#there are definitely typos because i hate reading my own writing so i suck at proofreading | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

becca-petersen · 4 years

Text

A Better Friend (fanfic)

So... I finally finished chapter one of my Gretchen/Janis fanfiction. I’m going to post it on fanfiction and possibly ao3 (which I’ve never used before so we’ll see how that works out), but I thought I’d post it here first! It’s not my best work and it’s a multi-chapter fic so it’s not completed, but at least it’s a start! I’m going to put it under the cut because it’s long. I hope you read and enjoy!

A Better Friend

A Mean Girls the musical fanfic

Gretchen was eager for the final bell to ring. In fact, she’d given up on even pretending to listen to Ms. Norbury’s lecture. Gretchen always struggled to pay attention during math class, and today was no exception. Gretchen had something far more important than trigonometry on the brain. She gripped her hot pink, jewel encrusted pen, tapping it against her desk anxiously. Usually, Gretchen would discreetly pull her phone out of her bag and scroll through Instagram or text Regina under her desk where Ms. Norbury couldn’t see. But today, she wasn’t just afraid of Ms. Norbury catching her in the act.

Gretchen brought her pen to her mouth and chewed on the button, pushing it down and pulling it back up with her teeth. She could feel her heart fluttering in her chest, and butterflies tickling her stomach. The end of the school day had quickly grown to have new meaning to Gretchen. It meant she could go home and talk to the only person that truly understood and accepted her.

When the ball rang, a sharp scream against the monotonous drone of Ms. Norbury’s lecture, Gretchen was relieved. She stood up instantly, gathering her books and her bag before she hurried out of the classroom and toward the senior parking lot. Usually Gretchen carpooled with Regina and Karen, but she hadn’t been ready by the time Regina pulled into her driveway. The older girl honked three times, and when Gretchen didn’t appear on the third shriek of the horn, Regina pulled out of the driveway without her. That was okay. Gretchen didn’t blame her for not waiting. She’d been so late that morning, she missed first period. Luckily, Gretchen was impressively gifted at forging notes from her parents.

The thing that had kept her up so late was the same thing that caused her to half-run towards her Barbie-pink Mercedes-Benz as soon as school let out. She hardly even paid attention to her rearview mirror as she backed out of her parking spot. Her hands gripped the wheel tightly as she turned onto the busy street. Gretchen groaned each time she had to press her stilettoed foot down on the brake to wait for one of her classmates to cross the street on foot in front of her. Each stop light Gretchen hit felt like a personal attack against her. She jerked the wheel abruptly to the right and raced down the last street before she got home.

She turned her car off and pulled the key out of the ignition, sticking her middle finger through the key chain and hitting the button to lock her vehicle as she opened the front door and walked inside. She didn’t bother checking for her parents, she knew they weren’t home. They always worked late, and Gretchen had learned not to waste time waiting up for them. She slipped her shoes off and left them beside the door, a family rule - no shoes in the house. Frankly, Gretchen’s feet needed the break from her too-high stilettos. She gripped her phone in her hand, leaving her backpack and homework to be neglected until late Sunday night, and raced up the stairs, padding her bare feet against the wool carpet. When Gretchen reached her bedroom, she carefully closed and locked the door behind her, just to be safe.

Gretchen’s room was understated compared only to Regina’s. She had to beg her parents to let her paint the walls pink, which she only decided to do after Regina said she should. They used to be blue and yellow, but Gretchen really did like the pink better. Even if it didn’t really match the yellow carpet or her blue comforter.

Gretchen sat down at her desk, which used to be her grandmother’s. Regina said it was hideous the first time she saw it, but Gretchen’s mother wouldn’t let her move it downstairs to the den. Gretchen had liked the desk before Regina said it wasn’t cool. Now she grimaced every time she sat down at it.

Gretchen grabbed her bright pink laptop and flipped it open, typing in her password, F3tchGr3tch01, to unlock the screen. She already had the website open because she fell asleep without turning her computer off. She clicked the refresh button in the top corner and waited impatiently as the screen went blank, then returned to the display of her inbox.

‘You have (2) new messages!’ the pop-up said. Gretchen clicked it, and she was redirected to the message screen.

ipaintdeadflowers - believe me, it’s good. i don’t know why you’re always doubting yourself.

ipaintdeadflowers - it looks like you fell asleep. i guess i better go to bed, too. sweet dreams. i’m going to paint something for you in art class tomorrow.

Gretchen smiled. Nobody had ever painted something for her before. She had only ever dated Jason Weems, who didn’t even like to be seen in public with her. Not that she was dating this online… person. Gretchen didn’t even know what ipaintdeadflowers looked like. In fact, Gretchen didn’t even know her name. She began to type.

you - That’s adorable. Sorry I fell asleep. I wanted to stay up talking to you, but I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I can’t wait to see what you painted for me.

Gretchen hesitated a second on the enter button. Then she pushed it, her computer making a little ping noise. Almost immediately, three dots came up below her message, appearing and disappearing as her companion typed. Another ping sounded as she received a new message.

ipaintdeadflowers - it’s fine. i get it. how was your day? here’s the painting, by the way. i didn’t get it completely done because i ran out of time, but i’ll finish it tomorrow. paintingforg.jpg

Gretchen clicked on the file. She smiled. Her friend was so talented. The painting was colorful, like all J’s paintings were. The colors faded together so seamlessly, too. J was fearless. She flicked her brush like she didn’t care if what she made turned out ugly - which it never did. This painting was of the night sky, the stars and moon practically shining on the page. In the corner, she could see J’s thumb, holding the painting down for the picture. Her fingernail was painted black.

you - It looks done to me. It looks great. I love it.

ipaintdeadflowers - i just need to do some shading. then it’ll be tits. that dress you sent me last night really inspired me.

you - I can see that. Your painting is so much better than my drawing, though.

ipaintdeadflowers - don’t say that. you are so talented. one day you’ll be headlining fashion shows all over the world. i hope you don’t forget me when that happens.

you - I would never forget you. You’re one of the only people I can talk to. Like, about real stuff.

ipaintdeadflowers - i still think you should stop hanging out with that girl you always tell me about. you deserve to have friends who are nice to you. she sounds like a friend i used to have… and if she really is like that, things will end badly. trust me.

you - It’s more complicated than that. We’ve been best friends for years. Besides, who would be my friend if I ditched them? Who would I sit with at lunch?

ipaintdeadflowers - i would be your friend. i would sit with you at lunch.

Gretchen bit her lip. It was only a fantasy. She wouldn’t really stand up to Regina or go sit with J at lunch. It was too crazy. Gretchen liked having structure in her life. She hated the unknown, and the real J, the one who wasn’t sitting behind a screen typing, she was completely foreign to Gretchen. Gretchen started to type.

you - You won’t even show me what you look like.

ipaintdeadflowers - neither will you

Gretchen didn’t know why she was so desperate to see J’s face. She spent a lot of time imagining her. Her nose, her eyes, her lips… Her neck, her jaw, the curve of her shoulder… No. Gretchen couldn’t go there. She saw how Regina chewed up and spit out her old friend from middle school. She had to force herself to fake laugh every time Regina opened up to that page in the Burn Book. Gretchen had closed that part of herself off. She couldn’t… But she wanted to. Maybe it would be okay, if she told this friend. J didn’t even know her real name. It’s not like J could spread it around school.

you - have you ever kissed anybody?

There was a long pause as those three little dots began rotating again below her message. Gretchen twirled a piece of hair around her finger as she waited.

ipaintdeadflowers - what does that have to do with anything?

you - I just wondered.

ipaintdeadflowers - have you?

Gretchen tied the chunk of hair she was fiddling with into a knot, then let it go. It immediately unraveled, spilling back down onto her shoulder. She lifted a tube of chapstick beside her keyboard, uncapping it before she brought it to her lips. One, two, three swipes across her mouth, then she rubbed her lips together. She took her time capping the tube and setting it back where she’d found it. Gretchen breathed out slowly, silently counting to three.

She brought her fingers back to the keyboard and began to type. She looked at what she’d written, then groaned and tapped the backspace key repeatedly until her message had disappeared. She tried again to type something, but her words fell short once more. Gretchen had attempted to deny the feelings she was developing for the other girl for far too long. But as hard as she tried, she couldn’t lie to herself. It went beyond friendship and Gretchen knew it. But J had never expressed that kind of interest in Gretchen. And Gretchen hated the idea of putting herself out there only to get rejected. And besides, she hadn’t wanted anything to ruin the special bond the two girls shared.

ipaintdeadflowers - g? you still there?

you - Yeah, I am. I’m sorry. I’m just trying to think of the right thing to say.

ipaintdeadflowers - you don’t always have to say the right thing. especially not with me. you know that, right?

you - Yeah… I do.

Gretchen’s heart was pounding a little faster in her chest. She could see that J was typing, but she knew if she didn’t send her message right now, she would lose the nerve forever.

you - I like you.

ipaintdeadflowers - yeah, i like you too

you - I mean, I like-like you.

ipaintdeadflowers - oh.

Gretchen’s heart sank in her chest. That was the sort of response she’d been expecting, but that didn’t make it any less disappointing. She was hurt and embarrassed. She started to type another message.

you - forget I said anything. Never mind. I was only kidding.

ipaintdeadflowers - no. don’t take it back. i’m sorry. i was just surprised. the thing is, i like you too. i don’t usually like anyone, but i like you.

you - You do?!?

ipaintdeadflowers - yeah. i mean… it’s not easy for me to talk about this stuff. i’m not great with feelings. i just… i like you a lot. i wasn’t sure if you were even…

ipaintdeadflowers - i just didn’t know how you would feel if i said anything. i didn’t want to make things weird between us.

The disappointment Gretchen felt only moments ago completely melted away. She only felt joy, pure and unadulterated joy. She stood up from her chair and did a little dance around her room, squealing to herself as butterflies fluttered in her chest. Giddy couldn’t even begin to describe how happy she felt as she slid back into her chair and began to type again.

you - So… Have you ever kissed anyone?

ipaintdeadflowers - why do you care so much about that?

you - Because I really want to kiss you.

ipaintdeadflowers - g. you don’t even know what i look like.

you - I don’t care what you look like. I would want to kiss you even if you were ugly. That’s how much I like you.

ipaintdeadflowers - you are absolutely ridiculous and i like you so fucking much.

you - Do you think we could meet in person sometime?

ipaintdeadflowers - hey, i know this is a bad time but i really have to go. i’ll talk to you tonight? bye, g

Then the message “ipaintdeadflowers has left the chat room” popped up below her message. Gretchen sighed, typing a goodbye back to J even though she wouldn’t read it until she returned. Every time Gretchen tried to arrange a meeting with the other girl, she got distant or defensive, then told Gretchen she had to go, but would be back later. Whenever J came back, she always changed the subject, and Gretchen never felt like pushing the issue too far.

Of course Gretchen had considered that she was being catfished. But for that to make any sense, she figured J would need to be pretending to be someone she wasn’t. And that didn’t seem to be the case. J never sent any pictures of her face and never told Gretchen her real name, first or last. If J was a catfish, she was a pretty bad one.

Gretchen was disappointed that her friend left so abruptly, but her heart still fluttered when she remembered the content of their conversation. J liked her, too. Gretchen couldn’t help but smile. She scrolled back up and reread those words over and over again. It felt like a dream. She didn’t want to wake up.

Gretchen met J on a forum for young artists. Ever since she was a little girl, Gretchen wanted to design clothes. She spent most of her free time creating renderings of her designs, and since she knew her parents wouldn’t support her passion, and her friends would likely think it was stupid, she looked for a different outlet to share her talents. She found the website by chance. There was an advertisement for it on the website she bought her art supplies from. She created her account and within a few minutes she’d read through every recent thread, and she kept noticing ipaintdeadflowers’s username. Out of curiosity, she clicked on the name, which brought her to J’s profile page, where Gretchen found all the artwork J had posted to the website throughout the last few years. Gretchen liked her paintings so much that she decided to reach out to the other girl, though it took her a few minutes of agonizing before she clicked send on her message. She could still remember it.

you - Hi. I don’t mean to bother you, but I just wanted to let you know that you’re really talented. I’m glad you share all your art on here. If I sent you my drawings, would you tell me how to make them better? I’m just starting out and I could use some advice. Thank you so much for your time. Again, I’m sorry if this message is annoying. I totally get it if you aren’t interested.

It took Gretchen a week to actually send that message. She typed it out, then copied and pasted it into a Google Docs file and made little edits every day to phrasing, swapped sentences around, and rewrote it entirely until finally, one night, she pasted it into the message box and pressed send. Then she shut her laptop and didn’t open it back up for days. Gretchen hated rejection. She was sure ipaintdeadflowers would just ignore her message. Or even worse, she thought maybe she would tell Gretchen she was being entitled and that ipaintdeadflowers owed her nothing. Gretchen often found herself thinking of the worst possible outcomes and then mulling over the gruesome possibilities for days on end.

But J had messaged back almost immediately. And she was nothing but kind.

ipaintdeadflowers - hey. it’s actually no problem at all. i would be happy to look at your stuff.

From then on, Gretchen and J talked every single day. They sent each other pictures of their artwork and offered each other gentle, thoughtful critiques as well as genuine and joyful praise. J taught Gretchen different techniques and told her all about the best materials. Gretchen spent her allowance on a Sennelier French Artist’s Watercolor Set, on Kolinsky Sable watercolor brushes, on Strathmore sketch paper, and on every color of Prismacolor markers and colored pencils she could find.

J didn’t just help Gretchen improve artistically. Their late night talks about Yayoi Kusama and Anna Wintour soon turned into conversations about schoolwork, friends, and dreams of moving to New York City to pursue art after graduation. J became Gretchen’s closest friend so quickly that Gretchen didn’t even realize it was happening until she started checking her messages as soon as she woke up every morning and falling asleep at her desk as she waited impatiently for J to reply. J was the only person who got to see Gretchen for who she really was. J was the only person Gretchen even trusted to know her, the real her, and not walk away or ask her to change.

Gretchen hadn’t told J her real name. She didn’t want her parents or anyone at school to find out she’d been messaging a stranger online. And she didn’t want J to figure out who she really was, either. Instead, she’d taken a page out of J’s book and simply gone by ‘G.’ It wasn’t like she ever messaged anyone else on the website, or even publicly posted her art or commented on anyone else’s, but to J, she was G.

Gretchen awoke the next morning to a message from J.After their mutual confessions, she’d avoided her inbox for the rest of the night, just in case J took back her admission in the night. J hadn’t messaged her again the previous night, either, so at least Gretchen hadn’t missed anything. It was the ping of the message arriving in her inbox that woke Gretchen up. She opened her eyes and groaned. It was only 6:00 AM. She’d been planning on sleeping another half hour.

Gretchen sat up, pushing her electric blue comforter off of her legs as she stood up and walked over to her computer, which she hadn’t shut before she’d gone to bed. She ran her finger along the touchpad until she reached the refresh button, which she clicked instantly.

ipaintdeadflowers - okay g. i came to school early and finished your painting. i’ve got something else for you, too. i’m going to leave it at the school for you. i have this secret hiding place. there’s a locker at the end of the hall by the art studio. it’s a tall yellow one, and it’s the only one there. i found out it was empty last year, i’ve been keeping stuff in there ever since. i put a combination lock on it. the code is 7274.

you - Okay, I’ll stop by after school. You won’t be there, right?

ipaintdeadflowers - nope. my best friend wrote this ridiculous one-man play that he’s starring in and it’s playing its one and only performance tonight… so i’m going to go help him set it up as soon as the final bell rings. i’ll message you as soon as it’s over, though.

you - Okay. Well… Can I call you right now?

Gretchen’s parents had undoubtedly already left for work, so she had no problem talking to J. No one would hear them. Regina wouldn’t be by to pick her up for another hour and a half.

ipaintdeadflowers - okay, but it has to be quick. my parents are still sleeping.

you - I just want to hear your voice.

Before Gretchen could even pick up her phone to dial J’s number, it started ringing. Her name in Gretchen’s contacts was the letter J, followed by a wilted flower emoji. It was inconspicuous enough that if J ever texted her, which she hardly ever did, Regina wouldn’t see it and ask questions, but specific enough that Gretchen would always smile when she saw the name pop up on her phone.

She cleared her throat and smoothed over her hair, as if J could see her through the phone, before answering with an overly-cheerful “Hello!”

“Sounds like you slept well last night,” J said through the phone. Her voice was lower than Gretchen’s, but had a nice melodic tone to it. She and J hardly ever spoke on the phone, yet Gretchen could never forget the sound of J’s voice. That voice had talked her down from several panic attacks, and lulled her to sleep on her most restless nights.

“I guess I did. Maybe because I didn’t stay up all night talking to you,” Gretchen said, standing up to go to her closet. She’d already picked today’s outfit the night before, so it was hanging in the front of her closet. She pulled it out, pressing the button to put J on speaker phone, then threw the phone onto the end of her bed as she began to undress, then re-dress. “I did have to sit on a three way call with… Sharon and Georgina for a few hours, though.” Those were the fake names she’d given Karen and Regina. They were two of the most popular girls in school, so she hadn’t dared give their real names, but she admittedly could have been more thoughtful when creating their aliases.

“Well, it’s good to know I make you as sleep-deprived as you make me,” J paused. Gretchen imagined her twirling the telephone cord around her finger. J usually called Gretchen from her landline, which Gretchen didn’t even realize anyone still used. “Do you want to watch a movie tonight?”

“What about your friend’s play?” Gretchen asked. She was now fully dressed, examining her appearance in the mirror for a moment before she pulled her curling iron out of the drawer and plugged it into the outlet to heat up.

“Yeah, I meant after. It’s Friday, right? We could stay up late.” J hesitated again. “We could watch something… romantic. You like that stuff, right?”

“Yeah! I mean, yeah. We’ll have to see what’s on Netflix.” Of course Gretchen and J wouldn’t actually watch the movie together. They would just stream the movie at the same time and message each other any interesting thoughts or reactions. “Maybe tomorrow we could actually meet though, in person. We could go to the mall or the park or… or actually see a movie together instead of just watching it at the same time.”

“I… want to, I just… I have to go, okay? Can we talk about it tonight? I promise we’ll talk. Bye, G.” J immediately hung up the phone, before Gretchen even had the chance to say goodbye in response.

Gretchen sighed, then threw her phone onto her bed in frustration. She wanted to believe that J really liked her back, but it was hard when J continually avoided any opportunity to actually meet Gretchen in person. All Gretchen wanted was to hold J’s hand, cuddle into the crook of her neck, kiss her jaw, her chin, her lips… But maybe she’d never even meet the other girl.

Gretchen lifted a clip and began to section her hair so she could curl it. Because of the length and thickness, it usually took Gretchen an hour or more to style it, and she couldn’t keep Regina waiting for two days in a row. Even though all she really wanted to do was sit down at her computer and read those words over and over again. “You are absolutely ridiculous and I like you so fucking much.” She grinned to herself as she lifted her curling iron in one hand and a chunk of hair in the other, twisting it around the barrel carefully. I like you, I like you, I like you.

Gretchen couldn’t wait for the school day to end.

“Earth to Gretchen,” Regina said, snapping at her friend’s face for the third time in the past minute. “Hello? Are you still in there?”

“What?” Gretchen asked, blinking hard as Regina severed her from her daydream. “Sorry, I spaced out. I have a history test today. I totally think I’m going to fail.” Gretchen began to twirl a piece of hair around her finger, glancing around the cafeteria in search of her mystery chatroom girlfriend.

“Gretchen, we’re in the same history class. We don’t have a test today,” Regina said, looking at Gretchen with eyes so sharp they could kill.

“Right, I meant math. Sorry. See? I’m definitely going to fail.” It was hard for Gretchen to lie to Regina. One lip quiver or too many blinks and Regina would back Gretchen into a corner and hound her until she confessed the real truth. So Gretchen tried her best to remain nonchalant.

“We have a math test today?” Karen asked, wide-eyed. She looked from Gretchen to Regina and back again, then fake coughed into her elbow a few times. “I think I’m coming down with something… I’m going to go to the nurse.” She stood, lifting her red lunch tray, and quickly walked over to discard her uneaten food in a large gray garbage can before placing her tray on top of the pile of dirty ones on top of it. Then without missing a beat, Karen turned and ran out of the cafeteria, shouting for the nurse as she went.

With Karen out of the way, Regina slid over on the pale blue bench to be seated closer to Gretchen, lifting her hand to move her hair off her shoulder. Gretchen ignored her. She was looking at the large Homecoming banner that hung above the exit. It was handmade, with neat gold lettering on stark black paper. HOCO DANCE NEXT FRIDAY - $10 PER TICKET! Gretchen would have loved to take J to the dance. She knew J probably didn’t even like to dance, and Gretchen didn’t like to be gawked at, but going to a homecoming dance was something a normal high school couple would do. And Gretchen so badly wished their relationship could be normal.

“Gretchen!” Regina nearly shouted, and Gretchen immediately turned to look at her. “What’s going on? You keep ignoring me.”

“I’m sorry, Regina,” she said, licking her lips. “I didn’t sleep well last night, that’s all.”

“Okay… I was just saying, Karen and I wanted to go to the movies tonight. You’re coming, right?” she asked.

Before Gretchen could answer, there was a loud eruption of laughter from the art table. That kid Damian was standing on top of it, attempting to do the floss dance while his friends chanted something Gretchen thought she recognized as “Laura Dern.” Regina widened her eyes, then rolled them. She stood, lifting her bag and slinging it over her shoulder.

“I literally cannot be in this vicinity for another second or all their loser is gonna rub off on me.” She kissed her middle and pointer fingers, then waved them at Gretchen. She picked up her tray before she walked away, calling over her shoulder: “See you tonight, biatch. I’ll pick you up at six.”

“Okay,” Gretchen said absentmindedly as Regina walked away. She hadn’t been listening. Instead, she was studying the faces of all the girls seated at the art table, wondering if one of them could be J.

Although it felt like several years had passed within the span of Gretchen’s eight hour day, the final bell finally rang not a second too soon, and Gretchen darted out of her math class without a word to anyone. Her chartreuse Louboutin pumps clicked against the tile floor as she hurried down the hall and around the corner. She’d never been inside the art room before. Regina thought anyone who did art was a freak, so Gretchen would never be caught dead taking any classes. She knew how to get there, though, because she passed it every day on her way to lunch in hopes of somehow bumping into J. Walking by the art room added at least three minutes onto her commute to lunch, but Gretchen didn’t care.

She’d never noticed the locker before. It was nicely hidden. At the end of the long hallway, there was a T. Going left took you to the cafeteria, but going right took you to a dead end, and the yellow locker was nestled into the corner. Gretchen looked around for a second, then kneeled down and twisted the combination to the correct numbers. 7274. She pulled the lock and it clicked open. Gretchen swung the door open and looked inside, smiling. There was a flower inside, a yellow rose, with a small note tied to it. Gretchen opened it. Turns out the florist doesn’t sell these in black. Love, J. Gretchen grinned, feeling her heart flutter as she carefully re-folded the note. Gretchen opened her backpack and slipped the flower and note into it. She would be cautious not to smush the flower, but she couldn’t just walk out of school with it without people asking who it was from.

Gretchen lifted one of the papers that had been underneath the rose. It was a sketch of a girl done all in pencil. Her face wasn’t entirely visible, only a side profile, but she had long brown hair and full lips twisted into a smile. At the bottom, J had written “G - I wanted to draw a picture of you, but I don’t know what you look like. So I drew this instead. Hope you like it. - J.” Gretchen carefully rolled to drawing up and stuffed it into her bag, too. Then, she lifted the final present, the painting J had previewed for her the night before. J must have come into school early to finish it. It was breathtakingly beautiful, with blue-blacks and violets and silvers, all intricately melted together to make a night sky Gretchen only wished she could look up to every night. The painting came without a note, but it didn’t need one.

Gretchen felt her eyes watering slightly. She reached up to wipe them before her mascara could run. Then, she tore a piece of loose-leaf paper out of her binder and began to scribble a silly love note back to J. Once it was finished, she signed her name and set it on the shelf inside the locker. Then she closed it and bent down to spin the lock to random numbers so nobody else could get in and find it but J.

Gretchen rolled to painting up and stuffed it into her bag as well. She hated to risk ruining J’s hard work, but the last thing she needed was for Regina to spot her with it and start asking too many questions. She zipped her backpack up and slid it over her shoulders, walking away with a bigger smile than the one she’d arrived with. She lifted her phone, about to text J a thank you, but thought better of it and returned the device to her pocket. She would wait until she got home and message J instead. For some reason, that just felt right. Gretchen pulled her keys from her pocket and made her way to the exit, smiling and humming to herself all the way to her car. She couldn’t wait to hear from J again later that night. Plus, Gretchen had some planning to do. She wanted to give J an equally heartwarming surprise in return.

Janis wasn’t one for romance. She could count the girls she’d liked in her whole lifetime on one hand. She didn’t like to be vulnerable or feel too close to anyone. So, maybe everything that happened with designingdreams was fate. Janis had spent years on youngartforyoungartists, or yaya, and only received a handful of messages. And she hadn’t replied to a single one. But something about G’s message, about how hopeful and harmless and endearing it was… made Janis want to reply. And more than that, it made Janis want to know G, to really see her in a way she hadn’t cared to see anyone else.

Janis had never been in love before… but she knew what it was supposed to feel like. It was a tingling in your chest, and your fingers, and your toes. It was the good kind of butterflies and sweaty palms, it was staying up all night talking and waking up early to talk some more. Love was so many things, and Janis felt all of them for G, for a girl she’d never even really met.

There were a million reasons why Janis didn’t want to meet G in person, at least not yet. The biggest one was fear. Janis was scared that if G saw her, she wouldn’t like her anymore. Janis was an art freak and a recluse. She didn’t see herself as the kind of girlfriend G would be proud to have. Since she saw no other possible future other than separation, Janis decided to prolong the inevitable. Whenever G suggested they meet, Janis always came up with some excuse, or, in what weren’t exactly her proudest moments, she abruptly left the conversation.

Janis was dying to see G, though. She wanted to know what she looked like, to hear her laugh in person, to see how their hands fit together. But she didn’t want to ruin anything. She didn’t want to lose G. Not when she was quickly becoming the best thing in Janis’s life. Maybe one day the truth would come out. Janis knew that. But it didn’t have to be today.

So, Janis came up with a plan. She wasn’t exactly proud of it. She didn’t like deceiving G. She just wanted to see her, just once. She needed to know what she looked like, who she was. Janis had a fantasy that she would see G, and wouldn’t be able to resist running to pull her into a tight embrace. Once Janis was sure she could trust G; once she was sure G wouldn’t be put off by the way she looked and who she was, she would have no problem meeting her face to face. In fact, Janis couldn’t wait for that moment. She thought about it all the time.

There was a very small, forgotten janitor’s closet kitty-corner from the lone yellow locker where Janis liked to hide some of her most valued possessions at school. Hardly anyone knew it was there, and no one knew the combination to the lock she’d placed on the door - no one but G.

Janis skipped her last period to make sure she was in the closet when G arrived. She hid inside of it with the door cracked only slightly so she could if anyone passed. She didn’t want G to notice her and retreat. Janis quickly grew impatient waiting for her. She kept checking the time on her phone, picking at her nails, messing with old cleaning supplies left behind on the shelves. She heard the final bell ring, but still didn’t move from her hiding spot. Instead, she took a rubber glove from the box and tried and failed to blow it up like a balloon. The opening was too big for her mouth and so Janis couldn’t get it to inflate.

Then, she pulled a marker from her bag, one of the cheap crayola markers she’d used to make campaign posters for Damian when he’d run for junior co-chair of the student activities committee, and began to write on the wall. She drew an alien emoji, then a wilted rose, then she wrote “I WAS HERE AND IT SUCKED!!!!” in all caps. Just when she was about to give up and go home, she heard heels clicking against the floor. Janis’s heart stopped.

She straightened up and slowed her breathing the best she could, cracking the door open just a little more. First, she saw G’s feet, which were small and perfect. Then her legs, which, same. G was wearing a blue skirt and a green shirt with half-sleeves and a boat neckline. Finally, Janis’s eyes made their way up to her head. G had a large mess of warm brown hair, with the sheer height and volume Janis knew could only belong to one girl in school. She felt her heart in her throat now, thudding so loud she didn’t know how Gretchen couldn’t hear it.

No, no, no, thought Janis. It can’t be her. Maybe Gretchen was just lost. There was no way she was G. Until she actually opened the locker, there was no proof she was actually - Janis nearly gasped. Gretchen bent down and began to turn the lock. Within seconds, she had it open, and she was digging through the things Janis had left for G.

Was this some sort of prank? Had Regina used Gretchen to catfish her? Janis felt sick thinking of Regina reading all the messages she’d sent to G and laughing about them. She looked at Gretchen. The other girl wasn’t laughing. She was stuffing everything into her backpack, sure, but not without reading each note thoughtfully; not without regarding each gift with care and grinning to herself as she examined the items left for her. Janis even thought she saw Gretchen wipe a tear. Then, the girl took some paper from her bag and started to write, leaving the note on the shelf and locking the door before she left.

Janis’s breath hitched in her throat as she saw Gretchen lift her phone. If she decided to text Janis, the notification bell would give her away instantly. She fumbled inside her pocket, quickly flipping the switch to silent, but luckily Gretchen seemed to have decided against texting anyone. As soon as Gretchen’s humming died away, Janis peeked out the door to make sure she was out of sight. Once she was sure it was all clear, she hurried over to the locker and opened the lock. She lifted the note, closing the door as soon as she got a hold of it, and her eyes scanned it so fast her brain nearly had a hard time catching up.

I wish I could write poems. If I could write poems, I would write you a really nice one. It would be about roses, and night skies, and dreams so sweet you sleep just to return to them. I would tell you that your smile is the most beautiful thing I’ve never seen, and that your voice is my favorite song. But since I can’t write poetry, I’ll just say this: you are absolutely ridiculous, in the best way. And I like you so fucking much.

Love, love, love,

Janis sucked in a breath, reading the note again and again. It wasn’t a note from someone playing an awful trick on her. It couldn’t be. Gretchen actually cared. Janis folded the note up until it was only an inch long. She stuffed it into her pocket and ran her fingers through her overgrown blonde hair, tugging at it as she reached the ends. Janis thought seeing G - Gretchen - would change everything… and she was right. But where Janis thought it would make their relationship easier, it had only gotten a thousand times more complicated.

Janis pulled the note back out of her pocket, unfolding it so she could reach it one more time. She hadn’t noticed how weak in the knees she felt as her eyes scanned each and every letter. Butterflies fluttered in her chest, and her cheeks burned bright red. Janis clutched the note to her chest and began walking in the direction of the parking lot where she was supposed to meet Damian. Love, love, love. That’s what Gretchen had written. But could she really still love Janis when she realized who she really was? Janis couldn’t meet Gretchen, not now. She would need to think of another excuse tonight, when she talked to Gretchen again. She’d promised the other girl they could finally discuss meeting, and she knew Gretchen wouldn’t be satisfied with Janis brushing it off again this time. All she wanted was to hold onto G for a little bit longer. Janis would do anything if it meant not losing the person she loved.

#mean girls #mean girls the musical #mean girls musical #janis sarkisian #gretchen wieners #there are definitely typos because i hate reading my own writing so i suck at proofreading #and idk if anyone else ships this #i will post the links later once i actually publish this on some fanfiction sites!!!

3 notes · View notes

otterskin · 3 years

Text

I didn't like the LOKI show, no matter how hard I try, and it's messing with me.

My mother died at the end of December. A lot of other bad things happened as well, like the severe brain injury of my father.

I didn't cry. There was so much to do. I did it. And even then, when there was nothing left to do, I didn't cry.

I found distractions.

Today I went to see the Green Knight after a tough week at a new job that had me leave my father in another province even though he still needs help. I was trying to get back to the life I'd dropped.

I loved the Green Knight. The Arthurian Legends are as dear to me as Norse Mythology, and my copy of them had the Green Knight on the cover. The film was truly excellent, evoking the feel of the story whole still doing something unique and very A24. I cried at one point, like I did when watching the first THOR, because of how much it meant to see something I'd loved since the very first years of my existence finally make it to the big screen and be...right. It's own thing, it's own artistic product, but right.

Then I opened a tab in a browser and saw I had some messages on a website I comment on. It was just some minor criticism of the LOKI show I'd posted beneath an article and how it handled certain things.

I was downvoted. Berated. Hated. Lumped in the ad hominem twitter users who attacked the director and writer (I'd never, ever!) Told I was biphobic because I wanted to see more of a queer lens (I even addressed how difficult it is for bi people in queer cinema and society in general in my criticisms of the romance, but even that wasn't good enough - just disliking it was 'bad'.) I was told I just wanted my 'fanfic' made (I never made any laundrylist of plot points I demanded). I was accused of being a begrudged shipper (ha! If anything I'm an anti-shipper). I was told that I should love the show, it was awesome, and I was bad for not thinking so.

And I started to cry.

I don't cry. Only at movies. Not at real life. I didn't cry at my grandparents's funerals, I didn't cry when I was left with the body of my mother in the hospital room and my brother cried on my shoulder. I didn't cry when working through my dad's severe new disabilities as I realized how much he had lost. I didn't cry while realizing how messy my parents' finances were. I didn't cry when my mother's friends called me in the middle of the night and cried into the phone. I didn't cry when saying goodbye to my dog and going back to a rundown apartment with a terrible smell so I could go to work in a dark room for hours at a time.

But now I'm crying and writing this.

I've realized why. During everything, I looked forward to the LOKI show. The first THOR is deeply nostalgic to me and I watched it often in my first year of Uni when I was away from home. It tied in thematically to what I was going for. Thor 2 came out before I went on exchange, and while I disliked it overall, talking about it was a welcome distraction from my anxieties. Thor 3 was nerve-wracking, but it also came out during my first major job which I was struggling with, and I saw it so many times in theatres...it was such a huge comfort.

Looking forward to LOKI wasn't just a distraction. It was like a promise. A promise that I'd make it till then and see it and maybe it'd give me some comfort.

That's on me. That's a personal thing. It's an unreasonable expectation.

But I needed it, all the same.

Then it came out.

I tried. I really tried to like it, to forgive it, but the problems are things I've criticized for too long in so many other things. I always try to be respectful about, I never go ad hominem and attack the creators, only critique their work and I always mentioned what I liked but...

I didn't like it.

I have no urge to rewatch it.

And the Green Knight...the Green Knight was everything I wanted and needed it to be. It didn't let me down, though I've been anticipating it about as long as the LOKI show. They're very different, obviously, but in my heart they share the same compartment.

And after a very trying day...I realized how badly I needed to rewatch a Loki show I liked. But I can't even enjoy THOR or Thor:Ragnarok anymore. It's like everything I did like has been poisoned.

This thing that got me through immense pain is causing me pain. I don't want to be toxic. I'm sure it's in me. I try so hard not to wallow in disappointment, but to not even be allowed to talk about my problems without being lumped in with abusive online monsters...

I can't do it. I just can't.

This is supposed to be an escape, not another trial.

I needed the LOKI show to be good, so I could come out of the dark into the light, or at least walk through the night with a lantern ahead of me. And instead it was just more darkness, and it's not even entirely its own fault. It's the online discourse. It's the uncalled for harassment of Herron and Waldron. It's the taunting jabs at people who didn't have a good time as if we're all jerks. It's having people roll their eyes when you point out things that made you uncomfortable in the story, it's feeling slightly gaslit when you find something gross that the story intended to be gross and then being told it's not gross, actually.

I'm sorry. I don't want to cause pain. I just...

I needed it to be good. And unlike Thor 3, which delivered me respite in a dark time...it let me down. Worse, it's hurt me.

I said I don't cry, only at the movies. Something about them lets me cry in a way nothing else does. I can't cry at a funeral, but I can cry in a movie theatre at the drop of a hat. It's a release valve, a way for me to process things.

I think I was waiting for LOKI to give me permission to cry. To give me something that could release this pain in me. And instead, it just gave me more.

I never should have given it that power. I didn't want to. But I had to, to get through this.

I'm putting away the few THOR pieces of tat I have. I feel foolish. I always knew it was a capitalist piece of art, chucked from creator to creator with no creative shepherd, which in itself was stressful.

The fandom is no sanctuary for me either, since I'm primarily interested in the family dynamics and I'm sick of 'Odin is an ABUSIVE MONSTER' stories or even unrelated fics and posts just dropping in hate for him that's not at all canon but seems to be very popular to the point where people think it is. Especially since I often read these stories when I need to think of home and my father. Or, most pleasantly of all, when I get called an abuser or abuser-enabler because I say I like Odin as a character. I also can't really bear to deal with anything to do with Sylvie, whom I had high hopes for as someone who wants more female tricksters, but instead I got this...this Mary Sue that's very hard to criticize without being yelled at. I swear I'm coming at her writing as a feminist and I don't hate anyone, I don't, I just...sigh. She's just personally frustrating to me and not being able to discuss it without being called names sucks.

Not to mention I'm asexual, and I always struggle with romance in media being pushed as the 'ultimate relationship more important than any other'. Part of the reason I liked THOR so much was that romance was not the main feature of THOR and definitely not THOR 3 (while my disliked Dark World was all about it, and so is LOKI). And when I criticize the romance, I get called a prude (guilty, I guess), a troll, or, my favourite, just 'a hater'.

I don't want to hate. Who wants that poison in their veins? I'm here because the Thor series HELPED me because I LOVED it. And now I look at the things I used to love and I...don't, anymore.

So much is asked of me right now. I can't willingly invite this painful thing to sit on my chest as well, especially since the world is already shoving it into my face without my doing anything, in ads, in news, in everything.

I suppose that's why I've leaned even more into Odin lately. He was untouched by the LOKI series (though not the Simpson special, which worries me). He's a trickster, he's queer, he's nuanced, he's 'misunderstood' (that old cliche, but he's misunderstood and misrepresented by the people always yelling about how this or that character is misunderstood, which amuses me, except when it gets to me), and he's in many ways free to make my own.

I still have some stuff I'm going to publish that's practically finished. Finnesang has a lot more written for it but needs some major sit-down time for re-writes and edits. Lokabrenna is practically done, just needs tweaks and Beta. I'll be here a little longer.

But I think I'm going to have to step back for now and put my passions into other things.

I will be back. After all, after Thor 2 came Thor 3. Maybe Love and Thunder will right the ship and Thor can still be awesome, and maybe eventually a creative I love will come to work on the franchise. Really, that's the key for me - I loved Branagh before THOR, and loved Waititi before Thor, and disliked Waldron's work (though I gave him every benefit of the doubt and hoped and prayed to be wrong - sadly, it was what I expected.)

But...if LOKI season 2 is more of this, more romantic tropes I hate and Loki being an afterthought in his own show and his family being devalued for new characters...I can't do it. I can't watch something I used to love just throw that all away for something I dislike.

My tears are finally drying. I wrote a lot of this while the screen was blurry, so I hope there's no grammar or typo too embarrasing. I'm not sure I have the strength to re-read it. Sorry for the rant. It helped me feel better.

Thank you all. I hope I feel differently someday.

#loki show #loki 2021 #meta #loki thoughts #personal #update

17 notes · View notes

youreacowgirllikeme · 3 years

Text

Case Closed

note: Chris talked law on Prime Time again last night, so I felt inspired to write a second part of my Lawyer!Chris fic (you can read the first part HERE) sorry for eventual typos

enjoy :)

words: 2900

warnings: swearing, smut (dirty talk, oral, fingering, unprotected sex (wrap it irl, please))

“Your honor, the jury finds the defendant guilty of all charges.”

Oh. OH.

This was absolutely glorious. You couldn’t dance in court, of course, but on the inside, you were definitely having a victory parade.

A triumphant grin split your face as your gaze wandered across the courtroom over to the defense desk.

Chris Cuomo, the defense lawyer, looked absolutely crestfallen. His mouth was hanging slightly open, and he couldn’t even utter a word. Serves him right, smug bastard, you thought.

You had made an excellent case, a new witness and some very compromising documents were able to convince the jury of the defendants guilt despite all of Cuomo’s efforts to keep his incredibly whealty client out of jail.

The judge announced the sentence, and now Chris just slammed his fist on the table. This was getting better and better, but you told yourself to keep your smugness at bay, no need to stoop as low as your opponent and gloat.But there was something else you definitely needed to do, something you couldn’t let Christopher Charles Cuomo get away with.

After the defendant was taken away and you had packed up all your papers, you slowly made your way over to his desk.

“So, I was wondering if you are going to keep that horrendous tie on for dinner tonight? Because I plan on wearing a dress and I would hate for us to clash color-wise, you know.” You said, barely able to remain serious.

The look he gave you was so murderous, it sent a shiver down your spine. You weren’t sure if it was out of fear or arousal. You were still a bit sore from your encounter in the parking lot yesterday, and you really hoped on repeating it. Riling him up was just foreplay to you.

“If you’re really suggesting that I will take you out for dinner after that dirty game you played today, you are even crazier than in originally thought.” he hissed. The vein on his temple was back, pulsating as if it was threatening you.

“Dirty game?” you almost shouted, then pulled yourself together so you wouldn’t draw the attention of the people still lingering in the courtroom.

“Your client was guilty as hell, even you with your twisted sense of morality should see that. And you lecturing me about playing games, pot calling the kettle black.” You whispered furiously, unable to keep your unfazed façade on any longer.

“About dinner, you invited me yesterday, so you’re either not a man of your word or a coward. Maybe even both.”

You hit home with that, you could see that on the way Cuomo’s fists clenched around the papers he was holding, scrunching them up. Men were so predictable, you thought, call them a coward and they will do every stupid thing in the book to prove you wrong.

But you wanted dinner and, most of all, dessert, so playing into his insecurities was fair game this once.

“There’s a new Italian place on 5th avenue, across from the Public Library. I know the owner, I’ll get us a table. Be there at eight.” He muttered and was gone in a hurry.

Of course he knew the owner.

“I look forward to it.” you called after him, fake cheeriness in your voice.

+++

As agreed, you stood in front of the restaurant at eight. You wore your favorite dress, it was bright red and showed just the right amount of both legs and cleavage. You thought that you looked stunning, and you knew Cuomo would appreciate the look as well.

The roar of an engine pulled you out of your thoughts, and you spun around to where a familiar black SUV was pulling up. You rolled your eyes, if you didn’t know it better you’d think Cuomo was compensating with that car.

It stopped and he emerged on the driver’s side. And Lord help you, he looked fantastic. He wore a tight-fitting black suit and a white dress shirt with the top two buttons undone, showing a peak of tanned skin beneath. You wanted to climb him like a tree in the middle of 5th avenue. The confident, almost arrogant way in which he carried himself was infuriating and incredibly hot at the same time. Why was he so attractive while being such an asshole?

Your thoughts about his appearance were clearly written all over your face, because when he addressed you, he sounded even more smug than usual.

“Hi, Y/L/N, enjoying the view? I have to admit, you really clean up nice, I’m impressed.”

“Shut it, Cuomo.” You said, unable to suppress a smile. “You don’t look too horrible yourself.”

“Come on, I look great and we both know it.” he chuckled. And of course, he was right, but his ego was already big enough, no need to feed it any more.

“You look alright, I guess, but don’t to get ahead of yourself.” You said, “And now you better take me inside so I can have the amount of wine I need to make your company tolerable.”

+++

The food was absolutely delicious, and the wine the waiter recommended was so good that the two of you drank a whole bottle. It was Friday anyway, so no need to hold back.

What was really shocking too you was how good the conversation was. After a bit of initial bickering and arguing about which country produced the best red wine, you slowly started getting more comfortable with each other. The atmosphere was eased by the wine and you discovered that Chris wasn’t a completely horrible person.

Yes, he was a smart arse and cocky, and so fucking full of himself, but he was also incredibly clever, had surprisingly progressive views and on top of all he loved dogs!

When he told you that his favorite food were his mother’s spaghetti marinara, you could not suppress a little “aaw”. He looked at you funnily, but you just gave him a smile.

Your were slightly confused. This evening was supposed to be about you eating some fancy food for free and getting on Cuomo’s nerves (and maybe getting laid later).

But now, you were actually enjoying his company, and he didn’t seem hostile towards you, either. He hadn’t even brought up the trial, or how you allegedly played him dirty. Instead, he was actually listening to what you had to say and engaged into meaningful conversation.

You really were surprised, and when he was signing the bill later, you took your time to appreciate his appearance again while taking your newfound knowledge about him into consideration. Maybe he wasn’t the devil in person. Maybe, there was an actual decent human being under that expensive suit.

The two of you decided to go for a little after-dinner walk in the nearby Bryant Park, your favorite in NYC, and, as is turned out, Chris’ as well. Conversation shifted to growing up in New York and how your experiences differed from each other. But, as you found out, Chris actually grew up in a Queens neighborhood not too far from your own home, a fact that surprised you immensely.

“I could’ve sworn you were born on the Upper East Side.” You admitted “You certainly look and act the part.”

“I’m not gonna lie, prep school and Ivy and Law school certainly played a role in this. And of course, the firm I’m working for is high end. You’re expected to conduct yourself in a certain way. It’s a shark tank, you eat, or you get eaten. But I don’t have to tell you that.” His voice was quiet, almost wistful. He sounded like a totally different person.

“If that’s Queens Chris I met tonight, then I like him a lot better than this Cuomo guy from court.” You said, stopping and looking up to meet his blue eyes.

“You’re not the only one, I like him better as well.” He replied, meeting your gaze and reaching out to take your hand. His fingers were warm and rough as they intertwined with yours, holding his hand felt shockingly natural.

There were definitely sparks flying now, you could not deny it. You were drawn to this guy, and not only because of his good looks, but really attracted to the person behind the persona, you desperately wanted to know more about him.

“Tell me.” You whispered. “How did this happen? We were about to kill each other this afternoon and now were standing here, holding hands?”

“You tell me.” He murmured, and then he leaned down to kiss you. It was nothing like you expected, he was tender, gently cupping your jaw with his large hand, his thumb stroking over your cheek. His lips were soft and pliant against yours, a contrast to how hard and broad his body felt when you leaned against him to deepen the kiss.

The hand that was previously holding yours slipped around your waist and pulled you closer. You fisted your hands into the lapel of his suit jacket and what began as an innocent kiss grew increasingly steamy.

You groaned as he nipped at your bottom lip and slid his tongue inside your mouth and reached up to grab the short hair at the nape of his neck. He hissed into your mouth, his grip on your hips tightening.

You felt heat starting to pool between your legs and telling from the bulge that was beginning to press against your abdomen, Chris was sharing your sentiments.

“How fast is that ridiculous car of yours?” you panted, a bit breathless from the kiss.

“Very fast.” He replied, a grin on his slightly flustered face.

“How about we take this to your place before we get in trouble for public indecency?”

“You weren’t that concerned about it yesterday.” He chuckled “But I don’t care for the headlines either, so let’s go.”

+++

The door to Chris penthouse (you were right, of course he had a penthouse) slammed shut, and a second later, you were pressed against it by two strong arms. Chris effortlessly pinned your body against the wood with one hand while the other one fumbled with the side zipper of your dress.

The garment dropped to the floor, leaving you with only a matching black set of underwear on. Chris eyes wandered over your body and he swore under his breath before attacking your bare neck with his mouth, kissing and sucking on the skin, probably leaving another bruise.

“You’re really marking me like a fucking caveman, Cuomo.” You gasped, the effect of his lips on your skin evident, you were already slick with need.

“Come on, Y/N, you know you enjoy it.” he whispered, and you only groaned as an answer as he softly bit the junction of your neck and shoulder. You could hear his dark chuckle before his hand started to unclasp your bra, exposing your tits to the cool air of the hallway.

He sucked one of your nipples into his mouth, and you couldn’t suppress a whimper at the feeling of his hot mouth against your sensitive skin. Slowly, his large hand wandered between your legs, rubbing your pussy through your panties before pulling this last item of clothing down as well, only your black high heels remaining.

Releasing your hands, Chris slowly dropped down to his knees and grabbed one of your ankles to prob your leg over his shoulder. You let out a sharp hiss as his mouth wandered to your inner tight, leaving a trail of soft kisses before he reached your center. His fingers slowly dipped into your wet folds, spreading your arousal before he started to lightly circle your clit with his tongue. You cried out and threw your head back against the door, one of your hands fisted into his curly hair, pushing him closer between your legs.

“So bossy.” He murmured. “And so fucking wet for me.” Suddenly, he pushed two of his thick fingers into you while harshly sucking on your bud. White, hot pleasure surged through your body as you came on the spot, your knees almost giving up as you bucked against Chris’ face, coating it with your arousal.

“Fuck.” You whispered, slowly coming down from your high. Chris got up, looking very pleased with himself. You grabbed him by his dress shirt, pulling him in for a deep kiss and grinding your naked core against his very prominent erection.

“Bedroom. Now.” He groaned against your lips and kissed you again. Your hands were busy unbuttoning his shirt, tearing it from his body. It joined the rest of the clothes on the floor. You took a moment to admire his now exposed, well-muscled torso. He looked like fucking Greek god, and you wanted to run your hands and tongue over every inch of his tanned, smooth skin. You needed him, now.

“Fuck me right here, I don’t care.” You whispered, palming his erection before starting to work on his zipper.

“Filthy girl. You want me to rail you against the door.” Chris murmured, before pulling his pants down along with his underwear. His cock sprung free, hard and heavy, making your mouth water. With a swift motion, he grabbed your tights, effortlessly lifting you up against the door. The blunt display of strength just made you even wetter, your hands were grabbing his shoulders, nails digging into his skin.

“Stop talking and fuck me already, Cuomo.” You groaned, and a second later, he pushed his cock into you, the sudden stretch making you cry out in pleasure. He wasted no time, immediately starting a hard, fast pace.

“Fuck, Y/N.” Chris hissed through clenched teeth. “You are so fucking tight. Taking my cock so perfectly.”

“Shit, Chris, please keep moving, just like that.” You whimpered as he fucked you relentlessly, a stained expression on his face. He never slowed down his thrusts while he was holding you, it was like watching somebody run a marathon. Seeing him handle you like that was mesmerizing, bulging muscles glistening with sweat, his piercing blue eyes fixed on you. You were starting to feel slightly dizzy as your head hit the wooden door with each thrust, but you didn’t care.

Chris leaned forward to capture your lips in a bruising kiss, biting into your lower lip and pushing his tongue into your mouth. You let out a guttural cry as he eased his grip on your ass a bit, making you sink down onto his cock even more. The different angle created a totally new sensation, causing both of you to groan as Chris was thrusting into you even deeper now. A powerful, burning feeling was beginning to form in your lower stomach, quickly spreading through your whole body with every hard snap of his hips. Chris name was falling from your lips like a chant now, begging him to keep fucking you, to go harder, deeper.

“Who would’ve thought that you’d beg me to fuck you against my front door.” Chris said in a husky, breathless voice, never slowing down his thrusts. “Little Miss Perfect is not so perfect after all, huh?”

You couldn’t answer, your mind was fuzzy, and the only thing existing was the feeling of Chris, his large hands grabbing your ass, his hot breath on your skin, his cock filling you over and over again.

You were already hanging on the edge of your orgasm, but when he leaned down to sink his teeth into the tender flesh of your shoulder, the raw pain and the sheer possessiveness of the gesture were the push you needed to spiral down into your climax.

You came with a shout, your whole body convulsing, squirming against Chris. He moaned as he felt your pussy clenching around his cock, squeezing him until he came as well, calling out your name, his cock buried so deep inside you that you were sure you’d be limping tomorrow.

Neither of you moved for a minute, your sweaty foreheads pressed against each other as you tried to catch your breath. After a moment, Chris carefully pulled out and lowered you onto the floor before collapsing next to you with a huff. His hair was sticking to his forehead and his breath was tickling your face when he leaned in to kiss you. You were surprised by that motion, you had expected a cocky comment or a crude joke, but not this.

When he broke the kiss, you could see his trademark smirk spreading over his face as he inspected the hickey he left on your neck, tracing it with his fingers.

“I might really be into leaving marks on you.” He said, “A little reminder of the good time I gave you.”

“You really are just a caveman, aren’t you? Also, it seemed as if you enjoyed yourself as well.” you replied, your hand involuntarily reaching out to play with a lock of hair that clung to his face.

“I did, immensely so. In fact,” he said, voice going serious for a moment. “I’d like to repeat it, sometimes. Maybe even with another dinner, if you would like that.” His face was passive, but there was a softness in his eyes that you haven’t seen before.

“Are you really asking me on a date, Cuomo?” you exclaimed, the fake astonishment masking the giddy excitement you felt about the question. You wanted to go out with this idiot so bad, you could hardly believe it yourself.

“Looks like it, huh.” He murmured, and if you didn’t know it better you would’ve thought he was embarrassed.

“Hey, I’d love to go out with you, Chris.” Your voice was as sincere as you felt.

Chris gave you a brilliant smile, then winked at you.

“You know, I wouldn’t have taken no for an answer anyway.”

#chris cuomo #chris cuomo fanfiction #Chris Cuomo fic #chris cuomo x reader #imagine #cnn #cnn anchors #fanfiction #lawyer au

34 notes · View notes

postalninja · 3 years

Text

Fic Writer Meme

I saw @cicaklah post this and wanted to try :) 1) How many works do you have on AO3?

17 currently - 14 fics, 2 pieces of fanart, and 1 how-to guide thingie. I’ve been writing/posting for less than a year and a half, though, so there’s much more to come!

2) What's your total AO3 word count?

196 767.

3) How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

6 for fics, 7 if you count fanart. They are mostly for video games, ‘cuz that’s how I roll:

- Octopath Traveler

- Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

- Legend of Zelda

- Persona 5

- Chrono Trigger (fanart)

And two non-game fandoms:

- Violet Evergarden

- Drawfee RPF

4) What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

1- Adrift in the Ocean of her Eyes by a large margin. My first and only fic to surpass 100 kudos as of yet! I almost didn’t finish it after I kind of stalled on it and was unsure whether it would be redundant in the fandom, but I’m so glad I did because people seem to love it.

2- A World of Knowledge Awaits, which as a crossover appealing to two fandoms, doesn’t come as too much of a surprise.

3- Sins of the Father, which I put a ton of work into, and I’m so glad it resonated with people.

4- Someone Strong, my very first baby fic! My initial foray into fanfic writing, spurred on entirely by the fact that my OTP was exceedingly underrepresented, if not entirely absent, from the Octopath Traveler fandom. I am a one-person H’annberic cheerleading squad, and I will *never* put these pompoms down! (FYI, I typoed ‘squard’ instead of ‘squad’ at first and almost left it that way. Squaaard!!)

5- A Cleric’s Quandary, based on a completely silly idea, so it was really fun to write!

5) Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I do, indeed! I love getting comments, and I always want to at least acknowledge them even if I don’t have anything profound to say in return. But if someone replies back to my reply, then I may not always add more if the conversation feels complete, ya know?

6) What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

Ooooh, definitely What the Heart Wants. (Spoilers ahead) The reader is left unsure about whether or not the protagonist survives.

7) What's the fic you've written with the happiest ending?

Probably Someone Strong, because it was my chance to write the story of H’aanit and Olberic’s relationship, and I wanted to give them the whole happy ending of a wedding and a baby on the way. Of course, it wasn’t the *ending* of their story, per se, given that I have a whole series of fics about them, and I’m not done yet!

8) Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you've written?

Only one so far, so it is by definition the craziest. Persona 5/Octopath Traveler, which isn’t even that crazy considering that it’s canon in Persona 5 that characters can enter an alternate universe using an app on their phone, so....

9) Have you ever received hate on a fic?

I am lucky not to have received any hate, which I am very grateful for, but then again, I haven’t been at this for all that long, and I don’t get huge views either. So I am quite happy in my little corner being ignored by the haters.

10) Do you write smut? If so what kind?

Why yes, I do! Why else would I write about the characters I love, if not to make them bone? lol.

I’ve only written M/F smut, since that’s what I’m most comfortable writing, and it’s rarely *super duper* explicit - I’ll use a fair few euphemisms a lot of the time. The more smut I write, though, the more I worry that it’s all the same... might need to start taking more risks!

11) Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge, but that would suck.

12) Have you ever had a fic translated?

Again, not to my knowledge, but that would be awesome!

13) Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Kiiiiind of? Years ago, my D&D party started an email RPing campaign that was sort of like writing a fic together, but it stalled at some point and is long since lost to time.

My partner and I also wrote the beginnings of an original story together (also started as an attempted RPing campaign) and some day I might want to work on that one some more, because I liked what we came up with.

14) What's your all time favourite ship?

Olberic Eisenberg, the Unbending Blade of Hornburg, and H’aanit, huntress of the Dark Wood. I have never been so enamored of a fictional pairing, and this is literally what has thrust me into getting involved in fandom instead of just quietly enjoying content by myself. LET ME YELL AT YOU ABOUT HOW MUCH I LOVE THEM! If I had to pick a runner-up, I’d say the Evil Queen/Robin Hood from Once Upon a Time. I will read anything @somewhereapart writes about those two for as long as she keeps writing.

Another, more recent favorite, is definitely Agent 47/Diana Burnwood from Hitman! I only discovered the Hitman games this year, but I love that pairing to bits.

15) What's a WIP that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?

I do intend to finish all of my current WIPs, of which I have... 4? 5 if you count the one that’s currently being beta-read. I guess the one I’m struggling with the most is an Octopath H’aanberic family-fic with the working title of Journey to Cobbleston. Olberic and H’aanit are taking their daughter B’renit to Cobbleston for the first time, and it doesn’t really have much more plot than that, so I’m finding it challenging. It’s just a cute story partially from the point of view of a four-year-old traveling for the first time, and it feels like not enough “interesting” stuff is going to happen. I struggle with pure fluff, y’all.

16) What are your writing strengths?

Grammar! And writing emotions - I’ve gotten enough comments from people telling me that they could feel my characters’ emotions in my writing for me to gather that I must have a knack for it.

17) What are your writing weaknesses?

Pacing and plot/worldbuilding, ie. bigger picture stuff. And using too many clichés, probably.

18) What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I’ve only written in English so far, but it’s not my first language, so I would definitely not shy away from writing dialogue in French if it was called for. Otherwise, since I am a *huge* language nerd, I would likely give other languages a try if the story called for it, and get a native speaker beta to look over it for me before I posted.

19) What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Octopath Traveler, as previously stated. It’s still my main fandom.

20) What's your favourite fic you've written?

I have a soft spot for The Measure of a Man. I just really liked what I was able to accomplish with it as a character study for Olberic, and I enjoyed incorporating a lot of the other canon characters into his story, too. Feel free to join in with your own answers, friends! :)

#fic writer meme #octopath travel #skyrim #violet evergarden #once upon a time #hitman

4 notes · View notes

sissytobitch10seconds · 3 years

Text

I want to talk a little bit about politeness while requesting

As some of you may know, I take requests for writing. I currently have five fandoms that I write oneshot requests for and upload to on Wednesdays over on my Ao3 account. I’ve been doing this off and on for almost a year now, and I’ve noticed that there are generally three types of people that request things from me.

Type 1: Sweet Babies

generally open with some kind of greeting

get right into the prompt

very polite

kind of shy

sometimes include a compliment about the oneshot they’re commenting on or the writing style

end it with something like “hope you’re having a nice day” or “stay safe!”

Type 2: Quick Ones

no greeting

the prompt is very small

bad language/spelling errors/typos

generally requesting smut

sometimes just leaving the ship

Type 3: Entitled Dickbags

no greeting

“Do one with...”

“Make one...”

try to get around the rules

will comment back to me trying to explain how their request doesn’t break the rules

When oneshot is completed

no comment back

“Kudos”

“Liked it”

Now I’m going to be honest and say that I prefer the Sweet Baby type of requester, but I am kind of ambivalent when it comes to Quick Ones. I understand that requesting something can be kind of overwhelming and scary, so you may not want to make it super personal and dedicated.

I absolutely hate whenever I get an Entitled Dickbag because there’s nothing in my rules saying that you can’t be rude. This allows them to be able to walk all over me and it fucking sucks. I haven’t been able to stick up for myself a lot in the past and I’m just barely starting to do it. When these people come on, it’s clear that they either haven’t read my rules or they just don’t care about them. I have those rules to keep my mental health safe. They’re things that I won’t write about for a reason, either because of personal traumas or because they’re just a huge violation of my moral compass. These people generally come on and act like they’re entitled to have me write whatever they want because I’m an author on the internet with open requests. Their language is aggressive, crude, and sometimes even demeaning.

If I was being paid by people to write stuff I would have a little bit of leniency and maybe tolerate this a bit more but I’m not. I’m doing this because I like writing, I like making people happy, and I want to explore some plots and scenarios I may not have thought of on my own. But then Entitled Dickbag type people show up and make me feel awful inside. They ask me to do things that are way out of my comfort zone, demand that I do it, and there’s no kind of thankfulness out of them.

It’s one of the worst feelings ever when you spend hours to days working on something for someone and they just respond with “kudos” if they respond at all. You have no idea if they actually liked it, if they appreciate it, or if they think that you HAD to do this for them because they asked for it. These are the kinds of people that make me want to shut down all of my requests and never open them up again.

I know that this got a bit personal and rambly, but I’m going to try and bring it back now. Underneath is a list of things that you should try to do while requesting from anyone, not just me. Keep in mind that everyone has different boundaries and if they’ve clearly laid those out for you, you should respect them. Don’t even toe that boundary line because that can sometimes still make someone feel uncomfortable or even trigger them.

Opening

“Hello!” or “Hi!” is perfectly acceptable

Think of it more like you’re writing an email instead of just sending a comment or ask to someone

Prompt

Try to make sure that your prompt makes sense, read it over before you send off the ask or comment

Make sure that your prompt isn’t so long that it’s basically just the whole story, this doesn’t allow the author to actually write anything

DO NOT under any circumstances break the rules or toe the boundary line of an author

Make sure that you have some kind of plot in mind if you’re going for that sort of thing and don’t just want something super vague

I’ve gotten a couple prompts just explaining the relationship between characters and not actually telling me what they wanted. It’s very hard to write something when you just have a character relationship

Don’t have the prompt be so specific or long that you’re making the author write an entire fanfiction for you. A lot of oneshot requestors have tons of oneshots that they want to write or have backed up, so making a request for something super long can be overwhelming

Make sure that you’re prompt isn’t something they’ve already written. I know this can be a lot to ask if they have a lot of oneshots out already, but writing the same smut scene for the same couple over and over again can get really tedious and suck the fun out of writing

Closing

This isn’t required but it is nice!

While “Thanks!” is acceptable do not use “Thanks in advance!”

I understand that “Thanks in advance!” sounds nice and all, but it makes the author feel a bit pressured to write your prompt because you’re already thanked them for it, even if they prompt is breaking their boundaries or rules

After prompt has been posted

Also not required, but definitely a nice thing to give the author that just wrote you a oneshot

Try to notice things that you did and didn’t like as you go down

Most authors like constructive criticism and will enjoy it when you give it to them

At least say thank you, or that you liked it if you don’t want to go into detail

#fanfiction #archive of our own #hate #requests #toxic people #comments #asks #list #politeness #polite #courtesy #author #writing #commenting #oneshots #oneshot #fandom #fanfic #personal

5 notes · View notes

blakemetothemoon · 4 years

Text

Your Love’s My Ritual

Summary: “I don’t want to break up with you! I want to fuck you!” or: Zon wants to top. Predictably, he sucks at bringing it up.

Pairing: SaifahZon / ZonSaifah

Rating: Explicit for smut. First time topping, blow jobs, fingering, angst, oh my.

Notes: Request: “Would you be okay writing another SaifahZon where maybe Zon is actually afraid to ask Saifah if he can top because he wants to try but now he’s so used to their dynamic that he is nervous about asking Saifah ? Maybe a little bit of angst where Saifah knows something is up but Zon avoids the question so much that he thinks he did something wrong?”

Did my best to touch on all of that D: I hope you all enjoy! Please let me know if you notice any typos or anything like that! This has only been seen by myself and eye, so it’s definitely possible I missed something LOL

This can be read as either a sequel to Smiling Stupid or on its own! Read here or on ao3.

Thank you for reading!

“Do you want to be on top tonight?”

Zon shoots off the pillow so fast he gets whiplash and his shoulder barely misses breaking Saifah’s nose. “Really?!”

Saifah crinkles his brow, confused by the outburst. And Zon doesn’t blame him. He gets on top of Saifah all the time. Riding Saifah, they’ve discovered together, is one of Zon’s favorite things. Saifah’s fingers have already made their way into the back of Zon’s boxers and are sliding over the curve of his ass. Normally, the way his hand perfectly cups Zon’s cheek and can still tease him melts Zon like ice cream left in the sun.

But “normally” isn’t “lately”.

Because here’s the thing: Zon does want to be on top.

He just…means it in a different way than Saifah does.

And Zon has brought it up no more than absolutely zero times.

To say he plans to bring it up is a lie. What if Saifah makes fun of him because Zon has never actually put his dick in someone’s ass before? What if Saifah gets weirded out? Sure, he offered the first time they had sex but now they’ve only done it with Zon on bottom, so changing at this point would be wrong, right? And what if Saifah gets upset or offended? Zon loves sex with Saifah. He doesn’t want Saifah to think differently. Like he isn’t pleasing Zon— with all those explosive orgasms and his throat going hoarse from moaning so much, god, Saifah is most definitely pleasing every inch of him.

Still, none of that changes how much Zon thinks about giving it to Saifah like Saifah gives it to him. About long legs around his waist and his cock inside hitting that bundle of nerves to drive Saifah crazy. Sometimes he thinks about how he pinned Saifah to a wall once already; he could do it again. Except they could both be naked and—

Zon doesn’t know why he wants it so bad. Somewhere between imagining fucking Saifah and the anxiety of bringing it up, his brain kind of stales.

It’s fine, though. Zon’s got this. He can hide his dirty little fantasy away and be so chill about it that Saifah will never know anything is amiss.

“Um,” Zon replies, “I’m actually pretty tired.”

Immediately, Saifah’s fingers stop. For a brief second, Zon’s legs open slightly on their own, waiting for Saifah to continue, press in and make Zon moan, and he hates part of himself for making the excuse but he would have to explain if he took it back.

“It’s only 9 PM,” Saifah says.

“Uh, yeah. Headache.”

Eyes search his face. Saifah’s hand retretes. It slides out of Zon’s boxers to trace his thumb over Zon’s hip, soothing. “Do you need to go to the doctor? You’ve been getting those a lot lately.”

Shit, Zon should’ve thought of a better excuse. He’s used the headache one five times already, and there’s definite annoyance in Saifah’s tone.

Not getting laid isn’t what Saifah’s annoyed about. It’s obvious Zon is hiding something and Saifah isn’t big on Zon refusing to talk to him. The last time that happened, Zon was convinced the novel was real and his feelings for Saifah weren’t. Back when he would throw them into that stupid cat and mouse game, flinching away from each of Saifah’s advances and kicking Saifah right in the heart.

Zon knows he’s probably kicking again as he rolls away to avoid any further conversation. There’s a moment of silence. Then a kiss is pressed into the spot where Zon’s neck meets his shoulder. It is the same spot Saifah always nips, either because he wants to give Zon reassurance or he wants Zon to arch his back and shudder. It almost works for both, but Zon freezes when Saifah winds his arms around his waist because being the little spoon makes Zon think about wanting to not be the little spoon, and his anxiety skyrockets.

Saifah mistakes it for outright rejection; he is quick to withdraw his arms. Zon isn’t sure how to reassure him without bringing up the whole “I-wanna-top-you” thing, so he lets Saifah shuffle away to the other side of the bed.

Zon barely sleeps.

Contrary to what Tutor is currently saying, Zon is not ignoring Saifah. Frantically sprinting off whenever he sees that sexy, tall giraffe walking his way is not ignoring—it’s self-preservation. It’s driving him crazier and crazier whenever he’s in close vicinity to Saifah to keep his hands off him.

“Zon, Saifah said you haven’t talked to him all week,” Tutor says, “and now he’s all mopey like a kicked puppy.”

“He’s mopey?”

“Wouldn’t you be if you thought Saifah was planning to break up with you?”

The thought of him and Saifah not being together instantly makes Zon want to puke. “I’m not going to break up with him!” Zon grabs onto Tutor’s biceps, making him jump, but he quickly resigns himself to the oncoming rant. “Tutor, listen to me! I want to fuck Saifah so bad, I can’t stop thinking about it. Like, all the time! Any time I see him! And it’s wrong because we’ve always done it the other way, and we both really like it, and Saifah is taller, and I think he’ll hate me if I bring it up, and I don’t want him to hate me when I’m in love with him!”

Zon is used to long pauses after he talks, so he’s a little shocked when Tutor immediately replies, “Are you a moron?” Tutor shakes his head and wiggles his way out of Zon’s death grip. “Who do you think tops—Fighter or me?”

“Uh,” Zon crinkles his brow. “I’m not sure. You’re scary when you’re mad, but Fighter is scary all the time. You can both be intimidating. You’re both pretty equal height, so—”

A rolled up notebook smacks him across the head.

“What the hell kind of logic—” Tutor remembers who he’s talking to, so he bites off with a sigh. “We both like it both ways, so we do it both ways. We switch.”

Zon’s eyes go impossibly wider. “You switch? You can do that? That’s allowed—ow!”

The notebook remains rolled, like Tutor is convinced he’s not done using it. “The things allowed in a relationship are what’s consented between the people in it. Have you talked to Saifah about…Zon!”

Zon throws up his hands before Tutor can smack him again. “I don’t know how to bring it up!”

Tutor briefly glances over Zon’s shoulder, then back to Zon’s face. “Try this: ‘Saifah, I need to talk to you about something.’ Now, you say it.”

Zon pouts and shuffles back and forth on his feet. “‘Saifah, I need to talk to you about something.’”

“That’ll involve actually talking to me.”

It’s that deep voice Zon hasn’t heard all week. Saifah drapes his arm over Zon’s shoulders and begins steering him away.

“Tor,” Zon yells, drawing the attention of everyone in the canteen, “how could you!”

Tutor throws him a cute little wave like he hasn’t just sentenced Zon to death.

Saifah is mad. Saifah is really mad.

“So you’ll talk to Tutor about whatever’s bothering you, but not me?”

Zon is usually quick to rise to Saifah’s anger with his own, but this time he knows it would be unwarranted. “He cornered me—”

“Now I’m the one cornering you. What the hell’s going on with you?”

And when Saifah says he’s corning Zon, he’s very much cornering him. Saifah has dragged them to an empty stairwell and he’s got Zon back up against the wall. The coldness of it does little to stop the heat pooling in the bottom of Zon’s stomach reminding him they haven’t even kissed in five days. But Saifah doesn’t seem like he would appreciate Zon trying to make out with him right now.

Saifah takes Zon’s distracted silence as another rejection. “I thought we were past this, Zon. If you’re gonna break up with me then—”

Hearing the words from Saifah’s mouth is worse than hearing them from Tutor’s. “I’m not!”

“You expect me to believe that when you’ve been running away from me—”

“I don’t want to break up with you! I want to fuck you!”

The words bounce off the walls in an embarrassing echo.

“What?” Saifah replies.

“I want… tofuckyou.” Zon says, timid and quick. He starts doing that jaw working, bouncing from one foot to the other thing. His hands are cold and his chest is tight. He wants to puke. He shouldn’t have said anything, not even to Tutor. “All the time. It’s all I think about when we’re together and I don’t want you to think I don’t like doing the other way because I still do. It’s just—”

“That’s why you’ve been ignoring me?” If anything, Saifah is angrier now that Zon has started explaining himself. “I’ve already offered to do that.”

“Yeah, but that was before.”

“Before what?”

“Before you started doing me!” Zon wipes his clammy hands on his pant legs. “You really like doing it that way.”

“Obviously!” Saifah shakes his head and steps away, giving Zon space to breathe. “It feels amazing, but that’s not why I like it so much. I like it because it’s you, Zon. I like being with you. It’s not about whose dick is where.”

“It’s…not?”

Saifah’s face softens. It barely takes him two steps to close the distance again. He wraps Zon up in a big bear hug. Zon likes that he’s small enough for Saifah’s arms to envelope him. To pull him into his chest where it’s warm and he can hear the rhythm of Saifah’s steady heartbeat.

“I know I’m usually good at reading you,” says Saifah softly, “but when it comes to things like this, you have to say it clearly, okay?”

“Okay,” Zon replies, soft and muffled. He clings to the back of Saifah’s shirt like it’s a lifeline. “I’m sorry for making you think I wanted to break up.”

“Hmm, you’ll have to make it up to me,” Saifah says. Zon can hear his smirk. “You’re staying over on Friday, right?”

Zon tilts his head up to look at him. “Y-Yeah?”

Saifah doesn’t explain because he doesn’t need to. He waggles his eyebrows. Red stains Zon’s cheeks to his ears, and he buries his face into Saifah’s chest again, shy and trying to hide his smile.

Friday. Two days. Zon has never been more ready for anything in this life.

Zon is not ready.

Saifah is in the shower when Zon gets in. Most likely getting himself ready. Zon thinks about how often he’s done that himself, then he pictures Saifah doing it—

Zon drops his bag somewhere random and sits down, heavy, onto the edge of the bed. He wrings his hands between his legs. They’re already sweating. Is he allowed to finger Saifah if his hands are sweaty? Saifah is always so in control when he’s topping and takes care of everything—Zon should do the same, right? Should he pull out the lube and condom to have it ready? Maybe he should make this extra special since it is the first time they’re doing it this way. He didn’t bring candles or rose petals, though. He did bring some popcorn and candies he knows are Saifah’s favorites, but those were for later. At least he figures they should be for later—

Hands warm from the shower wrap around his.

“Don’t you dare say anything about being in a K-drama,” Zon pouts. He’s so out of it, he didn’t hear Saifah getting out of the shower or kneeling in front of him.

Saifah raises an eyebrow. “You don’t think you can do it?” he asks instead.

Zon glares and clenches his teeth. “Of course I can do it, asshole.”

“Agreed,” says Saifah, smiling, hands still massaging Zon’s even though Zon is considerably calmer now. “You don’t need to be so worried.”

“But what if I mess up, or you don’t like it, or—”

“You won’t and I will.” Saifah kisses Zon’s knuckles. “It’s not like I’ve never done it before.”

Zon’s mouth drops open. “You have?!”

“To myself.” Saifah’s grin is downright dirty.

Zon pictures it and his mind goes white for a second, then he blushes. "You’re so shameless.”

That devious smile grows. “Which I know you appreciate.”

Saifah presses against Zon’s shoulders and together they fall backwards onto the mattress. Usually Zon is the one on his back with Saifah staring down over him, always equal parts hungry and adoring. But this time, Saifah rolls them; with a grip on Zon’s hips, he pulls Zon on top of him, and, suddenly, it’s Zon’s turn to loom.

Drying hair frames Saifah’s face, bangs slightly matted to his forehead. Water drops are scattered over his neck and collarbones. Zon wants to drag his tongue over every inch and leave marks behind.

Saifah smirks when he feels Zon grow hard. He uses the hold he still has on Zon’s waist to pull him down at the same time he grinds up, showing Zon he isn’t alone in being excited about what they are about to do.

Weirdly, it makes Zon more confident.

Unlike the first time they had sex, they don’t take time removing each other’s clothes because dragging this part out gives Zon too many opportunities to think. Saifah nearly rips off the buttons of Zon’s shirt and has him naked in record time. Zon pulls Saifah’s towel loose and tosses it somewhere they can find later. He’s seen Saifah naked tons of times now, but never like this: spread out across the navy blue sheets beneath him, legs open and inviting Zon to make his move.

It takes Zon a moment to figure out what ‘his move’ is. He knows he’s spoiled. Saifah has always been the giver between them, both in the bedroom and out. Not that Zon doesn’t…do things when he’s on the bottom. Once he does something for the first time and finds out he likes it, he kind of becomes insatiable afterwards. He’s gotten pretty good at giving blowjobs like they’re going out of style. Saifah shows off those scratches Zon leaves on his back like they are battle scars he’s proud of, and Saifah comes every time which is always the ultimate end goal for Zon.

But this is different. Now that he’s here between Saifah’s thighs instead of wrapped around his hips, there’s so much more…access. He can trace each line of Saifah’s abs and see them jump beneath his fingertips. Saifah’s neck is long so Zon has plenty of space to experiment with slow, dragging kisses, sucking when Saifah’s breathing stutters. Saifah has porcelain skin; Zon enjoys how it instantly reddens beneath his lips. With each new mark, Saifah rubs himself harder up against Zon’s stomach, encouraging him to keep going. He sighs when Zon pulls back to look down to where their bodies are touching.

The first time Zon saw Saifah’s dick, he was fascinated. Apparently switching roles makes him fascinated again. His eyes linger on how hard Saifah is and it’s slowly dawning on him, Saifah really likes this.

Zon lines up their cocks perfectly, spurred on by knowing he is the one controlling every slide and grind, holding Saifah’s hips steady because Zon’s shorter, but he’s still strong. Zon almost apologizes for the red blossoming beneath his fingers. Starts to ask if he’s pressing too hard. But then Saifah desperately tries to rut up against him—

Because I like being with you, Zon.

And maybe that’s it. Maybe that’s why Zon wants to be inside Saifah so badly, it’s surreal he finally will be. Zon wants to make Saifah feel as amazing as Saifah makes him feel. Give him the same attention he covers Zon with. Take care of the technicalities so all Saifah needs to do is feel good and sated and spent.

Saifah makes an amused, startled noise when Zon surges up to kiss him.

“I’m gonna make you feel so good you can’t talk,” Zon says in a rush of words against Saifah’s lips. The enthusiasm takes away any attempt at sexiness.

Still, Saifah laughs. He pushes himself up onto his elbows and barely has to stretch up to kiss Zon’s forehead. He does it three more times, then flops back down on the pillow and says, “You can do it, my Zon.”

Breathing gets harder once Zon has the lube on his fingers. He drags his other hand down over Saifah’s ribcage to his stomach to his cock. He tries to think of how Saifah takes care of him, so he bends forward and takes Saifah into his mouth at the same time he pushes his finger in.

The first thing Zon notices isn’t how tight Saifah is or how hot (though those are very fast to follow). What he notices is how Saifah’s entire body reacts. He bites his bottom lip and his stomach flexes and he thrusts into Zon’s mouth like he can’t help it. For a moment, Zon’s gag reflex activates but he doesn’t care—all his focus is on making Saifah lose control bit by bit.

Zon may not have experience in fingering someone else yet but he’s fucking determined, so he adds a second finger when Saifah tells him to, then immediately spreads them and searches. Saifah’s resounding, deep moan when Zon finds that spot has Zon grinding himself against the sheets for minor relief.

Saifah really is shameless. He has never been shy about his moans when he’s fucking Zon, never holds them back. Zon should have known Saifah would be responsive this way, too. And since Zon secretly loves hearing Saifah come undone as much as he likes coming himself, all of Saifah’s noises are loosening Zon’s remaining nerves.

Zon pulls his mouth off a minute later when he feels Saifah’s entire body shivering, a sign Zon knows means he’s close. But Saifah tightens around Zon’s fingers, warning him not to stop, and Zon can’t help but groan and give Saifah what he’s asking for.

"Does it feel good? Sai?” He can’t decide what is sexier: his fingers disappearing into Saifah’s heat or the microshifts in Saifah’s expression when Zon goes from teasing him to actually pressing repeatedly against his prostate.

“Yeah,” Saifah says, breathless. “Yeah, feels so good. You’re doing amazing.”

The nerves return once Zon has the condom on and is lining up, but Saifah knows when Zon needs encouragement. And, honestly, there’s something incredibly hot about how Saifah grips Zon’s cock and guides him forward. About how Saifah wraps his legs around Zon’s waist like a vice and tugs. Zon has nowhere to go except in and in and in.

‘Tight’ and ‘hot’ are the first thoughts this time. He’s pretty sure he blacks out for a second once his hips meet Saifah’s ass, and then again when Saifah digs his nails into Zon’s neck and forces him down so he can bite at his lips.

Somehow Saifah manages a smirk. "Try not to come right away, virgin.”

Zon groans into Saifah’s shoulder. “Shut up, jerk.”

Saifah has to be uncomfortable, but he’s running his fingers through Zon’s hair, soothing and grounding. Zon returns it with a soft kiss to Saifah’s throat and a shallow thrust, enjoying the way Saifah’s hand tightens around the strands. Enjoys it even more when he thrusts again and Saifah tightens around him everywhere and starts whispering, “Zon, c’mon. Zon, my Zon.”

And, well, Zon doesn’t mind Saifah pleading his name like this.

In novels, shyness is a common theme. “Don’t look!” and “It’s embarrassing!” And Zon gets it—he’s still the embodiment of that kind of bashfulness sometimes.

But Saifah seems to like the complete attention, and Zon doesn’t want to miss a single thing, so he sits back on his knees. Their movements are a bit awkward at first, but Saifah drags one leg over Zons shoulder. Zon grabs the other, digging his fingers into the back of Saifah’s knee and pressing it forward. Saifah has to bend further than Zon ever does in this position but he does it with a gasp instead of a complaint. Zon kisses Saifah’s inner thigh like he’s passing on a reward.

Zon refuses to come first. He always comes first. Not this time. This time it will be Saifah and Zon will even drive himself crazy to make sure that happens. He keeps the pace slow to start, pulling out then sinking deep and grinding to make sure Saifah gasps each time. When it’s time to go harder, his body does it on its own, like Zon was made to make Saifah throw his head back and moan.

Then they’re moving together, thrusting and meeting and moaning. Saifah runs his hands anywhere he can, leaving fire with each glide. They’re so long he can grab Zon’s ass and sink him deeper still. Zon bends Saifah even more. The changed angle makes Saifah’s eyes go from half-lidded to full blown with desire and Zon hits it again and again. Saifah is muttering nothing but Zon’s name. He cradles Zon’s face between his big hands and draws him into a desperate kiss.

Soon, they are just panting into each other’s mouths. Zon kisses Saifah’s nose like he did the first time they kissed and he couldn’t speak from the overwhelming happiness.

Now, it’s Saifah who is unable to find words; his nod is as subtle as Zon’s had been. I’m ready, please, I want you to.

Zon grabs onto Saifah’s cock and strokes him in time to their thrusts, pulling, pulling, pulling until Saifah is shaking and coming all over his stomach and Zon’s fingers. Between whimpers he sings Zon’s name, and he looks blissed out, and is so perfectly tight around Zon’s cock—

HIs orgasm hits him suddenly and sends lightning from his head to his toes. He can’t stop his hips from moving, thrusting deep into Saifah, but Saifah doesn’t care; he hoarsely gasps and still has his legs wrapped around Zon, ankles crossed and thighs keeping Zon in place until he’s done shivering through his high.

They’re panting when Zon collapses next to Saifah, both covered in come and sweat, and not caring at all. For once Saifah doesn’t have the energy after sex to continue doting affection on Zon. Zon does it instead. He reaches over and brushes Saifah’s bangs off his forehead. Traces mindless shapes onto his chest. Nuzzles Saifah’s neck so he can feel Zon’s smile.

“You’re amazing,” Zon says, “How are you always so amazing?”

“I think you’re the amazing one here, My. Best. Zon,” Saifah says, accentuating each word with a playful tap to Zon’s nose.

Zon preens. “It felt good?”

“You know it did. How about for you?”

“Yeah, yeah, definitely.” Zon licks his lips and he doesn’t mean for his voice to go so high when he asks, “So, you would want to do it like this again?”

Saifah drags a hand slowly up and down Zon’s arm and smiles. “I think we can do it however we want.”

Zon smiles back. “I think so too. Wait, where are you going?”

Slowly shuffling out of bed, Saifah raises an eyebrow. “To grab the towel—hey!”

Before Saifah can process it, Zon rolls over him and leaps out of bed. Still naked, he races to the bathroom for a wet towel. Along the way back, he grabs some muscle relief cream and the snacks he brought for Saifah.

“My towel from earlier is right here,” says Saifah, amused as Zon cleans them with the fresh towel. “Should I expect this service every time?”

Zon gives him a cheeky grin in reply, then sees how happy Saifah is, and he can’t help kissing him again.

They spend the rest of the night laughing, eating the snacks Zon brought, and singing stupid songs. Eventually, Zon rolls onto his side, burying his face into his pillow and snuggling deeper into the mattress. Saifah’s arm wraps around Zon’s stomach and holds tight. He kisses the spot where Zon’s neck meets his shoulder, then pulls him back until they’re practically plastered together. Their legs become a tangled mess. Soon, Zon can hear Saifah’s gentle, even breathing.

That night, Zon doesn’t mind being the little spoon.

#saifahzon #zonsaifah #why r u #why r u the series #why r u?#zon #saifah #blakemetothemoon #fic #saizon #zonfah

44 notes · View notes

unrestedjade · 4 years

Note

fic writing ask! 6, 9, 10, 14, 18

6. Favourite pairing (of food + distraction to procrastinate on writing)?

This time of year, I'm partial to bing cherries and doomscrolling Twitter. Twitter really isn't much fun but it IS compelling.

9. Choose: losing a thought-out tumblr post OR leaving a fic up on AO3 for 24hrs with a very embarrassing typo?

I'd rather weather the embarrassing typo. I usually have at least one, anyway. My fics are growers, not showers, so one day means maybe three people will see it.

10. If your favourite author found your fics, how loudly would you scream in horror (in decibels)?

Train horns are about what? 170 dB?

14. If you could take one word and publicly shame it for having inadequate synonyms, which would you choose?

Not so much the word, but the general vibe of the *action* of shrugging needs more synonyms. Or I just need to let go of my obsession with forced nonchalance, but that's unlikely to happen. *shrug*

18. Provide a summary of the hellscape that is your creative process from idea to publish?

Just follow these simple steps! 1. Flash of painfully specific dialog/vignette while I'm doing something else and cannot write it down. 2. Maladaptive daydreaming about said specific thing until I can get to my computer. (This part is very nice.) 3. When I get to the computer, under NO circumstances write down the thing, or even open the word processor. Mess around with playlists and games instead. 4. 3-5 more business days of daydreaming, now with alternate routes and/or an expansion at both ends of the specific thing. (This part is also very nice.) 5. Finally vomit up anywhere from 50 to 2000 words of exploratory drafting at 11:36 PM on a work night. (Either nice or extremely psychically painful.) 6. Crap, this is nothing like what's playing on repeat in my head. 7. Open a new document and make about five half-hearted bullet points that I'm definitely going to expand into a real outline this time; I've learned my lesson for sure. 8. Never, under any circumstances, look at those bullet points ever again. 9. Or make the outline. 10. Start something totally unrelated. This will help, somehow. 11. Come back to the original thing two weeks later, pick up in either a later or earlier section under the delusion that writing out of sequence will help. 12. Nope. It didn't. Just like every other time I've tried that. 13. Write paragraphs of utter crap until I stumble backwards into an idea that gets me unstuck. 14. Continue until I get stuck again. 15. Start another unrelated project to avoid this one. (Repeat up to 15x.) 16. Write another 3k of the original thing in a haze of my own genius. 17. This sucks and I'm a fraud and a charlatan and it's a good thing I have a day job because yikes. 18. Force myself to read over the draft, decide it's not actually that bad. 19. Make a few revisions. Now it's amazing! 20. Let it sit untouched in Scrivener until I hate it again. I picked at it too much; now it's overwrought and ruined. 21. Revise again. 22. Beta? Actually, they're really busy. I shouldn't be a bother. I don't even want to post this thing in all honesty. It's self-indulgent crap. 23. Read it again in two weeks. You know, really, it's not THAT bad. More revisions. 24. Fuck it, it's not like I'm querying Random House or something. 25. Think about posting for another 5-10 business days, but don't. 26. Spend fifteen minutes fixing all the formatting that got fucked between 4tw.com to Scrivener to AO3. 27. Finally post at one in the morning, weeks to months after I started writing. 28. Wake up to at least five typos and misspellings I somehow didn't notice between then and now. 29. Oh! What a nice comment! Maybe this was actually okay? I should reply to this very cool person. 30. Forget to do that for three weeks at least. 31. Have an idea for a continuation of the Thing or a completely random new idea that literally no one but me will care about. 32. Go to 1.

ALTERNATELY: 1. Get fish-slapped by a scenario I absolutely MUST read but it isn't anywhere. 2. Fuck it, I'll feed myself. 3. Write 10-20k over one weekend and screw up my back from sitting weird for too long. 4. Three months later, maybe post some of it. Read it to myself and chortle with glee ten times over that span.

There is no in between. And this is why I don't post very fast! It's a sickness.

9 notes · View notes

loftec · 5 years

Photo

It’s been four years today since I put up the first chapter of NTW. Let’s celebrate with a new chapter, and a couple of sneaky extras.

I have been editing old NTW chapters (which has been slow, painful, discouraging work) and it felt impossible to write new chapters before I had finished the edit. I am not finished, but I reached the roguish chapter 20 last week and managed to talk myself into a bit of a compromise. So,

here is chapter 43, effing finally

and a lengthy account of this editing malarky under the cut:

This is a strange one, and I’m not sure what you’re going to think about it. Will this upset you? Have I ruined something you liked? I don’t know. I just know that it’s been four years (FOUR YEARS) and I really just needed to do this. So I’m going to go through the whole process with you here, to catch you up on why and what, and where.

(If you’re not interested in these changes, or in reading my rambling explanation, please have this PDF of NTW chapters 1-42, unedited.)

So.

Why!

I have been writing this story for a long time, and I was in a very different place when I started it. I’m hopefully better at writing, now, and I have a slightly different approach to how I write. Every time someone commented that they just started reading NTW, I would feel really awkward about it, because I knew there were specific weak points in the first half that I wish I had managed better when I wrote them. So I decided to go back and edit a little, no big deal, right? Well.

I ended up doing a little bit more than just correcting typos, and I realise that this might feel like a bad thing to some of you who care about this story, and have been reading it almost as long as I have been writing it.

What??

Not everything has changed, I promise. The story is still the same, and I have tried my best to keep the bottom line the same for each and every scene that have in some way been adjusted. The edits can be divided into three levels, in order of severity.

Level one: tone consistency

Little things you hopefully won’t notice. Trying to get the first half to stylistically better match the second half. I can’t promise it’s better, but it’s different and oh dang… I hope it’s better.

Level two: alternative routes

More noticeable changes which still remain faithful to what they used to be.

Example! In chapter 7, Ian and Mickey talk about coffee. Ian makes a pointless reference to Clueless, because 2015 me thought it would be funny. 2019 me would still make that pointless reference to Clueless, cling to it for a minute, and then admit to myself that it isn’t particularly funny and definitely isn’t in character, and then rewrite the scene. So I rewrote the scene. They still talk about coffee, all the main points are still there, but this time it makes some god damned sense.

Level three: DEMOLITION SCHEDULED TO MAKE WAY FOR AN INTERGALACTIC EXPRESSWAY

Substantial changes and additions.

Example! In chapter 16, I originally wasted some 1000 words ranting about Halloween before getting to the point. Why? Because 2015 me had thoughts about Halloween and figured what the heck, Mickey can have those thoughts too, that makes sense. Guess what, 2015 me? It didn’t! But the point of that section was never supposed to be “Mickey hates Halloween, here’s why”, but “Mickey is grumpy because his son chose to spend Halloween with his mom for the first time in ten years and it sucks”... which did not come across super clearly, all muddled up in me projecting my own thoughts on the poor guy. This has been rewritten to better reflect what I wanted to say with that section, and also include more Yev and better introduce Mickey’s friendship with Sonya. It’s more in character, it’s more fun to read (I hope) and it makes some god damned sense.

We also have a couple of pure additions, such as the second half of the infamously incomplete chapter 20, and little bits here and there.

WHERE?

Here’s a list for reference.

Chapter 1: edited (level 1)

Chapter 2: edited (level 1)

Chapter 3: edited (level 3), slight addition/change

Chapter 4: edited (level 3), slight addition/change

Chapter 5: edited (level 1)

Chapter 6: edited (level 2), slight alteration in dialogue

Chapter 7: edited (level 2), slight alteration in dialogue

Chapter 8: edited (level 3), pretty hefty edit, but no real addition

Chapter 9: edited (level 3), added dialogue in the beginning, minor changes throughout

Chapter 10: edited (level 2), slight alteration in dialogue

Chapter 11: edited (level 1)

Chapter 12: edited (level 2), slight alteration in dialogue

Chapter 13: edited (level 1)

Chapter 14: edited (level 1)

Chapter 15: edited (level 2), mostly just a level 1 edit, but I think I added a paragraph at the end that wasn’t there before

Chapter 16: edited (level 3), the start has been rewritten, large bit has been added, the rest has been heavily edited/rewritten

Chapter 17: edited (level 3), a few smaller additions throughout, pretty heavily edited

Chapter 18: edited (level 2), some heavier edits, mostly bits and bobs

Chapter 19: edited (level 2), pretty heavily edited, but no major changes. Except one, concerning Monica’s death (mentioned). Let me know if you want me to elaborate on why I made this change (or any change, of course).

Chapter 20: edited (level 3) FINALLY ADDED THE SECOND HALF. It’s nothing special, but IT’S THERE NOW OMG I’VE BEEN SO ANNOYED BY THIS FOR SO LONG. Also edited.

(Chapters 21-40 to come.)

And here’s the thing. I think the story is a lot better now, but I 100% understand if you don’t feel the same way. I needed to rewrite the version of it which is published online under my pen name, so I changed it. But! That doesn’t mean you have to read it. Here’s the link to that PDF again. Let me know if the link ever stops working, and I’ll fix it.

Lastly. I want to thank you (YOU) for letting me grow and get better, in my own time. Editing the first twenty chapters was a painful experience for me, they were incredibly uneven and occasionally mortifying. But I thought they were fantastic when I wrote them, and first put them up on AO3, and not one person told me a single discouraging thing about my poor grammar, sloppy spelling, or contrived references. And that means something.

I deal with a lot of “constructive feedback” in my actual work, and I know the value of it. But there is also something so uniquely wonderful about allowing someone to grow at their own pace, purely by encouraging them to keep going and do what they love, exactly the way they want to do it.

I would hope I am a more refined writer now than I was four years ago, but I wouldn’t be writing at all if I hadn’t dared to start somewhere and received the encouragement I needed to continue. So download the pdf and enjoy my humble beginnings, or come with me and enjoy a whole host of new typos in the freshly edited NTW universe. But whatever you do, please know that I remember and appreciate every click, kudos, and kind word you’ve ever said to me on the way. Thank you.

(If you have any questions about any of this, general or specific, please ask me!)

#shameless us #ian x mickey #fan fic #update!#NTW

70 notes · View notes

leviathiane · 4 years

Note

OH 41 👀👀👀👀👀

sajdkhbsfkd since you deemed fit to go Feral in my inbox ill Oblige 😘

…….However im realizing this is long as fuck and I went a lil unhinged myself bc i got Serious at some moments (apologies to everyone) so WHOOP stickin it under a Read More

9) Read

…….This is full of negative energy to ask Me of all people asjndbhfdnj YES please read. Read all the time. Read everything and anything you can get your hands on. Read to write the same way you listen to speak and watch to draw. Read and read and read and read and read. The first step to writing is reading. also who doesnt read……… who doesnt just hunker down and frantically absorb text like a starving raccoon………………………….

13) Less is more

This can go either way! Sometimes you need a little extra to whats going on, and this is largely dependent on the situation and style. Less is definitely more when it comes to action. However, less is not always more when describing the environment– setting a scene takes a bit more than just “they were there”, you feel? Unless youre going for vague to make a certain mood– again, it all ties largely into tone and style for most cases

17) Rules are made to be broken

LANGUAGE ISNT REAL. WE MADE IT UP. FUCK EVERYTHING. SHAKESPEARE INVENTED A SHIT TON OF WORDS AND NOBODY SAID ANYTHING. FUCK CRINGE, INVENT A WHOLE GENRE! STAR WARS AND STAR TREK AND LORD OF THE RINGS INVENTED THEIR OWN LANGUAGES, FREEFORM POETRY KICKS THE SHIT OUT OF EVERYTHING POETRY IS “MEANT” TO BE–– BEING ILLITERATE IS IN BABY. YOU ARE THE GODLESS TODDLER WITH A ROOM FULL OF LETTER BLOCKS AND YOU ARE MORE VALID THAN ANYONE WHO TELLS YOU YOU’RE WRONG! EAT THE CONFORMING LAWS OF LITERATURE ALIVE AND MOMMA BIRD THEM INTO THE MOUTH OF YOUR OPPRESSORS

18) The first draft of everything is shit

FUCK THE FIRST DRAFT. do what you have to. my first drafts look like a groupchat with 13 people all trying to explain whats going on as theyre typing and none of them are reading the others texts. Write it drunk. write it at 5am and fall asleep on the keyboard. Write it full of spelling errors and wrong punctuation and characterization that will make you scream later because it doesnt matter. Bad writing can always be fixed, empty documents cant. Act like its an alien parasite you have to violently dig out of your stomach and stitch it up later– just get it out

24) Don’t edit as you write

This one is also a big yes or no for me, since it works really well for some people and not at all for others. I lean more towards Don’t, since its best to just shove it all out before you try to perfect it– but sometimes that push to have a Perfect product is too strong to leave a typo or the wrong word or whatever mess was made. Do what works for you–– HOWEVER, do not do FULL SCALE edits in the middle of the draft. it will twist up your plot, and leave you frustrated and confused. Nothing stops progress like being forced to stop and reread your entire piece because it changed so much along the way you can’t remember where it was supposed to go.

41) The only way you can write the truth is to assume that what you set down will never be read

Yeah! Honestly, idk what to say for this but ….. yea h asknbhkdnsdkf. Its not a secret at this point that i write MASSIVE amount of OC-self-insert fic as a means to practice characterizations of canon characters, but hoenstly?? I find that stuff to be some of my best fic. That’s the stuff that I get lost in, because I know it’ll never be posted. There’s nothing more honest than what’s only for your eyes. There’s none of that panicked “will my readers like it”. No subconscious (or conscious) pandering for anyone except you. That stuff can be raw as hell. Ive tackled mental health issues i might NEVER touch in actual fics within stories i wrote just for me.

44) Everyone has a book in them

I want to say yes, but I also need to have the disclaimer of do not take this lightly. In ratatouille Remy says anybody can cook but do i Look like gordo mcramsay? Everyone has a story, but not everyone has a book, if that makes sense. We are all capable of writing and publishing something brilliant, but its not something you sit down and just decide and do. Its the same mentallity with fic authors, in that people assume this is easy, fun work. It is not. writing is grueling. Sometimes It sucks. You do it over and over and sometimes are never satisfied, and more often than not you have to just live with it. People will hate or love what you make regardless of your skill, your ideas, your execution. All creative work comes at a cost. It takes time, and practice, and sleepless nights, and sometimes even the criticism you ask for makes you want to curl up and cry–– and thats not even mentioning criticism you didn’t ask for. Anybody can write a book– but good is subjective, and it takes so much more effort than popular media/culture acknowledges.

#depths' ask #response #ask meme #touchmycoat #did this......... did any of this make sense askjhbfjs #i literally came in from thinning the trees and just immediately did this so #it may be a lil incoherent #but when am i Not incoherent u feel #anyway sanjbhdfjnsdm #this ended up so much longer than i intended! i talk too much but this aint news lmfao #love u btich heres ur Juice

6 notes · View notes

puffmamaa · 5 years

Text

Elbow Deep: Part 1

So this is my first time ever writing fanfiction!! I’m a little bit nervous because in this fandom, whew chillay.....y’all are some muthafuckin’ WRITERS, hunny. “Talent all up & thru this bitch.” lmao I hope mine is decent enough for y’all tho.

But anyways, here goes...something lol.

Pairing: Erik “Killmonger” Stevens x Black, Dark-Skin, Plus Size OC. (Always💛)

Summary: Erik begrudgingly attends a benefit gala. He prepares himself for a wack ass night, only to be met with a quite, scrumptious surprise. 😉

Word Count: Somewhere around 1400, 1500.

Warnings: Cussing. Use of the N-word. Dragging white people. T’Challa on his bullshit lol. But mostly fluffy and cute.

A/N: In my mind, I want this to be a series but I’m not sure how to make it work yet. If not, than I guess a cute little one-shot? Idk, If y’all like it enough, I’ll try for a part 2 at very least. Also, I wrote this on my phone at like 3 AM so please excuse any mistakes or typos. 😝

“Dedicated to my new found love for hot wings.”

——

“Welcome ALL to Wakanda Outreach Center’s Annual Benefit Gala”

Erik snorted as he read the overzealous banner. He hated these kind of events. The only reason he even bothered to show up was because he lost a bet to his cousin. Nigga prolly cheated, he thought to himself.

Erik N’Jadaka Udaku-Stevens wasn’t one to be presurred into obligation. So when King T’Challa tried to convince him to support the Wakanda Outreach Center at their annual gala, Erik literally laughed in his face.

—

“Hell nah, nigga. I don’t go to these things for a reason. My energy is better used towards actually doing work for the community. Not rubbin’ elbows with a bunch of uppity negroes and cracka ass crackers.” Erik snapped, twisting his lips and being extra as hell.

Princess Shuri giggled. She (not-so) secretly loved when her cousin went off on one of his colonizer-dragging rants.

“N’Jadaka, we talked about calling them that.” T’Challa shot Shuri a stern look while crossing his hands behind his back. “And, it IS for the good of the community. Engagement with everyone, including other races, is necessary to keep things civil. How would it look if our own Director didn’t show up to support?”

“It’ll look like exactly what it is,” Erik said, crossing his arms across his chest. “A bourgie ass event with bourgie ass people, throwing around bourgie ass rhetoric about shit they don’t know a damn thing about. I’m good, love...”

“...enjoy!” Shuri blurted out in her Keke Palmer voice, cackling with Erik at T’Challa’s frustration.

T’Challa pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. He was completely over Erik and his shenanigans. Quickly, he perked his head up and rolled his shoulders back. He had the perfect Plan B. “How about we make this a wager, hmm? If I win, you attend the gala. If you win, I won’t bring it up again,” He teased with a sly smirk, knowing his competitive cousin all too well.

Erik paused.

Shuri turned on her Kimoyo beads.

“Bet. You won’t be smiling when I beat that ass, tho.”

“Oh it is on, cousin.”

“Say less, cousin. Throw them hands up.”

“On scissors.”

“No nigga. It’s on shoot. Tryna best me when you don’t even know how to play? Tuh! Have fun at that punk ass gala, boi!”

—

And there he was. In a stuffy ass suit watching his corny ass cousin fake laugh with rich white folks for donor money that they didn’t even need.

“Fuck rock, paper, scissors,” Erik murmured to himself, shifting uncomfortably against the wall.

T’Challa peaked over at Erik, watching him sneer at another group of white folks who almost ran into him.

“Excuse you. Damn,” Erik nostrils flared. “I know y’all can see my big ass standing here.” T’Challa appeared, placing his hand on Erik’s shoulder to stop him before he lit into they asses. “Relax, N’Jadaka. This is supposed to be a fun night.”

“Fun, my ass,” Erik growled lowly. “This shit is wack. Even the food is trash. I mean, what the fuck is liver pâté on cucumber toast? All the Black people you know and you couldn’t get some decent food? No chicken? Shit, some Jollof rice would suffice,” He bellowed, rubbing his grumbling stomach.

“Nakia was in charge of the food. She likes to...experiment,” T’Challa chuckled. “One time she tried to get our chef to make these Chinese style pork buns. Which was comical because his only Asian specialities are Japanese cuisine and—.”

“Yeah, I don’t care,” Erik huffed dryly. “I’mma go see if they got some real food around here. I’m starving.” Erik rolled his eyes as he stomped away, leaving T’Challa standing there with the oop face.

“He on my last nerve, I swear,” Erik spat to himself.

He shuffled past a crowd of people mingling in the gala hall, before bursting through the kitchen door. “Hey, y’all got anything else back here? Shit, at this point I’ll settle for a grilled cheese sandw...” Erik stopped mid-sentence, completely taken back by the sight before him.

A woman seated in a tall stool at one of the islands was expertly downing a plate of hot wings, not getting a speck on her crisp white, off-the-shoulder gown. Erik watched her do a little happy dance as she cleaned every bit of meat and gristle off the bone. She popped a mocha colored finger in her mouth, sucking off left over sauce as she turned towards the direction of the eyes she felt gazing into her side.

“Oh, my bad,” Erik said, realizing he was staring at her a little too hard. “I was just looking for something to eat. But I see you beat me to it.” He smirked, while rubbing his hand nervously over his neatly braided dreads.

The woman let out a short laugh. “Did you see what they’re serving out there? Might as well put up a sign that says. ‘Don’t eat if you have tastebuds.’ You would think with Black people in charge, at least the food would be good.”

Erik smiled, letting his dimples peak out for the first time all night, “I’m saying, tho.”

“Here,” She exclaimed as she pulled up a stool next to her. “They’ll make just about anything you ask for. But I suggest the wings. They’re bomb.

“Mhmm,” Erik said as he took the seat & looked her over. He motioned towards the chef. “I’ll have what she’s got.”

As the chef prepared his food, Erik surprisingly found himself in deep conversation with the eccentric woman. Mostly about random things like where to get the best wings in Oakland & why white folks don’t season their food. Still, he was memorized by how laid back and real she seemed to be. Something he didn’t expect to find at a uptight, bourgie ass gala.

“Daamnn. You cleaned those bones like the chicken’s going somewhere,” she teased.

“Says the woman elbow deep in buffalo sauce,” Erik shot back jokingly, eying her as he finished off his last wing.

“Pffhtt...whatever! You wouldn’t even have known to get the wings if I wasn’t here. You should be thanking me,” She huffed, folding her arms across her chest.

Erik laughed and rolled his eyes, dramatically sucking the chicken bone in his hand while leaning in her direction.

She swatted at him playfully before checking the clock on the wall.” Oh shit, I gotta get back out there.”

She wiped her hands, before standing to smooth her gown. “Do me a favor and check my dress? Last thing I want is to be thinking I’m cute but I’m actually covered in chicken stains,” She said with a chuckle, slowly turning in front of Erik.

“Sure.” Erik said lowly before clearing his throat. He took in her frame, admiring her glowing dark skin and the way the gown hugged her fluffy tummy.

“You good.” He said, forcing his eyes to hers before they got lost in between her thighs.

She kissed her teeth and shot him a bright smile, “Thanks. Well, this was fun. Um...?”

“Oh, uh..Erik,” he replied, smiling back. “And yea it was...fun. Um...?”

She giggled. “Janessa.”

And with that, she sashayed out the double kitchen doors and into the crowded gala hall.

Erik sat back with one arm slinged over the back of his chair, juggling a toothpick in his teeth as he rubbed his now satisfied belly.

He would definitely see her again.

——

I hope y’all enjoyed! (lmao I’m so corny but Keke cracks me up🤣)

Also, let me know what y’all think. 👀

CONTINUE: Part 2.

🌞

#erik killmonger #erik killmonger x reader #killmonger x reader #erik stevens #erik stevens x reader #killmonger x OC #erik killmonger imagine #marvel imagine #erik killmonger x OC #black panther #black panther imagine #killmonger fanfic #black panther fanfic #killmonger fanfiction #erik killmonger fanfic #killmonger imagine #erik stevens imagine #Elbow Deep

273 notes · View notes

kidchameleon92 · 5 years

Text

“life story” 1

i’m not going to edit this at all going along. typos, bad grammar, mistakes. doesn’t matter. this is spontaneous thought.

disclaimer: i changed the word to “spontaneous” from “spurious” which means something completely different, so the first paragraph is already a lie.

anyway, it’s been a really weird and sort of bad couple months for me. mostly in my state of mind. i feel very stuck and very immobile when it comes to my art and career. and that is having a very negative effect on my brain. even though i’m putting out my favorite songs i’ve ever written. i’ve been meaning to write for awhile. i used to post when i lived in los angeles several years ago, just journaling my day to day life. but i haven’t for awhile. i guess i also used to write in a notebook while on different tours. but i think i’ve since thrown that away or hidden it somewhere.

point is: i just want to write to get things off my mind. and hopefully, maybe, it’ll help you (if you care to) get to know me a little more and on a more personal level. even if we haven’t met. and maybe it’ll make what i make (if you care about it) mean more to you. either way, mostly, i just want to rant a bit. so, this is my life’s story. i guess.

chapter 1: kid

i was born in a suburb of the twin cities in minnesota. my parents both grew up in minnesota and lived there their whole lives (until my mom recently moved to tennessee). my mom was a mortician, and my dad was an accountant. also an alcoholic. he cheated on her and left her and i when i was one year old. i remember growing up going to stay with him on weekends, except it was with him and his girlfriend at the time. except he was drunk a lot. and would drive drunk with me (a baby) in the car. so, that’s cool. anyway, my mom was really depressed, and that was not a good time (or so i’ve heard, because i was a baby, so idk).

i stayed with my grandparents a lot, because my mom worked full time. my maternal grandparents lived on a ton of land. my grandpa and i would ride motorcycles and four wheelers and sleep in a treehouse and all that. my other grandparents lived in the same town but in a small house. i used to go up to their cabin during the summer and go fishing and swimming and boating and all that. different g-parent vibes, but loved both a lot.

anyway, when i was three, my mom married my step-dad. he is from india and has had a lot of unique and challenging experiences, so that certainly brought a lot of particular lessons and outlooks into my life. i went there once when i was about 14. it was wild. but so, yeah. that kinda solidified my family unit. my dad got remarried later on as well. but the older i got, i saw him less and less.

so ... i loved video games. i played them all the time. a big part of my childhood. mostly nintendo. explains a lot. as a kid in school (4 years public, 3 years private, 1 year home, 3 years private, 1 year PSEO [look it up]), i was never popular whatsoever. i always wanted to gain some sort of acclaim or attention from my classmates, but was pretty much always looked down on for one reason or another. i remember in elementary school, i was the kid who was literally terrified of storms. probably because i had been in a tornado when i was six. but the moment it would thunder, all the kids would look at me to see if i was gonna cry. usually, i did. and the school nurse would take me outside and we’d walk around as a sort of therapy. i guess it helped sorta. i still get nervous in storms. but i don’t cry.

i also remember a time specifically that i got made fun of for wearing a denver broncos t-shirt. this kid just railed on me because it wasn’t a minnesota vikings shirt. so, one: i don’t even give a fuck about sports. but two: it stuck with me for some reason that someone would be a massive jerk over a t-shirt of a sports team. i guess that’s just because we as humans are messed up things.

anyway, in middle school, i started becoming semi-interested in music. i listened to the radio every night, listening to the top 10 countdown of big songs from that week. kanye, weezer, the click five, black eyes peas, green day. those were some anyway. besides that, i was just listening to like kelly clarkson and relient k or something. my mom had a steven curtis chapman cd in her van i thought went hard. but i started getting into popular music around then. i also started to write my own music. i used to take piano lessons from when i was like six or seven until i was 14 or so. but after i started writing my own songs, i hated practicing assigned pieces. i didn’t care. i wanted to play my own. so, the teacher said if i quit, i couldn’t be her student again. so i did. that’s fine. she said i was her most talented student. but i didn’t work that hard. so, that goes to show that natural talent and hard work have different roles, i suppose.

chapter 2: girls and high school and such

in high school, i started LiKiNg gIrLs and stuff. i also was still not very popular. i also had started a band (with jack). i wasn’t very good, but i was just as obsessed with it as i am now. anyway, i liked this one girl from my church, and we talked all the time. but because we grew up in a pretty fundamental church culture, we weren’t allowed to date. which honestly, i fine, because looking back, no one knows what they are doing at 16 really. i definitely didn’t. i still don’t know what i’m doing. anyway ...

so, this girl and i half-dated for a couple years, and i was really clingy and annoying. but that’s just how i be. and i thought i was gonna marry her and stuff, because in a fundamental church context, you over spiritualize everything.

[[disclaimer: i am a christian, and i still go to church, but my theology and ideology on a lot of things has just evolved and changed a lot since i was young and since leaving the ultra-americanized/ultra-fundamental “christian” realm. main point being: we all are effed up bro and need saving. i’m an idiot always!]]

but now we’re back. girl “dumped” me and started dating another guy named “patrick” right after, even though she technically wasn’t allowed to date until she was 18. but apparently, she just wasn’t allowed to date me. so, that was cool. anyway, i was angsty, but then i got over it. because i was 17, so life big time goes on.

then i met another girl from canada while i was finishing school and going hard at my band stuff. we hit it off, and i started visiting her up there. and she visited me and all that. it was cool. and then all of a sudden, she really started hating me. and to be fair, i was weird and clingy and sort of a lot to deal with. but we kept dating. all the while, i was sort of leaving behind music to try to get into nursing school. yep, nursing school. but i got rejected, which is great. and so, i decided to go to audio engineering school in canada. and she was gonna go to college in the same city. this is great! so i thought. she dumped me (well, i sort of broke up with myself for her) about a month after we were living in the same city. wack. but it made me buckle down and work my ass off in school. i was top of my class one semester. yeah, i’m not that dumb. sometimes.

towards the spring of the next year, i happened to meet a girl who was at my church with one of my friends. she seemed chill. just talked a little. nothing crazy. happened to hit her up on twitter just to say hi. no intention. we talked a bit. nothing after that. then all of a sudden, a couple months later, i was tweeting about reading harry potter for the first time (note: fundamental upbringing). she happened to tweet me back about it. and long story short, we went out on a date. a sort-of-date. and what was supposed to be a lunch turned into an all day and half the night date. anyway, we got married a year later. after a lot of immigration paperwork and expenses. that’s a whole other post. that sucked. it’s a lot. and it’s why i feel bad for people who have nothing who are trying to come here to flee danger in their own countries. again, another post.

chapter 3: married, and other hard things

so, i forgot to say that before we got married, i lived in los angeles for a year after school. i was doing more sound for film work. on set stuff, post-production. got to do work with like ... james franco, matt damon, emma roberts, william shatner. some cool stuff. but jack’s old band came through on tour, and i saw two shows. and i was like ... bruh. i gotta do music, what am i doing? so, i literally moved back to minnesota within like two weeks, worked as a nursing assistant for a little bit and got married. then moved to nashville like two weeks later. i guess i could’ve stayed in los angeles. but nashville felt like the move at the time. everything happens with a purpose.

so, we moved here, and she couldn’t work for three months because of immigration stuff. so, i was like, well, guess i need a job. so, i got a job managing a home for a couple people with intellectual disabilities. it was super hard. mostly because the company was really, really bad. so, i got another job working as a staffing coordinator in an office for a home health care agency. that was a little better. still tough. but less overwhelming. a couple months after i got that job, i got an offer to go on a country tour playing bass for someone. and i was like ... well, this is why i moved here. so, i quit and went on tour. and shawna actually took my old job. interesting.

i was gone for three weeks, and it sucked and the pay was bad, but at least i was doing what i wanted. but then i got an offer from my friend to do some tech work on a much bigger country gig. i hadn’t done it before, but it was better pay and a better position. and on a bus and nice things and all that. so, i went for it. i pissed the other girl i was playing for off. but that’s show biz, baby. but like, i found a replacement for myself and paid to fly him out to her shows and stuff. so, really she won.

anyway, i toured with this other artist for four years. and i learned a lot. it was very, very challenging, both mentally and physically. and some people are just hard to work with. but i still gained so much valuable experience and insight into touring from that. i also started playing guitar for another artist who was small at the time, but has now had a couple number one hits. but his label fired me because i didn’t look country enough. we’re still homies though, so it’s literally fine. because i do indeed not look country enough.

at the same time, i was doing my own solo music and also producing and writing with and for other people. i’ve had the opportunity to write and produce for everything from independent artists to major label to billboard charting albums to whatever. songs on major television networks. i’m still very un-rich though, if that tells you anything.

but really, i just wanted to do my own music. and i literally couldn’t get it to go anywhere. i had no idea what the “secret” was. what was i missing? money? connection? power? actually probably all of that, to be honest. this industry is wacko. i was pretty close to giving up.

chapter 4: milkk

i read a satirical article on vice.com about “how to start a trendy band” or something. i thought it was funny. so, i called jack. he had just been kicked out of his old band for no reason. i was like, “bruh, let’s do this article.” and he was like, ok. so, we sort of did. and i’m not gonna go into all the early details, because i’ve done a million press interviews about how our band started. and i don’t wanna say it again. google it.

this was the first time that i actually saw people care about my music. it was a high. it was like a dream. and we hadn’t even had any big song or anything. just the fact that people were listening and engaging was mind blowing to me. but just like with anything, the more things went, the less i found satisfying. the more “likes” or “follows” on socials didn’t feel like enough anymore. the streams didn’t seem good enough. the chart positions on the debut album didn’t seem that great. the hype wore off a little after the debut album hype. and that made me insane. probably because we as humans are not built to be satisfied by the things in our life. “Vanity of vanities!” it’s in ecclesiastes. like the bible one.

chapter 5: now

anyway, that’s bad. i had (and have) let my mind convince me that i have to achieve something in order to be happy or fulfilled, when i know that that stuff will never fulfill me. i could play the biggest stadium and have the biggest song in history, but after a burst of dopamine and excitement, it would be empty. and i know that nothing here will do that. at least, that’s what i believe. my hope is outside of myself.

but that’s hard to internalize when you are so passionate about something, and have been for so long, and all you want to do is create things for other people that they can appreciate and be influenced by. but it’s probably also selfish. like i openly admit i like the idea of fame and presence. and it probably ties all the way back to wanting acknowledgement and attention as a kid, from being unpopular and ridiculed and, honestly, left by my dad. maybe i just therapied myself.

but regardless, i know i can’t put my identity in all this stuff. it’s hard, and it’s harder when you create stuff. because it’s so deeply tied to you. but it’s still not “who i am.” i know who i am and what i believe, but i’m still a mess, so i can’t enact that in my brain perfectly. in fact, far from it.

anyway. it’s late, and i’m going to post this and attempt to not worry about how it does on social media. stupid!!! i just want this out in the world for you to read. hopefully it’s helpful for you in some way. but mostly, it was just cool to write this out, for my own sake.

i’ve been blessed in some amazing ways. my family. oh, yeah i forgot that i have two kids. i love them a lot. i don’t talk about them on social media much. but they are very special to me. and we’ve always been taken care of, even when times were tight or i didn’t know when the next paycheck was coming in or i thought my wife was about to die or whatever. the Lord provided for us every time. and i am grateful to have what career i have. it may be “small” and nothing to look at by the big industry standards, but i believe in what i make so much, and i’m just grateful that anyone cares about it at all. and i will continue to do so until the day i die. because i have to.

it’s what i was born to do, for better or worse. and no one can tell me otherwise.

121 notes · View notes

eyfey · 5 years

Note

Do you have advice on how to improve on translating? Also, what made you want to start translating? Major props to you for translating Saiki because Akechi Touma’s lines kinda make me wanna die inside.

Thanks!!! (though tbh Akechi’s blathering is not NEARLY as bad as the non-stop puns/obscure references lol)

For what made me start translating:I found some Pyu to Fuku Jaguar raws for cheap at a used bookstore and started learning Japanese so I could read them. Once I got a little faster at reading, I noticed the Jaguar scanlation team had lost their translator, so I offered to join. My first translations were super not great (the only reason they’re even somewhat accurate is because Mangahelpers was more active at the time and I posted my translations there in the forums for people to proofread/asked for help whenever there was any kanji/grammar I got stuck on.

(If you want to go read my first translation, it’s ch62 of Pyu to Fuku! Jaguar. …Looking at it now, there’s so many places I could’ve translated better lol)

Since then I’ve gotten a lot better:

So here’s my hot tips on how to get better at translating!!!(under the readmore ‘cause it’s looong)

The number one thing that I recommend is… Just Translate! Pick up some raws and start doing some translations! They’re probably gonna be bad at first but who cares! You gotta start somewhere! Translating forces you to think about how to actually translate stuff and makes you look up words/grammar you don’t know. If you’re translating for a group/actually releasing your translations: You’ve got deadlines now! People looking forward to your translations! You’ve got consequences that will make it harder for you to slack off and drop your studies!

Google things! Whenever there’s a word/phrase/grammar that you don’t know: Google it! Google is a translators best friend!!!

Here’s some keywords I use:“[vocab/phrase in japanese] 英語で” will give you a google translate of the vocab, and if you scroll down a little like a weblio page or something with some translations for the vocab (the weblio/other pages are usually more accurate than the google translate option).

“[grammar in japanese] grammar” - Example 食べさせた (tabesaseta). Can’t remember what the -saseta verb ending meants? (I don’t blame you lol) Google “させた grammar” and you’ll get some pages in english explaining it along with several examples.

Have another translator proofread your translations! They can help you with vocab/grammar, parts that you misread, or even just suggest different ways to translate things that might fit better in different situations. The first scanlation group I was in did this and I learned soooo much that way! I don’t know how many other groups do this though (or how many other groups even have more than one translator) so maybe I just lucked out!

Fun fact! If something seems out of place when you’re reading/translating, it’s probably one of the following:a). A pun/cultural reference. b). A specific phrase/saying that shouldn’t be taken literally. (Googling the entire phrase will usually give you an equivelant phrase or appropriate definition in English.)c). Some weird grammar that you’re translating wrong (do a deep google: a lot of grammar forms have multiple meanings/change meaning based on very small factors/are very similar sounding to other different grammar forms)

Understand that a literal translation is not always a good or accurate translation: There’s some famous Natsume Souseki shenanigans where the line “I love you” was translated as “The moon is beautiful” in Japanese, because of how Japanese people are more shy or something and would never say “I love you straight out”. Natsume Souseki is valid- some things when you translate directly lose their nuance and change the meaning to something completely different.

That being said, changing TOO much will also ruin your translation. It’s a fine balance.The point is: once you understand what the Japanese says, you gotta think “okay now how would they say this in English?” If this series were originally in English, how would the author write that dialogue? What is the main point that needs to get across and what is the tone and how do you accurately convey both of those in English?

Consume! Consume media! Read stuff! Watch TV! Listen Learn how people talk! Get a bunch of English vocabulary up in your head and save it for later. Translating is not just understanding, it’s also WRITING. You need to have at least SOME understanding of how to write a poem if you want to translate a poem. You need to have at least SOME understanding of how to write comics/fiction if you want to translate comics/fiction.

Read/watch translated stuff! See how other translators translate certain words/phrases and take notes. Steal their cool ways of translating things and incorporate them into your own translations. Notice what DOESN’T work in a translation and make a mental note to not do that. (Season 2 of Aggretsuko on Netflix had me going “WOW that’s a good translation!” constantly while watching it. Good job Aggretsuko S2 netflix translator!)

Google again! Remember how you had to google to learn Japanese words? Good! Now google English words too! Google vocab terms! Google synonyms! Google phrases/sayings! Google words to make sure you’re spelling them right! Google grammar to make sure you’re using it right! GOOGLE!

Accents/dialects: Tread carefully with accents and speech quirks. Sprinkle them in, don’t lay them on heavy. Read the dialogue you’ve written and think “Does this sound like how an actual person would talk? or does this sound like someone putting on a shitty fake accent?” I’ve seen so many translations where people slam the accent on so hard you can’t even read the dialogue any more… It’s not great. *Exceptions for if the character IS putting on a shitty fake accent in Japanese, in which case go hog wild.

Puns: If you hate yourself, you will try to translate the puns instead of putting a translators note. Don’t worry too much about translating the pun EXACTLY. With puns/jokes, there’s two important factors at play: 1. What is the joke? Is it a reference? Is it a play on words? 2. What is the text ACTUALLY saying?Start by translating the line with no pun, just regular dialogue, and then adjust from there. Then re-word to try and fit in the pun- swap out words for ones that lend themselves better to punnery, or change which part of the sentence has the pun worked into it. (Wanna know a secret? Sometimes*, if the pun is the main focus of the line and there isn’t actually any important meaning to the dialogue? You can just write whatever the fuck you want to fit the pun. *but only if you’re ABSOLUTELY sure that it’s 100% about the pun and there’s no other significance)

しかたがない: This sucks. This phrase sucks. “It can’t be helped” sucks 98% of the time. “What choice do we have”, “Fine then” “What did you expect?” “I guess” “If you insist” “Whatever”. There’s a million ways to translate it, but no one way works for every situation. Sometimes you can just take it out completely. It all boils down to “I don’t want to do this but I’m doing it anyway” so think of what someone might say in that scenario that conveys that feeling and still feels natural.

Sentence structure/double bubbles: Japanese grammar structure is weird. Sometimes they do stuff like put the subject at the end of the sentence. It sounds weird when you do that in English. Don’t do that in english when you’re translating it. If you’ve got a line like 強いね、君は (tsuyoi ne, kimi wa). Please don’t translate it as “You’re strong, you are”. Just translating it as “You’re strong” is good enough. If you want to try and keep the pause in there, you could do something like “Yknow, you’re pretty strong.” If you’ve got something like this that’s split up across multiple speech bubbles- DON’T try to translate each bubble individually. Translate them all together as one big block of text, then divide it where it feels natural, and THEN re-distribute it to the speech bubbles. Sometimes what was in the last bubble will end up in the first bubble.

If it sounds awkward in English- Change it. Figure out what doesn’t sound awkward and make it be that.

PROOFREAD. You’re gonna spell things wrong. You’re gonna misread things. You’re gonna go back and decide to change the wording of a sentence but forget to change the tense of one of the words. You’re gonna translate something too close to the Japanese sentence structure and you won’t really notice it the first go around but when you go back to proofread you’ll be like “Wow. No one talks like that in English.”

For reference, here’s my translation/proofread process:

1. Translate. Get it into English. Doesn’t matter if it sounds janky or awkward right now, just try to get the meaning down in English. Anything you’re not sure you translated right? Mark it so you can double check it later. (I usually do this in a google doc on my phone.)2. 1st passthrough. Go through, and turn all that janky english into more natural sounding English: Check for anything that sounds off and give it some tlc. Reword anything that needs it. Do some hard research on the places you weren’t sure about the first time.3. 2nd passthrough. One more sweep through to polish up any parts that still sound awkward in English. If you’re not pressed for time it’s good to do this one a day or two after the previous passthrough so you’ve had some time to let the translation simmer in the back of your mind. Maybe you’ve come up with a better way to word something? Maybe you came up with a good way to make that joke work?4. Final proofread. Usually I do this after it’s been typeset: Sometimes something that read fine as a script doesn’t read so great when put on a page, divided into bubbles or split into separate pages. Adjust those parts. Check extra hard for any missed typos or messed up grammar ‘cause there IS going to be some that slipped through.

KEEP NOTES: If you’re working on a series, consistency is important and makes you look professional! Keep a document somewhere with translation notes so you can do a quick consistency check whenever necessary. Write down things like: How to spell/translate the names of characters/places/special attacks/etc (especially side characters that only show up every once and a while), how you translate certain catch phrases, how you handle certain characters’ speech quirks. You WILL forget if you spelled that name with one R or two Rs and it’s WAY easier to keep it all in one document than to have to go back and scan through every chapter until you find the ONE panel to see how it was written before. It also helps if you have multiple translators working on a series.

Put your name on your translation scripts if you want to be credited! Doesn’t have to be on every page, just once at the top- I used to not bother 'cause they were always just uploaded directly to the scan groups/never publicly uploaded, but then one day someone used one of my translations and the credit page just said something like “don’t know who to credit” lol

…and that’s all I can think of right now! Hope that helps!

#saiki asks #silenthikari #translation tips

29 notes · View notes

lethesomething · 6 years

Text

A note on fictional jobs

There's a joke that all fanfic characters are either baristas, teachers, lawyers or some denizen of the tattoo/florist au set. This isn't really fully true (there's also witches and vampire hunters!) but for anyone going for a realistic setting, let me at least, as someone who has worked a number of jobs in media, software development and catering, give some pointers on how that stuff works, because dear lord does Hollywood get it wrong.

This post is 2k words, so under the cut it goes.

Journalism/Photography/Media

General tips

This sector seems to be pretty popular in old school comics, and for good reason. Clark Kent gets to go out into the city and be near events. It's a job women are historically allowed to do (and be sassy in) and even Peter Parker gets to just traipse around the city getting into adventures.

It must also be noted that all these characters were developed in the first half of the 20th century, and media has changed a lot since then.

If your character is a journalist, they will work long hours and not be paid *that* much. Carrie Bradshaw is the most unrealistic journalist character in the history of everything. Especially after, oh, 2010 or so, when the traditional press sales really started declining. No journalist is that well paid for that little. And none will have that much free time.

Journalists generally have a beat, and what they do and know heavily depends on that. Your character can get into the gritty streets of downtown chasing drug dealers, or they can go to theatre premieres. They won't do both. The Vast Majority of modern media have beats. A person can be a sports caster and then he will go to sports events to report them. They can be a jetset reporter or restaurant reviewer and go to swanky places. They can be a cultural reporter and be invited to premieres and shows. They can be a dedicated business journalist, reporting on IT, or cardboard logistics, or whatever, and go to conferences around the world. But they will rarely be all these things at once.

How wide this beat is, depends heavily on the 'range' of the medium. Big news rooms, like NYTimes, have a lot of journalists, and some very, Very specialised ones. This is deep dive, spend weeks trailing every leak out of the White House stuff. In contrast, a small regional tv station can have their reporter (with or without a camera man and sound tech) drive around the countryside reporting on pumpkin carving festivals one day, and grisly murder the next.

A lot also depends on the medium. If the character works for a newspaper, they will have a noon to eight shift as a writer, and a two to ten shift, most likely, as an editor, because papers need to get printed overnight. If it's a weekly or a monthly print mag, there will be a few days with relative freedom to do interviews and such, and then a few days of crunch time. If they work for a news website they will have a desk job and most likely work in shifts. TV and radio news people are the ones doing most of the running around to get quotes, but they are also on the tightest of schedules.

Speaking of schedules. Unless the character is a blogger, they won't finish an article and immediately rush it to the printer/publish it. Reputable news sources have, at the very least, a copy editor to check for mistakes and typos. Bigger newspapers and magazines and sites have a dedicated fact checker.

Very VERY few papers in the world have full time photographers on the payroll. If your character is a photographer, they will most likely be a freelancer and do corporate events or weddings on the side (sorry Peter Parker). What happens is, a medium will decide in advance which article or interview will require a picture, and book a photographer for that piece.

Any other pictures tend to come from news agencies. Think Reuters or Associated Press. These sort of agencies do use full time photographers, as well as freelancers who happen to visit an event. They'll take like two hundred picture and sell them to the agency, who distributes them to media all over the world.

Few media have the money for correspondents, so they'll pick only a handful. This means a foreign correspondent has a large area to cover. European news media tend to have one correspondent in the US, covering the Entire US, for instance. American media tend to have more moneys, but if your character is a respondent in, say India, expect them to trek along India a lot, because they're prob the only one in that vast country.

Having said that, coverage, especially war coverage, is super expensive. If they're sending a journo to a war zone, it will absolutely not be a rookie. They will have proven themselves capable, preferably speak the language and they'll be Very Prepared. Think local guides, vast networks of informants etc. A startling amount of war reporters and investigative journalists are also freelance. If they are trekking through a jungle and come across anything exciting, you bet they'll try to sell that story in several angles/versions to different media.

Have you considered:

Bread and Butter Freelancers: It's a gig economy my friends. Freelance writey people don't have a boss and usually work from home or from some coffee shop. If they are to be successful (enough to make a living), they'll still have a beat, and will actually have to be fairly good at this subject. Since these characters make their own shifts, they do have the ability to go out in the middle of the day to do superheroing or witchery or to investigate the disappearance of their best friend. Upsides: Freedom. Downsides: Usually very little money. Unstable hours, like one day nothing and then a week of 14 hour days. The crushing stress of looming deadlines ànd job insecurity.

Copywriters: The people that write the text on corporate websites, that fill mail order catalogues with entries for every picture, compose newsletters for various organisations, turn technical instructions into actually mildly readable user manuals. Upside: money. If they're good at it, they will have a fairly stable income. They have the same freedom as freelancers to go flirt with flower shop assistants. Downside: the crushing knowledge that with every piece you write, your soul sinks deeper into the void. Anyone who's ever read clientsfromhell will know what to expect of their clientele.

Lay-outers: The creative side of making media. The bros making the graphs, putting the text to paper, photoshoping the head of Putin onto the body of a baby, whatever. Upside: artist character. This is a slightly more realistic character than the 'painter'. They're creative, but they have yet to sell their soul to the corporate machine (depending on the medium you put them in, of course). Downside: this is basically a desk job with stable hours.

Cameraman, sound technician: the people that hang out with the news reporter and trot all over the region with him/her. Upside: see the world! Without being instantly recognizable. Downside: they're probably stuck in their mission and they rarely have the power to go 'hey, let's investigate over there'.

Software development

General tips

There's actually a few different environments for software engineers to work.

Start-ups: the hip one. Think Silicon Valley, the upstarts in sneakers and Star Wars t-shirts living on pizza and red bull and basically coding 20 hours a day. Depending on where they are in the growth of their start-up, these people will be nearly alone, or have a team of coworkers. Traditionally, start-ups start with like a founder (or four) and an idea, and some coding. As the company grows they'll hire a sales person to sell this stuff, a marketing manager to brand it, a support person to troubleshoot it, an HR person, etc.

A very Very VERY large part of start-up business is pitching, aka selling your premise to a bunch of venture capitalists and investors. It's Dragon's Den. Literally. Your super shy, autism spectrum character who hates public speaking and who can't even look at another person without blushing would make a super crappy start-up founder by themselves. They will definitely need their bubbly, motivational speaker best friend. On the other hand: this is an amazing environment for that suave, smooth talking character who could sell sand in the desert.

Second environment: corporate. The vast majority of software engineers out there just work for some big company. These are the people building and deploying management system software for banks, installing security in factories, that sort of thing. A lot of the time they're consultants. They wear a suit. They use something called the Waterfall method, which sucks out your soul, or the Agile method, which also sucks out your soul. There's a lot of managing and meeting and progress reports. If they're good enough, they're allowed to leave the tie at home.

Software needs to be tested. You don't just write the code last minute and put it live.

The coders are absolutely not the only people in a software development team. There's the project managers, the designers, the copywriters, the testers, the lawyers, oh god, the lawyers, etc.

Software Needs to be tested. It takes ages. I cannot stress this enough. It usually happens in India or some other Asian country where the wages are lower.

Will a lot of environments, even corporate, allow their creatives to come to work in like… jeans and a t-shirt, the only people realistically allowed to actually act like teenagers, in any environment (corporate, start-up, small business), are the ones with skills that are very hard to find. In essence: security experts and specifically white hat hackers. Yes, you're allowed to have a hacker character that acts dumb and comes to work in his pyjamas and it will be realistic that he does not get fired. Your clerk character that's super rude and deals in hurtful quips? Not so much.

SOFTWARE NEEDS TO BE TESTED

Have you considered:

Researchers: you know those people that made a song that can give Alexa commands without the owner knowing? Those are university researchers. A lot of really cool stuff is being developed not by office workers, but at universities. This includes software. Upside: probably a looser environment, with a lot of young people. Downside: you're basically writing a college AU.

Venture capitalists: in a Silicon Valley environment, this is basically the 'wealthy businessman' stereotype of old. The dragons in the dragon's den, the people that traipse around the city talking to people and assessing the potential of their pitch, before throwing money at them (or not). There's a bunch of paperwork, but they probably have a small army of accountants to handle this.

Evangelists: the cool people that hold TED talks. They usually work for a big tech company, as a specialist, and part of their job is to be a spokesperson. A good example of this is the tech researcher, who has a day job finding nasty hackers or viruses, and who also blogs about that and holds talks and presentations about securing your business. A character like this has the advantage of being a deep tech nerd hacker type. They're rarely the CEO, so they can go deep into the coding, while also travelling places and meeting crowds of press or business people.

Project managers: these don't tend to do the actual coding, but they do, well, the managing. Characters like this will be more social and creative, they're the ones making the reports and presenting their progress to the CEO, and they're the ones troubleshooting when stuff goes wrong. In general, there's a lot of planning involved.

Bakeries/Catering

General tips

Mass production of food is gruelling. You think you're writing about your sexy pastry chef and how they're carefully, tip of their tongue peeking through their lips, putting a cherry on top of that little moeilleux, but in reality, there's two hundred more to finish on this rack alone and they need to be done in under an hour.

Say it with me, people: baking is a night job. Industrial baking, mom-and-pop rural French bakery, bagel shop, donuts. Someone is going to be making all that stuff before the first customer arrives and that someone is slaving in front of a hot oven at four in the morning.

Any type of catering is a time management business. You know this. You've all watched Great British Bake-off (or, like, Chopped or whatever). If your professional cake maker is only working on one project/wedding at a time, they're not going to be in business for long. Your line chef will be plating up several dishes per minute. Your short order cook is baking six pancakes and scrambling eggs at the exact same time.

Unless it's a very large kitchen, the people that cook are the same ones that clean. And since it's food prep, there is a lot of cleaning.

Have you considered:

Recipe writer: ok so we're kinda back to media but big tv chefs don't make all those recipes themselves. Someone, usually a freelancer, writes them and tests them. Imagine someone getting the request to develop a seasonal cronut recipe that involves peaches and charcoal, because it's hip, and then baking several batches until they find something edible. This is a somewhat realistic environment for your super creative baker to live in a small house and make some money while also working on a book on the side, and falling in love with the quirky … goat… herd… brewer, florist, whatever.

#writing resources #also salt #possibly #fanfic

115 notes · View notes

bubblegumstardust · 6 years

Note

Here are you book asks :D prepare for a lot! 3-8, 15-18, 21, 23-25, 30-35, 39, 40, 43, 46, 48-50 :)

time for round 2 then :D

3.Do you read books just because you saw them on tumblr??

i have read some books because of tumblr but i always check out what it is to see if i might actually be interested rather than just reading it purely because tumblr said to

4.Is there a book that you think needs a bigger fandom??

yes, Illuminae like you said when i asked you, also Zodiac, Ready Player One, The Sin Eater’s Daughter, The Diabolic, and so many other books i read because i swear like no one has read half of them

5.Do you have a snack while reading or do you close the book first??

if i can eat it one handed i will eat while reading

6.Can you ever stop in the middle of a page or do you have to finish the page or chapter first??

as long as the paragraph is finished i can stop

7.Do you borrow books from people??

nope, most of my friends don’t read all that much and they never have books i don’t

8.Do you lend your books out to friends??

if i really really want them to read it then yes

15.Do you set yourself a TBR list at the start of the month??

i tried a couple of times but i didn’t stick to it so i gave up

16.What book has been on you TBR pile the longest??

oh god idk, i mean i’ve been meaning to read Percy Jackson for years but i only just got the books so maybe that?

17.Is there a book on your TBR pile that you don’t think you will read?

absolutely NOT going to read the Uglies series or Great Expectations

18.Do you know anyone else that likes books??

yeah my mum and grandparents read a fair bit, most of my friends like books too

21.Do you write??

i do but i suck at it tbh and never let anyone i know see any of it

23.How did you get into reading??

my mum always read to me and my sister every night before bed when we were little, like cool stuff like Harry Potter, and then i just started reading. i also loved the Felicity wishes and rainbow fairy books when i was little and there was loads of them so i started reading a lot

24.Have you read a book that was really hyped up but you didn’t enjoy??

HARRY POTTER AND THE CURSED CHILD! why did so many people love it so much like i don’t get it

25.Do you prefer physical books, Ebooks or audio books?? (/there is not wrong answer)

i love physical books, ebooks i pretty much only read when i’m on holiday, and i’ve never listened to an audio book but i think they’re a great thing

30.Can you leave a series unfinished or do you have to own all the books and try them all??

if i really really can’t stand the book or the book was really forgettable i can leave a series unfinished but usually if i have even the slightest bit of interest in what happens i’ll make myself finish a series. also if my reading tastes change while a long series is still being written i might not finish it and not feel bad about it (i.e. with the house of night series (which i read when i was way to young for it actually) and the morganville vampires)

31.How do you think you would be described if you were in a book??

i have a feeling i’d be compared to an angry hobbit with an alarming obsession with everything pretty and pastel coloured. also they’d definitely call me an asshole.

32.“They edged towards the shaking box that had just been delivered.” Should they open it?? You decide what happens next.

the box continues to shake as they approach and a foot away they all stop and look at it with concern. no one speaks as they all wait for something to happen until one member of the group decides “fuck this, i ain’t getting involved in some demon shit today” and turns to walk away. the others follow and they leave the box to do its thing while they go and get ice cream. later one kids mum comes home and finds the still shaking box. she turns white and quickly grabs the box up to her room before she opens it and turns of the...ah...toy

that wasn’t where i planned to take that but i’m tired okay, leave me alone

33.How do you organise your shelves??

well right now i kinda have books together with others that are in some way similar and also look good together aesthetically, it’s rather odd and complicated at the moment, more often than not though it’s done by colour and occasionally genre

34.What do you do to mark your pages??

book mark normally

35.Do you have a lot of bookmarks?? or just a few??

only a few

39.What book that has made you cry??

do you want the full list? because it’s extensive. i cry a lot. okay this is in order of what i see on my bookshelf: Half Wild, Half Lost, Siege and Storm, Ruin and Rising, Illuminae, Gemina, Obsidio, Zodiac, Wandering Star, Black Moon, Thirteen Rising, acotar, acomaf, acowar, acofas, Tower of Dawn, Heir of Fire, Queen of Shadows, Empire of Storms, Crooked Kingdom, The Hobbit, The Sleeping Prince, The Scarecrow Queen, The Raven Cycle, The Fault In Our Stars, Simon Vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda, Clockwork Princess, The Diabolic, The Empress, The Death Cure, The Fever Code also a few more i think but i either can’t see them on my shelves or they’re ebooks or something and i can’t remember

40.How do you feel when you find a typo/spelling error in a book??

i won’t lie, i hardly ever actually notice them if i’m really into the book but if i’m not absorbed enough and see when then it kinda throws me for a minute

43.Free rant, go ahead, we all know you want to.

okay so why the heck are so many books doing this thing where they come out in hardback and then i have to wait months or sometimes like a whole year or something for a paperback to be released!? like can you not? so i know you do it to get more money because everyones like “i want this book and i want it now” so they spend the extra money on the hardback but like i can’t afford to do that, maybe occasionally but not all the time. like for the amount i read and number of books i end up buying i can hardly afford to pay full price for the paperbacks and then i can’t get books i really badly want for absolutely ages because i just can’t justify spending the extra money and FOR FUCKS SAKE CAN YOU JUST RELEASE THE PAPERBACK SOONER!? LIKE FINE YOU CAN WAIT A MONTH OR SOMETHING BUT CAN YOU NOT MAKE IT ANY LONGER BECAUSE I DIE OVER HERE.

also i’m having multiple rants here okay?

CAN YOU FOR THE LOVE OF GOD JUST NOT CHANGE COVERS WHEN A SERIES IS ONLY PART WAY DONE OR IF YOU REALLY HAVE TO RELEASE THE NEWER BOOKS WITH THE OLD COVERS TOO!? I have straight up abandoned a series in part because i can’t get matching covers and you bet i’m pissed about it.

46.Do you have a bookish tattoo?? Do you want one??

i don’t yet but from the 25th July i will!!! :D48.Do you write, highlight, underline etc in your books

nope, can’t bring myself to, unless it was a shitty old copy of some book i hated that i had to study at school but even then i usually took notes on separate bits of paper

49.Worse book you’ve ever read??

oooooooh. um so i really, really hated the great gatsby, didn’t like of mice and men either, Abandon by Meg Cabot I hated but that’s all i can think of

50.Do you read classics?? If so, what’s your favourite??

i’ve read a few and literally bought a ton of them a few years back because i wanted to get into classics more but i’ve only read a few of them. I adore Pride and Prejudice so that’s probably my favourite

god this is long, enjoy!

1 note · View note

not-a-space-alien · 7 years

Text

(fuck this i wanted to go on anon but you know what i don't want to go through all the process of logging out, typing the submission then logging in again so here i am off anon)

alright so here it goes

first things first, i’m french and i’m quite unfamiliar with the concept of GPA (although i roughly know what it is), so i’m going to use the french grading system which is on 20 when talking about grades. to give you an idea:

a grade under 10 is bad, most likely either misunderstood the question, didn’t know any answer, or didn’t study at all.

10 to 12 is average-low

12 to 14 is average

14 to 17 is good

17 to 20 is excellent (it’s pretty uncommon to get such a high average grade though since that would mean almost no mistakes ever in any test)

now, i was a good student in middle school. most of the time, my average was around 16 or 17/20, i never caused trouble, teachers liked me. the only thing i hated (except being bullied and having only “friends” who made fun of me) was PE. do you know want to know why?

it’s a mandatory class

if you don’t have any friends or if the people you’re doing sports with don’t like you, chances are they’re not going to play with you and you’re going to get a shitty grade even if the teacher knows it’s not your fault and you’re doing what you can

the PE grade counts in your average grade for the trimester and the year

you only get one or two grades per trimester, which means if you fuck up twice you can’t bring the average grade up again (there is no extra credit to salvage it)

you only practice the sport for 2 hours per week for 5 or 6 weeks, then you’re graded and you switch to another sport, which means you don’t actually get the time to get better at something. the moment you finally start to get used to it, it’s over

why is PE a mandatory class? according to the teacher i asked when i was in school, it’s because physical exercise is important.

i agree, but then why is it necessary to get grades for it? the teacher said it’s because that way kids who aren’t good at studying but are good at sports can get their average grade up a little thanks to it.

that’s great, but then what about kids who aren’t good at sports? i was always doing my best but my best was a 9/20 and a few unlucky times, a 7/20.

why not make it a bonus?

is it because they fear it would encourage kids to slack off during PE?

let me say that kind of incentive sucks, it only made me stress over PE class because i knew i would never get a good grade and i knew it would make my average grade drop by a point or two. it never made me better or more serious about sports because i was already trying my best and my best was 10/20 at most. let’s say my average grade sans PE was 17/20 and i’ve got 6 subjects (can’t remember the exact number but it’s pretty close): french, english, maths, biology, physics and PE. now i fuck up in PE and get a 7/20. let’s assume each grade is worth the same and calculate my average grade with PE: 17 x 5 + 7 = 92. then 92 divided by 6 and we get 15.33. i went from 17 to 15 just because of PE. it’s still a fairly good grade but it’s not the same thing.

and that was the case for a person who’s good at studying, but what about people who aren’t? i had a “friend” whose average was around 11/20 and her PE grades were around 5. her average grade didn’t benefit from PE at all.

the general atmosphere of PE classes is pretty bad. you’re restricted by many things:

you don’t get many hours of practice per week: 2 hours, once a week, you can’t just become good at something magically with so little practice especially since you change sports every 5 or 6 weeks. i understand that learning different sports is a good thing but it’s extremely frustrating to start getting good at something then you get an average grade and switch to another sport you haven’t practiced for a year which is going to take you 5 weeks getting used to only to get an average grade and switch to another sport.

in team sports, if the team sucks, you get a lower grade than other teams. if the team doesn’t like you, they won’t play with you and you’ll get a shitty grade because the teacher needs to have something to grade and if you show nothing you get nothing.

in individual sports, if the people you compete against are strong, no matter how good you’re getting you’ll still be the loser and get a lower grade than them

it’s downright unfair, in my opinion, that the reason for your grade isn’t just your own performance but the performance of other people as well. it’s like asking 4 kids to do presentations and then decide the best one will get 20, the second best 15, the second to last one gets 10 and the last will get 5.

what do i think we should do instead?

have PE be about physical exercise more than about practicing sports. i would rather spend 20 min every day doing aerobic exercises than 2 hours once a week trying to learn a sport which usually involves a lot of waiting and running/walking after a ball.

i understand that competition is important but i think it should be better to compete against yourself and progressing rather than comparing yourself to others and feeling like a loser. there is always a loser and a winner and usually it’s the same few students who are stuck in the loser group and can’t get out even if they work hard and progress and i think that’s unfair

also, i think one thing that would be great is to start with easy exercises and gradually increase the level of difficulty and to be consistent in such a way that everyone even the ones with the most difficulties can reach a certain standard and will always keep to that standard. (i’m thinking for stuff like push ups for example or in gym class with things like standing on your hands)

have more PE, more spread out around the week. maybe 3 or 4 times instead of just once a week. so you have time to get used to the things you practice and more importantly so it actually serves as physical exercise. it’s better to do less more often than do more only one day of the week and nothing during the rest of the week

this reminds me: teach how to warm-up and stretch. not just a couple times. every time. i recently met with a cousin who is in her 30s and she didn’t know how to stretch so me and my brother had to show her and i bet if teachers drilled warm ups and stretching into our heads instead of just leaving all this up to us we wouldn’t have this kind of problem

i think i’m done now. thanks for reading haha i can’t believe i pretty much spent 2 hours writing all of this and i didn’t even manage to organize it neatly sorry

(also it’s late so please forgive any typos/weirdly phrased sentences and thank you for taking the time to read this i hope it makes sense^^)

Oh my GOD. i feel this so hard. I’m having flashbacks to high school here because gym class was so so so so awful if you didn’t have any friends in it. There were semesters where i actually shuffled my schedule around to be in gym with my friends because it was just so awful to be in there alone. Fortunately for me I was never graded on performance, just participation (ie, if you changed your clothes and actually made an attempt to exercise, you got full credit). The thing about my high school was that we didn’t have the opportunity to shower (I don’t remember if there were even showers there but there definitely wasn’t enough time for all of us to shower and dry off before getting to our next class? we had like, 5 minutes between being dismissed and the next class starting), and we had gym every day, so like? I would have liked to exercise, but I also didn’t want to be known as that person who always smelled like body odor, so I mostly just walked on the track and talked with my friends. The group was too big for us all to do one activity like play a game of sportsball, so everyone got to pick whatever they wanted to do, so that wasn’t so bad.

and then one semester. oh fucking boy. someone on the school board decided we had to have more tests!!! even in fucking gym class!! a written test!!! It was one of those things where the coach/teacher could have not taken it very seriously and just made it easy to help us get As (the swimming teacher did that) but they didn’t, they made it a serious test with real actual hard questions

about

sportsball

In the American school system a 4.0 is a perfect grade average and I managed to achieve that for all 4 years of high school, which is I’m pretty sure the reason why i made it into a good college because i didn’t do jack shit for extracurricular activities and the resume-building bullshit that everyone else did. This ONE test in FUCKING GYM CLASS almost wrecked that. We were given NO preparation, NO material to study, there was NO advanced warning about what would be on the test. The questions weren’t even about activities we had been doing in class; one was about calculating batting average despite the fact that we didn’t have the equipment to play baseball there. I managed to get a low C and only got that much because a lot of the questions were about which muscles certain exercises work, and I remembered everything from my anatomy class. My grade for that semester managed to stay above an A, but only because I had perfect participation, otherwise it would have been goodbye 4.0. I switched back to swimming eventually

tl;dr gym class is a fucking scam

#personal #submission #atrilam #long post

29 notes · View notes