#there’s like 2 papers I wrote that aren’t about horror

[murkycran]

I have an interview tomorrow for an English teaching position at a jr high and my mom was like “ohh you should take your graduate thesis and give it to them as an example of your writing”.

I looked at her and was like “you mean my paper that was about Stephen King’s Carrie and the film adaptation? The 45 page paper where I spend at least 10 pages talking about Carrie’s period? That paper? For a junior high teaching position interview.”

My mom: “…well just an example of your writing, yknow…?”

Cue me spending a good hour today trying to recall anything I wrote in the last 4 years that’s not about horror…

[paxesoterica]

Review of Anime I Watched This Year

(Vague as Possible Spoilers for Sailor Moon, Revue Starlight, and Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury)

Didn’t watch a whole lot this year, for a lot of reasons, but the ones I did were pretty cool.

3. Sailor Moon (1992; watch ongoing)

I’m not sure if I can say anything particularly insightful about Sailor Moon, given that it’s one of the most influential anime of all time, and that it’s been around for, oh, *30 years*, and that I haven’t actually finished Season 1 yet, but here goes: 

I did not grow up watching Sailor Moon as a child, though I’ve been aware of it for some time (for obvious reasons); my first direct exposure was watching a showing of the first 4 episodes at a convention, and attending a limited release theater showing of the R Movie (one of the only times I’ve gone to a movie theater by myself, and I even received a small bit of paper memorabilia about it; also, great movie, highly recommended), and I liked what I say, but I also knew it was a very long show, and my brain is pretty crummy at time management, so it didn’t *feel* like I’d have enough time to watch (even though that’s not true).

Fortunately, this year my niece asked me to watch it with her, and that was just the motivation I needed (sadly, our watch has stalled somewhere in the 30s due to conflicting schedules, but I’m hoping to resume soon with her).

The show’s first opening is striking and reminds me of animation from the 70s & 80s, in a good way (not something I expected at all the first time I saw it), and the pastel color palette for the show in general is gorgeous, and I’m not surprised at all to see how it’s influenced a whole bunch of artists since.

Pacing for the first season is a little uneven at the start, and takes a bit of time to get to the actual plot (I can only imagine how many folks would complain about that if this show were released today), but I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing; I mentioned in a Revue Starlight review I wrote earlier this year that I thought one of the biggest obstacles to modern anime achieving the same sort of cultural standing that some earlier anime have is not having enough episodes to properly showcase their cast, and even filler episodes that aren’t necessarily great are still screentime that lets you flesh out your characters and let them marinate a bit in the audience’s brains, which I suspect is a major factor (along with the easy to remember planetary naming) in why it’s pretty easy for most folks to remember, and even ennumerate the differences between, the main Sailor Scouts, even though there’s like, 10 of them.

I like the show’s use of actual magic transformations and powers coupled with funky bits of sci-fi stuff (the tech that Luna and Ami use being one of the first things to come to mind). It’s also got some horror-lite elements here and there (typically the monsters) that were a bit surprising, but make for an interesting contrast with the show’s colorful palette. It’s also nice that Usagi’s parents aren’t dead and/or evil (though they could stand to be a little more encouraging to her, yeah, I know she’s a bit of a brat at first, but that’s just teenagers in general, so). Also also, @joseinextdoor was absolutely right about Rhett Butler being an amazing one-shot character (especially since I just found out that his name is apparently a reference to a character from Gone With the Wind, go figure).

So, yeah, Sailor Moon, still holds up even if you’re an adult watching it in the 2020s rather than a kid in the 1990s, if you have the time, go check out it if you haven’t already (or at the very least, watch the R movie).

2. Revue Starlight & Revue Starlight The Movie (2018 & 2021; watch completed)

I’ve done a few reviews of this show previously, and even posted this photograph I took as fan art (and I’m flattered that a few folks seemed to really like it), but that was before I saw the movie.

For those that don’t know much about Revue Starlight, it’s a series of stage musicals (that I haven’t seen) that got adapted into an anime (which is what I’ll be talking about) and also apparently a mobile gacha game (which I haven’t played).

The anime itself uses a lot of metaphor and symbolism in a style reminiscient of Kunihiko Ikuhara’s work from Revolutionary Girl Utena and on (which makes sense since the director, Tomohiro Furukawa, assisted Ikuhara with directing Penguindrum and Yurikuma Arashi), with some differences being that it’s more dynamic in staging compared to what Ikuhara usually does, and that it’s more explicitly theatrical, since its cast (except for Kirin) consists entirely of actresses and the show offers a deconstruction of both theatrical tragedies and the Takarazuka system of competition.

I mentioned in earlier reviews that I felt one of the show’s few weaknesses was that it didn’t have quite enough ‘bite’ (if that makes sense), and the film pretty much tosses that critique out the window; if Revue Starlight is a deconstruction of tragedy and Takarazuka, then arguably Revue Starlight the Movie is a deconstruction of Revue Starlight, and takes an already good show, and retroactively makes it better. If you enjoyed the Adolescence of Utena movie, then you will also enjoy Revue Starlight the Movie, but like Utena, you really show watch the anime before watching the movie.

1. Mobile Suite Gundam: The Witch from Mercury (2022; watch ongoing)

Oh hey, the show that gave me brainrot and has been *so* good that I actually started regularly watching anime again because of it. Yeah, I like it a normal amount *cough*.

If you’d told me earlier this year that, in October, I would hyperfixate on a Gundam show (which I’d previously only been aware of as ‘that franchise about giant robots in space that’s really popular in Japan’), I probably would have given you a rather skeptical look; but then I read that the first episode was a major homage to Revolutionary Girl Utena, and well, my fate was sealed.

If you’re wondering if you’d enjoy this show, let me ask you a few questions:

1) Are you a fan of Mobile Suit Gundam, Revolutionary Girl Utena, William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Lycoris Recoil, RWBY, The Owl House and/or Bocchi the Rock!?

2) Do you like the idea of a genre mash-up where, someone who feels like she *should* be the protagonist of shoujo high school magical girl slice-of-life anime, is instead the lead in a military/corporate sci-fi character drama (with some high school slice-of-life elements, but more as aesthetic than actual substance)?

3) Do you like canon (yes canon) LGBT protagonists?

4) Do you like stories set in futuristic hypercapitalist dystopias, and all the corporate intrigue, backstabbing, and workers’ rights/resistance that entails?

5) Do you like stories about characters trying to break free from the toxic influence and manipulations of their parents, and follow a new, better path?

6) Do you like a well-written slow burn romance that is great at pacing and actually feels like it’s going somewhere?

7) Do you like the idea of a more grounded version of Revolutionary Girl Utena (despite being set in an asteroid school in space where you can major in piloting giant robots), which goes beyond merely referencing and engages parts of its text, characters, and themes in a new setting and genre while adding a few ‘what-if’ takes (like what-if Utena struggled with social anxiety instead of toxic ideals about princehood)?

8) Do you like storytelling that is *really* good at showing before telling, and has enough density and layers to be worth rewatching and analyzing?

9) Do you like giant robots in space?

If you answered yes to any of these, then please take a gander at The Witch from Mercury, you just might find something you like.

Honorable Mentions

Mobile Suit Gundam (1979; previewed 1st episode)

Yes, I’m *that* much into Witch from Mercury that I decided to check out the OG material (it also doesn’t hurt that it was recommended by a fellow Revolutionary Girl Utena fan who also happens to be into Gundam).

Dramatic opening that still holds up today, and a really stark portrayal of how brutal and ugly war can be, plus Amuro is already proving interesting to compare and contrast with Suletta, so I’ll be continuing with it in 2023.

Bocchi the Rock! (2022; previewed 1st episode)

Kept hearing that Hitori and Suletta are soul sisters in growing up friendless and having anxiety (and having godlike skill in their chosen specialization), absolutely true (they would probably be good friends, assuming they didn’t have an misunderstanding and believe the other secretly hated her).

Also Bocchi is supposed to get very experimental with its animation techniques, and already shows signs of that in its first episode, so I’ll be looking forward to that as well.

[natalieironside]

Maggots in the Corpse of an Empire: An anarchist approach to gothic literature

Hey everybody, all the wonderful people who subscribe to my Patreon already saw this last week but I wrote another one of my grouchy rambling essays that I write sometimes and this one is some reflections on how I as an anarchist spec-fic writer view my genre. I think it's pretty good but of course I would say that. It's free to read now but if you wanna toss a coin to your author then you'll get early access to stuff for only $2 a month; I'd call that a bargain.

***

“America sleeps ahead of you, its nightmares filled with quakes, storms.  You’ll need to find your own path.”

As is so often the case with terms related to art and aesthetics, what is and is not “gothic” is infuriatingly difficult to pin down with mere words.  As a musical genre, subcultural lifestyle, or personal style of dress, the vast intersections between goth, punk, emo, hardcore, synthwave, heavy metal, and so on make a simple and concise definition nearly impossible to verbalize; one might as well say that a goth is a punk who wears lace while a punk is a goth with spikes.  Aesthetically, the gothic is a lot like pornography, in that I have no idea what it is but I’m sure I’ll know it when I see it.

Defining the gothic as a mode of literature is a bit easier, but still irritating enough.  In superficial terms (and, I think, in the mind of the average person), it’s tempting to say something like: “A gothic story is a scary story about an old building.”  In every nook and cranny of the vast gulf between Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto and Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily, the word “gothic” calls to mind French cathedrals, English country estates, Carpathian castles, and American slave plantations, with all of the dark secrets, unpleasant pasts, and shallow graves one expects to find in such places.  But, of course, if that were all there were to it, every Dungeons and Dragons campaign about an evil wizard in a tower and every horror story involving a haunted house would be gothic; and, while those things certainly can be, they aren’t necessarily.

The matter is complicated further as the gothic genre contains immense variety, and even the works that most of us agree are all gothic can be very, very different from one another.  A work may be in the equivocal gothic (supernatural elements are ambiguously real or unreal, as in Wuthering Heights), the natural gothic (supernatural elements are not present, as in the aforementioned A Rose for Emily), the explained gothic (what was thought to be supernatural is revealed to be natural, as in The Mysteries of Udolpho), or the supernatural or marvelous gothic (the unnatural and phantasmagorical is present explicitly, as in Dracula), and still sit comfortably under the label of gothic.  What, then, is the unifying factor?

To my mind, the most elegant and concise definition of what is and is not gothic was put into words by James M. Powell in 1988, writing for the Syracuse Scholar about German narrative historian Leopold von Ranke:  “The great paradox of human existence is the refusal of the past to die and the danger that critical examination of the past, always fragile, may succumb.  Human beings live in the narrow margins between mythic pasts and hard-won efforts at understanding their past.”  To wit, I believe that a story becomes specifically gothic fiction rather than more broadly horror or fantasy when its central themes deal with the uncomfortable intrusion of the past into the present and the stubborn refusal of that past to die.

My opinions on literary fiction should be well-known to anyone familiar with my work, but to briefly summarize a bitter old woman’s lifetime of kvetching, I find the majority of contemporary so-called litfic to be uninspired and uninteresting drivel that isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on (with the few notable exceptions, such as Leslie Feinberg’s incredible Stone Butch Blues or Latin American magical realism, notable as much for their rarity as their exemplary quality).  I find myself at home in the world of speculative fiction, in stories of imagined worlds and flights of fancy and phantasmagoria; what Professor Tolkien called subcreation.  Progressive speculative fiction is a genre dominated by science fiction, such as the dystopian near-future sci-fi of Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower and the “harder” far-future sci-fi of Ursula K. Le Guin’s Hainish cycle, with works of fantasy and phantasm (such as the fantasy of Margaret Killjoy, or Le Guin’s own Earthsea series) being comparatively uncommon.  This is to be expected; the fantasy genre is usually rooted, at least superficially or aesthetically, in the past or the present, and those artists setting out to create art dealing with progressive themes will naturally be most concerned with progress, whether that’s dreaming of a better future or ruminating on how the crimes of the present might affect the future.

However, the problem of the stubborn past is not one that can ever be discounted or ignored.  As the character Ulysses said in one of my favorite works of progressive near-future science fiction, the video game Fallout: New Vegas, “Who are you, who do not know your history?”

In his 18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon, the brilliant political economist and passable wordsmith Karl Marx famously said:  “Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given, and transmitted by the past.  The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living.”  This, to me, summarizes the essence of the gothic as much as it's a statement on real-world history and politics.  The past, with all of its mistakes and all of its secrets, defines and creates the present.  The stage of history upon which the great drama of our lives will play out was set and dressed long before we were born, and the problems of the present that we fight to fix are the purest form of the stubborn refusal of the past to die.

Ever since the people who worry about such things have condescended to turn a critical eye towards genre fiction, rivers of ink have been spilled discussing the possible utility of horror fiction and the nature of humanity’s perpetual fascination with the grotesque and macabre.  The general consensus amongst critics and theorists, which I mostly agree with, is that horror is important both as a conceptual “safe space” in which to explore the more unsavory aspects of the human experience and as an unflattering mirror providing a far too honest reflection of ourselves and the world we live in.  This, I think, makes the gothic a genre uniquely poised to treat with the problems of the modern world; as the past creates the present and the contradictions of the past define the issues of the present, our lives as workers are haunted by the uncomfortable intrusion of the past into the present and by the stubborn refusal of the past to die, and the phantasms vexing workers in the edifice of a dying empire are far more terrifying than those haunting Victorian aristocrats in their decaying estates.  After all, as the old world is dying and the new world struggles to be born, now is the time of monsters.

Marx also said, in his verbose and rambling but nonetheless insightful Capital:  “Capital is dead labor which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor, and lives the more the more it sucks.”  We artists tend to be a disconnected and self-aggrandizing group who go through life with an over-inflated sense of the importance of what we do, and I as a novelist have got my doubts about the utility of fiction as a pedagogical tool, but it can’t be denied that all art is propaganda.  I do believe that, when we as artists take the time to explore the gothic, we might help deliver just a few more hammer-taps onto the end of the stake being driven into the heart of the vampiric wage system.

In love and solidarity,

Natalie H. Ironside

Horror Writers Association

IWW Freelance Journalists Union

[izekoi]

In honor of your new blog I am here with a request 👀

I just can't stop thinking about the delinquent x model student dynamic (hs or college AU lol) and I wonder if you have any thoughts on how that would play out w Childe? Maybe reader gets paired w him during bio or chem lab and the reader's like "damn it why him" lmao

If you're feeling inspired I'd love to get a scenario but if you'd rather do hcs then may I ask for Itto and maybe Kaeya to be added to the mix? Feel free to add others if you'd like as well :D thank you in advance!!

I Hate It Here

Feat. Delinquent student! Childe x Model student! Reader (Romantic/Platonic, you choose)

a/n: And childe continues haunting me. I used Ajax since it’s Childe’s real name I hope it isn’t too confusing. I had a biology assignment to create a miniature(?) structure of a virus in 10/11th grade. That was the only biology assignment I remember so I’m using that lol.

Why do we live just to suffer?

You could only watch in horror as the teacher reveals the group for your biology mid term assignments. You felt as if all your will to live suddenly had just flown out of your body.

Childe looks like he’s enjoying himself though. Maybe it’s because he’s getting a guaranteed A or maybe because this gives him the chance to mess with you. Who knows?

Childe, Ajax, Tartaglia whatever his name was. He was your —and every other proper students’— worst nightmare. Hell, it would be better if he’d shut up and do nothing but he has a reputation of messing up group works. And to be paired with him for your midterms, your grades were surely going down the rabbit hole.

He’s quick to move to your side when the teacher instructs for you to sit with your partners. Seemingly way too eager than he usually is for school. It was even a miracle he didn’t skip class that day, as if he knew this was going to happen.

Childe puts his arm on the table, hand supporting his chin as he leans forward, facing your unamused face “So, what are we doing, partner?”. You swear you want to punch that chuckle off his face.

You sighed, attempting to ignore him while taking further notes of the teacher’s instructions. “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to, just don’t mess things up.” You tried to sound as docile as possible, not wanting to fight on your first day of group assignment.

“Don’t be like that, we’re partners aren’t we?” He has the audacity to pout like an abandoned puppy you’d find on the street. “I really wouldn’t like having to tell the teacher you can’t work with me.” He added, as if to purposely taunt you.

If looks could kill your notebook would be covered in daggers at this point. “Fine. We are meeting at 4.” You wrote your address down in a small piece of paper before handing it to him. Stopping your conversation at that you pick up your own notes after, implying you didn’t want to talk to him any further.

“Are we gonna fight?” He laughed as if that was the most obvious thing to ask and you had to surpass the urge to —once again— punch him.

“Just bring some cardboards and glue.” You sighed, taking a deep breath as to not let your emotions win and brushed off his laughter.

———————————

“(Y/n)~” That was the 5th time Childe —or Ajax— had called your name for the past hour. You were trying to concentrate on creating the structure in front of you, trying not to let him anger you or else you might accidentally smash everything into pieces.

You were surprised when he actually showed up in front of your house on time, with a few lunch boxes he said he cooked himself. You weren’t expecting him to show up at all, and cooking is certainly not something you expect a delinquent like him to be good at. That gave you a tiny hope that maybe he’s willing to help you on the project.

Well, you thought wrong as the only thing he has been doing for the past 2 hours was testing your patience.

“Yes, Ajax.” You finally answer through gritted teeth, spelling his real name slowly as if to threaten him. This man was, like his nickname, a child.

“Take a small break, will you? It’s been 2 hours” he sighed, leaning back on the sofa as he ate the dessert —your favorite— he had brought earlier. He —tried to— looked tired as if he was the one who had been doing the work for the past hour.

“We only have a week to do this, and it’s a one man team.” You roll your eyes as the last sentence escapes your lips. Your hands were busy trying to cut out the cardboards scattered on the floor.

“It’s still a week away. Besides, I didn’t purposely group up with you to watch you do boring work.” Childe chuckled, seemingly to enjoy looking at you struggling to cut the material.

“You didn’t what—“

“Whoops~” He shoves a spoonful of cake into your mouth cutting you mid sentence.

“Ajax..” you glared at him, trying to slip his name out through the mouthful of cake.

He laughed, he couldn’t help it. Your attempt to glare and puffed out cheeks didn’t made you look way harmless than you usually are. Ha was having way too much fun ‘working’ with you, “You look like a chipmunk.”

“Ouch—“ you hit his arm with a piece of cardboard attempting to hold your angry expression. As annoying as he was it was difficult to be angry when he had just fed you your favorite cake.

“Fine, fine! I’ll help.” He’s still laughing as if the cardboard attacks didn’t hurt him at all.

You squinted your eyes, doubting him. “We’ll see about that.” You threw him the pieces you had marked, gesturing for him to cut them, “They better be done in an hour” You mumble, sitting back next to him to work on the next pieces, “or I’ll use them to hit you again.”

“Pfftt— not like they hurt.”

“What did you say?”

“Nothing.”

It was half past seven when you finished your work for the day. Surprisingly, Childe had done his job. The cuts were a little rough around the edges but it’s doable.

“Wow, this is.. surprisingly decent.” You said, examining the pieces he had done.

“What did I tell you?” He replied, seemingly smug to have received a compliment from you.

“Don’t get cocky, it’s still not done …but I guess we can relax for the day. I’ll heat up the stuffs you brought in the microwave.” You got up, attempting to make your way towards the kitchen alone, but of course, as expected, you have a grown man tailing behind you.

“I’ll help.” He grinned, not waiting for your agreement before dashing out to the kitchen.

You sighed for the tenth time that day as you follow him. The corner of your eyes caught the figure excitedly jumping off your stairs, you smile, maybe his antics were a little amusing, and maybe, spending time with him wouldn’t be too bad.

[ur-favorite-queer-queen]

Second Chance

For Maribat March day 12 theme second chance

Master List

Sometimes Marinette really wished Penny and Jagged hadn’t adopted her. It’s not that she didn’t want to be a Rolling-Stone, no that wasn’t it. In fact, she was grateful that they had saved her from the horrors that Paris now held for her. It’s just they dragged her to stuff like this, some rich man’s gala. 

She had slept for a full 12 hours after finishing Penny’s dress, only to wake up to the news she was coming with them. She probably should’ve seen it coming. Although she was hoping this would be one of the lucky cases where she didn’t have to go. Despite her protests they insisted she needed to interact with other humans who weren’t serving her coffee. In Jagged’s words, “Who knows, you might make a rock n roll friend!” 

Now here she was, in her black and purple dress that matched Penny’s and Jagged’s outfits. Letting a bit of her anxiety out as she fiddled with the strap of her matching purse. Watching her parents mingle with the rich folk while she stood off to the side. Every once in a while they would cast her a ‘go make a friend’ look but it never bothered her, she just needed to wait until they stopped turning to look back at her.  

After about 10 minutes they stopped, perfect. She casually asked a waiter where the bathroom was and made her way there. Once inside she slipped off the pearl anklet that was Daizzi’s miraculous, letting the kwami make her way into her purse, before pulling out a familiar nose ring. Now that Jagged and Penny were letting her do her own thing, she could go back to scaring people into not socializing with her. While she would’ve loved to keep Daizzi’s miraculous on so that it could combat Stompp’s miraculous side effects, she learned that it took too much energy to do so. And she didn’t want to explain why she was so tired after the gala if she wasn’t talking to anyone. 

She schooled her features before making her way back out sending a cold look to anyone who tried to come up to her. She pulled out her phone only to see that 2 hours had passed, she still had 4 more to go. Time was moving much too slowly for her liking. 

A clearing of the throat brought her out of her thoughts. She rolled her eyes, putting her phone back in her purse, getting ready to glare at the person who was going to try to talk to her, only to stare in shock at the green eyes that were watching her. The same ones that had bumped into her just days before. The same ones she had sworn she probably wouldn’t ever see again. 

Her mouth moved without her permission, again she blames Stompp, “You.” 

He smiled or maybe it was a smirk, responding with way too much amusement, “Me.” 

She once again schooled her features to look bored, but she’s pretty sure her eyes gave her away with the way he reacted, “What are you doing here?” 

Just like before it took him a moment to reply, his smirk growing just the tiniest bit, “I’m always invited to these things, I’ve never seen you before though.” 

“With any luck this will be the last time you see me.” She remarked. She didn’t mean to be so rude again she blames Stompp but she really hadn’t expected to see him. To his credit he didn’t seem deterred by her cold vibe, if anything he seemed more determined. 

“Why would you say that?” 

“These types of things,” She waved her hand around, motioning to the room, “Just aren’t my thing. My parents make it look so easy, but I’ve never been one for this kind of scene. Plus I leave Gotham in a few days.” 

“Desperate to get out here?” 

“You could say that.” 

“Who are your parents?” 

She raised an eyebrow, “Wouldn’t you like to know.” If this was the game he wanted to play she would play it. Trying to find out who she was by asking about her parents, real subtle. Well Mr. Hot shot, she’s letting Stompp take the wheel now.

“You know, you make trying to have a conversation pretty hard.” 

She rolled her eyes at him, not even trying to stop them from rolling, “Who says I wanted this conversation?” It was a rhetorical question. She turned to leave only for him to grab her wrist. 

Suddenly she was brought back to that night. The night that changed everything. Three pieces of jewelry in her hand, two brooches one ring, her earrings 2 beeps away from her transformation leaving her. 

A pale hand holding her wrist, keeping her from running away. Green eyes and blond hair belonged to the owner of the hand. 

It had happened too fast. One second she was getting ready to run and detransform. Then someone had stopped her, she turned around to meet hungry green eyes. She froze as she felt lips pressed onto her own. It was only the beeping of her earring that brought her back to reality. A knee to the groin, and she pushed him off of her. Letting the police deal with the trio as she fled. 

She turned to the owner of the tan hand that was holding her back and could only register green eyes. She wouldn’t stand still this time. She twisted her hand so that he was forced to let go. A knee to the stomach had him holding his gut and as she raised her arm ready to punch him was when she finally registered that this wasn’t Adrien. It was just some weird stranger who was persistent in getting past her walls. 

She could hear people talking around her and when she dared to glance around they were all staring. She forced the embarrassed blush that wanted to grace her cheeks down, she wasn’t 13 anymore, she was 16 god damnit! Locking eyes with the mysterious yet persistent guy again, she ran. Ran until she found herself on a balcony, the cold air brushing her face as she gripped the railing. 

Why did she react like that? Why did she always have to be so aggressive? Why couldn’t she just let go of the past and take this damn nose ring off so she didn’t have to go and do stupid shit like this?  Why couldn’t she just be normal and let people in? 

Oh yeah, because she had a bunch of shitty friends that all turned on her because of a liar. The same liar turned her already neglectful parents against her. So Jagged and Penny got custody of her in order to get her out. Her parents didn’t even put up a fight about it, too busy gushing about precious LILA! And now she has major trust issues despite wanting to open and trust people again. Man, she is a wreck. 

“Hey, are you out here?” The mystery guy spoke from the entrance of the balcony. 

“No, I’m not.” She didn’t see the point in not acknowledging him, he could probably see her from where he was standing. 

“I’m sorry about earlier, you were obviously uncomfortable and I pushed your limit. So I really am sorry.” He apologized. 

“Yeah, sorry about kneeing you in the stomach. I thought…” She cut herself off, she didn’t need to pour her whole life story out to a stranger. He probably didn’t even want to know either. 

“It’s okay, I deserved it.” He made his way to the railing, he was a good distance away that she still had her own space, but close enough they could still talk. She relaxed a little thanks to the distance, resting her elbows on the railing. He leaned his back against the railing. They stood there in silence and Marinette decided she wouldn’t mind seeing this mystery boy again. Wait she didn’t even know his name. 

It seemed like he had the same thought since he spoke up, “I don’t think we ever introduced ourselves.” 

“We didn’t.” Damn her being so cold, she should probably take this nose ring off. So that’s what she did, took the nose ring off and placed it in her purse. Maybe this would be good for her. 

“Well, I’m Damian Wayne.” He stated, holding his hand out to shake. 

“Wait, Wayne as in Bruce Wayne? As in the Ice Prince of Gotham?” She questioned, shocked. 

“Oh, so you’ve heard.” He seemed a bit disappointed. 

“Yeah, but I won’t judge if you don’t judge.”

He raised an eyebrow at that before she continued, “My name is Marinette Rolling-Stone.” Now he looked surprised. 

“You're the elusive Diamond Stone?” He asked, disbelief made its way into his voice. 

“That’s what they’re calling me now. At first it was Sapphire Stone. Guess that’s what happens when I stay out of the media too long.” She chuckled a small smile making its way onto her face. 

“Wait, where did your nose ring go?” He looked around as if expecting it to magically appear. 

“I took it off.” 

“Why?” 

“Well at first I wore it to scare people off. People are scared of people that have piercings. I was thinking of getting a tattoo but I’m too young and they’re too permanent.” 

“Why would you want to scare people off?” 

“I have a complicated past. Sometimes putting your trust in someone takes too much risk, I tried to avoid it altogether.” She pulled her sketchbook as she wrote something down.

“Tried?” 

“Why do you think I’m talking to you?” She tore the paper out.

“You're putting your trust in me?” 

“No.” She quickly answered, “But maybe one day.” She handed him the paper and left. 

As she walked away she released a breath she didn’t even realize she was holding. Maybe giving people a second chance wouldn’t be such a bad thing. But right now she just needed to find her parents so she could head home. 

-

Damian hated galas. He hated having to talk to the stuck-up rich folk who thought they were better than everyone just because of their wealth. The girls who would try and flirt with him in order to gain his last name. And their parents who tried to push them together. 

Yes, he definitely hated galas. What made this worse was that his family wouldn’t stop teasing him about the girl who he knocked over that one time. Threatening bodily harm did nothing but amp up the teasing. It was times like this where he truly wished there was a not a no kill rule. If only to give Jason Todd some revenge. 

2 hours into the gala and he was already done. 4 girls had already tried to drape themselves over him and it took all his self-control not to hurt them. He was ready to storm out of this gala when he caught sight of her. 

The mystery girl he had bumped into days before. She was here, at a Wayne gala. Her outfit certainly looked the part of a rich socialite, She wore a long halter dress that flared out at the waist. It started out black at her neck before turning purple at the waist. The bottom of the dress had black music notes dancing across and she had a matching black and purple purse hanging off her shoulder. 

Her hair was down and she seemed to be wearing a little bit of makeup. The only reason he was able to tell it was her was because of the black nose ring that stood out against her fancy look. It looked so out of place compared to everything else. 

He watched as a man tried to approach her only to receive the same glare he had gotten days before, quickly moving on to someone else. Seems like he wasn’t the only one who didn’t want to be here. 

He made his way over to her, perhaps to give himself a second chance at a new impression. She proceeded to pull out her phone and look at something before deflating the tiniest bit. 

He cleared his throat to grab her attention, she looked at him with the same glare once again before her eyes took on a look of shock. 

“You.” She seemed surprised that she had stated this as well. 

He couldn’t help the smirk that spread on his face, she remembered him and still had the same spunky attitude, “Me.” 

Her features took on a look of boredom, but her eyes looked only curious yet cautious, “What are you doing here?” 

The fact that she didn’t recognize him as a Wayne was surprising. He thought that she was only in a hurry before that’s why she didn’t register it was him, but now he knew she truly didn’t know it was him. Perhaps he could use this to his advantage. “I’m always invited to these things, I’ve never seen you before though.” 

“With any luck this will be the last time you see me.” She said it with such confidence he felt inclined to believe. It was strange. He seemed to be the last person she wanted to talk to and yet he still wanted to talk to her. He didn’t want her to leave. So the next best thing is to get answers.

“Why would you say that?” 

“These types of things,” She waved her hand around to motion to the room, “Just aren’t my thing. My parents make it look so easy, but I’ve never been one for this kind of scene. Plus I leave Gotham in a few days.” 

Well that sucked for him. “Desperate to get out here?” 

“You could say that.” 

“Who are your parents?” Maybe he could try to get his father to arrange a meeting with them.

She raised an eyebrow, “Wouldn’t you like to know.” Nevermind. 

“You know, you make trying to have a conversation pretty hard.” He didn’t mean to say that, that was rude. 

She rolled her eyes at him, it looked like he was meant to see that, “Who says I wanted this conversation?” She turned to leave, but he grabbed her wrist. He didn’t want her to go just yet. He felt her freeze then tense when he touched her, her breathing became a little more forced, and she seemed to shake a little. 

Suddenly she twisted out of his grip and kneed him in the stomach. She raised her arm and looked ready to punch him. Her eyes looked far and distant and afraid. They seemed to refocus on him as she dropped her arm and glanced around the room. Of course, people were talking about them.

She locked eyes with him once more before running. He ran after her before his path was blocked off by Dick Grayson. “Damian what-” He didn’t get to finish that question as he dashed passed him, determined not to lose the one girl who wasn’t a stuck up brat. 

He thought he had lost her but then he heard someone taking deep breaths from out on one of the balconies. He was about to go up to her, but from the way she reacted to his sudden hold on her arm earlier, it was probably best to give a warning. “Hey are you out here?” 

He walked out onto the balcony. “No, I’m not.” She likely didn’t want to talk to him. 

“I’m sorry about earlier, you were obviously uncomfortable and I pushed your limit. So I really am sorry.” He apologized. Which was so unlike him because here Damian Wayne was apologizing to a stranger. The weird things she made him do. 

“Yeah, sorry about kneeing you in the stomach. I thought…” She cut herself off, it looked like she wanted to say more but wasn’t going to. 

“It’s okay, I deserved it.” He walked over to the railing, making sure he was a good distance away that she had her own space, but close enough so they could still talk. She seemed to relax a little thanks to the distance, resting her elbows on the railing. He leaned his back against the railing. He quite liked the silence, her company was nice. Oh god he didn’t even know her name.

“I don’t think we ever introduced ourselves.” 

“We didn’t.” She stated in what he was pretty sure was a cold tone. Maybe she wanted to stay mysterious, so he would just introduce himself. 

“Well, I’m Damian Wayne.” He held his hand out to shake. 

“Wait, Wayne as in Bruce Wayne? As in the Ice Prince of Gotham?” So she recognizes the name, not the face. Great.

“Oh, so you’ve heard.” 

“Yeah, but I won’t judge if you don’t judge.” Why would he judge her?

He raised an eyebrow at her before she continued, “My name is Marinette Rolling-Stone.” 

“You're the elusive Diamond Stone?” He asked, disbelief accidentally made its way into his voice. He couldn’t help it. She was claiming to be the adoptive daughter of famous Jagged and Penny Rolling-Stone. The girl that made Jagged’s stage outfits from scratch and managed to get the ferocious Fang, Jagged’s pet crocodile, to love her. The media could only ever get a hold of the back of her head, but those that had talked with her said she shined as bright as a diamond. Hence the nickname, Diamond Stone.

“That’s what they’re calling me now. At first it was Sapphire Stone. Guess that’s what happens when I stay out of the media too long.” She chuckled, a small smile had made its way onto her face. Sapphire Stone, he hadn’t heard of that nickname but he could always do some stalking research. That’s when he noticed. 

“Wait, where did your nose ring go?” He looked around trying to see if it had fallen off her face and she hadn’t noticed.

“I took it off.” 

“Why?” He was truly baffled. 

“Well at first I wore it to scare people off. People are scared of people that have piercings. I was thinking of getting a tattoo but I’m too young and they’re too permanent.” 

“Why would you want to scare people off?” That seems like something he would do.

“I have a complicated past. Sometimes putting your trust in someone takes too much risk, I tried to avoid it altogether.” She pulled out what looked like a sketchbook as she wrote something down. Wait what did she mean by ‘complicated past.’

“Tried?” 

“Why do you think I’m talking to you?” She tore the paper out of the sketchbook.

“You're putting your trust in me?” He asked, she didn’t seem like the type to trust people quickly.

“No.” She quickly answered, he thought so, “But maybe one day.” She handed him the paper and left. As he looked down at it he saw it was her number. There was a message attached below ‘My number. Maybe we can meet up somewhere before I leave.’ He certainly wanted to take that opportunity. 

He tucked the paper into his pocket and made his way back to the gala only to be met with his annoying family. By the curious look in their eyes they wanted to know what just happened. This was not going to be fun to explain. 

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

Hi, I have not disappeared, just didn’t want to write for prompts 8-11. I was honestly going to do prompt 8 but then stuff came up and I didn’t have the time to write. I was also planning to write something for tomorrow’s prompt but then I found out I have something I need to do tomorrow so nothing for tomorrow either. Because I had a specific thing I wanted to write for tomorrow I’m changing it to fit day 14′s prompt. Which means it’s not going to be mega angsty like I originally thought was gonna be 14. You have escaped mega angst and now it will only be medium angst. 

On another note that was a bitch to write and edit. And the fact I had originally planned to write more for it baffles me. I feel like I left it kind of open ended so if you want a part 3 to what I have going on here go ahead and tell me. I’m still trying to decide if I should do a part 3 yet. For those who are confused today was a part 2 to day 6′s prompt, miraculous side effects. Go to my master list and you can find it. 

You can also see on my master list that there are days that are crossed off, which means I won’t be doing those days. I can’t do every single day if I want to still get decent grades. Why I skipped days 8-11. Sorry for that long explanation/rant. Also sorry for posting so late again. I do these things all the way to the last minute. Let’s see if I can break that habit throughout the month. Probably not but a girl can hope. Anyways hope you enjoyed. 

@maribatmarch-2k21 @birdiesthings @buginetye 

[anonil88]

Malcolm and Marie live blog

I don't usually do liveblogs for movies but yea.

Spoilers ahead!!

I love that its modern timed but very 70s stylized.

A tune indeed.

When you are high and drunk on success and

How the white critic reacts is why I feel like gatekeeping my scripts. At the same time some things I do make are about race or involve.

Marie sitting on the patio smoking is a mood whenever men are talking.

So he's pretentious and unaware.

Whoever chose the music for this, I feel like we would be Spotify mutuals.

Can this nigga stop pacing.

Also can he stop talking;

Marie is so tired and unimpressed.

Also little booties matter and are to be bitten.

Oooo the tension and the jazz.

Title Card over mac and cheese.

Shitty boxes mac and cheese but still mac and cheese.

Tbh i always wonder if spouses/significant others get upset when their spouses don't acknowledge them during speeches.

John sounds so much like his dad but I really hope his acting style differs from his dad a lot.

Guilty confession?

He did not profit off of his partners backstory and then not even acknowledge her.....I.....

If that ever happened to me catch me cussing my partner out during the beginning credits, the end credits, in the car, and at home.

GASLIGHTER!

The way I'm excited for Zendaya to give me some, oooo can she work with Regina King. Please on my knees I pray.

Um no that's not your job to coddle your lead.

He's a dick and the type of dick who makes himself look like a good person around other people.

If Sam Levinson is trying to make his viewers more of misandrist, it's working.

I feel like Marie has her flaws probably a lot of them and we will surely see as this continues, but Malcolm needs to learn how to apologize sincerely.

70s vibes! 70s vibes!

Them kissing and talking about criticism and dreams makes me miss a partner. A partner that I've had and haven't had.

Women really are behind every great man.

Yea sir you fucked a happy moment.

Oh visual allegories for looking in from the outside and cat and mouse chasing and looking from the outside in.

She's saying she doesn't feel noticed by you.

Gas lighter :0 he called her an emotional support dog, bruh.

I would LOVE to co-write or take a writing class held by Sam Levinson. The fights i write are very much in this same realm of reflection and anger and monologue.

Sam.....sam.....are all the sides inside of you doing okay sir?

The ugly side of dating and being in a relationship with someone who struggles with their own demons.

Honestly I could close my eyes and listen to this script being read without seeing these characters visually. Just close my eyes and get a sense of these characters like it was a radio story.

Oh. Oh this is a new wheelhouse of Zendaya acting; a different voice is like breaking through here and her expressions aren't the same we are used to. You can literally hear another character in there....hmm.

Mans is outside really fighting with his invisible demons lmfao.

Selfish ass, how after everything she said you came out of it thinking about your own craft and self instead of how you hurt her.

So she's conditional.

Me: did sam (a white man) say nigga this many times in his script or are the actors adding their own inflections. Not just the lingo used but the topic of race and directing etc. being written by a white writer about black characters is always gonna be a critique when you're writer is a white person.

Alexa play Broken Girls by Saba

He is so hurtful.

A clown nigga a clown look in the fucking mirror you bozo head ass looking like you need some Mehron clown white and a size 16 in clown shoes.

John is doing a really swell performance and reading of these lines.

He is reading her for her insecurities by bringing up his experiences with other women and that.....is yikes.

Arguments can get messy like this in real life but it takes a lot of maturity and control to either not let it get to this point or have a healthy conversation afterwards.

This film is really shot on some very crisp lenses.

They sitting there like 🚬🧍‍♀️🧍‍♂️.

Leftover Mac and Cheese and unfinished cigarettes.

The nyt etc. pay walls are so annoying, but there is a work around look at the articles on incognito or add a period at the end of the url.

He sounds like his daddy so much here, weird, this is the only part I'm eh on the dialogue it feels real but a bit out of pace in how they are bouncing off one another.

Nail scissors? So the end is not the only part he based off of Marie. 🙄

ITS A GOOD REVIEW YOU DINGUS but also its a full review they are going to critique things. She isn't wrong though he did profit off of a woman's story that was not his own to profit from.

Yes Malcolm because unfortunately all marginalized people look through a lens of life that is inherently political because of the world they live in.

He is so mad and upset and had a lot on his chest. But I think he Malcolm and Sam are talking about something thats an issue and a non issue. Being critiqued for you art is hard but also Malcolm is not super self aware. He's like a stand in figure of for example rich depop sellers who wanna be oppressed so badly they yell at others instead of examining their own personal behaviors and ethics.

Oh Marie, when you know the spark is gone and you pick fights because.

He ain't even ask her to read?

One critic I have for most of hollywood actors is they learn their cry and that is it. A change from this is Margot Robbie, I adore her fluctuations of crying being similar but the crying is carried differently for each character. If I had to say any actor that does a cry scene amazing its this woman right here (Amy Adams)

You stole her story from her and gave it away, she has a right to be upset and angry and a rubber band ball of emotions.

Citizen Kane, not the cinematography, but the story is it even that good? (Unpopular opinion but meh, maybe in my rewatch it will be better.)

But that is what people want authenticity and whatever authenticity means to them. What is real for one is false for another.

To be honest look at the criticism of Euphoria, well earned, but a lot of people were like this isn't real even though he literally wrote about his own life. People said it was inauthentic like....wtf.

Ahh the smoking is just a habit, he quit and she didn't.

CAST ZENDAYA IN A HORROR MOVIE PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING. Get Lupita and Zendaya and some more black actors preferably less known ones in a horror movie. One with a interesting script and story, directed by Regina King. Please and thankyou.

I love Marie yep that was amazing.

Behind every great man is a greater woman, one that deserves her credit for how she has stood behind. I wonder the stories of those women, what they have sacrificed or not sacrificed. Their thoughts and feelings when the world is surrounding their partner and views them as a plus one. (I'd write a short script about this but I think do I have the time, can I, or am I equipped ?)

He is a shitty person for bringing up his exes, like she even said I don't wanna know any of that.

Imagine being on anti depressents and rarely having a sex drive and then when you do your partner starts talking about their exes and tearing you apart for all your faults.

I love when you see peaks of Zendaya's cadence in roles.

Tension, what if's and he didn't even bring her up in his speech.

Marie to herself and the audience:

He is not afraid that he will loose her but as my character says in my unreleased story, "i can't wait til you give me a fucking reason to leave your ass." Malcolm expects everything in order for not even doing the bare minimum and she is only asking him for something as simple as consideration. She just wants him to be considerate. He wants to get married and considers their relationship like rolling down a hill at full speed and he cannot apologize, he cannot be considerate, and he cannot admit his wrongs. He can only offer her I love yous that he probably does mean but he does not back up outside of what he's done for her in the past. The past which was more of her experience than his and he sees his part in it as a burden. He doesn't use his own vantage point of the past to further his career he uses her. He does all of these things without a real apology or thankyou because he is not afraid to loose her.

The restrictions of quarantine and the panorama have made Sam's writing very no frills. I wonder how other films from other directors and writers that are filmed in small contained crews like this will be structured. But this was a very good movie gonna add to my letter box 3.3-3.5

Oh shit this is my song,

Ratings/overall thoughts:

Script is like a C+, B- : I could go into my heavier big brain thoughts on the script but I don't feel like it. You catch hints of it above it centers conversation on race and privilege, mainly the writers and questions i have that won't be answered but Sam did make me grow disdain for Malcolm over a short time. Which is sometimes hard to do because im one sympathetic person but the sympathy i have for Malcolm is at 0. Maybe a 2 at some scenes but then it quickly goes back to 0. Some parts of the dialogue miss the mark or hit the are off balanced. While some of it like Malcolm's bathroom speech albeit mean is really strong or their conversation when he comes back from peeing really shines for me.

Performances: B+ to A- because they carried the script further than it could of gone with less talented actors. The monologues do well to showcase their current skill levels which are already high af and leave room for anticipation in where these actors go next.

Zendaya holding a knife: A+ with a gold star. That switch on and off and on is delectable.

John being a shitty boyfriend but following Marie like a lost puppy: B+ with a good job written at the bottom of the paper, Malcolm being nervous a frantic dialed up with more realistic nervousness would have sold me completely on Malcolm's anxious waiting.

Cinematography: A and a participation award.

The mac and cheese: A+ for the easy mac. Wish it was like Annie's or Velveeta.

Cigarettes: Participation award and their picture hung up for student of the month. Why the grill lighter? Everytime Malcolm opened up his mouth Marie was like sparks fly.

The music: A++ with a prize. Whoever picked the music probably makes good Spotify playlists.

[jamaisvuandyou]

Now or Never: Part 2

Description: Based on THIS reaction, for Huening Kai. You break up with your ex when he tells you he doesn’t want to have kids, not knowing that you’re already pregnant. 

Part 1

Posted: 03/29/2021

WARNING: oh all sortz of angst

Angst: 1,801 words

A/N: By popular request (sort of)

“Do you want us to tell him?” Soobin asked, holding your hand.

You stared at the floor. “I don’t know.”

Yeonjun squeezed your other hand. “Well, when you do know, just tell us and we’ll comply.”

“He’s been a lot better, lately,” Soobin said quietly.

You breathed in, but couldn’t seem to breath out. Why did he have to do this to you? If it had been anything else, you probably could have forgiven him, but not when it came to your baby.

He didn’t want it.

He didn’t want her.

“But is that because he doesn’t get information about me, or because he’s actually getting better?” You asked.

They both looked uncertain.

“He asks if you’re okay now and then, usually if he sees Soobin texting. We only confirm that you’re okay. We won’t say anything else, and Beomgyu quickly changes the subject.” Yeonjun sighed. “But I don’t know what would happen if he found out he was having a daughter. It’s something I think we would have to ask his therapist about.”

“At least he doesn’t know where you live, now,” Soobin whispered. “That way if we do accidentally say anything, he can’t come and haunt your doorstep.”

“I do appreciate all that you two have done for me,” You said, shifting your gaze to the ceiling. “I still don’t understand why, though.”

“Because you deserve better,” Yeonjun answered, the same answer as always, with no further explanations. “We should get back soon, are you okay?”

You nodded. “Yeah. Thanks for coming to the appointment with me.”

“No problem,” Soobin answered, smiling softly. “You’re our friend, y/n.”

“Yeah...our friend,” Yeonjun echoed, but his tone was slightly different. He pet your head for a second--something you really normally didn’t care for but were used to him doing because he did it so often and it was like a nervous tick with him. “We’re here for you. Part of that is because he isn’t. Won’t be. Can’t be. And because...we think you’re in the right in this situation. We’ve made our amends with Kai, we had to, he’s our brother, but we still side with you.”

“Beomgyu and Taehyun, too,” Soobin added. “They just thought it was better if we limited who knew where you were and who talked to you.”

You nodded. You received texts now and then from the other two, especially Beomgyu because he was a talker, but Taehyung usually kept you apprised of how Hyuka was doing with his therapy sessions.

You didn’t want to shut the door completely. You didn’t want to shut the door, and make it so that your daughter never knew her father. But you kept it mostly closed, only open a crack.

The crack that let the other four through, but managed to keep your ex-boyfriend out.

You wouldn’t let him in, not until you felt secure and safe and knew that he was over you. Because lately...you thought about him, and it didn’t feel like affection. It felt like fleeting infatuation.

Lately, you recognized affection differently.

Your therapist was happy with your progress, and your ability to recognize the faults in the relationship you’d had with Huening Kai. The flags that had gone up, that made you know that the relationship wouldn’t have lasted.

She often asked you about Soobin and Yeonjun, but she didn’t say much when you spoke of them, just smiled and said you had a good support system.

You weren’t sure what she was hinting at, but you figured it was something you had to figure out.

The boys hugged you before they left, Soobin reminding you to text him if you needed anything.

Yeonjun hesitated, letting Soobin out ahead of him. “Hey, y/n...if he finds out we were visiting you today...can I at least tell him that the baby is healthy too?”

You nodded. “Don’t tell him it’s a girl, though. I’m not ready for him to have that information.”

He nodded, hugging you again and leaving.

You didn’t think that the mention of your baby would send Huening back over the edge.

But it did.

Beomgyu texted you saying he lost it, and that they were trying to find him again, and their company was taking action as well.

But he showed up at your workplace, and thankfully one of your coworkers knew the situation and saw him before he could find you--helping you explain to your boss and then sneaking you out a back way and into her car.

Yet, he still managed to catch up to you. You had decided to go to a cafe a little ways away from your new apartment, and suddenly he was sitting across from you.

You stared in horror, wondering how he found you. “You can’t be here.”

“I am. Besides, you let my bandmates visit you,” He replied, almost coldly. “And they aren’t even the father of your child.”

“But they respected my wishes, and didn’t lose their mind and stalk me,” You snapped in a whisper. “Go. Away. You’re going to lose your job if you keep acting out like this.”

“You think I care about my job?!”

“I think you should,” You replied quickly, before he could continue. “You lose this job and I promise you will never see this child. Now get out.”

A hand enclosed on Huening’s shoulder before he could reply.

Taehyun glared down at Huening. “Come on.”

Their manager was a foot behind him, looking stern.

“It’s my child, I have every right to know it!” Huening argued.

“Then act in a way fitting for someone with a child, and I’ll think about it,” You snapped. “But every second you defy my wishes makes the chances of you ever meeting this child dwindle into obscurity. So, get out.”

He stared at you. “You’re never going to forgive me, are you?”

“I can forgive you, but I can’t forget what you’ve done, and I won’t change my mind. We’re not right for each other, and you know that.”

“But Soobin and Yeonjun-hyung are?” He snapped.

You frowned. “Soobin and Yeonjun are my friends. They’ve been helping me, whereas you’ve only been causing me trouble. You showed up at my work, are you so thoughtless as to threaten my job?”

Taehyun tugged Huening Kai away. “Come on. Both of you are too upset to make any sort of productive conversation, and you have an appointment with your therapist.”

“No I don’t--”

“Yes you do. Manager-nim scheduled it on our way here.” Taehyun gave you an apologetic look and continued dragging Hyuka away.

But you no longer felt guilty about cutting him out. About trying to keep him away.

You scheduled your own appointment, and headed that way when she said she could get you in right away.

“He tracked you down?” She asked gently after you had told her everything that had happened that day. Including the conversation.

You nodded. “I don’t know how.”

“Maybe he followed his bandmates?”

“Maybe, but I doubt it,” You answered, sighing. “They’re beyond careful.”

“They care about you.”

“And I’m grateful, but...I don’t know how much longer I can rely on them. It’s causing too much trouble. I think...if I’m going to have him out of my life, I need to get rid of all of the things tying him to me.”

She hummed thoughtfully. “Do you really want to do that?”

You sighed. “No. They’re really the only friends I have. I’m friendly with some of my coworkers, and you know the one basically adopted me as her work-daughter, so we’re a bit closer. But when I was dating...him...they were the only ones who I could talk to about it. And Soobin and I would talk about baking and we were always...friendly. Which was nice. It was nice being friends with them while dating him. But it’s just going to hurt everyone if I continue being friends with them.”

“Can I ask you something?”

You nodded.

“Before you were dating Huening Kai, what brought you close enough to get to know him?”

You frowned a bit. “What?”

“How did you meet him?”

“They endorse one of the products that the company I work for produces, and I’m part of the marketing division. I was the one who got the deal, so I was there for their shoots. They started talking to me, and we got along well. I became the liaison, so if they ever wanted products, I would be the one to take them over.I’m pretty sure they started ordering one thing now and then just to tease me but then we all just sort of moved toward friendship.” You shrugged.

“Who talked to you the most? Who ordered the most?”

“Soobin ordered the most, he really liked the cookies we make, but it was almost always groups when I would get there. Sometimes it would just be Soobin, Yeonjun, and Huening, other times it would be Beomgyu, Huening, and Taehyun; Soobin, Beomgyu, and Yeonjun...usually three of them waiting for me.”

“Who were you most drawn to, initially?”

“Yeonjun, but mostly because he didn’t talk much around me. Then probably Beomgyu because he did talk to me. Soobin because we had a bit in common.”

She wrote a few things down. “Have you ever considered whether your attraction to Huening Kai was actually misplaced affection for one or more of the other boys?”

“What?” You laughed, a little incredulous, but also...nervous?

“It seems to me like you may have felt affection, but misplaced the affection as belonging to Huening when actually it belonged to someone else in his group. It’s mostly a theory, but there are some inklings that make me think it might be true. I want you to journal about your relationship with each member of the group, see if you find out anything about yourself when you finish.” She wrote it down on a separate paper and handed it over to you. “And then we’ll talk more. I’m not going to say that you handled today’s confrontation perfectly, but there are few that would. I am glad that you called and got in after that confrontation, though, and I think you’re making progress.”

You thanked her, and left.

And you wondered, as you journaled later, how you had managed to start dating Huening Kai, of all the members.

The most logical would actually have been Soobin...but Huening had asked you out. And you said yes. And maybe you got caught up in it so much….

You hugged yourself as you contemplated your difficult relationships with all of the boys, wondering if things would ever settle down. Wondering if you really would have to cut them all out to try and create some semblance of peace.

[volexis]

⤷ december 12 ▸ i have fillings for you ft. sugawara

summary: in hindsight, staying up till 2 am might’ve not been one of your best ideas. that is, until you get a call from your very frantic boyfriend asking for your help in baking cookies. what could go wrong?

warnings: there’s like one quasi-suggestive sentence but other than that pure fluff (i hope)

wc: 1.5k

a/n: lowkey ngl i don’t really like how this turned out but she’s here! i was in a suga mood a couple of weeks ago and i wrote this and somehow it turned into me creating this event lmao

note: find the rest of the advent calendar here!

You all but sunk into the mattress as you let out a deep sigh. After an exhausting day, all you wanted was to let sleep overtake you as you bundled yourself in a slew of snug, cozy blankets. Your room was peaceful. The dark emptiness of the night filled you with balmy, heady delight as you shut your burning eyes for the first time in what seemed like days.

A dull buzz rang through the room, sharp enough to pull you out of your half-asleep state. You groaned and rolled over, praying whatever noise dared interrupt you would stop soon. It did, and you smiled in relief, snuggling back into your bed. The noise returned not a second later, this time, accompanied with a bright, blinding light. You reached over to your bedside table, staring at the culprit, your phone, through bleary eyes.

Twenty-four new messages alongside seven missed calls, all from the same person: your dear, loving boyfriend. You clenched your jaw after a glance at the clock, irritation clouding your mind. You answered the incoming call with a growl. “Suga, you better have a good reason for even thinking of calling me at—”

“(Y/N) thank goodness you’ve answered, I need your help!”

Any other day you would’ve hung up on him after thoroughly berating him for calling you at such an ungodly hour, but his words were saturated with desperation and something you hadn’t heard from him in a while: unmitigated panic. “I’m going to regret this, aren’t I?”

You could practically feel the warmth from his relieved smile through the phone, and you couldn’t help but glower. “Tell me what happened.”

“So, you remember I have a holiday party at work tomorrow, right?”

You confirmed, and he continued, practically tripping over his words as they sped to leave his mouth all at once. “Ikindasortaforgotthatineededtobakecookiesforthekidsand—”

“I’m stopping you right there. I did not understand a single thing you just said. It’s too early for this,” You felt bad, but you couldn’t help but laugh at your panic-stricken boyfriend. He resembled one of his students before giving a class presentation. “Please, can you slow down and repeat that?”

He took a shaky breath. His next words were slower, sounding them out in a bashful, apologetic tone. “I kind of, sort of, maybe, forgot that I promised the kids I’d bake cookies for their winter party... now all the stores closed and won’t open until after school starts…”

He tapered off as his voice softened into silence, words practically drenched in nervous anticipation. Your irritation bled into a temperate ire as you processed his words. “Let’s see if I understand this. What you called me for, at two in the morning, was to help you bake?”

His silence was answer enough. Your anger faded as his words sunk in, in its place a resigned smile. “You’re lucky you’re so cute. Anyways how’re we even going to get this done? Where are we even going to mee—”

“I’m already outside.” You swore you’d murder him one day.

You swung the door open unceremoniously, not at all surprised to see him towing bags of supplies with what could’ve passed as a sheepish smile if you didn’t know him well enough to see the gentle yet smug grin lying beneath it.

You followed him as he strode through your apartment, wincing as he upended the contents of his bags on your counter with a resounding crash. He dusted his hands and turned to you. “Let’s get started, shall we?”

You smiled, and he mirrored it with one of his own, quickly settling into a practiced rhythm beside you. He was in charge of shaping the cookies and monitoring the oven while you mixed the ingredients. The silence that soon enveloped your kitchen was nothing if not comfortable, a perfect backdrop to the soft clatter of your latest midnight endeavor.

“Babe, I’m almost out; can you pass me that flour over there?” Nothing.

“Babe? Suga? Kou?” You turned to face him and almost dropped your bowl. His hands were still; fingers wrapped tight around the scoop, dough dribbling off its edge while his eyes glued to your figure. He sported a smile sweet as sunshine, brimming with tender adoration.

“Kou?” Your breath caught in your throat, voice barely above a gentle whisper. It was enough to snap him out of whatever reverie absorbed him.

As if embarrassed to have been caught staring so unabashedly, he turned away quickly to face the bowl in front of him, pointedly avoiding your inquisitive glances. You wouldn’t have guessed Suga was feeling so flustered if it hadn’t been for the warm tint spreading over his cheeks and up to kiss the tips of his ears.

“What was that all about?” your tone dripped with the same teasing lilt he’d use to croon sweet nothings in your ear in your most intimate moments. It never failed to send electricity singing through your every nerve, and you hoped it would affect him the same way.

“Can’t I look at my beautiful partner?” His words were more brazen than you expected, having recovered from the ruffled state he was in just seconds before. You swiveled to gawk at him, scowling as he snickered at the mild disbelief in your eyes.

“I wouldn’t exactly call this,” you motioned to your attire: rumpled pajamas far too large for your frame paired with mismatched socks, and, to top it all off, a starchy lime green apron. “The epitome of beauty.”

Suga's smile melted into something tender and compassionate as he let go of his utensils; his lithe fingers reached to cup your cheeks and tilt your head to meet his gaze. You held your breath, incapable of tearing your eyes from his.

“I don’t care what you’re wearing, you could be wearing nothing at all, and it wouldn’t change the fact that you’re absolutely radiant.”

He firmly pressed his lips against yours, chuckling softly at your jolt of surprise. The two of you part, and he leans back to look at you, hands drifting to hold your waist and draw you closer. He kisses you again, and again, and again; fervently as your mind spins into delicious emptiness.

You’re both brought back to reality as a timer beeps obnoxiously loud beside you. Suga laughs against your skin and reaches over to check his phone, eyes widening in horror as realization crashes over him. He peels away from you and rushes to the oven, fretting over the condition of his treats.

You smile from your place on the counter, lowering yourself onto one of the nearby chairs to watch your boyfriend dart around the kitchen. You check your phone, and it dawns on you that you’ve been baking for the past four hours. Exhaustion envelops your every sense, and you yawn widely. Suga notices and looks down, smiling sheepishly.

“I’m sorry, love. We’re almost done, though. I think this is the last batch. After that, we can go to bed.”

You nod numbly and rest your chin on your palm, eyes slipping shut as you gently succumb to your long-awaited slumber.

You’re woken by soft, dim sunlight streaming through the cracks in your curtains. Almost out of habit, you reach over and search for your phone to turn off any alarms. Instead, you find a plate of cookies, delicately frosted. A small card rested by their side, the ink partially smeared in Suga’s hurry. You laughed quietly. He must’ve woken up late.

Dearest (Y/N),

You don’t know how much I appreciate your help last night. It was extremely unfair of me to call you so late, but you responded regardless. You turned what could have been an evening of inevitable disaster into a memory I’ll treasure forever. You fell asleep after we put the last batch in so don’t worry, I cleaned everything before heading out! Thank you again, really. I can’t wait to see you when I come home; love.

Yours always,

Kou

A fond smile makes its way across your lips as you scan his neat yet rushed handwriting. You dropped the card on the table with a sigh, almost missing a small post-it note attached to the back. Eyebrows furrowing, you flip the paper over to read the words, gentle and deliberate in its delicate script.

P.S. Ironically, I wrote this before I wrote what’s on the card, which makes this more of a pre-script rather than a postscript? Anyways, I’m rambling, on to the actual message.

I got to thinking after you fell asleep last night. Your words stuck to me. I never once stopped to consider you might not believe me when I remind you of how gorgeous you are. You’re my everything; my heart is full of you, so full my words fail me even now as I write this.

I said it once, and I’ll say it eternally. You are beautiful. Though you may not see it, I’ll make sure to repeat it every day until you learn how beautiful you are.

taglist: @tsumuseum @amoroushero​ @mrslordexplosionmurder​ @ssat0ris​ @osamusriceballs​ @seraphgabrielle​ @1642lux

additional note: event taglist is open! Send an ask if you’d like to be added <3

[vcg73]

FIC: Kurt Birthday Drabbles

Earlier this week @elledelajoie left a comment on something I wrote all the way back in 2014.  I had genuinely forgotten I ever started it, but the original idea was to write 21 Kurt Hummel birthday drabbles. I had written just 7 of them, but after we chatted about it, I decided to go ahead and finish.  

If you’re not familiar, a drabble is a scene of exactly 100 words, not counting title headers. Since Chris Colfer and Kurt Hummel’s co-birthday (May 27) is coming up this Thursday, here they are. This goes definite AU at Birthday #19. Because you know I would never sentence my beloved Kurt to a life of being a doormat to people who did not appreciate and value him.

Never underestimate the power of feedback!

~*~*~*~*~

Birthday #1

Kurt’s blue eyes went wide as a frosted cupcake was set upon his high-chair tray, a single candle ablaze on its surface.  

When Mommy, Daddy, Uncle Andy, Grandpa Curtis and Grandma Eileen started singing to him, he smiled and clapped both hands hard around the tempting pile of frosting.

Kurt laughed when the sugary topping went flying and a big splatter of white abruptly decorated Daddy’s surprised face.

Everyone else started laughed too, including the startled father, who retaliated by giving his birthday boy a sticky peck on the cheek and then helped him to blow out a new candle.

Birthday #2

Kurt looked between his presents, confused.

Mommy had given him the pretty dolly he had begged for at the store. Daddy had given him a truck, not big enough to ride but too big to live with the little cars Daddy gave him at Christmas.

His parents seemed to be mad at each other.

Kurt looked at the doll, then at the truck. He smiled and placed Dolly inside the truck and began to drive her around the carpet.

Mommy and Daddy seemed surprised by his actions, but then they laughed, and Kurt knew he had figured out the puzzle.

 Birthday #3

His shoes were black and shiny, buckles on the sides and 1-inch heels on the base. He clomped over the hardwood floors, listening to the click-tap-click-tap in delight. They went perfectly with his dove gray coveralls with “Kurt” sewn on the pocket in black sequins. Mommy had made the outfit for him.

Spotting Daddy watching him, Kurt threw himself into waiting arms. Daddy’s smile looked like he had an owie but was trying to be a big boy and not cry.

Kurt hugged him. “It’s okay, Daddy.”

Burt looked surprised but hugged him back. “Yeah, buddy. I think it is.”

 Birthday #4

Ballet girls were nice. When they heard it was his birthday today, they threw him a party. Kurt puffed up with pleasure when presented with cookies, a sparkly wand and a tiara that read ‘Happy Birthday’ in shiny letters. He was not as fond of the kisses they gave, but four was very grown up, so he screwed up his face and allowed it. The teacher even let him wear the special puffy pink tutu over his little black leotard! 

 He saw Mommy and Daddy up in the gallery taking pictures, so he waved.

Kurt hoped today would last forever.

  Birthday #5

“Can I have cupcakes?”

Kurt’s mother looked up from her book. “I don’t think we have any, sweetheart.”

“Can we have some Thursday?  My birthday is the last day of preschool.”

“It is?” she said, looking surprised. “Is it your birthday already?”

He nodded seriously. “Don’t you remember, Mommy? You were there.”

She laughed. “Well, you have me there.  What kind of cupcakes would you like, sweetie? And don’t say cheesecake. Those are two completely different kinds of dessert.”

Kurt’s hopeful expression fell. “Oh,” he said, clearly disappointed. Then his face brightened again. “Chocolate?”

She nodded. “That we can do.”

   Birthday #6

“Daddy!”

Burt sat up just in time to catch the little body that launched at him. “What’s wrong, slugger?”

“It’s my birthday!”

Grinning despite the way his heart was hammering at the abrupt awakening, Burt asked, “Yeah? I like birthdays. Do I get a present?”

“No,” the boy scoffed. “I get presents!”

 Burt squinted at the clock. 3:15am. “Not until morning, you don’t.”

Kurt pouted and tried, “It’s almost morning.”

“Not close enough, kid. C’mere,” Burt pulled him into the warm bed between himself and his wife.

Kurt snuggled down and went right back to sleep.  

Burt was less lucky.

 Birthday #7

Kids had started treating him funny this year. He was too fancy, too girly, holding hands was weird.

Nobody was coming.

“I’m sorry, sweetie.”

“Am I too late?”

They jumped as a little black girl with pom-pom hair popped out of nowhere.

“I’m Mercedes,” she greeted. “We just moved here. Mom said you would have invited me if you’d known.”

“I’m Kurt.” He smiled. “Do you like tea parties?”

“Is there cake?”

Mrs. Hummel beamed. “Cake, ice cream, and Kool-Aid.”

Kurt shrugged. “Nobody else came.”

She grabbed his hand like she’d known him forever. “More for us!  Happy Birthday, Kurt.”

 Birthday #8

Kurt took a deep breath, thought for a moment, and carefully blew out the candles. All but the extra one that his parents always put on his cake.

“Aren’t you gonna finish, bud?”

He looked from Daddy over to his mother, home again, but so frail he was sometimes afraid to hug her, worried she might pop like a fragile soap bubble. He offered her the candle. “Here, Mommy. Blow it out. Maybe you’ll get another year to grow on.”

The eyes of the two adults met, then Mommy nodded. The three of them blew out the final candle together.

 Birthday #9

Barely daring to hope, Kurt came down the stairs.  Birthday cakes and presents had been Mommy’s specialty.  Daddy had forgotten his own birthday and had nearly forgotten Christmas.

Kurt gasped when he saw it, waiting, shining and spectacular against the front door.

“A bike!”

Bright green, sissy bars with foil streamers, and a banana seat. Perfect!

Burt smiled. He had scoffed a such a “girly” bike when Kurt spotted it at the toy store. But now, looking at the all-too-rare joy in his son’s eyes and feeling the approving smile his wife would have given, he nodded. It was perfect.

 Birthday #10

Buying gifts was tough when your kid always clammed up on you. A dad had to be observant.

Ten years old. A landmark like that needed something special, but the only thing Kurt seemed into was clothes. He had enough of those for ten kids.  

He’d probably like a Barbie he could change in and out of different outfits, but Burt cringed at the thought.

He did doodle pretty good though. Sure, it was mostly pictures of clothes, but that was a start.

A fancy sketchpad with a case and a hundred different colored pencils. Yeah, that was the ticket.

 Birthday #11

“Dad, where are we going?”

“You’ll see.”

Kurt sighed with exaggerated impatience. He had come home from school to find Dad waiting at the truck, ordering him to get in, then not saying another word. The suspense was killing him.

“Ta-Dahhhh!”

They had pulled up in front of a nondescript brick building. “Columbus Culinary Arts?”

“You like to cook right?  Well, we’re gonna fix your birthday dinner this year with the help of a real chef. Lessons are once a week for the next couple months.”

Gourmet cooking lessons!

“Oh wow. Dad, this is amazing!”

Burt grinned. “Happy Birthday, kid.”

 Birthday #12

Last year’s surprise had gone so well that Burt had decided on a repeat. But when he saw the excitement on Kurt’s face at finding a pair of tickets inside his birthday card turn to disappointment and horror, quickly masked with a fake smile, he knew he’d goofed.

“I know baseball isn’t your thing,” he said, almost pleading. “But you’ve never seen a live game before. It’s a whole different experience. It’s a home game. We can yell and scream, and cheer our team on with thousands of other fans.”

The stiff not-smile never wavered. “Sounds . . . fun.”

 Birthday #13

Dad had bought out one of the partners at the garage this spring and now owned a majority share of the renamed “Hummel Tires & Lube”. Kurt wanted to snicker at that name, but he was proud too.

His birthday this year coincided with Friday Night Dinner. Dad had invited all the mechanics over for a potluck. They’d had Mary’s special fried chicken, Cassius’s homemade cornbread, and Davy’s mac’n’cheese. Now Dad brought out the cake.

Kurt laughed. A sheet-cake with a tow-truck and two little plastic mechanics for decoration.

“You and me kid. Partners.”

The mechanics cheered and everybody dug in.

  Birthday #14

Kurt froze when he saw tickets peeping out of his card. Not again. Noise, sunburn, unhealthy food, tacky uniforms, and Dad trying so hard to make a boring sport seem like fun.

He sighed and pasted on a smile, which quickly transformed into shock.

“Wicked?” he squeaked, staring hard at the little papers as if the printing might change if he dared to look away.

“Embassy Theater is giving regional business owners a discount this year,” Burt said apologetically. “It’s just a traveling production, not real Broadway, but I …”

His apology was cut off by a joyful teenaged hug.

 Birthday #15

“Don’t worry, son, you got this.  Just remember everything I taught you.  You got a whole year to get ready for the practical test.”

“I know.”

“And it’s okay if you don’t get it right the first time. Not everybody does.”

“I’m fine, Dad.”

“I’ll be right here waiting for you when you’re through.”

“I know that, Dad. I’ll be okay, really.”

At that moment, Kurt’s name was called and he sprang from his hard green plastic chair. His dad’s repeated reassurances were making him jumpy.

Twenty minutes later, a brightly grinning Kurt was waving his freshly minted driver’s permit.

 Birthday #16

Burt patted the giant blue bow the dealership had provided over the hood of the shining black Lincoln Navigator.  

Kurt was gonna flip! He’d passed his DMV test with flying colors and was no doubt showing off his shiny new license to all his friends at school.  

He paused. Did Kurt have any friends to share this accomplishment with? He always seemed so alone.

Maybe that’s why he had decided to spoil his son with a huge birthday gift.

It wasn’t right for such a good kid to be all alone. Maybe having his own ride would help change that.

  Birthday #17

A dozen teens gathered in Kurt’s basement to celebrate the end-of-school, non-disbanding of Glee, and Kurt’s birthday, all in one.

“Not like ten years ago,” Mercedes said to Kurt, as they watched Mike and Brittany dance.

“Ten years?”

“Your seventh? It was just you, me, your mom, and lots of chocolate cake.”

Kurt was astounded. “That was you?”

“You forgot?”

“I remember a little girl who showed up and invited herself to my party.”

“And I remember a little boy who needed a friend as much as I did.”

He squeezed her hand. “Thanks for coming.”

She squeezed back. “Always.”

 Birthday #18

Kurt stared at his birthday cake, unable to think of anything to wish for.

He was 18-years-old today, a legal adult. He had new family in Carole and Finn, his dad was on the mend, he would be back at McKinley for senior year, he had made his first visit to New York City, and he had a boyfriend! One who had just told Kurt that he loved him for the very first time.

‘I wish for next year to be as good as this,” he thought, taking a deep breath and blowing.

The flames flickered out, all except one.

 Birthday #19

Senior year had been a disaster, and now he had not gotten into NYADA, despite his well-praised audition.

“Blaine wants me to spend another year here,” he whispered. “I just can’t.”

Burt’s callused hand squeezed his neck. “Then don’t. You’re 19 now, a man. You got talents galore, work experience from the garage, enough drive for ten kids, and your mom’s life insurance money to give you a start.”

“But…”

“No buts,” Burt said firmly. “You go on to New York and grab life by the balls.”

Kurt felt his optimism rise. “Help me look for apartments?”

“You got it.”

 Birthday #20

What a difference a year made.

He’d dumped Blaine after being cheated on less than a month after leaving Lima.  He was enrolled at FIT and sharing a shoebox apartment with a fellow design student and a Broadway hopeful, but both were young gay men from small towns, and they had a lot in common.

“Happy Birthday!” Elliott shouted, tossing a handful of glittery sequins at him.

Adam came in playing the birthday song on a kazoo he had gotten from who-knows-where. “Ready for Callbacks? $20 on who gets the first hot guy’s number!”

“I already have yours. I win!”

 Birthday #21

“I have the honor of presenting your first official grown-up drink,” Adam said, smiling lovingly at his grinning boyfriend of nearly a year. He set down a martini glass with a cherry floating on top. “A Manhattan seemed appropriate.”

Kurt beamed and gave him a kiss, then took an experimental sip. “I’ve had alcohol before,” he admitted. “Mostly wine, though.  Mm, this is good!”

“I thought you’d like it. Happy Birthday, my love.  May the future bring every good thing you wish for, and never more heartache than you can handle.”

Kurt could not have asked for a better sentiment.

THE END

[dreamylyfe-x]

of all the things they could make mickey and ian fight over, why are the writers going with 2 so OOC storylines in the final season? the show never framed ian as seeing mickey's illegal income as not "real" work before. and mickey was never the slacker type, so why now? and mickey would never vague about monogamy. i'm so confused. if they gotta fight, why not over something in character and meaningful. this just feels like writers being mean to the fans, making us sit thru all this nonsense

Hey! Thanks for the ask. Made my (very weird and stressful) day. 

I’m going to be disappointing right off the jump and say that I don’t actually think any of this is OOC, per say. But. In GENERAL. Shameless is not the show it was. I think this is very normal for long-running shows. Take Friends: When you get into the back half of that show’s extensive catalogue, is starts to feel like the characters are a Xerox of a Xerox. Early season Monica is a bit OCD, and a clean freak who loves to be in charge -- but she’s also warm, and hospitable and emotionally available to her friends. Late season Monica is often a coked-out squirrel-woman who loses her mind if someone moves a pillow. That’s quality isn’t out of character, but it’s no longer being balanced with the warm and supportive woman we initially met. I think a bit of that might be “we already know you either like or hate Monica, so we’re just giving you the stuff that’s funny and/or dramatic. We got 22 minutes and six characters and we don’t have to build that other shit anymore.” 

I think that’s happening with Mickey and Gallavich. And I don’t think that’s weird for a) a show that has run this long and b) a character who was gone and then returned. They are giving us a Mickey that has always existed -- unbound by traditional manners, aggressive, blunt and obsessed with Ian Gallagher -- but we aren’t getting much of the Mickey who curls up with Ian at the worst time of his life and kisses his forehead. We aren’t getting all the verbal confirmation of Big Feelings they gave us when he came back in season 7. We aren’t seeing Ian and Mickey as a team, which is a big part of their mid-seasons dynamic. I think that makes people feel like these arguments are OOC, when they’re arguably reasonable issues, but aren’t being given a ton of nuance, or balance. 

Aside: There’s some balance in how the actors are playing the intimacy and the physical affection. The little touches and kisses are appreciated by me. 

So to dig into the OOC stuff -- first of all, it makes total sense to me that they’d have issues about the role crime plays in their lives together. I love that Ian never gave a damn that Mickey is a straight up criminal. But every time Ian lost Mickey, it was because the law intervened. When Mickey is not incarcerated, he’s with Ian. Ian is no longer 16, no one is a juvenile offender, Mickey was given a devastating sentence in season 6 -- 16 years -- Ian was 18! That was his entire living memory, if not more. They are married now, against considerable odds, and I completely understand why Ian doesn’t want Mickey to risk going back to jail. 

Likewise, I get why Mickey doesn’t want to do what Ian is doing. Mickey does not have the temperament for minimum wage jobs. He has a longstanding history of thinking it’s absolute bullshit to work hard for no money. Particularly when he’s smart enough, skilled enough and ballsy enough to make a LOT of money in an afternoon just by spotting an opportunity. 

Mickey has never SAID this on the show, but in canon we have seen him go to prison four times. Once, because Ian’s unhinged spurned groomer shot him; once because Mickey CHOSE to headbutt a cop so he could go to prison and avoid his dad; once because Mickey was consumed with a need to avenge Ian; and finally because Ian got himself tossed in prison, so Mickey CHOSE to join him. If Mickey has confidence that he won't go to prison if Ian isn’t a factor... Not the craziest idea. 

So -- writers spitballing ideas for Gallavich conflict? I think that’s a pretty good one. Two clear sides that both have merit. I’ve already written a bit about my thoughts on the monogamy issues... first, I’ve always figured they were monogam-ish, to reference Dan Savage. They are faithful to each other while they’re together, and when they are separated (usually by prison!) they aren’t. This isn’t the first time Mickey has voiced a lack of interest in being monogamous -- most notably “Great. Now we’re in a horror movie.” Mickey isn’t a traditionalist and I don’t think he feels like this is a make-or-break issue. But MOSTLY? 

MOSTLY. 

I really and truly believe what I’m about to say... 

Mostly Mickey wanted to do what Ian wanted. 

If he legit didn’t want monogamy he wouldn’t have tried to cheat of Ian’s paper. He didn’t like that “write it down and flip the paper” game. He wanted to match Ian’s answer. So he took a guess and he was wrong about what Ian -- who had literally just told him he found the concept of the rest of his life overwhelming -- had written. 

This is my head cannon: I think he liked that Ian wrote down monogamy. This is not my head canon: they are SUPER sweet to each other in the next scene. I am not convinced that the monogamy debate is going to be much of a thing beyond that scene. And I understand that, for a lot of people, that scene was extremely unpleasant. To me, personally, it made sense for it to come up. But I think it’s settled. I think they’re done with it. 

The one place where I’m like “What is this?” is the slacker stuff. I mean, I can meta why Mickey might be afraid of failure or whatever, but it’d be mostly head cannon. They haven’t given us a ton to build on there. The best we got is “Stop disappointing the people you love!” being what motivated Mickey to do something he didn’t want to do. But Mickey was right, if he thought that interview was going to be a disaster. Mickey knows himself and he is painfully aware of his limitations. 

As for why are the writers DOING this? Well. Ok. Here’s what I think it is: 

1. Story is conflict. So they needed one. And “struggle to adjust to marriage” really isn’t a bad one. Specifically, figuring out how to be married when you have no role models and have a few social strikes against you is a good one. 

2. The writers are amused by Gallavich fighting. They think it’s entertaining. And while there are a lot of people out there for whom Gallavich is EVERYTHING, Shameless’s viewership is also made up of people who think Frank is hilarious. No one ever send me an ask about why Frank is hilarious. I will not be able to figure that one out and the research might kill me. We definitely don’t all agree on what is and is not funny. 

3. They’re going somewhere with it. At least a little. 

I don��t KNOW three is true, but here’s something I believe about John Welles. I think he’s a biiiiit of a sap. I think he probably wants to leave each Gallagher with something nice. I don't think his plan it to send everyone off on an ice floe to freeze to death. So I think (hope?) that what we’re going to see is three (maybe four?) episodes of Gallavich At Odds and then I think we’re going to move into them trying to work together to make lives together. And they will probably still fight, because that seems to be part of the Xerox of a Xerox of Gallavich. I’m sure many people will find that cringey and problematic and annoying -- but I also bet we get a few moments we love, here and there. 

I don’t think they’re trying to be mean to the fans, but I think it’s serving 8 characters ... Nope. 9. (I forgot Frank. I always forget about Frank.) ... and we aren’t going to get the depth and breadth we want. And most of that will be on the side where we see Gallavich loving each other, because at this point they expect us to KNOW that. And some of it’ll be Mickey’s internal life because they tend to focus on the Gallaghers. But I do fervently hope we get a little more of that other side of the coin. Because I absolutely agree that one side is more fun than the other. 

[clockworkouroboros]

Hi guys, ready for some more crazy The Amazing Devil nonsense? Because I sure am! Basically, a while ago (like a week after The Horror and the Wild came out) I made a post comparing Wild Blue Yonder and That Unwanted Animal, because they’re basically a song about the same couple on the same night, but from wildly different perspectives. I still wholeheartedly believe that — there are just too many things that match up (I don’t think I even got all the connections in that post) — but I’m here to add a new thought: Battle Cries also fits in with this.

It’s not quite as on-the-nose, and I didn’t notice it right away because Battle Cries is full of references to other songs, both musically (the end of all things motif) thematically (Rockrose and the Thistle) and lyrically (catch references to almost every song on the album somewhere in there). It’s a masterpiece, and I still don’t understand how Joey and Madeleine did it. Anyway. So I noticed the connections to WBY and TUA, but I didn’t read anything into it, since there are references to other songs in Battle Cries.

But I’ve been thinking about it, and it really seems like it’s about the same couple, on the same night as Wild Blue Yonder and That Unwanted Animal. So this post is me going through Battle Cries and finding/pointing out as many references as I can.

I’m going to start with Madeleine’s part: she begins, “I’m at the brink, don’t laugh/at those winks I’ve masked/who’ll save you when you fall?” Now, I’ve thought of this as a direct reference to That Unwanted Animal for well over a month. I mean, consider: “well hello, my hollow Holofernes,’ I wink but you don’t get the joke” in TUA. Not only are these the only two mentions of winking in the whole album, but both also reference jokes/laughter at the same time.

I also want to point out “who’ll save you when you fall” with TUA, because the climax of That Unwanted Animal is “hold the hand of the god-child, they said as he falls from the sky, be good to me I beg of him,” which also fits with this. She saves him when he falls, and it destroys her. (That’s one possible interpretation, and one that fits with this post.)

“Who wins this war? You’ve a knack/for applause from the back of the stalls but you lack/the conviction to look at me straight/and say yes” are Madeleine’s next lines in Battle Cries, and I really can’t figure out how a lot of it would tie into WBY or TUA, except for the last part. “You lack the conviction to look at me straight and say yes,” which ties into Battle Cries later with “don’t lie with your eyes, you know I despise that look.” It also fits into TUA with “don’t you hear that scratching/I ask your eyes” and Joey’s “I’ve got something in my eye” in WBY. In all of this, she’s looking for confirmation of something in his eyes, and he can’t deliver that.

I’m skipping over “don’t be uncouth, be a man, don’t lie with your eyes you know I despise that look” because I already covered it in the last paragraph, and the next section doesn’t really have any direct parallels to either song, and that’s the end of the first verse!

Obviously “these plates they smash like waves/place your smile in mine” is a direct callback to TUA (“these plates they smash like waves/place your hand in mine”) although it does seem to be more of a relationship sort of thing, rather than a “hold the hand of the god-child” thing in this. (I personally think “Place your smile in mine” is supposed to mean a kiss.)

Also, not to read too much into something (I say, reading too much into everything TAD-related) but “these lines aren’t wrinkles, dear heart” reminds me very much of “I’ve got knuckleburn from typing all these lines into your chest.” I already have a theory that all mentions of lines in this song are intended to be read both as lines on skin (“these lines aren’t wrinkles” sort of thing) and as lines like in a play (“come on love, please don’t start, sing your notes play your part”.)

Also, an interesting thing to note: Madeleine never sings the “it’s applause” part of “that creaking you hear in my bones is not pain, it’s applause,” she just stops at pain. Which I think ties into this somehow, but this post is going to be long enough without me getting into that. So I’m just throwing it out there as something for y’all to consider. Feel free to add onto this with your own ideas if you so desire!

Madeleine’s part in verse 2 again seems to refer to TUA/WBY. I mean, even the “we were gods” (and Joey’s “we were kids” response) goes hand in hand (ha) with the God-Child. They (or even just Joey) were gods and children at the same time. (Alternatively, this could be Joey refuting Madeleine’s point: “we were gods,” she says, and he replies with a sad, nostalgic smile, “no, we were kids,” but I prefer the other reading because the gods theory is very near and dear to my heart.)

The “come at me, you blaggards” section has a lot of things that interest me, but they’re in Joey’s part, so I’m skipping over it for now, and instead going on to “I’m not a drunkard, a daughter, a creature, God knows how you dragged us both into the darkness that grows.”

This section screams TUA especially to me. The drunkard part references earlier in Battle Cries (plus other references to drinking, like in Marbles or FW?), and the daughter part references (directly contradicting) THatW, but “a preacher” is interesting, because in TUA, Madeleine refers to herself as a priest. (“I’m the paper cut that kills you and the priest that you ignored”.) I’ve mentioned elsewhere (probably not on Tumblr, mostly I spew my bs on Discord) that this section is Madeleine directly refuting claims about her from earlier songs on the album, and this is notable because this is the only claim that she makes about herself that she contradicts. But that’s beside the point. “You dragged us both into the darkness that grows” is also interesting within this reading (although I have a lot of thoughts about this line just in general, but I’m trying to stay on focus a little bit), because it really fits with the “‘be good to me I beg of him,’ ‘No, no, not I’” at the end of TUA. Like I said earlier, she saves him, and it (he) destroys her.

(Notice also how Madeleine’s character blames Joey, while Joey sings “we sunk into water no creature can know,” not distributing blame to either party.)

Next is the biggest WBY/TUA section of this entire song: Madeleine sings “I won’t leave without a fight,” while Joey sings “I won’t let you turn our last night into this.” This is a breakup, their last night together, just like in WBY (“one last time, love, come and rip my clothes off”). And Madeleine’s picking the fight, while Joey doesn’t want a bad ending. It perfectly fits the narrative that both WBY and TUA have already created. (Also: “I’m gonna binge watch a box set, drink wine, reminisce” with “the wine stains hide the tears” earlier?)

To move onto Joey’s part, obviously his lines are more lighthearted, hopeful, all of that. In verse one, he seems to be looking back at the night: check out his “the wind feels so warm on the back of my neck, as I walk with the sun hand-in-hand from the wreck, some fictions we took to mean fate, believe me I know.” The wreck goes well with the storm and wind that keeps being mentioned in TUA, plus TUA’s “I make shipwrecks out of my dress and the door below us splinters.” This is afterwards. The sun has come out after the storm. “The wrinkles and bricks” bit that he sings first also goes well with this, especially the “fictions we took to mean fate.” Compare it with Madeleine’s “every brick you hurled I’ll use to build this world” in WBY.

Also, not to bring back a theme, but truth and eyes are both mentioned in Joey’s part, except he’s not accusing Madeleine of lying. “Tell the truth to me love, does my hair look as nice as it did when you once tied it up in your eyes?” Just something I thought was worth mentioning.

Joey’s part in verse 2 similarly complements Madeleine’s. “With you I could summon the gods and the stars, make them dance out the plays that we wrote from the heart, and we’d laugh at the ghosts of our fears.” I’m going to draw from both this and the “come at me, you blaggards” section because, as I mentioned earlier, I have a lot of thoughts about this.

What I really have focused on is the “wielding words” aspect of this section. (“Wielding words against make-believe wizards and tanks” which again, refers back to “some fictions we took to mean fate” but that’s not important right now.) Words as weapons/something to be feared pops up multiple times in this album, and notably, it shows up in all three songs I’m talking about. “Those words we flung for fear of sound” in WBY, “you turn the telly on to drown out your fear and make the bed up silent on the floor so no one will hear us” in TUA both have this idea of words/sound being something to fear. (Consider also THatW’s “you’re the words that I promise I don’t mean”.) However, Joey considers these a fiction at this point: “we laugh at the ghosts of our fears.”

The next section is “but we sunk into water no creature can know, you dragged us along to watch all of your shows, our devils broke rank and out of the depths came an army,” which. Hoo boy. Sinking into water fits with the shipwreck/storm idea of That Unwanted Animal, and the idea of an army coming out of those depths against them works well with all the things they’re afraid might be out there in WBY. (wolves, demons, robot vampire, i dunno!)

Joey’s “I won’t let you turn our last night into this” fits well with the idea of Madeleine coming in and turning the situation into what happens in TUA. And the last verse of the song seems to be an actual ending to this story. While both WBY and TUA end before the night does — WBY with “I’ll bruise you” and TUA with the god-child refusing to be good to her, another parallel, I think — Battle Cries ends with a proper resolution to the situation. It’s the one part of Battle Cries that doesn’t fit with the other two songs, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t an extension of those songs.

I know this isn’t everything but this post has gotten really, really long so if you want extra thoughts about this, feel free to send an ask my way! And as always, if you have thoughts of your own, I love seeing people add on to these posts.

TLDR: the songs Wild Blue Yonder, That Unwanted Animal, and Battle Cries are all songs about the same couple on the same night. Battle Cries is only different in that it gives a conclusion to the story.

[tappytabbyart]

RA Rambles- Someone told part 1

2 years at black mesa and she hadn’t had a single issue to ever complain about at black mesa. Why would she? A cushy researcher job that had served her well and was able to work with limited “ethical” questions asked. Especially when it came to the steroid experiments she was conducting on her current batch of subject of apes. It was going so well too; she was close to a breakthrough. So incredibly close to moving on with what type of subjects she could work on…

But no, on paper the admin’s kid Mathew, was the one close to the breakthrough. Not that the name mattered to her. In her head and in private settings the kids name was Bastard. She stayed quiet of course. Father had taught her to do so. Stay quiet, gather evidence and solve the issue with no trouble. After all, the boy served no use in the lab. He manhandled the already very aggravated apes and could not spell half of the terms she wrote about. A pure example of her father’s model of a useless and broken person who has not been taught how to live by themselves.

Why if she had a choice in the matter at hand, she would have had them removed and taken to wherever the missing black mesa employees went. No questions asked and no looking back. But that approach, the one that involved her being loud and drawing attention to herself would have her taken instantly. And that just would not work in her favour. That or at the very least moved into a least favourable department. Gods, if she ended up with the necromancy department…ugh. No one likes them. Creepy body horror freaks who flaunt their extravagance freely. Barely worth her time, not when she had Bastard to deal with.

She was nearly ready to submit an anonymous complain with the help of her partner Tony. They were going to fill the form in over lunch, a form disguised as some notes for a possible research project. She didn’t need to lose her job over this, and she didn’t want her name attached to it either. The fact that Bastard has stolen other people’s work served this plan well.

Or it would if she wasn’t called into some impromptu performance review of her work. She hated to leave Tony waiting but the message she got about this seemed urgent. However, she had a gut feeling that something was up about the entire thing. She would have asked someone to come with her, but most had left the lab by the time she had to go to the meeting.

The walk there was eerie and made that feeling of dread growing in the back of her skull. The feeling that this was going to be her end and – no. She stops that spiralling thought as she approaches the room, she was meant to have her performance review. Putting that thought into a little box at the back of her head and with a light knock on the door she walked into the room.

Why is it a dark interrogation room?

“I’m here for my performance review? Am I in the right room?” She asks quietly. A stern looking man in a suit crisp enough to cut steel sat in the dark interrogation room looking over a folder. Lifting his head in my direct causing me to hesitate.

“Ms Judith Wells, nice of you to arrive on time. Have a seat” She guesses that’s an answer, but she hesitates a bit.

Something isn’t right, the room is too dark, and she can only see the man and the table containing a single manila folder. When tries to step away she is dragged into the dark room by armed guards and the door closes behind her.

Uh oh.

“We’ve been informed by an anonymous source that you intend to put a complaint in about plagiarism that Mr Andrian has done” That statement implied that they knew. They knew someone was stealing her work and they let it go on.  She decided to stay quiet and just glare, how dare they allow this to happen. Her hard work was being stolen.

“No explanation…oh well. As it stands, Mr Andrian’s father can’t have that serious of a complaint go against his son and ruin his reputation as a result. As a result, he has moved you onto a new project away from his son. “She raised an eyebrow before responding.

“What project?” She inquired.

“Ah, this is where it gets interesting. You aren’t going to be part of the research team” He ended saying that with a sly smile. He did not have to elaborate, and she didn’t want to stay.

“No thanks you, I’ll stay with my current one. “As she got up and walked towards the door to leave, she is grabbed roughly by the armed guards by the door.

“A very bold assumption to make. No, I am afraid to inform you that you don’t have a choice.” He gives a quick nod, and the guards start to drag her out.

“LET ME GO!” As much as she repeats those three words she is never seen or heard from again.

She no longer cared what the man in the suit said or why she was there. She wanted out. She wanted to see Tony again. Wanted free from the tiny dark room and the guards trying to hold her down. She even managed to wriggle out but her escape was instantly cut short by one of the guards tackling and pulling her arm back forcefully.

Too forcefully…her arm isn’t meant to make that much crunching noises all at once. Her arm isn’t meant to be in this much pain. Her arm looks wrong. They broke her arm…She started screaming but it quickly died in her throat as she felt a needle prick on her neck.

The world then went dark and no one would see Judith again.

[qianinterprises]

Unsaid Silence

𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐞: It's worth mentioning that I 1) write this a while back and posted it on a03, 2) wrote this in one night and finished at like 4am, and 3) got a lot of help from my ex-bestfriend.

𝐒𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐬𝐢𝐬: Johnny thought it would be fun. Walking around in the darkness with flashlights and friends.

Everyone else thought it was a half drunken joke to cackle about well into the week.

It was all fun and games until they realized... Johnny was serious.

It was not going to be fun.

𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: this is a horror, read at your own risk, WayV makes an appearance and kinda in a bad way so again, read at your own risk (I love WayV from the bottom of my heart so please don't be offended!)

It shouldn’t have come as a shock to anyone when Johnny announced his bright idea. Yet somehow, it shocked everyone. It was the type of thing that is announced over drinks at the bar, giggled about during late night movie nights, but no one ever stops to wonder if it’s serious, because it usually isn’t.

So when Johnny enlightened the 127 members of his “enthralling idea” to go crawling around the old Daegu Asylum while they were sitting around their bar table, half drunk, it had seemed like a great idea. Mark was particularly amused by the idea. As he sprawled himself across Haechan’s lap, giggling and hiccupping, it was all he could mutter about. How exhilarating it would be to investigate when they finished their schedules up early the next week.

And that was just the beginning. Throughout the rest of the week, everyone had brought it up at least once. Even Doyoung was excitedly chattering about it to his boyfriend over video call one evening. The male on the other end had warned him them that Johnny might not be joking. But it was all too much of a hilarious joke to be serious.

At least, that’s what everyone thought.

When Friday rolled around, they all piled into the vans, sweaty and tired from their latest dance practice, all eagerly awaiting for the rest of their evening and the next day off. The sun was still in the sky, although preparing itself to descend behind the horizon and wake up the rest of the world.

“Are you guys ready for tonight?” an excited Johnny asked the group he was with, practically bouncing in his seat beside Jaehyun.

He didn’t receive a verbal answer. A few grunts of confusion and lazy moans of others who just didn’t care. The only thought on anyone’s mind was shower, dinner or sitting around the television watching a movie.

He took no mind to it, grinning to himself in excitement. He’d spent his week packing a few backpacks for their excursion.

Upon arriving home, Taeyong noted how excited and bouncy Johnny appeared to be, even after a particularly grueling dance practice. He tried not to let it bother him though, or to pay too much attention to that nagging feeling in his gut. All he wanted to think about was getting his sticky body under the hot spray of the shower before crawling into bed with Jungwoo for a nice night of movies and cuddles.

Everyone went their separate ways, into one of the three bathrooms or to change into something more comfortable. Some even opted to flop down on the couches for a much needed break. Doyoung called in a pizza order for dinner before collapsing on the couch beside Yuta and plucking his buzzing phone from his pocket.

He squinted at a particularly coded text from Kun. The male was hardly ever straight forward when either of them ran the risk of one of the youngers seeing their messages, but this one, Doyoungcouldn’t even understand.

“Hyung, how well can you read Chinese?” he asked the elder.

Yuta glanced at him tiredly and then at the phone Doyoung was holding. With a sigh, he looked at the screen and scrunched his eyebrows in confusion.

“It says ‘The John Giant serious about dead people’” he read.

Doyoung stared at the black screen of the television in confusion. His boyfriend had never been this hard to read.

He spent the next two minutes pondering the words until Taeil came into view, dressed in cargo pants, a polo shirt, and an X-shaped vest strapped across his chest with small round pockets full of something.

Yuta took one look at him and burst out into giggles.

“What are you wearing?” he asked loudly, laughing and slapping his thighs.

Doyoung just stared at the elder as he pouted.

“Johnny made me wear this! He said something about “needing it tonight,” whatever that means,” Taeil said, walking over to sit beside Yuta.

Understanding slapped Doyoung in the face. He sprang up from the couch, startling the other two with the suddenness before running up the stairs. He slammed open Johnny’s door to see the elder strapping on a vest similar to Taeil’s. He could see what was in the pockets clearly now. Shotgun shells filled with a white substance. If he had to guess, Doyoung would say salt.

“Johnny hyung! What the hell? Please tell me you’re not dressing for what I think you’re dressing for!” Doyoung cried.

Johnny just grinned at him and handed him a backpack stuffed to the brink.

“Make sure everyone gets ready! We leave at dusk!” he beamed.

He didn’t lie. As soon as the sun disappeared and the sky was cast in dark blue’s as the moon and stars came into the light, Johnny was pushing everyone out the door into one of the larger vans that would fit everyone. By this point, everyone knew his intentions. All dressed in movable jeans or cargo pants, polo shirts, hiking boots (or durable sneakers), and either wearing a vest of salt bullets or carrying a heavy backpack.

“I can’t believe he was serious,” Haechan whined.

No one responded, but almost everyone felt the same. It was a tipsy suggestion at a bar one night after practice. Those weren’t supposed to come true and be serious. Yet, here they were. About to go into this Asylum that was supposed “haunted” because Johnny thought seeing ghosts would be fun.

This wasn’t anyone’s definition of fun. Except Johnny’s.

The van came to a stop and Yuta let out a groan.

“Oh lovely. We’re here,” he whined, opening the side door and crawling out sluggishly.

Johnny was still the first one out, and practically vibrating with excitement.

“Come on! Let’s go! Let’s see some ghosts!”

Jungwoo looked at the asylum skeptically. Fear traced in his eyes as he struggled to keep his hands steady at his sides.

“Are you sure we have to do this? We can rent a horror movie instead!” he whined.

Johnny rolled his eyes and grabbed the males hand.

“Come on! It’ll be fun!” he beckoned, tugging Jungwoo closer.

Jungwoo let out a screech and wrapped his lithe fingers around Taeyong’s hand, digging his nails into the leaders flesh in his escape to tear himself from Johnny.

“Come on, it’s not that bad. Ghosts aren’t real anyways, guys. I just wanted to look around. Please,” Johnny pouted.

“Why couldn’t we just explore it during the day? You know, when it’s not creepy!” Yuta fired.

Johnny released his grip on Jungwoo and turned his attention to Mark, who was already shrinking back and attempting to hide behind Jaehyun. Only to be shoved out by Haechan, who was already hiding behind the elder male.

“Come on Markie! You know you wanna come in with me!” Johnny cooed.

Mark grumbled, his resolve falling rapidly as he begrudgingly stepped closer to Johnny.

“You too Jaehyunnie! I bet if you use one of the video camera’s to record yourself, you’ll have that girl you’re trying to impress swooning!” Johnny said.

Jaehyun sighed and wrapped a hand around Haechan’s wrist, the youngest protesting loudly as he was dragged to the front as well.

Taeyong groaned and looked around at the remaining members.

“Let’s get this over with. The longer we stand out here waiting, the longer we have to be here. Johnny, you have one hour. I’m setting my timer. If you’re not done in one hour, we’re leaving you here and going home,” he said.

Everyone knew Taeyong was lying. They’d never leave Johnny behind. Taeyong himself would knock the giant out and make Jaehyun and Doyoung drag him out by his ankles if it came down to it.

He received lots of irritated moans and groans, but eventually, everyone was mentally preparing themselves to enter the asylum.

As they pushed open the creaky, moldy door, Taeyong, Jaehyun, Doyoung, Mark, and Yuta switched on the large torch flashlights they had all received in their backpacks, among other things. Broken glass crunched beneath their feet as they entered, and as Jaehyun (who was bringing up the rear) stepped in, the door slammed shut behind them. Jungwoo let out a fearful whimper and Taeyong wrapped an arm around his waist in an attempt at comforting the male.

They walked slowly, shining lights on everything they could, broken lamps, busted out chairs, ancient computers, a gargoyle head, a skull and bones, medical papers. Yuta shuttered against Taeil as the carefully walked past the bones.

“I didn’t think anyone died here,” Mark asked curiously.

“That’s the official statement,” Taeyong answered, hissing when a rat ran across his foot.

He nearly elbowed Doyoung in the nose as he lunged away from the rodent, earning a glare from the other.

“I was young at the time, but my brother told me about it. Apparently, there was this doctor that was experimenting on patients in his office. He was paid by the city to pick random patients and do lab experiments on them to try to “cure their psychosis,”” Doyoung said.

Haechan slammed into Doyoung’s back when the sound of glass shattering filled the air. The younger trembled, burying his face in the back of Doyoung’s shirt and the elder sighed, spinning around and wrapped his arms around the maknae.

“Sorry, I kicked over a mirror and it shattered,” Johnny apologized, bending down to investigate the mirror.

A few jagged shards of glass still clutched the panels of the mahogany brown frame, covered in thick dust. Johnny blew some of the dust away and found bloody fingerprints dotted all over the frame. Curiously, he flipped the mirror over and gaped.

‘Room 513’

The frenzied message appeared to have been written in blood with a shaky hand, the letter’s crooked and jagged.

“Let’s go!” Johnny declared, getting ready to lead the brigade.

“Are you crazy! No!” Haechan whispered back, his body still pressed as close to Doyoung as he could get.

“Uh… guys,” Jaehyun said, his voice wavering.

“It’ll be fun! We have to find out what’s in that room!” Johnny declared.

“Do you even hear yourself? No! We don’t go in strange rooms looking for trouble! Haven’t you watched any horror movies? That’s where the killer is always waiting to slaughter whoever is stupid enough to follow the instructions!” Yuta hissed

From somewhere nearby, a droplet of water could faintly be heard hitting the floor.

“Guys…” Jaehyun tried again.

“Don’t be stupid! Horror movies don’t exist! We’ll never know what’s back there if we don’t explore!” Johnny persisted.

“Johnny no! That is a dumb idea!” Jungwoo cried.

“GUYS!” This time, Jaehyun was yelling.

“What?!” Johnny yelled back, clearly irritated.

“The blood… on the mirror… it’s fresh…” Jaehyun spluttered.

Attention turned to the mirror in time to watch another droplet of blood patter down to the floor.

Haechan let out an ear piercing scream.

“Where’s Taeil hyung?!” he cried.

This sent everyone into a frenzy, particularly Yuta who was determined that Taeil was hiding rather than admitting the fact that he was gone.

“Stay calm! I’m sure there is a rational explanation,” Doyoung tried, but his voice was shaking so much, almost no one believed it.

Taeyong took a shaky breath and counted down the members. Taeil was indeed missing.

“We need to try to find him. We’ll split up into teams of four,” Taeyong said.

He slipped the backpack off his back and pulled out two walkie talkies with full batteries.

He took one for himself and handed one to Doyoung before splitting ways with his companions, Johnny, Junwoo, and Yuta.

Taeyong led the group down the hallway they had been following, carefully watching the floor and walls for any signs of Taeil. He didn’t know whether to be thankful or terrified that there were none.

Jungwoo was practically glued to his back, whining if he became too far out of the youngers grasp.

Yuta was already a mess. Trembling and whimpering with practically every step. Taeyong could almost hear his rapid heartbeat as his desperate eyes drove over the walls, looking for anything that would lead him to his boyfriend.

All of the excitement seemed to have evaporated off Johnny now, replaced with a look of pure terror and self-loathing that Taeyong almost wanted to wipe off his face. But the sick part was, he found Johnny’s mood justified.

“HELP ME!” Taeil’s voice screamed down the hall, rattling off the tattered walls.

“TAEIL!” Yuta screamed, tearing through the hallway, or trying to at least.

Taeyong’s fingers snagged around Yuta’s empty beltloops and held him in an iron grip he didn’t know he possessed.

Yuta squirmed in his grip, Taeyong’s fingers burning with the movements, not that Yuta cared at the present.

“Let me go!” he shrieked.

Taeyong was at a loss. Jungwoo was clinging to his left arm, refusing to let go. Yuta was struggling against Taeyong’s grip, practically ripping the joints from their sockets. Johnny stood stiff as a board, eyes staring off down the hall, glazed over.

“HELP ME!” Taeil’s voice shrieked again.

Yuta let out a loud wail as he struggled to free himself from Taeyong’s fingers, his feet scuffing at the dusty red rug thrown across the floor, kicking it up in large wrinkles until the movement eventually had him face planting into the worn rug, dust particles immediately sprouting into the air.

Jungwoo’s sensitive nose rattled off the walls as his body shook and convulsed by the force of his sneezes, snot blobs springing from his nose to plop gracelessly on Taeyong’s arm. In a crazed rush, Taeyong shoved Jungwoo’s still convulsing body into Johnny’s stiff one as he tore the fabric of his own sleeve to wipe away the disgusting residue of dust.

As Jungwoo’s body collided with Johnny’s the taller male was ripped from the grip of his stupor, arms wrapping protectively around the younger’s waist, steadying him before pulling the other’s shirt over his nose in an attempt at creating a filter between the dust and Jungwoo.

Another scream tore through the hallway, but this time, it wasn’t Taeil’s voice.

Doyoung led his group the opposite direction of Taeyong’s. There had been a narrow hallway that bridged off from what was presumably the main hallway. This hallway was much thinner. The walls were separated by a few yards. As Doyoung led the way, his flashlight barely provided much light in the pitch black. His shoulders brushed against both walls, making him shutter every time his clothed arm touched a paint-chipped dip.

Haechan huddled as close to Doyoung as he could get, practically tripping on the elder’s heels, his arms wrapped tightly around his hyungs middle, his heart beating rapidly in his chest. He shined the light against the walls, hoping the clarity would calm his racing mind and open his lungs that had seemed to collapse on themselves.

“It’s ok Hyuckie,” Mark called quietly, a large hand splaying across Haechan’s back, rubbing small circles with his fingers.

It helped that there were others there. The warm body pressed against his chest. The soothing hand against his back calmed him down only slightly. But when that hand suddenly vanished, Hyuck was left shuttering.

“Hyung?” his voice shook at the question.

The other grunted in response and Haechan felt his heart jump into his throat in relief. But the hand wasn’t replaced.

The group toddled along until Doyoung’s leading feet collided with sheetrock. Haechan collided against his back and another body collide against his.

“Oof, hyung, get off me!” he whined in protest at the weight pressing him against Doyoung.

There was a muffled apology and scuffling feet as the body lifted off Haechan’s back, allowing the youngest to back off Doyoung just enough for the male to get himself off the wall.

Jaehyun shined his flashlight against the white wall that was suddenly in front of them, coming out of nowhere. And if Doyoung hadn't turned his head to the right and faced a dooming blackness, he’d have assumed they were trapped at a dead end.

The sharpness of the curve wasn’t expected, and sent a chill down Doyoung’s spine as his flashlight skidded across the dusty red carpet, ensuring that they were indeed headed down another dark hallway rather than dropping into a random pit.

Haechan’s grip on Doyoung tightened as the male took a tentative step into the hallway, his blood running cold at the creak of a floorboard under the other’s weight.

“Be careful hyung,” Jaehyun’s whispered voice was right in his ear.

Haechan shivered away, the hairs on the back of his neck standing up at Jaehyun’s deep voice rattling around in his brain, confusion clouding his mind.

Doyoung hummed in response, focusing solely on stepping on the floor as if the floor could shatter in seconds. Haechan didn’t want to think about how possible that was.

The whole group jumped, Haechan clinging to both hyungs in fear as a familiarly, loud scream echoed off the walls.

“Mark?” there was Jaehyun’s voice again.

And suddenly, Haechan knew why he’d been confused.

“... Mark hyung is gone…” his voice was weak with trembles as tears welled up in the ducts of his eyes.

Taeil’s back hit the wall with a quiet thud, the icy hand on his forearm squeezing tightly as he watched in horror as red letters were spelled out on the mirror, the wound on his thigh still drizzling small spurts of blood, but not enough to be alarming. Not enough to really be… anything.

He was confused.

The freakishly cool body had brushed against his back and tugged him off into the darkness, a bony hand wrapped tightly around his mouth, forcing any cry for help back into his chapped lips. A raspy voice whispered something hoarsely against his ear, trembles tingling down his spine in fear before he passed out.

The wound on his thigh was there when he’d awoken. It looked horrible. Like a stabbed gash. But upon tearing away the fabric of his pants, he found a gash, not much deeper than a small cut, but it admittedly hurt like hell.

A dark figure came into view, soundless footsteps falling on the carpet as the figure approached and a screaming plea tore itself from his throat.

Yuta grumbled unhappily, his body squished and exposed in ways that would make Mark blush in shame. His stomach pressed in on itself at the odd angle, legs dangling uselessly below him.

His body jolted suddenly, pain searing through his ribs at the weight of his body slamming into the solid surface.

“Yah! I’m not a sack of rice!” he protested angrily, slapping at the rigid back.

“Well if you’d stop squirming, maybe it’d be easier to walk!” Johnny snapped back, a hand slapping against the others thigh.

Yuta let out a loud yell and glared at the floor.

“Stop it you two. The last thing we need is for someone else to disappear,” Taeyong hissed through a whisper.

Ever since they’d heard the second scream, they’d been trying to place who it was. All they knew for sure was, either someone else was in the asylum with them, or another member of their group had gone missing. None of them were ready to face any of those options.

Johnny’s foot collided with something hard and movable. It crunched beneath his feet, a sickening crack rattling in his stomach as his legs flew out from under him, the extra body on his shoulder tempting gravity far too much as his plush bum collided with the ground, the floor groaning in response.

A hiss poured from his lips, Yuta’s now writhing body rolling from his shoulder, curling into a ball to clutch at his center. Johnny could faintly see the glisten of tears in his eyes from the glow of Taeyong’s flashlight as Jungwoo knelt down to nurse the male.

Johnny felt bad. Well, he almost felt bad. It was at the brink of building until his eyes fell on the tarnished white walls, his pupils freezing over the words clawed out in crooked, jagged piques, mixing with the paint and sheetrock. His blood chilled and he swore his heart stopped for a moment before clanging loudly in his ears.

“J-Jungwoo… how are you feeling?” he asked shakily, his eyes never leaving the markings on the wall.

“I’m fine hyung, why?” the male asked.

Johnny could feel Taeyong’s gaze burning a hole in the back of his head.

“Jungwoo, don’t leave Yuta’s side, OK?” he urged.

“What the hell is going on?” Taeyong asked, more than a little irritated and frightened.

Johnny had no words for the sight his eyes refused to leave. All his words had seemed to dry up completely now. He simply pointed.

Taeyong put a hand on Johnny’s shoulder to brace himself as he knelt down. A gasp rushing from his lips as his eyes landed on it.

Jungwoo

The lone name was scrawled into the wall like a desperate plea of a sharp nailed child in one last attempt at calling out.

“Shit.”

The word seemed to fall out of nowhere.

A shiver ran through Johnny’s back. That wasn’t any of their voices.

“Let’s keep mo- Jungwoo!”

The boy whose name appeared on the wall was suddenly pressing himself against the wall for support. Choked coughs tearing painfully from his throat and a smell wafting through to Taeyong’s nose. But it was too late.

With drooping eyes, Taeyong’s knees began to crumble, unable to support his weight any longer, rather, falling on top of Johnny, both body’s colliding lifelessly to the dusty floor.

Coughs continued to tear from Jungwoo’s throat as he struggled to keep his eyes open, clutching at Yuta’s limp arm before his whole world faded to black, his body slamming against the red carpet, eyes long rolled into the back of his head.

Doyoung’s breathing came out slow and erratic. Particles of what was hopefully dust swarming the air around him as the narrow walls pressed closer, making it unable to walk straight any longer.

Haechan whimpered beside him. His shoulders pressed between Jaehyun and Doyoungs as they shimmied their way down the hallway. Doyoung’s back was pressed flush against one wall, the opposite wall a foot away from his head now.

“Breath Haechan,” Jaehyun instructed.

Doyoung turned to look at the youngest, his heart clenching at the sight.

Haechan was a mess. His breathing uneven and choppy. His eyes shifting around and his body trembling. Doyoung could imagine his heart was likely also beating painfully against his ribs.

It was a well known fact that Haechan was painfully claustrophobic. He also had a fear of horror movies. And this damn well felt like they were sucked into the middle of one.

Haechan clenched his fingers around Jaehyun’s hand, trying desperately to calm himself down, but that task didn’t get any easier as he suddenly heard creaks in the floor, getting closer and louder.

“Hyung!” Haechan cried, burying his face in Doyoung’s shoulder until the creaking stopped.

“Shh, it’s ok Haechan,” Doyoung whispered softly.

He shined the light of the flashlight down the hallway as let out a deep rush of air as the light hit a wall expanding the narrow hallway.

“Come on, the wall expands back here,” he whispered, itching himself down the wall.

When they finally broke from the narrow hallway, they all felt the air become more open and easier to breath. The air that had stuffed itself in the swell of Haechan’s chest rushed out greedily as he took a few cleansing breaths.

It was pitch black. Even with the flashlights, none of them could see much in front of them. The glow of the lights licked at the inky shadows, but to no avail, simply revealing minuscule secrets of whatever room they were in.

Feeling more confident, Haechan used his own torch light to look around, never leaving his spot between Doyoung and Jaehyun, hand still grasped in Jaehyun’s.

As his light glowed, they fell on a pair of black shoes that he immediately recognized.

“It’s Mark!” he cried, shining the flashlight up the thin legs.

Something felt off as the light trailed up the body. The stature seemed too small and frail to be Mark’s, but Haechan wasn’t going to chase away his own relief.

The light glided over a tiny torso and up fragile arms. That didn’t seem like Mark either, except for the way the arms were crossed over one another almost awkwardly.

Haechan had Jaehyun and Doyoung’s attention. Six eyes trailing up the figure of Mark, checking him for injuries and finding none.

Up a taunt chest and sunken in collar bones.

He looked fine. No injuries. Maybe he’d found a trap door that led him to the room where he’d been waiting for them.

Up narrow face.

A scream ripped from Haechan’s throat. Doyoung let out his own shriek and Jaehyun’s high pitched wails blended horribly with the others.

Piercing red stared directly at them, unblinking, from their friend that shouldn’t be here.

Ten’s red eyes and sunken in state had Doyoung and Jaehyun sprinting from the room, clabbering over themselves, uncaring what the sickening crunching under their feet was or the scraping of metal. They didn’t even pay any attention to the groaning close.

Doyoung’s hand hit a slightly ajar door and he burst through it, Jaehyun following him as they were once again swallowed up by darkness.

“Oh my God,” Doyoung whispered hoarsely.

Jaehyun grunted in response, resting his hands on his knees in an attempt at catching his breath.

A terrified scream startled them both before all was eerily silent. And it was at that moment, that they realized their fatal mistake.

Haechan’s mortified scream still hanging in their ears as Doyoung’s chest tightened.

He’d left the maknae.

Mark opened his eyes into a gray blackness that had his head fuzzy and flittering. Where was he? Was this heaven? He felt so soft. Pillows under his head, blankets delicately draped over him.

A scream broke through the silence of the room and he sat up, eyes snapping back open. He didn’t realize he’d shut them. The bed disappeared, replaced with wet concrete and the smell of sewage. An anger yell snagged his attention once again and the soggy concrete was replaced with pure, fuzzy darkness once again as a familiarly deep voice tendered his ears and calmed his mind.

Johnny’s eyes flew open, staring up at a high ceiling covered in cobwebs that shined in the light of the flashlight. He took the flashlight and sighed as he sat up, his joints stiff from his time on the floor.

How long had he been out?

“Guys?” he asked, shining the light around to where Taeyong, Yuta, and Jungwoo once were.

He gaped as they were nowhere to be seen.

His heart stilled. Eyes frozen over in terror as a realization flashed through his mind.

“I got them killed…”

There was no point in running anymore. His eyes were drawn to the red carpet once again. But now, there was a trail of blood right where Yuta had been laying, heavily pouring further down the hallway like a river.

“No…”

He fell back against the floor. The carpet scratching uncomfortably against his skin, but he couldn’t bring himself to care anymore. He only had one person left to live for. And he didn’t deserve him.

Johnny was a murdered. His stupid idea had gotten his friends killed and now, he was left with one person to answer to. A person he’d never be able to look in the eye again. A person wearing all black. A person with dark red eyes. A person carrying Haechan’s lifeless body.

Wait what?!

“Do you see what you’ve done?” Ten hissed, standing over Johnny menacingly.

Johnny gulped. Why was Ten here? What happened to him?

“Congratulations,” the sneer was nasty.

It had Johnny nearly crippled with the gripping ice of the voice.

Tiny arms dropped Haechan’s body to the floor, watching it land with a hard slap against the carpet, his head merely moving with the force of the fall.

Johnny almost couldn’t bring himself to look at the maknae, tears welling in his eyes.

His eyes were open, dinged over in deep gray, gone, cold, dead. His clothes were covered in blood stemming from the long gash around his throat.

Tears fell from Johnny’s eyes.

“Do you have anything to say for yourself?” Ten’s voice hissed.

Johnny gulped as he clutched Haechan’s cold hand.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“You should be.”

The voice wasn’t Ten’s.

Johnny’s eyes widened again in horror as Haechan’s eyes shifted to glare at him, eyes turning as red as Ten’s.

“You killed us,” Ten growled above them.

Haechan stood up as if he wasn’t dead moments ago, effortlessly.

“And now you share our fate.”

Ten lifted his shirt and Johnny’s mind raced as his eyes caught side of the knife buried in Ten’s side. He watched the knife glide from the torn and bloodied skin and he wondered if this was how Ten had died. Slow and painful. But he didn’t have time to ponder this as the knife was plunged deep into Johnny’s chest before both bodies disappeared into dust.

Jaehyun’s knees hit the floor as he stared at the door they had just raced from. There was no sound. No creaking floors. No screaming. No whispering. No groaning. It was silent. Dead.

The thought had Jaehyun shaking as he reached out to grip Doyoung’s shirt, but his palm connected with something warm and wet instead.

“You killed him.” a voice echoed in his ears.

It was strangely familiar, but he couldn’t place it.

“You ran and left him there to die.”

Where the hell was that voice coming from.

“He sought you out for protection and you repay him with betrayal.”

Something cold pressed against his head and he froze. He knew that voice.

“I-I’m sorry!” he stammered.

“I don’t think you mean that,” the voice echoed again, the blade of the knife digging into the skin of his temple.

“Please! No! I thought he was with us!” he cried.

He felt something trickle down the side of his face, something warm and wet.

“Pathetic.”

The knife disappeared from his head as a boot clad foot pressed itself against his back and shoved him forward in the darkness. His hand collided with something warm before light flooded his vision, temporarily blinding him before YangYang’s form came into view, red eyes just as piercing as Ten’s.

He didn’t know what happened. Watching Doyoung flail around in terror struck a cord deep within his heart and he couldn’t stop his actions. Xiaojun’s red eyes staring directly into Doyoung’s, knife pressed against the vocalists throat, and he couldn’t take it.

With the press of a button, the pitch black room brightened into a blinding white light that took his eyes a while to adjust too.

“Well that was anticlimactic,” one of them whined, but he couldn’t be bothered to care who.

“Did you really have to cut me?” another voice whined.

“Taeil?” Doyoung’s voice quivered.

Doyoung jumped as hands pressed themselves into the softness of his back as he turned, alarmed to stare at whoever was touching him, only to be met with kind, honey brown eyes that he loved so much. His eyes welled with tears as he lunged for the male, wrapping his arms around him tightly as the door opened again.

“He fainted,” Haechan cackled, half carrying, half dragging a limp Johnny through the corridor and into the room with the cells.

Ten walked close behind, helping carry his boyfriend, guilt nagging at his gut at the terrified expression still on the taller’s face.

“Is he ok?”

Jaehyun looked around frantically, confused as to why suddenly, everyone was in the same space, safe, in the light.

His eyes first landed on Taeil, who’s body was pressed closely on a soft-looking bed with an unconscious Yuta, a tight bandage wrapped around the Japanese males ankle. Taeil brushed his fingers through the males hair, smiling fondly down at him as he stroked over his face with the pads of his fingers.

His eyes drifted over to Mark, who was leaning against a worried and guilty looking Lucas. Mark’s facial expression was somewhere between confused, sick, and delirious as the soft pink blanket draped delicately over his frame.

He caught sight of Haechan, who had flopped on a bed beside YangYang, an angry red welt around his neck surrounded by blood, but upon further inspection, turned out to look more like crushed up cherries.

This was confusing. A mess. Why was everyone’s boyfriends suddenly here? What the hell was all of this.

Johnny’s eyes cracked open after a long half hour and he glanced around the room, eyes smiling happily at the reunited couples.

“Did we win?” he asked.

Ten opened his mouth to respond, a small smile on his lips as he carded his fingers through Johnny’s hair. His response was cut off as the door opened and a middle aged man with gray hair walked in.

“Congratulation NCT and WayV. For participating in this years “horror film” with such a realistic experience, you are all hereby granted a two week vacation from any and all responsibilities along with a full trip blank plane ticket for each of you.”

The males voice was dull and anticlimactic, but as Johnny and Ten looked around the room at the shocked faces of the 127 members, all the guilt he felt putting them through such a horrifying adventure was worth it.

[pynkhues]

I love brio and I've read almost every fic on ao3. I've made little notes here and there of some fics that I would like to write, but I've never wrote anything like fan fiction. I can think up scenes in my head, but I just can't seem to get it out on paper. What are some tips you can give me to help? Because I would really love to write, i just dont even know where to start?

Hi, anon! And how cool! Welcome to the wonderful world of writing. :-) 

My advice on how to start – as wishy-washy as it sounds – is always just to start. Pick up a pen, or open a word document, and just start throwing words together. See what comes out, and try not to edit or self-police as you write, particularly when you’re just starting out. It’ll cripple you creatively – gosh, it still does sometimes for me, and I’ve been writing for over 15 years.

A good way to try this out is to set a timer for fifteen minutes or half an hour, and just free-write – so just write, and don’t let yourself re-read any of it until the timer bings. Give yourself the space to write words – some will be good, a lot probably terrible, but you can always make bad words better. 

You can’t make nothing better. 

And look, I’m going to maintain that that’s the most important piece of advice here, haha, but I get that that sort of advice can also be sometimes frustrating to people who are looking for more structure, so hey!

Here’s some more meat-and-potatoes advice too.

(Put behind a cut to not eat your feeds!)

Plotting a story in three questions

Building a plot really comes down to asking three questions: 

1. What does your character want? 

2. What’s standing in their way stopping them from getting what they want? 

3. How will they overcome this to get what they want? 

It might sound basic, but it forms really the backbone of every story. Take the Harry Potter series for instance, for which these questions are crucial. 

1. What does your character want? 

Harry wants a family.

2. What’s standing in their way stopping them from getting what they want? 

Voldemort is a direct threat to the new family Harry’s found. A threat he feels acutely because Voldemort murdered his original family.

3. How will they overcome this to get what they want? 

Harry will do anything to save this new, found family – the stakes of which escalates with every book. 

Of course, stories are more than this too – they’re themes and settings and arcs and dialogue, and character motivation tangles up in those things which means that the story world appears to expand well beyond those three questions I listed above. After all, Voldemort’s never just a threat to Harry’s family, he is for the whole world, right? But the thing is the threat to the world is never what drives Harry through the story, and therefore isn’t what drives the story overall. 

The plot is always the threat to Hogwarts and the life and family Harry’s found there.

Good Girls is exactly the same. 

1. What does your character want?

Beth, Ruby and Annie want to provide for their children. 

2. What’s standing in their way stopping them from getting what they want?

All three of them are in dire financial situations because Dean’s lost everything, Sara needs a transplant and expensive medication, and Annie can’t pay for her son’s needs. 

3. How will they overcome this to get what they want?

They’re going to get into crime and make enough money to save themselves and their children. 

The answers to these questions can change and evolve too – after all, the ‘what’ has certainly grown more complicated for Beth, Ruby and Annie across the show’s run, but those changes should evolve out of plot progression aka cause and effect. 

Beth’s original want was for financial stability for her children, and she still wants that, but she wants more than that now too – something that has been explored through the instability of her circumstances, and her growing attraction to power after having lived a powerless life.

So let’s talk about cause and effect a little more.

Cause and Effect

With those questions in mind, it’s important to remember that the way a story takes shape should be a sort of domino effect of cause and effect. Scenes aren’t placed together in a haphazard order. They’re not stacked on top of each other like three children in a trenchcoat! One scene should always cause the next, and that scene should lead onto the next, and so on, and so on. 

The enemy of good storytelling is ‘and then’. 

So when you write a scene, don’t think ‘now what happens?’

Look at what you’ve written and say ‘okay, what does what I’ve written here mean? What is the fallout of this? What is going to happen to these characters and this story now given what I’ve just written?’

This is also a good way to reverse engineer a story (and something I often do!) If you have a scene in your head, but you know it’s a middle scene, or an ending to something, ask yourself what happened that made that scene happen. 

In one of my most recent standalone fics, Drive You Mad (wear me out), I actually started with two scenes in my head – one where Beth and Rio were soaking wet for a mystery reason I didn’t know yet, haha, and the fact that it lead to them having sex in his car, and I had a vague idea that I wanted it to be  related to a crime job. 

Similarly with the pornstar!AU! I just wanted Beth and Rio to make a porno, haha, but I wanted it to feel like a genuine choice for these characters, so I needed to think of authentic reasons that would put them in that room, opposite each other, about to throw it all to the wind and bone on camera. 

I reverse engineered  both these stories by just asking myself ‘but why did this happen?’ What choices did these characters make to get them here? How did Beth and Rio end up soaking wet? Why would they have sex in that car? What would get somebody like Beth to shoot porn? What would make somebody like Beth connect emotionally with somebody like Rio in this AU (and y’know what? It was the exact same thing as in canon – a combination of parenthood and validation).

In other words, your story should never say this happened and then this happened, it should always say this happened and so this happened. 

Agency

Every character in your story should make choices. Good choices, bad choices, choices they think are not choices at all (because never forget - you always choose to do nothing. Nothing is never thrust upon you). 

Your characters are what drive your story forwards, and they drive your story forwards by making choices, not by standing still and waiting for the story to come to them. And look, it’s great if they make the right one, but it’s so much more fun (and opens up so many and so possibilities!) when they make the wrong one.

Grounding Your Story

Grounding stories in a place or a space is something I think a lot of new and emerging writers struggle with, and it was something I was really, really bad at when I started writing and worked really hard to get better at. Characters should never be interacting in vacuums. We don’t exist in them after all. 

Stories come alive when characters are engaging with spaces, or when those spaces are utilised effectively. Horror does this especially well, but a lot of other stories do too (again, Harry Potter is actually a great example of this!)

This is something Good Girls pretty consistently does fabulously too – think of any of their heists for starters, but particularly the one in 1.01. Settings can open up and close and add conflict and provide release. Use them! Think about them! I can guarantee you’ll become a better writer for it.

When I was really struggling with this area, I got some incredible advice that I still use to this day from Kim Wilkins, a gothic fantasy and horror author from my home town. She told me that when I start writing a new scene, go through the five senses - what can your character see, smell, taste, touch, hear. Write all of it. Then pick the best two descriptions, and dump the rest. 

Then think about the function of those descriptions. Okay, so the character’s in a park and can hear the metal whine of a rusty swingset. Does the chain link snap? Harming their child? Or maybe they can hear thunder in the distance while they’ve been trying to have a romantic anniversary picnic! Do they make it to the car in time? How does that affect their dynamic? Does it lead to a passionate make out in the rain? Or a furious fight in it? (Notice how this is all cause and effect too?)

These descriptions don’t always have to lead to a plot point – sometimes they can be reflective of an emotional state – an oncoming storm can foreshadow an oncoming fight between characters as much as it can lead to those characters getting caught in it after all – and sometimes it can just be for atmosphere too! 

All of this serves though to build your story into something evocative and grounded for the reader, plus it can be really fun to play around with. 

Love it or have fun! Try for both, but never have neither. 

Sometimes writing is a slog. 

Sometimes you sit down for a session and want to pluck your own eyelashes out because the story’s not working or the words aren’t flowing or you know your characterisation is falling flat, but there’s a difference between not enjoying a writing session, and not enjoying writing overall.

Writing can be really hard work sometimes, and when it is, you either need to love it, and love the story you’re trying to tell, or you need to move on to something else. 

That can be your silly, fun crack fic that evades all logic and you just straight up enjoy writing, or it can be something that isn’t writing at all. 

You’ve got to make it work for you – and if you don’t love it, and you aren’t having fun? It’s not worth it. 

You can take a break and come back to it, or you can take a break and never come back to it. Just do what’s right for you. 

Don’t get turned off by The Gap

Ira Glass describes this perfectly in this interview, and it’s something I always recommend to people starting out. Writing is, like practically everything else, a trade. It’s something you grow and develop and should never stop growing and developing and learning about. 

Writing though I think is also something that’s really easy to give up when you feel like you aren’t immediately good at it, and, well - - 

I think he says it better than I ever could:

[thesaltyoceanwaves]

The One to Make It Stay Ending Cards (SCBB, ToW, WHM, TRSP, AtLWHitP)

I’ve been thinking lately of how I’d change the ending cards we get at the ending of each episode. I can’t draw though, so take my summaries instead. Some of these will be more specific than others. 

I’m only covering material from Silence Can Be Beautiful up through the end of All the Laughs We Had in the Past, including Paper Sky chapters. Once ABoES is done, I’ll do a separate one for that. Any arc after that will also get its own post. I’m doing this in rough chronological order.

Chameleon/I Can Get Out of This + I Can Get Out of Here

Since this arc of the story is told through Rose’s POV, she's going to be getting a a spot in both of these cards (since I’m ideally seeing this as a two-parter).

This: Focuses of Rose receiving the message from Ali. She’s shocked and outraged. The other half of the card shows Marinette being comforted by Kitty Section (primarily Luka and Juleka).

Here: Kitty Section heading off into the sunset, with Marinette in the middle. Alya walks off with Lila, while Mylene and Alix look on in disappointment.

Silencer/Replay

I don’t imagine that this ending card would need a lot of changes. The only thing that would have to go in this case is Chat Noir, and I would change him to something else, like Marinette’s artwork for Kitty Section, just to foreshadow the change in relationships for the AU. Fitting though, since this episode was what brought this AU to fruition.

Animaestro/Reanimate

By contrast, this ending card would need to change dramatically. Chloe, Adrien and Kagami are all getting cut, since they aren’t the focus here. Instead, we get Jagged meeting Luka and Marinette, and Ivan, Rose and Juleka helping cater the event, all of them wearing their maid (Marinette and Juleka) and butler (Rose, Ivan and Luka) uniforms. Oh, and I guess Thomas Astruc can still stay, but he’ll be in the background somewhere. It’s a statement about him and canon not really being relevant or something.

Oblivio/Remember

Another dramatically different card. Hawkmoth smirking can stay, since it can give off that ominous bit of foreshadowing. However, Luka and Marinette looking at each other happily will replace the kiss between Chat and Ladybug. Alya will look at her tablet excitedly as she shares with Adrien and Nino. Nino looks indifferent while Adrien looks hopeful. 

Puppeteer 2/Don’t Worry, Be Happy

No akumatization this time around, so the Puppeteer is getting cut. This time, we get Ladybug confronting an angry Alya and a saddened Chat. On the other half of the card, there’s Luka and Marinette walking with Manon between the two of them, holding her hands.

Hearing Only Yourself

The first of the interlude chapters, so I get to envision the card from scratch.

Statue Adrien standing in the middle, with Alya and Marinette on either side of him. They have that anime static-like glare going on at eye level as they confront each other. It’s exaggerated because this is Adrien’s POV.

Backwarder/yppaH eB, yrroW t’noD

Alya in a corner, alone and upset about the fight. Marinette happily chatting with Juleka and Rose at the pool, while Marianne reads the letter Fu wrote her. Fu looks contemplative.

Reflekdoll/Don’t Worry, It’s a Great Idea

Well, there’s no kwami swap in this version, so that’s out. Instead, Reflekdoll sits on her throne, watching everything unfold, while Ruby looks on with a regretful expression. Chat has his back turned and Luka looks serious.

Weredad/Don’t Worry, We’ll Figure it Out

On one side of the card is Viperion and Ladybug standing back to back, looking confident and in tune with each other. On the other hand, Luka and Marinette stand facing toward each other, but aren’t looking directly at each other.

Desperada/Don’t Worry, Things Are Working Out

So once again, there’s no Kagami or Adrien in the new version of the card. However, we finally get a kiss from our main couple! That’s taking center stage tbh. Vivica will be a more prominent figure, being escorted back home by Colette and Mirielle, the latter of which looks wary about everything that just unfolded. 

The Evening Mist Melts Away

Luka and Marinette walking toward one side of the card, while Lila looks on with an irritated expression.

The Hour Glass is Drifting Away

Nino staring down at his phone as Ladybug leaves, waiting to send a message to Alya about what he’s just heard.

Stage Fright/Drove Down to the Shoreline

Kitty Section performing on stage, which takes up the middle. On one side, there’s Mirielle looking contemplative, while Stage Fright’s eyes look sharp and irritable.

Beach Bum/Hey Shoreline, Take Me Far Away

Beach Bum relaxing on the beach, while Ladybug, Viperion, Mousketeer and Taureau all stand on top of his sand castle. 

It’s Gonna Feel So Rare

Pretty straightforward - Ladybug leaping into action, but the focus is on Mouseketeer and Taureau Furieux, nervous but excited to help.

I Owe You Every Joy of Love

Alya looking nervous, staring out the window as she prepares herself to talk with Ladybug. Lila on the other side, looking rather pleased with herself, not aware of what is about to happen.

Stormy Weather 2/I Remember When Things Were Easier

The recurring theme of this post is that the tone of most of these cards don’t fit their AU counterparts. And wow, what a stark difference these next few cards will be.

Anyway, Aurore calms herself down with a cup of tea or chatting with some friends. Meanwhile, Chloe watches Ladybug zip off, and is not happy about it. 

When the Dream’s So Real

Jagged with his back to the frame, walking side by side along Penny and Ruby, happily chatting about future plans for his pupils.

Miracle Queen/I Remember All the Second Chances

Marinette crying while Luka holds her. Fu looking worried about everything that’s unfolded. Adrien with his back to the frame, although you can see him touching his lips with his fingers. Chloe also has her back to the frame. Alternatively, it can be Miracle Queen, eyes widened as she realized what she’s done. 

You Smile Like an Angel

Rose and Juleka holding each other while they cry. Tigresse averting her gaze as she’s realized she’s failed her mission.

Feast/I Remember Our Promise

A shot revealing the tattoo created by the ritual. Feline Fatale standing rather meancingly. Adrien with the butterfly outline over his eyes, not quite akumatized yet.

Don’t Step Over My Head

Hawkmoth standing alongside Feline Fatale, who is now in plain view. Half of Adrien is his civilian self, crying out in horror, the other half is Space Patrol, who is wearing his cat-shaped helmet, thus his expression cannot be seen.

Space Patrol/I Remember How Things Used to Be

Space Patrol takes the place of Chat Blanc in the new version of this card, still with that contrast with Hawkmoth, while the supporting heroes stand in for Bunnyx. Lastly, we have Ladybug in her new armor holding hands with Viperion, while Marinette and Luka share a slow dance on the boat.

My World is Wishing Me Asleep

Fitting that Alya’s Interlude is the one to start the arc, and that Adrien’s is the one to close off on it. As such, I think his card should parallel hers. So he looks nervous because now he doesn’t know what to expect going forward. He no longer has Plagg, and doesn’t know what to expect. Meanwhile, Hawkmoth takes Lila’s role, smiling menacingly as things are now going according to plan for him. 

[syubology]

How to Start Writing

A lot of questions I’ve gotten over the past few years have been to do with actually starting to write, putting those first words down. Sometimes it’s people who used to write and are daunted by the task of getting back into it, other times it’s brand new writers, just tiny word-gremlins brimming with untapped inspiration, lacking the cynicism induced by years.. decades of having your life ruled by imaginary creatures.

At the end of the day, the only tried and tested tip for starting to write is WRITE, but I will try to provide you with a few others for the sake of appearances.

🌙

1. Start Small.

Maybe you’re incredibly imaginative and you have this entire fantasy series in your head just ready to be put on paper, but... try not to rush into it. When I started writing first, every idea I had was for a novel, but I didn’t actually have the skills (and still don't) to complete a novel, so this led to a string of failed projects, which is not good for the delicate soul of a tiny word-gremlin.

If you do have a big idea you love, I would suggest writing smaller stories, with simpler plots, based in that universe - for example, you could use a prompt list/generator (Google them, they’re everywhere) and adapt those prompts to your universe. If your story is some epic sci-fi horror series and the prompts are about funfair dates, it could make for quite an interesting time. These exercises will allow you to work on your characters and your world, while giving you time to build the skills you need to one day develop the story into something bigger.

If you want to work on fan-fiction specifically, fluffy drabbles are your friend. You can start NSFW if you really want to, but I don’t advise it. Some people find smut comes easiest to them, but for me - and most writers I know - sex is one of the hardest things to write. Again, you can try prompt generators (like this OTP one here) or check places like Twitter for AU ideas - although, if you’re planning to post/share your story, do not use other people’s AU ideas without their permission!

2. Read! Watch! Consume!

Consuming other media is literally one the most important things for writers and new writers in particular. Watching/reading casually is a great way to spark some inspiration, but if you find something you really love, something that makes you think I wish I wrote this, then I suggest going over it again with a more critical eye. Focus on the character development, the plot, the aesthetics - try to pinpoint the aspects of it that really make it resonate with you. Low-stress exercises like this will also help you learn more about storytelling in general without actually putting much effort in, so it’s win-win.

3. Adjust Your Expectations.

Understand that creative writing, especially on the scale of a novel, is a skill which needs to be developed. Just because you got good grades in English class does not automatically mean you’re going to be an excellent writer, and just because you’re not an excellent writer now doesn’t mean you never will be. No one picks up a paintbrush for the first time and expects to create a masterpiece. Artists of all sorts work hard for years to hone their craft and develop their style, and writers are no exception to this. You will not be good overnight and half the stuff you write in your first year, you probably won’t be able to read by next year because it will make you cringe so hard - but that’s not a bad thing! This means you’ve improved so much that even you can see it and getting a writer to acknowledge their own growth is no simple feat.

4. PRACTICE, but maybe not too hard?

There’s no such thing as I can’t write, or I can’t draw, or I can’t ride a bike. You can - with practice. You should know what your goals are with your writing and adjust your practice based on this. Do you just wanna spend one or two evenings a week writing about your OTP/OCs on cute dates? That’s fine, work at your own pace, and don’t force yourself to write if you’re not feeling it. Are you angling for a six-figure book deal? Then you write till your eyes bleed, my fren, you write till your bones are empty and your laptop keyboard is talking back to you.

That said, you do need to know when to stop. Creative burnout (which is a big cause of writer’s block) is real and it is horrible. Practice isn’t always a blast, but it should never be torture. Maybe you need that six-figure book deal more than you need life itself (big mood), but you also need to sleep, friend, you also need to do some things that aren’t writing or you will lose your goddamn mind.

5. Bonus: Write Because You Want to Write.

I’ve used the artist/drawing analogy several times because over the years in fandom, I’ve seen quite a few people start writing simply because they ‘can’t draw’ and writing seems like a good alternative. While I don’t enjoy the common misconception that being a good writer is easier than being a good artist, I’m not saying those people are wrong. Everyone should dabble in the arts and see what their creative side has to offer - this might be how you find your true calling and that’s wonderful. Just understand that while writing comes a little easier to some, it’s not easy for anyone. There is a huge pressure in certain fandoms to create in order to feel included, so just make sure that you’re having fun with what you’re doing and not simply succumbing to that pressure.

A Final Note:

I’m not trying to shit on artists with all these analogies, I swear, I worship them as gods. Each artistic craft has its own skill-set and they can’t be fairly compared, but people to tend to understand how difficult drawing/painting is because we’ve all been forced to attempt it at one time or another; however, people rarely grasp just how difficult it can be to write a good story because they got A’s on their ‘My Summer Holidays’ essays in primary school. So, one last thing to keep in mind is this: artists have an abundance of tools and mediums at their disposal, and they can try their hand at each until they find one that suits them; writers only have words and must build worlds with them.

Thank you for reading! This is my first proper post like this, so I’m pretty nervous and a Libra, so I’d appreciate praise and validation. But! If you have any more questions about this post or suggestions for future posts, please shoot me an ask! You will not be annoying me - I wouldn’t have made this blog if I didn’t wanna help other writers - and there are no stupid questions!