#this is the groundwork for what will THEM later

[sorry-i-like-romantic-fabriz]

aaaauuuUUUUUUUGGGHHHHhhhh got to the part where TBK all get their anonymous personalized gifts from Fabian and I forgot just HOW personalized they are!!!

He gets Fig a ruby guitar pick!! They literally just met Gorthalax yesterday!!!

Gorgug gets a leather axe holder with a tin flower on it! Fabian basically made that Gorgug's "symbol".

He followed through and got Adaine 45 gold pieces for the makeover she wanted to do with TBK!!

I genuinely forgot Fabian was how Kristen got her book about different religions in the world! She only just started actively looking for literature about different faiths!!

And then...what he got Riz... I'm literally gonna quote how Brennan described it:

"Riz, you find a beautiful leather bound briefcase with the initials 'TB' on the front- and inside are a bunch of beautiful, like gilded business cards that say "Riz 'The Ball' Gukgak", a-very, very small 'un' and then "licensed investigator" and your information on them. With beautiful hand done calligraphy."

Kristen says these are all of their deepest desires that tap into what they're all after. Which isn't totally true but also not far from it! Adaine says they've been given their "heart's desire"! Fabian didn't just buy them what they'd all want, he got them things they'd never think to get for themselves!

Fabian (like Fig) tries to play at being disinterested and unattached to TBK, but he can't help it! These high schoolers are weirdo freaks and they're also people he cares deeply about! So much so he's afraid it isn't mutual and they're only after his money, despite the fact none of them have shown any interest in his wealth!!!

Fabian loves The Bad Kids sooooo much and the school year isn't even over. He hasn't really had anyone outside of his family's social circle to show love to, and as soon as he gets the opportunity he throws his heart into it!!!

Fabian Aramais Seacaster, you don't need to add "Son of Bill Seacaster" to the end your name for people to desire your presence. "Fabian" is more than enough 🥺

[batsplat]

OT3: casey stoner/his neuroses/the concept of valentino rossi that mostly exists in casey’s head

y'know I have this casey stoner... idk what it is. thematic mind map (literal), let's say, that I like fiddling with and adding things to when the mood hits me. and it does always strike me just how many of his struggles during his careers and issues with the sport can in some way be linked back to the valentino rivalry

casey's sense of isolation? super valentino related. casey's feelings of cultural alienation in a paddock dominated by europeans? even when it's not really related to valentino, casey is the one linking those two things together. casey's issues with other riders not being respectful enough on track? very obviously repeatedly about valentino. casey's discomfort with the performance and entertainment-related aspects of the sport? more valentino. casey feeling treated unfairly by the manufacturers, the media, the marshals, the fans.... keeps coming back to valentino. casey's mystery illness really shouldn't be as relevant to the rivalry as it is, but somehow through this combination of public discourse and whatever comparisons casey's brain is cooking up at any moment in time... there valentino is again

one of the most charming things about valentino's feuds is that in each and every single one, both participants end up being deeply weird about each other? just keep knocking off these banger quotes about the other where you read them and go. hm. what's going on there then. I don't want to make it sound like I think casey is the worst offender with this (not when marc and valentino have their whole thing going on, bidirectionally)... but I do think he's the most susceptible to conflating his valentino issues with like... everything else that was going on in his career. to the extent where his alienation with the sport as a whole, his extreme disillusionment from everything related to motogp, really cannot be meaningfully disentangled from the valentino rivalry. at times it feels like, to casey, valentino literally is the sport. and that's the thing casey dedicated his whole life to!! which means you do inevitably end up regularly going 'wow there's a lot to unpack'. add in a dash of neuroticism...

and yeah you're so right anon!! the neuroses are what end up creating the version of valentino that mostly exists in casey's head, a version that casey is just a touch obsessed with. I always think it's interesting how aware casey is that he doesn't know valentino as a person - and to the extent casey does know him, he gets on pretty well with him... but valentino the person isn't all that relevant to him. it's valentino the character who matters - and can you even really know a character? in the end, all casey can do is rely on his own understanding of that character, as imperfect as it is. and, well, in a way casey is trapped with that character forevermore. if one man comes to embody a sport to such an extent and if that sport has been your life's work, how can you not be a little bit trapped? as he tries to make his peace with the sport and his experiences within it, so too has casey settled on a narrative of valentino that helps him make sense of it all... a very specific understanding of his rival that casey has shaped in his mind and still trots out now when he sells his own version of events to the media. casey learned from valentino, casey learned to be a little more like valentino, casey learned to fight valentino with his own tools, casey tells himself a story of that fight. he still continues to do so - and in the end he will never be entirely free of valentino

[itspileofgoodthings]

I was teaching Ophelia’s death scene this week and one of my classes spontaneously giggled when she died (because they are 16 years old and emotionally immature) and I said, in a shocked voice, “it is NOT funny” and they all insisted that it was and so I let it go but then the next day I showed them some Ophelia art, made them think about how sinister it was that her death happens offstage but is still described in such detail for the viewer, which tells us she was WATCHED but not HELPED as she died, and then played a clip from Branagh’s Hamlet of Kate Winslet singing a mourning song for her father and when I tell you how satisfying it was to hear a total and complete hush fall over the room

[apoptoses]

it's day three of anne's eunuch book making me absolutely feral 🥺

[youngpettyqueen]

I love how much the events of ...Nor the Battle to the Strong are still affecting Jake in this novel. he cant let go of the guilt. he's terrified of acting cowardly again, and he's terrified of failing the group. since the show itself never really did anything with that episode after it happened, its nice to see it acknowledged somewhere

[lightmotif139]

Absolutely agree with you. As a kid, Narnia helped me find actual joy in Biblical truth in a way that Sunday school usually did not.

...And it still hits me pretty hard as an adult too.

Okay but I do get really tired when people rag on Narnia's Biblical parallels for being too overt. Like, yeah dude. It's written for kids. Most kids don't do subtlety. I knew my Bible better than probably 95% of third graders, and yet my parents still had to clue me in. I've talked to people who grew up secular and didn't realize Narnia was Christian until well into adulthood. The Christian parallels in Narnia are at a pretty perfect level for most kids, and the fact that we as adults continue to get new spiritual meaning from it as we grow is a real testament to the depth of Jack's writing.

[ofteacupsandclocks]

I’ve seen quite a few people complaining about how quick Will forgave Hannibal for killing Abigail and I have some thoughts

So first of all I don’t think Will (or Hannibal for that matter) loved Abigail.

Will cared about Abigail because he felt responsible for killing her father. I also think he loved the idea of having a child.

After all he doesn’t deny feeling paternal about Abigail and as they later discuss with Hannibal having a step child / surrogate child allows Will not to be scared of passing on his traits he’s afraid of.

So to sum it up Will loves the idea of having Abigail as child. Will cares about the potential Abigail represents, but not Abigail as a separate person.

Hannibal sees Abigail as an opportunity to have an apprentice. She interests him. He sees the groundwork her father has laid and he thinks he can push her to become like him. I think Hannibal also sees Abigail as a tie to Will. A way to keep Will close to him. (Which is also why I think Hannibal doesn’t hesitate to kill Abigail - he wants to hurt Will and he wants to sever that tie he has to Will). So to put it simply Hannibal cares about the potential Abigail represents, but not Abigail as a separate person.

As you probably noticed among the feelings I mentioned - a love for Abigail is not on the list. After all Will’s paternal feelings, Hannibal wanting to get closer to Will and their care for the potential Abigail is does not equate love for Abigail as a person. So Hannibal killing Abigail was not him taking away someone Will loved, it was him taking away that potential.

Second reason I think Will seemingly forgave Hannibal so quickly for killing Abigail is that he didn’t really forgive Hannibal (neither did Hannibal forgive Will for his betrayal). Will and Hannibal’s relationship is complicated. Their love is complicated. Their love isn’t one dimensional. It has enough room for hatred and anger and betrayal. They simply choose to look past it. To ignore it for their own convenience. To love each other despite it. To love each other with it.

As Will said himself their relationship is based on ignoring the worst of each other to enjoy the best.

I think they would view past hurts as steps in the path that led them to where they are.

And the final point: they don’t have a choice other than to forgive each other (in whatever form forgiveness looks like for them). Not really. As Hugh Dancy himself said about their relationship: “imagine you are playing chess and you are the only person in the world who plays chess, and then someone else walks in the room with a chess board”.

They are two of a kind. And for the longest time they both thought they were the only one, that they were unique, doomed to be alone in that uniqueness. And then they met someone like them. Someone interesting. Someone who could understand. They each got a taste of companionship, of understanding, of being seen. And after that, going back to their aloneness would have been a different kind of death. It would have been devastating. After seeing what they could have they just couldn’t go back to how they used to be.

Will and Hannibal have no choice other than to seek the other’s company despite everything because they know they can never meet anyone who could understand them, who could see them. Not how the other can.

Betrayal, killing Abigail, killing Beverly pales in comparison to that extasy of beeing known. They would be willing to tolerate, to accept almost any amount of pain from the other, in return for that pleasure.

They are doomed to each other.

[unteriors]

I assume you’ve probably answered this before, but what exactly is the underlying politics of this blog? I don’t quite understand the connection between neoliberal capitalism and pictures of desolate housing listings.

Thanks if you take the time to reply! -anon

We live in a bizarre intermediate period where capitalism appears to be eating itself. I originally came across the Gramsci quote in the header via Noam Chomsky in 2015/2016, when he was using it to refer to the pre-Trump lunacy that was taking over the Republican Party. In the US, this seems to have been a sort of cancerous outgrowth of decades of austerity and privatisation and deregulation that began with the end of Bretton Woods and took off in earnest in the 80s under Reagan. Similar processes have been at work to varying degrees across much of the world, throbbing occasionally with particular enthusiasm depending on the elected government, abating temporarily during other periods of Third Way-ite labour stagnation. Housing is at the core of these recent historical trends, and of the relationship between the government and its citizens. I don't know if it could exactly be called the main driving factor, but it plays an enormous role in how we work, how we form relationships, and how we interface with society generally. I remember reading a quote from a conservative politician in the UK in the 80s, responding to a question about why they didn't build more public housing to address the growing homelessness problem; he said something to the effect of 'that would just breed another generation of Labour voters.' I think the cannier politicians (and business leaders) are very aware of their capacity to shape our lives through housing like this.

A similar process has been at work in my country since World War II. We had a succession of two very good Labor Prime Ministers during the 1940s: John Curtin and Ben Chifley. They developed our version of the vast postwar public housing programs that most Western countries had. This provided stable, affordable (or often just free) housing for a huge chunk of the population who wouldn't have had access to it before the war. After Chifley, a conservative government under Robert Menzies came to power in a wave of anti-communist hysteria. Menzies appealed directly to a class of the population which he called the 'forgotten people': people in the middle strata of society who, in his characterisation, didn't get involved in trade unions or radical political organisations, didn't protest, and just wanted to get on with their lives in an apolitical solitude. In reality, this was less of a class of people that already existed and more one he set out to proactively create. He did this, in part, by altering the public housing scheme to give the baby boomers the right to buy the property the government had given them. This entrenched home ownership and, arguably, introduced a level of scarcity to the public housing stock in the long-run, and set the groundwork for later government support of housing as a financial asset, guaranteed to appreciate. It also, in a way, helped create that class of 'quiet' Australian: a solid middle 75-80% of the population that could be guaranteed a comfortable, suburban lifestyle, within an apolitical bubble quietly guaranteed by interventions into the economy by the government and regulation of the housing market in their favour. Over the years, this proportion of the population has gradually decreased, more markedly so since the overt financialisation of housing under John Howard in the early 2000s, and it's fallen off a cliff since COVID.

There's a tradition in art that I've been interested in for a while which involves broadening creative fields (in artmaking or criticism) through direct engagement with fields of work, of machine production, of lived experience or other symptoms of the oppressive political reality we live under (realism in the Linda Nochlin sense). You see it in the controversy around Courbet's paintings of manual workers, much of Andy Warhol's work and general contempt for the art world (his silkscreens of graphic photos of car crashes he found in the newspaper stand out to me), or more recently some of the controversy that came from Tracey Emin's installations. More broadly, there's something to be said about the conscious effort to make transparent and use aesthetically the machine behind the reproduction, or distribution, or amplification, etc., of art. The use of feedback in music seem to me to be an example of this. To use a couple of examples of a period of music I'm particularly interested in, grunge is one example, but so are reggae sound systems which use custom-made valve amps that give an enormous low-end to vinyls they would play, to the point of using the records as instruments to create a sort of rumbling distortion (Jah Shaka's sessions seem to have premediated alternative rock, operating on parallel tracks). These forms of creative production seem to organically emerge from the detritus of industrialisation, and seem to respond to its alienation and atomisation of human relations. I'm interested in breaking the functionality of illegitimate systems. At uni I took a series of photographs of the backs of shops. There was something comforting in identifying how a commercial entity wanted to be presented visually, and then representing it in the exact opposite way. Similarly, though I don't know if this could be considered an art project, I like an incompetent realtor. The aesthetic qualities of a real estate listing that completely fails in its intended purpose can be quite rich, in some ways liberating. An enormous amount of imagery is generated by the institutional machinery of commercial institutions, much of it ephemeral. If you rescue some visual artifacts from this increasingly engorged flood and look at them against their intended purpose you get a little window into the broader world, where advertising agencies and algorithms and real estate agents and SEI specialists, etc., aren't constantly grabbing your face and forcing you to look at the most boring and monetisable parts of the visual world. You have the opportunity to experience fear, hate, genuine nostalgia and melancholy, various other complex passionate experiences inaccessible in the neoliberal digital machine perversion of visual culture and creative experience.

This is a kind of a roundabout way of answering your question. Maybe part of my motivation has something to do with the relationship between art and work. If you reject the art as some higher, privileged category interpretation (i.e. this is just a photograph, but this other photograph is Art), then the boundaries of what constitutes art, or what can be read as art, are pretty porous. The machinery of industrialisation and capitalism took away the ability of people working in home workshops to have some control and creative involvement in their own working lives and turned them into atomised, specialised machine parts at the mercy of their employers and the market. The parts of work that could be considered contiguous with what we call art have been severed. Art and artists have suffered the same effects; contemporary artists seem to me not that different from other independent professionals. If you go to a dentist's office on Cambridge Street in Perth they'll often have a brochure with a blurb about their history and their mission as medical professionals, etc., on the front counter, and by the same token every artist in an exhibition is taught to provide their own little didactic overview of their niche interests, mostly independent from deeper, shared commitments (lumped together like a sack of potatoes, per Marx). I feel it makes sense to reach back out into other parts of the economy force art into them.

[orewing]

the lies of suou hayato

following my previous post noting the association of suou to hanazuou and its meaning in hanakotoba, I wanted to expand somewhat on what I said in the tags regarding suou's quote-unquote "deal" and also share my own theory as to why he is the way he is and where his story might go from here.

this might be a bit of a long one, so buckle in.

the lie of composure

suou is seemingly unwavering. he is poised, refined, and polite at all times. he puts on an unflappable facade, but I think he actually has pretty poor control over his own emotions—he often acts in petty ways, as evidenced by the way he toys with his opponents, but he also has a vindictive streak—more on that later.

the lie of vulnerability

suou does not show weakness. he is strikingly perceptive and highly responsive to the needs of others, but expresses no wants or needs of his own. he insists quite clearly that everyone is the same, but treats himself as the sole exception in refusing to divulge his weak points—and when someone else discovers one of them, he panics.

I do think he means the words he's saying. I just also think he's automatically disqualifying himself from them. he seems to be trying very hard to maintain an image of someone without flaw and without weakness; someone who wants for nothing and who can be relied on for anything. I have an idea as to why that might be the case, but there's more groundwork I'd like to establish first.

the lie of kindness

this is a lie hiding a kernel of truth.

early on, during the shishitouren arc, sakura notes that suou has a rotten personality. I think this moment is sakura seeing past the mask of a "kind gentleman" to the layer just underneath (the layer that contains suou's more ugly, turbulent emotions), but deeper than that, I do think suou does genuinely care for his friends. if he didn't, I don't think he'd be so eager to assist sakura as his vice-captain, or to help nirei train in secret... no, I think there's something else going on there. which leads to...

the lie of connection

this one has already been covered in detail in this post (kudos to both @goatedgreen and @squish--squash for their wonderful insights on the topic), but in short, suou does not participate in connecting with others.

there are two significant narrative themes that this involves: "fighting is a conversation," and "eating with others".

suou is never shown eating in the manga (we're ignoring the taiyaki), and as far as I can recall, the only time we ever see him try to throw a punch is in a moment where his opponent is already unconcious; in other words, anything that could have been conveyed through it would have fallen on deaf ears anyway.

suou is seemingly uninterested in connecting with his opponents in fights. I believe he's also deliberately keeping his own friends at arm's length. why? I do have an idea—it's spitballing, really—but before I can get to that I need to talk about...

the lie of maturity

this is the big one. this is the lie that ties all the others together.

suou acts like the Adult in the room. he is poised, refined, and polite at all times. but as mentioned prior, he is, in many respects, immature. he is petty and vindictive. he is quick to anger when faced with perceived injustice. he seemingly considers sakura someone he can never match up to—and I think that's primarily because his own emotional growth is stunted by personal circumstance and suou himself is aware of this.

suou is, I think, jealous of sakura's ability to grow and flourish as a person outside the boundaries his own life is restricted to.

what boundaries?

this post is being written under a couple of decently big assumptions.

first, I'm writing it under the assumption that suou's backstory has no ties to the triads (or the yakuza, or what have you). while organised crime is a topic touched upon in canon during the roppo ichiza arc, it feels like something which is kept at arm's length by the narrative in favour of a narrower focus on personal trauma and stories with personal stakes. while I don't doubt that nii-sensei has the writing chops to pull off a story where suou's family is involved with organised crime in some way, I'm putting that idea aside in favour of something a little more grounded.

second, and this is really the crux of my post: I think suou hayato was raised in an incredibly strict family environment.

what made me consider this as a strong possibility was actually a dialogue I encountered while reading another manga, medalist:

I think it's possible that, growing up, suou was never really given the opportunity to Be A Child. I think he was raised in an environment that placed incredible pressure on him to perform as an adult from a very young age, and that caused him to grow up with a warped sense of maturity.

too often, it's easy to forget that this is a 15-year-old boy. he's far from a fully-grown adult—and I think, most likely, he's just a kid with too many expectations placed on him at too young an age (he might also be suffering a pinch of chuunibyou delusion, but really, it'd be hard to blame him for that if I did turn out to be correct about his upbringing).

I think it's also worth noting that nirei was very surprised by suou's demeanour the first time they met. it's possible that he was expecting someone more mature, based on the information he'd previously gathered; someone better suited to the image of a person who was treated as grown up from a very young age.

this could be suou actively defying other people's expectations in order to hide his true self. or it could be a genuine lack of maturity showing. or it could be both! who's to say?

spitballing

I believe that, unlike someone like kiryuu (who we see actively at odds with family members), suou probably wants to live up to what his family expects of him. I think this is also going to be the thing that causes him the most trouble further down the line. there is very little canon basis for this theory, so please take it with the whole salt shaker:

it's possible that suou was sent to fuurin for a purpose.

I'm not sure what, exactly, that purpose could be—possibly as a punishment for failing to live up to his family's exacting standards—but I think there's a timer on his life at fuurin, and I think suou is aware of this.

he isn't planning on saying no when he's asked to leave (I don't think he'd turn his back on fuurin of his own free will, but I do think he's the type to say "it is what it is" and leave it at that while quietly dying inside), and that's why he's so adamant on not partaking in the customs of fuurin. but there's a problem with that.

even if he's been actively avoiding connecting with others in the most narratively significant ways (food and fighting), suou has still formed relationships with others, whether he likes it or not. and I can think of at least two people who won't let him go quietly if they find out he's trying to leave...

[transfemme-shelterdog]

Woah, what's this about Chappell Roan being transandrophobic? I've never heard of her being transphobic in any way, so this is new.

I've explained it before, but here's a summary:

1. She says that men don't make anything of value (trans men are men)

2. She only acknowledges the existence of trans women (Thank you trans women only for laying the groundwork for my music [she thanked "trans people" and later clarified that she meant only transfems])

3. She idolizes a musician who lost his record contract over him and his wife's comments about how "you can't be a tomboy anymore, they mutilate any girl who is remotely non feminine and tell them that they're boys" (paraphrased, it's on the wiki page for Jason Aldean)

All pretty damn transandrophobic if you ask me.

[unboundprompts]

hi, i love your prompts!!

can you do prompts/suggestions for revealing a character’s tragic backstory to the other characters? mostly with like hurt/comfort or angst. please n thanks!

How to Reveal a Tragic Backstory

check out these sources:

The Backstory Drip: Helping Writers Become Authors

When Do You Reveal a Backstory of a Character?: Writing Stack Exchange

Writing Character Backstory That Feels Real: Now Novel

1. Establish Context Before the Reveal

Before revealing a tragic backstory, it's crucial to lay the groundwork. Give the audience some clues or hints about the character’s pain or past struggles without fully explaining it. This builds curiosity and tension, making the eventual reveal more satisfying.

Example: Throughout the story, you might show the character having nightmares, flinching at certain triggers, or displaying a particular behavior (like pushing others away) that hints at something painful in their past.

2. Choose the Right Moment

A tragic backstory should be revealed at a moment that feels natural and emotionally charged. Don’t force it into the plot. Often, it works best when the character is vulnerable, perhaps during a quiet moment, when they feel safe enough to let their guard down, or during a crisis when the emotional dam breaks.

Example: The character might reveal their past during a moment of intense emotional vulnerability, like when they think they’re about to lose someone else they care about, or when they are experiencing a setback that mirrors their past trauma.

3. Keep It Uncomfortable

A tragic backstory is rarely easy to talk about, and the discomfort surrounding the reveal can be just as important as the backstory itself. Let the character struggle with the words or try to push the conversation away, only to be coaxed into speaking. This makes the moment feel more authentic and raw.

Example: The character might start the conversation with, "It’s not important" or "I don’t want to talk about it," before finally giving in to the other character’s gentle probing or a shift in the situation that forces them to face the truth.

4. Show, Don’t Just Tell

Instead of simply stating the tragic event, show how it affects the character through their actions, memories, or how they interact with others. This deepens the emotional impact, allowing readers to experience the pain with the character rather than just being told what happened.

Example: Rather than saying, "He lost his entire family in the fire," you could show how the character avoids talking about their family, has flashbacks when they see something related to fire, or even flinches at certain words associated with their trauma.

5. Use Symbolism

The tragic backstory can be tied to something physical, symbolic, or thematic in the narrative. A certain object, place, or even weather can be used to evoke memories of the past, creating a deeper emotional connection.

Example: If the character lost someone they loved in a car accident, perhaps they always have trouble getting into cars, or they wear a piece of jewelry that reminds them of the person. When this item or memory is triggered, the character opens up about the event.

6. Layer the Reveal

Sometimes, a tragic backstory is revealed in pieces over time. A character might not reveal everything all at once, but bits and pieces come out as the story progresses. This gradual reveal can allow you to build emotional complexity and deepen the audience’s understanding of the character.

Example: The character might first mention a loss in passing, then later reveal more details about the circumstances surrounding that loss. In a climactic moment, they might confess the full extent of their pain, perhaps adding a new layer of guilt or unresolved anger.

7. Avoid Making It “Too Perfect”

Tragedy isn’t always a neat, tidy narrative. It’s often messy, complicated, and filled with unresolved feelings. Don’t try to make the tragic backstory feel like it was meant to be "healed" or resolved easily. Characters are shaped by tragedy, and the wounds might never fully heal.

Example: The character might express regret or resentment, even years later. They might struggle with feelings of guilt, or they might have difficulty trusting others due to their past experiences.

8. Don’t Overload the Backstory

While tragic backstories are emotionally powerful, too many details can overwhelm the reader or distract from the present story. Instead, focus on the most crucial parts of the past that shaped the character’s current behavior, rather than telling every painful moment.

Example: Rather than describing an entire traumatic event in detail, focus on how it emotionally affected the character. Perhaps the character doesn’t want to remember, so the backstory is revealed only through emotional reactions to certain triggers or through small, painful details.

9. Use the Backstory as a Motivator

After revealing the tragic backstory, the character’s actions should be influenced by it. Their trauma will affect their decisions, and it’s important to show how it shapes their journey going forward.

Example: The character might reveal that they lost someone to violence, and that’s why they became a protector of others. Or maybe their tragic past has made them emotionally distant, but in the course of the story, they gradually learn to trust and open up.

10. Make the Reveal Matter to the Plot

A tragic backstory shouldn’t just be there to elicit sympathy. It should tie into the character’s motivations, fears, and relationships with other characters. If the backstory doesn’t serve a purpose for the plot, it can feel like unnecessary exposition.

Example: If the character is hesitant to form deep relationships because of their tragic past, this fear will be challenged by their interactions with the other characters. Perhaps their backstory also explains why they’re so skilled in a certain area, giving the plot a practical reason for them to be involved in the current situation.

Writing Prompts Revealing a Tragic Backstory

-> feel free to edit and adjust pronouns as you see fit.

She leaned against the worn table, fingers tracing the edge of a chipped mug, not meeting his eyes. "I didn’t always… I wasn’t always this," she began, her voice thin, strained. He sat across from her, waiting, but not pushing. She swallowed, her chest tightening. "There was a fire, years ago. I was just a kid. My parents—" She stopped, shaking her head, as though the words couldn’t pass her lips without choking her. "I don’t even know how I made it out."

She reached out to touch his shoulder, a gesture of comfort, but he recoiled as if her hand was burning him. His eyes widened, panic flashing across his face. "Don’t," he muttered, backing away, his chest rising and falling with rapid breaths. "Please don’t." She stared, mouth dry, unsure what she had done wrong, but the way his face twisted as if remembering something painful told her everything she needed to know.

They jolted awake, heart pounding, gasping for breath as the remnants of the nightmare clung to them. The other person, already awake, noticed and reached out, pulling them into their arms. "Shh, it’s okay," they whispered softly, but the words barely registered. "I couldn’t save her," they choked out, voice raw. "I promised, but I—" The sob broke free before they could finish, and the other person tightened their hold, pressing their forehead against theirs. "You didn’t fail," they whispered, offering the comfort of their presence. "You're safe now."

They were walking in silence, the soft crunch of gravel beneath their boots the only sound between them. He kept his head down, eyes fixed on the ground, his hands shoved deep in his pockets. Then, without warning, he stopped. "I watched him die," he said, his voice rough, as though the words were hard to spit out. She turned, startled by the suddenness, but he didn’t meet her gaze. "My brother. He bled out before anyone could help." His jaw tightened, eyes distant. "And I couldn’t do a damn thing."

Her laughter echoed in the room, but it faltered when she saw his face. He wasn’t laughing. He was staring, distant, lost in some memory only he could see. "What’s wrong?" she asked, suddenly concerned. His eyes snapped back to her, and he forced a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. "Nothing." He turned away quickly, but not before she saw the tear that had escaped down his cheek. "I just... you made me think of my sister."

[mahalachives]

BTF - Dust, Drama, and Domesticity

Note: This is a bonus one-shot for Between Two Fires. To fully enjoy and understand this piece, I highly recommend reading Between Two Fires first—it’s the emotional groundwork for everything that follows. Trust me, it’ll all make sense after!

Pairing: Azriel x F!Reader

Genre: romcom, humor

Summary: Months into cabin life, you decide to start a memory box to capture the highlights of your unconventional love story. Inside, you tuck a dried flower from the garden, a ribbon from your first Autumn Court dress, and, for a dramatic flourish, a tiny vial of ashes from the Winter Court nobles you obliterated.

Nothing says romance quite like organized arson souvenirs.

Main Story: Between Two Fires - Masterlist

"We should make a memory box," you said one morning, curled against Azriel's chest as sunlight streamed through the east-facing windows of your cabin.

His scarred fingers continued their lazy path through your hair. "A what?"

"A memory box. Like a time capsule, but one we can open whenever we want." You propped yourself up on an elbow, excitement bubbling through you. "It's something humans do. We collect meaningful items that tell our story, then keep them in a special container."

Azriel's shadows swirled with interest, reaching toward you before retreating. At first, his expression remained neutral—that carefully cultivated mask of indifference he'd perfected over centuries. But as you continued speaking, a subtle shift occurred—his eyes softened, his head tilted slightly, and his shadows began forming gentle, curious patterns.

"What purpose does it serve?" he asked, ever practical despite the growing interest evident in his posture.

"It preserves moments that matter," you explained, tracing a finger along his collarbone. "In my human life, my grandmother had one. On special occasions, she'd open this worn cedar box and tell stories about each treasure inside."

You closed your eyes, memory washing over you. "I remember the weight of my grandfather's war medal in my small palm—cold and heavy with history. The yellowed lace of her wedding handkerchief felt so delicate I was afraid my breath might tear it. The tiny leather shoes from my father's first steps, cracked with age but still holding the shape of feet that would one day carry him to war." Your voice softened. "It made history feel... touchable."

When you opened your eyes, Azriel was watching you with an expression you'd only seen a handful of times—open wonder, unguarded and raw.

"A physical record of memory," he said thoughtfully, his shadows settling into a gentle, rhythmic pattern. "Something to anchor the past to the present." A moment's hesitation, then: "We could pass it to our children someday."

The casual mention of children—something that had once been just a dream whispered in darkness—now felt wonderfully possible. A future stretching before you, no longer theoretical but tangible. Your breath caught, and for a moment, the golden bond between you pulsed with shared emotion.

"Exactly," you whispered, running your fingers along the leathery membrane of his wing where it draped protectively over your legs. The texture, both soft and strong, still fascinated you after all this time. "Special things. Meaningful things."

Three days later, he presented you with a box he'd carved himself. Not just any box—a masterpiece of craftsmanship. Dark, polished wood with flame patterns etched along the edges, each one representing a chapter of your shared history. Copper hinges that caught the light like tiny embers. Most stunning were the barely visible shadows carved into the wood itself—protective symbols only visible when light struck at certain angles, his own magic embedded in the grain.

"Open it," he urged, his shadows betraying his anticipation by dancing excitedly around his shoulders.

Inside, nestled on a bed of midnight-blue velvet—the exact shade of the shadows that had first caressed your cheek—he'd already placed the first item: a dried flower from your garden, the first bloom after your return from the human world.

"It's beautiful," you whispered, carefully touching the delicate petals.

"The beginning of our new chapter," he said simply, but the emotion in his voice revealed how deeply this project had already taken root in his heart.

Over the following months, the collection grew. Each addition came with a story, a moment preserved:

A ribbon from your first Autumn Court dress after returning, stitched with golden thread that still caught the light even decades later.

A scrap of parchment where he'd written.

Year 68: I felt the bond flicker today. Stronger, then gone. Is she thinking of me across worlds?

The ink had faded slightly, but the hope contained in those words remained undimmed.

The cork from the bottle of wine you'd shared the night you'd finally told him everything about your human life—every detail, every fear, every triumph. How he'd listened until dawn, his shadows a comforting blanket around you both.

One crisp autumn afternoon, you appeared in the doorway of his workshop where he crafted new shelves, your expression suspiciously innocent as you cradled something in your palm.

"I found the perfect addition," you announced, holding up a small glass vial. Gray powder filled the tiny container, sealed with an ornate stopper shaped like a perfect crystalline snowflake that caught the light in fractal patterns.

Azriel set down his tools, wiping dust from his scarred hands as he approached. His shadows reached the vial before he did, curling around it with curious tendrils. When he took it, you noticed how carefully he handled it, turning it with reverence in his calloused fingers.

"What is this?" he asked, studying the fine gray powder.

"Ashes," you said cheerfully, your tone deliberately casual. "From the Winter Court nobles I incinerated."

The vial slipped from his fingers as if it had suddenly transformed into a venomous serpent. Only his shadowsinger reflexes allowed him to catch it before it shattered on the workshop floor. His expression shifted from curiosity to horror so quickly you had to bite your cheek to keep from laughing.

"You kept their ashes?" His voice jumped an octave higher than you'd ever heard from the usually composed male. His wings flared defensively, the leathery membrane suddenly taut as a drum.

"Just a pinch!" you said defensively, fighting to maintain your serious expression. "I asked Eris to collect some. It felt significant. You know, closure and all that."

"Closure," he repeated faintly. His shadows writhed in agitation, pulling tight against his body like frightened children seeking protection. "You kept a souvenir of people you killed."

"Executed," you corrected primly, placing a hand on your hip. "Legally. As High Lady. For crimes against me and my court."

His shadows pulled even tighter, practically disappearing into his skin. The membrane of his wings trembled visibly, and you watched a muscle tic in his jaw—the most flustered you'd seen him since that first night you'd returned.

"That's..." He struggled for words, his composure completely shattered. His eyes darted between you and the vial as if trying to reconcile the woman he loved with this macabre keepsake. "That's not..."

"Not what?" you prompted innocently.

"Normal," he finally managed, staring at the vial as if expecting the ashes to reconstitute into vengeful spirits at any moment. "My love—"

"Says the male who collects people's secrets for a living," you countered, crossing your arms. "Who has interrogation techniques that made even Rhysand squeamish."

"I don't bottle them as keepsakes!" His wings snapped fully extended, nearly knocking over a shelf of tools. "I don't display them in our home!"

"Well, you should," you sniffed, warming to your performance. "It's very satisfying. Look how pretty the container is! The snowflake is a nice touch, don't you think? Symbolic."

As if summoned by the rising tension, Ember and Sizzle materialized with twin pops of flame, your loyal companions hopping excitedly between you. They squeaked in what sounded suspiciously like approval, having developed a disturbing fondness for fire-related vengeance stories over the years.

"I'm not putting actual remains in our memory box," Azriel said firmly, setting the vial on his workbench with the delicacy one might use for nitroglycerin. His shadows formed a protective barrier around it, as if to quarantine a disease. "That's... macabre. Disturbing. Wrong."

"Fine," you conceded with an exaggerated sigh worthy of a slighted courtier. "I'll just keep it on my nightstand then. It will look lovely next to the candles."

His face went so pale you could almost see through it to the wall behind. The great assassin of the Night Court, terrified by a tiny bottle of dust. "You will not."

"My side of the bed, my decorative choices," you insisted, raising your chin defiantly.

"They're remains!" His voice cracked on the last word.

"Exactly," you corrected with pedantic precision. "And technically, they're just carbon now. Very purified. Almost artistic, really. I could have them made into a lovely paperweight."

His shadows formed agitated question marks above his head, something you'd only seen happen when he was truly and completely flustered. "That doesn't make it better!"

You tapped your chin thoughtfully. "What if I had them made into jewelry instead? A nice pendant? Oh! Or tiny flecks in a pair of earrings that catch the light when I move? Very Winter Court aesthetic, which would be deliciously ironic."

The look of absolute horror on the shadowsinger's face—the most feared assassin in Prythian's history—was so comical that you couldn't maintain your straight face any longer. Your composure cracked, and you dissolved into uncontrollable giggles.

"I'm joking! Mother above, your face!" You doubled over laughing as understanding slowly dawned on him. "The great Shadowsinger, terrified of a tiny bottle of dust! You've faced down armies without flinching, but this—" you gestured to the vial, "—this breaks you?"

Realization transformed his expression from horror to indignation. His shadows flattened against his skin, almost pouting. His wings folded back with an affronted snap.

"You're not putting that in our memory box," he stated, voice clipped with wounded dignity.

"No," you agreed, wiping tears of laughter from your eyes. "It's just sand from the foundation of our cabin. I colored it with ash from the fireplace and had Eris enchant the bottle with that snowflake stopper. I wanted to see your reaction."

His relief was so palpable you could practically taste it, his shoulders dropping as his shadows cautiously extended again. "You're terrible."

"Your face though!" You mimicked his expression of horror, exaggerating the wide eyes and dropped jaw. "I've seen you interrogate the worst criminals in Prythian without blinking, but this—" you gestured to the vial, fresh laughter bubbling up, "—this is what breaks the mighty shadowsinger."

Just as his expression softened into reluctant amusement, you added innocently: "The real ashes are in that cookie jar shaped like a rabbit."

Azriel's eyes darted to the kitchen before narrowing at your renewed laughter. You didn't miss how his shadows secretly slipped toward the kitchen to check, only to return with confirmation that the jar indeed contained only cookies.

He took a predatory step toward you, shadows stretching menacingly. His wings flared fully as he lunged for you, shadows racing ahead to tickle your sides. "Come here, you menace."

You shrieked with laughter, darting around the corner with Azriel in hot pursuit. Ember and Sizzle bounced after you both, their excitement causing tiny flames to erupt in their wake. A curtain caught fire as you raced past, but Azriel's shadows extinguished it without him breaking stride, his focus entirely on capturing you.

The chase led through the kitchen (where you knocked over a bowl of fruit), past the living room (where you leapt over the sofa with surprising agility), and finally ended in the bedroom when he caught you around the waist, his wings creating a leathery cocoon around you both as you fell onto the bed.

"Gotcha," he growled, pinning your hands above your head. His wings arched possessively over you both, blocking out the world.

"So you have," you replied, slightly breathless from running and laughing. "What now, shadowsinger?"

His eyes darkened as he leaned closer, shadows caressing your cheeks with surprising tenderness. "Now I extract my revenge."

Author’s Note:

This oneshot was brought to you by too much caffeine, not enough sleep, and Azriel refusing to let me live my life in peace. Also, I think the shadow bunny is plotting against me. Proceed with caution. 🐇✨

Taglist: @circe143 @lunarxcity @willowpains @messageforthesmallestman @lreadsstuff @evye47 @lovely-susie @moonfawnx @tele86 @moonlitlavenders @darkbloodsly @ees-chaotic-brain @smol-grandpa @auraofathena @lottiiee413 @minaaminaa8 @claudiab22 @moonbeamruins @shewolf1549 @crimsonandwhiteprincess @a-band-aid-for-your-heart @kathren1sky-blog @alimarie1105 @masbt1218 @topaz125 @falszywe @randomdumsblog @sophia-grace2025 @okaytrashpanda @thegoddessofnothingness @unarxcity @svearehnn @suhke3 @galaxystern08 @ivy-34 @hellsenthero @nayaniasworld @raccoonworld @bobbywobbby @evergreenlark @greenmandm @shinyghosteclipse @catloverandreader @the-onlyy-angie @bunnboosblog @i-like-boooks @ashduv @kayjaywrites @lovelyreaderlovesreading @badbishsblog @vera0124 @i-am-infinite @scatteredstardustt @starswholistenanddreamsanswered @chaotic-luvrs @etsukomoonbeam @justtryingtosurvive02 @dianxiaxiexie @annaaaaa88 @mortqlprojections @quiet-loser @shamelesswolftheorist @vanserrasimp @lovelyflower7777 @probendingwords @allthatisbuck1917 @thejediprincess56 @forvalentineboy @romwyz @plowden @jada-lockwood @traveling-neverland @wanderwithmex @magicaldragonlady @makemeurvillain @justswimm @saltedcoffeescotch @rafeecameronsbitch @sherhd @stainedpomegranatelips @ayohockeycheck @yourdarkrose @taurusvic @illyrianshadow @s-h-e-l-b-e-e @ly--canthrope @star-chaser1 @dormantzzzs

[yesimwriting]

thinking about bestfriend!felix who's known for being touchy within his social circle, so when he holds your hand as you walk around campus and leaves giggly kisses against your cheek, your jaw, your neck after a few drinks, you think nothing of it.

especially because it comes up in conversation from time to time. everyone that hangs out with him regularly enough has at least one story: felix smoothed circles against my back until i fell asleep on the bathroom floor after a party; he's kissed the top of my head twice; i've never seen him end a hug first.

and you've seen things--at parties, while studying, while out with friends in general. so you genuinely have no reason to think there's anything strange or different about the way he treats you, and neither does anyone else.

at first.

one night, when you're still new enough to felix and his world that you feel extremely out of place at a party that he invited you to, he calls you over to where he and his friends are sitting. you walk over to them, greeting everyone politely before moving to take the available space next to felix.

he grabs your wrist before you can actually sit. you're confused, but given little time to react. felix mumbles an absentminded, "c'mere" before pulling you towards his lap. it's a little flustering, but you sit, because that's just how felix is.

okay. normal enough. conversation continues. no one thinks twice about it. farleigh thinks it's a bit of overkill, but just assumes it's a combination of alcohol and maybe an attempt at laying the groundwork to hook up with you a little later in the night.

then, someone asks about potential vacation plans over break and farleigh brings up an inside joke from the last trip he and felix went on. it's casual, but it's clear that felix is supposed to say something.

farleigh looks over in time to see felix holding one of your hands to his lips. alright. still not the most egregious display of platonic affec--felix takes his time pressing kisses to each of your knuckles.

it's not just the gesture. it's the way felix watches your reaction through his lashes and the amount of care in his focus. as if you're the only one in the room. there's a patience there that's practically devoted.

maybe farleigh had it wrong. he thought you were just one of those platonic friends that felix would cart around for a few months before getting bored. maybe it's more romantic, or at the very least sexual.

then felix's eyebrows draw together. "you're cold." you start to say that you're fine, but before you can get the words out, felix is holding both of your hands between his.

in the beat that it takes farleigh to recover from the slightly nauseating display, the rest of the group has gone quiet. they're all watching felix dote on you like you're the reason for the moon hanging in the sky. annabel whispers something about the "unsuspecting".

farleigh eventually tries again, directly stating felix's name. he finally looks up, a little confused, as if coming out of a trance. farleigh repeats his earlier comment, finally getting a reaction from felix. the group recovers because while the moment had been almost uncomfortably intimate for something so casual, this is far from the first time felix has started (casually) seeing an 'outsider'.

some time passes and you finish your first drink. when felix notices, he asks if you want another. you tell him that you don't mind getting your own, but felix is insistent. you stand so that he can get up.

a part of you wishes you could have found an excuse to go with him. the gesture, in theory, is nice, but without felix's protection, being left with his friends feels like he's thrown you to the wolves.

annabel, a little tipsy and now curious asks, "so, how long have you and felix..." she trails off with a knowing look.

you kind of get what she's implying, but it feels like too random and too unfitting of an assumption to be accurate. "oh, we've been friends since around right after syllabus week, felix ask--"

"no," she shakes her head, "i mean--" she tries again, this time asking with precise language.

your face grows a few degrees warmer. "oh." the slight laugh that follows the syllable is too genuine for it to be you playing coy. "no, it's not--we're friends."

friends. you genuinely believe it. annabel fixes you with a tight lipped smile that makes something in your stomach knot.

you decide that her question must have been prompted by you sitting on felix's lap. you've also heard enough stories about them to assume that they have an on again off again, sort of thing, and because you really don't want to make an enemy of her, you try to justify it, "that was just--you've known him way longer, he's just like that."

oh my god. he's fooled you. completely convinced you that that's normal. before annabel can really react, felix comes back. he hands you your drink and kisses your cheek before sitting down next to you. he doesn't ask you to go back to where you were sitting before, but he does keep a hand on your knee.

----

some bestfriend!reader concepts ft oliver

another bestfriend! felix blurb :)

bestfriend! felix and reader basically dating

[ghostedgwen]

all by design | p.parker [part one]

notes : I am back to writing for peter parker of course because before anyone else - this blog was created originally for him, my originally muse - that somehow fits well into this fic lol - reqs are open <3

warnings : college au - no superpowers, no spider-man, dorky peter parker who's an introvert, reader is a mastermind pulling strings, cute working on project stuff - photography shit I pretend I know things about

You only signed up for photography to dodge a boring science class, but somehow ended up choosing Peter Parker as your muse — soft-spoken, brilliant, and criminally overlooked. He’s awkward, you’re accidentally obvious, and a late-night project might just turn into something a little more.

I laid the groundwork and then, just like clockwork, the dominoes cascaded in a line. . .

Peter Parker always sits in the third row.

Same grey hoodie. Same battered notebook, filled with stickers - so very random. Same cheap black coffee in a reusable Stark Expo travel mug that he never seems to finish.

You notice, of course. You notice everything about him - in a maybe not-so creepy way.

It’s hard not to, when you’ve been quietly, shamelessly harboring a thing - not a crush, you insist, because that feels juvenile - for him since week three of Intro to Photography.

Not that he talks much. He’s the type to melt into the corners of the classroom, to let others raise their hands and perform their answers like auditions. But he listens, scribbles tiny notes in that notebook of his, mouth quirking when something makes him laugh - a soft, rare thing that you’ve started cataloguing like your own private gallery.

Photography, for the record, wasn’t supposed to be your thing. You picked it to duck out of another semester of mandatory econ electives - something about composition sounded better than graphs. But then Peter Parker sat three rows ahead of you, quietly fascinating, and just like that: you had a muse.

Not that he knows. Of course he doesn’t. You’ve only submitted one piece with him in frame - his silhouette against a window, mid-laugh - and titled it “Unnoticed Light.” Langley gave it an A. Said it felt honest. You couldn’t exactly say "thanks, I’m secretly in love with the boy who never finishes his coffee.”

Most people overlook him - they don’t see past the hoodie, the fading bruise on his jaw from god-knows-what, or the way he keeps his head down when he walks. But you do. You see how he flinches at loud noises, how his fingers twitch like they’re always itching to fix something.

You see the careful, considerate way he offers to carry the overhead projector without being asked. You see how he lingers by the windows for better light when photographing portraits - how the shots he turns in are always somehow achingly human.

You wonder if anyone’s ever looked at him that way. You doubt it.

You do, though. From behind your camera lens. From across the quad. From the third seat to the left, where you’ve started sitting every Tuesday morning. Two rows back. Just close enough to hear when he mutters his answers under his breath.

You’ve spoken to him exactly three times. Once during critique week (“I liked your framing”), once at the vending machines (“They’re out of pretzels, by the way”), and once when your professor handed back graded papers and he’d gotten a B. You saw the way his shoulders slumped and told him, softly, “She grades hard. That’s basically an A in Langley-speak.”

He looked at you like he hadn’t expected kindness.

You remember that look too well. It's the reason you’re about to make this project pairing very conveniently work in your favour.

But that comes later.

For now, Peter Parker’s in the third row again, fiddling with the strap of his camera bag like it’s a nervous tic, and you’re trying very hard not to smile at nothing.

You overhear Langley mention the project pairings two weeks before she announces them.

She’s in the hallway, talking to one of the TAs - something about how she “might just let them pick their own partners this time. Less hassle.”

You’re not proud of what happens next. Scratch that - you’re exactly proud of what happens next. Because it’s not cheating if you’re just. . . influencing the environment. Like the weather. Or the Wi-Fi. Or even better - fate.

It starts with small things. Like moving your seat up one row so you’re just behind Peter now - not that anyone noticed as the seats in class were never fully occupied.

Laughing just a little louder at his dry jokes when the professor asks for class discussion.

The first time it happens, you’re not even subtle. Langley makes some sarcastic comment about how half the class probably doesn’t know what ISO stands for, and Peter mutters under his breath, “In Spite Of everything, I’m still here.”

You snort before you can stop yourself.

He glances back, startled, and you catch the flicker of a smile tugging at his mouth like he hadn’t expected anyone to hear. You almost neglect to note how perfectly matching his hair and eyes were, a rich shade of brown - might be worth something later.

“You get this stuff?” you ask him after class, tapping your camera. “Because I’m faking it at an award-winning level.”

Peter shrugs, bashful - hiding his surprise at your approach. “I mean, mostly I just mess around until it looks right. Which. . . I think is technically a method?”

“That’s what I’ve been doing, too,” you grin. “We’re either geniuses or complete frauds.”

He laughs - a low, surprised sound - and runs a hand through his curls like he’s trying to hide behind them. “Honestly? I’ll take either.”

You start leaving class at the same time he does. Linger a beat longer by the vending machines. Let your shoulder brush his once in a while when you lean over to look at a picture he’s editing on his laptop.

And okay - maybe you start timing your exits so you’re walking next to him through the quad. And maybe you offer him a gummy worm from the bag in your pocket one afternoon, and he acts like you handed him a priceless family heirloom.

“Wait - are these sour?” he says reverently.

“The best kind.” you give him a toothy grin.

He grins. “Okay, you’re officially the coolest person in this class. Sorry, Langley.”

When Langley finally announces partner selection, she lets people volunteer first.

Which is when you strike.

You wait exactly four beats after Peter glances around the room, clearly hesitant to make the first move.

You raise your hand, smile easy, and say, “Can I work with Peter?”

Langley nods, scribbles your names down. Peter looks up, slightly surprised, but doesn’t question it.

“Uh - yeah, cool,” he says, blinking behind his glasses. “That works. Definitely works.”

There’s a faint flush on his cheeks. You don’t know if it’s from attention or from you - you enjoy it anyways.

You don’t ask.

You just tuck the moment away like a lucky penny, warm in your pocket, and look forward to what comes next.

“So,” you say, casual as you can manage. “I was thinking. For the project. I want to photograph you.”

Peter blinks. Stares. “Me?”

You nod. “Yeah. You’d be perfect.”

He fumbles with the zipper on his backpack like it just forgot how to function. “Uh - I mean, I thought we were supposed to do something, like, theme-based?”

You lean back on your hands, legs folded on the library carpet, and look up at him with a little grin. “Exactly. And I think you’d be perfect for the concept I’m going for. It’s about presence. Softness. The way someone’s energy fills a space. I want to capture someone who doesn’t realize they’re being seen. Someone. . . quietly magnetic.”

Peter swallows.

“Magnetic?” he echoes, a little too cutely for your poor heart.

You nod again, and oh, you’re really laying it on now, aren’t you?

“Yeah,” you say, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “You have that face people want to look at. Even if they don’t realize it right away.”

Peter’s mouth opens like he wants to argue, but he just sort of… makes a noise. Halfway between a breath and a squeak.

You bite your lip to keep from laughing. It’s not mean-spirited - you’re just so fond. It’s hard not to let it show.

“And your eyes are insane,” you add, like you’re checking off a list. “They catch light like no one else’s in this class. You’ve got that kind of timeless thing going on - a little bit James Dean, a little bit boy-next-door.”

Peter is frozen. Absolutely shellshocked. Like he cannot compute being complimented this much in one sitting.

“. . .You’ve definitely thought about this,” he says eventually, voice a little hoarse.

You shrug, suddenly aware of your own heartbeat. “Maybe. A little.”

There’s a beat of silence.

Peter scratches the back of his neck, and for a terrifying second, you wonder if you’ve ruined everything - if you came on too strong, if the room has tilted a little too far in the direction of intentional.

But then he smiles.

It’s a tiny thing. Just the curve of his lips, shy and secret and so unbearably sweet - so Peter.

“Okay,” he says quietly. “If you’re sure you want to. I mean, I’m not very - photogenic. Or model-y. Or whatever.”

“You’re perfect,” you say before you can stop yourself - nevermind the fact you're still yet to confess the submission you previously made of him.

Peter flushes deeper. Looks at his hands. Smiles harder.

You pretend not to notice - you could almost get a degree for that.

You give him directions to your place later that night.

It’s a short walk from campus - tucked above a trendy cafe and across from a laundromat that always smells like jasmine detergent and cheap cologne.

Your aunt signed the lease for you before you even applied to uni, saying, “Every artist needs a sanctuary.” The space is way too nice for a student. Hardwood floors, big windows, blackout curtains, high ceilings with exposed beams. A dream for any art student, really.

Peter looks around when he arrives, clearly trying not to be impressed.

“This is yours?” he asks, dropping his camera bag by the door.

You nod. “Technically it’s my aunt’s. She travels a lot. But yeah. Mine for now.”

He raises an eyebrow. “You live here alone?”

“Yep.”

“That’s. . .” He spins in a slow circle, taking in the space. “Kind of incredible.”

You flash him a grin. “You’re welcome any time.”

He snorts. “My roommate would kill me if I tried to turn our dorm into a studio. He thinks personal space is sacred. Meanwhile, he clips his toenails without a care for where they end up.”

You laugh, motioning for him to sit. “Okay, yeah. You’re banned from trying this in your own place.”

He sits down on the little velvet couch, awkwardly tucks one leg under the other, and glances around like he’s waiting to be told what to do.

You set up the lighting as naturally as you can, trying not to show how giddy you are about this. About him, here, in your space, letting you see him like this.

When you look through the viewfinder and frame the shot - Peter in profile, warm lamplight brushing his cheekbones, sleeves pushed up to his forearms - you think, Yeah. This was always going to happen.

Even if he doesn’t know it yet.

“Okay,” you murmur, adjusting the tripod slightly. “Just relax. Don’t think about the camera. Think about. . . like, what you’d do if you were alone. Not sad alone. Normal alone. Like. . . chilling.”

Peter raises an eyebrow. “That’s incredibly specific and somehow still not helpful.”

You snort. “You’re doing fine. Just - don’t pose. Or, like . . . do. But make it look like you’re not posing.”

Peter gives you a look. “So. Be naturally unnatural.”

“Exactly.”

He huffs a laugh and leans back against the couch again, arms loosely crossed, head tilted like he’s considering something far off in the distance. It’s candid. Or close enough. His expression softens when he exhales, and you click the shutter without thinking.

“Better?” he asks, eyes flicking toward you.

You glance down at the preview on your camera screen and nod slowly. “That’s a good one. You’ve got a very - contemplative face.”

Peter mock-gasps. “So I do have a face worth photographing?”

“Oh my god, I’ve been saying that for weeks.” you say feigning shock.

He grins, and you snap another shot.

Then he shifts slightly, arms raised to run a hand through his hair - and the motion hikes his pullover up just a little, revealing a sliver of lean stomach, the faint outline of muscle.

You blink.

And, well.

You’re only human.

“Okay, wait,” you say, squinting as you lower the camera. “Why are you, like. . . secretly ripped under there?”

Peter freezes. “What?”

You gesture to him, accusatory. “You look like you code for twelve hours a day and live off granola bars and Red Bull, and then - bam! Surprise abs?”

He splutters, desperate to deny your words. “They’re not - abs. It’s just lighting.”

You tilt your head, smug to have caught him in such a predicament. “Is it?”

He covers his face with his hands. “You can’t just say stuff like that.”

You laugh, unapologetic. “I absolutely can. I’m the artist. I get to be pretentious and weirdly flirty. It’s in the rules.”

Peter peeks at you through his fingers, blushing like crazy. “Okay. But for the record, I am not ripped. I’m. . . jacketed.”

You blink. “What?”

He drops his hands, now grinning. “Like. . .I’m not shredded. I’m cozy. Secretly jacket.”

You laugh so loud it echoes a little off the brick wall.

“God, you’re stupid,” you say fondly - his nose crinkles at that.

“Thank you,” he replies, mock-solemn.

You take three more photos while he’s still laughing.

After that, it’s easy.

You trade the high-watt lights for the soft glow of a desk lamp. The vibe settles - less photoshoot, more afterglow. You both move through the space without talking, cleaning up wires and lenses, folding backdrops, checking batteries. It’s comfortable. Not quite domestic, but something adjacent to it. Something you don’t have a name for yet.

Peter hands you a lens cap without being asked. You unplug the extension cord and wrap it neatly over your arm. Somewhere outside, a car honks, and someone yells about fries.

You stretch your arms over your head, then glance at him over your shoulder.

“Wanna go get burgers?”

He pauses, halfway through packing his camera, and looks at you like you just offered him front-row tickets to a space launch.

“Like. . . now?”

You shrug. “Unless you’ve got somewhere better to be.”

He considers you for a beat too long. Then smiles. It’s a little crooked. A little shy. Unreasonably cute.

“Burgers sound perfect.”

It’s nearing 12:30 by the time you stumble into the diner - one of those charming, grease-stained spots that’s open 24/7 and never quite empty. The fluorescent sign outside flickers with effort, casting pink and blue across the sidewalk like a hazy, nostalgic film scene.

Peter holds the door for you, his camera bag slung over one shoulder, and the warm smell of frying oil and vanilla milkshake syrup hits instantly.

You both slide into a booth, you facing the window, Peter across from you, cheeks still pink from the cold night air.

The waitress doesn’t bother with a menu.

“Two burgers, two fries, two chocolate shakes?” she asks with a raised brow, pen poised.

Peter blinks. “Wait, how did you - ”

“You two look like the type,” she says flatly, then walks off without another word.

You grin, biting back a laughter in the case she takes it the wrong way. “She gets it.”

Peter gives you a mock-scandalized look. “Do we have a type?”

You lean back, stretching lazily in your seat. “Apparently we do. Chocolate-shake-at-midnight type.”

He smiles at that. “Not the worst reputation to have.”

By the time the food comes, you’ve already kicked your shoes off under the booth and Peter’s talking with his hands like he doesn’t realize he’s doing it. The diner’s mostly empty except for a guy asleep by the jukebox and a girl aggressively typing on her laptop in the corner.

The conversation shifts easily once you start asking questions. Like you’re in your own little bubble.

“What made you pick computer science?” you ask, tearing a fry in half, dipping it in your milkshake and eating it. He watched you in mild amusement.

Peter shrugs, sipping from the milkshake. “I’ve always liked puzzles. Logic. Building stuff from scratch. It’s. . . satisfying, I guess.”

You nod. “You seem like someone who enjoys solving things.”

He blushes a little, then grins. “Okay, my turn. Why photography? You’re too cool to be doing this just for credits.”

You laugh, throwing a half fry at him which he barely dodged with a chuckle. “Flatterer.”

Peter raises his milkshake in a silent toast.

You consider your answer. “Honestly? I started it because it got me out of a required science elective. But then it kind of… stuck. I don’t know. Something about freezing a moment - turning it into a story. I liked the control of it. The quiet.”

He looks at you like he understands. Like he really gets it - he studies you for a moment.

“That makes sense,” he says. “You take it seriously. You see stuff other people don’t.”

You raise an eyebrow. “Like what?”

He glances down at his fries, then up at you again, his voice quieter now. “Like me.”

You go still for a second.

But you’re not ready to crack open that door yet, so instead you lean in with a crooked smile and deflect like a pro.

“Back to the game, Parker. Favorite color?”

He laughs and says, “Blue. Like - not sky blue. Like hoodie blue.”

You blink, surprised. “That’s specific.”

He shrugs. “I know what I like.”

You twirl a fry between your fingers. “Okay. Favorite movie?”

Peter looks thoughtful. “I’m gonna say The Iron Giant. It makes me cry every single time and I’m not even sorry.”

Your heart clenches a little. Of course it does, it is so like him - ever the softboy.

You smile. “That’s a solid answer. Top tier sad-boy comfort flick.”

He grins. “Alright, your turn. Most irrational fear?”

You pause dramatically. “Birds.”

Peter blinks. “What?”

“They’re twitchy. Beady-eyed. I don’t trust a creature that can fly and still chooses to steal fries off the sidewalk.”

He’s laughing before you finish the sentence, full-body and warm. You sip your milkshake just to hide how proud you are of that laugh.

The questions keep coming, softer now, more personal.

Siblings? No - just you. Just Peter.

Favorite smell? His is old books. Yours is rain on pavement.

Do you believe in soulmates?

You both pause on that one.

Peter looks at you, eyes darker in the dim light, fingers stilling around his straw - chocolate milkshake all drained from the 50s diner style cup.

“I think. . .I used to,” he says. “Then I stopped. Then I started again. I don’t know. It’s complicated.”

You hum. “That’s fair. I think I believe in . . .finding someone who feels like home. Even if it’s not fate. Even if it’s a choice.”

He nods, like that sits right with him. “That’s a good answer.”

You smile. “I’ve got a lot of those.”

“I know.”

And he says it so soft, so genuine, that you forget how to chew for a second.

It’s past 2AM when you finally wander back out into the night, bellies full, fingertips salty, the streetlights casting halos around you.

“Thanks for tonight,” Peter says, voice warm.

You bump your shoulder against his. “Anytime.”

And you mean it.

You’re not in love. Not yet. But something about tonight feels like the first chapter of something that might be worth writing down.

to be continued. . .

part two | masterlist

[nerdygirlramblings]

Off to See the Wizard (8)

previous | next

cw: poorly attempted accents

Soap offers to walk you back to the barracks after dinner, and you can't bring yourself to tell him no. You've put in more than a full 12 hours, and can't find a way to use your office as an excuse. When he suggests joining the others in the rec room, you tell him you'd prefer a quiet evening alone. You hope he understands and takes the message back to the rest of the team. He's given you a lot to think about, and all you want is some quiet to parse through it and your own feelings.

Three heads whip in his direction as Soap comes through the rec room doors. Gaz immediately notices he's alone while Ghost watches the door for another moment, hope in his eyes that's dashed as Soap shakes his head.

"Sit rep?" Price asks.

Soap shrugs and responds, "Tol' 'er Ah cared for 'er. She asked about las' night, about yoo and me," he motions between himself and Ghost, "bein' close, so Ah said Ah cared for ye too. She got a real funny look on 'er face, so Ah said Ah thought mah heart was big enough for more than one. Dinnae ken 'ow she took it cuz she went quiet after."

Price sighs heavily, running his hand over his face. "Well, it wasn't how we planned to tell 'er, but it was a good call, Soap." He eyes the other man. "Did ya mention me 'r Gaz when ya talked about yer big heart?"

Soap shakes his head quickly. "No' at all. Could see she was struggling wi' me carin' for her an' Si. Didnae wanna make it worse."

Price's head falls back against the recliner. He takes a deep breath and huffs it out. Then he looks at Gaz. "We're down to four days, Garrick. Don't know if ya wanna try tonight or wait, but we're still countin' on ya to close this." His eyes rake over his lover. "Soap laid the groundwork after last night's disaster, but it's up to you to make her see wha' we have an', more importantly, wha' we want."

One of the first emails you see the next morning is from Laswell. She's asking you to meet with one of her contacts at a location off base. You're glad John told you where to get the bus into town, but you don't know the town well enough to know where this location is. You debate trying to find one of your the boys for help, but between movie night and Soap's confession, you're not quite sure what to say to any of them.

You did some digging on your personal device, using untraceable proxies, to learn more about having multiple partners at the same time. You came across the phrase polyamory, which seems to fit what Soap was hinting at, but you're not sure. And you definitely don't feel confident asking.

Like any other problem you can't solve, you're putting this one off to the side for now to focus on other things. Like how to get to the meeting location.

In the end, you find Corporal Avery and ask her where you should go. She's able to provide you a rough map of town including where the bus will let you off and how to get to your location. She offers to accompany you, and when you worry she'd get in trouble, she says, "Can say it's part of my official duties per Captain Price's orders, ma'am." She smiles big, and you remind yourself to lean on her for company when the 141 are gone. But you decide to head to the meeting alone. You don't know who this contact is, and with Kate, their personal information might be classified or confidential in some way. You can't bring Corporal Avery for the safety of whomever you're meeting, a thought that leaves quite quickly when you step into the cafe two hours later to see it empty of everyone except the girl behind the counter and Kyle.

You look around, waiting for someone else, someone you don’t know, to make an appearance. Instead it’s simply Kyle who smiles big and waves you over. You stop just short of his table. “What are you doing here, Kyle?” You work to keep your tone level, curious, not accusatory.

“Asked Laswell for a favor. Needed ta see you, Oz,” he tells you. “You’re avoiding us.” There’s no pretense, no hiding. It’s unlike him to be so blunt.

“I’m doing my job, Kyle,” you say. “The one Laswell sent me to do to help you.”

Kyle stands and pulls out the other chair at his table for two, clearly indicating you should sit. “What yer doin' isn’t helping us, doll," he says softly.

You rear back. “Not helping?!?” you whisper hiss, sitting down. You lean over the table, masking your hurt with anger. “What the hell does that mean?”

Kyle quickly sits to join you. “Shit, no, that’s not what I mean,” he rushes out. He runs a hand down his face and mutters under his breath.

You shift back, annoyed, trying to get as far from him as you can while staying at the table. “Excuse me?” You cross your arms and don whatever armor you can for what seems like a rather unpleasant confrontation in the middle of the Costa. “If I’m not helping, maybe Laswell should send someone else.”

You can’t believe you’d been so excited about finally meeting your the boys. You refuse to cry, but this conversation needs to end quickly if you’re going to keep from balling your eyes out.

“Oz, doll…” Kyle trails off, mouth opening several times as he tries to pull his thoughts together. “This is harder than I thought it’d be,” he admits wearily. He tries to catch your eye but can’t match your glare. “We don’t want someone else. We want you.” He reaches for your hands, and despite how much you want to hold onto anger, you know it’s your heart you're trying to protect.

But that traitorous organ can't resist, so you timidly slip one hand in his. Kyle grips it like a lifeline. “We want you, Oz. No one else is better at this job than you.” You both know he’s stretching things a bit as Laswell is clearly better suited to this than you, but she can’t be in all places. It’s what she trusts you for.

You take a shaky breath. “I think I need you to explain it to me, then, Kyle. If you want me here, if you don’t want or trust someone else to do this job, then how is it I’m not helping?”

“Yer amazing at what ya do,” Kyle quickly replies. “But ignoring us isn’t helping us.” He must see the confusion on your face because he adds. “Yer helping the mission, but ya aren’t helping us.” He widens his eyes at the end, trying to tell you something, but you can’t figure it out.

You shake your head and are about to tell him you don’t understand when he squeezes your hand in his and asks you to look at him. “Doll, we want you. Not for the mission but for us.”

You know you must look ridiculous because you gape at him for several long moments in which he says nothing, does nothing. He waits for a reaction. You can see the tension in his shoulders, and he still has both of his hands wrapped around yours, but he doesn’t push, and he doesn’t clarify.

You think about what Soap revealed at dinner last night. About Simon’s outright declaration. About John’s not-so-subtle pick-up line. About Simon and Kyle and Soap practically cuddling on the couch. About John and Kyle’s kiss. The pieces are there, but your brain refuses to believe it. “Are you saying you and…” you trail off, not sure where this thought is actually going.

“Me and Ghost and Soap and the captain, yes,” he says, helping to refocus you.

“Are you saying you’re all together?” He nods. “In…in…in some kind of polyamorous thing?” Kyle admits he isn’t sure because he doesn’t know what polyamorous is, never felt like he needed a label for how he feels about the others. “So you’re all together together. And you all want me?” It’s almost too much for your brain to comprehend.

"Yes." Kyle says it so simply, as though his declaration makes every bit of sense. "'s been you fer us fer a long time. Only you."

He looks at the table where his hands are wrapped around yours and says the next so quietly you can almost pretend you don't hear it. "We weren't meant to be together. Not like tha'. We're supposed to be task force. A fighting force. A killing force." He shrugs, almost lost in his thoughts. "Somewhere along the way, tha' changed. I can't speak fer the others, but I never expected any of it. I never expected to be involved with my superiors. Never thought I'd love these men as anything more than Brothers in arms. But it happened. And now it's us. Us against the bad guys. Us against the world. Us watching one another."

He takes a deep ragged breath. And then he looks at you, looks right through to the very heart of you. "Then you came along. And you watched our backs. And you kept us company on those long, lonely nights. And you made sure we were safe. That we were making it back to one another whole. So yeah, it's you, Oz. We thought we were enough, but yer the peace we're missing. And if we're too much, if we read this wrong, then we'll just go back to what it was before. But we needed to let you know what we want before we go off on this mission where we might not all come home."

series masterlist | main masterlist

~~

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[fixyourwritinghabits]

Editing Your Novel Part 2: The Plot Pass

Okay, it's finally time to edit. You've got all your materials sorted, it's time to dive right in. You want to start with the big edits first, aka the plot pass.

Now listen. You're going to want to linger and fix those little bits of grammar or dialogue, and I know it's so hard not to, but letting yourself get off-track might mean wasting hours on a scene you realize later you have to delete. Fix a few spelling errors, leave a note, and stay plot-focused.

Making Sense (Of the Plot)

In the plot pass, you're asking yourself some basic questions:

Do events follow a clear order? - When you're getting everything down on the page for the first time, scenes might get jumbled up or events might not have clear causes. Maybe you have a car crashing into the cafe pages before, but in a writing haze, you wrote your main characters having a casual conversation moments later. If the bad guy beats your heroes to treasure, is it clear how they got there? (Not everyone can be Yzma.)

Do circumstances feel contrived? If there are any problems that can be solved by your characters sitting down and talking to each other, it may be better to lean into their motivation for not speaking to each other, rather than coming up with bad romcom scenarios. If the plot can be resolved by the mcguffin the grandma had the whole time, it might be better to make finding that mcguffin part of the plot instead.

It doesn't have to be perfect, and you don't have to reinvent the wheel. If someone gets bitten by a werewolf, it's perfectly fine to have them turn into one at the worst possible moment. When it comes to contrived, you're looking for problems that seem easy to solve and look for more interesting ways to complicate them.

Are your character motivations consistent to the characters throughout the story? - They can change throughout the story, but character motivations do need to be linked to the actions they take. An out-of-nowhere betrayal is way more satisfying if you lay the groundwork for it ahead of time.

Take a moment to list out the motivations of the characters in a scene you're not quite sure of can help you figure how to fix it. Having an outline helps with this a lot!

Are you following an "if... then" format? - My brain doesn't work like this when I'm writing, because as a writer you know how A got to Z, and it seems (in your head) obvious how it happened. This is where my scene card outline come in handy, because I can look at my overview of what should happen and why, and then compare it to what actually happens in the scene. I've discovered so many threads I forgot to connect that way, like why a character had a certain device (I forgot to have him pick it up two scenes earlier), or adding a few simmering dialogue bits that make the big fight pay off much better.

Can you fix the "Because the Plot Demands It" scenes? - Look, sometimes your character needs to be in that haunted house to see that damn ghost, but your character isn't the type to set foot in such a place. It's really easy, especially in the first draft, to contrive a way in there (she took a wrong turn on her way to grandma's!), but retooling these scenes to connect them to the characters motivations and needs is the way to go. The main character doesn't want to go into that obviously cursed place, but her best friend hasn't shown up for school in three days and now she's crying for help from the second floor window. Your character's strong desire to be there for her friend is a much better way to get her into that house.

This is not always easy - it took me six fricken drafts to realize a critical part of a character's motivation was because his father blamed him for his mother's death - but it is going to be worth putting in the work to hammer down.

Do you have a solid timeline? - This might not seem as important, but it's super easy to accidentally fit two weeks worth of activities in three days. Make sure you have that on reference, even if you don't mention it in the book. Also make sure to gauge your distances if your characters are on a trip, because if you do accidentally say it takes two hours to drive from Seattle to Spokane instead of five, someone will dive down your throat for it. Not me. Just someone.

Okay, maybe me. Slow down, you maniacs.

Next post we'll dive into the structure pass. See you then!