#THIS ONE GOT KIND OF PROSE-Y?? i got really really into it

[howlonomy]

How did Frisk Kanako etc react to learning about HOW the monsters got clover’s soul? I can’t imagine they’d treat it as completely normal although I guess it’s a possibility they might?

frisk; sad, but still happy for them. theyre happy that clover got to experience the same thing they did in their trip through the underground; the kindness of monsters and the bonds they make with others. but they’re still sad FOR clover, that they had to die, they wanted to die, for the monsters. its an injustice that clover died after everything they went through

kanako: her mom hid no secrets from her when they reunited; in the months between returning home and clover reviving, ceroba told kanako everything that happened, even clover’s sacrifice. at the time, kanako thought clover was pretty brave for doing it, and was sad she never got to meet them.

when they DID meet, kanako was kind of over the moon for a bit! but as they got closer clover confided in her that they were awfully scared about the whole thing and dying was painful and they were alone, and kanako realized they werent some cool, untouchable brave cowboy; they were a scared, lonely kid just like she was in the lab. clover was much more down to earth than some fairytale her mom would tell her as a bedtime story. she related to clover a lot more after learning what they really felt about it

#monster clover au #asked and answered #undertale yellow #THIS ONE GOT KIND OF PROSE-Y?? i got really really into it #i only did kanako and frisk bc thats what u ask for but!! #i think the only other interesting reaction would be toriel?? she’d be pissed at the adults in the sacrifice situation for not stopping them #kanako and clover dont become besties immediately after clover returns #but it becomes a lot easier to get along when kanako realizes clover isnt some special unique kid and is just. a monster like her #also; clover tells frisk they wanted to die and lies so they seem cooler #mcau lore

[stylesloveclub]

Prose (part 3)

In which y/n is Harry's favorite student, and she accidentally kisses him. 

+++

A perfect day for y/n includes plugging in her headphones, getting herself a little starbucks treat, and going to the bookstore. 

After her week of midterm hell, she decided that she deserved this. She hadn’t been to the bookstore in a while, and none of the books she has right now are piquing her interest. She deserves her chai latte, she deserves to take a break from studying, and she deserves to have a day to herself. 

She’s unaware of her surroundings as she walks through the fiction aisle. She has two books under her arm that she’s deciding between getting (she’s on a college girl budget, she can Not afford to be buying more than one book a week), but a third one sitting on the new release shelf catches her eye. It’s by one of her favorite authors – but it hasn’t been released in paperback yet, and hardcovers are so expensive. Maybe she could see if the library has it, instead. 

She puts it back on the shelf, and side steps along the aisle, scanning all the books displayed all organized and pretty. When she gets a house, she’ll turn one of the bedrooms into a library, and display all her books with a bunch of cozy candles and a reading nook and it’ll be perfect. That’s the dream, she sighs. 

She moseys into the non-fiction aisle… not really her go-to genre, but when she’s at the bookstore, she’ll be there all day. There’s another girl in the aisle with her, with a book cracked open, reading the author’s note. Y/n is careful not to get too close, staying a couple steps to the side and looking over all the titles. Another figure joins the girl standing to her right – a tall male who looks oddly familiar. 

Suddenly she’s smelling vanilla and smoked wood. 

She peaks over discreetly, and recognizes the curly brown hair and hunched shoulders instantaneously. Harry stands close to the other girl, his chest brushing her arm as he looks over her shoulder at the book she’s holding. He’s got a book of his own tucked under his arm, and his signature smirk dimples his cheek as he whispers something to the girl. Y/n wonders what they’re talking about, feeling a pang in her chest as he quietly giggles with this other, pretty girl. He's dressed much more casually than his usual button ups and slacks that he wears to class. Nike shorts and a gray hoodie, with a brown pair of sunglasses pushing his unruly curls out of his face. 

This is the Harry that exists outside of class. He wears hoodies and goes to bookstores on the weekends and has friends that she doesn’t know about. She’s suddenly overwhelmed with how much she doesn’t know about him. For example – is this pretty red-headed girl his girlfriend? 

She swallows thickly and averts her eyes, pretending like she didn’t notice him. She doesn’t think TA’s enjoy seeing students outside of class (even if they are also the kind of TA to drive students home when it’s rainy or late at night). Plus, what would she even say? Hi Harry, is this pretty girl your girlfriend? Because I was actually hoping you were single and also I have a huge crush on you and sometimes I think about what it’d be like to kiss you– but I’ll try to keep all that to a minimum if you are actually in a happy relationship! 

She takes a couple quiet steps back towards the romance aisle – not only her favorite genre, but a safe escape route from any possible awkward encounters – but of course, OF COURSE she’d accidentally knock into a display table and knock a few books down. 

She quickly bends down to pick up the books and pretend like nothing happened, but she’s not quick enough to escape Harry who curiously calls out, “Y/n?”

She smiles nervously. “Hello.” 

The look on Harry’s face is one that could light up the darkest room. He smiles excitedly, his bunny teeth on display, and his eyes brighten with familiarity. He turns to the girl next to him, bursting, “Madeline– this is her!” 

“Y/n?” Madeline chirps, her voice light and fluttery like a bird. 

“Um, yeah?” Y/n’s eyes flicker between Harry and red-headed Madeline. Does Madeline know who she is?

Her confusion is obvious, her head tilting slightly and her lips pinched to the side. “Madeline is another one of the graduate students in my year–” Harry explains. “She TA’s for one of Dr. Richmond’s other sections.” 

Y/n nods, still confused.

“I’ve read your essays!” Madeline bubbles. “Harry and I always talk about our favorite students and send each other the really good essays!” Harry’s cheeks turn pink as Madeline exposes his favoritism towards y/n, but he supposes it’s not that much of a secret. Y/n’s eyes glance towards him curiously, who stands with his lips curled in a bashful smile. 

“Oh,” y/n doesn't fully know what to say, feeling shy and nervous but flattered at the same time. “That’s so nice, I… I didn’t know TA’s did that.”

“Oh yeah, we also send each other the bad ones…” Madeline prattles on, while Harry brushes his knuckles against his nose, almost embarrassedly. What a coincidence to see her here, when he’d literally just been telling Madeline all about his favorite student — the only student to show up to his office hours, who had so many good thoughts on the books that they were reading, and who wasn’t even an English major! The two graduate students always complained to each other how the students that they TA-ed didn’t seem to appreciate the books they analyzed together – how hard it was to get students to participate, which is silly since they literally signed up for those classes voluntarily. It’s rare to have students who genuinely want to talk to them about whatever they’re reading in class.

Madeline rests a hand on his bicep, “I’ll go check out this book and then we can go back to yours, yeah?” He has no idea what else she might’ve said within the past minute, too caught up in his own thoughts, but he nods as she walks towards the register. That leaves him alone with y/n. 

He stuffs his hands into his pockets, and y/n tucks her books to her chest protectively. She’s silently analyzing what Madeline might’ve meant when she said that they’d go back to his place. He nods his chin towards the books, “What are y’getting?” He genuinely can’t control the way his eyes glimmer with fondness when he looks at her. 

She reveals the covers to him. “Well, this one’s called Rebecca… and this one’s called Bunny.”

His lips twitch, “Bunny?” She nods. He thinks about the way y/n’s nose tends to twitch like a little bunny. What a fitting book. 

“What book are you and… Madeline getting?” 

“Er– just a book Dr. Richmond wanted us to pick up for him. For the section Madeline TA’s for.” 

She nods. He rocks back and forth on his toes, staring at her with that fond glimmer still in his eye. 

Madeline comes skipping back a few seconds later. “Ready?”

With a wave, Harry and Madeline head out. Y/n carries on with her book shopping, Harry lingering in the back of her mind. 

+++

“Okay everyone, that’s all for today,” all the students in the room start shutting their laptops and zipping their bags as Dr. Richmond closes his own book. “Don’t forget to do this weekend's reading, check the course site for the next essay prompt… and, um… yeah, that’s it.” Harry quickly stands from his corner of the classroom, tapping Dr. Richmond lightly on the shoulder. “Oh!” Dr. Richmond exclaims into the mic, “Wait– everyone pause, Harry has an announcement.” 

The shuffling and murmurs die down, as Harry stands in front of the lecture hall with his hands folded behind his back. “Um– Just wanted to let you all know that your essays have been graded. Scores will be posted by the end of the day, and if you have any questions or want to go over your papers, you can come to my office hours. Thursdays at 5.” 

He gives a soft, close lipped smile, and everyone resumes their chattering. Y/n is the only one who approaches Harry’s desk.

“Hi,” she fiddles with the straps of her bag nervously, “Can I know how I did?”

Harry, who’s packing up his books, gives her a teasing side eye, a sly smirk on his lips, “Didn’t I just say come to office hours?”

She shrugs, “Was hoping you’d tell me early. Since I’m your favorite and all.” 

He breathes a laugh through his nose, looking around the classroom to scour if anyone’s still there other than the two of them. He can’t even bring himself to deny it. “M’not supposed to have favorites,” is all he has to say. His cheeks tint pink and he smiles bashfully, both of them knowing fully well that his favoritism is undeniably there, even if he’s technically not supposed to let it show. 

“Come on Harry,” she pleads, wide eyed and pretty, “I worked extra hard on it since I had that extension. I literally spent all weekend on it.”

He clips the buckles on his briefcase and looks at her with an exaggeratedly heavy sigh, “I suppose I could make an exception. Only ‘cos you worked so hard on it.” She beams at him. “We’ve got t’go to my office though. There’s a discussion in here right after us.”

“Okay,” she starts toward the door, trotting eagerly ahead of him like an excited little bunny. “Do you mind if we stop by Starbucks first? It’s on the way to your office.”

+++

The Starbucks line is short. Harry goes first. “Could I have an americano, please?” he orders. He then looks back at y/n, “And um… also one of those chai drinks? With the pumpkin spice?” he smiles charmingly at the barista, and ignores the way y/n rushes to his side. 

“Wait– Harry, you’re not getting that for me are you?” she whispers, tugging on the sleeve of his coat.

The barista asks Harry what size he wants the pumpkin chai. He turns to y/n, “What size d’you usually get?”

“No, Harry– you can’t–”

“A medium should be good, I think,” he says to the barista, brushing off y/n’s complaints. 

She pouts as he whips out his card and taps it on the reader. “Why are you allowed to get me drinks if I’m not allowed to get you drinks?”

He shrugs, walking away from the register. “Because I said so.”

+++

It’s exactly when they settle down in Harry’s office that Madeline makes another appearance.

“Hey Harry,” she says, knocking on his door and peeking in. “Oop– Hi y/n. Did you see Dr. Richmond’s email about the grad panel? Do you think you’ll go?”

“Umm,” Harry sits in his chair and unlocks his computer with pursed lips, “Dunno. Don’t really want to. S’not mandatory, is it?”

“No. I’ll only go if you go. It’ll be boring, otherwise.”

“Nah,” Harry scrunches his nose. “Lets not. M’tired. And m’having some office hours right now,” he says with a nod towards y/n. 

“M’kay,” Madeline shrugs. “Nice to see you, y/n!”

Y/n has no reason to dislike sweet, kind, bubbly Madeline, other than for the fact that she seems to be exceptionally close with Harry. She feels a pit in her stomach when she sees the pretty girl bounce away, carefree and happy. Of course, she has no good reason to be jealous, because Harry is just her TA, and he’s just nice to her because she comes to his office hours, and that she should have absolutely no expectations of anything to come of her crush.

Harry pulls out the folder of all the graded papers, and shuffles through the names until he gets to hers. He hides her score from her, staring at her teasingly. “You sure you wanna see it with me right here?”

She nods eagerly, eyes wide and excited.

“Okay…” He drags it out, looking down once more at her paper before revealing the big 100% written at the top of her paper.

Her jaw drops. “Really?” 

“Mhm,” he says with a big smile. Leaning in, he whispers, “the only perfect score in the entire class, too.” 

Her smile grows wider, and she’s speechless, staring at her score. She was proud of the essay, of course, but she’s always nervous about getting grades back. There’s always room for improvement, she knows, but most professors are pretty ruthless with the criticism.

“S’not that surprising, is it?” he asks with a quirk of his lip. Surely she must’ve known that she’s a good writer, no? 

She shrugs. “I didn’t… I didn’t think it was going to get a perfect score.” 

“It was brilliant, really,” he says, “And not just because m’playing favorites. I showed it to Madeline too, and she thought it deserved a perfect score as well. You’re so cohesive and elegant with your words… s’well deserved. You’re writing is on par with some of the graduate students in my year, honestly.” 

Y/n feels her cheeks heating, flipping through the pages. Despite the fact that he gave her a perfect score, it doesn’t mean that her paper is empty of any criticism. He’s made little notes all over the margins, playing on her ideas and telling her ways he thinks she could build upon them in the future. Her eyes lightly skim through his notes and the generous amount of praise he’s written for her. “Love this,” he wrote, highlighting a certain section of her essay. “Wish you talked more about this in the intro,” he writes at another point. He’s still advising her on how to get better and what she could improve on, but… “You met all the rubric requirements. By our grading standards, it’s perfect.”

“No deductions for submitting it late?” she asks nervously.

“Y’didn’t submit it late. Dr. Richmond gave you an extension. I told him how many units you’re in, and how you’re not even taking this class for any credit towards your major – and he agreed that you deserved some slack.” He takes one of the papers from his stack of essays and uses it to playfully smack the top of her head, “stop worrying about that.”

Her chest bubbles with relief and she smiles. “Well… thanks for letting me get it back early,” she says. “I, um– I’d love to talk about it more in depth but I don’t wanna bother you… like, if you wanted to go to that thing with Madeline, we can be done.”

Harry groans, “oh my god, please no. I don’t wanna go to that panel. I’ll take any excuse not to go.”

“Are you sure?” y/n tilts her head. “Madeline seemed– like it just seemed like you two were… like…” she doesn’t know how to end that sentence, and has no idea where she was going with it in the first place.

Harry tries his best to fill in the blanks for her. “Madeline and I just usually go to these events together ‘cos they’re boring and it’s awkward to go alone. She’s my thesis partner so we usually stick together.” Harry rubs his eyes tiredly, “I really don’t wanna think about my thesis though. I spent all weekend grading, I just wanna go home and nap. Not go to a panel of a bunch of thesis advisors. That sounds miserable.”

Y/n nods, chewing on the inside of her lip. “Oh. Yeah, that doesn’t sound fun.” 

“Yeah,” he lets out a deep, tired sigh. “Anyway.” 

Y/n’s lips kiss her teeth as she rolls her lips inwards. “Well– I should head out then,” she stands up quickly, suddenly feeling awkward, “I don’t want to keep you here if you’re tired.” 

“S’no trouble,” he says, sitting up. 

She turns about herself, grabbing her bag from the floor and her jacket from the back of her chair. “No, honestly I’m kind of tired too,” she rambles, “I’ll look over the notes you left for me and come back during office hours.” She reaches forward to grab her essay from the desk, unaware of the way the sleeve of her sweater is dragging across his desk and snagging onto the lid of her half full iced chai, sending it onto the floor. The lip pops off of the drink when it meets the ground, and she gasps as his hardwood floors are suddenly covered in her pumpkin spiced drink. 

Harry rolls back from the splashing drink quickly, trying to avoid getting his nicely pressed pants stained, while y/n gasps, having no idea how her drink ended up on the floor. “Shit!” she exclaims, dropping her paper back on the desk and checking for the culprit of the mess. She nearly facepalms when she realizes it was her own hanging sleeve and unawareness that made her coffee spill to the floor. She drops her things back on the floor, “Oh my god, Harry, I’m so sorry.” She frantically looks around and sees a roll of paper towels on his bookshelf, rushing to his side of the desk where the majority of the mess is and kneeling down. She lays a ton of paper towels down on the floor, letting them soak up the drink, and looks on his desk to sadly find that her drink stained the edges of a few of his graded papers. “Oh my god. I’m sorry.” 

“Hey, s’no big deal,” Harry’s quick to reassure her. He rolls back closer to her, a hand on her shoulder. “Just an accident.”

“But the papers–”

“S’just the edges. I once spilled an entire cup of soup on a stack of ungraded papers and had to just give everyone 100%.” He smiles, “That’s not what happened with your essay though, obviously.” 

She huffs out a laugh. He always manages to make things better when she’s stressed. 

He gets out of his chair, kneeling down next to her in his well pressed trousers to help with cleaning up the soaked paper towels. “No, Harry, I can do it,” she resists, leaning forward at the same time as him. Their foreheads nearly collide as she pushes his hands away, wanting to clean up her own mess. His chocolate brown curls have flopped onto his forehead, and his face is so close to y/n’s that she can actually feel them brushing against her forehead. He looks at her through his lashes, his eyes bright green. Her own eyes are wide and round, staring at him sweetly. Their faces are extremely close, her hand is encasing his, and they are both incredibly aware of it. 

Y/n’s lips part, as if she wants to say something, but she finds herself unable to create any coherent sentences. Harry similarly, stares at her through his lashes, his breath bated, his chest tight. 

Her eyes flicker down to his mouth. She stares at his pretty, pink lips, not curled into their usual, charming smile. He’s serious and deep in thought, his eyebrow furrowing. She’s too distracted by his lips to try and figure out what he might be thinking about. The air around them is tense, and neither of them say anything.

 There’s something so magnetic about him. She doesn’t realize that she’s leaning in… closer and closer to those pretty, heart shaped lips. 

Suddenly, y/n has inched so close that their noses are brushing. She can feel his gentle puffs of air against her lips. She’s so close that Harry has to flutter his eyelashes shut in order to not get cross eyed from staring at her. His heart thumps in his chest, and he swallows thickly. In a moment of weakness, he finds himself leaning towards her, and for the briefest moment, their lips brush, his bottom lip tickling her cupid's bow. His hand reciprocates her embrace, his fingers tightening around her palm. 

They both know they shouldn’t. “Y/n,” Harry croaks, and her heart flutters. “We shouldn’t…” Her heart immediately deflates, and she pulls back, embarrassed. Her gaze drops to the floor disappointedly, feeling stupid and foolish.

Harry can’t bear the distance between their lips– can’t bring himself to refuse the pleasure of having her soft lips against his. He likes her – of course he does! She’s smart, she’s pretty, she’s kind… but she’s his student. That’s the only thing that’s hindered him this entire semester. The guilt of falling for one of his students, when he knows how wrong it is. 

The guilt isn’t strong enough, apparently. He follows her forward with enough force to connect their lips in a kiss. 

It’s soft and harsh at the same time – their lips are gentle, but his stubble is scratchy. The kiss is sweet, but the tension behind it is rupturing like an overflowing dam. He’s caught her by surprise, kissing her just seconds after telling her that they shouldn’t. But she’s not upset about it. She’s too busy reveling in the taste of his mouth, experiencing the feeling of his lips against hers for the first time, after daydreaming about it for weeks. 

It doesn’t matter that they’re both sitting on the floor, hovering over a spilled chai tea latte. 

It’s perfect. It’s exactly what she imagined. 

He feels warm, his skin soft, his lips sweet. His woody vanilla scent drenches her senses, and she’s lightheaded from how magnificent it is to finally be kissing Harry. Wonderful, amazing, charming Harry, with his dazzling green eyes and his soft, brown hair. Those boyish dimples and pretty pink lips, the same pretty pink lips that are puckered against hers right now. 

He brings a hand up to cup her jaw, his fingers gently making their way to tangle in the hair behind her ear. She feels his thumb on her cheekbone, caressing her softly, and it sends a blaze down her entire body. His rough, calloused fingertip, worn down from all the writing and papers he graded, grazing her soft cheekbone as if he’s afraid to break her. As if she’s the most precious thing on the planet.

Leaning forward on her knees, she inches closer to him, pressing herself more firmly to him and reciprocating the eagerness in which he initiated this kiss. His fingers tighten in her hair and his eyebrows furrow. Her lips are the sweetest, softest thing that he’s ever tasted, cloud-like pillows that he wants to kiss on for the rest of his life. 

He’s desperate to get closer to her – he wants to kiss her until she’s breathless and whimpering his name. Lean forward so that she’s lying on the floor and he’s hovering above her, his hand on her hip. Teasing his palm up her leg, under the edge of the skirt she’s wearing, while he fits his hips between her legs. He wants to pick her up and get her on the couch, spread her legs and kneel between them. Kiss up her pretty thighs, suck marks on her pretty skin–

Footsteps echo in the hallway outside of his door. They both jolt away instantaneously. The headrush of their magnificent first kiss starts to fade, and the reality of the situation starts to sink in.

They are in his office. The door is unlocked. She is his student.

Harry’s chest rises heavily and his eyes flutter open, hoping to meet her pretty irises – but her gaze is firmly on the floor, where she’s wiping up the last of her spilled drink and bunching up all the used paper towels together in her fist. She dumps them in the trash under his desk quickly, and stands before he even has the chance to move.

“Hey…” he tries to say, but he can barely find his voice. He’s stuck in a trance.

“I should go, Harry,” she says quickly, avoiding his eyes. Her lips are still swollen, a reminder of how not even five seconds ago, he’d been kissing her without a care in the world. His cheeks are flushed, and he looks up at her like a confused little puppy, distraught and wanting more affection. 

But it’s so wrong. Her heart aches, a mix of regret for being so stupid, but also regret that she pulled away. It’s too much for her to process.

She grabs her bag from the floor, and is out of his office, without another word. 

Harry’s fingers graze his lips. He’s left alone with his thoughts, and the lingering taste of her on his lips.

+++

For the first time in seven consecutive weeks, y/n doesn’t show up to Harry’s office hours. 

Harry spends the hour grading essays, alone. A cup of black coffee on his desk, and his floors sticky with the remnants of pumpkin syrup.

+++

Y/n spends the hour that she would have spent in Harry’s office hours, alone in her room. She’s glued to her phone, an incognito tab pulled up as she tries to calm her racing mind.

“Is kissing between a student and a TA prohibited?”

“Student-TA relationships”

“Rules on dating TAs”

“Will I get in trouble for hooking up with my TA?” (Yes, it was just a kiss. But hypothetically… if they were to hook up… would she get in trouble?)

None of the search results do much to calm her guilty conscience.

She wishes she could just appreciate her kiss with Harry for what it was – a sweet kiss with the most attractive, amazing, wonderful, perfect boy she’s ever interacted with. But there’s just the small, annoying fact that he is her TA and she’s scared that she’s gonna get expelled for that sweet, innocent little kiss.

She’s spent days worrying herself over it. Biting her nails and picking at her cuticles and tugging at her hair. Some people on reddit say that it’s no big deal, that graduate students and undergrads date all the time! But other people tend to disagree, saying it’s a bad idea, NO MATTER WHAT. No matter how sweet or handsome or kind that graduate student might be. No matter how much you might like him, no matter how innocent it all really is – just two people who like Frankenstein who get along swimmingly well.

The whole TA thing is just… a minor detail. Only partially relevant. 

Despite her reluctance, she still does show up to class because Dr. Richmond takes attendance and she doesn’t want to hurt her grade just because of some stupid, silly mistake.

She wonders how Harry feels about it all. He probably has more at stake than her – he’s the graduate student, after all. Does he regret kissing her? Or, like her, does he only regret the fact that she’s his student, and how risky it is? They’re playing with fire. 

Whatever the case may be, y/n decides to put the fire out. Her crush on Harry was meant to be a silly thing, something to keep her coming to class and motivate her to stay on top of her work. This has gone too far. 

She needs to wake herself up from whatever fantasy world she’s living in, and come back down to reality.

+++

Harry’s eyes are on her for the entirety of Dr. Richmond’s lecture.

He’s discreet about it, of course. It’s not like he’s outright staring at her. But he watches her from the corner of his eye, has her in the back of his mind as he tries to pay attention to whatever Dr. Richmond’s rambling on about.

He needs to talk to her. Needs to sort this out and make it right. He knows that she’s in her head about this – he can tell from how she refuses to even look in his direction. But he needs to tell her that it’s alright, that she’ll be okay.

Y/n bolts out of the lecture as soon as it’s over. Harry, as quick as he tries to be, can’t manage to pack up his things and follow her out fast enough. He tries to get past the students as quickly as he can, giving half-hearted answers to their questions and telling them all to come to his office hours instead – but it’s not fast enough. 

By the time he’s out of the classroom, she’s halfway home already.

+++

The same thing happens at the next class, too.

The normally active y/n, who eagerly participated in discussions and answered all of Harry’s questions was quiet as a mouse today – feigning a headache to the classmates around her. She kept her head low, kept her eyes away from Harry. 

And when class was over, she was out the door before Harry could even look in her direction. 

+++

there's part 3!! pleeeeaaaase lmk what u rhink and give her a rb and a comment i love u guys so so much!!! 

Prose (part 4) is already posted on patreon! 

Prose Masterlist

#harry #harry fic #harry smut #harry styles fic #harry styles fan fic #harry styles smut #ta!harry

[unrequitedloveletter]

Hi! Could I request an Aaron Warner x fem!reader where reader is always flustered when Aaron flirts with her and one day she flirts back with Kenji. Aaron is frustrated (and obv jealous), he didn’t know it was a joke between them and he confronts her about it. This time she’s the one teasing him cause he’s jealous and then LOVE CONFESSIONNN

Thank you!! And sorry if it’s too long

So Am I- A.W x fem! reader

All right, hi! Again, I am so sorry about how long this took and I hope you like it in spite of that.

As I did with your last request, this is a headcanon/fic combo--I wrote out the headcanons first and then turned the confession into a fic because writing it that way is just easier on me when my motivation is somewhat lacking lol

Fic type- this is fluff with angst but only if you squint

Warnings- none!

Okay, so!!

You and Kenji are exactly the kind of friends who flirt but like,, platonically

it's never anything too serious--at most, it's typically just stuff like: "Lookin' good, L/N!" or just random compliments, the occasional wink here or there

also, on another note, Kenji is definitely the type of person to either bring up or agree to marry his best friend if they're both still single at 30

it's lighthearted bantering that you guys do for the hell of it, and it generally gave you both a bit of a laugh so it brightened the mood significantly while you were with him when things got bad at Omega Point and stuff with the Resistance

HOWEVER

when Aaron flirts with you???

it's not platonic (you're in love with him)

it's never platonic (he's also very deeply in love with you)

you ALWAYS, ALWAYS get just a bit flustered around him

kenji teases you for it RELENTLESSLY too because he finds it to be the funniest thing in the world??

"C'mon, Y/N! Warner saying that your eyes look nice in the sun can't just be platonic. He's in love with you and he's flirting! Flirt back and let me officiate your wedding."

"Did Warner flirt with you again??" He asked one time as he caught Aarons back fading from view as he walked away and noticed you standing there, a loving look in your gaze as you watched him go. "Oh, shit, Y/N. You are in so deep."

Warner doesn't really know that you and Kenji flirt platonically, so when he does hear that for the first time, this is how it goes:

"Lookin' good, L/N!" Kenji called out as the two of you passed each other in a hallway, Kenji likely going to visit Castle while you were in search of his daughter.

"This from you, Kenji? You look flawless."

TO YOU, that was where the interaction ended--a bit of harmless flirting, words of encouragement to keep one another on your feet.

whereas warner?? warner was like "Okay, gotta confess my feelings now and see where that goes."

He, however, is a gentleman who finds you in your room that night, and the confession goes as well as Aaron could've hoped--better than that.

Aaron finds you in your room, back against the wall, blanket tossed over your lap and a book in hand. A candle had been lit to keep the room lit well after you were meant to have been sleeping, and when you saw him enter after knocking and you'd said it was fine, you gave him a grin and set the book in your lap.

"Hi," you greet. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," Aaron says, closing the door behind him as he steps into the room. "I have something to talk about, is all."

You glance at your book, and Aaron has to fight a grin as he watches you grimace at the cover.

"This book sucks anyway," you tell him, nodding. "Say your peace, please. Anything to distract me from this god awful prose."

Aaron laughs, and your heart gives way to a funny little flip.

"I love you," he says, figuring it best to just rip the bandaid off. "I'm in love with you, and I have been practically since we met. I was content to just wallow in it forever but you and Kenji were flirting and my insecurities got the best of me, so here I am, pouring my heart out like some fool in a romance novel."

"Aaron," you say, laughing a little as you say his name. "Kenji and I aren't romantically involved, I promise. We flirt from time to time but that's just been something we've done all our friendship--it's kept spirits up in the worst of times because we find it hilarious. I'm in love with you too, and I tended not to engage with your flirting because every time you flirted, my heart kicked off into a racing pace and I almost forgot how to breathe."

Aaron can't help the way that his eyebrows raise or the surprised expression on his face, which makes you laugh and in turn makes his heart race just a bit.

"Do you want to stay the night?" You ask. "We can talk, maybe go to see if theres any tea left in the kitchens."

Aaron steps forward, takes your hands and sits down beside you on your bed, glad that he'd decided to change into sweatpants and a shirt before coming to confess his feelings.

"Kenji is going to lose his mind," you say, laughing a bit as Aaron wraps an arm around your shoulder and you let him pull you close. "He's been telling me to get on with it for a year at this point, to confess my feelings, but I've not found the strength. I was afraid I wouldn't adequately be able to put it into words."

Aaron presses a kiss to your forehead, laughing just a bit in turn.

"I didn't do so much better," he comments. "Glad I did it though."

You hum, pressing a kiss to his jaw. "So am I."

#aaron warner #aaron warner x reader #shatter me #shatter me series

[onthewaytosomewhere]

20 questions for fic writers

alright i've been tagged on this a few times so guess it's time to do it....i mean i do luv tag games :)

thanks for the tags @taste-thewaste @agostobuwan @tailsbeth-writes

How many works do you have on ao3?

13- one of which is 25 fics i posted as chapters for a holiday/seasonal themed december thing - most my early work is elsewhere and i didn't do any writing for a good chunk of years lolz

What's your total ao3 word count?

76,771 (most of this was written since nov '23)

What fandoms do you write for?

RWRB currently may dip my toes into 911 at some point (my only non-rwrb fic on ao3 is marvel lol)

Top five fics by kudos:

Ring on His Finger, Putty in HIs Hands (firstprince)

Third Times a Charm? (Darcy Lewis/Clint Barton)

i've got you acting like you want more (firstprince)

- like the way you work it - (firstprince)

gotta sign 'em all (firstprince)

Do you respond to comments?

yes

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

the only thing i can think of that would be angsty towards the end would be Santa Tell Me from my Holiday Bits and Bobs - it was pretty much 1800 words of angst

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

probably the second hand unwinds - it was one of my hey sweetheart fics and is pretty much just shy of 3700 words of alex being a sap (and the boys being cute girl!dads)

Do you get hate on fics?

um not hate - but recently a weird 'that couldn't have happened cuz of yada yada' kind of comment

Do you write smut?

LOLZ - that's like most of what i write *gigglesnorts*

Craziest crossover:

don't have any of these

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

i don't think so

Have you ever had a fic translated?

nope

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

not yet! but i'm super excited to work on the one with @agostobuwan💚

All time favorite ship?

omg - i don't know that's too hard - i can tell you current fave is firstprince but my all time fave might actually be HP/CharlieW - maybe? or if we're going off amount i've read for it hp/dm or kirk/mccoy oh or bagginshield

What's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

i had always planned go back and do more for my darcy/clint fic and make it into a series, but those ideas that got written down lamented away in a doc and are gone now lol

What are your writing strengths?

um....i don't know do i have these - i can write smut fairly well

What are your writing weaknesses?

i usually hafta go back and make sure i didn't just get uber prose-y and included enough dialogue - unless i'm doing it on purpose

Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

cool if it works for the character - i really like when there's a translation somewhere - unless it's obvious what it means

First fandom you wrote in?

wrote in and posted somewhere - HP - followed closely by Idol RPF - i dabbled in other things that never got posted tho b4 that (the usuals for any 'lil geeky girl - star wars, star trek, angel, buffy

Favorite fic you've written?

idk - maybe something in your mouth cuz it just came togther so quickly and was fun to write (even if i intially thought it was gonna be smuttier lolz) or maybe my silly lil fairytale baby just say yes that topped out over 20k it's my first RWRB actual AU posted that wasn't just a small ficlet

alright so few quick tags to: @typicalopposite @adreamareads @inexplicablymine @stellarm

@sophie1973 @suseagull04 @hgejfmw-hgejhsf @itsmaybitheway

#tag game #writer tag game #omg some parts of this were so hard #and sat open on my laptop for a bit as i forgot about it #ooops #oh well

[slutforwings]

books i read in 2023 that i recommend :) mainly because i am trying to find new books to read in the 'book rec' tag and none of these people give summaries so I shall bravely do it instead for others!

wrong place wrong time - gillian mcallister (mystery)

Blurb: a woman sees her son killing someone in front of her, then wakes up the next morning only to realise it's the day before the murder. she keeps traveling back in time, unraveling the reason for the murder and trying to stop it along the way Review: i misread the back and thought it was gonna be a time loop but this was even better actually. i fucking devoured this book it was so compelling. i tend to devour mystery books like these regardless of their well-writtenness but this was genuinely really good and tied up everything neatly at the end.

autobiography of a corpse - sigizmund krzhizhanovsky (short stories)

Blurb: bunch of fantastical short stories like about the people living in your pupil, a society that deals in anger and malcontent, a guy trying to bite his elbow Review: this book made me realise i love short stories, but then it turned out i mainly love THIS GUY'S short stories. they were just that good. slavic writers are built different

the secret history - donna tartt (psychological fiction)

Blurb: cult group of pretentious college kids study greek and turn it into a personality trait. also theyre gonna conspire to kill one of their own and then try to hide it Review: all of these characters are cunts and i love them so much. do not believe the dark academia girlies peddling this book, these people are stupid and pretentious and morally corrupt and theyre SO MUCH FUN!! the internal monologues are fantastic, i want to study Dick's brain. its a very Long book and absolutely takes its time and yet it does not feel like any parts are really unnecessary. really good.

this is how you lose the time war - amal el-mohtar & max gladstone (sci-fi)

Blurb: two time travelers from opposing agencies each have a mission (the mission involves historic meddling through time travel but is honestly not as important) and keep encountering each other and leaving letters to taunt, falling in love throughout the story Review: listen i saw that tweet 'do not look up anything about this book and just read it' and i did and i had zero regrets. i bought the paperback after reading the ebook bc it was just that good. beautiful prose, fantastic worldbuilding that is sometimes only hinted at but everything made me go !!! can you tell i love time travel.

notes on an execution - danya kukafka (pyschological fiction)

Blurb: serial killer on death row recounts his life, as well as pov of the police officer that investigated the cases and got him in jail + pov's of the family of the victims Review: incredible story about family, morality and love. raises a lot of questions about criminals and 'evil' and does not answer them because that's the whole point. insane quotes too. also very vivid storytelling in the way that i could picture all the locations perfectly despite them not being described in detail. i think it was due to the intense Vibe

bunny - mona awad (uh. horror?)

Blurb: um. goth/'not like other girls' girl gets indoctrinated into joins a cult group of really girly girls that all call each other bunny and have kind of weird rituals meetings. Review: listen. i hate when people do this to me but. just read it. if you're a fan of magical realism and cult-y things, you're in for a treat. this book made me bike home in a daze. i love stream of consciousness where you as the reader are just as lost as the character! i love you bunny!

instructions for a heatwave - maggie o'farrel (fiction)

Blurb: a pensioned father leaves the house for his newspaper and then doesnt return. all the children are gathered by the mother to try and figure out what the fuck happened. Review: not so much a 'hey where'd he go' as it is a rumination on family and unconditional love. ofc theres some family secrets that get revealed but i found it more interesting to watch the family dynamic and the changes the secrets brought to it. bittersweet :)

#book tag #book recs #book review #book rec

[theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin]

Hi Muffin, I have read your fanfics and think you are a great writer. I was wondering if you had any tips for improving your prose?

Well thank you, I'm glad you like my stuff.

I suppose here's what I've got for you off the top of my head.

Read Great Literature

To learn great prose, the first and easiest thing you can do is look to the best.

Young Adult is not allowed. No, seriously, it's verboten. I can list two, maybe, young adult books that have what I'd consider to be good prose and it's none of the ones people gravitate to on tumblr.

You're going to have to read the classics.

Now, who you pick is up to you, lots of great authors have very different styles and none of them are wrong. Steinbeck, for example, very purposefully writes the way he does and it works brilliantly.

I'm going to suggest two: Kafka and Nabokov. If you can stomach the material, Nabokov has the best prose, hands down, I've ever seen from an author. There are other great authors out there, but what Nabokov does with imagery, with wittiness and puns, with everything is unparalleled. Read any book by Nabokov. Kafka too, has great, surreal, imagery and particularly does extremely well things that shouldn't be natural to describe. He expertly writes scenes where he has to explain what's happening because it would not be intuitive otherwise.

Do a first pass if you're unfamiliar with the work to get the reading the story part out of the way and then go back and try to see what you thought worked, didn't work, and most importantly why it worked.

Why was X section good at a) conveying to you the reader what was happening b) sticking in your brain. Read enough and you'll start to get an idea of what you really like in prose.

Read Shitty Literature

On the other end, once you've read really good things, go and read really really bad things. Yes, I'm serious, because this is where you're going to see people who thought they knew what they were doing fall flat on their face.

Everyone makes fun of My Immortal for going above and beyond describing Ebony's outfits. What they don't mention is that half these people making fun of My Immortal make the same mistake and describe, in excruciating detail, every article of clothing their beautiful character is wearing.

Here you will see what you do not like and, again, ask yourself why it's so bad. What is it about it that just doesn't work.

This will inform you what not to do and, most importantly, that there's no hard and fast rules. I see people claim that there are "never do X", "only do X if you do Y", but I have also seen all of these rules broken masterfully in real literature and clutching to them too tightly results in prose that obviously came from this kind of draconian logic.

Find a Beta Whose Style You Like

Sit down and write something, it may not be good, but that's not important right now. Right something you really want to write, feel passionate about it, then go out and find a beta.

Specifically, find someone whose writing you want to emulate. Not just because they're popular, but because you specifically like the way they write.

Often, I see people with betas who either a) have never written themselves b) have not written much or c) they have betas whose style they don't actually like much. Betas here are great, but their limit is really spellchecking and grammar as well as general sounding board for ideas, they won't be able to help you sound the way you wish to.

With the right beta, they can help walk you through which paragraphs should be rewritten and why, and eventually you'll get an instinctive feel for where more imagery should go, less, what should be expanded on, what shouldn't, etc.

Hope this all helps.

#ask #anon #writing #writing advice #praise

[ladyinbooks]

Hey Lady, just curious. If you don't mind sharing, what are some of your favorite books?

Also, I love, love your stories. Thanks for sharing them.

Aw, thank you! ❤️🤗

Favourite books. Hmm, this is a tough one! I think it depends what mood I'm in, but I'll give it a go:

Swordspoint (Ellen Kushner) - I mentioned this book in the previous ask I responded to, but it's just a gorgeous book about love, politics, and devotion vs honour. Couple it with a main m/m romance and it's honestly a book I've never got tired of.

The Song of Achilles (Madeleine Miller) - I'm... probably going to be hunted down by fans of TSoA, so I'm going to preface this by saying: I love this book. I adore the prose; I love the romance. My academic background is Classics, and this is the first book I can remember that properly and explicitly deals with the Achilles/Patroclus romance. All that said, I do have quite a few nitpicks about her Patroclus portrayal, so although I absolutely recommend this, it's a book I have to put aside some of my own Patroclus preferences to enjoy.

Fire from Heaven (Mary Renault) - While I'm on a Classics kick: this book. It's an old-y, but a good-y. Non-explicit queer romance, but it's all about the early life of Alexander the Great. Hephaistion my beloved. You have to take it for what it is, but there's a reason Renault is still referred to as the queen of Alexander fiction. Is her depiction of him romanticised and often misty-eyed? Yes. Is it still eminently readable? Also yes. No, seriously, Hephaistion my beloved.

Rivers of London (Ben Aaronovitch) - Wonderful, wonderful set of books about a PC in the Met who ends up in the secretive (and tiny) magical investigative branch. Fantastic characters, fun murder mysteries and magic. Some of the later books in the series began to feel a little slow and same-y for me, but the first three are absolute wonders. Peter Grant is a phenomenal main character.

Lord of the Rings (JRR Tolkien) - I know, I know, this is predictable, but... I love it. I love it so much. I love the theme of kindness outlasting evil; of good triumphing not because of the strongest person, but because of the idea that anyone can stand up and make a difference. Also I love Boromir. I said what I said. 🤣

That's all I've got for now - I read a lot, but tend to be really, really picky, so something has to have a huge impact to stay on my 'absolute must-reads' list forever. However, I'm curious if anyone has any recs they'd like to send - I'm always up for hoarding more books!

#lady replies

[lies-unfurl]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love 💜

Thanks for tagging me! It's hard to choose, but some that I'm especially proud of are:

Punchline (SamBucky, post-HTP sickfic): Shitty Bedtime Stories is one of my favorite series; I really like the dynamic of Sam and Bucky having a healthy relationship while also learning to navigate boundaries in a trauma-informed sense. I really enjoyed writing this part in particular; the genre fusion of crack with sickfic with a really awful story about what Bucky went through was super interesting to navigate.

Bloom (SamSteveBucky, soulmate AU, magical realism): I don't actually like soulmate AUs that much normally, so exploring and unpacking the tropes associated with them was a lot of fun. I also let myself go a bit more prose-y than I usually do. tbh I didn't really think anyone would read this, so the fact that other people have enjoyed it too was really gratifying (also, the art is GORGEOUS).

the more I see you (the more I want you) (SamBucky, 5+1 times Sam accidentally sees Bucky's junk): again with great art, and also, this one was just fun to write. Also it was the first longfic I wrote in years, so it's got a special place in my heart.

nothing in nature that freezes your heart (gen, post-Endgame, A Christmas Carol AU): idk, I just really like Christmas fics.

quarantriad (SamSteveBucky, pandemic fic): I also really like the dynamic between Sam and Steve and Bucky here, and it's fun to write something that's a bit more lighthearted (even though the subject matter is kind of heavy). Also, it took me years to finish it and I'm proud I did lol.

I'm bad at tagging people, but if you've been wanting to do this, take this as your sign!

[honeykaes]

𝐂𝐚𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐨 𝐇𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐦 𝐕𝐨𝐢𝐜𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐕

𝐖𝐚𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐫!𝐀𝐥𝐛𝐞𝐝𝐨

About Albedo: I do this as a part-time job. I’m actually in medical school right now so I don’t foresee this job as a long-term thing as I’m getting ready to graduate. I’ve enjoyed my time here though. It’s given me a chance to learn and observe people’s behaviors.

About Albedo II: You saw someone that looks like me? …Hm. Interesting. My face? Don’t worry about it, sorry I was just deep in thought for a moment.

About Albedo III: If you’re ever confused on who you’re speaking to, I usually wear this necklace around my neck. Why am I telling you this? No reason. Just something to keep in mind heh…

About Kaeya: Ah, right. Kaeya and I have been friends for a while now. He actually tried to recruit me to his strip club but I don’t think that scene suits me. Honestly…I don’t think it suits him either. He’s just…compensating for a lot. I won’t go into details since it’s not my place though.

About Kazuha: He actually was an exchange student at my dorm in my undergraduate school. Quiet fellow. I actually used to illustrate the prose and poetry he would write. I always thought his craft was there and not cooking, so I was surprised when I turned on the TV one day for my step-sibling and saw him preparing a meal.

About (Y/n): Kind fellow. I truly hope that they don’t get too overwhelmed with everyone. In the times they do, they usually come to me. It’s nice to be trusted like that.

𝐏𝐨𝐨𝐥 𝐁𝐨𝐲! 𝐆𝐨𝐫𝐨𝐮

About Gorou: It’s finally summertime and my time to shine! I actually enjoy the pool duties at Golden Celeste. A lot of people like to have fun..but it can be a struggle when people are drunk and won’t listen to me. In those cases, I’m the one blowing on the whistle and calling Heizou or Itto if they get too rowdy.

About Gorou II: My shiba? Isn’t he the sweetest! This is Yaki. You can pet him! I don’t mind at all. We’re actually going on a walk now to meet up with (Y/n), if you’d like to join!

About Ei: …A troublesome woman. When I saw she was here, my dog even started to growl. My boss back home, Kokomi got screwed over by Ei’s company before. Needless to say, I’m not a fan at all.

About Yae Miko: Also troublesome! She always teases me! Whenever I go, I feel like she just follows me! It’s so annoying…especially in front of (Y/n), no less…

About (Y/n): I got introduced to them the other day and they’re a blast to be around! I actually rented out the pool for tonight for us to hang out at! N-No! Nothing unsavory like tht w-will happen! I’m a gentleman after all, hmph.

About Kazuha: My best friend! He’s part of the reason I come over here so often. He’s the one who actually introduced me to (Y/n). I have a feeling he likes them though…Ugh, I really hope this doesn’t strain our relationship in any way.

About Venti: God! He annoys me to no end! He’s always doing his summer dj events or whatever and gets the crowd too rowdy in the pool! It’s always my mess to clean up! It’s soo not cool and he doesn’t even care!

𝐏𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐎𝐟𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐞𝐫! 𝐇𝐞𝐢𝐳𝐨𝐮

About Heizou: Yep, I’m one of the local detectives in town. I’m originally from the countryside in Japan though. Wanted something different and found my way here for some reason.

About Heizou II: I usually patrol this area so I see a lot of the people coming in and out. It’s quite interesting to see all the different characters that work at the Golden Celeste…Is it really the company and Zhongli that keep it together or is there someone else that drives so many business folks to stay? Ugh..I’m starting to get a headache.

About Ei: Ahhh…a strict one that is. Everyone from Japan knows her and her family. An interesting family to say the least. Sisters dead. A bastard son. I’m shocked the media doesn’t talk more about it but I wouldn’t be surprised if they were payed off. That’s how powerful they are.

About Ayato: Why is he here? I sorta feel bad for his sister still running the company back home. I wonder what she thinks of this. Is she supportive of him trying to seduce some random person? Interesting stuff, right?

About Itto: Itto… That dolf. He’s strong, I’ll give him that but I need him to use his noggin a bit more. We work together a lot because the idiots he kicks out are usually the idiots I have to arrest by the end of the night.

About Fatuus: They’re the shady company that Zhongli has been working with to build Golden Celeste. I think more of their members are planning to come down to the city more. I wonder how wonderboy Diluc is gonna feel about that.

About (Y/n): I actually haven’t had much interaction with them, but with all the rumors around, I need to meet this person as soon as possible. A grin? What can I say, I’m excited to learn more.

#albedo x reader #gorou x reader #heizou x reader

[erinthesails]

Inspired by @getmean, i did a little writeup of the books i read in 2023, and a little blurb about my thoughts! read 37 total, which isn't bad considering how busy it was, this past autumn especially.

organized roughly by genre because i thought the breakdown of what kinds of things i ended up reading was interesting, and marked my faves of the year with *s!

Novels

Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan

Did not start strong in this category, this book was truly awful. Like, I wanted to be able to just turn my brain off and at least enjoy a fun sci fi adventure but it was like. God. the worst parts of detective/noir novels and the worst parts of sci fi bound together by an interesting concept that the author had no idea how to handle. Im getting mad about this book again just thinking about it

Gingerbread by Helen Oyeyemi

Really really liked this! I love Oyeyemi’s prose and the way her writing always feels surprising. Read this in a group, with people who didn’t really enjoy it, which was unfortunate, but it compelled me a lot! I think i liked White is For Witching better, but still a really lovely interesting story

*The Dazzle of Day by Molly Gloss

This was probably my favorite new book of the year, and it came as a total surprise! Picked it up on a whim at a used bookstore and didn’t actually expect much of it, but was actually stunning. Super super highly recommend for anyone who likes sci-fi and thought experiments and the mundane realities and sacrifices of creating a livable future for everyone. It reminded me of The Dispossessed but like, a lot tighter and with characters who felt more distinct. Which is high praise because i fucking love The Dispossessed. Ursula Le Guin stans read immediately

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

Soooo good, soso good. I was skeptical at first because like. A whole book where you never hear from the same character more than once is a very tough sell. Each chapter is from a different character’s POV, displaced in both time and space from one another, but Gyasi weaves the stories together so well, I felt newly invested in both the collective tale being told and the new people we were meeting every chapter. Another absolute banger

*The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

This was a reread, because I assigned it to my students and wanted to get it fresh in my mind before discussing in class. Tearing my hair out, collapsing to the floor in tears, etc etc etc. Book of all time forever

Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng

This one was a shocking disappointment! I absolutely love Celeste Ng’s other work but this one fell so flat. I’m not sure if it’s because she felt uncomfortable writing a child’s POV—but that wasn’t the problem, because the chapters from the Mom’s POV were just as flat—or if she was feeling self-conscious about the fact that it was speculative fiction (despite not being marketed that way at all) or if this was just a COVID project that got pushed into the world before it was ready… I’m really not sure what happened here, but again, conceptually interesting, but so unexciting in execution. Not enough to rattle my faith in her though, I’ll be back again next time Ms. Ng…Everything I Never Told You really was just that good

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

Glad to have finally read this one! One of those books i’d always meant to read and expected i’d like but just never got around to until now. And I did! Love a story where the house is haunted by the people who live in it, love fucked up sibling relationships, love a child with murder on the mind. I kept expecting it to like. Do a little more with the conversation about class and historical power. But maybe that’s just because i’d read White is For Witching recently

Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica

Thought I’d like this one more than I did, but it wasn’t bad. There were parts where the metaphor really started to get muddled in a way that uh. Felt like it undercut the more interesting parts of the story. Like yes cannibalism is imperialist capitalism, but also it’s maybe factory farming? Which is a less interesting way of framing things? Imo? Also the actual descriptions were so visceral I kept getting queasy and having to set the book down, which doesn’t usually happen for me with books. So sign of effective prose I guess! But ultimately it didn’t feel like it was for me

Monkey King by Wu Cheng'en

WOOOHOOOO SUN WUKONG, EVERYBODY GIVE IT UP FOR SUN WUKONG

Signal Fires by Dani Shapiro

This one reminded me of Our Missing Hearts in a lot of ways, primarily that a) it felt like it was trying harder to be Important than to be complex and interesting, and b) it features a child narrator who Does Not sound convincingly like a child. It was fine tho, read it with my mom because it’s her favorite author, so that was kinda nice!

Nevada by Imogen Binnie

I always have a hard time with Coming Of Age In The Big City books, even and especially queer ones, but I did kinda like that this one felt So aimless and frustrated. I’m not sure if that was the author’s intention, as I think it was written as sort of autofiction, but I was compelled by how completely misguided the main character is, while still being sympathetic. Like you can watch her thought patterns taking her the wrong way realtime and still understand why they went there, and clearly see the core problem she’s avoiding, with it still being believable that she wouldn’t be able to see it. I like a character who has no clue what’s going on, what can I say! Unfortunately I’d also just read Zami which made this book feel lesser by comparison, but that’s not Nevada’s fault. I cannot hold it against Imogen Binnie for not being Audre Lorde lol

*The Baron in the Trees by Italo Calvino

This was the year of finally reading books that have been on my shelf for years!! Really liked this one a lot. It has a lot of the best parts of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s storytelling, with a bit of a thicker layer of realism, which sometimes serves it, sometimes doesn’t. Delightful overall, definitely a fave of the year! Favorite part though was reading this book with a friend who, when we met to discuss it, opened with “okay i didn’t actually expect this guy to spend the WHOLE time in the trees”

Orlando by Virginia Woolf

I happened to be reading this at the same time as Baron in the Trees, and i felt like the two resonated across each other in really interesting ways! I love when that happens, and it happened a few times this year, which was exciting. Woolf is always doing the most, of course, but a lot of the emotional landscape of the story really stuck with me, as well as the meditations on “what is art and the pursuit of creative fulfillment for, anyway?” Me too, Orlando, me too

Novellas

The Employees by Olga Ravn

Really interesting little book! Never would have heard of it if it wasn’t for a friend from grad school, but i really liked the structure of it and the way it used lots of different voices without having to necessarily make characters out of any of them

The Tale of the Unknown Island by José Saramago

Not sure if this can really be classified as a novella as I think it’s like less than 5,000 words long, but i bought it as a book, so a book it shall be! Lovely little parable and a strange moment in time captured on the page!

*Present Tense Machine by Gunnhild Øyehaug

Another total surprise picked up at random from a used bookstore! I thought the cover looked interesting and the book was too! This is like. The platonic ideal of a novella. Not too high concept, doesn’t work too hard to explain itself, but includes enough additional detail and character to allow the ideas to resonate further than it would have as a short story. Seriously, go read this is so good

The Strange Library by Haruki Murakami

We love a strange library! We also love an artbook! Honestly the design of the book was more compelling to me than the story itself, but it was a nice book to sit with for an afternoon and let yourself settle into the world of it

The Hole by Hiroko Oyamada

Ohhhh the tension and tone of this one is so well done…I know some people who felt like it was too slow and never got around to anywhere in particular, but I felt like the feeling it evoked while leading us by the hand was so clear and so unsettling it was worth it. It felt like the feeling was the goal, the suffocating, dead-end feeling of being locked out of the world by the expectations of motherhood and wifehood and the way suburban survival exists only to perpetuate itself…it’s good, it’s really good!!!

Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel García Márquez

Marquez is so good every time always. Another really excellent use of the novella form, telling a really dense story that feels like it’s meandering while actually packing in so many essential details. We’re running really hard in circles in a field and marquez is dragging us along and it feels like what the goddamn hell are we doing, what are we running towards is this anything or am i just being taken on a little adventure for no reason. Then you stop and look down and realize you’ve trampled the corn stalks down in a perfect fibonacci spiral that points neatly toward the solution. Or something.

Permutations Among the Nightingales and The Gioconda Smile by Aldous Huxley

Combining these two because I don’t have too much to say about either and they both came from the same collection. I liked Permutations a lot better than Gioconda because cyclic story structures always scratch my brain, but neither were too compelling. I’m beginning to think i just dont like Aldous Huxley

What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher

Hmmmm I feel like…there is a certain kind of smug, sweetiepie speculative fiction that no one acknowledges as a particular movement in the genre, but that is really notably There and that Doesn’t Work For Me. Okay that sounds really mean. I didn’t hate this book! It just felt very self conscious about its project of like. “Queering the gothic.” And ended up feeling very sanitized and boring as a result. I don’t know, I felt about this book similarly to how I felt about Psalm for the Wild Built by Becky Chambers. Like, the Concept is good in theory, but it’s expected to do way too much heavy lifting in a story that, ultimately, feels more self-congratulatory than complicated or engaging. I don’t know how to explain it, but it feels like a story that was solved before the author sat down to write it. Not objectively bad by any means but just wasn’t for me

The Willows by Algernon Blackwood

Another instance of finally reading stuff I’d always meant to read! I know this story is often cited as the kind of “original” weird fiction/cosmic horror, so it was interesting to see how that played out. Definitely not quite either of those genres as I know them today, but there was still a subtlety to it that felt really satisfying. It was good! I’m glad people have drawn from it and written even better stories in its style! I can definitely see the way stories like Annihilation have roots (lol) in this story

Fiction Collection

*So Long Been Dreaming edited by Nalo Hopkinson

I often tend to meander through and not finish fiction anthologies, which is weird because i love short stories, but I almost always gravitate toward single-author collections and lit mags when I want them. But I’m really glad I finished this, because almost every story in it was excellent! I really love Nalo Hopkinson’s writing, so it was fascinating seeing her editing sensibilities at work

Fruiting Bodies by Kathryn Harlan

Just okay! Had some winners and some losers, as all collections do, but pretty much puttered along at a solid “fine” throughout. Nothing really stood out as particularly bad or particularly good, which is a shame because it seemed like exactly the kind of thing I’d be into. The title story was probably my favorite, but other than that, I honestly don’t even remember most of them

Afterglow edited by Grist

Another anthology, this one that I picked up because it had a cool cover and compelling premise (sci-fi climate optimism). Unfortunately most of the stories had the same sort of smug self assuredness that i disliked in “What Moves The Dead.” I’ve ranted about this at length but i always have mixed feelings about cli-fi, especially the subgenre of climate optimism. A story that has its tone and outcome so neatly pre-determined by definition has to work pretty hard to do anything unexpected, and most of these did not, HOWEVER, there were two standout stories I loved so much they made the whole collection feel worth it. Everyone read “The Secrets of the Last Greenland Shark” by Mike McClelland and “Broken from the Colony” by Ada M. Patterson!!!

Milk Blood Heat by Dantiel W. Moniz

A pretty solid collection that, again, didn’t have too many stories that really stuck out, though, again, the title story was the most memorable and it lingered with me much more closely than Fruiting Bodies

Memoir

Tranny by Laura Jane Grace

Yayyyy, Laura Jane Grace! I always see that quote from this book going around Tumblr and wanted to read it myself. I liked it a lot! It also got me to listen to more Against Me! because I’d really only listened to Transgender Dysphoria Blues before this. Which has been delightful!

*Zami by Audre Lorde

Major standout of the year, even though it took me a long time to read the whole thing. Each chapter is such a perfectly crafted, bite sized piece that I was just kind of meandering through one or two at a time, turning them over in my head as i went. I also read it right before reading Nevada, so unfortunately I already had the perfect Lesbian Coming Of Age In New York book on the mind that i couldn’t help comparing it to. We all know Audre Lorde is amazing, but this book is really truly gorgeous

A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid

Not sure where to classify this lil book honestly, as it fits here, and under novella, and under nonfiction topic, but it felt like there was a core of memoir there that stood out as i read. Another book i bought years ago and only just got around to reading, but it was extremely vivid, i love Kincaid’s voice

I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy

Whewwwww this book was a lot. It is as good as everyone says it is but definitely hard to read at times. Not much to say other than it’s definitely worth reading

Nonfiction topic

Six Memos for the Next Millennium by Italo Calvino

Love the ideas in here, but imagine it would have been a lot more engaging to listen to them as lectures than to read them all together. Love Calvino but he does tend toward the abstract, and these were a bit dry. Got me thinking about a lot of literary goals and challenges though, which was interesting

*A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders

I liked this a lot! I tend to avoid “writing advice” type books because they’re so often preachy and not useful, but i really liked the format of this as a breakdown of what’s working in each of these stories and why. I also haven’t read many of The Russian Greats, but really enjoyed most of these ones he selected! My main takeaway is that Checkov kinda rules and Tolstoy kinda sucks. And i stand by that

Under a White Sky by Elizabeth Kolbert

Interesting collection of essays about climate change! It definitely had the journalist’s stink of “neutrality” at times, but gave some really fascinating accounts of people doing cool things in the climate change world. I really don’t read much nonfiction like this, so it was refreshing and informative and i learned a lot about carp

*Ezili's Mirrors by Omise'eke Natasha Tinsley

Okay so i really love Theory, but I never read it outside of class. I guess i always worried i would feel too lost without being able to check in with all the PhD people who are more versed in academese, but i decided to give it a go and i’m really glad i did, because i absolutely love this book. Such a fascinating mix of theory (she does open the book by saying “don’t read this as a book of theory” but like. Yeah there’s theory in here) and lived experience and history and mythology and storytelling and the myriad ways that gender is a story we tell and a story that’s inscribed onto us and a reality written by histories of colonialism and survival pushed into shape by self-expression and community……i liked it a lot!!! And if you’re interested in learning about anti-colonialism and gender, you’ll like it too!

Graphic novel

New Masters by Shobo and Shof Coker

Got this after dropping in on a panel by Shobo and Shof Coker at Emerald City Comic Con! Loved the way they talked about creating this world and you could really feel how much detail and care went into every part of it. Enjoyed it a lot, I hope to read more from them!

The Harrowing of Hell by Evan Dahm

Evan Dahm!!! My beloved Evan Dahm!!! He is always at comic cons and I was so obsessed with Rice Boy as a teen, I’m always a little starstruck by the fact that i can just walk up to his booth and talk to him lol. But I did and bought this book from him, and got it signed even! This book is so fucking cool and moody and manages to make it a story about Jesus in hell without it being. You know. The way it could be with that as the subject. Just a genuinely compelling treatment of Jesus as a character and person, with very cool art too. I also read it while i was listening to Unreal Unearth which i know is extremely. Uh. i don’t even know. Baby’s first Dante’s Inferno. But it absolutely contributed to the vibe and made it a great summer evening activity

#if yall read any of these lmk there are so many i have thoughts about

[neonscandal]

Hi....if you don't mind, can I ask something from BNHA? What do you think are Midoriya and Bakugou’s greatest personality strengths and weaknesses? Why? What do you love about their dynamic? Sorry if you've answered these questions before.....Thanks....

No need to apologize, if anything, thank you for asking me anything! I tried to keep my response spoiler free and, since I had trouble clarifying what I value as strengths vs weaknesses when I wrote in prose, I broke it out below with the Why's highlighted for simplicity. Still a pretty long read so buckle up, buttercup!

I will probably never have a reason to use this gif otherwise but feel this AU is hilarious and important.

PERSONALITY

I recently thought about the headspace of these characters here and here.

Midoriya Strengths

I feel like this goes hand in hand with the crybaby hero trope but he has an incredibly strong sense of justice where he's compelled to do what's right even at the expense of doing something that would be otherwise frowned upon. This trend toward Chaotic Good keeps things interesting.

A forgiving heart with an enduring spirit that allows him to seek understanding with those who oppose him because he tries to see them as people in need of saving as well, where possible. Same could be said for Tanjiro Kamado or Usagi Tsukino I feel like, so, just MC vibes. But the limits of this are certainly tested.

He's unapologetically a little weirdo who's finally seeing his dreams take shape after years of being miserable and he does absolutely nothing to keep his cool about it. Kid is unabashedly a nerd with his incessant muttering and social awkwardness and Class 1A is just like, "well he's our fanboy". He's secretly being coached by his idol who is a teacher at his school and his dorm looks like a shrine to said teacher. Like... bro, get it together. I highkey feel like Midoriya is basically y/n if y/n finally got their Censored Wizarding School letter.

Midoriya Weaknesses

He's overwhelmingly naive when it comes to hero society despite being a fanboy of it. It takes time and a lot of heartache for him to get to a point where he can think critically about those he admires or the systemic failures within hero society. Simply, he's just a kid. Can't really blame him for not knowing any better but I think it really emphasizes how far off his dream of being a hero really was.

He's hardwired for martyrdom. Given enough time, anyone can rationalize breaking bones to master OFA when Recovery Girl is like right there, sure (still unhinged behavior but go off). But, considering the great mind he has for strategy, his default setting being a willingness to sacrifice himself and his body is dissonant. I think it's compounded by a desperation to measure up to All Might and he eventually grows from overt displays of this over time. Bakugo being captured at the training camp and his dissatisfaction with being incapable of doing anything about it was the impetus, but, sometimes, I wonder if the martyrdom stems from lack of other options or just having spent so long being ground down by his quirklessness that it's just second nature for him to think he has to suffer. Lowkey, Bakugo is wired the same way. This weakness just kind of makes me sad from all the things I think this complex stems from.

Bakugo Strengths

He is a perfectionist with a one track mind. Bakugo knows what he wants and works towards it relentlessly. This nerd is incredibly disciplined (hello senior citizen bedtime) with an aptitude for combat that doesn't stem from being a hero family legacy. Which means, any conditioning that made him good stock for UA came from his individual contribution as someone who is driven to be #1. Not to mention, he doesn’t have All Might personally coaching him so any growth yielded from constructive criticism while at UA is a product of Aizawa’s lessons, a sprinkle of Best Jeanist and Bakugo figuring things out himself. Case in point, learning from All Might that his “Win to Save” mentality needed to be tempered with a “Save to Win” mentality to be successful. He cultivates his own personal growth which allows him to be more communicative and slightly less hot-headed to enact a winning battle strategy in the exercise against Class 1B. Not to mention, Midoriya is getting a lot of real life experience that Bakugo isn’t but he manages to keep pace with Deku and still embody a determination to not accept any casualties (RE: Midoriya taking down Stain, taking down Muscular at the training camp, fighting and surviving Overhaul, taking down Gentle Criminal and everything that follows the initial Paranormal Liberation Front takedown).

As best he can, he cares about the people around him. You cannot accept Shoto Todoroki's shortcomings when he first got to UA and condemn Bakugo for his when they are arguably both products of hostile upbringings. That being said, in his own way and through the limited perspective of an unreliable narrator, he respects Ochako Uraraka as his equal where other boys of Class 1A are shown to not view girls as formidable adversaries (during the sports fest and the face off with Class 1B), Aizawa and Denki praise him for his strength of character, he makes it a point to pull aside that kindergartener who was teetering down the same path he followed during the extra provisional lessons, he goes out of his way to protect Class 1A during the Cultural Festival, and he is notably less of a jerk to Todoroki considering his home life. Since it's Bakugo, that care and concern just looks a bit different. Where Todoroki's character growth is staked in how he cultivates relationships with Class 1A (which isn't from a point of outright antagonism) and working to forgive his family, Bakugo's growth is tied more intimately to Midoriya whose first person perspective is a bit limited or biased.

He's hilarious to me. Like, sir, is there anything you respect? He's even a brash asshole to All Might, his idol. Where Midoriya has tunnel vision when it comes to All Might, I think Bakugo is able to reconcile the fact that All Might is still fallible while remaining in awe of him. It's why he keeps his secret after all although even he admits it’s not for All Might. Plus, as far as deuteragonists go, he's perfectly incendiary and goads Midoriya (and subsequently their classmates) to level up which Aizawa notes is what makes Class 1A something special.

Bakugo Weaknesses

Hand in hand with that last strength, for all of Bakugo's barking, he has issues with self worth and insecurity. While the viewer really only witnesses this when he's lashing out, it becomes clear this is something he deals with internally as it's a big factor in why he and Midoriya are at odds. Though Midoriya struggles with the same issues, Bakugo’s manifests violently and make him a ticking time bomb until his emotions finally explode.

He is immature and emotionally constipated. He is hard pressed and shitting diamonds before he'll ever admit his remorse for how he treated Midoriya, how he may not be good enough, or any other uncomfortable feeling that isn’t strictly confident superiority. His inability to communicate emotions and frustration to do so is what makes him unlikeable to people who don't bother to understand the nuance of his character and how that relates to Midoriya.

DYNAMIC

I tend to process things a lot better when read vs. watched so reading the manga and appreciating the exposition into their relationship while still being deprived of most of it has been fun to pick apart because we’re given Midoriya’s perspective and forced to interpret beyond what he’s able to do at the time. It's easy to forget the story tends to be from a first person perspective so we're left with some legwork to read between the lines using other characters (my favorite being Aizawa) who offers additional insight into the unbiased reality of their characters and, at times, their relation to one another.

They make each other better. As stated previously, Aizawa has observed that their rivalry not only draws out the best in them but it also forces those around them to be better as well.

By design, they are two halves of the same whole. All Might recognizes that, with Midoriya’s “Save to Win” and Bakugo’s “Win to Save” mentalities, their imitation of him is incomplete. You can’t have one without the other in order to be successful and he even proposes that they would make an unstoppable team.

They understand one another. Midoriya provides insight into Bakugo during the Sports Festival to Uraraka which Aizawa explains better. Bakugo (implied spoiler?) tells two mentors that he knows Deku best and is able to pinpoint what antics he's gotten himself into, too. While shown to be largely non-communicative, they have a penetrating understanding of one another that Horikoshi hasn't really explained. From our perspective, they were childhood friends and then they simply weren't around the time that Deku didn't get his quirk (so around 4 or 5). So how do they continue to understand one another so implicitly? I'm anticipating a big reveal into more of their childhood in coming chapters. If you're caught up in the manga, you see we've already gotten a taste (if you're not, mind the spoiler warnings in the links above).

They respect one another. I know this seems unfounded considering how shitty Bakugo is shown to be to Midoriya BUT, when Bakugo encourages Kirishima that there's strength in being unrelenting during Kiri's moment of insecurity.. I very much think that he's thinking of Midoriya. Meanwhile, unique from the reasons above, Midoriya is undeterred from engaging with Bakugo despite his mistreatment because he's determined to be recognized by him and stand shoulder to shoulder with him. This is actually found to be something that they both obsess over. They want to be one another's equals.

They imitate one another. Deku incessantly imitates Bakugo. From his fight style which Iida and others have remarked to his trash talking when he wants to be victorious as he observed himself. Bakugo mutters/strategizes like Deku and I also feel like when I read the manga I recall thinking about how we focus on Deku imitating Bakugo but his AP Shot put me in the mind of Deku's Full Cowling. I'll have to dig through the notes I took while reading and continue my MHA Manga With Me posts but they are frequently shown to make similar faces and are constantly looking to one another for inspiration. Horikoshi has, throughout the story, linked them in this way. While not readily apparent (I'm chalking it up due to Midoriya's POV blind spot), we also see this between Kirishima and Mina (search "Kirishima v Mina" to get to the good stuff), Mirio and Tamaki, Ochako and Midoriya (but a sprinkle of confusion with Toga). @dekacchannn talks about this here.

To one another, they are worth saving. They both have a tendency of being a little self-sacrificing. Quirkless Midoriya throws himself at the Sludge Monster for Kacchan's sake, he goes back and grabs Bakugo's unconscious body during their exam, he runs on pure adrenaline at the training camp to go after Bakugo despite shattered bones and.. the list continues. For all of Bakugo's strength, most people assume he can take care of himself. Worse, many people assume he's simply irredeemable, with a temperament that teeters on villainy as discussed when he was kidnapped by the League of Villains. But Midoriya will always have an outstretched hand ready for Kacchan. Being mindful of spoilers, Bakugo will break and crack if it means he will Win to Save. He proves this when Deku is threatened because, despite his newfound power and exponential growth, despite being The Chosen One... at the end of the day, he needs someone to take him into account because he's simply "screwed up in the head" to do it himself and Bakugo knows this better than anyone.

Thank you for your patience in reading this rant and your curiosity in asking! I hope someone kisses you on both cheeks today because you made my day =)

Your question didn't seem ship specific so I didn't answer with that in mind. If I interpreted your question incorrectly, feel free to let me know though you can probably infer from the above.

#neon asks #anon asks #deku and kacchan #bnha #mha #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #deku #kacchan #character analysis #anime #manga #izuku midoriya #midoriya izuku #katsuki bakugo #bakugo katsuki #mha midoriya #mha bakugo #mha deku #mha kacchan #class 1a #bnha bakugo #bnha deku #bnha midoriya #bnha kacchan #character theory #mha characters #bakudeku #bkdk #dekubaku

[stylesloveclub]

Prose (part 2)

In which not many students attend Harry's office hours, and y/n's kind of burnt out.

+++

“What’s that drink you’re always drinking?” Harry asks, sitting across from y/n in his office.

She’s the only student to show up to his office hours this week (again), and had come to ask about the first essay that’s due next week. While she types on her computer, writing down all the notes that Harry just gave her on her first draft, Harry finds himself staring at the iced drink sitting next to her laptop.

“Oh, it’s just an iced chai. I’ve been getting two pumps of pumpkin spice syrup in it recently though, since Starbucks has their fall flavors now.”

“Hm. I’ve never tried the fall drinks.” He twirls his red pen between his fingers, leaning back in his chair comfortably. “M’always too scared to try new drinks, y’know? Like what if I don’t like it? Then I’d have wasted five bucks and I wouldn’t even have a coffee to get me through my day.” He pouts to himself at the thought of it, and y/n finds it terribly endearing.

She’s happy to know that Harry is seemingly very comfortable in her presence, prattling on and on about the simplest of things – like coffee orders and his favorite food places on campus. When she first walked in, the first thing he’d asked her was her favorite place to grab lunch on campus, since he was starving and one of the other TA’s had offered to drop off some food for him. His personal favorite was the bagel place (he could have a cream cheese bagel at any time of the day, he told her), but that place closes early, so he was stuck between getting mexican or sushi.

Y/n advised him to stick with the burritos – her ex-roommate once got food poisoning from the sushi. Never trust the on-campus sushi, she warned.

“M’kinda like that too,” she responds once she finishes up her essay outline. “I usually just always get the chai, ‘cos I know I’ll like it. But sometimes I’ll be adventurous with like, the syrups I add, because it doesn’t really make a difference. Like right now, I have pumpkin spice syrup in here, and I can barely taste it so even if I didn’t like it, it’d be fine.” She takes a sip to somehow prove her point. “I just like adding the pumpkin for the fall vibes.”

“Is fall your favorite season?” he asks. It’s been a lot of this – Harry asking her questions, getting to know her. She wonders if it’s because she’s the only one who shows up to his office hours and, therefore, is the only person whose ear he gets to talk off – or if he genuinely is interested in her. The thought of it makes her heart want to do a backflip, but she kindly tells her heart to CALM THE FUCK DOWN before she starts getting carried away in her train of thought. Harry’s just a nice guy! A nice guy, who talks to her about books, and shares his umbrella, and gives her rides home when it’s rainy outside – and has pretty pink lips, and pretty green eyes, and pretty brown curls.

“Yeah, I think so,” she hums.

Her crush on him seems to grow more and more every time she sees him, like those tall annoying weeds that you constantly have to dig out of a pretty flower garden. The type of weeds that seem to grow back even stronger each time you cut their roots and spray anti-weed chemicals on them to ensure that they don’t come back. She’s tried to smush those bothersome butterflies in her stomach, continuously reminding herself that he’s just her TA. That he’s just being nice. That he just calls her smart, and tells her that she’s doing a good job, and praises her discussion posts because that is literally what a Teaching Assistant is supposed to do. But whenever he smiles at her with that boyish dimple and his eyes glimmer all sweetly and romantically and thoughtfully – well she just can’t help it! She’s given up and has let the crush invade her brain like the invasive garden plant that it is.

It’s just a harmless little crush, she rationalizes. Just a little fantasy of kissing him here and there to get her through her boring lectures with Dr. Richmond – nothing wrong with that, right?

She clears her throat, “What’s your favorite season?”

He stares up at the ceiling, pursing his lips thoughtfully, “Hmm… probably spring. I like seeing the flowers bloom, especially after a snowy winter.”

Oh, of course he likes seeing the flowers bloom. He’s a walking piece of poetry.

+++

Harry stands at the front of the classroom, lecturing once again. It’s the same as before – fourty-ish college students hanging onto every word like his words are a waterfall and they’re a group of dehydrated travelers.

He loves teaching, loves seeing the way his students’ eyes light up with wonder when he explains a certain theme or points out a new motif. He’s more than happy to hold their hand through the novel, be their guiding light through the Romantic era. Their questions make his day, and he’s beyond happy to see that, now that they’re a few weeks into their course, the students are opening up.

“Victor is so caught up in his experiment,” Harry lectures, “that he begins to ignore nature. Victor says– ‘The summer months passed while I was thus engaged, heart and soul, in one pursuit. It was the most beautiful season; never did the fields bestow a more plentiful harvest, or the vines yield a more luxuriant vintage: but my eyes were insensible to the charms of nature.’ So what role does nature – or should I say – the lack of nature, play for Victor?”

Four hands shoot up into the air (relieving considering how last week he could barely get anyone to say anything). “Katie, right?” He smiles when she nods, and gives an exaggerated, celebratory fist pump that makes all of his students chuckle. “Told you I’d start getting your names down! Go ahead, Katie.”

Although he’s laughing and smiling – practically beaming since he and his students are getting along and actually discussing (instead of just him lecturing them) – he can’t help but feel a little pinch of sadness in the back of his mind. As his eyes scan over the seats, he can’t manage to find y/n in the class. He’d searched for her three times already – wondering if he accidentally missed her, or if she was hidden behind one of the tall boys near the front – but he couldn’t find his star student. He missed catching her eye, giving her sly winks and watching her duck her head down stifle a laugh. It kept him entertained whenever he had to sit through Dr. Richmond’s lectures, and he liked hearing her talk. Not only does she add amazing thoughts to their class discussions, but she also is just… nice to listen to.

“Good… I love how you said that Katie,” Harry carries on, “He embodies the corruption of nature in the quest for glory. And we already know how highly the Romantics regard the beauty of nature – their artwork is meant to connect us with the world, isn’t it?”

He wonders if she’s okay. She isn’t hurt or anything, is she? Did something happen to her on her walk to class?

“He’s disrupting the natural cycle of life, basically destroying nature, by trying to play God and create life himself–”

Y/n, as quietly as she can, sneaks into the classroom. She’s 15 minutes late, which isn’t late enough to just completely ditch the lecture, but still late enough to raise a few eyebrows. Of course, being the clumsy duck she is, she accidentally knocks the trash can over with a loud bang. She winces at how loud the sound is, and feels her cheeks turn hot when all eyes turn to look at her.

Harry turns as well, and can’t help but smile to himself – there she is.

He continues with his lecture, as if nothing happened, but watches as she hurries over to her set spot in the third row. She messily pushes her hair out of her face as she sits down, pulling the pull-out desk in front of her and grabbing her laptop from her bag. She types in her password quickly, and pushes the sleeves of her white cardigan up her arms so that they aren’t in the way. Her eyes briefly flicker upwards to the projector to see what she missed – but instead she accidentally catches Harry’s gaze, who’s already looking at her.

All of a sudden, Harry loses his train of thought. His eyes flicker between hers, and she stares back at him. They’re stuck like that for a moment – just the briefest moment – before he realizes that words are no longer coming out of his mouth and that the rest of the class is staring at him expectantly.

His cheeks tint pink. “Um… sorry, what was I saying?” He chuckles at himself embarrassedly, shaking his head at himself – it’s not often that he stutters over his words. But, luckily, it was brief enough to just pass as a slight fumble. Nothing too suspicious.

Harry tears his eyes away from y/n and resumes with his lecture. But somehow, as delusional as she might be, y/n can tell that that moment was something more than just a slight stumble.

+++

“I got this for you,” y/n says, standing in front of Harry’s desk, placing the iced drink down next to his pile of papers.

Harry furrows his eyebrows and sits up straighter. “What?”

“It’s a pumpkin iced chai… the same one I usually get. I thought, since last time you said you didn’t wanna waste five bucks trying a new drink–”

“Are you mental?” he interrupts.

She blinks. “Huh?”

“Why would you go on and waste five of your dollars instead?” he huffs. “Christ, y/n, don’t be silly, m’not letting you buy me a coffee. How much was it, let me pay you back–” he’s reaching into his back pocket for his wallet, but y/n is quick to refuse.

“No, don’t worry I didn’t pay for it! Starbucks has this thing– it’s like, if you buy one fall drink you can get a second one for free, but it’s only on Thursdays after 12. And I was gonna get one for myself anyway, so I was like– might as well just get the second one for free so that you can try it and not waste five dollars.”

He pauses, his wallet half open and a five dollar bill pinched between her fingers. He squints at her, “Are you lying?”

She gives an exasperated huff, “Why would I lie?!”

“I dunno, maybe you’re trying to butter me up with drinks and stuff so that I’ll grade your essays easier – which won’t work by the way! M’not easy to bribe!”

She rolls her eyes and plops into the seat across from him. “Please. If I was gonna try and butter you up, it would’ve started five weeks ago, when classes actually started. And I probably wouldn’t be in your office hours every week groveling over these stupid essays.” She lets her bag fall to the floor and blows the hair out of her face. “Y’know, Dr. Richmond does not explain the politics of 18th Century Europe well enough to expect me to write an entire essay on ‘the effects of globalization on romantic era literature.’ I signed up for a literature class, not European history. When are we gonna start writing essays on Frankenstein and feminism?”

Harry goes to respond, but right at that moment he takes a tentative sip of the drink that y/n had forced onto his desk. He cannot hide the grimace that graces his face.

Her eyes round out and her eyebrows pinch. “You don’t like it?” she says with a pout.

His lips smack together a few times, trying to get used to the taste of pumpkin in his mouth – but he actually really cannot stand it. “God,” he says, his nose wrinkles and his tongue aching for some water to wash away the pumpkin-y after taste. “What a waste of five dollars.”

“Oh my gosh– I did not spend five dollars on a drink for you!”

“Yeah, yeah,” he pushes the drink to the edge of his desk, the sight of it making his tummy turn a little bit (he really did not like that pumpkin flavor mixed with milk). He then states the obvious, “You were late today.”

“Yeah. I overslept.”

He tsks, “What happened to the punctual Miss y/n who showed up twenty minutes early on the first day of classes?”

She sighs, “Dunno. Was up kinda late last night. And then I guess I snoozed through my alarm.”

It’s only then that he notices the dark circles under her eyes, and how her face is missing that usual radiant glow. He’s so caught up in her smile and her eyes, that he nearly missed the exhaustion leaking off her body. “How late?” he inquires.

“Um… like 3 in the morning.” Harry gapes at her, and she shrugs.

“Tha’s not healthy,” he scolds like a father. “Why’re you staying up so late, hm? Should be in bed for at least 6-8 hours, don’t you know that?”

“I know,” she rubs at her eyes tiredly. “I just have a psych midterm next week that m’really freaked out about. I like– fell behind on the lectures, so m’trying to learn like the past three weeks of material in a few days.”

Harry feels his heart ache, sympathizing for this poor, tired, hard-working girl. He knows the struggles of undergrad – he was pulling all nighters too, back in his day, and he never dared to go above 16 units. He wonders how she’s surviving, taking 20 units while still being at the top of her classes – well, she’s at the top of this class, he knows for certain. His star student.

Her eyes are still hidden behind her hands, knuckling at her eyelids, but she pulls them away slowly when she feels Harry’s hand at her knee. She looks at him, and he’s suddenly aware of how red and glossy her eyes are. “Just don’t overdo the studying, okay?” he says with soft eyes and a gentle voice. His thumb rubs overtop her knee softly, saying a hundred words that he can’t say out loud just quite yet.

She nods, and swallows thickly. “Okay.”

He smiles. “So you want a crash course in European History? I can do that for you. Dunno why more people don’t show up to my office hours, m’literally about to tell you exactly what to write…”

+++

Y/n is exhausted.

Actually, exhausted doesn’t cut it. She is at her breaking point.

With midterms week upon her, she’s been drowning herself in her school work, trying to keep up with her lectures and recap everything that she’s learned up until this point. Kind of difficult, when she’s fallen so dreadfully behind and barely knows what’s going on in her stats class. And – to make things worse, not only does she have both her stats and psych midterm this Friday, but she also needs to finish this stupid Globalization essay by tomorrow’s deadline.

Seven pages about The Effects of Globalization on British Romantic Literature. She currently has three pages written.

She’s screwed.

It’s not like she was trying to get behind! She tried so hard to stay on top of her studies. She promised herself that she’d finish the globalization essay last night – went to starbucks with her noise canceling headphones, got herself an iced pumpkin chai as a motivational treat, and sat down to turn all her notes into a beautiful, magical essay on Romanticism that would make Dr. Richmond weep.

But… the words just weren’t wording! Her brain refused to cooperate with her, despite the fact that she stayed at the Starbucks literally up until they kicked her out. She read her sources, went over her excerpts, wrote and rewrote her thesis over and over again… and only got three out of the seven pages done. She doesn’t know whether to blame Dr. Richmond for assigning such a stupid essay, or just her own sleep-deprived brain.

She’d gotten maybe five hours of sleep last night. And the night before that, too. Harry’s words ring loudly in her head, scolding her to get at least six hours of sleep every night… but she just has so much work to do! She has to do her psych readings, her stats homework, the midterm practice her stats professor posted, and this essay… It's a lot. Plus having to actually attend all of her classes and go to work (she works at the campus bookstore) on top of all her homework and studying? She barely has time to eat!!!

Her tummy grumbles miserably, a painful reminder of the fact that she had forgotten to pack herself a lunch this morning in her haste to get to class on time. The pain is nowhere as bad as her headache, though. It’s the kind of migraine you get when you barely got any sleep. Her head feels heavy, her heartbeat pounding in her ears, and her eyes sting every time she blinks. It’s horrible. She can barely focus on anything. Not her stats homework, not the essay open in front of her.

Not even Harry, who’s sitting to her left, helping her with her essay. In fact, she’s completely missed what he’s spent the past minute explaining to her.

She blinks at him slowly. “Sorry… can you say that again?”

Harry’s pretty face pinches, his eyebrows furrowed and eyes glimmering with concern. She’s so clearly off today… he can’t ignore her red-rimmed eyes and zoning out any longer. “…are you okay?” he asks timidly.

“Yeah, yeah,” she says quickly, brushing off his concern. “I’m fine.” But it’s like as soon as she says those two words, the dam holding her together collapses, and a river of emotion comes barreling through her. She looks down at the open document on her laptop, stares at the cursor blinking at her. The blank page taunting her. Tears well up in her eyes, and her heart starts to swell sadly. She’s not fine at all.

She quickly hides her face from Harry, looking down at her lap. She is NOT allowed to cry in front of him, she reprimands herself. She’s kept herself together all day, why is she starting to get emotional now, in the middle of his office hours? Couldn’t it have waited until she was alone in her shower?

She swallows around the lump in her throat, and presses her palms to her stinging eyes. As if that’ll keep her tears at bay. “Sorry,” she mumbles, trying to conceal her shaky voice, “let me just think for a second.”

“Hey…” Harry sees right through it. “Hey, come on. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she says, mostly trying to convince herself. She sniffles as quietly as she can and tries to rub the tears away. “Sorry, nothing. I’m fine.”

She reaches for her laptop, but Harry grabs her hand. “No.” He can’t ignore the glossy sheen of her eyes, or the quiet sniffles. He just can’t. “We need to take a break.”

“It’s really fine–” she tries to say, but she can barely get it out with how her throat is swelling. She stares down at the floor. Harry holds her hand.

“What’s wrong? Talk to me.” His hands are big and warm, encasing her’s, wholly. A cross tattoo sits between the slit of his thumb and second finger, twitching as his thumb grazes her knuckles.

“M’just tired,” she says dejectedly. “I was up super late last night and I just… didn’t even get anything done. And now I have to finish this, and I haven’t finished my stats homework, and I have two midterms on Friday.” Her heart starts to race as she realizes much she has to do, and how little time she has. She’s stretched herself thin. “There’s just so much I have to get done,” her voice cracks, “and I’m so tired.” A big fat tear rolls down her face, and drops onto her shirt – shamefully staining the thin material.

Harry gets out of his chair and kneels down in front of her, resting their joint hands in her lap as he stares up at her. More tears fill her eyes without her consent, and her cheeks burn with embarrassment. “Sorry,” she sniffles. She refuses to meet his gaze, despite how earnestly he’s looking into her sad eyes. Another drop falls from her lashes.

“Don’t apologize,” he murmurs sadly.

“I thought I could handle it all,” she bleats. “But I’m so unprepared for my midterms, and I need to finish this essay, and I promised you that I’d stay on top of my work, but I’m falling behind–”

“Don’t worry about the essay,” he interrupts. “I’ll get you an extension on your paper.”

She shakes her head. “Dr. Richmond doesn’t do extensions, though,” she blubbers.

“I’ll talk to him,” he says firmly. “M’the one grading it anyway.”

“But Harry–” she whines, shamelessly childlike, “I promised you that this wouldn’t happen. I told you I could handle it.”

“And you can handle it. I know you can.” His green eyes are wide and round as he looks up at her, earnest and pleading. “You come to office hours, and you study hard, and you’d stay up all night to finish this essay – but I don’t want you to. You don’t have to prove yourself to me. I know you can do it.”

She pouts, still not looking up at him. She stares instead at their joint hands in her lap blankly.

“You’re doing so good,” he coos, “You’re coming to office hours even when you have so much going on, and you’re taking so many units. I know you’re giving it your all. S’okay.”

He reaches a hand out to rest on her shoulder, and suddenly she feels the weight of the world fall off of her chest. A long, shaky breath leaves her, and she blinks her eyes shut, letting more tears cascade down her cheeks. “Oh, sweetheart,” Harry’s heart breaks. He leans up to wrap his arms around her shoulders, a soft hug, and she rests her forehead on his shoulder, letting the tears silently fall. His hands rub big, soothing circles on her back, and he shushes her softly, “It’s alright.”

His blue dress shirt feels cool against her face, crisp and fresh, and he smells like vanilla and smoked wood. She doesn’t want to abandon his firm chest, his warm embrace, but he pulls back and looks into her eyes. For the first time, she meets his gaze. “No more crying, okay?”

She sniffles, and wipes the wetness off her cheeks. “M’kay.”

A soft smile smooths out the worried lines on his face. “Here’s what we’re gonna do,” he says, his hands slapping his thighs as he stands back up. “You’re going to take a nap–” he closes his office door and locks it with a click.

“A nap?” her watery voice exclaims. “But– I need to study!”

He gives her a firm look. “You’re not gonna get any studying done if your brain isn’t well rested.” From one of the bottom drawers of his desk, he pulls out a blanket (he sometimes will take a nap in his office if he needs a break from grading). “Take a nap. I’ll wake you in an hour and then y’can study in here.”

+++

You know that peaceful feeling that surrounds a room when a baby is taking a nap? How everyone tiptoes around the crib, their voices barely surpassing a whisper in fear of waking the sleeping baby. How parents will stand around, just watching the baby nap, smiling to themselves when their baby twitches in its sleep. How the world just seems more… peaceful?

That’s how Harry feels right now.

Y/n is on his couch, his cozy gray blanket pulled up to her chin. Her cheeks are puffed, her tired eyes shut with her eyelashes resting delicately on the tops of her cheeks. She looks angelic, the most relaxed he’s ever seen her be, with no midterms stressing her out. No papers due, no furrowed eyebrows, no crying. Like a sleeping baby, cherubic and sweet. He’s been tiptoeing around her for the past hour, grading papers as quietly as he can. He tried to be productive and just mind his business while she napped, but everytime he shuffled through one of the essays, he felt the urge to check on her, to make sure that he didn’t accidentally wake her up. And then he just wanted to… watch her. Not in a creepy way though!!! Not in a creepy way. In a kind of… sweet way. :( She was beautiful, especially when she slept.

His heart doesn’t want to wake her up – not when she looks so peaceful for the first time weeks. All the times he’s seen her since that very first week was her stressing and stressing and stressing – stressing about getting a permission code from Dr. Richmond, stressing about her exams, stressing about the rain. He’s never gotten to see her take a breath and be calm. She’s a hard worker, he can tell – which is a great trait that he admires in his students. But, with y/n… he just wants to make sure she’s okay, too.

He kneels down in front of the couch, and regretfully murmurs out, “y/n?” She doesn’t respond at all– she’s dead to the world. All the exhaustion that she’d accumulated this past week, all the hours of sleep she missed, are catching up with her now. He tries again, “Y/n… time to wake up.”

Her eyebrows furrow and her nose wrinkles, but she still refuses to open her eyes. The pull of sleepiness is too strong. It makes him chuckle. “Come on, bunny,” he says, in reference to her twitchy nose and pouty lips. “V’got a snack for you.”

Her sleepy eyes blink open, and immediately he can tell that she needed that nap. Her eyes are brighter, less red, and she stares up at him sweetly. “A snack?”

Of course that would get her to wake up. His dimple pokes his cheek. “S’not much. Just a granola bar. But it’ll help you while you study.”

She sits up, the blanket pooling around her waist, and rubs at her eye with her knuckle.

“Feeling better?” He asks, a hand on her knee.

She nods. She’d taken an Advil for her headache before she’d gone to sleep. That, with her nap, has made the prospect of studying a little bit more bearable.

When she looks around the room, she sees that Harry’s cleared up a portion of his desk for her to study at. Gone are his stacks of books, a bare square of wood right across from the stack of essays he’s currently grading. The usual foldable chair that he has students sit in during his office hours has been moved to the corner, and has been replaced with one of the more comfy, rolly chairs. He’s gone out of his way to make a sweet little study space for her while she napped in his office.

“Now… we’re gonna have to leave by 9,” Harry says, standing up and going round to his side of his desk. “Cos v’got to feed my cat. But that gives us at least… two hours of study time. N’then I can take you home. How does that sound?”

She blinks. “Harry… thank you.” She doesn’t know why he’s being so nice to her, or what she’s done to deserve such kind treatment. But it means the world.

He shrugs nonchalantly, but she doesn’t miss the dimple that pinches his cheek as he smiles to himself.

+++

They stay in his office until nightfall.

Harry’s nicely styled curls turn messy, his fingers tangling through his hair he graded the freshman papers (is he a harsh grader, or does this new generation truly not know how to write?). His eyebrows furrow behind his tortoise shell glasses, green eyes hard and serious. Y/n watches the way his lips purse, how he taps his red pen against his chin while he reads.

Her own brain is done with studying. After her nap, she started playing her classical music and sat down to finish her stats homework AND the practice midterm. Without the globalization essay to worry about, she managed to calm down and focus, get some of her work done, and catch up on the things she was so behind on. Does she feel any better about the exam? No. But at least she can say that she studied!

Harry manages to make a nice dent in the stack of ungraded papers as well, working well in the comfortable silence filtering between the two of them. There was no need for them to talk, and they didn’t distract each other either. Simply getting their work done next to each other, and enjoying each other’s presence (though neither one of them would outright admit how nice it is to just sit in silence with the other).

They pack up and head out together when it gets closer to nine. Harry holds the office door open for her and locks his door behind them, and they walk closely together towards the parking lot. It’s dark, the ground only lit by the few streetlights looming above them, and a shiver racks through y/n’s body from the cool autumnal air. She hadn’t planned on being on campus so late – she thought that she’d probably go straight home after office hours and pull an all-nighter to finish her essay – so therefore, she doesn’t have much of a jacket except for a lame cardigan over her shirt.

Harry, who usually is on campus until nightfall anyway, wishes he could do something for her when he notices the way she’s hugging herself, her cardigan pulled over her fingers. He wants to pull her to his side, wrap an arm around her and share his body warmth with her – but that would be entirely too unprofessional, he thinks. Instead he picks up his pace, forcing y/n to scurry in order to keep up with his long strides, and immediately turns on the heat for her.

He doesn’t need to ask for directions this time, knowing exactly where to turn and how to get to her apartment, and when he pulls up in front of her door, he turns to her quietly. “Listen. Don’t stress about the paper. Focus on studying for your exams, and then you can have the entire weekend to finish the paper, okay?”

“I feel… bad. Like, Dr. Richmond said no extensions, and you’re making these exceptions for me–”

“Don’t overthink it,” Harry interrupts. “Dr. Richmond just says that so people don’t just ask for extensions because they procrastinated. He will grant extensions when there’s a valid reason.”

“But, really it’s not a valid reason… everyone else has midterms.”

“But none of those other students have shown me how much they care about this class. I know you’re a hard worker, I know you aren’t just procrastinating.” He shrugs, “M’the one who makes the calls. And I think you deserve an extension.”

She sits there quietly, then says, “I-I just don’t want you to think I only came to your office hours to cry and make you give me an extension. I… come to your office hours for help. You’re like… helpful.” She says that last part awkwardly, and it makes him chuckle quietly.

“You can say I’m your favorite TA. I won’t tell.” His dimple pokes his cheek as he smirks at her teasingly, and she can’t help but giggle too. Her eyes twinkle as she looks at him with a small shake of her head. That wasn’t what she was getting at… but it is true.

They stare at each other for a moment too long. One of Harry’s hands rests on the wheel, while the other one comes up to play with his lip. Y/n’s hands sit politely in her lap, her bag sitting at her feet on the passenger’s seat floor. They’re both quiet, not knowing what to say. Yeah, they’re laughing and teasing each other, but something heavier lingers in the air around them. This tension… this magnetic energy. Neither y/n nor Harry know what’s causing it, or why the silence is suddenly so overwhelming. The smile on y/n’s face lingers in her eyes, which glimmer as she stares at Harry. And Harry, who had been smirking mischievously, now looks at y/n with a bit of a more serious air. He stares at her thoughtfully, his bottom lip pinched between his lips. His eyes wander down to her lips, pretty and heart shaped. She’s chewing the inside of her lip softly, and he wants to brush his thumb over her mouth and tell her to stop.

He catches himself, and quickly tears his eyes away before she notices. He clears his throat.

“Take care of y’self,” he says with a soft smile. “I want to see you well rested in class next week, okay?”

+++

HOPE U GUYS LOVED IT!!!!!! part 3 is up on my patreon already, and will come to tumblr next saturday (oct 21) pleeeeaaaase lmk what u rhink and give her a rb and a comment i love u guys so so much!!! more tarry to come!

Prose (part 3) is already posted on patreon! : In which y/n is Harry's favorite student, and she sort of somehow accidentally kisses him.

Prose Masterlist

#harry #harry fic #harry styles fanfic #harry smut #harry styles smut #harry styles fic #professor!harry #TA!harry #professorry

[thebreakfastgenie]

20 Questions For Fic Writers

Tagged by @quordleona03! I think everyone I would tag has been tagged so if you want to do it consider yourself tagged and tag me so I can see it!

How many works do you have on Ao3?

29

2. What's your total Ao3 word count?

89,648

3. What fandoms do you write for?

MASH, The West Wing, Star Trek TOS

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

'Til Death (Un)does Us Part The Wideness of the World Expenses hills like white elephants Fortune Cookie Wisdom

5. Do you respond to comments?

I like to and I try to but I get overwhelmed so sometimes I don't manage to do it. Positive feedback makes me extremely anxious so it's hard sometimes (I love it, don't get me wrong, but I get itchy).

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Downpour

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Probably reconciliation

8. Do you get hate on fics? I never have! I never even get negative comments, although I totally welcome critical comments. I never got hate in the fanfiction.net era, either. I've been fortunate.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I don't, but I would like to start! I think I want to start with m/f, even though the experience I have to draw on is f/f, but ultimately I want to do it all. I'm starting with more vanilla stuff, because I'm not so much interested in writing erotica as I am in being able to depict sex in prose. I'm open to writing kinkier stuff eventually but for now I'm just trying to add a tool (hehe) to my writer's toolbox.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

I wrote one once; it was actually the first fic I posted, and it was an Ace Attorney/NCIS crossover. I was in middle school. It's still out there but I will not be linking it. I like crossovers but it's very hard to make them work, so I mostly play around with them in silly posts and bullet points, not full fics.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

No, but I would be honored if someone did translate one.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I don't think so! I've co-developed ideas with friends but it's always one of us ultimately writing it. I don't know how good at co-writing I would be because I'm a perfectionist control freak and also very slow.

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

Fic wise, probably Kirk/Spock. There are other ships I love a lot and outside a fic context I'm not sure I could ever pick, but I actually write very few ships and I think Kirk/Spock is the One. Runner up would be the Doctor/Rose Tyler, I wrote them once and I have fic-y feelings about them. I've never read or written them because I don't do fandom for this series but Indiana Jones/Marion Ravenwood have had my heart since I was twelve and I'd sell most of my ships for them. Also House/Cuddy is a ship of all time but I don't really like any House fic. I love CJ/Danny and Josh/Donna as well as some other West Wing ships but they're not the main attraction to me and most of the fic I write does not focus on them.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I was planning to write more of The Wideness of the World and at this point I doubt I'll write Hamilton fic again but I had some really good ideas and I like that fic enough that it bugs me. Still, it stands fine as it is.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue, characterization, restraint, attention to detail. Hopefully pacing, I'm very aware of it but I don't know if I'm successful enough for it to be a strength. I'm playing a lot with structure and literary devices right now but I'm not sure they count as a strength yet. I guess willingness to experiment is the strength.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Action, description, sex. Sex is the worst because it's action involving body parts we have stupid words for. Being slow, horrible writer's block because I'm too much of a perfectionist to write a rough draft.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

It's very, very hard to do well. I think in most fic cases, either the POV character knows what's being said and you can just write it in English (or whatever language the rest is in) or the POV character can't understand it and you can just say "they were speaking x language and they didn't understand." If I felt I really needed to include dialogue in another language I'd find someone who could help me translate and credit them.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

NCIS

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

The Emergency Room but if I actually manage to finish my time loop WIP....

[dreamwatch]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

Thank you to @occasionaloverboy for the tag!

So I got tagged in one of these before but had barely written anything, but this time I thought ‘fuck it’, I have some words down now.

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

Zero! Hoping to fix that soon.

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

Zero, please see above.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Stranger Things.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Okay, so as before, no kudos. I do have some drabbles over here and the first one got over 500 likes which still boggles my little mind.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Yes! Because holy shit you, a human I do not know, read my stupid little thing and left me a comment and it made me happy.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I’m not counting prompts because they’re all kind of short, vignetty kind of stuff, and I haven’t finished any of my long fic. Off the top off my head, I would say none have terrible endings planned, though one is definitely pushing it. I also am in super duper early stages of planning a Vietnam AU, and I can’t see that having the happiest ending.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Like I say, so far none ended. I think the one that is likely to have the happiest ending is the Steve and Eddie in the 90s one, as it’s kind of a romance I think?

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Well so far it’s just been ficlets and drabbles on tumblr and people have been very sweet. I’m a little scared if the prison fic sees the light of day because it’s got heavy shit going on and critical thinking is sorely lacking these days. So… hopefully not?

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

So far no. Honestly? I can’t ever even imagine it. And that’s becoming a struggle I’ve recently identified in my WIPs because there’s only so many chaste kisses you can let boys have before someone says ‘bUt wH3n ArE tHeY g0nNa fUCk!?’. In my fics, probably off screen, in the comfort of a bedroom or van and I shall avert my eyes while they do.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

Nope. Hate ‘em.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not as far as I know. Why do people do that? Don’t do that.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

No.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No. I’m always intrigued by how people write a fic together? If you do that tell me now? I’m curious.

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

To quote Miss Erica Sinclair, you really have to ask? Steddie. It will always be Steddie.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Pffft… I mean, all of them? But if I had to pick one, there was one I started and it was my first ever, and it was my take on a recovery fic. And there’s still stuff I like about it, things I had planned for it that I haven’t seen in other similar (aftermath/recovery) stories but I’ve got so caught up with other fics that have a more interesting premise.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I mean… good question, who knows? I’m a contrarian, you show me 100 fics that all do X and I’ll write Y just to spite everyone. More deeply that that, I honestly don’t know.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Oh god so many. I’m ok-ish with dialogue, but shitty with describing what’s going on around it. My pacing isn’t great, I either go into way too much detail or no where near enough. I rarely find the sweet spot. I don’t have the most extensive or imaginative vocabulary, and while I’m not one for overly flowery prose, I would still like the language to be able to communicate imagery and emotion better.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I’ve never done it, I would be worried about it. Nothing more embarrassing than writing an emotional death scene in Icelandic only to be told by a native speaker you ordered three plates of fermented shark.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

The A Team, TV not the film. Fuck the film.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

Of course none of them are finished, but up until now Like A Stone, aka depressed Eddie gets stuck working in the plant with Wayne and nearly everyone has moved away. It took me by surprise in August and I blasted 30k words in one month, and it’s been left ever since. But I need to pick it up again.

No pressure tags, and also if you’ve already done this sorry!

@cchapsticck @devilyouwere @hbyrde36 @farahsamboolents @thisapplepielife

#20 questions for fic writers

[regarding-stories]

Didn't expect that: "Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai"

There are shows on Netflix that I notice, then don't watch at first, remain confused by their descriptive text, then watch after all. It kind of was like this with the amazing Romantic Killer, and it was definitely like this with the Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai.

I somehow stumbled about some online comments disliking the series, and let it sit for a while. But somewhere down the line I was casting about for something to watch, and frankly, it completely surprised me.

(I will do some spoilers, but I try to keep it light. Also, looking for an article I wrote about Romantic Killer I found I haven't written one - talk about being backlogged!)

My Little Science Mystery

At its heart, the show looks at consciousness and self partially from a perspective of quantum physics and mathematics, focusing on aspects like attention, observation, strong wishes, parallel selves, and branching timelines. To get such topics into the story it invented "Puberty Syndrome / Adolescence Syndrome," a mysterious condition most people believe to be an internet urban legend. Except that almost everyone that loner and high school 2nd year Sakuta knows or ends up knowing will end up having it - if they're girls, that is. Or himself.

To explain what that is, let's go with the opening scene. Future heroine Mai, an extremely good-looking third-year (and hence Sakuta's senpai in high school), walks around the library in a Playboy bunny costume, unnoticed by most everyone except our protagonist. This seemingly eccentric scene from the trailer has a serious background - an increasing number of people cannot see Mai anymore.

Sakuta teams up with Mai and his hot science geek friend Rio to solve the mystery, digging into the relationship between the observer and the observed from quantum mechanics - or rather the idea from philosophy: If a tree falls in the forest without anybody seeing it, has it indeed happened? (And what sound does it make?) This leads of course to also very practical problems: You need other people to observe you to interact in daily life. And it begs the question - if our reality is a consensus, do we need the acknowledgment of others just to exist...?

The show, behind its science-y techno babble, actually has a lot of heart. The problems all root in emotions, interpersonal problems, and their resolutions are often very dramatic and touching. This is true of Mai's story as of the other ones to follow.

Some things to note

First of all: the series name. Each book in the light novel series has a title starting with "Rascal Does Not Dream Of" - but somehow the anime series got named after the first installment. This is most apparent once the money-making train rolled out of the station - instead of continuing the apparently successful anime series, the very dramatic events of two volumes were packed into two animated movies (mo' money! kaching!) - Rascal Does Not Dream of a Dreaming Girl and Rascal Does Not Dream of a Sister Venturing Out. I had not access to these so I read the books.

The books, in turn, are very readable, and given their content, these two movies are some heavy, dramatic shit, no doubt. The series heavily escalates its dramatic impact towards these two titles. In fact, you could say the books rolled into the anime series are actually a setup of characters and ideas that will culminate in these movies. (Which will also invest you into watching them. Well played, studio, well played indeed.) Sakuta's own Puberty Syndrome, that of his sister Kaede, the mystery stranger Shouko, all of that is set up long before you ever really pick up on it, revealing a series that had a long-term plan.

The books are good reads, solid prose, too. The pacing of these two particular books is kind of dragging, but the author really wanted to transmit the heavy emotions of the protagonist. They certainly had me near my limit! The story of Mai, Sakuta, and his first love Shouko is beautiful, sad, dramatic, and ultimately very, very satisfying - and I don't want to spoil it for you! Just know that if you only watch the anime and I guess the movies, you're probably in for feeling very rewarded and satisfied - after a certain amount of suffering. (Again, couldn't watch the movies, but the book version is already top.)

Having started with the anime, I can only guess that the term "rascal" is what they translated differently when Rio keeps calling him a "pig." Somehow she always insults Sakuta (throughout the anime series), and admittedly Sakuta has a pervy side - but unlike most protagonists he seems to be a bit of a happy masochist when it comes to his love interest.

Anyway, the show and books are well worth it, the cast of characters is built over time and well done, and innocuous background details presented in the start will be the seed of more stories to come. The series is going strong, there are still untranslated light novel volumes, and so I will keep on reading.

#rascal does not dream of bunny girl senpai #anime series #high school anime #romantic anime #rascal does not dream of a dreaming girl #rascal does not dream of a sister venturing out #light novels

[weirdfishy]

20 Qs for Fic Writers

thanks to @mashumaru for tagging me!! <3 i love these, and i've finally got a minute to do it!

1. How many works do you have on Ao3?

45! i started writing in the end of 2020, it's kina mind boggling to think that it'll have been three years in a couple months

2. What's your total Ao3 word count?

76,628 :)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

I've currently written for Batman, Danny Phantom, BBC's Merlin & Sherlock, Spider-Man/Verse, The Sandman, Criminal Minds, Harry Potter, Heartstopper, Sk8 the Infinity, The Witcher, and BNHA.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Unknown Caller ID - danny phantom x batman, crack treated seriously, something i will eventually continue

Tim Drake's intoduction to ✨Ghosts✨ - dpxdc, silly goofy stuff

by a sleep to say we end the heart-ache - the sandman, dreamling get-together, my first multi-chap that i finished

just slip me on, i'll be your blanket - the sandman, dreamling angst, something that i've so far put a completed, but in my heart of hearts ik it needs more

crack, hob flirts back, heart attack - the sandman, crack, past hobrinthian, pre-dreamling, pov corinthian

5. Do you respond to comments?

i very much try to, yes, but i also tend to leave comments un responded to for fics i have yet to continue/finish

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

what's interesting abt the two fics i think have the angstiest endings, is they kina have the same tone? like, i wrote two fics abt two different characters having a 'life is absolutely terrible rn, i'm grieving the loss of better times, but no matter what i will keep fucking living god damn it'

anyway it's both to be forgotten but not forget (mcu peter parker) and never to sleep, never to die (hob gadling)

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

[love how i totally forgot to answer this at first; sorry if tumblr tags u again for my editing]

imma go with something recent, a geraskier blurb based on art, :3 (that's the title, i couldn't come up with anything clever, so it's just that lol)

8. Do you get hate on fics?

not directly

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

currently? no. have i? yeah. respect your local smut writers

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

i never wrote crossovers prior to getting pulled into danny phantom x dc, and both of my posted ones are among my most popular

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not that i know of (if someone does steal a fic- that's shitty.)

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

not in the sense that someone has asked me to translate and repost, so as far as i know, no

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

no, but snake n i have talked about co-writing before (we're busy as shit tho so it's yet to happen)

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

merwaine in any form

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

it's not a WIP, but the second fic i ever posted i said i would rewrite and it's yet to come- i don't doubt that i will rewrite it, but that eventually is pretty far

16. What are your writing strengths?

prose-y scene setting maybe? i don't think about this, really, i just write

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

dialogue, in the sense that it doesn't much feature in my fics

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

personally i'll only do it if i'm 200% confident in its meaning (ie i've studied the language or i've got a second reliable opinion)

19. First fandom you wrote for?

i've since lost it, but the first thing i wrote was for BTS (2018 almost-disbandment rlly had me emotional, ok?)

20. Favourite fic you've written?

i don't have a favorite, and i'm proud of every new thing bc it's a show of my progress

~

no pressure tags: @oliveofvanders @bootleg-exe & anyone else who would like to :)

#tagg@me #fanfiction #fishy's fics