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blackswaneuroparedux · 4 years

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Anonymous asked: I noticed you did post to acknowledge the death of Uderzo, the co-creator of the Asterix comics. I have to ask Tintin or Asterix? Which one do you prefer?

It’s like asking Stones or Beatles? I love both but for different reasons. I would hate to choose between the two.

Both Tintin and Asterix were the two halves of a comic dyad of my childhood. Whether it was India, China, Hong Kong, Japan, or the Middle East the one thing that threads my childhood experience of living in these countries was finding a quiet place in the home to get lost reading Asterix and Tintin.

Even when I was eventually carted off to boarding school back in England I took as many of my Tintin and Asterix comics books with me as I could. They became like underground black market currency to exchange with other girls for other things like food or chocolates sent by parents and other illicit things like alcohol. Having them and reading them was like having familiar friends close by to make you feel less lonely in new surroundings and survive the bear pit of other girls living together.

If you asked my parents - especially my father - he would say Tintin hands down. He has - and continues to have in his library at home - a huge collection of Tintin comic books in as many different language translations as possible. He’s still collecting translations of each of the Tintin books in the most obscure languages he can find. I have both all the Tintin comic books - but only in English and French translations, and the odd Norwegian one - as well as all the Asterix comic books (only in English and French).

Speaking for myself I would be torn to decide between the two. Each have their virtues and I appreciate them for different reasons.

Tintin was truly about adventure that spoke deeply to me. Tintin was always a good detective story that soon turned to a travel adventure. It has it all: technology, politics, science and history. Of course the art is more simpler, but it is also cleaner and translates the wondrous far-off locations beautifully and with a sense of awe that you don’t see in the Asterix books. Indeed Hergé was into film-noir and thriller movies, and the panels are almost like storyboards for The Maltese Falcon or African Queen.

The plot lines of Tintin are intriguing rather than overly clever but the gallery of characters are much deeper, more flawed and morally ambiguous. Take Captain Haddock I loved his pullover, his strangely large feet, his endless swearing and his inability to pass a bottle without emptying it. He combined bravery and helplessness in a manner I found irresistible.

I’ve read that there is a deeply Freudian reading to the Tintin books. I think there is a good case for it. The Secret of the Unicorn and Red Rackham's Treasure are both about Captain Haddock's family. Haddock's ancestor, Sir Francis Haddock, is the illegitimate son of the French Sun King – and this mirrors what happened in Hergé's family, who liked to believe that his father was the illegitimate son of the Belgian king. This theme played out in so many of the books. In The Castafiore Emerald, the opera singer sings the jewel song from Faust, which is about a lowly woman banged up by a nobleman – and she sings it right in front of Sir Francis Haddock, with the captain blocking his ears. It's like the Finnegans Wake of the cartoon. Nothing happens - but everything happens.

Another great part is that the storylines continue on for several albums, allowing them to be more complex, instead of the more simplistic Asterix plot lines which are always wrapped up nicely at the end of each book.

Overall I felt a great affinity with Tintin - his youthful innocence, wanting to solve problems, always resourceful, optimistic, and brave. Above all Tintin gave me wanderlust. Was there a place he and Milou (Snowy) didn’t go to? When they had covered the four corners of the world Tintin and Milou went to the moon for heaven’s sake!

What I loved about Asterix was the style, specifically Uderzo’s visual style. I liked Hergé’s clean style, the ligne claire of his pen, but Asterix was drawn as caricature: the big noses, the huge bellies, often being prodded by sausage-like fingers. This was more appealing to little children because they were more fun to marvel at.

In particular I liked was the way Uderzo’s style progressed with each comic book. The panels of Asterix the Gaul felt rudimentary compared to the later works and by the time Asterix and Cleopatra, the sixth book to be published, came out, you finally felt that this was what they ought to look like. It was an important lesson for a child to learn: that you could get better at what you did over time. Each book seemed to have its own palette and perhaps Uderzo’s best work is in Asterix in Spain.

I also feel Asterix doesn’t get enough credit for being more complex. Once you peel back the initial layers, Asterix has some great literal depth going on - puns and word play, the English translation names are all extremely clever, there are many hidden details in the superb art to explore that you will quite often miss when you initially read it and in a lot of the truly classic albums they are satirising a real life country/group/person/political system, usually in an incredibly clever and humorous way.

What I found especially appealing was that it was also a brilliant microcosm of many classical studies subjects - ancient Egypt, the Romans and Greek art - and is a good first step for young children wanting to explore that stuff before studying it at school.

What I discovered recently was that Uderzo was colour blind which explains why he much preferred the clear line to any hint of shade, and it was that that enabled his drawings to redefine antiquity so distinctively in his own terms. For decades after the death of René Goscinny in 1977, Uderzo provided a living link to the golden age of the greatest series of comic books ever written: Paul McCartney to Goscinny’s John Lennon. Uderzo, as the Asterix illustrator, was better able to continue the series after Goscinny’s death than Goscinny would have been had Uderzo had died first, and yet the later books were, so almost every fan agrees, not a patch on the originals: very much Wings to the Beatles. What elevated the cartoons, brilliant though they were, to the level of genius was the quality of the scripts that inspired them. Again and again, in illustration after illustration, the visual humour depends for its full force on the accompaniment provided by Goscinny’s jokes.

Here below is a great example:

There’s a lot of genius in this. Uderzo copied Theodore Géricault’s iconic ‘Raft of the Medusa’ 1818 painting in ‘Asterix The Legionary’. The painting is generally regarded as an icon of Romanticism. It depicts an event whose human and political aspects greatly interested Géricault: the wreck of a French frigate, Medusa, off the coast of Senegal in 1816, with over 150 soldiers on board. But Anthea Bell’s translation of Goscinny’s text (including the pictorial and verbal pun ‘we’ve been framed, by Jericho’) is really extraordinary and captures the spirit of the Asterix cartoons perfectly.

This captures perfectly my sense of humour as it acknowledges the seriousness of life but finds humour in them through a sly cleverness and always with a open hearted joy. There is no question that if humour was the measuring yard stick then Asterix and not Tintin would win hands down.

It’s also a mistake to think that the world of Asterix was insular in comparison to the amazing countries Tintin had adventures. Asterix’s world is very much Europe.

Every nationality that Asterix encounters is gently satirised. No other post-war artistic duo offered Europeans a more universally popular portrait of themselves, perhaps, than did Goscinny and Uderzo. The stereotypes with which he made such affectionate play in his cartoons – the haughty Spaniard, the chocolate-loving Belgian, the stiff-upper-lipped Briton – seemed to be just what a continent left prostrate by war and nationalism were secretly craving. Many shrewd commentators believe that during the golden age when Goscinny was still alive to pen the scripts, that it was a fantasy on French resistance during occupation by Nazi Germany. Uderzo lived through the occupation and so there is truth in that. Perhaps this is why the Germans are the exceptions as they are treated unsympathetically in Asterix and the Goths, and why quite a few of the books turn on questions of loyalty and treachery.

Even the British are satirised with an affection that borders on love: the worst of the digs are about our appalling cuisine (everything is boiled, and served with mint sauce, and the beer is warm), but everything points to the Gauls’ and the Britons’ closeness. They have the same social structure, even down to having one village still holding out against the Romans; the crucial and extremely generous difference being that the Britons do not have a magic potion to help them fight. Instead they have tea, introduced to them by Getafix, via Asterix, which gives them so much of a psychological boost that it may as well have been the magic potion.

I re-read ‘Asterix in Britain’ (Astérix chez les Bretons) in the light of the 2016 Brexit referendum result and felt despaired that such a playful and respectful portrayal of this country was not reciprocated. Don’t get me wrong I voted for Brexit but I remain a staunch Europhile. It made me violently irritated to see many historically illiterate pro-Brexit oiks who mistakenly believed the EU and Europe were the same thing. They are not. One was originally a sincere band aid to heal and bring together two of the greatest warring powers in continental Europe that grotesquely grew into an unaccountable bureaucratic manager’s utopian wet dream, and the other is a cradle of Western achievement in culture, sciences and the arts that we are all heirs to.

What I loved about Asterix was that it cut across generations. As a young girl I often retreated into my imaginary world of Asterix where our family home had an imaginary timber fence and a dry moat to keep the world (or the Romans) out. I think this was partly because my parents were so busy as many friends and outsiders made demands on their time and they couldn’t say no or they were throwing lavish parties for their guests. Family time was sacred to us all but I felt especially miffed if our time got eaten away. Then, as I grew up, different levels of reading opened up to me apart from the humour in the names, the plays on words, and the illustrations. There is something about the notion of one tiny little village, where everybody knows each other, trying to hold off the dark forces of the rest of the world. Being the underdog, up against everyone, but with a sense of humour and having fun, really resonated with my child's eye view of the world.

The thing about both Asterix and Tintin books is that they are at heart adventure comics with many layers of detail and themes built into them. For children, Asterix books are the clear winner, as they have much better art and are more fantastical. Most of the bad characters in the books are not truly evil either and no-one ever dies, which appeals hugely to children. For older readers, Tintin has danger, deeper characters with deep political themes, bad guys with truly evil motives, and even deaths. It’s more rooted in the real world, so a young reader can visualise themselves as Tintin, travelling to these real life places and being a hero.

As I get older and re-read Asterix and Tintin from time to time I discover new things.

From Asterix, there is something about the notion of one tiny little village, where everybody knows each other, trying to hold off the dark forces of the rest of the world. Being the underdog, up against everyone, but with a sense of humour and having fun, really resonated with my child's eye view of the world. In my adult world it now makes me appreciate the value of family, friends, and community and even national identity. Even as globalisation and the rise of homogenous consumerism threatens to envelope the unique diversity of our cultures, like Asterix, we can defend to the death the cultural values that define us but not through isolation or by diminishing the respect due to other cultures and their cultural achievements.

From Tintin I got wanderlust. This fierce even urgent need to travel and explore the world was in part due to reading the adventures of Tintin. It was by living in such diverse cultures overseas and trying to get under the skin of those cultures by learning their languages and respecting their customs that I realised how much I valued my own heritage and traditions without diminishing anyone else.

So I’m sorry but I can’t choose one over the other, I need both Asterix and Tintin as a dyad to remind me that the importance of home and heritage is best done through travel and adventure elsewhere.

Thanks for your question.

#question #ask #comics #tintin #asterix #personal #arts #culture

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iceslushii · 3 years

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So, I'm writing this to document what I can only assume is my sudden descent into insanity. I can't possibly be THAT bad a navigator, and yet as I write this I've been trapped in Ikea for 2 days. I haven't seen another person in the entire time I've been here. I thought it was a prank at first. Turn the place into a maze, get all the people out and see how long it takes me to get lost, then everyone has a good old laugh. Realised that wasn't the case when I tried to backtrack. Everything had changed, so I ended up lost. Instead of the exit, it was just row after row of bookcases.

So, I'm trapped in Ikea. Sounds like the setup for a bad joke. The lights went out at 10pm. Nearly gave me a fucking heart attack, that loud electrical THUNK sound and then pitch blackness. Place is full of beds though and my phone has a torch on it - but no damn signal - so I found a bed and went to sleep. Spent most of the next day trying to find my way out with no luck. Did find a restaurant serving those meatballs though, so at least I won't starve. That's probably the punchline to that joke. Anyway they were still warm and fresh, but I haven't seen anyone around who could have cooked them. Made my way back to the beds before the lights cut out again since it's too dark to search with them off.

It's 9.10am now, the lights came back on a little while ago. I'm sure I've searched the entire area around where I came in now and the exit obviously isn't here, so I'm going to pick a direction and hope for the best.

Day 3 of my magical Ikea mystery adventure. If I wasn't sure that there was something seriously weird about this place before, I am now. Walked for 3 hours in a more or less straight line (insert Ikea joke here) before I came across a ladder next to one of those huge stock shelves they have here. Climbed up to get my bearings, and it looks like this place just stretches on forever. Like that scene from the Lion King, except instead of trees and grass it was all shelves and tables and crap. I did see a person moving not too far away though, so I headed over.

Thought it was a staff member at first - it was wearing the uniform. And hell maybe it was, maybe freakish 7ft tall monsters with long arms, short legs and no faces are just the kinds of thing they want working at Super Ikea. Damn thing completely ignored me though, and with no eyes or ears I can't even be sure it knew I was there. Thought about shoving it or something to get its attention, but its hands were big enough to crush a water melon so I decided against it. It just kept moving along and eventually I lost sight of it so I decided to carry on the way I was going.

Anyway, no comfy bed for me tonight. Looks like I've entered the Improbably Hard and Pointy Table section of the store. Guess I'll have to make do with some bunched up tablecloths. Phone battery died during the day too. Didn't work anyway, but I feel like I've just lost some vital lifeline.

You ever see one of those cartoons where they're going through doors in a hallway and they just pop out of another door in the same hallway? That's how I feel right now. I've seen nothing but the same identical bookshelf for 2 days now. Just row after row after row of them. I mean, come on. I love books as much as the next guy, but this is excessive. I'm obviously still moving forwards though, I can see the signs hanging overhead passing by. Too bad none of them say "Exit".

Not sure who I was addressing that question to. Lets just say it was practice for the autobiography I'm going to write when I get out of here. I'll call it "My perfectly normal trip to a regular old Ikea".

If I ever get out o

Finally found some other people! Yeah, turns out I'm not the only poor bastard trapped in here. Lucky for me, I guess. My 6th night here, 2 of those staff things came at me in the dark. Different from the first one I saw, but still messed up. Heard them coming, they were saying that the store was closed and I had to leave the building, all nice and polite like. I'm not sure which part of that was weirder, that they don't have mouths or that they were apparently trying to kill me while they were saying it. Came at me like rabid dogs.

So, I legged it. Sprinting through ikea in the dark like a fucking madman. I saw it when I cleared another stand of those giant stock shelves, all lit up with torches and floodlights. They've built a whole town in here! Got a massive wall built out of shelves and beds and tables and whatever else. I swear to god it was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Anyway I guess they saw me coming (or maybe they heard my girlish manly bellows of fear), because they had a gate open and 2 people were there waving me in. Heard the staff things slam into the gate behind me after it closed, still politely informing us all that the store was now closed. They wandered off eventually though.

They call the town Exchange, because that's whats on the sign hanging from the ceiling directly above it. Exchange and Returns. All lit up against the night using lights they've found and plugged into the power lines. And there are beds and food and people. Over 50 wonderful people with regular sized limbs and a full set of facial features. It's now my 7th night here, and the first one not spent in darkness. A full week living in Ikea. There's probably a TV show in that somewhere.

Now that I'm around other people, I'm starting to feel more normal. Maybe normal isn't the word. But after a week with only the sound of my own footsteps for company, I was becoming increasingly sure that I'd just gone nuts. That I was tied up in some padded room somewhere, banging my head against the wall. But no, I feel quite sane now, thank you very much!

Apparently there are other towns out there. Some with more people, some with less. I found that fairly mind-boggling - how can that many people go missing with no one noticing. Surely someone would have noticed that everyone who goes to ikea seems to fucking vanish. Or maybe it's not everyone. Maybe we're just the lucky ones.

The people here just call those staff monster things the Staff. Apparently they are fine during the day, minding their own business walking the aisles. As soon as those lights go out though, they go fucking bonkers. So during the day people go out to find food, water and whatever else they need. Apparently there are restaurants and shops around that randomly get restocked. No one knows how. Maybe the staff do it. Apparently they aren't very good at their jobs though because the restocking sometimes takes a while, which means the food needs to be rationed. Maybe if they weren't so busy chasing people around in the dark they'd get more done.

Anyway when night comes the staff go nuts and everyone holds up inside the walls. Apparently it's the same everywhere in this place, whatever this place is. The Ur-Ikea, from whence all other Ikeas sprang. Or maybe we're all still just in the regular ikea and this is all some fever dream brought on by mind-numbing boredom. Who knows.

Been here for 10 days now. Most of the people I asked said they stopped keeping track a long time ago and one guy, Chris, said he'd been in here for years.

Years.

[ILLEGIBLE SCRIBBLES]

Apparently there are rumours of people who do manage to get out. And of people who see the exit, only to have it vanish before their very eyes. I get the feeling not everyone believes that, but I do. Explains how we got stuck in here in the first place (sort of). And I mean, come on. Staff monsters, row after endless row of high quality Swedish furniture. I don't know why they would find a disappearing door so hard to believe in.

Anyway, I went out scavenging for food at a nearby shop with Sandra and Jerry today. Once you learn the landmarks of this place it's not so hard to navigate. The overhead signs help a lot, but there are others; not too far in the distance a huge section of those giant stock shelves has collapsed against each other and way off in the east (we all assume it's east anyway - apparently Ikea doesn't sell compasses) is some kind of tower that looks like its made of wood, reaches all the way to the ceiling. Maybe they were trying to break out through the roof. Lights up at night so there must be people there, but its apparently a few days walk (which means it must be miles away) so no one here really knows for sure. Apparently I got incredibly lucky sleeping out in the open for a week without getting ripped to bits by the staff. That's me. Lucky lucky lucky.

We found some food in the shop. Guess the staff restocked it during the night, which was nice of them. There was a telephone on the wall, so I figured I'd try it out. There was a voice on the other end, but they were just talking nonsense. Random words strung together with no real meaning. You ever see a video of someone with aphasia? Kind of sounded like that. Didn't answer me when I spoke to them anyway. Sandra says all the phones in here are the same.

Oops, asking the journal questions again!

I was thinking last night. The ceiling on this place is pretty high and as far as anyone can tell it goes on forever. Shouldn't there be some kind of weather in here? I'm sure I read about some NASA building that was so big it had its own weather patterns, with clouds and stuff. This place is definitely bigger than that, but now that I think about it I'm pretty sure I've never felt so much as a temperature change in here.

I'll add it to the Grand List of Weird Bullshit.

The staff attacked the Exchange last night. Must have been 20 or 30 of them all just asking us to leave the store calm as you like, while trying to smash the walls down with their bare hands. Apparently this happens pretty regularly, so everyone is prepared for it. Knives from the restaurants, lawn mower blades made into hatchets, a fire axe. One guy, Wasim, even made a functional crossbow. Anyway the walls have holes in them, which I hadn't noticed before, specifically so we can stab out at the staff when they attack. Took a couple of them down myself. They don't seem to bleed, which is weird, but they go down as easy as a regular person once you start sticking holes in them.

We had to haul the bodies away in the morning. Apparently the dead ones will attract more during the night, so we had to get them away from Exchange. We have a couple of those trolley things they use to move big boxes around, so we loaded them up and took them over to Pickup. Apparently people just name everything in here after whatever sign is hanging overhead.

Pickup was grisly. There were hundreds, maybe thousands of dead staff all piled up. There was no smell, which was a blessing. Apparently in addition to not bleeding, these things don't rot either. My curiosity got the better of me while we were unloading them, so I took a look at one of the more cut-up ones. They're just skin, or something that looks like skin, all the way through. No muscle, no bone, no organs. Are they even really alive in the first place? They certainly seem like they have bones when they are moving around, pounding on the walls. And I'm sure I felt more resistance than just skin when the knife went in during the night. Maybe something happens to them when they die. Just one more thing on the ever-increasing list of Weird Shit that goes on in here, I guess.

Something occurred to me, after the staff attack the other night. Every time you see a situation like this on TV or in a film, like its the end of the world or everyone is trapped on an island or whatever, once groups like ours start to form people always seem to turn on each other. Fighting for food or dominance or whatever else. That hasn't happened here. Apparently people from other towns come by from time to time, just to check in or occasionally to trade if they are short on something. But everything is always cordial. Friendly, even. Maybe its the threat of the staff, or perhaps the constant restocking of supplies in the shops means there's nothing much to fight over.

Maybe people are just better than they are generally given credit for. That's a nice thought. I think I'll go with that one.

A dozen people showed up at the gates this afternoon from a town called Trolleys. Apparently the staff broke through the walls and tore the town apart during the night. These 12 are the only survivors out of over a hundred. We let them in, obviously. One more point in the human decency column. Later, I asked if anyone knew how many of these towns there were out there. Between us and the new folks, we managed to come up with over 20 names. 20 towns filled with people, and who knows how many beyond that.

The motto for this place should be "How Is That Even Possible". Surely someone, somewhere must be looking for the thousands of people that must be in here.

I've been here for a little over 2 months now. Not that much changes, as it turns out. A couple of new people showed up, same story as the rest of us. Nice little trip to Ikea and suddenly they're trapped in Billy Bookcase's House of Faceless Weirdos. The staff attack the Exchange once or twice a week. We kill them and haul their bodies off, sometimes they hurt some of us first. They killed a guy called Jared a couple of weeks back. It was awful, frankly. Turns out regular humans still bleed in here, even if the staff don't. We tried our best, but none of us are doctors.

Jared was a good guy. He deserved better. We all do.

It occurred to me a couple of days after that, none of us were really looking for a way out of here. I don't even know where we'd start.

One of those quad copter things with a camera attached buzzed passed Exchange today. I thought it meant that someone was finally looking for us, that help was on the way. Apparently it's not the first time this has happened, though. Same thing happened a few months ago, and everyone is still here.

No idea if it saw us, it didn't stop if it did. Just kept flying until we could no longer see it.

Note: Based on recovery time of the journal, this entry appears to line up approximately with our first successful test piloting a drone inside SCP-3008-1. Analysis of footage shows a walled settlement under a sign labelled "Exchange and Returns". Attempts to relocate the settlement failed. Origin of previously sighted drones is unknown.

I started talking to people about the stuff they miss from home during dinner today. Probably not the best idea I've ever had, everyone seemed pretty down after. A bunch of people here have families. Husbands and wives, kids. Dogs. Franklin apparently has a pet llama, though I'm not sure I buy that.

But apparently some of the people here have some seriously odd gaps in their knowledge. 3 of them had never heard of the International Space Station, 2 of them seemed to think █████ ███████ was the Prime Minister, and one of them had apparently never heard of the Statue of Liberty. I believe them, too. They seemed just as confused as the rest of us.

The more I thought about it though, the more it started to explain a few things. What if the reason no one is looking for all us missing people is because we haven't all come from the same place. This is going to sound weird (maybe that should be the motto for this place) but what if all the people here have come from different dimensions? Realities? Whatever you call it. I've seen enough TV shows to know the drill. Sarah comes from a place where there is no Statue of Liberty. They didn't launch a space station where Wasim is from. If everyone here came from different places, even from ones that seem identical, there'd be no huge missing persons panic. No mass search. We'd just be a blip, a single missing person in a world of non-stop news.

Well. That was a fun train of thought.

Just realised that yesterday was the six month anniversary of my arrival here. I wonder if Ikea sells party hats. The routine around here has remained more or less the same. More new folk show up, one every couple of weeks or so. Food supplies go up and down, but we've never actually had a major shortage. Occasionally we get a visitor from one of the nearby towns, usually Checkouts or Aisle 630. We check in with each other from time to time, occasionally trade supplies if someone gets particularly low on something. It's comforting, in a way. A reminder that we aren't alone in here, some small glimmer of civilisation. Sometimes they bring medical supplies. Apparently there's a pharmacy a few towns down from Checkouts that gets restocked every now and then, so they share out what they can. I've never heard of an Ikea with a pharmacy before but at this point I wouldn't be surprised if someone stumbled on an Ikea Organ Harvesting Lab. Would certainly explain the staff.

Speaking of our faceless jailers, their attacks have been getting worse lately. 3 or 4 times a week now, with twice as many staff as there used to be. No idea where they all come from, or why the attacks have increased. We tried following one of them during the day a few weeks ago, me and Sarah. Wanted to see if they lead back to a staff room or something. Didn't seem to go anywhere though, just randomly walked through the aisles. We had to turn back before we found anything.

We've been reinforcing the walls, trying to arm ourselves better. Certainly no lack of materials to use. Wasim has been making more crossbows, but it's pretty slow going.

Too bad Ikea doesn't sell guns.

Note: No new personnel have entered SCP-3008 at Site-██ in the time span indicated in this entry.

The attacks are getting bad now. Almost every night, and with so many staff that the bodies almost pile high enough for others to climb the walls. I think we're in real trouble here.

Exchange is

I think Exchange is done. We got hit pretty bad last night. Not many casualties, but the wall is wrecked. We finally figured out why the attacks had been escalating, too. A box of supplies had a chunk of one of the staff in there. No idea how it happened but apparently a piece of one will draw them as well as a full body. Too late now in any case, there's too many bodies for us to haul away and still have time to fix the wall before night. Candace has called a meeting. I suspect there will be talk of abandoning Exchange, maybe try and get shelter at Checkouts or something.

It's already getting late though. I don't think we'll have time to make it. Maybe some of us will. I was fine for that first week out in the dark, after all. But then, how often can I keep getting lucky.

I'm only writing this for a sense of closure, I guess. For me, or for anyone who finds this. If this is the final entry here, I hope whoever is reading this is doing so from outside of this place.

My biggest fear? If I do die tonight, I'll just wake up here again in the morning.

Note: This is the last entry. It is assumed that while attempting to reach the "Checkouts" settlement he was separated from the rest of his group by a pursuing SCP-3008-2 instance and happened upon the exit.

We're no strangers to love You know the rules and so do I A full commitment's what I'm thinking of You wouldn't get this from any other guy I just wanna tell you how I'm feeling Gotta make you understand Never gonna give you up Never gonna let you down Never gonna run around and desert you Never gonna make you cry Never gonna say goodbye Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you We've known each other for so long Your heart's been aching but you're too shy to say it Inside we both know what's been going on We know the game and we're gonna play it And if you ask me how I'm feeling Don't tell me you're too blind to see

Never gonna give you up Never gonna let you down Never gonna run around and desert you Never gonna make you cry Never gonna say goodbye Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you Never gonna give you up Never gonna let you down Never gonna run around and desert you Never gonna make you cry Never gonna say goodbye Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you Never gonna give, never gonna give (Give you up) We've known each other for so long Your heart's been aching but you're too shy to say it Inside we both know what's been going on We know the game and we're gonna play it I just wanna tell you how I'm feeling Gotta make you understand Never gonna give you up Never gonna let you down Never gonna run around and desert you Never gonna make you cry Never gonna say goodbye Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you Never gonna give you up Never gonna let you down Never gonna run around and desert you Never gonna make you cry Never gonna say goodbye Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you Never gonna give you up Never gonna let you down Never gonna run around and desert you Never gonna make you cry Never gonna say goodbye

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itzagothamcitysiren · 4 years

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Welcome to the Family

I’ve always struggled finding someone who I think would make a good Damian. I love the voice actor from the DCAU, and even the kid who did the voice in the Harley show lol, but live action wise I’ve never really settled on a kid I’d think would do a really good job. I’d love to know everyone’s own fan casting and who they would think would make a good Damian. :)

Mother’s Day pt.2

Damian couldn’t stop himself from watching the whole scene play out in front of him, cursing Drake as he knew that this was his plan all along. Drake wanted to rub it in his face no matter how hard he would deny it when Damian confronted him on it later. The bitter taste of the sweat was all Damian could taste as he slowly began to peel off his costume after a long and tiring night of patrolling Gotham City. His eyes darted from person to person, trying to keep the sudden annoyance down in the pit of his stomach.

His father stood off near the batcomputer, slowly getting ready to call it a night, overlooking some files. His father had his cowl off, the tiredness of a long night out in the city showing on his face. A little ways away stood his sister, politely excepting the water bottle Alfred was now handing out to each of them. He started to head towards the pair to retrieve his own but halted. Drake approached them, clearly hiding something behind his back, underneath his cape. He turned around, simmering but kept listening as Drake began to speak.

“Hey, staying the night?” Tim cleared his throat as he approached Halley, a hint of hopefulness reaching his voice.

The girl chugged her water bottle, capping it off with a sigh. The cold liquid felt good running down her throat. Placing the near empty bottle on a nearby desk she turned to give Tim her full attention. With a smile, she leaned up against the desk, her muscles sore. “Nah, I have to head to the library first thing tomorrow, finish up my term paper.”

“I can help you. Use the library here,” Tim frowned, offering his help. He hadn’t seen his sister as much as he’d like over the past few months. She’d been busy with her last year of college and the internship she started this year at the Gotham Gazette.

He did get to see her two weeks ago but that didn’t really count. He’d never gotten to meet the Robin before him, Jason Todd, but Halley spoke very fondly of him. They had grew extremely close he learned and she was absolutely devastated when the Joker killed him six years ago. And for the last couple of years, Tim would accompany with her to visit Jason’s grave on his death day because she could never bring herself to handle going alone.

“As much as I would love that, it’s actually a study date.” She bit her lip, looking at her feet.

“Wow, like a date, date?” Tim was taken aback, almost looking proud at the older girl. All the years he’s known her, she’s never been one for dating or having interest in anyone.

“Yeah, we’re going to go to this café; the one on fifth, the one you said had really good coffee muffins.” She nodded, still timid about the date itself. She hadn’t been on a date in six years. It felt weird, but Dick told her it was time to start moving on and Dick had never led her astray before so, she was going to try. Jason would want her to anyway, she kept telling herself.

“Well, I hope you have a good time. And actually get some work done.” Tim chuckled. “Well since I won’t see you in the morning and it’s technically the tenth right now, here you go,” Tim said, pulling out what was hidden behind his back.

Halley looked down at the items that were being outreached to her, her eyes already getting watery. Tim really didn’t understand how much this stuff meant to her. Glazing over the card, seeing it goofily decorated with glitter and cute little doodles, Halley couldn’t help but let out a chuckle. She thought it was adorable. Opening it up, she read what he wrote inside, chuckling more at the little stick figures of Nightshade and Red Robin. Inside it read: A mother is the person you can always call to see how long chicken can last in the fridge.

Shaking her head at him she moved to the other item he handed her. It was a medium sized box wrapped in wrapping paper with little cute cartoon pugs and an oversized purple bow. Putting the card in between her armpit, in order to not drop it, she tore the wrapping paper apart, letting out a squeal, causing everyone to look at her in shock; it took a lot to make the former assassin to squeal in pure giddiness.

Damian was now almost fuming as Halley lunged herself into Tim, nearly tripping the boy over in her excitement. Her grip on him was tight, as was her grasp on the gift she still held in her hand, as if holding onto it for dear life. She couldn’t believe he got her this,

“How did you get this? It sold out in seconds!” She pulled away, now hugging the object to her chest, “Tim you really didn’t have to do this, I totally didn’t realize the date, with school and-,”

“I knew how much you wanted it and were bummed when you had to go on that mission with the Titans when it went on sale and so I ordered it for you, so you didn’t miss out.” Tim cut off her rambling, shrugging her off. “I was going to give it to you for Christmas, but it didn’t come in on time so I saved it for this.”

“I can’t wait to show Steph!” She excitedly held it up to look at the smooth and shiny new box, revealing it to everyone in the room the newest Jeffree Star and Shane Dawson palate. “You’re literally the best Tim.” She pulled him into another hug, this time a quick one, no one noticing how Damian was now practically steaming. “What are you doing Wednesday? I’m only at the Gazette until like noon, we should hang out, go to the movies or arcade or something once you’re out of school. I’ll pick you up.”

“I promised I’d help the Titans with something, it’s not an emergency though-” Tim frowned, hesitating, he could try and reschedule.

“No, no it’s okay. I know you’ve missed them, being busy with school and all,” She waved off, scrunching up her nose. “We’ll figure it out, but soon, we gotta at least go get burgers or something. It’s been too long.”

Damian watched as Halley began to start saying her goodbye, realizing that it was nearly five am at this point and wanted to try to get at least three or four hours of sleep before she had to be up for her date. She called out a goodbye to Bruce and Alfred, shooting Tim another thank you and smile before heading to the showers to change and grab her bag to head to her apartment in the city. On her way out, Damian felt his cheeks turn red as she nicely wished him goodnight, smiling wider than she did to Tim. Feeling a strange pang in his chest, he brushed her off, muttering a grumpy ‘night, before curtly turning to head up to the Manor.

He was unamused by the exchange between her and Drake. He was only under the impression that he was giving her that immature card, not a gift as well. She looked so happy that it almost appeared that Drake was indeed the favorite brother, which absolutely could not possibly be true. He was the blood brother, he reminded himself. He couldn’t let Drake outshine him like that. It wasn’t even because he cared that much, it was just unacceptable. If it had been Grayson it might sit a little easier with Damian but Drake?

Damian thought about it until the sun shined through his windows, making him even angrier. Why was he letting this get to him as badly as it was? It was just a stupid card and a box of colorful dirt. But that stupid card and box of colorful dirt still stood in his mind for the following days, making it nearly impossible for him to concentrate on anything else. His father asked him what was wrong during patrol the following nights, only to get a growl here and a grunt there in response. If Damian had to see Drake’s smug look one more time during these moments, he’d finally kill him, his father be damned.

Damian couldn’t believe how much he let this get to him. He tried to deny it; blame it on hormones or whatever Grayson called the cause of his mood swings. He didn’t even begin to consider admitting he was jealous of his sister’s close relationships with his so called brothers until he found himself standing in front of the Gotham Gazette at 1:50pm. Gritting his teeth, he walked straight in. Once he reached the front desk, he said he was here to see his sister. He was a Wayne, they knew who he was and the woman nervously pointed him to the way to the office his sister worked in.

The look of worry and shock his sister wore as he stood in front of her desk confirmed that this had indeed been a terrible idea. She had been head deep in her computer, typing away furiously, while on the phone, barking out questions and demands; something about needing to have some interview with some councilman rescheduled ASAP. Damian was impressed as she spoke. He was used to her stern voice from working with her on missions but this was different, she seemed so professional but scary; he almost felt bad for whoever she was talking to on the phone, but also felt proud by the way she was demanding things like an al Ghul would.

She must have thought that he was someone else who knocked on her door for when she slammed the phone down, she didn’t even look up at him, just outreached her hand waiting to be passed something. She was expecting someone. She was busy. This was a terrible idea, Damian thought to himself in a slight panic. Was that sweat starting to form on his brow? Grow up Damian, he spat to himself.

When her hand stood empty she shook it aggressively as if silently saying to hand her something. Damian raised an eyebrow at her and when she was still left empty handed, she whipped her head up, clearly irritated. She was tired from another all-nighter. She couldn’t even consider going on patrol last night, which was something she never missed up until the last couple of months. She was itching to be done with school already.

She had to stay up all night trying to make a backup plan for her final article and paper. She was writing about the coming election, making a strong article highlighting the past Mayor’s and city officials. It was a puff piece, but a damn good one. She wanted it to be perfect so that way when she graduated in June she’d hopefully get to stay at the Gazette permanently. But at the same time, she was also just trying to use her connection with the paper to weasel her way into an interview with councilman, Rupert Thorne.

Her paper had been her obsession since starting it; she was exposing the corruption of city hall and it was at the point where her grade didn’t matter, she just wanted it to be done so she could publish it. Everyone knew that Gotham was corrupt, but no one really talked about, just complained about the crazy, dressed up weirdos that tormented the city at night. People like Scarecrow, Riddler and the Joker make people overlook villains who in her opinion where just as bad. For example, Rupert Thorne

He had his nose deep in too many illegal operations running out of Gotham that Halley and even Bruce lost count. He had the audacity to run for mayor this election season, as being a councilman wasn’t enough for someone like Thorne. If he won this, Gotham was more screwed then it already was. Without at least speaking with him once her entire paper and grade would be ruined. And she couldn’t exactly go as her alter ego and force him to talk to her. That would raise too many questions. She didn’t even care as she named dropped Bruce, making sure they knew that she was Halley Wayne; she was desperate.

When she saw Damian though all thoughts about Thorne left her mind and her face softened before scrunching up again with concern. Damian never visited her before a she had been pretty sure he forgot that she interned here a couple days out of the week. Stopping her work, she looked up at him, looking around the room as her co-workers eyed them curiously. “Damian, is everything okay? What happened?”

“Tt.” He crossed his arms.

“Damian, is everything okay?” She pressed, seeing that look in his eyes when he looked stressed or in trouble.

“Nothing is wrong, I-,” He paused. He hadn’t figured out what to say. He didn’t prepare for this. Gulping down his anxiety, he took the seat that was across from her desk. He could see the bags underneath her eyes and the untouched food sitting at the other end of the desk. He also noted how the clock said that it was now a couple minutes past two. “Didn’t you tell Drake you were done with work at noon?”

Halley blinked a few times, now knowing that there was no emergency but instead was just thrown off. What was he talking about? Looking down at the time on her laptop it clicked. Her conversation with Tim in the cave, about possibly hanging out today. Oh right, she remembered. Looking back up at her younger brother she gave him an unsure look, she didn’t understand why he was here.

“Um, yeah, well I don’t have a concept of time when I’m in here.” She lightly chuckled, trying to get a vibe on why he was here. Rubbing the black beanie on her head, itching her head awkwardly, “Most times the janitor has to kick me out.”

She looked at him when he just nodded at her, still not stating why he was sitting in front of her. She was surprised he remembered her conversation with Tim, she hadn’t thought he had been listening and it was like they were talking that loudly for him to be forced to overhear him. She had taken note of Tim texting her about how unbearable he’s been since last Sunday though. She bit the inside of her cheek, was Damian jealous? She laughed to herself, there was no way. But when she have him another look over she saw his green eyes staring at her messy desk with a slight pout on his face. Oh he was totally jealous of Tim, she thought.

She looked at her untouched lunch, having totally losing herself in her work and forgetting it even existed. She then felt her stomach growl, seeing how Damian noticed it as well, raising his eyebrow higher, if that was even possible. Quickly saving the document she was working on, she slowly closed her laptop, letting what she was about to do sink in. Trying to contain her smile, not wanting to scare him off before she could even begin, she cleared her throat.

“So do you like Burgers?”

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let-them-eat-rakes · 5 years

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A PERFECTLY NORMAL, REGULAR OLD IKEA

Item #: SCP-3008

Object Class: Euclid

Special Containment Procedures: The retail park containing SCP-3008 has been purchased by the Foundation and converted into Site-██. All public roads leading to or passing by Site-██ have been redirected.

The entrance to SCP-3008 is to be monitored at all times, and no one is to enter SCP-3008 outside of testing, as permitted by the Senior Researcher.

Humans exiting SCP-3008 are to be detained and then debriefed prior to the administration of amnestics. Dependent upon the duration of their stay in SCP-3008, a cover story may need to be generated prior to their release.

Any other entities exiting SCP-3008 are to be terminated.

Description: SCP-3008 is a large retail unit previously owned by and branded as IKEA, a popular furniture retail chain. A person entering SCP-3008 through the main entrance and then passing out of sight of the doors will find themselves translocated to SCP-3008-1. This displacement will typically go unnoticed as no change will occur from the perspective of the victim; they will generally not become aware until they try to return to the entrance.

SCP-3008-1 is a space resembling the inside of an IKEA furniture store, extending far beyond the limits of what could physically be contained within the dimensions of the retail unit. Current measurements indicate an area of at least 10km2 with no visible external terminators detected in any direction. Inconclusive results from the use of laser rangefinders has led to the speculation that the space may be infinite.

SCP-3008-1 is inhabited by an unknown number of civilians trapped within prior to containment. Gathered data suggests they have formed a rudimentary civilisation within SCP-3008-1, including the construction of settlements and fortifications for the purpose of defending against SCP-3008-2.

SCP-3008-2 are humanoid entities that exist within SCP-3008-1. While superficially resembling humans they possess exaggerated and inconsistent bodily proportions, often described as being too short or too tall. They possess no facial features and in all observed cases wear a yellow shirt and blue trousers consistent with the IKEA employee uniform.

SCP-3008-1 has a rudimentary day-night cycle, determined by the overhead lighting within the space activating and deactivating at times consistent with the opening and closing times of the original retail store. During the "night" instances of SCP-3008-2 will become violent towards all other lifeforms within SCP-3008-1. During these bouts of violence they have been heard to vocalise phrases in English that are typically variations of "The store is now closed, please exit the building". Once "day" begins SCP-3008-2 instances immediately become passive and begin moving throughout SCP-3008-1 seemingly at random. They are unresponsive to questioning or other verbal cues in this state, though will react violently if attacked.

SCP-3008-1 is known to have one or more exits located within though these exits do not appear to have a fixed position, making it difficult to leave SCP-3008-1 once inside. Using any other door besides the main entrance to enter the structure or breaking through the walls of the retail unit leads into the non-anomalous interior of the original store.

Since containment began 14 individuals have managed to exit SCP-3008. Following extensive debriefing all individuals have been administered amnestics and released.

Incident 3008-1: At 00:37 on ██/██/200█ a human male exited SCP-3008, followed 10 seconds later by an instance of SCP-3008-2. SCP-3008-2 caught and killed the man before itself being terminated by armed response personnel. This incident represents the only time an instance of SCP-3008-2 has been seen exiting SCP-3008. A full autopsy on the corpse was performed; see 3008-2 Autopsy Log for more details.

The man was carrying an IKEA-branded journal seeming to document his time in SCP-3008-1, transcribed below verbatim.

- Close Journal

If I ever get out o

Been here for 10 days now. Most of the people I asked said they stopped keeping track a long time ago and one guy, Chris, said he'd been in here for years.

Years.

[ILLEGIBLE SCRIBBLES]

Oops, asking the journal questions again!

I'll add it to the Grand List of Weird Bullshit.

Maybe people are just better than they are generally given credit for. That's a nice thought. I think I'll go with that one.

The motto for this place should be "How Is That Even Possible". Surely someone, somewhere must be looking for the thousands of people that must be in here.

Jared was a good guy. He deserved better. We all do.

It occurred to me a couple of days after that, none of us were really looking for a way out of here. I don't even know where we'd start.

No idea if it saw us, it didn't stop if it did. Just kept flying until we could no longer see it.

Well. That was a fun train of thought.

We've been reinforcing the walls, trying to arm ourselves better. Certainly no lack of materials to use. Wasim has been making more crossbows, but it's pretty slow going.

Too bad Ikea doesn't sell guns.

Note: No new personnel have entered SCP-3008 at Site-██ in the time span indicated in this entry.

The attacks are getting bad now. Almost every night, and with so many staff that the bodies almost pile high enough for others to climb the walls. I think we're in real trouble here.

Exchange is

I'm only writing this for a sense of closure, I guess. For me, or for anyone who finds this. If this is the final entry here, I hope whoever is reading this is doing so from outside of this place.

My biggest fear? If I do die tonight, I'll just wake up here again in the morning.

#scp #scp fandom #scp foundation #scp 3008 #ikea #posted from a pile of leaves #let them eat rakes

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the-canary · 6 years

Text

Of Gravity and Revolution - B.B

Summary: Moving into a new university, James Barnes didn’t except to fall in love with the professor next door. (College Professor AU!Reader/Bucky Barnes)

Masterlist

A/N: This is for @redgillan and her love towards Prof. Bucky! There is a lot of mention of political science, I’m sooo sorry.

Please enjoy! Like always, feedback is always welcomed.

James Buchanan Barnes understood early on that things were done differently in a smaller university. For one he had more interactions with students and its diverse faculty, on the other hand resources were a bit more limited, a bit more cramped. He learned this while staring at his new office on the 5 floor of the central lecture hall. Back in the city, he and the rest of the astrophysics department had a whole building to themselves, here he was cramped in together with the political science, religious studies, and various other little sects that came with this private university’s curriculum. It didn’t bother him, but it was definitely a shock.

The small room barely fits half the books that used to fit in his old office, but James takes it all with stride as he tries to make it feel like his own -- a poster here, some books there, a picture of himself with Peggy and Steve when they were graduate students. He’s too preoccupied moving things to notice a figure standing at his opened door, obviously appreciating the view before knocking on the door.

“Hi neighbor,” a raspy voice exclaims, as he turns to see a woman dressed in jeans and a t-shirt standing in behind him, and while classes hasn’t started yet, James knows this woman feels at home within these walls and how she carries herself, which is very different approach to his dress slacks and rolled up blue shirt.

“Hi,” he gets up and walks over to her with a cool smile on his face as he stretches out his hand, “Dr. James Barnes, Astrophysics Department.”

“Oh, so you’re the one they replaced Rumlow with,” she makes a face at the name, like many of the other staff that James had met with, as she shakes his hand. She states her own name before explaining.

“...I’ve work a few doors down, part of the Pol Sci Department,” she explains with an easygoing smile that catches his attention and doesn’t let go. She’s about explain something when her name is called down the other side of the hallway. They both turn to see a short red-haired women wearing a formal blouse and skirt. She nods and looks at James one more time before moving away.

“If you need a tour of the place, let me know.”

James can’t take her up on that offer, since Dr. Banner --the Dean of the Science Department-- shows him around the school a couple of hours after that. The beginning of fall semester begins and James finds himself busy between the classes that he has, the club that he is supposed to be running, and other tasks handed to him as the only other member of this part of the department. However, he sees her from time to time.

“Good morning, Dr. Barnes,” she says with a smile.

“How are you classes so far?” she asks one time when they are walking together through the university’s lawn.

“Are you choosing that for lunch?” she asks while standing behind him in line waiting to get a late lunch.

A laugh or the sight of a bright smile catches him off guard when they are both heading towards their offices or going into the faculty lunch area and he had a dire need to learn more about her. Slowly, he learns that she’s the senior most member of the Political Science Department, as the expert of history and political theory before the 20th century. The rest of the department is also women with Prof. Romanoff leading anything during and after the 20th century and Dr. Hill leading any American and Law studies. It was an intimating group of women, but James didn’t see it that way -- not with her.

5 minutes.

James thinks as he stares at the digital clock on his computer. It had become a small ritual as of late for him to get up and have lunch just before his first class of the day started since all his classes where during the afternoon and evening. If he timed leaving his office well enough, he would get to see you.

“Oh! Good afternoon,” you say with a bright smile as you open your door, as he closes his, to put your books back into your office. James gives you a smile, as he peaks in a little more. Your office is certainly messier than his with piles of books everywhere, some potted plants near the window that faced the courtyard, and posters here and there from various films. You place the books on your cluttered desk before turning back to look at him.

“How were your classes today?” it is the same question he had asked you since the beginning of this little dalliance since most of your classes where in the early morning and evening hours; it was the only time he really got with you and he tried to make the most of it. His heart stutters a bit at the sight of your smile, as you go on to explain what the freshman did in your World History class and the upperclassmen did in your Revolutions class. You explain theory as best you could and add little anecdotes here and there. You laugh and ask his opinion on current events, and if anyone saw the two of you, they could swear James Barnes had the most tender look on his face.

It’s a little later in the semester when he hears it, a soft song playing throughout the hall that houses his office after his last evening class. James cocks an eyebrow as he makes his way to his office. Then, he sees a light coming from your office and the music playing a little louder than before. He takes cautious steps and sees you, hair in a messy bun with a stack of green books and takeout on the side. He smiles as you tap the red pen to the beat of the song. You’re marking a green book with all red as he knocks the door.

“Grading?” he asks, as you jump a little to the sound of his voice. You give him tired smile and nod telling him to come in. Your office is a little less cluttered than before since he can actually sit down, as you turn off the music.

“Alice in Chains?” he lets out a soft laugh at your taste in music because with every new day he is learning a little bit more about you and sometimes it surprises him. You grin as you take a bite out of your food.

“Older brothers are big Grunge fans,” you explain, before going back to tapping your red pen and adding as an afterthought, “You got any siblings?”

“Three younger sisters,” he declares as you let out a painful whistle and proceed to ask him how that was like, which soon turns into swapping embarrassing childhood stories. The papers you were grading are long forgotten, though neither of you forget that night any time soon.

Talks and random moments soon turn into more in depth conversations and exchanging books over the main subjects you love, though it is a little hard to understand at times for the other party. Natasha points this out during one of your shared lunches to talk about the political science students and their next classes.

“You seriously gave him Fukuyama to read?” Natasha scoffs behind her cup of coffee, as you shrug.

“I talked about it and he seemed interested,” you explain a little more horrified than before, as you take a bit out of your burger. She shakes her head, clearly not thinking that such a man would exists.

“I mean, you could have started him out with Plato, Rousseau, hell even Marx,” she exclaims in subtle disbelief, “But, no, give him ‘time is cyclical’ man. Either you want him to run or you…”

Green eyes stare at your face for a long while, trying to catch any changes as you give her a bright smile with flushed cheeks, Natasha curses under her breathe but can’t help but smile at the same time too. It had been a long time since you had been this happy.

“So, what are you reading?” she questions, as Maria enters the dinning hall and she knows her time is limited before everything really goes into business mode.

“Neil de Grase Tyson,” you answer and she laughs.

The science students may not have known Dr. Barnes long enough to see the difference, but the political science students could see that you smiled more. You might still have some of the hardest classes in the department, but there was certainly something light about you. A group of upperclassmen, mostly young woman that liked talking and asking you questions, especially when you were spending those non-tutoring hours outside of your office, knew something was up -- something that they had never seen in the 3-4 years that they had spent studying underneath your tutelage. So, they hover around the hall after a few classes and while they get all their questions answered, they see something new -- the newest staff member watching your door.

It doesn’t take them along to put two and two together. So, before the winter semester ends, they gather around his office (when yours is empty) with bright smiles that send James into slight confusion.

“Her birthday is the last day of finals,” Helen, the oldest member declares, “She likes funny political puns and old cartoons. Just the let you know.”

James blinks for a moment.

“Good luck, Dr. Barnes,” they all coo before leaving and James quickly opens the notes app on his phone to remember the gold that had been given him, and let’s just say you had a very funny birthday present at the end of a tiring day at semester.

Winter break in a new city isn't any fun if you don’t know anyone and while James is aware that he could have gone home or spent the holidays with Steve and Peggy. He also wanted to get used to living in this new town, even if it was alone and he knew there were going to be times where he was needed within the university. And while he might have been hoping for something, for someone to spend the holidays with he was too chicken in the end to ask for your phone number, too afraid that what he wanted wasn’t how you pictured this casual friendships between coworkers. Then, on a wintry December he sees his work email has one new message.

Dear James,

I am sorry if this may seem inappropriate to you, but I saw a stargazing event being advertised for this weekend. My curiosity was piqued, but I don’t know much about the subject. Since you do, would you mind going with me to the event?

I have attached a flyer to the event in the email.

James never answered an email so fast in his life before, as he yells in excitement in his kitchen. And slowly but surely, stargazing turns into lunch and coffee “meetings” between the two of you for the rest of winter break.

The spring semester eases you into a mix of both, from grading papers together in the evening to meeting every other during the weekend for some activity, and James swears that he’s falling for you at this point with your witty one liners and bright eyes that seem take in everything he talks about. However, fear gurgles at his throat at the thought of putting a label at whatever you have been dancing around. Labels aren’t important, he thinks but you put a stop to that.

“James, do you want to go to the Academic Showcase together?” you question as you mark another green book with your red pen, not seeing his surprised face. The Academic Symposium was a university event that encased all the research done by students who had done any independent study within the past year, everyone --including Deans and the President-- attended. This meant going public with whatever you had, and it caused him to pause.

“You don’t have to…” your quivering voice brings him back to reality, as he finds you staring at him with a smile, which by now he knew wasn’t good. So, he places at hand over your own and grins.

“Of course, I’ll go. Gotta see my girl’s work after all,” he gives you a crooked grin before grasping your hand tightly into his own. The bright blush on your face telling him that it might all right to call you his cause that familiar feeling to bloom again, as he goes back to that crazy l-word once more.

Now, due to it being his first year, James doesn’t have anything to present. So, he takes his time walking around and taking in all the presentations, some catching his interest more than others as he gets more excited as he gets closer to your side of the room. That’s when he sees you, wearing a glimmering black dress, while answering any questions your student can’t seem to answer about the French Revolution and St. Just. Starry eyed and varies hand motions with that upticked smile and James knows he’s done for -- he’s in love.

He watches until all the important people are called for dinner and your student is dragged away by a very curious donor of the school. He walks over and slides his arm around your waist as you melt right at his side like you belong there. You look at him and smile.

“You’re amazing,” he declares as he moves over to look over the work you helped put together. You grin while turning to look at him with a fondness he certainly hasn’t seen before.

“I know,” you laugh, as he laughs before pulling you into a hug. His chest rumbles with laughter before you speak again, “But, you are too, and I can’t wait to see your work on display.”

James isn’t why he decides to say it in that moment, but the words of encouragement and steady belief in what you know he was capable of awes him. Your grip and on his jacket and those bright red lips tell James that’s he’s done, that this is it.

“I love you,” he murmurs softly, hoping you didn’t hear him but the soft kiss on his cheek tells him a different story. You move your hand to have his face looking at yours and for a moment James fears what you might say, until he sees your eyes filled with nothing but adoration.

“Love ya too, Bucky,” you answer back, light and joyfully with a huge grin, as you call him by his childhood nickname and he isn’t quite so sure where you had heard it from --maybe, when he was talking about Steve again?-- but he decides it’s the best way he has ever heard it being said before.

And underneath the sparkling light and St. Just’s watchful eyes, James feels the start of something new, something permanent beginning to form -- a small revolution all on its own.

#bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes college au #bucky barnes fluff #bucky barnes imagine #fabiola trying to write #series: short stories

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fullmetalirin · 6 years

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Fullmetal Alchemist OG: Wrath’s Awakening (OG 29-31)

OG adds an arc smack in the middle of this section, so I'll cover it all at once. We're close to the divergence point, now.

Fullmetal Alchemist Episode 29: "The Untainted Child"

The young boy who shadowed Edward and Alphonse on Yock Island is not only an alchemist, he is able to transmute his own body. After finding out about the scars on the boys right arm and left leg, Ed discovers that the boy is a homunculus who took his limbs during their failed attempt at human alchemy.

Ah, Ed and Al do ask why the guy attacked them. It's handwaved as Izumi telling him to toughen them up. Still feels like it goes against the point of the lesson.

Izumi walks towards Wrath, but coughs up blood. It's initially comedic, but she reverts to normal style as Al tends to her.

I'm not sure why Ed attacks Wrath.

Ed appears to try to remove the rock from Wrath's flesh, but the reaction seems to spread and turn his clothes into leaves. So I guess that's where he was getting the clothes? But why would he think to transmute them into proper clothes?

We can clearly see Wrath's arm and leg are Ed's skintone. The rest of Wrath is deathly pale, though. Shouldn't he be tanned if he's spent all his life in the wild? Or do homunculi's bodies never change? Since they don't age, maybe so.

Wrath can talk, so he must have had some human contact.

Wrath doesn't have purple eyes… but he does have blue ones. Maybe the purple comes from eating the red stones.

Winry wants to tell Izumi off for being mean to the Elrics.

Sig sleeps with his eyes open.

Ed sneaks into Wrath's room. Izumi apparently locked the door with alchemy so she'd know if the brothers broke in, so instead Ed busts a hole in the roof. Clever.

Wrath is very acrobatic. Ed turns the blanket into a rope to restrain him.

Oh, the reason Ed was weird about Wrath was because he transmuted without a circle.

Wrath gets upset trying to untie the rope, and transmutes the whole bed into his body.

Cartoon when Izumi barges in.

Ed reveals the homunculi are pursuing him.

Quick shot of Winry sleeping through everything. Haha.

Cut to Central. Sheska is playing with Elicia.

Sheska berates Mustang for not investigating Hughes' murder, and gives him the files Hughes was looking at.

Cut to Sloth calling Envy and telling him to track down the Elrics. Sloth says she's busy in Central.

Envy reveals Sloth is the youngest homunculus.

Sloth doesn't want the Elrics investigating Ishbal's Philosopher's Stone.

Ed explains everything to Izumi. He says transmuting one's own body shouldn't be possible with any alchemy.

Sig politely leaves before Izumi discusses the Gate with Ed.

This is where we get Ed's perspective for the human transmutation scene, which I already covered last post.

Ah, Ed does mention that soul-binding was one of the things he learned from the Gate. So that does explain it.

Back in Central, Breda attaches bishie sparkles to himself with wires when pretending to be Armstrong. LOL.

We get introduced to Archer, who I believe is an anime-only character? He's pursuing the Elrics, likely at the behest of the homunculi.

Al uses the radio in their room and the lamp in the bathroom to create a phone line.

Al figured out that Wrath has Ed's arm and leg. When he reveals it, Ed immediately tunnels into the bathroom to confirm for himself. Everyone looks scared and tells Ed to stay away.

Ed has a breakdown over the possibility his limb trade was not an equivalent exchange.

Ah, the scar on the arm is from the fox bite. So that was intentional. Nice.

Ed freaks out Wrath with his questioning, forcing him to run away. Ed pursues.

Izumi vomits blood when she sees a trail from her transmutation site. It's played completely seriously.

The thing that strikes me most here is how darkly Ed is portrayed. Winry looks scared of him, and everyone tells him he's wrong to be so cruel and suspicious towards this kid, which he completely ignores. We are seeing the dark side of that fiery determination so characteristic of shonen protagonists, and starting to commit to the idea that Ed ignoring all moderating influences in favor of his own obsessions is maybe not healthy behavior.

Fullmetal Alchemist Episode 30: "Assault on South Headquarters"

Yoki spots Scar in a group of Ishbalans arriving at a refugee camp. He runs off to contact the military, hoping to be reinstated. Meanwhile, the military, believing the mysterious boy to be a homunculus, captures and imprisons him in South Headquarters. A chimera called Bido discovers the same and Izumi storms South Headquarters to rescue him, but she soon finds herself in a five-way fight over the boy.

Ed apologizes to Wrath while chasing him. Wrath phases through a wall by fusing himself with it.

Archer has shown up at Sig's shop asking after the Elrics.

Sig and Armstrong strip and have a hulking-out contest.

The lizard-man heard about the Elrics from Tucker.

The lizard-man can climb a sheer wall.

The arm Wrath got from Ed looks significantly larger than his other one.

Archer is using a sniper rifle just as a telescope.

Archer says there's something important on Wrath's right foot (so his natural one). You can't see it in that shot, but later we see that's where his tattoo is.

Armstrong asks what they plan to do if Wrath's limbs really are Ed's – would they rip them off and take them for their own?

Sloth promises to reinstate Yoki if he tells them Scar's whereabouts. So yes, Ed's heroics were only a temporary reprieve – this shows the whole system is rotten.

And while that happens, Greed receives his own information on Wrath. He decides Wrath is a bigger priority than the Elrics. He gives us our first mention of Pride.

Tucker and Kimblee are with Greed.

Al tells Izumi Wrath was a monster, and tells her about the other homunculi as well. Izumi says she already knew.

Izumi vomits blood. It's played seriously. Sig rushes her to the hospital, and this is where we learn about her illness. The doctor points to a diagram saying all her organs from her liver to her intenstines are gone, which doesn't seem like it should be survivable. They'd have to be only partially damaged; you can't survive without all of them. Possibly we can assume her uterus took the brunt of the damage. This is where Ed figures out she did human transmutation.

There's still dried blood on Izumi's lips when she enters the southern headquarters.

Winry bemoans everyone keeping her out of the loop. This prompts Sig to tell her their backstory over footage of Izumi's assault, which I think is a nice technique.

How does Kimblee survive his own blast? He's touching the thing that explodes with enough force to take down a wall.

Ed says that as a soldier he's bound by duty to apprehend Izumi.

Bradley appears. Ed wonders to himself why he's here, hinting that we're supposed to find that weird.

And Bradley appears to be in Central simultaneously, ordering Mustang to take out Scar. I wonder if we're supposed to think this is a flashback…? Mustang coldly decides that if Scar doesn't surrender, they will take out the entire camp.

Scar recognizes a symbol in the alchemist's house, but I don't. I presume it'll be explained later.

Fullmetal Alchemist Episode 31: "Sin"

Amid the confusion inside South Headquarters, Envy, disguised as Bradley, manages to take the homunculus boy from Izumi. Kimblee and Bido came to battle for the same purpose and the boy remembered all his past after he consumed small fragments of the Philosopher's Stone.

We open with Team Mustang asking if they plan to kill the refugees. Mustang can't give an answer.

Archer is surprised to see Kimblee alive. Kimblee apparently was ordered to stop killing civilians.

When Kimblee tells them to ask Bradley, we get an internal monologue from Envy, thus showing us it's him. I don't like that, it's very tacky to shift perspectives suddenly. The writers probably thought it was funny but eh, not the time. Envy apparently didn't know why Kimblee was kept alive, also. I guess they keep him out of the loop on most things.

Envy-Bradley rushes forward to grab Wrath.

Izumi shoots a giant stone fist at Envy-Bradley, which Armstrong stops. The force shreds his shirt.

We switch to still images for the battle, because I guess they ran out of budget. It's not too clear what's going on, but apparently the force of their attacks is collapsing the building.

Kimblee taps Al and notes that he has an interesting body.

Bido not wanting to get turned into a bomb is played for comedy. Eenh.

Envy feeds Wrath a red stone. Wrath then starts eating the rest ravenously.

Envy says the red stones have several hundred human lives in them. That seems like a lot – even these low-quality ones require that much? Wrath is horrified and spits them out, but eats them again when Envy threatens to take them away.

Envy says the reason Wrath can use alchemy is because of his human limbs.

Wrath gets flashbacks to the Gate of Truth, and his eyes turn purple.

Archer offers to reinstate Kimblee.

Wrath has a new outfit with the homunculus markings. Where'd he get that? It looks very similar to Envy's outfit (short shorts and bare midriff), so possibly we can assume Envy gave it to him.

Wrath apparently eviscerated Envy after awakening.

The soldiers contacted Central and discovered Bradley wasn't supposed to be here. That seems sloppy. Did Envy do this on his own?

We get a flashback to Izumi's human transmutation. She did it at Yock Island, not an indoor location like in Brotherhood. We don't see her trip to the Gate. When she wakes up she vomits blood, and sees her baby is alive, but has become a monster. So this is pretty clear confirmation that the soul is the issue: she had a whole, intact body and it still didn't work.

Izumi tries to strangle Wrath but can't. Envy watches from a clifftop.

Ed arrives to see Wrath strangling Izumi. Izumi says she deserves it, and we complete the flashback: when she saw what she made, she gave it back to the Gate. The Gate looks much creepier here than it does in Brotherhood – it has a complete arch, like the front of a temple, and it's filigreed with strange human statues. A giant eye looks out from within. Ed says the inside of the Gate looked like truth to him, but Izumi says it looked like Hell.

The baby starts crying when it's taken away, and Izumi regrets her choice.

This is where we get explicit confirmation that homunculi are the result of human transmutation, and that they lack a soul. Ed thought they were created like chimeras.

This reveal, to me, felt so obvious and intuitive I was honestly shocked that Brotherhood did something so different and so, so much more boring. Homunculi as failed resurrections raises so many delightful questions about personhood, responsibility, and playing God that will be explored later in the series.

Wrath's personality has noticeably changed. He is extremely vulgar and hostile.

Lust and Gluttony can be seen among the refugees when Mustang's team approaches.

We see Sloth traveling through the water towards Yock Island. Wow, I guess a new homunculi is top priority for them.

Greed's arrived too, so we're in for a showdown. Envy asks him what he did with the skull – ah, there was a skull in his prison. That must have been from his human remains. So that's an early hint towards that.

Greed seems surprised that a Sloth exists. I guess they're rare? It'd be interesting to try to figure out if there's any theme to Dante's naming scheme. Envy also says that there's a full set of seven "for the first time in a while", so there has been a full set before.

Sloth namedrops Wrath for the first time.

Sloth says Envy's orders were to push Ed towards the Philosopher's Stone, not throw a wrecking ball at him. Envy just says he wanted to see Hoenheim's kid suffer. So Envy is unreliable.

Wrath says his body grew inside the Gate.

Wrath wants Ed's whole body so he can become human. Interesting that he couldn't use Al's.

Conclusion

Like the Fifth Laboratory, this probably would have benefited from being condensed into two episodes. Also like the Fifth Laboratory, I love it anyway. Where the last arc addressed the initial driving question of the Philosopher's Stone and what the Elrics would do to achieve it, this one is addressing the questions that were brought up there: What are the homunculi, what do they want, and how are they connected to human transmutation? Moreover, we are engaging with deeper questions to come: what is alchemy, and what is equivalent exchange?

We're also getting a deeper taste of the darker turn OG will take. Ed and even Al are taking questionable actions that pit them against other heroic characters. Armstrong, previously a stalwart hero, is forced against them by his duties to the military. We are engaging with a question posed at the beginning: Will Ed follow the military's orders, even if they are repugnant? He made a choice to become a tool of the military, and he can't just walk out on that when it's convenient.

#fullmetal alchemist #fma #fullmetal alchemist brotherhood #fma 2003 #liveblog

3 notes · View notes

fountainpenguin · 7 years

Note

I have quite a few ideas for fanfics and original stories, but I get so bogged down in worldbuilding and analysis that coming up with a plot for people to actually read is much more difficult. Given your extensive headcanons for "The Fairly OddParents", how do you manage it? How do you snap out of Worldbuilding Mode, get into Storywriting Mode and stay there long enough to accomplish anything?

That… is a good question. Well, let’s walk through this together. This is gonna be a VERY BIG one (over 10k words because I’m just that extra), full of behind-the-scenes tidbits for my fanfics, but nothing I’d call super interesting for those who aren’t writers, so feel free to skip this one~

TL;DR: I’m weird. I work best when I choose how to manage my time. Spring break? Time to draw and watch cartoons! But adjusting my schedule so I can do homework AND study AND talk with friends AND answer Tumblr Asks AND research AND write? I will stop procrastinating in an instant, because suddenly there’s no time to lollygag. Why do you think I created the Mikey askblog? I was balancing my time suspiciously well and it was legit having negative effects in my life. I needed to add more pressure to my plate to force myself to work. I’m bizarre. You gotta make the time and have the right environment, I guess!

How to Write More Good: It’s Getting Drafty In Here!

(AKA, Riddle giving general advice on writing early drafts!)

.:: STARTING WITH AN IDEA ::.

(+ Basic Worldbuilding and Character Design)

My first FOP ‘fic was Baby, You’re a Rich Man. It came to be because “School’s Out! The Musical” was (and still is) my favorite episode of the series. After rewatching it half a dozen times, a few things occurred to me:

H.P. and Sanderson were moving away from the sunset in the opening scene, towards Kansas.

Flappy Bob grew up in an orphanage in Dimmsdale, California.

H.P. and Sanderson couldn’t use magic during that opening scene.

It would be more rational for them to take Flappy Bob to Pixie World and get new wands than it would be to drive all the way back to California.

So, that’s how I got the basic idea of, “How did that caring for a baby on a magic-free road trip go?”. While my headcanon base was not as extensive as it is now, I had pinned down the Pixie Wolbachia headcanon. That gave me the starting point I needed to strive into writing this ‘fic with confidence.

As for where my worldbuilding came from in the first place, my personal preference was to break the mold I saw. For example, I chose to focus heavily on real-life insect biology and science in my fanwork. Here are a couple of worldbuilding questions to get your gears turning:

How does society feel about expressing emotions in public?

What are society’s views of marriage?

Bathing? Eating? Taking vacations?

Greeting one another? Holidays? Schooling? Calendars?

Work hours? Who has jobs? How many? How does one get a job?

Living with those you’re related to? Aren’t?

Addressing figures of high status?

Look for basic, “obvious” things that we do in our lives and twist them, and maybe make something that would startle us totally acceptable in your work. It sounds like you’ve made good progress, but I thought I’d toss some thoughts out there for anyone who wants to write, but is lacking ideas in this area.

When writing fanfics, I would ask yourself questions like:

How closely do I want to stick to canon?

My family used to have this giant bucket of honey that said on the side, “Nothing added, nothing taken away”. In my case, I stick as close to canon as possible, and try to act with a policy of “everything added, nothing taken away”. That’s my personal preference, and it makes things easy because, with a few exceptions, no one has to try to remember which episodes are canon in my work, or who is on good terms with who in an AU.

What plot holes will my story address, avoid, or answer?

As mentioned above, I was curious about how H.P. and Sanderson made it to California, why they picked Dimmsdale, and how a magic-free road trip for people who rely so heavily on magic might have gone down. I had the opportunity to explore character relationships and the magic system of the FOPverse.

What worldbuilding elements did canon give that I can expand on?

Wands, Pixies Inc., godchildren, memory wiping, other species, fantastic racism, pixies all looking alike, magical creatures getting drunk on candy and soda, Da Rules…

What is my take on Character A?

I see Sanderson as loyal and devoted; he’d sacrifice himself for H.P. and can’t be convinced to betray him. He craves recognition for this, and is desperate for H.P. to refer to him as his son. He doesn’t know why this is so important to him anymore, just that it’s always been something he wants. He’s also an envious sort who is bitter because he’s head of the complaints department and isn’t vice president of the company.

Someone else might see Sanderson as a suck-up who flatters H.P. beyond belief in the hopes of taking over someday. Or perhaps as a bumbling idiot who only keeps his job through nepotism. Or perhaps H.P. is grooming Sanderson to inherit the position of Head Pixie and treats him like a puppet for political reasons.

My works would be very different if any of these had been my angles. The great thing about headcanons is, we can all have our own!

How have A’s interactions with B changed from canon?

My Sanderson has separation anxiety. I based this off canon, because he always follows H.P. around despite having the lowly job of working in the complaints department. However, his separation anxiety isn’t confirmed by canon.

Someone could say he was only working in complaints in “Pixies Inc.” because the company was transitioning now that they’d bought out Fairy World, and that in reality he is (or was later promoted to be) the vice president, and I would support this interpretation even though it differs from my own.

Do I know how they speak?

I wanna write some “Bunsen Is a Beast” one-shots, but it’ll take some time for me to get a solid feel for these characters. To stay in character, you have to understand their background, vocabulary, facial expressions, body language, movement, eye contact, tics, what they do when they’re flustered or startled, how they laugh…

I fell in LOVE with BIaB’s use of hand gestures and body language, because FOP and DP always came off a little lacking in that area to me. Like. If there is any body part I find attractive, it’s hands and the way they move, just- Hhhhhh asdfjhslfsdfjs bury me in this JUST LOOK-

Keeping characters in character is the make-or-break point of enjoying fanfiction for me. I’ve read long ones that use (mostly) proper grammar, but disliked them because characters were OOC. Likewise, I’ve read pieces with less-than-stellar conventions, and loved them for the believable character portrayals. Sometimes I get lucky and manage to find something that scores high marks in both areas.

Some people don’t mind a little OOC-ness! But I don’t like it (Might be an author thing, being a writer of original works myself). I like fanfics that contain references to CANON DETAILS. Research. Thoughtfulness. Love and care. Expanding on what the creator brought to life, not twisting it so much that it seems like you wrote your OCs and are calling it fanfiction just so people read it.

I mean, I like the show because I like what canon gave me, right? I drool over characters like H.P., Youngblood, and Mikey because I sit there with my chin in my hands and think, “You are such a great character. I wish you could be my character. You are a dang fine character.” It just kinda bothers me when people stray too far from that (I totally support portrayals that differ from my own, but I do favor the guidelines of “everything added, nothing taken away”).

Speaking of characters, characters might change as you write more! Freaking Gavin certainly comes to mind.

My pixie character Longwood was going to be my serious fellow. He was written that way in every scene (of which there weren’t a lot for him yet). But then I wrote the “Solo” prompt (the proctoring of Rosencrantz’s latest placement test) before finishing Baby, You’re a Rich Man.

The very first scene to mention how much of a sucker he is for kisses was the “You have a lipstick stain beside your ear” line, and how Longwood’s hand flashes to the exact spot on his cheek. I was going to leave it at that. But then it slipped into Rich Man, and I couldn’t resist. It took off.

Not only did this end up influencing Origin, but it majorly affected Frayed Knots, Rich Man, and the 130 Prompts project. Bit of a flanderization, but he never lost his other traits (kleptomania, phobia of blood) and it’s unlocked so many wonderful opportunities and plot points.

The entire concept of gynes stemmed from around this, for example, as well as some conflict with Sanderson and H.P. (Longwood wanting to marry despite H.P. telling him not to, along with Longwood’s habit of trading company secrets in exchange for kisses). I can’t see him any other way.

Then Wilcox was going to be my serious character. He ended up with a physical addiction to shapeshifting, loves to be a rabbit, and now wants to marry a rabbit. Well.

Characters can change from your original plans for them. Let them go. It’s their story before it’s yours. The piece will almost certainly be better for it.

TIP: Don’t leave yourself sitting in front of a blank screen. Put something down. I usually keep a collection of town names on hand if nothing else, because I work MUCH better when there are words already there.

These notes have been sitting under the table of contents of Origin of the Pixies since the beginning. If you’re as familiar with my work as I am, you may notice that those four town names have never come up yet. I grew fond of them and wanted to save them for either a really good town, or for original projects.

Here are some other notes up there. The first one is a list of people who are immune to magic, as mentioned in “Crock Blocked” (though it’s supposed to be “new wave”, not “new way”). The second is a deleted line from “Rain Dance” that I really like, but haven’t been able to use yet.

Here are some notes from the beginning of Knots:

Use ‘in which’ subtitles

Maternity colonies

Group of huddling baby bats = creche

“It’s a bit dear” = It’s expensive

“I’ve got the right hump” = I’m irritated

“Plump for something more like…” = Use something more like…

“I’m easy” = I’m laid back; I don’t mind

“All right, darling?” = How do you do?

Chips = Crisps

French fries = Chips

Lift = Elevator

Using “You know what I mean?”

Knackered = Exhausted

Gutted = Broken up about

Gobsmacked = Completely shocked

“I cocked up” = I badly messed up

Blinding = Incredible

Cheers = Thanks

Ace = Expert at

A damp squib = A failure

Chunder = Throwing up; for drunken nights

“Oh, mate, that’s brilliant!”

Fortnight = Two weeks

“She gave me a real bollocking” = She scolded me

“Nice one, really” = Sort of sarcastic; “Great job” or “Nice going”

Dodgy = Not very good (Items / thoughts / actions / people)

Scrummy = Tastes very good

Kerfuffle = Skirmish

“That’s a load of tosh” or “Don’t talk tosh”

“He tried to skive off work” = Sluff

Yup! Stereotypical British slang I’ll probably play around with! I don’t plan to use all of it, and I don’t want to use them too much, but I jotted them down.

I also have a list of symptoms for the iris virus STD, but I don’t think that’s appropriate to share here. Here are some notes from my “Danny Phantom” ‘fic about Youngblood, No Anesthetic:

I used to have his sisters up there, before I moved them to an Excel file:

Excel and such can be a great tool for writers to keep their character notes. Stay organized. Once you get your notes written down, you can stop thinking about them so much (I’ll mention the brain’s response to saying “I can move on now that this is noted down” later in this post) and free up space in your head to think through stuff that hasn’t been finished (aka, the story).

The point of me showing all these is, this is something I always do. You just have to start somewhere. Don’t sit at a blank screen and procrastinate. You’ll get analysis paralysis. The first draft is supposed to be a DRAFT. It can change later. If your first draft is perfect, you have bigger problems to worry about, because you probably have magic powers and a world to save. Write more than you need to in this stage- figure out what to cut later.

Need ideas for what to jot down? Figure out more worldbuilding basics:

Where are people getting their food? Water? Shelter?

Social interaction?

Money?

Materials to do the job to get the money?

Books, toys, writing materials, entertainment?

Eating utensils?

Rights?

Addictions?

Love?

Pets?

What about your protagonist? Main personality traits? Quotes?

Family, alive and deceased? Family history? Heirlooms?

Neighbors?

Nervous habits? Embarrassing habits?

Things they’d lie about?

Things they’d never want anyone to know about them?

Deep dark fears?

Things they would share on their Tumblr blog?

I would easily be able to answer all of these for my FOP work, and several of them for my fantasy novel (currently nicknamed “Stars and Finches”) too.

Now, how can you hint at these things in your story? What happens if you take one of those away, or threaten to? Answering the question of “How would THIS character react?” is thrilling for me, and something that drives me from worldbuilding mode into writing mode.

We all know that it’s common for characters to not be mentioned as needing to go to the bathroom. But remember, your characters are mortal too (or, they’re not!) If they have needs, keep that in mind.

In the first draft of Rich Man (not the outline, but the actual draft), there was no mention of Sanderson being thirsty in the early chapters. I added it later because I realized how long he had gone without drinking in hot and dusty Kansas, so then we end up with these scenes:

Chap 1:

I pulled myself together, licking at my dry lips.

Oil dripped in silence, and I remembered how dry my mouth was, full of dust and maybe a bit of blood.

Chap 2:

Water. Water. Water! I hadn’t wanted to get my hopes up just in case I was wrong, but as I approached the small army of metal animals encircling the watering hole on Hole 8, I felt hope swell within me. I knelt between a hulking elephant and a slender zebra near the little wooden bridge. Hugging Flappy to me with one arm, bracing myself with the other, I drank until all the dirt and corn dust had washed from my mouth. It tasted like whipped cream. When I next licked my lips, actual wetness spread itself over the cracks.

Characters needing to meet their needs can be a great plot device if you’re groping for ideas! In fact, I said one time that my tip for overcoming writer’s block is as follows:

Your character is either hungry, thirsty, exhausted, second-guessing themselves, learning a new skill, overcoming a naturally-formed or man-made obstacle, or that really great plot point you’re excited for is coming up next and it’s time to dialogue your way in that direction. Rinse and repeat.

(On the subject of writer’s block, I sometimes record myself reading the dialogue I’ve already written. Bonus points if you can get the voices right, though I sometimes find it difficult to switch between multiple ones. If you can get really into it and carry on a long conversation with yourself, perhaps you can transcribe some of what you say to your writing.)

.:: THE FIRST OUTLINE ::.

Confession time: I’m not awesome at plots myself (That’s why I tend to write long, drawn-out pieces, because the plot then becomes “development and discovery”). But Rich Man’s road trip idea came with a built-in plot. It was supposed to be pretty quick and done.

Like. A sixteen-page long one-shot. Not an 85,000-word novel. So, what I did was, I just started writing and let the story unfold as I went. This is what I knew was going to happen:

H.P. and Sanderson find Flappy in the cornfield

Sanderson gets shot in the wing so he can’t fly for the rest of the story; the stakes have been upped because his ability to escape is limited.

Sanderson and H.P. get separated in the field and Sanderson panics because of his separation anxiety. He tips over the edge and H.P. scolds him for this when they meet up again.

Everyone goes to the minigolf course. H.P. puts Sandy in charge while he plays golf by himself. Sandy is torn between staying at the course or leaving for food, because he and Flappy are hungry. He also ends up losing Flappy, but he’s found again later.

In the morning, everyone leaves and they get back in the car and start searching for food. Flappy needs baby supplies.

H.P. and Sanderson disguise themselves with a trench coat or something from the back of their truck and get supplies from a gas station. While outside the station, they get backed into a corner. Sanderson ends up running inside the station with Flappy while H.P. got caught and dragged off.

Sanderson tries to balance Flappy’s needs with figuring out where H.P. is and how to rescue him. He feels alone and miserable, but eventually he manages to reunite with H.P. somehow.

H.P. and Sanderson make it to the base of the Pixie World Bridge just as it starts to rain, and manage to get Flappy above the clouds, and arrive in Pixie World to dry off.

In the conference room, H.P. explains the loose outline for his plans, and Sanderson is put in charge of watching Flappy for the night.

Now, anyone who’s read Rich Man will realize instantly that something is very wrong. This doesn’t look much like the finished project. Where are Eunice and Quincy? Where’s the candy and the fence? Where’s Anti-Naelita? What happened to the soccer field? Jorgen? The sugar bar? The will o’ the wisps?

Simple: my outline was loose enough to give me wiggle room. Some writers prefer a strict outline, but I’m not one of them. You might not be either.

As you can see, I had a decent outline here. I had a good starting point, even if it was rough and many details were fuzzy. I got to this point by first marking general notes, and then asking questions and adding more notes:

I need to get from the cornfield to Pixie World.

What is the cornfield like? What time of day is it? What’s around? Who’s around?

What happened to the guy they hit with their truck when they spun into the corn? And how much did the collision / spin / impact jostle them?

How are they going to take care of Flappy?

They don’t have magic.

A baby will need to be fed and changed

There’s no way they have baby supplies in their truck

Where and how will they get supplies? How will they get the supplies to get the supplies? Who will they meet when they get it? What are the dangers?

I want H.P. and Sanderson to get separated.

How can we up the stakes?

I can take Sandy’s ability to fly, and discuss the ways magical creatures can die, and put Sandy in or near those situations so we can see him fret

Even if the audience knows that the main character survives (especially when writing backstories), the writer should strive to keep them on their toes with physical and emotional dangers

I love the idea of Sanderson having separation anxiety, so I’d like some of the focus on the story to be on that

I should foreshadow this by separating them in the cornfield for a short period of time.

What happens to Flappy when they separate?

How does H.P. take care of Flappy vs. how Sanderson takes care of him? Who is more capable: H.P. who has much more experience but is strict, or Sanderson who is more compassionate but makes many mistakes?

How do they get back together?

An injured wasp releases pheromones. I based pixies off wasps. I could do something with this.

I like the idea of Sanderson putting himself in harm’s way to trigger his pheromones, because it drives home how desperate and lost he is.

What’s my end goal? Why am I writing this?

I want to share my portrayal of these characters that I like, and maybe others will like these portrayals and characters too.

I’m interested in exploring the worldbuilding and magic system, and trying to bring all the scattered bits of canon that seem to conflict into a single consistent magic system with strengths and flaws.

There’s not a real moral here, or at least not a good one. It’s just sort of slice-of-life, and shows how much H.P. means to Sanderson compared to what Sanderson means to H.P., and just sketch an idea as to what their overarching relationship is.

I wanted to point out the Kansas/California disconnect and play around with a magic-free road trip.

This was enough for me to get started. Just keep asking and answering questions! At this point, I had no other ‘fics to refer to, so I threw in worldbuilding as I went along (Hint: Reference past experiences that helped one grow or made someone nervous. Compare things to something that belongs specifically in this world when describing colors, expressions, body language, or facial features. What reminds a character of their past? How can you make those things related to your ideas or to canon worldbuilding?).

I made things up as I went along, and tried to slip in worldbuilding:

What’s so special about this minigolf course?

Apparently Sanderson was born here

What was H.P.’s life like back then?

What is the course decorated like? Why?

I really wanted the tree Sandy climbs to be a maple. But how did a maple end up in Kansas? Hmm.

As adorable as being born at the golf course would be, how does that work with the time differences?

How the Big Wand works

How magical creatures breathe

Lines can get tangled

What wand providers do

Undoing magic (reversal fluid and signature codes)

Limitations on magic

Why wands are important

How wands work

In a magical sense

In a physical sense

Legal jazz and paperwork junk

Magic lines

Magic doesn’t work well in poor weather conditions

Tingle-fritziness

Snapping lines

How do babies get lines?

Tying lines

Three is preferred; too many or two few can compromise one’s health.

Magic dust

Non-magic users see what they expect to see if there is magical residue around (basically sweat; aka fairy dust)

Healing

Ability to fly

The energy field

Field-sight

Species variations

Magical politics

Mind wiping

Fantastic racism

Rules about interfering with neutral / evil parties on Earth

Court cases

Anti-Pixie society

Sanderson is reserved, likes singing, and is loyal to H.P., but Anti-Sanderson is boisterous, likes dancing, and usurped H.P.’s counterpart

What even was the previous 37-year plan anyway?

And how important? What did the Fairies think of it? Anti-Fairies?

Sanderson hates it when girls flirt with him when he’s just trying to fix the copy machine; it’s distracting and confusing

Inspiration back-up is maybe a thing? This is a really iffy subject

How did the Pixies become involved with Gary and Betty? Why THEM?

Sanderson is taking care of them because he grew fond of their parents after meeting them in this ‘fic. When the plan called for more human children to raise, Sanderson knew who to look into.

Sanderson is not company vice president, and is bitter rivals with the pixie who is

Who gives pixies milk? Foster mothers

Who was Sanderson’s milkmother? How did H.P. meet her? Does Sanderson remember her? Why isn’t she still around? Did she have kids? Are they his siblings? Why aren’t they around?

… Basically, if you have the choice between slipping in a world-building detail or falling back on an old cliche, the former is probably the better way to go. Of course, I myself hit a snag when I couldn’t figure out what Sanderson would know about H.P.’s past, so I started to develop Origin of the Pixies seriously.

Write the stuff you’ve already come up with. Try to see things from the perspective of someone who can’t see the inner workings of your head:

Is your logic sound?

Do you contradict yourself?

Do you think you’ve avoided plot holes?

Are your explanations confusing?

What questions might people ask? How would you answer them?

What if this story was written with different characters?

How would they try solving their problems? What would they know? Why DON’T the characters you chose to use react that way?

My advice is, don’t be stubborn with your outline. Be flexible. I mean, look at this note I added to Rich Man 8 when I originally posted it on deviantArt:

Idona’s presence, I think, might be worth a little explanation. First things first, I would like to throw out that I did not invent an OC to ship Sanderson with because I find romance necessary. I’m really not much of a shipper in general. This was always supposed to be a story about Sanderson, his boss, and a baby clown. So if you’re anything like me, you can breathe again.

[…] Idona was not supposed to be in this story. She isn’t in my original outline whatsoever. Even when I started thinking I might have Sanderson run across a will o’ the wisp, I was going to use one of the random ones. Literally anybody but Idona, because knowing her the way I’ve learned to [from writing Origin of the Pixies], there is no way she wouldn’t bring up romance, and I didn’t want that to even be a question in this story.Problem being that if we’re perfectly honest, based on Origin of the Pixies canon, most wisps would have either A) confused him with Longwood and attacked out of frustration (and I was really done with Sanderson getting physically beat on), or the more likely B) smothered him in kisses and such right then and there, O'Weskar v. Pixies Inc. notwithstanding, seeing as they know they have the time to have their way with him before he dies. And no way was I going that far. Either I had to change Origin of the Pixies, I had to invent pointless new wisp characters and introduce plot holes, or I had to adjust a scene in Baby, You’re a Rich Man that I wasn’t happy with.Using Idona surprisingly led me to the least possible romance and the best balance of sanity, if that makes any sense. Because she’s the only one who would ever see him as a person and respect his refusal, and not just take advantage of him. And I got to show Sanderson doubling back in desperate search of the only wisp he actually dislikes rather than has more neutral feelings towards. That was nice. Not that… it means much to you all, not having read Origin of the Pixies yet. So, yes, I’m entirely aware that this scene probably still seems out of place with the rest of the story, but I assure you, every word Idona says, her fascination with Sanderson in particular, and the fact that wisp damsels come out in the rain nowadays makes complete sense. And, for those of you who actually were itching for romance, take this and sit tight. Next time we’ll talk with Longwood and someone’s gonna get busted.So if Idona weren’t here at all then their conversation would have been replaced with more of Sanderson’s rambling which, while it was my first intention, did not go as well as I hoped. It really went on for about ten pages and I kind of. Pushed him. Over the brink of reality and had to start over. There was a lot of grass-eating involved. I had to stop when I ran him into the ground because I had little choice but to make Jardine stumble across him while he got his dirt, and that rang like a cop-out. It was all much too OOC even for my take on Sanderson, I realized when I sat back and took a second look. So now you get Idona and I’m 100% certain the story is better for it. It did fix a major plothole in a later scene, after all.

This is just what, after twelve years of trial and error, seems to work very well for me. Some people might be driven crazy by an outline that said, “I don’t know how they meet up again, but I’ll figure that out when I get there”.

Personally, I let the characters guide me. If you’ve read Rich Man, you know that Sanderson is actually the one who gets captured, and that he ends up bonding a bit with Thomas over music. I came up with that love of music idea when I reached that scene.

That’s what works! Alternatively, if I were more of a planner, I could have drawn up a character sheet for Thomas in advance, and I might have written, say… “Flattery is the way to his heart”, and gone into the scene with that character detail in mind, and Sanderson could have flattered his way out.

In the latest chapter of Origin, I had the scene where Sanderson hugs the yoo-doo doll and the scene where H.P. stabs the arrow into it written out months ago, but I didn’t figure out where or how they got the dolls (or who was guarding them) until I actually made it to that section of the chapter.

Just remember: Better to have a rough draft than nothing at all! If you feel paralyzed, start asking questions and trying to decide how you can answer them in your piece without infodumping too much! Unless you infodump the way I did when Sanderson went on his rant(s) in Chapter 1, I guess?

.:: FIRST WORDS ::.

Okay, let’s back it up. We’re pretty far into this post now, and yet the first thing I ever do when actually writing a story is, throw down all the scene snippets I’ve been keeping in my head before creating the document.

Ex: In Frayed Knots, here’s one scene I scribbled downvery early-

The glimmering of her translucent wings cast rainbows across the squares of light leaking over the otherwise dark floor. My core twisted in a knot. I covered my mouth and nose with my fingers, choking on literal butterflies because the sight was so sickeningly pretty and good and pure that it made my head spin and the blood thump in my neck. It went against every Anti-Fairy instinct, every Anti-Fairy cultural norm, every Anti-Fairy schooling lesson, every Anti-Fairy wands and wings talk-

And I liked it.

Wanda placed her hand to my forehead. “Are you all right? Your face is flushed purple, but your forehead doesn’t seem overly cold.”

- and I moved from stuff like that onto the next chunk, which was writing the scenes that appear in both Knots and Origin from the viewpoints of Anti-Cosmo and H.P., respectively, and making them each distinct. For example-

Origin-

Against his best efforts, Anti-Cosmo pulled a more amusing face than he would ever admit to and handed me back my mug. “Blimey! I really don’t know how you can drink this putrid stuff all day, old sport.”

I slid his tea cup and saucer across my desk with the end of my pen. “And I will never see the appeal of this sickly sweet water, either. I can hardly function without my morning coffee dose.”

“All the more reason we should align forces, I think. The coffee is yours, but all the tea in the universe shall be mine. Ahahaha!”

“And the sugar?”

My door exploded open as Anti-Cosmo was working through his, “I say we split the difference”. He yelped and dropped the cup he had just picked up, and it spilled steaming tea all over his lap. Brown dots splattered across the papers on the desk between us.

“Sanderson,” I said, trying not to focus on the bead of sweat creeping down my forehead. “This is definitely not a good time to make a fool of yourself.”

He surveyed the situation fast and pinged up a handful of small towels for Anti-Cosmo. To me, “Longwood and Smitty are trying to kill each other down in the food court.”

“Oh, blitz.” I shoved my chair backwards and pushed past the anti-fairy. At the door, I turned back to him. “I would suggest you remain here, Anti-Cosmo. For your own safety.”

“My own safety?” he repeated, utterly perplexed. He had his handkerchief balled in his blue hand, even though tea was still splattered across his prim shirt and dark pants. His green eyes narrowed with glinting suspicion. “I’m not certain this isn’t a clever attempt at a trap, H.P.”

Knots-

I fiddled with my wand beneath the edge of his desk. I’d seen what that stuff did to him the morning after we’d spent that night together during the war. “Hot drinks don’t appeal so much to anti-entities.”

“Just taste it, tea-drinker,” he coaxed.

So I did. It stung the cuts along the roof of my mouth, just as I’d expected to, but I did not spit my swallow out, and I’m very proud of that. “Blimey,” I said mildly as I lowered it. Struggling to maintain an even expression, I passed back his mug. “I really don’t know how you can drink this putrid stuff all day, old sport.”

“And I will never see the appeal of this sickly sweet water, either,” he said as he returned my teacup. “I can hardly function without my morning coffee dose.”

I smiled and lifted that softly-steaming cup of sweetness to my nose. “All the more reason we should align forces, I think. The coffee is yours, but all the tea in the universe shall be mine!” My proposal ended in a small cackle.

He tilted his head. “And the sugar?”

“I say we split the difference.”

The door burst before I finished. Tea spilled down my shirt and over my legs. I flinched and probably let slip a squeal as I grabbed at the insides of my coat. The Head Pixie’s face bled into mortified white.

“Sanderson, this is definitely not a good time to make a fool of yourself.”

I rotated my chair partway around, squeezing the wet front of my shirt in my fist. The flustered pixie kept one hand pressed to his hair, but he spared me a fleeting glance. As he pinged up an unsteady stack of gray towels above my head, he blurted, “Longwood and Smitty are trying to kill each other down in the food court.”

Spitting unprofessional curses, the Head Pixie launched himself over his desk, caught his foot on the edge, tripped, and slammed hard into the ground beside my feet. He scrambled up again and flew through his door. Then he poked his head back in. “I would suggest you remain here, Anti-Cosmo. For your own safety.”

I cocked my ears forward. “My own safety? I’m not certain this isn’t a clever attempt at a trap, H.P.”

Of course, I guess you don’t really have that luxury, huh? Having another story to refer to? So sharing these blocks was kind of pointless.

Some scenes may get cut. Even ones that you thought you liked. If you’re a writer, I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase “Kill your darlings” before.

That’s especially the case when trying to publish, as you’re bound to a certain length. Fanfiction is nice because you can be as long as you want. But still, I would advise you, if something’s not working? It’s hurting. Drop it. Keep only scenes that contribute.

Could I have written several more chapters in Origin about H.P.’s life in Kalysta’s burrow? Heck yes. Could I have written about the years he spent as a servant / butler to Cattahan? Definitely. But they disrupted the flow, and really, the audience didn’t need them. Wield the timeskip wisely.

.:: DIVIDE AND CONQUER ::.

Okay, so you know I scribble down what I can think of at the time, right? What if I don’t know a detail? Should I stop and work it out? Spend an hour or two researching right then and there?

Nah. I throw down an underscore and keep moving. Later, I can use the search feature to show me all the underscores and fill them in during the second draft, when I have more time for fact-checking like that.

This is my favorite example of the underscores, from the “Think Positive” prompt, because every time I find this scene again it just makes me snort:

“-pixies over the millennia. Surely you can loan me some advice to raising mine? I don’t know the first thing about raising a child. I’ve never held a pup in my life.”

The Head Pixie scratched his chin. “Aren’t you Mr. Genie Conservation Program?”

“_.”

“Right. _.”

Anti-Cosmo shoved back his seat and lifted his wings. “_?”

“_,” he said as he took another sip of soda.

“_.”

“Wasn’t that the very first thing I said?”

“But do you even know how Anti-Fairy rrreproduction works?”

The most interesting conversation.

Anyway, I knew that I wanted these two to bounce off one another. I knew A.C. was acting high-strung, and H.P. was more relaxed. I wrote everything for this prompt that I could think of at the time one night. It’s been sitting around waiting for me to finish it, which I haven’t yet because there were other prompts I wanted to get to first.

I do the same thing with Origin. Heck, I even do the same thing when writing school assignments-

I even did it when writing this post! What I know, I pen down while I’m in the flow. Once you get the outlines of the puzzle down, you can go back and fill in the gaps!

Just for fun, because I work on other projects besides fanfics, here’s me doing the same thing in “Stars and Finches”:

“We’ll have to turn back. The waves are picking up.”

From the upper deck, I called, “Can’t you use magic to make it fly?”

She squinted at me. Then she squinted at _. The _ came out of her mouth. “Does this elfblood even know how _ships work?”

“I’m Allard Krindan.”

“And I’m annoyed.” She made the six-fingered Sikhorian hand gesture for “You’re not worth my time” and marched off. I folded back my ears and stared after her. Were all the Sikhorians going to treat me with such blatant disrespect?

“Listen, kid.” _ put his arm around me. “Ever wonder why no one steers the _ships across the mountains even though _they’re capable of traveling over land?”

“That never came up in my ambassador-in-training lessons, no.”

“Ambassador, huh?” His eye roamed to me as he popped the _ in his mouth. “Well, _. That’s why it’s so important to have the canal.”

This is a very rough draft I haven’t looked at for a bit because fanfics have been sapping up my attention. But my parents and I agreed that for my “summer job”, they’ll let me write, as long as I’m writing like it’s my job. So, I’ll become more scarce around that time as I try to finish my original novel

I think I’ll scrap the idea of the ships hovering over land. That seems too easy. They’ll stick to the water, I guess. Hmm…

.:: TABLE OF CONTENTS ::.

Unless I’m writing a one-shot or something else that’s relatively short, I always keep a table of contents at the beginning of a piece (I didn’t create one for No Anesthetic, but I left my entire first draft outline up there, even though it’s already drastically different from the way the final piece has been going). As I complete each chapter, I scratch it off with the strikeout tool.

As you can see, I’ve now finished with Acts 1 and 2. Origin got so big that it was taking the Google Docs app on my phone a painfully long time to load the story, so the second list is in my second document, and the third in the third. The asterisks symbolize the four different Acts-

Act 1: The transition from H.P. living on his own to officially accepting Sanderson

Act 2: H.P. struggling with questions, lifestyle choices, and little kids; being abducted by the cherubs and studied

Act 3: The development of Pixie World, the war over godchildren, the study of the Wolbachia bacteria, and the aftermath of the war

Act 4: Tying up loose ends; H.P. dealing with his pixies growing up and aging himself

This table of contents is pretty important to me, since I tend to write scenes as I think of them and jump up and down the story. This list helps me keep my facts straight (although tbh I can keep 99.99% of the order, mood, and timeframe of scenes straight in my head because that’s just the way I am. I can accurately keep track of hundreds of characters without double-checking their info constantly. Can I recognize somebody new in my life that I was introduced to the day before? No).

I have the kind of personality that enjoys completing things for the sake of completing them, so scratching them off is very reinforcing to me. Look how much I’ve done! Origin of the Pixies is easily the longest FOP fanfic on the Internet, and only halfway done! I did this! Isn’t that awesome? I wanna finish this puppy! I’ve poured so much of my love and time into it!

Here’s a snippet of the table from my Total Drama fanfic, The Lyin’ Queen:

The chapters are all named after Simple Plan songs as a reference to Staci listing her favorite band as Simple Flan. In this table, you can see I have small notes next to each chapter. That can be helpful too! Origin actually had notes like this back before I memorized what happens in which chapter.

Now, remember that I noted down everything I could think of. To create the table of contents, I calculated in my head where in the story I wanted things to fall (hence the notes in parentheses), and where I envisioned chapter breaks. In Knots, for example, my chapters are divided like this:

I picked this part of Knots rather than Origin because you can see that “Grand Day Out” has nothing in it yet (whereas all my Origin chapters have more content). However, I know that it exists. I went ahead and wrote it there so I wouldn’t forget; when I’m in the mood to write the ceremonial send-off scene or anything else about the upper planes of the Deep Kingdom, then I’ll scroll down to this section of the document and add it in. “Pretty Boys”, though, already has quite a few scenes written already!

Fun Fact: The Faelumen were originally designed to exist in Knots alone, and weren’t mentioned at all in Origin. It was supposed to be a big, fun surprise reveal… but after I wrote some scenes with Dame Head, I loved her too much. Plus, I thought it was something I should talk about with the whole “pixies reproduce asexually thing”, and answer the questions about why she wasn’t in Origin when Anti-Fergus was. Then the religion thing happened… Yep!

If you’ve been keeping up with this blog and Origin, you know that I unexpectedly split “Fruitful Fruition” in half to create “Snowflake”, even though the latter wasn’t in my outline. That’s okay! This is why I like to write as I go along rather than planning out too many details. It’s easy to be flexible!

TIP: Generally speaking, I write rough draft scenes as I think them up. They stay that way as rough drafts; I don’t worry about them too much. They’re full of underscores, and even in some cases, blatant mistakes.

Originally, Anti-Cosmo and Anti-Wanda had their first kiss upside down in a tree. The draft scene is written that way. Now it’s in a petting zoo, because really, why would you not?

Point being, there are still several references later in the story about them being in a tree that I haven’t yet corrected. I’ll do that when I actually write the chapter from start to finish and decide what to cut.

When I really sit down to write the story, though, I go in order. From the start of the chapter, with maybe a few pops forward when something comes to mind, but mostly, I go in order.

Otherwise, you might have a great scene, but it doesn’t fit the flow or mood of the story, or - worse - something came up and now the scene doesn’t make sense at all, after you put in so much effort.

If I’m in the mood to write a scene, I make time to pen the draft down as soon as possible. I do NOT say, “I’ll just hang onto that thought and write it all when I get there”. Use it or lose it!

At this time, Knots has all the scenes loosely written that I first thought of (bringing the document to approximately 200 pages). These are main scenes: conflicts with Mom, coming-of-age ceremony, Wish Fixers therapy, lots of Anti-Wanda stuff, basically all the Anti-Sanderson stuff, scenes from the war…

The next goal is finishing my outline and how I want to pace things / jump around, then figuring out the drafts for main scenes I haven’t finished yet (the opening scene, A.C.’s wedding, Anti-Bryndin, more war stuff, the bake-off, etc.) Once those main roughs are done, I’ll start writing the final version of Chapter 1, and eventually post it! Then I’ll begin work on the final version of Chapter 2, with occasional pauses to add more draft scenes later in the story if I think one up.

.:: MOTIVATION ::.

Aside from scratching off chapters being reinforcing, talking about my work on this blog helps a lot too. Although no chapters have been posted, I can’t very well back out of Frayed Knots; you know too much and I won’t make a liar out of myself now. It might take me weeks or months, but I’ll get to it!

NOTE: Revealing TOO MUCH can be severely detrimental! You may trigger your brain’s response that, “Oh, I talked about this thing? I shared it, my task is complete, I can be satisfied and stop now”. You may notice I try to only share stuff from Knots that I’ve already written, and keep my lip buttoned on stuff that’s still up in the air.

For some people, something as simple as crossing a chapter off their list may not be satisfying enough. You could always reward yourself with a bit of ice cream or candy or another treat, say, if you finish a chapter, or if you wrote a certain amount of words each day. I usually reward myself with more writing.

The NaNoWriMo community has been very supportive to me in the three years I’ve participated in National Novel Writing Month (the goal being to write 50,000 words between November 1st and November 30th).

On that site, when you make an account and sign up for the event each November, you get a purple bar underneath your username. It announces how many words you’ve written so far. If you write just 1,667 words a day, you’ll reach 50,000 by the 30th this post is almost six times that oh my gosh.

Again, being able to update my wordcount and see how well I was keeping on track was very rewarding to me, and I’ve met the 50k count for 3/3 NaNovels (Courtesy, Silverfish, and Protagonist For Hire, which amazingly somehow got its 50,000 but is very poorly written and not close to done)!

You can also win promotional codes and stuff. I got five free self-published copies of my 2012 novel Courtesy of Number 124 when I finished and formatted them, among other benefits! It depends on the year, I think!

Again, I like completing things. I like HAVING things. After many hours of searching the web, I was disappointed in the lack of Pixie ‘fics. Although there were some, it wasn’t enough for me. I didn’t want Pixies putting another 37-year-plan into action, or getting revenge on Timmy. I wanted serious backstory.

As previously mentioned, by establishing that H.P. had written Origin, I was at a risk for writing Sanderson as dumb for not knowing something H.P. had mentioned in his book. Sanderson has read and studied Origin extensively, so I had to make sure he didn’t “conveniently” forget a fact he should know, and when writing Origin, I have to make sure not to contradict Sanderson, or give the answers to anything he stated in Rich Man that he doesn’t know

Fact: In the Origin Act 2 finale, I used “breathed” as a said tag for the first time in this story. One of the underlying things in Rich Man was, Sanderson didn’t fully grasp the concepts of how humans breathe. The word “breathe” doesn’t come up much in Rich Man, until the closing lines, like “He never stopped breathing”. I have been IN PAIN not using “breathed”, so I finally bit the bullet because forget this.

And of course, as a result, that means H.P. shouldn’t have taught him anything about humans breathing. This I… slightly retconned, because breathing turned out to be more important for Origin than I had previously expected.

Though, in Rich Man, Sanderson never explicitly says he doesn’t know what breathing is (Obviously he has to know, considering he finally said the word). It’s just, I was subtly trying to hint in Rich Man that he truly recognized the nature of his own self - a being who could technically be called half mortal, half immortal - at the same time he began to understand Flappy’s human nature.

ANYWAY, figure out how you’re motivated and then play to your own wants and needs! Passion and a love of the work is arguably the best way to be, because it’s simple. But if praise is reinforcing to you? Share what you’ve done with me, and I’ll give you many pats on the back!

That… would have been the only three sentences required to answer this Ask, but I wrote this giant post instead. YOU KNOW WHO I AM, DENISE!

.:: OTHER WRITING ADVICE B/C IDK WHY NOT? ::.

You’re writing for two audiences

The first is of course your readers. That’s the easy answer. But, you ought to love what you’re doing. The second audience you write for is yourself. What have you always wanted to write, but haven’t gotten around to?

For me, I love extravagant coming of age ceremonies! I’ll take any excuse to dress characters up in something they wouldn’t normally wear, force them to participate in things they otherwise wouldn’t, or shove them in a situation where they’re horribly embarrassed but can’t escape.

And, I love inventing fantasy religions! Religious beliefs can be huge motivators for characters that can explain being “out of character”. Take advantage of this!

For a third example, Origin of the Pixies gave me the chance to write about marsupial pouches and the embarrassment of one’s offspring crawling into said pouch while in public. That’s been a joy from start to finish.

Write the scenes you “can’t afford” to write

Well, uh… so, here’s a little secret I was never planning to share… I’ve written make-out scenes and yes, even some more intimate scenes while working on Origin and Knots. They’ll just never appear, and you’ll never get to read them. It’s not something I EVER would have done just a year ago, and yet here I am.

I am a sex-repulsed aromantic asexual. I have no business nosing my way into this area. And yet I did. And it was very interesting.

I was mostly curious to see how well my skills held up trying to describe scenarios I know little about, and it turns out that mostly, they held up extremely well! I think. It’s kind of refreshing to just let yourself write and know that no one will ever judge you on it.

Obviously, don’t write something that makes you uncomfortable just because I said here that it’s something that helps me in my writing.

Really, I didn’t focus so much on writing intimate scenes per se so much as the situations that led up to them (BOY, let me tell you how many of these “sex” scenes I have with a bunch of flirtation and set-up, and then they just… go blank, because I already had all I needed to know about how the characters would act when being romantic in private). Situations are really interesting. Emotions, dialogue, lack of one or both… Different people act in different ways.

I have H.P.’s kissing scene under the stairs with a random girl, squished between four other couples, from the party in Chapter 4- That one was REALLY fun, and recently I ended up recycling most of that scene as a sort-of flashback early in Origin Act 3 (loosely down as falling in “Cotton Candy Oatmeal”). Very teenager-y and full of hormones, which was the point. Seriously, that scene came out SO DANG WELL, and I’m very proud of my aro/ace un-kissed self. Oh man, I’ve written so many nice behind-the-scenes scenes full of character fleshing that I wish I could share.

I have Ambrosine and Ilisa Maddington (Ambrosine admiring her shampoo and giant white bathtub is adorable to me, for some reason). For crying out loud, I even wrote “‘Stars and Finches’ AU where most everything’s the same in this scene but Gavin and Ethel try to be flirty b/c I need to know how they act for research” Answer: They are super, super clueless and awkward and in this AU they DEVASTATE their relationship this way it’s so hilarious to me because “Let’s shatter these two emotionally” generally isn’t what you’d expect to get out of “AU where this story has romance / making out and jazz in it”.

Idk this is just really fascinating to me? I can still keep them 100% in character even in situations they wouldn’t normally find themselves in? I’ve explored their personalities just to understand them better, not to impress readers? I love it!

SO! The reason I wrote these things is simple: Character fleshing. You’re the author! Characters’ personal lives are completely your business. It might help to know how these people act when the audience isn’t supposed to be watching- and then draw inspiration from that to use in the actual story.

Case in point: One thing that absolutely shocked me was the way cute and sweet China acts behind closed doors. Freaking China. Apparently she’s really nice and casual by day, but she’s super specific at night, and will pitch a fit if things don’t go her way. She guilts the heck out of H.P. It’s her little way of getting control, being a selkie…

Basically, she did a 180-flip in my mind after I wrote the dialogue exchange and narrative reflecting on their relationship, and I loved it. Almost all of the lines from those few paragraphs ended up in Origin.

And given how many relationships H.P. makes and breaks over the 700,000 years this story covers, going behind the scenes this way allows me to compare and contrast his girls. Whereas China is specific and decides when they sleep together, Kalysta is easy-going just as long as he’s there. Very, very interesting and very fun for me!

Of course, don’t do anything you’re uncomfortable doing. But maybe break out of your comfort zone and write scenes that will never make it into the story. Not just kissy-kissy scenes, but other scenes too:

Those shady deals behind the best friend’s back

The moment the villain realizes someone’s out to stop her

Midnight snacks

Doctor and dentist appointments

Birthday celebrations

What happens when they’re out of their favorite breakfast

Being stuck in traffic / going to work

Relatives coming to visit

Grocery shopping

A situation where they are the only one stressed

Trying a new recipe

Cleaning the house

Ordering at a fancy restaurant

Ordering from a drive-thru

First cruise vacation

Service for a friend or stranger

Multitasking (TV, phone conversation, and food?)

Big homework assignments

Interview / performance review

Visiting a museum

Going to the pool / waterpark on a hot day

Visiting a sick friend or relative

Attending a funeral (for someone they either know well, or don’t)

Take your kid to work day

Caught in the act of an embarrassing habit

Accidentally set something on fire

Can’t find an item (either dumb or important)

What happens during timeskips

Before the story begins

After it comes to a close

Stuff that happens in daily life, but the reader doesn’t need to know because it doesn’t add enough to the story. Or, maybe some of these will turn out to be crucial, and you can work them in. Writing about what your character sees in a museum is a great way to worldbuild, and then you can sneak hints of what you learn from writing that prompt into the actual finished work. Hint at a world that keeps getting deeper. Treat yo’self- you might just be surprised.

… I realize that we’re straying from the original topic, but I’m on a roll here. Hmm. I’ll make a separate prompt list for all of these things and post it later.

Google Docs is a good way to go

Google Docs is free to use, the only stipulation being that you need a gmail account, I think. If you have an iPhone or something, download the Google Docs app. It’s free too.

Whatever you write on one will sync to other devices automatically. Take advantage of this and, if you’re not socializing or keeping an eye on your surroundings otherwise, write everywhere. Write when you’re a passenger on the bus, write between class changes, write while you’re eating with the other hand, and if you have enough self-control to still get to sleep on time, you can keep it beside your bed.

I’ve only had Docs crash on me once in two+ years, and since it saves automatically as you work anyway (and saves your past edits), I didn’t lose anything. I used WordPerfect for almost a decade, I’ve often used Microsoft Word for school papers, and I have Scrivener, but Google Docs is my favorite to write with because I can walk up to any computer, log in, and access my 85+ files in an instant. Dropbox syncing used to take HOURS back in the day.

(The one thing I might mention is that if I remember correctly, the Google Docs app is extremely hard to log out of on the iPhone, if there is even an option. It’s been some time since I checked, however, but may be something to keep in mind for those who share phones with people they’d be embarrassed to have reading their work.)

Take your time

Seriously, timing is everything. I could name numerous pieces that would have been vastly different had I submitted them as soon as I thought they were ready. It was seven months after I “finished” “Bells and Whistles” before I was able to post it, and it changed a surprising amount after all those revisions!

It’s okay not to have your worldbuilding fully worked out when you start. In fact, I’d even say it’s better that way! When you worldbuild as you go, you’re truly immersed in the world and the work!

And lastly?

Find the good in everything, and accept the bad along with it. You gotta, bro.

Don’t compare yourself to other writers. You’re all working to entertain and have fun. It’s not a competition- you’re just here to be better than yesterday. Look to other writers to study and admire and learn from, but don’t let their years of hard work make you feel less about your years of hard work.

Hope I helped ya, and thanks for asking for my advice! Keep me posted on how your work goes!

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