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takenbypeter · 1 year

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Anything to Make Him Smile

Bucky Barnes x reader

Words: 723

Number 24: "Have I entered an alternate universe or did you really just crack a smile for me?"

Part 2 - Anything To Make You Smile

Bucky Barnes.

Practically the most stoic man you’ve ever met.

You’ve only interacted with him a few times, with you being new to the workplace and all but whenever you caught sight of him, he was frowning.

You offered him a smile each time you saw him passing in the hallways but with each time he’d just move his eyebrows slightly in acknowledgment.

The only time you’ve ever seen Bucky Barnes smile was when he was with Sam. And it wasn’t just a smile, it was almost full on laughter when those two got together.

That’s actually what first got you curious in the first place.

The first time you saw his smile you couldn’t believe it. You honestly didn’t even know it was possible that he could make that expression.

His wide toothed smile was charming yet authentic and since catching sight of it you made it a goal to try to make him smile just once. It was honestly stupid but yeah it was a goal of yours. You didn’t try too hard though, not wanting to push it or be weird about the whole situation. You’ve given him genuine compliments, tried small talk, brought him breakfast, honestly it may have been a little much but he never really cracked for you. And then it hit you, what if he just didn’t like you.

I mean you wouldn’t hold it past him, but you’ve really never given him reason to dislike you. After some more thinking you’ve realized that all the small talk, all the compliments you’ve given, what if you’re just the creepy coworker to him. And with that thought you made the decision to back off not wanting to make him uncomfortable.

You thought your lack of presence would be unnoticed. But what you didn’t know was Bucky actually found your presence appealing. At first it was annoying the way you seemed to always want to talk to him but after the first few times it became less irritating and more comforting. Most people were intimidated by him but you, you went out of your way to look for him. So when you stopped he of course noticed. He wasn’t going to say anything but he noticed.

Well this particular morning you were by the coffee machine chatting with Sam when Bucky strode up to the machine making himself a cup. Was he eavesdropping on the conversation? Maybe.

You were in the middle of the story enthusiastically running it by Sam as he sipped his morning coffee, enthralled by your tale.

Bucky listened as you told your story, and as you deliver the ending, he can’t help but feel the corners of his lips tug upwards as he stands in his little corner. Its not like the line was even funny, it’s how you delivered it and how excited you were that really got him.

Bucky thought nothing of the moment but he heard you stop. Curious he turned his head and saw you looking at him, surprise written on your face. Confused, he waited before you pointed with a grin, “have I entered an alternate universe or did you really just crack a smile for me?"

James’ smile dropped a little surprised by your sudden comment towards him, “you did! I totally just got you to smile! God do you know how long I’ve been trying to get this guy to crack for me? You make it look so easy,” you added, directing that towards Sam who’s clearly entertained by the events that were unfolding in front of him.

“You’ve been trying to make me…smile?” He asked, confirming if he heard you correctly.

“Yesss,” you held out the last consonant clearly excited, “and I finally did it, without even trying in the moment.”

Bucky stared at you like you had two heads, before grabbing a bagel from the common table, “yeah okay,” he said, taking a bite and walking away.

Sam just hit your shoulder gaining your attention, “don’t worry, he’ll come around, it took me years with that guy.”

His words gave you some comfort at least as you grabbed your mug and nodded at his words before taking a big sip of your drink.

Bucky definitely thought you were weird now but who cares?

You got him to crack and that’s all that mattered. Baby steps.

Dialogue Prompts

#bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes x reader #marvel fanfiction #marvel fanfic #marvel imagine #marvel x reader #mcu fanfiction #mcu fanfic #mcu x reader #mcu imagine #avengers fanfiction #avengers fanfic #avengers imagine #avengers x reader #dialogue prompts

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milliebobbyflay · 5 months

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Okay so I've spent a while thinking about how to word my actual problem with homestuck 2, and the works that make up post-canon homestuck more broadly. I think a lot of people resort to nitpicking bits of awkward writing or art in some attempt to pinpoint a source to an underlying sort of hollow uncanniness, which is funny because homestuck's supposed golden age of acts 1-5 are themselves FAR more of a tonally inconsistent mess of odd character beats, jokes that don't always land, and janky looking art.

Homestuck 2 has been written and drawn by very talented and passionate artists from the beginning, I think the actual issue comes down to a mix between the general pitfalls of hiring fans and the particulars of hussie's outsider background and unorthodox writing style.

First is the issue of hiring fans in general; while it can seem like an easy shortcut to finding talented writers already familiar with the voice and story of the original work, you have to be very aware of how fan culture operates. Beyond the obvious pitfalls that fans are unlikely to approach the story from a detached perspective, there is the larger issue that past a certain point fandom becomes essentially self sustaining. Once a fandom has existed for a long enough period, its most avid members have likely spent FAR more time engaging with other fan works than they have with the original art object. Fandom and the art it produces are, in this way, a sort of a folk tradition; artists are imitating and responding to other artists, characters become archetypes through which to explore certain ideas and dynamics, and the values and tastes of the most prolific and influential fan artists become as inseparable from a participants mental image of the character as the original work itself.

For an example, the affected theatrical mannerisms and cruelty Vriska adopts while in her Mindfang persona have become inseparable from the popular view of the character. Despite the fact that it's heavily signposted as a sort of role playing performance from the jump and she's more or less dropped it by the back half of the comic, it was nevertheless how she had acted in the bulk of her scenes around the time the ur-texts of homestuck fandom were being written, and as so an understandable misread of a character became inscribed into the fandom canon, and by extension her characterization in Homestuck 2.

All of this is extrapolated by the sort of unorthdox, building-the-plane-while-flying-it manner in which Hussie's writing style developed.

Based on his commentary, I get the sense that Andrew is an incredibly clever and thoughtful writer who lacks the theory and vocabulary to precisely describe his process. He tends to communicate in sort of abstract metaphors which aim to bridge the gap in explaining the actual conscious process he uses to plot his stories, but the way he talks about technical nuts and bolts writing craft stuff gives me the impression that his approach is largely intuitive, bordering on unconscious. He's a lot better at describing how he writes than what he writes or why.

You can of course piece a lot this together—his approach to art draws from the tradition of videogame spritework, where the visuals exist as a utilitarian vehicle for conveying information first and a work of illustration only inasmuch is needed to serve the greater story. His character writing draws more from a synthesis of literary fiction, sitcom writing, and "making up a guy" style posting humor, where characters are defined more by their life experiences and underlying psychology than by their goals and values, but also seem to have largely been constructed backwards from a starting point of a funny or interesting manner of speaking. Importantly though, I don't get the sense that these were conscious decisions, just that to Hussie they seemed like the logical way to approach these tasks, and I don't really think he could outline them in a way that would actually help a new team of creators grok how to draw and write in a way that feels like homestuck. I also don't think Hussie could actually explain the psychology that undergirds his character writing, I think he was mostly just drawing on his own life experience and imagining how this sort of character might logically speak and act.

As a novelist, and Hussie is one, both your thought processes and the sum total of your worldview and life experience are just as important to your work as the actual conscious decisions you're making, and I think that where there are gaps in understanding, the new writers are filling in the gaps with both a more conventional approach to the creative process and over a decade of accumulated fanon, and I think that's why homestuck 2 never really rises above feeling like a very well-made fanfic to me?

#homestuck #homestuck meta #homestuck 2 #hom3stuck #homestuck^2 #loooooooongpost #vriska #vriska serket

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zabiume · 14 days

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I really like the fact that Ichigo is a translator it wasn’t something that i ever thought he would do but it somehow works. I never thought he’d become captain I just don’t see it for him which is why it’s confusing when people say he should’ve become one ?? Like no way 😬

What do you think about him being a translator ? Also what did you think about the use of him being captain ?

ohhh, this is such a dead horse topic on my blog at this point, but yeah, i've never vibed with ichigo being a captain, mainly because a) he's much, much stronger than the average bleach captain😅, b) the thematic point of the story was that he's the living world protagonist and rukia is the soul society protagonist (at least during the first arc), and honestly if anyone has a believable motivation for "changing the system," it should be rukia, who grew up in the worst side of that system, and c) it's hard for me to wrap my head around what he would even do there. his duties and narrative goals have long transcended the mere hollow-purging he was doing in the first arc, i mean he was literally fighting a god in the last arc to prevent the collapse of the three worlds 💀 if anything, ichigo cares about all the realms, given how many times characters in TYBW comment on how virtuous he is because he's willing to rescue even his past enemies if they're no longer causing any trouble to him.

i think the reason this comes up a lot in fan circles is not because of how people perceive ichigo, but how they perceive soul society. shinigami characters are very popular, so it's easy to assume a lot of fans see them as the good guys. personally, i think kubo writes them as a very "do whatever is necessary to keep up the status quo" guys who act in soul society's best interest first and foremost, but aren't all necessarily bad people. it's the classic "good individuals ≠ good system" set-up.

i don't think kubo concerns himself with whether a side character is morally good or bad, he just writes them as having motivations that are consistent with who they are as people. for instance, mayuri isn't "good" but he acts in accordance with his own specific set of values. rukia and renji are "good" because their values often align with ichigo's. it's kind of like...the individuals might be likeable or even nice, but the system itself has done some pretty corrupt things. systems are slow to change, so i'd find it pretty unrealistic for one individual to be able to change centuries worth of practices overnight. of course, soul society has changed because of him, but so has everyone else. byakuya met ichigo and byakuya changed, grimmjow met ichigo and grimmjow changed, riruka met ichigo and riruka changed, etc etc. he's the consistent one, it's the others that change because of his influence. he's already done all of this without being captain, so i don't know how it would be interesting, narratively, for him to attain that role. what would it say about the character that hasn't already been said? it's implied that soul society aspires to reach his level, not the other way around, so it doesn't make sense to posit them as aspirational here. as the hero, ichigo is the aspirational one for most of the characters in the series.

also, i know this isn't a popular opinion, but i like that ichigo has parts of every "identity" in his blood (shinigami, hollow, quincy, fullbringer etc etc😂). therefore, it makes sense to me that he's got allegiances to every group, just as he's got enemies. he's bigger than any one particular group.

coming to his living world job, i think it makes perfect sense and i love how kubo phrases it

from a watsonian perspective, we knew from the very start that ichigo is good at english, likes it, etc etc. we also knew from the very beginning that he wasn't much help around the clinic and that isshin actually urged him to stay away from it, even though i would've been equally okay with him being a doctor. ichigo is smart and he has a great sense of compassion, so that's not at all a bad job for him either.

HOWEVER, my most favorite thing about it is, again, coming back to how kubo phrases it. ichigo as a character has always had insight into both sides, the dead and the living, that's what makes him special as a human, so in a way, he's always been a translator, it's just the language that changes. he's understood the language of grief, managed to bridge the gap between the dead and the living. he's been able to convince soul society to return ginjou's body by communicating the real anguish that ginjou felt as a soul reaper. he's been able to understand the arrancars even as he was fighting them, and in silent victory, he's even been able to empathize with aizen! ichigo is all about understanding, as you can see here in one of my favorite bleach chapters:

ichigo is very intuitive, very eager to understand another heart and build connections, and what else is translation other than accessing a whole other language, a whole other mind, trying to understand it? it might not be accurate or exact, but it comes close, and that's the joy of translation, isn't it? finding the most resonant way to have one world connect with another? the way i phrase something might be different from the way you phrase it, but feelings are universal and no one gets that better than ichigo, who has repeatedly understood the feelings of characters whom he shares no culture with. there's also a meta-ness to the "connecting two different worlds:" bleach has always had contrasts (the modern world, which ichigo lives in, vs the ancient world soul society is modeled on; the western influences on bleach's aesthetics, while bleach itself is a japanese story). ichigo ties everything together, so it's just very fitting and satisfying for him to occupy a position like this!

obviously, it also makes sense for practical reasons, considering the work-from-home nature of the job allows him to be on stand-by in case of any emergencies that need him, and it allows him to break the shonen generational curse by being very involved in his son's upbringing😂. kubo mentioned on klub outside recently that kazui's room was built according to ichigo's specifications, and that's a level of involvement i've always expected from ichigo😅 he's a homebody at heart, he loves having a home and a family and i think any job that allows him to be close to them is a good one! kubo gets a lot of deserved criticism, but i think he's always known his characters well, so i like it! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

#bleach has plenty wrong with it but i think a lot of it's criticism in the GP stems from people projecting their nrt trauma onto bleach😂#and like. i'm sorry you had a bad experience there but ichigo is not naruto & ichi/hime isnt a nrt endgame ship & bleach is not nrt!#it might be only slightly better but it IS still...better😅#do i even tag this....i never check the ichigo tag so idk what the vibe is like there #ichigo kurosaki #asks #i personally enjoyed the idea of it even back then because some ichihime writers were writing him as one well before it was even canon lmao

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itwoodbeprefect · 4 months

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Fic Writing Review 2023 🌈

i wanted to take a moment to reflect on the past year and bring it to a nice close, so i took to tumblr search and google to see if there was some sort of tag game going around. i frankensteined this list of questions from a few different versions of what was probably originally the same thing, but the nature of The Website of course makes it impossible to locate an original, so this is me just sort of, well, joining the fun by starting a parallel thread.

Words and Fics (on ao3) 📚

words posted: 73,947, but this is a little deceptive because all the words for A flip-flop state of mind currently get counted for 2023, so it's probably something closer to 45-50k

fics posted: 21, which will eventually go down to 19 when i update the two multi-chapter works and they get sorted into the new year

first fic: Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream Throuple [Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948)]

last fic: Bases loaded, do your dance [h50]

Ships and Fandoms ⚓

ao3 tells me the following:

Starsky & Hutch (8)

Hawaii Five-0 (2010) (7)

Ted Lasso (TV) (2)

Stargate Atlantis (1)

Hard Core Logo (1996) (1)

Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948) (1)

Top Gun (Movies) (1)

and for each of those it's probably the ship you most expect if you know the thing (and the way fandom works), except maybe ted lasso (both fics are keeley/roy/jamie) and sga (a gen team fic, no ships).

Top 5 Fics by Kudos 🏆

no big surprises here. ted lasso was easily the biggest fandom i've written for this year (not to mention that these two fics had the good fortune of being posted very soon after the finale), followed by h50 long before s&h comes on the scene:

How To Build A Triangle (or accidentally fall headlong into one, or whatever the fuck) [ted lasso]

Honey honey, how you thrill me (Honey honey, nearly kill me) [ted lasso]

A flip-flop state of mind [h50]

Oh, kiss me like the final meal (Yeah, kiss me like we die tonight) [h50]

Something old, something new [h50]

Top 5 Favorite Fics 💖

these are in no particular order!

3 AM, the time when most people die - this is a hard core logo (1996 canadian movie) fic which just kind of Happened, and it hung around on ao3 for a solid few days in a 0 kudos 10 hits sort of state, which had me giggling every time i thought about it. 2023 goal of writing for me, myself & i achieved (0 kudos on a fic)! ✅ (that said, it does also bring me great joy to see that the number is upwards of zero now. lovely to see an obscure thing find its audience. <3)

Your hands in my back pockets - a starsky/hutch fic, and in some ways the opposite to the previous one. i had a "this is alright" sort of feeling about it when i hit post, and the (lovely! very flattering!) way people responded to it surprised me somewhat. reading it back now, i don't know what bothered me about it at first - it's nice, it flows, it's all good! plus, i really like the title. it's a good s/h title.

POV: It’s a lovely day, you’re sipping a refreshing cold drink on your 70s apartment balcony, and the upstairs neighbor who always waters the sago palm outside your front door when you forget about it has that one friend over and his windows wide open. - this is a starsky/hutch all dialogue fic, and it was just plain fun! very easy to write, thankfully not hard to read, and the title is completely ridiculous in a way that still gives me a kick.

How To Build A Triangle (or accidentally fall headlong into one, or whatever the fuck) - can't not mention this one, i think. it's the roy/jamie/keeley ted lasso fic i wrote in record time (for me), and i had a blast doing that and i think that's palpable in the end result. i have warm memories of this!

Oh, kiss me like the final meal (Yeah, kiss me like we die tonight) - h50! steve/danny! they'd gotten swamped by all the starsky/hutch in 2022, but they made a minor comeback this past year. and again, this fic was just plain fun - a scene that really needed the mcdanno rewrite, and i'm glad it happened, and that it decided to flow so smoothly it grew twice as long as intended. the gag with the gun is still good, the banter works, and i like "it tastes like a laugh".

Fandom Fic Events 🤝

my knee-jerk first thought was none, which would have been a blatant lie for this year! i wrote a fic for the SHareCon (starsky/hutch con) zine, which is currently still zine-only but will appear on ao3 at some point in the future, and i also wrote something for this year's Starsky & Hutch Advent Calendar, which can be found here (which will also lead you to all the other lovely advent calendar gifts of 2023 and previous years!). neither of these things would have happened if starsky & hutch fandom hadn't been such a warm, welcoming, unbelievably well-organized space. <3

Projects for 2024 👀

oh god. oh god i have so many things on the grill.

the end of 2023 was a stretch of time where i did write some, and at times even a very decent amount, but nothing seemed to be getting finished - which was annoying for a bit, and then sort of petered out into oh well. it'll happen, eventually, when it wants to. which means that currently i have a whole bunch of nearly finished things for a whole bunch of fandoms:

bad buddy - should this be top of the list? who knows. but oh, i need to write something for this - i have to, i need to, you know. it's just that it's turning out to be more of a challenge than most new things i start writing for, because i do feel i have a reasonable grip on the characters, but the fact that it's a thai series which i'm only consuming through fan-generated subtitles is clashing with some of the fundamentals of how i usually write fic, as it turns out. usually i watch a thing and then mimic character voices to write a section of (probably mostly, maybe only) dialogue, which then gets filled out with descriptions and an actual setting later on. the problem with bad buddy is that i love, love subtitles, and i love, love the people who write them, but they do (understandably! naturally!) lead to some very clunky english at times, and i just can't write things like "are you chickened out, fierce eyes". i cannot. which means i need to half-invent the right english character voice (and how that blends with the little i know of thai speaking patterns and customs), which takes away the thing i usually lean on way more heavily than i previously realized i did, so. it's a journey! it's an experiment! i'm learning things! i'm making choices! and i'm pumped about it but it's also REALLY slowing down the bad buddy fic production.

starsky & hutch - many things are happening! many many! they're just happening slowly. there's one particular fic about starsky and hutch comfortably out at a party and hutch fielding questions about names which has been 98% done for a month or two, but i need one (1) more connective paragraph to wrap things up, and apparently i'm in no hurry. and i love that for me, at the same time as i'm tempted to flick my brain and go Do It. Just Do It. oh god, and then there's a much older comedy fic stuck in close to the same situation only there it's 95% and the missing part is the end, which is at least a little more serious, and there are. i think literally a dozen probably. things that are cooking, bubbling, making interesting little noises. it's yet to be seen which of those turn out tasty.

h50 - there are some shorter wips here that have great potential to go somewhere, but mostly i want to finally (finally!) wrap up a flip-flop state of mind, which only needs finishing touches (albeit a bunch of them) on the final chapter, and then maybe 200 more words for the short epilogue to round things out. i had somewhat hoped to get that done before the new year, but it didn't work out that way, and i'm at peace with it - the longer this fic takes, the more comical my initial estimate of "i can probably get this done within the month" becomes. and after that's done, i can refocus my energy on Sweet like a chic-a-cherry cola, another ill-fated plan which i Will see through (while also enjoying myself), dammit, but i think for that one i'll need to pre-write the whole thing before i start posting again or i'll just keep going in circles.

nashville - it's been a while since my rewatch, so i'm not sure it will ever really come together, but i have a fun little 5+1 will/gunnar thing which lives half in a google docs file and half in my heart. could be nice!

sga - there's One Fic that's near done and has a few turns of phrase in it that keep making me go "oh, this might be worth finishing, actually" every time i return to it, but i think i'll need to let that happen a few more times before we actually get there. there's also a light and comedy-ish aro/ace john fic (heavily featuring john&rodney and john&team) on a low boil. i think that one might need to wait for me to rewatch the show at some point so i'm correctly immersed in the Vibes of it all, but it's very dear to me, so it still gets a permanent In Progress label.

due south - there's one particular thing that i might get back to? maybe. it could happen. @redgoldblue's dedicated live reporting on their due south watch, as well as their ds fic, did stir something in my brain.

other - there's literally two paragraphs of hard core logo fic kicking around in my notes which might turn into something some day. (when i started writing 3AM those new words were intended to blend with the two existing paragraphs, but they never did.) there's some ted lasso that can still be considered wip, but my ted lasso fic moment burned bright and short, it seems, though it's nice to know the framework is there if i ever do a rewatch. oh man, and there's a weird homoerotic over the top (because that's what this canon is) tango & cash wip which i hope will make it across the finish line some day, but i wouldn't be surprised if in the end that's, like. coming to an ao3 page near you soon! in 2026.

Tagging ✨

tag any number of people you want as far as i'm concerned (which can be zero! that's a valid number), but i haven't spotted this going around in my fandom circles yet, so i'll shoot for some good coverage: @redgoldblue @luredin @actingcamplibrarian @stephmcx @pterawaters @the-arya-silvertongue @logicgunn @incognito-insomniac @dedkake @spaceradars @spurious @sparrowsarus @flownwrong @theroseandthebeast @jimmyandthegiraffes @soleadita @ivycross @murphyhatesme @bgharison @thekristen999 @cowandcalf @msbeeinmybonnet @ruztyryan and you, reading this. i fully tagged myself to do this, so please don't feel shy about doing the same! i really do want to read your answers, if you feel like giving them.

obviously there's no pressure, and also feel free to modify this any way you want! give different stats, list top 5 by hits instead of kudos, name just one favorite fic, add in fics you only posted to tumblr rather than ao3, skip a category or invent a new one or throw the whole thing out and only reflect on a single piece of writing in more detail - it's all fair game, as long as it suits you.

#biggest regret is probably that neither flip-flop OR any of the bad buddy fic got finished before dec 31st #but that's okay. there'll be another dec 31st. we've got time!#*#tag stuff

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northwindow · 2 months

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love your blog so much! and im wondering how you archive/document your day-to-day life and the information that you take in — whatever form: books, lyrics, trees, etc etc — ? im struggling so much w forgettttttting

i love this question! i’ve always longed to have a beautiful and consistent journal, but it’s something i struggle with maintaining organically so i’ve tried some different structures over the past few years. long-winded answer under the cut 💗

back in 2021, i was making a monthly journal on google slides which i really liked because it's so natural to integrate images. i just made a month of it public here as an example of what it was like.

from 2022 - now, i've been doing a new concept where on the last day of every season i write long, list-y answers to these prompts:

art that has been resonating with me (includes music, books, movies, visual art, anything really). i'll usually write a few words about it... "Decision to Leave dir. Park Chan-Wook—the eye shot! the eye shot with the ants crawling on it" or "'Train Ride' by Ruth Stone: 'Release, release; / between cold death and a fever, / send what you will, I will listen. / All things come to an end. / No, they go on forever.'" or "Chunky misshapen pearls and other organic, shiny shapes"

my favorite memories from the season... examples from past lists include "Swimming hole with Zoë where I stuck a twig in my hair and we waded around on our hands like crocodiles" and "Walks in my snowsuit at night, one in particular where the Gemenids meteor shower was just starting"

a checkup on 5 of my current projects/goals. currently these are 1. learn to lift weights, 2. write 50 "identical" poems, 3. write a new syllabus, 4. practice mindful spending, 5. improve at woodworking.

a checkup on 5 of my core values. currently these are 1. adventure, 2. connection, 3. play, 4. sensuality, 5. sustainability.

reevaluating projects and values to focus on next

since you mentioned wanting to remember things-- when i'm putting this together i draw extensively from my tumblr archive/likes, calendar, photos app, recent playlists, and letterboxd and storygraph accounts. curating this kind of ephemeral data into a more permanent and thoughtful record is really satisfying to me. i privately call this method "wrapped" a la spotify... like i'll have a big entry for "fall 2022 wrapped" and then "winter 2023 wrapped" and so on. i do all this on the app notion and file the seasons on one big page so it's easy to click into one and remember what i was doing and thinking about. (i also converted my dream journal to a notion database. i've logged about 300 dreams in here and love that i can tag by character/feature.)

over the years i've also kept a more classic diary via text documents that's less structured, just spitting out whatever's on my mind with the date at the top. i tend to do this frequently for a while, then ebb off, then restart another doc, rinse and repeat. i also have a few physical notebooks (including these two) but the digital stuff is way more extensive as i prefer to write on the computer.

if i were going to recommend any of this, i would say the visual format of the slides journal was really compelling because i liked the aesthetic freedom but i also love the "wrapped" lists because they seem to cut to the core of an era's texture. in the future i'd like to try to integrate these aspects together! 📓

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juneknight · 1 year

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Take These (Sunflower Seeds)

About this: The Soulmate AU trope where a goose will lead you to your soulmate. (Yes, this is a trope?? When I heard it, I knew I needed to write this, I'm so sorry). Steven Grant/fem!reader. Fluff.

Immersivity: this reader wears high-heels and works as a secretary in a law-firm. She is given no physical description nor name. Any further details which hinder your immersive experience are welcome to be pointed out to me.

You press your forehead to the cool glass of your office’s entrance, eyes scanning back and forth. Beyond is a patch of grass nicely landscaped: flower beds filled with hardy geraniums and lobelias surrounded by wood chips, iron benches, bins with special lids to keep the critters out. Bisecting the grass is the concrete sidewalk that leads to the parking lot, and just beyond the lot, one of the busy streets of London.

Besides typical foot traffic on the sidewalk and through the parking lot, the yard is empty.

“You haven’t fooled me, you bastard,” you mutter beneath your breath.

Someone clears their throat behind you. Whirling, you see one of the lawyers who had made partner standing behind you, not very patiently waiting for you to move so he could access the door.

“Oh, sorry, Mr. Giovanni,” you say, stepping out of the way. Your customer-service persona immediately assumes control over your body, speaking through your mouth with a measured politeness that the man doesn’t deserve. “Have a lovely weekend.”

He hums, breezing out the door and down the sidewalk. You watch his peaceful, easy retreat with a scowl.

“Best bite the bullet and run for it,” one of the other secretaries teases you, slipping past you and out the door. You’ll add that to the list of helpful advice you’ve received. Towards the top, even.

You reach down to slip your heels off and tuck them into your tote. Out come your tennis shoes. The feeling of wearing them with only your tights to act as socks is a sensation you will only be able to stand for the sixty seconds it takes you to sprint to your car. You must look like a madwoman, your running shoes at sharp odds with your prim work-wear, your tote clutched to your chest like you are about to run across a patch of hot coals.

Convinced it is now or never, you take a deep breath and rush through the door.

And you make it to the bins before you hear it: the most obnoxious honk you’ve ever heard. The goose comes barreling from around the corner of the office, cutting off your retreat.

This fucking goose.

When your law firm changed locations in the spring, you had been grateful for the shorter commute. The atmosphere was certainly better as well, what with the flowers at least—as a matter of fact, your building’s little thirty-by-thirty plot of grass was some of the only greenery within the surrounding three blocks.

Perhaps that’s one reason why the goose always comes back. For the atmosphere.

The second must be because it’s a dark little creature born of sulfur and brimstone with the singular goal in life to torture you.

You consider yourself a woman of slightly above average resilience. You are the one the girls in the office come to if there is a spider that needs squashed (little do they know you scoop it up in one of the paper cups from the fountain and deliver it to the nearest potted plant—little bastards never did anything wrong besides have a few extra legs). You carry pepper spray. You are capable of asserting yourself when necessary.

But your fear of geese is new. Something about the throaty honk of this particular goose turns you into a child, shrieking, incapable of defending yourself. If you thought you could bargain with it, you might have tried. Please Mr. Goose, kindly leave me the fuck alone and I promise I’ll donate more to charity, I’ll return my trolley to the designated spot and stop leaving them in the parking lot beside my car, I’ll never tip less than twenty-percent. But a part of you believes that this goose would accept no bargain. There will be no parlay. There will only be blood—yours.

The goose, its ridiculously wide wing-span spread, comes towards you like a child running into the arms of its mother.

“Get the fuck away from me!” you shriek. You clutch your tote tighter, dancing between fight or flight. Should you turn and run? Should you punt the thing like a football? Are geese a protected species? No, couldn’t be, there’s so many of them—but then your rushing thoughts come to an end because it is upon you, the air rustling around you from its wings, its honk deafening. It will go for your eyes first, you know it, that’s exactly what a cold-hearted killer would do—

“Hey—shoo!”

The geese swerves away from you so suddenly that you nearly slip, your tennis shoes sliding in the grass after the bird had ushered you off of the concrete pathway. A man comes rushing from the parking lot. There is a black bag strapped across his chest, which he has reached into. He withdraws a handful of sunflower seeds which he scatters in the grass. The goose, to your utter amazement, dives for the seeds, pecking at the ground with the same decisive pleasure it might have used on your eyes.

The man looks at you, and oh. Oh, he is pretty: tanned and tired, hair dark and curly, with dark eyes and a nicely curved nose. The smile he gives you is a little bashful as he offers you his hand to help you back onto the concrete pathway.

“Are you alright? The bleeding geese in this city—a little too domesticated, if you ask me. Not that I’m helping much, what with the sunflower seeds but—”

“That goose wants me dead,” you say, pointing at it with a shaky finger.

The man’s pretty face twists into an expression of such poignant grief that you can’t doubt it for an instant. “I wish I could say he didn’t, but never in my life have I seen a bird so absolutely fixated on choosing violence. I’m Steven.”

“Steven,” you repeat, testing the name in your mouth. You offer him your hand and your own name. His palms are cold, but you know the saying: cold hands, warm heart.

Reaching into his bag, the man pulls out a small package of sunflower seeds. “Please. It’s dangerous to go alone. Take these.”

“I couldn’t possibly,” you say, even as you gently accept the gift.

“They were less than a pound, love, hardly breaking my bank.”

Love. Such a familiar moniker from a strange man would ordinarily repulse you—but instead, you find yourself softening. This man isn’t like the weirdos you encounter on the tube.

“Nevertheless,” you say. “Could I buy you coffee? To repay you for the seeds. And for saving my life.”

He stares at you. “Me—coffee? You want to get coffee, with me?”

“Very much.”

“I—alright. Sure. That would be lovely. Did you walk?”

“Somewhat.”

“Well at least you came prepared,” he says, glancing at your tennis shoes. “Would you like to pick the place?”

“There’s one nearby—”

“Down the block, yes. Very good choice. Not a single goose hangout on the way.”

You laugh. “It sounds like I’m exaggerating, honestly, but that goose has been hunting me for the last six months, and no one else ever seemed to take it seriously. As a matter of fact, for a few weeks in the beginning, it was sort of a big joke for the ladies in my office to gather in the lobby and watch me try and make it to the street. I’ve had nightmares about that fucking goose, honestly. I—” you stop, suddenly, face growing warm at how childish your next statement sounds. “—this is silly, but I even named it.”

Steven absolutely melts. He stops in the middle of the parking lot, turning to face you full on. “Oh come now. I must know.”

“Truly?”

“Without question.”

“Well if you insist—I named it Mark.”

Steven blinks at you. The strangest expression passes over his face. He points back towards the goose and says with absolute conviction, “You know, he does strike me as a Marc.”

“You think?” you reply, delighted.

“Absolutely, yes—watch your step, love, there you go. Now, I'm all turned about. Which way is that coffee?”

#steven grant x reader

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indiaalphawhiskey · 2 years

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I was hoping to get your opinion on this entire holivia situation. You seem very open and patient to anons and I enjoy reading your responses. Why do you think it is that Harry and his team seem to have less of a say or control when it comes to this particular stunt? I understand there is a hollywood movie involved but it still seems oddly excessive to me. In the past Harry has been able to put his foot down and even cut beards off when they've behaved a little OTT but not with this one. tbc.

Hi there!

Sorry this took a while, you guys always hit me with the interesting stuff when I have other things I really ought to be doing. Oops. 😅

So, I know that I maybe sound like a broken record with my disclaimers, but when we talk about topics like this, I think it’s really important to remind ourselves that all we’re capable of doing is inferring. We don’t actually have any concrete knowledge about what Harry and Olivia’s stunt contract stipulates, what the overarching goals of the stunt are, what their red lines are, how they negotiated things, how things have evolved and whether the contract is flexible, etc. and we’re not ever going to have access to that info. I say this because I think we as a fandom sometimes have the habit of talking about situations like we know things for certain, because we’re often looking to each other for guidance and to make sense of very complex professional and personal situations that, unfortunately, tend to weigh very heavily on us emotionally, and part of fandom “health” (at least for me) is getting comfortable with not knowing and never getting a definitive answer.

Another really important thing to note (that someone very smart pointed out in a tag on one of my posts, I wish I could tag you) is that personal and professional goals are very different. What someone wants to achieve professionally can be (and very often is) contradictory to what they may want for their personal life. Part of living in the real world is understanding that that tension and complexity is always going to exist, and it’s actually extremely rare for those two things to align, especially in a career where success is almost entirely dependent on public love and support. I don’t think that’s said often enough when we discuss closeting and Harry and Louis’ situations.

All that said, let’s get into your question. (This is going to get long, so I apologize.)

Firstly, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a situation where Harry/his team have ever “put their foot down” when it comes to a stunt, but more importantly, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a stunt be “over the top” like this. So, when you say Olivia’s team says “jump” and Harry’s team says “how high?” I think that’s a bit of a misreading of the situation.

My guess is what you’re actually seeing is Olivia using the loopholes in their contract to her utmost advantage, which no other stunt has either thought to do, or had enough leverage to do in the past. We have to remember that these negotiations likely happened at the beginning of DWD, and at that time, Olivia was in a different professional situation than she is in now. She was his director, she was casting him, she was his professional superior, and negotiating something like a PR stunt with your professional superior is a delicate thing because, no matter how popular or accomplished Harry is or how much Olivia may have wanted his fan base for the movie, the power dynamics are still very much present. Compounded with the fact that Olivia herself was who they were pitching as his stunt partner, it would have been very easy to write something in the contract that she could take as a personal insult and that could’ve very easily jeopardized his role in the movie, their working relationship, his reputation as an up and coming actor… the list goes on.

That particular complexity has never existed with any of Harry’s other stunts (even the more high profile ones like Taylor and Kendall) because he’s never been directly beholden to them in a professional capacity. The worst thing that could’ve happened to him if he’d insulted those stunt partners somehow is calling the deal off and a few scathing rumors and songs here or there. With Taylor and Kendall, Harry was always an equal, not a subordinate. With the others, they had a vested interest in staying in Harry’s good graces by not pushing the boundaries, because he was a lot more famous than most of them. Olivia, however, seems not to care about pushing that boundary, mostly, I think, due to her personality, her “alpha-female” approach to her career goals, and the fact that Harry is likely to continue to conduct himself as professionally as he can even in a trying situation, so the backlash she gets from him, personally, is probably not enough to dissuade her.

Secondly, an important part of workplace politics is maintaining amicable business relationships. That means knowing how to choose your battles and always having professional reasoning (as opposed to personal) behind the battles you do choose to fight. So, I don’t actually think Harry’s more “on board than ever” but rather that he’s choosing his battles. And, if we’re honest, there’s no professional reasoning behind Olivia not being at multiple shows, or being papped in his merch, or them being papped together. “You’re annoying,” and “you annoy me,” and “my die hard fans can’t stand the sight of you” (and, also apparently for Olivia, “you’re having family issues that you need to deal with”) can’t really compete with consistent engagement with tabloids, Twitter trends, conversion rates (of GP to casual listeners to stans), Harry being placed on Hollywood’s radar, etc. However, it seems like when there is solid professional reasoning behind shutting down a decision, Harry and his team do take it. We’ve seen that in the social media and print media gag order (Olivia wasn’t allowed to mention him in her Vogue interview though she tried very hard to insinuate a confirmation) and the pivot in terms of the Harry’s House narrative (that I suspect largely had to do with how they plan to navigate My Policeman promo). I think our frustration as a fandom lies in that it’s not easy for us not to equate things that are annoying with things that are damaging to our relationship with Harry because when you’re as emotionally involved as we are, it all feels the same.

Lastly, I think we have to remember that the music industry and Hollywood are entirely different beasts, and I bring that up for two reasons:

1) Stunts serve different purposes, depending on the situation. For Harry Styles, singer-songwriter, it was meant to closet him, give an intriguing background to his love songs, make people interested in him, maybe even be used as a cover for why sex-symbol-rockstar-modern-day-Rolling Stone doesn’t ever take anyone back to his hotel room.

For Harry Styles, up and coming actor, it’s both to closet him and to keep people interested in him and his projects when he technically still has nothing to show for it. You can’t be interested in an actor from that one ensemble cast three years ago, even if it was a Nolan film. There needs to be a reason for him to be top of mind, especially when he technically has no body of work to give him credibility. Like it or not, a fauxmance is the way to do that, and at the end of the day, we have to remember that Harry does want to break into Hollywood. So, he has to play the game.

2) While we often joke about Larry being the music industry’s worst kept secret, it doesn’t necessarily follow that that would be the case in Hollywood. When Harry and Louis first got together, they were incredibly young (and not very good at hiding their feelings), and the people around them held relatively close ranks. They had the same bodyguards, their band was close, they worked with the same producers and song writers, they were in the same meetings, they used the same people as the crew over and over, and that level of environmental control made it much easier to mitigate the risk of them being outed while still allowing them to be “out” in their immediate environment (whether literally or through song writing). That seemed to carry over to their solo careers, where they seem to stay within the same professional circles of people as much as possible for, I suppose, many reasons, but also because I think they’ve built the kind of trust with these people that’s really hard to come by when you’re famous and closeted.

But, Harry doesn’t have that environmental control in Hollywood. He can’t call the shots on a movie set, or handpick the crew, or have time to develop that trust with all the people around him. And so, the answer to that is, if he can’t be fully out, he has to keep up some semblance of the closet by stunting, and that means, if Olivia wants to push the boundaries of their contract by being around all the damn time, then her inescapable presence, however annoying, at least serves to keep the narrative as consistent as possible with the least amount of Harry’s effort required.

TL;DR - It’s likely that Olivia is taking advantage of loopholes in a contract that was negotiated when she had professional leverage over Harry and his team, Harry and team need to choose their battles (and, I believe, have) with regards to the stunt and technically, however frustrating Olivia’s constant presence is, it’s not professionally damaging to Harry (so far) which makes it hard to draw lines for “smaller” nuisances, stunts in the music industry vs Hollywood have different goals, and unlike in the controlled circle of his professional environment in the music industry, in Hollywood, Harry likely still needs to keep up appearances because he doesn’t have the capacity to mitigate the risk of being officially outed in such a wide group of people.

Hope that was interesting to read and was at least halfway coherent!

#iaw ask #iaw anonymous #holivia #stunt tw #stunt discussion #holivia tw

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emotionalcadaver · 1 year

Text

Part 4: Barren

Fandom: Peaky Blinders

Pairing: Tommy Shelby x OC

Summary: Lucy receives some news.

Word Count: 1,865

Notes: Some light angst for y’all. Takes place before the events of season 1. Warnings for depictions of pregnancy scares, infertility, and references to menstruation, past sexual assault, sexual content, drug use, and abortion.

Masterlists: Main • Series

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It was a Thursday when she realized that her blood was over two weeks late.

Not that she’d ever been particularly regular to begin with. Perhaps that was why it had been so easy for her to lose track. That and the constant list of tasks that she kept in her head, spinning like a record player. From one thing onto the next. Her days were full from dawn to well past dark most of the time. Taking notes for Tommy at meetings, gathering intel on the latest mark he’d given her, helping out around the betting shop or at Charlie’s yard.

She wouldn’t have even thought much of it, had it not been for the uncharacteristic, extreme fatigue that hung heavy over her for the past week, or the consistent, throbbing headache and dizziness in her skull.

Sitting there at her desk, staring off into space, she bit her lip. Oh, no. No. No.

She and Tommy had never even really talked about children. But she knew from watching him interact with them that he loved them. It was almost a certainty that he wanted them. The idea had, on occasion, danced across her mind, carrying with it a sharp stab of anxiety.

Lucy liked children. Didn’t even mind the idea of raising one or two. But the idea of carrying one inside her, pushing it out when it was the size of a watermelon, was not something she’d ever considered to be a particular personal goal. The entire process really all seemed quite horrifying to her.

Prior to Tommy, she’d never thought she would even feel safe enough to be with a man after what happened with Matthew. Maybe that was why the thought of someday having children had always seemed so abstract and out of reach to her.

Fingers pressed to her lips, she fought hard to keep her breathing steady. To stave off the panic attack spreading through her chest. It was probably nothing. It was very possible she was just late due to stress.

Or it could be the product of her spending every night for the past month with Tommy’s cock buried inside her.

Lucy groaned, letting her head fall to settle on her hands on her desk. Oh, she was so fucking fucked.

∗ ∗ ∗

She watched Polly like a hawk throughout the entire meeting, looking for any signs that the Shelby matriarch sensed something in her. Tommy had once told her that Polly was a more accurate pregnancy test than going to the doctor. That she’d sensed it each time, without fail, when his mother had been pregnant with his younger siblings. Sometimes even before she’d started to suspect it herself.

Nothing. Not even an eye twitch. It wasn’t rare for Polly to ignore her unless she had no other choice. Lucy supposed that she should be relieved. But instead the lack of a concrete answer just left her feeling jittery.

“You alright?” Tommy asked as they walked side by side down the street after the meeting had concluded.

“Hm? Yeah. Why?”

“You’ve been quiet,” he frowned, eyes examining her face carefully. “And you look…paler than usual. Are you sick?”

“No. No. I don’t…think so. I’ve just been getting these headaches the past couple of days,” she rubbed at a temple. It wasn’t exactly a lie. “Actually I was thinking of going to the doctor and getting a prescription for some pain killers. If it hasn’t let up by tomorrow.”

“I can go to the nine o’clock meeting by myself. You can go then and meet me after.”

“You’re sure?”

He shrugged.

“Okay,” she could feel his eyes still boring into the side of her head. He probably knew that she wasn’t telling him something. He was too perceptive not to. But he didn’t push it. Lucy wasn’t sure if she was grateful or not for that.

She should have told him the truth. But she wasn’t sure how he would react. She didn’t think he would be angry, or kick her out, or run away or anything like that, but…

There just wasn’t any point in getting him all mentally tied up in this either until she knew for sure, anyway. Tommy had enough to think about already; he didn’t need to be worrying about a baby that may or may not even exist.

∗ ∗ ∗

Her legs swung back and forth in the air as she sat against the edge of the examination table. The doctor’s lips had pursed as she rattled off her symptoms before he set about examining her, frown only deepening before he swept out of the room with a mumble, leaving her to sit anxiously by herself. When he came back, he handed her a little prescription slip.

“You have an iron deficiency. I’ve written you a prescription for some tablets.”

“Oh,” she looked down at the little slip. “That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“So, I’m not…”

The doctor’s brow furrowed. “Of course not,” his assuredness in his answer caught her off guard. At the sight of her frown, he sat down very slowly in the chair beside her. “You don’t know.”

“Know what?”

And then he rambled off some very complicated medical jargon, only half of which made sense to her. But the more he talked, the more the meaning, the outcome of everything he was telling her, started to make sense.

“I can’t have children.”

He looked at her with wide, sympathetic eyes. “No, you can’t. I’m sorry…I thought you already knew.”

“No,” she whispered, sitting there with her eyes staring at the wall, hands braced against the edge of the table she was still sitting on. “There’s really no chance? At all?”

The solemn look on his face was enough of an answer, even before he shook his head.

You’re empty inside. Polly had said to her shortly after she first joined up with them. Turns out she’d been right in more ways than one.

Taking in a slow, deep breath, Lucy nodded, reaching to grab her coat, riffling through the pockets until she pulled out a stack of notes, holding them out to the doctor.

“You won’t tell anyone about this.”

“Of course,” he said, taking the notes and tucking them away.

“If Mr. Shelby asks, I just came in for a headache and you gave me the prescription for the tablets, that’s all.”

The doctor hesitated.

“You won’t be lying.”

“If Mr. Shelby asks, and then finds out I omitted information…”

“I’ll make sure you aren’t punished. You have my word.”

The doctor nodded, slowly. “Okay.”

Turning the prescription paper over in her hand, she held it up. “This will help with the headaches, yes?”

“They should.”

“Thank you.”

He nodded, moving to the door. Hand gripping the doorknob, he turned. “There are other options, you know.”

“That’ll be all, thank you,” she didn’t look at him as she jumped off the table. The door creaked as it opened, then closed.

∗ ∗ ∗

“What did the doctor say?” Tommy asked, closing the door to his office as soon as they were both inside.

“I have an iron deficiency. He wrote me a prescription for some tablets,” she held up the paper for him to see.

“That’s what was causing the headaches?”

“I guess,” she shrugged. Tommy’s hand reached out to catch at her wrist, thumb stroking the back of her hand.

“I’m glad you’re okay.”

Eyes snapping up at him, she felt her face soften at the sight of concerned blue eyes. He really had been worried about her. Sweet man, much as he might try to hide it. When she reached up, to brush his dark fringe from his forehead, his eyes fluttered, and he smiled softly at her.

She almost blurted out the truth right there, but bit her tongue. Perhaps later, when they weren’t in the middle of work.

And she still needed some time to herself, to process all of it.

The shock was starting to wear off, and, to replace it, had come a tremble of relief. And with the relief, confusion. Because she was pretty sure that wasn’t how she was supposed to feel. There should be grief, or sorrow, at what she’d lost. But instead she was over the moon. Never would she have to go through the months of pain and discomfort she remembered witnessing her mother experience each time she bore one of Lucy’s brothers. She would not have to give up her job, because she was unable to physically fight or move nimbly throughout the streets of Small Heath thanks to a swollen stomach. There would be no locking her away in a house, to cook and clean and sew and change diapers, waiting anxiously each day for her man to come home to her.

And she supposed, that if she ever did want a child of her own, she could go down to the orphanage. She was beginning to realize that had been the path she’d always seen herself on anyway.

But there was one spark of fear. Because she did not know how Tommy would react to the news of her barrenness. And the idea of him leaving her over it was nearly enough to make her throat close up in grief.

∗ ∗ ∗

She didn’t actually tell him anything until about a week later, when her blood had finally come and she was laying sprawled out in bed with his chest against her back, whining at the cramping in her stomach and wondering how in the hell she could ever have possibly missed this. In her head, she’d rehearsed what she was going to say over and over, but in the end it didn’t come out nearly as gracefully as she’d hoped.

“I thought I was pregnant.”

Poor Tommy nearly dropped the opium pipe he was busy cleaning with a cloth, going rigid against her, lips parting.

“That’s the real reason I went to the doctor’s.”

He very slowly reached around her to set the pipe down on the bedside table, then pressed on her shoulder until she rolled over to face him.

“I figured something else was going on,” he murmured quietly, touching her cheek. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Lucy shrugged, fingers playing with the buttons on his shirt. “I wasn’t sure. I didn’t want to…I didn’t want to say anything until I was sure.”

Tommy stroked her lips with his thumb. “We would have been okay,” he said softly. “I would have helped you. You know that, right?”

“Really? What if I’d wanted to get rid of it?” she was only half teasing. Based on the seriousness in his eyes, she suspected that he knew that.

“That would be up to you,” he kissed her softly. “Either way, I’d hold your hand in the delivery room or in the clinic. I want you to know that.”

Lucy nodded, lashes fluttering, and he kissed her again.

“Next time, you tell me, okay?”

She pressed her face into the crook of his neck, so he would not see the way that her smile broke slightly.

“Okay.”

She did not tell him that there never would be a next time.

Thank you for reading! Please consider leaving a comment, reblog, or like. I always appreciate feedback and love getting the opportunity to interact with you and hear your thoughts!

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Masterlists: Main • Series

#tommy shelby x oc #tommy shelby #peaky blinders #lucy winters #lucy winters x tommy shelby #my ocs #fanfiction #barren #my fanfiction

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dojae-huh · 7 days

Text

Youth: first listen

First of all. It's the first time the parasocial relationship I have with Doyoung mutated into a parasocial friendship of sorts, heh. The feeling is of cheering for a friend's project's success. I guess it is for two reasons: 1) the reverse order of things (instead of "like a song (my choice, I'm the active party)->discover artist behind", it is "like an artist->listen to what he gives you (artist's choice, I'm a passive party)", 2) I have artist friends whose drawing style I'm not particularly a fan of (i.e. I wouldn't care for it if it was made by someone else, a noname to me), but I still follow and consume their art, because I care for people behind and I know the character/thoughts/POV of the artist, which changes my perceptions).

I've listened to the album only once by the time I'm writing this post. My first impession is that there are no weak songs (yokshi, perfectionist Doyoung), and that I'm glad it is more diverse in sound and voice modulations than Korean ballads and songs usually are. As I like richness in songs.

Me and some of the readers had been apprehensive of Doyoung catering to fans and going gp friendly road. Thankfully, Doyoung is a mastermind afterall. The album is both for the fans and the general public and for himself. Half/half.

The album seems to be divided in the following parts:

Prologue: Beginning and Little light.

The main character of a Disney animation movie sets on a journey. A proclamation of intent to sing for a long time, of a goal to reach as many "stars" (hearts/listeners). "Beginning" was penned by Do himself (and, honestly, really reminded me Mulan or Moana, heh). For "Little light" he befriended Lucy's composer (they are both 96-line, btw). Considering the timing, it seems to be one of the last songs to be added. A song Doyoung needed for his vision of the album. The song was gifted to him (the composer's words), written the way he commissioned it. In other words, it is his story and his feelings, he debuted with HIS song, even if written by someone else (but for him).

2. First chapter: A letter to fans.

"From little wave" has lyrics by Doyoung. It is a song for the fans, a message to them.

3. Second chapter: Friends. Dreams come true.

"Time machine" was written by Mark, he and Taeyeon featured. Do is a known SNSD fan, a fan of Taeyeon and her friend. Mark has been Do's favourite kid since pre-debut. When the news broke, fans immidiently remembered how Do gifted Mark notebooks for writing lyrics. Let's also remember how Do sent a food-truck to Mark's first solo MV, always hyped him on IG. I think Do supports Mark as a musician in particular. Mark is a rapper in NCT, however, he wants to sing with the guitar. And that what he did on the track. A step towards his own dream, him as a songwriter and singer.

Both collabs are very meaningful and have roots in the past.

The redheaded teenager who didn't know what to do really and his prodigy baby growing up and becoming world known artists.

Do already has songs with Haechan (Maniac, Coming home), plus Hyuk has started songwriting attempts much later than Mark. He is not ready yet. Taeyong is a different story, I will share my thoughts about it later.

"Time machine" sounds like a song that will be covered a lot on Korean shows by other artists. It has that appeal. It seems relatively easy to sing (or, rather, it can be re-arranged to be simpler), and it is fit for a duet.

Chapter 4: A song for the Boyfriend.

I agree that "Serenade" seems to be the song for Jaehyun. The sound Jae likes, the placement on the album (after "friends"). It is the only positive love song on the album. For Doyoung singing is personal. It is his dream, his calling. Therefore, I wasn't expecting a lot of individual attention for Jae (opposite can be said about the upcoming Jae's album). The album is not for him. He is part of "my youth" and "the sea/warmth", and he knows it. One song is enough.

The song feels more like a gift than a dedication, though. There is no intensity or rawness (like the cover of Buzzi's "Mine" had, heh).

Chapter 5: Gems.

"Rewind" and "Warmth" are the type of songs that are popular in Korea. Do did covers of similar songs. This sound is expected from him. These two love stories are "for fans and general public" songs. Personally selected, but not too personal. Just beautiful songs to sing. Both songs reflect general experiences of youth (first love/first relationships that didn't mean to be and being alone/looking for meaningful connections). "Warmth" kind of repeats the first songs thematically.

Chapter 6: Doyoung the band vocalist.

"Lost in California" and "Rest" are band songs. Back to school. These are songs for Doyoung himself. Do's long-lasting dream of singing with a band, singing under open air on festivals, being a rock-star. The first one is Do's "28 reasons", a song where he can have fun and play with vocals. "Rest" is also an inspirational, supportive song. The was Do always cheered his fans on, talked about that it's OK to rest on the floor for a bit and start anew the next day.

Chapter 7: NCT 127

"Dallas love field" (a name for a small airport, apparently) is a song fully made by Kenzie, Do's noona. So it was for him, no doubt. Maybe we will hear the story behind one day. The lyrics about "pain being beautiful" made me think back to the trainee days. Although the lyrics alone could be read as JaeDo-coded, the sound, the upbeat melody, the chorus of male voices on ''chasing dreams so far" make it 127. Rookies and their dreams of debut, neos and their dreams for solo careers, NCT and Dreams.

Funny enough. This song sounds like anime Ending, heh. The main character's promise "to be continued". I liked how Do gave us a new tone to his voice in this song.

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iu-jjang · 1 year

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[INTERVIEW] 230222 IU for Harper's Bazaar Korea March 2023 Issue

IU and LEE JI EUN,

This generation’s icon IU, who cannot be defined in a single word, and the bare-faced Lee Ji Eun.

Q1: Today’s photoshoot intended to capture the duplicity of your two sides, IU and Lee Jieun. You looked relaxed during the shoot, but once it was over, you confessed that today’s shoot was actually quite tough.

IU: Honestly, it’s always tough to work on Gucci projects. It’s probably because there are a lot of experimental outfits, scenes and messages. In particular, the goal for today was to visually represent my alter ego. When I saw the 2023 S/S collection in Milan, I thought it was really shocking and interesting. With those memories in mind, upon hearing that the motif of today’s photoshoot was based on the collection, I thought to myself ah, it’s not going to be easy. But it turned out to be really fun too. It’s my first time having such thick smoky makeup and I’m grateful for the chance to be part of this refreshing experience from the photoshoot composition to the props and the studio design.

Q2: The last cut was a scene of an IU with thick smoky makeup, standing in front of a wall filled with a picture of an almost makeup-free Lee Jieun. Honestly, I didn’t know the photo on the wall was taken today and thought it was a still cut taken from ‘Love Set’ in the film, ‘Persona’. I’m aware that you show many different faces of yourself, but I also realized that you show faces of different time periods too.

IU: My staff said something similar in the waiting room just now too. I have smoky makeup on right now, but just now, we had as little makeup on as possible and since it’s early in the morning, my face was swollen like I had baby fats (laughs) which seemed to go with the concept. Seeing the printed picture, I thought of the past too.

Q3: You’ve been in a partnership with Gucci for a while. I think judging from IU’s personality as an artist, it would not have been possible if you did not agree with the philosophy and values of the brand. In terms of artistic vision, how are Gucci and IU aligned?

IU: I think Gucci is a brand that places emphasis on diversity and finds aesthetic in things that are unrefined. If I were to pick a characteristic that is similar to myself, I think this would be it. When I write lyrics, I tend to infuse thoughts and emotions that have not reached a conclusion or that come to my mind during an incomplete process.

Q4: As you said earlier, you have always been honest about yourself at each moment, and that alone is brave. As an artist, aren’t you obsessed with the idea of displaying only your perfectly crafted side to the public?

IU: When I was young, I didn’t really know any of that. (laughs) I think I had no choice but to say, “This is what I think right now”, “I’m at this age now” due to my personality, that is having to say what’s on my mind. On the other hand, I have always known that I am not nearly as perfect (person) as a sculpture. And that isn’t something that I can simply achieve by imitating. As long as I chose this profession as my career, (I know) this was my own battle that I had to come out winning or losing, and there is also a side of me that wants to make no bones about showing myself. What started out like that has now established itself as one of the ways of expressing myself.

Q5: So the piecemeal activities you’ve done recently can be understood along those lines? You lent your voice to MIRAL School’s song sung by their teachers for the students. The composer of ‘Through the Night’, Kim Jehwi made the song based on what he felt while working at the school, and you participated in the song as a featuring artist.

IU: Musical talent aside, Jehwi is my precious friend too. Frankly speaking, when he first told me that he’d be teaching the students in school, I was worried about whether he could do well more than anything else. But being affable, he adapted well and eventually said, “Noona, I want to make a song as a gift for the school”, which made me so proud and want to cheer him on too. To be honest, I didn’t expect this to make such news, but I poured so much effort into recording the song that I somehow joked, “I think I work harder on this than I do for my album”. (I worked so hard on this) so that the students can gain strength, and go to school happily while listening to it.

Q6: The drama “You Have Worked Hard” (literal title) has created a buzz with the combination of IU, Park Bo Gum, and writer Im Sang Chun of ‘Fight for My Way’, and will soon begin its pre-production. What is your reason for choosing this work?

IU: I think everyone will think this way when the drama is released, “Ah, even I would have wanted to do it too.” I really enjoyed the previous works of writer Im Sang Chun, and this one seemed to carry a new story of its own so it was refreshing. It’s just words (writing), but they manage to make people feel such emotions, so much that as someone who likes to read and write, I was envious of the writer’s talent. The theme of the drama is good, but I especially liked that it’s a heavy story delivered in a way that’s not too heavy.

Q7: Your character, Ae Soon is a ‘young girl of literary interest who isn’t well off but remains positive and ambitious, and whose voice trembles like a goat whenever she rebels’. It is noteworthy that “You Have Worked Hard” will be your first korean drama comeback in four years since “Hotel Del Luna”, and that the character is the total opposite of your previous role, Jang Man Wol.

IU: Man Wol in “Hotel Del Luna” is certainly an unusual character. However, Ae Soon has a unique point too. Ae Soon may seem like the type of person you can easily see around you, but should I say that if you look closely, you’ll find her individuality as a human being stands out? I think I’m attracted to people of that sort (gyeol: personality, belief, preference, etc).

Q8: Some actors look for traces of themselves in the role they are assigned to in order to immerse themselves into their character. Are you one of them? How similar is IU with Ae Soon?

IU: There are definitely characters with gyeol (personality, belief, preference, etc) that I can never comprehend, but if that is the case, I won’t be able to bring myself to choose the work (willingly). It’s a matter of confidence. This also proves that all the characters I have played so far have been those that I could understand at some point. Among them, Ae Soon resembles me more than any other character I have portrayed. The writer has incredible observation skills. They said they wanted to incorporate the characteristics that I have that are not too obvious into the character. It was to the point where I said, “Oh my, how did you know that I have this side to me?” after reading the script.

Q9: From “My Mister” to “Hotel Del Luna”, and from “Shades of the Heart” to “Broker” and then “Dream”. Whether it’s a drama or film, should I say that your next step is always super bold? To the extent that one may think playing a different work and a different character from your previous work is your first and main criteria for selecting a project.

IU: Just like how when you have long hair for a long time, don’t you want to dye your hair or get a haircut at some point? It may not be my criteria, but I think once I have lived as a character for more than a few months, I’d unconsciously want to try out something different too.

Q10: There are many people who want to try a bob or short haircut, but they end up sticking to their long hair for the rest of their lives just in case the former doesn’t suit them.

IU: But if there’s something I want to do, I’m the type of person who must (and will) do it first (before I worry about it). It’s much easier for me to bear regretting doing something than regretting not doing it.

Q11: I suppose you are not the type of person that separates your actress’s ego from your singer’s. How similar or different are your state of mind the day before the concert and the day before crank-in (starting to shoot a drama/film)?

IU: If a concert stage is like a (one-off) live broadcast where you only get a chance to put out a (perfect) performance that stays forever in the audience’s memory, then the filming set has a different premise in that you can exchange opinions with the director or your co-stars on the spot, select the best outcome from several take opportunities, and subsequently share it with the audience. However, once the concert begins, the overwhelming moment of finally becoming one with the audience after feeling all alone under a lot of tension for some time is very similar to the moment I realize that I am truly working and keeping in tune with the crew after seeing these many people (including myself) gradually moving forward as a team with a shared goal on a new and unfamiliar set. Both fields are attractive in that they are things that I can never do alone. Whether I'm singing or acting, I'm just someone who puts in the best of my share (of work) at every moment.

Q12: At the 14th anniversary concert <The Golden Hour: Under The Orange Sun> last year, you said, “I thought this concert might be the final destination of the things I dreamt of and wanted to challenge myself to since my teenage years, but at this moment, I’m hopeful that this could be a new starting point, a new beginning (for me).” Normally, settling down is always the easier option wherever you are. And yet, you are still constantly trying to head somewhere else. Which direction are you headed? What lies at your ultimate destination?

IU: It is no exaggeration to say that I lived my twenties obsessing over the idea of ‘direction’. Should I say it was the subject that kept me ‘hot-blooded (passionate)’ at that time? Those ardent worries were enjoyable, but honestly draining too. After turning 30, I don’t have any particular direction in mind. It’s my first time being like this too.

Q13: Are you wandering around (floating/drifting) right now?

IU: That expression is accurate. I’m wandering around (floating/drifting). This itself could be my present direction now that I’m in my 30s. Throughout last year, I kept thinking, “I want to maintain this mindset” and “I enjoy living like this.” On the other hand, apart from feeling at peace, it was also a year where interesting events exploded. I used to cling to the idea that ‘If I miss something, the world will always give me something else in return’ throughout my 20s. But once I let go of the things I was clutching onto for dear life, the ‘other thing’ the world gave me was surprisingly such events. As I emptied my mind, the world filled it with fun stuff instead. Later when I look back as I get older, I will surely put a bookmark at my 30s (chapter).

Q14: Looking back, you were always doing something for the past 14 years, like singing, holding showcases, communicating with fans, etc. So what is rest for you?

IU: To be honest, I can’t quite grasp the concept of rest. I don’t feel particularly recharged just because my body is resting. In a broad sense, if getting rest is considered a means to de-stress and recharge one’s body, then ironically for me, the things (stress) that have piled up inside me are relieved in the most refreshing way when I’m working. (I feel relieved) when I have satisfactorily accomplished my work to the point where I get a good sense of pleasure. I feel much more refreshed during those times than when I’m just lying down at home for days. Otherwise, there should be something engrossing enough for me to not think about work at all. But in my case, there isn't much stuff that I’m into to that extent. Some of the (fun) stuff that I can recall now are: when I’m in a deep sleep, when I’m catching up with Yoo Inna, when I’m making silly jokes and laughing with my friends or lover who deeply understand me, when I’m rewatching my favorite movie, and when I’m having something really delicious. As I live, there are quite many people who do not need so much of that sort of mental relaxation like me. That said, stamina is another story, so as I enter my 30s, I try hard to take care of my body to make sure that it can keep up when I need to work harder. When I get to rest, I spend time lying down as much as I can. (laughs).

Q15: During the concert, you also said, “I’ll reflect on what I experienced today and go on for another 14 years.” Have you ever imagined yourself 14 years from now?

IU: Based on last year’s calculations, if I were to picture myself as a 44-year-old… I think I’d still be working by then. Other than that, I honestly have no idea too… that is, if we (were to imagine it) based on the premise that ‘I am a person who can change’. For instance, the mindset that constitutes me 14 years from now will be very different from my current mindset.

Q16: Maybe change can happen because people are flexible. But if I am to be honest, I’m the type of person who believes that people do not change until they die.

IU: I do agree with your statement to a certain extent. But I used to be someone who despised competition and (thus) kept myself from competing 14 years ago. Going through my diary back then, I wrote “I find this competitive society so exhausting. I’m worried (about myself) because I don’t have a desire to win, and I hate competition.” But looking back, I realized that I’ve been enjoying competitions throughout the last 14 years since my debut. To the point where I wondered, “maybe I’m actually crazy about competing (for victory/defeat)?” I thought perhaps I failed to notice that I was a competitive person or I just wanted to deny it on purpose.

Q17: Either way, I feel sorry for the young girl who had just debuted and scribbled “I hate competition” in her diary. Is there anything that IU, who(se mindset) has changed quite a bit, would like to say to the IU of that time?

IU: “You actually like yourself a lot.”

Q18: You once said, “Even if we’re sick of this world, I hope we will live on while loving each other.” In this harsh world, is love still the hope that you have faith in?

IU: It’s a bit embarrassing to say this, but nevertheless, I believe that love overcomes hatred. In the end, love wins. Even when I lose my balance and I’m swayed, I repeat to myself, “But love will win in the end though” and either try to put together my logic, build up my thinking muscle or control my mind like that. The proposition that love will win is something that I’ve experienced enough through living my life. I will continue to believe it moving forward.

Q19: Singer-songwriters are blessed in that they can turn their personal thoughts and emotions into the end-product that is music. In particular, we sort of know how important lyrics are in your music. What lyrics have been running through your mind these days?

IU: This may sound ridiculous but I happened to be writing about something we just talked about earlier. I was surprised deep down when I heard the word ‘wandering’. To wander around (float/ drift) without a destination. I think this will be the theme of my next album.

Q20: Back to today’s pictorial concept of ‘duality’, I feel that you are leading your life with both egos — icon IU and ordinary person Lee Jieun — faithfully. How do you maintain a balance between these two?

IU: Changing between slightly uncomfortable yet pretty clothes that make me shine and slightly average yet comfortable clothes I can freely move around in, and being moderately satisfied and moderately wary at every moment seem to be the way to balance… whilst naturally accepting the obvious fact that there are times I shine and times I’m just ordinary.

Q21: “I can’t take out all the words from my diary, but…” (lyrics from Through the Night) — What is the one sentence that can describe you right now?

IU: (I can’t take out all the words from my diary, but) that child / she has decided to live as a spore (홀씨), instead of a flower.

[*T/L note: Although IU didn’t specifically mention dandelion (민들레), ‘홀씨’ is often used when talking about ‘민들레’ (dandelion). Referring to what she said earlier about ‘wandering around (floating/drifting)’,‘홀씨’ can be interpreted as ‘민들레 홀씨’ (dandelion puffs) too.]

Source: https://www.harpersbazaar.co.kr/article/75198

Translated by IUteamstarcandy with love

#IU #interview #bazaar #March 2023

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theawkwardterrier · 4 months

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2023 fic roundup

MCU

Year by Year

Academic Antagonism, Scholastic Strife

Working Women

Have Yourself a Scheming Little Christmas

Outlander

Unexpected Gifts**

Pure Heart, Clean Hands*

Bake On

Bad Roommates; or, Stocking on the Door*

The Envy of Care*

Better Broken Hearts Than Broken Bodies**

The Intimidation Game**

Nature and Nurture*

What We Have, What We Keep*

First Gifts**

What We Have, What We Lose**

Reflections*

On the Road (Too Far, Too Long)*

A Particular Habit*

In Care Of*

Awakenings*

Not Alone**

Four Thoughts During a Separation*

In the Act**

After the War Is Over (Will There Be Any Home Sweet Home?)

Never Leaves You**

Polyglot Pride*

Bits and Pieces**

Sword and Shield*

Make History*

Soon, the Sight of You*

Baby Proof*

S5 Series, cont.*

Slow, Someday Sisters*

No Matter How Far*

Roots and Wings

Over Matter*

Small Joys*

Future Tense*

Healing Hearts*

Enough? Enough*

Connections*

Comes Around*

All Illuminated*

Genesis*

Dialogues*

One Last Time*

Fathering*

Side by Steadfast Side*

In His Multitudes*

By Heart*

Living Up*

Beyond Keepsakes*

Are and Become*

Marching On*

Family Means*

Far and Ahead*

Forever in Peace*

As Houses*

All Tied Up**

Hope’s Smallest Seeds*

Only in Dreams*

Parenting and Partnership**

All the Ways Home

Home and Away*

Vine and Fig Tree*

Familial Peas**

In the Light and the Shadows*

Gifts*

In the Operating Room*

All the Shattered Pieces*

Moments of Thanksgiving*

Anchors in Absence*

Relation**

Let the Circle Be Unbroken*

Morning Moments**

A Reception**

A Slow-Motion Storytime*

Particular Prescriptions*

Always Been Forever*

* drabble

** Laird’s Room ‘verse

1. Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d predicted?:

As I continue my journey to not caring about this stuff: who knows?! What I will say is that I wouldn't have necessarily predicted that I wouldn't participate in certain fandom events that I traditionally have over the years, but that my list is super lengthy because I have kept up with my weekly drabbles and I've also transitioned to doing more chapter fic than I have in the past.

2. What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January?:

No real surprises this year, but I did do quite a variety of drabble POVs rather than sticking to my single ship, plus it might be somewhat unexpected to see that I wrote kid!Natasha + kid!Sharon Carter dual POV.

3. What’s your own favorite story of the year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you happiest?

Muscle Memory was technically still posting in this year, and I'm super proud of a lot of that story, but I also have quite a fondness for a lot of the character work and family/feelsy moments in All the Ways Home.

4. Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?

Posting Roots and Wings!! I think that what I learned is that I'm allowed to just post what's interesting to me and what I want without thinking about reception, but also and perhaps contradictorily that sometimes the things that I like and want to experiment with will also appeal to people.

5. Do you have any fanfic or profic goals for the New Year?

Finish and post the Great Depression fic

Keep up with my Wednesday 100 drabbles

See if it feels good to go back to some additional fandom events or to start working with some new fandoms/ships - generally use what feels positive to me as the gauge for what I should do rather than expectations or the desire for recognition in some way

6. From my past year of writing, what was…

Story Most Underappreciated by the Universe:

There are easy reasons and explanations for this (it's short and really recent and potentially a little weird) but probably Have Yourself a Scheming Little Christmas.

Most Fun:

Academic Antagonism, Scholastic Strife! I still don't know that the trope super works in the way that I played it, but I like it anyway.

Most Disappointing:

I don't know that there's one that really fits here for this year, but maybe Roots and Wings specifically because the pacing is slightly off - I couldn't find anything to sort of fill in to balance the slower beginning with a slower ending rather than montaging the second half.

Most Sexy:

Oof, maybe I'm just tired, but I don't know that I had any super great sexy scenes this year?

Hardest to Write:

Lol, all of them? My depression hit super hard midyear and made it really difficult to focus and connect enough to complete All the Ways Home.

Most Unintentionally Telling:

The fact that I'm focusing so much on parenthood, specifically fatherhood, and family moments is definitely saying...something. Do even I know what it is? No guarantee!

Choice Lines:

Haha, I have no idea this year. I love my stuff but also it would be a bit out of hand to try to quote many of them. If you have favorites, I'd love to hear them!

#fic memes #fic roundup

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utilitycaster · 10 months

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laudna's incomprehensible speech this ep really made it click for me why the roving slash crowd latched so hard to, well, you know. Like she is the perfect candidate for roving slash - her stances and opinions on much big picture plot are nigh incomprehensible or just word salad, which renders them easy for people to project on their own readings onto, the gaps in the backstory allow for people insert whatever they want. It's like. platonic ideal of build a blorbo.

I thought a lot about whether to answer this, and how I would, but the short answer is...yeah. I think there's other factors, but I definitely think that the formlessness and at times inconsistency of the character is a particular part of the appeal in the relationship for some. I haven't talked a ton about Laudna elsewhere in the episode and with regards to her relationship to Imogen, and the best way I can put it is that I would very much like it to become something interesting to me, but it has yet to do so; the feature for that crowd happens to be a bug for me.

I think that the repeated callbacks within the fandom to the past relationships both actors' characters have been in, however, has really put the lack of intentionality and development here in stark relief. Keyleth was sometimes clumsy in her statements, but had a definite viewpoint and goals (and the clumsiness was incorporated into her character). Beau's bluster was similarly worked into her know-it-all personality and relative youth. But the general lack of direction of Laudna's arc aside, the most generous explanation I can really think of for that mess of a final argument was that Marisha wanted there to be conflict, perhaps to give that lagging character arc some movement, but of the two places in which she was offered an opportunity to put it, and after a strong beginning to the episode, chose the wrong one.

#answered #Anonymous #cr tag

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lunerians · 4 days

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did this thing on twitter where I posted some of my scrapped scenes from sour kanzi and talked about my thought process behind them + why I changed it! (an author’s note, if you will)

starting off: this is from the scene right before kieran falls asleep and later gets found by florian (courtesy of hydrapple) one of the things I really wanted to explore was kieran’s mentality and the whole aftermath of indigo disk; for this scene, I wanted to show just how damaging his habits were pre-indigo disk, as well as express his frustration over how he never reached his goal (of beating florian and being strong enough) the last line in particular I really really wanted to keep, but since it didn’t fit with the revised version I had to I had to scrap it :/

The book snaps shut with a loud crack before he chucks it as far as he possibly can. Kieran's wrist makes a cracking sound; he winces. Somehow, learning type weaknesses and advantages would be much easier than all of this.

Kieran shivers at the unwanted memory—the long, sleepless nights spent laboring over movesets and pouring over team synergies, the endless amounts of coffee and chocolate snacks he'd eat as cheap and easy meals…

All that hard work to reach the top, but never the one he wanted. Always out of reach, always one step ahead of him—when they fought for Ogerpon, when they met again during the Championship Match, when he lost Terapagos.

Kieran gnaws on his thumb through his glove. Whatever; it's in the past now.

this next one is a slightly different ending to when kieran goes to sleep in the coastal biome; this was mainly scrapped because it felt like it was a little too on the nose about kieran's homesickness (as well as providing a reason why he would go back to kitakami)

The two dragon pokemon cry in unison, Hydrapple's sugary sweet scent drifting away on the breeze. Furret curls its tail around him, settling into its favorite position in Kieran's arms. He noses deeper into its fur, breathing in the stale familiar smell of home.

Home, huh...

He thinks of his room, back in Kitakami—the quiet nights, the dark skies littered with twinkling stars, the lingering smell of apples from the apple orchard. No one cares about him there. There'd be no more leering, watching eyes, no more dorm to taunt him about his pathetic failures…

He would just be Kieran, a boy who wanted more than he could ever have.

I did end up using furret as a way of depicting his homesickness, though! this part from the final version in particular is definitely one of my favorites :3

“You’re way too heavy to be doin' that,” Kieran coughs. The pokemon just wiggles in his arms, squeaking as it butts its head into his chest. A tired smile tugs at Kieran’s lips when he looks into Furret’s empty black eyes. “And too happy to see me. Why’d you come out, huh? Didja want to lie down with me?”

Furret burrows itself into his shirt, entirely too big to fit inside his tank top. Kieran has to drag it out by its tail, earning a disgruntled squawk in the process. “Ok, stop, I get it! You’re gonna rip my shirt if ya keep doin' that!”

The clingy pokemon scrambles back to its original position, completely and utterly undeterred by his best efforts. Kieran sighs; Furret always loved to sleep and cuddle with him back in Kitakami, often scampering up to him for a hug whenever he came home. That's why it hurt the most, putting it away in his boxes. A pet, spoiled with love, could never win against the likes of properly trained pokemon.

He’s learned that lesson plenty of times.

this scene is a slightly different ending to kieran and florian's picnic after doing florian's BBQ's. I wound up changing it I didn't like how the scene was progressing (and also. it didn't sound good enough heh). I did write this as a way to show how unreadable florian can be when they're upset. I also wish I didn't scrap the last part where they're cleaning up the picnic table (again, plot reasons), because kieran overthinking in a silly doofy way is always super fun to write

Florian just stares at him, their mouth slightly parted in surprise. They take a jilted step in his direction. “Sorry, I didn’t mean—You were fine last time, so I thought…”

"I'm good!" Kieran squeaks, extremely mortified. He resists the urge to hide his face in his hands. "I just—you surprised me."

“O-oh.” Florian eyes flicker to the ground in thought. “Do you… want me to ask? Next time?”

Somehow, the idea of being told at all is even worse. Kieran shakes his head slowly. "No, it's… it's okay. Really."

Florian squints at him, and Kieran's fingers twitch. “Are you sure? I don’t mind; I just… I don’t like making you uncomfy, even if it’s by accident.”

"Y-yeah. It's cool. Promise." Kieran even smiles a little, just to make it a little more convincing.

Florian looks him over one more time, their mouth pressed into a small, thin line. "If you say so…"

Kieran almost breathes a sigh of relief. He quickly turns away from Florian's scrutinizing look, eyeing the half put away picnic table and the chair pile. "Do you want to, uh, pack up, or…?"

A pause. Florian passes by him a few moments later, their expression… blank. "We can. I think Miraidon ate the rest of the sandwiches anyway."

The two of them make quick work packing up the picnic supplies. Florian was right—the rest of Kieran's sandwich is just gone, probably dissolving in Miraidon's stomach. Miraidon licks its lips as it sits underneath a nearby tree, ever watching them go back and forth.

Florian's still… quiet, though. They haven't said anything since Kieran embarrassed himself earlier, which really isn't helping his nerves. What if Florian doesn't believe him? What if Florian thinks Kieran is uncool now. Why couldn't he act normal for once oh my god why—

"Uh, Kieran?" Florian speaks up, dragging him away from his thoughts. "You're balling up the tablecloth…"

Huh? Kieran looks down, the cute whimsical cloth crinkling in his hands. He almost drops it when he hastily unrolls it to its full length; after flapping it in the air a few times, he folds it back up and hands it to Florian. The creases are still there, much to his dismay.

Florian looks at it, studies it for each little crease, and Kieran is this close to actually crying.

Finally, finally, they take the cloth from his hands. "I never got to ask you earlier, but… will you be okay, while I'm gone?"

Ah. So they were thinking about it after all.

last one! originally I planned to have kieran apologize to carmine instead of drayton so that he could also ask her to go back to kitakami with him (since they still weren't on casual speaking terms at this point) I really wish I kept this because siblings <3 but. I also struggled super hard with this scene that I ended up rewriting about half of the entire fic

Oh no. Oh no no no he's not ready, he won't ever be ready, not ready at all!!! He still doesn't know what he's gonna say and Carmine is gonna be so angry and—

The League Club Room doors open, and Florian drags him inside.

Carmine's standing off to the side with Amarys, a bag in the other girl's hands. The room smells vaguely sweet and fruity, his stomach churning with nausea and overwhelming homesickness. He can't do it, he's a coward, after all!! A horrible, sick coward!!

Florian’s words fizzle in his ears as they wave to Carmine, and she. sees. him.

Her face falls, and Kieran is truly doomed. He's gonna die here, chewed into tiny bits and pieces before Florian's very eyes!! Even Amarys knows it—she just has to take one look at them and leaves. She says her goodbyes to Carmine, offering a crisp greeting to him and Florian on her way out.

And then it's just the three of them. Alone.

Carmine approaches them, her arms crossed over her chest. She just—looks at him, and Kieran’s hand twitches. He should speak up, to apologize for being so mean, for ignoring her all this time, to just say hello, but the words tangle in his throat. His mouth betrays him to keep his silence.

"Not even gonna say hi, Kiki?" Carmine says, almost bitter. Her eyes darken as she reaches her arms towards him, and Kieran shuts his eyes for the worst. "Why, you little—"

The sting doesn't come.

Instead, her touch is… warm? Carmine squeezes him tightly, her fingers pressing into his skin. It's not comfortable—Kieran's too short and small for Carmine's long arms—and he can't really breathe, but he doesn't move away. Not when he feels something soak into his shirt.

"You got some nerve, showing up like this after last time," Carmine mutters into his shoulder. Her voice shakes around the edges of her words.

Kieran's eyes start to burn, but it feels.. different, somehow. A quiet type of ache, almost soothing instead of burning bitterness or anger. Slowly, carefully, he holds her just as tight.

"Sorry…" he whispers. The words start to tumble out of his mouth, a string of messy apologies and choked thoughts. It’s all so ugly and doesn’t make any sense, but Carmine… listens. She listens as he heaves into her jacket, as his voice cracks and his mouth turns dry, until there are no more tears left to cry with.

I’m sorry for pushing you away. I’m sorry for ignoring you. I’m sorry that I couldn’t talk to you until now. I’m sorry for hurting you.

“Geez, you’re such a handful…” Carmine says as she pulls back, her eyes tinged red. She places a heavy hand on his shoulder. “But I guess that comes with the territory of being your big sis, huh?”

if you've gotten this far and haven't read sour kanzi yet, then you totally should pspsps (it's a kieran/florian fic that takes place after the indigo disk dlc ft. some canon divergence and a whole lot of Mental Issues on kieran's part. very fun)

#kieran #florian #carmine #apple of my eye series

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felikatze · 1 year

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idk if you still have thoughts of library of ruina but i would love to hear about an analysis on the floor realizations (it doesn't have to be all of them, it's up to you on which ones or if you want to do this).

you're gonna have to forgive inaccuracies since these thoughs have been crystalized in stasis in my brain since i first got thru lor and i KEEP meaning to reread the story but i never do because (gestures vaguely at the past four month of me being exclusively obsessed with FE)

i dont have a lot of thoughts on them overall besides "ohh coool" most of the time BUT

i really love tiphereth's.

i think the pick of the magical girls is GENIUS. at first it's easy to brush off as "she's the young kid so she gets the shojo squad" but it actually ties into the magical girl lore extremely well.

tiph's topic of discussion is "the meaning of life," centered on how tiph struggled to go on after enoch's death and, after her core supression in lobcorp, letting tiph B die forever. The constant replacement of Tiph B and his subsequent shutdowns really just hammered home Tiph A's inability to let go. But now that she has, now that she's made that step forward, what then?

And this is EXACTLY what the magical girls are all about. the premise of the magical girls is that they did it. they defeated the great evil. the world is saved. but now their fighting has no use anymore. all of them struggle to fill the void left behind by their battle. Queen of Hatred enacts evil so she can "defeat" it, Knight of Despair, well, despairs over everything she could not save, and King of Greed gave herself to her earthly desires. It's all maladaptive self-destruction.

Servant of Wrath in particular is an interesting parallel, since they had a mini arc centered on them in Wonderlab. They were separated from a friend, and try to fill that connection by any means; particularly, befriending an Agent. This, of course, ends in that Agent's death, and Servant of Wrath's friend abandons them. Since LoR directly posits the parallel, it's easy to see Tiph replacing Enoch over and over again in this. Particularly because Servant of Wrath had friends before the newest one. Three guesses what happened.

And then, of course, there's how all this parallels to Roland. Roland's backstory is presented in reverse through the middle tier of the library, starting here: Roland, who has lost everything. His wife, his unborn child, his home, his purpose. We are shown Roland in depression, alone in his apartment, adorned by an unused mobile.

I made a joke post once about one of Roland and Tiph's first interactions. Tiph offhandedly mentions Enoch, to which Roland teases her by asking if he's her boyfriend. She says he's dead. Roland, the dead wife haver, instantly regrets this.

And like. That's the thing!! These two suckers both lost people they care about. Tiph was similar to Roland in that she just floundered after the lab crew bit it. She lashed out at others, mainly Tiph B and the Upper Sephirah, out of her own powerlessness.

But now!! Look at her!! She has expectations for the future that stem from her past experiences. She's not living for Enoch. She can't. He's gone. But she can finally understand what he wanted from life: to make it better. And that's something anyone can work toward. Everybody has expectations for the future, and sometimes, often even, those expectations will be shattered. Whether your goal is failed or you succeed, you need to find the next thing on the horizon.

But... if you can't, then that's okay. If you don't expect anything from life, or can't bring yourself to, it's still good enough. Because "the meaning of life" and "the value of life" are different. Tiph decided her meaning of life is a better tomorrow, and Roland decided his meaning of life is that it has none at all, but both their lives are equally valuable, just by being.

The magical girls still tried to fulfill an expectation that was already completed. That's a fool's errand, though, and that's what destroyed them.

I just. I just think Tiph's realization is very nice, is all. The way the three-way parallels between Tiph, Roland, and the Magical Girls play off is intensely satisfying to me. Interpreting each of them through the lens of the other is really cool to do, and brings up new sides to all of them.

#Feli gets asked #library of ruina #long post #i'm not checking for typos. see ya.#love unloading these. i love saying the same things over and over and over. that's love babey

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happyandticklish · 2 years

Text

The Cost Of Pride

Notes: Commission for @ticklystuff! This is coincidentally an idea I’ve had in mind for Chili for a while now, so I’m grateful for the chance to expound upon and finally write it! Sorry it’s a bit late, I had finals and then my work schedule picked up for the summer and my time got a bit hectic ;-; I hope you enjoy ^^

Summary: Childe wants to be tickled, but it seems like no matter what he does, Zhongli just isn’t getting the hint.

Childe wasn’t used to asking. He had long ago learned the lesson that if you wanted something, you took it. Asking required subjecting oneself to the unpredictable will of others. It was a dangerous game of carefully calculated risk, where you bet on goodwill, a trait that Childe often found lacking in people. No, it was far better to take than to risk the potential for embarrassing failure that came with asking.

Usually, this was simple, in terms of money, power, lives—easy goals, quickly achieved without a second thought. Ever since meeting Zhongli, however, he had learned that some things couldn’t be taken.

The first time it happened, Childe had been caught unawares. He had woken up early to make breakfast for the two of them, something that was quickly becoming a more common occurrence in their lives. Childe had spent the night almost every day for the past couple of weeks, mostly on accident. Running into each other in the street would turn into a conversation and then a date and then the hinges of the door creaking as the two stumbled onto Zhongli’s bed, hands fumbling for purchase.

Neither of them had spoken about what these ‘happenstances’ were. Zhongli hadn’t brought it up yet, and Childe was perfectly content to never acknowledge it if he didn’t have to. Whatever they were, it was nice, and Childe didn’t want to mess it up by trying to force some constricting title onto it.

He hummed as he gathered ingredients, setting them out on the table and twirling a knife in his hands. It was a tune he had heard some of the kids singing last night at the festival (the scene of that particular happenstance) and it had weaseled its way into his brain. He grabbed an onion, positioning his knife to start cutting when—

“It sounds even better when combined with that breathtaking voice of yours; I could listen to you all day long and still long to hear more.”

Arms encircled him from behind, the words whispered softly into his ear. The knife slammed uselessly down onto a cutting board, having entirely missed the onion in his distraction.

“You know, it’s not smart to sneak up on a man with a knife,” Childe advised him, grateful that Zhongli couldn’t see the red creeping across his features. He still wasn’t used to the bluntness that Zhongli delivered his compliments with, handing them out as liberally as the Mora he squandered away. “I’m dangerous, remember? I could have taken you out.”

“And what a sweet death that would have been, to perish by your blade.”

Zhongli really did intend on killing him before breakfast.

“However,” Zhongli continued, with a telling pause. “I think you underestimate me, harbinger. For instance, I’ve learned some of your weaknesses by now. I could easily turn the fight against you if needed.”

Childe raised a brow, glancing back at him. “Oh? And just what weaknesses have you turned up then? I don’t suppose this is going to be a repeat of last night.”

Zhongli smiled, a rare spark of mischief dancing in his eyes that made Childe uneasy. “Mm, something like that.”

And then the arms around him tightened, trapping him as fingers danced subtly against his sides. Childe yelped, dropping the knife to reach back and tug at Zhongli’s grip. It was like his fingers had a direct connection to Childe’s nervous system, however, and quicker than he had expected he felt laughter bubbling up in his throat. Normally, he wouldn’t have let himself be caught unawares like this. Being around Zhongli was making him soft.

He should have hated that.

He didn’t.

He held feebly onto Zhongli’s hands, biting his lip and wishing he could say something, anything, without bursting into the laughter that so desperately yearned to escape him. He was well-aware that he looked stupid, a grown man in a flowered apron squirming and twitching in Zhongli’s arms, but he couldn’t help it.

“Is something the matter, Ajax?”

The name trilled through him and the softest whine escaped him as his resistance weakened. Tickling was new and exciting and an entirely unforeseen threat, and Childe was quickly discovering that he had no defenses against it. Zhongli’s fingers scribbled over his lower ribs and he slammed a hand over his mouth to stifle the stupid sound he almost let out at that.

There was a low, rumbling chuckle followed by a more focused attack on the spot. “You know, I never expected someone like you to be ticklish. It feels out of character, though I can’t say I’m disappointed. These past few nights, I’ve noticed that you always flinch away whenever my hands stray too close to certain areas. I’ve been developing evidence, and it seems my hard work has been rewarded.”

What was he, a detective now? Childe spluttered over something that sounded suspiciously like a giggle, whacking his hands weakly. “Z-Zhohongli! What abohout, ah, b-breheakfast?”

In an instant, Zhongli had released him, though he planted a small kiss against the back of his head before he fully backed off. Childe gave him a dirty look, its effect weakened by the smile on his face. “Your motivations are so simple sometimes, you know that?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Zhongli replied innocently, snagging an apple from a bowl sitting on the counter and heading back to the bedroom with a smirk that said otherwise.

That would have been the end of it had Childe’s brain not continued to play that scene over and over in his head until he practically had it memorized. There was something about the feeling of Zhongli’s hands—or no, that wasn’t it. It was more the feeling Zhongli’s hands created. That cross between unbearable and pleasant, like lightning had replaced his bloodstream.

He told himself it was purely out of curiosity. Learning about one’s weaknesses is the best way to defend against them, after all. It wasn’t as though he wanted Zhongli to tickle him.

No, this was purely informational.

“I’m bored,” Childe announced conversationally, striding into the living room where Zhongli sat shuffling a very large and very annoying stack of papers. He hardly even looked up at the other’s presence. Childe coughed, loudly, frowning when he still didn’t take notice. He sat down next to Zhongli on the couch, reaching a hand out to tug at his ponytail. “Did you hear me?”

Zhongli’s brows flicked down in annoyance momentarily, but he continued to flip through papers, circling random paragraphs and numbers before moving onto the next one. Childe never understood where he got the patience for that kind of work. He was getting a headache just looking at it. “I heard you, I simply don’t see how that relates to me. What exactly am I supposed to do about it?”

“Well, that’s up to you, isn’t it?” Childe rocked back dramatically, flopping across Zhongli’s lap and forcing him to quickly jerk the papers out of the way. Childe flashed him a dazzling smile, the one he reserved specifically for getting what he wanted, and crossed his arms behind his head with a brazen confidence he didn’t feel. “Entertain me, Archon.”

For a moment, Childe thought it was going to work. Zhongli glanced down at his exposed torso, fingers flexing against his papers like he was considering his next move. Childe waited with bated breath, certain of the wrecking he was soon to receive.

Instead, he was greeted with a face full of papers dropped unceremoniously on top of him.

“If you want entertainment, this should occupy you for the better part of the afternoon. I want you to circle everything before May, and put x’s next to the negatives. You can come get me when you’re done.”

Childe glared after him as Zhongli pried Childe’s form off of him and walked out the door, having secured himself a fun-filled afternoon and Childe extra labor.

After his first failed attempt, Childe only grew more determined to lure whatever mischievous side of Zhongli that had appeared that morning out of him. He tried every method he could think of; his shirts seemed to open wider and wider until his tummy window was more like a door; he stretched for obnoxiously long periods of time, making sure to expose himself as much as possible; simple things like whose turn it was to pay for dinner that night stretched into long, playful arguments as Childe attempted to goad him into revenge.

Yet each and every time Zhongli ignored the signs and merely appeared confused at Childe’s not-so-subtle disappointment. There was no way that Zhongli couldn’t know what he was doing by now, but as weeks went by, Childe couldn’t help doubting that fact. Maybe Zhongli really wasn’t picking up on any of his hints. He could be dense about things sometimes.

Which, unfortunately, meant that it was up to Childe to get what he wanted.

They were sitting in bed when he finally gathered the courage to ask. Zhongli flipped idly through a book open on his lap, some silly fantasy piece that Aether had lent him. It wasn’t his usual style, but Zhongli was never one to have a closed mind. His brows were furrowed in puzzlement as he tried to deduce the appeal of it.

Meanwhile, Childe lay beside him in bed, frustrated and tense after a week of failed attempts. His leg bounced anxiously on the mattress, and he kept tossing glances over at the other.

“What is it?”

His leg sped up slightly.

“What’s what?”

“Clearly something’s on your mind, I can see it in your face. And your leg.” Zhongli lowered his book, staring pointedly at him. “So. What is it?”

It seemed so simple when Zhongli put it like that, but of course, he didn’t know what was actually troubling Childe. He sighed, closing his eyes as he thumped his head back against the wall; if he was going to do this, he at least wanted to avoid the look of judgement that was sure to be all over Zhongli’s face afterwards.

“Well,” Childe started slowly, desperately hoping the other didn’t notice how red his face was. “I was, ah—well, I wanted to ask you something. But you have to promise me that you won’t laugh.”

Zhongli smiled in obvious amusement, but nodded his assent. “Alright, I promise. Though I’m sure I won’t be surprised by whatever it is—I’ve been around a long time, there’s not a lot I haven’t heard of.”

“You know that morning, a week ago, when I stayed the night after that festival?”

There was a smile appearing on Zhongli’s face, and even though it was what Childe had been hoping for, his stomach squirmed in dread at Zhongli figuring him out. “Yes, I’m aware.”

“You…” He cleared his throat once, twice, three times. “You.... Well. Ah. You tickled me.”

There was a beat of silence. Childe was hoping Zhongli might fill in the rest of his sentence, but his face was innocently open as he waited for him to continue.

“I was wondering if you… well, if maybe you wanted to… you know… do it again?”

Was it possible to blush so hard your face actually set on fire? If so, Childe was pretty sure he was fast approaching that mark.

For a long, terrifying moment, Zhongli didn’t say anything. In the course of those five seconds, Childe managed to think of every possible rejection Zhongli surely had in store for him, trying to decide which one was the least painful. And then—”

“I’m impressed. I thought you’d last at least another week before you finally gave in.”

Childe’s head whipped around to face him so fast it was a miracle his neck didn’t snap. “You knew?”

“Of course I knew,” Zhongli said wryly. “I’m not that oblivious.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“Relax, I’m only teasing. Although, on that subject...”

In a flash, Zhongli had thrown one leg around his waist, straddling him against the bedframe. Childe barely had time to let out a startled yelp before Zhongli was snagging his wrists and tugging them over his head where he pinned them tightly against the wall. They had been in this position many times before, in much different circumstances. Childe swallowed nervously. A quick pull on his arms confirmed that he wasn’t going to be going anywhere anytime soon.

It was a wonderful, terrifying feeling.

“I’ve been compiling evidence,” Zhongli continued, parroting his words from that morning. He rested his other hand against his stomach, and Childe inhaled sharply, squirming nervously under his touch. “Let’s go through the list, shall we?”

“No, we don’t have to actually—heEH!”

Zhongli’s fingers set into action, quickly cutting off whatever Childe had been about to say next with a sputtered giggle. His fingers were quick and deft, similar to his fighting style, as they seemed to almost dance over the trembling expanse of his stomach.

Childe often slept without a shirt due to the heat he wasn’t used to, but he hadn’t thought to factor tickling into that decision. Everything was so much worse on bare skin, and he clamped his mouth shut to prevent any unwanted embarrassing noises.

Meanwhile, Zhongli began to tick off his list. “There was that time on the couch, when you graciously placed yourself in my lap—even going so far as to lift your own arms up. Not to mention how many times you walked around the house shirtless—you’ve always been reserved about that before now, and yet every time I was around there seemed to be some amount of skin on display.”

He was tracing ever-so-lightly over his lower stomach, nails fluttering against the skin in an unbearable fashion. Childe hadn’t expected something so gentle to tickle so much, and he twitched violently back with each brush of the other man’s fingers, broken giggles slipping out gradually. It was everything he had wanted and more, the electrical thrill of sensation zipping through him and bringing him to life. It was impossible to sit still through, however, and Zhongli’s words certainly weren’t helping.

“And don’t think I didn’t notice the disappointed look on your face all those times you tried to tickle me and I didn’t immediately acquire revenge. I wonder if you were trying to provoke me in the past as well. After all, you do it so often—you must really enjoy this, to go to such great lengths for it.”

His words were matter-of-fact, which was almost worse than if he had been just teasing. A hot flush of embarrassment spread to the tips of Childe’s ears. He would’ve closed his eyes to avoid that smirk, playful and affectionate and annoyingly self-assured, but in truth there was a special thrill in having that gaze directed at him that he was unwilling to give up. “S-Shuhut uhuhuhup!”

“Mm, I’m afraid I can’t, sorry.” Zhongli slowly walked his fingers outwards, crawling up his left side and getting closer and closer to the one spot Childe knew he wouldn’t be able to handle. “There’s just so many examples, I’ve hardly even scratched the surface. Like that time in the parlor when you stole my book and forced me to chase you around the house, or all those training sessions where you allowed yourself to be pinned a bit too easily, or the many, many arguments where you practically begged me to do something about your stubbornness.”

“I-Ihih dihid nahahat n-now—wahahait hohohohold ohoHOHON!”

Devastating touches squirreled between his ribs, digging into the indents between each one and driving Childe half insane. Zhongli was so close now, just barely brushing under his arms, and Childe’s laughter had grown frantic and pleading with desperation.

“All of that, when you could have just as easily asked me.” Zhongli arched a brow, pinching the sensitive skin right before his underarms. Childe yelped, practically slamming himself against the wall in his haste to escape. “I never understood why you make these games for yourself instead of just being honest. There’s nothing strange about liking tickling. In fact, I’ve heard it’s quite common. Not to mention how cute it is.”

Childe blushed, wishing desperately that he could cover his face to hide how stupid he probably looked right now. The word cute rung over and over in his ears, a heart stopping refrain. “It’s stupid,” he mumbled, clenching his hands into fists. “And childish.”

Childe startled as a hand grabbed his chin tenderly, tilting it up to look at him. It was incredible how even that simple gesture made his heart flutter. “Ajax. I would never find anything that you love stupid.”

Childe struggled to find something to say to that, but before he could come up with a sensible reply, Zhongli had set back into motion, nails curling under his arms at long last. Childe shrieked, lurching forward in his hold and burying his face imploringly in Zhongli’s shoulder.

“That being said, I think we should return to the matter at hand, don’t you think? We’ll give your voice something else to do rather than spout such nonsense.”

“ZHOHONGLI! IHIHIT—SHIHIHIT!”

“Tickles?” Zhongli finished for him. “Thank you for the feedback, it’s much appreciated. Although while I’m here, I should do some research. Since you like being tickled so much, it’s only fair to you that I learn the best ways to do so. Now, under your arms seems to be particularly bad, especially around this area by your shoulder blades. I’ll have to return there again, for further inspection. And then of course there’s your stomach—”

“Nonononohohohoho!” Childe snorted weakly as those devastating nails returned to the stupidly sensitive area. His muscles trembled as Zhongli traced their outline, occasionally darting down to scratch at his hips. Each new spot seemed a thousand times worse than the last, driving him crazy in new and wonderful ways. “Ohoho m-my gahahahad, fuhuhuck!”

“Hips appear to be equally as bad, especially to the light touch. However, we’ve mostly tested your torso. I wonder if the same methods would work elsewhere?”

Childe’s confusion was quickly answered as Zhongli reached back suddenly, latching onto his knee and squeezing rapidly. Childe yelped, breaking into fitful cackles as he kicked the other leg in protest.

“NAHAHahahahaAHA nahahat thehEHEHERE!”

“Ah, so it seems a firmer approach works better on the legs.”

Childe shook his head quickly in denial, but his squirming and frantic laughter said otherwise. “Plehehehease, ihihit tihihihickles!”

“Are you asking me to stop, then?”

There was a brief moment where Childe considered saying yes, stopping all of this and ending the torment he’d been chasing for a week now—longer than a week, if he was being honest with himself. A chance to take the mercy Zhongli was graciously offering him. Instead, he shook his head once more, flushing for what wasn’t the first, and certainly wouldn’t be the last, time that night.

Zhongli smiled, melting a bit at the cute gesture, before setting in with a renewed vigor as he moved up to his thighs, an area that appeared to be very sensitive.

“Good. Let’s make up for lost time then, shall we?”

#tickle fic #commissions #chili #genshin impact #fanfiction #tickling #zhongli #childe #commission

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