#i am just - as my cousin put it - 'that kind of fic writer' in which i will do insane amounts of research for the smallest of details

[little-mouse-adventures]

A Timeline of Events in the Artemis Fowl Series

If anyone's interested, I did do an actual analysis for where I pulled some of these dates from. But because I cannot type succinctly to save my life, it's 5,000 words long, so that's below the cut. I also put the timeline there again, but in three separate images, so hopefully they load well enough to be fully legible if the above isn't.

A thousand thanks to @sadbitchapologist and @zahnie for their help and advice with this, despite neither of them having any more than the barest interest in the series and therefore having no clue what I was on about. Thanks also to @orangerosebush for fielding completely out-of-the-blue questions about the French school system, so I didn't have to attempt to navigate web search results to figure out what mandatory gym classes were like for the sole purpose of plotting Luc's birthday on here.

An Analysis of the Timelines in the Artemis Fowl Series

A Brief Introduction

The Artemis Fowl series is made up of eight books covering a range of years and events. I wanted to see how accurate the timelines present in the books were, as well as try and plot out some other details implied in the novels but not explicitly stated, to have a better understanding of the overall world-building. To that end, I went through the series and made the above timeline. I colour-coded it based on the relevance of the specific items to certain categories, namely Humans, Fairies, Villains, and the Series itself. This does mean that some things could have fit into multiple categories. For instance, you will see some items involving Opal categorized as Fairy-Specific (such as her college years, as those are fairly neutral to the main plot or her villainy), Villain-Specific (such as her setting up her emergency fund, as that is mostly related to her schemes as opposed to relevant to her existence as a fairy, or part of the main plot of the series), and Plot-Specific (such as her opening the Berserker Gate, the primary plot point for the final book).

Before we really delve into things though, we should establish the baseline assumptions I was working with. Firstly, I am only using the original series. I have not used anything written in The Fowl Twins trilogy, given that those books seem to ret-con a considerable amount of the original information, and that is far too many headaches to give myself. Any supplemental series information, such as the short stories found in The Artemis Fowl Files, or anything from interviews is also not included. The premise here is: using just the original books, what is the event timeline of the world? The second thing we need to establish is that I am using the North American releases of the novels. I did make notes on where each bit of information comes from, but there isn’t really a citation style for this kind of thing, so I’m not sure how relevant that is. The third assumption is that the first book takes place the year it was originally published. According to my copy, the original publication was 2001, with the first American paperback edition coming out in 2002, and the first mass market paperback being released in 2003. This means our starting point is in 2001.

For sake of clarity, this analysis will start with setting the dates of the books and continue on from there.

The Basics of The Books

With that out of the way, let’s talk about the first book, Artemis Fowl (AF). It is actually not until the very end of the book that we get a solid answer for when it takes place. It’s only in the last few pages of the novel that Angeline Fowl leaves her attic room after all the plot points are tied up and announces that it is Christmas Day. This might be cause for concern – Angeline had not previously been established as a particularly reliable narrator – but given that we are asked to believe that Holly’s ‘feel better’ mood booster worked, and that neither Butler nor Artemis balk at or question the pronouncement that is Christmas Day, we’ll accept that it’s true and move on. This means that, with Butler’s earlier announcement that he was stuck doing four months of stakeout, we can say with a fair amount of certainty that Artemis obtained and translated the Fairy Book in September 2001, and managed to capture a fairy in December of the same year.

Moving on to Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident (TAI), we are given a decent chunk of information, albeit spread out a bit. The first is the announcement that the ransom drop for Artemis Fowl I is to be held on the fourteenth. The fourteenth of what, you might ask? Well, we are told that Artemis is currently thirteen years old. Clearly, things are past September 1, 2002 (we know Artemis’s birthday is September 1 based on information in both the fifth and seventh books). We are also told that Luc Carrere has been trading with the goblins for six months, starting in July. That puts us in either December or January, but we can narrow it down further since Artemis gives us another helpful clue. He mentions they are not expecting to see the dawn while attempting to rescue his father in the Arctic. There are only a few latitudes on Earth where polar night (of any type) occurs, and at Murmansk, polar twilight occurs between December 10 – January 2. Combining all of this, we learn that TAI takes place December 14, 2002, give or take a few days to either side.

This can be corroborated by information in Book 3, Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code (TEC). After Holly heals Artemis Senior, we are told that it takes over two months for him to wake up. Since we are specifically told two months, as opposed to two and a half or three, we can conclude that the events of TEC take place in March 2003. Mulch gives us some information that confirms this. He was living in LA “less than four months ago,” and since he was conscripted to help with the events of TAI in December, a March plotline fits the bill. We are given further confirmation as well: Spiro mentions that Artemis will be fourteen in six months. A specific date for Artemis & Co.’s attack on Spiro’s Needle can be pulled from the throw-away line that Pex and Chips are “burying” Mulch on the full moon. A quick web search tells us that the full moon in March of 2003 takes place on March 14, and the rest of the events in the novel take place roughly two days to either side of that.

In Artemis Fowl: The Opal Deception (TOD), the fourth book in the series, we are given several very clear indications of when the events take place. Firstly, Artemis is contemplating that at fourteen years and three months old, he is the youngest person to successfully obtain The Fairy Thief. Based on previously noted details that his birthday is in September, the events of TOD must take place in December of 2003. Additionally, we are told that things are the middle of winter and Opal has been in a coma for eleven months and counting as of the end of TAI, another December plot.

Artemis Fowl: The Lost Colony (TLC) requires the most math and interpretation so far to figure out when it takes place. We know Artemis is still fourteen, so the main events clearly happen sometime between January 2004 and September 2004. Beyond that, we are using a fair amount of context clues. Artemis and Butler have evidently been traveling for four months looking for demons, so we are dealing with events in at least May. But that still leaves us several summertime months to work with, so to establish a timeline here, we will need to look forward a bit. In the sixth book, Artemis Fowl: The Time Paradox (TTP), it’s noted that Artemis is not yet fifteen, and has, on multiple occasions, spent the full moon in the study. Ergo, he’s spent at least a few months back from Hybras. If he has been back for two months and not yet turned fifteen, he would have had to have returned by July at the latest, and since he returns almost three years later than he leaves, we are looking at him returning in either May or June. This would have him disappearing to Hybras – and by extension, dealing with the earlier events in the book – in June, July, or August. After his conversation with Minerva, he notes to Butler that they “are planning a June wedding,” which wouldn’t make sense to say if they were currently in the month of June. From all of this, we can extrapolate that the first three-quarters of TLC take place in late July or early August 2004, with the triumphant return of our intrepid heroes occurring in June 2007.

As previously stated, TTP mentions that Artemis is still not fifteen, but is nearly there. He has also been home again for at least two months. This would put the events of the sixth book in August 2007. At least, the events set in the current time period. TTP does bring back time travel, and with it some problems. We are told that Artemis and Holly jump back nearly eight years to Artemis being ten and trying to fund searches for his missing father. This would put the events of the past in early 2000. However, other details presented regarding Artemis Senior’s disappearance, which we will discuss later, make that impossible. Artemis also admits, in TEC, that he was eleven when his father disappeared, not ten. If we take a bit of creative license with our interpretations and base the time-jump to the past on other presented information as opposed to the dates given in TTP, we can say that Holly and Artemis instead return to early 2001. This lines up with further details, such as the sinking of the Fowl Star (as calculated a few paragraphs down in this analysis) occurring in December of 2000, and the textual confirmation in TTP that it’s barely two months past that sinking when Artemis brokers the deal(s) regarding the silky sifaka lemur. Since, at the end of the day, the time jump impacts very little in the grand scheme of things, and the year 2001 actually fits in better with other textual evidence and events, that’s what I’m going with for this timeline.

The seventh book, Artemis Fowl: The Atlantis Complex (TAC) gives us a very helpful base point! It takes place on Artemis’s fifteenth birthday, September 1. From our previous results on setting dates for book events, that would be September 1, 2007. The sections in which Butler and Juliet are fighting mesmerized wrestling fans and meeting up with Mulch are noted in the novel as happening “the day before,” which would fall on August 31, 2007.

Artemis Fowl: The Last Guardian (TLG), the eighth and final book in the series, creates some problems. If we assume that Artemis starts receiving treatment for his Atlantis Complex immediately after diagnosis in TAC¸ that would put him receiving treatment in September 2007. We are told he is certified as cured after six months. Yet we are also told that the rest of the events of the book take place in the week or so leading up to the Christmas holidays. Everything so far has said that the Artemis Fowl series follows the current calendar, in which case there is no way that six months can fit between September 1, 2007 and December 25, 2007. However, the only reference to Christmas is in two lines noting that the Fowl parents were planning on holidaying with their children on a foreign beach. If we simply say that six months have passed, and they are instead planning on spending the Irish school system’s spring holidays in the French Riviera, everything else lines up much better. So that’s what I’ve done. This would also put the resurrection of Artemis, after the events of the book and a further six months have passed, at roughly September of 2008. There is a pleasing symmetry to Artemis being born and then re-born in September, though if you want to get really technical and say the events of TLG take place during the 2008 March full moon as Opal claims (as noted in another web search as March 28), a six-month wait time for the clone to grow would put the resurrection in October. Still, there is something to be said for having a boy’s ghost haunting a clone of himself close to All Hallows. Since it’s the last plot point of the series, you can choose which you’d like; it doesn’t have to lead to anything else after it.

Let’s Talk Timelines: The Beginning of the Line to The End of The 19th Century

Now that we have our baseline book time periods established, we can get into the math used to determine some of the events in the timeline above. Several events are easy; we are given specific dates for them. Turnball Root meets Leonor in 1938, Juliet wins the Miss Sugar Beet Fair beauty contest in 1999. Other things are based on some basic math, such as Artemis claiming his parents got married fourteen years prior to AF¸ putting that event in 1987.

The majority of the items on the above timeline, however, do take some mathematics, extrapolation, and interpretation to plot out. To try and keep everything organized, we’ll start at the far left of the timeline, and work our way forwards, looking at events oldest-to-newest to explain why they are where they are on the graph. I won’t be getting too in-depth on everything in the graph, since I’m not sure how relevant the notes on the very minor side characters such as Carla Frazetti are, but I’ll at least try to touch on some of the more relevant points.

To start with, the Battle of Taillte was noted in the 2000’s as being ten thousand years ago, putting that at 8000 BCE. Similarly, the last dome breach at Atlantis was apparently eight thousand years ago in the 2000’s, so that would be 6000 BCE. Troll sideshows were legal in the early middle ages, which implies they were not legal after that. A quick web search says the early middle ages ended around 1000. The first crusades were in 1096-1099, and as those crusades are the start point of the Butler-Fowl working relationship, a point for noting that comes next on the graph.

From there, we get into more modern – relatively speaking – events. Briar Cudgeon and Julius Root are noted as attending the LEP Academy together and being raised in the same tunnel, as well as having about 600 years of history together. If one assumes “being raised in the same tunnel” is similar to the human equivalent of “growing up in the same neighbourhood,” we can assume the two were born roughly 600 years ago, in the 1400’s. Vinyaya is portrayed as being of a similar age to Root, so her birth can also be put in the same general era. We are also told that Fowl Manor was originally a castle built in the fifteenth century, that in the early 2000’s the theories of timeline corruption were first introduced over five centuries ago, and that cloning has been banned for over five hundred years, so those three events are also tossed into the 1400’s.

Julius Root is noted as doing his LEP basic training 500 years ago in Ireland, so that would have to be in the 1500’s. He would have attended the Academy before then, putting that in the mid-to-late 1400’s. As previously stated, he was in the Academy with Cudgeon. Opal also met Cudgeon in college, and competed with Foaly for science prizes there, so they were all in school at the same time.

Mulch now enters the picture. We aren’t ever given a specific age range for him, but we are told about his career. He has, apparently, spent three centuries in and out of prison after a couple centuries of success as a thief. This would make him at least five hundred years old. There is a brief mention that he tried the athletic route at college before becoming a thief, so he would have to be an adult at that point, putting his age at roughly 550 years during the events of the series.

We then enter a period filled in from one-off lines throughout the series, presumably added to give some depth to the world. Things about the wine cellar at Fowl Manor being a seventeenth century addition, Captain Eusebius Fowl and his crew dying in the eighteenth century, and Mulch first faking his own death over two hundred years ago.

Time Marches On: The 20th Century

There is nothing of much relevance to linger on between the 1550’s and the 20th century, so we’ll jump ahead to the 1900’s, when we have Holly Short’s birthday. She is in her eighties during TLC, and her father died “over twenty years ago” when she was “barely sixty” as of TAI. Based on that, she would have been in her early eighties in 2002, putting her birthday sometime in the 1920’s. What a doll.

A few more birthdays now appear, and we’ll ignore, for the most part, some of the irrelevant ones. I don’t think we are at all concerned with Gaspard Paradizo’s birthday, or Mikhael Vassikin. We are, however, rather more interested in Jon Spiro, Domovoi Butler, and Artemis Fowl I.

Jon Spiro enters the series in TEC, as a middle-aged American. A quick search on the Internet says that middle age is generally noted as being between the ages of 40 to 60. We are told that Spiro has worked in three main industries over the past two and a half decades. Additionally, we are told that law enforcement has been “trying to put [him] away for thirty years.” If we assume he entered the working world at twenty, spent five years developing his professional self, and then started going down a path of questionable legality to get the police after him, that would put him at fifty-five in 2003, and born in the late 1940’s.

It was a bit easier to determine Domovoi Butler’s age, and we can get more specific with his actual birthday. We are told that he is forty at the start of TEC, and he is still forty during TOD. From that, we can assume his birthday is not between March – December, which means it has to be between January – March. Now, we can just leave things there, but contextually, Butler says in late March 2003 that “a lot of people know [him] as a forty-year old man.” Since I doubt he’s the kind of person who introduces himself by announcing that his birthday was last week, we can assume that his birthday is not in March. Since about half the books in the series take place in December, and there is never any mention of Butler’s birthday coming up soon, we can likely assume it isn’t in January. We can therefore conclude Butler was born in February, 40 years before 2003, which puts his birth year in 1963.

We then have Artemis Fowl I. This one took the most extrapolation to determine. We know he has run an ethical empire for a few years as of 2007, which coincides with his return to his family after being kidnapped by the Mafia. He apparently ran a successful criminal empire for two decades before that, though, so in 2007 he has been working for at least 25 years. Based on the interactions he had with his own son, I’ve assumed he was also taught to take over the family business from a young age. If he started working at his age of majority at 18 (as possible in the 1980’s in Ireland, based on a web search), we can assume he was born in roughly the mid 60’s.

Billy Kong, born Jonah Lee, is one to touch on. He plays a large role in TLC, during which we are given possibly the most backstory of any villain in the series. He was evidently born in the early 1970’s, and was eight years old in the early 1980’s. Mathematically, that can only lend itself to so many birth years, so it’s easy enough to put his birthdate somewhere in 1973, and his brother’s death date in 1981.

While we’re here, let’s talk about the 1980’s. A lot of things happen in the 80’s, so we’ll be here for a few paragraphs. Butler would have graduated Madam Ko’s Academy in the early ‘80s, Artemis I would have started working in his family’s business and stolen some warrior mummies (of note, the theft is only noted as being in Artemis Sr.’s “gangster days,” but if you are a young, rich criminal, you’d likely commit a wild theft in your early years as opposed to your thirties, which is why this is put in here). Additionally, in the mid 1980’s, Holly graduates the LEP Academy and her mother dies, as noted in TTP when she is contemplating missing three years of her friends lives.

Butler would have started his five-year stint in Russia with an espionage unit in the mid-to-late 80’s, and become a big brother in 1985. Juliet is noted at being four years older than Artemis in AF in 2001, and he is twelve then, making her sixteen at the time. We can extrapolate the month from TEC, wherein she is apparently eighteen when she is called regarding her brother’s apparent death. At the time, we are told what gifts she received for her birthday, implying it was fairly recent. Additionally, Artemis was only thirteen at that time, which would make Juliet five years older than Artemis. If, however, we trust that acolytes at Madam Ko’s start their training on their tenth birthday and get one chance to graduate per year, it would make sense for that one chance to be on their birthday, or within a day or two to allow for as much training time as possible. Since Juliet was in the midst of this one graduation evaluation when she gets the phone call and joins the crew for the March heist at Spiro’s Needle, she’d have to be born in March. (We can also corroborate this with some details from AF: if AF  takes place in mid-September, that would be just after Artemis’s birthday, which puts the 4-year age difference back into play.)

Spelltropy begins for the People in 1987, if it appeared 20 years ago from 2007. Artemis I and Angeline Fowl would get married in 1987. They would have their first child, Artemis Fowl II, in 1989, as calculated by Artemis being twelve during the initial siege of the Manor in December 2001. Artemis II’s grandfather was noted as having been dead for over ten years at that point, and it was mentioned in TEC that Angeline married her husband before he really took over the family business, so those events would likely happen when Artemis was but a baby in 1990.

The ‘90s are a period where a lot of things are happening, but few are particularly important. Spelltropy has a cure found, Minerva Paradizo is born, Juliet begins her bodyguard training and her brother refuses to let her shave her hair. These, and other events in the 90’s, are mostly calculated by math along the lines of “Event A happened X number of years ago,” but since the 90’s was mostly a time of worldbuilding events rather than plot events, we’ll just skim over the specific details.

‘You Are Here’: The 21st Century, and Where The Storytelling Begins

Welcome to the 2000’s! The kick-off point of not only the 2000’s, but also the entire series, is the sinking of the Fowl Star. We aren’t given a specific date for this, but we are given enough information to extrapolate the date. Specifically, in September 2001, in AF, we are told Fowl Sr. has been missing for almost a year. In TAI, in December, we are told he has been missing for almost two years. That does have the potential to have the ship go down in either December or January, so we need to use a bit more details from TAI to make a final determination. Mikhael Vassikin and Kamar were told to dump Fowl’s body in the Kola if he didn’t wake up in “another year,” so they’ve been looking after him for one at that point. Fowl Sr. wakes up two weeks before the deadline, and as noted earlier, the ransom drop for him takes place December 14, after he has been awake for perhaps a week. From that, we can tell that the deadline for “another year” was mid to late December, putting the initial sinking of the Fowl Star in late 2000.

The analysis gets a bit confusing at this point, because 2001 is when future Artemis and Holly join the party via time travel, as well as having their regular selves in the timestream. Essentially, we’ve established the timeline for the events of TTP above, so we know the whole lemur fiasco takes place in March 2001. Artemis wakes up at the end of that book thinking about fairies, which ties in rather neatly to him then dragging Butler across three continents for six false alarms (with an assumed approximate 3 weeks between each jaunt) before striking metaphorical gold in Ho Chi Minh City in September. During their time-traveling, Holly also gets a chance to talk to Root, who wonders why she isn’t in Hamburg, which was noted in AF as Holly’s first major failure as a Recon officer and was nearly preceding the events of AF. The time-traveling would also mean that Opal would have had to harvest her DNA for future diabolical plans before March 2001, when her younger self travels to the future. Since it takes up to two years to grow a clone to adulthood, and her clone has to be ready in September 2003, we are a few months off in the time requirements, but really, for a practice that’s been outlawed for 500 years, I can offer a bit of leeway.

We are now well and truly in the thick of the main events of the series. Most of this will be tied into the initial assessments we made way at the beginning of this essay, where we established when each book occurs. Because of this, we aren’t going to spend time on anything plot-related. However, a brief note on Turnball Root and Artemis’s Atlantis Complex is likely in order. Artemis was, as previously stated, dealing with his return from Hybras and the after-effects of stealing magic during July and August of 2007. His Atlantis Complex, and Turnball Root’s plan to escape the Deeps prison, are in full swing in September of that year. We have a brief note in TAC during the evacuation of Atlantis, that Turnball had, a month before, spied on Artemis and noted his Atlantis Complex developing. Therefore, Artemis’s Complex likely came into play in late July or early August 2007. This is close enough to Artemis’s magic theft to make sense for the deterioration of his mental health, and enough time for Butler to have started to notice something was wrong, as he did. We can therefore assume that Atlantis Complex, at least in the case of magic-stealing humans who have a propensity for time travel and getting involved in supremely complicated and improbable plots, develops relatively quickly.

This leaves just one major discussion point from the last few books: the age of Artemis’s twin brothers, Beckett and Myles. The twins are first introduced at the very end of TLC. They are written as being two during the events of TTP, three during the events of TAC, and four during the events of TLG. Regardless of the time-traveling shenanigans of their elder brother, it is impossible for the twins to age two years in the eight months between Artemis’s return from Hybras in June 2007 and the finale of the series in March of 2008, so we need to look at what makes sense.

Myles has already potty-trained himself, and done so at fourteen months, so they must be at least that old. Their other behaviours would make sense for them to be two in TTP. Diapers are still a part of their lives, and their language and vocabulary fit what a two-year-old would have, at least in Beckett’s case. Since Artemis was surprised by their existence, it doesn’t seem likely that  Angeline would have known she was pregnant, or at least not have told Artemis yet, when he went to Limbo. Ergo, they can’t be any older than two, since (one would hope) Artemis would have noticed his mother’s pregnancy if the twins were any older.

Additionally, in TLG, we know Artemis gave his brother a birthday present, so he had to have been around during the twin’s birthday at least once. With this fact, the twins cannot be born between March – June, which just leaves the question of when are the twins born?

 The most logical answer is February 2005. If Angeline was early on in her pregnancy, say six weeks (which is when most women start noticing symptoms), when Artemis disappeared in July 2004, she wouldn’t necessarily have told him yet. Then, if we assume that since most twin births occur around the 35-week mark, that would math out to having the twins be born in February of 2005. Fast forward, and they would turn one in February 2006, and two in February 2007, which puts them at the correct age for the events of TTP. [One could argue, of course, that a twin pregnancy in an older woman (unfortunately, there is nothing in the series to indicate Angeline’s age) and in a woman already dealing with significant stress could result in a very premature birth, thereby voiding any of this math and leaving the whole question of the twin’s birthday unanswered. However, since I’d rather not subject the Fowl parents to the strife and misery of having one son missing and presumed dead, and their younger children in the NICU with a low survival rate, I’m working with the assumption that the pregnancy was a healthy and normal one.]

The brief comment from Juliet in TAC about the twins being three can be passed off by them being a little over two-and-a-half and Juliet not being around as she is touring in Mexico. By the time TLG takes place, in March of 2008, the twins would have had their third birthday, allowing for Artemis to give Myles his chair as a birthday present, Beckett to be old enough to no longer need diapers, and the behaviours to act more like children than infants. While this doesn’t quite allow for the repeated textual confirmations in TLG that the twins are four, we’ll go with what mathematically makes sense.

That brings us to the end of the timeline! Not everything is touched on in the timeline, and not everything in the books is plotted (we are never given enough context to know Foaly’s or Opal’s birthdates, for instance). But the main events of the Artemis Fowl series are all analyzed, mathematically or logically or textually corroborated, and plotted out, for use or ignoring as personal preference dictates.

#artemis fowl #af timeline #you have no idea how irritated I am that there is nothing - NOTHING - in the series to give ANY context #on the ages for Angeline Fowl or Arno Blunt or Damon Kronski. #i can make GUESSES but they would be entirely based on my own bias and thoughts and vibes #which is INTENSELY irritating because i have basically EVERYONE ELSE #on the timeline SOMEWHERE #oh well. i think i have most of the events of the series on there? #if i missed something i'd love it if someone could point it out so i have a complete 'map' #oh though to be clear: i did very much do this for me! #this isn't meant to like...take away anyone's headcanons or ideas or whatever #if you wanna do something that directly contradicts the above - go for it! #i am just - as my cousin put it - 'that kind of fic writer' in which i will do insane amounts of research for the smallest of details #the one i wanted this for is honestly in a fic i haven't even started #and that is in fact several ticks down the Want To Write list #but that's neither here nor there! #i now have an outline of when things happen so i can do whatever i want with it :)

[solomons-finest-rum]

Hello to one of my favourite Alfie fic writers! Since you're taking requests, I'd like to make one as well.

I don't know how it works but how about a scenario/imagine where Tommy gets in some kind of trouble (as always) and Alfie suggests that his lovely gangster wife could help and goes to introduce them but as it turns out it's none other than the Shelby's sister/cousin/relative/friend/or maybe even an ex? (Your call one this one) who they thought was dead or something?

Idk if it's even worth your time and effort but I just wanted to make a request ;) No pressure, of course!

Love you and your writing a lot!

“As The Crow Flies” (Alfie Solomons x fem!Reader) — PART 1

SUMMARY — By all accounts Anna Gray died in Australia and had no business standing in Alfie’s living room, nor calling the man “darling” for that matter. But there you were, identical to the picture they took when they shipped you off to the colonies.

AUTHOR’S NOTE — Thank you to @zablife for being the most gracious beta!💗💗💗💗💗 and thank you Anon for this request, because actually it inspired a full-blown multi-chapter idea! So this is set around... Season 5 I suppose? But I'm going to ignore everything in it and Season 6 too. Let's pretend none of it happened and just focus on the fun part! That is driving Tommy insane and making Alfie say outrageous lines.

WORD COUNT — 2,286

Masterlist

In retrospect, Tommy Shelby felt he should have known better. He should have fucking known that the moment, the moment, he came to Margate to sort the bloody situation out, exactly two things would happen.

One, he would have to sit and listen with a straight face to Alfie’s inspired monologue, the subject of which had swerved from elephants to bank robbery in about two and a half minutes, and then managed to touch upon just about everything else under the sun.

Tommy remained quite sure that the sense of Alfie’s rambling had been long lost to history and the point of it all was just to talk him to death, really. Put him out of his misery with nonsense alone.

“Now then, Tommy, as I said, right, I ain’t the vindictive type, I really ain’t, so I am gonna help ya out just this once, right, outta the goodness of my own heart.”

Tommy managed not to roll his eyes. Barely.

“‘Cause I am a changed man these days, Tommy, an’ it can be that the old man that I am, I’m goin’ soft on ya, right, an’ so tradition dictates, mate, to ask for more than ten thousand for my troubles.”

Tommy raised a brow.

“But as things currently stand with the medical bills, on the account of bein’ shot in the face by some cunt, right… Fifteen would sound proper fair, mate.”

Thank fuck for small mercies, Tommy thought, then lit another cigarette and promptly got up to leave. Alfie apparently managed to settle both sides of the conversation, negotiations included, and their American problem could very well sort itself out all on his own—thus proving to Tommy once more that the only thing he could really count on in this world had always been lunatics.

“Right, the fuck you’re doin’ now, sit down!”

Tommy frowned and remained standing, cigarette in the corner of his mouth and sheer outrage emanating from his entire person. The question of “what in fuck’s name do you want now, you crazy bastard?” overtook his face.

“Right, I need to make a bloody phone call,” Alfie said then, which explained exactly nothing.

Yes, that was the second thing Tommy had been so sure would happen. Alfie would first go on a tangent, then formulate a plan that involved three separate layers of deception, a bribe, and a crate of dynamite (probably).

Then Tommy would get caught in the middle as bloody always and Polly would have his head for going along with Alfie’s plan in the first place.

What he didn’t expect was for Alfie to change his tone of voice completely as soon as the person picked up on the other end:

“Yeah, darlin’, it’s me. Come to the house, alright? Right, ‘cause I need ya here for somethin’. No, not like the— Bloody hell, woman, just don’t fuckin’ argue with me for once, alright?”

Sometimes a rare occasion would present itself for Tommy Shelby to become fucking speechless. Truth be told, he remained rather surprised that two such occasions had also involved Alfie Solomons, undoubtedly purely for the Devil’s bloody amusement.

“Who was that then, Alfie?”

“None of ya fuckin’ business.”

Tommy had a sneaky feeling there wasn’t a clever enough question in existence that could have pushed Alfie to say anything more. He looked smug as hell for having pulled that stunt off so Tommy was willing to see it through.

For old time’s sake.

The sun was setting and they had another drink, then Tommy let Alfie go on another tangent about… Tea import. Perhaps. Who knew, he wasn’t really listening.

On drink three Tommy was alerted by a car pulling up to the house, followed by a door slam and a rhythmic clacking of high heels on the porch. Tommy looked to Alfie, but the man remained infuriatingly calm.

Just as Tommy was about to reach for his gun, the door to Alfie’s study opened unceremoniously and a scent of expensive perfume wafted across the room. Tommy turned around and tried his best to keep up the indifferent facade, but failed miserably. Nothing could have prepared him for you walking through that door, with a giant bodyguard no less, following you like a second shadow.

“Alright there, Billy?” Alfie greeted the bodyguard casually and the man grunted in response. “Right then, might ya wait in the car for us, mate? This whole bloody business will take a minute.”

Tommy then watched as Alfie approached you and planted an affectionate kiss to your cheek, at which point Tommy stood up abruptly.

For a moment he just stood there and stared; a state he didn’t find himself in too often these days. 

“Darling, are we having guests?” you asked Alfie in a tone so familiar to Tommy; so like your mother. Pleasant, on the verge of sarcastic. 

By God, either that Camden bastard was a magician or you had a twin sister that Polly never mentioned. Because it wasn’t possible… It couldn’t be you. Not according to the file he stole from the parish. By all accounts Anna Gray died in Australia and had no business standing in Alfie’s living room, nor calling the man “darling” for that matter. But there you were, identical to the picture they took when they shipped you off to the colonies. 

“Right then, Tommy, might I present my lovely wife,” Alfie said. “Sweetie, this here is Tommy Shelby, right, all the way from the ungodly place they call Birmingham—”

“Tommy Shelby?” you interrupted and looked at Tommy with a smile so like Polly’s that Tommy nearly lost his composure again. “My, my… And there you went and promised you were done with the life, Alfie.”

“Right, an’ how could that—”

“Anna,” Tommy interrupted what he was sure was a budding monologue from Alfie. 

“Yes?” you asked. “You know my name?”

“I… Know your mother.”

“Know?” There it was again. That curious smirk of yours that could really mean anything. Tommy found it harder and harder to keep up the charade.

“But that’s not possible, Mr. Shelby.”

“What’s not possible?”

Your tone remained polite, but your dark eyes said it all. The expression of quiet resolve Tommy thought only one person capable of delivering with such resentment.

“I’m an orphan, Mr. Shelby.”

Tommy said nothing to that, because what in hell could he even say? All of a sudden the American issue faded into nothingness, replaced solely by the phantom standing before him.

“So you did not lie, I see,” you turned to your husband with a quizzical expression, seeing as Tommy went quiet again. “He really is as strange as the papers make him. No matter, though, Mr. Shelby, I hope you like chicken? My husband insists I’m a terrible cook, but you must stay for dinner.”

Tommy nodded mechanically and put out his cigarette just to busy his hands with something. When he looked at Alfie, though, Tommy noticed how the man’s mouth twitched, clearly indicating the scheme was playing exactly how he wanted it to. Mad bastard, Tommy thought. There was no saying if he was being played or tricked or helped. Probably all at once, but solely for Alfie’s benefit of course.

“Right, curious as I am, luv, what delectable fuckin’ option you maimed and butchered for dinner, Tommy isn’t stayin’—” Alfie then stopped himself when two sets of identical Shelby scowls got directed his way.

Tommy did stay for dinner and made sure to clean his plate, too. He didn’t mind the food at all; it reminded him of Polly’s simple cooking back in the day when she would take care of Tommy and his siblings in Small Heath.

The more he listened to you talk and bicker with Alfie, the more of your mother he saw in you and the angrier he got at seeing you here of all places, as Alfie’s wife, unable to speak to you in plain terms. Tommy wasn’t exactly sure which made him angrier, though—the fact that you were Alfie’s wife or the fact that the sly bastard had kept you from your true family for who knows how many years. How did he even find you?

All the questions he had were still swirling around in Tommy’s head and he wasn’t particularly paying attention to anything else, besides staring daggers at Alfie. He was hoping there would be a moment to talk to you alone, but of course your husband would never allow it. He watched Tommy like a hawk the entire evening, sometimes with just a hint of a smile to suggest he was still three steps ahead of everyone else.

“See you never got accustomed to that fancy cookin’ they’re offerin’ ya at the mansion these days, Tommy,” Alfie said, undoubtedly truly enjoying the charade. “Tommy’s an MP, darlin’, right about two steps from gettin’ a knighthood I reckon. Yeah, a real prince he is.”

The way Alfie said the word was so clearly a jab at Tommy’s ancestry that he didn’t even flinch. What he was curious about was your reaction, but you remained perfectly pleasant: 

“Don’t tease, love, we haven’t had guests in ages and I’m not letting you drive this one away.”

When the maid took away the plates, you lit a cigarette in a swift overdone gesture and Tommy was once more taken aback with your resemblance to Polly. 

“Well, I’ll leave ya both to it,” you announced as you got up. “It was a pleasure, Mr. Shelby.” You extended your hand and Tommy shook it. “I know you tried your best with the chicken and I appreciate it,” you paused and tilted your head to the side as if sizing Tommy up.

“I rarely trust your husband’s judgement,” he replied.

The way you smiled reminded Tommy of a cat that got into the pantry. He decided not to think about it too much.

“I see. Goodnight then, Mr. Shelby.”

As soon as Tommy heard you got upstairs, he turned to Alfie who, unsurprisingly, already had a gun pointed at him. It was a casual way of it that was the most infuriating—Alfie’s hand was more so resting on the table and the gun just happened to be there, pointing at Tommy. 

“Now then, Tommy, let’s be reasonable about this, mate.”

Tommy clenched his jaw and remained silent, but his murderous glare said it all.

“There are four people at the house, right, includin’ you, me, my wife, then the maid… Then there’s Billy outside, right, who’s gonna be rightly worried once he doesn’t get my dismissal for the night. So I want ya to be real cold an’ calculated about it, Tommy, just like I know ya can be, ‘cause if ya decide to off me for no reason now…”

“No reason.”

“Right.”

“You’re old enough to be her father.”

“Yeah an’ fortunately I’m not, ‘cause that’d be right fuckin’ awkward at the temple, mate.”

“Temple?”

“What’d ya think, Tommy, that I smacked her over the head and dragged her into my cave?”

“Somethin’ like that.”

“Right, we’ll have to show ya the pictures then, she looked stunnin’.” Alfie leaned back in his chair. “Tell ya what, mate, why don’t ya come by for tea one day?”

“Tea.”

“Yeah. We have it, Tommy, we’re not animals.”

Tommy said nothing to that. He was still reviewing his options, but as he wasn’t a fan of spontaneous action, the patient approach seemed appropriate. The offer, though, just like everything else about the situation, was fucking infuriating.

“Cat got your tongue?”

“Fuck you, Alfie.”

That finally made Alfie smile and for some reason he lowered the gun.

“Right, so seein’ as we’re family, Tommy, and what a happy coincidence this is, I must say, I feel like we should talk fuckin’ proper. None of that shit.” Alfie then gestured between them as if he hadn’t been responsible for “that shit” in the first place.

“We’ve been talking, Alfie,” Tommy deadpanned.

“Yeah, but then there’s still somethin’ ya haven’t told me about your American troubles, isn’t there, mate, so I’m expectin’ you’ll be more honest with me in the future. Now that I’ve brought the right arguments to the table…”

The hint of a threat in that statement almost made Tommy wish he still had his razor cap around.

“She’s Polly’s only daughter, Alfie.”

“Right, I’m aware of that.”

Tommy nodded, feigning understanding between them. As always, handling Alfie very much resembled handling a live grenade without a pin.

“This can’t be the way to end things.”

“Who’s endin’ things, Tommy?”

“I’m just saying.”

“Yeah, an’ I’m going to let this one slide, Tommy, ‘cause you just got a lot to process, mate, so I’m prepared to be understandin’.”

Tommy shook his head and reached into his jacket pocket, at which Alfie uncocked the gun. Tommy slowly pulled out his cigarette box, but Alfie never even flinched. It was gruesomely reassuring to still have been right, even in the position that Tommy currently found himself in. 

Alfie Solomons would always remain Alfie Solomons, even with the whole song and a dance about getting old and senile. He was still the same mad bastard Tommy came to know all those years ago, and as things stood, Tommy found himself wondering if this time he shouldn’t try poison instead of a bullet.

“Tommy,” Alfie sighed, “with three good eyes workin’ between us, mate, I really would greatly mind if I somehow acquired a fuckin’ tumour in my lungs, too.”

Tommy said nothing and he knew Alfie hated it.

“Which means put that shit out, mate, and listen to what I’m about to say, ‘cause I got a feeling you’ll really wanna hear it.”

#peaky blinders fanfic #peaky blinders imagine #peaky blinders x reader #alfie solomons fanfic #alfie solomons x reader #alfie solomons imagine #tom hardy fanfic #tom hardy imagine #tom hardy x reader

[annerbhp]

20 questions for fic writers!

@runawaymarbles tagged me, but she said I could do it anyway if I liked.

1. How many works do you have on ao3?

114

2. What’s your total ao3 word count?

1,436,497

3. What fandoms do you write for?

The big ones were Stargate and Harry Potter and The Untamed. I've also dabbled briefly in CSI, Leverage, Firefly, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Last of the Mohicans.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

It's all HP fic, which I think speaks both to the size of that fandom, but also that I started writing for that fandom as I moved to AO3.

The Changeling (HP, Ginny) The Armistice Series (going to cheat and put these all together, HP, Harry/Ginny) we can't control (watch me unfold) (HP, Harry/Ginny) gone was any trace of you (HP, Harry/Ginny) half awake and almost there (HP, Harry/Ginny)

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

I do try to respond to comments, because each and every one of them mean a lot to me. But I am not always great about it. I think I kind of respond in giant bursts? So there are times when I just don't, often because I am totally focused on getting the next chapter out or something, but then I will just sit down on day and just mass respond to a lot. I could always be better at it though.

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

Interesting. I am in no way afraid of angst, but I usually like to at least have a hopeful ending, if not a wildly happy pay off ending. I'm not sure I've ever done a full tragedy ending. Outside some one-off comment fic or ficlet posted here or there.

I think down here among the wreckage (Sam/Jack, SG-1) is my most infamously angsty fic of all time, and I never completely got to finish it? So it ends pretty darn angsty. Though maybe Beneath the Stains of Time (boy, I used to love a good apocafic!)

my kingdom come undone (Untamed, wangxian) is pretty darn angsty too, I suppose.

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

Hopefully almost all of them? Though, I suppose I mostly like to exist in the "here's some pay off after angst, but I'm never gonna say everything is all good because it never is" area.

Maybe Life is What Happens which is sort of a coda to who Harry/Ginny could have ended up being?

8. Do you get hate on fic?

Occasionally, but not that often. I've only gotten something I would consider straight up hate speech twice, and those just get immediately deleted. Otherwise it's mostly someone telling me what they don't like. Some people really hated The Changeling. And some people really think I hate Hermione for some reason and hated that. Oh, boy and now I'm remembering the time I mentioned the mere possibility of a different pairing (Sam/Daniel) than my usual ship at the time (Sam/Jack) and got a lot of hate about that!

9. Do you write smut?

Not in the beginning, no. I distinctly remembering @holdouttrout and I being like "how can people write smut! I could never!" and then not so long later we had a good time coming back and laughing at ourselves and each other as we wrote smut. Lol. Good times, Trout!

These days, yes, I am known to sometimes write smut. I don't do a lot of PWP, but I think smut can be a great part of storytelling and character development. I'm not sure I'm any good at it, and it's probably the kind of writing I am least confident in, but I'm usually willing to try a hand at it.

10. Do you write crossovers?

Very occasionally I have. Mostly in response to a challenge or a fest or some sort of organized event. It can be fun to just take two things you like and brainstorm what it would possibly look like to smoosh them together. I think the biggest crossovers I ever wrote were a SG-1/Firely one (Raggedy Edge) and a SG-1/House MD one (Unexpected). Both were fics I wrote for someone else. (Man, I have this SG-1/Leverage fic that I always wanted to write but doubt I ever will. I think I had Maggie as one of Jack's cousins or something.)

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of. People have occasionally posted one of my fics in weird archive or something. But no one's ever tried to claim one of my stories as their own.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes, a few! I know there are a few languages for The Changeling. Though I'm not sure if any were ever finished. I've had a few requests for various things over the years. And then I put up a "feel free to do without asking" disclaimer, so who knows!

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

No, that is not something I've ever done. I'm always impressed by that. And some of the best fics I've ever read have been team written. (A Narrow Bridge by @frameofmind9 and Jo Lasalle, it's AMAZING.) I find it such an interesting and impressive idea. Not sure I'd be able to do it, but it's interesting!

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

I feel attacked. What kind of a question to ask a shipper. Well, there is always what takes up all my brain space in the moment, which is Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian in The Untamed. But Sam/Jack (SG-1) was my first and will always own a part of my brain.

It's interesting too, because there are ships I adore, ships I love to read about, and ships I love to write about. And those three don't always align. I think Sam/Jack and Wangxian have been the two biggest ships for me that touch all three of those at once.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but probably won’t?

Excuse me as I open my writing folder and gesture at everything all at once. Okay, I'll be nicer to myself. I am in a space where I feel like I will never finish anything ever again, but I will have faith!!

There's really too much. So many HP fics that I am sad that I will probably never get to. There's a time travel fic, there's a Harry never went to Hogwarts AU, oh, man, the zombie fic. So many.

There's a ton of SG-1 fics I left half-imagined, but it's been a decade since I stopped writing for that fandom, so I'm more distant from it now.

I want to finish them all!!

16. What are your writing strengths?

Hm. This is hard. Probably because saying nice things about ourselves is hard and feels like being egotistical or something. Lol. I think I really like weaving various plot lines, themes, and character development, probably because that is the thing I love doing and so have spent a lot of time experimenting and practicing. I think I also have an ability to trust my instincts with what is working and what isn't, even if I'm stubborn about ignoring it sometimes. Can being stubborn as hell being a writing strength. Because that, honestly.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I have very little discipline. People who can outline something and then just knock a draft out are amazing to me. I am very slow and only tend to write when I'm in the mood. I think I can also be overly sensitive to unsolicited criticism. And in some cases solicited criticism from someone I haven't built trust with. That might mostly be the giant case of imposter syndrome I lug around with myself. So I might be sensitive, but I've been trying to build my skills in hearing it and reacting appropriately in a constructive way. I feel like brevity is another problem! Just look at this darn post!

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

Honestly, I don't attempt it. If someone is speaking a different language, I am more likely to just put the dialogue in italics or something, if whoever the POV is understands that language.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Stargate SG-1. At least the first I ever wrote and shared. I think I wrote fanfic in my head for decades before realizing what it even was. (Let's say that I had quite the crush on Wesley Crusher and fantasized ways some OC self-insert might be able to marry him while also being adopted by Picard. Ah...the early 90s. What a time to be alive.)

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

Wow, and I thought some of these earlier questions were rude. 😂

I'm going to cheat and say that whatever i am currently working on is always my favorite.

Also, I really liked who i am at the end of the day which is so obscure that no one ever read it. (I think it has like 2 comments and one of them was @runawaymarbles being nice to me. <3 )But I just love a lot about it. Sometimes I daydream about removing the serial numbers and turning it into it's own thing.

Tagging @pepperf, @holdouttrout, @narukoibito, @mylittleredgirl, and YOU that person who wants to do this.

#20 questions writing memes

[dramalets]

A neighbour kid appeared randomly in my house. I was putting something in the bin and the kid just followed my cat into the house????? Three year olds are weird man. Its mum was packing up the car for a trip of some sort. Idk. Irrelevant. It inspired this random thing. So have some Kang/Sailom sweetness. I switched Sailom’s major 🤷🏻‍♀️ I feel like knowing he’s set for life would let him reluctantly do something that’s maybe more of a passion and less of a ‘I will do this for maximum money’. So he’s in law now. (I’m still writing the 4+1 post canon thing but the reason I am no longer a fic writer is because I simply do not focus 😂)

Six months into his internship and recently post grad school it’s safe to say Sailom was the kind of tired that was more a physical ache and less a vague sense of being.

The not for profit he was interning with were great but it paid little and worked him hard. His and Kang’s condo had become his sanctuary so the last thing he expected, as he slipped his house slippers on and tossed his keys into the bowl, was to find a very small human sitting at the dining table whilst Kang chopped green onion.

From Sailom’s limited knowledge of children (Kang’s cousins, Guy’s younger siblings and the younger kids he’d tutored) he’d guess the little girl to be around six. Her curly hair is pulled into the sloppiest looking ponytail Sailom has ever seen and her little pink tongue is peaking out of her mouth as she concentrates on whatever she’s drawing, she’s also wearing the kit of Kang’s football team so, even tired, Sailom can guess Kang didn’t just steal the small human.

Sailom clears his throat a little drawing the attention of both his fiancé and the small human. The fiancé grins and the small human looks him up and down, glancing at Kang with uncertain eyes. Sailom can see Kang mouth his name to the little girl which earns a nod before she returns back to her drawing, clearly deeming the new adult uninteresting. Sailom’s not sure he’s ever felt so quickly judged in his entire existence.

Needing to get too the bottom of why there is a judgey six year old in his sanctuary Sailom plants himself behind Kang, wrapping his arms around the other waist before firmly planting a sniff kiss too his cheek. The six year old looks up and makes a face at that before hastily returning too her drawing.

“Care to explain?” Sailom asks, head resting on Kang’s shoulder.

“She’s on the soccer team.”

“Yea, I got that. Why’s she in our house?”

Kang’s about to explain when the six year old in question looks up at the pair of them and cocks her head.

“Are you boyfriends?”

In the past Sailom might have backed away from Kang a little, make it less obvious but he doesn’t do that this time. He just nods and reached to ruffle Kang’s hair before untangling himself and taking a seat next to the little girl. Kang wont give him answers, go too the source.

“You’re right. Kang is my fiancé. I’m Sailom. Who are you?”

The little girl looks considering for a second, glancing from Kang back to Sailom. She’s clearly comfortable with Kang and is trying to decide if the uncle she knows and trusts being this new uncles boyfriend is enough for her to trust him too.

“I’m Fah. Phi is working so Uncle took me here.” She sniffs, sliding her drawing over to Sailom. It’s clearly meant to be her soccer team and Kang. She’s drawn a big rainbow over the field and something about the symbolism of it, of the childish way it shows the safety she finds in the team makes words a little hard for Sailom to find.

Kang interjects, elaborating on Fah’s words.

“Your brother had some extra work right Fah and the noodle shop auntie couldn’t get you today. So I brought you here until your Phi is finished and he can take you home.” Fah nods at Kang’s words, reaching around Sailom to procure another piece of paper to draw on.

Kang looks at Sailom an unspoken acknowledgment that he hadn’t wanted the little girl going home alone, like a six year old Sailom would have had to, going unsaid but present in his gaze. Fah pays zero attention to the adults around her as she gets lost in thinking about what colour pen to choose for her next masterpiece.

Quietly Sailom rises from the chair, holding Fah’s first drawing in his hand as he crouches next to her chair.

“Nong Fah. Can I put your drawing on the refrigerator?” Fah’s eyes light up and she nods enthusiastically, any intimidation forgotten she simple grips Sailom’s hand and pulls him over to the fridge waiting to see where he places her artwork.

Something something involving Kang, Fah and Sailom cooking dinner that Jen doesn’t have the patience to write currently.

It’s much later in the evening when Fah’s brother eventually comes to pick her up, Sailom guesses he’s barely an adult himself and it reminds him painfully of his own childhood. Especially the way Fah mumbles for her Pa as Kang scoops her sleepy body up from the sofa, handing her over to her Phi. The older boy is apologetic for the late hour and wais repeatedly before they leave together.

Now both changed and lying in bed, Kang’s head rests against Sailom’s stomach, eyes closed as Sailom runs fingers through his hair.

“Are you mad?”

Sailom yawns a little and shakes his head no.

“Why would I be mad my good boy? She deserves better than an empty house and snacks for dinner.”

Kang hmms. “So did you.”

Kang’s right, he did, but what’s past is past and Sailom has never been one for dwelling.

“Mmm. I got you eventually though. Worked out in the end.” Sailom can see and feel how close to sleep Kang is but there’s one more thing he wants to make clear. “You can tell her brother she can come home with you again. Maybe we cook enough for him to take some extras home too next time.”

There you go. There’s Jen’s dangerous romance random fic dump for the week. 🫡

#dangerous romance the series #dangerous romance fic #jen rambles

[buttercup-yoi]

What's something that surprised you while you were working on a fic? Did it change the story?

Thank you for asking! That is an interesting question, and something that happens often for me in fics (my outlines rarely survive intact).

The first one that comes to mind:

I wrote about four full versions of White Rabbit before I finally realized what needed to happen in it. The beginning remained the same, with Viktor and Yuuri crossing paths in their everyday lives via Chris’s party, and Yuuri being avoidant, drunk, and annoyed.

But the next part! Ugh!

I had Viktor visiting the club to talk in all kinds of scenarios. From coordination with his cousin, the club’s owner (which felt bad), to showing up during Yuuri’s break outside (which also felt bad), to some convoluted way they could bump into each other again (again, felt bad).

Months of frustration. These are not characters where it’s hard to get them to kiss each other, and yet. The whole energy of the fic was off.

Then I started thinking about Viktor more, at his willingness and joy to do grand gestures. I thought about the ways he (and Yuuri!) like to show affection, through actions instead of words.

Viktor would put on the same outfit, place himself on equal ground, and go from there.

The rest of the fic was very easy to write, after that! One afternoon or so.

Another one I can think of is With Two Hands. The original outline had a different main villain and did not include them traveling through space to Yuuri’s family. But as I was writing Yuuri, it made sense politically for him to be sent away, and I wrote his suggestion that Viktor come along expecting it to be just a suggestion.

But then it made sense! It’s would be safer off of Rothys! The only people with them would be a few guards, and the ‘courting’ angle would absolutely sell. Viktor wasn’t about to miss a rare chance like that!!

They were supposed to end up at a remote summer palace instead, and the villain was a rival family.

Then I had to kind of invent a new villain instead, in the form of one of Viktor’s guards, but there wasn’t any foreshadowing for it so as a writer I still feel bad and weird about it. Even though I really enjoyed them getting a chance to go on that trip. I also regret not getting to go deeper into of touch-starved Viktor was. Real Life Events in 2020 crashed over right as that fic was being written and it had an effect.

Sorry for the long reply. I rarely talk about this kind of thing, and I’m not sure if it’s super coherent. But I am thankful for the opportunity to talk!!

In summary: Victuuri single-handedly destroy many outlines and somehow I’m still surprised each time.

THEY BOTH JUST LOVE SURPRISES SO MUCH FGJHHHGF

#ask game #my writing #thank you for asking!

[ijuststareatstuffhereok89]

for fanfic writer asks game

😅🥺🤡✍️🍦🍆❌🧐🏆🎃🎯🎉📚🤯💥

😅 What's a story or scene you've created that you're a smidge embarrassed exists? So in high school and college (like 500 years ago in the 2000s before we knew what a cunt JK Terfling was) I wrote Harry Potter fanfic, and I once wrote a 120k word Remus/Tonks/Sirius threesome story that somehow involved no sex or smut whatsoever...and then only after I finished the damn thing did I remember that Tonks and Sirius are biological cousins. Ooops?

🥺 Is there a certain type of moment or common interaction between your characters that never fails to put you in your feels? Goodbyes. They make me weep every time.

🤡 What's a line, scene, or exchange you've written that made you laugh? This whole fic, which I wrote stoned for my 1k follower acknowledgement.

✍️ Do you have a beta reader? Just time, dearie. I work alone.

🍦 What's the sweetest fic you've created so far? Probably THIS ONE, a companion oneshot to my mega-series.

🍆 Do you write the spicy stuffs? If so, what's your most popular nsfw fic? Of course I do! Dechire is my nastiest piece of filth yet, and it's probably my most popular thus far. It's on hiatus, but I am in the process of outlining some future chapters so it can continue by summer.

❌ What's a trope you will never write? Probably Mafia AUs. I enjoy reading them well enough and some writers out there put out some fabulous works around the genre. I myself don't think I could remove my mind that far from canon to write it. Like, for some reason I need to have a rational Point-A-to-Point-B path in my head that makes sense for how the canon characters got "here," and I just can't make those connections between any of the Avengers and the mob.

I also can't do incest or stepcest. It's just a bridge too far, man.

🧐 Do you spend much time researching for your stories? It depends. I always try to get locations accurate if they're on Earth, so I'll do research on cities, street names, and climates. Once in awhile I'll check and see if a canonical fact about a character is real or just something I recall from another fic (I forgot that Steve canonically doesn't get drunk because of his serum).

🏆 What's your most popular fic? I can't really gauge that, because I'm not a popular writer at all. I'm kind of a pathetic little writer on here. An average fic chapter gets between 30-50 interactions at best, and my oneshots only fare better once in a while. I'd say overall these two are the most popular: THIS ONE got enough love to get a full story, and THIS ONE struck a lot of peoples' fancies recently.

🎃 Do you write fics for certain holidays? Which is your favorite holiday inspired fic? I do Secret Santas and holiday tradesies. I like THIS ONE, it's very short (one of my shortest) but it's also a simple, sweet favorite.

🎯 Have any of your readers accurately guessed major plot points? Care to share which? One of my readers guessed that the Y/N of Beauty & the Snake Prince would **SPOILERS** fake her death and leave Asgard to wait for Loki to find her **SPOILERS END** about halfway through, after the villain is introduced

🎉 What leads you to consider a fic a success? Interactions, particularly reblogs. Also, if someone loves my stories enough to drop a message I feel honored. If enough people ask for a oneshot to be continued, I also find that to be an exceptional compliment. Again, I don't think I'd know what it's like to actually be a success yet.

📚 Would you ever want to turn writing into a career? In an ideal world? Um, fuck yeah.

🤯What's a genre you struggle with as a writer (ex. romance, action, etc.)? I still think I kind of suck at smut, even though I'm getting better. I also have a hard time writing horror, because I hate being afraid. I'm a weenie like that.

💥How do you feel about criticism? It has to come from a place of sincerity, but if it does, I happily take and consider critique.

#ask game #fanfic asks

[ae-azile]

For the ask fic game: 1, 11, and 14 for your Dancing Hedgehog series? Please and thank you!

1. What inspired you to write the fic this way?

Giant Dancing Hedgehogs are Nightmare Fuel started as a one-shot and has grown into a multi-fic series that is several hundred thousand words and has both prequels and sequels. So it was far what I expected to write, but I guess - once I decided to go back to the one-shot and continue it - I decided to approach it to explore some of my favorite genres: angst, romance, hurt/comfort, and absolute crack/comedy. All at once. I did this because I feel like KP is the perfect fandom to explore these genres with. The series is filled with dramatic romance, angst, trauma, and wildly comedic moments. I just took the last two up a notch and added a magical weighted blanket, but gave myself wiggle room to write a more serious and angsty ArmKhun centric prequel (which still has comedy, but it's a bit more grounded), and a very serious VegasPete centric prequel. The sequel focuses on making things more fantastical and plot heavy with dream sharing, hidden sisters, Tawan's angelic doppelganger brother, forced memory loss, and captive mothers that need to be tracked down and saved. So I feel like the inspiration from the series developed gradually because I left the genres broad enough to be as angsty and silly as I wanted.

11. What do you like the best about this fic?

There are different things I like about each one so I will list them. This answer is long, so I am putting a cut.

Giant Dancing Hedgehogs are Nightmare Fuel

This is the fic that kicked the series off. From a completely biased perspective, the thing I like best about it when I read it is how it reunites the cousins and lets them hold themselves accountable for their actions in ways that don't bring them complete shame. They have chosen a path towards healing their wounds, understanding the perspectives of others, and trying to find clarity after being manipulated/abused by their fathers for so long. So I like that this does that and still finds ways to be silly, because laughter is a great medicine. The boys need to laugh.

As a writer? I am impressed and annoyed by how much it evolved as I was writing it. I did not plan out shit, no matter how it looks, and I love and hate that the backstories and offhanded remarks I would write that would fully flesh it out found ways to spiral into full plots or stories in my head that had to be further explored. Like, there was going to be no magical blanket. That wasn't thought of until Vegas wakes up holding it, saying it's an entity or haunted. The mothers weren't going to be alive. Gun and Pete's dad weren't going to have some past affair as a skeleton in both of their closets. Idk, I just made stuff up and wrote it down whenever I thought it was funny.

5, 3, 1, and On

Out of all of my fics, this might be the one I am most proud of. It feels the most mature to me without losing a comedic element or ignoring the gravity of Arm's and Tankhun's past traumas. Also, Tankhun is probably my absolute favorite character. I want all fics to be about him. I think I may be one of the only people to post a novel length and complete fic where Tankhun is part of the main pairing (if I am wrong, send those long fics my way!)

As for Arm, his tragic backstory was interesting to develop and also flexible, because we know very little about Arm. We know he is incredibly capable and should be the head guard now that Chan is gone, but he is also a part of the mafia. I feel like people who accept that kind of job have a story behind why. So making Arm kill a dozen pedophiles singlehandedly and expose his Dean for embezzlement seemed like it might be a way that touches upon just how capable he is. He is sent on missions, he hacks into other networks and systems, and is so good with Tankhun. And that's just from the little we do see. Expanding on that with an off take was fun.

The Weighted Blanket Ad No One Expected (But Everyone Deserves)

This one is a bit easier to answer: I love the girl power. I love that I was able to make Namphueng a more complex character, brought in four significant female OCs in the form of Vegas's mother - Milan, Vegas's grandmother - Fern, the major family mother - Dao, and the secret, long lost sister who is a teenage bodyguard, a baddie, and a dancing fiend - Aree. I really enjoyed developing all of them, especially Aree since creating her showed Porsche and Chay just how much they were robbed of and what Aree was robbed of.

I also love Benz. The readers also seem to love Benz, and I love this because when he was first introduced (prior to him saying a word) everyone wanted him dead due to looking just like his biological brother (who he never met). After a couple of scenes, everyone who mentioned him in their comments were ready to kill for him. I also liked including him because Vegas's and Kim's autism (in the fic) is able to go by without being easily detected if you don't know them. I have written Vegas as someone who has learned to mask over the years - especially after his mother died - and Kim as someone more introverted, which makes it so his symptoms might be dismissed as just that. With Benz, it's much more noticable. He stims in public, struggles with speech off and on, is extremely picky with food, likely has an auditory processing disorder paired with sensory issues, and hyperfixates on his special interest intensely. His symptoms have also likely become more profound due to the consistent emotional and physical abuse inflicted on him by his mother, not being diagnosed and supported, and not having other family members to fall back on until Kim welcomes him in and makes it a goal to protect him, with Aree following that goal after witnessing just how awful Tak (his mother and Korn's fiancee) is to him. So writing him as a multi-faceted character that readers empathized with is a pride moment.

Also, I like my two semi-original couples in it: Macau/Aree and Namphueng/Milan. This BL world NEEDS a token straight couple and lesbian couple! 😂 While Namphueng and Milan are rekindling their old teenage romance secretly at the moment, I have been developing Macau and Aree since chapter 7, I think? I loved making Macau confirm that he is straight, loved having Vegas empathize with Aree's past and situation rather than deem them as reasons Macau should reconsider his feelings for her, and just like what they have brought out in each other. I also like inverting expectations by making Macau the soft and inexperienced one and making Aree the more blunt, forward, and physically capable one (not that Macau isn't. He likely grew up training to defend himself and others. But Aree is fucking FIERCE).

So yeah, I really loved creating the OCs/semi-OCs, along with writing them in pairings that seemed to still stay engaging to readers somehow. I also loved incorporating sign language as a way to give Namphueng access to communication. I loved it so much that I have used it in multiple fics, just like I love Aree and made her a character in Lay Me Down to Sleep with a similar background but facing very different circumstances. ♥️

Before We Forget

This one is only 6 chapters so far and I update it sporadically, but I love exploring Vegas as a teen. This is before his first kill and shows how his first relationship with Pete developed. This is a Vegas who knows he has to be guarded, but he's too honest and desperate for someone to just see him and take an interest in him. He's sensitive and is not good at covering sadness. It's an emotion he feels a lot of due to the hot and cold treatment he receives from his father, being parentified (despite loving his brother very much), missing his "dead" mother desperately, being disconnected from his cousins since his mother and aunt died and resenting them, being pumped out for deals, and falling in love with the new major family bodyguard close to his age. The thing is - and maybe because it's from Vegas's POV - but I feel like he wears his heart on his sleeve more than Pete does. Pete puts on such a convincing happy demeanor that Vegas has yet to catch on that Pete's history is not a good one. Pete, however, catches onto Vegas struggling. I think he has barely scraped the surface, but he can see Vegas needs a friend who will provide some comfort. But that's hard to do in a secret, teenage romance. So yeah, I think writing Vegas as someone facing so much but still so hopeful for love and change is what I like the most. ♥️

14. Is there anything you want readers to learn from this fic?

I guess considering the series is all over the place in terms of genre, I suppose I want readers to find the joy in cross-genre fics, since life is full of happy, funny, romantic, sad, funny, and enraging moments. If they are thinking of writing, don't be afraid to write something weird, put your characters in absurd situations, or give them specific characteristics or quirks that aren't normally found in media. Absurdity can bring on beauty and broaden your writing skills, since it's fun to implement those absurd or over-the-top moments in a way that aligns themselves with the story's tone.

Thank you for the ask @fawndlyvenus! ♥️

#ask #armtankhun #autistic vegas #vegaspete fic #autistic kim #ofcs #GDHANF #TWBANE #BWF #5 3 1 and On #thank you for the ask! Sorry if my answers are too long 🙂

[yeonbinfics]

Color Me Blue

Color Me Blue by soobiedoo (ao3)

Rating: M

Word Count: 10111

Summary: Choi Yeonjun may not be from Daegu but his home is there. Based on Troye Sivan’s Blue (Sequel to my one-shot, Want It All)

Review:

i am actually quite shocked that this fic does not have more kudos and comments? its so good but seems like its kind of gone under the radar for most people in the community. but also most of their works i see fly under the radar. which should be illegal because omg they’re writing is superb! im not joking, they are also one of my favorite writers in the community and this is my trying to give them their flowers because boy this fic (and their other fics) are SO FUCKING GOOD!

it starts out a few years after the first fic leaves off where yeonjun is an asshole and soobin leaves him to go back to daegu. 

it gives us a flashback to the day soobin comes back heartbroken because he thinks yeonjun doesn't like him back. and the author provides us with this dialogue.

“No, it’s just, I can’t believe I’m such a fool,” Soobin tries to explain in between sobs.

“I found my someone there, Kai.”

“Then why are you crying? You can come back. I’ll help-“

“He doesn’t want me back, not like that anyway.”

gosh if i haven't mentioned that i'm a sucker for pining and unrequited love, well you know now. i ate this up like it was my last meal. ah just the thought of soobin saying that yeonjun doesn't want him back is just... especially when we as the reader are aware that there is a huge miscommunication going on. it hurts so good!

it goes on to set the scene of soobin in his family home, taehyun and beomgyu are engaged, everyone is gathered for their wedding coming up soon. and one of beomgyu’s grooms men is, yeonjun. and so they have to face each other again. soobin with his mind telling him to run away but also he wants yeonjun so bad, even if he was an asshole to him 3 years ago. 

the story progresses into a sort of love triangle, but not really? basically soobin’s family is unaware of the history yeonbin have so they try to set up yeonjun with one of soobin’s cousins. and yeonjun does not look opposed to it at all. at this point we have no inner dialogue or any insight to yeonjun’s point of view so of course we are perceiving yeonjun as the asshole the same way we all thought of him in the first part. 

except later that night, yeonjun comes to soobin’s bedroom and sleeps in his bed. like, he literally sleeps in his bed. no funny business. and he continues to sleep in soobin’s bed every single night despite having a fling going on with soobin’s cousin. 

the story over all was a beautiful development to their relationship in the first part. the way the author made sure to humanize yeonjun more, let us sympathize with him, and the way soobin is also going through his own motions of standing up for himself. one of the best examples would be this line.

“I know you still love me so why aren’t you doing something about it?! You let me sleep in your arms every night but you’re scared to commit!” Yeonjun snaps back, wanting answers to his own questions.

Soobin scoffs in disbelief, then he says, “That’s not fair, hyung. You and I both know it’s not me who’s indecisive," he pauses to catch his breath, "And yeah, I still love you. But you’re a fucking asshole for bringing that up when all you want is a dick up your ass!” He finishes, getting the angriest he's ever been.”

chef’s kiss. 

again, it is so well written and i love it when a fic really stabs you in the heart and the author did an amazing job at making sure my heart was crushed into pieces before stomping on the pieces and then putting them back together in the end. please leave kudos and comments for the author. 

#Getting Back Together #Misunderstandings #Angst with a Happy Ending #Angst #Hurt/Comfort #Making Up #Side Ships #Sequal #Word Count: 10k+ #Yeonbin Fic #Yeonbin Fic Rec #Yeonbin #soobiedoo

[hogwartsfirebolt]

Hello everyone! I’m back for my (omg time flies) third yearly drarry rec list, in which I share with you my 30 favorite drarry fics I read in the year, divided in three parts. What a year 2020 was. It was challenging, scary and confusing, and it was also an amazing reading year for me, I read so, so much more than I ever had before, and I’m really excited to share these masterpieces with you! The banner art is by @dragontamerdame who is one of my favorite artists and was kind enough to let me use this beautiful piece, which you can (and totally should) reblog right here. Now, with nothing else to add and in no particular order, here’s my

FAVORITE FICS I READ IN 2020 PART ONE

1. Who we are in the shadows - @quicksilvermaid - 100k - E - What happens when you’re forced to become the very thing you despise? Ex-Auror Harry Potter, tossed out of the Ministry for something he had no control over, has been looking for a way back to his former life. When he comes across Draco Malfoy in the criminal underbelly of Wizarding London and in need of protection, Harry figures bringing him in to face the Ministry's justice is his ticket back to everything he's lost. But nothing is exactly as it seems. Not even Harry himself. And as he gets drawn further and further into Malfoy's world of honour and deception he finds himself questioning everything he thought he knew—about his childhood nemesis, the Ministry job he misses so much, and most of all, about himself. What happens when you’re forced to see that you were wrong?

THIS FIC!!! It was the first one I read in 2020, and it immediately became my favorite fic of the entire year, and one of my favorites of all time. I have since read it two more times, the entire 100k of it. There are absolutely no words to describe how amazing it is, how much it floored me to read their characterizations, their jobs and the roads life took them on to end up where they end up, the connection between them in a time when they don’t even know how to relate to anyone, their sorrow and struggles which, despite being so rooted in the magical world, are painfully human, just... wow. It’s a masterpiece. It changed the way I view their characters, forever, and I suspect I will read it many, many more times in the years to come. It’s that kind of story. If for whatever reason you haven’t read it, this is your sign to take that chance and embark on this amazing journey. 

2. Every Kingdom - @thistle-verse - 7k - E - Every kingdom needs a prince. Every prince needs a good and useful knight. Draco and Harry play their parts and renegotiate some borders while they’re at it.

So, so lovely. Even though I don’t read them very often, alternate universes fascinate me so much, and I am in awe of the author for being able to pack so, so much story, so neatly into 7k words. This features a princely, lonesome Draco, a charming, golden Harry, and a blossoming love that could change everything. It’s beautiful, and I recommend it deeply.

3. The Bucket List - GallaPlacidia - 32k - Draco will die in six months if he can't get Harry Potter to fall in love with him. Since that's not going to happen, he might as well spend his last days working through his Bucket List. Tap-dancing lessons? Rock climbing? Poetry-writing? Threesomes? Cocaine? Getting to know his adorable cousin, Teddy Lupin? Draco will try them all! Feat. Cheerily pessimistic Draco, devoted bitch queen Pansy Parkinson, and a Harry who can't help but notice that something seems DIFFERENT about Draco, these days.

I’m positive that many, many of us got acquainted with GallaPlacidia’s writing this year, and I, too, fell in love with it. This story aches in the most beautiful of ways, the humor happens to be somehow light in such a difficult circumstance that it ends up hurting when you laugh, it hurts when everything is right because it’s also wrong, it aches when it’s supposed to be a happy moment and feels tender and sweet when it’s not. I can’t even imagine the challenge of writing this kind of story, and they pulled it off beautifully. It’s a lovely story, one you will take with you long after you finish it, and, personally, I think it’s a great introduction to the author’s writing. 

4. halcyon days - @the-starryknight - 1.3k - T - Sleepy mornings caught while the sun rises are reserved for silly word games and soft touches and feelings.

Oh my god, the amount of tenderness in such a low wordcount made me weak in the knees. I almost couldn’t take it. Being able to convey such a deep emotional connection in a short story seems like such a daunting task, and the author makes it seem almost effortless. I guarantee that this will make you bring your hands to your chest and sigh with how lovely it is. Reading it will be the best ten minutes of your day. 

5. Clouds That Veil the Midnight Moon - @drarrytrash - 37k - E - According to Harry’s personal narrative regarding the incident, he’d hooked up with Draco Malfoy for purely self-destructive reasons, or out of convenience, or by some unlucky accident. Looking at him, sprawled in the moonlight, Harry is devastated to recall that he’d hooked up with Draco Malfoy because he’s hot. Draco is a secret werewolf and Harry is doing his best and they've got criminals to catch, darn it.

Reading this, I found myself laughing out loud, nodding profusely with how freaking spot on the characterizations are. The dialogue is amazing, so hilarious and real and Harry’s inner monologue is so, so him. I love everything about this story. I have a soft spot for werewolf fic, and this one hit everything I love about it, the case is interesting and engaging, the incidental characters, the OCs, Ron and Hermione, everyone and everything is absolutely perfect and I had an absolute blast reading it. You HAVE to read this and see for yourself what I’m talking about. 

6. Sex Ed for Aurors - curiouslyfic - 8k - M - Some things, you need to learn on the job.

Oh my god this is so freaking good. The premise is, basically, that Harry is accidentally doused with a lust potion while in the vicinity of Draco, and suddenly wants him more than anything. I loved this take on that trope, we’re in Harry’s head, and it’s absolutely hilarious and endearing to experience the near childish glee he feels whenever Draco looks his way, when he smiles, when he feels he’s made him happy, meanwhile Draco and Ron are horrified and doing whatever they can to correct it. This is so funny and such a good time, I can’t recommend it enough! While you’re at it, you should definitely read megyal’s remix of this, which is also a blast. 

7. plasticine porters with looking-glass ties - @bonesliketambourines - 15K - E - Lately, Harry thinks things don’t seem the same between him and Draco. His head is in the clouds when he thinks about what their relationship is now, and where it might be headed—he’s happy with their friendship, but he wants something else. A potions accident over a lunchtime visit to Draco’s lab (what does he get up to in there, anyway?) changes things, though, and accelerates their relationship faster than either of them had ever expected. How are they going to get through this new development together?

Atmospheric, beautifully-written and delicious. Their relationship is tender, just on the edge of something more, when they’re forced to quarantine together and face the effects of a potion that makes them see and feel things differently, which makes for the most intense, visual, gorgeous sex scene I think I’ve ever read. It’s just absolutely phenomenal. 

8. i wake up falling - warmfoothills - 9k - M - Draco’s always leaving, one way or another. Harry’s usually 240 thousand miles too late.

In trying to come up with a way to summarize this story, I’m feeling the overwhelming urge to cry again, just like I did when I read it. It’s just so, so, beautiful, every single word of it aches in the best way, the longing feels deeply authentic and just, the setting and the jobs and everything is so unique and gorgeous. Every single work by this author is beyond beautiful, but especially this one is incredibly close to my heart and I think everyone should read it. It’s a gem. 

9. In Every Universe - @skeptiquewrites - 27k - M - They sent Professor Harry Potter to search for Unspeakable Draco Malfoy. Draco has stolen a Firebird, an experimental magical device from the Department of Mysteries that lets you enter parallel universes as yourself. As Harry traverses from universe to universe, he begins to think Draco might be the one searching for him. A story about whether knowing what's possible makes it possible.

Stories where the characters find themselves somehow hopping from one reality to another are always so, so fascinating to me, and this one is incredibly creative and well-written, so entertaining all around. The mystery of it kept me on my toes, and every single reality was a joy to read. 10/10

10. Life goes not backward - @shealwaysreads - 8k - T - Harry still isn’t used to gifts, but this one is different. A story of coming home, finding safe ground, and the wild courage of putting down roots. Leaving one life behind isn’t always a sacrifice, and sometimes the greatest good comes from embracing the people you love.

My god, there are not enough words to describe how much this story means to me, how beautiful it is, how every single time I’ve read it, I’ve cried. Bella has undoubtedly become one of my absolute favorite writers in fandom. She has such a way with words, there is not one of her stories that hasn’t touched me, that doesn’t feel like an actual, full-length novel no matter the word count. I read so many of them this year, so many of the masterpieces she’s gifted us, but this one especially is so tender, so dear, that I ended up choosing it as my favorite of hers this year. Harry’s charactertization, the unbelievable warmth of their relationship, absolutely everything about this is gorgeous. Go read it, right now, and then binge all her other works!! You won’t regret it.

---------------------------------

Each of these fics is incredibly close to my heart and I enjoyed them immensely. In the midst of everything changing, I really found comfort and solace in the amazing works of the people of this fandom. I hope they give you the same amount of warmth and comfort they gave me, and I’m ALWAYS here to gush about any of them ❤️ Happy New Year! 

#drarry #drarry fic #drarry fanfic #drarry fic rec #2020rec #ficrec #draco malfoy #harry potter #drarry rec list

[dandelionflower]

(Some salt fic september)

Francois DuPont was an artistic school. With talented students varying from designers, to journalists, to DJs, to comic artists and writers. The art room of the school was always the busiest, the loudest, and the favorite room of the school.

So it would make sense for the school to have a yearly showcase. It was called a talent show once upon a time, but eventually the staff and students agreed that ‘talent show’ didn’t suit the talents the students were bringing to the table. Thus, the Francois DuPont showcase was born.

Students worked for months on their piece for the showcase. More than fifty percent of the works in the art room were pieces for the showcase.

It wasn’t mandatory by any means, but most students with a talent in the arts would participate. But with almost all the students participating and some having more than one piece to showcase, the show usually lasted a few days.

Lila, of course, didn’t know any of that so when asked if she was participating in the showcase in a few months, she grinned and said “Of course!”

Alya lit up. “Great! It’s going to be my first showcase too, and I want someone who knows what I’m going through. C’mon, we have to sign up.” And she dragged her into the halls.

Sign up? But it’s in three months. Lila shrugged and allowed herself to be pulled to the sign up sheets.

Alya immediately wrote her name underneath the ‘verbal’ column, putting a ‘journalism’ next to it.

Lila surveyed the options. The easiest thing to fake would probably be photography, so she marked her name under ‘media’ and wrote a ‘photography’ next to it.

“Ooh, photography? What do you take pictures of? Because I know Mari’s been looking for a partner to take pictures of her designs with her.”

Lila bit back a grimace. “Thanks, but I prefer to take pictures of...” Art? Buildings? “Nature. I find that taking pictures of people is narcissistic as a society.”

“Aren’t you a model?” A judgmental voice came from behind her.

“I- well-“ She stuttered.

“It’s completely different, Felix! Lila doesn’t think her photo shoots are art worthy, she’s just doing it as a job.” Alya snapped, throwing an arm out to almost shield Lila from the chill radiating from Felix’s entire person.

“Very well.” Felix stepped around the two and signed his name in perfect cursive beneath Lila’s name and walked away without another word.

“That guy gives me the creeps.” Alix remarked as she scratched her name under the ‘performance’ column, then the ‘piece of art that cannot be moved’ section.

“And he’s doing photography too! Don’t worry Lila, there’s no way he’s better than you.” Alya grabbed her arm reassuringly and began walking with her back to class.

“Yeah, right...” Lila held in a wince as she found her way back to her seat.

Surely photography can’t be that hard.

—

It was that hard.

Lila had waited one week before the showcase to start taking pictures on her phone. She walked to the park and snapped a few pictures, called it a day, and went home.

They were terrible. Blurry, ugly, terrible.

The next thing she tried was looking up stock images and photoshopping the watermark off.

She was awful at photoshop.

Finally, she resorted to her escape plan.

“Sorry, Alya. But I completely forgot that I’m volunteering at the elementary school all day on the day of the showcase, and I can’t just cancel on them. I’m so sorry.”

“Girl, it’s no problem! Marinette told me that the showcase is going to go on for four days. We’ll just reschedule your slot. It’s no problem at all.”

“Great.” She muttered through gritted teeth. “See you then.”

...crap.

She had only one plan now.

And it was risky.

—

Lila walked into class on Monday, prepared for her showcase.

She explained to Alya that when she explained what was going on to the leader of her organization, they gave her a rain check.

“I’m just so thankful.” She brushed away a tear. “I really wanted to make sure I could see everyone’s talents.”

“That’s so sweet!” Rose cooed. “I can’t wait to see your pictures either!”

“I just hope they correctly portray the beauty of my subject...” Lila pressed a hand to her chest in modesty.

“Students, I need all of the media students to come to the art classroom with your flash drives and cameras.” Miss Bustier put her phone down and smiled. “And anyone who paired with a media student for their talent please also join the students in the art room.”

Lila stood and gave everyone a hug. “Wish me luck!”

She noticed Sabrina stand as well and accept a half hearted hug from Chloe and a nod of support from Max. Juleka stood too and hugged Rose tight.

“Bye Alya! Wish me luck.” Marinette appeared from seemingly nowhere and hugged Alya tight. “And don’t be worried about your presentation. We’ll find some time to rehearse before tomorrow.”

“Thanks girl. Look after Lila for me? She’s just as new as I am.”

Marinette’s eyes darkened for just a second, but she quickly broke into a grin. “No problem. And don’t be worried, Lila. I’m sure your photos are just unimaginable.”

“Thanks Marinette. That’s just so sweet of you.” They linked arms and waltzed out of the room.

The moment they were out of eye shot of any of their classmates, they stepped aside.

“You don’t even have pictures, do you?” Marinette growled.

“What do you mean Marinette? Of course I have pictures.” She smirked. Or at least, I will in just a minute.

—

The art room was bustling and chaotic. Perfect for a camera or flash drive to go missing.

Marinette was bombarded by a group of kids from Felix’s class.

“Ready to see the product of our hard work?” A girl with two dark buns on the top of her head asked.

“I hope so.” She gave them a bashful smile.

Lila stopped paying attention. She had a goal in mind.

Her eyes landed on an expensive looking camera sitting on a desk at the side of the room. A sitting duck.

With a side glance for witnesses, Lila walked right by the camera and slipped the memory card right out and into her awaiting palm.

With her goal met, she sat primly in her chair, waiting for them to be called to the stage.

“Alright, photographers, models, actors, directors!” The art teacher stood. “Let’s go!”

Lila skipped up to him, a look of concern on her face. “Sir?”

“Yes Lila?”

“My camera broke on my way here and all I have left of it is my memory card; is there still a way for me to present my photos?”

“Of course there is. Don’t you worry a bit.”

“Perfect!” She grinned.

Once backstage, each student needed to give the teacher their SD cards or cameras and wait to be called onstage to describe their works to the audience.

Lila spared a quick glance towards the onlookers. Talent scouts of every kind were sitting in plush, reserved seats, notebooks and pens at the ready.

She was the first one up, the first one they would see and, unless she used all of her charisma and improvising skill, the first one they would forget.

“...and now, Lila Rossi with her photography!”

Lila strutted out to the greetings of applause.

“Hello, and let me just say I am so honored to be here today, especially considering that a year ago I wasn’t expected to be able to walk to school every day. Photography was really the only thing that got me through the day.”

A murmur of pity rippled through the crowd.

“Pictures like this one.” She pressed the clicker and a picture appeared on the screen behind her.

A picture of one Marinette Dupain-Cheng, mid-twirl in a beautiful hand-made dress.

Lila heard Alya gasp.

“I wanted to show simultaneously the mundanity of walking and the undeniable splendor of it. My dear friend Marinette had some designs she was willing to model for me to help achieve my goal. Marinette, come on out!” She held a hand out, daring Marinette to come out from where she was waiting to go next along with her other friends.

Felix stood behind her with a look of horror and disgust on his face; and a particularly fancy camera hanging around his neck. A very familiar camera.

“No? Okay then.” She turned back to the crowd. “She’ll be out with a different group; Mari doesn’t want me to have to share the spotlight, isn’t she sweet?”

The crowd applauded and Lila continued making up technical terms and thought processes for each photo, all of which were of Marinette in different designs.

“Thank you.” She bowed deep before walking off the stage.

Now to hold her breath and hope that Marinette, Felix and all their friends were too chicken to call her out onstage.

—

“Now, with their short film; ‘solving love,’ please welcome Bridgette Cheng, Claude Lambert, Mercury Bernard, Allegra Harthorn, Felix Culpa, and Marinette Dupain-Cheng.”

“Hey everybody!” A boy with brown hair and a blue striped shirt grabbed the mic and shouted. “How are we doing today?”

A scattered amount of applause.

“Nice! I’m Claude, and this is Bridgette.”

The girl with the buns waved.

“We were the main idea folks for this video; but the idea only came after the filming.”

Bridgette grabbed the mic. “We asked out friends if we could film them, and then a few weeks ago, we reviewed the film and noticed something... interesting.”

“Allegra here,” a girl with a long blonde braid waved, “did the music and Mercury,” a boy with dark glasses and a green beret, “did the narration. You’ll be seeing more of them soon. My cousin Mari,” Marinette waved, “and Felix are the main subjects of the film. You would have seen more of them, but for some reason Felix’s memory card went missing.”

Lila swallowed, this wasn’t great. The seeds of dissent were planted and now she had to risk either spinning another fake story or hoping that it all went well.

It’s not like they had any proof though; she should be fine.

“Anyway, here’s ‘Solving Love.’”

They all stepped to the side and the video began with a smooth piano.

“Love.” The screen showed couples going up to Andre’s and sharing ice cream. “The answer to everything. To ourselves, to the meaning of life, to the questions we cannot ask.”

“But how? How do we get from complete strangers, to people so close they are the same person?” The video changed to a showing of Marinette and Felix shaking hands, both with sardonic smirks. “People rarely get to see the entire process of when people fall in love; there are always pieces missing, hidden moments only for the people in question to recall. Love is left for the investigator to discover for themselves, when the time is right.”

“But maybe,” it showed Marinette talking animatedly, as Felix yawns beside her, “maybe one day, we’ll be lucky enough to see most of the picture.” Felix’s eyes droop and his head falls to rest atop Marinette’s, in the beginnings of a nap. Marinette flushes red.

The rest of the video shows the stages of Marinette and Felix’s relationship, from sarcastic rivals, to peers, to friends, to partners. The narrator described different relationships and how love is a constant through all of them.

The video showed Marinette dancing, twirling in a brilliant dress as Felix kneels and snaps pictures. “Ah, but is this all of it?” They lean down for a swift kiss. The image pauses there. “The full picture? Or is it only a snapshot,” the screen lights up white, “a minor clue, to solving love?”

The auditorium was quiet for what seemed like minutes. Then, the room burst into uproarious applause; a standing ovation.

Lila growled as she turned to sulk and maybe get her makeup so she could fake an injury and get some pity points to heal her bruised ego.

She ran face first into the grey suit of Mr. Damocles.

“Oh, hello sir.” She beamed. “Is there a problem?”

His eyebrows furrowed. “Yes Miss Rossi, there is. Did you take those pictures of Miss Dupain-Cheng? Because that video tells a different story.”

“Yes sir, I swear it.”

“You swear it, huh? Well you best come with me to the office. Miss Dupain-Cheng and her friends will join us when they’re done.”

“What?”

“Miss Rossi, you are accused of stealing Mr Culpa and Miss Dupain-Cheng’s creative work. We will be calling your mother to discuss this.”

Back on stage the crowd of students and talent agents alike had taken to shouting questions to the group of students.

#ml salt #lila salt #felinette #ml felix #felix culpa #marinette dupain cheng #ml marinette #quantic kids #ml claude #ml allegra #ml mercury #ml bridgette #ml alya

[lunapwrites]

Ooooh!!! For the happy writer ask game: 9. What inspired you to write your first fic? 💖

Ooooh this is a very good question. You know I'm not sure that I really remember anything specific, but I do know that I've always liked getting lost in my own imagination a bit and telling myself stories. Thinking up new ways for my faves to get into trouble and/or save the day, backed by a killer soundtrack. All very cinematic. But I got tired of losing it after I finished playing in the sandbox, so... I just started writing things down. And when I was very young it would be that I'd just type things up for as long as I could until someone needed to use the phone -- the second my concentration was broken, I'd lose the thread. There was never any plotting, only vibes. This was fine though because I think it was a weird mishmash of a bunch of fandoms and Definitely-Not-Self-Insert-Original-Character-Do-Not-Steal stories, usually putting them as a sibling or cousin of another character (but never a love interest, interestingly.) I actually remember several of the characters and some vague details about them, which like. That was 20 years ago. [head explodey noises]. But again, all I have now are some scattered pieces of artwork that I kept and their names. I don't remember their stories, and that makes me kind of sad, because they were important to me once. Like, even if I never shared those stories with a single other soul... this house? They built it.

Now, my first actual fic that I wrote AND finished was... very embarrassing tbh lol. It was a vague retelling of a bad breakup/get together that I experienced, using Harry, Ginny, and Dean as stand-ins. Just... needed to get it out of my system for Processing Purposes I guess lol. But it WAS a multichapter, which is... impressive in and of itself, in hindsight. I feel like I was resistant to writing one-shots. And the characterization has me cringing years later. BUT. I refuse to delete it, because it's... where I came from. And I'm firmly of the opinion that if every author deleted every trace of their early work just because it wasn't up to current snuff, there'd be no indication of growth. Like, I can look back at that fic and I can see the beginnings of where I am now. And I can show it to newer writers in the community I'm in just to be like "yeah i'm still learning too. we'll get there."

Anyway, the short answer to this is just basically that I want to save some of the stories that I come up with in my head, and to REMEMBER them. And sometimes I share them with everyone else too.

Thanks! <3

#ask game #writing ask #responses #lp talks #hp

[farmerlan]

A guide to commonly used honorifics in 魔道祖师/The Untamed

OK - so, I’ve actually seen some confusion floating around on specific honorifics commonly used in 魔道祖师 and I figured I will put a post up to address some of this - especially the situations when they get used. Hopefully it’ll be helpful for fic writers or whoever else out there that’s getting turned around by the various translations.

As with most of Chinese vernacular, there’s a TON of similar, but different situations in which it may be permissible to use certain titles/honorifics, so bear in mind this is not an exhaustive guide. Also, I don’t have a PhD in Chinese honorifics or anything, I’m just a Chinese person that watches/reads a fair amount of historical dramas. So if I missed anything/if there was anything that was kind of unclear in the novel or drama, feel free to let me know!

公子 / gongzi/ master

Let’s start with the hardest so I can get this out of the way. You will see this translated in a variety of different ways - master, young master, sir...and they are all correct! Congratulations, you’ve hit the jackpot - depending on the situation, gongzi can be a whole hodgepodge of things.

Master: The most commonly used version in MDZS. This is a separate meaning of master from some of the honorifics discussed below - it is specifically used to address either:

Your literal master if you are a servant in the household

A somebody from a distinguished household in a polite way

General honorific: Gongzi can also be used between strangers/acquaintances as a respectful term. Gongzi is, in some ways, an indicator of respect of the other person’s status. So oftentimes you’ll find two young masters from different sects referring to each other as gongzi politely, but you wouldn’t find two beggars on the street calling each other that. and it’s usually used to address someone younger or a similar age as you. If you‘re talking to someone who is clearly your senior, use 前辈 or 先生.

Because it has the connotation of youth and aristocracy associated with it, oftentimes innkeepers/sellers may use gongzi to address male customers  (particularly youthful men) because it’s a bit more flattering. Kind of like how the modern day shopkeeper calls you ‘美女’ (beauty) or even ‘亲爱的’（my dear - IDK when this started becoming a thing but if you do any online shopping on Taobao you know what I’m talking about) in China. They don’t actually think you’re beautiful/feel affection for you, it’s just a way of addressing the customer to make you feel good about yourself HA. It’s nice to be called gongzi even if you’re not actually a noble.

There’s variants of this - 小公子/ xiaogongzi is typically young master, although I think some translations just directly use the young master for gongzi. It can also mean the younger master if there is an older sibling in question here (e.g. Wen Chao was referred to as 温小公子 as he was the younger son), although you can also use 二公子 （second master), as many do when referring to Lan Wangji. It sounds a little less juvenile.

This term is used for guys - I would say the female equivalent could be 千金/ qianjin or 小姐 /xiaojie.

宗主 / zongzhu/ sect leader

This can only refer to the sect leader - it is a title, and it is passed down. There is typically only one sect leader at any one time, and his eldest male heir will be the successive leader of the sect. I’m going to take this chance to clear up some misconceptions:

Unless Lan Xichen bears no male heirs before his death, Lan Wangji will not succeed him. Lan Sizhui, given that he is not a Lan by birth, will likely never be the Lan sect leader. Yes yes, we all know he’s the adoptive son, but adoptive means literally nothing in the progenical world of Chinese history. Plus, he’s not even the adoptive son of Lan Xichen, so he is a long, long way down from ever being sect leader unless he forms his own, which he would likely never because that’s kind of like betraying your family.

On that same topic, Nie Huaisang succeeded Nie Mingjue because Nie Mingjue died without an heir and Nie Huaisang was the closest blood relative.

For the Jin sect, the succession would have been Jin Guangshan -> Jin Zixuan -> Jin Ling. (y’all I wrote here that it was Jin Zixun first in line but I totally blanked that he was actually a cousin and NOT the son of JGS so ignore that LOL) Since Jin Zixuan died, it became Jin Guangyao - Jin Ling is next in line as he is of the next generation and too young at that time to rule. Honestly, if Jin Ling was older at the time of Jin Zixuan’s death and if this was a Chinese historical palace drama, there would probably be some serious internal political intrigue going on as Jin Guangyao’s claim over the seat would arguably be weaker than Jin Ling’s since he is illegitimate.

For the Jiang sect, Jiang Cheng is the heir even though Jiang Yanli is older because he is male. The question of who will inherit his seat (a very valid question given his luck with dating, although I am sure someone somewhere will eventually warm the prickly cockles of his heart) remains open. IMO there is a less than zero chance that Jin Ling succeeds him unless Jiang Cheng specifically demands for it, but he likely wouldn’t because he is all about decorum and also it would put Jin Ling in an incredibly difficult situation, which is the last thing he would want for his nephew. If he doesn’t end up producing heirs, the seat will likely go to whomever he names as successor, even if non-blood related - maybe the current head disciple.

With that said, although there were generally established rules for succession, actual Chinese history (like all of history) often played out very differently (e.g. Emperor Kangxi stripped crown prince Yinreng of his right to succeed and appointed Yinzhen (Yongzheng), who was the fourth surviving prince, as his successor) so really, even if you were to base sect succession off imperial succession traditions, you could still make the argument that anything goes as long as you have the right people in your corner. HA.

老祖/ laozu/ grandmaster/forefather

I mean, I think grandmaster is probably a fair translation of laozu, which, to be honest, is a harder honorific to translate. It’s definitely influenced by Taoism and not very common at all, but it’s likely derived from Hongjun Laozu (鸿钧老祖), who was a deity and teacher. It does NOT only stand for a senior teacher/master however, because 祖 itself has ancestral connotations, so I think I would personally translate this as forefather. IMO, it’s really only fair to use this on Wei Wuxian and/or originators of a certain branch of study in the MDZS universe - I would consider laozu as the term of respect afforded to people who were pioneers in their fields/sects.

In that sense, Lan Qiren is NOT the grandmaster of the Lan sect. He is an elder - a very respected elder that was basically interim sect leader, but in terms of official title, technically, Lan Xichen could pull rank on him, but he likely wouldn’t unless pressed to because he is also Lan Xichen’s elder.

前辈 / qianbei/ senior/elder

This is kind of an in-between term to politely refer to someone who is your senior, but with whom you really have no formal affiliation with. Unlike 先生, it’s also unisex. A related term is 长辈 /zhangbei, but that is used for people whom you have familial/closer ties with - like an uncle, or someone within your own sect.

师父/师尊/ shifu/shizun / master

Your teacher/master, but not in the servant-master context. Someone who mentors you for years - in the xianxia/wuxia culture, this is a pretty special term because most disciples will only ever belong to one sect and will only ever have one master, and everyone else is a qianbei. The disciple has to ‘拜师’ (to formally request this relationship) and the master also has to ‘收徒’ (to formally accept disciples). So a lot of people went to Yiling in an attempt to 拜师, but Wei Wuxian never did 收徒.

In the wuxia/xianxia context, shifu is technically unisex even though 父 in itself is a male-centric term, although female masters might be more commonly referred to by the gender-neutral shizun instead.

Now that I think about it, shifu doesn’t actually appear in MDZS. Lan Wangji calls Lan Qiren 叔父 /shufu, which is completely different. It means uncle (father’s younger brother, to be exact lol), since that is their relationship.

老头/ laotou/ old man

Wei Wuxian uses this to address Lan Qiren behind his back. It literally just means old man, haha. It’s informal but not a term you would use to refer to someone who is close to you/whom you like, but not exactly a term that is insulting or derogatory, although in Lan Qiren’s case, it is irreverent because it is ill-fitting for the relationship that Wei Wuxian and Lan Qiren have. Meant to be used on men, usually for women it would be 老婆婆/ laopopo (NOT THE SAME as 老婆/ laopo, which means wife. Welcome to the weird wonderful world of the Chinese language!)

师弟/哥/兄/姐/妹/ shi di/ge/xiong/jie/mei/ younger brother/ older brother/ another variant of older brother/ older sister/ younger sister

NOT TO BE USED FOR YOUR ACTUAL FAMILY. This is in the context of the sect only. Your fellow disciples, but with varying levels of seniority. Familial honorifics are a whole different thing.

In the context of the sect, who you call your shidi/ge etc. is usually NOT based on age - it is based on someone’s seniority within the sect. If you have been in the sect/under your master’s tutelage for longer, you are the senior, even if you are younger in age.

With that, I think the novel states that both Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng are similar in age, so it is actually incredibly hard to determine if the author deliberately went against this convention and Wei Wuxian calls Jiang Cheng shidi because he is genuinely younger than Wei Wuxian, or if it is simply because Wei Wuxian is the head disciple of the sect (and therefore, technically, everyone is his shidi). I actually think it might be the former because he refers to Jiang Yanli as shijie, although now that I think about it, it might be the latter...as a reflection of the level of admiration Wei Wuxian has for Jiang Yanli WOAH.

(Fun fact: there’s a scene in the novel in Yi city where Wei Wuxian was silently weirded out that Xiao Xingchen referred to him as ‘qianbei’ - because Xiao Xingchen is his mother’s shidi, which makes him Wei Wuxian’s senior, but then he quickly realizes it’s because he’s talking to Xue Yang and not Xiao Xingchen.)

先生 /xiansheng/ mister/sir/teacher

In present day, this is literally the most vanilla term you can use to politely address a guy. Can be a stranger, or an acquaintance you want to politely address. Usually older than you, although if you’re both similar in age and you’re not really familiar with each other, you might still use it just to err on the side of caution. In xianxia/ancient China, this is usually used more like ‘teacher/sir’ to address an elder. It’s more scholastic in its implication and less generic than qianbei.

In the Lan sect, by crowd definition, 先生 refers to Lan Qiren unless otherwise stated, which makes sense and shows the amount of respect he is afforded in the sect.

夫人 / furen/ wife/madam

A term of respect for typically older women, or can also be used to refer to one’s wife.

Lastly, let me just add that this is just something that’s meant to be helpful for people as they work through the series - at the end of the day, it’s all fictional/xianxia itself as a genre is fantasy so if you need to subvert any one of the generally held succession traditions or whatnot in order to make your fic work, go!!! Do it!!!

#xianxia #honorifics #chinese #mo dao zu shi #mdzs #the untamed #cql #魔道祖师 #lan wangji #wei wuxian #guides #meta

[thewriterowl]

You don't have to answer this but you're like the most visible Dinluke dark-ish content writer so I was wondering. There seem to be a lot of people who only write dark stuff on anon, is the reception that bad? Or is it just a compartmentalization thing? I'm trying to determine if I should post some darker stuff under my regular AO3 name or not and would appreciate some insight.

Thanks for reading even if you don't answer! Love your work 💜

Hello!

Hmm...i think it varies honestly. It's just about being comfortable. Dipping into the "dark side" (ha, my star-wars dad humor is so amazing) is a bit risky for any fandom. But Dinluke is 7-8 months old with only 1,150 works in it (in comparison to the OTP i just left, Stony, that has nearly 41,500 works). Something edgy and dark can stand out. Dinluke is also, as canon-speaking as possible, a super fluffy and soft ship so adding in something rather dark can feel risky or uncomfortable, even if the reviewers are typically kind and are not looking to just leave flames on a fic that goes over something they don't care for; but I do think some fear that can happen. There as also some "issues" on people showcasing they dislike the idea of Dark!Din and I think that may have freaked some people out (cause I mostly only see/saw Dark!Luke--which isn't my thing I enjoy).

But, honestly, I think some people want to keep their softer stuff separate. So maybe a compartmentalization thing. I think quite a few people who do it already have an audience and don't want them to be isolated or chased off by adding something so new. I also think a lot may have readers they know and don't want a conversation on it lol

I'm over 30. I've been in fan fiction since I was like 13. I've been dabbling and full-blow writing dark and possessive themed stories for years. I'm just a bit more comfortable with it after 20-years of doing it. and though I have people who follow me who know me LITERALLY (like BFF and my cousin) on Tumblr...i only feel mild embarrassment and shame cause 1) i know they have their own stuff, 2) we all are deep into fandoms and know the laws of "hey, let's not talk about it in real life unless we both want to" and

3) i am a dead tired Millenial who just doesn't care XD I have a job I hate (now leaving! but still not starting a career) trying to finish a degree, handling some heavy anxiety and depression and insecurities, that worrying too much over a fic is just...not possible?

I mean I do worry. I fret and think people are going to hate it all the time. But I just tell myself it's fine if people don't like it. It's ok if I get flamed. It's a fan fiction. I am writing ti for myself with the hopes others will enjoy and feel inspired to write something similar. My energy is going to worrying and hating my job rather than my Dark!Din content.

ALSO, I "protect" myself and others and over-tag. I put tags and warnings in front of every chapter. I will make sure everyone who reads knows what they are getting into. as rude as it may sound, it is not my fault if someone gets on, say, Little Bird, and hates it's dark content and tells me so, when I mention how dark it is and give all the warnings I can think of before the start of each new edition. If someone does that, it feels like they are looking to say something rather mean rather than anything else.

Censorship and exploring different aspects of creative writing in fan fiction can still be a tight-rope of a topic and debate.

I just leave myself open for critiques ("hey, you didn't mention this trigger--could you please warn us next time?" types) and just realize in all of this to just smile, thank the person for their time, and move on from feeling bad about it. It's about learning how to make it better the next time and ensuring people who truly wish to avoid it can do so.

I'm always up for people posting dark-stuff under their name! but really I can see why it's uncomfortable. so it is just about your own comfort and not

I hope this helps??? D:

#owl inbox #dark content #dark din djarin #writing

[deepdarkdelights]

I read in an old ask that among the things you wrote there was Doctor Who, how were they like? I'm a whovian since '09. For Lady of the night I was picturing victorian Clara and her clothes. Reading fanfics is like when Clara said "Sometimes it's like I've lived a thousand lives in a thousand places." I'd throw myself in a stream of fics I like 👼🏻 .d. I am curious about the solar eclipse the most. Since Hoseok remembers things he saw as dreams is he sure they were reality? Will mc tell him she has no idea what he is talking about and then fail at avoiding him and tell him everything? Maybe she would just give in cause she is very alone not even her family talks to her, how would their jihoon making be ( ͡°Ɛ ͡°). What would their first alone encounter be like if she can't get away? In an ask you said after the last part he would be chasing her and people would be looking at the work place. How is he going to explain himself at work? Will mc not return to work anymore?How would he stalk her? His car in Ego mv would be on point. It's not much on mv but on behind the scenes video. Whoa I asked a lot sorry lol. Ilysm ♡

Hello!

So, yeah, I was a bit of a crazy writer. Anytime I got inspired I would completely drop my previous work and start a new one. Out of all of those fandoms I listed I only finished two works. And one of the works I finished I made a sequel to that I never completed 😬

I was a whovian in high school so around 2015 I got into the show. I stopped when Clara became eleven's companion because I just couldn't bond with her character no matter how hard I tried and that was the same year I got into BTS so I diverted my interests elsewhere 😂

So, the Doctor Who fics that I wrote never saw the light of day from what I remember, I never released them to the public which was a blessing in disguise. I think I had like three separate fics planned at one point, two of them were for the tenth doctor and one for eleven, and all of them were different OC's. One was also a time lord or "lady", and one of them was Amy's Pond's cousin.

One of the strangest ones I wrote was when I did an AU where weeping angels were "fossilized" time lords, like time lords were trapped inside of the stone. I uh...cringe looking back on it. This was also a ten fic.

Moving on to Solar Eclipse! I don't think I said he saw his life with the MC in dreams (although I could have I probably have forgotten I answer a lot of asks) at the end of the fic his memories of both lives are flooding back and it's so intense that it's painful. So he is overwhelmed by memories he hasn't even created yet...if that makes sense 🤔 so it's kind of hard for the MC to convince him that it isn't happening when it's in his head ya know? I don't think the MC would say anything I think she would either faint or run away from the situation. As for everything after that it's pretty tricky.

I never really planned to continue Solar Eclipse so I never put much thought into how things would play out post the end of the fic. Her overwhelming loneliness could very well be what drives her to Hoseok and what leads to what she would think would be a one night stand and the BOOM Jihoon is conceived 😅

As for how he stalks the MC, well he definitely follows her everywhere she goes. But, could you imagine him getting a job as like security or something in her building and figuring out where she lives and the code for her apartment? Scary. Like imagine him waiting for her to come home in her dark apartment and grabbing her when he gets the chance. Making her a prisoner in her own home would be hella frightening.

I hoped this answered as many of your questions as I could! This was such a fun ask, I like talking about my embarrassing early days as a baby writer as well as my favorite fics like Solar Eclipse.

#asks #my regulars #goldenmidnight #solar eclipse

[charmandhex]

A TOTALLY UNOFFICIAL AND VERY MUCH NOT SANCTIONED BY NBC OPENING SCENE FOR AN AS OF YET NONEXISTENT PILOT OF THE ADVENTURE ZONE: BALANCE ANIMATED SHOW THAT I AM 100% NOT GETTING PAID FOR

Credit to: the McElboys

No credit to: me, Charm H. Adventurezone, sleep deprived [job title redacted] and overly ambitious fic writer

[Our opening shot is of the world of Abeir-Toril (or whatever the fuck we’re going to call it to avoid copyright issues idk that redacted job title up there sure isn’t lawyer) as it drifts through the Prime Material Plane. From here, we can see little but clouds, water, and land masses. One regular-sized moon orbiting the world drifts into view. If you look closely, but you’re only looking closely because you’re a nerd who knows what to look for, you can see a much, much smaller moon -THAT’S NO MOON got there first Clint what now- drifts over a massive, still lake and a brightly colored spot that we might know to be Neverwinter, wait- Eversummer, hm, that was graphic novel, but can we use that there?- KINDASPRING there we go. The initial shot is quiet, for a moment, before seven notes -yes those ones folks- ring out.]

GRIFFIN [audio only]: I can guess what you’re probably all expecting. Some big, dramatic speech to match the big, dramatic intro we’ve got going on here. [As Griffin talks, we start to zoom in on a continent conveniently labeled NOT-FAERUN. We fly by our much smaller moon, but not close enough to see anything of interest – yet. We see Kindaspring, all busy and fantasy and so on. We catch a glimpse of a city buried in the shadow of a mountain range, with a bunch of dudes who all look the same. A city on a cliff, a shining gold monument in the center and trails of dust on a track around the city. Canyons, and a dash of pearlescent color just for a moment. Blink and you miss it, and a flash of a black and white tent in the woods near Kindaspring. You get the picture.] But, fact of the matter is, folks, we kinda blew all the budget on this one shot! Completely boned it in the first two seconds! So, let’s get right into it and roll some fuckin’ initiative- oh, can I say fuck? Are we allowed to do that, here on NBC Peacock? Shit, I’m going to completely bone our cussing budget too- anyway! Let’s roll some initiative and meet our heroes.

[Zoom in on wagon on road outside Kindaspring. It’s not a very impressive wagon. There are patches on the canvas. The wheels are all creaky and bouncy over the dirt road. The horses look like they could use a nap. There are stink lines, y’all. The road, meanwhile, is pretty well-used. There are ruts, and the sides of the road run clean and even. It’s surrounded by woods, and we’re far enough out of Kindaspring to not get any noise from the city, nor close enough to our destination to even get a hint of whatever the fuck I’m going to have to call Phandalin that isn’t Phandalin.

But back to our characters. Right now, only one is visible, a buff human man, like super buff, no you don’t understand animators, he must be a brick shithouse of a man, he’s very sensitive about this. He has massive muscles and massive sideburns, and he looks way too happy to be driving this wagon. You just know the vehicle proficiency jokes are coming. Cartoon GRIFFIN pops up in the corner of the screen, looking unimpressed.]

GRIFFIN: …Well, maybe not heroes. Three… boys. Three very messy, very murder hobo, very horny boys. [A beat.] Tres horny boys, if you will. So, uh, first up is-

MAGNUS [aware of Griffin and waving at everyone- listen, fourth wall breaks are kinda a thing for me, folks]: I’m Magnus Burnsides, human fighter! [Stat card for Magnus pops up on the side. There’s a not very flattering picture with it.] Also… [with the wagon reigns in hand, he starts counting off on his fingers, concentrating] Uh, master carpenter, man of action, rush into battle- oh, and I’m from Raven’s Roost, and-

[The canvas flaps blow open behind MAGNUS, and MAGNUS’S stat card disappears with a pop and a tiny bit of white smoke. TAAKO steps out, already exasperated and swinging a hand, colliding with MAGNUS’S head and pushing it to the side.]

TAAKO: Yeah, save the backstory for like… 40 more episodes, my dude. We don’t have time for that shit right now.

GRIFFIN: O-kay, guess we’re just gonna assume we can swear whenever we want.

[As GRIFFIN is talking, TAAKO stops pushing on MAGNUS’S head.]

TAAKO [triumphant, shouting]: FUCK!

[Flock of birds flies out of the trees.]

GRIFFIN: So this is Taako, the elf wizard [TAAKO’S stat card pops up. Much more flattering picture.] and-

TAAKO: That’s Taako, you know, from… podcast, elf wizard and baller chef, yes, thank you, very much. AND very, very beautiful. [TAAKO does a hair flip. There are sparkles and magical sounds.] And very, very bored. [TAAKO’S stat card disappears.] How far away is this fuckin’ town? What’s it called again?

MAGNUS [shrugging]: Beats me. [To GRIFFIN] Did we come up with a name that doesn’t violate copyright?

GRIFFIN [evading the question, because I still am]: Aaaaaaaaaaaaand last but not least, Merle Highchurch. [A beat. GRIFFIN sighs.] Merle, that’s your cue.

MERLE [inside the tent]: Wha? Somebody say my name? [Canvas flaps rustle rustle rustle. MERLE’S face pops out, looking around owlishly. He also steps out to the front of the wagon.]

MAGNUS [now very crowded and still trying to drive]: You missed your cue, old man.

MERLE [indignant]: I was busy studying my cantrips!

TAAKO and MAGNUS [in unison]: Gross!

MERLE: No, not like-

GRIFFIN [interrupting]: And Merle is a cleric! [MERLE’S stat card pops up. The picture was taken too high, so we can only see MERLE’S hair and forehead.]

MERLE: I’m a what now?

GRIFFIN [overly enthusiastic, it’s a bit now, folks]: Now, for those of you who aren’t familiar, clerics are kind of a support class magic user. They can cast things like buffs-

MERLE: Huh?

GRIFFIN [still overly enthusiastic]: and heal their party members-

MERLE: I can do that?

GRIFFIN: Clerics also serve gods, and Merle’s god is Mort-

MERLE [indignant again]: Hang on! That doesn’t sound right!

GRIFFIN [pushing out of his little bubble and leaning into the scene]: Then who is your god?

MERLE: Uh… Pan! [MERLE pulls out the Extreme Teen Bible.] See? Pan!

MAGNUS [whispering to TAAKO]: Okay, I guess this is how we’re resolving that whole thing. [TAAKO shrugs. MERLE is smiling. It’s adorable, like those little smiles Carey Pietsch does I love them so much, y’all.]

GRIFFIN: So, Magnus, Taako, Merle. Off on an adventure of epic proportions. [GRIFFIN is getting excited.] Full of action and danger and goofs and found family and-

MAGNUS: Now hold on! Epic proportions? Epic? [MAGNUS waves a hand around at the generally pretty chill woods, the boring road, and the stink lines wagon.]

TAAKO: Yeah, so far this is snoozeville, population, uh, me and these two chucklefucks.

MERLE [peering at GRIFFIN]: you sure you got the right dnd party, bud?

GRIFFIN [looking at audience]: We’re still negotiating contracts, so I’m filling in for, uh… someone. So for now, hey, I’m Griffin McElroy, your Dungeon Master, your best friend, and your announcer for this pilot episode. Ahem. [GRIFFIN clears his throat.] Grab your shields and ready your spell slots. Strap in your asses and… really, just strap in your asses. And, for the very first time, welcome to the animated version of… THE ADVENTURE ZONE!

[Title card and Mort Garson’s “Déjà Vu” plays. All my ideas went into dialogue, folks. Fan artists, this one’s all yours.]

[We pop back into the same scene as before.]

MAGNUS: Yeah, so, uh, like we were saying, before, uh, whatever that was, what we’re doing now is-

TAAKO [interrupting]: Hold on! We are not, I repeat, not doing some dumb recap where we explain this boring job... unless…

MAGNUS, MERLE, and GRIFFIN [all have gone laser eye meme]: UNLESS?

TAAKO [singing]: Flashback sequence!

[There’s a loud POP! as the scene shifts, and we’re now in your standard fantasy tavern. There’s a table with four chairs right in front of us, all of which are empty. The tavern acts as a backdrop behind that, illustrating just how fantasy this world is. We see humans and elves and dwarves yes, because we’ve already seen them, but also Gnomes and tieflings and haflings and orcs and Genasi and aarakocra (try spelling that one, folks ;) I’m sure that won’t come up later) and so on and so forth.

There’s another POP! as GRIFFIN’S window reappears in the upper right corner. He looks slightly ruffled.]

GRIFFIN [straightening his hair and glasses]: Wow, that is going to take some getting used to. Anyway, the boys should be here in a second, and-

[Three more pops as MAGNUS, TAAKO, and MERLE appear in three of the four seats at the table. MERLE lands upside down. He immediately starts struggling to right himself]

MAGNUS [looking at the empty chair and frowning]: Wait, what was the name of the guy we were meeting again? Gumdrop?

TAAKO: Hm… Gurgle? Guava? Gumbo?

MERLE [having finally righted himself]: No! My cousin, uh… um… oh, that’s right, Gundren!

[As MERLE says GUNDREN, another pop as GUNDREN pops into existence in the chair. He looks like if you put MERLE through a grinder, not like we’re gonna run into one of those in an episode or two, right, fellas?

Nasty boy that he is, GUNDREN lets out a grunt and then spits on the floor. People have to clean that, GUNDREN! This is why you- (SPOILERS REDACTED)- anyway.]

GUNDREN: So, like I was saying, boys. You take my wagon from here in Kindaspring down the road to Mandolin-

TAAKO: Oh, that’s what we’re calling it?

MERLE: I thought that was another TV show?

[Up in the corner, GRIFFIN shrugs.]

GUNDREN: Uh… yes? That’s… what it’s called? [GUNDREN looks suspiciously at them. It seems like he’d give the job to someone else in an instant, if literally anyone else would take the job. But magically, he’s stuck with these boys.] But, uh, you get my wagon and my goods to Mandolin, and I’ll let you in on the next job. And that job, boys… [GUNDREN laughs. It sounds like if you threw rocks in a blender.] That’s the kinda job that will be the last job you ever need to take.

MAGNUS [cheerfully]: Well, that sounds murdery!

[There’s a loud POP! and we’re back on the wagon again, all of our boys already in place.]

GRIFFIN [shrugging, smiling]: Guess you’re going to find out! Oh, and boys… let’s roll initiative.

#taz #taz balance #the adventure zone #mcelroy family #mcelboys #charm works #this is basically a glorified overly long shitpost and the level of editing that went into this reflects that #PLEASE HIRE ME MCELROYS

[curiousartemis]

Year-end Writer’s Round-Up: 2020

Thank you for the tag, @musetta3​!! (And your kind words about my story)

I will tag as many writers as I can think of: @r2smuse​ @tishinada​ @curiousthimble​ @razrogue​ @knightdawn​ @alxxiis​ @schrodingerthings​ @maraleesquill​ @themushroomqueen-ao3​ @wardenari​ @fandomn00blr​ @ahufflepuffhobbit​ @archesa​ @oui-lele​ @odekiax​ @daedriclorde​ @pemfili​ and anyone who sees this and wants to do it! (I’m sorry I forgot you!!)

EDIT: None of these usernames are showing up as tags on my dash, yet when I go to edit the post, they DO show up. So I’m sorry if they aren’t working :( There appears to be nothing I can do to fix them.

Word Count:

343749

Not bad! Oh what am I saying; THAT’S INSANE!!! I’m genuinely shocked by that number. I know Laurie’s fic is 130k words long at present, and I finished the latter half of Casien’s book 3 this year, too, but still.

New things I tried this year:

Probably my most notable thing I tried this year was Laurie’s story, which is almost exclusively focused on romance (along with main character development). I was very nervous to write “just” a love story; I didn’t know if I had the ability to do so, and was extremely anxious about how to plot such a story. I pretty much just closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and started writing. It was really nerve-wracking because normally I have these big scenes in mind as I begin a long story, and this time all I had a was a balcony kiss scene...!

I returned to the DA fandom briefly with my Karl x Anders fic! I never felt like I fit in with DA fandom, not sure why. Unfortunately, the story wasn’t too successful, but I did get a few comments, and most importantly, I really had this sudden urge to write them together, and I did a rare thing: I gave in to the urge 😁 I’m pretty happy with how the fic turned out, though I don’t think my one-shot game is all that strong.

This year I also separated my one-shot collection into multiple collections, sorting them by pairing. In the Ulfrien collection, I’ve been editing every story, cleaning up typos, story inconsistencies, and just plain bad writing. I’ve also been giving the stories names! I deleted a few stories I didn’t care for, too. 

Lastly, I drew outfits for my OCs! I realized one of my favorite things to do is imagine and describe the clothes (and armor) they wear. So I decided to try drawing it, too. I’m really proud of how they came out. 

Fic I spent the most time on:

Laurie’s story, without question. I worked on it nearly every day of the year. There was a time after the first hurricane when I barely wrote at all. It was a very difficult time, but returning to writing, and to Laurie, actually helped me deal with all of that (or at least not think about it). 

Fic I spent the least time on:

All of my one-shots are tied for this. I write all my one-shots in one sitting. It can take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours.

Favorite thing I wrote:

Well there’s just no comparison to Laurie’s story (because otherwise all I have are one-shots). If I had a favorite chapter, though, it would be the first dancing chapter, when Falk admits his feelings and kisses Laurie for the first time. I really enjoyed writing his confession, how sweet and nervous he was, and how overwhelmed Laurie was... and how happy they both eventually became.

Favorite thing I read:

The Inevitable Love Story between Two Oblivious Idiots I’m pretty sure I read this one this year. I’ve read a LOT of bagginshield (it’s still 90% of what I read) but this one really stood out. The letters Dis and the others exchange back and forth are freaking hilarious. 

It Runs in the Family Bilbo gets jealous of a handsome cousin who comes to visit. Said cousin seems to be attracting the attention of a certain dwarven king, and... this sounds really cliche and lame (because I am bad at summaries), but NO it’s really cute and hilarious!

A Handsome Stranger I ventured into a new fandom this past month: Cody x Obi-Wan !! 💗 This was a really cute fic, and I love AUs so much, not to mention slow burns... and although the time the passes is only a matter of days, we get to experience all these little moments between them, and it’s just great.

Something to Start With Whelp, yes, it’s another adorable bagginshield fic! And of course it’s a lovely slow burn. Read it!!!!

Writing goals for next year:

They are... ambitious 😱 I plan to write two long fics at once, the next Casien book and my new BG3 fic. I actually have more planned for the BG3 fic and am pretty excited about it, but very nervous to be breaking into a new fandom, too. BG3 fans are very knowledge about DnD and... I am not 😅 I also have a tendency to just make up my own lore. Forgive me in advance!!!

Casien’s story is more of an “I can’t quite you” situation. Should I really continue it? Honestly, the story probably should have ended with Book 3. But I really wanted to write Laurie... and now I really want to write them being friends together in Windhelm... also murder... (which I’m very nervous about because I’m not a mystery writer). And I still want to write them having adventures in Hammerfell. Sigh.

Lastly, COVID and the hurricanes put a massive damper on my original fiction plans. I did nearly finish the first pass of edits to Casien’s book 1, but obviously there is still a lot of work to be done. My goals are to COMPLETELY finish edits by the summer and pitch in the fall. Wish me luck!

#writing #fanfiction #bagginshield #skyrim #codywan #about me