#My worst comment was the person who wrote essentially:

[muffinlance]

I really do love your writing and Salvage gets me through when I am sad or depressed. However, I was wondering, how do you cope when someone who wrote a review didn’t like your writing? If you’ve had this before… I had one today and I am dejected. I’m working through my perfectionism and I keep telling myself, “my writing isn’t for everyone and it’s okay.” Any advice?

If it was unsolicited, especially on a fanfic? Delete it, block the person if you feel like, then go do your rage activity of choice before forgetting about it forever. That person is rude and doesn't deserve your time anymore than someone bumping into you on the street.

I've also found it useful to actively think of my fanfic as writing practice, and not even my brain expects perfection from writing practice. It also frees you do Try Cool Things.

Now take this digital blanket and cup of hot chocolate and go reread your nice comments.

#most readers are absolutely lovely #But yeah I've gotten these too because there is always someone on the internet who thinks they are Right and Smart and that those things #Are more important than being kind and polite #Fic Reader Etiquette 101: the only writers looking for crits on a fic are the ones that explicitly asked for it #The only potential exception is for typos that impact reading clarity and even then varies by author #I love having any and all typos pointed out but I know some writers Don't Want To Hear It #My worst comment was the person who wrote essentially: #Wow I remember loving this story it had a huge impact on my life but now I reread years later and it's shit #...Honey. HONEY. #please realize that your personal growth and resulting resonance or lack thereof with a story's themes #have literally nothing to do with me #and I hope your next bit of character growth involves internalizing your self-reflection instead of outsourcing it to fanfiction

[uptoolateart]

I want to comment on this word 'conformation'.

In part, the title hints at Marinette unifying the miraculous. However, for me the main point is this idea of conforming, and rings, which are symbolically binding.

By buying into the Alliance rings, nearly everyone in Paris conforms to a view planted in their minds by media propaganda. Most conform quickly. A few break free of it...but not many.

The Perfect Alliance antidote is a ready-made cure for a problem fabricated by the same people. It's a classic form of manipulation and control seen in the annals of global history - as is the tactic of grooming someone into dependency and then taking away the thing they're dependent upon. Everyone should be raising an eyebrow at how quickly the solution is able to be rolled out, and yet almost no one does. Instead, they become mindless clones, tools saying and doing exactly what the enemy wants them to.

One person who sees through it all is Adrien. He fights it so hard, but the poor boy is bound left and right by rings. We've seen Gabriel control him with the wedding ring. Now he controls him with the Alliance ring. But Adrien's miraculous is also a ring - he's bound by duty to both Ladybug and the entire population of Paris. There's no space in there for HIM.

Just as we've seen him battle against akumatisation, and against his father's mind control, we see him fight against the nightmares - his worst fear being losing control and hurting everyone. He rejects the Perfect Alliance antidote over and over...but eventually gives in.

I think if he weren't Cat Noir, he wouldn't have relented. He would have endured the pain for himself. His concern was the pain of OTHERS. So, he conforms - but in full knowledge of what he's doing. He isn't brainwashed here. He's making a choice.

When he finally exchanges his miraculous for the Alliance - one ring for another - he's acknowledging his duties and, for the sake of others, allowing himself to be bound to his father. He's acknowledging that he can't be both The Adrien Agreste and Cat Noir. One has to go. Again, there's no space in there for HIM.

It's also worth noting that the Adrigami avatars are all in white. Adrien is in a white room. Gabriel is all in white. When he loses control, Cat is all in white. I wrote loads about the symbolism of white in an older post, but let's add to it.

In that room, Adrien is under an intensive identity erasure attack. He's being stripped of everything he is. When he gives up his miraculous, that's the last piece. He is completely broken down as a person and now primed to be rewritten by Gabriel...which is exactly what seems to happen with the Wish.

And whatever that Wish was...Gabriel got away with another. Marinette said Adrien wouldn't want to know what his father was really like...so she complies with Gabriel's plea not to tell him. In other words...she conforms. She says and does exactly what the enemy wants her to.

What really gets me is ADRIEN ALREADY KNEW WHAT HIS FATHER WAS REALLY LIKE. And I hope to god that knowledge has not been wiped clean away by the Wish - that his trauma has not been wiped away - because that would complete the identity erasure. All his growth is gone. Who is he, right now?? Who remembers the boy locked in that room, the one who essentially sacrificed his entire SELF?

When Marinette puts that wedding ring on his finger at the end, I know it's intended as, 'Look, you control yourself now,' and he says when he's with her he feels so free...but she's now the one binding him. She's keeping secrets. She's controlling what he knows. She's deciding what he can handle and what he can't, like he's a small child. That's not freedom. He needs all the facts in order to make his own life choices.

For all her faults, I have always loved Marinette. I won't pretend Adrien isn't my favourite, though. I want to hope the writers are screwing with us on purpose and this was all a twist to set up bigger drama. My worry is that they really thought it was a happy ending and didn't see all these fundamental problems we are pointing out. I guess time will tell.

#miraculous ladybug #mlb #ml fandom #adrien agreste #chat noir #cat noir #ml meta #ml analysis #mlb meta #mlb analysis #ml marinette #ml recreation #ml conformation #ml s5 finale #ml spoilers #ml s5 spoilers #ml s5 #adrinette #ml ladybug #ml gabriel #gabriel agreste's a+ parenting

[jm-ethereal33]

I saw something on my newsfeed a little while ago and it's been bugging me for the past 20 minutes...

So, I feel like I need to post something ~

It was speaking about all of the ways that Jimin supports the other member's and what would happen if he had never been a part of BTS.

I'm not critical of the piece, because it's someone's thoughts and everyone's perspective matters, but please realize that this is only your personal opinion on what you see from a public standpoint.

It really was a lovely piece though and I respect the person who wrote the post. It was beautifully put and it's because of that- that I began to think of my own viewpoint as someone who is on the sidelines of all of this.

Things are very different in Asia and a lot of you are choosing to remain to be ignorant to how things really are in the country.

If you love these boy's so much, then you should be interested in learning about its culture, its awareness and other things, like knowing exactly how people like Jimin are treated.

▪︎

Despite how much you love Jimin as the "idol" that he is, his struggles cannot be ignored and yet it seems like people gloss over all of the things he has had to sacrifice and still continues to give- just to be a part of an entertainment group.

While he remains to be inside of a very corrupt and horribly run country.

If Jimin had never been a part of BTS, he wouldn't be anorexic/bulimia, because he wouldn't have tons of toxic people commenting on his weight that try to claim they love him so much.

Jimin would be given the freedom of stepping off of an airplane and not worrying about who could try to trample him by getting too close and being pushed around- while security tries to keep him safe and he wouldn't have to deal with the anxiety that comes with that.

He wouldn't need to walk around with a "disguise" on, so that he could go for a run along the Han river, or go to the store for groceries.

Jimin would be able to be with Jungkook freely and there would be no one who cared enough about their relationship to try and speak on something they will never understand.

He wouldn't have to deal with the constant hate, slander and threats that are focused on his loved ones, just as much as they are on him.

No longer would he be in pain, from forcing his body to do the impossible, so that you could all comment on how amazing his dancing is and he could finally stop getting those injections for his chronic muscle pain.

Jimin wouldn't be forced to comply with all of the ridiculous demands from HYBE and he wouldn't need to be concerned about where his life is headed.

It would be a loss if he was not a part of BTS, but there would also be a lot gained from his absense.

He was born with the birthright of being free and yet he's nothing more than a caged bird, as long as he stays with them and this goes for anyone who is in a kpop group.

They all have their own separate struggles, but essentially, they all have this one thing in common.

Some are immune to it and they are content with what they are given here, but this is not the life that Park Jimin is cut out for.

He is a free spirit and deserves so much more than this...

Sooner or later, the reality of the matter- is that his body will give out on him and considering his eating habits- he will waste away, but it will never be enough for those of you who think it's funny to push him too far.

It will never be enough, not even when he's given all that he possibly can, because you expect the impossible from a man who has given you nothing but his blood, sweat and tears for well over a decade now and yet you STILL want more.

And that's the worst part of it all, because Jimin is the kind of man that will give everything, even once he's stripped of his own strength and no longer able to do anything.

#bts #bts army #bts jimin #jimin #jimin bangtan #jimin bts #jimin icons #jimin is beautiful #jimin park #jiminie #jimin gifs #park jimin #bts park jimin #jimin pics #bts pics #bts photos #bts bangtan boys #bts gifs #jimin of bts

[bthump]

Hi dear bthump! I was thinking about this earlier today and was wondering your thoughts on it, even if it’s not directly griffguts related; what do you think of berserk’s stance on the concept of “ambition” or of the pursuit of one’s “dreams” ?

When I think of the way griffiths ambition is presented, it’s on face value an obvious condemnation of his over ambition- he chooses his “dream” over his comrades and friends, over the most important person in his life, guts, and becomes a literal monster/demon as a result.. and throughout the story, even though there are times guts himself (no less because of Griffith ofc) feels self conscious about being “unambitious” and just drifting in life, without strong goals etc. But when I think of the story as a whole with everything that’s happened in the eclipse and afterwards, I guess we’re meant to see guts as kind of the better, more grounded and humane alternative to a super focused, obsessive, dream chaser like Griffith, who ends up literally rejecting his humanity out of ambition? But then when I think of more recent neo Griffith chapters, that chapter where Griffith is talking about essentially revolutionizing the educational system in his utopia really stands out to me as an more obviously positive example/consequence of his “ambition”..

I wonder what you think about this? I think in another post you wrote about how, in many ways a lot of berserk is commenting on internalized homophobia/masculinity. Does this play into that?

As always love your posts and thanks for everything you do:) (also I’m really thrilled you liked my recommendation of human sadness!!)

Thank you, and thanks for the ask 💖

I think Berserk's take on dreams is a little nuanced, but falls on the negative side. As that one guy during the troll plotline says, "Dreams can make for courageous challenges but also opportune escapes."

Or much earlier you have Guts' Statement(TM): "The cost of ambition too great is self destruction." Which definitely feels like a narrative statement to me, not just reflective of Guts' character. Dreams are what motivate people to become apostles or godhands, dreams are what ruin everyone's lives in the Golden Age, and dreams are generally presented in opposition to genuine healthy relationships, requiring the sacrifice of one for the other.

But I do think Miura showed us the positive side of dreams too, in part to show why they're so seductive and the characters are obsessed with them, and in part just because it's realistic, probably. Griffith's dream of creating a utopian kingdom is genuinely pretty awesome and could do a lot of good in the world. But it was still bad for Griffith on an individual level, because his motivation was essentially a desire to escape from trauma, as neatly illustrated here:

And ultimately in Berserk, that's what dreams tend to boil down to. They're ways of coping with trauma, and they're not particularly healthy ways. They're band-aid solutions to make someone feel better about themselves that don't solve the deep-seated issues causing pain in the first place.

I have a post here that gets into the story's portrayal of dreams a little more in depth, and probably answers your main question pretty well.

And yeah along with that I think you can take that internalized homophobia and/or toxic masculinity reading and apply it very easily - I mean Griffith's dream comes complete with a princess to marry and is placed in direct opposition to his relationship with Guts. Guts' dream is to be the best swordsman ever, so he can be the strongest and most powerful guy around and never be victimized again, and you can at least argue that that plays into some of his shitty arrogance in the latter half of the Golden Age, though it may not be intentional.

I think realistically dreams and ambition are neutral at worst and can be great and have great results and Berserk acknowledges this, but the story itself is much more interested in exploring the negatives, and I feel like that works very well with the story's themes.

Ultimately I do think we're meant to see Guts' initial attitude during the Golden Age, pre Promrose Hall speech, as the more correct one: live for your day to day life and the people you care about rather than for a distant goal. This is a sentiment I think we can see echoed a lot throughout the story, from Godo and co telling Guts to stay with the remaining Hawks rather than going monster hunting, to Troll Arc's old man talking about wanting to escape his hardships at home but ultimately finding greater fulfillment staying with his village, to Guts' realization that he should never have left the Hawks, etc.

#ask #anonymous #a #b #theme: dreams #theme: trauma

[alpinelogy]

10 & 19!

Lourdes do you have the slightest idea what have you just asked me? Thank you so much for asking :DD

10. Is there a fic that got a different response than you were expecting?

maybe we got lost (in translation) a thousand times over. Beyond the fact that it is my second fic that has broken the 100 kudos barrier which is already insane to me cause I did not expect anyone to read it since its a niche ship imo, the way people see the fic is so different from the way I saw it as I wrote it. For me it is a fic mainly about language and communication and how it changes based on who we talk with. Also specifically Esteban's relationship with English is very much based on my own experience with it, from being thrown into an English-speaking group and told to swim to English slipping in even when he is speaking in a different language ('the language spoken is a mess of French and English') Meanwhile at least from comments people see the relationship between Esteban and Lance way more strongly than I do. Which fair, it was partially written as a love letter to my bilingual friends who try to understand me even when my brain does not comprehend language and in hindsight I sometimes ignored the language part in favor of developing their friendship so I can see where they are coming from. And the fic is tagged as estelance so... lol Essentially what I am trying to say here is that people focused on way more on a part I considered secondary than I did while writing it, but I can see why. Also I've gotten so many nice comments on it and even tho I forgot to respond to them I do reread them on the regular because they spark so much joy (also first time someone whose writing I enjoy commented on my fic and it sent me for a loop lol)

19. Give us a small teaser from one of your WIPs.

I actually dont have that many wips rn, I know, shocking, its mostly just scribbled ideas and disconnected scenes. And kinkmeme claims cause I currently have uh... 50 of those

Anyway i do have this. A race engineer!Oscar AU Loscar in which Logan has never been normal about anything related to Oscar. Ever. Starring Logan as a pining mess, Oscar as the calm and collected love interest and Fred, Alex, and Liam as the victims of Logan's pining

“Good morning Logan.” Oscar says as a first thing on the first day of testing over the radio and Logan returns back to his thoughts of screaming, almost vibrating out of his seat in excitement. Goes back to his year old promise of not doing anything stupid ten seconds into the season. Hopes that when the cameras catch his inevitable joy after he gets back to the garage it will be brushed off to just being glad to be back in the car, rather than anything else. As a worst case scenario, he will just put up the Alex Albon patented peace signs because those always somehow make pictures so much more grounded and Alex is really onto something there, Logan needs to study it. He will need it for this year. Probably. Maybe. Most likely. It's fine. It's, whatever. It's definitely not that Logan also spends so much time looking at Oscar in meetings that Fred has noticed. It's definitely not that Fred, with all the subtlety he has, cornered Logan in his drivers room and unceremoniously asked what gives two days into the season. Logan deserved that one probably. When Logan tries to brush him off, it seemingly works because Fred lets himself be brushed off, does not mind Logan redirecting the conversation onto another topic instead. Logan does not know what actually awaits him days later. It's Liam this time, who corners him a few days later, after testing, after the first race weekend of the year properly starts, right after the last free practice before qualifying. Being Formula Two teammates must have done something to their understanding of personal space between each other because Liam waltzes into his driver's room like he owns the place without even knocking. Logan has a half mind to kick him out just for that, force him to knock before entering.

(this got long but look, this is 300 words out of 7.8k that i am fighting to stay under 10k it's small okay?)

fic writer ask game

#ask #ask game #argentinagp #i have not ranted about maybe we got lost (in translation) for a hot sec. glad i could change that today :3. i love talking about it #also rereading bits of it jesus christ i was comma heavy when i wrote it. english does not have that many commas girl (gn) what #also if anyone wants to talk about (working name) galaxy collapse aka the loscar wip that lives rent free in my noggin hmu

[gentil-minou]

Dang, I didn't realize you stopped writing ML analysis because some dweebs were raining on your parade and making fun of it. You wrote some of the best stuff looking at ML and I'm sorry jerks ruined that for you. Both you and this fandom have been robbed of something great because some people just can't let other enjoy things.

i mean there are a lot of reasons, both personal and fandom related. My work is very demanding, I had some traumatic shit that happened a few months ago I'm still processing, and my interests in fandoms go up and down over time, like right now it's pretty clear to see i'm more active in other fandoms besides ML.

But honestly the awful way the fans have been acting towards this season, not just in the way they rain on everyone's parade but also the way the bible and leaks have spread so far and wide. While that isn't the fandom's fault persay it's still awful. the fun of theorizing is gone when a bunch of people know what's going to happen, so naturally i just kinda stopped (then all the broadcasting bs that always bothers me ugh)

But I think the one thing this fandom hasn't seemed to realize is that it takes a lot of effort to write about this show, especially if you're an adult or a student who has other things going on. It's easy to leave a comment that hates on the analyses they write, and it's also easy for it to feel like a personal attack.

Think of it this way, so many people relate to Adrien and Mari, in so many ways. They can see themselves in them, even their faults and mistakes mean something. It feels incredibly validating for someone to be able to see that.

Take my Adrien has depression posts for example. Because I've had depression since I was younger than him and did a lot of the same masking behaviors he does, it meant so much to me. Here was a character who seemed to be going through what I was at the time and still struggle with today. It was so wonderful to see on screen because it felt like I was finally being seen. Or another example would be Mari's anxiety and ADHD which I also relate to so much, especially when it causes her to make some mistakes or handle things in the wrong way. It's classing anxiety-avoidance cycles, and seeing it on screen made me feel like I wasn't so alone. And I am sure so many other people felt the same way

And then there are people who go and say awful things about these characters on a post where you express those feelings. How Adrien is being a whiney baby or whatever bs they say, how his actions are a sign of him being selfish instead of all of the trauma and neglect he's experienced. Or how Mari's complex thinking patterns and behavior are relegated down to her being a stalker or a mary sue or what have you, once again completely ignoring the core complexity of her character as just a normal girl who was forced essentially to be a superhero. The pressures of which would be tremendous on anyone let alone someone with clear ND traits and traumatic experiences.

And people insult those fictional characters, so quickly and easily, without realizing the very real damage they are doing to the very real people who see themselves in them. I've talked so much about why I love sentiadrien because i can see some of my struggles in that storyline, and then to have people say that no it doesn't matter because my experiences aren't as important? that it's invalid because there's only one right way to experience trauma? that im wrong for finding solace in it? it's awful, and it puts me down.

i shouldnt be feeling invalidated when im watching my comfort show, i shouldn't spend days writing very careful posts only to get them shat on by insensitive comments. as much as i want to ignore them and focus on the good i do and the fun i get from it, it still feels like a stab through the chest every time.

and then there are the people who say i'm an awful therapist because they don't agree with my analyses. that's the worst, and while i won't go into details about why this particular statement brings me so much pain, i just need folks to understand that it's genuinely one of the worst insults i've ever had. and if everytime i write something i have second guess myself, and then second guess if i even have the skill and talent for the field i'm in, it just becomes a horrible spiral. people make these comments like they're the easiest thing in the world to say and it just boggles my mind, because although they may have forgotten their stupid little tag i certainly haven't. i hold them deep in that dark part of my brain where the whispers are loudest and hardest to control.

ultimately, the last few months i wanted to remind myself why i like this show and this website in the first place, and that i'm doing it for me. life is hard enough, if i can't have fun in the one place i can control then what's the point? so i will control my own experiences within this fandom, even if other's want to rain on it

#idk i still might write stuff as the episodes come out and i watch them #but im not going to make it into a second job like i was doing before basically #where i'd go home from work and immediately go back on a comp to do more work #or lose sleep because i was so anxious over things #im having fun right now and while i miss theorizing and analyzing and getting that validation my mental health has been a lot better for it #so yeah #sorry for going on a rant i've just been very blegh lately #the shadowban thing is also no fun but hopefull that gets fixed soon #anyways #ml fandom salt #bushy rambles #asked and answered #sayse

[lesbx]

my objective rankings of (most of) the fallout 4 companions based on my opinions of them, mostly on how much i like them and how well written I think they are (or aren’t. in a lot of cases.) going from best to worst.

1: preston garvey. easily the best written companion, one of the like top ten best characters in the franchise, if not the best presented though. if he had not been designated as the lackey for the most generic and repetitive radiant quests in the game, he would probably have gotten to shine more as just a very good character

2: ADA. i just really like ADA i’m sorry she’s barely a character but i’m hugely biased bc i just like her

3: piper wright. Although not a companion I often travel with after getting to others, she’s still a really cool character. I like how she has unique dialogue animations and facial expressions to make her stand out as a very exuberant and loud person. her story is also pretty good, if pretty general. she mostly ranks so high bc it’s difficult to find faults with her

4: nick valentine. One of my favorite companions in the franchise, he just has such a rich personality and striking visual design, paired with a really strong narrative, good all around. Ranks below piper bc you can’t put him in any other outfits. peel that thang off of him

HANCOCK i forgot him. he goes here. i like him

5: codsworth. what codsworth lacks in plot, he makes up for in personality. i think him being connected to you from before the war makes for some interesting potential dynamics based on your chosen roleplay

6: curie: curie is really cute and good, i love her story and her comments on things. Only bad things about her are the weird tropes she falls into as a woman you essentially “make” and then can romance if you choose to. nothing too egregious, but weird writing

7: old longfellow. i think i just like this old fart.

8: danse. boring but nothing i dislike about him. his quest is good and an interesting twist

9: maccready. i like him, but his story is boring. i think the thing where they wrote him to be like really conscious about swearing based on his fallout 3 iteration is really really funny though

10: strong. i also like strong but he’s easily the weakest out of the companions story wise, effectively having nothing in the way of it. even his reasoning for following you is nothing you can act on bc his goal doesn’t actually exist and has no resolution. i usually like to make a settlement just for him and let him live quietly and peacefully.

11: cait. the only companion whose writing actively irritates and annoys me to the point of ALMOST disliking the character herself, although i do still try to like her despite it. one of the worst character plot lines bethesda has come up in the entirety of their work across all the franchises. just a miserable excuse for a character and story when it could’ve been so much better so easily, if they had had even one person with a brain in their skull in the building when they wrote cait, maybe she would’ve turned out better but here we are

companions who have been OMITTED from the rankings are dogmeat, porter gage, deacon, and x6-88. dogmeat bc he is immune to criticism by virtue of being a dog, and the others bc i simply have never interacted with them enough as companions to form an opinion. especially gage and x6, as i have still never like actually fully played nuka world, nor have i played an institute aligned character. if i had to just throw together a ranking for them though based on what i do know of them, it would probably be x6 > deacon > gage

[thatspiritualbabe]

Why I Don't Like the Idea of "New Self"

I'm not sure I agree with this notion that you have to be an entirely new version of yourself or undergo a complete personality change in order to get your desires. By all means, I think you should work on your inner dialogue, speak kinder to yourself, and stop putting yourself down. You should work on valuing yourself, viewing yourself in a positive light, uplifting yourself, self love and self respect. But I think there's so many people who hear of this idea of "new self" and suddenly feel the need to become the loudest people in the room. You don't have to be! For me personally I was always a bit shy and reserved growing up, so it just feels fake to suddenly have to be the most bubbly person in the room. For me, it feels more natural to have a quiet, reserved confidence. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I know what I bring to the table, but I don't have to shout it from the rooftops.

I also see this idea of "new self" become a limiting thing when it comes to manifesting an SP, that you can't have insecurities or imperfections, you have to be 100% confident 24/7 --essentially perfect-- or you won't get it. Okay first off, why are we told we have to hold ourselves to that standard? Chances are your SP has insecurities and flaws of their own. So if your SP can be human, I think you owe it to yourself to do the same. Give yourself a break. You're doing the best you can. You wouldn't be practicing manifestation if you lived a life prior where you were so used to getting what you want. Many people who decide to pursue this journey are those who have had failed relationships, failed careers, financial struggles, fake friends, etc. When you embark on your manifestation journey, you will learn with time and new experiences how to move forward from the past. There are many of us who have mental health struggles too, and I think the idea of "new self" can be detrimental if suddenly there is this expectation to have a different personality in order to get your desires. I think a long as you are making an effort to work on yourself, and giving your best that's all that matters. We all have bad days sometimes. It's okay to get emotional, as we continue to work through limiting beliefs. Don't ever let anyone in the manifestation community condemn you from having emotions. It's unrealistic to suppress this. And going back to the example of SP, your SP should love you at your best but also your worst.

That's just my take on it. I hope what I wrote makes sense. Sometimes I think of what I'm gonna blog about next and then when it comes to actually typing it I'm like how do I wanna explain this lol. If you scrolled this far, thanks for taking the time to read! I'm very new to this and I appreciate those who take the time to like, comment, and follow as I've been looking to connect with like-minded people for awhile. <3

#manifestation #spirituality #spiritual journey #law of assumption #law of manifestation #specific person #confidence #self love

[hamliet]

thoughts on rhaenyra and alicent?

I wrote more about them here. In short, I love both of their characters. I like the show adapting them as childhood friends/crushes, because it adds to the sense of tragedy bearing down on them all.

However, I dislike that they cut Laena's relationship with Rhaenyra for this. We could have had all three of them in a quasi-lesbian relationship, or at least, Rhaenyra and Laena get to consummate it while Alicent does not because duty. It'd add fuel to her resentment, and tragedy to her character.

In the books, what I enjoyed about their characters is how opposite they were, yet how similar.

Alicent is so detached from her own emotions that she rationalizes everything, and drives away the very people she loves. She can't acknowledge love outside of duty because that's how she's been brought up. It's why her interactions with her kids are almost always through this lens of duty. I don't doubt that she loves her kids, but I do doubt that she shows it in any meaningful way. And she wants power, because power is the reward of diligent duty. She wants to know that she's done well. So, she doesn't misunderstand Viserys. She plots to disinherit Rhaenyra.

Rhaenyra is so in tune with her own emotions that she goes for it and she gets it. The problem is that society isn't progressive. Rhaenyra choosing to make the best of her situation with Laenor and Harwin and Daemon and Laena is not morally wrong. The problem is society says it is, and hubris is thinking you are special enough to get away with it. Sadly, this isn't the case.

Alicent is fundamentally envious of Rhaenyra, like every evil queen archetype in literature. Now, this isn't me saying "Rhae good Ali bad." It's really not. Alicent is a deconstruction of the archetype. All I'm saying is that it's not a coincidence the title of the original short story was "The Princess and the Queen," aka almost every princess fairy tale ever which draws on the evil stepmom trope.

But, the twist is? Alicent is not evil. We see how her envy is driven by genuine pain and desperation, not simple vanity. Her attitude towards seeing Rhaenyra make the best of her unwanted marriage with Laenor where the two of them were happy, and then seeing Rhaenyra marry Daemon whom she loved, is essentially "I didn't get to have it, and I did everything right, so why do you get it?"

I mean, that's literally exactly what Alicent says in the above scene. And Rhaenyra's "now they see you as you are?" It's a comment on the fact that Alicent only cuts Rhaenyra. Rhaenyra knows Alicent is lashing out at her, and wanted people to see that Alicent was distraught about Rhaenyra getting the life Alicent had been denied, not desperate for justice.

But honestly? Who wouldn't do the same thing? I would. If Laenor had been like Otto of Viserys, Rhaenyra probably would've too.

It's confusion. It's pain. And honestly, even if Alicent wasn't a mouthpiece for the Greens, even if the Greens didn't exist as a political movement, someone would have said the same thing about Rhaenyra having bastard kids and losing her looks meaning she's a bad person. Like, yes, Rhaenyra was wrong, and naive at best, arrogant at worst, in assuming her role as a princess gave her a special pass. That doesn't mean morally wrong either, it just means that she didn't take systems and culture into account, which is a problem when you want to rule said systems and culture because said systems and culture say the throne is yours by said systems and culture's rules. Whew.

And Rhaenyra also wants power. "They stole my crown and murdered my daughter, and they shall answer for it." Power is the only way they see out of their systems, but that's another trap the system has set up.

Society is cruel and unforgiving and deeply misogynistic. The Green faction and Criston Cole used Alicent as a mouthpiece for them, and at the end? She realizes it was just an illusion of power that cost her everything she really wanted: love and legacy. That's why she can't bear to see the color green, even as she still clings to hatred because she has absolutely nothing left.

The irony is that both queens end up reinforcing the misogynistic systems that so wounded both of them.

This is human; it's not unsympathetic, which the show clearly thought it was. People just don't appreciate good tragedy these days.

#rhaenyra targaryen #alicent hightower #hotd #house of the dragon #the dance of the dragons #the princess and the queen #hotd meta #fire & blood #fire & blood meta

[korrasamibottles]

12, 17, 27, 29, 30👀

12. How many WIP’s do you have in your docs for next year?

4! There's Homophobic Naga, an angsty post-Ruins of the Empire Asami-focused one, one about Asami and airplane windows that's been beating my ass for months and needs to be completely rewritten because I poached sections of it for the angsty Asami wip, and then a sneaky lil Wuko one👀

Technically I have 5 wips at the moment, but I'm trying to finish one of them (the Ming one😈) before the end of the year because it would be very funny silly goofy haha to me personally if I posted what is essentially an anti-retail screed disguised as fanfic on christmas eve.

17. Your favorite character to write this year?

Answered this one here😊

27. What do you listen to while writing?

Nothing, I'm boring as shit and need long stretches of silence if I want to write more than one word per hour. Also my preferred way to listen to music is "loud enough to shoot me into the astral plane" which. Well. Ahah. That's not very helpful when I'm trying to think of words, phrases, and especially sentences.

29. Favorite line/passage you wrote this year?

Probably this (nsfw-ish) one from Under Me, Over Me:

Korra shudders, digging her heels into the couch and pushing up, desperate for more, but Asami just slips her finger out and locks her hands around her hips, pressing them deliberately back down into the cushions. It sends something white-hot coursing through Korra's veins, being pinned like this, so different from being laid out in a fight. She could get out of Asami's hold in a heartbeat, they both know it, but it's thrilling to let herself melt into it, to give herself over to it, pliant and trusting like she could never be with anyone else. 

It's a direct follow up to this post and also my Bottom Korra thesis statement thank you and goodnight😇

30. Biggest surprise while writing this year?

That people actually liked my writing lmao. Not to be a sopping wet pathetic cat about it but I'm very much an "expect the worst so I'm never disappointed" kind of person, so every nice comment has been a very pleasant surprise. Thank you to everyone who has ever complimented me, you will live in my heart forever and ever until the sun eats the earth and then probably after that as well.

#thanks for the ask💖 #anonymous #asks

[tciddaemina]

for the sake of transparency

some of you may have noticed that there’s something a bit funky going on in the comment section of keep it simple, one of my one piece/naruto crossovers featuring zoro/kisame as the main pairing, so i thought i’d explain just to preemptively set the record straight. for context, this is a slash fic, and one thats very clearly tagged, listing both the M/M pairing and who the main pairing is as explicitly as the tagging system allows. i literally could not be more obvious if i tried.

and a while ago, in July, an anonymous user left this comment on my fic

which sort of pissed me off. to clarify - i do not give a single honest fuck about what other people decide to do in regards to their headcanons, ships, whatever. ship wars are a waste of time and i literally could not care less. if you think zoro is straight, all the more power to you, that’s a valid interpretation and i respect your opinion. but that only works if you respect that i may also choose to have a different interpretation, one that is equally as valid. this is my fic, that i am writing, and i can choose to write it however i want. that is what fanfiction is about. 

the level of entitlement in this comment alone is offensive, this idea that you can dictate what others create or that there is only one acceptable correct way of looking a character or pairing emblematic of some of the worst of fandoms current mentalities. 

if this guy didn’t like it they had entirely the choice to shrug and say ‘hey thats not for me’ and keep going, but they didn’t. and its on chapter 1 as well, when the fic was several chapters in, so it wasn’t like this guy skimmed over the tags by accident, got all the way in and was like ???wait gay??? and then decided to whine about it. no, all i can assume is that they were scrolling, saw the pairing and decided click in solely for the purpose of leaving a shitty little comment. 

(also like. can we just acknowledge what a whack fucking suggestion this is? i chose to write zoro and kisame because they can be put together in a very fun and intense dynamic revolving around swords and bloodlust, that is why i wrote the fic. i honestly cannot tell if this dude just wanted me to what? rewrite the fic altogether with franky in zoro’s place? or just like, stop writing and go write franky/kisame instead? (i can only assume they think franky is gay because he’s sort of camp and more stereotypically gay, which is sort of offensive in its own right but go off.) either way its a very weird thing to order someone to do. 

also please, franky/robin all the way. this is my own opinion mind, but damn if franky isn’t the straightest fucking person in the straw hats. again, my own opinion). 

but anyway the comment fucked me off enough that i decided to be pretty and reply like this:

(this is not my art, but rather is an amazing piece by tumblr user cranity, found here. they have an amazing art style, for all that i found this image by it literally being the first franky/robin fanart in the results when i did a tumblr search. i essentially just shared the image in the form of a comment)

i’m more bemused by the whole thing than anything, as the discord server can attest, so apart from some initial confusion i just shrug and move on with my life. it earns a good laugh in the server if nothing else, so that’s good enough. there is no reply, and i honestly wouldn't care if there never was one

except whoo, anon is not done with me yet, because several weeks later i receive these. (sorry about the darkness of the images, my phone was on a light filter when i look the screenshots. also, i’d like to note that usually i would crop the persons name when discussing a story like this, but i want you guys to be able to see for yourself they’re the source of the emails)

what you’re seeing here is like a dozen spam replies and comments all by that same anon. the actual content of the comments was a bunch of links, as the anon tried to reply to my image with some of their own (Robin/Zoro frank art, to be precise, presumable to ha, pwned you). except that that is not how uploading images to AO3 works, you need to go through some specific html code for that, which means what this guy sent was only a bunch of links. 

links which AO3 then ate. like a GC, AO3 recognized that hmm, if someone is sending dozens of comments in quick succession its probably not a real comment but rather an attempt at spam and bullying, and so AO3 ate the comments. i still got the notifications in my inbox, but when i went to the fic itself the comments didn’t exist. 

and at this point i’m just like 🤣🤣🤣🤣 because not only has this person just failed to spam me, but they also fucked up how they tried to do it and couldn’t get the images to work anyway. rip my guy. 

the comments never existed, so i don’t bother to reply. honestly this is just an ongoing source of fun amusement for the discord server at this point so i’m just bemusedly waiting to see things will continue to unfold. 

and behold, another several weeks later, my inbox looks like this:

ya boy the anon is back and at it again, except last time they obviously got frustrated by the fact that their images were only coming through as links because they learned the html! (and wow, i love accidentally trolling someone into learning a useful new skill)

so what i receive in my inbox are essentially a bunch of comment replies that all look like this, featuring various zoro/robin fanart, presumable to prove to me the error of my ways in showing how utterly not gay zoro is. because man, this is really going to make me repent and show me how wrong i was. 

except that wow, haha, anon still fucked it up because they sent a dozen of these and AO3 was like spam? and ate the whole lot of the again. which is how we get to the most recent interaction, now several weeks later again. having presumably seen that gasp, their spam has mysteriously vanished, they then leave this comment:

which honestly just makes me laugh. i’m not going to comment on their writing, because maybe english isn’t their first language and that’s not something i’m going to make fun of someone for, but man the rest is up for grabs. again, they are ordering me to switch the main pairing insisting in tears Zoro!Isn’t!Gay! and that since they said to stop i have to stop. because the word of some random fucko really is what governs all my writing choices, and how dare i not obey. forgetting not the little postscript, as if to remind me of the superior ship, as if they haven’t tried to repeatedly flood my inbox and comments already with just that. 

again, it would be perfectly possible for this person to just ... walk away and never have to see this fic again. they could just not read it, not look at it, not engage, and go back to reading whatever het fic they prefer. they’re the one seeking this story out specifically to harass its author, outraged that someone in the world might have a perspective and opinion even lightly different than their own. nobody is going to stop making robin/zoro content because my fic exists, it literally impacts nothing and no one.

this is my reply:

so far there’s been no reply, but no doubt there will be one. i just wanted to lay the whole thing out here for the sake of transparency and as an explanation for whoever might be seeing the comments and wondering what the hell is going on. 

i’m going to say it again, but i could not give less of a fuck about ship wars and how other people choose to headcanon characters. everyones opinion is exactly as valid. if the harassment continues and gets truly annoying, i’ll just put on comment moderation and switch the fic to only being visible to AO3 users. if they try to go after any my other works, i’ll just move the whole lot to being user-only, and if they still want to try spam me using an actual account i’ll just block them. 

i do not care. this has no impact on my life, and while it would be sad that some non-user readers can’t access my fics, if that’s what has to happen then fine. 

and so to RDemon, if you somehow find your way here to read this (because at this point I wouldn’t even be surprised) you can keep sending as many messages as you want and it isn’t going to change anything. your comments don’t make me angry, they don’t hurt me, they’re a minor inconvenience at most and have brought far more amusement as the topic of entertainment in the discord server than they ever have caused strife. it is honestly hilarious, watching someone get so worked up into a frothing rage trying to fight with me about something i could not care about less, and every message you send only makes me spitefully want to write Zoro getting absolutely railed by Kisame in the filthiest and most explicit way possible even more. 

so cheers, RDemon, you’ve been a fun source of entertainment. know that we are very much laughing at you, and when i write the gayest Zoro smut i’m going to dedicate it to you 

#comments things #real story #ao3 #just some little dude being shitty and throwing a tantrum #lollll #comment wall of fame #te talks

[thefledglingdm]

1 7 and 13 for the writer asks!

thank you so much for the ask!!! apologies for the delayed response!!

13. What is a subject matter that is incredibly difficult for you write about? What is easy?

oooh i have a really hard time writing action scenes. like, anything in same stars is a trial to write bc i just think, ok, the action happens, let's move on. because what's fun in one medium (a first-person shooter video game) can be really hard to translate into another (a longform fic about my OC, Miranda, who i am down to talk about at any and all hours). just... any long-form action scene.

this will probably not be a surprise, but it's easy (well, easier) for me to write dialogue (witty banter? sign me up!!!!) in most any form. i also love a good angst with a happy ending.

17. Talk to me about the minutiae of your current WIP. Tell me about the lore, the history, the detail, the things that won’t make it in the text.

YES YES YES YES THANK YOU FOR THIS YES!!!!!! these will all be about my current wip that i am working on/publishing, i wish to be found. these bullet points below may have some mild spoilers, so the rest of this answer is below the cut!!!!

though this is an au of you've got mail, i changed most everything but the central premise because i don't actually like the second half of the movie that much anymore.

this essentially follows the lore history that i set up in the world will follow after, where yamaguchi and tsukishima don't meet until adulthood. tsukishima's backstory is the same as it is in that au, and yamaguchi's is changed to make it so he was born and raised in tokyo working for his mother's bookstore.

in the world will follow after, yamaguchi mentions off-handedly that he wants to tattoo his right arm with constellations as well. in i wish to be found, a slightly older yamaguchi has actually gotten all of the tattoos he details wanting in that fic.

originally, there was going to be more kagehina, but i chose to cut them in order to focus more on the tsukkiyama, kuroken, and bokuaka storylines.

if yamaguchi and tsukishima are elizabeth and darcy from pride and prejudice, kenma and kuroo are anne and wentworth from persuasion. these are parallels i want to delve into more in a kuroken-specific side story.

speaking of storylines, i got the name for yamaguchi's store and for the bookends company name from fantasynamegenerators. emily is a godsend. their story - that suga was a bookends competition winner that got together with his assigned editor - is mentioned in passing for backstory.

i briefly considered adding a daisuga getting-together subplot, but decided against it for the same reasons as reducing the amount of kagehina.

i look up and save the floor plans/zillow listings for every home location in my stories.

suga's character traits/info in my draft doc is literally just

in the final scene of chapter 1, tsukishima refers to his meeting about the next bookends location as "business as usual." in chapter 6, yamaguchi uses the same phrase during their fight.

the café fight was the first scene i wrote for this story.

tsukishima's message to yamaguchi, "find me when you're ready," is a direct homage to the title, "i wish to be found."

this is a slight spoiler for the chapter i haven't posted yet, but the fantasy world tsukishima creates for his bookends submission is the same homebrew world i created for a D&D campaign that fizzled out. the characters he uses are all NPCs i made for that campaign, too.

i mentioned this in some comment replies, but suga has 100% written, posted, and received commissions from volleyball players to write volleyball RPF. but he only writes about folks who have said they don't care about it. it is the worst-kept secret in the league. everyone thinks miya has read them all, but he swears he hasn't. sakusa has read them all. suna has performed multiple live readings at volleyball parties.

though not all songs i put on my writing playlists can make it into the fic, three that i'm actually bummed i probably won't be able to include are "bruises" by train ft. ashley monroe, "falling slowly" by glen hansard and marketa irglova, and "closer" by joey contreras and brian russel carey.

while this is an au of you've got mail and there are a ton of references to pride and prejudice, this story also ended up having a lot of parallels with the story/musical daddy long legs. both feature characters who fall in love over exchanged messages, with one person aware of who the other is and the other not. i highly recommend listening to it!! yamaguchi references the lyrics to one song, "i have torn you from my heart" ("yes, you've got your freedom, daddy / but you don't have me") when he muses on tsukki's absence in his life ("I have the store. But I don’t have you.") those same lyrics were originally the chapter title for chapter 6.

i also reference the song "the man i'll never be" when tsukishima realizes that yama and yamaguchi are the same person, thinking, "And yet. And yet. Kei could think of nothing more cruel or unkind than leaving Yamaguchi sitting there, alone, waiting for the version of himself Kei pretended to be."

the green sweater yamaguchi wears when he meets tsukishima at bookends is the same one he wears to meet tsukishima in the coffee shop in the world will follow after.

the bokuaka theme for this fic is "stranger" by riley roth.

the kuroken themes for this fic are "right where you left me" and "this love" by taylor swift

tsukkiyama have a theme, but that will be revealed in the epilogue!!!!

if you're still reading this i love you!!!!

#jj answers #i wish to be found #the world will follow after

[vvatchword]

I'm Gonna Die Mad about It

So: I finished Stephen King's It.

This book was nearly "perfect" with a capital "P." So fucking close!! I cannot begin to explain to you how pretty the prose was, how well-written and unique the book is on a technical level, how neatly the research and symbolism and theming all fit, the Grade-A characterization and setting.

Just one element holds this book back: his treatment of women is fucking dire. Just the worst thing you've ever seen. If he were a shitty writer, you could just chalk it up to him being shitty, but--like I've said in a previous post--his second-rate treatment is obvious precisely because of his god-tier skill.

Spoilers follow.

Women Are Cardstock

I have been reading this book in chunks over the past six months to a year--I don't even remember when I started, now--and for a while I took my time because I enjoyed it so damn much. On two occasions, I had to put it down for a few weeks because I got so fucking mad. Beverly and Audra are treated like sexual objects over and over and over, which is a big deal because Beverly is our major female character and Audra is as close as we get to a second.

Oh, actually: there's another major female character. You just didn't realize it. The monster It was female, and part of the story involves the main characters curb-stomping her eggs before they can hatch and escape.

There's nothing wrong with It being female. In fact, thematically speaking, this fits. There's just one problem, and it demands just a little explanation: you know how most Stephen King stories have two-dimensional characters, usually in villain roles? They're just nasty for the sake of being nasty, and they do horrible over-the-top things to other people, and we get to clap when they die in horrible ways. Some good examples would be Henry Bowers and some of his friends.

Well, King doesn't do this to just any character. Most of his characters are well-rounded, and even minor characters feel like someone you might meet on the street. Frankly, I enjoy his villains. It is definitely an acknowledgment that every now and then you get an awful human being, and it's enjoyable from an entertainment standpoint.

In a story that is absolutely filled to the brim with supporting characters, most are male, all with a variety of roles, jobs, personalities, and so on. But absolutely every single female character is reducible to a two-note role. Beverly and Audra are two-note good because they're sexually available and pretty; Mrs. Kaspbrak is two-note bad because of her comical ugliness (read: you don't want to fuck her) and behavior and is as close as we get to a fourth major female character. The other reoccuring female characters are so minor that they are essentially two-note themselves. Women fill very limited roles, perform very limited tasks, and are mostly notable in stereotypical ways--Mother, Grandparent, Wife, Nurse, Teacher, Clerk, Waitress, Sexual Assault Victim--all the way up to the monster, who is Itself a two-note Evil.

Looking in the Mirror

Sometimes, when a book has an obvious flaw, it's just a small comment on the author, and you can go on. It's not really worth talking about because the Yikes isn't always foundational. But Its sexism is astoundingly foundational. It's downright thematic. Women are represented as wellsprings and sexual, almost magical in Bev's case. Don't do that, jesus christ. A "good" stereotype is just as bad as a bad one. You shouldn't reduce Native people to "noble savages," you shouldn't reduce Chinese people to "always savants," you don't do "magical heart of the family" women. Part of equity is recognizing that people can be bad and complicated. ALL people.

A good example would be the underage sex scene. Now, it wasn't as bad as I expected it to be--only King could have fucking pulled this off without making me throw the book across the room--but I am also going to say: the reason he wrote it was extremely suspect. See, it was clear he had a hard-on for Beverly as a character--constantly noting her sexuality both as an adult and as a prepubescent, which went to skin-crawling levels--and he wanted her to be fucked. Oh, god, he needed her fucked so so bad.

Now, the ending of the childhood arc could have ended with the children cutting their palms and holding hands. This would have satisfied his need for a symbolic illustration of the Circle, the joining of the wheel, the coupling of the links, and, I guess, the exchange of fluids. But, true to form, he wanted something with a bit more pizzazz--most specifically, to show the death of childhood. Now, I'm not sure how else to do it--and it's certainly possible that sex could have played a role--but he did NOT need Bev to fuck everybody. It was transparently clear that he wanted everybody to fuck her for other reasons, and I must stress: she was a fucking child, and would be one for some time afterward.

I feel like I could go on for about ten paragraphs about the meta of a book--why authors choose the characters, subjects, problems, symbols, and contexts that they do--and when those choices become transparent and reveal the magician behind the curtain. See, there are moments where It becomes more about the author than the story being told. That's the gross factor, not the fact that underage sex occurs. It doesn't mean that authors can't write about underage sex or unfaithful spouses or kids being motherfuckers or use those elements symbolically. I mean, those things absolutely happen, and harsh truths are some of King's calling cards, and I am grateful to him for that. What is gross is an adult getting a hard-on for a baby and wanting that baby to get fucked.

Why Fucking?

As we all know, fucking is not in and of itself a sign of childhood's end. Why couldn't Bev's period be just as symbolic, for example? Well, we can't use that, because boys don't have periods, so how else do we show that everyone has stepped up out of their old roles into new ones, preferably simultaneously and directly after their first encounter with It?

I'd argue that the act of leaving childhood is a number of life experiences that put the Fear of God into you, and that you really only hit adulthood sometime in your 30s, and some people never hit it at all--due to anything from limitations of intellect and dogma to the cushion of wealth. I'd argue that trying to illustrate it by sex is extremely simplistic and even a bit insulting. I mean, you've never seen dumbass teens flying after that forbidden fruit? Do you ever think, "Yeah, that sure isn't a child! That highly unstable horny motherfucker right over there."

First of all: King used this as a way to show the kids stepping over the boundary from childhood to teenhood. To which I say, as a lifelong asexual: lol. But I guess that's 80s America for you. Sex was a bigger deal back then.

Secondly, he used this to show the Losers as binding to each other--joining the circle, in essence. Okay, then why didn't all of the characters fuck each other regardless of sex? This would have been as equally symbolic of the joining, if not MORE so, because the Losers' linkage should have been about the union of EVERY MEMBER, not of everyone unifying to fuck the same person. Why was Beverly's fuckhole more sanctified than, say, Bill's? Or P in V more noble than a handjob?

Here's where we see that double standard in action: Beverly was an object to be fucked and romantically desired, but the male characters were fully-fledged beings whose sexuality was one part of several parts. She was only there to fulfill them. They were not inherently sexually desirable--only she was. They are certainly spoken of sexually in the book, but these descriptions tend to be obvious, clinical signs of puberty for the most part. They're treated respectfully, in short.

(Notable, too, that Mike Hanlon and Stan Uris--as the other token minorities in the group--get more explanations of and respect for their backgrounds than Bev does. If you don't think I'm taking this lesson to heart...)

Thirdly, it's a sign of how 80s-era King saw sex and women: as symbols of life, with the act of procreation in the face of death and destruction. That's not necessarily incorrect, but it can be taken to a regressive place, and he went there. I'm just gonna say that the death of the only obvious gay character in the book becomes a little more interesting with this reveal.

This also makes It more interesting as a character: It reproduces asexually. I suppose it is also possible that it can't create anything of its own--perhaps It consumes children to create its own? Regardless, this implies that the act of fucking itself is something more than the act. Now, by the end of the book, King defines the true life drive as "desire"... not sure I followed him there, but then again I did read the book over an enormous period of time and probably missed a lot of connecting tissue. I'll have to come back to this.

I'm Coming Back to This

As mad as Its stances on sexuality and women made me... this book is incredibly fucking good. I already want to read it again. King is a master of the craft. Not many people can do this shit. The very act of intertwining the childhood parts with the adult part, which could have been clumsy or terrible in anyone else's hands, works perfectly here. His prose is beautiful and there are lots of wonderful lines. He fully develops every character and setting. I want my own copy to scribble in.

My favorite part was when King brought each adult characters' fears to life. Up to this point, I may have been a little, uh... well, I may have laughed a few times. King has this one stylistic fetish where he gets gratuitously gross and there's a point where it's not scary, it's just kinda stupid. It's the equivalent of an 8-year-old boy with his sleeves folded over his hands coming up to you and slapping a frog into your open hand. Like, yep, honey, that's a frog. Put it back.

So while there were a couple of monsters that definitely gave me chills, for the most part I was like, "Ohhhh are there worms in his mouth now, Stephen? Are you gonna talk about exposed intestines now, Stephen? Is the head leaning halfway off the neck with an eyeball hanging out, Stephen? Hurrrrr that's not how bodies work hurrrrr"

Needless to say, because I wasn't scared, I was basically doing that thing where I was thinking: "Well, if I saw this monster in quite this way, I would have done this or this or this."

But with the appearance of one of Its final forms, it clicked. I got it. And I was able to extrapolate from the fear a character felt to some fears in my own life. It was remarkably powerful. Its appearance was perfect in that moment, and a lot of the book slotted into place for me. I was able to look at my own fear in the face--realize what shape It would take in adulthood.

That right there is the magic of literature, lemme tell you. I had a healing moment last night.

I highly recommend giving It a read.

As for me, I'm about to read a LOT more classic King. Stick around to hear me huff and puff about Carrie or something, idk

#vvatchword #reading #writing #it

[brutallyhonestautistic]

So, idk. I guess I'm gonna share the reason why this blog exists. Essentially, I need an anonymous place to journal and my friend suggested Tumblr. "But person, why note a notebook???" Well, I'll tell you with my first Traumatic Experience™️ you'll get to see on here if I keep up on this.

When I was in about 4th-5th grade I kept a journal pretty religiously. It was a place I (a very straight cut, goody two-shoes kid) could say things my mom wouldn't like without getting in trouble (literally my worst fear). My mom was never physically violent or anything, but every time my sister and her fought, it got loud and I do not like loud voices/noises. Either way, one day I come home from school and my journal is just sitting out on the kitchen table. I usually kept it in my bedroom desk drawer. My mom had gone through my journal and wanted to "have a talk" about what she read. Somewhere in there I mentioned needing therapy (I'd suspected from a pretty young age that I had some sort of mental disability, but whenever I voiced that I was shot down. So I wrote about it privately. This was all pre-autism, anxiety, ADHD, and depression diagnosis). My mom FLIPPED. She told me I didn't need therapy and that I was fine, nothing was wrong with me, etc. She said it like I should be ashamed that I would even think about needing therapy. I don't remember what else in there she was upset with me about. But that sticks out to me. She was so upset at me for wanting therapy. And for having a safe place to share my thoughts. I hate people reading things over my shoulder or borrowing my notebooks to this day because I'm scared that they'll be upset with some mundane comment they'll find.

For some extra context, I'm only realizing now how my parents are under it all. We used to be so close, but to be close I suppressed a lot of my thoughts and feelings to match theirs. Now that I'm older and have friends who encourage me to be myself, I've found that my parents and I can hardly last a week without fighting. It's horrible. I want to go no contact when I move, but some part of me, deep down, is still a scare 12 y/o that wants their moms' approval and love for everything. That part of me is willing to push down my thoughts and feelings to be close with them, but I can't anymore. It's just not healthy. It never was.

#childhood #trauma dump #verbal abuse

[theasstour]

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐎𝐧𝐞𝐬 𝐋𝐞𝐟𝐭 𝐁𝐞𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐝.

𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓: 𝟕.𝟓𝐤 𝐍𝐁: 𝐛𝐨𝐝𝐲 𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐠𝐞, 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐭 𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐮𝐚𝐠𝐞, 𝐝𝐫𝐮𝐠 𝐮𝐬𝐞, 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐩𝐲 𝐦𝐞𝐧

A/N: Thank you so much to everyone who reblogged and sent me an ask after last chapter ❣️ I might not have gotten through all the asks yet, but know that I see all of you and I appreciate you more than I will ever find the right words to articulate 🌟 Thank you for the kind words and for reminding me of how fun it is to post my stories on here! Love you sm sm sm 🥰

Tuesday, 4 November 2017

One of the worst things Y/N knew of was seeing someone she cared about go through something troubling. If she knew them well enough, it would be written out on their face and in their gestures, making it so that she could not ever look past it and pretend everything was alright. Her ability to read people, to understand their wants and to see when something was off, was something she had crafted over many years of being a people pleaser. Now, it came naturally to her to study a person’s way of acting, talking, being, and then make them happy accordingly.

She realised when she grew older that the reason she did this was so people would look past her body and like her for who she actually was. She hated herself sometimes for still giving in to this need to please people all the time. She hated the things it had made her do in the past, how she had bent herself over backwards for people who did not, and would never, give a single shit about her. Though she felt at home in her body, she felt content in it, these tendencies to constantly make up for how she looked, to make light of it or make people feel comfortable around her, still hung around. With absolutely everything she was, Y/N hated that part of herself. She did not have to make up for anything. What did she have to apologise for? For existing? It did not make sense to her, but it had made sense to those that bullied her in school and those skinny people whose worst fear was becoming fat. Y/N’s worst fear, because of this, was not being liked. She realised how it all connected now.

Y/N realised how this need to please people came into play as she was sitting in a seminar room with Hayden, Chloe, Thian, Annalise, and three others from the International Society that Annalise often went to. Annalise was whispering in Dutch to the other Dutch girl she had met, while the rest of the room was relatively silent. Hayden had put on some music to lighten the mood, but it was evident that they were unsatisfied and sad. They were eight people; a single game of Uno was being played in a room that had been made so that at least 20 people would show up. Hayden had bought five decks of Uno, only for the one they brought with them to London to be the one the group ended up using. Their eyes drifted to the door every so often, silently begging for anyone else to show up to what looked to be a disastrous start to their Uno Society.

After two hours, they had to get out of the seminar room and go back home. As they were cleaning up, Y/N walked over to Hayden and helped them put their Uno decks and everything else they brought, back in their bag.

“More people will show up next time,” Y/N assured them.

“You’re just saying that.”

“No, I genuinely think more people will show up at one point.”

Hayden smiled at Y/N, though it did not reach their eyes. “If we don’t have at least 15 people by the third meeting, this won’t be considered a society by Helmond standards and we won’t be allowed to meet on campus grounds.”

Y/N felt a small tinge of panic at that. This was not usually the society people would jump to be part of, it would take a little while for people to want to show up to an Uno Society on a Tuesday every fortnight.

“We can hope more people will come, but I doubt they will,” Hayden said.

“There aren’t a lot of people our age who play Uno, though,” Chloe said as Hayden and Y/N made their way to the door.

Y/N furrowed her brows at Chloe’s comment, but did not say a word.

“No, but I love Uno, and it’s a very social game. It’ll be fun if a lot of people show up, you know?” Hayden said, closing the door behind them before they walked down the corridor for the exit.

“Obviously, people just don’t know what they’re missing,” Thian chimed in, showing off his usually wide, happy beam. “It’s a great idea, Hay.”

“Really? It’s not bound to flop?” Hayden asked, scrunching up their nose as if they could not quite believe what Thian was saying.

“Of course not,” Annalise said.

“It’s a nice break from all the assignments,” Y/N said.

“By the way, speaking of assignments,” Chloe groaned. “Y/N, have you started on the Othello presentation yet?”

“You haven’t had the presentation yet?” Thian asked.

“No, different Introduction to English Studies seminar groups have presentations at different dates,” Chloe said. “Since Y/N and I are seminar group E, we have it last. Monday, 4th of December.”

“That’s still a while away, though,” Hayden pointed out. “You still got a month.”

“Yeah, but the presentation’s 40% of the final grade. I know I’ll ace the essay, but we only get to have a five-minute presentation on Othello.” Chloe rolled her eyes. “How am I supposed to talk about how Othello’s a sexist play in just five minutes?”

“Easy,” Thian said. “You talk about how it’s a sexist play for just five minutes. You love to talk, it’ll be easy peasy.”

“I love to gossip, this is entirely different,” Chloe complained.

“Not really,” Y/N said, cocking her head a little to the side as the group rounded a corner. “You’re essentially just gonna gossip about Othello and what’s wrong with him and the way Shakespeare wrote the play.”

Chloe stared at Y/N for a few seconds, pursing her lips as she thought. A grin spread out across her lips and she nudged Y/N’s shoulder. “You’re right.”

“It’s gonna be fine,” Annalise smiled.

“And by the time that happens, the Uno society will be history,” Hayden mumbled, making Thian pout his bottom lip and wrap an arm around Hayden’s shoulders. They all made their way back to Dinwiddy, Lancaster Complex, and Fleming Hall, three of the seven different campus accommodations. Dinwiddy was definitely of a bit better standard than Lancaster and Fleming, but Y/N was sure that, had she decided to live on campus, she would have gone for either Lancaster or Fleming like Annalise, Thian, and Hayden. She said goodbye to all of them and went on her way, walking back to Haggerston while talking to her parents on the phone. They always insisted she call them if she walked out alone at night, no matter how many people were around.

The shops she strolled by were starting to put up Christmas decorations and sales, making Y/N long for holiday. She just wanted a few days off uni. Though it was only the first year, the amount of work they were getting was ridiculous, and Y/N felt like she either spent most of her time in the library with her Literature gang, or at a café with Nathan, doing uni work. The fact that Christmas lights and decorations were already making an appearance, gave her some hope.

Getting to Orsman Road was no problem, and Y/N hung up with her parents when she reached the flat building. The mere thought of her bed made her knees buckle, she could not wait to be snuggled up in a blanket and watching the newest true crime series on Netflix. Once inside, she got her shoes and outwear off, then walked straight for the kitchen. She halted.

In a pair of worn-out black rugby shorts and a black hoodie, Harry stood pouring water into the kettle. The muscles in his legs flexed and unflexed as he moved, making it impossible to look away from his thighs. Y/N could not find the right words to express just how much she hated those tiny shorts. It was as if he knew exactly what he was doing. Except he didn’t. He was very much just trying to wear something comfortable at home and Y/N was ogling him. He looked up as she entered.

“Hi,” Y/N said, walking over to the fridge where she kept her oat and banana milk.

“Hi,” Harry answered, watching her as she walked before putting the kettle on. “Been out shagging old men?”

Y/N blinked a few times before looking over at Harry as he put a teabag into his mug. “You’re very obsessed with my sex life.”

“I’m just nosy.”

Y/N sighed, knowing this was true from experience, and went back to getting her milk out of the fridge. “No, I was at a society meeting. The first one, actually.”

“Oh?” She could see in her peripheral vision that he turned around to watch her. “What kind of society?”

“Uno.”

Silence settled in the kitchen, and Y/N could hear Nathan and Mason in the living room next door playing something on the PlayStation. Y/N could feel Harry continue to just look at her as she poured herself a glass of the oat and banana milk. It was not until the milk was back in the fridge and Y/N met his eyes, that Harry spoke again.

“Uno?”

“Like the card game.”

“That’s… a niche interest.”

She raised her eyebrows. “And you’re being judgemental.”

Harry’s eyes grew wide. “No, no, no! I-“ He stopped himself, taking a grip of the kettle and quickly pouring himself a cuppa before meeting Y/N’s eyes again, something frantic shining within his own. “It’s just a very specific interest and society.”

She raised one of her shoulders. “Which is what makes it so amazing.”

“Yes. Yes, of course,” Harry said quickly, gesturing at her with his hand as if he completely agreed. Y/N wanted to laugh at how fast he was talking, as if he was desperate for her to understand that he was not being judgemental. “How was it?”

“Barely anyone showed up,” Y/N explained, sipping her milk.

Harry frowned. “Really?”

“Yeah, and at least 15 people total have to show up for it to be considered a society, or else Hayden, my course mate, can’t continue hosting on campus grounds.” Y/N sighed, looking at the ground. “Basically, if Hayden doesn’t find, like, twelve more people to join within the next two times, we won’t have a society any longer.”

Harry opened his mouth as if to say something, but just then, the sound of quick footsteps could be heard, and then Nathan’s face appeared in the doorway. A grin spread out on his face as he met Y/N’s eyes.

“Thought I heard you come in!” he exclaimed. “We’re playing GTA, wanna come drive some people over?”

Y/N smiled at that, scrunching up her nose. “As appealing as that sounds, I’m gonna have to decline.”

Nathan pouted his lips and Harry stood watching quietly. “Why?” Nathan asked.

“Have an essay that I need to finish.”

Nathan sighed heavily. “Fine. Guess I’ll let you write that bloody essay.”

“Excuse you? ‘Let me’?” Y/N rolled her eyes and Nathan laughed. She gave him and then Harry a smile, making her way out of the kitchen.

“Have a good night,” she heard Harry say as she walked through the doorway. She gave him another smile before walking up the stairs and to her room. She quickly got out of her clothes and into loungewear, taking all her make-up off and finding a fluffy blanket she could sit under in bed as she started writing her Introduction to English Studies essay. She could hear the boys shouting and playing downstairs and drowned it out by putting her earbuds in and shutting them out.

She ended up reading academic articles and writing down an essay plan until she felt her eyelids get heavy a few hours later. Putting her laptop away and finishing her oat and banana milk, Y/N took her contacts off and started getting ready for bed. The door to the room beside hers opened and closed, she could hear Harry rummaging in his room, though the sound was not disturbing in any way. The only disturbing thing about it was the fact that it was Harry, but Y/N was learning to accept that. It had only taken her two months, but she was coming to terms with the fact that Harry Styles, an ex-good friend of hers and person she had sex with once, was living and sleeping in the room right next to hers.

Friday, 17 November 2017

The pizza at Domino’s was absolutely amazing, but working for them was anything but. This was only Y/N’s first shift, and she was already dreading her next. Not only would she be bringing home with her the memories of a horrible first day on her new job, but she would also be bringing the smell of greasy pizza. She would have to do a deep clean in the shower before going to bed, she was not rubbing that smell onto her bedsheets.

With some experience working for Pizza Express before, Y/N was already well-versed working for a pizza chain. Pizza Express had been her job from 15 until she moved off to uni at 19, which she knew was what must have given her this new job at Domino’s rather quickly. As much experience as she had working at Pizza Express serving people, she had never been the one to drive around delivering pizzas. After all, she had not gotten her license until sometime last year, so it had never been a possibility. However, in the job description for this position at Domino’s, it had clearly stated that Y/N would be working mostly as a delivery driver, something that sounded chill at first, until she realised she would have to go deliver pizza to people that would be anything but friendly. Or maybe a little too friendly. Because of her inexperience in this particular field of the job, she had another employer join her for her first shift.

Isla was very quiet, maybe even a little too quiet for Y/N’s taste. She would mostly just stare out the window, sometimes chime in to help Y/N pick a quicker route, or help her make out how much she owed the customer if they paid a few quid too many. Other than that, Isla did not really offer much conversation wise. Even when the two of them picked up the pizzas for their first drive, the first time they spent together, Isla did not say much.

“Have you worked here long?” Y/N asked, giving Isla a smile so she would know that she was actually asking out of curiosity and not because she felt obliged to.

“A year.”

Y/N nodded as she sat down behind the wheel, Isla sitting down in the passenger seat. “I worked in Pizza Express at home in Nottingham before I moved here. Dunno why, I’ve always preferred Domino’s to Pizza Express. Though, Zizzi is top tier.”

Isla only nodded slightly.

Y/N had waited for a response, but realising she would not be getting one, she started the Domino’s car and started driving in the direction out of the parking spot on the street beside the tiny restaurant on Homefield Street. Y/N almost drove right into the Domino’s mopeds that all stood on the spot in front of the car. She just knew that at one point, she would be driving one of those. She followed the instructions on the GPS, up Hoxton Street, in the direction of Lavender Grove. Without any radio on, the car was very quiet. Too quiet. It made Y/N break out in sweat.

“Do you drive around with deliveries often?” Y/N asked.

Isla shook her head. “No.”

Y/N whipped her head back in the direction of the street in front of her, trying to produce spit so she could nervously swallow. Her mouth was too dry. “You work by the till then?”

“Mostly.”

Y/N smiled. “That’s the best place to work, isn’t it? Don’t have to drive around, don’t have to actually make the food.”

Isla gave a feeble smile. “I suppose.”

God, all Y/N wanted as an okay day. All she wanted was for one single day to be alright.

Isla would twine a single piece of her brown, bushy hair around her finger sometimes, then put it behind her ear, only to go back to fidgeting with it. Y/N was unsure if she was nervous to be in a car with someone she did not know, or if she was just deep in thought. Y/N wanted to get to know Isla, to make a friend at her new workplace, but she did not want to harass Isla if it meant it would make her uncomfortable. It was clear that she did not like being this close to Y/N considering the two had never met before and would now be spending a good six hours together. Therefore, to not push away what she hoped to be a future mate, she only made occasional conversation and then left Isla mostly to herself. She could sense that was what her companion wanted most of all.

In a particularly dodgy part of Lea Bridge, Y/N was delivering three pizzas to what she knew even before knocking on the door, would be to a rather creepy encounter. The man that opened the door was bald with glassy eyes and a blue tee shirt tucked into his grey joggers. At the sight of Y/N, he grinned.

“Three pepperonis?” she asked, wondering if this man just really loved pepperoni pizzas or if he was hosting a party.

“That’s me, yeah.”

“Alright.” Y/N handed him the three pizzas just as another man emerged from behind him, and it was then that Y/N noticed the incredible stench of alcohol and cigarettes. Some 80s rock was playing from a stereo and there did not seem to be much light on inside the flat. Y/N suddenly felt very sick.

“You pre-paid,” she stated, more to reassure herself that she could just leave than to make them aware that she knew they did not have to go get any money to pay her. “Have a nice night.”

“Wouldn’t be nice if you didn’t stick around,” the bald one holding the pizzas said.

“Yeah, why don’t you come inside? Have a bite with us?” the other one offered. “You look like a hard-working girl, why don’t you take a few minutes off with us?”

Y/N could feel her heart begin to beat faster, her hands begin to sweat. “No, I have to get back to work,” she said, giving them a smile before walking off.

“Wait, we didn’t give you a tip!”

“Come back, love!”

Y/N tuned them out as she walked down the stairs, keeping an eye over her shoulder and her ears on alert as she made her way back to the car. Isla was sat on her phone when Y/N sat back down in the driver’s seat, putting her seatbelt on a little too fast and gripping the steering wheel harder than she had previously. She just wanted to get away from those men, she just wanted that shift to be over.

“You okay?” Isla asked. The first question she ever asked Y/N. First time she ever took initiative to start a conversation. Y/N really appreciated it in that moment.

“Yeah,” Y/N said, sighing heavily. “Just hate men.”

Isla must have understood what Y/N was talking about because she nodded, looking straight ahead at the road in front of them. “I’m sorry you met the worst type of customers on your first night.”

“Had to meet them at one point, though,” Y/N said.

“You shouldn’t have to meet them at all.”

Y/N felt that statement reverberate through the car, lay in the air between them for quite some time after it was said. She could not stop thinking about it as she drove to the next destination, feeling disgusted and angry. Had she stayed there a second longer, she would have had to resist the urge to knee them both in the space between their legs. This was just one of the stupid encounters that night, though the rest were more so on the scale of weird than disgusting. Like a man that was clearly high thanking Y/N for his frozen milk when he had ordered three Ben and Jerry’s, or a woman with her hair a mess, make-up completely destroyed, and just her dress robes on, snatching the pizza out of Y/N’s hand before hurrying back inside. It was a strange few hours, and as she drove the car back to Domino’s Homefield Street, Y/N felt absolutely drained of energy.

Walking home after her shift at 3:30am was next to torture, she just wanted to be in bed, cosy underneath the covers, and forget about the fact that she was working tomorrow night as well. Though the Hoxton Street was washed in the yellow lights from the streetlamps and the occasional car driving by, it was anything but empty. Drunk people were walking home from pubs, while others, like her, walked home from another nightshift, and some were just out for a night stroll. She walked without listening to music, not feeling comfortable with not being completely aware of her surroundings when it was dark out. Besides, she was so tired as well, listening to music would probably put her to sleep.

Orsman Road was completely deserted, only a few people walking home from The Stag’s Head passed her smelling of beer and cigarettes. This street was darker, smaller, and less busy than Hoxton Street, so Y/N opted to walk in the middle of the road instead of in the shadows. She felt less vulnerable that way. As she reached the flat building, she got her keys out of her purse and went to unlock the door.

“Fancy seeing you here.”

She jumped, keys falling onto the asphalt. Looking over her shoulder, she saw Harry standing there with the smuggest, most infuriating look on his face. God, how she wanted to slap him until his teeth fell out. While she contemplated how to physically hurt him, Harry bent down, picked up Y/N’s keys, and put them back in her hand.

“Don’t lose those,” he said. “50 quid to get a new pair.”

Y/N only narrowed her eyes, unlocking the door for them both and striding on to the next floor. After opening the door to the flat, she got her shoes off, and walked straight for the kitchen. She needed strawberries, especially after the shift she just had. The door closed behind Harry and she heard him lock it before taking his shoes and jacket off, too. As she turned around after closing the fridge door, Harry stood by the kettle, filling it up with water.

“Didn’t know you worked at Domino’s,” he said, looking over at her briefly, nodding at her black Domino’s fleece jacket before turning his attention back to the kettle.

“Just started.”

“How’re you finding it?” he asked.

Y/N sighed, leaning her hip against the counter. “Considering this was my first shift and I have to show up again to work another nightshift tomorrow…” She pursed her lips as if deep in thought. “I’d say shite.”

Harry laughed, stopping the tap. “Tea?”

“No, I bought myself some banana and oat milk from M&S earlier, I’ll just have that. Thank you, though.” She gestured at what she had placed on the counter while he was busy with the kettle.

Harry watched her as she got herself a glass for the milk. “Can’t for the life of me remember you being a Tory.”

Y/N laughed. “Oh, you don’t remember me hating the poor?” she said, putting on a posh accent, Harry could not hold back his own laughter. “Quite a big part of my personality, don’t know how you missed it. Now-“ She put the milk back in the fridge. “-If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go spend five weeks at my £1.000.000 18 century holiday house in Surrey.”

Harry’s laughter echoed through the kitchen as he put the kettle on, shaking his head at her. “No, but how’d you like your first shift? Anything like Pizza Express?”

Why the fuck did he remember that? Why did he have to remember everything? Bloody hell…

“Not for me. There were just a lot of creepy men, and some very dodgy neighbourhoods. I’m sure that’s not all there is to the job as a delivery driver, I’m sure I was just unlucky my first time, but I can’t really afford to quit unless I have a backup.”

Harry frowned at that. “If you don’t like it and you feel unsafe, you don’t have to continue doing it.”

She nodded her head. “No, I know, but it’s still the only job I could find and that I could get at the moment. I’ll apply to others later.”

Harry’s frown deepened, crossing his arms over his black, tee-shirt covered chest. No tattoos on display. She wondered why he only had tattoos on his chest and torso.

“Yeah, alright…” he said, voice a little darker than before. “But if you feel unsafe-“

“-Harry, I practiced capoeira when I was younger, remember?”

At that, as if he was slowly unveiling a memory he had not thought about in a little too long, Harry smiled. A small, fond smile that Y/N remembered from a previous life; a life with far less troubles, far less complications than this one.

“Of course I do.”

Not “yes”. Not just “I do”. “Of course”. He had said “of course”, as if remembering was a privilege. As if not remembering would be the strangest thing in the world. Y/N hated that this man did not forget a single thing. Never had, never would.

“Well,” she said, trying to act normal after that. “Well, I can hold my own.”

“Good to know,” Harry smiled, getting a teabag from his cupboard. As he turned his body and face away from her, she saw something glisten in the lights of the kitchen. Two earrings. Two gold earrings right next to one another. In his ear. Y/N would never admit to it out loud, the sight made her mouth salivate. “But I still think you should quit if you don’t like your work.”

Y/N opened the strawberry container and took one out, taking a bite. She needed to look away from Harry, away from his two earrings, and away from him because he was making some points. She knew where Harry was coming from, she really did, but she could not go on living in London, using money every single day, and not have an income. Until something better came along, this would be her job. “How’s the pub?”

“Alright,” Harry said, pouring hot water into his mug. “I’m having my last shift there December 15th.”

Y/N blinked. “You’re quitting?”

“Yeah, I’m starting a new job in January.”

She raised her eyebrows, meeting his gaze again. “Okay, good for you. What one?”

“Tattoo artist.”

He had to be fucking kidding at this point. Y/N had to do everything to keep her eye from twitching.

“Just got my tattoo license, so I’m ready to go come January.”

Y/N did not want to admit it. She could not admit it. She physically could not. But… everything about Harry… everything he did, everything he said… It all hit different. And it did not help that Y/N, who loved tattoos, getting them, having them on her body, and seeing them on someone else’s, was now made aware that Harry could legally give people tattoos. He was going to become a tattoo artist in January. Y/N wanted to eat chalk.

Harry just looked at her, studying her face. “You okay?”

She swallowed the strawberry bite she had just taken. “Fantastic.”

Harry raised his eyebrows. “Really?”

“Did you draw your own tattoos then?”

For the second time that night, Y/N was witness to Harry’s smug smile. He raised his cuppa, cocking his head a little to the side as he said, “You’ve seen my tattoos?”

Y/N wanted to die.

“You’ve been sneaking into my room to watch me sleep, that it?” Harry asked. “You’ve probably seen the tattoo I have by my crotch then, too-“

“-Oi!” Y/N narrowed her eyes at him. “Piss off. I saw them when you were wearing that low-neck top at Footprint.”

Harry took a sip of his tea. “If you say so.”

Y/N rolled her eyes and Harry laughed.

“It’s jokes, Y/N.”

“Good. I’m genuinely scared you think I fancy you.”

Harry smiled. “You mean you don’t? Really?”

She took a hold of her strawberries and milk. “Goodnight, wanker.”

“I’m a dreamboat, what about this-“ Harry gestured at himself, flexing his arm muscles that weren’t really there. “-Doesn’t give you the fanny flutters?”

“You’re disgusting.”

Harry laughed.

“I was just interested to know about your job as a tattoo artist ‘cause I love tattoos,” Y/N explained.

Harry’s eyes travelled down to Y/N’s hand where the ‘M’ was tattooed, it lingered there for a moment too long. For some unknown reason, a tingle started up in Y/N’s thumb, making its way up her arm and to her breasts, then her stomach. Slowly, he lifted his eyes to her ribs where he must have seen her ‘saudade’ tattoo. Though it was not visible right then, it seemed as if Harry was seeing it all the same, sensing it somehow. At last, his eyes met hers, and Y/N felt something in her throat stop working. The tingle that had laid in her stomach just seconds earlier exploded, slithering all throughout her body and making her hyper aware of how knowledgeable Harry was of the tattoos on her body; of her. He must have paid more attention to her than she thought he had. Something about that made it hard to breathe. Bloody hell, she hated how fucking fit he was. She hated how she reacted to his glance, to his attention.

“I can tell,” he said, voice a tinge darker than before.

She was surely about to explode. Blinking a few times, she held her strawberries up, nodding her head to Harry in a silent goodbye, then made her way towards the door.

“Oh, Y/N,” Harry said, making her look over her shoulder at him. “Do you want some Ginger Nuts? I’m having some with my tea-“

“-No thanks. Goodnight.” Y/N walked straight out of the door and to her room, needing to stick her head out her window to cool down in the Regent’s Canal breeze before sitting down in her bed again. How could he be considerate, respectful, smart, pretty, and sexy at the same time? Some otherworldly powers had truly been at work these last few years to make Harry Styles into everything Y/N was attracted to.

She did not even want him as a boyfriend, she never had, there had never been any romantic feelings between them before and there never would be, but he was just so… so… frustrating. In every single sense of the word. He was just… very attractive. Very pleasing to look at. Everything that got to Y/N. And Y/N wanted to scream at Harry for making it so hard to ignore him, and at herself for falling for it.

Wednesday, 29 November 2017

Y/N was originally going to travel home to Nottingham that Friday so she could stay home that weekend. She had not been home since September, and though they only had two weeks of uni left before Christmas break, she wanted to go home this weekend. She missed her parents terribly and wanted to see them so badly, she could simply not wait until Christmas. So, because it was the last Wednesday of the month, Y/N travelled back up to Nottingham.

Every last Wednesday of every month, Davi would invite all of his Brazilian family who had settled in Nottingham after he had, as well as Lottie’s parents, over for feijoada. Brazil has many region-specific dishes, yet the one that best translates into a nationwide dish is the beloved feijoada. The name stems from the word feijão, which is Portuguese for bean, and also the key ingredient of feijoada, which is essentially a bean stew mixed with beef and pork. Though, depending on what region of Brazil you are in, you will find different ingredients added to the feijoada.

In Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais, feijoada is almost always cooked with black beans, while in Bahia, red or brown beans are preferred. In Bahia and Sergipe, they also usually add extra vegetables to the feijoada such as plantain, kale, potatoes, carrots, cabbage, and pumpkin. However, in the rest of Brazil, feijoada is simply beans and meat with no additional vegetables. It is served with white rice, shredded kale with bits of fried bacon, crispy pork crackling, and slices of oranges that are meant to aid the digestion of the heavy meal. Which is what Y/N had grown up eating.

Typically, it is served at noon on Wednesdays and Saturdays, as this hearty meal is a thick mixture that will have you full in no time. The only activity Y/N would recommend after it, is bed and a good book. Maybe even a little nap. Their big family often used to eat it during the weekend as it meant more time spent with the family, more time spent chatting and being social, but Davi who worked in a bakery, had often worked Saturday and Sunday afternoons, meaning that it would fit best for the family to keep the tradition of hosting the meal on Wednesdays at Davi and Lottie’s house. Which was why Y/N was on her way home that Wednesday at the end of November.

Closing Vidas Secas by Graciliano Ramos that she had just been reading, Y/N got up from her seat to get off the train. Graciliano Ramos was Y/N’s favourite writer of all time. Though she loved English Literature and especially loved studying it, she always found his works to be better than most. He was the only modernist writer she could stand. São Bernardo was her favourite of his novels. A story about a man who, having been born poor, gets rich using any ruthless means he can and ends up utterly alone. It had stuck with Y/N her entire life. The main character’s ability to love others, his selfishness, and arrogance, make up one of the most complex characters of world literature, in Y/N’s opinion.

In the last chapter of São Bernardo when Paulo Honório reflects on his life alone at night, Y/N found some of the best few pages she had ever read. The closing words ‘I ruined my life stupidly’ express the agony of a man whom Y/N learned to despise throughout the book, but who, thanks to the mastery of the author, leads us with him through his tragic life choices towards self-destruction. Y/N got goosebumps just thinking about it.

Stepping off the train with her small bag and book under her arm, Y/N walked straight for the train station exit. She recognised her mother’s brown hair in a bun at the top of her head, a pair of colourful flare trousers on along with a white buffer jacket. Lottie jumped up and down at the sight of Y/N and ran for her daughter, throwing her arms around her in a tight embrace.

“My baby,” she said, kissing Y/N’s cheeks and forehead. “Oh, my Y/N.”

Y/N hugged her mother back, burying her face in her mother’s neck. She did not care that she could hear Vidas Secas fall into the tiled floor or that her bag would get dirty where it lay, all she cared about was her mother’s embrace and the smell of home around her. She was fluent in two languages, yet Y/N could not find a word that could quite capture how happy she was to be home just now.

“Okay, my dove,” Lotte said, taking Y/N’s bag off the floor. Y/N bent down and picked up her book, bringing it to her chest. “Let’s go home.”

The two of them walked out to the car park, and Lottie quickly started driving them in the direction of Y/N’s childhood home. The familiar ride and the familiar city outside the car windows made her relax, sinking far into the seat until she felt enveloped in safeness and contentment. It didn’t take them long to reach the semi-detached brick house, all their family members’ cars parked out front and visible in the windows overlooking the street. Y/N took her own bag this time, and her mother led the way up the stairs to the house so she could open the door for her.

There was no time for Y/N to go upstairs with her bag and book, because she was bombarded with hugs and kisses the second she stepped inside. Her grandfather, avô, her grandmother, avó, her papai’s two sisters and her aunties, tia Gilma and tia Lara, their husbands and her uncles, tio Jaren and uncle Finnley – who was British and had met Lara after she moved here -, and her seven cousins, or primos. They all came rushing to her, with her British grandmother and grandfather grinning and waiting for her to be done hugging and kissing everyone. Being with them and smelling feijoada everywhere, made Y/N almost tear up. Blimey, ever since moving away to University, she had become so incredibly sappy.

“Amorinzho!” came like a scream from the kitchen. Davi came out into the foyer with his apron still on and the biggest grin on his face. He threw his arms around Y/N. “Eu tenho saudade de você.”

She had missed him, too. So much. She felt safer, more at ease, almost more herself now that she was reunited with her parents close.

So, she told him that as she whispered, “Eu também senti sua falta,” back. Her papai hugged her a little tighter at that, grinning at her with tears in his eyes as he squeezed her shoulders.

“Y/N!” avó shouted from where she now sat in the living room, her grey hair in a long braid down her back and a big knitted cardigan wrapped tightly around her small frame. “Venha comer!”

“I’ll come eat in a second,” Y/N said. “I just need to put my bag in my room.”

“I’ll do that for you, my sausage,” Y/N’s grandfather said, stroking her cheek before he bent down and brought the bag with him up the stairs to her room. Since her mother had been an only child, her parents, Y/N’s grandparents, had always been very caring and constantly present as Y/N and Marcela had been their only grandchildren. Not that her avós had not been present, because they really had, her entire family had, but her grandparents’ life had no meaning if it were not for Lottie, Y/N and Marcela.

Y/N walked past all her family and to the kitchen where her papai stood making her a plate of feijoada. He handed it to her and she smiled at him before helping herself to some rice. Just then, Lottie walked into the kitchen as well, hugging Y/N from behind before she walked over to make her daughter something to drink. Silence stretched out in the kitchen as conversation started back up again in the living room, everyone talking about everything and nothing, in English and Portuguese. But, something that was unusual for her parents, they did not say a single thing. Though this might not be unusual for some, it was extremely unusual for someone who came from a generally very talkative family.

“Charlotte,” Davi said, looking over at Lottie. “We should…”

“Not yet.”

Y/N looked over her shoulder at her parents. “What?”

“We should tell her.”

“She just got home, Davi,” Lottie reasoned. “We can tell her later. Let her enjoy her feijoada.”

“No, what’s going on?” Y/N asked again, turning her body to face them now.

“No, amorinzha,” Davi said, squeezing Y/N’s shoulder. “Your mother is right; we can talk about it later. It’s not appropriate to do it now.”

“What’s going on? What’re you talking about?” Y/N looked at her papai, then at her mum, both of them sharing a look with one another that Y/N did not understand. Over the years, she had become a master at deciphering what her parents were discussing when they shared looks, though she never managed to quite understand the proper subject of discussion, she could detect the mood. She understood this was more of a serious matter.

“Tell me,” Y/N said, feeling her heart begin to beat a little harder, a little faster, the more time went by without any of them saying anything.

“Fine,” Lottie sighed. “Put your plate down first.”

Y/N did so reluctantly, not taking her eyes off of her parents. If it was serious enough for her mother to want her to put her food down so she would not drop her plate, then Y/N was on the fence if she even wanted to know what was going on or if she wanted to live in blissful ignorance of it.

“Your pai and I have decided to sell the cabin.”

Y/N’s heart stopped beating. Her body felt numb, the chatter in the living room deceased to exist as she just looked at her mother, and then at her papai. Her mum, and then pai. Suddenly, as if slapped with a brick, Y/N’s brain roared to life and her body came as hot as coal. She looked at her mother who had been the one to speak, her mouth falling open and shutting again as she continued to process what she had just been told.

“You’re… you’re going to sell the cabin?” Y/N asked them, just to be completely sure that what she heard was correct.

“Yes,” Davi answered.

“You’re selling the cabin?” She could not believe it.

“Y/N-“

“-You’re selling our Newport cabin? The one in Wales?” she asked again, her voice rising now. They did not have any other cabins, but Y/N just had to know she was not mistaken. They couldn’t… They couldn’t just…

“Y/N, we never go there anymore,” Lottie reasoned. “We want to spend the money we use on the cabin on something else, we don’t know what yet.”

“So, you’re just going to sell the cabin where your daughter was murdered?” Y/N asked, voice filled with so much rage she barely recognised herself when she spoke. “Where Marcela was most likely stabbed? You’re selling that cabin?”

“We’re never there because she was… she was killed…” Davi cleared his throat. “Spending time inside that cabin when we know what happened inside it, does not feel right.”

“No, selling it isn’t right,” Y/N said. “What if there’s more evidence inside? What if there’s somewhere they haven’t looked?”

“Baby, they have cleaned out the cabin and there’s nowhere they haven’t looked. There’s nothing more they can investigate,” Lottie explained. “We don’t want to own that cabin anymore.”

“Kit murdered Marcela in there,” Y/N said. “Her murderous ex-boyfriend is running around somewhere because no one investigated that cabin thoroughly enough.”

“Selling it doesn’t mean they are going to stop investigating Marcela’s case, amorzinho,” Davi pointed out.

“We don’t… We still don’t know if Kit did it,” Lottie mumbled. “It was most likely him, but there could have been someone else who killed Marcela, Y/N.”

“Marcela’s body hasn’t been found, there’s no trace of Kit’s blood or remains on that property. That murderer is on the loose, something inside that cabin can tell us he killed her, I am sure of it.”

“Y/N, Kit hasn’t been seen since the murder either. Maybe he was killed, too,” Lottie said.

“Mum, Kit was a rubbish person, why are you sticking up for him?” Y/N groaned, running her hands over her face.

“We decided, Y/N,” Davi mumbled, rubbing his daughter’s back. “It’s happening.”

That was all Y/N needed to hear. She took her plate in one hand and the glass with water her mother had made her in another, and she walked straight past everyone in the living room and up to her room. She felt like a child stomping past everyone like that, but she just needed to be with her thoughts. There was absolutely no way they were selling that cabin. Not that cabin. Y/N was sure there was evidence in there somewhere, the police and the investigators had just not looked thoroughly enough. That was all. And if they had done a shite job, well… that just meant Y/N had to do it for them. She had to go to that cabin and look for herself once and for all. After all, who else would? It did not seem like anyone cared anymore.

NEXT UPDATE: Sunday, 21th March, 9PM GMT!

Huge thanks to my AMAZING beta readers! 🏛️ @aileenacoustic 🏛️ @devil-in-bw-the-sheets​ 🏛️ @sunflowerstache​ 🏛️ @fromyourstrulyh​​ 🏛️

FIC PAGE | COME TALK !!!

#harry styles #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles x reader #harry styles x you #harry styles smut #harry styles angst #harry styles fluff #harry styles fic #1dff #:DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD COME TALK PLSSSS :DDDDDDDDDDDDDD

[starbornvalkyrie]

ACOSF USA BOOK TOUR NOTES

Hey y’all! I just attended the LiveTalks Los Angeles event with Sarah J Maas and Eva Chen!! I took lots of notes so I wanted to share them with you all! They’re a little incoherent on the page, so it might seem a crazy, they jumped topics a lot. Feel free to chat with me about what she talked about! But first.

MY RULES:

NO SHIP OR CHARACTER SLANDERING. I know that we all may have different opinions. I will not offer my opinions here, this is purely informational for those of you who did not have the opportunity to attend this event.

PLEASE NO ARGUING IN MY COMMENTS OR ASK BOX WITH ME OR ANYONE ELSE WHO COMMENTS

Acknowledge that I am not perfect and may not have written down everything perfectly. I did my best while still trying to enjoy the event.

I AM NOT SARAH J MAAS AND CANNOT INTERPRET WHAT SHE MEANS

I’m tagging this with #acosf spoilers and #acosfspoilers just in case.

If you understand and can abide by these rules, keep reading below the cut, and enjoy!

SJM said it was weird doing this event from her living room where you might be able to hear her dog in the background or her son trying to get into the room.

ACOSF started as a passion project while she was writing ACOWAR! It was never anything she thought she was going to publish. (more on this later)

About reading and writing growing up

in middle school, she read a lot of fantasy

in high school, she didn’t read as much, but wrote A LOT. it became her fixation, almost an obsession.

in college, she only really wrote on vacations (she had a very healthy social life hehehe) but her junior year is when she found her balance between schoolwork, writing, and socializing.

there was no plan B for her!! it was always to be an author. if it didn’t happen right away, she was going to find a job that would get her by until plan A could come to be.

her favorite author growing up was Garth Nix. She longed for books about badass women. She got to meet him and write a blurb to be on one of his books! She cries when she meets her favorite authors.

Talk about character names!

her character names come from everywhere and nowhere

sometimes she’ll just hear a name in her head and think “that’s it!” (Rhys, for example)

she needs to know the name to write the character

if the name doesn’t immediately come to her, she spends a lot of her time on baby name websites and makes lists until it clicks

sometimes the names just... connect. sometimes she doesn’t mean for them to.

it will always be uncommon. never “Frank” lol

Writing about Nesta!

on a “surface level” she loves writing when Nesta comes out to fight. for example, her favorite scene in this aspect to write was the bog scene. As soon as she got to it, it flowed out of her. The final product was almost identical to the first draft. She wrote it in one session, from the terror & tread to the “who am i?” to when she emerged--she went YES. MAJOR Mic Drop moment for her.

going deeper: definitely her overall journey was one of the favorites she’s ever written. From the dark place she’s in at the beginning to the very end. 

Writing about Nesta meant so much to her because of her own mental health. She channeled a lot of her own feelings and went on the journey with Nesta.

it was a lot of “how do you face mental health in a fantasy world without therapy and medication”

it was easy to get into Nesta’s mind but emotionally intense.

ACOSF’S BIG MESSAGE: LEARNING TO LOVE YOURSELF AND OTHERS. YOU ARE WORTH OF LOVE.

YES there is a book planned for Elain!

As soon as Nesta and Elain came onto the page again in ACOMAF, she knew they’d get their own journey.

Nesta grabbed her by the throat in book 1

She was originally contracted for only the first three books but realized there was more she wanted to explore. Essentially the “what comes next” after ACOWAR in this new world with out the wall.

FUN FACT: while editing ACOMAF/writing ACOWAR, she drunkenly told her editor at the time, “hey guess what happens next?”, and it turned into a two hour conversation about everything she wants to happen for Nesta, Elain, Mor, Azriel, etc. TWO WEEKS LATER, she gets a call saying they want to buy the stories!! Obviously, she said yes.

This allowed her to start planting the Easter eggs for these stories in ACOWAR. She knew she did not want Nesta to be sympathetic at the beginning of the book! But she did not want people to hate her.

She always has one eye on the horizon for future books.

If she could visit one court for a day, which and why?

She LOVES the season Autumn, it’s her favorite. “BUT EVERYONE IN THE AUTUMN COURT IS AN ASSHOLE”. She would want to visit the Autumn Court when no one is there so she can enjoy the beauty of Autumn.

But also she would want to go to the Summer Court because she has a thing for Tarquin but only if it’s not gross and humid.

She would ALSO want to go to the Day Court for Helion and all his libraries.

ESSENTIALLY she would want to go everywhere but Spring because Tamlin sucks and is an asshole lmao.

BEAST FORMS

SJM’s beast form would be something totally not cool or majestic like a sea otter.

Nesta’s beast form would be something terrifying and beautiful like a snow leopard/dragon hybrid, a griffin, or a sphinx. **WANTS SOMEONE TO DRAW THIS**

FUN QUESTIONS

Nesta’s favorite smutty book would be JR Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood series. She reads these books for the distraction, of course, but also for the comfort they gave her that everything turns out okay for the characters.

Nesta’s Starbucks order: cappuccino- something simple, nothing with too much sugar or whipped cream. Elain’s would be a Frappe- something delicious and sweet. SJM’s is a flat white, iced or not, but never after 2PM.

SJM usually listens to classical music and movie scores while she writes, but she’s gotten used to write in silence so that she can listen for her son’s shenanigans with Josh.

“Stay Together for the Kids” by Blink 182 semi-inspired the scene when Nesta and Cassian go back to her family’s cottage. She can hardly explain why.

WRITING ADVICE

Write what you love, not what you think you should be writing.

Give yourself permission to suck. Her first drafts are shit and are usually accompanied with an email that says “I know I need to fix this, this and that” lol.

WRITE THE DAMN THING. Vomit on the page!

YOU CAN’T FIX A BLANK PAGE.

Her least favorite part about the publishing process is the first pass of copy edits, those last minute checks and balances. But once it’s off to the printer, it’s not her problem anymore.

She’s every publisher’s worst nightmare because she sends it off to the printer at the LAST possible minute.

For reference: Throne of Glass was finished almost... a year and a half? ...before it hit shelves, but ACOSF was finished this past fall.

MAIN CHARACTER TALK

All of her heroines have a piece of her.

SJM’s personality is a hybrid of Bryce and Nesta.

Feyre and Nesta got most of her in terms of learning to be empowered.

She has to have a connection to them in order to write them. It’s an out of body, method acting experience.

MISCELLANEOUS

She said “CC2 is a year from now.”

She started writing ACOTAR in 2008 before she published TOG.

She loves the story and dynamic of Elizabeth and Darcy from Pride and Prejudice. Cassian is Elizabeth. Nesta is Darcy.

And that’s all I have, folks! Thank you for reading, I hope you got something out of this!

#acosf spoilers #acosfspoilers #nessian #nesta archeron #cassian #sarah j maas #live talks