#the last one is very short bc i wanted it to be left vague who exactly she's defending akari from.

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

#100 cylene and laventon or surveyfam as a whole? I think it would work well with your take on the survey corps?

(101 ways to say i love you with actions 100: believing in them when everyone else doesn't)

OUGH YEAH IT DOES ... so here's 3 times sinensis cyllene did things because she felt like them and for no other reason aka: You're Not Fooling Anyone, Cyllene. also in case people forgot/have not heard (very likely) i write laventon's first name as everett

---

"So. You wanted to discuss something?"

Cyllene nods, meeting Kamado's gaze steadily. "I would like to revisit the recent discussion of the formation of a new corps, as proposed by Professor Laventon."

He pauses, and looks at her with something like disbelief. "You're already well aware of my reasons for refusal, Captain. The pitch may sound in theory—but without someone competent to supervise the whole thing, it's just an elaborate way to send our people to their deaths. Unless you've got some way around that—"

"I do. I would like to volunteer for the position of captain. Zisu can take my place as head of Security."

His eyes narrow. "You think she can replace you? Competent though Zisu may be, she isn't you."

"She's not," she agrees easily. "Which is why I need to supervise this. Consider it, commander. Think of how much we have to gain."

He considers her for a moment.

Then he inclines his head slightly. "What exactly do you see in his endeavor? It must be something, if you're staking this on it."

How is she meant to explain it to him? That Everett's passion is infectious? That when he goes off on his elaborate tangents, forgetting to check if she's still listening, when she should feel exasperated, she instead feels that inexplicable pull, that specific version of which she hasn't felt in years if not decades, telling her that this is something worth guarding?

She can't; she'd sound biased at best, and mad at worst. So she goes with the straightforward.

"I believe that our team will never be fully safe in Hisui until we properly understand our surroundings. Learning to coexist with the Pokémon around us is key to our survival. The Draconids achieved it through brute force and harsh selectivity, and," she gestures vaguely, like she can point to the empire that so many of them came from, "even if we had the manpower for that approach—we've all seen how that turns out. I think the professor's approach is worth trying."

"Hmm." He closes his eyes, reviewing her argument for a moment, and then says, "...well, I suppose you would know best about that. If you're overseeing the project, I'm willing to tentatively approve it. But I'll expect it to prove its worth quickly, or we'll have to reevaluate."

She gives a sharp nod. "Understood, commander."

When she delivers the news to Laventon, he's predictably overjoyed, even with the stipulations it necessarily comes with. She tells him the same thing she'd told Kamado, when he thanks her profusely—that she just sees the possible upsides of the project, nothing more—but he accepts that with a conspiratorial smile that she's not entirely sure she likes.

---

The sun is going down, and they're both sweaty and tired and probably not going to achieve much more, so Cyllene decides to call the training session there. Rei doesn't protest as he gets to cleaning his sword and putting things away, but he's terrible at hiding, and even she can tell something's eating at him.

"Sit down," she orders, pointing at the bench next to her without looking at him.

"I'm- fine," he grinds out the answer.

"I didn't ask if you were fine. I told you to sit." Her tone makes it clear that this is an order, and doesn't leave room for argument.

So, reluctantly, he drops down next to her. She hands him the water, and they sit in silence for a while, Rei glaring out at the darkening field like the scattered pieces of wood have said something to offend him.

Cyllene doesn't say anything. She knows she can just wait long enough to outlast him.

And sure enough, finally,

"Why am I even still doing this?"

He continues, without needing to be prompted, "I mean, if I'm moving to the Survey Corps, it's not like I need to be an amazing fighter. I mean it's not–" he glances over and rephrases. "It's not like it'll be useless, there'll still be wild Pokémon and everything but—I'm not—not... defending everyone. It's not like I'm going to be competing in any contests."

"You never know," she says, dryly enough that he's not sure whether or not she's joking. And then, more seriously, "You're a fully fledged Galaxy Team member. You can't be forced into anything. Stop being my apprentice if you hate it that much."

"But I don't hate it!" he protests, because he doesn't. It feels good. It's been a routine for almost half his life.

She gives him a sidelong glance. "I don't see what the issue is, then."

"I don't feel like I'm getting any better at it. I just keep throwing myself at the same things without improving, and it's not..." he kicks the dirt, glaring at it again. "Nobody actually expects me to be any good at it. They only stuck me here to get me out of the way."

A beat.

"Do you think I pitied your family? Or that they bribed me? Do you think either of those would get me to take you on as an apprentice?" She stands up, and turns so that she's looking down at him.

"Um."

"I do not waste my time on—frivolity. I have trained you for these years because I thought it was worth my time." She jabs a finger at him. "You are allowed to doubt your worth as a swordsman if and when I say you do, and absolutely no sooner. Understand me?"

"Yes, sir," he says, blinking up at her wide-eyed.

"Good. Now finish getting cleaned up. Next time I hear anything about quitting, it better be because you're sick and tired to death of doing the same five drills every time."

She doesn't want to think to hard about the softness in his voice when he says, "thanks."

---

"She had nothing to do with this!"

Cyllene's arm is out to the side, creating a physical barrier. Akari is behind her, and she really shouldn't be raising her voice because lack of composure is the first threat to victory, but fuck it, she's angry.

"I'm not going to stand idly by and watch as your baseless paranoia spills innocent blood," she continues, shouting only thinly reined in. "This is absurd and completely unacceptable."

"You'd take her side no matter what. She's got you completely fooled," says the person across from her, and Cyllene hears Akari's breath hitch unsteadily.

"I am the captain of the Survey Corps, and I have a duty to my people," she growls. She's not sure how obvious it is that the definition of her people is rapidly narrowing to a group of about three or four. "I assure you, I know Akari far better than you do, and I know that even if she had done what you're accusing her of—which, again, is ridiculous—this would still not be an appropriate response. Leave. Now. I won't warn you again."

Predictably, they don't take the order. The second they move another step forward, she's unsheathing her sword.

I don't care what she did, she wants to roar. I don't care if she fucking killed someone. I don't care if she doomed this entire skies-damned region. I'd gladly throw the rest of this trash into the fire before I let you lay a single hand on her.

"If you're so certain of this," she says instead, "then prove it. Come and get her." She levels her blade with the tip pointing at them. "But you'll have to go through me, first."

[nachosncheezies]

In defense of late-canon x files (including the revivals)

I was thinking about this poll after I commented on it, and I kinda want to be brave and say more.

Short answer to the poll's question before I go any further: If you're a new fan and a sensitive sort who thinks you'll struggle with your blorbos Really Going Through It and you really need a happy ending, I suggest you stop at the end of season 8. Do not pass go, do not look at spoilers. Disregard this post entirely, close the internet, and go look at something that makes you happy. (Also fuck every part of society that characterizes sensitivity as inherently weak and bad and some kind of personal failing, you are valid.)

That said, "quality" as a concept is entirely subjective, and the question of whether or not there's a decline in quality for any story is wholly subjective, too. In the case of x files? I'm not convinced there is a decline. I am going to be upfront that I haven't yet watched past season 8, though I am almost completely spoiled on events after that - and the reason I haven't watched yet is not because of how I know events are going to unfold, but simply because I don't want it to end!!! Ohh, the tension between "I CAN'T WAIT!!!" and "Nooo don't be over D:"

When I first came to txf fandom on tumblr and gradually became spoiled about what happens in late canon though, I was often left uncomfortable and tbh kinda queasy about it. As I said in my comment on the poll, the hate for especially the revival and IWTB, or to a lesser extent even seasons 8 & 9, is very well documented. But! There are other takes to be found here on tumblr if you figure out where to look, and my feelings have changed!

The thing is, I have yet to find myself in any fandom where there isn't a vocal subset of fans who dislike the story after a certain point. I am not joking when I say that no one hates the things they love as passionately as sci-fi and fantasy fans. In my experience, it often hinges on the extent to which a viewer has strong notions on where they would like the characters to end up. In particular with series where shipping is a dominant component for the bulk of a fandom, I have almost universally found that there comes some turning point in the story where "let them be happy you cowards" is the dominant view, and things that compromise the attainment of a degree of romantic stability and/or domesticity are, to many fans, annoying at best and despicable at worst. But! As one tagset on the linked poll said:

and I think for any fandom, that last tag especially is so so so important. (I think that's harder for people watching a weekly series live, bc you have so much time to analyze and speculate and dream before the next breadcrumb drops, but I digress.)

So why am I saying this and how do I apply it to x files? Well, I eventually found that there are also a subset of fans who find redeeming things right up to the very end and actually quite like the whole thing! The things that I had seen people rage and ventpost so much about honestly never quite sounded to me as "out of character" or "untrue to the story" etc as those same ventposts made them sound. And I've discovered I'm not the only one who felt that way. Do I love that the spooky squad had to go through all of those things? No, those poor guys D: Life is hard and they have been through so much trauma. But do those events and their choices make sense to me in light of everything that came before? Yes! And I honestly can't wait to see them fight to overcome those things, breaking, healing, always learning, always growing, always getting better.

So if you're wondering "where does it go wrong"... well, I'm a completionist, as many people who've answered that post are, but also my personal opinion is that I don't think it does go wrong. If you're new and interested in exploring why I've gone from "vaguely queasy" to "excited" about the whole thing, or want to maybe balance out the impressions you're getting about the later seasons before deciding whether or not you want to see the whole thing, I'll put a few blog names in the comments.

Final admission: even once I started feeling a little more confident in the possibility that "actually ok maybe I'm not crazy, maybe this all kind of is in character and does make sense", there was one big plot point that I was NOT looking forward to and I thought I would never be comfortable about. In hindsight, I think my discomfort came from the negative responses being SO seemingly universal that I hadn't stopped to let myself truly consider other possible interpretations on that point. (I mean my initial instinct when I first read about it was, why are we mad about this?? CSM is literally the most unreliable narrator in history???? it's obviously fake news?????? this must be either a fever dream someone's having or it's a misdirection ploy against whatever shadowy forces might still be lurking?????????????? but for whatever reason I guess I had halfway written that off.) Happily, just last month there's a new post-s11 novel out, and although reviews for the book as a whole are mixed, it seems to have laid the groundwork for resolving that plot issue in a way I think most fans would be broadly happy with. If you're interested in being spoiled about that and seeing how, I recommend searching #perihelion on @agent-troi who liveblogged reading it with receipts, scroll back chronological-style to the first post on the subject and see how it unfolded. (And never forget that Dana Katherine Scully is the queen of denial as a coping mechanism lol)

Everyone's mileage will vary. Each person can feel however they want! But for anyone new, I wanted you to know that the very many ventposts you might be seeing are not all there is to this show or its fandom. Some of us love it despite - or even because of - all the things that went "wrong". I think we just don't talk about it as much.

[izzy-b-hands]

12, 15, 34, 46?

Ella!! Thank u for asking 🫂🫂❤️❤️

(also apologies i am stoned and wordy aksndkfgn)

12. Your favourite book

I have a few answers for this one, but narrowed it down to the one I'm saving up to buy a new copy of eventually: Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O'Nan.

It's fairly short, and the story subjects/setting are modern and mundane (or at least that's the critique i see leveled at it a lot, tho to me like. That's part of the punch of the entire book, but they can have their opinions, incorrect tho they may be lol), but like. the first time i read it, it just Did Something to me lmao. Part of it was the customer service experience thing, tho different industries (library at the time for me compared to restaurant in the book), and the experience in it of feeling like/having it confirmed that you, as an employee, are continually being handed more and more stress and responsibility for less reward, but you can't just drop it bc you like/tolerate your coworkers, and even on the days they piss you off, you want the best for them. And then the fallout of when a decision comes down from above your level that's shit for everyone, but you're left bearing the brunt of it from coworkers and customers alike. Very relatable, very realistically written to the point it almost makes you squirm.

The characters are all well written and realistic too; you wind up feeling like you could walk into this Lobster right now and talk to all these ppl irl, easily. That makes it just as hard at the ending to say goodbye tbh, and that's given it massive reread value for me (i think since i first read it end of HS I've since managed a reread every year to every other year. I actually accidentally packed away my copy when moving and it's been killing me not being able to do a reread rn, but i want to wait until i can have my own copy to keep again.)

Anyway i think most libraries should have it, and it's not a horribly expensive ebook, so if ur looking for a sign to read Last Night at the Lobster, this is it 🙌❤️🦞

15. Do you remember your last dream

Kind of? Tbh I passed out really hard earlier (still not sleeping amazingly with the back lol) and vaguely recall the weird, fever dreamish stuff my brain was throwing at me. That consisted of what i believe to be, ongoing all at once in the same room:

-a Tom Waits concert, with him holding but not playing an accordion

-a Bob Geldof interview, except it was Bob as he looked in the 90s

-a fire, which everyone who wasn't listening to Tom or Bob were attempting to put out by passing exactly one bucket back and forth to the inexplicable bar sink that sort of appeared and disappeared at will

Everything else was too much of a blur, but those bits really stuck out lmao 😂

34. Something old

I like this question, weirdly enough, bc I'm not one hundred percent sure how to answer it. It's vague, so i think I'm safe to interpret it kinda.. however?

(if i have that wrong tho do pls lemme know, I won't be offended and will re-answer this one if that's the case lol)

In terms of something old, I keep thinking abt my grandparents old house, even tho it's silly to do so (the thing has been sold for months now.)

Thing of it is, as of the last rare phone convo i had with my grandparents, it sounds like they really regret selling. The lack of stairs at the new place is better for their joints but like. They clearly miss the old one, the unique things that made it theirs and familiar.

Grandpa in particular mentioned a few things specific to the house that he misses, but the one that took me out was abt a bit of painted wood in the front doorway. When i was like. 6? 7? old enough to know better but still stupid enough to do it, i wrote my (dead) name on that bit of doorway, in pencil. For whatever reason, they couldn't ever get it to erase much at all, and never painted over it despite talking abt it a lot (they were soooo pissed at me the day i did it and the months after lmao), so it was still there when they sold the house.

And Grandpa tells me he wishes he would have bought some wood scraps, torn out just that bit of the doorway, and then fixed it and repainted it. Says he would have had someone reframe the whole door if needed. He even has a little shelf where he's been putting grandkid related knick knacks, that he'd put it on, apparently.

Couldn't tell him bc emotions and being that vulnerable are difficult for him, so i never want to push when he's opening up to me like that, but goddamn if he didn't make me cry with that, and i wanted to tell him how sweet it was, and that i miss the house too.

I miss that whenever Housemate and i make it back to visit ND, i won't be able to show aer the house i basically grew up in. I won't be able to show off the shed my grandpa built, say hi to Sally (mum's passed on cat from years ago, buried in the backyard with her name carved by grandpa into the wood barrier between the rock/gravel area and the bottom of the shed), lay in the backyard together under the huge tree while we snack and sip drinks (bc grandma doesn't let anyone leave the house without being fed if she can help it.) I won't get to show that spot by the front door, or show all the other million little quirky things that made the house so lovely.

If i have my way, age of the house and my own age at the time be damned, whenever I've made enough money to do it and have plenty left over, I'd love to buy the house myself. Not to live in all the time (jfc absolutely NOT i love the house but not ND lol), but to have for like. Maybe summer trips? there's enough room we could pick up friends in the area and have them come stay in the house too, tbh. I don't like the idea of it sitting empty whenever i wouldn't be there, so maybe I'd offer it to the cousins rent free to share? Take turns staying there, maybe help grandma and grandpa back to see it now and again. Idk. I just always dreamed of buying the dang thing, even if i never wanted to permanently stay in ND (and still v much do not want that, I like CT far better.)

46. Are you excited for anything

A few things rn! Housemate helped me save up enough and is going with me to see Avatar this month, and it'll be my first full show of theirs, and Housemate's first time seeing them at all!! (my first time seeing them they were just opening for Trivium lmao, so it was amazing!! but a bit of a cut down set list/overall thing, u know? didn't stay for Trivium's entire set but they were lovely too!)

We've also got several little weekend trips partially planned out: Mystic, a local flea market, a couple different beaches, getting up to York and over to Newport, plus maybe the big E and the ren faire in the fall!! I don't know if we'll manage all of it over the next few months, but I'm excited for whatever we get to!

Apologies I'm quite toasty so I'm feeling overwhelming positive for once, so i do have more! I sent a job app in to an OD office in the local costco, for a fairly chill seeming reception role, and I'm really hoping they'll want me. It seems a small enough office to be calmer than my old one, and that it's OD only and not an MD/OD office makes me feel a lot better abt it too (eye surgeons are amazing, they can do amazing wonderful things, i am grateful for them all. however. im also 97% sure 5 out of the 10 i know personally could hit me with their car and not blink, the god complex thing some surgeons have gets SO amped with this speciality in my experience, it's WILD, but I digress.)

My back is slowly getting better too (tho I've been humbled again the last few days in the nights and early mornings, it's still very angry at those times), so I'm also just looking forward to like. Being able to move more again. Standing up to do the dishes without my back spasming. Maybe even leaving the house again and doing one of the fun things noted above, tho i know i shouldn't rush it or my back will humble me again without a second thought lmaoooo 😅)

[veilchenjaeger]

In the time it took me to recover from reading The Locked Tomb, I finally watched the second season of Good Omens (had to wait for my parents to be able to watch it with me), and I want to do a quick post of my first impressions bc I like writing these. (No, I'm not over The Locked Tomb enough to write one for that yet. Maybe soon. Or maybe for Alecto.)

The short version is that I loved it, especially the ending. Season 1 is probably one of my favourite shows ever made; it's so obvious how much love and care went into every second of it, and I'm still impressed by how it manages to both be accurate to the book and modernise and alter the story a little to fit a TV show made decades after the book came out. The pacing, the amount of creativity and very different characters it introduces, the Cold War themes that somehow still work in the 2018 version, all the stuff that just keeps happening - it's just very good. Season 2 is very different from that, regarding the pacing especially. There's a lot less going on. Its focus is a lot more narrow. It's a lot slower, and a lot of it feels like filler, up until the last two episodes re-introduce the Shit Is Happening Left And Right pacing. Ultimately, it's a bridge between the first season and the next one (fingers fucking crossed that it gets made; I'm ready to just start cannibalising Amazon executives), it very much feels like one, and I think that's what it has to be seen as. Neil Gaiman confirmed that that's what it is a long time ago. So, no, it's not as gorgeously done as season 1 - but I went into it expecting a bridge, and I did get an incredibly enjoyable and very heartbreaking bridge that I'm 100% satisfied with. I wanted to see Aziraphale and Crowley and I saw them a lot, the plot is solid, and the last episode really came in with the fucking steel chair and knocked me the fuck out. My mind is rotting in 20 different ways rn. I did not need this after Nona the Ninth.

Anyways, in case there's anyone here who's on the fence about watching season 2 (or about Good Omens!), go watch it. Be at peace. Get your heart broken. (And, like, watch Good Omens, it's so good.)

Spoilery thoughts under the cut.

Starting off with a minor intriguing thing - I was SO on the fence about Crowley and Aziraphale having met before the Fall when I first watched their first meeting, but y'know what? I like it. There really isn't anything that says that they didn't know each other already in their Eden conversation. (I think that in the book, it does read like they know each other.) And I like all the little hints we're suddenly getting at who Crowley used to be before the fall. He was a Throne or a Dominion or above??? HELLO??? If the "Crowley was Raphael" theory ends up being real, I'm gonna start walking up the walls. Anyways, it's cool, these little reminders that Crowley does know Heaven fit very well with the overall theme of criticising Heaven as an institution, and I really hope that this is all build-up for a reveal of what sauntering vaguely downwards entailed for Crowley. Aziraphale's character arc is very much a metaphor for religious trauma and being in a cult, and season 2 puts Crowley in the role of the one who got out of the cult even more explicitly than season 1 did, which... is very appropriate, considering how it all ends.

Next up, I CANNOT FUCKING BELIEVE that they made Gabriel/Beelzebub canon. Are you KIDDING me. I went through all five stages of grief watching this with my parents right next to me, who had never heard of this ship before and were just sitting there, happily watching things proceed while my entire goddamn brain melted. What the FUCK. The audacity to do this and make it work, at that. I didn't even ship this, ever, and I'm still losing my entire mind about it. Is that what Homestuck readers felt like when Davekat went canon? Absolutely bonkers emotion, 10/10 would experience again. How dare they make me like Gabriel, also. Anyways, it fucking worked, and that's what upsets me the most. This was a genuinely sweet, romantic little story. The thing with the fly? OOF. Adorable. Extremely romantic. I, too, would leave everything I ever knew to go to Alpha Centauri with someone who made me the first gift of my life, saved my memory and sense of self with said gift, and then called it perfect to my face. Crowley is taking notes for wooing his own angel as we speak.

And it's all a big Aziraphale-and-Crowley parallel, of course. It's so fun that there were two of those - I had a chat with my dad about that, and we took note of some very interesting things. Like, it's very obvious that Nina and Maggie are Aziraphale and Crowley's mirror, but it only really hit me afterwards that narratively speaking, Nina is Aziraphale. She gets all the Crowley traits, of course - she's the sceptic, she's the grumpy one, she even calls Maggie "angel" (Cute!!!), and Maggie with her outdated lifestyle and her nerves and her cheerfulness is obviously meant to read as an Aziraphale parallel at first glance. But Maggie is the one who's waiting. She's the one who doesn't quite dare to confess, but tries to get close to Nina nonetheless. And Nina is the one who's in a toxic relationship and who, in the end, says that she needs some more time to get over that, hoping that Maggie will still be there when she's ready. And Maggie of course will be there! Like Crowley has been there for thousands of years and presumably will still be there once Aziraphale finally gets out of the cult for good. I want to believe its foreshadowing - it's certainly a direct parallel to the heartbreak scene in the end, and I want to believe that Beelzebub and Gabriel getting their happy ending is foreshadowing as well. It does drive me slightly insane that every single bit of this season was at least part of a big narrative parallel for Aziraphale and Crowley. It was all about love. I'm sobbing. It's all about LOVE, and hasn't it always been? (And, well, it's not like Anathema and Newt and Madame Tracy and Shadwell weren't Aziraphale and Crowley as well.)

On that note: The emotion I felt when they kissed? Unparalleled. We're explicitly and fully undeniably in the queer main characters zone, bitches. I legitimately almost cried. Of course the love story was pretty much explicit in season 1 already, but in a show that is not a Queer Show(tm) from the get-go, that never was marketed as such, a kiss still means so much, even if it's a sad goodbye kiss.

And speaking of that, finally - I avoided spoilers as much as I could, but I did pick up on the general, uh, unrest in fandom regarding the ending. Like, people apparently hated it and were very vocal about it, to the point where I couldn't even avoid it when I went out of my way to not look at anything Good Omens-related. Fandom annoys me more and more by the day - this is definitely one more thing for the pile of annoyances - and I try not to let that ruin my enjoyment of things, but I was prepared to be let down by the ending. Which is very interesting, because the ending was hands down my favourite part of the season. What the FUCK, people, can we not complain about the episode where we get an onscreen kiss? Anyways, I'm SO intrigued by this ending and the story it begins to tell. Aziraphale as an archangel is a wild status quo, first of all, but mostly, I really like what they did with the characters here. Again, Aziraphale is metaphorically in a cult, and the fact that he cannot let go of the idea that Heaven is supposed to be good, that what Heaven does must ultimately be good, fits that very well imo. He's at the point where he has realised that angels make mistakes and some decisions made in Heaven are wrong, which makes him determined to change things once he's in a position of power, but he's still not out of his cult mindset yet. Being an angel is still an inherently good thing in his mind, so of course he's fucking ecstatic when he thinks that he's able to bring Crowley to Heaven. Only that Crowley is really not about to re-join the fundamentalist cult he already got out of once, thank you very much. So, yeah, this works, and it's heartbreaking. Poor Crowley deserves none of this.

(All of this is also very, very queer - there's the obvious cult metaphor, but Aziraphale is also absolutely a metaphor for internalised homophobia. He gets the opportunity to be with Crowley and be straight, metaphorically, to have their relationship be a socially accepted, good, not sinful one! There's also some of the "Your soul can be saved if you stop being a demon gay" thing in there. I want to give Aziraphale twenty hugs.)

Ultimately, "Come to Heaven with me" vs. "It could just be us" complete with a desperate, heartbreaking, overwhelming goodbye kiss broke my entire goddamn heart. I'm very glad that Neil Gaiman already promised to tell the rest of the story no matter what, even if Amazon doesn't play along. That's not something that can stay unfinished. Anyways, TL;DR: Loved it, will watch again once I know how everything ends and don't have to cry about the ending anymore. Will go look at kiss gifs now.

[galacticlamps]

I was tagged by @terryfphanatics​ (thanks! sorry I took forever - I started answering these & didn’t finish and just remembered it was in my drafts)

What book are you currently reading?

The Two Towers! which upsets me bc I’ve been at it since August (technically - I wasn’t ‘at it’ in, uh, October, November, December, January, or February, for lack of time - but I’m back at it now, and I even convinced myself to start over from the beginning so I didn’t forget anything)

What's your favourite movie you saw in a cinema this year?

sorry but the last time I went to a movie theater was probably in 2017, 2018 at the latest, so... yeah I’ve got nothing

What do you usually wear?

jeans, boots, at this point in the winter usually some combination of flannels, sweaters and/or sweatshirts. (I’ve been really cold lately)

How tall are you?

5′6″ ish

What's your star sign?

capricorn

Do you share your birthday with a celebrity or historical event?

I do, yeah

Do you go by your name or a nickname?

mostly nicknames, I have quite a few at this point. I’ve yet to pick one to use on here, I should probably do that soon, I’ve been meaning to for years now

Did you grow up to be what you wanted to be as a child?

I don’t recall ever wanting to be anything in particular as a child, honestly, but I can say that so far I’ve pretty much stuck to the career path that first caught my interest in high school, if that counts

Are you in a relationship? Who is your crush if not?

nope! and it’s been a very long time since I’ve had a serious crush either, which I’m honestly grateful for. I wouldn’t want to be in a relationship at this exact point in my life anyway, so I’m just gonna keep vaguely admiring every funny girl who’s kind to me for the time being without actually developing feelings for her. I hope It seems to be going well so far mostly

What's something you're good at versus something you're bad at?

(I’m trying to think of two that relate to each other)

I am very good at drawing objects and not at all good at drawing people! technical plans are something I’ve dealt with extensively both academically & professionally, but in the more general sense I’ve always been an ‘I can’t draw’ person. tbh I should find some of those artists who complain about backgrounds and just do all their architecture etc for them

Dogs or cats?

nothing against dogs but cats for sure, always cats

What's something you'd like to create content for?

not to sound like a jerk, but I work in the arts industry & really hate the place ‘content creation’ has come to occupy in everyone’s vocabulary, even though I totally realize that in a context like this it’s probably just trying to be a vague enough term to be inclusive of the many different things people can create. I like writing the fanfic that I do, so without switching subjects, I would like to get better at drawing people because sometimes I have ideas that would be better expressed as images or even short comics

What's something you're currently obsessed with?

Obsessing over 60s who is my baseline so I don’t think that counts - but it’s been almost a month since I watched Holding Achilles & there have only been hours when I didn’t think of it, not entire days

What's something you were excited about that turned out to be disappointing this year?

Ngl, (& not to be a total downer, but) the last 12 months-ish have been an extremely busy/hectic/unpredictable year for me, with both the good & the bad stuff coming out of left field most of the time. So while there were certainly more than enough disappointments, for the most part, they weren’t the kinds of things you could be excited about beforehand (relatives dying, people fighting, strained relationships, illnesses, work stuff in a perpetual state of flux - or as I’ve taken to calling it: death disease & dubious employment). I suppose there were a lot of events I wanted to make it to that I didn’t, due to the aforementioned junk, and I certainly imagined myself getting to read more books & write more fics than I did, but that doesn’t feel like a good specific answer.

What's a hidden talent of yours?

I suppose that depends who you ask? There are lots of work or work-adjacent skills I could name that would be news to people on here, but those are such prominent parts of my life otherwise that they definitely don’t feel ‘hidden.’ But I guess even among people who expect me to be handy/crafty, more overtly artistic things tend to surprise them - like I’ve had people forget that I was the one who painted something, for instance, because that’s not the kind of skill most associate with me. (and I am very good with color & pigment tbh)

Are you religious?

nah. I’m not like, a committed atheist or anything either, I just grew up catholic & don’t go in for that anymore, nor do I have any desire to go seek out another faith

What's something you wish to have at this moment?

time uh, let’s say a haircut

tagging people kinda seems rude after taking multiple months to come up with so many kind of non-answers oops, but if anyone would like to copy the questions, either as an opportunity to do a little q&a or an excuse to tag/ask your friends, be my guest

[magentagalaxies]

so basically a few weeks ago paul bellini sent me two signed mouth congress vinyls as a late birthday present slash gift for running the mouth congress social media and i thought i'd post a vinyl tour bc there's so many cool details here! this is gonna be a long post bc the lyric booklet that came with waiting for henry is pretty much a full zine and i really love all the effort they put into it

contents:

waiting for henry double LP (signed by scott and paul!)

ahhhh the pollution 7" (signed by scott and paul!)

Mouth Congress button (did not know this was a thing so it was just a fun little bonus gift he threw in)

first, close up photo of the sticker on the waiting for henry cover:

next pictures of each of the vinyls:

the lighting was a bit off in these pictures but the vinyls are so beautiful it's unreal. ahhhh the pollution is a translucent bright orange, the first half of waiting for henry is beige, and the second half is this beautiful bright blue that looks like blue rasperry candy. i'm always a sucker for colorful vinyls (i just picked up a copy of "take the sadness out of saturday night" by bleachers on a seaglass vinyl the other day) and i wasn't sure if they had any left so the fact that both releases are on such beautiful vinyl is amazing

next we have the zine!! here's the cover:

the first few pages are a short summary of the mouth congress story as told by paul himself, along with a few pictures of the band members from their college days:

after that we have a fictitious profile of the band written by aviva avoovoo (a freelance writer character created by paul bellini) where she visits the mouth congress chalet and discovers the "dark secrets" that lie within. it's so funny and surreal but i didn't want to post every page of it so instead i'll focus on this old vaguely-cursed pic of paul that accompanied the writing:

once we're done with the fictional side of things there's a two-page spread of cassettes mouth congress put together in the 80s/90s that they released in an attempt to promote the band. each cassette description has a list of featured songs, some of which were later put on "ahhhh the pollution" or "waiting for henry" and some of which i'd never heard about previously and am very intrigued by. i took close-up pics of these two specifically since they're the ones i most want to look into from that page

specifically i really wanna learn more about madam alphonsa. who is she. she's mentioned in "me on my off hours" and makes an appearance on "madamifesto" and "let's hear it for show business." they mentioned in the mouth congress documentary that kevin used to play madam alphonsa's husband. several characters scott played in mouth congress were later done on kids in the hall but madam alphonsa is my new lost media obsession.

after that we have a solid six pages of scott and paul interviewing each other. again it's very long so i'm not posting everything but it was a very good interview which makes me love the band even more and it also had this picture with it:

more old pictures (look how young scott and paul look in the bottom right one i'm losing my mind):

centerfold:

then we have at least 10 pages of lyrics for every song on waiting for henry as well as short blurbs about the story behind each song which was really cool and might be its own post someday, but last but not least i wanted to leave you with my favorite part of the mouth congress zine: the word search

legit took this pic just so i could highlight the words digitally and not draw on the actual zine but oh my god i had so much fun doing this. unironically i think every vinyl should come with a thematically linked word search. it really just goes to show how much joy and effort scott and paul put into everything mouth congress does and i'm so honored i get to be part of their story at the level where i can get something like this autographed and sent to me for free (and also might get free admission to an upcoming mouth congress show if i help them set up beforehand and film the show?? like paul you do realize i would pay VIP prices for this but thank you for doing it for free?? also thank you for asking how my own musical went and genuinely caring about the answer???)

anyway this got a little rambly towards the end but my point is. queercore punk is truly the genre of all time and mouth congress is so fucking great nobody is going it like them

[disaster-j]

♧ GMMTV '22 Line Up Analysis Pt.2 ♧

《BL Shows》

(Note: these are not official synopses this is what I got from the trailers)

1. Star in My Mind | Sky in Your Heart

My Synopsis

Star in My Mind

Daonuea confessed to his crush the day before he left for Germany and got nothing to show for it. Now, years later, fate throws the two back together when they’re assigned to the same dormitory. Will love finally blossom at this second chance? Or has holding on to this torch all these years finally tired Daonuea out?

Sky in Your Heart

Kuafah finds himself the only doctor at a remote village’s health centre. While there he falls into easy banter with the village’s school teacher, who seems distrustful of the young doctor’s intentions. In the backdrop of the quiet wilderness, casual rivalry gives way to a blooming romance.

My Thoughts

This is a two part series, hence the two separate synopses. Both stories show a lot of potential to be solid romance dramas but I’m more interested in the second story than the first ngl. As if seeing Mek in a BL isn’t exciting enough we get to see him in what is essentially a reverse atots enemies to lover plot? How could I not be intrigued? Overall, I’m expecting this show to be a nice little fluff break in between the many, many heavy dramas that are going to air in the coming year.

2. Cupid’s Last Wish

My Synopsis

Win’s father’s will once ripped his friendship with Korn apart. But now, waking up in his sister’s body after a car crash, there’s no one else who can help Win but the very man he claims to hate.

My Thoughts

There were rumours on twitter about them being cast in the adaptation of this bl novel and I, frankly, really wished they weren’t true. I’m not big on body-swaps to begin with but body-swaps involving siblings are a big pet peeve of mine. Just the idea of him, like, doing stuff with Korn while in his sister’s body weirds me out. I might still try to watch it bc I love Earth and Mix, they’re some of my favourite thai actors, but I highly doubt I’ll actually watch this show. 

3. The Eclipse

My Synopsis

When strange acts of rebellion start popping up on the campus of a prestigious all-boys school, the head prefect has no choice but to investigate. In his endeavours he finds himself drawn to the mysterious new kid, who leads him down an entirely different path.

My Thoughts

Synopsis is so fucking vague bc I have no clue wtf is actually going on here. All I know is that I like it. First and Khaotung is not a pairing I’d have expected but now that it’s here I definitely want more. Need it honestly. I’m super intrigued by this dark and mysterious setting that has taken over your classic high school romance plot. This one’s definitely high up on my most anticipated shows list rn. 

4. Never Let Me Go

My Synopsis

Following the untimely death of his father, Neung finds himself surrounded by danger and forms a deep bond with the boy brought into their home to help him and his mother in these trying times somewhere along the way. 

My Thoughts

Just like the last one, the synopsis for this is so short and vague bc the plot seems very convoluted and I don’t trust that I actually know what’s happening. That being said, what I do know is that this PondPhuwin starrer has great potential to absolutely wreck me. So proceed with caution here. But hey, what’s life without a little angst, right?

5. Vice Versa

My Synopsis

When Talay wakes up from a near-death experience, he finds himself trapped in another world, in a body that isn’t his own. His only shot at getting home is a person connected to the one whose life he’s currently stuck living.When he finally finds what he’s looking for, though, he’s hit with a revelation- the person in that body is someone from his own world.

My Thoughts

You know how I said I’m not big on body-swaps? Well my love for inter-dimensional travel plots cancels that shit out so this one’s gonna be an exception lmao. This plot really intrigued my inner shonen manga fanatic so much. It looks so different from any other bl I’ve ever seen. I'm super excited. Plus, the second Jimmy (Wai from Bad Buddy) showed up on screen I knew I was gone. Like, the scene where Nanon transitions into Jimmy? Cinematic gold omg. All in all, this one is on the top of my most anticipated '22 BL list rn, hands down. 

5. My School President 

My Synopsis

When the student body president shuts down the music club for performing poorly, the club president promises to do whatever he wants to get the club back up and running. 

My Thoughts

I’d write a bigger synopsis but there’s very little plot and I caught zero names. This is a cutesy high school romance with a dash of love triangle drama. Not much else to say about this- follows the classic BL formula, it’s fluffy and straightforward. Not the most memorable trailer but I’m sure it will satisfy all fluff lovers. 

7. Midnight Series: Moonlight Chicken

My Synopsis

The story of two men who meet at a chicken shop late one night and fall into a fiery relationship.

My Thoughts

Honestly, I’m confused as to why this is part of the Midnight anthology. The plot and the vibes sorely clash with those of the other two. It just stands out like a sore thumb in between the other two. Aside from that, the plot seems quite bittersweet and there are hints of cheating so I highly doubt I’d enjoy it since I don’t like cheating plots. I’ll still give it a shot bc it’s directed by P’Aof and starring EarthMix and it does genuinely look like a good show, even though it’s probably gonna have a bad ending.

8. You Are My Favourite

My Synopsis

When ____ (Krist) finds a magical item that can send him back in time, he thinks he can use it to go back and change his first meeting with the girl he likes before she marries her current boyfriend. But time is a fickle foe and the more he tries to change his fate the more he finds himself drawn towards the wrong person. 

My Thoughts

I love the concept. It’s fresh and interesting and emotional. But why the fuck did they have to cast Krist ‘men kissing for real is gross’ Perawat. They couldn’t find anyone else? Why the fuck is he doing another BL when he said he won’t take anymore BL roles? Why is he doing this when kissing men grosses him out? LITERALLY WHY ARE THEY DOING THIS IT’S A FUCKING HATE CRIME!!!!! Anyway, will I watch it for Mike and Aye? Probably. Will I hate every second of Krist’s screen time? Absolutely.

[teebarnes]

Idk if your request are open but I try anyways. How about readerxcevans in which the reader is really cold and doesn't trust people so well bc of past relationships went wrong and Chris tries to win her being sweet and romantic?

Hello lovely anon! my requests are 100% open, thank you so much for your suggestion. I hope I did your request justice, I enjoyed writing it. 🥰🥰 (I'm sorry I got carried away with this one).

Title: And Then He Came Along...

Pairing: Chris Evans x Reader {Request}

Summary: You haven't had the best record when it comes to relationships, you thought you couldn't be loved. Until one day as you sat on the beach shivering, everything changed when Chris came along.

Word Count: 3.5k

Warning(s): Mentions of past abuse, angst, fluff, sad, I'd say a bit of PTSD.

A/N: Requests are open, I hope you enjoy this one. I won't be posting for a few days as I am going on a little trip. I think I nearly cried writing this one though...

A broken heart and empty promises are all you had gotten out of your past relationships. One by one, you gave your heart, time and soul to love a person so much that in the end, they had given you nothing but broken promises and the vague idea that you could never be loved for who you are.

The last relationship you had was an abusive one; it mentally drained you until you had nothing left. You were so broken and so far from home, you didn't know what to do anymore. It was the same cycle with you, and you didn't know what you did to deserve the men with no chivalry, the men who couldn't love, the men who couldn't love you.

There were so many parts of you that you thought were so unlovable. You told yourself you were meant to be broken and meant to stay that way forever. You wished every day, how long would it be until you found the one, the one who loved you for you, the one who wouldn't hurt you, the one who would be there for you on your most challenging days and the one who would help mend your heart from how damaged it was.

And then he came along…

Here you were a year later, knees tucked tight into your chest as the sand hugged the mould of your body. Your arms wrapped tightly around your legs that you could almost fall if the wind had blown softly against your weight. The dishevelled bun and the fly-aways of your hair getting into your face every now and then. It was a while since you wanted to try dating again; your trust was so broken that you couldn't even trust yourself to choose another person to be in a relationship with.

You were sitting on this very beach, wearing nothing but shorts and a singlet. It was late at night, but you had walked all the way from your apartment to the beach just so you could listen to the waves and watch as the stars paved the skies and the moon brighten the night.

"Hey, are you alright there?" A masculine voice sang softly from behind you; you jumped a bit, activating your fight mode. You turned around to see a handsome, tall man with light brown hair smiling back at you. "Sorry… sorry, I didn't mean to scare you", he smiled again. You sat there looking at him. He could tell you were shivering. You were stupid enough to set yourself on autopilot, leaving the house with nothing warm to wear. "May I sit next to you?" He asked kindly; you looked at him with a soft look before slightly nodding your head.

You turned back to watch the water softly crash into each other, hands gripping a bit tighter on your arms to warm yourself. You felt the tall man sit close to you before he softly wrapped a blanket around your shoulders, again causing you to jump. "W-what are you-" "You're cold" your body softened from the tense state it was in as he continued to wrap the warm fuzzy blanket around your entire body.

"I'm Chris, by the way", he smiled; you had turned to look at him wary of his presence. Your hands gripped the lengths of the blanket "y/n", you whispered softly to him. "Nice to meet you, y/n", he spoke in a gentle voice, "likewise".

"What is a beautiful lady like you doing out here late at night?" He asked curiously. A solemn grin tugged at your lips; Beautiful, you thought. None of your past relationships ever thought you were beautiful to them, so why would it be different from him.

"Please don't call me that", you responded. Chris' head tilted slightly in question "beautiful?" He was taken aback by your reply, "why not?" "Because I'm not", you quickly spoke. "What makes you think that you aren't" he questioned; you went to talk but promptly closed your mouth. This was the first time in months someone had made you doubt how you thought of yourself, and you didn't know how to respond.

Then he began to talk again, "You know, I've seen you coming out to this beach every day for the past few months… sitting in the same spot for hours into the night" he had scooted a bit closer to you, which you very much noticed as you moved slightly away from him. "I like the beach… it- it makes me feel safe", you spoke benevolently.

"Same", he chuckled, "the only reason why I moved here," he said, looking out to the water. You turned slightly to look at the man who sat next to you; you didn't know whether he was genuine or ready to murder you within seconds. "U-uh", you quietly cleared your throat. "Thanks for the blanket", you gestured a small smile. "Don't worry about it." He smiled back at you "you were cold.. and like I said before, I couldn't let a beautiful person like you sit in the cold".

You were taken aback by him; you had only met him a few minutes ago, but he made you feel something you had never felt before. You felt safe for once, trepidation to his presence, but nonetheless, something was telling you that he was genuine.

Of course, from past experiences, you were anxious about how you reacted around him or just about anyone who showed you an ounce of kindness.

"D-do you think I'm beautiful?" You softly questioned him.

Chris peered back over to meet your eyes, giving you a soft nod to his head "very much", he quirked, resting his head on the top of his shoulder as he mimicked the way you were sitting. "Do you not think so?" he asked honestly, which broke you; a tear fell as you blinked "n-no", you muttered out to him.

You sniffed to yourself, using the blanket to wipe the stream of tears coming from your face. Chris could see it, he could see how broken you were, he didn't know why but knew that he wanted to spend his days trying to help you. Slowly and gently, he let his hand rise to wipe the tears from your face, you flinched your face a bit, but as soon as you knew what he was doing, your body let him.

Chris felt something; he knew that this was his now or never chance. Watching you make it to the beach simultaneously every day, sitting in the same spot. He knew that he wanted to try and talk to you. Chris had already seen a side of you that you so desperately tried to hide. Your eyes explored his facial features, as did his. The pair of you sat in silence; it wasn't awkward but serene.

"Would you mind if I took you out on a date?" Chris asked you gently. Your mind sunk back in from the daze that was experiencing. You genuinely didn't know if he was asking you. "with me?" "Of course with you", he smiled. "who else would I ask?" he chuckled. "There is only one y/n on this beach tonight", he looks left and right before leaning close. "one y/n that I know of", he smirked, "… and I'd very much like to take you out on a date."

You chuckled, looking at him, "are you sure? You're probably only saying it because I'm crying", you laughed lightly. He shook his head, resting a hand on your shoulder; you looked down to where his hand was touching you, "I've been mustering up the courage to ask you out for a while now," he nervously but reassuringly told you.

You smiled, the first genuine smile you had in a while. "I'd love that" you bit the bottom of your lip out of nervousness. Taking your hand out from the blanket, you let your hand rest on top of Chris', "Be warned though… I'm quite broken," you joked. Chris looked at you light-eyed and wholeheartedly spoke, "You don't look broken to me, you just look like someone who is waiting for the right person, and if you'd give me a chance, I'll show you". The slight uneven breath you took, it was like he knew everything you were thinking. How could a man be this kind to you?

After that night, Chris kept up to his promise; you were tough, and Chris was willing to work hard to show you he was undoubtedly falling in love with you. There were days where you'd sabotage yourself and your relationship; your tendency to self-sabotage your relationship with Chris never worked, though. He'd always be there to pick you back up and show you that there was no need for worry. You were cautious of him, but you knew that you were falling for him.

~~

"You look beautiful as always", he smiled, handing you over a bundle of your favourite flowers. Chris leaned in to kiss the side of your cheek, making you blush. He was and still is a chivalrous man, had been since the day you met him.

Today you were going on what would be your tenth date. It had been five months since you met Chris on the beach, and you were genuinely easing into the idea that you had found your person. He knew all about your past relationships now; there was nothing to hide from him, he knew it all, and he built that trust with you. Slowly, day by day, those long late-night conversations on the beach had given you a reason to be happy again. He was slowly mending your heart, showing you what real love looked like.

"You look just as handsome", you shyly spoke; he chuckled, extending his hand out for you to hold. "I thought we could have dinner on the beach tonight?" smiling, you took his hand into yours. Chris had been planning this date for a few weeks now; he knew how important it was for him to gain your trust, to meet each other halfway. And all the while doing that, both of you had fallen madly in love with each other.

Holding Chris' hand, you walked out with him onto his deck, smiling at the glimpse of a candlelit dinner; nobody had ever done something this romantic for you and Chris… well, he had already topped all your past relationships at the romance bit. He opened the sliding doors leading you out to the table before pulling your chair out "for you", he smiled, you laughed lightly, sitting in the seat as he moved to the other side to take a seat.

On the table sat a whole bunch of Chinese food; he learnt that Chinese was your favourite type of cuisine, so he knew that you'd love this. It was simple, and you liked simple; you hated when people spent money on you because you felt you didn't deserve it. But with Chris, he loved to spoil you, surprise you with dinners, small little gifts and flowers when he knew you needed them. The tall, thick wall you built around you was slowly but surely tumbling down at the likes of Chris' love."Let's dig in", he smiled; you were excited and begun to dig into the food.

~

Sitting with Chris in the living room, both of you were playing a board game. You found out that Chris was very competitive and didn't like the fact that you were winning. The laughter and chuckles as you bet him at three rounds of monopoly and a round of cards. He was losing his touch, but he didn't care because seeing the joy on your face was something he loved, and if it meant purposely losing the games just to see you smile, he'd do it a thousand times again.

It was when he flung his hands up in defeat that you jumped back; your instinct kicked in, raising your hands to protect yourself. Your eyes were clenched shut as you turned away from him. You prepared to be hit, but once you realised what you did and who you had done it to, you gasped. You feared he was going to hit you.

Chris moved closer to you, taking your hands into his; he lowered them before pulling you into his arms, embracing you in a hug. Your eyes opened, looking up at him as he held you in his arms. You were attempting to apologise to him, but all he did was look down, a small smile on his face, kissing your forehead.

"you don't need to worry love, I'm not going to hurt you, never going to hurt you."

Melting into his arms, Chris held you rocking the pair of your side to side just so he could comfort you. He understood that you were scared, and he was willing to replace all your fear with love and trust so you wouldn't have to worry about ever being mistreated again. That was the first time you let your past creep into your present, assuming it would repeat; Chris broke that cycle.

~

"That was some good Chinese food", you smiled, leaning back into your chair. Chris nodded in agreement "definitely was" "We have to eat there again sometimes", you spoke, paying no mind to what you had just said. Chris backtracked on your comment. This was the first time that you had ever suggest future plans to him. He smiled to himself, which you noticed "what?" you said with your eyes fixed on his smile. He shook his head "nothing, was just thinking that you're right. We do have to go back there again".

"We surely do." you smiled, turning your head back to watch the waves. "Hey y/n", he spoke. You looked at him. He was smiling brighter than before, and you didn't know why. "did I do something?" you lightly asked wide-eyed.

"No… no- it's just. I love you."

your brows furrowed; you couldn't believe what he was saying. "I…" your lip quivered. He had stood up, moving towards you, Chris kneeled next to you. Taking your hands into his, he looked up into your teary eyes, caressed his thumb over your cheek. "I'm in love with you y/n, and I was wondering if maybe you wanted to be my girlfriend?" he sweetly smiled. You rested a hand on his cheek. "I'd love to be your girlfriend; I love you so much", you whispered. Resting your head on his, you blinked your tears away "thank you for loving me, Chris", you softly spoke.

"Thank you for letting me love you", he smiled. He took you into his arms as you both stood; leaning down, he planted soft kisses on your lips. Your arms cupping both his cheeks, you brought him closer to you. He had lifted you up onto him, and you wrapped your legs around him to stop yourself from falling. He spun the pair of you around, the two of you laughing. "God y/n. I'm going to love you forever," he said wholeheartedly; you could see the twinkle in his eyes, something you had been waiting so long for.

"I believe you".

~

Over the next few years, both you and Chris worked together as a real couple. He made you promise to tell him when there was something wrong or when you were struggling. Chris would bring you home flowers when he had been away for a while on filming trips. Chris would read you stories as you snuggled next to him, would read them until you fell asleep in his arms. He would go for walks with you at any time of the day or night and would sit with you in the sand on the days you were struggling.

And when those days came, he was there whispering in your ear how much he loved you, would go above all to make sure you knew that. When you would flinch at small things, he would reassure you that he wouldn't lay a hand on you, and if anyone did, he would protect you. Chris was the sweetest person you had ever met; he worked hard for your trust, and you really trusted him.

There wasn't a single day you and Chris weren't together. He introduced you to his family, which he was so excited about; his family embraced you with open arms and loved you so much. Then, Chris took the chance and asked you to move in with him. Somewhere in the mix, he told you that he was an actor, you were so surprised, but nonetheless, you made an effort to learn more about his life. Then two years later, he asked you to marry him, and of course, you said yes.

If you hadn't gone to the beach that night six years ago, you wouldn't know where you would've been. You had come a long way from where you were, and Chris helped you mend your broken love that he still claimed wasn't broken to start with. He was the one to show you how someone should be loved and how a relationship should work. Like any relationships, there were always ups and downs, but Chris never failed to fight for what he wanted, and he always made sure to tell you that all he wanted was you.

Chris gave you the love you were looking for. That stupid type of love, the making food at ungodly hours of the morning love. The kind of love where he'd sit there with you in his arms all day. The love where you didn't have to question his love because you knew.

Six years later…

You sat on the beach watching the waves crashing, the sun was setting, and the stars were beginning to cloud the night skies. It had been a while since you were back here, you were travelling a lot with Chris, of course, there was never a dull moment, but you loved this place. Deep down, this would always be your safe place. You had your knees tucked into your chest as your chin rested on the top of your knees.

You felt a warm body sit behind you; Chris wrapped his arms around your waist, pulling you close into his chest. You chuckled as you sat between his legs. He smiled, kissing the back of your head before wrapping the pair of you in the big warm blanket.

"Hey, my love", he spoke.

You rested back into his chest with your head resting on his shoulder. You smiled up at him. "Hello, love. you finished your meeting already?".

"Left early, couldn't leave my beautiful wife out here in the cold, could I?" He said, hugging you in his big warm arms, swaying you both side to side as he rested his head next to yours.

You smiled at the faint memory holding his hands in yours.

"You probably thought I was a weirdo when I asked you out that day" Chris smiled.

"I thought you were going to kill me", you quietly joked "thinking about it now, you could've killed me", Chris replied.

"Lucky I didn't then." you teased.

"Chris?" You looked back at him. He was looking at you in wonder "hmm?"

"I love you so much, and I hope you know that." you smiled, turning to rest your head on his chest. You could hear his heartbeat, the soft, calm patterns.

Chris rested his chin on the top of your head, "I've always known that, my sweet girl. You know that I love you too, right?" his thick Boston accent came through, making you smile.

"of course I know that. You haven't stopped telling me since the day you first said I love you" you grinned.

"Mhm, mhm okay.. just checking", he joked.

You wrapped your arms around Chris' torso, letting your eyes close to the sound of his heartbeat.

"Chris..." you looked up at him, you took his cheeks into the cup of your hands", I never thanked you for everything you did. Loving me the way you do, I am so lucky to have you; you pieced me back together" he smiled pulling you into peppered kisses against your lips. "I told you, you weren't broken. You were just looking for me," he chuckled.

"I will love you forever, Chris. You're mine as I am yours; I'm never letting go."

"You can't get rid of me. I am stuck to you by the hip, my precious girl", he spoke.

"Wasn't planning on it", you whispered. "Oh, I know you weren't… you love me too much" "that is very much true."

You two sat there, in the silence, listening as the waves crashed against each other and the stars twinkled brightly. Your years of pain had vanished; all that was left was love. Something it took until Chris for you to believe love existed; he loved you fervently.

Chris didn't need to work hard to win your heart; all he did was show you how much he loved, in more ways than one. He gave you reasons to be loved. Above all, he always met you halfway, Putting equal time and love into your relationship. People hurt and get hurt, but it takes that one person to show you that you are worth loving.

And for you, Chris was it.

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Chris Evans' Taglist: @buckyswintersoldiermask @lharrietg @buckyfan12@afraid-to-be-me @fairityretro @livstilinski @sohosteve @morganwilliams @hiddlespiddles @mollyscoffe45

(feel free to message me if you would like to be removed from the taglist 🥰)

[awnterslder]

Can you tell us more about what James would have written in his journal between the end of catws and cacw?

honestly there’s probably a lot of stuff that he’s jotted down between the end of c.atws and c.acw ! this’ll sorta be like a mix between general thoughts / headcanons and some entries he’d write. ( and this is my thank you to all my mutuals i get to throw headcanons around with, especially when talking about his past 😌💕 y’all have shaped this bucky to how he’s written today and i love him so much )

under the cut because i’m rambling !

at first, the journal wasn’t really to document memories and the whole journey to self-discovery ( of who he was in the past ). from where he’d left steve by the water to bucharest is definitely not a short distance away. he took the journal keep track of sights, note if he thinks he’s being watched. he’s not entirely in the best mental state, and towards the last couple decades as tws, his time outside of cryo was probably very limited.

then there’d be the first few flashes of old memories — triggered either by time or by his senses. saw something that reminded him of someone he knew, smelled something familiar that he or someone ( perfumes, foods, ... but you know when there’s a particular smell in the air that reminds you of a specific day? like something in the air reminded him of walking home one night with someone close to him. he was smiling then, he thinks. ), heard a song he once knew. these first few entries are quite short and to the point. not entire sentences or page-long journal entries. he was on the run, he was in hiding — didn’t really have time to write everything down. half the time he’s standing; he’s jotting down quick notes and moving on.

entries are very vague but they make sense to him. never meant for other people to read anyway, so as long as they made sense to him, it didn’t really matter.

entry on taste ( after meeting sonia ( mentioned later ) in bucharest. ): she let me taste test dinner. she’s called MAMA SONIA by some locals.

entry on smell ( some undisclosed location ): lavender. home, somehow.

entry on sound: vera lynn recording. the andrews sisters.

others tba bc i can’t exactly think of the other entries at the moment :’) like james, visuals and memories come and go lol i’ll write them down when i think of them.

after some memories were triggered, james decides to find out more on who he was before tws. he was someone’s son once, a brother to three younger sisters and to his friends, he was a respected soldier and sergeant. hydra took those memories from him, and it took them a damn long time for them to get the winter soldier they wanted. his notes are scribbled, quotes from the museums he’s visited. saw how he used to look like for the first time in decades.

entries in museums: ( skips and shortens words to save time )

- james buchanan “bucky” barnes. born 1916, grew up oldest child of 4. 1917 – 1944 ( ??? ). discrepancy. - camp mccoy, wi. camp lehigh, nj. - 107th italian front. childhood friend, steve rogers. cpt. america. kept the suit. - best friends since childhood, bucky ( ? ) barnes and steve rogers were inseparable on both schoolyard and battlefield. barnes is the only howling commando to give his life in service of his country. - the howling commandos. 

there’s defo more entries about steve — after all, he’s his childhood friend ( or so it says in the museum blurbs ... ) ... figures that he’d be an important person to know. perhaps could trigger other memories. also has entries on whatever he could find out about the howlies. entries on old war movies that included cap, the howlies, and that time steve was advertising war bonds.

finds himself hiding in bucharest, romania after some time. meets sonia ( she’s not a canon character, but i imagined her to be the one selling him plums. here’s a small collection of visuals i have of them interacting !! and here’s another headcanon for them. ) i’d also imagine that james is easily influenced by his surroundings. used to adapting, consciously or not. after staying in romania for some time, and knowing the language, some of his journal entries and notes are written in romanian. the only other language this is probably most likely to happen is in russian, if he were to come across old hydra documents.

in bucharest after probably a year, his entries get a lot longer. he’s finished his museum trips and reading what he can. his journal is kinda like one of those messy bullet journals that just has everything written in it. whether it’s things he has to pick up for sonia, for himself, topics that were talked about, notes about some people he’s known through sonia, triggered memories, his nightmares, thoughts and phrases that just pop in his mind or that he’s said aloud without knowing the reason why. there’s a lot of visuals he could’ve written down in his journals — thinking of his sisters and not even remembering their names. describing what they looked like before he forgets again. mention of his parents are included. mentions of what he remembers of hydra, siberia, dept. x, the red room. of course he’s mentioned natasha. perhaps some other widows as well. ( notes on widows and other winter soldiers are for another time i think :’) )

( short ) entries in romania:

- “don’t look, becks.” ???? ( headcanon with @unexceptional ♡ hi ily ) ** he’s said this before on other occasions, but hasn’t written it down until now. - dinner with sonia. pick up onions. - recipe: ciorba de perisoire - peeled orange in one slice. ( headcanon with @spiderwoman. ♡ i mean he could’ve just sliced it ... but some part of him told him it was better this way. another memory triggered through taste eating something like an apple or orange. )

later, his entries become more just ... general journal entries. it’s slowly shifting from trying to remember the kind of person he used to be ... turning into writing down stuff he’s learnt about himself now. there’s a small realization that he won’t ever be the same ‘bucky’ he was before the fall. so for now, he’s referring himself as ‘james’.

he’s defo written more between the end of endgame and post-tfatws. journaling seems to become a little more infrequent post-tfatws depending on the verse ( to which i have many !! ). but that’s a whole ‘nother thing to think about.

there’s definitely more that i’m missing here but that haven’t come to mind. but just the smallest reminder that this bucky is canon divergent and headcanon-heavy; i pull inspo from both the mcu and comics. :’) just about all of this is just speculation and headcanons except for the museum entries which are just quotes. i just like thinking about things that maybe explain how bucky thinks and perceives things, and thinking about the events that influenced the person he is at a particular point in time ♡ thank you anon for letting me ramble and being interested in knowing what i think he would’ve written !! i’ve actually been thinking about this for a while ... but this gave me the kick i needed to actually sit down and write it lol.

small note that particular entries including my mutuals’ muses are all in their own verses, but i love them sm i had to include some note of it :’)

[dameronology]

that’s all {din djarin x reader}

(i’m reposting this bc it wasn’t showing up in the tags and it was stressing me out) 

summary: you’d saved din djarin from himself before. now, with the pain of losing his kid, you’re about to do it all over again. (kinda based on find me here by hayley williams)

warnings: this is...flangst. fluff and angst. swearing. mentions of depression but it’s also a bit ✨positive✨

this is just me trying to be the emotional janitor to...that. i’ve tried to keep it as gender neutral as possible but some of the conversation might imply an afab reader but hopefully it’s vague to be completely objective!!

- jazz

anyways i know i already said it but !! spoilers !! spoilers !! spoilers !!

p.s spot the titanic reference 

Grogu was tiny but the whole he left in your lives was massive.

You always knew you were going to have to give him up - hell, that had been the job in the first place - but you hadn’t expected it to hurt so much. He wasn’t your kid but at the same he completely and entirely was. You’d never expected your first parenting experience to be with a tiny green Jedi but at the same time, you wouldn’t have had it any other way. The next few months were going to be hard; accepting that he wasn’t yours to keep and that he was in a better place was guaranteed to be a long process. It would be worth it in the end but the initial pain was bordering on unbearable.

Din was better at hiding it than you. Admittedly, he did have a thick beskar layer to shield his emotions and pain from the outside world but he couldn’t hide it from you; never from you. Even behind the metal, you could read him like a book. It was a product of spending every waking minute together (his overprotective doing, not yours) and in return, he had learnt every habit and every quirk of yours. He sometimes cursed your ability to read him, especially when it lead to you saying things like you did not just tilt your helmet at me like that, Din Djarin.

He’d been quieter in the days since Luke Skywalker had taken the kid - quieter than usual, at least. Din was already a pretty taciturn person; compared to how he was with other people, he practically spoke your ear off but since you’d landed back on Nevarro, he’d completely kept to himself. It was painful to watch, seeing him rise at the crack of dawn to take a bounty, only to return in the evening with a few more bruises than he’d had that morning. You wanted to say something to do something that would make him snap back to reality, but this was probably his grieving process and you had to respect that. Or, you had to at least try to.

That was, until, it felt like Din was killing both you and him; working himself to the point of exhaustion, barely sleeping and refusing to even acknowledge Greef or Cara. You could deal with him being angsty. You could deal with him grieving. You couldn’t, however, deal with him ignoring you. You had literally vowed to go through all your bad times together and Din Djarin was nothing if not a man of his word. He knew it. You knew it too - and you’d be damned if you’d let him forget it.

It was on a cold - at least by Nevarro standards - morning that you decided it was time to show him some tough love. The Mandalorian had decided to hole out on one of Karga’s old ships that morning, claiming that he wanted to fix it. You were no engineering genius, but given that the old jet’s wings had fallen off, you could see it was past the point of no return and that Din had just been looking for an excuse. He was good at that these days.

‘Din!’ You called. The bay doors were open, but the ship itself was dark and dusty. Tinkering, my ass. As expected, there was no reply. ‘Din! Don’t ignore me.’

Silence.

‘Please?’

You grumbled to yourself, walking further inside the dimly lit ship. Tiny specs of dust were floating in the streams of thin light, leading your path further and further towards the cockpit. Who ever it had belonged it, it pre-dated the Republic, let alone the Empire or new order. You tried to resist the urge to cough, instead choosing to focus on your mission: hunting down the Mandalorian. The tables really had turned, considering he was very rarely the prey.

‘I was talking to Karga.’ You continued - as far as you knew, you were talking to thin air, but you liked your chances. ‘He offered me a bounty puck for...Corellia, is it? For that big, bad guy we didn’t catch last year. You know the one that nearly killed me?’

There was a crash from the cockpit, and you grinned to yourself. It was a little unethical to scare the man out of hiding with your bullshit, but you were getting desperate.

‘I figured it would be good to get out a bit, try and distract myself, you know?’ You continued. ‘So I was gonna borrow a ship and head out there tomorrow-’

‘- like hell you’re doing that on your own.’  

A six foot mountain of beskar suddenly stepped out from the darkness. Normally, that would have been enough to scare anyone, but not you. You’d married that six foot mountain of beskar. That probably gave you more guts than anyone in the damn galaxy -- until they found out he wasn’t actually that terrifying. Not many people would have taken the Mandalorian seriously if they knew he enjoyed having his hair played with.

You held your hands up in the air, stretching out your fingers to show that there was no puck in sight.

‘You lied.’ Din grunted.

‘And you were ignoring me.’ You shot back. ‘’S going on?’

‘I told you. I was working on the ship-’

‘- nope.’ You cut him off. ‘Try again.’

‘Karga asked me to fix it-’

‘- Still no!’ You snapped. ‘We gonna go three for three or are you gonna finally pull your head out your ass and stop lying to me, Din?’

There wasn’t a single person in the galaxy who dared speak back to the Mandalorian - except you. That was what had made him fall for you in the first place. It was like you couldn’t even see the beskar. You’d always seen him as Din, and never as the Mandalorian, or a warrior. You’d made it clear from the day you met that you wouldn’t take any bullshit from anyone, him included, and he’d always respected that.

‘You have been holing yourself away for weeks.’ You continued. ‘I know it’s hard but you have to accept it. Grogu wasn’t ours to keep - he never was.’

Din didn’t response, instead dropping his gaze down to the floor.’

‘Hey.’ You put a finger at the base of the helmet, tilting his head back up to look at you. ‘Look at me. Talk to me.’

‘I miss him.’ He stated; short and blunt. Fitting, really. ‘And it hurts.’

‘I get that.’ You gently placed your hands on either side of his helmet, fingers splaying out over the cold metal. ‘But it’s better to hurt together. Can I?’

Din nodded, signalling that it was okay for you to take it off. You gently tugged at the helmet, momentarily breaking away from him to place it beside you. It was a relief to see his face after so many weeks of having the beskar between you; the soft brown eyes and slightly crooked smile that met you on the other side felt like home. You could have stared at him forever if the galaxy wasn’t so fucking demanding of your presence.

You’d spent far too long on the other side of the beskar, waiting for him to let you in. And now that you’d got him, now that you’d promised yourselves to one another forever? You weren’t going to let it happen again.

You gently pushed back a few tufts of brown hair, offering him a sad smile. ‘You know we made the right decision, yeah?’

He nodded, leaning into your touch as your hands carded through his hair. ‘I know.’

‘So you gotta stop beating yourself up, baby.’ You stressed. ‘Stop shutting people out - stop shutting me out. I know we don’t have the kid anymore but we are still a family.’

‘I lost the ship. I lost the kid.’ Din quietly spoke. ‘I’m just worried that-’

‘- I’m not going anywhere.’ You shook your head, knowing what he was going to say before the words even left his mouth. ‘Even if you paid me. You are stuck with me, okay? Cursed with me till the day I keel over and die.’

Finally, Din smiled. He looked you dead in the eye and he smiled, eyes creasing at the side as he peered down at you, eventually tightening his arms around your waist. He held your head to his chest, ungloved hand gently clutching you as he rested his chin on your hair. The first time he’d clung onto you like this had been after a rough mission; neither of you had been sure if he was going to make it back and when he did, the first thing he did was pull you into his arms and you stayed there for what felt like hours. That was when Din realised for the first time that he loved you - and now, after weeks of isolating himself and shutting you out, this didn’t feel completely different from that. It was just that this time, it was less of a realisation of more of a reminder.

‘I didn’t expect it to be this bad.’ Din quietly admitted.

‘I know.’ You whispered back, voice slightly muffled by his chest. ‘But pain is only temporary. Dark times pass and we’ll learn to look back on this and enjoy the memories. They won’t always be tainted.’

He’d been in a dark place when he’d met you. It was like he’d been treading water, waiting for the riptides to take him, to stake their claim and remind him of his mortality, to remind him that not even the bravest people can forfeit their ability to hurt. He tried. Maker, he had tried. The icy and emotionless impression he gave to strangers wasn’t an accident. It was a survival mechanism; a defense mechanism. One that you’d chosen to ignore. You’d saved him in every way a person could be saved.

Just as the waves were pulling him under, you’d dragged him out; dragged him to the shore and reminded him that pain was merely part of being human. Most importantly, you’d called his attention to the fact that no matter how much beskar he wore or how impenetrable he acted, that he couldn’t avoid being one. He could run away from bounty hunters and Imperials and the thousands of enemies he’d made but the fact of mortality was always hot on his tail.

Now, you were pulling him up for air all over again.

Eventually, pain stopped being a reminder of his humanity and instead, it was replaced by his love for you. His ability to feel things for you. You’d saved him then and now, you were helping him come up for air all over again. Being human didn’t always mean to hurt - it could just as much mean to love.

‘I’ve got you, okay?’ You tightened your grip on him, eyes meeting his. ‘Whatever you need.’

‘You.’ Din replied. ‘I need you. That’s all.’

a/n: ok i realised i published an identical but slightly different imagine to this in october but...clearly i have a type and that type is imagines where the mandalorian confesses that you’re the only thing he needs because i eat that shit up. consume it whole. i am telling you. i have no regrets. my content might is predictable but HELL at least u can rely on something in these wild times❤️

[solarishashernoseinabook]

What part of writing is the most fun?

Thanks again for all the asks!! :D

3. What is that one scene that you’ve always wanted to write but can’t be arsed to write all of the set-up and context it would need? (consider this permission to write it and/or share it anyway) Do not underestimate my willingness to write set-up for events, it's not for nothing that my friends tease me about The Solaris Effect (when what was supposed to be a fluffy fic becomes overloaded with plot, but lately we've been extending it to any minor point that ends up having a lot of set-up given to it so that it works properly)

Nevertheless! Have a short exchange that I might not be able to include in The Ward Ghost due to the timeline not quite working (scene contains implications of a past abusive relationship):

Ten Tooth Joe watched Horace and Will for a moment, then spoke in a low voice to Travis. 'And this new young man Ghost is with - he treats him better than his last boyfriend?' The memory of Will, injured and alone in the woods after his ex had taken out his anger on him, flashed in Travis's mind. His hand balled into a fist. 'Yes. He does.' Ten Tooth Joe noticed Travis's anger. 'So you know the story?' 'I do. He told us a couple weeks ago. You knew about it?' 'Found out just before the bastard left.' 'Did you do anything?' Travis asked. 'I would have, but at the time I had no idea...' 'Found out too late - by that time Ghost had broken it off himself.' Ten Tooth Joe broke out into a grim smile, his eyes glittering angrily in the firelight. 'I might have met that bastard before he hopped a boat to the continent.' Travis's blood ran cold. 'Did you--?' 'Oh, he got on the boat all right,' Joe said, waving one hand. 'But let's just say I have him a little taste of what he gave Ghost.'

8. Is what you like to write the same as what you like to read? Mostly! I love fluffy one-shots, which is most of what I've written lol

9. Are you more of a drabble or a longfic kind of writer? Pantser or plotter? Do you wish you were the other? I've written more drabbles, but I absolutely love doing longfics. As for pantsing versus plotting, it's a mixture! One-shots, I'll have a very vague idea of what I want to do, but mostly pants it. My longfics are slightly planned - I get the beginning, the end, and some scenes I must include, then leave things flexible so I can rearrange or expand things as needed :3 I'm happy with what I do, no need to change!

14. At what point in writing do you come up with a title? When I'm staring at that ao3 title box in despair just before I post the fic slghslgh. But I came up with the title for The Royal Ranger early (purely as a joke that my friends enabled me on)

15. Which is harder: titles or summaries (or tags)? Titles oh my god. If Beethoven could get away with calling his work shit like Fifth symphony in C minor why can't I just call my shit Fluffy gay with side angst and found family no. 12?

20. Tell us the meta about your writing that you really want to ramble to people about (symbolism you’ve included, character or relationship development that you love, hidden references, callbacks or clues for future scenes?) *vibrates in autistic excitement* okay so I've talked about this a lot in other places but writing The Royal Ranger has been huge for me becoming more comfortable in myself. Giving Halt so many of my own autistic traits has meant I'm doing a lot of self-reflection and after a while of writing him I feel a lot better about stimming and my sensory issues :D It's also hugely validating to write people supporting Halt when he needs it bc his autism is causing a problem, or getting to call out characters who treat him poorly.

On a more story-focused level, writing Halt has been fun so far bc he's currently 20 years younger than he is in the main series, and I've written a lot of flashbacks to him as a kid where he was care-free and happy, whereas at the time the fic happens he's more reserved. It's been really fun writing him slowly becoming the version of him we see in canon! And chapter 23 plants a little seed that's gonna come back much later, in a light-hearted context that's nonetheless gonna be meaningful to him ❤

21. What other medium do you think your story would work well as? (film, webcomic, animated series?) I think a webcomic would be interesting! I could visually indicate that Will doesn't emote much in The Ward Ghost that way, or try fun things with panels to show how Halt perceives the world in The Royal Ranger. But I don't have the artistic skill to pull it off, nor do I want to put in the years of work to develop that at the moment lol

25. What part of writing is the most fun? Dialogue exchanges! Especially when characters get to tease each other, but also when they get to really be emotional and sincere. And I'm an absolute sucker for writing scenes where a character promises to support another ❤❤❤

Link to the ask game if you want to play!

[peninkwrites]

hey, so as someone who is very normally obsessed by tddd and possibly inspired, how do you go about writing a longfic as opposed to oneshots? how do you keep the momentum? I really admire your work :)

Thank you sm!!!

This is a very good question lol. I've had to think about it for a bit. I've written quite a few long fics over the years– some of them actually taking years lmao– so I should probably have an answer! I love this stuff so if you ever have questions/wanna talk about fic stuff my ask box is always open!

(this is probably much more than what you were expecting so I did put a tl:dr at the end!)

This is both true for something that motivates me and a warning: The cheap and dirty answer is positive feedback. It is a nice thing and one I value Very Much but there's a difference between enjoying it and depending on it. It's not good to depend on the support of others to write. It will always eventually stop being enough. (this is also a reminder for myself tbh.) I've been trying to teach myself that people reading my work is more like a nice bonus/side effect of me writing rather than the goal of it.

But some actual practical advice from me–

Write what you'd want to read. If that means throwing away what you originally had planned or writing something you don't know if people will enjoy reading, so be it! Write what's fun. That is always the goal. Give Yourself brainrot ! Write what occupies your mind and let what you write make you happy! I like writing horror, I like building tension and seeing how I can make suspense or surprise, so I write that!

That advice might feel useless when even though you're really passionate about a project, in the long slog sometimes it's just hard. If you're having writer's block, feel unmotivated to work on this project anymore, take a break, try writing something else. If you still find yourself not wanting to work on this project, change it up. Even if you don't want to make any drastic changes, writing a chapter from another perspective, writing a oneshot off of the same fic, talk about it with someone else, making a web weaving, stuff like that can help get you a new direction.

I set a loose goal for myself to post a chapter once a month. It's not set in stone bc y'know life gets in the way, but just having a vague idea of "oh I last posted 3 weeks ago I should sit down and see where I left off" can get me moving again. This may sound odd but I advise against strict update schedules. Those tend to psych me out and make me procrastinate on what's supposed to be a fun hobby! And another thing on the 'technical' side of it, chapter lengths are a balancing act for me between two things: I aim for over 4000 words, but if that is stopping me from moving forward, I finish when I like where I've left off!

And as for keeping momentum, I tend to have a Goal for each chapter. It doesn't have to even be a plot related event, it could just be a bit of dialogue I want to get to or an emotion to be had. Sometimes it's just something I want to try writing, like a chapter psychological horror that can almost be treated as its own thing. My chapters are distinct sections with something I want to have happen, not stepping stones to the grand finale or whatever that may be. That's especially helpful if you usually write oneshots, treating a longer fic like a bunch of oneshots that are connected type deal. If each chapter has A Goal, you have something short term to aim for.

That goes for overall stuff too. For me at least, if I know where I want a fic to end up I refuse to quit until I get there. I've never given up on a work that I know how it's going to end. It's easier to write horror than recovery for me, but I know where I want that recovery to lead so having short-term and long-term goals makes that easier to work on. I rarely have a proper outline (actually probably never do tbh) but if I Know that all of this is leading to the happy ending, revelation, moment of hope, moment of horror, etc that I want to get to, that paired with having fun with where I am in the story, it's easier to power through.

I hope that was somewhat helpful? If you have specific stuff that this didn't answer feel free to send an ask about it and I'll see if I have any ideas!

TL:DR

-write for yourself/write what you want to read/what you have fun writing

-when you get stuck work on something else

-have a general schedule (I suggest not a strict one) of when you'd like to update

-have a specific goal for each chapter and the overall fic.

[nanowrimo]

How to Use Brain Science to Win NaNoWriMo?

Maayan Sulami is a Tel Aviv-based writer and podcaster, and has been actively invested in NaNoWriMo since 2016. She comes armed with insight into the inner workings of the mind and how a deeper understanding of brain mechanics can give us the tools we need to fine-tune our process and get things running smoothly.

Brain science has explained so much of our behavior patterns over the past decades, and the findings are amazing. Our mind is a complicated machine, but when you know the mechanism, you can use it for your advantage.

NaNoWriMo, being such a huge challenge, makes us rethink our work process and push our boundaries — no better time to combine brain science with writing. Here are the main challenges you might face during NaNo and how you can battle them using mind hacks.

Procrastination

Procrastination is a clash between the prefrontal cortex — the planner and rational decision maker (Basically the Friends character Monica Geller), and the limbic system that wants to feel good right here, right now (aka the instant-gratification seeker, aka the character of Rachel Green). And it’s one of the most dominant parts of the brain! That’s why it wins more often.

We procrastinate when the limbic system wins. Psychologists call this “present bias”; it means we tend to give more weight to payoffs that are closer to the present time. Which means that watching Netflix will most likely win over a writing sprint.

One way to battle this is to have small instant rewards when small tasks are done, and not wait to feel the fulfillment when you finish NaNo or even ‘til the end of the day. Have small rewards throughout the day (get a coffee, take a bath, have a snack) — that way the writing sprint has a chance to beat Netflix.

Another way to bridge Monica and Rachel is to re-create self-trust, meaning starting to close the gap between what I say I'm going to do and what I actually do. Procrastination basically means thinking A and doing B, this creates discomfort in the brain (which means discomfort in your body) and this is called cognitive dissonance. When you do what you actually say you’ll do, that also gives you instant gratification (bc there’s no more dissonance). So when battling with procrastination, try and do the smallest, easiest task on your list; that will make the limbic system happy, and will help with getting the rest of the stuff done.

The Emotional Brain

When we’re sad, anxious, or even dehydrated or sleep-deprived, the brain is lacking resources. In order to get those resources back it’ll take them from other parts — usually the Monica Geller part; the one that makes good decisions. So make sure you self-care: eat well, drink a lot of water, get enough sleep and try to relax (you can use breathing techniques to increase levels of relaxation during the day — apps that are great for that are Headspace and Oak breathing app).

Motivation

Navy Seals sing when they run (“I want to be a Navy Seal'' — google it) and this isn’t just for morale. When they sing, their brain thinks that they’re enjoying it, and it connects that happiness to running. If you help the brain connect writing with pleasure, it’ll be easier for you to actually sit down and write. Like we said, the Rachel Green part is gonna want that immediate pleasure.

A crucial principle to be aware of is that the brain doesn’t do such a great job at differentiating reality from imagination. That’s why we get scared when we watch a horror movie, even though we know there’s no actual danger, or why we salivate imagining eating something delicious (it’s also why “fake it until you make it” is a real thing). This means the brain will believe what you tell it to believe. Repetition is one of the best way to do this, so if you like mantras/affirmations, make a special one for NaNo and your writing challenge and repeat it every morning.

Writer’s Block

Creative thinking is a very mysterious process in the brain. it has nothing to do with the left or right parts of the brain; that’s just a myth. When we create, parts all over the brain are activated. But since it's a very vague concept, it’s harder to explore. However, studies show that imagination and creative thinking are linked with memory. Participants' brains were scanned while they were remembering a past experience, then imagining a possible future experience and then thinking of creative uses for an object. All three actions (remembering, imagining, creating) activated the hippocampus — the part in our brain that creates and stores memories.

They also found that after asking participants to recall a detail in a recently watched video, they were able to come up with more ideas, and the ideas were more versatile. So next time you’re stuck with a creative problem, try to imagine a past experience with as much detail as possible. This might give you a short-term creativity boost to generate more ideas.

Fun Fact About Creativity and Inspiration:

Issac Asimov wrote about 500 novels. In his biography he wrote that he chooses not to wait for inspiration, and if he struggles with a novel, he just does something else instead — writes an article, a manual, a short story, or works on a different novel. This fills him with more motivation to do things. Action begets motivation begets action, not the other way around.

One last word on change. In the past, scientists believed the brain stops changing and evolving when we’re children; now we know that we form new neurons and neuron connections all the time (neuron connection is basically how we think better and faster, how we make decisions, etc). Meaning, our brain can change for the better throughout our lives. It takes effort, but it’s the most important work we’ll do. 😊

References The Willpower Instinct — Kelly Mcgonical Core Network Contributions to Remembering the Past, Imagining the Future, and Thinking Creatively — Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience The Creative Brain — The Dana Foundation

Maayan Sulami is a writer and podcaster presently working on two debut novels; a light romcom and a dark thriller (we’ll see which one is done first). Maayan feels the balance between those two genres basically defines who she is as a person. She loves storytelling and analyzing great stories — which is the subject of her podcast — and she believes she could’ve been this generation’s Lorelai Gilmore if she were just a little taller.

You can find more of Maayan at her blog, Maayanwrites.com, or on insta @maayan_writes. You can also watch her short film on Youtube and read her short story at Sffplanet.com.

Photo by Ashley Batz on Unsplash.

[lucky-draws]

UM ok thinking out loud here abt mgs pokemon au and it's going to be a long thought so computer insert a read more please.

i was doodling a vaguely bosselot pkmn thing (sorry) and then i got to thinking about like. so in this au big boss is a gym leader but i guess it then could also make sense if the cobras are gym leaders too.......the sorrow = ghost types, the pain = um. bees. just bees. no i guess he could be sort of grass/flying types like the bee pokemons are. the fear = poison and/or bug bc he needs to have some spider pokemon. the fury = fire (fire and... space types? space related pokemon. solrock. clefairy the fuckin moon aliens.idk). or just lots of angry fire types. the end = flying? bird pokemon (parrot). (maybe they all wear mini pokemon sized ghillie suits.)

the boss would either be the last gym leader you visit or she'd be like one of the elite four or the champion... i guess she'd have some fighting types and also rapidash because horse. i imagine that bb is like a hoenn region gym leader bc hoenn and the hoenn gen feel quite jungly and grassy idk.

to be honest it's a bit of a headache to genuinely make this au work i think it's best left as very floaty don't-think-about-the-details-too-much kind of thing but yeah. there's no venom snake that's for sure like if cypher are like the typical world-domination pokemon villain team then you would have real big boss and mgsv era ocelot and kaz teaming up to fight against them etc. (btw in the 90s kaz becomes a pokemon dojo instructor and then eventually retires and lives epicly ever after.)

how solid snake fits into this don't ask me. maybe he's big boss' real son and bb is just a hot single father etcetera (he has to be single otherwise my smexy bosselots can't fall in love- [gunshots]) or maybe if we really want to add some angst then cypher can indeed clone him from bb in order to make a perfect pkmn trainer or whatever.

but no i think liquid and solid are just his normal rowdy sons who grow up hanging around in his gym watching him battle etc. (maybe eva is their mom but it didn't work out bc she prefers to not be tied down and needs to go riding her motorbike and adventuring etc. well actually there are fanfics out there with this kind of set up i am pretty sure LOL whoops.) eva could be a gym leader too (or occasional gym leader bc she's off travelling a lot) i already drew her as having a krokorok at one point so maybe her type could be ground/rock? that's pretty cool.

and also i guess in the solid saga side of things otacon is like the childhood friend nerd next door. snavid goes on his filling the pokedex adventure and otacon is like there to upgrade his pokedex and other gadgets. it's hurting my brain now thinking about whether otacons story would be similar or if huey doesn't exist and strangelove is just his mom.... strangelove + the boss could be his two epic moms of course but that causes the old conundrum of. if ocelot is son of the boss via the sorrow then that makes him otacons brother but that can't be correct. because ocelot is dating big boss (no, he really is) and big boss is solids father. so it means solid would be friends with otacon aka his father's boyfriend's step brother. (???????????) god i hate this series my brain has just short circuited.

i think long story short. mgs characters have some pokemon and it's a goofy funny time but do not think too much abt how it actually works. ocelot has a team of cat pokemon and that's essentially all that matters. <3 (skitty, purrloin, meowth, some others. oh yeah espurr? and maybe espeon or umbreon. ngl ive only played up to and including x and y and i don't rly know/care abt the newer gens so im not rly taking pokemon from the more recent gens into consideration for this. soz.)

[wickedpact]

A ranking of all the TTT stories in order of how much I liked them.

(Oh god this is so long)

1 My Mother's Axe

BABY ANDYYYYYYYYYYYY. Honestly this one had the trifecta of developing a character's motivations, developing a character's backstory, & developing their personality. The story starting out with Andy teaching Nile to use the axe was so charming and fun, and you could feel that chemistry they had in Opening Fire, the way they teased and bickered with each other so naturally. I loved the wedge between them on the subject of the axe, how Nile was perhaps a little too young to understand Andy's feelings about whether or not its the 'same' axe. I also love how the axe is obviously the symbol of the franchise and hugely important, but you never get a sense of exactly how important it is to Andy until you read the story.

I love the entire Ship of Theseus theme, and how it feels so natural that for Andy she has to get attached to the idea of things rather than the things themselves because she'll always outlive the things themselves-- the axe is symbolically her mom's axe, even if physically it isn't. And I love how she clearly clings to that concept so tightly. "This is the labrys she held in her hands...." IT GETS ME.

And the fact that this sense of BELONGING, of FAMILY, of CULTURE is so important to Andy that she clings to it (figuratively and literally) with both hands. And of course it's important to her, she spent so long alone that the woman doesn't even remember her birth name. That axe (or the idea of that axe) is all she has left of her mother and that family/culture she was born into.

PLUS on that note I love how Andy doesn't remember if her mom was her actual biological mother, but it doesn't matter to her. This woman was her mother in all the ways that counted. And how her mom BETRAYED AND KILLED Andy but Andy loved her so much that she avenged her and carried her axe for thousands of years. THOUSANDS OF YEARS!!!!!!

I also loved how the story transcends the timeline of the whole franchise and seeing Andy through the years. Loved seeing her with the varying squads and with varying axes. Also baby Andy was so cute. It was cool seeing her so young. like holy fuck. Andromache The Scythian, Immortal Warrior (but smol). Love that.

Also I think this one is one of the few ttt stories that doesn't suffer from length problems.

tldr: goddammit greg you've done it again.

2 Zanzibar and Other Harbors

Zanzibar my beloved. I've said before, but it's downright comedic how little regard there was for Joe and Nicky's character designs in this story. The same person who does the colors for the regular comic did the colors for this one too, and you can tell, every panel of this story was Beautiful.

Ik there was A Lot of criticism of this one (lmao @ how the fandom had no idea what was to come) but I thought a lot of The Discourse was a bit dramatic. I did think Nicky came off as a little oblivious to Joe's feelings in this story, but I've said before, I honestly think that was a 'tone not translating' thing. It felt like Nicky was nagging Joe for [checks notes] saving innocent people, but Joe was so amused by Nicky's complaints I really do think it was supposed to come off as teasing.

Plus I know the 'Joe running off into danger and Nicky reluctantly following' dynamic wasn't popular (I'm a pretty meh on it meself) but I did love how Joe's impulsiveness (if you want to call it that) was interpreted as heroism and not hot-hotheadedness. All of the examples Nicky and Joe talked about included Joe explicitly saving people. (and it also took A Lot for the nazi to actually provoke Joe).

I also feel like their characterization here was closest to the movie canon-- the bit where they hear the woman scream and Joe goes running in to save her while Nicky swoops in on Joe's heels to comfort her while Joe and the nazi were fighting reminds me of the train car scene. Joe had suggested First that they go find Nile because she needed to be protected, and Nicky later added that Nile probably also needed emotional support. Similar reactions.

But it was So Good, the themes of queer community and the enduring nature of queer culture are Not themes you see in media that often and it was such a delight how it was done. Also it's one of the few more modern TTT stories that has a completely valid excuse for taking place when it did. Chef's kiss.

3 Passchendaele

I love the Duality between seeing baby Andy and then seeing Mama Andy in the very next issue. This story doesn't have a ton of meat to it, but the entire concept of Andy adopting a war orphan straight off the battlefield PLUCKS MY TENDER LITTLE HEARTSTRINGS, and I think it's especially poignant for comic!Andy. I think most people wouldn't think twice about movie!Andy doing something like that but comic Andy is so hardened and almost cruel sometimes, and seeing that even for her the world hasn't beaten all of the compassion from her yet is SO!!!!!!! this woman contains MULTITUDES okay, she's violent and angry and tired and Done but she's also so kind and compassionate and THE STRENGTH OF HER!!!!! Also the idea of her and Yitzhak co-raising a kid together is so damn cute. It was #mysterious pre-Yitzhak-story but now it's cute. holy fuck. It's cute.

& the headbonk panel of her and Zeus lives in my heart. anyways.

4 Many Happy Returns

I Know people weren't thrilled about Booker being in this one, but I've developed a pet-peeve about that: this story was *not* booker-centric. Booker only exists in this story to the extent required to explain the importance of the gesture Nile makes towards him. If there was a story about Booker making some grand gesture of kindness to Nile no one would be saying it was Nile-centric. bc it wouldn't be! Booker exists in this story to explore Nile's kindness, its not about him. I saw that a couple times and it bothered me. anyways.

AAAAAAAAAA I loved this one, the art was beautiful, I loved how Andy Nile and Booker were drawn (like their comic selves but.. more looking like actual people). I loved Andy and Nile's Bants, how Andy wanted to jump right in and Do Violence but Nile was basically telling her to hold her horses.

I feel like I'm just repeating the post I made on this story a few days ago, but I LOVED how Nile's plan revolves not around violence or Cool Mercenary Skills but on Nile's own life skills (as she canonly did a lot of minimum wage job-hopping before the marines in comics canon). Her plan used her skills, not the skills of an immortal warrior, and HER SKILLS were in fact more useful for the situation! lov to see Nile's resourcefulness and planning skills.

AND HOW NILE WAS PROBABLY WATCHING BOOKER??? it's so Much bc 1.) nile knew booker A SINGLE DAY and yet he made such an impression on her emotionally that she had to keep an eye on him and 2.) she said in the movie she wanted Booker to get off free with an apology. Yes she's a member of the team but that doesn't mean she's necessarily going to follow orders like a good little soldier. I also love how she convinced Andy to go along with it. her HEART, her KINDNESS, her THOUGHTFULNESS, UGH.

5 The Bear

Honestly I have like no negative things to say about this one other than a.) character design issues which is less about the story itself and is more of a 'tog comic in general' criticism and b.) too short, but it was supposed to be a tease, so.

But I loved Yitzhak, I wasn't expecting to really like him at all but like I said in my other post, he tickled me. I love characters who are Kind™, especially if they have little reason to be so given their backgrounds. Chef's kiss. Lov him.

6 Bonsai Shokunin

I know this one was a little controversial bc of the outsider POV but whenever I see people upset about that they never point out that the Outsider Guy (the samurai) existed as a reflection on Noriko. His ideas are explained in the text to develop hers. The whole story follows how she gave mercy to a scared young man and in response he murdered Noriko, repeatedly! Who gave him the right to inflict such pain and suffering on the world? In his opinion, the lack of response from the gods was his permission. And for Noriko-- over and over again she dies and suffers because she gave mercy, which lines up with her ideas in FM about how it's their fate to rule mortals and if they don't align with that plan/fate/whatever then they suffer. It shows some background to those ideas and how they developed in her mind outside of Ocean Madness™. Additionally, his idea of 'the Gods have done nothing to strike me down so it's fine if I do these things' kind of explains how Noriko may justify her own morally corrupt actions-- she's died so many times and it's never stuck. Maybe if she did die any of those times, or while she was in the water, maybe that would've been a sign she was doing something right, or at least doing something normal. But she hasn't died. Fate isn't done with Noriko yet. And maybe there's a reason for that. In her mind, it's just not a very pleasant reason, is all.

There were things I was kind of meh about tho. I did kind of wish we saw something of Noriko and the team, or smth explaining the way she was before her dip in the pool-- personality, likes dislikes, etc. but it wasn't bad or anything. It was super vague tho, I had to read it a few times before I got what it was going for. Liked the art. Liked the bonsai metaphor. And of course I Respect the decision to use the 1300s (1200s? I don't remember off the top of my head) rather than using the last 200 years.

7 Strong Medicine

Honestly looking back, this one made me kind of sad because both this one and Bonsai Shokunin explored character's ideas on Fate and The Divine and how that intersects with immortality and I totally thought that theme would be continued, especially with Love Letters. But Then It Wasn't™.

Admittedly.... I had to re-read this one to remember most of it. I liked Booker's ideas on God, 'The conductor of the symphony just may not be very good at his trade' but the plot itself was kind of forgettable. Some fuckin cowboys try to kill a doctor (their second) because he couldn't save their sickly brother. Book tries to stop them, gets killed, and then comes back and kills them all before they get the doctor. Alright. I liked the artstyle because the characters were ugly in a similar way that leandro's are, but way more bearable.

I love the Irony of Booker concluding that there is no such thing as fate or destiny and nothing has meaning, AS HE UNKNOWINGLY SAVES MERRICK'S GRANDFATHER FROM BEING KILLED. Booker getting fucked over by life/god/destiny yet again. It also kind of explains about where the fuck hell Merrick's interest in immortal mercenaries even came from.

I originally had this one a lot higher and then I thought about it and moved it down like two spots.

8 Never Gets Old

I liked seeing Booker interact with his kid. And we got a name for the kid! Philippe was a little bitch though, he was a little obnoxious. I liked how Booker was so thrilled to experience a restaurant with his kid (and since we know he was there before, it can be assumed he went with all of his kids and yet he was so charmed each time). It fits with his line to Nicky in the moon landing story about how you don't appreciate beautiful things 'unless you have someone to share them with'. It was charming to see Booker interact with his kid, and to see him so happy. Also lmao @ Booker's big fat Ye Olde Crush on Andy.

However at the same time it was like.. of all the things to write about,,, I guess? Booker's Night Out...... alright. Especially since Book had so many stories.

I don't know, it was alright. The old man killing him really came out of nowhere, (but the 'Salut, asshole!' panel was funny tho).

9 How To Make a Ghost Town

I've hit a point where talking about these stories has gotten less fun. I liked this one but I felt like Achilles getting lynched was not really necessary for a story that was already tragic (a story that already involved Achilles doing a lot of suffering at the hand of bigots). When we first got the blurb for this story I thought it would be about Andy returning to the squad and making friends with Booker after losing Achilles and them butting heads on the idea of family and when to cut off ties. So a little bit of my underwhelmedness about this one might be just my expectations being different.

Honestly I was pretty interested in Andy and Achilles' relationship and I would've liked to see more of them-- like, what was their dynamic like? What did they love about each other?

But anyways Andy leaving and Achilles getting killed anyways feels so pointlessly tragic (which I suppose is the point..... I don't like tragedies) she left to save him and yet people killed him anyway. Meh.

I did love the bits about Andy wanting to have a domestic life (Andy and her multitudes again) and the little detail about how she buried her axe near the road but he buried his guns under his bed-- he was an escaped slave, he never had the luxury of assuredness like Andy did. It was a sad story.

10 Lacus Solitudinis

'You put this one above love letters crim??? how could you???' easy, lmao.

There was stuff in this one I liked. But to talk about stuff I didn't like: (I'll keep it brief, I know ragging on this story has been done time and time again)

UH, setting aside the 6 year cold shoulder between Joe and Nicky, I thought their chosen method of conflict resolution was... bad at best. Nicky's inability to talk about his feelings was also annoying, especially since the entire point of this story is a fight Joe and Nicky had, and yet we don't get both sides to the story, which is...... important? That fact is especially annoying bc in the absence of Nicky explaining his side of the story, it's absolutely a possible (and admittedly probably unintentional) interpretation of the text that we do get that Joe routinely resolves conflict between him and Nicky by simply cutting Nicky out of his life entirely until Nicky just. caves? Even if it takes years?

WHICH i could get into that interpretation and how fucked up i find it. but im not going to. out of restraint.

I don't know, I think there are a lot of interesting ways to go about this conflict but 'Nicky wants to kill a guy and Joe refuses to acknowledge his existence until he stops because he thinks Nicky is too much of a Good Boy to get his hands dirty like that' ('I wont watch as the world turns his (...) compassion into something ugly'. ) wasn't.. how I would've done it. (I mean you know Joe doesn't give a shit about what Nicky is doing in a moral way, because Joe doesn't even care or mention that Booker is killing those cops too. Joe only cares because he doesn't like the idea of Nicky changing in a way he finds undesirable.)

admittedly I've said before, I do like the emphasis Joe's reaction puts on Nicky's kindness. Joe has a complete inability to cope with Nicky simply Not Being Kind. It speaks to the steadiness of Nicky's compassion all those years. but still that fact doesn't make it the conflict feel worth it

hm. I said I would be brief and I wasn't.

oh well. basically I thought there was interesting conflict potential there but it wasn't done the way I would've liked, and the way it was done leaves a lot of disturbing (and again probably unintended) interpretations to lie.

What I did like? Andy and Joe having that pessimist/optimist dynamic. Joe nerding out about science. Andy not being impressed by The Achievements Of Man. I loved Booker needling at Nicky about his outdated slang and also trying to give him Older Brother advice practically in the same breath. I loved Booker giving The Worst relationship advice ever and Nicky being like 'I Will Not Do That, Ever, Thanks.' the family vibes were so good. The Joenicky vibes left a lot to be desired tho.

11 Love Letters

I talked about my problems with Nicky in this story (and Lacus Solitudinis). I don't know, the story isn't bad but I do hold a little bit of a grudge towards it because its very existence begs the existence of a solo Joe story and we didn't get one. If we never got this story, then we could happily count Lacus Solitudinis and Zanzibar as The Joenicky Stories™ and move on with our lives. sigh.

I remember when we first got the blurb for this story I was really curious about why Nicky specifically + the setting, and the answer kind of feels like 'the author had an idea for a story like this and saw ttt as a good enough place to utilize that idea'. Plus I was really underwhelmed by the Romantic Sentiment in the letter. If you look at it line-by-line, the majority of the letter is actually Nicky talking about how lonely and disturbed he is, rather than actual,, yknow,,, Romantic Sentiment. I mean, compare the van speech and this letter and this letter is just kind of meh in comparison. I liked nicky calling joe wise! and I liked the brief sun/moon metaphor! and otherwise it was eh. It didn't even have cute squad banter, which is why Lacus Solitudinis is above this one.

12 An Old Soul

Nun orgy. Nun orgy?????? Nun orgy.......

The whole story felt like a setup to have a nun orgy. Why did Booker have abs? Why did they do that to Andy's nose? ?????? the art was good at least.

nun orgy.

[bbugyu]

hi can i request a wonwoo friends to lovers!!

abso-fuckin-tutely! since you were a lil vague, i asked my friendly neighborhood wonwoorideul for a prompt and she shouted out the song nothing by bruno major (aka one of the sweetest songs on wonwoo's spotify playlist)!

nothing + jeon wonwoo

moving in with your best friend was the best idea you ever had, even if he claimed it was his.

wc.3707 | fluff, angst, roommates/friends to lovers au, gn reader, like one swear and it barely counts bc it was hoshi, slowburn pining, wonwoo sees you and his mind is full of poetry, happy ending! (jp ver.)

thank you so much for my very first request! i tried to post this quickly, so i’m sorry if it’s not as polished as my other pieces. i was so impatient to get this out hahah. i love me some domestic wonwoo

*

wonwoo wasn't just your roommate, to be perfectly frank. the lanky guy had wormed his way into your close circle when you had worked part time together at a grocery store fresh out of high school, and when you both decided you needed to be closer to the big city, it just made sense to go together. you had never lived alone before, and your mother had said she would feel better if you had someone she knew around, someone to take care of you for her, even though you insisted you would be fine. she tried to get you to move in with your auntie, and while eating her food would be a definite plus, you absolutely despised the idea of living under the same roof as your chaotic cousin. so, when wonwoo mentioned wanting to get out of your podunk village, you excitedly told him you wanted to move to seoul.

"okay," he had said, looking at you over his comic book as he lounged on your family's couch. "let's go, then."

two months later, his dad was helping the two of you move into a tiny two bedroom apartment in a neighborhood of seoul that housed mostly old married couples, but you liked that it was a little more quiet than downtown. it felt more like home, but busy enough to give you your fill of the city. you could walk down the street to a cafe every morning on your way to the station, headed to your shitty temp desk job that you had just to pay bills. wonwoo was able to transfer to the main seoul office of his existing job as a software engineer, and was even able to work from home most days. you were forever jealous that he could hop onto remote meetings wearing a tie and button up over a pair of sweats. on days that he had to go into the office, though, he would walk with you and point out shops that you had yet to visit in your few months of living in the city.

"since when are you a flowers kinda guy?" you asked, gaze following his finger to the florist shop he pointed out.

he shrugged, adjusting his backpack straps over the blazer he wore. "might be nice for the apartment."

you eyed him. despite knowing him for years, sometimes he still surprised you.

on days that he didn't ride the subway with you, you would come home to find him sitting on the couch, swinging around a digital new york city from a web on the tv. you noticed the potted plant on the kitchen counter when you dropped your keys off in their designated tray. they were red, with tight round petals. you thought they almost looked like roses, but you knew that wasn't right. peonies? begonias? you didn't know enough about flowers to recognize them, but you figured he went to the florist in your neighborhood while you were at work.

he paused his game after landing on a roof somewhere. "how was your day?"

"good," you said, pulling off your light jacket and standing by the couch. "what's with the flowers?"

wonwoo looked around you to the yellow ceramic and red blooms, both colors that suited the other few colorful items in your minimalistic (mostly from having only lived there a few short months) white kitchen. "camellias. i thought they looked nice."

you nodded, thinking that he had more to say, but decided not to press. "have you eaten?"

he stretched on the couch, hands falling to the back of his beanie clad head as he let out a strangled noise. "do i ever eat without you?"

that made you smile. "any thoughts on dinner?"

wonwoo shook his head, settling back into the couch. "what do you feel like?"

"i'm craving pizza."

wonwoo pushed his glasses up his nose and adjusted to fish his phone out of the pocket of his favorite track pants. "go take a shower, i'll order."

you grinned. "you are such a good roommate."

"correction, i'm the best roommate. oh, also," he pointed towards the fridge in the kitchen. "soonyoung came by with side dishes from your aunt."

"oh, thank god," you said, walking over to wash your hands quickly and check the haul. "i was worried we were gonna have to buy kimchi this week. he wasn't annoying, was he?"

wonwoo shook his head, chuckling at the way you talked about your cousin as he tapped through menus on his phone. "he was fine. complained that you weren't here."

"doesn't he have a job?" you opened a plastic container and popped a sweet braised potato into your mouth. your voice was muffled as you chewed. "he knows i get off at five. if he wants to see me he should come when he knows i'll be home."

the small smile on wonwoo's face never left as you rambled about soonyoung, then your fantastic chef of an aunt, and then the new guy that sat at the desk next to you that microwaved fish for lunch. seriously, who microwaves fish? in an office?

wonwoo commiserated with you, then told you to hurry and go wash up, because he had just submitted the pizza order, to which you responded "okay, okay, i'm going. i'll be back in a minute."

after a steam filled shower, you left the bathroom while toweling your damp hair, sporting a plain black v-neck with your, similar to wonwoo's, favorite track pants.

wonwoo looked up and laughed, tugging on the hem of his shirt. "we match."

you eyed one of the several black muscle tanks wonwoo sports regularly and giggled, pulling at the stripes down your pants. "we do. you want wine?"

"hell yeah. friday night, baby."

you laughed, returning to the bathroom to hang your towel before making your way to the kitchen, pulling a couple of stemless wine glasses out of your cabinet. they were the only glasses in the apartment because, as wonwoo had said, your priorities are notoriously bad. but, you reminded him, they worked just fine with water too, so you convinced him that buying real glasses could wait until you were both slightly less busy. you grabbed the bottle of red wine off the counter and looked at the seal. "wonwoo."

"yeah?" he paused his game and looked at you over the small kitchen cart that acted as an island. you held up the wine.

"new bottle."

he sighed dramatically. "what would you do without me?"

you grinned happily as you got the wine opener out of a drawer, holding it out for him. he snatched the bottle and opener from your hands and made a face, but began twisting the corkscrew into the cork nonetheless. you planted your elbow on the wood topped cart and watched him as he tugged out the cork, decidedly ignoring the fact that he was wearing a sleeveless shirt and he definitely looked like he had taken a trip to the gym today. 

"you pour, i always miss."

you laughed, pulling at the shrapnel of the seal that wonwoo always refused to cut away before removing the cork. "maybe if you didn't make the neck such a mess it wouldn't go everywhere when we pour it."

"unnecessary step," he retorted, watching you as you poured the wine into the two glasses. he took the one closest to him as you finished. "cheers."

"cheers," you repeated, clinking your glass against his and taking a gulp. you let out a noise of approval. "happy friday."

wonwoo was smiling as he took a sip. "happy friday."

"where's the pizza?"

"uh," he patted his empty pockets, then put down his wine glass to retrieve his phone from the couch. "down the street."

wonwoo had to shove his feet into a pair of slides to meet the delivery person at the entrance of your building, and when he returned, you were giggling into your glass at your sns feed. the wine hit maybe a little too hard, but you hadn't eaten in too long for you to have almost polished off a glass already.

wonwoo gestured for you to join him on the couch, so you grabbed the bottle of wine and tucked it under your arm, carrying the two glasses over to where he was shutting off his game.

you ate merrily, and then you talked. about nothing and everything all at the same time. this happened more often than you ever thought it would, but a week into living in the city, wonwoo had come home from hanging out with some old friends to you crying on the couch with a show on that was far too comical to be the source of your tears. that night, he stayed up with you until the sun was peeking up over the buildings, listening to your worries and struggles. he shared his own fears. you were a blubbering mess. he kept sniffling his nose, acting like the tears welling up in his eyes weren't there when you laughed, despite yourself. wonwoo and you had always been close, or as close as past coworkers that had the same friend circle could be, but this was different. you couldn't remember the last time you had cried like that in front of anyone, much less someone who wasn't your mother.

when you woke up on the couch past noon, your sunday to a late start, your arms were wrapped around wonwoo's torso as he slept, one hand tucked behind his head and the other on your back. his face was inches from yours. your cheeks were pink and you suddenly felt hot, trying as gently as you could to escape without waking him. he stirred, but only to readjust as you snuck away.

he said nothing about the cuddling when he woke to the sound of you closing the front door, and you smiled as you held out the iced americano you got him at the cafe down the street. he squinted at you and scratched his head, taking the drink and sipping it before even testing his voice.

"thanks."

he looked at you, eyebrows furrowed. "what? you bought coffee. thank you."

you sat next to him and swirling the straw in your own drink. "no, i mean for staying up with me. sorry i was a mess."

there was a pause, and your heart almost stopped when he put an arm over your shoulder. "you weren't. and i'll stay up with you whenever you want."

wonwoo sipped at his drink again, giving you a light squeeze when a tear fell down your cheek.

living together meant you saw a side of him you had never seen before. the little things he did throughout his day, when he wasn't even particularly conscious that you were in the same room as him. he always bit at his thumb when he was working, and he had a habit of leaving the milk carton open in the fridge. he always made you smile when he emerged from his room with his headphones loud enough for you to hear them from across the room, and he cluelessly bobbed his head to whatever he was listening to while he refilled a water bottle, waving and smiling before he returned to his room. when your mom asked you how living with wonwoo was, you told her he was great. clean, respectful, and quiet. that you had never been closer. that he made you feel safer so far from home. you didn't, however, tell her that you discovered that he liked running home from the gym at 2 pm on the weekends, laying out on the floor with his shirt over his head before he convinced himself to take a shower.

you had always thought wonwoo was cute. how could you not? he was a handsome guy, but you had accepted your place as a friend to him and happily let it progress no further. but, now that you spent your afternoons off arguing with him on whether or not showering was even worth the trouble, you couldn't help but stare at him. watching his toned chest rise and fall as you thought about how he had admitted his crippling fear of failure to you at three in the morning when your face was puffier than a padded jacket.

you never noticed, but wonwoo watched you closer than he did anything in his life. that night, when he found you crying, he felt his heart clench as you told him all your insecurities. when he had pulled you into his chest and held you tight as you questioned whether moving so far from home was a mistake, he patted your hair and told you that it was going to be fine. you had him, afterall. he had you. the two of you could make it out here. and if you still wanted to go home when the lease was up in six months, he would be there to help you move back.

he didn't stop holding you until your breathing settled, your shoulders stopped shaking. he leaned back into the couch, bringing you with him, and you didn't protest when he ran his hand up and down your back, coaxing you to sleep.

since then, every time you spoke to him, he couldn't help but stare at you intently. he watched your eyes light up while you talked about something you loved. he watched you scrunch your nose as you talked about your new desk neighbor. he watched your lips push into a pout when he said he should go get some work done. he wondered if anyone else noticed the way you sucked on your teeth while you thought up a witty comeback, or the way you carded your fingers through your still wet hair. or the way your eyes creased into a laugh, your hand coming up to block your open mouth. or the way you chewed on your red wine stained lip while he tried to form a sentence in response, when all he wanted to do was put those lips on his.

wonwoo had been stewing with these feelings far longer than he thought bearable, but stuffed it down in fear that he might lose you altogether. he didn't want to lose you altogether. he had gone on a walk halfway through his workday at home, feeling antsy for no particular reason, though if he thought about it long enough he would have realised it was because you had said something about feeling lonely lately that morning. he saw the florist he had pointed out the week before, and his feet brought him through the door.

"hi!" he looked up from the colorful display by the door to the person behind the counter and smiled politely. "did you need help finding something?"

"um," wonwoo blinked and looked around for a moment, then moved towards the counter. "i need a gift, i think."

the florist's eyebrows quirked curiously. "you think?"

he nodded, eyes flicking down to the nametag on his chest. he wondered if he was a foreigner with his three character name, but didn't mention it. "yeah. housewarming. for my, uh-" wonwoo paused, catching himself not knowing how to describe his relationship to you. roommate? wannabe lover? he bit his cheek. "my friend."

joshua nodded slowly, watching wonwoo's eyes as he worked his way through the sentence. "just friend?"

wonwoo stared at a flower arrangement to his right. "something like that."

"got it." joshua walked around the counter and gestured for wonwoo to follow him deeper into the store. "since it's a housewarming, how about a potted plant? something to brighten up the space for a long time. they'll think about you every time they see it."

wonwoo nodded, not saying anything about how funny he thought it was that he said he was getting his own roommate a housewarming gift. "that sounds nice."

"now, i'm not gonna claim to know you," the florist started, putting up his hands to exaggerate his words, they kept moving as he pushed and pulled pots, looking for one in particular. "you've said, like, maybe a full sentence to me, but those were some complex emotions when you called them a friend, so i'm gonna assume i know the situation. i think you should get camellias. specifically red ones."

wonwoo looked at the sunshine yellow pot in the soft featured man's hands. the petals of the flower were round and delicate, and he thought about how you said the color yellow made you happy. "why's that?"

"i think you should look up the meaning when you give them this," joshua said, and for some reason, wonwoo trusted him.

he came back to the apartment thinking about how he might have just gotten scammed into buying the potted flowers in his hands, only to find soonyoung about to hit the buzzer to call your unit, a far too large cooler bag sitting on the bench by the entrance of your building.

"is y/n around?" soonyoung asked, trailing behind wonwoo as they walked up the stairs, struggling slightly with the overpacked bag. "they didn't respond to my kakao."

"they're at work," he replied, flipping his keys over in his hands to find the one for your front door. "they'll be home around six."

"ah, shit," soonyoung laughed. "i always forget you guys have adult jobs. i would kill for a monday through friday."

wonwoo almost laughed, but left the smile on his face. "weekends are kind of overrated, anyways."

the shorter hoisted the bag of dishes onto the kitchen cart while wonwoo closed the door. "who're the flowers for?"

wonwoo stared at the pot in his arm as if it was the first time he had seen it. "oh, uh. just the place."

"for y/n?"

he looked at soonyoung, who had his chin in his palms, elbows planted on the counter as he smiled. he knew he was right when wonwoo didn't respond.

"i think they'll like them," he said, unzipping the top of the bag and starting to unload his mother's packaged dishes for his cousin. "they like the color yellow."

wonwoo just said "i know," before he opened the fridge and started rearranging things to fit the new food.

according to soonyoung, wonwoo was painfully obvious. when he had come by a couple weeks prior, you were arguing with him about some ridiculous childhood memory at your grandparents' home, and while soonyoung laughed, he noticed the smile on wonwoo's face when he watched you. he also noticed the way he instinctively put a hand on your back when you sighed about your newest temp gig, and soonyoung pulled on his ear as he looked at the ceiling, leaning against the kitchen cart much like he was today as he told wonwoo about how oblivious his cousin must be.

you pulled your knees to your chest as you sipped at your wine, the pizza box almost completely polished off by the two of you sitting on the floor in front of your couch. you stare at the pot of flowers.

"they're pretty," you said finally.

you too, wonwoo thought.

"camellias, right?" you turned back to him. "i like them."

i like you, wonwoo thought. "i went to that place down the street. the guy working was nice."

you nodded, sipping again. "any reason in particular?"

"i-" wonwoo paused, staring at his glass. he finished the last gulp in it and put it on the floor next to the pizza box. "you said something about being down recently," he said, folding his fingers together as he leaned back against the couch. "i wanted to get you something, i guess."

you watched his fingers as they pushed his glasses up his nose again, and your heart fluttered at the idea of wonwoo thinking about you when you weren't around. "really? that's so nice," you pouted, shoving his knee.

he laughed, pulling his knee onto the couch to face you. "the guy there - the florist, i guess? his name was joshua. he seemed to really know flowers." he knitted his brows together when he realized he was procrastinating on saying what he was nervous to. he put his arm on the back of the couch, rubbing his eye with the heel of his palm before continuing. "he said i should look up what they mean when i give them to you. red ones, specifically."

you perked up, heart racing. "what they mean? they have meaning?"

"y-yeah, i guess so," wonwoo said, then cleared his throat. 

"hey google!" you looked over to where the device sat by your tv. "what to red camellias mean?"

wonwoo stared at your profile as you watched the device think before its automated voice piped up.

"camellia flowers are available in white, pink, and red, with each color having its own unique symbolism."

you looked over to him, excitedly putting your glass to your lips as the voice continued.

"pink camellias symbolize a longing for someone, and is given to people who are missed."

wonwoo swallowed hard, fingers fidgeting against his temple.

"red camellias symbolize love, passion, and a deep desire."

your eyes widened slightly as the device shut off, glass still to your lips and eyes still on wonwoo's. he stared back at you, and you wondered if he meant it. but he never claimed that he didn't feel those things for you.

before you could think, you clumsily put your glass on the floor and moved. you didn't stop moving until your lips were on wonwoo's, pushing him back into the arm of the couch as you practically crawled into his lap.

his hands found your hips and he helped you settle into him, your fingers tracing his jawline as it worked against yours. you sighed into his lips as his hand slid up under your shirt, placed gently on the small of your back. pulling you into him. when you paused for a moment, you thought about waking up to this exact same view, that day after you had cried all night. but this time, his other hand pulled your jaw back to kiss him again, and you happily complied.