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otp-holic · 3 years

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Will this be the night? (ALSO IN A03)

A random piece of online advertising unleashes some movie memories of a Summer afternoon in 1932

1.5 Ks Fanfic + Pictures Inside. Part of the Never let us lose what we have gained series (AO3) Silly drabble born from my love of classic movies... that ended up not having anything to do with classic movies.

BROOKLYN'S KING'S THEATRE

Poster for Cary Grant's Retrospective. Printed paper 2025.

A poster for the upcoming month long celebration of the movies of Cary Grant to be held in Brooklyn.

Bucky is not expecting a vivid memory of the past to jump at him from a piece of online location-targeted promotion popping on his phone as he and Steve are wandering around the neighborhood on a random Friday.

But the 21st century works in mysterious ways and Google is kindly inviting him to check “Cary Grant: A Celebration”, a month-long chronological retrospective of all his movies taking place at a nearby hipster cinema starting… in half an hour.

He beams as a long string of memories of the both of them in different afternoons and movies plays in his head; how they counted the cents for the admission price, and how Bucky learned to sneak into the movie every time that did not add up to two full tickets.

“Buck, you’ve been smiling at your phone in silence for a whole minute,” Steve interrupts his daydreaming. “Should I be jealous? Worried?”

“Sorry,” he answers, still smiling about the memories. “I think I’m leaving you for Google, they see inside my one hundred years old soul; But I might give you another chance if you don’t mind a change of plans for the afternoon.”

“Lead the way, but can you give me some heads up?” Steve chuckles, more than used to Bucky’s ways.

He takes Steve’s hand to direct them towards the movie theatre and thinks about how much information he wants to share.

Although he is the one who still relies on the comfort of 30s and 40s movies whereas Steve keeps getting bolder with his options, Steve has always loved Cary Grant and Bucky thinks he’s going to appreciate his choice since this particular movie has a history (sad history, maybe) for them, so he debates on whether to tell him or not.

“We are going to the movies. But the real ones, not that shit on Netflix you keep choosing,” he settles for half-disclosure.

“Damn, mister life in black and white strikes again. Embrace the 21st century, Barnes, I think you’ll like it!”, Steve laughs.

“Hey, I embrace it more than you do! At least I look the part of a mid-thirties man from it instead of a fifty-year-old hiding in fucking khakis. Albeit a very hot one, I’ll give you that.”

They both laugh. It’s not the first time these remarks fly between them and having a routine, running jokes, and running pet peeves is very soothing after everything they have gone through.

They’re getting closer to the cinema now, and Bucky can already see the Billboard announcing the retrospective and a small queue forming upfront. He takes a side look at Steve to see if he has noticed and he can certainly tell that his curiosity has peaked.

“Surprise! Call it a win-win, it might be up my alley, but you used to love Cary Grant movies,” Bucky smiles as they reach their place in the queue and glance at the program for the afternoon.

‘This is the Night (1932)’, the poster says, ‘Cary Grant's feature film debut on the big screen’

Bucky is deep in nostalgia, remembering a summer day of 32 when they were waiting in line for the same film and how the evening turned out, but when he looks in search of his partner’s reaction, it’s not what he expected at all.

“Steve, you ok?” he asks, worried at seeing Steve frozen in place.

Steve nods. His whole face is deep red, but at least he is responsive. He looks ashamed and Bucky is shifting from worried to curious.

“Jesus, this movie,…” he chuckles now.

“You seem to remember, then. I thought you might.”

It was not a happy memory: Steve had felt really ill halfway through, looking white as a sheet of paper and about to die on Bucky. They had to leave the unfinished movie and run home, as per Steve’s request. But as far as Bucky remembers, nothing to be ashamed of.

“Why are you acting weird? Oh my god, Steven, are you allergic to this movie?”

The silence before Steve answers is a little too long and the queue moves forward.

“Shit, this is not easy to say and I’m sorry in advance.”

“Duly noted, but could you try to explain? I’m lost and I didn’t expect a full-on confession of something to be sorry about when I decided to follow Google’s intelligent advice to an unfinished movie. I just thought it was a good excuse for a change of plans. And kind of closure.”

Steve takes a breath and starts talking.

“I wasn’t honest with you, Buck. Back then…” he stops, searching for words, nervously musing on his beard. “Ah, I cannot believe this hasn’t come up at some point, but there it goes. I absolutely lied to you that day: I wasn’t sick or half dying and I am very very guilty of using my poor health to run away from that place and that movie, but I did the only thingI could think of.”

Bucky is at a loss for words, he’s still deciding if he is angry, curious, or somewhere in between.

“But… but you were feverish and white as a ghost and you said you had palpitations!”

Steve seems to think for a moment again and the bastard laughs so loud they get a curious look from the people behind. And taking advantage of the queue moving up again, he gets really really close to Bucky who honestly thinks he’s going to try to kiss himself out of the situation since it’s a bulletproof strategy.

But he doesn’t: He goes for Bucky’s ear instead, and whispers.

“I had a boner like you wouldn’t believe.”

Bucky gasps loudly totally taken aback while Steve takes a step back and looks at him in the eye more amused and hungry than ashamed, but still blushing.

“But hey, not all lies! I was somehow sick. And pale since my blood was… otherwise occupied. And I was barely 14!”

Bucky laughs at the dork. His dork. But the information is still making its way into his brain.

“Oh my God,” he exclaims as it starts to settle, “You piece of shit, you pulled the poor sick child card when you were just plain horny. I was worried to my bones as we run to your home. Shame on you Rogers!”

“Me? It was your fucking fault! Yours and Cary Grant’s and your stupid grins and stupid chins, those clefts!” he’s screaming in whispers so Steve Rogers’ teenage boner doesn’t make it to the news, but he’s talking as if he was pronouncing an important speech to the UN, “What was a 14-year-old in the fucking 30s popping one upon seeing an actor who kind of looked like a very tall version of his very male best friend to do?”

He is about to say something, but Steve literally covers his mouth with one hand giving Bucky no other option but to stick his tongue and lick the palm.

“Gross, Buck. I’m not done!”, he dries his hand on Buckys’ shirt before he goes on. “I’m not done because as I was still processing all that, you kept brushing your goddamned hand with mine when you went for popcorn! Over and over and over. It was torture. I have palpitations now just thinking about it.”

Bucky full-on laughs. One of those real ones that come more and more lately and that he honestly thought he would never get to experience again.

They have reached the box office, so he doesn’t push it further. For now.

“Two tickets for `This is the Night´, please.” Bucky smiles at the box-office guy. “He is paying, tho. I paid last time we tried to see this one and he didn’t have the decency to stay until the end.”

He actually feels like a teen as Steve takes his hand into the theatre, as he very intentionally buys popcorn to share, and as they start full-on making out on their seats during the commercials once the lights are out.

“Wanna know another secret, Buck?” Steve whispers a few minutes later, eyes on the starting movie as he brushes Bucky’s hand with intention over the popcorn bucket. His flustered face and recently kissed lips bathed by dancing lights and shadows coming from the screen. “It’s a good thing we were already together in ‘38 when “Bringing up baby” came out because I was able to plan ahead and lure you into that memorable window fuck at our old apartment before the show, or we would have totally missed one of our favorite movies, too.”

Bucky hates Steve with the force of the universe. Or maybe not, but he’s not playing clean.

“Raincheck on the movie?” he manages to whisper back as he drives Steve’s hand to his already noticeable hard-on. Two can play this game.

“Oh, poor Buck. Do you have palpitations” Steve chuckles, lips wet on Bucky’s ear and gripping harder on his bulge instead of letting go. “Was that the memory of the window fuck? Or all the making out? Tell me so I don’t do it again.”

“You are a punk, Steve Rogers,” Bucky answers before standing up to leave, closely followed by a smiling Steve.

Argh, sorry for deleting and uploading again, but i had technical issues with this.... so here it goes again. I need to free myself from this one!

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draggingthedregs · 4 years

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Writing prompt: please please write about Kaz and Jesper where Kaz is actually treating Jesper like a friend and not an inconvenience? Something post-series, I guess? Like they could be talking about wylan or inej or anything! Thank you ❤️❤️❤️

a/n: okay, okay, i was super duper excited about writing this. when i saw it in my asks i immediately got excited for all the possibilities. i love jesper and kaz’s friendship so damn much and i always love their little moments in both the books and any other fanfics i’ve read. more people need to give them the best friend content they deserve.

word count: 1577

~~~

Maybe it was the weather, but Kaz and Jesper found themselves alone together.

Everyone in Ketterdam believed they would have a few more weeks before the harshest of winter set in, believed the ice from the north would refrain from reaching them quite yet, they had been wrong. Frigid wind whipped through the alleys and streets, the tops of the canals beginning to freeze over, trapping the stagnant boats against their mooring.

Jesper stayed with Wylan most of the time, all-but moving in with him. However, his room at the Slat still remained, just in case he ever needed it in between jobs or after a long night at the Crow Club. Jesper had asked Kaz why he never gave it to someone else, tossed whatever was left of his belongings into Fifth Harbor, and Kaz could never give him a straight answer.

On this night, as the cold settled deep into the bones of anyone stupid enough to be out, Jesper found himself thankful that he didn’t need to walk all the way back to Wylan’s mansion. He bounded up the Slat’s rickety stairs, taking two at a time, to pay Kaz an unexpected visit, one of which he was sure to enjoy.

Jesper rapped twice before announcing his presence through the wood. “Your favorite crow has returned to the nest.”

He heard Kaz’s uneven gait through the door as he approached, opened the lock with a soft click, and swung the door wide for him to enter. “Favorite is a very strong assumption.” Kaz turned and started back to his desk, “Lock it behind you.”

“It’s alright. You don’t have to say it, I know it’s true. I can feel it in my heart.”

Kaz let out a scoff, but the smile on his face was genuine. “I’m sure you can.”

Jesper pulled a chair from the corner of the room, setting it in front of his desk. “Well, actually, I think I might be tied with Inej nowadays.”

The smile on his lips faded, replaced with an ache that was so apparent, it was palpable. Inej had been gone for over eight months and, from what Jesper understood, mailing letters to and from a ship on the ocean was exceedingly difficult. Not to mention never knowing if the girl he sent letters to was even alive to receive them anymore.

The joking edge left Jesper’s words, replaced with sincerity. “Have you heard from her?”

Kaz shook his head, staring at the paper on his desk. “Not since I responded to her last letter.”

That had been over three weeks ago.

Inej had written letting Kaz know that she would be home later then she originally thought, months later in fact. She explained that the slaver she had been following was part of a larger fleet, and the Wraith would be their undoing.

Jesper looked again at the papers laying in front of him, now seeing what they were. Inej’s original letter was there, her delicate scrawl dancing across the page, the ink remaining untouched and unsmudged. Above it lay another piece of parchment, this one unfinished and in Kaz’s thick, scratchy handwriting.

He had been writing her again, possibly for a second or third time for all that Jesper knew. There were ink stains along his hand and even on his temple, where he had clearly gotten lost in thought.

“Kaz, I’m sure she’s alright. She’s the Wraith, no one can get a hold of her.”

Normally, and with anybody else, Kaz would’ve ignored them, would’ve waved them off and pushed his pain aside. “Things are different at sea… Even Inej could fall victim.”

“But she won’t. She’ll come home and crawl right back through your window and feed those stupid birds.”

Kaz sighed, his thumb tracing across her words. The closer Jesper looked, the more pain and exhaustion he saw. Kaz didn’t sleep on a good day, let alone when he was focused on a job or a fat sum of kruge coming their way, but this was different. The entirety of his body seemed weighted now, his shoulders drooping, the circles under his eyes purple, instead of their usual grey.

Jesper’s voice broke the silence. “I miss laughing with her. She always found my stupid jokes funny. Or at least she pretended to.”

Kaz didn’t even look up from her letter as he answered. His voice so raw, it almost felt as though these words weren’t intended for Jesper at all. “I miss her voice. I keep hearing it in my head… I didn’t think I’d ever ask for another Suli proverb to tell me what an ass I was being but…”

“She did have a lot of those, didn’t she?” Jes couldn’t help but smile, “And she’d pop out of the dark, waving her finger, telling us off like the ghost of an angry grandmother.”

Jesper saw the beginnings of a smile pulling at Kaz’s lips and he continued, hoping that these stories of Inej might make her reappear in front of them, clucking her tongue at their memory of her.

“She’d stand with her arms crossed, staring as you explained a plan, waiting to call you out on something. And she could always find something. Then she’d shake her head and disappear again.”

“My ever-opinionated shadow.” Kaz chuckled.

“That’s certainly one way to put it. She was never afraid to say what she thought or to be who she was. I guess it’s one of the things I’ve always admired about her.” Jesper took another moment, the joke faded from his voice but a fond smile remained. “She’s the best of us.”

Kaz glanced again at the letter and, to Jesper’s shock, laughed. “Inej would kill us if she heard us talking like this.”

“Like what?”

“Like she’s dead.”

Now it was Jesper’s turn to laugh. He hadn’t even thought of how remanicient their conversation was to a funeral and when he realized it, he couldn’t help but find it hilarious. The idea of Captain Inej Ghafa, the Wraith, dying was nearly unthinkable, though Jesper was unsettled by certain memories that didn’t render the thought impossible.

Kaz tucked the letters into a neat stack, setting them to the side, then reached into his desk, pulling out a bottle of whiskey. Along with the bottle, he set two glasses in the table. He poured them both generously before sliding one over to Jesper’s side of the desk.

“Are we getting drunk at our non-funeral now too?”

He took a sip, his lips curling as it burned along the back of his throat. “Let’s just see how this one drink goes.”

Jesper lifted the glass in a half-cheers, taking a drink himself.

“So,” Kaz began, “Why are you here?” Though it may have come off as harsh, Jes knew what he meant. After so many years, it was easy to tell when Kaz really wanted you gone.

“I was picking up something at the club and it was way too cold to walk all the way home.”

“Then I take it all is well with our sunshiniest demolitions expert?”

A laugh escaped Jesper. “We’re fine. He hasn’t thrown me to the curb yet.”

“And he won’t.”

“I mean- I might throw me to the curb too. Or maybe into the harbor.”

Kaz took a nonchalant sip. “I wouldn’t.”

The remark caught Jesper off guard. Sure, he knew that Kaz had taken a liking to him, perhaps even cared for him, but hearing it aloud seemed to strike harder than he’d expected. Instead of pushing the matter as he may have liked, he simply shrugged. “You’ve never had to share a bedroom with me.”

Another smile creeped onto Kaz’s lips as he leaned back in his chair. “And perhaps that’s a good thing.”

Jesper finished his drink, setting the empty glass on the table. “I suppose I’ve annoyed you enough for one night, I should probably get to bed. I’ll need to be home early before Wylan starts to panic.”

“Of course not but we wouldn’t want that.” Kaz glanced to his letter, already longing for the near memorized words beneath his attempt.

“You shouldn’t panic either, if you even can. Truth be told, I’m never sure what emotions you possess, though Helvar does have a few theories.”

A small grumble escaped Kaz’s throat as he rolled his eyes. “I’m sure he does.”

Jes laughed, “I just meant that she’ll write. Or she’ll pop back up in the middle of the night and scare you out of your gloves.”

With a roll of his eyes, “A man can certainly dream.”

As he made his way to the door, Jesper found himself stopping short, a question rattling around in his brain that he couldn’t keep down any longer. “Why wouldn’t you? Why haven’t you?”

“What?”

“Thrown me out. Everything is still in my room and earlier you said you wouldn’t throw me out… Why?”

Kaz considered him for a moment. The silence hung between them like a thick blanket, needing to be wrung free of water, until he finally answered. “I suppose I like having you around, Jesper. I don’t think I’m really ready to see you go just yet.” A wide, genuine smile took over as he continued. “Even if you are a little too comfortable gambling away my money and shooting bullet holes in my walls.”

Jesper nodded, realizing he had a smile of his own to match. “Goodnight, Kaz.”

“Goodnight, Jes.”

fin.

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woonietune · 2 years

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Hello fandom my old friend

I’m being stalked again. I tend to get stalked. It’s sort of a thing with me. A friend once said I wasn’t like crazycake flypaper--that I was more like a Venus flytrap so stalkers beware. True, I’m not to be messed with. That still doesn’t mean I don’t freak out.

The WBDS fandom was pretty quiet these past six years given the noise of my previous fandoms--in which the highest pitch involved the FBI addressing threats to moi (twice). But (twice) in the WBDS fandom I’ve run across people who’ve made my skin crawl--one loves me too much; the other is a sworn enemy. In the past three months, my Instagram has been hacked three (more?) times, and my humble posts (I have a following of less than a 100 ppl--mostly kdrama fans) keep being reported for inappropriate content and taken down. One post I didn’t question--it had a link in the text to a story which IN TURN had a hidden link in a note to M-rated material. But the other reports were just WHACK, like a photo of a guy licking his sword (ok, Insta, that’s so suggestive... but what if it was a hot girl eating a banana?) The last post taken down was a drawing of mine of a guy on a horse, and the story was innocuous--the fic even had a damn puppy in it, ok? Well, a crazy man committed suicide in it, but THAT WAS ALL A PIECE OF FICTION? WAS THAT INSTA-INAPPROPRIATE? Geez, I reposted it all, and I wished whoever was harassing me a Merry Holidays and gave them some pearls to clutch.

I get uncomfortable the more “known” I get in fandom too. More people love me, more people hate me. Someone on Reddit named my current WIP as one of “the greatest fanfics of all time” in a thread, and I was like, duuuuuude, what are you smoking? I’ve been around a while, and off the top of my head, I can think of a gazillion fics way better than my current UNFINISHED fic. The only one allowed to love me and my work that much is my fandom wife. Oh, she got hit one story hit by the kudos bot (I got one story hit too--this is a crazy bot--it’s not a webcrawler--it’s SENTIENT--it hit a lot of people who posted stories in a small fandom thread on Reddit--it READS Reddit). Since Wifey’s story was hit, she put up a disclaimer saying please ignore those fake 70 kudos (however many--I got about the same number on my GREATEST FIC OF ALL TIME, lol, and I put up a similar I hate you kudos bot note). But weirdly, people have not been leaving kudos OR comments for Wifey since she put up disclaimer... it’s like kudo bot nervousness on the part of readers? What has this bot done to us all? (Wifey did get a hilarious comment from anon calling themselves NOTABOT on another story though who left a heart emoji :D).

I feel on pins and needles right now.

I want to share stories with people and have people like the stories. I don’t like fandom stalkers, haters, kudos bots, weird persistent downvoters for every comment I make on Reddit, mad love like people saying my fic is one of the greatest of all time loooool, or that one poor woman who still wants to have my babies or something after 4 years (and we weren’t even dating, I swear). I don’t know who keeps harassing me on Insta. Maybe the same person who told me to kill myself for writing rape fic a few months ago--I mean, why target me? So many other writers out there in way bigger fandoms writing way darker rapefics?

Which one of you two was it? Or is there a third now? A fourth, fifth, sixth Debbie-hater?

Brrrrrrrrr.

My friends say I eat these people and get stronger--they’ve seen it happen. But you know how painful it is to digest hate?

Anyway, Wifey’s story is amazing and getting so little attention. It takes a wonderful (terrible) canon time (when Dong-soo was literally insane for a couple months and unable to speak after being betrayed by Woon) and fills in a lot of plot-holes by having us go into Dong-soo reputed genius mind as he hallucinates Woon. It’s brilliant. It’s here:

Weakness

Speaking of which, I need a very long nap. And I’m envying my cat’s lickable protein snacks. I may order ice cream. Can people get ice cream delivered? I don’t even like ice cream. Soy cream? Can I get a vegetarian drone from a supermarket to drop me off some soy milk cream sandwiches? And a cabana boy with a drink with an umbrella?

#Fandom stuff #fandom can suck #I love my fandom wife #warrior baek dong-soo fanfiction

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guardevoir · 3 years

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here you go: 6&7 41&42

Note: for the Fanfic Questions Meme; feel free to toss more numbers my way, folks!

6. List your OTP from each fandom you’ve been involved in. 7. List your NoTPs from each fandom you’ve been in.

I’ve been in fandoms since 2007. At least one at a time, usually several in parallel. If I would even manage to list ALL the OTPs, we’d be here all day long. So, have a quick selection.

OTPs 1. Hornblower: Bush/Hornblower 2. Hornblower: actually most combinations of Archie/Hornblower/Bush(/Côtard); Bush/Hornblower is just the one that usually tickles my fanfic sensibilities the most. 3. Emergency!: Johnny/Roy 4. AssCreed: Ezio/Leonardo 5. White Collar: Neal/Peter(/Elizabeth) 6. Yuri On Ice: Victor/Yuuri 7. Rivers Of London: Peter/Nightingale 8. Ace Attorney: Miles/Phoenix; Apollo/Klavier

NoTPs idk? I mostly just go “thanks, but no thanks” on a case-by-case basis when interacting with fanmade content, because I don’t usually bother really nailing down the things I don’t like.

41. List and link to 5 fanfics you are currently reading: I almost never have fanfics I’m “currently reading”, because I can easily get through a 100k word fic in a day, and I rarely get into a fandom early enough to find unfinished-but-still-updating fics. So instead, have some fics that I had been currently reading at one point or another, I guess.

1. “Seasons of Light and Shadow” (LOTR; Bard/Thranduil, modern AU): Just about the only time I couldn’t finish a fanfic in one sitting; it has nearly a million words, which not even I can power through in a day, though I sure as hell tried. I’m not even really in any Tolkien-related fandom, but I do read fic for it sometimes and this one is pretty magnificent. 2. “The Wedding Planner” (Ace Attorney; Phoenix/Miles): This one I found while it was still being posted, so it really was on my “currently reading” list for quite a while, though it’s finished now. Super, super sweet. 3. “Like I Like My Coffee” (Hornblower; Horry/Bush with a side of Horry/Pellew): On the “currently reading” list by virtue of last having been updated in 2014. And I actually found it before that last update, so I’ve lowkey been waiting for new chapters on that one for the better part of a decade, and I’m still lurking and waiting. 4. “Give Me Nothing, Give Me You” (The Witcher; Geralt/Jaskier): Not a fandom I’m necessarily in, but it sure does have very nice fic. It’s finished now, but this was another Actually Updating one and I haven’t gotten around to getting caught up on account of obsessing about Emergency! too hard. So, the only genuine Currently Reading fic on this list. 5. “Frozen River” (Rivers of London Peter/Nightingale): Figure skating AU that, iirc, was on hiatus for a while and I promptly never got around to reading the rest of it until I fixed that just now.

42. List and link to 5 fanfiction authors who are amazing: 1. yeaka (mostly for the Elrond/Lindir stuff but also just in general) 2. manic-intent (originally for the AssCreed stuff but also Rivers of London) 3. hitchcock-winter (Emergency!, swooped in with some stupidly gorgeous writing and everything I’d wished for in the characterization department when I was fully expecting that I’d have to write any new fic myself) 4. Trapelo_Road475 (Emergency!, writes sex scenes like some sort of goddamn beautiful impressionist painting and I’m kind of in awe) 5. Linpatootie (Rivers of London; just some really damn good fic) (and like 50 other askhjdfg)

#mimswinter #guardy talks about stuff

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disappearinginq · 4 years

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fanfic tag game

I was tagged by @waitingforthestarstofall - this will be a good distraction from rage (SO MUCH RAGE) Thanks!

Questions:

Ao3 Name: IceQueen1 (same on FFN)

Fandoms: Oh damn. Umm...written for: Agents of SHIELD, and the 100 which I actively avoid now, even if those were some of my favorite works; Lucifer, Constantine, Supernatural, Magnum PI 2018, Deception, Common Law, Daredevil, Iron Fist, Merlin, MCU-ish, Doctor Who. Unpublished: Prodigal Son and Outer Banks and one crossover with MacGyver 2016.

Number of fics: Well...depends on how you count. Posted or with every intention of posting - 56, though some of those are from when I was like 14 (it shows, but I like them and they’re valuable learning tool). Unpublished and snippets here and there...::nervous laugh:: 109?

1. Fic you spent the most time on: Toss up between Wrong Side of Heaven, Damnatio Memoriae (which has given me the worst case of imposter syndrome I kind of cry every time I look at it), and Running Up That Hill

2. Fic you spent the least time on: Catalyst - literally wrote it on an illegal lunch break on a computer that wasn’t mine and posted it on a government computer.

3. Longest Fic: Huh. Apparently not Damnatio, but Running Up That Hill, at an impressive 104k words in the Agents of SHIELD fandom.

4. Shortest Fic: Promises to the Dead in Supernatural fandom.

5. Most hits: Even without combining from FFN and AO3 - Damnatio Memoriae

6. Most kudos: Damnatio Memoriae

7. Most comment threads: Damnatio Memoriae (see a trend?)

8. Fave Fic you wrote: This is like picking favorite pets. Um, actually, despite the headaches they’ve given me, Damnatio ties with Left Behind. Both unfinished (Left Behind because I got so pissed at the 100 I stopped watching), and Damnatio because I have nightmares about it, but I think I like my writing in those two the most. Very close third is Wrong Side.

9. Fic you want to rewrite/expand on: Remedy or Cecidit Angelus

10. Share a bit of your WIP or share a story idea that you’re planning:

You need to know the answer to this is 9. Possibly more. But there’s part of Damnatio:

Lucifer looked…haggard. Tired in a way she’s never seen him before, dark shadows under even darker eyes, his normally immaculate appearance disheveled as if he’d been on a bender since the last time she saw him. He didn’t stand up straight, slightly hunched over and cockeyed, though that could just as easily be because he was standing on loose sand. It could also be from the handle of scotch held loosely in one hand, more than two thirds empty. His five o’clock shadow was more like like 12 o’clock, and his hair free of product ruffled in the breeze. “You rang?” he asked, one corner of his mouth twitching as if he meant to smile as his own joke but couldn’t be bothered with the effort. He swayed on his feet before righting himself. “I was wondering how long it would take you to try this.” Chloe could smell the alcohol on him ten feet away, even in the breeze coming off the ocean. “What happened to you?” Lucifer laughed at that. It was high pitched, bordering on manic, and he scrubbed a hand over his face, his fingers scraping along the rough stubble on his cheeks. “I…I don’t know how to answer that, Detective.” He held up the scotch, violently shaking it back and forth. “To quote a younger sibling of mine - ‘I found a liquor store, and I drank it’.”

An unnamed Outer Banks fic:

JJ scoffed at that, wincing as the sudden movement jostled his ribs. “Yeah. An adult. The last thing I need right now is an adult.” He seemed to consider that for a moment. “Though…I guess there are a couple things I could need less. A snake bite. Or a jellyfish sting. Or a missing leg. Or -” “Dammit kid,” Shoupe interrupted, not caring where the list was headed. “This isn’t a game. You can’t do this on your own, you’re barely sixteen. You can’t take care of yourself at sixteen, and if this isn’t proof enough of that, I don’t know what is. You need an adult -” JJ’s electric blue eyes narrowed as he stared at him, lower bloodied lip pinched between his teeth. “Yeah? You mean the like adults who looked the other way for eight years when I came to school with black eyes and broken bones and the same clothes for weeks on end? Or the adult who gave me those black eyes and broken bones? Or do you mean the adult who killed my best friend? Or the adult who aided and abetted said adult who killed my best friend? Or the adult who tried to rob us at gunpoint. Or maybe you mean the adults who stole money from a crime scene to ‘dip their beak’? Those adults? Are those the fucking adults you mean, Shoupe? ‘Cause if not, I have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about. I’ll take my chances. From where I’m sitting, I’m not doing any worse.” Shoupe ran an appraising eye over the kid. “I doubt that.” “The bar is pretty fucking low, Sheriff.” “You came here though, didn’t you?” JJ glared at him before turning away a muttering, “Don’t read too much into it. Robbing the CVS would’ve been a little hard to do without a getaway car.” Shoupe didn’t miss the way the kid avoided mentioning the long, ragged looking cut down the front of his left leg. “And none of your friends have first aid kits?” JJ steadfastly ignored him, ignored the way that his leg was beginning to bounce against the ceramic of the tub side as he dabbed ineffectively at the blood. “Hmm?” JJ bit his lip, whether from his less than gentle ministrations or to keep from snapping back, Shoupe couldn’t tell. Probably a toss up. “Nothing you want to say for yourself?” With a snarl, JJ whirled on him. “I can’t go to them, okay? I can’t drag them into this shit with me. Pope already lost his ticket out of here, and Kie -” he didn’t finish the thought, but there was something hard and broken in his voice as it suddenly wavered. “This is on me. I did this. So I deal with this. And I don’t drag them down with me. No one else drowns because of me.” And there it was. JJ Maybanks and John B Routledge were thicker than thieves and where one was, the other wasn’t far behind, and it’d been that way ever since Shoupe joined the Kildare Sheriff’s Department. Hell, half his calls were responding to something they’d done - a particularly memorable one being an impromptu fireworks display inside the gym when Fourth of July was rained out. What happened when one half of you was suddenly gone?

And Bad Things

The dog bit down, hard, on Rick’s forearm, teeth sinking into skin and muscle until they hit bone, the dog violently shaking its head as Rick tried to pry the dog loose with his other hand, still caught in the rifle strap. He could still hear gunfire, could still hear the lieutenant yelling at the man, but what he could hear louder than anything else was the sound of the power drill and the kid screaming in agony.

And Wrong Side

Rick tried not to think about the disaster that was his first mission as Thomas’s Overwatch. He hadn’t had much in the way of experience with SEALs, not firsthand. Marines and Navy rarely overreached during missions and centuries long tradition of hating each other kept most at arms length from each other, even back on base. Rick had plenty of experience keeping people away from him even before the Marines, but Thomas didn’t seem to take the hint. It hadn’t helped that Nuzo and TC hit it off almost instantly, and TC was less opposed to being friends with the walking ray of sunshine that was Thomas Magnum, which just made Rick all the more determined to hate the guy. It wasn’t until after their haywire mission that’d gone to Hell six ways from Sunday that Rick finally understood Thomas Sullivan Magnum. That his relaxed and affable nature wasn’t an act, and that he would bend over backwards to help anyone - anyone - regardless of whether or not he was supposed to. That he never bothered with anyone’s past, and never offered his own, because as far as he was concerned, here and now was all that mattered. That for seeming generally oblivious, the younger man missed nothing. And for all that easy going ‘rain is just another kind of good weather’ attitude, it hid a seriously terrifying alter ego.

And there’s another Prodigal Son (or two), I don’’t even want to count how many other Magnum’s, Lucifer, or random things that catch my attention because that is HOW I ROLL.

Anyway.

Tagging: @dragonnan, @beguilewritesstuff, @buckky, @itsjustdg, @21forestglades, @aliathewriter and whoever else wants to play, because Tumblr is being dumb and won’t let me tag anyone else (also, don’t feel obligated if you are tagged and don’t want to - I’m just hella nosy about sneak peeks)

#games we play #tag youre it

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neni-has-ascended · 5 years

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A question about "Complete Turnabout"

@athena-cykes-ace-attorney:

Hello Nenilein,

I’d been reading “Complete Turnabout” recently and noticed that there haven’t been any updates for a long time. I’ve also played through the beginning of the game. I’ve been getting into writing fanfiction recently and I just wanted to ask if you’re ever returning to writing Ace Attorney Fanfiction. Did Spirit of Justice just completely drive you out of the fandom and the fanfiction? Or are you just done with that part of your writing?

Hello, sorry for the late reply. So, let’s get into this.

I’m a super flighty nature. It often causes me to start projects and then jump to the next, not taking into account how the new project might divert my attention away from the old projects, especially because I find it hard to even force myself to keep my attention on the old project if I have new ideas. It’s a problem I’ve honestly been working to overcome, especially because I never really abandon old projects. I mean it, I still have every single tiny, useless thing I’ve ever started working on in my Dropbox and occasionally randomly pull them up and make new additions to them or edit them, even if the thing has been dormant for years. Complete Turnabout is no exception there,

The big problem with getting back into actively finishing the Fanfic is... Well, there’s several, actually. And yeah, Even though I still actively think about the fic a lot (like with a million other things), it makes it hard to go back. Here they are, most important to least important:

1.) Complete Turnabout no longer matches my current style of writing and doesn’t reflect my skill level.

The Fic represented a huge turning point (ha ha) for me in my “career” (using the term losely) as an author, since this was where, influenced by an important person in my life, I threw out everything I thought about writing before and gradually came to use a completely different style of writing, one which I’ve kept developing to this day. CT reflects a huge part of this transitional phase in my writing. The thing is, I haven’t stopped progressing as a writer ever since I last actively wrote on it. There’s so many things I’ve started and stopped doing, so many techniques I’ve learned and a lot of humor I found funny back in the day now only makes me cringe. It’s not like I find all of CT entirely unreadable now. But the first 10 to 15 chapters are garbage. Unadulterated and absolute trash. You couldn’t force me to write like this anymore these days. So if I wanted to go back to finishing it, I’d feel myself compelled to rewrite half the fanfic from scratch, which would be a massive undertaking and would clash with my already almost non-existence time management abilities.

2.) The in-fic Court Record is fundamentally broken.

To me, a huge part of the fic was the reader’s ability to guess along while reading and feel as if they could actually move around through the settings and throw evidence at places and people like in the series proper. Unfortunately, my inability to update the CR properly has turned this into a mess I was deeply ashamed off at latest by chapter 25. If I wanted to go back and continue the fic I would HAVE to rework this feature of the fic from ground up, maybe even program a little web-page to make it work for everyone or something. I want to do that one day, but right now I am a creative garage stuffed to the brim with unfinished arts and crafts projects and I need to take some time to clean myself out and finally get things in order.

3.) OMFG Spirit of Justice

Yeah, as you correctly guessed, that game was like... the straw that didn’t just break the camel’s back but put the camel into a coma that only the most advanced veterinarian science could possibly retrieve it from. It wouldn’t be so bad if I just didn’t like the game, I mean, there’s a ton of stuff I don’t like in Gyakuten Kenji 2, and I still use its characters and concepts quite prominently and passionately. No, the problem is what Spirit of Justice did to friggin’ Apollo! That friggin’ game messed up his character timeline and underlying motivations so badly, I have no idea how to write around this bullshit stuff anymore. I have no idea what the writers were thinking there, all I know is that this is DEFINITELY not the kind of thing Shu Takumi envisioned when he wrote Apollo’s character. The character was envisioned to be young, passionate, but down-to-earth and an everyman. Spirit of Justice turned him into a fully fledged DanganRonpa character, and not the “Ultimate Luck” type. I have no idea how to work with this!!

4.) I really want to do everything ever, now, immediately, all at once, god, give me 20 arms and 5 more brainssssss

As some people following my antics for some time might have realized I have a teeeeensy problem keeping my priorities straight and tend to start, like, 5 new projects every month. I’m working on a TobyFox-multiverse themed comic right now, wrote a script to an A Hat in Time adaptation comic, I have an ongoing Kingdom Hearts fanfic retelling an alternate universe version of Birth by Sleep, I am working on a Youtube Series about the meaning of the Tarot Arcana as used in the Persona games, I sew 3 Cosplays a year and take part in various nerd competitions, I am working on my final University thesis on the application of religious themes in JRPGs, I have been writing on a novel for 3 years, have started working on several different video game projects with friends (all but one abandoned right now), started and abandoned a web-novel project, I draw, I stream, I play Trading Card Games on Weekends, I am actively looking for a job, and, damn for some dumb reason just a year ago I thought getting myself a pet would be a great idea, too!

If it were up to me, I’d finish all these things. Every last one of them. But as it is, I’m forced to set priorities. Right now, I am working hard to at least bring the most important/recent of these (One of the game projects, my novel, the comic project and my Master’s Thesis) to a satisfying finish. After that, I will pick other ideas back up and work on them. But I really, really, really need to learn to not just start things, but also end them.

It’s been a journey, and it will keep being a journey from here on out. But I’m glad there’s people who love what I do. Making people happy with my creativity is my dream, and I’ll fight to keep making it happen, no matter how much effort it takes.

I thank you for being happy with what I’ve made so far. I thank you with all my heart. Here’s me praying that I will make more things in the future that will make you just as happy. And here’s me praying that I will be disappointing people less by not finishing the things that made them happy in a timely fashion.

That’s what I had to say here. I hope it helps. I am sorry if it’s not what you wanted to hear. Honestly, it’s not what I like to hear from myself either...

Still, I thank you, so much,

Many Greetings, Nenilein

#Complete Turnabout #Ace Attorney #Neni Replies #submission

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youhearstatic · 5 years

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Exit Interview for a Fic (AKA: 10 Questions Every Fic Writer Secretly Wants to be Asked)

I started doing this list of questions every time I finish a ‘major’ fic. I’ve been putting together an updated fic list and realized I hadn’t ever done it for It’s About Time. So here we go!

1. Of the fics you’ve written, which is your favorite and why? At this point I’d have a really hard time picking between the still unposted (and unfinished) TwinSwap and the Dragon!Barry story. (The dragon AU has a lot more to it that I’ll hopefully get to eventually. There’s a few twists I adore with that one.)

I really, really, really love both of those. I’m also, obviously, really keen on the whole Barry POV canon compliant story and the hanahaki story, Chrysanthemums (Lovesick). And I’m still pretty proud of Like Friendship Set Aflame. (FYI that last one is rated Explicit.) Plus, Losing Time is still something I feel good about.

2. Which scene was your favorite to write in It’s About Time? The scenes of Barry and Lup pining for one another are always fun of course but writing them together and in love? It’s just so good. I think my favorite to write was chapter 44. I started that first scene with no specific goal and it all just kind of organically evolved into what it did and where it all led and it just felt like it fit together well. And they were just so damn happy and absolutely gooey in love. Legato was obviously pretty good, too, but there was a lot of stress writing it because obviously it’s a Big Deal and needed to be Really Good.

(Putting the rest under a readmore because this is very long and self indulgent.)

3. Which part of It’s About Time was hardest to write? I struggled a few times. One of the hardest was chapter 34. I had a plan, there were story beats I was trying to hit and an overall arc to their relationship that called for things to go a certain way. But they just wouldn’t. I wrote and scrapped thousands of words trying to get there and finally realized the option I’d been too blind to see. Changing my plan meant a lot of other things had to be changed and created a lot of other hard to write parts but it also helped with the characterization for Barry and the change and growth he was going through.

4. If you could change anything in It’s About Time, what would it be? I kinda wish it wasn’t over? Like, don’t get me wrong. I’m excited to be on the part of the story I’m telling now - the part that initially drew me to even telling the story? But, holy crap, I miss Lup. I miss the crew and happiness. This is a long slog through dark times and if ever there was a time to say “Poor Barry” then this is it. I mean, I don’t think it’s all darkness? I think there’s surprises that make it worth it? (I really hope so! Like the appearance of certain characters in chapter 7 of Time After Time, for example.)

And to be honest? I miss the interest that story got. Views/comments/etc have severely fallen off and I’d be lying if I said it didn’t make it much much harder to motivate myself to work on it despite my determination to finish. (I get it though. It’s much more fun to read Blupjeans falling in love than Barry alone and kinda losing it.)

5. Did you make an outline for It’s About Time? Did you stick to it? Well, I mean, there’s the outline of the canon 11 cycles and that extrapolates out to giving the expanded story a specific set of story/character beats. As things got closer to Legato I had certain circumstances I wanted to hit in a certain order. So I guess yes, more than anything else I’ve written this had an outline. It wasn’t exceedingly thorough but it was definitely my game plan for things and yeah, several times that had to be scrapped like I mentioned about chapter 34 in question 3.

6. Which scenes did you cut, and which were added in It’s About Time? The scene of Barry cooking for the crew - specifically for the twins - wasn’t supposed to be in his POV. It was in Lup’s POV and I didn’t think it worked for his but then I couldn’t let it go so I just kinda... did it anyway.

I remember that snow cycle went on for much longer than intended, too. I’m really glad though, it got me away from the one cycle/one chapter format which helped me feel more relaxed about telling the story how it worked out rather than forcing things to fit certain ways.

There were definitely things that were cut but always because the scenes just weren’t working the way I thought they would during planning.

7. Who was your favorite character to write in A Thousand Tiny Moments? It’s Barry’s POV and I feel like I have a pretty strong grasp of him at this point. Gheesan and Selba were a lot of fun to write. Probably my still favorite OC is Embrace, though. One day I want to get art of Barry and Embrace, the big golden mongoose from cycle one.

Okay, this is maybe a weird answer since he’s not exactly a character? But I enjoyed writing my take on Griffin’s narration that opened chapter 36.

8. Which came first, the title or the fic? For a long time this was just called “the fic I’m not gonna write” because I’d never really jumped hard into writing fanfic before. Previous to starting this thing I’d only written a couple of 1k-ish minifics for a different fandom and only written something over 10k ... a handful of times.

9. Which idea came to you first in It’s About Time? It’s a little tricky answering this question because, even though it’s split up between Stolen Century and then the rest of the podcast timeline being in Time After Time, I tend to think of them all as one piece - Barry’s story.

I think the part that hit me first was thinking about Barry in Taako’s pocket spa and what kind of things would be running through his mind.

In this very first consideration of his POV, I’d forgotten he wouldn’t have memories yet. So then I backed it up to that night between Wonderland and his cave/getting back in a body. What all must he have been thinking while they slept? After so long to be so close to the end and then have to get in a body and relinquish any semblance of control to the boys and his memoryless body? Honestly, I find that idea terrifying. From there it just kept spinning out to considering different bits of canon from his point of view. I don’t remember what the point was that finally convinced me to start writing but I’m still surprised it happened after so long of not really being a fic writer.

10. What are some facts readers may not know about It’s About Time? The first thing I wrote for this fic was Contradictions, the so called test minific. Then I got obsessed. I wrote pages of notes, picking out details that were relevant to Barry’s story and thinking and enormous lists of questions about what was going on with him or in his head at certain points. I spent literal days thinking about how to account for things inferred from canon. For example, why didn’t Barry remember things between bodies? When did he get the boys’ artificing projects that he gives them after reunion tour?

Then I started writing longhand in notebooks. I started out writing where Contradictions left off: Barry’s trip out of the gerblin cave with THB and arriving in Phandalin. For a while I thought that’s what the fic would be: just Barry’s time from that wagon ride to Phandalin and ending with him getting into the tank as his last moments as ‘the red robe’ before revealing himself as Barry Bluejeans again.

Eventually I realized that I needed to include Stolen Century and decided to start from the chronological beginning of the story. I’d written the entire century (albeit much, much shorter in this first draft - there was nothing between Tessaralia and Legato, for example - and then probably 15k of stuff directly following the defeat of the Hunger - that night and the following morning, as well as the first part of the Faerun things, Frank Texican’s part that is chapters 8 & 9 of Time After Time, and parts that still haven’t posted in Time After Time, including that section I’ve mentioned several times as the bit I’m MOST excited to share.

After that it still took me weeks to decide to start posting and then another few weeks to decide to start posting Stolen Century and tell the story in order. I kind of wish I hadn’t done that just because it’d be nice to see them falling in love after all the awful alone and voidfished time but it’s good to have it done this way and have specific memories and all the characterization solidly built in order.

#barry bluejeans #it's about time #taz balance #taz fic #mystuff #exit interview for a fic

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hazzabeeforlou · 5 years

Text

11 questions

Yes I did this a bit ago but @helloamhere (thank you, ily, have fun bussing around Europe, did that once, had to follow apple maps to know where to get off ‘cause I speak ZERO German...) tagged me and I’m an anxious mess waiting for medical news today so WHY NOT!

Rules: answer 11 questions then pose 11 of your own.

1. What do you think fanfic does better than published fiction (if anything?)

Okay obvious answer and not very high brow, but SMUT. You will not see me perusing the gay aisles of Barnes and Noble romance novels :) For various reasons :)

2. What do you think it does worse

I think (maybe it’s just this fandom) overall it’s quite a bit more sanitary than novels, both in morality and subject matter. I hate to think what the purity police would say about some of the books I’ve read... especially the old ones? But then I usually come here looking for fluff and happiness too so perhaps that’s just the major draw of fanfic, idk.

3. What’s something another fandom has or does that you wish your fandom had or did?

To be honest I’m not well versed in other fandoms, but I’m going to go with I wish this fandom didn’t have constant infighting. Seriously in all my born days I have never seen a group of people claim such a similar goal and yet devour each other so viciously. Hence I usually avoid anything incredibly explosive or triggering here; I deal with and confront radical people (religious extremists, right wing extremists) in my everyday life and I cannot bring myself to turn my escapism into that same vortex of endless arguing, though I appreciate and support those who fight the fight. I often have very sharp opinions and fall to one side or the other of the fault line, but I draw a personal boundary at a point.

4. Do you consider yourself a “fandom” type of person in general, or committed to only one, and if so, tell me more about what this means to you.

I have been a HUGE fandom person my entire life, though this is the first time I’ve ever been in a community for it. Star Wars and Narnia consumed most of my adolescence, along with Lord of the Rings. I briefly dabbled in Dr. Who and Merlin (as one does) but because I didn't read HP until nearly the end of college, I kindof missed out on that one. Basically anything geeky or fantasy driven I have always loved, and I can’t really explain how I ended up here? But this is the only fandom I’m active in socially. The power of HL I guess...

5. I’m trying to get through writing a first draft right now and it’s a slog. How do you stay motivated for long projects, writing or otherwise?

Ah. A call out question! Like any good Aries, I love starting new things! And then letting them to languish unfinished. I have, however, trained in classical music, and thus I’ve programmed myself to just keep doing the thing because pieces take months and months and months to perfect and if you can’t stick with a project, you go nowhere. I also operate on a reward system, as in writing is the reward for practicing, then when I’m sick of words I go back to music, and so the turn tables. I have learned to ignore (I’m great at ostrich-ing) the crushing self doubt of creativity and just bulldoze ahead and do the thing, which results in very messy first drafts and often bad habits in my musical technique and a tendency to overplay, which wastes energy, but rehearsals wait for no one. I also thrive on last minute deadlines!

6. Tell me about what you read as a kid. Favorite book? Or if you weren’t into reading then, favorite TV show, etc?

I HAVE SO MANY. Narnia was my first love. I also adored George MacDonald (At The Back of the North Wind is a fucking masterpiece). My mom hardly let me read Redwall (see: hints of magic) but when she caved I devoured all of those. Anne of Green Gables. American Girl stuff (lots of it, yes Josefina and Kaya were my faves). I read far too many Star Wars expanded universe novels (New Jedi Order shaped me as a person, esp Traitor). I remember reading all the Eragon series, though these were dubiously approved... and I read various classics, as one is supposed to. In high school I printed out the entire Beowulf in Old English, got a CD of a dude reading it, and proceeded to memorize the first several lines. I can still recite Anglo Saxon but I have no clue what it means (see: I’m a good mimic). Everything non-Christian-magic-related I read during or after college, sigh.

7. Have your tastes changed?

This sounds bad but not really. I rarely read non fiction, oops. Biographies are a slog for me. I dislike historical fiction and I don’t have a good reason for that. I do love a good mystery, but usually not in book form (audio or visual Agatha Christie is my mana). I do adore socio-policial books, though (The Better Angels of our Nature a good example) or books doing a deep dive into a historical topic. These days I enjoy a good satire more than much else, and since I started on Terry Pratchett in 2016 I haven’t looked back.

8. I’ll steal your question above--tell me about a fic that changed you, or became a “touchstone” fic that you go back to!!

I didn’t read fics period when I entered the fandom, and stubbornly maintained that for a while, but the fic that changed my mind was (Take Me Home) Country Roads by @a-writerwrites (Awriterwrites). I read it during a drive through the very parts of the USA it’s set in, and I couldn’t put it down, spotty internet be damned. From there @horsegirlharry birthed me into the gay 1D world, though I can’t for the life of me remember which of hers I first read! (Does it matter? They’re all so beautiful...)

9. Tell me about a WIP, if applicable. How’s it going?? It sounds great.

I’m plodding along on The Garden, it’s going well, but urgency isn’t a priority. It’s going to be one of those things that I finish and then go in and make matter because right now my ideas are half formed and I know I’ll eventually know where I’m going but it’s a case of blind trust in instinct at this point!

10. What’s your favorite place to read and sitting position?

Like a true gay I cannot sit normally in a chair, coupled with my pain issues means I’m usually draped over the back of something with a cushy lumbar support, massive pillow, or propped sideways lying down. I love reading outside, but have a tendency to attract bugs, also I’m very light sensitive so my eyes hate the sun, especially if I’m reading from a screen.

11. Do you feel like fic reading and writing is social for you? E.g. do you share with friends (in or outside of fandom), or are you a lone wolf seeking out your fics in the dead of night??

I LOVE the social aspect of fic reading and writing within fandom! I have shared PITS with only two real life friends though; I am very tight lipped about the fact that I write fic. People are cruel and musicians are judgmental arseholes and if I prefer to spend my days dreaming up love stories for my OTP instead of pouring over scores, that’s my fucking business.

Alright, 11 from me (I wanted to include artists too so!!):

1. Are you a start small-work larger type creator, or map everything out then attend to detail?

2. What style of art/writing has most influenced your creative choices? (Genre, time period, muse)

3. How long have you been writing/arting? Is this something you knew you’d do your whole life?

4. What is your favorite thing about creating for your fandom? (reception, excitement, newness, etc.)

5. Have you met any recent creative goals that you’re really proud of?

6. What is your creative baby; what work do you want stamped on your proverbial gravestone as I MADE THIS (or have you made it yet?)

7. Do outside forces (politics, culture, hegemonies) play into your creations? Do you intentionally or subconsciously subvert norms or explore ideas?

8. Your creative mind is a garden. Describe what kind it would be and what it would contain (i.e. rock garden, palace garden, wildflowers, rose... etc.)

9. Do you believe that creative art has power and if so, how do you hope yours impacts others?

10. I’m double stealing this question: what’s a fic or fan art that changed your life or was a touchstone for you?

11. If you could pick any hero of yours to read/look at your creations, who would it be and why?

TOTALLY only if you want to, but @13ways-of-looking @twopoppies @alienfuckeronmain @prettytruthsandlies @pattern-pals @newleafover @disgruntledkittenface @lesbianiconharrystyles @lululawrence

#writing stuff #about me

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findswoman · 5 years

Note

For the fic ask: 30, 31, 47, and 49! 🥰

Also very good questions, Ginchy, and very thought-provoking, too! :)

30. hardest part of writing

Almost all of it, really! :P Seriously, though, some of the hardest bits for me are both starting and ending. Getting started on a new chapter or major section (or new story altogether) can be a challenging shift for me, especially if it’s been a while since I did any writing and have to get back in the groove. And ending is tough, too—I just want those last words, the words I leave the reader with, to be just so! I often get stuck on last sentences or paragraphs and have to just get up and walk around or do something mindless for a bit at that stage.

31. easiest part of writing

I love the “research and development” side of fanfic writing, the gathering and synthesizing of scholarly/literary/artistic material, the wiki combing, the book combing, the coming up with character and place names (ooh, that’s a really fun one). And, of course, coming up with the fanon and worldbuilding elements is one of my faves!

47. how many unfinished ideas/stories are you working on at the same time?

Right now, just one, and I’m on its last chapter now. (I technically have a second long-unfinished one, too, though the question was how many I’m working on, and I’m not currently working on that one—though that might change down the line. I’m also not counting just plain old ideas/bunnies that I haven’t actually started writing yet, though I have a couple of those.)

And this isn’t meaning to brag or anything or say what a Good Girl I am for not having overly many WIPs. In fact, I see it as somewhat of a handicap, because it stems from the fact that I’m terrible at multitasking and have trouble “switching gears” between stories—I have to concentrate on one at a time till it’s done, and there often has to be some buffer time between when I wrap up one story and start (or return to) another. I very much respect people who can work on more than one fic at once in a productive manner!

49. writing advice

Again, as I said in my response to @jadelotusflower about the same question, Rear Adm. Farragut said it best: “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.” Just keep writing till you get to a stopping point, then come back, look it all over, and then fix and tweak as desired/necessary—because the tweaking that happens at that stage is much more effective, efficient, and concrete tweaking than the tweaking that happens while everything is still half-baked in your (i.e., one’s) head. And again, I say this as someone who has the constant tendency to second-guess myself and took years to even get close to being able to fix it!

Thanks again, as always, for the wonderful asks! Always a pleasure to talk over these things with you. :)

#fanfic #fan fiction #fan fiction writing #ask #ask game #thatginchygal

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ereneatsarts · 5 years

Text

Ereri/Riren fanfiction and my recommendations

Okay I have HEARD YOU HOES and I understand ya’ll want some recommendations since ereri fanfics either 1) aren’t being made as much 2) are unfinished and have been since 2007 3) have a lot of rape or graphic depictions of rape in them and all three of these things suck. So here is a list of my favorite ereri fanfictions AT THE MOMENT: they are subject to change.

Forget Me Not by Rosedon

Summary:

They were nothing more than dreams. Nothing more than further proof of an imaginative mind. That's what Eren tried to convince himself as he laid eyes on the stranger with an all too familiar face. It was the same face that had been haunting his sleep for months now. Could this be some bizarre coincidence? Is it possible to dream of someone before having met them? Or perhaps they had met...long, long ago...in a world much different from our own.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/17571881/chapters/41413844

Summer Sweat and Sausages by momohime69

summary:

Eren lazes around during the summer after his first year of college, wondering what he is doing with his life, going to school for a major he doesn't even enjoy and trying to outshine his perfect stepsister Mikasa. He's also oddly turned on by his stepsister’s revisiting uncle Levi, who Eren doesn't remember at all. They piss each other off a lot, then grow an odd bond of companionship—then Eren realizes Levi was shunned by his family some odd years back for coming out as gay, and for some reason, Eren's budding curiosity gets the better of him. Tensions run high, pants slide off, and Eren sweats from more than just the summer heat when he gains an abnormal craving for Levi’s "sausage." Humor and drama ensue and so does an absurd amount of smut. Outside of sex, feelings are also involved—and they soon crash hard into the ground.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/2412461/chapters/5336297

Die Flügel der Freiheit by eren_writes

Summary:

Hi. My name is Eren Yeager.

I'm an average student – average looks, average grades, average life. Well, mostly. There was one small aspect that set me apart from my fellow students. My weekends are not spent partying and boozing at a friend's house or swatting up on my studies.

You'll find me in the company of rich (often married) men, performing acts too impolite for a blurb in exchange for money.

This is the story of one such encounter and the series of events that surrounded it.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/8574619/chapters/19659412

I Saw What You Did Last Night by novabxmb

Summary

"Oh my God."

"Fucking hell."

"I was witnessing Eren and Levi...Eren and Levi..."

"What a fucking night this turned out to be..."

https://archiveofourown.org/works/7416823

Night Drive by shotgunsinlace

Summary

Working as a desk clerk for Sina Enterprises isn’t the most grandiose job out there, but it sure beats every other option Eren had jotted down since graduation. Troubled past behind him, Eren strives to make a name for himself by not fucking up the only good thing he has going for him. But when a certain foul-mouthed and dapper executive waltzes through the lobby doors, Eren is more than willing to set aside his “no fraternizing with the higher-ups” rule. However, the engagement ring on Levi’s finger proves to be a deal breaker. It was supposed to be a one night stand, one night to get each other out of their systems, but the two of them bit off more than they could chew.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/1181866/chapters/2410666

Bring Us Back by CreepyLittleLullaby

Summary:

Eren couldn’t even control his body as it seemed to escape from his grasp, he was practically watching this go down from a first point of view now. No control, just a cold feeling he knew so well as dread, fear.

He clawed at his inner conscious to stop, to look around damn it, he was ignoring the corners as if nothing has ever bothered him. Didn’t his body know better by now? Look! Be ready! By God please! He could be here! Yet, he acted as if nothing was ever wrong. Now that he caught a glance at himself as he passed a window.

He didn’t have any scars, nothing, what was this? A dream?

The house seemed to disagree with him, he was still thinking it through, until his body reacted before he did, a shout, and then an empty feeling. He looked down, seeing a gaping hole in his chest, which was steaming, the pain was so bad, until he felt something slicing the nape of his neck wide open and he fell over.

He heard a someone screaming, and then nothing at all as if everything went black and faded out.

Like death.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/7809394/chapters/17820868

A Lifetime Apart by ReluctantHero

Summary:

Levi feels a strange connection with one of his regular customers. There’s something oddly comfortable about him, like a forgotten familiarity of a lifetime already lived and a lifetime about to begin.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/17480054

Never a Rose by PlayingChello

Summary:

Levi owns the petal Wings Flower shop and enjoys it as well as he can. At least until the new tattoo shop next door starts blasting music and irritating his work flow. He decides to take it upon himself to tell the shitty owner to turn it down. But there are just a few things standing in his way... NaNoWriMo 2014 Winner

https://archiveofourown.org/works/2651924/chapters/5924318

Temporary Mistake, Permanent Fix by ChappytheBunny

Summary

Mistakes happen. A slip of the tongue, a broken glass in the dishwasher, or an embarrassing typo in the middle of a text message. They're small hindrances to everyday life, yet they can all be fixed by either an apology, a dust pan, or an asterisk. There is one thing -- and only one -- however, that Levi has never considered to be a mistake, and that is a tattoo. It's not because he's been a tattoo artist for over a decade, and it's not because he's owned his own tattoo shop for half of that. It's because he's a man who lives by the past and believes in its importance. So, why? Why erase something that, at one point in time, you wanted to be a part of your body forever?

https://archiveofourown.org/works/2024142/chapters/4390239

Last but not least my favorite fanfiction of ALL time an alpha omega one

RedHeat by sciencefictioness

Summary:

Eren is one of the few Alphas who go into rut without the presence of an Omega in heat nearby, and after suppressing it for nearly two years, the drugs are no longer working. As a last resort he heads to an Omega refuge, hoping to find a suitable, but temporary, mate. When he finds one lost in a fatal 'red heat', he'll do whatever it takes to ease his suffering.

When Levi's fist sounded out against the wood, the Alpha did not open it right away. Leaned into it, pressing his forehead against the smooth surface. Felt the pull of the Omega on the other side, just as he had that first day in the shelter. A whole new kind of gravity that tugged him not down to the earth but straight towards Levi. The laws of the universe shifting to bring them closer together, and Eren could not resist their inevitability.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/3948190/chapters/8850871

I have so much more fanfiction to share if you all want anymore recommendations or are looking for another fic let me know and I’ll make another one of these. A personal shoutout to Rosedon for being an awesome fic writer (they wrote the first fic on this list) and another shoutout to ReluctantHero who wrote “A lifetime apart” that fic made me cry. ReluctantHero is such a nice and genuine person just ugh so much feels and none of these have major character death I promise- they won’t shatter your insides. If you want more information on these fics just message me or send in an ask and I’ll get to it.

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mindfulwrath · 6 years

Text

Onward

A BuzzFeed Unsolved Fanfic

A spirit can only move on when it has completed its unfinished business.

Or, it can't, because ghosts aren't real.

Words: 4,922 Warnings: Blood & gore, major character death Additional tags: Angst with a happy ending, character turned into a ghost, platonic Shane & Ryan

AO3 Link

"It's really kinda nice up here, don't you think?" Shane says, looking out over the vast moorlands. Moonlight glimmers off of brackish water, casts soft shadows across lumps of heather and gorse.

"You're insane," Ryan spits.

"What? You don't think it's nice? Just look at this view! It's lovely."

"It's creepy as fuck, aaaaaaand you're crazy."

"Okay, well have fun looking for ghosts while I'm enjoying the beautiful Scottish countryside."

"Yeah, thanks, I will," Ryan says under his breath, shaking his head. He raises his voice and speaks for the cameras. "Okay, so, here we are up on the battlements of Crathes Castle, uh, Shane is admiring the scenery, but we are hopefully gonna see something much more interesting. Now, the curator told us there'd been some restoration ongoing up here, so uh, watch your step, 'cuz . . . oh boy."

"We are pretty high up," says Shane, sticking his neck out to look over the parapet. Far below, there's a pale square of concrete, some outbuilding being redone after falling over. It's about the size of a postage stamp from this perspective.

"And when Shane's saying that, you know it's high."

"Hah-hah, the height jokes! Fruit so low-hanging, even you can reach it."

"Yep, sure, that's about what I expected from you. Anyway, let's see if we can find some ghosts."

"You do that, I'm just gonna hang out here and watch."

"Yeah, good, stay out of my way," says Ryan.

Shane spares a glance over his shoulder at the camera. He shakes his head. As Ryan starts up his customary shouting-at-nothing, Shane puts his elbows up on the parapet and leans back, settling in for the show.

Stone grinds on crumbling masonry. Ryan yelps. Shane flails at empty air.

"Whoah, fuck—"

There's no scream. There's a horrible, plunging sickness, and an instant of perfect clarity.

The second-to-last thing that goes through Shane's head is, Wouldn't it be ironic if—

The last thing is a four-foot piece of rebar.

It isn't surprising that the universe has a cruel sense of humor. That's been made evident since the dawn of time, in things like rosy-lipped batfish and mass-extinctions and the invention of capitalism. The Homers and Ovids of the world, the Shakespeares and Edgar Allen Poes, they might actually have gotten things kind of almost right—at least in that whoever's running things, they're 1. a poet, and 2. a bastard.

It is somewhat surprising to look down at his own dead body.

"Son of a bitch," he says.

His body settles, dripping blood. There's a lot of blood, and a lot of him is broken—shattered, really. A noise draws his attention upward, a shout and clamor. Shane can't make out what it is. The sound is distorted, and now that he's paying attention, everything else is, too. It's like a dreamscape, like someone took dozens of photographs over decades of time, printed them on transparencies and overlaid them. If he concentrates, he can pick out individual images and bring them to the forefront.

Something moves in the doorway. Shane can't quite focus on it. He shakes his head and rubs his eyes. He's not sure, but he thinks he can hear screaming, and it stirs something in him and he doesn't like it. Fortunately, it goes away pretty quickly, and silence falls again.

"Well?" he calls out. "What now?"

The world does not answer.

"Do I have to stay here, or can I, like, go? Can I just go? 'Cuz uh, gotta tell you, I'm not really into the whole ghost-thing!"

Still, nothing. The distant sound of sirens drifts on the breeze. He looks down at his body and folds his arms.

"Oh, shit, I could go to my own funeral," he realizes. "Boy, that'd be a trip, huh?"

All's quiet on the moors, save for the approaching sirens. Shane glances over his shoulder. Out of curiosity, he wanders back to the camera crew. The bright lights leave the world in a haze, illuminating a sea of phantasmal cars, buses, carriages, horses, people. It's hard to focus on the ones that are here now, so much so that it gives Shane a killer headache.

Or maybe that's just the lingering memory of the rebar going through his skull. Could be either.

He finds Ryan huddled up in the back of the equipment van, a blanket around his shoulders and about six people clustered around him. He's shaking like crazy, his eyes wide and wild, and he's . . . he's. . . .

Sobbing.

He's explaining, to the crew, what happened. The words are a jumbled mess. Tears stream down his face. They're trying to comfort him, but they all look just as shell-shocked and sickened and scared. Somebody calls Ryan's girlfriend for him. Somebody else is on the phone with corporate, and someone's still talking to the emergency dispatcher, and Ryan—and Ryan is crying so hard he can't breathe. . . .

Shane backs away, slowly. He goes back to the shattered wreck of his own body, sits down on a chunk of stone that might have been dragged off two hundred years ago. It's less disturbing than the scene back at the van.

"Man, I look like a really fucked-up unicorn," he remarks. "I got brains comin' out the back of my head! That's no good!"

Nobody answers. Blue and red flashing lights crest the hill. Shane sighs and hangs his head.

"And here's me, talking to air again," he mutters. "Okay. So uh—here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna leave. I'm gonna go do . . . other stuff. And not watch them take my body outta here, 'cuz that's gonna be gross. Eugh."

And he's not going to attend his own funeral, either, he decides, as he wanders down the hill away from the castle. He'd kind of assumed everybody else would be as cool with him dying as he was, that it would be no big deal, that it would be sad, but overall just another Thing That Happens. He doesn't want to see Ryan cry again. He doesn't want to see any of his other coworkers cry, either, his friends, or—God forbid—his parents. He doesn't want to be mourned.

It occurs to him about an hour later, as he's slogging through a thousand years of Scottish fen.

He is in an absolutely unique position to find out exactly where, and how many times, Ryan was wrong.

It's hard to gauge the passage of time, but it's probably been a few years, and Shane has learned something very important about ghosts: they don't happen where—or to whom—popular opinion had it.

The big places, the asylums and castles and manors, they're quiet, they're empty. Taverns can be a little bit more populous, although they really aren't any fun. Nobody's having a good time in this part of the afterlife, and most people are alone. He almost never sees anyone with a friend, and never a group of more than three. He's really hoping he never runs into anybody he knows, for . . . lots of reasons.

It's the mundane places that are really teeming, the streetcorners and back-alleys, the factories, the wilderness. And it's not the big people, either—not the mobsters and judges and doctors, but the urchins, the servants, the prostitutes, forgotten in life and forgotten in death. He made it back to America eventually, and the horrors that soaked the earth there made him sick. Not a square inch of all that once-beautiful land was free of blood. In places, it's like the earth itself has died. In places, he can see its ghosts, too.

One place he finds Ryan was right about is Salem.

There's an old house, well-kept, slightly more there than most other structures he finds, although he's sure he never saw it when he was alive. He climbs the steps. An old Black woman sits by the fire.

"Are you Tituba?" he asks. It's a stupid thing to say, but he hasn't said much in a long time. Most of the other ghosts don't like talking to him. For a minute, he thinks Tituba won't, either.

"I remember you," she says. "You were very rude."

"I guess I was," says Shane. "Uh . . . sorry."

She rocks her chair. The fire crackles, although it makes no warmth.

"Can I ask you something?" he says.

"If you want to know the answer."

"Why are you still here? Why haven't you gone . . . wherever dead people go?"

"I'm waiting," she says.

"For what?"

A shrug is all he gets.

"Well . . . good luck, I guess," he says. "I hope it comes to you, whatever it is."

He asks around a little more after that, although people who will talk to him are few and far between. Why are some of us here? It's obviously not everyone. Why are you here?

And he gets the same answer.

I'm waiting.

Time has passed. Shane's more well-traveled than he's ever been, but there's still a strange restlessness in him. Something, he feels, needs to be done, but he'll be damned if he knows what it is. It gets so bad that at one point he risks going to visit his own grave.

It's nice. The tombstone is nice. There's no epitaph, which is about what he wanted. Somebody's left flowers, although they're plastic.

"Kitchy," he says to no one. "Get that shit outta here."

"Plastic?"

Shane starts. There's another man, very old, loitering at a nearby grave. It's the first time someone's struck up a conversation with him, instead of the other way around.

"Uh . . . yeah," he says. The old man shakes his head.

"Kind gesture, but it does feel cheap, doesn't it."

"I guess."

"I always told them not to put plastic flowers on my grave, but some damn fool's done it anyway."

"Sucks. I'm sorry."

He shrugs. "No point in getting upset about it now. Say, do you know when the chariots or what-have-you come down?"

"I don't," Shane admits. "I've never seen 'em."

"Ah, what a shame. I'll wait, then. It's not like I have anything else to do."

"Right?" he says, chuckling, shaking his head.

Between one moment and the next, the old man disappears, like smoke, like fog. There's not even a shadow of him left, not in all the layers of history painted across the world.

Even without a choir of angels, or a blast of Hellfire, it's pretty obvious what just happened. Maybe neither of those things exist to happen, and the vanishing is all there is, after this.

Shane looks down at the flowers on his grave. He takes a deep breath.

"Okay," he says. "All right. I get it."

It's going to take a while to get to L.A., but he's got time.

Ryan's actually kind of doing okay. That's a pretty firm marker on how long Shane's been gone. Incredibly, he's still doing Unsolved, even the paranormal stuff. He's got a new guy working with him, too, although they're a little stilted and they have difficulty making each other laugh, even for the cameras. They seem like they're getting along okay, though. Ryan's definitely chilled out a lot since the last time Shane saw him. He's rusty on the ghost hunting.

It takes a while, takes a lot of following and waiting, but eventually Shane gets the chance to tag along on a trip.

"Man, this brings back some memories, huh," he says, meandering along behind Ryan as he creeps through some abandoned, burnt-out warehouse. "Look at you, though! You grew a big ol' spine since the last time I saw you."

Ryan doesn't respond, because of course he doesn't. He's looked right through Shane a dozen times already. Shane's not too bothered by it. Nobody's seen him in years.

The hunt goes like it always goes. Eventually Ryan and the new guy split up. The new guy goes first.

"This is so dumb," he mutters to the camera, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

"Right?" says Shane. He shakes his head. "Hey, take a little nap, buddy. It's nice! Nice little break from all the craziness."

The guy waits out his five minutes. Shane hangs out. Ryan comes in, trades some banter with the new guy, and is left alone.

Something about the way he moves makes Shane's mind come into sharper focus. The layered blur of the world grows clear in the darkness when Ryan turns out his flashlight.

"Oh, man," he whispers. "Okay. I'm getting chills already. Shit. Shi-hi-hit. No, I'm okay, I'm okay. I'm a big boy. I got my big boy pants on."

"Calm down, big boy, nobody's gonna hurt you," says Shane, rolling his eyes.

But something in him hurts. Something aches. He hasn't felt a damn thing in years, but suddenly, now, it's almost like being alive again. It's almost like he wants something again.

"All right," Ryan says, raising his voice. "So, uh, if there's anybody here with me, uh, my name is Ryan Bergara, I'm a—a paranormal investigator."

"Oh, huh, are you? Is that what you're calling it these days?" says Shane, folding his arms.

"Um . . . if there's anyone here, can you make a noise?"

"No, Ryan, I can't make a noise, because I'm a ghost, and I can't interact with the material world, ya big dummy. I'm made of ectoplasm, or—electromagnetism, or something, I don't actually know. But it doesn't touch stuff! Sometimes if I concentrate real hard, I can walk through walls!"

Ryan just stands and listens. His head swivels back and forth like a radar dish. His eyes are wide and bright. He swallows. He waits, and waits, and waits.

"Okay," he says to himself. "Okay, okay, that's fine, that's okay. Uh—okay, so if there's anybody here, uh, I'm gonna get out this little, uh, this little device. It's called a spirit-box."

"Oh, for crying out loud," Shane sighs, except that the heart he doesn't have anymore is suddenly up in his throat. "It's not gonna tell you anything. It's baloney."

Ryan takes it out and sets it down gingerly on the table, his breaths coming quick and panicky. "And, if you wanna talk to me, you can use this, okay?"

"What—how?" Shane cries. "How am I supposed to do anything with that hokey box?"

"So I'm gonna . . . turn this on, and you should be able to talk to me, through it. Okay, here we go."

The box squeals, then launches into its randomized chirping. Ryan gulps, his eyes flicking around the room. Shane kicks at the table the box sits on. His foot hits something, but Ryan doesn't react, so it probably wasn't the table-as-it-is he kicked, but the shadow of some past version from ten or twenty years ago.

"Okay, so . . . if there's anybody here with me, my name's Ryan. Can you say my name back to me?"

"Of course I can't, the stupid box doesn't do anything."

Ryan stands in silence, listening, listening. A squawk of static comes out of the box.

"What was that?" he says. "Can you say that again?"

"I said your stupid box doesn't do anything."

Choppy white noise, blips of music and talk shows and nothing.

"If there's somebody here with me, can you make a noise?" Ryan asks.

"No! I can't! Because I'm a ghost, you idiot!"

Ost oop it, goes the box. Ryan stiffens.

"What was that? Did you say something?"

"I did, but I didn't say it through your stupid box, which is fuckin' useless!"

Useless.

Ryan pales. His eyes go wide. His breath comes short. "Ohhhh man, okay. Okay. I'm freakin' out a little now. You—Eustice? Is that—is that your name? Eustice?"

Shane's too blind-sided to call him an idiot again. He seizes the spirit box and shakes it. It's like trying to shift a boulder. His voice cracks as he shouts.

"No! No, it's Shane, it's Shane Madej, tell him, tell him it's me!"

Eh ih-ih ee.

"I don't know what that was, I—I'm sorry. Could you repeat that, Eustice?"

"Shane! It's Shane! Ryan, come on, man!"

Chk chk chk chk shh sht cht chk.

"Okay, fuck this, I'm done," says Ryan, reaching for the box. "That's all, bye Eustice, we're done!"

In absolute, idiotic desperation, Shane screams, "Spaghetti!"

Spa-ghet-ti.

Ryan freezes.

"What did you just say?" he whispers.

"Spaghetti! Apple tater!"

Ap-ah t-t-r.

He's shaking so hard his hand blurs over the spirit-box. His breath mists in front of his face. There are tears in his eyes.

"Did you just say . . . apple tater?"

"Yes! I did, yes! Ryan, it's me! Come on, you stupid box, tell him it's me!"

Stih-up-p-p box.

All the blood drains from Ryan's face. He stops breathing. When he blinks, the tears slip out. When he speaks, it barely makes a sound, but Shane feels it, feels it like a punch to the chest, like a struck bell.

Shane?

The only thing he can do is shout, whoop at the top of his lungs and jump in the air. The spirit-box lets out an ungodly wail, and in an instant, Ryan slaps it off the table, screaming.

It smashes on the floor. The room goes silent.

"No," Ryan says, choked up. "Nope, no no no, fuck this, fuck it, I'm out, I'm done! Fuck everything about this!"

He beelines for the door, his knees wobbling. He's just a hair shy of a full-on sprint.

"Where are you going?" Shane demands, hurrying after him. "Hey, no, don't leave! You—you fraidy cat! Ryan! Ryan!"

But he's out of there, back to the noise and bright lights of the camera crew, where the world becomes less real, where Shane's head gets fuzzy and his focus scatters. He retreats back to the shadows, a sudden exhaustion overtaking him.

"Okay," he says to himself. "It's okay. First try's always gonna be . . . messy. And Ryan's an idiot, so—yeah. So yeah. Just gotta keep—keep on keepin' on, Shane. Chin up, buddy. We'll get there."

So of course, because the universe is a poet and a bastard, Ryan does the one thing Shane could never have predicted.

He gives up ghost-hunting.

Quits his job at BuzzFeed, in fact, and moves up north to the Klamaths, and lands a nice little job teaching film and creative writing at a community college. His girlfriend—now wife, apparently—doesn't comment on the fact that they have a night-light in the bedroom. They've probably already talked about it. Shane doesn't like it, the smug little bluebird shitfish, but he leaves it be. Some things are sacred, inviolable.

Anyway, he's got time.

Ryan's daughter first sees him when she turns three.

"Daddy Daddy!" she cries, barreling into his room at ass o'clock in the morning. "Daddy, there's a tall man in my room!"

"What?" he mumbles.

"A tall man, I saw him!"

Ryan comes to check. He turns the lights on. He looks right through Shane a dozen times as he searches the closet and under the bed and behind the lamp and everywhere.

"There's nobody here, sweetie," he says. "Go back to sleep, okay?"

"Okay," she says.

He kisses her head and clicks the light back out. Shane follows him through the door, because—well, it's kind of weird, hanging out in a three-year-old's room. He was just a little spellbound at first, because it was Ryan's kid, and that's a bizarre thought even when he's looking right at it. But staying would be weird, so he doesn't stay.

But he does come back.

It's not like he's haunting Ryan, no, that's not what it's about. He mostly keeps to himself and doesn't bother anyone, but the kid is weirdly good at spotting him, and there's something about being seen that makes him feel . . . good? Important? Less dead and miserable and alone?

Daddy Daddy, the tall man came back. Daddy Daddy, I saw him by my closet. Daddy Daddy, he came to my tea party. Daddy Daddy, he moved my book!

Which, yes, he did, as ludicrous as it was. For lack of anything better to do with his time. If he focuses as hard as he can and pushes with all his might, sometimes, just a little bit, he can move things. Like a child's book, or a doll's hand, or maybe a door if the hinges are well-oiled. He tries not to do it when anybody's home, but he can't always tell. The kid's too good at seeing him, too, but at least she isn't scared. He tries to make sure she knows he's not there to hurt anybody, and although he's pretty sure she can't hear him, she seems to have gotten the message.

Ryan, maybe, didn't.

He gets more jittery. Lights stay on. There's a marked increase in the amount of religious iconography and (likely) holy water. He spends a lot of time on the computer, drinks a lot of coffee, falls behind on his teaching stuff.

One night, the wife and kid go out, and Ryan stays in. This is weird. Shane sticks around.

Ryan goes up to the kid's room, and he settles into the reading chair by her bed, and he turns out all the lights. The blue glow of his phone illuminates his face. He sits still for a long time, just breathing.

"Shane," he says. His voice shakes. "If you're here right now, could you give me a sign?"

The old desperation seizes him. He slaps the window blinds as hard as he can. They manage a faint, whispering sway. Ryan stiffens, takes a deep breath, lets it out again.

"Okay," he says. "Okay. I—I made this for you. I thought maybe it would help, if you're . . . if you're struggling to move on. I hope it helps you, or . . . something. So here it goes."

Another deep breath. Shane waits, pulled taut with anticipation. Ryan adjusts his glasses and looks down at the phone, and he starts to read.

The alien planet of Tomat-0. A rustbucket of an old spaceship sits on a landing pad, engines primed, ready to launch. A pair of plupples, which are alien fruits that are like plums, but cooler, and blue, carry a charismatic box of fries from the future and a sturdy can of good soup up the loading ramp.

"Plup, plup!" says one of the plupples.

"Plup, plup," the other agrees. Plupples are very stupid. However, unfortunately for our heroes, they are not so stupid that they cannot carry out orders from their dark master.

Shane can't believe his ears. He wanders across the room. Even if he had lungs, he wouldn't be able to breathe. He sits down on the bed near Ryan, pulls up his knees and wraps his arms around them. Ryan reads on.

"Wait just one plupping minute, there!" A voice rings out! The plupples halt. There, coming over the horizon of Tomat-0, a witch-hologram of corn riding upon a giant plupple comes charging to the rescue.

"Plup, plup!"

"Plup, plup, plup!"

The hologram corn, Maizey, arrives. "You put those critically-acclaimed and universally-beloved characters down, you Ewok ripoffs!"

"PLUP," the giant plupple plups in agreement.

"Whoah, hey, uh, whoah!" Garce, one of two intelligent plupples, emerges from the ship. "Hey, uh, wow, corn girl, how did you, uh, escape your deadly trial by combat, which you were sentenced to by the great Dr. Goondis, played by Ryan Steven Bergara?"

"I fought the beast and I won, as you can see, because I am riding it into battle with you little blue freaks. Also I ate Dr. Goondis, because we didn't have the time to cut up more VO files for him, so now he's dead."

"That makes perfect narrative sense, uh, but how did you find us?"

A flash of light, a creaky, cackling voice.

"Pam, Pam, kazam, it was me!" A tiny hotdog, about forty percent bigger than Jiminy Cricket, appears in a flash of witch-light on Maizey's corn shoulder. "I'm doing my part to atone for the evil I did before I died, even though it was totally sick and awesome!"

"That's understandable. But uh, what are you both going to do now?"

Maizey draws herself up tall, tall and proud atop the giant plupple. "We're going to take our friends back from you blue goons. We're going to travel back in time and save my witch-hologram wife, stop Pam from killing the hotdog family, the unbelievably rich and compelling characters of Dan, Rebecca, and Brandon, and creating the Gauntlet of Ultimate Power, or G.U.P.—"

"Gup! Gup! Gup!" plup the plupples.

Shane laughs. He puts a hand over his mouth, like Ryan's going to hear him or something, come over bashful and stop reading. Ryan doesn't hear him, though. He keeps going.

And that, dear listeners, esteemed fans of the Hotdaga, that is what they do. Together, Maizey and Pam, along with the un-drugged Gene and Mike Soup, they rout the plupples. They fix the Minestrone, that marvelous spacecraft, and equip it with the Bernoulli Converter to reach the wormhole in the Graxilon quadrant. Dear fans, they travel back in time, and stop the evil Pam from dumping that delicious party of wedding guests into the lava. By having Pam from the future eat herself. It's totally wicked awesome.

Maizey reunites with her witch-hologram french-fry wife, Gebra. Gene gets the Risky Fixin's band back together, for one last smash hit before the happily ever after you've all been waiting for. And here, my dear friends, here it is.

Music plays. It's stupid. It's the stupidest thing Shane has ever heard, and the production value is shit, and Ryan can't sing worth a damn, either.

For the next two minutes and eighteen seconds, he cries like a baby.

"And that's . . . it," says Ryan. He's crying too. "That's the thrilling conclusion to the Hot Dog Saga, or Hotdaga. It's . . . solved. I hope you—I hope you liked it."

"You nailed it, man," Shane says, choked up. "You got it. You nailed it. Shit, Ryan. Thank you."

Ryan sniffles. He wipes his face. He puts his phone down and sits in the dark.

"I don't wanna sound rude or anything, Shane, but . . . now could you please, please leave my family alone? Like, I miss you, but I just—I can't. I can't do this anymore. I'm sorry, man. I'm so fuckin' sorry for what happened."

"What? No, no no no, what are you talking about? Ryan, it wasn't your fault, Jesus!"

Ryan scrubs at his face, puts his head in his hands.

"Just please . . . please let me—just let me move on, too. I can't do this anymore."

"I—yeah," says Shane, shaken right down to his core, in so much pain he can barely hold himself together. "Yeah. Of course. I'm sorry. I didn't even think about . . . yeah. I'll go. I'll go."

He almost puts a hand on Ryan's shoulder, then thinks better of it. He walks out the door.

He doesn't look back.

About four months before Ryan's eightieth birthday, the Universe catches up with him.

Shane isn't sure how he knows, but he knows. He makes his way back to Crescent City, finds the hospital, the bed. It's bad. It's been bad for a long time.

It's not going to get better.

His daughter is with him that night, when the lights are dim and Shane doesn't have to fight so hard to stay present. She's middle-aged now. It's weird how fast five decades can slip by, when you spend them wandering around doing nothing.

Well, nothing except waiting.

"Sweetie, do you remember the Tall Man?" Ryan asks.

"My imaginary friend?" she asks. "Kinda. Why?"

"I think . . . I see him," says Ryan. "The Tall Man was always nice, wasn't he? He was always nice to you?"

"He was, Daddy. You were the only one who was worried about him."

"Good. Good. Because if he ever wasn't, I'm gonna . . . I'll kick his ass."

She laughs. Shane laughs.

They're stupid last words, but it's okay. He dies in his sleep about three hours later, when his daughter is sleeping, too.

Ryan takes a moment. He looks down at his body. He isn't terribly concerned.

"Huh," he says.

"'Bout sums it up, doesn't it."

Ryan turns, and he sees Shane. Shane waves.

"Hey," he says. "So uh . . . turns out you were right."

You were right.

It rings down through fifty years, reverberating, a struck bell, a punch in the chest.

You were right.

The corner of Ryan's old ghost mouth turns up, and then he smiles a big, wrinkly, toothy smile, and Shane knows, in that moment, that this is what he was waiting for.

"Damn right I was," says Ryan.

"So you uh . . . you got anything you wanna do, before . . . whatever's next?" Shane asks.

"Mm, maybe a couple things. Like, y'know, see all the haunted stuff, if it's actually haunted."

"Yeah, that's cool, that's cool. Pretty much what I did. You uh . . . you mind if I tag along?"

"Mind? No. Wouldn't have it any other way."

"The Ghoul Boys ride again," says Shane, smiling, even as he feels something begin to dissolve within him.

"Hell yeah," says Ryan.

He sticks out a hand, old and weathered. Shane shakes it. Ryan pulls him in and hugs him, so tight it threatens to pop him like a bubble.

"I'm sorry, Shane," he whispers. "I'm sorry."

Shane hugs him back.

"It wasn't your fault," he says. "It's okay."

From one moment to the next, with no choir of angels and no Hellfire—

In a flash of white—

They go onward.

#bfu fic #buzzfeed unsolved fanfic #shane & ryan #why yes this is the thing that made me cry #because i'm a big ol baby and i don't understand my own emotions #anyway i hope you like it #and if you don't #you can kiss my apple tater

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lurkinmerkin · 6 years

Text

So I’m doing some math (I’m terrible at it) but nonetheless, I did some thinking and then some subtraction and realized that it was in about 1998 that my family got a computer with Microsoft Windows installed along with a dial-up internet connection. And so this is technically my 20th anniversary of reading fanfic and being a part of internet fandom. I figured I should celebrate it a bit.

I don’t remember the exact date or time or whatever, I can barely add or subtract, so June seems like a good in the middle of the year kind of time to recollect and think about what I’ve been doing with my life. Think about why I read so much, why I reblog things, why I am the way I am.

This ask meme was written by @mabel-but-slytherin and I decided, I’ll just answer the whole damn thing. I’m sure absolutely no one is interested in this info but I don’t give a fuck. 20 goddamn years of my life in fandom, do you seriously think I give a fuck anymore? I don’t care about you or your eyes. I officially left the give a fuck building a long ass time ago.

If you have seen a fandom ask meme about being a lurker (which I was for a good ten years) or about reading fanfic instead of just writing fanfic, send it my way and I’ll answer it too. I have stories.

1. What was your first fic and could you stand to reread it today?

It was Thursday Night Routine and it’s readable but I find it a bit repetitive and out of character. Although, with Glee, how was I supposed to know who these people would become, lol. ;A;

2. What’s your most recent fic and how far do you think you’ve come?

My most recent was Vesper Lynde for the Spy fandom and I think I’ve grown as a writer but my characterization is still clumsy and my comedy isn’t as sharp. I think I was funnier before. I also have issues getting to the sex scene that I never had before. It drives me batty.

3. In your opinion, what’s your best fic?

The thoroughly depressing and out of nowhere for me fic, Ozma. That night was a eureka moment, it was bliss writing that fic. It flowed. I probably got the closest to american gothic and poetry with that fic--which is my usual goal when I do creative writing off the internet.

4. In your opinion and without looking at any numbers, what’s your most popular fic?

So much of what I wrote was done anonymously before AO3 and Tumblr so it’s hard for me to say but I’m gonna guess Everybody’s Pickin’ Up on that Feline Beat because the cat!boi thing really slapped. Like people loooooved the cat!boi thing in 2010.

5. Is there any fic that makes you super happy to reread and remember you wrote that?

Third is the One With the Treasure Chest. It has some issues but I still can’t believe I wrote it, like that was my third fanfic ever and it was a muppet babies’ orgy. I have no idea how I did it, :D

6. Is there any fic that makes you super embarrassed to reread and remember you wrote that?

Not really? I’m not embarrassed by what I write (I can’t be, I write weird shit), but I don’t necessarily want people to come up to me in real life and start describing my fic to me. Like I don’t want my realities to intersect. That’s what I’m really sure would embarrass me.

7. What’s the fic you most want to continue (unfinished or no)?

I’m not gonna finish it, like it’s not happening, but I kind of wish I had finished Look What You Made Me Do. I still noodle a about Sarah Plain and Tall Klaine story. I did a lot of research into Gilded era hair and fashions.

8. What’s the oldest (longest since last update) fic you most want to continue (unfinished or no)?

Probably the epically awful and creepy Matchmaker, Matchmaker, Make me a Match where Sandy and Karofsky kidnap and assault Kurt. I was fascinated by how absolutely horrific Sandy Ryerson was as a character. He’s the worst. I’m not doing a sequel though. I’m not.

9. Have you ever written for a fandom without watching/reading/playing the source material?

Read? Yes. Written? No. I don’t think I’m the best at characterization but I do feel a need for a basic grasp on it before I start writing anything.

10. Have you ever written for a fandom without reading other fanfic for it?

I wrote Vesper Lynde before I read any of the fic which was probably a good thing because there are some really good fics out there that already cover the subject I did (and did it better). But I’m glad I wrote it anyway because I have so many feelings about Rayna and Susan.

11. Have you ever written a fic for a concept you know someone else has done before? How did it impact your writing process or feelings after posting?

I honestly don’t know so I’m going to say no. I have seen these stories after I wrote what I wrote and have thought, Oh I should have done that or why didn’t I think of that?, but I have never seen a fic beforehand and thought that I could do it better or different enough. I wrote fic in order to fill a gap of weird skullfuckery that was missing before I showed up.

12. Have you ever written a fic and decided never to publish it? Why?

Yes. It was bad, I wrote myself into a corner and had no interest in fixing it. The writing felt dull and flat. If I post an unfinished work, I do it because I think the writing has merit.

13. What’s the biggest change between your style when you started in fandom and today?

I write more original work now, I write poetry mostly nowadays. And fanfic I do write has been smaller vignette pieces, has had way less sex in it and minimal wacky shenanigans. I kind of want to go back to wacky shenanigans honestly.

14. What’s the biggest change in your taste between when you started in fandom and today?

I’m riding a girl swing this year so I’m way more interested in stories that involve cunnilingus and strap-ons, boob devotionals and short fingernails. I sort of got into that in the middle of my Glee career (the Golden Age) before swinging back to boys and their balls (the Modern Age). In this new Age, I’m back to ladies.

15. Have you ever purposefully written one fandom/fic idea over another because you knew it’d be more popular?

I think I tried to do that once but then I failed because my niche is being an off-beat weird motherfucker, not popular. I thought that I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman would go awf but instead it fizzled. So I stuck with dickpunching.

16. Have you ever stopped writing a fic/for a fandom because it wasn’t receiving enough attention?

No. I didn’t really get a lot of attention outside my circle anyway.

17. In your opinion, what’s your most overrated fic?

I guess the Cat!Kurt fic? I think it’s a good story, I just think that I wrote some that were better.

18. What’s your most underrated fic?

And if the world runs out of lovers, my Blaine/Finn fic. I had a lot of fun with that one and I think I got some really funny lines in.

19. If you had to pick one fic/scene/chapter of your work to describe your entire portfolio to a stranger, which would you pick?

I would say, They’re Both Just Full of Feelings, OK? which is a story were Puck and Mercedes get very drunk, complain about their homosexual tendencies and then motorboat each others tiddies. I feel like that about covers the gist of my aesthetic.

20. Have/Would you ever rewrite a fic? If yes, would you take the original down?

I am doing a slow ass sloow rewrite of As Needed, just some clean up of tense issues and little nudges here and there of some of the wording. And I will take down the original when I do that. It needs better grammar, it does.

21. If someone starts kudosing and commenting your fics in a spree and has a few works of their own, would you go look through theirs?

Yes. I love spying and I love other people’s bookmarks. I keep mine private because I’m a hypocrite and I don’t know how to make them public en masse. I am not doing that individually.

22. Has there ever been anyone who’s made you freak out because they read your work and followed/favorited/reviewed?

No, but I freak out at every follow/favorite/review regardless. There are people who I love love love but they aren’t in the fandoms I write in so I never expect to have an insane fangirl moment like that.

23. What’s the nicest review you’ve ever gotten?

When I wrote Ozma, someone on the kinkmeme said that it read like a contemporary short story and I was flattered!

24. What’s the meanest review you’ve ever gotten? Do you think the reviewer intended it?

25. What constructive criticism, however well-meaning, always makes you feel bad when you see it in a review?

Gosh, that’s tough. I’m gonna go with criticisms that question your intent? Like when someone goes, “Did you mean to say this or that?” but not because it makes me feel bad but more because it makes me feel like I didn’t get my point across clearly enough that the reader could make their own conclusions about what was happening. I am very much of the author is dead style and part of that is leaving enough there to satisfy the reader without giving it all away.

26. What aspect of your writing do you most enjoy to see praised?

My humor. I like it when people find me funny. I don’t feel like my humor makes sense a lot of the time. Also, when people say that they re-read my stories. That’s always a heart warmer.

27. If you could only ever write crossovers or single-fandom fics ever again, which would you pick?

I prefer single-fandom fics as a writer. Crossovers get messy for me, too many locations to choose from.

28. if you could only ever write for a single crossover or a single fandom again, which would you pick?

Schitt’s Creek. David/Patrick 4eva!

29. Does the division of your writing across fandoms line up with your reading? What’s the biggest discrepancy?

Absolutely not, LMAO! I have done way more reading than writing in any fandom. My participation is a pebble on a mountainside.

30. Do you continue to write for a fandom after you’ve moved on or do you focus solely on the new one?

I wrote Glee fic (and I am still working on As Needed) after I had moved on from the show but a lot of us did. My attention span allows me to multifandom.

31. Who’s the one character you’ve just never managed to get perfectly right?

Susan Cooper. She’s an enigma.

32. Who’s the one character who shines without you even trying?

Puck, I feel like I wrote a very solid Puck.

33. Is there any particular character whose scenes always wind up being longer/more frequent than you expected? Does the quality hold up?

I would guess Brittany but I don’t think the quality holds up. I liked writing Brittany but I don’t think I captured her essence.

34. Was there any fic that you wrote that really surprised you in the fandom reaction? Was it just by the numbers or did they take it an entirely different way?

I get a lot of requests for a sequel to Sex Bomb even to this day and it surprises me.

35. Have you ever written a ship into a fic without meaning to?

No, I was ready to write anyone with anyone in any fic. I love it.

36. Have you ever sincerely written a ship you do not support into a fic?

Don’t support? Well, I don’t support Kurt/Karofsky but I write non-con fic so...

37. Have you ever purposefully bashed a character/ship in a fic?

I would only in an in-character sense, like the character would be against that pairing because of the show dramatics. At least, that was always my intent.

38. Have you ever purposefully written something you know your readers would find uncomfortable/would not enjoy? If yes, why?

Because that’s how the glee_anon meme worked sometimes LOL. Sometimes, you gotta have the anal worm lay the eggs.

39. Do you consider yourself to have a readership?

Not anymore lol, if I ever did. I don’t write enough.

40. Do you feel like you put out enough content?

I peaked with the Muppet Babies’ orgy, that was my third fic. Everything else was gravy.

41. If you cross-post your fics on multiple sites, do you have a favorite? Are there certain fics you would only post on certain site?

I want all my fics on AO3 largely because I think livejournal is gonna die soon and tumblr is unsearchable and lacks a forum function.

42. How many views has your most popular fic gotten?

(Based on AO3): Ozma at 28672 Hits

43. Your least popular?

(Based on AO3): There’s a Lobster Involved at 38 Hits

44. Do you follow/favorite/kudos/comment/review more stories than you have received?

Oh gosh, I never thought of it that way but I hope I at least kudos more than I’ve received! I don’t have that many bookmarks and I don’t review and I rarely comment (I’m more like to DM you) but I do leave kudos a lot.

45. If you had to call yourself an author of a single genre (besides fanfic) what label would you give yourself?

With my original works: poetry. With my fanfic works: absurdism

46. Do you consider yourself a diverse author?

Yeah, I think I covered a wide range of topics and styles along with a lot of different characters. I had humor, drama, horror, angst, slice of life, porn, I covered a lot of ground.

47. If someone you know in real life who isn’t involved in fandoms asked to read your work, would you let them? If yes, what would you recommend they read first?

NO.

48. Does anyone you know from outside of fandom know you write fanfic? Are they involved in the same fandom too?

Yes, they know and they were also Glee fans but not necessarily fanfic readers. Just how much they know will remain a mystery between us because they won’t tell me and I won’t ask them to tell me. I don’t need that knowledge and I don’t want it.

49. Has anyone in your life ever read your fanfic just because you wrote it?

NOT THAT I KNOW OF AND I DON’T WANT THEM TO TELL ME IF THEY DID. KEEP IT TO YOURSELF.

50. Has writing fanfic had a significant impact on your life? Would you say it’s entirely positive?

I have an absolutely incredible circle of friends that I would not have had without fandom. So many people that I know out of fandom don’t spend as much time on the internet, they aren’t as easy to reach as my internet friends. You guys give me your time and your energy and that means so much to me. It really does.

I wouldn’t say my time in fandom has been 100% positive. There are always downfalls to being in a large group. I have had my moments of internet drama, on anon trolling, and bad feelings. But my friends make it all worth it. You guys are the best.

#fandom #fuck glee #merkintosh #lurkinmerkin #ask meme #anniversary

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bearsace · 7 years

Text

fatal attraction.

Summary: After a night of drinking, the chatelaine finds herself in the company of Akechi Mitsuhide and learns the meaning of fatal attraction.

Author’s Note: My first fanfic to this site! Usually I tend to publish on AO3, and I’ll get this imported on there at one point or another. I headcanon that MC’ll be able to match Mitsuhide’s alcohol tolerance in his route (this fic is strongly headcanon-based, seeing as we don’t have his route at all). ;) Hope you enjoy, and if you do, be sure to hit that like or reblog button for more content!

Pairings: Akechi Mitsuhide/MC

Genre: Romance, friendship

Rating: T for mild sexual content and alcohol use

Word Count: 2,400+

Read Time: 5+ minutes

Like a serpent blended in with the leaves, the danger had been there for hours by the time she’d noticed it. But the warning signs were there, and she should have seen them— from the first blackout (courtesy of Masamune slumping onto the table) to the last (Nobunaga, who’d excused himself to his room for a well-deserved rest), she should have known it would end up this way.

End up with her sitting cross-legged across from Mitsuhide, who calmly poured himself another cup of sake.

“Care for another helping?”

“Aren’t you the reason nobody else is sober right now? No, thank you.”

And so it went, the chatelaine snarking at the vassal through a half-intoxicated, half-sober scowl, the latter only chuckling with an amused “suit yourself” and treating himself to another drink.

Yet who knew that such a slender thing would be able to match a cultured, powerful viper of a man drop for drop in warm liquor?

The beginning of the party had been more vanilla than I had expected of warlords— the alcohol hadn’t even come out of the cellar until three hours in. It began only as a small celebration among Nobunaga’s vassals to celebrate a battlefield victory, if one could even call it that; it was more like winning a playground scuffle, but clearly one that was enough to merit a night in with drinks and card games.

It had been around eleven that the first red flags began to appear: Masamune had long since passed out and been moved to a futon in the far corner of the room, and Hideyoshi would clench in a hiccup every few seconds then disappear to the kitchen to retrieve a glass of water. It was then that I encountered him red in the face, smiling lazily, and chugging a glass of the stuff in an attempt to cool down.

“I’m surprised you’ve managed to last this long,” Hideyoshi quipped, biting his lip in a suppressed smile. “I never would have expected you to be able to outdrink all of us. You look more sober now than I was three drinks ago.”

“I can hold my alcohol, Hideyoshi.” I gave a grin of my own, following him back out to the main room, a platter of snacks balanced skillfully on my arm. “Where I come from, a girl learns to drink.”

“And good thing, too. You’ll want to be sober around the likes of Mitsuhide.”

“Mitsuhide?” I frowned, casting a sidelong glance in the direction of the man in question. “What do you mean?”

“Just what it sounds like.” A grudging laugh. “That snake could drink a thousand cups of wine and not even get a little tipsy.”

And with that warning, Hideyoshi gave a long stretch and sprawled across a cushion, tucking his glass close to his body, and closed his eyes.

A thousand cups, huh? I could feel my frown deepen as I observed Mitsuhide chatting wih Ieyasu, golden eyes as sharp as ever. No way I’m letting that rat get a one-up on me . . . I’ll just have to stay alert.

As with all women determined as myself, I focused on calculating carefully just how much I could drink without falling prey to drunkenness, and with great success. The hours ticked by, and so did our companions, excusing themselves to their rooms or simply passing out on the spot.

But there was one crucial detail I’d missed in my calculations: just what I would do with my sobriety when the only two still lucid were myself and the shifty vassal, Mitsuhide.

(Really, I could have thought ahead and avoided this altogether.)

Nerves completely fried, I wrung my hands on my lap beneath the table, avoiding eye contact with the man as he lapsed into steady silence following Ieyasu’s departure. And oh, how I dearly wished I could do the same— if it weren’t for my severe distrust of Mitsuhide with an unconscious Hideyoshi snoozing blissfully on the couch, I would have been out the door in seconds. But as it was, I didn’t have the physical strength to move a guy like Hideyoshi somewhere safer or the trust necessary to leave him alone with the man I was left alone with myself.

Even if a small, deeply buried part of me insisted there was more to him than I expected.

“Seamstress.”

An electric shock ran down my spine at the baritone voice, deceptively gentle and smooth and yet enticing at the same time. My senses snapped back to Mitsuhide— perhaps I wasn’t as in control as I thought— and I raised an eyebrow, questioning.

“Do you plan just to sit there the entire night? That’ll get incredibly boring for me, you know.”

“Be bored, then, Mitsuhide. Sorry I’m not your personal jester.”

“I wonder, then, why you’re still here.”

Because Hideyoshi will probably kill me if he finds out I willingly left him unconscious with you!

“I know what you’re thinking,” I retorted, lips turning downward into a scowl. “And no, it’s not for the pleasure of your company.”

“Then I suppose it’s to protect Hideyoshi from me while he’s passed out and vulnerable like that.”

This damn snake! I swear, is he telepathic or something?

“It’s quite alright.” Mitsuhide lifted the cup of sake to his lips— this had to be at least his eighth one!— and took a long sip, eyes gleaming over the rim as he regarded me with interest. I squirmed beneath the gaze, feeling like an ant under a magnifying glass. “Your mistrust is well-placed.”

Alarm bells flared in my mind, screeching and blaring like the inside of a firehouse. I narrowed my eyes. “So you admit it, then?”

I didn’t know what I expected of the man sitting across from me, demeanor calm and eyes teasing. But I didn’t expect this pit of disappointment in my stomach, so faint it was barely there, to settle so surely. Disappointed. Not surprised. Yet a flicker of what I could have sworn was sadness flashed through those gold eyes, gone before I even registered it was there.

Mitsuhide didn’t answer. instead, he let down his cup and twirled it on the table between long, elegant fingers. He smiled at me— that crafty, secretive smile that made my muscles tense up each time I saw it. Yet it was almost friendly and genuine, as if we were two long-time friends sharing an inside joke.

An inside joke? I found myself intrigued at the notion, seeing as my feelings for him were certainly more intense dislike than anything else. Hideyoshi and Nobunaga wanted so much to believe that he wasn’t a traitor that I found myself doing the same, but the frustration that he always brought about was nothing to be ignored. I blinked, realizing I didn’t know much about him at all. Come to think of it . . .

“I think this is the most time I’ve ever spent alone with you, Mitsuhide,” I blurted, breaking the silence. He seemed surprised as I felt, that I was the one to initiate a new conversation. Nevertheless, I leaned forward. “Everytime we’ve spoken, it’s in a group and I’ve never really bothered talking to you.”

“Never bothered? That stings.” The way his smile didn’t waver told me it didn’t sting at all. “But you’re right. You and I haven’t ever gotten to know each other.”

Quicker than I could comprehend, he leaned forward across the table as well, propping himself up by his elbows until we were almost nose-to-nose; I became acutely aware of the way the distance between us seemed to grow infinitely smaller, and I could see what felt like every detail of his handsome face.

And I’d never noticed before, but Mitsuhide had a very handsome face.

It was impossible to deny the allure of his fine bone structure or his knife-edged jawline, or the way his eyes were tilted at just the precise angle that, as he studied me from beneath those lashes, I couldn’t help but lose myself in the lamplight reflected on those gilded hues.

Mitsuhide’s warm breath mingled with mine, smelling faintly of cinnamon and honey and sake. His well-defined cheekbones seemed so sharp and yet so soft at the same time, and I resisted the urge to reach over and caress them— a sudden heat came over me, and I slammed backward and away from him.

The outside world came back to me in full force at the sudden distance. I hadn’t realized that I, too, had been leaning forward, closer to him, until I registered how far back I had to move to be at arms’ length. I was hit with the smell of the common area— a smell of alcohol and smoke and strong incense— not unpleasant, but rude compared to the way I’d felt like I’d been getting intoxicated off Mitsuhide’s sweet scent of cinnamon and honey and sake. My mind drifted to risque images of being surrounded by that aroma, feeling him overpower my senses—

I broke off the thought with a groan and pulled my hair back, fanning my face and ignoring my pledge to stay sober. Mitsuhide lifted a brow when I desperately snatched away his unfinished cup of sake and greedily downed it— I would do anything to chase away those thoughts from my mind, memories of a long, biteable neck and the desire to kiss away that smile.

Who would have known that of all the men here, it would be Mitsuhide to turn me into a creature of lust?

“I’m leaving,” I rasped, my voice sounding needy and fervid to my own ears. I stood abruptly, face hot with anger. I refused to look at him— I could almost see the triumphant smirk on his face, how he surely knew the way he affected me.

But then he echoed,with genuine curiosity, “You’re leaving? Where?” and I looked his way to snap at him before the words died on my tongue. Because there, written clear as day on that face, was disappointment.

My mind launched into an immediate list of scenarios— he’s only pretending he doesn’t know what he just did, don’t think he’s innocent— before I shooed them away, desperate to make my way to the cool night air.

“I don’t know. I’ll go into town, probably. There are still some shops open, and so I might just buy some food there.”

“Don’t go.” He spoke it with such commanding force that I faltered for a moment, wondering what he meant by that. “It’s dangerous in town. If you really are that restless, then go take a walk in the gardens, inside the gates. But please, don’t let me be the fool who let you wander around so late at night. A pretty little thing like you is sure to come across trouble.”

Where that comment would normally wind me up, the new flavor that heated his sinful grin as he said it sent a fire raging through me, and all I could manage was a half-hearted, “Fine. But this pretty little thing thinks you’re a fool anyway.”

He let out a warm, throaty chuckle as I fleeted for the door, slowing only once I could look up at the moon and let out a sigh.

What the hell was that?

I’d had friends back home who’d always squealed on and on about the allure of dangerous men, but I’d never seen the appeal. Yet the picture of Mitsuhide in the soft orange glow of the lamplight was so vivid that I could still feel the warmth of his skin against mine.

Everything about him was deliberate. Every curve of his lips, every gleam in his eyes— it was all set with a purpose to entice, to lure thirsty mouths in with the promise of trust before clamping his jaws hard over anyone foolish enough to do so. I had no business falling for the trap.

Then why can’t you stop thinking about what happened in there?

I shuddered the thought away, trying to focus on the scenery around me and not the heated room only a brisk walk over.

The green foliage of the garden, colored navy in the night—

The stars overhead, brighter than they could ever be in the twenty-first century —

The crunch of gravel under a second pair of footsteps, and—

—and I was caught in someone’s arms, bent over backwards, my body pressed against his and his lips pressed against mine. It took me not even a moment to realize who it was; the scent of cinnamon and honey and sake engulfed me, the taste far sweeter than I would have imagined it to be.

Mitsuhide’s tongue ran along the top row of my teeth in earnest and I was kissing back with equal desperation, wrapping my arms around his neck and entangling my fingers in his hair and pulling him closer, closer. Our lips moved in starved desire: forceful on both ends and hot-blooded with the tension of the night. Lust exploded within me as I heard him respond to my involuntary moans with a carnal one of his own, deep and vibrating within the chest that was pulled flush against mine.

One large hand moved from my hip to grasp my cheek firmly, the other hand moving from its spot at the small of my back to trace a slow, teasing, burning line up the curve of my spine and between my shoulderblades, then back down. I could hear my own ragged gasps at the sensation, moving my grip desperately from his tangled hair to take fistfuls of the front of his kimono—

And just like that, it was over, just before I could get enough.

Mitsuhide pulled away, the cold night air that I’d desperately sought out earlier suddenly merciless without the warmth of being engulfed in him.

“What . . . what . . .”

I gasped for air, hair undone, kimono dishveled, as I gripped at my pounding chest while the insufferable man simply tidied himself and smiled at me like nothing had happened. Unbelievable.

“You never let me finish in there. Give what you hope to receive, my little chatelaine.” He gave a mocking bow, then straightened with a triumphant smirk. “I’ll be seeing you. I look forward to our next chance to get to know each other better.”

And Mitsuhide was gone like that, his tall form like a long cat striding back up the gravel path, leaving me behind.

I marched, indignant, to a bench and slumped onto it, catching my breath as a disbelieving laugh escaped me. So he knew what he was doing after all.

The nerve of that snake, talking as if there would be a next chance. But inside, I knew that whatever had awakened between the two of us tonight would refuse to go back to sleep.

“You know, Mitsuhide?” I murmured softly to myself with a smirk. “I look forward to it too.”

#ikemen sengoku #ikesen #mitsuhide #akechi mitsuhide #ikesen fanfic #ikesen fic #ikesen mitsuhide #my fic #fic: fatal attraction #OTL i have three other fics i'm working on and yet i started this new one #why am i like this :')#anyway i hope you guys enjoyed!#i'd love to hear your thoughts ;]#it's very rushed and very unbeta'd but it had to be done :')#we're all a little thirsty for mitsuhide

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miraimisu · 6 years

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Ask a Writer!

Tagged by the lovely @i-masshiro, thanks babe! Love you tons, such a sweetheart D’:

1. How did you come up with your username and what does it mean?

It doesn’t mean anything in particular! An old best friend of mine helped me pick it up when I was struggling with new decent nicknames. This is the one I use for all my accounts now.

2. Which fanfic of yours has the most feedback? (bookmarks/favorites, follows/subscriptions, visitor hits, kudos)

These Stones We Skip, definitely. It’s got like 90 comments (half of them me responding to those, so it’s narrowed down to 45 haha) +2k hits, 100 kudos more or less, and a bunch of bookmarks! I’m super happy with how the fic is being read and that people like it this much! Also if anyone waiting for an update is reading pls forgive me I’ve been busy I promise I will update pls don’t sue ;;.

3. What is your FFnNet/AO3 profile icon, and why did you choose it?

Actually, I think all my icons are Uraraka icons, excepting the one I got for FF.net which is actually Asuna from SAO. Last time I updated the page I was heavily into SAO so... pretty self-explanatory. My love for Uraraka needs no explanations either.

4. Do you have any regular/favourite commenters?

I do! And most of them are an incredibly fun bunch of them. Long, usual commenters are my shit, not gonna lie. Although I have lost some of them as my updates have become slower, but I hope they come to read someday.

5. Is there a fanfic that you keep going back to read again and again?

Not really, unless it’s for some kind of reference. There was this line I hit where my style got smoother and a bit more polished, but from there below it’s kind of rubbish and I can’t read anything. All good things I write I can’t usually read because of self-awareness.

6. How many stories are you subscribed to? How many do you have bookmarked?

None and none lmao, I always drop kudos but I don’t think I have ever bookmarked anything, nor subscribed to because I don’t really have much time to check out stuff-- and when I do, I totally binge read it.

7. Which AU do you find yourself writing the most?

Fantasy AU because it’s consumed my life now.

8. How many people are subscribed and bookmarked to you in total? (you can view this on the stats page)

I got 10 subscriptions on AO3 and 60 bookmarks!

9. Is there something you’d like to write about but are afraid of people judging you for it? (Feeling brave? If so, share it!)

I would like to someday find the strength to write something venty someday, as I recently found out I somehow write much better and feel more satisfied when I vent my anger on writing. Something that doesn’t happen really often, but it happens and it’s great therapy!

10. Is there anything you would like to be better at? Writing certain scenes or genres, replying to comments, updating better, etc.

Tons of things, most particular. I would like to become less paranoid over people not seeing my scenarios, thus making my style less complex to the untrained eye. Also, fighting scenes make me cringe because I suck so hard at making them depsite having clear pictures in my head /cries.

11. Do you write rarepairs or popular ships more often?

I am now very focused on Kacchako and iirc ir used to be a rarepair? but I think it will break out of that zone soon.

12. How many stories have you posted on FFNet/AO3 to this day (finished and unfinished)?

3 on AO3, and 31 on FF.net.

13. How many stories do you have saved in/with your writing program?

Tons of them that sounded great in my head. It’s that small snapping process of realizing a powerful story is too weak to be posten, and kinda let it rest.

14. Do you write down story ideas, or just keep them in your head?

I keep them in my head and plan to write them. Only the fantasy AU for kacchako has made it out of my head, lol.

15. Have you ever co-authored a story?

Yes, and it was a wonderful experience.

16. How did you discover FFNet/AO3?

Weirdly enough, from DeviantArt! I would usually go there searching for art pieces and found some deep small fics, whose authors would usually have a FF.net account. I only knew of AO3 last year, but I think I read one a bit before that. Not exactly sure when.

17. Do you consider yourself to be a popular or famous author in your fandom(s) on FFNet/AO3?

Not at all, there is too many talented people in this damn kaccha house (⁎˃ᆺ˂) they are all so good jdskak

18. Do you have a nickname or fandom name for your readers?

People usually call me Mira, but use others for Discord.

19. Was there an author who inspired or encouraged you to write?

Lots of them! Every author that lies in my recs gallery has inspired me in one way or another. Though that place is kinda outdated so I may have to add some more, but all my friends have inspired me overall. They are all wonderful writers and artists and it’s amazing to be so surrounded.

20. What writing advice would you give to a beginning author?

Don’t feel pushed to write queality straightaway, and always read other stuff to build new vocab and structures. Everytime you read, you will most likely learn something new as every author’s view gives you a new perspective on things. I have found it to be a great practice!

21. Do you plot out your stories, or do you just figure it out as you go?

Plot, always. Everytime I am listening to music and come up with a new snippit, I jot it down anywhere I can. Google’s Keep is a pretty nifty tool for this!

22. Have you ever gotten a bad comment on a story? If so, what did you do?

Well, I only got maybe two! One of them was pretty lukewarm and more of an advice that I followed, and it was a good one despite the harshness of it. On the other hand, I got one comment that told me they were giving up on my story because it was too thick style and lore wise, but I didn’t mind at all tbh-- I already knew I was facing these kinds of risks when I started writing long things like these.

23. Is there a certain type of scene that you have a hard time writing? (action, smut, etc..)

Fighting scenes in general kind of take a lot of time for me to work with, and same with some simply dialogue bits that I am like: and what now!? D:

24. What story(s) are you working on now?

My fantasy AU! pls if sb is reading Im sorry I will update soon don’t press charges thank

25. Do you plan your next project(s) before you finish your current ongoing story(s)?

I usually jot the deets down and push it aside until I am done with my main thing. It’s probably my best habit when it comes to planning, lol.

26. Do you have a daily writing goal set for yourself?

Not really. I usually try to plan when I wanna update, divide my chap’s aproximate word count and split it in days!

27. Do you think you’ve improved as a writer since you first started?

Oof, definitely. Mostly because my English has improved along with my writing and that helps. A lot.

28. What is your favorite story(s) that you’ve written?

I did write one in Spanish that got lots of good feedback and invested readers, and I had a blast writing its lore and characters.

29. What is your least favorite story(s) that you’ve written?

I wrote a pretty dark fic once and it’s a fic I know I wrote well? but I am kinda ashamed of looking back at it.

30. Where do you see yourself (as a writer) in 5 years?

Maybe working on something that is a little bit more professional, or just enjoying myself. Got no clue tbh.

31. What is the easiest thing about writing?

I think I can be pretty ominous in some parts and be very subtle with foreshadowing. The art of subtlety is something I worship everyday.

32. What is the hardest thing about writing?

Trying to live up to those little scenes I had in my head, and writing them as good as possible. And description in general, sometimes. And word count consistency is something that worries me sometimes. Oh, and the endless fear of poking a plothole bigger than a damn blackhole.

33. Why do you write?

To make people entertained and happy if they want something to read!

I nominate the great artists and gals @animeniac, @kacchanswife, @hondaroo, @kacchas and @liltoothbrush! If you don’t reply I’ll press charges so hahaha!

#ramble #this is an obligation you've been taggedo >:c #jk #yall read their stories they are all great pass it on #/leaves tumblr for another year

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