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bucksbisexual · 3 years

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well, well, well. it’s the end of 2020.

kinda weird, isn’t it? the year has flown by and it’s already the end of the last month. it’s been..... strange to say the least, but this year i’ve found a place, and most specifically, people who have made this year a little bit better and brighter with either their presence or their content, and for that, i want to send some love to all of you who have made an impact on me this year with our interactions or your content on my dashboard 💖💖

i feel like i should start with everyone who has added me in their follow forevers (i still can’t believe i was even part of a single one??? i- 🥺) so let me do just that hehe

@yihwas soph!! we haven’t interacted much but every time we did u have been nothing but the sweetest and kindest person ever and that made such a great impact on me, thank u for being so amazing 🥰💛

@planthusbands cass!!! even though our age gap is 10 whole years you have been nothing but welcoming and lovely to me and u truly feel like an older sister to me 🥺💚 the cover u did for our secret santa hugs me tightly whenever i feel down 💖

@petekaos rahul!!!! (or should i say rhaul kjsjfhsfj my fingers h*te u for no reason i swear) u are such a lovely person and i’m so glad to be able to have gotten to know u better this year. you’re so amazing and u already know from before we even interacted that i Love ur fics so please never let anything stop u from writing!! 💙

@wjmild kylie!!! we have been talking more lately because of both of us (well, now only me) watching guardian and it’s so much fun!! i love hearing ur thoughts and opinions on things even if they differ from mine because i find u really interesting!!! also u’ve probably heard this from everyone from the gc but i love ur voice jhfkjsf love u lotsss 🧡

@toptaps zey!! we haven’t interacted much and have barely spoken on dms but u’re so lovely and kind 💛 ur love for things makes me want to love them as well (see: guardian) and i would love to get to know u better this year that’s just around the corner 🥰

okay and now.. to everyone else!!

@brightwin jelly!!! i miss u tons :-( but thank u for being so lovely whenever we interacted, you’re so nice to everyone and so so so talented when it comes to giffing, you’re pretty much the person who made me want to start giffing so thank u for creating such masterpieces 💛

@gunatps vee!!! are u feeling better love? i hope you’re recovering well <3 i loved getting to know u this year and loved all the weird conversations in the gc when it was alexa, u and me or sometimes just u and me, i miss bicis but hopefully bicis can come back as soon as u recover. ur korn apologist agenda was strong but u ended up being right... truly The Monarch skjfhsj love u lots 🧡 (i will join ur next chanonpom breakdown on vc okay? just tell me when and i’ll be there <3)

@kimmonv violet!!! we haven’t talked much but u seem like such an interesting and funny person, i would love to talk more with u this next year 🥰 i loved being ur secret santa (even if i sucked at it) and i felt rlly happy when u said u liked it!! i hope 2021 treats u well 💚

@lee-thanat ke!!! i loved getting to know u a little this year and i definitely loved trying to read ur nonsensical messages that were supposed to mean something KHSFJSHF i also loved playing with u on among us that one time even if i killed u once (sorry about that btw... ily), i hope everything’s going well and that we can talk more next year 💜

@soulmatelines jo!!! my twin sjkfjksfh i loooved getting to know u this year!! you’re so funny and so smart even if ur artistic skills are... Not The Best skfjhjfhks (neither are mine so it’s okay, no need to feel bad) i loved being on vc with u and just talking with u on discord whenever u were online, i hope we can continue doing that next year!!! love u lots 💛

@pvrrish eleni!! we’ve talked so little this year that i can barely remember if there was any conversation at all :-(( but i would love to get to know u better this next year!! u seem like such an interesting person and u and angel are friends so i’m sure u’re amazing!! hope 2021 treats u well 💚

@class2clown angel!!! it’s been such a pleasure to get to know u this year and i can’t believe that it’s already been months since we first spoke :’)) all of ur creations are soooo good and i love all of them!!! i hope nothing ever stops u from creating more because they’re all so amazing!!! 🧡

@floralbfs augs!!!! god it’s been a while since we started talking but u’ve always been so lovely and have always been there to share ur ideas for the thousand unwritten/posted pangwave and khaithird fics on our dms... i’m so glad that u rbed one of my tgg posts asking for the drama’s name because otherwise i wouldn’t have gotten to know someone as amazing as u 🥰 i hope 2021 is easier for u, sending u lots of love 💛

@vihokratanas mel!!! we haven’t spoken much but i’ve noticed that we share our love for a few dramas so i’d love to get to know u better this next year!!! u and violet’s almost daily spam on the bops channel is dearly missed but i know u guys are busy so hopefully this 2021 will be a bit more relaxed 🧡

@doctorbahnjit alexa my love!!!!! what can i even tell u.... you’ve been nothing but kind since day 1 that we started talking on the gc and to get to know u this 2020 was such a delight. thank u for being who u are and thank u for watching dramas with me on vc even if u can’t (or i can’t) hear shit, i appreciate it sososososo much and i just love spending hours upon hours (well, until ur grandma ass has to go to sleep) chatting and watching debatably good dramas with u and dawn <3 i hope 2021 treats u better and that u still stay being as awesome as u are 🥰💖

@pangwave dawnnie my baby!!!!! hi bb how’s everything going?? i hope u’re okay, i miss u a lot :-(( getting to know u this year has been one of the best things that have come out of this hellhole of a year. thank u for making most of my nights so entertaining with both ur thoughts and ur dumb fights with alexa, they’ve been the highlight of my days from these past 2 months :’) the endless vc calls with u and alexa (and ur shitty internet cutting every single one of ur sentences) have made my year so much better and i can’t thank u enough for that. u and ur crabsticks and ur opinions and ur incredibly good gifsets are truly some of the best things that have come out of this year. thank u sosososo much for being how u are, i love u so much dawnnie 🥰💖

here’s some other people who have been on my dash for a while and that i appreciate their content as well: @scoupslipgloss (i mostly rb u with my sideblog but i love ur acc!!!) @vocalunits @chaoticbiwuxian @drwcn @bimingjue (i wouldn’t be a gifmaker if it wasn’t for u sending me the ps download link so i owe u my Life) @aanau (i rb a lot of what u post and i’m sorry if i have ever spammed u skjfhjsf i just love ur blog even if we don’t really share any fandoms aaaa) @emisfritish @leoyunxi @1akorn @gunsatthaphan @asianmelodrama @fushiguroo @khaotungthanawat @mymycorrhizae @jaehwany and @coldties amongst the many blogs that i’ve seen all year on my dash!!!! everyone’s content and posts have gotten me through 2020 so thank u all so much for staying on tumblr 💗

i feel like i’ve forgotten people but please know that if u are not in this but we’ve interacted in any way then you’ve most definitely made some kind of impact to me!! these are just the people i talk with the most 💖

thank u all for being soooo amazing and i hope 2021 is good to everyone here and to everyone who reads this. happy holidays and happy new year to everyone 🥰💖✨

#follow forever #2020 follow forever

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wearevillaneve · 4 years

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Ms. Comer Will Not Be Canceled.

Twitter gets a bad rap for its toxicity as if that was all it is, and that is simply not true. Twitter can be a lot of fun, full of news, opinions, hot takes, new and fascinating people to meet...and a TON of toxicity.

Case in point. Jodie Marie Comer. She’s young. She’s talented. She’s smart. She’s living her best life. Except for the entitlement of the very worst of the Killing Eve fandom. All these internet detectives who never sleep because is their life’s work to hound, harass and hate on Comer whenever she doesn’t fall in line with their expectations. These young White women (because that’s who makes up the bulk of Jodie Comer stans) feel extremely entitled. So much so they are willing to chase Comer off of social media and force her to cut off any interaction with her fan base. All of us should not have to suffer for the selfishness and stupidity of a few and particularly when the story may not even be true; not that the Twitter mob fucks with facts. The one thing that’s funny about this is how the same Jodie stans who were damn near ruining their underwear when she read the Vita Sackville-West love letter to Virginia Woolf on Monday flipped like a pancake less some 48 hours later when they found out she might be dating a Republican Trump supporter. Let’s say Jodie is really dating this James Burke dude and is a Trumper. How would we all feel if he started telling her how to dress, who she can be friends with, what to believe and how to act so she stays on his good side. If trying to run Jodie’s life is unacceptable by a het man, why would it be coming from a non-het woman? Life is too short to waste it stressing over who Jodie Comer is or isn't banging, but since so many of you indeed stressing today and God only knows what you’ll be on the rampage about by Friday, I will break this all the way down.

If you didn't care about Sandra Oh's reduced screen time in Season 3 miss me with THIS bullshit. If you excused, rationalized or tried to justify the Korean star being marginalized in Season 3 by her Caucasian co-star and the flood of new and mostly dull supporting characters, miss me with THIS bullshit. If you didn’t care about the all-White writer’s room for Season 4, and you believe Sally Woodward-Gentle’s ass-covering excuses and half-assed promises to do better, then miss me with THIS bullshit.

If trying to run Jodie’s life is unacceptable by a het man, why is it acceptable coming from a non-het woman?

If you are more stressed over who someone you do not know, will never meet, will never hang out with and definitely will never have sex with you may or may not be dating, than a global pandemic, Black Lives Matter, the brutal civil war in Yemen, the horrific murder of Vanessa Guillen, the continued assault on women’s reproductive rights, the attacks on transgender women (and eat shit J.K. Rowling) and about a thousand other topics, your priorities are screwed up and you can miss me with ALL of THAT bullshit, and doubly so if you aren’t registered to vote in the U.S. presidential election where you can actually DO something to get rid of President Pussygrabber instead of hating on Jodie Comer for possibly dating one of his supporters. After all, what business is of yours whose lap Jodie C. is sitting in when it is not and never will be yours. With the noted exception of the small, but exceedingly needy and arrogant fandom who try to make her life hell, Comer is pretty much living a life most of us couldn’t begin to dream of. That’s not a justification to turn hers into a nightmare. Back off and take this opportunity to mind your damn business, because this ain’t it. She’s here to live her life. Not the one anyone else insists she should.

#Jodie Comer #rumor mill #trumpers #Killing eve #Villanelle #sandra oh #sally woodward gentle #ke s3 #toxic fandom #twitter is hell

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ladyherenya · 3 years

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Books read in October

I read a paperback book for the first time in over three months months and was sharply aware that I couldn’t change anything about the way the text was displayed to make it more comfortable to read. I wondered, sadly, if I no longer like reading physical books.

Then I became engrossed in the story, and there were long stretches of time when I didn’t think about how I was reading a brick of printed paper. I turned pages as automatically and effortlessly as breathing. I think I was just out of practice.

This month’s Unintentional Colour Scheme: pink, purple and light blue.

Favourite covers: The Time-Traveling Popcorn Ball and The Other Side of the Sky.

Also read: “Good Neighbors” by Stephanie Burgis and Tiny House, Big Love by Olivia Dade. (And half a romance novel which I disliked and have no interest in remembering or reviewing.)

Reread: The last section of The Beckoning Hills by Ruth Elwin Harris. The middle section of Hunting by Andrea K. Höst.

Still reading: Between Silk and Cyanide by Leo Marks, and Angel Mage by Garth Nix.

Next up: The Switch by Beth O’Leary, and Hamster Princess: Little Red Rodent Hood by Ursula Vernon.

The Time-Traveling Popcorn Ball by Aster Glenn Gray: A magical story of time-travel and of friendship between eleven year old Piper, who has just moved into a new house, and Rosie, who lived in the same house fifty years earlier. It’s totally charming, and exactly the sort of story I adored growing up. Sometimes that makes me wish I could send a book back in time to my younger self, but I appreciated this book’s references to things that my younger self didn’t know about. I also appreciated how, even though I’ve read similar stories, I couldn’t predict how this one would end. That was very satisfying.

The Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett: In 1547, Francis Crawford, the Master of Lymond, wanted by the Scottish government for treason, is back in Edinburgh. The audiobook was the perfect way to experience this! The voices the narrator uses highlights clues in the text, about who’s speaking or the subtext and emotional tones of a conversation, which helped me to follow the story even when I felt confused about exactly what was going on. I enjoyed the Scottish accents, the clever wit, the ambiguity about Lymond’s plans and motives, and the way many characters are very intelligent, perceptive people. I was interested in the historical political intrigue. I loved the twists and revelations, which are brilliant -- incredibly clever and satisfying.

“Good Neighbors” by Stephanie Burgis: The first “fantasy rom-com” about a grumpy inventor who, along with her father, moves into a cottage nextdoor to a notorious necromancer in his big black castle. I wasn’t expecting to read about Mia stitching up undead minions, but appreciate that Burgis doesn’t take this opportunity to give glory details. This short story was fun and satisfying, and I am looking forward to when the rest of this series becomes (easily) available.

Lake of Sorrows by Erin Hart: After Haunted Ground, Dr Nora Gavin heads to the midlands west of Dublin to oversee the evacuation of another body discovered in a peat bog. The setting is fascinating and I like the atmosphere -- this has a strong sense of both place and mystery. However the multiple murders meant there’s more unpleasantness than I’d prefer. But it’s probably not enough to deter me from reading the next book.

The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams: Engrossing -- a poignant story of childhood during the late 19th century and womanhood in the early 20th century, and an absolutely fascinating insight into the decades-long process behind the first Oxford English Dictionary. Esme’s father is one of the lexicographers collecting and defining words for the Dictionary. Esme grows up with a fascination for words and begins to collect words that the Dictionary leaves out. I liked that Esme has people in her life who love and support her, but the ending is intensely sad. I’m not sure why that disappointed me. As an ending, it fits this story.

Taking Down Evelyn Tait by Poppy Nwosu: Australian YA. Lottie is furious that no one else seems to realise what Evelyn Tait, her nemesis (and stepsister) is like. Her best friend Grace is in love with Evelyn. Her teachers and her father tell Lottie she should emulate Evelyn. So Lottie decides that she’s going to do just that -- she’s going to be better than Miss Perfect. I thought this was a very realistic portrayal of a teenager’s relationships -- with family, with friends, with school and with herself. It’s amusing and, ultimately, believably positive. It captures Lottie’s perspective and her experiences in-the-moment so effectively and intensely.

Wired Love: a romance of dots and dashes by Ella Cheever Thayer (1888): Nattie, a telegraph operator who chats whenever she can “over the wire” with C., another telegraph operator miles down the line. I love stories where characters fall in love through exchanged messages. And the experiences of telegraph operators is absolutely fascinating -- simultaneously a product of the past and yet incredibly relatable from a contemporary perspective, because the internet and mobile phones mean we communicate so much through text. After Nattie and Clem meet, the focus shifts away from the telegraph office to antics at their boardinghouse, but the story continues to be fun and delightful.

Once Upon a Con series by Ashley Poston:

Geekerella: When Elle discovers her late parents’ cosplay costumes in a box in the attic, she hatches a plan to enter a cosplay competition and use the prize to escape her step-family. This contemporary Cinderella retelling about two teenage fans of a SF series Starfield is a romance-through-messages story. Elle uses her father’s old phone, so sometimes she gets messages from people about ExcelsiCon, the convention her father founded. One message sparks a conversation -- but neither she nor Darien realise just who they’re texting. As expected, this is fun and fandom-y, and it makes the coincidences and Cinderella moments feel believable.

The Princess and the Fangirl: At ExcelsiCon, Starfield actress Jessica Stone swaps places with a fan, Imogen. Jess needs to find a mislaid script before she’s accused of leaking it, and Imogen hopes for an opportunity to promote the #Save Amara initiative. I enjoyed how they both experience a different side of fandom. Imogen discovers the pressures of being a star, when con appearances are your job, and, away from the spotlight, Jess discovers how cons allow people to come together and celebrate things they love. My only disappointment was the way they both deceive Imogen’s fandom friend, Harper. I wish that had been handled differently.

The Little Bookshop at Herring Cove by Kellie Hailes: Unlike other books I’ve borrowed because they had “bookshop” in the title, this didn’t focus very much on books, nor did it describe its bookshop vividly. Sophie could have easily owned a different sort of shop without changing the plot, the setting or the atmosphere. This is a light-hearted romance about nice people in a generic seaside town -- not what I was looking for. I wanted more about books and a stronger sense of place.

Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly (narrated by Cassandra Campbell, Kathleen Gati and Kathrin Kana): This begins with three different women at the start of WWII -- a teenager in Poland, a newly-graduated doctor in Germany and a wealthy consulate worker in New York -- and becomes about the Ravensbruck Rabbits, Polish political prisoners subjected to medical experimentation. Not what I expected or wanted to be reading (which is not its fault. I switched to the ebook, because I'm irrationally squeamish about some medical things and cope better when reading to myself). This story is compelling and does a good job of showing how the pain and trauma didn’t just end with the war. And it’s incredibly important to keep telling stories about distressing parts of history.

The Other Side of the Sky by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner: More or less the sort of story I expected from these two. Nimh is the Divine One in a world of magic and prophecy. North is a prince in a floating city of science and engineering. Nimh believes the gods fled into the sky thousands of years ago, and North believes no one still lives down on the surface… until he crashes his glider. I enjoyed this but don’t feel any emotional investment -- yet. I will read the sequel.

Spoiler Alert by Olivia Dade: April and Marcus keep fandom separate from their professional lives -- April to avoid negative comments, Marcus (an actor) to avoid violating his contract. So when Marcus sees a cosplay photo of April online, he doesn’t recognise his friend, he just sees a gorgeous woman getting nasty comments and invites her to dinner. I was hooked. As a romance, this didn’t always focus on the things I most wanted it to, but I understood why it made those narrative choices and liked how the characters resolved their mistakes. And I really liked it as a story about fanfiction and the way we tell stories in response to other stories.

Big Love, Tiny House by Olivia Dade: Lucy goes on a Tiny House Hunting show and drags along her best friend Sebastian. I’ve watched countless tiny house videos on Youtube, so it was fun to see tiny houses depicted in fiction -- although I was disappointed that all the houses are so disastrously bad. Beyond that, I have no strong feelings one way or another about this romance novella.

Memento: an Illuminae Files novella by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff (narrated by a full cast): A bonus prequel, set aboard the Alexander prior to the events of Illuminae. The audiobook is so well done! Even though this is a short story/novella, I cared about the new characters it introduces -- I really like the epistolary format and how it requires the reader to fill in some of the gaps for themselves. (I think that’s part of why I love The Illuminae Files but so far have no strong feelings about Kaufman and Kristoff’s latest series.) And it’s always interesting to see more of AIDAN.

#Herenya reviews books #Aster Glenn Gray #Dorothy Dunnett #Erin Hart #Pip Williams #Poppy Nwosu #Ella Cheever Thayer #Ashley Poston #Martha Hall Kelly #Amie Kaufman #Meagan Spooner #Jay Kristoff #Olivia Dade #Stephanie Burgis

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kuvvydraws · 4 years

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I'm not sure if you've answered this question already, but I'm honestly very curious- why do you write fanfiction? I certainly enjoy it as much as you and have written a few things of my own, but I know it can be quite a personal topic for many writers. If it's too personal for you, don't feel any pressure to answer, but it's always interesting to see the writer's perspective outside of the story they've written :). I hope you understand what I'm trying to say-

Hey!

I actually enjoy the words and the rush your brain gets when they join without effort to create a reality.

Now, let me break that down XD

I've always had a book in my hands as far as my memory goes. My dad used to read to me when I was very little and from the second I could do it on my own, that was the best thing ever (yes, that means when I was punished for doing some shit, my books were taken away and I had to sneak them into my schoolbag and read in class like a heathen).

Not only I enjoyed books but I always found myself wanting to partake in the stories, and my brain was always running with the words and the scenes. (I discovered during my teenage years that brains have different ways to process thoughts and mine did it in words, so writing just sort of came naturally to me at that point in my life).

I discovered ffnet when I was 12, I think, but I had tried my hand at original works (that is, about five or six starts of different novels that never saw the light) and some "fanfiction" (about Nightmare Before Christmas because I had a big ass crush on Jack and I unassumingly created my first xReader ever) without knowing what the hell I was doing.

I just knew I wanted to write stuff and I did as much.

The thing is, I introduced one of my friends, who also loved to read and write, to ffnet, and we started writing together. The first thing we wrote was a Sesshomaru x OC fic, the second one was a Sasori x OC fic, and we dipped out toes into some Kuroshitsuji x OC...... all of them handwritten stories we promised we would type in a computer eventually (we didn't, they were horrible [I still have the notebooks we used for each of them and they are cringey as fuck]).

But we wrote for ourselves and we were happy like that.

So we were rampant and wild and having the best time. Back then I still wrote in Spanish (because I hardly knew any English and I didn't care for it), and I remember mixing Spain's Spanish with the ones from South America because obviously the percentage of writers in ffnet who used a different "dialect" Spanish was huge if you compare a single, tiny country with a whole continent.

At the same time I wrote with my friend, I wrote for myself. Naruto, Kuroshitsuji, Bleach, Hetalia.... And I met so many people, nice people, who loved my works (they were random fics, all of them x OC because I didn't know x Reader ones were a thing -they weren't at that time, and x Reader are harder to write in Spanish because all the words and pronouns are gendered one way or another-) and I got so much enjoyment from sharing them.

The thing about books I love the most is the fact that you can convey so many emotions with a few symbols, and you can create worlds out of ink and you can change views and inspire others. So, if none of my dumbass teenage novels were to roam the word, I still could share, in a free, open and fast way, my words with others.

Again, I was going to write them with or without posting them because I found -and still find- great pleasure when a scene creates itself in your brain and all you have to do to make it real is to write it down. (Sometimes my brain still does this and even when I'm daydreaming, my imagination is "written, described and dialogued" as if someone was reading a novel out loud. It makes writing so much easier).

And then I got hate.

I somehow had managed to miss all of the fandom drama that's so toxic in the internet because I didn't bother to interact with anyone in the fandoms beyond the reviews they left in my fics, and ffnet has a -sort of- specific search engine to help you find whatever you want, so I could never willingly find the "problematic stuff" because I was literally not trying to find it.

The hate comment I got was anonymous and very specific about everything that was wrong in a particular fic I had just updated -from plot and characterization to grammar and continuity-, and later on I discovered it came from a couple of authors who shared an account and who I admired greatly for their works. Turns out they were out for blood and hating on every fic that had updated that week and that had any members of their OTP shipped with some other character. (It was a Hetalia fanfic, I was writing SpUK and they were pro FrUk, if anyone is interested).

I was contacted by some other authors asking about this because they had gone through the very same thing -same specific hate, same hate comment- and I remember not giving a fuck.

I was 16 when I got the hate, writing for fun and trying to find a way to go through my shitty highschool days without falling into the black out of depression that haunted me. I remember not wanting to write anything anymore, leaving a fic I was very invested in writing to gather dust and rot in the forgotten folders of my computer because every time I tried to get on with it and progress, it felt wrong.

That thing I said about words just happening? It stopped. My brain was silent as a grave and trying to get my words out became painful. I remember struggling to even write regular project for my school.

I kept reading, of course -it was my only comfort and I really, really didn't want to give up on it-, but I abandoned the fandoms I enjoyed so much before. My new focus became the sci-fi, and I remember being hooked on Predator. Imagine my joy when I discovered there were thousands of works from that fandom! I was extasic.

Problem? They were written in English.

I didn't know shit about English besides being a language I was supposed to handle in school, memorize the unreasonably spelt words that were pronounced illogically regarding the fucking spelling and the stupid ass irregular verbs.

But I learnt English because I wanted a hot piece of alien ass XD

Back to the topic of fanfics, I still roamed ffnet, keeping 15 tabs open and reading until 5 am... But now there was a world of possiblities in front of me because of course everyone on this goddamn Earth writes in English.

So, for the next years I did that, and my words didn't come. It was fine, tho, because I had so many new things to read.

It wasn't until fall of 2018 that I dabbed into the idea of maybe considering to perhaps give writing a try again????? I was neck deep into Undertale -still am, I'm a shameless skeleton fucker and there's no cure for that shit- and its many AU's and somehow I had managed to avoid fandom wars again, so my brain started toying with words... The same way it worked with novels: I got myself into the fics other people wrote (this is so much easier to do with x Reader fics, and I'm so happy about that and the massive boom they had just when Undertale came out, you can't even understand it).

So I kept doing my shit and daydreaming about skeletons and ribs and ecto-stuff for a very long time. It was kinda reassuring and nice to see other writers projecting on their x Readers so much because that's what I had done before.

And then Good Omens happened.

As I've said before, I actually discovered Gomens back in 2012 and it is, to the date, the worst translation to Spanish I've seen in my entire life to this date. And, despite it, I fell in love with it.

Now, barely in 2019, my dad gets Amazon Prime and the first thing he fucking sees is the font of Gomens on the screen. I had fangirled hard about Gomens in book version, so much and so annoyingly that I wouldn't leave my dad alone until he gave it a chance. It's the only book my father hasn't finished because the translation is that bad. He hates it.

Yet.

The particular font they use for the show is the same from the book's title. My dad of course recognized it immediately and knew I would want in on the news.

I confess I watched Gomens the show at least seven times before giving it a break because I liked it so much and the novel was so fucking good and it's honest to God the best adaptation I've ever seen to the screen. It's so good I'm fucking sure I was crying actual tears after watching it for the first time because my dreams and all the feelings that book had given me over the years and the many re-reads were "true" and so well done and it reached deep into my heart.

And then, for the first time in six years, my words came back.

Another thing Good Omens has given me, I have to say.

I don't know if I can stress this enough, but just imagine spending six years of radio silence, sending longing stares to the void and hoping to see something yours returning back, something you've lost and you're not sure you're getting back, something you think you don't need or want but that would be nice to have again. If only. You can live without that something, and no one but you cares about it, and it's not that big of a deal and-

Then you see a spark in the dark.

My words came back.

They weren't in Spanish, and it was hard to manage them at first, only being able to listen to them in short bursts over long periods of time.

But they were my words and they were back.

Writing is still hard, and I have a lot of work to do to improve my skills, to get them not only back but to refine them because I'm not writing in my native language and all I know is what I've learnt from other authors and their knowledge. I project a lot on my projects -I don't intend to stop because it's such a relief, the biggest scape from reality I get by doing so; it helps me deal with my problems, it gives me a break and a way to take a breath when I can't keep going...

Fanfics are where I can say what I want to say to the world in the most honest way, and that allows me to be me, and to express myself and indulge in the fantasies I dream about without having to force myself to think of them over and over and over. I can just sit back and enjoy content I know I like without being judged for it.

I can fucking make that content, too.

Writing feels like home, even if sometimes I still struggle, if I can't find my words or the expression is not quite like that in English, or if I can't find the words or if I'm suffering a block... because there's nothing scarier and more free than a blank page ready to be written.

#this is long as fuck #sorry for the trip because damn that's some heavy backstory i just puked #i still have my ffnet account but its been years since I've used it #only for predator and hp content i have to say #i have over 600 bookmarks there but who cares #kuvvytalks about some personal crap

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needsmoresarcasm · 4 years

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Favorite Books of 2019

I read a bunch of books in 2019. I loved a lot of them. Here are my ten favorites.

10. Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language, Gretchen McCulloch

Most books about internet culture are garbage because they are written from the perspective of someone who is outside internet culture. Gretchen McCulloch, I am positive, is a part of internet culture. She was on fandom mailing lists and had a LiveJournal, I’m sure. She had to be to write Because Internet, which is an incredibly well written book about how language has evolved to fit online discourse. Because Internet is so fascinating, as it is able to explain thoughtfully (and compellingly) many things that internet people understand inherently. It parses through the evolution of a keysmash or an emoji. And it really helps show how language on the internet is not somehow the deterioration of language, but just another natural step forward. 9. HHhH, Laurent Binet

Originally written in French, HHhH deals with the entire genre of historical fiction. The narrator in HHhH is writing a novel about the murder of Reinhard Heydrich, a high-ranking Nazi official. That novel-within-the-novel is the bulk of the actual HHhH. But the narrator, who has spent years researching the actual facts, struggles with how much history and how much fiction he should be putting into the book. And so the book explicitly plays with the reader’s expectations, and comments at times on paths the story could take. The book works without the metatextual commentary, it’s propulsive and a little wry. But the added layer really just adds to the intrigue: what’s historical fiction supposed to do? And does any of it even matter? 8. Out East: Memoir of a Montauk Summer, John Glynn

Out East is a coming out memoir that deals with entirely internal struggles and not external hardships. Of course, there is an incredible amount of privilege at play for a coming out to be devoid of external hardships. And yes, the memoir, about a group of (mostly white) friends who rent a beach house in Montauk for a summer, is steeped in privilege, which John Glynn is acutely aware of. But John Glynn is not asking for your sympathy, he is instead telling a deeply personal story about self discovery and sexuality in the 2010s. He captures the world-shattering confusion and fear of learning that you don’t know yourself in a visceral way that still somehow maintains perspective. I cannot say that this book is for everyone, but man, was it for me.

7. Red, White & Royal Blue, Casey McQuiston The year was 2019, and everything was awful. Enter Red, White & Royal Blue, a wildly escapist fantasy that dared to dream: what if the world wasn’t on fire? So Red, White & Royal Blue is truly the most escapist novel out there, a fun romp of a romantic comedy that is entirely unconcerned with the disasters of reality. No, we’re just going to take the biracial son of the first female President of the United States and the charming, responsible prince of England and let them fall in love. Let hijinks ensue. Let this wonderful, bubblegum, fizzy drink of a novel enter your brain and wipe away all your worries. God, I had a blast reading this novel. Make everything gay 2020.

6. Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That’ll Ruin and/or Improve Everything, Kelly & Zach Weinersmith

Soonish is the exact kind of nonfiction that I want. It made me feel smarter and also made me laugh. Soonish takes on exactly what its subhead describes: ten emerging technologies (robotics, fusion power, asteroid mining, bioprinting!) that may or may not prove disastrous. It walks through the current science and then the possibilities, and how far off those possibilities are. And then it walks through the potential benefits and consequences. It’s an incredibly accessible read, written with the right balance of information and levity, striking that xkcd Randall Munroe balance. And it also has very funny comics and illustrations interspersed throughout, which will just bring your life so much joy.

5. Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson

Too real. Just Mercy is too real. This is not the right space to get into all that this book says about racial injustice and the flaws of the American justice system. It says a lot, and it says it extremely powerfully. But Just Mercy is Bryan Stevenson’s memoir, too. And it’s equally powerful for what it reveals about Stevenson. It’s so incredibly intimate, and Stevenson really lets the reader into his mind. And I think that openness really makes the whole thing land. Because Stevenson is hopeful and dedicated, and being that close to his inner thoughts ends up turning his story into something inspiring, not enervating. There’s an anecdote about an old woman on a bench outside the courthouse that Stevenson describes, and Stevenson’s retelling is so sure of the overwhelming, indomitable potential goodness of the human spirit that I may have shed a tear. Or two. Or a hundred.

4. The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller

I’m not usually one for deeply tragic stories, but The Song of Achilles I guess is the exception that proves the rule. Locked into the Iliad’s telling of Achilles and Patroclus’ fate, The Song of Achilles feels tragic from the first line. But every sentence builds their relationship and makes you invested, even as tragedy looms. The writing is gorgeous and almost musical; the passion swells and crashes like an orchestra. The book smartly focuses on Patroclus’s humanity to ground Achilles. It’s through Patroclus that we see and understand Achilles, which makes the sharp turns, where we see through Achilles, cut even deeper. In any event, the whole affair is horrifyingly romantic, and I loved it.

3. Homegoing, Yaa Gyasi

Everything about Homegoing is spectacularly audacious. It is an economical 300 page book with the weight, scope, and ambition of a thousand page page epic fantasy series. Homegoing begins by telling the story of two sisters who, by the whims of circumstance or luck or fate, end up on wildly divergent paths. In Ghana in the 18th century, one is sold into slavery and the other marries an Englishman. Homegoing then follows the parallel paths of their descendants through eight generations. Though Homegoing only devotes a single chapter to each character, it manages to develop those characters and their specific settings in more detail than some entire books can. And these chapters are great not only because of what they say about the larger themes of racism and colonialism and family and history, but because of the nuanced, particularized stories they’re able to tell about the individuals.

2. Picture Us in the Light, Kelly Loy Gilbert

Contemporary Young Adult books can feel hit or miss for me. Many of them end up feeling a little shallow or juvenile. And this isn’t a criticism of the books, but a necessary side effect of the fact that I’m not the intended audience. But Picture Us in the Light knocked me over with more force than any “adult” book I read.

Picture Us in the Light, at first blush, is a typical story about Danny Cheng, a Chinese American high school student worrying about getting into college, swirls with weighty plot elements--suicide, citizenship, poverty, familial sacrifice--but never resorts to melodrama. Each issue is treated with a deft, steady hand. But more than anything, it is just the story of Danny Cheng trying to figure out his life. His voice is specifically crafted to reflect everything he is: an aspiring artist, the child of immigrants, Asian American, maybe queer, a Californian, and, maybe most importantly, a teenager. Because Picture Us in the Light turns the youth of its genre, its audience, and its main character into an asset; it channels that unformed teenage energy of wonder, uncertainty, and anxiety to heighten every emotional beat. And mostly, it brims with empathy and optimism for Danny and, really, for everyone.

1. The Starless Sea, Erin Morgenstern

The Starless Sea is the reason I read books. As a kid, I fell in love with reading by devouring entire series, getting lost in a fictional world for days or weeks or months at a time. What made reading so addicting was the feeling of being entirely immersed in the currents of a story. It’s a feeling I don’t get from books much any more. I read too fast, I think too much, and, mostly, I’m too easily distracted. But The Starless Sea brought that feeling of having just spent two weeks reading every Redwall or Lord of the Rings or Ender’s Game book and no longer being able to discern reality from fiction. And for that blissful literary hangover, it was the best book I read in 2019.

The Starless Sea is about Zachary Ezra Rawlins, a video game design graduate student, who comes across an old, unmarked book in his school library. In that book, he comes across a story that impossibly contains a moment from his past, and the book proceeds to unravel that mystery. However, this plot summary is misleading in its linearity; The Starless Sea is structured as books within a book, chapters will switch from the story of Zachary to the story Zachary is reading to maybe a different story altogether. And in this way, it unfolds as a puzzle box, or maybe as nesting dolls, or maybe a Mobius strip (or maybe all three), where figuring out exactly what stories are being told only adds to the experience.

You won’t find a review of this book that doesn’t call Erin Morgenstern’s writing beautiful or atmospheric or dreamlike, which is appropriate because Erin Morgenstern’s writing is beautiful and atmospheric and dreamlike. Between the whimsical descriptive flourishes and the outward spiraling fantastical plot, the book is always on the verge of floating away or spinning out. But Zachary Ezra Rawlins grounds the story; he’s real and genuine and good, and never have I rooted more for a character. He believes in the power of a great story, and that’s ultimately what this book is about: the ways in which a story can sweep you away. And, truly, The Starless Sea just washed over me, lifted me up, and swept me away.

#books #the starless sea #picture us in the light

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sandwyrm · 5 years

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TL;DR melancholic rant on why I took the writing in WoW so badly this year just to get it all out and finish my fucking five stages of grief spin routine.

Gonna read more it, it’s probably gonna end up super long and unedited really so don’t feel obligated to read lol

I am one of those losers that has been with Warcraft for the whole 25 years. I watched the company grow from “check out this FULL GAME coming with this gaming magazine! it’s called Warcraft: Orcs and Humans!” to being the biggest MMO around and celebrating 25 years while the world is burning. And when I was younger, it was perfect. It had everything. Nice gameplay, cool and funny voices, decent graphics for its time, cool models, and it started having a story too. Perf!

I never got along well with my brother, but by the gods the only fond memories I have of him are centered around Warcraft. Watching him play WC1. Him teaching me to play WC2. Me playing WC3. Him leaving our abusive home to hide out in internet cafes, and my parents sending me to look for him, and us just staying in there for hours, me watching him play WC3. Fond memories of us getting our two toaster computers hooked up for LAN to play WC over it.

Then WoW came, and my brother first got us an US account - it was impossible to play cross-region back then, our lag was immense, in the thousand of ms on a good day. So then an EU account. First rolled on Sylvanas, one of the biggest servers back then, then on Twisting Nether. I would skip school just so I could play because my toaster wouldn’t run it, only my brother’s computer, so when he was at work I’d be skipping high school playing WoW (I did fine, don’t worry). I invested so much time into my vanilla account it’s surreal. I wouldn’t be shocked if I found out it has more /played than the rest of my life in the game. I met my ex on TN. I still have my vanilla account and characters on EU TN. The relationship with my ex doesn’t matter, it was abusive, toxic, I was a dumb optimist that stayed in it, doesn’t matter. He tried to get me to stop playing WoW. I still remember many instances when he went off on me for seeing me online, it’s 5 years since I broke up with him and like 8 since I stopped playing WoW with him and my heart still skips a beat when I get a whisper or hear the guild member login sound. It was that bad. He sure did his best to make me play the game only with him, “because he didn’t trust me and I would cheat on him through the game” - guys, if any of you are in this boat, please please please, put your foot down or break up. Your interests should be sacred and respected, as should be your entire person. But I digress.

Instead of breaking up, I went the mature route of buying a US license, and playing it while he was at work or I was visiting my parents. I rolled on a RP server for the first time ever, and it was probably the best decision of my life, so, gotta thank my abusive ex for that. I met many wonderful people, have many wonderful things on that account, and another 7 years of wonderful things on my EU account.

Then, the community itself. I hate it. Believe me, I hate the playerbase and fanbase of WoW with a burning passion. But at the same time, I have met amazing, wonderful, intelligent, friendly people I love and respect and wish the best for (if you’re reading this you’re part of this, yes, don’t let your brain trick you into thinking you’re a horrible person lol). This is another fun arc. I started in the cringe culture. OCs are lame, who makes OCs lol. Then I became, I make OCs and cringe culture can die. Same with characters, but it’s different there. Oh, so different.

See, I began by loving the obvious characters - Thrall, Jaina, Sylvanas, Tyrande, Malf, the works. I didn’t even like Garrosh much as his arc was unfolding - between the thing with my ex, quitting Cataclysm, changing regions and restarting, I didn’t really have a chance to dwell into him fully. He became a villain and I was all yeah okay. Iguess.jpg. I even wanted him out of the story at his peak edgelord moments because I liked Anduin more obviously. WoD was something I did not process almost at all because I was high on a cocktail of pain meds and post-partum depression and sleep deprivation. Legion was pointless bullcrap in my eyes on the main story factor, and I sort of enjoyed BFA until the whole Saurfang sucks Sylvanas fucks deal in the writer dept and fandom.

Deciding to finally read the novels I had missed out on, and reading War Crimes, was what propelled me into “hahahahahah these idiots actually acquitted Garrosh of crimes in this book? Are they for fucking real?” and actually realizing the entire arc was a complete mess, BFA is a mess, the writer dept is a mess, and suddenly, I had no footing to stand anymore. A spit in the face, and then it overlapped the Saurfang hErOiC sAcRiFiCe special edition. I sort of had a breakdown and I hid it behind “well Saurfang was hot lol now I don’t have my orc grandpa anymore” but it was deeper than that.

See, when we get into a setting, we have this selfish expectation that it will grow with us. That it will mature with us. Keep up with us. That we will always enjoy this setting, definitely not as starry eyed as we did as children, but that it will always be good. ATLA is a great example. Dragonlance is still good. Star Wars may be hammy and have tons of issues now as an adult, but it’s still good. But Warcraft was my lifeblood for 25 years. And to know that not only it did not grow with me, but it regressed beyond belief, destroyed me in a strange sense. Kind of like losing a friend, a family member. They didn’t just kill Saurfang for me, the setting died with him as far as I’m concerned. Because he was the last bastion of what interested me in it.

I am that weirdo that loves, loves, war movies and books. I devour them. That was part of my downfall, and the writers and fanbase of WoW so often make it feel like it is, somehow, MY FAULT (just like Garrosh getting backstabbed repeatedly was his fault I guess?) It feels like it’s my fault that I care about weird things like the Geneva Conventions, and the Paris Conventions, and so on and so forth. It feels like I’m the idiot for knowing basic military tactics and conventions. It feels like I’m the idiot for wanting WARcraft to, at all, even a little bit, bear any resemblance to real wars, to real military tactics, to genuine war stories with genuinely well written soldiers. In my folly and pride, I forgot it’s first and foremost, a fantasy setting, a simplistic one at that.

It insulted me these guys can’t even google what consists a war crime. It insults me to my core these guys paint the ONE (1) character who goes all “hey maybe.... weird concept but..... maybe not kill kids, or torture prisoners, or kill unarmed soldiers and civilians. Maybe show COMPASSION”, that this guy had to go. It also insults me the only other character who listened to him - Garrosh, yes - was written as the setting’s biggest fucking villain to this day, and it needed some real fucking propaganda and twisting of the OBJECTIVE narrative to get that to pass, and yet it successfully passed by so many, including myself years ago as it unfolded.

At this point, it’s insulting to see the same themes - mentally unstable or hurt people deserve to suffer and die, there is no happiness because happiness and happy endings are for toddlers, we are just edgelords jacking off to our self inserts, world isn’t fair because real world isn’t fair anyway kiddo grow up, and what the fuck is honor even we just make it up no? Also objective facts and lore? Fuck that who cares lmao.

Here’s the deal.

War stories NEED hope. I can handle watching a whole regimen be killed in brutal ways in war, because REAL war stories always leave you SOMETHING at the end that was worth the whole pain. In a REAL war story, perhaps Saurfang would have still committed suicide by proxy in front of everyone, but people around him would have actually then gone and maybe fucking went “you know what he was correct. Let’s write the Geneva Conventions.” In a REAL war story, it would have been handled so much better. And perhaps, in a REAL war story, he would have survived. With so much loss, so much pain, and yet - with HOPE. Hope, for HIMSELF, for the future. Not the generic bullshit hOpE they tried to write into him. yOu CaNt KiLL hOpE....... Yes, you can. You fucking can. By killing off the last fucking character in the setting that cared about actual military honor (not just the buzzword it is in this fandom and setting), the last fucking character that cared about tomorrow, about fighting for a better world. That’s how you kill hope. And in my eyes, they did so damn well.

Because I don’t want to sit around and be insulted for another 25 years that I’m the only idiot who expects tactics, honor, a good outcome, a hopeful ending. Because I have reached the point I hate being in this game only to hear sTrEnGtH aNd hOnOr when it literally means nothing. Because I reached a point I hate watching the double standards they apply to their precious babes while the minor characters get thrown under the bus for way less. Because I reached a point where the fandom trying to go all “but Alex, someone has to set a precedent for a war crime trial!” means jack shit when nobody ELSE has been tried for any war crimes AFTER Garrosh (which would’ve been PEACHY by the fucking way). Because I got to a point Blizzcon gave me goddamn anxiety every time someone IMed me to tell me an announcement, and I got to a point I blacklisted half the tags on tumblr because I walk in to read what my friends have been up to and some damn Discourse makes its way to my dash, only for me to find myself feeling stupid and in the wrong for liking Saurfang. Not even Garrosh, which I would admit is Problematic(tm) but goddamn Saurfang. Leave it to this setting and fandom for making me feel stupid and idiotic and in the wrong for loving the goddamn war movie protagonist.

And at the end of it all, after much debate, I don’t think I will quit the setting. Writers don’t care, about their lore, about their characters, about us. The other fans don’t care who they hurt with their edgy rhetoric, I sure as fuck didn’t when I was younger and dumber myself. I’m sure eventually the wound will close completely and I’ll dissociate again from the story and fanbase and enjoy the gameplay and my very wonderful friends. First step in that, just for me, is to not buy Shadowlands. The xpack after, perhaps, it depends. But just out of spite, I will be that one idiot who has a sub running but doesn’t give a +1 sale on Shadowlands. Just for myself.

Second step...? Who knows.... Who the hell knows what tomorrow will bring... This has indeed hurt worse than anything in my life. I have been going through the stages of grief - jokingly or seriously - since 8.2.5 now (and a whole load of 5 months of pure anger before that processing Garrosh’s arc from an objective standpoint). I cried more over the death of Saurfang (and the setting) than over my ex of 10 years leaving me as a single mom, or over all my other relationships combined. I’m not ashamed to admit that even if it’s cRiNgY. Like I said, it wasn’t just the death of one fictional character, but the death of a setting I loved and grew up with. The final acceptance that there is nothing left for me in the setting that shaped my interests, art, writing, and all that. That my interests have gone too far in other directions - optimism, actual war stories, good stories, being a mature individual, acknowledging mentally ill or divergent characters and not making excuses for author darlings. It’s a weird thing... Like the final acceptance that I have lost what could qualify as a dear friend or family member. While they are still alive and interacting with me daily. Like a breakup. But way worse. It is a pain I wish on noone honestly. But I do hope against hope, like an idiot, that other settings, other writers, future generations of writers, will do better. I know they won’t. But I’ll take my sliver of hope.

And if you read this far, I do genuinely hope the game - this game, any other interests - will keep bringing joy to you. And also, help yourself to a cookie. Thanks <3 I wish you a good day/weekend.

#salt #negativity

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bye-hadfun · 5 years

Text

under the neon lights

Chapter One: December 1st, 2012

Trigger Warnings: slight homophobia

Word Count: 2.4k

Summary: despite everything, they’re still together, and that’s what matters to Dan.

Or, alternatively, two times dnp visit nyc to see the ball drop

Written for the @phandomreversebang , inspired by @catzoomies beautiful art, and beta’d by the lovely and supportive @ty-ly-bby / @literally-just-fandoms

i hope you enjoy this as much as i enjoyed writing it.

Ao3 link

‘Fuck off.’

‘Excuse me? I’ve been nothing but patient Dan. What more do you want from me-’

‘I said fuck off.’ Dan slammed his door with a sort of finalty, a short breath escaping from his throat. He doesn’t mean to hurt Phil, ever, but these days the sky seems a bit duller than usual, and words are too much for Dan. He’ll apologize later and Phil will accept, and they will eat dinner and pretend that nothing’s wrong with Dan, with their relationship, with their life. That’s just how they work.

He can hear Phil in the lounge, talking on his phone, voice distant yet still decipherable. He know he shouldn’t, yet Dan still puts his ear to the wall, desperate to hear even a sliver of Phil’s normal voice. It’s been ages since they’ve had a calm conversation. Not that they ever talk much at all these days.

‘I just don't know what to do. Everything is so messy, you know? Sometimes I regret even moving in with him.’

There was silence on the other end and Dan assumed it was just Kath speaking. Hopefully.

‘I do love him, but love can only do so much. If this keeps up- what am I even going to do? Break up with him?”

Dan let out an involuntary gasp at that one. Even at the worst points in their relationship, he never assumed either of them would consider breaking up. It was Phil and Dan, Dan and Phil, the inseparable duo. Whatever he said in the videos, it was just a defense mechanism, and Phil knew that, right?

“I know, mum, but what would you do? I doubt you and Dad had these problems- and even if you did, this is the internet. You’ve never known anything like this, Mum. It’s terrifying.” Phil stifled a sob. “They’re everywhere, prying and spreading hate. We just want to live, and they won’t let us. Why does everything have to be about our relationship? Even if they found out, what would they do with the information? Can’t they just enjoy our content and shut up?”

Phil has his own way with words. Whilst Dan had emotional blow ups, Phil had, what could best be described as his word clusterfuck breakdown moments. He spoke less, compared to Dan, but that boy could talk his way out of a murder if he so wished. That, combined with his Eenglish degree, Dan sometimes thoughtthink that he would’ve been a better lawyer than Dan if he wasn’t so damn empathetic.

But that empathy is basically the only thing holding their relationship together at the moment, so he should be thankful.

Should he?

Sometimes, late at night under the covers, when they had had an argument and tears were threatening to spill, Dan wished that he never met Phil. Sure, he’d be miserable at law school and forced to be a lawyer for the rest of his life, but he wouldn’t harbour this immense sense of loss and heartbreak.

He never meant to hurt Phil- god,he hated seeing Phil sad. He would do anything just to put a smile on that boy’s face, and whatever Phil wanted, Dan would provide. Once upon a time, before the dreaded video leak, he was sure that Phil would too. Now? He’s not so sure.

Dan is slowly retreating back into his mind now, bringing back bad memories of The Day, and losing focus of the phone call in the living room. Hazily, he thinks it might be his brain’s shitty way of trying to protect him from what he might overhear, but it was too late. The memories were already returning, flooding his senses and drowning out the world. It was just him, his brain, and- Phil. Being tagged in every one of Dan’s mentions, their twitters, social media, and messages blowing up, and Phil crying on their kitchen floor, because of course the video leaked whilst they were making breakfast. Their most peaceful and normal routine, broken by the irregular and madness of the internet. Every tweet was about the same, and that ought to balance out the stress, but it didn’t. They kept pouring in, tens and thousands of the same message with different varieties, and every one of them just added fuel to Phil’s tears.

They had dealt with this once before. They could do it again.

Dan remembered it clear as day: Him, calmly picking up Phil’s phone and going onto YouTube to private the video again, tweeting out their response ‘It was just a joke we made!’, answering the texts from their family and friends, soothing those who knew and deflecting those who didn’t. Turning and hugging Phil from time to time when his sobs grew louder, when he saw in the corner of his eyes that he was shrinking into himself. He smoothed down his hair and comforted him, reassuring him that it was all ok. Gentle whispers of ‘I love you, it’s going to be ok’ murmured against skin.

Phil, after four hours and one cup of hot chocolate, ceased crying and started to help Dan fix things. He remembered Phil smiling sadly and saying, “Isn’t it sad, Bear, that all this is just a PR nightmare for someone else? Yet it’s hell for us.”

Dan whipped his head over to look at Phil, to try to comfort him somehow, but Phil only shaked his head slightly and started to reply to some of Marianne’s emails. It was for the best. Dan wasn’t even sure what he could say- ‘It’s not like that?’ ‘Don’t you dare talk about our relationship like that?’ Every word he said would just make the situation worse.

So he kept his mouth shut, and they plundered through their phones for the rest of the day, until the emails ceased, their text messages was cleared, and Twitter calmed down. (Or at least some of them had enough sense to stop tagging them). They went to Phil’s room, closed all the blinds, and burrowed under the bedsheets, whispering their sorrows and apologies.

Dan had finally let himself cry, and Phil had held him, his own tears dropping on Dan’s hair, and for the first time, Dan had doubted their relationship. Whether it was a good idea, two teenagers meeting on the Internet and working on a job online, where everything is exposed to the public?

But then Phil kissed him on the forehead and snuggled in closer to Dan’s neck, and Dan is grateful. No matter what happens, YouTube brought them together, and he’ll forever be grateful for that. Even if shit like this happens.

As he drifted off to sleep, he was vaguely aware of Phil’s tears on his neck, faint sniffling coming from his side. Frowning, he reached out for Phil’s face, wanting to wipe the tears tracks off his face, but Phil just gently pushed him away with a wet chuckle, and so he let sleep drag him into consciousness.

He still doesn’t know why Phil cried. He just know that, the next day when he woke up, Phil was back to his normal self again, all traces of sadness gone, a sharp glint of anger to his eyes. That was the same day they sent a harshly-worded letter to YouTube, informing them of their slip-up in the system. They received not a response, but an entire update ensuring ‘more privacy for creators’. Phil had smiled coldly at that.

It scared Dan sometimes, when Phil’s coldness shows. He’s truly different when he’s angry, and Dan would never like to be at the other side of his wrath. Dan had only seen it in action, once, when Dan was called a slur on a train ride. Phil had gone still, so still that Dan’s brain couldn’t register when he saw Phil’s fist connecting with the guy’s face. One moment to the next, and Phil was pummeling the living lights out of the dude. By the time Dan could react, the guy was already backing up, holding his hands up in surrender. Tugging Phil gently away from the scene, hoping not to trigger anything else, they made it back to the apartment. They never talked about it.

Dan was brought out from his reverie by Phil’s gentle knocking on the door.

“Dan? I don’t know if you’re still angry, but i made pasta. I’ll leave a plate for you in the fridge if you don’t come out in thirty.” There was a little pause on the other side of the door, almost like Phil was hesitating, before he continued to speak. “You know i love you, right? I really wish I could help you with your problems, but I can’t always do that when you’re stuck in your head.”

As Phil walked away, immense panic washed over Dan. What if this was it? They’re going to break up, and Dan’s going to get his heart broken, move back in with his parents, and his YouTube dream might as well die. Most importantly, he’ll lose Phil. Phil, who’s so patient with him every time he has a breakdown. Phil, who loves him so much that he’s willing to put up with his ‘scared of the dark’ bullshit, closing the lights after Dan’s been securely tucked up in bed, soft fairy lights illuminating the room whilst waiting for him. Phil, the person who got him through some of his darkest days.

He has to try, for Phil.

Dan’s looking around the room, searching for ideas to make it up to Phil, when it hit him. Phil’s been talking about going to NYC for years now, since they first started Skyping. The man had a weird affinity for touristy places, and Dan could never understand why. But it was Phil, and wherever Phil went, he would go.

Quickly typing in the Google search bar, he found what he wanted and smiled. A genuine one, a rare sight these days. He winced a bit at the price - but it was worth it. Hopefully. Dan scanned their schedule briefly, just to make sure they were completely free. He didn’t want to receive an angry phone call or email from their nice (also hot-tempered, but you didn’t hear that from Dan) manager, Marianne, scolding them because they missed a potentially important meeting. It still amazed Dan that YouTubers actually had meetings to attend, brand deals to accept, deadlines to meet. There wasn’t the pressure of an office job, but it was still jarring, how YouTube was an actual job. It made him feel like a celebrity. But of course, he thought to himself, amused, we’re not actually stars that can attend important events.

Focusing back on the monitor, Dan entered his credit card number, and confirmed the transaction. Sure, it was a noticeable dent in his bank account, but they had the Radio 1 gig later on anyways. It couldn’t hurt that much to have a nice week long holiday with his boyfriend.

Especially if it meant saving their crumbling relationship.

Humming softly under his breath, Dan unlocked his door and practically skipped out to the lounge. He’ll try his best to keep his temper in check. He was in an exceptionally good mood, and suspected that Phil would be too, once he got the news. It was no Japan, but New York City couldn’t be that far off.

“Phil?” Dan yelled down the stairs. This was new to him, having to shout to alert the other. In the Manchester apartment, the space was so small, so cramped, sometimes Dan wondered if Phil could hear him through the wall singing songs whilst he edited. His suspicions were confirmed one day when he broke off in the middle of the Llama song and Phil picked it up. He nearly choked on his drink. The Manchester apartment was filled with fond memories. He hoped that this one would be too.

“Yeah?” Phil was answering in a struggling voice, which meant either a) he was holding something heavy, or b) he was taking out his contacts and was trying not to poke himself in the eye. Dan was secretly pleased he knew Phil well enough to know this.

“Have you had dinner yet? I wanna watch a show with you while we eat, if that’s fine?” Dan said this with some preparation of disappointment. Given that he had just yelled in his face, Dan was sure that Phil would be salty, even if he had cooked dinner.

There was a slight pause, and then Phil replied, “Yeah sure, just let me finish taking off my contacts first!”

Dan did a little fist pump in the air for getting scenario b right, then turned back to the kitchen to get the pasta Phil had promised. Taking care to close all the cupboard doors first so he wouldn’t get a weirdly shaped bruise on his face for the next week and drop their pasta in the process, he managed to safely get the pasta on two plates and make it out to the lounge.

Phil was there already, looking a bit anxious with his glasses on, seated on the sofa changing the channels mindlessly. It was immensely cute. Dan smiled for a bit, stalling in the hallway before walking over to the couch, promptly plopping himself next to Phil. Depositing one of the plates on Phil’s lap, he blurted out what he had been meaning to say for the past half hour.

“I’m sorry.”

Phil, originally planning on devouring the plate of pasta, paused with his fork halfway to his mouth. “What?” He stared at Dan disbelievingly, almost as if he couldn’t believe- oh.

He never did apologize to Phil, huh. He’d always just assume that the unspoken apology was enough, that Phil understood him. It was a shitty move.

“I’m sorry. For yelling at you this afternoon. It was unprecedented and you didn’t deserve it, and you even made pasta for me.” Staring down at his plate, Dan collected himself before speaking again. “I’m just scared, you know? I don’t want us to fall apart because of some mean comments on the internet. But they’re under my skin constantly, talking about things they have absolutely no business meddling in.”

“Is it really so hard for us to be just- us? Dan and Phil? Sometimes, i swear, it feels like it's the whole world against us. The turmoil, the battles, the accusations, they're overwhelming.”

Phil smiled a bit. “Dan and Phil Versus the world, huh.”

Dan broke into a grin, and replied, “Dan and Phil Versus the world.”

And so for the first time in what seemed like months, Dan fell asleep peacefully, with Phil by his side, all of their problems thrown out the window.

The ticket can wait, Dan decided. He'll wait till it's right.

Until then, he'll just let himself be held by Phil, feeling safe and warm in their own little world.

#danielhowell #amazingphil #dan and phil #phandom #phanfic #my fics #prb

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thiefcat-niao · 5 years

Text

Ending the Session (Chapter 3)

Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh! Characters/Ships: Gemshipping (Thief King Bakura/Ryou Bakura); Ryou Bakura, Thief King Bakura, Atem, Yugi Mutuo, Zorc Necrophades Rating: T Length: Chapter 3 / 3; 4100 words

Summary:

Into Ryou’s lonely apartment comes a spirit, an ancient power that speaks and manifests through the Ouija board kept beneath the bed. It calls itself Tou, and claims to be human. Ryou believes.

Read on AO3 Previous Chapter – Next Chapter (Fin!)

Ryou Bakura, with shaking hands, unfolded the Ouija board. He fumbled to light a single candle, then tucked the lighter into his pocket. Though he'd set his phone to silent, he saw Yugi's name flashing again and again on the lit screen.

"Tou? Tou, are you here? Please, answer me!"

The room grew suddenly less empty, and Ryou felt a sweeping sense of relief as the pointer began to move. "im here... as you command...”

Ryou laughed breathlessly, almost hearing the sardonic tone. "I did something I shouldn't have, Tou. I—I wanted to know who you were."

"you could have just asked..."

"I figured you wouldn't answer."

"youre probably right haha..."

Ryou laughed weakly. "I have a friend—he comes from Egypt."

"figured out that much eh..."

"Yeah. But I couldn't find any records of someone called Thief King, on the internet, and so I asked my friend. He comes from Egypt, and travels there at least once a year, and he's an Egyptologist, actually, so I figured—"

"the point..."

"Well... my friend, he says he knew you. In a previous life."

There was a beat of silence, and then the pointer moved slowly in the shape of a question mark.

Ryou swallowed. "His name's Atem. He says he was the pharaoh, when you were alive."

The spirit didn't react as violently as Ryou would have expected; indeed, when the pointer finally moved, it all but crawled across the board. "so pharaoh atem lives again in this time..."

"He thought you might hurt me. I told him that you wouldn't, that that was ridiculous, that you would never, but he didn't believe me. He says he's on his way here, now, and I don't know what to do."

Again the spirit was silent for a long moment, then asked, "did almighty atem tell you anything specific about me...”

"No," Ryou lied, without hesitation. "He seemed... really freaked out, though."

"understandable..." was the pensive response. "we didnt see eye to eye the pharaoh and i...”

"With a title like Thief King, I can image not."

"haha... thats true... it was a bit worse than all that though...”

He said you were a demon... Ryou almost admitted it, but the sheer absurdity of the thought kept him from verbalizing it. "I know you're a good spirit, Touzokuo. No matter what happened, in the past."

There was a long pause, the air heavy with the spirit's presence. Ryou waited patiently, and felt a faint warmth hover over his hand when the pointer finally began to move.

"im not worth that type of faith nedjem...”

"But you are. I'm sure of if. I can feel the goodness in you," Ryou insisted.

The pointer moved restlessly, for a moment, and then spelled out, "thank you... ryou bakura...”

A pounding sounded at the door, then, and Ryou looked up sharply; didn't take his hand from the pointer.

"Bakura!" That was Atem's voice from just outside the front door. The pounding came again, harder. "Open up! Open the door, Bakura!"

"Are you okay, Ryou-kun?" came Yugi's voice. "Please let us in!"

"I wish..." Ryou whispered, feeling his hands begin to tremble; he placed both of them over the pointer. "I wish we could share a meal, Touzokuo..."

"so sweet nedjem..." was the reply, spelled out slowly. "but this is for the best... we have to say goodbye for now..."

"They'll take the board!" Ryou objected, tears in his eyes as he shook his head. "I won't! I won't say goodbye! I'll leave the board now, I'll leave the door open, and—"

"dont—" The pointer moved forcefully. "do not ryou... dont do that... do you understand..."

"Ryou, please!" came Yugi's voice, again.

There was a tremendous thud, and Atem shouted, "I'll break the door if I have to, Bakura!" Again, a crash that shook the house and undoubtedly woke a few neighbors. "Answer me, Bakura!"

"ryou dont—" the spirit said, jerking the pointer forcefully towards the "goodbye" in the corner of the board. "r-y-o-u-r-y-o-u-r-y-o-u-r-y-"

"You aren't a demon!" Ryou wailed, looking around the room as if he could see the spirit. Atem slammed into his front door again, and the wood creaked. "I won't believe it!"

A force seemed to hold Ryou's hands to the pointer, but it was weak—insistent, desperate, but feeble in the physical world. Ryou wrenched his hands away from the board and the pointer soared for "goodbye." It skittered to a halt just short of the word, and Ryou thudded back with the force of his own momentum. Atem threw his shoulder against the door again, and the cheep wood gave with a crash and shower of splinters.

"Bakura!"

"Ryou-kun!"

Ryou Bakura, however, was fixated on the board. It had begun to vibrate, and a strange little vortex of sand started to form above it even as Atem and Yugi careened, colliding with the door-frame and with each other, into the room.

"Great Ra, you didn't—!" Atem shouted, above the increasing, unnatural sound of wind. Yugi hurried to Ryou's side and helped his friend up, but Ryou pushed away when Yugi tried to pull him toward the door.

The sand began, slowly, to take form—to take the form of a man. A red robe cracked into being, scattering sand, and the man shook his head to scatter the grains from his mop of gray hair. He looked down at his powerful hands, at his chest, exposed beneath an open robe, and at his board shoulders. Then he looked up, a huge grin twisting the gruesome scar that marred the right side of his face.

"Great Anubis, I'm back! Look at this!" He held out his hands again, examining their backs and spreading his fingers. "I have missed this body so damn much!" Then his gaze fell on Ryou, eyes and smile softening to something that could only be called tender. He spread his arms. "Ryou... great gods, you are so stupid... so kind and so beautiful and so brave and so incredibly stupid... I told you not to..."

"Stay back, demon!" Atem snarled, as the Thief King moved towards Ryou. The Thief King stalled; blinked, and then began to laugh raucously. Atem indulged in looking insulted.

"Bwahahaha! You're just as tiny in this lifetime, Pharaoh! No luck in that genetic draw, ay? I think you've lost an inch or two, since we last met!"

"Fuck you," Atem spat, making a visible effort to stand straighter. "I'll kill you again, where you stand."

The Thief King's eyes widened, suddenly, and locked on the third person present, visible over Atem's shoulder; his face lost it's mocking grin, along with most of its color, and he breathed, "Prince?"

"Prince?" Yugi echoed, in confusion, and Atem moved between Yugi and the Thief King.

"Leave him out of this, monster!"

"My prince..." the Thief King breathed, and then dropped down to one knee despite Atem's furious objections. "You two are together, then... thank the gods..."

"You filthy, bastard thief!" Atem's fist drew back. "Murderer!"

"Stop!" Ryou grabbed Atem's arm as he threw all of his weight into the punch. They both lurched sideways; Atem had to fight to stay on his feet, but managed it, and flung Ryou off. Ryou yelped; fell, but never hit the ground.

Instead, he landed against the chest of the Thief King; he felt powerful arms close around him and turned to look up at that scarred face.

"Oh god, you're handsome..." Ryou breathed, before he could check himself. The Thief King blinked, dark red rising into cheeks.

"Release him, demon!" Atem shouted, and the Thief King granted him a baleful glare.

"I'm no demon, Pharaoh," he sneered, his lip curling as he set Ryou back on his own feet. He kept his hands on Ryou's shoulders, though, and Ryou didn't pull away. "I made a deal with a demon. My soul is fused with a demon. But I'm not a demon. There's a big difference, there."

"Your soul...?" Ryou breathed, and the Thief King looked down at him.

"I told you not to let me out, Ryou. I told you. If I get out, then he gets out, too."

"You make it sound like you had no say in the matter, Thief King," came a new, rumbling voice that shook the apartment walls. The Ouija board began to vibrate again—to bounce about madly on the ground. The Thief King drew Ryou closer to him, protectively, and Atem crouched slightly, head swinging around. "I never forced your hand. You made that deal with me, three millennia ago, of your own free will."

"And then you consumed me!" the Thief King snarled. "That was never part of our agreement!"

"You were a fool, to think you could hold my will at bay," the voice said, with an otherworldly chuckling. "Your bad judgement isn't my fault. I never said I'd let you keep any of your own identity."

"You never overwhelmed me, not completely," the Thief King growled, tightening his grip on Ryou's shoulders. "And you won't now, after three millennia." Ryou, without thinking, reached up and folded one hand over Touzokuo's.

"Couldn't even get rid of me in death..." the demon said, laughing again. "And then..."

"Shut up, monster!" the Touzokuo roared.

"... You swear up and down that you regret it, that you hate me, and then you go and make another deal with me, after all these hundreds of years!" The demon bellowed with laughter.

The Thief King closed his eyes; looked down, and whispered, "Three thousand years is a long time..."

"You'd make contact with a mortal, and charm them, and get them to let us both out! And then we'd both have our freedom, and you'd have your body back, and I'd have the body of whatever fool you got to open up the portal!"

Touzokuo tightened his grip on Ryou, who'd begun again to tremble. "I told him not to..." he breathed, then raised his head. "Three thousand years is a long time, but I'll take three thousand more! Not this one, Zorc!!"

The demon's laughter swelled; gained a manic pitch, and he shrieked, "Too late for that, Thief King!" The whole apartment rocked, and Touzokuo scooped Ryou bodily up. Though aware that it was probably not the time to be concerned with such things, Ryou couldn't repress a flustered wave of embarrassment as he was pressed against the Thief King's chest. A second later, the apartment floor buckled; shattered up, and Touzokuo shifted his weight expertly to keep his footing on the shards of carpeted concrete. Yugi screamed, but it was drowned in moments by the sounds of the collapse and the demon's cackling.

Ryou shut his eyes; clung to the broad-chested man who held him, and breathed in the musky desert scent of a distant Egyptian past.

The impact of landing jarred Ryou's eyes back open, and he heard the shrill shriek of the woman who lived in the apartment below him. He gasped; choked on the dust and debris, and coughed. Touzokuo's grip on him tightened almost uncomfortably. The neighbor woman paused for breath; continued to scream.

"This... is lovely..." came a chortling rumble of a voice, and Ryou looked up. A huge, draconian shape towered up through what was left of his bedroom floor; a thick, armored tail smashed into the wall, breaking through into the neighbor woman's living room.

"See, Pharaoh?" Touzokuo called over, as Atem heaved himself out of a small pile of rubble; Yugi staggered up beside him. "Not me! Clearly not me! Zorc and I are definitely not the same thing!"

"Separate, perhaps, but certainly connected." Zorc lowered his upper body to leer down at the Thief King, malevolent violet eyes glowing amid his deformed face. Touzokuo glared back, unflinching. "Selling your soul isn't without it's consequences, you know."

Ryou felt the Thief King's chest heave suddenly; clutched questioningly at Touzokuo's red robes. Touzokuo staggered; placed Ryou down, gently and deliberately, as he retched again, then sunk slowly to his knees. Zorc reached down; extended a clawed digit.

"Kneel."

Touzokuo's body lurched forward and he vomited sand and blood, one hand hitting the ground for balance. Ryou cried out and crouched beside him as the Thief King crumpled, a moment later, to his elbows.

"Damn..." Touzokuo breathed; grit his teeth and snapped, "Damn it, Ryou, why'd you have to let me out?!"

Zorc laughed as Ryou flinched back, then swung to face Atem. "I remember you—the Pharaoh! Strange how fate brings us all back together, millennia later... And even Egypt's young prince..."

Yugi straightened, even as Atem placed himself firmly in front of him. "Atem, tell me what's happening!" Yugi implored. "I had a past life with you, didn't I? Why haven't you told me?"

"Because he can't bear to recount the tragic tale of Prince Yugi of Egypt!" Zorc chortled. "But now that Prince Yugi's murderer is back among the living..."

"That's you, monster, not me!" Touzokuo snarled, pointing at Zorc. "I was only after gold! A thief! You were the killer, the demon!"

Zorc, with an almost disinterested look, flicked one claw downward, and the Thief King slammed into the ground with a curse.

"Leave him alone!" Ryou shouted, and Zorc swung to face him.

"Wait your turn, little sweet. I'll deal with you in just a moment."

"Stay back, Ryou..." Touzokuo murmured, struggling to pull himself forward, even slightly. The sight made Ryou's heart twist.

""i cant take much more of this ryou..." the spirit had said. "of being dead... i want to live again... id give anything..."

"being alive is the greatest thing... even if youre in pain... even if youre suffering... even if you have to struggle for every breath... its worth it... take it from a ghost ryou... its worth it"

"Leave him alone!" Ryou said again, striding forward towards the demon. Atem gave a shout of objection, rushing forward and grabbing his shoulders. Ryou struggled against him. "Let go of me!"

"You can't fight something like that!" Atem snapped. "We have to run!"

"Run?!" Yugi demanded, making Atem jump. "And exactly where would we go?!"

"Egypt," Atem answered, his eyes wild. "There are artifacts, there, that can—"

"Atem, we can't make it all the way to Egypt with something like that chasing us!" Yugi said, exasperated, with a gesture toward Zorc.

"He'll make a useful distraction," Atem declared, motioning to where the Thief King still struggled to lift himself from the ground. Touzokuo grinned sardonically.

"However I can be of service, Pharaoh..." he wheezed out, and Ryou wrenched again at Atem's grip.

"Then I'll stay behind, too!" Ryou snapped, and Atem rounded on him.

"Don't even—!" he began, but was cut off by a scream—Yugi's scream. "Yugi!"

Zorc's hand swept in; plucked Yugi up, like a doll, and held him aloft. Atem instantly released Ryou and started forward.

"Did you expect me to just wait until you finished your little quarrel?" the demon asked, with a chuckle that rattled what was left of the walls. Sirens shrieked in the distance. "Pity... look at the dear prince struggle..."

"A-Atem...!" Yugi cried out, and then gasped in pain as Zorc's grip around him tightened.

"Damn...!" Atem's hands formed fists, but it was a largely useless gesture. He closed his eyes. “Great Ra not again!”

Ryou’s hearing faded, as he watched Zorc give Yugi a sadistic little shake; he heard Atem’s defiant shouting, but only faintly. Turning, he looked at the King of Thieves—at the resurrected spirit, Touzokuo, driven cruelly to the ground beneath the weight of the deal he had made; struggling to rise despite the hopelessness of it.

With a strange lightness, Ryou started forward; walked, calmly and deliberately, toward the demon-god Zorc.

“Bakura! Get back!” That was Atem—Ryou ignored him. “Bakura!”

“Ryou...!” Touzokuo’s cry was far more tremulous; it didn't suit him, and it pierced Ryou's heart. But he didn't look back at the King of Thieves.

"Zorc?" Ryou called up, and the demon rumbled; Yugi choked as Zorc's grip tightened around him.

"Yes, little one?"

"Would you accept me as tribute? Will you release Touzokuo's soul, if I give you myself?"

"Ryou!" Touzokuo shouted again, and then cried out roughly.

Ryou didn't turn to see what had happened; kept his gaze on Zorc Necrophades. "I'll give you my body. So please, release him."

Zorc chuckled—a deep rumble that made bits of rubble bounce against the ground. "What gives you the impression that I wouldn't take that for myself, regardless?"

"Wouldn't my willingness make it simpler?" Ryou asked. He couldn't feel his feet touching the ground. He slid one hand into his pocket; held the other out in a gesture of surrender. "I offer myself as tribute. Isn't that what every god desires the most?"

Zorc laughed again. "Perhaps... perhaps." He let Yugi fall—a violent thing, Yugi's body striking the ground before he had the time to gasp out more than half a cry. Atem screeched his name, but Ryou didn't look back; didn't allow himself to look at Yugi, either. He just began walking, again, toward Zorc. "Come, then. I'll use your body to finish the job and kill your precious friends."

Ryou heard Touzokuo choke out his name once again; didn't let himself dwell on it. He concentrated on the slight scratch of wood against his chest, and ran his thumb over the smooth plastic of the object in his pocket. He couldn't afford an unsteady hand. He couldn't afford to flinch.

Zorc's flesh was like decaying crocodile hide; it reeked of rotten meat, and Ryou held his breath as Zorc allowed him to step into his palm. Ryou staggered down onto one knee as he was lifted close to the demon-god's face, but he stared into the blazing hellfire eyes without flinching; didn't allow himself to look away. His pulse quickened.

"So, little sweet..." Zorc rumbled, and licked his lips. He brought Ryou closer—close enough to be bathed in the demon's rank breath. "You'll—"

Ryou moved—his left hand yanking the pendant from around his neck, his right jerking the lighter from his pocket and flicking the wheel. The amulet—the one he always wore during sessions, the one made of anise seeds and holly and rosemary and St. John's Wort all wrapped up in a dried, woven amaranth plant—caught fire like the kindling it was. Ryou flung it, with all the strength he had, into Zorc’s open mouth.

For a second, as the flaming object flew, there was perfect stillness. Ryou watched it sail into the dark cavern, dimming in the dank shadow, and then it struck the back of Zorc’s mouth in an explosion of color and sparks.

Zorc roared; threw his head back and dropped Ryou, both hands flying up. As Ryou fell, he saw Zorc’s throat erupt in blazing rainbow, as though fireworks had been set off inside it. His body felt weightless, and it occurred to him that the fiery explosion was beautiful; his white hair whipped up, obscuring his vision, and he braced for the coming impact.

Ryou thudded into something soft; heard a pained, “Oof!” and felt something crumple beneath him. Bits of putrid demon-flesh came pattering down, followed by larger chunks, and Ryou was vaguely aware of being bundled backwards. Zorc’s body was beginning to steam, noxious miasma making it difficult to breathe, and Ryou clapped his hands over his mouth and nose.

“Pharaoh!” came Touzokuo’s rough shout near Ryou’s ear. “Have you got the prince?”

Atem shouted an affirmation, and Ryou felt Touzokuo pick up speed. There was a cacophony of wet crunching, then a tremendous crash behind them, and Touzokuo staggered. Atem reached the front door first—which the neighbor woman, presumably as she fled, had left wide open—and darted out into the hallway. Touzokuo was right behind him, though he stumbled again.

“I can walk...!” Ryou said, and the King of Thieves let him reluctantly down. Hand-in-hand, they raced after Atem toward the stairwell. The sirens were ear-splitting, by then, overpowering the sound of people shouting and screaming. Atem struggled with the door to the stairs, his arms occupied with Yugi; Touzokuo shouldered him aside to open it, but let Atem go through first. Once Ryou was through, next, Touzokuo slammed and locked the door behind them.

For a moment, there was only the harsh sounds of breathing—everything else muffled slightly by the stairwell. Yugi had regained consciousness, though he still appeared dazed. Atem set him gently down, then jerked his head towards the downwards steps.

“Back to our place. Now.”

Atem didn’t wait for acknowledgement, simply started downward.

Touzokuo glanced at Ryou, who nodded; squeezed Touzokuo’s calloused hand. “We can’t stay here,” he murmured. Together they followed Atem, slipping out of the building. Most of the emergency vehicles were crowed on the main road, in front of the building, so it was easy to slip through the back allies. The apartment that Atem and Yugi shared was only a couple of blocks away, and together the four of them ran. Touzokuo's hand never left Ryou's.

Atem motioned them all toward a side entrance of the building, pushing Yugi and then Ryou though the door. Touzokuo released Ryou's hand at last, pausing to stare at the once-King of Egypt. Ryou stumbled to a halt, turning back, but stayed instinctively silent as the two stared at one another.

"Get in," Atem said, jerking his head.

"You trust me enough to let me into your house?" Touzokuo asked.

Atem gave a harsh laugh. "Only if you trust me enough to enter. I've killed you once already."

Touzokuo's lip curled. "Fair."

Atem scowled; said, "Get in!" again, and this time gave Touzokuo's shoulder a rough shove in that direction. Ryou hurried forward to intervene, but Touzokuo only chuckled as he complied. Atem closed the door behind them, then let Yugi lead them up the stairs.

"You aren't hurt, Ryou?" Yugi asked, as he ushered Ryou and Touzokuo into the apartment.

Ryou shook his head; watched as Touzokuo wandered into the living room, but then turned to Yugi. "No. A bit shaken, that's all. You? That was a nasty fall you took..."

"I'm fine, I'm fine! You were incredible!" Yugi grasped Ryou's hands. "You took him down! We all would've...!"

Ryou shrugged, growing slightly uncomfortable with the praise. "I mean... I summon spirits. I've thought about worse-case scenario before. I was prepared, that's all."

"Prepared to fight a demon-god?" Touzokuo asked, from where he'd plunked down onto the couch. "Y'never would've needed to if you hadn't let me out, though."

"That wasn't an option!" Ryou said, surprised by his own insistence. Touzokuo, too, seemed mildly startled, and didn't argue.

"You," Atem said, pointing to the King of Thieves. "You don't leave this room. I don't want you snooping around my house."

Touzokuo held up his hands. "As the Pharaoh commands."

Atem scowled, but then turned and stalked into the kitchen. Yugi followed, leaving Ryou to shuffle over and sit—lightly—beside Touzokuo. He glanced over; met the Thief King's limpid gray gaze.

"Are you alright?" Ryou asked softly.

"I can hear myself think clearly for the first time in three thousand years," Touzokuo said, his voice warm. He smiled, and it wasn't an entirely nice expression—it was close, though, and Ryou felt himself soften.

"I'm so glad."

... ... ...

Two weeks after the incident, Ryou moved into a new apartment—the old one, for reasons that remained unknown to authorities, had been destroyed by a demonic entity. In those two weeks of investigations and paperwork and insurance claims, Yugi and Atem had been good enough to loan out their couch to him.

Ryou didn't miss his old apartment. It had always felt a bit empty, a bit dark, sadness hanging stagnant in the air. The new apartment felt alive.

"It'll be weird not sleep smushed together on that tiny lil' couch," the King of Thieves crooned, coming up behind Ryou. He wrapped his arms around Ryou's midsection and gave it a little squeeze. "I like having our own kitchen, though."

Ryou hummed in agreement, skewering a piece of beef and offering it over his shoulder. Touzokuo snapped his teeth down on the chopstick, then murmured with delight at the taste. He swallowed, then kissed Ryou on the cheek.

They shared supper at their dining room table, then retired to the bedroom. Though it wasn't as small as the couch in Atem and Yugi's apartment, the full-size bed was still cozy and intimate, and they cuddled together beneath the blankets.

"I love you, Ryou..." Touzokuo breathed, nuzzling into the crook of Ryou's neck.

Ryou laughed softly; kissed Touzokuo's forehead. "I love you, too. I'm so glad you found me."

Touzokuo scoffed. "Idiot... just... no Ouija boards in this house. Ever."

"Never," Ryou swore, and he meant it. There would be no need.

#gemshipping #ryou bakura #tkb #fanfic #fanfiction #ygo #yu-gi-oh #niao writes things

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deprough · 5 years

Text

Grief

I’m currently in therapy for grief counseling for Loris’s death. It turns out that not dealing with loss can mess people up, and it is more surprising because I thought I had dealt with it.

So my therapist recommends writing and since I can’t create fiction right now anyway, I’m going to do it. Here’s the deal though: I might only do this one, I might do a hundred, and they aren’t edited. I’m just writing, so they’ll be rough and repetitive.

If you’d like to grieve with me, feel free to join in. I’m sure Loris would like to know that we still miss her.

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

I have no idea why the youtube video “How #SavetheExpanse Saved the Expanse” made me cry. It’s about passion and love, and saving that love. Of learning it was going away, and fighting to keep it -- and winning that fight.

Wait, I think I answered my own question.

Thousands of people donated and tweeted and shouted into the dark lights of the internet, and in the end, something unique and amazing, something that people around the world loved, was saved. Of course that sparks something in my heart -- I’m a fan of the show.

But it wasn’t the story of saving the show that made me cry. It was the raw love shown by the fandom. That raw yearning and deep desire spoke to my heart. In the video, there is a shot of a weather balloon that lifted a model of the main ship in the show to the edge of space, and I cried.

My sister didn’t love space, or science fiction. She watched a few things like that, but she didn’t have a deep passion for it. But when I think of her, I think of love. My sister had so much love, just an astounding depth of pure caring for other people. When her husband left her and her friends bitched about him, she reminded them that he was God’s child, too. Even dealing with the pain and hate he threw at her, she responded with love, pure love.

I don’t match that love, and I don’t know that I will. I love humanity as a mass of flawed, beautiful, awful, amazing people, but Loris loved them. She prayed for them, hoped for them, and showed that love in her own way. When I think ‘unconditional love’, I think of my sister.

So when I see content about something amazing being given new life, I cry. I cry because I’ll never know if she thinks The Expanse was cool, if we could have watched it together. I cry because it’s beautiful. I cry because it reminds me that humans are strange and complex and astounding. I cry because my sister was the best of us, and nothing gave her new life here with us.

#savetheexpanse #loris #grief #writingistherapybutihatetypingthroughtears

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kierongillen · 6 years

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As i’ve seen this happen more than once, what goes through your mind when a big plot twist or piece of the puzzle gets unintentionally spoiled by the fans theorizing the future of the book? Does the rest of the story gets put on temporary hold to try to figure out how to write something new or is the story set in stone no matter what may happen? If someone were to spoil the ending of the entire book completely unintentionally and you were able to experience the reaction, will it change a thing?

Oh, god, no. Never change anything if someone’s guessed something. Nothing good lies in that direction.

Why?

Okay, let’s talk - with no specifics - Game of Thrones. If you go into the depths of fandom, Game of Thrones is - to some degree, in some areas - a solved problem. There’s a good selection of fan theories (some of which have come to fruition) which have so much meat on them it was clear they have to happen, or the book would break its structure and become unsatisfying.

These twists are available to anyone who wishes to google for them.

The vast majority of people don’t. So… why change the direction of the story? What’s the point of fucking over the enjoyment of the vast majority of people (i.e. making your story make less sense, as you’re abandoning the already existent thread) for playing gotcha on a tiny fraction of your audience?

(As a quick aside - compare and contrast theorising in a fanbase with actual events in the text that’s being adapted. Clearly, anyone who is watching GoT could have googled the synopsis of the book. Equally, anyone who’s read the books knows the big beats. Does the adaptation change the big beats? If surprise to everyone in your audience is all that mattered, you would. We don’t.)

It’s also worth noting that, while obviously some complain on the nature of the adaptation, most fans of a book generally complain that they wish it was more like the book. In other words, things that surprised them (i.e. differed from their knowledge of the text) were less satisfying. They wanted to see the big dramatic beats, even if they’re stripped of their surprise.

Surprise only matters the first time you read something. For me, any worthwhile piece of literature exists to be re-read, and will open up more upon re-reading. In other words, knowing the twist should add to the re-reading of the book. If it doesn’t, and renders the story less than it was, it’s probably a bad twist - which is one reason why I don’t tend to call them “Plot twists” to myself. I call them reveals. The plot doesn’t contort. It’s merely revealing something in the nature of the world the reader was unaware of.

(As an aside, this means that someone who has guessed successful the direction of the plot is actually effectively skipping to their second read of the book earlier.)

There’s the other side of this as well - not just whether a plot beat has been guessed, but the almost inevitability of a plot beat being guessed. GoT fans have had twenty years to puzzle this out. In that period, a mass communication device emerged which allowed fans to talk to one another and share ideas. This machine would have torn apart any plot.

No one individual needs to guess anything. People can make one step in a chain, and then that step is exposed to thousands of minds. If even one of them can make the intuitive leap to the next step, then it continues. No one person needs to be clever enough to see the whole thing. The internet hivemind is Miss Marple, seeing through the most contorted of machinations.

(In passing, this is one reason why Alternate Reality Games are hard to do, because the mass hive mind will figure almost anything out, almost instantly. Equally in passing, the failure to understand this is another reason why Ready Player One is bad, but that’s irrelevant.)

In other words, the reason why twists are guessable is the same reason they are satisfying. A twist that isn’t foreshadowed sufficiently to give the possibility of being guessed by someone is not a satisfying twist, as it - by definition - came out of nowhere.

To make this specific to my own work. In the case of the biggest and most intricate of my current books, WicDiv, we sell about 18k in monthlies and sell 18k in trades (in the first month of release). That’s our hardcore devoted readership. How many people of them actually read the essays in the WicDiv tags? I’d say 500 at the absolute maximum, and likely a lot less. So for a maximum of 1.3% of our readership, we’d derail a still effective twist for everyone else? No, that would be a bad call.

Especially - and this is key - the people who have chosen to engage with a fandom are aware that they may figure something out. They are trying to figure something out. Why take that pleasure away from them?

In a real way, I think, in long form narrative, pure plot twists which no-one in the world guesses are dead in the Internet age, at least when dealing with any even vaguely popular work of art. You can do them in short form narratives (like a single novel, a single movie and perhaps a streaming TV show they drop in one go) but for anything where you give a fanbase the chance to think, it’s just not going to happen. A creator should be glad their work is popular enough to have enough fans to figure it out.

Yes, I may have overthought this.

But that’s only half the question.

How do I actually feel when someone guesses something that’s going to happen? Well, this is long enough already. Let’s put the personal stuff beneath a cut…

I’d say you sigh “Oh, poop”and shrug.

And then you get over your ass, because you know all the above is true. Writers are often meglomaniacs who think they can control everyone’s response to their work. We don’t. We can’t control everything. We can barely control anything. We really have to let go. I’ve said WicDiv is a device to help me improve as a person? It would include in this area. I have to learn to let it go, and internalise all of the above. If I can make most of my readership have the vague emotional response I’m looking for, I’m winning.

I’ve mostly succeeded at this. I’m certainly better than I was 2 years ago.

(’ll probably write more about spoilers and twists and stuff down the line. I’d note that setting up twists that *are* easily guessable by the hardcore is part of the methodology. Having a nice big twist foreshadowed heavily is a good way to hide another twist behind it. “Hey - pay attention to this less subtle sleight of hand while I perform the actual sleight of hand over here.”In which case, there’s far less of an Oh Poop response and more of a cackling evil mastermind response.)

The sigh can occasionally be accompanied with a “Hmm. I wouldn’t have posted that” or - more likely - “I wouldn’t have posted that THERE.”

To stress, what follows, isn’t about my work per se, but culture generally, and very much personal. This is stuff which good friends disagree with me on.

As a fan, I never tweet my own fan theories. I only tweet joke ones. Even my crack theories I don’t tweet, as they’re normally so bizarre that if they actually DO happen, I wouldn’t want to take the thrill away from people. Even in person in conversation I make sure we’re going into a deep fan hole before sharing them, aware that they may be true.

In a real way, the more likely I think something is true, the less likely I’ll say it. As this is my job, I tend to see basic structural ways stories are heading way in advance of most people. I’m a composer. I know how music works. You have a vague sense of what way they’ll go.

(One day I’ll write down my crack theory for the end of the previous Game of Thrones season. Maybe after next season, as it’s not impossible that they may end up doing it, though it’s increasingly unlikely.)

If I had a really good theory I’ve gathered evidence for? You can guarantee I’d put it beneath a cut. That’s the stuff which bemuses me. It’s a cousin of posting major spoilers about any piece of culture the day it comes. The worst is one regular twitter trope - I’m always bemused when people do a “Calling it! XYZ will happen” tweet. Which strikes me a little like standing up in the cinema 20 minutes into a film and shouting out that you’ve guessed the ending. This ties back to the stuff I wrote above about twists being less effective in the modern age, except in a place you can control the context and conversation. People may message in movies, but they rarely message everyone in the room.

(In passing, as it’s vaguely on topic - you may remember the research from a few years ago saying people who know a twist enjoy the story more than people who don’t know a twist. Even this is true - and a single study should always get an eye-brow raise - but it strikes me as a confusion over what “enjoy” means. All pleasure isn’t equivalent, and you can only have surprise on your first time through a work of art. That’s novelty. You can have that and then gain the “Not surprise” experience second time through. If you spoil a work, it means the “novelty” experience is something you will never have. You may enjoy something more if you know the twist but you can always rewatch it to get that pleasure. If you’re spoiled, the individual specific pleasure of that first watch has been stolen.)

But that’s conversation of social mores. Really, it doesn’t change anything in terms of how we act… and sometimes, I even grin when someone gets a twist in advance. If someone gets it, great. The machine is working as intended. It’s actually kind of worrying if no-one is thinking something is up in an area you’ve set up to be iffy. And… the alternative is worse - hell, there’s buried twists and details in Young Avengers that no-one’s managed to figure out yet.

Twist ending: oh, no, I was a ghost all along.

#writer advice #WicDiv #Journey Into Mystery #young avengers

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skittidyne · 6 years

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tagged by @lethesomething! thanks darling

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

hahaha. i’ve been stuck with “skitty” as a name since 05, but i went from “digital skitty” to “skittidyne” when i made the jump to tumblr. i wanted something that wasn’t my “professional” name, but could still be skitty-ish, and so i decided to throw some persona into the mix, because that’s how i be.

“skitty” is a pokemon and the “-dyne” suffix is the highest tier of attack spell in the persona series. and it looked better with an i rather than a y. so i guess i’m the highest tier of skitty spell!

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

pedestal hands down. (bbac isn’t even half as popular by any of those categories.)

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

it’s ryoji from persona 3! i chose it because... i love ryoji... even when i was drawing regularly, i rarely used my own art as my icons anywhere, except dA or actual art-hosting sites.

4. Do you have any regular/favourite commenters?

oh god i know i’m going to leave people out, and I LOVE YOU ALL, but beechichi liveblogs shit to me on twitter, curiouslylazy leaves me comments longer than chapters, greatdanesandpandas leaves me amazing capslocked comments across several of my stories, haruhi02 and rd both leave AMAZING liveblog type comments on bbac, and unexpectedly but delightfully like every commenter on the kamafuta fake dating story is like, so kind and nice. (upside to writing a rarepair!)

but i love all of my commenters and there are LOTS i’m missing here and trust me i do notice who comments regularly and across several stories ;;

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

ghost story, character development, sayuri, a heart swelled to bursting, settling down, the thirty-six stratagems of wáng jìngzé ... a lot of smut fics... (a lot of smut fics)

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

211 subscribed to, and 112 bookmarks on ao3! 88 bookmarks on ff.net.

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

i mean. bbac, i guess. i like things with a magical slant, but i don’t ever stick around the exact same universe for multiple stories?

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

285 subscriptions to me, idk how to check how many are bookmarked to me? can you bookmark authors on ao3? 727 subscribed & 1043 faved on ff.net though.

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!)

hmm. i’d love to write a mafia/yakuza au one day, but i’m not sure i’m afraid of ppl judging me. i think i just don’t want to do that much research. i’d also love to write a sugaring au one day, if only out of PURE BITTERNESS, but that’s a lot of smut to write, and i’m afraid i’d probably start fights in the comments section.

there’s not a lot i’m more scared of writing compared to other things, i guess.

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

commenting! leaving comments would be nice. truthfully, i’d like to work on my personal self-discipline when it comes to writing and getting things done, even though my output is pretty high imo. also, i guess romance writing.

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

uhhhhhh. i never purposefully do either, and in naruto fandom i spent some time in rarepair hell, and apparently kamafuta is a fuckin rarepair so i’m again sitting in that lonely little boat, but i also tend toward more popular ships in hq fandom, at least. both? probably popular ships?

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

27 on ao3!

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

uhhhhhhhhhhhhh. if we’re going to get technical about it...

counting side story collections as 1 “story”, i got:

61 on googledocs, 16 more on my harddrive.

i don’t want to meet anyone’s eye right now

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

i ABSOLUTELY keep them in my head. if i start writing ANYTHING down, even if it’s notes or title ideas or character ideas, i know i’ve already lost the war, and i’m committed to writing something.

15. Have you ever co-authored a story?

yep! oh it puts the heart in my chest on wings was with the amazing @h-lovely and where the wild things go was with the lovely @kaiyouchan!

also, technically @tarotdactyl is listed as a co-author on operation: poison tree frog, because it’s his fault, but i’m technically the one doing all of the writing for it. for some reason

16. How did you discover AO3?

i mean, i was on lj and ff.net. things migrated. i don’t remember specifically how it happened.

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

shrug emoji... i suppose i am? i think i still am in pokemon fandom, i know i’m not in naruto fandom, and i don’t even know anymore in hq fandom. (i guess only hq fandom matters on ao3)

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

skittens!!

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

@avoidingavoidance and @silvercistern are #writing goals, and while she’s only just writing now herself, my mother has always been a devoted supporter of my writing. past that, it was just reader feedback that kept me goin’ onward.

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

KEEP WITH IT. COMMIT TO YOUR IDEA. there is no such thing as a bad idea, and even “bad” ideas, if committed to, can turn into FANTASTIC stories/characters/arcs. absolutely keep going, no matter what.

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

both, haha. i’m trying to get outlines more and more these days, mostly because i guess i’m working with others and for some reason they can’t read my mind. hm.

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

dude, i was in the pokemon fandom when farla was still around.

yeah, i’ve gotten things that could be considered “flames”. i’ve accidentally started a ship war, and i’ve gotten nasty shipping-related comments on stories, too. hell, i’ve fought with readers over that sort of thing before.

i’ve also had rude commenters, commenters who probably just didn’t know any better, and commenters who missed the point so badly i had to go scream into a pillow. it happens.

for the most part, i try to respond to comments/reviews, because that’s how i was raised on the internet. i try to be polite and pleasant these days, but i’ll put my foot down. i try not to be rude or mean, though.

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

smut. it’s always goddamn smut.

romance in general, though. i’m good with the emotional intimacy and casual physical intimacy, but half the time i end up with more of that between the best friend characters than the ships, so... i dunno. i’d like to be more comfortable writing romance, up to and DEFINITELY including smut.

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

bbac, political intrigue, magical girl au, fake dating au, and a couple of random oneshots.

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

look, i ain’t happy if i’m not juggling projects. so i guess that’s a given.

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

only during nanowrimo! some days, i don’t write a word, and other days, i’m easily in the thousands. i’m content with either, because i can only force it so often.

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

absolutely. even when it feels like i’m stagnating with that dreaded 67-75% of the story completed zone, i know every word i write betters me as an author.

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

oh man, that’s so hard... mostly, that comes down less to emotion, and more to “what was easiest for me to write”...

maybe pedestal. but maybe only because i’ve been feeling nostalgic lately, and it’s easy to love a story once it’s completed.

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

haha i don’t want to say

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

finishing bbac

completed trilogy & completed standalone original novels completed, probably in a new fandom, probably agonizing over yet another 500k novel fanfic

31. What is the easiest thing about writing?

momentum!! god, when you have it, EVERYTHING IS AWESOME

32. What is the hardest thing about writing?

trying to keep momentum... actually, probably, forcing yourself through a scene you KNOW has to get done and you even know what happens in it, but it’s just not happening. bleh.

33. Why do you write?

for the attention and monetary gain (๑꒪▿꒪)*

nah, it’s to share stories with people. i like ideas, i like turning ideas into bigger ideas, and i like people’s reactions to those ideas. it’s like friendship sharing except i don’t have to be social! <3

i’m not tagging anyone directly but if you are an author type and like being tagged then grab this UP!

#tagged meme #this was really fun

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arielmagicesi · 7 years

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Hi, sorry. So I am new to the st/efvater world, and I've only read one of her books (raven boys), and like I see you posting stuff about her a lot, but only like little bits and pieces, and I feel like I'm missing something and don't understand what's going on cause I'm not really in the fandom; I've just read one book, and don't really know anything about her. I'm sorry, this is rambling mess, but if you could enlighten me a little bit I would appreciate it.

OK I took a while to respond and I’m gonna try to be objective and polite but there isn’t a whole lot of objective politeness in this soul of mine, but I will try.

Maggie St/efvater (I only spell it that way so it doesn’t show up in her tag and annoy people, I’ll just call her Maggie for the rest of this post) is this fairly popular YA author, and she wrote the Wolves of Mercy Falls series, the Scorpio Races, and the Raven Cycle. Her writing is very good (I have some bones to pick about it as a writer but mostly it’s pretty good) and the Raven Cycle in particular has gained a big fandom because it’s an excellent series. I guess you would know cause you’ve read TRB- the concept is unique, it has cool magic stuff, there’s fascinating character concepts, and the teenagers do a lot of realistic teenager stuff like being annoying and cursing and either doing their homework or not, etc. And if I haven’t made it abundantly clear with my posts, a lot of us in the fandom fell in love with the main characters for many reasons, but especially because they represent parts of ourselves that aren’t often represented. Abuse victims who don’t react in a Good Abuse Victim way, poor teenagers who scrape and claw to get out of their shitty towns, mentally ill kids who have ugly unpleasant symptoms, girls who are feminists but whose feminism is a little messy because they grow up in a terrible small town, etc.

Unfortunately, the development of the Raven Cycle fandom online, like the development of ANY goddamn fandom on the accursed Internet, led to some gross pockets of fandom. In the second book, an abusive character called Ka/vinsky shows up, and some heavy subtext suggests that he’s gay and into one of the main characters, Ronan. He’s absolutely awful and monstrous to Ronan and the others, but you know how fandom is, they started shipping it and being like “Ka/vinsky’s just a misunderstood cinnamon roll uwu” and generally being the worst about it. Additionally, some parts of fandom started hating on the two lower-class characters, Adam and Blue, for not always being sweet and nice about the class privilege of all their wealthy friends, and for reacting "badly” to literal abuse and sexism. so the fandom is a mess, yeah

In the second and third books, also, (spoiler alert I guess? I mean if you follow my blog you can’t avoid knowing this haha) it’s suggested and then made all but direct canon, that Ronan is gay and has a crush on Adam. So, like, everyone shipped it because they’re a great ship and it was pretty obvious it was gonna be made canon in book four.

But Maggie interacts a lot with the fandom online, and obviously the clashing of fandom issues like this with any author would lead to some mess, but the way she treated it was....... terrible. She would make jokes about Ronan being Gansey’s “dog” and things like that. She milked the whole “writing a gay character” thing for all it was worth, and would never really say “hey, Adam and Ronan are a romantic thing” but would hint at it constantly, which, if you don’t know, is agonizing to watch when you’re desperate for any representation of your identity. She eventually said “I realize you guys are used to being baited, so don’t worry, the ‘other kiss’ will be between the people you hope it’ll be between” or something like that. And she would talk about Ronan being gay, but never address whether Adam was bi, and god forbid those words were used in the books. In the fourth book, although they do actually kiss and presumably get together, they don’t talk about it, and they never use the words “gay” or “bisexual.” Her excuse was that she’s writing for a world without labels. Leaving aside that that’s bullshit and a straight* woman doesn’t get to say that when we are out here in a homophobic world and saying our labels out loud is a sign of pride, she actually didn’t write a world without labels. The aforementioned Ka/vinsky is constantly using homophobic slurs to describe Ronan, boys at the private school make homophobic jokes, Adam’s dad makes lowkey homophobic remarks, etc. So labels are OK if they’re nasty and negative and used against you, but you’re never allowed to say who you are out loud.

When she gets called out on this whole mess- or a number of other things**- her response is to block people, tell people “if you are hostile one more time you’ll be blocked,” to reply to private posts by teenagers, to sic her army of clueless fans on young LGBT mentally ill readers, to claim that she’s being bullied and attacked, to make vague posts talking about “callout culture” and how it’s mature to avoid “discourse,” etc. I talked a while back about how I’ve made several fully thought-out posts critiquing her, but when I sent her a polite ask about her next book, she replied linking me to one of my own joke posts about “hating” her, making it clear that she apparently has me down on some sort of list of haters or something. And at least she responded privately, so that her other fans didn’t attack me, which has happened to other younger fans before.

She claims to be an ally, but she only really wants the ally points. She’ll talk your ear off about how brave she is for “writing an on-page queer relationship” as a straight woman, but when actual queer teenagers critique her for the way she writes it, she throws a fit and absolutely refuses to listen. She doesn’t want to do the work.

Additionally, she is writing a follow-up series called “the dreamer trilogy” which she drops constant hints about on her social media. It will center on Ronan (naturally, because she’s admitted Ronan is her self-insert and has butchered his character development for the sake of giving him a life identical to hers and fulfilling her fantasies of driving fast cars 24/7 and being an asshole with no consequences) and she’s making it increasingly obvious that none of the other characters we all fell in love with will feature at all. And basically any plotllines we enjoyed, she scraps (often out of spite?), and any plotlines we hate, she makes sure to write tons about (I’m talking about the magical artifact community. No one cares. We started reading for the house of psychics and Glendower and Gwenllian, not the fucking Greenmantles and their haunted doll babies or whatever).

The fandom obviously responded with like “ooh! more Pynch!” because like, fandoms like ships, but ALSO BECAUSE some of us are goddamn LGBT teenagers who are starving for representation and we want to see that “on page queer relationship” she brags about. And yet, at every opportunity, she makes remarks like, “This won’t be a romance. It won’t be the cuddle trilogy. It won’t have relationship drama, that doesn’t interest me. It won’t be fanservice. It won’t be lovey dovey, it won’t be cute, etc.” No, I don’t want fanservice or drama or the cuddle trilogy. But given her history, when Maggie says shit like that, I get worried, as someone who’s been baited a thousand times before. Doesn’t anyone see how awful it is to dangle representation like this? To say “ooh, look, someone who has the same identity as you? Juuuust kidding I’m not writing about it?” She can’t just say what we want to hear, which is “Adam will be there. I’ll say the word gay. I’ll say the word bisexual. Their relationship will be treated as real as Blue and Gansey’s or as any other relationship I write. Not the main focus of the plot, but THERE.” Because she’s not GOING to do any of those things, because writing actual gay relationships makes her uncomfortable. But she can’t say that or she’ll lose her sales.

And when she says all this bullshit about “I won’t write a romance” she gets so much FUCKING praise from her straight readers who think she’s the sun and fucking stars because their shit brand of feminism thinks all romances are equal and romance is insipid drivel and that a feminist book, apparently, is one token white girl who has a pink switchblade being sort-of in the background of a bunch of rich boys fucking around. I’m not saying I didn’t like that very book and that I don’t love that girl and her switchblade, but Maggie has to actually LEARN and IMPROVE and not go backwards. If she wants all this credit for gay representation, she has to actually write gay representation. And if not, I’m not congratulating her for “not writing relationship drama!!!!” because all that says to me is “yuck, I’m not writing gay stuff.” She says “relationship drama doesn’t interest me” and yet she wrote pages upon pages of Blue’s mother making out with a hit man. Relationship drama sure does seem to interest her. This isn’t her taking a Stand against romance, it’s her finding a way to make homophobia seem cool and progressive.

So yeah. That’s why she pisses me off.

*I know I know, “she’s never said her sexuality! How can you call her straight?” On the off chance she’s bisexual (she’s married to a man with kids), that doesn’t excuse her homophobic bullshit. She’s acting like an asshole straight person so yeah I’m gonna call her straight.

**Here are some other problems she’s been called out for and her bullshit reactions:

-Blue is basically the only female character and has no female friends or anything. Maggie says “well none of them had friends!” OK so why isn’t there another girl in the group? Why is her family the only other women who have page time besides villains and other relatives of main characters?

-Gansey gives Adam a lot of grief for not being fond of Gansey’s wealth, but Adam never makes Gansey apologize for blaming Adam for the abuse he endured? Maggie doesn’t have a comment on this, I don’t think.

-In book four, Ronan and Adam make racist jokes at the expense of the One (1) character of color, Henry Cheng. Maggie didn’t address this outright because “spoilers” but made a post about it saying that it wasn’t meant to be a racist joke, it was a throwback to some random joke from book one, and any good reader would know that.

-Blue isn’t a very intersectional feminist, which is fine, but it’s never really addressed, apparently because “all the characters are damn fools!” Who never get any character development except for Adam whose development essentially consists of “I stopped being prejudiced against the rich!” (and lots of other personal things but still)

Yeah, that’s about all I can think of. This didn’t end up being very neutral but I have class in 10 minutes and yeah this is hella long I just wanted to get it all out. I hope I don’t get shit for this, but you know what, anons? Go ahead, send me stuff saying I’m a nasty bitch and should stay away from fandom for criticizing poor Maggie. I don’t even care.

OH AND THEBROKENBREAKINGSEAS: THANK YOU FOR YOUR QUESTION. I know I answered in a horrifically mean tone but that ISN’T directed towards you, you were just asking! Don’t take my words at face value, I’m super biased. If you’re interested, you can go read Maggie’s blog and Twitter account, or other fans’ essays on this, etc. I’m glad you asked! And thanks for still following me after all this stuff haha. I’m normally... nicer? I think? Thanks again.

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lia-snow · 7 years

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My 10 Fave Babes of All Time

Tagged by @faecakes. Thanks! (I loved your selection btw~).

I think I did this one a while ago but I took the chance to make this my first drawings of the year :pp to start warming up again ww. These are in no particular order.

1. Horokeu Usui (HoroHoro) / Shaman King.

Horo was probably my first masive 2D crush. I obsessed over him like a psycho lol. I learned every single little thing about him (and I mean trivial stuff like... the exact numbre of frame, page and volume for his first appearance xd), the meaning of his name, the name of his techniques (which were in Ainu). Oh, and also, SEIYUUS! Horo started my obsession with making seiyuu connections x) (I was never really fan of Ueda Yuuji, tho). And I really admired Horo... I felt he was like my soulmate, my perfect husbando. So, based on priority right, he should be like my #1 bae :')

2. Hinata Hideki / Angel Beats! & Kuga Aki / Kamisama Dolls.

I'm putting them together because they're both special characters to me for the same reason: I knew Kimura Ryouhei because of them, and I loved him from the very beginning. Coincidentally, I started watching Angel Beats and Kamisama Dolls at the same time, and the contrast between these two characters, voiced by the same seiyuu, made me fall in love completely. They're both so different. Hinata is a bright, loyal, energetic boy while Aki is this manipulative, rude, meticulous, violent guy (though he's also super calm and indifferent about certain things). Hinata had me loving his voice changes whenever he was put into ridiculous and funny situations while Aki got me melting becasue of his manic laugh. I love Hinata & Aki both as characters, not just because of Kimura, but they're the perfect examples of why KimuRyou is my fav seiyuu <3 <3

3. Kise Ryouta / Kuroko no Basket.

Oh boy..... my love for this man burns like a thousand suns bursting, ISTG. He's too pure too good to pretty too shiny too precious for this world. Ok, I admit... Kimura Ryouhei is partly at fault here lol. Kise actually reminded me a lot of Hinata and I liked him from the start too, but soon I started loving every single little thing about him. He's introduced a little as an arrogant dude but soon enough comes to change after his loss against Seirin (I loved it when he cried sddsffg). He's like the cheerful, carefree member of the group, but he also shows so much determination, strength, and even selfishness. But I really think he's the most admirable of the Generation of Miracles. And he's so pretty I wanna cry everytime I see him, sob.

4. Judal / Magi.

Yes, the Kimura Ryouhei syndrome continues... but I swear it's coincidence(?). Judal caught my eye since I saw him in the opening (that sequence when he's falling, grabs a white rukh and turns it black it's mesmerizing), but when he was finally introduced in the show, I WAS DOOMED FOREVER. Goddamn, I loved his personality. Even if he's a little bit of a psycho, I loved his childish arrogant attitude. He's like my twisted son ♥ Except... not really a son, because... he makes me feel things 6//6 (???). Aahaahgsdjhk yes yes ok, I love his design, really, L O V E I T ♥ ♥. His long braid, those beautiful ringed eyes, the makeup on them, the necklace and bracelets, that crop top, those abs, DAT WAISTLINE aksjdhjkashdkjhgasgasd ⁄(⁄ ⁄ ⁄ Д ⁄ ⁄ ⁄)⁄ He needs his own manga, there's just never enough Judal in my life.

5. Nozaki Umetarou / Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun.

I've said this before, but it me. Nozaki is me, I am Nozaki (except I'm not tall and handsome lol). Looks cold, mostly serious, suuupr dense in some subjects (specially about love and romance), zero experience in love... but somehow still makes love stories! His shoujo manga is terrible haha but he's surprisingly popular as mangaka in spite of that x) I bet if I were to draw a manga it would be as ridiculous as his (or if my comics serve as an example... well, there ww). He has this stoic aspect, but he makes the most idiotic faces when he gets excited too~ I think Nozaki is more socially skilled than me but we're both awkward anymway(?) xD. He's my spirit animal ♥

6. Netherlands & Finland / Hetalia.

Ah, my time in the Hetalia fandom... feels so distant :') Italy was my fav at first but then I started roleplaying Fin (the first chara I ever roleplayed) and my love for him kept growing from there. He was just too adorbs <3 I got to know a lot of super nice people, both on the internet and irl, because of him. Also, back then I listened to lot of metal music, and I always pictured Fin as a secret metalhead xD And then Netherlands... I don't remember exactly how I started liking him, I remember they released the chara design, stuff happened, and then there I was cosplaying the dude. Hahaha ah, even though I loved Fin, I couldn't identify with him cause he's super cute, happy and lovable; but Netherlands was more like me~ Stoic, cold, tsundere. Over time, Netherlands became my favorite over Fin, but they're both special.

7. Furukawa Nagisa / CLANNAD.

My precious child. The purest girl ever created. A National treasure, istg. She's not the type of female characters that I usually like, but somehow she got me from the start. She's too adorable, sweet, innocent and good. She's just too good!!!!!!! She's always caring for others, always supportive of her friends, and tries her best even though she's phisically weak and lacks confidence. She's so strong and admirable, she makes my heart melt. CLANNAD made me cry rivers and hit me hard when... well, when After Story happened. She's the type of character that I want to protect from all evil. I also LOVED Nakahara Mai's performance as Nagisa, btw. I kept watching her scenes over and over just to listen to the cutest voice akjshd <3 I really love this child ;//;

8. Licht Jekylland Todoroki & Lawless / Servamp.

Well, as you would expect x) It's probably obvious that I love them both so hard. And I want to clear up for the records that it's not just because I love them together, or the homo hints flying all over the place between them. I love them both as separated characters. I really admire Licht. His resolution, his unbreakable spirit, his attitude, the hard worker he is, his strength, his pure innocence about the things he loves, his vision, his badassness, his frankness, his creativity... He's a gem, the type of person I could never be :') ALSO, HE'S HOT AF. Lawless is so beautiful. He deserves the universe. I feel him more in a spirital way. How he lost faith in everything, how meaningless lives seemed to him, the vicious cycle he was in. But the fact he's able to change that (with Licht's help) is truly touching and praiseworthy. He made a deep impression in me. Ah, and of course, his flamboyant personality! He's such a dork ahah xD I love his nerdy side, his energy, even his bragging. And the fact that he can literally go from hotdamn vampire to cute hedgy in no time is amazing xD ♥ Also, his voice.... yeah, you know this by this point, but the fact he's voiced by Kimura Ryouhei makes him even more perfect than he already was (everytime I listen to the Drama CDs, I literally have to go back and listen to his lines again because kjahsdjkg perfection in my ears). So yeah, I love my boys ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

9. Morgiana / Magi.

Ah, Morgiana ♥ ♥ The ultimate example of the type of female character that I like. She's strong, kind, determined, tough, has a strong sense of justce, needs no one to do shit for her, BUT she's not arrogant, aggresive or extravagant herself. She's quite, starightforward and helpful. But she's also soooo adorable and cute!! The way she puffs up her cheeks when she's mad, her smile, the little tears on her eyes when he was encouraged by Hakuryuu, her happy face, the way she dances around wearing that exotic outfit... man she is gorgeous, she's amazing, she's a goddess. And dem kicks, THE KIIICCCKKKS, god she's a BADASS. She seriously became like a prototype of my perfect gurl. No kidding, after her, everytime there's a badass fem chara that I like, I call her "a Morgiana". And I know she's probs being "controlled" by Sinbad in the manga right now, but I cried when she said she has come to love herself because of all the time she's been with Alibaba. I'M SO PROUD OF HER <//333

10. Special mention to: EVERY KIMURA RYOUHEI CHARACTER.

Agh, I just.... it's amazing how without a miss, characters voiced by Kimura always become my favourite. I always love them, for one reason or another. I mean, I have other seiyuus I love too (Kaji Yuki, Nakamura Yuuichi, Ishikawa Kaito, Sugita Tomokazu, Kamiyan....), but I don't always like their characters. But with Kimura, I ALWAYS do. I don't know all of his roles, obviously, but here's some that I absolutely love:

- Special mention 2: Jorah Mormont, Eddard Stark, Jon Snow. Because I love GoT, and these are my favs, but I can't draw real people ww.

I’m tagging @pastenaga, @stars-glow-for-you, @adeslowmoqueen, @rhomilch & @reimeijennoir~ Feel free to do it if you want uvu/ Don’t worry guys, you don’t have to draw the charas to do this www Actually, you don’t have to write anything about them either lol my hand slipped(?)

#Personal note #meme #long post #sorry about that #didn't feel like putting everything under the Read More tag #tl;dr #horohoro #hinata hideki #kuga aki #etc....(?)

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wolfenm · 4 years

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The Problems with Reposting

Recently someone reposted my work -- as in, downloaded it and then posted it from their computer -- on their Insta and their Twitter. I politely but firmly pointed out that they did not have my permission, that they really should reblog / retweet an artist’s work rather than repost, and asked them to take it down. They BLOCKED me without responding on Twitter. I THINK they took it down from Insta, but I'm not 100% sure it’s *their* gallery that I'm seeing (which would mean they didn’t block me there), or one with a similar name and theme, because the one I saw before had less images. Anyway, I'm betting they did indeed remove it.

To their credit, they DID @ me on both posts, which I do appreciate. I know what some of you are thinking: Wolfie, that’s like a link, and you’re getting exposure -- why are you still upset? Except it’s really not.

Keep in mind that I am not some mega-corporation -- I don't have a huge following, I don't make tons of money (practically none, really -- I do it mostly for the joy), and my work is not instantly recognisable (although, really, if a famous artist posts their work, you should hit that reblog / retweet / share button in those cases, too). And for those who are thinking, “well, posting on the internet means you give up your rights” -- NO. That is 100% false. Read these:

https://sarafhawkins.com/copyright-online-photo-etiquette/

https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/faqs/copyright-protection/

https://about.deviantart.com/policy/copyright/

Here are some of the problems with reposting instead of reblogging/etc.

1) With it reposted in someone else’s space, if I want or need to change or even take the work down ... I can’t, because I don't have access to their account.

2) It adds a level of distance between the artists and the work, with dangerous potential for further separation. Even if the one who reposted gives the link to the artists’ site, that doesn’t guarantee that someone who then takes it from THEM will share that credit.

Once, someone took an image of my Grootmas tree, stripped my credit from the photo, and posted it on their page, saying nothing about who it was by, so as far as anyone knew, they had made it. It was shared by over a thousand people before I learned about it. I contacted the poster, and he laughed and said “You didn't make it -- it’s not yours.”) So I showed him the original, with my credit still on it (meaning it had the part of the photo that his version was missing, not just the credit) -- and he insisted that proved nothing. So I took a pic of myself with Grootmas, with a sign saying who I was. *Finally*, he conceded and took the post down, but those people who reposted it would never know who really made it.

3) Too many people only link to the parent page of the artist, not the display page of the image. For artists like myself who post on DeviantArt, if a person does actually follow the link (many do not!), they then have to hunt for the image in the gallery -- if they don't find it, we don't get the pageviews. That makes it a lot harder to judge the success of a work, because we're not aware that people are even seeing it in those cases.

4) Not everyone who sees a repost speaks the same language as the reposter. This means they may not get that the reposter isn’t the originator, and is crediting someone else in the description, rather than just tagging a friend they want to show the work to, or a client who paid for a commission, etc -- context is lost.

5) Sometimes those credits get lost by the way the social media site displays on certain devices -- people may not see the actual credit at all, as it gets hidden behind a “see more” link.

6) It’s basically stealing “likes”. I mean, if someone reblogs my work, MY numbers go up, and helps my work to be seen more. It’s pretty much the same at Twitter. But if someone ELSE posts it directly to their social media, as a separate post not connected to me, it’s only THEIR numbers that go up, THEIR exposure that increases, not mine.

Putting a lot of work into something, only to see someone else get more recognition for it than myself, doesn't exactly encourage me to make more art, ya know? If you like an indie artist’s work, SUPPORT THEM, in the best way possible: share THEIR posts. Don't take control of their work out of their hands. If you want to use it for something outside of just a simple post, GET PERMISSION.

Once, some fanzine informed me, *after* the fact, that they had used art of mine in a post of theirs, but added that they would take it down if I wanted them to. Let me say right now that, even if I had been okay with the post it was included in, I still would have been hella annoyed that it they hadn't asked permission FIRST. As it was, I was even more upset when I discovered HOW it was used: it was art of Harry and Petunia that I had done for a fanfic of mine, and they were using it as a header for a ficrec of someone ELSE’S fanfic. (Seriously?? They used my work for my story to celebrate someone *else’s* story?? HOW could that be anything but rude??) At any rate, I saw on their site that you have to fill out a form to opt *out* of your stuff being used!! Outraged, I pointed out that inclusion in their zine should be opt-IN, not opt-OUT ... and they replied that it would take too long then for them to gather content, so they wouldn't be able to share artists’ works with the world, framing it like they were doing people a favour and we should be grateful, even if we never asked them to do it.

Don't be like that, please. You aren't loving the artists when you act like this; you’re acting entitled and using them for your own benefit.

I know, I know, “Wolfie, you hypocrite, you do fanworks! You aren't getting permission from the original artists!” Putting aside that I tend to gravitate more towards creators who welcome and encourage fanworks than ones who don’t .... you're right, and I entirely understand if you lump me in with the very people I'm complaining about. Any justifications I make are, in the end, me rationalising and excusing, whether I’m right or not.

So what are my justifications? I'm remixing hella well-known works, often owned by corporations (ones that I likely have given more than a little money to). I'm taking something that has become part of the fabric of our society, a touchstone, and participating in the conversations about it. I’m sharing my own thoughts about the stories by framing those thoughts in the form of new stories -- save for occasional quotes, I'm not sharing the actual original text. I give credit to the originators. When I do portraits, I typically use promo art, and often compile multiple images and otherwise put my own spin in things. My brain forms the words that my versions of the characters speak, and the actions they do, and my hands lay down the lines. (And I don't sell the fanworks, but that’s a whole other discussion.)

I don't make gifs, but yes, I do share them -- these soundless, quick scenes that are used on the internet as a form of conversation, as well as a means to study, re-experience, and share favourite moments of a show. They’re no substitution for the real thing, In fact, I have started watching shows BECAUSE of gifsets! (And showrunners aren’t, unlike me, ever going to need or want to take down old versions -- presumably they have put forward the best version they ever expect to do. Once a work is distributed en masse, that ship has sailed.)

There is no risk whatsoever of anyone mistaking me as the creator of the franchises I make fanworks for. Everyone knows where to find the source material. Everyone SHOULD be smart enough to understand that the originators are not actually participants in fanworks; if the reader / viewer doesn't like something, they should know not to hold the originators responsible for what a fan does with their characters (and if they aren’t smart enough, gods help us; we’re doomed).

(Also, if I know that a creator has forbidden fanfic, I *respect that and don’t do it*. And as I said, some of the fandoms I indulge in have even actively welcomed fanworks, rather than simply turning a blind eye. Like, Sony sent me a bunch of stuff for being “Fanartist of the Month" for October of 2004 on their Spider-Man website, and my Iron Man / Tony Stark painting ranked #1 for a while on the movie site for the first film, and James Gunn shared my Grootmas -- yes, he reposted, but I let the content-originators slide on that point. Hell, Warner Bros actually had a fanfic thread on their Harry Potter website years ago, Rowling having given her blessing, and had files for fans to use to make fansite graphics ....)

#mine #fandom #essay #fandom issues #artists on tumblr #creators #creator issues #social media #social media issues #fandom etiquette #reposting #reblogging #retweeting #2020

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fey-and-sudden-and-unholy · 6 years

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Random Survey 1.

1. Do you have a nice yard? If so, do you spend a lot of time outside in it? If not, where do you go when you want to relax outdoors on nice days?

The new house did come with a yard, yes. I don’t think the previous owners really knew what to do with it, though, as it’s pretty bare. I’ve got plans for it, this spring, though! We’re getting rid of the evergreen that had been planted right next to the garage, because that’s a dumb place to put a tree. We have a huge side yard, so I want to plant a new one, there. Maybe a cedar. I dig cedars. I also want to plant lavender in the back yard, and maybe fox gloves, and put a smol gazebo-thing for a place to sit. The roomies will have to clean it out a bit, though, as it’s currently full of their puppy’s poo, and I don’t fancy kneeling and digging around in it, when the time comes.

2. Is there a group of friends that you used to hang out with but no longer do? Why don’t you hang out anymore and how do you feel about them now?

Sure, I’m sure everyone does. There are friends I knew in school, who just faded away after I was no longer in school. There were friends who proved toxic, who simply no longer exist to me. There were friends who came with my husband and predictably (and thus painlessly) disappeared the moment he became my ex-husband. A lot of people in life are temporary. Most, in fact.

3. Do your parents enjoy any of the things that you enjoy? Do you bond over these things?

I inherited about half my taste in music from my dad (classic rock, like the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, etc.), so we bond over that. Any time I discover a video of someone doing something awesome with a guitar, I’ll share it with him, and he was really impressed with 2Cellos. Things like that. When I was a kid, I bonded with my mom over hiking. We used to go to state parks and pick a creek and follow it back into the wilderness for hours, come back wet to the knees and muddy and sometimes vaguely hypothermic. (Fuck ur namby pamby trails, ok? City Folk...) We don’t really bond over anything any more, though. She’s turned too toxic for me to do anything but keep her at a safe distance.

4. Did you ever say or ask something that you assumed was a neutral subject, but the person you were talking to became offended and you had no idea why?

... Honey, you know what site this is, right..?

5. What is the movie that you have waited the longest for/which film do you remember anticipating the most/are still anticipating?

I waited with bated breath for both Only Lovers Left Alive and Crimson Peak. I’m really fond of Tom Hiddleston, so when I heard he was gonna a.) star in a vampire movie with Tilda Fucking Swinton, and b.) do a Gothic Romance directed by Guillermo del Toro, I was completely ecstatic on both counts. I always get a little “oh yay!” moment when I pick up on the actors/directors I like doing something new, but in those instances in particular I was glued to the screen for any news until they came out.

6. Do you have any ideas for a story or movie you’re planning to write or you’d write if you got the time/had the talent? Please share a synopsis!

Oh dear lord... So far as stories, there are so many, and I feel protective enough of the ones I’m actually working on to not wanna share a lot. There’s an Epic Steampunk Fantasy I’ve been working on for like ten years (AKA The Goddamn Novel). Since I’m giving that one a break until the ideas feel fresh again, I’m also working on one involving The Magic of Writing and a girl inheriting an outrageous fortune and being haunted by her awesome great great aunt, and there’s also faeries. There’s about a thousand interconnected short stories I wanna do modernizing Changeling legends. There’s a gothic fantasy about a pair of incestuous half-demon half-siblings who usurp their actually-worse father’s kingdom. There’s... there’s just a lot I wanna do, ok?

If you want movie ideas, let me show you my book shelf, but god help you if you don’t respect the source material, okok.

7. Do you ever feel like anyone is “out of your league” or does that concept not make any sense to you? What do you do when you’re attracted to someone but find them out of your league?

I don’t think leagues exist. I mean there are people who are Very Not Suited for one another, and sometimes it’s really obvious they’re not, but... When I’m interested in someone, all I care about is whether the interest’s mutual. If it is, then yay! If it’s not, you lick your wounds and move on, or maybe you at least get a shiny new friend of out of it, which is pretty great, too. You’ve just gotta talk to them and find out.

8. What is something that an interested guy/girl could comment about you, that would make you instantly open to them (e.g., “That book you’re reading is from my favorite author”)?

Instantly open... eeehhhhnnn *vague hand-wiggle* I think I’ve got too many trust issues for that, really. But similar tastes/interests/viewpoints is a big plus.

9. Do you refer to yourself by any sort of fan nickname (Belieber, Little Monster, etc.)?

I’d classify myself as a phan. (Phantom of the Opera fan) I don’t think any of my other fandoms actually have cutesy names. Or, if they do I’m not involved enough with the social aspects of it to know.

10. Do you ever just get lazy and give up on your friendships?

When that’s possible, I think it probably shouldn’t actually be classified as a friendship. Sounds more like an acquaintance, to me. At which point, yeah.

11. Is there a person in your life (maybe barely) that you feel in constant competition with (even just in your imagination)? Maybe you feel they are consistently outshining you.

No. There are people I admire, and consider sort of role models. But, as twee as it sounds, the only person I’m ever working to outshine is past!me.

12. If you are single, even if you are normally happily single, are there certain specific things you witness that make you wish you were in a relationship (e.g., people getting engaged)?

I am mostly happy single, but I miss having someone to cuddle with sometimes. So, little intimacies, I guess? Romantic gestures just for their own sake, especially if the person has paid enough attention to their partner for it to be actually personal and not generic. Or, people having intimate conversations, where they really obviously click and they’re just excited about each other. I don’t feel jealous of people who get to do these things, but they do make me feel a little lonely.

13. What sort of situations make you feel most self-conscious or inadequate? Are there any people or places that just make you want to crawl into a hole? If you can’t think of anything specific, can you remember the last time (or any time) you felt this way?

Wasn’t our school system designed around creating instances like this...?

14. Out of all your usernames for websites, which one is your favorite? Do you use it for more than one site?

I like the one I have here. It’s from a Dorothy Parker poem (one of the ones where she isn’t just trying to be flippant and clever, though I like those, too.) Over on the only other site I really do much on, I go by sister_midnight, because David Bowie is one of those celebrities who I always kind of felt like was a beloved weird uncle I never actually got to meet. Also I like that song.

15. Are there any cities near you that you’re afraid to go to because of the crime rate or its other bad reputations?

I don’t think I’d want to be in parts of Indy after dark. But honestly there are plenty of rural places and smaller towns around here I’d say that about, too.

16. If you went to camp as a kid, was it a pleasant experience? Do you think that all kids should be able to go to camp? If you didn’t go to camp, do you feel like you kind of missed out on something?

I got hustled off to Bible Camp, once. I mostly didn’t bother protesting because it was something to do away from home, and my step-mother never respected me not wanting to go to church, so church-camp was the same sort of thing. It was kind of an alien situation, seeing as I hadn’t actually been Christian for about five years, by that point, but I was also used to it. Plus, sometimes it’s just interesting what you can learn by letting people think what they want and just standing back and... watching them go. I learned way more about what they were really like by doing that than by reading the Bible, that’s for certain.

17. Do you grandparents ever judge you or stick their heads in your business? If not, is there someone else in your life you dread seeing because of their unwanted input?

I was half raised by my grandparents after my parents divorced and my Dad moved back home, with me in tow. They were never Catholic enough to do the church thing often, but by god they were Catholic enough to wanna use judgement and shame as a means of trying to browbeat you into who they thought you should be. According to my father, the judgement started at conception, actually. I was an accidental pregnancy, you see, and Grandma only stopped abusing him over it after he pointed out that abortion was always an option.

18. Have you ever spent the whole day (or multiple days) just looking up one thing on the internet (e.g., videos of your favorite band, how-to videos, quizzes, etc.)?

I studied faerie lore pretty much non-stop for like five years when I was a teen.

19. Would you ever go on a media fast (i.e., avoiding tv, movies, the internet, and magazines for a certain amount of time, in an attempt to become aware of how media makes you feel)? Do you think that sort of thing would benefit you?

Yeah, and actually I have found it beneficial in the past. It’s good to take a break and unplug sometimes.

20. Are you happy with where you currently live? If not, what don’t you like about the area and do you plan on leaving?

I love the actual land, where I live. We have some beautiful countryside, here. But I don’t like the people, and would love to eventually move someplace more liberal. I love New England, especially around Boston, and my best friend lives there. (Though I don’t think I’d want to live in the city.) I’d like to poke at the West Coast, especially around Washington and see how that suits me. And I adored Ireland, when I visited, so I wouldn’t write that off as an option either. For now, though, here will do. I’m in a good situation to save up money and plot a permanent escape.

21. If someone told you that we live in a society that hates women, how would you respond?

Seems obvious to me. Though, I do hold out a certain amount of hope for things to change for the better. We just need to build enough guillotines and put them to good use.

22. When was the last time you were on a boat? Whose boat was it, and what were you doing?

... I honestly can’t remember that last specific time. o_0 Clearly I should fix this.

23. Have you ever been completely blindsided by a break-up or have you sort of felt all of your relationships deteriorating before they ended? If you would prefer not to answer, what is the last instance you can remember being totally blindsided by news you heard?

No, not really. Generally you can feel things starting to unravel.

24. Can you remember the last thing you thought and subsequently thought, “wow, I really shouldn’t be thinking that”?

No. Like Shakespeare said, thought is free.

25. If you ever think about getting married, what are some aspects of the wedding that you would like to see in a non-traditional manner (e.g., a different color dress or “partners” over “husband” and “wife”)?

I don’t do white clothes, wedding dress or otherwise. As for the rest, if I bothered with a second wedding it would actually be for me, this time, so you can bet it wouldn’t be traditional. Given that I couldn’t see myself choosing a traditional partner, I don’t imagine they’d mind.

#survey #you can play too

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