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fixyourwritinghabits · 10 months

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Hi!

I've recently finished my first draft and I'm ready to get to work on the second.

My autism makes it hard to use those "tips and tricks" people usually have, so I thought about working out a step by step for myself instead, but I have no clue where to start?

Hope you can help or point me in the right direction, as I'm at my wits end.

I don't have any grand secrets, unfortunately. I've attempted to read many, many books on editing, trying to discover the secret that I appear to be missing, but none of them really helps. Note the big changes first, they say. Fix the little things after.

But when everything seems like it's a mess, I don't know how to distinguish between big fixes and small ones. In the end, everything needs to be fixed, and I just have to slog through. However, there are some things that work for me, as frustratingly slow as they can be:

First make sure you're ready to edit.

Sometimes you have to trunk that book for a lot longer than you think. You have to give your brain a long enough break from it in order for new ideas to be formed. Put it away, as long as you can, and give your brain a break. Coming to your story fresh is the best way to start.

This doesn't sound like it works, and believe me, the temptation to dive right back into the book after a week or so is high, but give yourself decent break. Read some books, watch some movies. Shake up those weary creative drives in your brain for up to a month or more before you take another crack at it.

(If you're not tackling a large product, you can wait for a shorter period of time, probably. The longer the book or novel, the more of a rest you should have. If you're writing a fanfic chapter by chapter, the temptation to post immediately is high. Don't do it! Let it rest for a couple of days before reviewing it. You'll thank yourself later.)

Have an outline.

If you didn't start with an outline while drafting, laying out your plot where you can see it will really help you figure out what threads need strengthening. My favorite technique is flashcards and sticky notes that have a short summary of the chapter or scene. Both can be easily rearranged, removed, or shuffled about.

If you have a multiple POVs, color-coding your chapters can help you lay out how much progress each character has made and what areas of the story might need shoring up.

Another thing that can be of help is reworking character sheets or notes. I've been struggling with a particular character who I adore, but who's motivation I've been having trouble nailing. For this draft, I've been able to figure out what the thorn in their side was and write a much stronger story for them as a result.

Slog through from the beginning.

Yes, some people can dive right into those problem areas. Boo to those people, I say. Boo. For me, the only thing that works is to start from the beginning and work through each chapter at a time. Yes, this does involve getting stuck on how to fix things. There is a lot of dramatic lying on floors and pestering my completely bewildered cat when I hit a wall.

But starting at the beginning allows me to see where I need to slot in elements I only started to figure out later in the book. It allows me to weave in foreshadowing and pick up subplots at the right places, rather than throwing them in when I think of them. This method may mean you'll have redraft a few times, and yes, I have to start from the beginning each time. But it does work, even if it takes time.

Just don't ask how many drafts I've done of this damn book I'm working on.

#editing #plotting #writing advice #it's a lotta drafts unfortunately #each time I find a surprising new typo that's been there since FOUR DRAFTS AGO

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winkle-pickers · 1 month

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🦈🎁🚀 for the ask game! (If you're still doing it ofc)

Omg YES, I am doing all ask games in perpetuity 😂💞 Thank you for checking, and I'm delighted to answer!

🦈 Which character is the toughest to write?

I think last time I answered Jounouchi, and that is still true to an extent, but oh my god BAKURA. I just tried writing my first Bakura fic recently. Like yes I know being mysterious and strange and (deliberately?) confusing is like his whole thing, but if you haven't been steeped in the Bakurae/Ishtar side of the fandom for the last 20 years...it's a lot of meta to catch up on. A LOT. So many good takes, many in direct opposition to each other, many of them equally compelling despite that. WHEW. I tried my best, I hope I didn't write an offensively wrong Bakura, everyone's gotta start somewhere right?!?! ᕙ(⇀‸↼‶)ᕗ

🎁 Have a piece of a WIP you want to share?

Ooooh, yes!! A little Kaibros character study from years ago that has been languishing in my drafts, that I'm re-working and may actually publish someday. I'll stick it under a readmore, tell me what you think!

🚀 Do you like to outline your fic first or create as you go?

Unfortunately, I don't have the kind of brain where I can sit in front of a blank document and think a story out in bullet point form. I desperately wish I did lol. But alas I must charge in headfirst and get a few thousand words in before I have any idea of where I want things to go. Sometimes (often) I blast through the entire thing without outlining. Sometimes I hit a snag somewhere and realize I done fucked up and need to put myself back on the tracks.

And then there was the time I got 100k words into a YGO/Zelda crossover and realized oh no i think this will be MUCH more than 100k and wrote a very rough outline, then another Zelda game came out halfway through the fic and I had to spend a solid month rewriting my outline to accommodate lore from the new game, and also I somehow accidentally turned the whole thing into a huge ensemble cast with multiple concurrent plot threads balancing both YGO and Zelda character arcs, Hyrulean politics, and an imminent multiverse collapse. My Scriv file now has a 120k word planning & research section. (Oops.)

tl;dr I have exactly one fic that is well outlined and the rest are me doing the writing equivalent of a Leeroy Jenkins. congrats if you get that reference and are ancient like me

ANYWAYYYYSS thank you for the ask!!! Kaibros snippet under the cut 🐉

“Come on, nii-sama,” Mokuba pleads. It comes out weirdly desperate, more pathetic than he’d intended. “This is so unfair. It’s unfair enough that I don’t have parents, and it’s even more unfair that you won’t tell me-”

“You do have a parent.” Seto's reply is so sharp that it makes Mokuba flinch.

“I know, I know,” Mokuba replies, irritated at the pedantry. “You’re my parent legally. But you’re not, you know...I just want...”

Mokuba realizes as he’s talking that he’s said something terribly wrong. The change in his brother’s face is minuscule and significant and makes his stomach flip in shame. He trails off, the words curling up and dying as they fall off his tongue.

“Please go to bed,” Seto says. His tone of voice is so perfectly even that Mokuba gets up and leaves without another word.

Mokuba doesn’t go to school the next day, opting instead to stay in bed and stare at the wall. Seto either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care.

For the first time in years, he cries. And then he thinks about the fact that it’s been years since he last cried. Mokuba spends so much time wondering what the fuck is going on in his brother’s head that he’s maybe neglected to turn the same scrutiny on himself. And he’s maybe leaned a little too far into his role as the ‘normal’ Kaiba - the charming one, the easygoing one, the one who exists to balance out the bombastic, powerful force of nature looming tall at his back.

But who had cried - just once - after Gozaburo hurled himself from the top of the Kaiba Corporation building, and who had watched the coroners wheel away the black-draped gurney with impassive, bone-dry eyes?

#asks #ask game

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mitchipedia · 2 months

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I have zero coding skills, but I was able to coax ChatGPT to write a JavaScript tool for blogging

My goal was simple but it eluded me for ten years.

I do a lot of linkblogging on mitchw.blog. I prefer to have links formatted like this:

How Many Steps Do You Really Need? That’s the Wrong Question. Walking is important, but challenging yourself to go faster and higher can improve your health even more. nytimes.com

It’s esthetically pleasing, and the reader can see which website they’re being directed to. It’s the way Dave Winer formats it on the links page of his Scripting News blog, which is where I got the idea. I like it.

However, formatting links that way is just fussy enough that it’s inconvenient, particularly when I’m reading and blogging from the iPad and iPhone. I looked for automated tools that would work with my existing blogging software to create those links. Currently, I’m blogging on Micro.blog; previously I used WordPress. But I couldn’t find anything that worked quite the way I wanted.

Then I thought: Why not let ChatGPT try? I’d heard ChatGPT made an excellent coding assistant. Why not see if ChatGPT could do the whole thing?

So I did. You can read a transcript of my conversation with ChatGPT here, complete with code snippets, or read on here and I’ll walk you through it.

Getting started

I started by asking ChatGPT4:

I’m looking for a tool that would automatically convert URLs for posting to the web, to strip off everything but the domain and then link to the URL from the domain. The output should be in Markdown format. For example:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/08/world/middleeast/gaza-aid-by-sea.html would become nytimes.com

https://news.yahoo.com/trump-set-finalize-rnc-takeover-051211725.html would become news.yahoo.com

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yorgos_Lanthimos would become en.wikipedia.org

You can see an example of that style of linking on this page: http://scripting.com/?tab=links

ChatGPT replied with a Python script that would do the job. I would have to edit the script manually to change the URLs.

A good start, but not what I was looking for.

I thought about using Drafts, a utility for the Mac, iPad and iPhone designed to be the place “where text starts.” You type some text into Drafts and then send the text to email, messages, Slack, your task manager, WordPress, whatever. It’s extremely customizable; users can write automations, known as Actions, to manipulate text or send notes to other apps.

I told ChatGPT:

Write me a plugin for the Drafts app that does the same thing using a URL in a draft. Here is the Drafts app https://getdrafts.com

ChatGPT wrote a Drafts action, along with instructions how I could install it. I ran the plugin and got an error. So I sent the error message to ChatGPT, which explained the problem to me and rewrote the code.

And it worked. The whole process took just a few minutes.

But then I ran into a glitch. Here’s how I explained it to ChatGPT:

Please modify the JavaScript so that if the URL starts with www, the www is not included in the output. For example, if the input is this:

Immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than U.S.-born Americans https://www.kpbs.org/news/national/2024/03/08/immigrants-are-less-likely-to-commit-crimes-than-u-s-born-americans-studies-find

The output is currently this:

Immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than U.S.-born Americans www.kpbs.org

Instead, it should be this:

Immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than U.S.-born Americans kpbs.org

ChatGPT revised the code to check for the presence of www in the URL, and remove that string if present. I updated the Drafts Action yet again, and it worked.

How about link previews?

Next, I asked ChatGPT to write an action that would generate a link preview in a post, in the style of Facebook, Mastodon, Threads, etc. I got that idea from the recent kottke.org redesign.

ChatGPT told me it could do that partially, but couldn’t fetch the title of the web page automatically because Drafts can’t access the Internet.

I replied:

You are incorrect. Drafts can extract the title. See this action for example code. directory.getdrafts.com/a/13y You’ll want to use open graph to get the information for the preview. Try again please.

ChatGPT corrected itself and generated an action for me. I got error messages and passed them on to ChatGPT, which corrected the action. We went back and forth until we generated an action that worked successfully. However, the output was ugly and I lost interest. Maybe I’ll come back to it another day.

Back to plan A

I returned to the original problem and asked ChatGPT for a slight modification.

Me: Let’s go back to the “Convert URLs to markdown” Drafts action. Ready to do a little more work on that one?

ChatGPT: Of course! Let’s continue working on the “Convert URLs to Markdown” Drafts action. What adjustments or additions would you like to make?

Me: I’d like to modify that script so there are brackets surrounding the domain link, with the brackets inside the link.

I provided an example, which included an escape character, \, in front of the square brackets, because I thought that was necessary to render the text properly.

ChatGPT responded with the correct code—which did not include the escape character, because it’s unnecessary.

You can read my conversation with ChatGPT in its entirety here.

I’m pleased by this, and I have a couple of ideas for other Drafts actions ChatGPT can create for me to automate blog and social media formatting.

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badassxbirdy · 1 year

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June Activity Update (Pinned Post)

Happy Pride Month to all fellow members of the alphabet mafia! 🥳 🏳️‍🌈

Before we get into it: there was apparently a following glitch recently. If I unfollowed, refollowed, or you softblocked, my apologies and please see this post.

With that out of the way, it’s time once again for an activity update! If you’re new here: these monthly posts help me to keep track of what the frick I’ve been doing, particularly when tumblr breaks or the brainfog strikes. This update includes things posted or in drafts for the month of May. Everything else can be found in previous monthly updates under this tag. There’s also the thread tracker here.

The full activity update (along with OOC house keeping) is below the cut. Bold text = links.

If you want to see all IC interactions without the other stuff, click here. If you’d like to start something new, there are opens, memes, and the wishlist, or you can just hit up the DM’s. You can also add Ty on Wire for IC texting.

Now onto the update!

OOC Housekeeping:

For folks waiting on AU replies: please see the note beside your tag! ❤️

I’ll be at my parents house for another month, but have the Firefox workaround for trimming threads on mobile. The extensions sometimes play up a bit when using that, so please let me know if there are any issues with my replies, and I shall sort it out.

I want to start doing more story arc development on Ty’s blog again, so expect a few posts about that to come soon.

Threads, replies, memes, and other IC interactions:

(In alphabetical order by username. Not including memes still in the inbox!)

At the motel (link) - @demcnsinmymind

Ty is both offended and a scared by Azzy. (drafted) - @demcnsinmymind

Random encounters meme: drunk Ty! (link) - @demcnsinmymind

Taking Lance on a hunt! (drafted) - @demcnsinmymind

Car trouble (drafted! So sorry for the wait, Ty is refusing to cooperate with her other verses rn.) - @demcnsinmymind

GDI Kage. 😂 (link) - @demonstigma

Birthday mischief: crossbow excitement! (link) - @derschwarzeengel

Damon meets dark!Ty (drafted) - @derschwarzeengel

Finding Vampire!Damon (link) - @derschwarzeengel

Traumatised for life. 😂 (link) - @derschwarzeengel

Making their getaway. (link) - @derschwarzeengel

Damon shields Ty, Ty is ANGY. (link) - @derschwarzeengel

Werewolf problems. (drafted) - @derschwarzeengel

Roasting 50 shades (drafted) - @derschwarzeengel

Universe differences (drafted) - @derschwarzeengel

Tyler learns about Darklighters and it all gets very sad. (end of thread) - @derschwarzeengel

Starter from @first-born-to-his-name! Thank you, I’ve got it in my drafts. ❤️

Birthday cuteness! (drafted) - @heavenguided

Meeting Hook (link) - @hvbris

Tyler being massively confused by Wednesday (drafted! Sorry for the wait!) - @hvbris

Birthday mischief: extremely normal headwear. (link) - @imprvdente

Human!Ty and FBI!Fish (drafted! So sorry for the wait, Ty is refusing to cooperate with her other verses rn.) - @imprvdente

At the fair (drafted) - @indyflanery

Attempting to babysit the doctor. (link) - @innerwar

Bad jokes with Charm. (drafted) - @innerwar

Demon problems (link) - @magaprima

Leaving the compound (drafted! So sorry for the wait, Ty is refusing to cooperate with her other verses rn.) - @razorfst

“Are you sayin’ I look like a blogger?” (link) - @tobeblamed

No 👏 dead 👏 Sarah’s 👏 allowed!👏 (link) - @unbearablyindifferent

Drafts: 14

Memes/Asks: 9

Headcanon, dash games, and assorted silliness:

No new headcanons or dash games this month! However I am boosting this post from my dear Rookito, so please take a look.

I think that’s everything! As always: please let me know if I’ve missed something. I never intentionally drop threads without notifying, rest assured that if it’s not here I simply have not seen it. Remember to be kind to yourselves, stay safe, and happy pride! ❤️ — Em

#activity update #pinned post #it’s not June for another half hour but we posting this now anyway.

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inxtricabilis · 2 years

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TEN Q’S:

1. When are you usually online?

// My schedule is really volatile, and changes pretty much monthly, sometimes weekly. But I can usually count on having the evenings off, which is when I’m most active. I may log on to mobile throughout the day for short ooc posts, or to publish finished drafts though! I operate on CET/CEST.

2. What verses are you involved in outside of this page?

// I have a Fire Emblem blog on here with verses for its own canon and other titles in the franchise. The muses are from one of the older games because, frankly, I’m not caught up with a lot of the newer titles.

3. What is your biggest RP pet peeve?

// Okay, so not a world-shattering one, but definitely a peeve of mine: When asks get turned into threads, but on the same post as the ask. I jut find it immersion-breaking when the initial ask and response are constantly on the top of the interaction. That’s why I’m actually a little glad that people have been moving to answering asks with personalized banners. Firstly, yes it looks neat, but secondly it does avoid this issue altogether.

4. Are you drawn to specific types of muses?

// Well, especially as I was creating this blog, I noticed a lot of my muses tend to be the types who give their all in whatever they do. Real confident types who aren’t afraid to go out of their comfort zone and tackle any problem they have with vigor and with their hearts fully set on it. Maybe it’s a little bit wishful by me as I can be half-hearted at times, but I’ve definitely felt myself really adoring those types of muses. Like- Yes. You go and show the world what you are capable of!

5. Are there recurring themes in your writing that people might not notice?

// I think this blog is far too fresh to really have any great overarching themes that people can come to grasp from my writing. But if I had to shine a light on a theme I hope to tackle often it would be that of bonds and how they hold people together. Indeed, my url is a play on that. Whether it’s the bonds of family (biological or found), or that of your circumstances. They can be constricting, or they can make you one of the most powerful people out there.

6. What are your favorite RP trends?

// I like a lot of dash games. Especially ones that can kind of evolve into a bunch of other muses commenting on things. It’s silly and good fun and I like how it brings muses outside of that formal RP style and they can kind of just become two people just hanging out.

7. What is your process for starting a new story with someone?

// It varies. I have always had a habit of picking up muses from obscure fandoms, or just muses that aren’t as well known, so I try and be accommodating by being available to plot and ask and answer questions so we can get on the same page. On the other hand, sometimes we can just sorta go. Though this is definitely the exception, not the rule here.

8. How do you feel about duplicates?

// Yes please. I think everyone brings something unique to the table in their interpretations. It can be really fun seeing those differences mash up against each other. You have headcanons and different verses and different writing styles, so it’s genuinely never really the case of: Same muse, same experience. I think that’s just really neat.

9. How long have you been involved in roleplaying?

// If I’ve got it correctly in my mind, I must’ve started around 2010/2011, but I ought to mention that I recently returned from a five-year break from roleplaying. Thanks to university taking up all my time I had zero energy for creative writing and have only in recent weeks been able to decide for my return to this platform.

10. Is there a muse or verse you wish you could write in, but haven’t?

// That’s a difficult question to answer, seeing as I’ve yet to use a fair few of my muses at the time of writing this. The answer is “Yes”, but the list of what those are is a little too broad right now, to the point that it would just be unhelpful. I’d rather just continue to slowly build up interactions as they naturally come up!

~~~~

TAGGED BY: @more-than-a-princess (Thank you so much!! I love this sort of stuff!)

TAGGING: @aestuavis, @atimelesslullaby, @dcviated, @orderbourne, @pastballads, @quickdeaths (Hopefully you haven’t done this one yet! If you have, please forgive me.), and anyone else who wants to do it! Steal it and drop the @!!

#(( DASH GAMES - Side Stories ))#(( OOC - A Step Away ))

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sinceileftyoublog · 2 months

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Jon Langford Interview: Serve the Song

BY JORDAN MAINZER

When you ask Jon Langford what he's up to in the near future, he'll likely list a few upcoming concerts and art exhibitions before you realize he's referring to just this upcoming weekend. For the singer-songwriter and painter, the Mekon and Waco Brother, his past, present, and future discography and levels of participation seem just as vast. During his most recent visit to Austin (of which SXSW was a mere part), Langford played twelve shows: four with The Waco Brothers, three with The Far Forlon (his Austin-based band that plays Langford solo and Mekons songs), and five with The Bright Shiners, his new band that just released their debut record, Where It Really Starts (Tiny Global Productions). But Langford views himself as a mere thread rather than the center. "I am lucky to get to work with people more talented than me," he said to me over the phone after returning from SXSW. Sarcasm aside, Where It Really Starts epitomizes that democratic approach. "I love having not all of the responsibility on myself to come up with stuff," Langford said. "It's not a solo album. It's better than that."

The Bright Shiners started when Langford and John Szymanski, his frequent musical partner, attempted to make a duo acoustic guitar record that resulted in some interesting tunes, but not enough to resist contacting singer and keyboard player Alice Spencer. That is, though the Austin-based Spencer played in soul-funk band Shinyribs, Langford and Szymanski were enraptured by her solo work and Mellotron playing. Spencer was on board, and then Langford and Szymanski brought in violinist Tamineh Gueramy. The four wrote the majority of the songs on Where It Really Starts, with Langford concocting first drafts, Spencer arranging, and the group taking them to fruition. The result is easily the most lush music of Langford's career, from the steadily chiming "For The Queen of Hearts" to the dulcet "I Have A Wish".

Where It Really Starts is rich without being overstuffed, a natural combination of layered guitars and vocal harmonies, piano, pedal-affected strings, looped percussion, and of course, Mellotron. In other words, it's folk music with contemporary touches, Langford's storytelling firmly in the present while sometimes sounding appropriately old-timey. His vocal delivery resembles that of a troubadour on the fluttery, swaying "Awake The Land Of The Shadows"; he passionately trills on "Seahouses". And on "Discarded", a duet with Spencer, the two finish each other's sentences like a sardonic country couple. "You can talk about love, you can talk about society," sings Langford, "But when push comes to shove, you wiped the floor with me," responds Spencer, atop brawny, off-kilter horns. "Seahouses" and "Discarded", specifically, contain a multitude of musical ideas Spencer brought to the table, the former's filmic feel and the latter's horns. And even producer Brian Beattie gets his kicks: The album's final track, which sounds like an outtake from or demo of "Discarded", was actually Beattie playing all of the instruments in the studio and recording his half-hearted attempt at the lyrics of "Discarded", which The Bright Shiners found so funny, they decided to put it on the album.

My interview with Langford was not set up through a publicist. I literally said hello to him when I ran into him at The Beer Temple, at which point he mentioned he had a new record coming out that he'd be down to talk about. Two weeks later, we spoke on the phone. He and The Bright Shiners signed a two-album deal with Tiny Global Productions, so you can expect to hear more, but who knows what else--spontaneous or otherwise--Langford will get up to. In the meantime, read our interview below, edited for length and clarity.

Since I Left You: When did The Bright Shiners form, and when did you start writing Where It Really Starts?

Jon Langford: It was more a social thing. We were talking. Alice Spencer was in a band...she's a keyboard player and a very good technical singer. She was doing other solo stuff which was really fascinating. She has a jazz background, but isn't into that virtuoso jazz stuff. We decided to write a few songs with John Szymanski and Tamineh [Gueramy.] John [had] been working with me, and I said to him [about Alice], "This woman's playing a Mellotron." And he said, "We should form a band with her." I didn't know there was such a thing as digital Mellotron. It's really kind of fascinating to me. Most of the songs are co-writes by the whole band. But I was handing over sketches and [Alice] was turning them into fully realized arrangements with vocals.

SILY: Did you come up with the lyrics?

JL: All the lyrics are mine.

SILY: How did you finish the songs? Was that a group effort?

JL: Yeah, the arrangements and the songs. The guy who produced it with us, [Brian Beattie,] had been working with Alice a lot. They'd done a duo together. The studio is called The Wonder Chamber. Alice was doing some recording there and sent me some video. I said, "Where is this? This is fantastic! If we do anything, this is where we should do it."

SILY: Is it in Austin?

JL: Yeah.

SILY: It seems to me that this album, more than your other solo albums, exists in the folk tradition but with more contemporary touches. Maybe that's the digital Mellotron. Would you agree?

JL: Yeah. We just wanted it to be kind of minimal. We started off with acoustic guitars, because John and I had been doing that for quite a while in a duo. We tried to make a record just me and him with acoustic guitar. It was alright, and we had a few ideas, but that's kind of on the backburner.

Music is so inherently collaborative. I've had solo records where I was totally in charge. This is basically something else. The song "Seahouses" was this epic thing Alice came up with based on something I'd sent her. I thought, "I don't remember writing this." It was mind-blowing. So beautiful, so different.

SILY: It definitely is a song that sounds like the seaside.

JL: There's something cinematic about it. I want to bash things down as simply and plainly as possible. That one has some epic moments. It's minimal in the sense that it's not a jam band. It's more like a dub reggae record where you have parts that lock and drive the song along and serve the record. When there's no singing, the parts get kind of detached from it. You can listen to these individual parts. It's getting away from the virtuosity and soloing: Just trying to serve the song.

SILY: Was there anything different this time around that inspired your lyrics?

JL: That's a good question. I'll have to talk to my therapist about that. [laughs] The lyrics are quite personal. They are inspired by the visual art I do. "For The Queen of Hearts", there was a painting called The Queen of Hearts that I made, a country singer that's like a playing card, body on top and repeated underneath. She's got two heads and is singing. The other one is a skull. I thought the song was kind of based on that.

SILY: Are you contextualizing each song with paintings you've done that might have inspired them?

JL: Some of them. "Seahouses", I went to a place called "Seahouses". It's a really dramatic place in the north of England, kind of bleak, pebbles rolling and smashing against each other, permanent and impermanent at the same time. The transitory nature of life and time itself, or something. It sounds really bonkers when I say it like that. [laughs]

Each song, I guess, has its own life. There's a lot of visual stuff in them.

SILY: There seems to be a good mix of songs that are reflective or internal and others more about storytelling, such as "Tell Me Your Story".

JL: I wrote that with a friend in Chicago, Jenny Bienemann. She had a project where she would write haikus and would hand them out to [people] to write a song from it to perform in a concert. There were 15 haikus, and she said, "Pick one you like." I thought "Tell Me Your Story" was fantastic. When you meet someone, you want to find out everything about them.

SILY: When you write or listen to folk music, do you tend to draw parallels between the modern day and the past?

JL: I think I write pretty much in the present. I'm not writing nostalgic or particularly optimistic [songs] anymore. I've tried to temper realism or pessimism.

SILY: A song like "The Emperor's Fiddle", with lines about talking to the dead and necromancing, and a line like, "We have more guns and disease than you can ever use" sounds like something that could be from an old folk song, but you could apply it to the modern day.

JL: You can apply it to the modern day. It's about going up the river and selling the Natives whiskey.

SILY: Why did you choose to throw in an unlisted track at the end that's basically an outtake of "Discarded"?

JL: That's actually Brian Beattie setting up the studio before we even arrived and playing all the instruments himself. [laughs] The first time I sat in the studio properly, he played me that. [laughs] I could have walked out. "Are you taking the piss? Are you making fun of us?" We all find it really amusing. "Is it you...I?" It grew on me in the end. I was like, "It's gotta go on."

SILY: It's like when people leave in studio chatter, but taken to the extreme.

JL: It exists. I don't know what else we were gonna do with it. Put it in a box and bury it somewhere? [laughs]

SILY: Did you do the album art for this?

JL: It's a collaboration between me and Jim Sherraden, the master printer at Hatch Show Print in Nashville. It's his woodcuts and my central figures.

SILY: How does it relate to the story of the album?

JL: It's parallel. I started working with him when we started The Bright Shiners. It was work that I was making. The idea of two people with a guitar flying through the air. There's an ethereal nature to a lot of these songs that ties in quite nicely. I like the idea of the printmaking. It's ornate. I like repetition. Mark E. Smith said, "It's not repetition, it's discipline." I find that in a lot of music I like. There doesn't have to be a high point or piano solo for people to show off their virtuosity. I thought that was a good parallel to the album. It can be beautiful and serious, but it doesn't have to be.

SILY: You can apply what Mark E. Smith says to listening, to, especially more repetitious songs that take a level of discipline or commitment, especially when they have abstraction to it.

JL: This is sort of artistic conceit. It wasn't just folk songs. We were definitely thinking about robotic, repetitive things going on. Some sort of hypnotic thing. "A Scale of One to Nine", I just wanted to [write a song] that sounds good when it comes back. [laughs] It's really relentless.

SILY: Any time you include wordless harmonies, it wriggles its way into your head.

JL: I don't like when people ask if I've made a concept record. Every record's a concept record to me. It's not like I've made a rock opera. It's a definable narrative. There's a story.

SILY: For how long have you been playing these songs live?

JL: [For] probably about eight months. After playing [at first], we understood what we wanted, and the writing process became a lot easier. We didn't do a whole album in one sitting, it was about four sittings, a few songs each time, and we got better at working. The song "I Have a Wish" is completely live. We wanted to see what it was like all playing together. It was really beautiful. We knew what we wanted to do. It's a simple song.

SILY: It has a really nice lilting melody.

JL: Alice is a really good singer. Most of the songs are duets. She really listens to phrasing and writes harmonies over the top. A lot of the time she's doing quite odd harmonies that are kind of cool.

SILY: How was it adapting some of the other songs to a live performance?

JL: It was pretty easy with this. We don't try making it sound exactly like the record. We did some gigs with a bass player and percussionist last year. Economically, we can't really do [that all the time]. We need to make it work as a four-piece. John and I have an understanding, telepathically, if I go up the neck, he goes down. The snare drum is often playing more percussively than he is, and he's finding notes that are similar to what's on the record but not exactly. Everybody sings really well, as well. We all sing together. There are beautiful moments. Tamineh uses pedals for the violin, and there are a lot of violin effects she's using. She'll use them in place of electric guitar on the record. Some Mellotron sounds are pretty fantastic. The violin with pedal delays can sound like a whole orchestra.

SILY: Did you put horns on "Discarded"?

JL: We did. Alice wanted to put a Salvation Army [brass] band on a track. I wasn't there when she did it. She got some people from Austin. I mirrored the part she was playing on the Mellotron and made it into something bigger. I wasn't sure about that song.

SILY: Are you always writing songs?

JL: Yep. I haven't for a while. I think when we finished the album, I definitely went through, at the end of last year, a phase where I wasn't doing anything. It's like a muscle. Once you turn it on again, it's like a tap. If you're not writing, you are writing somewhere in your head. A lot of things in the songs seem strange to me now because I didn't know what I meant when I wrote them, but sometimes, when we sing them on stage, I go, "Bloody hell, I wonder whether that's what that means." [laughs] It's kind of revealing tapping into the subconscious. That's where a lot of the stuff gets written.

SILY: Do you find it the same when someone in the audience might ask what something means or say a song means something different to them? Do the songs then change meaning for you?

JL: I kind of like the limitations of being a songwriter in the sense you can try and communicate something, but it might be misconstrued. I think that brings responsibility to what you talk about. It's so boring to set up a message, and say, "This song is about." It's a delicate balance to start writing songs and not be pedantic but still be authentic. Hopefully, people think about what you're singing about.

SILY: Is there anything you've been listening to, watching, or reading lately that's caught your attention?

JL: I listen to a lot of reggae still, but it's not new. I've got a vinyl player in my painting studio. I like that it stops every 25 minutes and you have to go and choose something else. You can't just put on a playlist. A lot of British reggae music from the 70s and 80s which wasn't appreciated at the time but is pretty fucking great. Steel Pulse, Misty in Roots. Bands I saw and played with at the time.

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a-earthssprout · 2 years

Text

🌻🍯 OOC. hello friends ! long time no see, huh ? 😊 I hope you all have been doing well these past few weeks. I apologize for my absence, but surprise ! 🌿 I’m not here to make the ba – jillion – ith post doing so; instead, I come bearing good news ! 🌷 after what seemed like forever, things are starting to look up on my side; the sun feels like it’s shining again & thus, Ari’s little light ( muse for her ) is returning 🍄 I may sound quite like a broken record by this point, but I wanted to thank everyone again for their patience & understanding during my time of inactivity—I do not believe I lost any mutuals during this time, but still, to all who stuck around, I thank you for this 🍃 it’s wonderful to see you again & I truly hope that the days have been kind to you ! 😊

now, I am not going to lie. life is really … unpredictable right now for me 😔 a lot is going on behind the scenes that I’m not exactly comfortable sharing, but please do not worry. I am okay & I am safe, & I currently have a great support system ! 🌼 still, despite the recent improvement, I still have days where my energy is fleeting, especially social energy. because of this, I have made my previous discord inactive & will probably not be sharing out my new one, at least not with many. most roleplay communications, at least for now, will have to be done through tumblr’s im feature. I will be spending time replying to the im’s that have been waiting for a response, too !

additionally, I’ll be initiating something I like to call operation organization ( because calling it that is way more fun than a ‘ blog cleanup ’, right ? 😤 ) I will adjusting my rules & organizing my likes ( which is the system I use to collect drafts, but rn it is clogged up with much more than just those c’: ) also, I will be making a post for people to like if they want to stay mutuals, which is separate from this post ! 🐌

I will NOT be dropping any threads, but if you have lost interest in continuing one that we have, please let me know so I do not accidentally reply to it ! no hard feelings here, okay ? 😊 regarding anything in the INBOX, I have deleted a few, specifically ones that were sent from a meme, but most are still there & I intend to answer them. until most / all are answered, the ask box will remain CLOSED 🌼

I cannot say it enough, for I feel the need to express my gratitude for all the understanding & kindness I have received during this time. here’s to better, brighter days ! 🌈 wishing you wellness & happiness, forever & always, & I hope to write with you all soon. much lava ! 🍄

#( ❀ | ooc )#( ❀ | psa )#long post cw #( you know I'm back when I'm filling your dash with an emoji - riddled ooc post ;; flkjgkl #hello friends ! I hope all has been well with you !#I THINK I've shared every current intention ... hopefully I haven't forgotten anything D: )

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starsmuserainbow · 2 years

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Okay, so, since I'm asking this everyone that I'm starting new threads with these days, I figured instead of typing the whole stuff everytime anew, I could also simply make a post that I then can link whenever I wanna ask these things.

Please don't reblog this post, I'm not writing this with the intention of having it be a widespread PSA or the likes (I dread the notification-amount I would get if it became one), it's just a post where I place the questions and answers I'd like to offer those I wanna talk to this stuff about. I mean, honestly, if we're mutuals I might/would likely be okay with you reblogging it, if you wanna keep it on your blog or something. But please, at the very least if we aren't mutuals, don't reblog it. Link others to it, if you must, but please don't reblog. I really don't want the mess of notifications.

The rest below the cut, but as for the question I'd be asking before sending you this:

Do you know of the new way of cutting posts, and/or about Xkit Rewritten?

First off - this is not a very detailed tutorial or the likes. I'm not giving a illustrated step-by-step or anything like that; if you want one of those I can recommend this one (I've linked it to a few people before).

Okay, so, I'm trying to start at the beginning.

What is Xkit Rewritten?

You know Xkit? What you confirm with 'yes' right now probably refers to what's called 'New Xkit'. That already, as the name tells, was a remake of an earlier version of Xkit - or so I assume at least. Now, Xkit Rewritten basically is the new 'New Xkit' - I think it's only maintained by one person of the original Xkit, but again, that's just from how I understand it.

In other words, it's the extension/addon you need if you want Xkit's features to keep working (at least those that get adapted over). If you don't know of Xkit Rewritten yet, you'll have found at least some - if not by now all - of Xkit's extensions not working anymore. Like the mutual checker, "shorten posts", and probably a lot more but I quite honestly never used that many of them so I wouldn't even know if a good bunch doesn't work anymore. Xkit Rewritten has at the very least some of those extensions - the mutual checker for example - as well, and since it's the newer Xkit, those actually work.

I'm sure you can find it easily on your own, but in case not, here's a link which will forward you to your needed place of downloading, depending on your browser.

Does it work on mobile?

I'm rather certain it does NOT work for the app. I have no idea if you can install extensions in the mobile browsers (I doubt it though), so I can't tell you about that. If you can install extensions, perhaps you could also install Xkit Rewritten. I don't know, sorry.

Why would I need it? The old way of cutting posts, the way we all know, still works!

Well. Yes, it does, but only when you do the opt-out of the beta editor. (I think by now you can use the beta editor on old-way-cut posts after you cut them and saved them as draft? Although I'm not sure if that was just a glitch of sorts or if that's actually the case - but like, same thing, you still need to use the legacy editor to actually use the old cutting)

As much as some might have disliked the beta editor when it first came out, or perhaps you still do - the fact is that eventually, it will be the only editor. I assume that that will still take a while, since there still seems to be a good bunch of things that they wanna fix or still need to make the beta editor be able to do, but, one day it's gonna come. Personally, I'd advise to get used to the new things as they come (or like, shortly after they are brought to us), because it'll probably be nicer when you already know what to do once the switch fully happens, instead of panicking then and starting to learn your way through a new method.

Also, but recent experiences of my own allowed me to use the beta editor on old-way-cut posts too, the new editor does have a few nice little things that you don't have right away available in the buttons on the legacy editor. Colored text, for example, and those fancy text types. You don't need to go into coding for those anymore with the beta editor.

And another reason - I'm not sure, but I think that glitch is still there where, if an icon is at the end of the reply, the next person's first part of the reply will also be indented (or, I think, look like it on the dash at least? Something like that). Since the trimming (aka the new cutting) works a little different than the editable reblogs (aka the old cutting), that won't be happening anymore. In fact, you won't be able to edit your partner's reply at all anymore. Which also means that, if you were doing that so far, you can't edit in the name of the partner-muse in the url, or do similar changes to that part.

One last thing: As far as I understand it, you are able to trim the post later too, as in after writing your reply, even after posting. Just click the little symbol, and it's trimmed down to only the previous reply.

What do I need to use it?

Basically, nothing else than you always needed. Your computer, your browser, the Xkit-Addon (just, now the new one - I recommend keeping both for now though).

Take care to make the start of a new thread in the beta editor though, the new trimming can't work with legacy posts. If you want to make older posts of yours edittrimmable through the new method, you will also need the mobile app to make a change (non-visible is enough even, like adding a space somewhere after a sentence or so) to the very source-post (aka the very first part of the whole thread) - or you just make a new post and continue from there.

How do I use the trimming?

Okay, so, first off, you need to make sure that above point is checked. Either it's a post you made or edited on mobile, or it's a post you make new (I think you need to do that with the beta editor for it to work), just, it has to be of the right type.

Once you have that, and I assume you have Xkit Rewritten installed and "Trim Reblogs" activated within that, it really isn't that much of a task.

You reblog a thing like you always would. Press the reblog-icon on the post (or on the blog or whereever), save it as draft, or whatever your action of choice is. (You can also write on it right there, if that's what you do, though I can't guarantee you that that works, but given the trimming still works when you have already posted your thing, it should still work if you type your reply right away and only then draft/queue/post it.) Now, you go to where your post is now. In my case, that's usually in the drafts. There, in the post-footer (where you also find the symbols for deleting or editing the post) you will see a little scissor-symbol. Click on that, and voila - you're done. Your post is trimmed, and you can now edit on it or leave it there or whatever exactly your next step is.

So should I just remove 'new Xkit' already?

I wouldn't do that yet. A lot of people are still using the old cutting of posts. It has problems, and causes things, but people are used to it and if you switch entirely to the new method, you won't be able to cut the posts that people with the old cutting cutted.

I personally very much prefer the trimming, but I still use both Xkits - and whatever trimming/cutting that I need for a thread - in order to keep my things cut with some people adapting and some keeping the old cutting.

Does it cost me anything to use it?

Outside of the fee for your internet, and, like, the electricity of your computer and so on? No. (Although if you have the money to spare, I'm sure the one that put in all this effort of coding Xkit for us, making it a whole new version of it and so on, would appreciate some financial "thank you", or however to call it. You would need to look that up yourself though.)

#✫ Out of Clurblopf ✫ | OOC #✫ I believe this is important ✫ | PSA #I didn't expect to finish writing this today still but might as well throw this still out before I hop offline!#I'll probably reblog it for a day or two or so bc I'm always for trying to inform ppl about the new thing #(and perhaps get them to use it) but yeah here it is; goodnight

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apinklion01 · 3 years

Text

Going Angst

Day Three: Family

Walker didn’t go far from his post at the prison unless it was for patrols or if a prisoner escaped. He had a very private corner tucked away within the walls which served as his main lair where no other ghost could go.

So any other ghost stood clear when he did venture further out into the Ghost Zone. He liked that they kept their distance. They knew the consequences if they didn’t. He was the only one trying to keep any sense of order down here, and he worked hard to keep it that way.

There were only two occurrences where a ghost didn’t give him respect: the mangy excuse for a werewolf and the Phantom.

The werewolf he could care less for. The ghost was powerful, yes, but Walker knew more about his time in the living realm than the mutt would ever know, and that was all he needed to give him an upper edge when dealing with the furry convict.

The Phantom was another story.

He was a freak even by ghost standards. A spirit boundless from the planes of life and death who moved between them freely thanks to the wrenched machine his family had built within a place called Amity Park.

The teen was impulsive, rash, and even led a prison escape that left Walker and his squadrons beaten up and reinforcing the security measures.

However due to being half ghost, the Phantom remained the sole convict that the warden knew he couldn’t lock up permanently.

But something was odd during the time he talked to the teen.

Walker heard an unusual song in his ears. One he hadn’t heard since his time in the living world. A song from his mother, supposedly handed down from members of her side of the family tree.

That very song kept repeating while he fought the Phantom, and only stopped after he was long gone.

But why?

Tired of asking himself questions, Walker decided to venture to the Library of Alexandria. The legendary building was open to any in the Ghost Zone so long as you didn’t start any fights that could damage the books and scrolls inside.

Walker didn’t learn everything about ghosts from word of the ear. Prior to dying, he came across a few books teaching him an intermediate amount of how the spectors worked. Their powers, obsessions, weaknesses. While Walker didn’t have access to the more offensive abilities, the knowledge was all he needed to fight such supernatural entities, even beyond his final breath.

He continued building more knowledge by returning to the library. There was a section specifically for new ghosts who wanted to learn about how to handle the afterlife, but also for older ones to learn of rituals, common spells, and caring for their cores.

Walker made his way down the aisle, a young apprentice of a librarian having handed out the book that might have the answers he needed.

His eyes spotted the name of a book: Melbourne’s Guide to a Spectral Entity. It appeared to be far older than anything Walker had read, the spine of the book faded and tearing apart, the threads loose on the covers.

Walker took out the book from the shelf, a few lowly blob ghosts scuttling away to undisturbed places of the library. Prying the book open, he grazed through the pages, the words mostly in Old English, yet he somehow was able to read them.

One page stood out. A ghost and a human side by side, the older being a ghost, a depiction of their core present.

If a ghost dies prior to learning about any future descendants or relatives, a song they hold dear will be heard when they encounter them. The living or dead relatives will not be able to hear the song until the older one speaks the truth. When they do, then the relative will be seen as a true descendant.

Rediscovering and reuniting is held as sacred to all ghosts. To break the bonds of family is viewed as disgraceful unless done properly. If not, dire consequences may occur to both the living and dead members.

Walker nearly dropped the book. It was impossible. There couldn’t be any connection between the Phantom and him.

Either the book was speaking blasphemy, or it was some sort of joke that the half ghost conceived. But the boy looked too young to think up such an act.

There was only one ghost who had the answer: the master of time himself.

One doesn’t simply wander into Clockwork’s lair. To some it’s visible occasionally, and to others it doesn’t even appear in the Ghost Zone unless they need his assistance.

Clockwork already had seen a few timelines where Walker would come inside, but didn’t bother to turn around, cleaning up a gear connecting the multiple clocks the building held inside.

“A simple greeting wouldn’t be too much to ask,” He said.

“I need you to show me something,” The warden’s deep voice spoke.

“Do you know what you need to see?” Clockwork answered, drifting down to the place where the ghost stood. He noted in several timelines that the ghost preferred touching the ground, avoiding acting like a ghost during his time in the Ghost Zone for more than half a century.

“I need you to show me a family. Any related descendants of John James Walker,” The ghost narrowed his eyes. It was dangerous to reveal the true name a ghost had prior to dying, but Clockwork had no usage for such knowledge and never told a soul any when they asked. Not even a certain Daniel James Fenton had the privilege.

“As you wish, though I warn you Walker, you may not like what you’ll see.”

Clockwork escorted Walker to an old mirror, where a small clock was inserted on the wooden frame. Nothing was visible on the mirror except both their reflections. A small flick of his wrist to the right, and the hands turned back fast until they were a mere blur.

Clockwork held his hand out and the clock stopped. In the mirror there were three children running on a farm. One was Will, a red headed boy, the other a brown haired girl named Elizabeth. The third was one he knew Walker recognized: himself. His hair was a dirty blonde color, yet his eyes were a stormy gray.

“Is this you,” Clockwork asked. Walker didn’t respond, stunned at the sight that he thought was all but in his memories.

“Bet you can’t catch me,” He heard his eldest brother shout.

“No fair, you had a head start,” His younger self cried out. Walker tentatively placed a hand on the mirror, the surface flickering like a leaf touching a puddle.

The ghost was silent as he watched the scene play out: a normal game of tag, with not a care in the world.

“Continue forward,” He spoke dryly, and Clockwork obliged.

The clock spun forward, and Clockwork halted it. The scene had changed to the inside of an old house. The sky beyond the windows was a dull gray, the grass in the distance muted green and brown colors.

A woman, Walker’s mother, stands by the door, reading a letter she had long awaited back from the army. Her anxious smile soon faded into disdain, and she muttered a few lines of the telegram to herself before she began to shake her head and cried. Her daughter Elizabeth, who was standing nearby, tries to console her but her words falter, and tears too begin pouring from her eyes.

A young Walker runs down the stairs, looking at both his family members. “Liz, what’s going on?” He asked worryingly.

Elizabeth looked up, her eyes wet from crying. “Dad,” She began, pausing as she coked up. “He’s not… coming back from the war…”

Clockwork maintained his distance, but saw Walker’s shoulders tense up. He took his hand away from the mirror, placing it inside one of his pockets.

The younger Walker in the mirror appeared confused. “Did he get held back again? Liz, tell me-”

“He’s gone Walker!” Elizabeth shouted before biting her lip. A shaky sigh escaped her mouth. “He’s gone…”

Clockwork turned the clock forward again. Walker didn’t seem to mind.

They paused again. Walker backed away again as the scene unfolded. It was a funeral being held around sunset. His mother appeared older, having begun growing gray hair and crying gently. William and Elizabeth were nearby with their own kids. Clockwork reckoned they were but six years old at the time of the unpleasant event.

“John, you didn’t deserve to go like this,” William spoke solemnly. “If we had known this was going to happen, maybe I’d have tried harder to convince you to tell the army to give you a break.”

“But you were an awful lot like dad,” He continued. “You didn’t want us to get too wrapped up in your troubles. I don’t know how many you had on your hands, ranging from learning I was drafted into the war to getting into the paranormal. All we have left of you are our memories. “

He set down a white lily onto the headstone marked with Walker’s name.

“I hope you still have them when I meet you on the other side.”

The rest of the funeral played in silence.

“Why are you showing me this,” Walker spoke, his head hung low.

“Your mother died sometime after your funeral,” Clockwork said quietly. “But her name lives on in one of your living relatives, Maddison. Elizabeth’s granddaughter.”

Walker perked up at the news, his eyes uncertain but wanting answers. “... Show me,” He muttered in slight disbelief.

The scene changed quickly, the hands slowing to a stop inside a modern home. Four figures were present. A woman, presumably Maddison, held a baby in her hands. It was easy to see the reason she was given the name, as she had a resemblance to Walker’s mother.

A man, the father of the baby, stood by, beckoning a smaller child to come forward. This one had reddish hair like her mother’s. The baby looked like it was recently born, their eyes remaining closed.

“Jazz, meet your baby brother,” The father spoke.

Jazz looked at the baby with big eyes. “He’s small.”

“He’s only a baby Jazz,” Maddie said quietly, her eyes full of nothing but love for her children. “And he’ll need you to be there for him, even if we’re not around. Can you promise me that?”

Jazz gave a tiny nod.

“Here, you can hold him,” Maddie spoke, handing the sleeping child into the other’s hands. Jazz carefully held him. The baby stirred, but didn’t wake up. Jazz gave a smile in awe.

“What’s his name?” Jazz asked.

“We’re giving him a special name,” Jack told her. “One part comes from a relative of your mother’s.”

“I had a great great grandfather who was around long before you or I were born,” Maddie said. “He passed away in a war, but he gave a name to one of my great grandfathers, John James Walker.”

Walker let a faintly audible gasp that Clockwork made out.

“We’re naming him Daniel James Fenton,” Maddie continued. “So he can grow up and be just as good as both of them.”

At that moment, baby Danny started to cry, startling Jazz. Maddie took her younger child back into her arms, rocking him back and forth.

“Shhh, don’t cry sweetie,” she spoke softly. “Shhh. I’m right here, I’ll always be here to protect you, my little Danny.” She began humming a melody Clockwork knew Walker had known his whole life.

Clockwork let the hand return to the present, and the mirror reflected both ghosts.

“So,” Clockwork said, floating over to clean the clock on the mirror. It had been a while since he had done so. “What will you do now?”

Walker didn’t respond for a minute, placing together the pieces in his head. The older ghost counted till the moment where the warden would ask the question.

“...He doesn’t know anything about this yet, correct?”

“Yes, that’s right,” Clockwork said.

“You better not do any funny business, old man,” Walker muttered, walking toward the exit.

“What do you intend to do,” the time keeper questioned.

Walker stopped at the steps. “My job. I’m the one making any attempt at order. Only something like Pariah Dark could stop me from doing that.”

Clockwork sensed that the ghost had left before glancing at another mirror playing a particular timeline scenario: Danny looking through a scrapbook detailing Maddie’s side of the family tree.

“Fate isn’t kind to you, is it Daniel,” The Master of Time muttered.

#danny phantom #going angst week 2021 #dp walker #clockwork #pink lion dabbles

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adrianicsea · 2 years

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this might be a weird question but how do you stay motivated with writing your fics? theres so many fics that I desperately want to write but I have so much trouble staying motivated, so how do you do that? Love your blog also❤️

hey there!! not a weird question at all :) i’ve struggled a LOT with writing motivation over the years— it’s a miracle i got the grades i did in college, i was a notorious essay procrastinator. there’s not really One Solid Thing i can point to for my recent success in staying on top of writing, but these are all things that have helped:

having dedicated writing time/a schedule! even if it’s just a few minutes a day, telling yourself that you’re going to sit for X time with the purpose of working on your project helps. (i will readily admit that i’m lucky here— i work in an office setting, where i spend a lot of my time in a cubicle with not a lot to do BUT write)

on that note, not all writing time needs to be spent actually physically drafting. outlining stuff counts too! using sleeping with ghosts as an example— typically, i can get out one chapter in the span of one work week. the first couple days are spent outlining in a bullet-point list what’s gonna happen in the chapter, and then the next day or two is spent physically writing it.

now, i am NOT someone who typically likes to outline. but i promise promise PROMISE that outlining will make it easier to write your project, be it big or small. a problem i’ve always run into is having a vague idea of my overarching plot, with ideas for plot beats/scenes here and there... and then no idea of how to connect those beats, or how to get from point A to point B. OR, i’ll have too MANY ideas for directions that a plot can take, and then i get choice paralysis and write nothing. but if i start with that vague outline, and then “zoom in” on a small part of it and hammer out the full details into a play-by-play outline of the chapter, it helps me get stuff written!

if that sort of choice paralysis is something you also have issue with, i’ve found a lot of success with doing flowcharts to help you decide what direction to take the story. i’ll use swg as an example— the latest chapter ended with lawrence and adam learning that the jigsaw killer has been captured via a news report on the tv, and i’ve been having a bit of a block deciding what happens next. so i sat down and started a flowchart, with the first point being the news report. what COULD happen next? the boys COULD stay home and celebrate, assuming they’re in the clear, going so far as to destroy the evidence wall. they COULD buckle down and keep doing research/theorycrafting anyways, unconvinced the police will actually be able to bring jigsaw into custody. they COULD head to the steel mill themselves, either to investigate or just to watch. they COULD get a surprise visit from alison to check on lawrence! i listed all of those options and some more, then asked myself— what’s the consequence, or the logical next step, in each of those scenarios? i wrote those out too. eventually, as i did this, i saw certain threads come to dead ends, where they either didn’t work towards the ongoing plot/ending i have in mind, or they just stopped sounding plausible or interesting to write/read about. as i worked on the flowchart, though, i also noticed which threads made me excited to think about, and which ones went further down the page. eventually, by doing this, i figured out the events that i want to take place in the chapter!! i REALLY recommend this technique if you have trouble committing to a direction on a story.

getting away from craft discussion and back to general advice— if you have any writerly-inclined friends, talking to them can be a great help! if you’ve both got projects going on, it’s a lot of fun to take turns listening to each other’s ideas, or talking through blocks. it’s also just fun and mutually encouraging to hype each other up!!

taking care of yourself is WAY more important than having a consistent schedule or word output— learned this one the hard way! if you feel dread and not excitement every time you approach the proverbial typewriter, you’re not gonna have fun writing, and you’re not gonna wanna come back to it!! there’s no shame in taking a break. if you WANT, you can use the break time to research or work on inspirational stuff for your project (art, graphics, playlists, etc), or you can read things and look for techniques and other things that inspire you. but even then, treating Everything you do as work/a prereq for your writing can get tiring. you’re a whole person, not just a writer! it’s okay to let the writer rest so the person can hang out and enjoy things.

that’s about all that’s coming to mind right now— sorry, i know this got a little longwinded! but i hope this was helpful, and if you’ve got any further questions or anything, please feel free to hit me up. my degree is in english and i truly genuinely get a kick out of talking shop (writing) with people!

#asks #anonymous

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bionerd2point0 · 2 years

Text

Fanfic Year In Review

Tagged by the ever-wonderful @glaciya! Thank you darling!!

How many works do you have on ao3?

43 - 14 this year!

What’s your total ao3 word count?

239,139 - 126,535 this year!

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Uh, 1 lol. Basically just Batfam (Batman - All Media Types) with a handful of sub fandoms within haha

Are there any new fandoms you want to write for?

I may or may not have 20k of a Shadow and Bone remake languishing in my WIP folder... Maybe.... We’ll have to see if it ever comes to light! XD

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Operation Tim

Operation Tia

Day By Day

Redfish

The Feeling of Safety

Which of your fics do you want more attention for?

None! I’m honestly constantly blown away by the attention I’ve already gotten!

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

Always! Have yet to have any haters (I’m sure they’re coming, and I’ve already started drafting ways to leave a snarky reply before freezing the thread lol) but I really love chatting with people and appreciate them putting in the extra effort, even if it’s just a keyboard smash or a string of emojis!

What sorts of things do you normally write?

Angst, fluff, and lots and lots of AUs!! I look fondly at canon, pick up my favorite characters to hug close, and toss the rest out the window. It’s very freeing lol

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Mmm, probably Shadow of Death? I am particularly fond of happy endings, so this one is more of an open ending than anything else, but it definitely leaves people hanging a little ;)

What’s a fic that pushed you out of your comfort zone?

A Series of Moments was probably the closest I’ve ever come to truly writing dark fic, and it definitely made me stretch my muse, even knowing the happy ending had already been written. I think it turned out very well though!

Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

Not... really? The only one I have posted on AO3 is my Batman/Big Hero 6 fusion that really only involved Baymax (Human Pinatas and Robot Doctors) but I have a fairly extensive DC/Star Wars crossover that I worked on quite a bit in my youth! Never finished it, and it’s horribly self-indulgent, but it was fun at the time and was technically my first fanfic!

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes! Just this year, in fact. It was such a huge compliment to be asked!

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I have! Secret Caverns: Raider of the Lost Ark was my very first dip in the pool of round robin-ing through Discord, and Inky made it so much fun! And the afore mentioned Shadow of Death was written with @luthienluinwe and had some truly fantastic imagery! Currently, I’m working on what has turned into a massive story with @workingchemistry and it’s been SO fun! It’s solidly over 100k now, but we probably need a beginning before we can start posting... And some editing. So. Much. Editing. 😂

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

Well, I’m definitely not ever finishing that DC/Star Wars AU lol, but I hold out hope that some of my others (JayTim Vikings, Serial Killer!Tim, etc) will eventually get finished. It’s mostly a matter of limited Time and Energy haha

What are you currently working on?

The Playmating AU with Chem, the last few chapters of How to Start Living, the sequel to Honest Men, Secret Project That I Shall Not Name, and Oy! What a Knight. I’ve also still got some prompts that I’m working on, but they’ve been chilling on the back burner until I can get some of my other projects wrapped up!

What are your writing strengths?

~Worldbuilding~ (to the surprise of no one lol)

What are your writing weaknesses?

Editing 100%, but I’ve been blessed with some amazing betas haha

What was the first fandom you wrote for? Most recent?

Young Justice (that crossover I mentioned) was my first, now it’s a general mishmash of Batfam shipping, but primarily JayTim and JayDick!

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

Lord, asking the hard questions, aren’t ya? Hmm.... It’s really got to be Honest Men. That fic (which is now actually a trilogy with three separate arcs, only the first of which is totally done) is one that I started before I posted anything else, and there’s so many layers to it that I’m really excited to see people’s reactions once things start to unravel. I even have a motif worked into it!

What fic are you most proud of?

All of them!

I’ll try not to double tag, but I apologize in advance cuz I know this has been going around! @workingchemistry (who already beat me to it lol), @elareine, @generatorcat , and anyone else who wants to join in the fun!!

#bio talks #lots of words #fanfic year in review

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yuziyuanapologist · 3 years

Text

i got this as an ask several weeks ago, from the angst prompt list that i cant be bothered finding again, wangxian + “shit, are you bleeding?” unfortunately sometimes tumblr decides that i must pay for my crimes and deleted the ask instead of saving it as a draft. so. but i had the fic saved! so once more with feeling:

it’s here on ao3, 2.9k words, canon divergence from ep33, no big warnings but mostly-non-graphic injury description and also my personal vendetta against the lan clan’s rules.

big thank u to @goldencorecrunches for reading this over and generally being the best

It’s been a strange few days.

As Wei Wuxian wakes up from what feels like a dream, he finds himself somewhere he’s never been - yet somewhere familiar, all the same. The sound of soft notes - the song of clarity - floats through to his consciousness, he turns his head to the side, smiling gently at Lan Zhan, deep in concentration with his fingers on the strings.

It’s not the way he would have chosen, to come here to Gusu, but he could get used to it. He’s certainly grateful for it, brought here safe instead of dragged back to Lotus Pier - or, indeed, slaughtered where he stood.

Zidian gets no more pleasant, in a new body. Sixteen years away clearly has not mellowed his sh- his ex-shidi.

He has questions, though, as to why the sixteen years have worked in what seems like the opposite way on Lan Zhan. Wasn’t he desperate to scold Wei Wuxian before, wasn’t he desperate to - drag him back here to Gusu?

Well, he managed. But it - well, either it was never as bad as he thought it would be in his last life, or Lan Zhan’s intentions are more gentle now. Sweeter. He’s simply playing for Wei Wuxian, dressed all in white save for -

“Shit, are you bleeding?”

The notes come to a discordant halt as Wei Wuxian forces himself to sit. Lan Zhan straightens his shoulders - the shoulders that, down one side, are tainted with a stain of dark red.

His only answer - typical Lan Zhan - is “Mn.”

“Lan Zhan - wh-”

“Do not panic,” Lan Zhan says, even as Wei Wuxian hauls himself to standing, his legs buckling beneath him in protest. Lan Zhan stands in one fluid motion, and crosses the room to take Wei Wuxian’s arm, and lift him back to the bed.

Wei Wuxian protests half-heartedly, but only from sitting - he really is weak in this new body.

“It is nothing unexpected,” Lan Zhan says, quiet resignation filling his voice. “Stay.”

“Lan Zhan-“

But Lan Zhan has already crossed the room, moved behind the screen in the corner, and Wei Wuxian’s vision is fuzzy already from standing so quickly - he can’t protest, or follow - he can only wait.

It’s not long, a few minutes at most, that Wei Wuxian passes with his head in his hands, trying to fit this information in somewhere that makes sense - although, of course, he’s been gone sixteen years. It could be anything.

Lan Zhan emerges, and his robes are once again pure white, as if nothing had ever happened.

He settles back behind his guqin, and his fingers meet the strings once again, soft notes melting into the evening.

"Lan Zhan," Wei Wuxian speaks up, even though, despite the sixteen years since he's known him - he knows he will give no answer

As predicted, he gets only silence.

"Was it Zidian? Did Jiang Cheng-" he cuts himself off with a shake of his head. That's not how Zidian works, and he knows it. The only likely part of that story is Jiang Cheng, and perhaps - but Lan Zhan was so unconcerned, it can't be a recent injury. And it is nothing unexpected -

"Is it a curse?"

"You ought to have paid more attention in your lectures here."

Wei Wuxian scoffs. “I’ve been dead for sixteen years,” he reminds Lan Zhan. “Even if i had paid attention, would you really expect me to remember?”

Lan Zhan doesn’t respond beyond a slow blink, one that could disguise the edges of a smile - but it’s been sixteen years. It could just as easily be anything else.

After too long in silence, Wei Wuxian lets out a sigh. This isn’t how he wanted to begin to make amends, this isn’t who he would choose to be, on his second chance. Overbearing, insistent, prying. That was for Lan Zhan, that was for sixteen years ago. “Lan Zhan -”

“It does not matter,” Lan Zhan interrupts, and his voice falls to soft tones, evocative of tears that no one has shed. “You are here.”

Blood runs slowly into the water of the Cold Springs. Wei Wuxian watches, his mouth slack with worry. For all that Lan Zhan had acted as though it was nothing to concern himself with - and for all that he had then refused to speak more about it - this wound is deep. It cuts from the top of his shoulder blade, all the way down below the water, and the blood flows thick and steady.

There are other scars, too - long healed, but that might once have been just as deep.

“Lan Zhan -“

As soon as the words sound in the quiet air, Lan Zhan's tranquility is stopped - he flees the water and dresses before Wei Wuxian can even finish the sentence. But - on his way out of the water - he exposes a second wound across his lower back - shallower, than the first, the blood thin and only trickling from the wound - but still it bleeds.

Lan Zhan moves to face him on the bank of the stream, tying his robes closed. He blinks slow, and opens his mouth at the same time as Wei Wuxian. “Wei Y-”

“You said it wasn't anything to worry about,” Wei Wuxian says, barely even trying to keep the accusation out of his voice. “This is - this is -" he lets it rush out in a breath - there aren't words for what he means to say.

"It is nothing to worry about," Lan Zhan repeats, without meeting Wei Wuxian eyes. But there's a pallor to his skin, a weakness to his breath - he takes a step, and stumbles.

"Lan Zhan!"

"I am fine," says Lan Zhan. "My body will adjust."

"What do you mean? Can you not give me a straight answer?"

Lan Zhan's eyes drift shut. "I need to rest." He moves past Wei Wuxian and starts down the path.

Wei Wuxian is not so easily distracted. "You need a doctor, Lan Zhan," he tries to insist, reaching for Lan Zhan's arm, but he's shrugged off in an instant - and though it's weak, Wei Wuxian has almost no choice but to let go. He follows along, though, hand inches from Lan Zhan's arm in case he needs to hold him up.

A minute later, Lan Zhan replies in a low voice. "No doctor of the Cloud Recesses can help."

"What? What do you mean?"

But try as he might, he gets no further answer from Lan Zhan, until they're back in his jingshi and Lan Zhan settles cross legged on the floor, eyes falling shut and yet doing nothing to slow the red bloom on the back of his white robes.

"Lan Zhan," Wei Wuxian tries again, but he is ignored. "Lan Zhan, at least -" a solution comes to him. "Do you have a needle and thread, then? Preferably silver, but I mean, I get that we can't all be Wen Qing," he laughs a little to himself, and feels the pull of guilt down at the bottom of his stomach. She's gone, says his chest. Sixteen years gone. And - that's enough time to be fine, says his head.

Lan Zhan doesn't reply.

"I will tear this room apart, Lan Zh-"

"It is against the rules."

"What, to have needle and thread?"

"To stitch the wound."

None of this adds up in the slightest. Wei Wuxian falls into sitting beside Lan Zhan so that he's facing him, leaning his weight on his hands.

And, not that he expected otherwise, but Lan Zhan does not look at him.

"Why -"

Lan Zhan lets out a breath, as close to a frustrated sigh as he has likely ever been.

"You have to know I'll keep asking, Lan Zhan," Wei Wuxian grins, shifting so that he can knock his shoulder into Lan Zhan's. "Just tell me."

"It is a punishment," says Lan Zhan. "The lesson has not been learnt, so the wound will not heal."

Wei Wuxian feels all traces of mirth vanish from his face.

"You mean," he swallows. "The section of the rules that I once asked about - the one that Zewu Jun assured me was about an outdated practice that hadn't been used for seventy years?"

A moment's silence. Then -

"Mn."

"What could you have possibly done - what could you still be -" he's incredulous, disbelieving, but the answer dawns on him before he finishes the sentence. "Oh." He exhales all of the energy, lets his anger become cold and sharp, a means to an end - a flavour of fury that feels, perhaps thankfully, a little less easy than it had been in the last life - but he still knows it well. "It's me, isn't it?"

Lan Zhan's eyes open, falling on Wei Wuxian, softened with worry, creased with pain, and yet truthful in silence.

"Lan Zhan, I can't -"

"Stay," Lan Zhan says - pleads. "My body will adjust."

Already, Wei Wuxian is shaking his head. "How can I -"

"I lost you, before," Lan Zhan says, voice shaking, strangled, almost inaudible. "It would hurt more - to lose you again."

It softens Wei Wuxian's anger, and yet fuels it. "Lan Zhan."

And yet, he knows where his talents lie. In mischief and craft, in deviance and trick.

"I'll make you a deal," he says, and though Lan Zhan's eyes have fallen shut again, there's a shift to his brow, a worry and a resignation. "I'll stay. If - you let me stitch you up."

Lan Zhan swallows. "It is against the rules," he says weakly.

One side of Wei Wuxian's mouth pulls up in disgust. "If you think I ever cared about that, you have the wrong measure of me."

He's awarded with the barest hint of a smile,but still no agreement. Coming to a decision, Wei Wuxian reaches into his robes for a blank talisman, and without casting anything onto it, he places it down on Lan Zhan's lap.

"Hostage situation," he smiles. "Freeze talisman. Lan Zhan, whatever will you do?"

Lan Zhan opens his eyes to glance down. "Wei Ying," he says. "This is blank."

"Mm, pretty sure you can't move, actually, so," Wei Wuxian tails off with a mischievous shrug. "Needle and thread? Or should I go?"

“Don’t go,” is the response, so quiet and desolate that Wei Wuxian almost caves - but this is for Lan Zhan’s own good. “The drawer behind the screen.”

Wei Wuxian smiles, hand to Lan Zhan’s forearm in thanks as he stands.

True to the request, Lan Zhan stays exactly as he is while Wei Wuxian digs around for everything he needs; needle and thread; a basin of water and cloth; bandages, too. He returns to kneel carefully behind Lan Zhan, and hesitates with his hand a finger’s breadth above his shoulder.

“Lan Zhan - can I -” He finds the edge of the robe with his fingers, brushing the skin of his neck.

There’s an almost imperceptible nod - and - a shudder? -as Lan Zhan reaches for the tie of his robes, and loosens it, enough to shrug the robe off his shoulder down to pool at his waist. Half-dried blood sticks the fabric of his undershirt to the wound, and Wei Wuxian tries not to wince along with Lan Zhan as he pulls just a little too roughly, murmuring an apology.

It’s not that he’s ever seen blood before, of course not - but it’s been a long time since he’s seen Lan Zhan in any pain, and it does not get any easier.

“Lan Zhan,” he keeps his voice low as if the volume will also cause pain, and lifts a damp cloth to the site of the wound, to ease the pull. “I know you said - you want me to stay - but -” He finally manages to tug the shirt away, exposing the wound for how deep it truly goes. “I’m not worth this.”

“You are.” It’s a tone that allows no arguments, a certainty that allows no doubt. All Wei Wuxian can do is believe it. Or - well - leave his rebuttal unsaid.

He shakes his head, for himself, since Lan Zhan won’t see it, and sets about cleaning the wound. The flow of blood is steady - not lethal, of course it couldn’t be, if a lesson is supposed to be learnt by the end, but it is enough that, no sooner than Wei Wuxian has wiped it away, more has taken its place, and soon enough he’s left with a blood-soaked cloth and a wound that still pours.

His hands have never been steady, but when sewing up his own wounds back in the Burial Mounds (“Just give me the needle, Wen Qing, I can do it myself”) it hadn’t mattered - because the only pain he was dealing with was his own, and he deserved it - he could barely feel it anyway. Here, now, with Lan Zhan soft before him, hands resting on his knees and shaking every time the wound is disturbed, he needs to be strong, stable, careful.

He lifts the needle. “Lan Zhan - it’ll hurt.”

He thinks, anyway. He thinks it used to hurt.

The only response he gets is a determined hum, the muscles below his fingers tensing.

“Okay,” he says, and sets to work. As he does, he desperately searches for something to distract Lan Zhan with - every time the needle goes in he tenses - slight enough to be unnoticeable, but clear enough that even Lan Zhan can’t hide it.

He could joke about it - well, if you won’t let me leave, this is the only option - or he could talk of something else - but all other subjects have evaded him since he’s been faced with this wound and the second, with the countless other scars, with the bare skin of Lan Zhan’s body, before him, slashed and destroyed for protecting -

“You didn’t only protect me,” he says quietly, distracting himself enough to run his finger over one of the other scars. “These other scars -” he reaches one unlike the others, threaded through with familiar black filaments. “There was one for each of us?”

Lan Zhan lowers his head, but does not respond. It’s close enough to a nod, and Wei Wuxian mimics the gesture, before returning to the task at hand - his eyes falling on the second wound, barely even bleeding, but unmistakably still open. He tries to fit it in, between everything else he knows - but finds no space for it. “And this one? Was there -”

He cuts himself off before he dares to hope. It will only lead to disappointment.

“It -” Lan Zhan exhales shakily. “It’s - different.”

Wei Wuxian can say nothing to the dismissal, knowing that Lan Zan will say no more, but narrows his eyes.

He’s close to finished, now, and the stitches seem to be holding so far. But - it’s not a permanent solution.

He lifts Lan Zhan's undershirt from the floor, and shakes his head at the bloodstain.

"Lan Zhan, where do you keep spare clothes?" he asks. "I'm done here, but you can't exactly put this back on."

"I will -" he starts to stand, but Wei Wuxian catches him by the waist, pulling him back down.

"Stay still," he instructs. "You're injured."

He - for some reason, he can't bring himself to let go of Lan Zhan, now, though he shows no signs of moving again. Instead, he keeps his hands where they are, not holding tight - not even holding, just - touching. His Lan Zhan.

He strokes his hands up and down Lan Zhan's bare skin, testing his limits, his eyes trained carefully on the wound - both to make sure he doesn't disturb, and simultaneously deep in thought about it. Lan Zhan's breath comes unsteady with hands on his skin, but not - if Wei Wuxian is correct - upset.

"It's been sixteen years," Wei Wuxian says absentmindedly. "And you still think I'm worth this."

"Yes," Lan Zhan says, with no trace of doubt. "You are."

Wei Wuxian can't help but let out a huff of laughter, letting his head fall forward to Lan Zhan's uninjured shoulder. "You're so -" he sighs out whatever it was that he was going to say - his mind can't summon the right words anyway.

With his eyes on his - admittedly imperfect - needlework, he conjures other questions.

“This discipline whip that they used,” he says, letting calculating anger control his thoughts but trying his hardest to keep his voice soft. “Where is it kept?”

He’s almost patient, waiting for Lan Zhan to respond, but when more seconds pass, he prompts “Lan Zhan?”

“Why do you ask?”

As if he doesn’t know. “Any talisman, however complex, can be reversed. Even on a spiritual tool.”

“It is against -”

“If you want me to stay,” replies Wei Wuxian. “Then I have to try.”

For a moment, he wonders if Lan Zhan will refuse him. If he will say, after all, that perhaps he has come to his senses, perhaps the rules are more important - but at long last, he sighs.

"The storeroom behind the library pavilion. It is guarded during the day, and warded in the night."

"Good thing I've broken your wards before, then," Wei Wuxian smiles, glancing out at the still bright sky. Later, then. He smiles to himself, and slides his hands forward, pulling Lan Zhan into an embrace - one that he could easily shake off, but doesn’t. In fact, his shoulders, tense as they had been, settle into relaxation, a breath of calm. “I suppose I should get you a shirt.”

Lan Zhan moves his hands to cover Wei Wuxian's, leaning his head back against Wei Wuxian’s shoulder and turning to bury his face into his neck. His eyes are shut - he’s almost smiling.

“Stay,” he murmurs.

Wei Wuxian can't help the quiet laugh that escapes him. "I already said I will, Lan Zhan."

#ah the classic: au with more potential than i have talent #the untamed #the untamed fic #wangxian fic #wangxian #im sorry anon i lost your ask #i hope u see this #mine #fic*

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katsukisblackteddy · 3 years

Text

The Warrior Queen & Her Pharaoh: Part II

Part II: I Want a Rematch

Pairings: pharaoh! god! Bakugou x warrior! queen! Reader Warnings: none Description: xxxxx

*Extra Info: I’ve taken creative liberties in this, meaning I know that some/most of it will not be historically accurate

𓂀 PART I 𓂀 PART II 𓂀 PART III 𓂀

"Katsuki?” (Y/n) broke the silence between the pair, the girl having been moved into the newly renovated quarters and from her old bedroom where she was placed when she first arrived.

“What?” The blonde questioned, glancing at the girl from where he sat in his chair quietly reading some book that didn’t interest the girl.

“Your father and mine drafted our marriage agreement two days ago.”

“So?”

“We’ve been married for the past two days then, right?” (y/n) questioned looking at the art on the wall. Katsuki raised an eyebrow at the girl, letting out a sigh before he shrugged.

“Why do you care?”

“It was a question. Can you relax?” The black girl momentarily glared at the blonde before rolling her golden eyes in annoyance.

“Don’t tell me what to do if I can’t tell you what to do.” Katsuki remarked before flipping the page and continuing to read.

“Do you plan to entertain consorts?” The girl questioned, her golden eyes boring into his crimson ones.

“I don’t know.” He stated simply, only pausing a moment later to look up at the girl with narrowed eyes. “Do you plan to entertain other men?”

“I don’t know.” She responded sarcastically, flashing him a smile as a frown appeared on his face.

“That’s not an adequate answer (y/n). Do you plan to entertain other men?” He repeated it slower this time, the book long forgotten and set to the side, his full attention on the black girl with the dark braids.

“Just as your answer was not adequate to me, mine isn’t to you.” (y/n) smiled. “Why do you deserve an answer when I didn’t get one. We are supposed to be equals aren’t we?”

“What? Are you jealous or something? Is that what this is? You’re jealous over the thought of me even having consorts.”

“That’s furthest from the truth.” The girl scoffed. “Are you ill, Katsuki? Should I call for the doctors?”

“Oh shut up.” He rolled his eyes. “Is everyone as dramatic as you where you come from?”

“I’m not dramatic Katsuki.” (y/n)’s eyes narrowed as she frowned. “My mother is dramatic along with trifling and two faced, and maybe a few other things but I don’t believe I’m allowed to say those things, lest I be punished in the Afterlife.”

Katsuki laughed lightly at the girl he now called his wife. “What’s so bad about her? Your father spoke highly of her.”

“My father is bordering on senile. He isn’t to be taken seriously. He’s simply a puppet in my mother’s hands, a toy to be played with to her.” (y/n) frowned thinking about her mother. “My mother schemes...just like she plotted to bring me here under the guise of a trade deal, though I suppose my life was simplified down to one for her.”

“Aren’t children supposed to love their mothers?” Bakugou asked incredulously, (y/n) flashing him a sideways glance and crooked smile.

“I suppose so, but then again, mothers aren’t supposed to plan out the death of their child, just as a wife is not to orchestrate the death of a husband...she’s done both though.” (y/n) revealed before lying back on the bed and staring at the ceiling.

“Your mother planned to kill you?”

“Yes, I was only a child but I don’t think a failed poisoning attempt is ever to be forgotten.”

“She’ll face retribution, if not by my hand then by those in the Afterlife.” Bakugou said nonchalantly, his eyes flashing with anger.

“By your hand, Katsuki?” (y/n) perked up slightly a shit-eating grin growing on her face.

“Is that all you got from what I said?” He quirked an eyebrow at the girl, an annoyed expression on his face though the faintest blush covered his cheeks.

“You would fight for me?” (y/n) asked as Katsuki shrugged. “You know that I can fight for myself right?”

“Of course. I don’t associate with weaklings.” He scoffed.

“You called me an extra.” (y/n) deadpanned.

“Well I didn’t know who you were.” He fired back.

“So you think I’m strong?” Katsuki shrugged in response as she laughed lightly. “I bet I could best you at chariot racing.”

“You wish.” The blonde scoffed, confidence shining in his crimson orbs.

“I don’t mean to brag but I am considered the best in my tribe.” She replied as they both stood deciding wordlessly to settle this once and for all.

“Well I’m the best in this entire kingdom.” Katsuki replied back as the two rushed to the common areas outside, seeing their friends talking quietly amongst themselves.

“Chariot race now!” Katsuki and (y/n) said at the same time to their friends, only pausing for a moment to look at each other before looking back to their friends.

“You better not give me the lame horses either, Katsuki!” (y/n) called back as they rushed back to their separate bathing quarters to get ready.

“Don’t think so little of me, Woman.” He called back before disappearing into his own bathing quarters.

The black girl appeared a short time later, her hair braided with gold and silver thread, gold plated armor placed onto her shoulders connecting to a chest plate and a metal skirt that was placed over a fitted tunic. A large green jewel set into the chest plate. A simple golden headpiece sat on her braids, matching the black and gold eyeshadow and black eyeliner she wore.

She walked down the steps and towards the chariot that sat waiting for her. Mina and Jirou standing beside the chariot under the shade of a nearby tree, their eyes brightening when their new friend approached.

“I hope he looses.” Mina said under her breath as she took her place on the side next to Kaminari, Kirishima, and Jirou. The four nobles stood under the shade of a tree as Bakugou and (y/n) stood in their golden chariots.

The ash blonde ruler smirked at the girl that he now called his wife, though he still thought she was more annoying than anything else. “He’ll win...like he always does.” Kirishima mumbled back, still not over the fact that he had most recently lost against Bakugou.

“Not this time, Kirishima!” (y/n) called as she held the reigns in her hand, ready to take off at the moment’s notice. Bakugou stood in a similar position, his crimson eyes ablaze as he stared out over the sand dunes in the distance.

“We’ll see about that!” Bakugou called as Jirou yelled ‘Go’ and they were off. The ash blonde had taken the lead from the start, his all white horses with gold and silver harnesses thundered through the sand, their strangely black eyes focused only on the landscape in front of them.

(y/n) snapped her reigns again, her own all black horses, running quicker than they were a moment before, easily running in time with Bakugou. (y/n) glanced over to her right, a large smirk on her face as she waved at the blonde before her horses ran faster, passing his chariot altogether.

“I win!” She announced, hopping off of the chariot when they both crossed the finish line within the same second. Bakugou rolled his eyes, scoffing as the girl danced around. “I guess I’m the best chariot racer in all of the land.”

“I want a rematch.” Bakugou stated sourly, shooting a glare at the girl, though she could tell he didn’t mean it since there was a playful glint in his eyes.

“Another time. We have to get back to the palace. You have duties to attend to.” Kaminari chimed in sheepishly, before spinning around and glaring at the three others who stood avoiding eye contact. He always hated having to be the one to ruin the fun, this time loosing the bet to Kirishima, so being the bearer of bad news was his punishment.

“What duties?” Bakugou questioned, his eyes narrowing as he thought about having to do actual work when they were all having fun.

“Well, you have to go visit the worksites and make sure everything is up to par, and then you have to visit the shop in the marketplace.”

“The marketplace? I’d like to come! I’ve never been before.”

“Well you won’t be going today. I’ll take you another time. You have things to do with my mother anyway.”

“What things?”

“I don’t know...girl things.” Bakugou retorted before walking off with Kirishima and Kaminari, leaving the girls behind with a simple half wave of his hand.

“He can’t tell me what to do! I want to go! He can’t keep me locked away here.”

“We have a lot to do today anyways. You have a whole new wardrobe to be fitted for!” Mina cheered, clapping her hands together as they headed back to the palace.

(y/n) watched from the palace entrance as the royal chariots seemed to disappear from view before she went back inside, heading to find Mitsuki and her ladies.

“What about this one?”

“No.” (y/n) denied quickly with a shake of her head, not even bothering to entertain the idea. “Why must I wear these anyway? I don’t find them appealing at all.”

“They aren’t for you to find appealing.”

“I won’t be using them around Katsuki, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“He is your husband, child. You’re expected to birth an heir eventually.” One of the older woman said, looking through the different linens to find something that you may like.

“I will not lay with a man I barely know. We’ve only just started sleeping beside each other.”

“There’s only one bed in the room, (y/n).” Mina said, blinking her eyes.

“I’m well aware.”

“You didn’t make him sleep on the floor did you?” Jirou giggled, as a few women looked at you with a dumbfounded expression.

“No...he offered, but I told him so long as he not touch me, we could share...so we do.”

“But this morning, you both were wrapped in each other’s arms...Kaminari said that we should’ve gotten papyrus and sketched it for safe keeping, but we didn’t have time.” Mina sighed whistfully.

“You watched us sleep?” (y/n) questioned, staring into her friend’s eyes with a slight laugh.

“No...” Mina said, but not very convincingly. “Anyways, you should wear something this shade. I’ve noticed that he seems to like it.” She pointed out the orange fabric. “Then you both can match!”

“Whatever...it’s fine.” (y/n) finally agreed, thankful to finally be done with the wardrobe fittings, at least for now.

The girls wandered around the large palace for some time before Bakugou and the two boys came back, Mina and Jirou telling the girl to go and change so she would be ready for when Bakugou would arrive.

She walked into the room at the exact moment that the explosive blonde walked in, his red eyes locking in on the girl with dark skin, the orange toned fabric matching nicely with her complexion and making her golden eyes stand out.

“Woah...you look beautiful.” Jirou smiled widely, high fiving Mina as Kirishima and Kaminari nodded in agreement. (Y/n)’s gaze quickly shifted to the strangely quiet Bakugou, confused as to why he wasn’t saying anything when all he usually did was talk.

“You look...nice Dumbass, now come on.” He stated gruffly, quickly turning from your view so he could hide his pink tinted cheeks from her. She followed him outside to where a large Sedan was waiting to take them to their destination, though (y/n) was still unsure as to where that would be.

“Where are we going Katsuki?” The girl wondered, glancing at her surroundings before focusing back on the boy.

“You’ll see.” He answered cryptically. A short time later they arrived at the secret destination, Katsuki exiting the sedan first, then extending his hand out to the girl as she jumped down, her sandals hitting the cool sand with a soft thud.

“It’s just over here.” He stated, grabbing her hand and pulling her along when she began to walk the wrong way. He led her over to a large colorful mural, bright flora and fauna bordered the people in the middle.

“Is that..us?” She questioned, pointing at it with her free hand. Although he no longer needed to, Katsuki had yet to release the girl’s hand, but she wasn’t complaining. He nodded at her question. “It’s beautiful.”

“I thought you’d like it...” He shrugged. “I was planning on showing you earlier, but Kaminari thought you would like it more if I showed you when it was finally completed.” Katsuki noticed the way the girl’s eyes seemed to remain on the painted version of herself, the boy growing slightly worried that she wouldn’t like it...he had painted her himself. “Do you not like it?”

“N-No! It’s not that! It’s just...she looks like me...like actually looks like me...” The girl trailed off, her eyes wide in wonder and shining in the dim light of the setting sun.

“Is that a problem?”

“Usually that doesn’t happen.”

“Well I did it myself...I wanted it to be accurate and no body else is good enough anyways.” Katsuki replied, his usually cocky attitude resurfacing and ruining the gentle moment.

“You painted it yourself?” He simply nodded. “You’re really talented.”

“Why do you sound so surprised? I’m not just devastatingly handsome, you know.”

“Yeah right.” (y/n) scoffed, nudging him with a laugh as he smiled softly at her, his eyes going down to her full lips more than he would like to admit.

“What? Is there something on my face?”

“No.” He stated, while continuing to stare, ignoring the confused expression of the girl in front of him. “Can I do something?”

“Y-yeah.” (y/n) said softly, noticing the way he stood impossibly closer, the boy standing a few inches taller than her. His large hands gripped the sides of her face softly, before he looked at her again.

“Can I kiss you?” The girl nodded before mumbling out a soft ‘yes’, Katsuki not wasting any time before bending slightly and taking her lips with his own. His lips were soft against her own, surprising her since she had expected him to be rough about everything, it just seemed like that was his nature.

Apparently not though, since the kiss, though short, was soft and sweet. Their lips moving in sync against each other’s before they finally pulled apart, only far enough to breathe, their noses still touching.

“Your lips are soft.” (y/n) remarked out loud, causing the boy to roll his eyes.

“Just because I’m aggressive, according to some people, doesn’t mean I’m a heathen.” He stated as the girl laughed.

“You are aggressive.”

“Well you don’t seem to mind.”

“I never said it was an issue.”

“Well that’s not what your tone said.”

“Do you just enjoy ruining moments and starting arguments?”

“You’re the one who started the argument in the first place. This isn’t even an argument.” He stated back as they walked around with each other, their guards making a perimeter, while allowing them space.

“Whatever...I was going to let you kiss me again, but since I start arguments...”

“That’s not what I meant, (y/n).” Katsuki mumbled shortly after, causing the girl to bite her lip to hide her smile.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” (Y/n) smirked as Katsuki rolled his eyes again with a scoff.

“Get over yourself.”

“Says you.” (y/n) called back, running a few steps ahead as Katsuki chased her, the empty area the perfect place to goof off without having to maintain royal appearances.