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hockeylvr59 · 3 years ago

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Life Changes Part 12 || Paul Bissonnette

Summary: It’s crazy how quickly your life can change...one minute you’re a struggling personal injury lawyer and the next you’re working for one of the hottest sports podcasts to supplement your income. A new job and the end of a long-term relationship was just the beginning for Leigh Thompson when it comes to life changes. Thankfully she has the one and only Paul Bissonnette at her side to help her handle them all.

Author's Note: Note, we’re still set in 2019 here. It has been like 18 months since I last updated this and I’ve had a partial draft sitting for at least a year of that. But I finally was able to find some muse to sit and get over the hump of the part that has been holding me back because I was scared I wouldn’t be able to put the emotion into it that I wanted to come across. I really really really hope that even though it’s been a while that this part is something that you guys enjoy.

Requested: [ ] yes [x] no Warnings: descriptions of childbirth and cursing Word Count: 3,887 (Series Total: 34,086)

~~~~~~~

“Having a baby is a life-changer. It gives you a whole other perspective on why you wake up every day.” - Taylor Hanson

October 15th. Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. It was a day that had always been hard for me, but this year there was something even more poignant about it. Mainly because I was 38 weeks pregnant today, just 3 weeks shy of my due date. As I lit candles in honor of family members, classmates, and acquaintances that had lost children I rested my hand on my stomach feeling the slight movements of my little girl inside me.

“Just a few more weeks, dustbunny. You just have to hang in there for a few more weeks and then you’ll be here safe and sound in my arms.” I whispered trying not to cry, though lately, it seemed like a pointless exercise to attempt to keep it all together. After a few minutes, I blew out all the candles and made my way into the bathroom to grab a quick shower and then lay down, having been on my feet too much today already.

As I showered I felt aches in my lower back but at nine months pregnant aches were kind of my new normal. By the time I made it to bed I was exhausted and blocked everything out as best I could trying to get just a few hours of sleep. Restlessly, I tossed and turned like most nights and it wasn’t until early in the morning when I got up to pace to try and relieve the aches that I realized something was very wrong as a trickle of moisture ran down my leg as I leaned against my kitchen island. There was no way this was happening and I winced as the ache returned and all at once I realized I was in labor.

Trying to quell the panic rising in my chest because it wasn’t time yet, she wasn’t supposed to come for at least another two weeks, I waddled back to my bedroom to get my phone. Now realizing the aches were contractions I tried my best to think about how far apart they had been. It had to be close to 25 or 30 minutes still so I knew that I still had time before going to the hospital and that it could be hours or even close to a day before my labor progressed that far.

By the time I finally had my phone I was starting to lose the battle with my own panic as I dialed the familiar number praying that he would pick up even though it was ungodly early in Arizona.

“You’re up early.” The familiar voice greeted me, sleep still lingering in his voice until he heard my panicked whisper of his name. “What’s going on?” He questioned quickly, the rustle of bedsheets moving around him.

“My water just broke.” I whispered, absolutely terrified. “I’m in labor Paul.”

A litany of curses fell from his mouth and I could hear myself being put onto speaker.

“How far apart are your contractions?” He asked, his voice sounding somewhat far away.

“Close to half an hour.” I replied just trying to breathe slowly and steadily not because of any pain, but rather to manage the fear.

“Have you started for the hospital?” I replied to his question in the negative telling him that it was a little too soon for that and I would rather wait in my own space until things progressed a little more than go to the hospital and have to wait there. He didn’t seem thrilled with this response but he was clearly too preoccupied to fight me on it too heavily.

“Promise me you’ll get yourself to the hospital.” He insisted. “Take some deep breaths. I’m going to be there as soon as I can. I’m on my way.” He promised. “Tell dustbunny to hang in there until I arrive okay. You are so strong and you’ve got this. Just breathe and try to relax. I’m on my way.” Nodding my head even though he couldn’t see it, I tried to control the tears. This couldn’t be happening. He was supposed to be here. Not on the other side of the country. The fear that he wouldn’t make it, that I would have to deliver this baby all by myself crept into my mind and after hanging up the phone I sobbed softly just praying that somehow that wouldn’t be the case.

Just as I thought I was going to be able to pull it together, another contraction hit and the pain brought fresh tears to my eyes as I sobbed trying to take any breath at all let alone a deep one.

Repeating to myself that Paul had told me to breathe, I focused on controlling that before getting up to change my wet bottoms and double-check that I had everything I needed in my hospital bag. Going through all the items and the checklist I had made, I grabbed a few more things before setting the bag at the door. When another contraction hit, I whimpered through it before checking to see how long it had been since the previous one.

Still about 25 minutes.

Once they got to fifteen I knew that I would need to leave for the hospital. If Paul were here it would be possible to wait even longer but with having to drive myself there, I knew it would be better safe than sorry even if it was only like a five-minute drive away, ten if there was any traffic.

Knowing that the longer labor lasted, the more likely Paul would actually make it in time, I tried to stay calm and murmured to my bump for her to stay put a little longer. Putting a true crime show on tv, I settled onto the couch, phone beside me with a timer running.

As the episode came to an end, a contraction hit once more and I breathed through it, wincing, before resetting the timer.

The end of a second, third, and then a fourth episode were accompanied by additional contractions all still relatively steady at 25 minutes apart.

Unable to focus on the details related to true crime anymore, I pulled up the latest podcast episode and started to listen hoping that maybe with Paul’s voice in my ear I could doze for a little while, feeling more and more exhausted by the minute. After another contraction, I must have dozed off a little because suddenly the guys were knee-deep into their interview with Ben Bishop as a contraction rolled through me making me wince even more because shit that one hurt.

Twenty minutes.

That was definitely closer and with it being more intense, I swallowed a wave of panic. I had no idea if or when Paul was going to be able to find a flight and the flight time alone was 4 hours if there was no layover anywhere. He might not even be in the air yet and yet dustbunny seemed like she really didn’t want to wait.

Swallowing hard I rubbed my bump softly pleading with my daughter once more.

“Please sweetheart, wait a little longer. I can’t do this alone.”

By the time the podcast ended 45 minutes later, I’d had 3 more contractions, one 18 minutes after the last and the other two 16.

Trying to call Paul, I was sent straight to voicemail and I could only hope that meant that he was in the air though I had no idea how far into a flight he may be. It had been 4 hours since I had realized I was in labor so there was a chance he was only a couple of hours away, though that chance seemed slim.

With another contraction coming 16 minutes after the last, I knew that I needed to call my doctor and start making my way to the hospital. Using the bathroom one more time, I double-checked once again that I had everything I needed before alerting my doctor that my baby had decided she didn’t want to wait until her due date and that I was headed to the hospital.

As I hung up the phone, another contraction hit that almost doubled me over and I cursed, already over the entire process of labor knowing full well that I hadn’t even reached the hardest part yet. It was terrifying and I sobbed for a moment before getting myself some water and moving to load the bag into the car.

Waiting for the next contraction to pass, I started the car and made my way to the hospital, pulling into the closest spot I could find. Gathering my bag I held myself up against the side of the car as yet another painful contraction tore through me.

When it subsided I waddled my way to the front doors, never more relieved than to find a nurse waiting for me with a wheelchair to take me up to labor and delivery to be admitted.

Completing paperwork while experiencing regular intense contractions was difficult, to say the least, and by the time I was settled into a room, hooked up to all the monitors and an iv just waiting for a doctor to come to check me almost an hour had passed. Trying Paul’s phone again, I was sent straight to voicemail once more and that once again brought tears to my eyes filling my chest with panic that he wouldn’t make it.

The next contraction made me scream and at that moment a nurse and my doctor rolled through the doors, immediately looking a little alarmed.

“Let’s see how we’re doing.” My doctor’s voice said in a tone that would have been soothing if I was not already panicked. A gloved hand slid under the blankets and after a moment she pulled back sending the nurse a look.

“Are you feeling any pressure or need to push yet?” She asked me and my brain immediately went into a fog. If she was asking me that, that meant that things were really really close, closer than I expected them to be.

“She can’t come yet.” I insisted frantically. “She can’t. I can’t do this until Paul is here.”

Ever patient, my doctor rested an ungloved hand on my knee.

“Leigh. I don’t think your little girl is going to wait any longer. We’re going to get ready for you to push because you’re fully dilated.”

“I can’t…” I insisted, shaking my head. “She needs to wait.”

My face scrunched with pain as another contraction rolled through me and my doctor must have given the nurse a few instructions because after a minute she was standing there with a mask.

“It’s laughing gas…it will help take the edge off the pain. Just hold the mask and take a few deep breaths.” She instructed.

“I’m not ready.” I repeated, needing someone to listen to me that regardless of what my body was saying, she couldn’t come yet.

The same nurse remained beside me, urging me to take the mask and breathe as a few more bodies flooded into the room, quickly gowning up and putting gloves on.

Another contraction came with pressure and I resisted, choking out a sob and some verbal signal of pain.

“Leigh. Next contraction I’m going to need you to start pushing.” My doctor directed. “We need to get your daughter here so she’s safe.”

Shaking my head, I closed my eyes and dug my nails into the mattress, continuing to sob.

“I can’t do this!”

“Leigh. Push!” My doctor demanded as another contraction tore through my body. “Push!” My body must have reacted on impulse because a “good, that’s good.” left her lips shortly after.

“I can’t. I can’t.” I repeated as soon as the wave of pain was over.

“Yes, you can.” In the chaos, it took my mind to register that that was a new voice, a familiar voice…

Opening my eyes, I looked to my left and gasped seeing Paul standing there.

“You can do this Leigh.” He insisted, reaching to pull my hand from the mattress to lace with his. “You are strong enough and I’m right here. Listen to the doctor and push.”

Crying now for an entirely different reason, I nodded weakly and when the next contraction came I pushed with everything I had.

“You made it.” I whispered between the next contractions before taking the mask from the nurse and taking a few deep breaths.

“I told you I’d be here.” Paul insisted. “Now let’s have a baby okay.”

Continuing to push on each contraction was the most exhausting experience of my entire life. It felt like it had been forever and I wasn’t sure I had the energy to keep going.

“Leigh. Look at me.” Paul said. “You’re doing so good. Just keep going. You are strong enough.” That wasn’t true and I shook my head a bit as Paul squeezed my hand. “You are.”

Pushing again, my doctor stated that she could see the head and to give her another big push on the next contraction.

“That’s it. Pause Leigh.” She instructed. “We’ve got a head.”

Taking a few more breaths of gas, I swallowed hard when she asked for another big big push to get the shoulders out. My entire pelvis felt like it was on fire and I screamed again as I tried to push with everything I had left.

And then suddenly, my scream wasn’t the only one in the room. In that moment, the entire world froze as the most magical sound I’d ever heard filled my ears.

“Here you are mom.” A nurse murmured softly while laying the most beautiful screaming thing carefully onto my chest.

“Oh my god.” I couldn’t help but whisper taking in the features of the tiny person I’d made.

______

Paul’s POV

There was absolutely nothing pretty about childbirth. It was loud and it was messy and bloody. But watching Leigh calm the baby girl she had been carrying for so long, I could finally see why people said it was one of the most beautiful things.

Getting here had been difficult and included renting a private charter which Leigh would never find out about, but now that I was here I couldn’t imagine having missed this for the world.

“Do you want to cut the cord dad?” A nurse asked me, offering up a pair of scissors. Opening my mouth to correct her, I looked at Leigh, and then all I could do was nod. Taking the scissors, I cut where the nurse instructed me to and then handed the scissors back as another nurse came to gather the baby from Leigh’s chest.

“Go with her.” Leigh whispered, her voice showing just how exhausted she was. “I’m okay, just stay with her.” She pleaded softly.

Hesitating for only a moment, I followed the nurse carrying the baby girl as they moved to clean her better and take all of her measurements, and run a few tests as she was a few weeks early.

By the time we returned to Leigh’s recovery room, she was changed and resting in bed, her eyes fluttering open at the sound of the door.

Leaving the bassinet containing the baby beside the bed, the nurse stated that she would let me give the updates and to just call if we needed anything. With her baby back in the room, Leigh relatively quickly - she had just given birth - sat up and gathered up the clean and dressed baby girl from the bassinet.

“Everything okay?” She asked me, brushing a finger lightly over her newborn daughter’s cheek.

“Yeah. She passed all her tests, no surprise considering her mom.” I assured her, a smile on the corner of my lips. “Just over six pounds, I can’t remember how long but it’s on the label.” I pointed to it on the side of the bassinet where it just read “Baby Girl Thompson.”

“Good.” She breathed, just taking in the baby girl for a few minutes before patting the spot on the bed beside her for me to sit. “You made it.” She whispered looking up at me in a way that made me want nothing more than to kiss her even though I couldn’t.

“Told you I’d be here.” I shrugged, giving in to the urge to at least lean in and kiss the top of her head. “You made a really cute kid.” I added, swiping a finger lightly over the arm of the baby girl.

Leigh just smiled and continued to hold her baby for a few minutes before asking me to call a nurse to get a bottle ready. She had decided against breastfeeding a while ago and while I knew that wasn’t the most popular choice all that mattered was that the baby was fed.

Watching her feed the baby for a few minutes, I excused myself to the bathroom to piss and splash some water on my face. I hadn’t been able to sleep on the flight, worried the entire time about Leigh, and having woken up at 4am Arizona time, I was exhausted and starving.

Stepping back into the room, I couldn’t help but smile despite it all, Leigh just had that effect.

“When’s the last time you ate?” I questioned and the look of not knowing that crossed Leigh’s face told me everything. “Okay…better question what do you want to eat?”

“A steak would be good.” She murmured and immediately I fished my phone from my pocket to pull up a list of local restaurants.

“Steak it is,” I assured her, finding the place locally with the best reviews and showing her the menu so that we could place an order for pickup. “I’ll go grab this and bring it back, okay? You’ve got the nurses if you need anything in the meantime.”

Receiving her nod, I kissed her head again murmuring that I was proud of her before slipping from the room to go get an early dinner.

****

By the time I returned to the room, the curtains were drawn and the lights were dimmed signaling that Leigh had settled in for a short nap while her baby also slept. Moving quietly, I unpacked the take-out containers before kissing her head softly and murmuring to her that food was here. I knew she needed the sleep but she also needed the food to give her strength after her ordeal.

Watching her stir, I smiled softly.

“You should eat while it’s still warm,” I commented while digging into my own food. “Thank you.” She said and the way she looked at me suggested that the words were meant to extend beyond just thanks for the food.

“It’s no problem.”

After eating in silence, I moved to retrieve a small box from the bag I had brought up with me this time since I wasn’t in a rush. Sitting it on the table in front of her I moved to slide into the chair on the other side of the bed.

“What’s this?” She asked me and smirking softly I just gestured for her to open it. Inside was a simple opal necklace on a silver chain, representative of the baby girl she had just delivered.

“Paul.” She breathed softly.

“Dustbunny is lucky she was due close enough to the end of October that I had a contingency plan in place already.”

“Paul. You shouldn’t have.” Leigh insisted. “It’s too much. You just being here is already too much.”

“It’s not too much,” I informed her. “You just gave birth to a six-pound human, you deserve something that’s a little sparkly.”

Not letting her argue, I took the box from her and gently removed the necklace before urging her to move her hair aside while I clasped the chain around her neck.

“There. Perfect.”

Sighing, Leigh gave in and ran her fingers over the necklace. Her face was thoughtful for a moment before she opened her mouth.

“Do you want to hold her? Have you held her yet?” She asked.

“I haven’t,” I replied, stomach swirling with nerves at the thought of hurting her. “But I don’t want to hurt her.

Leigh looked at me like that was the stupidest thing I’d ever said which we both knew was far from true.

“You’re not going to hurt her. Come here.” She directed, picking up the baby girl from the bassinet before patting the spot beside her.

Sitting where she directed, I peered down at the tiny infant in Leigh’s arms.

“Just slide a hand under her head and support her butt.” Leigh directed, carefully transferring the baby, my dustbunny, into my arms. She was so small and after a moment, tiny eyes fluttered open to look up at me.

“She says hi,” Leigh murmured.

Staring at those tiny eyes and that sweet button nose, it felt like nothing else mattered and I knew that I would do everything in my power to protect her always.

“Do you want to know her name?” Leigh asked me.

“Sure,” I replied, not daring to take my eyes off the baby for even a second.

“Allison Kinsley Thompson. Little Allie.” She declared and hearing the name the baby girl turned her head to look at her mom like yes that’s me.

“Beautiful just like her.” I agreed.

“It seemed fitting.” Leigh nodded. “Especially since the feminine forms of Paul just aren’t my cup of tea and Alberta is a province in Canada. We decided we’d just steak the first syllable instead and that was good enough.”

When her words finally sank in, my throat got thick and moisture pooled in my eyes.

“Wait. Are you…is she?”

“Named after you? Yeah, Paul.” Leigh stated, sliding a hand along my knee. “I wouldn’t have made it through the pregnancy or delivery without you. It’s only right she’s named after you.”

“Leigh…” I wasn’t regularly a crier but at the moment it was inevitable. Laying her head on my shoulder, Leigh just watched Allie as she stretched and wiggled a bit before yawning and closing her little eyes again.

“Nap with us for a bit.” Leigh insisted, showing me how to shift the baby to rest against my shoulder and making room for me beside her so we could all lay down.

****

When we awoke, Leigh changed and fed Allie again before finally making the phone calls to her family announcing the baby’s arrival. She then insisted I call the guys, first to finally explain why I missed recording today’s podcast but also to introduce them to the newest member of the crew.

It was only after all of that was done and Leigh was settled into bed, Allie in the bassinet beside her once more so they both could rest that I looked through the pictures we’d taken over the course of the afternoon. There was no way to even describe everything I was feeling now but as I selected a few pictures I did my best to put it all into words.

There was no doubt in my mind that tomorrow I would be waking up a different man than I was this morning.

And that was all because of Leigh and Allie.

Social Media:

Leigh’s necklace:

#paul bissonnette #paul bissonnette imagine #nhl imagine #nhl imagines #hockey imagines #hockey imagine #former player #former player imagine #014.1

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stylesnews · 4 years ago

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Ben and Gabe Turner directed the videos for Harry Styles’ singles Golden and Treat People With Kindness, and the Fulwell 73 partners have opened up to Music Week about working on the blockbuster Fine Line campaign.

The video for Treat People With Kindness (TPWK) stars Fleabag creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge and was released on New Year’s Day 2021, more than a year after Fine Line came out. The Turner brothers were also behind the film for Golden, which dropped in October. TPWK has 18,019,468 views on YouTube, while Golden, which was filmed under Covid restrictions on Italy’s Amalfi coast last year when lockdowns eased, has racked up 81,373,613.

Ben and Gabe Turner have been working with former Music Week cover star Styles since One Direction emerged on The X Factor, making videos for Steal My Girl and Drag Me Down. Their Fulwell 73 partner Ben Winston has also worked extensively with the group.

The brothers told Music Week that their longstanding relationship with Styles leads to an easy working environment, and the idea behind the TPWK video – which features Styles and Waller-Bridge doing a choreographed dance routine and was filmed at East London’s Troxy early in 2020 – came about after Styles saw the actor’s Fleabag live show.

“It was always supposed to be the last thing on the album run as an ending beat, and the album did so well that it just carried on,” said Gabe Turner. “We just didn’t know when [it would drop]. New Year’s Day 2021 was the perfect release date for us in the end.”

The duo make documentaries, TV shows, music videos, promos and more and Ben Turner said that “hope, warmth, fun and emotional honesty” define their work, which includes 2019 documentary Hitsville: The Making Of Motown.

“Music videos are fun, they’re the most impressionistic of the things we do,” said Ben Turner. “When else are we going to shoot a black and white dance video? There probably isn’t another avenue for us to do that.”

Here, the brothers look back on shooting Golden and TPWK with Styles and his team, talk Fine Line and trace the history of their work with the singer.

What are your reflections on the Treat People With Kindness video now it’s out?

Gabe Turner: “There’s a tendency when you’re working and going from job to job, not to sit back and enjoy something when it comes out, because you’re in the middle of something else. This was really enjoyable, a piece of work that’s really expansive, joyous and has loads of people dancing and reminds you of a time where life was really fun felt really nice. Harry and all of One Direction have incredible fans and they obviously amplify your work and make it bigger and feel like more of an achievement, which is really nice because you’re like, ‘The whole world is talking about it’ [laughs]. When really, the whole world is talking about Harry, or the boys, but it feels very special to be a part of that.”

What do you like most about the video?

Ben Turner: “It was just an amazing opportunity to work on a song we loved with some people we loved. We’d never worked with Phoebe before, so that was really exciting. It just feels so different now because we’ve been stuck indoors for a year. This thing about treating people with kindness, it just feels more prescient even than it did then. It feels like a really important message. The world has changed since we made it, the video has stayed the same but the world has disappeared.”

Have the videos have been extra important to the campaign with touring postponed?

GT: Harry’s got an incredible team, his manager Jeff Azoff, Tommy Bruce, Molly Hawkins and Rob Stringer and the label, they’re just brilliant. They’ve been really impressive in how they view and plan stuff. The videos kind of replaced him touring, so they had to have an impact. His fanbase wanted something to feel positive about and joyous about. We just feel hugely privileged that we were able to collaborate on two of the songs. We love the album, it’s a real quality piece of work. With Harry, because the camera loves him so much, you really want to raise your game and make something really special because you’ve got such an incredible protagonist. And then with Phoebe involved too, me and Ben thought this might be the best it ever gets for us behind camera – two people completely in their prime. The last time Phoebe was photographed in a public place she was clutching three Emmys. And Harry, he’s getting bigger and bigger and is such a joyous presence to be around. Those two massive stars together, learning a dance routine, doing something they’d not done before, it felt like we were witnessing something really special and it just makes you want to shoot the best video you possibly can.”

How did you end up doing two videos for the record?

GT: “We see Harry outside of work, so we talk about things all the time in a slightly different way. The TPWK conversation came from meeting Phoebe and saying, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if you two danced together?’ Then after we did that, when Golden came up, there was a feeling that we could do something together in a similar vein.”

BT: “Golden came about as organically as TPWK. We all sit around mooching with our mates saying, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if this or that…’ When you’re mooching with your mates and it’s Harry or Phoebe, those ideas can become. And that’s how these videos really came about. Golden feels like a driving song. The initial idea was Harry driving around LA with different people getting in and out of the car, people who were significant to the album or his life. That came off the table with Covid, but it was the idea we fell in love with. The world changed and he couldn’t tour, so they wanted to make more videos. We couldn’t make that original version, but the thing of movement came out of it. When someone you feel close to does something you rate as highly as I rate Fine Line you feel lucky. When you’re listening to that kind of music you get ideas. We’ve been in the position where you’re racking your brains for the right idea, and that can also lead to brilliant work, but this album in particular, I’d listen to it, walk along and think about it, before pitching anything.”

Harry’s vision for the album was so strong, what was that like to work with?

GT: “You just don’t want to drop the ball for him. It’s so important and the album’s so good, plus we’re fans of his as well as contemporaries. When he drafts you in to work on a video, you’re like, ‘OK, I just want to make sure you’re happy with it, if you are then it’s job done’.

BT: “There’s just so much there to work with. There’s so much in there. Why does TPWK work? What’s it really got to do with anything? Except somehow it does. There’s so much in that song and the feel of it that a slightly weird, leftfield idea makes perfect sense. I think that’s to do with how deep his creative thought and well of feeling [are], that allows it to go off. Not just our videos, but the ones everyone else made for the album, they’re widely varied but they work together. That’s got to be down to him, he’s the common thread. His creative team, too. They’re great sounding boards to work with, a guiding hand. It sounds like this massive love-in, but it really has been a very enjoyable, rewarding process.”

What was it like on set?

GT: “Harry doesn’t go off set. He does his bits and then when other stuff is going on he’s sitting next to you watching the monitor. He’s very, very involved in everything and he’ll push himself. At the end of TPWK he wanted to do a couple more takes at the end to make sure they’d nailed it. We said, ‘We think you’ve got it’, but he just said, ‘Let me go again a couple of times, I want to make sure it’s done to the best of my ability’. He works really hard, he’s great to collaborate with and he doesn’t let up. If it’s not good enough, he’ll carry on going.”

BT: “You’ve got a sense that it’s his video and he wants it to be the best. He takes ownership. He knows it’s his video and that how good and engaged he is will affect how good the product is. The length of the relationship we’ve had with him allows a kind of shorthand and a way of working to maximise that.”

GT: “He works to a really high standard but he’s unbelievably kind to literally everyone, all the time. Even if he’s under pressure, he never drops his standards of the right way to behave and being kind to people. It’s so impressive to work with someone like that. He’s never not a good bloke about whatever it is that he faces. You watch the way he is with the runners, producers, sound people, whoever… He’s treating them with so much love and respect that everyone works as hard as they possibly can to make his vision come true because he’s so joyful to be around. It does sound like a love-in, but that’s the most defining factor – he’s so talented and so nice about it.”

What do these videos say about where you are at right now as directors?

GT: “Our thinking is always about how we can be creative. We don’t really think about the space we’re going into as much as what the idea is. If you only do one thing it sometimes stilts your creativity because you get into a pattern, whereas if you’re constantly jumping between mediums it keeps you fresh. We like to be involved in lots of stuff. We try and surround ourselves with people like Harry, who operate in that way. Ben and I just try and push each other into trying to do the best we can. We feel massively lucky we get to work together, we’re brothers, best friends, it’s a dream.”

#harry styles #jan21 #gabe turner #ben turner #tpwkmv #goldenmv #music week #article

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hlupdate · 4 years ago

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Here, the brothers look back on shooting Golden and TPWK with Styles and his team, talk Fine Line and trace the history of their work with the singer…

What are your reflections on the Treat People With Kindness video now it’s out?

What do you like most about the video?

Have the videos have been extra important to the campaign with touring postponed?

GT: Harry’s got an incredible team, his manager Jeff Azoff, Tommy Bruce, Molly Hawkins and Rob Stringerand the label, they’re just brilliant. They’ve been really impressive in how they view and plan stuff. The videos kind of replaced him touring, so they had to have an impact. His fanbase wanted something to feel positive about and joyous about. We just feel hugely privileged that we were able to collaborate on two of the songs. We love the album, it’s a real quality piece of work. With Harry, because the camera loves him so much, you really want to raise your game and make something really special because you’ve got such an incredible protagonist. And then with Phoebe involved too, me and Ben thought this might be the best it ever gets for us behind camera – two people completely in their prime. The last time Phoebe was photographed in a public place she was clutching three Emmys. And Harry, he’s getting bigger and bigger and is such a joyous presence to be around. Those two massive stars together, learning a dance routine, doing something they’d not done before, it felt like we were witnessing something really special and it just makes you want to shoot the best video you possibly can.”

How did you end up doing two videos for the record?

Harry’s vision for the album was so strong, what was that like to work with?

What was it like on set?

What do these videos say about where you are at right now as directors?

#harry styles #articles #150121

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yoonia · 4 years ago

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❥ Content Creator Year in Review

☞ tagged by @yeoldontknow, @chillingkoo, @inkedtae, @onherwings, @moononthejoon, @kpopfanfictrash (my precious, talented bubs. I love you! Happy almost New Year!) and retagged by @flurrys-creativity @jimlingss

⇀ first creation and most recent creation of 2020: I kicked off 2020 with the release of Carousel Epilogue (Yoongi). That was a defining moment for me because it truly felt like I was ending one specific era to start another. Which was true, by the way, because Carousel had marked the rise of my blog at one point and it had been a part of my long journey in writing fanfiction that releasing that epilogue and ending the series then had become a true turning point for me and my blog. My most recent creation was Blurred Lines (Seokjin, ongoing). I never meant this one to be a series, but somewhere in the middle of writing it, I felt like the story needed to progress in small paces to build up the momentum. I have always had a hard time writing for Seokjin, seeing the actual person himself has multiple layers that we tend to misidentify him with the persona he normally shows us in public. I simply wanted to show that part of him in this story, while creating a new persona for Seokjin that I’ve had in mind since way back then when I wrote Hazy.

⇀ one of your favourite creations from 2020: I’ve mentioned a few favourites a while ago, but the one that sticks to me the most personally was Spotless Minds (Hoseok). I wrote this based on my favourite movie, Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Minds, taking the original idea of introducing two characters who erased a part of their past but giving it a more in-depth backstory compared to the movie itself. I still added a few elements that you may find from the movie but written here differently: the beach house, the waiting room, the stages where Hoseok was slowly losing his memory, and I added a few things that may help readers who haven't watched the movie to understand the aspects of the story a bit better without having to go back and watch the movie first. What pleases me most about this fic was the writing style that I used then — the sequences of the scenes, the back and forth between the timeline to reveal all the twists and turns — and then putting them all together. It was just fun creating this one.

⇀ a creation you’re really proud of: Oh, this one is the hardest to decide. I can’t choose between We Are All Dreamers (Jungkook) and Never Falling (Jimin). WAAD was a bit challenging to me. I love soulmate aus and I believe I had gotten stuck on this story right in the middle of it until I decided to add Jungkook’s pov in it to help with the story’s progression. I’m proud of how it came to be (and I can’t wait to share the continuing story for it) and how I’d gotten through the process of writing it. NF took me quite a while to finish, but I love every single thing about it. The story building, the tension, the momentum, and I think the characters I created in this story have become the pairing that I have grown to care the most this year aside from Strip!Jimin and his OC.

⇀ a creation that took you forever: The Half-Lycan (Taehyung) and Of Bears and Bonds (Seokjin). Both stories took a while to work on due to their part in the Shifters series, which required me to take my time in planning and working things together to make sure that the story and the timeline would line up perfectly with its origin story, Blood Moon Rising. THL was actually planned to be posted on Tae’s birthday last year, but it took me 6 months to finish. OBB was planned to be posted immediately as both stories correlated between each other, but then things happened and what was planned to be an extremely long one-shot had ended up becoming a trilogy (the original word count was 69k words lol).

⇀ a creation from 2020 that received the most notes: The Half-Lycan, I think? I know it went over 2k notes while the others remain somewhere around 1k or less lol Idk man, I don’t keep up with notes. I’m grateful for all the feedback, the reblogs, and the comments, so I remember those the most compared to the numbers.

⇀ a creation you think deserved more notes: Ravished by Two (Namjoon, Seokjin), Spotless Minds (Hoseok), Red Series (Yoongi). Seriously, I love writing for Hyung line, but they don’t get enough love from everyone :( I must add Bed & Boyfriend(s) (Taehyung, Yoonkook) too because I worked hard on that one and I need it to get some more love lol

⇀ a new fandom you joined and a creation you made for it: I’m starting to get into Stray Kidz and Ateez more lately. I haven’t made any creation for them aside from adding Wooyoung (Ateez) as a side character in Spotless Minds haha I did write Simon Says for Simon Dominic though.

⇀ a creation you made that breaks your heart: Slow and Steady (Jungkook) took the front seat on this one. I’ve fallen in love with the original idea when it was sent to me for a commission. I knew it would cause a lot of heartbreak and it did spark some reactions from my readers that I enjoyed reading through once the fic was up. I just didn’t think it would hurt ME in the process as well :/

⇀ a ‘simple’ creation that you really love: Let’s see… Pay By Play (Jungkook), Red Lipstick (Yoongi, from the Red Series), the drabbles I’ve made this year for Carousel and The Stand-In. Can I really call these ‘simple’ tho? Hahaha

⇀ a creation that was inspired by another one: Strip! (Jimin) was a spin-off for Bad For You. Though I had originally started this series since October the year before, I still have to mention this one because I only began working on the final chapter after I was done with Carousel at the beginning of the year. The Half-Lycan was actually inspired by its drabbles. I’d never intended to expand Blood Moon Rising’s universe into the series you are seeing now, but when I was writing Rapture during NaNoWriMo 2019, I began to imagine Taehyung and his wolf pack to become a part of Jimin’s story. Since I was already planning to introduce the members as a pack in BMR in future chapters, I decided to link the two universes together and have Taehyung from Rapture to have his own story before I get to introduce the others. This decision was what had led me to create the entire Shifter series universe.

⇀ a favourite creation created by someone else: umm...I haven’t had a chance to actually read a lot of fanfics this year as I have gotten into original stories more and the year has been crazy busy. The ones that I’ve read and shared are listed in my side blog, @diaficrecs. But here are a few that I’ve read but haven’t gotten a chance to write down my comment or feedback on and they are now sitting on my rec blog’s draft until the day I can get my thoughts together T^T — Inner Needs by @avveh, Divine Intervention by @opaljm, Third Wheeling by @untaemedqueen, Molotov Cocktail by @yeoldontknow, Aphrodite in War by @jungblue, Always Trust In Pixie Dust by @readyplayerhobi, daechwita by @ironicarmy, and I have to mention the one I’ve been re-reading the most, When You Watch by @gardentulips

⇀ some of your favorite content creators from the year: aside from the beautiful people mentioned above, here are my beloved, talented friends — @jamaisjoons @suqakoo @softyoongiionly @randombtsprincessa @hungline @guktro @underthejoon @gukslut @gukyi @floralseokjin @ladyartemesia @baebae-goodnight @hobidreams

⇀ and for good measure, another couple more creations of yours that you love: omg I don’t think I can mention them one by one so let me just drop my masterlist here, here, and here :)

⇀ tagging: everyone mentioned above who hasn’t done this yet...and if you don’t see your name here, feel free to do this if you want to and add me so I can add new stuff on my to-read-list :))

#tagged #fic talk #get to know me #long post #you know I won't stop talking when it comes to my writing

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littlestarlost · 4 years ago

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what happened.

All this hunger is Always following us Out where we survive under poisonous skies They’re dreaming, but nobody’s sleeping Just coked hearts speeding See all the gold teeth gleaming See all the young, healthy free men Just move into nothing

(CW: discussion of mental health, trauma, PTSD)

A version of this post has been sitting in my drafts folder for ten months. I know this, because I originally began to write it around late January, just in time for the one-year mark to have passed since I’d last updated Setting Sun. When I posted that most recent update, I had just turned 30 years old, and I promised that it would not be another year before the next update. I wanted, so badly, for that to be true. In hindsight, it’s honestly better that I failed to keep that promise; I fear it might have exacerbated the damage that’s already been done, and made the healing process that much harder.

It’s been nearly two years. I want to talk about what happened.

I first began to write about Yuuri Katsuki and Victor Nikiforov because I recognized myself so keenly in them; Yuuri’s high-achieving anxiety and imposter syndrome, and Victor’s quietly functional depression. When I found YOI, I was in grad school; I was winning awards, the top of my class, and utterly terrified that it was all a sham. Being able to channel those emotions through these characters helped me realize my own greatness, to embody it and walk with confidence and bravado. It allowed me to go into my post-degree job search with my head held high, trusting that all the lessons I had learned would lead me to professional success. Yuuri and Victor walked through life with me, two shadows of my own psyche, two people who helped me understand myself.

The first few months of the job were fine. Then things became less than fine, and then continued to descend into the kind of mundane nightmare that only multinational corporate legal firms could manifest. Setting Sun, a story about love and self-acceptance and joy, began to twist around in on itself. I don’t want to go into detail, but suffice to say that I spent nearly two years being gaslit and abused, told I was worthless, constantly having panic attacks as I desperately tried to exert control over things that were way over my head. My body betrayed me; I was in so much pain I couldn’t walk, so stressed I couldn’t bring myself to eat unless I’d smoked weed to calm the nausea. I began to believe that I had peaked in grad school, that I was fooling myself, that I was going to be trapped in that cubicle for the rest of my life, doing grunt work without challenge or interest, in the kind of workplace where you get reported to HR for sighing too loudly. That is a thing that actually fucking happened to me; nobody asked why I might be sighing, and nobody stopped by to check in when I spent most days in tears. This was a place where less than half the people in the room put up their hands when asked if they had ever been creative as kids. This was a place where I almost never got to see the sun.

Because I was massively overqualified and even more massively underworked, I spent a lot of 2018 writing fanfic--my zine pieces, my zutara pieces, all sorts of creative things. I also began to write horror AUs; two stories, in particular, gained a fair amount of traction on this particular platform. When I look back now, I see them for the coping mechanisms that they were; in the case of the crossroads AU, where Yuuri is willing to sell his soul to the devil just to escape his commute, it wasn’t even particularly subtle. I poured all my energy into creative pursuits; it’s been my outlet my whole life, and for a while it helped. By the time I hit the SCP-9874 AU, I burned out so profoundly and utterly that it destroyed my relationship to YOI and cauterized the pieces. SCP-9874 was one of the most creative things I’ve ever done, but it also involved what is, in hindsight, a shocking level of violence and horror inflicted on these characters who were such a close part of me. I was doing this to them because I was hurting, all the time. I now recognize it as the cry for help that it was, and to this day I fantasize about taking down all the SCP-9874 posts and excising that portion of my legacy as much as possible.

I wrote Setting Sun’s 21st chapter in honour of my 30th birthday, in late January of 2019. Somehow, at the time, I didn’t realize how rough it was. How much it implied about me and how I was doing. How much it reflected the true extent of the damage I was suffering. I left Victor and Yuuri in an abandoned apartment with more questions than answers and more regrets than they or I had ever thought possible, and I thought, somehow, that this was a good turning point. Little did I know at the time that the worst was still to come.

I was able to finally escape that toxic office last October, when I found a new job that paid nearly double and was everything I wanted to do in life and more. But Yuri on Ice hurt too much to think about, even as time marched forward and I began to heal. I had PTSD flashbacks to the old office; I dealt with echo upon echo of terror that everything would fall away to reveal I was trapped in the same old nightmare again. In January 2020, I actually took a few days off for my birthday and reread Setting Sun from the beginning, and I’d somehow forgotten how funny it is, how sweet it is, how hopeful. I had completely forgotten; it had been burned away by twenty months of agony. That realization hurt more than all the other ones put together, I think. I had a good long cry over that.

Fast forward to now, and people have started to find Setting Sun again. They’ve found it on and off in the months since I updated, and for a very long time I would read the truly lovely comments people wrote--thanking me for writing it, hoping I’d come back someday, wishing me well wherever I was--and I would dissolve into tears because I just...couldn’t. I couldn’t bear to go back to this story that I could no longer recognize myself in. And nowadays, when new commenters come, I will warn them about that last chapter I wrote, because I can recognize it as the outlier it is.

But something has very recently changed.

I couldn’t necessarily tell you exactly what. Maybe it’s that I passed the one-year mark at my new job, and the last of the poison has finally been excised. Maybe it’s because I’m looking at all my writing with new eyes as I prepare to try doing this for a living. Maybe it’s because it’s 2020, and the rules aren’t really relevant anymore. I don’t know. But I can say that, two weekends ago, I opened Setting Sun, and realized that it didn’t seem impossible anymore. I realized that the boys had been through more than enough. We’ve been through more than enough. We deserve the happy ending I always planned to give them, going back four whole years when I first planned out this massive weird tale.

It’s been a very long time. It’s been exactly long enough.

I can’t promise exactly when the final chapter of Setting Sun will arrive. I’m walking back onto previously thin ice, and my footsteps are more than a little hesitant, so as not to cause any undue cracks. But I can remember the joy and humour and fun again; I can conceive of jokes and silliness and sweetness again. My playlist is filling up again, with songs of hope and love instead of anguish and sorrow. The Yuuri and Victor who sit inside my heart are skating; the music is carrying them, the wind is rushing past their ears, their feet feel light again and they want to jump and take flight and make beautiful things.

I have bookended this post with lyrics from a song that’s been on the maybe list for Setting Sun for nearly as long as Setting Sun has existed. It’s a song I love quite profoundly, a song that means a lot to me personally, but I could never manage to make it fit. It’s a song about running away to the big bright city, about being broken on the world’s wheel, and about realizing you just want to go home. It’s a song that’s ostensibly about the tragedy of this process, but right now I’m sitting at my desk, listening to the line I, I, I wanna go back, back, back, back, with grateful tears running down my face, and I’m realizing that it’s not part of Yuuri’s story, nor Victor’s; it’s part of mine. Home may never be the same as when you left, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t waiting for you with open arms.

So that’s what happened.

Put my body on a wagon And carry me off to the ocean Let me float on into the eastern sun Out where tomorrow has just begun Where I used to be wild, back in my time Now I just fight to sleep at night So render me up into the elements Lay me in a light that I can trust Lay me in a light that I can trust Lay me in a light that I come from...

(Gold Teeth, by Hey Rosetta!)

#personal #yuri on ice #writing #minimally edited

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callioope · 4 years ago

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Author Interview

tagged by @theputterer -- thank you :)

Name: Liz

Fandoms: In terms of posted fics, mainly Rogue One and Star Wars (OT). I have at least one fic posted in A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones, Community, and Howl’s Moving Castle (book). But I also like The Clone Wars and Rebels. I’ve been reading mainly ATLA fic for the past couple weeks.

Where you post: AO3 and sometimes here on tumblr. There are a few drabbles I’ve posted on tumblr that I really ought to crosspost on AO3 for posterity.

Most popular one-shot: “In Which Sophie is Late, and Howl Noses Around in Her Business” (Howl’s Moving Castle) With 698 kudos. Uh. Wow. I was not expecting that! It’s literally my only HMC fic (although I do technically have other unfinished drafts) and it’s not even a year old, and surpassed my second most popular one-shot which was posted in 2015. Pregnancy trope is popular I guess. It is amusing to me that my most popular one-shot is not in my favorite OTP fandom (rebelcaptain). Howl’s Moving Castle ended up having a wider audience than I anticipated.

Also as a disclaimer, but popularity is weird to gauge because do you go by hits or kudos or comments? I went with kudos because hits could count people who clicked on my story and then didn’t like it. But it’s hard because hits also include re-reads, so, idk.

Most popular multi-chapter fic: “The Last Stark” (A Song of Ice and Fire) 815 kudos. This was finished in 2013 so it’s had plenty of time to accumulate the kudos. It’s a Gendrya Anastasia AU (“Aryastasia” was my working title for this one lol). So again, popular trope, in a popular fandom, in a popular ship. This fic is so old when I reread it, I usually find myself wanting to edit it, especially the ending. I was so ready to be done writing this that I think I rushed the ending. Oh well, writing plots is really difficult!

Fic you were nervous to post: Every fic? lol. I’m never not nervous to post a fic. But I’m definitely more nervous posting in a fandom for the first time. So posting “Whatever I Do (I Do It To Protect You)” (Rogue One, rebelcaptain) was pretty nervewracking, especially since it’d been awhile since I posted anything. [OOOH, fun fact, but WID celebrated it’s 4 year anniversary yesterday! Ha, that’s funny.] I was working on this fic for weeks before I posted it.

I was also super nervous to post my Jeff/Annie Community soulmate AU, “Intro to Neurochemical Compatibility” because (a) first time posting in that fandom, (b) I decided to use script format which I know is not everyone’s jam, and (c) the premise is just so ridiculous! But I had fun with it.

Also gift exchanges are always nerve-wracking because I worry the giftee won’t like it. My giftee never responded to my 2020 rebelcaptain secret santa fic so I’m actually constantly worrying that they didn’t like it and feeling bad that I failed them. :/

How you choose your titles: with so much agonizing. gosh it’s so hard and honestly i have so many titles that i hate. I’ve got a couple song lyric titles. a couple quotes. a couple “how to...” apparently that was a whole phase I went through. Either the titles come to me immediately, or I put off choosing a title until the absolutely moment I need to post it, and then spend hours agonizing over a quote/song lyric/phrase that fits and probably begging others for help.

Do you outline: YES. Possibly overly so. I’ve ran into issues in the past, when I was much younger, where I didn’t resolve problems proposed early in the story. So I need to know where the story is going in order to lay the proper groundwork. Also, if I do not write things down I forget them five minutes later. I also think outlining is a useful trick to jumpstart writing, so if the muse just isn’t present, I’ll try to lure her out by outlining.

Complete: 19 fics.

In progress: Oh boy this is so hard to count. As far as what’s posted? Technically only one: “How to Lose a Spy in 10 Days” (Rogue One, rebelcaptain). Despite the fact that I think the deadline was extended multiple time, I procrastinated and ended up rushing chapter one to meet the rebelcaptain rom-com challenge deadline. Didn’t really have a proper outline for this one, even though I knew vaguely what I wanted it to be about. I wrote chapter two but I hated what I wrote so I ... I kinda abandoned it. I mean technically, I never consider a work abandoned, I always intend to get back to it. Some day when I have the inspiration I will. But this idea ended up being a challenge I didn’t feel ready for at the time, and then my interest moved on to other ideas.

I also had a longer story planned for “you must become an island (the horizon is all we have)” but only posted one part of it to finish it on time. Ideally this fic would be part of a series, but again, motivation is needed so we’ll see

Technically I have 22 rebelcaptain ideas alone (including some listed in this post) at various states of completed, plus a handful of Community and HMC ideas. Of the ones I’m most interested in, there’s probably about 14 that I really hope to finish and post some day.

ETA: omg i totally forgot that i was idly considering trying to finish my rebelcaptain soulmate AU in time for Valentine’s Day, but at this point I haven’t had any motivation to write so I don’t think that’s gonna happen. that fic has been sitting in my drafts since 2018 and in my drafts it will continue to sit.

Coming soon: “soon” is relative but these are currently the ones I’ve focused the most on recently:

Fencing AU (rebelcaptain)

You’ve Got Mail AU (rebelcaptain)

Post-War Fic with @allatariel (rebelcaptain, plus a LOT of other ships, includes Rebels characters, OT characters, and... maybe some others :) )

Palm Springs/time loop AU (Jeff/Annie)

Do you accept prompts: Wellllll here’s the thing. When I’ve asked for prompts, I haven’t been the best at fulfilling them in a timely manner. For that reason, I don’t encourage prompts but I’m not opposed to them. (I suppose technically exchange fics are prompts, and I wrote a bunch of fics in 2017 for rebelcaptainprompts, but I’m not gonna count those because I don’t think that’s what the question here is really going for)

“The Climb (A Lie, A Hero)” (Rogue One, rebelcaptain) was actually a prompt.

I solicited prompts for my birthday in 2019, which I didn’t end up fulfilling until exactly one year later.

Technically the You’ve Got Mail AU is a prompt, someone prompted me to write a fic for my favorite go-to comfort movie.

And, uh, the certain someone who tagged me for this meme prompted me in a comment back in October 2017 to do a Luke and Leia swap where Leia grows up on Tatooine, so that is sitting in my WIP list.

Yeah, this is why I don’t solicit or encourage prompts. The return rate is just not fair for the prompter.

Upcoming story you are most excited to write: this fluctuates on any given day. the fencing AU is so close to being done (well the first draft anyways) so i really really want to just finish it! But yeah it’d be anything on the coming soon list above.

tagging: @allatariel, @cats-and-metersticks, @lothcatlovesysalamiri, @veritascara, @brynnmclean and anyone who sees this and wants to do it! also ofc per usual no pressure if u don’t want to.

#tag meme #about me #my writing

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the--highlanders · 4 years ago

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Top 5 of 2020

Rules: it’s time to love yourselves! choose your 5 (ish) favorite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought into the world in 2020. tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works!

tagged by @penny-anna, thanks!!

1. Soft Interlude

maybe a bit of a copout to include a whole set of fics but hey I’m doing it. I was really proud of doing this!! it was so much effort and every time I try to do daily fics I remember why I don’t like it but also it feels so good to get it done. it had been ages since I’d written for prompts like this. I got to write a bunch of stuff that I wouldn’t have otherwise written (especially in terms of a bunch of Jamie hcs!) so I’m happy I wrote it.

2. Blue Dawn

I just really liked this one!! I like writing soft stuff, I’ve got another fic that I’m sitting on that I think has a similar sleepy vibe. the stuff w/ Two wondering if he could actually settle down was sort of inserted to justify the fluff but I liked it. & the setting for this one was and still is really clear in my mind - not sure if it came across but it was one of those fics where it came to me as an image rather than a phrase or a piece of dialogue.

3. Lifeboat

this was STUPIDLY self-indulgent but who cares!! I have like 2 interests other than dr who and they inevitably end up in fics ig. also like. the idea that victoria’s dad knew multiple mad scientists is so hecking funny to me. the poor dude was a slightly-unhinged-scientist magnet.

(also it’s Incredibly funny to me that I write this fic & then months afterwards David Tennant gets cast as the voice actor for the character who Victoria recognises here. did I manifest a dr who connection)

4. Causality

biggest individual fic of the year and one that I’d actually been working on since 2019! my first draft perfectionism really hit in the middle of writing this and it was painful to finish so I’m proud of having uploaded it. the museum morality stuff was pretty personally relevant to me last year too, so it very much felt like a reflection of what I was doing. and I think the plot gimmick was an interesting one! in retrospect I think I could have made younger vs older Jamie more distinct from each other, but I never feel like a good judge of how that sort of thing comes across. I did intend for there to be a difference, though.

5. Oil and Canvas

I love Victoria, I love Victoria and Jamie’s friendship and how much they parallel each other, and I really need to write more Victoria fic. she’s just interesting to write - I always feel like I have to get her voice right or it doesn’t work, with the right balance of vulnerability and bravery/unwillingness to let her fears show, but when I feel like I’m getting her right then she’s a lot of fun. and I think the basic idea of this fic - that living with a portrait of her dead mother who looked just like her must have made an impact on Victoria - is a good one.

kind of surprised I didn’t write more individual fics last year, but I guess the October fics ate up a lot of that!

not sure who to tag so just take this if you want to. tag me or not, it’s all good!

#personal

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psychedaboutstudying · 4 years ago

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1-year phd check-in

It's been a year since I started my PhD (01/07/2019) so I thought I'd check in and write down my ups and downs, things I learned so far, etc.

Anyone reading this, feel free to use/adapt these questions to check in with your own progress, whether you are a (first year) PhD student or not!

1. What's the topic of your PhD?

The role of peers in the development of internalizing problems. I will also be studying the development of autonomy across school transitions.

2. So, how's it going?

According to plan! I'm working on the draft for my first presenting which I'll be presenting at an (online…) conference in two months and will then be sent off for publication. Data collection is… quite something!

3. What are the most important things you have done in the past year?

I took responsibility in setting up and carrying out extensive data collection among ~300 adolescents, learned a lot of useful things (both by myself and in formal courses), worked on my first paper, set up a coding scheme.

4. What have you learned in the past year?

I gained a lot of formal knowledge on statistical analyses (mostly for longitudinal data). On a more personal level, I learned that it's not a bad thing to be different, to be "the odd one out". I am the only one in the department studying my topic, and I think that made people really uninterested in my interest, but the opposite was actually true! Also, the fact that I don't know something that other people already learned about does not make me stupid.

I am still learning how futile comparison to others is. No two PhD trajectories are the same for so. many. reasons. I still compare myself to others, simply because I want to know if I'm on track, but looking at others is not the way to go. It's better to talk about it with your supervisor.

5. What was the highlight? In other words, what was a moment that you really happy to be in this degree?

When I was presenting my research plans on a small conference on peer relations, people were really interested and came to talk to me afterwards about my plans and possible collaborations. As mentioned, no one in my department works on this topic, and it was so great to be in a group that is as invested in the topic as I am!

6. What was this year's low, or, what was the moment you came closest to quitting?

There are, sadly, two that come to mind immediately. The first was when data collection was at its busiest. I + 2 other PhD students had to take over tasks from basically 1.4fte. Even though my contract is for 32 hrs/week I usually worked closer to 50. Now, the three of us collectively refer to this hell as "October", but basically spans the whole of September-December. (Luckily, our time has now been expanded by 2.5fte and we are not stressed about data collection anymore most of the time!)

The second was in February when there were some tasks involving coordinating unwilling students (who had to meet requirements) that were mentally draining me and at one point I just starting crying when my colleague asked how I was doing. At this point, luckily I had more experience and knew who to talk to about this issue so it was fixed quite fast!

7. What was a big fail moment?

I went on the yearly writing-week, where 15 of us would sit in a cabin and write all day. I felt a lot of pressure to join, even though I didn't really have anything to write on. I felt miserable ALL week. Could not focus at all, and would often go to the toilet just to cry. I was homesick and felt incapable and worthless. It's maybe more sad than a fail, but I feel like all of this could have been avoided if I'd been honest with myself: I don't WANT to go!

8. Lastly, what's the thing you're most proud of doing in the past year

That one time I had three weeks between receiving the data set and abstract submission that I cleaned the data, learned a new software & analysis, and ran all my analyses (three times, because my supervisors and I couldn't make up our minds), interpreted the results and wrote the abstracts in those weeks.

And generally the fact that I have a first draft of my paper that hopefully will be published one day. Of course it's not there yet, but I remember being 18 and writing assignments, not believing that anything I wrote would ever be worthwhile.

#phdblr #gradblr #grad life #my posts #gradventures #booknerdphd

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tjkiahgb · 5 years ago

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On August 13th, 2018, at 8:20 PM, TJ Kippen performed a basketball-themed apology rap for Buffy Driscoll and completed his redemption arc. In doing so, he became a full and complete hashtag good boi and fulfilled this blog’s ridiculous destiny.

This post is scheduled to go up on August 13th, 2019, at 8:20 PM. It only feels right that I retire this blog on the one year anniversary of that moment.

Okay. It’s not that dramatic. I’m not deleting my account or logging out forever or anything. I’ll be around. I’ll check in and like some posts and hang out like the kid who graduated high school but won’t leave. He keeps coming back and acting chummy with the teachers and it’s like, doesn’t he have better stuff to do?

The point is, my queue is depleted, my drafts are empty. I don’t have a shift in fandoms planned. I don’t have anything planned. It’s time for me to turn my attention to other things and stop thinking about this show and writing about it and working on this blog.

So that’s basically the tl;dr of this whole deal. I’m going to write some rambling personal stuff so if you don’t care, which most people probably won’t, then thanks for reading and thanks for all the memories. It’s been fun.

Okay, lemme ramble. And if you’ve read this blog for a while, you’ve probably heard some of this already, but whatever, this is my goodbye post.

Way back in October of 2017, I came across a post on a website for TV news that said “Disney Channel to Feature Its First Gay Main Character in Andi Mack Season 2″. I didn’t know what Andi Mack was, and I hadn’t watched Disney Channel in well over a decade. I remembered reading about the two moms on Good Luck Charlie when it happened, but I also remembered that it was, you know, mostly nothing. A lot of controversy for what was just a quick little thing. But this headline noted that it was a Main Character. And I’m reading the article and it’s talking about how he’s going to have this journey in season two and the producers had talked to GLAAD and other groups to get it right, and I’m like, wow, this is pretty cool, this really seems like they’re putting some respect into this. (I’m also thinking about how much young, closeted me would’ve killed for something like this.)

So I set my DVR to record it not knowing what to expect. Mostly thinking it was just going to be your standard Disney Channel show: cheesy and corny and bad jokes, but I’ll catch the coming out scene and it’ll be cool to see how they handle it and that’ll probably be that.

And then I’m watching the episode and I’m like, this is... not bad? In fact, more than not bad, this is way better than it has any right to be. And then I got to the coming out scene, which was so well done, and I’m just... shocked. This is like Pixar. Like, it’s for kids, but I can watch it as an adult and pick up on themes and subtleties. This is not like the shows from my childhood. Where was this show when I was growing up?

Next thing I know I’m watching the next episode. And the next one. And I’m starting to care for these characters. I can forgive a lot of issues with plot if I care about the characters and what this show did, maybe as well as any show on television, is made you care for the characters, from top to bottom.

So now I’m watching the show regularly. At some point, I went back and binged through season one on DisneyNow. I’m in, as a casual viewer at this point at least.

And then I get to 2.11, and the swing scene happens, and I watch it wordlessly, and it ends, and I feel like I’m losing my mind. I could not believe what I just saw. I thought for sure this show was just going to have a couple of coming out scenes and that would be the end of it. Had I really just watched a scene that was hinting at a gay romance?

I wanted so badly to talk about it with someone else to see if they were seeing what I was seeing, but, as you may not be surprised to learn, none of my adult friends were watching Andi Mack. So I started looking around online. And I eventually found my way here, to this site, to the tag. And people were seeing what I was seeing. And people were excited about it, and I was like, okay, cool, I might’ve found my community.

So I started lurking around here. And I would check in after 2.12 and 2.13, and I was really starting to enjoy it. Most of the stuff I watch that I care about I’ll watch with friends or family and talk about it with them, so I never really thought being a part of a fandom would be worthwhile. Plus, I’d hear about shipping wars and other nonsense like that, and I’m like, I’m not going to make an account to argue with people over fictional characters’ relationships.

But what I was finding about this community was that it was more positive than that. There were arguments, sure. You’re going to get them in any group of people. But for the most part, people just seemed happy. They were posting theories and memes and gifs and jokes and fanfics. And they were celebrating the characters and developments. I don’t know if that’s special to the Andi Mack fandom or not, but it seemed special to me.

That’s around when I started thinking about making an account, during that hiatus between 2A and 2B. But I was like, do I want to commit to this? What’s the point of my account? What do I want to say? And at some point in the hiatus, I was checking the tag, and I saw a gifset. It was by an account, since deleted and gone, but who, at the time, was very prominent in the fandom. And the gifset was all about attacking Tyrus. It was trying to take everything nice about what had happened between TJ and Cyrus and stomp on it. Tyrus was like a little baby ship at this point. People were just starting to get into it, the numbers weren’t that big. There wasn’t even really a name for the ship back then. The Tyrus tag was mostly that professional wrestler and the CJ tag was even worse. And this account had decided they were going to use their platform to try and make this small group of people in the fandom feel bad about liking their ship. I just remember thinking, why? Why be like that? It just seemed so unnecessary. And for the briefest of moments, I thought, okay, maybe I’ll make an account to be a troll and argue this stuff. And then I was like, nah, that’s just going to make the tag worse. When you see someone trying to ruin things for other people, you can give them attention and power, or you can just do your own thing.

So what I decided to do instead was to make an account that would add to the positivity I had been seeing. To just be one of the many voices doing fun stuff to drown out the bad. I could put out dumb posts to hopefully make people laugh, or eventually start writing recaps to give people something to do after watching the episode. There wasn’t really any bigger goal than that. Kill some time while celebrating the show and making the tag a more fun place, if only incrementally.

I’d like to think I did that. That I haven’t written or made too many things that have bummed people out and that most of my posts have hopefully made things better for people who wanted to hang out on here and talk about the show.

That’s all. At the end of everything, that was all. Just try to leave a net-positive wherever you go.

So that’s why I joined tumblr. Here’s why I stayed.

I am an unemployed writer. I’m an employed something else, but I would like to be an employed writer and I am currently not. And what that really means is I’m an unread writer. It means I write stuff and I try to convince people to read it and buy it, but most of the time they don’t. Most of the time, my stuff sits around waiting and hoping to be read. And when that’s the case, you can start to feel doubt.

What I didn’t realize when I started this account was that I would also be getting positivity back. I mean, I probably should have. It was the whole reason I started this, because I liked the positivity here. I guess I just didn’t expect it to be returned to me.

But it has. It has tremendously. Just writing this silly stuff that I do and putting it out there and getting feedback on it has meant so much to me. People saying something I’ve written is funny or interesting or just saying that they enjoyed it is such a confidence boost. You feel like, okay, people like my jokes or the way I think or whatever. There’s an audience for me somewhere. People who will get me. I just need to stick with it.

That’s what you all have been for me this last year and a half. More than just making this a fun place to share our love of this show, you’ve made this a place for me to feel seen.

I try not to tie too much of my self-esteem to the amount of interaction my posts get. (Seriously, don’t do that, it can be really unhealthy. I’m like, if a post flops, it flops. No biggie. Move on to the next one.) But every note I do get on something I’ve written lets me know I’ve done something right. The reblogs, the likes, the follows, the nice messages in my inbox, the comments on the posts. Any of it. All of it. It lets me know I’ve been read. It makes me feel like I’ve made a connection. And that means the world to me.

So thank you, to any and all of you who participated in this thing with me. Thank you for reading. Thank you for being a part of my experience on here. Thank you for being so cool that I wanted to join your group in the first place and thank you for being so great afterwards that I’m eternally happy I did.

It’s meant more to me than you could possibly know.

Keep the positivity.

- Jay

#blog stuff

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sienna27 · 5 years ago

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Me / My Writing

Once again, faithful, patient, readers, I will be putting up a story that is not what you’re looking to see. I am genuinely sorry for that, and because I honestly don’t know when/if I’ll be able to get back to my TWD stories, I felt like I should explain what happened because it wasn’t the usual ‘hey, life happens’ bullshit which led me here. Some of you might have noticed that I’ve hardly been on Tumblr this year, and it’s all related to the following. In brief, in the early spring my mom had a psychotic break, and she tried to kill my dad. Started with verbal abuse, escalated to physically hitting him, finally went after him with a hammer. A hammer.

He’s 86, she was 84.

Weeks and weeks of hell, with her in and out of hospitals, back home on new medication, all to deteriorate to violence again and again, finally after the fourth time she had to be removed by emergency services we all, my dad included, accepted that after 63 years of marriage, my mom was going to finish up their remaining time together in a psychiatric ward. So that’s where she’s been since May. My dad, the stress has nearly killed him. Literally. He’s been in the hospital five times, in August he had a heart attack where he was technically dead for 28 minutes. Only alive now because our neighbor who was with him was a paramedic and started CPR immediately, which kept oxygen going to his brain. But the call I got at work was basically my sister sobbing, ‘dad’s dead.’ Fun drill! And my mom isn’t my mom anymore. The medication does nothing. It’s some kind of organic dementia presenting as psychosis. She has no affection for any of us. She is hateful and cruel (told my oldest brother that his birth ruined her life) and suicidal, and her brain is completely broken. I haven’t talked to her since July. I miss her. Sometimes I sit and sob I miss her so much, but the exasperating, ‘crazy,’ woman that I loved and hated and argued and fought with for forty years, isn’t the person that lives in that brain anymore, so cutting off contact is all I could do for my own sanity. I mail her cookies and send my love along with the family who still visit, and that’s all I can do.

And then in October, my cat died. My Stevo. It wasn’t sudden because I had about a week to prepare, and yet it was sudden, because it was just over and he was gone. Sixteen years he was my boy. Sixteen years he ran up to greet me at the door when I came home, and slept next to my pillow on the bed, and now he’s just not here anymore. And it’s killing me. It’ll be two months next week and I still sob uncontrollably, randomly, for about five minutes every day. Then I get my shit together and go on with my life like I’m supposed to be doing. And the five minutes of sobbing is completely separate from random ‘normal’ crying or tearing up. I’ve been doing that every single day, since the spring. I have literally cried every day for the past eight months. There is no medication to make that better because it’s not simply an ‘imbalance’ (which I had before all this anyway), this is now just my reality as it currently exists. It’s a constant grieving for everything slowly falling apart in ways that you just don’t really imagine happening. And it sucks.

So, that’s my life, right now. And as such, with this never ending shitstorm of 2019, the characters and fandoms that were previously offering me some ‘respite’ from real life, have ceased to do so. I don’t know why that is, but I haven’t been able to write in anything I had going. And with life as it has been, and still is (literal, never ending pit in my stomach - my dad is back in the ICU as of last night so I’m listening to Chopin and stress eating Christmas cookies) I needed to find something to break up the emotional maelstrom before I hit a complete breakdown. To my surprise, it ended up being the Harry Potter fandom that has kept me from slipping off the cliff. First the books, then the movies, then the fanfic. I devoured this world that I had felt only a casual affection for in the past. And when I say that I tried SO hard to ignore any flutters I had for story ideas here, it was ridiculous. I didn’t want to start writing in a new fandom when I have unfinished stories over in TWD, but the brain does what it does. And once the spark came, and the story began to flesh out in my mind, inevitably, I had to start writing it down. Once I had ten thousand words I realized it was coming into existence whether I wanted it to or not. It’s helped some as a distraction, so in that respect it has done its part, and beyond that I hope it will bring some diversion to others as well. So if you want to stick with me for a little longer, I do have this new story. It’s focused in nature, maybe seven chapters I’m thinking. I have the first two done, third drafted and final fleshed out, so it’s a project I believe I can complete. You know, barring some other horrible event happening which splinters my world in another fun, new way.

But anyway, it’s an AU where Snape survives and something happens that brings Hermione back into his life a few years later. There is a specific plot, and romance will also ensue. To be clear, this is an ADULT Hermione/Snape story because don’t be gross. If you aren’t locked into her as soulmates with Ron, Hermione with Snape actually makes a lot of sense with them getting together post war. And I realized that the pairing fits for my own pattern of writing couples with the Emotionally Repressed/Brooding Male and the woman who brings an unexpected bit of light into his life. Historically, it’s the Mr. Darcy/Elizabeth Bennett template, in case you hadn’t noticed. So stepping back, after the fact, I realized how logically I fell into this Snape/Hermione ship that I had given zero thought to prior to three months ago.

And that’s all folks. Hope your lives are well, and if they’re not, I hope they get better. I’ll be around ❤️

cc: @sesamesquirrel cpmv71

#caryl fanfiction #mcreedus fanfiction #caryl #had to tag it so I could find it later if need be

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lambourngb · 5 years ago

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Behind the Scenes- Last Year’s Wishes

@zuluoscarecho - ““Oh man you have been busy! I’m glad the writing Has been going well for you. I would love to hear about your process when you get a chance if you’re keen. Like whether you plotted it out, whether the whole fic came to you (more or less) or how hard you had to work to fill in the gaps to get you where you wanted to go, whether you’re a “push through” kinda writer and just sit down and do it or whether you scribble stuff down all day and then type it up at the end or whatever. Many questions I have”

Oh boy, these are great questions- my approach to writing has changed from how I started “Last Years Wishes” and how I’m finishing it. First of all, I was out of practice. The last long story I tackled and finished on my own was in 2002-2003 on ff.net (for a moment I thought it was 2012-2013 but I just looked it up and still can’t believe it was that long ago, hahah) Then I wrote a follow up with a co-writer that ended …poorly due to stuff outside of writing with that person. I hit a very bad depressive cycle and didn’t write again until 2019 and RNM.

The idea came after I watched some true crime story in August- I think it was “Murder Comes to Town” - which is all small town population less than 10,000 gets hit with a salacious murder. I immediately thought about Michael, and first I thought he could be blamed for Max’s disappearance, but then I remembered how visible Noah was to the town, and I was off plotting. Carina said on twitter- oh lord what a loaded sentence that is - that we don’t know when Alex was at the Airstream or what he had to say- which fine, but that made me think about juggling the time a bit, letting the police show up first, then Alex go to the wild pony, THEN MAX, and yeah boom! Conflict! Alex knows Michael wants to be with someone else, but he just gave him an alibi. They are stuck! Fuck Alex’s whole life, amirite? That part of the idea came all at once.

I wrote the first draft of the scene for Tumblr - August 8th - started it before work when I like to write- kept writing once I got to work (bad employee!) posted it and as the comments and likes rolled in, I kept writing. First day was like 6,000 words.

Then I didn’t really touch it for 2 weeks. I kept adding stuff here and there, using WIP Wednesday to motivate me to share a bit. In one month though, the story was at 10,000 words by September 12. Mainly because I just wrote as it came to me, and let my brain just fuck off on Tumblr or reading other fics. I wasn’t really serious about it. Six weeks later it was 15,000 words by the end of October. This time I thought the reason I didn’t have more progress on it was because I didn’t have the practice of finishing a story- so I attempted at the very beginning of October to do Whumptober. I managed to write 2 stories - truth (to the people we love) and If You Regret (What You Know).

So two stories finished, I went back to Last Year’s Wishes and used everyone working on NaNo for November to buckled down. I wrote out a rough outline of future scenes. I made a point to write, if I could, every day something. I do try and write in a linear fashion, but if I couldn’t move forward in the story, I would go back to previous stuff to add in descriptions, put in some introspection- sometimes a whole scene needed to be inserted, then I could push forward again.

The story grew from 15,000 words on Nov 1 to 28,000 words by Dec 1. Nearly double in size. And the more I put my ass in the chair to write, the easier it became to focus. It will never be easy to focus for me- I really like scrolling on my phone, chatting with other people, etc. But I had to build a muscle in my brain from the ground up with no real belief that I would succeed because I thought depression and anti-depressants had broken my brain. But Malex kept me interested.

By the time December rolled around, I made a goal of finishing it by New Years, but then my outline kept growing. I kept thinking about the underlying plot, I kept thinking about how big the communication divide was- I couldn’t just say “they talked, they fucked HEA!”. As December came to a close, I realized I had written 32,000 words in the month of December but I was only half done with the story. So while I was disappointed I hadn’t hit my goal of being done, I was very pleased at the progress. The story was around 60,000 words by the end of the year.

January- I increased my goal of 1,000 words a day, to 2,000 words a day. I really believed I could finish it in one sustained push. I wrote nearly 40,000 words in the month of January- bringing it to just under 99,000 words but…it still wasn’t done. My assistant quit. I got sick. Progress stuttered. But I felt like the end was in site- so I contacted betas, two of which came through- tasyfa and Maura - and kept writing. I thought it was just 20,000 words to go, and since I just wrote 40,000 in one month, I could easily write 20,000 2-1/2 weeks, right????

February- beta comments were great, I started releasing it publically in chapters, and then the feedback started rolling in- and instead of motivating me forward, I started obsessing over the next thing people would read- I wanted it to be perfect. I started inserting new scenes, fleshing out other areas- driving my betas crazy I think- because I kept poking at it. I wrote those 20,000 words easily as the story was getting posted, but they were all in the existing frame of the plot. New stuff … that didn’t really start happening until March.

Another thing that I realized was my outline needed to be supportive but flexible. Originally (which remind me once it’s complete) but I had some different ideas for how the last few chapters were going to go, and I had to let those narratives go because it no longer felt natural to me with the narrative I had established.

Even now I have 5 scenes outlined for chapter 22, but as I started writing it this morning, I am leaning toward blending it into 4 or 3 scenes. Oh- my scene should have a standalone point to accomplish, and if that point isn’t clear or can be accomplished in another way, then it gets moved or blended. I don’t really jot things down on paper- but I have two documents- the writing doc, and the story doc. Writing doc has the outline, I always write with my outline heading just below my cursor so I can keep looking down at my goals and construct the scene from there. The story doc is where I cut and paste it into the whole thing. Sometimes as I scroll to find where I am in the doc, I will add something or edit something, before putting in the next bit at the end.

This is what chapter 18-19-20 looked like on Feb 9th in my outline : [1.. After their pathetic attempts to decorate Alex‘s leg was starting to bother him. Michael took one look at him and advised that he remove the prosthetic. Alex protested mildly about being seen that way. Michael reassured him that Isabell not only knew but didn’t care.

1a. - Isobel and Kyle arrive- she found him in the grocery store attempting to leave with the last baked ham - Mom working a double, Rosa was going to midnight mass with Arturo and Liz- 1b. Isabell and Michael have a quiet talk that Alex overhears while he changes and removes his leg for the night-. He discusses talking to Maria and reframing some of what Alex had said. 1c- walks past them to the kitchen with Kyle]

[2. Isobel and Kyle show up to the cabin for Christmas Eve- Isobel sleeps over. Michael offers the spare, Kyle takes the couch, Alex objects to Michael sleeping in the airstream. ]

[ 3. Alex wakes up to an alert on the day after Christmas Day that gets an alert about someone at the cave. Finds Michael staring at Jesse and not Max.. Why did you think you were like him- that night that Noah died. What did that mean. It means he was ruthless about his agenda and so am I. I’ll do anything to protect you. Michael is silent and closed off, but follows him back to the cabin - knowledge from the ship piece ]

ONE MONTH LATER on March 10 the notes looked like this based on how the story looked: [2. Isobel and Kyle stay in the face of the weather- Isobel sleeps over. Michael offers the spare, Kyle takes the Airstream ,Michael volunteers himself to sleep with Alex - Michael quietly explains he isn’t going to have a conversation with anyone afterward, Christmas gift exchange- Michael gives him the handprint- remnant from the console and his mother, sharing the intensity - they have sex ]

[ 3. Alex wakes up to intense sorrow by Michael via the handprint n the day after Christmas Day that gets an alert about someone at the cave. Finds Michael staring at Jesse and not Max.. Why did you think you were like him- that night that Noah died. What did that mean. They discuss Alex’s family and the future- do you think you would ever forgive them? I’ve been mad at Max, but if he came back today I would take him back, What about Flint and what he did ? Do you think he’s sorry? knowledge from the ship piece- soul mates, forever tied together ]

Err— I’m long winded, so did I answer your questions? Feel free to ask more!!

#fake dating your ex because of the feds #wip whine #the writing process #behind the scenes with my disaster brain

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