#like I have a hard time liking tragic endings sometimes because it's really easy for them to end up making it feel like character agency

[pochipop]

＃ALICE IN BORDERLAND !! ♡ — THERE'S NO HELL IN WHAT I'VE FOUND (CHISHIYA X READER).

#. synopsis! — chishiya has fallen in way too goddamn deep .

#. characters! — chishiya .

#. warnings! — brief mentions of canon-typical gore, slight angst .

#. word count! — 1.2k .

#. alt accounts! — @ddollipop (nsfw) @yyolkchi (reblog/spam) .

#. others! — navigation & masterlist .

#. a/n! — i have not finished season 2 yet, but i wrote this all in one sitting after seeing the first two episodes + falling for this silly man all over again lolol. i might branch out + write more for this fandom (but i will never write for niragi, so just a heads up on that!)

It really did just have to come to this, didn’t it?

Chishiya is a lot of things, but stupid isn’t one of them. He knows that when it comes to surviving in a place like this, there are times when you have to sacrifice others and be willing to carry that burden for the rest of your life. There is no easy way out. Either you die and go on to whatever happens next, —if anything happens at all— or you push others to the wayside in lieu of saving yourself, preserving your own survival, and you live to see the monster you inevitably become. 

And call him crazy, but Chishiya was okay with becoming a monster if it meant he could save himself. Hell, he’d done so much of the work from the shadows that it would hardly be fair to let him of all people meet his tragic end here.

But you just couldn’t help yourself. You had to crawl under his skin, —make him care about you, make him fall so hard that he was left to question whose survival mattered more. When it came down to the wire. . .

He’d have chosen you.

That’s the scariest realization of all, he muses. These games, all the gunfire, all the explosions, all the fatal electric shocks. . . They paled in comparison to the realization that his biggest fear wasn’t his own demise anymore. It was yours.

As the game comes to a close and those of you left standing slowly reacclimate to the best state of normalcy one can muster up given the circumstances, he hates that his first instinct is to slip away, knowing you’ll find him soon enough. He may have been foolish enough to catch feelings, but he wasn’t so dumb that he’d show such a weakness around anyone else. Though he’s sure the likes of Kuina or Arisu have long since caught on, —he won’t be the one to confirm a damn thing, and he expects that you’ll keep your mouth shut about it as well. It’ll be a worse liability than it already is if word gets out to the wrong people.

Chishiya slips away before anyone has the chance to acknowledge his presence, leaving his absence unaccounted for by everyone but you. Of course, you noticed him sneaking away, parting from the group like a snake in the grass. . . You’ve always been a little too perceptive for your own good.

Fatigue claws at you like a famished predator, weighing your body down a great deal. You smell of sweat and the blood of the young girl next to you who hadn’t been quite so lucky. Still, you will your body forward and follow in Chishiya’s footsteps after lingering for just long enough to throw suspicion off your trail. While you certainly aren’t a master of manipulation, —you are clever in a way that even someone like Chishiya has to respect. You know how to take care of yourself, even in a twisted world like this.

He wishes knowing that gave him any kind of peace, but he’s afraid he’s reached the point of no return. It’s not that he doesn’t believe you can survive just about any of these games on your own. . . It’s that even if he does, the worry lingers just because it’s you. 

Fuck. 

He really can’t believe he’s done this to himself. It’s so untimely, so completely and utterly ridiculous, —so much so that he convinces himself his mind is just playing tricks on him sometimes until you fall into place at his side again and all such thoughts are forced out the window from his vice-like grip. 

“Ugh,” you grumble, arm tucked below your chest as you cradle your own torso, “there you are.”

Chishiya offers you little more than a sidelong glance before returning his stoic gaze to the skyline. The sun sets as you bring yourself closer to him, keeping a comfortable distance. It ends up just like this far too often, and Chishiya frowns at the thought of closing the barely-there gap, brushing his shoulder against yours. Maybe later in the night when the lethargy really starts to hit him and his inhibitions lower ever so slightly, he’ll let himself fall apart just enough to hold you for whatever time of fleeting hours remains. That way, he can blame it on the fatigue, on the cold, on the temptation of sleeping next to a warm body.

It’s not because it’s you, it’s just because you’re there.

And maybe if that were the case, Chishiya wouldn’t be quite this frustrated.

“Surprised it took you so long to find me,” he says finally, keeping his eyes straight ahead. “You’ve been getting slower about it.” 

“Oh, well excuse me for not rushing after you like a lion on a gazelle,” you answer sarcastically. “Not like my lungs almost gave out down there or anything.” 

He doesn’t say it, —but he’d trade his breath for yours if it meant you could reach him faster. 

“That one wasn’t so bad,” he shrugs. “We’ve both been through worse.”

His worst is just beginning, it seems. You close the gap yourself, resting part of your weight against him, and he feels his heart flip itself into a tailspin. For the first time in so long, Chishiya isn’t sure where to go from here. He’s trapped inside these feelings and they’re inching closer to swallowing him whole by the second. They run so deep he might as well be drowning in them.

“Easy for us to say, I guess,” you mumble. “We’re alive. Most people who end up here aren’t that lucky.”

“True enough,” he acknowledges softly, making no move to push you away.

He never does. 

You stand in silence with him for a while, watching as the sky turns dark and the bright colors of the setting sun are swallowed up by a deep, velvety navy. There’re no stars to be seen, nothing for you to wish on. . . It’s a little childish, but any sliver of normalcy you can manage here, you’ll take with open arms. That’s why you let your feelings for Chishiya blossom freely, refusing to stifle your heart’s desires for the sake of some stupid game of life and death.

If I die right now, I’d rather do it with you than be alone. 

Chishiya wishes you’d never said those words to him, —not because he doesn’t reciprocate, but because they resonated much too wholly for comfort. If he can help it, he won’t be going out in a place like this. But more than that, he can’t imagine letting your flame be snuffed out without a ravenous fight.

Silence reigns once again. It’s a characteristic feature of your gentler moments with Chishiya that are few and far between, but when they happen, you like to think you cherish them the best way you know how. Beyond that, you also like to think Chishiya finds even the slightest sliver of peace with you. 

He doesn’t confirm or deny anything of the sort, but you wager that’s a flimsy yes at the very least when the tension in his shoulders melds away and his head rests gently against your own.

You can’t make any promises about tomorrow, —but for now, things are okay. And if that’s the best you’ll get here, then so be it.

#alice in borderland #chishiya #chishiya shuntaro #chishiya x reader #chishiya x you #chishiya x y/n #chishiya shuntaro x reader #chishiya reader insert #alice in borderland x reader #chishiya shuntaro x you #chishiya shuntaro x y/n #alice in borderland reader insert

[bleachbleachbleach]

Saw your reblog on tragic unrequited platonic love and technically, that trope definitely applies to the betrayed trio, especially on Hinamori’s end (depends on whether or not you subscribe to the view that she was crushing on Aizen). The way I saw it in my initial viewing of bleach, it was more of the type of intense admiration for an authority figure that can be misconstrued as a crush cuz you (the devotee) lack the ways to properly articulate it. Like how u feel abt the rlly cool English teacher u sometimes eat lunch with before they get arrested for like fraud or something. After experiencing the Horrors, of course Kira and Hinamori are going to imprint hard on the first semblance of stability and symbol of safety at the time. So that what they went thru meant something. Also, let me take this moment to briefly gush abt the headcanon u presented in the B3 fic cinematic universe abt hinamori’s fixating on squad 5 because it offers her the knowledge beyond her town that she’s lowkey seeking + the values she wants to strive towards (source: from afar). These nerds just wanted to be mentored so badddd!! Thus, the reveal of the fact that they were only a means to an end, specifically chosen on where they fall on the “easy to manipulate” scale hits HARDER. All that devotion?? Loss of work life balance and for WHATTT? Extended medical leave ? 😭 oh bleach my fave workplace sitcom AND workplace drama u will always be famous

PS: thank u for tagging me in that post!! In the process of drafting my response. It was so lovely of you.

You're right! That totally works here. It's interesting because (and I'll just focus on Hinamori here, because otherwise I'd feel compelled to honor the distinctions between her and Aizen vs. Kira and Ichimaru and Hisagi and Tousen, and this would probably end up reading very convolutedly) I think it kind of asks a question about when the platonic pining would have happened.

Is the pining part of suddenly realizing the disjuncture between what Hinamori thought something was and what Aizen did, and mourning something lost (and something that never really was)?

Or was there also pining when things were Good? We see Aizen be reassuring to Hinamori and generous with his time, etc. and we see Hinamori happy to receive from him, and quite devoted both to her VCship as well as to Aizen on a person level (or as he put it, "as a man" lol). We know she's well-respected by her division, and esteemed by her colleagues (okay, Kira and Hitsugaya may have some bias in this arena, but they both describe her as highly skilled).

But was she needed? Was she doing, and did she get the opportunity to do, things that Aizen couldn't do better? Did she have opportunities to express things that Aizen found interesting or outside of his expertise? Even as they are not equals--and there is no expectation that they should be--in the most fruitful mentorships, both parties have things to teach and learn.

Did Hinamori ever look at other Captain/VC relationships and yearn for pieces of what those looked like to her? Nanao would probably say "god i hope not" because Kyouraku's "reliance" on her often takes the shape of her having to do all the busywork and also herd cats, but in spite of this there's an intimacy there, an openness or trust, that Hinamori might yearn for. And that's taking Kyouraku--shadowy and full of many surfaces himself--into account. Hitsugaya and Matsumoto also have something that both Hitsugaya and Matsumoto probably complain about to Hinamori, but there's a degree of mutualism and collaboration to whatever's going on at the 10th that Hinamori might not mind a taste of, too. Renji has been Byakuya's VC for a month but Hinamori has probably already thought to herself "Kuchiki-taichou let him do WHAT" at least twice. Even though Byakuya is Byakuya, judging by how they handled their "meeting Ichigo in the street" mission, it seems like Byakuya lets Renji have his little projects. Like Renji is part of his investment portfolio and Byakuya feels very comfortable considering Renji a volatile but potentially valuable property and in order to get that ROI you need to stick with him through several honorless tech startup busts and commit long-term to the thing. Er, but I digress. My point is, Renji gets projects. "Develop training menu." Creative opportunity! With a result that has Renji all over it.

Does Hinamori get projects? Does it ever feel like she's pushing the envelope of what the 5th can be and how it can function on her own, without it being something Aizen already predicted the outcome of, or was actually his idea that he let her propose and take nominal ownership of anyway? Despite being completely blindsided by the actuality of Aizen, was there already that sense of inevitability/Aizen all over everything that happens at the 5th? (Competing, of course, with Hinamori's self-concept as a creative person; and her love of Aizen as a person, not just as a boss and mentor; and feeling as though she just needs to excel more and be creative better and she'll eventually meet this need she feels--it's not the environment that's the issue. She's happy here. Mostly. She doesn't need to leave, she simply needs to surpass--)

#hinamori momo #aizen sousuke #bleach headcanons #thank you for reading my fanfic! <3 ToT <3 #and i look forward to your meme responses! #asks #no brain just bleach

[mightymizora]

Okay, here we go then! Waterdeep magical zoning law anon again.

I had followed so many new blogs after bg3 came out and then unfollowed so many more over this hot take. I don't know if you read the article but Gale's writer said that Gale is annoying. And as some one who loves his character and deeply relates to his struggle with suicide, I 100% agree with his writer's take. Gale is annoying, he is more than a bit of a prick, especially at the beginning. He is pompous and elitist. But that is literally his character growth; to either becoming more humble and sensitive to others or lean hard into his worst nature.

When you first meet him, he asks if you are versed in magic. If you answer "I'm not, why do you ask?" He says "No matter to worry the unlettered over." A completely normal question to ask and he answers in the most condescending ways possible. He straight up calls you illiterate unprovoked.

When arriving in the Shadow Cursed Lands the first time. He begins tell you about shadow magic. A sorcerer can respond that they know shadow magic and they don't need him to explain it to them. He will laugh and express his relief and how he sometimes forgets that he is traveling amongst peers again. Very much an "I'm glad you aren't an uneducated peasant."

However, I feel like his super fans, (and fans of another paler white man in the party,) will do everything in their power to sand down any and all rough edges for a white male character. All I am hearing from them is Gale can go through character devolved but only if he was unproblematic to begin with. Which they try to make him into. Its him being a pretentious asshole at the beginning that makes his argument with Lorroakan, if you convince him not to pursue the crown, so much of a great character moment for him. Its his moment of self reflection to go "good gods, is that what I sounded like????" And that is super interesting to me about him.

Abused as he was, and yes I very much think he was, he is still someone who acts and sounds like he comes from privilege. The famed arch wizard Elminster Aumar became his mentor when he was eight. He went to one of the most prestigious schools in Faerun. He can be both in need of a sympathy and also of scorn.

I feel this leads into a wider problem with fandoms that you can only like a character that is pure and good in every way. If they are not, then you have to obfuscate or bend a character to make them too good for this world. Because heaven forbid if this character doesn't get the Good Boy Stamp™️ of approval then you too are also a horrible bad person for liking them. We can't just find interest and relatability in flawed characters. This is a courtesy only extended to white male characters by the way.

Gale has to be an annoying pretentious prick at the beginning to become the humble professor ready to teach young wizards about illusion at the end.

Also I think him using the orb to kill the Absolute at the end is beautiful and tragic. I plan to do that ending with a Durge who romances him and is unable to escape Bhaal. Making it a tragedy about how people Faerun; from Ketheric, to Dame Aylin, to the Dark Urge and Gale are unable to escape the god manipulation over mortals and the deep pain that causes.

Only slightly sorry for this book I just wrote.

Ooooh anon you’re bringing the spice into my inbox!

So as somebody who relates to Gale really really way too much… honestly I know I am annoying to people and I know I was also insufferable before I was humbled by life. And I think Gale had never felt humility before his downfall! I love his mix of wild pride and self deprecation a LOT, super relatable to me.

That Lorroakan point too! Really on it for me. I think it’s VERY easy for wizards with access to power and status to go off the deep end.

I do think that when you have a character like Gale who a lot of people are going to relate to there’s going to be a lot of big feelings about the sort of stuff inferred from that interview. But I also think you’re right that the journey he goes on is a transformative one and is thematically in line with others!

I also think the happy ending was a really late addition - I fully believe EA Gale only had the sacrifice and pursuing godhood (though I thought it might be through lichdom) endings. That like more of the others there was no easy ending, but then with the rewrite it made sense to have something a bit softer. I fully intended to do the sacrifice ending and then just. Got too emotional about the possibility of happiness for him and my tav!

Basically I like Gale’s flaws a LOT and I love the complexity in his story. And probably have even more controversial takes on his complexity as a person. I love that he’s elitist and a bit of a snob but is earnestly, desperately wanting to connect and be different. He’s very special to me. Oh Gale!

#long post #controversial hcs #but points were made! #your mileage may vary

[artemis-lynn]

NEWSIES FANFIC RECOMMENDATIONS!

Ok. So. I've been needing to make this for a while, so I'll just put down my favorites in no particular order, it's SO hard to pick...

Summer Camp AUs :3

Mountain Ridge Camp for Boys by timetogoslumming

Javey & Sprace, T, 22/22

This is a really good summer camp AU of newsies! I love how it combines canon plot with a modern AU!

Summary: David was just looking for a summer job when he applied to work at Mountain Ridge Camp for Boys. He had no idea how much would change. For the first time in his life, David is part of a brotherhood, but not everyone is on the same side.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation by studentnumber24601 (Itsy Royal)

Javid & Specs/Dutchy (Sputchy?? Idk, but I <3 this ship) & Blink x OC, T, 40/40

The prank war in this is honestly the best + the reluctant ladies man Mush is LOL, it had me guessing the ships till the very end, especially with Blink.

Summary: Modern-day newsboys at summer camp. Will wacky hijinks ensue? Gee, ya think?

Make Off Like a Band(it) by thespiritscalling

Sprace, G, 14/14

OMG. It's the funniest summer camp au I've read that sheds light on band camp (I'm an orchestra kid so this was hilarious to me). I especially love the That's Amore remix near the end lmaoo

Summary: It's the summer after graduation. Race is ready to hit the road- metaphorically, of course- but before that happens, it's time for one last stint at the Camp To End All Camps: band camp. Armed with nothing more than a French horn, two best friends, and reckless abandon, Race decides it's going to be the best final year of camp anyone's ever had. It'll be full of excitement, laughter, music, and an absurd crush on the lead trumpet player. Wait. What?

Canon Era :3

Their Mistake Is They Got Old by PenzyRome

David & Katherine, but the side ships are Newsbians and Javey, T, One Shot

You're gonna need the tissues for this one. I literally sob every time I read it, it's literally one of the best fics I've ever read. It's poetically tragic and heartbreaking and beautiful and HOLY CRAP!

Summary: Katherine Plumber, 17, had been so sure that she could stay the same, that she could stop the world, that she'd stay young forever. The world kept moving, though, no matter how hard she tried to stop it, and it forced her to move with it.

When Manhattan Met Brooklyn by warrior_sif

No ships cause they're kids, T, 4/4 (but the second one isn't finished :( )

Wow. Just wow. This one is honestly sad and I love the brother relationship between Jack, Race, and Spot and how Jack feels abandoned, like Race chose Spot over him. READ IT.

Summary: The only Manhattan newsies that Spot Conlon deals with are Jack and Race. A look back at how they met, eight years before the strike, when neither Jack nor Spot were leaders and Race just wants to sell at the racetracks.

False Rumors and The Truth Behind Them by FrogmanFae

Sprace, M, One Shot

This one is...heavy. The Refuge is such a bad place :( I love it though, the writing is beautiful.

Summary: Rumor has it that Spot Conlon and Racetrack Higgins met when Race started selling in Brooklyn because of his love for gambling. That isn't as true as the other boys in their lodging houses tend to make it seem. Though, they don't necessarily mind the false rumors. They hide the much darker truth. The truth that still causes Race to make the walk from Manhattan to Brooklyn in the middle of the night sometimes, even several years later. Or...It's pretty easy to form connections with someone you're forced into sharing a bed with while you're both being tortured.

The King & The Cowboy by goldenbiebah

Sparah <3, Spot/Sarah/Jack love triangle, T, 11/? (not completed :sob: )

I love this one, it really touches on how Jack is kinda toxic and how Sarah can have someone wayyyy better *cough* Spot *cough*

Summary: Spot Conlon and Jack Kelly are the fearless leaders of all the newsies in Brooklyn and Manhattan. They have a perfect system and hundreds of boys who respect and look up to them. But what will happen when the two leaders let selfishness and pride break up their friendship? And what happens when Spot's dark past begins to catch up with him? And where does Sarah Jacobs fit into all of this? Find out in The King & The Cowboy. Fights will break out, romances will clash, and lives will be lost in an epic struggle to salvage both new and old relationships.

Modern AUs :3

We Are Newsies by VeronicaWeasley (this is my sole ff.net one but likeeee it's too good to be ignored)

There are so many ships that I can't remember but I do know Sprace is one, T, 80/80 (I know that's a lot but it is SO worth it holy frick)

Ok. So. This one is like SO good. It's my fav high school AU because it has a really genius way of incorporating the canon plot with the perfect amount of angst, fluff, and more! :D

Summary: The same old story, the same old song. A tale in which the newsies of Lower Manhattan go on strike, and David Jacobs gets roped into it. High School AU set in 1999. Told through the eyes of multiple characters.

Captivity by Hexmari

No ships :), M, One Shot

I LOVEEE this one it's so crazy and you're in for a wild ride when (it's so cute that you think I'm letting that be an if :) ) you read it.

Summary:

“Ma– you seriously can’t do this to us!” Jack argued, “I mean it's Halloween!”

Charlie was quick to back his older brother up, “Yeah, do you want us to become hermits? Because that's what keeping us captive here all night will do!”

Medda rolled her eyes, “You will not become hermits by staying in for one night. It won’t be too bad, you can break into our Halloween candy and put on some horror movies, and Ester will be here with David soon. No kids are going out tonight, it’s just a safety precaution. Especially because of recent events.”

~🎃~

When a kid in their town goes missing, paranoid parents decide to keep their kids home on Halloween. Even after their mom forbids them from going out Jack, Race, Charlie, and their friend David sneak out, coming up with a theory that their old neighbor is behind the boy's disappearance.

The Beast of Brooklyn by ArtemisRayne

Sprace + side Javey, M, 26/26

This one is soooo worth staying up late for, it's amazing in every way and my heart aches for Spottie boy. And Race. And Jack. And David. But mainly Spot :)

Summary:

Racetrack Higgins always thought it would be his own vices that got him into trouble one day; turns out it's his Ma who does it for him. When Ma Higgins crosses the local drug lord and leaves him high and dry with a target on his back, Race's saved by a mysterious stranger who gives him a safe place to hide—a short-tempered and anti-social stranger covered in horrifying scars, with a past as dark as the marks on his body. However, the longer Race spends in the Brooklyn house, the more he comes to discover about the boy beneath the scars: a boy who is just as trapped as Race and twice as damaged. Befriending the two men who live in as hired help, and chipping away at the mysterious "boss" and his walls, Race might even manage to find a place to call home.*Beauty & the Beast/Beastly AU fusion*

Forever With You by 손 현숙 (safarikalamari)

Sprace, T, 14/14

ajlskdfjalkjdkajl this one is so sweet. The concept of it is super interesting and I just LOVE ittttttt.

Summary: In 1899, Spot Conlon is the leader of the Brooklyn newsies, writing away his thoughts and hiding them inside his desk for safekeeping. Meanwhile, in 1999, Tony Higgins receives an antique desk for his birthday and finds an old letter stuffed in one of the slots, the name, Spot, his only lead in this mystery. What becomes of that summer is a series of time-traveling letters, falling in love, and the realization that Spot and Tony know each other better than the two ever could have imagined.

Pirate AUs :3

The Truth About The Stars by ArtemisRayne

Javey + side Sprace, T, 10/10 (long chapters but it's worth it!)

OMG. This one is amazingggggggggggggggggggggggg I love the fantasy/pirate twist on the best movie/musical on the planet Earth!

Summary: The rest of the world might not think Jack Kelly is destined for much, but Jack knows better. He just needs to get away from the city, to some place where he can be more than just another nameless orphan in the chaos of New York City. So when someone offers to pay his way to Santa Fe in exchange for crossing the Wall and retrieving a fallen star, he jumps at the chance. He just wasn't expecting the star to be so, well, human. Jack makes a deal with the fallen star named David to get them both home, but the magical kingdom of Stormhold has so much more in store for them both. People are tracking David, secrets from Jack's past leave him in danger as well, and injustice is rampant in the kingdom. Throw in a climate of political upheaval, a renegade noblewoman, and a crew of fugitive sky pirates, and soon all of Stormhold will know that change is coming.

A Pirate's Life Is Never Easy by ChaosFairytale <3

Sprace + side Blush & Bumlets x Swifty, M, 9/? (it's an ongoing one shot series that has frequent updates)

OML I LOVE U SO MUCH CHAOS YOU'RE MY FAVORITE FANFIC WRITER AND I LIVE FOR YOUR WRITING TYSM FOR EXISTING!!!!! Her writing is the best and this is such a good story! (read Toss A Coin To Your Pirate first)

Summary: A Pirate's story doesn't start easy and it won't end easy, but there are many fantastic stories to tell throughout it. A series of One-Shots set in the "Toss a coin to your Pirate" universe containing different POVs, Backstory of a lot of characters and shorter stories about the relationships of the characters over the years.

Toss A Coin To Your Pirate by ChaosFairytale <333

Sprace + side Javid and Blush, M, 2/2

YUSSS CHAOS AGAIN!!!! <3 a million kudos. She writes almost exclusively about 92sies and I'm so here for it! READ THIS!!!!!!

Summary: Racetrack hadn't expected to see his hook-up ever again and had certainly not expected him to be the feared pirate Spot Conlon, but he also didn't have time to worry about that right now since his captain, Jack, desperately needed his help. He'd wonder later how he could maybe seduce the pirate captain once more. Because you'd miss every shot you didn't take, right?

Drumroll please...my all time favorite fanfiction....

FIVE by stress

Sparah + Davey/OC/Jack love triangle <3, T, 11/11

I finished reading this last night and got literal chills. The plot twist is wild and I love it so much, but you might need the tissues again! Can't spoil, but you NEEEEEEEEEEEEED to read it >:( It is the absolute best piece of reading on the Earth and I can't get over this. It's just...wild.

<3

Summary: A lot can happen in five years. Don't believe me? Ask David. Ask Spot. Ask Jack, or Racetrack. You can even ask Oscar Delancey. They know. They're the five who've been waiting for this moment. Waiting for what? They'll never tell - but this story will.

Idk if I should be doing this....but I'm gonna plug my own work and also give a fanfic update!

What Feels Like a Thousand Years by yours truly, ArtemisLynn

Sprace + mentioned Jatherine, G (?), One Shot

I'm honestly so proud of this one, it's one of the best pieces of writing I have ever done...

Summary: War has always been a foreign concept to Racetrack Higgins.. Even when America goes to war in 1941, he never gives it much thought....until it hits a little too close to home and his secret boyfriend, Spot Conlon, is drafted into the U.S Army. Will he make it home safely, or will Racetrack's one and only love be lost overseas...forever?

I also have chapter 1 of Jack Kelly's Guide to Being a Parent out, though I don't know if I'm going to complete it....

Fics I'm working on: -I have a couple chapters of this one boarding school newsies modern AU I'm doing done but not posted

-A Sparah fanfic that currently is in the early stages

-A Sparah princess bride AU in the planning process

-I'm toying with the idea of a newsies Descendants AU....thoughts?

Damn this post became long. ANYWAYS. Bye and have a great (insert timezone)!!!

<3 Artie

#if yall can't tell by now im such a fricking sparah shipper it aint even funny #newsies 1992 #92sies #newsies #spot conlon #davey jacobs #david jacobs #livesies #racetrack higgins #newsies broadway #newsies live #even more charactesr i dont feel like tagging :) #newsies fanfic #fanfiction recommendation #fanfiction rec list #i'll add more later #bye bye now

[not-poignant]

Hi Pia! I was curious, as I understand, this story was written long time ago? Did you edit it with almost 10 years of practice on writing since 2014 now? And more in general, do you feel like writing is easier or not withos much practice (I read about smut, that it is harder now, but in general - worldbuilding, character creation and so on) ?

Hi hi anon!

Yeah the story was first drafted in 2014, and has gone through big edits since then (the latest being 2017, though I did some cursory stuff this year as well to just double check that it's not terrible).

Tbh, prior to 2014 I was writing like... very serious award winning short stories with tragic endings and winning awards for them, so I'm moderately confident the story is readable. I've been writing novels (for fun mostly) since 1995. And I have a university education in writing that started in 1999.

My fanfiction/serial style is very different to my 'I'm writing a book / I'm writing a short story' style.

I think it will feel different to my serials because I wrote it like a book, there's less sprawling character exploration, and the pacing is much, much tighter. There's a lot more focus on plot, and folks used to my serials might feel like the story ends really quickly! Because it's like much shorter (100k) than my serials.

If anything, I think these are the things to watch out for in Tradewinds:

100k novel means much tighter pacing and prose, and often very little time for too much character reflection.

Possibly not as much character exploration as people are used to from me (though there's still some!)

More plotting

Less smut, and the smut is also more 'vanilla' than what I normally write, because at the time I was a lot more wary about putting BDSM into the market. There are power dynamics though (i.e. a vibe where one character 'feels' more submissive to the other)

Robust scene-setting (i.e. description, place, anchoring)

Lively dialogue

I actually think I was probably a better literary writer back in the 00s but it wasn't much fun for me. I quit writing for a while and then picked it back up again to write fanfiction, which was easier and more relaxed for me. (And still is! The Ice Plague is an exception to that because it had more robust plotting and was structure more...formally.)

I honestly think writing gets easier or harder depending on the project and writing style involved.

Some writing gets easier with time, some doesn't. Sometimes that will flip or switch. Sometimes one thing is easy for years and then becomes harder with certain stories.

It was Gene Wolfe who said:

"You never learn how to write a novel. You just learn how to write the novel that you're writing."

And yeah, I tend to believe for the most part that's true with how hard or easy something is. How ambitious a project is, its genre, its length, its complexity can all play into that.

I pick easier projects as my main projects right now, but I have hard projects coming up too!

I would say overall writing does become "easier" in the sense that foundational skills become second nature (I know how to build a character and their dialogue now without thinking about it, and while there's always more to learn, I can now start in a place of just knowing how to do that instead of knowing I need to learn how to do that), but that the stories themselves will still pose unique challenges to a writer.

Er so TL;DR yes writing for me is easier but I'm choosing easier things to write, and sometimes it's still very hard!!!

#asks and answers #pia on writing #learning the foundational skills of writing #which is done best through practicing writing #is the best way to learn and internalise those skills imho #once you have those #writing gets harder not because you don't know how to do it #but because you start writing more complex stories #that can require more complex problem solving techniques #administrator gwyn wants this in the queue

[talistheintrovert]

OKAY. let's clarify some stuff for people who are confused:

the entire episode is not a dream sequence. aside from that just being lazy, it's also not what the editing is communicating. this show is very good at editing in a dreamlike, slightly disjointed way; it's part of what contributes to it feeling so intimate and personal, and nothing about that editing really changed in episode 6 except for when it got dramatic RIGHT at the end, but i'm gonna address that particular tone change under the cut for those who want spoilers

the show intercuts flashbacks throughout, even dispersing flashbacks of what appears to be the same scene (therapy) through multiple episodes, and intercutting current dialogue with flashbacks (jaewon's brother flashbacks with his father's voice). the last five minutes MIGHT be a flash forward, which means that a lot of the coupley stuff left from the trailer could be coming up in episode 7 either as a lead-up to the inevitable or afterwards in flashback form, but again, i'm leaving my personal thoughts on that for under the cut

ALSO, he definitely says "boyfriend". he says "남자 친구" which literally translates to "namja - man, chingu - friend" and used together like that is the colloquially understood term for "boyfriend" in korean; it is sometimes shorted to "남친" (namchin) but BLs haven't reached that point yet. REGARDLESS, even though that technically translates to "male friend" SO DOES FUCKING BOYFRIEND. the only other word is "애인" (aein) which you may have heard, but it's gender neutral.

the context of that interaction is important. he says friend, the attendant clearly notices the implication and says "oh a girlfriend?" and he responds with "no, a boyfriend" and then the cashier gives him romantic fireworks. it was not an accident or a mistranslation. just because jaewon is closed off and masks does not mean he's like that about everything all of the time. like he says to jihyun, its easier to talk to him because he doesn't know his baggage. and as somebody who is very similar to jaewon I find it so easy to say things to strangers that I struggle to articulate to my friends. I come out to people as soon as I meet them but coming out to my friends was hard. it just be like that sometimes.

the last thing is a spoiler of what's actually happening in that last scene in relation to the movie version of this show that came out, so if you don't want to see those, simply do not look under the cut:

jihyun is not dead, nor is he a figment of jaewon's imagination. it is not a dream sequence or a fakeout - jihyun does almost drown and it does utterly fuck jaewon up.

that is literally the only spoiler i know from the movie because i saw it by accident and then noped out of the comments section of MDL and banned myself from going in there because i hate being spoiled, but it's actively starting to worry me just how many people are convincing themselves that it's all a dream or a fakeout who are going to be really distressed next week when it turns out not to be.

i'm all for collective fandom delusion (i was in The 100 fandom for years) but this seems like the kind of thing that, as somebody who is also a mentally ill queer person who gets WAY too attached to media, could be really damaging to everybody the longer this week goes on without answers and the collective fandom delusion spirals out of control.

(and hey, maybe this spoiler is a lie, or maybe the show is being edited differently to the film, but i still think it's HIGHLY unlikely all of that was just to trick us for no reason. that doesn't really align with the story they're telling)

take a breath like jihyun can't and remember there are FOUR WHOLE EPISODES LEFT. maybe the show will end tragically or bittersweet but i don't believe they'll do that in a way that is designed to actively hurt us. this is a show made by queer people, for queer people, and they foreshadowed from the start that this was going to happen. it's not a dropped plot point or a fakeout or an accident of editing - everything is VERY intentional.

#the eighth sense #my degree is in screenwriting so i thought i'd offer some insight from somebody who has had to study these things for years #and also as somebody who just watches a frankly obscene amount of television #and has adhd pattern recognition #and is queer and obsessive #i don't want it to come across like i'm talking down to anyone though #i really do think we all just need to breathe and absorb the last five minutes of the episode #y'know?

[gingerylangylang1979]

Will Carmy become an addict?... Also, exactly what are his mental health (or other) issues?

This conversation is an offshoot of thoughts expressed here in conversation with @november-rising.

I'll start by saying I do not think Carmy is currently an addict or in recovery from an addiction. But, could Carmy become an addict like his dad (was he an addict or just a heavy abuser, we don't know) Mikey, and Donna? Maybe. Also, I hope nothing I write is offensive to anyone. If anyone thinks there is something I'm missing or misrepresenting please share and we can talk about it. I'm open to learning.

The statistic rates for people impacted by another person's addiction becoming an addict themselves is high. I myself had a drug addict mom and an alcoholic ex. I dabbled in drugs but never became an addict unless you count cigarettes and weed (no longer do either). How me and my brother didn't end up addicts despite our experimentation with hard substances is beyond me. All of the prerequisites were in place and I feel like we almost were tempting it like, come on, I know you want to take me, yet, neither of us ended up addicts.

Sometimes I felt it would make things easier. I think it was Lou Reed, maybe, who said something like addiction made life simple because then you only have one problem to deal with. I wish I only had one problem. I tried stuff as hard as coke, meth, and opium. I was a bartender and partied but never became an alcoholic. My brother went as far as trying heroin a few times. But neither of us became addicts. It's insane if you think about it.

Does that mean we didn't/do participate in fucked up self-destructive behavior? Hell no. Most of my life I have battled with trying to "be normal" all the while self sabotaging all along the way. But I never became an addict.

This is why it's so easy for me to see Carmy in all of his darkness and still see how he isn't necessarily someone doomed to become an addict. Nat didn't become one, me and my brother didn't become ones. I see a lot of us in Nat and Carmy. Carmy is way worse off than Nat, for sure. How, I dunno. And I would say I'm closer to Carmy in the melancholic creative way than my brother. So it's kind of a weird blessing that traumatized people who you would think would become addicts, don't, but it happens.

Could Carmy become one? I think if he continues to not address his issues with individual therapy, continues to blame himself, and just continues the same grind he wanted to escape, possibly. But I'm looking more to how Storer and Co. are telling the story as my signs more than Carmy's actual history. I guess I just don't see what the show would have to gain from Carmy becoming an addict. It would be a tragic ending. I'm not beyond them doing some tragic ending but I think it would just be kind of lame and what was the point if it ends with Carmy continuing the cycle and becoming an addict.

I see him and Nat as the second chance for the Berzattos. She is about to be a mom and hopefully will raise a child that doesn't have to witness any of the trauma she did. Carmy is trying to start over and I think as much as he is struggling now and it may get worse before better, I just see too many points of lightness for him to crawl towards/through. And I think this being so inspired by Storer's lived experience, I can't see him wanting it to end in doom and gloom. Chris and Coco are Carmy and Nat to me. They broke the curse. I think because of that he would want the show to reflect that.

Now, what the fuck is wrong with Carmy, in detail. I will start by saying we don't really know a diagnosis. I think common/possibly correct assumptions are a mix of anxiety, depression, and CPTSD. But I've also seen other ideas like maybe he is on the spectrum among other things. I'm not quick to say anything outside of the first three. He could be neurodivergent, but I guess what makes me not want to say that is because when people bring it up there is often this sentiment that it explains everything about him or that is takes precedent over his behavior being a reaction to his trauma. Two things can be true at the same time but I sometimes feel people apply neurodivergence in a way that dismisses how the average person would deal with a series of overlapping traumas.

The same way I see people assign Sydney as being neurodivergent and I'm like, or she could just be dealing with a lot of bullshit and trauma as a black woman? Because shit, I'm similar, does that mean I'm neurodivergent, too? Not to take away anyone who is neurodivergent and they relate to things they see in the characters. I'm just saying be careful to not dismiss common reactions to lived experience as such without more insight. Or sometimes people can be awkward or quirky without it being neurodivergence. Like sometimes it comes across as what we do know the characters have gone through isn't enough to justify what we see.

I will say I could see a case for Carmy having a learning disability. The evidence being his dislike for reading extensively and his very poor math skills. I think it was @eatandsleepwell who pointed out he only likes books with pictures. It's true. Most of his books are image heavy. And a lot of people are bad at math but he can't keep up with basic addition and subtraction (aka dyscalculia). But again, I think we are seeing evidence of this specific condition, not vague symptoms that could occur due to a number of things.

None of this is to say speculation or headcanons are not welcome. But to hard assign diagnosis is another thing.

#carmy berzatto #the bear fx #addiction #trauma

[faithfromanewperspective]

hey quick question but what's the most depressing part of australia? sorry this is so weird but i have an oc whose Tragic Backstory is that he's a first-gen immigrant whose family moves from a large chinese city to the suburbs during the early days of covid in 2020 and he gets really isolated and depressed... i was asking because i don't want to slander random parts of australia 😭😭 the plot requires him to be in nsw quite close to sydney if that helps!

hey! hmmm this is quite a broad question I think I'll need a bit more detail honestly to give you a good answer! but a lot of greater sydney shut down and was in lockdown for quite a while in 2020 (6 months or more if I remember correctly, I was in Brisbane at the time) so that's gonna be depressing. otherwise, ngl I feel like your oc would be alright in the hurstville area though they're probably going to think the public transport sucks, they might also like cabramatta or burwood (don't know those other areas that well but I think these are the main Asian hubs of greater Sydney). however if you want him to feel isolated I reckon he moves somewhere else--sutherland area is really white-dominated but otherwise decent, however the southwest and northwest really far out can be quite isolating, so places like campbelltown and richmond which are far more rural but like suburban as well if you get what I mean might work to make your oc feel isolated and depressed esp the way the culture tends to be there, idk how to properly describe it, you also get rougher (i guess, I don't actually know these areas that well) areas around Penrith that (I think) are also quite white dominated (again not necessarily bad in of itself but if you're an immigrant who doesn't speak much english or know culture and slang it might be hard), I guess there are a lot of have-nots there and a lot of people dealing with generational trauma and as a result may not be as welcoming, but it really does depend on who you meet because there are lovely friendly people everywhere. otherwise there's also a lot of have-nots in the lakemba area (though it's better now) like I can access my demographic maps from uni if you really want I'll get them! again still really lovely people there but it really depends on what part of china they're from and what culture they're used to. canterbury-bankstown area has a lot of multiculturalism and definitely some people can end up feeling tension and a need to be more loyal to their culture and people at the expense of properly mingling but this is also interspersed with a lot of community coming together and a lot of creativity, it's also a very working class area and if you catch the train at night you will sometimes encounter the 'rough' types--still most people are cool as long as you're not being hostile to them though the thing about cultural differences is sometimes it's easy to come across that way when you're just overwhelmed and confused. then you've also got the opportunity to bring your oc to a richer area where the sense of community might be a bit fragmented due to rich people problems (like just not letting people in basically because they're clinging to their wealth instead of dealing with feelings of isolation and inadequacy would be how i sum it up) and somewhere like rozelle in the inner west can be a bit like that, the traffic and public transport are pretty bad there too. I also imagine much of the central coast could fall into that category in the more mansion-y areas but also I really don't know that area too well and there's a lot of really down to earth people from there too. in general i do find community around sydney to be pretty good, same goes with a bit further out like wooloongong. however newcastle/maitland is both very white dominated and just far enough out of sydney to be not really well connected and also very suburban, very working class and it's easy to get into substances there and feel hopeless in terms of getting a better life--it's a weird paradox, you've got lovely chill people who absolutely love that area there and also people who get out and never go back because they just can't take it. it's about a 2-3 hour drive/train out of sydney and honestly i'd recommend putting your oc there, though i don't know any Chinese immigrants who've gone straight to that area, a lot of them show up on the southside of sydney though like hurstville, bankstown, probably out to cabramatta

#silver studies urban design #western sydney #asks #don't mind these tags they're more for me to sort things

[chryseis]

hi!! im still thinking about your royai week secret kid fic, it was a great take on their characters and just lovely writing :) do you have any particular headcanons about future royai? do you envision them getting together/married, or maintaining their superior/subordinate relationship essentially forever, or something in between? is the tone of your vision bittersweet, tragic, surprisingly gentle and happy? thanks in advance!

Thanks for enjoying that fic <3! It was so fun to write--and difficult too, because it's a bit outside of my idea of their future, but I like to think that they were able to find some happiness together sometime after it takes place. But how do you tell your child that you've killed other children? How do you live with the fact that your priorities will always lie with your spouse before them? I do have some ideas for writing something about them being not-so-great parents, because I do think that they would maybe not be the best at raising children, no matter how hard they tried.

My actual headcanons, however, are quite a bit different. I've read lots of amazing fic, but these are my own opinions--I don't think they should get married--or at least, not for a very long time. To me, this is about more than frat laws--they are committing treason through most of the story, why would they care about breaking one more law, or keeping one more secret? I think it's more to do with their conscience. Is their love more important than their goals for the government? Is it more important than restoring Ishval? It can't be. Riza would quite literally kill Roy and then herself if she thought he was wavering on his commitment to reparation and restoration, and while Roy couldn't wouldn't kill Riza, I do think abandoning her values would be the one thing that would make him love her a little less. I have a lot of thoughts on their resentment on both sides that I would love to fully explore at some point.

My main headcanon is that they have been in an emotional relationship since the war, and that it turns into a physical relationship some time after the Promised Day. I'm sure that there are people in their close circles who are aware of their relationship, but I'm not sure I see them getting married, and I don't really see them ever having children. But at the same time I do want want happiness and hope for them!! My feelings are as complicated as they are!

I like to explore Riza and Roy in different ways, but I suppose I prefer a dignified and sad ending for them. I think they should be involved in the restoration of Ishval--equivalent exchange, right? But would Ishval even want to accept their help? Should they be allowed to ever enter Isvhal again? I'm not sure. I like the idea of their relationship never being exposed outside of their inner circle. I like the idea of them being held accountable for their crimes in whatever way that might look like. Whatever happens, I would want them to face it together--the joy, the fear, the love, the loss. They are such complicated characters in canon, and I can't imagine anything afterwards would be straight forwarded or easy for them.

#sorry it took me ten thousand years to answer this it's been sitting in my drafts for over a week! #and i do like writing them outside of my headcanons as i've been doing more often it's a fun challenge #this is very disjointed but hopefully i get my points across lmao #royai #riza hawkeye #asks

[savventeen]

~ savv's writing masterlist ~

{ fic requests are currently on pause as i work on commissions ♡ }

key:

fic [☼] drabble [☽] smau [✧] other [✩] requests/commissions [🜲] ask game fills [♖] 'things you said' prompts [✑] fem!reader* [▽] masc!reader* [△] *all fics have a gender neutral reader unless otherwise indicated

♢ choi seungcheol ♢

[☼] our ending is made for each other ✑ 🜲 ⇰ 1.1k [fluff, humor] ⇰ while at their best friend's wedding, seungcheol brings up the fact that he wants to marry reader someday. reader proceeds to have a little bit of a breakdown (the mostly good kind)

[☼] carmen cygni ⇰ 1.7k [angst, mcd] ⇰ while out searching for supplies, you get bit trying to escape a small hoard of zombies. seungcheol is forced to do the unthinkable.

[☽] you've always had cold hands ⇰ 0.1k [fluff]

[☽] kintsugi ⇰ 0.4k [emotional h/c]

[☼] purple, white, grey, and black ⇰ 2.9k [emotional h/c] ⇰ you're asexual and proud, and have been for a while. so why does seeing ace pride posts sometimes churn something within you? or, the one where reader talks about where/if their asexuality and trauma intersect.

♢ yoon jeonghan ♢

[✩] mr. perfectly fine ♖ ⇰ 0.5k [angst]

[☽] until next time ⇰ 0.3k [emotional hurt/comfort] ⇰ you've never had to say goodbye like this before. jeonghan tells you that maybe you don't have to

♢ joshua hong ♢

[☽] can you guess why they call it fall? ⇰ 0.3k [fluff] ⇰ joshua loves fall and also the reader

[☼] heart is full of fairy lights 🜲 ⇰ 1.3k [fluff] ⇰ you finally return home to your apartment after studying abroad, and your roommate joshua can't seem to let you out of his sight. some potentially maybe-more-than-strictly-platonic feelings are had.

♢ wen junhui ♢

[☽] you haunt my melody ⇰ 0.9k [angst, past mcd] ⇰ once upon a time, wen junhui played the pipe organ for a traveling circus. once upon a time, you were an acrobat. once upon a time, he lost the love of his life in a tragic accident and let his grief consume him. now, you think it's time for him to let you go.

[☽] aye aye, captain ⇰ 0.4k [humor] ⇰ being in love with the captain has its perks, except when he sails the ship into a kraken. (it kind of still feels like a perk, tbh.)

♢ kwon soonyoung ♢

[☼] places we've been torn (i'm always, always yours) 🜲 ⇰ 1k [emotional hurt/comfort] ⇰ you and soonyoung have been lying together for who-knows how long now, going back and forth asking each other about the various scars you both have. the stories have been mostly silly or stupid (or both), but it's as the night is winding down that soonyoung asks about the one scar with a story you're not sure you're ready to share.

♢ jeon wonwoo ♢

[☽] i think i'm going deeper ⇰ 0.8k ⇰ wonwoo escapes his noisy, hectic life for a vacation full of solitude and quiet. it doesn’t go exactly as expected.

[☽] take it easy (slowly carve out my heart) 🜲 ⇰ 0.8k [angst, mcd] ⇰ wonwoo's assignment: become your husband and bide his time until given the command to kill you. a simple mission, really — one that shouldn't have been hard. except, he never accounted for the fact that he might actually fall in love with you. too bad he's the perfect little soldier.

[☽] everything but words ⇰ 0.3k [fluff] ⇰ wonwoo's actions have always spoken louder than words. you finally decide to do something about it.

♢ lee jihoon ♢

[☽] untitled woozi drabble ("jihoon is exhausted") ⇰ 0.5k [fluff]

[☽] mr. sandman, bring me a dream ⇰ 0.8k [emotional hurt/comfort] ⇰ jihoon overworks himself (again) and gets secretly cuddled by reader

[☼] to build a home ⇰ 3.7k [fluff, humor] ⇰ on the train ride back to meet jihoon's parents in person for the first time, you realize you don't really know what it's like to have a childhood home — at least, not in the sense that most people seem to have. but it's okay, because you've found a home in jihoon instead.

[☽] untitled jihoon love language drabble ⇰ 0.3k [fluff]

[✩] woozi + mutual pining (the mixtapes one) ♖ ⇰ 1k [fluff, mild emotional hurt/comfort]

♢ lee seokmin ♢

[☽] untitled dk imagine ⇰ 0.3k [fluff]

[☽] the D in DK stands for Dihydrogen monoxide ⇰ 0.5k [fluff] ⇰ seokmin just wants to make sure you stay hydrated :(

[☽] untitled dk smut [mdni] ⇰ 0.8k [smut] ⇰ you’ve always fallen in love with people’s laughter first.

♢ kim mingyu ♢

[☼] what dreams must feel like ⇰ 1k [emotional hurt/comfort] ⇰ mingyu comforts you after a nightmare

[☼] break the curse, break my heart ✑ 🜲 ⇰ 5.1k [angst, hurt/comfort] ⇰ what's supposed to be a simple hex job turns into something much deadlier, and suddenly the two of you are fighting just to stay alive

[☼] this sad ending needs a chaser ⇰ 1.5k [angst] ⇰ you and mingyu broke up. mingyu's having a hard time moving on.

♢ xu minghao ♢

[☼] you glow pink in the night ▽ ⇰ 1.7k [fluff] ⇰ you and minghao are in a long-distance relationship, and minghao returns to his apartment after meeting you in person for the first time. he finds a surprise you left for him in his luggage

[✧] pretty u ✑ 🜲 ⇰ 1 post (7ss) [fluff] ⇰ seungkwan asks minghao who he thinks the prettiest person in the world is and he answers: you. but how could he say that when he's never seen what you look like?

♢ boo seungkwan ♢

[☽] a rose that blooms in winter ⇰ 0.7k [fluff] ⇰ walking home with you on a snowy winter evening, seungkwan decides to be brave.

[☽] feelin' thorny ⇰ 0.4k [humor] ⇰ florist seungkwan receives a bouquet from his rival — emotions are had

[☼] you say the stupidest (sweetest) things ✑ 🜲 ⇰ 4.5k [fluff, humor] ⇰ you say stupid shit on the best of days, so when seungkwan comes over when you're having a bad bout of insomnia, the last thing he expects to hear from you is an accidental love confession

[✩] seungkwan + marriage of convenience ♖ ⇰ 0.5k [angst, humor]

♢ hansol vernon chwe ♢

[☽] take in the view ⇰ 0.9k [fluff] ⇰ vernon takes reader on a ride on his dragon; it ends up being pretty great

[✩] vernon + bad at art (the project partners one) ♖ ⇰ 0.6k [humor]

♢ lee chan ♢

[☼] got my heart in my feet ('cause they lead me to you) ✑ 🜲 ⇰ 2.4k [emotional hurt/comfort, fluff] ⇰ reader has a bad day, and they unintentionally find themselves falling apart at their best friend chan's door in desperate need of a hug

[✧] .|X| THANKS FOR PLAYING |X|. ⇰ 34 posts [angst, horror, (kinda) mcd] ⇰ finals are finally over, and all you want is to keep yourself entertained on the lonely train ride home since your best friend crush isn't coming with you. you don't expect to find yourself becoming the main character in a horror story.

♢ ot13 ♢

[✩] breviloquent masterlist 🜲 ♖ ⇰ my series of fics that are 50 words or less

[✩] svt as bits of my unfinished poetry ⇰ 0.7k

*updated 2023.09.03*

#svt x reader #svt x you #svt x y/n #seventeen x reader #seventeen x you #seventeen x y/n #seventeen writing #masterlist #savv writes

[whirlwindimagines]

You've mentioned you have a Vash and oc playlist, but you haven't talked much about your Trigun oc what are they like!? Love your blog!!! <3

Thank you!!!! and oh you guys don't want to hear me ramble about my oc

ANYWAY, let me ramble! Also sorry for how this is written I'm just stupid also under the cut because I ramble lol

Juno Kress (Name meaning: 'Queen of Heaven' and 'Loved')

Something you should know about me is I love tragic characters, and pain because it's cathartic to me! Juno is quiet she's got a quick temper, and can be a little sharp. She's difficult to get along with and doesn't trust people that often. She doesn't like showing her soft side, in fear of being perceived as weak. Juno doesn't talk about herself and keeps things close to her chest. She's running, but won't say from what.

My Ocs are an extension of myself! Juno is angry and hurt by the world desperate for something good, but doesn’t believe she deserves it. Oh no me! lol, remember this post? How I said Vash would like someone soft and kind? Well, that's not Juno! Well, she is a little soft, she's good with children even if she feels like she is not, and she pets every animal she sees and if they ever have to part with a Thomas they had she'll cry. But she has a hard time accepting kindness and doesn't think she deserves it. She's been alone for so long that traveling with someone like Vash is confusing (Slow burn baby!)

They just kinda end up traveling together, Vash tries to ditch her a couple of times becusss of the whole I only put people in danger, but then she eventually tracks him down and tells him to knock it off they are stuck together. They can fight sometimes, Juno is easy to rile up and Vash has found that if the conversation is getting to serious and deep he can just rile her up to deflect lol

They just kinda end up traveling together, Vash tries to ditch her a couple of times becusss of the whole I only put people in danger, but then she eventually tracks him down and tells him to knock it off they are stuck together. They can fight sometimes, Juno is easy to rile up and Vash has found that if the conversation is getting to serious and deep he can just rile her up to deflect lol

Juno is at first put off by his kind and giving nature because tf why is he so nice to her when she’s mean like why? Juno has never met someone who was kind to be kind and not want something in return, she settles down after a while she’s a bit like a cat hard to trust and ready to strike and lash out if cornered.

(Vash took one look at Juno and her sour attitude and was like well SOMEONE has to take care of this feral cat. But they had a pretty instant connection, two lonely souls)

The definition of idiots in love, also big hypocrites like Vash will go days without eating, he sees Juno skip a meal and he loses his mind with worry! Then Juno will hide wounds from him patching them up by herself, but oh if she finds out Vash is hiding an injury from her A LECTURE. They get along like a house on fire, it's actually amazing they get anything done. Once were captured by a bounty hunter and he let them go because he got sick of them arguing. Juno manages to bring out a real side of Vash, she likes pushing his buttons and getting real reactions. They figure it out lol

Juno is very protective! She's strong because she's always had to be, she craves soft moments but doesn't know how to accept them. Lowkey really hates the life she lives, but it is what it is and she figures it out.

Lyrics from the playlist :) I think this might be a good insight into her character, and the pain! lol

"I'll find a new place to be from" / "No, I'm not afraid to disappear" (i know the end - Phoebe Bridgers)

"You're running just to run from me, I don't blame you / Who would wanna be around me?" (Forest Fires - Lauren Aquilina)

"But the story is mine And I wish I could say that it ended just fine We all wanna know how it ends" (Happily Ever After - He is We)

"Haven't I given enough / Always the fool with the slowest heart" (Gilded Lily - Cults)

“And you’ll never see the reasons I had for keeping my claws away when they were close enough to hurt you I am selfish, I am broken, I am cruel” (Never Love an Anchor - The Crane Wives)

Other songs that i'm too lazy to find the lyrics for, but that scream Juno!

Apollo - Faith Zapata, Fools - Lauren Aquilina, Wings - Birdy, Rescue - Lauren Daigle, Start of Time - Gabrielle Aplin, Prologue - CHase Petra, Boats and Birds - Gregory and the Hawk, On the Edge of a Moment - Mikey Geiger and Best or Worst? - Kathleen Regan

#Nah i must be delusional if im sharing this ;p; #Whirltalks #answered ask #ask answered #Look i love my ocs they are just the parts of myself that I love and hate #I give them the qualities I hate about myself because I'm desperate to be love #Anyway dont look into that! its not a cry for help #lol at least Juno has good moments #You dont want to get me started on my Star Wars oc who has never gotten a break ever in her life :) #Juno x Vash #trigun stampede oc #Vash x oc #I cant believe I'm letting an oc of mine be PERCEIVED don't look at me #im also not doing well LOL #vash x reader

[lizardthelizard]

That playlist though. Oh no. OH NO! Feelings for and about Mulan. Right through the heart. I love "Another Love" so very much, but I'm often said when you watch some fanedit and it's kinda missing this beat how, well, the previous/other/first love was so all consuming, that finding something new is hard. Now you make me think about Sleeping Warrior vs Red Warrior here, OBVIOUSLY!

Mulan hitting rock bottom, wandering around aimless after leaving Aurora, because obviously she didn't join Robin. And we see her in that tavern, given up on honor (her truest of loves, clearly). Hitting the other direction of her whole character so hard. Meeting Ruby is nice, but falling for her doesn't come easy at all. She had her hopes set up on Aurora and it destroyed her completely, now where is the energy to muster up the courage to go for a second round?

~And if somebody hurts you, I wanna fight But my hand's been broken one too many times~ HELP! I'M DYING OVER HERE WITH THE IMAGES!! Thinking back to the intensity of the first time and while wanting love not being able to go for it... yeah, very canon, very tragic.

I'm listening through the whole thing, but I saw it ends with Marina. Great. The only thing more devastating would have been a Florence song. Marina's voice alone can carry this specific kind of melancholia/sadness... ~I'm a nomad [...] no sweet home~ Yeah, a Mulan song. What a choice. Never meeting anybody from her past, not getting her own happy ending.

Also, yes to the thing you said - she is so terribly stubborn. They gave us a fullfledged 3dimensional character with flaws, who would also bring a very useful skillset to the table and with more time all those walls she clearly build could have been torn down by the right person. Damn.

(Maybe I should finally cave and get spotify, make things easier. lol)

Another Love THEE reason for this playlist! At least, when I listened to it some years ago, it was the first (and for a while the only song) I had on her playlist. Because it was so perfect for her!! and I HAD to have it on some kind of Mulan playlist.

But YEAH!! Mulan's heartbreak over Aurora is so evident in season 5 and it really changes her as a person. And she becomes so bitter and so jaded (and then canon doesn't even give her a happy ending and she has to third wheel AGAIN 😭)

But when you throw Ruby into the mix? Oh boy, I'm VERY here for this. It won't be easy for either of them (Mulan struggling to open up and put herself out there again and with Ruby viewing herself as a monster still and worrying about hurting Mulan if they're too close) but...if they were both able to work up the courage and power through any of those issues... 👀

Also, see, I think it's such a shame because I feel like Mulan IS three dimensional, yes! But sometimes fandom (very broadly speaking) treats her like she's not. And she gets watered down into this kind of 'girlboss' character. And yeah, she IS a girlboss! Sure! But she's kind of a dork-ass-loser as well sometimes and she takes things way too seriously and she's so closed off.

Anyway, the point is that, like many ouat side characters, Mulan deserved so much more from canon.

#I really do have to thank mulan specifically <3 because (and I apologise because I HAVE said this before but) #she was the one that made me want to watch ouat in the first place #because (via internet osmosis) I thought that sleeping warrior was canon ashbdhaiushdasd and that was THEE reason that I started watching #(and also the reason I didn't STOP watching after the first few episodes. because idk I couldn't get into Once at the start.) #(but I powered through cause I knew mulan and aurora were in season 2) #I really really do love ruby/dorothy btw #but hdfgjdfgkfgdgdkgf all this talk about ruby/mulan lately has made me SO unreasonably excited about them #it's actually been SO long since I've seen s5 of once #(mostly because I don't really like the season over all (outside of a handful of episodes)) #but I can't wait to actually get onto s5 just to see mulan again. I'd forgotten how much I'd missed her #asks #<:) thanks for hopping in my inbox. I'm so happy that you're enjoying the playlist #ALSO YEAH...I should have looked into a florence and the machine song for this playlist

[surskip]

Literally your tags where you talked about ppl not understanding aa characters was SO TRUE...esp about maya and ESPECIALLY about phoenix 😵‍💫😵‍💫 whenever people just portray him as The Nice One to contrast edgeworth it is so lame bc he genuinely has such a great full personality

THANK U FRANKIE....!!!! i had to retype this cause i accidentally deleted it so i hope this makes sense.

maya is soooo misunderstood like.. this is not to say that she is Only tragic. she and phoenix goofing off is the best part of the games i think, like i havent stopped thinking about her calling him a toilet freak in the stolen turnabout it made me laugh really hard. but also i think people forget that she is shown to be actively repressing her grief so many times; she was traumatized by the events in the 2nd game and refused to go back to kurain village or train for months, and mia said that she was concerned about maya. she feels the need to be strong for the people around her to her own detriment. like the only people she's close to who are still alive are pearl and phoenix. she wanted to know about her mother and meet her and know what happened to her for so long and then her mother was murdered in front of her (before she even learned she was her mother and before they could really talk). like at the end of the last trial of aa3 she says that she doesn't want to be the master and doesn't want anything to do with the fey clan anymore but after the trial she continues training and presumably took the role because she knows she's the last person pearl has left. i've talked about her so much and this post got really long but ahh (explosion sfx) i want people to talk about her in ways that aren't related to making her a plot device for other characters to get together

i think sometimes people try to fit phoenix and edgeworth into like. you know that trope of the "mean one" and the "sunshine one" when they really do not fit.

phoenix is really easy to project on to and i don't have a problem with that, but he also very much has a personality of his own and i think that gets erased sometimes. he is a genuinely nice guy* (asterisk because i'll get back to this not because i don't think he's a nice guy) but he also like.. he has a very strong personality and feels things super intensely and is really devoted to the people he cares about even at the cost of his own health. i think he and maya are really similar

like when he was with dahlia in college that was 99% of his personality and he ate a metal and glass necklace that also had poison in it to stop her getting convicted of murder (also i do think the whole dahlia thing had a big impact on his ability to trust people/how he doesn't give up on people). he ran across a burning bridge for maya even after he kept saying how scared he was of it even before it caught on fire. in the second game his mood instantly sours every time edgeworth is brought up because of how much grief and anger he's feeling, and this is one of the first things he says to edgeworth after learning he was alive the whole time. from his perspective, he has no idea why edgeworth faked his own death especially after turnabout goodbyes, and he thought someone who was a huge factor in the trajectory of his life died. so he's really upset, and that's understandable

edgeworth and phoenix are i think so much more similar than they are different. like edgeworth in that scene is the one to give the 'friendship will help' speech when peolpe might expect phoenix to. i think phoenix operates more on instinct while edgeworth needs to operate with some outside logic and evidence. they both want to do good and help people; phoenix is open about it, and edgeworth operates on like 5 layers of repression and von karma/dl-6. (like for example i think edgeworth didn't let phoenix come to the cavern in bridge to turnabout because he didn't want phoenix to have to see if maya had died there.) i think people want edgeworth to be the always cool always knows exactly what to do archetype but every time he's in a situation where he doesn't know exactly what to do he just loses all his cool points. like in all the end of the game "let's go eat a meal!" parts he is just kind of going "umm... ok" whenever someone makes a joke at him. like he's like someone scruffed a cat he loses all his cool factor when he doesn't have a solid framework of experience and knowing The Rules to prop himself up with

*: you just have to look at phoenix's interactions with pearl to see that yeah he's just a genuinely good guy. but also, and i think that sometimes this gets erased in fan stuff.. he is kind of catty and it's great. his inner monologue is full of snide remarks like this and he really likes to mess with people (especially apollo, especially messing with apollo with trucy)

#asks #aa #long post #<- sorry it's really long i was thinking about this in the shoewr #i havent finished apollo justice so this is all about the first trilogy i am sorry if anything i say is out of date later

[dat-town]

own fic rec game

recommend 5 or more of your own works that you would rec to someone asking what they should read first & explain a little bit about the work. these can be the most popular, the ones you think are underrated, or your own favorites! then tag five other writers!

tagged by @restlessmaknae

tagging @lily-blue

dude, but like romantically - mark lee, 10k

i'm usually not your go-to uni au, slice of life or fluff writer but this was so much fun! honestly, probably the most fun i had writing a story in the last years because it didn't even feel like writing at times. i looked up mark-inspired playlists, i listened to him speaking in random lives and i just wrote without really knowing how i wanted this to end. i was there, you know, just for the ✨vibes✨ and i'm really happy that lots of people seem to enjoy it and think that it's mark-like. (so many that i just checked and it bet my hades!yoongi story in notes even though that had been my most popular writing for almost 5 years. wow.)

ignisum - hwang intak, 24.5k

world building! oh my god, i love world building. really, sometimes i get so swept up creating these little worlds for my stories that they end up being way more detailed than needed for the story. that's actually one of my favourite parts of writing and maybe that's why i love fantasy, dystopia etc. aus so much because i can do just that. the plot might not be the strongest (political intrigue isn't forte) but i really enjoyed creating ignisum and all these kingdoms. also for some reason i really like my fantasy aus with historical settings as well as badass girlies with smug boys, so really i put a lot of my favourite tropes here.

small doses - choi yeonjun, 7.8k

i don't think i have written anything so heavily focused on mental health before this one, so this was challenging but i think i could keep it realistic and i'm quite proud of that. also i have been wanting to work with such a now/then kind of contrast/parallel structure for a while, so i was glad that this story proved to be the perfect for that

bed warm, heart colds - min yoongi, 3.7k

i love mythology and fairytale aus a lot because they have so much potential and i love to twist the original story a bit, i love to explore their worlds, see if i can surprise people. and while this one i just wanted to jump on the train that claims that hades loved persephone and their love is tragic, i really wanted to put this here. i think this story was the first one i tried to write in a poetic-ish way and i still think back on it fondly.

destined to fall - kim taehyung, 33k

i'm pretty sure that if i were to read back this one, i would cringe really hard at parts and i would write it differently, but i'm still proud of the idea of it even if the execution wasn't that good. but it's okay, it wasn't an easy story to tackle and my longest for a long time (or maybe still is?) it was very interesting to jump in time, to create so many scenarios and try not to make it repetitive. i think my angst writing really took off with this one.

#tag game #stories

[a-shrieking-cloud-of-bats]

What kind of audience do you think you'd recommend dwarf fortress to? It definetly looks very different from anything else I played

Hmm. that's a very good question anon and I'm going to break it down.

People that like making their own fun. At the end of the day, dwarf fortress is a game that's only as meaningful as you make it, due to the random generation. If you take everything literally it's just pseudo guided actions performed by randomly generated dwarves. What is a tragic tale of a soldier going on a rampage in the fort after a siege because his cat died in the fighting is very easily reduced to simple numbers, because the underlying systems are not very complex and they do not try very hard to hide themselves. Similarly after you've gotten over the initial hump, if the narrative stuff isn't quite selling you, you have to be willing to challenge yourself. I'm currently attempting to build a boat, in the ocean, and making a nice looking port town with it. None of this holds bearing on the world or how it interacts in any major way (I don't think, anyway, it's been a while), but it's a fun project and if I end up keeping the world it will continue to exist long after I'm finished playing it. I can go there in adventure mode, and dwarves from that fort that live can show up in other forts. That's pretty satisfying, if you ask me. Probably the most important part.

On to the actual game. It's mostly a logistics game, as you're attempting to wrangle a big group of mostly autonomous dwarves into doing things that will make the fort better and bigger and more like what you want it to be. The semi autonomous part is a big part of what seperates it from say, factorio, you are not exactly working with precision tools here. About the only thing you can guarantee is that you can build what and where you want to build, and the military control is pretty direct (but not setting up the military! Oh God No). Dwarves will take personal time, dwarves will sleep, dwarves will eat, dwarves will throw parties, dwarves will make artifacts (randomly generated, so there's that first point again! is that artifact sword with broccoli on it fun or dumb? that sort've random gen thing will be happening a lot.), dwarves will generally dick around a lot without any explicit order to do so. Sometimes for a startling amount of time. But that's kind've part of the fun too, even if it's sort've frustrating sometimes.

Combat and adventure mode. I mean.... it's not nothing? I've found the military more frustrating then anything and winning direct fights is usually pretty hard. But setting up an airtight fort with loads of traps and misdirection is fun too, to the right person, I'm sure. The adventure mode combat system is sort've neat and has an impressive amount of depth but you have to grind forever to get anywhere with it and it's extremely long winded, even as deep as it can get. There's an entire thread on the DF forums (or was, it's ben a while) about dwarf martial arts and how catching incoming attacks can be used to perform various complex actions. Any game where that's possible is pretty neat! It's still very long winded and nothing is easy as a result, though. I can't really speak on this much.

That's about it.

If you want to get started yourself, look for the lazy newb pack (it's a staple, don't feel bad for using it, mostly everyone does) and a video tutorial, I dunno a modern one but people used to be reccomending krugsmash I think it was? Maybe still good? Dunno. Also the wiki, which is an exhaustive source of information, but worry about that after you're done with the GUI. The dwarf fortress GUI is absolutely jam packed with information and learning how to navigate it is task number one. It's also the thing most people get stuck on, though I think it's probably a bit less of a difficulty wall now that easier alternatives are out (rimworld, gnomoria, I guess? it never really took off honestly) and some of the concepts have been used in a different place. Though dwarf fortress is still hard to start even considering that. Thankfully it's also the easiest thing to learn through a series of youtube videos.

You're never really Done learning the nuances of the UI but once you know how to make your dwarves do things, and how dwarves do things, you're through most of the meta difficulty that you don't impose on yourself.

I hope that helped! I kind've went on a bit.

#bats replies #dwarf fortress posting

[tanenigiri]

Review #5: I Hear the Sunspot (Volume 1)

Japanese title: ひだまりが聴こえる (Hidamari ga Kikoeru)

Story and art: Yuki Fumino

English publisher: One Peace Books

Number of volumes: 5 in English, 6 in Japanese (ongoing)

What’s a wall to someone who’s willing to jump over it?

(This review contains story spoilers.)

Sometimes you come across a book (or a movie or a TV series) with a premise that’s so interesting that it’s almost begging you to read (or watch) it. Sure, you don’t know if the execution will live up to your initial hype, but it’s worth it to see how they treat that premise and see it through.

That was the feeling I got when I came across I Hear the Sunspot - its premise was so unlike any of the other manga I’ve read or watched by then (and that still holds true now) that I knew I had to put it on my to-read list right away. I might've been a bit hasty with my decision, but I figured it was worth it to see just how the dynamic of a hard-of-hearing boy and his note-taker plays out. And in any case, if I didn’t like the first volume, I could just drop it, right?

Thankfully, this first volume exceeded all of my expectations. As I mentioned above, Kohei is a college student experiencing hearing problems that makes it difficult for him to take down notes in his class. Because of a chance meeting, he runs into Taichi, a student from a different department who takes on various jobs to make ends meet. Thanks to Kohei’s great lunches and Taichi’s insatiable appetite, they form an agreement where Taichi takes notes in class and Kohei gives him free lunches in return.

While it’s easy to see this as the start of a back-and-forth that leads to an eventual romance, the story takes a very interesting turn before talking about Kohei’s attraction to Taichi. Because his disability came so suddenly to him - as opposed to something he was born with - Kohei had a hard time adjusting to his new reality, which severely affected his social life and emotional well-being. Because of this, and amplified by some unfortunate encounters with his old schoolmates, Kohei decides to shut himself off from the world, even going as far as to calling people who don’t share his disability as living on “the other side.”

Taichi picks up on Kohei’s self-induced seclusion rather quickly and proceeds to help him break out of it in any way he can, whether it’s bringing him to the school’s cafeteria or inviting him to play in a baseball game. Despite what others say about him - Kohei is said to have very good looks but his cold personality drives most people away - Taichi doesn’t think twice about giving Kohei the tools to slowly break down the walls he built around himself.

There’s also something to be said about how Taichi doesn’t really have a “solid” reason to act like this to Kohei - he doesn’t have a disabled family member, and initially, he’s not at all doing it out of infatuation. Rather, he’s simply reaching out to Kohei and helping him deal with his issues because, in his mind, that’s the right thing to do. The most concrete reason he says in the story is that he wants to see him smile more, and even then, this is already after several instances where he goes out of his way to help Kohei with his issues. Taichi is just, quite frankly, someone who’s sensitive enough to recognize that Kohei has different needs but doesn’t alienate him because of them.

I’ve found characters like Taichi incredibly rare among the stories I've read so far, as most drastic actions like what he does come with tragic backstories or a flashback scene that shows that they’ve been pining for the other long before the events of the story even started. To have a character who’s just genuinely kind and shows a lot of empathy is honestly very refreshing, and it’s a character trait that I think this story really nails down. Taichi might have his own flaws that he has to work through - though that’s given more focus in later volumes - but you can never take his open-mindedness and caring personality away from him.

And it’s in that context where Kohei’s attraction begins, and you can’t blame him - here’s a literal gift from the heavens who suddenly understands what he’s going through and doesn’t ridicule him for it. But with his newfound attraction, he finds himself once again in unfamiliar social territory. Unfortunately, because of a misunderstanding involving a girl, this leads him to going back to his old ways of secluding himself from the world - and secluding himself from Taichi.

Thankfully, Taichi is having none of that and proceeds to talk to him about it - both indirectly and directly - which eventually leads to Kohei confessing his feelings and kissing Taichi. The volume is already ending at this point, though it gives us a curious little bonus chapter that shows Taichi admitting to himself that he didn’t necessarily hate the kiss. It’s a curious way to end the volume, and it’s even more interesting when you find out in the afterword that this is how the story was originally going to end. I’m thankful that it didn’t go down that route, but if it did, I do think that I’d find it a nice note to end on, as it lets the reader fill in the blanks now that we know that Kohei's feelings of affection aren’t necessarily one-sided.

While there isn’t a lot to work with in terms of the romance - which the mangaka even alludes to in the afterword - I Hear the Sunspot more than makes up for it with how it presents its two main leads. They’re very fascinating, and in Kohei’s case, it’s not just because he has a disability. Rather, it’s how the story uses this disability to shape his personality and present his flaws, and it does so in a very believable way that it never feels like he was made hard-of-hearing for the sake of it. And, after all, that’s the type of treatment that Taichi would want for Kohei.

Random thoughts that I couldn’t fit elsewhere:

I should definitely note that I’m going into this story as someone who doesn’t have a physical disability, so my praise for the narrative does miss out on a lot of context that someone who does have a similar condition as Kohei would pick up on. Most of the other comments I’ve read online have good things to say about how Kohei is presented, and I definitely agree with them, but I’m of course curious how someone closer to Kohei’s situation would react to his portrayal here.

You’ll notice that I don’t talk about any other characters outside of the main pair in this review, and that’s because the story doesn’t actually give too much focus on anyone besides the two of them. I find future volumes actually having the opposite issue of having a bunch of characters sharing the limelight, and I do think I prefer how this first volume deals with its cast. There are some side characters thrown in to add conflict as well as flesh out dynamics, and while I would’ve wanted to find out more about some of them, I do think streamlining the plot to just Kohei and Taichi was a good call here.

It becomes a more apparent image in later volumes, but like I mentioned above, Kohei refers to Taichi in an early chapter as someone who lives on “the other side.” The same chapter depicts these two sides in a few ways, but the most notable one is a pair of curtains. And to see Kohei open these curtains at the very end of the chapter is such a powerful image that I really wanted to highlight it.

Thanks for reading! I still think I Hear the Sunspot has one of the most unique premises of the genre, and it definitely doesn’t disappoint on the execution side. I have a review lined up for the next volume in the series - Theory of Happiness - though I’m still going back-and-forth about whether or not I should review the three Limit volumes.

#I Hear the Sunspot #Hidamari ga Kikoeru #Yuki Fumino #Sagawa Taichi #Sugihara Kohei #BL manga #manga review #manga