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nothingeverlost · 3 years

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The Most Brilliant Idea, or how Sirius Black Accidentally became a Romance Novelist (HP, Wolfstar)

In which Sirius has a Brilliant Idea, Remus is gainfully employed, James is clueless and Lily is always right.

Unmitigated fluff with minor references to the first war, AU because James and Lily didn’t die.

It started with the classified, the first bit of proof that everything that happened was really Moony’s fault. There was always a classified ad in the kitchen, even when Moony was working, part of his optimistic opinion that any job could and would end. The classified ads were always marked in pen, and one could tell just how Remus thought his prospects fared based on how he’d marked a job. Some were viciously scratched out (potions expert and anything with ‘night shift’ in the description) some were circled multiple times (he usually came away dejected from those interviews, things he actually wanted but rarely got) some had question marks and some had a single bold circle. It was the single circle ones that were the best prospects.

On this particular Tuesday morning while Sirius drank his tea and dripped jelly on a story about Minister Fudge’s election, the only ad that was circled was one looking for a book editor. It was commission work, the sort of things Moony did from home sometimes. It suited him, both because he was such a stickler for commas and spelling and because the flexibility meant that moons didn’t present a problem. The only downside was that it was sporadic work, a book at a time, and didn’t bring in enough income to make Moony feel like he was Contributing to Household Things. Sirius always rolled his eyes. Moony was the most stubborn person he knew.

It was then that he had his Most Brilliant Idea. What Remus needed was a constant stream of editing. Someone who would keep him employed on a regular basis with things a lot more interesting than editing a technical manual on the care and keeping of flobberworms.

“Lily I need to borrow some books.” When someone had a Brilliant Idea they had to start right away, so his first action was to floo to the Potter home. He was distracted for half an hour by Harry who insisted on a hippogriff ride and a sword fight, and he wouldn’t be a proper godfather if he said no to either, but after that it was strictly business.

“The only books we have here that you don’t have are meant for a three year old. You and Remus had quite the library between you,” Lily replied after telling both him and Harry they could only have two biscuits. Sirius took a third, but split it in half so it didn’t count. After all, two and a half was practically the same as two.

“Not true. Moony and I don’t have any of those girly books,” he said with his half a biscuit in his mouth.

“You want to borrow my romance novels?” Lily asked, puzzled. “I don’t know who you’re trying to date, Sirius Black, but romance novels aren’t actually meant to be used that way.”

“Like I need help,” Sirius said with an eye roll. Sure, it had been a while since he dated but that was totally his choice. He had a lot on his plate right now with a godson that needed his attention and Moony needing looking after and his three days a week working for Quality Quidditch Supplies. “They’re for Moony.”

“Somehow I doubt he knows that.” Lily rolled her eyes right back at him. “Take as many as you like, and don’t worry about when you get them back. It’s not like I have much time for reading when I have three boys to look after.”

“Something you want to tell me, Lils?” He looked at her stomach pointedly and wondered if they were really ready for another Prongslet.

“Yeah. You and James are more work than Harry and he has the excuse of being three.” But she gave him a bag for the books and sent him home with a plate of biscuits, warning him that she would tell Remus that she’d sent them so not to eat them all in one go. It was like she didn’t trust him or something.

Once he had the books stage one of The Plan could begin. He’d read a few of the romance novels when he was bored and they seemed like the easiest book to write. Certainly they weren’t anything Moony read so he could borrow a bit from others and no one important would be any the wiser. Over the next few days he spent most of the time Moony wasn’t around reading, stashing the books in the closet so they wouldn’t be seen in case Remus came in his room for late night chats or early morning bed sharing. It was a habit that they’d never quite left behind in school, especially when either of them had a nightmare. With the war almost two years gone the nightmares weren’t as frequent but they were always a good excuse if he needed company.

Stage Two of The Plan had a few false starts, as writing a book proved to be a little trickier than he figured, considering how many books he’d read. Finally though after twenty-six days he had a story written. The pining of Sigmund G Toadsnatch for Anastasia Flower ended in a passionate snog and a happily ever after. It was time for Stage Three.

“I need your help.” The moment Moony was gone for the day he popped around to the Potter home again, this time with manuscript in hand.

“Harry managed to get jam in his hair at breakfast and I have to give him a bath. Can it wait?” Her arms were full of a squirming toddler, anxious to greet his ‘Padfoo.’

“I’ll give him a bath,” he offered.

“The last time that happened you flooded the bathroom and transfigured the soap into a boat.” She carried Harry up the stairs. Sirius followed.

“He came out clean, though. Mostly.” He might have missed a few spots, but no one was perfect and there had been an important battle with a giant squid that looked a lot like Harry’s toes to wage. “I need to know if you have any friends that have girly writing and want to earn a few quid.” He plopped himself on the edge of the tub after stowing his manuscript on higher ground.

“You need what?” it was really quite impressive how she managed to run the bath, undress Harry, and listen to him.

“Alright, so this is the part where I have to swear you to absolute secrecy. Unbreakable vow kind of stuff. You can’t tell anyone what I am about to tell you, not even James.”

“You know James and I don’t keep secrets.”

“It’s not a big secret, just a little baby one. The more people who know the more likely it is that Remus will know that people are keeping something from him and then the whole thing will be ruined.” Besides Prongs would never let him hear the end of it if he knew what Sirius was doing.

“I will consider not telling him, once I know. That’s the best I can promise.”

“I guess that will have to do.” He was certain she’d see reason, or more importantly his side of things. “Now about your friends.”

“Do I even want to know what girly writing means?”

“You know what I mean. When you pick up something and you know a girl wrote it because there’s little hearts above the I’s and the ink changes color.” Not that Lily had ever done things like that. Her writing was perfectly sensible, not that it mattered. Moony would recognize her handwriting.

“Your handwriting is pretty fancy, with all those loops and the illustrations in the margins.” Lily made a few loops of her own, sending bubbled cascading into the tub to entertain Harry.

“One of the many skills a pureblood snob is required to learn, according to my dear old mum. Trust me I’ve tried mimicking James but it’s useless.” James wrote in a barely legible scrawl that only those with practice could read. Sirius envied him, though it had led to an accident or two over the years especially in potions and what time they were supposed to meet. “But it doesn’t matter, Moony knows my handwriting and that’s the whole point. I need someone to copy over my writing so he doesn’t know it’s me.”

“I think I need more focus and perhaps something to drink. Hold on a minute, will you?” Lily finished up Harry’s bath, keeping him long enough to dry his hair but giving up when he decided to squirm out of her hold and run away without his togs on. She shrugged. “Won’t hurt him to air dry.”

“James said the same thing once. It works better in a warm house and when you’re three, rather than when you’re thirteen and it’s snowing out.” He’d won the dare, though, and claimed it was worth it.

“Yeah, I remember that. Thought he was mental then. Now I know he is.” Lily headed for the kitchen and started a pot of tea brewing. “Now please tell me you’re not trying to get me to help you prank Remus. You know my rules.”

“It’s not a prank. It’s a Brilliant Idea to help Moony. You’re going to love it.” He couldn't hold it in anymore. “I’vewrittenabook.”

“Excuse me?”

“A book. I’ve written one and I’m going to send it to Moony to edit it, and then I’m going to pay him. But he’s not going to know it’s me so he’s going to accept the money without being his stubborn prideful self. When he’s done I’ll have another story ready and then he’ll be gainfully employed and happy and he won’t have to worry about what happens to his job when there’s a moon. Brilliant, right?”

“I’m still on the bit where you wrote a book.” Lily poured the tea and set a slice of quiche on a plate for Sirius. The spinach was in small enough bits that it didn’t actually look like a vegetable and he might not notice that under all the cheese he’d actually eaten something green.

“It’s not hard. I read the books you had and I wrote something like it. Boy meets girl. One of them annoys the other. There’s secret longing and someone trying to keep them apart and then they snog and everyone’s happy except the evil bloke who ends up in a cellar or something.” He shrugged and ate the food Lily had given him without much thought. He’d been so excited about the next stage that he hadn’t bothered with breakfast. “The book’s not really the important part, though, and there have to be bits to fix or else Moony won’t have anything to do. What’s important is that Moony doesn’t know it’s me. I have to rent an owl once it’s ready and send him a letter about a job. I have a name picked out already. Marmaduke Gaylord from Gaylord’s Romantic Press.”

“I don’t know why anything you come up with should surprise me anymore, Sirius Black. It’s completely bonkers and there’s probably fifteen different ways it could go wrong.” Lily reached across the table and covered one of his hands with her own. “It’s also unfailingly kind and possibly crazy enough to work.”

“Of course it will work.” Any doubts he’d had he’d buried down deep enough that he wouldn’t have to worry about them for a while at least. Probably not until the whole thing exploded in a very Sirius-like fashion.

As it turned out Lily did have a friend that could use a little spending money and had hand writing that, while not containing any hearts, was feminine enough to satisfy Sirius and more importantly wouldn’t be recognized by Remus. She rewrote the manuscript in her own handwriting. Sirius borrowed a typewriter from Arthur Weasley to make an official looking offer from the Gaylord Romance Publishers.

Stage Four was well timed, as Moony’s job in a muggle bookstore ended that week after the third time he’d had to miss work the morning after a full moon with no explanation. Sirius had made sure he was tucked into bed with a water bottle and a cup of tea with a warming charm that would last at least an hour, then nipped over to Diagon Alley to rent an owl for a single trip. The offer letter and manuscript were bound together. For an added bit of cleverness he’d asked the clerk to delay the delivery until afternoon so that Sirius could be home when the owl arrived.

“What could be so important about a romance novel that they’d be willing to pay this much?” By afternoon Moony was feeling well enough to be on the sofa instead of in bed. Sirius glanced at the letter Remus handed him and shrugged.

“Dunno, mate. Guess there’s enough people reading them to make it worth their while. The girls at school all read them. Tripped over them all the time in the common room.”

“They’d be better off reading Austen,” Remus groused but he was also quick enough to send off an acceptance letter with the owl. Sirius had a plan for that as well, and a newly rented owl post box.

“I’ll give you some quiet to work.” Sirius locked himself in his room, using the time to start his second novel, the story of five sisters all sorted into the same house and the rich pureblood transfer student who seemed rude but was secretly shy. The prat’s best friend was cheerful and had a crush on the main character’s sister.

“Comma,” was the comment he heard the most from the other room. ‘Why’ and ‘bloody hell’ and ‘you can’t do that to the English language’ were also common exclamations.

“Sounds like it’s going well,” Sirius said when his stomach was too loud to ignore.

“It’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever read and the romance is dreadful but there are some bits that are hilarious, actually. Don’t know their goal but as a satire it’s not bad.” The stack of papers in front of him was all marked up in red ink worse than the first essay he’d ever written for McGonagall.

“I thought romances were supposed to be all sappy.” His main character had declared his love seventeen times. That was what girls wanted, wasn’t it?

“Fortunately I’m only supposed to edit the grammar and not the sap. I’m over my head on that sort of thing. Imelda Carson seventh year said I was the most unromantic boy she’d even snogged.”

“Imelda Carson is an idiot who is now breeding pink pygmy puffs and is completely single because no bloke was romantic enough for her. Besides you don’t like girls, remember?”

“I like girls just fine. I just don’t want to snog any of them or…”

“Smash your bits together?” Sirius offered.

“Yeah, exactly what I was going to say,” Remus said dryly. “I’m starved and close to going cross eyed from this editing. Whose turn for dinner?”

“I’ll start some steaks.” Sirius danced towards the kitchen. The Plan was going perfectly.

It seemed silly, really, to have a wonderfully written and perfectly edited novel and not do anything with it. The original plan didn’t take into account anything outside of making sure that Remus was employed, but when Sirius collected the edited manuscript from the owl post it seemed a waste to just throw it away or lock it up somewhere.

“I need a name.” It was just before lunch when he flooed to Godric Hollow, finding Harry just up from his nap and more than excited to use uncle Padfoot as a climbing toy.

“You know some people do give a little notice instead of barging in all the time. There’s a lovely front door on this house I don’t think you’ve seen in two years.” Lily winced when Harry’s foot found a foothold on Sirius’s crotch, but really the man deserved it.

“Other people aren’t nearly as entertaining as me.” Sirius winced as well and moved Harry’s foot a little higher, regretting it when the lad’s next handhold was his ear. “Now about that nom de plume.”

“I thought you were only writing so Remus could have an editing job?”

“Yes, but that’s no reason not to share my genius with the world.” He waved his manuscript over his head.

“How many times did Remus threaten to throw up while reading this drivel?”

“Only once but he edited that bit out. Not even I can be perfect my first time out.” Lily, of course, rolled her eyes for approximately the 42,596th time since she’d first met Sirius.

“If you’re serious about this we should do it properly. No more ridiculous names.”

“I’m always Sirius.” He couldn’t resist. After all the joke never got old, no matter how many times Lily groaned. “Too bad I can’t use my name. Imagine how dear old mum would roll over in her grave if she knew the sacred Black name was attached to a romance novel.”

“Sirius.”

“You’re right, Lils. If she got too excited she might reanimate and the world is not ready for zombie Walburga.” He shuddered dramatically at the thought, making Harry, now perched on his shoulders, laugh and say ‘again.’ Of course he obliged.

“Leave it with me and I’ll sort it out. I’ll have Molly redo a clean copy and send it off to Mary who’s a junior editor and a publisher. We’ll see what happens, alright?”

“This is why I love you, Red.” Sirius gave her a kiss on the cheek and handed her the manuscript so he could get down to what was really important; teaching his godson how to make bubbles in his milk.

Three months later Phaedra White was a published author. Sure, there wasn’t an enormous amount of money in a single book, but it was more than what he’d spent to pay Molly and Remus so it seemed profitable enough, and he was more excited than he’d expected to see it on the shelves of the bookstore..

In the next year ‘Phaedra’ wrote nine more books. More importantly with actual connections in the publishing world he was able to recommend Moony’s services to other authors, to the point that he began to worry that if Remus had too much work he might turn down the requests from Marmaduke Gaylord to edit Phaedra’s books.

“Get the bucket, Pads, I’m going to be ill. This is the worst thing I've ever read. Not only do I want to vomit but I think my eyes are bleeding.”

“It can’t be that bad.” His own book had arrived that morning but Sirius hadn’t known that Remus had started on it already.

“I don’t know how Gilderoy Lockheart got my name but I’m never editing a book for him again. Not only is it nonsense that clearly didn’t actually happen, but it’s badly written as well.” It was hard to tell from Moony’s tone what offended him more, but it was probably the bad writing.

“Wasn’t there a Lockheart a few years behind us in school? A gormless little thing that spent more time on his hair than anything else?” They didn’t usually pay much attention to Ravenclaws, but if he remembered correctly the boy had annoyed them enough that they’d pranked his hair blue once.

“That’s the one. What he knows about defense against the Dark Arts would fit in my little finger.” Remus pushed the manuscript away. “I can’t even look at this again until I have some chocolate.”

“I picked up a new stock from Honeydukes when I was at Diagon.” Rule number one for the care and keeping of your Moony was to always have a supply of chocolate on hand. “Why don’t you grab a bar and we’ll go out for a walk. It’s beautiful outside.”

“What would I do without you, Pads? Why don’t we pick up some curry while we’re out, my treat?” It was a plan, and they left the house shoulder to shoulder. Later that evening after he’d eaten Remus returned to his work. Sirius found him laughing, his shoulders relaxed, and not a single bucket around.

“Back at the Lockheart?” he asked.

“No, I’ve given myself a respite and picked up the latest White novel. You know this bloke is improving. It’s really kind of nice to see the balance of romance and friendship in here. Less sap and more affectionate teasing.”

“I thought that romance writer you edit for was a woman?” Sirius held his breath for a moment. Did Moony Know? He couldn’t possibly.

“I’m sure that’s what they want people to think, probably because most romance novels are written by women and I’d imagine they sell better. But I’m practically certain this is a bloke writing this. If the book centered around a flying motorcycle didn’t tip me off, the fact that the details about female anatomy are more vague than the male anatomy seems quite a clue.” Remus shrugged. “I don’t suppose it really matters, though.”

“No, I don’t suppose it does,” Sirius agreed.

“I need help.” The next morning Sirius showed up at the Potter house in the middle of breakfast, not knowing what time it was. James was still home, which was not the most favorable thing that could have happened.

“Help with what?” Prongs asked as he broke a banana into pieces for Harry.

“Nothing at all,” Sirius lied. “Just a question for Lils about a girl thing.”

“Dating someone you haven’t mentioned to us yet?” James cocked his head to the side. “It’s been a while since you’ve mentioned anyone.”

“Yeah, well it gets to be all the same after a while, doesn’t it?” Truth was he hadn’t had a date in ages. His free time was taken up with writing, and the rest of the time he was with Remus, or Prongs and his family or both. Lily had them over to dinner once a week at least, somehow thinking they couldn't take care of themselves properly. His social life worked out pretty well, except for the lack of shagging. He did miss that sometimes, but not enough to bother with finding a date.

“Not when you marry the love of your life and the most perfect person in the world.” James, of course, couldn’t help looking at his wife. Sirius was torn between wanting to gag and feeling a tight ball in the pit of his stomach that he’d never felt before.

“It’s been six years since you married her, Prongs. You are going to be a little less sappy at some point, aren’t you?” Of course considering how close they’d come to losing each other it was understandable. And Sirius was happy for them, but as a sibling it was his job to raz James as much as possible.

“If you don’t like it you do know where the fireplace is, Sirius.” Lily was careful when she stood up, her belly now heavily swollen. Potter number four was due in less than a month. “Come on, you can wash up dishes for me while you tell me what you need.”

Dutifully he followed her, ignoring Prongs’ questioning look. When the water was running he looked around to make sure they weren’t followed. “I need to know more about girls.”

“Excuse me?”

“Moony’s figured out that Phaedra White is a bloke. Says there’s not much detail about women’s bits and things in there and that it sounds more like a bloke or something. I don’t know. My first thought was that I could use some polyjuice and spend an hour as a woman but that’s a month of work just to make the potion plus it tastes disgusting.”

“I’m not going to ask why you know what polyjuice tastes like. I don’t want to know who you were or when or if my husband was involved.” Lily rubbed her stomach absently. “Your books are selling surprisingly well, I wouldn’t change things now. Besides you should know at least the basics about women.”

“I know that their breasts are nice and soft, most of them like to snog, and redheads have very good aim.” Or maybe it was just one specific redhead, who proved his point by throwing a spoon at the back of his head.

“Obviously rumors at school had to be taken with quite a few grains of salt and I know some girls exaggerated because it was good for their reputations for it to be known that they snogged the ‘great’ Sirius Black” Lily’s voice was dripping with sarcasm and she stuck out her tongue for good measure. “But you did date a fair bit, and I myself witnessed at least some snogging. Are you saying you never…”

“Did the no pants dance? Nah, girls are nice for kissing and easier for dating but for the whole naked tango I prefer a blokes ‘bits.’”

“Huh. I was dead certain about you and that Hufflepuff in sixth year.” Lily shook her head, bemused. It wasn’t like Sirius had ever hidden the fact that he liked boys as well as girls. “But if you’re here to ask me about my ‘bits’ that’s where I draw the line. We’re close, Sirius, but not that close.”

“You are the best sister a bloke could ever hope for, Lil my love, and as such that is a completely disgusting idea that I would never suggest. I was thinking you might have a friend.”

“I am not pimping out my friends to you, brother dear.”

“You try to set up Remus sometimes.” And somehow each time Remus came down sick and couldn’t come to dinner.

“I worry about Remus being alone. Do you know when he last went on a date?”

“Sometimes in the seventies, probably, and he’s not alone, he has me. What could be less lonely then having me as a roommate?” Other than a bit of time during the war he and Remus had lived together since leaving Hogwarts. It worked well for them both, and honestly the idea of Remus dating made his left shoulder blade go all tense. They took turns making dinner and washing up, cleaned the flat together on Mondays and read out bits of their books to each other as they shared a sofa in the evening. If Remus was spending his time with someone else there would be less of the enigmatic little half smile that made his day better. And at some point Moony would have to share his furry little secret and what if they took it badly and hurt him? Or worse, spread it about? Sirius would have to kill them and then he’d go to Azkaban and then Remus really would be alone. It would be a disaster.

“Sirius have you ever considered…” Lily stopped, wincing a little and struggling to pull herself up. “This little one has great aim and likes to kick mummy’s bladder. You’ll have to excuse us, Sirius. And find your own dates.”

He did find his own dates. Three of them, in the next month, and twice with the girl from the local coffee shop. And though the snogging was nice he just couldn’t get interested enough in taking it farther, not even in the name of research. Sighing he decided he was just going to have to keep doing what he was doing. Besides, having Moony suspect that a romance novelist was a man was a far sight from having him suspect that it was the man he lived with so he was still safe enough. After all who in their right mind would think that Sirius Black was writing romance novels?

When he got home from his last date he found a note stuck to his door in Moony’s careful hand. The word ‘St Mungo’s’ might have worried him if not for the ‘Baby Potter on the way’ underneath. He took a minute to change into something more comfortable, remembering that Harry had taken hours to arrive, and apparated to the maternity ward.

“You brought work with you?” Remus was already there, sitting in the waiting room with a quill in one hand and a stack of pages on his lap.

“You know how long Harry took to make an appearance. Might as well pass the time in a useful manner.” Remus looked up at him, head cocked to the side. “How was the date?”

“Bit boring, to be honest. I think I’m out of practice.” Dating used to be more interesting, but halfway through he’d found himself wishing that he was on the sofa throwing popcorn at Remus and asking about his latest book. The editing of the Lockhart book and its ridiculous lies was keeping him well entertained. “Speaking of the sprog, where is my favorite godson?”

“Lily’s friend Molly has him. The one will all the redhead kids, you remember?”

“Yeah.” Molly happened to be the friend that rewrote everything he wrote. No reason for that to make him nervous, though. “She was Gid and Fab’s big sister.”

“Yeah, she was.” It was never easy to think of the casualties of the war so Sirius tried not to think of them, not even the ones with hair and hearts like fire who he’d shagged once. Gideon had been one of his first crushes in school, and a compatriot in war.

“What are we working on tonight?” Sirius tried to take a look at his papers. “Anything good?”

“Something very frustrating, at the moment. The latest Phaedra White.”

“I thought you said her books were getting better. Seemed to me you quite enjoyed the last one.” He took great pride in the fact that he’d made Moony laugh more than once, and that it came back with hardly any notes other than the usual missing commas and split infinitives. The ending, Moony had declared, was only as sappy as was necessary for that sort of story and not bad at all.

“It’s stupid. I’m just the editor, there’s no reason for the direction of the plot to bother me so much.” Sighing, Remus put the quill down.

“I’m sure the author is grateful for your notes. You said she’s listened to them before, hasn’t she?” Of course he knew the answer. He’d written three thank you notes for changes the Remus had suggested, and every time Remus had been right. Merlin’s pants, Phaedra White was actually making best seller lists and had been mentioned in Witches Weekly twice, and Sirius wasn’t too full of himself to know how big a part Moony played in that. His publisher was trying to make him do a book signing at Flourish and Blotts, and didn’t understand why he kept saying no to the publicity.

“This isn’t the same situation. It’s not a small change to a scene, it’s the whole romance that feels wrong.”

“You read me a bit the other night, between the bloke and his best mate that made you laugh.” He’d found the byplay between his main character and his friend to be the most fun part of the book to write.

“That’s the whole problem. Byron and George have this great relationship. The scene where George is trying to convince Byron to go on the date feels almost like…”

“Like what?” There were times that Sirius totally wished he could talk through scenes with Remus while he was writing. He’d had to bite his tongue more than once when he remembered that he hadn’t sent a story to Moony to edit yet.

“Like he was trying to cover his own feelings for his friend. The chemistry between the two blokes is more natural and interesting then the bits with Byron and Melody.” Remus picked up his quill again. “Now you see why I can’t write that suggestion. I’m not about to tell someone to trash half their story and turn it into a gay romance.”

“Moony, w-”

“She’s here.” The door to the waiting room crashed open and Prongs came running out, tripping over his feet in his hurry. “I’m a dad.”

“You’ve been a dad for almost five years, Prongs,” Sirius couldn’t help but tease him.

“But never to a girl.” It was funny how big Prongs’ eyes could get. “Merlin’s elbow, I have a daughter.”

“Most of the bits are the same, mate. You’ll be alright.” Remus shoved his papers and quill into a bag and took out a flask. “I think this calls for a drink. Not too much, or Lily will kill us all, but just to celebrate.”

“You think of everything, Moons.” Sirius shouldn’t have been surprised, it was very like Remus, but there was something about drinking out of the flask immediately after Moony’s lips had touched it that felt different.

“You’re brilliant, both of you. In a minute we can all go in and you can meet my daughter.”

“Poor Lils, she’s got three kids on her hands now.” Sirius pointed to the dopey looking expression on Prongs’ face.

“I think you mean four kid, Pads. After all she has to deal with you as well.”

“Her name is Olivia Marlene.” Lily had that exhausted but happy glow of a new mother when they were let in to see her. The baby she held looked pretty much the same as Harry the first time they’d seen him, the dark hair on the top of her head and the splotchy looking face.

“It’s a good name. Strong.” Moony nodded solemnly. “Marlene would have been proud.”

“Marlene would have rolled her eyes and called me daff,” Lily said with only a hint of moisture in her own eyes. “But if my daughter is half as fierce she’ll be able to do anything.”

“Moony, ready to say hello?” James took his daughter from Lily and held her close to his chest.

“Let Sirius go first, I’ll hold her in a minute.” Sirius had been the first five years ago, when Harry had been born.

“Sirius will have his turn but it should be her godfather first, Remus.” When Lily spoke Sirius had the good fortune to be looking at Remus. The look on his face and the way his knees buckled were priceless.

“Alright there mate?” Sirius caught him around the waist and helped him to stand up again. “Welcome to the club, by the way.”

“So will you, Moony?” James looked at him expectantly.

“I think you’re mental to ask me.” But Remus carefully took the baby and held her, touching her cheek with a single finger. Sirius felt for a moment like he’s turned into liquid marshmallow, watching the two of them.

“Welcome to the world, Olivia Potter,” Remus said softly.

It was in that moment that Sirius Black, author of almost seventeen romance novels, realized that he was in love with his best friend.

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to leave the country.” Somehow Sirius made it through the next week. He wasn’t sure how but it seemed only fair to give Lily a bit of recovery time before bothering her. A week was as long as he could wait, though, and on the eighth day he flooed over.

“That’s a bit of a dramatic reaction to not being chosen as godfather for our Olivia.”

“What? No, of course you should have gone with Moony. Brilliant choice. Probably should have picked him for Harry, bit of an unfair advantage Olivia has.” Sirius flopped down on the armchair across from Lily. “Where are the sprogs, by the way?”

“Baby’s sleeping. Harry and James are at the park so Harry can run off some energy.”

“Prongs is probably the one that needs to run off the energy. He’s walking on clouds, that one. Reminds me of the week after you finally said yes to a date.” Sirius was pretty sure James hadn’t slept for two days straight. For a week he also hadn’t shut up, even when he did finally sleep. He’d been well stuck on Lily long before they’d dated. Sirius finally had an idea of what that was like.

“Probably. Now tell me what you’re running from.” Lily put on her best getting-ready-to-mock-you expression.

“Nothing really, only the most stupid thing I’ve probably ever done.”

“I’ve seen some of the stupidest things you’ve done, Sirius. Many of them. Unless you’re going to tell me you have to flee the country because aurors are after you I very much doubt it’s as bad as you think.”

“I’vefalleninlovewithMoony.”

“I’m going to need you to actually take a breath at some point, sweetie. You’re going to turn purple if you don’t and then I’m going to have to explain to James and Harry why you’ve passed out on the floor.” Lily patted the empty seat on the sofa next to her. “Now come over here, take a breath, and tell me again what you said.”

Sirius, erring on the side of caution, took three breaths, decided that wasn’t enough, and took three more. “I’ve fallen in love with Moony.”

“Now there, wasn’t that easier to say the second time?”

“You knew perfectly well what I said.” Sirius narrowed his eyes. “You tricked me.”

“Only for your own good.” She leaned in and wrapped her arms around him. “I know this bit is scary but you’re going to get through it and you’re going to do it without fleeing the country.”

“Didn’t you hear what I said?” Maybe having a baby did something odd to your ears.

“You’ve finally figured out that you’re in love with Remus.”

“Finally?” Sirius stared at her.

“Finally,” she confirmed. “Other than this month because of your crazy idea about your books, when was the last time you dated?”

“Dunno. That carpenter maybe?” Sirius had wanted to find out just what else he could do with his hands. The answer was quite a bit. Unfortunately not so much in the brain department and even less in the sense of humor department.

“That was three years ago. What is Remus’s favorite dinner?”

“Steak with mashed potatoes and lots of gravy, popovers, peas.” It was a meal he liked to make a day or two before a full moon when Moony was feeling a bit low.

“And for dessert?”

“Chocolate, of course. I found a chocolate fondant recipe the other day I thought I might try.” Moony was happy to have a chocolate bar but Sirius liked to find new desserts to try. Moony was always pleased when there was a new dessert.

“Who is the first person you see on Christmas morning and whose present do you spend the most time picking out?”

“Moony, of course. We live together.” Last year Moony had put a ridiculous ten galleon restriction on gifts, insisting he didn’t need anything extravagant. His silly Moony hadn’t thought to specify that it was only a single gift, though. Sirius had brought thirteen, but they were all under ten galleons each.

“And when you’ve had a really shitty day who is the first person you seek out?”

“Moony.”

“And when something wonderful happens who is the first person you want to tell?”

“Moony.”

“Are we seeing a pattern yet? And before you tell me it’s just being friends let me remind you that you have created a whole career for yourself solely because you wanted to make sure that Remus had work that he could take pride in. The entire existence of Phaedra White is basically one really long love letter, which is a bit over the top even for you.”

“I’ve been in love with Moony this whole time?” It didn’t feel wrong when he said it. Maybe later he’d be able to look back and figure out when exactly it all started, but for now it seemed to be enough that it was true. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You were always going to figure it out in your own time. I couldn’t make you go any faster and risk it not happening at all.” Lily kissed his cheek. “If I’d said yes to James in third or fourth year maybe we would still be where we are. Or maybe I would have written him off as a ponce and I wouldn’t have him or my babies. Things happen when they’re right, and you can’t rush them. Or run away from them.”

“What if he doesn’t feel the same?” Remus rarely dated and never said anything about marriage. “What if I ruin everything?”

“What if he does? I don’t have the answer. I think you have to trust Remus and yourself enough to give him a chance to hear how you feel.”

“And if I fuck it all up?”

“Your friendship has survived war and betrayals and pranks gone horribly wrong, as well as seven years of sharing a dorm and about as long sharing a flat. I don’t think it’s going to fall under the weight of loving him.”

“You better be right, Lily Potter. If you’re not I’m going to be crashing on this sofa after I flee the flat in embarrassment, and I shed.”

Talking to Moony, of course, was a far too direct and logical choice. It took an hour for Sirius to decide that no, that just wouldn’t do.

“You alright, Pads?” Remus asked when he spent the second hour after he returned home pacing.

“Just thinking about Christmas,” he answered distractedly.

“It’s May, I think you have some time before you need to worry.” Remus caught his hand as he walked past. “You look like you have one of your headaches. Why don’t you sit down and I’ll give you a massage? Or I could read something to you?”

“No books.” Books are what had gotten him into the whole mess in the first part. How could he tell Moony how he felt without also confessing the whole story of Phaedra White? Why had he never considered that at some point Moony would have to know about The Brilliant Idea? “I think I might just go to bed.”

“I’ll bring you some tea, it will help you sleep better.” True to his word Remus showed up ten minutes later with a cup of tea, cream in first and half a spoon of sugar, just the way he liked. He’d valiantly tried to fall asleep in those ten minutes, but had failed completely and sat up to accept the tea.

“Thank you.”

“You know you can tell me if something is bothering you, right?”

“There’s no one in the world I trust more than you,” Sirius said honestly. The tea was too hot still but he sipped it anyway, knowing he’d either burn the tip of his tongue or the roof of his mouth but not caring.

“It’s a bit odd, isn’t it, Prongs and Lily having two kids now? They’re well and truly settled, like proper adults. Might make someone think about it a bit, wonder if they’re wanting something different.” Remus settled on the edge of the bed, looking up at the ceiling as if he could see the stars overhead.

“Do you think about something different? Finding your someone and settling down with a couple of sprogs?”

“Merlin no. That sort of life’s never been for me, even if I could find someone who wasn’t put off by my special little problem. Besides I like things the way they are. You know how much I loved marking up papers with red ink in school and I get to add commas and edit dangling participles to my heart’s content now, with the added bonus of actually making a proper amount of money. And I couldn’t possibly ever be lonely or bored with you around. If I want to play with a kid I just have to pop over to see Prongs and Lily. Seems to me being a godfather is like the best bits of being a parent without all the rest.” Remus shrugged and looked sideways at Sirius. “I always figured you’d follow James’ example at some point.”

“I would have had to start developing a crush more than a decade ago, wouldn’t I, to really emulate Prongs?” It made him stop and wonder for a moment, tea slopping over his chin as he stopped halfway to his mouth. Just when had he started falling in love with Moony? Maybe he was more like Prongs then he thought, with less of the whinging. He couldn’t remember a time when making Moony smile hadn't been a priority, or when Moony touching him hadn’t been a comfort.

“Not like that, of course. I mean the whole home hearth and family sort of thing, and making me a godfather.”

“I like my family just the way it is.” It was a little too close to the truth, and Sirius faked a yawn. “Night Moony.”

“Night Padfoot. Sleep well.” Despite being the first to say goodnight, Sirius was a little dismayed that Moony actually left his room.

The next day Sirius stopped by to pick up his post, finding a rather sizable cheque, yet another request for a book signing, and the edited return of his most recent book. Remus must have mailed it when he’d been with Lily. Flipping through the pages he found the usual red marks adding commas and rearranging the occasional unclear sentence structure, but nothing about the plot of the novel. He hadn’t made any of the suggestions that he’d mentioned at the hospital.

Sirius took the book home and read through the story again. Remus was right. The supposed romance of the story felt flat and predictable when compared to the banter between the best friends, and George was clearly nurturing a crush on his friend. He only wanted Byron to be with Melody because he thought it was what his friend wanted. It was a mess. Sirius was a mess too, but at the moment it was a lot easier to fix things for Byron and George. All he had to do was cut half the book and rework the rest to make sure two best friends realized that they were actually in love.

When he was done he sent it off to Molly with a bonus payment and a warning that he might not be needing her help anymore. She sent it back three days later with a cheerful little note letting him know that her twins kept her quite busy and while it had been fun to read his stories first she was fine with the change in things. Also it was her favorite story yet.

“I need to borrow my godson.” The day after he sent the manuscript back to Remus for editing he left the house early in the morning. He couldn’t bear to be around when Moony saw it for the first time. Better to let him read it and get it all over and done with at once, no matter what way it came out.

“You’re not back on the fleeing the country plan, are you? Because you can’t take Harry to Spain.” Lily raised one eyebrow.

“Why would Sirius flee the country?” James held his daughter but stared at Sirius in confusion. “You didn’t actually break into your cousin’s vault at Gringotts, did you?”

“I decided anything Narcissa owned would probably have cooties. Not worth the risk.” Sirius shrugged. “I won’t even take him out of the county, Lils. I promise.”

“Pads? Lily?” James pushed, not having a clue what was happening but suspecting that his wife knew a fair bit more.

“Not now, Prongs. I’ll tell you tomorrow if the world doesn’t crash around my ears today.”

Lily, fortunately, said yes and Sirius was able to mostly distract himself with a trip to the zoo and far more ice cream than an almost five year old and a twenty-five year old should eat. He returned Harry in time for tea but warned Lily that he probably wasn’t very hungry.

“I’m proud of you,” Lily said before he left, kissing his cheek.

“I’d probably be proud of you too if I knew what the bloody hell was going on,” Prongs added, kissing his other cheek. Sirius said thank you to them both, decided against the floo, and apparated home. He sat on the front stoop for half an hour before daring to open the door. The flat was completely silent.

“Moony?” Maybe he wasn’t at home. Maybe he hadn’t gotten the package or had been too busy to read it today. Maybe he had read it and had run for the hills. Maybe he hated it and hated Sirius and was in his room packing for a trip to Zanzibar. For a minute he worried that Moony really was gone because the flat, even Moony’s room, were empty. The last place to check was what they grandly called the balcony, which was really just a fire escape with a upside down rusty cauldron as a seat and a single pot with a dittany plant they barely kept alive. Moony sat with his back to the wall, looking out at the view. They were lucky enough to be on the side of the building that looked out over a park rather than another building.

“Hey.” He settled on the sill of the open window, which was the only other place to sit but also meant that Remus couldn’t go anywhere without stepping over him, which could come in handy. “How was your day?”

“I read a book.” Moony didn’t look at him. Sirius couldn’t tell what he was thinking at all, other than that he looked like he should be smoking. They’d both given it up when Harry was born, though, and that went double now that Oliva had come along.

“Yeah?” He took a deep breath and waited.

“Yeah. I thought it was weird, at first. It’s the same Phaedra White book I just edited, and I thought it was a mistake until I got through the first couple of chapters and it’s been completely rewritten. I didn’t say anything about the story to anyone, other than you, but it was like they looked inside my head and saw how I wished the story had been written. George was so certain that Byron was going to propose to his girl but instead there’s this scene, this magical scene where Byron says that he couldn’t fall for Melody because he was already in love. That it had been George all along. Sometimes your best mate is also the love of your life.” Remus was still staring down at the park and Sirius wanted to shake him, or beg him to turn his head, or just kiss him and take his chances that Moony wouldn’t throw him over the side of the balcony.

“Do you think that’s true?” he asked. “Even when the best mate is a complete disaster who might be keeping a secret or two, but only because they want their best friend to be happy and not have to worry about anything?”

“Do I think that Byron and George are in love?” When he finally turned, Moony had a perfectly inscrutable expression on his face, the one he used in school that let him tell McGonagall that he didn’t know anything about a prank that had in fact been his brainchild. When he used it on anyone else it made Sirius smile. Facing it himself was agonizing.

“Do you believe that sometimes your best mate can also be the love of your life?” He’d channeled everything he felt and thought into Byron. Remus set a great store in books and the written word, and Sirius hoped that maybe works written in black and white would make his argument for him.

“I think the hardest thing to believe is that I could possibly be that extraordinarily lucky.” With the blink of his eye Sirius could see all the vulnerability Moony had been hiding. The hope and the fear, the trust and the love. The love he saw there knocked the breath out of him.

“Merlin, I think you just scared five years off my life, you were that hard to read.” He pulled himself through the window and squatted in front of Remus. “Do you really think you could love me?”

“You deserve to be scared, you bloody git. You had me secretly editing books you wrote and somehow you became an author for the lark of it.” Remus rubbed his forehead, like he did when something was puzzling him or the writing of something was particularly confusing. “I’ve been in love with you for ages, Pads, and I find there’s generally very little thinking involved. It’s a simple fact.”

“I don’t think there’s anything simple about it.” Sirius Black was the author of seventeen and a half books, and it seemed to him there was only one possible option for what came next. He kissed Moony, of course. Kissed him like Byron had kissed George, like Psych had once kissed Cupid and Darcy had kissed Elizabeth. The kiss had been brewing up inside him for some time and he did not stop until the air was gone from his lungs. And then he said the words that he planned on repeating every day for the rest of his life. “I love you Moony.”

“I love you too, Phaedra White.”

Sirius groaned, and laughed, and kissed his Moony all over again. It was Absolutely Brilliant.

#wolfstar #wolfstar fic #sirius black #sirius x lupin #remus x sirius #harry potter fic #my fic #remus lupin #lily potter #remus lupin x sirius black #maurader fic #everyone lives #or at least the important people

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jlinthi1 · 3 years

Text

Final Reflection

This course helped me to get a unique understanding of the world around me in a way that no other class I have taken before has. Despite being one of the top members in my high school’s Model UN team and the fact that I have taken a number of classes on history and international relations, I feel that my experience in this course has provided me with a much greater understanding of some of the issues in society than I had before. I had been in all-guys schools for pretty much all my academic life before I came to High Point and therefore I had very little experience or knowledge of many of the issues that feminism attempts to confront. While my classes in the past had spent time discussing some of the issues in society, the issues they discussed were mainly about racism or religious morality and the only time sexism was ever really addressed was when discussing violent religious practices towards women.

The concept that stood out the most to me out of everything that we have covered in this course would have to be intersectionality. I found the study of how many of the issues in society build off each other to be an extremely interesting concept and one of the most memorable aspects of the course. Another reason that the concept of intersectionality stood out the most to me is because of Crenshaw’s article “Mapping the Margins” which we read early in the course. I found Crenshaw’s description of how many immigrant women find themselves in situations where they choose to “continue to suffer abuse under threats of deportation by their husbands” to be both the most sickening and the most powerful moment of the course as a whole (Crenshaw, 202). The idea that immigrant women find themselves trapped in an abusive situation due to their fear of being deported, was extremely disturbing to me. This situation reminded me of The Shining as these women found themselves feeling trapped in their lives with their abusive spouse, despite the fact that they had come to America for freedom. The idea that situations like this really occur made the concept of intersectionality extremely interesting in comparison to the other core concepts of this course and it is definitely a huge part of what I will take away from this course.

Because of how impactful this concept was to my experience in this course, I have focused my commonplace book on intersectionality, particularly the many issues in society that overlap and build off of each other to form barriers in many women’s lives as well as how to overcome these intersecting issues in society. One set of issues that I especially wanted to include in my commonplace book was the interconnectedness between immigrant women and domestic abuse that Crenshaw examined in “Mapping the Margins.” The Washington Post article I included in my commonplace book examines these situations and expands on them by interviewing women who have lived through these situations. One thing in particular that I appreciated about the article was that it also touches on the long-lasting effects that horrific domestic abuse has had on the women interviewed. Given that my commonplace book focuses on the many overlapping issues that affect the lives of many women, I found that the lasting effects of the extreme trauma and fear that these women endured was a great addition as it can become yet another obstacle in the lives of these marginalized women.

Another aspect of intersectionality that I wanted to include in my commonplace book was that its presence in cultures across the world contribute to sexual oppression in every nation. One example I used for this was a documentary I had watched last year in my International Relations course, which followed many of the negative effects that globalization was having on the nation of India as well as other third-world nations. While the documentary does not focus on issues facing exclusively women as much as it does issues facing the livelihoods of the people in these societies as a whole, it is still an excellent example and explanation of how many issues in a society such as tradition or industrialization can factor into much greater threats like poverty by intersecting with each other.

I also used my commonplace book to discuss how, in addition to learning about the intersecting of issues in societies throughout the world, I have learned to confront these issues and work towards ridding them from society. I discussed this through explaining the related concept of the difference between equality, where everyone is treated equally, and equity, where everyone is treated fairly. I felt that discussing the difference between equality and equity was a necessary inclusion to my commonplace book as it is a critical component of ridding the world of gender inequality. Why this concept is important to working towards a better and more fair future is that it explains why treating each individual in a society equally does not work as not everyone can benefit from the same opportunities. If a society truly wants to pursue fairness for each individual it should decide to pursue policies centered around equity. The idea of equity was very important to what I took away from this class because of how much I could relate to it.

Speaking as someone with severely delayed processing who needs extra time to be able to put out work that is reflective of my intelligence, the concept of equity is something that I truly believe is extremely important. Before this course, I had never thought of my extended time accommodations as a form of equity before this course and this realization has helped me to get a much better appreciation of the concept of equity. While I believe in working hard to achieve success, I also understand that simply working hard is not enough and that equity is necessary for each individual to be as successful as they possibly can be.

One essential aspect of pursuing equity that I particularly wanted to include was that the first step of pursuing fairness for each individual through equity is to acknowledge the issue in the first place. I think that this is an extremely important aspect of using equity to pursue a goal like ridding the world of gender inequality as sometimes seeing the issues in one’s own culture can be difficult. The concept of ethnocentrism, the idea that one’s own culture is always objectively right, was another idea from this course that really stuck out to me and it often prevents people from acknowledging or sometimes even seeing the issues in their own culture. Given that this course focused on study of the pursuit of gender equality from a global perspective, I felt that trying to avoid ethnocentrism was also a big part of what I learned from this course.

I also I felt that the story of Bibi Haldar was a great example of how the intersection of cultural issues such as sexism and ableism can work together to form extreme obstacles for some women. I included an article that examined how these issues overlapped in the story “The Treatment of Bibi Haldar.” The story itself is a great example of the unique challenges one woman was faced with simply because she was disabled and a woman. Another example of how intersectionality can create obstacles in one woman’s life that I wanted to include in my commonplace book was an article interviewing several Muslim men and women about their experiences with islamophobia in post-9/11 America. Their accounts do a fantastic job of placing the reader in their shoes as they recount how they have been treated as Muslims. The article really helps to illustrate the idea that we have covered in this course’s examination of intersectionality that there is no single experience among every woman as each individual is faced with their own unique intersecting issues in life. Another article I included in commonplace book was one I found just a few weeks ago for the class blog about the likability of fictional characters. I included the article in my commonplace book because it had an interesting section about how feminism interacts with the likability of female characters in fiction. In this section, it discussed how women are judged far more severely than men in real life as well as in fiction. This was yet another systemic issue in society that I felt was worth including in my commonplace book as it intersects with many other oppressive problems in society to make life even more difficult for women.

I believe that this course has helped to get a much greater understanding of the cultural issues around me that I had not thought about before. As someone who wants to run a successful business one day, I feel that understanding many of the cultural issues that affect the people I will work with will be critical to helping each person find success despite the intersecting obstacles they have and will continue to face. While intersectionality stood out the most to me, I honestly found pretty much every concept we studied in this course to be extremely interesting as I have never had a course that studied society in the way that this one did.

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megabadbunny · 4 years

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Hi there - first of all, in case I haven't pestered you before, I love your art and your fic is amazing! Happy bunny day to you and your furry friends! 🐇🐰🐇 Your hair looks super cute! My hair is getting really long, and it's making me crazy. :( Do you live with a hairdresser? Or are you actually cutting it yourself somehow? Is there a video? Duolingo for hair? A correspondence course? Plz help!

Awww thank you thank you thank you!!!! You’re such a sweetheart. And happy Bunny Day to you, too!

As for my hair, yeah, I took a deep breath and buzzed/clipped it all off myself. I figured, hey, if it turned out crummy, no one would have to know but my husband and our rabbits! XD

So here’s the dilly: I am more than happy to share the steps I took, but I’m not a hairdresser by any means, so please proceed at your own discretion (and if anyone else sees this who has official hairdressing experience, please feel free to chime in with corrections/additional tips!)

First, I looked up pics for inspiration—“pixie with undercut” and “disconnected pixie” yielded the best results for me. Then I checked out a couple of tutorials, having the best luck with ones like the guy at https://getarazor.com/how-to-cut-your-own-hair-with-clippers/ that are aimed toward men. (Warning for cheesy illustrations, but they get the point across!)

To start, I would recommend throwing on an old crewneck tee shirt, one that’s loose enough to move around in easily, but with a close enough neckline that you won’t get all those prickly lil fresh-cut hairs sticking to your skin. (I did not follow this step myself, and thus ended up with a bunch of prickly lil fresh-cut hairs stuck to my skin 😝.) I did, however, remember to move the bathroom rug out of the way, so yay for that! After thoroughly dampening my hair, I secured the entirety of the longer portion atop my head and out of the way. Then, with my husbeast’s clippers in one hand and a handheld mirror in the other, I got started clippin’!

Source. This gentleman’s eyesight is way better than mine lolol, I had to look into the little mirror the whole time so I could get it close enough to my nearsighted lil eyeballs XD

Starting out with a #3 guard attached (that’s 3/8 of an inch), I shaved upward all around my head, beginning at the bottom hairline and shaving upwards to the line where the longer hair starts. I took breaks every once in a while to brush off the little hairs that collected along the clipper. Once I was satisfied that the buzz-job was even along the sides and back (good to put your glasses back on, for that part!), I switched to a #2 guard on the clipper (1/4”) and repeated the process, except this time I stopped around the tops of my ears, to give a subtled faded look. Then I removed the guard and used the naked clippers to shave off all the lil peach fuzzy hairs on my jawline/neck (bc why the heck not) and to trim and shape the hair at the nape of my neck as well as around my ears.

Source. I shaped my neck-nape-hairline into a “v” shape.

After checking to make sure my buzzed bits looked good all over, I let down the longer portion of my hair on top, planning to take off about 2 inches. Working in sections, moving side-to-side, front to back, I pulled the longer hair up/out with a comb until the comb looked to be about 2” from the ends of my hair, and then I cut along the comb with the naked clippers.

Source. Like this, but further out! Coincidentally, this is how I accidentally cut a racing stripe into the side of my head. So, y’know, consider this your hearty warning to be extra-careful at this juncture. And if you do end up buzzing any oopsy lines on your back or sides, consider leaning the fuck into it and building on so it all looks intentional. :D

The more I clipped, the more I got kind of a feel for how the hair needed to be shaped and cut in order to make my desired style work–pay attention to the direction your hair grows in and the way it wants to fall, that’ll make a big difference. For me it worked out well to keep it a little longer in front and cut it a little shorter and shorter as I went back–I’d say it’s about 1.5″ long in the back, 5″ or so long in the very front. After it looked/felt done, I ran the comb through all the longer hair, and then went back through and combed it all back up and out to make sure I hadn’t missed any random chunks (I definitely had) and to ensure that there weren’t any bits that stuck out too long for their placement on my head (there were). Once I’d trimmed those bits accordingly, it was time for cleanup! Our dustbuster took care of all the hair chunks on the floor, I brushed out all the stray hairs from the bathroom sink, and of course you can’t forget to clean off your clipper, too! This was right about when I realized I had Made A Mistake and it would have been a good idea to wear a cape or tee-shirt; as it was, I used a mega lint-roller to sticky all the loose hairs off my skin :D

And yeah, that’s about it! I’ve had good luck with letting it air-dry and working a lil pomade through, I’ve had good luck with blowing it dry, and it holds up for several days between washings (and dry shampoo gives it some NICE volume!). It’s working out great so far for my naturally curly-wavy hair texture, which contributes nicely to the casual-tousled look and is also very forgiving for the many mistakes I’m sure I made XD

And just for shits and giggles, here’s a before-during-and-after for ya:

Nothing wrong with the original look, just sometimes you look in the mirror and say to yourself, “Self, how can we look Even More Gay”

Accidental racing stripe feels lonely? Consider giving it a friend! :D

Anyhoo! I think that’s pretty much it. Feel free to hit me up if you have any questions comments concerns corrections additions subtractions multiplications or any other kind of math* in relation to this post! If you do end up taking the plunge and cuttin’ all your own hairs, best of luck and SEND ME PIX! :D

Have a lovely week and stay safe, sane, and healthy! ( ˘ ³˘)♥

* Please do not actually send me any math, math is not my friend. It taunts me

#onthedriftinthetardis #thanks for the ask!#<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 #nice people being nice #quarantine haircut #mbb talks back #long post

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kenzieam · 4 years

Text

Beauty and the Blackheart - Chapter Two

@jewels2876 @moonbeambucky @jeremyrennerfanxxxx123 @iammarylastar@captstefanbrandt @badassbaker @pinknerdpanda

I know I’m forgetting people, sorry. If you want in, hit me.

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Rating: M

Warnings: Language, general nuttiness, smut

************************************************************************

Okay, so......

Lev, the serious one, is visiting her wild-child twin brother, Clint. There she meets Bucky, a tall, dark, brooding mystery who’s her total opposite in every way. Of course, she’s intrigued even as her mind screams to run for safety, but what could go wrong, right??

***********************************************************************

Lev glanced up from the elevated counter in front of her and grinned as a familiar face pushed open the door and entered.

“Hey Spider,” she called, genuinely happy to see the man.

“Hey, little lady. How are you?” The biker called back, chains rattling as he moved.

“Getting by.”

“I see that, looking fine this morning, honey.”

Lev smirked mildly at him. A shameless flirt, Spider was harmless, totally devoted to his ol’ lady, Sparkle, but guaranteed to throw out little tidbits like this on the regular just to make the recipient red.

“Your head’s looking mighty shiny this morning, handsome.” Lev lobbed back, enjoying the now familiar game between her and the shop’s frequent flyer. He belonged to a genuine motorcycle club, yet still found time to pop into Blackheart every few days for something. Lev figured he liked the conversation, he and Clint got on like a house afire.

He tipped a salute then glanced over the front of the shop. “Buck around?”

“Haven’t seen him yet.” Lev had sort of fallen into the role of temporary front-end manager and had spent the last two weeks managing appointments, payments and supply ordering for Blackheart Ink.

Only a few days after Lev's arrival, Nat’s father, according to Nat a batshit old man who had no goddamn common sense, had fallen off a ladder while attempting to install a birdhouse on a towering pole in his backyard for her mother and broken a decent amount of bones. Also, according to Nat, her daddy, while having no sense of self-preservation, fortunately healed rather quickly from his varied injuries and boo-boos over the years. Regardless, Nat had been torn, with Lev offering to fill in at the shop so Nat could go home and help until her father was back on his feet.

After a few trying days, Lev found she liked helping, greeting and laughing with regulars, fielding phone calls, bantering with the boys.

Steve was hilarious, and an unapologetic big brother, displaying a heart-warming amount of concern and affection for Lev right from the start, like she was just another little sister, even defending her from her own twin sometimes, letting her hide behind him as Clint spazzed randomly, suddenly convinced that Lev needed a Sonic the Hedgehog tattooed on her wrist, or that she would look great with that new sparkly pink tongue post they’d just brought in and he’d chased her around the shop waving a clamp.

It was fun to add the big guy in on their games and life at the shop was never boring, Lev even found herself relaxing her stringent boundaries, the rules she usually lived by. She still was a long way off from her fun and free-spirited brother however, and never did that seem more obvious than the rare times Bucky interacted with her.

He remained a lurking shadow most of the time, loosening up around his friends and regular customers, but he seemed to have taken Lev stepping in to help as a personal attack, alternating between glowering at her and outright ignoring her.

In truth, Lev preferred being ignored, for when he did turn those intense eyes on her, Lev felt out of control, little sparks racing under her skin, a set of butterflies suddenly alive in her belly.

And wasn’t that just a big old hot mess.

They were polar opposites. Bucky seemed to live on coffee, while Lev limited herself severely. He smoked like a chimney, both tobacco and pot, while Lev had seen too many blackened lungs in Anatomy class to ever partake. The only green thing she’d seen near his mouth was the lettuce of the fast-food burgers he wolfed down, and he’d never even heard of edamame, staring at Lev’s lunch bento one day like it was toxic waste. In addition, he had a filthy mouth, peppering all conversations with liberal f-bombs, squinting in confusion at Lev when she grumbled something along the lines of ‘for Pete’s sake’ after spilling her water, not able to comprehend an exclamation that didn’t rhyme with ‘duck’.

He’d never outright said it to her, but the thought radiated from him like body heat, ‘what a fucking princess’.

And the girls! It seemed every night there was some new one strutting into the shop near closing, cooing his name, ready to head over to the bar down the street, then no doubt back to his house for wild sex.

They were all tall, hot and polished, wearing dresses wrapped tighter than ace bandages around their pert little asses and surgically enhanced breasts, eyeing Lev derisively as they passed her desk. Dismissing her with a sniff, already looking past her for the object of their attention.

Lev tried not to look, but Jesus, it seemed whenever Bucky would emerge from the back, having heard his newest siren’s call, that the woman would launch herself at him, start devouring his face and he just went with it. Catching them and slamming them against a wall, grabbing their faces to angle their mouths for a deeper kiss, making them moan and whimper his name.

Lev wondered idly if this was done for her benefit, if Bucky hated her so much that he was trying to make her uncomfortable enough to leave except for, beyond a derisive snort or slap on his shoulder, Steve and Clint seemed to be used to and tolerate his manwhore ways, or had at least learned to ignore them.

“You alright?” Steve had asked a few days ago, as Tiffany or Amber or who-the-fuck-ever swallowed Bucky’s tongue in full view of the desk, for the door to the supply room had swung back open after Bucky had slammed it shut while lurching inside with his newest spider monkey. His eyes trekked warily from the display back to Lev, forehead furrowed in concern as he studied her face. “I can tell him to fuck off, you know. He doesn’t need to be-”

“It’s fine.” Lev replied breezily, although she felt anything but. This wasn’t her permanent job, and Bucky was nothing and nobody to her. “It’s his shop.”

Steve studied her quietly, seemed about to say more. Sure, it was his shop and he’d been pulling this shit for years and Steve and Clint had learned to ignore it, but that didn’t make it right, especially with someone so… pure as Lev nearby.

“He’s-” Steve broke off, rubbing his chin. “Buck’s complicated-”

“He’s a whore.” Lev startled slightly, surprised at the venom behind her words. Again, WHY THE FUCK did it matter to her?

Steve shrugged, a hint of sadness curving his lips downward. He didn’t elaborate and Lev sensed there was a story there but it hardly mattered. Nat would be back soon, and Lev would go home and start practicing medicine for real and eventually she’d meet her own Prince Charming and Bucky could stay here, his cock rotting off from whatever STD he’d finally caught.

“Hey Spider.” A deep voice suddenly called, startling Lev out of her thoughts. Bucky lumbered into her peripheral, a genuine smile on his face as he greeted the other man. “Head on back, I’m all set up.” He gestured for Spider to pass then turned to face Lev. Any geniality in his voice died, all light left his eyes.

“You’re fucking up my appointments.”

Lev stared wordlessly, trying to think back on what she could have possibly messed up. Exasperated, Bucky strode to the elevated counter and reached over, his height making it easy and all but ripped the appointment book out from under her hands. He stabbed a thick finger at tomorrow’s first appointment.

“A memorial tat first thing in the goddamn morning?” He hissed.

Lev was thoroughly confused. ‘First thing’ at Blackheart was 11 am, how the hell was that the ass-crack of dawn?

“And a goddamn ‘memorial’ tattoo? What, some crying housewife wailing about her daddy dying? Wanting a set of angel wings and ‘always in my heart’ floating above it?”

Now Lev saw red. As a trauma resident, she dealt with death on the regular, grief was not something she took lightly.

“Fuck you.” She hissed, too angry to realize what she’d just said, for one of the first times in her buttoned-up life. “A memorial tattoo isn’t hardcore enough for you? You’re too fucking hungover from the night before to make it in that early, when the rest of the civilized world has been up and contributing to society for hours already? Or are you just too sore from fucking whatever whore you dragged home? These are important to people, Bucky. It’s family that they don’t have anymore and they’re trusting you to immortalize what they’ve lost! In my opinion there’s no greater honor to imbed something like that permanently into someone’s skin! You don’t want any bullshit angel wings any more then fucking tell me like a decent fucking person, you fucking dickhead!” She slammed her hand down on the book to illustrate, the sound sharp like a slap in the silent room.

Lev broke off, breathing hard, her pulse racing. She’d never, never lost control like that before and she’d just sworn more in the last two minutes than she had her whole adult life.

Bucky eyed her appraisingly, he didn’t look mad per se, but she’d definitely surprised him, and he looked torn between snarling back and just ignoring her again.

His lip twitched and Lev expected him to open his mouth and start bellowing but he grinned. It was fast, gone in a flash as though it had escaped in a moment of weakness but, for a heartbeat, he’d done something other than glower at her.

“Duly noted, princess.” He drawled, then the curtain seemed to fall over his eyes and Lev became the invisible girl again, staring after him in shock as he turned and strode away, slamming the door of his room behind him.

****************************************************************************

The next morning Lev shifted her weight nervously, fingers curling as she studied the appointment book. The memorial client Bucky had chewed her out for yesterday was due any minute and Lev didn’t know what to do. Bucky hadn’t expressly told her he wouldn’t do the tat, so she couldn’t move the woman to another artist, but she was awfully tempted to head off the lady the moment she walked in with some excuse about Bucky needing to cancel last minute and saving her from dealing with him and his shitty attitude.

While she regretted her loss of temper and foul language, Lev didn’t regret tearing a strip off the man yesterday. Bucky had needed a wake-up call but the way he’d reacted still made her shiver and she wasn’t sure if it was a good or bad thing. The door chimed as it opened and Lev inhaled sharply, trying to decide what to do. The woman was older middle-aged, soft and wholesome looking, greying hair in a low bun, the very last person you’d expect to get inked.

Great, not only was this woman here for a memorial tattoo, but it was most likely her first one. What an introduction, being shepherded into the world of body art by King Asshole himself.

This wasn’t her business, this wasn’t even her real job, she had no right or power to do anything about it but she couldn’t let this woman walk into her appointment thinking Bucky was going to give her his best when he’d already shown he wouldn’t.

“Hello, I know you’re here for-”

“Good Morning.” A honeyed voice overrode hers and Lev startled, snapping her head sideways. Bucky appeared in her peripheral vision, smiling charmingly.

“You must be my eleven o’clock.”

The woman actually giggled, already enchanted and Lev gaped, stunned by the turn of events. Where the hell was the growling, miserable bastard she’d dealt with yesterday? Who’d ignored her all day after their angry encounter?

Had he trimmed his beard?

Lev didn’t even realize he owned a pair of jeans that didn’t have holes in them, yet this pair looked…. Good. Shit, she hadn’t really paid attention before, put off by his general aura, but Bucky had an amazing pair of thighs, muscular and straining his jeans in the best way. And don’t even get her started on the way his plain black t-shirt stretched over his chest, back and shoulders.

Jesus.

Lev winced, shocked by her internal monologue as Bucky gestured the woman past him, flicking an indecipherable glance at Lev before following her to his room, the door closing quietly behind him. Within moments, one of Bucky’s more mild playlists began to play lowly, filling the air with the mellow first notes of ‘Crying Shame’ by The Teskey Brothers.

The phone rang then, jarring Lev from any more speculation and she nearly dropped the receiver before answering, cheeks flushing with embarrassment.

“Blackheart Ink and Body Mod, this is Lev, how can I help you?”

***************************************************************************

The surrealness continued, with none of Bucky’s usual hard rock/metal music, instead James Blunt’s ‘Bonfire Heart’ following ‘Crying Shame’ and Lev wondered what the hell was going on. Clint, who unlike his friend, had no trouble working early, had been in his room since 9:30, working on a special client currently on leave who wanted an intricate sleeve done before he was deployed again, merely grabbing a second can of Monster from the back fridge this morning to tide him over and Lev didn’t expect to see him for another few hours still. Steve wasn’t due in until 2 or 3 o’clock, having taken the morning off and there were no walk-ins yet to worry about.

She busied herself for a bit cleaning the display case for body jewelry and a tiny little voice in the back of her mind began to muse about what it would be like to maybe, just maybe, pop her cherry and get a piercing. Lev literally had none to speak of, not even her ears were pierced, and she had found herself wondering more and more in the last week what it would be like to sit for the needle, feel Bucky’s breath on her face as he leaned close to mark the place on her skin, the quiet concentration setting his jaw just so; for while Bucky was a bastard, he took body piercing seriously and never seemed to show attitude, even for basic ones, the giggling girls queuing up for naval studs, or nose rings.

Bucky’s new playlist continued, and Lev was pleasantly surprised by the contents. Was this a hidden side she hadn’t seen yet, or was he in some way taking the piss?

Her thoughts were so jumbled around this man and she hated feeling confused. But either way, regardless of what she thought and felt, it didn’t matter. She was leaving soon, going back to her real life and, even if she wasn’t, they were too different.

He was fire, she was ice.

What business did a doctor have with a tattoo artist, and she didn’t mean any kind of bullshit class structure. They were literally opposite ends of the spectrum, a deductive job of reasoning and knowledge versus one of artistic talent and freedom.

And, even if their careers were somehow compatible, their personalities definitely were not. Lev felt vaguely inferior around Bucky, as if by foregoing fun for structure made her less than him somehow. He looked down on her, dismissed her as a princess, and while she wasn’t free from guilt, believing him to be mannerless prick, she couldn’t shake the disappointment of somehow having failed with Bucky.

The door to Bucky’s room opened suddenly, and Lev startled, looking up to see that an hour had already passed, before realizing that the woman was in tears.

Oh shit.

Lev felt a bolt of panic, eyes wide, as her mind raced. What had he said to her?

The woman headed her way, with Bucky trailing slowly behind and Lev braced herself, words of apology jumbling in her mind. But, as she approached, Lev saw that the woman was smiling through her tears, it was a joyful crying, not a sorrowful one.

“Look,” the woman called. Reaching for Lev she turned to expose the back of her shoulder, pointing excitedly. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

Lev looked down, down to the woman’s pale, soft skin. Although covered by a clear bandage, Lev could see that, indeed, the tattoo was beautiful. A trio of African Violets, so realistic and lifelike, with the simple word, ‘Forever’ underneath. While not a huge tattoo, it looked like a goddamn picture, three-dimensional and perfect; easily the most beautiful ink Lev had ever seen.

“My husband loved violets; I grew them for him. Our house and garden were full.” The woman sniffled, pulling a tissue from her pocket. Bucky had stepped to within a few feet of the women and, if Lev had looked up, she would have noticed that he was locked on her, watching her every reaction to this woman and her story. “After he died…. I couldn’t grow them anymore. Not that I didn’t want to, but I literally couldn’t. They wouldn’t grow for me anymore, its like he took them with him when he left.” She sniffled, hard, and Lev felt like crying herself. “These are my violets now; I get to keep them with me forever.”

Lev swallowed her tears, knowing that if she started, she’d never be able to finish for, even though she was serious and disciplined, in her heart of hearts, she secretly wanted a love like what this woman had had too, a connection that transcended death. A tear escaped anyway, trailing down her cheek and she wiped at it before it started a tsunami.

“That’s wonderful.”

The woman smiled, looking suddenly lighter, a glow about her. “I have to go; I must show my daughter!” She whirled and, before anyone could react, grabbed Bucky in a tight hug. If he was surprised, he hid it well, hugging her back and whispering something to her, then pulling away almost brusquely. He held up two fingers to Lev, indicating his fee then whirled, disappearing back into his room.

“What a lovely man.” The woman gushed, following a stunned Lev as she returned to the counter. “So gentle and polite! He listened to me ramble and gave me exactly what I wanted. My daughter will be in next, just you watch, wanting the same thing!” She added on a huge tip, and all but floated out of the shop, leaving a gobsmacked Lev in her wake.

Lev stared at the money for a beat, then carefully divided it, adding to the till the shop’s cut before stacking the rest in the little pirate’s treasure chest marked ‘Barnes’ hidden under the edge of the counter. Taking a pencil, she crossed out the appointment in the book then just stood there for a moment, unsure what to do next.

But before she could figure out her next move, Lev felt heat at her back, a body move close. She froze, realizing Bucky stood directly behind her, his chest inches from her back and her heart started galloping. His spicy masculine musk surrounded her as he lowered his head over her shoulder, some of the hair that escaped his man bun brushing her cheek.

She held her breath, feeling a crazed mix of fear and exhilaration. Was he going to yell at her, kiss her?

He paused, as if savouring the moment, or maybe the scent of Lev’s fear and breathed out. His exhale was slightly unsteady, as if it pained him then he spoke, his voice so low that she wouldn’t have been able to hear him if he weren’t mere inches away.

“You were right.”

#au bucky #bucky #bucky barnes #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barnes fanfiction #au bucky barnes #au bucky barnes fanfic #au bucky barnes fanfiction #au bucky angst #au bucky drama #bucky x lev #bucky and lev

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marculees · 4 years

Text

🌼 Tag 🌼

Tagged by @pikachulein to answer ten of her custom questions, thank you 💖 💖

1. What compliment you've received meant the most to you?

I don’t really believe people when they compliment me rip. Only a few months ago, one of my professors told me I wrote at Masters level during a private meeting and it made me smile for three hours straight. I’ve been considering a career in third-level teaching and research and I hadn’t told him this but he started telling me I would be perfect for it and it was really motivating ;-;

2. Would you rather meet your favourite celebrity/group/bias and realize they're not at all how you imagined them to be like (maybe they're not as kind as you thought, for example) or never meeting them in person but it turning out that they're actually the amazing, kind, sweet, generous, etc. person that you thought they were? (I hope that makes sense hhhh I think the ethics of this question are really interesting)

I’d rather not meet them and have them be lovely. I haven’t met them yet anyway and so I wouldn’t lose anything by not meeting them.

3. What's your current favourite song you always use to get hyped up to or a song currently stuck in your head?

Boss Bitch - Doja Cat

4. If you had to write the book of your life, what genre would it be and what would you choose as a title?

I’d write it in the format of diary entries, very much a ‘slice of life’ type, with illustrations and doodles on the pages for metaphor and viewing pleasure. I think the title would be something simple too but with some depth to it, like a significant date in my life; almost like the ‘climax’ of the book, I could work the reader up to that entry and they would know something is coming up but not what 👀

5. Name your top 5 musical artists and your favourite song of each of them?

mxmtoon - Feelings are Fatal

Hozier - Movement

Kim Petras - Personal Hell

Conan Gray - Comfort Crowd

Kodaline - Ready

6. If you were invited to a big humanitarian event and had to give a speech on a topic you'd want to bring about a huge change for the better, what topic would you choose to speak about and voice your opinions/ideas? (Assume public speaking is one of your strongest assets and you'll ace this no matter what)

Okay so this is literally one of my aspirations in life, no joke, I’d love to be able to speak to a crowd and try to inspire and motivate them to achieve great things! I just really want to see people succeed and realise their potential regardless of who they are :( There are so many topics I would like to address but I think I would go for mental health in development. I study international development so I’m very familiar with humanitarian issues but often times, mental health is ignored when looking at healthcare regardless of where you are in the world.

7. What is something (a skill, personality trait, or something appearance related, it can be whatever) you wish you had and/or you really admire in other people?

I really admire team-players in leadership. People who are genuinely concerned for those around them and want them all to succeed together. They don’t leave anyone behind and remind everyone of their strengths and what they contribute to the team and actively push them to succeed. I try to do the same but sometimes I can sometimes be a bit of a pushover and not strict enough, instead just taking on more work myself rather than trusting a team member to do it... group projects, anyone??? :’)

8. What's your favourite anime/show/youtuber (you can answer whichever you got an answer for, it can be all three options of course :D)?

I don’t watch anime anymore but I enjoyed Ouran High a lot!

I’m waiting for the new season of Line of Duty to come out soon, but my guilty pleasure TV show is Bondi Rescue dsjvkdhlvjhfb I’ve also been watching that new show Five Guys A Week with my mum recently and its such good craic omfg

I tend to flock towards gaming and commentary channels most but Dashie is my fave istg there isn’t a video of his that I don’t wheeze along to 😂

9. In kpop, are you more into vocalists, dancers, rappers, maknaes, leaders, or visuals (or maybe a mix of some/all :'))?

I’ve noticed I like the rappers most!

10. What's your most beautiful/favourite memory?

This is hard...I literally had to answer this question last because I wanted to have a proper think about it. Its been hurting my head for days trying to think tbh and is it bad that I actually can’t pick a particular moment?.I’m genuinely stuck but a recent-ish one I can think of was this time last year when I had to give a presentation in front of my class of 250 people. I was presenting with two groupmates and I remember how hard we practiced and rehearsed for the days coming up to it. We wore coordinating outfits and had our lines memorised and I remember walking up on the stage and immediately feeling ‘powerful’. I don’t usually feel powerful at all but once I started speaking and performing our skit with my groupmates (who were lovely btw it made me really happy seeing the more nervous one do so well!), I seen how the faces of my classmates lit up and it gave me that warmth I had missed for so long. Random people I had never even spoke to before came up and complimented me later and it made me really proud because its what I love to do and it was so lovely knowing they enjoyed it too ;-; The lecturer we had for that class was known for being really intense but she took a shine to me and pulled me aside one of the days to compliment me and then referred to me as “her powerful speaker” in front of the class when we were receiving assignments back weeks later. It was the highlight of my whole semester and second year tbh. I’m really hard on myself but for once, I felt genuinely and I mean TRULY proud of myself and it had been a long ass time since I had felt that way 😭

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Okay, now I tag @wheezing-pterodactyl @jbemin @jenoscity @starryseung @seventiddies @thegirlthatsdancingintherain @leechan-babyboy @angelwonho for the following questions:

1. What comment appeared on your report card most often as a schoolchild?

2. What’s your guilty pleasure?

3. You find a magic lamp and now a genie is here to grant you three wishes! What are you gonna wish for? (you can’t ask for more wishes though lol)

4. Imagine you have the power to control time. Would you rather pause, rewind or fast-forward?

5. When you shop for clothes, what’s the first thing that catches your eye? (could be the colour, pattern, style, price, fabric, etc.)

6. What’s the strangest dream you have had recently?

7. What is your MBTI type?

8. Do you have any unusual talents or party tricks? If so, what are they?

9. If your life were to be recreated through a form of art, which medium would you choose? (examples: painting, film, book, music, video game, etc.)

10. If you could be any mythical creature or figure, what would you like to be?

#i had lots of fun with this!#tagged

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ckret2 · 4 years

Note

How long does it take for you to write a story (not oneshots but like multi-chaptered shit or just a very lengthy one chapter) and how much do you research and map it out? Is researching fun, tedious or exhausting for you?

It depends on how long the story is! “Man Of Dreams” on FFnet, about 108k, I wrote in uhhh, I’ve been saying “about a month” for years but I don’t remember exactly how long I spent where writing it was my primary project, but I DID write it over one summer break and spent about another month proofing it. “The Cop & the Cryptid,” about 130k, I wrote in about a month and a half and proofed over a few weeks. (That’s not counting the time those fics were with betas.) Cold Day In Hell, at 24k, took me... god, idk when I started it. Maybe a couple weeks, week and a half? I’m pretty sure I didn’t have time to start it until NaNoWriMo ended on Nov 30, and I posted it Dec 13, so.

If you want to see exactly how much I map out a long fic, you can directly compare “The Cop & the Cryptid” to its outline. In a lot of places you can go paragraph-by-paragraph in the fic and find a corresponding line/sentence in the outline. TC&TC is 130k, and its outline alone is 40k.

I was able to write the outline super fast because it’s incredibly goofy. When I write an outline, I just ramble it out at a couple friends in a chat room, and i can write like 10k a day if all I’m doing is rambling. And then, once I have that outline, I can also write the fic super fast, because I’ve already written the fic, I just need to make it sound like a fic instead of like i’m gossiping about someone’s weird workplace drama that i overhead. So even though in total I’ve written 170k between the outline and the fic, it goes a lot faster than if I’d just tried to sit down and write the 130k fic all by itself, because the first time i’m only worrying about plot but don’t have to worry about word choice and the second time i’m only worrying about word choice but don’t have to worry about plot. When I was writing TC&TC, I literally had the screen split between the outline and the actual fic, and just glanced back and forth going line by line on the outline and expanding it into proper narration & dialogue and tweaking as needed as I went.

And jeez, how much do I research. That is a difficult question because like. I’m constantly researching. If I get a tiny seed of an idea for a detail in a story, and I don’t know whatever I need to know in order to write that, my next instinct IMMEDIATELY is to look up whatever it is I need to look up in order to know enough to write that thing.

Example: when I was writing “You Made That?” and decided this giant frigging pteranodon was going to blow glass using a volcano as the oven, I had to go look up how exactly blowing glass works, because like, I know Apply Heat To Sand, but I wanted to be realistic, I wanted to know what kind of sand Rodan would have to get and what other ingredients. And because of that research I discovered that the lava in volcanoes isn’t actually hot enough to melt glass. And then I discovered that the lava in volcanoes isn’t hot enough to melt lava. The mantle where rocks melt into magma isn’t hot enough to melt rocks. And then I spent the next five hours feverishly trying to find out first how rocks melt into magma if they’re not hot enough to melt, and then how the hell humans got fires hot enough to melt glass back when all they had was wood fires to work with. And I read a lot of very academic papers about volcanoes and glassmaking with a lot of words that I had to go look up, because I have not studied either of these fields, except to the extent that I’ve learned about volcanoes in order to write about Rodan.

(The super simplified answer, for those of you who are now going to be haunted by the thought that the mantle isn’t hot enough to melt the rocks that it clearly is melting: the melting point of a rock gets lower when a) it’s mixed with water, or b) the amount of pressure on it is suddenly reduced. As rocks in the mantle are pushed upward toward the crust, water from the surface gets sucked underwater that mixes with the rocks, and the pressure on the rocks is decreased because it’s now closer to the surface/has less weight pushing down on it; and both of these things combined lower the melting point of the rocks enough that they can melt into magma. Then, once it’s on the surface, it’s no longer mixed with water and the pressure is stabilized rather than decreasing, so the melting point of the rock increases again and it solidifies. And you can melt glass with a wood fire by, first, putting it in a little oven so that none of the heat escapes, and second, blowing air over it at the EXACT right speed so that it maximizes the amount of oxygen reaching the wood fire and makes it burn hotter but doesn’t go so fast that it blows some of the heat away. Trying to maximize the heat of a wood fire in an oven like that is all about trying to hit the exact balance between “add more oxygen” and “don’t blow away heat” where you reach the point where the fire is as hot as you can mathematically make it.)

And like once I knew that, I just made sure that Rodan had a makeshift oven in order to contain heat and the ability to blow air over the fire to make it hotter and bam story’s done.

And like... nobody was making me do that. I needed a tiny factoid for the story, and I was possessed by an all-consuming hunger to obtain that factoid and nothing could drag me from my course until I’d obtained it. I didn’t need to know how the mantle melts rocks, but like... I needed to know how the mantle melts rocks.

Sometimes when I do research it’s like that, I know I need a specific factoid and I go out and find it; sometimes it’s more general, like, “oh, one of the characters I’m dealing with worked in the radio industry in the 1930s, what was that like?” and when I’ve got spare time or am bored I go read up on the history of radio, even though I don’t need it right now, but because I don’t know what I’m gonna need until I need it. What if it turns out that people who worked in the radio industry in the 1930s, like, carried around forks for good luck? Then I can say this character carries a fork everywhere and that’s a weird character detail I never would’ve gotten if I hadn’t done the research even if I didn’t know I needed it. (Note: to my knowledge, there is no association between lucky forks and the radio industry. I made up this example to illustrate the kind of thing you can’t possibly know you don’t know unless you’ve already done the research without looking for a fact like that.)

And sometimes research flows into each other. Like for one thing I needed to know what a traditional radio sign-off format sounded like, back when radio stations turned off at night and played the national anthem before they went dark; and because I was looking that up, I found a YouTube video talking about how a radio station in 1939 recorded an entire day of broadcasts, so now I know I can go look that up and listen to an entire day on one radio station in the 30s and learn a lot more about how radio broadcasts sounded within a few years of the timeframe I’m working with for the above character. I wasn’t looking for that when I was looking up radio sign offs, but because I have that it’s gonna be hella useful.

So, like, tl;dr: I research a lot. I research anything that crosses my mind as something I want to put in a story that I don’t already know enough about to write about. I research for tiny details and I pre-research big broad concepts that might be relevant to my stories later. My research leads to more research, and prior research tells me about things I can look into on future research. The research never ever ends. There is a whole amazing world out there with billions of people alive and that’s only counting the people alive right now, not all the people that were alive before, and ALL of those people were Doing Stuff and Creating Things and Making Discoveries and ALL of it connects together and you’ve gotta understand all of it, the whole universe and everything in it, all of the science and every single human achievement, before you can write a story.

But failing that you’ve gotta at least understand whatever’s surrounding your characters.

If I try to write without research like that, it kind of feels like trying to solve a jigsaw puzzle with only 20% of the pieces. I am annoyed and dissatisfied that I don’t know those things.

The argument against that much research is typically “oh if you’re writing sci fi/fantasy you can just make that stuff up” but let me tell you, the creativity of one single human writer will never match the creativity of tens of thousands of hardworking humans trying to make a discovery or accomplish a task. One single human writer all alone will never be able to match the fascinating weird details of the real world and all the things we’ve put into it or discovered in it. If you try to make all that stuff up—like, if you’re writing high fantasy and you just make up how forging a sword works—then you have shackled yourself to the limits of your own imagination. If you do the research, dig into how actual swords are made in the real world, then you have supplemented your own creativity with the creativity of however many humans over the millennia have contributed to that craft. There’s so much interesting stuff out there. And I am bound and determined to find it.

#anonymous #ask #writing #about my writing

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realtalk-princeton · 4 years

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@Sulpicia do you have any advice on how to achieve such a high gpa in the humanities, when essay grades can sometimes seem subjective and different professors have different preferences? for ex, do you recommend using office hours in a certain way?

Response from Sulpicia:

I think that one thing to keep in mind is that I’m in a humanities major where empirical exams often determine 70-80% of your grade in a class; while they’re not usually curved, the language exams I took had a pretty similar format between classes, and so with every class you’re more prepared to engage with the material in that way. I personally think the best thing you can do to do well in a humanities class is to do the work; coming into class having prepared and done the readings will mean you have things to say, which translates into a better class discussion; this then will inevitably inspire thinking about what to write about for papers, and will also give you a better idea of how your instructor responds to your thinking. I’m not pretending that I showed up to class prepared 100% of the time, but I think sometimes people take humanities classes here and don’t take them seriously and then struggle at the end because they weren’t really trying to understand things on a week-to-week level.

In terms of writing papers, I generally tried to be in contact with instructors as much as possible throughout the process. Going to office hours with an idea (or, better yet, an outline) is really helpful, since you can get feedback before you spend a ton of time writing something that is founded on a mistaken assumption (which was something I did a LOT in my thesis process) or following a line of argument that might not be as strong as you initially think/hope. I often tried to come up with paper topics early on and even when (as was inevitably the case) I didn’t write anything, I knew I a) had the green light from a professor and b) was passively thinking about the topic for a long time. I also tried to write about things that made me excited, since the best papers are the ones you actually care about.

I actually have not found that professors have hugely different expectations for writing, because at the undergraduate level, good academic writing is good academic writing. I’m not the best essay writer in the world, but here are some tips I have for essay writing that I’ve learned over the past few years:

- Structure is so important, and is something a lot of essays miss. You should have a clear thesis statement of 1-2 sentences for a term paper, and this should be clearly positioned at the end of your introduction. For a shorter paper (5-10 pages) this should be at the end of the first page or top of the second page, while for longer papers, a JP, or a thesis chapter, they can be a little bit further in. Overlong introductions are my weakness as a writer, but a good intro basically just needs to provide the context you need to set up your thesis statement. I would stay away from the “three-pronged” thesis you learned in high school, but your thesis should correspond with the structure of your paper by presenting your claims in the order you will address them.

- Structure is important in your main body too! Write an outline before you begin your essay that briefly sketches out the progression of your argument and what evidence you will use to prove each part of it. Use transition words to link together ideas, and make sure to regularly tie back all of your claims to the main idea of your paper. Don’t write anything that does not support your thesis or provide a counterargument that you can then mitigate or disprove. Always let your reader know where they are in your argument, and don’t be afraid to refer back to earlier parts of the paper.

- Every sentence should matter. When you’re presenting a piece of evidence or analysis, think about its relationship to the one previous. Is that relationship meaningful? If not, the sentence shouldn’t be there (or should be placed elsewhere in your paper). The ideal is that every piece of your paper will follow naturally from what immediately precedes it, guiding the reader on a nice walk through your argument.

- In the humanities, close engagement with primary sources is key. Yes, you need to use secondary scholarship. However, engagement with the “scholarly conversation” should be second to your unique contribution, which is your close reading of the text/images at hand. This was something I struggled with in my thesis, since I felt so pressured to read all the scholarship and lost my close focus on primary sources. The absolute first thing you should do when you write a humanities paper is sit down with the sources you’re analyzing and think about them. What questions do they raise for you? Why are they confusing or contradictory? How does this source connect what you discussed in lecture, precept, or seminar? What can one source say about another? If you can, annotate the source on a piece of paper or take notes alongside it.

From there, you’ll start to find your unique insights which will form the backbone of the paper. Then, if this is a research paper and not just a close reading, look at secondary sources. If you have your own opinions about a primary text, however naive, you’ll feel more confident looking at *the discourse*. Sometimes, this will answer questions you had about the text, and so you don’t need to do that work in your paper. Other times, it will give you more interpretive tools to understand a text (e.g. you might find that X feature of the writing is typical of a certain genre, and you can think about the implications of that on your text). Sometimes, it’ll show you that the scholarly consensus is, in your opinions, totally wrong; for example, one chapter of my thesis was inspired by the fact that I visual source I thought was straightforward and was going to use in another chapter had in fact been pretty clearly misread by scholars, so my new project became proving why my identification was correct. However, any engagement with scholarship should only work to support your argument; unless you’re doing a lit review or writing about scholarly history (in which case the scholarship is your primary source), you don’t just want to slap different people’s opinions next to each other.

- Use lots of evidence and use lots of analysis. Graders are not mind readers, even if they are familiar with the material you’re studying. Good essays will present a lot of evidence; one thing I find helpful is breaking up longer quotes into shorter sections and treating them separately. Every piece of evidence should also be given analysis about why a) it is proving whatever point you’re making in the paragraph and b) how this connects to your larger argument. Part (b) might be implicit, but many essays could be stronger by making clear, distinctive points. Obviously not every piece of evidence merits a lot of analysis, and you can feel free to draw together several quotes to make one larger point.

- Speaking of, make specific claims. This refers both to the evidence that you use and how you use it. It’s totally okay to make general statements about a work, or an author, or an artistic movement; you couldn’t write an essay without doing that. However, those broad claims need to (at least in part) be grounded in some form of evidence; this can come from a secondary source or from an illustrative quote from a primary source. Inexperienced essay writers will be too vague and general--while there are dangers in getting to hyper-specific, I think it’s important that if you make a claim in your paper, you point to the specific thing that made you think that way (this is also a good way to avoid misconceptions/bad assumptions in your argument). When you’re using evidence, you should also try to say something as specific as possible about it, rather than just continuing to string up evidence and restating your thesis. Your thesis statement is just a summary of your ideas; your reasoning should be more nuanced and complex than that one concept. The more specific you are the more original you are, which helps you make points.

- Revise, revise, revise! When I did HUM, I would write up to five drafts of each paper. As a senior, I’ve gotten a lot lazier about this, but part of the reason I could do that was because I had learned a lot from revising previous papers and knew what mistakes to avoid. I think that papers grow the most between a first draft and a second draft. My favorite way to revise (and this is what I did with my thesis, JPs, and many papers I’ve written at Princeton) is to take a draft, print it out (with professor comments, if applicable), and then go through and retype the whole thing into a blank document. Optionally you can mark it up yourself as well, which is probably for the best. I like this because it means you have to read every word of your paper and also don’t feel bound by its existing structure; you can move paragraphs or shuffle things around more easily. I also always find myself adding more things or rephrasing analysis, which improves the paper. You’ll never come up with every idea in a first draft, so it’s good to revisit the paper as much as you can.

- Ask other people to read your work. We all have bad writing habits, from overuse of certain words to repetitive syntax to skipping steps in our logic. These things are not always obvious to us, but are very obvious to other readers. If you can, ask a friend (or writing center tutor, or instructor) to read your paper and help you identify these “bad habits” so you’re more conscious of them in future drafts. They can also often help you see where you skipped a step in your structure or the logic of your argument, or where your treatment of evidence doesn’t fully make sense. This is not always an option, of course, but especially early on, having people who will frankly tell you what’s not working will be helpful to your development as a writer.

- Learn from your mistakes. Criticism, even of the kindest, gentlest, most constructive kind, is hard to hear. To be honest, I would sometimes put off writing my thesis for hours because I was so embarrassed that my advisor had seen a stupid mistake I’d made in my writing (which is entirely irrational, yes, I get it). However, it is very important not only to bask in the positive comments on your paper, but to look at any more constructive ones to see what you can do better next time. Every paper teaches you how to write the next one better. Keep old papers and use them as teaching tools; you might even find it helpful to pin a list of things you know you need to remember when writing next to your desk or on your computer desktop. Professors offer comments because they want you to do better and understand more, not because they want to tear you down (unless they’re really mean).

Anyway this was kind of long-winded, but hopefully at least a little helpful as Dean’s Date approaches (the one lesson I never learn is how to stop procrastinating). I don’t know if there’s a secret to having a good GPA. I don’t consider myself to be brilliant or industrious at all, really; I think I’ve been lucky, taken classes that suited my academic strengths, come into them prepared, and really spent time understanding what exams and papers are trying to assess and then crafting my responses accordingly.

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willel · 5 years

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Will and El storylines

This is a straightforward picture of how I view their development.

El’s main antagonist is Brenner. Brenner is the one that has caused the series we call Stranger Things to happen. Due to his cold and endless scientific curiosity, he has forever tainted their world with the Upside Down. There may never be a day where they achieve peace because of him.

Not only did Brenner take El as a newborn, not even allowing Terry to hold or touch her own baby, he stripped her of her name and raised her mostly alone in a cold laboratory.

Although we don’t know the age at which the experiments and testing started, it is all El knew. The most warmth she’s ever had was 1 stuffed animal toy, occasionally getting a story read to her, and getting to draw 1 picture.

After Brenner caused El to open the gate into the Upside Down, El took her fate into her own hands and escaped. She ran as hard as she could and found two safe havens. First Benny, who was killed for trying to help her, and then The Party.

There, she continued to decide her own destiny. She put her foot down when she needed to, refusing to let Lucas and Mike inform their parents. But, she was also on her own mission. She was searching for someone, someone she didn’t even realize was associated with the boys who helped her.

The show doesn’t delve into how she knew Will before she met the boys, but the comic illustrates she caught a glimpse of him on the other side and vice versa.

Now with the pieces all in place, El, in her own way, tries to undo her “wrongs”. She wants to help the boys to find Will. Safely. In the end, she does. At a price. For a while, she can’t be with her friends and Mike anymore. She’s lost her safe haven, but soon finds another in Hopper.

As we know, things with Hopper aren’t all sparkles and rainbows. As time marches on, El grows more and more frustrated and she starts seeing things in Hopper she doesn’t want to see. She sees traits of Brenner and what he did to her. While Hopper is nowhere near as bad as Brenner, it’s easy to see someone who experienced as much trauma as El can see the similarities. So she ditches Hopper to find a new safe haven.

She finds her mother. Alive. But broken. Another piece of her life broken by Brenner that may never be fixed. She can’t fix this one, at least, not right away. Instead, she tries to follow her mother’s wishes, which leads her to her third safe haven. Kali.

Kali is just like her. They were tortured by the same man, both stolen away from their parents. They found a new family to feel safe with. But, there’s a key difference between Kali and El. Kali heart is hard as stone. She’s been hurt one too many times. Her fear and rage fuel her to be on the offence against the people who hurt her instead of the defense. El tries to follow in her footsteps, but she can’t. She doesn’t want to split up families like they did to her and Kali.

It happens again. Brenner returns, but it’s a manifestation of Kali’s powers. El and Kali are so alike, Kali knows El’s pain and can use it against her. It’s always Brenner who is her greatest fear. Her and Kali too.

When she closed the gate, who is it that pushed her over the edge to make one last huge push? Brenner.

It always comes back to one person. Brenner. Even when he’s supposedly dead, he has affected El’s life forever. If he is still alive, I think even the big bad Mind Flayer won’t personally affect El as much as Brenner has. Even when El inevitably has to fight the Mind Flayer, I just can’t see it cutting as deep as Brenner. She can fight the Mind Flayer. It’s just a monster out to destroy her world. Brenner? His pain cuts much deeper, fighting him isn’t as easy.

El’s foe is Brenner.

Will

Will’s antagonist is the Upside Down, and the embodiment of the Upside Down, the Mind Flayer. Of course, he shares this antagonist with literally everyone. The difference between the others and himself is they’re on the outside looking in, and he’s on the inside looking out. If that makes sense.

Will’s story will be a little faster to write. Probably.

Will was once a normal kid with a jacked up family. Despite this, he’s made the best of it. He has good friends. A good brother. And a very supportive caring mom. Good grades. Interesting hobbies. Although things aren’t great with his dad, I think Will was content with the life he once had.

But, everything changed when he ran into the Demogorgon that night. He was kidnapped to an alternate dimension for a week and somehow managed to escape death right up till near the end. He was saved thanks to El’s help.

Will comes back home, but things still aren’t the same no matter how hard he tries. He’s having visions. Nausea. Nightmares. Panic attacks. How many sleepless nights did he have? How many times did he crawl into bed with Jonathan and Joyce or vice versa? He’s 12 going on 13 year old and probably feels like a small child again. Despite all this, for a while, Will is able to gain at least a little normalcy.

As the anniversary of the events comes closer, all that normalcy is washed down the drain. The Upside Down came back for him and overtook him. “I felt it... everywhere. Everywhere...” Imagine how traumatizing that is, being unable to move as you’re overwhelmed with what looks like smoke. Possibly unable to breathe or scream. The torture didn’t end there. Every waking moment he didn’t feel right. Stuff that probably would’ve been enjoyable, like a hot bath, instills fear in him. But it’s not HIS fear, it’s someone elses.

Then he gets thoughts. But not his thoughts, someone elses. Memories. Visions. Feelings. Everything. All belonging to someone else. Feeling it all the time, unable to stop it. It’s worse than invasion of personal space, his person is no longer his own. Something or something else is in his body. The Mind Flayer knows everything about him and uses it against the people he loves. He no longer has control over anything, not even his own voice.

In season 2, slowly but surely, Will loses his fight against the Mind Flayer/The Upside Down. Once again, he is rescued by his mother and his brother through a painful and intense exorcism.

El seals the deal and saves everyone by closing the gate, locking the Mind Flayer out.

The Intersection

The part that interests me on a deeper level is not necessarily how similar El and Will are as people, which they are, but how similar their personal antagonist are.

Brenner and The Upside Down/Mind Flayer have both changed Will and El’s lives in personal irreversible ways. Yes, Brenner is technically everyone’s enemy. So is the Mind Flayer. But who have they done the most damage to? The answer is obvious.

Controlling. Manipulative. Forcing them to do things they don’t want to do. Knowing everything about them and using it as a weapon to cut deeper. Brenner and the Mind Flayer are big contributing factors as to why Will and El are so alike excluding their natural calm and quiet demeanor.

The Future

So what does this mean? Why does it matter? All of this boils down to how the cast are going to take out the two big bads. Brenner, and the Mind Flayer. I don’t think El can do both all alone and she shouldn’t have to. She has friends and family now to support her.

El is weak to Brenner, but with her powers can fight the Mind Flayer.

Will is weak to the Mind Flayer, but Brenner has no hold over Will’s psyche.

I think both these big baddies will need the whole group to help take them down just like the previous seasons, but I also think there’s some importance for the main people affected get the final blow.

El getting to slap or punch Brenner? El getting to throw him against a wall? El getting to tell him off to his face??? I want this to happen for her. I want her to get her chance to take down her big bad, the one person who ruined her life. She deserves her moment. Kali too, I’m not sure how Kali fits into this, but a team up of her and Kali getting a few licks in? That’d be good too.

As for Will, this place has been haunting him for years. It’s stolen years of his life and continues to bother him, his friends, and his family even still. I think Will deserves to have his winning moment as well. He’s not El. I don’t think any power he has will be able to do anything to the Mind Flayer. Not like El can. No, I want Will to be the one that crafts the ultimate plan that takes out the Mind Flayer for good. I want Will to be the brains, and for the others to use his blueprint to win.

I always visualize it as the Mind Flayer and Will on opposite sides of a chessboard. And on Will’s chessboard, El would he his queen piece, the strongest piece on the board. Oof, that’s so cool to me. It really ties into that scene with Joyce and Will at the table for lunch and in response to Joyce’s question, he says, “Sometimes, the bad guys are smart too.”

(note: I do think Will could help El with Brenner, but Brenner feels like more a Mike and Hopper problem for now)

The Powers

Onto the powers thing, my favorite thing to talk about. Over the last year or so, I’ve thrown out all kinds of theories about what powers Will could have and why. I probably have hundreds of posts, some serious, some not. As season 3 grows closer, I think I’ve settled on what they are.

Clairvoyance or the power to feel ones intentions. A general sensitivity to things. A heightened sense of empathy.

Something Upside Down related is headed towards Hawkins again? Will would be the first to feel it.

Something supernaturally bad is happening in Hawkins? Will could point out where on a map or draw it out.

Meets someone who seems sketchy? His gut would be able to accurately confirm or deny any suspicions.

Need to peek into the Upside Down (or possibly other dimensions?), Will can use True Sight.

True sight includes being immune to illusions, so Kali’s power might not work on him.

As you can see, none of these powers are out of this out of this world crazy or bonkers. None of them conflict with El’s powers either. These are all things Will has done before and while being possessed by the Mind Flayer. Season 3 will show us exactly how much is him and how much belongs to the Mind Flayer.

It’s also interesting to note that Joyce displayed a few of these traits too and she has nothing to do with the Mind Flayer. As season 2 has showed us with Terry, the writers are following the Montauk Project blueprint in how powers are acquired. Genetics. Trauma. And drugs.

Whenever I speculate Will’s powers, I never think about it as, “What power can make Will just as powerful as El or stronger?” It can’t work like that. You see, El was an experiment. Day in and day out, the laboratory focused solely on making her power stronger. It’s unnatural. There is probably no other psychic more powerful than El and Kali. They are the equals in that regard, not Will and El.

When I speculate about Will’s powers, I think, “What power could Will have that would fill in gaps El doesn’t so they can be a team?”

In season 2, El’s power revealed a huge gaping hole. She can only see the people she’s searching for or have met/seen before. So when they went to kill Ray, El did not know he had daughters and could not see them. This blindsided the gang and inevitably put a bigger target on their back.

So what power do I think could have helped El cover he bases better? Someone who can help her not just see one person, but maybe everyone in the area she’s looking at.

Think about what Will was doing while the Mind Flayer possessed him. It was kinda similar to El where he could remote view what was going on. But he didn’t need to know all those soldiers to see them dying. He saw the whole area, their whole trip down into the tunnels. The catch is, his vision was tied to what the Mind Flayer was seeing. The only time Will used their connection to see what he wanted to see absent of the Mind Flayer is during the search for Hopper.

So imagine this same concept applied to an El and Will team up. Will can see what El can see. She can go anywhere she wants if she knows the person she’s looking for, but Will, through her, can help see not just the one person, but everyone they’re with and their surroundings instead of a black void. A booster for El’s existing powers.

I imagine Will is a booster. Not particularly strong on his own like any other natural psychic, but with a skill set that boosts the effectiveness of other psychics. The team buffer.

I love the concept. I don’t think I’ve ever written about it here because I’ve been saving it for my fic you see. A fic that will take forever to write, so why not. The one time I’ve alluded to it is my Bathtub Theory.

The Ships

I just want to get this out of the way. Byler shippers? Mileven shippers? I’m not on either of your teams. My blog doesn’t exist to boost your ships. Whatever ship happens doesn’t really matter to me. At all. I’m agnostic. I’m not out to get you, but the posts I make also aren’t meant to be evidence for shipping.

I’m not crafting theories and posting about parallels because I’m trying to make Will and El compete for Mike. Or to make Will the one and only main character. Or to reduce the importance of other characters and story lines. I’m making these posts because I feel like these parallels and similarities are going to mean something for the plot against the bad guys and them as characters.

I make Will and El comparisons to Mike sometimes not even to stress how important Mike is to them, but to show how the characters end up treating them similarly because of their circumstances. I use it as proof both of them have an extraordinary role in the group on purpose. The two oracles. The ones the group will turn to when stuff starts going down.

This willel blog? It’s a sideblog. This is where I put most of my Will and El love. My love for other characters that aren’t the Byers/Hoppers are on my main blog which I don’t really advertise because that’s what what you’re here for. This blog is compartmentalized love for two main characters out of ... however many we have now. 20. I bet many of you didn’t even know my second favorite character under Will is actually my dearest action hero son Lucas Sinclair whose story line I can’t wait to see this season.

The only kid ship I KINDA care about is Luxmax. And that’s ok people. We don’t all need to care or love the same things, you know? That would make a boring uncreative fandom. It’s not about the ships for me. It’s not. It never has been. I made this blog because there were no Will and El blogs at the time, only ships.

Conclusion

I love my potential siblings. I think they have a lot in common and can relate with one another in ways the others can’t. They aren’t the same people. They don’t even have the same beef with the main antagonist of the series. They don’t have the same powers. They don’t have the same life experiences. They don’t have the exact same personality. Although similar, they don’t have the same trauma.

They’re parallels. The definition of parallel is “side by side and having the same distance continuously between them” or “a person or thing that is similar or analogous to another.” Or, analogous, “performing a similar function but having a different evolutionary origin, such as the wings of insects and birds.”

You see that? Side by side. Similar. Analogous. Not same. Carbon copy. Identical.

They’re twins. My mom and aunt are twins. They have so many similarities including their face, but are also have a huge gaping canyon between their personalities. They aren’t the same person and that’s never what I’ve pushed here.

Please understand, I love Will and El because well, I always gravitate towards stories like theirs. Two people completely unrelated and barely even know each other brought together by supernatural forces and managed to work together to take down the big bads with their friends/family. For me, it’s like found family to the extreme. I love it. I always fall for it.

I have so much fun crafting theories about their powers. I have fun coming up with fluffy or angsty headcanons about them. I have fun thinking of big family Hopper-Byers scenarios and making gifsets. This is what I enjoy personally.

I know you guys are having your ship war, but please leave me out of it. I’m not involved. Leave my posts out of it. Ok? I’m tired of it, you know? The other day it really depressed me. I felt like all my love for Will and El was being misinterpreted as existing only to stir up ship wars. I contemplated hiding my blog for a while until my rage passed over, but at the end of the day, I don’t have the energy to be mad. I’m just sad.

My one wish is for Will and El not to receive hate because of ships because you know what? That’s the worst possible outcome possible for season 3. They don’t deserve it.

#stranger things #will byers #el hopper #jane hopper

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fangirlinglikeabus · 4 years

Text

i read some non vna dw books a while ago but because i am a Clown i’ve only just finished typing up notes on them...i think my next dw book i’ll make notes as i go rather than just marking the pages and Hoping I Remember. anyway! here’s my thoughts on thirteen doctors 13 stories. i have more opinions on some than others.

A BIG HAND FOR THE DOCTOR

"...Susan, who was possibly the only person in the universe who could make the Doctor smile at the mere thought of her."

awwwwww

didn't really like this one that much - i wasn't too impressed with eoin colfer's characterisation of the first doctor (esp since pre-ian and barbara i don’t think he’d willingly attempt to stop some villains until susan was in danger)

THE NAMELESS CITY

Polly...once described him as looking like an unmade bed.

lmao

...he didn't know exactly what he was, though when he was growing up, he had heard tales of the legendary fairy creatures of the Unseelie Court who haunted Scotland's deepest valleys. He suspected the Doctor might be one of the dark Sith.

HEAVILY vibe with this concept the world is saved by bagpipes.......peak dw THE SPEAR OF DESTINY

"You know what I love about London?" he said, turning to her briefly. She sighed. "I'm sure I can't guess." "It's the only city in the universe where you can drive around in a car that's seventy years old and get away with it." "Who says you're getting away with it?" Jo muttered.

nkdfsjksn

"Fire away!"

"Oh, Doctor, please. Not after that business at the museum."

no doctor is immune to the temptation of a good pun. no matter how inappropriate. actually i really like how jo and three are written in this generally. there's so many good scenes. also, when the doctor asks her why she doesn't know anything about the vikings: "Doctor, we did the Romans. Every year." rip jo

From a distance the Doctor watched as a group of about twenty men loaded the TARDIS on to the back of a large low wagon pulled by four sturdy oxen.

jo: the doctor told me about the perception filter on the tardis so it'll be fine! they won't even spot it. literally the next scene, immediately:

She longed to stand and give this old goat a piece of her mind, but she knew she'd most likely fall over if she tried, which wasn't the effect she was after.

aw jo :(

"Do you know they wash once a week?" "Could have fooled me," muttered Jo.

*desperately resists the urge to write down every jo line in this story*

"I have the ship. And I have the spear. What need have I of you any more?"

the master is betrayed. to the surprise of no-one but himself.

The Doctor held her by the shoulders. "My dear girl," he said. "That is very noble of you. You were right. Your aspirations /are/ the very noblest. But you're wrong about something. Nothing is more important than you."

me, sobbing:

ROOTS OF EVIL

realised as i was reading this that i don't own any books featuring leela.....a crime

"Surprise!" the Doctor said. "You know you were complaining that you missed trees?"

this is actually the cutest thing no-one look at me

She could never understand why the Doctor was so careless of danger. It was a good thing he had her to look after him, she thought, as he opened the TARDIS door and they stepped out together into dim, green light and the earthy, warm-compost smell inside the great tree.

phillip reeve gets the four+leela dynamic. like. he Gets it.

"It will not hurt you," she promised. "It is called a 'scarf'. It is like a cloak, only pointless."

ousdofnsoksfd

"Did it look a bit like a gravel pit? You'd be amazed how many alien worlds look just like gravel pits..."

what is doctor who. without quarry jokes.

"I mean, he's wearing a bow tie!" the Doctor explained patiently. "Ridiculous objects! I wouldn't be seen dead in a bow tie!"

1) says the guy who wears an obnoxiously long scarf everywhere 2) honey, you've got a big storm coming

TIP OF THE TONGUE

there's a scene in this where nyssa and the doctor chill at a diner and they drink chocolate milkshakes together. this is all i care about.

Good Lord, was that celery he was wearing on his lapel?

Yeah We Know

"Are you British?" Nettie said, as if this was the most surprising part of the whole thing.

i mean, fair

He paused. "I don't suppose either of you would be interested in travelling?"

the fifth doctor: hey one of my friends died recently and i abandoned the other one but i really miss having a large crew so i was wondering if you two literal children would like to risk your life travelling with me :)

SOMETHING BORROWED

you'd think given this one is from peri's pov she'd be slightly more central to the plot. ah well.

"That's two storeys up!" I exclaimed. "And I'm in heels." "Well then, you should have worn more sensible shoes, shouldn't you?"

maybe she lives in hope that she won't have to do any running/scale buildings every time she steps out of the tardis. i get that.

"Well, you are the expert when it comes to gaudy," I said, giving a meaningful look to his red-and-yellow plaid coat and green tie.

every six story is legally obligated to drag his coat

The Doctor shook the man's hand vigorously. "Yes, yes. A little different round the edges since our last meeting on Kiri 4, but all the charm and intellect are still here."

i love this bastard.......

"Love? That contrived, chemically driven state of idiocy?"

mood

A clatter of metal was the sole warning I had before a hole in the ceiling suddenly opened, and the Doctor came tumbling down to the floor, landing in an ungraceful heap of rainbow plaid. Nonetheless, he rose to his feet with all the dignity of an Olympic gymnast who'd just landed a perfect somersault.

not to sound like a broken record but i would Die for this idiot

withholding myself from using more quotes to illustrate my unbridled love for the sixth doctor whom..........

"You might regret not helping me with this one day," she [the Rani] called over to us. "Your next regeneration may be sooner than you think."

Huh. I Wonder What That's Referring To

RIPPLE EFFECT

From the look on his face, Ace reckoned that a visit to the Time Lords was something similar to her having to visit the dentist back on Earth.

i mean to be fair.....the time lords are a whole lot worse although in this case the doctor's reasons for not wanting to visit are: (i) they're 'old, boring and judgemental' (ii) they have stupid clothes and a stupid non-intervention policy (iii) they treat him 'like a naughty schoolboy' (can't have that in front of your companion!)

i apparently didn't have many comments to make on this one. um...it was good. i liked the idea of an alternate universe with nice daleks. MOVING ON

SPORE

"They're all dead....everyone's dead, flesh turned to liquid. It moves...There are things! Moving things! They're alive..." Major Platt looked up at the Doctor. "The caller became incoherent after that and disconnected shortly after." The Doctor drummed his fingers thoughtfully against the top of the aluminium folding-table between them. "Hmm...That really doesn't sound very good."

YEAH YA THINK?

"I was at the opera," the Doctor explained, "when my phone went off."

this is his excuse for That outfit. really just copying everything from grace here huh

THE BEAST OF BABYLON

She also didn't yet know that he wasn't a man at all.

yeah cos he's non-binary duh

"So now we're landing on Earth," he shouted, "two thousand years before the birth of Christ..." "Who?" "He was a bit like Sherlock Holmes. Knew the answers to everything. Very good at solving mysteries. Some humans use him to measure time."

obsessed with the implications of this dialogue...

THE MYSTERY OF THE HAUNTED COTTAGE

absolutely love the concept of this one...a world created from martha's memories of reading a famous five expy as a child

"What?" Martha said defensively, keeping her voice down. "That's how he was described in the books. Don't blame me. This was 1951. Everything back then was blinkered, sexist, and ever-so-slightly racist. It was a backward time." "Ah, yes," said the Doctor, "because 2007 has none of those things."

vibe with this convo

"Am I lonely?" Martha asked. "You're a particle of dust," the Doctor said. "Of course you're not lonely." "I sound lonely." "Well you're not; you're having a great time."

this conversation where the doctor tells martha to imagine herself as a particle of dust has exactly the same kind of energy as discussions you have at 3am at a sleepover

NOTHING O'CLOCK

Amy looked irritated. She wasn't irritated, but she liked to give him the impression she was, just to show him who was boss.

yeah...

ok the villains in this one are actually really fucked up like. it's been a While since i read it now because i procrastinated on making these notes but they were Good creepy. thank you mr gaiman.

LIGHTS OUT

now THIS is one where the pov heavily contributes to the story...

He turns to look at me with piercing, hollow-set grey eyes, then furrows his impressive silvery brows. "I'm buying a coffee," he says. "For a girl."

so THAT'S why twelve took so long to find coffee for clara......he wasn't buying it on earth. good vibes

TIME LAPSE

i absolutely LOVE the concept for this one, which is that the year 2004 completely disappears from records

A typed envelope reading The Doctor, The TARDIS, Ex-Gallifrey followed by a long string of numbers, letters, and things that probably were letters but looked like they came from about eight different languages.

obsessed with the fact that (i) you can apparently send letters to the tardis, like it has an actual address (mel throwing a message in a bottle into space doesn't seem so unreasonable now huh...) (ii) part of this address is 'ex-gallifrey'

this dude gets rejected. and is so badly embarrassed that he erases 2004 from existence. i promise i'm not making this up.

#laura reads dw books #long post #oof i promise the other one i've got notes for isn't this long.....i just had a lot of Thoughts #aside from eoin colfer's i actually really enjoyed all the stories! would highly recommend this collection

3 notes · View notes

comicteaparty · 4 years

Text

February 1st-February 7th, 2020 Creator Babble Archive

The archive for the Creator Babble chat that occurred from February 1st, 2020 to February 7th, 2020. The chat focused on the following question:

What is the nicest thing someone has said about your story, whether its published or still a WIP?

Deo101 [Millennium]

Well, this is one I can answer right away. It's not a very straightforward answer, but I had someone reference me and my comic in an essay about reasons why they were able to love themself... It was for a creative writing class, and they just used me as an example of a greater thing (indie media)... and I only know about it because they asked me permission. but they let me read the essay, and it made me cry. I havent heard from them in a while and I really hope they're okay, but that really stuck with me in a way nothing else has. It's not really a quote, though, so the nicest comment I have recieved was "I can tell how much you love people by reading this story." It was really sweet in a way I can't quite articulate. People have been incredibly sweet to me, and I feel very blessed. I could make a long list detailing the kindness I have been shown.

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

Apparently Phantomarine (http://www.phantomarine.com/) has made more than one person cry already. Which, to me, is pretty darn high praise, given that I've barely begun the story

Having people find it and say "THIS IS EXACTLY THE KIND OF STORY I'VE BEEN LOOKING FOR" also hits a nerve. I know that feeling. You like certain themes/motifs and you wish someone would blend them together in just the right way. It can be magical.

And the last one is when I learned that children like it. A few have come forward so far - either in person or through their parents - and told me they loved it. It was around that age that I was building my own 'inner library' of inspirations for the comic. To know that I might be part of theirs, even in a small way, is just... the best?

Deo101 [Millennium]

that's all so incredibly nice <3

and now I wanna add to my list actually I don't want to interrupt, this is just a topic I wish I could sing from the rooftops about... I also had a student of mine (I am a teacher at a church) come out to me because he knew I would be okay with who he is. And, I have had people tell me it's inspiring to them, which kinda makes my heart melt. I'll stop now but, really I could go on and on about how open and loving people have been with me and my work, and how much it means to me.

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

Man... This is somewhat difficult for me to answer since I am so early into my comic creating journey. However, I will say that I recently got a comment on my comic Whispers of the Past (https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/whispers-of-the-past/list?title_no=191366) that made me smile. A long time reader commented that they always read my new pages twice, once on Webtoon, and again on Tapas. This really made me realize that my work has meaning to somebody other than myself, which is definitely what I need to hear when I'm doubting myself.

Mei

It's so nice reading about nice comments people have gotten and honestly... y'all deserve it!! I need to be in a better habit of commenting myself because I will promote comics to my friends for days on end but I'm too shy to leave a comment, even though I love receiving comments myself. I think the nicest comments I've received have been in combination with the conventions I was at last year. People told me that they thought the comic was funny, which I am incredibly thankful for. And one person who bought the book at the convention took the time to find it on Tapas and then comment on the latest page, saying that they'd talked to me, read the book, and that they liked it. That meant so much to me it was crazy! And another time, I was showing my book to someone at a convention and she said that she actually read the comic online, which honestly... It's so strange and surreal to me to meet anyone in real life who reads things posted online. It made my heart do smiley emoji. I think what LadyLazuli said is really right, this idea that you're a small part of someone's life or inspirations or just general day is pretty amazing?! Also this one guy commented on every page week to week with the same 'vase' joke on several updates and honestly the commitment was truly astounding

kayotics

I think some of the nicest comments come from one specific reader, who has mentioned a couple times that going back and reading the comic has helped them through some tough times. There was also one person who went to the effort of contacting me after their books were damaged from flooding, and wanted to buy new books to replace the old ones. This was wild since they wanted to do something so inconvenient (paying with cash by mail, and I didn't even have an online storefront in the first place) to replace the books.

twothirty

really early on i had 1 reader that would leave in-depth analysis of some character interactions and they were were spot on and made me really feel like people cared about this story . The other interaction that really stands out was doing the convention circuit last year I had a reader come up to say hi, and usually that interaction is just "i love your comic!" (which is amazing) but he also then talked to me at length about the story and again it was this feeling of just knowing someone out there cares about what you're doing. Comics feels particularly isolating so interactions like that really keep me going.

Funari (Raison d’Etre)

I've had two different readers tell me our comic has brought them joy during bad days. Sadly one of them I haven't heard from in 2 years and they were going through some rough times. I hope they're okay

Nutty (Court of Roses)

The nicest thing I've heard was when my coworker told me him and his daughter were reading it, and he told me that she's "drawing like me" with panels and stuff and keeps asking him "how do i make the bubbles" So they're gonna work on that and then he's gonna show it to me.

keii4ii

Any time someone gets what I'm trying to do with the story. I have a great fear of getting good intentioned people trashing the most important parts of my story (without realizing their importance). So whenever someone gets what the story is all about, whether as a whole or just one scene, it's a huge weight off my chest. Legit brings tears to my eyes. Even if I manage to overcome that fear some day, comments like that would mean a lot to me. Being understood has always been very important to me.

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

Someone recently said they wanted to get a tattoo of something in the comic and that was cool. It also means a lot when people respond well to the jokes in the comic because I put a lot into the writing to make it funny. I hope it makes someone cry someday Joe Is Dead http://joeisdead.com/read

DanitheCarutor

Ffff all my readers have been so compassionate, it's jarring! In a nice way! Choosing one nice thing is hard, every comment has been nice. I guess the most flattering is when a someone takes the time to go back to the previous chapters to link little things up with the current events in the story, or when they manage to remember in spite of how webcomics update so slowly. There was a comment I saved a while back where someone remembered a small thing in chapter 3 and was doing some brainstorming with it relating to the current chapter at the time.

Every so often someone also leaves a paragraph with some of the most motivational gushing, it's so nice! Oh! Also, there have been a few people who've asked me to print my comic so they can have a physical copy (which I'm slowly starting to do), which is super motivating knowing a couple people like my depressing comic enough to want to own a copy of it.

keii4ii

Oh man, I too have saved screenshots of some of my favorite comments, but I don't wanna share them because 1) some of them are long and 2) maybe the commenters wouldn't want their names disclosed in a different context? They are great to save for a rainy day, though!

Tuyetnhi

Oh this is hard I remember one comment on tapas that they got their aunt and cousin reading it and I was flattered! Most comments I got were about the artstyle and progression of the story, which I hope to continue if school lets me. Still, I'm quite surprised that it drove someone to get their family to read a romance about someone's dream lover lmao

also same keii!

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

Honestly, I have far too many comments I should screenshot. But so many of them are praising the art, and I never know how to feel about it. Like, those types of comments make me happy, but I never know how to truly feel about them.

keii4ii

Art is admittedly easier to comment on. If I'm commenting on art on anyone's comic, I try to point out how it contributes to the storytelling, rather than "ooh pretty and shiny." Pretty and shiny is valid but I'd be just doing illustrations if that were my main goal!

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

But if 9/10 comments are, "Wow, the art is so pretty!" I can't really react to it much, especially since my own self-doubt is constantly reminding me of my mistakes.

FeatherNotes(Krispy)

I've been really excited to answer this question because it gives me an opportunity to thank any and all the fans and people who celebrate our work. I've been so humbled by all of the wonderful and amazing fanart we've received, music paired with scenes from our comic, and fans even imagining scenarios of the characters themselves-- I'm constantly blown away! I do have my most treasured moment however, and that was when we were tabling at TCAF a couple years back. We had been swamped with crowds, selling, and early mornings-- it was a long day! That was until we had one person who went through the trouble to see us in person, and handcraft a drawing to deliver to us, saying thank you, and in that moment I bawled!! They quickly left after us thanking them so much, and I'll never forget that and how much it gave us a fire to see this whole project through. We have it framed and it sits in front of our cpu

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

I got one comment where someone said that one of my main characters "seems sweet," and it just left me confused because, a) he's only said about ten words total, and b) in those ten words, he has somehow managed to be rude.

So how is he sweet???

But I mean, I should be happy that he seems likeable despite his attitude and reticence

Tuyetnhi

nice lmao

I do agree about the comments about the artwork being pretty and idk how to repond other than thanks lmao(edited)

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

Yep

That's pretty much all I can say

Because I would HOPE my art looks pretty good after a decade drawing haha

Tuyetnhi

tho tbh because of the nature of my comic, I do get the occasional thirst comment and I'm just sitting there bawling

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

Oh yeah, I get those

Tuyetnhi

"Wow he's buff"

"yea bc I made him like that lmao"

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

People drooling about my male MC mainly

It's so awkward, but I knew it would happen

Tuyetnhi

same, but for the male love interest and i'm like "this is expected lmao"

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

I KNEW WHAT I WAS DOING

keii4ii

I get like 0 thirsty comment despite one of the MCs being an athletic cat dude with literal secret tentacles (I'm okay with not getting a lot of thirsty comments, but I do find it interesting)

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I've gotten thirsty comments and my comic is not meant to be romantic or sexy at all

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

Oh, I can leave you some thirsty comments

I love Lu

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I was going to say they are inevitable(edited)

but kei proved that wrong

Tuyetnhi

same I love Lu too lmao

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

And will gladly praise his hotness

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

if your comic goes on for long enough, i think you will get some eventually. it is a rule of the internet

keii4ii

It's been ongoing since Nov 2014 XD But I guess it takes longer for some than others!

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

@keii4ii I don't think you quite understand

I have never been attracted to animal-people before

I have always found anthros and such weird

And yet

Lu is totally my thing

Tuyetnhi

Strangely attractive for a cat guy lol

points for those who get the ref

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

how do you guys know what their comic is?

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

He is way too attractive

keii4ii

Mine? Cronaj and Tuyetnhi came across it outside this Discord, I believe!

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

Yep

I have been reading it for a few years now

Although I can't say exactly when, because HoK has been a part of my life for so long

Tuyetnhi

I think I started reading it a year or 2 ago lol

DanitheCarutor

@keii4ii The only nice thing about Webtoons is that there aren't any profiles to check, so you can't look up fans via their comments. Also if you did Google their username there isn't a guarantee whoever you find would be that Webtoons user without them telling you. Lmao! About the thirsty comments, I used to get them a lot of Webtoons. There was this one scene where my smaller MC pulled the taller one to their face to say "Your friend is dead", before shoving him away and walking off. Some of my readers went wild! They wanted the two MCs to make-out so bad, even though the scene clearly had no romantic chemistry... or even the entire comic for that matter. My thirsty bunch came off really desperate and reaching at times.

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

Omg, that's just precious

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

I really have never gotten thirsty comments, with the exception of one or two very mild 'Oh, that character is attractive' comments. But I think my comics just don't really attract thirsty readers. Of course, I rarely get any reader feedback, so that's probably part of it.

keii4ii

@DanitheCarutor Yeah, that's a plus about the semi-anonymity! My screenshots are from less anonymous places, so yeah. Some are also from like... Discord, where the person may not even have expected the comment to be archived in any way. (Sometimes I actually asked if I could screenshot, but I don't know if I asked every time...)

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

No one has ever reported finding my characters attractive

Deo101 [Millennium]

People thinking my characters are hot is a pretty common thing, and usually I don't mind but... sometimes it's the bane of my existence.

It's always a little bit weird, though

every time someone is like "dat ass " I'm like alright bud keep it to urself

it's part of why I made all of my characters adults, actually

people even before I started making it, just when I was talking to them about it or showing my art would STILL be overly sexual about my characters so I aged them up where it felt less weird for me.

kayotics

I’ll get thirst comments every once in a while, usually on tapas. I don’t mind it too much, especially since I’m usually making characters that I’m also attracted to? I usually think thirst comments are funny

DanitheCarutor

Pfff I'm in a similar boat to Deo's. Usually I don't mind, but there are moments where it sucks. Like there will be a really serious, or heavy scene and someone will pop up with "Make them kiss!!", "Don't be mean to your future hubby, X! Kiss him and make up!!". It totally feels they don't actually care about the story and just want something to jack it off to. xD I don't get a whole lot of thirst anymore, which is nice. I think the vocal group lost interest after being blue-balled for 3-4 chapters. Weirdest thing, I have yet to get anyone saying my characters are attractive... well, some readers used to say Julian (my questionable looking non-binary character) was pretty but they weren't really thirsty, just observations. At least they came off like that. My style makes characters look kind of ugly, so comments about any of my cast being attractive is non-existent. @keii4ii Ooh yeah, I can see how that would be an issue. Although, if you really want to show off some super nice comments, you can also just cover or blur out their username and icon image. A lot of people do that, it's really good for keeping up the user's anonymity, and I don't think they would mind since you're not using their words slanderously.

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

Can I admit I sort of wish I got some thirsty and shipping comments? I also draw characters I think are hawt so I kinda wish my readers felt the same way. XD I don’t really want them in Ashes were my characters are teens, but in Eryl where 95% of the cast is legal age, I kinda wish some people wanted to be a little bit thirsty about it. XD

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah, i just wish it wasnt... Idk sometimes it seems like thats ALL people see and it makes me sad

Like theres other stuff going on...

eli [a winged tale]

I feel you too Cap’n! I sort of expected shipping comments for AWT https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/keyspace-a-winged-tale/list?title_no=322364 but yeah they’re still kids discovering themselves! When I start my adult fantasy comic (tentatively planned), then I’m all on board for sure. For the question, I love and screenshot every comment to peruse whenever I feel down. I treasure all of them but one that particularly stood out for me was a writer reimagining all their stories with my art and characters and that just about made me cry happy tears

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

So far the only 'thirst comments' I've gotten are when the comic gets even the slightest bit... gay I can't say my story revolves around major LGBTQ+ themes, but people have picked up on random bits of subtext between characters (which is mostly intentional on my part, not gonna lie) and specifically take time to comment on them. It makes me happy to see people reading between the lines. And it also helps me know what the readers like or are really looking for. So... yeah, I'm gonna keep on that path

eli [a winged tale]

Did I miss that in phantomarine?? Howww

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

The subtlest of subtle subtext... which will become far less subtle over time

Nutty (Court of Roses)

i am deliberately pushing my main ship to get ppl into it lmao

YOU WANT THESE TWO TO KISS, I PROMISE

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

GOSH I know this feeling too well I feel like I don't want to overwhelm the readers, but I want them to still realize "...Hmmmmmm, yeah I kinda want this."

eli [a winged tale]

I’m so intrigued now

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

good

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

wait i can't think of anything remotely gay/romantic in phantomarine

besides maybe

phaedra and... cheth?

eli [a winged tale]

The shipping comments in AWT are currently on point at exactly where I want them to be

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

i don't believe you would go for that, but shipping enemies is a very common fandom thing

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

I wish I had more people shipping my characters because I'm all alone in it right now

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

@Nutty (Court of Roses) I'm doing the same in Ashes. I'm being super obvious about Anor x Rava being a future couple. XD

So far I haven't really gotten any comments about it. Idk if my readers care about romance at all.

Which is okay, because I don't really write much romance into my comics.

Even though I secretly wish for a bit of shipping from readers.

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

I have to find out how visibly and obviously gay the characters have to act before people pick up on it

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

sssfrs, your comic just doesn't feel like the kind of comic people would ship characters in, though. Even the relationship between the captain and the guy that left, though lovely, feels, i don't know, too mature to really ship?

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

It's not the focus of the plot though so it's not essential just would be fun

Deo101 [Millennium]

people were shipping page 2 for me so idk

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

That's a fair way to look at it

Deo101 [Millennium]

apparently they need to be next to eachother , in my experience

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

i think the art style plays a part, too

people were shipping my characters also from page two. But I have a "prettier" style than sssfrs

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

Yeah, I think the only way readers even know my characters are queer is from the extra art I make of them for Pride month each year. On panel the gay isn't incredibly obvious.

Deo101 [Millennium]

yeah, and I do WANT people to ship them so its not like I mind. I like shippers (when they are in line with my plans)

eli [a winged tale]

Yes Deo!! Exactly

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

Some characters I think have a great dynamic but I just haven't published enough of the material that shows their chemistry yet so I can't blame anyone for not seeing it

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

^same for me

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

looking forward to seeing that in both your comics!

i follow both

eli [a winged tale]

That’s fair ssfrs I’m all for the slow burn

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

It's true that my goal isn't to make the characters visually attractive and appealing in that way as much as in personality and interactions

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

I do keep seeing people leave 1* ratings for Eryl on WT and I can't help but wonder if it's homophobes angry about a character sheet I shared that mentioned the character was lovingly raised by two dads. Bc there has been nothing really controversial on-panel in the comic, and I have such a small audience it has no other reason to keep attracting hate.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

yeah, that's what i was trying to say. couldn't think of a good way to say that though. but i like your art and feel like it fits your story well

( at sssfrs)

i don't think there are a large number of homophobes on WT. If anything, there's an overabundance of the opposite- fetishists

people leave 1 star on WT for random reasons like you not updating enough

don't worry about it

eli [a winged tale]

Link your webcomics? With <> . Love to check them out

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/puppeteer/list?title_no=290620

Deo101 [Millennium]

I get a lot of fetishists, yeah....

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/dark-wings-eryl/list?title_no=287293

Deo101 [Millennium]

https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/millennium/list?title_no=110866

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

Idk, maybe they don't like that I update in traditional pages, then, Who knows

All I know is every time my ratings start crawling back up, suddenly they'll take a big hit.(edited)

Deo101 [Millennium]

idk, some people just seem to do that kinda thing

I have thought it could be other creators before, too...

trying to make less competition or something. but that would be cruel and I dont like to think someone would do that

so I prefer to think its just someone who didnt like my stuff

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

eh i prefer to think the best of people

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

It's not like I'm super successful or anything. The algorithms haven't been kind to either of my comics so I'm hardly competition.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

i'm not going to think it's other creators

Deo101 [Millennium]

yeah that's what Im saying

like its popped in my head and then I was like literally who would do that

thatd be reaaaaal messed up

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

hey, how to i add my comic name in paren to my name on this server?

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

Unfortunately I know a lot of creators who would. They just don't hang out in spaces like these.

Deo101 [Millennium]

just edit your nickname in the options

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

Mine is called Joe Is Dead, on here http://joeisdead.com/ and on tapas https://tapas.io/series/JoeIsDead

Deo101 [Millennium]

oh right I actually have another comic. It was on hiatus over a year so I havent gotten into the habit of sharing it...

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

Yeah, go to the ... next to the server name and it opens up a menu with the 'change nickname' option.

Deo101 [Millennium]

https://tapas.io/series/Time-and-Time-again

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

I put the title in my name

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

My other comic is here on WT: https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/children-of-shadow-ashes/list?title_no=145048&page=1

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

i just don't like dismissing negative feedback. I don't want to get negative reviews and just brush them off as jealous people because i know my comic definitely has room to improve and would rather negative feedback motivate me to look for ways how

got it, thanks!

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

I love negative feedback. I want to put out the best work I can & hearing what people don't like or don't think is working helps me do that

Deo101 [Millennium]

theres constructive feedback, and then theres people telling me my characters are stupid and I think I can brush the latter off

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

Unfortunately, I have been the victim of vicious jealous reviews. I've seen a lot of ugly in the webcomic world over the many years I've been doing this. Some creators be petty.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

@sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD) hm if i were to give negative feedback about your comic I'd say the biggest things are that you have a lot of characters that in my mind are kind of hard to differentiate, and also it can be really hard to tell where your characters are in space. But those don't matter too much, as they both will probably get better with time. Your biggest strength imo in your dialogue anyways

keii4ii

Not every negative feedback is relevant to my goals, is key for me. It's the whole "you can't please everyone" principle. My target audience does not include every person out there. If my target audience falls in love with what I make, then that's success for me. I don't need to impress the rest of the world.

keii4ii

(Thanks Tatsu.)

Deo101 [Millennium]

You have a different definition of "negative feedback" than I do.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

who are you referring to?(edited)

Deo101 [Millennium]

You

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

in what way?

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

I can usually tell the difference between 'This person has a different idea of what this story should be than I do' and 'This person has it out for me because of jealousy or spite'

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

Yeah I've found it really hard to juggle the consistency with where characters are standing all the time. I write out lists of the order they're spatially located in an effort to keep track of them. Hopefully I'll get better with practice

Deo101 [Millennium]

the negative feedback I am talking about is basically straight up hate. Constructive criticism, pointing out the flaws of a work, isnt "negative feedback" by my definition.

so saying "I want negative feedback" means something different for you than it does for me.

i WILL dismiss people being straight up rude to me

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

hm, I feel like a lot of people define negative feedback the same way i do, constructive criticism about what you could do better. If you say you dont want negative feedback you might get people thinking you don't want critique at all. imo what you are referring to might be more clearly just called "hate"

Deo101 [Millennium]

I'll consider it if someone is trying to help, even if most of the time I ignore it

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

I also get the random 1 star ratings on Webtoon, so I think some people are just easy to hate stuff(edited)

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

yo sssfrs, you keep track of where characters are in space by writing lists??

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

These are probably also the same people who dislike videos habitually on Youtube

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

i can't imagine working with that

Deo101 [Millennium]

I actually dont want critique at all.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

it seems so hard

Deo101 [Millennium]

not if I dont ask for it.

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

Con crit and hate aren't the same thing, though

One is genuinely trying to help you improve, the other is just trying to bring you down.(edited)

And it's okay to not want the former

Deo101 [Millennium]

and I would say "negative feedback" doesnt include con crit

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

Just because you make something doesn't mean you have to want people to give crit on it.(edited)

Yeah

I agree, because GOOD con crit is usually polite because if the person knows what they're talking about, they were where you are now and will be nice about it.

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

From my experience the best critiques come from other artists doing similar work to you

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

i don't think all negative con crit is helpful, either. people also need to know what their strengths are so they know what to keep instead of just what to remove

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

They might not even be trying specifically to be nice about it

But their words feel less hurtful

eli [a winged tale]

I feel like there are comments which are reviews (fair enough, everyone has subjective opinions) but I feel like constructive criticisms should be more private and take place in specific settings (most importantly where the creators are in a position of wanting them)

Nutty (Court of Roses)

@eli [a winged tale] https://courtofroses.spiderforest.com/

eli [a winged tale]

What I think most readers don’t understand or know is that the comic that does make its way to the public quite often has already been through rigorous critique and feedback

Nutty (Court of Roses)

(sorry, was late to that haha, i agree on your feelings about crits)

Deo101 [Millennium]

see, I dont know what you mean by "negative con crit" In my experience, a critique that is negative is not a critique and is more an opportunity for someone to flex.

helpful critiques may FEEL negative, because they are pointing out your flaws, but they arent negative

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

i think you're defining "negative" and "hateful" the same way, but other people are not(edited)

eli [a winged tale]

I call them constructive feedback. Then on the other hand, yeah there are negative comments that are there to serve the OP’s sentiments(edited)

Deo101 [Millennium]

I use constructive if it is helpful, and negative if it is harmful

eli [a winged tale]

But I just don’t think the comment platform supports the constructive feedback part. The comments currently represent the OP’s views which are very much subjective. It’s hard to know if they are providing feedback from a place of knowing story structure/art competency

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

critique does mean a lot more when I ask for it from an artist I respect

eli [a winged tale]

Indeed. It’s quite an intimate process

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

but i can still take casual comments into consideration when trying to improve

things like, it's confusing, or i don't understand what's happening

eli [a winged tale]

I think trust in the critiquer’s background and intention for you to improve are imperative(edited)

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

speaking of comments that say the comic is confusing, god i hate getting those comments the most. Because they come from people genuinely trying to read and like my comic and represent a failure of my storytelling skills

eli [a winged tale]

Plus there is a skill/art (no pun intended haha) to giving feedback. That’s a whole nother can of worms

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

but better to hear that and know it than not

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

It's not always a failure of storytelling skills, though. Some people's brains work along a certain line, and when a story is told that doesn't gel with that, it seems confusing to the person. That doesn't mean the writing was bad, it just means that the author communicates differently than the reader.(edited)

Deo101 [Millennium]

^ thats what I was gonna say

I have a small group of people who I trust who are editors, writers, or artists. I go to them to see if I'm doing the best I can for my goals.

if people get confused then there isnt too much more that I can do...

not saying my work is perfect, of course...

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

i can't just brush it off by saying I communicate differently than the reader when I'm trying to communicate to the reader

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

But not every reader is your audience, though

Nutty (Court of Roses)

^^^^

your message sometimes can't reach certain people, and that's not your fault

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

If all the readers are confused, that's one thing. If only a few are, well, your writing style just wasn't for them.

eli [a winged tale]

For sure. Agree Capn and Deo. There’s a lot of work that goes behind the scenes that readers are unaware

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

true true. But there are a few people who have said the same things, so I've taken those to heart and added dialogue that made it more clear. I don't regret that

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

Your comic is public, and it's going to be seen by a very wide variety of people with all different kinds of reading comprehension and tastes. You're never going to appeal to all of hem, and plenty won't understand what you're trying to do. But that doesn't mean what you're making is bad. It just means it, like every story, is for a particular audience.

Yeah, if it's a repeated crit, it is something to keep in mind, but just remember that incorporating a crit shouldn't change what you're trying to do, only refine it.

Deo101 [Millennium]

Ive had a couple people say "I'm confused but Im enjoying whats going on" and I dont even know what I would begin to do about that

eli [a winged tale]

I usually trust my beta readers for that. If there are confusing parts then I would ask them how to clarify that best

I think these creator based forums are best to seek feedback and see what could potentially be remedied

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Of course. And I don't think my comic is bad. But one example was when I realized some confusion stemmed from me having a speech bubble that read, "without her," and didn't realize "her" could refer to two different characters which would make what was being said have two very different meanings. It's easy to overestimate how understandable your story is as an author that already knows everything that's going on. I think confusion is a good thing to pay attention to- I've definitely read comics before and dropped them because the author didn't pay enough attention to introducing things to the audience

(also dropped comics because they paid too much attention to introducig things but)

Deo101 [Millennium]

yes, like I said I have a small group of friends who are all writers, editors, and artists who can give me a pretty dang good beta read.

eli [a winged tale]

They are so great. Don’t know what I’d do without them

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

At that point I'd honestly keep going with what you have - there are several stories I've gone into with confusion, but also greatly enjoyed them, or even got less confused over time. Some readers need time to put the pieces together. So long as someone enjoys it on some level, I think that makes the comic successful. Maybe not completely - but not every comic will be everything to all people.

eli [a winged tale]

Indeed. Sometimes as well you gotta trust your story writing/art skills.

Deo101 [Millennium]

yup!

and like I'm not doing too bad for my first comic so I think I got something going for me at least.

I understand I have room to grow...

but I would like to keep that to people who I trust wont steer me wrong

eli [a winged tale]

Always room to grow for sure!

Deo101 [Millennium]

and arent just pushing what they want from me on me

eli [a winged tale]

Indeed. Feedback/ beta reading has its own set of skills. There’s always places to improve but the key is to determine specifically where that can be and how feasible(edited)

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

I remember the first time I read Unsounded, I had absolutely no idea what was going on because of how Ashley structures her world-building. But there were aspects of it that were very engaging, so I stuck with it. After finishing the archives, I went back and reread. Now that I understood what all the terms meant, it made perfect sense on the second go-round. It's now one of my favourite webcomics. Some stories are just told differently, and that's okay.(edited)

eli [a winged tale]

There’s certainly an element of trust you must put to the creators that it’ll all make sense at the end

Deo101 [Millennium]

someone got very mad at me for how I have shown my trans characters so far.. I had to explain that the story isnt done yet, and they have to trust I'll bring it up

it's a WIP and there is some trust that NEEDS to be had

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

lol I have only one artist/writer friend (struggles of working in a non-art career), and she understands everything I write exactly as I intended it and I love it. But she's my friend for a reason- we tend to think the same way and read similar things. Don't think it's wrong to try to cater to a wider audience as well

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

@Deo101 [Millennium] I wonder if anyone will react once I reveal that Anor is intersex/trans on panel. I'm really hoping I don't find out if any of my readers are transphobes -or- angry that he isn't ostentatiously trans.

Deo101 [Millennium]

someone was mad I didnt show my cyborg transitioning cause it could be so cool of a concept to see his original robot body and I was like literally none of what you said applies to him also thats kinda gross

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

Wut

Deo101 [Millennium]

YEAH

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

There might be some transphobes. But it's worth dealing with them for the people who your comic will resonate with more for having a trans character in it

Deo101 [Millennium]

alsooooo some people might be upset, but then they will leave and you will be left with better people.

Nutty (Court of Roses)

I feel like me having a non-binary character and insisting on correcting everyone who misgenders them deters transphobes away p quickly.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

^^^ some people will dislike, but those who like will really like

and a smaller, better fanbase is better than a larger one that cares less(edited)

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

hear hear

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

@Eightfish (Puppeteer) I'm hoping some will resonate with him! I don't think I've ever seen any intersex rep in any story, so I really want people to know they can have a hero like them.(edited)

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I'm trying to think of stories with intersex rep

I feel like there must be some, but I can't bring any up : /

Sazed from Mistborn is written as though he's intersex, but he clearly identifies as male and the story treating him as intersex actually feels a bit disrespectful

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

Me neither. The only thing I've seen in stories is gross 'hermaphrodite' jokes when mocking a cis character.

I really want to give positive representation.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

webcomics have so much lgbt representation. I feel as though I must have seen an intersex character somewhere in there, but I'm not sure I have.(edited)

it feels kind of weird(edited)

I've seen characters that don't have genders because they're gods or whatnot but I feel like that's different

Deo101 [Millennium]

I mean, I have intersex characters I supposed but theyre alien genders so I also think that's different and wouldnt call them intersex

DanitheCarutor

I don't know the whole conversation, but @Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios), you'll be fine! Most transphobic people quietly leave, only the really sad, pitiful ones make a stink and their opinions are pretty laughable. If you get crap laugh in their faces like they're morons. I would also say my character Julian is intersex, but I'm not sure how much it counts since it was a recent decision I made (after doing a lot of research) due to readers headcanoning them as an intersex character.

I think I know of a couple other comics with intersex characters if you want to check out some, lemme go look through my lists.

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

@DanitheCarutor I'd love to see other comics with intersex representation! And I think Julian totally counts? I don't see a problem with reconsidering a character's sex, gender, or orientation as we become more aware of issues in the world, or even just more aware of our own characters. Webcomics are always a work-in-progress and things change as we go.

eli [a winged tale]

@DanitheCarutor I’d love to know them too!

keii4ii

Re: clarity and confusion, sometimes a small change in wording or such can improve the clarity greatly, and that's great! But I agree that reader confusion doesn't necessarily = failure in storytelling. I've published my comic first in Korean, and a much improved version in English. The cultural difference in the audience has shown to be a huge factor in terms of what's clear and what isn't, or how certain things come across. And that's just one factor.

DanitheCarutor

So I only know of one comic personally, Drop-Out! Sure the characters are anthros, and the bubbles can be hard to read, but it is one of my favorite comics! Of course it's kinda heavy so be aware of that. http://drop-out.thecomicseries.com/ Although I checked out the Webcomic Library tagpacker and found a few. (including Drop-Out) https://tagpacker.com/user/webcomic.library?t=Intersex LGBT Webcomics also has a few that aren't listed in the above list. https://tagpacker.com/user/lgbtwebcomics?t=intersex @Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios) Lol yeah, I guess so. My readers made me put a lot of thought into it, and after the research being intersex actually fits a lot better with Julian's type of gender dysphoria and confusion than when they were AAB male. It also make some small, more intimate parts of the story feel more natural? It's hard to explain, it just feels better.(edited)

keii4ii

Like, making my work as accessible as possible has never been a goal for me with this story. So to me, it's not a failure that a large number of people can't see parts of the story that aren't being spelled out. I can totally respect "I want my work to be more accessible, so if all these people are not Getting It, then I need to do a better job" as a valid stance. Just not one I'm taking. It's all about individual goals and priorities.

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

Oh boy, writing a fantasy story with a very developed culture is kinda scary, because NOBODY is going to pick up on cultural nuances except for me(edited)

Deo101 [Millennium]

I DO want my work to be more accessible/reach a wider audience, but that still doesnt mean it will be for everyone, too.(edited)

keii4ii

Not gonna lie, I get a little salty when I see someone claiming their story is "for everyone." I feel like such a claim is disrespectful to different cultures and tastes.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

i just started drop out and damn, that's one hell of an opening

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah I genuinely don't think it's possible to make a story for everyone lol

like... idk literally just by making it "sci fi" that excludes many people who just don't like sci-fi

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

i've never seen anyone claiming their story is for everyone

Deo101 [Millennium]

I feel like just to get to your premise, not even your personal execution you're already super narrowing the people down who will be interested

which is fine!!! and is necessary to accept imo

keii4ii

@Eightfish (Puppeteer) I've seen it. Not often but I've definitely seen it.

I've even seen a creator accuse another person of being heartless because the person was not interested in their Very Emotional And Universally Heartfelt comic, so uhhh yeah

Deo101 [Millennium]

Ope

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

Well then

That just sounds like an illusioned creator

Deo101 [Millennium]

I kinda like to think of it like music

I dont like a lot of songs that other people love, it's not that they're bad songs just... not for me(edited)

keii4ii

Yeah! I also think the word "taste" is very fitting

Deo101 [Millennium]

yeah for sure

keii4ii

Some of us can eat ghost peppers like popcorns. Others would even avoid like... crackled black pepper

Deo101 [Millennium]

ahahhahaha

mac n cheese has a very wide audience, but some people aren't into it

DanitheCarutor

@Eightfish (Puppeteer) Lmao! Drop-Out is quite a unique piece of fiction. I have also seen creators who say their comic is for everyone, then get made when someone isn't interested.

Deo101 [Millennium]

I'm gonna start saying millennium is like mac n cheese now

keii4ii

@Deo101 [Millennium] That reminds me of "what drink would your comic be" !!

Deo101 [Millennium]

ahahahahah

someone: my comic is WATER EVERYONE NEEDS IT

keii4ii

I answered: "I want HoK to be liquid bacon fat, so that it'll stay in your heart forever."

Deo101 [Millennium]

ew LMAO

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

even if your comic is water, some people don't drink water

Deo101 [Millennium]

but cute? I gues????

DanitheCarutor

That sounds like a fun game, "If your comic were food what would it be?"

Mine would be sardine pizza, only weirdos like it.

Deo101 [Millennium]

next weeks creator babble question

LMSLDJGLASJGK

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

@DanitheCarutor its got such good art. The characters are so unique and expressive. Don't think I've seen anyone not use anti-aliasing on such detailed art before, but it works here

almost all webcomics are some weird food. We're niche just by nature

DanitheCarutor

It DOES have great art! And it gets better as you go too, by the time I reached the end then looked back on the first pages for nostalgia it was almost like night and day with the quality.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

fuck, really? but it's so polished already

DanitheCarutor

I mean, I guess that's not something to get excited about, most webcomics get better artwise as they go. Lmao! But still!

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

i love how the about page makes this sound like a fun roadtrip adventure

Deo101 [Millennium]

this feels mayble like the wrong chat for this discussion?

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

My comic would be a latte: A lot of people like it, but some people will never like coffee.

keii4ii

I can imagine HoK being like Chung Gook Jang soup? It's 1) Korean, 2) it warms you up, 3) it is very polarizing even among Koreans. It's kinda like... imagine miso soup on ultra mega steroid. Like a vegan version of supersharp stinky cheese. And 4) I love it.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

im alphabet soup because i have a fuckton of dialogue

Deo101 [Millennium]

I'm actually gonna stick with mac n cheese. a bit childish, but it's nice! you can do some fun things with it to shake things up, but it's still cheese and noodles.

keii4ii

Mac n cheese is amazing.

Deo101 [Millennium]

I love mac n cheese.

another reason why it's my comic! I love it, and it's something I can actually make

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

As for food, WotP would definitely something like authentic Mexican tacos. Again, generally well-received, but can be a bit intense for a lot of people

keii4ii

I really like food analogies. Sometimes it's not Gordon Ramsey you're trying to impress. Sometimes you want to make something you and/or your loved ones will enjoy, and if that's "WAY too much [ingredient]!!!!" for everyone else out there, that's not a flaw!

Deo101 [Millennium]

yeah! :D

keii4ii

That's actually good food for thought (no pun intended): what niche aspects does your comic contain? How/why are they niche?

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

@Eightfish (Puppeteer) How do you do it?

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

I think I once described mine as a corrupted tropical cocktail. On the surface: sweet, pretty, very colorful - but all the ingredients used to make it are rotten

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

I thought of Cricket as intersex for a long time and I still don't know exactly where I stand on that.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I draw a diagram of where characters/ furniture are from above. Niche things: Most conflicts are resolved through anticlimactic conversation. Also there's this huge bit about consensual mind control. I wrote the comic I'd want to read, and somehow found a few people like me to follow along

I also usually don't have more than 2 characters interacting

so it's easier for me

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

I have so many busy group scenes with people moving around. The most recent chapter was kind of a mess also because I wasn't really sure about the dimensions of the space they were all in

This scene was also pretty rushed in general

Re: intersex characters I feel like I've been shying away from that because I don't feel like I know enough about the topic to adequately represent intersex people

Joe Is Dead has a really specific aesthetic to it but I don't know how to define that niche. It's definitely something

Deo101 [Millennium]

I honestly could not answer that question about what niche things my comic contains. I don't know what about my comic is mainstream or not, I'm just making what I want to see and not really worrying about stuff like that.

keii4ii

For me, having an idea of what's niche about my comic actually lessens my worries!

It's a "okay, so I know these things are niche, which means people not liking or even getting those things =/= my failure!" kinda thing for me!

But I can also see how not thinking about what's niche or not can lessen the worries for others, too.

Deo101 [Millennium]

mhm, for me it means I can just go "well I like it anyways sooooooooo"

keii4ii

Yeah, that's the destination! We're just taking different routes to get there

Deo101 [Millennium]

I also genuinely just have a hard time determining whether or not something is niche

even if I thought about it for a while (I've been thinking about it since you asked, and I have thought about it before" I genuinely couldnt pinpoint it for you...

keii4ii

I used to beat myself up very badly every time someone didn't like a thing about my comic

Deo101 [Millennium]

keii4ii

and "oh, 1) this is subjective, 2) I like it like this, and 3) my liking of it is valid" was how I crawled out of that hole

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

I don't know if my comic is specifically niche, unless you count "low fantasy" (or essentially fantasy with less magic and such) as niche

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

My comic has a lot of specific nautical and history content that you could call niche

Also surrealism

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

i would call Joe Is Dead "niche," but not WoTP

I've read both

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

I... used to think my comics weren't niche. Ohohohohoho how wrong I was!

Deo101 [Millennium]

Id say millennium isnt niche then it's basically just gay sci fi it's p straightforward

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

My comics are very, incredibly, undeniably niche.

DanitheCarutor

@sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD) It is difficult to understand if you're not intersex yourself, even though I studied a lot before making the decision about my character I still don't know if I'll represent the topic properly. The best you can really do is get into researching all the medical stuff, talk to people willing to share their experiences with being intersex, and watch videos of people talking about it from a professional and personal perspective. The hardest thing to get right about something so subjective and personal is that everyone's experiences are different, so no matter how much you research you just gotta do your best with the info you have, then figure out how your character would experience it personally.(edited)

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

I don't think anything magical happens until Chapter 11 of WotP, now that I think about it

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

Also @DanitheCarutor thank you for the links!! I'll have to give those comics a look!

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

I’m still backreading and I just saw the food question, that is great

JID would be saltcod

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

Ooooh

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

Or like pickled herring maybe

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

Bacalao

Noice

(Bacalao = Puerto Rican salted cod)

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

They have it in spain too iirc

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

Ashes would be very bitter black coffee someone forgot to drink and it's just been sitting there for two days. Eryl would be well-aged wine spiked with tabasco sauce.

DanitheCarutor

Sorry for derailing. Anyways, I feel like my entire comic is just a ball of niche? The subject matters are uncommon and the main characters are awful and unreliable, but that's my aesthetic so I'm sticking to it. I've never particularly cared about people liking my comic due growing up not being liked myself (you kinda get over it after a while), but I do like finding people like me. @Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios) No problem! I hoard stuff like that, so I probably have a link for everything.

Urm, I don't mean I like finding unlikable people like me, I mean people who like the same types of stories as me.

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

Honestly, Dani, I connect to your comic quite a lot, for what it's worth!

DanitheCarutor

Thank you! ;v; In a way it's kind of nice having a comic that doesn't fit in. It tends to stand out, especially with my choice of medium. Although at the same times it's really hard to get feedback that applies to what you're doing! Arg!

keii4ii

It is such a Struggle, for sure -- getting relevant feedback

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

I feel you! I'm in the same boat with Ashes. It's also incredibly niche and there just aren't that many pencil comics out there- coloured or graphite.

DanitheCarutor

Being a creator who likes feedback, but also likes making niche content, is so hard! Why can't everyone like niche content??

Lmao!

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

As niche as the setting and tone of Joe Is Dead are, the main story arc is a very generic hero adventure thing that I hope will appeal to wide audiences

eli [a winged tale]

Niche content

I’d love to know more! What niches are you exploring?

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

The nicest thing anyone's said about Super Galaxy Knights Deluxe R http://sgkdr.thecomicseries.com/comics/ is that they really became invested in the characters. Like, that's the kind of story I want to make - the kind where the characters really stick with you.

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

As for what food my comic would be... I'd say squid ink pasta. It's the kind of food that makes you go "what the heck is going on here" if you're new to it, but once you actually eat it you'll (hopefully) go "oh, that made way more sense than i expected and was actually pretty tasty"

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

I don't know if you're talking to me directly but I'm using a lot of maritime history and literature stuff that I've been obsessed with for a long time as the setting of the story, and then the whole thing has a really morbid and nihilistic tone, while also somehow being funny because I have a background in comedy/satire writing

And then heavy biblical themes

It's essentially a Renaissance period retelling of the Joseph story from the bible

With pirates instead of shepherds

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

For me, I’m not even sure what niche Ashes belongs to. (https://www.flowerlarkstudios.com/cos/) It’s dark, it’s weird, it has a twisty plot that slowly trickles information, and it’s an odd mash-up of genres. I often try to describe it as Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children meets Farthing Wood. It’s mostly urban fantasy with some horror elements and talking animals. Basically it’s about a bunch of unaging teenagers with supernatural, angel-gifted powers and a bunch of woodland critters fighting (although so far it’s more running from) eldritch monsters. But it’s main focus is on each character battling either mental illness or some other kind of inner demon.

keii4ii

There's also the aspect of: what's niche in one culture may not be niche in another. In Korean media, Fantastical Old Korea is a very common setting for all sorts of genres: gag a day, romance, all-ages adventure, gritty crime drama, zombie apocalypse, you name it. If the work spends a lot of visuals showing mundane everyday moments, often that's a shorthand for "sit down and stay a while; this is a heartfelt tale that takes its time." My comic uses such a setting. When I began to publish it in English, I was surprised that people were expecting it to be one of these AND NOTHING ELSE: a) exciting magical action adventure b) mythology-driven, all about gods and spirits My comic is neither of those. It definitely contains elements of adventure, but that's the plate the meat is served on, not the meat itself. So I guess the usage of the setting is niche.

Like, imagine a civilian life drama set in WWII time. The civilian MC may have a family member or a close friend in the military, but the story focuses on the MC's experience. Imagine presenting that story and people expect it to be... military action? Not a perfect analogy, but hopefully a good enough one.

Kelsey (Kurio)

To be fair, Korea would find fantastical old Korea less exotic than those outside of Korea heh

keii4ii

That is definitely a factor. Even today, you can find semi-Old Days-like places IRL within like... 3 hours of drive.

I'm weirded out that my culture is considered exotic, but it is what it is

(To clarify, weirded out =/= offended.)

Kelsey (Kurio)

Well any culture can be exotic to people outside of that culture

As an outsider looking in, it can be fascinating to learn about a culture I don't know much about

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

Anything unfamiliar is usually considered exotic. I know in both England and America, I never really learned anything about any Asian country growing up. I had to seek out the info myself, and as it was very unfamiliar to me, it seemed exotic!

Kelsey (Kurio)

Especially their myths and stories

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

Oops, exactly what Kelsey said, I typed too slow.

keii4ii

Yeah, the thing is I've been told I should not be using this setting to tell this story because it's a doomed combination. But ehh, I decided not to listen to that. This story with this setting and all of its elements is what I wanted to read.

carcarchu

slice of life set in a historical setting sounds really refreshing actually(edited)

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

But I know I’d probably feel strange if someone told me New York was exotic!

carcarchu

sometimes historical settings can get really bogged down by politics and whatever other drama, having a quiet slow paced story set in the same kind of world is something i'd be interested in reading

Kelsey (Kurio)

Nothing wrong with trying the approach you want to

Who knows, you might end up with a unique combo that helps your work stand out

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

Yup. I’m a firm believer in writing the kind of story you’d want to read. No matter how niche.

Tuyetnhi

Totes agreed on this. For me, when I had to drop my dark drama series for my romance story, folks were like "Dang, I thought you like writing dark things!"

I do, but romance comics.... [clenches chest]. I also want to write a story that I want to read so lmao. Dream lover elements along with some dark horror influences is something I want to try doing lol

carcarchu

this is not a webcomic but try reading coelacanth if you're interested in the combination of horror with romance @Tuyetnhi

Tuyetnhi

ooo I'll keep that in mind

carcarchu

it's really so unique i love coelacanth so much

Tuyetnhi

is it a novel? :0

carcarchu

it's a manga

Tuyetnhi

aaa

Yeah I probably check it out sometime lmao

back on the idea tho, I also wanted to add some Vietnamese influences in the mix since there's not a lot of stories about Vietnamese disapora, so that's included in the cauldron lol

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

@keii4ii what's your comic? I wanna check it out(edited)

keii4ii

@Eightfish (Puppeteer) It's https://heartofkeol.com/

(I get extremely nervous whenever I know someone is checking out my comic for the first time )

DanitheCarutor

To answer @eli [a winged tale] question. I'm delving into stuff like mental illnesses and disorders, medical illnesses, abuse, trauma and later on, self-care. The comic itself is slow and character centric, I guess you can say it's like a character study. The story can be really depressing depending on who is reading, and it has some softcore horror bits sprinkled in. I'm kind of a nerd for mental health, sad stuff and everything medical so I figured I may as well make a story embellishing those interests. In short it's a sad, character driven, psychological drama about two extremely flawed individuals. Not particularly exciting compared to all the other webcomics out there, but somebody has to make that one pretentious, psychological slice of life piece.

keii4ii

What compounds my issues is that my comic does have enough adventure elements for someone to mistake it for an underwhelming adventure story. "This is an adventure story but there's not enough adventure in it?" kinda thing.

@DanitheCarutor Character studies FTW!!! Yours has been on my 'gotta check this out' list for a long time now!

Tuyetnhi

Oooo

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

I also am a fan of psychological stories

Especially if they're sad(edited)

Tuyetnhi

Kei idk why but I was reminded of .hack SIGN when u said that

"there's so much talking! where's the action?!?"

keii4ii

@Tuyetnhi That's actually not a terrible comparison -- though .hack//SIGN has other issues that my comic hopefully doesn't have XD

Tuyetnhi

I'm pretty sure it's miles better than that old anime lmao

DanitheCarutor

@keii4ii Pff I need to check out your comic too! I remember reading it at one point, but I don't remember what happened to make me lose track. From what little I remember I really liked it.

keii4ii

The thing with .hack//SIGN was it had a lot of promises of mystery that never went anywhere, within SIGN. I've heard those mysteries do go somewhere within the franchise, but you had to watch/read the entire franchise, which I wasn't going to do. I hope my comic will be a good read on its own, when finished.

Tuyetnhi

sadly, I was one of those suckers that went to consume the .hack games and mangas to get some context from SIGN in the late 2000's lmao

I hope the same as mine, despite being mostly saccharine and self-indulgent nature lmao

keii4ii

Self-indulgence is a strength of indie comics.

eli [a winged tale]

I love all the themes y’all explore! They’re so important

Tuyetnhi

I feel like I have a reason for everything when working on that comic but if that's what it boils down to, I'll take it lol

keii4ii

TBH I produce my best writing and art when I focus on pleasing myself.

Because if I'm trying to please others, I don't even know what they want, so I waste my energy panicking.

But when I'm creating for my inner reader, I can be self-critical in a productive manner!

Tuyetnhi

so true ya

RebelVampire

Hey guys. I kind of feel as this has deviated a smidgen too far from the topic, so maybe reel it in just a smidgen. XD(edited)

Desnik

so the nicest thing anyone's ever said about my comic is that they wanna read more :3

I kinda dread reader dropoffs so the will to see the whole story through fills me with joy

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