#the other section is every writer who only wrote one thing
Text
Cat's Out of the Bag La Rue
pairing: Clarisse La Rue x reader
summary: Valentines Day rolls around, and what kind of girlfriend would Clarisse be if she didnt get you the only present you've been wanting?
a/n: i wrote like 5 fucking valentines day fics yesterday (one with natasha, one with wanda, one with clarisse, one with carol danvers, and one with katniss everdeen) yet this is the only one im posting and i kinda hate it. literally the shortest oneshot i've ever written. also, I'm literally a dog person writing about cats. what has life come to?
is this the worst thing i've ever written? yes. do i hate every other piece of written recently cuz im in writers block and haven't updated in like 3 weeks? also yes. im so done yall.
With a baseball cap covering her head, tucking her curls against her head and being the best disguise she could come up with, Clarisse’s eyes dart all around the cab. It zooms through the streets of New York, making the child of Are’s slightly concerned for her and her siblings safety as they get honked out. The man driving seems like he’s barely paying attention to the road, but in the end it doesn’t really matter as long as they get to their destination.
There are three children in the yellow car; Clarisse, her half brother Mark, and her half sister Ruby. They were the only ones who she could convince to come with her to town, past the safe bounds of camp half blood where nothing but their weapons can stop monsters from hunting and hurting them.
It’d be a lie to say Clarisse isn’t nervous, but she pushes the feeling down as she grips her spear tighter in her left hand.
This is for you. She’s going into town and risking getting in trouble for the end result of seeing her favorite smile. Your smile. Her partner of one year. It may not seem like a very long time to some people, but you guys are demigods. It’s surprising you made it through the year without being killed by some horrible, ugly monster.
The car stops and the guy counts the large amount of money Mark hands him before telling them to get out of his cab. It may have annoyed the teenagers on any other day, but it doesn’t bother them too much since today is a special day.
“Why are we here?” Ruby asks, eyes scanning the area around them as if sure something is going to jump out at them. In the blonde haired girl's defense, it’s very possible something will.
Clarisse gestures to the small building in front of them. It’s run down and in desperate need of a paint job, but it doesn’t matter. That’s not what grabs the child of Ares attention. It’s the small animals chilling in their little spots inside the store. That’s what she’s here for.
The sign above the small colorful store reads, “Mike’s Animals”. Boring name, but gets the point across. She can already see the little animal she came here for when they walk through the door, the loud bell ringing from the action of opening it but no employee comes to help them. Clarisse lets her siblings stare in awe at the other animals for a few months before shoving towards a section near the back. The kitten section. You had been showing her a website on your phone a few days ago, one with a different selection of the small animals. The website was for Mike’s Animals, but you explained that even though you’d really like a cat, pets aren’t allowed in Camp Half Blood. It’s a rule.
Well you wanna know what Clarisse says about that? Screw rules. What her person want’s, her person gets.
So if the police ever come around, asking you why Clarisse shoved a black and white kitten into her brother's coat pocket and then made a run for it while the store manager chased after them, that’s what you have to say.
-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
You're laying on your bed reading a book when your girlfriend walks in, a large box covered by a piece of fabric under one arm and a bouquet of flowers in her free hand. She ignores your siblings' gazes as she walks towards your space, setting down the box with a type of gentleness nobody in camp but you gets to see and then holding out the flowers.
They’re your favorite, clearly straight out of the flower fields by the slight glow they give off. They’re wrapped in a brown type of paper with a pink bow clearly down by one of the Aphrodite kids to hold it all together.
“Hey my love.” She starts. “These are for you.” You take the plants with a large grin on your face, bringing them closer to your face to smell the amazing natural scent coming from them. Something moves inside the box she sat on your bed, making you hold in a scream as you jump closer to your girlfriend and farther away from it. “What the hell is moving in that Clarisse?!” You ask, your siblings' attention all over you guys now.
Clarisse just laughs, but she seems slightly nervous as she puts the crate in your lap. “Just look. I hope you like it.” She continues to nervously ramble as you remove the cloth from the top of the box, letting out a small gasp when you see the small animal looking back at you with wide, curious blue eyes.
Your girlfriend stares as you gently pick him up, him instantly curling into your hold with a soft pur as you hold him close to your chest. “You um…you like him?” She asks with a small smile.
“Of course I do! He’s adorable, Risse!” She lets out a relieved sigh, laying down next to you as your siblings surround the bed trying to get a look at the animal. “You know Chiron will never let you keep that right?” One of your brothers asks with a laugh, and you frown as you look at your girlfriend.
She thinks about it for a moment before she says, “We’ll just hide him. He can lounge around the cabin while you’re gone, and you guys can hide him somewhere during cabin checks. Chiron will never know.”
Your siblings eventually leave you alone, going back to their acticicus as your two favorite beings cuddle up to you. Clarisse cuddles up next to your side, and the kitten on your stomach. “I really like you Oreo.” you whisper to the animal, making your girlfriend laugh. “Oreo? That’s the most original thing you could think of right?”
“Okay if you're so great at naming things, what should we name him?”
She goes quiet for a few seconds before mumbling in defeat, “I like Oreo.”
You guys enjoy the silence that surrounds just you guys as you pet Oreo, but then a small laugh comes from you when Clarisse gently grabs the cat and pulls him off your chest so she can lay her head there. “He’s been here for half an hour and you're already jealous?” “He was getting way too touchy. Mine.” She teases and then fakes an annoyed groan when he crawls onto her back and lays down, stretching himself out just to prove a point.
“Will you be my Valentine, my love?” She asks as she places her chin on your chest to look up at you. There's a certain softness in her eyes that you and only you get to see. In fact, it’s very, very rare you ever see the side everyone else talks about when they talk about Clarisse towards you. “You guys just don’t know her like I do.” You tell them. Not like they believe you, half of the camp still believing you somehow put a spell on her.
“Only if you’ll be mine.” You whisper back as if it’s a secret.
“Oh…this is awkward. I already agreed to be like ten other girls date.” Her voice is teasing as she tries and fails not to giggle.
“Is that so?”
“Mhm.”
“Hm.” You fake being offended as you cross your arms over your chest and look away. She laughs, and the sound practically forces a smile on your face.
“I’m kidding. Only you, angel. I’m yours. Always.”
“And I’m yours, Clarisse La Rue.”
“Always?”
“And forever.”
There’s a knock on your cabin door, and you figure it’s another camper until a voice calls from the other side of the door, “Clarisse? I know you're in there. Your siblings told me where you went. Cat’s out of the bag La Rue.” Chiron says. Very terrible choice of words. She groans into your stomach, rolling off of you and successfully getting Oreo to jump off her back and onto the bed.
“Those little snitches.” She snarls as she gets up to open the door, making you instantly miss her warmth.
You place the cat under your sweater, giggling and then shoving his face back under when he crawls to put his head through the neck hole. Once she knows he’s covered, Clarisse opens the door. Chirons eyes fall to you, and it’s only then do you think about the fact that there is a giant Oreo shaped lump in your sweater.
All your siblings fall silent as they watch to see what’s gonna happen.
“Mac and cheese day am I right?” You try to joke with a nervous chuckle, but he doesn’t laugh. He just runs a hand over his face and then stares at you. “You know what? I don’t care. You find a way to feed him that isn’t taking resources from us, you make sure he doesn’t do any damage to the furniture, and you keep track of him at all times, you can keep him.”
You grin at him, letting the small animal out of your sweater who in turn lowly hisses at the sight of Chiron.
He groans, walking off as he mumbles something about needing a very long vacation. There's only so much of your girlfriend bending the rules to get you presents he can handle before he was bound to just accept it.
The cinatar leaves, your girlfriend flipping him off when he can’t see. He yells over his shoulder, “I know what you’re doing Clarisse! Stop it or no dessert!”
She stops flipping him off. Next to you, chocolate cake is what she lives for.
-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
That night, as you sit with Clarisse at the bonfire, she listens to you complain about how much you miss Oreo. Usually, you’d be too busy roasting marshmallows and cuddling with her to think about anything else, but your girlfriend doesn’t do anything other than smile, happy she made you so happy.
“So how’d you get him anyway? You don’t have that kind of money and there’s no way Chiron gave it to you.” You say, and she freezes in her spot on a log, slightly tightening her arms that are wrapped around your waist as she avoids your eyes.
“I stole him.” Her voice is slightly quieter than usual, and she says this in the most casual tone she can muster.
“CLARISSE LA RUE!”
#clarisse la rue#clarisse x reader#clarisse la rue x reader#clarisse la rue x you#fluff#valentines day#pjo#percy jackson#percy jackon and the olympians#percy jackson series#cats#don't call my bitch the lightning theif percy!#what was that ending?#11 days late lol#valentines gifts#valentines day fic
490 notes
·
View notes
Text
𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐦𝐲 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐠𝐮𝐞
𝗮𝗵𝗻 𝘆𝘂𝗷𝗶𝗻 𝘅 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿
𝗵𝗶𝗴𝗵 𝘀𝗰𝗵𝗼𝗼𝗹 𝗮𝘂! 𝘆/𝗻 𝗯𝗲𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗲 𝗮𝗳...
𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀: 𝗻𝗼𝗻𝗲
𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗱 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁: 𝟯,𝟯𝟲𝟬
ahn yujin was out of your league in every way, shape, and form. you were the most quiet and antisocial person in the entire school, and if it wasn’t for the fact that you were partners for a paper, you wouldn’t have even met her. yujin was talented and gorgeous, a deadly combination that left others pining after her for god knows how long. unfortunately, you were one of those people. you knew better than to fall for the girl who was good at everything.
from her vocal skills to her dancing, she was the epitome of what everyone wanted to be. usually her locker was surrounded with confession notes and the occasional flowers, and truth be told those flowers made you sneeze whenever you walked past them, so you couldn’t imagine how annoying it must be for her. the girl who was good at all things could not avoid the mob of people that followed her everywhere.
however, there was also one other thing ahn yujin was not good at: english papers.
Its the reason why you and yujin got paired up in the first place. yujin’s grades were anything but stellar, and yours were practically perfect. your teacher had asked you to help yujin and not just do the entire paper yourself, which made you internally groan because that had been your plan all along. unfortunately, that landed you into your present predicament with the brunette in front of you.
“yujin, that’s not how you spell it.” you timidly pointed out on the google doc in front of her. you two were currently writing a paper on the impacts of shakespearean literature, but unfortunately ahn yujin kept misspelling the word “shakespeare.”
yujin’s brows furrowed, her eyes glancing over the sentences she wrote, scanning to look for her alleged mistake. “oh, sorry.” she apologized before hitting the backspace to fix her misspelling.
to say the past hour had been awkward would be an understatement. since the final draft of the paper was due in a week, you both agreed to start on it as soon as possible since your schedules may clash.
little did yujin know that your schedule was entirely empty, and only consisted of studying and watching the newest netflix series available. you would never tell her that, though.
your fingers twitched as you stared at the screen in front of you. the two of you had divided the work up by sections, you each taking a pretty even split. you were a good writer, and you knew that, but with the prettiest girl in the school sitting in front of you, it truly was difficult to focus.
ahn yujin was gorgeous, but seeing her this close only made you realize that there was not a word in the history of languages that could describe her. she was beautiful, and you had to keep sneaking small glances at her in case you stared for too long and she would notice. it was going to be very hard to finish this paper, especially when she just looked so cute when she was focused.
her eyebrows twitched every few beats, and her lower lip was tucked in between her teeth out of nervous habit. sometimes she would even mumble to herself, and it took everything in you to not blush at the sight.
truth be told, you had known yujin since elementary school. you two were not friends or even close to it, but you saw her on the playground with her friends all the time. in all honesty, you could probably count on one hand how many times you two had ever even spoken to each other directly. you were always there, just in the shadows observing the girl you had had a crush on since the 2nd grade.
“hi.”
you looked down from the swing to see yujin standing to the side of the swingset. “hi yujin.”
the girl in the ponytail pointed at the jacket that was tied to the other leg of the swing. “i need that,” she said as she shifted her weight in the grass. “but you’re swinging, and i don’t want to get hit by you.”
“oh,” your attention was drawn to the object of inquiry as you tried to slow down your swinging to hopefully hop off and grab it for her. except before your feet could hit the ground, yujin s voice stopped you.
“no, keep swinging. Its okay.”
your head tilted to the side as you looked at her, still swaying forwards and backwards. you were confused. she wanted her jacket back, so you should stop and get it like she wanted. why would she ask you to stop?
“but what about your jacket?” you asked sincerely, trying your best to not stop swinging like she asked. the other girl smiled brightly at you, not breaking eye contact as you swung back and forth in front of her.
“it’s okay, i can wait for you.”
you were brought out of your thoughts as yujin shut her laptop and began packing her things. “thank you for your help today.” she said with a small smile, slipping her laptop into her backpack before swinging it over her shoulder. you sent a nod in her direction, mirroring a small smile in return.
“no problem.”
“i’ll call you friday, okay?” the brunette pushed her chair in as she stood, waving a goodbye as she walked out of the library. you rubbed your temples and laid your head on the table, doing your best to not shout in frustration.
the paper was already stressful, but you seemed to underestimate the impact of your crush on the girl who was out of your league.
a few days passed, each consisting of the same school day routine that included your wandering gazes to the girl who sat in the front of the classroom in every subject you two shared.
you were usually good at focusing, but ever since you two got paired together for your project, it ended up putting yujin in the forefront of your mind far more often than you were used to. you weren’t complaining, of course.
yujin was pretty to look at, but she danced in your mind for hours on end. the mental picture was almost as good as the reality. it was just a happy crush, truthfully. the two of you never even had a conversation more than 2 minutes long before now. you didn’t understand why you still liked her.
especially since she was definitely out of your league, and there was no way she even knew more than your name. did she even know your full name? she should, considering how long you were in classes together for, but did she care to remember such a minute detail?
you made your way through the hallway, following the familiar path to your locker. once you turned the corner, you saw your crush standing in front of your locker. confusion laced your features as you slowly approached her.
“yujin? what are you doing in front of my locker?”
the taller girl turned around at the sound of her name, her entire face lighting up at the sight of you. “hi y/n, i brought you cookies. consider it a ‘thank you’ for being the best partner.” she shoved a box of homemade cookies into your hands, the soft smile never leaving her face as she stood before you.
you looked between the cookies and then her a few times, mentally processing what was happening. “oh, you didn’t have to, really. thank you, though.” you mustered up a small half smile.
as you turned to open your locker, you noticed that yujin wasn’t turning to leave. you grabbed the binder you needed before turning your attention to the taller girl once more. “did you need something else?” you asked gently, not really knowing what to say.
yujin’s smile faltered a little, her gaze looking from you to your locker until finally landing back on you. “are you free tonight?” she asked.
you shook your head a little too fast, feeling slightly embarrassed of yourself. “i can’t work on the paper tonight, i need to study for the biology exam. sorry yujin.” you smiled softly.
yujin’s shoulders sagged a little, but she quickly straightened her posture. “no worries. i’ll just see what i can do on my own then.” she shot you one last smile before she turned to leave.
you shut your locker before shouting back one last comment at her. “don’t forget to spell shakespeare correctly.”
the taller girl turned around at the sound of your voice, a genuine smile gracing her features as she heard your comment.
“it would be easier if you were there to remind me.”
as she disappeared into the sea of people, you couldn't help but shake your head at your heart racing in your chest. “she’s just being nice,” you muttered to yourself before turning on your heel and walking the opposite direction to your class.
the next day arrived, thursday, and you couldn’t help but feel as if someone’s eyes were on you the whole morning. you shifted in your seat, trying to focus on your notes and the teacher writing on the board. however, once you turned to glance at the glock, your eyes met yujin’s.
wait, yujin? your brows furrowed automatically, earning a timid smile from the brunette across the room as she practically shrunk in her seat. she gave you a small wave before turning and facing the front of the room.
your heart fluttered in your chest for a moment, but it was short lived as you cursed yourself mentally. yujin was your project partner, nothing more. you two hadn’t even scratched the surface of “friends” in your book yet.
shortly after, the bell rang, signifying the end of the class period. you got up to collect your things, but the moment you did, you saw yujin moving towards your desk from the corner of your eye. except, when she was a row of desks away from you, you saw her stop in front of the desk of someone else.
your eyes glanced over to the direction of the girl, trying your best to not feel your heart squeezing in your chest.
yujin was talking to someone else, one of the other popular girls in her clique. you reprimanded yourself for even thinking she would possibly talk to you outside of your assignment.
you spent the rest of the day avoiding her, but you could only do so much since tomorrow you two were supposed to facetime and finish another part of the paper. if only you could have been more talkative in elementary school and could have made more of an effort to be social. maybe you and yujin would be more than just english partners.
it was all just wishful thinking, but even so, it was hard to not blame yourself for not making more of an effort to be more social.
once you got home, you spent the rest of the evening writing more of the paper. you knew you didn’t need to since yujin was doing her best to pull her load, but you still felt the need to do more just in case she wasn’t able to finish anything last minute.
your head hurt from staring at the screen for so long, but eventually you managed to finish another three paragraphs to the body of the paper. it was due tomorrow, after all. a hand ran through your hair before you checked your phone.
right as you were about to turn your attention back to the daunting assignment in front of you, a notification popped up at the top of your screen.
from: yujin :3
hey r u up??
sent: 11:01 pm
confused as to why yujin was even awake at this hour if she wasn’t working on the assignment, you shot a response back.
to: yujin :3
yeah?
sent: 11:01 pm
from: yujin :3
so about tomorrow
sent: 11:02 pm
you watched the small dots dance as she typed as a twinge of anxiety rose in you. she was going to cancel your last work session together since the assignment would be over tomorrow evening, wasn’t she?
deciding you didn’t want to make her feel bad about ditching, you hurriedly typed a reply before she could finish writing out hers.
to: yujin :3
hey dont even worry about it. i can cover what u don’t finish tonight or tomorrow afternoon. u don’t have to worry abt showing up tmr, its all good
sent: 11:02 pm
the tiny three dots disappeared after your message had been sent, and you breathed out a sigh of relief knowing that you had successfully lightened the load on the girl. taking yujin’s lack of a response as a good sign, you decided to work on the paper for another 30 minutes before calling it a night.
once your head hit the pillow eventually, you were able to rest well knowing that ahn yujin didn’t have to worry about misspelling “shakespeare” after tomorrow.
since school got out early on friday, you were looking forward to being able to spend the rest of your afternoon alone at the library in peace and quiet. it meant you could easily finish the paper before sunset. except, once you turned the corner around one of the shelves, you did a double take.
yujin was sitting at your usual spot, a fresh bouquet of flowers sitting atop the table on her side. you assumed easily it was given to her by one of her many not so secret admirers. slowly, you made your way to the desk table and put your belongings down.
the taller girl immediately straightened up and smiled at your arrival, but her gaze faltered a bit once yours was one of just genuine confusion. “what are you doing here??” you asked genuinely as you took your seat across from her.
you didn’t see the expression on her face since you turned to pull your laptop out from your bag. however, the look on her face consisted of furrowed brows and a pout on her lips. it was quickly wiped off once you turned to face her fully.
“well, i came here to see you.”
your hands didn’t falter in your movements as you began typing away once again, “but i told you it was okay. i’m almost done with it anyway, you didn’t need to.”
yujin’s hands suddenly reached across the table and pushed the screen of your laptop forward gently, not shutting it completely on your hands. “i came here to see you, y/n.”
you tilted your head to the side, still not fully processing what was going on here. yujin came here to see you? for what?
“for what?” she mimicked, and it was only then that you realized you must have accidentally said the last part out loud. she only shook her head and grabbed the flowers next to her before extending them to you.
“they’re pretty right? do you like them?” she asked. you only nodded and admired the bouquet of tiny daises and a few sunflowers. “i think they’re pretty, yes. whoever got you them has very good taste.”
yujin let out a chuckle before sending a witty reply. “i know, i bought them.”
“oh,” your heart squeezed in your chest. she bought flowers for someone? the brunette across the table took note of your visible confusion before finally doing something about it.
“i got the flowers for you, y/n.”
she placed them in your hands for you to take, a proud smile beaming on her face as she did so. “oh, you didn’t have to get me anything yujin. it was just a paper, really.”
the school’s most popular student cursed slightly under her breath before she stood up and leaned over you. even with you sitting, her height managed to make you tower slightly over you.
“consider them an invitation, then.” she whispered, making intense eye contact with you. “go out on a date with me, y/n.”
your jaw dropped instantly, and you almost looked around the library quickly to see if there were any hidden cameras or people recording secretly. was this some kind of joke?
“a joke?” yujin did her best to not look hurt, so she laughed it off. “why would you think this is a joke?”
you realized you accidentally thought out loud for the second time, mentally cursing yourself a thousand times as yujin’s head tilted to the side while she waited for your response.
“you’re really asking me that?” you asked as she nodded in response. you sighed and broke your gaze away to stare at a particularly interesting spot on the wooden table.
“honestly, i have had a crush on you for a while, but you’re just,” you bit your lip trying to gather your thoughts. “as cheesy as it sounds, you’re just out of my league, yujin.”
yujin’s jaw dropped this time, staring at you in disbelief even though you couldn’t see her face. “y/n,” she snickered as she used her hand to gently move your chin up to face her. “i felt the same way about you.”
“me?” you gawked at her in disbelief, truly not believing the words coming out of the other girl’s mouth. “yujin, you’re literally everyone’s dream girl. anyone would be lucky to even have a chance with you. ”
yujin rolled her eyes playfully, “then i guess you will be the luckiest girl in the world, huh?” she smiled softly. “i’ve had a crush on you since i frist met you on the swingset in second grade. i still liked you during your middle school pokemon phase, and i still liked you when you became the smartest person in our grade.”
she grabbed your shoulders and shook you gently. “i’ve never accepted anyone else’s date invitations or dance invitations because i was waiting for you to make a move. but i knew you would never notice me, especially since we didn’t talk much.”
she continued speaking as she sat on the edge of the table behind her. “it was me who actually asked to get teamed up with you. once we got paired up, i knew i had to take a chance, but you just kept dodging me every time i tried to make a move. i brought you cookies, i tried to ask you out twice, including yesterday night, but you just didn’t seem interested.”
yujin paused before she cupped your face and committed your features to her own memory, burning into her mind every detail there was. you were too lost in your own thoughts, realizing that the girl who was out of your league for years was finally confessing to you. it didn’t feel real, and if anything you were waiting to pinch yourself to see if you were dreaming. maybe she wasn’t so out of your league after all?
finally, you responded to her confessions. “i feet the same way about you, yujin.”
she couldn’t fight the grin that formed on her lips, and the sight of her smile this close made your face heat up slightly. she took notice and placed a small kiss on your forehead. once she pulled away, the two of you stayed like that for a little while. just leaning into each other’s touches and admiring each other’s features.
“yujin,” you moved her slightly to re-open the google doc with the english paper in it. “we have to finish this.” the brunette rolled her eyes and shut your laptop. you shot her a knowing look, “i promise we can go out and do whatever you want after we turn this in.”
she reluctantly agreed, opting to pull out her own laptop to help finish things up as well. “if we both work on it, we can finish faster.” she reasoned with a smile. you couldn’t help but laugh at the other girl, and shook your head lightly.
“only if you spell shakespeare correctly.”
“don’t make me leave you alone in this library.”
a/n: i wrote this for silan and kept it hostage from her so MWAH
601 notes
·
View notes
Note
oh my gosh, your writing is so great -- thank you for sharing! if you're taking requests, would you consider something featuring simon and a christian reader? (honestly, i'm really glad that there's a longfic writer in the fandom who doesn't focus on nsfw scenarios. the 'delirium' section in your masterlist is a really cute addition that i personally haven't seen before, and i'm older than you are. haha sorry for rambling, thanks again! <3)
Hi! I’m glad you enjoy my work!
I'm gonna be honest; I wrote a whole paragraph about nsfw-centered fics and what I think about them, and ended up deleting it bc it wasn't the point at all. It's too easy for me to start rambling sometimes. In short, I'm not in the mood to read nsfw sometimes, and I wish there were more sfw fanfics, so that's what I usually write.
Let me warn you, I’m not an expert in any religion, so there can be mistakes here (and this is kinda (very) nonspecific). I did my best though. Also, sorry it took me so fucking long. Hope you like it!
Mercy
Ghost doesn’t believe in your God.
Maybe Simon once did. He’s not sure. How could he, after everything he’s gone through? If he had any faith inside him, it should have survived. If a God like that existed, they should have helped him.
But there’s no faith left in him, and he hasn’t been helped by any God.
He knows only one pair of hands that are holy. Only one forgiveness he’d spend this life- and any other- seeking. Only one name he mutters before falling asleep. There is only one place he goes to every Sunday, and one face he wants to see when he dies.
Yours.
Maybe he does believe in god -he believes in you, after all.
He’s seen you pray. You close your eyes, sometimes move your mouth without talking, the words taking possession of your lips. It’s the same when he mouths “I love you” under the mask, in the shadows. He thinks your God hears you the same way you hear him: you don’t, but you know.
He's noticed how you pat the cross hanging around your chest when you need support. When Ghost is about to jump into a storm of bullets, when Johnny is messing with a suspicious wire, when he’s only got one magazine left… He pats his chest: the heart beating inside is yours.
He’s gone with you to church. You keep quiet when you’re there, reverential for the sacred atmosphere. When Simon is at your house, he doesn’t talk much either. He bows at the pictures on your walls, though, a savior depicted in all your glory.
He knows when you’re scared, you ask your God for protection. When he was injured in battle, the only thing he thought about was you. The only one at the hospital, the only one tending to his wounds for months, the only one.
Ghost doesn’t believe in God. He does, however, worship you. That’s why he’s standing at the altar, looking at you in your white dress. He is a religious man, after all. A devotee. One to whom you’ve granted entry to Heaven, now that you’re saying yes. One that is loved, even with blood under his nails and gunpowder deep in his pores.
Ghost is a sinner that’s been forgiven before even asking. A coarse attempt at being like you; so pure, good and loving. You let him kneel before you once, a ring in his trembling hand; you took him. You put one on his finger, a gift he’ll never be able to repay, but that he’s infinitely thankful for. He’s not perfect, he’ll never be; and he knows. But he’s doing his best, and you know that. So you kiss him as if he were.
When you leave church -hand in his, husband and wife- he speaks to your God for the first and only time. Says only two words.
Thank you.
#ghost#simon ghost riley#ghost cod#simon ghost riley x reader#cod#fanfiction#simon riley cod#simon needs a hug#simon riley x reader#simon riley x you#simon ghost x reader#task force 141#tf 141#cod 141#fanfic#lennadanvers#len answers#christianity I hope
55 notes
·
View notes
Text
famous au but um dumb
@cowboylexapro
if the poets were on social media and famous this is what they'd be known for
(age somewhere between 19-21)
todd
tumblr blog name: toad.anderson
ao3 name: toad.writes
he's technically anon but not rlly
sexiest tumblr account known to man - he's a fanfic writer and an au poster with some occasional og stuff that floods his inbox with asks begging him to publish his og work too - what fandom does he write for? all of them.
his bf proof reads them all even if he's never been in the fandom
he writes fics for his friends when they get famous
in between his novel worthy fanfics are shitty fics of his friends
his followers get rlly confused
he wrote a neil x reader fic until straight girls started claiming it and he took it down becuz the reader was him
todd on his blog: guyss… im so sorry but im taking the neil x reader fic down… im sorry if i offend anyone but the reader was me ❤️ not you - i don't like you all claiming it
after taking down the x reader, he does a neil x oc but the oc is him but with green eyes
neil, after the oc gets described: todd the only person im seeing is u tho 😦 and u have blue eyes
eventually his relationship with famous tiktoker neil perry gets revealed and ppl realize he's not just an obsessed fan
after neil says the thing blog: toad.anderson: guys my real name is todd anderson everyone: omg we wouldve never guessed
after neil and him go public and ppl dont believe that neil is gay he alternates between seething and writing neil fics and taking joy from neil's confusion
todd points out comments that are obviously thirsting over neil and neil still doesn't realize he's being thirsted over
"neil be the father of my children!" "oh i think they meant that in a godfather type way"
todd, at a breaking point, suggests that neil and him post a kissing video but neil doesnt wanna be one of those shawn camilla couples - respect
what if he posted them kissing but he made a historians will call them bestfriends joke but then ppl did🧍♂️
"my bestie and I 🤩 " "NEIL PEOPLE ARE GOING TO THINK UR SERIOUS"
//
neil
tiktok name: neilliard.at.julliard
accidentally tiktok famous for pretty face, charming personality, acting abilities - the theater kids had a claim over him orignially but he's pretty mainstream now
comment section full of old grandmas trying to set him up with their granddaughters
everyones dream bf until he posted about his own bf
neil: my boyfie has a big tumblr and he writes a lot and he really likes frogs and he is also blond and heres his address
hes kinda oblivious about everything
"you want a close up of my collar bones? why ?"
reading comment "'show your abs?' its nice you think i have abs! only my boyfriend can see those tho 😉 "
the comments go wild
people are stitching it screaming for different reasons
all his fans r screaming into pillows bc HES TAKEN NOOO
people are trying to figure out who this mans boyfie is
"he has a boyfriend??" "he's been straightbaiting us!" "NOO HE'S TAKEN" "IS UR BF AS HOT AS U" "look at the way his eyes lit up when he said bf i love love" "this video shows an aspect of society that-"
"tell us about ur bf" and he makes a week worth of videos but its all random stuff
"my bf looks pretty in blue" "my bf likes to put salt and pepper on his fries" "my bf has hair"
the straightbaiting comments come after him posting about pride and having a pride flag in the background of his videos <- they say things like "he's such a good ally"
people attack others in the comments who ask him if hes queer "NO NEIL ISNT GAY NOT EVERYTHING HAS TO BE GAY HE COULD JUST BE A REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY FRUITY STRAIGHT GUY WHO LIKES GIRLS"
"are you gay neil???" -> "not everything has to be gay ppl can just be allys and btw by assuming every ally is gay, ur actually hurting the movement!!!" -> "i asked becuz he said he wanted to kiss his boy best friend on the lips in highschool" -> "he meant it heterosexual-ly"
someone asks him what his type is and he describes todd to the t and they think he likes a short haired blonde
"he likes girls in sweat pants not skirts" "his type isnt ppl in skirts" -- neil would love todd in a skirt but thats not the point
his type: "he's really shy, gorgeous, short dirty blonde hair, uhhhh, really smart, and So much more :))"
he could say my boyfriend is a man who i am dating because i am gay and they would still try to straight-ify him
a grainy video gets leaked of a short haired blond guy jumping into his arms and ppl say things like "its just a girl with short hair"
todd hate writes a neil x male reader fic
he asks his friends for help and they post todd's face everywhere on his recording set
he makes a video like "meet my toddy"
in the video todd says he's a boy and he's todd and he's neil boyfriend 3485757 times and neil is like "omg babe i love u too <33" becuz he doesnt Understand
some ppl r still in denial or think he's bi w/ a preference for girls
straight girls like him becuz he has a pretty face and a general respect for women
during prom season, he gets dmed a lot of websites for buying prom tickets
"don't worry guys! i know i said my high school time was rough, but i actually did go to prom with my bf!!"
//
charlie
twitter name: therealalpha
most popular podcast name: daltons intercourse
joke/bait account ppl took seriously
The Alpha that other alpha posters bow to
says stuff like "SIGMA MALES KISS ALPHAS ON THE MOUTH TO ASSURT DOMINANCE"
the twitter alphas buy into him so bad he's making podcasts and doign interviews and he has no clue how tf he got here but he's riding the high
he advocates for being alpha via kissing ur homies
when he gets famous he begs todd to write a fic about him
todd agrees pretty easily tbh
"ARE YOU EVEN AN ALPHA MALE IF PPL AREN'T WRITING GAY FICS ABOUT YOU"
charlie posts things like "no homo" "only the real make out with their homies" over those black and white pics of muscle-y dudes w/ no context after the neil video he posts "he homo" over one of them w/ no context
at first ppl try to attack him but then theyre like wtf is going on here and realize he's trolling the alpha community
when no one realizes neil is actually gay he makes a podcast episode talking about how he thinks neil is gay gay homosexual gay - he's holding a cigar and wearing a tight hawaiian unbuttoned shirt like "lets talk about this gay gay theater gay boykisser man"
made by @cowboylexapro
//
pitts
youtube name: gerdoesstuff
joint youtube name: idkman
homework help and crafts videos youtuber - relaxed vibes only here to be calm
he gives study and concentration tips and encourages ppl to seek help and companionship and not suffer alone
he paints mugs and looks for bugs
he was on charlie's podcast and they discussed the alpha-ness of making pottery
todd wrote a pitts x reader fic becuz ppl begged him to
pitts printed it out and framed it and put it in his filming set up
he's a regular on meeks podcast too btw and meeks is a regular on his
but when meeks is around things explode so
he has a second channel with meeks where they do silly experiments
theyre posting schedule is non-existent and they also do streams but they never tell you so their viewers just have to hope and find out
knox and him are planning on making a movie review channel but its still not fully thought out so
he makes couple mugs for todd and neil when neil asks for help
he wakes up at 2 am and sends todd prompts
anytime he learns a fun fact he sends it to todd on the off chance todd may need it for a story at some point in his life
anytime he reads anything he's like damn neil will love to act like this character and lets him know about it
he sends charlie alpha podcasters to make fun of
at some point he exposes cam's shitty handwriting for the giggles
knox
instagram name: knoxious.ur.mom.ious
he posted a short on his instagram talking about how he just learned hair grows from the head and not the bottom and blew up for being a dummy - he doesn't know whats going on but he's having a blast
he stirs up drama but on accident
he was on pitts youtube before
out of everyone here he's the only one not making content he's just vibing
eventually he ends up posting background footage of everyone doing dumb shit
when it comes out theyre friends ppl stalk his instagram to find more proof
after that he starts to stir drama but more consciously
hmm what else - idk he's just chilling, getting called out for being dumb and watching his friends do dumb stuff
oh wait when he makes that short about the hair a bunch of commentary channels post about it and he takes it like a badge of honor
cameron
instagram name: cam.studies
pinterest name: cam.studies
one of those aesthetic studying accounts on insta and pinterest - takes nice shots of his homework and his pen collections and his study desk
except its only for the pics his handwriting is atrocious - he has like one page or paragraph of pretty handwriting to post and the rest is scribbled chaos - his pens are never organized by color, theyre just thrown in a box, and his desk is filled with papers and books and never looks clean but its fine he's just here for clout
he ends up sponsoring and reviewing businesses that make those cute study supplies so now he has a hoard - or at least he did until his friends started taking them
he groaned about the cam.studies x {random ass ppl} fics todd wrote but he thinks theyre funny and has them bookmarked
he went on charlie's podcast and the two argued for half of it and then explained how as two alphas they would settle their differences by kissing
his friends help him angle his aesthetic shots at cafes and shit
he got exposed eventually as a fake becuz ppl (cough) posted his real notes which were messy and disorganized
but he played it off as a commentary about how the internet is fake and got more sponsorships
he judges todd and neil but is eating popcorn at the front seat of the drama
meeks
podcast name: chameleon hotel
youtube channel name: idkman
meeks makes a podcast for very stupid intricate crimes. he has a cult following of bisexuals
its stuff like drama over a tree being taken down
"the locals even called their beloved tree 'ole alvin'"
charlie: todd write a meeks x ole alvin fic
he has standards, so he does
he went on charlie's podcast and convinced ppl that being with other men allowed u to suck in their alpha-ness and become the ultimate alpha
but generally he just makes his little silly videos and makes cryptic posts about the neil todd drama
has a joint channel w/ pitts
is up to date with the neil thing and is the one to send neil updates
he tries to convince neil to act out his podcasts (with a lot of success lmao)
he tries to convince todd to write fics based on his podcasts (also with a lot of success)
as payback for the ole alvin x meeks fic he convinces todd (very easily) to write a bunch of dumb charlie fics and todd agrees becuz he has standards
no one actually knows that the poets know each other
they eventually post a group photo
"we need to cancel neil perry for being friends with an alpha podcast guy" "nah thats just charlie"
"yall know hes bi, right?"
"he literally has a podcast about how sucking dick as a man makes u the ultimate alpha male"
it does explain why charlie's alpha podcast go from tiktok actor, tumblr fanfic writer, instagram study blog, fellow podcaster, hw help tiktoker in between his satire of normal alpha tiktokers
half of these things are like copy and pasted from our conversation btw so dont blame me for them
#todd anderson#neil perry#anderperry#dead poets society#deadpoets#dead poets headcanons#neil and todd#todd and neil#dps fandom#dps#charlie dalton#dps fanfiction#dps fic#dps headcanons#dps memes#dps incorrect quotes#meeks#steven meeks#stephen meeks#dead poets#gerard pitts#meeks and pitts#pitts dps#cameron richard#richard cameron#knox overstreet#anderperry social media
303 notes
·
View notes
Text
ofmd s2 rant
so, this is my first post, and I have @ketamoru to thank for corralling (gently suggesting) me into making this. we watched season 2 of our flag means death a while back when it first came out, and i wrote this huge long rant (that I just finished editing) about it, intending to post it to twitter or imdb or something. but. due to the sheer nature of the word length, i couldn't. so, here it is.
On OFMD S2: as a viewer, I’m appalled at the season. As a writer, I could feel my soul escaping my mouth with each cringed breath I took, escaping my pores every time I had to hit the spacebar to pause and bury my head in my hands. I’ve read and written bad stories in my past, I've been on both ends of a shitty narrative, but my god.
There's three core tenets to a story: plot, world, and characters. You can lean on one if another is lacking, absolutely, BUT YOU CANNOT SACRIFICE TWO OF THEM AND EXPECT THE OTHER TO BE ALRIGHT. THEY ARE CONNECTED. THEY INFLUENCE EACH OTHER. GOOD CHARACTERS HELP A GOOD PLOT, A GOOD WORLD HELPS A GOOD PLOT. BUT A HALF DECENT WORLD CANNOT HELP SHITTY CHARACTERS AND PLOT!!!!!!!!!!
Let me start with the simplest to talk about: the plot.
In an introductory college level physics course without calculus (bare with me), you occasionally do problems with a pulley. If you account for the mass of the pulley and the string in calculations, the problem simply becomes too complex to deal with for an introductory course. So, you call the string massless, and move on with your life. Every single episode's plot was tied together by this massless string. As in, THERE WAS NO INTERCONNECTIVITY BETWEEN EPISODES.
The three sections of plot development are (as highlighted by Brandon Sanderson, who is not writing-Jesus, but is pretty accomplished in the fantasy genre, which should speak for itself) promise, progress, and payoff. Promises are made at the beginning of a story's plot arc. They hint towards the greater plot and arcs, and promise readers a story filled with [x]. For example, if you're going to write a comedy, your opening scene (the promises) should be comedic. You don't start a comedic novel out with a tear-jerker. This is arguably the only part, in my opinion, that OFMD gets right. The opening episode is, to give credit where credits due, pretty comedic for a comedic season. The tone is set properly.
Here come the problems: Progress. THERE IS NO PROGRESS. Stede and Ed make up WITHIN THE SAME EPISODE THEY MEET AGAIN. And then they break up in episode 7. AND THEN THEY MAKE UP AGAIN IN EPISODE 8. There is no conflict between the pairing. There is no conceivable sense of tension or drama or ANYTHING that builds up to a climax. THERE IS NO CLIMAX. It’s just a bunch of minisodes strung together by a massless string. Villains come and go within the same episode (I'm looking specifically at Ned Low). The only one that comes back is Prince whatever-his-name-is (I'll get to him in a second), and we don't see much of him. He's introduced to us as a bumbling fool in the beginning, we lose him for a long while while Ed frolics around (again, I'll talk about Ed's character too in a second), and then he's suddenly a prince (episode 6, I believe) needing to take revenge. He makes a cursory deal with Zheng, we see him for 5 more minutes, and then he blows everything up in a totally-not-seen-coming betrayal. Boring. No progress, no payoff.
Which leads me into the final part I have to say about the plot: payoff. WITHOUT PROGRESS THERE IS NO PAYOFF. Because of the nature of the season, with things just thrown at you with no cohesive narrative the season felt like a continuous dopamine rush with no need to work for anything in return. (What was the ultimate goal of the season, do you think? Ed's reconciliation? The prince's revenge? Stede's path to being a pirate? Do you think any of them were explored? Think about it, for a second.) The climax of Izzy's death (boy do I have some key words to say about that, but that's not the point of this review, far from it) didn't feel...worth it. In fact, I'm not even sure if that was the climax, or maybe it was Ed leaving (and coming back 30 minutes later … ) or maybe it was the bombing. Who knows? I don't. You can have subplots. You can't just treat them all equally. There has to be a point to a story, and you have to favour that point over mindless adrenaline rushes. There was a point to season 1: Stede's growth as a character as he realises piracy isn't all he thinks it is, and eventually falling in love with Ed. There is no point to this season. Or if there is, it's muddled by the 20 other things happening all at once, always. There is no progress, so there is no payoff.
2. Next, the world.
In this case, the physical scenery, the props, the costumes, the music, etc. I'm not a costumer, nor a musician, nor a lighting director, I’m just a viewer with a basic high school understanding of world history – but nothing ... changed about the world in this season. When you establish a world in the first act of a book, do you just stop establishing it in the second act? No! Of course not! You keep building it, because the world changes too.
Every single new town the ship visited, every time they docked or got off a ship, the scenery looked and felt the same. How many times are they stranded in the exact same kind of underbrush? The exact same biome, with the exact same kinds of plants? Do they ever go further inland? Is there more to the world than just two ships, one established town and then the shoreline? Of course there isn't! Because that means worldbuilding more than what season 1 did, and that's too terrifying to think about!
And the music. Christ, I'm no musician but did the music feel, to anyone else, passive? In season 1, at least the last time I watched it, the music fit the scene. It wasn't just there because there needed to be music. It spoke to the world, it said something about the scenery. This music, by comparison, is so tame. It's not noticeable. The only part I did like was when Izzy died in silence, because that silence let the death settle with the viewers as Ed weeps openly and – oh, here's the mindless royalty-free music again.
3. And finally, the characters.
Jesus Christ where do I even start with this? Let me start from the foundation of storytelling as any amateur writer understands. YOUR CHARACTERS ARE YOUR MOST IMPORTANT ASSET IN A STORY. I am physically unable to stress this enough. I DON'T CARE IF YOUR WORLD SUCKS MAJOR SHIT. YOUR CHARACTERS CANNOT SUCK. WE STICK WITH THEM THE ENTIRE WAY THROUGH. IF WE CANT STICK WITH THE CHARACTERS, WE CAN'T STICK WITH THE STORY.
(Note: You can write characters with obviously terrible personalities, and that are meant to be disliked, without them sucking. It's about intentionality. If you write a character, and they’re meant to be likeable, and nobody likes them, that character sucks, and you’ve failed. You’ve also (usually, but not always) failed if your viewers hate your character for a different reason than intended. If you write a character you’re supposed to hate for [x] reason, and people hate them for [x] reason, you’ve succeeded. There is a difference between a bad character, and a character with an intentionally flawed personality that you're not supposed to sympathise with.)
Next question: why is everyone in a romantic relationship? The day people realise that platonic relationships are just as important as romantic ones is the day I'm allowed to rest. (I say this beyond just the fact that I'm aroace. I say this as an exhausted reader.) There were not one, not two, not three, not four, but FIVE relationships that were given significant (well, as significant as it gets with 8 30-minute-episodes) screen time. Except, none of them were developed. Not even Ed and Stede's. What was the point in breaking up Jim and Olu, pray tell? Their conflicting personalities were what made them so interesting – to see two opposing forces find ridges where one slots into the other, where two people so different find solace in the other? Now Jim's just got over Olu in a third of an episode and they're kissing that other person. No, I don't even remember their name, because their personality was just Jim's in a different font. You paired two similar people up with each other. Why? Not sure. (I hesitate to chalk it up to some weird exoticism going on behind the scenes, but.) Now I'm bored. There's no tension in that, no story to tell, no good reason for it happening. And Olu with Zheng. NO BUILDUP. Zheng stares at Olu working on scrolls for a little while. That's it. THAT'S NOT BUILDUP, THAT'S JUST WASTING TIME. Her relationship with Olu is so unbelievably forced. (I could feel the crickets of the writers room permeating through my screen – that one stray writer going “well, if nobody else has any ideas, then idk maybe we could … “) They share nothing in common, her "you're the break in my day," is completely unfounded (I’ll get to this when i talk about her character outside of Olu in a sec), it irritates me to no end.
I don't have anything to say about Swede and Jackie, or Black Pete and Lucius, because nothing fucking happens. Black Pete and Lucius make up, after a little bit of progress I will say, and then it's ... a few episodes of them loving each other unconditionally as if nothing happened. It's boring. I'm bored.
Stede and Ed. Oh boy. Ed is clearly not ready for a romantic relationship in this season, despite whatever work he did last season. (Thrown out the window by this season! Who’s ever heard of setting up future seasons in your earlier seasons? Not the OFMD writers room!) He grapples (barely) with the idea of not being a necessarily good person, and tries (in heavy quotation marks, more on that below) to redeem himself, but ultimately just ends up right where he started: Blackbeard. He ends up reversing all of his progress in terms of his character arc. Right back where he started. Christ. And he's clearly too busy grappling with this to be conceivably ready for a romantic relationship with Stede. But Stede and Ed happen anyway. If handled by someone who wanted to comment on the nature of toxic relationships and wrote this intentionally, this would have been a GOOD PLOT. But it was clearly not intentional, as nothing seemed to flow together, characters spoke like robots, and I could feel the fact that the script was obviously just a shitty first draft. Not to mention the fact that Ed doesn't ACTUALLY do any thinking on what he's supposed to be. That purgatory thing was the best we get – and it was damn good in comparison to the rest of the season where he doesn't really reflect on his actions. He has one conversation, decides he's a changed man, then goes straight back to his previous actions.
And STEDE – man. They DECIMATED his character this season. In the beginning, in the first season, he was the gentleman pirate – two juxtaposing adjectives. WHICH IS CENTRAL TO CREATING A CHARACTER. No real person is one track (even the most stubborn of us), no real person can be effectively summed up in a few words like a bad character creation sheet. The conflicts that we deal with as humans are what make us human. Flaws, in no small part, are part of the human experience. (I could get into this, but if you’ve ever looked at AI art and felt its soullessness staring back at you, then you know. It’s too perfect. Too lifeless. Too flawless.) Every single person deals with layers and layers of complexity. Two completely opposing things can be true at the same time and that is a VERY REAL THING that we must grapple with as humans. There is no such thing as black and white on issues. Stede as a gentleman pirate was this COMPLEX LAYER that made him such an interesting character to begin with because “gentleman” and “pirate” are two very different things with two very different histories and connotations. To see the intersectionality of where these worlds collide and where they conflict was what made him so interesting in the first place.
In this season, he’s just a bumbling fool that calls himself a pirate. His backstory isn’t mentioned. He’s stupid in a cringe-ing way (not even comedic), and is just no longer a gentleman. He’s just a bad pirate. It’s so boring in comparison to the complex characterization we got last season, that every time he spoke I had to physically restrain myself from petulantly clogging my ears and going “lalalalala!” to pretend that he wasn’t really saying half the things he was saying. He’s just a puppet, waving around in the wind, contributing nothing to conversations and existing without complexity. It makes me want to bash my head into a table.
Zheng. Why? What was her purpose? I’m white, I should note, so I’m not entirely qualified to talk on this subject from an experiential perspective, but a great big part of her character felt like something I wrote my end of high-school thesis on: orientalism in science fiction, and specifically the pervasive notion of the “submissive eastern woman”. This isn’t science fiction, but it does employ (subtly, might I add, but still noticeable) tropes that Edward Said wrote about in his work “Orientalism” (1990) -- stuff, specifically in OFMD S2, like being the "other" (in particular, viewing the east as a "backwards west" that requires a "western touch" to correct) in the way that Zheng's ship was clearly portrayed as "abnormal" to us in every way -- the all female crew, the rigidity, the organization, etc. We were told repeatedly, time and time again, that she is powerful. But think about it for a moment, did you ever really feel like she was powerful? When she revealed she was an infamous pirate lord that made people cower, did you feel it? We saw some displays of power – but only deep into getting to know her. We never really felt this power that we were told repeatedly that she had, this fear of being some pirate queen. No, she was just a pirate with money.
(As an aside: the theme of power is notoriously difficult to get right in fiction, because it's so multifaceted. If you want my professional opinion (as some random internet nerd who spends time in a weird mix of fandoms) on who gets it right in modern fiction: I think JJK does it really well. I could go on about JJK for hours, both its rights and wrongs, but it gets the notion of power right if nothing else. For those unfamiliar, the “mentor character”s name is Gojo, who is a sorcerer born with a rare combination of techniques that makes him incredibly powerful – almost completely untouchable. To the viewer, he is silly, aloof, and overall goofy as a character (it’s actually a front, but this is an OFMD essay, not a JJK essay) which allows us to get to know him beyond his power level – but when he’s not acting aloof, when his smile deepends (or worse, when it drops) we can feel the power emanating from him. From impact frames, to the fact he’s constantly unserious, to enemies cowering at the mere mention of his name – his entire thing is that he’s the strongest sorcerer alive. Curses (evil spirits) quite literally can’t do anything while he’s around – so much so, that when he gets sealed in a prison dimension in s2 of the anime, the effects are felt quite literally all over Japan. With one simple action (the sound of the cube sealing him hitting the floor of the train station) an entire nation’s power has turned on its head – every curse, every sorcerer feels it. When his power is gone, there is such a large disparity between the protagonists and the antagonists, you can feel it through your screen.)
Zheng does not have this. She does not have the luxury of being in a story where the writers care about making her a threat. I could extend this to Blackbeard too to a lesser extent, but I won't. OFMD is a comedy. But being a comedy doesn’t mean you can’t tackle heavy topics – you can, and should tackle the heavy stuff in your comedic show. Repeatedly we were told that Zheng is powerful – but nobody treated her like that. Hell, the show didn’t give her the power that it claimed she had. We only ever saw the safe side of her, the kind side of her that (for no reason) liked and cared about Olu. Complex female character? Nah. Random romantic love interest for Olu? Hell yeah.
Fucking Christ. And don’t get me started on the costuming choices. Pigtails? Really? You had no other options? You couldn’t have dipped your fingers into any historical media for reference, like you’ve been keen to do with European references in the show? Alright man.
Finally, Izzy. WHY did they kill him? Probably my least favourite trope in modern media is when a character finally gets some closure towards the end of their arc, starts becoming a truly better character/dragging themselves up out of a deep pit – only for them to die mid arc. COME ON. If you wanted shock value it would've made more sense for ED to die because he’s, at least, stuck in his old ways. That could’ve been interesting, seeing him stick to his old ways to his detriment. Not to toot my own horn, but in the story I’m writing (shoot me if I mention it again) one of the primary main character’s whole theme is centred around desperation, and his eventual death as a direct result of it. His death is not just for "shock value" it serves a purpose. It's to further the commentary I'm trying to speak on about how far we’ll go to live in an idea rather than the present. I really, truly, honestly think that if they did that with Ed the story could’ve been so much better; and I say this having experienced the difficulties with writing out a central character. But again, this season lacks intentionality. Ed doesn’t die, and instead Izzy does after being the only character with any sort of redeeming qualities this season. I get, to some degree, it’s supposed to be a metaphor for Ed leaving behind his past but, does he really even do that? He’s Blackbeard when we end season 2. Izzy’s death didn’t mean anything to me beyond just wishing the season ended quicker, because (as we witness with Ed’s rebounding) concrete decisions made by characters can be reversed in the flip of a second thanks to Plot™! There is no permanence to the story’s cohesion, and Izzy’s death just doesn't stick. “Okay,” you say, exhausted. Nothing feels real. Nothing is internally or externally consistent. It's just a mess of ideas poorly strung together, and that's being nice about it.
I wont say much about craft because this is getting long winded but. Fuck me, dude. Why does every dialogue happen in a vacuum? NOBODY IS EVER DOING ANYTHING INTERESTING. a lot of scenes felt like filler -- there only to extend the series' runtime. I’m tired, man. It’s sloppy writing. I'd almost give it a better rating if Season 1 wasn't so much better by comparison. Instead of just being a bad season, it now also ruins what the show built up in the first season. I'm beyond disappointed.
TL;DR: please for the love of god start loving the stories you're writing. the future generations deserve more than money-laundering garbage
edit: whoops got her name wrong halfway through its zheng not zhen my b lol
#ofmd#ofmd s2#analysis#media analysis#blackbonnet#stede bonnet#ed teach#edward teach#pay your writers#i blame disney+ for the commodification of our media#pay your artists#and stop paying your billionaires#fuck this season#more disappointing than kfp4
26 notes
·
View notes
Text
5. Just breathe (PedroPascalxReader) - one shot
The last one shot of one shots week.
Summary: Your new book didn't go down well with the critics. Reading the comments under the critic's rating you get a panic attack... Luckily, Pedro shows up.
Warnings: mentions about depression and taking medicines, panic attacks, hurt/comfort, Pedro is sweet and lovely boyfriend
"Why is Pedro dating someone so untalented?"
"Her latest book is a swamp."
"I died of boredom after five pages xD "
"I would die of embarrassment if my girlfriend wrote a story like that."
The words poured out of the monitor and hit you like needles. This was the comments section under the critic's article which rated your latest book a 2 on 8. You couldn't take your eyes off this. You knew you should have closed that page. But it was stronger than you. You didn't even notice your hands were shaking.
You didn't understand why people think they have the right to make these rude comments. They only saw your smiling picture. They saw Pedro embrace you. They saw what they thought was reality. They didn't understand that you were separated by a screen.
They didn't see the long talks you had with Pedro before you decided to be with him.
They didn't see the medicines you took every morning to keep your mind from drowning in bad thoughts.
They didn't see the sixteen hours you spent writing chapters.
They didn't see you arguing with the editors who thought there were too many queer characters in your book.
They didn't see the nights you spend comforting Pedro when he missed his mom.
And they didn't see you now when you were starting to lose your breath. As you felt your chest begin to tighten. You hated that feeling like you were suffocating, and no matter how deep you took your breaths, there was still not enough oxygen. Your vision went dark and you fell to the floor. You were terrified. It felt like hundreds of hands were coming out of your laptop screen and trying to touch you. You pulled your knees into your chest as much as you could, though it only made it harder to breathe. It was an anxiety attack, you knew it, but it didn't make things any easier.
You didn't even know when big, strong hands were on your shoulders. You immediately recognized who they belonged to. You opened your eyes to meet his warm brown eyes, with worry in them. Pedro began to stroke your arms rhythmically. He knew it would ground you. One look at your laptop gave him a clue as to what happened.
"Y/N, they won't hurt you." He let go of you for a moment to close your laptop and quickly came back to you. "They're not here. Breathe with me. Breathe in through your nose, hold it, and let it out through your mouth. Okay." A gentle smile appeared on his face. "That's right, baby. One more time. Deep breath, hold, and exhale."
His soothing voice and the warmth of his hands made your chest slowly relax. You were finally able to breathe, but then tears came. Pedro changed position and sat down next to you. He wrapped his arm around you and pulled you to him.
"I'm sorry," you whispered.
He immediately hugged you tighter and grabbed your hand with his other hand. "Hey, don't apologize. Never apologize for a panic attack."
"I'm sorry I let you down," you mumbled as more tears left your eyes.
Pedro gently grabbed your chin and made you look at him. "What are you talking about?"
"My latest book was going to be a bestseller."
Pedro shook his head and kissed the top of your head. "If the movie I'm in turns out to be a disaster, will you be disappointed in me?"
"It's not the same" you groaned. "You're not the director, you're not the writer, you're not the cameraman... You're not responsible for the entire film."
"But there will always be a critic who will write that my acting has ruined everything."
"I know you always put your whole heart into your acting."
"And I know you put your whole heart into this book. And a lot of people like it. I love it! Are you going to tell all of us that we're not allowed to like it?" You smiled slightly and rested your head on his chest. "You get so many messages from people saying your book helped them. Don't forget that."
You nodded and began to draw undefined patterns on his chest with your fingers. His hand stroked your back up and down. You sat in pleasant silence for a while, and you felt safe again.
"I bet fame is always bittersweet," you muttered.
"Unfortunately," he replied sadly.
"Would you rather be a little-known actor?"
"Sometimes. You know, I like that now I don't have to worry about bills and that I can lend money to someone and not the other way around, but... I hate the paparazzi. I hate people who think they can judge me. And judge the ones I love." He rested his head on yours. "And you? Would you rather be a little-known writer?"
"I don't know. There have always been people who didn't like what I write. And I used to dream that someone would make a series out of my book, and now... Now I hate it when people judge the actors who play my characters. But..." You squeezed his hand tighter. "I would never have met you."
"I told you everything has its ups and downs."
You sighed heavily, and then something came to your mind. "Aren't you supposed to be at the gym?"
"I forgot my shorts," he muttered.
You rolled your eyes and gasped, "I told you they were in the dryer."
"I know," he groaned.
You started laughing and just went back to your usual life like that, but your laptop was locked for the rest of the day. Just in case.
109 notes
·
View notes
Text
Modern Thranduil x anxious reader
Caged birds with broken wings
Chapter 1:
A Dance with tardiness
Synopsis: An antisocial, anxious writer in her early 20s attends a ballet class under the teachings of a mysterious, reserved, austere dance instructor. They form an unlikely within their solace and past.
Warnings: mentions of blood
Chapter 2
A/n: This fanfic doesn't follow along the lines of the hobbit but rather a loosely spin-off au that only uses some characters. I do not own the right to them as they are Tolkien's characters and I respect his creation. (even if the characters might be ooc). Feel free to comment, reblog and like. Let me know if you'd like a chapter 2.
I tended to daydream often, more so when I listened to the music. The tune and tone of the song that played one after the other sent me to the realms I immersed; typically, anyone would daydream into another realm far better than their own: a princess, pirate, elf, fae—anything. My imagination is my realm of comfort, a sealed bubble that I can freely roam however I wish. Unfortunately, within fantasy, we must face reality. Within my reality, I’m not much of an importance, at least not one to have a whole written memoir about. I’m more of one of those faces you’d pass by in the street or grocery store, not giving any second thought to. Though I’d prefer it that way, I’m not much of a talker but rather a writer; I’m more fluent in my words than my speaking. Every attempt I’ve made, I’ve stumbled or become still; my chest would rise heavily and lower deeply. I always asked how people can do it, how they can speak—talk—communicate like it’s a piece of cake. I’d rather shroud myself in my isolation than speak to another living being.
At my desk, in my somewhat clean apartment, I was planning my next latest story in a saga of 3 books. So far, I’ve managed to get in contact with a publishing company via email who were willing to get behind the idea of a feature-length young-adult romance novel, a romance novel about a pirate king and a fae queen. The first chapter was still relatively underdeveloped, yet I’m willing to spend an entire day finishing it. I had only five months to publish the entire chapters. I’ve been a fantasy fan ever since I was a child. To me, fantasy is what the word impossible turned into possible. For ten years, I’ve been writing, and never once has it stripped me of what I truly adore.
Whilst my fingers pressed against the keys on my keyboard, I received a text message on my phone from the side of my desk surrounded by papers. It was from my mom, who was wondering about my well-being. As always, I respond with the usual ‘everything’s going well—I’m pumping out new chapters for my new novel, ‘A Puncture in Time’, you know—the one with pirates and fantasy, new chapters soon to come ;)’. Even though she’s smart enough to see through my little façade, she writes back, ‘Hey listen, I know it’s hard right now, but I can assure you, things will get better; it just takes practice; I know you’ll meet someone you’ll find it easy to talk to’. I sighed heavily; within her words, I have faith, yet doubt. Should I choose to believe her, bite the bullet and try to speak up or wallow in a lie that can send her mind at ease? Before I wrote back, she sent a post with a link. I furrowed my brows as curiosity swelled my thoughts, my finger tapped the link. It was an ad. An ad for ballet classes. I thought it odd why she would send me something like this: I’m no dancer; I’m certainly no ballerina.
I replied with a question mark ‘?’.
A message bubble popped up: ‘…’ I awaited her reply.
As she was still typing, I took the liberty of glancing through the ad quickly. The tab loaded with a cursive font in bold ‘Les danseuses se réjouissent’. Scrolling past the stock images of ballet dancers, I came across a small section of different levels offered: beginner, Intermediate, and advanced. My mind raced with doubt; I had no experience in ballet, at least not since I was a young child. I wondered to myself, ‘Do I really want to take this? After all, I’m not exactly one for groups’. However, my mind was put at ease when my eyes came across an option for ‘one-on-one private lessons’. At least, I wouldn’t be with people who were far more experienced—let alone a group; the thought of many eyes staring at me—would have my heart sink. As I clicked the option, I was astounded; there were no reviews, pictures, or even a description of the instructor. I was sceptical. Surely, if you were to teach a class, you’d have at least a brief introduction of yourself. Even as an author, I have a concise introduction in my publications. I lightly sighed, weighing my options; on the one hand, it’ll please my mom, get me out of the apartment, and keep me fit; on the other hand, despite being private, I’m meeting someone I don’t know. Who knows what this person’s intention is, even if it’s for a class.
Finally, I heard a ‘ding’ as she replied, ‘Please try, at least for me; it’ll be good for your health, and you once mentioned you wanted to be a ballerina. I know the world isn’t always what we want it to be, but I know you can make it shine; I’ve seen it in your novels; give this a chance, give them a chance, to show them how you can shine, because I know you’ll be the brightest star there :).’
My eyes softened as I read every word; I couldn’t deny she had a way of getting through to me. She was always a caring woman, along with my dad. They were the only two people I could speak to without pressure or the weight in my chest.
I pressed back onto the tab with the private lessons. I clicked to see the booking dates—there’s an option to book for tomorrow, and the price is only $45 per lesson. For the price, it wasn’t too bad; yet still expensive. I filled in the details required to send the booking through, yet my finger hovered as I was about to press ‘confirm’. My mind came to a tussle of thoughts and hesitations; this would be the first time, in a long time, that I would speak face-to-face with an actual living being. However, I recalled Mom's words, ‘Because I know you’ll be the brightest star there’.
Breathing in—I pushed it, I pressed confirm.
I did it. I’m going to attend a ballet class. My head slowly lowers onto my desk, surrounded by papers. My hair dangled over my forehead. The adrenaline that reached the height of my mentality came crashing down. It’s like going on a rollercoaster you didn’t ask for, coming from the highest point of the rail down to the pit below. I start to feel light-headed. I want to sleep. I want to stay here. Perhaps I’ve made a mistake. What if this doesn’t work out?
I rose slowly from my desk chair, picked up my phone, and texted, ‘I’ve booked lessons for tomorrow…I hope you're right about this.’
I watched as once more, awaiting her response, ‘…’
‘Oh, I’m so happy, you’ll fit right in, I know it :)’ she texted.
I didn’t respond. She’s pleased, at least.
I decided to call it a night; I’ve had enough pressure for one day. I logged off, cleaned the papers on my desk, pushed them into a neat-ish pile and headed to the bathroom to shower. As I opened the door, I went inside to set down my pyjamas by the medium-small bathtub’s acrylic side rim. My bathroom isn’t big exactly, but neither is it small. It’s moderate for what it was: a bathtub, shower, toilet, sink, and a medium-sized mirror in the same room. It’s not precisely palace material, but it helps soothe my thoughts. I held my hand out as I turned on the shower, feeling the trickling water against my skin. The temperature quickly changed from cold to warm in just five seconds. Once I was satisfied, I stripped bare, sliding my long-sleeved green shirt off and sliding my darker tracksuit pants. I tossed my unmentionables inside the bathtub. I stepped inside the shower, allowing the warm water to run freely down my skin. I shut the shower enough to have a slit entrance still. I grabbed the soap, rubbing it over my skin, arms, legs, and body. I splashed water on my face as the water rinsed the suds away. I hovered my hands in my eyesight, glancing closer at my fingers. I could see the redness and patches from where I’d picked my skin; it’s a habit I developed since childhood. The habit would annoy Mom, often whispering or saying straight, “Stop picking”, even touching my hand to remind me. Unfortunately, this habit hasn’t subsided; I sometimes even look at my skin with little care, picking the cuticles or rough patches.
Once I finished scrubbing my body with soap, I turned off the water and opened the shower door to step onto the bathmat. I grabbed a towel from the single towel rack located beside the shower. I dried my body, running the towel over my skin. As I wrapped the towel around my body, I glanced at my face in the mirror above the sink. They say eyes are the most expressive in emotion. My narrowed, pinkish lips thinned.
I snapped out of my gaze, continuing to slip on my long blue pants decorated in owl prints, then, the next, a long-sleeve top with the basic purple on them topped with a giant owl embroidered in the front area. Owls have always resonated with me, whether it's their symbolism or captivating beauty. I placed the towel on the side of the bathtub’s rim. I picked up my previous clothes and took it into my bedroom. My bedroom was also medium sized, having a queen-sized bed and an oaken cupboard with a mirrored wardrobe. My room was decorated with tiny figurines I’d collect overtime, albeit from movies I’ve fancied or books. I placed the clothes in my hamper basket behind my door. My body relaxed when my eyes lingered toward my bed, the messy, deep blue sheets draped to the left side. I dismissed the thought of tucking them in for the time being, only plonking myself onto the mattress and wrapping myself within the single cotton sheets and doona drifting off.
Dreaming is the easy part, letting what visions came to my mind run wild. Sometimes, it’s suitable for inspiration, but other times, it's nightmares. The imagination is still enchanting, although, this time, it was peculiar. I was in a birdcage decorated with gold; the entrance was bolted shut; my hands gripped the golden rods holding the cage together. I tried to scream but to no avail. I tried to shake the cage, yet I was too small to provoke movement. My body lowered, feeling the coldness of the metal plate below. I had nothing but rosy ribbon pointe shoes. I suddenly felt myself, in no control, rise as though my limbs were attached to strings. I started to dance, my arms and legs stretching to fit the perfect movements. Eventually, I stopped mid-movement, standing on one leg while extending the other behind. I couldn’t move; I was frozen in place. I could do nothing but shut my eyes.
Suddenly, I woke up; my eyes fluttered open from the confusion I had just endured. Rising from the bed, I pondered for a few seconds. ‘What on earth did I dream about?’. My hands pressed against my face, trying to comprehend my dream and reality. I pulled the sheets off me and got up for the morning. A typical morning for me results in the usual routine: dressing, brushing my teeth and hair, and then looking forward to what the day offers me. Until I remembered that I had booked that class. I typically picked out green tracksuit pants with a white singlet, hoping that would suffice. I picked up my purse and headed out the door to my car. I entered inside, placing my purse in the front seat as I turned on the white car. I noticed outside that it started to snow. Snow is beautiful, especially the little snowflakes that fall into your hand and dissolve upon touch.
As the car started, I prepared to drive to wherever it was that awaited me. The location was further from where I lived; it must’ve been at least twenty-eight minutes. The drive wasn’t particularly bothersome for me; when you live in New York, you get used to the traffic.
As I drove, the snowflakes emerged in more significant numbers. Eventually, I found parking just next to the side of a café. I wasn’t aware if it was for the staff or guests. However, it seemed empty with only a few cars, so—if I get called out on it, I’ll move my car. No one seemed to notice, so I assumed I was okay. I grabbed my black parker from the back and zipped it up. Exiting the car, I stopped to admire the snow falling for a few seconds. It was January 4th, so the snow season was still here. My hands shoved in my pockets, beginning to wander toward where I needed to be. According to the ad, it was building ‘52’; it was vague, I know, but it was the details given. I trudged through the snow, seeing building after building, until I came across something with the number ‘52’, where I needed to be. My hand gripped the gold-looking handle attached to the glass door. As I entered, I came upon a staircase; I took one step after the other. I quickly glanced at the ad to see what floor it was on, yet to no avail. Was it the ‘4th floor? Oh god, oh god, please don’t resort to me asking someone. My fingers started to twitch; I raised one of my fingertips to my lips, feeling the rough patches. My thumb started scraping off the first layer, and small blood trickles formed. I ran my fingers over my lips again as I trailed up the stairs. I could feel my chest becoming heavier, my mind swell with thoughts of self-doubt. Suddenly, the anxiety soon started to subside as my eyes saw the sight of a door. My fingers hesitantly wrapped around the door handle; I took one breath in, trying to be brave. I pushed it open—only for my worst nightmare to come to life.
My breathing became heavier, my heart sank, my eyelids widened, and I could feel myself hyperventilating. There was a group of ballerinas staring directly at me. There must’ve been at least four? Five? Looking my way! Their ages varied, going into their late 20s.
The one brunette asked in French “es-tu perdu, cherches quelqu’un”.
I couldn’t concentrate; my mind dwelled with clouded thoughts of judgment. I pressed my finger against my lip, trying to feel the rough patches.
Another asked in English, “My friend asked if you’re searching for someone”.
Quickly, my eyes diverted to the ground, avoiding their gaze. “I-I-, pr-viate, less-on”. I stumbled over my words.
“Lessons? Private lessons?” the girl spoke once more.
I nodded, avoiding eye contact.
As I quickly glanced, a middle-aged woman in her mid-forties stepped closer; I assumed she was the dance teacher. “Are you referring to the private dance lessons advertised? the one taught by Mr. Oropherion?”.
I paused for a moment, trying to gather my words. Mr Oropherion? Is he the teacher I’m with?
“I-Is. This. Right. Floor.” I tried to sound out the right words, but it was impossible. Perhaps my conscience was right; perhaps this was a terrible idea.
The middle-aged woman, confused, pointed toward the direction I needed to go. “you’ll need to head up one more level, then head to your right” Her voice was calm with a hint of soprano.
Still avoiding eye contact, I left, not even saying thank you, focusing on wanting to escape. I closed the door in front and let out a heavy breath. My head lowered to touch the tip of my hands. I wanted to melt in that moment; I wanted nothing more than to return home. However, I reminded myself that I was doing this for Mom. I breathed in once more, looking up at the door; my hands quickly released, and I began to walk quickly, edging further up the stairs. My mind came crashing down, feeling the dreariness wash over me. Feeling tired, I finally, at last, came across the door I needed to be. It was blank, the painted white withering away around the edges. My hand reached the doorknob, feeling the roundness, turning it slightly. I could feel the adrenaline kick in. I was hesitant, but my nerves started to build.
I started to whisper to myself, “Just a general hello, that’s all it takes—
You're doing this for Mom—
Give them a chance to show them how I can shine; give them a chance to see who I am because I’ll be the brightest star there”.
I breathed in, closing my eyes and opening the door. As I tried to force my eyes open, I was confused. There was no one here. It was an empty space surrounded by mirrors with bar beams attached to them. My eyes scanned the room, yet no one was there. I suppose I should be relieved, maybe the teacher had caught a sickness and decided to ditch the whole class. I wandered further inside; I might as well take a quick peek. I unzipped my black parker with a furry hood, tossed it on the coat hanger and took off my shoes, leaving my white socks on. I stood in the middle of the dance room, embracing the quiet ambience. I looked in the mirrors, reflecting my figure. Was this even what ballerinas wear? Who even is Mr. Oropherion? If he doesn’t show up in the next 15 minutes, I’m heading off and not returning.
Perhaps Aelwynn, the fae queen in my novel, would’ve also been able to dance freely and eloquently in movement. I still wonder what would entrance the pirate king Sarek Salazar. I never pictured him to be devilishly handsome, though. I suppose Aelwynn would be a beauty, but there must be more to it—beauty can only go so far in their bond; what would their obstacles or hardships be? Perhaps the fae queen is somewhat intertwined with difference, the opposite of a fairytale. Aelwynn is fair, kind, beautiful and strong; she meets all the criteria for something otherworldly, yet what if Sarek is her opposite, a beast? No—What if he was average, a gross-looking thing? Pirates are anyway; what if he wasn’t powerful, just an average man with greed—and the dynamic changes, challenging Sarek to choose between the love of his life or treasure?
Or he would choose—
Suddenly, I heard a male voice emit behind me: “You best have a thorough explanation, girl. Do not even think about squandering my precious time.”
My breathing became heavier as I realized someone was speaking to me. I did not turn around; I was afraid to. Instead, I avoided eye contact, too paralysed to move. My head stooped low, and my hands stood to the side. He spoke again, “Clearly, you are here for a reason, are you not? I’ll admit your intrusion is rather fatuous.”
I didn’t glance up; I couldn’t look; I needed time to gather the words to explain. What should I say? Hey, sir, some ballerinas told me to come here, and I fear speaking to people.
“I see you have a mouth; that means you must have a tongue. Go on, speak.” His voice was deep and tranquil, composed yet icy.
I took a deep breath in, slowly turning around. As my legs moved, I slowly gathered the courage to look into the man’s eyes, even if I muttered a ‘hello’. It would be enough. As my head glanced up to meet his, I noticed his appearance.
He—was like—something out of a fairytale. His face was lean and chiselled; his eyes were like ice; his blueish-greyish irises complemented his cold gaze. His hair tressed down like water reaching his chest, light like snow. Whilst his skin was pale in comparison, a fair tone in colour. His attire seemed far more affluent than mine, donning a black trench coat with white underneath. His trousers complimented the darkness of his coat, and his black loafers were polished. I glanced at his right finger, an oval-shaped ring with a diamond glass stone crafted in sterling silver.
“Did you hear me not the first-time girl?” his tone turned stern.
My mouth moved, finally finding the words to speak. “H-hello, I’m Y/n”.
“y/n?” he muttered.
My eyes glanced downward once more as I slowly nodded.
“So, you have a voice after all, pray, tell. Why are you lingering in my domain?” he said shortly.
I muttered “private lessons”, though my voice sounded like a whisper.
“Ah, so you’ve seen the ad; I suppose you haven’t wasted our time after all, although you are five minutes late; I expect punctuality, to be exactly on time at the hour.” His voice sounded stern once more.
Well gee, it’s not like it’s my first time here, and gotten lost. My eyes still avoided his; I couldn’t look up, so I nodded.
He didn't react when I avoided his gaze, dismissing it. However, he commented on something else: “Your posture is lamentable. Stand up straighter like so.” The tip of his finger lightly touched my chin, lifting it to meet his gaze. I didn’t turn away precisely, yet I still flinched. My breathing slowed down as I once more met his gaze. His eyes narrowed, and his lips thinned.
“You stand there like a bird, wounded by the natures of evil, ignorant of the world’s knowledge, caged and sheltered from the shadows that lurk within the realm. Tell me, little bird, care to spread your wings?” I glanced at myself in the mirror, standing straighter. I could feel the flush in my cheeks, but I didn’t say anything, only breathing slowly.
His finger pulled away, and he turned his back to me, walking away.
“I expect to see you here tomorrow at exactly the seventh hour of the night”.
“Do not make me regret my decision, or you shall return to the cage from where you came, little bird”, He muttered.
With that, he walked out of the room, distancing himself further and further away. At that moment, I stood in disbelief for a few seconds, trying to understand what had happened. However, once my thoughts were collected, I gathered my things and scurried out of there, wanting nothing more than to enter my car. Once I exited the building, I was hit with the coldness in temperature as it touched my face.
I opened the car door, tossing my things in the back, turning the engine on. I looked back, trying to see the building to the left. As I drove, my thoughts were plagued with astonishment. I didn’t look away; I maintained eye contact for longer than three seconds, and—I managed to speak my name without stumbling over my words. My emotions displayed were as if I’d seen a ghost. Yet—his face—his appearance—it reminded me of snow; I always loved snow; even when I was a child, it was the happiest of my memories. I recall when my parents took me to the park; I was fascinated by the sight of the winter wonderland, my face lighting up with delight and laughing with joy. I always find that snow rekindles the fond memories I have.
Perhaps Mom was right after all; this might be the start of something I’ve never been able to do. Talk.
#thranduil au#thranduil x you#thranduil#thranduil oropherion#the hobbit au#the hobbit#thranduil fanfic#lord of the rings#thranduil ballet au#thranduil headcanon#thranduil fanfiction#thranduil x reader#thranduil oropherion x reader
24 notes
·
View notes
Text
All the One Direction fics I read and enjoyed in June 2023. You can listen to my podcast to hear me talk about each of these fics as well as an overview of what was posted on ao3 including the fics on this month’s fic roundup which you can find here! Please let the writers know if you liked the fics by leaving kudos and comments! Happy reading!
Fanfictional Podcast #51 | ko-fi | fic recs
—Louis/Harry—
🩷 Teach me how to love by @perfectdagger
(E, 70k, one night stand) The one in which Harry is bad at sex and Louis spreads it all over town and to make up for it, decides to help him with no agenda of getting anything from it, but in the end, he ends up getting more than he bargained for.
🩷 My Other Half Was You by @lululawrence
(NR, 35k, small town au) Four years, seven months, and sixteen days after the day that changed everything, Louis turns a corner and literally runs into the man who just might change it all again.
🩷 Bitter Ends Turn Sweet by @allwaswell16
(E, 30k, songfic) It had been four years since Harry first heard the song his ex wrote about him and far longer since they broke up. He forgave Louis long ago, and now his life was focused on his career, his family, and especially his son, Max. But Louis was back in Chicago, after all this time, and he’s not an easy man to ignore.
🩷 Cowboy Like Me by Rearviewdreamer / @all-these-larrythings
(M, 29k, thief au) Going legit and starting over in a small town was supposed to solve all of Harry’s problems. That was until a string of robberies in wealthy towns brings him face-to-face with his rogue ex-partner and their dicey, unresolved past.
🩷 Every Lover's Got A Little Dagger In Their Hand by ishiplouis / @pocketsunshineharry
(E, 22k, enemies to lovers) Does the attraction between two complete opposites really exist, or is it just a myth?
🩷 It Will Always Be You by @phdmama
(E, 15k, older Larry) If you had told Louis Tomlinson a year ago that he would be celebrating his birthday by kissing the man who is the love of his life on a Church Street park bench in Burlington VT as the snow drifted softly down, he would have told you that you were extremely imaginative.
🩷 You Light Up the Path by QuickedWeen / @becomeawendybird
(T, 12k, mermaid au) Louis Tomlinson left his home in Doncaster as a young man with the intent of making enough money to send it back home to his family and support them however he could. Harry, or so he likes to be called, is the myth and legend himself known as the Staithes Mermaid.
🩷 The Revelation by @creamcoffeelou
(E, 8k, cult au) Harry feels his edges start to unravel. He can’t find where he ends and where Louis begins. Part 3 of The Risen
🩷 Lacy Little Secret by hazzahtomlinson / @itsnotreal
(E, 6k, bachelor party) Harry learned a very valuable lesson that day: always check to make sure it’s the right car before getting in.
🩷 the embers are new by @nouies
(NR, 3k, fantasy) Louis is a dragon vet whose life is changed after a long trip.
🩷 DIY Orgasm by red_PANdaaa28 / @red-pandaaa
(E, 3k, Grindr) Harry takes artsy nudes, Louis receives one and they both get to come.
🩷 Next in Line by @jaerie
(E, 3k, a/b/o) It wasn’t fair that nobody was doing anything about such behaviour. Harry couldn’t ban all alphas from his shows, but he could make omega only sections.
🩷 Just a little taste by @lunarheslwt
(G, 3k, vampire au) Harry is a vampire that comes home one night, grappling with the darkness that comes with being one.
🩷 The Early Show by LadyLondonderry / @londonfoginacup
(G, 2k, uni radio show) The thing about Harry is that Louis has never been sure if he doesn’t like hybrids, or if he doesn’t like Louis. Either way, it’s unfortunate that they apparently are both equally late.
🩷 Ahead in the Count by @kingsofeverything
(E, 2k, baseball au) Louis’s been a catcher in the minor leagues for more than a decade and he’s never known a pitcher to touch his junk more often than he touches the baseball.
🩷 I Hear the Wind, It's Whispering My Name by Anonymous
(M, 2k, ghost fic) She’d also allowed herself to think of the woman every time she had a bit of me time over the next week. But then the woman had returned.
🩷 Imagination into Reality by @tommokat
(E, 1k, girl direction) It’s more than just physical, it’s years and years of attraction and pining and something that tastes like love.
🩷 All This Time by @allwaswell16
(T, 1k, flower shop au) Louis Tomlinson had been best friends with flower shop owner Gemma Styles for years. It wasn't until she suggested he date her alpha brother that he ever thought of Harry that way. Maybe it wasn't such a bad idea...
—Rare Pairs—
🩷 Pageant Material by LadyAJ_13 / @ladyaj-13
(G, 6k, Zayn/Louis) the Zouis teen beauty pageant AU.
🩷 Cool Kids Never Have The Time by wordsnnotes / @quelsentiment
(T, 6k, Zayn/Louis) Zayn auditions to join a band and makes a bad first impression on their bassist.
🩷 you wanna be on top? by @disgruntledkittenface
(NR, 6k, Zayn/Louis) Zayn’s experience as a contestant on America’s Next Top Model left her more than a little traumatized. She thinks she knows what to expect when she lets herself be talked into making an appearance on the show a couple of years later. Louis manages to surprise her.
101 notes
·
View notes
Text
How Traditional Publishing Works for Novel-Length Manuscripts
Your future as a writer may seem murky at best. It's difficult to dream beyond your latest notebook or Google Doc if you don't know how publishing works.
Today we're going to talk a bit about that! This post will be for publishing longer manuscripts. Eventually, I'll make another one for publishing short stories.
Step 1: Finish That Manuscript
You may have heard that you can start contacting literary agents or publishers after you have a decent chunk of your manuscript done. While there are a few here and there that could be fine with that, it's best to always finish your manuscript before querying begins.
How do you know when it's finished? I'll write more on that later, but for now here's a basic checklist:
Edit your story for flow, character development and pacing. This may involve storyboarding again or even talking through your book with a friend.
Edit your work for line-edits (spelling, punctuation, etc.)
Give your work to a beta reader! That could be your partner, best friend, family member, etc. They'll have a fresh pair of eyes for things like plot holes, confusing arcs, unfinished story lines, and tension that never resolves.
Double check that your themes get resolved.
Step 2: Draft Your Query Letter
I already made a post showing how to draft a query letter and the answers to common query questions, but here's a summary: you need a good query letter for your finished manuscript. They're the first impression an agent gets of you and your work.
Query letters always include:
An introduction to your work (the title, the genre, the word count, a one-sentence summary)
An explanation of the plot (don't hold back—it should include your beginning, middle, and end, plus any tropes and themes)
Comparative titles (novels in the same genre as your work that were published in the last ~2 years or less)
The reason why you wrote your novel (what makes you the best person to write about that theme/plot/character growth, etc)
Step 3: Find Your Agents
There are a few ways to find agents and you can try different methods throughout your querying journey.
Use QueryTracker to find agents by genre, availability, location, etc. Then track your queries with the same website to find out who's read your work, who's rejected it and who wants to get in touch. (The free version does most of this, but there's a paid version for people who want to hardcore dedicate themselves to querying).
Check out those comparative titles—authors almost always thank their agents in the Acknowledgements section. Start a running list and note their publishers.
Search Twitter for agents who are open to queries. It may seem strange, but most agents have Twitter accounts and announce when they're open or closed to queries. You can always follow them on your personal or writing account, but you can also search for them by looking up hashtags like “open for queries" and “submissions are open.” If you want more details, check out this great resource for more hashtags and strategies. Note—you should never direct message an agent on Twitter. Always contact them through their preferred methods, usually located in their bio or pinned tweet (if they’re open to queries).
Step 4: Sign With an Agent
This step can take weeks, months, or years. Every writer’s querying journey is different. Sometimes the market isn’t right for a specific genre or storyline. Other times, you may need time to revise and polish your manuscript or shelve it entirely for a more developed idea.
Searching “amquerying” on Twitter is a great way to read other writers’ experiences. You’re not alone if you’re frustrated, exhausted, tired, or just plain sad. It’s hard to get rejections and try again when you’re likely the only person who currently believes in your specific manuscript.
Agents have to pick projects based on what they want to represent, but also what they can sell. If your story is too new or different, they may pass until it’s more culturally relevant or more popular with readers.
When an interested agent offers representation (likely after requesting a full manuscript), ask plenty of questions to get to know them. You don’t have to accept the first agent who comes along. They should align with your vision for your book and who you want to reach with it.
When you do sign with an agent, celebrate! It’s a big step that you should recognize! Lots of hard work and dedication went into getting an agent, and it’s only the start of your publishing journey.
Step 5: Look Forward to Your Book Deal
Your agent has a few roles. They’re supposed to look out for your best interests with publishers and all the legal aspects that come along with book deals.
But first, they have to land a deal. That means they write pitch letters or decks and send them to publishers they think will be the best fit for your manuscript. Letters are more common, but pitch decks are more necessary for writers of children’s books and graphic novels who have pictures integrated into their work.
This process can take a while. Don’t expect to sign a book deal overnight or even in the first month. As long as your agent keeps up communication with you about the process, you’ll know you’re in good hands.
Things That Will Be in Your Book Deal
Your Contract
Contracts include all the information related to your deal. Your agent will use it to potentially negotiate for more money, better control over your film rights or foreign publication rights, and basically all the little details that go along with those things.
Your Advance
When writer’s sign a book deal, the get a check. That check is called your advance. The advance is a sum of money that the publishing house or imprint gives you for the right to publish that book. It could vary from $1,000 to six figures, but new authors (and especially women and people of color) typically get around $5,000 for their first book.
Smaller amounts will arrive in a single check. Larger amounts are split into multiple checks spanning the time from your signing date to publication.
Your Royalties
Every time your book sells a copy, you’ll earn royalties on that sale. However, writers don’t see royalty earnings until those royalties out-earn their advance.
If you got the average $5k advance, you’ll have to sell enough books to earn $5k in royalties before you see routine checks in the mail for royalties after that point. Your agent will negotiate your royalty percentage during…well, negotiations.
Step 6: Figure Out the Pre-Production Details
You’ve signed your book deal—throw a party! Then it’s time to get to work.
Your agent will connect you with an editor, who then sends you an editorial letter after reading your manuscript. It will contain everything they think could improve plus their marked-up copy. You’ll dive into structural changes if necessary, but mostly line edits.
You don’t have to agree with everything your editor suggests. It’s still your book. However, they know the industry the best and will want your work to succeed as much as you do. Talk things out and come to a compromise, but stay true to your book’s intended purpose throughout editing.
Your publisher’s legal team will go over your edited copy when it’s close to perfect to ensure there are no issues. They typically find things like the use of song lyrics that you haven’t bought the rights to and mentions of real persons or brands that may result in lawsuits.
Next, your design team will work with you on potential cover designs. interior layouts, jacket versus hardcover designs and blurb placement. They have most of the say over your final cover, but your agent can go to bat for you if you think the options are truly ugly.
Next, you’ll come up with a marketing plan. Imprints and publishing houses typically have marketing teams and publicity experts that work with authors. You’ll talk about which stores will sell your book and which websites will get ads based on your target reader audience’s known shopping habits/website preferences. Ads on social media and your involvement with posting about your book will also come up.
Proofreaders and beta readers are also part of this stage. They’re the fresh sets of eyes every writer needs to know if their readers will understand how they wrapped up their themes, character development paths and plot. They’ll point out when things don’t make sense, need more expansion or could be cut as they read through your Advanced Readers Copies (ARCs).
Step 7: Marketing and Blurbs
A bit more about the marketing stage—your agent has a hand in this too. Based on their previous or current authors, they may have personal connections with influencers and big names in the book world. They’ll send those people ARCs and ask those people for blurbs if they think those famous people have audiences who would be interested in your manuscript.
You can also talk with your agent about getting blurbs from similar debut authors in your genre or only authors from marginalized communities, depending on your priorities. The only time they might say no to this idea would be if your preferred people hardly have audiences or if their audiences have shown interest (via book sales) in other genres.
Your team will decide other things like:
Who gets your ARCs
If you’ll send some ARCs through contests
Which retail stores will stock your book
If you’ll pitch your book to get sponsored by big book clubs
If you’ll pitch for your book to be included in book subscription services
Where you’ll post digital ads and for how long
How you’ll create marketing campaigns with sites like Goodreads and other book sites popular with readers
Most writers also have to market their book on their personal Facebook, Instagram, and/or Twitter accounts. You’ll likely only get out of this step if you’re already an established author who can sell books without blinking (think: James Patterson or Nora Roberts).
If you need help putting together a posting plan, your marketing team and agent can help with that. Most publishers request that their writers’ develop online followings because it creates personal, instant connections with readers/allows for free advertising via posts/generates direct feedback.
Step 8: Negotiate Your Media Rights
Most writers negotiate their media rights after landing a publishing deal. The publisher needs to know that your work has a chance of being picked up as a movie or TV show. Debut authors have a lot to prove, unless you’re one of the rare writers who snags a movie deal alongside a mega-advance because your work is once in a generation.
Your agent will negotiate this for you and possibly let you keep your media rights. If you keep them, you can sell them separately later on. When you or your publisher is ready to sell, production company scouts will see the announcement on book deal websites. They may contact your agent to negotiate with you before you start selling copies, but it may happen after your book has shown promise on the market for a while too.
Step 9: Sign Copies of Your Books
About a month before readers can buy your books, you’ll get copies to sign! Prepare your hand and wrist, because this step surprises most writers. If you have more than a handful of books to sign, you’ll need to pace yourself.
Still, this is an exciting step in your publishing journey. Take lots of selfies and enjoy the moment!
Potential Step 10: Start Your Book Tour
Big names in the book world get book tours set up by their publishers. Debut authors often don’t. If you want to do a book tour, talk with your agent early in the process. They can work with your publicist to schedule a few speaking engagements, but you’d mostly be in charge of contacting bookstores to reserve an hour or two for signing books and meeting with readers.
If your publisher does want you to do a book tour, regardless of whether you’ve been published or not, they might pay for your transportation and accommodations. It depends on your unique situation.
---
This is a very brief, not super specific outline of traditional publishing. I hope it gives you some perspective on the process. After landing a book deal, it can be a year or more before your debut day arrives. There’s so much happening behind the scenes—but now you know a bit more about it.
#book publishing#book publishing faqs#writeblr#writers of tumblr#writing community#writing advice#writing tips#creative writing#traditional publishing#publishing#publishing a novel
260 notes
·
View notes
Text
Five fic self rec meme!
Tagged by @nostalgicatsea approximately two weeks ago. I am not entirely sure what the parameters of this meme are but I think it might just be reccing five fics of mine that I like. I currently have 302 stories on AO3, so sifting through the contenders here was challenging. I tried to stick to shorter work of mine. This is all Marvel fic because that's what I've written the most of, because I feel like I've become a better writer over the years, and because I decided that the PWP I wrote in The Eagle fandom in Latin might have, uh, limited appeal.
All-Time Low (Marvel 616, Steve/Tony, 12,000 words, Explicit.)
You know how sometimes you write a story that ends up being exactly the story you wanted to tell? You get it down on the page and somehow it's exactly the way you wanted it to be in your head? The words just come out of you easy and fast and you're in the zone the entire time? (Yes, I know the term is actually "flow state.") And, sure, maybe it still needs some editing, but writing it is just this extremely good experience where you don't ever stop and wonder how any of it should go and all the words are just there. You know the thing I mean? I only have a couple stories that happened like this, but this one is one of them. I don't have much memory of actually writing this one, which is how that goes; I remember that I got the prompt and I knew what I wanted to write and then somehow this entire thing happened.
It was actually written for one of Kiyaar's prompts, which was that Tony should be sleeping with men for money during the second drinking arc and Steve should find out and there should be "shame and humiliation and tears." I looked at it and I thought, oh, I got this. The element of Steve then sleeping with Tony after he finds this out, which is a big part of the story, was actually not part of the original prompt, which I don't think even occurred to me until after Ki read the story and said she liked that development that I'd come up with that part myself. My brain was just like, hey, I know exactly how this story goes. Never even crossed my mind to do anything else.
I keep putting off writing the fix-it sequels -- I have Plans for how the blizzard goes in this universe -- because I am afraid I won't be able to make them as good as the original story.
The Libertine (Marvel Ultimates, Steve/Tony, 6,000 words, Explicit.)
One day, I was just sitting there minding my own business and I thought, "You know what? Ults began in the early 2000s and therefore early-canon Ults Tony would absolutely have self-identified as a metrosexual," and then I thought, "Goddammit, I guess I have to write this story now."
I know that this one is in most ways a pretty standard first-time getting-together story but I thought it would be delightful to make Steve and Tony's roles in it opposite from what the prototypical Ults Steve/Tony story would do. So Tony here is like "actually, no, I'm not gay, I'm just metrosexual... oh shit, wait, I think I'm actually pretty gay after all" and Steve is the guy who spent World War II sleeping with every guy he could find. In the story, neither of them expect this about the other one, and I think fandom doesn't either.
I am also weirdly proud of thinking up the title of this story because "libertine" is a word you would probably want to apply to Ults Tony and yet Steve, the Sentinel of Liberty, ends up claiming basically every other liberty-related word, for obvious reasons. And maybe here he gets this one too.
(Incidentally, reading through the See Also section of the Wikipedia entry on "libertine" is a trip I think you should all take. Wow.)
The Longing and Yearning (Bullet Points. Steve/Tony, 13,000 words, Explicit.)
This is also a pretty standard first-time story but it's also my attempt to make Bullet Points fandom happen, which I think pretty much worked, so I'm pretty happy about that. It's a very small continuity, but it's a Steve/Tony thing now!
Steve and Tony never actually meet in canon and also Steve dies halfway through the series, but I had a lot of fun imagining what they might be like together. It was interesting to get to write Tony hero-worshipping a much older Steve, who was Iron Man and had basically all the physical trauma Tony usually gets from being Iron Man, and Tony wanting to be Iron Man because of Steve being Iron Man. Which is, you know, not usually how Steve/Tony goes. I also had a lot of fun furnishing Steve's 1950s-1960s house for him (Gwyn helped me out a lot with this while betaing) and writing Steve and Tony into a world of slightly vintage US government employee homophobia in the age of the Red Scare, which I don't usually get to do in Avengers fic although it occurs to me now that I actually really could have been doing this all along in 616 early canon.
Look After Your Heart (Marvel 616, Steve/Tony, 19,000 words, Mature.)
Last week, I remembered I'd written this when someone was asking for recs of stories where Tony's loneliness plays a major role and I ended up describing this one as "loneliness is Tony's villain origin story." I hadn't thought about it in years and I reread it and was like, you know, this wasn't half-bad.
This has not been one of my most popular Steve/Tony works, I think because the tags and summary make it look like a real downer -- which, okay, yeah, it kind of is -- but I would like to point out that it actually has a happy ending. I wish to stress this. Happy Steve/Tony ending. I promise. You just take a trip through hell to get there.
So this is an AU where time bullets don't exist and when Steve gets shot at the end of Civil War, he dies and stays dead. Tony finds this out when he wakes up after World's Most Wanted, doesn't remember the past couple years of his life, and discovers that Steve is now dead. He experiences a lot of grief. So this is a canon-divergent AU running through the events of Avengers v4 and Hickmanvengers up through Superior Iron Man, in which we all get to find out exactly how far off the rails Tony can go when he continues not to have Steve around to keep him sane, functional, heroic, or sober.
This fic is also interesting as a historical document, because it's one of my earlier stories in the fandom. I actually wrote it when Hickmanvengers was still going, before Time Runs Out happened, and even before Superior Iron Man happened. The last thing in here that was based in canon is the Great Society incursion. At this point, we knew that Tony was going to be Superior but we didn't know how it was going to happen, what it was going to be like, or how Hickman's run was going to end. So I took a whole bunch of guesses, and I honestly like a few of them better than what we actually got.
Smell Like I Sound (Marvel Adventures: Avengers, Carol/Jess, 7,000 words, Explicit.)
This is a Carol/Jess fic with background Steve/Tony. Look, I didn't promise they were all going to be Steve/Tony. This is set in MA:A, mostly because I needed a canon fairly close to 616 where Carol and Jess hadn't canonically met, and Jess does exist in MA:IM. I wanted to tackle an issue I hadn't really seen explored much in Carol/Jess fic, which was "how do Carol and Jess actually get together if Jess's pheromones uncontrollably don't have good effects on women?" because that seems like it would be bad. (I mean, it would also be bad if Jess's pheromones did uncontrollably have good effects on women, but that would be a different story.)
(Because comics are gonna comics, I'm pretty sure that MA: IM Jess's pheromones do have negative effects on women. This is not necessarily the case in 616. We actually found out a couple years ago in 616 that Jess can in fact pheromone women in the fun way, which, yes, I do have a fic outlined based on this. You bet I do. I just have not yet written it yet.)
I don't write a whole lot of femslash, which in this fandom is partly due to The Carol/Jess Troll (thanks, dude) and it's partly because I have a femslash problem I've never figured out how to consistently solve, which is that I can't manage to write a whole lot of f/f that has the same kind of stakes and feelings and tropey idficcy goodness as the m/m that I like to write. I can't really even articulate the problem in a useful way; I just try writing f/f and then I read it back and mostly it's not the thing I like because what I end up writing just doesn't seem exciting to me. And I know it's possible for me to write the thing I like because this one is the thing I like! I did it here! It's just not a trick I can pull off consistently. But, anyway, this one was fun. I think I did this one right.
Not sure who has done this meme, but I'm gonna tag @blossomsinthemist and @isozyme.
20 notes
·
View notes
Text
20 Questions for Fic Writers
Tagged by @hiddenxplaces-blog
1. How many works do you have on ao3?
52
2. What's your total ao3 word count?
1,098,853
3. What fandoms do you write for?
Marvel. Specifically TFATWS at the moment.
4. Top five fics by kudos:
Time-Lost (IronStrange)
Fathomless (IronStrange)
Scribbles On Our Souls (DrPepperony)
Heart of Gold (IronStrangeFrost)
Persistence (IronStrange)
5. Do you respond to comments?
Almost every time. Sometimes I get a bit caught up or delayed, but typically I respond to comments pretty regularly. I love chatting with readers!
6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?
I don't think I've actively posted the fic with the truly angsty ending, yet, so I think the closest is probably a bittersweet ending with Still Here. (IronStrange / Stephen & Peter)
7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?
Well this one took a sec. Keeper (IronStrange), probably?
8. Do you get hate on fics?
Oh not typically to my face, no.
9. Do you write smut?
Yep.
10. Craziest crossover:
I don't really do crossovers, so really the only crossover I can think of plainly is the DRoP/IronStrange fic we did, Heart of Gold.
11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?
Not that I've seen so far.
12. Have you ever had a fic translated?
Yes! A fair few of them. 💓
13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?
Yep. A few!
14. All time favorite ship?
"All-time"? Time hasn't ended, I could hardly say. 😏
15. What's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?
At this point? Embraced. And I'm so sorry to everyone who was waiting for more.
16. What are your writing strengths?
Wait you want me to say nice things about myself? Goddamnit. I used to think dialogue was a weakness of mine, but I think I've improved a lot over the last couple of years since writing scripts necessitated writing solid dialogue, so I'm pretty confident in that, now.
I'm also fairly strong where creating lore and histories are concerned; you want me to explain the magic in a universe? I've got you. You want to know the history of a region? I've got that down, too. World-building in general is my bread and butter.
17. What are your writing weaknesses?
Does "actually finishing a story" count? The reality is, I lose motivation really easily. I function best when I have someone to consistently bat ideas and things back and forth with, otherwise I get severely in my head about things to the detriment of whatever I'm writing. I also rely more heavily on degree modifiers than I should, and while I'm aware of it I still suck at minimizing it.
18. Thoughts on dialogue in another language?
I find it highly dependent on whose PoV the story is in. If the PoV character doesn't speak the language, I love being just as confused as them by not knowing the language.
If the PoV character does speak the language I can be a little more picky about it, unless it's simply a singular word of endearment or something, because those can be difficult to translate even if you know both of the languages. But I have a love of and fascination with languages.
19. First fandom you wrote in?
Uh.... Yu-Gi-Oh!, I think?
20. Favorite fic you've written?
What an excellent question. I'm actually really proud of (Loss Of) Control (WinterBaron).
I set out with some really specific goals for what I wanted to accomplish with it, and I mostly succeeded. There's definitely a section that's weaker than the others, but I pushed myself outside of my comfort zone and made an effort to tackle a trope I'd never written in fic, and to tackle an element of that trope that I felt like I wanted to see handled more in depth. And I'm proud of the result.
Tagging -> @descaladumidera @atypical-snowman @amethyst-noir @jeromesankaraao3
@the-elle-kat @kiki-shortsnout @turtleoftheabyss
6 notes
·
View notes
Note
For the Fan Fic Writer Asks: 9 and/or 10
9—do you write every day? if you wrote today, share a sentence of what you’ve written!
this is actually the only piece of writing advice or technique that’s ever worked for me and my swiss-cheesed brain: somehow i managed to convince myself, in the depths of a very bad creative injury, that Increasing The Fucking Thing by a sentence, just a few words, every single day, counts on some nebulous cosmic scale as Increasing The Fucking Thing, and therefore has value. this is why my creative output is so [wiggly hand gesture] in terms of quantity, but hey, This One Weird Trick has kept me in the game for some years now when i would otherwise have quit, so we’ll call it a good thing overall. Doctors Hate Her!
here is my contribution to the cosmic scale today, in screenshot format because moving the annoying formatting from my notes app to any other rich text field is, as previously stated, annoying. and yes, i am definitely looking forward to having to reformat this entire fucking fic line-by-line when it is uploaded to ao3 (lying) (lying so hard) (was looking at another section last night and just experiencing profound despair)
10—is there a fic that got a different response than you were expecting?
something that is true in every single fandom ever is that you will publish a high-effort longfic that you poured your heart and soul into and people will be like “meh” and then you will publish an off-the-cuff gag ficlet that you barfed out in a day and a half and people will come crawling out of cracks in your walls to tell you this is the FUNNIEST and SMARTEST thing you’ve EVER written and OMG PLEASE WRITE MORE LIKE THIS and then you will be like. how did you get in my house. please get out of my house. i didn’t even go to the effort of looking up Finnish syntax and sentence construction for this fic i’m an EMBARRASSMENT. STOP CRAWLING AROUND IN MY CABINETRY
to that point, and to the original question: “we’ve got the power now, motherfuckers” has far and away received the most enthusiastic response of anything i’ve posted for Control (2019) fandom. and part of that might be because i did dash it off without taking myself overly seriously, and part of that might’ve been a fandom actually getting interested in a fic centered around a major character who up until that point largely hadn’t been utilized in fic, and idk maybe i actually did better than i thought i did in terms of mimicking the style of the in-game lore collectibles…but also y’all. please. “laterna magica” and “barren face, desert eyes” are better. like objectively. you are tearing me apart Lisa
#chatter#ask games#@wfl the screenshot is the evanescence fic by the way! it is a crossover. i'm terribly sorry you had to find out like this.#but perhaps this is better than if i'd tagged you and you'd opened up the fic proper and been like ''who the fuck is ALAN''#he's literally just some guy. don't worry about it. i know i don't!#anyway shoutout to my fellow dark mode/reversi girlies. the other day i switched pt back to light mode just as an experiment#and i like literally yelled and recoiled from my screen#it burns us precious.....................
8 notes
·
View notes
Text
fic writer meme
I was tagged by @ziusik <3
1. how many works do you have on ao3?
between my two pseuds, 132. I started posting end of 2018 and i orphaned 1 fic so that's everything
2. what's your total ao3 wordcount?
996,548 words
3. what fandoms do you write for?
Right now various Thai BL, mostly offgun, and I'm on the docket for a DCU fic for a pal who won me in a raffle
4. what are your top 5 fics by kudos?
the top 17 of my most kudosed are all MDZS wangxian, what a powerful fandom (then a witcher then a leverage)
Love Is More Than Telling Me You Want It - the omegaverse big gender feels one
Yeah I Know How You Like It - wwx gets telepathy and lwj is horny then touching about it. love every time i get a comment on this that's like this is a pwp why am i crying. hehe
your persuasions - lwj has a big dick and wwx is a san francisco based high tech software programmer. they fuck about it
the earthquake in the room - alternate universe Canada modern university fic. In which lwj does not make wwx toast
wild for your skin - canonverse pwp
from this i suppose that most people are pretty disappointed when i update and it isn't smut
5. do you respond to comments?
always! I feel like fandom is this thing we're making together and when people reach out to me I reach back and in that way we both add stitches to the tapestry that is the community
6. what is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?
I think most of my fics have a hopeful ending. So it might be Verbs are a Tragedy the Captain Marvel Carol/Maria fic about Maria grieving. Or wait! maybe the Never Let Me Go fic because it ends right before you know that Chopper is about to get his heart broken. Or the John Wick fic about Helen cause you know she dies later and isn't able to keep her promise of helping John leave the business? Ok maybe I do have some angsty endings.
7. what's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?
ha what is happy. Maybe the Leverage fic where Eliot has to pretend to be married to Hardison even though they are exes and that one ends with him proposing to Parker and Hardison and them being happy together
8. do you get hate on fics?
Rarely. Not usually hate at me but sometimes my fics make people pretty angry. I don't love it when people yell at the fic. the funniest though is getting an angry bookmark on a fic that i turned comments off of cause people were angry. like you do you in the bookmarks but lmao
9. do you write smut?
do i ever
10. do you write crossovers? what's the craziest one you have written?
I write fusions and crossovers! My wildest crossover is a 5x fic about Fezzik and Inigo from the princess bride meeting different other characters which actually might be the angstiest one now that I think about it because their last section is them going to the grey havens from lotr so they can sail into the west together. they also party with phryne fisher
11. have you ever had a fic stolen?
i think only onto wattpad
12. have you ever had a fic translated?
Yes, and it's so cool!
13. have you ever co-written a fic before?
Twice! One time on a leverage fic and it taught me how to use semi colons and also write introspection, a lesson i have forgotten and one time lesbian beach volleyball porn with a friend.
14. what's your all time favorite ship?
uhhhh oh no. they're all my favourites. of the ships i've written... no can't do it.
15. what is a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?
I dream of finishing my pacific rim x avatar fusion with mdzs. the worldbuilding was so much fun.
Everything else I think I've comprehensively abandoned in drafts. rip carol and maria having fun in space, jon and tormund going to winterfell, and the shl ocean's 11 au oh shit also the fic where wwx was adopted into the nie sect and it changes very little in some ways. Otherwise I tend to finish things I'm kind of a robot
16. what are your writing strengths?
smut and extended metaphors
17. what are your writing weaknesses?
description, romance, tenses, character introspection. i also think my sentence level writing is not that strong
18. thoughts of writing dialogue in another language in fics?
do whatever you want forever
19. first fandom you wrote for?
leverage! my first fanfic is on ao3 for that show. though technically i did a creative writing exercise where nietzsche and the librarian from a Borges short story hooked up as a class assignment in university so idk i guess maybe literary rpf
20. favorite fic you have written?
uhhhhh. i genuinely don't know. they're all their own little thing. im more interested in hearing which of my fics are other people's faves
tagging @idrilka @defractum @daltoneering @giraffeter @ginnymoonbeam
11 notes
·
View notes
Text
After I graduated from college I sucked at file management and lost a lot of what I wrote in those years. I do have some stuff printed, though. I'm starting to transcribe some of my poems/essays/etc. for safekeeping.
I'm going to share this poem here because it's about writing but I want ya'lls opinion too (poem and poll under the cut).
Writer's Anxiety
Hi, I'm [angelosearch].
I'm a writing major.
I'm a student of writing.
I write. I write a lot.
But I'm not a writer
nor poet
nor essayist
nor author
nor artist.
Just a writing major.
All my writer friends have a
"writer's ego," but what if the
ego is a no-go more concerned with
grade pointed resume sectional blog posts
than being pretty or clever
with words?
Scratch that, I am concerned.
So concerned that I shrink at the
sound of their sentences dancing
above me, floating over my work
even with each page I read,
word I write, no matter how many
cups of coffee or sleepless nights,
my words come out
sloppy. I watch them wear their writing
effortlessly like those who only wear clothes
that fit them, but my family never had the
money to replace the things I outgrew,
so maybe my poetry spills out my
bra a bit while your sleek fiction fits your
tongue like a glove. I can cover it up with
scarves, an outerwear of excuses
knitted with "I did this at the last minute"s
and "I got writer's block
on this one"s.
Everyone talks about writer's
block, but what about writer's
anxiety?
That feeling you get when you
realize everyone in the room
knows what they're doing but
you--or at least that's how they
seem. How can they stay so cool as
an epiphany slips out their
lips? They just put rhythm to the
meaning of life and said
"Thank you." They fill out their
toques and denim jackets, readers
grown into writers
clad in unbuttoned
unbridled confidence...
I want to feel that way.
I want to write that way.
BUT every poem feels like a car
swerving into unmanageable metaphors or else
a train traveling one way on a
single track with no transfers
to blandly named towns called
Springfield or Coddington.
BUT every fiction has a world
like a piece of paper
sparsely decorated with
cardboard characters wearing
cheap, floral-print adjectives, endings
arriving contrived or premature.
BUT every essay is stuck in one
form, a record clichely repeating the
same facts about your life:
"my parents are emotionally divorced"
"neither of them went to college"
"I feel like I don't belong"
"I don't belong-don't belong-DON'T BELONG."
My friends tell me that I am wrong
but it sounds like that knee-jerk compliment
you get get right after
you say "I'm ugly."
Why does nothing I write
sound right?
I want to know where
new style begins and
no style ends. I want to think the world
just isn't ready, but I'm not that conceded.
I can't believe it. I can't assume
I'm a writer because I
write--most can form words on paper,
but not everyone can turn a confession
into an expression
called art.
End poem!! I think I wrote that in 2013 (The spring of my junior year).
#personal#poetry#writing#writing about writing#creative writing#writblr#writer things#if you're wondering why I was so self-conscious then it was because 100% of my poetry professors disliked my poetry
5 notes
·
View notes
Note
Read this in a very angry comment on reddit and oh my
Smut is smut and that's it. I don't get the whole "what are the "sexiest" and "unsexiest words for smut?" I don't go looking for other words, I just call "smut" "smut", it's as simple as that. As for body parts, I fail to see why words describing body parts would be judged and deemed "sexy" or "unsexy", because whatever works for you is fine. Personally, when I write a fic that has a sex scene, I use terms like "cock", "vagina", "clit", "butt", "breasts", etc. It's neither "sexy" nor "unsexy", it's just basic terms used to describe body parts, that's all it is. The love and the sex in the scene is sexy, the words used to describe body parts are neither "sexy" nor "unsexy", it's just basic terms used to describe body parts, that's all it is.
By the way, aren't you fed up with people who call smut "porn" or conflate the two? I am, I find that quite insulting and offensive. Porn doesn't even have plot and must smut fics have plot, and most smut fics have love stories in them, they are erotic not pornographic. I read a lot of smut fics those past few years that weren't porn, if they had been porn I wouldn't have had read them. Because, and I'm only speaking for myself here, I hate porn and I think it's gross. I love erotism (I even wrote a couple romantic and erotic fanfics myself and posted them to AO3) but I hate porn and I wish people would learn the difference between the two. Porn is sex divorced from love and commitment and it's just fucking for the sake of fucking, it's two people who use each other as sexual kleenex or sex crutch for one night. It's not beautiful, healthy, sexy, romantic or loving, it's just fucking or rutting, that's all it is. So I'm just not interested, and I'm grossed out quite frankly.
I find that gross and porn is a total turn off for me, because I can't for the life of me divorce sex from love, commitment, tenderness, etc, and I find it insulting that some people conflate erotism and porn and/or smut and porn as if they were the same thing when nothing could be further from the truth. Some dumb people use the tag "porn with feelings". There is no such thing. Fucking for the sake of fucking doesn't involve having any feeling towards the person that this other person is using as a sexual kleenex or sex crutch for one night and more often then not they go their separate ways after the deed is done to go after their next one night stand and they change partner like they change panties every other day or every new chapter/fic.
There is no such thing as "porn with feelings". If there are feelings, love and commitment, it's not porn, it's erotism. I hate when clueless people use this dumb "porn with feelings" tag, because there is no such thing as porn with feelings, and it's an insult to fanfic writers who write erotism as opposed to porn. When reading fanfictions that have sex scenes in them, I only read erotic fanfics while completely ignoring all the fics that have tags with the word "porn" in them because I love erotism and I hate porn.
Also, as I have said several times in the past:
(Quote) "And to the dumb people in the comment section of this video who call this "gay porn", stop talking as if all sex is porn. Pornography or porn is the depiction of explicit sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual excitement. I doubt this movie showed those scenes for excitement, but rather for the story, the love story between those two. This isn't porn, it's erotism, big difference. First of all, you don't see anything below the waist so it's not explicit, and even if it was that's not what determines if something is porn or not.Clearly it isn't porn because it's clear that they LOVE each other. Erotism has LOVE, TENDERNESS, AND COMMITMENT in it. Porn is loveless sex and people covering each other in genital bodily fluids, porn is sex divorced from love and commitment, there's no love or romance or feelings, it's only aimed at sexually exciting the viewers (it's a total turn off to most normal people who would never divorce sex from love, tenderness and commitment), it's just fucking for the sake of fucking and it's people pissing and ejaculating all over each other.
Erotism is beautiful and harmless. Porn is ugly, disgusting and harmful (porn is one of the reasons why society is going down the toilet, why people have one night stands and just sleep around and are divorcing sex from love and commitment (how empty must their lives be if they try to fill the void with casual sex), and why lots of "romantic" relationships nowadays rarely last for more than two weeks or one night, porn unlike erotism has a very bad influence on people). Learn the difference, and don't call porn what isn't porn. It's erotism, learn the difference.
I'm fed up with movie reviewers and fanfic readers/writers who call things porn that aren't porn, it's insulting to the people who know the difference, it's insulting to people who also know better than to call all sex porn, it's insulting to people who are turned off by porn and don't want to have anything to do with that fucked up shit. How many times have I seen dumb people talking as if all sex is porn, or as if yaoi or smut is in and of itself porn (I've seen countless fanfics with smut and yaoi labels on AO3, and they aren't porn).Sex ≠ porn. Porn ≠ Sex. Sadly, some dumb people do consider them to be the same. People nead to learn that nude+sex ≠ porn. In fact, as someone else said, "Sex ≠ porn. I don't know about you, but I've never been taught that sex is a horrible, filthy, dirty thing. However, I have been taught that porn is a horrible, filthy, dirty thing. Many studies have shown that porn does have harmful side effects. This isn't about avoiding the issue of sex; it's about teaching it in a healthy and proper way" and "I don't argue with dumb people who can't understand the difference between porn and just sex or porn and erotism or porn and smut, so this is over." (Unquote)
--
LOL. Even my eyes glazed over.
I call fanfic "porn" as a conscious political act to deconstruct the false binary of erotica and porn and the false narrative that women like purer art.
I don't use "smut" unless I'm joking because it's a cutesy word that belongs in parody songs. Insisting on calling porny fanfic this is generational and website/community-dependent.
I hope this emotional child finds their chill eventually...
Or some better indie live action porn.
88 notes
·
View notes
Note
Hi Mah, I’ve noticed a lot of writers saying their fics aren’t being commented on or reblogged as much as they were before, and that it’s been discouraging. I can’t speak why for everyone but this is my story. I used to comment and reblog everything because I appreciated the hard work everyone put in. I got inspired to write a few fics of my own, hoping I would get the same support or even suggestions on ways I could improve my writing from all the writers I looked up to, but I got nothing. I spent hours and days writing, reading articles, and watching YouTube videos on how to improve your writing, but I never got one comment, like, kudos, or reblog from any of the writers I showed my support to. I started to notice people had their own little friend/support group and would reblog and comment on each other's posts or stories, but not the newer writers unless you were a phenomenal writer. If you weren’t worth their time, then you were unnoticed and not appreciated. It didn’t matter that you wrote long detailed comments on every single chapter of their story and reblogged their stories, hoping it would get more attention to help encourage them. You and one other blogger were the only ones that I got a comment from, and I ended up unfollowing everyone except for you and the other blogger. I stopped writing, deleted my stories on one of my low days, and unfollowed everyone but you and the other blogger. I stayed away from the Harry Potter community for a while. You two are the only ones I will take time out of my day to write comments for. I’ve read other stories, but I don’t comment on theirs unless it's by a new writer. I try to show encouragement and give suggestions in ways I wish I would have gotten them. I just wanted to say thanks, and I've come across some great new writers through your blog. I’ve been absent for a long time, but I’m back now. I hope things have changed and everyone is more supportive of one another. I don’t know if people are hesitant to help other writers but they take 5 minutes out of their day to read their stories and write two lines of encouragement or heck even a pm on ways you think the story could be improved, newbies will appreciate it more than you’ll ever understand. I just think if you want a little love then you need to show a little love too.
Hey, Anon. I went back and forth on how to answer this because yes, I understand it, but also... not?
I really don’t want to sound dismissive; I get it, writing takes time and effort, you put a piece of your heart there, and when people don’t seem to notice it, you take it personally. I've been there as, in a way, all who has ever posted their fan work have been. It’s shitty.
But you cannot control anyone else. If you are writing and posting because you want people to comment and engage; don’t. It will drive you mad, trust me, because there is no bar that will ever suffice. Write for your own joy... and read and review for your own joy.
If you want criticism, ask for it, send a pm to those who answer it. Join a discord. The review section in a fanfic is not the place for it, it would be just rude. And accept that sometimes there is no problem, no reason for why your fic is unnoticed; no one has ever cracked the code for what makes a fic popular, and honestly, I am glad for it. It’s cliche, but true: you are the only one who can write your stories.
Finally, I get the if you want love you need to offer some love, but also... it sounds entitled? Threatening? I am not sure. Fanfics are for free; they are supposed to be fun. When they stop being something that you can enjoy, what is the whole point?
I am sorry you didn’t feel your effort was appreciated. I hope that, despite everything else, you loved giving voice to the characters, crafting a scenario out of nowhere, and spinning words into something that was real and yours. I hope you stick around.
#the first fanfic I ever posted on ao3 got one comment and then nothing#the first fanfic I wrote after 10 years away from fandom got no reviews#i wrote a hundred thousand words and maybe one or two people were following#i got 23 views on each chapter and I was happy for it#and still i get the wish to write something everyone will enjoy#only i've also come to terms with the fact you cannot please everyone#and some people will simply ignore you for no good reason#the same way you will not read everything and you will not enjoy everything#and that's fine#that’s why you need to write first for yourself#and share for the one or two people who will make editing and posting worth it#i appreciate you one and you two person btw#and I am sorry I haven’t engaed much lately#I have felt at odds for a while now#so when it becomes too much I just take a break#because I cannot control anyone else but me :)#this is a messy post#just pm anon
18 notes
·
View notes
Last Seen Blogs
