#this one was tricky! i feel like it's still clunky in places. but i did my best for now :) | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

theboredwritertm · 4 years ago

Note

hi if you write smut.... maybe mando being the reader’s first time?? if not, ignore this :))

Innuendo

A/N: I’m going to admit this was the first request I received (ever) for The Mandalorian and it’s been gathering dust for the past couple of weeks (because I’m a simp for Cobb Vanth apparently??) Anyway, so sorry it’s taken this long, anon. I haven’t written this kind of thing before, but always love the chance to try new subject matter. Thanks for sending it through! I’ll admit this piece felt kind of clunky as I was writing it, but since I’m (sorta) sticking to a posting schedule now, I just wanted to get it done. And apparently, I can’t write something without backstory, so it got a little long!

Rating: 18+ for adult situations

Pairing: Din Djarin x Reader

Warnings: Awful jokes and innuendos, awkwardness, a clueless Din, probably swearing, consensual sex, loss of virginity

Word Count: 5930 (Once again, consider the first 3000 words terrible foreplay)

Summary: After putting up with months of your supposedly-unintentional innuendos, Din finally takes charge…only to find out things aren’t quite what he expected.

He’d picked you up like a Bantha tick and hadn’t been able to shake you since.

You’d managed to argue your way into a semi-permanent position onboard the Crest after what he would call a rescue, but what you still stubbornly referred to as an ‘assisted retreat’, and it didn’t look like you planned on leaving any time soon.

So, he was stuck with you. At least that’s how he liked to think of the situation.

Never mind that it was nice to have someone to come back to after a long mission that could actually talk back to him. Or that you kept the ship neat and tidy. Or that you were practically a live-in babysitter for the little one at this point. Not to mention the way you always managed to throw together decent meals for the three of you that didn’t always come out of a pack – and that you seemed to enjoy doing so.

And never mind that he liked listening to your soft, happy hums as you stirred together whatever ingredients you had managed to pull together, and that he’d stand in the doorway, silent as a shadow as he took this in, thinking to himself that if a Bantha was half as lucky to pick up a tick like you, it could do much worse for itself.

But what really got to him were the jokes.

You weren’t what he would consider shy, not since you seemed to have no problem at all talking back to him when he had grown so used to others shrinking back at the mere sight of him – still, he hadn’t been expecting the first comment that had just sort of slipped out of you after a few weeks of being in each other’s company. By that point you were comfortable enough to throw the odd sarcastic quip around at each other without having to worry about someone getting offended, so that’s what he had decided to take it as: a joke. At least, the first time.

Since the Crest was prone to the odd malfunction, given its age and what he guessed to be a few too many battles before it was decommissioned, it hadn’t surprised him to walk into a cockpit full of smoke one day. What had surprised him was the way you had stepped into the room, taken one look around as you waved the smoke from your face, and said, “Is it hot in here, or is it just you?”

He’d taken it as he thought he should. A bad joke. You were prone to them as he had come to find, and there’d been plenty of times that he’d heard you use the same kind of lines on people you needed something from. In his case, he guessed that something was shelter and a place to lay low for a while. And he had obliged.

The second time wasn’t as bad. It was worse. Terrible, even. He had no idea what you’d been going for, but as he’d approached the ship after a particularly grueling job and found you standing on the ramp, one foot balanced on a crate and look of mock-seduction, you’d cocked an eyebrow and greeted him with, “Hey, handsome. Looking for a ride?”

His response? A semi-confused, completely weary, “It’s my ship,” as he’d passed you by.

The third time he thought maybe he’d just taken it the wrong way.

You’d been discussing his work, how long it had been between jobs, and how you were both getting a little light on credits. You’d shaken your head, lounging sideways in the co-pilot seat in a way that always looked uncomfortable to him, but seemed just fine to you, when you’d said, “I don’t get it. There’s got to be work out there somewhere.” Then you’d paused for a moment before adding, “If I looked hard enough, I’m sure I could find a few openings for you to fill.” He had frowned and glanced over, certain he’d caught the passing ghost of a smirk on your lips before you resumed looking completely innocent, as if you were simply pondering the tricky predicament you found yourselves in.

Then there was the touching.

At first, he’d found excuses to move out of your reach, an attempt to make his knee-jerk reaction to shrug you off look less obvious. Then one day he’d exercised some restraint as you’d popped a warm, friendly hand on his thigh before getting up from the co-pilot’s seat, announcing you were ready for bed, and he’d realized…he kind of liked it. What, to you, (he was sure) was just fleeting, friendly touches – something ordinary and human he had been deprived of growing up – started to become something he would linger on for hours, sometimes days afterwards. There was something frustrating in the way you could make something that felt so intimate to him look so casual to you.

Another time, more recently, was probably the worst of the lot – but only because of the effect it’d had on him.

During the last stop-off, you’d both been standing in the holding bay surveying the handful of acquisitions he had stored in carbonite. Work had finally picked up, and you’d proven surprisingly helpful in acquiring them, but in that particular instance, there had been a slight problem – two of them were destined for the same planet, but the cities were in complete opposite directions. The timeframes to meet the employers would never have allowed him to make both trips. So, you’d stepped up, placing a hand on his arm as you’d surveyed the captives and said, “Look, I’ve never been much of a delivery person, but I’m more than happy to handle your package for you, just this once.” He’d stared at you, glancing down briefly at the hand on his armor, then up at your smile. “What do you say?” you’d asked, eyes never leaving his visor.

It had taken a troubling amount of self-control not to close up the ramp and show you just how okay with that proposition he was. Because it had been a long time since he’d last gotten the chance. He’d blame the dry spell on the kid, on new responsibilities that hadn’t been there before, but it had been like this for well-over a year, way before the Child had even come into his life. Gone were the days of his youth where he could pick someone out of a bustling cantina crowd and lead them off silently to some grimy bathroom or backroom for a quick fuck – them, for the thrill of being with one of his kind, and him, out of sheer physical need. He’d made peace with the fact that those days were behind him (and considering the state of some of those bathrooms – and some of the partners – it was probably for the best). But that didn’t mean that the need went away. And then there was you.

You, with your perfect skin and the glow of youth still about you. Your long, shiny hair that always made his fingers twitch with need to reach out and run them through it. Your (cute) annoying laugh, and the way you would crinkle up your nose as you found something he’d said particularly funny for some reason he could never figure out (him, fumbling with switches from the pilot’s seat as he attempted to focus, ignoring the smile prickling at his own mouth as the sweet sound of your giggling flipped the doofus switch in his brain). You with the form-fitting pants you sometimes wore when a mission called for something you could move easily in, ones that made his own pants feel a little more form fitting when he stared for long enough to let his mind wander.

You and your damn jokes.

In the end, much to his surprise, it wasn’t a joke that had finally sent him over the edge. It was a simple word, and this time you actually had context to back you up, to assure him that it wasn’t you just fucking with him. Given the situation, it absolutely shouldn’t have had the effect on him that it did. But it had triggered something in him that even he didn’t know he was into.

The kid had been seated in his usual spot, in the seat behind Din’s, when you’d walked in and spotted his big eyes beginning to droop. You had developed a routine with him now – dinner, a bit of bonding time with Din in the cockpit, then bed – and so far, it had seemed to work well for the little guy. You were new to the whole childcare thing, but it made it easier for you to know where punishment and reward was warranted – especially since you were terrible at telling him off. One look at his little face and all wrongdoings were forgotten, something Din never seemed particularly impressed with (even if he was just as guilty of it as you were).

You approached the seat, reaching down to scoop up the sleepy bundle, and pulled him close.

“Come on, little one. Let’s leave daddy to his thing. Time for bed.”

As you turned and headed for the steps leading down to his cot, you failed to notice the way Din had stiffened in his seat. He turned his head to watch you go, eyes dropping down to linger on your ass as the word replayed in his mind. Then he turned back to the flight console, hand lingering over it in a split-moment of indecision, before he flicked on auto-pilot and got to his feet.

Enough was enough.

You had absolutely been fucking with him.

The first time it had just sort of slipped out, you’ll admit. After years of dealing with the Guild, which what was honestly a bit of a boys’ club, you’d developed the shitty flirting as a reflex to seem more at ease with whoever you were working with (and, okay, sometimes it got you better jobs, too. So what?) But after catching Din’s initial reaction (back when you knew him solely as the strong, silent Mando) you knew it was a thread you had to tug at. And tug at it, you had, just to see the man unravel.

You knew the risks, knew the Mandalorian’s reputation, but part of you had wondered how far you could take it…how far you wanted it to go.

You were about to find out.

As you pressed the button to close up the baby’s metal capsule, smiling as you caught one last glimpse of his sleeping form, you turned to find yourself face-to-helmet with the man himself. Even without seeing his face, there was still an intensity to the way he was looking at you, how he leaned in until you have no choice but to back yourself up against the cold steel of the wall.

“This needs to stop,” he says, tone full of warning. Though you could have sworn there was a touch of something else to his voice. You want to say it sounds like desperation, but that feels a little self-indulgent, even for you.

“I’m sorry. Did you want to put the kid to bed? I just thought—”

“You know exactly what I mean.”

His hand comes up to rest beside you on the wall, as he leans in closer, effectively boxing you in.

Oh, boy.

You wonder if this is the same technique he uses on people he’s trying to get information from and if it should be having this effect on you. You’re almost certain it’s fear that you should be feeling, not, uh, this. You clear your throat and look up at him, wracking your brain for what you’ve done or said in the last ten minutes to warrant this kind of reaction from him, especially given the more obvious attempts to rile him up over the past couple of months. You’d picked up the kid, same as you did every other night. Maybe it was the way you’d bent over to do it. You glance down briefly at your clothes, but it’s not a particularly revealing outfit. You’d worn much less in front of him before with far less reaction. Maybe it was something you’d said?

Come on, little one. Let’s leave daddy to-

Oh.

The word leaves your mouth as a soft question intended mainly for yourself, a thought given voice. Din stiffens immediately, across from you. You look up at him, realizing at the same time he does that you’ve caught on.

“Wait, really? Is that what this abou—?”

His other hand comes up towards your throat, and for a moment you think he’s going to choke you (and you’re a little concerned that the feeling you get from that thought still isn’t fear) but his touch is gentle. His hand comes to rest on the side of your neck, thumb against your cheek as he looks at you for a moment before his voice comes through once more.

“Say it again.”

You keep your gaze trained on his visor, where you’re sure his eyes are currently burning into you, and feel heat flooding in opposite directions in your body; up to your face, and down between your legs. And you feel ridiculous. You had never been into that kind of thing before, and you feel silly saying it; but if there’s one thing you are into, it’s the big guy in front of you – the one telling you to say this one little word, just for him – and having him this close talking to you like this, well it might just be worth the humiliation. Hell, maybe that’s something you’re into, as well.

“Daddy?”

The hand on the wall next to you pulls back as he growls, and slams forward fast enough to make you jump, smacking against the light switch, bathing you both in sudden darkness. You feel him lean in closer, certain that if you were to move your head even slightly forward it would come into contact with the cold beskar of his helmet.

“Do you want this?” his voice, gravelly with lust, sounds through the modulator, as the hand on your neck begins to slide downwards.

Shit.

Even if you had wanted to say no before – you hadn’t – you’re sure the low rumble in his tone would have changed your mind. You’d never heard him keyed up like this before. He always had a way of keeping it together, of staying in control, but you’d been messing with him for so long, teasing, casually throwing your innuendos around, knowing exactly what you were doing to him. You don’t know why you feel so surprised that it’s finally come down to this. It was kind of like a daydream, a fantasy finally coming true, and you feel completely unprepared.

“I do, Din, seriously, but, uh, there’s just—”

“What is it?”

You wonder how you’re going to break it to him. Honestly, you feel like a fucking fraud after everything you’ve put him through. You feel like you’ve been leading him on. You sigh and duck your head as you make your confession.

“I’ve never done this before.”

You don’t know how to explain it, but you feel him suddenly deflate, as if the tension in the room has been replaced with something akin to disappointment.

“You’re joking?” And for once, you’re not.

He doesn’t mean for the words to come out the way they do, and even though he can’t say he’s any less turned on by this revelation he knows there are implications there that can’t be ignored if he wants to keep going. Only, right now, he’s not feeling very patient.

You wince at the level of exasperation in his tone. “No.”

There’s silence for a moment and you have to reach out to feel that he’s still there, your hand landing on his chest plate. His hand comes up to rest on top of yours, and you think that maybe its to pull it away, that the lights will come back on at any moment and this opportunity will disappear forever, but he holds it there, thinking things over.

“How much experience do you have? Any?”

There’s a change to his tone, now. He sounds curious.

“Yeah, I mean I’ve…”

Why does this feel so fucking awkward suddenly? You’ve spent the last six months in this man’s daily company, and while that might not seem like a lot of time in terms of getting to know a person, a majority of that was spent in the confined space of the Crest. You know each other’s routines now; all the little habits and pet peeves you can only pick up on when living in close quarters with someone else. You know he likes silence at meal times, but that he’s more open to conversation after time away on a job, and you’ve come to be able to tell just from his posture if that job had gone well. You know some of each other’s history – him mostly learning yours, since you’re by far the chattier person – yet, still, your face is hot with embarrassment as you recall the handful of experiences you’ve had. You’d never talked about this kind of stuff. You’d only ever joked about it.

“You know, like, mouth stuff.”

“Mouth stuff?” he repeats, and you swear there’s laughter in his voice when he says it.

Your face is beginning to feel unbearably hot, and you’re sure that if he decided to read your heat signature right now your skin would look like you’d just spent a week straight wandering the Tatooine desert.

“Shut up, you know what I mean.”

“Hm,” he replies thoughtfully, like he does and that maybe he’s picturing it, “What else?”

“Hand—”

“Hand stuff?” he cuts you off, undeniably making fun of you now.

You smack him in the chest plate, only managing to send a sting through your hand in the process, then push forward as if to move past him, like you think you could make your way anywhere in this darkness. “You know what? Maybe I don’t want this, after all.”

It’s a blatant lie, but you’re starting to think maybe humiliation’s not your thing after all.

He stops you and you don’t resist. You’d been wanting this pretty much from day one, back when he’d assisted with your retreat after a hunt had gone sideways – from the moment you’d watched him swagger into the cantina and stand calmly between you and the half-dozen armed men who were protecting their wanted leader. Back when you’d been just a young, fellow hunter in need of aid.

“Tell me what you want,” he asks you now.

You think about it for all of two seconds. “I want y—This. I want this.” You stumble over what is almost too much of a confession. It feels too soon to tell heavy truths like that, so you settle for what you already know he’s offering. “Just…go easy.”

There’s a silence that seems to drag out in the darkness, then a hiss as he removes his helmet. You feel his body move closer to yours, and you swear that’s his hair brushing your cheek as he leans in and says, “I can do that.”

He scoops you up without warning, reminding of how quick and strong he can be even when he’s weighed down by all that armor, and you find you can’t help yourself as you say:

“You really know how to sweep a girl off her feet.”

Without the helmet, his sigh meets your skin as a warm huff across your face.

“Do me a favor?”

“Sure,” you reply without hesitation, feeling him still beneath you.

“No more jokes. Please.”

You laugh at the exasperation in his voice and find yourself caught completely off guard when you hear a huff of breath escape him that might have passed for laughter, too, but before you can say anything you find yourself being whisked away towards what you assume is the small space of his sleeping quarters. He seems to know his way well enough to not bump into anything along the way, but even so you hug yourself in tight to avoid any knocks to the head. You look up as a door rasps open in front of you and you can only barely make out the outline of the bed. Din is quick to place you down on it before he drops his helmet to the floor and starts tugging off his armor, placing it somewhere nearby. You sit on the edge of the mattress staring awkwardly into the darkness, knowing you should probably start undressing, too, but suddenly feeling self-conscious despite the pitch darkness that surrounds you.

“Do you want me to undress you?” Din asks, and his tone is gentle enough for it to be a serious question.

You shake your head in response after thinking it over for a minute before remembering he can’t see you.

“You’ll have to use your words,” he says, “The lights need to stay off.” He pauses for a moment, then adds, “Is that okay?”

You know it’s not him asking if you’re expecting him to betray his creed in order for this to happen; it’s him asking if you’re okay with not being able to see anything for your first time.

Your first time.

Urgh. It sounds so juvenile when you think about it that way, but so far, it’s living up to the adolescent kind of awkwardness you had expected, back when you had actually been an adolescent. You were past that now, and if you’re being honest with yourself that’s part of what’s making you feel self-conscious about this whole thing. You feel like this should have happened a long time ago. You wonder if Din thinks it odd that you’ve left it for this long.

“That’s fine,” you tell him quickly. Though you wish you could see him, not only to know what you’ll be working with, but also because doing it this way adds a layer of anonymity you didn’t necessarily want to associate with your first time. You’d always pictured it being with someone you felt close to – as cliché as it sounded, someone who was special to you. And even though that was true in this case, not being able to see that certain someone was detracting from the whole experience.

You feel movement in front of you and a large, warm hand finds your knee, running it over the fabric that still covers your body.

“We don’t have to do this if you’ve changed your mind,” Din tells you. His voice is different without the helmet; softer, gentler. Or maybe it’s just the circumstances that has him talking to you this way. You’d heard him use this kind of tone on the Child, and you had always admired the level of patience he always managed to show the kid, but you’d never found yourself on the receiving end of it like this before. It’s comforting.

Comforting enough to confirm your decision.

His hand moves away as he feels you start to shimmy out of your clothes. Your top goes first, up and over your head, joining his pile on the floor, then you reach down for the button on the front of your pants. You pause, realizing how exposed you’ll be, even with the cool air meeting your already-exposed nipples. This is a different kind of exposed, you think; more intimate. You give yourself a moment.

“May I?” he asks, and you’re surprised enough by his politeness that you nod, forgetting again he can’t see you, and breath out, “Yeah.”

You move your hand and let him take over, feeling his deft fingers make quick work of your button and zipper before he starts to tug the fabric down your legs, taking your pants and underwear all in one go. His hands find your knees and you sigh at the skin-on-skin contact, never expecting the man to feel this warm. You hear him drop down to his knees and suddenly feel warm breath between your legs. You make to close your legs at the unexpected sensation, unsure about having him this close to that area, but his hands come up to pull them back apart.

“What are you doing?” you ask, only to distract you both, because your heart feels like it’s going to beat out of your chest at how fast this is moving.

“Mouth stuff,” he replies simply.

It’s simple, dry humor, but you swear he never makes you laugh more than when he catches you off guard with stuff like that. You don’t think anyone else would believe you if you tried to tell them how funny he can be without even trying. The joke manages to diffuse some of your anxiety and you relax back onto the bed, trusting him with whatever he’s about to do. Still, you gasp when his mouth meets your core, and he hums happily against you. You’ve done this with someone once before, but the memory feels clumsy compared to what Din is doing now; his grip tight around your waist and tongue immediately finding the right places. You try not to think about where he’s had the practice, focusing instead on the sensation he’s creating with a simple flick of his tongue.

You start to make noises you don’t think have ever come from you before, unable to help yourself with the sudden assault on your sensitive nerve endings. He pauses from what he’s doing as if struck by a sudden thought, smiling at the way you whimper at the sudden loss of contact.

“Have you ever cum before?” he asks.

“I think so,” you reply, but if you were being completely honest, you’re not sure. And least, not with another person. You’re pretty sure you’ve gotten there on your own. You think. You feel like that’s something you should know for sure.

“You think so?” he repeats, sounding unconvinced.

“Yeah. I mean, I’ve had, you know, urges, I took care of them, then they were gone.”

He makes a thoughtful sound and ones of his thumbs finds your clit, rubbing a couple of circles before he dips it down to your center to scoop up some of the wetness there to bring back up again.

“You don’t sound very sure,” he says casually, like he’s not driving you crazy right now with a simple touch. Feeling slightly pathetic, you can only whine, your brain feeling scrambled as his assault on your clit empties it of all coherent thought. “Next time I ask you, I want you to be a little more certain,” he tells you, and without warning dives back in, his tongue taking over from his thumb at a much faster pace. Your back arches off the bed and he slips his free arm across your hips, holding you in place.

You soon feel pressure at your entrance as he presses a finger carefully against it and in your frenzied state you push forward onto it, forgetting in a moment of desperate need your body’s inexperience with something like that. You’re wet enough that it doesn’t hurt, but it’s still a foreign feeling having something inside of you, and you realize that’s only one finger. Before you can start to imagine how something larger is going to feel, he presses the finger upwards inside of you and hits a spot you’ve never felt before. You cry out, caught completely off guard as the tight feeling in your lower belly breaks and you cum hard against him, hips bucking uncontrollably against his face. He growls against you, but doesn’t stop moving until your hips do.

“Fuck,” you whine, still panting as he slides his finger out of you and gives you one last lick. Still sensitive, you yelp and jerk back from the sensation, making him chuckle.

“Now you can say you’ve cum,” he tells you, and hell if he doesn’t sound proud of himself for giving you that.

“Yeah,” you agree, still barely able to form a proper thought. Then one comes to you. You sit up. He’s getting to his feet in front of you and it’s put him at the perfect height for what you have in mind.

He’s not expecting it when your hand finds his length, giving away his surprise with a sharp intake of breath. You take a moment to guess at his size, thinking once again how it’s going to feel once he’s inside of you, but any thought of pain is completely overridden by the very idea of having him inside you at all. But one thing at a time – you want to explore a few things first.

“Do you mind if I return the favor?” you ask him. You’re feeling different after your orgasm – feeling a sudden, renewed confidence – and the way his breath hitches as you start to pump him up and down sends a thrill through your body. He doesn’t reply, answering instead with a simple touch as his hands find your head, brushing your hair back from your face. You’ve done this before, too, but unlike your partner’s attempt on you at the time, yours had proven more successful.

You bob your head forward to find him, lips meeting the head of his cock and parting to let it enter. As your tongue laps at its underside, Din drops his head back with a moan that only encourages you further. You take as much of him inside your mouth as you can, letting the salty taste of him hit as close to the back of your throat as you’re comfortable with, and his grip tightens on your head as he fights the urge to buck forward. You’d said to go easy, and he’s mindful of that, but picturing what you must look like right now, face pink and glowing from your orgasm, mouth stuffed with his cock, he wishes he could flick the light on for a second just to see it. You guide your head back and forth, taking in all the sounds he’s making for you, testing particular places just to see what else you can make him do. All the while he continues to stroke your hair, murmuring praise that sounds strained as tries to force the words out, things like, ‘Good girl’ and ‘Yeah, just like that’.

All the praise starts to go to your head though, it seems, as you forget your earlier feelings of humiliation and whisper back, “You like that, daddy?” Then you pick up your pace and have him moaning to the point where he has to stop you. He gently grabs your head, pulling his hips back and plucking himself from your mouth with a slick ‘pop’.

“We’re going to have to stop there, sweet girl, or your going to make me cum.”

You simply look up to where his voice is coming from and make a sad little hum, any self-conscious thoughts or anxiety long gone at the sound of his half-ruined tone, and you find yourself eagerly awaiting the next step, your body begging for further touch. He chuckles at your reaction and leans down to find your lips, capturing them in a searing kiss, both of you groaning as you taste each other. It’s the first kiss you’ve shared with him, and as he moves forward and forces you back onto the bed, you find your legs come up automatically to wrap around him. That’s when you feel him, hard and pressing into your thigh.

“How do you want to do this?” he asks, as he grabs his length and rubs his tip between your folds to coat himself with your wetness. You moan when he passes over your clit and give yourself a moment to bask in the sensation as he continues to rub over that area.

“Just go slow,” you tell him, then you feel his cock move down from your clit to your entrance, now that you’ve finally given him permission. He only applies the slightest pressure, letting you get used to each new sensation as he introduces it, but you’re so slick down there that he begins to slip in. You tense, waiting for the sharp sensation you’re sure is coming.

“Relax.” Din’s hips have stilled, and he reaches up in the darkness to run his thumb across your cheek, soothing you. “Deep breaths, okay? I’ll make it feel good for you.”

You nod, and this time he feels the movement against his hand and doesn’t ask you to voice it, instead taking it as his cue to continue on. There’s a momentary sharp, burning sensation deep inside as you feel everything stretch, but as he slowly begins to move his hips, you find it fades more and more with each thrust, your wetness coating him and amplifying your pleasure. You’ve never felt this full before, not in this way, but he’s big enough to be hitting all your best spots at the same time. You’ve never felt this close to cumming this quickly.

“Shit.”

Hearing that single word, he starts to pick up speed and you clutch at whatever part of him you can reach, giving yourself up to the sensation as you feel that electric, tightening sensation starting again in your lower belly.

“Do you think you’re close?” he pants, because he knows he is – dangerously so – but he wants to keep true to his word. He wants to make this experience just as good for you.

You fail to answer, unable to stop the harsh cries leaving your mouth instead, and you don’t have time to tell him before the feeling breaks inside of you again and you’re pulsing around him. You cry out, louder than before, and this is enough to send him over the edge, too. He slips out at the last moment, and you feel warm bursts of liquid squirt across your stomach.

“Sorry,” he pants, grunting as he braces himself on one hand and then shivers through a couple of aftershocks, “I didn’t— I couldn’t—”

“It’s fine,” you tell him, voice just as breathless. And it is fine. You couldn’t care less about it. Your entire body feels more relaxed than it has in months. You feel spent in the best possible way and right now you’d be fine to just fall into a pile on the sheets and sleep.

He collapses onto the mattress next to you, his body close to yours in the small space, warm and sweaty, and you’re surprised when he slips an arm underneath you to bring you closer. “So, was that okay? Do you feel okay? Sore?”

“Yeah. I mean, no, I’m okay.” The words come out as a few huffs of breath and, still high on endorphins, the noise makes you laugh.

Din gives you a squeeze at the familiar sound, smiling to himself in the darkness. Then he makes a thoughtful noise.

“What?” you ask.

“It’s nothing. It’s just…You’ve never been in here before.”

“So?” You gaze around in the darkness, thinking it is a little cramped compared to the space you’d made for yourself in the much larger cargo hold, and realize maybe that’s what he’s hinting at.

“I think you should cum here more often.”

“Did you just…?” You sit up to look at him the darkness, never in a million years expecting such a horrible, so very like-you joke to be uttered by the man and he yanks you back down and pulls you close, ignoring the sticky mess he’s made of you.

Then you hear a sound you’re not familiar with, and feel his warm breath against you as he laughs.

“Din Djarin, that joke was terrible.”

He presses a kiss to the side of your head and heaves a sigh that suggests fast approaching sleep. “I learned from the best.”

#din djarin x reader #mandalorian x reader #fic requests #the mandalorian #din djarin imagines #din djarin

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captainkirkk · 4 years ago

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Finished tgcf book 1! Btw reminder that you can blacklist ‘liveblogging’ if you don’t want to see these posts.

Thoughts so far:

Not sure whether it’s because this is my second translated book so I’ve adapted to the writing style, or if MXTX’s writing has improved since this is her latest novel, but I’m finding tgcf really easy to read! SVSSS bogged me down in places and I found the writing a bit clunky at times, but tgcf has been a breeze

I adore Hua Cheng. I love how he just wants to support and spoil and spend time with Xie Lian. He tells him, “Just keep doing what you want.” And also he says, “For some, that special person just existing in the world is hope.” It kills me.

We keep learning more and more about Xie Lian’s life and how fucked up it’s been. No wonder he has such a shitty concept of self worth. I mean, he’ll still defend and protect himself and I do think he still has a sense of pride (even if it’s changed over the centuries), but he’s carrying around so much guilt and believes he’s really the God of Misfortune

I wonder what Hua Cheng has been through. People keep saying that a Supreme is born from extreme suffering, but we know very little about Hua Cheng’s past. All I know is that he was the poor boy that 17yo Xie Lian caught in his first life. I wonder what happened between then and now to turn him into such a powerful Ghost King

Love the side characters! I really hope Qianqiu doesn’t turn cruel and realises why Xie Lian did the things he did. Their characters are so similar.

And Mu Qing and Feng Xin! LOVE those fools. Want to learn more about their pasts. I have a feeling they’re harboring a lottt of guilt about abandoning Xie Lian after his first banishment

The Wind Master is a bit of a tricky one, but I have to say, the way they were so quickly ride or die for Xie Lian is very good. Also genderfluid gods?? Genderfluid gods!!

As for the Emperor.... I don’t trust him as far as I can throw him (re: at all). I have a feeling he knows exactly how powerful Xie Lian is, even though Xie Lian himself doesn’t exert that power very often, and is using Xie Lian which is incredibly worrying because Xie Lian is the kind of person who would recognise he was being used and let it happen anyway, so long as no one else was being hurt too badly along the way. I mean, it sounds like they fought after Xie Lian’s second ascension, and Xie Lian even managed to stab him a few times, so he knows firsthand how powerful he is. I just can’t trust his intentions. He’s manipulating Xie Lian but I don’t know yet what his end goal is. Probably something to do with Hua Cheng. Not sure, but I’m very worried.

#my posts #tgcf #liveblogging

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lilydalexf · 4 years ago

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Old School X is a project interviewing X-Files fanfic authors who were posting fic during the original run of the show. New interviews are posted every Tuesday.

Interview with Sophia Jirafe

Seven of Sophia Jirafe’s fics are at Gossamer, but more of her X-Files stories are at AO3 (as sophiahelix). I’ve recced some of my favorites of her stories here before, including Stones and Bones. She was active in the fandom during the show’s run and has never strayed far from fandom in general. She co-founded Glass Onion, a great multi-fandom mailing list that now has nearly 1,000 fics from 100 fandoms at AO3. Big thanks to Sophia Jirafe for doing this interview.

Does it surprise you that people are still interested in reading your X-Files fanfics and others that were posted during the original run of the show (1993-2002)?

It did initially, but so many old shows are on streaming now and getting discovered by new people, it makes sense.

I did get a comment from someone who said my first story under this name, posted in early 2000 when I was a college freshman, was older than her by a couple of months, and THAT took me aback.

What do you think of when you think about your X-Files fandom experience? What did you take away from it?

It was my first fandom, discovered when I was 17 and searching for info about the show on the school library computer, and it really shaped my whole life! I met a lot of people I still know today (mostly in non-fannish venues like FB, though I do still have some connections in fandom), and learned a lot about writing and just life generally, since I was younger than most of fandom at the time.

Social media didn't really exist during the show's original run. How were you most involved with the X-Files online (atxc, message board, email mailing list, etc.)?

I started off on a tiny forum at a website called Squirrel’s Nest, but I kept seeing people thanking Scullyfic in fic headers and eventually I was able to join the mailing list (which was capped to 500 members). Scullyfic was everything to me — I made friends, betas, discussed the show, learned about all kinds of things on Off-Topic Fridays, etc. A lot of those friends, I would email with or more often chat on AIM (individual or these sprawling group chats that would go on all day), and then at the end of 2001 we started migrating to Livejournal. I was getting into Buffy more by then, but it was still mostly the same crowd of people I knew from Scullyfic.

What did you take away from your experience with X-Files fic or with the fandom in general?

I feel like it started me on a whole life path really — finding that my deep obsession with fiction could be channeled like that and shared with other people, as well as deepening my writing. Online fandom has been a major part of my social life for over 20 years now, and I love the mix of getting excited about things with friends and also the creative outlet.

My corner of X-Files fandom in particular was just very calm and enjoyable for the most part, full of older professional women who were happy to be friends and give me advice about all kinds of things, and it really set the bar for me with my online interactions. Now I’m almost 40 and trying to be that person for my younger friends, as well as having no patience for toxicity and in-fighting in my fandom spaces.

What was it that got you hooked on the X-Files as a show?

A combination of the creepy conspiracy angle and just adoring Scully. I remember how mysterious and fascinating the show seemed when I discovered it right before S5, and there was no way to find out more except to keep watching and hoping they explained. Scully was so smart and tough and beautiful and interesting, and as a teen I was just captivated by her (and the UST, though I didn’t care about Mulder as much).

What got you involved with X-Files fanfic?

I ran across it a couple times early on but felt embarrassed by the concept, but then I read the first in Karen Rasch’s Words series and suddenly it clicked for me. After a while I started daydreaming my own conversations between them, very similar to what happens to me now when I’m getting into a new pairing, so after reading tons of recommended fic by big authors, I started writing my own (the 3-4 stories I posted in high school are all wiped from the internet now, though).

What is your relationship like now to X-Files fandom?

Good memories, though because it was my senior year of high school and college, I know a lot of it is just tied to that time in my life, and also being in my very first fandom. I will rewatch episodes from time to time, but I basically never revisit former fandoms because they’re kind of like exes, even if I finished on a good note. I also think my taste in fic has changed (and there isn’t the same novelty of “characters I like getting together omg!”)

Were you involved with any fandoms after the X-Files? If so, what was it like compared to X-Files?

So many! None of them had quite the same combination of excellent central architecture (especially pre-AO3) and a really high level of discussion and friendliness without being enormous, but I’ve loved them all in their own ways. I’ve done fandom on LJ/DW, Tumblr, Discord, and now on Twitter, and I think I miss the mailing list days the most. You didn’t have to repeat yourself so much in multiple conversations, you weren’t character limited, and the discussion was all in one place, with personal stuff more confined to your side conversations. Discord is a little like that, but it moves too fast and there’s too much noise for my taste.

Who are some of your favorite fictional characters? Why?

Heh, after X-Files I went through a whole phase of faves in the Scully vein — Buffy, Aeryn Sun, Kara Thrace, etc. Like many people I’ve shifted primarily into m/m in the last decade (Sherlock, YOI, and recently The Untamed have been my major fictional fandoms, along with a lot of sports RPF), but for non-fannish shows I’m always looking for awesome new female characters, like Elizabeth on the Americans, Peggy on Mad Men, Nadja on What We Do in the Shadows, etc. And I do LOVE Killing Eve and have written a little f/f over there.

Do you ever still watch The X-Files or think about Mulder and Scully?

I’ll rewatch favorite episodes occasionally, and I keep thinking about a full rewatch but it takes so much time! I never saw the second movie, and I didn’t finish the first of the new seasons because I was hating it, so it’s a little hard for me to think fannishly about them when I disliked basically everything after “Je Souhaite” so much (as far as I’m concerned the show ends there).

Do you ever still read X-Files fic? Fic in another fandom?

X-Files no, but yeah I’m still very active in fandoms.

Do you have any favorite X-Files fanfic stories or authors?

I lost all my saved fic several computers ago, but I recall loving “Blue Christmas” by Plausible Deniability and “Diamonds and Rust” by MustangSally (obviously everything she wrote was great).

What is your favorite of your own fics, X-Files and/or otherwise?

Looking at my X-Files fic, I can’t believe how short it is and how comparatively little of it there is (I have lost track of a few ficlets). It felt like such a big deal to finish anything back then! I think my favorite remains Alphabetum, which involved a tricky structure and 5 elements given by people as part of the Scullyfic Improv challenge, where you had a week to write a story around those elements.

My favorite of my recent fic in fictional fandoms is probably the GoT/YOI crossover novel I wrote a couple years ago, for a completely opposite experience to this (and proof you can grow as a writer with a lot of effort!)

Do you think you'll ever write another X-Files story? Or dust off and post an oldie that for whatever reason never made it online?

It’s honestly hard to imagine going back (like I said, I usually don’t), but I guess I could get inspired by something.

Do you still write fic now? Or other creative work?

I certainly still write, and I do have to give credit to XF fandom and Scullyfic in particular for giving me the start I got, where I really wanted to be writing good fiction. The few things I wrote in high school were just me jamming out romantic cliches, but the people I was lucky to know in XF fandom showed me that “just” fanfic can still aspire to be high quality. I am a much, much better and more disciplined writer than I was back then, but I might never have started on this path without fandom friends encouraging me.

Where do you get ideas for stories?

Usually just daydreaming about emotional dynamics between characters/people, but sometimes something specific in canon or real life (I write a lot of RPF) gets me going, or maybe something I read.

What's the story behind your pen name?

When I wrote for X-Files, I picked “Sophia Jirafe” combining my favorite first name with a fancy spelling for my favorite animal (I was 18! Don’t judge!) Over on Livejournal, my friend Jintian and I initially shared an account with the same name as our website, double_helix, and when she got her own account I changed to sophia_helix, which is now sophiahelix just about everywhere. A little clunky, but I like the continuity (and I do run across old friends who remember the name).

Do your friends and family know about your fic and, if so, what have been their reactions?

The friends I’ve known for a very long time know about it, but we have never talked about it in depth. My husband, who I met not long after getting into fandom, also knows about it, and he’s encouraging and also a writer so we talk all the time. I told my mom in college and she was pretty dismissive, so we haven’t talked about it since (but my younger sister knows and is cool about it).

When I was younger, it was something I shared readily (I bonded with a new friend in law school I saw looking at LJ), but now I don’t really bring it up with new acquaintances.

Is there a place online (tumblr, twitter, AO3, etc.) where people can find you and/or your stories now?

I just made a Carrd the other day with all my various fannish addresses (Twitter, locked fannish Twitter, AO3, Tumblr)

Is there anything else you'd like to share with fans of X-Files fic?

Just that it really was a high quality fandom — so much excellent long casefic, so many cool down to earth people, just generally a great launching place for a young fan. The friendships I made with older people were really important to me, and it makes me sad to see a lot of younger people now getting upset about the idea of anyone over a certain age being in their fandom spaces. I hope someday fandom can get back to appreciating that people of all ages can be the fandom type, and that everyone brings something different to the community.

(Posted by Lilydale on December 1, 2020)

#new post #old school x #xfiles fanfic #xf fanfic #xf fanfic author interviews #sophia jirafe

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pebblysand · 3 years ago

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20 Questions: Writer's Edition!

I haven't been tagged in this but I saw it on @femellerklem's blog and as I'm on holidays with nothing to do, here it is for everyone's enjoyment, haha.

How many works do you have on AO3?

What’s your total AO3 word count?

302,756 words. As I was telling @whizzfizz the other day, I need to get a life.

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

The Good Wife, HP, Spooks, Silk, House M.D., Peaky Blinders and Without a Trace. So, seven. Like Horcruxes, lol.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

That's an interesting question, let me check.

one: castles (hp) ; two: the wolf's just a puppy (and the door's double locked) (hp) ; three: truth (peaky blinders) ; four: slipped (and sad something sort of like your name) (hp) ; five: the things that will likes (the good wife)

I can't say I'm shocked that the Potter stuff is so high up, it's the most popular fandom I've ever written for so it makes sense, just in terms of a larger readership pool. I'm always however pleasantly surprised that Truth is up there. It's the only PB fic I've ever written (although I have plans for another one) and not a particularly popular ship, so it's always nice to get recognition for it. IIRC, it wasn't a hit when I put it out but it's been growing steadily ever since! It was also the first fic I wrote after a three-year writing slump, which makes me oddly proud of it. It's not perfect by any means and has obviously been contradicted by canon since then, but I like it.

Please, however, stop dropping kudos on the things that will likes. It's really not great. I do hope my writing has gotten better since 2012 and don't understand why people like this. I've considered deleting it so many times but it's got so many kudos, it make me feel bad for the people who do enjoy it.

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

Always on AO3, never on ff.net. I just find the PM-ing system clunky on ff. I'm not always as prompt answering as I'd like to be anymore, but I do make a commitment to always answer eventually. It's just that, if you've ever looked at it, you'll know that my comment section is something to behold. I tend to get a lot of "long" comments on my stuff, so I also leave very long responses in return, which take a while to get to/write. This being said, I love debating/chatting/commiserating with my readers and have made some fantastic friends through my AO3 comment section. I basically live for people's long comments lol. I just wish I had more time to get to them quicker haha.

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

I don't know, maybe my most recent one, I suppose? Or horses made of sticks? I tend to get very dark and angsty throughout my works, but always end on a brighter note. Those two are about death/loss though and there's a permanency to it that you can't really avoid.

What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

I mean, that fic's a 143-thousand-words journey but probably children. I like where it ends. It's a good place.

Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

Never have. I might one day but it just sounds like a lot of effort.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Everyone has I think. The best one though was someone on castles who wrote "first learn when spring season starts and ends before writing a story about it. what a joke." I'm still baffled by it cause, like, May's in spring, isn't it?

Do you write smut? If so what kind?

Yes and no. I have written sex, yes, aspects of it at least. There are two sort-of explicit sex scenes in children, and one very explicit one. This being said, I mostly concentrate on one specific detail while writing sex, and blur out the rest. A bit like the scene in which Harry pulls off the condom after having sex with Mia in castles. The latest chapter of castles is also obviously very explicit, but it's not really writing "sex" as such. I write smut when it shows something, when it has a point. I don't write smut for the sake of smut but if explicit sex has a place/point in a story then I do write it.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of. Not that I have ever checked either though, lol.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope. I'd love to though!

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No. I've beta-ed but not co-written.

What’s your all time favorite ship?

It's funny cause I definitely write romance, but I don't consider myself a "shippy" person. I fluctuate, I'm mostly interested in storylines/characters, rather than ships themselves. A bit like sex, I think romance is an element of life. But, if I had to choose one and because I've written 143k words about them, I think I'll say Martha/Clive on silk.

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

The TGW Will-lives AU. There's 20k words of it somewhere on my hard drive but honestly, doubt I'll ever write it.

What are your writing strengths?

I've been told I'm very character-based, whatever that means. I've been told I'm good with dialogue. Very "vivid". I honestly don't know but if there's something you really like about my style, by all means, tell me haha.

What are your writing weaknesses?

I could edit myself into the ground. I have to limit the number of editing runs I do on things or else after a while I start obsessing over each and every word and the quality actually goes down. I've been known to delete a lot of things and regret it afterwards. I think if I ever wrote a book you'd find me in bookshops picking it up and correcting the copies after it's been published haha.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

Very tricky. I did it a bit in ce ne sont que des cailloux but only in a language I actually speak.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Without a Trace. A 2000s procedural lol.

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

My fave is always my latest one so far lol. Which is a good thing I suppose 'cause it means I'm enjoying what I'm writing and getting better? So, right this minute, it's listening for that angel choir, but it'll be something else soon haha.

Tagging @copper-dust and @whizzfizz if you haven't done this yet - not sure!

#i like answering questions no one asked me when im bored lol #tag

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savvyblunders · 4 years ago

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Personal Post: Imposter Syndrome, Reading Traditional Books, and thoughts about my own writing

{Just rambles regarding books, fanfiction and some of my thoughts therein.}

It’s been a terribly long time since I read any published books--aside from those written by fellow fanfiction authors. It has reached the point that I find them entirely too cringey. The plots are tame, the characters stiff, the language rote. I especially have a hard time caring if there is a supposed ‘romance’ involved. Forget about het romances, they’re so formulaic that they leave me cold. It isn’t that I have no interest in the portrayal of a relationship between a woman and man, it’s that by and large they might as well have been churned off of a factory production line.

Part of my objection is to the tired old tropes and gender roles which authors (and readers) don’t seem to realize they’re not only falling prey to, but encouraging with their work. The world doesn’t have to be turned on its head to be interesting, but you shouldn’t know from the first few scenes between characters how it will play out--and further more, not care.

I did read a rather good psychological mystery a few days ago, however. I think perhaps it was successful in part because it was so different from the usual run of stories that people publish, but also because there wasn’t a romance shoe-horned into the storyline. The narrator wasn’t particularly sympathetic, but nor were they entirely unredeemed. I don’t want to give too much away, but it explored the themes of bullying, memory, redemption and revenge, with an enjoyable twist that I didn’t see coming--I was successfully led astray by red herrings, which isn’t always the case when I’m reading mysteries. The book, should anyone be interested, was Girl Gone Mad by Avery Bishop.

{I keep on rambling after the break ;)}

I also read another which was such a stinker I deleted it from my Kindle history and couldn’t tell you the title or author. This beauty had a somewhat interesting premise of a woman who wakes from a six month coma with full amnesia and throughout the book has to struggle with not remembering anything and depending on her husband, children and neighbors for the details of her life. Frustratingly, she finds parts of her personality and tastes have changed--at least as far as they all tell her. She begins to doubt that she is who they say--an issue further compounded when certain facets of her life pre-coma are revealed. Then when the ending arrives, there is a twist and a reveal which could have been pretty neat, only it arrived at the end of such a rote story, with such clunky storytelling and unimaginative language that I kind of didn’t care. It was clear, I might add, that the female protagonist was written by a man. Although blessedly he didn’t go into raptures over her perky breasts, long hair, or other physical attributes [insert vomiting]

My reading resulted in a two-fold feeling. One, traditionally published books are by and large crap. A few months ago I tried reading a book from a famous author whom I used to be quite a fan of. It was part of a series with which I used to be enamored. I settled in, expecting a very enjoyable read. After slogging through three chapters I gave it up. The writing was generic, the characters shallow and the ‘bad guy’ was so sketchily written as to be bewildering, not mysterious.

That book left me frustrated and annoyed. But it also revealed something to me which I had somewhat accepted and understood prior to that, but not entirely absorbed. Just because a book is traditionally published doesn’t mean it’s any good. Just because an author is well known--or even on the best seller list--doesn’t mean they can write. There are more places to find interesting, funny, heartbreaking, sexy, fun, amazingly written, daring and wonderful stories than at a bookstore or through Kindle.

The second part of my two-fold feeling was that while, as a writer, I may have much room to grow, I still have valuable skills to offer. My four years of writing fanfiction have honed my talent, refined my style, and influenced my voice, perspective and ability. A good beta, or editor, is invaluable. While I used to write solo and not show it to anyone, simply edit and post, I’ve come to understand the inherent value of feedback. It can be a tricky road, as you might find yourself influenced too much by a reader into trying to suit their tastes rather than your own, but a good beta (eternal thanks to @paialovespie & @hoomhum)--that is to say, a great beta, will not only see the nuts and bolts which might need tightening, but will offer insights which blow your story from ordinary to inspired. The same goes for a ‘personal cheerleader’ (the highest of praise to @mottlemoth) or someone who reminds you at your dark times that you are capable of far more than you can conceive of in that moment. Forget nasty comments online, most of us are our own worst enemies--after all, we know our weakest spots and can zero in on them mercilessly.

Even without a beta, I believe in myself as a writer enough these days (most days) to hope that one day, with hard work, skill, great editing, and some luck, I too could be published. Not a NYT best seller, perhaps, but then, I’m not entirely certain I’d like that. I don’t say this out of any sort of pretentiousness, but because, in essence, these days, I want to write the kind of things that appeal to a more niche audience. I’d like to point with pride at my small book, nestled there on a bookshelf, or available with one click of a button, as something that helps give a voice to a community which has, and still continues to be, marginalized, ignored, fetishized and pandered to, in equal measure. Perhaps it would be for the best if what I wrote wasn’t palatable to the greater reading public.

Of course, those days when I’m full of zest and confidence don’t always last. Like any creator, I fall prey to Imposter Syndrome. Lord, I can’t believe that a time used to exist when I didn’t know what that was! I knew the feeling (oh, how I did), but had no clue that a term existed to encapsulate it. The concept that I wasn’t alone in having days (weeks, months, years) of being cast into doubt that I had anything worth saying--a voice worth listening to--isn’t a new one, but to find out that I’m not alone was unutterably comforting.

Since, like so many people, I’ve been suffering from a lack of ambition and ability to focus during this global pandemic, I haven’t written much at all, that inner voice rang loud and clear. I’m a fraud, a fake. Any ability I had was used up, clearly as shallow as a mud puddle if a little adversity was enough to dry it out. The struggle to get myself past that was, and is, one that swings from good to bad almost day by day. I had to finally give myself permission to be sad, scared, worried, tired, uninspired. Eventually I decided it was enough that I could find comfort and solace in other’s writing. And oh, how I have! Even though days and days would pass when I couldn’t even muster the interest to read, other times I would consume fanfiction fervently, feverishly.

And there was so much out there! Adventure, sex, romance, comedy, crack, fluff, hurt/comfort. It seems funny that I can rail against the ‘formulaic’ writing of published books and then turn to ‘tags’ and ‘tropes’ for comfort. But I think the difference lies in the heart that is written into those fanfiction stories. Most of us, while being somewhat influenced by friends, mutuals and fans into writing for a hungry public, are, by and large, writing for ourselves. The old tried and true ‘write what you know’ advice seemed empty and meaningless to me for years. If we only ever write what we know, then how do sci-fi, fantasy, adventure, etc., get written? My brain went to the obvious and ignored the heart of the matter--it isn’t so much what you ‘know’ as writing what you need. What makes you passionate. Even if you’ve never been on a space ship, or been part of a polyamorous, platonic communal family group, if you write it with that yearning and spirit in your heart, it will reach out to someone else.

Fanfiction, at it’s core, is self-comfort.

In my estimation, looking at traditionally published books, it seems that what most of them lack is that heart. The writers aren’t writing because they need the story, or because they are compelled to tell it. It isn’t that they had a hell of a good time writing it, or that they made themselves laugh while doing so. They had a publishing deal to fulfil, a publisher to make happy, a reading public who had certain expectations. There’s nothing wrong with that of course, but if it’s your only motivation...then the writing suffers the neglect and a percerptive reader will note the difference.

By and large, the fandom, the ship, even the trope, aren’t what captivates me most. I’m a pretty eclectic reader. I enjoy a good story more than I do the fact that it is a particular pairing. The draw is how well it is written, any chances the author took, the indulgence into style, formatting, etc. that they allowed themselves. So why should published books be any different? I’ve heard (non-fandom) people dismiss fanfiction as niche. Perhaps it is. But it is also broad, vast, uncharted territory where we’re all having a lot of fun and enjoying the hell out of ourselves.

Maybe those published authors need to spend a little time with us.

#personal stuff #savvy ponders #writing #traditional publishing #fanfiction #pandemic #depression #anxiety #self comfort #introspection

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neonthewrite · 4 years ago

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Bike Ride

( This was a contest prize for the Trust Contest held over on DA. I’m trying to catch up with all my sites for writing! Read time approx. 5-10mins )

“Why aren’t we going in the car-thing again?”

Bowman’s voice, close to Jacob’s ear thanks to the sprite’s cautious perch on his shoulder, rang clear with skepticism. In response, Jacob smirked and shrugged his shoulder just enough to bob the tiny sprite up and down once. “I thought you were tired of the car after the drive all the way here,” he pointed out.

Bowman’s tiny boots shifted as he flinched to keep his balance. Once certain he wouldn’t fall, one leafy wing slapped Jacob’s neck. “I was,” he insisted. “But if we’re going somewhere outside, I’d rather not be seen, and you can’t run fast enough to keep me out of sight.”

“It’s true,” Jacob lamented. “But I’m not planning on running there. Lemme just show you.”

He considered that fair warning for the front door of the house to open up. Jacob stepped onto the small front porch and paused to assess the world outside. A slight breeze cooled off the warm day, and only a few clouds drifted around overhead. The tidy lawns of the neighborhood, some littered with kids’ toys, grew verdant and green and so much more restrained than the plant life of Bowman’s home forest.

Jacob had been personally scolded for that, of course. As though he personally had made lawns so common.

Before Bowman could start up another lecture about the square patches of grass and over-pruned trees, Jacob stepped around the side of the house where his bicycle waited.

“What is that thing?” Bowman blurted again, though he had settled himself among the folds of Jacob’s hood. “It looks like it fell apart.”

A laugh spilled out of Jacob as he grabbed the bike from its lean against the house. “It’s a bicycle. It’s faster than walking and not as big and clunky as taking the car.”

He could practically feel the tiny glare of Bowman’s eyes narrowing skeptically. “You can ride around on this?”

“Sure, dude. Check it out if you want, but once we get going you’ll have to hide out in my hood like we planned.”

An indignant little scoff preceded the fluttering of Bowman’s wings. Jacob flinched his head to the side to avoid getting slapped too much, but Bowman was quick. A flash of green swooped down to land on the bike seat.

At four inches tall and dressed in the earthy greens and browns of the forest, Bowman couldn’t look more out of place on the faux-leather of the bicycle seat. His hands on his hips, he turned so he could observe first the handlebars of the human contraption, and then the back perch for a bag. He wandered to the edge to frown over the side at the pedals and spokes, forming an opinion that Jacob expected to hear soon enough.

“There’s no way those thin metal bits actually hold up a human,” Bowman pointed out, waving a hand and a wing at the front tire. “Can’t you bend those with just your hands, giant?”

Jacob shrugged and nudged at the spokes of the tire with his boot. “I mean, probably? But they don’t bend when I get on the bike. I’m pretty sure there’s something about how it’s made that makes sure I’m not putting all my weight on one spot.”

Bowman frowned as skeptically as ever and opened his wings to hop down onto the crossbar. Amazingly, he kept his balance on the rounded silver metal, and squatted down to get an even closer look at the rest of the frame. “If you say so, Jacob. What are all these bits on the bottom of the seat?”

“Huh? Oh, those are so I can adjust the height of the seat if I need to. So if someone shorter wanted to ride the bike they’d still be able to reach the ground.”

As expected, he weathered another glare for that. Bowman never forgave Jacob for being tall even for a human. "Of course even your spindly machine is too big for other giants," he complained. "What else?"

Jacob smirked and refrained from listing the many things in his everyday life that didn't match his height, from doorways to showers to kitchen counters; the human world, with all its strange sights and baffling machines, wasn’t made with people Jacob’s size in mind, no matter what Bowman said.

He offered Bowman a hand. Ferrying the sprite back to his shoulder, he dismissed the concern. It would be an amusing story for later. "Not much I can do about it, dude," he said, pausing to give Bowman ample time to take his perch again. "Get yourself situated. I don't want you falling out on the way there."

"I won't fall!" Ever the contrarian, Bowman took the last word before sidling along Jacob's shoulder. Keeping his balance was tricky, so Jacob tried to stay as still as he could, not even moving his shoulders in time with his breathing. A small tug of fabric later told him that Bowman had safely hopped into the hood of his jacket, squirming around to settle himself comfortably. In lieu of calling out, Bowman pointedly kicked at Jacob's back, right between the shoulders.

It was a strange arrangement, but it would work. Bowman stayed hidden and Jacob didn’t have to worry about someone noticing a small, strange shape in his pocket.

Jacob led the bike onto the lawn before hopping onto the seat. He paused in case Bowman would have something to say about riding around in his hood. Luckily, the would-be hammock of fabric seemed to pass inspection. Jacob kicked off the grass, and they were off.

Then Bowman shouted something, but the wind snatched his voice away without Jacob knowing what he said. With no frantic struggles in the hoodie and no panicked yells from behind his head, Jacob continued down the street on his way to his goal. Bowman might complain about the less than smooth ride, but he would probably forgive it. Probably.

He coasted past familiar houses and cars with a new perspective. Everything around him, easily taken for granted by the humans living there, made up an alien landscape for Bowman.

Hopefully the park a few blocks over would offer some familiarity.

It wasn’t a long ride, and during that time he only saw one other person walking their dog on the other side of the street. As he reached the park, no one was around yet. Jacob chained up his bike near the first marker of the trail that wound through the area. "Almost there," he promised. From the looks of things, no one else had come to the park that day. Angling towards the nature trail, Jacob double checked his assumption.

"I think you can peek now, if you want to."

The tiny weight in Jacob's hood squirmed. A few mumbled sprite curses followed until Bowman actually managed to hoist himself up to the edge. "--blasted heavy?!" He wasn't a skilled climber by any standard, so Jacob was impressed that he'd freed himself without help.

"What was that?" Jacob teased as Bowman scrambled up to his shoulder. "Wanna just use my pocket next time?"

"Pray to a rock!" Bowman's wings rustled once he had his footing again. "What's…"

Jacob wished he could see the look on Bowman's face as the complaints tapered off. With a smirk, he took a branch in the trail that would give the play area and its cluster of gazebos a wide berth. "Whatcha think, Bowman? Wanna try the nature trail?"

A wing twitched against his neck. "Nature trail?" Bowman echoed skeptically. "What are those colorful things over there? Do humans live there?" Thankfully, his curiosity didn't carry him right off the safety of Jacob's shoulder.

"Those are--"Jacob chuckled despite himself. "No, those are for kids to play on. They can climb and run around on them."

"Why are they so bright? They stand out even more than most human stuff!”

Jacob might have shrugged, but let a thoughtful hum convey it instead. "I think it just makes the kids happy. Colorful things are fun, I guess."

"Hmm." Bowman accepted the answer without arguing, which Jacob counted as a win. "Do you play around on things like that?"

"Nah. They're made for little kids and I don't want to scare anyone off. I did when I was little, though."

Bowman barked out a quiet laugh. "Right. When you were a little giant." His wings rustled again. "I can't picture it."

Jacob sighed and this time did shrug his shoulder. "Just gonna have to take my word for it, then. I had to do a lot of growing to get so giant."

Bowman scoffed and finally hopped from his perch to glide ahead of Jacob. The thicker growth of trees on the nature trail opened up before them, and suddenly Bowman fit right in with their surroundings. He alighted on a thin branch and Jacob paused to hear his question. "So this is your nature trail?"

"Yep. No over-pruned trees or square lawns past this point. And we have it all to ourselves." Jacob settled his hands in his hoodie pocket and thanked his luck. Bowman needed a chance to fly, and couldn't safely do it in the backyard at home. "So, What's the verdict?"

"Verdict? I don't know. It's better than the trees near your dwelling. There's actual blasted foliage here." Bowman gestured a wing at the undergrowth trying to claim the stones of the pathway.

"Yeah! I like walking out here, " Jacob agreed. He put action to words and continued the trek, with Bowman fluttering to a new branch to follow. "Closest thing to a forest I have nearby."

Bowman snickered. "Oh, I'm sorry for that. Sounds rough."

"Take pity on me," Jacob lamented. "All the work it takes to go see a real forest. You saw how long we were in the car."

Bowman scoffed. "With a machine that fast, you earn no pity at all, human."

The further they went into the secluded cluster of trees, the clearer it became that no one else was around to spot Bowman. Thus emboldened, the sprite banked into the air to dart about in the canopy, brushing his wings against leaves as he went. It wasn't quite the same as Wellwood. Here, the trees stood farther apart, especially close to the trail. Fewer wild flowers grew on the ground, and the calls of birds were subdued. In the distance, cars rumbling on the road broke any illusion of being away from everything.

Bowman drifted closer as Jacob stopped on a bridge overlooking a creek. Algae wavered in the current, not quite hiding the cement creek bed that gave it away as man-made.

"How do humans make those stones so... smooth? "Bowman asked as he landed on the railing. "lt's bizarre."

Jacob shrugged. "I don't know exactly how it works, but that's cement. It's actually a mix of this sort of glue stuff with a lot of tiny rocks and grains of sand. I think."

Bowman shot him an incredulous look. "Sand? And it won't wash away?"

"Dude, you're watching it not wash away, " Jacob teased. To counter Bowman's glare, he had a real answer ready. "I think the water does wear it down, but it's slow. So this creek will probably last a while, unless someone wants to tear it up."

"Why, " Bowman began with the air of someone who already decided he didn't like the answer, "would someone want to tear it up?!"

Jacob smirked. "I don't speak for all humans, Bowman. People change parks so they can build other things sometimes."

Leafy green wings flared open. Jacob started walking again, noting Bowman's agitation. Sure enough, as he took flight, Bowman voiced a familiar lament. "You humans. Always trying to move things around instead of just building where it makes sense."

"You sprites, looking for problems in everything us humans do," Jacob shot back. He reached up as if trying to grab Bowman right out of the air, though he moved far too slow to really manage it. It was little more than a wave in Bowman's direction.

Bowman countered easily by leaning into a quick spiral around Jacob's outstretched arm. His back came within an inch of the jacket sleeve, belying Bowman's control over his movement in the air. No other sprite in Wellwood could match his skill. Not with his constant practice.

"Watch it, giant!" Bowman's scolding, sharp as usual, came with a cocky grin. He kicked Jacob's arm. "Don't make me think I need to bop you!"

"You'll come up with a reason no matter how careful I am," Jacob said. "Hanging out with you, I might as well bop myself to save time."

Bowman snickered. He made one more wide circle around Jacob, then swooped closer. Tiny boots alighted on top of Jacob's head. Up there, Bowman's teasing declaration was impossible to miss. "It would save me a lot of trouble, too. Keeping you in line is exhausting."

Jacob thought about nodding to upset Bowman's balance, but instead opted to reach up to the small weight perched on his head. Before Bowman could flare his wings, Jacob's hand closed carefully around him. Ever mindful of the fragile wings, Jacob gathered up the small sprite and moved his hand into view. To no surprise, Bowman had a glare ready for him. "Hey! What's this for?!"

Jacob grinned. He could try to fake an innocent look, but that would require holding back his amusement. "Well you said this was exhausting, so I figured I could help you out by carrying you for the rest of the walk. Seems only fair, since I cause you so much trouble."

Bowman scowled. Jacob hadn't left him any way not to take the bait. "That's not what I meant and you know it! Leggo!"

He squirmed, but Jacob had already loosened his grip. Teasing was one thing, but he didn't actually want to trap Bowman. He tilted his hand to give him a platform in case he needed to regain balance. "Oh, my bad, dude. Here ya go."

Bowman rolled over, one wing flaring open irritably, and pushed to a stand on Jacob's palm. A tiny kick connected with Jacob's thumb. "Blasted giant. You think you're so funny."

"I think I'm pretty hilarious," Jacob said. "You mean you don't?! You're a tough crowd, man."

"There's just one of me," Bowman snipped. It wasn't the first time a figure of speech sailed over his head, and it likely wasn't the last. He never let it slow down his snarking. "But no. You're not as good at jokes as you think. Bothersome giant!" He punctuated his verdict with a flap of his wings and darted off of Jacob's palm.

Jacob grinned again. "Okay, fair. I bother you as much as I can. Can't help it. At least you're never bored with your favorite human around right?"

This time Bowman laughed as he swooped upwards. "Never bored. That's one way to put it."

#mywriting #jacob andris #bowman leafwing #bike ride #gt #giant tiny #wood sprites

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mewtwowarrior · 4 years ago

Text

Now that I've got the second draft of that section of Ark’s backstory out of the way and I’ve rewatched Tron: Uprising, I’ve finally figured out how to resolve the end of this particular part of her story.

I thought of this when I couldn’t sleep and I typed it on my phone, so it’s pretty rough around the edges. The part I wrote yesterday has been in my mind for months, so it’s had way longer to cook than this part has, so this part isn’t nearly as polished.

I feel like it’s pretty clunky, but, at least I wrote something and got it out there. I can definitely edit and rewrite it later to make it better.

First drafts: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

Second drafts: Part 1 | Part 2 version 1 (you are here) | Part 2 version 2

Final draft: Combined Parts

Over time, Beck and Tron encounter Ark again and again. Each time she shows up, they mark her location and a pattern starts to become clear.

All of the places she's appeared at are starting to make a circle around an area.

It's clear that she's being used to lead them into a trap, but there's no telling when the final step will be.

Tron gestures at the map, "If we can figure out where she's leading us before she gets there." Beck realizes where he's going with this and adds, "We can spring the trap before they set it."

From there, the plan is put into motion. They split up, going into the city separately, but still close together. One of them will fight Ark when she shows up, while the other one discretely follows her when she flees. They have to be careful, as if the Occupation figures out that they know what the plan is, then they'll have time to set the trap.

Ark finds Tron first, so Beck gets into position, ready to quietly pursue her back to her headquarters.

When she takes off, Beck stays close behind on a parallel track, trying to keep from being noticed.

As soon as she starts to slow down, Beck does as well, hanging back to observe.

When he spots her go into a building, he memorizes the location and heads back to meet up with Tron to report in.

With the location now known, they start to put together a plan. Ark always waits a while before showing up again, so if they strike shortly after she appears and retreats, they should be able to go in and grab her without grabbing the attention that would be there once the Occupation's trap is set.

So, they wait, preparing everything they need. With Ark being rectified, she's not going to come along willingly, so they plan on taking several different ways of subduing her.

Like usual, Ark shows up again, they fight her and she retreats. But, this time, shortly after she does so, they follow after her.

The building is large, so once they sneak in, it's a tricky matter of finding where exactly she's at.

Beck knows the floor that prisoners have been on in other Occupation strongholds, so they head there first.

The floor is dark and nearly empty, except for one holding cell that has an active barrier.

As they get closer, it's clear that the prisoner is Ark, who is blankly standing in the middle of the cell.

Even as Beck quickly deactivates the barrier, Ark doesn't react in the slightest.

Despite this, Tron quietly uses a low voltage stun device to knock her out and scoops her up, carrying Ark in his arms.

Beck leads the way back, but as they near their chosen exit, they're stopped by Paige.

"You! What are you doing here?" She notices the scarred and unconscious program in Tron's arms, "What did you do to her?"

Beck shook his head, "We didn't do anything." Tron cleared his throat, and Beck hastily added, "Okay, we knocked her unconscious, but that's it. The Occupation did the rest. We're just trying to help her, she's the only reason why we're here."

Paige eyed the two masked programs with matching circuits, weighing her options. As a medic, she wanted that program to get help, but as a member of the Occupation, she couldn't trust these Renegades. She doubted that the Occupation had done this damage to their own program, but it was strange for the Renegades to risk kidnapping a low-rank soldier she had never seen before. That, and if this program was important enough, there was likely some kind of tracking device on her. If the Renegades brought her back to their base, then the Occupation could track them to their lair. Letting them go could be a win-win situation, but she had to make it look legit.

She drew her disc and went after the closest Renegade, "I don't know why you'd help somebody on my side."

Beck quickly blocked her attack and yelled to Tron, "Go! We're almost there, I'll catch up!"

Ark in hand, and trusting Beck, Tron left him to his battle.

Beck and Paige fought back and forth, until Beck saw his opening and just ran for it, disappearing into the city.

Tron was aware that there might be some sort of way the Occupation could track Ark, so him and Beck had set up a temporary base in the city.

Once Ark was secure, Beck got to work inspecting her disc, "I'm not sure how much I can do, but it won't hurt for me to give it a look."

He took off her disc and attached his wrench to it. To his surprise, it worked much like when he used it on a light cycle. Unfortunately, everything looked far different than he was used to.

There seemed to be layers of code, the top, and easiest to get to, was the Occupation code, but, underneath that, a few parts from the original code seemed to be coming up.

Tilting his head, Beck touched one of the older pieces of code to see what would happen.

Both him and Tron watched in horror as it showed them shaky and scattered memories of Ark being tortured.

Beck looks away, "The scars...these memories, they kept them with her for a reason."

Tron narrowed his eyes, "Likely so that she'd know what would happen if she disobeyed or failed."

Beck shook his head, "Maybe there's something else we can use to bring her back... Hey, she responded when you said her name, I wonder if there's some memory that it activates."

Tron looked over at Ark, "She's still out, so we'll have to try that later."

Beck nodded and continued poking around Ark's disc. After a while, he shook his head, "Something's wrong, but I'm not sure what. Things just aren't connecting how they look like they should be..."

That thought got put on hold as Ark started to wake up and stare straight ahead.

Tron nodded to Beck, then walked around to stand in front of Ark.

Beck got Ark's disc display back to the main area, then nodded to Tron.

Tron spoke quietly to her, "Ark, you're safe now, you're not with the Occupation any more."

Her eyes widened at this for a moment, but then her expression became blank once again.

But, that moment was enough. When she seemed to recognize Tron, a new file popped up and he activated it before it disappeared.

It was an older memory, from back when she was a System Monitor. Apparently, she had just finished an assignment, and Tron was praising her for a job well done.

Beck looked up at Tron, "She must really think a lot of you."

Tron nodded quietly, not saying anything.

Beck drops the topic and continues looking around Ark's disc. After a while, he sighs, "I'm not getting anywhere. I think we need a medic, but, the only one I know of works for the Occupation."

Tron sighs, "If we can't figure something out, we might have to go that route."

Beck nodded, asking Paige to help wasn't exactly an option, but what else could they do?

They took turns staying with Ark and going out into the city.

During one of Beck's outings, Paige is the one that found him. She grabbed him and pulled him aside, "Renegade, how's that friend of yours?"

Beck blinked, "Funny you should ask, there's something wrong with her disc, I think she needs a medic."

Paige looked at the masked program before her, if she played this right, the Renegade could lead her right to his hiding spot.

"If you'll trust me, I can give her a look."

Beck thinks this over, then nods, "Follow me."

Paige couldn't believe what was happening, everything was falling into place.

Beck took her right into their current base, she looked around, "Is this where you've been hiding all along."

He snorted, "You know I can't answer that."

Paige shrugged, "It was worth a try."

The temporary lair was sparse and Beck took her the shortest route to where they were keeping Ark.

Paige found the scene unnerving, the restrained program was just staring off blankly, "...Is she always like this?"

Beck nodded, "Most of the time."

Paige frowned, growing concerned for what that could mean about what happened to this program.

There wasn't time for that, though, she had a job to do.

"So, what do you know about her disc?"

Beck takes off Ark's disc and holds it out to Paige, "The Occupation's programming has taken over most of it. There's a few older memories here and there, but, for the most part, all of her original programming seems to be suppressed. But, the Occupation programming seems to have some odd connections. There's something missing or wrong, but I don't know enough to tell you what that could be."

Paige nods and takes a look for herself, everything seemed to be as Beck said. She avoided the memories for now, there was no need to be sentimental.

The more she saw of the modified disc, the more uncomfortable she was at the idea that the Occupation had done this to this program.

She tried to not think about it as she looked for the problem.

The programmed was bypassing something, but what? Finally, she found the answer in a severely burnt out energy processor.

There wasn't much that could do that kind of damage and on a hunch, she went to look at the memory fragments to see if they revealed the answer.

She got more than one answer, as she saw an Occupation program torturing the restrained program with bursts of electricity.

Even after the memory's playback ended, Paige stared at the disc. The Renegades had been right, the Occupation had done this to this program. But, why?

There's no answers in this memory cluster, and the only other one is far too old to be related.

With a look of determination, Paige went back to the damaged energy processor and slowly repaired it. It's not something she's done often and the work is somewhat tricky, so it takes a while.

Once that's done, she resyncs the disc to the program and takes a break.

Beck doesn't know what she's doing and thinks she's finished, "Thank you for your help."

"I'm not done yet. My patient still has code preventing her from functioning normally."

Beck was surprised at this, but his expression was completely hidden behind his mask.

Paige spends some time thinking over the challenges that await her with the overridden disc, she's never encountered a problem quite like this.

Once she's ready, she goes back at this disc again. She watches the older memory with Tron, but it contains no answers.

She digs through all the code and files, poking and prodding methodically, learning how the overlaid code works with everything.

Paige looks at different options and settings, she thinks she finds a solution when she spots that the newer code is set to default. However, she can't turn it off and reactivate the older code.

Grumbling in frustration, she investigates a few different things before turning to the bypass that was added to go around the damaged energy processor.

She tries a few different things before connecting it to the remaining older memories.

Going back to the defaults, she found that this extra connection had opened up the options.

Working quickly, she set the original programming to be the main and deactivated the newer code bit by bit, locking it out.

When she's done, Paige double-checks her work, then hands the disc to Beck. "This should fix her. There's still...unwanted code, but it shouldn't cause any more problems. I have to go."

She quickly and quietly leaves, she's got a lot to think about.

Beck looks to Tron, "That went better than I expected."

Tron deactivated his helmet with a frown, "That is, if this works."

Beck removed his helmet as well, "I think it will. She seemed like she wanted to help and was shaken by what the Occupation did to Ark."

Tron nods, "I hope you're right."

He walked over to stand in front of Ark, "Go ahead and sync her disc."

Beck gives him a nod and places Ark's disc on her dock.

It takes some time for the extensive changes to take place, but, after what seemed like an eternity of waiting, her eyes flickered as the sync finished up.

Ark looks around in confusion, but sees Tron standing in front of her.

She gasps, "You were right, it was a trap. I'm sorry." The waves of memories keep coming, "Wait...the last thing I remember is they did something to my code...and then it all went dark. You fixed me?"

Beck came around and stood next to Tron. Tron put his hand on his shoulder, "A friend of Beck's was able to repair what the Occupation did to you."

Ark smiled, "Thank you. Judging by your circuits, we've got the same job, so I think we're going to get along."

Beck returned her smile, "I think we will, too."

Tron goes around and releases Ark from her restraints, "We've all got a lot of catching up to do."

#idea bag #writing #story #stories #fanfic #fanfics #fanfiction #fanfictions #OC #OCs #Tron OC #Ark #Tron #Tron: Uprising #Tron Uprising

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nicolewrites · 4 years ago

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We Stand, Fate-Tested: Final Thoughts

You thought you’d seen the last of that title? Never! I may have been distracted by Sylvgrid Week for a while, but I finally got this cleaned up enough to post.

So, to those of you who haven’t read We Stand, Fate-Tested, this post is going to spoil practically the entire fic, so do yourself a favour and read the fic HERE. This post is also very, very long, so I apologize if you read the whole thing aha.

Anyways, continuing on, I wrote over 70 000 words for this story and this was after two solid weeks of story editing to get the fic not to come across as incredibly clunky. I want to use this post to discuss my favourite and least favourite things about writing the story and to talk about some of the things I had planned that never made it into the final draft or things that were changed to fit the flow of the story better.

Let’s start with my favourite and least favourite things!

Favourite Chapter: VII - What’s A Little Fear (I loved this chapter. It was a blast to write, creating the duality of the attacks as well as finally tapping into the mystery genre I stubbornly tagged this fic with. It’s also one of my favourites to reread). Favourite Present Scene: Either Byleth/Claude in the coffeeshop (Chapter III), the car crash scene (Chapter VII) or the Byleth/Claude scene in the bathroom (Chapter VIII) Favourite Past Scene: Either Byleth/Dimitri’s first reunion (Chapter II), the Sreng fight scene (Chapter IX), or Dimitri’s death scene (Chapter X) Favourite Character to write: Past!Dimitri, Present!Edelgard, Present!Claude (probably no surprises there haha) Favourite Plot Detail: Byleth having a flashback in the tomb and then going to the lab and having that scene play out later, in Chapter XI, in the past.

Least Favourite Chapter: XI - No Rest For the Weary (Don’t get me wrong, I like how it turned out. I just had so many things that were scrapped for this part and something about it still doesn’t sit with me as well as I wanted it to. It was hard to write a past section without the anchor for the past: Dimitri) Least Favourite Present Scene: Probably the lab scene with Byleth (Chapter I) where she looks up Claude because it was written so early and it still feels a bit info-dump-esque to me. Least Favourite Past Scene: Hands down Byleth’s final scene (Chapter XI). I do feel like it came out alright, but I really struggled with this scene. It was tricky to highlight everything I needed to in that scene without removing all the development Byleth had gone through. Least Favourite Character to write: Many of the undergraduates in the present. It’s not that I didn’t like them, I was just frustrated because the future was focused so heavily on a few key characters that none of the background characters had the voices I wanted to give them. Least Favourite Plot Detail: The Scorch and the Riots. I specifically crafted them so that there would be a plausible excuse for the physical records to have been destroyed and yet I feel like I relied too much on them in some cases.

Now let me talk about plot details that almost appeared!

Starting with some general facts:

The Golden Deer were supposed to be MUCH bigger characters in the present. I had programs, relationships, interactions and plot points hinged on their interactions with Byleth and Claude, but I ended up scrapping a lot of it when I moved forward with the undergrad dig team plot and decided to bring in Edelgard and Dimitri more.

They were supposed to go to Shambhala. Instead of at Garreg Mach, the final attack was actually supposed to take place while at a dig site in Shambhala. After research into archaeology more as a whole, I realized this didn’t fit, so I removed it.

I considered having Jeralt be alive in the present.

I was going to write more dreams for Byleth and actually have them as independent scenes.

Byleth was supposed to make two separate trips to Almyra in the past.

The fic was originally only 10 chapters and would have ended abruptly in the past.

Rhea was supposed to make an appearance in the present.

Chapter Specifics:

Chapter I

Ironically, the only real trick with this is I considered renaming the university, but ended up leaving it.

This chapter was actually mostly written before much of the plot was hammered out so it can read a tiny bit inconsistently to me now, but there’s not much I left out of it.

Chapter II

Initially, I had all three of the reincarnated lords in Byleth’s tutorial, but then I remember that that never happens in university courses so I fixed it. I hadn’t planned on introducing the Guardian’s Sword here, but I did accidentally and then just rolled with it.

Byleth and Dimitri’s Chapter IV argument was originally in this chapter. They were also originally married in between Chapters I and II, something which changed to between III and IV once I changed this chapter.

Chapter III

Dimitri was supposed to tell Byleth that he was having odd dreams before he found out about the dig project in the present. This chapter also would have had a vivid dream scene before Claude and Byleth’s tea conversation lasted 3000 words.

Claude was supposed to be a cause of strife in Byleth and Dimitri’s relationship in the past, but then I decided that was stupid and changed him to play the voice of reason. Additionally, this chapter changed a lot as a result of the moving of the wedding.

Chapter IV

This chapter was, again, supposed to feature a Byleth-brand dream, but I changed it to the scene in her office with Claude to set up the Almyra trip. This was the moment in the story where I had decided to make Claude the Almyran Prince. Before this, he was just an ambassador’s son.

Claude in the past was supposed to give a wedding gift to Byleth and Dimitri, but this was changed when I had him attend the wedding. Byleth and Dimitri were supposed to argue about Byleth and Claude’s friendship, but as I already said, I didn’t want Claude to be a source of jealousy.

Chapter V

This chapter actually stuck fairly close to the points of the outline I made. The only point I struggled with was having the tapestries be mostly ruined or preserved and I eventually landed on preserved.

The council meeting was an addendum to the chapter written after the heavier scene at the end. I added it to give a bit more background to Byleth being in Fhirdiad and the way that her relationship with Seteth and their friends would become a bit more strained in the future.

Chapter VI

This chapter was supposed to highlight the argument alluded to in the chapter between Dimitri, Edelgard, and Claude. There was supposed to be a little bit about how the tomb seemed to be dragging up animosity that didn’t previously exist. I removed it because I wanted more space to discuss the dream and the scene with the TV.

The past section was supposed to feature more political drama. There was supposed to be a cabinet meeting that showed the progress of divorcing church and state and siphoning the power away from the nobility, but I came up with the idea for the Rhea scene which I ended up liking a lot more, so I rewrote the chapter, almost completely removing the politics.

Chapter VII

This chapter actually almost exactly follows its outline. The four go to Fhirdiad and deal with their pursuers and end in a car crash.

The only change in the past was that it originally ended with the infirmary scene from chapter 8, but I changed it to create a stronger parallel between the past and the present by ending both on relative cliffhangers.

Chapter VIII

The present section of this chapter was actually one of the first scenes I ever outlined for this fic. Naturally, there wasn’t much that was left out. I scrapped a few interactions with people including Dorothea, Sylvain, and Mercedes in order to give Byleth and Claude more time to chat in the bathroom. Basically, the point of the party was to really highlight the fact that while reincarnation had occurred, everyone had ended up in different situations with different people.

Originally, Byleth was supposed to have recovered well from the assassination attempt and it was supposed to be Dimitri who took longer to heal. Because I was already leaning into the dying-goddess idea though, I swapped them to make it more impactful when Byleth still tries to go against all of her advisors to get Claude to take her to the Slithers.

Chapter IX

Byleth, here, was only supposed to begin to suspect Flayn. I considered having her not even speak to Seteth and Flayn, but I changed that because I think I wanted her to know at this point. However, it was only when I began writing the chapter that I realized that Seteth would know the Archbishop’s full name, so that tidbit was actually the very last thing added to this chapter.

I wrote the past section of this chapter first. It was fairly cut and copy from the outline so not much was left out here, just one small scene where Byleth and Dimitri saw Claude off when they were still mad at each other and they would have been awkward.

Chapter X

Originally, Leonie was going to be the one to find Claude and Byleth in the alley, but I liked Edelgard and Hubert for it better. This is where Rhea would have appeared in the Modern section. She would have come looking for Seteth before the send-off party started and would have had a crypt conversation with Byleth, but instead, I changed her simply to be the mysterious benefactor that funded the original expedition and removed her physical appearance for flow purposes.

The only big change seen in the past section here, was that Claude and Byleth were supposed to bring Dimitri outside of Shambhala before he died and he would have died seeing the rising or setting sun. When I wrote the cave-in this was changed to match that.

Chapter XI

Since Byleth was originally supposed to have had a different conversation with Seteth in chapter 9, when the four of them were running for the gunman, they would have revealed their ancestry and connections to the past lords which would have been the point that Byleth actually connected all the dots.

Byleth and Claude were supposed to be en route to Almyra after dissolving the monarchy when she started to die, causing him to take her back. I changed this because it didn’t fit with the futility of so many of the actions that Byleth had taken after Dimitri’s passing. I also just really wanted her to have the ‘I never intended to return to the Monastery’ and the ‘I hadn’t planned on living this long’ lines.

Chapter XII

Claude was supposed to be with Dimitri and Edelgard when they said goodbye. There was supposed to be strange tension between them, but it didn’t fit with their interactions inside the tomb, so I just sent him back to Almyra to coordinate his abdication instead. Originally, there would have been a shootout in the tomb as well, resulting in Byleth actually killing the gunman, but instead I used their escape to give Seteth and Flayn a reason to disappear. This is one of the points I was most tentative about changing and is one of my least favourite things that I changed in the whole story.

The past section was originally just supposed to have been Claude admiring his commissioned tapestries, but I couldn’t resist adding a Hilda in because I love her.

That’s pretty much it for all the plot details and changes. And that’s pretty much everything I have to say about the story. This fic was a labour of absolute love and it has given me an incredible appreciation for the writers in fandoms who can continue stories into the tens of chapters because I found my plot tied up in a neat little bow at 12 chapters.

If you have any more questions, please shoot them to me on Tumblr, in the AO3 comments, or even on Twitter (@nicolewrites37) and I’ll be happy to answer them.

Thank you so much to everyone who read, commented, and left kudos on the fic because knowing that there were people waiting to see more was the reason I was able to continue writing and finish the fic. I hope you enjoyed the story overall and that you might find something else you like amidst my other Three Houses works.

- Nicole

#the writing section #we stand fate tested #fic: we stand fate-tested #fe3h #fire emblem three houses #author's thoughts #claudeleth #dimileth #tumblr #ao3 #long fic

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spacezeta · 5 years ago

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Devlog - About cameras

So! Let’s talk about cameras for a second. Or just let me ramble about it for a little while.

Honestly none of this is probably new and my guess is people who have tried to replicate the way cameras worked in PS1-PS2 era games probably went through similar shenanigans as I did, but this was a fun way to write down the process of getting the camera system working, but like, in a short, there-are-other-things-I-should-be-doing kind of way. And it’s still too long!

Ever since we decided that Observo would be styled after classic PS2 games like the Silent Hill, Resident Evil and Fatal Frame series, one thing was pretty clear from the get go: the use of fixed cameras. That was a no-brainer, because when you think ‘classic horror games’ the fixed camera angles almost immediately come to mind. Building the system of camera switching was actually fairly easy: when the player enters a trigger area, switch to that area’s camera (there are a few more complexities to that, but that’s the gist of it).

The first challenge had actually to do with the player’s movement rather than the cameras themselves. After eliminating the use of tank-like controls that, sure, it’s retro, but it’s also a pain to actually play with, I went with a normal movement approach: the player presses up and the character moves forward... according to the perspective of the camera. I feel like it should be pretty obvious now where the problem was.

Because when you switch camera angles drastically, the direction that used to be forward can suddenly become the right, or left, or backwards, and suddenly the character will do a 180 as if he’d just spotted an acquaintance in public he really doesn’t want to talk to and then decided to run away really fast. And he may or may not end up switching back to the previous camera angle and backwards is now forwards and does another 180 and then back to the second camera angle and so on and so forth and it’s just generally not a fun thing to happen.

So the solution here would either be a: making sure there are no drastic changes of perspective between two close cameras which may be tricky if the map isn’t just a straight corridor, or b: when the camera switch happens, the direction the character is moving doesn’t immediately change. In the end I ended doing both because there’s no perfect solution I guess maybe? *shrugs*

I got the idea from the Fatal Frame series because I distinctly remember the game doing something similar which basically amounts to this:

- The direction in which the character moves depends on the camera’s perspective, so the active camera will dictate what’s forward, backward, left and right

but also

- When the camera changes, as long as the player continues pressing in the same direction (there’s no change in either input axis of movement), the character will continue moving in the direction they were previously going until the player changes the directional input (e.g., the player was pressing forward and then pressed right - changed direction), and from then on the new camera will be used to determine directions.

And that’s basically it! So for a long time the only cameras used in the game were fixed cameras, sometimes fixed cameras that would rotate to follow the character but otherwise stay in place. Things still felt a little clunky, though, especially in bigger and more open areas. So that’s where a follow type camera came in and boy oh boy, that was a tricky one to get right.

I’m not talking about a follow camera like we have today where the player has free range to rotate the camera whenever they please, but a camera that just follows the player without actually giving them the power to rotate it and look at things. Because the player is naught but a powerless little pawn in my hands!!! Bwahaha?

Anyway. So this time I looked at Silent Hill (mostly 2) for reference, because it has those large street areas that you can walk around, with the camera following behind the character but also feeling like the camera is sort of on a rail system.

So for this I decided to use UE4′s spline component, but not to attach the camera to it like an on-rail system, but to get the closest point to it for the camera (that’s attached to the player character with a spring arm) to point towards it. There was a lot of fiddling with it (a lot) so I’ll spare anyone who’s still reading this at this point (though if anyone wants to hear about it feel free to ask, haha). But basically the two key things that took a lot of figuring out but that ultimately made the camera feel much better to use were these:

- Keeping the camera at the player’s back to let the player see what’s in front of them, albeit with a slight delay as a design choice (so that the camera wouldn’t jump around when the player abruptly changes direction) and a stylistic choice (if the player turns a corner they won’t immediately see what’s in front of them ohohoho could it be a monster?? Who knows! You gotta wait a couple of seconds to see).

but also

- Letting the player run backwards without flipping the camera around (so that the camera would stay looking at what’s behind the player character when they turn around) for if and when, say, they were being chased... by something. This took a lot of figuring out (again, a lot) until the simplest solution hit me in the head which basically amounted to if the vertical input is -1 and horizontal is 0, don’t rotate the camera. There you go. And I spent so long trying to figure out angles and shit. All that time wasted. Sigh.

(yes it’s the first gif again. But now with context!)

And even with all this I’m still not 100% sure about the follow camera, I need to playtest it a lot still.

Anyway, I was planning to talk about combat in this devlog too but this ended up way too long oh gosh. Next time though!

#game development #indie game #gamedev #game dev #devlog #observo #updates

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nighttimepixels · 5 years ago

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Heyhey Night! I have a buncha questions after seeing all your animations and they're just so cool so! I hope this is ok!! Can u animate normally too, or only pixel? Not that that's bad, just wondering! What's ur preferred kinda animation? Do u prefer lipflaps or lipsyncs? What's the hardest part of the animation process?? What's ur favorite?? Any part u don't like? What's a thing people don't see that u put a lotta time into? Do u have a fave animation u've done? Thank u btw for all ur art!!

Oh stars, okay, yeah- I’m happy to answer all these!! I’ll break them up so it’s easier to read X) And awww geez thank you so much for your support, sweet anon! It really makes my day when people say they like anything I’ve made, and stars knows it’s all the more true with the sweet sweet time sink that is animation (´•̥̥̥\\ヮ\\•̥̥̥` )

I’ll also put this under a cut since it gets a bit long :)

Can u animate normally too, or only pixel?

This one cracks me up a little, don’t worry about it XD I totally can! In fact I enjoy it a lot - and... gods, animation software is a nightmare and a half, to be honest. That’s the biggest hurdle.

I do just straight up love pixel art and the aesthetic I can achieve with it, but I do at times miss ‘normal’ (non pixel?) animation, heh. Especially sound-syncing! I do all my pixel art in Asesprite which imo is the best pixel art program, not to mention made by an actual pixel artist - buuuut it doesn’t have a sound file option. Which makes sense! Er, frankly, most pixel artists wouldn’t... use it to animate like I do? More for games, or for looping gifs? So I can’t complain much, it makes a lot of sense that it’s a low dev priority.

Now, when it comes to other animation programs... I’ve tried a lot. Unfortunately, the ones that are preferable for the feel I like are either way out of budget (stares at TVPaint in the distance) or... well, have too high a learning curve for my single-person workflow, really. (OpenToonz, sigh...) And a lot of the free programs are good for getting a start in animation, but once you get to a certain point you really feel the limitations (whether it’s workflow, sound import, exports, trying to make something more finished than a rough...).

Then... there’s animation programs I just don’t like, and a lot of those are angled towards bone-style animations (nothing wrong with those, they just don’t fit my style? and are too much time investment for a single artist to output more quickly...), or are, well, freakin’ Adobe Animate.

I... gods, I do not like Animate (formerly Flash). And I made a whole 2 minute+ animation in it a couple years ago! (It’s very rough and bad and doesn’t make sense, pfff, not gonna link it XD) It’s... clunky, and vector oriented, and freaking lines don’t go where I want them too, and it tries to predict too much?? It’s hard to put to words, gah. For me, my animation style would be much more... raster oriented. Flow, hand drawn inbetweens, yaddayadda. Animate’s great for... plenty of things, but not for that kind of animation. There are far better animators than I who make it work with freakin’ aplomb though! So really, it’s just my taste, haha.

.... Er, that got long! I’ll cut off more rambling about animation software and tl;dr boil it down to “I love animating period, but turnaround is something I have to keep in mind as a freelancer, as well as budget, and my current focus is pixel animations for a number of reasons.” X)

What's ur preferred kinda animation?

I’m not exactly sure what this one means! Between pixel and non-pixel? Er, they both have their pros and cons, so I couldn’t say! But if I have to break down my current animations into categories, I’d say I have cutscenes, loop environments, and the broad game-like animations...

The first would be something like this animation feat. teasing Edge, the second would be something like this one with skesgo’s Starlan and Cinnamon, and the third is... everything else! From headsprite loops to ‘small’ characters running and so on.

Honestly, they’re all a lot of fun for different reasons! Cutscenes are generally the most challenging, but they give me the chance to push my limits and try and pull off something cool, whether I’m having to conserve frames (to keep the cost of a commission down) or whether I’m going more all out (which is a pricey commission, or a fun personal project, lol).

Loop environments are their own challenge - it may not look like it, but I put a lot of thought into how to make them look as natural as possible! From timing of talking characters, to where to place a blink, to exactly how many frames it’ll take to ‘soften’ a motion (so people aren’t just snapping between major poses) and so on - it takes... a lot of time to animate even simple scenes well, so I do a lot of mental math on how I can keep things affordable when someone approaches me for a commission. And frankly, I totally undercharge;; but I do my best!

Game-like animations are just fun. They range, they’re silly, to intense (I’ve animated fight animations before for game concepts), to indulgent, and beyond! Headsprites are always a delight, especially if I get to push the expression X) and I love tiny things (I mean... I am a pixel artist...) so getting to make lil tiny babs even just walking can be fun - and also, a lot more time consuming than you might thing, esp if you wanna make it smooth, like this lil Frisk I did last month or so:

Do u prefer lipflaps or lipsyncs?

oTL

B... both??

Okay, lipsyncing basically is very time consuming. AND, I freakin’ love it. I love puzzles, and when it boils down to it, that’s what super fun & expressive lip syncing is (some Ghibli animations are the heckin’ best for this)...

and, I’m a pixel artist, without sound-syncing capabilities in her main art program oTL Yeah, I can export frames and line them up and check but... gods, it’s so time consuming. I’ve tried it out of desperation - but for even five seconds of sound (sayyyyy a lil Vine...) that’s hours upon hours of transferring back and forth just to check.

So even though I love lipsyncs, they’re too time-consuming (and ergo, if I’m being commissioned, often too expensive) to do often! Someday I’d like to get back to doing them more often, but for now, practically I stick to/’prefer’, in the loosest terms, to do lipflaps. For the layman, this is that ‘two frame’ (maybe three) open-closed style of animating mouths- however, I’m working on ways to keep that style, but make it more expressive! It depends on the project - and in commissions, I’ll pretty much always prioritize giving the client a little more body animation than mouth animation, unless it’d really fit what they’ve requested.

What's the hardest part of the animation process??

.... damn, this is a tough one! Sometimes I’d say it’s the initial concept work - but it depends on what I have to work with. Sometimes that parts a breeze - and honestly freeing, bc I can take the time to try and push what I’ll do with it!

Roughing is one of my favorite parts, tbh. It can be tricky, sure, but getting to go from keyframes to in-betweens & smears to adding the flairs of secondary motion (think hair swishing, or coats flaring, etc) is so exciting and satisfying.

From there it’s all refining, and tweaking...

Hm. Honestly, the hardest is probably the initial cleanup and lining. It’s cool to see it come together, but it feels so much slower, and it can drag - and then you find bits that actually don’t translate well from the rough stage, so you have to go back and rework, and oof it can just drag in this phase, heh. Plus, I’m always tempted to add more frames, but it’s not always realistic - I’m a perfectionist, to say the least, so I’m constantly having to leash myself back so I don’t turn a project into a half-a-year undertaking, pff.

What's ur favorite??

Probably gave myself away talking about the roughing stage X) It’s just loose and fun and free! But seeing it all come together is also damn satisfying too, so that’s not to say I don’t like the refining portions either...

Outside of that, I also really like the beginning of the color stage! .... Before having to translate shadows/highlights to each and every frame *shudders*. That gets tedious, but it’s so critical! Anyways, though, I heckin’ love colors. I always have a rough palette in mind at the start of the process, but I go ham and play with it as a little break and a true test when I get to actual slap together a full frame with full color, highlights/shadows included! It’s exciting, like a preview of the finished product, basically :D

Any part u don't like?

Heh, by the time I get to shadows/highlights, I tend to be getting impatient, I suppose. It’s not that I don’t like it - I definitely highly value it, and if it was the only thing I was working on in an animation that’d be different, but as a one-woman team I’m just raring to be done at that point; it’s very nearly the last thing I do, after all, so it’s a struggle to focus. X)

I suppose one that always gets me is more complicated backgrounds. It’s a work in progress, as I’m getting better and finding the fun in them for sure! But I’m still not where I want to be in translating ‘background concept’ to ‘finished background’ - it feels more stiff than my animations, I guess. So it’s a frustrating part... but hey, it’s part of it! And learning to embrace the challenge is a big help.

... I just always have to make sure I have a big cup of coffee and a good jam playlist going when I sit down to do ‘em, in the meantime.(=▿= ||||)

What's a thing people don't see that u put a lotta time into?

Definitely the coloring. This goes for both backgrounds and the animated characters themselves. It’s... never as simple as it looks? It’s time consuming, and while some parts of frames can be copy-pasted, I also put subtle work into the animations that mean that some pixels are off so it ends up being marginally faster to just recolor, but then there’s shadows, and working in pixels means that if I miss one then there’s a flickering pixel mid-animation, and sometimes there’s an unconnected line and then you bucket fill the whole damn thing, and gods know I’ve got colored lines so I have to be exacting with keeping the same ratios highlighted vs darker in shifting frames...

*deep breath*

... Yeah, basically the coloring is super time consuming. And balancing bg coloring with animated elements in the image itself is a whole extra challenge on top of that. For 99% of my animations, I can damn near guarantee I’ve spent at least twice as much time coloring it as I have animating it.

Do u have a fave animation u've done?

*looks at my goblin hoard of animations in horror like I’ve been asked to choose a favorite child*

... Stars above, I can’t choose! I love them all, and at this point a good portion of them are commissions- it wouldn’t feel right to choose!

*...carefully covers the hoard’s metaphorical ears*

... also, that said, I can admit a soft spot for any of them that involve humor. I tend to get to do extremely expressive faces and action there, even if I have to ration the frames, so it turns out really fun X)

And though rough and I’ve definitely done stuff I’m more proud of, I still crack up at this one I did a while back of the nonsense ‘ass’ joke between Red & Stretch... their faces were too much fun XD I’ve gotten waybetter since then though, Big Oof, I see so many things I can fix; might go back and redo it someday.

Honestly, though, I just freakin’ love animating! They all have their ups and downs andI always put a lot of love into them and find a way to have fun with it and try to push any emotion/theme (when applicable). I like to think it shows, but idk, that’s something I have to leave up to you guys X)

#night answers #about animating #phew there were a lot-!#thanks so much for your interest #hope these answers made sense! :D #Anonymous

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flying-elliska · 5 years ago

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S3 Rewatch - Episode 3 - Mercredi 12h10 "Tu choisis pas"

I haven't given up on those ! And man I miss skam france a lot so doing this again is making me really happy atm, recapturing a little of the magic.

This clip really was a happy surprise and ep3 is Alexia's time to shine. They did a great job giving her a place in Lucas's story (even tho I would have liked to see her react to Lucas's coming out in particular.)

The clip starts with a quick shot of a Raptors poster ("You also can be one of us!") - that's the French version of the Penetrators right ? So basically a Straight Institution TM. Followed by Lucas quickly noping into the Foyer to avoid Chloe. He's noping out of Straightness all around.

I love Daphne's look in this clip, the green bow scarf thing in her hair is super cute, and the whole moment where she desperately tries to hide that they're having a party while everyone is like eh whatever is hilarious. She is such an unlikely candidate to organize a clandestine party in the school at night, and yet. Everyone is stepping out of their comfort zones.

I did laugh at the part where Daphne brings up Alexia's bisexuality as linked to her shoes, that felt like a clunky way of bringing the subject but those shoes are awesome. And calling Alexia chelou is a throwback to Eliott being all like hey we like weird right? It's cool to be chelou right ? Bi/pan kings ! (A bit mean from Emma though lol) but those would exactly be the type to own their weirdness/queerness. Even though, as she says later, she might not be afraid to stand out but in the end, it's all natural. I am not a big fan of the whole "we're all sexually fluid anyway" but I remember having similar thoughts as a baby bi. It was a way for myself to reassure myself that I wasn't actually weird, that this was in a way a core human experience (I still honestly believe a lot more ppl than we/they realize are at least somewhat fluid, but not everyone.)

For the whole "Lucas becoming a part of the girl squad" thing - it does feel a little artificial at times. But it's also interesting in terms of gender dynamics. There's a bit of an element of "Lucas isn't a real dude so it's chill" that can be a bit demeaning at times - but it also means that he can sidestep the whole charade of war between the sexes/treating girls like objects like his friends do and so he can find temporary shelter with them even though in the end his squad matters more (and that's logical tbh), and they can help each other out.

Alexia bringing up the Kinsey scale and Lucas - nonchalantly but not really - immediately wanting to know more is like such a mood bc you learn so much from being surrounded by other queer ppl, but it can be so tricky to ask when you're not even out to yourself. Then she brings up Emma and Daphne kissing. Daphne is obviously embarrassed and says she didn't take the initiative while Emma treats it as a silly thing she does when drunk. Meanwhile Lucas has probs been struggling with this for years, so it might have hurt a little to see them talk abt it like it's inconsequential- and it's not really surprising when he says - oh that's cool, you can just brush it aside when convenient then. Like at that moment maybe he is thinking that bisexuality in this way is the best option - he can't really deny his attraction to guys anymore but he sees an opportunity to sweep it under the rug. When he says "and everyone still thinks you're hetero" with that fake smile, as if that was the best possible option, I was like, ouch. But I felt like I really understood Lucas a lot more. Compared to Isak (who always seemed to struggle more with the attraction itself, a lot more nervous around Even) Lucas's goes for it around Eliott but also ropes Chloe in much harder - his main fear is about the social repercussions.

Alexia's response is one of my favorite non-Elu moments of the season. It's such an important debunking of the stereotypes about bisexuality. You fall in love, it's not about picking sides. And you can't calculate, it's not about what's most convenient. It just happens. And Lucas needs to hear this, too. He can front with the best of them, but he can't force himself to feel things bc they're convenient. But the message will take some time to sink in. That little downcast look at the end, though. Ugh. He probably feels like he committed a blunder, we know from later that this blocked him from coming out to the girls. From Emma and Daphne being somewhat dismissive he might have expected them to be all "haha yeah it's cool we're still straight anywayyy" but Alexia is way ahead of them on that one. She doesn't let the implication that straightness is the norm slide and I love her for that. I was so blown away when I discovered the Kinsey scale, this idea that it's not "normal" vs the outliers but that's it's more of a spectrum. So drawing strict boundaries is difficult. It's such an important message. It's the first time I really felt they were taking her character and her sexuality seriously and that was really cool. As Lucas's story gets pretty angsty at times, it's also cool to be shown that struggling with yr sexuality is not always a necessity, that some people manage to be very open and proud and easy about it.

Also I saw Coline wearing the "you don't choose who you love" shirt today at Paris pride awwww perfect day to analyze this clip 💕💕💕💕🌈

Previous clip

#skam france #s3 rewatch #it's overinterpretation time !!!

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tisfan · 6 years ago

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One in Fourteen Million

Title: One in 14,000,605 Collaborator: @tisfan Link: AO3 Square Filled: G2 -- Stephen Strange/Tony Stark Ship: IronStrange Rating: Teen Major Tags: kissing, first kisses, get together, angst, Infinity War compliant, Dad!Tony, panic attacks Summary: Keeping secrets is lonely work. Two men, with the worst, most desperate secret between them, find comfort in each other.

Or: The one where the Cloak of Levitation ships it. Word Count: 1,783 Created for @mcukinkbingo

The Sanctum wasn’t the sort of place that made itself receptive to strangers. It wasn’t quite invisible to the bustle and stir and populace of New York City, but if you were there casually, the building would encourage you to walk away.

A determined visitor could reach the front door, put actually gaining the attention of the sorcerers who lived there was tricky. The Sanctum valued their privacy and had a fine sense of what its inhabitants would consider important.

Which meant when there was a booming knock against the ancient door at three in the morning, Stephen actually looked up from his books, sighed, and got up to answer the door. Levi, who’d been draped over Stephen’s lap like an afghan, swirled to attention and fastened himself neatly over Stephen’s shoulders. Stephen allowed himself a brief smile and patted his cloak with one hand, not commenting on how utterly ridiculous they looked together, whenever Stephen was wearing jeans and a comfortable sweatshirt.

Levi was sensitive.

Stephen got to the door and struggled with the knob; it was huge and clunky and slick from generations of wizard hands and his own hands didn’t have the best grip. Levi gave a shudder from the effort of not helping, but the cloak had learned over time that Stephen prefered to do for himself, when he could manage it.

Door open finally, Tony Stark practically fell into his arms. “Tony!”

“You said, you said, you said,” Tony was panting for breath, struggling to speak, “if I need anything.”

“Yes, of course,” Stephen said. “Come in.” If it had been anyone else, Stephen would have slung them straight back to the library, but Tony had a loathing of portals, and he was in bad enough shape that Stephen couldn’t inflict it on him, not right then. There was a seldom-used parlor right beyond the staircase, and Stephan urged Tony gently in that direction.

“Are you drunk?” Tony reeked of expensive scotch to the point that it was difficult to determine how much he’d drunk and how much he’d bathed in.

“If I’m not, it’s a criminal waste of booze,” Tony said. He wasn’t staggering, not quite, but Stephen knew better to trust that. Tony had gotten very good at hiding his state of intoxication, even before he’d become a superhero and literally taken on the world’s problems as his personal responsibility.

Stephen directed Tony into a plush chair near the fireplace, hoping that Wong hadn’t left any devices or crumpled bits of spell components in it. He concentrated for a moment and summoned a cup.

“I’m not drinking any of your damn weed juice, Strange,” Tony protested.

“And I would not ask you to,” Stephen told him. “Just put it up to your mouth.”

“It’s empty,” Tony said, turning the cup over, then he shrugged and did what Stephen said. He about choked when the evening’s booze came pushing back out through his system, dripping from his mouth into a cup. “Good Christ, what the hell is that?”

“Expensive scotch, I imagine,” Stephen said. “Don’t worry, it’s perfectly sanitary. You could drink it again, if you wanted.”

(more below the cut)

“Ok, never let anyone with an eating disorder know you have one of these,” Tony said. He pushed the cup under his mouth again and the cup filled itself, almost to the point of overflowing, and Stephen had to waft the excess away. By the time Tony filled -- and Stephen emptied -- two and a half more cups, Stephen was starting to believe it was a minor miracle that Tony wasn’t dead. “Also, that’s a hell of a party trick.”

“I’m saving your life, Stark,” Stephen told him. “If I have to talk to you while you’re drunk and cuddly, I may have to murder you.”

“I don’t get cuddly when I’m drunk,” Tony protested.

“Oh, so I just woke up with you wrapped around my legs last time, that was completely by accident?”

“You have stupidly long legs, wizard,” Tony said.

“I’m not a wizard,” Stephen retorted, rolling his eyes. “Wizards are one-trick ponies.”

“Where you have about a million tricks, don’tcha?” Tony spit one more mouthful into the cup, looked at it for a moment, then drank about half of it back down. “Not drunk, just can’t… can’t be sober, not tonight, Stephen.”

Levi swooped off Stephen’s shoulders and landed on Tony with a thud, almost crushing Tony into the chair.

“You and your ridiculously affectionate cape. Decidedly a wizard,” Tony said.

“You went for a walk again tonight?” Stephen made a face; he’d thought Tony was getting over that obsession.

“Peter’s fine,” Tony said, shivering, sinking into the chair, letting Levi wrap him up in the cloak’s equivalent of a comforting hug.

“I am fine, as well, as you see,” Stephen said. He braced himself and then offered a hand to Tony. He hated it when people looked at his hands, hated them seeing what had happened to him, the pity or disgust, the way they tried so hard not to see, not to comment. It would be easier if they’d just deal with it. He had.

Mostly.

Tony caught Stephen’s hand between his own. Tony’s hands were freezing, the knuckles swollen and the skin chapped, one nail torn down to the quick. Stephen sighed, drew a little circle on the back of Tony’s hands and whispered a tiny bit of power into it, healing the minor aches, soothing the skin.

“You’re fine,” Tony repeated, and then he was shivering with emotion, not the cold. “You’re alive.” Tony rocked himself back and forth in the chair, squeezing Stephen’s hands gently. Stephen let himself be drawn in until he was standing in front of Tony, letting him sob into Stephen’s belly, arms wrapped tight around Stephen’s hips.

“Bad dream?” Stephen cupped Tony’s head, keeping him tight against Stephen’s ribs, despite the tears that were soaking in his sweatshirt, running his fingers through Tony’s hair.

Tony shook his head. “Pepper called,” he said, sniffling. He pulled back to wipe his nose on the cuff of his shirt, disdaining the conjured handkerchief that Stephen offered. “She… she’s pregnant.”

Stephen’s fingers froze, suddenly aching. “Oh,” he said, very gently, trying to conceal the way his heart fumbled around in his chest. “I didn’t know you two were back together.”

Tony blinked and backed out of the embrace. “We’re not. She’s… she’s uh, apparently she’s been seeing Happy for a while now. It’s great, it’s fine, I’m over it. It was just… that morning that I met you, she and I had been… well, she never wanted any children of mine, anyway.” He tapped absently at the arc reactor, no longer an implant, that housed the Iron Man nanites. “I had a dream, before that day, that she was pregnant with my child, and I had so much hope, Stephen, for everything. For us, for the world. Then Thanos came, and he tore everything apart, and she doesn’t even remember.”

“Sometimes I think it was a mistake,” Stephen admitted, “letting you and Peter keep your memories.”

“No, I told you, no, I can’t be prepared for a threat if I don’t know what it is. I don’t need to be swaddled in cotton, I just… sometimes I need to make sure the only other people who know… the ones I can talk to… are okay. Okay?”

“Thanos isn’t coming back, Tony.”

“You don’t know that,” Tony protested. “The stones can’t be destroyed. Hell, you’re still wearing yours around your neck. Someone else could come back and put the whole thing back together--”

“That would take centuries,” Stephen said, soothing. “The entire universe got a second chance. Only a handful of us know what really happened, no one else knows the stones even exist anymore.”

“I wonder,” Tony said. “How many times has this happened? Your people have been guarding the Time Stone for centuries. Red Skull was seeking the tesseract. My father… I don’t think this is precisely new.”

“We’re a small cabal, Tony, but that’s what we have to do. Keep the secrets, stand alert, trust each other. I know how you feel about secrets, but this one is… for the good of the world. And I know, it’s lonely, holding the fate of everything in your hands.”

“At least I have you,” Tony said, and he looked up at Stephen, those doe-eyes wet and full and full of beautiful agony.

“You do,” Stephen said. “Perhaps even moreso than you know.”

Tony chewed his lip a moment, then stood, resolutely. Like he was treading too near quicksand and had to back away. “I should go,” he said. “Thanks for listening to me whine again. I do it too often, you’d think I’d get over it.”

“Tony, I don’t think this is the sort of thing you just-- get over,” Stephen suggested. “Stay, if you want, I can--”

Tony’s eyes went even wider, his gaze darted down to Stephen’s mouth, and then back up.

And then he staggered as Levi put a corner in the middle of Tony’s back and shoved him into Stephen’s embrace.

Kissing close, now, and all Stephen would have to do is tip his head.

“I think your carpet’s trying to play matchmaker,” Tony suggested, as if he was going to make a joke, but also, giving Stephen the opening, trying so hard to make it look like a casual remark.

“I wonder where Levi might have gotten that idea,” Stephen said. He stroked one broken thumb down the side of Tony’s face, feeling the wet streak of his tears, drying them. “Will you stay, with intent, if I ask you again.”

Tony wet his lips, pushed up onto his toes. His eyelids fluttered closed. “Ask me again.”

“Stay. I would like it if you would stay,” Stephen said. “You’re not the only one who wakes in the night, who wants to make certain that you’re okay. That you’re alive.”

“Are you going to kiss me, wizard, or just babble?”

“Sorcerer,” Stephen corrected. “I have many more than just one trick.”

“Prove it.”

And Tony closed the gap.

Tony’s kiss was achingly tender. So soft and sweet. He clutched at Stephen’s shoulders, pushing himself up until Stephen responded, brushing his mouth over Tony’s. Stephen groaned, pulling Tony closer, ignoring the pain in his hands, because all he wanted was to hold on.

Stephen kissed Tony Stark, standing in the parlor, the fireplace roaring, the night cold outside, and Stephen was kissing the man he’d come to know, to respect, and to love in fourteen million, six hundred and give possible futures.

A one in fourteen million chance, and it had all been worth it, for this one, perfect moment.

#mcukinkbingo #IronStrange #Tony Stark x Stephen Strange #tony stark #stephen strange #angst #first kisses #get together #pre-slash

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blondepomwrites · 7 years ago

Text

What We Leave Behind (1/4: Da’len)

Summary: Post Kirkwall, Hawke and Fenris have fled their lives and the Free Marches, trading certain Kirkwaller persecution for hunting down slavers along the Nevarran roads to Tevinter. When one of their efforts leaves them be-saddled with a orphaned elven boy, they find themselves forced to confront everything they had thought they'd left behind.

Part 1/4: Da’len

Rating: Teen, probably.

Ao3: [link]

Notes: This started out as a simple prompt request. You know, as it goes. The line chosen was: "I'm not jealous." by @aban-asaara. It began as a cutesy, fluffy (if not overly-indulgent), little idea that then became an excuse to explore a host of things painful and sweet in both their pasts, and then, spurred by a conversation with @cantfakethecake, it kinda turned into... well, this.

You know. As it goes.

[all titles subject to change]

“Hawke… No. Do not even think about it,” he said, knowing full well it was already too late.

They’d crossed into Nevarran territory following a lead on a suspected slaver’s route, and before long they stumbled over a well-trodden path from Kirkwall into Wildervale and then, inevitably, into Tevinter. After days of tracking through the plains and woodlands, the caravan they uncovered numbered near the hundreds. They’d had to splinter this caravan, hunting down the larger of the two groups before doubling back to free the rest.

They’d returned to find that in the chaos, many of the would-be slaves in the second group had tried their unshackled hands at escaping into the unforgiving hinterlands. Some found some unexpected aid. Others found bandits.

One such couple struck misfortune with the latter. The bandits left nothing behind but corpses in small clothes for the vultures. But what the corpses left behind…

“It’s alright,” Hawke spoke softly, as if her the weight of her words could break the air. “We’re not here to hurt you. We want to help you feel safe, I promise.”

Surveying the area to assure they were alone, Fenris set his greatsword against a tree with a defeated sigh, and, against his better judgement, knelt next to Hawke.

Mumbling something under her breath, Hawke paused, then in a voice that mimicked Merrill’s, she cooed, “Andaran atish’an, uh, da’len.”

A dirty, pinched little face peeked out from behind the tree, big eyes in a tiny frame glowering at them from under a messy nest of black hair. “Ma tel’sumeil!”

Hawke glanced to Fenris. “Did you catch that?”

“Why are you asking me?” He deadpanned, “because I have the ears for it?”

“That’s not what I—”

“Na, lethallin?” came the small voice again. The boy had stepped out partway from his hiding spot, revealing tattered, dirty rags that hung on his frame like a war-torn banner. His once hard stare had softened, widened, at the sight of Fenris.

For the life of him he wished he didn’t, but somehow Fenris knew that look.

The look that filled to the brim then burst like over-ripe fruit, tears pouring down the boy’s face like nectar over wrinkled skin. A cry that tore what had been held together too long by only eyes pinched shut and hands clapped over the mouth. The abandon in his steps as the boy broke for the first sign of familiarity and safety.

Even so, it nearly knocked the wind out of him when the boy finally crashed into him, a wave of untamed, unbridled, undeserved emotions too large for his small frame to contain.

The boy clung to him, tight as his own armor. There was no place for words in the boy’s wailing sobs; no room for anything but release of that which had been clamped down and wound too tight for far too long.

And Fenris could do nothing but put one arm around the boy, and then, uncertainly, the other, and hold him so that he did not fall completely apart into the dirt.

“Oh, sweet thing…” he heard Hawke exhale, and she ran a comforting hand over the back of the boy’s head.

The boy peeked out, and at the sight of Hawke, let out a howl of a scream and pressed himself deeper into Fenris’ armor. His cries reverberated off the metal in a way that haunted and hurt, and it showed in her eyes as she retracted her hand.

Hawke stood up, clearing her throat to smooth over the cracks that crept into her voice. “Well… I think it would be best if I… gave him some space. I’ll go… take care of them, then.”

Fenris must have given her the look of a dog with its own foot caught in a trap, as she reassured him, “You’re doing fine. Just keep holding him until he calms down. Unfortunately, that’s all you can do in these situations.”

The ending of slavers and the unshackling of their would-be slaves was always the easy part for Fenris. But this? This was Hawke’s area of expertise, not his. This was where he was relieved to have her to bridge the insurmountable gap from freedom to free.

Yet, here he was, with this responsibility quite literally thrown into his hands. Hands that were made to rend a beating, bleeding heart—never to mend it.

So, despite the instincts that told him better to gnaw off his own leg, Fenris did just as Hawke said. He held him against the sobs that rocked him like waves, against the screams that tore from his throat like clawing gales, and in spite of how the boy clenched and pounded his fists against the feelings he could not and should not have known.

It was the most frightening storm he’d had to weather. He knew that he was safe, but it was the little boy at the heart of the storm for which he found himself concerned, and even scared.

But like a summer’s squall, its throes were just as wild as they were sudden and suddenly ending, tapering off with the steady beat of soft sobs of exhaustion, punctuated with sniffles like retreating thunder.

Hawke returned then, dirt caked to the end of her staff. He could see the last of the ice she’d formed to make a spade melting from the tip. Fresh soil stained her hands. She leaned against her staff, eyes drifting over the ground between them. “I did for them what I could. Some space in a clearing, picked a few flowers, found a seed for each of them… I don’t know if they were trees, and I don’t know if they will grow, but… the thought was there, at least. I hope it’s enough…” She looked back to where Fenris was with the boy. “How is he?”

“Better,” Fenris said, “or, at least, he is settled somewhat.”

“Enough to where you can carry him?”

“Perhaps,” he answered, aware now of how his legs ached from remaining still for so long.

“I would be more than happy to hold him for you, but…” Hawke let out a frustrated sigh. “I don’t think the feeling would be mutual.”

“I will manage.” He placed one hand on the boy’s back and supported him underneath with his arm, shifting his legs underneath him until he stood with the boy still pressed against him. He felt a murmuring in the back of his mind, like a something stirring from a deep slumber. He brushed it away. “There was an alienage not too far back from here. We could make it there within the day.”

She pounded the end of her staff into the ground, ice in her eyes and in her voice. “We are not taking him to an alienage.”

He gave an acknowledging nod and waited. She would know better than he what to do with an orphaned child. But when she did not say a word, he saw what went unspoken between them, and how she held it like parchment over a hungry, grasping pyre.

She made a habit of playing with fire—entertaining her follies and letting her heart speak louder than her mind for longer than was safe. He shook his head, voice low and dowsing. “We can’t keep him.”

Hawke looked away with a huff, indignance rising like a shield.

He could not tell if the weight on his chest came from the what he knew took cover behind her shield or from the elven boy curled, sobbing against his armor. Through both, he added quietly, “You know this, Hawke.”

When she met his eyes again, the look was only half as sharp as she perhaps intended. “Obviously. But… doesn’t mean you have to say it.”

Walking off, Hawke grabbed Fenris’ sword from where he left it. She hefted it to fit in the sling where she normally carried her staff. “Then we’ll find a clan to take him in.”

His sword looked out of place slung over her back, but it didn’t seem to bother her in the slightest as she marched ahead. He began to follow in behind. “We haven’t passed any since the outskirts of Kirkwall.” He paused, finding his footing almost off balance. Smoothing his gait so that he didn’t jostle the boy like a sack of potatoes proved tricky on the forest terrain, but not entirely unnatural. “How do you suppose we’ll find one now?”

And she said, as if it was so simple, “By looking.”

Carrying on was not as easy as before. Though, Hawke reminded him many times, the boy was extremely complacent for a toddler—quiet and still as a sack of potatoes, sure, but also just as heavy. He kept having to shift the boy from arm to arm, and each time he did so he felt almost certain that he was going to end up dropping the boy on his head. But each time he found the motion to be as natural as a thought.

One that he brushed aside for now.

They’d tried to coax some words out of the boy as they went. Hawke soon surrendered the task to Fenris, as her words were only met with hiding and whimpers. It didn’t take long to find that the boy knew just about as much Trade as either of them knew Elven, but they were at least able to find a few words or phrases that would elicit a look of comprehension from him.

He even gave the shiest of smiles when he heard Fenris say Da’len. So that was how they called him.

Even so, the words of the Elven language felt clunky and out of place in Fenris’ mouth. The syllables sounded thick as dried mud and were just as pliant under his tongue. Though he did not say it aloud, he suspected Da’len found the language this lethallin less of a warm familiarity, and more of a fascination with his accent, if it could even be called that without offense. He may as well be the cat who barked to the elven boy.

For some of the time, Da’len slept—dirty face nestled on Fenris’ collar bone, unruly black hair brushing against Fenris’ neck with each step. When he did, Hawke allowed herself closer, stealing long, longing looks at the little boy who spurned her.

After a little while, she offered up, “I’m not jealous, or anything.”

Fenris scoffed. His arm hurt, the constant contact made his skin crawl, and the toddler wasn’t exactly fragrant right under his nose. “There is little to envy here, believe me.”

Hawke shook her head. “From this angle he reminds me of little Bethany—only father and I could rock her to sleep after a bad dream.” She reached a hand to stroke his hair, but caught herself and retracted to crossing her arms. “You seem to be handling him fine enough, though.”

“There are… things for which I have plenty of patience.”

“I know… I see it every day. You put up with me.”

That elicited a chuckle from him. “For some things more than others, yes.”

A moment of silence stretched between them. Despite—or perhaps due to—the deadweight in his arms, he still tried to keep a sharp eye out for any threats lurking in the woods around them. He assumed Hawke did the same, until he checked in and saw her eyes no longer resting on Da’len but on the boy and himself. Placid and drifting like a boat on open water, he could not catch her gaze. He felt himself begin to flush. “What?”

She blinked and refocused. “What? Oh. I’m not… Nothing. It’s nothing.”

Da’len shifted and began to stir, rubbing one hand at a puffy eye.

Pulling out her staff, Hawke sighed. “And that’s my cue to go off scouting ahead again… Please tell him I’m not a slaver or anything and that I just want to hug him and squish his little cheeks.”

He smirked, partially in relief that he could now shift the boy to his other side. “I thought you said you weren’t jealous?”

She called back from stomping her way forward, “I’m not! At all! Not even the littlest bit!”

Da’len looked up at him under half-lidded eyes and cheeks that wore an impression of the leather in Fenris’ armor. He asked in a small voice that barely broke above a whisper, “Iras mamae la papae, lethallin?”

Although he could not understand the question, the sounds parsed themselves enough for him to know that he could not give him the answer he wanted. Fenris looked to the trees, remembering the tradition of the vallasdahlen. Even if he had the words to tell a tale he did not know, how much would the boy understand anyway? Would it even be fair to lead him to understand so soon?

Fenris shook his head and gave him the only answer he could: “I’m sorry, da’len.”

And although the little elven boy could not understand the words he used, Fenris’ answer seemed to give Da’len enough peace. He felt Da’len loosen his hold, leaning back to peer up at the trees overhead and the mottled mosaic of green and blue they made with the sky.

All the while, Fenris kept his eyes on the ground, unwilling to see how numerous and tall were the trees in these ancient woods. But he could not stop himself from wondering how many of them grew on buried remains, and what those buried remains had had to leave behind.

#fenhawke #fhawris #fenris #f!hawke #f!fenhawke #marian hawke #dragon age #dragon age ii #fanfiction #mine #What We Leave Behind #prompt fiction #also fun edit: I CAN'T FUCKING COUNT #there are only going to be four parts not five #god I hope that stays true

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thesinglesjukebox · 6 years ago

Video

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LAURA JEAN - GIRLS ON THE TV [8.27] Melbourne singer goes back to high school, discovers synths...

Jonathan Bradley: Laura Jean's self-titled album, her fourth -- it is now four years old -- is a skeletal folk record: it sounds like an Australia I don't often hear in pop song or mass media. It draws wintry charcoal sketches of Melbourne city parks and lonely stretches of national highways. The gothic domesticity acted like blotting paper, pressing against the natural rhythms of life and recording them in irrupted detail. Against this backdrop, "Girls on the TV" is a new single awash with astonishing colour: pastel synth swirls and a disco bass pulse pushing through the mix. Removed from context, this pop impulse might not be so unexpected, but I hear in Jean's airy, wavering tones an artist reinventing herself as the introspective rejoinder to the vivant throwback fervor of Betty Who or Catcall. And yet even in this new guise, Jean's bleak folk endures, with an anecdotal lyric that carefully and precisely narrates the drawn-out process of a girlhood destroyed. Ricky, who can "dance like the girls on the TV," is a childhood friend whose joy in the physical possibilities of her body is commodified and contaminated: by demanding teachers who ask her to perform feats she cannot, by cruel classmates who tease her for her weight, and by adult men who make sexual demands upon her. "Girls on the TV" is a sad song of youth that is made sadder by how keenly aware it is of the libertine and evanescent possibilities of the pop it embraces. [9]

Rebecca A. Gowns: "Girls on the TV" falls into that tricky vein of narrative pop songs; telling a full story can be hard to pull off without coming across as maudlin or pretentious or just clunky, but Laura Jean executes it perfectly. It's a story about a woman extending compassion to her sister -- or friend, or possibly even an old lover/crush -- but it tugs at me the most when I think of them as siblings. It's got to be, right? This kind of bittersweet, constant reminiscing reminds me of the pangs I get when I think about my little brother. We grew up so close. We're so different today. We keep reaching out to each other, grasping each other's hands through gaps in a wall that keeps building then falling down then building up again. But every time I see him, no matter the year, no matter the occasion, I'll think of the way we danced when we were kids, singing along to music videos, pulling faces, promising each other we'd be in a band together someday. "Someday" -- and then time flies, and people change -- but the memory remains. This is that feeling in a crystal bottle. [10]

Will Adams: "Girls on the TV" plays like a memory you visit while idly passing the time. The vault you access in your mind safe and warm, bordered by storybook clouds and soundtracked by dreamy synthpop. But, as always, the details that pierce through the most are the ones you want to remember the least: authority figures pressuring you to overexert yourself; peers excavating your every flaw and parading them about; parents imposing their austere lifestyle on you; abusers reducing you to a vessel for their pleasure; the eventual realization that everyone around you has moved forward, gotten hitched, settled down, while you remain stuck in place, feet swamped with the mud of an unkind youth. But those dancing girls are still there, as is the lingering promise that, one day, you could be one of them too. [7]

Katherine St Asaph: A tale of dashed female friendship akin to Who Will Run the Frog Hospital or Cat's Eye; what it loses in prose it gains in a kaleidoscopic, wistful arrangement. It fills its six minutes well; like memory itself, it's alternatingly immediate and almost photorealistic (that one deep synth around 0:30), then languid and ungraspable. [9]

Alfred Soto: The rare single whose insistence on taking its time pays off, "Girls on the TV" sparkles like distant stars, its synthesizers a platform instead of hoping to get noticed. The pace and arrangement suits Laura Jean's remarkable performance: a damaged meditation on loving someone you can see and hear but can't touch and all the better for it -- "Space Age Love Song" and "TVC 15" without the spritz. "She could always dance better than me," Jean repeats: a statement of fact, mild complaint, and prayer. [9]

Vikram Joseph: A languorously paced, well-written coming-of-age story about female friendship and crushed dreams. The airy, breathy pre-chorus is a particularly good showcase for Laura Jean's vocals. It's unlikely to get the blood racing -- sonically, it's undeniably a bit adult contemporary -- but it owns the middle of the road better than 95 per cent of the stuff you'd hear on drive-time radio. [7]

Julian Axelrod: An immersive, deeply felt meditation on ambition and destiny, sung with the resignation of a woman long since disillusioned with both. The longer I sit with it, the more its faults feel like strengths: Its leisurely runtime reflects time's slow and relentless march, while its dourness finds balance in its faint glimmers of hope. After living within it for a week, it already feels like I've carried this story with me my entire life. [9]

Peter Ryan: The languid quality is perfect misdirection, masking what's going on until the chords break open at the chorus. What emerges is an unflinching sketch of a web connecting childhood pain, coping attempts, and "contemporary adult life." There's no glib gesturing toward resilience, and instead of pity or judgment I hear an indictment of actual and would-be tormentors. Laura Jean brings a sibling's testimony, one that doesn't seek to bridge the gulf between shared upbringing and shared experience, and is all the more potent for it. The wrapping is more chiffon than velvet, but underneath is still an iron fist. [9]

Jonathan Bogart: A folkie's idea of dance music, muted and unflustered, with warm electric bass and polyrhythms played by actual hands rather than programming. Sweet, certainly, and the lyrics' sketch of childhood and adolescent friendship are well-observed and touching without being sentimental. Which is the trouble: the whole production is an exercise in keeping vulgarity, of which sentimentality is one expression, and actual dance music that makes you sweat another, at arm's length. [6]

Alex Clifton: Like if Belle & Sebastian's "Expectations" was twice as long with more disco. Laura Jean has the same gifts for both character and melody Stuart Murdoch has. The dreamy backing helps it go by as quickly as my teenage years did, and her falsetto for the chorus haunts the rest of the song like a memory. It's steeped in nostalgia, but is there any other way to write about adolescence? [7]

William John: Like half the Internet, I've been preoccupied with Hannah Gadsby's Nanette for the past few weeks: a subversive, quasi-TED Talk comedy special that blew my mind when I first saw it in a theatre late last year. Now on Netflix, Nanette is hard to distill succinctly, but central to its significance is its blunt presentation of the devastation rapacious men can effect on others. That devastation lingers in those victims and continues to humiliate them for years -- decades, even -- afterward. In "Girls on the TV", fellow Australian woman Laura Jean presents an unvarnished picture of friend Ricky, a bullied, vulnerable, talented tap dancer, and reminisces wistfully upon the relationship they formed as members of the high school concert band. In the fourth verse, a new character is introduced -- Jean's mother's boyfriend, a violent, young, and predatory 21 year old. In a line excised from the video edit of the song, Jean notes that after Ricky's encounter with this man, she felt like she "didn't know her, or how she got that way"; there is no explicit cause-and-effect drawn, but the implication for the listener is that this incident had extensive ramifications for Ricky, that included cocaine addiction and relationships with married men. It's a sad story that demonstrates the way the action of a third party can destabilise and dismantle a friendship, but it's told with a compelling breathiness by Jean that seems to gather more and more momentum with each passing second. I'm unaccustomed to hearing such brusque, direct, and yet tender third-person storytelling in modern synth-pop. The importance of storytelling is central to Gadsby's Nanette -- stories "hold our cure," she says, and have the power to forge connection. Jean's memories of sitting in front of rage on a Saturday morning when young serve as an access point into an important story that deserved to be recounted. [9]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox ]

#laura jean #pop #pop music #music #music video #music writing #music reviews #australian music #new music

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