#i reread all the dialog i have of his so many times

[herequeerexitentialfear]

book club meeting no. 0

for the @owlcatober prompt 3, reading.

Daeran interrupts Mura reading to have a conversation around the books shes been weighing the party down with, and requests for certain types of books

warnings: none! except some dirty humor about illustrated demon summoning books and a joke that's in line with daerans dialog about certain key figures of the crusades.

The vapid aasimar lounges in her doorway, a book in his hands; A book that should be locked in her chest at the foot of her bed. The bed she's currently sitting on, curled over reading one of the books that caught her eye in the library, just before she finally gave way to exhaustion.

‘And pray tell, why do you think you have the right to rifle through my things?’ a tad defensive, but he revels in evoking such emotion.

‘I was hoping that at least one of the books you decided to make us lug around the city after various mutts and malcontenters would make for more interesting reading than the blandness that counts as reading material in this armpit of the city’ a faux outraged turn of his head, ‘you would think a establishment such as a tavern would have interesting material, not this depravity of culture’ a mock look of dismayed understanding, ‘although i do suppose the damn crusaders got here first and practically leached anything interesting out of this place the second they crosses the threshold’

She volleyed back with a desert dry voice ‘what a shame, i left the heretical books illustrated sex rituals in the dungeon with their creators corpses, i thought i should let their ghosts have some entertainment. And given that you occupy so much of your time and derive so much joy from taunting the crusaders that surround us, I thought that sated your appetite for entertainment. I see my mistake now, and shall seek to rectify it in the future’

‘Surely you could have left some for me?’ he pulled off the pleading look well, but not as well as the tiefling. 

‘If we make it out of here alive i'll commission you a personalized version with all the sacrifices being replaced by her majesty’

And there was the sharp grin that was uncomfortably close to the one that fills her dreams.

‘I will hold you to that, as payment for my suffering among these cruel killer of joy’ his dramatics made him more irritating than endearing, but he was plenty of entertainment by himself, and though she didn't suffer much under the practicality of the current crusaders, the urge to laugh in there face and mock them to the end of the earth for their naivete and piousness was one she fought down often, so having the count voice her slander made some petty part of her sing with joy.

‘Your more than welcome to leave, i believe you should be able to walk out the door’ a dramatic point not out of place on a theater stage, but slightly out of place coming from her wrinkled and creased shirt sleeve, and topped by her cracked nail polish and in some cases torn nails. 

Of course the world had conspired against her appearance in front of the one person in the city who would currently care.

His smug and self assured voice cut through her thoughts, ‘Please you would miss my darling personality’ 

Sharpening her tongue, she lowers her hand and dons a smug grin of her own,  ‘I wouldn't miss the severed heads weighing us down- surely they take up more space than a few books’

A thud through the left wall, and a cut off exclamation accompanied by the sound of swiftly moving hair proved that the tiefling and the half elf had both been, at least to some extent, listening in.

Mentally rewinding the conversation revealed no major conflict, indeed the thief would almost certainly appreciate her joke about the queen, although the rapier wielder was another thing altogether, but one on the fence rather than far out in the field on the opposite side.

The healer in front, on the other hand, had become an order of magnitude more insufferable for his small success in her slip up. Although the jokes on him, given the loudest their conversation got was her sharply revealing the source of the severed heads plaguing the groups various storage's.

Wrapping her hand around the spine of the book splayed open on the covers of her bed, she snapped it shut in an attempt to signal an end to the conversation. 

An attempt that works thankfully, with a mere parting shot of ‘i'll hold you to that promise, and make no promise of my own about hiding the source’ as he turned away to his own corner of the tavern.

A grin slowly built up inside before bursting onto her face as she slipped a hand under her pillow and cracked open the sloppily bound, and disconcertingly bloodstained book hidden underneath.

A delightful read, and insight into the warped minds of the cultists they were fighting, even if some of them were, let's say, lacking imagination. Maybe it would even find its way under the pillow of a certain counts chair.

A book club sounds like the perfect idea to promote conversation and bonds between the ragtag group- she couldn't wait to see what books the count managed to find if it did go ahead.

#thebirdwrites #mura hagdaughter #see! i can do more than just angst #Daeran is both fun to write and also terrifying #i reread all the dialog i have of his so many times #but hes close enough to muras dramatics and sarcasm that i worry the two bleed together rather than just bounce of each other well #you can probably also pinpoint the sentence when i realized them romancing each other wasnt just a joke #anyway! i sat on the first two thirds of this for 20 days then finaly wrote the ending and did some editing #if i did him wrong please be nice

[farm-witches-fic-recs]

Our farm witch friends really delivered with their faves last month and we're here this week to share the last of that list. Thank you to everyone who responded to pass along the fics you love and help keep this fandom reading (and writing)!

Check these community fave works out and leave the authors some love!

=========

Bound by symmetry (barelypink) “I am and always will be a sucker for a slow burn. This one is a diamond.”

Goodwill (@spiders-hth-is-an-outlier) “I don't know why I love this as much as I do. It's really sad, but also really joyful. It unfolds so beautifully. I love all the introspection. And the socks. I'll always love the socks.” 

If not now (MoreHuman, swat117) “There is no truer test of a relationship than all the time in the world.”

If you say run, I’ll run with you (upbeat) “Wonderful, different take on the wedding.”

Language of Love (pandorasdaydream) “This series takes the 22 min tv episodes and fills in the moments we don’t see. David and Patrick are fleshed out, while staying true to Dan Levy’s characters. The series is beautifully written and developed.”

Left unsaid (@treepyful) “A very detailed day in the life of a rare pair in the Fandom. Like, so so detailed. But every word is glorious and intentional, and somehow, though there's only like 6 words of dialog in the entire fic, so much gets said. Also, there's one of the most incredible descriptions of a thunderstorm that I've ever read.”

Neither snow, nor rain (middyblue) “Christmas slow-burn.”

Post hoc ergo propter hoc (various) “I love all of the installments in this political AU because I liked the West Wing a lot but it was never queer enough. This series has all the humor and dialogue and romance and Queer Feelings (tm) you might ever wish for in a beltway workplace drama, plus President Johnny Rose and Stevie Budd as his (eventual) chief of staff.” 

Prismatic (thetrustytaco) **WIP**  “You only see b&w until you get close to your soulmate! Gah! Not finished but so good so far!!”

Sleepless (@wellschitt) “This fic is funny, sexy, and full of heart, and at just over 10k, it's the perfect length for a reread (or in my case many, many rereads) when you need a quick pick me up on a stressful day.”

Time until the end of time (@ships-to-sail, yourbuttervoicedbeau (@kiwiana-writes)) “I've been into the idea of a waiting room on the way to the after life for a long time, and this piece totally does our characters justice. If you have an ache in your life, it will knead it and might even heal you a bit.”

Value added (theMaura) “Short. Hilarious.”

Vampires Are People Too! (@petrodobreva) “It's a rare thing indeed for a fic author to create a unique, fully realized alternative world while still holding on to the spirit of the canon work that we all know and love, but that's exactly what petrodobreva manages to pull off in this teen vampire AU.” 

Winning the Game (@ladyflowdi) “One of the most hilarious laugh-out-loud fics in the fandom.” 

#friends of farm witches fic recs #sc fanfic #sc fic rec #schitt's creek fanfic #schitts creek fic #schitt's creek fic #sc fic #david rose #patrick brewer #david x patrick #stevie budd #jake x mutt #mutt schitt

[liskantope]

I just finished rereading Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, the first book of which I'd read quite a few times over the years (it was always and still is my favorite) and the third book of which I had probably never read a second time, after reading it for the first time as a teenager. I had little to no recollection of a lot of major plot events in book 3, in fact, and felt like I was reading some parts of it for the first time. All in all, I found the third book to be better, less of a slog, and less unmanageably over-ambitious in its scope than my impression had been when I had most recently read it half my life ago. In fact, while I'm not uncritical of many aspects of the book, I was pleasantly surprised by how well it tied together the whole trilogy, both in terms of character arcs and the established physics of Pullman's universe (or parallel universes).

One thing that's more striking to me now about the third book, though, is how in several ways it's a little ambiguous whether Pullman is retconning something rather than revealing a new layer to the plot or a character's motivations that he had deliberately hidden in the first book.

[A major book 1 spoiler and mild book 3 spoilers below.]

One example of this, which I think was most likely deliberately planned, is Asriel appearing at the end of book 1 to be on the Church's side in wanting to exterminate Dust (at a climactic moment in which he is revealed to be ruthless if not downright evil in other ways, and is locked in a sweet embrace with our main villain Marisa Coulter), and then in book 3, by which time it's been clear for a good while that Asriel is plotting against not only the Church but God himself, Asriel explains to Marisa that he was only pretending to want to get rid of Dust because he thought she'd "prefer a lie".

Another example, that I've wondered about ever since I first read the trilogy, is the fact that it's stated early in book 1 that Lyra is prophesized to commit some great betrayal that will have profound consequences, and with the twist at the end of that book, I (and probably most other first-time readers?) assumed that betrayal to be her unknowingly leading her best friend Roger to his doom. But then it's explicitly stated in book 3 that the betrayal is her choice to leave her dæmon behind at the entrance of the Land of the Dead. I can accept that this makes more sense in some ways (it was an action taken in the light of full knowledge, unlike what she did to Roger), but it kind of makes less sense in other ways (Will did the same thing along with her, even if he didn't have an external dæmon), and I enjoyed explaining it through the book 1 twist a lot more.

A third example, where I feel much more sure that Pullman just changed his mind, began with a scene in book 1 when Lyra is visiting Dr. Lanselius and is given a quick task to do outside, and while she's gone Lanselius discusses a devastating prophecy about her with the Gypsy characters that are in the room, emphasizing that all will be ruined if Lyra knows anything about the prophesy. A similar sort of scene happens later in the book, when Lyra is asleep in the balloon and Lee Scoresby has such a discussion with Serafina Pekkala. And in both of those scenes, I was kind of rolling my eyes and thinking, "If it's crucial to the fate of the world that Lyra not know her destiny, they're being awfully incautious here, given that Lyra could be just outside of the room or only pretending to be asleep." And then, as it happens -- now remember, I knew book 1 fairly well but had forgotten even many of the major plot events of book 3 let alone most of the dialogs -- in the chapter "No Way Out" of book 3, Lyra reveals that in fact she was standing outside the door during the Lanselius scene and so overheard part of the prophesy, and this is used to guide her motivations. This certainly vindicates my kneejerk reaction of thinking the characters were acting very recklessly in that scene, but the interesting question is, had it occurred to the author that they were acting recklessly, and at the time of writing book 1 did he have in mind that Lyra was in fact secretly outside the room listening?

#his dark materials #his dark materials spoilers #fiction writing

[kendochick-moor]

Hey Moor! I love your writing, your Art of Datibg a Rich man series is one of my absolute favorite fanfics ever!!!

I’ve got a writing question but please ignore this question if it’s annoying or you don’t feel like answering！I want to know how to you write your characters thoughts and emotions so well?? I noticed when I was rereading the Madara prequel to Art of Dating a Rich man it’s always clear, sometimes painfully, what he’s thinking or his emotions are - BUT you never really write “madara thinks” or “madara feels”.

Maybe this is a selfish ask but I’ve been trying to write and and I want to get better but I can’t seem to communicate thoughts or feelings well without it sounding clunky or awkward. When I think of good writing and the kind of quality I want to be able to achieve someday, your works always come to mind. There’s something very natural and graceful about how you write your characters that they’re almost tangible ( if that makes any sense?) but I can’t seem to do anything even remotely close.

Again, please ignore the question if you want. But you should know in all seriousness I reread your fanfics seasonally and can’t thank you enough for the joy they bring!!!!!

Magic. :)

(Jk!)

Also, thank you very much for the compliment! <3

To answer your questions!...

1. I treat the people in my stories (fanfic and OF) like people. :) I refer to them the way I would refer to people whom I know, with emotions, attitudes, shortfalls and motivations, all of which can change over time, like real people do. :) I don't know why/how, but it makes it easier for me to write them when I consider them people instead of characters.

2. A friend of mine once beta'd an early fic for me for the Saiunkoku Monogatari fandom and she left a comment that has stuck with me for 15+ years: "What’s another way to say this?" BOOM. THIS IS REALLY IMPORTANT. It's the crux of 'show, don't tell'. Instead of telling what someone feels, think about how it could be shown/displayed/conveyed: a furrowed brow could indicate concentration, concern, anger, confusion. A simple gesture can convey so much--and it may mean different things for different people (characters). Context, dialog, situation and characterization will fill in the blanks--but that furrowed brow is what indicates to the reader the impact the situation/action has on the people (characters) in it. I think very visually (constantly.... I am the one who hears a song and within 20 seconds I have a scene/story that reflects its emotion/impact). It's a compulsion, tbh. It's why I have so many WIP. But if/when I find my writing/a scene is dragging, the first thing I start checking is, "what's another way of saying this?". (And then choosing a passage that I think would be more meaningful/impactful if I changed how it was presented.)

3. I am really impressed you noticed this, because I don't know if I have mentioned it often: I very much avoid using the words, "feel/felt". "Think" is another, though I admit that I have been lazy and started using it again more recently. :) Thisr relates back to #2 above: don't tell what your character/person feels/thinks--show it via their actions and behaviour.

I am not sure how familiar you are with K-dramas, J-dramas and Taiwanese dramas, but I find they employ symbolism and actions very effectively to convey intention and meaning.

Example: Imagine a young woman (who was forced to hide her gender and live as her twin brother for reasons). She may still long to be able to someday live her life as a woman, but is afraid of what her family will think since she has been a boy for so long. What may reassure her would be her family telling her that they support her. But what would show it? Her father presenting her with a beautiful dress, possibly one she admired in secret, and him telling her he has always been proud of her, no matter what/who she was. (Kudos to those who recognize this scene from a particular K-drama!) Does her father specifically outright say, "Go, be a woman now!" ? No. He gives her the tools and his support so she has the agency and confidence to embrace it herself. He shows her (and, in turn, the audience.)

You mentioned TAoDaRM above. :) This fic may come across more naturally written because some characters and actions are based upon real people, and that made writing it much easier. (Hashi and Tobi are based on very specific people, for example, who are very important to me.) I tried very hard to SHOW emotion and reaction in this story with body language and dialog (and parallel scenes--where dialog or actions in one scene are repeated again later to compare and contrast the growth of a character or compare him/her with something that was previously mentioned... think of Sakura’s dinners with each of the men, or when Madara teases Hashi about Hashi someday being jealous of him, or of one man saying, "the girl or your brother", and Madara repeating it to Tobi...) These words, actions, scenes and parallels are all quite deliberately placed to bring the reader's attention to the importance of these scenes and events. Different contexts give the words different meanings and evoke differentemotions. :) Again with the goal of making these characters feel like real people.

If you would like more examples or would like to talk through any of this, let me know (I am a flaming narcissist and love talking about myself and my work). I genuinely enjoy helping others, so if you'd like we can chat about your stories, I can beta for you, and/or if you're on Discord we can voice chat and look at your strengths and goals together ❤.

EDIT: .... there's also extensive use of Resist the Urge to Explain (RUE) in TAoDaRM... but that's another post for another day. ^_^

I hope this helps! <3

Happy writing!!! I have a massive amount of respect for you analyzing your work and wanting to improve!!

[duckprintspress]

How can I write quickly?

I (hi, I’m @unforth) have been asked frequently over the years how I write a lot quickly. I’m a pretty fast writer - for example, I wrote the 5600 words of my May Trope Mayhem fill from yesterday in under 2.5 hours. 

First, a little of my personal history for context. I’ve always written, starting from when I was able to string letters into (very poorly spelled) words and (horrible un-grammatical) sentences. When I started trying my hand at serious, professional-level fiction writing, I joined a community called novel_in_90, which was founded by the author Elizabeth Bear. The purpose of novel_in_90 was “to be NaNoWriMo but more realistic.” Instead of 50,000 words in 31 days, it was 67,500 words in 90 days, or 750 words a day. I participated in multiple rounds of novel_in_90 starting in mid-2005, and in 2007 I completed my first (godawful) novel. When I started, even writing a couple hundred words of day took me forever, but it got easier with time. 

During those same years, I also got a job that required I do professional writing on a deadline: I was a grant writer, and I only got paid when the grants won. That often meant working fast under high pressure, culminating in the weekend I wrote and edited an entire 40 pages grant that was due on Monday. I think, if I hadn’t had a solid foundation of “regular daily plodding writing,” I’d not have been able to marathon when the moment came...and it came because I had to, not because I wanted to. However, I learned a valuable lesson: I could. Subsequently, I found that, when I had the time and space and was rested enough to use my brain, I could bust out a huge amount. Like, I wrote an entire 150,000 word novel in 17 days.

My personal record is about 200,000 words in one month (it was the month I wrote that novel; I wasn’t tracking when I did that so I don’t know exactly), 25,000 words in a day, and I’ve topped out around 3,000 words an hour. I do know people who can do more...but not many.

Not everyone will be able to do this. Flat out, I MUST preface the rest of this post by saying that. Some people will find that writing fast fits their brain, and for others, it just won’t, and that’s okay. Fast doesn’t equal better, and it isn’t inherently “good” to write fast. Furthermore, even for those who can write fast, not everyone will find the same strategies helpful. I can share what works for me. Try out one item, some items, or all of these - if writing faster is something you want to be able to do, which it certainly never has to be. Use what works for you, and discard the rest.

Sit in your chair, put your fingers on your keyboard or touch screen, and write. You can’t write 1,000 words in half an hour until you write one word, however long that one word takes. I know saying this is obvious, but I’ve been asked “how can I write fast” by people who struggle to write at all...fast can’t be your priority until you’ve got a foundation of just writing. (Honestly...fast should never be your priority, but it might be helpful to you regardless, which can make it worth learning.)

Start small. Set an achievable goal, and make yourself meet that goal (daily, weekly, whatever) come hell or high water, no matter how long it takes you. Keep the goal small at first; you’re not trying to torture yourself, you’re trying to build a skill. If you set the goal high enough that you consistently fail, you’re not teaching yourself anything. And, if you find the goal IS too high...lower it. There’s no shame in working within your limits. Think of it like starting a new work out regimen: you wouldn’t try to run a 10k at a record time if you can’t run a mile slow. Treat your fingers and your brain the same way you’d treat your legs and joints. Give them time to grow, learn, and improve before you try to push yourself.

Trying to write daily is worthwhile if you want to work on your writing speed, because you’ll be forced to try to fit it in as you’re able - that might be ten minutes in your morning, or an hour in your evening, and it might vary from day to day, but making it daily means you have to fit it in somewhere.

Building skills takes time and isn’t easy. For some people, it will come easier than for others, and even when you’re fast, going from “I can write words fast” to “I can write damn good words fast” takes practice and dedication and accepting constructive criticism - speed alone will never be worth more than writing well.

Having a community can help. Ya’ll will check in on each other, cheer each other on, remind each other that missing a day or a goal isn’t the end of the world, and keep each other’s spirits up. If you don’t know other writerly folks online, I recommend Weekend Writing Marathon ( @weekendwritingmarathon ) as a good place to start (I used to be a mod there). Once you’re trying to work up to larger word counts in a day, remember that even writing fast will take minutes or hours. You can’t write 2,500 words in an hour if you don’t set an hour aside. Make sure you’re giving yourself the room and time you need to succeed.

You will probably never be able to do high, rapid word counts every day, every week, every month. The best runners in the world don’t run marathons every day. Set realistic long term goals.

Work on projects where you have a clear idea of where you’re going. I’m not saying “pantsers” can’t write fast, because of course they can, but if you want to write fast, and well, and coherently, to create a first draft that’s in pretty good shape, you’ll do better if you have a good sense of what you’re trying to accomplish with your story. That doesn’t mean you need to do all your world building up front, or have a complete outline (I never have either). All you really need is what happens next. I tend to plan projects - and write them - one full scene at a time, with only a vague idea what’s going to come after. (I’m personally a “plantser,” and the strategies in this post will likely be most effective to other plantsers.)

Visualize ahead of time what you’d like to write...but don’t get too attached to what you visualize. When I go to bed, I plan the next scene I’m going to compose, often to the least detail. I then forget all of it overnight, at least all the specifics, and I’m left with a general sense and shape of what’s to come. You’ll never be able to replicate the “perfect” dialog you pre-conceive, so give up on trying to. Instead, play through the scene and think about the emotional beats you want to hit and plot points you want to forward. If you keep that in mind, you’ll be able to get the words out faster than if you’re agonizing over every word or regretting the “oh-so-great” idea that you’ve since forgotten. 

Practice different work styles. If writing every day doesn’t work for you, try instead saying, “this is my writing day each week,” and aim for a lot that specific day, and write little or nothing other days. Try writing at different times of day and on different days, fitting it into your schedule. If you’re beating yourself up for not writing when you “should,” it’ll be that much harder to succeed, so instead, as I said for point 2 - set a reasonable goal that fits your life and working style, fitting it around your other responsibilities, and push yourself within that framework, instead of trying to shoehorn into a style that you “think you should” use to succeed. 

Track your word counts, and take notes on how much you did and what project you were working on. If you’re also experimenting with different times of day and different days, make sure you note that too. I personally use a simple Excel sheet (well, Google Sheets, now) - column one is the date, column 2 is “starting word count,” column 3 is “ending word count,” column 4 is “=column 3 - column 2”, column 5 is notes. Pay attention to when you succeed at writing faster, and when you don’t, and consider what factors might have played into your success...and then try to replicate those factors next time you’re doing a sprint. Control as many variables as you can while you’re “training.”

If you find social media distracting, trying getting a web browser extension that prevents you from connecting to websites for a set period of time.

If you find you tend to dither before starting, I find it helpful to run through everything that I might do to procrastinate (check my social media! grab a snack! make some tea! set up my playlist! check my social media again! finish making the tea! check my social media for what I swear will be the last time!), and when I’m done, it’s like, well, I’ve done all those things, I’ve got no choice left, time to write, no excuses left.

If you find you struggle with picking up a WIP, try leaving off in the middle of a sentence at the end of a session, one where you know exactly how it ends - or, leave off mid-paragraph, or when you are positive you know what happens next (and I mean literally next, as in the very next sentence.) It’s much easier to “pick back up” when your first words are super clear. (Do not do this if you think there’s any chance you’ll forget or end up in a situation where you won’t return to your WIP for months!) 

If you find you struggle to maintain continuity across multiple writing sessions, try rereading what you wrote the previous day before you proceed. Resist the urge to edit it!

Avoid stopping when you get stuck, even to do research. Don’t know a fact? Add a comment to your manuscript flagging the relevant text, “LOOK THIS UP LATER.” Can’t think of a word? Put in something you can use the “find” function on easily (I personally use “XX” since there are no words that have a double x in them) and so you can come back later, search for your chosen placeholder, and fill in the blanks. Not sure how a scene ends but know the next scene? Jump ahead.

That said, if you really don’t know what happens next, you don’t do yourself any favors by pressing on. As I’ve said previously, speed alone should never be your writing object. It’s better to slow down, consider your plot, figure out where you’re going, and then write, than to just plow ahead - or at least, that’s better if you want a manuscript you’ll actually be able to use for something at a later point. If you’re truly just practicing, you can also say “screw it, who needs coherence?” and keep going. I’d personally never have finished my first novel if I’d spent a lot of time worrying about making the pieces fit together and yeah, it’s a mess, but it’s a mess I wrote instead of a mess I got stuck on and never completed.

Don’t move the finish line. If you’ve set the goal of 500 words a day, don’t beat yourself up if you get 550 because you think you think you could have done more. If you say you’ll write five days a week, don’t get mad because you DID have time the sixth day but chose to use it on something else. If you make yourself feel like shit when you succeed, what’ll happen when you fail? And when you’re comfortable and really think you’re ready, change the goal - reassess every month, say, and up your goals. While working for speed, trying upping your word count goal without changing the amount of time you allot for working.

Your need to adhere to the above suggestions will change over time. Once, I always had an outline; now I often don’t need one. Once, I wouldn’t let myself stop even to use a thesaurus; now, I find I can look up words without breaking my flow or significantly slowing myself down. This is not an “all or nothing” prospect, nor is it a “do things the same way forever once you’ve found one (1) thing that works” prospect - you’ll experiment, and find strategies that work for you, and then at some point, your needs will change, and you’ll experiment more, and find new strategies that work for you, on and on, as your skills grow. 

To reiterate: writing fast should never be your objective in and of itself! Greater writing speed will come with practice and as a general side effect of improving your craft. Simply being able to write fast is useless; being able to write fast and well will enable you to get more of your ideas out there, so if that’s something you’d like to accomplish, focus on building your general skills and training yourself to be able to use those skills rapidly and in tandem with each other to produce decent writing, in a first draft, at a decent speed.

Once you try, you may find none of this works for you! That’s okay. That’s good! You tried, which means you learned something about yourself and your own writing style, and that too will help you to improve. Keep experimenting, keep learning, and find what does work for you - and accept that no two writers will ever be the same, and one of those differences will be writing speed. Some writers will never write fast, and that’s doesn’t make them any less awesome or valid. And some writers will always write fast, and that doesn’t make them inherently awesome or valid. Only with a suite of skills that suit your individual life, personality, work style, writing capabilities, goals, etc., will you succeed as a writer (for various, personalized definitions of the word “success”); speed is only one of those potential skills, and not one that’s particularly important in my opinion...yet I still get asked about it fairly often, so here we are, these are my suggestions

Go forth, and write some words! <3

#duck prints press #writing advice #original content

[stressisakiller]

Hello Sunflower

Bucky Barnes x Reader Soulmate AU

Hello Sunflower Part 1

Summary: Your soul mark appears on your 18th birthday. What do you do when your father is a part of Hydra and your soul mark binds you to the Winter Soldier.

Warnings: Mentions and slight descriptions of torture, violence and brainwashing

Word Count: 2.6k

A/N: 4/23 New edit: fixing some timeline issues and integrating a little of the steve x reader I’m working on. Ok guys I reread this and decided to edit it and make it longer and add more dialog. I hope that you like the changes. I plan on going back and editing the other chapters as well, but that will be between writing and posting new chapters. Let me know what you think and if you have any requests for future parts. Also I originally got the idea for this after reading Wolf, Partner Gloves... by @revengingbarnes so check it out!

Series Masterlist

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You have always hated your dad. For as long as you can remember you have hated him. Every time he dragged you with him to "work" at Hydra that hatred grew. It came to a point when he decided that you would be the perfect subject for their new round of super-soldier serum testing.

So, here you are at 10, 10 years old, on this freezing metal table with a syringe in your arm screaming your head off as the serum burns through your veins. Pain. All you can think about is the pain. It feels like every single one of your nerves is on fire, and at the same time, they feel like ice. The pain blazes through you as your DNA is rewritten turning you from the child you are to the soldier that they want you to be. 

Faces come in and out of focus as the scientists look you over, studying you to see how the serum is affecting you. Your head is fuzzy, only catching every couple of words that are being spoken around you. Everything is coming into view as your eyes adjust to the lights and the new information that your DNA is sending. Flexing your hand on the table you feel pins and needles from the tip of your fingers up to your shoulder, causing you to wince. A couple of tears slip from the corner of your eyes from the overwhelming ache the is present throughout your body.

A voice drifts in through the door. A voice that you know all too well, your father. 

"She survived?" You have never noticed how sinister his voice sounds before.

"Yes sir, and it seems like the serum took, we aren't sure how exactly it has altered her yet." The other voice is weaker, trembling, scared of the man in front of it.

"Begin testing on her then, we need to know before we begin training her." 

"Yes sir." 

One set of footsteps retreats down the hallway while the other comes closer. You look towards the door, waiting to face the man that is about to walk in. You make sure your face is blank when the door opens, you don't want him to know you heard the whole conversation.

A slight sniveling man steps through the door and you immediately decide that you hate him. He walks over to you and undoes the straps on your arms and legs.

"Come little soldier, it's time to find out what you can do." He orders, his voice is a little stronger now that he isn't facing your father. He leads you down a maze of hallways, your bare feet make no noise as you follow after him. 

Entering a different room you are met with the site of another metal table as well as a two-way glass mirror, a treadmill, and a large set of weights. The man points you to the treadmill and the tests begin. They force you to run, full sprint until your body shuts down and you fall to the floor, flying off the belt as soon as you hit. When you come back to consciousness they force you to lift more and more weight until you feel your arm muscles give out. The weights come crashing down on you breaking multiple ribs. You are given a day to heal before they begin shocking and beating you to figure out what your pain tolerance is, before cutting you in different places at different depths to discover how quickly you heal.

You aren't sure how many days have passed before you are thrown into your new "bedroom" to rest and heal. A meal of bread, milk, and some sort of meat substitute is all they give you to eat. With every test and beating your hatred for Hydra and the man who called himself your father grows. You haven't seen your father at all during the testing but you know that he has been standing behind that stupid mirror and watching as you are put through every test that the scientists could think of. As soon as he had taken you to be injected, you had decided that this man was no father of yours. No real father would willingly subjugate their child to this torture and watch as it happens. 

You are given no rest before they begin to train you, throwing you into a ring with the other assets, teaching you how to shoot every type of firearm imaginable. You are taught how to throw knives and how to use poison, how to kill a man without leaving a trace and how to evade arrest. They make you into their perfect little child soldier, and you despise them for it. 

Your memories from that point on are disjointed, you know that there is a machine that they would force you into, you can remember the pain, but not much else. Then there are these words, six of them. The scientists say them and you lose all control of your own body. But then they take you back to that other machine and you fall into blessed whiteness. After an unknown amount of time, they decide that they no longer need to take you to that machine or to use those words. All you have ever known is Hydra, after all, there is no way you would turn against them. That's their first mistake. You bid your time, and slowly they give you more freedom. The idiots.

  As your 18th birthday had approached you set a tattoo appointment. You would rather die than let Hydra find out what your soulmate mark would be. You had decided beforehand that you would go in and get multiple tattoos on your birthday to mask the one that would betray the person that fate had deemed you destined for.

 Waking up the morning of your 18th birthday you run to the mirror. Seeing the markings on your skin you die a little inside. It can’t be, he can’t be your soulmate, how are you going to be able to save yourself and him? There on your hip, the size of a nickel, in bright red ink is a star, not just any star but the blood-red star that is a prominent feature on the arm of the Winter Soldier. But that isn’t the only thing that catches your eye. You have another tattoo, on your left bicep a bouquet of marigolds, white daisies, baby’s breath, and yellow gladiolus, with the howling face of a wolf emerging from the center. You hurry around your apartment, hiding your marks with a heavy layer of makeup. You can’t run the risk of anyone seeing them now, not before you have the chance to cover them.

You rush to the tattoo parlor in a panic and tell them the two tattoos you want. You insist that they do both of them while you are there. You cut through the protests assuring them that you have a high pain tolerance and that you heal very quickly. In the weeks preceding this day you had contemplated what exactly you needed. You had reasoned beforehand that just one tattoo would be too suspicious, but now that you have two marks you decide that you only need to get one other tattoo. You know that you will be punished for this but it is worth it, he is worth it.

To cover the soulmate mark on your hip you get a galaxy with stars of all different colors that make up multiple constellations. It takes them most of the day to finish it, walking over to the mirror you study the new art on your hip. It stretches from the middle of your thigh up to your bottom rib. It's large enough that the stars fade into the background, making it practically impossible to tell that one of them is your soulmark. 

The second tattoo is a bird in a cage that spans across the ribs on the opposite side as the galaxy. You have them make the bird abstract, using all types of different objects to create the shape of the bird and the cage. You leave the other soulmark alone, it is impossible to tell that it is a soulmark or at least who it pertains to, not with the other two tattoos vying for attention.

  You leave the parlor late that afternoon and head home. As you open the door to your apartment you are met by the overly happy face of your father. You had expected him to be there but the look on his face causes you to pause.

"My daughter, where have you been? I have been waiting for you almost all day?” the fake concern in his voice makes your teeth clench. In response, you shrug noncommittally,

“I had to run some errands and they ended up taking longer than I expected.” He is suspicious of your lie, but it won't take long for him to discover exactly where you were all day.

“No matter my child, you are here now. As you know you turned 18 today, which means your soul mark has appeared. Show it to me so that we may begin to look for the man who will hold your heart." He oozes smugness, believing that he will soon have the key to keeping you in check. You stare him down, you will die before he finds out who your soulmate is.

"Sorry to disappoint dad,” you spit, “ but I had it tattooed over. I didn’t even look at it. So I will never know who my soulmate is but neither will you." as soon as the words pass your lips your father's face contorts. His rage at your defiance shifting him from your father to the lead scientist of Hydra.

His grip is bruising as he drags you from the apartment and to the lab. The table is freezing as he straps your half-naked body to it. He snarls at you as you glare up at him.

“You think that you can defy me and not face the consequences? You think that I would not punish you because you are my daughter? I don’t give a shit about you except for what you can do for the cause. You are nothing but a puppet for us to use.” he walks away ordering for you to be tortured until you reveal what your mark is. The only condition he gives is that you are not to be killed, after all, they still have use for you.

  You spent days on that table, days of being tortured with every instrument they could think of. You were waterboarded, choked, burned and they paid extra attention to cutting every inch of skin that was covered by tattoos. At the end of every day your father would come in and ask if you had something to tell him, and every day you spit in his face. 

After three days they decide to brainwash you, they can’t wipe you since they need you coherent enough to remember what they want to know. The words wash over you, and yet to your surprise, you still have complete control. You quickly use it to your advantage. You allow them to think it worked, answering their questions as if the soldier is in control. You tell them what you told your father. You didn't look at your mark, you immediately had it tattooed over. They believe you.

After all that must be the truth, you are their soldier and their soldier cannot lie. You are just relieved that they have finally given up, you aren't sure that you could have made it another day without blacking out or losing it.

  When they drag you off the table and throw you into one of the cells you can barely move or even think. Curling into yourself on the hard cot, you allow sleep to take you. Your father doesn't allow you to rest for long, as soon as your body is in mostly working order you are thrown back into training.

“Fight or die.” He states, looking down at you as though you are the scum of the earth. “It matters not to me which you choose.” You act as their soldier and obey their commands as well as you can without losing yourself. Walking into the training ring you are dismayed to see that you are fighting none other than the winter soldier, your soulmate. You fight with everything you have, your hatred for Hydra growing with every bruise and cut you are forced to bestow. You use the moments you have alone in your cell to plan. 

When you were younger you were forced to watch as Hydra wiped and programmed the soldier before they made you into one as well, at this point, you know his words by heart. You start to wonder, if they can make a series of trigger words to turn him into the Soldat, maybe you can come up with a phrase that will help bring him back. You spend the rest of the night creating the sentence that you will use, deciding on a nickname for him that has meaning to you.

Sunflower, that is the name you decide on. They are, after all, your favorite flower and if fate is to be trusted then he is to be your favorite person. The next day you begin implementing your plan, taking the opportunity to speak with him in the moments that you have him pinned down or he has you pinned down. 

  Every time it's the same phrase, spoken to him in Russian, “Hello Sunflower, the sun is up and your dreaming is done." This continues for months until one day Hydra decides that you are fit to go on missions with the Soldier, they believe you to be thoroughly under their control.

Every mission you find a chance to say the phrase to him. In the time you spend with him you learn to read him. He isn’t expressive, Hydra made sure of that, but when you pay enough attention you start to see the minute changes in his eyes or stance. You begin to notice a difference in him whenever you speak the phrase, no matter when his last brainwashing was. He begins to recognize you, even when in full Winter Soldier mode. When you speak to him while training his hits get a little softer and less aggressive, and when you are on missions he speaks just a little bit more.

You are 23 when the unthinkable happens, while on a mission, without the winter soldier, you fall into a river in some backwater town in Europe. You are saved from drowning by a man that you just shot. A man you have only read about in the soldier’s files. Steve Rogers. After retrieving you from freezing water, he takes your unconscious body back with him to the medical wing in the Avengers tower.

As you wake up your first thought is where am I, your second thought is this bed is way too fucking comfortable for Hydra. Your eyes shoot open. The blinding light of the room causes you a headache to make itself known. You start to move, feeling a tug at your wrists, you slowly open your eyes and look down. You are cuffed to the railing of a hospital bed, great. You flop back onto the bed, cursing your luck and hoping that whoever has you is willing to listen. Your gaze shifts to the door when you notice a figure behind the glass. The glass doors slide open, and Steve walks in. This revelation causes you to tense up, even more, you did shoot him after all.

“Oh good you're awake,” he says, noticing your open eyes and tense figure. “Now I get to ask you all of the questions I’ve been wanting to ask for the past three days.” He takes a seat next to you, his whole body screams intimidation. "Who are you? Why did you shoot me? What were you doing in that town and where did you get these?" He questions not bothering to hide the anger in his voice. 

He is holding up Bucky’s dog tags in front of your face and waiting impatiently for you to answer. You want to snatch them out of his hand and place them back around your neck, after taking them from his file about a month ago you haven’t taken them off. You were going to give them to him after you got him out, which you were planning on doing within the next couple of weeks. But now you are stuck here and there is nothing you can do to get back to him. You look at Steve, desperation coloring your voice as you explain, praying that he will listen.

"My name is Y/N, my father is Hydra and forced me to become an experiment, a soldier for them. I was planning on escaping but I never could, I couldn’t escape and leave him there. Not when I could do something to save him. I couldn’t leave him there all alone." It came out in a rush. Your heart shatters as you realize that you have done exactly what you have tried so hard not to, you have left your soulmate in the hands of Hydra. You have to convince Steve to help you get him back.

"Wait a minute, you're Hydra?" He spits at you. Fuck, you forgot that he knew what hydra is and that he hates them with a passion. Well, at least we have something in common.

"Not by choice." You answer quickly, not liking the vehemence in his voice, yet unable to hide the hatred in your own. You notice the way his jaw relaxes the tiniest bit when you say that, if you hadn't had years of practice watching Bucky for the tiniest hints of himself you would have missed it.

"Alright then, who is this ‘he’ you keep mentioning?" Steve leans back, crossing his arms as he waits for your answer.

"My soulmate, the Soldier, the man on the dog tags, James Buchanan Barnes." Steve's eyes immediately narrow, his body goes stiff,

"You’re lying. I watched him fall from that train” His teeth are clenched as he speaks. “I watched him die! There is no way he's your soulmate!" you can practically feel the anger rolling off of him.

"I'm not lying! I swear!” you are terrified of what he will do if you can’t convince him. “Hydra got to him. They made him into a weapon, they brainwashed him and put him on ice when they didn’t need him so that they could control him better. I swear I'm not lying!" You can’t stop yourself from becoming slightly hysterical. Usually, you would remain calm in this type of situation, but this time you can’t. This time it’s Hydra and this time it’s James.

A girl, that you had noticed in the corner earlier, steps forward, resting a hand on his shoulder. You hear her murmur something to him, but you aren’t able to make out what exactly she says. His countenance softens when he looks at the girl and you are reminded of how you sometimes look at James. Turning back to you he stares for a moment before he making a decision,

“Fine, I can’t fully trust you and I can’t let you go, so you will have to live here in the tower, under surveillance. If you want us to trust you, you will have to prove yourself trustworthy." He stands, unlocks your cuffs, and strides out of the room, you understand, what you just told him is a lot to take in.

The girl that was with him turns to you, “I’ll make sure that they have a room ready for you as soon as you are well enough to leave the hospital.” She gives you a soft smile and turns to leave, pausing for a moment at the door.

“I have just one more question.” You nod at her when she pauses, you will try your best to answer it. “I know you shot Steve.” she starts. “But you missed anything important on purpose, didn’t you?" You just smile at her, she's right, but you know nothing you say will change anything. She studies you for a moment before walking out of the door.

  Your arrangement works for a year. In that year you have become close to the avengers that live there. During the first six months you and Steve’s girl, Sarah, spend every morning together. She wants to learn how to fight and you are willing to teach her. You become close, she is the first person in the tower to trust you. In return for teaching her to fight she teaches you sign language. Apparently, one of her siblings was born deaf so her whole family knows how to sign. You become closer to Steve during this time as well, he still doesn’t fully trust you but he is willing to tell you more about his best friend. He always calls him Bucky and you find yourself calling him that too. But they end up moving to DC, leaving you in the compound with mostly Tony for company. Natasha and Clint are in and out of the tower and you come to a mutual understanding. You and Natasha have similar upbringings and it forms a bond, not friendship, but definitely trust.  

Then after about a year of freedom from Hydra shit hits the fan. Fury is shot and Steve discovers that Hydra has been a part of Shield since the beginning. You have to escape the tower before Hydra gets to you, so you do. You keep an eye on Steve and Sarah, at a distance, of course, you know they will send Bucky after him and that will be your chance to get to him.

Then the bridge happens and you see your soulmate for the first time in a year. Your heart feels like it’s beating out of your chest as you run towards him. You watch as he attacks Steve, you see Steve's shock as the mask falls off and you hear his heartbroken voice when he calls out for his friend. You hear Bucky’s crushing answer. You run, tackling him to the ground, just like you had done so many times in training. He fights back, you knew he would. You struggle with him, dodging punches and his knife. You are finally able to flip him onto the concrete and pin him down. Your heart in your throat as you stare into the eyes of your soulmate, praying as you speak that he will remember. Knowing that he has an unconscious reminder of you etched on his skin in ink. Here goes nothing. 

“Hello sunflower, the sun is up and your dreaming is done."

Tagged users: @calwitch @writerwrites

#bucky x y/n #bucky imagine #bucky barnes #bucky x reader #marvel #marvel imagine #soulmate au #hydra #james buchanan barnes #james buchanan bucky barnes #bucky barnes fanfiction #hello sunflower

[hasquetzorkukudoneanythingwrong]

The (not so) lil master that could

Rex was sitting at a desk in an art studio. He was practicing his art with Da Vinci (caster) over looking his practice. He was practicing with human anatomy, with Cleopatra as the model. This wasn't the first time he'd tried this but he had an unfortunate habit of being over critical of himself. Da Vinci was well aware of this, many times when she tried to give him some criticism he'd take it way worse then she intended and end up dropping it for a long time.

Rex: uh... I might be close to being finished?

Da Vinci: are you sure? How do you feel about it?

Rex took a look at his sketch, the anatomy wasn't amazing and the clothing was a bit inaccurate.

Rex: no... it's crap.

Da Vinci: it's not that bad... I've told you before not to be over critical of your art.

Rex: but it's true. I shouldn't even try...

Da Vinci: hey! Stop giving up! You won't get anywhere doing that!

But Rex wasn't listening and he got up and left.

Cleo: what happened?

Da Vinci: he gave up. *sigh* he needs to stop dropping this stuff so quickly.

Cleo: well let me see the picture.

Da Vinci showed the picture to Cleopatra

Cleo: I mean... it's not so bad. I can see potential... he should keep going.

Da Vinci: that's what I've been trying to tell him...

Eventually Rex was in the writer's room this time trying his hand at writing a story. He was too disappointed in the art he tried so he hoped writing would be more his speed. Murasaki was there to help like Da Vinci with the art. Just like with the art and anything he tried, he was too critical of his own writing. Murasaki wanted to help him get better and to keep at it but she was too shy, the only reason she's helping instead of others is because folks like Shakespeare and Anderson annoyed him a bit too much so she's the better option.

Murasaki: how's the manuscript? Is it going well?

Rex: ...not sure... why don't you take a look?

Murasaki took a look at what he wrote.

Murasaki: it's pretty good so far... but this part seems a bit forced.

Rex: *sigh* so what do you think I should do instead?

Murasaki: stories need to flow naturally... try to take a bit of a realistic view on it.

Rex: hmmm...

As he reread the story, he became more and more dissatisfied with it. He noticed many errors and moments where the characters' dialog didn't seem right.

Rex: y'know what... maybe I shouldn't try...

Murasaki: wait! Please don't give up master!

Rex: why keep going? It's crap...

He got up and left, Murasaki just watched him as she wasn't very confrontational. Not that it would help as Da Vinci could tell you.

Murasaki: *sigh* not again...

Eventually Murasaki and Da Vinci met up in the hall and Da Vinci had a question for Murasaki.

Da Vinci: have you seen Rex?

Murasaki: no, he was writing earlier but he got over critical again and left.

Da Vinci: of course. He needs to work on his self esteem issues. I know you're always your own worst critic but he won't even let the ink dry before he burns the canvas.

Murasaki: did he go that far?!

Da Vinci: no... but it wouldn't surprise me. I'm going to keep looking, he needs to end this whole hyper critical crap!

Murasaki: alright, but don't be too abrasive with him, he may shut down entirely on the subject.

Da Vinci: *sigh* he needs a therapy session or something.

As she continued to look, she passes by the gym and hears his voice.

Rex: how was that?

???: your almost there! Let's try one more time!

Da Vinci: there he is!

She went into the gym, to see him in the wrestling wring. He was sparring with Quetzalcoatl, specifically lucha libre moves. This wasn't the first time he'd done this. In fact he'd been practicing with her for ages now.

Da Vinci, thinking: hey... how come he's never dropped this? When he first came in he had no interest in most physical activities. He was overweight and rarely left his room, but now look at him.

Da Vinci left the gym for now, but she planned to confront him about this later.

Later on Rex was walking back to his room, tired from the training he just endured. Then Da Vinci came in to question him.

Da Vinci: Rex!

Rex: ah!

Da Vinci: there you are!

Rex, nervously: what do you want?

Da Vinci: I've got some questions for you.

Rex: I dunno if I wanna answer

Da Vinci: too bad. Why do you keep dropping art and writing and such!? You have real potential for those things. But then I see you practicing hand to hand combat and you've stuck to it for so long! I've read your file, and have seen your behavior firsthand before all this and you never struck me as the athletic type.

Rex: ...well if you want the answer, then I've got a story to tell.

Da Vinci: by all means.

It was relatively far back, a while after Camelot was dealt with. Rex and Quetz were at the rec room watching Lucha matches. They had just finished one up, and you could see just how pumped Quetz got.

Quetz: wow! Wasn't that amazing master?!

Rex: it was pretty intense...

Quetz: I still can't believe you've never watched a match before. It's so increible!

Rex: I dunno... just never peaked my interest that much, but you make it way more interesting then I thought it'd be.

Quetz: gracias! When I first layed eyes on this amazing spectacle I couldn't help how awe struck I felt. I knew I had to master it.

Rex: ...I've noticed most of the time they have a partner. If you were ever in the ring for a serious match, who'd you want to be your partner?

Rex had asked simply out of curiosity, he expected her to say Martha or Scathach or some other powerful servant. But what she said surprised the hell out of him.

Quetz turned towards him, and before she said anything she held both of his hands in hers and gave him her answer.

Quetz: I actually think you'd be an amazing partner!

Rex couldn't believe what he heard. Him? Why?! He wasn't coordinated, he was a bit fat, and he was barely any good fighting without a weapon. If anyone that knew him from before chaldea was there, they'd expect him to give her a "no thanks" because that's the kind of person he was. But what he did say, would've surprised any of his family or former friends.

Rex: ...I'd love to!

Quetz: you would!?

Rex: yes! Anything for you!

Quetz: yay! Let's get started with your training!

Rex: now?!

Quetz: well.. it's actually getting late, how about tomorrow?

Rex: sure...

Back in the present day.

Da Vinci: of course, I knew it had to be her. You continue on to make her happy.

Rex: yeah... there's been many times where I was ready to quit training with her. It's painful, and just like with other things, I don't see what I do as good enough. But everytime I see her face beam with excitement for my training, I keep going. I do it for her, I want to be her perfect partner, she has high hopes and I can't disappoint her.

Da Vinci: but you can't put that effort for things you enjoy?

Rex: ...not really...

Da Vinci: ...why don't you show her your art or writing?

Rex: no! She'll think it's stupid.

Da Vinci: only you think that way... or at least that critically anyways. Regardless, I'm showing her!

As she said this she left to find Quetz and show her the picture he drew.

Rex: don't! It's too stupid!

Despite pleading with her he couldn't get her to budge on the subject, she was determined to do this. After a bit of the two walking and their back and fourth they finally ran into Quetz.

Quetz: Hola mi amor! Hola Da Vinci! What's going on?

Da Vinci: Quetzalcoatl, I've got something to show you!

Rex: pls don't look!

Quetz: why not mi amor?

Rex: it's crap!

Da Vinci: stop thinking that way!

As she says this she hands the paper to Quetz. She over looked it for a bit.

Quetz: mi amor, did you draw this?

Rex: yeah... it's crap I know

Quetz: no! It's actually pretty nice! I think you did a fine job!

Rex: huh?! You can't be serious!

Quetz: of course I am!

Rex: for real?!

Da Vinci: I've been trying to tell you!

Quetz: si! Don't look down at your art mi amor! It's really good!

Rex: ...you sure?

Quetz: si! You've got potential and I'd love to see you continue!

Rex was now filled more confidence then ever! He was ready to get back into it! Especially if it was for her!

Over time he'd get back into drawing and writing and even got into a bit of cooking. It was all for Quetzalcoatl of course! But he also never stopped training to be her lucha partner! He was ready for the day they'd have a match up together.

A/N: there ya go. Had this idea brewing most of work. Sometimes we're more willing to do things for others then ourselves, but that can still be a good motivator.

Tags

@hasishtardoneanythingwrong @hasereshdoneanythingwrong @haspaulbunyandoneanythingwrong @haskamadoneanythingwrong @hasabbydoneanythingwrong @hasspartacusdoneanythingwrong @castlecsejtespeakertechnician @hasbbdoneanythingwrong @hasnightingaledoneanythingwrong @nureenarts @kierakaz @valiantstrawberrymilk

#fate grand order #quetzalcoatl #wife #rexcoatl #rex #mastersona #leonardo da vinci #murasaki shikibu

[aotopmha]

One thing that is with hisu's situation is that if she's actually pregnant with farmer guy or eren it's leave really bad scenarios or implications. For one with farmer guy it could indicate is she had sex with someone she doesn't love with a child she doesn't want to, either go with 50 year plan or assisting eren (by keeping zeke alive). If she's with eren (I truly hope not) it's a secret off screen romance that changes our understanding why eren is doing this (among other things).---->part 2

----> continuation: the fake pregnancy I think has more possibilities however the issue is how she did it (while throwing off the military police) as well as the big thing that is most puzzling of all. If I remember correctly eren talks to historia ten months before all that has happened with the rumbling. During this time historia *appears* to tell no one of what eren is doing or even attempted to stop him. I hope isayama knows what he is doing, but I have little hope.

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

Yeah, those are some shitty implications and as I've said before, there is a whole bunch additional implications because she is a female character and even more because she is a gay-coded female character - a pregnancy is something women and gay women are still forced into directly or indirectly today. Women are constantly told to have children and for their purpose to be having children by society, so for a story that is about gaining freedom and destroying a corrupt system and ending the cycle of violence and suffering, it is really contradictory to use this as a plot point in a way.

But as I've also said I think and like that the horror is at least deliberate and that that's the point. I at least take shock value with purpose over just the sake of it. Many men and women make sacrifices for a better world in very unpleasant and ugly ways, it is at least true to life in that way. Modern society was built on much suffering.

After going over all of the Historia material we have, I think I actually have a fairly well-defined idea where the story might be going with Historia.

If nothing else, I'm excited to finally get concrete answer on this, no matter how good the answer ultimately is.

In fact, I think there is still one possibility how the fake pregnancy can be true: the person we think is Historia is a body double, some other pregnant woman she asked to stand in for her trickery of the MP.

I think it is remarkably more out there than any other fake pregnancy possibility, but I think it's still possible.

Points in its favour:

1) There have been comments how the timeframe and circumstances are strange by Nile and Levi.

2) We never see the pregnant woman's thoughts or any dialog in any of her appearances. The thoughts and dialog we get from Historia is all prior to her supposed pregnancy.

3) Historia would never push any other human being into a role they did not choose considering her own past of being forced into roles.

Points against it:

1) Historia says she is willing to do it because she was grateful for all of the good things everyone did for her as well as that she is willing to ensure the survival of the island in the most reliable way they have.

(chapter 130)

This does go in line with her arc. She decides to live for herself and be true to herself and her being true to herself is her being genuinely kind. During her journey, she also learns pragmatism, as she is able to put aside her selfish desire to get self-affirmation from her father.

So, I think the authorial intention here is that the pregnancy is her sacrifice for a better world. Even the page we get in chapter 134 depicts her as being in pain.

I've seen a lot of takes that say that "children are the future" is the thematic point of her pregnancy, but after rereading all of the material with her character, I feel her decision is more framed as a sacrifice, along the lines of the equivalent exchange theme of the story - if you can't sacrifice anything, you can't achieve anything.

This was my initial take on her pregnancy and on a reread, I think this is what the story is going to ultimately lean into because the very first time we see Eren elaborate on his perspective in the story in chapter 1, it is about keeping up the struggle to make all of the sacrifices worth it, which is an actual consistent theme of the story since chapter 1 that is also relevant to Historia's character.

So I think the most likely option with her is that her pain will be worth it, she'll give birth and there at least will be some solution that won't have her child have to continue the Titan Shifter cycle and be pushed into a role not of its choice.

Thus Historia's pain and sacrifice of her personal freedom will ultimately be worth it and she and her child will be free to live as they please.

Now, if I had the ideal version of that, keep everything the same except she isn't pregnant and has been holding out to stop Eren on her own terms because last time Eren unlocked memories with Historia (in the cave), it also unlocked some of hers.

This would explain why she didn't tell anyone. She knew something Eren didn't and if she talked, it would get out and Eren would know.

Perhaps how to ultimately stop Eren and destroy the cycle/system has to involve the rumbling actually happening and these circumstances would allow Historia to help end this whole thing. This would also basically explain all the holes and recontextualise them in its own way.

I think the former is more likely than the latter, though.

At the very least, what has allowed me to look past all the parts I don't like about this is that I feel it is still purposeful. It's at least not throwing darts on the wall and seeing what sticks.

The story at least seems to be commited to what it tries to do.

Thank you for the ask!

#Attack on Titan #Shingeki no Kyojin #Historia #Historia Reiss #AoT #SnK #Asks

[jazzforthecaptain]

for the fic writer ask meme: 1, 2, 4, 8, 13 and/or 14, 29 🥰

1. Describe your comfort zone - a typical you-fic: atmospheric and setting-rich, with a diner and something to do with the cosmos. My ship working through some deep personal conflict, and the love is tremulous and fragile but they’re Trying So Hard, and it works out. There’s dancing - if it’s not my ship, they’re watching someone dance.

2. Is there a trope you’ve yet to try your hand at, but really want to? Accidental marriage. I have no idea why I love the idea so much, and I have a couple ideas, but they keep taking a backseat to new projects.

4. How many fic ideas are you nurting right now? 4! Care to share one of them? I need to keep it brief, because if I tell too much, my brain interprets that story as ‘told’ and I get bored with the idea. But it’s a missing scene from the “Unity” episodes of spn S15. Sam and Castiel are popping open artifacts, heedless of consequences... and there are consequences ;)

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

Castiel was distant again, of course, the fire in him all wrapped under layers of responsibility. But his hands lingered on Jack's skin. "Sam will meet us. He believes he has a lead on Dean's whereabouts."

Jack paused. "Do you want to head out now?" He asked seriously, "If he finds Dean on his own, that could go bad for everybody."

"I trust Sam," Castiel said. He set the paper towel aside.

"He's a Winchester," Jack replied, "with a brother off the rails. They have a track record for irrational behavior."

"I know," Castiel sighed. "Jack, what I'm about to say, I would like taken with the understanding that I am aware of how dire this situation is. These are my friends, I love them, and I refuse to give up on them."

Jack waited. With Castiel, he'd learned it was usually best.

"Right now, I need you."

Jack nodded. "You've got me."

Castiel shook his head. "No. Not for Dean. For me. Right now, I need you." Sea-glass eyes rolled up to Jack's, full of mild guilt and dry humor. "Preferably pinning me to the floor." Registering Jack's surprise, Castiel drove on. "I'm in love with you, which you know." He stroked the curve of Jack's calf. "For now, let me. It doesn't change anything."

Jack looked at him in shock. Not that Castiel loved him - he'd known that for years. But that he'd said it. Avoiding the obvious was the game they played, to stay together in spite of the pain and the absences. Jack didn't, couldn't say it back. Then his heart froze. "You think you're going to die, getting this 'curse' off of Dean."

"I left you only because I thought he needed me more, Jack," Castiel said. Which was a yes. And suddenly there was ice in Jack's veins, and acid, and those goddamned boys might be members of the Saved-the-World-Club but he'd dig a pair of Winchester-sized graves with his bare hands if Dean cost him Castiel. The angel's immortality was fragile, but it was hope.

Castiel's eyes veered away guiltily. Jack thought of the Doctor. Of Sat5, and not wanting to die. So much time passed since then, but that memory - of the fear and the need to be better for the Doctor - still burned in his mind like a torch.

Jack took a deep breath. He tucked his body close to Castiel's and kissed his forehead, then his lips. "I get it, Hot Wings."

"For what it's worth, Jack," Castiel muttered into his neck, "I don't want to die."

I stayed up way too late last night rereading my own fic, lol, and this is what I’m proudest of. It’s less snippet and more whole-ass conversation. I think I caught the tension between Jack and Castiel really well here, and conveyed both Castiel’s divided loyalties and Jack’s conflict about wanting Castiel to be who he is (which is his long-term value), and wanting Castiel to be with him (which is because of the moment right in front of him, and he knows all things pass, but right now he’s lonely and frustrated that the Winchesters take precedence). I’m happy with how I’ve written them in every story I’ve put them in - how I portray their dynamic in all its colors is what I love the most about my body of work.

"That's good to hear. We'll make sure it doesn't happen." His heart clenched up tight like a knot under a bruise, as Castiel kissed him. 

Beyond the Twilight Sea (rated E)

13. What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever come across? Honestly, the best advice I’ve gotten is to do the work of writing because I enjoy the work of writing, and to get my ego out of it and stop worrying about the end or whether anyone’s going to read it or like it or whatever. Find what you love the most about writing, and go write that.

14. What’s the worst writing advice you’ve ever come across? ALL of the things that put some kind of measurements on what you need to do to become a Good Writer. Whether it’s ‘write x words a day’ or ‘write x times a week’ or ‘write the same time every day,’ fuck it. Anything that makes you anxious about your ability to keep up, or do ‘enough,’ you tell that thing to hit the highway. Don’t put barriers between yourself and your work. You’re doing enough. Your writing is good enough - and sure you can improve, but you improve by writing, and if your fear of being good enough is keeping you from writing, let me tell you that your writing right now is enough. The only thing is, if you want to finish a story, you do need to write at some point. That’s one rule I can’t make go away, sorry about that.

29. If you could write the sequel (or prequel) to any fic out there not written by yourself, which fic would you choose? Oh, this was the other reason I stayed up way too late last night reading - I had to go back through my bookmarks! This one’s tough, and at the end I decided that I’m good with the way all my favorite stories ended. I don’t think I could write more in those universes - I think the fact that they exist is a perfect gift.

#harkstiel #sastiel #writing #ask bait #fanfiction

[farrukh-schumann]

You know what... It's time for spoilers and thinking about the world of Captive Prince!

The screenshots that I did are on russian language, you see, but I will try to describe situations briefly (it is assumed that you know the text so you will probably understand what I mean). Why russian? Because I haven't read the Captive Prince on English yet (it is obviously on my to do list), but I want to scream about these two moments I love.

I'm just rereading the trilogy and want to tell someone what I think about it, so... I wish u'll understand me :D

I need to tell you that I have a lot (REALLY A LOT) of moments in Capri that I love and which kill me every time I read them, but I will mark them all when I get books (I don't know when this gonna be happened but still).

Well, I post two moments now (actually there are two little points in each one, but I connected them).

First thing:

To people who doesn't know russian, ahha, at the first screen Laurent says that he will never take an akielon slave to his bed. That was in the part where Laurent was trying to save Damen's life in front of Regent for the first time. I think u already remembered this.

And after it comes a part from King's Rising, almost the end, where Laurent stands in front of Regent again and there goes a dialog, where Laurent says, that he went to bed with Damen because he wanted him.

I just see how the situation is happening again, but at this time Laurent says that he wanted Damen, thus refuting his original words, making them empty. This moment reminds us how much the character changed. He changed his views so much that he not only "lay down with an akielon soldier and slave", but also admitted it in front of Ayos, in front of his uncle and many other witnesses.

That fact just kills me again and again...

The second point is about Jokaste.

The first screen is a very beginning of the trilogy, when, standing in front of Damen, she says "I just decided between two brothers".

And in the King's Rising Laurent talks to Jokaste and at her "Are you saying that the only difference between us is that I chose the wrong brother?" he answered "I don't think you chose".

I don't know why, but I can't stop thinking about it. That moment looks so cool, I feel happy that a character like Jokaste understood that she was loosing. But at the same time there is something deeper, that I still can't understand clearly. I understand that it is about the state of things and Jokaste just had no choice, but there is something emotional by the way, I feel it. I consider that I will think about it over and over, but for now I just share that moment with you - maybe you know what it tells to us? If you know, tell your opinion.

Well, there was thinking about the moment of Captive prince in 3am and it didn't mean nothing to you, maybe, but I wanted to say that I love every moment like this - when someone's phrase takes from the one part of trilogy and opens in another from a different side. So interesting, so destructive and smart.

#spoilers #captive prince #king's rising #laurent of vere #jokaste

[ultrakatua]

Final thoughts on Golden Deer

I say “final” but I’ll probably write more at some point to ease the pain lol

Anyway, I’m so glad I started with my very first choice, and so glad I picked this one in particular. 

At E3 2018 I was like “oh cool, an archer house!”, but then I thought I’d start with Black Eagles instead because female lord, and then we got the student reveals on twitter and I thought my heart belonged to the Blue Lions... Until E3 2019 happened and my reptile brain went all “nope, Claude hot, we’ll take the archers actually”. Little did I know I’d end up loving all these mismatched kids so much and that Claude would be the bestest boy.

The game is really hard to compare to the other Fire Emblem, and the irony is that the parts that are the best are the less Fire Emblem-like... Part 1 is honestly probably the best experience I ever had in FE in terms of narration. Played 30 hours non-stop. Props to them for building the plot like a mystery and making the cast so likable, because while there’s objectively not much happening, it makes everything so captivating... The last half of part 1 up to the first 2-3 chapters of part 2 is just SO GOOD! Like a roller coaster of emotions! It’s a shame the rest fells more flat because it basically turns into your regular FE, but with 4 or 5 less chapters than it should. Still, the last part of Golden Deer fucked me up pretty badly with the Rhea’s revelations and I loved the ending, the cinematic was just so badass and I couldn’t help but think of the FE4 and FE5 final! The credits song made be bawl like a b*tch. Difficulty wise, yeah, hard is really easy... Or Claude is too OP, I’m not sure. Probably both. Anyway, Lunatic cannot come soon enough.

On Claude now, since he’s our boi and kinda the main character... Expectations were completely subverted and hot take, at that point I just want to fist fight everyone who still portrays him as a flirty, stupid, trollish, Niles-light guy. Like. Why. I, too, expected him to be like that based on the 10 second trailers, but man, play past the prologue and even the “flirty” part isn’t there anymore (seriously, why does everyone says he’s flirty??? Did I miss a memo or something???). The other day I read someone telling “lol obviously he’s not the patient kind” and I was like are you even reading the fucking dialogs? Did you miss the part where his whole fucking character is about how controlled and reflective he is?? Like I mean, he’s easy going and endearing in the group interactions, I get that, but outside of that, he’s just so... serious? So chill? It’s the dude who spends so many hours reading books in the library he becomes suspicious. Like seriously. I’m just going to assume this is how you see him when you don’t play GD, I guess, cause I also saw someone thinking not!GD Claude trusts and likes Byleth and lol, no man, he doesn’t. He doesn’t even trust you in his own goddamn route until like chapter 10.

Anyways, what I love with him as a character is that he’s very grounded, very reflective. He doesn’t belong anywhere so he wants to build a place so people would never feel that way, but to do so and to protect himself, he’s very shut-down behind his natural exterior kindness and compassion. People complain he’s not romantic, but there’s something very intimate in the way he only talks about certain subjects with Byleth, the way he is so serious in his most advanced supports, how he trusts entirely Byleth and only them, etc. The way he works is just very different from the other characters in that respect, which I think it was done on purpose because, after all, he was not raised with the same values and culture as them. That’s something they really conveyed well as a whole, especially in his dialogs about religion. I mean, reread the convo at the start of chapter 12 if you don’t think the Byleth relationship is very unique and dear to him:

I'll alway be on your side. You can't count on much in this world, but you can count on that

Of course the reading isn’t inherently romantic cause IS said “no homo”, but come on... It’s the same Claude who even in the very last chapter of the game is not sure his allies of like, 6 years, will follow him.

Spoilers on the S support because I know people complained about it, and as always I don’t get it

I mean, I sort of get it? They wanted a “I love you let’s get married!” ending but that would have been... so unlike him? And btw it seems like he doesn’t even say “I love you” in the Japanese version (he sure doesn’t in the French one), they added it in English so y’all wouldn’t be too salty, and yet...

I found the actual ending very true to his character and I’m glad IS didn’t went the usual sappy road because it would have been so out of character omg... tbh what I like in the Byleth-Claude dynamics is that they are on an equal ground, and even if they like each other, there’s still that utilitarian aspect to their relationship that make them great allies as well. They both rely on each other equally and there’s no fucking drama; just two people secluded their whole life who learn to trust each other. Having him expressing how he wants to share his ambitions with Byleth, giving her a ring, promising to come back, and actually doing it is a huge fucking deal. Remember this is the guy who ran away from his feelings his whole life, who’s always acted so selfish with others only to achieve his selfless goal. But this time, his goals are also Byleth’s, and together they can build a place where he doesn’t have to be alone anymore. And before we go down the “but Byleth doesn’t want to be a ruler!” road... Neither did Claude, guys. He never wanted that responsibility. He takes it because someone has to. They both do it for everyone’s sake, together. We stan a power couple.

That’s it my dudes, next stop is the other soft boy, aka Dimitri!

#fire emblem #fire emblem three houses #fe16 #fe3h #claude von riegan

[anthrobae]

Writing Stray: a note to myself when I get old and forget how fun it was

Couldn’t believe I finished it. There was a lot going on in the process of writing like I didn’t even know how I did all of that.

I was writing Unlearned Lesson and at that moment my first fic was getting darker and darker because it dealt with the difficult issue. So, I knew I needed to write something fluff. I reread my childhood fav manga Kimiwa Petto (You Are My Pet) again because it was so fluffy. It was about a working woman taking a stray boy to her house and keeping him. I was like, it must have been better if its gay. So, I borrowed the concept from the manga. But to make it Sara’s and Ava’s story, I had to think about how to make the concept fit LoT and Arrow. 

And it was so fun exploring the dynamic between Sara and Ava. Pure domestic fluff in the early chapters. I thought it would be a short fic, but then there were so many things to be told and explored. You may notice that there were only a few characters in all of my fics and I didn’t really pay attention to anyone other than Sara and Ava at all. I just wanna see two women in love.

It seemed like I had a good planning with all the details in the fic. Actually, I just didn’t forget what I have written and tried to make the most out of them because why not. When I decided I would write a story (well I only wrote 3 fics so far) I had the beginning and the ending in mind first. So the process was more of the “how to get to that point.”

I just wrote whatever came to my mind at first but then it’s more fun to listen to the writing. So I really paid attention to the sound of storytelling.

Stray is a romance, but I’m such a nerd that I used many academic works in Stray. “Virtual War and Magical Death” was edited by one of my professors. “The Land of Open Graves” is my favorite anthropological book. Other books are “Global Outlaw”, “Ismiili Modern”, “Blank Spots on the Map”, and “The Day of Shelly’s Death.”

The narration in the elephants documentary is an actual phrase from an actual documentary about elephants.

The Bite™ was my savior. It could have been gone to the cliche direction of Sara running away and sleeping with a random guy just to ease her frustration. Yes, I wrote it. I had it in a file called “Stray_Dummy”. But then I reread it and like it didn’t feel right. Was there anyway out of this situation better than that? Then, the bite changed everything. It set my perspective right.

I’m old school about settings. I had a background in literature criticism actually. That’s my undergrad major (and I couldn’t write fiction in any language because of it for years). I loved when a setting is symbolic and telling something. So I spent a lot of time researching and writing settings in Stray. The most difficult place to write is Badakshan. I had to google the temperature and how the stars position on a certain night in Badakshan.

The night sky in Badashan

There is a thing I wish I had done better. In reality, the Taliban didn’t attack villages. They avoided attacking civilians that’s how they became heroes in the eyes of the locals.

I struggled with describing emotions. I haven’t experienced enough emotions in my mellow life. It was redundant to describe how it felt in their chest. I know. But I didn’t know how. I tried to study my body. How it reacts when I feel certain emotions. It always started with the heart. Some of the description in Stray were blatantly taken from Oxford Dictionary because I didn’t know how to describe it. I even bought a book about death just to know more about it.

Alexia. Yeah I described Alexia based on Freja Beha Erichsen. Dimples and tiny fangs.

My favorite original character is not Alexia. It’s Darcy. My 2% bisexuality in me still think Ava’s assistant should be a hot guy who has a cute little daughter and loves his wife so much. You didn’t get to see it because this fic isn’t about Darcy.

I tried to make Alexia flawed. I intended to make her perfect on the exterior but actually abusive in the details. But like...it seemed like I couldn’t make her a bad guy. She almost didn’t make it to the final chapter. I was deciding if I wanted a closure for her. Then I was like, nah...this isn’t her story. But then, the final chapter.

The dummy file has 30,000+ words of what’s not in the final product.

The White Tree™ is lesbianism. The universe has two moms. My intention is the moms always look after Sara when the Demon trapped her.

I already mentioned I’m old school. I think about the themes of each chapter before I wrote them. What kind of message I wanna tell. Every chapter has one key phrase or dialog, and more or less, a chapter was built around the key dialog.

I made Ava questioning history and timeline out of spite . LoT has Nate as a history guy. But.. please, he’s Indiana Jones but not a historian with a PhD for sure. You don’t need a PhD degree to be a historian like Nate. BA is enough.

Anyway. I had so much fun and I don’t know when a story like that will come to me again.

#stray #personal #avalance #fanfic

[swampgallows]

I've been rereading War Crimes and been wondering if Christie Golden had other hopes/plans for Sylv's character arc or if her current predicament just represents the logical conclusion of what we see of her in the novels and post-WoD WoW. What are your thoughts/care to reiterate current stance on Sylv as a fellow horde player?

This has been in my ask box a long time because I’ve wanted to reply to this properly and possibly reread War Crimes again in order to have a more fleshed-out answer, but as far as Golden’s characterization in War Crimes all I remember is the weird incest vibe going on with her sister. As a younger sister myself, I would balk out of my MIND if my sister started clutching my hands and “Little Moon”-ing me the way Sylvanas did to Vereesa. It’s like literally all I remember about her in that book, lmao. I’m also an older sister as well, but to a younger brother, and though he has many childhood nicknames there’s no way I’d be cooing at him with those as an adult, especially if I were trying to console him mourning over his murdered spouse. 

As far as Sylvanas’ current arc: I know Garrosh 2.0 is a tired argument, but both now suffer a drastic character shift with extremely flimsy or obfuscated motivation. When things were slowly percolating up to the Siege of Orgrimmar, the fanbase (allegedly, as I was not playing during MoP) was still left scratching their heads over Garrosh’s character shift. Even with all the books, comics, cinematics, and questlines, there was still no explicit cut-and-dry understanding of how Garrosh went from celebrated war hero to chaotic evil villain.

I haven’t conducted the same amount of research on Sylvanas that I have on Garrosh, but my point is that it really shouldn’t be required to understand why self-destruction is Sylvanas’ “logical conclusion”. If there’s any major gripe that I have with any of Blizzard’s writing, it’s the fact that, up until Legion, character—and even campaign—motivations have been extremely vague, sacrificed in favor of comic book action sequences or pulpy one-liners (”What a king must do.”). I’m not saying everything should be spelled out, but that basic questions of “What are we doing and why?” shouldn’t need to be hunted down through five different types of media (and even then, the source material is vague). 

Blizzard assured players that the burning of Teldrassil was not what it seemed, that Sylvanas would be cemented in a “morally gray” area, and that all of our questions would be answered with the Warbringers short. And what motives did we glean from that animatic?

“Can’t I?”

BUT GALLOWS, THE FLASHBACK— you know what’s not a reaction to trauma and feeling like you couldn’t save your own people? Killing them. You know what completely goes against all of Sylvanas’ legitimately morally gray actions—conscripting the val’kyr, using the blight, the search to preserve her people (even seeking the aid of Helya and attempting to enslave Eyir)? KILLING HER OWN PEOPLE. And to be perfectly clear, I am referring not to Teldrassil but to the Battle of Lordaeron where Sylvanas is using her people, the Forsaken, as ammo and meatshields. How is this her “logical conclusion”? Not pointing fingers at you, necessarily, but what is Sylvanas’ goal if not to save her people?

When someone asks the question, “Why did Sylvanas burn Teldrassil?” it shouldn’t require a Pepe Silvia paper trail to answer. It shouldn’t require a Bible-level citation of one line of a psalm in the seventh Book of Christie which says it was actually Saurfang’s idea. The real answer, which she reveals in a very-skippable dialog box of the time-sensitive War of Thorns event and also in the delayed-release online novellas Elegy / A Good War, is that she was cutting off the Alliance’s route to azerite. Darnassus and Teldrassil as a whole are the largest territories the Alliance has claimed on Kalimdor; with Theramore already rubble and Teldrassil in flames, the Alliance has virtually no way of getting azerite to their larger territories on the Eastern Kingdoms. 

Now, to me, a nuclear arms race like that is morally gray. There is no easy answer. But even a line like “now the azerite is ours”, or something to that effect, isn’t present in the more substantial media (like the short), which might make it a better standalone piece but suffers an actual connection to the events of the game. 

So how does stymieing the war for azerite translate into raising your already twice-dead people as skeletons to keep fighting? Using the Blight? Blighting your own capital, evacuated or not? Forcibly turning the deceased? When you create a new Forsaken, the val’kyr gives you the option to embrace your new life or to be returned to your grave. It it a heavy and intimate interaction that asks consent; raising your soldiers again as blighted skeletons mid-battle is not.

For where things are in the story now, I have absolutely NO idea what Sylvanas is thinking or what her motives are. I feel like a lot of this is intentionally (hopefully, hopefully) left up to speculation and possibly culminating later down the line as BFA unfolds. She did all of those questionable things in the past for the sake of going to great lengths to get her revenge on Arthas and end the Scourge while also avenging her people, the Forsaken, and ensuring that they do not die out. This is most certainly “morally gray”, and in my opinion one of the most stirring and provocative threads of controversy in Warcraft’s entire lore: is it ethical to perpetuate the Forsaken people?

I have mained a Forsaken since 2005, but even as a wee little Andorhal plaguelet neither me nor my character have ever trusted Sylvanas. I understood that she was among the more powerful of the Forsaken, and without her taking advantage of Arthas when he was weak and rallying us initially there may not have even been the Forsaken. However, I always found it unnerving that there was no once-human Lordaeronian representation for the Forsaken. Under Sylvanas and Varimathras it felt a lot like me and my fellow farmer peasant buddies were getting screwed out of something.

Enter Putress, who has a sick fucking plague doctor mask but materialized from nothing, and all of a sudden we were doing favors for this previously-unheard of Grand Apothecary. I was skeptical and so were many of my Forsaken peers, and it turns out our intuition hadn’t fully rotted away, as then the Wrathgate ensued. Lilian Voss seems somewhat promising as an actual Forsaken figurehead, but it’s taken her five expansions to steadily climb the ranks of importance. 

But why would anyone follow Sylvanas now? What’s in it for them? At least among the goblins and the orcs following Garrosh they gained an illusion of supremacy and a promise of conquest and power; what’s in it for Sylvanas’ followers? Just obeying orders? A slice of the azerite pie? Fear that there is no choice? Is it an honor to sacrifice our lives for the Dark Lady, as it was Ishi and the Kor’kron’s honor to allow Garrosh to experiment on them with the Divine Bell? 

Vol’jin had “never trusted” Sylvanas, and we still don’t know the loa that told him to name her his successor. Saurfang says that “There is no honor in this.” So… what is up? Why do we give Sylvanas or Nathanos the time of day? I don’t datamine and I’ve only completed up to the current war campaign once so maybe I’m missing something, but I seriously have no idea what Sylvanas’ plans are. 

Sayge’s Fortune #19: The Forsaken are up to something. 

This time, we Forsaken don’t even know what it is.

#metacraft #world of warcraft #battle for azeroth #long post #thepoopdiary #ask #seatimeless #incest cw /

[priisakilljoy]

Hi I really like your blog!~~ Here are some questions: 7 What’s your favourite fic genre to read?, 20 Have you ever read a fic more than once? What is it about that fic that made you read it again?, 24 What do you wish more fic authors would stop doing?

aaah thanks

7 What’s your favourite fic genre to read?

love me a getting together fic, i’m not a huge fan of established relationships. i like the pinning! i like the entire process! thats what i want to read about! 

lately i’ve been in a mood and i’ll read anything angsty as long as it’s not a main character death lol. give me that dysfunctional shit, i’ll eat this dead dove if i want to 

hurt/comfort is just *chef kiss* ideal

20 Have you ever read a fic more than once?

there are so many fics i’ve read way too many times. my ao3 history is literally all like

lmao and i’ve been like that for forever, i love rereading stuff in general and loved fics in particular. i read my favorite harry potter fic a million times and in 3 different languages just to give you an idea lol 

24 What do you wish more fic authors would stop doing?

please stop putting so much space between paragraphs im begging yall i don’t want to scroll for 10 minutes to read 3 lines of dialog 

#ask

[ladytelos]

Too Different ( Lotor x Reader) ***spoilers***

I don’t know how well I did in the angst department lol. I tried to make the reaction as real as possible but I’ve never experienced it so I tried lol. Sorry if this is trash. I suck at dialog so its kinda sparse, yip yip.

I used the F-word once, idk if there are any sensitive babies out here but just fyi xD

A dreaded feeling of nausea and anxiety laced your stomach with an upsetting tenacity. No matter how many times you wished the feeling away it would go nowhere. You would’ve liked to been able to say that you had no idea why this was happening but you had a very clear idea.

It was the same feeling that started every time you heard Lotor was once again alone with the Altean princess.

Things had been so different for the two of you since the tide had turned and Lotor sided with voltron. You hadn’t been very confident in what his motivations were for this turn in loyalties but even so, you followed him.You grasped for the love of your life with both hands tightly wound.

But, despite this, recently it felt like you had been losing him. 

You had known Lotor a ways before anything revolving Voltron became a valid concern. You would spend days researching topics on the many cultures that had been found in the galaxy. Your thirst for knowledge often unquenchable.

Lotor had found you one of those days, reading on a race he thought no one of the generations had even heard of. You found yourself a book on Altean culture hidden deep inside of the libraries of the main fleet where you were stationed. Out of curiosity Lotor began a conversation with you on the reasons you had decided to read such an old thing. The two of you found that you both had an incredible reserve of curiosity towards other cultures unlike your own. That it started in the fact that both of you had diluted Galran blood.

It wouldn’t be long until you found yourself planted on Lotor’s fleet, having long conversations with during your free time about a vast array of topics.

The passion in your heart would soon gravitate the prince’s own towards you. When you were found to be his lover, very few were surprised by the fact. You were never found too far from him and if anyone dared harm you they would face the most severe of punishment.

There was not a time happiness found you more. You truly believed that your heart would lay safe in his hands for the rest of eternity. Now you weren’t so sure.

Lotor and Allura began to grow uncomfortably close, spending hours upon hours alone in an Altean research center. Even if they weren’t alone, they might as well have been. Sharing whispered conversation with each other that only resulted in the feeling of glass being shoved into your heart.

Everytime you laid your eyes on Allura it only suficied to make your stomach even more weak. Your unquelled mind would run rampant with useless imaginings.

Of how much better she was than you, of how perfectly fit she and Lotor were. You and Lotor had alway seemed like two cloths of mismatched patterns forcibly sewn together, like an oxymoron. It had never accomplished in bothering you until these moments. She was a beautiful Altean princess, with a strong will and friendly attitude. How could anyone ever match Lotor more?

Yet you never mentioned a word of this to Lotor, as not to seem foolish. You trusted that he would never do anything to harm you.

That feeling in your stomach only grew as time went on, especially when his time with you got shorter and Allura’s longer.

Conversations recently were short and skin deep at best. At times you swore there was a tone of irritation in his voice that made your heart squeeze. Too many times were you supposed to be doing something together and were blown off, only to learn he was spending his time with Allura. 

The two of them had been spending almost every waking moment on the comet ships together. Forcing yourself to be okay with it felt like a hot coal forced down your throat, but it was important to Lotor so you endured. His happiness meant more to you than some jealousy, and you knew Allura was the only one who could help.

‘That’s all he needs her for, and once its done everything will be fine’ Everyday you tried to convince yourself of this, and every day it felt less and less true.

When they finally finished the ships you felt relief for a brief period of time. Surely all of this doubt was coming to an end and your love with Lotor could once again be reassured. You didn’t know how wrong you were. Lotor and you had very little conversations these days but one bit of information had found its way to you. He and Allura were to venture into the quintessence field as he had wanted for so long. Despite the distance built between you, happiness flooded your veins when you heard.

You had wished them both well on their way, attempting to push down the feeling bubbling in your chest at the thought of them alone out there.   You gave a quick kiss to Lotor’s cheek, telling him to come back home safe. The send off had felt odd, almost artificial. He had responded with a curt nod and an ‘of course’, as self assured as ever.

You decided against waiting around with the others in the main hub, the empty space allowed to much time to think. So you left to find yourself a distraction. You found yourself a little while later in the library of the Castle ship. Selecting a book that seemed interesting enough to hold your attention in the way you needed it to.

However, you found yourself having to reread too many pages.  Your thoughts drifting off to the prince again. Subconsciously you knew the only remedy to them was the prince’s return.

When a few hours had passed by, finally there was a notification of a landing in the main hatch. Relief flooded your veins, you shot up placing the book down where it once had been and raced out the door. Running down the corridors as quickly as your feet could, you couldn’t wait to see your love. Even more so you wanted to take him to spend time with you, as reassurance after he was alone with Allura so long. Those bay doors were the only thing holding you back from him, and they couldn’t have opened fast enough.

Your feet screeched to a halt, your body processing what was in front of you faster than your mind could.

Allura and Lotor were standing there, kissing.

Your mouth fell open, and then would shut again, as if gasping for air. It was silent though, with words still processing in your brain. When the two parted the last thing they had been expecting was to see you standing there.

Lotor’s face looked shocked, but yet somehow, you saw not guilt in those eyes of his. Tears welled up faster than you could will them away.

Lotor took a step toward you, and at the same instance you took one step back. “(Y/n) I can explain-.” He started, holding a hand out. You shook your head and just kept stepping back.

“This isn’t what it looks to be, truly.” He kept stepping closer, your eyes kept on his form. Allura’s voice quipped from behind him.

“I swear (y/n) we weren’t thinking, this has never happened before.” Her eyes were pleading but in that moment all you could do is look at her and scoff. Quickly you turned as fast as you could, the need to run over taking you but a hand grasped on too quickly.

You stared with a fury into his eyes, “Don’t you fucking touch me. Don’t you dare touch me, �� it isn’t what it looks like?’ I’m not blind.” You yelled at him, the only thing swelling in your chest at the moment. His eyes looked wide, not believing the words that dropped so heavily from your mouth.

You couldn’t help the small, bitter giggle that left your mouth. “It’s not like its a surprise, I’ve been expecting it, I just hoped I was worth more to you, wasn’t I the fool.” You wrenched your arm away from him and turned to leave again.

“(Y/n) please I-.” “Save your breath, you’ll need it to kiss that princess of yours.” And with that you walked straight out the door. You stopped just outside, letting everything sink in further.

Your hand flew up to your mouth again as you let out a cruel sob. Part of you wasn’t surprised, but you had hoped fate would be kinder. Fate held no loyalty to you, that much was clear. Tears blurred your vision as you walked your way to your bedroom. Everything you had put into him every hope, every kind thought, what was it all for? You thought you had meant more to him than this.

A numbness overtook your veins as you collapsed onto the blankets of the bed. The warmth being the only comfort you could believe in right now. Thinking of Lotor only made you want to scream, tear something apart, and destroy it. Just like he did you. Whatever this feeling was it was different than the usual nausea, something worse.

You turned onto your back and stared at the white ceiling just above you as your nose kept running. Trying to collect whatever ability to breath you had, your mind thought back to the last couple of weeks. Of how stupid you felt for trusting him, in believing that if you loved him than he must love you too. And most of all you felt stupid for thinking someone like you and him ever belonged together. With sarcastic laugh you thought about how ironic this was.

Altean culture brought you together, and now its torn you apart.

#voltron #voltron season 6 spoiler #lotor x reader #prince lotor #vld lotor #voltron x reader #voltron imagines #Allura #voltron allura #voltron season 6

[loxxxlay]

was tagged by both @aliceinthinkland and @veliseraptor (ahhhh thank you both *_* <3). I know i don’t do these anymore, but I guess the power of my vanity has beaten my anxiety for the moment lmao (in seriousness, I’m super insecure, so this is probably good for me anyway)

Hello, you have been identified as An Awesome Fic Writer™. Congrats, you rock! So that all of your readers can shower you with some extra love today, please tell us your favourite five stories of yours and why you like them and then send this to another five fic authors you think deserve this title!

A Moment of Peace

A huge flaw in my writing is that I suck at grounding the reader in the scene. So literally when I wrote this, my #1 goal was to engage the five senses (via Thor whump lol) and really practice that description. (Please don’t reread the first chapter now bc you can literally see me ticking the 5 senses off, one by one lmao.) Even in later chapters, I wrote things massively out of my comfort zone (i.e. fight scenes ew, dialog between more than 2 characters ewwww), and it was really hard, but I think it came out well. And overall, I’m just really happy with my speculation for IW :) Sorry to brag, but even my insecure self can say I like Loki better in this than the canon Loki we got. esp in the chapter I’m writing now :’)

Brothers of Habit

the accumulation of my favorite favorite favorite things ever, including (but not limited to) trauma-bonding/shared trauma, complicated consent, thor whump, loki whump, brotherly angst and comfort, noncon, and noncon recovery. It was one of those fics where The Words randomly appeared at 3am, waking me up and forcing themselves on my crappy phone keyboard in pitch darkness, which, as most authors know, is super fun. (: And I’m just really proud of how the concept (“Thor and Loki have fucked so much that now they can’t stop???”) actually turned out rather.... believably? And not like a crack!fic??? Am both proud and relieved. XD Also I’m happy with the prose itself :D

Tempting Death

obviously this was written like 5 billion years ago, so I hope I can write a little better now, but for that time of my life, it was probably the best writing I was capable of and I’m really proud of it even to this day. Writing about psychological brainwashing on a character post-suicide-attempt is exactly as fun as it sounds (assuming ur like me lmao)

The Little Things

ahh different fandom (and seriously if u like Loki at all for the same reasons that I like Loki, I highly recommend the manga TRC ok), but I am so happy with this fic. o.o One of my biggest irritations about the manga was how Fai, after having an incredibly well done mental illness arc, was like... instantly cured at the end? So this fic was about showing the leftover difficulties in his recovery and how he has to continuously learn healthier and non-toxic coping mechanisms. Much slower recovery, never cured, and just an analysis of how his relationship with Kurogane is healthy&positive all around. I loved writing this <3

One Last Breath

this one isn’t a fic, it’s an original short story I wrote about rape culture and, on recommendation from a professor, am thinking about trying to publish, idk, we’ll see. But I wrote it for one of my assignments last semester, and I just feel like it’s the highest quality of writing I am capable of at the moment, and I’m really proud of it. And if I ever become Not Depressed and magically publish it or (more likely) get rejected too many times, I’ll let anyone who wants to read it ^_^ <3

Tagging (trying to go for people who actually have much more than 5 fics lol or weren’t already tagged): @raven-brings-light @dictionarywrites @zombiecheetah @iamanartichoke @philosopherking1887 @foundlingmother @thotki @pro-antagonist @gorgeousgalatea (and as always, only if you want to :) )

#got tagged #placeholder writing tag #lox talks personal #grandthorki for ts #tw rape #word is used #tw suicidal ideation #because fai and loki are both messes