#people in writing groups give you critiques to help you be better.... if it's dumb advice you also learn how to spot that too...... | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

carolsideblog · 3 years

Text

Undiagnosed Autism in Adults | Being Shamed for Special Interests

What is a Special Interest?

I’m 27 and I have autism.

Therefore, I have special interests. Generally speaking, in the context of the autistic spectrum disorder, a special interest is... just genuinely hard for me to describe or explain? Here are some links with definitions of special interests.

Autism Fandom Wikia

Ambitious About Autism

Amythest Schaber - Ask an Autistic, What are Special Interests?

Purple Ella - Autism & Special Interests

... long post ahead / cw for cussing and swearinig ...

The Comfort of my Special Interests

My special interests are things that I’m deeply passionate about and something that I latch onto, almost as a coping mechanism. I have a variety of special interests that shift in and out of focus through out the months in a year, but I could prattle on and ON AND ON for HOURS about any of them.

When I’m immersed in my current favorite special interest, I am over the moon. I feel productive, the world makes sense, I feel like my life makes sense, and I can calm down faster from a stressful, overwhelming day.

Adulthood and the Expectations of Neurotypicals

But in adulthood, it’s generally not seen as a mature thing for an old woman in her twenties to STILL be fucking talking about “dumb shit.” Shit that’s “bad,” shit that’s “problematic,” or shit that’s not for “my age group.”

I don’t fucking know what women in their late twenties are supposed to do. I’m not a sensible enough of an adult to know.

I also know very well that my shit is problematic, bad, and/or not for my age group. I probably researched 5 hours straight on my special interest for nearly a month when I discovered it. I know books, games and movies that I’ve taken a shine to forwards and backwards, I know deep-cut fandom jokes in different things I like, I know who created what and when.

But this isn’t impressive to anyone. To the rest of neurotypical society, one needs to have a bunch of light hearted little hobbies that you can switch too whenever you want because that’s “healthy.” It’s “not healthy” whatsoever (apparently) to STILL be talking about something that I love, because I’m an adult and I should have hobbies and I should have a job filing away things and writing data in spreadsheets like a good little working woman.

Or whatever, I don’t know.

Guilt, Shame and Stigma

I just... don’t understand why people shame people for the things that bring them joy, even if the things that bring them joy are objectively poor quality or badly made. The things I love make me happy, and they make me happy for lots of different reasons.

Some reasons include...

It was close to my childhood and I have a strong attachment to it

It was the lifeline I clung onto when I was going through a rough part of my life and the memories I have of it bring me comfort

I felt proud investing time in researching information, collecting memorabilia, and becoming an “expert” in that special interest

To me, my special interests were so important to my ability to cope, it got to the point where some parts of them became almost like an addition to my identity; my special interests are part of who I am and how I navigate the world. It might come from not really having a strong sense of self in the first place, I don’t know.

So when people scold me for still talking about my special interests, or make passive aggressive, off-hand comments about my special interests, or when they’re even out-right criticizing my special interests, (”It’s a bad book, it’s a bad game, the movie sucks,”)

Even if I know they’re right, it feels like an attack on me. It feels like they’re scolding me for liking the things I like. It feels like they’re criticizing me for liking something bad. It feels like they’re being passive aggressive and unfair because they don’t like me.

Rationally and logically I know this isn’t true. But it still feels like an emotional punch in the gut. It still feels like people are policing what I should and shouldn’t like. And it pisses me off and makes me ruminate.

An Open Letter to Neurotypicals

Hello, ally.

Life is hard. You and I both know that. But thankfully, there are loads of things in this world that can bring us joy. We have lots of things to keep us entertained, to socialize over, and to be passionate about.

But I get it: someone in your life keeps talking about that one thing all the time. Maybe you’re tired, maybe you’ve heard so much about this thing before, you’ve had enough or got bored. I dunno? But you’re tank is empty and you need a break, and that’s fair.

If for whatever reason your friend won’t shut up about something they really seem to love and it makes them happy... Be nice about it I guess?

If I could say anything to any neurotypical that I’ve spoken too in my lifetime right now, it’s this: be frank, honest, and straightforward. Don’t beat around the bush and don’t “drop hints.” Don’t always rely on people figuring it out for themselves. Just because things might come naturally to you doesn’t mean those same things come naturally to others. And this is okay, I only ask that you communicate clearly and honestly when you can.

If a topic is getting tiresome to you and you need a break, just tell them. Most of the time, it will be fine. When you’re up for it and wondering about a hobby or interest that someone told you about, bring it up with them again. It might brighten their day.

You don’t have to participate in the special interest of a friend if you don’t want too. Just be there for your friends, lend an ear if you can, and be supportive.

An Open Letter to the Neurodiverse

Hello, friend.

Don’t let people get you down about your special interests. If there’s something in this world that makes you passionate, that keeps you up at night because you’re so excited, that makes you rush to wake up because you want to do your Favorite Thing in the Entire World™, then please keep embracing that thing.

It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t fit the standards of neurotypicals. You don’t have to please people. If people are giving you a hard time because something makes you happy??? They’re probably not the right people to be around anyway. Someone in your life just kinda humoring you and you wish you had more? Same! But it’s okay. People who love you are listening as best they can, but please, I promise you if you keep looking, you will find your like-minded people and you will be able to find people to talk about your passions with.

If it makes you happy, if it brings you joy, if it brings you comfort, please don’t let that go if people keep nagging you for it. You have no reason to feel guilty or ashamed for something that helps you cope, that keeps you grounded, that makes you happy.

Also know that as much love and joy and comfort that your special interest gives you... remember you are still a whole entire person. You can wear your special interest as apart of you if you feel that brings you the most honest and genuine comfort and joy, but just remember that you don’t need to be limited to just this one thing. You have full permission to also be anything else you want to be in addition to this special interest. This is not to scold or shame you, but this is to remind you that you are a valid, whole person, and you are allowed to transform however you want too.

Closing Ramblings and Musings

I’ve been really bothered by this.

Like I’ve been thinking about this a lot, on again and off again, since November.

Through out my life, people have made lots of comments about my hobbies and the things I like. Most of them negative.

From the music I like to listen too, the bands and groups I follow, to the books I loved to read, to the movies I like to watch, to the games I love to play. I have my own genuine criticism and critiques that I have for a variety of things that fall under my special interests. I’m passionate and thorough with my feedback because I love all of my special interests so much, and I know they could be better.

I have a lot of complex feelings and a lot of things to reconcile with my special interests. It’s so hard to grow up and start to learn and realize how... bad they are all. How problematic some are, how poor quality or laughably simple they all are. I can give you all of my different reasons for why I like them and I could tell you all day about how I know they’re all bad... but I know some of the things I love are just laughing stocks and punching bags in pop culture to the neurotypical society.

But I can’t just let them go. That’s what I couldn’t stop thinking about in November and December. I really just couldn’t let these things go. For personal reasons, for nostalgia reasons, for coping reasons. I love these things. And I carry a lot of guilt and frustration with myself because I can’t let these things go. I can’t just switch to new fandoms, new books, new movies, new groups. At least, maybe not yet. I don’t know.

I just don’t know. I want to reclaim the parts I love but I know that It’s not a real solution. There’s such a major divide between the special interests I love and what I actually believe in and stand for. They directly conflict with each other and it’s frustrating and complicated.

I really don’t know how to close this post, to be honest. This post won’t solve the problem I have. It won’t explain to the people who scolded me for my special interest, it won’t make them understand or forgive me about why I keep talking about a stupid book with a bad premise, it won’t make them understand why I have “bad taste” or why a 27 year old woman won’t shut up about something largely assumed “meant for kids.”

This was just to vent and maybe lend hope to people feel the same way or have the same struggles.

#autism #special interests #autism special interest #neurodiversity #neurodivergence #rant #guilt #frustration #stigma #adults with autism #autistic adults #autistic blogger #female autism #autistic woman

63 notes · View notes

olderthannetfic · 4 years

Note

Hey, sorry to ask this, but a few days ago I saw a post/discussion about the history of original work on ao3 (i.e. how and when it was allowed). I thought it was in my likes, but it's not, and I thought you had reblogged it recently, but I didn't find it. I was wondering if you have seen this discussion around? Or where I can find more about it? This specific post talked abt how who defended original work on ao3 were not the BNFs, if that helps.

That was me running my mouth in the reblogs of something or other. It’s just the one comment.

But what’s that you say? Some tl;dr about a pet topic? Don’t mind if I do! ;) (To be honest, most of this debate happened years ago, and a lot of the long meta was by me back then too, so…)

Okay, so, the situation with Original Works is actually super interesting and a microcosm of early years OTW wank.

This is going to be even more tl;dr than my usual. To try to summarize very briefly:

There were two big cultural factions. One thought “original” was the opposite of “fan”. That one was in charge of OTW. It was hard to get voices from the other side into the debate because they already felt excluded from OTW.

This divide broke down more or less into Ye Olde Slash Fandom on the “it’s the opposite” side and anime fandom on the “WTF?” side. Americans on one side and a lot of non-US, non-English language fandom on the other.

I. Media Fandom, Anime Fandom, and Early OTW

I went to that first fundraising party that astolat threw in New York City back in… god… 2007? 2008? I wasn’t on the Board or any official position until the committees got started later, but I was around right from the very beginning.

Whether you’re looking at volunteers or at people who commented on astolat’s original post, there were always a variety of fans from a variety of fannish backgrounds. People aren’t absolutely in one camp or another, and fannish interests change over time. If you go dig through Dreamwidth posts to find who was actually participating in this debate at the time, half of them are probably in the other camp now.

If you think like that sounds like a preamble to me making a bunch of offensively sweeping generalizations and divvying fans up into little groups, you’d be right! Haha.

I.a. Ye Olde Media Fandom

There are a lot of camps of people who like fanfic. One of the biggest divisions has been Ye Olde Media Fandom vs. anime fandom. Astolat’s social circle–my LJ social circle–was filled with people with decades of fannish experience and a deep knowledge of the Media Fandom side of things.

Those fandom history treatises that start with K/S zines in Star Trek fandom in the 70s and move on through the mainstream buddy cops like Starsky & Hutch to the more niche, sff buddy cops like Fraser and Ray or Jim and Blair are talking about Media Fandom. I try to always capitalize it because the name is lulzy and bizarre to me unless it’s a proper noun for a specific historical thing. It was coined as a rude term for “mass media” fandom aka dumb people who like, ughhhh, Star Trek, ughhh, instead of books. This is a very ancient slapfight from the type of fandom you find at Worldcon, often called “SF fandom” or plain “fandom”.

(Yes, this leads to mega confusion on the part of some old dudes when they find Fanlore and fail to understand that “fandom” there refers to what these people would call “Media Fandom”. They think only they get the unmarked form. But I digress…)

Media Fandom is a specific flavor of fandom. It’s where the slash zines were. It’s where the fans of live action US TV shows were. It’s the history that acafans have laid out well and that tends to get used to defend the idea of a female subculture writing transgressive and transformative fanfic. On the video side, Media Fandom is where Kandy Fong invented vidding by making Star Trek slideshows.

(Kandy’s still around, BTW. She’s usually at Escapade in L.A. Ask her to tell you about the dancing penises sketch in person. She’s hilarious.)

Astolat and friends had been going to slash cons for years. They founded Vividcon. And Yuletide. That meant that when astolat said “Hey kids, let’s put on a show!” we all jumped to help. This is a lady who gets things done.

From a Worldcon perspective, or even from an older Media Fandom perspective, this group was comparatively young, hip, and welcoming. Their fandom interests were comparatively broad. Just look at Yuletide!

In fact, yes, let us look at Yuletide… [ominous music]

I.b. Yuletide sucks at anime

From the very first year (2003), Yuletide mods have asked for help with anime fandoms, been confused about anime fandoms, or made bad judgment calls about anime fandoms. They’ve fucked up on Superhero comics and plenty of other things over the years, but anime has been the most consistent (well, and JRPGs, but there’s so much overlap in those fic fandoms).

There was already bad feeling about this. There were years of bad feeling about this.

I.c. Where are the historians?

Academic study of fanficcy things pretty much got started with Textual Poachers and Enterprising Women. Other acafans who are well known to LJ and later Tumblr are people like Francesca Coppa who wrote a very nice summary of the history of Media Fandom. These are not the only academics who exist, these academics themselves have written about many other things, and by now, OTW’s own journal has covered a lot of other territory, but to this day I see complaints on Tumblr that “acafans” only care about K/S and oldschool slash fandom.

There were years of bad feeling about this as well.

I.d. What kind of fan was I?

Now, by the time OTW got started, I’d moseyed over to not only a lot of live action US TV but a lot of old-as-fuck US TV that is squarely in the Media Fandom camp. But once upon a time, I was a weeaboo hanging out with my weeaboo friends in college. I learned Japanese (sort of). I moved to Japan. Livin’ the weeaboo dream!

More importantly, I used to be a member of a lot of anime mailing lists back in the Yahoo Groups days. I didn’t realize what a cultural gap that would cause until the original works issue came up on AO3.

I.e. Anime Fandom, German-language Fandom, Original M/M

Once upon a time–namely in that Yahoo Groups era–there was an archive called Boys in Chains. It was where you found The Good Stuff™. Heavy kink and power exchange galore! It was extremely well known in the parts of fandom I was in, even if you weren’t on the associated mailing list. It contained lots of fic, but it also had lots of original work.

Around that same era, I was on a critique list called Crimson Ink, which was mixed fic and original. The “original slash” and “original yaoi” crowds mixed freely and were in fanfic spaces. Remember, this is like 2003. You’re never going to get your gay fantasy novel published in English in the US. A couple of fangirl presses started around then, but they died an ignominious death after their first print run.

Fanfiction.net used to allow original work before it spun that off into FictionPress. We forget this today, but if you were an early FFN person, the separation wasn’t so great either.

Meanwhile, German-language fandom was hanging out on sites like Animexx.de, a big-ass fic archive that prominently mentions also including original work. I have the impression that Spanish-language fandom was similar too.

Shousetsu Bang*Bang was founded in 2005. It was a webzine for original m/m, but it was entirely populated by fanfic fandom types.

In all of those kinds of spaces, there was a lot of “original” work that was kind of slash or BL-ish and seen as fannish if it was posted in the fannish space. These weren’t anime-only spaces. They were multifandom spaces where it was seen as obvious and normal that a couple of huge fandoms like Harry Potter would dominate but that everything else big would naturally be anime.

While fans from every background are everywhere, I found that the concentration of EFL fans living in Continental Europe, South America, and Asia was much higher in this kind of space, even the exclusively English language part of it, than in my US TV fandoms.

II. AO3 Early Adopters

AO3 went into closed beta in 2009. In 2010, it was open to the general public (albeit with the invitation queue it still has). But not everyone was interested yet. Just like fandom is loath to leave the dying, shambling mess of Tumblr, fandom was loath to leave dwindling LJ/DW circles or was happy enough on Fanfiction.net. I used to see a lot of posts like “Why are you guys trying to STEAL fanfic from the original! FFN is enough!”

I literally could not give away the invitations I had. No one wanted them.

So who was on AO3? Obviously enough, it was all of us who built it and our friends. So that means a bunch of oldschool Livejournal slashers coming from fandoms like Due South or Stargate Atlantis.

The queue was open. Anyone could make an account. Everyone was welcome. In theory…

But more and more, there started to be these posts about how “AO3 Hates Anime Fandom” and “FFN is for anime. AO3 is for Western fandoms.” and “If you guys actually wanted anime fandom on there, you’d invite us better and make us more welcome.”

At the time, I found these posts obnoxious. People aren’t purely in one sort of fandom or the other. No one was stopping anime fandom from making accounts. No one was banning anime fandom. If there wasn’t much from old fandoms, that was because old fandoms seldom move.

Things began to change. Trolls on FFN forced the Twilight porn writers out, creating enough fuss and brouhaha to mobilize people who would rather have stayed put. AO3 got big enough that randos found it by accident. Original work started to pop up, posted by people who’d never looked at the rules and had no idea it was not allowed.

III. History of AO3’s Policy

I had argued for allowing “original work” during the initial discussions about the ToS. On one side of this issue was me. On the other, everyone else on the committee.

I was overruled.

Open Door started importing old archives to save them. Boys in Chains was hugely important to fandom history from my point of view. It was slated to be imported… maybe. Except that Boys in Chains is half original. AO3 was happy to grandfather in those stories, but the final archive owner felt, quite rightly, that it would be unfair to tell half of the authors they were welcome in the new space while spitting on the other half.

I was pissed. I had been pissed since being overruled the first time. To me, the fact that it should be allowed was so blatantly obvious that it was hard to even explain why.

(To be honest, this difficulty in explaining why and the even greater difficulty in figuring out the source of that difficulty is what held the discussion back for so long. When every assumption on either side is completely opposite, it’s hard to communicate.)

I felt betrayed. It would be like if you helped build something, and everyone was suddenly like “Well, obviously, we can’t allow m/m. It’s not normal fanfic.”

So we discussed it again and, again, it was me vs. literally everyone else. And still the “AO3 is only for Western slash fandom” bitching rose in volume and more and more people complained of feeling excluded from the new fandom hub. Finally, the committee agreed to open the issue up for public comment and get some more input. I was a fool and neither wrote nor proofread the post. It went out phrasing the question as allowing “non fannish” work or something of that sort.

I was furious. The entire point of the whole debate was that I saw some original work, the original work that belongs on AO3, as inherently fannish. And now this had been presented to the AO3 audience as something completely different. Think pieces were popping up in the journals of everyone I knew about diluting AO3’s mission and how we needed to save AO3 from encroachment. Public opinion was very negative. That’s both because of how the post was phrased and because OTW die hards at the time were mostly from the same fannish background. This tidal wave of negativity meant that there was virtually no chance of changing this poisonous rule. And if the rule didn’t change, the people who wanted the rule change were never going to show up to explain why it mattered.

If you’ve been reading my tumblr, I think you can guess what happened next.

I posted a long post to my Dreamwidth. It was a masterwork of passive aggression. In it, I wrung my hands about how simply tragic it would be if AO3 had to delete all of the original work… like anthropomorfic.

Now, I think anthropomorfic counts as fanfic as much as anything else, but I also knew that it fails most rigorous “based on a canon” type definitions of fic and, more importantly, it’s a favorite Yuletide fandom of many of the people on the side that wanted to ban original work.

That’s a nice fandom of yours. It would be a pity if something happened to it.

Yup. Passive aggressive blackmail. Go me. Suddenly, there was a lot of awkward backtracking and confused running in circles in various journals. The committee agreed to table the idea for a while but not rule out the idea of allowing original works in the future. We agreed to halt all deletions of original work. If a fan posted it, the Abuse Committee (which I was also head of at the time) would not delete that work even though it was technically against the rules.

Time passed. The people on the negative side got tired. I wanted off that committee and had wanted off for ages, but I was damned if I was going to leave before ramming through this piece of policy. Grudgematch till I die! (Look, I never said I wasn’t a wanker.)

After a while, some other fans came forward with more types of “original work” as evidence that it should be allowed. These were from parts of fandom none of us on the committee knew a damn thing about.

This new evidence combined with the gradual accretion of original stuff on AO3 without the sky falling eventually led us to quietly rule Original Work a valid fandom. There was never even a big announcement post. I slipped a word to the Boys in Chains mod myself.

IV. What Were They So Afraid Of Anyway?

So why were people so resistant? Seems like a dick move, right?

Not exactly.

I mean, I was enraged and waged a one-woman war to change the rules, but the other side wasn’t nuts. The objections were usually the following:

I just don’t get why it would be allowed. It never was in my fannish spaces.

Most of our members don’t want this.

Most of the examples of things that ought to be included are m/m. We are privileging m/m if we allow it, and AO3 already has a m/m-centric reputation that can feel exclusionary to some fans.

AO3 is a young, shaky platform that can barely handle the load and content we already have. If we open to original work, we’ll be opening the floodgates. The volume of posting will be so high, it will drown out the fic we’re actually here to protect.

Protecting stuff that doesn’t need protection because it’s not an IP issue would dilute OTW’s mission.

If we allow it, idiots will try to turn AO3 into advertising space, posting only the first chapter and a link to where you can pay to read the rest.

If we add another category of text before we add fan art, that’s a slap in the face of the fan artists we are already failing.

These arguments all make perfect sense in context.

Obvously, the issue with the first two is that different fannish communities have different norms. I knew that a very large community disagreed with the then current AO3 policy, but since so few of them were around to comment, it seemed like a tiny fringe minority.

The m/m thing is… complex. M/M content with zero IP issues is at risk. It is always at risk in a way that even f/f is not (though f/f is also always at risk). Asking for m/m to be exactly equivalent to f/f or m/f in numbers, tropes, whatever is ignoring the historical realities. In our current moment of queer activism in the West, we treat all types of queerness as part of one community with one set of goals, but once you get to culture and art or even more specific activism, this forced homogenization is neither useful nor healthy.

OTOH, AO3 really did have PR problems related to the perception that we gave m/m fandom the kid glove treatment. That objection wasn’t coming from nowhere.

AO3 was shaky. It was tiny when I first brought up this argument. Hell, it wasn’t even in closed beta the first time we discussed this. Part of what made the quiet rules change possible was AO3 organically getting much bigger and OTW having to buy many more servers for unrelated reasons.

The “floodgates” thing was put to rest by tacitly allowing original work before the rules change. We had a period to study how fans actually behaved, and as I predicted, only a small amount of original work got posted. It was indeed mostly things like original BL-ish stories or original work that had been part of a mixed original/fic fest, exchange, zine, etc. Currently, the “Original Work” fandom on AO3 only has 76,348 works. That’s pretty big compared to individual fandoms but tiny compared to AO3’s current size.

The commercial argument was spurious because commercial spam had been against the rules from the very beginning. OH THE IRONY that nowadays AO3 has all these idiots trying to post the first chapter of their fanfic and then direct you to where you can buy the rest.

AO3 has plenty of fanfic of public domain works. One of the problems with gatekeeping original work is that any way you try to distinguish it (not based on a specific canon, not an IP issue, etc.) will apply to some set of obviously allowable fandoms.

As for fan art… OTW has failed fan artists. They needed protection as much as or even more than fic writers. Just look at Tumblr! If we had succeeded at making DeviantArt but allowing boners, fan art fandom could have been safe all these years. Or when Tumblr inevitably shat the bed, we could have scooped up all those people instead of them scattering to twitter and god knows where.

OTW has failed vidders too, at least in terms of preservation. I know I’m not the only one who thinks this. Other major people from like the first Board and shit have discussed this with me offline. Doing some kind of vidding project, possibly outside of OTW is on a lot of our to-do lists. But at least one of OTW’s biggest victories has been that copyright exemption. OTW has demonstrably done really positive things for vidders that other organizations and sites have not. As a vidder, I never expected to see good hosting for the actual video files, and I’m quite content.

But fan artists… yeah. That argument makes sense at least from a place of frustration.

BTW, for the love of god, if you’re a n00b to OTW stuff, please do not reblog this post excitedly telling me that hosting fan art is on OTW’s road map, so yay, good news. Someone always does that, and it’s so irritating. I haven’t been involved in OTW in years, but I used to be, and I know what is on the roadmap. The couple of you who do heavy lifting on sysadmin and coding and policy things are welcome to weigh in as usual. I know none of us like that we can’t host fan art. It’s not what we intended.

Nonetheless, I found this argument to be the perfect being the enemy of the good. If we can save more text now without losing much of anything, we should do it. The fact that we’re fucking up on the fan art front is not a reason to spread the misery around.

V. Is “Original” the Opposite of “Fanfic”?

Okay, so that tl;dr above is why “BNFs” were on one side and “nobodies” were on the other. BNFs from one cultural background founded OTW. BNFs from the other cultural background weren’t even aware that the debate was going on.

But what was the underlying philosophical problem in even having the conversation?

It took me a long time, but I finally worked it out: We had two completely different ways of categorizing writing, and they were so baked into how we phrased questions that everything ended up being unanswerable to the other side. Here is what I came up with:

Schema 1

Fanfic - based on someone else’s IP

Original Work - the opposite

Schema 2

Non-Fannish Work - School essays, stories you are writing to try to sell to a mainstream publisher

Fannish Work Type 1 - based on other people’s characters directly (i.e. fanfic) Type 2 - based on tropes or whatever (“original slash” and the like)

Now, in the current moment when half of Tumblr just got into Chinese webnovels and the m/m ebook industry is thriving in English, original, tropey, BL-ish work is no longer different from “things I am trying to sell”. But this is how the divide was circa 2005 on fannish websites, and it’s the divide that was driving this internal OTW debate.

VI. Let’s Summarize the Camps One More Time

So, again, the debate makes perfect sense if you understand who was involved.

On the mainstream “But that’s not fanfic? I’m confused?” side:

Big US TV fandoms in English

Fandom historians of K/S–>buddy cop slash–>SGA, etc.

Americans

On the other side:

Anime fandom

“Original slash” fandom that had already been chased off of everywhere

People upset that AO3 wasn’t farther on translating the interface and supporting non-English language fandom.

People upset about US-centrism in fandom

Yes, I am very white, very American, and by now very into old buddy cop shows, but this was basically how the breakdown worked. It meant that something that looked like a minor quibble to one side was really, really not.

#fandom history #fandom meta #original work #cowboyformitski

789 notes · View notes

jasonbehrs · 3 years

Text

i wanna read every word, chapter 2

by airauralintensity (aka me, jasonbehrs!)

“Have you ever fallen in love with someone you’ve never met?” “Uh, do you mean like we’ve-been-doing-long-distance-slash-online-dating or like I’ve-been-crushing-on-the-cute-barista-at-the-library-cafe?” “Ummm, more like I’ve-read-their-poems-and-sure-they’re-very-talented-but-their-handwriting-alone-makes-me-smile.” “… That’s oddly specific.”

fandom: kpop, super junior characters: eunhyuk, ryeowook; guest appearances by the rest of sj-m and yesung ship: eunwook genre: romantic comedy themes: alternate endings, strangers to lovers, handwriting, identity reveal setting: college chapter: 2/4 word count: 5.2k

read it below or on ffnet, aff, wattpad

A/N (6.6.2021): Welcome to the next installment folks! Some clarifying things:

- This is the first of two alternate endings to the story, which answers the question, 'What if Ryeowook finds out first?'

- I got some interesting reviews/PMs about the last chapter? Eunhyuk isn't pining after Yesung or anything, and I didn't mean to indicate that would be an aspect of the story. If you were looking forward to it, I'll be disappointing you today haha. Feel free to let me know how much you hate me in a review ;)

Also, today would have been my grandmother's 102nd birthday, so I'm dedicating this chapter to her since she always loved seeing me write. Love you, Nanay!

~~~

He and Hyukjae haven't hung out alone before, but he's sure this won't be awkward. Their only real link may have just been Yesung, but Hyukjae successfully ingrained himself into their entire friend group in the short weeks since they first met. Besides, even if Hyukjae weren't so willing to help him with his twisted scavenger hunt for love, Ryeowook thinks he'd like to hang out with him some time anyway. He's grown to like Hyukjae, really.

At least, that's what he tells himself when he turns the corner and sees Hyukjae sitting alone on a bench in the quad with his legs crossed, a laptop over one knee and an open notebook on the other, waiting for him to arrive.

Ryeowook takes a breath to steel his nerves then heads over to plop himself right next to the other. He doesn't say anything and takes out his own work instead. They don't have to start with the crush thing.

"Ah, my favourite person under 5'2". How do you do?" Hyukjae snarks without pausing his typing.

In response, Ryeowook uses a single finger to tip Hyukjae's notebook onto the ground without remorse.

"Ya!" Hyukjae picks up his notebook and slaps Ryeowook with it.

On the downswing, Ryeowook freezes.

"Oh shit, did I hit you that hard? Sorry, I didn't mean to," Hyukjae hurriedly apologises, but that's not it at all.

Ryeowook had caught a glimpse of the notes hurriedly scrawled across the open book. He would recognise that handwriting anywhere.

"Why don't we get started then," Hyukjae offers uneasily, eyeing how Ryeowook's stance hadn't relaxed yet. "Um, did you bring a copy of one of the notes like we discussed?"

Of course he did. Ryeowook was so excited to be one step closer to identifying the person behind the song lyrics that took up as much space in his brain as his Food Sciences lecture notes, he had brought the whole ass scrapbook with him, eager to show off his favourites to a new and willing audience.

But now, Ryeowook is panicking. He found the object of his affections much sooner than for which he was ready; and said object is sitting right next to him, staring at him expectantly and eager to help.

Not letting himself think it through, Ryeowook rummages through his bag looking for viable scraps of paper. There is no way he is going to hand Hyukjae's own work to him, so he makes do with what he's got.

He bypasses the lyric samples he actually prepared for today's meeting and found ones of his own making which he had intended to recycle weeks ago but never got around to. He silently thanks himself for this terrible habit as he frantically smooths out the small squares of paper before handing them to Hyukjae.

The other raises his eyebrows as he reads through the papers. "Damn, I was hoping that maybe one of these things had even a little similarity to an assignment we've heard so far, but no dice."

Ryeowook nods, affecting understanding disappointment even as he privately rejoices.

"Do you mind if I keep these? I can, like, surreptitiously check people's notebooks during group assignments," he offers with a laugh. "Pearl blue sticky notes can't be that common in a class of 50, right?''

Ryeowook smiles, wide and fake. "Fingers crossed!"

~Even though we're making awkward conversation, it's clear that we're happy to be together.~

Thus proceeds their search for Poem Person. (The gender-neutral nickname Mi had come up with stuck even after Hyukjae revealed those were not actually poems being left behind. Alliterative nicknames are just so catchy.)

"Okay, what if we tie a balloon to your chair and hope Poem Person likes balloons enough to take it with them around campus?" "No way, they won't take it." "How could you possibly be so sure?"

Sometimes, it's Hyukjae coming up with ridiculous plots.

"Trust me. They curl their lowercase L's." "I'm gonna let this go, but I want you to know that makes zero sense."

Plots which Ryeowook foils with equally ridiculous reasoning.

"''We might have never known each other, but we crossed faraway paths and came together. We crossed the distance of a stranger that's farther away than space.' Huh, not bad." "You think so?"

Sometimes, it's Hyukjae asking to read more of the scraps that Ryeowook collects, partially so Hyukjae can make fun of him, but mostly so that he has more clues.

"Yeah. I mean, it doesn't help me at all, but your man's got a way with words. I wonder why he doesn't submit any of the stuff you've shown me for class. It's worth critiquing."

An ask which forces Ryeowook to wrack his brain for passable imitations of song-lyrics-that-could-be-mistakenly-construed-as-poems and to get used to writing with his nondominant hand.

"Pass. Pass. Pass. Pass." "Really? You're passing on Park Hyungsik?"

Today, neither of them are feeling very motivated, so Hyukjae pulls up the Facebook profiles of his classmates and let Ryeowook play smash or pass because "it's fun to hear strangers' opinions on people you know."

"Oh, absolutely. Does that guy look like he cares where he dots his i's and j's? Hard pass," Ryeowook maintains.

Hyukjae shakes his head in amazement as he pulls back his phone. "You'll meet him one day, and you'll regret this moment; mark my words. Hyungsik is universally loved. Honestly, I'm not convinced yet Poem Person isn't him. He fits basically all of your criteria."

Ryeowook has to actively smother a knowing smirk. "What a shame."

He didn't come clean to Hyukjae in the quad that day because he panicked. Ryeowook was not mentally ready to meet the object of his affections so soon, much more confess, so he acted on impulse to buy himself some time.

Once he had it, he got curious.

It's no secret that Ryeowook had built up an idea of what Poem Person is like. The lyrics provided some insight, of course; but most of his intuition came from the handwriting itself. From what he could see, Poem Person was supposed to be intensely passionate, excitingly impulsive, and almost sickeningly romantic.

"Okay, how about this guy?" Hyukjae asks as he passes his phone over again.

Ryeowook takes one look at the screen and snorts. "Very funny. Pass."

The app is opened to a photo of Hyukjae himself posed unnaturally on a couch wearing a forward-facing snapback perched atop his head and an awkward half-smile, and Ryeowook refuses to look at it any longer before he does something he'll regret, like coo affectionately.

"Pass!?" Hyukjae repeats with mock-incredulity. "Don't you think he looks charming and witty and oh-so-loveable?"

Ryeowook indeed had a lot of thoughts about what Poem Person would look like, and 'charming,' 'witty,' and 'oh-so-loveable' have indeed flitted through his mind. Actually, Ryeowook finds that Hyukjae and Poem Person aren't altogether dissimilar.

Hyukjae is passionate about his craft, to be sure, but it doesn't occupy every one of his waking moments like Ryeowook expected. He is as much of a romantic as the next person is, but really Hyukjae is poetic, a distinction Ryeowook learns and appreciates very early on. Hyukjae is a little too thoughtful to be so impulsive, but his quick wit and ability to do/say/become whatever a situation calls for more than fulfill the quota for chaos that underlay Ryeowook's original supposition.

So yes, Ryeowook is withholding the truth so that he can slot the person he made up in his head into the person Hyukjae is, but it's been worth it.

"He looks like a brat and like his feet smell." "YAH! My shoes don't breathe!" "Get better shoes, then." "Give me the money, then." "Get a job, then." "That's not fair! Helping you find Poem Person is basically my part-time job!" "Consider it more of an unpaid internship."

Before Hyukjae takes his turn to volley back, his phone rings in his hand.

"Ah, as much fun as this was, I gotta go. I have a mini-showcase coming up, and I've been slacking on rehearsals." He shakes his phone towards Ryeowook, and the latter could see an alarm screen that reads "get your dumb ass to the gulliver center!"

Ryeowook's heart beats a noticeable thump thump all of a sudden. "Can I come with?"

"S-sure," Hyukjae says, shocked by the offer. "But why?"

That's a great question. For now, he says, "Because your internship is getting in the way of your studies, and I feel bad," but later, he'll know it's because he didn't want his time with Hyukjae to end so soon.

A grateful grin spreads across Hyukjae's face, and Ryeowook will add that onto his list of reasons later as well. "An audience is always welcome."

In no time, Hyukjae is in a practise room in the athletic center stretching his limbs every which way while Ryeowook watches as intently as possible while feigning interest in literally anything else in the room.

The bass-heavy noise music that Hyukjae puts on startles his attention back onto the dancer, and Ryeowook can no longer hide how blatantly he stares.

Hyukjae moves through the choreography so fluidly it almost looks lazy. He goes from jagged angles and harsh lines to sinewy curves and rolling waves to strong stomps and high jumps with no hesitation. He plays with the rhythm of the music, and he makes full use of the space available to him. Ryeowook is barely processing one impressive move when Hyukjae executes another one; and before he knows it, the performance is over.

"So," Hyukjae pants, "what'd ya think?"

"It's…" Jaw-dropping. Powerful. Hot. "… impressive," Ryeowook says at last.

Hyukjae smiles tightly. "Thanks. It actually needs a bit of work for the showcase, but I don't think the routine is all too shabby."

Ryeowook watches as Hyukjae watches himself through the mirror, redoing parts of the choreography over and over again at different tempos just to fine-tune his movements, and he can't help but feel like Hyukjae needed more from him.

"Um, I wonder if maybe it's lacking emotion?"

All movement halts. "What?"

Ryeowook didn't mean to say that; but now that it's out, he finds himself needing to continue. "You move well, um, obviously," he gestures awkwardly to Hyukjae's person, fighting a blush. "It looks physically difficult, sure, but what is it that you're trying to say? Like, I'm guessing you chose that song, too, right? So, why?"

Hyukjae stands in the middle of the room, arms limp by his side, and staring at Ryeowook with an unnervingly blank look on his face. Ryeowook hastily backpedals, "But hey, what do I know? I'm sure your professors will watch you and see all the nuances I can't with my untrained peon eyes. I was just… talking to talk, I guess."

"No, but I think you have a point," Hyukjae interjects.

Ryeowook perks up. "I do?"

"Yeah, like… I was so focused on trying to show what I can do with something only I could do, but that means basically nothing when any one of my classmates could learn my routine with only a week of practise. The only way I would be able to stand out is from whatever I put into it, but you made me realise I didn't put anything into it." He plops on the floor, eyebrows furrowed in consternation.

Ryeowook shakes his head adamantly. "No, no! There's clearly something there! You just need to, like, bring it out more. You have that whole idea—that this is something only you can do. You can take that, morph your routine into a testament to your need to prove yourself. Start with some trepidation, throw some desperation in the middle, and end with triumph. Honestly, I think I saw a little bit of that in your performance already. Maybe it was an accident, but now, just… do it on purpose."

"'Do it on purpose,'" Hyukjae repeats to himself. His head is down, so Ryeowook can't immediately tell what he thinks of the idea. He's ready to apologise again, even offer to go home so that Hyukjae can concentrate better, but then Hyukjae raises his head. "Alright, let me give that a try."

His eyes are filled with will and determination. Ryeowook, of all people, put those there.

He sits back and watches Hyukjae rehearse his routine over and over again, getting better and more evocative each time.

The Hyukjae before him is not a Hyukjae Ryeowook would have been able to guess based on his handwriting and lyrics alone.

Ryeowook knows basically nothing about dancing; but over the past few weeks, he's really come to know Hyukjae. He's noticed how the other is prone to express himself through movement, like when he accentuates his stories with body language and physical reenactments. It belies a comfort and confidence with his body and what it can do with which Ryeowook could never empathise. It's a subtle thing, but impactful nevertheless.

He smothers it down because he doesn't want to give Hyukjae the wrong idea, but he wants to laugh.

Only he could fall for a dancer's words first before anything else, and only he could fall for the same person twice.

~Where should I start? When should I say it? Darling, our seconds, our minutes together were beautiful.~

"Ryeowook, why haven't you asked to see my handwriting yet?"

"What?"

They had commandeered a study room in the library, but honestly neither of them are making a lot of headway in their respective assignments. Ryeowook didn't want anything to do with Organic Chemistry, but this conversation is making him reconsider his previous stance.

"Isn't that what you're into? Trying to infer people's personalities based on their handwriting?"

"I'm not into it. It just happened."

"Okay, sure, but aren't you, like, good at it now? Read mine! Tell me what it says about me."

Ryeowook, desperate to squash this idea immediately, blurts out. "It… It won't work!"

"Why not?" Hyukjae pouts.

Ryeowook scrambles. "Because I know you already. Yeah. I'll see and interpret things in a way that confirms what I already know."

Hyukjae eyebrows furrow in what Ryeowook can presume is consternation. "Sorry," he offers feebly.

Some more time passes, and Ryeowook makes mild progress on his O-Chem work, before Hyukjae speaks up again. "So if you can't do me, can you do my friend?" he asks with an excited tone that makes Ryeowook wary.

"I do not want to do your friend." You, however…

"NO! I mean: can you interpret my friend's handwriting? Here. He left it at my place last time we studied together."

Hyukjae's smirk radiates smug self-satisfaction, and with one look at the paper, Ryeowook understands why. He actively controls every muscle in his body to prevent the facepalm that's threatening to break loose.

He has to give Hyukjae props, though. If Ryeowook weren't already so intimately acquainted with the handwriting on the page before him, the other's ploy could have worked.

Regardless, he still finds himself in the position he was trying to avoid in the first place.

All the best lies are based in truth, right? "So I can tell your friend has a very high-stress major. The handwriting is cramped and small, like he can't waste a single stroke or else he'll miss something he needs to write down. Ah, see how he doesn't fully cross his t's and dot his i's? He thinks he'll be able to read his own handwriting later. He probably has decent memory or just has a lot of faith in himself."

Hyukjae nods with an impressed frown. "Huh, not bad."

It would be so, so easy to stop there, but Ryeowook can't. He loves Hyukjae's handwriting too much. "And look here," he points excitedly to a cross-out near the center of the page. "He could cross out his mistakes with a single line or a little squiggle, but he completely blocks it out instead. It suggests he has more confidence with the obvious; but really, I think he needs the reminder. Like, 'Yeah, I made a mistake. I'll move on, but I won't let myself forget. That way I don't do it again.'"

A moment later, Ryeowook realises with a jolt that he had been holding and smiling at the scrap paper a little too tenderly. He whips his head up in embarrassment, an explanation-slash-apology at the tip of his tongue, but Hyukjae doesn't seem to notice.

In fact, Hyukjae has been silent the whole time. Ryeowook chuckles awkwardly. "Am I right?"

"Huh?" Hyukjae intones as he's brought out of his reverie. Ryeowook thinks he sees something in his eyes when their gazes meet, but Hyukjae blinks and it's gone. "I'm sorry, what did you ask me?"

"I was wondering if I was right. About your 'friend,'" Ryeowook reminds, air quotes clear in his tone.

Hyukjae shuffles uncomfortably in his seat. "I think you're more right than even he's ready to admit," he says with a hand at the back of his neck and a sardonic quirk of his lips.

The sight causes an unexplainable swell of affection within Ryeowook, and he turns away. "He can take his time," he assures, eyes trained on his textbook even though he can't read a damn thing.

Hyukjae nods his thanks and turns back to his homework, but Ryeowook doesn't feel right letting it end here.

"Hey, wanna give my handwriting a try?"

~You always lift your head to look up at me. I want to take my big hands and cup your small cheeks.~

Next time they're meant to hang out, it's the weekend; and Hyukjae texts him to meet him at Bomnal.

"Both of us were here just two days ago, and we have to be here again in two days. Don't we spend enough time in Bomnal as it is?" Ryeowook complains as soon as he enters the atrium of the academic building.

"Think of it like a field trip. Come on, Wook," Hyukjae says as he leads them to the second floor lecture hall.

"Pretty sure field trips are meant to take us out of the classroom, but sure, whatever," Ryeowook grumbles as he follows along.

He's testy. He knows it, but he can't help it.

This is the first time both of them will be in Bomnal 235 at once. It feels like a turning point, like he's going to learn something today whether he wants to or not. He wonders if Hyukjae feels the same sense of impending that he does, or maybe it's just worse for him because he's in love.

As soon as they open the doors, the automatic lights flick on and douse the room with a very awake yellow.

"So… where do you normally sit?" Hyukjae asks as he motions to the empty seats before them.

Ryeowook freezes. Now that it's upon him, he can definitively identify this as the thing he was anxious about.

What if he tells the truth, Hyukjae realises Poem Person is him, and he feels awkward about it? Their comfortable but still-very-new friendship would evaporate on the spot, and Ryeowook won't have him in any capacity, much more a romantic one.

So, in another impeccable display of judgement, he decides to lie again.

"Oh, you know… I change it up," he mildly comments as he moves to somewhere near the middle of the first row. He sits down and gives an unassuming grin to his friend, who makes a face. "You're one of those people? Haven't you heard of the same seats code of conduct? You fed me some crap about curling L's when really it's your fault the balloon trick wouldn't have worked," Hyukjae jokes in that way where he's completely serious but is phrasing it with humour.

Ryeowook feels a genuine, fond grin spread across his face before he can help it, and he quickly ducks his head. "Why are we here, again?" he asks instead of dwelling on the validating comfort of being known.

"Why not?" Hyukjae asks as he moves to sit down. "This is the place it all began, right? Might as well."

Ryeowook, for his part, only stares.

Hyukjae went up to a seat in the rear right quadrant of the lecture hall. Ryeowok's own, real seat is directly in front of where the other is sitting. That can't be a coincidence.

"Um, I'm guessing that's where you sit?" he asks as casually as possible.

"Huh? Oh! Haha, yeah. It's funny, I didn't even think of sitting anywhere else. My feet just automatically guided me here."

"So funny," Ryeowook squeaks out.

"Yeah, my friend in the class actually used to sit with me, but it became very apparent very quickly that we would never get anything done if we did, so he moved down there." Hyukjae points with his foot to Ryeowook's seat, and Ryeowook's breath hitches in his throat. "Sometimes when I'm bored, I just can't help but throw stuff onto his desk just to annoy him." Hyukjae mimes a free throw shot towards the desk and smiles.

Well, if there were any doubt before in Ryeowook's mind that Hyukjae was Poem Person, it has summarily been erased.

Ryeowook hums but says nothing else, letting a companionable silence stretch between them as he acknowledges the warmth that settles into his chest when he confirms with himself that yes, he is glad that Hyukjae is Poem Person.

"Why are you helping me?" he asks, curious and without judgement. The abrupt question startles the other out of whatever reverie he had settled into during their respite, but Hyukjae bounces back quickly, as he always does.

"You know, I had to figure that answer out myself," Hyukjae answers with a laugh. He leans back in his chair with his hands folded behind his head, staring out at the empty lecture hall. "I told you I would at first because it was obvious that I was the only one in a position to actually help. It wasn't even an option in my mind that I wouldn't… But even after my sense of obligation ran out, I wanted to keep going.

"You're cool, Ryeowook. You're fun to be around, you're sassy, you're down to try anything once. You're totally comfortable being yourself, and your 'self' is crazy. Like, who else trusts in their gut enough that this person you're chasing after is worth the effort? Who else would go to the lengths to which you're willing to go just to meet him? Honestly, I think that's pretty awesome. I don't know if I could have that same confidence you do."

He tilts his head towards Ryeowook then and gives a close-lipped, self-convinced smile. "If anyone's gonna find love based on a few scraps of paper and a dream, it's gonna be you."

Ryeowook nods mutely. He hopes the distance between them is enough to disguise the blush on his cheeks.

Hyukjae faces forward again. "If I think about it, I guess I'm being selfish, too. I want to believe a love like that is possible; and if I help you find him, I'll get to see it happen for myself… I really hope this guy is worth it, Ryeowook. I think it would break my heart as much as yours if he weren't."

He is, though. He's so worth it. "Me too."

~Longing is a beautiful pain I thought I could endure.~

Ryeowook walks out of the campus mail room, and life couldn't get better.

He just picked up a care package his mom sent him; he got a 94 on his last Nutrition Essentials quiz; and Hyukjae loves the new low-fat, protein-enhanced strawberry scones recipe he tried out yesterday.

Speaking of whom, he thinks this whole Poem Person plot is going to wrap up soon. The last time they must have actually worked on a strategy to find out who Poem Person was, like, two weeks ago at least; and Ryeowook's glad he can stop pretending he has any interest anymore.

Their friendship has wholly evolved beyond the point of needing a project to work on in order to spend time with each other anyway. Why pine after a fictitious man when he has a whole Hyukjae right there, who buys him coffee lattes simply because he's Hyukjae's dongsaeng and who helps him study for his quizzes even when Hyukjae himself is stressed.

Ryeowook tells himself that with some more time, the whole mystery will just fade into an inside joke between the two of them, a white whale they can reminisce about when they're sipping soju and reminiscing… preferably cuddled on a couch and with his head on Hyukaje's shoulder.

However, his friend group did not get the memo.

"So, uh. What happened to Poem Person?" Henry asks one weekend while everyone is at Ryeo-Mi's apartment.

"Shut up!" Kyuhyun admonishes with a slap to the back of Henry's head. "Ryeowook hasn't annoyed us with that in weeks. Aren't you grateful?!"

"I actually am very curious about what happened there. Weren't you and Hyukjae supposed to find him together?" Yesung asks.

"The gen—" "Maybe I'm manifesting, Mi! Ever think of that?"

Ryeowook cuts in before Mi's feelings get even more hurt. "Yeah, we were, but honestly I've kinda given up on the whole thing."

He expects some shock, but he couldn't have predicted who would be the most affected. "You're just gonna give up on finding love!?" Mi despairs.

"Actually, the potential for a romantic relationship was never confirmed," Henry quips. Yesung gives Henry a high-five.

"It was just a little crush," Ryeowook defends. "I've moved past it, as I was bound to do eventually." He says this last part to Kyuhyun, who he knows was the most annoyed with his actions back then.

"'Eventually' doesn't end in time for finals week, Wook," Kyuhyun retorts.

"Well, now you never have to worry about it, Hyun."

"Is love dead?" Mi desponds aloud, but no one pays him any mind.

Ryeowook pats his roommate's shoulders in a half-hearted attempt at consolation. If Mi turns out to be the only casualty in this whole ordeal, Ryeowook will count this as a win.

What he doesn't count on is the fact that Hyukjae would invariably hear about it.

"Is it true?" Hyukjae corners him after Ryeowook picks up his order from the on-campus cafe.

"You know, I don't think so. I think she's just Henry's accompanist for rehearsals," Ryeowook responds genuinely, certain that the latest gossip about Henry's potentially secret girlfriend is what Hyukjae must have been referring to.

"What? No!" Hyukjae stops in confusion but stomps after Ryeowook once he gets his bearings back. "No, I heard that you gave up on finding him, that you gave up a while ago. Is it true?"

Ryeowook hesitates to sit down at the open table he found, and Hyukjae's entire posture seizes in betrayal. "Alright, got it," Hyukjae says with an edge to his tone. "Do me a favour, yeah? Never talk to me ever again."

"Wait!" Ryeowook calls once Hyukjae turns on his heel and storms off. "Hyukjae, wait!" He pays no mind to the fact that he's abandoning his belongings as he chases Hyukjae outside. "I get that you're angry, but don't you think this is a little much?"

He reaches out for Hyukjae's upper arm, but the other immediately shrugs it off. Ryeowook flinches and retreats slightly. Despite the other's obvious fury, Hyukjae is stopped in place and seems willing to actually talk to him, and Ryeowook holds onto that hope instead.

"No, actually," Hyukjae sneers. "I think this is the perfect amount of much when you find out your best friend has been wasting your time for who knows how long!"

Of all the things Hyukjae could have said in that moment, Ryeowook didn't expect that reaction at all. It stings more than he expects, cuts through his defensiveness; and despite his position in the situation, he can't help but need comfort. "What do you mean?" he asks in a confused, desperate voice.

"What do I mean?" Hyukjae repeats exasperatedly. "Ryeowook, we spent weeks together trying to figure out how to get you your dream guy! We never even got anywhere, and, and… And it's all because of you! You shot down basically every one of my ideas practically from the beginning, even after I told you how much it would personally mean to me. That is, like, the textbook definition of a waste of time!"

"You weren't having fun?"

"What?" Hyukjae demands incredulously.

"All that time we spent together," Ryeowook clarifies as he steadfastly meets Hyukjae's angry gaze. "You didn't have fun?"

Hyukjae is silent, and his body posture screams obstinate defiance, but his eyes remain trained on Ryeowook.

"You didn't come to look forward to spending time with me? You didn't spend your free time thinking of ways to make me laugh?"

Hyukjae rolls his eyes. "So what? What does any of that mean when you were just stringing me along? You… you weren't even using me!?" he exclaims, voice rising in a hysterical question. "That was literally the whole basis of our friendship, and you couldn't even do that? Like, what could you have possibly gained from lying to my face like that for all this time?"

Ryeowook gives a watery smile at the non-answer and looks down at his fingers fidgeting together. "I did, too," he says in a voice so quiet it was like he intended to keep that to himself.

It's silent for a long time after that admission. Hyukjae's lividness has dissipated, and he is only left with a disappointment so painful he doesn't want to dwell on it any further. He moves to leave Ryeowook alone outside of the cafe, but Ryeowook's voice stops him.

"W-What did you say?" Hyukjae asks with apprehension.

Ryeowook ignores the tears falling from his eyes as he repeats himself. "I'm in a rush to catch you, but you're in a hurry to leave. Should I just surrender? Now we're like an old and worn notebook filled with scribbles."

Hyukjae simply stares, and Ryeowook takes that as his cue to keep going. "Take your beautiful smile with you. Don't leave it here. You saw me with tears in my eyes."

By heart,

"I was a selfish man, but my life is divided into before and after I knew you."

Ryeowook recites lyric,

"When I first saw you, it felt like a miracle."

after lyric,

"I'm thinking of you more today. I wonder how tomorrow morning will be. Will I miss you more than I do today?"

after lyric;

"I'm honest because I don't know lies before love."

and before he knows it,

"I'd place my feelings on the thawing snow. I'd hang my wish on a disappearing star, but only if you ask me to."

Hyukjae is within arm's reach.

"It's me?" Hyukjae whispers into the scant centimetres between them. "It's really me?" he asks again when Ryeowook had simply nodded.

Ryeowook can't even help it when he recites, "Even when you ask me again, for me, it's only you." with a breathy laugh as he shyly looks away.

Hyukjae moves to gently hold Ryeowook's hand. "And you're okay with that?"

Ryeowook wants to laugh and melt and cry and run away, but instead he settles for an earnest nod and a hesitant smile. "Are you?"

Hyukjae answers him with a kiss, and it feels like a dazzling melody.

~Together, we can make all our unfulfilled dreams come true.~

#super junior #super junior fanfiction #eunwook #eunhyuk #ryeowook #jaso*#iwrew

2 notes · View notes

silver-kitsuneneko · 4 years

Text

Writing 101: How to Deal/ Accept Criticism

Well, this one has been a long time coming but I decided to add more to this post from the one I wrote some years back. I’m a little older and wiser and had learned how to be a little more thick skinned when it comes to this. And sadly no matter what you do even if you post something online or where people just have to voice their opinions on something, criticism is a part of life. But there are two types of criticism and recognizing which one is good and which isn’t can be a little hard. Today I’m going to try and give some helpful advice to just starting out writers and artists.

Rule One: Never assume that everyone is going to be sweet and kind. It’s a sad truth, especially with the age of technology, that it’s a given that people can be complete assholes online for no reason other than they can. This has started to spill out over time in real life because many people want to be edgy or cool or have that “no filters” persona about themselves. Is it right? No. Does it happen? Sadly yes. But for this critic, your best bet is to not feed into their “I’m so edgy asshole I’m not going to sugarcoat anything for you” behavior. You don’t have to take it and 9/10 they most likely just want that negative reaction out of you. Advice is to just ignore if you’re online by blocking if need be. In person, the same things happens but also try to play dumb and comeback in a way where they’re confused or otherwise upset that you’re not playing into their hands.

Rule Two: Know the Difference between Constructive Criticism and Destructive Criticism. Constructive Criticism is criticism that aims to help out the writer or artist. This could mean helping with syntax, grammar points, wonky language, missing words or even helping with world placement. Most writers LOVE this type of help because we’re so focused in getting the story out, we sometimes forget things and always appreciate the help.

An example of Constructive Criticism would be: “Hey, love your story but I think you meant to put pitcher instead of picture.” Or “Ummm I’m a little confused, there’s a lot of character talking but you’re not specifying who is who. Can you fix it? It’s a little confusing. Thanks in advance!”

Destructive Criticism is the exact opposite. Destructive doesn’t help the writer; it just nitpicks and just saying something negative just for the sake of it. This is to really just mess with the writer to get under their skin and pretty much just to get a reaction.

An example of Destructive Criticism would be: “Ugh I hate this story, it’s SOOO Cringe!” or “I stopped reading this story because I don’t like the pairing! Can’t believe you wrote them together! Change it to this pairing! Better yet I’m going tp copy and paste and put them together!”

Please don’t be Destructive. Just don’t.

Rule Three: Don’t Feed the Trolls. Seriously. I can’t stress this enough. Please do not feed into rude commentor or critics. All they want is a negative reaction from you. That’s it. They have something to prove and just want to pick a fight. Why? Mainly because of jealousy, because they have no talent so they want to pick on someone just to make them feel as miserable as they do. Also many just want to stir up trouble because of boredom. Sometimes and it’s usually rare, they’re really trying to help but lack the social skills of “I can’t be blunt to someone who doesn’t know me”. The best advice is to delete their comment, block, and ignore. No matter what you do, this way is just the easiest way. The moment you engage you lose and they got what they want. I know this may sound a bit childish. Like “you’re telling writer to block people when they don’t want to be criticized. This is the internet, if you don’t want to be criticized don’t post anything!” Well it’s a two way street. You as the writer have the right to not allow negativity on your page just like someone has the right to critique whether you want to or not. Sometimes it’s just better to ignore and block. I decided to fight back and unfortunately the person was mentally unhinged to a terrifying degree and for three long years I had to deal with an on and off cyberstalker and bully. It only ended when I had to get the FBI involved after she posted a death threat. Because I told her to leave me alone and came back with something else and I decided to retaliate, she blamed every last one of her problems on me. Thankfully she was also very stupid and posted her real name and location and it was easy to file a report. So yeah, it’s better to be safe than sorry about these types of things.

Rule Four: If someone asks to Correct and Critique your work, hear them out. As writers, we need an extra set of eyes in most things. Having someone who wants to do that for you is a great and valuable tool. Don’t forget to thank them for it. It’s also a great honor that someone loves your work just as much as you do and wants to make it better. It’s a win-win for everyone.

Rule Five: If you don’t want to critique, be honest with the person who wants to do it. Sometimes you’re just not emotionally ready for a critique. You had a bad day at work, school, life, you’re just not feeling up to it, you had an awesome day and you just don’t want the vibe to be ruined, and that’s perfectly fine! In a perfect world, a critic would ask before tearing down your latest chapter but sadly this isn’t the case. So if someone decides to write something in the comments, just ignore it until you’re ready to see it. Then ask that person privately and politely to privately message you in the future. Remember this is by your own terms. If they can’t accept that, then that’s them.

Rule Six: If you really don’t want critiques, turn off comments. Once again, there’s no shame in that, especially if you’re thin skinned or just don’t care about feedback in general. It can come off as rude or standoffish but once again, you have the right to do so. A lot of people can’t take criticism even constructive and would rather just have it where they can write and post without anyone badgering them. This tactic is also used by those who write controversial things or “attention seeking” pieces just to rile up a group of people and with comments off, all the can do is stew.

Rule Seven: there will always be someone to complain about something. No matter how hard you work on your story or how much you poured your heart into it, there will ALWAYS be someone to kill your vibe. But you can’t let that one person ruin your day or make you doubt yourself. Because if it’s just one, over thousands, then you must be doing something right. One bad review or criticism can ruin an otherwise good week or day. Don’t dwell on it, learn from it. If it’s constructive, learn from it and be glad someone cares about your story enough to make it better. If it’s destructive ignore it, delete it, and forget about it that’s it. Always look at the positives over the negatives.

There that’s all the advice I can really give without it becoming too preachy. This is just some advice I know many should hear. Readers, always remember writers are people too. They have their good days, bad days off days and some days they just need some affirmation that what they’re doing is worth it. Yes a bad review can make us feel horrible because many of us still have doubts about our writing and that review is like a stab of reality that maybe we’re not that good and everyone is “humoring” us. But you shouldn’t have to feel that way about yourself but if someone is genuinely offering help, take it. It’ll help you in the long run and make your other readers able to understand your vision better.

#writing #writblr #just writing stuff #criticism #critique #writing and editing #writing and writers #writing advice #silver-kitsuneneko #shut up kitsune #constructive criticism

14 notes · View notes

dlamp-dictator · 4 years

Text

Allen Rambles about Code of Brawl

Man... remind me to never talk about having a future Rambling in the works, it’ll instantly fall into draft-hell. But anyway, I’ve been meaning to talk about Arknights in depth for a while now, but I’ve never had much drive to actually finish the damn draft of my initial thoughts a few months ago. I couldn’t tell you why, I just lost the drive to finish the thing. However, with Code of Brawl coming to a close and my thoughts on the event still lingering I think I can use it as jumping off point to actually talk about the game.

That said, here’s the synopsis.

Arknights is a Tower Defense game for the PC mobile devices placed in the world of Terra, where an infectious disease known as Oripathy ravages the land, slowly turning people to minerals in a slow and painful process. You play as the Doctor, an amnesiac military commander of the Rhodes Island pharmaceutical company who fights against the Infected radicals known as the Reunion.

That’s about as far as I can go in a single paragraph for main story, but Code of Brawl instead focuses on the eccentric adventures of Pengiun Logistics, side faction of the game that’s a seemingly innocent delivery company with quite the ragtag group in it, consisting of the happy-go-lucky gunner Exusiai, the cold and dismissive swordswoman Texas, the excitable and energetic Sora, and the business-savvy Croissant. All led by the charismatic and multi-talented Emperor. However, as their new intern Bison comes into the fold the group is caught in a series of gang wars and organized crime trying to snuff out the company.

And unlike Fire Emblem Three Houses, that really is the basic plot without me sarcastically building anything up. With that all said, I think I can move on and talk about...

The Story

The story of Code of Brawl honestly has the best and worst of Arknights writing. I think having a story that focused on a group outside of Rhodes Island was for the better. For all the lore blurbs and archive notes we get, I think Code of Brawl proves just how little Rhodes Island is involved with the world of Terra at large despite it’s apparent reputation as a weird and quirky company with some terrifyingly powerful Operators and lofty ambitions. And while I’m still only on Chapter 4 since I’m grinding out some E2 before moving on, Rhodes Island really does more reacting to random Reunion plans than anything proactive with their goals of curing Oripathy. They feel more like a counter military force to Reunion, and a barely effective on at that given the point of the story I’m at. Code of Brawl, being focused on another group with a more direct conflict and villains, feels a lot more cohesive and interesting, as Penguin Logistics’s goal is to just get Bison through his first day and take out whatever force is harassing them this week.

Penguin Logistics as a whole is a rather interesting bunch of ruffians and seeing them is gallivant around Lungmen trading blows and bullets with gangsters is a joy to read and see. Seeing some of the inner workings of Lungmen society, seeing a bit of the underbelly, as well as getting to see the cast just have more casual interactions with each other is great. We learn that Sora really is just gay for Texas, and the all of Penguin Logistics has only 3 function braincells with Texas having one and Mostima having the other two. We get to see that Sora has probably beaten someone to death with her microphone at some point given how willing she is to bar fight. A lot of fun stuff.

And then... there’s Mostima.

Look, I like this story, I really do, but Mostima really didn’t need to be here as far as the story is concerned. All she does plot-wise is rile up Exusiai, drop some cryptic advice for Bison, shows she knows more powerful than she leads on, and is a bit of a deus ex machina for the end of the plot, and not even by that much. You could had replaced her with Chen, Swire, Hoshigumi, ShiraYuki, or anyone else that would logically be in Lungmen at the time. Hell, ShiraYuki knowing everything a being cryptic about it would at least be in character for her.

And that’s not to knock Mostima. I actually pulled her in my last ten-pull (didn’t get Waii Fu though, and I’m still salty about that), she’s a pretty good and damn near god-tier once you get her to E2 if some of the guides on her are to be believed, though her kit is a little niche for an AoE caster of her cost. However, as far as the story is concerned she shows a serious issue with Arknights as a whole. That’s its constant need to have half of their characters be mysterious.

Mysterious Characters

So, just to give an example, here is a list of characters in Arknights with a Mysterious Past™. These are characters that either have their archive notes explicitly state their past is unknown, or characters who’s past is implied but but deliberately kept unconfirmed.

With that said...

Mostima

Myrtle

Cuora

Skadi

Specter

Shining

Siege

Projekt Red

Specter

Blue Poison

Lappland

Texas (?)

ShiraYuki

AMIYA

Okay, I’m cheating a little with Texas since she has enough of her past implied, but it’s still technically a mystery as far as the specifics go. But you see my point, right? A lot of characters have a Mysterious Past™, which is a nice shorthand to not go into depth about writing their background. Now, you don’t need to give twenty paragraphs on their backstory, but something would be nice. Keeping things a mystery might be nice for the theory-crafters, but for me it’s annoy as hell to see so many character, so many high-rated that really just have their skills and design to go off of, especially with most the cast overall having a pretty simple background to them that are interesting when you read through the lore blurbs and think about it. Breeze is a former noble that wanted to do more good in the world than throwing money at a problem. Liskarm is a protective friend that joined Rhodes Island to make sure the problematic Franka integrated without problems. Frostleaf is a child soldier that wants to do some good in the world after becoming Infected. Kroos, Beagle, and Fang joined Rhodes Island after getting kicked out of their old jobs. You don’t need to be flashy, but giving answers isn’t an admission of lacking creativity. The hints might be nice for the analysts, but the fans would likely want some answers.

Again, Mostima isn’t a problem, and a lot characters in that list do have some concrete hints about their past. Texas and Lappland are likely a former mafia heiresses and old rivals. Shining was likely a highly skilled mercenary before realizing she could do more good in the world with a healing staff instead of a sword. Siege is likely apart of Londinium royalty, but was either exiled or ran due to political turmoil. But that’s the issue, likely isn’t confirmed. Mostima being a powerful character with a mysterious past just feels like a cop out to me. It’s not bad, but she’s a symptom of what some of the issues of Arknights story is. I’m not asking for AFK Arena-levels of lore, just... an explanation here or there would be nice.

But anyway that’s my main issue, moving on.

General Gushing

Despite that large critique I have, there’s a lot I love about this story. For simplicity sake, because I’m tired of all the editing, I’ll put it into list form:

Penguin Logistics in general was just a joy to see. Watching them in action and just how laissez-faire they are is hilarious, especially when paired with the straightforward and reserved Bison freaking out over the wackiness.

Speaking of, Bison made for a very good straight man to balance out all the wild antics of PL. He really kept things from getting too crazy by at least questioning the zaniness, and the point when he finally stops caring and just charges in with a crazy plan of his own just gave me the giddiest of smiles.

Given how they discuss it, PL apparently trade blows with criminals and thugs on a daily basis, and since they’re just a delivery company this implies they likely deliver drugs or other hot cargo the mafia and gangs want... and given Emperor’s personality, that wouldn’t shock me.

Emperor in general is a delight of a character. He’s about as charismatic and wild as his aesthetic makes him look. I would legit whale for him if he ever become an operator.

Learning a little bit about Lungmen culture was fun as well, as little of it as we see. It’s my personal headcanon now that the mafia and general thugs of Lungmen don’t mess with civilians because they’re either a sleeper agent under the Rat King’s protection or they might be a kung fu master in plain clothes like Waai Fu.

Waai Fu and Texas fist fighting in the streets of Lungmen is just hilarious and awesome. I honestly don’t know what that says about either of them. Texas is holding her own against a martial artist with over 10 years of experience barehanded, meanwhile Waai Fu is holding her own against what lore blurbs have implied is the former heiress/hitman of a mafia. All the while drunkards and Texas’s coworkers are egging them on. This is the dumb content I live for.

Save for some of the absolute bullshit of the challenge maps, I found the actual game content to be pretty fair and interesting. The Bullies required good defender placement, a lot of the ranged units focused on targeting the helpful buildings that buffed your characters and increased the operator deployment count, and maps themselves had a few clever chokepoints to work with... At least until they started spamming Fanatics.

Bison actually has a pretty solid kit for a free Operator. He buffs a lot of adjacent units, has a no real weakness, his tools don’t feel niche like Grani or Celycon, overall a great unit. Once I finish E2-ing all my main Operators I might build him next.

While I have issues with her as a story element, Mostima is a 6-star that has instant utility once you promote her to E2, much like Chen and Siege. This is something I’m relieved to say as a lot of my 6-stars aren’t worth much until you E2 them and I’m still trying to E2 some of my easier units like Cuora and Gavial for Chapter 5 and CC.

That’s really all I have to say on that front. So to close things off...

For the Future

Like I always say in these Ramblings, I don’t like the idea of people prattling on about being able to “fix” or “rewrite” something has already been made. It always comes across as both arrogant and ignorant to me. However, I think it’s completely fair to make requests and suggestions for the future. ‘

That said, I'd like to continue seeing side stories without Rhodes Island’s involvement. Both to see other factions in their natural element and because, frankly, Rhodes Island always feels a little out of place when involved in other stories, or at least more of a distraction than a good element if chapter 2 and 3 are anything to go by. I think a Black Steel side story would be nice. Jessica, Franka, Liskarm, and Vanille getting into shenanigans in Columbia or something sounds like a fun time. Maybe have the leader/high commander of the organization as a new operator and they’re a really powerful Supporter than can buff the party, like a 6-star version of Sora or something that gives operators insane ASPD buffs... I don’t know, something like that anyway. Ideally something a little less wordy than Code of Brawl at least.

Anyway, that’s all I have to say. Next time... I’ll talk about something else. Maybe discuss a manga or something.

See you all later.

#arknights #your dictator is speaking

17 notes · View notes

crewhonk · 5 years

Text

...Of The Line (1)

A series collaboration with @nomadsgrogers where she writes for Giovanna as the reader! We’re just projecting onto our writing, its FINE

Series Summary: Steve watches YN Banner grow up before his eyes– from a shy, dorky sixteen-year-old to a fierce, brilliant woman who never fails to keep him on his toes. He knows that she’s untouchable, but that doesn’t stop him from being completely wrapped around her finger for the rest of his long life.

Series Warnings: Mutual Pining, age gap, gun use, these two are idiots– seriously they’re so dumb, slow burn, injuries

Pairings: eventual Steve Rogers X Banner!Reader, eventual Buky Barnes X OC!Stark

Chapter Summary: YN says goodbye to her best friends and watches as the events of The Winter Soldier go down. YN visits her best people in the hospital.

Words: 4.1K

@nomadsgrogers version >> (” Till the End...”) Introduction

“... Of The Line” Masterlist

_________________

2014, two years later

Eventually, Giovanna had left to join Natasha and Steve in their work with SHEILD in Washington about a year after Natasha and Steve had initially left. They had come back for a short reprieve from work and were set off to go work to save lives again— 361 kilometres away. Giovanna had called it her first real mission as an Avenger while both YN and Tony had called it bullshit and begged her to stay. YN was never much for goodbyes— moped around for days until she found herself showered and in the lab. A bad habit that Giovanna critiqued her about.

“You really don’t have to leave, you know.” YN frowned, pulling her best friend into a hug and burying her face into her neck. Giovanna drew circles between the middle of her shoulder blades and stayed silent until YN pulled away and wiped her nose with her sleeve. Natasha joined the group of girls and pulled YN under her wing, kissing her temple and hugging her close. Nat had since bonded with the two younger women, now on the cusp of nineteen, taking them under her wing and training them when she could— watching movies and laughing long into the night when she was able.

“Are you sure you don’t wanna come with us?” Natasha’s suave, carefully selected speech patterns disappeared around the two girls— something that rarely ever happened. “I could really use a hand keeping Captain Bad Idea in line,” Natasha smirked and YN rolled her eyes and laughed, refusing to let the sudden heat blossoming on her face stop her from functioning like it usually did.

Steve Rogers had grown on her— he had become something less like a celebrity crush in 2012 to something deeper. Her adoration for the man had rooted in her lungs, constricting her breathing until it seemed she would never be able to breathe again.

Not to be dramatic.

But it was true that the two had become closer. They trained together, ate together, watched shitty 80’s movies until the crack of dawn and then crashed on separate end of the same couch together. They kept touching to a minimal— an unspoken rule between the two which only caused for a rock in the progress of relationship building. Both, as the team knew, were very needy with touch and it only seeded the idea that the other person felt no real romantic interest in the other. That, and Steve’s consistent fear of making her crumble under his hands— young and fragile and too good for him.

YN’s eyes flickered over to where Steve was chatting with Tony and Bruce softly, allowed her eyes to rake over his appearance once, very quickly and then smiled back to her girls.

“I think you’ll be fine. You got Blind Enthusiasm over there to help you.” She nodded her chin towards Giovanna who seemed affronted at her statement.

“Hey! I’m not Blind Enthusiasm. Maybe Sassy Regret.” Giovanna pulled both Natasha and YN into her arms and squeezed them both close. Their foreheads touched for a few seconds before she pulled away and let her hand rest on YN’s cheek.

“Don’t blow anything up while I’m gone,” Giovanna warned.

“It’s no fun without you.” YN winked back, finishing their classic statement goodbye— uttered mostly when one left for coffee runs or actually went to bed at a time which humans usually did.

“Wanna say goodbye to him?” Natasha’s eyes flicked over to Steve who was watching them. YN’s eyes locked with his own and she shot Steve a small smile, raising her hand and giving a shy wave. Giovanna scoffed quietly to herself, toeing the ground with her sneakers at the innocent move.

Behind closed doors, YN rarely had a filter on the topic of Steve Rogers. Hashing out everything she wanted him to do to her and everything she wanted to do to him, sometimes in such great detail even Natasha, when she was able to join, would blush. Now, in the midst of that same man, YN was reduced to a blushing, quiet sixteen-year-old version of herself.

YN was like a pit bull raised in a good family— her bark was most certainly worse than her bite.

“Nah. We already said goodbye.” YN smiled, looking away from Steve who seemed to be less than keen on doing the same. Giovanna and Natasha’s identical smirks dropped at the very same time.

“Okay, great. We’re going to have a FaceTime session tonight and you’re going to spill everything.”

“Everything?”

“Every. Single. Thing.”

______________________

The tower was lonely without the chaos that ensued during the previous three and a half years, all due to the rapidly advancing education that was YN Banner and Giovanna Stark’s life. There were no crashes from the lab on the 52nd floor, as YN was played out on the couch, uninspired and bored out of her mind at one in the morning. She had been throwing up a stress ball into the air, catching it all the while glaring at the holograms on the table in front of her. When the hologram flickered for the third time in ten seconds she growled and threw the stress ball at it, eyes flashing neon green only briefly.

“Woah! Squish, you okay?” Bruce exclaimed, walking around the table and rubbing the spot on his forehead where the ball had collided. YN muttered an apology as her dad sat down next to her, watching the diagram of a blood cell rotate in front of them.

“Been better.” She mumbled, taking the stress ball back from her father and digging her nails into it. Both Bruce and Big Guy took notice, and they were equally concerned.

“What’s goin’ on?” He tried. He was usually wonderful at this father-ing schtick but ever since he had left when she was only sixteen, she had become increasingly independent. Now almost twenty, she was a full adult and Bruce had no idea where he belonged anymore.

“I just— God. I want to think I’m a grown up. I want to think I’m independent from other people and can function without another person but I don’t think I can do that. I’ve always had you and when I didn’t I’ve always had Gio and Natasha and Steve and Tony. I’m no good alone.” YN ranted, tears welling in her eyes and Bruce could feel his heart melting and breaking both at the same time.

“You don’t have to be alone, you know. Humans are social creatures. We don’t do well alone. We’re meant to be in packs and we’re meant to have those social bonds. Independence for us in the wild usually means death— in modern times it just sometimes means everything short of that.” Bruce hummed and he wrapped his arm around his baby girls shoulders. She sniffed into his neck and wiped tears away from her eyes.

“But Gio’s independent. So are Steve and Natasha and I don’t get why I can’t be like that.” Her voice was thick as she spoke.

“Because you’re you. You don’t have to be like them. There’s no shame in leaning on people, you know.” He mumbled and Big Guy seemed to agree, chest rumbling in agreement. There was as silence before YN’s quiet voice rang out loud and clear.

“You’re not goin’ anywhere, right, Papa?”

Bruce’s heart skipped a beat and he pulled her closer, squishing her to his chest and blinking back tears.

“I’ll stay right here just as long as you want me to, okay?”

“Okay.”

Another Pause.

“Wanna help me try to figure out our blood?”

____________________

It was a week before ‘Tonights’ FaceTime could take place, as both Natasha and Giovanna had been swept up in the life and work of SHEILD. It was seven at night when YN’s phone rang by her side, laptop on her lap in bed playing “The 100”. The phone chimed, and YN in all of her excitement nearly launched her computer from her legs in her hurry to answer it.

“Hi!” She said excitedly, shutting her laptop and pulling her covers closer to her chest. On her screen were her best friends, faces squished together and smiling so widely. The flush on Giovanna’s cheeks was a telltale sign they were at least a glass and a half into their wine.

“Baby girl!” Giovanna almost squealed, and YN’s heart clenched. Oh, how she had missed the Stark energy because sure, Tony had it all but there was nothing like seeing it in jammed into a 5’3 Italian firecracker of a girl.

“How’s Washington? Oh my gosh, have you met Obama yet? What about Michelle? Are her arms as magnificent as they look in pictures?” YN rushed, and the two girls laughed.

“Washington is good! It’s too vanilla for my taste.” Giovanna replied and Natasha said something about how it was because the sewer rats were the closest things she ever got to owning a pet.

“No, we haven’t met any of the Obama’s either.” Natasha quelled YN’s thirst for the First Family and YN sat back in mock disappointment.

“Well, then what’re you even doing there?” The others laughed at her response before they both lost their excited exterior. It would never fail to impress YN how in sync Giovanna and Natasha were at almost all times.

“So, don’t think we forgot, little lamb.” Natasha chastised and YN rolled her eyes, before getting up and grabbing a bottle of wine from her wine cooler hidden in the back of her closet. No way was she explaining her and Steve’s goodbye while sober. No, ma’am.

She raised the bottle to her lips and wiped her hand across her mouth.

“What d’you wanna know?” YN resigned herself to what she could picture as hours worth of interrogation.

“Everything.”

____________________

It was the night before the team was about to leave for Washington. Giovanna had already left the common room under the guise of packing, allowing for Steve and YN to have a few hours to themselves under the glow of the city lights streaming through the windows and the television.

Steve could feel his hands clamming up. Sure, he had been alone with YN countless times before, but it was only on his visit back did he notice that YN had grown up. Long gone were her puberty curves. There was that same trademark Banner softness to her, but he didn’t miss the way that her shirt clung to rigid muscle when she was straining herself in the gym. He didn’t miss the lines of her calf and thigh muscles whenever she wore those tight black shorts that made his head spin. He didn’t miss the curl of her wild hair or how her eyes seemed to droop in a way that made his heart stutter whenever she looked at him.

He had been alone with YN before, countless times. She never failed to make him feel like a 16-year-old kid in Brooklyn, though.

“You know, I’m really gonna miss nights like these.” She said, curling into the cushion of the couch and pulling her blanket to her chin— comfort habit, he had learned.

“Whatd’ya mean?” He asked, suddenly not at all interested in the movie playing in front of them. He knew this was an iconic 90’s movie but he couldn’t care less about anything that didn’t involve YN.

“You and me all curled up. I mean, come on. Showing movies to Captain America for the first time?” She giggled sleepily at his eye roll.

“As if I care about it, honestly.” He mirrored her position, facing her and leaning on the back of the couch.

“Why don’t you care about it? Clueless is one of the best movies out there.” YN tried to sound offended, but she couldn’t find it in herself to sound anything but nervous and breathy. Steve’s eyes were drooping, fighting hard to stay awake and watching her with a softness he rarely showed anyone. In some wild, delusional state, she could almost believe what Giovanna and Natasha told her— that he could come to love someone like her.

“Not my type.” He muttered, forcing himself to keep his hands from reaching out and placing them on her bare arms. God, all he wanted to do was run the back of his knuckles over her skin. Wanted to make goosebumps erupt all over her body. Wanted to make her suck in a breath and look at him through those innocent, peering eyes.

Steve kept his hands to himself.

“What is your type?” She whispered, and his heart climbed violently up his throat. He coughed once to get it back to where it belonged and when that didn’t work, he pulled away farther from her. He couldn’t— she was too young and good and pure and everything he would ruin.

He wouldn’t ruin YN Banner.

“We should get you to bed, okay, Sugar?” He said, glancing absently at the time before rising slowly to his feet. He wanted nothing more than to curl up against her, soak her in enough for him to survive the next few months away. He stopped himself, however, filling his arms with blankets and pillows and waiting for her to stand and join him.

She almost looked disappointed he didn’t help her. Definitely looked disappointed he was ending the night.

She only nodded, however, and wrapped her blanket around her shoulders like a cape, following him to the elevator in silence and riding up in silence. Only speaking again when they reached her floor. She stepped out, turning around and placing her hand on the door so it wouldn’t close on her. She was quiet for a time, trying her very best to memorize the way blue skin had found a home in the inner corners of his eyes. How the left side of his nose was just a little crooked. Remember the cleft of his chin and the swell of his bottom lip. She sniffed and nodded and stepped back.

“I’ll miss you, grandpa. Don’t know who I’ll make old people jokes about anymore.” She forced a playful smile over her tired face and he mirrored it.

They were both so close, but so, so far away.

“I’ll miss you, Sweetheart. Don’t know who’s gonna make you get to bed in time for your afternoon nap.”

“Guess you’ll have to come back soon, then.”

Then, the elevator door slid shut with a quiet ‘ding’.

______________________

YN had thought them to be dead. Nick, Steve, Natasha, and Giovanna killed in a gun battle in the middle of Washington. She had thought them dead until she got the call. It was Tony who called, half out of his mind with worry but voice dripping with relief.

“They’re alive, YN. News— look at the news.” She listened to her uncle, ran down the hall of her floor to the common room with television in it and flicked on the channel. Sure, Tony may have been only five floors away, but she was suddenly very familiar with the feeling of her legs and arms and heart going numb.

The flashing red at the bottom screen told her this was live. Large hellicarriers armed to the teeth were falling on Washington, a collection of live footage from the news crews and videos from Twitter streaming on the screen, and YN cried out when a rather shaky video caught sight of Giovanna, fighting, yelling, bleeding through her uniform but alive. YN let out a dry sob and leaned forward on her knees, putting her head in her hands and crying into them despite the lack of tears streaming from her eyes.

Then, when she looked back, she saw him. Angry, and scared and like Giovanna, bleeding but very much alive. He looked to be running— chasing after someone who was singlehandedly taking out an entire SHEILD battalion.

She didn’t care. Her guys were alive.

________________________

The quinjet ride to Washington was only half an hour, but both YN and Tony could have sworn it would have been easier to walk themselves. The jet landed on the roof of the hospital and she sprinted side by side with Tony down the stairs, bursting through the doors of the VIP section the hospital had closed off.

Large men in combat greens were lining the hallways, guns on their shoulders and there was an eerie silence in the hallway.

“Ms. Stark is in room 567, Captain Rogers is in the room next to her— 569.” The nurse, nervous and excited at the sight of the Tony Stark in her own hospital making her voice higher than usual.

“I need— I’m sorry.” He whispered once they got to the rooms and YN rolled her eyes, pushing him towards his daughters' room.

“Go, we got all day. I’m gonna go see Steve.” YN tried to ignore the way Tony’s worried eyes gave away to something almost teasing, and she turned around to the room 569, knocking on the ajar door and smiling at the man in the room.

He was sitting next to an unconscious Steve. His dark skin and dark eyes stunned her— a man of genuine beauty was protecting Steve. He looked at her, eyes intense and guarding.

“Who’re you?” His voice was suave and the gap in his teeth was charming. YN tried to fight back the urge to walk over and tell him just who she was— he obviously cared much for Steve. The bags under his eyes and the stains on his shirt were dead giveaways that he hadn’t left the hospital in a few days.

“YN Banner. Who are you?” Her voice was strong, and her gaze landed on Steve who looked very much worse for wear. A large gash that was deep enough to require stitches extended from the corner of his mouth to his earlobe, a black and green and red bruise on his opposite cheek let her know that the bone underneath his skin must have been completely shattered. The hospital gown he was wearing was pulled to the side to show more blossoming bruises and YN coughed, trying to rid her throat of the sudden lump that had taken root there.

The man made a noise of surprise and joy, a wide smile blossoming over his face before he stood and extended a hand.

“Sam Wilson. Wow, the famous YN Banner. Steve and Giovanna never shut up about you this whole week, it’s nice to put a face to the name. Nice to meet you, Steve’s girlfriend, YN Banner.” He smirked and his smile grew at the way she spluttered in surprise.

“I’m— we’re not— I’m not—“ She rushed, cheeks flaming to the tips of her ears. Sam laughed and stepped closer, moving to walk by her and out of the room, knowing she would want some alone time.

“He said the same thing when Gio and Natasha called him your boyfriend. Got more red, though.” And with that, and a clap on the shoulder, Sam walked out of the room.

YN’s gaze drifted back to Steve, and she pressed the backs of her cold hands to her face to try to quell the blush that seemed to have found a home there. She walked over to his side, pulling a chair to his bedside and reaching out, hesitating only slightly before wrapping both of her hands around his much larger one. The knuckles were bruised and bloody, clean stitches already looking to have been removed and she rested her cheek on them, looking at Steve’s face.

It was only a half an hour before his hand twitched in hers, and he grunted at the pain he felt immediately upon waking. He cracked his eyes open slowly, crusted closed with tears and other sleep residue and felt someone's hands tighten around his own.

YN was there, eyes tired but relieved and Steve’s heart rate monitor picked up when she smiled at him, softly.

“Hey,” She whispered over the music from the speaker Sam had brought in. Her tightened her grip on his hands and rested her lips on his fingers— not kissing them, but resting there and Steve cursed the machine beeping continuously and irregularly beside him.

“Hi,” His voice was raspy from the fight and smoke and water they had to pump from his lungs and the breathing tube from the surgeries he had received.

“Whose idea was it to take down SHIELD?” She asked, corners of her lips turning up. She already knew the answer, but it would be nice to have the opportunity to make fun of the man in front of her.

“Gio’s?” He tried and YN laughed against his hand, breath drifting over his knuckles and making the pink of blush creep up his neck. God, how the hell did someone as good as her make him so unbearably nervous. She had gotten even more beautiful in the four months they hadn’t seen each other.

“Nice try, Captain Bad Idea.” YN teased, and she pulled one hand from his grip to brush the back of her fingers against his forehead and his eyes fluttered shut briefly at her touch. To anyone looking into the room, they looked like a couple— two people so in love and so worried for each other, and both Steve and YN knew this, neither too keen on ruining the illusion. They only wanted to stay in this little moment for a few minutes longer— for as long as it took for reality to pull them away from each other once more.

____________________

Soon, Tony interrupted their moment outside of reality, needing to discuss and make plans for the future of the team and whoever remained of SHEILD.

“I’ll be back. Can you eat anything yet?”

“I think so,” His voice was quiet and he really, truly, desperately didn’t want you to leave— didn’t want to let you go already.

“Okay, I’ll find something good.” YN stood, squeezing his hand once before pulling away slowly and Tony raised an eyebrow at the way Steve almost seemed to reach after it, wanting her to come back so soon.

YN didn’t hear the way Tony teased Steve, comments of ‘gramps’ and ‘you know she’s too smart for you, right?’ Followed quickly by Steve telling him to shove it somewhere the sun didn’t shine. Instead, she walked over to the next room and didn’t even bother knocking before walking in and crossing her arms, glaring at her best friend who looked a little worse for wear.

“You look like shit, babe,” Giovanna said with a wicked grin.

“You’re one to talk. Really? Taking down secret government Nazi’s? Without me? How dare you.” YN dropped her stern act and padded over to Giovanna’s bed, lifting the blankets and curling under them, resting her head on her best friends shoulder.

“Sorry about that.” Giovanna shifted slightly and moved to face YN, glad she had chosen to invade her bed on this side, as she didn’t need to lay on the stab wound she had received only hours before.

“I told you not to die.” YN chastised lightly, and Giovanna patted her shoulder.

“I didn’t— I just got stabbed lightly by sex on legs.” She said and YN looked at her sharply.

“Excuse me?”

And then, Giovanna launched into a story of a man-- the Winter Soldier-- dressed in all black, hair hanging around his face which was, apparently, sculpted by Hades himself.

“And the best part,” Giovanna continued, pausing for dramatic effect. “It was Bucky Barnes. The Winter Soldier is Bucky Barnes!”

YN’s heart dropped to her stomach and she could feel the blood leave her face.

“What? Steve didn’t say anything about— oh, my God.” YN whispered, and she barely had time to even worry about Steve before Giovanna made a noise in the back of her throat.

“Oh, so you saw your favourite Beefcake before your best friend?” Giovanna teased, relishing in the way YN looked as if she wished the ground would swallow her whole.

“I— you were— Tony needed to see you.” YN stuttered and Giovanna rolled her eyes, squeezing YN closer to her. God, she missed her bumbling, pining, lovestruck best friend.

“Suuuure.”

______________________________

Tags (open, send an ask): @i-am-always-famished / @filia-sapientiae / @somekryptonitewriting / @fashionlive15 / @godlymissbalor / @fanfictionjunkie1112 / @nerdy-bookworm-1998 / @songforhema / @army-crawl-andersen / @buckybarneshairpullingkink / @shynara51

316 notes · View notes

shyvioletcat · 5 years

Text

Kingdom of Ash Tour Sydney

Oh my gosh, I’m sorry this took so long. My notes were much more extensive than I thought and then just a lot of poor time management. Anyway, here it is.

A few choice bits of information/quotes:

“Being a dork pays off you guys. Who knew?”

Says Melbourne like a local

Loves our coffee. Says she’s moving here because of it.

Advice to aspiring writers: find someone to share your work with. Giving and getting feedback teaches you so much. Gives you a form of community.

Got into writing because it’s what she loves and it makes her come alive like nothing else does.

Music plays a Huge part in her creative process

Daily writing schedule. Plays with Taran then about 930/10 she starts. Gets admin stuff done first 9-8 job.

Nothing compares to sitting down and writing a scene she’s wanted to write for years and years. Describes it as time stopping and the closest thing to magic, at least for her.

Had a question about her creative circle for bouncing ideas around and talking about her stories. Sarah didn’t talk to her family about her stories at all when she was younger. Doesn’t like her parents reading her books. She referred back to writing ACOTAR and she asked the audience “do you know what it’s like to write an on the page sex scene knowing my father was going to read this?” Said it took her about three glasses of wine to deal with it.

About her dad reading said scenes: He said “I just skip those scenes.” Sarah’s reply “I’ll do you one better. I’ll just rip those pages out.” Then she talked how it was much worse when ACOMAF came out the next year.

Josh has become her creative sounding board over the last few years. He reads the early drafts of Crescent City and lets Sarah ramble to him for hours. She thinks it’s really cute they get to do that.

He thinks he’s every love interest in all her books. At events people ask if he’s what Rhys was modelled from. Josh will say yes. Sarah was very adamantly said it was a no.

Fellow writers help her from looking like a complete idiot. In particular Lynette Noni. Calls her a secret Disney Princess. Has become her can’t live without critique partner.

She said don’t listen to the people who say writing is a dumb dream. But said it’s a long long road to getting published but not impossible. “Don’t ever listen to the haters man.”

Her parents were always incredibly supportive. Her mum would leave snacks outside her door so she wouldn’t disturb her while she wrote

When her parents told her that she needed a job to support herself Sarah didn’t want to listen. But she said they were ultimately right because there are no guarantees in publishing. One of her favourite moments is when she became a New York Times best seller and she got to call and tell her parents. The first thing her mum said was she regretted telling Sarah to be realistic about the expectations of yourself. But Sarah was adamant they were right.

She thanked us and got quite emotional. Thanked us for supporting her books, she was walking around Sydney harbour and thought to herself how lucky I am to do this for a living.

Someone from the audience screamed “I love you” she said “I love you too, I love you all so much” (insert my hysterical tears). She couldn’t express how much she appreciates everything we all have done for her and her family, the fact we have allowed her to live out her dreams. “Thank you from the bottom of my heart for this being the loveliest group of people I’ve ever had the honour to meet”. SHE LOVES US.

Crescent city

Doesn’t think her parents can read a single page of crescent city. Joking, it’s every other page. Started as excess creative energy, a real passion project.

Describes it as taking the ToG/ACOTAR worlds and jumping ahead over 3000 years to where they have modern technologies and comforts. Magical creatures living together in complex hierarchies. Feels different because of the modern setting but has familiar aspects, e.g. snarky sassy heroines and brooding sexy muscled men. Says there are so many. So many.

Josh: “why are there so many attractive men in this book?” Sarah “because it’s a fantasy. FAN-TA-SY.”

No real defined plot yet.

Knew it was the story she wanted to tell because of an experience on a plane. Sarah was listening to a piece of music and saw a scene play out and she burst into tears. She didn’t know the characters or how they got there. The scene will be in the first book and is like THE MAJOR BIG SCENE. Kept thinking of that moment of creation and how much it overwhelmed her and that was the deciding factor that that was the next story she needed to tell.

World of Throne of Glass

World of Throne of Glass. Started off as an encyclopaedia. It will be a chronicle that exists in world and Sarah describes it like going into the library of Orynth and pulling it off the shelf. The premise of the book is that Aelin has hired this cranky old scholar to travel around all the kingdoms/continents and includes the travel logs, transcripts from interviews with the characters, insight into how they felt, letters between characters. The book itself is like the the Terrasen courts private copy so it has letters between characters. Glimpses into the future.

BUT THIS MEANS IT WILL COME OUT LATER

ALSO SAID THERE ARE POCKETS OF HISTORY SHE REALLY WANTS TO FILL IN AND THERE’S ALSO LOTS OF STORIES THAT MAYBE ONE DAY SHE MIGHT WANT TO TELL SHE JUST NEEDS TIME TO THINK ABOUT IT. SORRY I’M JUST REALLY EXCITED ABOUT THIS.

Throne of Glass/ACOTAR

The idea of Throne of Glass came to her when she was 15/16 years old. Gripped her like no other story had. Throne of glass has a special place in her heart because it’s what started her on this journey.

Sarah was changing Kingdom of Ash right up the very last minute.

Mystery questions from the lobby:

What would happen if all your villains met?

The thought of Maeve and Amarantha gave her chills to think about. Would they rip each other to shreds or form and unholy alliance? Undecided.

Did you cry during the writing of the final book? If so which moments?

Number one scene. The Thirteen.

Gave lots of details about when Manon first appeared, a piece of music from the Fright Night remake was playing and she saw the cottage scene play out. She saw Manon disembowel the farmers and how her teeth and claws came out and just thought “I love you”.

Loved witches since she was little because she realised witches were often women with power when women weren’t allowed to have power.

Sarah went to the mat for Manon. She hadn’t sold the rest of the books, only up to Heir of Fire. Writing about Manon gave Sarah her courage and came into her life when she needed her attitude. She said “Over my dead effing body” when editor said to cut Manon.

Sarah listened to a song from the original star wars and that was when she saw the sacrifice of the Thirteen. She needed to have Manon start where she did in Heir of Fire so when we all got to the scene in Kingdom of Ash is would really hit us strongly as it had hit Sarah for the first time. Sarah was sobbing at her desk when she saw them making their final run. She saw then Manon screaming and begging them to to stop because she realised she had a heart and loved them.

Sarah said she needed to lie down afterwards, she considered a happy ending for a moment, but then she thought about how the ladies never get to make the big heroic sacrifice and she really wanted the Thirteen to make the badass sacrifice and she wanted to make that moment when their exploding with light and not darkness absolutely destroyed Sarah.

Happier scene is the last goodbye between the main three, sobbing so hard. Really ugly crying not Frodo crying nicely at the end of The Return of the King, but bodily fluids spraying everywhere. So many tears.

Sarah would also get super amped up. Example: When Elide saves Lorcan she got so amped up she literally straddled her chair like she was riding a horse. (She re-enacted it on stage too). Then it was just more ladies were doing their badass thing like:

as Aelin flies down on the bird and explodes and destroys the wave and then Rowan is like that steam is going to boil every one like lobsters, got to get rid of that.

When Aelin makes her run and Lorcan sees her and he’s crying, you know if Lorcan’s crying some intense shit is going down

Then when Aelin is trying to get the mask off. That hit Sarah hit her so hard, didn’t expect it. Felt physically ill writing it. It was one of the few times Aelin was unhinged and in a panic. Seeing Aelin in a panic out Sarah in a panic.

Aelin has been like a person to Sarah and has carried Sarah through a lot of hard stuff. Sarah has said to herself “my name is Sarah J Maas and I will not be afraid”

Would say “What would Aelin do?” to give herself that swagger. Any time Aelin is in pain Sarah was in pain and would be like “My baby my baby! Let me help you”.

Such a joy to write. Aelin was telling her and showing Sarah where to go.

ABOUT THE ENDING OF KINGDOM OF ASH: Travelling in Costa Rico to a rainforest exists at cloud level. (Side note from Sarah: Vote for the environment! Do it for the golden toad). One of the most beautiful places she has ever been. Sitting in the backseat listening to music from John Carter of Mars. Sun broke through the clouds and lit up the mountains and Sarah heard the last line of Kingdom of Ash about the kingsflame blooming and she knew what the last line was and that’s what she wanted to get to. She starting crying (surprise surprise) didn’t want to tell her travelling companions so she lied and said she was crying because the view was so beautiful. Writing with Aelin at the helm guaranteed her nothing. Aelin did it though, she stuck to Sarah’s plans and Sarah got the ending she wanted.

Call out from the audience about Gavriel. Uproar from the audience. “Why did you do that!?” “Why would I do that? Because I’m a horrible person.” Any time a hot guy full of muscles dies it’s a sad day. Poor Aedion. “It would have been so hot! Not in a weird way! The two of them hanging out, the lion and the wolf and oh my heart... you mean I have no heart, that’s what you’re thinking.” Evil cackle.

Who of all your characters do you see sitting in a rocking chair and knitting and telling their grandchildren the wildest stories in their old age?

Throne of Glass. Dorian. Don’t know why.

ACOTAR world would 1000% be Cassian. Nessian book will come out after Crescent City. She started it just for fun, hadn’t planned to write last ACOWAR. Sarah was out to lunch with her editor and got a little drunk and pitched her other books, but then forgot. Agent called a few weeks later telling her the editor wants to buy these books.

She literally doesn’t have the time to get all the stories she wants out of her. Wishes she had Hermione’s time turner.

So that’s it. Again, sorry it took me so long. Sarah was so lovely and I still can’t believe I got to see her in person. There’s a lot I took away from her talk for myself, mainly just how adamant she was about being yourself is the way to go. We’re better off when we’re true to ourselves and love the tings we love without feeling bad for it.

#kingdom of ash tour #kingdom of ash tour sydney

46 notes · View notes

lilacopal · 5 years

Text

moonlight🌙

moonlight: in which lana and kai watch the eclipse of the blood moon with some friends, and both experience some butterflies in the moonlight while with some new people. AN: I’ve always done writing but I’ve never posted it anywhere so please take it easy on me lol. I hope you enjoy this will be one of many things I start to write

two best friends straight out of college still figuring out what to do next, where will you find them? los angeles obviously. it was lana’s dumb idea is what kai will tell you. which it was, she’d never been and everyone is going there so why not?

kai wasn’t sure about the crowds and all the traffic, but lana promised if it was too bad they’d go back to the chilly east coast. at the moment lana was driving the two of them to a friends house. they were in a cherry red car (don’t ask them what kind they won’t know) with the hood down and music blaring. they both had their hair blowing wildly looking like a bit from a movie.

“we’ll be at mali’s soon, are you excited for the blood moon?” lana asked kai happily.

“i am i’ve never watched something like this before so this’ll be fun” kai replied with a bright smile.

not too long after, they made it to mali’s house, lana had met her online she was a beautiful singer and they bonded over music, then lana told her all about kai, her best friend. and when they decided to go to LA she welcomed the two of them to her and her brothers place with open arms.

after parking they grabbed the small amount of suitcases they had attempting to hold all of them to avoid taking trips. both of them being lugging their stuff immediately regretting not taking trips.

“guys do you need help?” a voice asked laughing, it was mali coming out of her front door laughing at the two girls.

“yes please” lana yelled back then dropping all her stuff dramatically.

mali came over and helped her pick up her stuff.

“kai hun do you need help? calum come out here and help the girls with their stuff!” mali shouted.

from the front door came a tall boy who looked like he could be mali’s twin, he was wearing a snapback but you could see dyed blonde hair sticking out, also like his sisters. kai looked over at lana to see her making a look. her friend didn’t date much throughout college due to overstressing herself with work and dealing with breaking up with her high school boyfriend.

so kai seeing this glimmer in her best friends eyes was rare. it warmed her heart a bit, made her hopeful to see her happy again. kai herself wasn’t big on dating but she absolutely was not against the idea. who knows what LA could bring?

calum came over to her and took some of the bags out her arms.

“thanks, so much. i’m kai and over there is lana” she introduced herself.

“no problem and i’m cal. mali told me you guys were coming to watch the eclipse with us?” he asked as they made it into the house.

“yea we are, i’ve never seen an eclipse so i’m excited, lana is obsessed with space so this is right up her alley” kai remarked.

“hey stop making me look like a nerd we just got here!” lana hollered.

“i am not” kai yelped.

“no it's okay, that’s a cool thing to be into” calum laughed at their bickering.

“thanks” lana gushed with a grin. the short girl was already smitten, she started to feel flutters in her stomach and was feeling giddy.

mali lead them to her guest room that the two of them would share so they could unpack and settle in. soon their friends were arriving and then they’d watch the moon turn blood red. which kai was considering somewhat romantic and was wondering if lana was feeling the same.

“lana, my dearest friend i saw your look a little while ago” kai stated.

lana, who was laying on the bed look up from her phone looking a bit pink in the cheeks.

“what look? i don’t remember giving you any look” lana lied.

“yes you do, when calum came out you looked quite intrigued” she teased.

“so what if i did? he’s good looking, gorgeous like his sister” lana replied trying to seem unphased.

“it's been a long time bubs, if you’re looking for something it's okay to start now.” kai assured her.

lana took a deep sigh, “like you said it's been so long, maybe it's been so long for a reason?” she questioned aloud.

“or maybe you just haven’t found anyone and if calum might possibly be it, then you should find out. we aren’t going to be here forever” her friend pointed out.

“ugh i hate when you’re right” lana groaned putting her face into her hands. kai pulled her friend in for a comforting hug to help ease her for the anxieties of the nights possibilities.

after unpacking all their clothes and such and organizing their shared room, they went outside to help set up for the eclipse. it was nothing fancy some chairs around a fire, with a table covered with smores stuff and a telescope for looking at the moon.

it was pretty chilly outside for a night in LA, kai couldn’t help but roll her eyes at lana for wearing a tight white crop top, well at least she was wearing pants. the two of them we’re sitting next to each other by the warm fire, lana had her head leaning on her shoulder and was cuddled up to her.

“you’re so warm” lana looked up to her more as she snuggled up to her more.

kai giggled at her “well maybe if you wore clothes every once in a while you’d be warm to”

“hey i had to work my ass off to get this somewhat toned, stomach” she protested.

“you’re ridiculous, both of you are but mostly lana” mali chimed in from across from them.

the three girls just chuckled at each other for a moment. lana was very happy to be in LA, boston wasn’t feeling like home anymore. college was good but stressful, it drained her emotionally. also having a bad break up that you can’t move on from isn’t fun either. but she felt like this visit was another chance, a better start to adulthood. maybe she could move on from the past a bit.

speaking of moving on, calum came out with two other boys who looked about their age maybe a bit older.

“hey guys, this is roy and ashton” he said.

“hi, i’m lana and this is kai we’re friends of mali’s” she introduced them. she was kinda excited to start to meet more people, but obviously not as excited as kai.

kai had the look, that lana had on her face earlier. and god did she want to tease her about it but she was willing to sacrifice her entertainment to be a good friend.

both boys greeted them and she could immediately tell that her best friends eyes where on ashton, she’d give it to her he’s good looking. she knew her besties type and he was it, but it had more to do with his bright smile, kai melted at guys with good smiles. lana grinned with excitement at her friend, kai just gave her an eye roll.

the group made small talk about life and other things. both girls kept stuffing their face with smores and all kinds of junk food. everyone was fun and all got along well. it also helped that mali had a good playlist going. even if lana didn’t know the words she’d find a way to jam out to whatever song was on. she swayed her hips to the beat subconsciously nodding her head a bit, kai looked over to see calum watching her.

kai then glanced to her phone she was getting some likes from twitter on her online art. she pulled up the picture and sighed overly critiquing the work.

“sorry to snoop but that looks really good” she saw ashton, whom was sitting on the other side of her, looking at her phone.

“oh thank you and don’t worry that doesn’t really bug me” she blushed.

“okay cool. are you an artist?” he asked.

“well kind of? i majored in art in college, mainly to be a teacher for younger kids” she explained.

“that’s interesting, i don’t think i’ve met an artist. or kind of an artist” he laughed at himself.

she giggled with him, he had a really cute laugh. it made her feel fuzzy inside, like she had clouds in her brain. they continued some small talk, he talked about drumming and being in a band. how he has a younger brother and sister, and a lovely mother. kai talked about her two younger brother and her mom mostly, her dad only a bit. she also mentioned how lana loved her youngest brother who is 12, and he loved her a lot too. they had a funny relationship, there's videos of a teenage lana singing mariah carey to him in the car when he was in kindergarten. ash talked about all the videos of cal doing the goofiest things like carrying a microwave and wearing an afro in a live stream.

they both were so distracted, well at least kai was she almost forget why she was there in the first place. until she heard lana squeal and point at the sky frantically waving her arm up. calum went over to the telescope to adjust it so it was pointing directly at the moon and waved lana over. she went over and kai noticed that calum stayed behind her with his hand on her hip and she smiled.

everyone took turns looking up at the moon. kai had to admit it was quite beautiful, it was quite the beautiful night in a lot of aspects. she had a good feeling about LA something told her they’d be here for longer than planned. and maybe that wasn’t so bad.

kai and ash continued to talk for the rest of the night and exchanged pretty much all forms of contact. ash said he wanted to make sure he could reach her for emergencies, she laughed at this and obviously gave in to his ridiculousness. by the time he left it was early in the morning, when he did leave she walked him to his car and he kissed her cheek. a simple gesture that made her melt into goo on the inside.

but she wasn’t the only one currently melting, maybe it was the moon but blood red love was in the air. lana was in the backyard still with calum she was using the telescope pointing out her favorite constellations to him. she even showed him his aquarius constellation, it is aquarius season.

“that is orion's belt, another favorite, his greek hero story was my favorite” she was completely nerding out, no matter how hard she tried.

“you know so much about this stuff you’re like… a space babe” calum jokes. she was taken back in a good way her face was pink for the hundredth time that night.

“hey! what’s that supposed to mean?” she gasped waking him in the chest then turning away from him quick.

“no! i’m not try to make fun of you. you’re truly, something different, something special” he promised, turning her back to face him.

she opened her mouth to say something else, but was interrupted by her own shivering. maybe a short sleeve shirt wasn’t a good choice for the night. calum smirked at her and pulled off his green sweatshirt.

“arms up” he stated simply. she listened and did as he said he slipped in over her head, the it fell to her thighs. she giggled looking at her sweater paws.

“you’re lucky you’re cute i don’t usually give my sweatshirts to girls who choose clothes that’ll make them cold” he clarified.

“i’m glad then, that i’m not one of many girls that get calums hood sweatshirt for the night” she fake gasped.

“i promise i’m not like that” he replied somewhat defensively.

“i don’t think you are but some guys are. trust me i know” she smiled forcefully.

he put out his pinky “i pinky swear that i’m not like that” she grinned. locking her pinky with his. now to her this means she’ll just have to stay for a while to see if he keeps it. something tells her he will.

kai lays in the big bed in the guest room still feeling light as a feather, floating in the sky. she’s cuddled up with her cute pink bunny pillow, not too far from her wa lana’s matching blue koala one. she wasn’t sure when lana would come in the room but she wasn’t focused on that really. then she slowly began to fall asleep.

to then a few minutes later to be awoken by lana ripping her suitcase apart. she looked over at her friend who seemed to be changing.

“what in the world are you doing?” kai asked.

“shit” lana whispered “nothing”

“lana valentina what are you doing?” kai growled.

“i am just changing into something comfier” lana defended herself.

kai eyed her she was in athletic shorts and a sports bra her usual sleep clothes, she liked being naked. but she didn’t look like she was planning on staying.

“where are you going?” she asked again in a warning tone.

“to cuddle with you duh” lana lied. kai glared she knows a liar when she sees one.

“fine i am going to calum’s room to cuddle, strictly cuddle. no nasty i swear on my life, may god strike me down if i’m lying” she blurted.

“its okay i believe you i just don’t like when you lie. you can just be honest.” kai huffed.

“i’m sorry, i’m just a bit on edge i’m not sure how mali will feel about me getting with her brother. so i was trying to be sneaky.” she admitted.

“did you see how he was acting all night towards you? eyeing your dancing, being all touchy mali saw her and roy gave approving nods to him, many times. don’t worry” kai reassured her.

“thank you” lana pulled her into a tight hug and kissed her cheek. they exchanged good nights and lana tip toed out the door.

the two best friends loved LA. they arrived feeling empty but then became fulfilled with the small bit of hope they needed. adulthood was going to be exciting, refreshing and heartwarming. and all it took was for someone to make them feeling like they were always in the moonlight. ✨

#calum hood #5 seconds of summer #calum hood fanfic #5 second of summer fan fic #calum hood imagine #ashton irwin #ashton irwin imagines #michael clifford #luke hemmings #my shit #my writing

7 notes · View notes

oneweekoneband · 7 years

Video

youtube

Ninety One, “Kaytadan” (Қайтадан), from Aiyptama (2015), released as a single spring 2016

(Warning: no lens flares this time, but there is a very brief sequence of a man and a woman having a physically violent argument. She gets away fine, but if you’d rather not, skip from 1:20 to 1:35 to avoid it.)

The most interesting aspect of the video for “Kaytadan” I’ll discuss later, but let’s get the distractions: out of the way now: one has to have the proverbial heart of stone to get through Alem’s climactic acting moment without laughing; I think Bala may actually be laughing, while rolling around on the pavement; and ACE IS IN PAIN,Y’ALL.

Now on to the song, which I would describe as approximately three and three-quarter minutes of decent pop song and 18 seconds of brilliant pop song--the 18 seconds being the bridge, which begins with AZ’s distorted, hiccuping version of the chorus, as if while bathing clothed he inhaled two lungfuls’ worth of water, and proceeds to Alem gently backing AZ up, providing a link between smooth performance and messy emotion. It’s jolting to hear the start of the bridge as if the song is going out of control; it’s jolting to realize a few seconds later that the song has never been out of control. That bridge elevates the rest of the song.

Let me now take space to acknowledge that “decent pop song” is damning with extremely faint praise in some quarters. Pop music has so thoroughly saturated our culture, regardless of the position of the brow, that you actually have to make a real effort to find people carrying on the tradition of Pop Music Is Making Us All Dumb that Allan Bloom spent time passing on in The Closing of the American Mind. (Dwight McDonald, who did as much as anyone to make “middlebrow” a pejorative, would probably not be impressed that as I write this that the “most popular” article on the New Yorker’s website is an obituary for Chester Bennington.) Even journals of conservative thought are nowadays reluctant to condemn pop music outright, partly because its younger writers grew up listening to pop, partly because the rise of right-wing populism means that hating some pop music examples (Beyoncé) and not others (Toby Keith) makes a more valuable signal than hating the whole thing. Fortunately Sir Roger Scruton is still with us. This essay, although dating from the late 1990s--a good portion of it is spent discussing the Sensation exhibit, for those of you wondering what we had culture wars over before Tumblr--is a good example of his work. Let me quote one paragraph for flavor:

Even when modern pop aims to be lyrical, melody is synthesised from trite and standardised phrases, which could be rearranged in any order without losing the effect. It is not that such music is tuneless: rather that the tune comes from elsewhere, like food from the drive-round pizza merchant. A characteristic example is the recent hit by Mary J. Blige: ‘Get to Know You Better’. Here the melody is assembled from a small set of notes, arranged around the flat lyrics, and without internal movement. The effect is emphasized by the yukky thirteenth chords and droopy vamping which open the piece, with a sound that suggests someone trying carefully to puke into a wine glass.

Here’s another example, in which Crystal Castles gets held up as an exemplar of moral and aesthetic decay. To the best of my knowledge Scruton has never written about Kazakh pop; I’m going to go ahead and presume that he’d find “Kaytadan” slightly less appealing than dog vomit.

Some of you are going to read the linked essay, get to the line about “the vogue for deconstruction, Marxian analysis, feminism, and all the other intellectual and pseudo-intellectual devices”, and immediately nope on out. Myself I feel a certain amount of futility in trying to battle Scruton’s criticisms. The first tape I remember as being “mine” was Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA, and the first CD I made a point of buying with my own money was History: America’s Greatest Hits; my mother basically gave up on all music made after 1978, pop or otherwise, and I inherited my father’s breadth of taste--in his case, smooth jazz, decidedly-not-smooth jazz, Beethoven, Glen Campbell--but neither of us have the vocabulary to justify said taste; my elementary school music teacher was sweet but largely ineffectual. Thus I suspect from Scruton’s side of the argument, any attempt on my end to make a counter-argument would simply be proof of the paucity of my musical education, the stuntedness of my supposed thinking brought about after a lifetime’s worth of suffocation by pop music. (One’s attempted counterargument as proof of one’s having been irredeemably corrupted appears in left-wing critiques of pop, too; but that’s a subject for another time.)

So instead of indignantly trying to bat away Scruton’s condemnation of pop, let me keep it here in the room and try to sound out its implications. If pop is corrupt and corrupting rubbish, then is there much point in talking about a song like “Kaytadan”? To put it differently, are there potential degrees of rubbish? Scruton seems to think so; he comes down harder on Oasis than the Beatles, and harder on Crystal Castles than Mary J. Blige. But that may simply be a matter of time passing: which is not a reference to Scruton’s age but that, if his theories are right, than the Beatles were closer, temporally and socially, to a less-corrupt musical age than Oasis was to begin with. If anything, that may be a reason to be more critical of “Kaytadan”: on a Kazakh group mindlessly adopting American-begun pop pablum when they still ought to have other options available.

Put the question another way: is there room for the hiccuping bridge, or rather the case for the hiccuping bridge, in Scruton’s critique? Or, rather: how should change occur, in a model of corruptible pop music? In a field where the pressure to conform to the three-minute, verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus-out model can be quite strong, simply changing things up can win attention, but change by itself isn’t going to redeem pop--Crystal Castles is definitely more original than “Kaytadan,” but per the Scruton model that doesn’t make them less contemptible. (For those needing a counterargument: there’s a whole Crystal Castles OWOB to peruse!) So just calling the hiccuping bridge “different” or “unexpected” doesn’t do much.

Here’s why I have such praise for the hiccuping bridge. It is artificially distorted, in a way that calls attention to itself. (It’s hard to tell, when Ninety One is performing live, how much help AZ is getting from the backing track; my guess is he can get the yelping effect across somewhat but it wouldn’t be as clear as it is in the studio track.) That in itself is nothing particularly innovative: announcing the presence of Auto-Tune and the like is now an old trick by pop standards. But the computer-enhanced distortion in “Kaytadan” is to enhance the emotion that’s been in the song’s lyrics but not entirely supported by the vocals. Bala in particular sounds callow in the second verse, more showing off his runs than projecting fear of giving up on a damaged relationship. I do wonder if that’s why the video for this reads as so melodramatic, as if it has to do extra emotional work.

Then the bridge: AZ runs through his rap, but then sounds like he can’t even breathe, like he’s having a panic attack at the thought of the argument failing, of the beloved leaving; and Alem comes in, far quieter than he was at the start of the song, serious, cowed. And then the song builds to the final repeat of the chorus, with Ace doing the belting, but by then the intensity makes sense: oh, wait, there really is something at stake here.

The standard (for listeners; I can’t speak for engineers) has been to associate audible technical manipulation of pop vocals with a lack of emotion, a cue to not take the whole thing so seriously: hence T-Pain’s progression from “I’m N Luv (Wit a Stripper)” to “I’m on a Boat” and guest appearances on Auto-Tune the News was unsurprising. More subtle manipulation is also often anti-emotion, in that it’s used to squeeze out imperfections in the singers’ voices, to standardize the final product (assuming the final product isn’t just a re-recording to sound “live” without actually being live). So listeners take a fairly cynical approach to manipulation. Understandably; horrifyingly, presumably, to Scruton, since it represents one more step away from music as reinforcer of shared culture to music as secondary point in idol-worship.

Myself I have always been more a fan of Virginia Postrel than of Scruton, more likely to be hopeful about than horrified by the extensions of our lives through technological advancement. Thus the possibility of human emotion enhanced by, rather than smoothed over by, vocal manipulation encourages me. Most of “Kaytadan” is a bit cynical, in its conformity to pop standards, but the bridge is not; and that would not be enough to redeem “Kaytadan” in Scruton’s eyes, but it is in mine.

introductory post / all Ninety One posts

#ninety one #kaytadan

22 notes · View notes

bellarosepope · 7 years

Text

How to Get Honest Feedback About Your Writing

We all know there are certain types of feedback we get about our WIPs and unfortunately, not much of it is helpful feedback.

I completely understand how difficult it can be to give someone else your writing and ask for their opinion. Honest and helpful feedback about your writing is a rarity that all writers need. Personally, I’ve only sent my writing to two people (so far, since my book isn’t completed yet ) who weren’t close friends or relatives and their own writing is AMAZING. So naturally, I was a wreck. I was so anxious and nervous to get their feedback that I was actually sweating (attractive, I know).

But that’s understandable because writing is personal and intimate. Allowing someone to read what you’ve written is a vulnerable process and quite frankly, it’s terrifying (even though you eventually plan to have LOTS of people read it when the book is published).

But in order to become a better writer, you need criticism.

Not asshole criticism. Constructive criticism. You need to have people give you their honest opinion about what you’ve written so you can use that knowledge to make it better.

But getting honest and helpful feedback isn’t as easy as it sounds.

You can ask your friends and family, but they’re likely to be biased and they won’t want to hurt your feelings. Their feedback about your writing will be something along the lines of, “This is great! I like it a lot!” Then you’ll ask them to elaborate on what exactly is so great about it (because you should always ask for details) and it’ll be nothing more than, “I just liked it! It was cool.”

That’s not helpful and it won’t help you become a better writer.

That’s why you need a system for getting honest, helpful feedback. Here’s my system for getting real, honest feedback about my writing.

1. The beta reading process

You need to have a beta reading process before editing and publication. The way you conduct your beta reading process is also super important. You need to make sure you’re asking people to elaborate on their responses. If someone says, “This chapter was rather boring and I found myself not wanting to read on,” you need to ask them why they felt this way. Ask them what part made them want to put the book down specifically.

For those of you who aren’t sure what the beta reading process is, it’s when you enlist a large number of people (20 minimum) to read your manuscript well before it’s published (and even edited) from the perspective of just a reader. Then you ask them a series of questions that will help you understand if the elements in your book are coming across as intended.

For example, you could ask things like:

What was your favorite scene and why?

What are your thoughts on this character?

Do you have any predictions?

Did you find anything offensive?

You’ll be able to clear up any confusing parts and get a feel for how your audience will interpret the story.

You can find beta readers from a number of different places including:

Facebook

Twitter

Tumblr

Instagram

Friends/Family

Friends of friends/family

You also don’t want to enlist all of the same types of readers. You’ll want a variety of ages, genders, ethnicities, sexualities, etc. This way, you’ll get a broad range of feedback about your writing from different perspectives. One person may catch something another didn’t even think about or something that’s not actually relevant to them.

2. Ask strangers for help

This doesn’t necessarily mean you walk up to some random person on the street and ask them to read your book. That would be a horrible idea. And you would seem very creepy.

By strangers, I mean people who have no direct relationship with you. Like I said above, this can be done via the beta reading process by recruiting people from social media.

The great thing about asking people you don’t know for help is that they don’t usually care about crushing your feelings. And that means their feedback will be honest and you won’t have to worry about them lying to protect your feelings.

3. Join online critique groups

There are plenty of groups online (mostly Facebook) where other authors get together and trade chapters for critiques. This is really helpful if you want a large number of opinions that are honest because you don’t usually form close relationships with others in the group so they don’t often feel the need to lie.

The issue with this method is that you might not get very good feedback about your writing. Meaning, there are a lot of aspiring authors. There are tons of people who want to write books that have no idea what a great book actually consists of. Meaning, they’re not good. And that means you can get some pretty crappy feedback that won’t actually help you.

The trick here is to critique a lot of other writers and if you find certain ones you think are particularly great, make a note and work with them the most.

Another tricky part about this is that it’ll take a lot of time to find good writers to work with. But if you find 3 writers whose opinion’s you trust, it’ll be worth it.

4. Pay for a critique from a reputable author

Not all authors do this. However, there are some great authors who offer critiques for a reasonable rate. If you do go this route, make sure you’ve actually read some of their work.

You never want to pay for a critique service from an author when you have no idea whether or not they’re actually a good writer. Some “authors” try to scam aspiring writers by talking up their services and their “published” work that’s just a quick piece of writing that’s slopped together and not even professionally edited. Do your research and read their work so you don’t waste your time or money.

5. Find a great, reliable critique partner

Every writer should have a critique partner (says the girl who doesn’t actually have one – yet). A critique partner is another writer who reads your book as it’s progressing. And more likely than not, they’re also a friend. You write a chapter or two (or however much you want), then ship it off to your critique partner to get their feedback.

They critique everything from the storyline to characterization to the structure. They give you constructive criticism about the entire thing but they also tell you when you’ve done something great or when you’ve provoked a powerful emotion within them - both of which you need in order to improve.

Basically, they give you an entire overview of everything; the good, the bad, and even the boring.

The benefits of having a critique partner are pretty extensive:

You get another set of writer eyes on your piece

They can point out inconsistencies from a plot perspective

They know how structuring a book works

They help you see your weaknesses so you can actually improve

They can show you your strengths so you know what methods to repeat

Qualities a great critique partner should have:

They should be at the same writing talent level as you – or very close

They should also be a writer (you can’t have a non-writer critique your manuscript – they’d be clueless - and that would be dumb)

They should be very reliable – if someone takes weeks and months to critique a chapter, they’re not worth it

They should be able to give you great feedback about your writing in a constructive way

But where can you find critique partners?

You can find these types of people in a magical place called….the internet. I’m assuming you don’t have real life friends who are also writers (I don’t know any writers in my life). If you do, great! Most people don’t and so they end up making writing friends online (because online friends are the best) and those friends end up becoming critique partners.

There are tons of writers all over social media so you can honestly just search hashtags like:

#amwriting – Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr

#writer – any platforms

#writersofig – Instagram

#writeblr or #writblr – Tumblr

#writingtips – any platforms

Just remember that having a critique partner is not a one-way street, hence the word partners. You are expected to be just as involved in their writing as they are in yours.

Bonus tip: Trust what people are telling you

I know how writers are. We believe all of the bad shit people tell us about our writing but we don’t believe the good things. You need to trust what people are telling you – no matter what it is.

Yes, there will be those occasional dick-wads who just want to put you down (usually this is because they’re jealous or just terrible people), but the majority of the time, people will be honest. Most people aren’t shitheads (or so I’d like to believe). And a lot of the time, you’ll be able to tell when someone is talking out of their ass because their feedback won’t be consistent with everyone else’s. So trust when they say your writing is great and address the concerns they mention.

Getting honest feedback about your writing will only help you. However, getting that real, helpful feedback can be difficult if you don’t know where to get it. These are some of my personal methods for getting feedback about your writing that will actually help you in the long run.

#writing tips #amwriting #writer #fantasy writer #writing #writing advice #writing feedback #feedback about writing #writers #writeblr #writblr #tips for writing #book writing #novel writing #WIP #writing WIP

43 notes · View notes

cosmicpopcorn · 5 years

Text

Ma (2019) - Y’all weren’t taught Stranger Danger?!

Note: No spoilers here, but there is commentary on certain elements of the movie that those terrified of anything resembling a spoiler may not like.

So, last Saturday, I went to see Ma, which stars the Academy Awards and Golden Globes winner, Octavia Spencer (she’s got plenty more, these are just the most recent). You’ll probably recognize Ms. Spencer from movies like Hidden Figures, The Help, and Fruitvale Station.

Ma is a psychological thriller about a group of young, white teenagers (and their token black friend!) who are befriended by Sue Ann Ellington, a middle age black woman who decides to illegally buy the teenagers alcohol one day. She then starts to invite them to party in her basement and then things get very, very fucked up. It is directed by Tate Taylor, who also directed The Help (I don’t recognize any of his other movies and y’all probably won’t either so I ain’t even gonna post them, lol). The writer is Scott Landes. In addition to Octavia Spencer as Ma, you have Diana Silvers as Maggie, Juliette Lewis as Erica, McKaley Miller as Hayley, Corey Fogelmanis as Andy, Gianni Paolo as Chaz, Dante Brown as Darrell and Tanyell Waivers as Genie.

So, let’s get to the pros and the cons! And let me give you the bad news first and then make you feel better with some good news. . .

Cons:

Most of the plot is actually revealed in the trailer and certain promotional posters. This takes away a lot of the surprise element that this movie could have, and should have had. However, there are a couple big surprises that weren’t revealed and that I didn’t expect. Still, a big con.

The movie has some inconsistencies regarding the characters’ actions and motivations (character plot holes) - this critique is more aimed at the group of teenagers instead of Ma/Sue Ann. Some of the teens made decisions that was not in line with what the movie presented about them in the beginning and they didn’t really give me reason to believe they would change or an explanation for why. They also didn’t have realistic reactions to some of (shit, all of) Ma’s actions - they were way too calm and playful.

The movie is from the perspective of the teenagers but it would’ve been much better from Ma’s perspective. While most psychological thrillers and horror movies are from the victim’s perspective, however, this wasn’t the best choice for this movie.

In a sense, this movie does leave it to you to answer the things they didn’t answer (did Jordan Peele help write this by any chance?) and while having a few unanswered questions is okay or even good in some instances, I felt like the audience has to guess and make up answers way too much here.

Pros:

Octavia Spencer is fucking amazing in this film. There’s a reason she won those awards and I hope that if nothing else, this film encourages other people to cast her in different roles outside of the typical Mama/Mammy roles she’s been typecast in. Her performance carries the movie and you can see the full range of her acting skills. She deserves more versatile roles - PERIODT.

This movie does a great job at adding humor to a psychological thriller. Jordan Peele attempted this in Us, but in my opinion he failed and ended up coming off as corny. His humor seemed out of place and took away from the creepiness of the movie. Ma is able to accomplish adding humor in a way that flows and blends effortlessly with the scarier/creepier elements in the movie. It provides the right amount of comic relief. Most of those moments are when Ma is on screen and Octavia Spencer is able to be both funny and scary without it taking away from the movie.

This movie makes a lot of commentary on race and bullying, but more so race than anything. I found that pleasantly surprising. And it wasn’t shoved down your throat. Ma seems to have an obsession and/or intense desire for whiteness or to at least a strong desire be where the white folks are at and to be accepted by them. The race commentary is more subtle but it’s there.

I was legitimately creeped out - I jumped several times in the theater, and felt a sense of danger and fear throughout the film...I was actually silently warning the dumb teenagers, lol. It wasn’t like the first time I saw Nightmare on Elm St., but it is the first time I’ve felt anything remotely close to that in awhile - so shoutout to them for being able to make me feel that way. I’ll also be honest and say I looked away during a few scenes, lol. Don’t judge me!

The cast overall does a fine, even good job. They’re not as great as Octavia, obviously, but they carry their weight - even the kids!

The film is an attempt at something different. Something we haven’t seen before and it stars a black woman as the villain, so to speak. And it wasn’t a poor execution at all. While it does definitely leave room for improvement, just the fact that it’s different and stars a black woman who is usually seen in Mammy/Mother-like roles deserves a couple points just for that.

Overall, I genuinely enjoyed this film. It’s different and we are able to see Octavia Spencer showcase her many talents as an actress. The movie keeps your attention from beginning to end and even will have you feeling at least somewhat afraid for the teens. It adds humor in a way that works and the cast itself does a good job. It lacks with the writing and promotion, however, not enough that I will tell you not to see this in theaters. Actually, GO SEE IT IN THEATERS. And make sure it has a decent crowd when you go too because it will add to the enjoyment of the movie.

Rating: 4 Butter Popcorn Pieces

#ma #octavia spencer #moviereviews #tate taylor #horror movies #diana silvers #juliette lewis #tanyell waivers #black women #black actresses

0 notes

feedbaylenny · 6 years

Text

First, I have to thank everybody who looked at Monday’s blog post. The analytics were incredible, the best ever (and that’s all that counts, right? 🙂). If you haven’t seen it yet, it gives a brief overview of the place I worked for 15 months until August. Feel free to comment below it, or on my Twitter page. You can also subscribe to these blogs with your email address and get an email automatically every time I post.

One thing I left out was that during the long interview process, in early 2016, while I was working a great job in the Tri-Cities of TN/VA, the future boss asked me at the end of a Friday Skype interview to write up a critique of the station’s website. I was literally told it was “to see how smart” I am. Two other managers were sitting right there. I was given a week, but finished it that weekend because I was so excited about the possibility of returning to Philadelphia.

Look below and see, it was a very long and thoughtful critique, and included multiple pictures. During my interview at Fox 29 — coincidentally on Leap Day, Feb. 29, 2016 — the boss even joked about still reading it! I guess it was good. Too bad most of it was never implemented. That was a clue of what was to come, but it was too late. I had already moved and started the job. (The document is a slideshow. Click below to move forward, back, or to stop it.)

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

That’s all I have to say here on the subject of that station.

Just this week, a Pew Research Center report announced fewer Americans rely on TV news, and what type they watch varies by who they are. It found,

“Just 50 percent of U.S. adults now get news regularly from television, down from 57 percent a year prior in early 2016.”

That’s a 14 percent decline! Not only that, but the number takes into account local TV (still first place), cable TV (still second place), and also network TV (still third place).

I think the demographics are even more interesting. According to Pew, college graduates and high-income people watch much less local TV and network TV news. Cable news varies little.

The research doesn’t say but perhaps these people are working longer hours or have more access to news on electronic devices. Or they find the product dumbed-down. The first two possibilities can’t be changed but the last can.

But I think the biggest finding has to do with age. Pew divided the population into four groups, from 18-29 through 65+. It found across all groups, the younger a person is makes them much, much less likely to watch local, network, and also cable TV news. That sounds ominous for the future.

Again, the research doesn’t say, but I’ve learned from working with people young enough to be my children they have no history of getting the news from a scheduled TV newscast, or even cable. They were raised with technology that hadn’t been invented when the older people were growing up. They have no special tie to the TV set, having to watch on schedule, and probably can’t imagine watching in black and white.

(To go along with that, a huge majority of my students — who were younger around the year 2010, plus or minus a few — hadn’t even heard of a typewriter!) Also notice radio and newspapers were not even considered in the research.

Note the research was not done on web reading but following my train of thought, Americans will continue to use newer technology to get their news, which makes the web — whether desktop, tablet, phone, or whatever comes next — more and more important. We cannot continue to dumb it down, make mistakes, and hire cheap, good-looking but inexperienced people in big cities. We also need to root out the so-called journalists that lack ethics.

Click here to see the results in a chart, which also divides the American population by gender, race, and politics.

The Radio Television Digital News Association — and we know its agenda — asks, “Is the news for local TV stations all bad?”

Its former chair Kevin Benz admits, “Stations are producing more newscasts because local production is cheap with higher payback potential from selling local advertisers.” Let’s not forget we’re coming off an election year with lots of ads.

The organization claims “profitability has been trending level or up since 2010” and “This is also far from the first time local news has been written off due to changing consumption habits … but newsrooms have been slow to adapt.”

Back in the Tri-Cities, I was told many people get their news from their Facebook feed. That’s pitiful and of course, Facebook benefits but the publishers really don’t, other than a click to their own websites.

In the past year, not much has come out of the Facebook Journalism Project led by former news anchor Campbell Brown — who has since shown her true politics with The 74 Million, advocating for charter and private schools by taking money away from public schools. (I wrote about that in “Why teaching isn’t for me anymore” here, almost two years ago.)

According to Digiday, problems are that publishers have different business models and want different things from Facebook. And Facebook has mostly let publishers see new products before they launched, and listen to their feedback on various subjects at twice-annual meetings with nice meals. Subjects have included Instant Articles and starting a subscription product so you can’t read unlimited articles for free. There’s also discussion about separating factual news from somebody posting fiction.

File: Oprah Winfrey

It didn’t help that NBC tweeted about Oprah Winfrey possibly becoming president in the future during Sunday’s Golden Globe Awards.

NBC’s website has now clips of her speech and this description:

“The media mogul received the Cecil B. DeMille award at the A-list event, and brought the crowd to its feet with a rallying cry for solidarity amid the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements.”

The harassment scandals were huge. That’s what Oprah addressed. I’ve even written about it twice: here (“What is conscience? Elusive in the media, unfortunately”) and here (“Hey, you accused! Would Mom say, wait until your father gets home?”).

I’ve also tweeted about women who weren’t getting paid the same as men.

#GenderPayGap: “In negotiations with the network, she said she and her team ‘asked for what I know I deserve and were denied repeatedly.'” #money https://t.co/FNvQpNhh8A

— Lenny Cohen (@feedbaylenny) December 21, 2017

SEPARATE BUT SIMILAR SITUATION: From disagreement over #money to title. #NBC‘s DC sportscaster leaves. #Enews owned by same company. https://t.co/COKfnmpgmu https://t.co/pAglGkqk9e

— Lenny Cohen (@feedbaylenny) December 23, 2017

There’s something to be said for the anchor with decades of experience. Overpaid? Yes. But the good ones also play a #leadership role and keep the ship steady when multiple overpaid #CEOs come and go. https://t.co/0wcsXgQAtG

— Lenny Cohen (@feedbaylenny) December 27, 2017

Variety reported, “Host Seth Meyers even joked about the prospect in his opening monologue. The tweet from NBC said, ‘Nothing but respect for OUR future president. #GoldenGlobes.’”

The next morning, the network put out a statement, blaming outsourcing. Of course, the first tweet was removed.

Yesterday a tweet about the Golden Globes and Oprah Winfrey was sent by a third party agency for NBC Entertainment in real time during the broadcast. It is in reference to a joke made during the monologue and not meant to be a political statement. We have since removed the tweet.

— NBC (@nbc) January 8, 2018

How horrible! Oprah hadn’t yet spoken at the time, she never mentioned anything about becoming president, viewers won’t know the difference between a tweet from NBC Entertainment or NBC News if it doesn’t say, and why would the network let a third-party vendor tweet on its account, especially without overseeing? The network has no competent employee in-house? Disappointing!

The peacock isn’t proud

And late-breaking Thursday morning, we learned 18-year Fox News veteran James Rosen left the network – without Fox giving a reason – after eight of his former colleagues claimed he “had an established pattern of flirting aggressively with many peers and had made sexual advances toward three female Fox News journalists,” according to TVNewser.

Mediaite reports,

“One accusation involved him groping a female colleague in a shared-cab—an action she did not consent to. He then reportedly attempted to retaliate after his sexual advances were denied by attempting to take her sources, which would serve to damage her professional image.”

Also, the Washington Post says it suspended 28-year reporter Joel Achenbach for 90 days what it called “inappropriate workplace conduct” involving current and former female colleagues. He apologized in a statement, but the paper will continue to investigate.

I’m going to end on a better note, in contrast to what I wrote about Monday. Know I’ve been interviewing with different national and international companies here in Philadelphia. Tuesday, I found out I made it to the next round with one firm, and I’m obviously very happy about that. I told the woman on the phone who was simply following up on her morning email that everybody has been so supportive. We’d talked before and her response was simply that they are a partnership, rather than a corporation, and that there is no need for competition amongst (potential) employees.

That’s nice to hear, and it gives me hope.

P.S. On a personal note: Tuesday night in Florida, my mother fell in the kitchen. She hit her face on the floor. There was lots of blood, but no concussion. Turns out, she broke her pelvis in three places: two in the front, and one in the back. No surgery required, but she’ll have to spend another day or two in the hospital. The next two weeks are supposed to be very painful, and it could take her four months to get better. The doctor suggested time rehab since she can’t do much. Please keep her in your thoughts. 😦

Follow-up, fewer watching TV news, future president? First, I have to thank everybody who looked at Monday's blog post. The analytics were incredible, the best ever (

0 notes

natiashakirkwood · 7 years

Text

Your Dreams Are Probably Stupid And Nobody Cares (That’s a Good Thing)

When I was a little kid, I had an idea about what the afterlife would involve.

I thought that after I died, I’d go to some place where a bunch of people, sort of like the chorus in a Greek tragedy, would show me film reels of my most embarrassing and uncool moments — picking my nose on the toilet, the time I farted in my boss’ face, that sort of thing.

It would be an epic circus of my humiliation, painstakingly documented by — who? minor deities? accountants of Hell? all the boys I ever had an awkward crush on? My immature theology was never quite clear on that.

The concept here is that some group of people is watching my every move, cataloguing it for posterity, and really really caring about it.

That sounds dumb, of course.

But isn’t that how we act when it comes to our own self-image?

I mean, isn’t that just basically Twitter, Instagram, and sharing all your workouts to Facebook?

Many of us at some point have operated with the core beliefs that:

We are being closely observed.

We are being closely observed by people who really, really care.

The people who really, really care are judgmental as shit.

We really, really care that they really, really care.

So we have to act in ways that don’t let those people find any flaws. We must be perfect, lest this committee make us sit in a plastic folding chair with our eyes propped open, watching footage of that time we fucked up a Powerpoint and pooped our pants.

Many years ago, every time I worked out, I’d imagine a group of Stumptuous readers tsk-tsking.

“How can she have such a lousy squat?”

“Yes, her butt does look terrible in those pants… and in all pants ever invented.”

“What a poser.”

To be clear, I was working out alone.

By myself.

Invisible to the internet (yes, youngsters, there was a time when that was possible).

Nobody cared about my dreams.

Nobody cared whether I was a bodybuilder or a powerlifter, good at bench pressing, whether I was doing 3 sets of 5 or 5 sets of 3, what % of my 1RM I was using, or what I had for lunch.

For that matter, nobody cared about my cellulite angst, my squat numbers (or any other numbers), my weight, my butt’s shape / size / dimensions / aesthetic correctness, or any other trivial detail of my life.

Unless maybe I stepped on their foot on the subway or played my music too loud or cut them off in traffic, then other people briefly cared about how my trajectory might be interfering with theirs. Until they didn’t care again.

And yet I acted like they cared.

I acted and thought like everyone cared. Deeply.

I acted and thought like the rest of the world was arguing about my relative merits in the same way that old men around the world argue about football on smoky Sunday afternoons in the local café — passionately, with excruciating attention to errors, narratively needlepointing every fine detail of every stat and movement, gesticulating to indicate displeasure with fingers stabbing into the air.

I acted and thought like everyone gave a huge wet-burrito shit about all of it. All of me. All of my life.

My dreams. My worries. My thoughts.

Like my life was some Truman Show with cameras everywhere, even inside my brain.

But it’s not.

Now to be clear, I don’t mean I am alone and unloved.

I’m not hurtling isolated on this bald blue planet through space, silently weeping because there is no God and I can’t address my thank-you letters for a sunny day to any particular cosmic customer service representative.

Well, there is no God, and saying “thank you physics for the photons” doesn’t quite have the same thrill, but the fact that 7 billion people in the world aren’t breathlessly hitting “refresh” to find out what amazing thing I am doing doesn’t mean I live in some nihilist cave.

I’m surrounded by caring friends and family, by people who are interested in what I have to say, and do, and who I am, and my opinions on Manchego cheese (delicious), the Middle East (I can’t even) or Saul Bellow (literary genius).

It’s just that what they love, care about, and are interested in has nothing to do with all the stuff I thought was important.

Stuff like:

How much weight I could lift (or not).

How fast I could run (or waddle).

How high I could jump (ha).

My clothing size.

My weight.

My (in)visible abs.

Whether I was doing X style workout or Y style.

Whether I was eating X diet or Y diet or not at all.

Whether I had been “bad” or “good”.

Whether I had accomplished my desired number of reps and sets.

Whether I had trained my core, or my posterior chain, or my stability, and exactly which method I used.

In fact, talking and worrying about all of the above, or related topics, makes you boring as shit. (Even to people who love you dearly and think the way you say “refrigerator” is delightful.)

In North America, we have a particular conceit. Which is:

We think our dreams are intrinsically valuable because they are our dreams.

If other people critique our dreams, or don’t care about our dreams, or don’t give us the right reaction when we grandly announce that we are following our dreams, we think they are hatin-ass morons who don’t care about our dreams.

Which they should! Because those are our dreams! All dreams are good and amazing and beautiful and worthy of slackjawed wondrous awe!

Stop and think about that for a moment.

Demanding unwavering allegiance to the correctness of dreams is what toddlers do.

Children are fundamentally egocentric. They have no context or comparison. Their small world is everything.

They will build an elaborate fort, announce that it is a spaceship, and scream you straight to hell if you tell them that it’s just a bunch of stupid pillows. You’d better buy in to that pillow ship, my friend.

Now, of course, in children, this is delightful.

I love watching kids create imaginary universes and live them. They encourage all of us cynically defeated adult bastards to believe in magic, if only for a few moments.

I also think imagination is a grand thing in general. I have a solid roster of mental adventure stories, starring myself as a pirate ninja sharpshooter acrobat popstar brain surgeon… or whatever.

But I don’t mix up imagination with reality.

Here’s what mixing up a child’s imagination with adult reality looks like.

You worry about being “good”. Or “bad”.

If you are “good”, it’s mostly for show. And doesn’t last. (Ta daaaa! Aren’t I behaving so much better than my little sister right now?)

If you are “bad”, you make confessions on the internet. (OMG! Here’s what I ate! Soooo naughty! Teehee!)

You think that magic is real — that there is a fairy-dusted mixture of sets and reps and macronutrients that unlocks the special door to Buffland.

You demand that all of us look at you! Look at you! Oh my goodness! You lifted like a big girl! So strong!

Oh dear! You did not lift as much weight as you wanted! So sad! You should punish yourself! You should have a tantrum!

You confuse a given outcome with intrinsic value — an “A” on your spelling test, a gold star for being a good girl, a pat on the head for nice cursive writing, a high-five for your bathroom selfie.

If this isn’t you, and right now you’re chain-smoking Marlboros, leafing through your mutual fund reports, and chuckling in a growly Joan Crawford voice about how you just can’t be arsed to care about anything — congratulations. Enjoy your eccentric, very grown-up performance artist / sociopathic life.

The truth is:

We all have a little bit of small child in our brains.

Most of us want there to be magic.

Most of us want other people to love us and give us gold stars.

Most of us want to perform well.

Most of us want to play by the social rules and win the game.

Most of us don’t want to be ostracized, “get in trouble”, or be the group weirdo.

Most of us probably just need some juice, a cuddle, and a nap.

That’s normal.

We shouldn’t kill off our imaginations.

Again, pirate ninja sharpshooter acrobat popstar brain surgeon. 900 degree Tony Hawk spin!

Rad, right?

We should, however, learn to distinguish child-brain from adult-brain.

And this includes getting clear about what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, and where reality will impose natural and necessary limitations on us.

Think about it this way.

Imagine a 4-square grid.

One dimension is “ego-gratifying”. This runs from “completely self-centered” to “selfless”.

The second dimension is “realistic”. This runs from “could do it right now, now problem” to “you have to break the laws of space and time to make this happen”.

So you can have basically 4 types of things (with lots of stuff in between along a continuum, of course).

Ego-gratifying and unrealistic. Basically you winning the world and having everyone notice. Awesome to imagine; don’t try executing any of these things seriously unless you want to become an obsessive, frustrated a-hole and have crying jags because you can’t free-dive a kilometre or walk around at 5% bodyfat all the time.

Ego-gratifying and realistic. Everyone needs a little bit of this one in their lives. But not too much. Maybe 10-20% of your activities and effort should live here.

Non-ego-gratifying and unrealistic. “World peace” and “Save all the whales” usually lives in here, unless “Save the whales” is really about you building some environmentalist empire, which is not that crazy if you see How To Change The World and realize that social movements involve a lot more dick-waving than you’d expect. Any genital waving bumps it back up to Category 1. Actually Category 3 is sneakily a lot like Category 1. If you’re a coach / trainer “just trying to help” by berating or pushing your clients in a noble martyred struggle against ignorance and sloth, you may think you’re #3 when you’re really #1.

Non-ego-gratifying and realistic. This is where most of your life should be if you want to be happy, sane, and functional. Of course, we’re not looking for complete self-erasure here in Category 4, or some weird trippy Zen state where you serenely declare that all is all.

So what lives in Category 4 — non-ego-gratifying and realistic?

Empathy and compassion — helping other people in ways that they genuinely need and want, as well as having compassion for yourself.

Intrinsic mastery — learning skills that you truly enjoy and find useful, slowly and consistently.

Beginner’s mind — being open to new ideas, learning, expanding your worldview, and being coached.

Seeking, getting, and taking feedback — using data, information, and the evidence of experience to make decisions.

Scientific reasoning — looking at evidence, thinking critically, avoiding magical leaps of logic.

Showing up for practice — just showing up. Plain old showing up. Being there. Putting in the reps. Doing what needs to be done. Not looking for shortcuts; realizing that the practice is the point.

Enjoying things for their own sake — having fun, playing, simply being present.

OK, look, I don’t mean to be a downer.

Living in the non-ego-gratifying real world is awesome.

You’re truly free.

If you know your dreams are silly and that nobody cares about them, YOU get to decide whether you try to manifest them.

YOU get to decide whether they’re worth giving a shit about.

YOU get to decide whether they should live in your head (yay) or live outside (yay), and you know the difference between what’s inside and outside.

If you know your dreams are silly, but you really want to do something, you can choose to replace them with less-silly ones. Get coaching and feedback from people who have the objective expertise to help you, and don’t pout when they guide you gently towards reality.

If you know your dreams are silly and you do them anyway, recognizing that they are utterly ridiculous and probably won’t amount to shit, we call that fun. We call that a hobby. Or an eccentricity. Silly pointless goofing around is how disc golf, extreme ironing, and Roomba Pong got invented. None of it was needed, but it sure does spice up life.

Pointless antics often form the fountain of creativity, as long as you don’t take them too seriously. (Check out the Stupid Shit No-One Needs and Terrible Ideas Hackathon.)

If you know that nobody cares, we also call that fun. Because play can’t be too concerned with the audience.

Most of the time, nobody is judging you because they’re too caught up in their own paranoia about their own embarrassing afterlife blooper reel.

You’re completely liberated from the weight of other people’s imaginary shit-giving.

Even if they are judging you, it’s cursory. It’s a brief blip before they return to their own rumination. So, no harm no foul.

What would you do if there was no “measuring up”?

If there was no social scrutiny?

No Truman Show cameras?

What would you do if, figuratively, you were alone in all the very best ways — the delicious kind of aloneness where you can wear your jammies with the peanut butter stains, and sing I Will Survive in your loudest voice, and pee with the door open, and be like Tom Cruise in Risky Business? That kind of dance-like-nobody’s-watching feeling?

youtube

Take that feeling, and bring it along with you wherever you go.

You don’t have to be alone and drunk-dancing in your underwear to feel it. You can choose to feel it anywhere, any time.

You can nurture that feeling of fundamental freedom and fun in any environment, with any pursuit.

There’s no final exam. There are no judges. There are few rules besides reality requiring that you face it.

And if you fuck it up, well… if there’s no God, there’s probably also no film crew.

Me and some peeps from my boxing class, so concerned with serious appearances and impressing people.

Original Article: Your Dreams Are Probably Stupid And Nobody Cares