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gingerjolover · 5 months

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can we prioritize jb controversially young gf pleaseeeee i vote yes

to ease y'all into it, get ya warmed up, here's a little appetizer (courtesy of my friends @boywithpinkcarnation and @ever-siince-new-york aka the loves of my life)

julien w a controversially!young gf

okay i have an (unpopular) opinion that i don't think julien would date someone controversially young not because there's something wrong with it but because she will get so existential and I feel like she would feel bad if your brain wasn't fully developed lol

however!!!! this aside, lets continue

I don't think it would be a best friends little siblings scenario or like the kid of someone on her team or the bg team

young!gf is probably a writer or an artist of some kind and julien is either a fan or is at a charity event or something similar and she meets boygenius and they all instantly love her sm

and jules and young!gf really hit it off and so julien leaves with her number but doesn't find out shes young until like 3 days later

has an absolute crisis about it, especially because she doesn't want to hurt you or change you

thinking young!gf is 20 about to be 21, like just old enough that some people will be like um??? but also you're a whole-ass adult so you can do what ya want

but julien and young!gf have a very serious convo bc they are both feeling the vibe and julien just wants a healthy, mutually beneficial, safe, and loving relationship

but anyways

lets get right to it, phoebe and lucy and MUNA love you

like the love u sm but they also love teasing julien

julien could be getting up from a chair or like be laying on the floor and phoebe is yelling "life alert" to you, a glare pushing its way onto jules's face

phoebe is the biggest instigator, always snapping photos of you both candidly and adding them to her photo dumps

I had that phoebe buys young!gf a t-shirt that says I love milfs but @boywithpinkcarnation said a shirt with I <3 cougars and its iconic honestly

phoebe will 1000% caption a photo of you sitting on jb's lap and be like "sugar daddy vibes🤑" or one of jb sitting on your lap with the caption "jb is taking babysitting wayyy too seriously" (@boywithpinkcarnation)

they all call you baby and they mean it

katie is the second biggest instigator and right after that is lucy, then nomi, then jo

katie always teases about "respect your elders"

lucy will post a very wholesome photo of the two of you but caption it "spend time and cherish your elders, they aren't around forever❤️" (straight from social queen @boywithpinkcarnation)

eventually young!gf gets into it and starts making jokes like kelli tiktok vibes (@ever-siince-new-york)

she gets asked in a day in the life vid or a live a question about jules and shes like "I'm not sure really...i just with her for the money," and julien is in the back like that interview when lucy says they're breaking up like "baby! don't say that! it's not funny!" and she's groaning coming into frame, her hand on young!gf's head, "they're gonna start to believe you, ya know?" like all sassy how jb gets🤓☝🏼

PRIVATE BUT NOT SECRET VIBEZZZZ @ever-siince-new-york, carlena said and i quote, "like they're not lovesurging on tiktok but if the paps get jb giving hickies on film... oh well😁"

they are also STOKED for you to turn 21, since most of them are sober the idea of getting you drunk is so appealing

and jb is SO protective, like already jb has her hands on young!gf all. the. time. like in the dip of her back or on her hips or hand on the back of her neck, jb is always making some type of physical contact

BUT especially in the club or at a bar

they do get freaky on her 21st bday hehe

maybe the day after bc young!gf just lets joi keep giving her shots and julien is just standing there jaw dropped because who knew their sweet baby girl was a mf tank

but lit katie, molly, kelli, jo, nomi, lucy, and phoebe LOVE you sm, like yes you're young and everyone is pushing or already 30 but young!gf is so profound and mature but not in a way that's not acting her age, she just has a very old soul and enjoys rest and knows what she likes and what she wants

and julien loooooves this, like jules doesn't want to groom you and mold you into something you're not, she wants you to act your age and like she doesn't isolate you or make you act 28 because everyone is around that age. like she fully supports if you wanna go out and party or like do something kinda childish or if you wanted to stress about school or be homesick, julien lets you just vibe and doesn't pressure you to grow up faster, she truly just wants you to grow up without the age gap looming over you

back to the daddy!jb antics, without infantalizing you, jb handles ALL of the "adult stuff" like y'all def split bills if you live together but she manages all of the subscriptions and pays all of the utilities and makes sure your car has gas and is always maintained like takes it to get inspected and stuff

if young!gf is in school than that's your biggest priority in jb's eyes, like yes focus on school or your work and then when you graduate we'll start to divvy up the household stuff

jb just loves to care for you, like she always has an extra hair tie on her wrist and its your scrunchie like the one you love

before you live together, jb is stocking her house w your stuff to make you comfy

your fave snacks are in the kitchen, your fave drinks in the fridge

jb buys a full size of your fave perfume and body wash, she has you pick out pajamas for her dresser and puts a jewelry holder on her dresser just for you (@ever-siince-new-york 🥹)

if you're in school, jb def has a desk set up in her office or music room and its one she built and it has cute pens and stationary and a pretty keyboard and a comfy chair where you can cross your legs and then under it is built in storage for some of your books and crocheting/knitting/crafting stuff

when you move in, jb designs (w the help of lucy and Katie) your own office where you can write and paint and it has the best sunlight in the whole house

julien also gets really anxious leaving you at home, not because you're not capable but she grows so attached and is like "you'll be a different person when i come back:("

always sending flowers and dinner and gifts while on the road (@ever-siince-new-york)

not smut but smut adjacent

julien is sooooo nervous to have sex w young!gf

maybe she hasn't done it before or julien just feels a lot of pressure to take care of her

and she has to be like "do you not like me?" kinda insecurely because julien is treating her like shes glass

and jb is like "oh my god sweet girl, no no no, i- of course i- i love you!"

and she's like "you WHAT??"

#anon cutie #take a sip of da juice #small sip #julien baker x reader #julien baker x young!gf #fic coming soon!#ALSO MY KIDNEYS AND BLADDER ARE CLEAR #fuck u matty healy

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nburkhardt · 10 months

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Of Scissors & Wild Curls

Trying to beat out my writers block by writing an au troupe I absolutely love reading and haven’t written before. Just a heads up, it’s in modern times just so I don’t have to worry about being accurate to anything in the 80s ✌️ (this was stated on June 16th, when I started it)

anyway enjoy!

It’s the worst day of his entire life.

Right now. This is absolutely the day to end all bad days. It’ll be in his autobiography, it’ll be written in news articles and maybe a movie someday.

He wants to die a million deaths, truly.

It’s The Worst.

…. Or he might be exaggerating a bit. Just a little. Really, it’s not the end of the world.

This time at least.

Look, he’s had a long ass week and had a fight with some idiot taking pictures of him absolutely not falling on his ass. And the record label just told him that they need at least another album before letting the band take a much needed break.

Also, if he’s being truthful here, his writers block is a killer.

There’s a wall just planted in his brain, cutting off any and all lyrics the band needs for another fucking album.

Where was he again? Oh, worst day of his life.

“We’re going to stop in the next town, maybe we can find a place to- help?”

He groans and throws his head back, looking over at Gareth, “dude, my hair is a fucking disaster. There’s no helping that!”

Gareth crosses his arms with a deadpan look, “Ed, I think you’re overreacting a little. It’s just a little piece of gum! It’s not even that far in your hair, maybe this can be a little-“

“Don’t say it!”

“-trim”

He glares at him, “a little trim? This piece of shit is near my goddamn neck, Gare! I CAN FEEL IT! That fucking asshole did it on purpose too, I just know it!”

There’s a little five foot asshole out in the world, that’s his number one enemy now. Slapping him on the back with a “great show, my man!” Before walking away with a snicker. At the moment he didn’t think anything of it, too busy focusing on the fans around him trying to get his attention. His adrenaline and energy buzzing too much to realize something off with that guy.

He didn’t even notice it, it was a goddamn fan to point it out. Because they felt it when they took a picture together.

See? Worst day ever.

Right now they’re in the bus already moving onto the next city for the next concert. He isn’t even sure what’s the next one, all he knows is his hair has fucking gum in it and it’s the worst thing to ever happen to him.

“I still think you’re overreacting just a little, look, maybe there’s a way to get it out without cutting anything. We just have to find a place, there’s a two day break before the next concert. Ok?” Gareth pulls his hands away from his face, “Chris even told our driver to be on the lookout for places already.”

Sighing, he leans back and looks at his best friend, “I guess you’re right”

“I’m always right, dude.”

Rolling his eyes, he gets up and decides to take a nap face down because there’s no way he’s making it worse and getting stuck to his sheets.

Okay so, he’s overreacting a little bit. But he’s been growing his hair out for years now. It’s the perfect length and just wild enough that everyone knows him just by the hair.

It’s his thing, okay?!

A phone is slammed down and he flinches before looking towards the front, “did the phone kill your dog? Or was that-“

Robin whipped her head around a pinched look on her face, “that was goddamn Fran asking for a perm, I swear to god I don’t know how you deal with her! She actually had the nerve to praise you about letting her go so long without paying! She’s scheduled for Friday, because and I quote ‘my hair is straight as a needle’ she doesn’t do shit with her hair, Steve!”

He shakes his head and grabs his water before walking towards her, “Truthfully? I kinda zone out when I’m working on her hair.”

Robin blinked at him before she burst out laughing.

Being one of the only hair salons in their tiny town has some benefits, which is taking some customers that only pay after ranking up to nearly $300. That and he can hire anyone he wants and having a crew of just their friends is a perfect way to deal with the few crazy customers they get.

Oh, and he gets to hang out with them all the time while doing something he actually loves.

When he decided to go to cosmetology school instead of whatever place his dad wanted, he didn’t think he’d end up here. Honestly. His mom told him there was a chance it would go no where, that it’ll just be another thing to add to his list of hobbies.

Baseball, basketball, swimming, drawing and lastly cutting hair.

According to his dad, all of that was pointless. Well, not basketball. To his mom, it just made him look good for future partners. Thankfully their opinions don’t matter to him much anymore, they’re long gone from this tiny town and he’s twenty five now.

Really, he doesn’t need their support or opinions anymore.

“Woah! Dingus come here!” Robin calls out without needing to, the shop is small and he’s just at his station, “there’s your dorky kids jumping around like actual kids”

Rolling his eyes, he stands next to her to find that; yes across the street is the kids- now teenagers jumping around some parked bus. He can’t quite make out what’s on the bus, his vision is shit with letters even with his contacts in. Whatever they’re excited about is probably related to their dragons game.

So definitely nothing he’d understand. Right?

His attention is drawn away from the teens because of the door opening, he spins around with a smile already on his face. “Hello, do you have an appointment today?”

Standing half way in the door is a tiny blonde with a high pony tail and clearly not from around here. He pretty much knows everyone in Hawkins, or at least he knows everyone that comes into his shop.

This person definitely hasn’t been in before, she is adorable though. Totally Robin’s type, actually. Glancing at his best friend, and yep, there’s already hearts in her eyes.

“Hi! No, actually I wanted to see if you did have any openings?” Tiny Blonde smiles and he can see her glance at Robin, “either of you?”

If he could, he’d totally leave Robin to handle this by herself. It’d be pay back for when she ditched him at the bar a few weeks ago, but he’s not that petty. “Technically she can’t cut or color anyone’s hair, but I’m free later. I got a person coming in like twenty minutes. What did you-“

“Actually, it’s for a friend of mine!” She shakes her head and pulls her phone out, glancing at it and typing something quickly before looking back at him, “Can you do like a quick, consult maybe? Not like now, but later?”

Out of the corner of his eye he sees Robin nod her head as if she’s the one going to do it. Rolling his eyes he smiles and moves to the appointment book, taking a quick glance he can technically squeeze in something. “Just a consult?”

“Maybe a trim if all goes well, we could even come in tomorrow if you can’t today. We did just get into town, I’m sure my friend will understand if you can’t” her phone beeps and he can’t tell but it seems like she’s grimacing at whatever was sent, “or maybe you know another place?”

Technically he could send them somewhere else, but he’s curious plus from the glare he can feel from Robin- he glances at her and yep, she’s glaring a hole in his head.

He doesn’t need to ask her that she wants this pretty blonde to come back.

“Nah, you can come back at four. We can chat and figure out what needs or can be done.“ he smiles at her before handing over an appointment card, “I’m Steve, by the way. That’s Robin”

She takes the card with a smile, “Oh! I’m Chrissy, you don’t realize how much this will make my friend’s day. We’ll see you then, it’ll just be you two, right?”

“Yep! See you in a few hours!” Chrissy flashed a bright smile at him then Robin before opening the door and walking away.

He doesn’t even bother looking towards Robin to tell her, “You’ve got it bad”

There’s a loud shriek and then a laugh as Chrissy walks away. She smiles before looking down at her phone to text the good news.

‘Best news of your life right now, four o’clock. Dummy’

‘THANK YOU ❤️🖤’

It’s inching closer and closer to four and Steve isn’t sure if Chrissy just forgot or that her friend decided it wasn’t worth it. Either way, he’s going to clean up now because it’s been a long day and all he wants now is to drink some wine while relaxing on his couch.

He’s listening to Robin vent from across the salon, while cleaning the mirrors. “Despite how pretty she is, if they don’t show up soon I’m closing this place up!”

“It’s not even officially four yet, Robs.” He laughs and turns away from his mirror to clean the chair, “we have like five minutes before we give up on it.”

Robin let’s out a groan, spinning around to point at him with a glare, “It’s Friday night and I have plans, Steven!”

“I hope these plans don’t involve me, Robin. I have to be in here at fucking eight in the morning, I’d like to get at least five hours of sleep” he glares over at her, “the last time we went out and I had to work in the morning, I almost didn’t make it in”

Because of Robin’s loud laughter he nearly misses the door opening, he bounces up with a smile, “hi can I- Chrissy!”

Standing by the front desk is of course, Chrissy along with her is a tall guy with long wild curls standing next to her. He has a pair of sunglasses on and his hands shoved into the leather jacket he has on.

“Hi guys, sorry we didn’t get here sooner there was a crowd and this one couldn’t get passed it withou- ow! Eddie!” She glared at the man, Eddie apparently, and rubbing her arm.

It’s confusing but he’s not going to question it, his relationship with Robin is weird, probably weirder actually. So instead of questioning that he moves closer, “it’s fine, we were just cleaning up real quick. We said just a consult right or did you figure out what you wanted?”

Wordlessly, the two of a conversation right there. Hand movements, head nods and shakes before there’s a bright satisfied smile on Chrissy’s face appears. Eddie looks not upset per-say but definitely like he lost whatever was said in their conversation.

“Yep! He’ll do a trim, but there’s a little problem. You see, someone decided to put gum on his back and-”

Robin’s laughing again while he’s just horrified for Eddie. He can’t help but feel bad for the hair, well, maybe Eddie too. But he hasn’t said a word to them yet, still standing there with his glasses on and now crossing his arms with what looks like a pout on his face. Chrissy’s still talking about the gum and how it’s ruined Eddie’s day and they couldn’t figure out any other way to get it out.

He shakes his head, moving towards his chair and patting it, “well, I can’t figure anything out until you’re sitting in the chair and I get a closer look at the hair”

Eddie looks between the chair and Chrissy, before moving towards him and sitting in the chair. Sunglasses still on his face, a pout very much there as well. Up close, his hair is even more wild than he originally thought. The curls are a mess, that’s clear as he sticks his hand to figure out how much the gum is stuck.

It’s not too terrible, definitely bad but not enough where if he does cut it out, the hair wouldn’t be much different.

There is however, the fact that this guy is clearly not taking proper care of his hair. For as wild as it is, the curls are frizzy and not defined.

“Good news, I could cut the gum out and you’re hair won’t lose too much length or I could also try getting it out using some oil without taking scissors to your hair.”

“And the bad news?”

“You’re not taking proper care of your hair, these curls could be so much more”

He hears Chrissy let out a giggle and Robin’s definitely laughing with her, but his gaze is on Eddie, who’s mouth drops and nearly rips the glasses off to show that his eyes are wide with shock.

Steve can’t help himself, he smiles and lets his own little giggle out.

Eddie looks absolutely ridiculous and Steve might know him, like, at all. But he’s definitely someone he’d like to know eventually, being this dramatic over a little comment? That’s someone worth knowing, he thinks.

———

Ending it there lol.

Wanna know what’s funny? I started this to get out of my writers block and ended up getting it WITH THIS.

So I used wip wednesdays/weekends to push myself along and finally after also talking with @i-less-than-three-you & @strangersteddierthings I’ve decided to make this a two parter! I get to share what I already wrote AND give myself a way to write them actually getting together.

I also wanna shout out @artiststarme for helping me a bit too! They gave me a few suggestions and helped out so thank you to all three of them 🩷 you all are amazing and I love you!!

Tag list! (If you’d like to be added let me know)

@spectrum-spectre @itsfreakingbats @mysticcrownshipper @artiststarme @thereindeerlady @justforthedead89 @ronniescontinuum @freyaforestafay @littlewildflowerkitten @estrellami-1 @gregre369 @zerokrox-blog @bookworm0690 @flustratedcas @carlprocastinator1000 @marvelmwah @solliesolesito @navnae @i-less-than-three-you

@yikes-a-bee @sc00ps-ahoy @geekymagicalpotato @thesuninyaface @penny00dreadful

PS: if you made it this far you get to know that the thing with someone not paying until the bill is up to $300 is a true fucking story. There’s a lady that comes into my work (a hair salon btw) and gets away with coming in for a hair wash or color or perms and doesn’t pay! Idk why my boss continues letting her do this but she does 🤷‍♀️

#steddie #steddie fic #implied buckingham #nburkhardt writes #hair salon meet #steve harrington x eddie munson #rockstar Eddie Munson #hair stylist Steve Harrington #platonic stobin #platonic hellcheer #corroded coffin #stranger things fic

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lazywitchling · 2 months

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Alright, here we go. My review for The Dabbler's Guide to Witchcraft by Fire Lyte

Final rating: ??/10 - it broke my numbers system.

TL;DR - I like the book. I'm angry at the author. It's great for new practitioners. If you're going to get it, please get it from the Spiral House Shop, get Alex Wrekk's two witchcraft zines to go with it, and go look at/reblog/contribute to the original Dabbler's Week project.

(Also I think this is the longest review I've written yet. I'm sorry.)

This book is very good. I'm mad about that. The author is an excellent writer. I'm mad about that. I want to dislike this book but I can't, and I'm mad about that.

So let's get into the breakdown of why.

First up, a housekeeping thing: "Fire Lyte" is a pen name that I don't believe the author uses anymore, so I will be referring to him as Don Martin, the name he is using on his current projects. I know he's on TikTok, formerly of Inciting a Riot podcast, now of Head on Fire podcast.

Second, some links relevant to the review-which-is-actually-just-a-rant:

The breakdown of things I found that were taken uncredited from Tumblr

I COULD be making this up and reading it in bad faith, but this bit about 'heteronormative marriage' has my alarm bells ringing

Why I hate the title of this book

The original Dabbler's Week project links

Anyway.

I picked this book up specifically because of the title. It's been 3 years since it was published, so it took me a while, but I remember looking at that title when it was first out and thinking "Hey... the timing of this... did this person just wholesale lift the 'Dabbler' idea from Tumblr?"

The answer is: Yes, probably!

(He also summarized the Malachite Dick post from February 2020, but he actually credited Tumblr along with relevant usernames, so that's good and also made me laugh.)

But... yeah. The fact that he's crediting Tumblr from something that specifically happened in February 2020, when the original Dabbler's Week was from late January 2020 and seems to have inspired his whole book? Don, would it have killed you to mention ANYTHING about that project and the people involved?

He's very big on talking about following trails of information, listening to podcasts, listening to the podcasts of people talked about on those podcasts, reading books talked about on those podcast, and so on. But if he doesn't start off by saying "Dabbler's Week was a project issued by asksecularwitch on Tumblr", then how is anyone supposed to follow THAT chain of information, hmm? If his whole advice on finding good witchcraft resources is to follow the chain of people who are sharing information from each other, but he makes no mention of where he got the whole idea for his book, then what?

Side rant: I'm real tired of how Tumblr information is simultaneously treated as too shitty to ever bother reading or mentioning, but good enough to screenshot, repost on other sites, recite word-for-word on tiktok, and apparently write a book about.

ANYWAY. I'm angry about it. I'm gonna be angry about it. Here, please look at these links to the shenanigans that began the original Dabbler's Week, because Don certainly won't tell you about this part.

Anyway.

Some bad things:

I mean, the plagiarism. I keep hesitating to use the word 'plagiarism', because to me that seems like wholesale lifting entire works and slapping your name on them, when all Don did was fail to credit a few Tumblr users he quoted. But then again, if I did that on a research paper in college, it would be called plagiarism, so.

This book is in fact not a great guide for 'dabblers'. The point of Dabbler's Week was that if someone didn't know if they wanted to commit to witchcraft but wanted to fuck around with casting some spells for a week to try it out, there were week-long guides on things someone could do to try that. This book is not for fucking around with magic, it's for people who are already sure that they want to make this a thing in their lives. It handles some heavier topics (e.g. vetting mentors and not getting sucked into a cult) that are very very important for someone who is BEGINNING, but may be too much for someone who just says one day "lol I think I'll cast a spell for fun". A far more accurate title would have been "The Beginner's Guide to Witchcraft", but then he'd lose that punchy and marketable and googleable term 'dabbler'. (Yes, I'm going to be petty about this.)

"Wow Jes, it sounds like you really hated this book."

NO I DIDN'T, AND I'M SO MAD ABOUT THAT!

Some good things:

The author has a writing style that I enjoyed very much. This is a personal preference, but I like when books are either written so that the author is fully invisible (Bree Landwalker's books do this wonderfully), or the author is fully visible, like they're sitting at the table having a conversation with you (Kelly-Ann Maddox's 'Rebel Witch' comes to mind, as does Alex Wrekk's 'Brainscan 33: DIY Witchery'). Don Martin is the table conversation kind. That makes this book very easy to read, while also getting information across in an easily-understood sort of way.

This book fills a very necessary gap in modern witching books. It talks about the online community of witches, and a lot of the pitfalls that have come along with the bonuses of having so much witchcraft available at our social-media connected fingertips.

He gets very in depth with things like cultural appropriation. That's something that you can find in a lot of modern witch books, but Don actually spends the time breaking the concept down and explaining WHY it's harmful, HOW it affects people, and quotes people from the affected minority groups. I have seen the appropriation topic come up in a lot of the witch books I've read, but Don is the one who has covered the topic the best, imo.

He spends time on topics that I myself would have been dismissive of. The example that comes to mind is the chapter 'Can I Make Sh*t Up?' My knee jerk reaction was "Yes, you can make your own spells, you don't need to get someone else's permission. Next question." But Don goes through the full breakdown of yes you can make up your own spells, yes you can make your own correspondences, but no that doesn't mean you can just throw a water soluble crystal in your water bottle because you think it's good for cleansing.

Actually on that topic, he covers a lot of the why not just the what. It's not just 'appropriation is bad', it's 'and here's why'. It's not just 'research your herbs', it's 'here's some examples of things that can and have gone wrong.'

SPELL CANVASES! There are 11 'spell canvases' in this book, and they're pretty much all just kids/teens science experiments (e.g. dissolving an egg shell in vinegar, lighting a tea bag on fire so it flies, and using food dye to color a white flower). He does not give intentions for these spells, but gives a spell technique and then some examples of how you could apply your own purpose/intention to it as needed. It's actually pretty smart, and now I wish there was more stuff like this.

He actually explains what UPG means. Man, 'UPG' is one of those things that I keep seeing as a 'I don't know what that means and I'm to afraid to ask' blog post. When someone pops into the witchy social media circles, we can throw the term 'UPG' around as if everyone knows what it means, and forget to actually explain that it's Unverified Personal Gnosis and what that means. Don's got us covered. Good on you, Don.

The one throwaway line about why you don't have to buy fancy witch things. Tucked away in chapter 12 is this almost nothing-sentence mentioning why you shouldn't be "going broke hoping to buy your way into 'effective' magic" (pg. 161). I have seen, reblogged, probably written posts about 'No you don't need the fancy tools! You can just use whatever! But you CAN buy them if you want, you just don't NEED them.' And we've all seen those around, right? But damn, if Don didn't just get to the heart of it. You can't buy your way into skill. YES, Don, THAT!! THANK YOU.

Alright. I'm running out of words. This isn't a review, it's a rant. Holy shit. Let me shut up with a TL;DR

Almost without doubt, Don liked Tumblr's idea enough to write a book about it, but failed to give credit. But he's an excellent writer and covers a lot of topics that are not often written about in printed books, and to get those blogosphere-ideas onto bookshelves is invaluable. This is a good book for beginners starting out in witchcraft, but not for dabblers who just want to screw around with some spells. Do the pros outweigh the cons? Is it ethical to buy a book when the author gets royalties but the bloggers he got the idea from do not? I don't know. I can't tell you that. You'll have to weigh all this against your own moral compass and decide for yourself. My recommendation is that if you're going to buy it, please buy it from the Spiral House Shop, because if Don Martin's going to get paid for this book, Alex Wrekk should too. Buy Alex's zines. Reblog Sec's posts. Links are up at the top.

#jes vs witch books #drama in your llama #navigation: reviews

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sweet-s0rr0w · 1 year

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I��m back with a follow up to last year’s Valentine's Day reclist, featuring a whole new cast and crew of Drarry writers, artists, reccers, and fans!

Once again, the question was: ‘what one or two fics, or scenes, or quotes, represent peak Drarry romance to you?’ and to make things even harder, no duplicates from last year were allowed. I’m absolutely thrilled yet again with the vast range of fics chosen, many of which I wasn’t familiar with myself, and would urge all of you romantics to check them out!

Featuring answers from academicdisasterfic, babooshkart, bluebutter-art, booktopus, caroll-in, cavendishbutterfly, citrusses, crazybutgood, emmalovesdilemmas, epitomereally, geesenoises, getawayfox, ghaniblue, gryffindorhearts, kbrick, lettersbyelise, makeitp1nk, moonflower-rose, mxlfoydraco, oknowkiss, sleepstxtic, sorrybutblog, wolfpants

Like last time, those fics which did come up more than once are in red, and I let people have more than two, or poly fics, or art if they wanted because I’m still a softie!

***

@academicdisasterfic

💗Running on Air by @tinyhistory (T, 75k)

It's easy to lust after someone, to match their face to a missed heartbeat or a sharp intake of breath. It's easy to say, I want them because of the colour of their eyes, the lines of their body. It's something else entirely to say, I want them because of the way they rest their hands on a steering wheel, the way they gaze out a window, the way they say my name.

💗Relic Radiation by @tackytigerfic (M, 1k)

The screen blinked red around the edges, a countdown, and Draco leaned in even closer and said, “I mean literally. I’m on your side of the planet right now. And I’m coming back down soon, remember. I mean, I have to. But I would anyway. Just hold on for me?”

@babooshkart

💗Polar Night/Midnight Sun by toomuchplor (E, 54k)

“You drive me mad, Potter, you –”

It’s mutual, Harry thinks gladly, tearing at Draco’s flies. He feels mad, like an idiot, like a reckless thoughtless – but here’s the mindless joy of Draco’s mouth on his, and Harry falls into it, falls and falls until he forgets he’s falling, and stops wondering if he’ll ever land.

@bluebutter-art

💗Dear Stranger by @iero0 (T, 23k)

“I want you to hold me,” Draco says, and adds, “I want to hold you,” because he doesn’t know which one is truer. It starts like a hug Draco would see between mates. But Potter clings to him and rests his head on Draco’s shoulder. He has never realised that the other man is a few centimetres shorter than him, but Draco can comfortably nestle his face in Potter’s hair, redolent of cedarwood and vanilla, and urge his face closer to his neck until he feels Potter’s nose and his stubble not against his robe but against his skin. These broad shoulders that appear so unyielding melt to Draco’s touch.

(also just every time Harry writes "I hope you had a reason to smile today" in his letters to Draco)

@thebooktopus

💗Glowing by @cavendishbutterfly (T, 9.7k)

“It’s been so good with you,” Draco said. “It’s been easy. I don’t have to think about it around you, I can just be.”

💗Develop, Stop and Fix by @onbeinganangel (E, 15k)

It’s the face that surprises Draco the most, not one he’s ever seen in the mirror. It’s a soft expression, half surprise, half adoration, a small shy smile playing at his lips. Draco might have been in love even then, if that face is anything to go by.

@caroll-in

💗Preserving Lemons by @saintgarbanzo, with art by @ihopeyoubothstaysafefromharm (E, 17k)

Harry takes Draco's hand. "I don't know. I liked the way you cared for me. You showed up and you just wanted what I have to offer. I don't have to be anything else for you."

@cavendishbutterfly

💗the way you make me glow by @softlystarstruck (M, 11k)

“Mate,” Ron says. Harry turns to them, finding their clear blue gaze already on him. “I don’t think anyone could care about Draco better than you do.”

Wrong, Harry signs out of shock, his cheeks flushing with heat. Ron shakes their head emphatically, their glowing halo wobbling in its Suspension charm. “And I don’t think anyone else could care for you the way that Draco does.” Harry drops his hands, at a loss for any words, whether spoken or signed.

💗Quick as a Flash of Lightning, Unhurried as Eternity by onbeinganangel, with art by @babooshkart (E, 10k)

Right in that moment, this is everything Harry has ever wanted. Draco is, in bed, the same he is with Other Harry in every other way. Gentle, full of praise. His hand grabs a hip — firmly, but his thumb never stops rubbing the skin under, he runs his hand through Other Harry’s hair — passionately, but he bends down to press a kiss to his temple as he does.

@citrusses

💗The Four Doors by @fluxweeed (E, 49k)

“I can’t believe we just did that.” Malfoy’s voice was awed.

“I know,” Harry agreed fervently. “I never thought you would actually – It feels like I’ve been wanting it forever.”

At that, Malfoy let out a snort of laughter. “It’s been a few weeks, you said?”

“But I can only remember five and a half months,” Harry countered. “So, percentage-wise, that’s a good chunk.” “Even percentage-wise, it’s still no contest.”

Malfoy’s eyes glittered. “Finally, I’ve beaten you at something.”

💗9 ½ Days by @magpiefngrl (E, 70k)

Draco’s hair flew in the wind. His robes flapped, as green as the young barley. ‘I’ll survive. I know how to do that. I’ll do anything to have more time with you. One day.’

‘I’ll burn the world down if I have to,’ Harry said.

A sad smile. ‘I know you would.’

@crazybutgood

💗A Kind of Dwell and Welcome by @rainbees (T, 22k)

(the whole fic, for poetic writing and great feels and Austen vibes)

@emmalovesdilemmas

💗The Seventh Life by @corvuscrowned (E, 18k)

“I love you,” Harry said quietly. He said it more like a realization than a confession, like he was surprised by it, like he wanted to taste the words. “I love you more than anything else this life could offer.”

Draco believed that Harry believed it. Draco pulled him into a slow, lazy kiss, indulgently long and exploratory and sweet. It wasn’t the fucking he had missed the most — it was these kisses, the way they fit so perfectly together. It was Harry’s arms around him. It was the quiet of the night, and those slow, peaceful breaths, and that heartbeat behind any chest Draco could find it in.

💗Eager for the Sky by oknowkiss (M, 35k)

“We were chopping veg for dinner one day and he told me that when my mum was pregnant my dad would cut her fruit, every day, whatever she wanted. He’d have Sirius running halfway across London — because they were stuck in Godric’s Hollow, you remember I told you — and then whatever Sirius brought, my dad would cut it into little pieces, and he’d arrange it on a plate and bring it to her.”

Potter sighed, finally looking up. “Sirius said it was the only time in my dad’s life he was ever careful,” Potter swallowed thickly. “He wanted her to have all the best parts.”

“Harry—” Draco tried.

“I didn’t ask you if you wanted this,” Potter said, looking away again, pulling Draco forward with the downward cast of his eyes. “I just wanted—I wanted to say—and you’d never had it—I thought—”

“Harry—”

“I’m not saying I’m like, in love with you, or anything,” Potter said, all in a rush, his cheeks gone red.

“Merlin, no,” Draco agreed.

@epitomereally

💗Code Name L by GallaPlacidia (32k, download here)

“Did you know that most figs have dead wasps inside them? Something to do with the wasps pollinating them, crawling inside them, and dying. The fig digests the wasp body, then we eat the figs. I really fucking hate wasps. I really fucking love figs. I don’t think, like, “I love every part of this fig except for the dead wasp.” The dead wasp was, in fact, a necessary part of making the fig. It’s completely part of the fig. And I love the fig completely.”

💗Take the Moon by tackytigerfic (M, 15k)

"Draco.” He slid his hand across the trolley handle so it met Draco’s on the other side, their little fingers nudging on the plastic. “No matter what, no matter where, I want you with me. How did you never notice that?”

and

“Babies should grow up knowing how loved they are,” Harry said, feeling wretched. “That’s the only thing that matters, that they know they’re loved. But with you, I’m greedy. I’m selfish, Draco. I want you to love me back so badly that I can actually feel it in my body. It's like, the way I want you could take me over and I wouldn’t even care. I thought that you must know, that everyone must see it in me. I never imagined that you didn't realise."

@geesenoises

💗A Bottomless Well by @teledild0nix (E, 10k)

"I think I'm feeling it," Draco says foolishly when he's shaken off the distraction of exactly how marvellously pond-coloured Harry's eyes are.

"Me too," Harry leans in and kisses him. It's lovely, and Draco thinks he might live in this kiss, the stove at his back and Harry pressed to his front, cupping one still cold hand to his cheek, the back of his head, whispering cool fingertips against the back of his neck. But Harry draws back, and Draco realises with sudden clarity that there's a well of this contentment, this joy and affection he feels are drawn up from a well inside him with no bottom. However much he draws up, there'll always be more when he wants it.

@getawayfox

💗Make This Leap by @oflights (M, 118k)

💗if you've changed your mind by warmfoothills (E, 20k)

💗Paper Rings by lettersbyelise (E, 50k)

💗Finely Drawn Lines by @the-sinking-ship (E, 42k)

@ghaniblue

💗Licurici by @lou-isfake (Drarry x Charlie, E, 133k)

Harry had fallen asleep between them, as usual, his limbs tangled up in them like roots, his breath soft and warm on Charlie’s skin.

💗Foundations by saras_girl (E, 236k)

Harry doesn’t even mind that Draco always acts like he’s just decided to casually drop in ‘on his way back’ from St Mungo’s every Saturday, even though they both know perfectly well that Grimmauld Place is no more ‘on the way’ to Wiltshire than Edinburgh is on the way to Venezuela.

He knows exactly what it means, incorporating Draco into his outside-of-work routines, and it feels scary and risky and warm and just like it fits. He also thinks he knows better than to push Draco into any sort of overt declaration of intention, and it’s OK, because he’ll be here, Harry knows he will.

💗Away Childish Things by @letteredlettered (T, 154k)

"[...]I loved you—all through it. Do you understand? I loved all of you.”

@gryffindorhearts

💗Salt and Sauce by onbeinganangel (T, 3k)

“That’s you. I think… I hope I got it right,” he says. There is really no way Harry got it right, but Draco flips the lid open and… stares.

@kbrick

💗More Than That by joosetta (E, 11k)

“Do you love me too?” Potter asked.

It dawned on Draco then that Potter might not actually know, that he might have been as lost and confused about the whole thing as Draco had been. Potter who had described how love was just a story with a drawn out ending, who sometimes looked at Draco like he knew exactly what he was thinking. It hadn’t occurred to Draco.

“Of course I do, you enormous prat,” Draco said, feeling his face heat up and his throat tighten. He wasn’t just sad, and he wasn’t just happy, he was in a kind of ecstasy in between that. “I don’t know how you qualify to teach children when you’re so dense.”

@lettersbyelise

💗Stop All The Clocks (This Is the Last Time I'm Leaving Without You) by firethesound (E, 45k)

“Potter,” Draco sighed. He finished spreading jam on the piece of toast and handed it to Harry, then licked a smudge of jam from between his thumb and index finger. “You know, when you love someone you should always cut their toast in triangles.”

Harry frowned at him. “Triangles? But what’s that got to do with…” He trailed off and looked down at the toast in his hand. “You… But you’ve always cut my toast in triangles.” He couldn’t remember a time when Draco hadn’t.

“And I’ve always loved you,” Draco said simply. “You’re it for me, Potter.”

💗A Private Reason For This by @femmequixotic (E, 92k)

“For nearly half a year, they’d fought and fucked and fought again until, in the middle of a night of blindingly intense coupling that’s left Draco shaky and light as a feather, he’d been a complete idiot and whispered those words he’d been thinking into Potter’s ear as he came.”

💗so rest your weary heart with me by bluebutter-art (M, art)

it takes a storytelling master to express the depth of Harry and Draco’s connection without writing a word. The support and solace they find in each other after the war, panel after pitch-perfect panel, will warm your heart and make you fall in love with those two all over again.

@makeitp1nk

💗Our Little Life by tackytigerfic (M, 7.3k)

“Henri,” Malfoy said, and the concerned little crease between his eyes deepened as he looked down at Harry. “Myne owne hertis rote,” Malfoy said quietly, and real-Harry didn’t know how he understood, but he did—and in that one suspended dream moment, he was so glad to be able to understand, and he wanted Malfoy to say it all again, so badly—and he smiled at Malfoy, almost unable to help himself, real-Harry dimly horrified at himself for it but dream-Harry just allowing himself to do it, and enjoying it.

💗knead, then let rise by softlystarstruck (T, 7.2k)

“I’m telling you that I try to make everyone believe I can handle anything.” Turning to face Harry, Draco’s mouth is impossibly close and his sunhat throws Harry’s face into shade, a moment of shared respite. “I’m telling you that no one else has taken me to the sea, and no one else has made me a dark chocolate cake from scratch for my birthday, and I’ve never had someone who wanted to make bread with me before, and–” Draco breaks off, twisting his mouth fitfully but holding Harry’s gaze. “I’m telling you I’m rather delicate, all things considered, and I don’t know what exactly you’re doing to me but it isn’t fair.”

💗Let Me Count The Ways by booktopus (E, 3.6k)

Harry’s love is in his actions.

@moonflower-rose

💗Is This Love? by @phdmama (E, 3.9k)

“Harry’s smile is full with everything he’s feeling, and it’s all right there on his face, but he still sounds tentative as he says, “You make me feel loved.”

“Well,” Draco swallows and his voice cracks on the words he’s never said before.“That’s probably because I love you,” and then Harry kisses him again.”

@mxlfoydraco

💗A Sword Laid Aside by @korlaena (E, 128k)

Draco is floating and high on Harry’s happiness, and he wonders if Harry even notices that with a single expression he so easily and exquisitely destroys Draco. He wonders if Harry can hear the thunderous heartbeat pounding in his chest, heralding Draco’s downfall.

and

Draco had always imagined that it would be some dazzling, sweeping emotion that would overtake him and make him see fireworks when he fell in love, but he’s surprised to find how the feeling is more like a small flame catching the edge of a page and slowly but surely spreading to every corner until there’s no part that hasn’t been enveloped in it.

@oknowkiss

💗heavyweights by warmfoothills (E, 29k)

“What now?” Potter doesn’t look worried, his gaze level as it meets Draco’s, a flash of something odd, too happy and young in his eyes. Draco has no clue. Short term, they should probably get off the rooftop before Draco’s fingers go completely numb. Long term, he should probably start calling Potter by his first name. The idea of it doesn’t really make his stomach twist uncomfortably anymore.

He shrugs, the movement of it made lopsided by the way Potter is pressed so closely against his left side. He doesn’t tell Potter that he might be in love with him, but he thinks maybe Potter gets that something has once again shifted and settled between them, hopefully for the last time. For now it feels ok to just stay here for a bit, Draco’s home spread out below him. Maybe sort of pressed right next to him as well.

@sleepstxtic

💗Contretemps by moonflower-rose (T, 8k)

(This one is so light and funny and such an effortlessly lovely read. I love all the works of this author, and was lucky enough to be able to gift them a fic for Erised myself. This one has to be my favourite fic of theirs, though. Just, such a delight.)

💗Tapestry by kbrick (E, 91k)

(This is a *masterpiece*. I still haven't gotten it together long enough to give this fic the comment it deserves BUT it was such a stunning, unputdownable read and I recommend it as a must-read to everyone.)

💗Game... Set... Malfoy by nanneramma (M, 2k)

(Might be biased because this one was a gift for me but IT'S SO GOOD and I really do feel like it's one of those underrated, hidden gem type fics. It's Draco and Harry playing tennis and it's *hilarious* and so wonderfully written and I just love it so, so much.)

💗Strangeness and Charm by feelsforbreakfast (E, 46k)

(This is an old one but it's AMAZING. I have no words, just one of those ethereal, dreamy classics.)

💗In the Company of Serpents by @corvuscrowned (E, 25k)

(Another *incredible* fic by corvus. Such a unique concept and the prose is so soft and flowy and pretty. An instant fav of mine.)

@sorrybutblog

💗The July Tree by oknowkiss (E, 51k)

“I love you,” Draco repeated.

“Oh,” Harry said. His eyes had gone wide as saucers.

“Aren’t you going to say it back?” Draco asked, trying not to wince at how needy it sounded.

“I—I’m just—yeah,” Harry said. He shook his head. “Sorry, yes. I love you,” he said. He was smiling and sniffling and sort of huffing out laughs, looking totally deranged, as he said again, “I love you. I love you so much. I’m like, really angry about it, actually.”

“Not angrier than I am, I assure you. I can’t believe you’ve made me love you so fast,” Draco said, wiping the tears off Harry’s cheeks with his thumbs, which he then dried on the stupid sweatshirt. “This is the worst thing you’ve ever done to me.”

💗Such Great Heights by aideomai (E, 93k)

"I'll try," Harry said, shocked into honesty in the early hours of the morning. "Okay? I'Il try. For you," and Draco let out a shivery little breath and pressed himself in closer against Harry's body, like they could fold into each other and into the shadow and just stay like this forever.

"You drive me crazy," Malfoy mumbled again. "You always have."

"I know," Harry said. "I know. Come on," and they went upstairs together, slow and tired, pressing into every corner they found to kiss.

@wolfpants

💗Countdown to a Life by tackytigerfic (E, 3.5k)

(I think this fic is absolutely phenomenal - I go back and read it often. It leaves me breathless every time, an absolute masterclass in Drarry friends to lovers perfection. Every emotion just leaps off the page. It's a very short fic but by the end I feel like I know them fully.)

💗Yours Truly by @skeptiquewrites (M, 15k)

(God how I love this fic. It gets to the very core of what I love about Drarry - epic romance that's still so tender and perfectly characterised. Just lush.)

#drarry #valentines recs #ss recs #what a list #what a fandom #this took forever as tumblr kept glitching #the banner flower is weirdly meat-like but i really can't change it now #anyway hope it doesn't creep anyone out

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shu-of-the-wind · 3 months

Note

I don't remember the exact quote but Jyn and Cassian's hug when they reunite on the Death Star post Cassian's torture in falling sinking lives rent free in my brain for that ask game

MY FAVORITE SCENE IN THAT FIC,,,,IF I'M HONEST,,,,i'm so glad it sticks for folks

“You could have left them,” says K. “Or used them as a distraction to escape. I would have let them be captured. It would be easier.” “I,” she says, and then stops, because through the tangle of Bodhi and Leia and Skywalker there’s movement, a shifting. Cassian. The look on his face is a shipwreck, fire and torn metal and wires spitting sparks. He doesn’t say anything. She’s not quite sure he’s even breathing. He’s just watching her, lips parted like he’s seen a ghost, and her knees nearly go out from under her with the relief, that he’s alive and leaning and staring. He’s stolen a uniform, too, one of the sharp black masks of the bodyguards, and it’s closing her throat up, the adrenalin, the déjà vu. She thinks she might say his name, but no sound comes out her mouth. There’s something terrifyingly naked about the way he’s looking at her as he pushes away from the wall, sways on his feet. Alive, she thinks. Alive. It’s a sick kind of rewind, but she doesn’t care. No one’s paying attention. She’s not sure it’d stop her if the whole Imperial fleet was staring, no matter how new it is, no matter what weakness it shows. Jyn slips between them, Bodhi and Leia and Skywalker. She just means to get closer, to talk to him, to prop him up if she can, but when she gets close enough he draws her to him, arm around her ribs, curling up her back, winding her into a grip like a vice, chest to chest. Oh, she thinks, this is what it must have been like for Mama, on Lah'mu,and then her mind goes blank from the warmth. He’s almost shaking, and his fingers are icy on her shoulder, her waist. Her hat’s come off, he’s dragged her so close. Jyn wriggles her good arm out of the tangle, works it around him, presses hard enough to bruise. Open wounds and bleeding vulnerabilities. She’s on her toes and leaning into him and Cassian fists his hand in her stolen uniform and drags in air like he hasn’t breathed in years. And this—this is what she’s wanted. This is what she’s wanted since she woke up in sickbay to find him watching her. This is the one thing she's wanted from him that she's never once wanted from anybody else, not like this, not closeness and warmth like this. His hair’s sour with sweat and smoke and blood, and the collar of the uniform smells like someone else, but the rest of it is Cassian. You’re all right. It crawls into her mouth. You’re all right, you’re all right. Jyn shuts her eyes, tries not to let them burn. You’re all right. “You’re okay?” says Cassian, very soft, right into her ear, and she’s nodding even though it’s a lie. He has to know it’s a lie. Still, his head slips, and suddenly there’s his hand against the nape of her neck, his nose at her throat. He doesn’t say it again, not aloud, but she can feel it against her collar, lips and nose and the brush of his beard. Mouthing it. You’re okay. His hair tickles at her mouth.

thank you for this ask game by alexs-prompts-folder!

Anonymously - or not - tell me what passage, fic, line of narration, or anything you remember me by as a writer.

#floating sinking #my writing #ask game

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rocketink · 9 months

Text

Tinder (gone wrong)

"When you install tinder to fix your love life and your big ass crush on Lee Chan."

a/n: anothe lame ass post from you fav lame ass writer!! I'm not sure if I'm coming back to the blog tho, I'm just having a very shitty summer and I wanted to write something cute to get it out of my system!!

friends to lovers kinda?? and side mingyu x reader (just one date tho)

tw: mentions of food and that's all I think??

You installed tinder not that long ago. Not because you actually wanted to be on tinder, but because your love life is at this point nonexistent and you think that tinder is the only thing that can put a fast end to your situation.

“Just one date will make it,” you tell your best friend Seungkwan “one date from a random tinder dude and I’ll stop complaining about my love life”

Seungkwan looks at you, slowly shaking his head from side to side.

“Y/n, you’re an introvert, how the hell do you think that is going to work?”

“I can stop being an introvert for a couple of hours”

“Yeah, sure” Seungkwan scoffs, “call me when you actually go on that date, please, I don’t want to miss it.”

“Miss what?” a new voice sounds to your right. And there he is, Lee Chan, Seungkwan’s second best friend 一after you of course, and classmate. Seungkwan smiles at him and makes room for Chan to sit beside him at the small table from the cafeteria of your university, facing you. You give him a small wave and look down to your half-eaten sandwich.

“Y/n has installed tinder and wants to go on a date with quote unquote some random dude” Seungkwan answers.

You blush instantly, and reprimand yourself for having such a weak reaction, but what can you do when your best friend exposes you like that in front of Chan? Now, people might assume that since Chan is close friends with Seungkwan, and so are you, Chan and you are consequently friends, but the truth is that you have barely spoken to Chan in all the years that you have known him, let alone share personal details about your love life. Normally, you see Chan regularly, as he sometimes ditches his friend group to sit with you and Seungkwan when the timing is right for the three of you, but all those times, Seungkwan just acts as the glue between you two. He talks and talks, filling in the silence with his blabbering, and Chan answers back by teasing him non-stop. You, however, prefer to remain on the quiet side, because as an introvert you don’t know how to interact through the banter they share, and also because you can never think correctly whenever Chan is around.

Chan to you is what most people would call a crush, but you never find the courage to even talk to him, too scared to sound ridiculous or making a fool of yourself in front of him, and therefore in front of Seungkwan, so you just stick to laugh at them when they tease each other and answer to Chan’s questions if they are directed to you, or if Seungkwan decides to ignore him.

“Oh? A date? That's cool! There are some creeps around dating apps though, try to be safe Y/n”

“Thank you, Chan, I will” you give him a quick smile and he smiles back.

Seungkwan continues his nonsense and you pretend to listen to him, ignoring the fast beating of your heart after Chan’s words. If he’s staring at you more than usual, you pretend not to tell.

—————————————————————————-

Now, you did find a date, and this Mingyu guy seems adorable. When he asks you on a date on a friday afternoon, you do not think twice and say yes.

The date, though, was not what you expected.

You promised yourself to speak about yourself, to ask and answer questions, to crack jokes, but all your effort vanished five minutes into the date. Mingyu was not a bad guy at all, he had lovely energy and would never let the conversation die. The thing is that he never asked anything about you, and you didn’t have it in you to redirect the conversation to talk about you. So you forced laughters when necessary and nodded at the right time, all that while looking subtly at the time on your phone.

After the coffee, you excused yourself, claiming that you still had some work to do and promising to text him when you get home. Mingyu hugged you goodbye, and the scent of his cologne lingered in your nose, making you feel a little guilty of finishing the date so soon.

Your head was filled with questions: He wasn't that bad, was he? He didn’t disrespect you or anything, but you got the feeling that you didn’t get to click with him. Is that normal? Do most people feel like that after the very first date of their lives? Are you the problem? Is tinder the problem?

You couldn’t stop thinking, your head was going so fast that you almost missed the familiar voice calling your name. When you turned around, you cursed internally, how could you be so unlucky?

“Y/n! Fancy seeing you here” Chan shot one of his sweet smiles to you,“ what are you doing here?”

“I was having coffee in the coffee place around the corner” you smiled back at him, trying to dissimulate your nerves “and you? Do you live nearby?”

“I do! I was going for a walk but then I thought I saw you and well, here you are!” He chuckled and you stared at him for a second longer than you should “how was the coffee?”

“Oh it was great! It’s a lovely place,” at this point, you were just glad that he knew how to strike a conversation, you could feel the awkwardness in every pore of your skin.

“Did you go alone?”

“Oh no, I actually went there with my…” you hesitated for a second before finalizing that sentence “my date, yeah.”

He looked around, putting his hands inside his pockets.

“Oh yeah, Seungkwan mentioned it, yeah, how was it?”

“I don’t really know, to be honest. I was a bit uncomfortable and I didn’t talk much, I barely even laughed at his jokes. I think I was way too nervous”

“Did he seem interested, though?” He frowned ”because if I were him, I’d like to make sure that the person I’m on a date with seems comfortable, and it doesn’t sound like he did”

If I were him, if I were him, if I were him.

Those words barely left your mind.

“I don’t know, Chan, I don’t know how an interested person looks like”

“Was this…?”

“My first date? Yeah” you cursed under your breath and looked to the other side, you had exposed yourself too much.

To your right, Chan didn’t say a word for a whole minute. You opened your mouth to say goodbye and run as fast as you could, in hopes of not seeing Chan for the rest of your life, but he was faster than you.

“Let me take you on a date, then” his voice was lower, softer, sweeter. He meant it, you just knew he was not joking. “Let me show you what an interested person looks like”.

You didn’t answer instantly, not knowing how to react to your crush asking you out.

“I’m sorry if I made it uncomfortable, I do not want to misinterpret the signals but I just- I just thought that maybe I was right and you… I had hope- I’ve always had hope that you liked me too” his words were fast, barely making sense, not as soft as a couple of minutes ago.

“Please take me on that date then” you smile and hold his hand “but treat me right, Chan, I have been waiting for this moment, too”

He smiled back, feeling how his soul came back to his body, and kissed the back of your hand.

“I’ll treat you as best as I can, like the way you deserve.”

#seventeen scenarios #seventeen au #seventeen fluff #seventeen imagines #seventeen dino #dino x reader #svt dino #kpop #seventeen #seventeen drabble

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bettsfic · 6 months

Note

Betts,

Would you be comfortable in showing us what your messy first drafts look like? Not for a whole story but maybe an excerpt and noting how it changed in revisions. I’ve been looking for first drafts by writers and either found they look almost identical to finish printed version or I can’t find them at all.

i can show you what a messy first draft looks like but i don't think it'll be very illuminating. for me, the down draft is mostly about developmental work. i'll write ten scenes and the final draft will be chunks from six of them. so on a small scale it looks like i don't do much editing, but big picture i write over twice as much as i end up keeping, and what i keep has usually been completely rewritten. so if i do a side by side comparison of a scene, what you're not seeing is the stuff that didn't make the cut, or all the ways i wrote in the wrong direction for a long time, or the hours of research i had to do for a single detail (an example of which you'll see below).

i wrote an issue of my newsletter about my drafting process, so that might be more helpful. i also answered an ask recently about ways to develop a scene if you're stuck.

unfortunately i don't have the brainwidth to do all the research here, but the new yorker published an early draft of raymond carver's "what we talk about when we talk about love" which as originally called "beginners," and somewhere there's a detailed comparison of the two and the changes his editor, gordon lish, made.

but! you asked to see a draft comparison. so here's a draft comparison.

so this got a little crazy and i ended up making a gdoc for scene 2 so you could see them together. see link at the bottom. conclusion: comparing drafts is very hard and i don't think this probably helps at all but i tried.

"final" draft

these are the first two scenes of a short story i wrote called The Group W Bench. we begin in 1970 and then move into present day-ish. i've bolded the small things that were actually big things, and i'll explain why they were big things at the end.

"final" is in quotes because there is a different final draft of this story that goes in a completely different book.

scene 1: past

They didn’t hand out 4-Fs in St. Louis. Supposedly it was the worst draft office in the country. I didn’t know anyone who’d gotten out of it, but in my hometown they didn’t seem to want to. Most everyone was proud and eager to get shipped off.

My number was 66 and it’d been pulled just after I turned nineteen. On the bus to the induction center, I tried to come up with a plan. My only options seemed to be mutilating myself or flat-out running. I was too much of a coward for the former and I couldn’t wrap my head around the latter. There were only a dozen of us on the bus and I had my whole seat to myself. Out the window, cornfields blurred past; it was August and the stalks were head-high. I tried to imagine myself out in the jungle holding an M16, but I couldn’t. I’d graduated high school with a C-average, only kissed one girl one time, was raised by parents who’d had no parents of their own. My mother grew up in an orphanage. My father rode the rails. They fucked up my brother Tommy, did a little better with Wyatt, but by the time I came along, they’d given up. Sometimes I felt feral, raised by wolves.

Across the aisle, a guy was playing the harmonica. He had shaggy black hair and stubble around his jaw, big nose bent at the bridge. He caught me staring at him and I looked away quickly. He crossed the aisle and sat beside me.

“You look like you don’t want to be here,” he said.

He didn’t sound like he was from Missouri. He sounded like an actor on TV, all hard Rs and round vowels. I didn’t respond to him. For all I knew he was a plant, some kind of spy trained to sniff out potential defectors.

He ran his thumb over the shiny surface of the harmonica. The movement reflected the sun into my eyes. “Buddy of mine got his arm blown off.”

“My brother died,” I told him. I’d been the one to answer the door that day. I was only sixteen and the boy who delivered the telegram couldn’t have been much older. He handed it over, touched the brim of his hat, and said, “I’m sorry for your loss.”

There were no remains. Nothing to bury. Just a bit of yellow cardstock telling me Tommy was dead.

“Sorry to hear that, man.” He held out his hand. “Jack Ward.”

I shook it. “Birdie Mills.”

Jack smiled, a deep dimple carved into each cheek. “Hell of a name, Birdie Mills. Where you from?”

“Here. Couple hours north.”

“California. Riverside.”

“What’re you doing here?”

“Just got out of film school. Can’t get student deferment anymore. So I started bouncing around, you know, changing my address. They finally pinned me down.”

I hadn’t thought of that, transferring draft centers, delaying as long as possible hoping the war would finally end. It was a relief to meet someone as reluctant to go as I was. I felt crazy sometimes, surrounded by men who wanted nothing more than to die for their country. I couldn’t imagine loving anything so much I’d be willing to give my life for it.

“You have a plan?” I asked.

“Nope.” We turned into the induction center lot. “I’m gonna wing it.”

early draft

according to my document, i wrote this on november 8, 2022, so almost exactly a year ago. at that time, this was one chapter of a novel that had alternating POVs in third person. i had about 90k of this novel written. which turned into a short story. which turned into a different novel.

scene 1

Birdie’s number was 257 and it was pulled shortly after he turned nineteen. His draft office was in St. Louis, notoriously one of the worst in the country. There were no 4-Fs in St. Louis. He didn’t know a single man who’d gotten out of it, but then again, they didn’t want to. Most everyone in his town was eager and proud to get shipped off.

On the bus to the induction center, he tried to come up with a plan, but nothing came to him. Out the window, cornfields blurred past; it was August and the stalks were head-high. He tried to imagine himself out in the jungle holding an M16, but he was just a coward from Missouri who graduated high school with a C-average, who had only kissed one girl one time, who was raised by parents who’d had no parents of their own. His mother grew up in an orphanage. His father rode the rails. They fucked up Tommy, did a little better with Wyatt, but by the time Birdie came along, they’d given up. Sometimes he felt feral, raised by wolves.

Across the aisle, a guy was playing the harmonica. Birdie couldn’t pull his eyes away from him. He had shaggy black hair and stubble around his jaw, big nose bent at the bridge. He caught Birdie staring at him and kept his gaze, some recognition in his eyes, and a moment later he was slotting the harmonica into his jacket pocket and coming to sit next to Birdie.

“You look like you don’t want to be here,” the guy said.

Birdie didn’t say anything. For all he knew, the man could be some kind of spy trying to sniff out defectors.

“Buddy of mine got his arm shot off.”

“My brother died,” Birdie admitted.

“Sorry to hear that, man.” He held out his hand. “Jack Ward.”

Birdie shook it. “Birdie Mills.”

Jack smiled, a deep dimple carved into each cheek. “Quite a name, Birdie Mills. Where you from?”

“Here,” Birdie said. “Couple hours north.”

“California. Riverside,” Jack offered.

“What are you doing here?”

“Just got out of film school. Can’t get student deferment anymore. So I started bouncing around, you know, changing my address. They finally pinned me down.”

Birdie hadn’t thought of that, transferring draft centers, delaying as long as possible hoping the war would finally end. It was a relief to meet someone as reluctant to go as he was. He felt crazy sometimes, surrounded by men who wanted nothing more than to die for their country.

“You have a plan?” Birdie asked.

“Nope,” Jack said, pulling his harmonica back out. They were turning into the induction center lot. “I’m gonna wing it.”

changes and why i made them

lotto number 257 was pulled in 1970 but only numbers under 125 were drafted. it took an entire afternoon to figure out how the selective service lotto even worked.

turning this into a short story, the sentence "They didn’t hand out 4-Fs in St. Louis" was a stronger opening.

as a chapter in a book, at this point the reader is familiar with birdie and knows him only as a scoundrel-type character seen from the perspective of his son who despises him, and his daughter who reveres him. so in the old version, it was satisfying (or intended to be) to get to his POV and see him from his own perspective. as a short story, i tried to organize the opening in such a way that you get grounded pretty quickly and see birdie as a scared kid before you get to the scoundrel days (see below).

the brief "my brother died" flashback was the first part i wrote in his POV, and that was back when the structure of the narrative was a series of short, titled vignettes. so on one hand i was glad i got to keep it but sad i had to shoehorn it into a different scene instead of allowing it to open the piece.

the novel was written in third person but when i tackled it as a short story i decided to change it to first person because i like first person better, and birdie is a very fun narrator.

the "I couldn't imagine..." sentence was added in the short story version because in the present timeline, birdie's about to get shot to save his daughter while they're robbing a bank together. so in one sentence, i managed to condense an arc that before took a VERY long time to establish.

this got kind of out of hand. i tried to do the same thing with scene 2 but it was hard in the text window so i did it side by side in a google document. if you want, you can add comments asking why i did certain things and i'll answer you there. i'm sure i missed stuff.

sorry if this isn't helpful!

#writing advice #bk #rabbit's blood #revision

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softguarnere · 3 months

Text

I've never participated in the lovely @blind-dates-fest before, so we're actually trying two new things this weekend: a new writing challenge, and writing for The Pacific for the first time. This OC has been banging around in my head for months now, so this seemed like a good time to introduce her - especially since she'll be making a cameo or two in one of my ongoing BOB fics. Without further ado, I hope y'all will enjoy Samantha "Mandy" Majors ♥️

The Deception of Appearances

Realistically, Mandy is aware that these are the men who are fighting for their country. The heroes of Guadalcanal can do as they please. But as MacDonald pushes his way through the bar’s crowd of wild, drinking men and boisterous women, dragging her along behind him, only one thought runs through her mind: What the hell am I doing here?

She knows, of course. She’s making money. She’s carving out a little space in journalism because, as her publisher always so kindly reminds her, the market is always changing, and fantasy stories will not be in fashion forever.

With that pleasant reminder, she lifts her chin and continues her walk into the unknown.

MacDonald struts ahead of her, openly ogling the men as if they’re an attraction at the zoo. There’s something distinctly unprofessional about the wide-eyed look that he’s always giving his subjects, like he’s got them trapped under a microscope and is poking around in their thoughts. He doesn’t seem to realize that he has a habit of making other people feel utterly invaded. Which, if Mandy had to guess, is probably why the Metropolitan Express has had her acting as his assistant for so many months. Well, that and, if she’s being honest, the fact that Duncan MacDonald cannot write to save his life.

As if reading her mind, MacDonald grabs her arm and hisses loudly in her ear to be heard over the celebrations, “Look at them! We’re bound to get a good story out of them.” Then, quietly, more urgently, “And quickly, too, because I don’t like the looks of this place.”

For once, Mandy finds herself agreeing with him. But, as is the way of the world, these things are easier said than done.

They manage to find a small table that’s miraculously unoccupied to set up shop at. Despite the look that MacDonald gives her when she orders a drink, Mandy settles in. Her boss might not want to spend any longer in this place than he has to, but that’s only because he’s not a real writer, and he doesn’t understand that the best stories come to those who are patient. These things can’t be forced, no matter how intent he seems on bending them to his will.

Besides his writing – or lack thereof – there’s the small matter of MacDonald himself. He’s too forthright, strutting up to the men and asking them bold questions with no sense of boundaries. Most respond by giving him a blank stare instead of a quote, and those who are willing to share any thoughts only give them the kind that cannot be put into print.

“Well I never,” MacDonald splutters as dark haired man with a wide smile answers his question – a completely tone deaf What’s been your favorite part of the war so far? – with a curt Wouldn’t you like to know, jackass? and a wink thrown at Mandy. MacDonald uselessly swabs his face with his handkerchief before sighing, “I don’t think this place agrees with me.” He mutters, perhaps thinking Mandy can’t hear him over the noise of the bar. “I should have stuck to vaudeville.”

I’ll drink to that, she thinks to herself as she surveys the man who’s supposed to be a war correspondent.

“He seemed to like you, though,” MacDonald says. He gives Mandy a curious look that she’s all too familiar with – one that suggests that she do all the work while he rests his delicate little mind. “Maybe you should try talking to them, without me.”

He’s throwing her to the wolves – or, more accurately, the Marines. But strangely, she finds that she doesn’t mind this time. After all, she came here to write about the war. Write about it accurately, honestly. People back home need to know what’s being fought for. And if she can lend her pen, her camera, and her typewriter to the cause, then by golly, she will.

She nods. “Not such a bad idea.” And then she leaves him there, alone at the table, before he can change his mind.

Looking for a good story is not so different from hunting, if you think about it. At the edge of the room, Mandy surveys the scene before her. The Marines may be wild, but most of them are also intoxicated, which means their lips will be loose. She can use that to her advantage. Especially now that she’s free of MacDonald.

There. From across the bar, her eyes land on the dark-haired man who winked at her earlier. He’s one of the few men not entertaining one of the bar’s local Australian girls. An easy target.

As if to prove her point about patience, someone taps her on the shoulder just as she’s about to march through the fray to reach her intended target.

A different man, this one with blond hair, blushes slightly when she turns to him. “Um, excuse me, Miss,” he says, his thick accent taking her by surprise. For just a second, she mistakes him for one of the locals before she realizes that he’s wearing an American uniform with the name Phillips on his chest.

Maybe getting a quote will be easier than she thought it would be. “Yes?”

Phillips nods across the bar to the man that was her original target. “My friend over there said you were a reporter, looking for quotes?”

Mandy nods, smiles, trying to make herself as bright and warm and trustworthy as possible. “That I am.” She holds up her notepad and taps it with a red fingernail. “You don’t happen to have one for me, do you Phillips?”

He’s not blushing anymore. He only smiles and shakes his head. “I’m afraid not. I don’t think I’m good enough with words for that kind of thing. But my friend is,” he adds before she can lose interest.

“Oh?” Mandy raises an eyebrow. “Do you think he would give me an interview?”

“I’m sure he would,” Phillips replies. “In fact, he was writing the entire time we were on Guadalcanal. He’ll probably give you some of his original notes.”

Mandy has to take a breath, remind herself not to get her hopes up. This could all be a rouse, after all, by some stranger.

But then again, even though she doesn’t know this Phillips, he doesn’t give off the energy of someone trying to pull a fast one on her. Maybe it’s just his southern charm, but she’s tempted to trust him right away.

“That would be great. Mind taking me to him?”

“Sure thing.” Phillips starts to weave through the crowd, leading her through the bar. He looks back and extends a hand part of the way through their walk. “I’m Sid Phillips, by the way.”

She accepts his hand. He’s got a firm shake. More of that southern charm, perhaps. “Samantha Majors. But my friends call me Mandy.”

As they push deeper into the bar, several men call out greetings to Phillips, slapping him on the back and palling around as they pass. Phillips returns their handshakes and smiles, only stopping to ask if anyone has seen the Professor. Most men shrug off the question, but one man finally points toward the farthest part of the bar and announces over all the noise, “Lucky is over there! Guess he needed a place to think.”

Lucky. The Professor. She’ll have to remember to ask about these nicknames during their interview. No doubt there’s a good story behind them both.

She slips her notebook out of her pocket as they walk, readies her pen as she turns to Phillips, ideas already churning in her head. “What’s your friend’s name?”

“There he is!” Phillips nods to a table in the bar’s far corner, where a small group of men sit drinking, partly obscured by shadow. “That’s him in the middle, with the curly hair. Robert Leckie.”

At the same moment that Phillips says his name, the man in question leans forward, throwing his face into light so that Mandy catches a glimpse of him for the first time. The sight makes her heart drop, and she freezes as if she’s just been caught red-handed.

“No,” she whispers. Then, in her head. It can’t be.

For a split second, she thinks that maybe her luck will be good, that she’s changed so much since their school days that he won’t recognize her. They’re not kids anymore. Maybe he’s forgotten her.

But the second that his eyes land on her, she knows that it’s no good. His expression changes quickly as he drops the thread of conversation with his friends to stare at her in confusion, then recognition. A small smile crosses his face and he stands, not frozen the way that she is.

“Sammy Majors?!” He calls, voice slightly too loud with the excitement of someone who has been drinking.

Phillips’ brow furrows as he glances between them. “You two know each other?”

“Yes,” Mandy whispers at the same time that Leckie announces, “We grew up down the street from each other!”

“Well, that’s good, right?” Phillips turns to her when he asks. “No awkward introductions to hold back your interview.”

Mandy has to force the words out of her mouth; they feel like they’re stuck to her tongue with paste. “Yeah. I guess so.”

Leckie, as usual, seems undaunted by everything before him. He shoves the man sitting next to him over and uses a grand gesture to indicate the vacated seat to Mandy. “Come join us!”

The confident demeanor that she’s worked so hard to build up all these years is slipping. With every step she takes towards him, Mandy feels like she’s clinging to it for dear life. She has to remind herself that she’s no longer Sammy Majors, the little girl who sits by the window writing fairytales because she couldn’t go out to play. She’s no longer Sammy Majors, who entered every writing competition their school hosted in vain, always losing out to lucky Robert Leckie, whose stories and poems were always so much better than hers. Robert Leckie, who had a job at the local newspaper before they had even finished high school.

As she takes the seat he offers her, one of the other men at the table laughs when he asks, “Hey, Lucky, does Vera know about this?”

Robert Leckie, who always so obviously had a crush on Vera Keller from across the street. Robert Leckie, who never seemed to realize that she existed . . . but who recognized her at first sight after all these years, and on the other side of the world, to boot.

Leckie smiles at her, so warm and open, as if his success in writing didn’t come so easily to him that it always crushed Mandy’s heart, her hopes, and her dreams. “What are you doing here?”

In response, Mandy raises her notepad and purses her lips, resetting her usual, casual demeanor that she has spent so many years working on. “I’m with the Metro Express, and my source tells me that you might be good for a quote.”

Several of his friends ooh and aah like a Greek chorus, jostling him as they laugh.

“He’s got more than just a quote for you!” One of them hoots.

“Yeah,” another man adds. “Try a whole novel!”

Mandy raises an eyebrow. “Is that so?” When Leckie shrugs in response, she allows herself to smile, to be friendly, even though it goes against her better instincts. “Robert Leckie, ever the writer.”

“Fight by day, write by night.”

She makes a small scribble on her notepad to make sure her pen still works. “Well, Private Leckie. Do you have time for a quick interview?”

Leckie leans back in his seat and takes a drag off his cigarette. A smirk plays at the corners of his mouth as he exhales the smoke, nods. “Fire when ready, Miss Majors.”

#blind dates fest #my writing #the pacific #robert leckie #bob leckie x ofc #oc mandy majors #hbo war fanfic

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sassykattery · 2 years

Text

Blog Rules + Masterlists

Welcome Sinner.

This pinned post is an introduction to my blog and the Masterlist for my multi-chapter fanfic based on the characters from Obey Me! called "Love, Eternal," as well as containing Masterlists for my other content.

About sassykattery...

Call me Sassy! I'm 27, married, and use she/they pronouns. I am currently studying and working full-time to get into a professional school later in 2024.

I am simply one hell of a writer.

Blog Rules

I do not accept interactions from minors or ageless/blank blogs. I will immediately block those who follow me or interact with my content that I catch in my notifications. This is because I regularly consume NSFW content and repost it, on top of creating NSFW content myself. It's not hard to put in your bio that you're at least 18, that's literally all I need to see.

This is an LGBTQ+ friendly and gender-affirming blog. Homophobia, transphobia, and pedophilia aren't tolerated here, nor are any other hate-groups or illegal activities that exist in this world.

I'm a sex-positive and body-positive person, so I am open about sharing personal stories as well as promoting normalization of sex and the human body (i.e. menstruation, being fat/plus-size), you will see this influences my writing as well. This point is only directed at people who think sex or human body functions shouldn't be discussed on any platform (this is literally an NSFW blog, why are you here?), this is not pointed at the people who experience triggers or dysphoria around those topics.

To touch on the last bullet, this is a warning to those who experience dysphoria or have triggers related to certain topics, I regularly discuss certain topics such as: sex, menstruation, body image issues, mental health issues, medical issues. My content will always have tags and "CW," or Content Warnings," at the beginning of each body of work that I write except for "incorrect quotes"/crack one-shots.

The only fandom I write for is Obey Me!, and I don't really intend on branching out anytime soon, but I do consume content from Genshin and Twisted Wonderland.

Not really a rule: I affectionately call my readers "sinners." ♡

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One-Shot/Request Line Masterlist

Sassy's Kinktober 2022 Event List

Altaira Fics (Obey Me! OC)

Group Portrait ft. Members of the Occult (drawn by sassykattery)

Love's Web Masterlist (Obey Me! x Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse fic)

Dollface (Obey Me! Fic)

Diavolo's Birthday Celebration 2023

"Love, Eternal" Masterlist

Each chapter will have mutliple parts, in which there will be a sub-Masterlist for each chapter.

Synopsis: After returning for the second year in the Devildom, one human, MC, finds herself in the throes of the affairs of the heart, intertwined with two powerful demons who seek to have her to themselves. One demon seeks to redeem himself after ruining his first relationship in centuries. The other seeks to maintain balance between his duties, his love, and his own vested interests. Read as the three navigate one another's struggles and needs.

New Schedule: New parts will be posted on Saturdays and Wednesdays, North America time, that's Sundays and Thursdays for those in UTC and further east. I will be returning to university soon and need time to make sure I'm happy with my writing before publishing.

If you enjoy my writing - my requests are closed! Please head over to this post to see what I'm open to writing for anyone who's interested! I will update this segment when I close my request line!

New! If you would like to be tagged when I upload new parts to "Love, Eternal," please comment below on this post and I will add you to the taglist!

Rules for the fanfic before proceeding -

I will be posting this fanfic on Wattpad as well as here on Tumblr, because I understand some people like the reading experience better on other platforms. As of now, I will not be posting on AO3 purely because I hate how the website looks (don't ask). I will include links for the Wattpad posts in the corresponding chapter sub-Masterlists. That all said, do not repost onto other sites. This is my work, and I will not tolerate others reposting it. Should I find another website to post it on, I will update this post with that information as well.

This fanfic is for those ages 18 and up. Once I begin posting, I will be checking notifications and those who are caught ageless or underage in their bios, will be blocked. Those who interact with this masterlist and do not have an age listed or they're a minor will be blocked.

I will not tolerate criticism for the storyline I have chosen. Please respect what I have chosen for the plot (no backseat writing).

I will not tolerate people creating spin-offs of my fanfic, so please don't do it. You obviously can think of whatever you want, but I kindly ask that you do not make posts based off of my AU.

This fanfic will include scenes of smut, blood, and violence. There are some things I will not write about, however, this is meant to be a romance fanfic, so if you are uncomfortable with graphic sex being written about from a romantic standpoint, please consider this your warning. There will also be scenes including emotional and physical distress, as well as emotional manipulation/emotional abuse within the confines of a relationship. If that is triggering, please do not read.

To follow up with rule #5, each part will contain content warnings, themes, and characters at the beginning of the chapter so that if you aren't interested in those concepts, you are forewarned.

This fanfic is written in the point of view of a main character who is named MC in the fic, who is AFAB, has AFAB body parts, and uses she/her pronouns. Now, within the fic, the perspective is from the main character and pronouns are typically written with "you." It is when MC is referenced by other characters that she/her is used.

Because I'm a smut writer, please heed the following message in regard to characters put into smut scenes: here.

In my fic, I've implemented the asterisk system (*) to indicate a smut scene for those who may want to skip it or read it again

Now that's done, please enjoy.

Wattpad: Diavolo's Date, Pt. 1

Submasterlist: Prologue + Season 1

☆☆☆☆ Season 2 ☆☆☆☆

Chapter 6: The Royal Standard (Complete)

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7

Chapter 7: The Queen's Torment (Complete)

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

Chapter 8: A Lover's Holiday (Complete)

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7

Chapter 9: Celebrations of the Heart (Complete)

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9

Chapter 10: Rites and Rituals (complete)

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8

☆☆☆☆ Season 3 ☆☆☆☆

Chapter 11: Losses and Gains (complete)

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8

Chapter 12: No Rest for the Wicked (ongoing)

Part 1 Part 2

#love-eternal #sassystories #sassywrites

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tkblythofficial · 7 days

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New current reading (that one was notold but their energy changes very fast and I was trying to make heads and tails of stuff).

So, funny thing: T did try to approach Z (I asked because you planted the seed) and its not like she ignored him but was quite overwhelmed and he felt alone (I'm seriously feeling sorry for the dude ngl).

The way she saw it in her head (that's her thing, it's like she can see how it mightve played out, it's like she's there, it's a thing don't ask) it's that he was like: oh can we hang out maybe? 🥺 and she's like yeah, sure! But she was busy networking and then so was he and then he decided to leave without talking to her again and she tried talking to him and ask why he left and he just said he had a headache.

Well about BB, she engages more when she feels like T is slipping, she considers this place a reliable source of information and someone close to the three of them has provided y'all with Intel. So's definitely around (hi BB! Please dump T)

T was triggered by the infamous picture, it's like he doesn't get how R can settle for someone that doesn't really love her and he's growing resentful of J because of it because he feels R deserves to be loved completely.

When asked why is T misconstruting R's behavior, she said: he's think she's distant but not in a way he can handle, but growing apart from their connection and he feels that she's realizing how he feels and it's pushing him away, all the while wanting to push her away too and said I quote: "Boy, take your fucking pick, you can't berate for doing the thing you want to do".

Regardless, he feels unseen by her. She used a music to clarify through my Spotify. It was on random with more than 2000 musics and she asked for a song and it went to Stonehenge - from a Brazilian band called Freano -. For context, the song tells the story of someone that's feeling disconnected and trying to reconnect, from someone that feels as though the other person doesn't deserve their feelings. It talks about distance and from a other that isn't connecting to them and that doesn't seem to care about the writers behavior. It talks of emotional distance and of feeling as though they don't exist.

She then asked why T is so contradictory because for R at least makes some logical sense (she sees T a certain way and tries not to diverge from that, doesn't play hot and cold, doesn't run away like her ass is on fire) and she said that's because he doesn't want to feel this way about her, at all.

He's contradictory because his feelings are. He knows he should love his girlfriend, doesn't want to repeat the same patterns he saw before, looking for love in people he'll never find it because he needs to learn to stand on his own two feet.

It doesn't look good because he's pulling away emotionally which he apparently didn't do the first time he ghosted her and it's going to hurt R more than the first time. If R is somehow reading this, my friends advice is not to approach T now. He needs time because if she does seek him out he might say or do something he can't take back.

I know we all joke (and please take this with a grain of salt) but now would not be the time for any rash decisions to be made. He's hurting and he's doing one hell of job of hiding it from people.

She asked for another song and it went to Empty Space by James Arthur which if you listen to it, speaks for itself.

MORE READINGS? YOU SPOIL US ORANGE AND PEELER! OMG

“So, funny thing: T did try to approach Z (I asked because you planted the seed) and its not like she ignored him but was quite overwhelmed and he felt alone (I'm seriously feeling sorry for the dude ngl).”

The way I thought you were talking about T Holland and Zendaya and made sure I was on the right blog LOL. He approached her? He felt alone? Oh no 😭

“The way she saw it in her head (that's her thing, it's like she can see how it mightve played out, it's like she's there, it's a thing don't ask) it's that he was like: oh can we hang out maybe?

and she's like yeah,

sure! But she was busy networking and then so was he and then he decided to leave without talking to her again and she tried talking to him and ask why he left and he just said he had a headache.”

Orange gets “play out” visions too? Interesting 👀 I can totally see this happening

“Well about BB, she engages more when she feels like T is slipping, she considers this place a reliable source of information and someone close to the three of them has provided y'all with Intel. So's definitely around (hi BB! Please dump T)”

This blog? Reliable source? Oh. That’s oh….BB, honey, I want to hug you. I mean it too 😭 and yeah, someone else to them is definitely here. I hope they find the blog funny.

“T was triggered by the infamous picture, it's like he doesn't get how R can settle for someone that doesn't really love her and he's growing resentful of J because of it because he feels R deserves to be loved completely.”

The infamous pic = R kneeling I’m assuming? 😬 Growing resentful? I know he saw that horrible relationship for 2 years 😭 but I guess it’s getting worse

“When asked why is T misconstruting R's behavior, she said: he's think she's distant but not in a way he can handle, but growing apart from their connection and he feels that she's realizing how he feels and it's pushing him away, all the while wanting to push her away too and said I quote: "Boy, take your fucking pick, you can't berate for doing the thing you want to do".”

Distant but not in a way he can handle? OK, T, pot calling the kettle black. Tbf I think R knows about his feelings so he’s lowkey right but he needs to pick a side lol. Either leave her alone until she figures it out or stay by her side until the boar leaves.

“Regardless, he feels unseen by her. She used a music to clarify through my Spotify. It was on random with more than 2000 musics and she asked for a song and it went to Stonehenge - from a Brazilian band called Freano -. For context, the song tells the story of someone that's feeling disconnected and trying to reconnect, from someone that teels as though the other person doesn't deserve their feelings. It talks about distance and from a other that isn't connecting to them and that doesn't seem to care about the writers behavior. It talks of emotional distance and of feeling as though they don't exist.”

That’s so sad 😭 R and T are always on an emotional roller coaster

“She then asked why T is so contradictory because for R at least makes some logical sense (she sees T a certain way and tries not to diverge from that, doesn't play hot and cold, doesn't run away like her ass is on fire) and she said that's because he doesn't want to feel this way about her, at all.”

Same, T, but R is like a fever you can’t shake 💀 I do think R is more reliable and consistent with her feelings which is good.

“He's contradictory because his feelings are. He knows he should love his girlfriend, doesn't want to repeat the same patterns he saw before, looking for love in people he'll never find it because he needs to learn to stand on his own two feet.”

Unfortunately he can’t control his feelings 🤭 you either love someone or you don’t. This applies to R and BB.

“It doesn't look good because he's pulling away emotionally which he apparently didn't do the first time he ghosted her and it's going to hurt R more than the first time. If R is somehow reading this, my friends advice is not to approach T now. He needs time because if she does seek him out he might say or do something he can't take back.”

He’s pulling away at a good time I guess. He has to promote BTK then will film AFTA later this year. He’s going to be very busy soon and can use work as an excuse.

“I know we all joke (and please take this with a grain of salt) but now would not be the time for any rash decisions to be made. He's hurting and he's doing one hell of job of hiding it from people.”

No, T 😭😭😭 stop, this reading hurts.

“She asked for another song and it went to Empty Space by James Arthur which if you listen to it, speaks for itself.”

Great music taste. Link to video lyrics.

#my answers #tarot orange

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cha-melodius · 9 months

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Hellooooo 16 and 20 for the ask game please and thanks!

I've got two of these writer asks lingering in my inbox because both asked the meta question (20), and although I answered it here for a chapter of Nova, Baby, I've also been like, I should do meta on different fics! So it's taken me a bit to get around to them. But thank you for asking!

16. Tried anything new with your writing lately? (style, POV, genre, fandom?)

I don't think I've tried anything TOO new since I started writing for RWRB, honestly. I'm trying to write more silly short fics, though, and there are some prompt scenarios in my inbox now that will definitely stretch my creative muscles (like the STI clinic meet cute, lmao).

20. Tell us the meta about your writing that you really want to ramble to people about (symbolism you’ve included, character or relationship development that you love, hidden references, callbacks or clues for future scenes?)

A bit of meta for All for a Taste of the Honey (aka FBI agents and stripper!Henry).

I have to admit when stripper!Henry swept the Brownstone, I did not think I would be participating. That's definitely a genre I don't usually write in. But then my brain gave me undercover-as-a-stripper as a concept, and undercover missions?? Now that's a genre I know. I chose FBI agents because I was in the middle of writing a CIA/MI6 AU (fun fact, I actually left @celeritas2997 and @cricketnationrise on a big cliffhanger in my docs and took a break to write this fic, lmao. I'm amazed they didn't murder me), and didn't want to overlap with that, but FBI agents was closer to spies than detectives or something. I just love writing bickering partners who are actually in love but just don't know it yet, and this was ripe for that.

(Spoilers below)

As with any undercover as a stripper trope fic worth its salt, the whole point of this one was to get Alex to have a breakdown over Henry stripping. Not just the taking off clothes and gyrating on stage, but the whole competency kink thing, because Henry's actually good at it. Also an excuse to put Henry in a slutty Navy uniform; the American flag briefs were chosen for maximum psychic damage to Alex. I like to think Henry kept them for the future and deploys them when he wants something.

Looking at this fic again, I think the part where Alex watches Henry come out on stage might be my highest frequency of italicized words in text ever. 😂 This boy was really suffering.

“Straight like you’re straight?” Henry asks smugly, like the absolute asshole he is. Alex hates him so much right now. “Or actually straight?”

I'm pretty sure this is everyone's favorite line based on how often it got quoted back to me in the comments, and it's mine too. Something about cocky, teasing Henry just gets to me.

I love Alex having a slow bisexual crisis, and I also love him getting hit over the head with a 2x4. This is the latter.

Henry had caught a small-caliber round to the gut on what should have been a simple sting, and Alex had not taken it particularly well. There’d been no real reason for him to linger at Henry’s bedside in the hospital, even though he’d desperately wanted to.

Just me hinting at one of my favorite tropes to write, the ol' sitting by the hospital bed of your injured partner standard. Often leads to feelings realizations. In people who aren't as dense as ACD.

The scene where Alex busts into the back room was probably the hardest part of this fic to write, because I needed Alex back there without raising too much of a ruckus, but I also needed Vega's security to be tight. Alex's distraction + quiet takedown of the bodyguards is very much a Michael Weston (Burn Notice) move.

“Apologies,” Henry says to the other dancers as they go. “Pleasure working with you. You were all very lovely.”

Henry being a Polite King delights me to no end.

The car chase + argument scene was possibly my second favorite part to write after Alex losing it in the club. For some reason I find car chases actually quite easy to write; I'd just written a really big one for a fic in a different fandom, so it was fresh in my mind I guess. I also love their fight over Alex being overprotective. I do remember hemming and hawing a bit at their words to make sure it wasn't too similar to one of their Alex-being-overprotective fights from Nova, Baby. (Yes, Alex being overprotective, especially when Henry doesn't need protecting, is a big fave of mine.)

then he’s climbing across the center console and into Alex’s lap, somehow managing to not bump into the car horn as he does so.

I spent too long thinking about if this (and everything that follows) is actually possible. I googled photos of cars. We're going to pretend that it is.

Henry’s hands sink into his curls

Pretty sure every fic I've ever written about them includes this line. I love being vindicated.

All right, I think that's all I've got for now! Thanks again for the ask!

#rwrb #about my writing #firstprince #red white and royal blue #rwrb fic

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peggychecksitout · 1 year

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The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

REVIEW: 5 STARS

“For those who feel homesick for a place they’ve never been to.”

Synopsis “When Zachary Ezra Rawlins borrows a strange book from his university library, it leads him on a quest unlike any other, for within its pages he finds a story containing a moment from his own childhood. Determined to track down the provenance of this mysterious book, Zachary encounters a dangerous secret society, a magical doorway to a subterranean labyrinthine library filled with stories, and makes some strange and enigmatic new friends. When this magical library is threatened, however, it falls to Zachary and his new friends to try and save it, all while he searches for the ending of his own story.”

“Those who seek even if they do not know what (or where) it is that they are seeking….”

I wanted to start my 2023 reading year off with a re-read of this book for two reasons. The first, because I wanted to start the year off reading a book I already knew I loved, and the second because the way this book talks about the transformative power of stories, and beginnings becoming endings but endings also becoming beginnings, feels very apropos to read while you are moving into a new calendar year.

So what do I love about this book?

The Starless Sea is a love letter to storytelling; it is about why stories and storytelling are important, as much as it is about those who love stories and why they do. As a person who is always thinking and daydreaming about her own make-believe stories (and trying to commit them to paper), this book went straight to the heart of who I am as a person, and made itself at home.

This book also shows off Morgenstern’s greatest strengths as a writer: her world-building and her prose. Morgenstern can write; her prose is simply gorgeous. It is in turns whimsical, magical, dreamlike and playful. The images she conjures on these pages are nothing short of being frankly, almost tangible—sort of like waking up with your last dream still dancing around in your head before it softly fades with the intrusion of the morning light. There’s a definite fairytale vibe to the entire book, that again, goes along with the greater themes about storytelling. I think anyone who is a lover of books has dreamed, at least once, of stumbling across a doorway that leads to a magical library, and reading this book certainly makes me daydream and yearn for such a place.

So what didn’t work for me?

If I had a quibble with anything, I would say the character work in this book isn’t the strongest, but I do think it’s still purposeful. The characters aren’t super fleshed out, instead, they have the same quality that characters in a fairytale do—they are there to serve the story, to supply metaphor and archetypes more than in-depth character studies, or to feel like real people. This is okay to a certain extent, but it does mean that if your entry point into a story is through character, this might not be the book for you. It’s not a deal breaker for me, because setting and plot are what suck me into a story, and I did still really like the characters, I just feel there were certain moments that would have hit harder, had the characters been more fleshed out.

“Those who seek will find. Their doors have been waiting for them.”

On the whole, my re-read of this book has cemented it as a forever favourite of mine. In fact, I have a quote from the book I would love to have a tattoo of, and there are ungodly things I would do for a ttrpg of The Starless Sea; there’s so much you could do with the Harbour alone—book themed dungeon crawls for daaaaaaays!!

So who is this book for?

I think if you like books about books, stories about stories, stories within stories, and stories that get a bit meta, this is the book for you. I also think if you like the dark academia / books + secrets = love kind of setting, are a lover of open world gaming, and play a few ttrpg’s, then this is the book for you. And if you like star-crossed lovers, soul mates, heroes journey and hero of another story tropes, then hey, this just might be the book for you.

“And no story every truly ends as long as it is told.”

(id in alt text)

#book review #the starless sea #erin morgenstern #booklr #book blog #bookworm

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twosides--samecoin · 5 months

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sending you more of these because i loved reading your responses to the musical ones: 6, 13, 21, and 29 for the fic writer asks?

Thank you, I really enjoy writer asks and I appreciate being sent them! I ramble a LOT however :'D

6. Are there any fics from others you reread all the time?

I have not been able to read fic for fun since I started writing, partly because I do not want to plagiarize or have to dance around someone else's story ideas with Fallout. The only fully recreational, non-research, non-fic reading I have been able to do in two years has been the Alexander Hamilton biography by Ron Chernow, and even then if I don't get background guilt about not doing fic-related reading, I find parallels and things I want to reference and quote anyway. I would read other fic if I could, I just think I won't be able to read Fallout fic unless it is outside my niche (RJ MacCready/Fallout 4)

13. How much planning do you do before writing?

I do round the clock planning; I am kind of always rearranging a new chapter in my head. Most of them start as daydreams; quite often, especially in the earliest chapters, I would have an idea and would just draft and draft and think through it as I wrote, only going back or taking pause to think on dialogue or edit. Planning is normally in the form of research for things I need to figure out to make the world make sense and to ensure things don't take too much suspension of disbelief. I used to edit the old Fallout wiki, Nukapedia, and if I am writing a chapter you can bet I have 10 or 15 tabs open to help me double check spelling and continuity between my story and the game world people know.

21. Have you ever deleted an entire scene after spending hours laboring over it? If so, why?

The original intro to Long Time Running was scrapped. It was too wrapped in mystery. I am so glad I did so, because the first chapter holds up well. It has a good hook and is upfront about where it starts in the Fallout story - it is clear from the outset that my SoSu has been the Minutemen General for a while, and that RJ is beginning the fic at the normal end point of his questline, while also creating a reason for the reader to come back and read more. I hope it is successful and makes people curious to see why I started the story where I did.

29. Share a bit from a fic you’ll never post OR from a scene that was cut from an already posted fic. (If you don’t have either, just share a random fic idea you have that you don’t plan on getting to.)

I have managed to hang on to a lot. I do have a Google Doc that is retconned/scrapped ideas for the fic, but it's mostly things that necessitated a change after having been written; like stuff I changed my mind on. So a fic idea I have but don't plan on doing is a Cait x Piper Wright romance. I love the idea, I just don't know if I have it in me to deliver the same quality fic as an independent story!

#thanks for the ask!#I'M SORRY I RAMBLE SO MUCH #stay excellent tumblr user leavingautumn13 #long time running #writing #ask game #fallout 4 #robert joseph maccready #fo4 #fallout fanfiction

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lastweeksshirttonight · 1 year

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April is here and so is more looking back at the past ten seasons of Last Week Tonight. Wooo!

I'm going to aim to have Last Lee Tonight posted every week on Thursdays. Work is always a wrench in my plans but I'm pretty sure I can keep up that pace. They'll let me leave at some point right? hahaha help.

Now that the admin notes are out of the way, let's get cracking.

Last Lee Tonight (wherein John waited three episodes to dump music knowledge on us and honestly I'm impressed he waited that long) Season One, Episode Three

(original air date: 5/11/2014) Major topics covered: global warming; campaign finance and 2014 Senate political ads; Russia/Ukraine tensions

"History was made this week. ...Technically, history is made every week, that's kind of how history works."

We are still in that unique transitory period where John's team has figured out that longform segments are probably the way to go... but aren't really sure how to best utilize the rest of their show's time. The first two episodes were marked contrasts to each other structurally and were easier to compare. This third episode is all over the place, rushing through the first small segment on football, before covering a wide array of information and sources on Russian actions in around 8 minutes, which then gets us to our first main segment about ten minutes in. You can tell that the writers are still really trying to work out how to best structure their strange new show.

We start the episode talking about the first openly gay player in the NFL, Michael Sam, something I swear happened both earlier than and later than 2014. I fucking love that ESPN completely ignored the player in question's sexuality and just talked stats and genericisms. SPORTS!

We don't spend long there, as we move straight into discussing the present Ukranian/Russian tensions, first through the lens of Eurovision. I am truly shocked that John hasn't covered Eurovision every damn year, because it's the kind of overly theatrical camp nonsense he adores. We get a very Daily Show-esque bit where John grabs a paper way on the other side of his desk to quote Russia's entry, and it makes me sad that the audience barely registers it as a joke.

Also shit Conchita Wurst won Eurovision nearly ten years ago. I feel so fucking old.

Russia also recently annexed Crimea at the time, and John briefly covers the struggles Putin will have with the annexation. Putin is busy minting a two-pound commemorative coin over his 'victory', so we get a fake commercial for the "Worthless Desolate Landmass Commemorative Coin". This feels very much like a Bugle bit, complete with the satirical underpinning of acknowledging that Russia will actively make Crimeans' lives worse. And obviously Putin shirtless on a horse.

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(I know that continually mentioning other things John has done that line up with these LWT bits probably seems a bit harsh or uncharitable, but LWT was clearly still trying to find a voice that wasn't cribbed from the two productions John was most associated with - to say nothing of the gigantic shadow The Colbert Report cast over every talking-head show in its wake. There's a lot of what I'd consider essential LWT that's been completely missing from these early episodes, from the common running gags of being a furry and shitting on his appearance, to a more unhinged level of social disruption and trolling, to even some of his linguistic choices - and that honestly makes sense. John has said multiple times that no one on the show had any idea what they were doing at this point, so why not pull from things that worked before?)

The first major story starts 10 minutes in, and regards campaign finance. The FEC has allowed bitcoin contributions to campaigns and jesus christ kill me now

Sorry. Campaign finance just innately pisses me off, and John gets me by basically saying "what else is left" while listing off all the campaign finance fuckery of the past few years at that time. I wish 2023 Me and 2023 John did not have to see what else was left.

John's joke about cribbing band names from the Kentucky Derby is gold. Tag yourself I'm California Chrome.

We get our first delightfully off impression of the series from John in this section - it's the rich evil Southern gentleman voice, in the form of Mitch McConnell threatening to kill people with a shovel over his love of coal. No amount of context will help me explain that better.

John also confirms that Mitch McConnell is not a homegrown Kentucky girl like his then-competitor, Alison Lundergan Grimes, by noting that "Politifact rates that true". I laughed so hard at that I had to pause. Please bring that gag back.

The Kentucky piece is overall worth watching, as it hits how campaign finance has influenced political advertising in ways directly detrimental to statewide and nationwide issues of import. The only part of this on YouTube is the capper, where John makes the most over-the-top and morally repugnant ads he can possibly think of. Trigger warning for gory violence including disembowelment, implied animal cruelty, and old man and middle-aged nudity. (Required note from this blog: it is not John Oliver nude. Fucking weirdoes, the lot of you [/j]) Link is here bc the video is, quite reasonably, age-restricted.

We now move to our very first "How Is This Still A Thing?", with the subject "Dressing Up as Other Races". Honestly no notes here, this segment came out the gate strong and basically in the same format it retains in the current day. (Seriously stop using other cultures as a costume.)

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Finally, with five minutes left, we get to the segment Wikipedia thinks is the main one, on climate change. (The pacing of LWT Season One is a rollercoaster.) Global warming in 2014 threatens everything, yet 1 in 4 Americans think it doesn't exist. I would like to travel through time to scream at them and John thinks even talking about that kind of stat is fucking pointless. Bill Nye is brought on to have a statistically representative debate on the topic, which involves a random fuckload of people being on stage at once. I love the chaos but this is a very slim bit.

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This was the weirdest episode to watch so far, I think. They took the lessons of the last episode and did attempt to apply them, but we aren't quite at the sweet spot of LWT pacing and structure yet. We'll get there eventually, I'm sure.

Random notes:

Lee obviously focuses on important things corner: After the absolute banger that was "red check pattern" last week, we return to neutral blue shirt and bubble-patterned navy tie. The unique tie elevates this to a 8/10 look, but one thing I cannot wait to get to is his "bold outfit choice" era of shit like silver suit and blue check shirt.

John describing bitcoin as something only "heroin dealers and assassins" use makes me yearn for the innocent time of 2014, when people were not trying to sell me every goddamn coin and ape doodle and metaverse on earth.

The YouTube team for this episode truly had no idea what to clip for this one. Their main segment doesn't have an authorized clip, and I don't know why they decided to take a 5 minute segment and make two clips out of it, an abbreviated version and a full version.

Speaking of weird shit on the LWT YouTube, have this 45 second bit of HBO selling the fuck out of their new show and John being obviously uncomfortable with it. However, in this clip he is, and I say this with a minimal amount of bias, hot as fuck. ("I'm no one's idea of a photogenic human being" SHUT UP MATE MY GOD)

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I found this ad on their YouTube as well, which was very fun. Back when we expected some actual timely news discussion on LWT!

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#john oliver #last week tonight #last week tonight with john oliver #last lee tonight #bangs appreciation hours #truly that buzz clip is so fucking odd #Youtube

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fizzingwizard · 10 months

Text

On Methods for Gauging Reader Interest, because it's not just about comments!

Initially, comments and kudos are what matter most to me. Hits only show how many people click, so when I post a new fic or a first chapter, there's no way to know whether people stick around till the end unless they leave kudos or comment.

For fics with multiple chapters/installments, hits begin to matter as kudos dry up. You can leave kudos on AO3 once per fic. The only way to show extra support to a writer afterward is to comment on each chapter. But a lot more people are going to read than are going to leave comments. If you start looking at hits and thinking of them as little kudos themselves, that's something. Of course some of those people are still clicking and leaving without reading to the end. But it's safe to assume that enough aren't, especially if you see a similar or increased count of new hits each time you update.

Don't overlook bookmarks! If someone's bookmarked or subscribed to your fic, count it in your head as kudos. And don't forget that on AO3 you can have private bookmarks which don't show in the public bookmark count. Check your stats and you might find your fic is bookmarked significantly more often than it appears to be. (Also check what your public bookmarks are because sometimes people leave mini reviews in them and it's such a sweet surprise!)

All fics lose interaction relative to when they were published after they haven't been updated for a while. So if you want to know whether anyone's reading your "old" fic (in quotes because I find fics are treated as old pretty much as soon as they're completed and off the first page of results!), but kudos are rare and comments are rarer still: look at hits. Indulge in that wiggle of joy you get when you see there are people reading. It's not silly to do that. That's a person who noticed your fic and was interested enough to open it.

While comments will always give the biggest serotonin boost for most of us, I think that a lot of the reason we don't feel the same towards hits is simply because they're not comments. We've programmed ourselves to see certain forms of interaction as more valuable. But if you think about it, fan art here on tumblr gets a lot more likes than it does reblogs or comments. Likes on tumblr can mean you liked the art, or you're bookmarking it for later, or even that you don't like it and are planning to rant about it. Plus people can revoke Likes any time they want, which you can't do with comments or kudos.

Likes are the bare minimum for interaction tumblr, and hits are the bare minimum for AO3. Art will still have more, because it's quicker to take in a picture than it is to read even a short fic, and easier to make a judgment on whether or not you enjoy it. But the value of that interaction isn't necessarily different if you equate likes to hits. In both cases, comments and shares occur less. Interaction is largely wordless - that's just how it is. But that lack of words doesn't mean lack of interest. You've got to arrange your mentality to interpret the coded message.

This may sound like a case for quantity over quality, but that's not my intention. I know as well as any fic writer how a joyful comment can power me through the whole of the next chapter, while posting and not getting any response for weeks can feel like I might as well give up and become an accountant. :P But it's completely out of our control. And it's better to focus on what you can control than what you can't.

"I don't get enough reader response" is a common refrain which I've heard since I posted my first ever fic as wide-eyed eleven-year-old. Over the years, I found that my reliance on comments dropped as I came to value other forms of engagement more highly, as I think they deserve to be. It doesn't mean I don't still adore my commenters, it just means I am more aware of my quiet readers and adoring them as well has done wonders for my confidence as a writer :)

#fanfiction #not that anyone asked for this post but its a saturday and im feeling chatty #ao3 #writing

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