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jell0buss-37 · 2 years

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Charmer (Dylan Lenivy x reader) part 3

Okay everyone! Here's the next chapter! It's not exactly a lot of action between you and Dylan, but I promise you it's important to the plot. I'm really glad you all liked the other chapters!

Part 1, Part 2

Tw: none! Just establishing friendships! :)

Left in the wake of a Chris Hackett, 8 camp counselors are left to stand around, a small moment of silence between all of them, as they have been left unsupervised, unattended to, and completely free.

The power they had in this moment was the most jarring thing to them in their lives. And by god were they going to abuse it.

"Sooo…." Everyone turns to Emma expectantly. "What? Do we just sit around the lodge until tomorrow?" "Not a bad idea…" pipes up Dylan, "But probably the most uncreative thing you could possibly come up with, a bit disappointed, Emma." He teases.

"Okay, well then what did you have in mind, oh powerful one with all the ideas?" Emma bites back sarcastically.

"Well…" all eyes on him, "I don't know about you guys, but no adults? No annoying kids to look after? Just 8 young bored teens out in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of supplies…" he implies heavily. "OOHHOHOOO-" Jacob begins to speak up. "Two words: giant-fuckin-bonfire. Let's make one last memory together down at the beach guys." "Bonfire!!!" The excitement radiates from Jacob and Dylan, extending to the rest of the group, all now buzzing with anticipation, except for one.

"Uh, I'm not so sure about that guys…"

The chatter goes silent, as all eyes are now on Ryan. "Why not???" You ask. "W-well, it's just that.. Mr. Hackett-" a series of groans ring out from the statement, "-ASKED FOR US-" Ryan spoke out louder, silencing the voices of the other Counselors, "-to stay inside the lodge. And he sounded really desperate when he asked me to make sure of that, so maybe it'd be best if we maybe didn't."

Ryan's words made some sense, sure…

But who are we kidding?

"Uh, yeah, he desperately doesn't want us to have fun!" "Yeah, party on!!!" Kaitlyn and Jacob cheer out.

Completely ignoring Ryan's worried expression, Jacob began assigning everyone to get things for the wicked throwdown, as Kaitlyn called it.

"Okay! Nick and Abi, you guys go look for firewood, Emma and I will go down to the stores to get some party supplies, Ryan and Dylan can figure out the whole phone situation, and Kaitlyn and (Y/n) can go find some stuff to like, I don't know, protect us."

"Protect us?" You ask him. "Yeah you know. From like, bears or something." He answers your question.

"Or Werewolves!" Kaitlyn wiggles her fingers dramatically, causing the three of you to laugh at your little inside joke. The others not quite getting it.

"Yeah, or that whole 'Hag of Hackett's Quarry' shit. Get some garlic or something." Dylan quipped, feeling left out.

"Garlic??" Nick spoke up. "Uh, yeah, you know. Shit's stanky. She sounds like a woman of taste, so she'd like, stay away from Garlic." Dylan saved his little slip up, or, what he assumed is saved.

So you help him out a bit. "Yeah, maybe she just, doesn't like Italian food that much." He smiles appreciatively at you.

"Ugh, whatever. Let's get to work, there's not much daylight left guys." Emma has already begun walking away from the group. And on that note, the rest of you disperse into your little teams.

"Hey, uh, you okay?" Dylan comes to check up on you before you begin to walk with Kaitlyn. "Oh, heh, yeah. Sorry about that, I just ummm…" you fumble around for a good excuse for your little outburst from earlier.

"(Nickname) thought that a notebook was left at the cabins, and when Emma and Abi didn't have it, the only other plausible place would've been the lodge still." Kaitlyn rushed to your aide.

"Oh. I guess it was important?" Dylan asked you. You just nod, a fake worried look on your face. "Awe, well, I'll be sure to keep an eye out for it then! Me and Ryan will, don't worry, we WILL find your precious possessions (Y/n)!" And with a fake salute, he was off.

"Alright, let's get to finding those bear-wolf-hag-vampire-whatever protection things."

Kaitlyn begins walking in the direction of the lake house docks. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure Jacob was just trying to make everyone feel included." You let out a light laugh. With a shrug, Kaitlyn just laughs along.

"So, what's the plan?" You give a confused look. "Ya know, since plan A didn't pan out how you wanted it to." "Oh! Hah, uhhhh… being honest, I never really came up with a plan B. Didn't exactly account for the fact that the van decided to shit out on us either…" you ponder.

"Oh, right. Uhhh, about the van." Kaitlyn scratches her head a bit, awkward. "Uhm, yeah, so Jacob took the rotary arm, because he wanted us all to stay another night…"

"...what-" "But he just really wanted to be with everyone for one last time, especially with Emma-" "-A great idea! Oh my god, this is perfect! Now with us being here one last night, I can properly tell Dylan! In the way he deserves!" You practically bounce in your steps, thankful and proud of Jacob for his quick thinking.

"Haha, yeah, see? Everything works out in the end!" Kaitlyn smiles, relieved you hadn't reacted negatively. "And this'll be great! One final night for everyone to properly be together. I'm gonna miss you guys." And on the end of that sentence, you both arrive at the lake houses.

Walking over to the sheds, you jiggle the knob, only to find it locked. "Looking for something?" Kaitlyn jingles a pair of keys, probably found in one of the dock houses.

You finally break in to the shed, looking around a bit.

"Hey- Bear spray!" You pocket it. Something about this little quest feels as if it will have some significance. You can't seem to shake the feeling.

"Now to just find the silver and garlic." Kaitlyn jokes. "Oh shit- found the bows." You whip your head to where Kaitlyn is, your eyes brightening.

"Aaaawwweeee shiznit!" You walk over excitedly. "Ew, what is this? 2012?" Kaitlyn scrunches her nose at you. Sticking your tongue out, you hoist the bag of arrows over your shoulder, picking the bow up along with it.

"Awe man, I think archery was my favorite part of summer. I honestly had a lot of fun teaching it too!" You reminisce.

"Yeah, and Dylan certainly loved seeing how badass you were. A little 'Legolas Everdeen' as he called you." Kaitlyn smirks at the darkened color of your cheeks.

"Dylan talks about me?" The hopeful tone you have makes her fully smile.

"Uh, does a bear poo in the woods?" "What's with us and the bears today!?" You laugh harder, Kaitlyn joining in.

After a couple minutes of looking around, you both decide you've had enough, having found the bear spray, some paintball guns, chest armor and helmets, and surprisingly a couple beartraps. You got them for the running bear joke of the night.

"Alright, let's head down the beach. They're probably waiting for us." She breathes out. "Or, knowing them, we'll probably be first. Now I just have to figure out how to tell Dylan…" you fish around for an idea. "Honestly, (Y/n)? I say just go with the flow. And don't stress about it too much. I'm pretty sure the guy's got a massive schoolboy crush on you anyway, so don't sweat it."

You smile, liking that idea best.

"Yeah, just go with the flow…"

Part 4

#the quarry dylan #dylan the quarry #dylan lenivy x reader #the quarry x reader #the quarry #dylan x reader #dylan lenivy #fanfiction

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battle-of-alberta · 9 months

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i think i need to take a break from asks/requests generally for an indefinite amount of time since the past month has had soo much going on and my body decided yesterday to give out on me, so I'm trying to take it easy and intuit what i need. One thing I need to do is to rebuild my relationship with art since I've been feeling drained and uncreative lately.

one thing i keep meaning to do is draw more historical fashion because it seems like a fun challenge, but the hard part is understanding how these things layer and move because you don't want them to just look like static fashion plates. I really struggled drawing Red like she was posing for a portrait because it didn't quite feel like her, haha. Here she is attempting croquet (badly).

I had a series a while back called founding fashions aka the munis in fashion that was in style in the years they were "born". Since a lot of them were "born" in the 1880s, it took me a while to really learn about the little nuances in the fashion and it's an ongoing process. Red was founded in 1882, so it's this tiny bit of the late Victorian period where natural form dresses kind of had a little breathing room between the two big bustle eras. The tricky part is I tend to draw Red like a stick insect and the corset shape of the time really emphasized a narrow waist and a fuller bust and tummy so it was difficult to figure out how to make it look like her, haha.

#projectcanada cities #pc: red deer #elaine hartley #founding fashion #hapo doodles #digital art #clip studio paint

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lamonnaie · 7 months

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GMMTV 2024 Bingo

it's the eve of gmmtv 2024(.5) so perfect time for bingo. I made one for predictions and one for wishlist (there's plenty in the predictions that i'm rlly hoping for too, but i didn't want too many overlaps 😅).

credit to @icouldhyperfixatehim for the template! :)

Some thoughts about my cards because apparently i can't shut up:

I definitely think they have gl series planned for the near future but idk if they would announce them now given 23.5 hasn't even aired yet. The whole split announcement thing seems to be to gauge audience reception, so possibly gl in part 2 to ride off of 23.5? its in my bingo anyway

Winnysatang series is essentially confirmed and i don't think it's a high school series purely based on how much satang's been going to the gym lately lmao i mean it might just be his choice, but i choose to take anything and everything as hints 😌

I think most of us have seen the fk + p'new rumours which.. yeah 😬 (still not over what they did to between us <//3)

i want a fluke pusit + thor comeback because they were insane in the warp effect, but lbr that's not happening lol. But I've been seeing the Thor + fluke nattanon (from project alpha) stuff lately soooo 👀? i'm honestly kinda hyped for that too

saw whispers of jossgawin and i'm so on board actually (didn't think and still don't rlly think joss would do a bl so they might just be in the same project, but still, the rumours are rumouring)

random marcpawin revival in 2023 surely wasn't for nothing right? i think they're gonna be a side couple in a show again next year (same for aouboom who gmm has actually been trying to rlly launch for a couple years 🤞 will they ever get to pillar status? here's hoping because i rlly like them <3)

i know jojo doesn't have any projects in part 1 and a couple of the actors i mentioned aren't even in the lineup, but i can't be bothered figuring it out so i guess some of this will just extend to part 2 :)

i really wanna see neomark again as leads, but i don't actually think we're gonna get mark in a bl (or at least as a cp) in part 1. Markford was obviously very successful because of msp, but i think neomark has more longevity (although idk if mark would be put in a set cp like that). Definitely think gmm wants to gauge the response to neomark more as only friends finishes up.

loved joong in the warp effect and i think he should just kiss everyone (hence joong harem) (joong dating show perhaps) i never rlly got into any of joongdunk's shows although i do love them as a pair outside of the series, so i kinda wanna see both of them act with different people (gmm give me ponddunk pls)

honestly joongdunk could be rlly good if u take them out of the same goddamn uni plotline every time 😭😭

lbr gmm's totally gonna try to recreate msp/gem4th's success with a new rookie pair. i do think msp was lightning in a bottle, so will this reach the same status? not likely, but only time will tell.

guys ohmnani look so good together you don't understand (i know the bl won't actually happen for various reasons but just look at them 😩😩)

i don't rlly have a lot of predictions nor wishes regarding actual concepts because i am uncreative and unoriginal 👍 Overall i do want something more exciting/less tropey though.

Also can you tell I just wanna see ohm in every show ever hajskdj

#see not a single thing be correct tomorrow lol #gmmtv 2024

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darkwithasharpenededge · 5 months

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Mistakes were made: A review of The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett

Rating: 30/100, DNF at pg. 300 (31%).

Summary: My very first DNF (did not finish) of the year. I regret buying this book. I paid a dollar and that was too much. I will be removing this book from my life as soon as possible. I wanted to finish this book for the prestige of saying I did it, which really wouldn't even be hard since I'm known for reading very long books very fast, but I just couldn't do it. Review contains spoilers, and also quotes from slightly rancid scenes.

Let me treat you to a few choice quotes to start off today's review of this horrid horrid book.

"What would happen if they crept up on her at night and tried to rape her? he wondered, and his loins stirred at the thought, although he had never taken a woman against his will, not even his own wife." This is on page 39, and from the main character, Tom, who we're supposed to sympathize with.

I'm not going to quote the whole thing, because it's too long to type out, but then on page 67 there is an explicit birth scene, complete with descriptions such as: "The opening stretched wider- impossibly wide-and then the head began to come through" and "Agnes's opening immediately started to close around the pulsing blue cord that came from the baby's navel." Was an explicit birth scene necessary? Was it? WHY DID THIS BOOK CONTAIN AN EXPLICIT BIRTH SCENE?

On page 81, the woman that Tom thinks about raping professes her love for him, not even a day after his wife died (during the previously referenced graphic birth scene).

On page 178, well, let me just show you the picture I took of the full page.

Because I am a madwoman, this scene wasn't the final straw.

This scene was.

Plot: There are actually some relatively decent plot elements contained within the first 300 pages. I will state that it's extremely slow (there's a lot of Tom's family walking around in the woods near starvation that isn't super necessary) but there actually is something worth having: Phillip, the monk main character, does some monk politics stuff that was pretty fun and saved me from DNFing at page 100 from sheer boredom.

Characters: The writer is extremely heavy-handed in his characterization of his main antagonist. His main method of making it clear that he's a Real Bad Dude is by having him fantasize about raping just about every woman he sees. It's extremely uncreative. There are ways to tell the reader "hey this guy is a bad guy" without having him fantasize about raping someone in every single one of his point of view sections.

Additionally, the writer insists that Tom, the main character, is a good honest man, but there are several scenes where Tom doesn't act like one at all. One of them is quoted above, but he also lets his son get away with constant bullying to his new woman's son and his own daughter. He also dragged his wife and kids all across the country putting them at risk of starvation and the dangers of travel all because he refused to take a stable job because he wanted to chase his dreams of working on a cathedral.

Prose Quality: Not good at all. The writing is not great quality. The architectural segments (because yes this book contains long sections full of architectural details about cathedrals) were slightly better than the vast majority of the prose, but still not great. It was very simply written, and I went into reading it expecting it to be pretentious, so I was SORELY disappointed.

Worldbuilding/Historical Accuracy: I have no idea how historically accurate this book is, but the medieval vibes are kind of fun and worth a couple of points... except for the fact that the story often refers to women as having "hot bodies" which is almost certainly anachronistic as fuck.

Action Sequences: The scene where Jack decides to burn the cathedral and then carries the plan out should have been a fun action scene, but it was just boring to me. I'd have to reread it to figure out why it didn't work for me, but I'm not going to do that to myself.

Romance: ""I love you," she said fiercely. "I loved you from the moment I saw you. I always wanted a man who would be strong and gentle, and I thought there was no such thing. Then I saw you. I wanted you. But I could see you loved your wife. My God, how I envied her. I'm sorry she died, truly sorry, because I can see the grief in your eyes, and all the tears waiting to be shed, and it breaks my heart to see you so sad. But now that she's gone, I want you for myself."" (pg. 81). Awful no good very bad evil hatred and loathing forever.

Female Characters: Please God let my next book contain just one good female character. Just one. I don't ask for much.

Gay?: A side character is referred to several times as effeminate, if that counts. (It doesn't)

Was It Worth It?: I paid too much for this book. Yes, I only paid a dollar.

Final Verdict: I should have left it at Goodwill.

Review Word Count: 870

#Void's 2024 reads #book review #genre: historical fiction #DNFed #author: Ken Follett #The Pillars of the Earth #publication year: 1989 #score range: 30s

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storfulsten · 3 years

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Oof, I think Tumblr might've eaten my ask, lol. What is the cockiest, most devious smiling expression you can possibly bring yourself to put on Whitty?

ah no don't worry, I got that ask in my inbox it's all good, I'm just kinda slow and very behind with them asks atm sorry lol

#I do intend to do that ask it's just #for some reason art is slow atm #and I have 30+ asks some of which are quite old by now #I know I don't have to do all of them but plenty of them are very good #and I'd feel bad skipping so many lol #I'm just really uncreative with figuring out what to do with a lot of them #and with every new one I get even more distracted from the older ones so that's kinda unfortunate ha #so ye sorry to the people whose asks I haven't figured out how to do yet #hopefully it'll happen soon fingers crossed #but anyhow a cocky devious looking whitty or whatever will most likely get done no worries #I'm just not sure when but hopefully sooner rather than later ha #but ye overall sorry people #I'll try to keep working on it lol #and ofc you can still suggest stuff just be aware and such I guess ha #but ye #thanks for the message #stay groovy friendo

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miutonium · 2 years

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your favorites/any that you particularly want to answer from the cafe asks? 🥰 (kittyandco)

Oh thank you 😳 i really appreciate this since I actually gotten a few ask with the same questions and i have 2 that I would actually love to answer hgnnn

Filter Coffee: Are you more of a gusher or silent admirer?

So previously, I believe I am more of a silent admirer? I mean, I do have a blog before this actually but I just never tell anyone about my s/i ocs (other than drawing her) and elaborate my stories because at that time I was still nervous that someone would come at me and say mean things to me and also everyone had cooler s/i with cool backstory and me being uncreative and also not that good at drawing and designing a cool s/i felt kind of discouraged from it. Not to mention I don't really get that enough support to draw and gush about my f/o and my s/i and having to consistently post my f/o or otherwise being leftout just burns me out a lot :/ i ended up leaving my blog and the fandom because of that (and other personal reason)

Though, I actually really like how a lot of people here seems to talk about their love for a character and i just love seeing how passionate they are for them and I never seen that anywhere else on the internet other than here. So I returned to tumblr because I really missed being in a part of something i loved and watch people gushing over a character really makes me happy ;w;

I actually wasn't aware of a selfship community at all when I started this blog, even though I do selfship, I actually didn't know there's a community where people support each other's selfships even though they're not a part of the other person's f/os' fandom . I used to be around with the reader insert crowd too so like I really didn't know anything about selfshipping at all despite using tumblr for 3 years at that time (also you wouldn't believe this but i legit didn't know what f/o and s/i meant and I have to look around to figure out what it means lol). No one told me it was okay to feel very attached to an f/o an and actually feel okay about not wanting to share an f/o with others (inb4 I'm okay with sharing Utonium don't worry about that!)

These days, I feel like I am more confident about talking and gushing about Utonium. Part of it because I love this man to death and he deserves everything good and I also don't see anyone gush about him at all (like i legit scrolled down his tags and i see barely anyone simped for this man) and I just need to change that lol.

Chai Tea: Do you prefer s/is or ocs when shipping?

Okay so I was confused initially cuz I always thought that they're the same (because Chloe's is technically my s/i oc) so like i dont really understand what's going on here until it clicked on me that the question probably meant I design my s/i to look similarly to me hhh my bad

Anyway, I prefer ocs more since I actually don't like to mix irl stuff with my fantasy (also I am actually not into men irl so like it feels off whenever I imagine myself with Utonium these days) and no way I am attractive enough to sway this man away ;w;

I never draw myself with Utonium (and probably never will in the future ;w;) but previously with my previous f/o I actually did that a couple times and hhh you know what I'm just gonna attach some pictures of him and me :3

(Picture Undercut of course)

I still love these drawings tbh. We both look like bad bitches if you asked me lol. Also yes I had a shorter hair with highlights before hgnnn

#yes i always loved making magazine-ish looking couple artworks hhh #which reminds me i need to draw more utonium and chloe in alt clothing #anyway thank you for the ask! 💕💕#ask #selfship ask #vclkitty

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explorerspack · 2 years

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my dnd characters ranked by how well they can cook:

1. Elodie. This girl could somehow produce a filling and delicious meal out of three carrots and a twig, and probably has. Divinity is a kitchen table with everyone she knows around it and the smell of fresh bread and soup in the air.

2. Rowan. She really loves good, rich, delicious food, and she wasn't about to give that up just because she'd been exiled, so she had to learn to cook and had 300 years to do so. She really delights in learning new techniques and recipes from everywhere she traveled to and is very precise and fancy about what she does, everything she makes looks gorgeous and tastes good too. Her dinner parties were famous.

3. Sinead. They're less comfortable in a kitchen than they are in a forge but honestly, the two aren't that different! In both you're in a warm room using fire to create something useful. Her food tends to be simple but delicious and made with a lot of love.

4. Kara. In a surprise to most people who know them, they're actually a very good cook--similar to Rowan, she incorporates techniques and ingredients from the dozens of planes she's been to, and excels at a precise balance of flavors. They simply don't get the chance or care to cook anything more than simple food very often, but when she does it's delicious.

5. Liss. After spending the first fifteen years of her life eating very bland food, she loves to cook, and does it every chance she gets. She's gotten pretty good, but loses points because she loves sensations and doesn't really do "moderation"--everything she makes is SO salty, or so sour, or spicy enough to make your eyes run, or so sweet that most people can only manage a couple bites. Amos always ate all of it, though.

6. Cerise. She doesn't have any particular knack for it, but she learned from her mom and from others in the village. She had to figure it out to make sure she and Elliot were fed, and so she did! She would really like to get a chance to cook again soon.

7. Bird. She'll be like "yeah I'm a great cook" and then hand you literally just a rabbit on a stick. It will be a good rabbit, though, if perhaps a little undercooked.

8. Alita. This is simply not a skill she excels in, but she makes up for it in enthusiasm. Generally, though, Victoria or Imaz end up taking over and pushing her out of the kitchen to go set the table and get everyone together for dinner, which she's much better at.

9. Charisma. Presentation is there, taste is entirely absent, she has no cooking instincts whatsoever and has never had to learn. She can kill it with a fruit plate or charcuterie board, though.

10. Sparrow. Lack of experience and instinct both working against her here, but she's patient and careful enough to follow a recipe and manage something edible, if uncreative, in a pinch. Just generally doesn't bother, she doesn't really care about food beyond a source of nourishment.

11. Jess. She's certainly spent enough time in kitchens and should theoretically be good at it but she always gets either overconfident or distracted, fucks something up, has no idea where she went wrong, and refuses to admit that there was an error as she enthusiastically eats whatever she made.

12. Arcis. I think she's maybe never set foot in a kitchen and frankly she shouldn't. She'd insist that she followed the recipe meticulously and perfectly but it would still somehow taste terrible and she'd be angry about it.

#good morning. i was bored.#entirely unsurprising that all three clerics are in the top 5 #i also think it's really fun that *mostly* my noble-born characters are near the bottom except for rowan #and conversely except for jess #now no one in any game make me back this up with rolls 🔫

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secretlyatargaryen · 4 years

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Ugh asoiaf fandom is so frustrating. I'm so sick of people talking shit abt tyrion when their faces do literally all the same shit but they only hold tyrion accountable. Like multiple people have said that they dont shop tyrion with anyone because of his issues with women but then ship Petyr and sansa or sandor and sansa and its like,,,,, just say his dwarf dick makes you uncomfortable and leave oh my goddddddd

And like I have no issues with people shipping whatever the fuck they want, but if you cant bear to ship tyrion with anyone because his canon flaws make you uncomfortable then you should also be uncomfortable with people like petyr and sandor. It’s not a moral “this is how you should be” its literally a logical “this is how you should be” and the fact that they’re not just shows how fucking transparent they are

I’m far from an anti make no mistake it’s just the hypocrisy that pisses me off. I’m sick of the ableism and I want positive tyrion content I cry

It’s just plain ableism. I don’t care what people ship, and people have different tastes and tolerances and experiences, so some people might be able to handle, say, Sansan, despite the fact that he assaults Sansa, but not like Tyrion because the forced marriage makes them uncomfortable. That’s perfectly fine. What’s not okay is faking moral superiority or acting like your fave is objectively less problematic, or acting like it’s objectively worse for Tyrion to be in a situation with Sansa that he was forced into and which is also abusive for him vs Sandor acting of his own free will.

People also need to realize how ableism comes into play in the way fandom views Tyrion as a whole, even among Tyrion fans. I think a lot of people do this unconsciously because ableism is a learned institution that permeates our society and our thinking unless we actively question it. So when I talk about ableism I’m not saying people are sitting there going “grrr I hate people with dwarfism” (although there is a lot of blatant ableism in this fandom wrt Tyrion because people with dwarfism are largely seen as an acceptable target even among people who consider themselves sensitive to social justice issues), what I mean is that ableism is often present in our thinking even if we don’t realize it, so people do have to question WHY they see Tyrion’s sexuality as so much more threatening and uncomfortable. Shit like that post in, ironically, a livejournal group called “Sane ASOIAF Fans” where the poster was like “It’s a good thing Sandor’s cock didn’t betray him on the night of the battle of the blackwater!” to make some kind of disgusting comparison between a scene of a grown man assaulting a child and a child being raped by his father, in order to make the former seem better and to demonize the latter, is not okay, and a symptom of the ableist idea that even when Tyrion is being abused, he is a figure of disgust or somehow to blame. People are enthusiastic to ascribe malicious or immoral intent to Tyrion even in places where they would forgive others, and that IS a symptom of how we as a society collectively think about people with disabilities, disabled men and in particular men with dwarfism, who throughout history have been used as a symbol for disgust and a threat to idealized feminine purity. That’s why people are more inclined to, say, forgive Sandor on the grounds that he was drunk, but ascribe malicious intent to Tyrion despite the heavy coercion that he is under. It’s also why people are more willing to forgive Jaime for having abusive sex with Cersei, because he fits a masculine ideal and has sex within the confines of a relationship, and it’s easy for us to say that Cersei “wanted it anyway,” vs Tyrion who is both disabled and has taboo sex with women he pays for. There’s a lot of assumptions about how OBVIOUSLY no woman could actually want to have sex with him, therefore it’s somehow worse for him to have sex or think about having sex. This also comes out when people sneer at Tyrion for thinking that he wants Sansa or Shae or anyone to love him. There’s a perception in fandom that NO ONE could love Tyrion so anytime he thinks about wanting love it’s somehow wrong and a sign that he really wants to commit rape or that he’s imposing on women (specifically able bodied, idealized women) by even thinking about them.

That’s why fanfic writers who want to imagine Tyrion being in a mutual relationship are sneered at, because there’s no way that could REALLY happen, right? Like, I can’t count the many times I’ve heard about how it’s somehow awful to imagine Sansa being in a mutual relationship with Tyrion because it’s “disregarding Sansa’s desires.” What bullshit. Sansa is a fictional character, and her story is far from over. If I write a story in which Sansa desires Tyrion, then it’s not Sansa’s desires that are being disregarded. It is the ableist reader’s perception of Tyrion that isn’t being catered to. Same with the insistence that Tyrion has to be portrayed as a sexual deviant or predator, and this goes for the show adaptation as well as fic. There is NO reason that Tyrion has to be portrayed the same way in the show, or in fanfiction, that he is in the books. No reason. Tyrion is a fictional character, and not a real person. So no adaptation is actually “whitewashing” him because there is no real Tyrion to whitewash. So when people are like, “but Tyrion did x thing!” Okay, great, but in my story he doesn’t. There’s no reason that should be a problem unless you’re really invested in seeing this character being portrayed a certain way, and being invested in seeing fictional disabled people be portrayed as villainous or immoral is not a good look.

Also, within fandom, even Tyrion’s moral behavior does not explain the lack of fic or fandom content. I have been told lots of times that it’s okay for me to write “dark fic” about Tyrion (which is bullshit anyway), but if that were the case, why are there not hundreds of dark fic about Tyrion? Why doesn’t he have a thriving fandom the way Thramsay does, if that’s the real reason people are uncomfortable?

I’ll tell you the reason why, it’s because Tyrion is a dwarf. That’s the reason people are more comfortable with like, all manner of sadistic torture porn but the idea of a person with dwarfism being portrayed as a sexual being, as a romantic being and an object of desire, makes people uncomfortable. That’s the reason Tyrion’s sexuality is exaggerated in fandom (which is so meta because this EXACT THING happens to Tyrion in the books and is used against him in his trial, to make him seem sexually deviant, when his sex life with Shae is, in reality, pretty vanilla.)

It’s also an interesting phenomenon to observe because the way Martin writes the story, Tyrion’s sexuality is on display for the reader. Sandor’s and even Petyr Baelish’s aren’t. Even though we hear about it, we don’t get the details and narrative closeness that we do with Tyrion. That’s why there’s a persistent fandom belief that Sandor doesn’t actually sleep with prostitutes or that his sleeping with prostitutes is somehow innocent, or why there are certain fans who make excuses for even Petyr. We’re told it happens in the books but we don’t see it, so it’s easy to idealize or imagine away. Meanwhile GRRM revels in the details with Tyrion and like, on one hand that’s part of what makes the character revolutionary, because the book deals openly with the sex life of a character who, because of his disability, would usually be portrayed as sexless in fiction, and does not apologize for it. But the flip side of that is that people with dwarfism have also, historically, been treated as an object of fetishism and sexual horror, and for all GRRM imbues Tyrion with humanity, there is something of a voyeuristic quality in the way he writes Tyrion. The reader is kind of like Oberyn going “oooh, tell me more!” and it also must be remembered that GRRM does not have dwarfism and is able bodied, so the way he writes Tyrion, especially with regard to sex, is not exempt from these stereotypes about people with dwarfism.

So like, when people cite x, y, and z thing as a reason Tyrion shouldn’t be shipped with *anyone*, maybe we should question why the story was written in such a way that the only POV character with dwarfism and a congenital disability in general can comfortably be excluded from shipping. Maybe we should question why we allow exceptions for other characters but automatically assume the worst about Tyrion, even when we aren’t in his head.

And if it’s about Tyrion’s relationships with women, why aren’t there tons of m/m ships with Tyrion? I can probably think of like, ten possibilities off the top of my head which make more sense and have more canon evidence than most widely accepted asoiaf ships. Why is Tyrion excluded from even AU scenarios, if it’s really about what Tyrion does in canon? Why is there so much policing in fandom of even fix-it fics or noncanon fics that want to imagine Tyrion a different way? Fandom is about creativity, and insisting that this character with dwarfism HAS to be portrayed a certain way and nobody else can imagine him any different is extremely uncreative, and as I said before, it is NOT a coincidence that fandom suddenly gets uncreative when it comes to a character whose disability marks him as other.

#fandom drama #ableism cw

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toast-the-unknowing · 5 years

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hi! I just wanted to say that I really, really love your writing, and I was wondering if you ever outline? And if so, how do you go about doing that? And I'm curious about your writing process in general (if that's a good way of putting it?). in any case, thanks so much for sharing what you write. It's really an absolute joy to read! :)

Hi and thank you! The short answer to this question is no, I don't outline. I've tried three-act structure and flashcards and Scrivener and whiteboards and a dozen other things and it just doesn't work for me. It forces me into making decisions I'm not ready to make yet, while delaying me from working on the parts that I am excited about, which 1. kills my desire to actually do any work and 2. delays my learning the things that I really do need to know about the story. But I also don't just write beginning to middle to end (honestly I can't believe anyone on earth does that besides, like, Spiders Georg). To the extent that I have a process it can be summed up as "I write the parts of the story that I know at the time that I know them, and they teach me what the next part of the story is."

The extremely long answer to this question is behind the cut, because like any good self-centered world-destroying Millennial I love talking about myself, and I love hearing people talk about writing, so maybe someone else does, too.

The beginning of a story tends to be like a cartoon character running off the edge of a cliff and building a bridge under them as they go. I open up a document and just start typing thoughts out as fast as I can. Some of the words that come out at this point make it all the way through the process to the final draft, but a lot of them don't, and I never commit myself at this point to typing usable words. I mostly end up with stuff like this:

flashforward: comes across opal somehow -- hunting or otherwise in the woods/wilds -- and she's this half-feral child, slowly builds up trust with her -- convinces her to come live in his house -- she's clearly cautious, but over the day settles in, and crawls into bed at night and falls right asleep, like she's not afraid of anything -- the next morning, dawn, wakes up and knows there's someone in the house, moving about, goes for opal's room and she's not there, runs out to the main rooms and there's a strange man standing there -- you won't find the girl -- what the fuck did you do to her -- I've taken her. as we agreed I would -- ronan finally recognizes him as the strange witch boy from so many years ago -- give her back -- I'm afraid that isn't possible. goodbye -- leaves and when Ronan follows him out the door he's nowhere in sight

Sometimes at this stage I'm jumping around in the document -- I'll have a thought about something I want to happen later in the story, so I'll put that in and then jump back to the earlier part -- but sometimes it's coming at me more or less in order, or there's so much I'm trying to get down at once I might as well just go in order. Also, a lot of the stuff I know about a story at this stage is related to the set up/concept/inciting incident/premise. So, in Careful the Tale You Tell, I jotted out about 800 words of Ronan making the deal with Adam, and meeting Opal, and Adam taking Opal, and Ronan trying to take Opal back, and then literally the only thing I had after that for the entire rest of the story was:

the two of them start living together, taking care of opal together, etc.

During/after/immediately before the "get down initial thoughts as fast as possible" stage, I write either the first scene or one near the beginning (if the opening moment is eluding me, which it sometimes does). The very early stuff, being a lot clearer in my head, tends to be a lot easier to write in full actual real paragraphs with real sentences and punctuation and dialogue tags and a minimum of placeholders. I find it helpful going forward to have that springboard -- a scene, or even just part of a scene, that looks like what I want the story to look like.

And then the process is "the same but more". Read back over what I have already. Admire how clever I am. Despair of what a hack I am. Realize an additional detail about a scene I only have two sentences for. Realize that that scene needs to happen in an entirely different part of the story. Move it. Think of one thing that's going to happen in one scene I didn't know existed yet. Come up with a funny bit of dialogue for the end of the fic.

With a lot of stories I hit a point, about a quarter to a third of the way through, where I realize what the story is actually about. That's tremendously helpful in knowing what to put in those nebulous holes in between "X happens and then Y happens." So with Careful, the key was realizing the story was about two things: it was about three sad loners who all choose each other, but also specifically it was about the way that two of those loners were profoundly misunderstanding each other, and how they had to stop telling themselves fake stories about each other and see what was really happening. That cleared up a lot of things about the story for me. For one thing, that's what told me I needed a four-part story from two POVs. And it let me fill in a bunch of scenes in answer to that dreaded question of "ugh what do I PUT on this BLANK WHITE PAGE with its CRUEL MOCKING CURSOR." I needed scenes of Adam thinking Ronan was a bad father, and I needed scenes that could be taken as justification of that opinion, and I needed scenes of him realizing Ronan isn't like his own parents. And I needed scenes of Ronan thinking of Adam as this uncaring vengeful other, and then I needed scenes that totally destroyed that image. And then because Adam is just the saddest sad loner ever I needed scenes where he's telling himself this new fake story where he denies the extent to which Ronan and Opal have already chosen him, and then I needed scenes that would make it impossible for him to continue in that denial.

This is maybe an example of why all the traditional outlining I was shamed into doing in film school fails me. None of this points to the shit with Ronan's mom being cursed and his dad being killed by an evil witch (except that I had notes to myself about a scene where Ronan finds out Niall tried to sell Declan to the witch -- but that was a product of one of those "I DON'T KNOW WHERE I'M GOING WITH THIS EXACTLY BUT IT'S AWESOME AND I WANT TO WRITE IT SO I'M GOING TO JOT IT DOWN IN AN EMPTY SPACE IN THE DOCUMENT" moments). In as much as those are "plot" elements they might be the sort of thing you're supposed to decide while you're still at the "write one sentence on one flashcard" stage. For me that entire aspect of the plot only came to me when I had something like 50% of the story written, and the specific details and beats of it I figured out and incorporated gradually along the way, because that wasn't the important or interesting part of the story to me. It sure wasn't the thing I wanted to shape my entire story around. I don't think I could have shaped the story around that.

At this stage of a story I sometimes write in nice beautiful paragraphs, particularly if it's a scene that develops really quickly from "hm maybe something like X happens" to "oh FUCK YEAH I'm going to make X happen." The storm scene in Careful came on like that -- I left the occasional placeholder and it needed edits and I rewrote some stuff, but if I had live-streamed my screen while I was writing it, you would have gone "yeah, that looks like a story."

More often, though, my writing looks like that flash-forward paragraph above. A mix of dialogue, and action that I'm sure of, and action that I only have a vague idea of, and shit that I don't know yet but I know that stopping to figure it out is only going to keep me from writing the parts that I do know. This is because 1. I can get stuff out faster writing these pseudo-paragraphs, and I really just want to get as much stuff on the page as possible in any given writing session; 2. weird messy half-written paragraphs are easier to edit, move, change, rewrite, or make my peace with deleting entirely, than big beautiful paragraphs with clever turns of phrase that I spent hours on.

Often those moments that I skip, I either know enough about them to be getting on with, or they're trivial in the scheme of things. Sometimes I skip a detail and find out later that I was wrong about what it was going to be or how important it was going to be, and now I have to change parts of the story that I thought I knew. But that's often a gift, because the new version is more detailed, or more interesting, or more relevant to what the story is actually about.

I also leave myself notes like this:

[ronan starting to notice his feelings and be really stupid about it??? or leave that more for part 4]

These can function as "I know I need a scene here that does X but that's all I know" or it can literally be "I need a scene here and I don't know what it has to do but there needs to be SOMETHING". Sometimes these comments are just character/tone/theme notes to remind me of how a scene is supposed to function within the larger story, so I don’t write a really cute wonderful scene and then realize it makes no sense for the characters at this point in their arc to be behaving that way.

At this point writing a story is a mix of four things:

come up with things to fill the gaps in the story, even if it's just [A SHORT SCENE OF THEM ALL DOING SOMETHING TOGETHER -- AT ONE POINT RONAN TOUCHES ADAM WHEN HE DOESN'T REALLY HAVE TO

take those one sentence scene descriptors and turn them into those big blocky ugly nonsense paragraphs with no capitalization and too many em-dashes

take those big blocky ugly nonsense paragraphs and turn them into readable paragraphs -- this is a really great thing to do on days when I feel tired/sick/stuck/depressed/like a fraud/hungover/uncreative, because I can tell myself "all you have to do is turn half-sentences into complete sentences, this is basically seventh-grade English homework, you can do that." Sometimes doing that gets gears turning in my brain and I can do a LOT of this kind of writing, or I can move up to doing writing that involves more decision-making and connection-building and character-understanding. Sometimes it doesn't, and all I achieve for the entire day is turning one fake paragraph into one real paragraph. Which still means I have a real paragraph where I didn't before.

reread and refine and tweak the readable paragraphs to get to a place where I'm happy with them

Then there comes another milestone moment -- about 90% of the way through a story, I become thoroughly convinced that it's disgusting irredeemable garbage. This step sucks, and the only real cure for it is to go "yup, but I'm writing it anyway, so let's at least make it finished, complete garbage." The alternative isn't "realize the story ISN'T garbage and then keep writing with a renewed sense of self-worth!" The alternative is that the story dies, and that's how I end up with a hundred unfinished WIPs that quietly pass into obscurity. I think this might be the real reason that Raven Cycle is the fandom I've posted the most complete fics in, despite having been in other fandoms longer -- sure, these characters spark a lot of ideas for me, and I'm a better writer than I used to be, and I understand my process better (instead of trying to write the way I think I SHOULD write), but honestly the most important thing is that I figured out how to go "maybe this does suck, but I'm still going to finish it."

The thing that I've found the most helpful with making that push is to find the one thing in the story that I really, really like, and remind myself that if I don't finish the story then no one gets to see that one scene, that one moment, that one PHRASE that's actually good, and wouldn't that be sad? With Careful that was the storm scene -- I would tell myself, "okay you keep saying that the pacing is awful and the first chapter is boring and this story is a waste of everyone's time, buuuuuut if you don't finish it, then no one will ever read the storm scene." Sometimes the story's existence is sufficient motivation. The Pokemon AU gave me the worst case of writerly-self-loathing I've had in years, but I just kept telling myself "yeah but don't you want to make people laugh in disbelief about the fact that you wrote a Pokemon AU?" And that makes my insecurities go pout in the corner like a sulky child where they shut up long enough for me to sneak the last 10% of the story in there.

(Once a story is done and posted, I'm able to look at it with more compassion, perspective, and nuance.)

"The last 10% of the story" doesn't necessarily mean "the last ten pages of the story". The last bit that gets finished is usually somewhere in the middle, although occasionally I do just write until I don't know what else to write and then slap some kind of closing line on it. (Usually that happens with stories I write very quickly; the florist!Henry fic was like that.) There's generally a lot of places spread throughout the fic where I left things unfinished -- sometimes as little as one detail, sometimes as much as an entire scene. I think with Careful the last scene I finished was the one where Adam tells the guy how to find his lost money. When I'd first drafted that bit it felt like homework -- I knew the story needed examples of people doing business with the witch, but, ugh, I couldn't make myself care about them. But I had managed to eke out some of those weird blocky [bracketed] paragraphs, so I kept building on those bit by bit. It also helped to keep in mind the real purpose of the scene. It's not about someone doing business with the witch, or even about Adam's habit of casually tossing out details he has no way of knowing (though I was happy to add that in to presage the conversation about how he knows Opal's name and age). The scene is about Ronan seeing Adam as otherworldly. So I got to add in those little details about Adam smashing the glass, and Opal and the visitor being surprised, and Ronan not being surprised -- which is really the most interesting part of that scene.

Then I do a word search for brackets, "Shine" and/or "Toast", and any other placeholder characters I use, to make sure every detail is filled in and none of my notes to myself like [nb shine check this is true] make it to publishing. I upload to AO3, save as draft, replace all my single asterisks with italics html, realize I've used too much italics, take half my italics out, proofread, publish, catch three-or-thirty typos I didn't catch before I published, fix those, catch another three-or-thirty typos, and decide to leave them in for authenticity/because perfect is the enemy of good/because I'm too damn lazy.

That's essentially the longest version of my process. Sometimes I write a story very quickly and so it skips some of these stages.

"A story I write very quickly" is not the same thing as "a short story." see you somewhere, some place, some time was gestating, in one form or another, for about sixteen months, and it put me through aaaaaaall the same heartache as its longer brethren.

#writing #Anonymous

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