#who else wrote a song about his crush and named it after their names combined

[lovesanmotion]

yandere!ateez reacts: s/o trying to run away

This is: requested | I was supposed to upload this last night but Chrome became a bitch and I lost all what I wrote in a span of minutes only. Hekhek, pain. 

Hongjoong: 

Hongjoong may not be as tall as Yunho and Mingi, nor as active, energetic and hyper as San and Wooyoung. But what he lacks, is what he makes up for. Hongjoong is a man of calculations, precision and skill. 

You listened to the sound of Hongjoong’s footsteps exit the house, hear his car engine roar and slowly hear the wheels fade into the road. While you had been tied on the bed, you were thankful for him for two reasons: One, he didn’t inject you any sleeping drugs. Second, leaving the cutter behind the lamp at the bedside table. You struggled to get your hands on the cutter, your finger dancing on top of the table until you reached for it. Finally, unbinding your wrists first before your ankles. And then, making your move. 

You first went down to the basement, knowing that there is a door that leads to his backyard. However, the doors were sealed shut and lock on the inside. The keys are always with Hongjoong. You went back up and noticed how the windows all had bars and the only free door for you to use is the front door. You slowly walked towards the front door and the blue skies and cold air greeted you. The sounds of birds chirping and the leaves rustling through the wind. 

“What a dumb kitten you are.” Hongjoong voice spoke, a visible irritated look on his face as he had his back leaning on the wall with his arms crossed over his chest. 

And you were so sure that you heard his car pull out the driveway. 

Seonghwa: 

Seonghwa’s calm and composed exterior contradicts his wild and aggressive exterior. One minute, he would be whispering you are his and his only. And the next minute he would stab the guy who tried to get your name and number at a coffee shop the other day. RIP to the guy, he was so young. 

And that’s what you fell in love with Seonghwa. He was so cool and calm in any situation that you felt like you were safe with him. Hehe, wrong. 

Grabbing a fistful of your hair, he yanked and dragged you down to the basement after you talked back at him. How you felt like shit instead of being comfortable around him. And it was only natural for Seonghwa to raise his hand at you and swung it across your face and give you punishment. 

Cuffing your ankles through a post. He raises his hand and gripped its hold on your under your chin. 

“Don’t be stupid and wait for me here, alright?” He leaned into place a kiss on your cheek despite your protest in leaning away. 

You watched as he ascends up the stairs, leaving you all alone in the basement. Looking around, there wasn’t a lot in his basement. It was just you and a couple of items that are tucked under a white blanket. You bend down forward and forcefully remove your feet off the cuff, grunting in the process. Once you were free, you ran up the stairs and went to the living room. 

But you heard someone knocking frantically on the front door. Cautiously and curiously you approached the door and slowly opened it. In front of you, an elderly woman appeared. 

“Mr. Park, I’m truly sorry, but have you seen my- who are you?” The elderly woman asked, her brows furrowing in confusion upon seeing your dishelved state. 

“Please, please, I will explain everything to you but you have to help me! Please!” You begged the woman. The elderly woman nodded her head but as she turned around, she was met with a knife piercing through her stomach. You watch in terror as Seonghwa lets out a soft sigh as he pulls the knife out before continously stabbing the elderly woman before shoving her lifeless, bloody body on the floor. 

“I mean how you can be more stupid?” 

Yunho: 

Yunho isn’t anything like Hongjoong and Seonghwa. In fact, you didn’t know how Yunho’s mind works. But one thing is for sure, he didn’t think much like a normal human. But, everyone in town loves him! He plays with kids in the park, helping out the elderly in crossing the street or carrying their groceries, he even gives food to the homeless. 

Dating Yunho felt like heaven. You loved watching him help the people and he always stuck close to you like a puppy. However, you felt like you were being suffocated in the relationship as the months go by. You tried to tell Yunho to be less clingy towards you. And he didn’t took what you said the right way. 

You woke up cold and shivering. The place was dark and you were barely able to move your body as it felt sore and aching all over. You then noticed a foul odor besides you, turning your head, you let out a scream afterwards. It was the dead, rotting body of the guy who you immediately realized as the guy who catcalled you in your campus. 

You didn’t know how and why but you struggled to getting your limp body up and crawling out of the room. Extending your hand out and then opening the door, you noticed how the house was quiet. The only thing you could hear was your ragged breath and your body sliding on the wooden floor. You plucked up your courage and dragged your body through the front door, as it was the closest to you. 

You were so close to the front door when all of a sudden Yunho came from upstairs, jogging down the stairs as he saw your body before yanking your ankle and then dragging you back. 

“Hey Officer Song! It’s me Yunho! Sorry about the screaming, its my girlfriend and she just saw a rat in the living room. What’s that? Really? That’s great! I’ll get back to you. Nice talking to you officer!” 

Yeosang: 

Unlike Yunho, Yeosang is a combination of both Hongjoong and Seonghwa. He learned the art of skill and mastery of calculations from Hongjoong and the art of calm and composure from Seonghwa. 

You and Yeosang go to the same prestigious university in Seoul. Even taking the same course (Web Design). And you weren’t sure how Yeosang had a crush on you since there’s still a hundred of people of people under your course. Yeosang was a shy and cute boy yet smart. That’s what everyone mostly knew him of. 

And it slowly started out with him buying you coffee, doodling on your textbooks with his little creation called Hehetmon and going on study dates at the library or the coffee shop inside your campus. And one day, you gave your sweet yes to Yeosang’s proposal of being his girlfriend. 

It was supposed to be that way but Yeosang one time caught you talking to a guy. He didn’t like how close you are with the guy and how you were laughing with him. He made a note to himself on finding out who is the guy you were talking to. But to you, the guy you were talking to was just your partner for an upcoming requirement. 

That night, Yeosang silently entered your home. He lets out a soft gasp as he takes in your almost naked state in bed before leaning in to smell your scent. He dips down as he starts to bind your wrists together first. Much to his dismay, you woke up. 

“Yeosang? What are you doing?” You asked, looking at how he binded your wrists and ankles. Writhing underneath him. 

“Stop moving around, bitch. You’re making things worse for me.” You have never heard him cuss but that was a first. He placed a tape on your lips to muffle your sounds, pulling out a syringe and then injecting it on your thigh. Slowly you felt drowsy before darkness consumed you. 

Hours later, you awake with a sore feeling on your lower back and upper arms. Blinking your eyes, you realized that you were binded on the chair, in front a table and Yeosang sitting on the opposite of you. 

“What did I ever do to you?” You spoke groggily to him, blinking more. “I hate you. I want to break up with you.” But Yeosang lets out a sadistic laugh. 

“Breaking up with me? Why, were in this together. Remember? Why should I let you go when I finally have you with me? Soon, you’ll realize that you are mine and you won’t need anyone else. Just like Wonho.” 

Your blood ran cold. Wonho. The guy you were working in a requirement. 

“What did you do to him?” You asked. But Yeosang only smiled sweetly at you. “Wonho? Um, well, let’s say that I worked everything out for you and you’ll be getting the perfect grade. Wonho? Hm, let’s just say that he magically disappeared.” He stood up and placed a recorder in the middle of the table. Playing the recorder as he left the room. 

“YN~ Yeosang loves you! Let’s stay together forever, alright? I love you.” Was what Yeosang said in the recorded and oh god was it on loop. 

Needless to say, you didn’t get to sleep afterwards. And maybe, just maybe, staying with Yeosang is a good idea. 

San: 

Very much like Seonghwa. But worst.  

San is a sweetheart. There’s no denying that. And you were very oblivious to the fact that he has a crush on you. You’ve always mistaken his flirtiness with kindness that you would make his pick up lines as your jokes. Of course to San it hurts, but seeing you happy is what matters. 

Everyday, San lived with the guilt of not being his and yours. He feared everyone would take you from him and it kept him on edge for most of the day. It drove him mad until he could no longer take it. He decided to kidnap you and take you to his home. 

And now here you are, on the run, you managed to successfully escape his home and now you needed a ride to take you back to the city. From what you have learned, you were in Namhae, and it approximately takes you 3 hours to get back to Seoul. You were in the brink of walking back to the city when a car pulled up in front of you. 

“I’m sorry. I can assure you that I am no creep but do you need a ride? I was just driving to visit my parents in Incheon.” Finally. Incheon was a bit close to Seoul, and you decided to take up on his offer. Climbing inside his car. But as he was about the reverse, a bullet pierced through the windows of his car. Hitting him square in the head. 

“If you wanted to go to Incheon, why didn’t you just tell me, baby?”

Mingi: 

Mingi loves to shoot range. It’s his past time and hobby. It all started when his father first time brought him to a shooting range in the province in his pubescent teen days. “One day, this will become useful.” was what his father told him. 

Despite Mingi’s tall and muscular physique is a child that still lives inside him. Sometimes it comes out, him being clumsy, active and playful. But there are moments wherein he can become mature. 

Mingi knew you love him dearly. But these days, he wasn’t sure if that was still the case. His insecurity grew day by day until he eventually ended up like San: living with the fear of you possibly leaving him one day. 

On the other hand, you were slowly falling out of love with him. And you found yourself in the presence of someone new. One Friday night, you had lied to Mingi on the phone how you were heading home when in fact, you were taking a cab somewhere else with your new guy. After hanging on the phone, it took you both a few minutes before finally a cab pulled up in front of you. 

The driver got out and moved in front of you. Was that Mingi? No. You were so sure that it wasn’t him. You turned around and found him aiming gun point at your new guy before blasting his brains out. 100 points to Mingi for bloodshed. 

“So, this is the guy you were leaving me for?”  

Wooyoung: 

“IF YOU LOOK BACK, YOU’RE MINE” 

You remove one of your earphones and looked back at Wooyoung. “What did you say?” but you watched as he jumped out in joy at the open space. Wierd. 

Wooyoung is a reallyyyyy clingy boy. And boy did he love to pester you about your boyfriend. You found it weird, why would he always ask for details about your boyfriend? Everytime you asked him why, he would just shrug. And of course you never gave him the details that you wanted. That’s just weird. 

Your boyfriend meant everything to you. And recently, he was so happy talking to you about how he made a new friend. You were really happy how he was so happy that he made a friend that you told him to invite him to dinner one night. 

And that night finally came. You were in the kitchen while cooking and any minute the guest would arrive. You felt a pair of strong arms wrap around your wasit. You leant your back on his chest, submitting to his touch. 

“If you look back, you’re mine.” You let out a soft gasp and then you turned out. Coming face to face with Wooyoung before blacking out. 

Jongho: 

Jongho was someone is very different from your boyfriend. Jongho was soft and understanding and always was willing to listen to your rants about your everyday life. Whereas your boyfriend kept you under his toxic behavior or leaving you and then showing up a few days. Always partying and hooking up with random girls. 

You oftenly wonder why you could never get away from your boyfriend. You mind kept telling you to leave all the toxicity behind, but your heart says to endure the pain as he told you that he is willing to change for you. And he mentioned that a year ago and there was still no new change. 

It was just you and Jongho inside a coffee shop, sitting near the window where you would tell him about your day and what were the things you did. And seeing Jongho being immersed with what you have to say made you so happy. Although your momentarily happiness was cut short when your toxic boyfriend came in and told you to come with him. 

You wanted to stay with Jongho but you found yourself going with your boyfriend. And Jongho was not okay with that. 

He followed you and your boyfriend through the dark alley. There wasn’t a lot of people in the area and Jongho took this for his advantage. 

“Jongho?” He came up both from behind. Laying a hand on his shoulder before tackling him on the ground, beating your boyfriend up like a pulp. 

“Jongho! Stop it! Stop it!” You pleaded, pushing him away by his shoulder. When he stood up, you looked at the bloodied face of your boyfriend who looked like he was half dead. 

“Were you really going to leave me there for this guy, Y/N?” Jongho’s question and uneasy calm voice shook you. 

“You couldn’t leave him because the sex is great, isn’t it? I know you. That’s why you can’t leave him. And there’s a part of you that’s still holding onto him. What about me? Don’t you think I deserve a chance as I’m the one who’s with you all this time?” 

The guilt kicked in and Jongho’s words started to brim tears in your eyes. You were unsure, that’s true. However- 

“If you leave me one more time, I will not hesitate to do the same thing to your parents. They’re old, right? It would make beating and killing them easier.” 

#Ateez hongjoong #ateez mingi #ateez yeosang #ateez san #ateez jongho #ateez yunho #ateez seonghwa #ateez wooyoung #ateez reactions #ateez yandere #ateez scenarios

[julieandthefandoms]

Housefull 2 MDZS/The Untamed AU

HELLO THERE MY LOVELIES! I’M MAKING A WILD TUMBLR REAPPEARANCE AND I BRING WITH ME SHINY NEW SHOWS I’VE WATCHED AND PERHAPS THE GREATEST AU I’VE EVER WRITTEN DOWN! 

Okay, so, I’m going to preface this by saying that I finally watched the Untamed over the past summer and now am slightly obsessed. I am also in the middle of reading the novel and watching the animation, so... that’s something.

Anyway, today, I decided that it would be a good idea to rewatch my favorite childhood film, a little Bollywood comedy titled Housefull 2. Upon rewatching this, I realized that the MDZS characters would fit really well into the convoluted mess of this plot and so I wrote a little bullet pointed AU idea thing. 

(I don’t think I’ll have the time to write this, so if anyone wants to use this concept, pleaseeee tag me/tell me about it. Also, if anything like this is already written, pleaseee tell me too, I need the crack content.) (I’m also desi, by the way, so I don’t know much about Chinese culture, so please tell me if anything is offensive or just plain inaccurate.)

So, without further ado, I’ll be presenting this Housefull 2 MDZS/The Untamed AU! 

-As per canon, JZX is emotionally constipated and couldn’t communicate until after his engagement with JYL got split up. Having made their sister cry, JC, WWX, and NHS (who gets roped into it) plan to crush JZX for hurting JYL. 

-They send WQ to crush JZX by breaking his heart but give her such vague instructions that she accidentally falls for Mianmain. 

NHS: “So... who’re we supposed to use to crush this Peacock. I mean, it can’t be any of us.” 

WWX: “I don’t know about y’all, but I’d be great at this mission.” *wiggles eyebrows*

JC *rolls eyebrows*: “I think you forgot that mom will have your head if you do something like this.”

JC: “Hey, you remember her from university?” 

WWX: “Who?” 

JC: “You know, *her*, the one with the needles who could murder anyone and get away with it” 

WWX: *laughing* “Holy hell, the Peacock doesn’t know what’s coming for him!” 

NHS: “And who might this mystery lady be?” He says, knowing exactly who this mystery lady is. 

JC and WWX: “Wen Qing.”

-All the while, JGS thinks that WQ and JZX are engaged because the Idiot Trio sent an envoy ahead that claimed WQ was a head disciple of Jiang and is a replacement for JYL. JGS has now set the engagement of WQ and JZX in August. 

-They find out about Mianmian/LQY and WQ too late, and now JC, WWX, and NHS send someone else, LWJ, to crush JZX’s heart. 

JC: “You can’t continue to do this, what happened to our deal?!” 

WQ: *death glares* “What our deal said was that I needed to woo someone vaguely in relation to the nickname “Peacock” and happened to be in Lanling as payback for JZX breaking your sister’s heart, I don’t think I’m the one who forgot our deal here.” 

JC: “And your first thought was that Mianmian/LQY was Peacock?!” 

WQ: “She’s pretty and a Jin, so…” 

Before there would be a throw down in this place, WWX interrupted: “Okay, WQ it’s alright that you feel for Mianmian/LQY, but who is supposed to help us teach JZX a lesson now?”

NHS: “I don’t know, but it could maybe be someone who’s already close to JZX.” 

JC: “That sounds like a horrible ide- Wait, that’s lowkey kinda genius. Do you remember him from university?” 

WWX: “Him?” 

JC: “Yeah, you know, him, the one who’s entire vocabulary was the syllable “Mn” and whom you pined after for years.” 

WWX *blushing like there’s no tomorrow*: “We can’t send him, he’ll probably send me off to do 50 handstands” 

JC: “Please, he’s do anything you ask him to” 

NHS: *flutters his fan while knowing to an extreme degree what’s going to happen*

-They send WWX as LWJ’s ‘driver’ for him to make sure the plan is on track, but it just ends in LZ/WY pining. JC is also sent there as a businessman since he needs to make sure JGS doesn’t suspect anything too suspicious. At the same time though, because JGS thinks WQ and JZX are engaged and since LWJ spends most of his free time talking to Mianmian/LQY about his hopeless pining, JGS starts to think that Mianmian/LQY and LWJ are to be engaged and plans another engagement. JGS is quick to inform LQR about this and now LQR thinks that his nephew is married to Mianmian/LQY and that they’re getting married in August. 

-At some point here, LXC is in Lanling to visit his bud Meng Yao and that’s when JC and LXC begin talking and stuff. (This can be platonic or romantic, I don’t have a personal preference). 

-Additionally, this is also when WWX and LWJ begin investigating the happenings of Lanling and discover the extent of an asshole JGS is. They'd probably be reported sporadically and NHS definitely sent this evidence to detectives XXC and Song Lan. 

-So far, no one has gotten to properly executing this plan, and JC & WWX are beginning to question things. Because things couldn’t possibly get worse, this is the moment when Madam Yu decides that it’d be a good idea to visit the Jins in order to remind them of their arranged marriage between JYL and JZX. So now, JC and WWX have to drag both LXC and JYL into this convoluted plot because otherwise everything would go horribly wrong. JC, WWX, NHS, JYL, LXC, WQ, LWJ, and Mianmian/LQY (WQ directly told the boys that if they don’t let Mianmian/LQY in on this, she’ll personally shove a needle where it hurts) are in this room together, attempting to processes the absolute mess that has occurred. (Poor JZX is still living obliviously, his father didn’t even tell him that he’s technically engaged to WQ now. JZX is just vibing in confusion and thinks he’s just being buds with LWJ because LWJ is horrible at flirting with anyone that’s not WWX so his job of breaking JZX is... not going well.) In the end, after being on the receiving end of many of JYL’s disappointed looks, JC and WWX convince her to help them with their plot just this once. (She wouldn’t tell anyone that she was secretly pleased, but hey, JYL kept her vengeance deep, deep down low and deserved to exercise it just this once.) 

-(it is important to note here that in this AU, Madame Yu doesn’t know what JZX looks like) 

-The plan would be that LXC would (reluctantly) pretend to be JZX in front of Madam Yu. Additionally, Madame Yu thinks the actual JZX is NHS (because JC panicked and that’s the first name he could come up with when Madam Yu asked who was that kid if LXC was JZX). This was to drive JGS off their tails as he still believed that WQ is engaged to JZX now. (He did email LQR about this as well who now thinks his nephews are now engaged to JYL and Mianmian/LQY, respectively, and are going to be married that August.) This is the part where WWX and LWJ finally start realizing that their feelings are mutual after a pep talk from Mianmian/LQY, LXC, and WQ (who’s pep talk sounded more like a shovel talk) for LWJ and from JC, NHS, and JYL for WWX. This is also when Mianmian/LQY and WQ grow closer and also decide that the rest of the group is useless and team up with NHS to knock some sense into JZX. Finally, JZX becomes less emotionally constipated and confesses to JYL, and because WWX, JYL, and JC think that an intervention from the scariest trio (WQ, Mianmian/LQY, NHS) is apt punishment, they call an end to their payback. (Also partially due to JZX having character growth as different characters grilled him throughout this AU). While this is great for our mains, it can only cause a bunch of shenanigans because of the way the parental figures interpret this situation. 

-JGS and Madame Jin think the pairings are: WQ/JZX, LQY/LWJ, LXC/JYL, WWX/NHS

-Madame Yu thinks the pairings are: JZX (except it’s LXC’s version of JZX)/JYL, LWJ/WWX, LQY/WQ, and (maybe?) JC/NHS (except it’s JZX who got confused for NHS)

-LQR thinks the pairings are: WQ/JZX, LQY/LWJ, and LXC/JYL

-Meanwhile, the pairings actually are: JZX/JYL, LWJ/WWX, LQY/WQ, and (maybe?) JC/LXC

-In conclusion, they’re all utterly fucked. Therefore, they have to bring everyone into this convoluted plot now, and finally JZX’s experiences over the past months make a little more sense to him. While discussing this mess they’ve created, WWX has an idea. 

WWX: “Okay, so, looking at the actual chart of who everyone thinks is who, the biggest disparity is between Madam Yu and JGS’s viewpoints, right? What if we just removed Madam Yu from the equation, make Madam Jin and Madam Yu have a falling out so that Madam Yu won’t be invited to the wedding so that we can focus on one of the false interpretations of all the relationships happening.” 

JC: “Madam Jin and Madam Yu have been the best of friends, how are we supposed to make them hate each other?” 

JYL: “I mean, we could stage something, a betrayal of some sort.” 

NHS: “I’m liking the way you think.”

-So through this plot and NHS’s concerning amount of connections, our group succeeds in breaking apart Madam Yu and Madam Jin’s friendship. JC and WWX also manage to worm their way into convincing the Jins to let JYL marry LXC to “spite Madam Yu’s wish of combining the Jiang and Jin families.” Because of JGS arranging and emailing parents throughout this fic, JYL, JZX, LXC, Mianmian/LQY, WQ, NHS, WWX, and LWJ are basically set to be married in August, except it’s to the wrong person! Soon enough, the wedding day arrives and the gang has a plan: they’ll dress the exact same and have the most elaborate and disruptive headpieces so that their faces are covered. 

(Note: Instead of NHS being part of the people getting married as it should be, JC is replaces him for the actual ceremony. Since the our marrige folks have their faces covered, nobody really notices that JC replaced NHS and is marrying LXC. This can be either because of a marriage of convenience to combine companies, or out of actual feelings. I’m cool with either interpretation in my head. Meanwhile, NHS is out in the crowd and People didn’t him because of his surprisingly useful camouflage fan.) 

-And so, the group sets NHS as their distraction while JC pretends to be NHS for the wedding ceremony. NHS basically knocks into the most expensive vase he can find so that most of the parental figures turn around, giving the group getting married the opportunity to switch places with one another until they’re in the right spot. So, a bunch of stuff happens, Madam Yu barges in to yell about how disgraceful it is for the Jins to go on with this marriage even though they broke the engagement in the first place and betrayed the trust of the Jiang corporation. Madam Yu also just, airs out JGS’s dirty laundry in a real badass way. 

-It’s all chaotic. Hell breaks loose. JGS goes batshit crazy and starts bringing our firearms. And so, basically, everyone ends up hiding behind pillars and stuff, though, eventually, after everyone has to run out of their hiding spot’s because Su She cannot shut the fuck up and keeps getting the other’s exposed, they all pile behind JGS in the world’s worst game combined game of Hide & Seek and Slither.io. It all finally ends when JGS gets arrested for a shit ton of crimes, and everything finally ends with a joint wedding between 8 people, except this time it’s with the right partners. 

So, yeah, that’s the AU that I wrote in a dazed craze in the past 2 hours. I hope it was at least partially understandable. I hope y’all have fun with it! Again, if you know of a fanfic that’s got a similar energy or want to write something similar, please tell me, I need more fanfiction. Also, that last scene is basically a direct copy of this scene from the movie Housefull 2. (I’m sorry though, I can’t find an english subbed version of the scene. :(

#the untamed #mo dao zu shi #mdzs fanfiction #fanfiction prompt #mdzs au #the untamed fanfic #mo dao zu shi fanfic #housefull 2 #bollywood #c-drama #writing prompt #the untamed fanfiction prompt #long post #tw violence #tw long post #the untamed au #wei ying #lan zhan #lan xichen #jiang cheng #jiang yanli #jin zixuan #nie huaisang #luo qingyang #wen qing #lan qiren #jin guangshan #yu ziyuan #wei wuixan #lan wangji

[thedreadvampy]

this one IS finished (I wrote it in August 2013) and honestly? holds tf up good job 2013 Ruth

(2013 Ruth was evidently very into a) trauma and b) Bertie not being as dead as initially suspected)

TAKE NO PRISONERS GIVE NO QUARTER

The rage hasn't left him since he heard about Bertie. It's amazing what three simple letters can do to a man whose whole self rests on one person. MIA. Theoretically, that's inconclusive, but in reality, that just means there isn't enough left to find, let alone bury. MIA is a pretty common ending to a young man's story, down here in the tunnels. 

The whole tunnel came down on Bertie and the rest of the scouting party, the cracked walls giving up the ghost under the combined pressure of shellling and laser fire. Crushed Lenny and Tommy alike, erasing their differences in one bloody mess, good old boys from Blighty and moonbleached Lenny bastards all rendered down to crushed mess together, There was only one survivor to report back, and was is the operative term. It's hard to get back into active service when you're jam from the waist down, and the poor blighter never even made it far enough to be invalided out to one of the giant Medsats in orbit up above.

So Bertie's gone, and in fairness, Tim never was very stable when left to his own devices, as strings of explosive accidents and charred lab wreckages can attest.

There was shock, at first. The dull numbness of denial,  no no no NO no NO it can't be he isn't he didn't no body no proof he'll be found he'll be invalided out he'll be fine he is was will be fine he isn't gone because he CAN'T be gone. But denial's hard to cling to when you've seen death like the boys in the tunnels have seen, you know a tunnelfall is not something you walk away from. Or even crawl away from. Nowhere to run, with tonnes upon tonnes of lunar rock crashing down from above, tasting your own fate in the smoke and dust that are the forerunners of the boulders...a hellish death, a messy death, above all a certain death. If you aren't crushed you'll suffocate or die of your wounds, out in the deadland where nobody's going to hear your cries. Hells, Tim and Bertie did it often enough, that grim tunnels game you have to play, sitting by the crackling radio, rustling and banging your things around, talking, singing, anything to block out the hopeless, plaintive calls from the nearest collapsed tunnel, where hidden charges and weakened structures and exposure to fire mean you'll most likely die yourself before you can help any one of the poor bastards.

So Bertie's...

Bertie's...

For hours, days, he couldn't even bear to think the end of that sentence, and he understands now as never before why the tunnels are filled with euphemisms, those coy lies that partially cover this unbearable truths lurking behind them.

Gone.

Bought it.

Kicked the bucket.

Pushing up daisies.

MIA.

Bertie's...Bertie's dead.

His mind revolted, twisted and writhed away from considering the existence of a world with a Bertie-shaped lack, the world he now existed in where days and nights were cold and alone and silent and only filled by his cold hands and his cold eyes and his cold heart and his raging fire thoughts with nobody to guide them. There were, at that point, others around him, comrades, others in his dugout, but they no longer existed to him They meant nothing. They weren't Bertie. They weren't his. They were man-shaped shadows, who drifted in and out of his awareness to offer orders or platitudes. They weren't part of his silent cotton-wool world. Tim was...is...an ice cold, glass-sharp shard in the centre of soft, soundless, excruciating nothing.

He has yet to be aware of crying over Bertie, though sometimes he finds the salt wetness on his face to be tears, not blood, sometimes he realises with a shock that the hopeless sob he hears is his own. But thus far he has never sat down to cry, never let himself mourn. For days after the news came, it wasn't real, nothing was real, he just shut off. He stared, blank-eyed, into the middle distance, and performed his duties with silent, mechanical efficiency. His comrades muttered, as the days spread into weeks, talked about "mental", "headcase", "shell-shock," and though he heard them, they no more penetrated Tim's dead-eyed daze than anything else happening around him. But there was one, a soft-spoken Welshman by the name Griffiths (bought it at Sinus Roris a few days later), who hit the nail on the head. Looking at the detached, unreacting figure of Tim as he sat slowly dissassembling his lasgun, Griffiths said quietly, "I reckon that's what it looks like when a man gets his heart broke beyond repair".

That, Tim heard, and almost, almost cried. Almost let it fall loose, all of it, weeks of pent-up tears, crippling fear, total bereavement. Almost shed every tear he had, for the times that were and the comfort that used to be, for his Bertie and for his own heart, that he'd barely known was there until it shattered, and for the snuffing of the one and only true light in these dank, dismal tunnels. He almost cried, but he didn't. If he let the feelings in, he was sure they would destroy him; comprehension of his loss loomed poised, a tsunami waiting to break over him.

He didn't cry. The emotions stayed safely dammed back. His face stayed empty. His heart stayed closed.

And he could have stayed that way forever, floating through life in the dazed, unfocused stupefaction of unbearable grief, but for one thing. Bertie had...had died pushing the lines forward, and the Moonies were working day and night, it seemed, to push back. And they pushed hard. 

They came in the dead of night, trampling across the fallen rock under which was buried the dead of both sides. Tim was on watch that night, he saw the tiny will-o-the-wisp reflection of lights in their eyes, the firelight gleaming off polished buttons. He saw the soldiers who'd mowed down his Bertie (he wasn't there, didn't see how Bertie died, but in the fevered darkness behind his lids, he sees Bertie dying in that godforsaken tunnel night after night in infinite ways, sees him shot down or crushed or lying moaning in the dark, slowly ebbing away a few pathetic tunnels away from Tim's unknowing form), saw them in the flesh now, saw them coming from the wreckage which still buried the only person who'd been real to him, imagined their boots pounding the rubble above Bertie's ruined body. The tension which had been holding him together for every unimaginably long day since the tunnelfall snapped, and the pain crashed thunderous into his head in a flood of images and memory and raw uncurtailed loss, in curly hair and a dimpled smile and pale grey eyes clouded over lying alone dying alone in a stew of viscera and agony and bone and blood and smoke, mingling contamination, blood mixed with his enemies, crushed into moonwhite corpses, a world apart, a world alone, a world where Tim has no control, where Bertie isn't, where Tim...

And without knowing anything, unexpectedly, Tim found the wave didn't swamp him. Didn't crush him, didn't smash him, didn't destroy him. He rode it. His agony and his loss gave him strength, made him unstoppable. Grief surged in his veins, and he surged with it, eyes alive and merciless. He laid red flowers on Bertie's grave. By the time the rest of the platoon scrambled out of the dugout, sleep-fogged and panicking, the battle was all but over, and Tim was gone in a trail of broken corpses.

He is legend. He is death. The monster of the war. His shadow stalks the tunnels, makes Lenny wake up cold and sweating and reaching for his laser in the dark.

Sometimes he surfaces to find himself slick with gore, panting. Sometimes, the flash and scream of his homemade grenades blast him into a moment's lucidity. Sometimes, surrounded by the dead, he awakes to find himself laughing and crying all at once.  Always, he surveys his work with grim satisfaction, but his work is not done, will never be done. The fury which drives him will not be sated, because no matter how many he kills, how many of Bertie's murderers fall before him, there will still be more of the moonbleached fuckers out there, and there will still be no Bertie. No amount of blood is blood enough to repay the loss of Bertie. The tunnels can drown in blood for all he cares, as long as there's a Lenny left on the moon he cannot rest, will not rest.

Lips drawn back, baring bloody teeth in a deathshead grin, skin afire with reflected explosions, hair in bloody ratstails whipping the air, eyes wide and redrimmed and merciless, face soot-streaked and bloody, he runs and he destroys. You can only ride the wave as long as you keep moving. Stop, and the pain grabs you, breaks you, drowns and dashes you, you'll never catch it again.

You know this part. Tim in the tunnels, dancing to the sonorous song of gunfire and grenades, hauling on the lasgun's trigger, a wild onlaught of blood and fire, laughing a chillingly humourless laugh, shout-singing the words that make the Kaiser's men piss themselves and run, take no prisoners, give no quarter. The lucky shot, the sudden blackness that damps the fire in his burning mind. Tim wakes before the Moon Kaiser, unarmed, pained, held by guards.

He isn't like other men, that's what the Kaiser failed to take into account. He's a machine fuelled by love and blood, he runs on the pain-fire that consumes him, he won't stop, can't stop. He doesn't see the world like men do, not any more. Many men would tremble, many men would abase themselves in fear, but Tim is not many men. Many men would be surprised to see the decapitated head of a comrade come alive and wink at them, but Tim's not lived in the real world since the tunnel fell, why would it surprise him? He can't stop, and what the Kaiser forgets, looking upon the animalistic form of the monster of the tunnels, is that Tim is not stupid. He never was, was always smarter than his peers, but now he runs with the liquid fire of revenge, the fire which burnt away fear and hesitation, the fire which burnt down to its white-hot razor-sharp bones one of the Academy's greatest intellects.

The laser fires.

The moon blows up.

White hot victory sears his eyes to black holes.

Not one Lenny is left on the Moon.

For the first time since the tunnelfall, perhaps the last, Tim wears a true, unmitigated smile. His face bloody and bruised, cheekbone fractured, teeth loose in his salt-tasting mouth, lips and beard streaked with blood, burned-out holes where once he had eyes, body a mass of melting pain, Tim spreads wide hands blistered and nailless and torn, and smiles beautifically, his sacred fiery charge at last fulfilled.

Later, there is more pain, and more blood, and metal screaming and grinding bone and screeching glass and merciless, half-familiar voices around him.

Later still, head screaming from the searing, unwelcome clarity of his new brass-rivet vision, he throws away the tenth cup of tea thrust into his hands by the genially smiling wooden man, and goes walking among the wreckage of the Moon. His unfamiliar optics pick out the scorched shell of a British Medsat, palely lit by Earthlight. It's near death, battered, burned, uprooted from its umbilical attachments to the lunar surface. The airlock judders open to let Tim in, red cross shattered and blackened on the pitted and charred surface of the outer door, inside door's glass spiderwebbed with cracks but still gamely holding out against the vacuum of space.

Tim's footfalls are loud in the echoingly abandoned corridors. He passes the dead, nurses and doctors lying where they fell as the satellite buckled and split, some crushed under their equipment, some lying where they bled out, some left bloody marks as they dragged themselves into wards. Behind the airlocked ward doors, surely the dying still moan, soundproofed out of Tim's life. Emergency lights flicker on and off, alternately bright, antiseptic whiteness and total darkness, casting failing, dancing shadows on the crazed, cracked, bloodied floor. The light hurts Tim's head, and he covers his optics with a bandage to spare his tortured brain, navigating the corridors with cracked fingertips and echoing footsteps. Chooses a door at random, steps into the ward. The room is silent, but for a few gasping, cracked, airless breaths. Tim is reminded of the moanings in the tunnels all those eternal weeks ago, the dead men in tunnelfalls who just won't die. He takes another shuffling step, shuffles around when he encounters an unmoving body with his foot, explores the ward in dazed blindness, smelling sickness and death and blood, hearing hopelessness, seeing nothing.

There's a dry cough to his left, and to his right a rattling, juddering last breath, and Tim stops, drawn up short, because that breath sounds his name in impossible, familiar tones, and then is gone.

His heart stops. He rips the bandage from his eyes, flooding his vision with white flickering emergency lights, with blood and the dying, and with the nightmare.

Tim lets out a howl, wordless and meaningless and bottomless, like a wounded animal, like a dying man, like Lucifer falling. Knees and strength give out all at once. Strings cut, he lands on his knees, sprawled across the bed, rocking and shuddering, fists clenched, the unearthly despair sound still tearing out of him from the bottom of his irreparably stained soul.

Under his desperately shaking body, the fresh corpse cools slowly, bereft of the machines that were holding him together, orphaned of their care by the blast which must have blown out both main and auxiliary life support. The dead man has bandaged stumps where once he had long, strong legs, his broad chest has been crushed and crumpled on one side, his smiling, dimpled face now gaunt and etched with unimaginable pain (and now, oh god, waxy and cold and white and bloody-lipped), there's a gaping absence where once there was a laughing grey eye, blonde curls have been shaved away to allow for the livid line of stitches across his scalp, but there is no mistake, could never be a mistake. And broken as he was, he was alive, was awake, was even speaking, and then Tim took his revenge, and now...

And now the wave has broken over Tim a second time, and this time there's no riding it, no using the anger and hatred which fills his every fibre. Because there's no using that white hot fire of revenge when Bertie's killer still lives, will always live, now cannot die.

And now, now he cries, an explosion of tears and pain and keening, hopeless, echoing up from the bottom of the world, thin body wracked, shaking like every world ending at once as he pulls sobs up through every part of him, breathing raw and short and ragged, nothing left but despair and endless, futile pain and rage. Hands tear at his hair and face as if by sheer effort of will he could tear himself apart, kill himself with as much violence and brutality as he killed the Kaiser and his army, but it's hopeless, he can't be killed, he can't forget, he can't escape, it will never be over, he will live forever and he will live with this forever.

Later, Gunpowder Tim leaves the Medsat in its death throes, mechanical eyes unreadable, walks away from the hospital satellite he crippled, returns to the Aurora and the cold, mechanical distraction of her guns, the crew of once-people as hateful as himself. Leaves what was left of his humanity behind in its charnelhouse corridors with the body of his friend/love/victim. Leaves Tim-That-Was to die next to Bertie's body.

Behind him, the Medsat shudders and flares suddenly white in a soundless, soon-snuffed explosion, a funeral pyre for Tim and Bertie. Gunpowder Tim doesn't look back.

#the Mechanisms #gunpowder tim #gunpowder tim blows up the moon #tim x bertie #mechs fic

[aellynera]

Don’t Forget the Napkins (Llewyn Davis x Reader)

DON’T FORGET THE NAPKINS

Word count: 2733(ish)

Warnings: Just a little bit of language, really (I mean, it’s Llewyn, so...) Like one sentence about Pappi’s creepy tendencies.

(with prompts: “Call me now, it’s urgent”; “Have you lost your mind”; and “So...can we go eat?”)

Another Saturday night at the Gaslight. There was nothing odd about that, it was where you spent pretty much every Saturday night for the past year and half, working behind the bar and waiting on the tables out by the stage when needed. Sure, it was dark, smoky, and kind of dingy, but it helped make ends meet and you got to listen to music for free.

The music is what you had first come to the Gaslight for, right after you graduated from college and moved to the big city. You loved the music and started coming in every chance you got, no matter who was on stage, just to sit in the room in the moment and experience the music. Pappi had taken a shine to you, said you reminded him of his little sister. You had no idea if he really had a sister, nor did you care, but it was certainly less creepy than Pappi telling you it was because he wanted to fuck you, so you let it slide. You had heard him make the latter suggestion to more performers than you cared to admit, but he was a decent boss and you got on well at the job, so it all worked out.

You had majored in English and wanted to be a famous writer, maybe even write some songs that people would talk about and still sing years from now, so where else would you go other than New York City? That’s where the culture was. That’s where the art scene was. That’s where the nightlife and bright lights and intellectuals were. And that’s also where Llewyn Davis was.

Llewyn. Now there was a riddle wrapped in an enigma inside a mystery.

You had seen him perform quite a few times at the Gaslight, and even bought his record when it came out. You talked to him just about every time he was there, because he always sat at the bar both before and after he performed. He had seemed quiet at first; well, he still did, really, but by now you knew the right combination of idle chit-chat, soft smiles, and whiskey straight up to get him to drop the first line of defense. Once that happened, he would talk to you all night. And if you weren’t busy, you’d let him. At some point, you had told him about your dreams of writing and creating songs that people wanted to sing (there was no way you were going to sing them yourself, at least not in public; your stage fright was too monumental and soul crushing). He had just looked at you thoughtfully for a moment, pushing one of his perfect dark curls off his face, then finished his drink and went up on the stage. When he came back, he ordered another drink and started up random conversation again. Then the night was over.

And that was his mystery - he spoke of many things, but he never really told you anything. You had an easy back and forth, a friendship even, but it felt like he never let on more than the bare minimum.

But the night after you had told him about the songwriting, you had come in to work and there was a note for you behind the bar. Two lines, scribbled on a napkin. You read them a few times and realized it was maybe the beginning of a poem...or lyrics. So you quickly wrote two more lines, and when Llewyn came in that night, you walked up to him and stuck the folded napkin in his pocket. He looked surprised, but you caught the slight upturn of his lips a few minutes later when he took it out, looked at it, and then carefully put it back in his pocket.

The next night, the napkin was back. Two more lines. So you added two more. The same thing the next day. And the next, and the day after that. It kind of became your thing, without anything else ever being said about it. Sometimes there was a whole verse written out and you would start a chorus, and vice versa. Once it was one word at a time and that had honestly gone off the rails pretty quickly, but it was fun.

And it had been going on for just about a year. You saw it as a mental game to keep your writing sharp and your brain engaged and your friend entertained. He certainly did more than his fair share in entertainment from his stool on the stage.

So when you got to work that night, it wasn’t a surprise to find another napkin meticulously folded and placed behind the bar where you normally stowed your pocketbook and keys. The place was more packed than usual, but there was some new guy named Dylan or something that was playing and there was a lot of buzz around him. So that was normal too. Smiling to yourself, you picked up the napkin and read the familiar scrawl.

Call me now, it’s urgent.

That was..not normal. Your face scrunched up in confusion, you quickly looked up and caught the mop of dark curls hunched over at the end of the bar. Grabbing a clean bar towel and the bottle of his favorite whiskey, you made your way over.

“Oh...good, you got my message,” he said, raising his eyes ever so slightly to meet yours over the rim of his tumbler. They were (beautiful and dark and compelling and soft and…) sort of glassy and red around the edges and maybe a little bloodshot? And was that a smirk inching its way onto his lips? You sighed.

“You’re sitting right here, Llewyn,” you said, taking the glass from his hand and refilling it without him asking. You pushed it back to him. “So thank you for saving me the dime.”

He snorted. “Come on, it was...a little funny, right?”

You shook your head, but you couldn’t keep your own small smile off your face. Did he realize the irony that you wouldn’t have been able to call him anyway, since you never really knew where he would be staying? “And you’re a little pissed already, huh? Isn’t it a bit early for that?”

“Nah, not really. And I’m not drunk. I am alcoholically reinforced,” he took another sip of his drink.

“...what does that even mean?”

He shook his head, that one particular curl flopping over his forehead and into (those beautiful, soulful, deep, enchanting…) his eyes. He totally ignored your question. “So, uh, look,” he started, suddenly seeming a bit more unsure of himself. “I really wanted to ask you, if…”

“No, you cannot borrow my couch tonight, Llewyn. My sister is in town.” You idly wiped at the bar top with your towel, raising an eyebrow at him.

For a split second he looked offended, but it was so brief you almost missed it. “What? No, no, I don’t need a place to...look, I just needed to tell you...well, ask you really, but also tell you…”

“Hey, Llewyn!” Pappi’s voice suddenly boomed from the other side of the room. “Lay off the help and get your ass up on stage! You’re not gettin’ half the basket just to sit here and drink all my booze!”

Llewyn sighed. “Yeah, yeah, all right,” he yelled back. His attention turned back to you. “So, listen, really though I need to…”

You swatted at him with the towel. “You need to finish that glass and get up there before we both get in trouble, is what you need to do. It looks like it’s gonna be a crazy night, I’ll catch you after, yeah? We’ll go grab a burger at that place down the block, my treat.” You flashed him a grin as you walked away before he could say anything else. And by say anything else, you really meant say no, because that man needed to eat a good, hot meal. As usual.

Llewyn watched you walk off and start tending to other patrons, then threw back the rest of his glass in one gulp. “Fuck,” he muttered under his breath as he walked to the stage. “Please don’t kill me, please don’t kill me…”

As Llewyn picked up his guitar and got himself situated, you filled drink orders and watched him as you did so. It was getting harder to deny that he was the most beautiful man you had ever seen, especially when he was up there, under the single spotlight and surrounded by the smoky haze of the crowd and his own cigarette smoke. There was just something about him. But the puzzle and mystery and enigma hung over everything and you were fairly certain you’d never crack the actual code, so you just let your crush be a crush. It was part of what made the Gaslight worth it, after all.

The night went on, busy and loud and musical. This particular crowd was really getting into his set and you couldn’t help but feel proud of him. He deserved the attention, and you knew he wanted it, even if he liked to pretend he didn’t. After a few songs, you took a pint glass of water up to the stage. It was something you always did for performers, but especially for Llewyn (since he tended to drink more than his fair share of whiskey in the meantime). You were about halfway to the stage when he strummed a few notes and started to introduce his next song.

“So, uh...well, this is a new song for me,” he started, noticing you coming his way. “And I didn’t really plan on doing this until maybe about an hour or so ago, but well...I dunno, sometimes when something just feels right, it’s right, you know?” His eyes meet yours as you set the glass on the small table next to him on the stage, and he momentarily seems to search for the next words.

“Y’know I usually work alone, but, uh, I wrote this next song with a friend. A good friend. Someone who is really talented and good with words, better with words than I am. And...and she doesn’t know I’m doing this but I’ll ask for forgiveness later.” He chuckled and the crowd did too in response.

Llewyn cleared his throat. “So, yeah. This is a song I wrote with the help of a lovely lady you probably all know. If you do, ask her to make you a drink, and if you don’t, well, go back to the bar and introduce yourself.”

You were almost to the back of the room, back to said bar, when your eyes shot wide and you spun on your heel to face the stage. Oh no, he did not just...did he? It’s kind of hard to clearly see his face from back here with the light and the glare in the smoke but you could swear that jerk is grinning, like full on guilty smiling, and in that instant you swore if you weren’t working and there weren’t so many people shoved into this space you might go up there and actually punch him. Your face was on fire and your stomach felt like it was going to drop out the bottoms of your feet. Your mouth dropped open before you could stop it.

Every pair of eyes in the room suddenly turned on you. There were maybe a hundred people there? Around that many. A hundred people times two and that’s how many eyes were suddenly staring right at you. There was only one pair of eyes you really cared about, though.

You managed to catch Llewyn’s eyes for a moment and you mouthed at him - Have you lost your mind? He shrugged slightly, closed his eyes, and started playing his...your...song.

It was beautiful. From the second line you recognized the napkin it had come from, one that got passed back and forth about four months ago, during a particularly cold week when it didn’t quite snow but the rain was still frozen. It was a back and forth about two people realizing they were in love but being too afraid and preoccupied and aloof to do or say anything about it. Typical unrequited love stuff. But oh, suddenly, oh now it had much more meaning. You listened, and watched, from the corner behind the bar, transfixed and unable to look away as every emotion you knew and some you never knew existed washed over you in time with the notes from the guitar and Llewyn’s gorgeous voice.

Once the song ended, you somewhat got your bearings and turned back to the bar. People were already coming over to tell you how beautiful the song was, ask if you really wrote it with Llewyn Davis, tell you how much they enjoyed it, ask if you had written any others...you were only vaguely aware of most of it and managed to pour some drinks and answered things as best you could, until finally one voice broke through all the others.

“So. Um. Did you like it?”

You closed your eyes for a minute, biting your lip. “Llewyn...I...what just happened?”

He looked down for a second, then reached over and took the glass you were holding and the bar towel out of your hands. He gently wrapped his fingers around yours, giving you a light squeeze. He didn’t say anything for a few more seconds, but when you didn’t pull away, he continued, “I tried to tell you...shit, I kept every single one of those napkins since we started doing that, and I turned some of ‘em into a song and wanted to play it tonight. I tried, but...well...fuck, you’re not mad at me are you?”

You weren’t mad. God, you were anything but mad at this man. Stunned, and surprised, yes, but definitely not mad. He kept all those napkins? You’d always half-wondered what happened to them, but never really gave it much thought, but you hadn’t really expected that to be the answer. Your brain still couldn’t quite process your own words correctly, so you just shook your head no and squeezed his hands in return.

Llewyn let out a huge sigh of relief. “Oh, thank fuck. For a few minutes there I thought I really fucked things up.”

You finally got your head back straight and laughed. “No, you didn’t,” you smiled. You cocked your head to the side and studied his face for a moment. “I still can’t quite figure you out, but you definitely did not fuck anything up.”

“Good,” he nodded. He lifted your fingers to his lips and brushed his lips along your knuckles, suddenly pulling away when Pappi snorted from his corner of the bar. You both turned to him, scowls on your faces, and Llewyn whipped the bar towel at Pappi’s head.

“So...can we go eat?” Llewyn asked, turning his attention back to you and ignoring Pappi’s continued string of bemused and somewhat lewd sounds.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Eat. Y’know, burgers? At that joint down the street? You said something earlier about buying me dinner?” Llewyn asked dryly.

You rolled your eyes. “Seriously? You sing me a song that I helped you write, and then you expect me to buy you dinner.”

“Well, you did offer.”

You bit your lip again as your smile grew wider and a blush crept further up your face. “Okay. But make sure you don’t lose these, we’re going to need them.” You grabbed a few pens from underneath the bar before coming around to his side and shoving them in Llewyn’s coat pocket.

“Okay, sure? But what are those for?” he asked, slipping and arm around your waist and leading you to the door.

“Because,” you replied, your tone implying that he should already know, “there are a lot of napkins floating around that place.”

Llewyn pulled you a little closer and you smiled into his embrace. “Ohhhhh.”

“And Llewyn?”

“Yeah?”

“I wasn’t kidding about the couch, my sister really is in town. But I’ve got a much more comfortable place you can stay tonight.”

~end~

#oscar isaac #inside llewyn davis #llewyn davis #llewyn davis x reader #llewyn davis x you #prompt fic #fluff

[crossbows-and-moonshine]

Screaming Salvation (Part one)

[[ The rest of this author note is from when I wrote it, but this is me now. Here’s the first chap of the gift I promised. Please remember there will only be 5 chapters and as of now, I have no idea when I’ll go back to finish this.]]

-----------

So this one will end up being AU. Focused heavily and my OC and Daryl rather than everyone else. Not much else to say, no idea where the fuck I’m going with this as usual loool Set before the group gets to Alexandria.

Name of the fic is inspired by a song. The Two Tongues by As It Is.

When I think of him there's comfort in the cold

He gives me solace when I offer him control

Her voice so beautiful will find me and explain

That life is agony but worth it all the same

I've been to hell and back

I've been living in between

Where the sky is always grey

And the grass is ever green

No I'm not sure I'm right

But I'm not sure I'm wrong

I'm just desperate to belong

Her voice like a sunrise

His voice like temptation

She sings to me softly

He's screaming salvation

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

The sounds of boots slapping the damp mud in the forest, mixed with her own heavy breathing, were the only sounds in Rosalie's ears. Blaring like an alarm, letting her know exactly just how much she was in danger. And to put it lightly, she was fucked. She dodged and weaved the trees like a bat out of hell, eyes fixed on the break in the trees in front of her. The weight wrapped around her middle was weighing on her heavily, not just physically, but mentally. With each step it was as if she could feel just how heavy the burden placed on her shoulders really was. Like being put to the test, and she really fucking hated it. She had to get out of here, she fucking had to. She could still hear the men back further in the forest, not giving up the unrelenting chase of the young girl. Despite the fact her boots felt like they were filling with blood from her torn up feet, she didn't slow down. She was a lone survivor. Well maybe not completely alone, but she didn't exactly have anyone to have her back. She knew better than that by now. She’d been alone for years now. But the weight of having something else to keep alive, something to keep safe, it was a hard pill to swallow, especially when said thing was making life that much more difficult. 

The cut on her arm stung like a bitch as it bled everywhere, the warm crimson liquid dripping down her arm. She had a fleeting thought that it was creating quite an inviting trail for the dead ones to track her with and have a nice meal, or even the assholes who were after her. She knew it'd need stitches and could only pray to a God that clearly either didn't exist or give a shit, that it wouldn't get infected. At this point, so far past the turn, finding antibiotics was a rare fucking thing. Her lungs burned deep in her chest from her violently sucking in air and heaving it out. She could only focus on getting far away. She knew she'd put a good distance between her and the assholes chasing her, being small and nimble had its perks. But she knew they were still chasing her, and she wondered with a dark feeling if they’d ever even stop.

She broke out of the tree line, but what should have felt like a small victory rapidly turned on its head as she was faced with a large group of survivors just a few feet away in the road. It felt like a fraction of a second before all weapons were trained on her, and she drew her machete with a shaky weak arm, the other curling protectively around the thickly wrapped sheet around her middle. Her eyes were wild. Fear and desperation clear as day in them. A girl who had seen way too much shit for her age. Twenty...something. She was twenty one when the world fell apart and she’d lost track of how much time had passed since then. She really wasn't sure anymore, she didn’t give a shit. None of it mattered anymore. The only thing that did matter was staying alive. Age had no purpose in the new world because no matter the number, your life could end swiftly from the dead or the living. It didn't matter if you were 5 or 82. 

Her wide haunted eyes rapidly flit around, taking in the threats as she was assessing them. A man with shaggy hair and a beard, holding a revolver. A dirty man with a crossbow and a scowl that would make Satan shit himself. A black woman with swords, a young boy with a gun. There were more, but her fatigue was making it hard to even decipher them, her stance wavering as she fought hard not to collapse. She wondered if they were part of the group chasing her, but despite the fact they looked worn down and like they'd been dragged through hell and back, they didn't seem like it. They didn't give off the extremely dark vibe that the others had. The others, although clearly living and breathing humans, were more animal than man, and those were the kind you really needed to stay away from.

“I don't want any trouble,” her firm yet scared voice sounded foreign to herself, rough and scratchy from not using it for so long and from not having had a drink. She couldn't remember the last time she had a drink. She often went without these days. There was something much more important that needed it. The others squinted at her, and the man with the revolver cocked his head. She couldn’t hide from his eyes that looked like maybe he'd lost his marbles just a little bit. She couldn't really blame him, she had that same look in her own eyes. The one that said she had seen the darkest depths of hell, that said she was desperate and would do anything for survival. It was tense, none of them wavering as if waiting for the other shoe to drop. And then, the bundle wrapped securely around her moved and a small cry came from it. The survivor's eyes widened just a fraction, glancing at each other before back to her. A sound of a baby so strange to them, despite the fact they had one of their own. Some of them wavered their weapons a little, as if the idea of hurting someone with a baby wasn't something they could stomach. If they shot her, they could hit the baby, or the baby would get crushed when she fell like a sack of crap.

Rosalie swallowed thickly and took a shaky step back, her weapon still raised as she tried to see if they would put a damn bullet in her back the second she turned. Her hand held the baby's head protectively as she glanced down, shushing the baby in a low soothing tone. The man with the revolver slowly lowered his weapon, and most of the others followed suit. He was either the leader or they just trusted his judgement, Rosalie mused. He looked almost pained as he glanced at the wiggling bundle attached to the woman, the woman who seemed too haunted. The thought of one girl, one person on their own having to survive with a baby, made the man's blood run cold. He knew how hard it was and he wasn't ever alone anymore. He had his group, his family to have his back. To know that if anything did happen to him, the baby would be safe and protected still. And this girl, with the desperate look in her eyes that he knew all too well, she didn't have that luxury.

She exhaled a shaky breath and was about to leave, but that would be way too easy for the unfortunate events that made up her life. Nothing was ever easy in Rosalie's life. From the moment she was born with the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck to her mother dying in childbirth, it only went downhill after that with her evil father shifting the blame onto the innocent child. Her life was one shitty thing after another, and the new world did nothing to change that fact. If anything, it made it much much worse. 

The three vile men suddenly appeared out of the trees. It was as if they had somehow not noticed the large group of survivors not too far away, or maybe they were too stupid to care, their eyes on the prize as it were. She thought it was a combination of both. As deranged as these men were, they really weren't too clever or aware of their surroundings. It was how she managed to get away in the first place. 

Rosalie's eyes widened in terror and took a step back, a low feral sounding growl erupting from her lips as she held her machete up, looking more alert than she did seconds before. She looked like a wild animal ready to attack, to fight for its life and do whatever it took to survive. It was a look that didn't match up with her almost angelic pretty face and tiny petite frame.

“Now now kitten, that wasn't very nice to leave us like that,” the man with long straggly hair sneered. He was thin and sickly looking, a wild gleam in his eye. The man to his left, far too fat for this world and Rosalie wondered how the fuck he’d managed that one, laughed loudly.

“Forget the girl, I want the baby,” the balding man to the right side gleefully stated. The words polluted the air and caused the group to gasp, shocked from the other survivors who were watching, weapons drawn and appalled faces. Because no matter the horrors you found in this world, something always came along to outdo it.

With no hesitation, when those vile vile words left the man's lips and then left them distracted by the other group, a loud snarl left Rosalie as she dove at the man, swiping her machete with a force that looked unreal for her small weak frame. The blade sliced cleanly through the man's neck, almost severing his head. And with a sudden flurry of movement and noise, the leader hit the floor like a tonne of bricks, a bullet right through the temple, as the man to his left got a bolt right in the eye and fell next to him.

Rosalie's head whipped to the others, seemingly shocked that anyone had even bothered to help her or the child. Did good people exist anymore? She really gave up that hope a long fucking time ago. She stopped expecting the best of people before the world went to shit and it only went downhill after. The thick silence filled the air and she blinked wearily at them. Fatigue was setting into her bones but she needed to go. She needed to find somewhere to hole up for the night, to find safety for the little thing attached to her that had seemingly taken over her life, the fierce need to protect. She turned her back, feeling like they wouldn't hurt her. Why bother helping if they'd just kill her? She started stalking away, wincing at the pain in her feet. 

“Wait!” the voice rang out in the tense air and stopped her in her tracks, making her turn cautiously, half expecting a gun trained on her. But instead, she found the revolver man who had taken a few strides towards her. She narrowed her gaze distrustfully at him. In response he held his hands up, giving her a weird look, like he was looking at a scared animal and he didn't want to spook it.

“You should come with us, ain’t safe out here on your own, not with a baby,” his words were soothing, like he'd done this all too many times before. Diplomatic and calming. She was good at reading people and she wondered if he was some kind of law enforcement before the shit hit the fan. She'd had enough experience with police in her past to know one when she heard one. Rosalie chewed the inside of her cheek as her eyes flit to the others watching carefully behind him. Although no weapons were pointed at her, she could sense their readiness to do so if needed. 

“They won't hurt you, we’re good people,” he said softly, as if he could sense her apprehension. He didn't really blame her for feeling that way, especially not after what they had just witnessed. It painfully reminded him of the other group he came across when one of his own had returned to him. The Claimers. The one slimy fuck that had his eye on his son, the one who ended up with his entrails all over the floor.

She didn't like this. She didn't like people and she didn't want to be part of another group just so they could fucking die around her like the last one all those years ago, not long after the dead started walking and got a penchant for eating people. She already had enough on her plate looking after the kid. She didn’t need feelings or attachments, nothing of the sort. One was more than enough. That shit was what got you killed out here. She didn't say a word, turning around and carrying on walking. The man's shoulders slumped a little, the idea of letting her and the baby walk away to an almost certain death not sitting right with him.

“We have a baby too...We have formula...if you need any. We look out for our own. You come with us, we can make sure the baby is safe,” Just as he hoped, the woman stilled again, but didn't turn to him this time. He could see her clench her fist a little, the one with no weapon. He also noticed the gash on her arm that looked like a defensive wound. It was dangerous to have a wound like that these days, and he doubted she could sew it up herself.

“Someone can help with your arm, sew it up. Won't be much use to your baby if you die from infection or blood loss,” he prodded, knowing the girl clearly cared about the baby and trying to coax her using that knowledge. 

She slowly turned around, tugging her lower lip with her teeth as her bloodied arm came around to the baby’s head that was now poking out from what looked like a tatty bloodstained blanket that was tied tightly around her. The dark-haired baby cooed at her, pulling at her necklace, and Rosalie glanced from the man to the baby. She knew he was right, that she couldn't do this alone. If she died, what chance did the baby have of surviving? None. Just like when she had found him. She mulled around the idea of leaving the small boy with the people, but she found a strange pain in her chest when she did. She’d at least have to stick around a little to see if she could trust them with such a thing.

After a few tense moments of silence, she looked back up at the man, seeing his hopeful gaze imploring her to do the right thing. If they wanted her dead, they would have done it by now, that much was obvious. She’d run into too many bad people already in the new world. She could tell they were different. But despite the apprehension swelling inside of her, she had to. She had to fucking hope that maybe all the people left in the world weren't evil, and that maybe this was her chance to give the baby the life he deserved. The guilt swam deep in her veins, remembering what he said about formula. She’d ran out weeks ago, and the baby was surviving on mashed foods that were way too much for a boy his age. As much as she was grateful that the baby was mostly quiet, she knew deep inside of her, part of that reason was because he wasn't getting what he needed, wasn't getting the right nutrients and it was making him weak.

Rosalie took a deep shaky breath to steady her nerves before giving the man a small nod, and he breathed a sigh of relief, stepping closer. He didn't fail to notice how the grip on her machete tightened without her raising it, or how the arm around the baby gripped harder.

“I’m Rick,” he said with a warm smile, holding his hand out but she looked at it like he’d grown three heads. Shaking hands wasn't a thing in this new world. Hell, she didn’t shake hands in the old world either. She still took it though, her small hand giving him a weak shake and letting him see just how tired and weak she really was.

“Rosalie,” she muttered, her eyes tired and her whole body screaming with pain. She didn't offer up the baby's name but Rick didn't mention it. He would be protective of Judith too. He nodded at her and tilted his head in the direction of the group before walking back over to them. She heaved a sigh before trudging off after him, watching the others eye her curiously, some wary. They should be wary. They didn't know what she was capable of, and she knew they were smart just for feeling the same apprehension she felt about them.

“This is Rosalie, she’ll be joining us,” Rick’s words were firm as he gazed around the group that had become his family, waiting for anyone to speak up, to challenge him. But the baby cooed again and it was as if the noise itself was enough to soften anyone who may have had doubts, to leave such an innocent thing out in the world like this. The children were the future now, the only hope the cold world may have. And with no more words, they all turned around and started back on their journey. One to find somewhere to call home, to feel safe. Somewhere Carl and Judith could be safe from the horrors of the new world, and now somewhere for this new baby to have the same.

#daryl dixon #daryl dixon fanfiction #daryl dixon fanfic #The Walking Dead #the walking dead fanfic #twd #twd fanfiction #twd fanfic

[robbesblondebitch]

Little Punk Princess

Request: Robbe and Sander are babysitting Sander’s little cousin. Sander is being annoying because he doesn’t like kids, but Robbe is great with the kid and the kid develops a huge crush on Robbe lol

Thanks for the request love @shipper-of-love 💕 I not only wrote this at 2am, I also wrote this as if Robbe is still living in the flat share and Zoenne never broke up because it’s my story and I say so lol... it’s been a while since I’ve written anything so let me know if you like it! 😊

Robbe glances down at his phone as he leaves his last class, checking for any new notifications. Sander had sent him a text earlier saying that he was going to be waiting outside for him at the end of the day, and he couldn’t focus on much else after that. Robbe smiles down at his lock screen, at that picture he took of them the morning after Sander said he wanted Robbe 100% voor altijd, in elk universum. That had been one of the best nights of Robbe’s life, and he still couldn’t believe that after everything they had been through, Sander was finally his.

He heads out the front doors, searching for that head of bleach blonde hair he loves so much. What he finds instead is a little girl in a frilly pink dress and mini black Doc Martens running towards him, looking like some punk princess, her little arms wrapping around his waist. Robbe huffs out a breath from the impact, thoroughly confused. He looks up to see Sander, holding back a laugh as he runs to pry the little girl’s arms from Robbe’s middle.

Robbe can’t help but laugh back as he kneels down to this adorable girl’s eye level and looks to Sander and back. “And who might this be?”

The girl sticks her hand out in front of her, a confident little smile of her face. “Hi, I’m Charlotte, but since my cousin Sander likes you so much, you can call me Lottie.”

Robbe smiles at Lottie as he wraps his much bigger hand around her tiny one and gives it a little shake. “Hi Lottie, it’s nice to meet you. My name is Robbe.”

She beams as she reaches back to grab Sander’s hand. “I know. Sander told me. He has told me all about you and said you are his favorite person.” Robbe can’t help the blush that spreads across his cheeks at those words. He glances up at Sander, who is also trying to hide the faint pink tint spreading under his beautiful green eyes. “Oh did he now?” Robbe giggles as he stands back up, finally at eye level with Sander and sends him a smirk.

Lottie nods her head profusely, “Oh yep he sure did. He even said you’re an angel. Do you have wings? Can I see them?”

Robbe throws his head back and clutches his stomach, laughing so hard tears start to stream down his face. Sander runs his hand down his face and huffs out a breath, shoving a hand over Lottie’s mouth. “Hey that’s enough out of you.”

Lottie shoves Sander’s hand away and turns back to Robbe. “Hey do you like my outfit?” she asks him as she does a little twirl. Robbe glances down, finally processing what she is wearing with such an odd combination of the dress and shoes. He tilts his head to the side and gives Lottie a shy smile. “Wow umm… it looks great Lottie. I love it.” She beams back up at him and gives him a toothy grin.

“Thanks! My mama said I was gonna be hanging out with Sander today so I wanted to match him. See Robbe, look at our shoes!” Lottie scooches close to Sander, throwing her foot right next to his. Robbe giggles at the startled look on Sander’s face and the sight of Sander’s cute little Mini Me. Robbe bets she likes everything Sander likes, and he totally gets it; it’s impossible not to.

Sander surges forward, grabbing Lottie’s hand and nodding his head for Robbe to follow. “Come. We are not going to stand here all day. We have places to go, people to see.” Lottie pulls her hand out of Sander’s and eyes him. “Well where are we going then? Who are we seeing?” Sander huffs out a sigh of annoyance and looks up, shaking his head. “I don’t know Lottie okay? That’s just something people say sometimes.”

Robbe can see that Sander is getting a bit overwhelmed with Lottie, so he quickly jumps in. “Why don’t we go to my place? I think I have a box of old Legos that I haven’t gotten rid of yet. Lottie, lead the way. I’ll tell you where to go and Sander and I will be right behind you.”

Lottie dances ahead, twirling in her dress as she prances along the sidewalk. Sander takes a deep breath and looks at Robbe with a sweet, grateful smile. “Thank you. My aunt had a work emergency, and she couldn’t find anyone else to take her. I’m sorry I didn’t let you know earlier. It will just be for a few hours I promise.”

Robbe shakes his head, “No, don’t worry about it. She’s adorable.” Sander scoffs and rolls his eyes, muttering an “Okay…” under his breath.

Robbe watches Lottie, stopping to pick a flower and sniff it before putting it behind her ear the way Sander sometimes does with his pencils while he’s drawing. Robbe turns and raises his eyebrows at Sander. “What? Do you not like kids or something? She really seems to like you. The shoes say it all.” Robbe teases.

Sander eyes pierce straight into Robbe’s, sending a chill down Robbe’s spine. “No it’s not that. Well I mean okay, I don’t really like kids all that much, but Lottie’s a good one. I just thought we were gonna have some alone time, that’s all.”

The way Sander said alone time makes Robbe’s heart flutter, and he immediately understands why Sander is a little frustrated. They hadn’t had much time to themselves lately. Any time they are at the flat, there is someone else there wanting to hang out, and at least one of Sander’s parents are always home. He definitely wants some alone time with Sander, too.

“Maybe you can stay over tonight? Once we give this little nugget back to your aunt?” Robbe says with a shrug and an adorably crooked smile. Sander returns his smile, his eyes glistening. “Oh absolutely.”

Robbe smiles innocently and bats his eyelashes at Sander. “Yeah and maybe I can hear more about how I am your favorite person and such a beautiful angel.” Robbe laughs as Sander playfully shoves him and scowls. “Don’t make me take it back.”

Robbe stops walking, feigning offense and grabbing hold of Sander’s jacket. “Oh you wouldn’t dare.” Sander turns to face him, eyes dropping down to Robbe’s lips before flicking up to meet his, “You wanna bet? I seem to remember I won the last one.”

At this Robbe rolls his eyes with a smirk. “That’s because you cheated and you know it.” Sander takes a step closer. “So what? I’m happy I did.” Robbe can feel Sander’s breath against his lips as another shudder runs through his body. “I’m happy you did too.”

Robbe is so wrapped up in Sander that he completely forgot about Lottie, that is until she wraps her little hand around the sleeve of Robbe’s sweatshirt and gives it a tug. “Robbe, I don’t know which way to turn now.”

Robbe and Sander reluctantly pull away from each other, and Robbe notices for the first time that they are at the end of the sidewalk. He tells Lottie which way to go, and she grabs his hand, yanking him along. Robbe looks back at Sander and nods his head to the side. “Come.”

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

Robbe is sitting on the carpet in the living room with Lottie, creating a Lego village on the coffee table. He had an old box of Legos in the back of his closet; he had meant to donate it a long time ago, but now he was glad he hadn’t. Lottie is a little ball of energy, unable to sit still for too long, but the Legos seem to be occupying her for the time being. Sander grabbed a spare sketchpad from Robbe’s room as soon as they got back and is now curled up on the couch, alternating between drawing and watching Robbe and Lottie, sipping from a glass of water.

She has been chatting away nonstop for the hour they have been back at the flat, talking all about her favorite colors, books, and songs. She is making sure to ask Robbe questions about all his favorite things too, and she gets excited when they both like the same things.

Lottie has slowly been inching her way closer to Robbe, and he stifles a laugh when she is finally scrunched up against him. She looks up at him with big doe eyes and a big smile, batting her eyelashes.

“Robbe, do you have a girlfriend?” Sander snorts water back into his glass, and Robbe shoots him a look before smiling sweetly at Lottie. “No, I do not,” he says with a little head shake, scrunching up his nose and poking Lottie in the side to make her giggle.

“Okay then, maybe I could be your girlfriend,” Lottie says with a shrug and a smile, looking at Robbe like he hung the moon in the sky.

“Well Lottie, I actually have a boyfriend.” Robbe can see Sander shyly smile out of the corner of his eye. Lottie’s face falls and Robbe feels bad for putting that little frown on such an adorable little face.

Lottie looks back up at Robbe and then to Sander. “So boys can have boyfriends?” Robbe nods and smiles at her before turning his smile to Sander. “Yep Lottie, they sure can.”

Lottie seems to be thinking this over before saying, “Well that’s no good.” Robbe frowns slightly over at Sander and Sander sits forward from his place on the couch. “Lottie, why would you say that?”

Lottie huffs and rolls her eyes before looking at Sander, “Because now Robbe can’t be MY boyfriend!” Robbe laughs and Sander lets out a little sigh of relief. Lottie crosses her little arms over her chest. Sander takes in Lottie’s blush stained cheeks and scrunched nose as he says, “You know, I actually happen to know Robbe’s boyfriend.”

Robbe rolls his eyes at Sander and shakes his head, giggling under his breath. Lottie perks up at this information and scrambles up from the floor, abandoning the Legos. She crawls up onto the couch next to Sander, putting her little hands on his leg. “You do? Is he just as handsome and nice and cool as Robbe? Probably not. Robbe’s the best.”

Sander flinches back in surprise as Lottie gets right up in his face, her big doe eyes shimmering as she unknowingly asks Sander some rapid fire questions about himself. “You’re right Lottie, probably not. Robbe is definitely the best,” he smiles at Robbe.

Robbe gets up from the floor and plops down on the couch on the other side of Sander. “Umm no, I think my boyfriend is super nice and definitely way cooler than me. He’s an artist.” Lottie looks at Robbe in amazement. “Oh my gosh! Sander is an artist too! That is so cool.” Robbe just smiles at his beautiful blonde boy, his eyes never leaving Sander’s. “And he is gorgeous Lottie. He has the prettiest eyes I have ever seen, and his soft hair always brightens up my day.”

Sander softly smiles as Robbe slowly slides his hands around his middle. “And he makes the best croques ever.” Sander drapes his arm around Robbe with a smile, and Robbe nuzzles his head into Sander’s shoulder. Lottie is busy looking around the room, paying no attention to the boys as they snuggle up on the couch. “Wow Sander makes really yummy croques too…”

Lottie finally looks up at the boys, both holding back giggles and smiling at her. She looks back and forth between them. “Wait a second… my cousin Sander is your boyfriend?” She frowns and crosses her arms. “No fair.” Robbe and Sander finally let out their laughs and Sander pulls Lottie into his and Robbe’s laps. Together they tickle the frown right off of Lottie’s face, not stopping until she is giggling and squirming around like a wiggle worm.

Lottie jumps off the couch and returns to her Legos, and Robbe continues to cuddle up with Sander, throwing his legs into Sander’s lap. He reaches for Sander’s sketchpad and sees a beautiful little sketch of him and Lottie playing. Robbe will never get over Sander’s ability to capture the quiet moments like this.

Sander is smiling softly at him, a question behind his eyes. “Do you like it?” he asks shyly. “It’s not totally done yet.”

Robbe sets the sketchpad aside and presses a soft kiss to Sander’s lips. “Of course I love it. I love everything you draw.”

They hear the front door open and voices coming in from outside. The door to the living room opens, and Senne peeks his head in. He nods his head to the boys on the couch and then turns his attention to the little girl on the floor. He steps into the room and looks at the Legos on the table. “Nice Lego houses. I’m Senne. What’s your name?”

Lottie stands up and smooths her dress down before sticking out her hand. “My name’s Charlotte, but since you are really handsome you can call me Lottie.” Senne, Robbe and Sander all laugh as Senne shakes Lottie’s hand.

Sander nudges Robbe’s side before saying “Looks like she got over you pretty quickly, huh?” Sander snickers as Robbe rolls his eyes. “Oh shut up you,” Robbe says as he gently shoves Sander.

Zoë comes in after unloading the groceries in the kitchen, just in time to hear Lottie ask Senne, “So do you have a girlfriend?”

Senne smiles and pulls Zoë into his side, kissing her temple. “Yep, this is my girlfriend, Zoë.” Zoë smiles at Lottie, but Lottie just huffs out a frustrated sigh.

“Ugh, can’t a girl catch a break around here?” Lottie yells, and after a second of silence, everyone starts laughing hysterically.

Zoë bends down to Lottie’s eye level and smiles sweetly at her. “Lottie, you’re young. You don’t need a boy. They are stinky and gross,” she says, earning shouted Hey!s from the boys in the room and a pillow launched her way. Lottie giggles and stands tall, chin high. “Yeah, boys are gross. You’re pretty. I wish I could be that pretty.”

Zoë stands up, holding out a hand. “Oh but you are Lottie. You are so beautiful. Let’s go to my room and have some girl time. Maybe I’ll even do your makeup. Senne, can you start dinner?”

Lottie squeals in excitement as Zoë leads her down the hall, and Senne slips off to the kitchen, leaving Robbe and Sander alone.

Sander takes a deep breath. “Thank god for Zoë! Remind me to thank her later,” he says as he turns to Robbe, bringing his hands to Robbe’s face. Robbe giggles softly as Sander pulls him in for a kiss. Robbe wraps his arms around Sander’s neck to pull him closer, and Sander deepens the kiss, earning one of those soft noises from Robbe that he loves so much.

Before things can get too heated, Robbe pulls back, keeping one hand gripped tight to the front of Sander’s jacket. “Woah, what’s the plan? There’s still a little one inside this flat.” Robbe smirks and Sander huffs out a breathy laugh. “Hah you’re right… knowing her she is going to run into the room any second.” Robbe plants one more soft kiss on his lips before untangling himself from Sander, and not even a second later, Lottie bursts into the room with Zoë in tow.

“Look Sander! Look Robbe! Zoë made me look pretty like her!” She runs over to show the boys her perfectly applied red lipstick to match Zoë’s.

Zoë laughs softly. “Remember Lottie, you are already pretty.” Lottie looks at Zoë and back to the boys confidently. “Yes I am already pretty.”

Robbe pulls Lottie on the couch to settle between him and Sander and pulls up Netflix as Zoë floats off to the kitchen to help Senne with dinner. “Want to watch a movie?”

“Ooh yes something with princesses in it!” Lottie says loudly while batting her eyelashes at Robbe.

Sander groans loudly and drops his head back against the couch with an arm draped over his eyes. Robbe giggles and flips through the Disney movies. “Okay Lottie something with princesses it is!” The movie starts, but Robbe can’t keep his eyes on the screen. Instead his eyes are fixed on his bleach blonde beauty, a soft smile painted across his face.

Sander glances over to see Robbe looking at him and mouths I love you. Robbe winks and mouths back I love you too. Lottie grabs one of each of their hands and clasps them together in her lap. “Watch the movie you two. You’re missing it!” The boys laugh softly, their intertwined hands held together by Lottie’s tiny ones, and they finally tear their eyes away from each other and to the screen.

#wtfock #wtfam #sobbe #robbe ijzermans #sander driesen #sobbe fics #robbe ijzermans fics #sander driesen fics #wtfock fics #zoë loocxk #senne de smet #katie writes #hope yall like this

[queen-of-bel]

some semi-structured ramblings about kaz and paz, and why their dynamic is probably my favorite relationship of any media i’ve ever consumed

I really really love the dynamic that Paz and Kaz have with each other for so many reasons.

First off, it highlights two very important personality traits about Kaz during the Peace Walker era. It shows off how warm and friendly Kaz can be, but it also demonstrates how overconfident and reckless he is.

He takes what he considers to be “calculated risks”, vastly overestimating his own abilities to offset any negative consequences. He invited a Cipher agent to their own home turf, all for the sake of expanding MSF. It was risky as hell, and Kaz knew that, which is why he kept it a secret from Snake. In his mind, he had a plan to negate the risk of any damage that Cipher could do to them-- befriend Paz and have her switch allegiances.

Kaz knew exactly who she was– a spy only a few years younger than himself. He also knew what her objective was from the beginning. This is something that he admits to Snake at the end of Peace Walker. And yet, he still struck up a deal with Cipher and invited her and Zadornov to Colombia anyway.

It really is heartwarming to see how much effort Kaz put into reaching out to Paz.

After Zadornov was first captured, “Paz” had nowhere else to go, as Zadornov was paying for her room and board. I put “Paz” in quotes, because that was the situation that the character of “Paz Ortega Andrade” was in, not Pacifica Ocean.

Kaz knew this, and the risk of having Paz on mother base, but he was the one who really pushed for Paz to live there regardless. To quote Paz:

“I told the man that with no more money from the KGB, I could no longer afford school. …He bought my story, and when I said I would be willing to work, he took pity on me and let me stay. For some reason Miller really plead my case. That was helpful, but the man is still a fool…”

Now, you can chalk this up to him just going along with the business deal that he struck with Cipher, but his actions moving forward indicate otherwise.

It’s undeniable that Kaz really went out of his way to give Paz a comfortable and peaceful life while at MSF. Her diary tapes highlight all of the sweet interactions that they had:

“What I have got is just a common cold. The medical team said I’d need a few days’ rest, so I’ve been restricted to my room and put on bed rest…  Miller told me to take it easy. “I will sing you a lullaby,” he said, then broke out a guitar and sang some incomprehensible song in Japanese. I did not need to understand the lyrics to know he’s an awful singer. Then he said, ‘You know what is good for a cold? Suppositories! Here, I’ll show you…’ He began to take off his pants, so I threw my tissue box at him to make him go away.”

“Every month, Mother Base throws a party for all the soldiers whose birthdays fall in that month… Miller seemed a little protective of me. ‘Hope they’re not being too crude,’ he said. ”

“‘C'mon, we even both have ‘peace’ in our names,’ said Miller. ‘And Zadornov - that old Russkie’s name has something to do with peace, too, right? Hey, as long as we’re having a day of peace, we ought to get an act together - The Three Peace Band!’ I thought he was joking. He then proceeded to share his idea without bothering to check with me, and now I am slated to sing. Apparently, he had heard me on deck one day and since then he’s wanted to form a band”

“With the lyrics finished, I was ready to show Miller. He does not often take things seriously, but all of a sudden he was saying ‘Paz, you have the soul of an enka songwriter.’”

(That last quote is technically from Phantom Paz, but nothing in PW states that Kaz himself was the one who wrote the lyrics for Love Deterrence, only the melody, so I’m going to go ahead and include this MSGV tape)

Of course, you could always make the argument that Kaz was just playing a role, that he was just going along with Cipher's lie and giving Paz special treatment because she's "just a teen", but let's compare his interactions with Paz versus his interactions with Chico, another youth at MSF.

Kaz's interactions with Chico were minimal at best. Not to say that he didn't like Chico, because he absolutely did. But there were never any special interactions between the two of them in the same way that he interacted with Paz.

In fact, Kaz never put that much effort into bonding with anyone else at mother base. Not Amanda, not Strangelove, not Huey, or even Cecile (or any other women at MSF that he would try to seduce). It’s clear that Kaz treated Paz differently than everyone else at MSF. Kaz is a very suave and charismatic person, and he’s used to charming his way into getting what he wants in life, with pretty minimal effort. Paz alludes to this in one of her diary tapes, scoffing at the fact that female MSF soldiers fall for his flirting "so easily".

Now, Kaz never tried to approach Paz romantically, but the success of his whole "let's get this Cipher agent to switch allegiances to MSF" plan rested on his overwhelming charm. Relying on his charisma has not failed him yet, and he had no reason to think that this situation with Paz would be any different. He thought that by reaching out to Paz, she would become loyal to MSF, effectively eliminating any threat that Cipher posed to MSF.

This is where his overconfidence comes in. He vastly underestimated Zero’s power, and how much of a grip Zero had on Paz. Paz absolutely despised Zero, but ultimately, she was terrified of betraying Cipher, calling the repercussions of that action “a fate far worse than death”.

Although, it's not as if Kaz’s efforts were completely wasted. Paz’s commitment to Cipher was wavering as time went on, and as she spent more time with MSF and everyone on mother base. However, it's important to note that Paz wasn't just grateful to the MSF staff as a whole. She was, but she particularly wanted to be close to Kaz.

In her diary tape when she was describing Kaz’s womanizing and his and Snake’s infamous sauna fight, she says something at the end that was really sad to me.

“But somehow I got the sense that for all his womanizing, Miller really only trusted one person, and that was Snake. There was no way I could ever come between the two of them. And at that thought I began to feel as if I had lost.”

We know that Paz had romantic feelings for Snake. She's suspiciously adamant in her third diary entry about her lack of interest in Snake, but her diary entries in the Phantom Pain were more honest about her feelings:

"[Snake] saved me, and I feel indebted to him, but I thought that was all he meant to me. Why does my heart flutter when I think of him?"

So going back to her diary entry in Peace Walker. When she says that she feels "lost", we know that this wasn’t her lamenting about Kaz’s womanizing habits, or what she calls his infatuation with Snake. What upsets her is her observation that Kaz only trusts Snake. She has this hopeless feeling that Kaz would never trust her in the same way.

Paz clearly wanted to be friends with Kaz. Not just friendly surface interactions, but she wanted to get to know Kaz more and bond with him on a deeper level. Unfortunately, it is this exact hopelessness that prevented Paz from expressing these feelings to him.

Of course, Kaz was blind to this inner conflict of hers. When you combine this with not only his underestimation of Zero's power, but his own overconfidence in his charisma, it's a bit of a recipe for disaster.

We see this testament to Kaz’s overconfidence after the ZEKE battle. He's actually shocked that Paz went through with Cipher's plan anyway. He really thought that his efforts to reach out to her worked, as he tells Snake:

“How could Paz… We were going to start a band together…”

At this point, Kaz has already come clean to Snake about knowing Paz's real identity. He no longer has to put up a front of "this is just a teenager". What this says to me is that these are Kaz's genuine feelings. He really was looking forward to starting a band with her, and performing with her on Peace Day.

I really like this moment because it shows that Kaz didn't just think of Paz as a way to expand MSF. He didn't spend all this time with Paz simply because it would benefit him. He felt a genuine desire to befriend and be close with her.

He’s clearly crushed that his efforts to befriend her failed. After the ZEKE battle, he admits that there was only one thing on his mind:

“After Paz tried to steal ZEKE from us, and we watched her get pulled beneath the waves… There was one thing I kept asking myself. Which was the real Paz? And which was the lie?”

What's interesting to me is that he’s not concerned about any damage to MSF that Paz may have caused, despite the fact that she hijacked ZEKE. He’s not even angry that she betrayed MSF, attempting to launch a nuclear strike on the east coast of the USA under MSF's name. He’s just dumbfounded and shell-shocked. Now, this is just my personal speculation, but I think his self-confidence really took a blow in this moment. He's always prided himself on his charisma and business acumen. For Kaz, to think that he so horribly and completely misjudged Paz’s character was a harsh wake-up call for him.

As time goes on, he does become angry, though. It’s mostly (misplaced) anger at Paz, but underneath it all, I think he’s mostly angry with himself.

In GZ, he asks Snake to bring Paz back alive, saying to kill her only if “worse comes to worst”. He uses the excuse that he wants her alive only because he wants to interrogate her and that she knows too much, but there are a couple lines of his during that mission that betrays his feelings:

“Paz is our only link to Cipher. If she’s still alive… …We need her on our side. If not us, who else is gonna rescue that bitch?”

I like that last line a lot because it really shows how conflicted Kaz feels about her. Yes, Kaz wants information on Cipher. Yes, Kaz is angry at Paz. But Kaz also wants Paz to be saved, by somebody, anybody. He just feels that MSF is the only group qualified to do so.

Now, I definitely don’t think that Paz’s well-being was the only motivation for Kaz’s asking Snake to bring her back alive. It’s just that underneath all the anger, Kaz is still clearly emotionally attached to her. In fact, Kaz even says:

“When we get our hands on Paz, intel on Cipher isn’t the only thing I want out of her. Putting aside her mission, her past, that sense of loyalty they drilled into her… I want to know… what she really thought of us.”

Ever since the ZEKE battle, Kaz has clearly been tormented with this question. At this point in time, Kaz is fully aware of what Zero and Cipher are capable of, and why Paz was sent to him. However, he recognizes Paz as more than just a Cipher agent. He wants to look past all of that– the “Paz Ortega Andrade” that Cipher had built up. He has to know what “Pacifica Ocean” truly thought of him and MSF. Whether or not his efforts to reach out to her were successful or not.

What makes this even sadder is that after the attack on mother base, Kaz incorrectly thinks that it was Paz who sold out MSF. He feels utterly betrayed, and his temper reaches a breaking point, lashing out at Paz, calling her a “spying bitch” and even attempting to attack her (which I firmly believe he would have if the medic hadn’t been holding him back).

Thinking about this from Paz’s perspective is also horribly depressing. She suffered so much torture at the hands of Skull Face, but she remained loyal to MSF, asking Skull Face to kill Zero if it meant it would save Snake. When Skull Face told her that he was planning to kill Snake as well, she pleaded with him to change his mind. Obviously, Kaz's plan worked. She did switch allegiances, betraying Zero in order to save Snake and MSF.

And yet, this is something that Kaz didn’t know. He thought that her loyalty ultimately laid with Cipher, which is why he was so furious after the attack on MSF. Paz likely didn’t even know that MSF was attacked, as she came to after Morpho had flown everyone away from base. The last experience of her life was nothing but pure rage and hatred from the person that she wanted to be closest to on mother base.

I don’t know, I just really love these two characters and their relationship a lot. Thinking about the friendship that they could have had, and the misunderstandings and tragedies that prevented either of them from knowing the truth was just heart-wrenching to watch throughout PW to GZ.

#i typed up something similar to this a while ago but it was a lot shorter and messy and i didn't proof-read it AT ALL LMAO #it was really more of a draft than anything else #finally sat down and fleshed it out and added over 1k words whoops and actually proofread so that's exciting #kazuhira miller #paz ortega andrade #two peace #metal gear solid peace walker #mg #amelia rambles

[smileyyohan]

Hyung Line Reaction to you confessing to them

Han Seungwoo:

You and Seungwoo already knew each other before Seungwoo debuted in Victon and real soon also in X1. Seungwoo met you when he was seated next to you during biology class. Immediately, you two became friends and helped each other through thick and thin. You however felt a little bit more for Seungwoo than just being best friends. You could not not notice how good looking he actually was. He also was extremely helpful for you and all of that made you fall for him hard. Tonight was the debut showcase for X1 and because you are Seungwoo his best friend, he insisted you that you should go to their showcase to cheer on him. But sitting there and cheering on your friend wasn’t the only thing you planned to do tonight. After the show you planned to confess to your beloved friend and hopefully you two can continue your journey as couple. The show just ended and you are now waiting backstage for your friend Seungwoo, so you can finally tell him something you wanted to say ages ago. You felt like dying because you were so nervous. What if he says no and your yearlong friendship goes down the drain? More time to stress wasn’t possible because Seungwoo came to you, giving you a bone crushing hug. ‘I’m so happy that you could come today y/n’ he says when he breaks the hug and looks at you with a huge smile. ‘Can I talk to you in private?’ You said while trying not to look like you’re about to die ‘I want to tell you something’. Seungwoo nodded in response and took your left arm, leading you and him to a quiet room. ‘So y/n?’ he says while looking at you worryingly ‘what’s the matter?’ ‘Well-‘ you started followed by grabbing both of his hands in your much smaller ones ‘I like you’. ‘That feeling is mutual’ seungwoo says looking at you with a confused expression. ‘I do not mean in a best friend way’ you interrupted him ‘I like you in a, you know, romantic way’. Before you could apologize for even thinking he might feel the same, he lowered down to your height and kissed your lips. ‘Ah I was planning to confess too’ he said afterwards ‘I loved you the moment you complained about that biology test 4 years ago’ he said with a grin, which made you feel dumb founded. ‘So we are now dating?’ you ask hopefully. ‘I thought I made it obvious’ he said laughing.

Cho Seungyoun:

Today you and your friend Seungyoun are going to work at his workplace, producing songs. That’s also the way you two came across each other because you both love being in the studio creating song after song. Normally, you wouldn’t feel nervous, but today is another story. Today you will let Seungyoun hear a song that you made. It’s not a regular song though, it’s a song where you confess your feelings to him. Scared is how you would describe how you feel right now. You don’t know what to do when Seungyoun doesn’t get the message or even worser, when he’ll reject your confession. It would crush you and you are not ready for that. ‘You ready Y/n?’ Seungyoun says when he sees you entering the studio ‘I made some tracks that I’m really proud of’. ‘I’m always ready’ you said grinning while taking the seat next to his ‘show me what you got Seungyoun’. After Seungyoun gave you his tracks to listen to, it was your turn to show him what you recently created. When you opened the document where the song was put in, you felt like jumping of a cliff. And when he pressed ‘play’ to start the track, you knew there was no way back and you could just pray for the best. When the track was finished, you looked at your palms, too scared to actually look up. ‘Was it about me y/n?’ he says sounding way more serious than the Seungyoun you know. You didn’t even dare to look up, being afraid how you would respond if you saw his face. Too afraid of how your voice would sound if you chose to talk, you decided to nod as response. ‘Are you serious?’ Seungyoun said happily which made you look up in shock ‘I never thought you would like me back’ ‘You like me too?’ You asked him looking surprised at his sudden happiness. ‘yes y/n, I’m so in love with you, you don’t even know’ he said while embracing you in a hug ‘so do you wanna date?’ ‘Guess I can call you now my boyfriend’ was your response which made him smile and peck your forehead.

Kim Wooseok:

You groaned when your friends came up with their perfect idea for a dare during a game of truth or dare. They forced you to confess to whoever you liked. The whole time they asked you during your truths questions to would hopefully expose your longtime crush on Kim Wooseok, who sits across of you. Unfortunately you never said his name during the game, so your friends found out that this would work. ‘Do I really need to do this?’ you said while trying so hard not to scream at your annoying friend who picked the lovely dare. ‘It’s either you who will say it or me that will say it so pick whatever suits you the best’ she said while hitting your shoulder lightly ‘You hate guts now, but you’ll love me afterwards’. Knowing that letting your friend confess your feelings to Wooseok would be even worser, you decided to man up and hope the embarrassment wouldn’t be that big when Wooseok will reject you. You take a deep breath and walked to Wooseok, who looked like an angel wearing his white shirt, black pants and round glasses. ‘Kim Wooseok,’ You started with looking to him ‘We don’t really know each other well, but I like you, a lot’. ‘I love everything about you, and I would like to start dating you and calling you my boyfriend’. Wooseok his friends screamed when they realized it was Wooseok that you liked. You however, felt like crying because you could not see if Wooseok felt the same or not. His facial expression is unreadable. When Wooseok saw that you thought he rejected you, he took your hand in his and lowered down to kiss you, causing the whole group to scream loud. ‘I like you too, you dork’ he said with a smile ‘and perhaps we should go out for a date right now and let these idiots do whatever they want’ ‘Sounds like an amazing idea’ you said with a shocked but happy face ‘See you later’. You and Wooseok left immediately to get to his favorite café to drink and have a lovely first date.

Kim Yohan:

Today was the final of the national championship in the category Taekwondo. Your close friend and crush in one, Kim Yohan, is one of the particpants. He asked you if you could go to cheer him on and help him when he feels nervous. Of course you couldn’t reject his offer and that makes you sit right here in this uncomfortable chair, watching your friend competing for the trophy. You are screaming his name out loud, cheering for him while holding a banner with his face on it. When you showed Yohan beforehand that you will use this banner, he laughed at you and thought you were joking. Jokes on him because here you are with your lovely banner. Too much focusing on your cheerleading skills for Yohan, you suddenly saw that Yohan fell. It wasn’t a regular fall and he didn’t stand up which he normally does, which made you run down the stairs. ‘GET OUT OF MY WAY’ you screamed at every person that came in your way ‘THATS MY BOYFRIEND’. You didn’t realized that you called him your boyfriend which he wasn’t , but at that moment you didn’t care. You needed to be there for him. When you arrived, you immediately kneel down next to Yohan, whose face was full of pain. Your heart broke at the sight of it. ‘Yohan,’ you say while looking at him with a panicked expression ‘are you okay?’ ‘Before Yohan could respond, the first aid worker, asked you if you could help them lifting Yohan up. You helped them getting Yohan to the treatment room. It hurted to carry his weight because even though he’s light, you are not that strong. When you arrived at the room, the worker asked you to wait outside while they treat his ankle. You sat down in the chair nearby while reflecting what just happened. You know how weak Yohan his ankle is, and that made you panic. What if this injury is too severe? What if he can’t do what he loves anymore? You honestly couldn’t care less that he didn’t win today, the only thing you care about is his well-being. After an hour, the aid worker opened the door and said you could go to Yohan. When you came in, you saw Yohan smiling to you with the gummy smile he always has. ‘So, boyfriend huh?’ he said with a smile, which made you look confused until you realized that you called him your boyfriend when you ran down. ‘Yeah-uhm’ you stutter ‘I’m sorry about that-,’ ‘I didn’t say I don’t want to be your boyfriend’ he says interrupting you which made you smile. You couldn’t form a decent response. Your crush said he wants to date you. It made Yohan smile, seeing you so flustered. ‘So is It a yes’ Yohan asked. ‘Yes!’

Lee Hangyul:

Fourteenth of February, aka Valentines Day. Today you decided to gather up all your courage to confess to Hangyul, your partner for the history project. Excitedly, you enter the school with a bouquet of red roses and box of Hangyul his favorite chocolate. You wrote a small note on the chocolate box with your initials on the end because you don’t want other people claiming your confession as theirs. You heard too many horror stories about that and you don’t want that to happen to you. Walking through the hallways of your school, you are looking for the locker with a certain number, aka locker 1207, which is Hangyul his locker. Yes, you planned to put your confession presents in his locker. You sighed in relief when you arrived at locker 1207. The hallway there is really empty and that gives you enough privacy to drop the presents in his locker. You opened your notes from your phone to search the locker combination from Hangyul so you could open it. The reason why you had his code was because you once had to drop something else in it. When you figured out what the code was to open his locker, you quickly tried to open it. When it opened, you picked up the presents and drop them in his locker, which you quickly closed afterwards. ‘y/n, y/n, y/n’ you suddenly hear which made you froze on spot. The voice was extremely familiar to the one you loved to hear but just not now. When you turned around, you saw it was indeed the person you love but right now didn’t want to see. You moved your head to see if your guess was right, and yes, you saw your crush; the Lee Hangyul standing in front of you. ‘Hi Hangyul’ you said to him casually, trying to hide that you felt like you were about to scream ‘How are you doing?’ ‘Why were you at my locker y/n?’ he asked you, resulting you to sort of curse in your mind. ‘I’d say, open it and see it yourself’ you responded trying to sound confident, which failed drastically. It made Hangyul smirk to hisself. ‘Sure’ he said while walking forward to his locker and starting to open it. When he opened he could immediately see your presents and lovely note. You bite your lip, praying he doesn’t humiliate you in the next few minutes. ‘Look Hangyul’ you said because you couldn’t stand the tension anymore ‘If you want to reject me, do it quickly. I’m sensitive’. You tried hard to not panic when Hangyul turned around. ‘I’m not going to reject you y/n’ he said laughing to himself ‘I actually was planning to do the same for you’. He pulled chocolate box out of his bag with a note where ‘for y/n’ was writtin in a messy handwriting. I’ll finish the confession for you’ he continues while he puts his hand between you and the wall your leaning on ‘Y/n would you be my valentine and later on date me?’. ‘I thought I made it obvious what my answer is love’ you said which made him grin. ‘Happy Valentines babe’

#x1 #x1 fluff #x1 boyfriend #x1 au #x1 imagines #x1 reactions #x1 scenarios #x1 time stamps #x1 masterlist #xone #x1 hyung line #x1 seungwoo #x1 seungyoun #x1 wooseok #x1 yohan #x1 hangyul #han seungwoo #cho seungyoun #kim wooseok #kim yohan #lee hangyul #seungwoo #wooseok #seungyoun #yohan x reader #hangyul #x1 x reader #produce x imagines #produce x 101 #pdx101

[chromeskiesstuff]

The Killing of Three Thousand Crows Recap EP 1 三千鸦杀

This drama has been a huge blast - I am 8 EPs in and the plot, characters are wonderful and refreshing. The main leads are a hoot themselves, being very hilarious and have their own unique personalities. Props to CGI and costume theme who does their best to make it realistic while in budget, in particularly the costumes feel so natural and pretty.

So just a brief introduction:

This is a Xianxia adaptation from novel of the same name. Xianxia = it involves immortals. Our heroine, Yan Yan, or with her adult/real name Qin Chuan (覃川) is a mortal princess of her country and it has been destroyed by the demon people. Her people are slain and she vowed to kill off each and every demon people to bring peace to her people.

The Male Lead is Jiu Yun (九云), a powerful young immortal who has a crush on her, and he has seen through her ten lives/ previous reincarnation.

We started off with our male lead, Jiu Yun and his friend. His friend ponders why he is sharing with him a drawing by his Shifu/Master and what is it about.

He replied that this was about a war where drums are beating, and bones anre piling up. He also said he didn’t understand the meaning of the drawing for thousand years.

The cinematography is pretty amazing and the narration done by Zhen Ye Cheng (yes our Male lead does his own dubbing along with Zhao Luo Si) is nothing short of haunting. The sequence is written in a semi-classical format, and its a thing of beauty when it combines with great cinematography, great colour combinations, great symbolism (eg drums that reinvigorate a dying party) , great prose and great narration. Look at her red robes flowing in harsh winter while hitting the drums. Maybe I should translate this part later :D

His friend retorted. “It’s normal for mortals to be in war”. He replied "I finally met her yesterday. I have been searching for her for a thousand years” while the screen switch to her facing her enemies alone. 

I presume she didn’t survive. Based on some notes on the novel this was her past life. Anyway I really dig these prologues as of late as its normally shot wonderfully and in a simplistic manner + introduce the whole thing.

The scene switched to an enormous paper bird flying down to a city.

I love the design of the paper bird. Its delicate. Can I have one for a Mercedes?

Our heroine slept at class, slacking off  from learning paper folding spells which is a secret skill of Dali royalty. He also scold her that she have already learn for a year but she knew nothing.Her Shifu challenges her to make ten paper crane. 

She could fight with Bai Qian with tardiness though what Bai Qian did is even more crayy

She defended herself that paper folding spells emphasize on making it freely/casually. Under her shifu threat, she back off, saying she can do it anyway, but instead she made a frog.

The sequence is amazing btw. The CGI is really on point here :D

The paper container too is delightfully designed. Along with the sunscreen panels at the background

The set design and the headdress. Its amazing. Look at the Peach blossom background :D. And I enjoyed her acting a lot. She displays the right amount of mischievousness here :D

Our princess met with her brother and to cheer her up,  her brother shows her a painting he obtained. She said the painting is fine but not worth two to three thousand coins. 

Yeap. It looks like regular drawing even from my POV. But I hope whoever drawing this is not offended T_T (based on TMOPB the artist will normally on set whenever their artwork is shown)

He asks her to look at it carefully. Soon the garden turns into winter, and winter plum blossom starts blooming, and sometime later it turns back to normal. She excitedly asks him where he obtains the painting. He told her he obtained it from the famed painter, Gongzi Qi (公子齐).

Cue hilarity ensured of Gongzi Qi being synonymous with celebrity, full-on with fans dying to have his artwork and to see him,  and her brother the prince being very excited to obtain one. While looking for the artist, a scroll appears on his hand and he looks both happy and confused.

Here’s how he describes Gongzi Qi:

Gongzi Qi, he was rumoured to be extremely handsome, with one of the kind drawing skills. He was rumoured to apply rare immortal spells to his artwork.

She muses that man is too proud. And if Gonzi Qi said his art skills are his second-best skill, then his music skills should be out of the world. Her brother said he wrote a song titled East Wind Peach Blossom Flower .. nope it's half a song not a full song (WTF XD) and he refuses to write the other half, saying that no dancer will be able to dance this song (I see you Gongzi Qi, you are tempting her). Indeed our princess is up to the challenge and asks her brother to request him to finish the song so she can dance to it.

The siblings then visit their cousin, where her brother advises her not to be rude. Apparently their aunt and cousin are attending their mom’s 40th birthday celebration.

After greetings and praises, the two women throwing barbs at each other, we know that Xuan Zhu (玄珠，the cousin) recently start to learn immortal skills under a mysterious teacher. Their barbs become a quarrel, causing their companions to try to rein them in. Yan Yan excuses herself. The quarrel continues as both are tugging a purple handkerchief. 

A man came in. Yan Yan seems to be jealous that this guy (Zuo Zi Chen, 左紫辰) seems to come here to visit Xuan Zhu. He clarifies that he is here on behalf of his father to see her cousins. She instantly brightens up and let him go. 

OK, first crush? And guy seems to be interested.

At the court, the King seems to be really worried about Tian Yuan, as they have usurped three countries around Dali. He is also worried as his prime minister Zuo (Zi Chen dad) applies for retirement at this time due to health. He announces that he will pay a visit to Prime Minister Zuo.

Our Prime Minister seems quite healthy (healthier than the king!!) and performs some ritual that's clearly demonic.

This is performed in front of a satan like figure. That's demonic even in Taoist book right?

Our prince got the sheet music, but with a bet from Gongzi Qi: She must be able to perform it, else he will make her a laughing stock. While visiting the prime minister, she took the opportunity to visit Zi Chen. She blocks him from visiting the king. Instead, she wants him to ask him something on the new music sheet she obtained since he is extremely good with music.

uwuuw the music sheets are so pretty

Zi Chen was amazed since he never saw such complicated tunes. There is a catch though. The verse she pointed out is rather bloody and will cause the audience and the performer to feel very sad, totally inappropriate for a birthday celebration. He answers the way to go is to change the tunes from a sad tone to a happy one.

Girl is clearly enamored with him and his skills. He turned around and ask whether his modified tunes sounds right. She thinks it's great. And she gifted him a hairpin, helping him to wear the new hairpin. She finishes pining the hairpin and touches his face. He reciprocates by grabbing her hand tenderly

OMG I must say this scene is so well done. Very tender, and little words need to be said.

After she left, his father looks for him. He looks anything but friendly. He asks whether he knew the reason the king came. Oh gosh, the prince is way too naive. His father is clearly plotting about something. But he is a young man in the midst of meeting his first love, maybe that's why he didn't catch on the shenanigans.

The Princess is totally unaware of the plot tho, she happily shares her joy with her maid, Aman and hoping for the day Zi Chen will marry her. She also declares that she will be able to conquer the tough music sheets and it will prove Zi Chen's musicality is superior to Gongzi Qi. 

At night Gongzi Qi visited her, leaving her a note. She wakes up and declared again that she will win their bet. Gongzi Qi hears her in the court garden and leaves with a smile.

It seems like the budget is spent on the prince wardrobe. His gear looks very natural and menacing ha. But the candles deco is totally inferior to TMOPB Ye Hua house. Maybe the Demon People are saving the $ for war?

Yan Yan dance is stellar, she interprets the music sheets beautifully, with peach blossoms,snow and leaves. The audience including her brother, Zi Chen, and Gongzi Qi are amazed.

Oh wow the music is wonderful. It reminds me of TMOPB EP30 Peach blossom scene OST - the warm and sweet feel kinda touch. And the dance is shot beautifully. Although I think some of the dance moves are done by a professional dancer? Not a problem imo since one of the most beautiful performances in cdrama history is choreographed by a dancer.

And YESSSS.... his wardrobe is really on point here and the angles the cinematographer take is really good. He is not your conventionally attractive lead so I understand that some angles will not stand out. Kudos to the production team!

The dance ended and Gongzi Qi was shocked that she changed the ending of his sheet music. HA, SO YOU KNOW SHE IS GONNA PERFORM AT HER MUM’S BIRTHDAY BASH PARTY AND YOU WRITE HER A BLOODY TUNE? lmao he is pissed and serves him right XD. And what's wrong with your bestie XD? He seems to have a tendency to pine after a married woman.

They met Shifu who seems to be their ShiXiong (Elder brother disciple). Shifu reminded Gonzi Qi that since he is an immortal, he shouldn’t involve with mortal matters especially when Yan Yan is still very young. Gongzi Qi asks if he insists on doing it? Shifu replied that her fate has been decided and he shouldn’t go against fate. He seems to accept that decree and he hands over a huge scroll of painting, requesting Shifu to pass it to her.

Note: The reason why Shifu is able to involve is that he owes a debt to the Dali Royal family per the book.

At night the city is being attacked, and Yan Yan wakes up feeling happy and refreshed. She saw the painting scroll, both her and her maid marvelled at the painting and she told her maid that she wants to go outside alone to visit Zi Chan.

Meanwhile, Zi Chan father sent his son away “ For praying in the temple. Do request for glory at Royal Court”. His son wonders as his dad will not need it because he is retiring. His dad replies smoothly that it’s for Zi Chan. Zi Chan wanted to pray for his father’s health, and his father praised him lightly, sending him away. Looks like he is sending him away for safety. 

COMMENTS

I have been waiting for this drama for some time, and luckily they are no longer stuck in broadcasting hell. This EP has a lot to unpack, introducing the background and characters. I feel this EP wonderfully introduces multiple characters while making Yan Yan and Zi Chan characters unique. Yan Yan character is sweet while slightly spoiled, she is still very charming herself, and have all the characteristics of a well-loved high born lady. Zi Chan too stands out as the highly ranked son, with his politeness and his crush with Yan Yan being really subtle. Plot-wise it is interesting and hopefully, the revenge plot won’t be too over the top later. The drama is also not afraid to insert some modern jokes (AHEM CELEBRITY ARTIST) while feeling super natural in doing so.

 The magic spells they introduce are fairly unique too (paper magic) which can be quite handy. The brief introduction of paper cranes and paper frogs are delightful. The costumes are delightful too. One of the difficulties of cdrama production is making costumes natural relative to the period and making it beautiful. I love Zi Chan wardrobe here because he looks great in it while not making him too prince-like. Likewise I like that Gongzi Qi wardrobe are slightly more fancier than a normal immortal /Taoist disciple (YEAH HIS WEIRDASS WAYS) but not that fancy.

I think one of the downsides for this drama is the set production. Some of the sets like the snow scene are totally beautiful, while at some parts its so obvious the wood is made of plastic, or the garden looks too tropical. That being said I understand cdrama fantasy budgets are tight + high likelihood of delayed broadcasting, so these downsides are relatively minor, plus the cinematography team is killing it, so I think in overall any fan of xianxia should watch it.

#the killing of three crows #三千鸦杀 #cdrama #recap #review #thoughts #the killing of three thousand crows

[rogueninja]

Okay so we all know who your top ships are... who are your unpopular ships? Or obscure ships? What characters from what series do you think about often in either good or bad ways? Who is a character that you hate that others love? If you could rewrite a story or part of a book, what would it be and what would you do differently?

Ok I am digging through my brain right now bc if I’m not able to hyperfixate on something then I tend to forget I even liked it. Ok buckle in bc this is gonna be long af. YOU ASKED FOR THIS, REG.

I’m putting a readmore so as not to torture my followers lol

Thinking about Veronica Mars. About Veronica/Logan. Do they have a ship name?? But I love that show and i was THERE for them. They were kind of a surprise ship for me, in that when they got together I was like, wait, WHAT? Like I was totally caught off guard. But there first kiss is, like, sooo romantic to me haha. It’s my fave scene in the show. But Logan is suck a prick sometimes. And they break up like every five minutes. And every season Logan gets accused of murder which of course he ends up not being the murderer. And they get back together eventually and I’m like really? But deep down I am rooting for them lol. I really enjoyed the new season of Veronica Mars that came out last year, actually. The ending made me SO SAD THO.

I also used to watch Supergirl and I thought Kara and Mon-El were adorable. He was very Carswell Thorne-esque, RH, I *think* you would like him. I never watched past season 3(?) though, and he shoots off into space and I never caught up so a few months ago I actually googled what happens and [spoiler] he ends up marrying someone else in the future or something so I was like, ok I’m not investing any more time in this show lol. (Also I had to google Mon-El’s name just now bc i forgot which is a bad look BUT I WAS REALLY RIDE OR DIE FOR THEM FOR A WHILE lol). Also I loved Martian Manhunter in this show, he was my favorite character. But the CGI for him was awful, omg. He had practical makeup at first, they should have just stuck with that.

Speaking of Martian Manhunter, I also used to watch Young Justice and loved Miss Martian/Superboy. Am I basic??? lol oop. But I love basic love stories. Anyway, I thought they were super cute. In season 3 though they’re kind of on the rocks. I haven’t watched season 4. I also loved Artemis/Wally West, but of course that had to end tragically.

Also, let’s talk about Nightcrawler. Allow me to set the scene. Little Kat is 13 and just rediscovered the cartoon she saw a few times as a kid called X-Men: Evolution. And thus, a weird obsession with the German, blue demon boy began. I loved Kurt Wagner. In the cartoon he starts a relationship with Amanda Sefton and I thought they were a-dor-a-ble. She accepted him for who he was, and they had a really nice healthy relationship. A lot of ppl shipped him with Kitty too which i am honestly all for idec I JUST WANT THE BLUE BOI TO BE HAPPY.

Can we talk about A:TLA too??? Like, obviously Zutara, amiright? Power couple. Like, Kataang is.. fine, but its probably my least favorite part about the ending, haha. Also, consider: Tokka. Toph is bae and can get anyone she wants, and she clearly had kind of a crush on Sokka and I think they could have been awesome. It actually kills me that they never say who Lin and Suyin’s father is in LoK. I had a whole theory that it was that kid The Duke from Jet’s band based on like 2 scenes from the series. There’s a tumblr post I made about it somewhere in the ether lol.

I also just remembered Tahnorra (Tahno/Korra) from Legend of Korra. It’s hard for me to explain this one. It’s a weird combination of being hyperfixated on the first season of the show when it came out, and I think I stumbled upon some fic or something???? And I thought Tahno was hot or something??? And FUN FACT, he was voice by Rami Malek BEFORE HE WAS COOL. So like before Rami really got big I knew who he was. He also basically played the Avatar in Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 2 and I thought that connection was hilarious. It was kind of a problematic crack pairing but there was one author in particular whom i follow to this day hoping she’ll update her Tahnorra fics…. *sigh*

Okay one last ship…. I used to be ride or die for Outlaw Queen in Once Upon a Time (aka Regina/Robin Hood). Like, before TLC, I had a personal tumblr renaissance for that ship alone. My only existing published fanfic is for that ship. Taylor Swift’s 1989 came out that year and I related every dang song to that ship. I loved Regina so much and I just wanted her to be happy. That show is a dumpster fire, though, and spat all over my hopes and dreams. *sigh*

Also, lightning round for obscure pairings I ship and/or never talk about:

Frank Castle/Karen Page (The Punisher) ok this one isnt that obscure but I never talk about it… but the pining, oh god the pining

Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth (GoT) THEIR 5 SECONDS TOGETHER ARE THE ONLY WORTHY PART OF SEASON 8. everything after that never happened

I already listed Roy Mustang/Riza Hawkeye (FMAB) as a top pairing previously but I feel the need to mention it again bc it was for real my OG OTP… LIKE U WANNA TALK ABOUT PINING…. *sobs*

Percy/Annabeth (Percy Jackson and the Olympians) This used to be my fave book series and i loved how their relationship developed over the course of the books

Neville Longbottom/Luna Lovegood (Harry Potter) ok can we TALK ABOUT THIS??? They were both badass misfits and they were perfect for each other. But noooo JKR has to announce they marry some nobodies…. this is the only change the last movie did right

Midna/Link (Zelda: Twilight Princess) I honestly have no explanation for this lol

Qui-gon Jinn and Shmi (Star Wars) CAN U IMAGINE if anakin had a proper father figure and didnt have to abandon his mother to slavery

Obi-wan/Satine…. (Star Wars: The clone Wars) we know whats up

OK, to answer some of your other questions: character I hate that others love. HMMMM…….

This one seems too easy/obvious but Professor Snape? Like obviously there’s already a ton of discourse surrounding this but he was gross, mistreated his students for years, committed atrocities, couldn’t get over his high school crush, and we’re supposed to believe he’s a hero in the end and HARRY WOULD NAME HIS SON AFTER HIM….. uh no. “Always” is gross.

I’ve literally been wracking my brain for days and I can’t think of any more characters for this. OK I did some googling and I remembered some LOL.

Ross from friends…. I literally can’t stand him. He’s so entitled and just the worst. He tries to act like he’s the nice, sensitive guy, but really he is so full of himself. Joey on the other hand is portrayed as a womanizer but is actually super sweet and I love him

Archie from Riverdale… I have only seen the first 1.5 seasons ish but he is the worst…. we’re supposed to believe he’s some easygoing musically gifted football player but instead he manages to pull off being bland as heck and actually kind of a terrible garbage person

Nick from chilling adventures of Sabrina. I hate characters that are like hitting on the main character even though she has a bf and are like dark and broody and sexy blah blah blah…. I liked Harvey way better. I never finished season 2 tho

Emma Swan from Once Upon a Time? Idk she was fine she just got old after a while

If you could rewrite a story or part of a book, what would it be and what would you do differently?

HM. First, Harry would name his son Remus Rebeus Potter LOL. Ok but real talk there was a headcanon floating around forever ago that Harry should have become a professor at Hogwarts instead of an auror and I am 100% on board

Ok, ok….. what abouuuttt…… OK, is star wars when Han and Leia get together. I like them as a couple, but the entire first half of the movie Han is being such an ass. And when they kiss the first time, he’s being SOOO creepy. It’s like so quintessentially 80s romance. and HERE’S THE THING. They actually filmed (or maybe just wrote?) a version of that scene that WASNT CREEPY. And i’m like WHY DIDNT YOU USE THAT?!? So I like to pretend that’s the version that actually happened.

This part is way harder than the shipping portion. If I think of anything else i’l dm you. I HOPE YOU ENJOY READING THIS NOVEL LENGTH POST OF ME RAMBLING ABOUT MY FIXATIONS OVER THE LAST 10 YEARS. If anyone actually read this far, you deserve a cup of hot chocolate and a blanket

#regolithheart #ask #answered

[danielxrk]

    ✞ DID THE HEARTBREAK CHANGE ME? *      MAYBE

sure, the evaluation proves distracting as always, but daniel needs something different. first, it was putting together the arrangement for the evaluation, but after, all that was left was singing, no dancing required this month, therefore easily skipped. it requires less work than usual, singing coming more easily to him than anything else. no, that’s a lie; what comes easiest is his fingers on strings, fret boards, recording studios, and music so loud and heavy that it shakes the entire stage.

well, he wouldn’t know if that last part comes easily anymore. judging by the state of his band, now officially crushed into a thousand pieces with their lead singer enlisting in the military, it wouldn’t be easy at all. it hurts too much to play any music with the members that remain, and hurts too much not to. everything hurts. 

it’s why he knows he needs something different, and in the end, he always falls back to writing a song, or playing an instrument, or both. bass is where he started, and he wants to think bass is where he’ll finish, if he’s ever done with music. it seems a fitting choice now, when it feels like the end of the world. 

dua lipa’s album is groovy, full of synths and disco beats, but more importantly, bass. he got hooked on it for that reason, such dominant and important bass lines more of a rarity in popular music these days. he managed to listen to it frequently in the early part of april, but since sungwoon’s enlistment, it felt too happy, like salt in wounds that couldn’t heal fast enough. 

he wrote a song, listened to songs about heartbreak, lamented over failing an audition, likely due to the build up of stress from the month. he tells himself it’s time to move on in all meanings of the phrase, even though he knows it’s easier said than done. he doesn’t know if he’ll ever move on from sungwoon, but he also knows he has a tendency to be dramatic. at least it’ll be more fodder for songs he can write-- songs about heartbreak, songs about being in love forever, songs about not moving on, and then eventually, maybe, songs about moving on too. the part of him that loves songwriting almost looks forward to seeing that evolution. 

he wonders what his life will look like in a year. will he still be heartbroken? will he still be a trainee? will he still have the friends he does now? daniel of a year ago-- daniel who just released an album with his band --couldn’t have imagined his life ending up like this. 

worse. it’s so much worse. why did he ruin all of it? why did he insist they sign up for the mgas? why did he put everything on the line for greed? they didn’t need more fans. he would’ve been happy performing their songs to 30 people in underground clubs if he had to; they all would’ve, he knows. they could’ve promoted their album all summer, and started working on more songs, and released another one in two more years. maybe sungwoon would’ve been so happy with them that he wouldn’t have enlisted. maybe, maybe, maybe.

he wonders if he’ll ever forgive himself for it. he wonders, too, if they’ll ever be friends like they were again. sometimes he hears hyunggu’s voice saying maybe it’s a way of the world saying you need to branch out and not only rely on the same four people for your entire life, and then he remembers all of the people he started relying on leaving, hyunggu included, and it all turns bitter.

sometimes he hears woong’s voice saying god never gives you more than you can handle, too, and he has to believe there’s a reason for it all. he remembers the people that are still here: haknyeon, woong, eunwoo-- some of the most important ones, but not the only ones.

he starts writing lists of things he’s thankful for in the back of his notebook, working back to front. one day, the song lyrics and thank you notes will meet, and maybe they’ll combine into a song of gratitude for everything he still has in his life. he doesn’t want to wallow. he knows he’s done too much of it in the past year. 

somehow, this loss isn’t as bad as the loss of empty enigma, even if it brings the mourning back. maybe it’s because he knew for months, and had time to prepare-- time to love sungwoon knowing that time would run out, four months of loving as hard as he could and giving it the very best he had. that was one thing he could never regret. 

it still hurts, but eventually, he can listen to happy music again, and he falls back into the bass lines of the future nostalgia album. he needs something different, and he had absent minded thoughts of covering a song for this album before, so why not all of them? it’ll just be him on the bass, no vocals, no original rap-- a medley of bass, and that’s all. 

his face isn’t even included. it’s just his camera pointed at his bass and and his hands, so the chords he plays are more evident. it’s the names of the song each bass line is from popping up in the closed captioning each time he transitions between them. it’s just him, jamming out on his favorite instrument, not trying to be anything he’s not-- unapologetically the purest form of himself, and the part he likes best.

#;solo #;futurenostalgia #( * fr the bass on this album is SEXY #it's so good #anyways this is a mess and i'm not rereading it so yeet but #i wanted to get this in writing and make it canon #and unpack some stuff ) #( * the quality of this graphic is so bad also ugh love it ! ) #;yt #rkcreativity

[five-wow]

Author Asks

Rules: answer these questions and tag five other fic writers to do the same.

I was tagged by the wonderful @novemberhush. Thank you, omg, because I love rambling about writing and this is the best kind of opportunity to do so, handed on a silver platter, ahh. 😊

-

Author Name: Square / Squares / SquaresAreNotCircles

Fandoms You Write For: I’m a fandom hopper! In the past year or so it’s been Hawaii Five-0 (a truly ridiculous amount), Shadowhunters, Venom, Harry Potter, due South and Stargate Atlantis. Other fandoms I’ve written at least one fic for are Twilight, Doctor Who, Torchwood, Glee, BBC Merlin, BBC Atlantis, Teen Wolf, In The Flesh, Star Wars, Supernatural, the MCU and High School Musical. And uh, Alexander the Great/Voltaire fic (which would be... history fandom? RPF?) and one (1) Judas/Jesus Biblefic. If we’re getting really technical, also a tiny little bit of One Direction fic.

It should be noted that all of this is about fic that ended up getting posted somewhere on the interwebs - there are multiple Star Trek (TOS/AOS and DS9) fics lingering in my drafts (!! one day I will finish one of them), as well as some How To Train Your Dragon, The Good Place and Deadpool stuff, and definitely more I’ve forgotten.

Where You Post: Since I made the switch to writing in English everything has landed on ao3, but I used to write mostly in Dutch, so there’s still close to a million words, I think, under my name on quizlet.nl (not to be confused with quizlet.com, which is a very different website).

Most Popular One-Shot: That depends on how you’re measuring popularity! Going by kudos, it’s Tell me I’m perfect (but tell me the truth), a Magnus/Alec Shadowhunters fic. It’s the truth is a really old fic about Percy Weasley/Oliver Wood from Harry Potter that has the most hits out of all my works, and That time Steve kissed every single Avenger (and also Bucky), an MCU Steve/Bucky fic, has the greatest number of comment threads.

Also, since this is an h50 blog: for my fic in this fandom Wanted: partner (in crime) has the most kudos and hits; You had me at meow has the most comments.

Most Popular Multi-Chapter Story: I’m working on one for h50 (going slowly, so slowly), but I don’t have any posted to ao3. I used to write a lot of multi-chaptered work in my quizlet.nl days, and I think my most popular fic there was probably the second fic I ever wrote, when I was fourteen or fifteen, which was a next-gen Harry Potter fic with shifting and overlapping POVs from the three Potter kids. It was kind of, well, not great, but it’s probably what really cemented my writing habit, it’s still my longest fic ever (over a 100k!) and I got my first fandom friends out of it, including one I’m still in contact with to this day, even though neither of us writes much if anything for Harry Potter anymore.

Favourite Story You Wrote: Ohhh, that’s such an impossible question, especially because I’ve been churning out one-shots like I might actually be getting paid for it, so there’s so much to choose from, which is a thing I have difficulty doing at the best of times, holy shit. Uh, I once wrote a 70k Remus/Sirius (Harry Potter) modern college-ish AU in Dutch that I still like; weirdly, I think that Biblefic holds up (also Dutch), and the HSM fic is fun to reread once in a while because of the fourth wall break, as is That escalated quickly, a Percy/Oliver fic. Ooh, and the fic about Shuri and Stucky and a goat!

For h50, it’s even harder to choose, because my preferences change pretty much weekly (a combination of newer fic being shinier, looking back at fic from even just a few months ago and finding things I would have done differently now, and comments influencing the way I personally look at my own fic), but right now, I’d say I still really like the fic where Steve adopts some guinea pigs, the one with the slightly tipsy team bonding by talking about mutual crushes and this 9.11 coda fix fluff getting together thing.

Story You Were Nervous to Post: That Biblefic, haha, because it’s a very complicated topic and my aim was definitely not to offend. People were really sweet about it, though! Mostly, they were kind of shocked it wasn’t crack, but that’s fair, because so was I.

Also pretty much anything I post in a new fandom, really, and low key just... anything at all. I’m always a little scared I tagged something super badly or accidentally copy-pasted the wrong text or unknowingly wrote something super offensive or whatever, despite my double- and triplechecking of the posting form. (I’m also still kind of scared people on ao3 will randomly decide they hate my fic and my writing and me personally (ao3 is really big and very anonymous and coming from the small town that was quizlet.nl even in its heyday, that’s scary), but that fear has abated as I’ve posted more, just because the data is showing pretty conclusively that thought is as irrational as it sounds. Everyone is always so nice, gosh.)

How Do You Pick Your Titles: Mostly, I steal lines from random songs. I have a small pile of song lyrics to use as potential titles, because going on a seperate hunt for every new fic would take most of my waking hours. Sometimes, I’ll use a pun (like You had me at meow or Retail Therapy) or something else that I think sounds good, especially if the fic is mostly comedy and/or has a specific premise that would do well in a title (like Five times the Governor of Hawaii suspects his taskforce leaders are violating fraternization policies (and one time they tell him they are)).

Do You Outline: I’m mostly writing fic of (sometimes much) less than 5k at the moment, so not really. I do sometimes write tiny bits of a bunch of scenes and then fill in the rest around that, which is a kind of outline, in a way. For longer works, I usually make a one page bullet point list of things that need to happen and work from there, because I can’t do really extensive outlining or I’ll just get caught up in the details and lose all of the oversight a tool like that is supposed to give you, as well as most of my enthusiasm for the project.

How Many Of Your Stories Are Complete: Of the ones posted? On ao3, all of them, because unfinished posted one-shot works would require some strange bending of those concepts. On quizlet.nl, I do have some abandoned works, but I think 80% is finished.

In-Progress: SO MUCH. Seriously, just, so much, oh god. I’d really like to write another Stargate Atlantis fic (and I have 30% of one done), and something more for due South, too, and maybe a small Percy/Oliver thing again some time because they were my very first OTP and I kind of miss them, but mostly I have, like, 100+ half written things for h50. I really wish that number was an exaggeration. There’s no way they’ll all get finished, but maybe... a third? Mayhaps?

That One Truly Long H50 Fic that I was already talking about way back in October last year is also eternally “in progress”. The thing is that it has about 25k now, after a year, and I think it needs... at least four times that. Probably. So either I’ll have to stick with this fandom and my slow progress for another three years to have a shot at getting it finished, or I’ll need to find a way to up the speed a little. Maybe I could try working on it for NaNo this November? That would be pretty awesome, but honestly, part of why it’s moving this slowly is because NaNo-style fast and messy writing for this scares me a little, because I might end up writing a lot, decide it’s not what I wanted for it, and become too intimidated to ever edit and/or rewrite the entire thing. But idk, I probably just need to get over my own fears, because I really do want to write Longer Fic again. Short stuff is fun and feels really productive and that’s great, but I miss the actual slow burn and build-up that only 50k+ words can give you.

Coming Soon: Hopefully a lot? For h50, that is. I have no idea what’s getting posted next, because I’m never entirely sure what’s going to be finished next and something really random might come jumping in, but at the moment I’m trying to direct most of my energies at a slightly longer fic I’ve been working on for months (not The Long Fic, a different one), a fic labeled “9.01 memory loss fic”, another one temporarly entitled “Perfect Kauai beach house vacation”, and maybe an ace!Steve fic I’ve been working on, if I ever manage to uh, actually finish that, instead of rewriting three sentences during every round of editing and never actually adding anything to fill in the gaps it still has. There will also be more season 10 codas, in all likelihood.

Do You Accept Prompts: I’ve never done that before in the traditional way, but I’m thinking about it! I’d love to try (and it would be a breath of fresh air, in some ways!), but the main thing holding me back is that I have way too much on my plate with just my own ideas to work off of, and I don’t want to disappoint people. Maybe if I do drabble-ish prompt fills? It’s definitely been on my mind.

Upcoming Story You’re the Most Excited For: I’m excited for a lot of stuff, but honestly, the top spot right now probably goes to the ace!Steve fic. I’m not even sure it’s that good, necessarily, but it’s, idk, really cathartic, I suppose. Seriously self-indulgent in strange but very good ways. I really like writing it. (Second spot goes to the beach vacation fic, because I haven’t actually written that much for it, but it’s been my go-to easy happy place for the last few weeks.)

-

I’m tagging @love2hulksmash @thekristen999 @stephmcx @girlonastring @flowerfan2 and @pterawaters, which is six people because I can’t count, but I’m about to make it seven because I’m also tagging you, the person reading this (hi there!). Say I tagged you and tag me so I can read it! I know that kind of thing can feel awkward, but it won’t be, because I’m cheering you on. Go for it, if you want to do it. :D

#tagged in #writing #* #question: [requires maybe two words to be answered] #me: [writes two lengty paragraphs] #i guess that also tells you something about what kind of writer i am

[disregardcanon]

end of year writing meme

Total Stories Written: 27

Total Words Written: 147413 Average Words Per Story: if you do the mean, then it’s 5,459 Shortest Story: the aftermath of rebirth at 338 words Longest: Paint a New Horizon at 23,673 words

Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d predicted?

I wrote fewer stories than I expected, but they were far longer than I expected. I wrote a lot of 11k fics. 

What pairing/genre/fandom did you write most?

pairing: Sansa/Margaery (throwback to 2015 omg) 

genre: I don’t feel like I had a certain genre I wrote a lot of tbh. 

fandom: A Song of Ice and Fire

What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January?

THE POKEMON GAMES! Like, oh my god. I wrote fanfiction about soul silver. I wrote fanfiction about POKEMON WHITE. what. the fuck. Like, technically the first fic i ever wrote was about pokemon but i never expected to do it again. 

Did you take any writing risks this year?

I wrote 2 very long asoiaf fics about difficult subject matter. Combined, they add up to more than 40 thousand words of fic. 

Do you have any fanfic or general writing goals for the new year?

Fanfiction wise, I would like to finish up some of my wips and try to improve. 

In general, I would like to figure out more what I want my writing to look like moving forward and how to go about that. I’m experiencing some growing pains, so I need to reassess my style and strategy and see what I need to readjust moving forward. 

From the past year of writing, what was your…

Best story of this year: Paint a New Horizon

This feels like a bit of a cop out since it’s the longest, but I am very firmly the most proud of this fic out of anything I wrote this year. I feel like the emotional bits were satisfying, the romance worked nicely, and the action kept me interested in a way that almost never does. I was able to commit to TWENTY THREE THOUSAND WORDS and put my ALL INTO IT! that is. monumental for me. I’ve written long fics in the past, but those were chaptered and frankly, not as good as this one was or as much work. 

I love this verse so well that I might actually go back and write more in it later when I have time. I have the beginnings of a sequel ruminating around in my drats. 

Most popular story of this year: normally I split this up into multiple categories, but by hits, kudos, OR comment threads The Times They Are a Changin’ comes out on top. The mcu fandom really went nuts over Carol and Maria, didn’t they? 

Personal favorite:

Washing Machine Heart is a fic that I hold close to my heart. 1. I wrote this one when I was on a study abroad in Latin America, which is the coolest thing that I have ever done 2. it’s just. really well done. I’ve never written something quite so messy and unpleasant in a realistic way before. It’s ugly in the way that Steven Universe: Future is ugly right now. In exactly the way that “Washing Machine Heart” should imply 3. oh god was it cathartic 

Most under-appreciated:

Maternal, Paternal at 71 kudos, I know I shouldn’t call this one “under-appreciated”, but it’s in a few VERY happening tags, in a very happening fandom with a VERY popular set of characters. I’d think that people would be more interested in reading “Endeavor is an asshole and eventually Dabi kills him” but like. it’s whateves I guess XD

Most fun to write:

We Could Be Heroes both semesters that I had during 2019 were. super fucking stressful. the only times that I’ve had that were productive for fic was January break, summer vacation, and December break. 

Last April on my birthday, though, I rewarded myself and after I got home from hanging with some friends I just sat down at my laptop and didn’t think about literally anything. I just wrote. I took a format that I knew I liked and didn’t have to think about (talk show format with an OC I already made for a different story) and then 3 characters I was very interested in then (Melissa Shield, Monica Rambeau, and Tahani Al-Jamil) and then I just. ran with it. I wrote and wrote and wrote and it was amazing. I didn’t think about it being good or about my homework or literally anything other than this talk show lady talking to these three cool characters. 

It was wonderful. 10/10 would do it again. 

Story with the single sexiest moment: 

Familiarity. It is literally the only thing I wrote this year with ANY sex in it, so it’s automatically the sexiest. Way to go Margaery you did it. 

Most “holy crap, that’s wrong, even for you” story:

Um. Just Souring Grapes in general. 

Most challenging to write:

Biggest disappointment:

Shouto Todoroki Joins the Supervillain Dads Club I hoped to finish this fic last year in January. It’s currently December and I haven’t been able to look at the thing since. 

I think it’s mainly because I just lost the drive, but it’s also kind of because wips stress me the fuck out. And also I had 2 stressful semesters so that doesn’t help.  Favorite character to write: my favorite characters to write this year were both Todorokis! Dabi and Fuyumi are both a joy to write, I swear

Favorite opening lines: 

Serena falls down at the kitchen table feeling as cold and distant as the room does. The harsh lines and open floor plan were supposed to show a minimalism only possible with wealth, but to Serena it's always felt empty.

A Woman’s Place

Surprisingly, Theon’s life does not change much either way after Maron is taken to the Greenlands. Balon does not magically start paying attention to him, even though he’d prayed every night to the Drowned God that he would. 

Pretty Little Thrall 

The Twins are a grand fortress spanning the width of the Green Fork. A great stone tower stands on each side of the river, with a greater bridge running in between. The Frey stable boys have taken their horses, and Jeyne walks as close to the river as she dares as they make their way to the tower. She watches the river rush beside her in awe. She’s never seen a river run so wild before. It seems like the very waters rushing beside her want to rise up and drown her themselves.

Good Family

Favorite closing lines:

That's what she gave up fighting the Kree for, and Carol will do everything that she can to bring them back. She's stopped fighting for some things, but she'll never stop fighting for this. If the times don't change on this one, she'll make them. She'll rip that gaudy fucking glove off of that bastard's grape crush colored hand and shove it up his ass if that's what it takes to get her family back.

The Times They Are a Changin’

"Alright, then. Let’s do this together,” you say, “as a team.” You think that you really like this "being friends" thing. Maybe after you beat Red, you and Silver can go to Hoenn- or Sinnoh. Unova even. Somewhere new and exciting with new people to beat. It’s nice to have a partner who’s not a Pokemon, for once. You think that, together, you could be the best trainers that ever lived.

Maybe the best friends too.

no silver medals (when you get the gold together) 

The stars spread out above you- the universe expanding outwards onwards and upwards, excelsior.

Excelsior

Other favorite lines:

What does a grape do under pressure? Grapes tend to shrivel in the sunlight. Turn to raisins, actually. She doesn’t remember what poem that was from, but she remembers reading something like that in English class once. Some poem that she didn’t understand really, and might not have gotten even if it were in Japanese. She doesn’t think that’s what she’s doing.

Does it ferment, like wine? Her father always joked about her mother aging like a fine wine, growing more beautiful every year, growing stronger. But Miné isn't gaining strength, not really. Not right now. Maybe she’s just souring, getting more and more bitter about things that she can't have. Maybe she's just souring grapes.

Souring Grapes

“The authorities confirmed that Endeavor was not even in the state during the accident, and Shouto’s doctors confirmed that the burns were consistent with boiling liquid, not an open flame.” Superman looks visibly relieved to hear that.

“But that does not mean that I trust him,” Batman says, “I would prefer to keep an eye on him.”

“Why would you want to keep an eye on him, he’s a superhero ,” Captain Marvel says, with none of The Wisdom of Solomon but all of The Innocence of a Ten Year Old, “that means that he’s a good guy, right?”

Shouto Todoroki Joins the Supervillain Dads Club

The thought stabs into his brain like a needle, like the scent of pine, like the memories he’s never wanted back. Robb was the one person who ever cared about him, and Theon betrayed him to parade around as a prince and become Ramsay Bolton’s broken little toy. He swore himself to the little boy who took him by the hand when he came to Winterfell as a scared little boy and never let go. And then Theon betrayed him.

“Theon,” the trees whisper,” Theon.” The crows in the branches take flight, cawing his name, and he feels something else take flight too. His heart, beating somewhere deep inside his chest.

“Theon,” it throbs, “Theon, Theon.”

He wants to do something, something reckless, something brave. Something that makes him redeemable.

He can’t save Robb, but he can save someone . He can save Robb’s fake sister. Theon can save Jeyne from some of her pain.

If You Believe in Me (I’ll Still Believe)

She dared a glance forward and met Margaery’s eyes- a deep, chocolate brown. They were warm and inviting and Margaery’s little curly bangs framed her face like a heart. Margaery’s head went over the back of the booth and it seemed to almost be floating against the flowery wallpaper. It looked like Margaery was lying out in a field of flowers- the Maiden gazing up at the clouds and trying to make shapes of them.

She could imagine Margaery telling her that this one is a flower, like Tyrell, and this one’s a deer, like Baratheon, and this one’s a dick, like Joffrey. She giggled nervously again and felt her cheeks flush. She’d never felt this giddy and unsteady in her whole life.

“Are you alright, Sansa?” Margaery asked cautiously. She reached across the table and laid a hand over Sansa’s own. The touch was warm and tender, and Sansa felt the blush from her toes to the tip of her head.

“I’m perfect!” Sansa nearly screeched. Margaery laughed at that, but her look was kind.

“Yes, darling,” she said with a smile that was wide and fond, “I think that you are.”

Lesbian. The word wasn’t supposed to fill her with such a warm, hopeful feeling, was it? She wiggled awkwardly in her chair, trying to get situated and stop feeling so silly and excited and vulnerable, but it didn’t fix anything. She felt Margaery’s leg brush against hers under the table. It sent a jolt through her.

Lesbian.

Sansa took a shaky breath. She thought to herself that there might be something to that.

Paint a New Horizon 

#end of year writing meme #writing meme #sunkelles writes #2019 writing meme

[1dcraftawards]

MARCH AOM

Hello everyone! It is time to reveal who our author of the month is! They will be revealed below along with an interview we conducted with them! Hope you enjoy x

-1D Craft Awards Team

And our March Author of the Month is.....

@marisa-writes​!!!

Questions:

1. Did you start writing fanfiction for One Direction, or was there another fandom that you wrote fanfiction for before this?

Before I found my way to One Direction fanfiction, I wrote Jonas Brothers fanfiction for a few years and I loved it immensely! I wouldn’t still be writing fic to this day if not for the relationships I built in that fandom, and the love I received both from my readers and my writing friends. I’ve been sharing my writing online for about ten years now, which is crazy to me. It was my connection to people I met through JBFA that led me to eventually make my way to 1DFF, though I was a very casual reader and not a writer in the beginning. I was also a casual fan of 1D at the time, definitely into their music but not planning to dive in much beyond that. Oh, how the tables have turned...

2. How old were you when you started writing fanfiction?

In 6th grade, my friends and I used to share the joy of writing this fake gossip column between us in which we were the members of this epic girl band. We would write about all of our exploits in the band and in our fictional personal lives, where we were  - obviously - dating famous people, like members of ‘N Sync and the Backstreet Boys. In 7th grade, I wrote pages and pages of stories on loose-leaf paper about myself and my friends and threw in my celebrity crush of the moment as a love interest, so I suppose those stories were my first attempts at writing fanfiction.

This was in the early 2000s, so I didn’t really know my way around finding fanfics on the internet until a couple of years later, but aside from these self-insert stories, the first piece of fanfiction I remember writing with original characters was a Justin Timberlake one I wrote during my freshman year of high school. I kept it in a spiral that I decorated with pictures of Justin and my “face claim” - before face claims had a name - for my original character, Jamie (to show my age, her face claim was Samantha Mumba). I still have that notebook and know exactly where it is. I pull it out every once in a while to remind myself of the journey my writing has taken, because WOW, was that story bad! But I’d never be where I am if I hadn’t written it!

3. What’s been your favorite fic you’ve written to work on so far?

What a terrible question. Asking me to choose between my stories is a lot like asking me to choose between my non-existent children!

I have thoroughly enjoyed writing all of the projects I’ve shared so far, but the summer that I wrote the sangria series was like magic. Teyana and Niall came out of a couple days’ worth of me listening to one of my favorite R&B artists, Jon B., on repeat, and after one lengthy one-shot in which I’d put a lot of thought into their back-story as well as the one I was telling in that particular piece, I was a goner for them. While writing that series, I was an endless well of inspiration and I enjoyed creating those characters and spending so much time in their world.

The Different Strokes series has been the gift that keeps on giving for a few years now, and the joy that’s come from showcasing Liam and Georgia’s love for one another as their family grows has pleased me immensely.

I also feel very similarly about one of my one-shots, goodnight, good morning. Creatively, it was just an absolute joy to write and I can’t help but regard it with fondness whenever I think about it. It came out of left field for me, but my love of the stuck-in-the-elevator trope combined with my love of Liam in nice winter coats made for a piece of writing I am super proud to say I’ve written.

4. Is there a fic that you really wanted to write, but you just never did?

I have a plethora of barely-started fics that just sit taunting me in my Google Docs. The two that haunt me the most are Basketball Jones, an AU in which Liam is a point guard playing on the same university team as my OFC Tionne’s twin brother, Amari, and Roots, in which newly-solo Liam is stoked when presented with the opportunity to work with a legendary soul artist named Maurice Collins to complete his album, but the project ends up getting passed off to Maurice’s daughter Cleo instead. Both stories are the kind you wish would write themselves because you just want them to be out there in the world, you know? But alas, I suppose I have to do the work myself, and I just haven’t been able to get either project to take off just yet.

5. What’s your favorite trope to write?

ESTABLISHED RELATIONSHIPS! God, I’m such a sucker for it. I know a lot of people are fans of the build-up and all the angst and heartache and reconciliation that comes with it, but I’m always the one at the end going, “So what’s next?” I love to see what happens past the happy (or sometimes, not-so-happy) ending. There is so much to be told in what happens between a pairing when they’re committed and figuring out how to be together, and I adore being able to showcase that, especially because it’s not something you see as often as other tropes in fic.

6. What’s your ideal space to write in?

I like writing in my room. It’s quiet, peaceful, my own space. Sometimes I’ll sit on my bed; other times, I like to kick back in my chair in the corner where my lights are hung - my little reading/writing/tv-watching nook - and I’ll prop my feet up on my ottoman and do some writing with a nice cup of tea. I like to be as relaxed as possible, so I can really let my mind wade through all the lines of dialogue and scenes that I want to write.

7. What inspires you to write?

All sorts of things. For many years, it was music. I used to require music playing when I wrote, but I write in silence more often than not now. Still, music is a heavy inspiration for me - there are stories to find even in the songs that don’t seem like, lyrically, they’d provide any. But the mind is a powerful thing, and so is music, and when the two work together, magic tends to happen.

I also find inspiration in the world around me, and in the things I read. I’m a big fan of studying how people interact with one another. Relationships - familial, platonic, or romantic - are fascinating to me, and I love to write about how people react to the others around them, or the environment around them. I believe certain people and places come into your life exactly when they’re meant to for reasons you may or may not understand at the time, but they’re always important in your journey, and I love to write about that.

As a black woman, having the opportunity to continuously write about black women is also a huge inspiration for me, which is something you’ll notice in looking at the original female characters I write. One of my favorite authors, Alyssa Cole, is a black woman who has written both historical and contemporary romances, and she floors me with every piece of hers that I read because the diversity she includes in every story is encompassing and feels effortless. She paints a picture of what our diverse world looks like or has looked like in the past with every novel or novella she writes, and she inspires me to use my words to share stories that feature black women of all shapes, sizes, and backgrounds at the center because it’s important to me to see incredible black women having their stories told. Alyssa’s diversity doesn’t stop at just black characters, either, which is even more marvelous to me. She’s a force to be reckoned with, and I always joke that I want to be her when I grow up, but let’s be real, I’m not joking.

8. Do you typically like to listen to music when you write? If so, what do you listen to?

I inadvertently just answered this question! Back in my must-listen-to-music days, I would put Jason Reeves’ The Magnificent Adventures of Heartache (And Other Frightening Tales…) on repeat. That album in itself tells a story from start to finish of falling in love, being in love, getting your heart broken, and starting over, and there was something in the magic of Jason’s lyrics and musicality that used to wring endless sparks of inspiration from me. Whenever I felt stuck, I would turn that album on and the words would flow. Nowadays, I tend to find comfort in the quiet, but if a particular song or collection of songs has inspired something I’ve written, like Jon B. did with sangria on your lips, or SoMo’s “For You” did with the one-shot of the same name, I’ll listen to whatever’s inspiring me on repeat.

9. Do you have any plans for any future fic ideas you’d like to pursue?

Nothing confirmed at the moment! If I could get those fics I have haunting me in my Google Docs to wander past small blurbs and vague plot ideas, that’d be wonderful. I’ll write fanfiction in this fandom as long as I’m inspired.

10. Do you have any advice for other writers in the fandom?

WRITE. FOR. YOU. Look at that again, read it over and over until it’s ingrained deep in your mind and heart. Don’t write with the goal in mind to gain ‘x’ number of readers, and don’t write to measure up to anyone else. We as writers are our own worst critics and conspiracy theorists, and we will come up with a hundred different reasons to stop writing when we’re discouraged or frustrated, or compare ourselves to others and consider them leagues above us. It is so easy to talk ourselves in circles of why we should quit because of whatever reasons we’ve decided on in that precise moment, but you know what? If you write, you started for a reason. It gave you feelings you’d never experienced before and wanted to chase so hard that they drove you to write something that came from your mind, your heart, your fingertips. Do you realize how extraordinary that is?

Nothing you write will ever mean much if you don’t write it for you. You can’t love to do this and pour your heart into your words if they aren’t ones that mean something to you. You are never going to please everyone that reads your writing, which is often a hard truth to swallow because we just want to be liked, and you will be by some! But it’s important that you write something you’ll be proud to attach your name to, because someone is going to be very pleased with it, but most importantly, you will be pleased with it. We grow and change as writers and so does our level of work, but looking back and cringing because maturity has made us better writers is not the same as looking back and cringing because what we wrote doesn’t reflect who we’ve been at any stage. Write to satisfy yourself at whatever place in life you’re in. No regrets when you look back.

11. What is your writing process like?

It very much depends on the project! One-shots are my bread and butter, and those are often things I can write in a breeze when I’m inspired. My one-shots are usually the lengthy type, more of a short-story packed into a smaller package, so writing them tends to go smoothest for me.

For my chaptered projects, or the ones that started as one-shots and turned into stories or series, it’s a slower process for me. I always have a general plot line and specific important moments in mind, but I’m not the outlining type at all - feels too stifling for me, and I like the freedom to adjust certain plot points when the process serves. If I’m full of inspiration and my life allows me the freedom to sit down and write away, I will! I’ve recently moved myself out of a life situation that was taking a lot of that creativity and peace of mind away from me, and I’m hoping to find my way back to some sort of constant stream of inspiration soon.

Author Specific:

1. Why would you say you’re more attuned to writing Liam and Niall out of all the boys? Would you ever write for Harry / Louis / Zayn?

Liam is the whole reason I wound up in this lovely mess. I became a fan of 1D’s music from the first album, but genuinely had no intention of going beyond that in terms of interest. I’d recently exited the Jonas Brothers fandom as a whole because the cattiness and pettiness of some fans was absolutely exhausting and I needed a break from fandom for a good while (or so I thought, as I eventually found myself neck-deep in the Big Time Rush fandom). Around 2013, though, Liam’s vocals, smile, and stage presence had me slowly turning into the eye emoji. And those who have known me for quite a while can probably recall the night in 2015 where I drank a lot of wine and looked at a lot of pictures of him on Tumblr and became a complete goner.

It took me a little bit to start writing about him, however. I’d been reading some 1D fic because a dear friend I’d met through JBFA had moved to writing 1D fic and I once told her I’d read Magic School Bus fanfiction if she wrote it, so I obviously followed her to 1DFF. As I became more interested in Liam, I started reading some Liam fics, trying to get a hang on his personality because at the time I wrote mainly OU and I love finding that authenticity. I also wanted to get a feel for writing characters who weren’t American, like I am. Eventually, I came up with some ideas, decided to get my feet wet, and started writing. I would say I’m attuned to writing Liam because in learning about him, I connected with him. I adore him as a person and an artist, and hardly anyone writes about him these days (which breaks my heart), so I continue to because he makes me happy and we could all use a little more Liam-centric stories in our lives.

As for Niall, I was blown away by the leaps and bounds of the growth of his vocal talent on Made in the A.M. He really shined on those songs for me, and when his solo career started rolling, I was mesmerized by the way he was going about it. Very deliberate with his choices, taking his time, warming everyone up to the magic he’d been possessing for years. I was floored by his magnetism both as a person and an artist, and it drew me to write about him. While it was completely unexpected because I’d been gone for Liam for quite some time, I don’t regret a single minute of it.

I would absolutely write for Harry, Zayn, or Louis if a story idea struck me. I actually started a Harry story that I stalled with big time because I scared myself out of confidence with the massiveness of writing a story with supernatural elements, but hey, maybe someday!

2. What is one moment from “Regarding Our Ghosts” that you never got to write but want to?

ROG, my OG baby! I’m unbelievably heartbroken that I haven’t been able to finish that fic, because it was a passion project, but it always holds such a solid place in my heart.

In the story, Liam and Lissie were meant to travel home to the UK to visit family for the winter holidays, while Nina and Macy went to see her mother, Noreen, for a few days around Christmas. Over the course of their time apart, I wanted to show how integrated their lives had started to become, with Lissie insisting that she and Liam buy presents for Macy and Nina to give when they returned, and Noreen inquiring after the father-and-daughter pair that Macy couldn’t stop talking about during their visit.

Once Liam returned, he was to drop by Nina’s to catch up with her and see if she needed some help with shoveling snow from the drive. There was a moment in which they laughed and joked and Liam’s laughter made Nina realize how much she’d missed him and it absolutely terrified her because she didn’t have the capacity to put a name to that feeling just yet. There’s a little snippet I wrote on an index card at the place where I used to tutor because it struck me mid-lesson, and I carried that index card in my wallet for years. It went:

He laughs, and oh—oh. His laugh. She missed his laugh. She missed this. She missed Liam.

The feeling settles low in the pit of her stomach, goopy and sweet, and she doesn’t know what to make of it. In her mind, there are little compartments where she sorts out her thoughts and emotions, and as she tries to sort this—that she missed Liam—she can’t. She doesn’t know where to put it.

So she lets it churn in her gut, thickening like a rue, until she can make up her mind.

It was such an important moment for them - a turning point, for Nina at least, realizing that this man she and her daughter had come to rely on in certain ways could be more than just a friend to her. That her feelings could be stronger, and she could maybe feel something for someone again after convincing herself she’d be happy alone if that’s what was meant for her.

Man, I miss that story something fierce, but it stays with me every day.

3. What is one thing you wish you would’ve known before you started writing 1d fic?

That I would get in this deep. Ha. No, honestly, I’m glad that I didn’t have any expectations going in. That’s the best. You learn as you go. Similar to my time writing Jonas Brothers fic, I’ve built some pretty great friendships that I never would have if I hadn’t started writing 1D fic. I even made connections with people who read my Jonas Brothers fanfics but we’d never spoken until I started reading and writing 1D fic!

I’m grateful for the people this has brought into my life, and the opportunity I’ve had to go into this fandom and spend more time honing my craft and getting to shine a light on people of color in my stories, black women specifically. We are so often missing from fiction and that is true from the fanfiction world to the romance novels I read, but our stories are so important and real and as needed as everyone else’s, so I am excited beyond belief that I’ve been able to create several black female characters that have reached out and touched readers of all kinds. I’ve also been able to connect to other authors of color who, like me, write about people who look and think and live like them, and the sense of being seen as a person of color is overwhelming. I hope to see more of it in the future.

4. Who has been your favorite OFC to write? Why?

I’m gonna cheat a bit here because it’s a three-way toss-up between Georgia, Rolly, and Teyana.

Georgia means the world to me because in my previous fandom, I wrote a lot of white OFCs because that was just...what I saw and experienced, and to be honest, I didn’t really think about it much at first. Writing white characters was the “norm”. After a while, I noticed that in seeking out characters who looked like me, I encountered a lot of storylines that featured racism as a conflict between x Jonas Brother’s family and the OFC. It was hard to find stories in which characters were just human beings who happened to be black and faced conflict that had nothing to do with their race. So, I decided to write a story in which that was the case. It opened up my eyes to what I’d been failing to focus on, something that became super important to me the more I reflected on it: seeing black characters represented realistically and in a positive light in fanfiction.

When I eventually came to write 1D fic, I made a very conscious choice to feature black women at the center of my stories, and Georgia was the first. Through her, I was able to show a successful black woman who had started a family with the man she loved, and I was able to showcase little moments of Georgia’s experiences as a black woman that Liam had to learn about, like why she wrapped her hair at night. It sounds like such a small thing, but that was big for me - I couldn’t recall ever seeing that in the writing I’d read thus far, a black woman wrapping her hair at night, so I wrote it. Soon, I had readers coming to me who could relate and said they hadn’t seen it, either. I’ve also had non-black readers who have expressed how much they like the fact that I write about black women, that they enjoy reading stories that focus on people of color. The whole experience has been so moving for me.  It’s made me realize that I am not only doing something I love, but also doing something important.

Rolly Marshall is, in many ways, a reflection of me. I conjured her up when I was a few months into my first year of teaching and overwhelmed, tired, and frustrated beyond belief. She was an escape. I could channel all of the things I loved and dreaded about my job into her and her life, and it was like lifting a weight off my shoulders. Rolly loves her job, like I did, but her experience was one that I created to be more positive than the one I experienced, which has made it both easy and hard to write about her at times. But more than our mutual connection through education, I love Rolly because she feels so genuine to me. She’s awkward and kind-hearted and funny and a good friend to the people in her life. She’s just a good egg. I love her spirit and her humor and that’s a big part of what’s made her such a joy to write. I didn’t expect many people to latch on to her because how many people could really relate to a second grade teacher? To my great surprise, many.

Teyana surprised me with my attachment to her. She and Niall were meant to be a one-time thing, much like Liam and Georgia, but seeing as how those two turned into an eighteen-part thing PLUS a throwback mini-fic, I should’ve known better. It was while I was writing sangria on your lips that I found myself thinking about who Teyana was before she and Niall met. I couldn’t stop thinking about where she came from, building her past. She comes from a single parent home where her father raised her after her mom left. She carries scars from that, from the abandonment she felt when her mom moved on without so much as a single moment to look back. She clung to her Papi and his Cuban culture and grew up with the lessons he instilled in her, including one she taught herself from watching his heart break: that maybe there was no great “one” for her. But that changes when she meets Niall, who challenges everything she thought she could gain from a relationship. He’s truly a partner to her. He has a glimpse into what life is like when your parents aren’t together anymore, so he’s empathetic to what she feels in regards to her mom. He loves her unconditionally. He’s her match, and after years of convincing herself she may never find her match and she’ll be okay with that, Niall is a pleasant surprise, and honestly, he restores her faith in love. She learns she doesn’t need anyone else to make her life complete - her Papi raised her to find that completion all on her own - but having someone to share her life with is a pleasure she’s more than grateful to have.

5. Which one of your fic boys was your favorite to write? Why?

Different Strokes Liam has been my all-time favorite. He’s driven and passionate about his work, completely committed to his family, and there’s a warmth, humor, and sexiness to him that has made him so much fun to write since I began. I love that I can paint him as a complete and utter sop in one piece, a classic romantic in another, and a confident master of seduction in the next. He’s confident and often sure of himself but not immune to insecurities. He’s got different facets, and I love getting to focus on each one at different times as the series shifts.

The Different Strokes series was something that spawned from what was supposed to be a stand-alone one-shot, but I found myself attached to the little family I built for Liam, Georgia, and their son Carter, and my mind expanded upon writing little snippets of them - glimpses of them as Carter grew, as their lives changed, as their family expanded. I am a big fan of established relationships, and I grew so attached to watching Liam mature and change as both a father and a husband. Liam in real life seems to have such a compassionate heart, and before he even became a father, I had a good feeling that he would be a great one and getting to write about him as both a father to his children and a partner to his wife has been such a joy. And with Checkpoints, my mini-fic in the series, I’ve been able to go back to when he and Georgia first met and began seeing each other and it’s been nothing but fun to write!

If not for DS Liam, I wouldn’t have fallen as in love with writing 1D fic as I have, so I am grateful every day for the opportunity I’ve had to expand upon his character and the incredible life he’s built for himself. Writing him has led to writing many other projects that I adore, and I can’t wait to see what’s next for me as a writer.

#aom #march aom #1dcraftawards #1dff

[earwaxinggibbous]

10 Worst Hits of 2018!

I hate the 2018 hit list.

I hate all the artists we brought back. I hate all the new ones we got. I hate the fact that Lil Peep kicked the bucket without getting on the hot 100 but XXXfuckassaton got three hits. I hate that nothing off of Kamikaze reached the year end hot 100 despite it being one of the only good hip-hop albums that dropped this year. I hate that we’re all alive and that Tumblr has banned porn. But life goes on.

Bad hit songs. Bing bang boom.

Fair warning, I’m gonna be hitting a lot of trigger topics including abuse, pedophilia and rape.

10. Lucid Dreams - Juice WRLD

Before I say anything, can I just point out that ‘Juice WRLD’ is one of the absolute worst rap names I’ve ever heard in my entire life.

Anyway, Lucid Dreams.

I feel like rap music has been having a lot of sad pathetic break-up songs lately. And this won’t be the last one, absolutely not. Pretty much everything about Lucid Dreams, much like a seizing, dying epileptic old man, is wriggling and frothing uselessly in a puddle of its own filth. With nothing to do but choke out on a mouthful of blood it can only try to scream weakly through a pool of foamy spit that’s settling towards the back of its throat. It’s sad in the same way that ASPCA commercials are sad, as opposed to how a good break-up song feels.

As Juice WRLD brokely copies the beat of Lil Uzi Vert’s smash hit XO Tour Llif3 from last year, and also randomly samples a song by Sting, he stumbles weakly through lyric after insipid lyric that sounds like it was written by a 13-year-old. I tried to find an example of specific bad lyrics but holy shit, I’d honestly be better off just putting the lyric genius page here, complete with verified translations of this lyrical xanax binge from our boy Juice WRLD himself.

It’s a break-up song, but it’s as whiny as one can get. With Juice WRLD claiming “evil girls have the prettiest face” (gag) and insisting the girl in this song “wants him dead”. His whimpery vocals don’t help any part of this droning septic tank that I can only describe as the closest similarity we’ll ever get between a song and the pokemon Muk.

Even the music video is just a shittier version of XO Tour Llif3, and while it’s honestly more interesting than the other 75% of rap videos, what does it really add? I can only imagine that whoever was directing it realized this song has literally nothing going for it other than the possibility that stoners and pill-poppers will mistake it for XO Tour Llif3 if they’re high enough and threw in some surrealist imagery with the excuse being that, well, it’s titled Lucid Dreams. 

Really the most egregious thing about this song is that, in the lyric genius page, Juice WRLD goes on some tangent about how popping pills isn’t cool and he was popping pills “before it was cool” and now kids are doing it. Hey Hi-C, you know these kids look up to people like you, right? Why not actually make a song about how doing drugs is bad instead of just offhandedly mentioning how you used to pop pills to, quote, “feel a-okay”? Not that I’m assuming you ever thought of that when you were writing this, most likely dosed up on a gallon of cough syrup.

Then again, I dunno if I wanna be preached to by the man who wrote a song titled All Girls Are The Same.

A lot of songs this year were underwritten and boring. Lucid Dreams isn’t the worst offender, but it’s definitely the saddest. And I don’t think it was sad the way ol’ Juicy Juice was intending. Personally, I’d rather just drink the kool-aid.

Blurgh... Muk cannot change you... Muk must replace you...

9. Meant to Be - Bebe Rexha ft. Florida Georgia Line

Is it bad that I honestly wasn’t sure who was the feature and who was the headline of this song?

Anyway, here we have Florida Georgia Line returning for another year of meathead bro-country crap and Bebe Rexha returning for another year of having literally no personality whatsoever with a song that has so little substance it may as well just be air.

I’ve never really extrapolated my thoughts on Bebe, mostly because she’s a complete and utter non-presence in every track she appears on. I honestly didn’t even realize she had a music career of her own, I felt like she just existed to feature on everyone else’s shitty music. What the hell is she gonna sing about besides the damn factory she was built in?

I’ve also never extrapolated my thoughts on Florida Georgia Line.

Here’s what I’m imagining their brains look like:

Yeah. So a combination between two walking cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon and a literal sex robot. What can go wrong? Well. Everything.

With a title like Meant to Be, you’d think it’s about running screaming into a relationship because you know it’s gonna work. Not so, as it’s actually about staying relaxed in a relationship. We got time, right? At least that’s what like, 75% of it is about that.

Bebe seems more than ready to rush in and get sloppy, but you think Florida Georgia Line are 100% ready to enter a steady relationship with a dead person? I wouldn’t be.

The production is just a piano and some sad trap drums, so basically every other Florida Georgia Line song. It has nothing going for it other than maybe masturbating to the music video and Bebe’s sweet, sweet inflatable titties trying desperately to crawl their way out of her country girl flannel.

And that’s really it.

You tried.

(Or did you?)

8. Friends - Marshmello ft. Anne-Marie

Aww! They’re so cute.

Marshmello is kind of a cryptid to me. I never really understood the whole trend of producers and DJs wearing these weird things on their head. And part of me, well, all of me feels like Marshmello rides purely on quirkiness alone.

Look at him! He’s so wacky!

The production on this isn’t bad per se, other than this high-pitched squeal they drop into the final chorus, but it’s definitely not great and kinda has me wondering why Marshmello is basically producer of the year despite not doing anything much more interesting than all the other producers. At best he has a little bit more energy behind him.

Anne-Marie has apparently, allegedly existed before this year, but I have literally no recollection of any song by her. But if this song is anything to go by, she’s annoying and sucks.

Friends touts itself as “the friendzone anthem” and tries to be relatable to teenage girls who’ve had to friendzone a boy, and if I had to guess this is sort of in response to all the friendzone songs from 2016 like Treat You Better. This would be fine except 1. you’re two years late, 2. nobody wants to hear a friendzone anthem and 3. this song is the highest level of cuntiness anyone can comprehend.

Here’s the thing about the concept of the friendzone. Nobody sits around wanting to friendzone people. Nobody is chilling in their bedroom with their friends wishing they could have a friend who has a crush on them and then that friend is like “I like you” so they can be like “uhh we’re just friends”.

Which is why we don’t really need an anthem for it.

The friendzone sucks. It’s not even a real problem, dudes just make it a problem because apparently being friends isn’t good enough for them. Nobody wants to have a friend who’s crushing on them, nobody’s happy about that. And the catty Mean Girls tone that Anne-Marie takes to it makes it seem like she’s a strong independent woman trouncing on the hearts of men like some kind of TERF horse when really nobody feels that way when having to “friendzone” a person.

Plus judging by the lyrics, this guy is showing up at 2 AM in the rain. At some point you need to stop being friends when he starts obsessively stalking you, maybe a few words to consider would be R-E-S-T-R-A-I-N-I-N-G O-R-D-E-R.

Women have the right to see their male friends as just that. But nobody is proud of having to do it. It’s not a point of pride, it’s just a choice people make, like what shirt they wanna wear in the morning. Trying to sell it as some kind of bootleg female empowerment anthem is pathetic.

Also I swear to god she spells friends as “F-R-I-N-D-S” in the chorus.

“We’re just frinds, Deadmau5.”

7. Yes Indeed - Lil Baby and Drake

Who the good god damn is Lil Baby? I’d never actually heard of him until someone in my music history class gave us a presentation on Lil Baby and how cool he is. I’d literally never heard of the guy before, because I never really listen to any of these hits until the end of the year.

Turns out Lil Baby is just another mumble-rapper, this time jacking his style from Young Thug. Color me surprised, I guess. How come none of the mumble rappers I actually like came back this year? No Desiigner, no Lil Uzi Vert, no Lil Xan? No. Fuck you. You get Juice WRLD and Lil Baby, two of the worst rap names on the planet.

He’s on the list of rappers made famous by Drake, and Drake had a monster year this year. Even with me living in a hole I knew the impact God’s Plan had, but apparently all 25 of his crummy songs charted at some point. That is 25 monotonous Drake songs circulating through the radio stations, 25 Drake songs constantly weighing on the shoulders of the collective public, and 25 Drake songs even his detractors probably knew all the words to just through exposure. Even I’m sick of the guy, and I have Hotline Bling on my Google Play Music library.

Yes Indeed is honestly void of things to say about it. Drake is boring, Lil Baby has one of the worst voices in recent history I can think of, the beat is nothing, it’s just a nothing song. The only noteworthy thing about it is that Lil Baby references Pikachu, a big mistake, as Young Thug also referenced Pikachu on one of his first hits. Though I’ll admit a yellow car has more similarities to the electric mouse pokemon than diamonds do.

What bothers me about this song is less the song itself, as the song is a non-presence, but moreso that in a world where streaming has finally seeped its way into the Hot 100, we have come to the conclusion that this is what people want to hear. They wanna hear Yes Indeed. And I just don’t get it.

Also, “waah waah waah, bitch I’m a baby”. High art.

6. Te Bote - A whole shitload of people

I feel like Spanish reggaeton has been an on-and-off interest of the American public. But it really reached a head recently thanks to Despacito, which all Alexa memes aside, is a great fucking song. But the fruits of its labor have been less than impressive, from last year’s goat-screeching jam Mi Gente to whatever the hell this is.

It’s nice knowing that foreigners write music as shitty as we do.

The title, Te Bote, roughly translates to “I dump you”. But it can be read much harsher in Spanish as bote is often the verb people use to describe tossing out garbage. And boy, is this song... uh... you know.

I don’t like to barf out the word “misogyny” constantly just because, well, anything can be misogynistic if you look deep enough. There’s a point where even I, the ratty little feminist I am, just don’t care. But Jesus, referring to your woman as garbage in the most backhanded way is... wow.

But I’ll be honest, being an English speaking moron, I don’t care about the lyrics. My problems run much deeper than blatant misogyny and pettiness.

Namely that this song sounds like ass.

Te Bote has six artists on it. Six artists, and not a single one sounds good. Most of them are squealy. I don’t actually know who’s who except Ozuna and Bad Bunny. Ozuna is considered one of the worst Spanish artists of today, and I can see why, because he just straight-up sounds like the lovechild of Akon and Lloyd.

As for Bad Bunny, I was slightly more drawn in by him because he looks like a cross between Blackbear and Pitbull, and I dunno if he’s dropped any other better singles, but on this he straight-up sounds like Barney the Dinosaur. Not as much as Lil Yachty, but still. Most of the others sound like autotuned mice, but there’s one guy who tries some kind of low-voiced speed-rapping and it sounds weird and wrong. The production is nothing notable, and uses the bum, bum-bum drumline of literally every reggaeton and Spanish pop song including Despacito.

And I could forgive all of that.

But let’s look at this for a moment. Each artist has their own verse. That’s six verses. Six verses plus five choruses, one pre-chorus, an intro and an outro. And how much does that add up to?

Nearly seven minutes.

Seven minutes of the same beat. Seven minutes of basically the same kinds of singers. Seven minutes of misogynistic lyrics. Seven minutes of garbage, garbage, garbage. Imagine listening to this whole thing. There are people on this earth who have actually sat through this whole garbage song multiple times and thought, “yeah. I like this.” 

I mean of course Te Bote barely got any radio play, it’s nearly 7 minutes long with no breaks. So obviously some massive group of people had to be streaming it and listening to it by choice.

5. Taste - Tyga ft. Offset

Remember Tyga? He was one of the Young Money rappers that didn’t completely fall off after the 2000′s, along with Nikki Minaj and Drake. But after he put out $timulated, a song about how he fucked a 17-year-old Kylie Jenner but, in the words of Slim Shady, “look at her bush: do it got hair?”

we all dropped him, because that’s fucking gross. Kylie Jenner dumped him and is now dating someone else, I forget who because I don’t care. And with us having to deal with 6ix9ine I was comfortable leaving Tyga in the wastelands. 

Honestly? The only reason this song is even here is because it’s a return Tyga single. I’m not even mad about Freaky Friday, because like, whatever, it made me laugh like a stupid idiot, but this? We asked for this. A Tyga single in 2018, about nothing, with a nothing beat, and Offset still bragging that he’s the best member of Migos when that’s like being the twinkiest member of One Direction. And once again, people actively wanted to hear this song about nothing in a year full of songs about nothing that, at the very least aren’t by pedophiles.

I don’t even wanna talk about this anymore.

4. I’m Upset - Drake

Me fucking too.

Like I said, Drake dropped 25 songs on his new album Scorpion, and all of them became hits. The worst of which, in my opinion, being I’m Upset. Just look at that title. That’s how your father talks to you when you slam a window open with a baseball and he walks through the glass shards. 

This one has backstory, my favorite, longtime rival Pusha-T stated in some song that Drake actually had a secret child with a porn star and was planning on using that kid for like, an Adidas sponsorship or something. Which is fucked up. And at least part of that has been confirmed on Drake’s end, he did have a secret son with a porn star.

And then Scorpion and I’m Upset dropped. And it sucked. All of it.

The chorus of I’m Upset is weirdly catchy, but the beat is like every other Drake beat, Drake himself sounds about as upset as he can convey, which is very little, and it’s all just really really boring soundwise. When Drake goes on for long enough he begins to just sound like a bunch of bees. Bees, bees, bees, nothing but bees. And I’m tired of Drake bees! I’m sick of it! I don’t want anymore!

Anyway, lyrically the gist of I’m Upset is about how Drake doesn’t like paying alimony, and NO.

BAD DRAKE! BAD! BAD RAPPER! GO TO YOUR ROOM!

You do not get to be a world-famous rapper with fuckillions of dollars to your name and get to whine and bitch about paying alimony to your baby mama. You don’t get to roll on the floor whimpering about how your evil harpy whore of a porn star one-night-stand is (legally) receiving money from you to take care of the son that YOU ditched. 

You had 25 hits this year. 25. And you’re getting pissy because you have to pay and I quote fifty to a hundred thousand dollars child support. For you that should be nothing. You are practically drowning in money, and if you really don’t wanna pay child support you could, I dunno, raise your goddamn son instead of leaving him in the hands of someone who probably barely makes a fraction in a year of what you make in a month?

Look, say what you want about Eminem. At least he was a good father on record, and if he isn’t a good one in real life I’ll be very very shocked.

I’m upset too, Drake.

3. Roll in Peace - Kodak Black ft. XXXTENTACION

I fUCKING HATE KODAK BLACK

Might wanna consider writing stuff down, Kodes.

May I call you Kodes?

Anyway, Roll In Peace is the only song on this list that isn’t ACTUALLY in the Year End Hot 100, but I couldn’t just let it slide. Not when it’s a collab beween Kodak Black and XXX. Not when it sounds like ass and feels like being shot.

If Drake sounds like bees then Kodak sounds like mosquitos, right in your ear, in the deepest parts that can only be reached by one of those earwax slurping tools. The beat has that flute again, probably because it’s half of what made Tunnel Vision famous. (The other half being controversy of course.) X’s verse has like, two lines to do with the actual plot of this song. And what is the plot?

Oh, poor pitiful Kodak can’t roll in peace. Poor Kodak Black can’t have any time to himself! The media is just all over him and X for no reason whatsoever! He’s never done anything wrong, other than, oh I don’t know, the rape allegations? The abuse? Armed robbery? Assault? That one time X nearly killed a gay dude in prison for no reason other than the gay part?

Yeah, fuck you.

You can’t “roll in peace” because you don’t have the right to anymore. You are a bad person. And X, when he was alive, was a bad person too. Sure maybe he was claiming to be working on self-improvement, but the only way I’d believe it is if I saw it, and it’s too late for that now.

As long as you refuse to apologize, you will not “roll in peace”. As long as you don’t see that you have done something wrong and continue to blame it on systemic racism which is a very real thing that you continue to trivialize again and again so you can avoid your rape allegations, you aren’t allowed to have any peace in your goddamn fucking life.

You can’t try to deflect it on Lil Uzi who posts Satanic imagery on his Instagram despite wearing a Jesus piece. You don’t get to deflect. You get nothing, and you deserve to go broke and fuck off.

There’s a joke I can make, but it’s too soon.

2. Gummo - 6ix9ine

Oh, okay, I can do this.

Uh, Gummo is this really good movie directed by Harmony Korine about some kids in this town that was totally wrecked by a tornado. And after that everything’s in shambles, so these kids can just do whatever they wa...

Oh. Oh dammit.

GOD IS DEAD GOD IS DEAD GOD IS DEAD.

So imagine you’re me looking at the Hot 100 for one of the very first times about a year ago, and you see a song titled after one of your favorite flicks of all time. And sure, it’s being sung by a guy who looks like a Lisa Frank condom, but god you just love that movie so much. And sure, Nicole Dollanganger has already made songs referencing that movie, but you want MORE.

Then you play it and it has literally nothing to do with it.

It’s loud and obnoxious and stupid and has a very clearly hispanic dude dropping the n-word like he fucking owns it. He’s just screaming these nonsense lyrics about nothing. And it’s not like I just don’t get songs with screaming. I have the entirety of Carcass’ Reek of Putrefaction on my phone. But this? This sucks. It sucks! The beat doesn’t fit at all and no matter how I look at it it wouldn’t fit anywhere else, and 6ix9ine’s flow is the death of all art. The only thing he can do, much like a child in a well, is scream and scream and scream and it’s horrible.

And trust me.

This was far before I knew of 6ix9ine’s baggage.

In case you don’t know somehow, this Rainbow Brite little fucker was actually convicted of filming a sex tape of a 13-year-old. While I don’t think he actually had sex with her, he was at some level sexually involved with her.

How did we respond? We gave the ugly fucker a hit. And his hit was this. Where he directly references his sexual involvement with this 13-YEAR-OLD GIRL.

He doesn’t give a shit. And he knows his fans don’t either. He continues to release low-effort garbage music, and in an interview about FEFE he even openly stated that he doesn’t put any effort into writing lyrics. He doesn’t try, he’s a bad person, and his blind fanbase continues to shower him in money like he deserves it. 

We’re idiots.

An awful song made by an awful person. The only way to hold a candle to it would be, well, an even worse song made by an awful person.

Anyway, dishonorable mentions.

FEFE - 6ix9ine ft. Nikki Minaj

This song sucks too. And Nikki Minaj should be ashamed for working with this fuckhead.

God’s Plan - Drake

I’m almost definitely a minority in absolutely loathing this song, but I can’t stand it. It’s not structured, there’s no flow to it, it just feels like a whole lot of nothing with no point. And while I will give it to Drake that throwing money at homeless people is a really good thing regardless of why he did it, it was still a super obvious publicity stunt.

Plug Walk - Rich The Kid

Boring.

Girls Like You - Maroon 5 ft. Cardi B

Also boring. My tolerance for Maroon 5 has lasted way longer than anyone else’s, but I think it’s about time we let them go.

I Like Me Better - Lauv

I’ll be honest, the only part of this song I really hate is the weird synth interludes. The singing is fine, the content is fine, it’s all the perfect level of mediocre without that violin fart synth. 

No Brainer - The ‘I’m The One’ crew, but we replaced Wayne with an actual baby

Really just an even less interesting version of I’m The One, but without Li’l Wayne. Also Justin Bieber kind of looks like a trucker now, and I hate to say it, but that’s the most attractive he’s ever been in my opinion.

Freaky Friday - Li’l Dicky ft. Chris Brown

I’ll be honest, I actually love this song. It’s funny to me, I mean, maybe I’m a simple-minded man, but a good dick joke can send me off the rails. But I’m still at least a little miffed that we’re letting Chris Brown have money, so it gets a mention.

Gucci Gang - Li’l Pump

It would be here if it wasn’t also a hit last year. Consider this a placeholder for any crossover hits I didn’t like, like Mi Gente, Perfect, Believer, and Sorry Not Sorry.

Let’s do number one. And if you know me, you know what this is. If you don’t, don’t just immediately get pissed with me when you read it. Okay? We’re good here? Alright.

1. SAD! - XXXTENTACION

So here’s a fun little sobstory for you. Less than a year ago, my boyfriend introduced me to this great artist. They were in a really oversaturated genre but doing something completely different with it, and I fell in love immediately with their dark topics, interesting production, cool music videos, and general aesthetic. And their name was not XXXTENTACION, it was Melanie Martinez.

Late last year she was pressed with a rape allegation, and one that couldn’t be proved either way. Desperately I scraped through the bowels of the internet in search of something that could disprove it and came back largely empty-handed and wounded. Because Melanie’s music meant a lot to me, and I do mean that. I couldn’t sleep. I wasn’t sure what to do knowing that a person I’d based my own aesthetic, my own writing, my art, and my music on would do something like that. I tried to force myself not to listen to her music, but it just wasn’t possible. 

Over time the wound scabbed up and closed and I finally gave up and decided to split the art from the artist, feeling like at the very least I wasn’t directly giving her any money by downloading her music on Google Play. But I’ll still never be able to get back the way she used to make me feel.

So what I’m saying is, I get it.

I’ve actually gone and listened to a few of X’s songs on my own before doing this. And I put myself in the mind of me a year ago discovering a new artist without those preconceptions. And I felt it. I don’t know how, but I did. I felt it. I listened to Look At Me, and I felt like if I’d heard it before I knew what X had done, I’d probably love it. Sure the production is a fucking disaster but the lyrics are just the kind of shock rap that entertains me. The production on Moonlight is really interesting and while I didn’t think Changes was very good and kind of guilt trippy, I could definitely understand it.

But then I circled back around to SAD!

And I lost it.

Something about this song just kills all the good will I might have ever had for this kid or his fans. And really it’s all because of one line, and everyone probably knows what that line is already.

So according to lyric genius this line might not actually mean what I think it means and could potentially be referring to X’s friend Jocelyn Flores, who took her own life tragically. And though on X’s song about her and every time he addresses her he seems to make it all about himself, he really did seem wounded by it. He seemed like a wounded, mentally fucked-up person who needed help.

Except that this song is about Geneva.

The girlfriend he allegedly abused.

The girlfriend who was pregnant, who he abused, and judging by this line, who he is now performing the age-old manipulation tactic of threatening suicide if she ever leaves on. 

When I remove this song from context, there’s no way of excusing that line. The rest of it I can understand, and he really does seem emotional in the verses, and I know we’ve all been in a place at some point of being somehow spurned by a lover and still missing them in spite of it. But to threaten suicide if they try to leave is inexcusable.

His voice sounds fine, and the beat is once again stolen from XO Tour Llif3, but there’s a point where I can’t really care about it. Because children do listen to this kind of music. And along with Melanie Martinez, this song brings me back to when I was young and one of my favorite songs was What The Hell by Avril Lavigne. A song about cheating on your S/O and not seeing a problem with it. My sister and I would sing and dance to that song all the time, so much that I never really realized what it was about, or that there was anything wrong with it. Not until I was an adult and I looked back on it. And wouldn’t you know it, children can sing along to SAD! too.

I know X is dead. And I know it’s not my business to dictate how people should feel about things. Geneva deserves the right to be sad about X’s death, and she forgives him, even though I really don’t. But the way people have treated her especially after X died is inexcusable, and it’s in part because he wrote songs like this. He didn’t just manipulate her. He manipulated everyone. Every single one of his fans probably really did think he would kill himself if his girlfriend left her. And yes, X is on record having thoughts of suicide, I would never take that from someone.

I used to have a close friend who would feign a panic attack every time someone criticized him. It felt like he was threatening suicide once a week. And I always supported him because I cared about him. It was exhausting. I ostracized people because they knew he was a bad person. I shut people, good people, out of my life because they wanted to help, and I said bad things to them. Eventually we fell out and I was left cold and alone with nobody left to take me back, and I slugged through mud for a year just to pick myself back up.

I can imagine that’s kind of what being an XXXTENTACION fan is like.

And like me, with any luck, they’ll regret saying the things they did too.

That’s all for this year. I’ll get to the best when I have more energy, but now I just can’t.

#panda posts #top 10 #worst hits of 2018 #top 10 worst hits of 2018 #pop song review #negative review

[chocobostrinket]

Hibiscus

LeviathanxReader

Notes: PFFT This is a pairing I never thought I’d be writing, but I saw this odd/hilarious/cool post about how to woo Leviathan. Like, this small idea took off in my head and the only way to get it out was to write it. (This is all @joioliviapolaroid‘s fault pfft, hope you don’t mind I wrote this.)

Summary: You’ve spent your life in love with the sea, and she just happened to like you enough not to kill you on sight the first time you met. 2969 words. 

It started when you were young.

At the time, you were a child playing in the ocean. The waves pushed at your shins as you danced in the tide. The water was a soundless song, the tempo dictated by the moon’s cycle. Part of you wondered why the water followed it so closely, but the rest of you didn’t want to think, enjoying the water in the way only a child could. You saw beauty and peace where adults would look at the waves with fear.

Maybe that’s why you saw her.

Playing in the water had caused you to lose track of time. The sun was almost all the way down, and moon just beginning to rise. A rare twilight, where both moonlight and sunlight met on the beach. What pulled you out of your revelry was the sight of a woman in the water as you were. Only she wasn’t dancing. She stood still and looked to the horizon.

She was gorgeous, in a way you couldn’t quite name. Her skin was dark, the color of sharp rocks near the cliff, darkened by the water that was constantly sharpening their points. A rich black that could only come from the combination of earth and sea. Across her body were bright blue tattoos. So reflective was the ink, it was as if the waves depicted on her were taken right from the sea in the middle of a bright sunny day. Her face was warm and strong, and her eyes were hard. But not cold. Rather, they were deep. Dark and soothing. There was no other way to describe them. And her dress blended seamlessly with the sea foam at her ankles, flowing around her legs as if there was a gentle breeze.

And while she was so gorgeous, you were a child. So the only thing you fixated on was the bright red flower tucked behind her ear, held in place by her many braids. It didn’t take long for you to walk up to her, and while normally, the sight of another person to play with would have brought you running, something inside you told you to walk. To be on your best behavior. And upon reaching her, she turned to look at you, a subtle look of surprise on her face. With her eyebrows slightly raised, she knelt in the water to be on your level.

“Hi.” You said softly, shyly, which was out of character for you. “Why do you have that flower in your hair?”

She tilted her head slightly, and seemed to regard you with rarely used curiosity. When she spoke, it was the same song of the tides that met your ears.

“It was made for me, and so it is my favorite.”

And with that, she rose back to her feet, seemingly having sated her curiosity.

“Child, run back the way you came.” Without touching your shoulders, she guided you to turn around. “Go, and do not look back.”

With words so grave, you felt compelled to listen, and did as she wished. It wasn’t until you were back on the grass further up from the beach, your family’s home in sight, that you felt safe enough to turn around. You watched as she stepped out of the water, and walked along the beach. But then, while you were watching, she slowly faded out of sight. Where her hand had hovered above your shoulder, a mark of two lines appeared. Like her own tattoos, they depicted waves. Only, it looked like a birthmark rather than the blue of her own, and for years to come would be unnoticed by you.

That night, your mother told you to story of Leviathan, a feared beast, the anger of the ocean. Mother of the tides and spirit of the deep. Your mother also told you of how people used to worship her, pray to her, and she never listened. Taking loved ones and drowning them. The vicious waves and currents that could steal someone from the beach if they dared turn their back on her. Cruelly ending lives before they’d begun. People vanishing on the water never to be seen again. She was to be feared, reviled, but respected.

But that day, the woman had given you a gift. Now, when you looked at the tides, the song that was once silence had turned into symphonies of creation and destruction in equal measure.

~

When you were a teenager, you’d gone back to the beach many times, nearly daily, hoping to get a glimpse of the woman again. The threat of daemons rising from the sands nearby, and the long trek home in the dark, did not daunt you. You’d learned from the hunters how to evade, and were aided by the sand refusing to give under your feet when you ran. Of course danger was ever present, but there was no where you felt safer than the beach.

Now that you were older, you were sure that the woman you had seen that day had been the goddess of the sea herself. Only, you’d never seen her again after that night. But you held faith in your heart, and had nothing but kind thoughts for the goddess. In the water, before the sunset and after the moon rose, you would leave flowers on the edge of the waves. Red ones. Always red. The next morning when you’d come back, some of them would be returned to you, sitting on the sand as if the water had rejected them.

But the red hibiscus flowers were always gone.

Eventually, you’d stopped bringing all others, and even made a ritual out of talking to the waves about your day when you’d sent them. As long as you knew that someone was there, listening silently, it helped you when you were hurt, and made you happy when you weren’t. Occasionally, on certain days, you’d whisper old prayers that you’d learned from an old woman in town. Ones that still remembered the goddess before her rage, and offered her the respect and reverence that had been stripped from her when all that man spoke of was her anger.

They spoke of protection, and of a long-forgotten title.

Sometimes, you’d read from your journal that you kept of writing and drawings. Poems you’d written for her, made from the memory of a child who didn’t know she was supposed to be feared. And as you aged, you spoke of her beauty, never mentioning the danger she was known for. You wrote of the sea as a person, capable of anger and love. Some of them were ever written to the melody of the waves, becoming instead songs of the sea. Drawings of the memory of her tattoos, colored to match their brilliance. But you’d never been able to capture their exact color. Portraits of her eyes. The hem of her dress as it had blended into the foam. There were also drawings of ships and sailors preparing to leave the shores. Or the hibiscus flowers you grew and would pick just for the ocean.

And for the first time that day, you’d finished a journal.

As you thumbed through its contents while sitting on the sand, you realized you didn’t know what to do with it. Poems no one else had read, drawings never seen by anyone but you.

It felt right, when you cast it into the waves with the flower.

“It’s for you.” Was all you said that day, and then you turned and left to go back home.

~

As an adult, people were beginning to whisper about you. You’d grown unparalleled in beauty, unrivaled in kindness, and known for having a strange connection to the sea. There were many suitors that you’d rejected in your small seaside town, and all would meet unlucky fates at the hands of the waves. As if the sea itself was warning them away from trying again. And for the few that insisted on trying to force you into a relationship you didn’t want, it was rare they came back from their next trip on the sea.

Some began calling you Leviathan’s kindness. Her priestess. The woman who was given gifts from the waves. Whereas people knew that the goddess was anything but kind and would only hurt those who dared to try crossing her waters, you could heal with what she would use to hurt.

Women would come to you for multiple reasons. Some for love spells, to give a man’s heart a nudge, or to grant him the courage needed take the next step. Those spells were easy, but would take time. Others to escape. For a way out of their situation. To heal their bruises and their souls. Those were longer, but took effect almost instantly.

“Take this seashell, and when you see him next, crush it over your heart. And then you shall be free from the love you feel for him.” You told one woman, who’s eye you had helped heal with sea water when it had been swollen shut. You ensured that she wouldn’t be blind in that eye, and the rest of her bruises, after being massaged with a paste of hibiscus petals and sea foam, were gone by the next day.

You placed the seashell in a sachet of linen, easily hidden in the front pocket of the woman’s shirt, and handed it to her. “Then you must take a boat away from here, but have no destination in mind. Cast away your oars and lay down in the boat and sleep. She will take care of you if you trust her. When you arrive at safety, throw a bottle with words you feel are right back into the water.”

“Thank you,” The woman said, “Thank you so much.”

Others began to call you a sea witch.

“Where is she?!” The man raged, days after the woman’s visit, throwing the things in your home into disarray. Papers strew about in rage, books thrown carelessly on the floor, bottles of water upended, and seashells, the gifts the sea left for you, smashed to pieces. Outside, you could feel a storm building in your bones.

With the sea behind you outside the window, with its song ever present, you were brave.

“Gone. You’ll never hurt her again.”

Your eyes were as cold as the sea in winter, and he continued raging. The man wanted to get his way. He threw a piece of broken bottle at you, it’s jagged end catching your cheek. You allowed the blood to drip down your face and fall to the floor, where it mixed with the sea water he’d spilled. The cut was deep, but you didn’t care.

But she did.

The sound of a bellowing scream came from the sea, and the man paled.

“Witch!” He spat, before fleeing your home to run back to the town.

You’d never heard that sound from the sea before, and went outside to see what could have made it. But also, to show that you were unharmed. And the only thing you saw was the crashing of the waves on the sand.

~

That night, the song changed. Creation had never sounded so soft, nor destruction so soothing. Barefooted, you left your home and walked down to the beach, and then into the water to stand where you were when you were a child. This time it was fully night, but the moon was already setting. Yet, even with the difference, you could feel her there. You took a few steps further out into the sea, and waited. And when you felt that it was time, you turned around.

There she stood, ankle deep in the ocean, looking exactly as she did all those years ago. It was as if she had never left that spot. But this time she beckoned to you. The movement was like a siren’s call, and you couldn’t do anything else but follow.

Slow measured steps, following her at a respectable distance. You never took your eyes off her, a feeling warning you away from doing so. Not that you wanted to. The woman, goddess, you’d been talking to and offering prayers for years was in front of you. The same deity that granted you gifts and your connection to the sea. Why would you look away?

Upon stepping on the sand, it felt different, but you didn’t dare look down. It was as soft as powder, yet you knew if she willed it, it could shred your feet in seconds. It was the feeling of the sand, cool yet warm under your feet, that let you know this wasn’t the beach you had just been on. No, this was a place between the water and the sea sand of your home. A place only she could come.

And she’d brought you.

You followed her on this endless beach, the water behaving strangely to the right of you. Your connection to the water, to her, allowed you the knowledge of knowing not to touch the water again now that you’d left it. The song was wrong.

When the sun started rising, you could see a small cottage. The wood was weathered, like it had seen many sea storms and was rubbed smooth by the sand around it. She entered first, and given that she hadn’t told you to stop following, you went inside too.

Your eyes, even though you just came in from outside, didn’t need to adjust to the change in lighting. A strange sort of ease settled over you the moment you came through the door. It was like coming home. And all around the cottage, you could see the flowers you’d sent her. Eternally kept alive, some gathered in bushels, some strung up on the walls. But the best ones had their stems held in the pages of the journals she had collected over the years.

When you went to walk further into the cottage, strong arms wrapped around you from behind. Her skin was cool and thrummed with energy unending. You wanted nothing more than to turn around to see her face. But you held still. One of her hands drifted up to your face, turning your injured side toward her. You closed your eyes the moment she pressed a kiss to the cut, and suppressed a hiss of pain as it healed. The healing she did always felt like rubbing salt in the wound until it was finished.

After she finished, it was then that she reached down and held your hands in hers, trapping you in her embraces and your own. You leaned back, pressing your head against her shoulder, and finally allowed yourself to look up at her. She met your stare with her own, and you found something like love there. You knew that gods could not love like mortals do, but what was in her eyes rant as deep as the deepest part of her domain.

It was then that she interrupted your thoughts. Her hand resting against your cheek again, she leaned down and pressed a kiss to the corner of your mouth, teasing. But then she pressed her lips to your and let you turn around in her arms. Her hand then slid back to fist in your hair, pulling your head back to kiss at your neck, lingering on your pulse. It felt like the tide had swept you away and soon you lost yourself to her.

~

It was after, when you lay in a tangle of blankets at her side, with her eyes watching your every move, that you spoke.

“Why me?” You asked, your voice as small as the day you met. You were human, insignificant compared to the eternity of her life. And while you loved her, you knew it was not returned. A god couldn’t feel love as a human does after all.

She was silent for a moment, appearing to gather her thoughts while tracing your collar bones with feather light touches. But then her hand trailed over to your shoulder and slowly, she began to hold you so tightly, her nails began to leave indents in your skin.

“I think you were made for me, and so you are my favorite.” Was her answer, and a part of you felt uneasy at the thought of being a belonging of the goddess. But another part of you recalled her fondness of the Hibiscus flower, and how it has spanned centuries. Since the first moment, according to the story, that Titan created it and gifted it to her, in memory of a woman she had failed to protect, coloring the petals with the woman’s blood.

And so you smiled, and leaned forward to press another, this time chaste, kiss to her mouth which she gladly returned.

~

All the town’s people found on the beach, the night after you went missing, was your footsteps going into the tide. Some side that Leviathan had finally killed the last of her compassion, and now only her anger was left. But the women whispered of Leviathan calling you home. Of you having gone to her side as your reward for being so faithful to the sea.

Sometimes, people would see the image of you walking on the beach, hand in hand with a woman who’s features no one could quite make out. And it is said, to this very day, that if you were in trouble and needed to find safety, that you could walk the beach and a woman might appear before you, offering advice and magic to aid you. People, every year on the day you vanished, would set red hibiscus flowers onto the sea. Both for Leviathan, and the woman who remembered that the goddess, though thought of as cruel, was kind.

#ffxv #final fantasy xv #ff15 #final fantasy 15 #reader insert #readerxleviathan #Leviathanxreader #writing #writings #ffxv writing #ffxv writings #Leviathan #ffxv leviathan #does this count as a crack ship? #lol #ffxv fanfiction #I can't think of any other tags. #Thanks to that one anon who fully supported this lmao #also over on ao3 #joioliviapolaroid #the twenty-four au #the twenty-four #the twenty four