awyeahitssam

[awyeahitssam]

my fave greek history story to tell is that of agnodice. like she noticed that women were dying a lot during childbirth so she went to egypt to study medicine in alexandria and was really fucking good but b/c it was illegal for women to be doctors in athens she had to pretend to be a man. and then the other doctors noticed that she was 10x better than them and accused her of seducing and sleeping with the women patients. like they brought her to court for this. and she just looked at them and these charges and stripped in front of everyone like “yeah. im not fucking your wives” and then they got so mad that a woman was better at their jobs then them that they tried to execute her but all her patients came to court and were like “are you fucking serious? she is the reason you have living children and a wife.” so they were shamed into changing the law and that is how women were given the right to practice medicine in athens

[awyeahitssam]

"Do you find it difficult, being burdened with brilliance?"

- Page 327, WIP. Thanks for tagging @theonceandfuturequeenoftarts

@toast-ranger-to-a-stranger @limonium-anemos @corpium

Last line you wrote

Thanks for the tag @m-y--p-a-s-s-i-o-n-s!

It's from my Pike/Kirk wip 👀

"You’re in here, everywhere."

Tagging: @danpuff-ao3 @cissykenway @twinkboimler @chaos-bear and whoever comes across this and writes 😊

[awyeahitssam]

#laughing #crying #this did not go in the direction I was expecting #amazing #thank you artist #you are a gift

[awyeahitssam]

Tomarry sketch dump part5

Well I actually love drawing old man Riddle

#🥵

[awyeahitssam]

[awyeahitssam]

Yasmine Wüster

[awyeahitssam]

Sirius not going to Azkaban, and raising Harry in Grimmauld place.

Little Harry finding the Black family tapestry and seeing that Sirius’s face was burnt off. Little Harry drawing a picture of Sirius and sticking it on the family tree where his face was supposed to be. Little Harry taking out his crayons drawing all over the faces of the “evil meanies that hurt pa'foo”.

[awyeahitssam]

Your purpose in life is not to love yourself but to love being yourself.

If you goal is to love yourself, then your focus is directed inward toward yourself, and you end up constantly watching yourself from the outside, disconnected, trying to summon the “correct” feelings towards yourself or fashion yourself into something you can approve of.

If your goal is to love being yourself, then your focus is directed outward towards life, on living and making decisions based on what brings you pleasure and fulfillment.

Be the subject, not the object. It doesn’t matter what you think of yourself. You are experiencing life. Life is not experiencing you.

[awyeahitssam]

#I love his posture #and expression #head downturned from the elements #hands holding tight to keep his cloak in place #at any moment he might raise his chin to pin any observer with the most piercing gaze #a gaze which may alert one that this is no ordinary young man #those eyes are too clever #predatory #and bright #they do not miss a thing #or... #they like to think they don't

[awyeahitssam]

On Writing Combat and Sex Scenes

Today I want to talk about writing sex and combat (and no, I do not mean combative sex). This post is inspired by a few recent events:

Once, a long time ago, I read a blog post that said “if you can write a combat scene, you can write a sex scene” and that was mind-blowing for me because while I was well-versed in writing erotica, I couldn’t write combat to save my life.

More recently, at Boskone, I participated on a panel about writing combat, and the research involved there-in.

Even more recently, I had someone look at me say, “You’re not a gay guy. How do you write gay sex scenes?”

So. Let’s begin.

I get it—sex and combat aren’t interchangeable. But at their core, they have some strong similarities which can be leveraged while writing. Both are intense, high drama, and can involve a lot of anxiety and quick thought. Both tend to narrow focus down to the moment and the current feeling and action. Both are heightened emotion and physical reaction. Both can involve actions that lie outside the author’s personal experience.

I started writing erotica when I was a freshman in college. I posted it online (does anyone remember rec.arts.erotica?) and was surprised (and pleased) by the compliments I received. Turned out my readers were not expecting the idea of emotion being entangled in their erotica. They were invested emotionally in how the stories went, and how my characters felt. Since I was writing from the point of view that made sense to me at the time, they were het stories from a female perspective, and they were very focused on the emotional connections and how the physical events heightened those emotions.

Male readers were surprised by the intensity of the feelings that these stories gave them (as opposed to pure arousal). It got me thinking about how I wrote, and why I wrote, and I tried to talk about it some at the time. I was eighteen. I was still a new writer. The internet itself was new. I wasn’t entirely certain how to frame it, but I remember getting one comment where a guy was surprised at how struck he’d been by the moment in the scene where everything shuddered to a halt due to an event in the story that interrupted the action, and I replied that that was because I wasn’t writing about the sex. I was writing about the character’s reaction to the sex.

Which has always been how I write. At the time, that was my only tool: put myself in the character’s mind, and write what they feel. If that’s affection and attraction and physical reaction, write that. Tangle it up, and hope the reader feels that entanglement.

Now, fast forward several years, and take a little side trip onto a tangent wherein I learned something very important about writing craft.

I was reading Syne Mitchell’s End in Fire, I think it was, and I kept having panic attacks. Now, I did most of my reading late, often when I woke in the middle of the night due to stress, or just because my brain refused to rest. I was in a rough place in life in general, with a lot of external work stuff going on and very small children. I wasn’t sleeping well. And it took me some time to figure out why I was struggling to read a book which I actually loved (and when I read it later in life, I enjoyed it greatly).

It was the sentence structure.

In order to induce the emotion of the scene, the sentences were short. Sharp. Quick. There was no time for the reader to breathe, much like there was no time for the heroine to do anything but act. The reader was caught up in the rising tension, to the point where my anxious, sleep-deprived brain, caught a panic attack from it.

The technique was brilliant.

Now back to our original timeline, wherein I read a post about how if you can write combat, you can write sex scenes. This post assumed that more people felt comfortable writing violence than sex. I was the reverse. I’d been writing about sex for over a decade when I saw this post, and it made a light bulb go off in my brain.

If writing sex was like writing combat… was the reverse also true? Could I improve my skills at writing battles by analyzing what worked when I wrote erotica?

So I tried doing just that. Back then, I found combat overwhelming. There was so much going on, and I was trying so hard to write good description that I lost all of the intensity. I was focusing on everything that was going on at the same time.

Thinking about how sex scenes were all intense emotion and narrowed focus, I applied that to my combat scenes. I wrote only what the point of view character experienced, and tied everything to their actions and reactions. I thought about how they breathed, how they moved, how they thought. I used those short, sharp sentences as they processed the scene. 

That doesn’t mean I forgot about everything else going on in the scene. That’s impossible. After all, in any story the things the character doesn’t pay attention to might be as important as the things they do focus on. Stuff still happens, and there is still fallout. I needed to know what else was happening so that if the character moved from one place to another, or did something that put them in the path of a different part of the action, I could have them start processing it.

But it also meant that on the page, out of sight was out of mind. Everything narrowed down to the now. The immediacy. Suddenly my combat scenes snapped into focus.

During the panel at Boskone, all of the panelists had experience with different fighting styles (fencing, street combat, and of course, me with taekwondo). I spoke about how for me, that narrow focus is very real when I spar. I know there are some people who naturally see a move or two ahead while fighting; I don’t. I am stuck in act and react mode. Can I kick them now? Can I attempt a head shot? Oh, no, circle back and away or they’re going to hit me… that’s how my brain works during a sparring match.

It’s not like a total blackout—there should be a vague awareness of things around the character. Sounds in particular, or sometimes flashes of movement. Something distracting can catch the attention of the fighter, but the personal fight will always pull the character back.

Combat feels easy when I’m writing like that.

Of course, there’s still the question of writing about something if I’ve never experienced it. As someone did point out to me: I am not a gay man, so how does that affect writing sex scenes? I’ve also never fought with a sword. Brawled. Fought from horseback. I have, however, held a blade, shot a gun, shot an arrow, rode a horse. I have a vague idea of how these things work, much like I have a working knowledge of sex in general.

So yes, research gets involved. Sometimes research is observational, sometimes it’s reading (there’s so much good stuff out there). I highly recommend video for combat scenes—find things that have the feel that you’re going for, then put yourself in the place of the character you want to write about. Practice. Work through the ideas of how things fit together, and what your character will (and will not!) know during the fight.

If you need to, stand up and block the scene by thinking about how you would experience it. What can you see, and what is out of sight? If someone is coming at you with a blade, what are your options? How do height differences affect you? Yes, I have asked friends and husband to help me block scenes. 

“Stand right there and show me what it looks like if you punch me. Okay, so if I do this then…” Yeah. It’s a thing. But it works.

When doing your research, remember that movie fighting (and hell, movie sex scenes) isn’t realistic. It’s meant to look good. For combat, if you can find re-enactments, or sparring videos, I highly recommend taking a look at those. 

Anyway, the point is: I don’t have to have shot someone, and I don’t have to have had gay sex in order to write about them. What I do need to know is how it feels emotionally to do those things, and I can extrapolate that from what I do know. I need to know enough about the details so I can get it right, and that’s where research will help me. Also, use language to create emotion. Because emotions are where we grab the reader, and how we pull them into the scene.

Combat and sex aren’t so different when it comes to writing, and the personal experience. Now, go forth and write!

#writing advice #resource

[awyeahitssam]

the narrative: *starts the third act by repeating a scene from the first act but now it has a totally different context*

me: ohoHOhohoHOHOhoHO

#yes #this and especially this

[awyeahitssam]

Later, when she's the only one left, because the thing wearing her best friend's face had ducked down beside her trembling form and whispered, "you, now... you've been a good friend to him.'" Hermione will try to identify when things went wrong.

What was the first indication?

Was it when Harry's nails had started biting into the kitchen table?

Was it when his eyes went wet with tears of denial?

Or was it the moment his trembles stilled?

The moment his head tilted as he considered the adults?

Or was it not until the very moment those words crossed his lips, words she will never forget: "Harry's not here right now."

When did they turn to enemies in Harry's eyes? When did Harry break, initially? When... for how long... had he been psychotic?

And why, why, why hadn't she noticed?

She want meant to be the smart one.

The observant one.

What use was she now--too late?

"I'll let him keep you, Her-mi-one. It is my job to keep him safe. Perhaps, if you do not want to meet again, you should ensure his protection. Surely, a witch of your brilliance can manage such a simple... task..."

Harry blinked down at her in clear confusion. "Hermione, are you okay? You're on the floor. What's--" Harry turned to see what she was staring at. He stumbled back into her, tripping over her, sprawling on his bottom, screaming out in shock, in denial, in fright, and then he deflated. Sighed, as though exasperated.

"Too quick, dear one, you must learn patience. Stay back a little longer... let me clean our mess, first."

Hermione should have noticed.

She should have-

She should have...

"Ron," she sobs, "Ron was--was a good friend, too."

Prompt:

They told Harry his greatest fear is fear itself. Well that's true, but not because of what Remus thinks.

When Harry gets afraid, like truly afraid, something takes over and he doesn't remember things for a while. When he wakes up, terrible things have happened.

One time, his cousin had fallen down the stars and had refused to blame harry even though he knew he ad something to do with it.

There was once a man who tried to kidnap him and when harry woke up again he was back in his cupboard and that man's body was found on the news torn to shred.

(The scarcrux has grown rather attached to Harry. Sure if he had the help of his counterpart he could be moved into something different but he doesn't WANT to. He enjoys watching the world through Harry's eyes.)

Harry doesn't tell anyone any of this though. And hes gotten very good at controlling his fear.

Until he is sitting in front of the order, after the trail, and they are trying to tell him that he needs to spend a few extra weeks at the Dursleys. Something about him not staying long enough and they needed to make sure the wards were at full strength before he went away to hogwarts in case Voldemort attacked.

He would miss the first few weeks of school with his friends

Stuck with them.

"Harry please it's for the best."

"Harry's not here right now."

#my writing #oops #scarcrux #scarcrux possession #Hermione

[awyeahitssam]

Harry has been very good this year, is the thing.

But may he can't be good. Maybe his intent doesn't matter at all, and he simply isn't capable of it, because--because--again--Santa forgot about him.

But Santa doesn't forget people. He has a list, and he checks it twice, and the naughty get nothing, so Harry had tried to be nice--

He's not nice, though. He's selfish, because he cries a lot sometimes, but he's been trying to do that where nobody else can see. The spiders still see, though, with all their little eyes, and that probably counts against him. Santa hadn't gotten them presents either, but Harry did, all the little bugs he could collect from the garden, even if some ended up a little smushed.

Too, Harry is greedy: Aunt and Uncle always tell him so. Greediness is bad; Santa mustn't like it. He's greedy to take up space, and he's greedy to be so hungry, and he's greedy to even want presents when they aren't mean for no good freaks, they're meant for good boys. Dudley's a good boy, and Harry isn't, and that's just the way things work, even though Harry doesn't think Dudley's very good at all, but obviously Harry doesn't have any idea what good or bad are at all.

Because if there's anything Harry isn't, it's a good boy. He's not even sure he's a boy, not really. He's just some creature--some stupid, useless, freakish thing. An obvious and obnoxious black stain against the soft pastels of Aunt and Uncle's home.

Probably, maybe, Harry had made a mistake in his letter to Santa. When he'd scrawled out something he can't even remember, now, with shaky letters and not-good grammar:

santa,

the best gift would be if someone comes and saves me. they dont even have to love me any, its just that i only want to be savened. i promise ill be good

bye, harry

ps too if you let me have food that be nice

Sometimes, Harry lets himself believe that Aunt and Uncle are wrong, because Harry's teachers don't get so mad at him like they do. But Aunt says that he's a no good, ungrateful little freak, and that's why he could never get presents from Santa, and Harry knows, knows, the next day, when there are no presents for him under the tree, that she's right.

Because Santa is the one that knows, and the one that sees, and what he's seen in Harry is that he's someone, something, rotten.

Harry probably thought that he was a bad kid when he was younger because "santa" never brought him presents. It was the time of year where he believed his aunt and uncles words the most because if SANTA didn't bring him any presents and his aunt and uncle told him he was a no good ungrateful freak of a boy.... well it must be true then.

#tw: child abuse #tw: child neglect #don't cry! #it's christmas! #angst #my writing

[awyeahitssam]

That's. Hysterical.

The drawing starts as a simple thing: open lips. They only begin to have a wet sort of glisten when Harry goes in intently with his graphite, and then smudges away a few spots with his eraser.

Tom is trying to pay some level of attention to the sermon, if only because he enjoys knowing what is considered virtuous so he can play it up well enough, but his eyes keep getting drawn back to the careless sketch of the boy next to him. This absolutely ridiculous, wild-haired, unafraid boy who will likely get caned by Mrs. Cole for his sheer disregard of this whole spectacle.

The thing is, Tom has never even seen anybody with magic draw, before, or at least not very well. But the mouth is done, and right around muggles, right in a church, the damp thing opens and a tongue draws out, slow, obscene, making those lips glisten all the wetter for it.

The menace beside him hums lightly, as if not fully pleased, and moves on to something else. Not eyes, no, that would be too simple, why complete the drawing he's begun?

No, Harry--Potter--begins to sketch out a body. A male body, nude, sharp-lined, with no muscle tone to speak of and a stiff cock jutting firmly out. The man in the drawing--headless, still, but with a thick, strong neck--arches his back, grips his cock with a long, thick-fingered hand, and strokes down.

And then, as if there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, as if they are not being told a parable of the evils of temptation, Potter goes and draws another body next to the man. A body that is just as male, and erect, as the first. This one, in a bid of decency, is wearing pants, but the head of his cock pokes out over them, and as soon as Potter's pencil gives the final stroke, the man reaches out and--and--and touches the other man's cock. Just grabs it, bold as anything, thumbing at the head as graphite fingers scratch into his shoulder desperately.

Wow. Wow. What is--why is--this is. Is insanity. This boy is insane. Why is he drawing--in a house meant for worship--Tom has always expected something to come for him, to strike him down for his awful deeds, to punish him or announce that Tom, too, has been a God all along--

"Enjoying yourself?" the boy says dryly, and Tom turns to catch brilliantly green eyes, the only thing truly notable about the boy except for this, and oh, his lips are a pretty pink too, and his hair is wild like hands have been run through it--

"What?" Tom hisses. "No! What are you--that is, is, disgusting. This is, we're, do you--it's blasphemous!"

The boy has the gall to snort at him. He's lucky Mrs. Cole doesn't cane him, here. Lucky that she doesn't seem to be paying them a bit of mind, sharp eyed as she normally is in the house of worship. "Why? Because of the thoughts it gives you? Because of what it makes you want to do?"

Tom gives him an appalled look. He's meant to be temptation, the bad influence, sin incarnate, but this little, little brat is quite delectably turning that on its head, and it's. It's. Annoying. Appalling.

"What are you even doing here?" Tom hisses.

"We were dragged, if you'll recall," Har--Potter says dryly, as though he is not sketching out yet another cock, standalone. "Pay attention, he's talking about the pitfalls of temptation."

Tom is listening, thank you very much, but he's also watching the careful way Harry's slim hands move as he shades the--penis--, motions delicate but sure. He's watching the way Harry bites at his lips, just for a second, before pulling the bottom one into his mouth to wet with his tongue. He's watching the way he finishes the cock in sure strokes--that doesn't sound quite right--and it comes alive, but a hand doesn't move to stroke it, oh no. Instead it twitches once, hard as sin, untouched, as it should remain, and then--then white shoots from it's tip, and it's convulsing, and being covered in--in--

Tom exhales sharply and turns his gaze pointedly away. He digs his fingernails into his legs, and tries to ignore the filth being drawn beside him. Tries to ignore the pretty, stupid, reckless, fearless, infuriating boy that is drawing it. That is wasting his magic on such--debauchery.

It is only when Tom's grip grows so tight that his hands begin to tremble, just a bit, in restraint, that the boy's elbow catches his side. Tom grits his teeth, and turns a truly poisonous glare on the boy. He's going to burn for this.

"Here," Harry says, dropping the ugly, worn jacket that should have been hung upon entry and not brought into the chapel over Tom's lap. "Might want to cover that. It's just not Godly."

The boy widens his eyes at Tom innocently, and Tom--Tom--

It’s a time travel au but Tomarry

And Harry and Tom are forced to go to church every Sunday and while Tom HATES it he participates out of good ole religious guilt that eventually drives him mad.

But Harry really doesn’t care and takes out a journal and starts doodling 🌶️ things and Tom is SCANDALIZED

#my writing #sexual themes #is this scandalized enough??? #cackles wildly #I may have ran away with this a bit too much #I'm probably mixing religions here but oh well #tomarry #beware #she be-ith smut adjacent

[awyeahitssam]

I can’t state enough how beneficial it was to work at the sex shop as my first retail job. We were encouraged to practice shutting down inappropriate behavior and it became a well practiced skill set. I had a flat stare, icy tones of disapproval, and a demeanor of untouchable scorn to back it all up. I could get the most hardened of perverts to back off or leave in a matter of sentences if they harassed staff or other customers.

When I moved on to selling mattresses I came prepared to handle pretty much any situation with the unruffled calm of someone who has asked Santa to stop touching himself and leave. To my vast surprise it was a skill I needed on the regular at the mattress store. For whatever reason men thought it was the height of entertainment to sexually harass me because I was young and cheerful.

They would always quickly learn they’d picked the wrong target.

One day a man strolled in, sizing me up as he came. He saw a young, tiny, afab person alone in the store and came to a stop way too close. He used his height to leer down at me and said, “I’m looking for a new headboard. Which ones are the best for sex?”

It was so stupid. He looked down at me with half lidded eyes and the grin of a man who owns an unmarked white van. He probably expected me to laugh uncomfortably or act flustered. He wanted to feel tall and powerful or maybe even sexy.

He was not expecting what he got. My face stretched into what could technically be described as a smile but was more accurately a threat display. The temperature in the room plummeted as I dropped all warmth in my demeanor. He took a half step back, suddenly aware that he was alone in a room with me.

“Well, sir, that depends on what kind of sex you’re having. If you are looking for a headboard that is grippeable, I suggest this model. The metal is rounded and wouldn’t hurt a hand gripping it tightly. However if you want something that you can secure with restraints, I recommend this wooden one as the slats are wide and quite sturdy.”

He looked liked I’d hit him over the head with a board and stared down at me blankly, taken aback by the authoritative way that I discussed the merits of his lackluster sex life. I met his eyes, a veiled threat in mine, and said, “Which one will you be purchasing?”

He tucked his tail between his legs and bought the metal one. I pulled up a thin layer of friendliness as I rang him up but he had the chastened air of a man who just ran straight into an iron pole.

Another time a man crawled up onto a tempurpedic and thrusted into an invisible partner. He gave a cocky look over his shoulder, sure that he was going to discomfit me as he asked, “How are these babies for fucking?”

I gave him a deadpan look and and said, “That depends on if you’re someone who has to rely on the bounce of springs for your thrusts. Memory foam beds are nicer on knees and joints for positions like doggy style but they absorb a lot of kinetic energy.”

He visibly deflated and got down off the bed with a vaguely ashamed air.

He bought a spring mattress.

[awyeahitssam]

Hanif Abdurraqib, They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us

[awyeahitssam]

So um...what would your response be if i. llke. demanded more tea shop au but in lowercase that's actually tea shop related? Is that something you would..maybe.. consider?

hahahaha, wait demand? no

...

Okay, but if it's lowercase, my dear-

One day, while Harry is leafing through order catalogues and considering various tea and coffee blends, a very faint voice says, ‘There.’

Harry stills, curious, and allows his gaze to be drawn towards the blend the horcrux had indicated. “You’d like some?” 

There is a moment of stillness, a weighty silence, and the horcrux floods him with warmth and certainty and pleasure.

It’s a yes. It might even be a please.

Harry blinks away his daze, shakes his head, and marks the tea. Two cases.

The price is nearly double most blends he currently orders, but this was a specialty catalogue and his business is profitable enough to splurge far more than this.

When Harry makes the tea, when he tries it, he very nearly melts in his seat. It is more than his own reaction; it’s the horcrux’s pleasure as well. It makes sipping the brew satisfying on an entirely different level. Harry stops again and waits, mentally cataloguing the different flavour profiles as the horcrux delights. 

Harry thinks he knows what he’s getting Voldemort for his birthday now.

The horcrux buzzes with surprise, with amusement, with the remnants of a pleasure that reignites every time the teacup kisses Harry’s lips and flavour bursts across his tongue. ‘Sweet boy,’ he whispers.

Harry rolls his eyes and takes another sip. Pretends that the praise doesn’t ignite something warm and soft in him, something malleable and easy to manipulate.

The horcrux senses the vulnerability, but it doesn’t touch it. 

Not yet.

#ask #ask me anything #of course I will #this is tea shop ish related #tea shop au #my writing