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#50k. even with the pictures it’s still so hard to visualize
apollos-boyfriend · 2 years
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attempting to visualize what 50,000 people look like. he was so loved. he still is.
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taleasnewastime · 2 years
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Dating advice | Part twenty
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Summary: It’s been months – ok, it’s been years – since you last went on a date. And you’re sick of it. Sick of seeing couples kissing and holding hands in the street. Sick of your friends settling down. Sick of everyone buying houses and having families. You’re going to do something about it. You’re going to snap up a man, you’re going to tie someone down, you’re going to finally commit, you’re going to – you’re going to need a bit of advice.
Pairing: Yoongi x reader
Genre: fluff; angst; smut
Word count: 1.5k
Warnings: fluff, swearing
Authors Note: Over 50k later, we’re at the final part. I’d like to say a big old thanks for all the support on this and for everyone that has made it this far! THANK YOU!!  
Previous | Series masterlist
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One year later:
Lots of things can change in a year. Some good, some bad.
At The Old Rectifying House there have been many changes. The staff are different, Lewis no longer works at the pub, he moved to university to study computer science, and Priya has officially been promoted to assistant manager, much to the owner’s annoyance. There are a few new members of staff, some still terrified of their boss which Priya secretly fuels with false gossip. There’s been a change in the regulars, most are the same but sadly one of the older men passed away. To the naked eye, the place looks and feels the same, but to the few that know the place more intimately there are more seismic changes, in both regulars, the small touches around the place – such as flowers on the tables – and more noticeably the mood of the owner.
There’s also been changes upstairs. Visually the place looks much the same, but if you look carefully there are different pictures in some of the frames and in some of the draws there are now clothes that definitely don’t belong to Yoongi. Granny knickers and lacy underwear, as well as jeans not in Yoongi’s size and skirts that he would deny all knowledge of wearing if questioned.
While you don’t officially live there, there is a large quantity of your belongings hanging around the place, much like there are some of Yoongi’s clothes at your place.
There are two toothbrushes in each bathroom. Floral shampoo in the shower that goes down quicker than you can use it. There’s food Yoongi wouldn’t normally buy and pictures around the room that weren’t there before. The plant life in his flat is thriving in comparison to a year ago and there are more often than not bouquets of flowers that were bought for you on the kitchen bar.
It’s you that tends to go to his more often than not. It’s easier and when he’s working a shift. You like making the use of the free Thatchers and making jokes with Priya at Yoongi’s expense, teasing the new staff about how mean Yoongi is and making up stories that he grumbles about but secretly smiles at. It’s nice to go upstairs, to curl up on his sofa, to sometimes go to bed and then have Yoongi crawl in beside you. You don’t as easily get that luxury if you stay at yours when he’s working.
There are other changes too. The two small bowls that sit under the breakfast bar weren’t there a year ago. There is a fluffy hammock hanging off a radiator that looks unused and various toys dotted around the room.
You’d finally convinced Yoongi to get that cat you’d thought would suit him so much. And while you kept dragging him back to that cat café, as well as different rescue centre open days, you’d finally convinced him what a great idea it would be. He’d grumbled the whole time about it. But you’d worked out how to get what you want, it wasn’t hard, if you asked enough times you found Yoongi didn’t stay saying no to you for long. In the end he’d give you anything you ask for.
When Yoongi finally agreed to getting a cat, he took the matter seriously. You caught him googling things in the evening, though he was quick to change tabs if he knew you were watching. He didn’t leap into getting any old cat, you visited several rescue centres before he picked the perfect cat for him. An older cat that had been in the centre for nearing a year, looked over by every other person and with FIV, a feline disease that meant he should be kept inside, ideal for a flat. He had the name Raven Fluffles. Yoongi refused to change it claiming it’s what he’d answer to.
“Look!”
You glance up from your book, feigning indifference. Yoongi’s stood, foot nudging a plastic ball, the bell inside ringing. The cat is sat next to him, looking up with much the same look you imagine is on your face. All black, with bright yellow eyes, he looks like he’d rather be doing anything else. He’s been with you for a few weeks now and though it’s taken time for him to settle into his new environment and his owners, you now wonder how Yoongi possibly picked a cat exactly like him. Because though the cat is acting like he’s disgusted, you know he’s a playful kitten inside, on multiple occasions you’ve caught him playing with his toys when he thinks he’s alone, and in the evening he creeps closer to Yoongi’s lap, giving into the scratches and cuddles he pretends to be unbothered by.
“What exactly am I looking at?” You ask.
“You missed it,” Yoongi says, eyes firmly on the ball at his feet. “But he definitely kicked it this time.”
“Like the other day?”
He shoots a look over his shoulder, eyes narrowing, before he looks back down at the ball. His toe continues its movement.
Now he’s not looking at you, you let your lips curl a little, giving away your feelings. It’s sweet really. Despite all his grumbling about getting the cat, it was him that bought the food and treats, it’s him that empties the litter tray with no complaint, it’s him that’s bought the mountain of toys that don’t get used. He’s been trying to convince the cat to play with them for weeks, and no matter what he says, he’s yet to be successful.
You’ve seen him tapping his lap gently while he watches TV, pretending not to be bothered whenever the cat decides not to sit on his lap. You’ve stumbled into the living room half asleep when you’ve heard him come up in the early hours from work but hasn’t come to bed and seen him laying out Dreamies, watching as the cat chomps each one up. You’ve seen the way he doesn’t think twice when adding something to the shopping for the cat, when he fights so hard over even the smallest of additional things you suggest for the two of you.
He loves the cat, and you can’t deny that you’ve become incredibly fond of watching the way he reacts around him. It’s like you always imagined. Your little picture of the future actually coming true.
“He probably just walked into it,” you tease.
“He reached his paw out and batted it.”
You hum, enjoying yourself and though Yoongi doesn’t turn to look at you, you know what you’re saying is working. It’s one of the things that hasn’t changed over the year, teasing each other is still a massive part of your relationship with Yoongi.
“Fine,” Yoongi huffs, giving up and giving away his true feelings.
He does a little stomp over to where you sit, a small pout forming on his lips. You put your book to the side, open your arms up for him to sit at your side. You smile as you look at him, smooth the hair that’s grown so long out of his face. God, you’re so incredibly fond of this man.
“I’m sure he did play with it,” you smile.
“He did.”
“He liked the catnip toy you bought. Maybe we should get him some more of that?”
“It’s not good for them to have too much,” he mutters.
“Ok, maybe next month as a treat?”
He nods, and your smile grows as you continue to stroke his hair behind his ear.
“God,” you giggle. “I love you.”
He looks at you, your hand moving to cup his cheek. He’s got a frown on his face, not the same look of surprise and utter joy when you first told him the words, this time it’s more annoyance.
“Why do you say it like that?”
“Because you’re just so dumb and yet I still love you.”
He rolls his eyes though the firm line of his lips starts to crack.
“You not going to say it back?” You goad, eyes flicking over his face, you’ve gotten so much better at reading all the emotions he tries to hide.
He looks at you, softness seeping into him now, relaxing all his muscles. “I love you too.”
You beam, and the look creates Yoongi’s small smile to grow. He winds his arm around your back so he can pull you closer.
“Though, I agree, why I have no idea. You’re so annoying.”
You giggle as you lean in, whisper just before your lips touch his, “oh shut up, you love it.”
You don’t let him agree or disagree, just press your lips into his. You know the answer anyway. Because even if he didn’t say the words back, he says it through every action he does. Because you’ve had your ups and downs and you’ve had your insecurities, but you know now. You love Yoongi and he loves you back just as much.
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Taglist:
@minyoongiboongi @kookiecrumb @shydestinyyouth @minimoni7 @dopedreamfireparty @ilyk00 @hobiicores @here4btsfics @highly-functioning-mitochondria @ajw05 @xuxibelle @seoqity @jjksaveme @squakadoodledoo @jiminandhislostjams @rumpucis @bbsantc @likeshatteredrainbowglass @zae007live @mama-miss-shunshine @chaotic-floral @cowboylikevicky @yoonallthetime @feeling-woozi @neongreenlaces @jimilter @is-it-sander-oclock-yet @majamarantha @nuniah @sunshinerainbowsbts @driftapart
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I don't know if this could be taken the wrong way, so let me just say that I'm approaching this with the utmost respect and admiration for you work: would you ever consider writing a "how to" kind of tutorial for how to structure a smut fic? I love your fics and would love to get a sense of your process, since mine apparently does not work for me anymore.
Okay, phew, this took me far longer to get to than I’d hoped, my apologies, nonny! I’ve never considered writing a “how to” before, since I don’t really see myself as an expert or a teacher, and everyone’s process is very personal and subjective. But I hope this sort of slap-dash tutorial will help you in your writing endeavors!
Warning: NSFW and “crude” language ahead, since I’ll be damned if I’m bothering to use a bunch of euphemisms while I’m literally talking about writing sex scenes.
So You Wanna Earn that “E” Rating: One Kinky Idiot’s Guide to Writing Smut
(Shut up, I’m hilarious.)
First Steps: Before You Write
Okay, so, I say this pretty much anyone asks me for writing advice about something, no matter what the topic might be: start with research.
Shocking as this might be, I have not had sex with a vampire, a dragon, or a werewolf (yet, hit me up, I’m single). This is pretty easy for the reader to assume, since most of us have not met a vampire or any other supernatural creature (alas). But a lot of the other sex stuff I write about I haven’t done, either, and same with a lot of other writers. For example, I have never given a blowjob to an uncircumcised man. Garcia Flynn is from Europe, where it’s a lot more common for Gentiles (non-Jews) to be uncircumcised, so it made sense for him to still have a foreskin (compared to Wyatt Logan, being American where most men regardless of religion are circumcised). So when writing sex scenes, especially blowjob scenes, I had to know what the fuck to do with the foreskin.
RESEARCH!!!!
Research can also be kind of helpful in the erotic sense. Most articles such as “how to use a vibrating dildo” can be very straightforward and clinical, but the detail of their descriptions can help you to start picturing the sex scene you want to write.
So before anything else: if you don’t have the hands-on experience, RESEARCH RESEARCH RESEARCH. This includes reading other smut fics that have whatever it is you want to write about! I read a lot of gay smut before I wrote two men getting it on, seeing as I am not a man (I am as swift as a coursing river and have the strength of a raging fire but, alas, do not possess the force of a great typhoon and I am the farthest thing from mysterious as the dark side of the moon).
Another thing some fellow smut writers have found helpful is watching porn. They’re much more visual than I am, and so seeing things acted out, even if they’re acted in a cheesy way, can help them to get creative juices flowing and visualize what they want their characters to do. I do not like porn, since I am a fucking snob and criticize the lighting, the script, and the camera angles the entire time.
Yes, I’m a great time at parties, thanks for asking.
Also? Masturbation. YES I’M SERIOUS. Think long and hard (ha) about what turns you on when you’re touching yourself. I don’t just mean that fantasy about the pirate captain, I mean literally, what parts of yourself does it feel good to touch? Do you like to tease and take your time, or get right to it and be a little rough? Do you prefer big dildos that fill you up or a small vibrator that concentrates on your clit?
What you like and how you want to be touched is a great way to start.
Part Two: How to Get Your Blank Word Doc To Stop Mocking You
I usually start my smut scenes one of two ways. The first way is generally for my oneshots: WHAT KINK ARE WE GOING TO GET EVERYONE INTO TODAY??? LET’S SPIN THE WHEEL!!! *game show theme music*
The second way is more for my multichapter fics, which is: what is the purpose of the sex scene? Why are these characters having sex?
Everyone has times where they have sex just ‘cause they wanna have it. That’s what PWPs are for. “I’m horny and I want to read someone getting two cocks in their vagina/being tied up and made to orgasm five times/fucked against a wall.” Great! Excellent. Wonderful. For those cases I ask myself, “well, if I were in Character A’s shoes, what would I find hot?” I consider the person’s personality, and then roleplay in my head what would feel good to me to do. Then I swap and do the same thing through Character B’s shoes.
For example, I am very submissive in bed. I want my partner to tell me what to do (not all the time but when we’re getting kinky). I do not want to be the one giving orders. Lucy Preston, however, is dominant in bed. She wants to be in control. So when I write sex scenes I can’t just say, as Lucy the woman, “oh I want him to hold me down and fuck me,” because that doesn’t fit her characterization (at least, not the characterization I see for her). That’s important to consider, always.
CHARACTERIZATION IS KEY!!!! I can’t tell you how many damn good fics I was into until I got to a part where a character was acting OOC and it took me completely out of the story. Most recently, I was reading this hilarious and sexy smut oneshot that I was absolutely in love with–until I got to the end, and Character B, who is known for being very taciturn and not good with words, started spouting off all this really earnest and romantic stuff.
Look, there are ways that a taciturn person, who isn’t good with words, can be earnest. Having them say cliche romantic stuff is not it. I was completely taken out of the story and that saddened me because I loved it up until that part.
***Interlude***
A good example of this is pet names! Pet names that characters call each other really showcase their personality. For example, I have Flynn call Lucy moja draga and moja ljubav which are Croatian for, respectively, “my darling” and “my love.” But he calls Wyatt moj tigriću which is Croatian for “my tiger,” because it just doesn’t fit the snarky, chaotic, initially-adversarial Wyatt/Flynn relationship for them to call one another “my love” or “my darling.” Wyatt calls Flynn “babe” in a way that started out sarcastic and became a habit before he could stop it.
I could go on (the trio has a lot of pet names for each other) but my point is, the pet names fit their personalities and their dynamics. Gotta do the same for your sex scenes! People don’t just become porn stars when they have sex, they’re still themselves!
***Interlude Outro***
Okay, so that’s PWP But what if it’s in a longer fic? What if this is the sex the characters have been building towards for 50k, 100k, 200 FUCKING THOUSAND WORDS WHAT THE FUCK–
*ahem*
Anyway, if you do that, then of course it’s not just about “hey I’m horny and have a thing for being spanked.” There have to be reasons why. Consider the circumstances. Is it a release of tension? Did they just have an argument and they’re running high on adrenaline? Did one of them just suffer a loss and they want physical intimacy to feel comforted? Why are they having sex now, instead of at another time, and once you figure that out, that’ll set the tone for the whole thing.
This was something I really struggled with in The Thing With Shadows Is (They Come From Light, From Somewhere). The setup for that fic is that Lucy was a dominatrix at a BDSM club, and needs to become one again to go undercover and get personal information on Rittenhouse members. To maintain her cover, only one person will be in contact with her, by posing as a client and doing BDSM scenes with her. The person chosen is Flynn.
This was a bit of a shameless excuse to have Flynn and Lucy fucking every chapter, but having characters doing sexy stuff to each other every chapter can get boring quickly. So every chapter I was thinking, why are they doing this. Why are they being sexually intimate? What are their emotional states? What do they want, and what are they not saying to each other? What is coming out through the sex because they’re refusing to use their words?
The why will immediately dictate what sex stuff actually happens in your scene. If a character is, say, grieving the death of a loved one and wants intense physical comfort, they’re probably going to want to be on the bottom (missionary position) so that the weight of the other person on top of them grounds them. Or, perhaps they would like to be on top, so that the other person can wrap their arms around them, and they feel held and cared for. Perhaps they want to do it with the other person behind them, kneeling, arms around them, so that they feel held but they don’t look at the other person’s face, because they can’t handle that kind of intimacy right now with all the emotions they’re struggling with.
But on the contrary–maybe they want to be fucked hard and rough, taken out of their heads, made to not think about anything at all! All of these are viable choices based on the character, and it’s up to you!
Comparing it to yourself can really help. How would you want to have sex in that given situation?
Is the sex tender? Is it explosive? Is it frantic and on the floor of the foyer with their clothes mostly on because they can’t get enough of each other and they’ve waited too damn long already? Or is it done slow and soft in a bed, fully naked, their hands interlocked, staring into each other’s eyes? What the characters are feeling and why they’re having this sex now, here, will help with that.
Figure all that out, then projectile vomit it onto the page.
Part Three: Revision, or, Taking Your Darlings Out Back and Shooting Them
Once I finish vomiting unleash my first draft, then that’s where the research comes in. I read the scene over again and go, okay, well, this and this and this are very hot, but this position here isn’t physically possible. Or I can add in bits of realism like, okay, here’s a part where I can describe the safeword, or how she tied the knots, or what the vibrator looked like.
Your first draft is where you just vomit up whatever you find sexy. Because if you keep stopping along the way to interject realism or to double-check everything, you’ll never get finished. Save that for the second draft.
And by the way–I’m using the word ‘vomit’ for a very important reason. The goal of your first draft is for it simply to exist. So often we want perfection immediately, and that’s not gonna happen. If you aim for perfection, your story will never be finished. It doesn’t matter how crappy your first draft is. What matters is that it exists.
So. Revision time. Now, fanfiction can be, say it with me folks, ESCAPISM.
LOUDER FOR THE PURITANS IN THE BACK!!!
FANFICTION CAN BE ESCAPISM!!!!!!!
So sometimes that means your sex is a little too good to be true, sometimes the BDSM practices are a little unrealistic (who the fuck is going to survive ten orgasms without a break, the closest I got was five and I got a fuckin’ UTI out of the deal), and so on. But! Don’t break the rules until you know what the rules are! Learn the rules! Do your research! Then you can break them without breaking your readers’ sense of realism.
For example, I have read fics where the person was tied up and had an unreasonable amount of vibrator orgasms, and yeah, probably in real life, there should’ve been a pee break in there somewhere, they should’ve stretched their limbs, taken a breather. But it was a damn good fic to fantasize.
On the other hand, I was rudely jolted out of a fic I read once when the dom fit his FIST inside the sub’s MOUTH.
I tried it, guys. My hand is not that big. It did not work. I was literally reading the fic screeching YOU’VE DISLOCATED HIS JAW, HIS JAW IS NOW DISLOCATED, OH MY FUCKING GOD.
So yeah. Do your research so that you know how to break reality in fun ways that enhance the sexiness, not in weird random ways that take your readers out of the story.
Going back in and looking at your sex fantasy (because that’s what your first draft was, a sex fantasy) through the lens of your research and your critical eye ensures that you can add in details that make it more realistic, and sexier.
When you’re three fingers deep (or jacking off, I don’t know, whatever your genitalia is) and you’re picturing your favorite actor fucking you, you’re not thinking about the details.
Unless you’re me in which case you halt halfway through because no no we should’ve taken our shirts off in the hallway and then she could pick me up–rewind, let’s take it one more time from the top…
And that’s good! You’re flooded with endorphins, you’re chasing an orgasm, who the fuck cares about logistics! But it’s an experience that’s just for you, in your head. When you’re writing a story, you’re giving that experience to someone else, so you have to provide them with as many details as you can so that they can experience that fantasy, too.
Of course, all rules are meant to be broken. There are times when a lack of detail is good, and fits the mood. My smut scene at the end of Love You Like a Killer (I Want To Make Your Heart Stop) was very mood-oriented, very emotional, very much about release and the connection between these characters. I had them make love during a goddamn thunderstorm of all things. So I didn’t go into huge detail about whose throbbing cock was where and so on. Because going into too much detail would’ve ruined the dreamy, emotional, romantic-music-swelling mood I was going for.
But yes, revisions, add in all those lovely realistic details about logistics (I have drawn stick figures in the past to figure out sex positions, do what you must) and things I learned from my research, and ta-da!
Part Four: Random Information I Find Helpful
Variety is the spice of sex. Be careful not to overuse words. This is something you tackle after you revise, when you’re on the more nit-picky stage. If you find yourself using the word “yet” a lot, or you’ve drawn attention to someone’s “massive” cock three times in the last paragraph or said that she spoke “breathlessly” a dozen times… grab the thesaurus.
Fanfiction is often escapism, that means it’s okay to sometimes leave out mundane details like “hey are you on birth control,” using a condom, peeing right after sex, tying your hair back so it’s not in your mouth while you eat them out/blow them, etc. You can use those details! But don’t feel shackled by them if you feel they take the reader out of the moment. Use your discretion.
Cock and dick are the words to use. Prick is okay but it depends on your audience–it’s a very British/UK term, but as an American it’s kind of a weird word to me (it always makes me picture his dick as like three inches long). Use your discretion. “Shaft” works if you’re stroking it or blowing it (i.e. she swallowed around his shaft) and don’t overuse the word. Personally I find “cock” is more erotic than “dick” so I tend to use dick for non-sexy moments and cock for when I’m trying to turn on the reader, but again, that’s personal preference.
For the love of God just call it her entrance, her pussy, her cunt. None of these ridiculous euphemisms. “Her lower lips”? What the fuck. Be careful not to overuse pussy/cunt though because those are unfortunately also used as insults so if you use it too much, readers can find it too crude. Find a balance. Yes it sucks. (Or y’know generally avoid using any term altogether which is what I do yes I’m aware I have a hangup stop looking at me like that.)
Common sense should always prevail. Know your biology. A 40 year old man is not going to get it up again five minutes after coming. A 20 year old man is going to have shit stamina. Characters should not be having athletic sex after they’ve been stabbed. Nobody can deep throat a cock without choking on their first time. And so on.
Don’t bite off more than you can chew. If you don’t know how to describe the knots you’re using to tie your character up, then don’t describe it! Just say Character A tied them up! A good rule of thumb is if you don’t know how to describe something logistically, focus instead on how the character feels while it’s happening. Are they exhilarated by being tied up? Nervous? Describe that instead.
 It’s okay to write something you haven’t done. I was writing smut (well praised and enjoyed smut) long before I ever had sex (on a similar note, hey, it’s okay if you don’t have sex until your mid-twenties or even later, you do not have a “sell by” date, okay?). Don’t be afraid to ask questions of people you trust, if you want first-hand information.
Take. Your. Time. Don’t rush it! Savor it. Enjoy it. Really dive into it. Nobody likes rushed sex in real life and nobody likes rushed smut.
And last but not least, have fun! This should be fun, titillating, this is your fantasy about these two characters. Enjoy it. Maybe your kinks aren’t someone else’s kinks, but your goal isn’t to please everyone (that’s impossible) or even to write what you think will be the most popular. It’s to write what you want, and what you find sexy. So experiment! Enjoy!
We all have moments of writer’s block. But the more you do it, the easier it gets. I hope this was all helpful, dear nonny, and I hope that you’ve having a wonderful day and that you get your smut writing mojo back!
yes that was an Austin Powers reference I’m sorry I couldn’t resist please forgive me
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erintoknow · 4 years
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i said peel the skin raw
fallen hero fanfic time again ~5.2k words [ao3] (9.8k/50k for nanowrimo)
title from [Ripe by Screaming Females]
–––
Dr. Mortum lets go of Jane’s arm as the two of them step into the laboratory proper. No experiments running in the background today. That’s different. Mortum glances back to her friend, a nervous smile to try and ease the tension. It doesn’t work. “Do you want a drink?”
“A drink?” Jane crosses her arms, scans the room. It’s been months since you felt the need to have Jane make a note of the exits in Mortum’s lab. Worktables, computer bank, a makeshift office space offset with fake-walls, everything is way too clean. “What’s with you today? We’re at your place now, can we finally talk about whatever’s going on?”
“I’ve got wine? Champagne, a nice Pinot Noir…”
“Mortum.”
“No? Alas.” Dr. Mortum exaggerates her shrug, brings a hand up to fiddle with her glasses. “How are you doing, mon amie? It’s been a while since we last talked. And a lot has… happened.”
Jane snorts, “Yeah, no shit.” Her expression softens, maybe that was a little too harsh. “I’m sorry. Things have been busy on my end too.”
“Mm-hm.” Mortum nods, not taking her eyes off the wine-rack she’s examining. “Adrestia keeping you busy?”
Jane falters, running her hands up her arms. Some scars, but nothing like yours, smoother. Jane can wear pull off a short sleeve dress like this without any fear. “Y–yeah. She didn’t cause any problems for you at the auction, did she?”
“You know how you advised me to just buy the teleportation gun?” Mortum taps a finger on one bottle, then pulls out the one next too it and moves to pour herself a drink. “She stole it.”
“Ah.” Jane grimaces. “I– actually, that’s part of why I needed to talk to you?”
“Oh? – Are you sure you don’t want a drink?” Mortum holds up the bottle. “Native Californian, 1979, summer before the big one hit.”
“Oh hell, fine.” Jane sighs and lets her arms drop to her sides. “My… my boss wants me to arrange a meeting. To, uh… return your gun.”
Mortum hands Jane a full glass and the two of them take seats around the workshop table. “She wants to meet? With me directly?” Mortum frowns. “In person?”
“Yeah. Tonight, actually. There’s this dinky bar on Melrose called La Catina, she’ll be there at six o’clock.”
“Do you think she suspects anything?”
“I couldn’t say.” Jane takes a sip from her glass. Need to steady her nerves. Need to calm down. Jane doesn’t get jumpy. “I watch my thoughts around her but… you know. How would I know?”
Dr. Mortum swirls the wine around her glass, thinking. “Will you be there as well?”
“I… have my own chores, I’m sorry.” This is a delicate rope you’re threading, but you need to sew these pieces back together before everything falls apart. “For what it’s worth, she’d be meeting you out of armor.”
That gets her attention, “Out of armor?”
“If she knew we were…” Jane makes a face, “planning on, uh, ditching her, I don’t think she’d be offering to trust you with who she was.” There’s a twinge of guilt for lying that blatantly. It’s for the greater good though. Right?
“Truthfully, Adrestia hasn’t been a terrible employer. Always paid on time, resourceful in finding rare materials.” Is Jane holding her breath, or is that you? “But she is dangerous. Liable to end poorly if my experience is any indicator. And then there’s the matter of your mandatory employment by her.”
“Th–that’s true.”
“Mon amie, how did you come to work for Adrestia, anyway?”
“W–what?” Jane gives an uncomfortable laugh and fiddles with the glass in her hands. “I mean, you know… girl on her own, looking to get a leg up in the world…”
Dr. Mortum downs the rest of her own glass in one go. “Do you remember when you asked me to look into that ‘Shroud’ character? Back right before the Auction?”
Something tightens in Jane’s gut. “Uh, yeah? Did you find something out? About her?”
“She’s Lord Ember’s number one enforcer in San Francisco. A tactile telepath with some kind of…” Mortum frowns to herself, “life… energy drain ability.”
“…life drain?”
“Not very scientific I know.” The woman’s frown only deepens. “Merde, what I’d give for the chance to study her.”
“Uh– Doctor?”
“Right, anyway, the people whose minds she… consumes, she can sift through their memories at will. I couldn’t say how long she retains the information but it makes for one very handy interrogation-execution package.”
Can feel the goose-bumps running up the back of Jane’s neck. That just talking about Shroud like this is producing a reaction in Jane is not helping your nerves in the slightest. “She… eats peoples minds…?”
“So it appears. What’s left is a body, weakened and comatose. Not something that would last more than a few hours without life support. That’s the basis for the rumors behind her having a ‘death touch’.”
“That’s… awful, when you put it like that. But it’s not exactly new information.”
“Have you crossed paths with her before, mon amie?”
“No. I mean – I don’t think I have?” Jane hunches over, “Seriously, doc, what’s wrong? There’s been something off with you ever since we talked on the phone last night.” It can’t be what it’s starting to sound like. It can’t be. There’s no way. There’s a mistake, somehow. A mix-up.
“I’m sorry, I’m just not sure how to approach this. Or… what to make of what I found.” Dr. Mortum eyes the wine bottle, plainly weighing the benefits of pouring herself another glass. “Maybe it would be best just to show you directly.”
“Show me? Show me what?”
Dr. Mortum puts the wine glass down, reaches a hand across the table to grasp Jane’s. “You really don’t know?”
Jane stiffens under the doctor’s touch but doesn’t pull her hand away. “I wouldn’t be asking like this if I did.”
She doesn’t let go of Jane’s hand, instead shifting her chair so they’re both on the same side of the table. With her free hand she gestures towards the monitor screen installed on the near wall. “While I was digging around, I got my hands on some footage through a contact of mine.”
“Footage?”
Jane watches as Dr. Mortum brings a holographic keyboard to life in front of her. The monitor flickers on as Mortum navigates through a series of files. “Here we are. This… might be difficult to watch.”
“Doctor,” Jane’s voice is dry, “just what on earth are you trying to… show… me…?” Voice fades to nothing as the video file expands to fill the whole screen.  The video is grainy and low quality, shades of grey like a cheap security camera. But the picture jostles and moves in strange motions, hand-held? No – almost first-person esque. Mods? An eye-camera?
The center of the screen is taken up by woman on a chair. Ziplock ties bind her by the wrists and ankles to the metal frame, and the chair doesn’t shift at all as the woman struggles. Welded to the floor? The woman on the chair has a black eye, bruises on her arms, chin. Curly hair framing a too-familiar face. 
There’s no way.
There’s no possible way.
You look down to your – Jane looks down to her hands, rubs her wrist with her fingers. No bruises, no marks. Not – not anymore. This is Jane. this is Jane’s body. This kind of thing doesn’t happen to Jane. She’s safe. She’s nobody. 
But there’s no tattoos on the woman on the screen.
The camera turns away and Shroud is stepping into the room. Too-fancy dress, veiled face, and long gloves. The camera steps back getting a wider view of the whole scene as Shroud steps around the woman in the chair. “Be reasonable Ace, all we want to know is how you did it.” The voice, tinny through the speakers, is still enough to set Jane on edge. Grinding her teeth, nails digging into her arms.
“Did what?” Jane’s voice. Fuck. Shit. Piss. “I don’t understand why I’m here.”
Shroud’s voice is slow, faux patience. “Two million and thirty three thousand. That’s how much you’ve lost Lord Ember.” The skeletal woman stops in front of – Jane? Ace? The woman tied to the chair. One hand tugging back against the fabric of her gloves.
“I’ve been playing fair. I’m just lucky.” Picture of hurt innocence. Literal.
“Hmm… Luck.” Shroud reaches out a hand, and someone off screen passes off a gun. A revolver. Even with the poor visual fidelity it looks like an antique. “Let’s see just how lucky you are.”
Without thinking about it, Jane finds herself reach out for Dr. Mortum’s arm, pulling the woman closer. Mortum shifts position to get closer, puts her arm around Jane instead, holding her tight.
There’s no one for the woman in the chair. Shroud, calm and silent as death itself loads a bullet into the revolver. As she points the gun at the woman’s leg, Jane flinches, buries her face in Mortum’s side. But there’s no ‘bang,’ no screams.
Another bullet loaded. Shroud humming to herself. Points at the woman’s shoulder. Jane cries out, hides her face against Dr. Mortum again. The woman on the screen remains stoic the whole time. No ‘bang’ this time either.
Third bullet. Pointed at the forehead. The chamber spins and now on the woman on the screen – Ace – flinches the color draining out of her face. Did Ace on the screen cry out that time or was that Jane again?
Shroud chuckles as she waves the gun in Ace’s face. “Don’t be a baby. It’s just rubber bullets, to see how long your luck lasts. It won’t kill you.”
Ace shrinks back against the chair. Jane’s own breathing is becoming increasingly harder, the body slipping out of your control again – like before. “You will, though.” Ace says.
“Hm?” Shroud leans back, a hand on her hip. She holds the gun out and again, someone off screen takes it from her. Both hands free now, she starts tugging at one of her gloves. “Not if you cooperate with me.”
“Liar.” Ace strains against her bonds again. It’s hard to breath, hard to watch. But something won’t let you look away either. “You’ll kill me, and that will be the end of you.”
“Threats? Really now? In your position?” Shroud’s glove is off now, and the camera person takes another step back. “I’ve looked into you, Ace. Bitter, lonely soul. No close family, no close friends. Nobody that will miss you.” Shroud pulls back her veil. Skin deathly pale and sunken, sallow features. Something like a walking corpse with a death’s head grin. “Nobody will avenge you.”
“Still not lying.” An impossible level of conviction in those words. Ace’s wrists are bleeding now, plastic cutting into skin. But there’s no getting away. No escaping. “Do your worst sucker, but that will be the biggest mistake of your life.”
“I’ve heard it all before.” Shroud says, bored, as she flexes her hand now. Too thin, too bony. “Now… let’s see what you’ve been hiding from me.” Her hand grasps Ace’s face and Ace  screams, and you can’t, can’t keep watching. Jane hides her face against Mortum’s side. Don’t look until the screaming stops.
Ace sits in the chair, breathing but limp. Sunken eyes, sallow cheeks, looking awfully like she did when you found Jane in the hospital. Shroud, in contrast looks radically different. Less a corpse and more a woman carved from marble. A wide grin across her face, making a show of licking her lips. “Boosts were always my favorite.”
“What did you learn?” The voice comes from off camera.
“Lone operator.” Shroud puts a finger to her head, eyes closed in a too familiar motion. Her sleeve falls back against gravity, not enough to reveal anything definitive but are those shapes hints of tattoos? Geometric. Someone else far too familiar. “Could see the numbers before the ball landed. Same with the cards.” Shroud shrugs, then smirks towards the camera. “Cute trick. Tell him that he doesn’t have to worry, she’s not one of Hollow Ground’s crew. Just someone who miscalculated. Badly.”
And it’s too much. Jane staggers to her feet. “I–I–I– I have to– I need a walk. I need to get a hold of myself. I need–”
The off-screen voice snickers. “Guess her luck finally ran out. What should we do with the body?”
Shroud flexes her exposed hand, slowly tugging her glove back on. “Sell her for parts, let her recoup some of the cost that way.”
Nausea riles up and Jane collapses to the floor, hands on the tiles, retches, then vomits. Did you just watch yourself– watch Jane, die?
“Mon amie?” Dr. Mortum hovers by your side, hands outstretched but not quite touching.
“I’m f–f–f–fine.” You insist. Tears falling from your eyes into the pool of ejected wine and bile on the floor, more running out your nose. Can feel your body shaking, arms struggling to hold yourself off the floor.
“Come on, mon amie, let me help you up.” There’s a brief pause and then arms reach around your shoulders, pulling you back to your feet, holding you steady even as you continue to shake. “Let’s get you to the bathroom.”
“S–s–sorry. I–I’m sorry.”
Mortum leads you out into the adjoining bathroom, “I’ll clean it up. You just take a moment, okay?” A light touch to your back makes you jump, and Mortum hesitates, clearly at a loss for what to do. 
So are you.
Stare at your face in the mirror. Hair a mess, eyes red, a mess. Everything’s a mess. This face that’s yours but not yours, Jane’s face. Or Ace’s face? Hold yourself up with your hands bracing against the bathroom sink.
What do you do?
Clean up. Clean yourself up. Clean Jane up. Get it together. Get a hold on yourself. Jane sucks in air until her lungs hurt, then slowly lets it all out. Does it again. Third time. Mortum leaves to clean the mess on the floor.
Never felt more like a puppeteer as you do now, putting Jane through the motions. Blow the nose, water on the face. Wash off the tears, snot, vomit, ruined make-up. Hyper-aware of the differences between your face and hers. Smaller nose, rounder face, no freckles, softer eyes. Just fooling yourself this whole time – some sort of sick fantasy on your part. Letting yourself getting lured in by a shared hair and eye color, a similar inability to tan. 
Sometimes, in these more emotional moments it gets difficult to remember Jane is an act you’re playing, a mask you’re wearing. Not that you’ve ever been good at separating your feelings. The fiasco with Julia can attest to that.
Can’t say you were prepared for ‘interrogation by a Farm-trained telepath’ to be another point of blurred boundaries between the two of you. Grab a wash cloth off the hook, take a deep breath then bury your face in the fabric to muffle your scream. When Jane runs out of breath, she finishes drying off her face, adjusts her dress before walking back into the lab.
Mortum gives Jane a sheepish wave as she spots her, “Do you need a drink?”
“I’m going to need something harder than wine this time.” Jane replies, rubbing her hands over her face.
“I was thinking similarly.” She’s already back by the kitchenette. Jane slumps into the nearest chair, listening to the sound of glasses being poured. “I’m sorry,” she says, “I should have given more warning. I just…”
“I don’t think there’s a warning adequate enough for something like that.” Jane suppresses a shudder, only looking up to take the –very large– glass of whiskey offered to her. “So that was really her… death-touch deal?”
Mortum nods, nursing her own large glass. “Yes. It was passed along to me as an example of Shroud in action. But I wouldn’t have bothered putting you through that except for–”
Jane cuts her off, “who the the victim was.”
“Mm.” Dr. Mortum watches Jane carefully over the rim of her glasses.
“How old is the video?”
Don’t say three years, don’t say three years, don’t say three years.
“About three years.” Mortum answers.
“Fuck.”
“Mon amie?”
“Goddamnit.” Jane laughs, high-pitched and frantic. “So then that person on the video, Ace, that was…”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Well.” Jane takes a long drink, gasping for air when she puts the glass down on the table. “I get why you wanted to just show me the video.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
That gets another, more bitter laugh. “We kind of have to, don’t we?”
“Mon amie…” Dr. Mortum’s voice is low, face furrowed in worry. “How far back can you remember?”
“I…” Jane hesitates, then clenches her fists. “About three years. Woke up in the hospital. Everything hurt. My boss got me out.” What would have happened if you had waited to come back the next day? Or snuck in a day earlier? It had been… sheer luck you had been able to steal away Jane’s body when you had.
Had it been luck?
Jane exhales, a long shaking breath. “I don’t remember anything before that.”
“Saving someone’s life is certainly one way to ensure loyalty.” Dr. Mortum’s voice is soft, low. When did her hand find Jane’s? How long has she been holding it?
“I don’t– I’m not sure that she did.”
“Did what?”
“Save my life.”
“You’ll be free of her one day.” She squeezes Jane’s hand.
Jane only flinches, pulls her hand back. “That’s– that’s not what I mean. I… oh god. I don’t know how to say this.” Never mind how to say it. What to say is the more pressing issue. 
“I’m not sure I’m following, mon amie.”
“Of course not.” Jane snaps back. “You don’t exactly have the full picture – I mean, neither do I but I’ve got more of the – the goddamn puzzle pieces, fuck.” Another long drink ending in a gasp for breath. Try not to think too much about worried concern on Mortum’s face.  This is stupid. What are you doing. Shut up Ariadne. 
Dr. Mortum says nothing, confound her. No well-meaning advice, no comforting words. Just a worried look.
“Look I – I haven’t been entirely honest with you.”
“Well, that’s hardly a surprise, considering our respective businesses.”
“Just… let me finish. I don’t – I don’t really know how to sell this. You aren’t going to believe me.” Jane’s smile is brittle, hands hugging her sides.
Mortum shakes her head, “Try me.”
“Okay. Well.” Jane fiddles with the hem of her dress, fingers worrying the fringe. “I’ve told you I can’t just… quit my job with Adrestia.”
She nods.
“And I knew Adrestia…. had saved my life, I just… had no idea to what extent.” Jane pauses, chewing furiously at the inside of her cheek. “I don’t think she knew either. But. Okay. So. Three years ago, Adrestia springs me out of the hospital…. who knows, maybe days, maybe hours, before I was due to get carved up for organ replacements. Following me?”
“I’m following.”
“And– and I was weak. I was real weak. It took me months just to get well enough to get out of bed again, to walk, a whole year before I could even begin to start doing the simplest jobs for her. But– but there’s still…”
“The question of how you survived Shroud at all.” Mortum finishes and Jane nods.
“Except, that’s the thing. I didn’t. I didn’t survive. I’m not some special exception.”
Mortum’s hand finds Jane’s again, a light touch, a chance to pull back. When Jane doesn’t, she holds tighter.
“My… boss is a telepath, right? A very powerful one.”
“Mm-hm.”
“Well… She can… Adrestia can possess people.”
That gets a quizzical look, Mortum’s eyebrows furrowing together. “Possess people?” She echoes back.
“It’s– It’s the next step up, I guess, from just tweaking someone’s thoughts.” Jane winces as Mortum’s grip on her hand tightens. “Only… most people, you know, there’s someone already home. It makes possession difficult. And the longer you do it, the harder it gets.” Jane’s voice drops, “And it’s… it’s horrific for the victim. Watching their body move without their say so. Trapped in your own mind.”
“Jane…” Mortum’s voice is barely a whisper. “I’m so sorry.”
Jane tenses up, eyes wet as she laughs. “You really shouldn’t be. Shroud… evicted the previous tenant, and I? I moved in. Made myself at home.”
“What? Mon amie, I don’t understand.”
“What’s not to get doc?” More nervous laughter. “I’m the man behind the curtain. I am my boss.”
Mortum lets go of Jane’s hand, the absence hurts worse the pressure she’d been applying before. “I don’t understand. You’re not telepathically sensitive.”
“Jane isn’t my body. Adrestia is. Possessing her. Me? I’m… not so sure anymore.”
“What? Use your words.”
“Shroud.” You spit the name out, feeling the bile in the back of your throat. “Killed Ace. We both saw it,” Jane gestures at the monitor. “And then, I came along. I needed… I needed a face. I couldn’t risk being seen. Being recognized. And– and here w–w–was this body. This empty body, just waiting.”
“A puppet.”
“Yes. I stole her. Me?” You stare down at Jane’s hands. “I didn’t even know who she was.”
Dr. Mortum’s face has gone cold. A careful blank mask. Unreadable as she stares you down. “So.” Her voice is even, controlled. “Who am I talking to right now?”
“I’m– I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for– for lying to you this whole time.”
“But… why would you do that?” Her voice strains, cracks against the pressure to keep an even tone.
Jane looks down, stares at the floor, hands helpless in her lap. “This… whatever this is, wasn’t supposed to happen. I just needed someone to build my armor. You weren’t supposed to be…” Jane makes a face and you wonder if she looks as helpless as you feel right now. “…nice.”
“Nice? Nice?”
“I liked you, okay?” You response comes back quick, defensive. “You could be funny. And you’re smart, didn’t pry much but you also cared. I wasn’t ready for that. I had been… alone. For so long. And I didn’t want to let it go. I was afraid to let it go. Even though I knew I should have.” Jane’s voice drops, “I should have told you months ago. But I… I liked how I was around you. I was afraid of how things would change.”
Mortum pushes up her glasses to rub at her eyes. “And that’s different from how you normally are, I take it?”
“It… it reminded me of how I could be, before I died.”
“Before you… died?”
“I mean, before Adrestia died, not Jane. Ugh, different disaster. Even longer back.”
“I’m afraid I’ve lost the plot on this one.” It almost sounds like a joke, but Mortum doesn’t smile.
“At heart… I’m kind of a coward.”
“Lying, hiding behind other people’s bodies… I can’t say I’m inclined to disagree right now.” Mortum pushes her glasses back up her nose, eyes boring holes through you behind orange-tinted lenses. “I can’t say I appreciate being made fun of much, either.”
That one hurts. “It wasn’t like that!” You clench your fists, can feel the tension in Jane’s shoulders. “I meant everything I said.”
“Even about your boss?”
“Is it really a surprise that I don’t like myself?”
Mortum doesn’t respond, beyond a “Hmm.”
“And then you said you were going to stop working for Adrestia. That you wanted me to quit with you. And I– I tried to tell you. I couldn’t. I literally couldn’t quit. I literally can’t stop being Adrestia. No matter how much I want to. So… when you said you had a plan, in case she – In case I did something against you and me – Jane, I needed to know what it was to-to-to defend myself.”
“Hence stealing my teleportation gun from me.”
“What? No!” You wave your hands, desperate for her to believe you. “That was an accident. I w–w–was serious about returning it. I– I wanted to try and fix things but I… I don’t know how.”
“Sometimes, Jane, the only way to fix an experiment is to trash the whole thing and try something else.”
“I…” Your voice falters. “I don’t know how to interpret that.”
The silence that stretches out between the two of you is physically painful. Finally, Dr. Mortum breaks the tension, rapping her fingers on the worktable. “So.”
“I’m sorry.” “Why not just approach me as yourself? Why this farce?”
“I couldn’t!” You hold your head in your hands, pulling at your hair. “Too many people know who I was before. I couldn’t be sure I could trust you. That I could trust anyone. And by the time I thought I could…”
“I had already decided that I couldn’t trust Adrestia.”
“Yeah.” You shift in your seat. “I just… you let me feel real, at least for a little while. That I could have friends.”
“Friends.” Her voice is flat.
“We’re friends, aren’t we?” Your smile fades, “Were friends, I guess. Even if you don’t believe anything else I’ve said, you have to believe me on that. Please. I just… I know it’s selfish but I just wanted to be happy for once.”
“You’re going to have to try harder than that.” There’s a desperate edge in Mortum’s voice now. You can’t bring yourself to lift Jane’s head to see the other woman’s face.
Jane shrinks back in her seat. It’s weird. You keep expecting your usual panic symptoms whenever things start to skirt too close to the truth. “I don’t know what else I can say… when we first met, I didn’t even think of myself as human, never mind a woman.”
“Human? You’re going to have to explain that one to me.”
“Fuck, I– I guess I better.”
“Stalling.”
“This isn’t easy, shit!” Jane chews her cheek, hugging her arms tight against herself. “Okay… um…” You glance at the image on the monitor, still frozen. “Scroll back, like thirty seconds on the video?”
“Still stalling.”
Jane groans, a pleading look on her face. “Please, just… humor me on this, okay? I’m going somewhere with this.”
Dr. Mortum sighs. With a gesture the keyboard reappears beneath her hand and the video snaps back, frame by frame.
“There!”
Mortum stops the rewind. “Alright, what am I supposed to be looking at?”
“Look at Shroud’s sleeve. Where it falls back, and right before the skinsuit starts on her arm. Do you see anything?”
You don’t look at the screen, instead watching Dr. Mortum’s face as she scrutinizes the grainy image. “I don’t…”
“Those designs, just poking out the top there?”
“Okay…”
“Re-gene tattoos.”
Sharp in-take of breath. “Truly?”
“I’d recognize them anywhere.”
“I see them now…” A tight frown settles onto the doctor’s face. “Do you think Lord Ember is aware he has a regene in his employ? An escapee or…?” She stops, shakes her head. “Where are you going with this?”
“I’m the s–s–same as– the same as Shroud.” Jane clenches her hands. “The– the other me, I mean.”
“…A re-gene?” What does that look on Mortum’s face mean?
Jane nods, then shakes her head. “Do you know what a cuckoo is?”
She narrows her eyes at Jane. “I… might be aware that they exist.” If anyone knew what a cuckoo was, trust it to be Dr. Mortum. Yet another reason you couldn’t have trusted her with the truth at first.
Jane spreads her arms wide, you choke back a sob. “Well, you’re– you’re looking at one right now. I couldn’t– I couldn’t let them find me. My other body is… I mean, my real body is just…”
“Mon dieu, how long have you been on the run?”
“A few years… before, uh…” You swallow back the bile in your throat. Might as well go all in. If she’s going to fire a gun at you, better make sure it’s a headshot. “Before Sidestep.”
“You have got to be kidding me.” Dr. Mortum groans, rubbing her nose. “No. Of course. All the pieces fall into place. Merde!”
“I g–g–got caught once, already. I can’t go back. Not again. So… stay out of sight. Use a go-between.”
“I understand that, mon amie, but I wish you would have trusted me.” Dr. Mortum groans. “For both our sakes.”
“I know.” You run your hands over your face, avoiding the doctor’s gaze. “Look… if you– if you want revenge, I’d rather you just… shoot me then tip them off. I’ll die before I go back.”
“Did you seriously think I could ever hurt…” The doctor hesitates, “her?” 
“Yes.” You whisper, unable to raise you voice any louder. “I’m… afraid. Always. All the time. But– but I’m telling you now. You deserve the truth.”
“Even if it ends up killing you?”
“I wouldn’t argue that I don’t deserve it.”
“Okay…” Dr. Mortum scrunches her face up. Deep in thought. “You were planning to meet me tonight. In your own body.”
“That’s right.”
“Were you planning to tell me then?”
“If I didn’t chicken out again. Neutral ground. It was– It was supposed to be safer.”
“Safer. For you maybe.” The disdain is plain in her voice. “This is a lot to process.”
“I know.”
“I need–” The doctor’s voice cracks as she struggles to keep her composure. Furious at you, to be sure. Can’t blame her. “I need some time. Mon dieu, I need some fucking time.”
“I… understand.”
“I will keep your secret. And I will do you the favor of pretending you don’t know how to get into my lab.” Dr. Mortum raises a pointed finger at you. “But I need some time. To… think things over. To figure out how I feel about this whole… disaster.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Are you sorry for lying to me or sorry you got caught?”
Jane pulls back, frowning. “I didn’t– I didn’t have to tell you any of this. I chose to…”
“Shoot yourself in the face.”
“I guess.”
“Right. I’m trying to keep that in mind.” Mortum gets up, turns her back on you. “Just. Go. Get out of here. I’ll contact you when I’m ready to talk.
“Do you know whe–”
“I don’t know, Adrestia! It could be a week, it could be years! It could be never! Let me think!”
“Okay.” Jane pulls herself to her feet. You feel hollow, empty. “You… know how to reach me.”
“Just go.”
“I’m sorry.”
You manage to hold yourself together long enough to get Jane back home. Don’t even bother undressing before collapsing face first into the bed. The best you can hope for is that Dr. Mortum doesn’t sell you out. But there’s no recovering that relationship. Christ. If this is how it goes with Mortum, how will Julia take the truth?
Julia deserves to know.
Her knowing will kill you.
You roll over onto your back, close your eyes as you slowly untether yourself from Jane’s body.
Would dying really be so bad? Compared to this?
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a-ray-of-moonshine · 5 years
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11/11/11 Tag Game
threeThanks for tagging me, @storyteller-shealie and sorry for seeing this so late! My life suddenly turned into a non-stop emergency for the past week or two, so I’ve been kinda MIA (but it’s all better now).
Rules: answer 11 questions, write your own 11, tag 11 people
1. Do you ever notice that the media you consume (books, tv-shows, etc) influences your writing in some ways?
All the time. That’s why I try to match whatever I’m reading/watching to whatever I’m writing. If I’m focused on a high fantasy WIP, I mostly read fantasy books and watch fantasy anime that have similar themes and issues. That’s because if I decided to read/watch a murder mystery instead, I’d likely stop being so focused on that fantasy WIP and want to write a mystery or a thriller of my own instead.
2. What was your favorite part about the last scene or chapter you’ve written?
It wasn’t so much a scene as a random snippet? I’m planning a new WIP, and that’s the stage where I write a lot of flash fiction just to get to know all the characters. Some of this stuff might later make it into the actual WIP, reworked into proper scene, but most remains for my own reference only. I think my favorite part about that last snippet was how I finally managed to get into the villain’s head and find what makes him tick.
3. What was the most difficult part of writing that last scene or chapter?
EVERYTHING. :D Villains are often the hardest characters for me to work with, and this WIP is no exception.
4. Do you write everything in order, or do you find yourself often moving scenes around?
I usually begin writing in order, but after 10K words or so I start jumping back and forth a lot, and then moving stuff back and forth, too.
5. What’s your writing software of choice? Why do you like it?
I absolutely love Focus Writer. It’s distraction-free, it allows you to create your own themes, such as choosing colors and background pictures, and you can easily move scenes around if you give them headings. Writing got so much easier since I discovered it.
6. What’s your favorite writing environment? Do you need to be alone, or maybe you’d rather write in libraries or coffeeshops? Do you prefer silence or music?
In summer, I love writing outside in my backyard or on the balcony. In winter, the weather usually disagrees with that choice, so I stick to my room. I usually have my headphones on, listening to some instrumental music that matches the tone of whatever I’m currently writing, and I have problems maintaining focus when there are other people around, so no coffeeshops for me. :)
7. If someone distracts you in the middle of a writing session, how do you usually react?
I can get really irritable, even though of course I try not to show it. I really don’t like to be distracted, because it’s hard for me to get back on track again after the distraction has passed.
8. Do you like writing sprints?
I’m kind of indifferent to them most of the time. I guess when I’m on a roll, every writing session for me is a writing sprint of sorts: I type as fast as I can until either the scene is done or my hands are tired, I take a break, I type quickly again while I still have a clear image of whatever’s happening in the story. Deliberately setting a timer and telling myself to type fast doesn’t really change anything for me, I guess?
9. Have you ever done NaNoWriMo? Why or why not? What are your thoughts about this type of challenge?
I’ve only participated in Camp, but I’m planning to maybe try NaNoWriMo in November, too. 50K in a month is a pretty big goal for me, but I think there’s a chance it’s doable, so I want to try it once and see what happens.
10. Do you find it easier to write short stories or novels?
Something in the middle, I think. I feel the most comfortable somewhere in the 35K-60K range, depending on the story. 
11. How are your WIPs born? Do you start with characters? With a plot idea? With a worldbuilding thought, like “what if there was a world with sentient dragons who were the source of magic”? Something else?
Definitely the characters. Everything I write is very character-driven, so it always starts with the MC, and then more characters show up, and then they... sort of help me figure out the world and the actual story, I guess. :)
My Questions:
1. Is there a trope you never get tired of?
2. Who is your least favorite character in your WIP? Why?
3. Let’s say I’m planning to visit the setting of your WIP for a weekend. What should I take with me? What are the most important things for me to know beforehand? Which of your characters should I ask to be my guide?
4.Beginning, middle, or end—which is the hardest for you as a writer?
5. Which is more inspiring for you: music or visual art?
6. Do you have any other creative interests and hobbies besides writing?
7. How close is your WIP now to what you were expecting it to be when you just started?
8. What are your plans for when you finish your WIP? Traditional publishing? Indie publishing? Putting it online for others to read for free?
9. Your MC is here. On your doorstep. Planning to spend the day with you. Oh, and they know you’re the author responsible for everything that’s going on in the story right now. Are you expecting it to be a nice conversation, or do you maybe want to run and hide? :D
10. Name a song that could be your villain’s personal anthem.
11. Is there anything you would never, ever write a story about, even if you were offered a large sum of money to do so?
Tagging: @sanguinewritings @celestialbunnistories @bexminx @aslanwrites @blueinkblot @fantasy-shadows @me-between-the-lines @nadiasnarrative @three-seas-writes @aurumni-writes @sundaynightnovels (No pressure! Feel free to ignore!) 
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fiore-della-valle · 6 years
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Writing questions tag
I was tagged by @cookiedoughmeagain - thanks, lovely! (Also responding to the open tag by @grey-haven )
1) How many works in progress do you currently have in progress?
Ahahahaha.  Um.  I have three major unfinished works posted to AO3, all of which I still consider in progress.  I have, in my ‘currently active’ pile, approximately twenty different stories/series, of which three are original fic/worlds.  But in terms of like, stories I have started, have put at least 5k words into, and intend to eventually finish somehow...  I have at least nine original worlds and literally hundreds of fics.  A lot of which are sitting in the 15k-50k word range, but that just.  Aren’t done.
2) Do you/would you write fanfiction?
I write a ton of Haven fic, even if it’s only ever posted infrequently.  I have very occasionally dabbled in other fandoms, and certainly don’t automatically reject the idea of writing more stories in other fandoms.  In order to finish my current pile of started projects, I expect I will be writing Haven fic until I die just to try and clear out my ideas folder.
3) Do you prefer paper books or ebooks?
Depends on the situation.  I do like paper books, and I adore that a paper book will never run out of battery on me mid-flight, for example.  However, I love being able to put seven thousand different stories into my pocket, so most of my reading for the last few years has been ebooks.  I would love to be able to have both an ebook copy and a hard copy of everything.
4) When did you start writing?
Complicated question.  I had a few notebooks with the first few pages of stories written down in them from about the time I was twelve, but the first piece of writing that ever made me feel like I was good at it, like it was something I wanted to do, and might even be able to do, was a poem I wrote for an eighth grade assignment.  After that, there was a lot of poetry, and then the first real story I started was when I was fourteen or fifteen, and I hand-wrote about two hundred pages of really terrible fantasy story that I shared with my friends during lunch breaks.  From that point on, I always had some writing happening somewhere, which got much easier once I learned how to type.  I didn’t start writing fanfiction in any serious capacity until...  2011?  Maybe?  When I dabbled in the Castle fandom.  But it was at the end of 2014 when writing fic kind of took over my life, when I stumbled into the Haven fandom.
5) Do you have someone you trust that you share your work with?
Definitely, I would not get anything accomplished otherwise. @serendipityxxi is the best and puts up with my complete inability to keep focused, and gets all of my random story bits.  @kedreeva, @redbirdblogs, @yumearashi, @queenbookwench, and pretty much the whole Haven crew usually have access to my WIP files, and are gracious enough to occasionally peek in and remind me to actually do things.  I have another group who sometimes listen to me babble about original fic, so they get those links when they want.  And I cannot express how incredibly grateful I am to all of them, because seriously, I would not get anything accomplished without the feedback and encouragement from all these wonderful people.
6) Where is your favorite place to write?
My couch, when the house is mostly empty/quiet, and I can turn the music on, and settle under some blankets.  Very occasionally, my porch, on the other couch, when it’s cool and dark and there are night-sounds happening.
7) Favorite childhood book?
Jurassic Park, and both the Emelan and Tortall series by @tamorapierce.  I have read my Circle of Magic books so many times that they are starting to disintegrate, and Wild Magic will always be one of those stories that brings me a sense of home.  Also Polgara the Sorceress, by David and Leigh Eddings, though it has been a long time since I’ve re-visited that universe.
8) Writing for fun or writing for publication?
Both.  I do desperately want to get some of my original stuff done and polished to the point where I can get it published, because I like my worlds and I want to be able to share them someday.  But I love writing fic, I love it, and I take an incredible amount of joy out of re-imagining and expanding familiar worlds and favorite characters.
9) Pen and paper or computer?
99% of the time, computer.  Because I can type much faster and for much longer than I can hand-write, and also I have a tendency to edit as I go, which is a thousand times simpler when I don’t have to cross out and re-write whole paragraphs as I realize the flow is wrong.  However, sometimes, I just really really need the texture and visual of a notebook and pen, and it’s easier for me to hand-write than type on a phone, so if I’m out and about, I’ll usually have a notebook with me just in case.
10) Have you ever taken any writing classes?
Yes, the most useful of which was the writer’s workshop I participated in for a year or two.  It met once a week, and we’d go in, work on projects, and get feedback.
11) What inspires you to write?
I can’t imagine not writing, honestly.  I am not always good at it, and I don’t always make a lot of progress, but stories are my life, they keep me going.  I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I wasn’t writing.  And specific inspiration- I wouldn’t even know how to describe it.  I can turn around wrong and have an entire universe download itself into my head- I was visiting a friend and saw a Suspicious Cocoon and now have a horror story unfolding, I saw a picture of an armband and needed to start developing a language so I could write a fantasy story that showed up with it.  It’s random, and often overwhelming, but music is one frequent source of ideas/feelings/moods for writing.
Tagging anybody who wants to give this a go, but specifically @kedreeva, @redbirdblogs, and @chasingshhadows (though obviously no pressure if you don’t feel like it).  I think everyone else I would usually tap has already gotten a tag (and if /not/, consider this a tag if you feel like it).
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promisedangel · 6 years
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King’s Island Haunt Review
I COMPLETELY FORGOT TO MAKE ONE FOR LAST WEEKEND’S TRIP, at least not until the friend who went with me reminded me during the MLP season 7 finale.
Travel to there was long, took longer cuz we got stuck in two bad choke points in Columbus traffic. We already made the mental note to leave earlier if we are returning to the Haunt next year. We ended up getting to the park little over an hour after it opened and the lines for rides/haunted houses didn’t exceed 45 minutes that night.
General Notes -The Haunt’s scenery was well done. The fog, the eyes on the Effiel Tower clone were awesome, and there was creepy music around the park to boot. One thing I am kinda disappointed about was the lack of actors outside of the haunted houses. There were only 3 sections of the park in which actors were on the prowl, and only one of them were really effective (I’ll tell that story on the second night). -We stayed at a Super 8, and it was actually pretty good. We just needed a place to sleep, and it worked. It was also near a good amount of food places to choose for breakfast! -The park offered these necklaces for $12 that pretty much said you don’t want to be scared. WHY COME TO A HALLOWEEN THING AND NOT WANT TO GET SCARED? I saw adults with these things on, too! The only way I could see these necklaces worth it, was if no area of the park was safe. If there were actors all over, maybe even in lines for rides and stuff. Then, it’d be worth it. But with only 3 scare zones, it’s not worth it.
Friday - The first thing my friend insisted we do was ride The Beast, as it was getting dark when we arrived and the ride was famous for its night ride since there are no lights around the track. When my friend was young, he and his dad swore they saw red lights, which they have since titled “The killer cows from hell”. Pretty cool ride, not the best, but it was fun riding in the front. -We hit two haunts next. First was The Slaughterhouse... which was kinda meh. Pacing felt too fast and the actors just weren’t trying that hard. - Madam Fatale’s Cavern of Terror was fun! They even got my friend pretty hard. He was lightly taunting some guy actor when this girl actor came from behind and scared him. I swear he jumped 2 feet and fell on the ground. -MYSTIC TIMBERS. AWESOME. The lore, the ride, no wonder it’s got an award already! If Halloween wasn’t so close, I would SO do oneshot based on the ride, but it’s too close and I got a request/gift to do T.T -Diamondback is now in my top five coasters EVER. Riding in the back at night was amazing, you get so much airtime!!! -Vortex is an Oldie but Goldie ride. It was pretty much a walk-on, but an awesome ride. I heard some people want it torn down, but it’s good! -Urgent Scare definitely needs an upgrade on its animatronics. In the ONE place it needs to look it’s most real, they look the fakest. Disappointed. -Drop Tower was fun, loved how it twisted on the way up. -Finished the night on the Banshee. it was cool, equal to The Raptor in Cedar Point.
Saturday -Had a nice breakfast before getting to the park as it opened. We rode Diamondback twice more as our start (In hindsight, this was a bad idea, but we still enjoyed it). -We accidentally went all the way around Backlot Stunt Coaster before we found the entrance, BUT, it led to us meeting a fellow Brony in line for it. Turned out he was at the park by his lonesome and we offered for him to hang out with us. Best decision of the day. The coaster was cool, good family ride. -Rode Vortex again with our new addition and got to know him pretty well. Also headed down to Racers, which was okay. He led us down to The Bat, which was MUCH more fun than Iron Dragon at Cedar Point. -Had to wait a half hour for Invertigo, kinda found out the park was starting to get crowded with people. While in line, we all bonded and I learned out this super intense horror experience called McKamey Manor. While our new friend seems gung-ho for it, I, on the other hand, will NEVER enter that place. Don’t hate the idea, nor the people who go through it. Invertigo was fun, but dunno if it was worth the wait. -Adventure Express was a good beginner coaster, used to be an Indiana Jones coaster before the park was bought by Cedar Fair. -Took a break to get food out of the park and relax a bit, and get sweatshirts for the night ahead. Getting pack in was a pain because we had to park so far away from the park. Made it a half hour before the 7:00 cut off point for getting back in the park. -Our goal for the night was to focus on the Haunts. We started with CarnEvil. Pretty decent, and someone gave me their 3D glasses, so it was trippy for me. Our new addition began to playfully taunt actors and was a joy to see. -Kill-Mart was fun, but mostly fun cause all of us work retail. We ended up making jokes on how it was ‘normal’ for us. Our new guy pointed out a scare and I still fell for it, so he heckled me a bit for it. -Field of Screams had a long line. Think it was a little over an hour. We ended up talking with the two girls in front of us most of the time about various horror topics and watched as one guy in the Fast Pass line scared a few people by hiding in bushes. Two other girls also fell off a fence in the line, but they weren’t hurt. Field of Screams was fun despite the wait but needed just a few more people to really bring out the best of it. There was this wide hay bale area with one actor, but two more would have really made it. One woman followed us out and scared a couple of us. This one girl behind us latched onto my friend, but she made it through with his encouragement. -We quickly went to Board to Death, which was more of a cool visual haunted house than a scary one. My friend and our new friend heckled the actors a bit, and we noticed by now that a lot of the actors over the night tried to get me rather than them. I remember this one actor woman asked if I wanted to play Twister with her and I said no. She then booked it to behind our group and got a scare out of the group of girls behind us, it was funny to just see her book it and immediately hear the screams. - We wanted to go to Blackout, cuz we had heard of various people throughout the night that it was really good, but the line was long and our new friend said he had to leave before midnight since he had to drive himself home. We made a choice and rode Banshee with him. I was, unfortunately starting to get cranky around this time cuz my feet hurt but giving him one last hurrah was worth the hour wait on Banshee. Fun fact: Banshee doesn’t allow fanny packs, BUT, if you stuff them in a hoodie pocket, they’re no problem! Just something I found funny. -We cut through the scare zone of Wasteland so we could quickly drop our new friend off at the gate. The actors in this zone were plentiful and really worked to get scares. They were really good. Sadly, we found this mom with this little girl, probably about 6-7, crying on her mom’s shoulder after going through the zone scared. Felt kinda bad for them. -We said our goodbyes to our new friend and got his contact information in hopes to meet up with him again sometime, even if it was just to come to the Haunt with him again. Did a quick picture together and then my friend and I went at it alone at about midnightish. -I REALLY wanted to hit as many things as possible before the night ended. We cut through the scare zone under the tower called Dance of the Macabre, pretty cool area. -Went straight to Backwoods Bayou. Decent place, good number of actors. The ones in swamp monster suits got us the most cuz we could barely see them coming. Saw people go into the bonus area and we mused about getting the pass for the rooms next year. -We saw that we didn’t have much time left before the park closed. We planned our route and headed straight for Blackout, and the line was less than 15 minutes!!! Was probably one of the most effective haunts in the entire park. You hold a rope with your right hand, while you navigate with your left in a dark maze that occasionally flashes with non-seizure inducing lights. Loved it. -We saw Wolf Pack had no line and quickly ran to it. The actors really tried in there and got my friend a good number of times. Really good visuals and jumpscares. -To close out our trip, we made our way across the park to ride The Beast one last time. We went slowly because my feet were screaming at me by this point. We got in line 15 minutes before the park closed and were probably the 6-7 car before the last ride. We saw The Slaughterhouse close up shop at 2 while still in line. The Beast is a pain in the back, too rough for my tastes. I tried to wedge my arm between the edge of my seat and me to lessen it, but it barely worked. -The walk back through the park to the car was sad, and a bit tough with my hurt feet after doing more than 50k steps that weekend. But we made it and I fell asleep very soon after we returned to our room.
Sunday -Another good breakfast before we relaxed a little before an easy checkout. The ride back was tough on me, felt a bit sleepy until my friend dug out some cookies and chocolate milk from the cooler to keep me awake. Once I put on Critical Role, it became much easier for me to stay awake. -Noticed some grinding when I had to brake during traffic. Turns out my brake pads were in pretty bad shape. Got them fixed this week, but it still cost a LOT. Considering I’ve had that car since 2009, they held up pretty well. -Took a nap as soon as I got home. Had plans with my boyfriend, but we ended up doing something different, but still had a good time with another friend.
Good trip overall. We hope to return next year with more of our coaster-loving friends. We also hope to see our new friend sometime before then! I’d say my first trip to Kings Island was a lot of fun, and a great contrast to Cedar Point, my home amusement park. Sad to say the only things we didn’t hit were Flight of Fear and Firehawk, and we could have done so at the start of Saturday or just after Board to Death, but we all decided against it. Top of the list for next time!
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sharongoodnow · 4 years
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when did you start writing for tlou and why did you choose tess and joel and not ellie/dina or something. i love it by the way lol too many people write ellieand dina and not enough tess and joel
i mean i am a known het sympathizer...................
lmao want my honest thoughts on ellie/dina
spoilers obviously
i seriously do not like that dina is completely on board with ellie’s revenge mission! i think that’s toxic! and i think that dina’s agreement with the whole seattle thing is understandable given what she says about talia. however. there was not enough context given about talia, at least so far as i’m aware. i know there were a lot of extra stories hidden in found objects and there were dialogues i may have missed especially because gulp yabish is going exclusively off of playthroughs lmao. but i still dislike dina agreeing with ellie on that because, again, i found it ultimately unsubstantiated given what i saw (had there been more about talia maybe i would’ve felt differently) and i think honestly that that is indicative of a wider wlw problem. gay girls are all too willing to worship their significant others. i feel like a lot of us want gay love to be so picture perfect that we deny our partners the chance to be a person. the support dina showed for ellie when they left jackson...i wasn’t into it. and i mean i think dina does get a big Growing Up arc post seattle and i liked her a lot more then. you could tell that she’d learned from the experience and figured out that that wasn’t worth it and had worked really seriously hard to create a beautiful life for her family. and i can kind of give her a pass on not getting through to ellie when ellie was traumatized bc that is hard regardless of who you are and it’s not as if they had a wealth of resources for help. but still like. i think i was majorly turned off from ellie/dina when dina blindly supported ellie leaving jackson and there’s only a little bit of reasoning given as to why. it felt like a problem i see in a lot of gay relationships as is and i think that’s why i’m a lot more critical of it than i would be had straight characters done the same. does that make sense? it feels like a highly specific red flag to me. and in the end i did like dina because dina in the farmhouse was clearly a much more mature and life-valuing dina and i think she needed to experience seattle in order to get there in whatever way (or something similar you catch my drift) but i guess like. i don’t know. i just wasn’t all over it. and also like i tend not to like gay ships in almost anything bc a lot of them feel topical and inhuman to me (like how can you possibly tell an impactful story when you can’t have anything bad happen to the character without being labeled as bad representation and shunned, and that shunning is understandable given the history and i wouldn’t say we shouldn’t do it but it does make the stories really dry sometimes we must admit, like if anyone tells me to watch s*pergirl i will start taking hostages) but that being said i feel like ellie and dina are a lot better overall as wlw representation because they just...feel like real people i guess. i appreciate that dina values her religion so much and i think that that part of her character is so important in this kind of story. also i like that ellie is recognizable as a lesbian in little ways as well as the big ones. as gay characters i think they’re neat :) but i’m just not invested in their relationship all that much. Beyond like...being happy that you see dina’s bracelet on ellie’s wrist at the very end. u feel 
now, here is the time when everyone calls me a hypocrite because i simp for leslie/jonah on runaways when he is clearly an abuser. i’m shallow! sorry!!!!!!! i contain multitudes!!!!!!!! haha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ugh all the lesbians will stone me for this
anyway
why joel and tess? BECAUSE I SIMP OKAY..................listen. Listen. listen...listen. listen. Listen. tess...is good. and i like her. i just think she’s neat! listen...you put an emotionally stunted dilf next to a hardass lady with pretty hair...................................i simp okay. Must it be more complicated than that. also it’s just like such a tragedy u feel. like spoilers lmao for a game that came out seven years ago BUT tess dies right after she told joel that she wanted to slow down for a while even though she never actually does that when she says she will and then of course she dies and it’s TRAGIC. there’s a lot of things left undone there! it’s tragic!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and joel legit never processes her death even though bill calls them inseparable and gruff manly voice Trouble In Paradise and like. likeeeeeeeeeeeeee. their relationship brings up a million questions. were they actually together or was it just flirtation that never amounted to anything? did they love each other but struggle to explain why or how? were they both too emotionally stunted to figure out their feelings for each other? when did he tell her about sarah? what happened when tommy left? would their lives have been different had they met in a different, more hospitable place? were they actually boning in the game or did i just have a really weird dream? there’s so much between them that’s left unsaid either because they don’t talk about anything beyond work or because she died so early on. that is SO fun to explore. and it’s so emotionally satisfying to try to find ways to make them figure out who they are together and what they want out of life when they’re given a real chance. 
also honestly i think the bigger thing is just me bein in lov with tess cuz she’s a female character unlike any i’ve seen where there’s like...a combination of hardness and softness to her and neither is better or worse than the other and she never really has to assert herself because she’s a woman and instead is just like. Tess. u feel. like she’s absolutely Don’t Mess but also when ellie is with her she absolutely kneels to ellie’s level and speaks to ellie in very direct ways and consoles ellie as if ellie is a child but also directs ellie as if ellie is an adult. it’s just like...so very aware and caring in a way that i think is easy to miss. i like that tess can be soft with ellie without taking away any of her hardness. and i also really like that she’s always ALWAYS honest with ellie. she never tells ellie they’re safe when theyr’e not, she insists to ellie that marlene will be alright and though at the beginning of the game it seems like she’s lying to make the girl feel better by the end you’re like oh wait tess wasn’t lying at all, etc. and i think she sticks around as a character even though she dies really early on because it’s easy to admire her for being tough as nails and also kind to the people who matter, and then sacrificing herself for the greater good. she’s easy to admire because there’s a lot of courage and strength in her and i think that’s given her staying power. there’s also the matter of her age which FASCINATES ME bc she would’ve been in her late teens more or less when the outbreak happened and just thinking of myself at that age like...oh god she would’ve known NOTHING. just absolutely nothing about the world, but she was also too old to be a scared kid, so she’s just left there and scared and YEAH IT MAKES ME FEEL THINGS!!!!!!!!! like imagine being 18 and you’ve graduated high school you’re trying to figure out what you want out of life and then an outbreak happens and everyone you know dies and you’re just left all alone not knowing anyone and also not knowing yourself. and i think ms annie said in an interview that tess saw a lot of herself in ellie and like yeah that totally tracks. she’s been the scared kid before so she knows how to handle a scared kid. and also tess and i are more or less the same age in the sense that had the 2013 outbreak been like a real thing or whatever then she and i would’ve been around the same age (like i was 16 in 2013) which is weird to think about bc like here is a woman who is your age in 2033. that’s such a fucking trip dude. that’s so hard to visualize or imagine but Here It Is. such a trip. anyway that’s enough tess ranting
oh and i started writing for tlou like two months ago and i’ve only done one fic for it so i barely write for it at all and also that fic was supposed to be a oneshot but then i was like why don’t i just avoid reality and write more of this and now it’s like 50k long so that’s a decent testament to my current mental wellbeing alsdkjgasld;kgjaslkjgL:KDJSFLKJSDGKJDGLKGJ
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