#remembering poetry is a good way to get my mind to focus on something other than my life falling apart

[myname-isnia]

Quoting classic russian literature at yourself after a crying fit is either a new low or a new coping mechanism that I will abuse the hell out of. I'll decide along the way

[my-hearts-ink]

⚠ ...... Long boring bio alert....... ⚠

I've been here before, though my past is past for a reason, if you knew my words great, if not.. just as great.

M - 47 - Virgo ♍- Snake 🐍

Be over 18 I don't need you here otherwise, this site is not for you

I will be adding /editing this as a live document as I choose.

I am awkward, shaped by trauma, I am wired to be too intense at times, I remember... everything... I log... everything in my mind I take in. Most times it just means good at details, other times a red flag pops up, gnaws at me, it gets priority from the archives to the active thought room, even worse gets sole focus dedicated thought status and then my I mind will react accordingly.

I often do lot like myself, this is vulnerable here, so be nice or just leave, I tend to attach emotionally to things, I love hard, I can be too much for many, jealousy is very much a monster that I daily stab and burn back into it's cage, but it does get out and it's lethal. I am protective, loyal, I can cut and crave to be cut at times. I wear my heart on my sleeve though in life and career it is quite not ideal.

My mind is always moving, unless the right music or sexual release, it does not ever stop, it often fills, presses, railroads into a swirling uncontrolled tornado that often creates insomnia, anxiety attacks and awkward interactions.

Music is my air. Most genres, always desiring to explore.

I absolutely love to read poetry... good/bad... to see the unique way words are crafted, letters arranged significant to you. I will heart a lot of poetry, doesn't mean I feel the same or always agree with message or viewpoint, but it is art, and art is meant to make you think.

I worship nature in every form, sunrises, sunsets, clouds, wind,, trees, flowers, animals, water, sky, stars.

The moon will always be a love, one that soothes my soul, moves me, a Selenophile through and through.

Storms, lightning, thunder rain, dreary days, overcast skies.... My absolute favorite.

I find abandoned things and shipwrecks fascinating, treasures to one, trash to another. Emotions and memories attached to something forgotten. Chaos in a world we try to control and no matter how hard we try we submit to her power and nature can and does reclaim.

Animals are incredible, wolves and Ravens are my loves. Everything about them draws me.

I find beauty in the simple things in life as it fills my days with joy, if I can see a dog anywhere, being walked, running in a yard, sleeping in the shade, riding in a car... to have that moment to be as free as a child and proclaim... dog dog! Makes my day.

I love the tinkering with tools, the art of working on projects and cars. I may not often have the nicest tool, but if I have a project or task that needs a certain one, I aquire, I learn and I grow. It relaxes me to work with my hands.

I write about love and loss, I have had plenty of both in my life. My writes pull from my emotions now,experiences in time from the past, feelings from dream and wake. Sometimes just a combination. Sometimes it's just an exercise of words to an emotion, so yeah please don't think I'm depressed or horny or unloved or in love or whatever the read.... It's an emotion from a place in my life at one time either directly described or artistic essence vaguely used.

Women by nature is art, the female form in all stages, I find age and life experiences sexy, not a downfall. Wrinkles, scars and changes tell a story about life, one worth learning.

I crave all things intimate, real displays of emotion, hands, the vulnerability and trust of submission, the shape of a neck, a person's unique eyes, how a mind is wired.

I find the erotic side of life heart pounding, sexual energy flows through everything in life. Definitely a quit study I readily absorb.

I am NOT interested in romance, my heart has its love

More to come.

[pinehutch]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Spread the self-love ❤

Thank you for tagging me!

I should be honest: I am not much of a fic writer. This isn't self-effacing; I've been reading fic since the early aughts but only have 10 works on ao3. One of them is a poem. One of them is a few hundred words of something I've never finished.

That said, fic is important to me for a lot of reasons, but one is that in 2016 I started following a tumblr for a Dragon Age fic exchange, and in 2017 I wrote the first fiction I'd written in almost 20 years. I had been struggling to write poetry for about 10 years before that, too, and fic writing was part of my path back to writing at all.

This isn't to say that I think fanfic is valueless unless it results in 'original' writing; every story happens in context, and we all know how the lines between fanwork and original work blur, both in fan spaces and in commercial ones. But my particular, personal fondness for fic is because it gave me a path back to the first best thing of my life, which was language, and what we do with it.

With that said, my personal top five (links in titles):

Fundamental Forces (or, Root Causes)

Literally my first fic. This was when I remembered that writing can be fun. It's Dragon Age fic, femHawke/Varric. It's also written with a focus on Hawke's POV, a thing I think I pulled off quite well and have never attempted again. It's very silly. It features a 40-year-old and a 35-year-old being profoundly bad at emotional honesty. I riff on turnips for a while. It has a happy ending, which should surprise no one.

She breathed in through her nose and her eyes fluttered shut. “Kiss me, you idiot. Before they think I’m horrified.” Their first kiss. Quick and mostly chaste and part of a joke. She thought it was fitting.

Chapter Last

This is also T-rated Hawke/Varric, written for the same exchange, a year later. It's about near-misses, and trying again, and not being able to pick up where you left off, and it's stumbling back onto the path later, unexpectedly, and after having found another way. It is about stories, and why we do them.

It's fic of the games, of course, but in a way it's also fic-of-fic: there's a novella that's both a tie-in novel and a diegetic book in the Dragon Age setting, and it was printed irl the summer before I wrote this fic.

What I'm proud of, with this story, is character voice. Whenever I share any Varric-voice writing, even years later, people always say very generous things. Varric's also a writer, canonically, and I had fun mimicking 'his' style in passages of this, and trying to keep in mind how his writing and his inner narration would align and diverge. (Lots of Dragon Age fans are understandably thirsty about Varric; I think I've always found him relatable, in many ways, and it didn't occur to me to thirst. But I love him.)

I don't love the structure; I chaptered this, and way more than I needed to. I'd love to rewrite it, someday, but I also think it's good for me to sit with the awareness of its imperfections and the knowledge that people have loved it anyway.

Afterimage (there are two colours)

The Magnus Archives fic, E-rated. Basira/Daisy. This was meant to be a single installment in a series - I think I have a 20,000 word 'outline' in my gdocs, still, but I'm unlikely to ever finish it. The point of this story is self-indulgent, purple-prose, dreamy smut. Wanting the thing and having it, but not keeping it.

This was baby's first E-rated fic ever written. I have no explanation for this, either.

Transformative Work

Written for the 2022 OFMD Big Bang with @mia-ugly. Mostly Frenchie/Jim, a bit Jim/Oluwande, a bit Frenchie/Oluwande, a light sprinkling of polycule potential.

Transformative Work is my favourite thing I've posted to ao3 for three reasons.

It's 40k! I never finish longer works, so 40k is a big deal to me.

I think it's actually brilliant. Clever as hell, at minimum. But mostly brilliant.

It's collaborative!

Writing has always been a solitary thing for me; one of the things I love about Mia is how we can get on a wavelength about a story. (This is mostly a them trick: they're an excellent collaborator and instigator, in general.) I wasn't at my best when we were writing this, dealing with undiagnosed health issues and workplace burnout and an accumulation of grief, but it was beautiful and joyful work, in the end.

Also, I think it is almost exactly what we wanted it to be, and that is such a high.

Number 5 is a bit of a cop-out but still:

Remember when I said "we all know how the lines between fanwork and original work blur"? This is a poem I started writing when Succession 4.3, "Connor's Wedding" aired. I was in a worst spot than I had been the previous year, health-wise, grief-wise.

The title of this poem, "My Father's Dead and I Feel Old," comes out of Connor Roy's mouth in the episode. I had to pause the episode and just get pummeled by that perfect, simple line of iambs. I was a wreck, just generally. Yeah, man, my father is dead and I do feel old! That sort of thing. (The aforementioned health issue? Still not identified or addressed when this aired in spring 2023, btw. My brain was not braining well.)

But there were words for it. I was off work on medical leave at the time. I had just made the transition from crying like it was a full-time job to sleeping like it was a full-time job. The sleep wasn't helping. The crying hadn't helped, either. It wasn't something people could help. But words, and what we do with them - that helped.

Anyway, I'm actually quite proud of this poem, both as an original piece of poetry and as fanwork. It's not on ao3 for reasons including 'I haven't gotten around to it' and 'I don't know if this is sufficiently transformative, by the invisible guidelines I've just set for myself.'

Thank you for sending this to me, it was a lovely thing to think about on my Friday eve! <3

[fictionadventurer]

I’ve loved following along with your NaPoWriMo poems! Any advice or tips for someone who’s thinking about trying out writing her own poetry?

I am so glad you've asked this question, because one of my main emotions during National Poetry Writing Month was anger at all the people who made poetry seem like this agonizing endeavor that only the most intelligent and soulful should undertake. As I got going, I found that it was fun. It was easy (or at least a fun challenge). It stretched my brain in new ways, and let me express things in a new creative format. I think everyone should get the chance to experience that, and I want to encourage everyone to try.

So here's my:

Guide to Writing Poetry For Absolute Beginners

Read a poetry anthology: One that collects works from multiple different poets across lots of different time periods. Ideally, one meant to introduce children to poetry, because children are going to want poems that are enjoyable, understandable and fairly straightforward--which is much easier for a beginner to imitate. Reading A Child's Anthology of Poetry was what first made me think poetry was something I not only wanted to do, but I could do. Reading a lot of different poets made me learn which styles I liked and didn't like, and gave me examples to keep in mind when I decided to write my own poetry--for example, I kept Sara Teasdale's poetry and this A.E. Housman poem in mind a lot during the month, because I found I liked short, rhyming poems that talked about nature with fairly straightforward language.

Don't be afraid: Poetry should not be intimidating. Ignore the books that say it's an agonizing endeavor. Poetry is putting words on a page, and then rearranging them to say what you want to say in a cooler way. That's it. Don't make it more complicated than it has to be. You don't need to scrape out the innermost depths of your soul--you can just tell people about something you saw, maybe share a thought about it. It can be simple. It can be fun. It's fine.

Do not try to write good poetry: This is the most important rule. Staple it to your forehead. Write it on the wall. As an absolute beginner, a lot of what you write is going to be bad poetry--and that's great! It means you're creating poetry! Which is much better than not creating poetry! Worrying about whether your poetry is "good" or "bad" is the easiest way to destroy your enjoyment and keep you from writing poetry. I cannot tell you how many times during April I looked at my poetry and thought in dismay, "Wow, this is really bad compared to other poetry," and then remembered, "Good thing I'm not trying to write good poetry!" and happily continued writing. If you just keep writing, whether it's good or bad, you're going to wind up with a lot more poetry--and have a lot more fun doing it--than you would if you'd let yourself worry about quality, and writing more poetry is a great way to get better at writing poetry.

Use prompts: I found that the prompts for National Poetry Writing Month were a great source of inspiration, giving me guidance when the idea of poetry was so new and intimidating that I didn't know where to begin. Not every prompt is going to inspire you, but the ones that do can be a great way to stretch your imagination. Having a community was also great--seeing other people respond to the same prompts made the idea of filling those prompts less intimidating--but I recognize that's not easy to arrange outside of National Poetry Writing Month.

Short is good: Short poems take less time to write. They make you focus on one or two things you really want to say or images you really want to use. They're easy to structure--set-up an image or an idea, resolve with a thought about it, and then you're done. You can write longer poems if you have an idea that requires it, but keeping your poems short is a great way to get a sense of accomplishment very quickly.

Play with rhyme and meter: Because it's fun and I like it. Because it makes you think about the sound of the words you use and encourages you to think about word choice and word arrangement. Because it can make a poem feel more structured and complete. Because the rhyme or meter you choose can help you figure out how to structure your idea. You don't have to use it for every poem, but I find that using it can make it easier to turn an idea into a poem, because it forces you to pare down your ideas to fit the structure.

Use poetic forms: For many of the same reasons I encourage you to try rhyme and meter. A poetic form can help give your ideas structure. It turns poetry into a fun crossword-style game. There are a lot of short, familiar poetry forms to start out with--I began with a limerick and a haiku--but there are tons of possibilities. When I needed inspiration for a poem, I often looked through this list--when I found a form that looked intriguing and doable, I'd try it out. Often, a certain form will suggest certain topics that would work well in that format, so this method can help with brainstorming, too.

Don't be afraid to branch out: It's fun to use rhyme and meter, keep things short, and use established poetry forms, but if you come up with ideas that don't do any of that, go for it! Especially after you've written a few poems--you've learned what you like and don't like, what works and doesn't work for you, so you can use your knowledge to branch out and try something new.

Observe your surroundings: It's a great way to get images and thoughts to inspire new poems, especially once you have a few under your belt and learn what kind of ideas lend themselves well to poetry.

Have a deadline: I found that having a poem-a-day goal helped me to write much more than I would have otherwise. I couldn't tinker with a poem forever--I had to post it by the end of the day and then move on. One day, I'll have to learn how to revise poetry, but that's a goal for when I'm not an Absolute Beginner. For now, finishing poems is the more useful goal.

Remember, all of this is advice from an Absolute Beginner who has been writing poetry for barely over a month. There's a lot I don't know, and I'm just sharing what worked for me. But as an Absolute Beginner, I feel I'm qualified to tell other Absolute Beginners that the endeavor of beginning to write poetry is absolutely worth it.

[magnetic-regent-magneto]

Do you focus on Erik’s Jewish heritage at all with your portrayal?

-- MUN ||:

(Let me try to keep this short. If you want to know more about an aspect, I would love to answer another ask! I will sometimes name only examples)

I Do.

But not every character gets to see as such and I get intervals where it is stronger or weaker represented in my writing. And I hate that I probably only scratch the surface.

I try to portray Magneto's Jewish heritage in a nuanced way, not always overtly-- not screaming it out, I admit. And I try to do good research. Please do not kill me.

I let it drive his actions and thoughts-- making it subtext. Let me try to break it down briefly.

SHORT VERSION

WHEN IT APPEARS:

with family

similar connections

reflection of conflict

children

plots

era dependent

HOW IT APPEARS:

him speaking more Yiddish

references and metaphors of art, quotes, writers, folklore, cultural events, traditions, music

his cooking

memories to his family, how he grew up, differences of Max vs Magneto, Polish and German influences

love languages and the way he loves

appearance

chaotic relationship with god

FULL VERSION BELOW

WHEN IT APPEARS:

Heavy Emphasis with Specific CHARACTERS: Some interactions draw out the Jewish influence more directly, making it less subtext. This happens with:

Obvious Examples for that are his family (Wanda, Pietro, Lorna, Luna, Billy, Tommy,...),

characters with similar believes (Moon Knight),

people who can be similar or oppositional (Dr. Doom, X-Men, Charles),

children like the New Mutants or children on Krakoa.

ERAS AKA. PLOT: Magneto's connection to his heritage fluctuates. Sometimes, it's at the forefront (90s, Krakoa/Arrako), with reflection on his history and family. Other times (2014), it's more detached or even betraying, creating an internal conflict. The eras also tend to turn to other aspects of his heritage. (Arrako - family, Krakoa - mythos, 2014 - historical trauma, parallels to dark times)

HOW IT EXPRESSES:

YIDDISH LANGUAGE: The first noticable thing is that I try to use Yiddish. Though rare, as I fear mistakes, he uses Yiddish names for his children, and occasional phrases.

JEWISH CULTURE: Instead of the predominantly Christian metaphors in the comics (Pieta), I reference Jewish writers, folklore, myth, music, quotes, and art. Golem, Leviathan, and creation myths are often referenced, alongside Kabbalistic ideas.

My FOLKLORE tends to always circle back to the Golem or Leviathan, or myths from creation and Kabbalistic doctrine. Some folklore aspects I love but lack to mention enough is gilgul (reincarnation until being worthy of god), Dybbuk (possessing evil).

Magnus also cooks Jewish food in my RPs. A lot. Food is a comfort language for him.

TRADITIONS AND RITUALS: Life cycle events or traditions and actions is something I try to add more and more. Just to name a few, this includes writing of Bar/Bat Mitzvah (Birthday celebrations) for his children, Sabbath, when the roleplay storyline is darker (referencing Genosha or similar events), I think back to traditions of shiva. Krakoa is related to Pentecost in my mind.

LOVE LANGUAGE: His romance is based on Yiddish romance writing and poetry and how it is viewed. Like, everyday acts of love mattering far more. His love is actions, constant, not bursts. (Also, I remember old Jewish love movies!) example source as this could be its own endless post.

FAMILY- MAX VS MAGNETO: I give his family a more significant role. A ground he can be based on-- because that is a core all of Magneto will always return to. There is more reflection to what Max was given-- taught how to make jewelry, stories he was told, how he grew up before Auschwitz and during it (fighting for survival, being a thief, having especially good eye-sight to spot gold in the pits,...).

Max, Erik, Magnus, Magneto-- Using different names reflects different aspects of him. Max connects him to his core, his family, and his youth. I use it more often. It's a return to his pre-Auschwitz self, similar to Al Ewing's return to the name in X-Men: Red.

Furthermore, he is more of a 'typical' Jewish dad to his kids, with predominantly German and Polish influence.

APPEARANCE: Though not noticable in my writing, I suppose, in my mind, subtle details like his nose, skin, and hands influenced by jewelry-making with his parents, or his naturally curly hair, hint at his Jewish background. I also like the idea of his helmet being kind of his Kippa (I do not remember where I read that once)

GOD: Magneto's relationship with God requires separate discussion. However, I do show him reflecting on his faith at times, calling upon God, even. And he tries to atone in the way his heritage has taught him to.

Add-on edit: Jewish heritage aesthetic influences.

[onthewaytosomewhere]

Find the Words

Alright so yeah I've been tagged and well I'm a sucker for tumblr tag games so here it is lol

tagged by: @typicalopposite

rules: find your given words in your WIPs and post a snippet containing the words, then tag others with their own sets of words :)

my words: laugh, tomorrow, wonder

I only two of these words in my WIPs that have more than just a few bits written - I was certain they would have all been there but guess not (at least not in fic)

I had them both 3 times in my College AU so I'm gonna cheat and give them all so I don't hafta choose lol (they're not too angst-y lol)

laugh

Alex’s laugh in response makes Henry’s ever-present butterflies flutter, and he really must get them in some semblance soon before he makes an utter buffoon of himself. Well, more than he already has in the years he’s had this sadly unrequited crush on his kind-of-friend-by-association who is so straight Henry has not even an infinitesimal chance.

Henry takes hold of Alex’s hands and holds them between the two of them. He smiles reassuringly across the space between them and takes a deep breath. “Well, I guess we both had a friend plan – too bad neither of us was smart enough to communicate it.” The laugh that escapes Alex surprises them both. “I think maybe we’re already there though, if you can forgive me sequestering myself away, in my usual avoidance technique. I will make every effort to not do that the next time I get too in my head. It’s always been the way I dealt when things got hard or more than I knew how to deal with. I will admit I’ve had feelings for you for the last two years or so – I always told myself it was just a crush I’d get over but this year I realized that wasn’t the case anymore – "

-this one is from Alex's tales from the college AU (which is a separate doc - so they didn't all come from the same one lol)

The laugh escapes Alex before he can catch it, and he smiles across the table, realizing that he didn’t mess this all up after all. He reaches across the table and grabs Henry’s hand in his, “Just remember who said it first, sweetheart.”

wonder

(apparently I had plenty of variations of this word but these were the only 3 just 'wonder')

“Good morning, Alex. I’m certain I’ve repeatedly asked you to stop with the ‘your majesty’ thing, and if you need to sit closer to see, you really should. Just because I felt like a change doesn't mean you must suffer.” Henry swore he had heard a muttered, “I know nothing but suffering,” but there was no indication that Alex had spoken when he glanced his way. That, of course, was his downfall, the one thing Henry knew he needed to avoid had already happened, and this time, it was Alex’s damn eyelashes that were driving him to distraction. Luckily, the professor came in to start class, forcing him to focus on something other than Alex and the things, the dirty, dirty things he wanted to do to him. Somehow, he made it through class without embarrassing himself, even when Alex got into a verbal sparring match with one of their classmates about how poetry could be seen in many political officeholders' speeches. Watching Alex debate something linked to a topic he cared so wholeheartedly about generally made Henry weak in the knees. The passion Alex displayed often made him wonder what it would be like to have even a fraction of that passion on him, in a way that was less arguing a point and more driving him to the brink over and over again until they both expired from the exhaustion that only came from a mind-blowing orgasm.

Pez turns towards him, so Henry is forced to look at him as he speaks, “I mean, how is it that the two of you spent over a month and a half practically living in each other’s pockets, and you still have no idea how that boy feels about you. Sometimes I wonder how you can be so completely daft when it comes to matters of the heart.”

“It felt like you hated me last year the way you took every moment to be a right prat. When we returned this year, it seemed like whatever I had done to make you hate me didn’t matter anymore. Then, when you came that first night to the library, and we continued to meet up here, I started to wonder if we could actually be friends. I had this plan to become your friend and –“

so now my turn to tag -

@adreamareads your 3 words are: bite, park, and show.

[kneelingshadowsalome]

GIRLIE I LOVE YOUR WORK ESPECIALLY THE ONES ON AO3!!! IM TRYNAA BE LIKE YOU BESTIE, PLEASE CAN I HAVE SOME WRITING TIPS/111!!!!???

(btw i really love man-sized, just finished it a couple days ago and AAAAAAAAA ITS SO GOOD I SWEAR!!!! LIKE MARRY ME PLEASE?!!?!)

Oh my goodness. You must be what they call a pookie 😘❤️ (I will marry you or adopt you, there's no middle ground.)

Thank you so much, you're making me blush!

I'm probably not the best person to give advice because I don't really know what's going on with my writing… It's a godawful mess. But I'll try!

So, writing tips under the cut ->

1. This might be boring and said a 100 times before, but... Show, don't tell! Obviously, I break this rule all the time when I go inside my character's head and explain how they feel and not just what they see, smell, hear, and touch. But if you're writing angst or fluff like I am, I'd say you must go inside the skin to dig into the character. (Also, f* the rules 😇)

2. If you don't know where to start, start with the dialogue. Even if it's just 4-10 sentences per scene. Then you can fill the gaps with some action, emotion/sensation and worldbuilding. But dialogue is actually the heart of your story and it creates some of the best tension; treat it with respect! Also: less is more with dialogue. Not always... but usually is.

3. Write from your own experience. We all have something to draw from, even if it's something as simple as how it feels to skinny dip in a cold lake. Or a hot bathtub. How does it feel to wake up from a nightmare or kiss someone you love? Like, truly feel? Don't tone it down!

4. If you want to sound more poetic, use metaphors and symbols and mythology. If you want to sound original, use history and culture and simply anything you have up your sleeve. All the "useless" knowledge: bring it on baby! When used sparingly, these can add to the depth of your storytelling.

5. Sculpt the paragraphs, then focus on the sentences, then hone single words. Whip out a goddamn dictionary. Search synonyms online (Thesaurus etc). Work with the words until they sound right for the story you wish to tell. Choose words that are most "alive" in your story's context, words that inspire feeling and stir emotion.

6. Read your story out loud or at least inside your head. That way you'll notice the errors and can fix the flow and rhythm of the story. Everyone loves a well-paced story! Sometimes just moving a sentence to a different paragraph or deleting it entirely can resolve an issue.

7. If you write a long fic, establish a core problem in the first chapter and remember to solve it before the story ends. For example in Man-sized, I presented an issue of trust. It was heavily inspired by my own lack of trust in men and the fear of getting played. Again, don't be afraid to draw from your own experience!

8. Music can help set the mood and bring out your creative flow. I have numerous playlists for writing or create a new one for the particular story in mind. If I want to write some heavyweight yearning, I'll blast some heavyweight yearning songs while I write. I don't know if this works for everybody; some people might need silence and space for creating.

9. The most important tip: WRITE FOR YOURSELF. Write the difficult, the overwhelming, the taboo. Write the most self-indulgent, shmexy scene ever! Or the fluffiest meet-cute that puts a smile on your face.

And if you're one of those writers who are not happy with their writing... write some more. Play with it, just don't give a shit. Let the inner demons give you courage and inspiration. Write about how shitty it feels to feel inadequate. You might find you just wrote some good poetry on suffering.

It's always better to write from love and joy instead of fear and shame – besides, life is too damn short to feel ashamed! Live a little and enjoy what you do, let writing be your escape. It's supposed to be a shelter where you can flee to when life is dull and hard and unfair. If other people's writing inspires you to write, then read. If other people's writing puts you down, save yourself some heartache and don't engage: just mind your own business and do your own thing.

Hope you found some of these tips helpful 💕 Much love 🩷💋 and happy, reckless writing!

[awkwardgtace]

🛒, 👀 and 💖?

Ask Game

🛒 What are some common things you incorporate in your fics? Themes, feels, scenes, imagery, etc.

I'd say an unreliable narrator is a common theme. Usually I write from a character's perspective so it's their thoughts regardless of what others in the story may think. I think a common theme is also acceptance despite the character's own beliefs. A lot of my characters have negative self views and those around them accept them no matter what. I think I focus on eyes a lot too. Like reading emotions in them, or misleading others with something about them. It feels like in gt eyes are gonna be the most obvious way to read a person so I make a lot of use of it! Idk about scenes and imagery too much though. I jump between eras and set ups so much it's hard to track :D

👀 Tell me about an up and coming wip please!

ooooh ok so I have like so many wips lol. I'll go with Mafia AU for it this time! I'm currently working on the story for why Alessia has a fear of being near humans when Ryder joins the family. It starts with her being excited and helpful to humans only for something to go wrong and doubt herself. It's not a ton of interactions, but shows a bit of how she's both like her family and very different from them. Also a bit of what she sees her parents as in that messed up world.

💖 What made you start writing?

Ok I'm gonna go with start writing GT but also a little of writing in general. so a bit of a long answer.

I kind of always wrote a lot. In high school (like over ten years ago lol) I would write during classes to help stay awake. I'd written poetry and stuff a lot before that. Books were super important to me so it was a natural extension.

In college I wrote a lot more since longer classes and less sleep lol. I was trying different things, less just self insert into my favorite anime and video games. I never posted and a lot of it did happen to involve fairies which were always a minor obsession of mine.

After college my writing mostly stopped cause the stress of job hunting and less free time all that shit. Plus the jobs i got were pretty shit starting out. (Fuck FDM idc if this secretly doxes me. No one should fall for their shit.)

Then in 2021 I was in a good job and I got back into tumblr and gt. I was reading stories and a lot just weren't quite what I wanted. So I decided to start writing my own stuff. I'd been sending asks on anon and interacting more so I posted my first story and tagged someone who's writing was closer to what I wanted.

It was like I opened a door I didn't realize I closed. It helped me get through a lot again, even though I'd started a better job and was handling things better than I had in 2020. It was also a way to finally kind of shut down my head. My mind runs a mile a minute so putting the ideas I'd had bouncing around into words helped me slow down. I kept going after the first few stories because I finally got to remember how much fun I had creating my worlds and characters. Worldbuilding remains something I get so much enjoyment out of!

So tldr, I started writing because it helped me think and stay awake in classes. I kept going cause classes got worse. I took a break and started up again finally getting to put my ideas out. It helped slow my head down and is just a lot of fun.

I hope this last answer makes sense It's a bit all over imo, but that's how my brain tends to be too lol

[xslytherclawx-writes]

for the fandom asks: B-R-I-D-G-E-T-O-W-N

B - A pairing you initially didn’t consider but someone changed your mind

I'm actually not sure! I mean I guess for Harry Potter, it'd be anything but Harry/Hermione lol bc I had TUNNEL VISION on that ship when i was like 11. Maybe Drarry? I guess? I think that's the only one I've gone from "dear god no" to "omg yes they ARE totally obsessed with each other in a gay way"

R - A pairing you ship that you don’t think anyone else ships

-gestures to my 14 neville longbottom/anthony goldstein fics- I wouldn't say no one else, but I would say it's probably my rarest pair. unless we consider neville berbrooke/gregory bridgerton (from, uh, bridgerton), in which case I may actually be the only person to write it.

I - Has tumblr caused you to stop liking any fandoms, if so, which and why

Fullmetal Alchemist, because the shippers are batshit fucking insane and take really complex and interesting dynamics and water them down to the most asinine mundane bullshit and then claim it's progressive, and on the other side you have... people ignoring a really complex and interesting dynamic to focus on a ship that imo makes no actual sense. 2013 was A Time. If I were on twitter, the answer would be Bridgerton bc the homophobia from the book fans is insaaaaaaaane but I avoid mainstream Bridgerton fandom like the plague and find my own little niches where homophobes aren't welcome.

D - A pairing you wish you liked but just can’t (again: be nice)

I'm pretty open to most ships? There are some I'm just not invested in, but eh.

G - Do you remember your first OTP, if so who was in it

Like, first-first? Ash and Misty from Pokémon. First fandomy? Harry/Hermione. And clearly I have not moved on from friends to lovers, looking at the body of my work on ao3

E - Have you added anything cracky/hilarious to your fandom, if so, what

I have a secret ("secret") crackfic account that you're welcome to try to find.

T - Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending, about anything at all (gender identity, sexual or romantic orientation, extended family, sexual preferences like top/bottom/switch, relationship with poetry, seriously anything)

Regulus Black and Edmund Pevensie are gay. So is Charlie Weasley. This is my hill to die on.

O - Choose a song at random, which ship or character does it remind you of

listen, I just put my spotify on shuffle and it gave me "JENNIFER CHECK" by Mia Morgan and. Mirnatius Spinning Silver.

W - 5 favorite ships and 5 kinks you like best for said ships

I'm assuming we mean actual kinks here? 1. maybe this is cheating but Regulus/Max. I don't care if he's an OC, this is what my heart says. I feel like they're pretty vanilla, though. 2. Gareth/Hyacinth from Bridgerton and pegging 100000% 3. Newt/Tina (autism4autism pure romance), and again: pegging. 4. Regulus/Evan and probably something a little fucked up like bloodplay 5. Mirnatius/Irina (Spinning Silver), and... idk actually. I feel like he'd get off on being tied up.

N - Name three things you wish you saw more or in your main fandom (or a fandom of choice)

"main" fandom is such a loaded term lol - I wish Bridgerton had more gay fic though, and was just overall less hostile to m/m and f/f that isn't gross fetishy (poorly understood & executed) kink shit that's poorly written besides (looking @ u, ash). like. soooo much actually good f/f and m/m fic gets SLEPT on but something that's out of a gross fetishy lesbian porno gets praise bc a well-known and shitty author wrote it? ugh.

[mead0ws06]

it says go ahead and put anything. So I’m putting anything.

I believe that as we grow older we hide within our flaws instead of chipping at them. We lose the desperation to become a good person and instead focus on simply being and going through the check boxes. I believe that we should never be understood absolutely because then we’d never surprise others, and isn’t that always a nice feeling. When you’re left alone you don’t owe anything to anyone and instead are left with the influence they have had on your way of thinking yet they are not physically there. I went to a bookstore today and saw the poetry book my English teacher let me borrow. I almost bought me a copy and instead I bought a manga instead, Bungo Stray Dogs Beast vol 3. Akutagawa’s sister believed him a selfish man yet all he wanted was to be better, yet his mind is a haunted place and didn’t allow him to see past his own anguish and rage. Atsushi is run by fear, something so strong it runs his entire life. I think rain is a way to remember how small we actually are, and thunder is to help us remember we have a heartbeat and it can skip when faced with Mother Nature. I make Playlists that I promise are going to be good quality and then stuff it with songs I found myself listening to, and I put them in not because it was accurate but because I wanted to listen to it in a new light. I own more books now than I ever have in my entire life. I wax poetry but only in the dead of night when I feel like I’m breathing recycled blood and I spit it out onto my notes app, which blinds me when no one else has eyes on me. I fall in love with characters and see them as myself to gain understanding of who I am and to feel less lonely in the world. If someone wrote that character, they must understand that character, therefore if I ever were to met the author maybe I could see if they would understand me, even if I never spoke a word to them the knowledge of the Maybe is good enough. I crave to talk endlessly to my friends yet feel as if I’ll be eaten alive by my own flesh and walls if I so much as utter a word about passion and love. I’m proud of being 5’9 even if I’m just barely making it to that height. I have a pixie cut and I love my wild curls. Cats just had a liter of kittens in my barn, the mother being pixie and the kittens being mulberry, magnolia, and ceder. I feel different to others how I see the world, how I understand and feel about challenges because I’ve been facing them since before I understood what family was. I was so desperate for love when I was in middle school that I screamed my affections at anyone who will listen, now I see the notifications and all I can feel is my own breathing and not others hearts. I’m 17 and struggling with the idea that I’ll still be unsure of who I am and what to do when I’m an adult. That I’ll still be wearing headphones to block out others on a long car ride, that I’ll still lack social grace and run up to my room whenever I get home without placating others like a good adult is expected to do. I consume stories with the infatuation of someone finding their first love over and over. I can analyze stories for hours yet can’t find it in myself to brush my teeth. I used to think my middle name was gorgeous now all I see is it’s common, and I laugh. I’m a straight A student and can’t will myself to study for my permit test.

[wiiwheel]

A fair bit ago you talked about a book called The Luminaries and ever since i was curious what others books stick out in your mind? not necessarily as recommendations, but just stories that interest you in a noteworthy way

I'll list some of my favourites/standouts from my career of reading. By no means comprehensive.

Zong! By M. NourbeSe Phillip - Far and away the best example of found poetry/blackout poetry, Phillip uses the words of the official documents recording the massacre that occurred on the slave ship 'Zong' to create what she calls a "anti-narrative lament" . It's a really difficult read, but such a powerful way to report a tragedy - how do you tell the story of people who didn't get to tell their own story? It tells the story that cannot be told, but must be told, somehow. Excellently done, from premise to delivery.

Ms Ice Sandwich, Mieko Kawakami. A very charming and entertaining short novella about growing up. There are plenty of these around but something about this one captured my attention - I think I like how it captures the feeling of when you're a child, the "big" events happening in your life might not be the focus - something an adult might call trivial means the world to you. Great fun.

Labyrinths, Jorge Luis Borges. One of my favourite short story collections. Labyrinths is fascinating and "sci-fi" at its best: each of the stories explore a different manifestation of infinity. What if there was a library that contained every possible book with every possible combination of letters? What if there was someone who could remember everything? What if there was a story with an infinite possible number of endings? And yet despite being mathematical it still infuses each story with humanity.

Close Range, Annie Proulx. Proulx understands how to cut to the bone with human emotion better than many other authors. Her collection of wild west stories explore fear, regret, love, terror, all with such clarity and keen observation that the images stick with you for a long time after reading. Just excellent.

Cathedral, Raymond Carver. I mean, Carver is just another expert on human shirt stories. He manages to capture the complexity of people in such a short time frame.

My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Ottessa Moshfegh. For all the talk and controversy about the most boring fanfiction-brain "should characters be mean" discourse surrounding this book, I think Moshfegh has actually delivered one of the most stunning novels I've ever read, on how trauma and grief can turn you into the ugliest possible version of yourself; how it's simultaneously not your fault, but also your responsibility to do better, be better.

Poems, Elizabeth Bishop. She just gets it. She knows what life is. Pain and history and love and hatred and all of that good stuff. But her poems are all so intricately and carefully constructed, even without her sharp observations of the world, they're beautiful to look at on the page and to feel in your mouth reading them out loud. "At the Fishhouses" gives me chills every time I read it.

Homie, Danez Smith. One of the most exciting new poets. It is clear that they know something about how to communicate the love and frustration they feel for other humans. Their poems are sometimes a bit silly and funny but that's their strength: they feel like poems FOR the people, and Smith's talent in capturing the kernel of truth behind a lot of the placid declarations of unity you see online is something worth getting excited about. A unifying cry for marginalised groups of all kinds - but perhaps more specifically, black and brown people, with whom Smith paints such an intimate and warm love for.

Pamper Me to Hell & Back, Hera Lindsay Bird. NO ONE and I mean NO ONE gets across the disaffected tumblr girl vibe better or more distinctively delivered than Bird. She is so arresting and fucking gets Internet culture and how to deliver it in poems in a totally different way to all the boring rupi kaurs of the world. Bird delivers drama and powerful, memorable imagery effortlessly.

The Opposite of Fate, Amy Tan. Tan's fiction always gets a lot of well deserved praise. I think this autobiography is even more excellent. Tan recalls anecdotes in such detail and threads them together to tell her life story, and the story of her parents. She also analyses the Canon and picks apart at its inherent racism while telling this personal story. You'll end up feeling like Tan is a close friend after reading this.

Good Morning Midnight, Jean Rhys. The fact they have us read "Catcher in the Rye" at school when Rhys had already perfected the 'depressed person wanders round a city' story years before is beyond me. Oddly hopeful despite that description.

Footnotes in Gaza, Joe Sacco. Some of the most powerful journalism I've read. The graphic format keeps things engaging and I think is an overall benefit to the reporting happening in this book because it does so well in humanising the vibrancy of the people behind the tragedy that is so often looked over and over-saturated with images in the news of destruction. I think this is an absolute must-read for anyone uninformed about the human rights violations that have been happening in Palestine.

Fun Home, Alison Bechdel. Bechdel had a very interesting relationship with her father, and exploring this while also writing about discovering her own identity is just sooooo much fun. I think a lot of queer people will relate to some of the themes in the book.

Austerlitz, W. G. Sebald. Just absolutely amazing. The construction of this book alone makes it stand out - one long paragraph spread out over an entire novel. But it also explores a lost history, not only of one man, but almost of an entire group of people. A little bit fiction, a little memoir, a little travelogue, philosophy, and an approach to the tragedy of the Holocaust. About the resistance we put up to memory and yet the compulsion to know.

The Thing Around Your Neck, Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche. A collection of short stories - truly the best is the eponymous story, which utilises the second person in a better way than I've seen any other author manage to use it. Adiche has a way of putting things clearly and inviting you to see the world from a different perspective.

Lanny, Max Porter. I always recommend this to people who have fallen out of love with reading. It's fantastical, playful, and not afraid to be weird, but also tells a real story. Plus, it's fairly short. It's about a boy who goes missing and the spirit of a forest who finds him.

[morifinwes]

wangxian fic rec list!

aka in which i read fics, write some recs down for aamna and share them!! they're all wangxian fics and uhh @yibobibo i hope you'll like them!!

modern

wolf devours playboy bunny by @greenteafiend (5K, werewolf!lwj, getting together, idk if anyone needs to know that but there's nudity just not uhh explicit)

Lan Zhan has wanted Wei Ying as long as he has known him, and the worst part is that he thinks Wei Ying could want him back.

Too bad he could never in good conscience let himself go there—Wei Ying has a debilitating fear of all things canine, and once a month, Lan Zhan is the exact, precise thing that Wei Ying’s nightmares are made of.

Aka, Lan Zhan is a werewolf.

between the lines by @jywait (19K gaming au!!!, i'm always down for a good gaming au, lwj is the best aksks he's such a good boy)

☆yilingpatriarch☆: pls...give me some face, help me fight these monsters...I'm gonna die

Bluetooth: no.

"You have died." The screen said, and Wei Wuxian threw his hands up in frustration.

resonant frequencies by chinxe (15K, college au, fake dating au, tw mention of cheating but it's brief and no one was cheated on i promise)

In which Wei Wuxian decides that the best way to deal with being in love with Lan Wangji is to pretend to date him for three weeks.

It goes about as well as can be expected.

drift compatible by windoworwhatever (5K, poetry, fluff, drunkji, getting together, college au)

"It was just a fact of life. The sky was blue, university stipends for graduate students working in TA positions barely covered rent, bisexuals cuffed their jeans, Lan Wangji had a massive crush on Wei Wuxian, and spent his time pining and writing research papers about gay subtexts in ancient poetry."

OR

Lan Wangji is in love with Wei Wuxian, and everybody knows, except Wei Wuxian.

the bunny next door by detailsinthefabric (43K, this is mostly fluff and very light angst, and they were neighbors!!!, rabbits!!, aka wangxian's bunny children, this is... so cute i just have to rec it)

Lan Wangji did not know what he was doing. He did not know what he was going to say. He was frozen in place, puzzling over the situation. Maybe he had made the man uncomfortable, which is why he wanted to leave? But his tone had still been so friendly—maybe…

“Would…” he paused, swallowed, forced the last words to come out of his suddenly parched mouth, “would you let me pet him?”

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

Lan Wangji, who doesn't know how to socialize and whose icy demeanor scares everyone away, lets down all his defenses when he meets the bunny next door...oh, and also its owner, Wei Wuxian.

leading tone by silencemostofall (32K, everyone is a music student? or something like that akskk, curse fic, tw panic attacks, tw child abuse, small scene of drunkji, wwx has low self esteem, bro this was so painful to read)

The first time you touch someone you're fated to love, you leave a mark on their skin. If they will love you in return, they'll mark you where you touched them. The deeper the color, the deeper the connection.

Wei Ying has no marks at all.

public places, private thoughts by leahelisabeth (for the love of camelot) ( 8K, cherry magic au, getting together with like... immediate upgrade to fiance status, the author is wrong i crave good wangxian cherry magic aus even tho i haven't even watched cherry magic)

Wei Wuxian had heard the story of course. It had made its rounds through his high school and followed him into his college days. He didn’t think there was any possibility it was true. Virginity was a social construct, invented by creepy old men to exercise dominance over women. The idea that a simple lack of sexual activity before the age of thirty could give one magical powers was absolutely ludicrous.

Wei Wuxian believed this until the morning of his thirtieth birthday.

AKA the Wangxian Cherry Magic AU that absolutely nobody asked for.

i'd be all right (if i could see you) by @thirtysixsavefiles (16K, this was nice, i read this at 6am but it was cute, (while writing this post i must admit i don't remember anything but 6am-me said it's good))

The younger Lan brother is something of an enigma on campus; while Lan Xichen can sometimes be seen in the company of other graduate students or conducting a seminar, Lan Wangji appears to spend all his time in class or in the library. He doesn’t drink. He doesn’t smoke. He doesn’t attend social events. He doesn’t do anything for fun, as far as Wei Wuxian can tell, and it’s driving Wei Wuxian just a little bit up the wall.

Or, Wei Wuxian convinces Lan Wangji to come to a house party, and then they're assigned to the same group project. Wei Wuxian tries his best, but he is not in possession of all the facts.

axe on leg by itszero (4K, i still don't get why wwx did that but it was nice seeing him jealous for once, jealous!wwx, lwj i love you....)

Wei Wuxian pressed his face into his pillow and screamed. He paused to take a few deep breaths, partially hindered by the pillow, and listened to the sounds of Nie Huaisang slurping his iced coffee, from his seat on Wei Wuxian's desk chair.

Having caught his breath, he resumed his screaming and did not stop at the sound of his dorm room door opening.

"What's wrong with him?" He heard his brother, Jiang Cheng, ask.

The slurping stopped. "He's an idiot."

"He's always been an idiot. Why is he bothered about it now?"

"He forced Lan Wangji to go on a date," Nie Huaisang replied, shaking the ice cubes in his drink.

"Okay and…?"

"With someone else." The slurping resumed.

Wei Wuxian, in all his glorious dumbassery, convinces his boyfriend to go on a date with someone else.

these two most powerful by @stiltonbasket (4K, amnesia, wangxian with children!!!, aksksk this was adorable, dadji!!)

When Lan Wangji went to bed last night, he was alone in a tiny guest room with nothing but the howling of the wind in the mountains and his own lonely thoughts for company.

 

But when he opened his eyes in the morning, Wei Ying was asleep beside him.

 

(In which Lan Wangji loses twenty years' worth of memories after a night-hunt gone wrong, and his life as a doting father and husband continues without a hitch somehow.)

good things come to those who wait [but i ain't in a patient phase] by @cerlunas (4K, getting together, pining lwj)

Lan Wangji can't take it anymore.

 

“I love you”, he says, and god, it feels terrifying. “I’ve been in love with you for a long time.”

“Lan Zhan…” Wei Wuxian starts, but Lan Wangji doesn’t want to hear it.

He grabs his cup and drinks everything. He doesn’t know what face Wei Wuxian is making at him right now, and it’s okay. 

“Lan Zhan!” Wei Wuxian repeats louder, but it’s too late. He is already falling asleep.

Or, even after 13 years, Lan Wangji is still in love with his best friend. Maybe it's time to open up.

wei ying, will you marry m- oh my god he swallowed the ring! by selene210 (2K, marriage proposals, crack, marriage proposals but.. they go wrong)

“A ring?”

And indeed it was. The ring Lan Wangji was going to propose to Wei Ying with. That the man had now choked on.

“You swallowed it.”

“It was in my soufflé! Why did you put a ring in my soufflé Lan Zhan- oh. oh”

of glittery valentine's cards by @soft-fics (3K, valentine's day, this was adorable aksk, a-yuan best boy!!)

Lan Zhan didn't want to know what his best friend had planned for Valentine's Day; his heart would simply not be able to handle it. When his son tells him that he made Wei Ying a Valentine's Day card, though, Lan Zhan decided to bring it over anyway.

of coffee and white tea by @soft-fics (9K, fluff, lwj doesn't like coffee, wwx buys him coffee, then they switch drinks, again and again and again, the staff ships it lmao, tbh jc shouldn't have done that like wtf)

For the fourth time this week a stranger orders him a cup of coffee. Lan Wangji wonders how exactly to tell this man to stop ordering him coffee he doesn't even like. Turns out, buying the other white tea and switching drinks is not the best way to go about it

canon setting

on the importance of restraint (or lack thereof) by nixthothou (4K, in which sizhui snaps, i love that boy, no like seriously he's the best boy)

Lan Sizhui does not usually find himself in the company of Sect Leader Jiang.

Suffice to say, Lan Sizhui's feelings toward him are conflicted.

lan wangji is wei wuxian's baby by lilycs (3K, i was craving fluff while reading this, lwj my beloved, drunk!lwj)

Lan Wangji gets drunk from barely a cup of alcohol, becoming a whiny baby and asking his husband for cuddles.

one of our own by glitteringmoonlight (8K, wei wuxian & lan sect, 5+1 things, in which they learn to love him, they're all part of the wwx protection squad lead by lwj, wangxian isn't the focus but !!! THIS)

Times change, but some people remain the same.

The Lans are nothing, if not aware of this.

For one of their own, they will stand against the world.

Or, 5 times the Lans defended Wei Wuxian, and the 1 time he was there to see it happen.

so why not crack your skull when the mind swells by @greenteafiend (13K, love curse, post cql canon, curses, getting together, fluff, so much fluff, lwj tries to talk about his emotions!, lwj pov)

Lan Wangji detects the curse trying to curl through his heart meridians like smoke. A love curse, then. It must have been cast remotely somehow to have found him in his bed in Cloud Recesses. No matter. Lan Wangji crushes it easily, enveloping it in his spiritual energy, and then squeezing. Curse averted, Lan Wangji closes his eyes and goes back to sleep. He thinks no more of it.

Two days later, Wei Wuxian arrives in Cloud Recesses.

Or, Wei Wuxian is cursed to feel terrible pain when he and Lan Wangji aren’t touching.

i started from the bottom / now i'm rich by x_los (57K, time travel, fix it, jealous lwj, crack treated serious, god this is so good tho, wwx/wrh & wwx/jgs but like as a joke and it doesn't really happen, but it has its purpose!!)

“First, you get the money. Then you get the power, respect - hos come last.”

 

Wen Qing traps Wei Wuxian in the Demon Slaughtering Cave, but Wei Wuxian isn’t interested in being the beneficiary of the Wen Remnants’ noble sacrifice. His efforts to free himself accidentally send him back to the beginning of the Sunshot Campaign. Coreless but armed with demonic cultivation, knowledge of the future and his wits, Wei Wuxian takes advantage of this opportunity to come out on top of both the war and its aftermath—before either has a chance to happen—by marrying and swiftly burying the cultivation world’s worst men.

Lan Wangji is confused, hurt, and uncomfortably aroused by Wei Wuxian’s improbably elaborate series of Sect-themed bridal negligees.

lead me on through by mrsronweasley (55K, they're in love your honor, arranged marriage but they don't know to whom, basically wwx & lwj want to practice kissing which then goes beyond kissing but not the whole way y'know, lxc the best wingman tho)

"Who do you think your betrothed is?" Wei Wuxian asks, sprawling out in front of Lan Zhan and enjoying the prim thinning of his lips at the question. He shouldn't be sprawling—they're in the library, for one, and Lan Zhan is studying, for another—but he can't help himself. Wei Wuxian is a sprawler.

"I do not believe this to be of importance," Lan Zhan responds, without turning his gaze away from his book.

"What!" Wei Wuxian sits up. "How can you say that? Of course it's important! This is the person you'll be with for the rest of your life, Lan Zhan."

[theladyofdeath]

Tempting the Fates {Chapter 4}

Summary: It’s the final semester of Aelin Galathynius’ collegiate career and she is so beyond ready to be done. Her schedule is packed full of nursing classes and labs designed to test her knowledge and hone her skills for the real world and her “big girl” job. However, she needs one last elective to graduate, so she decides to study a subject she’s always been fascinated by: Mythology. Who would have thought that a class about gods and goddesses living complicated lives would end up complicating her own in such an unexpected way?

Word Count: 2550

Chapters will be posted every Wednesday.

Tempting the Fates Masterlist

Shelby’s Masterlist

Tara’s Masterlist

Apollo

– God of light, prophecy, inspiration, poetry, the sun, music and arts, medicine and healing

Aelin tried to convince herself that she got up and got ready two hours early for class because of her busy schedule. She kept telling herself it was for the meeting she had with her advisor, about a possible internship at the end of the semester.

She knew that both reasons, while extremely important, were full of shit. She knew she’d showered, blow dried and curled her hair for Rowan. It wasn’t that she was trying to impress him. She’d already done that and the chance she had to be with him had come and gone.

No, now it was about proving to him that even though this class may be a gen ed, she was taking it seriously.

Dropping the class had crossed her mind. She really didn’t need to take it, she could still find a different one to pick up. But she didn’t want to think about the sort of impression it would leave about her.

If there was anything to know about Aelin Galathynius, it was that she was not a quitter, nor did she run from her problems.

Or heartaches.

With one last look in the mirror, and a whistle from Lysandra, Aelin was out the door and hurrying across campus. She grabbed a coffee on the way, but avoided her usual place, knowing full well that Rowan enjoyed the same famous cafe that she did.

He wasn’t there yet when she got to the hall, but she took the same seat she had the class before.

She wondered if Rowan would be looking for her this time.

She quickly shook the thought away.

With her hot coffee on the corner of her fold up desk, she was pulling out her notebook and a pen, waiting anxiously for class to begin.

For him to walk through the door.

Apparently he liked to be right on the dot, though, because students continued to wander in, but he did not.

She was tapping her pen against her notebook, doing her best not to stare at the clock. She was just anxious for her day to start. It wasn’t that she wanted to see Rowan.

Professor Whitethorn, she amended in her head. She had to quit thinking of him as Rowan. She couldn’t think of him like that anymore, his body pressing into hers, lips on her neck, as he—

Shaking her head, Aelin sighed and suddenly realized that the rest of the class had hushed. She was so focused on reprimanding herself for her highly inappropriate thoughts that she hadn’t noticed him come through the door and begin setting up for class. When she dared to glance towards the front, she found his eyes on her. He quickly looked away, going back to his laptop and setting up the PowerPoint on screen.

Maybe he hadn’t been looking at her.

Maybe it had all been in her mind.

But she didn’t think it had been.

He had been watching her.

“Happy Thursday, class,” he began, as the title page of his presentation flashed onto the board. “Glad to see you all showed up again. Must mean my first class didn’t suck.” Quiet laughter thrummed through the room. Aelin couldn’t muster a laugh, though. “On Tuesday, we covered the basics. So, today… Sorry, we’re doing that again.”

More laughter, especially from the pretty, flirty girls up front.

Aelin couldn’t help but roll her eyes.

Which, when she settled her eyes back on Rowan, he definitely saw.

Come on, get your shit together, she chastised herself. With her back straightened, she gave him her full attention.

She took dutiful notes, but his slides didn’t hold much in the way of information. They were mostly headers, with a few bullet points. Most of the important information, information she knew would be critical for homework or exams, came straight from Rowan’s mouth.

It was clear that he loved mythology, that it wasn’t just a class his aunt had tossed his way and told him to figure it out. He was a trove of knowledge and she noticed he had a habit of going on slight tangents when he got going on a topic he was clearly interested in.

After a student asked him to clarify what he meant about Hercules not being Zeus’ only son, he ended up talking for nearly twenty minutes about what the beloved Disney movie had gotten wrong. Aelin had stopped taking notes and was watching him go on and on about how Hades, while god of the underworld, was not necessarily a villain. He just had a job to do. A job that had rules that must be followed, or the consequences could damn not only him, but others involved. His eyes found hers again and the amused smile on her face fell as she made the correlation between their own situation and the story.

They held each other’s gazes for far longer than was appropriate, and Rowan cleared his throat, going back to the PowerPoint, and the  predetermined lesson plans he’d made, which didn’t include children’s movie breakdowns.

She watched him.

She listened.

And she found it all fascinating. 

Rowan peeked at the clock after going on and on, and stilled, rubbing the back of his neck. “Well, I guess I’ll end there. There is an assignment due by tomorrow evening. You can find and submit it online. It’s an opinion piece. I want a little insight as to why you were so interested to take this class, or what you’ve found fascinating so far.” He sat on his desk, his legs hanging over the side, his feet nearly touching the ground as he leaned back on his palms. Aelin found it charming. “You’re going to write a short essay telling me of your favorite deity. It could be one I’ve talked about so far, or one I haven’t. It’s your choice. But, tell me why they are your favorite. Give me a little depth. And, remember, this is a college course. Grammar counts.”

The clock struck nine-thirty and everyone began packing up. Aelin had been so captivated by his voice that she had to snap herself back to reality.

She quickly packed up her bag, alongside the other students around her. She noticed then how young they all were, and she was willing to bet that she may be the only senior on the roster. As she was descending the stairs, she found Rowan’s eyes on her again, but he looked away as his attention was taken, thanks to the group of girls who’d been sitting in the front row. She heard vague questions of whether they could all write about Aphrodite, since they all related to her.

The scoff Aelin thought she’d kept to herself had apparently been out loud, since not only Rowan looked at her as she passed, but so did the three girls. With his attention on her again, she decided to give him a little wave.

“See you later, Professor Whitethorn.”

If there was some extra sway to her hips, it wasn’t on purpose.

At least that’s what she told herself.

Two and a half hours later, Aelin was starving. She’d just gotten out of an extremely complicated lab and she could barely focus over the growling of her stomach. Twice, the instructor had looked over at her, half expecting to find a dog stashed under the table she was working at.

So when the class let out, she was hurrying toward the cafeteria ready to get a salad from the salad bar and a big ass slice of pizza.

It was all about balance. 

As she was waiting in line to fill her plate with salad, she heard a voice behind her.

“Are you actually getting lettuce or just filling your plate with ham, cheese, and croutons?” 

Aelin looked over her shoulder to find Chaol, her ex, suppressing a smile.

Aelin chuckled. “If it’s the same price, you may as well pile up on the good stuff.” 

Chaol gave her a small smile. “Fair enough. It’s good to see you, Aelin. You look good.”

Things hadn’t ended the best between her and Chaol, but that had been just after freshman year. At least now when they ran into one another, they could have nice little conversations like this one.

No hard feelings.

“You too,” she said, and he did. He’d been in an accident the year before. They weren’t sure he was going to walk again. In all honesty, it was just good to see him on his feet.

“How long until your class?” He asked, sliding his tray along behind hers.

She glanced down at her watch. “About forty five minutes. You?”

“This is my long break,” he sighed. “I’ve got an hour and a half, but didn’t feel like leaving campus. Want to have lunch with me?”

“Sure.” Her smile wasn’t forced, it was easy and she was glad they could even do this, when three years again, they could barely be in the same room.

“I assume you’re getting a piece of pizza after this,” Chaol said with a smirk, nodding towards her plate. “So I’ll grab us a table while you get the rest of your lunch.”

She scoffed but nodded, and went off to get a slice of pizza. When she ordered her pizza, she also got a slice of cheesecake. It was his favorite, something she hadn’t forgotten, but it didn’t hurt that she liked it, too.

Finding him in the cafeteria, she sat down at the table across from him. “How’s Yrene doing?”

He blushed, and Aelin had to admit it was adorable. After his accident, he’d fallen for his physical therapist, and she was just as smitten with him. It must have been all the one-on-one sessions, because Chaol had never been one to let someone in. Aelin had met Yrene early in her med classes, but Yrene had specialized in PT and graduated in less than three years, taking as many classes as she could manage and even studying through the summers as well.

“It’s going good,” he said, at last. “We, uh, just moved in together, actually.”

Aelin lifted a brow. “That was fast.”

Chaol shot her a look.

Aelin laughed. “I didn’t mean it like that. I meant, good for you. I like Yrene. A lot. You two are good together.”

Chaol cleared his throat before taking a bite of his salad. “Thanks.” 

Aelin chuckled, taking a bite of her pizza.

Chaol blinked. “What?”

“You get so uncomfortable when it comes to feelings,” she said. “Always have.”

His eyes narrowed at her. “That’s not true.”

Aelin stopped mid-chew and raised a brow.

Even Chaol couldn’t help but chuckle at the expression. “Yeah, yeah. Whatever. What about you? Seeing anyone?”

Aelin hesitated, then said, “No.”

A slow grin appeared on Chaol’s mouth. “Didn’t sound so sure about what one.”

Aelin shrugged. “Better be nice or I’m not sharing this magnificent cheesecake with you.”

Holding up his hands in placation, Chaol went back to his salad. Rowan was a dangerous topic, one she wouldn’t share with anyone but Lysandra, so she summed it up quickly. “Met someone I thought I hit it off with. Turns out we didn’t work.”

He slowly nodded. Aelin knew he’d had a couple failed relationships between her and Yrene. “I get it, I’m sorry. Still sucks.”

Shrugging again, she turned to her salad. “It happens. Not a big deal. So if you’re living with Yrene, does that mean you and Dorian broke up? Or is he playing house with you, too?”

Chaol leveled her with a look. Chaol and Dorian had been best friends long before they came to the University of Orynth. They were both from Adarlan, both trying to get away from overbearing fathers, and decided college across the country was the way to do it. They’d been roommates every year and Aelin couldn’t even imagine Chaol living with anyone except Dorian. But now he was. “He moved into an apartment with Manon this semester when I moved in with Yrene.”

Aelin blinked. “Blackbeak? He moved in with Manon Blackbeak?”

Nodding, Chaol went on. “Apparently, they’ve been dating for about a year, without anyone noticing.”

Something in the way he said it told Aelin that he had noticed, but when Dorian had his mind set on something, there was no stopping him. And apparently, he’d decided to date one of the most terrifying women on campus.

Aelin’s response was eloquent. “Wow.”

Chaol grinned. “I like it when you’re caught off guard. It’s satisfying.”

With a scoffed she nudged his leg with the toe of her sneaker. “Well, I don’t. Dorian will be getting a very angry phone call this afternoon.”

“I’ll be sure to give him a warning,” Chaol promised.

Aelin chuckled, taking the last bite of her pizza. “It’s good to see you all happy, though. Really.”

Chaol’s eyes softened. “Thanks, Aelin.”

She nodded. “Even if I am terrified that Dorian will get eaten alive.”

Chaol laughed, and she had forgotten how nice Chaol’s rare, hearty laugh was.

She meant it. She was so happy for them, both of them. It was interesting how things changed over the course of a few short years.

Their conversation continued, as did the laughs, and before she knew it, Aelin glanced down at her watch. She had less than fifteen minutes to haul ass back to the nursing building for her next class. Chaol, who had much longer to sit with nothing to do, assured her that he could handle her trash and told her to get to class. With a hug, and a promise that they’d have dinner soon, all of them, even Manon, Aelin was hurrying out of the cafeteria building.

Somehow, the entire time she’d been having lunch with Chaol, she hadn’t noticed the set of pine green eyes watching her.

Rowan’s own break had been at the same time as hers, but the gen ed building was much closer than wherever she was having to run off to, so he had longer to sit and— there was no denying it— brood. They were halfway across the room, so he couldn’t hear any of their conversation. He had no clue who the tall man was she smiled at so often, but clearly they were very familiar with each other with how easily they talked. And he made her laugh. A lot.

Rowan wasn’t sure why that was what grated on his nerves the most, but it unsettled him.

Seeing Aelin with someone else, someone clearly her own age, it all unsettled him. He didn’t like it. Almost as much as her parting words in class had.

See you later, Professor Whitethorn.

It’s like she was mocking him, yet at the same time, she clearly wasn’t. She was doing exactly as he’d asked of her, seeing him as her professor, not as her boyfriend.

No, he reprimanded himself. Not boyfriend. Hookup.

They’d had sex one time, that didn’t give either of them any claim over the other. It was a hookup and nothing more. And she was his gods-damned student.

She was off limits, in every way possible.

Yet he couldn’t figure out why seeing her with someone else, someone she should clearly be interested in instead of him, had him seeing red.

[darthmaulification]

Hey! Can I please make a request for a short Drabble where reader is Grogu’s nanny aboard the Razor Crest and Din develops a crush on her, but once he and the reader start visiting Grogu at Jedi School on weekends, Luke develops a crush as well? Doesn’t have to end up with either, but I would like to see either guy’s rivalry and slight jealousy (with Reader’s obliviousness).

A/N: ... okay so, i really got into the whole crush aspect of your request, anon, and this basically became a romantic prose piece. when i looked back to see what you had initially wanted, my product was... about thrice removed from the original prompt. 💀

i think i got some of the points??? like there’s din and luke and they’re both in love with reader and they both have a bit of rivalry with the other and basically that’s what matters??? please forgive me, anon, the ghost of sappho took my body over and forced me to write yearning love poetry!! 🙏 sis forced my hand!! 😭

though if there’s enough interest for it, i can always make a follow up for this, like from reader’s perspective, and write something a lil more in depth (once i get requests finished up that is). 😊

hope you enjoy! 💗

content: nothing but din and luke pining for reader, gn!reader (for the most part), use of she/her pronouns, fluff, but also a smidgen of angst 👁👁, perspective difference!!, kind of a commentary on mandalorian and jedi culture?? (mostly jedi culture lmao)

word count: 1,524

You’re beautiful.

He sees it now how your face lights up like candles being lit when his son succeeds at doing another one of his Jedi tricks. Joy illuminates your face like a spotlight, your soft cheers and kind praise make the whole room warmer. Din watches Grogu leap into your arms, cooing and squealing like he’s been given candy. It makes Din’s heart leap when you kiss his son on the head, and smile so warmly it’s like your lips become sunshine.

Din is infinitely grateful for his helmet in this moment, his face feels like it’s been too close to a fire. His fingers pick at a fraying stitch on his gloves, to prevent his hands from shaking in his lap. He hopes that the Jedi, who is standing casually across the room near you and Grogu, doesn’t notice. Din hopes you don’t notice what you’re doing to him.

I’m in love. 

The sentence slips through the cracks of his thoughts the way a sunrise peeks over the horizon. You look over at him, holding up Grogu triumphantly in your hands like you would a prize, and he sucks in a breath because suddenly it feels like all he can see is you. You and Grogu, you and his son.

Please be my riduur.

“Did you see that? Wasn’t it amazing?” And Din forces himself to dip his head in a slight nod, because the Jedi is also looking at him with piercing blue eyes the color of the sky. His heart pounding, and when you laugh, and it sounds like summertime when everything is good and happy.

People love, he thinks as he stares at you, and suddenly his palms are sweaty and he feels the need to tap his foot, but Mandalorians love harder.

I dream about you every night, think about you when I lie awake. You’re always holding sunflowers, and the nightmares don’t touch me then.

Mandalorians love like there is nothing else in the universe more valuable, nothing more precious, not their vibroblades, their blasters, or even their beskar.

Giving up a blaster and a vibroblade in order to save you from that hut’uun came to me like breathing, I didn’t even think about it... I would’ve given up my beskar’gam too. I still would.

Mandalorians love with their souls laid bare, they love with their entire body, they love with sacred vows, exchanged beskar rings, their riduur’s name engraved on their hal’cabur, above their heart.

When you slept beside me one night, I whispered the entire marriage vow to you in Mando’a. You looked so peaceful bathed in the light of the moon, the silvery glow making you look holy. I’ll admit, it came out mostly accidentally, but it felt so normal, natural even. I wish you hadn’t been asleep.

Mandalorians love in spite of death, they love in the face of it. They love like warriors.

I had gotten shot. All I remember is you holding me in your arms, hands pressed over the wound. I was in pain, and you were crying, covered in blood and dirt, but you were so warm. I’m still unsure if I had actually said what I think I said:

“I care about you too much to leave you.”

He wants to tell you all of this, but he’s never been much of a romantic, or much of a speaker in general, so the words falter on his tongue each time he’s tried. And Din’s tried so many times. You say something to the Jedi, and it makes a sudden, surprising fury bubble in his chest, the vile rising to his throat. Din has to bite his tongue to hold back from shouting:

Don’t talk to her, di’kut jetii! You are undeserving of her words, of her time, of her presence. Unworthy! You can’t give her what I can, shabuir.

You look over at him again, and the hot anger dies completely, leaving him powerless before you. Din felt this way each time he’s tried to tell you how much you mean to him.

I love you, cyare.

It feels like your eyes are boring holes straight through his beskar, through his flight suit, singing his skin with their warmth. Din bites his cheek so hard he tastes copper.

You smile. It’s like the dawn.

You are the sun— His sun— of his universe, and his eyes burn from the light.

Din basks in the rays, and his heartbeat starts to slow to it’s normal, steady rhythm.

Tomorrow. I’ll tell you tomorrow.

~

You’re beautiful.

He sees it now in how your entire expression blooms into one of pure joy when his padawan successfully levitates the crates. It radiates in your aura, the waves of mirth traveling further than your respectfully quiet cheers and meaningful praise. Luke watches as the child leaps into your embrace, babbling without forming any actual words. Something inside Luke lurches when you place a kiss on Grogu’s head, and when your vibrant smile dissolves his willpower.

Luke draws the Force in on himself, welcoming the sturdiness it brings. He tries to ignore how his palm has gotten sweaty, but he clenches his hand into a fist and hastily relaxes it. Focus, let in calmness like a breeze. Luke hopes that the Mandalorian, sitting stiff and looming on a far bench, doesn’t notice his moment of vulnerability. He pulls the Force closer, and hopes you don’t notice what you’re doing to him.

I’m in love.

The thought springs up in his mind the way shoots of new grass breach top soil in spring time. You glance over at him as you lift the child, and the look is as quick and fleeting as blossoms on trees, but it floats in the Force like dandelion seeds, and Luke is painfully aware of how consuming you are.

Please don’t do this to me.

“Did you see that? Wasn’t it amazing?” And Luke catches your eye, offering you the smallest smile he can afford without it breaking. You look to the Mandalorian, and Luke follows your gaze because he can’t compel himself to do much else. The Mandalorian’s visor is dark like the night, and flashes when he nods his head. Luke feels his heart sink when he senses it from him, a yearning so deep he nearly drowns in it.

People love, Luke thinks and he feels all at once envious and angry and so achingly acquiescent, because Jedi cannot.

I swore by the Code years ago, but I look at you and doubt it all. It can’t be that I’m this willing to rethink everything.

Jedi are forbidden from having attachments, they cannot pursue romantic interests. Love leads to passion, and it all is an influence of the Dark. Luke knows this. He’s fallen to it before.

I’ve spent decades forgetting how deeply I cared for him! But I am reminded daily of my father, every time I look in the mirror, I see his eyes. How dare you pull me back into this cruel trap! I can’t do this again.

Luke contains himself. Jedi value peace of mind, they extend the sentiment to upholding it in the galaxy as well. They do not do it out of love, but out of obligation, out of honor, because of what’s right. They are not love.

When I first met you it was like I’d seen you before, in a past life. It was like retracing my steps, following the trail backwards, revisiting something I had passed. Despite it all, I had moved forward and took my padawan from you and the Mandalorian, plucked him from you like a petal off a flower. I watched you wilt.

Luke reminds himself. Jedi do not love. Focus is key. The Force is everything.

But you are too.

Luke has to swallow in order to make sure the words never reach his mouth, and it’s like eating thorns. You turn back to him and the look in your eyes is tender like butterfly wings. The pink in your cheeks reminds Luke of windflowers.

“Thank you again, Luke,” His soul shivers when his name sounds in your voice, “It’s so kind of you to teach Grogu.”

As he replies and tells you it’s a pleasure, he almost spills everything to you, but an abruptness shifts the energy of the room. There is a lurking anger that crawls at him through the Force, entwines him like ivies. The Mandalorian fumes, the wrath trembles like billowing leaves. Don’t. Undeserving. Unworthy.

Luke forces himself to agree and squashes down everything, pushing each painful emotion into the deepest parts of him. He watches you look to the Mandalorian, your aura flowers with affection, love.

I love you.

His resolve is fading, again. Luke reminds himself, again. Jedi do not love. Jedi do not love. Jedi do not love.

You smile, and it stings his soul like nettle.

Luke forces himself to ignore that your eyes say different things when they settle on the Mandalorian than they had him. The thought feels like eating bittersweet berries.

Briefly, he revels in what could have been.

It’s for the best.

~

A/N: i thought i would add another note at the end of this to explain exactly what the heck i was saying with the word soup i just wrote.

first, din is so hopelessly in love with reader that it hurts. like physically makes his heart ache. i feel that when din falls in love, he falls in love. it consumes him. i wrote a lot of sun/light imagery to portray the overwhelming, all-encompassing love din feels for reader. you are the sun that warms him, and burns him. 

second, i purposely made luke have an even more tragic, even more conflicted crush on reader, on purpose, hahaha i am evil. 😈 he loves you, but forces himself not to. he tells himself that the jedi code means more. luke chooses to suffer because he knows that’s how it must be. there’s some plant/nature symbolism thrown throughout because that’s just the theme that i thought vibed with luke the most.

and that mention of anakin? i subscribe to the headcanon that luke really did love his dad, and just wanted him in his life, but of course, vader ultimately died. luke took a heavy blow from that, learned it hurts to love.

also, regarding the mini-rivalry that takes place, it’s through the force (if that wasn’t obvious) and it’s essentially another example of luke surrendering his own wants/desires and simultaneously din firmly declaring his love for you. it’s kinda meant to be the “understanding” between the two that clearly establishes who “wins” the reader.

... this was all one giant metaphor, huh?

[onyxheartbeat]

Dear HIM/Ville Valo fans,

this is a long post but I must discuss this.

________

I came across this interview of Kat Von D from a few days ago. Before I get into my thoughts, below is a passage from her old book “Go Big or Go Home” which you may or may not have read. She wrote about Ville:

________

“I only knew his music, and I loved it on first listen. It was dark and it was beautiful. It was metal and it was poetry. It was love loaded into a gun, and I wondered about the man behind the songs.  Two years later, our paths crossed, and like the majority of the connections I’ve made in life, tattooing brought us together. Through our first tattoo sessions, we began to get to know each other. For the next few years, I just thought of him as my friend from overseas, and that was all. Then, after knowing him for six years, something changed. It could have been the wine, the music, or the moon. Most likely it was just perfect timing. Just one kiss, and he changed my world. We were both sad back then, and lost. I was depressed, having finally ended a marriage that had been doomed from the beginning. I was also dealing with the pressures of filming a television show, which was totally new to me - and drinking my way blindly through it all. His story mirrored mine, and he had been feeling just as low. We had been waiting for something to happen, for someone or something to come along and save us from ourselves. And when it suddenly seemed that that someone was each other, it took us both by surprise. We shared darkness, and doing that bought light back into our somber worlds: for once, we didn’t feel alone.He’s the reason why I wanted to write music to begin with - and learn to sing. I remember the exact moment I made up my mind about making music. It was something I felt I needed to do, not for any reason other than a way to respond to him. It didn’t matter if the songs I’d write never saw the light of day, as long as he was able to listen to my music, my message to him. He had told me to look for a package at my door step, prefacing the delivery of the contents, his new album, saying, “These are all of the things that are easier sung than said.”I knew what he meant, but never imagined that each song would be filled with direct messages to me. I put the album on, and the music rushed out of the speakers and filled my house. His voice rang all around, making it’s way to the core of my heart with every word he sang. As cryptic as those lyrics may have been for anyone else, I knew exactly what each word meant and recognized every event and place he referred to. The songs were so beautiful, I just wished so badly that he could have said everything out loud just once to me. How should I respond to something like this? Where do I even start?The first time I saw him after I got sober, he was in town working on music. We sat in my office at the shop until the late hours of the night, talking and catching up about everything - music, home, art and work. Did we talk about love? No. We constantly danced around our past instead. What happened to us? I couldn’t find the courage to ask because I was scared of the answer I already knew. We decided to draw, with pencils and paper in front of us, we sat at opposite ends of the table. He pulled my three-minute timer from one of the nearby shelves, and placed it at the center of the table. He suggested we draw each other, and I was game. With a flip of the hourglass, the grains of sand moved from one vessel to the other, and we began.Sketching these timed portraits forced us to stare at each other, making it practically impossible to focus on the drawing itself. I had almost forgotten how beautiful his face was. He has a combination of eyes, lips, and a darkness to his looks that makes him look almost otherworldly. With him, I felt like I was at the center of an orderly, tranquil, magnificent universe. For those short three minutes, there were no questions about life or purpose. It was as if we never needed any more from each other than this.Like all people, I’ve suffered from love sickness and tasted the pain of love. The theatrical director of my mind, the one who staged all these versions of him and my life with him, seemed to be unaffected by reason. I was finding myself constantly day dreaming of the past.His eyes, his hands, his crooked smile - I’d ruminate over his features. Things he said. Things he did. Things he wrote. Things he drew. Things he sang. Over and over again, I’d sift through these images and memories as if they somehow contained the answer to my prayers. But I was living with a long-age memory of him; living so far away from the present moment.If we had spoken about what we were or what we thought we were, back when we got sober, I wouldn’t have been so confused, wandering what if, and writing the rest of our story in my mind. What did I expect? For him to magically not hear about me being in a relationship? And to not be bothered by it? If only he would have asked….. I would have….. If we could have only talked….. then things would be….. if we allowed ourselves to transform our fears of being open, vulnerable, then, I’d convince myself, we would be together. I realized that none of that mattered now. If I wanted to be free of this unrequited longing, I would have to make peace with the past and finally let it go. There was no way around it. But did I want to be free of it? - and him?I listened to one of his songs the other day. Out of all the songs he wrote on that album, this one was the most direct. He sings my name in the chorus. By the time the song is over, I’ve felt a range of emotions - I’m sad but happy, frustrated but calm. He sings about how I alone bring him to a place of stillness and peace within when we are together. What a victorious feeling - to enter into a place with him where no one else has been. To be able to bring goodness to and draw it out of someone. Those sweet thoughts were interrupted by  an e-mail from him. Impeccable timing as always. It’s just a short note, letting me now he’s somewhere out there, thinking of me. He ends the message by calling me “Star Face” - his pet name for me from long ago that no one else uses. At that moment, I loathe him for it. I loathe him because I love him. Sometimes it feels like it would be so much easier to walk away from this if he’d just tell me that he hates me, that he wants nothing to do with me. But instead he calls me “Star Face.” There is no way he doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s not letting go, either.‘Ultimately, it is the desire, not the desired, that we love.’The silver plane hurtled over Newfoundland, over the Labrador sea. Someone told me I might see the northern lights as I fly east and north, but I wouldn’t have noticed as I was deep in writing the letter that I had already mentally composed long before I decided to make this trip to see him over New Year’s Day. I didn’t have to edit myself this time, I knew exactly what the letter would say.I reread the note to myself before sealing the envelope. Then I drew out the first letter of his name in pencil on the front. What a beautiful letter it was, probably my favorite out of the entire alphabet. A letter I was so used to writing myself. With ease the swirls and curves of each arch seemed to flow from my heart, my mind’s eye, drawn in and through my arms to my hands, releasing themselves onto the pale ivory paper envelope. My plane landed soon after.I had missed this country, I had missed him, too. I wondered how time had treated him ,for it had been a few years since I had last seen him. I wondered if I still had the ability to quiet his heart when he was feeling manic. He always said I had a way of doing that when I was near. And I wondered if he even needed me in that way anymore.When we met up, he looked just as beautiful as the day we saw each other for the first time, almost ten years before. And as if no time had passed, we started right where we left off - hours flew by in the comfort of each other’s presence. Talking. Catching up.He asked if I was getting sleepy, and my attempt at concealing the tiredness was transparent. I looked at the clock; maybe it was the jet lag or the clock hands pointing to midnight, but I knew it was time to say good-bye. Reluctantly, we both stood up and tried our best to part ways. As good as it felt to be near him again, I gave him the letter I had written letting him know that I was letting the nation of us go. He took the sealed envelope, and then I watched him walk away for what I assumed would be the last time.My heart didn’t belong locked up in a tower across the ocean from my home. It belonged in my chest, beating, living, feeling, sometimes hurting, but always loving. I deserved to be free, and understanding and needing that more than a dream, I was finally able to let him go.”

_________

Now, let me start by saying, I’ve never understood this and I still don’t. I’ve had that passage saved in my drafts for years because I keep almost anything pertaining to Ville. 

I’ve been a HIM fan since I was about 15 years old, and have followed Ville’s life and work closely. The friendship between them was always apparent to HIM fans in those days, because we saw her in photos with the band often. I used to watch Miami Ink and LA Ink as regularly as pretty much anyone in those days, and I remember when this particular passage of her book was brought to light, the HIM fan base read it and we all had our thoughts. We were all aware of Screamworks being written about Kat (it’s obvious in the lyrics of the album) even though Ville never specifically said Kat’s name when asked about it in interviews.

I remember being baffled back when we as HIM fans discovered this passage from the book. I couldn’t imagine not making that relationship work if it was true love. I’m a bit biased because I adore Ville and he’s like a dream to me, but I just couldn’t understand it. It seemed like she took the relationship for granted or she didn’t love him enough to make it work; but I digress. I get it; love and relationships are complex.

Still, flash forward to this recent interview (the screenshot), she says it was unrequited love, and I’m still not understanding it. Why release all the songs now? Why didn’t she make it work if it was true love? Who is she trying to say was the one not reciprocating (as the word “unrequited” suggests) in the relationship? I don’t understand any of it. More than anything, I’ve had so many questions that I wish I could ask Ville about it all because he only spoke briefly about it all, and it was always rather cryptic. 

I’m only writing this as a HIM fan, and because I love Ville and his lyrics on Screamworks so, so much (it’s an extremely underrated album in the HIM discography, in my opinion) so I’m letting any fellow HIM lovers know she wrote an album in response to it, in case you’re interested. I haven’t followed Kat or her work in many years, so I don’t know what to make of all this, but it’s always been extremely apparent to me when listening to Screamworks that a lot of heart went into it and even pain, not that his lyrics on other albums aren’t like that too, but I felt it more on Screamworks. I feel that Ville was the one who was truly heartbroken.

You all probably know from following my blog that I’m obsessed with love and unrequited love. Any romantic stories, bittersweet letters, heartbreak, longing etc. is just my favorite thing in the world so please excuse the long post, haha.

[kravkalackin]

“Krav, I’m dying. My soul is actively leaving my body, I don’t know how much longer this feeble flesh puppet will hold out. Remember me when I’m gone,” Taako whined into the phone, flopping over on the bed. He could hear Kravitz laugh on the other end at his suffering, while that damned music continued to play muffled through the thin walls. 

“I’ll write a very moving poem in your honor,” he joked, and Taako knew it was a joke but the thought of Kravitz doing something as cheesy and romantic as writing him goddamn fucking poetry might have caused a blush to rise to his cheeks. Just a little bit. 

Then Lup’s loud singing on the chorus came belting out through the walls, and he could very easily focus on that instead. 

“I just don’t get why she had to pick this as her tortured, heartache of a lament,” he complained. 

“I mean, Mamma Mia is a good song? It’s catchy,” Kravitz insisted. Taako groaned, rolling over as he heard the upbeat singing of ABBA fade out for a few too short seconds of bliss before starting up again. 

“Yes okay, and it was fine for like, the first two days. It’s been a week Kravitz, a week! I swear I’m hearing it in my sleep now,” he whined. Sure, he got that Lup wasn’t happy about this, neither of them were. There wasn’t anything the could do about it though, they were spending the summer with another distant relative, maybe they’d get to go back when school started up again, maybe they wouldn’t. The didn’t get a choice and they knew that. 

That was why, usually, they kept to themselves. Didn’t grow all attached to people, all they really needed was each other. 

Taako wasn’t even sure how Barry and Kravitz even happened. Lup broke first though, dragging the huge nerd that was Barry Bluejeans over after school one day like she’d found the greatest toy in the world. Kravitz came later, he had just been an asshole in Taako’s AP world history class who always got pissed at Taako for slacking off but then getting better grades than him. 

Taako figured that was all he was ever going to be until they went over to Barry’s house one day and Kravitz was just... there. Because apparently, the two assholes were brothers. Barry was adopted, about ten or so years ago. 

That was also the day him and Lup learned that Barry’s last name was not in fact, actually Bluejeans. A lot of things were lost that day. 

The point was they fucked up and gotten attached. Now Lup was locking herself in her room playing ABBA on repeat for the entire fucking neighborhood to hear and Taako was losing his goddamn mind. 

“Yes I’ve been broken hearted! Blue since the day we parted! Why, why did I ever let you go?!” Lup’s voice echoed through the walls, and Taako let out another muffled shout into the pillow. 

“Have you tried playing something to drown her out?” Kravitz asked, and Taako rolled his eyes a little at that. 

“I have. It doesn’t work, nothing works! I’m stuck in Swedish pop hell Kravitz!” he whined. 

“You could... go outside,” Kravitz said, and Taako’s frown deepened at that. 

“Yeah sure, I’ll just go live in a tent in the backyard for the summer. Boyscouts here I come, I’m a tent boy now! Snuggle up with the neighborhood racoons,” he said. He was pretty sure he could imagine Kravitz rolling his eyes at that, but it wasn’t like he could just spend forever outside. 

“Has it really been since you left?” he asked, and Taako nodded vehemently. 

“Yes! I knew she was fucking hopeless for Barold but I didn’t realize it was that bad,” he said. Sure, Lup hadn’t actually told him, but he knew his sister well enough to know what was up. And this? She was so goddamn lost for the nerd it was ridiculous. 

Kravitz didn’t say anything for a moment, and right when Taako was starting to get worried he spoke up. 

“Actually, I have an idea. Gimme a second,” he said. 

“Yeah, alright,” Taako said with a shrug. It wasn’t like he didn’t have much else to do after all. He could hear Kravitz put the phone down, and there was maybe a two or three minute pause where nothing happened. Taako was starting to get bored when suddenly the unthinkable happened. 

The music turned off. 

He could hear Lup’s phone ringing for a second, but it didn’t last long before she picked up. 

“Barold! Shit, long time no talk, thought you might’ve forgotten about me,”  Lup’s voice came in muffled through the wall, gradually fading as she moved further away, probably to pace like the lovestruck idiot she was. 

Taako was speechless. 

“Did it work?” Kravitz asked, having returned to the phone. 

“I fucking love you,” Taako blurted out, his face turning beat fucking red as soon as he realized. From the way Kravitz laughed he probably didn’t think it was serious. Of course it wasn’t serious. 

It was kinda maybe a little serious. 

“I’m glad I could help,” Kravitz said, all smug pleased and yeah okay, Taako might’ve fallen a little bit. He wasn’t as bad as Lup thought. 

As long as he wasn’t as bad as Lup, it was probably fine.