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jillianallen14 · 3 years ago

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Spirk fanfic rec

Some amazing Spirk fanfic to bless your dash because I’m falling in love with this shit all over again (this is like the 10th time this has happened lol):

Entering Orbit: Jim escapes to Iowa to avoid the media frenzy following the Narada incident, but a late-night miscommunication results in Spock turning up on his front porch; rated m; 30,957 words

Papers in the Roadside: Non-Starfleet AU. Jim owns a small bar in Chicago, keeps on picking up strays and taking care of everyone no matter how hard it makes his own life. Spock is a journalist writing feature articles for the Chicago Tribune; he depicts the world with uncanny skill, but hides more than one personal drama and is possibly under surveillance from the Vulcan royal family. They meet by accident just before their lives start to spin out of control; rated e; 49,637 words

Take Refuge in What You Know: AU - Kirk has moved into a apartment/house and wants to get to know his neighbors. He meets his neighbor Spock, a loner who suffers from extreme agoraphobia. Kirk thinks he's beautiful enigma; rated e; 120,334 words

Listen, this is not only my favorite Star Trek fic of all time, it’s also one of my favorite fanfics in general. It’s right up there with Text Talk and The Shoebox Project from the HP fandom, which if you’ve read, you know are incredible and frankly life-changing. And this fanfic changed my life. The description the author gives doesn’t do the beauty of this fic justice. I suffer from agoraphobia and Spock’s depiction as an agoraphobic man was probably the most well-researched, sympathetic, empathetic, caring, realistic portrayal of what it’s like to be agoraphobic that I’ve ever witnessed in fiction. It made me cry like a child because I had never felt so seen and understood. This writer is incredible, and this fic is incredible. I can’t recommend it enough. It’s an AU, which I’m usually pretty wary about, but it barely even feels like an AU. It just feels like Jim and Spock. The author’s understanding of both of their characters’ is perfect, like just a spot-on portrayal of who they are. This fic genuinely helped me accept who I am and helped me understand that I am capable of & deserving of love. If you don’t read any other Star Trek fics (and you def should read more Star Trek fics because they’re amazing), then let this one be the one you read. I dare you not to read it three times in a row like I did.

Observations: First Officer Spock comments on life aboard the Enterprise and his service under Captain James T. Kirk; rated m; 500,000+ words.

So the author of this fic actually did a thing where they made this fic into two books (similar to what The Shoebox Project authors did many years ago in the HP fandom). They don’t get any money from people buying the books; the cost is just to go towards producing the books. This fic is the equivalent of two LARGE novels. We’re talking 600 pages & up. It’s a huge fic. Now, that being said, I read it in one day. ONE DAY. It’s that good. This is another one of my all-time favorite fics, though not quite as dear to my heart as the one I listed above. It’s focused on AOS, and tbh, I forget that what happens in this book isn’t actually canon. Like it’s so well-told, it just feels like it’s now part of the timeless story of Kirk & Spock. The “professional” Star Trek writers would never be brave enough to do what this author does with Kirk and Spock, though. This fic will make you angry, will make you laugh, will make you cry. It has such a good grasp on every single character. It also shows the love between the crew of the Enterprise, which is always a treat, and it’s beautifully done in this fic. It has a sorta-enemies-to-lovers arc between Spirk and an enemies-to-close-friends arc between Spock and McCoy that is beautifully done and fleshed out. This fic is definitely a journey to go through, and I can’t recommend it enough. It’s extremely slow burn, and you will want to slap both Kirk and Spock (and McCoy) upside the head at certain points lol.

Of Coffee Beans and Green Tea Leaves: The progression of a relationship, through Coffee Beans and Green Tea Leaves. Basically, it’s an AU where Kirk works at a coffee shop to pay his way through school, and Spock visits often. rated t; 16,429 words

Love, love, love, this fic. It’s cute, it’s in character. They have kind of a rocky start together, so it’s got a little bit of that Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy i-hated-you-but-now-i-love-you-marry-me vibes to it. I’m a sucker for that, if you haven’t figured that out by now lol. It’s really good, and a really enjoyable read. And it’s not too long, if you’re in the mood for something on the shorter end of things.

Please Don’t Touch the Vulcans: The "yes" is out of Jim's mouth before he can think about it. Jim is chipper about having time off for the holidays. He asks everyone if they want to spend time together but sadly, everyone ditches Jim over the holidays because they have plans. McCoy visits his daughter, Nyota visits her family, and everyone splits. Not knowing Spock has feelings for him, Jim doesn't even bother asking if he wants to spend time together figuring he has something to do. Something cute, romantic with the boys spending time with one another and confessions; rated m; 17,690 words

Super cute and has lots of Sarek, which idk about y’all, but I’m always a fan of. Sarek and Jim kind of get to know each other a bit, and it’s cute. Sarek knows about they’re in love before Spock & Kirk know lol. If I remember correctly, there’s also some appearances from everyone’s favorite: Old!Spock! You also get a little bit of jealous and protective Young!Spock. So you’re in for a real treat with this one.

The Ren shat’var Trilogy: A split-second decision changes Jim's life forever, as he enters into a bond with Spock in the face of certain torture. Enemies to the Federation emerge from unlikely places, and the command team must contend with unexpected threats, as well as challenges within their own intense relationship. In this three-part series, the Enterprise races across the galaxy to confront the unknown, and Jim and Spock discover the true significance of their unprecedented connection; rated e; 184,411 words

Textual Attraction: Valentine’s Day does not bring up pleasant memories for Cadet Kirk. But the serendipitous switch-up of his cell phone with a particular Vulcan professor’s will make his day far more interesting –and romantic. Perhaps some new memories can be made! 15,900 words

SO GOOD. Just SO good

Spaceman: Academy AU. Five times Spock realizes he's attracted to a barista at the academy spaceport, and one time he decides to do something about it. rated t; 3728 words

Short, sweet, funny. You’ll love it.

Subtext: Texting your Vulcan first officer in the middle of the night is never a good idea. Especially when you have an obsessive crush on said Vulcan.The holidays are approaching and Jim is left entirely Spockless aboard the Enterprise when his First takes shore leave on New Vulcan. After some midnight pining, Jim sends a text he instantly regrets. That is, until Spock responds and willingly continues their textual communications to an inevitable conclusion; rated t; 13,032 words

Cute, sweet, funny. It’s a texting fic. I think you’ve probably figured out I love those. This one makes me laugh so fucking hard. Like actually laugh-out-loud-omg-did-i-just-snort kind of funny. Spock is great in this one

All Spock Wants For Christmas: While Jim is away on a delegation mission, he panics about what to give Spock for Christmas. With help from Bones and Uhura, and in between some spam texting with Spock, Jim realizes he already has the perfect gift. And all it needs is wrapping paper and a bow; rated t; 11,966 words

And here we have another cute, sweet, funny texting fic. Sue me lol

The Morning After: Jim convinces Spock to take shore leave with him on Risa, hoping the time together will help re-solidify their bond of friendship after some recent tension. Meanwhile, Spock convinces himself he's on Risa for one reason and one reason only, to prevent his wayward captain from getting into trouble. After a passionately illogical night of Romulan Ale and chocolate infused liquor, everything changes when Jim wakes with something other than a hangover filling his head. Something he's sure neither he nor Spock can handle. Because if Jim knows anything for sure, it's that his messed up thoughts belong nowhere near Spock's clean, ordered mind; rated m; 50,381 words

HAHA. This fic fucking cracks me up. You’ve got drunk boys pining over each other & not realizing it. You’ve got accidental marriage. You’ve got bed sharing. It’s great, it’s cute, it’s funny.

Take This Sinking Boat (And Point It Home): In which Spock pines, Jim isn’t stupid (except he kind of is), and Christopher Pike has had enough of this bullshit; 6698 words

Pike is great in this one, and it’s super, super funny.

Extracurricular Activities: Spock returns to the Academy from a tour of duty to find an intriguing cadet captures his attention; rated e; 15,433 words

Veritas: Basically, Kirk and Spock are on trial because the Federation thinks they are emotionally compromised by each other, which is putting the lives of their crew in danger. They have to convince a court they’re not actually in love with each other. They think the claims are bullshit. They think it will be easy to prove that they aren’t in love or emotionally compromised, damn it. It isn’t; rated m; 186,80 words

This one is so, so good. A real gem off of Fanfic.net. I remember it was actually one of the first Spirk fanfics I ever read, and it blew me away. The progression of their relationship is really well-done and interesting. It has star-crossed lovers vibes and has some really emotionally intense moments in it, especially for Spock.

A Habitual Affection: Living in 1930s New York with the Vulcan you're secretly in love with is no simple thing. But Jim never liked anything simple. And then, the big snowstorm hit...; rated t; 7998 words

A beautiful TOS fic about one of the gayest episodes of Star Trek. Love this one.

Atlas: Between what was and what will be stands James Tiberius Kirk, in all his fractured patchwork glory. Because saving the Federation was only the beginning; rated t; 135,529 words

A beaut. Really great characterization, and the progression of Jim and Spock’s relationship is really well-done.

#spirk #spock #kirk #james t kirk #spock/kirk #kirk/spock #star trek #star trek tos #star trek aos #space husbands #spirk fanfic recs #spirk fanfic

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emotionallyits2009 · 4 years ago

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deancas fic rec list!

hello everyone! happy christmas to those who celebrate it, my gift to you is my fic rec list that i said i would make like a month ago. the only thing it is organized by is canonverse vs alternate universe. tried to cover a variety of subjects but there are in particular many fics of the genre “postcanon where cas is human and he and dean live together and slowly finally get their shit together” because i know what i’m about, son. HOPE U ENJOY. and if you wanna talk about any of them or rec me other fics please do. :)

Canonverse:

where the weeds take root by deathbanjo, 30k, explicit “Are you happy? Y’know. Just—being here,” Dean says, gesturing to the yard with his beer bottle. “Being with—I mean, you used to fight in celestial wars and—and save the world. Now you’re growing vegetables and talking about chickens.” There are many fics set in a post-canon universe where Cas is human and he and Dean live together and slowly fall into a relationship. Imo this one is the best of the best of that genre. This was one of the first fics I read back in July when I was getting Back Into Supernatural where I was like oh fuck I’m like in this. Dean builds Cas planters and bookshelves and a chicken coop and they fight and work through it.

Cuckoo And Nest by komodobits, 10k, explicit For a long time, Castiel thought that every earthly possession other than the immediately necessary was excess to requirement. But Dean – Dean who named his car, who keeps a photograph of his mother in his wallet, some thirty-plus years after her death, who still has the crumpled ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign with a sleeping pelican emblazoned on it from the Microtel outside of Roanoke where he first kissed Castiel, clumsy and unsure, under the unsteady fluorescence of an exhausted bathroom bulb – is sentimental. It puzzles Castiel, where Dean draws the line between what is meaningful and what it is worthless. Really Gets the dynamic of Cas doesn’t think Dean wants him to stay/Dean thinks Cas will leave the first chance he gets. Also a nice example of Cas thinking he’s not wanted if he’s not useful/powerful and being told otherwise. Another all-time fave!

lonely hearts by outphastthemoat, 4.5k, gen He thinks he might give up having his own anything just to be able to step foot inside the room next door and sit on the edge of Dean’s bed instead. This one is for the CAS GIRLS who know what LONELINESS feels like.

Helionneiros by aeli_kindara, 24.2k, mature In which Dean visits his mother, and Claire takes Cas on a hunt. I’m always on the lookout for more fic with Claire and Jack. Jack doesn’t show up until the end here but the relationship between Cas and Claire is really nice.

Crawl by aeriallon, 11k, explicit It’s been almost four years since Castiel left Kansas; he'd eventually settled in an island town where he has a job, a house, and a life without the Winchesters. Every winter, Dean drives down to the coast to see him. Another fic where Cas is human but in this one he took some time for himself and got some distance from the Winchesters! He gets to be competent and weird as a human and we love that for him. I must warn you all that this fic contains one use of the phrase “making love” which would normally put me right off but it’s still worth reading. The first of a three-part series.

home where you hold me by microcomets, 1.6k, gen Cas and Dean, in the moments between their battles, ache for quiet spaces. Technically this is a coda to 10x20 but you don’t need the episode for context. Short and very sweet.

Build a Home by domesticadventures, 20.1k, teen After they save the world, Dean expects Cas to come back to the bunker with them. He doesn’t. This one is so cute it’s like what if once they were done saving the world Sam and Dean actually invited other hunters to move into the bunker with them. Obviously Dean wants that to include Cas but doesn’t know how to use his words.

the taste of gravel in the mouth by deathbanjo, 22.4k, explicit This is what Cas gave up Heaven for: greasy diner food, shitty motel rooms with even shittier cable, long car rides spent in complete silence except for the same six tapes playing over and over again, and a burnt-out husk of a man who can barely hold a conversation anymore. Angst fic! They go on a road trip and Dean is severely fucked up post-Mark of Cain.

Unknown Quantities by xylodemon, 8.6k, explicit No one ever tells Dean anything. Another nice getting-together fic.

Creature of Habit by trinityofone, 5.2k, teen The more you love someone, the more you want to kill them. Or: How Cas developed some bad habits, and Dean coped surprisingly well. This one is ancient by destiel standards (written during season 5) but it manages to nail the married couple vibes they give off in later seasons. Cas is a bitch and Dean likes him so much. <3

The (Mostly Accidental) Courtship of Dean Winchester by Tuesday, 11.2k, mature Angelic marriage rites were never intended to go quite like this. Another old one that is a lot of fun! They get Accidental Angel Married and if you don’t enjoy dumb fanfiction tropes like that I don’t know what to say to you.

Vena Amoris and Other Old-Fashioned Bullshit by pyrebi, 4k, teen In which angelic marriage bonds are apparently stupidly easy to trigger, Cas wages multidimensional war in Heaven, Dean can't catch a break like ever, Sam rather enjoys being a dick, love saves the day, and nobody consummates anything. The OTHER accidental angel marriage fic written in 2010.

Crazy Diamonds by pantheon_of_discord, 24.8k, explicit A week ago, Dean was pulled out of Hell. Now, he’s apparently woken up in 2018, and the angel that a mere twenty-four hours beforehand had threatened to chuck him back into the pit is sleepily pouring himself coffee and wearing Dean’s second-favourite Zeppelin shirt. It all seems like a perfect happy ending, but with Hell’s scars still so fresh, Dean can’t imagine how he could have possibly gotten there. At the same time, the Dean who went to sleep in the bunker, right next to Cas, wakes up on Bobby’s couch in 2008. He’s instantly bombarded with questions by a Lilith-obsessed brother and a man who’s been dead for years, and must decide between keeping his finally-perfect life intact, and the lives he could save by re-writing history. Regardless of these choices, both Deans are trapped in the wrong decade, and their only way back lies with a Castiel still very much under Heaven’s thumb – one who might find the future Dean describes difficult to believe. Time travel is FUN. There’s an excellent part where (minor spoilers) future!Dean is like, “Guess what, asshole? You like me so much you marry me!!!!!!!!!!!�� to 2008!Castiel that made me laugh out loud the first time I read it. Also just a good reminder of how most problems in life are temporary and if you could go back in time to talk to your younger self you’d be like, “Hey man. Chill out. You get through it.”

The Path of Fireflies by museaway, 63.7k, mature After his humanity is restored, Dean wakes up in bed with Castiel, a wedding ring, and no memory of the past twelve years. There’s a lot of amnesia fic and djinn fic out there were Dean wakes up ~suddenly together with Cas~ but I like this one in particular because he’s initially very confused and kind of a dick about it until he acknowledges that being with Cas makes him happy.

take the long way home by dothraki_shieldmaiden, 95k, explicit Three months ago, when Dean decided to retire, he thought his life was going to end up differently. He'd thought that he might get to have it all, Sam, Cas, Jack, and nice little place to live. Instead he gets Sam and Jack off on their Summer of Love Tour, radio silence from Cas, and a never-ending road trip consisting of himself. Still reeling from the loss of his grace, Castiel travels the country in search of hunts. Driven by a need to prove his usefulness, he pushes himself beyond all limits of endurance. Together, with the help of a few friends, a crumbling Victorian house, and a stray cat, Dean and Castiel patch themselves back together and create a home together. Do you wanna read almost one hundred thousand words of Dean and Cas having extremely intense feelings but refusing to voice them aloud? Haha of course you do that’s why you’re here. There’s also a lot about Cas adjusting to being human and being depressed about it which might resonate if you’ve ever felt weird about having a body. To be honest the author could stand to use a few more commas but there were also half a dozen moments that made me put my phone down and drag my hand slowly over my face and whisper “oh my god” to myself which is like, the ultimate measure of a good fanfiction so it gets to be on the list.

like moses and batman and james dean by saltyfeathers, 31.6k, explicit dean used to turn tricks. over a decade later, he met cas. Have you seen the fanon (apparently pioneered by Mr. Jackles “Original Deankin” Ackles himself) that Dean used to prostitute himself to feed himself and Sam when they were younger? Are you interested in exploring that concept in fanfiction? Well, this is the only fic you need. Mind the tags on this one! It’s not what I’d call happy but it’s good.

Some Assembly Required by narrow_staircases, 47k, mature It’s September of 2005, and Dean Winchester, in an attempt to outrun old mistakes and painful memories, finds himself in southern Kentucky on a wild goose chase. He’s completely certain this weird religious movement he’s “investigating” is a hoax, despite the miraculous healings people report, and he’ll be back on the road in a day or two. Things are looking up when he meets Cas, an awkward (and gorgeous) graduate student who’s actually doing honest-to-god research into the local tent revival meetings. When that research takes a weird and personal turn, Dean’s left to face two very serious realities: one, this may be a real case after all, and two, he’s fallen way harder for Cas than he should ever have let himself. Stanford-era AU of Dean trying to avoid his father and getting in over his head on a case.

Alternate universe:

And This, Your Living Kiss by opal_bullets, 57k, mature Only a very few people in the world know that the celebrated and reclusive poet Jack Allen is just Kansas mechanic Dean Winchester, a high school dropout with a few bucks to his name. Not that it matters anymore; life has left him so wrung out he never wants to pick up another pen. Until, that is, a string of coincidences leads Dean to auditing a poetry course with one Dr. Castiel Novak. The professor is wildly intelligent, devastatingly handsome...and just so happens to be academia's foremost expert on the poetry of Jack Allen. Mundane AUs in this fandom have to be really, really good to catch my attention and this one is! It’s exactly what it says in the summary and the characterization is spot-on.

Out to Drift by deathbanjo, 20.9k, mature Dean drives a black car with a loud engine. He lies too easily. He keeps a gun in the back of his jeans, and Castiel isn’t sure, but he wouldn’t be surprised if Dean has killed someone before. Two people in fucked-up unstable situations meeting and forming a connection. Honestly guys I really just love deathbanjo.

#fic #deancas #destiel

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smoochkooks · 4 years ago

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—chapter four: white lies

this is a part of my an ode to a broken heart drabble series.

pairing: jeon jungkook/reader

genre: unrequited love, best friends to (?), heavy angst, future smut

word count: 1.5k

summary: it came easy to you to lie. but with every untold truth, you were hurting more on the inside.

previous || next

one year and 6 months ago

April was exceptionally moody that year.

Every day you woke up to either heavy rainfall or a beautiful, cloudless sky. Alternatively, it could also snow for a couple of hours just to have it all vanish once the sun reappeared. As much as you loved Spring, you hated the capricious weather with passion.

It was a normal, peaceful, Saturday afternoon. Saturday meant no classes to attend, no work to do on the side. It was just you in your small, cozy apartment, tucked underneath the blanket and binge-watching Attack On Titan.

You were never an anime enthusiast per se, but you happened to befriend a doe-eyed weeb all those years ago. Your current occupation was just a part of the aftermath. It wasn’t like Jungkook was obsessed, not at all. He was actually far from it. Now, at the tender age of twenty-three, his old hobby was like a relapse. His love for anime was coming in waves every once in a while, gradually transforming into a two-months-long hyperfixation and then, it was nothing. And the cicle continued.

He was currently in the stage of re-watching Attack On Titan, hence why you had been forced to finally give the damned anime a try as well. Hell, he was even coming over tonight to have a marathon with you.

(He’d said that season three, his favourite, you had to watch alongside him.)

You: eren's annoying little shit

Jungkook: told you so

You: but levi? damn I’d sell my soul for him

Jungkook: for a 5��2 emotionally unavailable man?

You: yep. that’s my type

It was far from truth. As much as you liked Captain Levi, he wasn’t Jungkook. You are my type, you wanted to write instead. There hadn’t been a man in my life who managed to even come close to you. But, as always, you kept those confessions to yourself.

Right when you were about to play another episode, your phone buzzed again.

Jungkook: I have a weird question

You: I’m used to that

You: shoot your shot.

Jungkook: what’s your finger size?

Confused, you read his last message once again. That was indeed a weird fucking question to ask, you thought. You had never really been a fan of rings. You only owed one - a gift from your grandmother she gave you for your sixteenth birthday. Rummaging thorough your drawer, you found it in a separate, black case.

It still fit just right, so you took a ruler, measured the size and googled the results.

You: it’s 7.5 I guess

You: why do you ask tho?

Jungkook: I need you to go somewhere with me before our marathon if that’s okay

You: you didn’t answer my question

You: but okay. what time?

Jungkook: ill pick you up at 5pm

Jungkook: you’ll see

Maybe it was for the better he hadn’t told you where he was taking you. If you had know, you would have backed away last minute. Come up with so lame excuse, blame it all on a headache or period cramps.

If you had known Jungkook was taking you to pick up an engagement ring for Soojin, you would have never come with him.

When you parked in front of one of the most high-ranking jewellery stores dowtown, the solemnity of the situation hit you like a whiplash. You took a deep, shuddering breath. Jungkook was thinking about marrying Soojin. Jungkook was going to propose to her, soon. He was ready to spent the rest of his life with her.

Jeon Jungkook, the love of your life, was about to slip out of your reach for good.

You couldn’t cry. Not in front of him. You clenched your fists so tight the knuckles turned white.

“I figured out you could help me,” Jungkook said, breaking the silence and unbuckled his seatbelt. “I checked Soojin's finger size once when she was showering and then I found out that your’s the same and well, you’re a girl so you obviously know more about jewellery than me and–”

“Jungkook,” you cut him off with a dry chuckle. You didn’t want him to speak. You didn’t want to see him. You wanted to jumped off his car and ran away from that place as far as possible. “You don’t have to explain yourself. I get it.”

You smiled at him with reassurance. It was actually hilarious, how you mastered the art of feigning your real feelings when you were with him. It came easy to you to lie but with every untold truth, you were hurting more on the inside.

“I’m here, so you don’t have to worry about chosing something horrible.”

He grinned and you noticed a dust of pink covering the apples his cheeks. It was hard, so fucking hard seeing him happy because that was all you ever wanted and yet it pained you not to be the main source of it. Jungkook was twenty-three and already so in love he wanted to get married. You were going to see him in a black tux, a prince charming waiting in front of the altar for his princess.

It ached. Why did it ache to see him happy?

The lady who worked at the jewellery store greeted you politely with a bow. “What can I do for you?” she asked.

“We are looking for engagement rings.” Jungkook answered.

You could tell she was a bit astounded but her professional smile never faltered when she responded with, “Oh, that’s still quite unusual to see the couple chosing an engagement ring together.”

You were about to protest but then, Jungkook did something you would never expect him to do.

He grasped your hand.

(It was warm. His touch was soothing. Comforting. Then why did it hurt so bad?)

“My girlfriend wants to chose the ring herself but she doesn’t know when she will get it.”

To make matters worse, he sent you a wink. The store’s clerk cooed at the scene and clasped a hand over her chest. For her it was yet another day at work, yet another pair of adults who had decided to get marry.

“You make a really beautiful couple.” she said.

Even Jungkook’s hand squeezing yours couldn’t ease the sting you felt hearing her speak those words to you. You smiled lightly for good measure. She then pointed at the display and gave you some time and space too look at the options.

Your whole face felt hot. Jungkook was still holding your hand, still playing the role of a perfect boyfriend. He didn’t seem to notice what kind of effect it had on you. He didn’t know how fast your heart was beating, how warm his touch felt on your skin. It was all just a silly joke to him.

He leaned closer to you, so the store's clerk couldn’t hear him. His breath tickled your skin. “You’re blushing.” he whispered.

“Shut up.”

He chuckled and let go of your hand. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable.”

(No matter how much it hurt you on the inside, you already missed his touch.)

“It’s okay. Let’s chose my damned ring, shall we?” you proposed, mustering a nonchalant tone.

Dodging uneasiness with humor always worked out, it seemed.

You felt odd and out of place standing next to him and staring at all those glimmering jewels. In the corner of the eye you saw the lady who worked there glancing at you from time to time and that was when you remembered you were supposed to act like a soon-to-be fiancée.

“They’re all pretty.” you said to Jungkook.

“Which one you like the most then?”

You didn’t have to think long about the answer. The ring with an emerald stone caught your eye from the beginning. It was different than the others, definitely not a standard choice for engagement but something about its peculiarity made you want it to have it shinning on your finger one day.

Except, you weren’t here for yourself. Jungkook wasn’t your boyfriend. You were helping him chose a ring for Soojin. And you knew exactly what she would like.

So you pointed at the number thirty-two. A sparkling, white-gold ring with an oval-shaped diamond.

Jungkook let out a hum. “It’s really pretty, yeah. Excuse me,” he called. “My girlfriend would like to try out this one.”

You ignored the phantom pain you felt as you put the ring on. You flexed your fingers and just for a moment, you pretended it wasn’t a farce your best friend came up with. The diamond shone brightly just like the glimmers of happiness in Jungkook's eyes. He didn’t have to worry about Soojin's answer. He knew it would be thousand times yes.

You were good at pretending. After all, you had been practicing the art of it almost your entire life.

So you drove with Jungkook to your apartment and listened to him babbling about his newest project at work. You made snacks, sat in front of your TV and spent the next couple of hours watching Attack On Titan. You cursed him for spoiling you a few bits of the show and Jungkook, like the petty Virgo he was, reminded you how you accidentally revealed him Little Women's ending because you had read the book years before.

As you laughed and bickered with him, you still remembered about the crimson box tucked in the pocket of his leather jacket, but you didn’t allow yourself to break. Not yet.

It was only when Jungkook fell asleep around 1am that you stepped into the shower and let the tears flow.

And a week later, when the dreaded became real–

Jungkook: she said yes!!!

A white lie was told to avoid hurting someone’s feelings.

You: I’m so happy for you, Jungkook!

After all, the best you could do was give up your happiness for the sake of his own.

#jungkook smut #btswritingcafe #ksmutclub #bangtanarmynet #bangtanhq #jungkook angst #jungkook x reader #jungkook fanfic #jungkook x you #bts smut #my writing #an ode to a broken heart

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true-blue-megamind · 4 years ago

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FAN THEORY SUPPOSITION SUNDAY: The Warden

SPOILER WARNING! It’s still a thing, and, if you haven’t yet, you still need to watch Megamind. (If you have seen it already, however, you need to see it again. Because it’s awesome.)

Yes, yes, the post is three days late this time. Real life has to take priority and such. So sue me. (Don’t really do that. LOL!)

For that same reason—or more accurately because this week has exhausted me—I will attempt to make this post shorter than usual. We’ll see how that goes. My money is on “not well.” LOL.

Anyway, today we’re going to look at a subject that often divides the Megamind fandom: the Warden and his relationship with Megamind. There are several fan theories—I mean, suppositions—surrounding this, but I’m going to be focusing on a few of the main ones.

The first of these is that the Warden was actually a father figure to Megamind when he was young, allowing him to be raised in jail not out of cruelty or disinterest, but because it was the only way to keep him safe from shadowy government agencies that otherwise would have performed all sorts of experiments on the blue alien. This both accounts for why a child would be allowed to grow up in what is clearly a high-security prison for dangerous adult criminals—something that, admittedly, needs some sort of explanation—and fits with widely accepted sci-fi and comic book tropes. (From Area 51 to mysterious “Men in Black” type organizations, fiction is full of government agencies created to study extraterrestrial life and technology.) Some even go so far as to suggest that the Warden may have tried to adopt Megamind officially, but was blocked from doing so by these same entities. On top of this, such an idea also offers room to re-imagine the Warden as a much more interesting, complex, and sympathetic character. Indeed, there has been some excellent fan fiction written about this pseudo-parental relationship.

Art: Fathers And Sons Day by tabbydragon

There is some evidence to support this. The first is that, although the Warden behaves harshly toward Megamind in the “jail-break” scene near the beginning of the film, Megamind himself seems to be trying to engage in a playful exchange: pranking the older man, wishing him a good morning, and even teasing him. While some say that this is simply Megamind’s personality as well as his determination to always appear indominable, others suggest that, perhaps, the blue man is trying to recapture a lost amiability between himself and the prison Warden. It is possible that, when he was younger and less villainous, Megamind might have exchanged friendly jokes and greetings with the man in charge of the jail he called home. It has even been suggested that the Warden is so hard on the blue man at the beginning of the film not because he hates Megamind, but because Megamind’s life choices have hurt and alienated his father figure. This idea finds some support in the facts that, when Megamind leaves jail to confront Titan, the Warden wished him good luck, and at the end of the movie, that same man seems genuinely happy as he watches the television broadcast of his one-time prisoner being named Defender of Metro City. Finally, there is some evidence from the comics which, although not truly considered canon, as I’ve mentioned before, do offer some material for fan theories. In the “episode” entitled Bad Minion! Bad! Megamind runs into the Warden in a bar, and the latter offers the former advice. There is certainly a somewhat fatherly feel to the scene.

The second theory is exactly the opposite: that the Warden either did not care for or outright disliked the former supervillain. Unfortunately, as fun as the Warden/Father Figure concept is, this second, darker idea has far stronger evidence to support it in the film itself. (Try not to hate me, everyone.) These clues range from the obvious to the subtle, but there are quite a few of them to be found.

During the first scene in which we see Warden interact with Megamind, he doesn’t behave like an angry, disappointed father—at least not a good one. He isn’t merely surly toward Megamind; he is absolutely nasty. The Warden verbally condemns the alien, telling him that he’ll “always be a villain,” and essentially steals what he believes is a gift for the blue man, even taunting him by saying: “I think I’ll keep it!” This hardly seems like the actions of someone who once felt any sort of affection for the extraterrestrial. That same portion of the movie holds another clue as well: the screens monitoring Megamind’s brain activity. Indeed, in original concept art for the film, the system appears both more invasive and more nightmarish. It seems that, far from protecting Megamind, the Warden may have actually allowed him to be experimented upon.

Next, there is the newspaper article at the beginning of the title sequence, which bears the headline “Hometown Boy Makes Bad.” It’s hard to see what the paper says, of course, even if you bother to really notice it, but luckily for us Liz (Demishock) wrote a wonderfully thorough blog post which, among other things, provides a transcript of the “news story.” In it, the Warden is quoted as referring to young Megamind as a born villain as well as abnormal.

You don't know this kid. I've watched the little criminal since he was in diapers. This kid is just a bad seed. I've got experienced, hardened criminals in here who are afraid of him - I mean, have you seen the size of his head?… It's not like he's a normal kid… I mean, have you gotten a good look at his gigantic blue head? I don't know where you come from, but where I come it's just not right.

Granted, there seems to be some truth to what the Warden is saying, as the article also mentions that Megamind, who can hardly have been more than seven years old at the time, has basically been put into solitary confinement for the safety of other prisoners following an unnamed incident, adding that the other inmates “refused to point fingers for fear of retaliation.” (This fits with the fan theory that young Megamind would have had to both fight and develop a fearsome reputation in order to protect himself. You can read more about that in the post How Strong is Megamind?) However, the Warden seems to dwell a lot on the fact that Megamind looks alien, and he displays an obvious dislike for the young boy.

Finally, there is evidence hidden in the school scene, although it’s easy to miss. In an amazing two-part video series, Megamind: A City of Deception. YouTuber The Theorizer illustrates several hidden clues about Megamind’s early life and how it it led him to embrace villainy. (I will very likely write another post going into more detail about that at a later date.) One thing that The Theorizer discovered is a seemingly innocuous detail in the background during the popcorn scene. Take a moment to examine the images below. Look closely at the blackboard and you’ll see a paper cut out of a school bus. Look even more closely at that and you’ll find something odd: the bus is full of crayon-drawn children except for one figure: an adult male, riding in the back of the bus, who looks suspiciously like the Warden as he appears at the beginning of the film.

In a movie where so much attention is given to small things—I mean, seriously, the animation team actually went through the trouble to write a news story for a paper that was on the screen less than ten seconds—this cannot possibly be a coincidence. (You can learn more about the artists’ amazing dedication to detail in my post What’s Hidden in the Animation?) Although it is vaguely possible that Megamind, painfully aware of how much his appearance was despised, chose to draw the Warden’s face instead of his own, most fans believe there is a darker reason for this oddity.

Think about it: the Li’l Gifted School for Li’l Gifted Kids is built close by a jail with a strangely similar name: Metro City Prison for the Criminally Gifted. It’s clearly a small academy, yet the only two known aliens in the city—who, by the way, have extremely different social backgrounds—both just happen to attend there. And now the prison warden appears to be somehow involved with the elementary school? It’s bizarre. Add to this the fact that the young alien adopted by a privileged family—a boy who possessed super-strength and laser vision—seemed inclined to be a bully, (as is made obvious by the kickball scene,) and a disturbing fan theory emerges. Adults realized that Wayne Smith, the child who would eventually become Metro Man, might prove dangerous if left unchecked, and came up with a plan to turn him into a hero instead. Wayne was showered with praise, conditioning him to seek public approval, but a superhero needs a nemesis. The strange-looking, unwanted blue boy who’d already been labeled a criminal would have seemed like the obvious choice. If this is true, then Megamind was purposefully, albeit covertly, groomed to become a supervillain from a young age, and the Warden played a major role in doing that.

So there you have it. Two competing fan theories concerning the Warden’s connection with Megamind. Both have some evidence supporting them, and there are fans who are firmly dedicated to one or the other. Which is true? Did the Warden care for Megamind like a son but distance himself when the boy turned to villainy? Or did he judge and despise Megamind but come around to liking him when he finally realized what sort of person the blue man was deep down? The fact is that those questions can be argued for hours on end. No matter which of these suppositions you prefer, however, the mere fact that even a minor supporting character is complex enough to offer room for this debate speaks to the impressive amount of work and devotion that went into creating this amazing animated film.

#Megamind #Megamind movie #Megamind fan theory #fan theory #fan theories #fanon #Warden #the Warden #connection #relationship #relationships

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holykillercake · 4 years ago

Text

Love Ordeal

SANJI X f!READER

word count: 2k

summary: The Strawhts decide to play Secret Davy Treasure and Sanji doens´t stop asking whom you got.

highlight: ¨Sanji,¨ you sighed ¨I love you, but if you don´t stop, I will be forced to throw your cigarettes in the ocean and straighten your eyebrows.¨

warning: F.L.U.F.F.

notes: Guys! This a part 2/3 of a request for a fluff where they have a s/o that made them a thing with crochet and how they would react. Also, Secret Davy Treasure is like Secret Santa, but you know. ALSO, there is a surprise at the end!

𝕷𝖊𝖆𝖛𝖊 𝖈𝖔𝖒𝖒𝖊𝖓𝖙𝖘, 𝖗𝖊𝖖𝖚𝖊𝖘𝖙𝖘, 𝖆𝖓𝖉 𝖑𝖔𝖛𝖊!

¨Just pick one, Luffy!¨

¨But which one?¨

¨It doesn´t matter!¨

¨Hmm, can I pick two?¨

¨NO!¨

Earlier that day, an old lady told Nami that whichever path Luffy chose would always lead to another Winter Island. So with the end of the year approaching and the cold weather, you decided to play Secret Davy Treasure, a great South Blue tradition.

It consisted of the participants writing their names on a piece of paper, mixing them in a bowl - or Luffy's hat - and drawing them. Whoever’s name you picked is who you will buy or make a Secret Davy Treasure.

You should have guessed that even something that sounded so simple would be complicated in the Thousand Sunny. The crew didn´t seem to understand nor follow the rules of physics, reality, and the game.

At first, Zoro folded his paper with his name on the outside; then Brook picked himself and didn´t tell anyone. Now you were struggling with Luffy, who couldn´t pick one because A) he wanted to know what was written inside, and B) he wanted to pick more than one.

While Franky, Usopp, and Chopper yelled at him, trying to make him understand, Brook laughed at the whole situation, and the rest of you wished to die and get reborn as clams.

Sanji adjusted the blanket around your bodies and hugged you tighter, chatting until the commotion was over.

¨Will you tell me?¨ he blew some smoke, and you tilted your head to look at him.

¨Tell what?¨

¨Who you got.¨

¨What? Of course no!¨ you laughed ¨This is not how you play it!¨

¨But we are a couple, Y/N-chan!¨

¨.., and?¨ you sang the word.

¨We shouldn't keep secrets from each other!¨

A cloud of white smoke came out of your mouth when you giggled before snuggling deeper in his arms.

¨Okaay,¨ Usopp crawled closer to you, defeated and holding Luffy´s hat ¨he will be the last one.¨

Despite your captain yelling that he should be the first to pick, you were all getting tired and opted to ignore him.

¨Thanks!¨ you used the blanket to cover yourself as you unfolded it.

A chuckle left your mouth when you saw the name written, and the blonde behind you tried to peek over your shoulder. But you were faster to put the piece of paper with the name of your boyfriend inside your bra.

You turned and gave him a peck on the cheek while he pouted.

You would have one week to come up with a Davy Treasure for Sanji, and you knew exactly what to do, but some butterflies still flew in your belly, wondering if he would like it.

As a matter of fact, he loved everything you did, from sweet love to extremely salty culinary disasters. He would find perfection in every little thing done by you.

Enjoying your last days on the island of Snow Globe Pole - yeah, almost as bad as ¨Long Ring Long Land¨ - you decided to tour the city, looking for what you needed to make your gift. Or rather, to crochet your gift.

That was the easy part, for you were on a winter island, yarn and wool were pretty abundant. Every style possible of every possible color, anything that crossed your mind was available in the store. It would have been distracting if you didn´t have the colors already chosen.

But again, so much for an innocent game. So much for a bit of fun. So naive to believe that Sanji would stop asking you whom you picked.

In his defense, he had gotten calmer during the first night. But after seeing the bag you brought from the store, he became even more annoying.

Charming, loving, but still annoying.

¨It´s not Franky, right? His hands wouldn´t fit in it.¨

¨His regular-sized-robotic-mannequin hands would.¨ you looked at him with a raised eyebrow and a smirk.

You could almost see the gasp stuck in his throat and his heart skipping a beat.

After that, he kept bringing you desserts, offering massages, and doing everything in his power to bribe you. Skypiea Sanji was not the real Love Ordeal. Secret Davy Treasure Sanji was the real Love Ordeal.

¨Sanji,¨ you sighed ¨I love you, but if you don´t stop, I will be forced to throw your cigarettes in the ocean and straighten your eyebrows.¨

He grumbled ¨I love you¨ back among some other things and marched to the kitchen with flames on the top of his head. You chuckled and went back to your colorful wools.

Before you chose his gift, you thought about Sanji and the things that he liked or needed. From cooking to smoking and women.

Cooking for him would be outrageous. You wanted to give him something amazing, and you couldn't compare to him in the kitchen. At all.

Women. You were the only woman he wanted and needed, and honestly, you were the woman for the job.

Now, smoking. You would not buy or make him cigarettes, obviously. But he had this adorable and clumsy thing of always burning the tips of his mittens whenever he lit a cigarette.

Because of that, you decided to crochet him one of those fingerless gloves that come with a mitten flap so he could cover his fingers once he was done. Like that, he would be warm and natural disaster-free.

¨There is orange, Y/N-chan! You got Nami, right?!¨ you jumped and almost stabbed yourself with the hook when he yelled in your ear.

¨Oh, my sweet Davy Jones, give me strength...¨ you whispered ¨There is also purple, Sanji-kun. It could be Brook or Robin.¨

He pondered over it a little, frowned, and made his way to the door.

¨Hey!¨ he turned with sad puppy eyes ¨Is this really important to you? To know who I got?¨ he nodded.

You gestured with your head, telling him to come closer. A big and bright smile appeared on his face, and your heart beat stronger. That smile, you would punch the Red Line broken to create another All Blue for that smile.

Oh, how you love this cook.

¨Ok! Just because I am asking I´ll tell you first, ok?¨ he spoke with a lower voice but still sparkly. You smiled and nodded. ¨I got Chopper! And I bought him a new backpack with a lot of compartments for his medical stuff.¨

The way he paid attention to the tiny details made you melt. He was always taking care of others, complimenting the crew - except Zoro - and celebrating even the smallest of the successes.

He showed you the blue backpack, very similar to Chopper´s current one, but a lot stronger, prettier, and more practical. He would love it, no doubts.

¨Well,¨ you began ¨I got... Usopp.¨

You felt terrible about telling him a lie, but you couldn´t spoil your surprise.

¨Since we´re going to winter islands, I don´t want his finger to get tangled when, Uhm... he´s picking his Ketchup Stars, Green Stars, or Let´s-scare-creepy-girls-to-death Stars. I really hope he likes it.¨

If you were not paying enough attention, you would have missed Sanji´s disappointed look, which he quickly hid with a kind smile.

¨You always think about everything, Y/N-chan. He will love it.¨ he kissed your forehead and went back to the kitchen.

You waited until he closed the door to cringe ¨You are going to hell, Y/N.¨

Finally, the Secret Davy Treasure day arrived. You would exchange gifts and then have a nice dinner if Luffy didn´t make a party out of it. He definitely would.

But you were also grateful that today was the day. Since you told Sanji that you had picked Usopp, he has been acting a little upset. The other guys didn´t notice, but you did.

You would always notice. And you had an idea why.

The gift exchanging rules were pretty simple. The Secret Davy had to offer information about the person receiving the treasure, and the others had to guess.

It started with Usopp, whose Secret Davy was Franky. He gave him a bunch of super tools and some colored light bulbs for the ¨Party Nipple¨ idea.

Franky´s Secret Davy was Robin. He gave her a journal with waterproof pages he created.

Robin´s Secret Davy was you, and she presented you with a beautiful copy of a fictional adventure book since you were always reading them on the ship.

Then it was your turn. You held the gift wrapped in a shiny blue paper and began to describe your Secret Davy.

¨My Secret Davy is... slightly annoying sometimes.¨

¨It´s the stupid-eyebrow.¨ Zoro said.

¨Shut up, marimo head!¨

You continued after Nami punched them. ¨My Secret Davy always takes care of us.¨

¨It´s Chopper!¨ you shook your head.

¨Hmm... my Secret Davy is an exceptional fighter! Really strong!¨

¨It´s me!¨

¨No, Zoro! It´s me! I will become the Pirate King!¨

¨Shut up, you two!¨

¨My Secret Davy is...¨ you looked at Sanji and smiled ¨... loving and caring.¨

He looked back at you, confused. Why would you say those about Usopp? Not that he wasn´t loving and caring, but... still.

¨My Secret Davy is... the man of my dreams, the prince of my fairy tale, and the love of my life.¨

A minute or two passed while everyone waited for Sanji to say something, but he remained frozen with a perplexed expression.

¨Sanji-san, I think the treasure is yours.¨ Brook said calmy.

The cook made his way to you slowly, taking the gift from your hands and opening it gently, without tearing the wrapping.

Did he get upset because of your lie?

¨Sanji...¨ you called him, but he kept staring at the gloves.

You saw his eyes fill with water before he excused himself and exited the deck, leaving everyone staring at you.

¨I don´t... I´m gonna...¨ you pointed and left too.

When you entered your room, he was standing, back turned to you. Was he really crying, or you saw things?

¨Sanji-kun?¨

¨You remembered...¨ he turned around, still holding the mittens ¨These colors...¨

¨Yeah, they don´t really match, but...¨

¨I wanted it so much, Y/N. When I saw it, I wanted it so much.¨

He rushed in your direction and hugged you tight. He hugged you and you felt all his emotions, you felt the weight he carried in his heart. Not a bad weight, just the weight of missing someone you love.

You knew that that was the reason he was pestering you so much, the colors. You had chosen the colors that Zeff, Sanji´s mentor, wore.

The fingers were orange and purple, like his striped shirt. You added yellow details of his hair; the blue of his ascot, and the white of his apron.

As you said, they didn´t match, but apparently, Sanji didn´t care.

He would always share stories about their lives and cook recipes that Zeff taught him. Despite him always calling him old man or damn geezer, the Red Leg was his father.

¨Thank you, Y/N-chan. I loved it.¨

The sound of him sniffing made you hold him stronger.

¨I miss that damn geezer.¨

¨I´m sure he misses you too, Little Eggplant.¨

¨Oi!¨

You squeaked and laughed when he threw on the bed.

¨I´ll show you Little Eggplant!¨

Hey, Guys! SURPRISE! Here´s my first decent art? hahaha THE MITTENS!

I don´t know if the quality dropped. I´m using krita and still don´t know how to adjust the settings stuff when I´m saving a jpeg. Anyway, I hope you liked it!

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sarahjkl82-blog · 3 years ago

Text

Artistic Instinct Chapter Nine

Header thanks to the lovely @yespolkadotkitty

Summary: Marcus Pike and OC Anushka Pierce have been selected to work on a 5 eyes (Australia, Canada, NZ, the UK and US) intelligence team to track down art forgeries as a part of taking down an international white terrorism cell. Marcus is trying to escape his broken heart, Anushka is just trying to escape what the world expects of her.

Word count: 6500

Warnings: Language as always, warning of racist language (Nush talking about her mother's experiences), yearning, fluff to second base (yes, my darlings- IT IS ON!), alcohol is mentioned, food, anxiety attacks.

Pairing: Marcus Pike x reader (OC)

This comes with a MASSIVE THANK YOU to the lovely @yespolkadotkitty , who read, re-read, pointed out the constant flipping between tenses and gave me the confidence to try to write something. This is the first thing I have written since angsty poetry as a teenager. Apologies if it is shit!

People often think artists

Create with their hands

But really they create

with their hearts

So please be gentle

For we wear our vulnerability

On our sleeves

And freely give all we have

Hoping someone will fall

In love with the parts we offer

R. Evelyn

Chapter Nine

The sharp buzz of the door startles you out of your daydream. Laden with roughly the entire contents of your spice cupboard, vegetables, meat and prawns, your hands are crisscrossed with creases from where the weight of the totes has gouged at your skin. A smart-looking kindly gentleman greets you, “You must be Ms Pierce. Mr Pike has asked for you to wait here for him.”

Wow! Marcus’ place has a concierge - who did he have to blow to get a place like this?!

Throwing the bags onto one of the hotel lounge-like chairs, you slump into another as you rub soreness from your hands. A small ping tells you that the lift has arrived - you look over in the direction of the noise, a tremor of excitement rippling through you. An adorably scruffy Marcus, wearing old jeans and a t-shirt, steps out - his face utterly beaming on seeing you. “Hey! How are you doing?” he leans in to kiss your cheek twice - hang on, when did this start being a thing?

“Why didn’t you let me pick you up? You’ve carried so much over- lemme see your hands,” his brow knits on seeing the rapidly reddening welts as he takes your hands in his, brushing his thumbs gently across your palms.

“You live four roads away from me - they’re not that bad! And anyway, you can help me now- which floor do you live on?” You outwardly roll your eyes at the sweetness Marcus shows you, secretly enjoying the stroke of his fingers and the ghostly press of his lips still burning a hole in your cheek.

Marcus takes all of the bags from the chair, refusing point blank to entertain you helping him to take them upstairs - you watch as his arms twitch under the weight, enjoying the mixture of confusion and shock at your strength across his face, “you carried all of this?”

Nodding at him, you try to take a bag again, but he dangles it just out of reach, “Watch it - you do realise that I have two other brothers apart from Ads? I will think nothing of rugby tackling you to the floor and pinning you down,” you warn, enjoying the flush brought to his cheeks.

“You’ll be the death of me,” Marcus flusters as he calls the lift, handing you the smallest, lightest bag.

✪✪✪✪✪

Exiting at the top floor, you’re taken aback by the amount of light and quiet that washes throughout the building. Feeling so removed from the shadows cast from the tower blocks and the hustle and bustle of the streets below, the broad daylight offers a sense of serenity, a peace that invites itself into the soul and makes itself at home. As Marcus unlocks the door to his flat, you kick off your shoes at the entrance, “You don’t have to do that,” he offers through the keys in his mouth, holding the door open with his elbow, still refusing any help from you.

“Oh believe me, if I didn’t, my mum’s radar would go off and I would be cruising for a bruising,” you giggle, taking in the glorious spaciousness of his apartment, “I promise my feet aren’t too stinky and that I put on clean socks.”

“Whatever makes you comfortable,” Marcus’ eyes crinkle at you, “Can I get you something to drink or eat?”

“A coffee would be ace - strong and black please,” you reply, your gaze drinking in the details of his home. Books line the shelves along one wall - such a mixture of titles ranging from airport bestsellers to obscure art catalogues - the relief to see actual paper and hardbacks adorning the shelves rather than trinkets and plants when so many keep their books electronically in their pockets.

A couple of large canvases lie propped against another - long hours preventing them from being hung - their bright colours sure to bring joyful hues to quite a stark room. There are a few photo frames dotted around - mostly pictures of a moment in time rather than poses - of people you assume are friends and family from back in the States. Handing you a steaming mug, Marcus looks over your shoulder as you look at a photo of an older couple dancing and laughing at a wedding, “That’s my mamá and papá at my oldest sister’s wedding. It was such a magical day - just so much love in the air.”

“You can feel the joy radiating from them,” you offer, lowering your gaze from him to grab the frame next to the picture of his parents, “Are these your sisters or cousins? You all look very alike.”

“Yeah, my little sisters,” he grins proudly. “This one is Beth - she’s two years younger and is a paediatrician in Texas. Has two kids with her wife, Sophie. And this one is Cat - she’s doing her own thing out on the West Coast as a musician. They definitely inherited all the clever and cool genes.”

“Hah! You’re kinder to your sisters than I am to my brothers,” you grin, “They’re all total idiots but due to some weird genetic and biological insistence, I still love them.”

Taking a gulp of your coffee, you turn back towards him, “Come on you, we’d better get to work if you want a curry this evening.”

He pouts, looking more like a sulky little boy than a middle aged man. You can’t help but laugh at the sad puppy dog eyes he is conjuring at the thought of work, “Oh poppet, what’s wrong?” you teasingly mock.

“I kinda hoped you were a magician who could just magic a curry outta nowhere so we could watch films til the others arrive,” Marcus grumps shoving his hands in his pockets.

“Well, there is UberEats for that but you horrible lot put me up to this so you’re going to help,” you wag your finger at him, “But as you’re the only one here, you get the honour of being the chief taster,” you add, tapping him playfully on the nose.

With a soft huff and a furrow of the brow, Marcus guides you into the kitchen where, whilst he was making your coffee, he has helpfully already put all the fresh produce in his fridge as the sides are delightfully blank apart from the bags of spices.

“What are we making today, Chef?”

“Ok, meat dishes are a spiced yoghurt leg of lamb, a keema - don’t you give me that look, a cardamom butter chicken, and, a prawn and courgette curry,” you turn to Marcus’ fridge to find the lamb, “Needs to come to room temperature before we cook it.”

“My tummy is rumbling already,” Marcus adds, his eyes glinting excitedly as he licks along his lower lip, the skin glistening damply. You have never quite figured out whether your love of his lips is due to their fullness or the association with the kindness of his words.

“Hah- you’re not getting away without having some veggies, too, mister,” you cluck as you hand him a bag of onions and several bulbs of garlic to skin, chop and crush for the various dishes.

“Ok, Moooom,” Marcus dramatically rolls his eyes at your dictate, “I admit, I’d rather eat sugary or salty things over green stuff but I can make an exception for curried veg.”

The arch of your eyebrow virtually reaches your hairline at him teasingly calling you mom, so you reach for the towel, twist it and flick him hard on what you’d hoped would be his hip but catch him square on his arse instead.

A yelp of pain and wide eyes greet your action, “Did you just…? Oh, it is on.! You might think you’re tough from your brothers but my sisters taught me sneaky tactics.”

“Come at me, bro!” you taunt from the other side of the kitchen, putting up a boxing stance.

Brandishing the hand without the paring knife in your general direction, he answers, “Nope, gonna use the element of surprise and attack when you least expect it!”

Tutting your tongue at Marcus’ weak ass response, you grab the spices you need to prepare under the power of your pestle and mortar. With the waft of roasting cumin soaring through the air and your battle with your boss at a supposedly declared ceasefire, everything starts to feel comfortable and easy again. You could be six years old and standing on the chair next to your mum, watching like a hawk as she lovingly prepared meals for your family with an ever burgeoning belly. It was then, during those hours shared in the galley kitchen that became your time with her when normally it felt pretty split between her work as a GP and your brothers.

What the fuck… You jump out of your skin when a warm, solid wall presses you out of your nostalgic reverie, “Hah! Pinned ya! Sneaky tactics- told ya they worked,” a deep, soft voice whispers in your ear.

Your heart flutters like a bird trying to escape its rib cage with the closeness of Marcus, the heat rising through your body from your proximity to him - a visceral response to the glorious cocktail of masculine smell from his aftershave and body wash.

What do I do next?

Why can’t I bloody think straight?

Wiggling yourself around so that you face him, his face now so close that you can feel his warm breath upon your cheeks. Your eyes playfully catch the steady gaze of Marcus’ deep soulful pools. It would only take the smallest of movements to reach forwards and kiss him right on that stupidly gorgeous, plush Cupid’s bow and crease. But… what if he doesn’t want that? He’s my fucking boss - that would be a stellar move to make…

Instead of the tiny incline forwards to press your lips against his as every inch of you screams to do so, you drop to the floor and crawl out from between his legs, “Not pinned well enough it seems,” you tease haltingly as your tongue sticks in your dry throat.

As you check the browning of the cumin seeds, out of the corner of your eye you see Marcus’ head drop sadly, hearing a small sigh - his hands still upon the work surface and feet not having moved from the position he had pinned you in moments earlier.

Did he want to...? No, surely not.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that, Nush,” Marcus humbly apologises, pushing himself off the side, “I hope that I haven’t made things awkward.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” you softly say, pouring the roasted cumin into the mortar, ready to be ground, “I was the one who flicked you on your arse - I am the one who should be apologising.”

You beckon gently to Marcus, who has now taken refuge in the furthest corner of the kitchen from you - wringing his hands instead of chopping the onions, “Come over here - I want you to experience one of my most favourite smells of childhood. These are roasted cumin seeds and when you grind them, they release the most heavenly scent.”

After a few grinds, you offer the bowl towards Marcus’ face as he closes the gap between you, “I… Wow! I wouldn’t have thought it would make such a difference but it’s almost like you’ve entirely transformed it. See,” the dimple deepens in that right cheek of his, “you are a magician.”

“I love how spices - a bit like paint - can take on completely different characters depending on how you treat them. Leave the spice whole and you have this mild and fragrant taste. If you crush them, then their attitude comes back tenfold with a vengeance. Toast them, and they may as well be Clark Kent in a phone booth.”

Looking up you see Marcus gazing at you with a sweet half smile on his face - could he like me… like that?

“Sorry, you don’t need to hear me blathering on,” you fluster, waving your hand in a dismissive gesture as the heat rises through your face.

Shaking his head gently without dropping your regard, “No. No, please don’t ever stop. Your passion for things is beautiful.”

“Growing up, I didn’t realise that other people didn’t have whole cupboards filled to the brim with herbs, spices and seasonings. I mean, for all the damage the British Empire reeked, you’d have hoped that the spices would have entered more of their culture, but no! Apparently, my family was the weird one for having food with a flavour,” you shrug your shoulders at some of the ridiculous things you’d heard as a child - accusations of differences you’d never thought to be of note.

Marcus chuckles at your indignance, “It’s funny you should say that. I didn’t realise that my mamá had an accent until it was pointed out to me when I was a kid.”

Noting your slightly confused expression, Marcus explains, “She’s Argentinian- came to the States as a political refugee as she was a journalist following the disappearances during the Dirty War. Met my dad, and I came along very soon after, and the rest is history..”

You can’t help but laugh at the flush on Marcus’ cheeks as he recounts his personal history to you, “Love can’t be held back when it hits and it’s obvious that they’re still crazy about each other now from that photo.”

“Exactly, no point in wasting time when you know what you want,” Marcus grins, looking at his feet.

“My parents have a similar story. My dad is as English as they come - I mean we’re on a freaking island so there’s no true thing as being completely English. My mum is from Pakistan - Karachi - it’s in the South.”

“She came over due to the fighting between East and West Pakistan - the two countries that are now Pakistan and Bangladesh. It kept interrupting her studies to become a doctor so she came to England and restarted her degree here.”

Marcus’ brow creases in thought, “Why did she restart her degree? Could the credits not just be transferred to the college she moved to in the UK?”

“Hah- yeah. It was the seventies, during a time where all Southern Asians were P*kis - no matter where they were from on the Indian subcontinent- and thought of as dirty, lesser beings. There were constant race riots for anyone who wasn’t ethnically white or English. She would never have been taken seriously with her mediocre medical training from some Adobe hut in the middle of a jungle,” you fume, pounding the seeds into fragments. The mortar being threatened with the same fate too.

Marcus’ fingers wrap around your wrist to try and prevent your rage at the ignorance of others from causing you an injury, “I am so sorry,” he pulls you into a warm, tender hug, tucking your head under his chin, “How long before food can take care of itself so we can put a film on? I think we both need a rest.”

“Hmmm, ten minutes and then most things can simmer or be switched off ready for a reheat or proper cook this evening,” you say, leaning reluctantly out of his comforting arms to go check on the bubbling saucepans of food.

“‘K. I’ll go get things set up so you can flop for a bit,” Marcus touches you gently on your shoulder as he goes to set up the front room. You go to squeeze his hand but it’s removed from your shoulder too quickly for your response.

✪✪✪✪✪

“You ready?” Marcus calls through the wall as you turn off the heat from the final pans.

“Mhm,” you mumble in response to his question - double, triple checking that everything is off. Too many fire alarms ruining perfectly lovely meals or moments.

“What did you pick?” You ask, curling up on the other end of the sofa to Marcus, “Do you have no cushions?”

“Shit, no -I’m a guy, what can I say? - lemme grab the pillows from the bed,” Marcus jumps up, calling through from his bedroom, “Bet you have loads on your couch.”

“A fuckload, but, mainly to hide the fact the springs have gone. It’s like a precarious balancing act of comfort on there,” you surreptitiously sniff the pillow, inhaling the smell of Marcus’ shampoo, “Did you give me your pillow?”

A confused look is shot at you from the other end of the sofa, “Whaddya mean?”

“Smells of your hair,” you say as you squish it into the perfect comfy shape, “Like a mixture of lemon and eucalyptus.”

“That’s a sharp nose you’ve got. I gave you the other side though,” Marcus huffs through a chuckles he shakes his head at your somewhat strange comment, “Guess I’ve been sleeping across both sides then.”

“Best thing about sleeping alone- getting to starfish across the bed. Unless of course…”

Marcus can’t help but laugh at your awkward dig to find out whether he’d brought home the goddess from Friday’s antics, “So you wanna know if I brought home Kemi?”

“She was very beautiful. You’d have been mad not to,” you try to school your expression as best you can, keeping your eyes glued to Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly singing about true love, desperate to hide the jealousy coursing through your veins.

“Must be mad then. Didn’t even kiss her,” Marcus honestly answers whilst copying your tactic of staring at the tv, “She could see that there was someone else I liked so it would have been cruel to have done anything.”

You mull this over in silence, trying not to speak, to ask a million questions.

“Nush.”

“Mhm?”

“Can I talk to y…”

You both jump as an alarm goes off on your phone to remind you to turn the lamb down in the oven.

“Oh shit. Hold that thought,” you jump up from the sofa, heading in the direction of the kitchen with zero thought of what the man at the end of the sofa is desperately trying to tell you. Fiddling with Marcus’ ridiculously swanky oven until it looks like it is doing what you want it to do, you walk back in with two ice cold beers from his fridge.

“Raided your fridge,” you cheekily grin, holding one out to Marcus, the condensation running, down your fingers, “Hope you don’t mind!”

“Good thinking, Batman,” Marcus nods in appreciation, “Any more alarms set to scare us both?”

“Only due to go off when the film is done, so…” you yawn widely, “We’ve got a while yet.”

Marcus’ hand that was slung over the back of the sofa, lifts to stroke your shoulder, “You sleepy? C'mere, you.” With a soft tug of your t-shirt sleeve, he pulls you into his side - your willingness to sink into his broad chest very apparent. Your ear is pressed against him, his heartbeat singing a lullaby to you as his fingers stroke and caress the silken waves of your hair. You wonder at how this man - a total stranger a week ago - has seemingly knitted himself into becoming a cocoon of safety for you, his gentleness and calm offering a haven of tranquility in your otherwise cacophonous world, as the light in the room slowly fades to black.

✪✪✪✪✪

“Uh oh.”

“Hey, welcome back, sunshine!” a gentle pair of fingers stroke back the hair that had drifted into your face as you dozed.

“Sorry for falling asleep. Again,” trying to finesse your way through the heat flaming your cheeks, you offer an awkward grin towards your chuckling pillow, “Guess we’d better start getting things finished as we’ve only got a couple of hours until everyone arrives.

“Oh, don’t give me that look, Marcus! I don’t want to move either but this curry won’t finish cooking itself.”

“Spit spot, there’s work to be done,” Marcus trills as he adopts his best attempt at a British accent.

“What the fuck was that? Did you just turn into Dick Van Dyke or something?” You tease mercilessly at the appalling sound coming from those lips, choking back laughter at his mock offended face.

“C’mon, you’re right. We’d better get moving,” Marcus stands with a stretch and a creak before reaching back to tug you to your feet.

Back under the glowing lights of Marcus’ kitchen, his presence is now constantly close to yours as you glide together around the space - stirring, chopping and checking. Every time he passes, above the general aroma of cumin and coriander, the onions and garlic, you can smell the cedar and amber upon his skin- a deliciously masculine scent that only seeks to entangle your senses further.

“Here, try this,” you hold out a heaped teaspoon of mince curry to Marcus, “This is the keema - I promise that I only put in the two chillies you chopped for me, this time.”

“Mmm, that’s so good,” he says thickly between chews, stealing the spoon from you as he dives in for a second, third, fourth spoonful.

“Hahaha! Leave some for the others- and you need to try it with some raita and fried onions too,” you check through your dog-eared, yellowed and slightly sticky recipe book that your mum had handed you the day you’d left home at eighteen - a memo of all the times you had cooked them together.

“Shit, I’d better start the chicken,” going through the spices in front of you, you search for the cardamoms that would make the butter chicken sing, “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!”

Marcus’ head snaps up from the green beans he was preparing towards you, “What’s up, sweetheart?”

“I can’t find the cardamoms for the butter chicken - gah I knew I’d fuck this up!” you cry, scraping your trembling hands through your hair, eyes flashing around the room wildly as your cortisol rises, making you want to run and scream at your failure to feed your friends.

“Whoa - where’s this coming from? C’mon, look at me. Look at me, Nush,” Marcus has his hands on either side of your shoulders, squeezing them gently, “There’s enough here to feed our whole office for the week with the daals you prepared yesterday, the vegetables we’re about to make and the meats that we’ve cooked up already here. Andy is bringing all the rice and naan, Kiri is bringing beers and Dian is on gin and tonic duty. You have done more than enough and I will not allow you to get this upset over one missing ingredient especially when there is a small store downstairs that I’m sure will have it, if we cannot find it after we look for it together.”

After seeing your numb nod as an agreement, Marcus moves his hands to the side of your head to focus your gaze on him rather than the panic seeping through you. As he strokes his thumbs across your cheeks, you allow your eyes to close and your breathing to regain a normal pattern.

“I’m sorry.”

“Why are you apologising?” Marcus searches your now open eyes.

“My reactions are ridiculous. Most people tell me to stop being so stupid and that just whips the storm inside my head even more,” you whisper, “But you. You know how to slow everything down and stop the spinning.”

The corner of Marcus’ mouth twitches, “D’ya wanna know a secret?” You nod at him, “As you know, I was married before. When it ended, I totally spiralled. The world kept spinning too fast and I experienced constant anxiety, very nearly burning out of my role.

“I was lucky. My boss was understanding but made me promise to get some support. He knew of someone mental health trained within the FBI who was there for mainly hostage negotiations - not part of the true psych team but someone who could help without it turning up on your record.

“Kwame worked with me for almost a year - pretty much to the point my decree absolute came through. Our sessions were done on a track - by running with me, he was teaching me the skills I needed to control my fears. By my feet hitting the tarmac, he was grounding me. By going over running techniques, he was teaching me how to control my breathing- taking longer and deeper breaths. And running is just repetition. A mindful repetition that allows your brain to have a bit of a break.

“So when I see you start to spiral, I try to give you the same steps he taught me. Get you grounded, opposite me so you copy my breathing and hope that gets you on the right track.”

“Thank you,” you drop your head forwards, relaxing onto his chest. He feels so - safe.

“You don’t need to thank me. Well, okay maybe you do as look what I’ve just spotted,” Marcus holds the offending spice aloft.

“Oh my god, I could fucking kiss you. You have just saved the curry,” you dramatically declare, clutching the cardamom jar to your heart before placing it next to the other ingredients on the counter.

“Go on then.”

What?

His comment makes you snap your head over to catch Marcus’ tremulous gaze, his eyes darting between the floor and your lips. He takes a small step, closing the small distance between the two of you, threading his fingers between yours. Each slow movement offers an unspoken opportunity for you to step away. To tease him and move on with the day.

But why on Earth would you?

With your heart racing faster and faster, you lure him ever closer with your eyes, soft but absolute in their conviction of what was about to pass between you. A small part of you understands that when you kiss him, something will change forever. That within his lips you may find the place to call home - the aching in your stomach may cease and life could start to make sense again. The anxieties of the week washing away, the pain of your collective pasts and the hint of a brighter, happier future before you.

When he doesn’t move again, you seize the moment. Pushing up onto your socked tiptoes, you tilt your chin, inclining your face until your lips come to rest upon his in the sweetest, chastest kiss. Drawing back slightly to check that Marcus is okay with a raise of your eyebrows and widened eyes, he holds your gaze steadily, similarly stunned - a mirror of each other with racing hearts and slightly parted lips. It’s like in that moment everything around you ceases to exist as anything other than extraneous nonsense - all the noise inside your head silenced by that one touch.

A small dumbstruck smile creeps across Marcus’ lips before he lowers his head to press another gentle kiss upon you. Then another. Then another. Each press of your lips a little longer. A little deeper. Your lips part to allow his tongue entry as every single thought is quietened by the taste of him. Dropping hands for his to cradle your face and yours to thread through his hair as your bodies press together tightly.

Oh the taste of him is utterly exquisite! From where you’ve been using him as chief curry taster, there’s an element of spices with the tiniest hint of mint. And how you have missed having that beautifully solid warmth of his body next to yours. Inhaling his breaths that fall upon you, your hearts match each other’s rhythms as your lips explore each other, every sensation drawing together to create a humming ball of energy, like you are standing at the point where lightning strikes the Earth.

✪✪✪✪✪

Hands fisted tightly in each other’s clothing - both stuck in the quandary of wanting to tear the fabric from your bodies but also frightened of pushing the other too far. Finally pulling apart, you gaze upon Marcus - all lust blown pupils and dopey smiles. Your foreheads come back to rest against each other, unable to quite let go just yet, not wanting to break the spell and return to reality.

“I have wanted to kiss you since perhaps the first time I met you,” Marcus murmurs as his lips gently ghost over your cheeks, “Maybe even from seeing the photo in your file when Andy drove me here from the airport.”

“Was the person, me?” You quietly ask, finally with the confidence to finish that conversation, “The reason you didn’t kiss or sleep with the goddess?”

He drops his eyes as he gives you a small nod, “Normally, I’d have just asked you out but I was scared of fucking up. It’s been a long time since I felt a spark with anyone.

“You’ve entered my life in this whirlwind of intelligence, beauty and tenderness - I didn’t want to frighten you or make you feel uncomfortable if you didn’t reciprocate.”

A thousand thoughts flood your mind as Marcus says those words. All at once, you want to tell him how safe he makes you feel. How much now that you’ve started kissing him, you never want to stop. How the cruel critics of slumber, silence themselves when you feel his heartbeat against your cheek.

Instead you stand there, silent.

Trying to stroke out the creases you’ve created in his t-shirt as you attempt to find words to put into a logical order, you notice his face twitching when the material under your fingers makes contact with his sides, “Oh Marcus, are you ticklish?”

“Um, no,” Marcus tries to deny breezily as he takes a small, hesitant step back from you, pretending to steady himself.

Making a small movement towards him, your hands at the same level as the point of the bunched fabric - you ask, “Are you sure about that?”

“Yeah,” Marcus is now eyeing you suspiciously - desperate to kiss you again but also a little worried as to what havoc your fingers might reek.

“Then, why are you moving away from me?”

“No reason…” his usually deep voice now a little tighter and higher, “Nush… What are you about to ARGH!”

His knees crumble beneath him as you attack his sensitive sides, “Gah! Quit it, woman,” he weakly commands between wheezes and hoots of laughter.

Taking full advantage of Marcus’ prone and vulnerable position, you take the opportunity to straddle him - effectively pinning him to the floor, “This is how you pin someone.”

“I let you pin me,” Marcus corrects you with a wink.

“Oh really?” you contest, entirely unconvinced by his bravado.

“Yeah,” he says with a small wiggle, bringing his hands to the back of your head, “Cos y’see, I can flip our positions quite easily.”

Suddenly, you find yourself flat on your back in Marcus’ kitchen with zero air in your lungs to form any sensible thought other than to kiss him hard. His large hands cradle your head as he props himself gently above you on his elbows. You feel his entire body covering yours. Deliciously pressing against every single inch of you and oh how it takes every bit of the minutismal amount of self control you have to not beg him to fuck you senseless into that floor.

✪✪✪✪✪

“Shit, is that your door?”

“Fuck,” Marcus pushes himself up to kneeling between your legs, “Can we pretend we’re not in?”

The harsh realisation of an evening with your colleagues, albeit lovely people, sinks in to you both.

“Nope,” you groan, popping the p with a deflated gusto, “Hang on, don’t buzz them up until I’ve tucked my boobs back into my bra.”

“I dunno, makes for easier access,” Marcus lopsidedly grins with a wink as he heads for the door.

“You certainly didn’t seem to make hard work of it earlier,” you mumble at him, before you affix a smile to your face, “Hey! How are you all doing?”

A sea of never ending hugs envelopes and separates you from Marcus as everyone piles into his apartment. The stupid grin still firmly in place on your face since you’d first kissed, you find that every time you look over at him, he’s gazing right back, mirroring that lovestruck smile.

“Oh my god, it all smells so amazing,” Dian waxes lyrical, squeezing you tightly as she inhales a lungful of exotically scented air, “What’ve we got?”

You take her by the hand into the kitchen to show all the different things you had bubbling away. Andy ducks into the kitchen behind you, laden with bags filled with pilau rice, naan and chapatis, and a beautiful small bunch of spring flowers in his other hand - tiny tête-à-tête daffodils with multiple heads along each stalk, brilliant yellow and red tulips standing like soldiers and the otherworldly looking stems of hyacinth, wickedly scenting the air under your nose as he thrusts them under there.

“Hey pretty girl, here’s all the bits you asked for. You deserve a much bigger bunch for what I’ve roped you into but I know you love the early blooms,” he offers by way of apology, sticking a kiss to the side of your forehead, “Smells fucking good though as ever. Hope you don’t mind but I’ve brought a box to take some home for Greg - he was a jealous arse this evening so I suppose I should share.”

“You know the way I cook, enough for several small armies,” you wonkily grin at him, truly thankful for the part he’d had to play, “‘Fraid there’s no easy way to say this and you will have to be the one to break it to Greg, but there’s no butter chicken tonight.”

“You’d better have a damn good excuse for this slatternly behaviour, madam,” Andy gives you a serious side eye for this infraction.

“Well…”

“Initially Nush couldn’t find the cardamoms but then we ran out of time. Plenty of food here, though,” Marcus answers for you, his hand gently holding your hip as he reaches around you to grab a couple of beers from the fridge.

You see Andy catch Marcus’ hand lightly stroking your side as he walks back to Kiritopa, but are entirely grateful when his expression and mouth say nothing. The light chatter in the kitchen, whilst Dian dips a teaspoon into all the pots, is interrupted by a small knock at the door. Sticking your head around the kitchen door, you spot Marcus opening the door to a nervous-looking Harper. Andy sidles past you, to pull her into the main room, rather than her previous position of standing on the doorstep, utterly awkward and obviously feeling quite out of place.

“Hi, I hope you don’t mind me coming. I know I wasn’t there Friday but I don’t really do large crowds and drinking.”

You walk over to her amidst the chorus of “not to worry”s and “lovely to see you”s, “Fancy something to drink now? Got plenty of soft options and I think I’ll stick alongside you as I’ve got to make sure I don’t burn stuff.”

“Including yourself, this time,” Harper retorts quickly with a small smile and a raise of her eyebrows.

“Hah, chance’d be a fine thing,” Andy laughs, slapping your shoulder before turning back to clink bottles and talk with Kiri and Marcus.

✪✪✪✪✪

Through the full length doors of Marcus’ balcony, evening spring sunshine streams through, bathing the group of your co-workers in a gentle, diffused light that flows around the room coating you in a golden glow. You all eat your fill and then some, with full tummies and tired eyes - the kitchen still full of half eaten dishes.

“Can we make this a weekly thing?” Kiritopa asks through a mouthful of food, hopefully.

“Not unless we take it in turns or get a take away - I don’t have the physical or emotional energy to make this level of curry every weekend,” you pointedly remark, looking up from your coke to meet Marcus’ eyes.

You’ve spent the evening barely speaking to each other for fear of alerting the others but surreptitiously brushing past so that you can sneak touches. Tender hidden strokes that feel like the kindest stitches on hidden, gaping wounds.

Marcus stands up to help usher the evening to an end and get you to himself again, “I have some boxes for y’all to take food home as otherwise, I’ll be eating this for weeks - delicious as it is.”

Everyone thankfully takes their boss’ hint and head into the kitchen to grab platefuls to reheat after long days. Slowly saying their goodbyes, your friends drift off in the direction of their homes as you throw yourself in an exhausted heap of bones on his sofa. Two strong hands grip you under your arms, to drape your torso across his lap.

“Hey tired girl,” you slightly open your eyes to spy a smiling Marcus gazing down at you. His fingers draw lazy patterns over the sensitive skin of your neck.

“I’d like to take you on a proper date this week. Wanna do this properly. Make a bit of a fuss.”

“Yeah? Not just pin me down and ravish me on the kitchen floor?” you grin widely at him.

“Well, I’d hardly call that a ravishing…” your eyes widen, eyebrows raising at Marcus’ comment, excitement pooling in your tummy, “Yeah, I saw there’s an Argentinian restaurant in Blackheath so how about steak, Malbec and homemade ice cream before I bring you back to either yours, or mine, for another, even better ravishing?”

“That sounds amazing, although with the amount of food in my belly, I may never have to eat again,” you give your stomach a rub, “But the ravishing…”

Hauling you up to sitting across his lap, you protest loudly, “I am going to crush your legs.”

“Stop making ridiculous comments and c’mere,” Marcus demands as he gently turns your head towards him, stealing a delicate kiss from you.

“I...should… - argh! Stop kissing me for a second,” you beg halfheartedly, “I should go home.”

“Stay.”

“Please stay,” Marcus desperately entreats you, “I’m not expecting anything but I’d love it if you stayed. I know you’ve got nothing here but give me two minutes and I can have a spare toothbrush for you. I’ll drop you home early tomorrow morning so you can grab some clothes and then we can go into work together?”

It feels as though the wind is knocked out of your lungs with the depth of Marcus’ need to be around you.

How does he do it?

“There’s no games with you, are there?” you twist in Marcus’ lap so that you now straddle his thighs, placing your hands on either side of his ridiculously handsome face.

“No,” he shakes head slowly, all the while holding eye contact with you, “I’m too old and I know what I want.”

“What’s that?”

Stroking his hands up and down your sides as he nuzzles your neck, he clearly and confidently declares,

“You.”

Tag list of glory (as ever, please ask to be put on or dropped from the list): @astroboots @silverwolf319@sirowsky @leonieb @disgruntledspacedad @bison-writes @the-ginger-hedge-witch @danniburgh @sugarontherims @green-socks @tardisfangurl @absurdthirst @pedropascalito-deactivated20210 @mouthymandalorian @mrsparknuts @zukoyonce @agirllovespancakes @yespolkadotkitty @lunaserenade @theravenreads @lv7867 @songsformonkeys

#pedro pascal #josé pedro balmaceda pascal #jose pedro balmaceda pascal #pedro pascal characters #pedro pascal fanfiction #pedro pascal#ppascaledit #pedro pascal smut #pedro pascal x reader #marcus pike #marcus pike x reader #the mentalist #the mentalist fanfic #marcus pike x oc #marcus pike x oc reader

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lesbiansforboromir · 4 years ago

Note

If a person wanted to write Boromir fic, do you have any tips on how to capture the Tolkieny tone in writing/best scenes to re-read for characterization?

LET ME SEE if I can’t compile a nice guide for you;

First thing’s first! Boromir does not include his own feelings into his statements unless it’s utterly against his will, such as the ring-controlled scene. In fact his discussion with Frodo is the first and last time he expresses his emotions verbally at all and even then it seems to be squeezed out of him in the midst of his ranting ‘how it ANGERS me’ like he is almost shocked at how angry he actually is in that moment, so much so that he can’t hold it back like normal.

‘I am’ statements in general don’t come often either. He doesn’t use ‘I’ at all if he can help it. If he is describing the war or some conflicts or battles, he uses ‘us’ or ‘we’ ‘Some said that it could be seen, like a great black horseman, a dark shadow under the moon. Wherever he came a madness filled our foes, but fear fell on our boldest, so that horse and man gave way and fled. Only a remnant of our eastern force came back, destroying the last bridge that still stood amid the ruins of Osgiliath. 'I was in the company that held the bridge, until it was cast down behind us. Four only were saved by swimming: my brother and myself and two others.’ Here he mentions himself only as an explanation for the circumstances, and goes quickly back to talking as a collective. (This is the first and last time he mentions Faramir too, and never by name)

The times when Boromir uses ‘I’ statements most is for defining his own actions and intent or when he is offering advice. 'I have let my horn cry at setting forth, and though thereafter we may walk in the shadows, I will not go forth as a thief in the night.' He is clear to himself and others about what he will and won’t accept. 'I will add a word of advice, if I may,' said Boromir. 'I was born under the shadow of the White Mountains and know something of journeys in the high places. We shall meet bitter cold, if no worse, before we come down on the other side. It will not help us to keep so secret that we are frozen to death. When we leave here, where there are still a few trees and bushes, each of us should carry a faggot of wood, as large as he can bear.' Note here he is also polite but in a confident manner. ‘If I may’ is added to acknowledge that he is not the leader of the company, but he is not shy with offering his advice and assuming it useful.

When he’s in more familiar and less strict circumstances, and actually sometimes even when he isn’t, Boromir has what I would call a... hint of sarcasm in his tone at all times. He’s always got a little sardonic wit with him, `Let those call it the wind who will; there are fell voices on the air; and these stones are aimed at us.' See? It’s not... OVERT but it’s definitely a little long suffering/etc. Boromir... talks like an old man I guess is my point. 'What do you say to fire?' asked Boromir suddenly. 'The choice seems near now between fire and death, Gandalf. Doubtless we shall be hidden from all unfriendly eyes when the snow has covered us, but that will not help us.' ESPECIALLY when he’s talking to Gandalf, there’s just a bit of dark humour and ‘cheek’. `I do not know which to hope,' said Boromir grimly: `that Gandalf will find what he seeks, or that coming to the cliff we shall find the gates lost for ever. All choices seem ill, and to be caught between wolves and the wall the likeliest chance. Lead on!' jhadsjd BITCHY... but very funny and he’s right. And here also, ‘wolves and the wall’, he tends towards almost... poetic isn’t quite the word but he likes sayings and flowing dialogue.

Continuing on from that point, Boromir is also generally... not WARM but he’s got a way of speaking that is comfortable and confident in comradery. Especially with Gimli, actually, he often makes these lighter sighed statements that have a lick of humour to them. Again, it’s never particularly overt, more of a constant underlying note in his wording, even in the latter parts of the fellowship. `Ah, it is as I said,' growled Gimli. 'It was no ordinary storm. It is the ill will of Caradhras. He does not love Elves and Dwarves, and that drift was laid to cut off our escape.' 'But happily your Caradhras has forgotten that you have Men with you,' said Boromir, who came up at that moment. `And doughty Men too, if I may say it; though lesser men with spades might have served you better.’ This is one of my favourite lines of his it’s just like... confident, not over proud, you can hear him grinning and the leetle wry tone he’s speaking in. Even here! In like the very last days of his life, he still has this quality!

We might labour far upstream and yet miss it in the fog. I fear we must leave the River now, and make for the portage-way as best we can from here.' `That would not be easy, even if we were all Men,' said Boromir. `Yet such as we are we will try it,' said Aragorn. 'Aye, we will,' said Gimli. `The legs of Men will lag on a rough road, while a Dwarf goes on, be the burden twice his own weight, Master Boromir! ' (later) 'Well, here we are, and here we must pass another night,' said Boromir. `We need sleep, and even if Aragorn had a mind to pass the Gates of Argonath by night, we are all too tired-except, no doubt, our sturdy dwarf.' Gimli made no reply: he was nodding as he sat.

AND ANOTHER THING. Whilst Boromir CAN be an orator and give long speeches, he tends towards economy of speech. This is especially noticeable, again, between him and Gandalf. Gandalf will go on for three paragraphs about something, patronising him, explaining a lot of unnecessary stuff to sound clever. And then Boromir will just answer with; `We do not know what he expects,' said Boromir. `He may watch all roads, likely and unlikely. In that case to enter Moria would be to walk into a trap, hardly better than knocking at the gates of the Dark Tower itself. The name of Moria is black.' And that’s it! AND HE’S FFUCKIN RIGHT GGSHAHGS

So you’re usually going to be trying to narrow down his speech to it’s bare essentials in order to get the point across and nothing more. Stream lined, impersonal, confident and clear are the hallmarks of Boromir’s speech patterns. NO. SHOUTING. Unless to be heard or in a brief flash of shock, immediately restrained afterwards. Actually if Boromir has any kind of outburst, he tends to walk away from whatever situation caused it rather than allow anything to escalate. Boromir’s verbal tone is almost always neutral, wry or reassuring/comfortable. From experience, I can tell you this is... GRUELLING to write. You want so desperately for him to say what he’s thinking and feeling, what’s important to him, but he’s utterly incapable unless briefly possessed by evil. Not even when he’s literally dying will this change, though that might be because it was Aragorn at his deathside. Which brings me onto my final point.

We actually have no idea how Boromir might interact with people he actually likes and is friends with, let alone his family. I’m inclined to believe that warm comradery element just becomes more overt but little else changes. But you’re entirely at liberty to decide for yourself. Certainly though it is different from how he behaves throughout the fellowship. We never really meet Boromir... is a thought I can hardly bare so we’re STOPPING now.

#boromir #chats #erran vs tolkien #lotr #tolkien #rescue-ram #asks

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obeymeshallwedate-latinplayer · 4 years ago

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Growling back (Seven brothers)

Hello there!! So I was reading @midnight-dome headcanon, this human writes so so so beautiful that inspired me to create this HC, Midnight-dome, if you are reading this, as in my home town will be saying “Gracias por tanto perdón por tan poco.” AKA: Thank you for so much, sorry for so little And Notice me senpai!

This HC, it´s actually not only for a Latin!Mc but for all Mc´s in the world, plus is GN!MC.

Lucifer:

He is mad, it´s more than just being mad, he is furious. What were you thinking?! Staying with Mammon and actually following him was the stupidest idea you had in your exchange year.

He was looking straight to your eyes, clearly in demon form, his fangs make Mammon shiver and run away, while you little human stared right back at his red eyes, that made him angrier.

And suddenly he growls, the sound was divided in two, in one hand it was marvelous watching closely that mouth and those fangs changed your perspective about him, it was a lifetime experience.

In the other hand, you started to get angrier, sure you might or might not have being doing some gambling with Mammon. B U T He does not have the right to growl at you. And if he wants to communicate with growling’s you will answer back.

When you do the growling, something pops inside him. Pray that the kneeling doesn´t long that much.

Mammon:

§ MC was eating at RAD´S cafeteria, of course surrounded by other demons that were they´re pals, it was a nice lunch break, until MC forgot something.

§ Today they needed to eat with Mammon, the brothers developed a weird schedule for MC, on Mondays they shall ALWAYS take a break lunch with Lucifer, Tuesday Mammon, and so it continued for the whole week, seven days for the seven brothers. And today… today´s day was Tuesday.

§ Mammon entered into the cafeteria blowing smoke out his nose, He was the first for MC Which words does they do not understand?! He was angry, as soon as he enter he reached the table were MC, was sitting.

§ He became such a drama king, until he growled at them. Something was odd about it, no matter how cruel his brothers were with him, he would calm down himself and just laugh about it, but when it was the MC, he loses his mind as quickly as a thunder.

§ MC was petrified, but they were an independent human being, so N O they will not allow anyone to be disrespectful with them, so they growled back at the demon. Mammon was impressed, you looked fearless, stronger, even thought they didn´t have fangs, Mammon needed to understand, they were not some easy human beings. They will fight for a place in the Devildom.

Levi :

· It was gamming night, yep The MC and Levi have a gamming night just for the two of them. The game? Devil cart. Of course, the team up games were too easy for them, it was like a nice walk in the park, even if Levi does not like to go out.

· So, they decided that night was going to be different, it was going to one vs one, while screaming and buffing the night became morning and Levi couldn´t win against the human next to him.

· The most common idea in his mind right now? “Mc was cheating” even though they weren´t cheating Levi couldn´t believe that some normie actually beat his ass in devil cart.

· He confront them, Mc was confused when he transformed into his demon form and hiss/growled at them. And of course they growled back.

· Levi was on shock, after seeing the eyes of Mc, he came back into his normal being, and a new door has been unlocked.

Satan:

· Both were reading in his room, it was part of a normal day, until… Mc spoiled the end of the book.

· It was subtle, or at least that was Mc thought, suddenly the atmosphere of the room felt heavy, and a strong aura was making them quite sick.

· Satan was in a full demon form, and he glance at them, like a predator ready to kill his small prey, that was an interesting moment. Maybe if he wasn´t to busy trying to murder them he might end faster his book.

· And like a mind reader, Satan just growled at them, his fangs were big enough to bite their neck and not letting go. They were like a cat fang. Even if they were cute, they were a deadly weapon.

· When Mc, growled back, the room instantly became so quiet… That means danger, so Mc leaved the room as fast as they could. Satan did not spoke to them for the whole week.

Asmo.

· If they think Asmo is easy to have a growl from, then they´re so wrong. Asmodeus actually cares so much about his throat that he will never (or at least that´s what he says) growl at anyone.

· But Mc will growl at him. He stick to Mc so much that sometimes they wish a little of space, just a tinny amount of that. One day they were at their limit and growled at Asmo.

· “You do not need to be rude.” Aka: he actually liked that, so do it again.

· New kink now open for Asmo, he will make anything in his hands to make them growled again. They do not like to be hug? He will do it. Just don´t dare to bite him. Or he will get outrageous

· “Mc… Roar.” Yep, he found the meme, that´s the only way you will listen to him growl, and in savage sex… but that´s a topic for a different conversation. ·

Beel.

· Both of them were eating at Mc´s room, of course Beel took half of the food inside the freezer just to eat with the Mc. He asked nicely if they would want something, and they said “No, help yourself better”. In an common mind that would be all of the actions, but Mc ain´t common, they are quite a weird mind.

· So they might have touched Beel´s favorite dish. It was so beautiful and looking at Beel eating just means that the food was good, and they wanted just a little piece of that.

· Beel took their hand, both of them looked at each other, face to face and a growled came from the 6th old, even if he wasn´t in his demon form, his fangs where huge, no doubt why he eats so fast, those fangs will tear apart any type of meat, veggies or bones.

· Being growled back was new for Beel, he always growled at his brothers (except Belphie of course) and not even Lucifer bother himself to growl back, so Why would a little human do that? After a few minutes of processing the things out. He just gave a piece of the food to Mc.

· He needed to think at night with the fridge about being growled back and why he liked it so much.

Belphie.

· He growls while he is sleeping, which makes this so much fun for Mc, once a week they stay at the attic and waits until Belphie is asleep so they can start growling at each other.

· The brothers are enjoying the communication their younger brother and the human have. It´s like to watch a tennis match, and it´s hilarious.

· Mammon, Levi and Asmo will record the interaction and maybe use it like a black mail for the youngest. Once Belphie wakes up no soul actually talks about what happened while he was taking a nap, not even Beel, he thinks that it´s so cute to have his two favorite persons of all times communicating throw some growling’s.

· When Belphie finds out he´s mad, how come he didn´t knew about it? That´s why he dreams about a cat once in a week? Mc… thank you, those are the most spectacular dreams he has in all the week.

· JK, prepare to die human, or at least prepare to lost Belphie in the house while he takes a nap.

#obeyme #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #obey me headcanons #obeyme satan #obeymeasmo #Obey me beelzebub #obey me belphegor

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elizabethrobertajones · 4 years ago

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Did Bobo really create the Wayward Sisters? If so, why weren't Jack and especially Cas included in that episode? That's my biggest issue with that pilot honestly, I mean, the fact that the show abandoned Claire and Cas' bond after season 10 and gave that storyline to Salmondean. Her bond with Cas is more interesting because of their connection to the Novaks. I also think that Claire and Jack would've made a more engaging dynamic and spin off together, I think they're strong characters & actors

Hi there!

Bobo isn’t the “creator” of Wayward so much as it can even have one, as it was a very organic idea, which even involved a healthy amount of fandom input. The original campaign in season 10 was for Wayward Daughters, and the idea picked up so much steam the altered title for, I guess, a mix of copyright and thematic relevance was the Sisters one. I’d say 10x08 was the real genesis of it as something that could be really solid. Once Kim and Briana were put together the chemistry and star power they could have had together was really meteoric as far as our small SPN world was concerned. Phil Sgriccia directed 9x13 and wrote 10x08 and was more of the parent of Wayward than any specific writer in that sense. Jody and Claire were pretty much common property of the show by that point. Claire was really introduced again in relation to plotlines and questions about Cas and less to do with them really going out of their way to re-launch her. I think they’d have been much cornier about it from the start and while YA protagonist diary writing her way through the end of Wayward Sisters was cute, it’s the sort of cutesy that really has to be earned. If she STARTED that way, like maybe me and 3 friends would be stanning her and everyone else would be revolted :P

(I am a YA fantasy novel author, but I do think everyone should make room in their hearts for this level of cheese)

In any case, Bobo just threw his hat into an already crowded ring with Alex, but obviously loving the characters and having his own personal wayward child to contribute did help elevate him to the prospective showrunner seat, but also all the other writers who’d written these characters except Dabb had left at that point. If Bobo was going to shepherd them through to their new show, he’d be the legacy writer, even though he was a new baby writer in the season Donna was introduced... Attrition aside, he did genuinely write them very well, loved their stories and was great with writing Jody when he could get her, so he would also have been a good choice even if all the others were left still...

But anyway. Season 10′s subplot for Cas was about Claire and learning some stuff about himself along the way, but she was used very much for his personal development and for Dean as well, being a mini Dean herself in a season where he had lost a lot of his sense of self. It’s a total accident of scheduling but Angel Heart (10x20) being the last episode before 10x22 is a nice touch in that regard. And while Cas tried really hard with Claire and awoke his inner Dad side so that he’d be more prepared for fatherhood next time, it was pretty insurmountable between them to have anything more than a bittersweet relationship where the best he could do was make up with her and see her somewhere safe. The fact of him looking like her actual dead father is horrendous the more you think about it and while she managed to see him for who he was instead of a horrible monster, that’s more than enough trauma to inflict on an already traumatised girl for the sake of helping Cas’s manpain and tidying up the sticky question of Jimmy and Cas’s right to the vessel.

Angel Heart very specifically ends with TFW mailing Claire to Jody because they know she’s already good with Alex in a genuine way and can handle these sort of issues and has done it before. And also because she can be a guardian who will not constantly remind Claire that her father is dead but something is walking around wearing a perfect reconstruction of his face. Carver era did a few things here and there with bodily autonomy and the problem of angel and demon vessels, but it was also really hit and miss. They’d get random waves of feeling guilty about it but then by necessity go back to stabbing angels in their still-living vessels an episode later. Claire was a way to address at the very least that whatever Cas was being put through was only a punishment on Cas and not on Jimmy as well, which is probably why we got such sappy Heaven scenes. We NEEDED to be shown he was in Heaven and largely okay with what was going on so that the show could justify using Cas at all as a character without breaking the code of ethics they tried to make their own characters adhere to. Aside from that it also gave Cas a side plot for when he wasn’t needed in the main plot, and any emotional connection to anything that wasn’t Sam and Dean.

Anyway 10x20 caused this huge fandom high which was followed by one of the lowest lows of the fandom immediately after, and both centred on female characters (in fact, now we know, 2 lesbians even! Though I’d wonder if, The Gay Agenda aside, Bobo spite-wrote that specifically because of the roots of Wayward) and I think that galvanised the whole movement of fans and hopefully some self-reflection in the show. They DID start making an effort in season 11, which shows some of the early signs of better inclusion but also backtracking or edging nervously away from the more intense Carver era stuff. Not just because Dean didn’t have the Mark any more but in general it was like someone had opened a window and let in some fresh air... Even before Carver bailed somewhere around the midseason to go do a different show and Dabb started to step up.

All this to say that the Wayward stuff was always about the female characters and making up for the past sins of the show. It’s even a riff on the “wayward son” line which obviously centres around male protagonists and their journey. Claire stumbled into being a part of it in the lucky way of being in the right place and time, but the journey had already started even in the season 10 momentum with earlier work and it was that which suddenly made the prospect that Jody had two young women living with her now seem like a starter for the next generation of the show as it was a mirrored format to season 1 in a way, if you took Alex and Claire as the new Sam and Dean. It was exciting but people flipped out after Angel Heart because stuff had been bubbling since season 9 and earlier in season 10, so this was just pouring more candy into an already visibly full bowl of potential tasty gems. It made a possibility seem real that hadn’t before because we already had Kim bitterly complaining that the CW refused to hear the case for a Jody spin off because she was too old. The next best thing was a Jody spin off where she was the Gandalf to some CW age appropriate characters.

(the CW is and always has been garbage)

Anyway in season 13 Jack was introduced as a Claire 2.0 but as a male character with staying power for that reason, but he was filling the space she left for Cas. He couldn’t be a father to her and neither really wanted that set up anyway. But thematically it had created the possibility of Dadstiel and the space he had in his heart for that. Since the show was in its waning years they would be looking for endgame and handing Cas an easy win with a son he could unconditionally love who would love him back unconditionally absolutely filled that gap. It was a non SamnDean thing that Cas could have for himself outside of whatever happened with them. Not sure the memo came back that he was supposed to have mORE than that but oh well it’s not real if you don’t watch it :))) But yeah Jack was always going to be linked to Cas’s endgame, he wasn’t a free-floating character such as Jody who could go where she wanted and do as she pleased. He was main story relevant from start to finish and tied inexorably to another main character’s fate. Because the show wouldn’t do that with its female characters they could be bundled into spin offs but in practical terms Jack was both never what the Wayward as envisioned by fans or writers was about, nor would he have been free to go.

Since it would have been about centering the stories of people overlooked by the main story, Claire a case in point that she had her life ruined in season 4 and it was a footnote until season ten, and then metaphorically more the concept of having queer and non-white characters in the mix of main characters, it would have represented a future of the story where the main show was unable to tread. Probably because of the CW. Also inherent biases in the writers. Bad cocktail. Jack is both too white and too male to fit the brief to ever leave SPN, and not only that but he is so as a precise mirror to the main white male characters, being passably any one of their sons if you squint, and meant to be instantly instinctively read as such... he was one of the safest bets of representing the show as the network wanted to imagine its target demographic.

So I really don’t think that Jack has any place being in a spin off of the show unless you want more of the same. They tried to give us something different and the CW didn’t like it because it wasn’t more of the same. Ironically a Jack spin off, with or without Claire, would have more chance of being greenlit and more chance of success. But the spin off they put their heart behind was Wayward Sisters as it was. And I think it was absolutely correct that never mind leaving Jack out of it after his work was done in the lead up episode to help set the table, but honestly they could have cut all the middle scenes of Sam and Dean wandering in the woods and gained precious seconds with the girls and still had a functioning story with those guys. It was like some cowardly missive was sent that the show couldn’t actually go more than 10 minutes without showing a flesh and blood Winchester or the whole thing would spontaneously sizzle out of syndication and the money tree would wither on the spot. And in the mean time, we could have been having Banter with the girls. Or Claire and Kaia holding hands some more. The good stuff :P

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westerhos · 4 years ago

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Our Story: Chapter One

Life has been running a mile a minute and I feel like it’s been a century since I’ve contributed to ~Outlander fandom/fic discourse~. So! To get back into the swing of things, I’m going to re-post an old AU of mine: Our Story (shout out to @gotham-ruaidh for giving me the courage).

I’ve chosen this one because A) I’m proud of it; it’s the only multi-chapter fic I’ve ever finished, but also B) it’s basically a timeline of my first year in NYC, which will (maybe?) make for some interesting commentary. I’ll post a chapter every other day and include my self-indulgent author notes at the bottom (songs, anecdotes, whatever dumb shit I come up with).

Yes, you can read the entire fic on Ao3 . . . but what’s the fun in that? ;)

Chapter 1

[December 24th, 1989]

It is the beginning of their story, the first time Jamie sees her. The dividing line between 'what was' and 'what would be.' The setting is a Christmas party: an Edinburgh flat, roaring on the cusp of a new decade. Champagne bubbles float in flutes and greetings.

The players are just two university students, dancing across a stage of shaggy green carpet. Garlands of tinsel trip their feet.

And the opening scene? Well. It goes something like this:

She is wearing a holiday sweater, a confection of silver bells and sequined penguins. It is the hard-won earnings of an hour’s wade through mothballs, she says, of a knee-deep dive in a charity shop bargain bin. All of this she relays to Jamie with a smirk, a precocious, all-knowing smile that he will come to know so well.

The lights dim, and her eyes flicker. Lit coals in the flat’s half-dark. She smells of fresh rain, of flowers just beginning to open, and the scent forms a sweet, perceptible weight in the air. It settles on him, around him, when she leans forward, straining to hear his stuttered—

“Hello,” Jamie says, or tries to. He forgets his vowels and it comes as, “Hlllll?”

“Sorry, what was that?”

Claire starts when his hand takes hers, crunches it firmly inside his palm. For Claire, this moment will never lose its clarity, and in the years that follow she will argue that this is where their story begins: nestled in the slight curl of Jamie’s lips; his voice, as smooth as the whisky he offers to pour her; another ugly sweater, this one boasting a lager-stained Santa and a hem of unraveling wool. The red string hangs there for her to tug and close the gulf between them, and she does. Twenty one (him) and twenty two (her) years of strangerhood reduced to nothing—and then, so suddenly, transformed into knowing.

They make small talk in the corner, mentioning the weather (“seasonably cold”) and her biology exam (“after break”). Eventually Claire asks, “Do you know anyone here?”, and bracketed inside this question is her secret hope that he does not. She wants to believe that Jamie is on her side, that it is only the two of them (it has only ever been the two of them) against the world. She is so used to feeling alone in crowds—but here! Oh, but here in the rainbow glow of tree lights, she feels a part of Something. She holds onto it, wishing her hand was as big as his so that his curling lips and his whisky voice would never seep through her fingers.

“Dinna ken anyone,” Jamie confirms, “though I’m not sure that’s a bad thing.”

He inclines his head towards the mass of bodies, all gyrating in a singular, chaotic wave. Music plays in the background, oppressive and electronic, as a third year belts Bowie between tokes. Jamie lets it fade away, forgets it all—the noise, how to blink, how to breathe. Forgets everything except her.

Claire wrinkles her nose.

“The problem with these people is that they think they’re interesting.” She is yelling into his ear but even so, it seems strangely intimate. Every word exchanged is a secret between them, one they tuck inside their pockets, will place under their pillows when they lay their heads to sleep. “But they aren’t. Not even remotely!”

“Weel, fortunately you’ve met me now.”

“Mmm. But are you truly interesting or only remotely?”

“That’s for you to decide, lass. You being the expert on such things.”

Claire grins at the floor. “You haven’t even told me your name, y’know.”

“James Fraser,” he says, all too quickly, and he’s unreasonably embarrassed. James, he thinks. How many ‘James’ were in this very room, wearing equally hideous and soiled sweaters? How many ‘James’ had she met in Scotland? Would she even remember him, one of 337 (to be precise), after this night? (She would, of course. During her biology exam, she will think of James Fraser and leave fifteen questions blank. She will get a C—a grade as average as his name.)

“But you can call me Jamie,” he adds over the roar.

“I’m Claire Beauchamp. Just plain Claire Beauchamp!”

And Jamie laughs—a beautiful laugh, the best laugh, a laugh Claire will spend the rest of her life wanting to hear (she will have to work harder on certain days).

“If I call ye anything, it’ll be ‘Sassenach’. Whereabouts in England are ye from?”

And Claire smiles—a beautiful smile, the best smile, a smile Jamie will spend the rest of his life trying to earn (finding success and failure in turns).

“Oxford by birth,” Claire says. “But from nowhere, really.”

She pauses, hearing the third-year shout, “Bowie, man! Greatest artist of all time!” and swears the kid is wrong. It’s God who was the greatest artist, and this six-foot deity with his lager-stained knit was his chef d’ouevre.

“Do you want to make this night interesting, Jamie?”

“Remotely interesting?”

“More than remotely.”

“That depends. What d’ye have in mind?”

Claire reaches for his hand, and he gives it to her. Jamie squeezes; she squeezes back. She leads him through the throng. He follows, licking his lips and at her heels.

(Who knew it could ever be this easy? Falling in love.)

Note: I started this fic with a variation of the last line (“Who knew how easy it was to fall in love?”) and worked my way backwards. I only had a vague idea of what I wanted to write: a cross between Lauren Groff’s Fates and Furies, David Nicholls’ One Day, and the movie Blue Jay. Ah, ambition! I ultimately veered away from the last one, but leaned very heavily on Fates and Furies (more on that later) and stuck to One Day’s idea of tracking a relationship over the course of multiple decades. I thought I could do this in a couple of chapters, but after I wrote this opener—in the middle of the night; anxious as fuck because I was a one week away from moving to New York (also more on that later)—I chucked my original five-chapter outline. Still had no idea where I was going with it though.

In retrospect, I like this chapter as a whole, although I realize Jamie/Claire sound like pretentious snobs (the result of my Fates and Furies obsession!) and wish I carried the red string image throughout the rest of the story.

#outlander #claire fraser #claire beauchamp #jamie fraser #myfic

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krreader · 5 years ago

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BTS scenario → them cheating with your best friend.

pairing: bts x reader fandom: bts warnings: cheating ; language genre: angst word count: 1.8k+

a/n: so, I contemplated a long time on how I wanted to do this. part of me wanted to go all in and re-write the entire idea so that your best friend wouldn’t cheat, but then I ended up settling for different scenarios with each member that revolve around the topic of cheating with your best friend, because I know, technically these things COULD happen. So I hope you like what it ended up turning into love!!!

kim seokjin

How could she have been so fake? How could she have told you all those things in the past that you’d surely marry Seokjin and that it was obvious that you two were destined to be together and yet do this to you?

And how could he, the one you trusted the most, how could he betray you like this, take out your heart and stomp on it like it was nothing? Like you were nothing?

There were so many thoughts rushing through your brain the moment you set foot in his bedroom and saw what was going on that it was hard to pinpoint one exact emotion.

Anger, sadness, confusion, betrayal..

..it all swirled around in your head.

At least until Jin’s hands touched your arms.

And then all of a sudden it was gone and you snapped out of it, immediately pushing him away from you.

“(Y/N)..-“

But you didn’t say a word.

You just turned around, walked out of the apartment and out of his life. All calls from him and her were left unanswered, all voice messages were deleted and all text messages ended up never going through because you blocked them.

It’s hard, seeing something like this. But what was even harder were the years that followed.

The years of you never trusting anyone again because of what they’ve done to you.

min yoongi

Yoongi had been acting weird for a while now, but whenever you’d ask him about it, he’d just brush it off.

You thought maybe he had a lot to deal with at work, but usually he told you about that. Same goes for when he was having an argument with another member, he always came to you to talk about it.

It was as if he reverted back to his old self when you first started dating and he wasn’t sure just how much of himself and his thoughts, fears and wishes he could share with you. It took years for him to fully open up to you.. which is what made this even more frustrating.

“Okay, that’s it,” you said one night when he just silently got into bed and pulled the blanket over his body to go to sleep, “Whatever your problem is, tell me now. I’m tired of this, Yoongi.”

But he couldn’t tell you, he was way too ashamed of himself to even say it out loud to himself.

His phone rang and you really didn’t mean to check who it was or what it was about, but you were so angry when he decided that checking his phone in the middle of this argument was more important than you that you picked it up.

And well.. you ended up reading the message.

“You’re the biggest fucking asshole on this planet, Min Yoongi. I would have given you the chance to tell me that you were drunk, but that’s it. If you truly thought that I’d just throw away my best friend like she’s trash to fuck you, you’re dead wrong.”

Yoongi tried to explain it, but it was as if you couldn’t hear anything anymore. Your eyes kept reading the words over and over again, being so heartbroken over them, while at the same time being so thankful for your best friend that she’d not betray you, but stick with and up for you.

It was an emotional rollercoaster that you truly couldn’t deal with in that moment.

So you just left..

..and never came back again.

jung hoseok

“What the hell is going on here?!” you walked into the kitchen with Jimin behind you, his eyebrows as furrowed as yours.

This was supposed to be a fun “house party”, but what you saw right now didn’t look like fun at all.

Hoseok was holding his cheek and your best friend was breathing heavily.

“Yes, Hoseok? Why don’t you tell her what the hell is going on, huh?”

“(Y/N), it’s not..-“

“He tried to kiss me, that’s what’s going on!”

You started to laugh, thinking this might have been a joke, but Hoseok looked.. guilty. So guilty that you knew she was telling the truth.

“What?” your voice was small, barely audible and tears were already forming in your eyes at the mere thought that Hoseok was trying to cheat on you while you were only a few feet away.. with none other than your friend. Your best friend!

But she instantly put an arm around you, pointing at Hoseok and looking him dead in the eye, “You’re an asshole, Jung Hoseok. You don’t deserve her, you understand? Stay away from her and stay away from me!”

You left with her that night and only returned a week later to talk to him.

One final conversation, that’s what it ended up being, because he admitted to what he had nearly done.

And no matter who he was, no matter how much you loved him and how much that part of you wanted to forgive him, you wouldn’t be with someone that tried to kiss someone else.

You were better than that.

kim namjoon

“Sit,” Namjoon ordered, making you giggle, thinking that this might be something sexual. But his look was serious. So serious that that smile ended up vanishing from your face.

“Okay, now you’re scaring me.. what is it?”

“I didn’t know how I should tell, but it’s not fair of me to keep it a secret what I’m about to say,” he took a deep breath, then began, “Three months ago, (Y/B/F) sent me a nude out of the blue. I thought she might have been drunk or maybe had sent it to the wrong person, so I never replied to it and she didn’t say anything else either. After that, I was actually convinced that it had been a mistake. But two weeks ago I got another one and then an hour later another one. She said really sexual things that I’m not going to tell you because you don’t need to hear, but she’s been constantly sending me these things, despite me telling her to stop.”

Your jaw dropped more and more, then you started to snort, “Okay, ha ha. Very funny, good story. Is she here? Is this a prank? A video prank?”

“It’s not a prank and it’s not a joke, (Y/N),” Namjoon grabbed your hand and looked into your eyes, “I’m telling you this because this is not a best friend. I know she means the world to you, but this isn’t okay and you need to cut her as soon as possible. And if you don’t believe me..-“ Namjoon handed you the phone, “Then look for yourself.”

And then he left you to it, because he felt like whatever happened next, you would need a moment to breathe and think. If you truly decided to read the messages and would see the filthy stuff that your best had messaged him while probably simultaneously messaging you and pretending to be the friend that you were to her..

Namjoon just let out a sigh when he could hear you screaming at her on the phone five minutes later.

park jimin

Your best friend had always been the kind of girl to preach to you how wrong it was to take the man of your best friend (or the man of anyone, really).

But apparently, when your man was Park Jimin, there seemed to be an exception.

“You have five seconds to explain this to me, Jimin, or I swear to god I will leave this apartment and never come back.”

“Look at the messages! Read them!” Jimin yelled, tears already welling up in his eyes, “She always said these things, I never said anything like that back! I kept telling her that she shouldn’t say stuff like that because you’re her best friend and I’m with you, but she wouldn’t stop!”

A part of you wanted to believe him, but in your current state it just sounded like an excuse to you.

You still left that day, needing to gather your thoughts, but Jimin kept calling and showing up at your door to try and explain to you that this wasn’t what you thought it was.

Yes, he should have told you about what your ‘best friend’ was doing behind your back, but he was afraid.. afraid how it’d look.

However, it couldn’t have looked worse than it did now if he had just come clean.

Because now it looked like he had tried to hide it from you because he was a part of this.. affair.

kim taehyung

This was really unusual for Taehyung, there used to be days where he could barely go five hours without talking or seeing you.. but it’s been three weeks, almost four since he last called or showed up at your doorstep. True, the last months had been rocky in your relationship, stress and arguments clouded the happiness that you once cherished so much.. but even during bad times like this, he still at least.. called.

You still texted, but that was different..

So instead of waiting for him to make a move, you decided to simply surprise him at the dorms, with a bit of food and the biggest smile ever at the thought of finally seeing him again.

But it wasn’t at all how you imagined it.

“No,” was the first thing Namjoon said when he opened the door, then closed it behind him, “You don’t want to go inside there right now.”

“What?” you snorted, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that I’m not letting him do any more damage. This has already gone too far and you are not going to see what’s inside there.”

“You’re scaring me, Namjoon,” you furrowed your eyebrows, “Is he okay?”

Namjoon knew there was no easy way to tell you that Taehyung had an affair and it was even harder to tell you who dared to show up at the apartment today.

Every single Bangtan member lost their shit over how casual he was about it, they yelled at him, then threw out your best friend and told her that if she said only one thing to anybody, they’d make sure they’d sue her.. for.. something.

And Namjoon hated how you broke down in his arms, but he’d rather hold you like this than you break apart in front of him.

jeon jeongguk

“What are you doing?” you asked as you wrapped your arms around Jeongguk from behind and kissed his cheek.

“I’m playing with (Y/B/F).”

“Oh.. you two play a lot with each other these days.. I’m glad you get along so well.”

It was kind of sad how naive you were, but at the same time.. shouldn’t you be? Shouldn’t you completely trust your boyfriend anyways, but even more so with your best friend involved? Why should you worry when it were the two people you trusted the most?

It was only a few weeks later when Jeongguk went into the kitchen to make something to eat but didn’t close his laptop that you walked closer when a message came in. You did so with a smile when you saw her name, thinking that you could maybe joke around and pretend like you were Jeongguk or be like: “Nope, not Jeongguk, just your best friend in the world.”

But that never happened.

“I don’t know, Kookie..” came the first message that made you furrow your eyebrows. Since when did she call him Kookie? “I don’t feel comfortable meeting behind her back.. and I appreciate all the sweet things you’ve been telling me, but I feel like this is very wrong..”

And after that it was game over.

Because you scrolled up, and up, and up and read all the things he’s been telling her. How pretty she was, how talented and how smart she was and that he couldn’t wait for you to bring her over soon so he could see her..

“So.. I didn’t know which ramen you wanted, so I just..-“ but when he entered his bedroom fifteen minutes later, the room was empty, the closet open and most of your clothes gone.. it looked like you had left in a hurry.

Jeongguk immediately started to panic and the first place he looked was his computer and he knew you had seen it.

And you didn’t have to say it.. but he knew it was over..

#bts imagine #bts x reader #bts scenario #bts reactions #bangtan x reader #bangtan scenario #bangtan reaction #kpop imagine #kpop reaction #kpop scenario #bts #bangtan boys x reader #bangtan #bangtan boys #bangtan sonyeondan #reader #requests

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angieschiffahoi · 3 years ago

Text

Before I start Harrow, I want to share my thoughts on Gideon.

Spoilers ahead.

While I don’t believe it was the greatest book ever written, it was perfectly fitting for me.

The genre: It was a mix between sci-fi and fantasy, very simple in its worldbuilding, it didn’t shy from some exposition (I hate new fantasy books that don’t use exposition at all... you’re not that good at the spreading the information thingy, I don’t understand your overly complicated worldbuilding!) and used it in pretty much conventional ways. It didn’t invent every single tiny little thing (which I find very annoying in modern fantasy and sci-fi books - let your MC say fuck), but mixed things familiar with our world with future/innovative elements, almost seamlessly. Thank you, Tamsyn, for using insults we know (I understand why TV shows do it, it’s to keep a PG-13 rating and still use swear words, but I find it insufferable when books try to invent terms for everything... even pens or bread).

I’ve seen people say it is heavily sci-fi and I disagree. It is not hard sci-fi in the slightest and the magical/necromantic elements are a lot more technical than any of the technology, which was basically non-existent (at times I was stunned whenever they mentioned anything that was “modern” or techy, since it felt like fantasy 80% of the time). The author built a magic system and tried to fit it into a sci-fi setting. It very much resembled Warhammer 40k at times (come on, the Undying Emperor?) and had they mentioned Chaos Gods every now and then, I would have believed this was a WH 40K novelette a-la Blackstone Fortress.

The plot: Gay necromancers in space, with a plot similar to And Then There Were None which at times felt a little bit like Catching Fire as well (Tamsyn, did you read my diary?). It was very simple, straightforward and the fact that we only had one narrating voice made it very easy to read and to follow along. The fact that it was a bit cinematic is probably the reason I managed to finish it (I am tired of 100 subplots and 200 characters in the same book). All of the plot twists felt earned, because looking back I can see where the author left those crumbs. I feel like the red herrings were a bit weak (except Ianthe at the end, which was a bit disappointing as the main villain so I was glad to see she was one), because I started to suspect Dulcinea right away (even though I never would have guessed why). Also, I was too focused on the characters to actually pay attention to the plot, so I didn’t guess much going forward, which made me feel pretty stupid, because some of that shit was very obvious.

The characters: What I really loved was Gideon’s voice. The first few chapters were a bit flowery and there was a lot of purple prose to set the tone (which failed a bit, because I still imagined it more as a fantasy setting than a sci-fi one), but then it flawed perfectly. The jokes (narrated or spoke aloud) were great and it felt like they always fit. Sometimes the insults were a bit gratuitous but I like the trope of being infuriated with someone all of the time, you can’t help but think “oh fuck this bitch”. Also, the puns. Gideon, I love you. I would’ve liked them to be more mature (maybe 20 somethings), but it’s because I’m old and I want this type of narratives to have older MCs sometimes.

Harrow really picked up in the second part of the book and I can’t wait to see how she’s changed in the second one. Loved Dulcinea from the start and I don’t care she was an evil god-like entity. She was a bit over the top in the battle (that thing about the arms and legs, why?!?), but I do love a dramatic bitch (I still lowkey like her & Gideon together). I was sorry for the Fourth & Fifth houses, but while I loved Magnus, I couldn’t stand the teenagers (but I did feel so, so sorry for Gideon). The Third house was obnoxious and I enjoyed Corona the most. I’m pretty sure Ianthe’s coming back, so we’ll see about that. Not gonna talk about the Eight - gave me WH 40K Inquisitor vibes, felt unneccessarily over the top. The Second was forgettable, I didn’t even understand the captain was a necromancer until she killed Teacher. And Sixth, oh, my darlings. If Camilla is dead I’m going to burn my kindle. Writing wise, concentrating on only one POV, kind of underdevelops secondary characters, so while Gideon’s voice was very strong, I feel like everyone else was a bit forgettable unless Gideon spent time on them. It was a book that could’ve easily been written in first person, if it didn’t have that ending.

The relationship: I am going to be brief - I love rivalry that turns to love (any kind of love). So, I loved every single interaction between Harrow and Gideon (the pool scene broke me). Palamedes and Harrow had chemistry. I loved that Gideon just adopted everyone: I am your cavalier, now I am yours! Oh, screw it! I’m going to protect everyone! Gideon is such a himbo, even though she’s a shembo, but not a bimbo? I hated every single time the Third called their cavalier “Babs”.

Things that were left open and Tamsyn better solve before the end of the series: “Gideon, you’re a ginger!” and basically everything fake!Dulcinea told Gideon about her past (”You don’t know what you are to me”). Also, why Gideon didn’t die when she was a child (and the obvious, where is she from?). Where are Corona and Camilla? What happened to Gideon’s body? And a few things I forgot about, because I wrote this “review” yesterday in my head and I didn’t write stuff down.

Overall it was a very pleasant experience. And I may re-read it in the future to catch the foreshadowing and some hints. Now, onto Harrow the Ninth! Which is confusing? ‘Cause the Emperor called her Harrow the First?

Anyways. We love a tiny goth stirring shit with her “dead” girlfriend’s two-hander. I am a bit scared, though, since what I really loved was Gideon’s narrating voice, but I’m guessing Harrow picked up some of her mannerism since she “ate” her? We’ll see.

#gideon the ninth #gideon the ninth spoilers #spoilers #angie rants #ignore #the locked tomb #gideon nav #harrowhark nonagesimus #griddlehark

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rissynicole · 3 years ago

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Any suggestions for writing dialogues? I mean, when it comes to punctuations and actions the characters perform.

Okay, this ask has been in my inbox for months at this point, and I've been saving it because 1) I wanted to write something meaningful and 2) I didn't know what I could write that hasn't already been said ad nauseam by other writers. I still don't know if anything I say will be particularly groundbreaking, but I'll try to be helpful. Keep in mind, I'm a young writer, myself. I'm still learning new things every day, and I'm far from a guru in the field.

This got long, so I’m going to put it under the cut:

The first thing I did was ask my mother this question, because I was interested in hearing her answer. She doesn't write fiction, herself, but she has been in the editing game for 30 some-odd years. She edits fiction for Harper Collins Publishing and has an eye for these things. However, her answer to this was very plain and simple.

She said, "All editing and punctuation exists to serve one key purpose: to not confuse the reader."

As far as grammar goes, that's the main goal. I was looking for something a little more hard and fast--some sort of rule in a style guide--and y'know, I'm sure there is a rule out there. But in a fairly fluid world of fiction writing and "rules are meant to be broken" mentalities, the most important thing to heed is the comprehension of your reader. As soon as you’ve confused your reader, you’ve made a mistake. Not a failure--but a mistake that needs to be fixed. I’ve made them; I’ve fixed them. Dialogue can be a particularly tricky area, because it’s like a minefield for these mistakes.

I’ll add an example of my dialogue and break it down a little bit:

‘“Soldier?’ Red said, interrupting the beginning of another gushing tirade.

Larb's grin faded a bit around the edges as he glanced up. ‘…Yes?’

‘Just remember: you're walking a very thin line.’

His eyes dropped back down to the controls. ‘Yes, my Tallest… It won't happen again.’”

First and foremost, it should be clear who is speaking. I help this along by making sure the characters’ actions are in the same paragraph as their speech. It keeps it more comprehensive. Otherwise, it would read like this:

‘“Soldier?’ Red said, interrupting the beginning of another gushing tirade.

Larb's grin faded a bit around the edges as he glanced up.

‘…Yes?’

‘Just remember: you're walking a very thin line.’

His eyes dropped back down to the controls.

‘Yes, my Tallest… It won't happen again.’”

Not completely indecipherable, but distracting enough to make the reader re-read it a few times. As far as formatting goes, it’s also not very pretty. Now, I’m not perfect with this. In fact, I still need to go through Parade and reformat some sections that might read like the above. However, it is a readability rule that I’m trying to follow more closely.

Another difficulty with ensuring you’re making it clear who’s speaking can be the use of pronouns. I’ll be the first to admit, writing with multiple characters who all use the same pronouns can be incredibly difficult. You can’t always just use “he said” as a tag. It’s too easy to hit a snag where the reader gets confused and doesn’t know who “he” is.

‘“Soldier?’ he said, interrupting the beginning of another gushing tirade.

His grin faded a bit around the edges as he glanced up. ‘…Yes?’

‘Just remember: you're walking a very thin line.’

His eyes dropped back down to the controls. ‘Yes, my Tallest… It won't happen again.’”

Sure, maybe this short passage isn’t so bad; It’s still fairly clear who’s speaking. But imagine if the entire book was that way: three, maybe four characters in the same room who all use he/his pronouns speaking without any further identification. It would get confusing and distracting. Lots of reading passages over again to try to decipher who is saying what and lots of frustration on the reader’s part. At the same time, always using the characters’ names can be tedious and unnecessary. Finding a good balance isn’t always easy, but it is worth it.

The golden rule, for me, is exactly as my mother said: “Do not confuse the reader.”

Below, I’ll add some additional dialogue tips I have picked up:

Constantly adding a tag can get tedious.

‘“Soldier?’ Red interrupted, cutting off the beginning of another gushing tirade.

Larb's grin faded a bit around the edges as he glanced up. ‘…Yes?’ he inquired.

‘Just remember: you're walking a very thin line,” Red replied.

His eyes dropped back down to the controls. ‘Yes, my Tallest… It won't happen again,’” he muttered.

Sure, this makes sense. It’s clear who’s speaking. But it also doesn’t read as smoothly. Not to mention, the overabundance of different transitive verbs (interrupted, inquired, muttered), is stilted and almost mechanical in how the dialogue reads. Oftentimes, “said” is perfectly fine. Fun words like “muttered” and “interrupted” are great, too, but in moderation. Finding a happy medium can make all the difference.

Sometimes, a tag isn’t necessary at all.

This segues into my next piece of advice: it’s important to write dialogue in a way that still allows the reader to use their imagination. This is where I’ll go off on a bit of a rabbit trail, because this is something I’ve had to learn for myself recently.

Put trust in your reader to make up their own mind on how dialogue is spoken

I recently finished reading On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King (which, regardless of your opinions on King, was a very helpful book. I enjoyed it a lot). In one passage, he tells the reader to imagine an orange sitting on a table. Just that. He doesn’t give any further details. There is a 100% chance that we are all going to see something different in our minds. We are going to imagine a different table, a different room, and maybe even a different orange.

Sometime, description helps. Sometimes, a carefully placed lack of description lets the reader make up their own mind and encourages imagination. This advice has served me well in writing dialogue. I know it’s a tired old saying in any writer’s workshop: “never use adverbs in dialogue!” And to be honest, I still believe there can be a time and a place. But relying heavily on adverbs doesn’t do anything for the reader, except maybe shoehorn them into a state where they have to re-read dialogue with the new inflection.

‘“Soldier?’ Red said solemnly, interrupting the beginning of another gushing tirade.

Larb's grin faded a bit around the edges as he glanced up. ‘…Yes?’ he asked weakly.

‘Just remember: you're walking a very thin line,” he replied sternly, in a flat monotone.

His eyes dropped back down to the controls. ‘Yes, my Tallest… It won't happen again,’ he said lowly, almost inaudibly.

Again, this feels stilted, and doesn’t really leave anything to the imagination.

To better emphasize what I mean by this, I want to use a real example of it in action. (I hope you don’t mind, @sunnymelonpan!) Shortly after I read this advice and starting cutting down on over-describing dialogue and using adverbs, I wrote some IZ sickfic prompts. A friend of mine decided to draw up a comic based on one of them. This was not only incredibly flattering, but unexpectedly enlightening. I was able to see firsthand how other readers interpreted my dialogue. And lemme tell you, it wasn’t always exactly how I had envisioned it.

Here’s some dialogue I wrote for the prompt in question:

“Dib swiped the thermometer from him and pushed his glasses up his nose while he read it. ‘That’s because it isn’t going down. Huh.’

‘S-some help y-y-you are,’ Zim sneered.

‘Hey, give me a break. I’m doing my best. This isn’t exactly how I wanted to spend my weekend.’

Dib’s outline rose to its full height in Zim’s dimmed living room. He disappeared into the kitchen with the thermometer, then returned with something else in his hands. Without any warning, he placed it onto Zim’s forehead, scowling at the death glare he received in return.”

When I wrote this, I personally imagined Dib acting and speaking in a sort of annoyed, deflated way. Like he wasn’t really taking Zim’s harsh words seriously. Just a sort of eye-roll “yeah, whatever, Zim,” demeanor. That’s how I saw it.

This is how Sunny saw it:

In Sunny’s comic, Dib is genuinely angry. He gets annoyed, stands up, and actually berates Zim with these words.

I never made it clear how Dib spoke this line. Some people might look at this and say I failed as a writer because I didn’t explicitly say that Dib’s line was more casual than angry. I disagree. I left it up to the reader to interpret it as they chose. And Sunny surprised me by interpreting it in a way that was different. Not wrong! Just different. I positively loved seeing Sunny’s interpretation of my prompt. It let me see my writing in the eyes of others; it showed me that I was able to describe scenes while still allowing my readers to use their imaginations.

As a fiction writer, it is not my job to be a stagehand and tell the reader every minute detail of the scene I’m writing. Instead, it is my job to guide them through the story and allow them to envision parts of the story as they see fit. This is especially true with dialogue.

So let’s go back to the original excerpt from Parade that I was using as an example:

‘“Soldier?’ Red said, interrupting the beginning of another gushing tirade.

Larb's grin faded a bit around the edges as he glanced up. ‘…Yes?’

‘Just remember: you're walking a very thin line.’

His eyes dropped back down to the controls. ‘Yes, my Tallest… It won't happen again.’”

In this passage, I tried to apply all these rules:

Make it clear who’s speaking.

Use tags sparingly. Sometimes, “said” works just fine.

Use adverbs sparingly and don’t fall over yourself trying to describe everything.

The dialogue flows smoothly, it is clear who is speaking, and the reader can decide how it’s being spoken. Is Red angry? Impatient? Completely void of emotion in his words? Is Larb scared out of his wits? Trying to keep up a facade of bravery? Who knows! I sure don’t! I’m just the writer! It’s up to YOU to decide.

So... yeah! I know my advice wasn’t particularly groundbreaking, but I hope it was an interesting read, nonetheless.

#writing advice #rissy's asks #rissy rambles #ladyanaconda #keep in mind #i am not a professional writer #i have my degree in communication not english #i just write a lot and have the help of some professionals in my life #i also still have a lot to learn #so i am in no way some sort of sacred fountain of wisdom #sorry if i have some grammar errors too #i know that must make me look like a hypocrite #i'll try to go through later and fix as many as i can catch #this was kind of a 'stream of consciousness' post

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gisellelx · 4 years ago

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Hello! Love your blog and i wanna say

Your analysis and your posts in general are always so well researched historically. How do you do that and how can I do it too?

So I wanted to answer this with care and time and thoughtfully. I hope this answer will be good not just for you but will be worth reblogging for anyone who wants to think about how you develop good researching skills more generally. Because ultimately getting good at making sense of the world isn’t just about writing or just about fic or just about academia; it’s about being a good citizen of the world. The short answer to this question, up front: I’ve gotten good at research because it’s my actual job! I’m a professor and not even a new one really anymore; I have a book of research coming out later this year which still feels really weird to say. I happen to know how old you are because we’ve chatted so don’t forget to put into perspective that before you started formal schooling I had already written my first 50+ page research work. I’ve been at this seriously for almost two decades now. However, there are some fundamental ways that professional researchers go about thinking about everything, whether it’s something as inconsequential as fic or as monumental as the stuff going on in the U.S. right now that I think are a little different, and they’re replicable in useful ways. So here’s three things that matter. Get curious. This actually is pretty easy for fanfic writers because we already have something we’re curious about--whatever fandom(s) we’re in. But curiosity isn’t just about the spark; it’s also about getting interested in making connections between different kinds of things. When you encounter any given piece of information, the first thing you should start thinking about is “how does this piece of information fit in with everything else I already know” which will lead you to “how does it contradict what I already know” and “what else do I need to know to understand how this fits?” This leads you down really interesting rabbit holes. An example from fic/tumblr answers: A witch hunting Anglican really doesn’t map on to what I know of Anglicans/Episcopalians in present-day. So then I start to ask, “Okay. What was actually going on in the church in the 1640s?” I’m going to mesh it with some of my own knowledge: I know the protestant reformation happened a hundred years earlier, but I don’t know a ton about what happened after, except that the Puritans arrived in New England eh, about that time. So I go down the rabbit hole of finding out about the church in the 1640s. At some point there I’m going to run across some of the secular history: that the 1640s was the English Civil War. Okay, what was the Civil War about? Who won? How long were they in control? Questions beget questions and true, at some point, you have to decide when to stop if it’s for writing. But honestly, if you’re curious, you probably won’t stop thinking about it even if you’ve found out enough to answer the thing you want to answer. Because you’ll

Develop a lens. The thing you’re interested in becomes the way you start to see the world. Start relating everything to the thing you are trying to find out more about. Notice when you’re getting more information about that thing or when something would matter to that thing. I have an assignment I give my students where they have to write four short assignments relating stuff they see about language use to the things they’re learning in class. It’s partially to teach them about the concepts they’re learning, and partially to teach them about writing, but it’s mostly to accustom them to viewing the world through the lens I’m teaching them. It’s to help them get curious about why one barista’s tone sounds friendly and the other’s doesn’t even though the say the exact same thing. It’s mutually reinforcing: the lens begets curiosity and curiosity begets the development of the lens. If I encounter a fact, a piece of history, a moment in time, an old song, there’s a little piece of my brain after 11 years of writing Twific that is always asking “Where were the Cullens?” I have headcanons for days about how each of them, especially Carlisle, would’ve dealt with any individual moment in history. When I sing an old hymn in church I sometimes look down at the date in the hymnal to find out if it’s one Carlisle would’ve sung as a human. I’m always working through this lens, and that means I’m always adding to the knowledge.

Finally, source well. Especially for something as fanciful as fic, there’s not a lot of reason to dive deep into academic tomes (although I have; I am a fucking nerd. See above re: my work.) But dive deeper than the first page of google. Read the first Wikipedia page you come to, but then read a couple of the pages it links to! If the English Civil War has to do with Cromwell and it established the Protectorate, and those things are linked? Well, read those, too! And then you might need to cross-reference--okay, now I know what the Protectorate was, and I’ve decided from that original go-round that Carlisle’s dad was probably a Puritan, not really an Anglican, so...what was the relationship of Puritans to the Protectorate? I’m going to next throw that into google. And I’m looking for high-quality sources: magazines, university websites, things that end with .edu or .gov. I’m clicking on the “about” to find out who wrote the thing and how much of an expert they are. If they say something that no one else has said and I can’t find anything that tells me they’re an expert in this? I’m going to disregard that info and move on. This is applicable to way more than just fic--this is about figuring out that as much as I go YEAH YEAH YEAH at some hyper-partisan trash website that fits my political view, I need to step back and consider where it’s coming from, who the author is, and how much they know. The more you’ve sourced, the easier this gets. My knowledge on Carlisle’s history goes deep, I fell in love with him and only him when I read the series. I have read about popular culture when he was growing up, I have read histories of the English Church, I have spent time thinking about and being fascinated by the history of the development of medical knowledge and medical schools. I didn’t go to the Eye or Big Ben when I happened to be in London; I went to the City Museum and wandered around the part of the city where I imagine he lived, looking for things which have survived since the 17th century and taking note of things which are new to think about what Carlisle would think about them (he is very un-fond of the Gherkin.) I literally spent a day and a half looking at London through Carlisle’s eyes. Because I’m curious; because I have a lens; and because I’m going to grab good sources whenever I have them. That is a SUPER long post. But I hope it’s helpful. When it comes to writing, the richer your knowledge, the more likely you are to drop the right detail which places your reader and makes them buy into everything else in the world. I remember reading a fic which took place in my hometown and the author had one of the Cullens flying in their private jet. In my hometown, a mid-sized city in the midwest, there is a commercial international airport, but there is also a smaller airfield which handles much of the private air traffic. That author had that Cullen plane take off from the smaller airfield. I don’t know if she is also from my hometown, but she got that detail right, and it signaled that I could trust the rest of her storytelling. So. It’s worth it: to be a good writer, to be a good researcher, and just to be good at understanding the world. I hope that helps and sorry for the word vomit. Professors write a lot, too.

#writing #research #carlisle cullen #history

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