#that mid writing urge to research your facts

[whiskeyghoul]

All tied up || [Spencer Reid X f!reader] Pt.1

First time posting a fic here.

The idea of Spencer remembering all the shibari knots from a book gave me the incredible urge to start writing. This is part one and mostly setting up to part two where all the spicy stuff will happen.

Tags: Shibari, eventual smut, consent, (idk I am bad at tagging)

Part two

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"I actually heard it can be very therapeutic." Spencer Reid stood next to you as you were bent over a case file. The unsub would tie their victims up in intricate red rope, displaying them like a piece of artwork. Suspended in mid air their bodies hung from ceilings. You had made a comment under your breath as you watched the detail in the knots, nothing of interest. Either they'd been strung up post mortem, which seemed unlikely with the way their bodies were contorted. Or while the victim was alive and cooperating. Meaning the victims trusted the unsub.

You knew of shibari, had seen it once when you had stumbled upon it while researching a sexclub where a suspected unsub was picking his victims. It piqued your interest, seeing the knots tied carefully with enough slack to allow fingers to slip past the rope. The shapes accentuating the women's bodies, looks of content on their faces. You had quickly squashed the thought at the time. Not wanting to address your new found interest in the slightest. Hoping that if you didn't think about it it would go away. Unfortunately that hadn't been the case. You'd managed to find pictures of the beautiful rope designs people created and it only fed the flame growing inside you. But when Spencer made that comment as he looked over your shoulder. Something stirred inside. Like he knew what you'd been thinking about.

"I don't think they found this very therapeutic." You retorted, eyes focused on the paper again. If they hadn't been crime scene photos they could have been beautiful. Spencer placed one hand on the desk, the other on the back of your chair as he leaned over. The heat of his body radiating off of him. You kept your eyes on the papers, not daring to look up at your workplace crush. Who, in all his genius, was the most clueless person you'd met. "Right, I don't think they did. Still, it's interesting to see the great care the unsub took to present them this way. It’s like a piece of art, he takes pride in his work." Spencer commented, saying the words you'd just been thinking. "It could have been beautiful if not for the murder." you said a bit solemnly, not thinking about your words, still trying to figure out whether the unsub tied them up post mortem or not. Absentmindedly tracing your fingers over the ropes in one picture.

"Would you ever want to try it?" Spencer suddenly asked. Your head whipped around in surprise, staring at the man who was looking down at you. He was gauging your reaction, which now that you realize it, was way too obvious. He'd probably already caught on to the fact you'd been interested in shibari from the case before. A damn good profiler even if he was clueless about your feelings for him. "W-what? No, of course not." You lied, feeling heat creep up your neck as you averted your eyes from him. “Why would you say that?” You asked in turn, knowing he’d already caught you in your lie. “Just the way you said it could have been beautiful. I’ve read a book on it once…” The way Spencer said it was suggestive, knowing what he meant once he said he read a book on it once. He remembers it all, the knots, the ties. He was offering to help you get it out of your system. The way he trailed off made it non committal, it wasn’t a full offer but it was up in the air. If you wanted to go in on it he wouldn’t judge. “You have? Are you interested?” Your voice was low, barely above a whisper because you were still in the bullpen. Colleagues and teammates are still around to hear if you spoke too loudly. “We have Saturday off.” Spencer spoke, it wasn’t an answer but an invite. “We do.” You agreed, and that was it. “You could come over.” Spencer said, there was something in his voice. It was low and smooth. “I can. At 2?” You added before daring to look up at him again, he nodded his head with a slight smile. There was a flush on his face. “I’ll see you then.” He added, pushing himself off the table and returning to his own desk, your eyes following until he sat down.

Your mind was jumbled with thoughts about what could happen when you get to his place. Mentally you were still trying to grapple with the fact that he had invited you, but standing on the doorstep had been quite the wake up. You rang his doorbell and Spencer buzzed you in. You walked to the elevator, pressing the button and stepping inside to head to the second floor. Stepping out and walking past the other doors until you reached his front door. A deep breath. You raised your hand, a timid knock on the door that was opened just a second too quickly. Like he had been waiting for you. “Hey.” Spencer breathed out the word, a slight smile on his lips as he stared at you. You could feel your cheeks start to heat under his gaze. “Come in.” Spencer said as he stepped out of the way, letting you pass into his apartment. “Thanks.” You said as you observed your surroundings. You’d been in his apartment once before. It was lived in, slightly cluttered and warm. It smelled of books and coffee, some of his vices. His large leather couch was put to the side and the middle of his living room was currently a large open space. He’d prepared this. You swallowed thickly, knowing he’d taken care to get it all ready made you excited, a fluttering feeling settling in your stomach. The small bag you had taken with you was placed down next to the coat rack. Your jacket was slipped off your shoulders by Spencer, the motion making you look over your shoulder at him. He gave you a reassuring smile, warming your heart and soothing your nerves. “Do you want something to drink first?” He asked as he hung your coat away. “No, thank you.” You replied, wanting to get to it rather than stall. It would make you nervous again to wait. Wanting to get started almost immediately. “Alright, then let’s get started?” Spencer asked it, maybe to have clear confirmation that this was what you wanted. He fidgeted slightly, perhaps as nervous as you had been before. You nodded your head, the action seeming to calm Spencer slightly, his hands stopping from fidgeting. Instead grabbing the red rope that was laid out on a side table, pushed to the wall this time.

“How do we start?” You asked, having prepared by wearing a pair of soft shorts and a tank top. Spencer turned back to you, taking two strides before he was right in front of you again. Something in his eyes had changed from before. “Strip.” His tone was different, making a shiver run down your spine.

This was going to be interesting.

[colleybri]

Answer the questions and tag 5 Fanfic Authors

Tagged by @mosylufanfic :)

1. How did you get into writing fanfiction?

I’m relatively unusual here, I think, in that whilst I’ve been writing it since my teens I have had a good twenty year break up until a few months ago. Years ago, I just started writing it for my own pleasure - certainly no internet or easy ways to share it back then. More recently, I can attribute my return to one thing and one thing only: my love of the series Andor. An obsession that came out of nowhere in September 2023 when I watched it for the first time and it resonated with me in a way nothing has come close to in quite some time. After several months of writing various analyses of it I felt the urge to get creative.

2. How many fandoms have you written in?

Not many - most recently, Andor - obviously - and with the obvious overlap of Rogue One. Going back: I started out on E.T. (early teens then so that will date me accordingly :) ) - moving on to Aliens, The Silence of the Lambs and The X Files. Some novels then too: Narnia and Clive Barker, notably.

3. How many years have you been writing fanfiction?

As above, really. I’m in my mid 50s now - which I imagine makes me one of the older ones here. I dabbled most recently in the late 90s, with The Phantom Menace slashfics that were hugely popular back then - one of my friends was a superb writer (her stories were considerably better than the film itself ) and absolutely churned them out on whatever forums were around. They were a wholly new thing to me and I hadn’t even seen the film, but I dabbled a bit anyway :)

4. Do you read or write more fanfiction?

I write more at the moment, but I’m gradually trying to catch up with the reading. I missed Andor when it was first released and therefore the glut of fics from that time. But I’m getting to know the writers I really like and rediscover my own interests, genre speaking, along the way.

5. What is one way you’ve improved as a writer?

It’s really hard to compare as I haven’t got much left hanging around from my earlier years, but I would say that with several decades of teaching Lit under my belt now I do care a lot more about characterisation than I ever used to. It used to be all about the plot. I’m finding myself very drawn to subtext-heavy dialogue, internal monologues, drabbles and even poetry - the last being something I never thought I’d touch with a barge pole. I’m not saying I’m any good, just that I enjoy the challenge. That’s the main thing, in fact. These days I’m happy to embrace a challenge rather than shy from it. 

6. What’s the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project?

That would be what human flesh tastes like. For a Silence of the Lambs fic, obviously. The answer is apparently “pork crossed with beef” so I guess a genuine ragu lasagne would scratch that particular itch if anyone’s curious. 

7. What’s your favorite type of comment to receive on your work?

At the moment, as I’m pretty much starting from scratch and trying to find readers, absolutely anything. Probably excluding ‘don’t give up the day job’. 

8. What’s the most fringe trope/topic you write about?

Probably the cannibalism thing. Though that’s no doubt more mainstream nowadays…. I haven’t even looked at all the Hannibal (tv series) fics out there. 

9. What is the hardest type of story for you to write?

Anything long - the longest thing I ever completed was a 250 page novel but I was 14 at the time and haven’t come close since. Haven’t the stamina these days. Same with reading – I prefer one shots.

10. What is the easiest type?

Missing scenes or scene commentaries - not so much easy as such but probably my favourite forms, so they come relatively easily once I really put my mind to them. I find analytical essays the easiest of all, if I know the text well, but that’s no doubt a teacher-thing. I’ve made myself a regular feature on the Reddit Andor sub, probably to the chagrin of some :)

11. Where do you do your writing? What platform? When?

Looking at other answers to this one, I’m a bit perplexed. I have an elderly iMac and write on that. Hell, I used to do everything in long hand. Thank God I learned to touch-type. I guess I use Googledocs when forced to use my laptop. I’m fortunate to be semi-retired, so I generally find the time.

12. What is something you’ve been too nervous/intimidated to write, but would love to write one day?

Something longer, I guess. Hard to tell. I was and am intimidated by Smutfics, but had a go at a challenge recently and was quite pleased with the result. Not something I’ll be writing often though - not the main event, anyway. Love the buildups, and there’s some really great erotica out there, but I do get pretty stuck using the same vocabulary if I’m not careful. I’ve done a few humorous variations and quite liked those too. I’m British, lived in Bath for many years so like to imagine Austen’s ironic take on sex scenes quite a bit. 

13. What made you choose your username?

Nothing very deep - it’s to do with where I live. I’m a keen birder and Colley is an old West Country (England) word for a blackbird. 

Apologies in advance for tagging you - I’m sure some or all of you have been ‘done’ already! I don’t know a huge range of writers yet and I’m new to Tumblr and Discord. Absolute social media dinosaur as I am. 

Tagging @beladonna02, @ceruleanphoenix7, @faceofpoe, @jake-and-amy-are-married, @vadercat

[moranice-solvej]

Answer the Questions and Tag 5 Fanfic Authors

Thank you for the tag, @rifle-yes <3

1. How did you get into writing fanfiction?

Got introduced to fanfic through an old forum dedicated to a TV-show I was low-key obsessed with as a teen all the way back in 2008. Around the same time I started to get an urge to express myself in writing as I was an avid reader and always had a vivid imagination, so the sheer fact that people just wrote stories to celebrate their favorite stories captivated me.

Since then, there were many attemps to write fanfic and original works alike, very few completed, and only my obsession with Rogue One that started after watching the movie and reading the novelization had put me on the path of publishing my writing and finally being able to complete writing projects.

2. How many fandoms have you written in?

Started in a TV-fandom a long time ago, but never had anything I wanted to publish, so mentally I don't even count it. None of those scraps of written down ideas remain; I deleted them and never once looked back. That leaves Rogue One and technically Star Wars as my sole writing fandom. I dearly love many other shows and movies and games, but none of them make me want to write in their universes.

3. How many years have you been writing fanfiction?

Technically 16 years. Yes, comprehending this number makes me terrified.

4. Do you read or write more fanfiction?

I used to read tons of fic before I came back to writing in earnest. Now most of my free time goes into writing.

In addition to that I have ran into a loathesome problem of not being able to find stories that I'd love to read. The ceiling has gotten too high. Now that I can finally shape the kinds of stories I want to read to life, I crave more stories with such premises, themes, writing styles, and character archetypes, and these days I struggle to find them in fanfic and in original books for that matter. My gremlin brain simply cannot connect to the vast majority of tropes that dominate modern-day fandom and culture. :(

Thus, I'm firmly in the mode of be-the-change-you-want-to-be-in-the-world and producing stories for myself to satisfy that need. Even if it routinely takes me over a year, usually two to finish a single story with a monster wordcount and create something I can one day re-read with glee.

5. What is one way you’ve improved as a writer?

I am now able to move an idea from a general concept and a set of pivotal scenes to a fully-fleshed out story and actually finish it. This used to be my achilles heel for ages and it feels mightily gratifying to finally get rid of it.

6. What’s the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project?

Origins of blood transfusions in human history. Plus a large variety of niche questions of when thing a or thing b was first invented. Most of the times the setting of my current writing project allows me to disregard our reality and wing it for the sake of the vibes or plot, but I still like to research what we as a species develop and when to try and create a somewhat believable ancient fictional world without modern technology.

7. What’s your favorite type of comment to receive on your work?

I have a soft spot for readers who pick on teeny-tiny details of my writing and show their appreciation for it. I end up with monstrous word counts because I'm an extremely context- and detail-oriented writer, and knowing that my passion for it is noticed and enjoyed brings me joy in return.

8. What’s the most fringe trope/topic you write about?

My current project centers around a warrior woman in her mid- to late forties who makes peace with her trauma of motherhood and loss, finds new friends and love and new home, defies her nation's traditions and becomes the force of change for her people that will bring them out of stubborn isolation and little by little shatter their callousness and mold it into empathy.

I am well aware that the sole audience of this story is myself and my best friend whom I'm lucky to have along for the ride, but it has took over my heart and it will not let go until I finally bring this epic saga to a close.

9. What is the hardest type of story for you to write?

I am simply incapable of writing a traditional short story. Every one-shot I ever made was a stepping stone in a larger verse, and even so the smallest one is over 8k words. Anytime I try to write something small, I either need to put it down because it gets out of hand, or I need to finish it and by that time it grows into a monster.

My last attempt to write a short story within a story has spawned an epic saga that currently sits at roughly 380.000k words and will likely end up over 500.000k words when I'm finally done with it.

10. What is the easiest type?

Monster-sized epics. I think my creative brain cannot function in any other way but go-big-or-go-home.

11. Where do you do your writing? What platform? When?

I've used MS Word for writing ever since I got my first laptop and keep at it. Started using Scrivener lately for establishing character sheets and writing down my notes.

For years now I write almost exclusively over the weekends, with occassional editing in the evenings after work. Between working, needing to keep my apartment clean and myself fed, and dedicating time to mastering my fourth language, I have no brain for creativity after I'm done with all these chores and I use whatever remains of my evening to read, or watch shows with my best friend, or do some gaming.

12. What is something you’ve been too nervous/intimidated to write, but would love to write one day?

In the story I am currently writing, one of the secondary main characters is an ex-slave and a rape survivor. There is no shortage of hurt/comfort stories about a female character's experience with such kind of abuse, and in all my years of reading fic and books I often find that trauma stemming from it is either glossed over or healed through the power of true love. Even when a story follows a road to healing, it often ends in sunshine and rainbows after the all the travails. Well, for a long, long time now my gremlin brain wanted to explore what such trauma can do to a stoic male warrior, as well as to study how sometimes there is no easy healing from such ordeals, how deep these souls scars lie, and how they will keep poisoning the relationship he will pursue down the line and present major obstacles to both non-sexual and sexual intimacy with the woman he falls in love with. I'm a sucker for happy endings and I will not turn away from it, but this is going to be a scarred happy ending because those ghosts are never going to stay completely quiet in his soul.

I am daunted by the prospect of writing this spin-off like I've never been before, scared of not doing it justice, but something in me has latched onto this idea and really, really wants to at least try it.

13. What made you choose your username?

I needed something unique as a username and I have a habit of making up new names out of thin air for my writing. I liked this one and it had stuck. :)

If any writers who follow me would like to join in, you are welcome.

[leohtttbriar]

🛼🍄🔪🦷🦋🦴🏜️🍬☁️🧩 (lol I know this is a lot, whatever piques your interest!!)

heyyyy!

🛼 ⇢ describe your latest wip with five emojis

here's a kiradax one that i'm not sure i'll ever finish for reasons but i yet have the urge to write: 🙏😩💦🌊🪱

🍄 ⇢ share a head canon for one of your favourite ships or pairings

so i really like t'pring/uhura because i think there's a sort of quietness to them that remains steely and resolved. just looking at how the characters function in the show, it's easy to see how they had so much oomph for their moment while being the kinds of characters now that few people notice or pay attention to. like, for uhura it's nearly impossible to find any content in fan spaces that's about her alone, despite her being a big main character in snw; which probably just speaks to misogyny and racism but also might have something to do with the fact that the character was written to do a lot of watching/listening originally and people don't know how to interpret that. but despite her lack of real character-attention, she gets so many moments where she sets her jaw and does her duty but also does what she thinks is right (also nichols did a very good job of implying this full person in the character of uhura, even if the show was so rarely focused on it). and t'pring has like ten seconds total of dialogue in tos but she's still so in control the entire episode she's in, in charge of the lives of several people, and we simply cannot be mad at her for it because she's right and logical and doing the only thing she can to ensure she is free to choose.

all that being said: my head canon for this pairing is that they aren't enormously expressive, that they're dutiful and bound to each other in this really quiet way, that they grow together sort of privately, keep each other to themselves, and that even when they're standing side-by-side you can't tell what they are to each other. part of that is me just really enjoying vulcan logic and non-expressive emotion. but part of it is extrapolating based on their characters in the show and how they didn't have to be shouting to be heard or seen. the story kind of honored them in the way the story knew how to do at the time.

🔪 ⇢ what's the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project?

necessary components of a crop-yielding soil

🦷 ⇢ share some personal wisdom or a life hack you swear on

personal wisdom: sometimes it's easier to capture a monstrous wasp on your kitchen counter if you call your mom and just have her on the phone while you do it

🦋 ⇢ share something that has been on your heart and mind lately 

i've been thinking a lot about a quote from stephen jay gould, as he was describing the work of people who had first started to put together the geological time scale and history. i can't remember the exact quote, can't find it anywhere, and i lost the book but it went something like:

"not for the first time, or the last, scientific discovery was achieved not by clever thinking but by careful doing."

🦴 ⇢ is there a piece of media that inspires your writing? 

bridge of spies, dir. by steven speilberg.

🏜️ ⇢ what's your favourite type of comment to receive on your work?

lol i love all comments, truly. they're all precious. i guess i love most the comments from people who love the characters as much as me.

🍬 ⇢ post an unpopular opinion about a popular fandom character

my most unpopular opinions are about winn adami but i wouldn't call her a popular fandom character. my unpopular opinion is that she should be.

another unpopular opinion that i've probably heavily implied a few times but maybe never outright said: odo is an annoying character, to me. he just seems like the best expression for a lot of mid-90s male anxieties/ennui that i find uninteresting. i think odo is conceptually worth so much but the character fails to carry it in a way that convinces. he was confronted with the wrong people too often. one of the only times he was confronted with the right person was with lwaxana troi but, alas, she was not by his side for all seven seasons.

☁️ ⇢ what made you choose your username?

my first username was leohtebewunden which is old english for "bound/wound by/with light" which is a pretty image and also i need sunlight So Much. but that was long so i shortened it but then i was reminded of the word "briar" in a poem randomly and added it to my username bc i love it. it's a good word.

🧩 ⇢ what will make you click away from a fanfiction immediately?

if the punctuation/grammar is just really wrong. that's less to do with me being there are proper ways to do things! and more like if you've read a lot of books, you would probably know how punctuation works without having to think too much about it. it's like banning brown m&ms in your rider.

[mopeytropey]

watch me derail my creativity with one tiny innocent google search

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Facebook algorithm boosts pro-Facebook news

Facebook is a rotten company, rotten from the top down, its founder, board and top execs are sociopaths and monsters, committers of non-hyperbolic, no-fooling crimes against humanity. They lie, they cheat, they steal. They are some of history’s greatest villains. Because Facebook is a terrible company run by terrible people, it periodically erupts in ghastly scandal. Sometimes whistleblowers or reporters reveal historic crimes, including (but not limited to) deliberately helping to foment genocide.

Sometimes, the scandals are contemporary: either Facebook blithely announces it’s going to do something terrible, or we learn of some terrible thing underway from leaks or investigations.

Thanks to a history of anticompetitive mergers — Whatsapp, Instagram, Onavo and more — based on fraudulent promises to antitrust regulators, Facebook has grown to nearly three billion users — except FB doesn’t have users, really — it has hostages.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/07/dont-believe-proven-liars-absolute-minimum-standard-prudence-merger-scrutiny

As Facebook’s own internal memos show, the company doesn’t just buy up competitors so users have nowhere to flee to, it also engineers in high “switching costs” to make it more painful to leave the system.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/facebooks-secret-war-switching-costs

For example, Facebook’s internal memos show that the manager for its photo products set out to seduce users into entrusting FB with their family photos, because that way quitting Facebook would mean abandoning your memories of your kids, departed grandparents, etc.

Everybody hates Facebook, especially FB users. The point of high switching costs, after all, is to increase the pain of leaving so that FB can dole out more abuse to its users without fearing that they’ll quit the whole enterprise.

FB’s mission is to increase the size of the shit-sandwich they can force you to eat before you walk away. But they’re not mere sadists: shit-sandwiches have a business model: the more hostages they take, the more they can extract from advertisers — their true customers.

The polite term for what FB has is a “two-sided market” (selling advertisers to users and users to advertisers). The technical term is “a monopoly and a monoposony” (a monopsony is a market with a single buyer).

The colloquial term?

“A racket.”

A scam. A bezzle. A blight.

Facebook gouges advertisers on rate cards, then lies about the reach of its ads (like when it lied about the popularity of video, evincing a media-wide “pivot to video” that bankrupted dozens of news- and entertainment-sites).

Facebook didn’t set out to destroy journalism by price-fixing ads, lying to advertisers and media outlets.

FB set out to acquire a monopoly and extract monopoly rents from advertisers and publishers, with a pathological indifference to how these frauds would harm others.

Having shown a willingness to destroy journalists and media outlets to extract a few more billions for its shareholders, Facebook has attracted a lot of enemies in the media.

If you’re a whistleblower with a story to tell, there’s a journalist whose editor will allocate the resources to report your story out in depth. The combination of a rotten company and a lot of pissed off journalists produces a lot of bad ink for the company.

But the fact remains that FB has a vast pool of hostages, billions of them, and it gets to decide what they see, when and how. I used to joke with my human rights activist friends that the best use for Facebook was showing people why and how to leave Facebook.

FB’s response was predictable. As Ryan Mac and Sheera Frenkel write in the New York Times, FB’s Project Amplify is a Zuckerberg-led initiative to systematically promote positive coverage of FB and its founder — including articles that originate with FB itself.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/21/technology/zuckerberg-facebook-project-amplify.html

That is, FB staffers are charged with writing puff pieces about how great the company is, and FB’s algorithm will push these ahead of reporting by actual journalists who present detailed, factual, multi-sourced accounts of the company’s fraudulent and depraved conduct.

Project Amplify marks a pivot from FB’s longstanding policy of issuing insincere apologies for its scandals. Company sources told the reporters that everyone figured out these don’t convince anyone, so the company turned to pushing happy-talk quackspeak instead.

One of the leaders of this project is Alex Schultz, “a 14-year company veteran who was named chief marketing officer last year,” but the major impetus comes from Zuck himself, one of the most hated men on the planet.

Amplify is just one of FB’s strategies for distorting the discourse about itself. In July, it neutered Crowdtangle, an widely used analytics tool that showed that FB’s top posts were unhinged far-right disinformation and conspiracies.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/15/three-wise-zucks-in-a-trenchcoat/#inconvenient-truth

And Facebook has declared all-out legal warfare (accompanied by a disinformation campaign) to kill Adobserver, an NYU project that tracks paid political disinformation on the platform.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/05/comprehensive-sex-ed/#quis-custodiet-ipsos-zuck

By shutting down Crowdtangle and Adobserver, FB hopes to control the academic findings about the company’s role in disinformation, hate, and harassment. The company runs its own research portal where academics are expected to access data about the platform.

But as with the journalists who report on it, FB has heaped abuse on the academics who research it.

Its portal data was bad, leaving PhD and masters’ theses are at risk of retraction. Mid-dissertation researchers have been set back to square one.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/2020-election-misinformation-distortions#facebook-sent-flawed-data-to-misinformation-researchers

In retrospect, Facebook’s decision to game its own algorithm to push pro-company quackspeak seems inevitable. It’s not just that no one believes the company’s apologies anymore (if they ever did) — it’s that the company seems incapable of hiring competent spin doctors.

Take the WSJ’s blockbuster “Facebook Files,” a series of reports detailing the company’s willingness to harm children, commit fraud, and allow millions of favored, powerful people to violate its rules with impunity.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2021-09-16/facebook-s-promised-to-gain-the-public-s-trust

FB’s response was genuinely pathetic. In a perfunctory blog post, its top flack — the widely despised British politician Nick Clegg, paid millions to front FB on the global stage — vilified the WSJ’s reporting without producing any factual rebuttals.

https://about.fb.com/news/2021/09/what-the-wall-street-journal-got-wrong/

It’s the kind of ham-fisted policy advocacy that Facebook is (in)famous for. Who can forget the absolute shitshow in India over its Internet Basics program, when it bribed telcos to exempt FB and the services it hand-picked from their data-caps?

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/12/facebook-free-basics-india-zuckerberg

This Net-Neutracidal maneuver, falsely billed as a way to bring the internet to poor people (something is absolutely does not do), was the subject of a consultation by India’s telco regulators.

FB pushed deceptive alerts to millions of its Indian users, tricking them into sending a flood of form-letters to the regulator urging it to leave Internet Basics intact.

But whoever drafted the form letter didn’t bother to check whether it addressed any of the questions the regulator was consulting on. That made these millions of letters non-responsive to the consultation, so the regulator ignored them.

FB lost! It’s almost as though people who are good at fighting policy battles don’t want to work for Facebook, and the only talent they can attract are the kinds of opportunistic blunderers that no one takes seriously and everyone hates.

Weird, that.

[duckprintspress]

How can I write quickly?

I (hi, I’m @unforth) have been asked frequently over the years how I write a lot quickly. I’m a pretty fast writer - for example, I wrote the 5600 words of my May Trope Mayhem fill from yesterday in under 2.5 hours. 

First, a little of my personal history for context. I’ve always written, starting from when I was able to string letters into (very poorly spelled) words and (horrible un-grammatical) sentences. When I started trying my hand at serious, professional-level fiction writing, I joined a community called novel_in_90, which was founded by the author Elizabeth Bear. The purpose of novel_in_90 was “to be NaNoWriMo but more realistic.” Instead of 50,000 words in 31 days, it was 67,500 words in 90 days, or 750 words a day. I participated in multiple rounds of novel_in_90 starting in mid-2005, and in 2007 I completed my first (godawful) novel. When I started, even writing a couple hundred words of day took me forever, but it got easier with time. 

During those same years, I also got a job that required I do professional writing on a deadline: I was a grant writer, and I only got paid when the grants won. That often meant working fast under high pressure, culminating in the weekend I wrote and edited an entire 40 pages grant that was due on Monday. I think, if I hadn’t had a solid foundation of “regular daily plodding writing,” I’d not have been able to marathon when the moment came...and it came because I had to, not because I wanted to. However, I learned a valuable lesson: I could. Subsequently, I found that, when I had the time and space and was rested enough to use my brain, I could bust out a huge amount. Like, I wrote an entire 150,000 word novel in 17 days.

My personal record is about 200,000 words in one month (it was the month I wrote that novel; I wasn’t tracking when I did that so I don’t know exactly), 25,000 words in a day, and I’ve topped out around 3,000 words an hour. I do know people who can do more...but not many.

Not everyone will be able to do this. Flat out, I MUST preface the rest of this post by saying that. Some people will find that writing fast fits their brain, and for others, it just won’t, and that’s okay. Fast doesn’t equal better, and it isn’t inherently “good” to write fast. Furthermore, even for those who can write fast, not everyone will find the same strategies helpful. I can share what works for me. Try out one item, some items, or all of these - if writing faster is something you want to be able to do, which it certainly never has to be. Use what works for you, and discard the rest.

Sit in your chair, put your fingers on your keyboard or touch screen, and write. You can’t write 1,000 words in half an hour until you write one word, however long that one word takes. I know saying this is obvious, but I’ve been asked “how can I write fast” by people who struggle to write at all...fast can’t be your priority until you’ve got a foundation of just writing. (Honestly...fast should never be your priority, but it might be helpful to you regardless, which can make it worth learning.)

Start small. Set an achievable goal, and make yourself meet that goal (daily, weekly, whatever) come hell or high water, no matter how long it takes you. Keep the goal small at first; you’re not trying to torture yourself, you’re trying to build a skill. If you set the goal high enough that you consistently fail, you’re not teaching yourself anything. And, if you find the goal IS too high...lower it. There’s no shame in working within your limits. Think of it like starting a new work out regimen: you wouldn’t try to run a 10k at a record time if you can’t run a mile slow. Treat your fingers and your brain the same way you’d treat your legs and joints. Give them time to grow, learn, and improve before you try to push yourself.

Trying to write daily is worthwhile if you want to work on your writing speed, because you’ll be forced to try to fit it in as you’re able - that might be ten minutes in your morning, or an hour in your evening, and it might vary from day to day, but making it daily means you have to fit it in somewhere.

Building skills takes time and isn’t easy. For some people, it will come easier than for others, and even when you’re fast, going from “I can write words fast” to “I can write damn good words fast” takes practice and dedication and accepting constructive criticism - speed alone will never be worth more than writing well.

Having a community can help. Ya’ll will check in on each other, cheer each other on, remind each other that missing a day or a goal isn’t the end of the world, and keep each other’s spirits up. If you don’t know other writerly folks online, I recommend Weekend Writing Marathon ( @weekendwritingmarathon ) as a good place to start (I used to be a mod there). Once you’re trying to work up to larger word counts in a day, remember that even writing fast will take minutes or hours. You can’t write 2,500 words in an hour if you don’t set an hour aside. Make sure you’re giving yourself the room and time you need to succeed.

You will probably never be able to do high, rapid word counts every day, every week, every month. The best runners in the world don’t run marathons every day. Set realistic long term goals.

Work on projects where you have a clear idea of where you’re going. I’m not saying “pantsers” can’t write fast, because of course they can, but if you want to write fast, and well, and coherently, to create a first draft that’s in pretty good shape, you’ll do better if you have a good sense of what you’re trying to accomplish with your story. That doesn’t mean you need to do all your world building up front, or have a complete outline (I never have either). All you really need is what happens next. I tend to plan projects - and write them - one full scene at a time, with only a vague idea what’s going to come after. (I’m personally a “plantser,” and the strategies in this post will likely be most effective to other plantsers.)

Visualize ahead of time what you’d like to write...but don’t get too attached to what you visualize. When I go to bed, I plan the next scene I’m going to compose, often to the least detail. I then forget all of it overnight, at least all the specifics, and I’m left with a general sense and shape of what’s to come. You’ll never be able to replicate the “perfect” dialog you pre-conceive, so give up on trying to. Instead, play through the scene and think about the emotional beats you want to hit and plot points you want to forward. If you keep that in mind, you’ll be able to get the words out faster than if you’re agonizing over every word or regretting the “oh-so-great” idea that you’ve since forgotten. 

Practice different work styles. If writing every day doesn’t work for you, try instead saying, “this is my writing day each week,” and aim for a lot that specific day, and write little or nothing other days. Try writing at different times of day and on different days, fitting it into your schedule. If you’re beating yourself up for not writing when you “should,” it’ll be that much harder to succeed, so instead, as I said for point 2 - set a reasonable goal that fits your life and working style, fitting it around your other responsibilities, and push yourself within that framework, instead of trying to shoehorn into a style that you “think you should” use to succeed. 

Track your word counts, and take notes on how much you did and what project you were working on. If you’re also experimenting with different times of day and different days, make sure you note that too. I personally use a simple Excel sheet (well, Google Sheets, now) - column one is the date, column 2 is “starting word count,” column 3 is “ending word count,” column 4 is “=column 3 - column 2”, column 5 is notes. Pay attention to when you succeed at writing faster, and when you don’t, and consider what factors might have played into your success...and then try to replicate those factors next time you’re doing a sprint. Control as many variables as you can while you’re “training.”

If you find social media distracting, trying getting a web browser extension that prevents you from connecting to websites for a set period of time.

If you find you tend to dither before starting, I find it helpful to run through everything that I might do to procrastinate (check my social media! grab a snack! make some tea! set up my playlist! check my social media again! finish making the tea! check my social media for what I swear will be the last time!), and when I’m done, it’s like, well, I’ve done all those things, I’ve got no choice left, time to write, no excuses left.

If you find you struggle with picking up a WIP, try leaving off in the middle of a sentence at the end of a session, one where you know exactly how it ends - or, leave off mid-paragraph, or when you are positive you know what happens next (and I mean literally next, as in the very next sentence.) It’s much easier to “pick back up” when your first words are super clear. (Do not do this if you think there’s any chance you’ll forget or end up in a situation where you won’t return to your WIP for months!) 

If you find you struggle to maintain continuity across multiple writing sessions, try rereading what you wrote the previous day before you proceed. Resist the urge to edit it!

Avoid stopping when you get stuck, even to do research. Don’t know a fact? Add a comment to your manuscript flagging the relevant text, “LOOK THIS UP LATER.” Can’t think of a word? Put in something you can use the “find” function on easily (I personally use “XX” since there are no words that have a double x in them) and so you can come back later, search for your chosen placeholder, and fill in the blanks. Not sure how a scene ends but know the next scene? Jump ahead.

That said, if you really don’t know what happens next, you don’t do yourself any favors by pressing on. As I’ve said previously, speed alone should never be your writing object. It’s better to slow down, consider your plot, figure out where you’re going, and then write, than to just plow ahead - or at least, that’s better if you want a manuscript you’ll actually be able to use for something at a later point. If you’re truly just practicing, you can also say “screw it, who needs coherence?” and keep going. I’d personally never have finished my first novel if I’d spent a lot of time worrying about making the pieces fit together and yeah, it’s a mess, but it’s a mess I wrote instead of a mess I got stuck on and never completed.

Don’t move the finish line. If you’ve set the goal of 500 words a day, don’t beat yourself up if you get 550 because you think you think you could have done more. If you say you’ll write five days a week, don’t get mad because you DID have time the sixth day but chose to use it on something else. If you make yourself feel like shit when you succeed, what’ll happen when you fail? And when you’re comfortable and really think you’re ready, change the goal - reassess every month, say, and up your goals. While working for speed, trying upping your word count goal without changing the amount of time you allot for working.

Your need to adhere to the above suggestions will change over time. Once, I always had an outline; now I often don’t need one. Once, I wouldn’t let myself stop even to use a thesaurus; now, I find I can look up words without breaking my flow or significantly slowing myself down. This is not an “all or nothing” prospect, nor is it a “do things the same way forever once you’ve found one (1) thing that works” prospect - you’ll experiment, and find strategies that work for you, and then at some point, your needs will change, and you’ll experiment more, and find new strategies that work for you, on and on, as your skills grow. 

To reiterate: writing fast should never be your objective in and of itself! Greater writing speed will come with practice and as a general side effect of improving your craft. Simply being able to write fast is useless; being able to write fast and well will enable you to get more of your ideas out there, so if that’s something you’d like to accomplish, focus on building your general skills and training yourself to be able to use those skills rapidly and in tandem with each other to produce decent writing, in a first draft, at a decent speed.

Once you try, you may find none of this works for you! That’s okay. That’s good! You tried, which means you learned something about yourself and your own writing style, and that too will help you to improve. Keep experimenting, keep learning, and find what does work for you - and accept that no two writers will ever be the same, and one of those differences will be writing speed. Some writers will never write fast, and that’s doesn’t make them any less awesome or valid. And some writers will always write fast, and that doesn’t make them inherently awesome or valid. Only with a suite of skills that suit your individual life, personality, work style, writing capabilities, goals, etc., will you succeed as a writer (for various, personalized definitions of the word “success”); speed is only one of those potential skills, and not one that’s particularly important in my opinion...yet I still get asked about it fairly often, so here we are, these are my suggestions

Go forth, and write some words! <3

[harrysbbby]

Don’t Forget Where You Belong - JJ Maybank x Reader - Part Five

-Thank you guys so much for all the support on this series! I’ve gotten so many messages and comments with such nice feedback and I haven't had a chance to respond to them all so thank you! Also I think I got everyone on the tag list but if not let me know and if possible please ask to be added via my inbox just because it’s easier to keep a track of. anyway, please enjoy xx

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

The five of you sat on John B’s front porch. You had gathered there that morning after the discovery of his father’s compass, which John B and JJ had taken to Lana Grubbs for investagtion

“Her husband just die guys, give her at least a moment,” you had protested by the boys didn’t listen as they go in John B’s van and driven off.

They had now returned, and Pope and Kie had arrived, all somewhat engrossed in JJ’s dramatic retelling of what was had happened

“And we were right outside like this, and all we hear is just, "Bam! Bam! Bam!" Knocking paint off the wall, G! From the inside! All right? And I'm just looking at him, like…” JJ stopped mid sentence and he moved forward shaking his hair over the top off you,

“Wait, first off, look at this shit,” he ran his hands through his hair, white specks falling off on to your lap.

“That's dandruff, disgusting,” Kie said, mouth downturned in a look of repulsion.

“Ugh, JJ,” you scoffed, wiping your thighs as he stood back up looking around at all of you.

“That's paint,” he said, a look of dramatic seriousness on his face, “At that point, I was just, like... I'm waiting for death,” he finished.

“Wow, you’re not dramatic at all, JJ,” you said to him sarcastically. He shot you a look as if to say ‘it’s all true.’

“Oh, okay, so you saw the guys that shot at us, right?” Pope asked him, to which he nodded, “Did you get a good description of them?”

“Yeah, literally anything,” you added.

“Anything we can bring to a police report?” Pope asked.

“Burly,” JJ said curtly, turning back around to the group.

“Burly, that’s all you got?” you asked him.

“Yeah, you know like…”

“That’s not very helpful,” Kie cut him off.

“Okay, well, no, like the type of guy at my dad's garage,” he explained, “I mean, you guys know he made cargo hides for drug smugglers.

You and Kie spoke at the same time,

“Yeah. Yes. No, we know.

“We are, in fact, aware of this, JJ.”

He looked between the two of you before continuing. He leant back against the wall as he spoke, taking a melodramatic swig of his vape, “I can tell you with full confidence, these boys, these killers,” he exhaled, smoke emitting from his mouth, “they're square groupers.” He finished.

“They're square groupers,” Pope started, a very unimpressed look across his face, “like narco square grouper? Like Pablo Escobar square grouper?”

“Yeah, man.” JJ confirmed. You shook your head at the boy as you slumped further into your seat.

“You guys, not everything is a kingpin movie,” Kie deadpanned.

“What does this square grouper look like, specifically?” Pope asked again, still not convinced.

“You were’t there,” JJ defended

“You don’t know what to look for!” Pope fired back.

“Dude!” JJ exclaimed, “I wasn't taking little mental Polaroids the entire time. Man, I was under duress, okay?”

A puff of air left your nose as a long air laugh left the back of your throat. This boy, you swore to god…

JJ a playful glared at you before turning back to Pope, “But I can tell you... I can tell you by the way that Ms. Lana was screaming... that these guys are serious, serious hombres, man.” You caught John B looking down at the compass. “It's a heavy vibe right now, okay? I'm not liking this very much.”

“Okay, well we’ll let you calm down sweetheart,” you said to him in a sarcastic tone that was laced with actual concern. “Jesus Christ,” you whispered shaking your head as you turned to the group, specifically John B who had now turned his back o the group and continued to stare at the object,

“Why do they want the compass?” you asked.

“It’s a piece of shit,” Pope said insensitively, “You could pawn it off for 5 bucks if you wanted to.”

“Pope,” you started but he continued.

“No offense. I know it's in your family—”

“The office.” John B said, speaking for the first time.

“What?” Pope asked him.

“My dad’s office. He always kept the office locked because he was worried about his competitors stealing his Royal Merchant research,” you followed John B through his house and to the door of the locked room, “We used to laugh at him like he was gonna find it. But now that he's gone, I've just kinda... I just left it as he kept it.”

You could see the way he was staring at the door, a look of deep sadness and melancholy swimming through his eyes.

“For when he gets back.” You said, rubbing your hand along his arm.

“Yeah, for when he gets back,” Kie echoed your words immediately. You leant around John B’s body and shot a look at Pope and JJ. They looked at each other and back to you, almost as if they were confused. You rolled your eyes as John B unlocked the door.

You entered the room and took in all of the stuff in the room. Maps, files, all of it.

“I've slept over here like 600 times, and I've never seen this door opened.”

“Here,” John B said grabbing a cork board which showed the lifetime of the compass. He explained who each person was and how they all died in possession of the compass.

“You have a death compass,” Pope stated, looking directly at John B.

“I do not,” he defended, holding the object tighter in his hand. He looked around at the group for support but you scrunched up your face and shrugged- it did seem cursed.

“You have a death compass,” Pope repeated.

“Get rid of it,” JJ ordered.

“It’s cursed, and it’s made its way back to you,” Pope and JJ continued to jeer and John B moved away from you all and sat down. He flicked the compass over in his hands.

“Look, my dad used to talk about this compartment in here,” you all gathered around to watch what he was doing. “Soldiers used it to hide secret notes.”

Something fell out and revealed writing across the inside of the compass.

“What’s that?” Kie asked, you and her both leaning forward over John B’s shoulder to get a better look. JJ’s head came close to yours as he bent his neck around to have a look.

“That wasn't there before,” John B stated, looking at the word, “This is my dad's handwriting.”

“How can you know that?” Pope asked sceptically.

“Because he does these weird Rs. See?”

“Can I see it?” JJ asked, placing a hand on your back to move further around to read the word. He hair obstructed your view as he leaned across you. “"Red—Rout—”

You moved his hair to the side, popping in below him to look up at him, “it says Redfield.” You clarified, ruffling his hair as you sat moved back out of his hair.

“Right,” he said sheepishly.

“Okay, well, what's Redfield?” Kie asked.

Answers were thrown around about what the common word could mean. Everyone began talking over one another, coupled with the rooster crowing very loudly. Pope was trying to work when he said,

“How can you concentrate with that thing crowing at you?”

“Awww,” you cooed sticking your bottom lip out, “JJ loves the rooster.” You smiled up at him as you leaned in closer. He smiled down at you as he laughed, leaning his head down closer to yours.

“I love the rooster,” Kie echoed.

“Let me think.” Pope cut all of you off, growing frustrated. He kept throwing around random before John B’s frantic voice cut him off.

“Guys!”

He drew your attention to the black car that had pulled into the drive, and the two men that exited it.

“Guys, guys, is that them?” Kie started freaking out.

“Shit,” You mumbled.

“No, no!” JJ started to freak out running his hands through his hair. You grabbed his wrists trying to calm him down.

“This is suboptimal,” Pope commented.

“John B I told you,” JJ continued to pace, you moving along with him trying to get him to compose himself.

“JJ, look at me,” you said. He immediately swivelled and looked at you, before John B’s arm covered your face from hi vision, stepping forward to talk to him.

“Where's the gun?”

“Gun? I, uh, I can't—” JJ spluttered, mind running a million miles an hour.

“Now you don't have the gun, the one time we need the gun?” Kie’s shrill voice came from behind you.

You reached your arm out to JJ who was still stressfully heaving.

“Just think, JJ” you said calmly. At your words he took a deep breath.

“It was in my backpack, and then I— on the porch,” he realised looking up at John B.

“On the porch,” John B confirmed pushing him towards the door. You brough your arms up to your chest as you felt anxiety corse through your veins as JJ stepped outside.

“John Routledge!” a booming voice came from outside. JJ skidded to a halt and turn around hastily, running back to the rom and slamming the door behind him.

“They’re on the front porch, guys,” he said.

You let out an involuntary whimper as you and Kie huddled together in fear. You could hear the two men trashing the palce.

“We have to leave.” Kie said.

“Window,” you said, pointing to the only window in the room. Pope and JJ rushed to try and prise it open.

“Hurry,” Kie urged them, she moved over to them as you and John B had your backs pressed against the door, holding it in place,

“what’s taking so long?” Kie asked them.

“It’s painted shut, okay,” JJ said aggressively as Kie moved to find something to slice through the paint. She got the letter opener and began to saw around the edge. Pope moved with you and John B to stand as a shield with the door.

“Come on,” JJ said frantically,”

“I’m going as fast as I can!” Kie exclaimed, fingers moving qucikly.

You and John B shushed them. You felt a harsh force on your back and you and John B pushed against the door as the man banged on it.

“You better not be in there!”

Kie finally got the window opeed and started to climb out. JJ grabbed your hand and dragged you with him. He climbed out of the window first before helping you down, hands around your waist. John B and Pope came after you as you all followed Kie into the oly hiding spot you could find: the chicken coop.  

The five of you sat inside, makig the chickens and rooster cluck loudly. You could feel your chest rising heavily as you struggled to catch you breath. John B was watching through the cracks and you could tell the men had exited the house as he tensed.

The chickens clucking rose louder and louder.

“Do something, Pope,” Kie said as he was the closest to the crowing rooster. “Shut him up.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Pet it, or talk to it,” she said frantically, tears streaming down her face, “I don't know.”

You could hear footsteps near the car. Tears welled in your eyes as you could feel your heart beating. JJ was next to you, and grabbed your hand. You looked at him and he nodded. A reassurance. You’d be okay. You nodded back.

The rooster only continued to get louder. John B sat back as he tried to hide after he heard the truck boot slam shut and one of the men start to walk over towards the coop.

You held bated breath. The rooster fluttered its wings and flew towards you and JJ.

JJ grabbed it and held it to the ground. It continued to crow loudly. Until you heard a sickening crack. The rooster went limp as JJ hurriedly let go.

You let out a quivering breath. Kie was sobbing quietly. JJ leant back and looked at you, only to see tears running down each side of your face. His eyes started to rim red as his breath became shaky. There was almost silence until you heard the men yell, their car start and drive away.

None of you moved for a moment, letting the adrenaline settle down.

You all crawled out of the chicken coop and JJ immediately made a beeline away from all of you. The four of you all looked at each other, before their eyes turned to you. You nodded, following JJ to where he stood in John B’s backyard, kicking stones.

You stood in front of him for a while. He looked up at you.

“What?” he asked forcefully, kicking another rock with your shoe.

“Just making sure you’re alright.” You said, crossing your arms across your chest, watching him.

“M fine,” he mumbled.

“JJ, you started.

“I saw the way you looked at me,” he said strongly ceasing his movements to look at you.

You sighed.

“I’m a bad person,” he said, shoving his hands into his pockets, refusing to meet your eyes.

You slowly moved towards him. You wrapped your arms slowly around his shoulders, until he relaxed and allowed you to fully envelope yourself around him.

“You’re not a bad person, J,” you said quietly, rubbing his back. “You’re a person who gets put into terrible situations without right or wrong,” you said pulling back and holding him at arm’s length. “Was what just happened horrible? Yes.” You told him truthfully, “but it doesn’t make me think any less of you.”

His eyebrows raised as you spoke, looking at you incredulously.

“Just shows me you would do anything to save your friends.”

He nodded at your words, wiping his nose and sniffing before rolling his shoulders back.

“Are you ready to go back to the rest of the group?”

“Yeah,” he nodded, relatively confidently. You smiled as he began walking next to you, returning slowly to himself.

You skipped along next to him, “you owe John B a rooster, you know.”

“Y/N,” he said sternly, but the sides of his mouths twitched as he suppressed a smile.

You spoke coyly, bringing a single finger to the side of your mouth as you teased him, “What? Too soon?”

Tag List:

I'm sorry it wouldn't let me tag some of you

@downbytheouterbanks @thesailbells @sexualparkour @bestfriendmagic @mileven-reddie @nikki082489 @treestarrrrrrrr @mynamessusan @kristinaxilliano @love-bean @lauraxwndrlnd @jjsthumbring @imsad05 @lovelymaybankk @http-cherries @belledutchess @queen1054 @wicked-laugh @dist-urbia @jjswhore​ @sspidermanss​ @fandomobsessedlife @dolanfivsosxox​ @whenyouregrungeaff​ @poguestyleskye​ @iknowrocknroll567​ @kingdomheartsfan109​ @ilikebrowniess @dangerouswhispersblog​ @hopelesswritingxd​ 

[radbutsafe]

ALL FUCKIN 35 OF THEM SKLNWESDJFPXO

I SHOULDVE EXPECTED THIS FROM YOU

1. From one to five stars, how would you rate your writing? (No downplaying yourself!)

A three! I think I’m mid range cause I ain’t terrible but there is still shit I gotta improve and grow in my writing

2. Why do you write fanfiction?

to manifest what canon won’t give me and to write more! (though yes it is mainly about the smooching and the— I’ll stop there LOL)

3. What do you think makes your writing stand out from other works?

Hm! My weird research details? I’m that “fun fact, did you know...” in my fics sometimes LOL! I plan on giving a penthouse for erina in a fic and I went through penthouse listings in Japan for floor layouts and locations💀 my research gives me inspo and depth to stuff I think I lack in comparison to others sometimes.

4. Are there any writers that inspire you?

In terms of fellow fic writers, one of them I can’t name here but she’s an inspiration with her exceptional gift for prose period and her lovely skill at comedy! I want to be as funny as her when I write, I love her ironic situational humor. Other fic writers are @takoyakitenchou, @royaldragonsevgisi15 who I always love sharing ideas with and motivate me to create more! For non-fic writers it would be V.E. Schwab, Leigh Bardugo, Oda, and Horikoshi! The last two may be mangaka, however they are writers as well to create their stories! The depth these creators have given their worlds and interesting characters theyve given life to are all what I aspire to be like!

5. What’s the fic you’re most proud of?

so far uh?? hm everything I’m currently writing are wips lol!! im proud of my wip that has been nicknamed ‘soma panics’ that is a multi-chapter fic that spans like probs 20 plus chapters maybe

6. What element of writing do you find comes easily?

dialogue! it’s so much fun! and character thoughts. I’ve said to people I may be better suited for script writing

7. What element of writing do you struggle with most?

I think it’s description, of like setting and showing action. also an expansion of my vocabulary LOL

8. Which character(s) do you find easiest to write?

erina! I think it’s because canon has shown us many of her different faces and range of emotion.

9. Which character(s) do you find most difficult to write?

SOMA!! chill ass mofo whos more carefree compared to the common shonen protagonist! for other shokugeki characters I’m not sure just yet because I haven’t flexed my fingers enough for the rest of them.

10. What’s your favorite genre to write for?

I guess I should say romance cause that’s what I mostly write LOL!

11. Who or what do you find yourself writing about most?

sorina and I try to get them to smooch eventually KEK and yeah it’s..usually romantic fluff lmao

12. Tell us about a WIP you’re excited about.

HONESTLY ALL OF THEM but “soma panics” is my brain child

13. First fandom you ever wrote for?

pretty sure it’s digimon....

14. What’s your favorite fandom to write for?

currently shokugeki no soma!!!!

15. What’s the weirdest fandom you’ve ever written for?

uhhhh I guess SNS? LMAO fandoms...all have their quirks to them.

16. Any guilty pleasure trope(s)?

characters cuddling!!!! or getting the urge to smooch!!!!

17. A trope you’ll never, ever write for.

unrequited love GOOD FUCKIN BYEEEEEE

18. Wildest fic you’ve ever written?

I have plot ideas thst can be wild potentially but so far nothing fits this criteria so far that I actually have written.

19. Do you prefer canon-compliant, AUs, or something in-between?

depends on the fandom, but if written well, all of it!

20. Gen fic or shippy stuff?

shippy 100% like I said I like smoochin

21. Favorite pairing to write for? (platonic or romantic!)

romantic is...*drumroll* SORINA! platonic, soutaku and erina and alice!

22. Do you listen to anything while you write?

Sometimes! There are times songs will be on loop and times I just shuffle a playlist. and if I’m writing in random bursts it’ll be with no music but it really does depend lmao I think music is when I’m forcing myself to write?

23. Do you prefer prompts and challenges, or completely independent ideas?

completely independent ideas, I’ve realized in the past prompts shoot me in the foot often unless I luckily figure something out. but I’m often driven by my own sporadic self interest with shitty ping ponging attention

24. One-shots or multi-chaptered works?

multi-chap I guess cause I can post without being finished LOLLL but tbh can I really answer? I haven’t finished anything.....

25. Have you ever daydreamed about side adventures/spin-offs from your fic? Tell us about them!

I can’t answer this question imo because I haven’t finished a fic yet so technically stuff could all fit in the one fic?

26. Is there anything you’ve wanted to write, but you’ve been too scared to try?

MYSTERY AND CRIME! I love the genre and I have plot ideas once a blue moon but I can’t dive in because I want to make details that work and reduce plot holes where suspension of disbelief isn’t as needed. I need to study it more (I need to study all the details for any of my fics imo to be confident sometimes LOL)

27. What’s the nicest comment you’ve ever received?

I don’t think I can say one comment was the nicest because I’ve gotten comments that have given me quite the smiles to my face many times! I know this is a cop out but it’s true!

IS WHAT I WAS GONNA SAY UNTIL REINA SENT ME THE FOLLOWING ON DISCORD LIKE TWENTY MINS AGO:

and also rad. i am never this vocal about my emotions like EVER but this needs to be said your fics are obviously far from perfect, as are mine and everyone else's. but the thing about your works is that they're so well-sanded that it's impossible to find any rough edges or faults in them in terms of cohesion to a plot. your cast is never OOC and the amount of effort you devote to developing your takes on the characters as accurately as possible is unimaginably awe-inspiring.

BITCH I WANNA CRY 😭

28. How well do you handle criticism when it comes to your writing?

I’d like to believe I take it often well to try and improve because that’s always my goal. if someone is rude lol that’s not constructive snd is unhelpful. If I disagree with criticism I’ll explain why !

29. Have you ever gone outside of your comfort zone for a fic? How did it turn out?

Not yet, but I have some plot ideas I think will let me test this.

30. Tooth-rotting fluff or merciless angst?

F L U F F.

31. Do you have any OCs? Tell us about them!

elliott fuji, a japanese-american award winning photographer who is erina’s boyfriend in ‘soma panics’ which..causes soma’s panic LOL he’s 30 with slightly wavy black hair. I still haven’t pinpointed his personality just yet...he kind of humble brags for sure an artsy fucker and flirts maybe I’ll make him a lil shy though. he teaches sometimes, and becomes an adjunct photography professor in Tokyo so he can be with erina.

32. Summarize a random fic of yours in 10 words or less.

a cook is unfashionably late in realizing his feelings.

33. Is there anything you wish your audience knew about your writing or writing process?

I am a slow. so slow. motivation who is she? I also write out of order, unfortunately a bit too often.

34. Copy and paste an excerpt you’re particularly fond of.

this should be for the fic ‘soma panics’ it’s either megumi or satoshi talkin to him rn, I’m leaning towards satoshi

“You thought she would always wait for you, didn’t you Soma-kun? To always welcome you home.”

Soma drags his palms down his face and groans. He doesn’t like this at all. He doesn’t shy from confrontation but this is a whole different ballgame. Soma doesn’t play any ball.

“I guess..?” Is his reply, because he thinks he isn’t sure how to answer that.

“You guess?”

Just being questioned again is enough to crack Soma’s pathetic facade as if it was dropped chinaware and he lets out the longest sigh.

“No.”

Coming home means coming home to Nakiri Erina too.

Nakiri Erina is his forever.

this is @takoyakitenchou’s excerpt she’s most proud of that I’ve written, which is also from you guessed it, the long fic soma panics

SOMA: I am, I mean I will be, I swear I will always come home to you, not spend as much time abroad, once I’m done with work I’ll come right back. I’ll make sure to message you. Nakiri, I’m in love you with you. Maybe for a really long time. You know how I say I dedicate my food to you? My dad—my dad said that the key to become a good chef is to find someone to dedicate your cooking to. A special someone. For my dad it was my mom, you know? For me it’s...

(this is a good piece of dialogue tbh so I am also proud of this)

35. Ramble about any fic-related thing you want!

I’ve mentioned it throughout this but the WIP I’ve nicknamed ‘soma panics’ is something I’m super excited to write, but it’s going on slowly...and almost completely out of order. out of all of my writing it showed off that particular habit of mine, along with “what is this, a shoujo manga?!” though the latter is currently being written chronologically now that I’ve posted chapter one and is pretty solid in direction. it was originally supposed to be a one shot but I got impatient and wanted to post at least something for the sorina / soueri fandom.

however, because ‘soma panics’ (I won’t call it that LOL) is my baby I want to keep true to my rule of refusing to post it until I have a draft of the entire fic finished and I’m satisfied with the main points pretty much. due to my writing out of order, I’m worried I’ll change my mind about scenes or want to reflect things in earlier chapters for later ones etc etc

I joined the SnS fandom extremely late, as season five was airing. I was a fan of the manga five years ago and dropped it because I forgot to check for updates when I caught up 😔 I really want to bang out the different fics and aus for sorina that I have before the fandom fizzles out entirely but tbh I’m writing for myself, I’m manifesting what I want to see and I’ll just share it with all my friends to read if no one else will. cause I’m slow broski I dunno what writing fast even is like LMAO I do really want to write faster though, so I can contribute more and let the words free from the discord dms....

[avelera]

Holy crap, I've never heard of Mary Renault and I'm so excited to read her books, starting with Last of the Wine! What an incredible lady to publish LGBT works especially in the 50s in South Africa. I'm amazed at her courage! Thank you for your posts that brought her to my attention! Have you got any recommendations when it comes to reading her books, order/what to avoid/what to watch out for? I don't do sad endings all too well but I'm assuming her books probably don't have many happy endings?

Yooooo! Sorry for publishing this but I figured this info is useful for other people too!

Mary Renault is like, one of the queens of historical fiction and yes, was a lesbian though she wanted to be known more widely as a fiction writer rather than get pigeonholed as a specifically a “gay” writer (she picked up a huge following of gay readers in her lifetime). She wrote openly about same-sex relationships in her fiction, as many of her novels are set in Ancient Greece (and mythological Ancient Greece, but we’ll get to that). Tolkien was one of her teachers and praised her work. Apparently he also urged her to write under her real name rather than go with a male pseudonym, as was popular at the time, and gave this advice to many women writers because he didn’t feel they should need to hide their identity.

Anyway, to answer your question, my favorite books by her were “The Bull from the Sea” and “The King Must Die” which are about the life of the mythological Theseus, though they are couched in archaeological facts of the time he would have theoretically lived (some of which are out of date with our current archaeological understanding but were extremely well-researched at the time). Honestly, IMO, she is perhaps the name in realistic takes on mythological and historical figures of Ancient Greece in fiction and Madeline Miller of “Song of Achilles” fame (as well as many other writers) list her as a primary influence. 

In addition to her books on Theseus, Renault also wrote a trilogy of books about Alexander the Great, from his perspective, and from the perspective of his (possibly historical?) Persian boy lover (titled: The Persian Boy lol) and his love of his (male) partner/general Hephaestion is a major thread (the two compared themselves to Achilles and Patroclus). Those are the books by her that I’ve read, but she has written many other historical and 20th c. set books with openly gay characters.

I personally just started reading “The Last of the Wine” despite being such a fan of hers since I was a kid. I’m loving it so far and I can say the main character is a man living in Classical Athens during  the Peloponnesian War and he has another man as a primary love interest and yes, these books were written in the mid-20th c. Basically, I think she “got away with it” because of the historical setting of the stories, but this shouldn’t take anything away because it was still quite common to “whitewash” historically “LGBT+” (how to label these historical figures is a discussion for another day) to not include those aspects of their lives. I think she’ll definitely appeal to a modern audience (though she has a bit of internalized misogyny from her era which can be a turn off for some people) but if you’re looking for a book to read along the lines of “Song of Achilles” she really should be your next stop, and I’m sure Madeline Miller would agree.

[moonlit-han]

a truth universally (un)acknowledged | chapter one

(artwork credit to @jisungieart​)

genre: rivals-to-lovers, fluff, college au, theatre au pairing: han jisung x reader chapter word count: 1.9k warnings: suggestive, swearing request: yes (@jisungsjheekies)

✧ masterlist & tag list info in bio ✧

{prologue} {chapter one}  {chapter two}  {chapter three}  {chapter four} {chapter five}  {chapter six}  {chapter seven, part one}  {chapter seven, part two}

chapter one

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” — Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (1813)

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ

It was in freshman year of college, the sixth week of classes, in Shakespeare for Theatre Performance Majors (THEA 200), halfway through the class period, just as the class prepared to perform their first monologues. You’d wanted to be assigned one of Prospero’s speeches from The Tempest. Instead, Jisung got to play Prospero and you ended up with one of Rosalind’s clever monologues from As You Like It. Not that you disliked Rosalind as a character, you simply wanted to have the fun of 1) not playing a girl for once in your life, and 2) wearing a long robe and getting to wave around a long staff. (There are few things that delight more than strutting around like some self-important wizard). 

You did your best with the monologue, pretending to hide behind a tree at times and speaking to an imaginary Orlando at others. You were as pleased as a cat who’d caught a canary with how well you’d performed, and the fact that your professor gave few notes made it all the better. You liked being the best at anything you did. Jisung was called up to perform after you, and he had brought a robe and a staff. You scoffed a bit because, until that day, he’d been a fairly good actor but nothing extraordinary. Oh, how wrong you were. Yes, his participation in class thus far had been exemplary, his integration of notes seamless, and his general affect lighthearted and kind. But again, he’d only been a fairly good actor, nothing extraordinary. So, seeing him play Prospero as he called down the elements to wreak havoc at sea was unexpected, to say the least. Jisung seemed to put every ounce of energy he had into the performance, and the class clapped when he finished. He, like everyone else, had received notes from the professor, but they were cursory comments. Jisung had done the proper research to play Prospero as well as he could, and then presented the monologue better than you ever thought possible—from a college freshman, that is. And, you hated to admit, better than you could’ve done.

Thus, your rivalry with Han Jisung began. 

At first it was distinctly one-sided, but you performed so well on the mid-term that Jisung noticed he wouldn’t be the sole star of the class. From then on, you and he vied for many of the same scenes to perform, the leading roles in the plays and musicals, and even the chance to mentor younger students once you were upperclassmen. Also, you consistently tried to perform better than each other in everything you did. The unofficial title of Best Actor in the Department (created by you and Jisung for your own purposes and, somehow, represented by a child’s gaudy tiara) bounced between the two of you. It must be said, though, it became more and more like a game with your steadily maturing attitudes and values. However, the one thing you both flatly refused to do was play love interests. If the two leading roles in a play were love interests, you would find different roles for which to audition to avoid that awkwardness.

And now, you were a senior and the reality of your impending graduation had just set in. 

As you walked down the hall to the costume shop for your shift, your best friend and roommate, Miri, caught your arms and swung you around.

“Y/N! Babe, did you see the posting? They’ve announced the next production!!” Miri was practically bouncing up and down as she spoke, which wasn’t unusual for her. “It’s a new adaptation of Pride and Prejudice—who are you going to audition for?” 

“Wait, really? Pride and Prejudice? I didn’t even know there was a stage version of that,” you said as Miri swung your now linked hands back and forth. “Hmmm, I guess I could audition for Jane? I don’t think I’d go for Elizabeth, since I really don’t feel like carrying a show next semester, you know?”

“But you’d make such a good Elizabeth Bennet! You have to audition for her!” Miri pressed you.

“Mir, no, I don’t want to have too much going on. Jane will be enough for me. Plus, I’m sure everyone will want to play Elizabeth—she is the lead, after all,” you said, finally extracting yourself from your friend’s grasp.

“But Y/N—” Miri whined.

“Come on, I want to ask if we’ll have to do extra shifts in the costume shop with the show coming up,” you interrupted and continued down the hallway.

When you got off from your shift sewing and repairing garments used in the last show, you went to the audition sign-up sheet on the Theatre Department Message Board. You saw a small knot of people huddled in front of the board, all waiting excitedly to put down their names. You joined the group just as Jisung sauntered up and stood beside you.

“So, Y/N, should we break our rule and go for Elizabeth and Darcy?” Jisung asked, knowing full well you’d never agree to it. He liked to tease you and you liked to tease him, just as long it didn’t end up as flirting. That would be bad.

“Jisung, you know that’s never gonna happen. I am never going to play love interests with you. My first choice is Jane, and after that I’ll just let Professor Greystone decide,” you said as you rummaged in your bag for a pen.

“Ah, the calm and lovely Jane . . . so you’d rather have a simpler role, huh? Too busy this year?” Jisung teased.

“No,” you replied sternly, “I’d just sooner have less to worry about than more. Who are you auditioning for, anyway? Wickham?”

“Nah, I think I’d do best as Mr. Bennet—play to my natural wit,” Jisung said casually, sweeping his hair up off his forehead. “It’d be perfect!”

“Sure, sure. Whatever you say, Jisung.” You’d finally found a pen and began to write your name and your role of choice under an audition time. 

Just when you’d finished, Jisung snatched the pen from your fingers. You were about to protest, but he’d already added his name to the list. Handing the pen back to you with exaggerated care, Jisung said, “See you at auditions, then, Y/N,” and strolled down the hall like he didn’t have a single care in the world.

You quickly glanced at the audition sheet again, and sure enough, Jisung had signed up for the slot right after you. Damn, that had to be the worst luck ever.

Two weeks later, the Department held auditions on Thursday and Friday afternoon in the main theatre. Most students auditioning were familiar with the space, especially those, like you and Jisung, who had performed in it before. The director, Professor Greystone, clearly wanted to see how each person reacted and adjusted to the size and acoustics of the theatre throughout their audition. The long hallway along the back of the theatre was full of students waiting for their time slot. It was eerily quiet, save for the occasional mutter as someone cursed themselves or their chosen monologue for one reason or another. Every fifteen minutes, the door would open to free one student only to swallow another into the maw of the theatre scant minutes later. All looked less stressed coming out than when they went in, but the tension in the air was thicker than strawberry jam. 

You’d been thinking about the auditions for nearly every waking moment over the past two weeks. Jisung’s comment about playing Elizabeth and Darcy had, somehow, stuck in your brain like the worst kind of repetitive song. There was a part of you that wanted to play Elizabeth—she had some of the wittiest responses to the hidebound and often dull comments made by those of her social circle, and you aspired to be as quick-witted. But, you didn’t want to risk being cast opposite Jisung. You didn’t think you could bring yourself to act, truly act, even remotely interested in him as a lover. You leaned against the wall, reading through your monologue and your notes for comfort more than anything, trying to clear your head of all else. The temptation of playing Elizabeth just would not go away, though. After another five minutes of fruitless reading and rereading, you paused. What if I did audition for Elizabeth? you thought, scarcely daring to even think it. Jisung surely wouldn’t audition for Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, right? He wanted to play Mr. Bennet so he could, in essence, play himself. It wouldn’t hurt for you to add Elizabeth to your list of potential roles—it was just another option. You’d been cast in enough leading roles in the past that there was a good chance Professor Greystone wouldn’t cast you in one again. Right?

“Y/N,” came the sing-song voice in your ear. You had to fight the urge to hit Jisung in the head as you glared at the young man who made it his business to annoy the daylights out of you.

“What, Jisung. What do you want,” you hissed under your breath, trying not to disturb the ten other people still waiting for their turn. “I’m trying to concentrate.”

“Oh, just saying ‘Hi.’ Break a leg, Y/N! Hope you get the part you want.” With that, Jisung walked back down the hall to sit on the floor with his ever-present headphones pulled down over his ears. You guessed it helped him filter out distractions. Although, it did make Jisung seem especially cocky, though, as if he didn’t need to study his lines or do anything else before an audition.

After twenty minutes or so, your audition time arrived. Of course, Professor Greystone and the other faculty had some general questions for you before you performed. They made it seem like part of the audition process, but the questions were really an excuse to let students adjust to the space. No matter one’s years of experience, the additional time always helped. Thus, the questions were simple. Yes, you’d read Pride and Prejudice—several times, in fact. No, you hadn't been aware of a stage adaptation before it was announced for the spring. No, your spring schedule was not full yet.

“Do you have any other questions, Y/N?” Professor Greystone asked, setting down her pen for a moment.

“Well, yes. Could I add Elizabeth to my preferred roles, please?” You smiled sheepishly, knowing Professor Greystone had probably expected this. 

“Of course, Y/N. I’ll consider you for the role, in addition to Jane,” replied your professor. “Could you perform your monologue for us now?”

With that, you took a deep breath, lowered your head, then raised it in character.

And then, you were done. You emerged from the theatre, a bit tired but happy with your performance. Jisung, who really was acting like your shadow these days, waited outside the door for his own audition.

“Break a leg, Jisung. You’d do wonderfully as Mr. Bennet,” you said, surprising even yourself as you gave the compliment.

“Thanks, Y/N,” Jisung said bemusedly as he watched you gather your things, settling your sweater and backpack on your shoulders. Still staring into space even after you rounded the corner at the end of the hall, Jisung bit his lip. Should I go for Darcy? he thought. There’s no way Y/N would audition for Elizabeth. She’s too scared we’ll end up being cast as lovers. Chuckling to himself, Jisung methodically put away his headphones, straightened his clothes, and took a deep breath. Opening the stage door, he thought, Hell, I’ll do it.

[sheliesshattered]

This Isn’t A Ghost Story extras for Chapter 7: The Museum

The penultimate chapter of This Isn’t A Ghost Story has been posted! It’s here on Tumblr and here on AO3. Lots of pictures, explanations, and a few spoilers below the cut. The extras follow the flow of the chapter, so it’s safe to follow along with this post as you read, if you like. 

Chapter 7 is named for and takes place in the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities in Cairo. This is the same location where Clara and the Doctor first met in 1921, as detailed in the journal entries in chapter 3 and some of Clara’s recovered memories in chapter 4. The museum was originally built in 1901, and besides a few modernizing improvements over the years, it hasn’t changed much since then. Here’s a postcard depicting the museum while it was being built:

And the museum as it appears today in modern Cairo:

The interior of the museum hasn’t changed much either, and a few of the larger artifacts haven’t even been moved since they were originally put in place for the opening in 1902.

Here’s a short walk-through video of both the entrance and the interior of the museum, showing what it looked like in 2017. The new Grand Egyptian Museum was supposed to open in the spring of 2020, but has been pushed back to at least 2021 because of the Covid-19 pandemic. For Ghost Story I decided to skip right over 2020 and assume that by May 2021, the original Cairo Museum will still be open to the public, whether or not GEM has finally opened.

Clara asks the Doctor if he remembers what she wore to that black-tie party in 1921, and I have to imagine it was something like her dress from Mummy On The Orient Express:

This amazing dress from 1925 is also a strong contender.

While the Cairo Museum doesn’t have a reproduction of the tomb of Thutmose III like I described in this chapter (and, in fact, until the new museum opens, the Cairo Museum is far too crowded with artifacts to be able to devote an entire room to Thutmose III), that specific burial chamber has been recreated at a museum in England, with stunning attention to detail:

Comparing it to the original tomb in the Valley of the Kings, you can see how accurately they’ve reproduced it: 

Clara comments on the star ceiling, photographed in the original tomb here:

Which, as the Doctor notes, is a common feature in a lot of 18th dynasty and other New Kingdom architecture, and in This Isn’t A Ghost Story connects directly with Clara’s star sapphire wedding ring:

Those of you who have followed me here on Tumblr the last few months may have heard me yell about the tomb of Thutmose III before, and in particular the art depicting the Amduat aka The Twelve Hours of the Night. What Clara describes as “stylised stick figures” is in fact what the walls of the burial chamber are absolutely covered in, and I cannot overstate my love for it. I mean:

I love this art style, possibly more than anything else in all of ancient Egyptian art. I love how stylized and timeless it is, I love that it’s used to tell a complex story that is part of an even more complex funerary tradition. I love the sweeping lines and tiny bits of shading, I love the little upturned toes of their shoes and the tiniest hint of hand shapes. I love their skinny little arms and skinny little legs, oh my god. The fact that this is a real 3500 year old work of art constantly boggles my mind.

The reproduction of the tomb of Thutmose III at Bolton’s museum in England also has a short video that retells the story of the Amduat in gorgeous stylized animation, following the recently deceased pharaoh as he joins Ra on his journey through the underworld to rebirth, if you would like a more complete idea of what the wall art is depicting. 

The Twelve Hours of the Night poem Clara quotes is credited to the poet William Ashbless, the less about whom is said the better. But if your curiosity compels you (and I certainly hope it does), I do highly recommend Tim Powers’ excellent novel The Anubis Gates. Tim Powers is possibly my all-time favorite author, and a huge influence on all of my writing. This Isn’t A Ghost Story is quite definitely the most Powers-esque thing I’ve ever written, and was probably influenced most specifically by The Anubis Gates, Declare, and The Stress of Her Regard. Finding a way to work in a subtle nod to both Ashbless and The Anubis Gates felt fitting and highly amusing to me.

My long-standing love for the Amduat was an early part of the development of this story, coming right on the heels of deciding to give the Doctor a background in Egyptology. I spent a fair part of mid-June digging into research on the Amduat, reading every little scrap about it that I could wring out of the internet. On June 19th -- three months ago this weekend -- all of that research quite suddenly solidified into this chapter, which at the time I figured would be chapter 6, before chapter 5 up and decided to split into two chapters.

Using the twelve hours of the night as the linchpin for the happy ending I wanted for these two really helped solidify and clarify my ideas about how the Doctor functioned as a ghost with regard to sunlight. The sunlight/darkness and day/night theme is really the backbone to the whole story, and is also echoed by the dichotomy of Clara’s wedding ring, which looks like a star in the night sky, but only when viewed in direct sunlight. All of that, from chapter 1 onward and even the story’s title, was leading to this moment, the twist at the end of this chapter.

I wrote the first draft of this chapter in basically one go, beginning to end, which is super unusual for me for any scene, much less an entire chapter. The first version was about 400 words shorter than the final version, and almost all of that growth was in the moment right after the Doctor starts feeling lightheaded. I wanted that sequence to have enough emotional weight, without tipping over into feeling like I was milking it for melodrama. While editing this chapter, Jack said that he thinks there will be a lot of wailing in the comments this week, and I’m very curious to see how that moment will go over for all of you.

Clara and the Doctor have so many exquisite moments of heartbreak in canon that I couldn’t help but borrow from them all heavily here. And as a writer who really enjoys eliciting emotion from the reader as well as communicating the emotions of the characters, I couldn’t resist the urge to make you, my lovely readers, think that I just might take this down the path of tragedy, even if only for a couple of paragraphs. I would say I’m sorry except that I’m really, really not. :D

We’re down to just one chapter to go now, an even shorter epilogue that grew out of some of the research I did for this chapter. I’ll be back next week with the behind the scenes details for that chapter, as well as a few things about the story as a whole, including the full timeline for Clara and the Doctor. 

Do you have any questions for me heading into the final chapter? Any behind the scenes details you’d like me to cover? Let me know! ❤️

--

Extras for Chapter 8: The Temple

[creativeskullcreations]

Outside chapter 3: Food?

Third chapter is out! Not much to say about this one, expect that we finish up the day with some delicious Chinese takeout! Nothing heavy going on in here! Nope! Not at all!

When Stacy felt Scout was sufficiently distracted, she pulled her laptop out of her bag. 'Let's see, what was the group that guy was a part of? Vox I think...' She searched the group on Google, and found them almost immediately. She clicked the link to their website, and was struck by how professional it looked.

'So these guys are paranormal investigators...' From what the site said, they were a professional team that specialized in locating and researching. Specifically, they went after the newer, modern activity, like the Waygetter toys, or cursed animatronics.

'Where were you guys when I was a kid?' She shook her head. 'Focus, Stacy! Forget the past, focus on the present! You have a different problem to solve...<' She scrolled down and clicked on the contact button, which gave her an email address. She clicked over to her own email and typed in the address, but paused before writing anything.

'What do I even say to them? They didn't believe that Anthony guy, and he was one of them. Maybe if I send them proof...' Her eyes drifted to Scout, who was staring at the TV. Her attention was completely taken by the show, and she seemed oblivious to what Stacy was doing and thinking. 'A picture might not be enough, but maybe a video? But would she even agree to it? And could I even do that to her?'

Stacy shook her head, closing the laptop with a small sigh. 'I can't. Not right now. Maybe once things are settled...' She moved the computer to the side and stood up, stretching as much as she could. She then went into the kitchen and started digging through Sammy's fridge.

'Ugh, he's such a bachelor. There's nothing in here but some old lettuce and leftover soup. He'd better be buying groceries on his way back from work, or I'm telling Aunt Hannah he has no food again.' She closed the door, and then grabbed some bread and peanut-butter from the cupboard, and the last clean knife from one of the drawers. She quickly made herself a simple sandwich, cut it in half, then went back to the couch.

"Where'd you go?" Scout asked when she'd sat back down. She flopped over onto her lap, making Stacy jerk her plate up to keep it from getting hit. "You're missing the show!"

"I've seen it before, don't worry." Stacy assured her as she bit into the sandwich. "I'm not missing anything important."

"Hey, what's that?" She climbed into her lap and peered onto the plate, reminding Stacy of a cat. "Is that Host Food?"

"Yeah, it's a peanut-butter sandwich. I got hungry, and it was all Sammy had to eat, other than gross leftovers." She took another bite of sandwich, not really paying attention as Scout pulled the plate down a little. She watched the Puppet grab the other half of the sandwich 'Gross.', and examine it closely. Then, without warning, she tore a bite off and started chewing.

Stacy froze mid-chew, unsure of how to react. While she knew Scout had to have organs, she hadn't thought she actually could eat anything. It was quite surreal, watching a thing made of cloth chew and swallow real, human food.

"Hmm, not bad. Kind of sticky, though." She smacked her lips, then tore off another bite and turned back around to keep watching the show, leaving Stacy feeling like she'd smoked some of her cousin's weed. She shook the feeling off, though, deciding to come back to it at a later time. Like maybe when she'd actually had some weed.

Instead she finished her half of the sandwich(since she apparently only got to have half, now), and then pulled back out her laptop. She opened up a new doc, and started drafting up some plans.

'One way or another, I'm gonna figure this out.'

Several hours later, and Stacy had not figured it out. She had maybe one and a half pages of notes on the Puppets, most of which was on just Scout, and three different plans.

1. Go to the police.

-Too Risky for Scout

-Can lie about what's going on if needed

2. Ask Vox for help.

-Way too risky for Scout and me

-Can't lie to these guys about it

-They would know what they're doing tho

3. Arson.

-Has potential

-Can have a bon fire and roast marshmallows while we do it

-Could get arrested but might be worth it if we can get all the Puppets

-Might also be worth it just to see Scout try and eat a melty marshmallow

So far, plan number three was looking like the best one. It still wasn't the absolute best plan, but it was all they had at the moment. She'd have to talk to Will and see if he still had those gas cans in his garage.

"Hey, are you guys still here?" Stacy started at the sudden entrance of Sammy, surprised at how late it had gotten. She shut her laptop and put it to the side for now, standing up.

"No, we left and stole all of your soup." She told him. What you're seeing now is a hunger induced hallucination."

Sammy paused, the held up a plastic bag with a panda on it. "So you don't want the takeout I got?"

"Oooh, gimme!" Stacy rushed to snatch the bag from her cousin. She brought it over to the table, pausing briefly to pick Scout up from the couch. She started to set the food out while the Puppet settled over her shoulder, watching what she did. While she worked, she also pointed out what each different food was.

"So, all of this stuff is rice. We don't normally eat it, but they include it anyways with some of the meals. This is teriyaki chicken, and this is-"

"Stacy, really? Why would it even need to know what that stuff is?" Sammy tsked as he sat at the table and grabbed some noodle dish. "It's stuffed, and can't eat."

Stacy just stuck her tongue out at him and sat down. She picked up a pair of chopsticks and set about showing Scout how to hold and use them properly.

For awhile, they ate silently as Scout watched them, which Stacy personally thought was a little odd but didn't want to say anything. If the Puppet wanted to be weird, then she wasn't going to stop her. Sammy, on the other hand, soon fixed her with a hard stare and cleared his throat.

"So." Stacy looked up at him mid-chew, cheeks bulging. "What are you going to do when you get back to your apartment?"

She swallowed hard, putting on a more thoughtful expression. "Go back to class, tell Carol I can't do the article and why, maybe go tell the police about the psychopaths in the warehouse." She shrugged, digging out another bite of chicken from one of the boxes. "Y'know, stuff."

"And what about...?" He gestured to Scout with his chopsticks, and the Puppet glared back at him. Stacy, in a stroke of seldom seen genius, offered the Puppet her chicken before she could say anything.

"She's coming with me, of course. I live alone, so there shouldn't be a problem." Scout chomped down on the chicken, to Stacy's mild surprise. She quickly picked up some more food for herself. "Besides, Will is gonna love her. They're so much alike."

"Okay, ignoring the fact that you just fed that thing," Scout made an offended noise. "that sounds like a shit plan. There's no way in hell the police will believe you without proof."

"Fine, you're right. I have a back-up plan in the works, too." She thought back to her arson idea as she offered another bite to Scout. "But it needs work, so I can't put it in action yet." ‘And gasoline. Lots and lots of gasoline.’

"... Where's that food even going, anyways?" Both Sammy and Stacy turned to stare at Scout, who didn't even pause in her chewing to send them both a glare. Obviously, she wasn't going to be explaining anything, so Stacy turned back to her cousin.

"I have no idea. Don't think too hard on it."

'Don't think about why you're feeding her, either.' She ignored her own thoughts to shove some more food in her mouth. That was something to think about later. Or, perhaps, never. Never seemed like a much better time.

They finished their food, with Stacy giving Scout a few more bites, then boxed up the leftovers and put them in the fridge. Stacy then made Sammy get them a blanket because "It was too cold last night I almost froze to death!"

"It wasn't that bad, Stace." He told her, but fished out some spare bedding anyways. "It was near sixty."

"And yet, you had the air on or something. I swear it was colder than that in here." She insisted. She almost shivered just thinking about it. "You need to turn the AC off."

"The Ac's not on." He frowned at her, head tilted like he was studying one of his patients. "Maybe you're getting sick? You did spend God knows how long running around an abandoned warehouse with open wounds. I wouldn't be surprised if you caught something."

"God I hope not." She muttered, helping him spread the blanket out on the couch. "I gotta drive back to my apartment tomorrow. I don't wanna be sick while doing that."

"Well, if you do come down with something, promise me you'll go straight to the walk-in clinic or ER." Sammy told her seriously. "It could be something worse than a cold, like an infection from the stitches."

"Promises are curses." Stacy responded automatically. "But if something comes up, I will go to the walk-in. I don't wanna die after going through all of that bullshit."

"Wow, you're swearing. Must have been some pretty bad bullshit." He joked as he handed her a pillow. She resisted the urge to hit him with it.

"It was the second worst thing I've ever been through. It was horrible, and I hated it, but now it's over forever." Her eye twitched slightly as she placed the pillow on the couch, and saw Scout watching them from the side table. She was overcome with a childish urge to knock Scout over onto the pillow, which she quickly did.

"Wha-? Hey!" She pulled the blanket up over the Puppet, and heard a soft snort of amusement from Sammy.

"Are you ever going to grow up." He shook his head with a sigh as they watched the blanket covered lump move around.

"Nope!" She told him cheerfully. "I'mma be a kid forever!" She noticed the lump had stopped moving and leaned down, reaching for the blanket. "Uh, Scout? You oka-"

"DEATH FROM ABOVE!" Scout hit the back Stacy's head with far more force than necessary, knocking her onto the couch. She then bit onto the top of her head, though that didn't do much.

"AAUGH! How'd you even get up there?!?" She became aware of laughter and turned a death glare on her cousin. "Stop laughing! It's not funny Samuel!" She threw the pillow at him, but that didn't stop the almost hysterical laughter coming from him.

"Oh my God!" He gasped out, collapsing against the couch. "She just came out of nowhere! Holy shit!" He fell onto the floor while Stacy wrestled the apparently feral Puppet off of her head. She held her at arm's length, trying to simultaneously give her a disapproving look and check her over for injuries. It was hard to do, however, as she kept trying to bite her hand.

"Dude, seriously? That's not even gonna do anything to me..." She watched Scout thrash for a moment, actually struggling to hold onto her. "Okay, seriously, stop it right now, or you're going back under the blanket and I'm gonna sit on you." That got her to stop, but she kept up the death glare.

"Geez..." She looked over at Sammy, who was coughing on the floor, finally finished laughing. "It wasn't that funny..."

"It was fucking hilarious." He retorted between coughs. "Instant karma." He took a deep breath and started to pull himself up from the floor. "I like that Puppet." Stacy just sighed. "Whatever dude. Glad to know my pain is what made you like her." Unconsciously, she hugged Scout close and sat on the couch. She grabbed up the remote to turn Netflix back on, wanting a distraction from her humiliation. She let Scout drop onto her lap, and resisted the urge to drop her head into her hands.

'Defeated by a hand puppet. I'm never living this down.'

Sammy climbed up onto the couch seconds later, still wheezing. He went to speak, but another death glare shut him up before he could start. So he just shot her a smug look instead, holding out a hand for Scout to fist bump. "That was a pretty great move." He told the Puppet. Stacy ignored him, but heard a quiet "Hell yeah!" from Scout. "You should do it again the next time she does that."

"Do you want to die?" Stacy deadpanned, but Sammy just shrugged as he finally settled in to watch the show with them.

"Hey, it's just a suggestion." He couldn't keep that grin off of his face, and it was starting to annoy her.

"Whatever." She resolved to just ignore everything for now and watch the show. Sammy attempted a few more times to draw her into conversation, but quickly gave up when she didn't answer him and started watching too.

A few episodes later, however, and Sammy stood up and stretched. "Well, I need to get to bed, I have work tomorrow." He started towards his room. "I'll be gone by the time you two leave, so make sure you lock up tomorrow, okay?" "Kay. G'night Sammy." Stacy gave a halfhearted wave as he left, leaving Host and Puppet alone for the night.

"Leave?" Scout asked after they heard his door close. Stacy glanced down to see the Puppet staring up at her, a worried look on her face.

"Yeah. We gotta go home tomorrow." Stacy told her. "I gotta tell Carol about what happened at the HQ and find out what she wants me to do about that article. And then classes start back up soon, so I've gotta be back by then." "... I thought we were staying here." Scout said quietly, and Stacy felt a pang of... something. She wasn't sure what, but it made her feel bad and she decided right then that she hated it.

"Eh, it was more of a stopping point, really. Some place to get my mouth cut open and you off my hand." She shrugged, feeling uncomfortable. "And as much as I would love to hide here until I die, we can't actually stay on Sammy's couch forever. He doesn't have any food, and would expect me to clean."

"..." Scout was silent, and no longer paying attention to the show, instead staring down at her hands as she played with the hem of Stacy's shirt. The Human felt like she should say something, but didn't know what. Instead she stopped the show and turned off the TV, dropping the Puppet to the side and standing up.

"I'm gonna get ready and go to bed myself. We've got a long day ahead of us tomorrow, and I want to make sure I'm ready for it." She started towards the bathroom, almost missing the quiet "Okay." in reply. She hesitated at the doorway, but forced herself through anyways.

Scout would figure out it was better this way. Her apartment was even further from the HQ than Sammy's was, and thus safer than Sammy's. Plus, it would be better if it was just the two of them alone, and they could figure things out.

Things would get better, starting tomorrow.

They had to.

[fullsunsflower99]

Eye-Contact w/Haechan

Genre: Fluff 

*Set in Toronto* 

note- i tried to make this realistic as possible ie idol! Haechan speaks Korean and notices you in a crowd of nctzens 

It’s the morning of the MTV interview with none other than your favourite group NCT 127. When you heard that 127 was coming to KCON Toronto you knew that meant local shows and interviews and immediately started tracking down contests and tickets to be an audience member anywhere you could. You eventually snatched only a single ticket to the MTV interview you’ve seen countless other idol groups do but never NCT. You didn’t mind being alone, anything for your bias Haechan. It was warm spring day so you wore the typical nctzen uniform: camo print tank top, black ripped jeans with fishnets and moss green army boots.

11:28am

 You arrive to line up for your general admission ticket noticing the line consists of so few people you confused it for the nearby washroom. Luckily on a Tuesday May morning, high school students were still in school and you had less competition getting in as early as possible. Staff appreciated the eagerness of the less than 5 people and allowed you to enter to which you all excitedly ran in and hugged the gate between the stage and seats for the following 3 and a half hours.

3:00pm

The room had become packed with fangirls holding neon green signs proclaiming their love towards members and a common excitement that can be felt throughout the room which exploded when the host announced “I’d like to welcome our guest…NCT 127”

The room filled with cheers but you were silent and your eyes simply glued to the sides of the superhuman themed backdrop you were sure they’d appear from behind. One by one the members appeared and the screams grew with each consecutive member. Lastly Haechan walked out bowing towards the host then the audience and back towards the host. He wore ripped black jeans, and a navy buttondown dress shirt.

You spent the next consecutive 15mins of the interview completely zoned out admiring how handsome Haechan looked with silver hair and perfect petal lips that looked soft enough to sleep on when you heard in the background…

 “When I was doing my research, I kept coming up on the word bias-?!” Instinctively you yell “HAECHAN” over the sea of girlish screams for taeyong and mark you thought “well that was embarrassing but no one noticed- so I’m okay”. You looked up to see someone did notice- no one else but your bias himself. He looked at you with doughy eyes and a tiny shy but proud smile. Haechans eyes only met yours for a second and quickly shot to his watch which he busied he hands fiddling with. Mark leaned over to tap haechan with his shoulder deeply amused by the fangirls screaming out for the different members. Haechan too preoccupied to give Mark the acknowledgment he was looking for- triggered Mark to follow Haechans indecisive gaze only to find you. A smart smile spread across Mark’s face as he instantly started giggling and whispering to Haechan. They both laughed softly until haechan playfully hits Mark…“Hajima- HaJiMA”

The interview returns to relative order and so do the members, but not before stealing one more glance. You turn eagerly wanting to tap your friends about the exchange only to remember that you came here alone. So you turn back. You’re left to watch him and rekindle your thoughts. They couldn’t have been talking about you- they’re idols! Don’t get attached- if anything it was just fanservice. Busy in your thoughts you only now noticed the host was talking to fans, walking back to his seat he stops at you-

 “And How about you?”

“Me? …how- I’m… pardon sorry what was the question?”

Embarrassed you hear the crowd giggle but see a supportive smile from Donghyuck.

“A Bias? Do you have one?”

“Oh, Haechan!”

“haechannnn oppppaaaa” the high pitch screams respond to your remark. You resist the urge to roll your eyes, knowing that if it wasn’t them screaming it’d almost certainly be you.

“actually no, I’m a Noona, I’m Mark’s age”

From the corner of your eye you see Mark and Haechan spin their rotating bar stools to face each other with eyebrows raised as if they were communicating telepathically to say “oh, she’s older” nodding their heads in time with each other. “Cute” you thought. 

“So what makes Ha-e-Chan your bias?”

 You didn’t know what annoyed you more, the mispronunciation of his own interviewees names or being older than most of the audience.

“Uh- HAEchan- well”

You looked over and the honey skinned boy- to remind yourself of everything makes him your bias, “Well Donghyuck”, you started speaking to him, in your imaginary scenario it was a chance to tell him why he meant the world to you. “Well he seems like this sweet cuddly soft guy, until he’s on stage, and then he’s a fierce vocal with so much power and passion and…”. The fact that he couldn’t understand made it so much easier for you to express how you feel and then- you blinked and remind yourself- although he may not understand you- there was a studio full of people that did, so quickly you added “…idk he’s beautiful I like him”. Nailed it.

“ Okay…well… Great, ok thank you for contributing everyone!”

The host skipped back up the stairs to the stage and continued with the interview.

 This time you could feel it, his stare was so attentive. You felt it through every nerve in your body. You couldn’t blink, afraid you’d open your eyes and his were no longer locked with yours.

You were lucky, he broke his stare but looked over to check on you throughout the interview- always catching you shamelessly beaming in his direction.

“Ok and that’s a wrap!”

The audience clapped and quickly turned to rush out. 5 O’clock traffic on the TTC (Toronto’s subway) is seriously nothing to joke about. You weren’t in any rush. You watched the members shake hands with the host and exchange thank you’s. And just how the came, they left. In line they walked backstage. That was it, your 5 min romance was over. It was nice while it lasted but you stayed to reminiscence.

Half an hour past and the rest of the crowd had left, there was no point in leaving yet, with the traffic you wouldn’t be home for hours anyway. May as well sit here and stare at his seat, it’s not like you’ll ever see him again.

It was like everyone else was moving at 3x speed and you were in slow motion, dreading to leave you knew you would eventually have too. Staff began clean-up and kindly taking all gates down except the one you still leaned against daydreaming.

“Um, I’m going to have to take this…are you ok?” the staff member asked.

“Sorry of course! Ya! I’m great” you said jumping back startled.

You turned to leave.

“HEY, HEY wai-waiiittwaitwait”

The remark didn’t catch you off-guard, I mean it could really be anyone, until you felt a hand on your shoulder. Were you in trouble? “I should’ve known I wouldn’t be allowed to stay so long.” you thought dreadingly as you turning around.  

“You’re still here!” you turned to face the one and only Mark Lee.

“Oh my God! Hi! I’m sorry I was just leaving, I love your music!”

“Just leaving! Well thank God I remembered I left my hat when I did.” Mark gestured to his bar stool seat- the only one with a perfectly placed black baseball cap on it.

“Hey- since you’re here, do you wanna meet my friend?” Mark offered already walking with you toward the superhuman backdrop and presumed door to backstage.

 “ You see, as soon as we turned the corner backstage he begged me to translate what you said, the fact that you’re still here- that’s gotta be a sign, it’ll be fun don’t worry” by the time he reached the end of the sentence we were at the door to backstage.

“Could I really be meeting Haechan right now? This is a joke there’s no way, omg, omg ok” you thought so hard you were afraid somehow Mark may have heard you. Thankfully you responded with an eager but cool…

“Yea! I’d love too!”

You entire a dimly lit room crowded with 9 boys + staff with tables of snacks and chips. The glow from the TV screen playing back the interview reflected off the boys faces. Feeling nervous you look back at Mark who is already doing his signature “Ay-yo Ay-yo” greeting to the other members. Everyone’s eyes shift to you and like clockwork 9 sets of eyes move to Haechan. He was sitting between Taeil and a spot you presumed was Mark’s before he got up for his hat. Mid chicken wing Haechan feels the stares and scans the room until he sees you.He stood -chicken wing in hand- and looked at you and immediately back to himself as if wondering why he stood up in the first place. “Annyeoung” he says shyly bowing slightly trying to avoid unnecessary chicken wing drips.The boys instantly returned to the chaos and chatter occurring beforehand and Mark jestures for you to take the empty seat.

~I wrote this cuz I got tired of looking for a Haechan Fanfic that fit my scenario and I don’t know why I posted it. If anyone actually reads this and wants the PT 2 I will write it *shrugs*

This is the first time I’ve written anything and have no intention of anyone reading it please be gentleeee

[catgluue]

Chapter Six: Revival

Hey remember that time I was like “I’m totally going to write a chaptered fic during Royai week and it’s gonna be great and timely and make SO MUCH SENSE” and then didn’t update for like four months? I remember it. I remember it a lot. 

Read on AO3

Chapter Six: Revival

The clearing is still, and Riza notices that even the usually centering sensation of her own breath is absent.

“Let’s meet this fascinating father of yours,” Rainer says, and she can tell he’s focusing intently on something. There’s a transmutation circle on the back of the photograph, she realizes suddenly. He’s tapped into her subconscious through the circles on the trees, and now he’s somehow forcing her thoughts to generate a particular memory. It must all be linked. She realizes too late she’s said all this aloud when her train of thought is interrupted.

“Astute, considering you’ve never had an aptitude for alchemy,” a voice comes from the darkness, and Riza’s blood runs cold.

“What do you want from me, exactly?” she asks, ignoring the shade of her father as he steps into the middle of the clearing from seemingly nowhere but in reality from the dark depths of memory. He’s as he was not when she saw him last - frail and dying, confined to his bed - but as he was during Roy’s tutelage. He is stern and sinewy, but with a spark still in his gray eyes. Interesting that this is the version of her father that the transmutation brought forth - him at his most content. “If you think you’re getting anything out of me about alchemy-”

“Well that’s where I have a slight confession to make,” Rainer tells her. “You may have been under the impression that I’m here to extract some information from you, correct?”

“That’s usually what an interrogation entails,” she says warily, hand on her gun even though there’s no reason to believe it will do any good.

“Do you know - well, you couldn’t possibly,” he amends. “I tried to become a State Alchemist. Several times, of course, as most do, but I’ll never forget the first attempt. It must have been 1905, 1906 when I came to Central City with my dreams and notes. ‘The Slumber Alchemist���, that’s what they’d call me. My skills weren’t as fine-tuned then as they are now but nevertheless, I put all of the Fuhrer’s guards to sleep in minutes. The only problem was that they woke up again.”

“So you needed to figure out a way to keep them asleep,” Bethold fills in, and Riza looks at him aghast, because that was the thought already forming in her mind. But of course he’s only an echo, he isn’t real, and she needs to stay sharp and learn what Rainer wants from her.

She hopes that he does in fact want something, as she’s officially in over her head.

“Correct,” he continues smoothly. “So I did that, and came back, and was rejected again. And again. But what really stuck out to me the first time was that nobody even paid attention to my admittedly underwhelming show. No, they were all talking amongst themselves and I later discovered why - the man directly before me had done something unprecedented, flashy, and with great potential.” Riza’s mouth is dry and she squeezes her eyes shut. “Yes, someone had conjured fire from thin air.”

She turns around, thinking the very sight of the General will reassure her but there’s no one but Havoc, standing at parade rest, hands crossed over his gun as though he’s at ease although she can tell even from here that every muscle in his body is tense, alert. The hairs on her arms stand on end as she realizes that something happened outside of her dream bubble, something drew the others away. Havoc is her guard, although she knows that the only thing she needs to be guarded from is in here with her.

“What do you want?” She asks again, venomously, when she turns back around. “I’m no alchemist. Even this trick,” she gestures vaguely at Berthold, “isn’t going to make me able to tell you something I don’t know.”

“I went back to Central City six months ago,” he continues, as though he hadn’t heard. “To try again with the new regime. And do you know what I was told?” She does, as it happens, or at least she can guess, but she waits for him to continue. “I was told that they are taking on no more State Alchemists. That during peacetime, they are only giving grants to very select branches of research, biomedical and the like, but that State Alchemists are being phased out.”

“And so you’re getting revenge on everyone who was given the title,” she says bitterly, and he smiles, mouth closed, eyes unchanging.

“I’m helping to phase them out.”

“Those other homes that were broken into,” she says, “you killed them.” She hadn’t heard of a death in any of the team’s reports, but it’s possible they weren’t informed.

“Not quite,” he counters. “I simply did this,” and he gestures towards her body, suspended mid-fall, and she understands in a flash. “If they were all such brilliant, capable alchemists then surely they would be able to free themselves from a simple transmutation net? Alas, none of them have succeeded. I wonder if your Flame Alchemist will be able to?” Riza can’t help it, she draws her gun and holds it up, shaking although her hands do not waver.

“He’ll never fall for something like this,” she hisses.

“I thought that too, at first, but chances are greater if he’s thrown off by something like, say, his right hand woman being incapacitated,” and there it is. She’s a pawn, again, in the General’s undoing. “He may be a great alchemist but what good is he really when his adjutant is locked in her own mind, tormented by her demons.” She drops her weapon entirely and it vanishes before it hits the floor, no longer tethered to reality by her touch. This is not the first time she has been used against him, and if they get out of this, she knows it won’t be the last.

“He won’t be,” she says finally.

“He may,” chimes her father solemnly. “He’s bright, exceptionally bright, but he doesn’t always think logically when under pressure, does he?”

“Aha,” Rainer says quietly. “Well if you’ll excuse me, my accomplice should have secured the manor by now and so I’m needed elsewhere.Enjoy your… solitude.” Riza looks up furiously.

“I’m going to get out of here, and I’m going to come after you,” she tells him and is rewarded with another mirthless smile.

“My dear, many brilliant State Alchemists failed to escape this exact situation. What makes you think that you, a soldier and a lapdog, will be any different?” He does something then, with the amulet around his neck and the next thing she knows he’s vanished. She whirls to see the other, physical version of him sit up slowly, and get to his feet. He looks back at her, though she’s sure he can’t see her, winks, and strides off towards the house.

“Terrible business,” Berthold says. “If you’d only turned out to have a gift for alchemy.” Riza stands still, fists balled, breathing heavily, fighting the urge to sink to her knees.

It’s all nothing more than a dream, she thinks. And how do you wake from a dream?

-x-

They were on her at once; she hadn’t seen them sneaking up to her post, how could she not have seen them? The ishvalan guerilla fighters were armed with blades, and she got only a single shot off before having to use her gun to block as they rained blows upon her. One man danced past her to bring his knife in, cutting towards her body quickly, too quickly-

She woke in the night with a yell, thrashing wildly before she remembered where she was.

The nightmare had to have come from sleeping in a strange place- she didn’t have them quite so often anymore. She was in a city in the east with the Colonel on an assignment and somehow the Powers That Be at Eastern Command had failed to book a room for the Colonel and his adjutant, resulting in the two of them having to share a modest sized room with a single modest sized bed.

There had been a brief but furious standoff where they each insisted that the other take the bed until Riza, exhausted and annoyed, had simply ordered him into the bed before climbing into the other side herself, close to the edge to put as much space between them as possible. She’d slept soundly until now, and the faint light in the room told her dawn wasn’t far off. There were hands firmly gripping her shoulders that released her as her breathing evened out. She looked over at Mustang, embarrassed.

“Sorry,” she told him, still shaking. He hesitated and then wrapped his arms around her gingerly, ash though she might either break or bolt. She stiffened before letting herself relax into the embrace, leaning her head sideways to rest on his chest, pushing down the distress at how easily the motion came.

“It was Ishval,” she said, unprompted.

“Do you dream about Ishval often?” he asked, his voice a low rumble that she could feel as well as hear. She breathed in time with him, her racing heart slowing back down.

“Not often. Just when I’m stressed, or someplace unfamiliar. I’ll be fine,” she told him, doubting it. More than likely she would be lying in silence until it was time for them to get up, but it didn’t do any good to say so. Unusually for her, however, after a few more moments of breathing in time with him and letting his warmth seep into her she was feeling her eyelids grow heavy. He was sturdy, and rubbing small circles into her back, and the usual heightened tension that strung across her bones after a nightmare wasn’t finding purchase.

“Do you want me to sleep on the floor? Give you some space?” he asked, pulling away as though it had just occurred to him that perhaps their sleeping arrangements were uncomfortable for her. And until now she would have agreed that yes, they were.

But in the predawn light, wrapped in his arms, she couldn’t recall a time where she’d felt more whole.

“No,” she said quickly, before she could think better of it. “You’re helping.” She felt her cheeks start to burn. “What I mean to say is-”

“Understood,” he finished, a trace of amusement in his voice. They both settled back down, close but not quite touching, facing towards each other this time. Nothing more was said, and he seemed to fall asleep first, his breathing slowing and evening out, limbs relaxing. She’d never know afterwards what possessed her, but the world, like her, was somewhere between awake and asleep, basking them in a weak blue light. Shadows pooled in the hollows under Roy’s eyes and she wondered if tonight, sleeping beside her, was the most sleep he’d gotten in a while. She shifted closer, settling an arm across his back,curling into him, filling empty spaces as though they were perfectly fit to each other.

The next morning, neither of them mentioned it, briskly rolling out of bed and into their uniforms. She never could be sure about him, but it was the best night’s sleep she’d gotten in a very long time.  

-x-

In the clearing, Riza paces.

“You aren’t real,” she says firmly to the shade of her father. Neither is she at the moment, she remembers, both of their incorporeal forms standing in the silent clearing. Havoc’s back is turned as he guards her still-suspended form. Berthold blinks slowly and real or not, the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.

“Real enough to you. Didn’t I teach you better than to walk into an obvious trap like this? Those circles aren’t even concealed,” he replies, nodding towards the tree. Riza knows it’s her own subconscious berating her but it still stings.

“You didn’t teach me much of anything,” she grumbles, surveying the circles, but she can’t make sense of them. A coma, he’d said. She was sleeping. She reached out hesitantly, fingertips grazing the ends of her own hair, loose around her shoulders, as though she can put herself back in her body like slipping on a coat. It doesn’t happen, however, and she turns back to her father’s silent floating visage. “You can’t even help me,” she says quietly. “You’re a memory - you can’t tell me anything I don’t already know.”

“Seems true enough,” he concedes.

“And yet I’m talking to you anyway.” She tries to step outside the treeline but find that she can’t - the alchemical sigils are forming a barrier, a cage containing her. She half-expected this but it’s still frustrating.

“Can you destroy the circles?” he asks patiently, and she shakes her head.

“I can’t do anything like this, I’m not real,” she exclaims, resuming her pacing. She has always dreamed a often and vividly. More after the war, of course, but those were usually nightmares. When she was very young she would sometimes scramble to tell her mother about the fantasy worlds she entered when sleeping, insisting it was all real until her mother was able to coax her back to sleep. Her father, she remembers, never dreamed, at least not that he could recall. But he slept so seldom that perhaps his body was too worn down even to dream.

“There must be something you can do,” he presses, and she turns on him.

“Maybe I would know a little more if you hadn’t given up on me,” she spits, and the memory of her father looks surprised. “It’s true I’m not a fast learner, but you didn’t have any patience! You wanted someone whose mind worked like yours, and that wasn’t me, but I,” her voice shakes, betraying her. “You never made me feel wanted, or important, but I am both of those things, and I need to get back to my team.”

“To your team, or to-”

“I think I would like it if you left,” she says, closing her eyes tightly. When she opens them he’s gone. Now she can focus, she thinks, blinking hard.

Rainer had said she was asleep - no, not entirely true, he’d said she was closer to a coma. That explains why there was no waking her, a usually light sleeper, when her men where shouting feet away from her. But if trained, accomplished alchemists couldn’t work their way out of this then how can she expect to? She’s only a soldier, a sharpshooter really, and -

She realizes with a start that the gun is back in her hand, and raises it slowly to regard it. This is a dream, unlike any other but fundamentally the same. She doesn’t know much at all about alchemy, it’s true; just what she’s absorbed through nearly thirty years of constant exposure. But she knows herself, and she knows what it feels like to wake with a start, sweating and shaking in the middle of the night. Quickly, before she can think much about it, she brings the gun up to her head and pulls the trigger.

She barely has time to throw her arms out in front of her before she topples to the forest floor, jumping right back up again, gun at the ready, and meets Havoc’s wide blue eyes, his gun also reflexively trained on her due to her sudden movement.

“Shit, Hawkeye, you scared me,” he says, lowering it at once. “What-”

“We have to move quickly,” she says, scrabbling briefly in the leaves to retrieve her sidearm where she’d dropped it earlier.She takes one frantic look around but he’s been left alone to guard her prone form. Riza takes off at a sprint towards the house, and Havoc follows without hesitation, their footfalls crunching, moonlight illuminating the way.

[fandom-oneshots-etc]

Sick and Stubborn

Hey guys,

So I saw the comment by @sassismything (so thanks for the idea!) and I just had to write a oneshot based on my imagine. So I hope it was what you expected! 

Thanks

Emily xoxo

Pairings: Dean Winchester x Reader

Reader Gender: Female

Word Count: 2447

Warnings: Sickness

 Dean Winchester was sick. It didn’t take a doctor’s diagnosis to see that. His skin had faded to a very light pale which was almost white as a sheet, and there were noticeable bags under his eyes. The constant sniffling was also a gentle reminder that flu season had come around, and from the sight of Dean, it seemed as if he had been caught right in the middle. You didn’t really need to look at Dean to know he was ill, it was easily noticeable from just laying in your room at night. Your room was relatively close to Dean’s and despite the distance between the two rooms and the thick walls, you could easily hear Dean throughout the night coughing and spluttering. You hadn’t really mentioned it at first, seeing how Dean wasn’t bothered by it, and having expected it to pass quite quickly, but as his condition was continuing to deteriorate you weren’t going to keep it hidden any longer. You knew Dean was sick. Sam knew Dean was sick. Even Castiel knew Dean was sick, but Dean didn’t seem to acknowledge it.

You had been with the Winchesters for a few years now, and you had seen Sam when he was ill and they had seen when you were ill, but it was a rare occurrence to see Dean ill. You pondered the idea that he had been sick before but had just chosen to keep it hidden. But that wasn’t happening this time.

 You weren’t sure if Dean had noticed, but you had been keeping a closer eye on the elder Winchester. You noted as he covered his coughing fit, claiming his beer had ‘gone down the wrong hole’, you watched as he slowed his steps occasionally, a dizzy spell washing over him. Sam knew what was going on, but didn’t acknowledge his brother’s attempts at hiding his side effects. He knew that Dean would power through and carry on his normal life like he usually did, even if he did continue to hunt in the process. You had been researching for a case over the past three days and you had finally gathered enough information to aid you in the hunt. You knew that the brothers would be packing their duffel bags and preparing to go and kill this thing, but you had other plans. You trusted Dean with all your heart and you knew that he would never do anything to intentionally bring harm to himself, his brother, or you. But with his condition continuously deteriorating, you feared that he wouldn’t be able to hold his own in the middle of a hunt. There was a sense in the pit of your stomach that he wouldn’t even be able to hold a gun straight, and that was backed up by the fact that he had knocked his shoulder on the door frame when leaving the kitchen a day prior.

 Leaning against one of the tables in the library you waited for the brothers to make an appearance, your arms crossed over your chest and your hair swung back over your shoulder. You knew that it wasn’t going to be easy to bench Dean on a hunt. He was Dean Winchester after all, one of the most stubborn men you had ever met in your life. But you were determined to make sure that Dean didn’t go on this hunt, even if you had to jump on his back and tie him to the pipework, you would make sure he didn’t leave. It wasn’t long before the brothers appeared, their duffel bags swung over their shoulders as they walked. You smiled politely upon their appearance, and with a split second, you grasped onto the handle of Dean’s duffel as he moved to walk past you, yanking the bag back and sliding it off his shoulder. For a second he seemed stumped as he turned back to look at you confused, watching as you laid his bag on the table behind you.

“What the hell?” he questioned, making Sam glance back at the pair of you.

“You’re not going,” you concluded, re-crossing your arms and waiting for him to argue back.

“What do you mean I’m not going?” he raised an eyebrow. “We’ve got a hunt, and we need to get going if we want to get there before dark.” he held his hand out, expecting you to hand him his bag back as if his words had made any difference, but they hadn’t.

“No, you’re not. You’re sick, Dean.” he narrowed his gaze ever so slightly. You couldn’t be certain if that was due to his annoyance or if the lights overhead were giving him a headache. “Sam can deal with this hunt without you. I already called Garth, he’s going to meet him there.” Dean looked ready to protest, but you caught him off guard as you reached over to snatched the keys out of his grip. Now you were a hundred per cent certain that he was too sick to hunt, his reaction to you stealing his keys was delayed by a good few seconds, and that was no good in an emergency.

“I’m not sick,” he argued. “I am perfectly fine to hunt.” you launched the keys over Dean’s head and into Sam’s grasp, making a face as Dean feebly attempted to catch them mid-air, only to fail miserably.

“You’re sick. You’re staying. Sam will call if he needs anything, right Sam?” Sam nodded and shrugged his shoulders gently as Dean turned to glare at him.

“Dean you say the same thing when I’m sick. Now it’s your turn to sit one out.” Sam ignored Dean’s failed attempts to protest as the elder Winchester glared at you weakly. You both watched as Sam disappeared from view, Dean kept his eyes narrowed at you as you pushed off from the table and moved to stand in front of him.

“Right, let’s get you into bed-” you grasped onto his arm, attempting to pull the elder Winchester in the right direction, but he didn’t budge, making you sigh. “Dean, come on.” he shook his head and moved to drop down in one of the chairs, opening one of the books that Sam had left on the table.

“Nope. I’m staying right here.” you crossed your arms once again, raising an eyebrow at the man, who was clearly acting like a child. “Don’t look at me like that. You wanted me to stay here, and I’m here. Doesn’t mean you get to treat me like an invalid.”

“Dean, I’m not trying to treat you like an invalid,” you sighed. “I’m trying to help you get better, so you can get your strength back.” Dean only glanced at you over the top of the book before returning to reading, turning the page every so often.

“Look, Sammy might need our help, and I can’t help him if I’m tucked up in bed like a kid.” you knew that Dean was stubborn. You had been dating him for little over a year now and he had shown his stubborn attitude on many occasions, but usually being patient got you further than trying to force him to do something he didn’t want to do.

“Fine.” you dropped down into one of the chairs on another table and pulled your phone out of your pocket. If he wanted to be stubborn then you’d let him.

 You flicked through your phone for about an hour, occasionally glancing up at the elder Winchester, looking for any signs of distress. Every time he coughed, you winced at the painful sound. It echoed through the bunker and only emphasised his sick state. It was just reaching the hour and a half mark when you noticed his eyes drooping. You knew for a fact that he had been losing sleep due to his midnight coughing fits, and it was clear that it had been taking a toll on his body. It was a little amusing to watch as Dean tried to fight off the sleep, his eyes drooping before opening wide once again. His hands reaching up to rub at his eyes, attempting to remove all trace of his exhaustion. The fact that he was trying to overcome his exhaustion, purely on the basis that he wanted to prove a point, was definitely somewhat adorable.

Another gut-wrenching cough ripped through his throat. It had definitely come from his chest and it was clear from the expression on his face that it was becoming more painful to deal with.

Finally, you had, had enough. Watching him wince every time he coughed and press a hand against his chest to ward off the oncoming ache, was painful for you. You stood from your seat, shuffling over to rest a hand on the elder Winchester’s shoulder, making your presence known. He looked up at you with tired eyes as he pressed his hand against his chest once again.

“Come on,” you gently tugged him. “Let’s get you into bed, alright?” it seemed that any argument he had in him had vanished at this point, the pain he was feeling overwhelming him. He gave a short nod, before standing from his seat and moving along behind you as you lead him through the corridors.

 Once in his room, he instantly dropped down on the bed, shuffling so his head was resting comfortably against the pillow and leaving one leg hanging off the side of the bed, the tip of his boot brushing against the wooden floor. “You need to get changed before you get comfortable,” you instructed, pulling a hoodie and a pair of sweatpants out of his drawers, laying them on the bed next to him. He stayed situated on the bed, not making any move to sit up and change. You sighed. “Come on, Dean. If you want to get comfortable, you need to change,” you urged. “If you don’t do it now, you’ll wake up later and have to do it then.” He groaned, but complied, sitting up on the bed, and bowing his head back so he could look up at you comfortably. “Do you want me to help?” you questioned, watching as he glared at the pile of clothes beside him.

“No. I can do it.” his voice was stern, but a little shaky as he spoke. It was clear he wanted to do it all himself to try and prove that he was fine. He bent forwards to undo his laces, kicking his boots off leaving them wherever they landed. He shuffled around, undoing his belt and beginning to slide his jeans down his legs, not getting up to remove them completely, but shaking them off the ends of his legs, once again leaving them wherever they landed. He pulled the sweatpants on with little issue, though the hoodie was another story. He had managed to pull it over his head, though his arm got caught in one of the sleeves and he couldn’t manage to get his arm through. You watched him struggle for a moment, seeing if he could deal with the situation himself before moving forward to help him. You pulled on the sleeve, sliding it to the side enough for Dean to slip his arm through, but he shook your hand off as he began to move his arm into the hole. “I said I can do it!” his voice was low and gruff, but there was a tone to it that told you his sinuses were now blocked.

“Dean, I’m trying to help. Quit acting like a two-year-old!” he glared at you for a moment, though seeing your slightly annoyed expression, his gaze softened.

 “I’m sorry,” he sighed. Your expression dropped. “I don’t mean to be difficult, honest.” his posture slumped. “I just… I’m not used to people helping me when I’m like this.”

“What do you mean?” your eyebrows furrowed. “You get sick like everyone else, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I just…” he shuffled. “After my Mom died, it was just Dad, Sam and me,” he began. “Dad was on hunts all the time, and it was my job to take care of Sammy. I never really took any notice when I got sick, I just powered through,” he adjusted his hoodie. “Sam was more important.” you looked down at your boyfriend sadly. You hated the way he had been brought up, you knew that he loved his Dad as much as any other child would, but you couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed that John had been more interested in hunting than his own kids. No child should have to take responsibility for his sibling at such a young age.

“Well, you haven’t got to do that anymore,” you dropped down to sit on the bed next to him. “I’m here now, and I’m happy to take care of you. Just like you take care of me.” you smiled at him softly, earning a similar smile in return as you helped him lay back on the bed. Before you could move out of the way to pull the sheet over Dean, he pulled you back down onto the bed next to him, allowing you to snuggle into his side, as he laid the covers over both of you. You were sure you heard him mutter a ‘thank you’ before his eyes slipped shut, allowing him to fall into a well-needed slumber.