#or that they have amy show up at josh's apartment and say 'donna told me to come over' or that in dead irish writers

[palukoo]

hey ur tags on that west wing meme,,,, please talk,,,,, talk abt trans josh

also 🌹!

ahh thank you and sorry for the delay i have tried to answer this like 3 times and then been doing something else and had to start over! i’m gonna answer this out of order bc trans josh is gonna be a little long i thing, so! line!

She thinks, though, that Josh doesn’t really deserve to beat himself up over this even more, and she’s not going to use him as a punching bag even if a part of each of them wants that.

anyways thats a line i really like bc i think its pretty momentous, amy choosing not to fight with josh

so trans josh! under the cut! thank you for enabling me!

so these are all gonna be about trans man josh but i love any trans josh hc and honestly some thoughts about amab enby josh too... but like. one thing at a time,,, this is gonna be so incoherent as a warning

remember that time josh said that when he was a kid he wanted to be a ballerina? go off and break gender barriers king but TECHNICALLY ballerina is the gendered term. so. do with that what you will

oh also the way he says in uhh 6.05 i think “plus i’ve got that...... yknow. boyish. thing.” and yeah. yeah. 

so josh is like mid gender crisis in college/law school/when he meets amy (i think the show is a little inconsistent in which one it is)

she still dates his roommate, but josh doesn’t really have the gender figured out yet, so chris is a woman

amy doesn’t know his name, and he labels stuff “j lyman” and she asks about it, or his name or something, she’s like “j?” and he thinks that’s better, and tells her to just call him j, and it sticks

(i have literally no interest in defining a deadname for him thanks)

((also he eventually does come out to her and she’s like “okay, so... j?” and he says something like “i’m thinking about josh.” and she’s like “okay cool. it suits you” and he says she can still call him j, cause he kinda likes that too.))

so here’s where i get a little unclear bc i don’t really know how HRT etc worked in the late 80s/early 90s and if anyone has sources on this i would really love to see them!!

anyway i also see him as being like. obsessed with passing as a cis man (esp bc yknow. political job in the 90s-2000s would be a lot more complicated and less likely as a trans man) and he sorta intentionally loses touch with people who knew him before he came out and/or before he transitioned (except leo) 

he kind of hates that amy knows this thing about him and it complicates their relationship a lot bc she doesn’t really get that that’s why he sort of resents her

i also feel like it makes josh’s sorta misogyny more... interesting? that’s not exactly the right word or phrasing or anything but like. idk. josh being flippant about women’s issues takes on a different context if he’s a trans man rather than a cis man

i also think he doesn’t really want the whole team to know either not bc he doesn’t trust them, just because it’s this thing he’d rather ignore/not talk about

but since leo was a family friend, he’d probably know, and i insist that he’s literally 100% cool with it (even if it maybe takes a second to adjust) and they still have the whole father son thing going on obviously

idk. idk i kinda like the idea of him telling cj before any/most of the rest of them bc i love their friendship and him talking to her about his sister plus like. maybe cj can have a little gender crisis of her own. as a treat

she/they cj

i also think that like. he and donna have a cute heart to heart at some point and he’s like terrified of it changing people’s perception of him and she’s just super chill about it and it’s sweet.

anyways. i really don’t have much it’s just a vibe and something i think about and something that if people wanna talk about they should hmu!!

[actuallylorelaigilmore]

first lines meme

rules: list the first lines of your last 20 stories. see if there are any patterns. then tag your favorite authors. i was tagged by @greatestheights. (thanks! if you hadn’t already done this, you’d be on my list for your perfect j/d fic alone.)

(don’t follow a ton of fic writers tbh but) tagging these talented people: @actuallylukedanes, @aerosmiley219, @comepraisetheinfanta, @confidxnteveryday, @andallthatmishigas, @etraytin and anybody else who wants to do this! 

following the example before me, cut for length/divided into WIPs and published fic.

ten WIPS (in order of when I started working on them):

lizzington au, where the fire never happened and she was raised by her birth parents so Red meets her for the first time as infamous KGB operative Masha Rostova: Raymond Reddington spotted her across the crowded room as he waited to be seated. Later, he wouldn’t be able to explain exactly why; her laugh was almost demure and her outfit was only as alluring as those worn by all the other women in the restaurant. He just knew there was a story there. An excellent one. One that hadn’t even begun yet–and he wanted to be a part of it. 

lizzington, post-s2 finale idea that was too sexy to be part of my slow burn chapter fic: “I’ve always been drawn to you,” she told him seriously, a confession no longer laced with shame. “Since the beginning, long before it made sense–even when it made me feel crazy. So I tried to blame you. For everything, really,” she added quietly. Here, there was shame.

josh x donna, the night of “20 Hours in America”: When Donna had finished writing all the letters to family members, she found Josh in the bar. Toby had gone up to his room, seeming preoccupied with something when he passed her on his way up, so she found Josh with a beer, sitting more than he was drinking, as was his way. She would have been shocked if he’d had anything stronger than his half a bottle, anyhow–he’d be nearly passed out, something he didn’t do in unfamiliar places. Sliding onto the seat next to his, she tossed her untidy hair back from her face and gave him her best cajoling look.

josh x donna, during “Inauguration: Over There”: It was all started by the snow. It made sense at the time, he thought, to throw snowballs. She wasn’t answering her phone, and at least snow wouldn’t break her window. The adrenaline rush when he hit the window first had to have addled his brain, made him more susceptible to things he never thought about. How her skin glowed, say, or how soft her mouth looked. He never would’ve told her how amazing she looked if he’d been in his right mind.

donna x amy, during “Commencement”: She doesn’t particularly like Amy. Truth be told, she doesn’t like Amy much at all. She’s pushy, and sees things in black and white, and Josh has an odd reaction to her, like an addict. But as long as Josh is chasing after Amy, she feels safe. Protected from herself. So she tries to encourage him, to help.

josh x donna, after “War Crimes”: They wait through what she thinks must be the longest hour of her life. Josh leans forward on the bench, in a position that looks horribly uncomfortable, his arm resting behind her back. It’s so far back it doesn’t touch her, and she figures it might if he’d sit like a normal person. Oh. Maybe that explains it, then.

josh x donna, for a smut request where donna is in charge: When she practically crashed through his door, Donna took him by surprise. She kept doing that. What was it Amy said once, that he needed to get hit on the head? Water balloon aside, there was something breathtaking about the way Donna didn’t hesitate. He couldn’t claim the same confidence; he hovered somewhere between awkward and anxious, and it was worse with her because she was everything. And it felt like he’d been waiting a lifetime to reach this point.

blaine x liv, post-s2 finale: Vivian Stoll, brain-eating leader of Fillmore-Graves Enterprises, left her with a business card and the ominously friendly, “Be seeing you.” Liv was too relieved to be alive–well, relatively speaking–to feel guilty for fleeing the scene at the first available opportunity.

ravi x major, post-s2 finale: Things can change so fast. Too fast, Ravi thinks, as he downs the shot of tequila and pretends it doesn’t remind him of Peyton. 

peyton x blaine, post-s2 finale: Major personally escorted Peyton to the safe house, despite her half-hearted protests. Since he was the closest thing she had to a big brother, deep down she had expected nothing less.

ten published fics (in chronological order, most recent first):

a very brief career at the hoover institute: By any unit of measurement, Ainsley’s first day at the Hoover Institute could not be called a success.

lost in the forest of this heart: Lizzie drops into sleep almost instantly, her weight pressed lightly against his side as the road rumbles beneath them.

for tonight: Her hands were trembling as she laced up the back of her dress, but she managed to tie it securely. Nerves, Liz thought. Silly, really. They had shared dinner dozens of times since going off the grid. Local dives, upscale hotel cafes, five-star landmarks.

leave us in pieces, scattered everywhere: “Why did you tell me?” CJ’s voice is broken glass across the satellites. He wants to be looking at her instead of talking over the phone; he wants to be able to touch her face, to apologize, to offer comfort. This is not that conversation, or she wouldn’t be calling.

if we only tried: Lorelai answered the door less than a minute after Luke knocked.

where the past comes back to life: Their flight is delayed in New York. Josh decides to steal a few moments of rest while he waits, grabbing a seat slightly apart from the other staffers. It’s not exactly peaceful, but he can mostly tune them out.

mine: “This is completely unprofessional,” Josh mutters. He can almost hear the murmur of conversations in the ballroom from the tiny space Donna tugged him into–but not quite. Hopefully the distance works both ways, because her mouth on his ear is making it hard to keep discretion in mind right now.

just give me something to hold onto: “She gave back the ring,” Sam says, head hanging so low that he’s talking more to the carpet than to Josh.

the deepest of needs: CJ goes to him; he’ll never come to her. Not while the pain is still an open wound…not while Toby keeps it that way in order to be a father.

what you’re running from: She didn’t have anywhere else to go. Free didn’t mean in the clear, not after the manhunt and the Post Office and the plea deal. So Red showing up when she was released–Red being the only person she could count on, again–was a welcome surprise.

WIP CONCLUSIONS: I cannot do brevity. Seriously, the difference between what my work looks like in progress and what sees the light of day is startling when you just compare opening lengths. 

I use just as much punctuation and italics, though, so clearly I think in the tones as I’m writing, rather than adding the emphasis later.

There’s almost no dialogue in my openings for WIPs, despite their length. I ramble about character’s internal monologues (and then thankfully clean that up later).

It’s possible to read a whole paragraph and be left with no idea whose perspective I’m talking about, in a WIP. Fun to know. 

PUBLISHED WORKS: Considering how much I love/am good at dialogue, I don’t open with it as much as I would’ve expected. I have little interest in setting/description as a reader but clearly, I make an effort to set the scene as a writer--even though I’m sure I don’t manage that until the late stages of editing. So it’s good to know that before I publish, I’ve remembered to keep my audience in mind. That’s comforting.

Compared to my WIPs, I’m incapable of having a first sentence without a character’s name in it, even when the fic is only about one character, and the reader would know who I was talking about. That’s sort of weird.

I don’t do succinct starter sentences, unless I’m starting the sequel to a previous story that had a cliffhanger ending, which is why two of my examples are actually from older stories whose sequels are in the recent ten list. It felt like cheating to use the sequel sentences when they didn’t make sense without the context of the first story, so I used the real beginnings.

Italics and interesting punctuation are essential to me. I think that’s because playing with mood and tone is necessary but I’m not as good at it using just words?

I’m kind of all over the place otherwise, which is fair and true to my personality...I vary up my style (as much as I can) depending on what I’m writing. For example, the shortest starter sentence was for Lorelai Gilmore, and the sentences that follow it are more staccato than usual for me, which makes sense when the world I’m writing in is rapid-fire dialogue and lots of back-and-forth.

This took waaaaay longer than I expected but I feel like it was also much more educational than I thought it would be. So yay. :)