#this is one of my favorite things ive written

[prince-liest]

hi princely! i was rereading through your 666 series and i wanted to ask if you have any tips for writing dialogue? its the one part of fiction ive always struggled with, i.e. making conversations flow naturally instead of sounding robotic. imo one of the most memorable aspects of your work is how real your dialogue feels

(also i was skimming your tumblr while writing this, im so sorry about your car that's genuinely insane??? and sorry if this is terrible timing aaa)

Hello! Thank you, but no worries, not terrible timing - I could use a distraction, haha.

When I started writing fanfiction, I actually really struggled with writing dialogue for a really specific reason, which was that I was really used to RP and felt like getting into the head and talking style of more than one character at a time felt like a lot of effort and something that I had to actively swap back and forth between. This is something that got much, much easier over time, and unfortunately the #1 tip I always have is that practice not only makes the quality of your writing better, but it also makes the process of writing much easier as you get used to things.

That said, specifically for natural-sounding dialogue, I tend to pay a lot of attention to how specific characters talk and try to mimic it. This came particularly naturally for me with Hazbin Hotel because the show is full of bombastic characters with really amazing voice actors and very specific styles of talking. When I write a particular character for the first time, I go back and watch various scenes that feature them, both generally and in different emotional states.

With a form of media like Hazbin, where I actually get to hear the characters speak, it honestly helps to just imagine them doing so in my head when I'm writing with whatever accent they have going on, too. Sound it out in your head: does it sound like something someone might naturally say? Why or why not? Adjust accordingly.

So, that's where I start! I diverge from there over time as my own interpretation of a character grows and changes, or I put them in different circumstances for different stories, so on and so forth. But For pretty much every fandom, it's always been very helpful for me to go back to the source material with the explicit goal of paying attention to characters' styles of speech, turns of phrase, and reactions. This is good not just for dialogue, but for characterization, especially for characters that tend to get pigeonholed into a particular archetype (for example, I frequently have to tone down how prim or "old-timey" Alastor sounds in my dialogue because he doesn't actually talk like that in canon despite the vibe of his reputation (and sometimes I don't bother, LOL)).

Last but not least, thank you very much! I'm really happy that you enjoy my dialogue. It's definitely one of my favorite things to write (if you couldn't tell by how many fics I've written that are basically two characters talking for extended periods of time), so it brings me joy to know that I succeed in making it enjoyable for others as well.

[ryker-writes]

This is kind of a crack request, but can I ask for Heartabyul, Savanaclaw, and Octavinelle having to babysit a furby for a week? How they get the furby I'll leave to you, but I just wanna see what chaos would unfold XD

I love this. I've never had a furby before but I've seen them and they are horrifying and cursed i love them

Request rules and Masterlists

warning: furby death

Set up: Crowley has decided that students should have to go through a lesson to test their skills as future parents. But we know Crowley, he isn't going to spend a lot of money on fake baby dolls that scream. Instead, he decided to purchase furbys, and have the students babysit them for a week...

Riddle:

he tries his best, and does decently well

like most school things, Riddle aims to do his best and be prepared

but this has an extra level of effort for him, because it's proving he can take care of another being

so he's going to do everything he can for the furby

he'll carry it everywhere with him and give it food, tea, attention, and it'll even study with him

and it goes pretty well

that is, until the furby breaks a rule

he'll scold it and it doesn't care, making Riddle more angry

in the end, the furby got a little burned (it did not survive), and so did the rest of Heartslabyul

Trey:

10/10 furby dad

the best furby dad on this list actually

for starters, his furby survives the week

Trey feeds it on time, talks to it, and even has a little bed for his furby

if the furby demands food in the middle of the night, he's getting up to feed it

it's starting to learn to talk too after he reads to it

but he starts to get a little tired after a few nights

so he's happy to hand the furby back to Crowley at the end of the week

Cater:

on magicam, the furby is thriving

in reality, it's being neglected

Cater takes all sorts of photos of him doing activities with his furby and taking care of it

he calls himself a great furby dad

but anytime the camera is not pointed towards the furby, it's left there sitting on it's own

if furbys could die of neglect, his would

but he's got to get those photos to look aesthetic ✨

it's all fun and games until he tries to get some photo's of the little guy playing in some water

...turns out furbys aren't supposed to get wet

Ace:

he tries at the beginning

in his mind, taking care of a furby should be easy peasy

he feeds it and everything

but the first night with the furby is, unfortunately, it's last

Ace had made it a decent bed on one of his shelves to sleep in

in the middle of the night, the shelf collapsed creating a loud noise that woke Ace up

the next thing he heard was his furby speaking gibberish

and the last thing the furby saw was a blast of magic headed straight for it

Deuce:

oh Deuce...

he tried his best to take care of the furby

but poor boy got the one furby that was actually creepy and potentially possessed

other Hearslabyul students have told him that they've heard it talking at night, but Deuce always sleeps through it

it doesn't help that half the furbys words came out garbled and in a very deep voice

still, Deuce is trying his best to take care of it and even learned to understand the garbled nonsense

Furby: GHIKASHUPAHiGNA

Deuce: okay I'll go get you some food

overall pretty good furby dad like the furby is pretty well taken care of

but he got to attached and didn't want to give it back to Crowley at the end of the week

Leona:

no way

there's no way he's going to take care of a furby

the first few times the furby asks for things, it simply gets ignored

but the more it talks and starts demanding things, the more he gets annoyed

he tries to hand it over to Ruggie, but Ruggie has his own furby to take care of

so he's stuck with the furby

he starts to get pretty good at blocking it out

but then the furby wakes him up during one of his naps

Leona has reached peak annoyance

that furby got its first and last flight lesson out Leona's window

Ruggie:

honestly he's not that interested in taking care of the furby

it's decently taken care of for a while

the furby gets fed and talked to regularly

the big problem arises when he visits Sam's shop

Sam just casually mentioned that they could be sold for a decent price

not expensive, but not totally cheap

either way money is money and Ruggie is all about money

his furby got sold immediately

Jack:

he wants to take care of his furby, he really does

but it freaks him out

he hates it's eyes and especially it's stare

Jack is so hesitant about even feeding it

anytime it speaks his ears perk up like he's startled

it was the middle of the night when he heard it

from the darkness of the room, it laughed

he just couldn't take it

at first he just tried to take the batteries out

but then it kept talking

and that furby got crushed to death

Azul:

it's a school assignment, so of course he's going to try his best

the furby gets well taken care of and even gets the VIP treatment

he has to admit, it kind of ruins his negotiations a little bit when the furby interrupts

"if you want that to come true, I can certainly make it happen. All you have to do is-"

"WEE-TAH-KAH-WEE-LOO"

but for some reason, this scared many of his victims customers into signing a contract

so he kept it around and actually started to make it work

he even taught it how to take orders

but then one day, the furby stopped working during one of their busy days

as much as Azul tried to change it's batteries and fix it, it just didn't work and the furby's eyes didn't open again

the furby had been worked to death

Jade:

another good furby dad...with a twist

Jade takes good care of his furby always making sure to feed it and give it attention

but he spends a lot of time teaching it things

the furby learns pretty quickly how to speak and some other things

in fact, it's probably the smartest furby of them all

so smart that it starts to take after Jade and pick up some if his traits and...hobbies

near the end of the week, the furby had disappeared

but Jade wasn't worried

because there was some rumors floating around about a growing furby mafia

Jade is such a proud dad

Floyd:

he has so much fun with his furby

it's such a fun and creepy guy

just like him :D

he brought the furby everywhere with him

so much so that the furby learned a word, and only one word

so when Floyd was annoyed with someone, the small furby voice beside him would chant

"Squeeze! Squeeze! Squeeze!"

the two practically became best friends who could never be separated

and I mean never

even when Floyd went for a swim in his mer-form, he held the little furby in his arms despite the furby having stopped moving

the poor furby had drowned in the arms of someone who loved it

Totals:

Furbys handed out - 11

Furbys returned - 1

[steddieasitgoes]

You Were All Yellow | written by steddieasitgoes | ao3 link 

For @thefreakandthehair​​ Spring Spicy Six Fanworks Challenge!. My prompt was “Yellow.” 

“Yellow!” Eddie shouts confidently, voice echoing throughout Steve’s crowded family room. “Stevie’s favorite color is yellow.”

Eddie waits for Steve’s confirmation but finds himself on the receiving end of shouting. Robin is yelling something about the color green. Max shouts back different shades of blue, and Dustin is elbows deep in a dissertation-style argument about why Steve’s favorite color is actually salmon pink. The others are loud in their own right, arguing over who wins the point in their impromptu “Who Knows Steve Best” game and the privilege of riding shotgun in the Beamer for an entire month.

It’s total chaos, but the loudest person in the room is Steve, who hasn’t uttered a word since the simple question was asked.

Everyone is so busy debating, no one pays any attention to Eddie as he collapses on the couch beside Steve. It takes a quick elbow to Steve’s ribs to get him to focus on Eddie, but it’s worth it when those big hazel eyes land on him.

“It is yellow, right?” Eddie asks, suddenly feeling bashful.

It has to be, Eddie thinks.

An entire side of Steve’s closet is sectioned off for yellow shirts and sweaters. Steve’s favorite bath towel is a worn yellow one falling apart at the seams. He drinks out of a yellow smiley face mug every morning, and he only eats yellow candy when given the chance.

And that’s just the obvious things.

Eddie’s taken note of the way Steve gravitates towards yellow items when he’s flipping through the department store catalogs he gets in the mail. Passes over the blues and greens for the pale and banana yellow options. He always reaches for the yellow highlighter when they’re studying together and doesn’t hesitate to grab the yellow game piece on board game nights.

There’s also the way Steve’s face lights up whenever Eddie walks around the house in one of his yellow sweatshirts — but Eddie tries not to let that cloud his judgment.

It’s honestly fitting, Eddie thinks.

Yellow is a rare favorite color, and Steve’s a rare form of perfection.

“I mean, I hadn’t thought much about it,” Steve admits, startling Eddie from his thoughts.

Eddie fidgets with the strings on the yellow sweatshirt he’s borrowed from Steve to keep from squirming under the weight of Steve’s eyes. He feels them scan Eddie from toe to head, lingering on his torso where the oversized yellow sweatshirt swallows Eddie whole. For a maddening moment, Eddie thinks Steve wants to swallow him whole too, but the thought disappears when Steve tears his eyes away from him.

“But yeah, I think uh, I think you’re right. There’s just something about yellow.”

Or:

It's the Spring of 1986 and Vecna is dead. Spring is in full effect. The flowers are blooming, the birds are singing, and Eddie's feelings for Steve are blossoming into something new.

Read the rest on ao3

20K+ Words | Mature

[boycritter]

in a museum with my mother (but it could be anywhere at all)

[existwound-moved]

to breathe in this mirage by existwound

E | 12k+ | 1/4 | Keith/Lance

Summary:

The light reflects on a piece of silver metal on Keith’s hand as his fingers play with Lance’s. He zeroes in on it, his breath catching in his throat. It’s a thin silver ring that sits nicely on his left ring finger, adorned with an even thinner golden band around it, perfectly matching, and mirroring, the ring that Lance found on his bathroom counter this morning. Oh, no way. No, no, no, no. Absolutely not. This has to be some kind of cruel joke. There is no way that the person he’s married to in the future is Keith.

or: Lance unwillingly takes one for the team and wakes up ten years in the future.

read chapter one now on ao3!

[rowanisawriter]

reaching

hades game, thanzag, rated t, ~2700 words

.

Thanatos isn’t sure how long it’s been since they were both young, or whatever young means to gods like them, but it feels like an immeasurable amount of time, he feels like an immeasurably different person and yet exactly the same. He is still serving at the pleasure of Lord Hades and, by extension, his son. He is still wincing at the sight of Zagreus’s blood on the floor. He is reaching, reaching into the space between them now in the sulfuric heat of Asphodel, to hand him the beating heart of a centaur.

Zagreus takes it. Their hands touch during the exchange. Time folds like a thin piece of paper, so thin he can see through it to the beginning, before Zagreus, and now. Now, during or after or whatever this is between them. Always reaching out to try and close the distance, never quite getting there.

[gentil-minou]

hold me close

Sometimes Lan Wangji misses Wei Ying even when he's with him. He forgets he doesn’t need to be afraid. This Wei Ying won’t vanish into the shadows. Sometimes, it feels like Lan Wangji is just waiting to be proven wrong. Lan Wangji has spent his entire life grieving for the ones he's loved and lost. How can he be expected to simply stop?

Wangxian | Oneshot | 13.4K | Rated E

Relevant Tags

Post-Canon, Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Established Relationship, Porn with Feelings, Emotional Sex, Grief, Mental Health Issues, Character Study, Masturbation, Oral Sex, Anal Sex, Top Lán Zhàn | Lán Wàngjī/Bottom Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn, Working Through Grief With Sex, Grieving Your Husband While Fucking Him, tender husbands being tender, 13 years of grieving followed by a life time of healing from it

crossposted on

Preview below the cut

Wei Ying visits Lan Wangji every night for thirteen years.

He arrives cloaked in shadows wrapping around him in a shroud. Long hair fans out behind him buffeted by an unnatural wind, thick at the roots and becoming wisps of smoke at the ends.

And every night, Lan Wangji welcomes this Wei Ying into arms that will never again know his warmth. An embrace that will never be shared with anyone else. A fantasy for a willing hostage, caught in a trap of his own design.

The Wei Ying in his dreams is well-fed and well-loved, skin bronze from endless summers spent lakeside, glowing with a fire stoked from within that both threatens Lan Wangji and calls to him all the same. This Wei Ying is always smiling. Not the one Lan Wangji sees in his nightmares, crazed with resentment consuming his soul. The one from their youth, the one this hostile world stole from him when he was far too young.

The Wei Ying in his dreams is not numb from grief and loss. He is not cruel. He does not shove Lan Wangji away.

He places a hand on Lan Wangji’s flushed, tear-stained cheek. His calloused hand is no longer cold and dying but instead warm and alive. This Wei Ying guides Lan Wangji towards him, a loving gaze fixed on him as a familiar smirk curls into a tease.

His dark eyes are bright and dancing, not glassy and dead. They drag Lan Wangji in, ensnaring him, rooting him in place. Though Lan Wangji has no reason to escape regardless.

Shadows twist up and down his body, leaving mark after mark in a trail claiming him. They convince Lan Wangji that this moment is real and true and won’t vanish like fog once dawn breaks over the mountain, flinging logic and sense far away.

In his dreams, Wei Ying loves him.

In his dreams, Lan Wangji saves him.

In his dreams, he has this. Everything he’s ever wanted.

Lan Wangji becomes quite adept at pretending the dreams are all he needs.

(read more on ao3)

[a-sweeter-solarsystem]

Saint asked, "May I give you advice...something I learned from being with Osiris."

Crow nodded.

Saint-14 wandered quietly to Cal's bedside. "Sometimes..." the bed creaked as the titan lowered himself next to Calgrach's side, "...it helps to talk."

The hunter watched Saint curiously. He spoke softly, "He can't hear me."

Saint-14's words felt firm but kind, "It is your presence that he can feel. Your light he knows. You do not need words for that."

( *** )

[newlesbianprideflag]

stoner byler moment for miwip "wednesday"

[cultofdarkwood]

behind the scenes of abstraction of the soul, we've hit 160k and heket is still not fucking dead

[br1ghtestlight]

absolutely begging for you to talk about “28. jimmy jr and bob”

OH THAT ONE LOL as a tinimmy fan I'm not sure how interested you'd be but it's about jimmy jr coming out to gay to bob after a fight w/ his own dad. because bob feels safe as a queer adult in his life :( it's really sweet I wish i finished writing it

(on a similar note I always wanted to write about the MANY many similarities between bob and jimmy jr in terms of working in a restaurant from a young age, fighting w/ their dad, being named after their dad but failing to live up to the legacy etc even their speech disorders!!! this fic would have probably played into that later in their conversation)

"I don't know. Everything is—Ugh! I did something stupid, and my dad is angry at me about it. I couldn't think of anybody else to talk to about this. I know my mom wouldn't understand, and I don't… really want to tell her about it," Jimmy Junior started.

"What did you do?" Bob asked.

He knew that Jimmy Junior was a responsible kid and it was unlikely, but the first thing that his mind jumped to was that Jimmy Junior had accidently got somebody pregnant. There weren't a lot of stupid things that a teenage boy could do that their father wouldn't expect of them. Bob knew that, because he'd done quite a few stupid things when he was a teenager, and his father would never let him forget it.

Jimmy Junior took a deep breath, and Bob waited patiently. Even if he had gotten somebody pregnant or did something else equally stupid and irresponsible, it was obvious that Jimmy Junior trusted him and he needed support with whatever was going on. Bob promised that he would be there for his kids regardless of anything that they did, even if it was reckless or irresponsible, and that promise to himself applied to any other kids that came to him for advice or help with something.

"I told my dad that I think I'm, uh—I'm gay," Jimmy Junior said. His voice was so quiet that Bob almost couldn't hear him at all. "He didn't really… get it. He didn't kick me out or anything, but he said that I'm too young to know what I'm talking about, and that I'm just doing this to be rebellious and get his attention. Zeke said that I shouldn't tell him until I was ready, but I thought that if I told somebody it would make me feel more… confident, I guess? I feel like an idiot."

Bob didn't know what to say. He hadn't expected this. He knew that Jimmy Pesto was an asshole, but he hadn't expected him to be homophobic or to not accept his own son's sexuality.

"I-I'm sorry," Bob said awkwardly. "Did… why did you want to talk to me about this?"

"Tina told me that, uh, you're not… I know that you're married to Mrs. Belcher, but she said that you aren't straight. I thought you might understand, or at least, uh, you would kind of get it."

[starsarefire824]

Touch Me Like You Know Me

Rating: T

Summary: Mike doesn't go home anymore, not unless absolutely necessary. Instead, he stays far away from Hawkins, quietly shutting himself off from the world, and burying the pain of the things he never said to the boy he'd left behind. But when his mother convinces him to return home for his thirty-fifth birthday, Mike is finally forced to confront just how much he'd given up when he runs into Will by accident. Mike-centric. Estranged Byler reconnection fic. Soft and Sweet.

COMPLETE

Picking at the paper label of his Budweiser bottle, Mike hunches over the sticky wooden bar, trying to conjure up all the moments, all the years, that have gotten him to this exact moment. He’s not old, not by a long shot, even if he wakes up some days and feels absolutley ancient. Not necessarily in his body. Sure, years spent hunched over a computer writing hasn’t done his back any favors and a hangover knocked him on his ass more than it used to, but that's not it really.

It’s the strange agony that is waking up everyday to do the same thing over again: work the same job, eat the same food, talk to the same people. It’s how if he closes his eyes he’s sixteen again, laying in his basement smoking weed with his friends, how he can still feel the moment the gate was closed for good in the marrow of his bones, or how if he thinks long and hard enough, the image of the heavily lashed eyes of his best friend become so clear and green that it felt more like some vision than a memory.

It’s how Mike can still feel his hand beneath his own when his best friend sat scared and sweating in his room when they were thirteen. It’s all these fucking things, the memories that feel so close he can practically reach out and touch them.

And then at the same time, it's the frightening realization that rushes over him like a tidal wave. In fifteen years he’ll be fifty. He’s floating in this strange halfway point between his childhood and getting older. It seems like he blinked and his teenage years and twenties were gone, like some sort of sick mirage. A blur. Would he blink again and it’d all be over?

[humanteethmarksonhumanbone]

i just remembered this one mock short story i wrote for school (about tool safety blah blah) and im re reading and it just ridiculous

i pretty much just put the tmagp characters in a tech theater au, compared alice to jesus (in the more dramatic way possible) , colin broke the 4th wall, dramatic irony out the wazoo-

[lord-squiggletits]

Between TF and my other fandoms like BG3 and TES, I keep finding myself making OCs that have some element of "battle hardened hero who is actually good and righteous, but so traumatized by the toll of war that even after the war ends they feel empty/wrecked and can't enjoy the fruits of victory" and I'm not sure if it's bc I gravitate to a certain type of media where such OCs fit in best, or bc I have a specific character archetype I like and gravitate towards media that contains those things.

[lokis-wager]

Nothing like going back to something you abandoned a few months ago because it felt OOC and kinda lame, then rereading it and realizing that it was fucking perfect. And I was just being overly harsh on myself.

[pinwheel-plant]

Day 31; the end