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writers-block246 · 4 years

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Jason Todd x Reader Dialogue Prompt - “Do you trust me?”

Note: italics are emphasis and thoughts. I don’t own the gif.

You heard him before you saw him.

For Jason’s height and bulk, he was extremely light and agile on his feet. He was always, always quiet.

Something’s wrong.

A groan coming from the other room confirmed your suspicion.

Your heart sped up.

“Jason?” You frantically called, as you hurried into your living room.

There, in all his Red Hood glory, sat Jason Todd. He was spread out on your couch like he owned the thing (which, he kinda did, after he had to replace your other one due to his tendency to bleed all over it).

He looked up when you entered the room. “Heya, doll. How ya doing?”

You scanned his body, looking for any sign of injuries. And, of course, he was littered with them.

You glared. “Don’t start your shit.”

Huffing, you stomped to your bathroom to get your first aid kit. No matter how many times you experienced this routine, it never seemed to make you any more prepared to see Jason hurt and in pain.

Grabbing the kit, you quickly made your way back to the couch. Jason’s eyes were halfway closed, and your prodded his shoulder. “Hey, no dying on me, ya hear?” you grumbled.

He laughed slightly, followed by a worrying cough. “Already did that, remember?”

You rolled your eyes. You decided to start with his torso, where the majority of his injuries were. Plus, they seemed to be deeper and more worrisome than the cut on his forehead. “Sit up so I can remove your costume.”

He gave you a mock-affronted look. “Okay, first off, it’s not a costume. That’s just rude. Second off, if you wanted to see me naked, all you had to do was ask.”

You, used to his behavior by now, just sighed in response. “Jason,” you said tersely.

Hearing your firm tone, his expression turned a little meek. Still, he huffed. (Always one for the dramatics). “Okay,” he conceded.

Sitting up, he allowed for you to remove his chest plate and the top half of his armor. Pulling down the spandex, you were greeted by the numerous scars that littered his chest. His oh so well-defined chest.

God, he really was gorgeous. Pretty blue eyes, messy black hair, and muscles for days. Not to mention, those thighs.

Snapping yourself from those completely inappropriate thoughts, you began to gather your medical supplies, hoping Jason hadn’t caught you staring.

Apparently, you just couldn’t get that lucky.

“Like I said, babe. All you have to do is ask.”

You couldn’t help the laugh that escaped you. “Shut up, Todd.”

“Nah, you’d miss my intellectual conversations.”

You refused to give him a response. Exasperated, you got to work on his chest wounds.

Surprisingly, Jason remained quiet for most of the ‘procedure.’ Looking up, you saw that his eyes had fallen closed again.

“You better still be alive. I don’t want this work to be for nothing.”

He chuckled. “Don’t worry, sweetheart, I’m not going anywhere. Yet.”

You huffed a fake sigh. “What a shame,” you teased.

He smirked in reply, but offered no verbal response.

Jason always has a smartass response to everything and anything. He really must be tired if he isn’t snarking back at me.

You sighed, and straightened your back. “Okay, chest is done, now it’s just your head. Looks pretty superficial to me.”

He grumbled. “Doesn’t feel superficial.”

Rolling your eyes (an action that was completely normal, and even expected, around him), you grabbed the materials needed to clean his head wound.

“Such a baby.”

He shot you an annoyed look.

Smiling proudly to yourself, you reached to gently move his hair from his forehead. At the small touch, Jason’s eyes fluttered closed, and he gave a small sigh.

Your brow wrinkled. That was . . . unexpected.

Telling yourself his reaction didn’t mean anything, you began to clean his cut. You then cupped the side of his face softly, moving his head to the side in order to get a better view of his injury.

You didn’t think you imagined him leaning into your hand.

Deciding to test the waters, you ran your thumb down the side of his face, hand coming to rest beneath his chin. To your shock, he seemed to nuzzle into your touch.

“Jay?” you questioned.

He startled, almost as if he was in a trance. Blushing, he began to stutter: “Oh, shit, I-I’m sorry.”

You were confused. Based on his reactions, you would almost deem him touch starved. It then occurred to you that you had never really touched Jason before, other then the quick and methodical movements used to fix his wounds. You didn’t think you’ve ever even touched his face before. “Jace, when was the last time you were touched?”

At this, his blush deepened, and he became a little defensive: “Well, I haven’t really had time to fuck, after the whole dying and coming back thing.”

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it. When was the last time you had any physical intimacy?”

He shifted in his seat. “I’m not sure,” he mumbled quietly.

Nodding, you steeled yourself for your next move. “Okay, do you trust me?”

Without hesitation, he nodded.

With that, you quickly finished cleaning his cut, and moved the medical instruments to the side. Looking him in the eye, you slowly reached out, as if not to startle him, and cupped his face gently between both of your hands. He breathed out slowly, never breaking eye contact, so you took that as a sign to continue. You ran your fingers down his cheekbones, tenderly caressing him. His eyes fluttered once more, and he nuzzled into the palm of your hand. One hand moved to cup the back of his neck, while the other reached up to smooth the hair from his forehead. You began to run your fingers through his hair, taking the time to massage his scalp. He let out a small moan at your actions, and your breathing picked up at the sound.

Okaaayyyy, down girl. This is definitely not the time. He needs intimacy, not sex.

Hopefully, though, that would be for another time.

His eyes opened, and he looked embarrassed. “Sorry,” he murmured with an apologetic smile.

You smiled in return. “No worries, it’s normal.”

Deciding to lighten the mood (and hopefully return him to his normal assholish ways, because no matter how many times you said you couldn’t stand him, you secretly loved his banter and wit), you said: “Plus, it’s not like you could help yourself. I’m just so irresistible.”

He snorted in amusement. “That’s exactly it.”

(Was that you’re imagination, or did he just shoot you a fond look?)

You laughed, and contemplated your next move, bold as it was.

“Okay, Imma do something, but if you’re not comfortable with it, let me know.”

“Okay . . . “ he said skeptically.

Moving slowly once more, you carefully maneuvered yourself into his lap.

He raised an eyebrow.

“Oh shut up, Jay Jay.”

He smirked, but didn’t reject your advancements (if they could even be called that). Looking up (and, Jesus, he was so tall you had to crane your neck to see him, even from your place in his lap), your eyes met his.

Removing your hands from his hair, he released a small sound of disapproval.

You giggled at his antics, but smoothed your hands down from his neck to his chest. You felt the bumps of his scars beneath your hands. Gently, you traced the outline of his autopsy scar. He’s been through so much.

His breath hitched, but he made no move to push you off of him. He remained tense, though, and you worried that he was uncomfortable.

Then, his shoulders relaxed, and he quipped: “I knew you were only trying to get me naked.”

Shaking your head in fond disbelief, you laughed. “I can’t stand you.”

“Oh, then please, remain sitting right where you are,” he smirked.

But you knew him. He would talk a lot of shit, but at the end of the day, Jason Todd was just a big teddy bear. And because you knew him, you understood what he was really saying: I’m okay, I’m good with this.

And, okay, so maybe that made you a little more happy than what it should, but that’s not the point.

You couldn’t help the smile that overcame your face. “Shut the hell up, Todd. Just for that, you are now my personal pillow.”

With that, you snuggled into him, placing your head under his chin.

He snorted. “What am I? A tool to satisfy your desires?”

You smiled. “Oh good, you know your place.”

The laugh he let loose rippled through you. You glanced up at him through your lashes as his laughter died down into chuckles.

Fuck, he’s gorgeous.

His pretty eyes were squinted in his mirth, and his smile was bright. The light that bled through the curtains shined across his face.

What kind of Disney movie shit is this?

Tentatively, he placed an arm around your waist, and you hid your grin in his chest.

The two of you laid together in silence for quite awhile. Hesitantly, though, he broke it.

“Thank you,” he murmured quietly. “For this.”

You grinned. “Of course, Jay. Anything for your dumbass.”

You felt him smile against your forehead, and then the weight of the blanket that he draped across you two.

You sighed contentedly, and snuggled further into him. His arm tightened around you.

Did you fall asleep together? Possibly. Did you also awake to a cute Jason Todd with adorable bedhead asking you on a date? Maybe.

And to think, all it took was a little trust.

-Admin Cheyenne

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popatochisssp · 3 years

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Hello! I know you're doing skele and right now but I just wanted to ask how you outline your fics, personally, I can't outline my stuff if my life depended on it and I was wondering if you had any tips or advice on how beginners should outline their stories. Love your stuff <3

Disclaimer, I don’t know how useful any of this will be, for a beginner or otherwise, because every creative brain works a little differently and there’s always at least some trial and error while you figure out what works for you, specifically...

But that said!

My outlining process boils down to throwing everything on the page and refine from there until it’s polished.

I start by writing down everything, all the ideas and concepts and daydream fodder that was previously just floating around in my brain needs to go down somewhere, usually in a word doc but in a pinch, I’ve definitely used the Notes app on my phone--because let’s face it, in the middle of the night when you’re supposed to be sleeping is one of those times that inspiration and cool ideas sometimes run rampant and I’m not gonna get all the way up to get my laptop but the phone is right here and this needs to get written out.

Obviously, if I just left it all like that, I’d have a very messy list of Random Stuff and no idea what to do with any of it, so from there I try to organize. Move things around into an order that kinda makes sense, like Thing X happens before Thing Y, and Thing Z actually can’t happen until at least Thing Y has happened, stuff like that.

I find that step also helps for figuring out the bits you might be lacking in the early stages. You can see all the points laid out in some approximate order and if it looks something like ‘Point A, Point B, Point D,’ your brain will often be able pick out that there’s a gap there that doesn’t work, and that you need to come up with a Point C to bridge it.

“I’ve connected the two dots.” “You didn’t connect shit.” “I’ve connected them.”

But once you’ve got that, you’ve got at least a bare bones outline, and that’s really the framework for everything!

At that point, for me, it’s just a matter of coming back to it a few times and expanding it, so in the super-basic outline, you might just have something like ‘first date, bonding & flirting.’ When you come back to it to add more, you might decide what kind of date they’ll be having, what they might talk about or how they might flirt with each other, maybe a few actual lines of dialogue if you happen to think of anything good.

I do this with every chapter I think a fic is going to have before I post any of it, because by then I feel like I have a solid enough basis to follow through on the whole idea with, and there’s only two steps left for the outline after that: pre-writing and writing.

The pre-writing step, I try to tackle within a week of when I know (or hope to know) that I’ll have time to write, so everything’s fresh. Basically, though, pre-writing is just taking one of the already semi-fleshed out chunks of outline and making it even more detailed. You’re more or less making an outline of this one bullet point on your outline, taking the basic concept (‘first date, bonding & flirting’) and all the extra details you added on (where they’re going, what they’re saying, etc) and arranging them/filling in any blanks you can find until it’s pretty much a rough cut of what the chapter will look like.

I think about a lot of framing stuff in this step, like how the chapter is going to open and how to segue it into the stuff that’s supposed to happen, body language and facial expressions, more dialogue/banter, setting up so that you’re on track for flowing into what the next chapter is supposed to be.

Right around here is also sometimes where you might realize you can’t do that effectively and there might’ve been a transition chapter left out of your original outline because you hadn’t yet realized you need it-- not a big deal, it’s happened for both of my longer fics at least once (FGTC was supposed to be 10 chapters, DL was supposed to be 20, oops)--but you can sort that out with a brainstorming session or two at some point and just doing what you did for all the other chapter outlines to add one or a few more.

But then, once you’ve done all that, the only thing left is the writing step! Which is to find a time (or a few times) that work for you in terms of energy and other RL obligations to just sit down and write it. By then, you probably have a very detailed outline going on, so it’s just a matter of refining all those notes you made about how everything happens, in what order, who says what, etc, etc into actual sentences in your narrative.

Read over it again once you’re finished, maybe run it by a beta if that’s how you roll (I’m the worst combination of impatient and sensitive, so I just read it over twice instead! XD), and then it should be ready to post wherever you so happen to post.

...But like I said, that’s just my method and General Process, it’s totally possible that you might find a different way that works for you better.

I hope some of that rambling mess was helpful to you, and good luck with any future projects! <3

#ralathekira #crinkling #resources #for reference #behind the scenes #et cetera

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platypanthewriter · 3 years

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Fic Writer Question Meme!

I got tagged by @ihni, @callieb, and @magniloquent-raven, probably because I haven’t blown up their inboxes in like a week and it’s a way of reaching through Tumblr and checking my pulse! XD THANKS GUYS it was fun reading yours!

How many works do you have on AO3?

I have forty works on Ao3...but a couple of them are compilations of separate, finished fics? If I broke those up, it would be 71 stories. Mostly Harringrove. Huh, that is a bigger number than I expected. Oh! Wait! My other account (my weird porn practice account) has seven works, so I have 78 works on Ao3! I am glad my FF.net fics are disregarded here XD XD XD

What’s your total AO3 word count?

705,045 on my main account + 38,466 on my secret porny account (sssh it’s secret) gives us 743,511! From just this year, it’s (combined) 466,978. I have a full-time temp job through November, so that will probably taper off!

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

Ten fandoms on Ao3, though the two Superbat fics always get weird because one is from watching the animated series, and one is making fun of the DCU, so they come up as different fandoms. Doesn’t look that impressive, laid out like that! A lot of my wordcount is my monster fic Strangest, at nearly 200k.

I’ve also got several Gundam Wing WIPs on FF.net that I wrote in like 2001 and posted in 2010. My favorite fic there got deleted in the purge and I have no copy...*sob* *wail* It was so funny, darn it! I bet it wouldn’t read the same to me now, but I wish I could find out!

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Baby's First Punk Rock Concert (Harringrove) is my top fic, which I credit MAINLY to @gravegroves art, because it was middle of the crowd until then! It’s an AU where Billy’s mom gets him away from Neil and moves to Chicago, where he runs into Will at a very gay punk rock concert in 1984, and keeps an eye on him. Will introduces him to Steve.

Blind as a Bat (Batman: The Animated Series) comes in second. It led for a long time due to the age and size of the Batman fandom, but our boys Steve and Billy stole the show at last! It’s a 5+1 fic where Superman tries to confess to Batman and Batman assumes he’s possessed, or mind-controlled, or something. Superman nearly tears his hair out in frustration.

Strangest (Harringrove) down to third! Oh, my heart! My nearest and dearest knocked from first place! My first and favorite Harringrove fic, a fixit I started in a rage after finishing season two. After the night Bob dies, Steve finds Billy in the trunk where Max left him, and they come to a sort of truce, then friendship, and then more.

Five Conversations That Probably Happened, and One That Didn't (Teen Wolf, Sterek) My first Sterek fic! I suspect the only reason I have three fics with more kudos than this juggernaut of a fandom is that I wrote this as missing scenes, and it really makes more sense in and around the show. Just reading it by itself is probably confusing...

Birdwatching for Dummies (Stranger Things) Max sees something lingering around the Hargrove house, and calls Steve in for demodog backup. In the couple days he’s parked outside, he finds out a lot about Billy, and Billy finds out a lot about Steve.

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I always reply to comments, though I may wait a few days until I have time to think about replies, or sometimes I use them as a reward to get myself to finish a chapter! I want to thank people who are sweet enough to come up with something to say about my writing and tell me, even if it’s a keysmash or a smiley. =D

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

Hrm. I mostly write about characters working through things or getting their lives together, so a fic where they didn’t do that would be kind of unsatisfying, I think? My fics aren’t uncomplicatedly fluffy, but I think all the endings are happy or at least hopeful--with the possible exception of the 5+1 Teen Wolf fic, where it’s fine unless you know the very next thing to happen in the show is Stiles gets possessed, and I ended with some line like “You know I won’t turn evil on you”...ahahaha it FEELS like a happy ending though

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

I like fusions more than crossovers, and the craziest (unpublished) one I’ve started writing is Stranger Things/Sailor Moon.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Not really.

Do you write smut? If so what kind?

I do! I try to make it very, very specific to the characters and what they’re thinking and feeling, and they keep stopping to talk. XD Also it tends to be kind of funny, because sex is kind of a ridiculous thing to do, when you get into the details.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I doubt it! I googled one just now, and I was surprised that a different Ao3 user came up and I didn’t, but it was just in their bookmarks with a nice comment. ^^

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Noooo...one day, maybe!

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I’ve sort of co-outlined a lot in chat, but I’ve never co-written a fic. I’ve co-written a lot of original work with people, but the characterization on established characters is so subjective I feel like I’d keep wanting to time-out and discuss.

What’s your all time favorite ship?

Kirk and Spock, or maybe Grantaire and Enjolras? Neither of whom I’ve written for. I mostly can’t read and write for the same ships.

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

I wrote (and finished) a huge long fairytale AU back in my GW days that was this dreamy, surreal cracktastic...I don’t know what, but I lost half of it in a notebook that vanished. Only half of it was ever posted, and to this day I can’t remember what the ending was. I’ve never been able to duplicate the bizarre energy of the first half.

What are your writing strengths?

I like characterization and dialogue. I’m chipping away at plot, action scenes, and sex...slowly...

What are your writing weaknesses?

I’m very, very focused, so I’ll forget things that add lovely dimension like what they’re listening to, or to describe their eyes when someone looks at them. When I remember sometimes I’m very proud of the emotional beat it reminded me to add!

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

Huh. I never really thought about it. I don’t like when stories are inaccessible--like I don’t want to be expected to google translate entire exchanges in order to understand--but I do like when a character uses short phrases or exclaims in a native language as a way to deepen their characterization?

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

The very first I invented stories for was the animated Thumbelina, because I returned from the theater so annoyed I spent all night rewriting the story in my head. The first fandom I wrote words down for would probably be...Gargoyles, the animated Disney show, because my BFF that I co-wrote with used characters from it. On my own, writing and posting stories, the first was Gundam Wing, way back in the forums on the site Gundam Wing Addiction.

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

Oh, Strangest, definitely, forever! Lots of thought and love dumped wholesale into that monster of a fic!

Tagging, ohhh, @tbehartoo, @susiecarter, @waterhobbit! I feel like everybody in the Harringrove fandom who wants to has probably already been tagged...but this is your tag if you haven’t! Do the thing! =D We wanna know!

#writing #my stuff #Thanks everybody!#=D #I'm alive #Also #XD

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sienna-writes · 4 years

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Butterfly Blood || novel update

chapter three

I initially had a lot of trouble with this chapter. It’s been through about three drafts and it’s still nowhere near perfect, but I’m working on just moving forward with the novel now and am trying to quit obsessing over revising because... it’s unrealistic to expect a first draft to be perfect.

The first draft of this particular chapter, though, was basically all dialogue, and all very poorly executed dialogue. (Dialogue is absolutely the weakest aspect of my writing but I’m working on it.) On my second attempt at the chapter I initially attempted to create an outline, thinking this would help me find a direction. However, in my next writing session I ended up totally ignoring the outline and just winging it, and the second draft was formed. I really liked the events in the chapter now but still wasn’t happy with some of the individual scenes so I reworked it yesterday morning. The argument between Rowan and Karmen still needed revision because Karmen’s character within it was totally inconsistent to his usual disposition. So! The final (for now..) draft is a more stripped back, since Karmen is too disassociated to get as angry as he did as quickly as he did, and I think the tension and the build up is a lot better timed and more... muted? It’s less overt, more subtext heavy, and I'm relieved because that is what I had been trying to achieve all along.

Again, it’s not perfect, but it has evolved and it is definitely better than before.

The chapter is just over 3000 words now, but I am only going to be sharing the main, gritty extract. The other scenes are less exciting, but I also suspect they need the same amount of work till they're even remotely sharable. (I was going through a bad writing slump in this chapter lol.) I really hope you enjoy it? I'm ultimately quite proud of how it turned out in the end :)

excerpt:

[Rowan has missed her GP appointment + her dad uses it as an oppurtunity to also be angry about her slacking in school]

“I’ve booked another for tomorrow morning. You’ll miss some school, but I figured that’d be an incentive since you don’t seem to care about that anymore.” There is now an edge to his voice that hadn't been there before.

Rowan visibly flinches, digging her fingernails into the supple skin of her palms. The dents purple then fill with blood. She locks eyes with her father, searching for the reason for his sudden anger. He has struck a nerve and he knows it.

“Miss Phelps called.”

She pushes her toes into the dirt, white sneakers now blotted with dust. “Oh.”

He doesn’t ask for an explanation, simply straightens his back like an ancient scroll unravelling itself and meets her gaze finally. Karmen stands with his chest puffed out and his chin pointed forward. It is apparent that he won't ask her side of things. He’s heard enough, and has his made up his mind about her already.

Rowan pushes past him to get inside. Karmen doesn’t shift as she squeezes by his statuesque stance. His face twitches like a camera shutter, so fast she can barely believe the change in his expression. She convinces herself it didn’t happen and throws her bag onto the couch, almost tempting another lecture. A tamer one. Something he could murmur through his daydream fog before slipping back into his silence and letting everything remain undiscussed. Like it normally is. Her slipping grades. Her laziness in class. Not writing a single word in an entire school day. Talking back for little to no reason.

He turns as her rucksack lands, his footsteps looming behind her. Something sharpens the air between them, but she can’t tell what. The elephant is in the room and it is wrecking the place. They watch the destruction mutely, each waiting for the other to intervene and consequently letting the walls crumble into ruin. The old house audibly creaks, it is so quiet. Finally, Karmen speaks. “What’s the matter with you?”

Rowan runs through all the excuses she can think of. I was dropped as a child. I was a premature baby, so my brain must be under-developed. The content is so easy it feels obsolete. I’m being bullied. I’m just not as smart as you thought, dad, sorry. Teachers are liars and we both should have known this. “There’s just too much.” She says instead, through gritted teeth, moving into the kitchen. “I can’t focus on school and have to be there for everyone.” It is limp and she knows it. It flops between them weakly like a helpless fish. She takes a glass from the cabinet and closes it softly.

He consumes the lie like a starved ghost, though. Proving he doesn’t know her. Doesn’t know how absent a friend she has been of late. How she has become her father at school, numb and quiet. How, secretly, she enjoys the façade because people avoid her, don’t ask difficult questions, don’t tackle her with unnecessary comments about her long-lost mother. “Then stop being there.” He says simply.

Rowan scoffs. “I do enough of that at home.” She studies her dad’s face—clenched jaw and squinting eyes—as if it hurts to look at her. “Everyone’s always telling everything how things must be. I must participate, I must be smart not emotional, I must not slack for exams I know I will pass without a glance at my books”—suddenly an urge to twist the knife into his gut overwhelms her, she draws out the moment as she fills the glass with a thread of water from the tap—"I must deal with a stranger for a Dad and a god knows what for a mother. A shrieking banshee? An abusive fugitive? She’s probably become a social worker just to scorn us.”

He rolls his lips, lowers his gaze and chews on the inside of his cheek, sucking it in. Rowan’s breath catches in her throat. In this moment he looks shockingly hollow. Did she empty him? Wind him with her blows? Spoon out his entrails with an ice cream scoop? Carve him like the roasted corpse of some great beast? Karmen puts two hands on the back of the chair opposite her, clutching it as if he might just fall over. His stare is cold and unsympathetic when he raises it toward her. “Don’t you want to make something of yourself?”

Yes. “What?” She laughs bitterly, placing the tumbler on the counter with a satisfying thud. “Like how you made something of yourself?” There is a terrible moment where he sits in the midst of the cruelty, shrinks into himself as if absorbing it, before his mouth creaks open and he lets out a broken shriek.

“GOD DAMMIT ROWAN!” Rowan flies back, arms sheltering her head instinctively as he reaches for the glass she placed on the counter, spins, and throws it at the wall. One big horrific movement. A cutting arc of his arm through the air and then the shattering. “Are you ever even listening?”

Millions of glittering fragments of her life laid out before her, encircling her bare feet. She thinks of the sneakers she slipped off at the door, wishing she had them now. Something about naked feet look so naïve, so vulnerable. Her toes shrink, curling inward. Her breath quickens and her hands begin to tremble. All this broken glass. All these fragments like a lifeline stretched between them. Her eyes blink away tears in different shards, her reflection is fragmented, her features lost and bobbing about as if at sea.

“Are you, dad?” Rowan asks in an empty voice, staring at him till he flinches. He stares at the glass on the floor in shock.

“I...” He crouches, sifting through it with his bare, shuddering, and unsure hands. “I don’t know why I did that...”

Rowan gets a sudden urge to have the last word. Except she doesn’t speak. Her eyes settle on the glass and the idea flourishes like a flame in her mind, burning everything rational, everything he might think. To hell with appropriate. To hell with acceptable. One unsteady step. She expects a crunch or a crackle, but instead there is a damp muffle and squelch. Her spine rattles and her teeth prickle in response. A sunrise in her chest warms her throat but she presses against it with her palms, forcing it down. It is a scorching, molten pain. Third degree burns and all she swallows rays of light till she is drowning, gorging. Slipping through furnace tongue flames. Rowan gags. Bile and acid boils her tongue and the bright, burnt out orb slips into her stomach. She gulp, gulp, gulps every atom of the blaze that consumes her. Till she is heavy. She walks across the broken glass as he yells out. Let there be outrage. Let the sky fall. Its clouds embrace her limbs, draining everything fluid from her, letting her grow limp. Letting her rain. Heavy. As she moves away from the kitchen, she feels her footsteps peeling from the floor, warm and wet. And she is so, so heavy. Then she stumbles, splintered feet unable to keep her up—her legs can no longer hold her and her lava—as the pain erupts within her fierce and sharp and sudden. Flashing its ugly teeth. Catching one last glimpse before her vision goes dark, she sees a red ocean seeping into the living room. How could one body hold so much? Fast and gushing the rapids wash her dregs of consciousness away. It was just a few steps...

soo... yeah. Rowan walks on glass because, oh lord that girl has no impulse controls.

I'm not going to lie, although it was a pain to get this scene to the stage I have just shared, I think it's one of my favourites in the book so far. I'm proud of how much it's grown. Also, I love me some dramatic descriptions of pain and characters being nasty... :”)

I hope you enjoyed this update! (if you did, reblogs really help me out, but absolutely no pressure <3) I’m also still looking for people to add to the tag list, so if any of this interested you, feel free to send me an ask, message or comment. :)

Tag list under cut (ask to be added or removed):

@alicewestwater @elaz-ivero @coffeeandcalligraphy @hanwatchingmovies @sirfitzroys @chloeswords @nev-953

#butterfly blood #butterfly blood novel #my novel #novel update #novel wip #writing wip #writing #writing project #writing update #chapter update #writer #writeblr #writing process #novel writing #excerpts #novel excerpt #writing excerpt #excerpts from my novel #excerpts from my writing

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comicteaparty · 4 years

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April 4th-April 10th, 2020 Creator Babble Archive

The archive for the Creator Babble chat that occurred from April 4th, 2020 to April 10th, 2020. The chat focused on the following question:

What is something you’ve improved with in regards to writing or comic creation thanks to working on your story?

carcarchu

Oh this one i can answer definitively. it's 100% lineart. forcing myself to have to do lineart for hours everyday is definitely a way to force yourself to get better at it while i still don't like it it's something that i can do now without being scared about it

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

Colouring. I had to get really creative in expressing emotion and hinting plot devices with colour. Also got much better with drawing gesture drawings due to looking at a lot of references!

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

Either writing dialogue or drawing/painting backgrounds... I used to be particularly awful at writing dialogue. It was too stiff and formal, and sounded a lot like old prose. Now, because of writing a comic and going through several scripts, the dialogue is a lot more natural, and the pacing is more realistic to actual conversations. And the other: backgrounds. I really used to not even draw them at all, and doing a comic forced me to have to think about environments in scenes. So I went from drawing floating characters to having to consider where they are and how it affects the story/mood.(edited)

Feather J. Fern

Paneling! That was my main focus to figure out how to do good paneling to have clearer pages

Deo101 [Millennium]

Honestly? Everything. It's all gotten better and I've learned so much. I would say my biggest improvement is probably in my time management, and art wise is probably composition and layouts. But it's hard to pick because I've grown so much in every aspect!

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

Biggest thing I learned was to keep the story small and focused - and that the smaller, more human struggles are much better in creating tension than the whole default "the world's gonna end!" thing. Mind you, I still love a good "world's ending" story, but you gotta make people CARE about the people in that world first!

Holmeaa - working on WAYFINDERS

ohohohoooo I have done more drawing in photoshop in this short time I have worked on Wayfinders, than the rest of my life! That has given me some skills for sure! Coloring is another one, and generally just efficiency and flow in a comic

Nutty (Court of Roses)

For me it's been my use of color, and getting more confident in experimenting with it to really drive home a scene's mood!

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

The clearest improvement I always notice is my layouts - I’ve gotten more adventurous with panel shapes and placement as time has gone on, experimenting with more interesting designs for the whole page. Some of those experiments haven’t been totally successful but it always feels like a worthwhile try. I’ve gotten some really, REALLY cool layouts out of these experiments, and I love seeing how dynamic the panels have become compared to my first chapter. Also speed. I’m so much faster now. Thank gooooooodness (edited)

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

@LadyLazuli (Phantomarine) I've definitely noticed the experimental panel layouts! They're really cool.

AntiBunny

Planning. Book 2 is when I started using sketchbook thumbnails to plan ahead. The luxury of that first draft meant I could rethink panel layouts and how to best express the events happening if I first had an idea of what was happening laid out.

Also digital art by necessity since I switched to digital during the current arc. I was decent at lineart already, but other aspects have really challenged me to grow as an artist. I had to totally rethink the way I create backgrounds for instance. During this time the background quality actually declined a little while I got used to a new method, but experience has improved my skills greatly as I force myself into new methods.

DanitheCarutor

Hmmm maybe paneling, speechbubbles and backgrounds? My current project is my second real attempt at doing a comic, but I have learned a lot of stuff from the community and general art and story tutorials. Backgrounds and bubbles were the worst for me when first starting out, I only read manga before starting so the speechbubble shapes did not fit with how English is written. Plus I've only drawn wooded fantasy settings before making my comic, so using a ruler, figuring out perspective points and drawing buildings was very new to me. I still hate drawing cities and such, but I've gotten a lot better at it and it is easier to do now. Since I mostly stuck with B&W before my current project, coloring also kind of improved? Depending on who's looking at it. Lmao If I were to think about story/characters/dialogue, I have no idea if I've improved. Honestly, I don't pay much attention to the quality. Also my brain kinda says it's all bad regardless of what I make.(edited)

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

For my Improvements: I'm getting better at my comic panels, as I adjust to the vertical style. Before I've always drawn the standard format. It's more than just boxes, I try to keep a variety of sizes. I'm picking up roughly how much 'gutter space' I need per 2-3 panels.etc I'm also improving on choosing colors that fits my love of detailed linework.(edited)

OH! I'm also learning about Clip studio shortcuts, how to use the assets they provide which makes the process, abit easier on me. Things I need to change, is I want to get a good speedy coloring style, without referring to my usual coloring.(edited)

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

the more I worked on the comic, the more I feel ambitious in making different angles and perspective. So it's really hitting me out of my comfort zone which is good! lol Though I'm trying to keep in mind of my speed, what I feel like I've improved a bit is trying to keep in mind of paneling and dialogue.

FeatherNotes(Krispy)

Process! Space and i have definitely figured out the most productive way to produce content at the rate and quality that also provides us with time for our own projects. Comics are a useful tool that helps you discover ways to better organize your creative workflow for sure!

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

I think probably scenery. I used to dread drawing inanimate objects but now I feel more confident in filling in a scene & even look forward to it sometimes. Maybe also page composition and paneling but I still have a lot to learn there

eli [a winged tale]

One of the reasons I embarked on the webcomic journey is to push myself to improve not only storytelling but also utilizing art to create a reader experience that would be difficult to replicate with just words. I’d like to think that 9 months into making A Winged Tale, I’ve improved on deciding when is a good opportunity to invest more into backgrounds vs character dynamics and when should be focused more on sequences of panels and composition. While the comic is written in a four panel format, more and more I’m finding areas where the story could be told by breaking those rules (attached pic). It’s a balance and I hope going forward I will improve more in pushing the limits of panels and find ways to express the story in fun and interesting ways.(edited)

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

Wow that's a very good description @eli [a winged tale] I look forward to reading more of your story journey

eli [a winged tale]

Thanks so much Joichi! I’m eager to keep learning~

Capitania do Azar

I'm gonna go with planning and actually getting it done. I'm so much faster because now the process is much more streamlined to me

kayotics

My whole comic was started s an exercise to just get better at comics generally so I’d probably say every part I’ve improved at? The biggest things are probably colors and the upfront planning process

Phin (Heirs of the Veil)

Ooof hard question. I think my main improvement lies with page and speechballoon layouts and writing natural feeling dialouge. I'd say maybe also character acting?

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

I'm slowly learning how to create more engaging comic narrative. I read and research in the polished prem webcomics to see what makes them engaging? Like I'm going to challenge myself by creating a series of short stories with a reoccurring set of characters. Every new comic series I create is an experience, trial and error. Sometimes I skip the writeup and just go in blind, trust my own instincts. I'm glad to reach out and talk about it than in my own head. I hope by this year, I'll have at least 2 chapters of Hybrid Dolls out.(edited)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I've definitely gotten better at planning/ outlining multiple chapters ahead of time. I did not even do this when I was doing the first 10 something chapters. (I did attempt an outline before I began the comic, but the story changed significantly from the outline by the time I started the comic, and I did not try to do it again for a long while.) I can't remember when I started, but I do recall having a lot of trouble the first time I tried to do it. It's gotten a little easier each time, though. In fact, I just spent the past few days outlining the next few very important chapters, de-tangling some big tangles. I'm really glad my outlining (and overall writing) skills had leveled up, because HOO boy, I don't think my 2014-2015 self could have done this!

I also became friends with enviros. I had already become somewhat comfortable drawing perspective when HoK started, but I had a sort of mechanical approach to it, like "oh I need some enviro for these establishing shots, guess I'll draw them." But now I LOVE drawing enviros! (some types anyway...) It's my comfort activity, something I treat myself to after a long day! In the thumbnails for my next few pages, there's a few enviro-heavy panels that I have to remove, because I drew too many of them (and the pacing got too slow as a result). I have to stop myself from drawing too many of these.

My biggest improvement is probably I've come to understand my characters and my themes much better, but that's more of a "I got better at making HoK" than a "I got better at making comics." There's definitely a difference between the two.

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

@keii’ii (Heart of Keol) ah I totally understand I tried the outline method before I start but my story changed alot after I drew it. So it start to feel like a waste of time for me, but I'll still write an outline to make sure to plan where my story heads(edited)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Yeah! I needed to draw those first few chapters to understand the direction of my own story.

The drawing part is an essential part of self-reflection, to try to understand what it is that I want out of the story. The answer has always been there in my heart, but I'm not able to see it clearly from the get-go.

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

I end up breaking scenes and put them in for future episodes, since I want to get a certain flow in the story.

It could be tricky to see what it is you want out of the story until you are in at least 3 chapters in?

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I needed way more than 3 chapters -- though granted, my chapters are short, so that could be a part of it

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

I see the early first script as testing the water. like a test to figure out the characters personalities. Unless you are bringing in old characters which you knew before?(edited)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Even if the characters have been with you for a while, unless I have made a comic with them, there is a big chance that the characters will completely change, too.

DanitheCarutor

You know, I was thinking about about this, mostly about how I wouldn't have been happy if I was able to finish my comic the day I started. Then I realized I'm happy that I didn't. The first chapter wasn't the best, I was just learning how to coloring a comic, still fleshing out my characters and was still brainstorming small kinks in the story. I also still didn't have as much of an understanding of perspective, or panel and bubble layout. Even though I still have a lot I need to work on, I've gotten a lot better in all those aspects. Even though my use of color is weird, I've definitely gotten much more confident in it, enough so that I experiment and take a lot more risks with style. Even though my panelling can be boring, I have a much better understanding of how I want a page to look. I've improved a lot with my planning as well, like even though my thumbnailing/storyboarding only takes maybe 30, I've learned to step away for a bit if I don't like a layout, or analyzing why I don't like it and brainstorming ways to make it better. If I had magically finished the comic all at once, it would look really bad and may have been less readable.

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

That is inspiring to hear about your improvement @DanitheCarutor

Natsu-no-Hikari

Chiming in! Just this week, Miko (my co-creator) and I were discussing how far we've come from when we started our first comic (https://liarsgotoparadise.com/) vs. where we are now. I think there have been a lot of learn experiences, such as art, dialogue, general editing - but especially with pacing and character interaction. We regret that we didn't stop to focus more on that interaction, as we wanted to move ahead in the story...and now we can't change that, except to start now and not allow ourselves to grow impatient. Take our time and enjoy the journey - that's our new motto. There's a time to rush ahead in perilous moments, but there's also definitely a time to catch our breaths and let the characters mingle and speak. It's an improvement that will become more noticeable going forward in Liars and our second comic as well.

#ctarchive #comic #webcomics #indie comics #comic chat #comic discussion #creator interview #comic creator interview #creator babble #comic tea party #ctp

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scgdoeswhat · 5 years

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After Midnight - Beckett x Clarette (F!MC)

Summary: Beckett and Clarette celebrate the New Year after the clock strikes midnight.

Rating: NSFW

Words: 3436

Author’s Notes: Sooo... this happened. Complete PWP under a thinly veiled guise of a NYE backdrop. Personal headcanon of Beckett not being a virgin and has nowhere near the experience of Clarette. I don’t even know which timeline to put this in but I hope you enjoy it anyway!. Beckett doesn’t belong to me (unfortunately), but most of the story does, save for a line of canon dialogue. No Beta used.

Please let me know if you want to be tagged/removed on future fics and I’ll tag anyone I may have missed in the comments. Thank you!

" ... 3... 2... 1! HAPPY NEW YEAR!"

The clock struck midnight and Auld Lang Syne cued overhead, signaling the start of a new year.

Beckett and Clarette turned to each other, their cheeks rosy from the champagne, before leaning in. Her arms wrapped around his neck as he held her close, his limbs encircling her tiny waist. Their lips met, tentatively at first, before she tilted her head slightly, allowing him access to her mouth. His tongue slowly snaked out seeking entrance, the feint taste of vanilla on her lips enticing him even further.

Clarette moaned as their tongues danced, each caress causing her to move even closer to his solid frame. His hand slid over her rear, gripping it as he pulled her towards him, his growing erection pressing into her lower abdomen.

She broke the kiss, her eyes closing while she gasped for air. Her right arm dropped from his neck and came down to a rest over his rapidly beating heart.

Taking a few haggard breaths, Beckett closed his eyes and touched his forehead to hers, the world spinning as he fought to gather his thoughts. When he opened them, he found big, chocolate orbs staring back at him, a slight smile playing on her face.

"Happy New Year, Beckett."

The corner of his mouth turned upwards, before he leaned down and kissed her sweetly. “Happy New Year, Clarette."

Lifting his head to quickly assess the rapidly devolving party, he looked down at her, holding out hope that she wanted the same thing he did. "Would you, er, do you want to take this somewhere else?"

"Yeah, let's get out of here.” Clarette bit her lip in an attempt to fight the gleaming smile that threatened to break free. “Any place in particular you have in mind?"

Beckett swallowed thickly, lightly licking his lips before throwing it all on the line. "I was hoping if…” he cleared his throat, face reddening with the question he had been dying to ask her for weeks. “Would you like to accompany me to my room?"

"You're such a dork." She couldn't help the giggle that followed before pulling him down for another kiss. "It's a good thing I've taken a liking to dorks."

"Oh? So any dork would do?" He teased, pulling her flush against him.

Her eyes closed once more as she felt his hardened length against her, causing desire to shoot through her veins. A familiar ache pooled at her center and she could already feel how excited she was. She drew him down again, sucking on his lower lip before letting it go with a nibble.

"You already know the answer to that," she smirked as she laced their fingers together. "Lead the way."

They quickly made their way back to his room, not wanting to waste another moment. He entered the living area of his suite behind her, the door closing softly with a click.

Looking at Clarette’s form in front of him, Beckett thanked the universe that he had a single suite all to himself. Coming up behind her, he swept her long, brunette locks to one side before placing light kisses to the side of her neck, his strong arms encircling her body.

Her head lolled as he gently sucked on the newly exposed expanse of skin, her knees going weak as she leaned on him for support. Turning her head sideways, she sought his mouth as her arm reached up behind her to pull his head down.

Beckett took one hand from her waist and slowly felt his way upward, gliding over the side of her breast. His fingers continued their path at an unhurried pace up her arm, his feather light touch sending shivers down her spine. He grabbed a hold of her hand and turned her to face him, his eyes boring into hers with the intensity of a thousand suns as he placed a kiss on the top of her hand.

"I want all of you, Clarette,” he whispered, his voice tinged with a husky desperation.

She slipped a hand between their bodies, her fingers outlining his aching arousal through the constraints of his trousers.

"Then take me, Beckett. I'm all yours."

The words unleashed a firestorm between them, his mouth crushing hers as she hung on to him for dear life. A dizzying sensation ran through her as his tongue caressed hers, his hand tangling in her thick mane. She unbuttoned his blazer, yanking it off his broad shoulders and down his arms as she unceremoniously dumped it on the floor.

Breaking the kiss, she frowned at the remaining layers of the three-piece suit he still had on, making quick work of the vest.

"Damn it, Beckett. Why'd you have to wear so many clothes?" She asked, pulling his shirt out of his pants before fumbling with the buttons.

Using the opportunity to catch his breath, he chuckled, "Because I wanted to impress you."

Halting her progress, she gazed up at him before bringing him down for an unhurried kiss.

"Just to let you know, you impress me every day." Her eyes twinkled before her attention returned to his shirt, brows furrowing. "But you know what's really impressive? This damn shirt," she paused. "Fuck it."

With a hard tug, she tore his shirt open, buttons flying everywhere.

Beckett was about to say something regarding the loss of one of his favorite shirts but completely lost all train of thought as Clarette’s mouth moved over his chest. Captivated by the gentle bites and the kisses she was placing on his bare skin, he was mesmerized as her hands roamed over his taut muscles.

"I've wanted to do this ever since you came to my room for yoga, you know that?”

"I had a sneaking suspicion," he grinned cockily, eyebrow raised.

She smirked back at him before her mouth wandered across his chest. Reaching his nipple, she flicked it with her tongue before gently grazing it with her teeth.

His smug expression was replaced with a scrunched brow, the groan escaping him indicative of the pleasure her one little action brought. The feeling surged straight into his groin, his remaining clothes restricting his movement. He threaded his fingers through her hair as she traveled lower; her tongue outlining his abs while her hand moved to undo his belt as the other cupped him through his pants. Pulling the belt out of the loops, she dropped the accessory on the floor, the metal thumping on the ground next to his blazer. Her hands and mouth roved upwards until she looped her arms around his neck, bringing him down for another searing kiss.

Beckett picked her up with ease, his hands on her ass while her dress rode up her thighs. She locked her legs around him as he carried her to his room, their mouths never parting. Closing the door behind him with his foot, he deposited her on his bed, taking a moment to admire the beautiful woman in front of him.

Clarette’s skin heated up as his gaze drifted over her figure, the desire rolling off of him in waves. Never had anyone looked at her with such passion. He kicked off his shoes, covering her body with his, the mattress sinking underneath their weight.

Her hands roved over his bare back, his muscles inadvertently flexing under her delicate touch. Instinctively, her legs widened, allowing him to nestle in between as they continued the exploration of each other's mouths. She felt him squeeze her thigh, his hand moving up her body, the heat burning through the silken material. His firm grip continued up her ribcage until he landed on her breast, massaging the soft mound which produced a moan of pleasure from her. Lowering the thin strap of the dress, he trailed his tongue along her collarbone before sucking on her pulse point. He moved his attention to her bosom, where he laid kisses on top of the swell of her breast.

She arched towards him, running her fingers through his hair, frustrated at the lack of skin on skin contact.

"Beckett, "she managed with a deep breath, "More. I need to feel you."

Getting up on his knees, they locked eyes as his fingers toyed with the edge of her short dress, lightly grazing the skin of her thighs. He raised the thin material over her hips as she lifted them, his feverish gaze going over her black, lace underwear as he licked his lips.

Clarette sat up while he pulled the flimsy cloth over her head, tossing it to the side as he leaned forward, capturing her mouth with his. She placed her hands on his broad shoulders, fingertips trailing a path down the front of his torso until they arrived at the band of his slacks.

"Here you are again, wearing too many clothes," she murmured, undoing the button.

Laughing softly, he guided her back onto the bed, quickly discarding his trousers before hovering over her nearly nude form.

"Will this suffice?"

Looping her arms around him, she brought him closer, their mouths connecting as she delighted with the feeling of his skin on hers.

"For now," she teased.

A low chuckle reverberated through his body as he returned to her breasts, this time unhampered by clothing. He pressed a kiss to one nipple while his hands kneaded the soft flesh. His tongue flicked at the hardened peak before his mouth closed over it, sucking and licking as she curved into his mouth. He fondled her other breast, rolling the dusky bud between his thumb and forefinger, gently squeezing before taking it into his mouth and giving it the same treatment as the other side.

The sensation of Beckett's mouth was driving her wild and she could feel the fire coursing through her as his manhood pressed into her thigh. Knowing he was as excited as she was only heightened her arousal; the thrill of him sent sparks throughout her being.

"Clarette, you have no idea how much I’ve thought about doing this." He stared at her after shifting his weight to her side. His hand trailed south, splaying against her flat stomach. "Is this okay?"

Nodding a silent yes, she held his gaze, her pupils blown wide with unrestrained lust.

Keeping his focus on her face, he slowly slid his hand into her underwear, his fingers gliding along her slickness. She inhaled sharply as her hips bucked, eyes shutting as he continued to touch her teasingly. He ran his fingers up and down a few more times, enjoying her reactions to his actions before slipping a thick finger into her folds.

Her mouth hung agape in bliss as he rubbed her tantalizingly slow, reveling at how good he felt touching her most private area.

Bending over to kiss her hard, he removed his hand, a sound of frustration stemming from her throat. She was soon silenced with anticipation as he slowly pulled the lace underwear down her long legs, his fingers trailing, leaving a tingling sensation wherever he had touched.

"God, you're so beautiful," he proclaimed, under his breath, taking in the sight of Clarette naked before him.

She flushed at the compliment, her knees falling open as she bared herself to him.

Lifting one ankle with his hand, Beckett lightly kissed his way up her leg, making eye contact with her as he traced the inside of her thigh with his tongue. She waited with bated breath for his intimate touch, only for him to turn his head to the opposite side and repeat his actions on the other thigh. Once again, they locked eyes, but this time he bowed his head, placing a lazy kiss on her glistening sex.

A blissful sigh left her as he licked her slit, languidly lapping at her juices. She lost all focus as he parted her folds with his tongue, her mind going blank as he explored her center greedily. He continued his ministrations lackadaisically, the tension threatening to overtake her as she squirmed in pleasure. She looked down as he lifted his head, a sexy grin meeting her gaze.

"I love the way you taste. Like pure sunshine."

He ran a finger down her lips before delving into her slippery core, eventually adding one more digit as he set a steady rhythm. Watching her carefully, her face contorted as he continued pumping into her, her hips rising to meet him as she tried to find the release she was seeking. Lowering his head to her apex, his tongue flicked her clit. He was rewarded with the sound of her screaming his name.

"Beckett!" Her eyes searched his, pleading for him to continue. “Right there, please…” She gasped for air, trailing off in ecstasy.

Her head fell back onto the pillow as his mouth descended on her clit once more, his tongue ravaging her most sensitive spot. Her hand reached down, gripping his hair as she grinded into his face, her climax nearing. Speeding up his tempo, he applied more pressure, eventually taking her pearl into his mouth.

"Oh my God, Beckett!!” Her voice pierced the air. "I'm coming!"

Clarette’s body tensed as the orgasm crashed over her, her inner walls pulsating as she came hard. Beckett coaxed her through the intense sensations as he felt her body still, not letting go until her spasms stopped. Her eyes stayed closed while she caught her breath, opening just in time to lock eyes with him as he licked his fingers clean. Their gaze never broke as he crawled up the length of her body. She pulled him in for a sensuous kiss, fully tasting herself on him.

"That was... wow," she panted.

"I hope my technique was satisfactory," he smiled softly, playing off the words he told her during the night of their first kiss.

After a few minutes to gather her bearings, she placed a kiss on his chest.

"If that is satisfactory, I can't wait to see what you do to overachieve.” A sultry giggle passed her lips as she sat up and straddled him. "But now it's my turn and I hope you think my technique will be way more than satisfactory."

Clarette kissed him deeply, her fingers raking through his hair as she lightly massaged his scalp before running her hands all over his toned form. He groaned into her mouth as she pressed her wet heat over the swell in his underwear, grinding down on him. Her mouth mapped out a path as she traveled lower, arriving at his massive bulge. He propped his head up on the pillow, eager to see her course of action.

Rubbing his crotch, she looked at him as she gently squeezed his package, his mouth falling open. With a smile, her face hovered over his hips, her fingers slowly pulling his black boxer briefs over his thickness.

When he finally sprang free, Clarette stared in awe, her jaw going slack.

"Oh! I knew you were big. I just didn't realize how – wow." Meeting his eyes momentarily, an alluring grin crossed her features as she bit her lip. "I can't wait to feel you in me."

Beckett felt his cheeks redden from her admission, despite him being completely naked in front of her.

"I think it's the sexiest thing when you blush, you know why?" She asked nonchalantly, glancing up at him while wrapping her hands around his erection.

"N-no. Why?" He was transfixed on watching her hold him.

"Because it makes me think of all the other things that makes you blush."

Grinning slyly, their eyes stayed connected as Clarette licked his entire length, starting from his base until she kissed his tip. Swirling her tongue around, she took him into her mouth as she sucked on his bulbous head, her one hand gliding up and down his shaft while the other gently cupped his balls.

His breathing grew ragged as she continued pleasuring him and his hands wandered down, holding her hair back so he could watch her take him in. She continued bobbing up and down until she let her hand take over, stroking his arousal. The sight he was treated to was entrancing as she took his sack into her hot mouth, her tongue lavishing attention on one ball and then the other. He eventually felt the warmth leave his pair, instead returning to his cock as she lathered him before taking him past her lips once more.

“Fuck, Clarette,” he groaned, “you’re amazing.”

He savored the worship she was giving his manhood; the sound of her mouth working all of him was a melody to his ears. Firmly placing his hand on the back of her head, he started to thrust into her, indulging himself as he watched her dainty, little mouth stretched to the limits by his swollen cock. Nothing else in the world seemed to exist as he peaked, his seed flowing down her throat.

Beckett’s head rolled back on the pillow as he closed his eyes, his orgasm leaving him breathless. He was vaguely aware of Clarette letting go of his dick, slowly making her way next to him as she delicately caressed his sensitive body. They laid together, her head on his chest, as her hand rested on his abdomen, her fingernails sending shivers through him.

After a few minutes of silence, he reached over with his free hand, drawing her in for a fiery kiss. Their hands were all over each other, continuing the discovery of their bodies. He found himself hard again as she palmed him, his steely eyes dark with intensity.

“Condom?” She questioned quietly.

He nodded, opening his nightstand to take out a brand new box, fumbling to open it before she took it out of his hands and pulled one out.

Quirking an eyebrow, she looked at him as she tore the wrapping. “Not opened?”

He ran a hand over his face, a furious flush creeping over him as he avoided her eyes. “I haven’t since being here…” his glanced at her, “I just wanted you.”

She bent over, seizing his lips with hers. “Me, too. On both accounts.” Leaning over, she nipped at his earlobe before she whispered in his ear, “You have no idea how many nights I’ve dreamt about this.”

Desire rushed through his blood as he watched her roll the rubber down before mounting him, rubbing her soaked box over him. They moaned in unison as she slowly sank down, his rock hard member filling her completely. His hands gripped her hips as she placed her hands on his chest, unmoving while she acclimated to his size.

"Are you okay?" Beckett asked with difficulty after seeing her face twist. "Fuck, you're so tight."

She looked down at him, a slight smile gracing her features as a strangled laugh escaped her. "Yeah, I just need to adjust to you."

Their movements started slowly as she rode him, the sound of their bodies connecting echoing through the room. He watched her on top of him, her breasts bouncing, before reaching up to feel the soft globes in his hands. Pulling her down into a scorching kiss, he clasped her hips as he slammed into her pussy, making her groan into his mouth. He could feel his balls tightening as he continued to bury himself into her.

"Clarette, I'm close...." he said breathlessly.

Leaning back, she kept riding him as she felt her second crescendo of the night coming to a head. Her hand made its way to her mound, her fingers rubbing furiously against her clit.

"Beckett!!" She cried out in ecstasy, rocking against him.

He felt her walls throb around him, her pussy deliciously squeezing his cock as he fucked her through her climax. He sped up his pace, the feeling too good as he came moments later.

Clarette collapsed on top of him, their sweat drenched bodies exhausted. Her breaths were labored and her eyes fluttered shut as she listened to his speeding heartbeat. As she came down from her high, she sighed in contentment, everything happening as it was supposed to be.

Beckett’s eyes remained closed after his intense orgasm, his arms wrapping naturally around his girlfriend. He could feel her heart pounding and the warmth from her attunement seeping out of her aura. Placing a light kiss on the top of her head, he relished this intimacy from his ray of sunshine that had been lacking in his life.

In that moment, all their problems ceased to exist. Nothing else mattered as the outside world melted away, their universe revolving around only each other.

#beckett harrington #beckett x mc #the elementalists #beckett harrington fanfic #the elementalists fanfic #beckett harrington x mc #playchoices #choices fanfiction #beckett x clarette #scg writes #scg cookies

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ladyfl4me · 5 years

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I’m planning an Indruck fic right now as something to chip a way at to relax between class work and I was wondering if you have any advice? I have all of it looking pretty mapped out down to the chapters it’s more because this is the first fic I’ve written and plan to share I’m pretty nervous tbh!

hell yeah, that’s awesome! it’s great to hear that you’re planning on sharing it. i’ve been using tmwciftc in a similar way over the past few months, as a way to destress/move away from shit in my life, so i think it’s a great idea that you’re planning on doing this!

that being said, don’t let it consume your life to the point that it also becomes stressful. some of my friends can attest that - especially around chapters 10, 11, and 12, when the bombshells of arc 3 began to be dropped - i was going apeshit over the plot because i didn’t know how to make it fit with canon. it was becoming the only thing i thought about, and i needed a break. having a plan definitely helps. because then you at least know where you’re going, and you don’t have to stress out over what’s going to happen next. it’s good that you have the chapters mapped out, because then you have some kind of framework to go off of!

there’s some stuff i do that really tends to help. this got kind of long, so i’ll give you a quick summary, and then throw my explanations under a read more. i hope this helps

i read other people’s stuff

i listen to other mcelroy content outside of taz

i read transcripts

i listen to music

i take full advantage of the tagging system and my networks

sometimes - like, a solid 70% of the time - i get lost and don’t know what to say or do with the characters. it comes out like “duck jumped” or “ned said” or “the moon was big and large,” and it’s not flowing the way i want it to. when that happens, i take a break from writing and read some stuff that i know will be able to hold my attention. for example, i was really tied up over chapter 14 a few weeks ago because the words were sticking in a major way, so i went and reread American Gods and Good Omens to give my brain a break. not only was i not focusing on writing 24/7, but i also picked up some style and pacing tips that helped me figure out how to make the scene move. reading other stuff gives your brain a break and can give you tips for how to keep going.

that’s what i do for plot when i get lost. when i get lost with the characters, i go back to the source: i read transcripts and listen to other mcelroy podcasts. reading the transcripts, though, is like doing research: you have the facts laid out for you, you can skim back and forth in a simple way, you can see in an instant how characters act without having to slog through the actual dialogue of gameplay. that helps me cement characterizations and stuff after my first listen-through. when i’m done with planning a chapter, i’ll usually go back and listen again to get a grip on dialogue one last time, and maybe to do outside theorizing with friends. this is by no means an exhaustive strategy; you can listen to taz episodes as often as you like, if you need to get certain things down/if your fic is heavily reliant on canon elements to proceed. whatever works for you!

listening to other mcelroy podcasts is a good twofold strategy: it gives your brain a break, and it also lets you marinate in the mcelroy lexicon. you get access to juicy turns of phrase, speech patterns, senses of humor, and other things that typically remain consistent throughout their other podcasts. i’ve listened back to episode 229 of mbmbam in the past two months, and there have been a lot of interesting things i’ve picked up.

for example, mbmbam griffin is different from wonderful griffin and taz griffin, but there are similar threads of humor and emotion that are present in each podcast he does. same goes for travis and justin. the cool thing about the DnD format is that these characters - be they from amnesty, balance, committment, dust, or anything else they do - are an extension of the people playing them. travis has stated that he directly draws on elements of himself and the people in his life to play aubrey and magnus; he is the most obvious example of how the boys are connected to their characters.

i can’t speak for the other mcelroys - real people cannot be subject to the same standards of analysis as literary characters - but there is a human element embedded in these characters that is unique from other pieces of media. listening to other podcasts can give you some vocabulary for TAZ dialogue that might be helpful, and also you might get a good brain break.

also - music helps. music helps me a lot. you mentioned that you have the chapters outlined already; if times get tough while writing, or even before they do, you can go through spotify’s film scores collections and see if there’s something that strikes your fancy. with the tmwciftc playlist, i pick songs that have a specific mood, or can possibly be played in the background as the score, or - as was the case with the start of chapter 14 and the middle of 16 - are actually in the chapter. composing your own “movie score” for a fic can be a) a good brain break, and b) can make some of the emotional complexities of your scenes deeper.

once the fic is underway, there’s the daunting task of publicity. getting people to read the story can be tough sometimes. what i usually do is post on ao3, then post on tumblr - with a quick description, and using as many tags as apply (character, ship, fandom, usually) - and then yeet the tumblr link at my friends in discord servers. if you’re not on discord, publishing links just on tumblr is more than okay.

in either case, when you’re sharing the fic, at the end of the day it’s a story you wrote. it’s a part of you that you created, no matter how small or silly or terrifying. before you wanted to post it for the world to see, it was a story that you wanted to tell. just remember that. this is a story that you want to tell, and it is a story that someone will hear, even if that someone is just you. but you’re going to be amazing, and i bet this story will be too.

i hope this helped! if you have any more questions, feel free to send in any you have. thank you so much for the ask!

#asks #anon #fic writing #taz amnesty #indruck #anonymous #long post

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thehanniecorner · 5 years

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I recently wrote about my ten least favorite books of the year so far, so it seems only appropriate to write about my ten favorites, as well. I’m quite fortunate this year, as I already have over ten five-star reads, and several of them are new favorites of mine. It has been a good year so far, and I can only hope that the second half is even better. In the near future, I will be writing a larger reflective piece where I discuss the first half of my reading year in more detail, as well as set goals to guide what I read for the second half of the year, so keep an eye out for that! My hope is that this top ten is totally different at the end of the year because I found tons of new reads that I love just as much or more than the ones on this list. For now, however, all I can do is show off the amazing books that I have read so far!

Note: If you are interested in any of the books I am discussing, I will be including an Amazon associate link for each one. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. I’ll get a small commission at no additional cost to you.

10. You Asked For Perfect – Laura Silverman

You Asked For Perfect is the textbook example of a lucky find. I picked it up on NetGalley simply because the cover looked nice and I’m so glad I did, as I’m not certain if I ever would have found it otherwise. This book has the best description that I have ever seen of the pressures that come with constantly striving to overachieve in high school. The protagonist is constantly struggling with his need to be the best as he attempts to navigate his senior year of high school, while also wanting to just have fun and pursue friendships and romances like many of his peers do. It’s a short and quick read that I would highly recommend, and I have more details in my full review.

Amazon

9. Better Nate Than Ever – Tim Federle

Over the past few months, I’ve been working on an experiment where I read the books that Goodreads recommended to me based upon my favorite and least favorite reads. Better Nate Than Ever is a recommendation given to me based upon my love of George by Alex Gino, and I couldn’t be happier for the push in this book’s direction. For one thing, it cemented my newfound love for the middle grade genre, and for another, Nate is one of the most adorable protagonists that I have ever read about. His dialogue is true to how children his age would actually talk and he’s so full of energy. He has a goal of making it onto Broadway and he will do anything and everything in his power to make this happen. This is the start to a trilogy that follows Nate, so I will definitely be checking out the rest of the series this year.

Amazon

8. Saga, Volume Nine – Fiona Staples and Brian K. Vaughan

I was about ready to give up on Saga before I read the ninth volume. While I enjoyed the series at the start, as more characters got added in and the plot focused more on the politics and less on the star-crossed lovers that I initially signed on for, I began to lose interest. This ninth volume was going to be the last one I read, as the series has gone on a hiatus and it seemed like a logical stopping point. When I made this plan, however, I was not accounting for the fact that the ending of this collection stabbed me right in the chest with a huge plot twist and left me needing to know what happens next. While I’m not entirely certain that I like the direction that this series is headed, I can’t deny that this entry left me emotionally gutted and needing to know how everything turns out.

Amazon

7. Paperback Crush – Gabrielle Moss

Paperback Crush has a narrow niche that it caters towards, and anyone outside of that group isn’t going to get the appeal. This is a nonfiction reference guide that outlines the history of the Young Adult book genre, with most of its attention dedicated to the 80s and 90s. As someone who has read nearly every book prefixed with “Sweet Valley” and constantly daydreamed about being Claudia’s best friend in The Baby-Sitters Club, this book is probably the best thing that has ever happened to me. I got to relive my entire childhood, learn quite a bit about how the YA genre got to its current form, and even dragged up some old memories of books I forgot I had read. For example, I totally forgot about my entire phase where I read Lurlene McDaniel’s sad books about kids with horrible diseases that often die at the end, but now I remember and learned a lot about how The Fault in Our Stars came to be so popular.

Amazon

6. The Immortalists – Chloe Benjamin

I knew from the second I laid eyes on the publisher’s description for The Immortalists that I was going to love this book. Four siblings go to a fortune teller and find out the exact day that they are going to die. From there, they spread out and live their lives with this information. Any story that discusses fate or time is one I immediately feel drawn to because I love the complexities of the conversations involved. For example, if some of the siblings learn that they are going to die young, were they going to die at that age regardless, or did they begin to live more recklessly because they knew their days were numbered? Would they have all lived happily to the age of ninety had they not gone to the fortune teller because that act, in itself, determined their fate? These are the sorts of questions that I pondered through the entirety of the time that I was reading this book, and I loved every second of it.

Amazon

5. Roller Girl – Victoria Jamieson

As I stated with Better Nate Than Ever, I have been diving into the middle grade genre a little more than usual lately and been having pretty good results. Roller Girl is a coming-of-age tale told in the graphic novel format about a young girl who decides to try taking up roller derby. It’s a sweet book that I found myself flying through in a single day due to its vibrant art style and relatable characters. I find that, in a lot of respects, middle grade books are actually easier to relate to as an adult reader than their young adult counterparts, even though they are written with a far younger audience in mind. They contain less angst and are more about the sorts of topics that any age can relate to, such as learning to fit in or following your dreams. I will discuss this more in my reflective post, but I think transitioning to prioritize adult and middle grade titles over young adult for a while would probably result in enjoying a higher percentage of the books I read.

Amazon

4. Charlotte’s Web – E.B. White

It is a goal of mine to read all of the major children’s classics in my lifetime. In my experience, children’s classics like Charlotte’s Web have all of the same symbolism and messaging that their adult peers have, but they’re a lot more fun to read. The friendship between Charlotte and Wilbur was adorable and I couldn’t believe that it took me so long to get around to such a sweet story. As an adult, I loved it, but as with all children’s books, I’m sad I didn’t get a chance to read it as a kid, as I would have treasured it years ago. E.B. White has a sizeable collection of titles that I still need to read, so I highly doubt that this is the last I will ever see of him.

Amazon

3. Scythe and Thunderhead – Neal Shusterman

I decided to put Scythe and Thunderhead together, as I liked them an equal amount and didn’t want to take up two entries on this list. Shusterman’s new series is shaping up to become one of my favorites of all time, so long as the conclusion out later this year turns out to be the same level of quality. It’s dark and tackles some very real societal problems, such as what happens when we do overpopulate the world, and how would people cope in a world where they aren’t actually needed for anything? I have a whole (spoiler-filled) discussion about where I want the series to go for the finale, and it is safe to say that The Toll is my most anticipated book of the year.

Amazon

2. My Sister, The Serial Killer – Oyinkan Braithwaite

A lot of people were talking about My Sister, The Serial Killer because it was nominated for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. I love a good thriller, so I picked it up immediately, and it was not what I expected at all. As the title suggests, this is a book about a woman whose sister is a serial killer. It isn’t much of a thriller, however, as it instead explores the complicated relationship between the sisters and why they would be willing to do anything for one another, even though one has a love for stabbing people. While it wasn’t what I expected, it’s still one of my favorite reads of the year and definitely my most pleasant surprise.

Amazon

1. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo – Taylor Jenkins Reid

I feel like I’m behind on this one, but words cannot express how much I love The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. It took me a while to get around to reading it because I was scared off by the hype, but that turned out to be a silly fear. This is one of the best-written books I have ever read. Every detail put in the writing builds one of the most realistic portraits of a complex woman that I have ever read. If Taylor Jenkins Reid came up to me tomorrow and told me that Evelyn Hugo was a real person, I would believe her because it can be really difficult to remember that she’s fictional while reading the book. Obviously, I am always hoping to find a book that I love more than my current favorite because it means I’m reading lots of books I love, but it’s going to be difficult to top this masterpiece.

Amazon

That’s it for the books that I have read and loved so far this year! I can’t wait to see what the second half of 2019 has in store for me. What are your favorite books of the first half of the year? Let me know in the comments below!

Best Books I Read So Far in 2019 I recently wrote about my ten least favorite books of the year so far, so it seems only appropriate to write about my ten favorites, as well.

#books #Lists #reading #top ten

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bensaunderschp-blog · 5 years

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Ben Saunders Creative Honours Project Critical Diary

For our creative honours project this year, we were tasked with

I very quickly came to a decision on the form my project would take, that being a concept album based around F. Scott Fitzgerald’s great American novel The Great Gatsby. My band had already started work on a composition inspired by the work entitled Buchanan Street, and when presented with the opportunity to do an ambitious creative project I thought it would be an excellent idea to build upon that to create an entire concept album. This also tied into my dissertation subject of what makes a concept album successful. I chose The Great Gatsby because it is such a rich text full of strong themes and fleshed out characters. Gatsby is about optimism, hope, the American dream, a man who builds an empire and amasses huge wealth in pursuit of his goal, before it is all cut down and destroyed by the reality of life and the underlying theme that nobody is really pure and true, we all have our dark sides, and even Gatsby, the apparent protagonist, is selfish in pursuit of happiness on his own terms, and blind to how his joy would affect others. This provides seemingly endless inspiration for music and lyrics as one can both draw on one’s own experiences regarding unrequited love, loss, disappointed and disillusionment, while also looking at things from the perspective of the characters and events depicted within the book, the two views hopefully working to support one another.

Taking shape

Shortly after deciding what I wanted to do for my creative honours project, I went to the pub with my long-time collaborator, lyric writer and vocalist Mark Shankland in order to outline a general game plan for how we were going to accomplish our task, as well as running the idea by him to make sure he was up for it. He was, and quickly we decided not to attempt to re-tell the book necessarily, but to use it as a springboard for our own ideas and use its structure as a guideline. As the project developed over the coming months, the album actually became much more of an adaptation of the book than we had originally intended, because we found such inspiration from various events and quotes from the story, and our album follows the general curve of the narrative quite closely. Our goal of making sure that the album was enjoyable on its own terms, not requiring pre-knowledge of The Great Gatsby in order to be enjoyed and understood, was however stuck to, as I think the themes in the book and in our music are general enough to be appreciated outwith the context of the novel itself. We tried to keep things general and avoid just quoting large swathes of Fitzgerald’s writing, never referring to anybody by name or giving exact play-by-play retellings of sections of the story. Again, as the project progressed we ended up quoting or paraphrasing directly from the novel more and more, partly because we thought some lines from the book were just stunning, partly because they said what we wanted to say, partly because it seemed the easiest and most logical thing to do. But most of all, we knew that we could stick to our idea of generality and enjoyment sans understanding of the novel, while also having things be more effective and offer deeper appreciation for people who are familiar with the text. To this end, phrases like “young and vulnerable” and “the green light” absolutely had to be included as these are staples of The Great Gatsby, and towards the end of the final track we actually included a line of dialogue from the most recent film adaptation of the story, but again it is kept general enough here that if you don’t know what movie the dialogue is from, it still makes sense and still hits the emotional chord it is going for, you just might appreciate it that little bit more if you have read the book or seen the film.

We knew early on that we wanted five to seven tracks for our album, aiming higher rather than lower, because a mere four tracks would be too short to really be called a concept “album”, and we knew that we really wanted to create something special and to a high standard. We also, however, didn’t want to give ourselves an impossible amount of work to do, and so decided six or seven tracks would be ideal, giving us enough time to work on them and hone them to be as good as they could be, rather than having to rush out ten lower quality compositions. In the end we capped ourselves at six songs as our writing deadline began to approach and we felt our time would be better spent developing what we had rather than trying to come up with something completely new. I would have liked to have done one more upbeat song both to pace the album better and to cover the narrative gap wherein Gatsby et al meet up and have their confrontation following the outing of he and Daisy’s affair, however time did not permit this, and perhaps this gap will be unperceivable by the audience.

Scheduling

We originally gave ourselves the five months from October to February to write, arrange and demo our work, planning to use the final two months of March and April to record, with everything being finished in plenty time before the hand-in on the 3rd of May. However, numerous roadblocks would get in our way and much stress would be laid upon us as our original timeline became harder and harder to stick to, and eventually fell out the window entirely. We were pretty slow to start, having various half-baked ideas here and there, but we didn’t really kick into gear until the new year, thinking we had plenty of time for our ideas to gestate and develop naturally. This was a mistake for which the blame rests entirely on us, but even our idea to really buckle down and get a move on following the Christmas break was not one that would go smoothly, to the degree that I was considering abandoning the collaborative aspect of the project altogether and continuing on myself, creating something that would be of a lower quality but would at least be actually finished in time for the hand-in. Setback after setback caused me to really think about whether or not this collaboration was going to work out, or if I should end it. I decided, though, that in the end our collaborative project would be a thousand times better than anything I could come up with myself, and the terrible stress of an unreliable collaborator was worth it for the end result. We originally planned to meet once a week, going home after each week to listen back to and ponder on what we had done each day. However, Mark fell ill on several occasions, something which could not be avoided unfortunately, so a number of dates fell by the wayside. Then, Mark had to miss two weeks because his uncle died and he had to deal with funeral arrangements and the like as well as his own personal grief, again completely unavoidable. Following this, his family whisked him away on a two-week holiday, and it was at this point I was starting to have serious doubts, and hammered home to Mark just how little time we had to get things done, and just how important this deadline was for me. He agreed to put in extra effort and try to go the extra mile to see our project come to fruition. However, a couple weeks into our accelerated work rate, tragedy struck again as his gran was diagnosed with dementia, and he had to take on a number of duties in order to care for her, missing one week because he was the only persona available to visit her, another because he had to help put the carpet in for her new closer-to-home living space, another because he had to help paint the walls, and another which culminated in a whopping two months of writing we simply could not do on the project. To make up for lost time we began meeting up two or three times every week, alternating three-hour sessions in Glasgow’s Carlton Studios where we would focus on vocal melodies, arrangement and structure, and much longer, up to five-hour sessions in my house where we would focus mainly on analysis and discussion of The Great Gatsby and the writing of lyrics. This immense crunch and the fear of the deadline actually led to us being extremely creative extremely quickly, and perhaps led to us actually generating higher quality work, although this would be very difficult to quantify. We did, however, complete all of the writing in record time, and to a degree we were largely satisfied with. There are a couple of lines here and there which I think could be better, and I would like to add a lot more overdubs and moments of interest and slightly different arrangements to a number of songs, but overall I think we have written something truly special here, and I am immensely proud of our work.

Recording

However, our original plan to finish all of the writing before recruiting a drummer and a bassist as well as a recording engineer and studio time etc in order to record our work to a high standard well in time for the deadline was completely scuppered by this horrific inability to stick to our writing deadline. As a result, we decided to completely eschew the idea of recording in a studio or even getting a live drummer, as recording has to be booked well in advance and takes a very long time, and we simply could not expect a drummer to become familiar enough with all of our material with its changing time signatures and tempos all over the place in the time allotted, to be able to perform it reliably to any degree of consistency or quality. Because of this, I began to look into re-amping guitars and finding higher quality drum VSTs, to enable myself to record, mix and master the album on my own. I had plenty of experience in recording demos and a couple of tracks myself, so was confident that if I found the right re-amping service and drum sample library I could craft a decent sounding, if not completely professional or totally polished sounding album myself. Of course, professionally recording everything would have been better, but I think I have managed to do a pretty serviceable job which is certainly of a high enough quality for the purposes of my hand-in, although we are absolutely intent on re-recording everything with proper musicians and real instruments, professionally, before officially releasing our work. We will also go back and potentially re-draft some of our lyrics, make the arrangements slightly more interesting, and maybe even write that final seventh song before entering the studio for real.

Expo

About a month before the deadline, we were required to do a short little presentation of our plans and what we had so far at an expo. At this point I only had some mostly-MIDI demos I had made in Logic, so I presented those alongside a short write-up of the project’s scope. I played some of these to my lecturers and we discussed my progress and goals. They remarked that they liked the ambition of my project and thought the music was sounding appropriately complex and just about there, but expressed concern at the fact that I had not started the recording process yet, and urged me to get a move one - something I with which I wholeheartedly concurred.

Evaluation

In conclusion, I think that me and my collaborator have produced a quite successful work, one that largely sticks to our goal of being inspired by The Great Gatsby, but not reliant on the listener’s familiarity with the source material in order to be appreciated as an album in itself. We lifted a little more directly from the book in terms of quotations and narrative structure than perhaps we originally intended, but we think this not only improves the work’s quality and cohesiveness from the perspective of a Gatsby fan, but also does not hinder the enjoyment of anybody unfamiliar with the work. Our album tackles the themes of hope, optimism, adventure, a new world, the American dream etc, before taking a slightly biographical stance on Gatsby and Daisy’s thoughts and feelings during certain relevant stages of their relationship, and finally deals the with darkness, foreboding, loneliness, and the shattering of the dream that permeates the story. We talk about how real life gets in the way of our fantasies, how everything falls apart in the end, how human nature is ultimately selfish, and how at the end of it all we feel lost, nowhere to go. Daisy and Gatsby’s yearning for each other and Daisy’s inability to leave her life behind and join him are addressed in Sins of the Father, as Gatsby’s meteoric rise to empty wealth is depicted in Destination, while Nick Carraway’s forward-looking boat journey is what inspires Land of the Free. Behind Dark Glasses touches on the thoughts and feelings of Daisy and Gatsby, or really any two lovers, realising that their relationship is not the bed of roses they expected it to be, with the woman being stand-offish and distant and the man wondering why. Wake Me Up uses the narrative moment of the death of Gatsby to talk more generally about the death of hope, the ultimate hollowness of everything and the erosion of the “American dream”. Buchanan Street acts as an epilogue to everything much in the way that Green Day’s Whatsername tops off their American Idiot album, reflecting on the events and core themes we just went over and looking forward to the next chapter in the story of our lives. In terms of adapting the themes, characters and ideas of The Great Gatsby, I think we did a wonderful job, with perhaps a few lines being a little clunky (any direct references to a “story” or “book”) and perhaps one more track being needed to really address every aspect of the story and round it off. In terms of being an enjoyable product in and of itself, I think we have also succeeded here as many of the themes addressed are universal, and the situations are depicted in ways that knowing what happens in the book isn’t required to understand what is happening in the song. The pacing of the album could be slightly better with one more upbeat track inserted between before or after Behind Dark Glasses, and of course the recording/mixing quality could be better, if we had had time to work with a professional recording engineer. We should have started work much earlier than we did and at a much faster pace initially in order to protect ourselves against inevitable setbacks such as the ones we experienced, although the ones we experienced were of a much larger number and much more inconvenient than we could have realistically planned for, I would say. Still, we have definitely learned to schedule things much better and work at a faster pace further ahead of any deadline we have, and now that we are in the swing of things creatively we hope to continue on, using what we have learned over the course of this project to continue being as creatively successful in the future.

#music

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oppafiction · 6 years

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Mr. Nameless (1) | {Optional Bias}

(cr. @zipcy, her art is amazing!)

Genre: Fluff, College AU

Word count: 1,797

Summary: You come across a stranger who insists he's not as strange as you think he is.

A/N: This part starts off a little slow, but let’s just call it “buildup”.

***

I really should have checked this room out earlier...

You curse at yourself for being uncharacteristically unprepared for your first class of the year, breathlessly jogging down hallway after hallway. This part of the campus was in the middle of major construction, and was currently proving itself to be a maze with its endless detours and dead ends. You stop running to study the map on your phone, searching around you for anything that might look familiar.

Why is no one else around here? Surely I can’t be the only person that can’t find this room!

As if on cue, you hear the sound of footsteps padding down a hallway nearby but out of view. A guy suddenly appears as he turns the corner, his eyes trained on the phone that’s partially covering the confused look on his face. You watch as his steps falter and he glances up, his eyes immediately meeting your own. A look of relief softens his attractive features, leaving your breath lodged in your throat.

“Hey,” he greets brightly, shoving his phone into his jeans’ pocket as he stops to stand in front you. “Are you looking for room ST101 too?”

You nod slowly, averting your focus from his wide, charming smile to a notice board off to the side of his head. He tilts his head into your line of sight, still smiling, this time with a raised eyebrow.

Focus, you have a class to get to!

“I could have sworn it was in this general area, but with all the construction going on...” you trail off, peering over your shoulder.

“Well I don’t think it’s back there,” he gestures his thumb behind him, “So let’s continue ahead.”

You nod again, taking a quick glance at your phone. You were five minutes late, but being late with this stranger somehow made the whole ordeal a little less stressful to you. There’s nothing but the sound of your footsteps walking in sync as you continue your daunting search for this room. That, and the loud thudding of your heartbeat in your ears.

You’re so distracted by the strong presence beside you that you don’t notice the door tucked away in the corner off to your right. You’re snapped out of your daze the moment the stranger speaks again.

“Over there!” Your eyes follow the direction of his long arm as it extends to point at the door. He scrambles off towards it, peering into its little window. You follow suit, standing on your toes to glimpse over his shoulder.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” you let out an exasperated sigh. “The door opens to the front of the room???”

“It’s okay, there are two seats right there in the back. C’mon, just follow me.” He slowly swings the door open, to which you hear the professor pause mid-sentence to glance off in your direction. You bow apologetically as she continues talking and follow the nameless guy, disregarding the many eyes focused on the both you.

You approach the last row of seats, watching as Mr. Nameless squeezes by the first few people to get to the empty pair of seats in the middle. You draw your bag closer to yourself, offering hushed apologies to the students pulling their knees in and clearing their backpacks from the floor by their feet. You both take your seats and as you’re getting settled, you feel a pair of eyes on you.

You peek to your left to find Mr. Nameless watching you in amusement, a playful glint in his eyes. Your breath catches for the umpteenth time that day, and you hope it doesn’t appear as obvious as it feels. You manage to regain enough composure to squint your eyes at him with furrowed brows. His only response is a small shake of his head and a silent laugh that makes the dimples in his cheeks settle deeply.

You immediately feel your face flush, averting your eyes to the front of the class in hopes that he wouldn’t notice. As you readjust your posture you swear you can hear him laugh, but decide to pay him no mind. You already missed the beginning of the professor’s introduction, this kind of distraction was the last thing you needed right now.

“Copies of the course syllabus are going around. Please hold onto this as it outlines everything we’re going to be covering, exam dates, and the grade weight of all assignments and exams.”

As the papers are passed down the rows, your attention is drawn to the feeling of something resting against the side of your knee. You look down to see Mr. Nameless’ right knee pressed against your left one. The gesture itself was innocent enough, but coming from him you sensed there was purpose behind it. You surveyed him as he laid back comfortably in his seat with his legs spread wide, occupied with spinning the pen in his hand between his long fingers. His attention seemed to be focused at the front of the room, but you were certain he was observing you out of the corner of his eye. The sudden slight upturn of his lips confirm your suspicion.

Is he teasing me???

“Excuse me?” A female voice interrupts your thoughts, and you glimpse towards its source to find the girl beside you handing you a stack of papers. You don’t know how long she’s been trying to get your attention, but the slight annoyed expression on her face tells you it must have been a while.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” you apologize with an embarrassed smile, hastily taking the papers from her hold. You grab a sheet for yourself and set it on your lap before handing it off to the guy beside you. He offers you a small smile, the playful glint in his eyes still present and making its way to his lips. He reaches for the papers, his hands momentarily holding onto your own as he readjusts the papers into his grasp. His fingers are warm and soft against your much colder ones. Again, had it been anyone else you wouldn’t have given the gesture a second thought. But that look in his eyes combined with the touches that linger a little longer than they should hint that these gestures are deliberate.

“Is something funny?” You find yourself asking him in mild annoyance, glancing sideways at him with a slight frown. He straightens in his seat, replacing his wide smile with a childish grin. As he parts his lips to reply, the professor’s loud voice cuts through the steady buzz of chatter throughout the room.

“Alright everyone, let’s go over the grading scheme together.”

You watch as the guy’s mouth snaps shut before he opens his notebook to a fresh page and begins scribbling a few words in the top corner. Assuming you weren’t going to get a reply from him, you brush off his odd behavior and redirect your attention to the professor.

A gentle nudge at your shoulder rouses you out of your brief moment of focus. You look down to see a notebook being pushed towards you, and your eyes zero in on the neat block letters written on the top right corner.

You get flustered really easily.

It’s cute.

You blink slowly at the words, rereading them a few more times as if there’s more meaning to them than there actually is. You met this guy less than 15 minutes ago, hardly exchanged any dialogue, and here he was brazenly calling you cute. Okay, he didn’t exactly say you were cute per se, but it was still forward enough of a comment toward a complete stranger. Your lips are drawn into a straight line in an attempt to remain indifferent.

When he realizes you’re not going to write a reply, he takes the notebook back and adds another comment below his previous one.

And yet that comment didn’t fluster you.

Interesting.

You feel your cheeks flush and mentally curse yourself for giving him the exact reaction he wanted. You clear your throat, avoiding eye contact in the hopes that he wouldn’t be able to see the crack in your composure. The faint, suppressed laugh to your left that followed this told you that your attempt was futile.

What is going on here...

The remainder of the class went on without anymore distractions, save for the part of your brain insisting to draw your attention towards the boy beside you. You occasionally find yourself glancing sideways at him, never long enough for him to notice.

In your peripheral vision you can see him lean forward in his seat, resting his elbows on his thighs with his face in his hands. You dared to sneak a peek, only to find him looking right back at you.

Oh my goodness!

You quickly look away and hold your breath, as if staying as still as possible will make you disappear into your seat. There’s no recovering from this, but being the stubborn character that you are, you try anyway.

“Okay class, that’ll be all for today! If you have any questions about anything so far, I’ll be staying for a few minutes. See you Wednesday!”

As the chatter of a finished class begins to fill the air, you gather all your things and try to calm the persistent hum of your heartbeat in your ears. Did he know you were sneaking looks at him and wanted to catch you in the act?

What is wrong with me today?

“Hey,” the voice responsible for your racing heart speaks out, and you look up at him skeptically.

“H/N!!! Why were you so late this morning? I was saving you a seat!”

Your head whips in the direction of the interruption to find a guy standing at the end of the aisle, his arms raised over his head dramatically.

“It’s a long story,” the guy beside you starts as he stands up, swinging his backpack over his broad shoulders.

“Sorry,” he looks down at you with an apologetic smile before continuing, “I’ll see you around, right?”

You nod up at him, your tongue a twisted lump in your mouth. He offers you a wide smile and two thumbs up before squeezing his way down the seats towards his friend. Your heart doesn’t cease its chaos in your chest as you watch him leave, the pair talking animatedly.

Mr. Nameless finally has a name.

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blatherkatt · 6 years

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Well, Hey, If You Need A Wingman

Summary: In which Rose is a useless lesbian, John is a dirty ice cream stealer, and Kanaya doesn’t actually have any dialogue and may have forgot to take the whites out of the wash. Contains Rosemary, John and Rose friendship, and a good old dose of the Sexuality Panics. [humanstuck fluff]

“—Nope, I’m paying and that’s final!” John’s voice rang into the ice cream shop, nearly drowning out the bell as he swung the door open.

“John, really, it’s not that big of a deal,” Rose insisted, but John shook his head adamantly.

“Nuh-uh! We’re celebrating! I don’t care if fourth place isn’t considered a big winner, you still placed in a national contest, and I thought your entry was really cool! I mean, it was kinda hard to read, sure, but whatever, it’s worth celebrating, so I’m buying!”

“It was hardly my best work, honestly,” said Rose. She’d already had to deal with her mother being somewhat obnoxious about Rose’s modest entry into a national contest for high school works of fiction, but, well, at least John was keeping his own version of commemoration rather quiet. She still hardly felt it was necessary, though. For goodness’ sakes, she’d written the piece long enough ago that she felt hardly any attachment to it, now…

John was already busily looking at the options available. There were some with peanuts, which was a little worrying, but he’d come prepared with a bit of emergency medication if it came to that, and made sure to warn the vendor as he folded the newspaper he’d been reading. He waved Rose over, insistently. Honestly, he really hadn’t understood the story she’d written at all, but it was still cool that she’d placed so high in a competition with so many entries. And, well, more than that, it was a good excuse to get Rose out of the house for something other than school! She’d been so stuck in her own head lately, and he was really hoping some fun out and about would help her relax a little, or at the very least give him a clue as to what was eating her.

With a roll of her eyes, Rose finally caved in and picked out her own dish. When John paid, the worker said, “Have a nice date!” in a perky voice, and Rose surprised John by responding almost too quickly.

“We’re not dating,” she said, her voice flat. She picked up her dish and informed John that she was going to pick out a table, whatever it was that was on her mind lately clearly coming back in full force. John winced, stammered out an apology to the server, and hurried to sit himself next to her in the booth she’d chosen (but not too close! Didn’t wanna make it weird, after all).

“Hey, are you okay?” he asked.

“Perfectly fine,” said Rose. “It’s a lovely day out, and I’m spending it with my very dear friend. What on Earth could I have to be unhappy about.” She sounded just a touch bitter as she said it.

John twirled his spoon around in his bowl, nervous. “I, uh, I’ve noticed you’ve been kinda off lately. Is it, um…Oh, has your mom been doing that thing again where she acts like we’re gonna get married just cuz we grew up together? I know that annoys you—“

“That’s not…exactly it,” she said. “It’s related, technically, I suppose, but…” She shook her head. “I’m sorry, John, it’s…It’s very personal. I’m fine, really I am.”

“Is it about wizards?” he grinned, knowing that he was giving her a free pass to change the subject. “Did Gandalf fall down a hole again, is that it?”

She flashed him a grateful look, and took it. Better to waste time shooting the breeze about something meaningless than to spend it talking about her thoughts as of late. “Oh, hardly,” she said. “Please, Lord of the Rings may have been foundational, but we can’t spend all our time dwelling on our founders, Genres move on, John. Honestly, update your references.”

John laughed. “Yeah, sorry, silly of me. I oughtta be talking about your goofy wizards! Like, uh, Zazzlepants?”

“Zazzerpan. John, really, I could’ve done much better than that thing I threw together for this competition, you don’t have to force yourself to bring up something so trite. Anyway, I’ve since moved on to more interesting fictional wizards in my own works.”

“Well, tell me about them!”

Rose sighed, her exasperation mostly pretend. It really had been too long since the two of them had just hung out, and it was nice to have someone to share these things with who didn’t feel the need to mock them for being admittedly deeply self-indulgent. Conversation carried on as she described the rough outline for the grand story she’d begun to envision, coupled with the occasional breaks to eat a bit of their ice cream, or for John to crack a joke (one of which actually inspired some very real plot development, she’d have to scribble it down somewhere before she forgot).

And then, she walked in, and the world ground to a stop.

John was still babbling on about how, in his opinion, the wizards ought to stop trying to beat Calmasis with trials of wits, since Calmasis was obviously a genius, and should instead just prank them so hard they had to give up in shame, but Rose suddenly couldn’t take her eyes away from the new customer who’d just entered the tiny ice cream parlor. This wasn’t the first time their paths had almost crossed, leading Rose to believe the girl lived somewhere in the area, but each time, Rose had felt her breath taken away. So lovely was she, always with her stunningly green eyes and her always elegant clothing, she might have passed for something straight out of a painting—especially after she picked out her ice cream and sat down alone at a table some distance away from Rose and John, perched with her spoon resting temptingly on her lip for just a moment, the light from the window casting her into tones of ethereal beauty, highlighting her wistful gaze at the world beyond…

“What are we looking at?” spoke John in a stage whisper, right next to Rose’s ear, causing her to nearly jump. Realizing her mistake—staring in public, with John right there, God, she’d nearly given everything away!—she tried to pull herself together, fighting the blush that threatened to creep across her cheeks.

John tipped his head, now feeling a little worried. If it’d been Dave, he wouldn’t have thought anything of his friend zoning out all the sudden, but this was Rose! “Are you okay?” he asked. “You seem real distracted all the sudden!”

“No, I’m quite alright,” she said, trying a little too hard to be chipper and fooling no one. She stirred her ice cream, now seeming like she was trying not to look the way she had before. John looked over that way himself again, but he didn’t see anything weird this time, either. Just some girl who’d walked in a few minutes ago, sitting sorta awkwardly by herself and looking maybe a little lonely. Other than that, there was nothing over that way, just empty tables and a big framed black-and-white photo of a historical building. John never got why some places did that, it was sorta weird.

He looked back at Rose again, and caught her sneaking another glance at the girl, before quickly turning back to her ice cream. And just like that, it clicked.

“As to your suggestion, I’ll certainly take the idea into consideration,” she said, “But the trouble with it is that Calmasis is—“

“Oooh, I think I know what’s going on,” John said, grinning.

“Well, of course you do, I’ve just laid out for you the entire rough plot I currently have set down of what may well be my magnum opus.” She was really talking fast, pretty obviously trying to derail him, but John would not be swayed! “I’d feel insulted if you didn’t know what was going on, as it would mean that I’d either failed to explain, or that you’ve not been paying attention.”

He snorted. “Not with that, I mean what’s going on with you! You like her, don’t you?”

Rose dropped her spoon, startled. Bingo. The look she gave him was real scared, though, so he added on quickly, “I’m not gonna be weird about it, promise! I won’t tell anyone!”

Tension drained out of her with a relieved sigh. “I’m…thank you, for that,” she said, picking her spoon up and stirring her ice cream again. “It’s been a rather…recent realization, and I’m still sorting out that I’m…you know, gay.” She looked around nervously as she said the word, fearing someone might be watching, but the shop had only three customers, and the server was quite occupied with the Sunday comics. She let out a breath she’d been unaware she’d been holding. “I’ve no idea how I’m going to tell mother, nevermind the rest of the world, so I’ve been keeping it to myself for now.”

“For what it’s worth,” John said, “I think I only figured it out because of how you’ve been looking at her. I had no idea thats what this was about! Sorry you’ve been dealing with it alone.”

Rose sighed, and nearly cursed herself for how lovelorn it must have sounded. “How can I not stare at her? Look at her, she’s like something straight from some gothic romance, an enchantress here to draw away the unsuspecting into her dark embrace, some unknowable entity full of knowledge mere mortals could understand…”

(John just thought she looked mostly like she’d forgotten something and was trying to remember what it was, but he let Rose keep talking. Gosh, she was adorable right now.)

“—She’s something sublime, in the sense of—oh, Jesus, stop looking, she’s turning this way, stop looking!” Rose turned her face down, suddenly intently focused on her ice cream again. John looked away too, but hazarded a glance out of the corner of his eye and saw that the girl wasn’t looking at them at all, she’d just sorta turned to look at one of the black-and-white photos on the wall.

“You should go talk to her,” said John.

“I-I couldn’t!” Rose hissed.

“Why not?”

“She’s a complete stranger! I’m not—I couldn’t bother her, it’d be, be, be uncouth, I’d be a nuisance!”

John rolled his eyes. “Rose, she wouldn’t mind, I’m sure of it! I mean, when I wanna be left alone while eating, I hunch over and eat fast and stare at my phone, you know? But she looks really bored, and she’s eating super slow—I think she’s taken maybe three bites of her sherbet this whole time? You should totally ask her to come over and sit with us, see if she wants some company!”

“I couldn’t possibly…”

“Sure you could! Go for it!”

Rose bit her lip. “I don’t even know how I’d engage the conversation in the first place…”

John laughed. “Just say you like her shirt or something, I dunno. Rose, c’mon, you’re like, one of the best people with words I know! You can handle one conversation!”

“No one can be eloquent in the face of the very goddess of beauty, John.”

“Oh my God, Rose, she’s just a person. I bet you she’s just been trying to figure out if she turned the lights out at home before she left this whole time, you goof. She’s not gonna bite you just for talking to her! Who knows, maybe she likes girls, too, and you guys’ll hit it off!”

“Let’s not get carried away, now,” Rose said, having to force down a blush that threatened to consume her whole face. Still, she’d be lying if she tried to claim that John wasn’t starting to wear her down—perhaps there was a chance, and if she did invite the girl to sit with them as John had suggested, it wouldn’t be as if she needed to take on the entirety of this first conversation alone…

John nudged Rose with his elbow. “Go on! You got this, and I got your back! Go talk to her!”

She took a deep breath. “Alright,” she said. “Alright, I’m going for it.” She stood up, hardened her resolve…and turned back, just for a moment, to fix John with a long and meaningful look as she said, “Thank you.”

He grinned, flicked her a thumbs up, and, as soon as she started talking to the girl, stole a big spoonful of her ice cream.

#rosekan #rosemary #rose lalonde #kanaya maryam #john egbert #longpost #homestuck #send help i dont know how to tag this pairing #listen this is just like.#2k words of rose being Extremely Gay thats all it is #fanfic #fanfiction #katt does a writing #oneshot

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fromherlips · 7 years

Note

8, 11, 17, 23, 29!

8. Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

I’ve definitely already mentioned the DP line that Soledad said somewhere in Cake, so let’s have a #tbt to chapter two of Cake for Breakfast. I feel like this speaks for itself. I made myself laugh writing this at work back in spring of 2015!

“I can have fun without screwing the lad,” I reminded Niall. “Why are you so insistent that I get laid tonight? You tryin’ to live vicariously through me?”

“Hey, I get laid plenty!”

Neither of us heard the door squeak as it opened during the middle of our scrapple, our eyes never drifting to the small visitor. “Is laid a kind of food?” Everly asked, popping her head into the now slightly ajar door.

I glared at Niall while he stifled his laughter with the palm of his hand clamped over his mouth. “Yes, but Niall hasn’t been able to get any for months now. Tragic, really,” I explained, praying for no further questions.

Everly frowned. “I’m sorry, Niall. I hope you get laid soon,” she said.

“Everly, please leave while I hurt your babysitter,” I instructed, pointing out into the hallway while Niall crumpled to the floor in laughter.

11. Is writing your passion or just a fun hobby?

Hobby, to an extent. I mean, I love writing my blog and what not, but creative writing and story writing has always been and always will be just a hobby for me. I love it all the same, though!

17. Do you write your story from start to finish, or do you write the scenes out of order?

I used to write my stories out of order, but now think since I’ve gotten better at outlining, I’ve been writing chronologically! Sans a few voice notes and small snippets for the future, everything is pretty much written in order now, which is rare for me!

23. If you were to revise one of your older fics from start to finish, which would it be and why?

I think the only story I’ve had the urge to rewrite was Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover from JBFA, which I’m doing now...but I’ve always wanted to rewrite it because Rowan (the OFC) means the world to me and I’ve always, always thought that her story deserved to be told better.

29. If you could write the sequel (or prequel) to any fic out there not written by yourself, which would you choose?

Answered this here!

#thanks binch #ask #leesh

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thechasefiles · 5 years

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The Chase Files Daily Newscap 1/3/2019

Good MORNING #realdreamchasers! Here is The Chase Files Daily News Cap for Thursday 3rd January 2019. Remember you can read full articles for FREE via Barbados Today (BT) or Barbados Government Information Services (BGIS) OR by purchasing by purchasing a Daily Newspaper (DN).

OPERATORS NEW DRIVE – Some fed up public service vehicle (PSV) drivers and conductors have ditched both the Association of Public Transport Operators (APTO) and the Alliance Owners of Public Transport (AOPT). There is now another association in play, formed yesterday and yet officially unnamed, following a work stoppage which was not sanctioned by either organisation. Rumblings about a strike circulated with a WhatsApp voice message earlier this week calling for such action to occur yesterday in protest of the proposed new Transport Authority uniforms as well as other issues. This prompted an impromptu meeting on Tuesday called by Minister in the Ministry of Transport, Peter Phillips, with the Transport Authority and the two bodies. Afterwards, the ministry released a statement saying the strike was called off while negotiations continued. However, this did not sit well with some members of the PSV community who gathered near the Flour Mill on Spring Garden yesterday and refused to work. The assembled ZRs and minibuses plied routes including Bowmanston, St John; Bush Hall in St Michael; Fairy Valley, Newton, Silver Sands and Rendezvous, Christ Church; Melrose, St Thomas; Greens, St George; Wanstead, St James, and Speightstown in St Peter. (DN)

PSVS UNITE – Declaring they had scored two major victories from today’s shutdown of transit service, Public Service Vehicle (PSV) drivers and conductors have formed their own association. Following a six-hour strike by operators that culminated with a meeting at the National Union of Public Workers’ (NUPW), Dalkeith, St Michael headquarters, scores of workers voted to form the PSV Workers Association . During those elections, Shawn Best was elected as president while Ricardo Forde was elected vice-president. The workers were welcomed by the country’s largest public sector union, with leader Akanni McDowall pledging the union’s assistance in helping the workers address a list of grievances. The developments brought an end to the operators’ strike that began just after 9 a.m. before being officially called off at 3:15 p.m. PSV operators in Bridgetown as well as those in Speightstown took their vehicles off the road in protest of the Transport Authority’s decision to require drivers and conductors to buy clothing that carried its logo, among other issues. In delivering a brief statement after the meeting which was attended by chairman of the Transport Authority Ian Estwick, as well as chairman of the Authority’s Public Relations Committee Tim Slinger, spokesperson for the new association Fabian Daddy Fabian Wharton told journalists that a meeting with the Transport Authority had been set for next Monday to deal with the workers’ issues. Until then, PSV operators would return to work, he said. “As you are all aware sometime this morning PSV workers in Barbados would have withdrawn their services. This action is not an action on the part of the AOPT [Alliance Owners of Public Transport] or the APTO [Association of Public Transport Operators], the two representative bodies of PSV owners in Barbados,” Wharton said. “Members of the Transport Authority attended that meeting and they received the feedback directly from the drivers and they have asked for a couple days in order to take back that information and feed it back into their systems to have a discussion and then to get back to us.” In disclosing that the strike had been called off with immediate effect, Wharton apologized to members of the public. “We do apologize to the travelling public, but sometimes you have to take a stand for the things that you believe in. As of 3:15 p.m. today all public service vehicles will return to normal duty,” he said. “We also understand that there are some of us who are not extremely happy with the turn of events, in terms of returning to work immediately, but what we can say is that if there is any disruption in our services tomorrow it will be insignificant.” Speaking to the media moments later, McDowall told reporters the NUPW was willing and able to fight on behalf of PSV workers. “We just observed what happened here today and we were not fully apprised of all of the issues effecting the PSV workers. Today we heard some of the issues and we said we would follow through with them to make sure that some of the concerns they expressed are resolved. “Once they allow us to be that voice, we will make sure that all of their issues are resolved in a timely manner,” the NUPW president said. But McDowall expressed shock at some of the issues that the PSV workers faced. “I don’t agree that some of the issues that they have should be existing in 2019. I don’t want to trivialize the issues because it might seem small to me but it would be big to them, but I’m hoping that a lot of the issues which are affecting them are resolved soonest. “When and if given the opportunity to represent them we will do so vehemently,” McDowall declared. The NUPW president also noted that several PSV operators, although working for private concessionaires had expressed an interest in becoming members of the public sector union. (BT)

PSV OPERATORS TOLD TO GET BACK ON ROUTES – Stop the strike! This is the plea of Public Relations Officer of the Alliance Owners of Public Transport (AOPT) Mark Haynes who was speaking on Starcom’s Down to Brasstacks today as PSV operators went on strike and parked their vehicles. The operators are currently gathered at the National Union of Public Workers (NUPW) headquarters on Dalkeith Road, St Michael as negotiations take place. Members of the Transport Authority, including chairman Ian Estwick, director Alex Linton and chairman of the public relations committee Tim Slinger and NUPW president Akanni Mcdowall are all present. At the center of the dispute is the issue of uniforms which have been mandated by the Transport Authority and a law which states that if found guilty of two traffic convictions and suspended, they will be unable to work for six months. This development has left scores of commuters stranded in various districts of the island. When a Nation team visited the Constitution River Terminal there were hardly any operators in the line. Many were however, stationed outside the terminal engaged in conversations. The Association of Public Transport Operators (APTO) has issued a statement on the situation, calling on Government for fair treatment while outlining a number of grievances. (BT)

GIVE US A SECOND CHANCE – Public Service Vehicle (PSV) operators across the island are ready and willing to clean up their act and improve the public’s perception of them, but they need the support of authorities to make it happen. President of the newly-formed Public Service Vehicle Workers Association, Shawn Best gave the assurance after members stopped working around the island on Wednesday morning, stranding passengers in some of the island’s busiest arteries at Speightstown in the north and in the City. The passionate bus driver with over 20 years under his belt, was the first to admit that PSV drivers had earned a bad reputation over the years for reckless driving, loud music and sloppy attire, but said they were ready to improve their image. “We are looking to make a change. If the ministers are working with us, we are willing to work alongside them in getting things done. Right now we have a transportation issue in Barbados. We don’t have enough buses, but you know any thriving economy needs transportation to get people to and from their jobs. “It is a fact that they are people who do nonsense in the industry, but this is a new year and the men would like a change and the men want to change this whole system,” said Best. Indicating Tuesday’s work stoppage was not intended to hold government to ransom, he stressed that, “they [government] also have to work with us.” Best took issue with the lack of dialogue on a number of policies recently implemented, including the new uniforms, harsh penalties being handed down in the country’s courts and an excessive number of permits which were wildly distributed under the previous administration. “There are new laws that if you get reported twice, your licence will be taken away for six months to one year. If I come out here and get reported for having my shirt tail out or stopping at places other than a bus stop, that is six months I am at home. Now my family is going to suffer for six months. People are asking if there’s nothing else we could do, but people are being laid off everyday in Barbados. “If I go to court tomorrow and I go before a particular magistrate in the Bridgetown Magistrates’ Court, I may have to pay $1000 forthwith or spend 100 days in jail. A man may go in front of the same magistrate on a gun charge and he gets bail,” he said while arguing that often times Transport Board bus drivers were not being held to the same standard as PSV operators. As it relates to the new uniform, Best again stressed that drivers had no problem with wearing a uniform, but complained that the new ones were two expensive and potentially uncomfortable for drivers. “We want uniforms that will make us more comfortable. We have no problem with the transport authority selling a PSV crest costing $15-$20 that each man could buy a crest, put it on his grey shirt and when you’re coming out, you are a PSV worker along with your badge. If you don’t wear your crest, then you are not a part of this association and police can tell you to step off of the van,” he added. In addition, Best also appealed with authorities to use better judgment with the granting of PSV permits. He said under the previous DLP administration, already heavily-serviced areas were flooded, creating a “glut” on these routes. “One of the things that the ministry needs to do is to redistribute some of the permits. “Other places in Barbados are lagging badly in relation to transportation. They just took three ZR’s and sent them up Horse Hill (St Joseph) and they have no problems…The ministry can improvise and try to ease the men by taking some of these overcrowded routes and ease the situation which is making the men hustle even harder to make the extra money.” (BT)

DEES DO OR DIE – The Democratic Labour Party (DLP) could face extinction in coming years if its leaders do not undertake strong rebuilding efforts and come up with a set of strategies to reclaim confidence in the party. This assessment from lecturer in Political Science at the University of the West Indies Dr Kristina Hinds, who told Barbados TODAY that although there were still ardent DLP supporters, confidence in the party took a massive hit this year and would require major rebuilding. Taking a look back at 2018 and what the country could look forward to in the coming year, the political analyst insisted that there was no guarantee the DLP would remain a political force although it has been around some 60 years. She said the rebuilding process should also include the rallying of constituents and gathering of new support. “Otherwise, it is possible for another political party, I would say the UPP (United Progressive Party) in particular, to perhaps gain some of the ground that the DLP may have lost. But it (the UPP) too would have to do a lot of building and strong messaging and get candidates out there, some faces, apart from [its leader] Lynette Eastmond,” explained Hinds. “I think that the DLP has a large task ahead of it because the party was unable to secure any seats and it really does have to rebuild and find a way to gain a level of public confidence. I think the DLP really needs to do this quickly if it wants to have a future and not be a defunct political party. I think that the Democratic Labour Party ceasing to exist is definitely a possibility if they don’t use the next year or two very wisely and find some new and vibrant candidates and some messaging that resonates with people,” she warned. By the same token, she told Barbados TODAY that the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) had some work of its own to do. While Hinds agreed that the BLP would not suffer any major damage as a result of ongoing austerity measures, she believed some candidates, who were “fortunate” in the last general election, would have to build a good reputation over the next four years in order to hold on to their seats. “So in some ways, there are members of the Barbados Labour Party who would have to keep campaigning even though they are in power. I think they are just fortunate to have been washed in by the tide of discontent and similarly they can be washed out,” she said. However, she said with no elections around the corner, the BLP had the opportunity to complete some of the most difficult tasks and hope that they pay off over the next couple of years so that by the time it’s campaigning season, they have some successes that they can ride on going in the next election. In her assessment of 2018, the politics lecturer said it was quite mixed with a lot of anticipation leading up to the general election, followed by euphoria after the BLP captured all 30 seats, and then optimism and a level of sobriety “now that we have realized what the strategy is for economic recovery”. In a separate interview, veteran political scientist Peter Wickham told Barbados TODAY he believed this year heavy emphasis would remain on the rebuilding of the economy. He believed the restructuring of the Barbados Water Authority (BWA) and Transport Board “will take a lot of political energy”. Wickham said he was also anticipating the promised constitutional reform this year. As for the DLP, the pollster said he was looking forward to hearing who the “spokespeople” for that political party would be. “I think that will be the key initiative that I am looking for on their side. I think the spokespeople, especially the ones in economics, will tell us a bit about how the DLP is shaping up as an institution,” he said, pointing out that the party would require “people with economic muscle” in order to regain the confidence of the population. “I think that really is the DLP’s major deficiency now that they have to identify a candidate or spokesperson that has the kind of economic backbone that could match up to Prime Minister Mia Mottley, Minister in the Ministry of Finance Ryan Struaghn, Minister in the Ministry of Economic Affairs Marsha Caddle, Economic Advisor Clyde Mascoll and Avinash Persaud, which is fairly awesome,” said Wickham. So far only businessman Ryan Walters has expressed an interest in running for a St Michael constituency. Wickham said he would assume that the new DLP President and former Christ Church West candidate Verla De Peiza would also be interested in running for a seat in the future. “Whether she would go where she was before or change to St John is another matter. Wickham said while he did not see the ongoing restructuring having an adverse impact on the BLP’s chances in future elections, he believed the party’s popularity would “wax and wane” in between, which is normal. Taking a look back at 2018, Wickham told Barbados TODAY he believed it was a “turbulent” year for politics. “It was turbulent and novel. I have not seen a political year with as much activity as this; that was as impactful as this, especially when we consider that it was not only Barbados, but Guyana, Antigua, Grenada. So it was a heavy year politically,” he said. (BT)

‘A TIME TO HEAL’ – After taking serious hits to its membership last year, in 2019 the Congress of Trade Unions and Staff Associations of Barbados (CTUSAB), has declared it’s embarked on a mission to consolidate and heal divisions in the labour movement. CTUSAB president Edwin O’Neal suggested the umbrella union body was concerned about its show of strength in the new year. “In this year CTUSAB is concerned about healing and growing and that is something that I am really serious about,” said O’Neal. Last month, the Barbados Prison Officer’s Association (BPOA) broke away from CTUSAB on the same day that a prominent critic urged the fire and police associations to also quit CTUSAB. Following the court appearance of BPOA president Trevor Browne on a charge relating to allegedly “endeavouring to seduce four prison officers from their duties”, the association’s consultant, Senator Caswell Franklyn, declared that the prison officers had pulled out of CTUSAB. He contended the move was designed to protect Browne and other prison officers from liability under a 1982 amendment to the Prison Service Act, which prohibits prison officers from belonging to a trade union. At the time General Secretary of CTUSAB Denis Depeiza told Barbados TODAY that such decision must come from the membership of BPOA and not from a single individual. Depeiza added that CTUSAB had not received any word from BPOA indicating its intention to leave the congress. Three months earlier, the Barbados Secondary Teachers’ Union (BSTU) publicly threatened to sever ties with CTUSAB over differences with the hierarchy. Back in February the National Union of Public Workers (NUPW) held a vote on whether or not remain in CTUSAB. O’Neale revealed this morning that his organization is still not aware of BPOA membership taking a vote to leave CTUSAB and has seen no sign that others may be leaning towards severing ties. “No one else has indicated that they want to leave but I did not go out and ask a question to the membership about that and one does not normally ask that type of question. So, for all intents and purposes, all of the members of CTUSAB are in good standing. It is difficult to say if the BPOA is still a member of CTUSAB but if the spokesmen are saying that they are not then I don’t see how I can say that they are,” he said while drawing the analogy that an official divorce is not necessary for a marriage to be over. But O’Neale declared: “Regardless of any differences, we intend to make sure that our organisation remains strong. Our job first and foremost is to look after the welfare of the workers and that must always remain our primary focus.” Five years ago, the Barbados Workers’ Union (BWU) quit CTUSAB, contending that the umbrella body and the Ministry of Labour were conspiring against the union. Then BWU General Secretary Sir Roy Trotman said the union’s decision to cut ties with CTUSAB was “an effort to prevent a deliberate effort to marginalize the Barbados Workers’ Union and to prevent this trade union . . . from exercising the voice we have used effectively over more than 70 years to develop the cause of workers in both the public sector and in the private sector”. (BT)

‘FAIR TO MIDDLING’ CRUISE EARNINGS, SAYS FCCA – Cruise tourism generated some $142 million (US$71.03 million) for the Barbados economy last year, putting its performance half-way between 36 Caribbean destinations, according to the Florida-Caribbean Cruise Association (FCCA). But while the island scored high in visitor satisfaction, just over four in ten cruisers who called at Barbados don’t intend to return to the island. The latest FCCA cruise analysis survey placed Babados 18th among the 36 destinations participating in the survey. It reported that among all destinations, the industry generated nearly $6.8 billion (US$3.4 billion) in direct spending by passengers, 79,000 jobs and $1.8 billion ($903 million) in employee wages. The data, which was collected up to October 2018, looks at the economic impact of the cruise industry on each destination, passenger attributes and satisfaction and passenger, and crew and cruise line spending, among other things, for the 2017/2018 cruise year. The cruise industry employed 2,351 Barbadians, the 10th highest employment numbers, the survey said. While arrivals to Barbados for the year reached 730,900 passengers and 330,000 crew, only 630,800 passengers and 127,800 crew members disembarked their ships – a total of 757,800 onshore passengers and crew. On average, each passenger spent $166.24 (US$83.12), leaving $104.86 million (US$52.43 million) in Barbados. Average spend per crew was $109.8 (US$54.90), totalling $13.88 million (US$6.94 million), while total cruise line spending reached $23.32 million (US$11.66 million). In a 2015 study, the total passenger spend was US$43.30 million and crew total spend reached US$4.5 million – a 21.1 per cent and 54.1 per cent increase respectively for the 2017/2018 period. The survey said 56 per cent of transit passengers bought a tour and some 51.6 per cent of those surveyed said it was their first time visiting the island. On average passengers spent 4.02 hours onshore during their cruise visit here. Cozumel led all 36 destinations with US$474 million in cruise tourism contribution, followed by the Bahamas with US$406 million, Jamaica with US$245 million, the Cayman Islands with US$225 million and the USVI with US$185 million. Combined, these five destinations, with US$1.5 billion in direct expenditures, accounted for 46 per cent of the total cruise tourism expenditures among the 36 destinations. The Bahamas, with 2.97 million combined passenger and crew visits, had the second highest volume of visits in the Caribbean. Thus, each visit generated an average total expenditure of $136.53 across all passenger and crew visits. “Only five of the top eight destinations can be considered high volume destinations with more than one million passenger visits during the cruise year – Cozumel (3.5 million) the Bahamas (2.4 million), Jamaica (1.8 million), the Cayman Islands (1.6 million) and Puerto Rico (1.1 million). The remaining three – St Kitts (979,000), USVI (944,000) and St. Maarten (784,000) each had under 1 million visitors in the 2017/18 cruise year,” said the 110-page document. It pointed out that direct expenditures per passenger across all destinations remained virtually unchanged from $133.78 during the 2014/2015 cruise year to $133.25 during the 2017/2018 cruise year. This slight decline in the average per passenger spend was largely due to “a decrease in the watches and jewelry category”. “In addition, fewer passengers spent money on taxis and local transportation this year compared to 2014/15 – 18.7 per cent versus 23.7 per cent – resulting in an overall weighted average decrease of about $0.61 per passenger,” it added. “These decreases were only partially offset by increases in the average expenditure per passenger for shore excursions, and local crafts and souvenirs which increased by 8.3 per cent and 11 per cent, respectively,” said the findings. The report also noted that damages from hurricanes Irma and Maria resulted in nearly two million fewer passenger visits to St Maarten and the USVI – the top two destinations in terms of average per passenger spend in both studies. “Had these two destinations received a similar number of onshore visits as in the 2014/2015 study, the overall year-over-year average per passenger spend would have actually increased,” it explained. The Caribbean remains the world’s most popular cruise destination, with the 36 destinations welcoming 29.5 million passengers and 11.3 million crew arrivals during the review period. “Of these, just under 39 per cent of the crew, 4.4 million, and 85 per cent of the passengers, 25.2 million, disembarked and visited the destinations,” it explained. On a scale of one to ten, Barbados received one of the highest scores, 8.20, for overall satisfaction among guests, with 93 per cent satisfied and seven per cent not satisfied. This placed the country 7th on the satisfaction scale, behind Cozumel, Puerto Vallarta, Curacao, Aruba, St Kitts, Mazatlán. But only 57 per cent indicated that they were likely to return to the destination while 43 per cent were not likely to return. Passengers to Barbados were also highly satisfied with their purchased tour, knowledge of their guide, professionalism of their guide, value of their tour, taxis and/or local transport. (BT)

NO CAN DO CHRISTMAS DAY SHOPPING, SAYS ABED – The idea of Bridgetown being opened on Christmas and other public holidays is a non-starter for prominent businessman Eddie Abed – unless Bridgetown is made a duty-free zone. Abed was responding to concerns raised by Minister of Tourism Kerrie Symmonds after cruise ship visitors found City shops closed on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day. Although closed stores has been the norm during the holiday season, the minister declared that the practice must end. Symmonds told Captain Bart Vaartjes of the cruise ship Zuiderdam, which made an inaugural call at the Bridgetown Port on Monday: “I want this to be the last year, captain, that folks like you come here bringing thousands of people to our shores at Christmas time and the streets of Bridgetown are dead. I think that we all have to understand that tourism is our business and we all must seriously be playing our part.” But Abed told Barbados TODAY that such an arrangement under the current business construct was simply not feasible, declaring that businesses cannot meet the expenses associated with opening on holidays. The Holidays with Pay Act governs the overtime employers are required to pay workers on bank holidays. “To open a shop on a Sunday and a bank holiday requires tremendous overheads because it is not only a staffing issue and the overtime to go with it, but there is the question of the other inputs that go into running a shop. So, one must first make sure that there is enough activity to cover that overhead but historically there has not been,” Abed explained. The former head of the Barbados Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCCI) argued that Barbados was not among the most competitive shopping jurisdictions on cruise ship routes. “The reality is that the tourist coming into Bridgetown to shop, want to do so at competitive prices. By that I mean that prices must not only be competitive to what they get in their home country but also the other islands they have already visited or will visit. We have so few players in tax-free merchandise in Barbados that the offerings tend to be limited and from what I heard, the competitiveness is not as good as it could be. The other retailers do not have the merchandise nor the pricing that would attract the tourist, hence they do not open,” he said. The fabric merchant called on Government to declare Bridgetown a duty-free zone in a bid to increase the port of call’s competitiveness which would ensure that shops open during holidays. “Let us make Bridgetown a duty-free center so that not only tourist could purchase duty-free but also locals with foreign currency. Once we have a basic market into which we can sell, you can find many new players coming and the question of opening on holidays will be a moot point because the demand will outstrip the need,” said Abed, who revealed that he and other business owners have tried to open at Christmas in the past but those attempts “failed miserably”. “This question of Bridgetown opening on Sundays and public holidays is one that has been around for a while. One of the driving forces for opening shops in the Bridgetown Cruise Terminal was to mitigate that issue. You would find that those retail outlets that cater to duty-free merchandise also have a store in the cruise terminal and for them there is no need to duplicate that resource,” he told Barbados TODAY. (BT)

BEACH NOT BLOCKED – A beach bar has taken over a significant section of the popular Batts Rock, but its French owner is denying it is barring Barbadians from the beach. Jules “Papa Jules” Gualdoni is dismissing a WhatsApp message which was being circulated over the weekend, indicating that a foreign entity had been given a licence to operate at Batts Rock, St Michael, and that it had “effectively taken over the Bajan people’s beach”. La Cabane, which was opened four months ago, features a bar and cooking area while several tables, chairs and benches occupy the beachfront under white umbrellas. Gualdoni said he was given permission to operate by the National Conservation Commission (NCC). He maintained he was not seeking to privatise the beach, pointing out that the bar was open to both locals and tourists, and there was no restriction of access through the area, located next to the lifeguard station. “It’s a beach; we are just renting the space. People can walk through,” Gualdoni told the DAILY NATION yesterday. (MB)

RESPECT THE FORCE – Respect for law enforcement must be maintained at all cost. This firm assertion comes from Deputy Commissioner of Police, Erwin Boyce, in wake of reports that his officers were shot at in the wee hours of New Year’s Day. “It is a major concern to us and we will put all the energies required for such an investigation into it. All of the investigative energies to bring the culprit or culprits to justice will be brought to bear,” warned Boyce. It was reported that two of three occupants of a fleeing vehicle escaped after police responded to a burglary in progress at Rendezvous, Christ Church around 3:45 a.m.Acting police public relations officer Sergeant Michael Blackman reported that lawmen were acting on a tip-off when they ventured to the location. On arrival they intercepted a blue motorcar, which sped off towards Forde’s Road.Officer Blackman said shots were fired at the police from the fleeing vehicle before it was abandoned near Forde’s Road. The underbody of the police vehicle was damaged. The “getaway” car was also damaged. There were no reports of injuries. However, this afternoon Boyce told Barbados TODAY that while it was not the first time officers were allegedly attacked in the line of duty, the shooting was clear indicator that respect for law enforcement must be given close attention. “We will be naïve if we were to say that we do not expect that people would not challenge us from time to time. Because of the nature of policing, which deals with the correction of behaviour, people will challenge us. But we must monitor the level of disrespect for authority and disrespect for law and order. We need to take corrective, preventative action early in order to stop any developing trend,” he said. The Deputy Commissioner made it clear that there was no reason to push the panic button just yet; as such attacks on police were rare. However he contended that whenever such incidents rear their head, they must be nipped in the bud. “This is not a regular activity or something that we encounter very often but when it is done we look at all of the issues so that we could respond or pre-empt any such activity,” he added. The force’s second-in-command also told Barbados TODAY that the police were always working on new deterrent measures and he therefore expected that efforts would be ramped up in coming weeks. “We are always revising and relooking our legislation. We are always looking at the way that we do things. This includes our public relations because we are always looking at the force’s image within the society. These adjustments are necessary to fine-tune our responses and to make our organization as current as it could be,” he pointed out. Tuesday’s incident was a fiery start to 2019, on heels of growing concerns over gun violence last year. At the end of 2018, Barbados recorded close 30 murders with a large number involving the use of a firearm. (BT)

FAMILY STILL AT A LOSS – A St. Michael family is still seeking answers regarding the killing of their loved one. Almost four months after the bodies of Daniel Griffith and his friend Dario Yearwood were discovered in an apparent double murder on a visit to Jamaica, Griffith’s family said they were no closer to information regarding who killed the father of two. It was reported that in early September last year, the burnt and partially decomposed bodies of the Barbadians were found in some bushes two days after arrival. In an interview with the DAILY NATION, Petra Fenty, Griffith’s eldest sister, said that since news of the murders, her family had received no information from either local or Jamaican police officials with respect to whether they were closer to apprehending the murderer(s), or obtained any further knowledge surrounding what led to the deaths. (DN)

NO SURETY, SO OFF TO DODDS – A 34-year-old man landed on remand for the next 28 days after he was unable to get a surety to sign his bail. Damian Ricardo Connell, of No 39 Piedmont Park, Long Gap, St Michael is charged with assaulting and resisting police constable Troy Mason on December 30 while he was executing his duties. He pleaded not guilty to the two offences and also to stealing two cellular phones worth $700 belonging to Terry Jordan on the same day. Magistrate Douglas Frederick remanded the accused until January 30 to reappear in the District ‘A’ Magistrates’ Court. (BT)

NO OBJECTION TO BAIL FOR MAYERS – A St Thomas man who allegedly wounded another on Christmas Day will make his next appearance in the District ‘A’ Magistrates’ Court on April 11. When McPherson Lee-Anderson Dacosta Mayers, of Church Gap, Hillaby, appeared before Magistrate Douglas Frederick today he denied unlawfully and maliciously wounding Wilbert Stoute. There was no objection to bail from prosecutor police constable Kevin Forde. Mayers was granted $3,000 bail, which he secured with one surety. (BT)

ACCUSED TO STAY AWAY FROM BABY’S MOTHER – A water quality officer charged with wounding the mother of his child was granted $2,500 bail when he appeared in court today. It is alleged that Wesley Andrew Devere Walcott, of Foursquare Valley, St Philip unlawfully and maliciously committed the act against Joy Ann Brathwaite on December 31. He was not required to plead to the charge as it allegedly occurred in the District ‘C’ jurisdiction. He will make his next appearance in that court on January 10. In the meantime, Magistrate Douglas Frederick ordered that he stay away from the complainant and not go to her workplace. “To tell the truth I don’t want to see she. I will send somebody for my child and when I have to take her back send the same person . . . . To get my child money every week, I will put money in one of my accounts and give her the bank card to access it,” Walcott told Frederick in the District ‘A’ Magistrates’ Court before he was released. (BT)

HOSPITAL REALITY CHECK FOR ADDICT – Cocaine addict Chaquan Taurell Shawniko Pilgrim will know in three weeks whether he qualifies for drug rehabilitation.The 23-year-old, of Lot 200 Rendezvous Gardens, Christ Church was remanded to the Psychiatric Hospital until January 23 for observation after pleading guilty to having an apparatus in his possession for the misuse of the illegal drug. He told Magistrate Douglas Frederick that he uses cocaine as a “means to escape from reality”. The magistrate however pointed out that the drug had “landed you hard and right back to earth”. Pilgrim responded: “At one point in time I got that escape that I wanted. I am trying to stop.” His mother also addressed the court telling the magistrate that “I was struggling with him for the past three years. . . . I would like help for him.” According to the prosecutor police were on patrol along Golf Club Road, Christ Church when they saw Pilgrim crossing a nearby street while fidgeting and acting suspiciously. He was approached and a search was requested to which he consented. In his pocket was a hard, transparent plastic bottle with a hole at the top containing cocaine residue. (BT)

ASHBY REMANDED UNTIL JANUARY 30 – Accused Jamar Leon Ashby will make his next appearance before this island’s chief magistrate in another 28 days for allegedly stealing most of the contents from another man’s house. The Montrose, Christ Church resident is accused of entering the home of Luther Mayers between September 23 and October 1, 2017 and stealing over $24,000 in items including a $12,000 living room set worth, $2,900 in tables and a $1,000 television set. Ashby was not required to plead to the indictable charge, which allegedly took place in the District ‘B’ jurisdiction. He is also accused of stealing a $1,500 motorcycle belonging to Anthony Hoyte on December 18, 2018. Among the objections to bail raised by police prosecutor Constable Kevin Forde was that the accused he had a propensity to commit such offences. “I have nothing to say right now,” Ashby said when asked by District ‘A’ Magistrate Douglas Frederick whether he would like to make an application for bail. He was remanded and will make his next appearance before Chief Magistrate Christopher Birch on January 30. (BT)

‘INTOXICATED’ – After taking one look at Magistrate Douglas Frederick today, 55-year-old Richard Dacosta Jordan decided to plead guilty to a criminal charge in the District ‘A’ Magistrates’ Court. “I came here and plead guilty because I don’t want to waste the court’s time. I see your face don’t look right. You don’t look pleased. I know you, you are usually a handsome fella but it look like you stressed out already for the year,” Jordan of no fixed place of abode told Frederick, causing those in court to erupt with laughter. The accused admitted to the charge that being a reputed thief he loitered at Capri Condominiums located in Christ Church on December 16 with intent to commit burglary. Prosecutor Police Constable Kevin Forde said a resident encountered Jordan near the pool area and asked him his reasons for being there. He reportedly replied that he was waiting for a guest who had gone upstairs. The apartment owner also confronted him but he fled the scene by climbing over a metal fence and onto Rockley Beach. He was confronted later that same day but again fled. However, video footage showed Jordan trying to open several doors near the pool area with no success. On his arrest he was shown pictures of his deeds taken from the footage and he admitted to the crime. However he gave the magistrate a different account today. “The complainant came to Worthing Police Station and I was on an identification parade. He did not pick me out he picked someone else,” Jordan said to which the magistrate then said that he could not accept the plea if that was the case. “Then sir I did it. I did it. I did it, I don’t want to go to St Philip,” the accused said, declaring that he was “intoxicated” when he first entered the dock. Frederick replied: “I must vacate the plea and give you a chance . . . for sober reflection.” Jordan was remanded to Dodds and will return to the District ‘A’ Magistrates’ Court on January 30 when he tells the magistrate whether he is guilty or not guilty of the crime. (BT)

HOLDER IS NUMBER TWO – West Indies captain Jason Holder has started the new year as the number two-ranked all-rounder in Tests and in the top 10 of the bowlers’ rankings. In the latest rankings announced Monday by the International Cricket Council, Holder has risen two places in the bowlers’ rankings to 10, placing him among the elite bowlers in the longest format. As a result of his progress, he also jumped two places in the all-rounders’ rankings, and is only now behind Bangladesh captain Shakib-al-Hasan. His rise comes despite missing the recent tour of Bangladesh through injury. Holder had an outstanding year with the ball, claiming 33 wickets from six Tests at an amazing average of 11.87 – the best by any bowler in a calendar year for the last hundred years. The 27-year-old seamer picked up 12 wickets during Sri Lanka’s three-Test tour of the Caribbean and followed up with 16 scalps in a two-Test home series against Bangladesh. Meanwhile, Seasoned all-rounder Deandra Dottin is the only West Indies player to make it into the ICC Teams-of-the-Year. The 27-year-old was named in the One-Day International squad but missed out on a spot in the Twenty20 International XI. Team selection was based on performances during the calendar year 2018 and Dottin managed to post only modest numbers, with 114 runs in five ODIs with one half-century, while bagging 11 wickets with her sharp medium pace. She also failed to really spark in the T20 format where she underwhelmed during the historic ICC stand-alone tournament last November in the Caribbean, gathering 121 in five innings. Dottin snatched a career-best five-wicket haul during the championship to end with 10 wickets. There was no place in the ODI squad for 20-year-old West Indies opener Hayley Matthews despite her maiden hundred against South Africa last September. She finished 2018 with 164 runs at an average of 32. And her captain Stafanie Taylor was also snubbed despite averaging 50 in ODIs this year and taking seven wickets with her off-spin. (BT)

FERDINAND ON THE MEND – Barbadian cricketer Jeshua Ferdinand is almost out of the woods as he battles a rare autoimmune disorder. Ferdinand fell ill while playing cricket in East Sussex, England in 2017. He only managed to play two games before he became ill and had to be hospitalized. He was diagnosed with Guillain–Barré syndrome which is a rare autoimmune disorder which is characterized by rapid onset of muscle weakness caused by the immune system damaging the body’s nervous syndrome. The twenty-five-year-old told Barbados TODAY that he was back home in Barbados and his recovery was going smoothly thus far. “It has been up and down. I am now back from England. Right now, it is all positive. It has been positive for the most so I cannot complain,” he said, adding that undergoing therapy with Jeffery Gay Jr. at Halos Health had resulted in vast improvement. “I came out of Queen Elizabeth Hospital and I was working with my personal trainer but unfortunately I had to stop and I started working so the times were really difficult. So, a guy I used to play cricket with does massages and at the time I needed a massage so I met [Jeffery] through him. I asked him about the gym that he had and I decided to take a leap and told him I wanted to work with him as a trial and this is two months that I was with him and it has been great improvement since then,” Ferdinand told Barbados TODAY. The former Lodge School student and passionate cricketer said that both his legs were affected by the autoimmune disease. However he now generally has mobility in his legs though with limitations in his ankles. “Both legs were affected but the right side of my body was affected more. But, right now I have full motion except for my ankles to my toes the movement is minimum. But from my waist down to my ankles,” he said, adding that his family was thankful that he was alive and well. “From the time I came home they were thankful even though I had to spend a couple weeks in the QEH. They were thankful for life. Now that I am walking that is a major thing that I have come so far,” Ferdinand said, adding that since being diagnosed with Guillain–Barré syndrome he had a new appreciation for life and faith. “For sure [I appreciate life] and faith. You know God has brought me through a lot. You know a lot of people have been praying and it has been a major help as well. I am thankful for life. Because reading up on Gullian-Barre Syndrome it can be life-threatening and thankfully I did not reach that point. Although I was not able to walk and was bed-ridden for a while, the fact is that I am still alive and there is no need to be in an induced coma like a lot of people I read about. I am thankful for that,” Ferdinand said, adding that at the moment he was not in need of any financial assistance as his medical bill had been cleared. “Right now, no, I would not need the funds right now. I am past the worst. The hospital fees have been paid in full. It is just a matter of rehab and continuing therapy that need to be paid right now,” he said, adding that he hoped to return to England and continue his passion which was playing cricket. “That is my hope. I hope that I would be able to play cricket again. For sure I will be back in England,” Ferdinand said, noting he would like to thank everyone who has assisted him. (BT)

MAXIE TAYLOR PASSES ON – Musician Maxie Taylor has passed. Taylor, who was a drummer with the group Ivory, is said to have suffered a heart attack. He is the writer of two well-loved Barbadian songs Things Fall Apart and When You're Not Around, penned when he was still a teenager. More recently, Taylor showed a lighter side with his “Pastafarian" weather reports on Facebook. His tongue-in-cheek forecasts, delivered in full Bajan dialect, were done with a colander on his head. (DN)

For daily or breaking news reports follow us on Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter & Facebook. That’s all for today folks. There are 362 days left in the year. Shalom! #thechasefilesdailynewscap #thechasefiles# dailynewscapsbythechasefiles

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