, but as much as I love comments and conversations about my stories (and I love them a lot), I no longer find myself paralysed by ‘what if I get it wrong’. I’ve gotten a lot wrong, and I’ve survived thus far. A bad story won’t be what knocks me over anymore. 

3. I have a decent grasp on multiple languages. Um, I know I put this as why my writing was probably better before. I think that, in a technical sense, I probably wrote more smoothly back then. But I’m also more willing to play fast and loose with language now, because it took years of learning for me to realise that language is just about communication, and as long as you’ve communicated your point, the rest of it doesn’t actually matter at all. 

Yikes. I wrote a lot. 

[heartlandians]

You are an excellent story teller and writer. My favorite is The End Where We Begin. I have probably read it ten times. Are you a writer by training and/or by trade? Any suggestions for a new fanfiction writer?

Thanks! I can't full credit for that as it was a collaboration with me and Sarah (@javathewildone ), but I'm really glad you've liked it so much :) I remember it was a fun project for us! It's nice to know someone actually goes back to the stories more than once, even years later.

I, personally, have not done any "actual writing" ever, just fanfics, as it's a good way to practice my English (I'm not a native speaker), but I know that Sarah is definitely an avid book reader at least, can't say for sure what her background with writing is (maybe she'll see that I tagged her and replies herself).

Not sure if I'm the best person to give advice, but for me what I've found has worked over the years is that, well, first of all you have to really passionate and/or interested about what you're writing because it'll take you long way.

There are different ways you can go about writing, but I think at the end of the day you have to do what works best for you because otherwise you might find youself hating/avoiding writing because the ways you're going about it just don't feel natural to you.

I know some people prefer when you write the whole story before publishing (if it's a multichapter fic, that is), but I personally find it easier if I write it chapter by chapter every week (or whatever time-frame you want to give yourself). In some cases it might help you as you see the response, so you can either take the reviews into account during the future chapters ("oh, maybe I should focus describing X's feelings more since it seems like people aren't really understanding what's going on with them"), improve your writing based on the feedback ("the chapters should be shorter/longer") or just simply feel like you're being cheered forward ("yay, someone's actually reading this!")

For me it's more about not feeling too pressured about the weight of the fic, as I tend to write long fics a lot; the one I'm currently writing has been going for years, so if I would have used that time to write in private, so to speak, I wouldn't have published anything for years. It would just be crickets here. But this, of course, depends on the speed you write. I know I'm a slower writer because I need to check things a lot (grammar, English sayings, Canadian culture, etc.), but that's okay!

I usually write during weekends, as it fits best with my routines; sometimes it takes an hour for me to write a chapter, sometimes more, but I like to truly focus on it when I'm writing and weekends are the only time I can take time to do that (turn off the phone, take a cup of tea and just sit in silence until I'm done). Sometimes I write something during the week and finish/re-read it by weekend. I think over time you find your own rhythm.

I know sometimes it can feel like you're pressured to write more and people want EVERYTHING! RIGHT! NOW!, but that can also kill the joy of the writing, so sometimes it's best to tune out the noise because you don't want to force yourself to write something that doesn't come out the way you want and when you want. If you have a schedule and some weeks you just can't do it for whatever reason, give yourself a break. It's really not that serious. Some people might be disappointed, but you aren't obligated to do anything you don't want to do when it comes to your writing. Life comes first. Then sometimes you have a flow going and you end up writing multiple chapters on one sitting.

I also think that taking breaks is very helpful for the story. You can rethink themes and plot lines and more importantly plan what happens next better when you're doing something else that doesn't require a lot of focus (my favourites are washing dishes, travelling in a car/train/bus and showering, hehe). Sometimes inspiration strikes unexpectedly while you're just living your life. That's the best feeling - when you have an idea and you can't wait to turn it into a story (a notebook or notes on your phone can be helpful). Listening to music, reading books/other fanfics and watching TV and movies can also help. They might also give you a light mental exercize, "okay, so while this story is good, how would *I* have improved it?" or "I hated this, here's how it should have gone." This might also be true if you're watching Heartland; some of my fics have come out of alternative takes on something or missing scenes I wish we would have seen on the show.

When writing, don't stress too much about getting it perfect right away. I sometimes write chapters like this: "Amy's working with a horse. Lou comes to take a look. (include dialogue that I have already planned) Lou goes back inside the house. Amy is angry." So, basically I do parts that I already have figured out in my head first and I keep adding more layers to make the flow better later. When I'm ready to publish, I re-read it one last time to make sure it makes sense.

I also plan a lot ahead, which can be hard at first, but ovetime it becomes part of the routine. For example, when I started my current fic, I had some idea where I was headed, to give myself direction and structure to base it on, but then along the way some of the twists and turns were even a surprise for me too. But then at the same time I knew that "this", "this" and "that" needed to happen before a certain thing would take place. Sometimes it can be frustrating to have to write all those "filler chapters" but it is more rewarding for the reader if there's some foundation before something big happens; it helps them to feel more attached to the characters and emotionally invested in the story.

Publish on the platform you find most comfortable. For years, I had my fics at fanfiction.net as I knew a lot of fans went there to read (Heartland) fics. There's also Archive of Our Own, but there aren't as many readers/writers there, but the pros of that place is that the protection for the writer there is better than it is at FF.net. For example, I grew tired of the way FF.net protects anonymous reviewers, because I started to get a lot of hate, some of it very personal for some reason, over the things I chose to write in my fics. I think the feedback should never be personal, but always about the story itself, and I felt like I just wasn't getting that anymore from there, so I deleted all my fics from FF.net. For now I've had my fics only here at tumblr, as it was the place where most of it began anyway. I've found it has really affected the way I feel about writing again because now I don't have to worry "what kind of bitch I'm going to be after this chapter".

If you feel unsure about your writing, grammar or just how to build a story, you might want someone to talk to about it, a fellow writer perhaps, or just someone who enjoys reading/hearing stories. There are also beta readers out there who read your story before it's published. But it's not always needed, just now that that's out there if you feel the need for it.

Personally, I haven't really cared about the feedback anymore as much as I used to; if there is a story I want to tell, I'm going to tell it whether anyone even reads it or not. There have been themes or pairings in my fics people have not found interesting or have simply hated, and to me that's been okay as I find I'm writing for myself anyway, to get these thoughts and ideas out. That is also to say that I don't always agree with what's going on in the fics, I don't make the characters perfect or avoid conflicts or problems just because I want to make everyone likable. There needs to be tension and drama. I think the best stuff is found when the characters are flawed and just human. This might be hard for some people to understand, but try not to take it personally.

Okay, so this has turned into a fic of its own, but basically to sum it all up, just remember you're doing it for fun. Find your own style and flow/rhythm. Don't feel the pressure to be perfect right away, because you evolve with each story/chapter you write. Write whatever inspires you, that's the key to keep going.

Good luck with your writing :)

[green-socks]

Happy New Year! Thank you for the immense joy your writing brought me this year! 💜

To honor the tradition of looking back on the year, here are some 2021 Writing Reflections I'd love for you to answer! 

1) What is the one thing you're most proud of with your writing this year?

2) What is your favorite line you've written this year?

3) How has your writing improved this year?

4) How do you hope to improve your writing next year?

5) Do you have any specific writing goals for '22?

Sunny!😍 Happy new year to you too❤️ I honestly can't imagine my daily fandom/internet life without you anymore!

Thank you for sending these!! I will try to reflect to the best of my ability!

1) Honestly, the thing I'm most proud of is simply just starting to write in the first place. Something I had never really tried properly, and I certainly didn't believe I could. But perhaps an even bigger thing to me is the fact that I can stand to reread the fics I have written/posted – I actually enjoy them!! I've always hated everything I create, basically, so it's been a nice surprise to find that this isn't the case with my fics. I'm proud of myself for that.

2) So this is a though one, because I generally don't think of myself as being that focused on the words itself? Like I know writers who spend a long time crafting each and every sentence so that they not only convey the right message, but are innovative, interesting, and delightful in their word choices and structures, not to mention that it all flows together beautifully. Me? I maybe check a thesaurus to add some ~color~ at times, and try to make sure that what I write is actually English and not words I made up😂 What I mean to say is that I don't think any one line of my writing stands out in particular🤔 (Plus I don't really have the energy to go through my fics looking for one, sorry🙈). I'm sure there are some I'm much prouder of than others, but yeah.

3) Seeing as how I started writing in March with no experience at all, I think (/hope) I've gotten better with a lot of things😂🙈 What comes to mind first is that my ability to find multiple ways of expressing something has improved. Like I don't get so hung up on wanting to say something a certain way, but am able to find other (even better) solutions, if that makes sense. And I think that applies on both the language level and the storytelling level of things.

4) Oh so many ways. I hope to get better at writing dialogue! Just overall, in every aspect of it😂

5) I gotta finish the two series I have going on now, at least! Better get cracking..

But Sunny, did you answer these questions? Can I turn the tables on you and ask you these? Is that allowed?

[auncyen]

Ok ok so I'd been idly thinking about updating "Chats with Joker in Mementos" for Royal for a while, except as far as I know there aren't any transcriptions for the Royal Mementos chats like there is for Vanilla...

So...after some questionable use of my time, I now have a list of a good chunk of the starters in Royal. Only starters, not responses, since the point of the fic is having Joker be the one to respond, and I didn't transcribe ones I didn't think would be interesting for him to respond to, but still, if anyone does ever look to do a complete transcription, this might be helpful as a start? Or just interesting if you want to see what some characters talk about. Spoilers for third semester below cut.

Ryuji: Man, we really bust our asses to get stronger in here. I wish it meant we got stronger in the real world too.

Ryuji: Man, I had this horrible dream last night… Can’t remember a thing about it, though.

Ryuji: Ya know what? I guess Mona does have a mask, technically.

Ryuji: Yo, the way he jumps behind Shadows is so sick!

Ryuji: Yo, is it just me, or is fallin’ asleep getting tougher every night? At this point, I’m outta ideas of what to do.

Ryuji: Kinda fiendin’ for some ramen right about now… Maybe I’ll hit up Ogikubo when we get back.

RyujI: So lately, I’ve been tryin’ to work some training into my nightly routine before bed.

Ryuji: Hey, is it just me, or is Morgana’s sword basically the same size as Joker’s knife?

Ryuji: My mom made gyudon last night! My fave! Now I’ve got, like, fifty times more energy than usual!

Ryuji: This phantom thief stuff feels real as hell whenever he’s flyin’ around with that grappling hook.

Ryuji: Dude, that grappling hook is awesome! He looks like a freakin’ superhero with that thing!

Ryuji: Aww man, I just can’t get enough of those Akihabara maids…

Ryuji: Aren’t knives kinda hard to use ‘cause of their shortness? I definitely prefer my own shit.

Ryuji: I always thought darts looked easy—just aim for the board, y’know? But, it’s waaay harder than that.

Ryuji: Every try the monja in Tsukishima? That stuff is LEGIT.

Ryuji: Yo, does this outfit really make me look like I’m part of some biker gang?

-

Morgana: Listen, it’s not that I look like a cat. Cats just happen to look like me.

Morgana: I repeat: I am not a cat. To prove it, I took an actual bath yesterday.

Morgana: So, cats love to chase mice, right? I don’t get it—where’s the fun in that?

Morgana: I’m always so entranced by Panther’s whip technique!

Morgana: Panther, we have matching tails!

Morgana: You know, I’ve never actually been in a car before. Is it anything like I am now?

Morgana: I definitely made the right decision giving him the code name “Joker.”

Morgana: I’m willing to bet Joker’s skilled enough to use throwing knives.

Morgana: Anime, books, movies… Phantom thieves sure are popular.

Morgana: Last night I dreamt that Phantom Thieves were kicking some serious butt—let’s bring that dream to life!

Morgana: I can teach you everything you need to know about being a phantom thief. Relax—you’re in good hands!

Morgana: *yawn* I didn’t get enough sleep…

Morgana: I couldn’t fall asleep at all last night. I just laid there with my eyes open…

Morgana: I like Yongen-Jaya; it’s a great place for a stroll.

Morgana: Is Shujin Academy the only thing in Aoyama?

Morgana: I was vegetating in front of the TV last night, and I have to say, there are some pretty decent shows on now.

-

Ann: The bakery had a sale yesterday and I ended up buying everything they had!

Ann: The Ferris wheel is a must for me at theme parks, every time. I love being able to just relax.

Ann: I have an upcoming shoot at a theme park, but what sucks is how I can’t go on any of the rides.

Ann: Last night I dreamt I was eating a chocolate bar, then all of a sudden, it got mad and started chasing me!

Ann: Every once in a while I have a dream where I get chased by a Shadow…

Ann: I’ve been sleeping really well since I started getting all this exercise.

Ann: I was up late watching TV last night, so I might be a little sleep deprived…

Ann: I tend to do my clothes shopping in Kichijoji—it’s fun looking through all the resale shops.

Ann: I hate when people ask me to say stuff in English just ‘cause I lived overseas.

Ann: It always bothers me when foreign movie subtitles leave stuff out or take too many liberties.

Ann: I was talking to my overseas friend the other day—her straightforward attitude was really refreshing!

Ann: I was talking to Shiho on the phone and before I knew it, three whole hours had passed!

Ann: Joker seems like he’d make a good cook, doesn’t he? I mean, he’s great with his knife and all…

Ann: It’s actually quite exhilarating to attack with a whip. I wonder why that is…

Ann: Whenever my foreign relatives come to Japan, they always rave about how much they love Japanese food!

Ann: Do you think there’s anything I can do about my outfit? I feel like I stand out too much in this…

Ann: Is there a difference between a whip and a grappling hook?

Ann: Ya know, Skull’s always been into skull designs and stuff.

Ann: Wouldn’t a grappling hook be awfully handy in the real world?

-

Yusuke: I wish to paint the world as only I see it. The best way to succeed at this is through practice.

Yusuke: It’s fun to walk around and inspect different temples and shrines. The architecture is always impressive.

Yusuke: If Shadows are sentient, do you think their being moved by a painting would invoke a change of heart?

Yusuke: There have been times where I was compelled to create three-dimensional art.

Yusuke: I’m quite curious about Mona’s Western-style sword…

Yusuke: I hear whips are quite difficult to use. Where did you learn how to wield one?

Yusuke: Joker using a grappling hook…. That would make for a picture-perfect composition.

Yusuke: Mona, what exactly do you have in those pouches?

Yusuke: Creating a piece of art is pointless unless I can convey the full essence of the subject.

Yusuke: Art museums stimulate my creativity like no other place—I wish I could live inside one.

Yusuke: Skull and I both use long melee weapons, but they’re total opposites of one another.

Yusuke: Why does my outfit have a tail? I don’t understand…

Yusuke: I considered growing my own bean sprouts, but it seems to be more expensive than buying them grown.

Yusuke: I once had a dream that I washed up on a deserted island. I painted as much as I pleased… So wonderful.

Yusuke: I may specialize in Japanese-style painting, but I’d like to learn some Western techniques as well.

Yusuke: That grappling hook is very useful. I should find a way to utilize one in my daily life.

Yusuke: The other day, I went into the mountains to gather vegetables so I could cut back on food expenses.

Yusuke: I tried to paint a landscape of the starry sky once, but it’s quite difficult to do so from within the city.

Yusuke: India ink isn’t my specialty, but I’ve been experimenting with it in some recent work, just for fun.

-

Makoto: I may have stopped being a doormat for adults, but people are still calling me a “teacher’s pet.”

Makoto: A phantom thief’s body is their most vital asset. We need to make sure we eat balanced, nutritious meals.

Makoto: Do you enjoy visiting theme parks? I’ve rarely been to one myself.

Makoto: Fox looks cooler using his katana than I had originally imagined.

Makoto: I had the weirdest dream… I was at school, but I was wearing my phantom thief outfit.

Makoto: Would anyone care to learn how to drive, while we’re here? This place seems as good as any for practice.

Makoto: I know it’s not very healthy, but I do enjoy eating ramen from time to time.

Makoto: Once I’ve graduated, I’m going to buy a motorcycle and go on a road trip.

Makoto: I’ve been working on my grades because I still want to attend college, despite being a phantom thief.

Makoto: I want to read a certain book, but it’s out of print. Where do you suppose I could find a copy?

Makoto: Maybe I’m just burned out, but waking up has grown awfully difficult lately.

Makoto: The grappling hook’s cable seems pretty strong, but it’s scary to think what could happen if it snapped.

Makoto: Once my sister brought home some sushi for me. It was indescribably good…

-

Futaba: I heard rhythm’s an important part of fighting, sooo… I started playing a rhythm game!

Futaba: There’s going to be an event tonight in the MMO I play. I can’t wait!

Futaba: This MMO I’m hooked on is really cool. Do you wanna play with me? Oh—it’s in English, though.

Futaba: I’m about to beat the game I’ve been playing. Wonder what I should play next?

Futaba: I’ve been going outside a lot more, so now I’m sleeping way better than I did when I was a shut-in.

Futaba: Guess what? I’m making a game called “Hungry Hungry Mona”!

Futaba: You know who’s a really good driver, is Sojiro. He can parallel park with his eyes closed!

Futaba: If you could shoot grappling hooks from your hands, you’d probably be able to get around just using those!

Futaba: Ya know, I’ve thought about workin’ out and fighting alongside you guys.

Futaba: You guys should try playing shooters! It could help you improve your gun skills.

Futaba: Last night I had a dream my hard drive failed… That was scary.

Futaba: Wouldn’t it be cool if you could mod the grappling hook so it was electrified?

Futaba: Sure, the internet’s convenient, but it’s not like it can do everything. Don’t overestimate its capabilities.

Futaba: I wonder if I’d be okay going to some place by myself if it wasn’t crowded. Inokashira Park seems nice.

Futaba: Yesterday Sojiro bought me my favorite instant yakisoba!

Futaba: Maybe I should get a gun too, just for self-defense… Nah, my hands need to be empty.

-

Haru: I found this cafe in Kichioji with phenomenal tea—would you care to try it sometime?

Haru: I ordered kusaya but they refused to make it—they said they couldn’t get the smell out of the kitchen.

Haru: I feel like I need to learn more about the world, but I’m not sure how to best go about it.

Haru: Recently, I’ve been finding rare delicacies rather enticing…

Haru: Even lately, I sometimes dream about doing phantom thief things with Mona.

Haru: If you’re having trouble getting yourself to relax, I recommend herbal tea.

Haru: Asakusa is a wonderful area—I love how it’s this blend of the old and the new.

Haru: Ever since I started high school I’ve been taking the train in the morning, but I’m still not used to it…

Haru: Queen, your mask looks like it’s made of iron. Doesn’t it get heavy?

Haru: Joker’s so acrobatic! He’s really got the hang of that grappling hook.

Haru: I don’t think I’ve gotten this much exercise since I was in ballet.

Haru: Let me know if you ever get a tear in your clothing—I’m good at sewing, so I could most likely fix it.

Haru: I dreamt that the vegetables I’d been growing all died… I was so sad.

Haru: Your weapon seems fun, Skull. Do you want to swap sometime?

Haru: Sometimes it’s impossible for me to fall asleep on days that we’ve been to Palaces, no matter how tired I am.

Haru: You know, before this, I’d never considered using an axe for anything other than chopping firewood…

Haru: My hands have gotten all calloused… I supposed it comes with the territory in gardening.

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Akechi: I have no intention of changing my stance on matters, no matter what anyone may say.

Akechi: Pancakes... I don’t want to hear that word again for a long, long time.

Akechi: We don’t have much time left. Please do what you can to avoid getting sick.

Akechi: The enemies are stronger than ever. Don’t let your guard down.

Akechi: A world that panders to your every whim is so mundane. Where’s the thrill if there’s no competition?

Akechi: Do you prefer my previous outfit or this one? Moving around’s become much easier for me.

Akechi: This place is immense. If there weren’t train tracks everywhere, I’d bring my bike here.

Akechi: We’re working under the constraints of a time limit, so I’d appreciate it if you could be more efficient.

Akechi: If you’re looking for a way to train both your mind and your body, I highly recommend bouldering.

Akechi: You think I’m frightening when I fight? Well, I’m afraid you’re just going to have to accept it.

Akechi: I meant to tell you, regarding Shido… Thank you for keeping your promise.

Akechi: You may not like working with me, but I’m counting on your assistance until our goal is achieved.

Akechi: When we’re riding in the car like this, it’s easy to forget that we’re actually inside Mona.

Akechi: The Shadows here behave differently from the ones in the Palaces, don’t they?

Akechi: I’m getting a bit hungry. I should’ve eaten beforehand.

Akechi: I enjoy spending time in Kichijoji. It’s not very big, but there are plenty of trendy shops.

Akechi: Riding in the car may beat walking, but it doesn’t stop my legs from growing stiff and sore…

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Sumire: I have a few different superstitions for good luck in my routines… They get sort of hard to drop.

Sumire: It was already hard for me to believe Palaces existed, but to think there’s such a massive one under Shibuya…

Sumire: It’s a bit cramped in here with this many people…

Sumire: I get stiff all over from just sitting in the car.

Sumire: Why is the one desert you get to eat during the week so delicious?

Sumire: A phantom thief outfit represents a person’s image of their rebellion, right?

Sumire: I wonder if I should try incorporating another sport into my gymnastics training.

Sumire: I wonder what I could use as inspiration for my performances…

Sumire: Swords are actually pretty hard to wield.

Sumire: Whenever I travel, I always end up buying some sort of good luck charm.

Sumire: Your outfits are all so unique. I can see coordinating them wasn’t a priority.

Sumire: This time of year, a heating pad’s an absolute must for keeping warm.

Sumire: Sometimes people will just walk up to me and ask me to show them a standing split.

Sumire: I’m in top shape today! Let’s keep going.

Sumire: Do you all stretch beforehand? You could pull a muscle if you don’t.

Sumire: It’s too bad gymnastics competitions aren’t on TV more often.

Sumire: Fighting makes for a pretty good workout, doesn’t it?

-

while I didn't transcribe responses, I did notice something a bit disappointing: neither Sumire nor Akechi seemed to have responses for anyone else. It's possible I missed one?? But not being able to remember any, they must not have many if they do have some. A bit odd.