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gossip-girl-of-middleearth · 3 years

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Which is your story with the fireflies?

Hi, thank you for asking! ☀️ It comes from my main Legolas x OC story, which is currently being rewritten on Ao3 here.

It was previously on another site (Quotev), and the chapters are going up one by one after being rewritten, so you can’t find the firefly scene online yet, except for here down below 👇🏻

The scene in question is the first time Bonnie and Legolas fully let their guard down around each other. This is after getting drunk their first night being forced to travel with one another to reach Lake-town, where they’re aiming to complete individual goals regarding Thorin’s Company.

The entire scene can be found below the cut :)

(also, I might make an actual post introducing the story with the cover art and synopsis, etc? I feel like others have done that, and I should too?)

Now giggling and completely drunk on Oin’s moonshine, Bonnie and Legolas fell onto their backs against the green grass and moss.

Dancing had tired them out, as breaths racked their chests—more believable for the human girl than it was for the elf, but her modern music had a different beat, of which he was entirely unfamiliar with.

Regarding said music, the soft tunes of “Southern Nights” by Glen Campbell filled the air, providing a cosy ambience for them both. Bonnie was certainly glad her Sony Walkman had made it with her to Middle-earth, now more than ever.

She briefly wondered how they handled such silence otherwise.

It was intimate underneath the stars and beside the river, perhaps a little too intimate for the two reluctant travel companions. However, at certain points in their impulsive dance, they couldn’t help but secretly thank the orcs for ruining their previous plans.

The constellations above them glittered, like a million diamonds. Their heads were spinning from both the dizzying dance and alcohol, but even then, they couldn’t fight the stupid grins off their faces.

They felt as though they had just spun on the spot for five minutes-straight, as if they were no more than children again. Things felt, for the first time in a long time, easy.

Considering a dragon and war between their two sides was on the near horizon, that was a feat in itself.

Bonnie glanced to her left discreetly, stealing a peek at the happy prince. He was certainly odd, but in an even odder way, he made her feel safe.

Before he could catch her, she looked up at the stars again—listening in closely to his inhales and exhales, the running river, swaying leaves, howling wolves, chirping crickets and Sony Walkman.

Legolas, too, stole a glance at her, considering her greatly. He now knew her secret, and though that answered some questions about her, many more were left.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Bonnie remarked after a moment of silence, referencing the stars. “We didn’t have views like this back in Chicago—and if we did, they were usually just helicopters tricking you into thinking they’re God or some shit.”

Bonnie laughed to herself slightly in disbelief over the memory from that Chicago alleyway, nearly a whole year prior. Where had the time gone?

Legolas giggled with her, even if he didn’t quite understand what was so funny. He liked to laugh with Bonnie, and he couldn’t yet explain why.

Lifting a lazy hand, Legolas dragged it along the sparkling canvas above. “They tell stories. Did you know that?”

“No,” Bonnie replied, sincerely. She folded her hands and rested them on her stomach. “Can you tell me one?”

Legolas pursed his lips to one side in thought, and ran a drunken gaze along the sky. His eyesight, for the first time in his life, wasn’t perfect. He almost revelled in the feeling of the complete and utter lack of control.

“Hmm…” he hummed, and from the close proximity he was laying next to her, Bonnie could feel the vibration of his voice. “Ah, straight above—it is the story of a little elf losing his way from home, but ultimately returning.”

“Pfft,” Bonnie disagreed, waving her own hand. “That ain’t nothin’ but a bunch of tiny little dots, Blondie.”

“No, I’m being quite serious,” Legolas beamed, looking to his side and at her. “Look closer—you can see his little body surrounded by the trees, and over to the right, you can see him walking through them.”

Bonnie complied and followed his hand, smiling the whole while. However, her smile soon steadily ran away, upon catching sight of something else.

Legolas noticed this, and questioned her in a concerned voice, coming up onto his elbows.

“Bonnie? Are you all right?”

Instead of replying, she slowly sat up, and stared at the crowns of leaves above them in unbridled wonder.

There, floating above the city girl, were many fireflies—something she had wished to see her whole life, but never had.

“They’re…they’re—” she had gone to say.

“Fireflies,” Legolas grinned, looking up at the trees now as well.

Parting her lips, and gaping in shock, Bonnie stood upright. The fireflies came down to meet their woodland prince and worldly guest, gently floating by.

She held both hands together, and pressed them in close to her chest, as she turned on the spot slowly. There were so many of them, and more amazing than she ever could have imagined.

“They’re…beautiful,” the usually cocky girl slipped, for once speaking with her guard completely down.

Still only sat up on his elbows, Legolas watched Bonnie move around with studious eyes, a soft smile on his lips. Fireflies all around the prince basked him in a golden glow, as he watched the girl in quite literally a new light.

She grinned at the floating bugs, and reached her fingers out to touch them. He could’ve sworn he saw tears welling up behind her eyes.

Standing up behind Bonnie, he walked forwards, so that he now stood by her side.

“Beautiful is right,” he said, looking down at her with an expression no one had ever seen on him before.

And, for now, it was an expression no one else would see, for Bonnie missed his gentle voice—too caught up in the marvel that was glowing around her.

Understanding that she wanted to interact closer with them, Legolas lifted up a hand, so that one landed on his finger.

She gasped slightly, and responsively moved her eyes in closer, for Legolas had brought it up for her to view.

“Wait! Blondie! You’re an elven prince!” Bonnie suddenly recalled, beaming up at Legolas.

“Last time I checked,” he smirked, almost returning to his bickering ways in Rivendell with her.

Rolling her eyes, but still grinning brightly, Bonnie pressed on—Chicago accent thick. “You can talk to them! Oh, God, ask them something! Or, I don’t know! Talk about whatever you talk to animals about!”

Legolas smiled back in an eye-crinkling manner, and nodded, chuckling slightly. He brought the firefly in close to his nose, and spoke soft Sindarin words to the bug.

Soon, it seemed as though he was caught up in conversation with said firefly, for he responded a few times with warm words she didn’t at all understand.

At one point, he giggled shyly and blushed—looking away from the firefly and down at his feet instead, where he gently tumbled blades of grass over one another.

Noticing this, Bonnie knitted her brows and questioned him with a curious smile. “What did he say?”

As he lifted his eyes and met hers, Bonnie swallowed deeply, for there was a certain glow within them unmatched by the golden bugs all around.

“He said, and I quote,” Legolas began, in almost a whisper, “that ‘despite them all glowing brightly tonight’ and ‘despite the stars beaming down for us’ you, Bonnie, are ‘still the most radiant of all things’, and then I said…”

Bonnie sucked on her lower lip, and tilted her head slightly, trying to catch Legolas’ averting eyes.

“You said…what, Blondie?” Bonnie asked, feeling a slither of hope over something she didn’t quite understand.

Meeting her eyes again, Legolas smiled warmly, and concluded his words.

“I said that I agree.”

The smile steadily ran away from Bonnie’s face, as his words rang around within her mind, like melodic bells.

“Wedding bells,” she knew Bilbo would have said, for once glad he wasn’t around.

However, irregardless, whether it be the alcohol driving her forward, or something more genuine, Bonnie beamed brighter in response to the frog-loving archer.

With a blush creeping along his features, Legolas shyly returned her smile.

And there, as Bonnie’s Sony Walkman played many old songs into the golden air that night by the river and fire, the two previous rivals grew a little bit closer—praying that morning would never come, for they knew what lay ahead in Lake-town.

Everything they felt tonight, alcohol-induced or not, would have to be forgotten by morn, for Thranduil and Thorin would surely forbid what had barely even begun from blooming further.

However, there, amongst the fireflies, they decided that that was their future selves’ problem.

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jadeee · 2 years

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Hey Jade!!

It's been so long, right? I don't know why, i haven't seen you posting a lot about fictif in these past few months, but maybe i didn't pay attention to the owners of the posts.

How are you doing?? I'm sending you lots of love 😘 Also, what did you think about nicky's honeymoon tale? I've some people saying that we didn't get enough content for the amount lf stars we payed. What did you think?

hi! it has been a while and you're def right, i haven't been posting as much {in general} and that's for a few reasons.

p.s.: thank you for sending love 💓💐 i'm sending some back to you. i hope you've been doing great!

posts + plans:

i went through a lot over the past few months and i learned a lot. the main thing i learned was that i spent sm time and energy on here when that could've gone elsewhere. even though work has been kinda crazy, i've been having more good days in my life and i'm so thankful for that.

i still love you all and hope that you enjoy my content the same. i'm unsure if and when i'll do requests again or if i'll post more fanfiction. ofc there's still the last chapter of vendetta but i'm not sure what'll happen next.

i can't tell you what to expect from me or this blog from here on out. i'm not sure if i'll abandon tumblr completely atm but i have been popping in every now and then. regardless of what happens, i appreciate each and every one of you and thank you from the bottom of my heart bc you taught me that anything is possible as long as i believe and put in the work.

nicky's honeymoon tale:

i played the honeymoon tale last night and i can see what ppl are saying. smthn ppl do have to consider though is the age rating on the app. so you may have wanted a rated r tale but we got the pg-13 version. we'll have to use our imaginations and the power of fanfiction to quench our thirst. the devs did give us smthn though which is nice so i'm grateful for that much bc they didn't have to release a honeymoon tale.

i thought it was really sweet that nicky talked about buying a place there and letting mc decide where to go for dinner. unrelated but i liked nicky's new suit {what can i say? we love fashion} also, vito looks like rocky ... i know nicky and mc mentioned going to sicily {i thought of sophia from golden girls lmbo} and i wish we got to experience that. it would've been such a touching moment between them bc we'd be watching him connect to his roots and i love the thought of that.

p.s.: in the event that i do leave the app completely, i would ofc make a post about it and leave my blog up for ya'll to read my work. idk if it'll come to that but only time will tell.

#jade has mail #jumping jade

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natsunoomoi · 3 years

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So sometimes I check wikis to like look things up about a show or series that I don’t have time to read or watch the whole thing fully cuz that’s a time investment I just don’t have but I have questions I just want a quick answer to.

The problem is, wikis are of course, made by like regular people with varying levels of biases and also sometimes selective memory of events. As can be seen in my more recent posts with SVSSS and MXTX’s works I’ve been on those wikis, but sometimes the explanations of plot points and a bunch of other stuff are really confusing and circular. SVSSS’s is being more cleaned up recently, but it still has some things that it says happened, that I couldn’t find at all when reading the book and I’m just like, where did they find that info to put on the wiki?

Like one of my earlier posts when I started reading SVSSS at the beginning, I mentioned how I read that original Luo Binghe got killed by his harem eventually and I thought that made sense cuz ultimately no one in that original plotline made choices that made them genuinely happy. But when I read the book, I didn’t see any mention of that anywhere...? I think last time I went to go look at BC Novels they had one chapter left to translate. Is it in there?

Then at other times, I wonder if there’s an inconsistency because there’s a limitation between the translation I read and like something in the original Chinese text like there’s a typo, which obviously there’s a mistake then. But then other times, I’m wondering if people read a different thing, but most of the people with a different interpretation don’t seem to be able to read Chinese and are reading the same translation as me, but I’m confused where they got certain details from?

Like for instance, there’s another part on the wiki where it says Airplane originally planned for PIDW to be a BL from the beginning, but I’ve literally been trying to find where that was stated because I don’t remember that and I don’t see that anywhere and the chapter citation that is listed on the wiki goes to a chapter that doesn’t talk about that at all. Airplane/Qinghua does say that he made changes to Qingqiu’s character that were originally more complex to make him a trash human and he did that to make a living, but I can’t find where it says he originally wanted it to be a BL theme to begin with. In the chapter they cite it says that Qinghua had designed Binghe to have an appearance in a way that appealed more to a female audience and be more of a pretty boy. That doesn’t mean that he meant his entire book to be a BL it just means you make your main character look a certain way partly for internal logic because that look is really popular with women so the in-story women would probably find him attractive and in a meta sense any females who happen to also read a stallion novel like some women read shounen manga would find him hot in real life. A successful story does things like that to reach people outside of its target audience and that’s kind of a lot of the reason why a lot of Shounen Jump manga are really popular with women too even though a lot of the stories have the male perspective in mind. The chapter it cites only talks about the actual physical appearance design choice he made for Binghe vs Mobei-Jun. He just says that Mobei-Jun was made for the kind of male character he prefers to think about, but Binghe was just designed with the idea of what would make him more popular and also could kind of be like a self-insert-ish for his desire to beat on people for funsies. It doesn’t talk at all about what the genre he planned for the book to be and interpreting the text to that much is really stretching the context to wishful thinking levels. I don’t even actually care either way what kind of novel PIDW was because it’s not actually that important to enjoying the story of SVSSS, but I don’t know if it’s the Ravenclaw in me or what, but it just bugs me when there’s something that seems *wrong* printed on a thing that is supposed to inform other people. I’m literally reading chapters at the same time as trying to write this post to find where I think maybe it was said, but it sure as hell wasn’t the chapter the wiki cites.

The other day I re-read the chapter when Qinghua taunts SY with Qingqiu’s real memories, and he doesn’t even say it then. ATM, I’m trying to look through the last chapter because there’s that one part when Qinghua shows up right at the end and talks with SY at the celebration, but even at the start at the chapter, SY talks about how Qingqiu was super straight to him. SY is an unreliable narrator, but given the context of Qingqiu’s life events that makes sense. His personal trauma because of Qiu Jianluo also pushed him away from any amount of closeness he could have with other men other than ones he already trusted to some degree. He had a lot of problems forming new relationships of any kind with other men because of deep-seated trust issues. Not that he didn’t have any, but meaningful ones were pretty absent. One only because of a very sad misunderstanding and lack of communication and explanation, but the others just tough.

But like also there’s like that SJ slept in the Warm Red Pavilion and he went there just for comfort rather than more lascivious reasons. Yeah, it’s true that he didn’t go there for those intentions, but like it’s still in the environment so it’s not like he’s unaware of what happens there. I mentioned it in the previous post about his search for means to grow his cultivation, but only to say he’s probably not that innocent and there may be some truth to him wanting to do something to Ning Yingying out of desperation to make up for his low cultivation foundation. Like he’s aware of those kinds of things and he probably came across something that said that was a way he could grow his cultivation. Desperation and this motivation I think is probably the only reason why he would be so tempted to cross that line with Yingying because he otherwise treats women rather well. She is his favorite too, so if a person who usually treats females well for some reason wants to do something that would be hurtful to their favorite person, there has to be a much deeper motivation behind that. The only thing that is a canonically greater obsession I think would have to be his cultivation level. He has a number of self-esteem issues and such a well, but his greatest pride and greatest concern is his cultivation. He is proud of his abilities, but also he laments and regrets the version of him he couldn’t become so much I can foresee that if there was a suggestion that he could overcome his late start in some way by using someone female, I think he’d at least think about it and also consider who he knows could be a viable candidate should he want to act on it and that is how that part of PIDW happened. Pain and desperation make people do things that are uncharacteristic, so it has to be something that really bothers him more than in a moment of weakness that idea is there.

Which is another point I have an issue with on the wiki because it says his low cultivation is “logically” because he started late and spent so much time with a fake master. It’s not logically. It’s factually. It’s mentioned several times especially in the extras chapters from Shen Jiu’s point of view where he talks about how he is specifically behind because of wasting time with Qiu Jianluo and Wu Yanzi and also that he was the last to form a golden core. If it was coming out of SY or someone else’s mouth as an explanation, maybe you can say “logically”, but if it’s coming from SJ’s point of view chapter it sure as hell is not. That *IS* his motivation. He states it himself.

Also, I think some people don’t understand what it means to have a low cultivation foundation. Cultivation from what I gather according to the rules of this world is like a lot of talents we have in our world where you need to start young to be good at it. There’s a few skills that you can learn that if you don’t start at a specific time you lose the optimal window to develop your talent for it because of the way the brain functions and basically purges off skillsets you’re not using in your environment.

Learning a language is one such skill. When a baby is born, it has the capability to learn how to speak every language in the world, but as it gets older its brain purges out the sounds that it doesn’t hear from its environment and this keeps going into older childhood as well. The taxi driver I talked to the other day about this said you have to start before you’re 10, which sounds about right. The phoneme purging in your brain starts quite early though so that’s why my company has classes for Moms and their 1 or 2 year old so that they can speak to them in English to try to keep English sounds in their environment so that they can have perfect pronunciation when they grow up. If you try to learn a new language when you’re older that’s how you have accents. You don’t have the phonemes to speak the language perfectly so your brain is imitating the sounds with the ones you do have. Plus it’s a constant use skill. I used to be able to speak Cantonese with no accent up until my teens, but I haven’t spoken it in so long that slowly I started to have an accent and now I can’t say the words properly anymore. I don’t know that much Cantonese to begin with that aren’t baby words, but I used to be able to say them properly.

Music is another one and that one has an even more narrow window. Kids with parents hoping that they will be music prodigies usually start them on music VERY young like 3 or 4. It’s not that it’s impossible for someone to pick up an instrument later in life, but there’s a type of sense to music and hearing the scale and developing that skill that if you don’t start kids on it at that time, their musical ear will not be as good.

And it’s that “not as good” thing that Qingqiu is chasing. He is exceptionally powerful and talented which is why despite starting late he became favored. He is very capable and good at what he does, but he is not as good as what he could have been. Even though he is so good, he is only haunted by how much better he would have been if he had started on time and had proper instruction. A musician who maybe wants to be a concert violinist but took up the instrument late may struggle to get a good seat in an orchestra because despite any talent they have, their ear is not as developed as someone else. Such a musician would be vexed and lament that they hadn’t discovered their love for the instrument sooner just as Qingqiu is vexed and laments that he didn’t start proper cultivation development earlier.

And I’m griping about SVSSS more because I read that book so I have more points of reference to go on. But like the wikis for MDZS and TGCF aren’t much better. MDZS is maybe a little more coherent and easier to follow, but TGCF confused the hell out of me and it took me awhile to understand what was going on. I really needed it though cuz I was watching the donghua and like I think the way they present some of the scenes is like slightly out of order for like foreshadowing and other like film reasons, so I checked the wiki while watching to try to get more context cuz I don’t have much time right now to pick up another book at the moment. I was so confused though cuz like...it seems like the logic in the entries is so circular and I’m trying to keep track of all the characters and what’s happening. I hope it’s better now but at the time I was watching it I was so confused and struggling to make sense of what’s happening.

And like maybe you’re wondering why if I read the book, would I bother checking a wiki. Mostly out of laziness because I’m thinking of something and I don’t want to go find the exact chapter to help me flesh out my thought and reference point. I end up getting more frustrated sometimes depending on what I’m looking up because of the above things.

Plus again I’m like a bit mystified as to why Qingqiu’s look seems to appeal to me. It’s not just him though and like other characters with a similar style in some of the games I play. I think there’s some imprint from some very old childhood memory that I only vaguely remember. Like it’s a look that seems familiar, but I can’t put my finger on where it’s from and I can’t figure it out, so I keep just going to check images to see if it will make me remember. I think it’s a movie I saw with my Dad as a young child, but I can’t remember it at all. I remember there was one Jet Li movie I watched with my Dad once and I ended up watching all the time cuz I thought Jet Li was really cute in that movie (I was also 3 so I don’t know why I’m thinking that way, but whatever), but like Jet Li was bald in that movie because it was about a Shaolin Temple. I think at the time my Dad showed me that movie I already showed an interest in movies from my own heritage, so that’s why he showed me that. But like I can’t remember anything else. I suppose it could have been something my grandpa watched because sometimes he’d watch a Chinese movie when I was playing in the living room and I’d stop to watch too and then he’d fast-forward through the intimacy scenes, but because I’d just look over at something he was already watching I have no idea what any of those were.

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pebblysand · 3 years

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[may '21] - the life update no one asked for (and some quick links)

Hello team! How are you? What a month it has been! But: we have had some proper sun, the days are getting longer, I have gin&tonic with me to give me fuel to write this and it is now the 30th of april - yay! I know I'm bending the rules of these monthly posts a bit there, by writing the may post by anticipation but I really want to focus on 'proper' writing this weekend, so I hope that you will forgive me :).

But, first, some quick links to different blog pages you might not see on mobile :

to read my fics [links to the hinny ficfest fics: one ; two ; three]

to read my original work

fic recs [new additions]

proper blog/site [that I never update but maybe one day I’ll bother]

[NOTE: i am currently accepting prompts for short ficlets on the hp fandom if you fancy. my ask box is open :).]

Everything else, under the cut (contains: ETAs for current WIPs - say, if you’re waiting for chapter 8 of castles, for instance... -, reading lists, and life update)

Currently, I’m writing:

**Castles [HP - post-war canon]**

links extended a/n-s: chapter v ; chapter vi

This is ONE HUNDRED PERCENT the priority for the coming days. We are having a bank holiday here in Ireland on Monday and the main objective now is to get the first draft of next chapter done. I have the outlines (both general and particular) and have - maybe - around 15% of the actual chapter done. Due to external factors (more on that below), I've had quite a hard time finding the time and energy to actually focus on this over the past few weeks which is why I kind of booked out this weekend to Get Shit Done. Hopefully, it works. ETA for next chapter: 30th May.

**R O A R series**

Harry&Hermione one-shot [ETA: July probably]

An original horror/thriller story [ETA: this is the next thing (after castles chap 8 on the agenda. Considering the ETA for chapter 8 of castles, we're probably looking at beginning of June for this.]

Something to fill this silk prompt [ETA: TBD]

That Peaky Blinders fic I started and never finished [ETA: TBD]

** Hinny Ficfest **

I am very happy to announce that I'll have not one but two short stories coming out for the upcoming hinny ficfest. I obviously can't talk about them too much on here but here's what I can tell you.

- the first one will be called: [like fire in the rain] and answers to prompt 78 - "truth or dare". It's a short three sentence story (a format I used to enjoy but haven't done on tumblr in aaaaages) that's a bit angsty (you know me) and is set within the 'sunlit days' in year 6.

- the second one, I'm not too sure of the title yet, but right now I'm thinking of a line from a song by passenger called 'holes': [she said the wolf's just a puppy and the door's double-locked (so what'd you gotta worry me for?)]. this is (loosely) inspired by prompt 27 (Molly finding out about Ginny/Harry) the summer after the war, but has kind of grown into a what-if-castles-wasn't-my-headcanon kind of fic. It's currently just shy of 3,000 words. I'm considering posting it on AO3/FF as well by the time it comes out on here but I'm not sure. We'll see.

They're both fully written but need a bit of polish but will definitely be ready by the 10th :).

Currently, I’m reading:

Calypso by David Sedaris: I've finished this! It was absolutely lovely - would highly recommend if you're looking for a nice, non-fiction read. I'd probably give it four stars. Not magnificent but definitely worth a read.

I’ve started re-reading the Divergent series because I have the attention span of a five year old atm. -- Update: yeah, still there. I don't think I've picked this up recently.

I've also started Watch Her Fall by Erin Kelly. I really loved her thriller He Said/She Said so thought I'd give it a try. For now, it's fine but I've found it sort of hard to get into it if I'm honest.

I’m still labouring through Troubled Blood, the JKR/RobertGalbraith book (ugh), but I have made significant progress on this. I'm on page 789 so almost at the end. I cannot wait to be finished with it. On top of everything else, it's just way too long. And, that's coming from someone whose favourite HP book is OOTP.

In other news:

I have to say, this month's been a bit of a struggle. Not in terms of mental health but just a lot of things happening at once. I had my exams at the start of the month, obviously, then I went home to France. Then, Ireland decided to introduce mandatory hotel quarantine so I had to change my tickets, come back early to avoid it. Then, the day before I left, my mother had a stroke. I just - I don't want to dwell on this too much. It's over, now, she's fine, has (from what the MRI showed) very little damage to her brain. She's at home and living her best life. Frankly, she's a bit of a miracle. This being said, I can't explain to you the stress and anxiety and heartache of last few weeks, and of not knowing what to do. Of not being able to fly home, having to be in Ireland because I was starting a new job and couldn't afford the hotel quarantine; it was just a lot. I think I didn't even have words to put on it at the time, which is why I didn't write about it before. It's easier now, now that it's over. In the thick of it, I didn't know where to start.

Now, I also didn't want to mention this because I don't mean it as a sob story. I just feel like I should explain why I haven't been the best at putting content out, lately. For that first week after it happened, when we were waiting for the medical exams to come through, I had to start a new job, pretend to be 'happy to be here' and 'excited' like everything was fine and that alone kind of sucked all the energy out of me. I was texting her every half hour at the same time, anxiously waiting for a reply. She lives alone, you see, and she's the only family I have left. I feel bad about not being able to write, but it's been hard. I just couldn't focus. On top of that, while the new job is interesting (and it pays money, yaaaay!), it's just a new routine to get back into, so I've also been feeling very tired.

Additionally, the extrovert in me has been begging to see more of her mates, lately. The weather has been really nice and I'm so eager to go out that I have struggled to keep my resolutions of 'no, I'm staying in and writing tonight.' I used to get plenty of social interactions at work, back in the day, but now that I'm fully remote, all I want to do on my days off is see people (especially with the easing of restrictions in Ireland). I feel like overall, it's fair, though. Introverts have struggled in our society for years, now, it's fair that we, extroverts, during the pandemic, bear more of the burden. It's just that this sudden return of my social life has also not truly catered to much writing time, haha. Hopefully, May will be more stable.

I am feeling better, now. Mum is doing good, the results of her MRI were very positive and the only real thing that's changed is that she says she's 'exhausted' which I guess can be expected after a stroke, haha. She's a warrior and I love her. This week, I've been feeling finally more able to focus and with the bank holiday, I really hope to get some proper writing done. I just need to escape in the magic of HP again, haha.

Anyways, sorry for this rather grim update. I suppose I also want to be honest and say that it's not always rainbows and butterflies. Here's to May, though. Hopefully, it'll treat us better :).

#writing #life update

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blissedoutphil · 3 years

Text

Dan the Personal Assistant Epilogue

1038 words

on ao3

~Part 13~

“Wake up, boy.”

Dan groaned, sprawling his body to Phil’s side of the bed.

“Do you want a spanking?” Phil chided, buttoning up his own shirt.

Dan made a sound that was like a whine, but it was muffled into the pillow.

“What was that?” Phil lightly smacked his butt through the blanket.

“No Sir,” Dan grumbled, finally sitting up.

“Hey, at least you don’t actually have to go anywhere,” Phil kissed his forehead, “I wish I could stay home and work here with you.”

“I wish you could stay here with me too,” Dan pouted, looking downright precious as he rubbed his eyes.

Dan dragged himself out of bed to walk Phil to the door. They kissed goodbye and Phil left for work. He opened the blinds and let the morning light warm the home - their home. He was still amused by the spiderman on the cord, and didn’t think he’d ever lose the humour for it.

After their New York trip, Phil had asked him to move in with him. It was harder than he’d thought to part with his simple and empty tiny apartment. He’d still had the mindset that he didn’t deserve what he’d consider high-class living in Phil’s penthouse. He’d never get used to it, he’s a simple guy, he’d thought. But he’d be mad to want to stay in an empty bed alone at night when he could be wrapped in Phil’s warmth instead. About a year later, and he’s settled in great. Phil always told him that he used to keep decorating this place yet it never felt complete, until Dan moved in. Now, Dan added on to their growing knick-knack collection, making this - their - place as whole as it could be.

He got dressed and had a quick breakfast before going to the office room. He’d been so afraid of what the future held once he was ‘laid off’ as Phil’s assistant. But Phil made sure he had nothing to worry about. Phil guided him to find his interests. He’d thought he’d never have passion in anything. He’d viewed himself as a failure ever since he dropped out of university anyway.

Phil was so kind that he broke down and told Phil that Phil didn’t deserve to have a boyfriend this dependent on him. But Phil wanted to take care of him, and Dan had no choice but to learn to embrace being taken care of.

Dan didn’t have the qualifications to work in the field he liked, so Phil signed him up for a part-time degree. It was easier for Dan to handle after a bad university experience. He liked that half of the course was online and the pace was slower so that he had time to do other things.

Things like getting a job.

Phil had insisted he could help Dan with the tuition fees.

“You’re my boyfriend, not my ATM,” Dan had retorted.

He had quite a sum from his stint as Phil’s assistant to pay off the fees, but he still wanted to be useful and help with his share of the house bills. So he worked whenever Phil was at work too and he didn’t have classes; it was better than staying home alone anyway.

His online class lasted for 3 hours, and though he loved his new course compared to his previous attempt at a degree, school was still school and he wanted nothing but a nap sometimes.

But he stayed at his desk and worked on his assignment instead. He’d asked Phil to help him - make sure he woke up for his lessons, didn’t procrastinate his assignments, studied for his tests. He did not want to fail his second attempt at school. Phil took the role very seriously. Sometimes Dan found it cute how Phil, an accounting graduate, tried to help him with psychology notes. Other times, it was less cute when Phil threatened to spank him or lock his dick for weeks if he didn’t study. But Dan had asked him for such help, and he was glad that he had Phil for some kind of kinky discipline.

Sometimes, he’d procrastinate on purpose just to get that spanking, but he would never tell Phil.

This time though, he made sure he finished his assignment before he had to leave for work.

-------------------

“Nice to see you’re finally early for once,” Frank said, rather surprised as he took his seat across the table from Phil in the coffee shop.

Phil was already buried in his laptop, preparing the documents he wanted to share with Frank. He huffed at Frank’s comment, but didn’t rebut it. His cup was already half empty, indicating to Frank that he’d left the office and was sitting here for a while before lunchtime already. Surprisingly, it wasn’t caramel macchiato like what Frank would’ve expected Phil to drink.

Frank glanced at the counter, and nothing was surprising anymore.

“Ahh, you got the seasonal special drink from the special barista, did you,” Frank smirked.

Phil rolled his eyes, but he smiled anyway. “He can make you one too.”

Before Frank even ordered, his special coffee came his way.

“On the house,” Dan smiled at Frank, the same way he’s given Frank’s drink every time they came here for lunch or work while his shift was on.

Frank had insisted to pay lots of times, but to Dan, no amount of free coffee could ever repay how Frank had helped him and Phil back in New York.

“It’s the least I can do,” Dan would always answer as he refused payment.

“I was only being a snoopy busybody,” Frank had moped the first time, as he put his card back into his wallet. These days, he’d cheekily offer to pay just to see Dan get annoyed about how it’s the hundredth time I’m telling you, Frank, you don’t have to!

“Thanks, love,” Phil replied before Frank could this time, “see you at home later tonight.”

Dan all but beamed at him. Who would’ve known he’d end up here, happier than he could ever remember with everything he’d ever need and a love he’d never dreamed of getting, all because he accidentally sent a wrong - not to mention incredibly embarrassing - job application video?

----------------------------

The end :,)

When I wrote the summary as “But what happens when he accidentally sends a wrong video?” I never thought it’d end up this way either lmao.

This fic was born solely because of a prompt sent in which made me want to write office smut and nothing more. But somewhere along the way, between irl dan & phil coming out, me graduating uni and starting a proper job and losing free time to write, and the occasional discussion on the morality of writing phansmut in a post-coming out universe, I just kinda lost the motivation to write this.

But I hate abandoning fics, I know the feeling as a reader of one too many abandoned WIPs. I tried continuing but I started hating this fic, I never (still don’t tbh) understood how this ended up one of my popular ones. I can’t read back on this work because I can pinpoint the exact moment I lost inspiration/motivation and had no idea where the hell I was going with the fic lol, and wished I wrote those parts differently.

Then it took a whole pandemic for me to finally have free time off work so I decided to give this story another try. This resulted in the story having such a prominent shift from the beginning parts (to me anyway, a lot of you have reassured me that the story still flows well, thank you for that because I can’t bear to re-read and see things from my perspective lol). And I started having a bit more fun with it again, learning to write a bit more plotty things instead of pure smut.

I hope I did this fic some justice. It may not have been what I had in mind when I started it, but I can say I’m quite glad with how it turned out in the end :) For what’s originally meant to be only a smut work, it sure got me reflecting a lot lmao. I guess it’s because so much has changed in the past 2 years - like, imagine telling Me who was writing Chapter 1 that Dan would come out in a few months and confuse my whole conscience on writing phansmut lmao???

And thank you so much for still reading despite the long breaks and everything in between. All your interactions with the fic, every like, reblog and ask, were the main thing motivating me to even continue! It really does make me happy to see that there are so many of you who enjoy this (totally not worthy imo lol).

I don’t know what 2021 has in store in terms of fic writing, but I hope you stick around if I ever do come up with new works :) And if you have an idea you’d like to share with me, please do!! This fic wouldn’t have been born if not for a prompt after all :)

Thank you and I hope the remainder of 2020 will treat you kinder than the rest of the year had been <3 (wow this is a long end note lmao)

#dan the personal assistant #phan #Phanfic #phansmut #My fic

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nemrut · 4 years

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Tearmoon Empire

I wanted tot talk more about fanfiction but there isn’t really a fanfic I am following atm that I am actually super exited about and it would feel a bit lazy to pick up an old one, so gonna talk about something else.

Last few months, I have read a lot of manga and a few LNs in the vain of transmigrated/reborn/reincarnated as a villainess and one part of the subculture is the villainess or MC being executed in their main life after being outmaneuvered or used by her loved ones and she then wakes up in her younger body. Tearmoon Empire written by Nozomu Mochitsuki and illustrated by Gilse is a more humorous take on that formula.

The summary on Amazon is as follows:

Surrounded by the hate-filled gazes of her people, the selfish princess of the fallen Tearmoon Empire, Mia, takes one last look at the bleeding sun before the guillotine blade falls... Only to wake back up as a twelve-year-old! With time rewound and a second chance at life dropped into her lap, she sets out to right the countless wrongs that plague the ailing Empire. Corrupt governance? Check. Border troubles? Check. Natural calamities and economic strife? Check. My, seems like a lot of work. Hard work and Mia don’t mix, so she seeks out the aid of others, starting with her loyal maid, Anne, and the brilliant minister, Ludwig. Together, they strive day and night to restore the Empire. Little by little, their tireless efforts begin to change the course of history, pushing the whole of the continent toward a new future. And why did the selfish princess have a change of heart, you ask? Simple—she didn’t. She’s just terrified of the guillotine. They hurt like hell, and Mia hates pain more than work. Lazy, selfish, and a complete coward, the ill-equipped princess of the Tearmoon Empire, armed with memories of her past life and a diary from the future, tries to avoid dying at the guillotine again and changes the very course of history in the process!

Premise is very clear. Cowardly, petty and self absorbed princess died during her first life because of those attributes as the revolution of the small-folk caught her and because her traits made almost everyone dislike her, the few people who wanted to save her couldn’t. Now on her second life, she has some foreknowledge as she, by now, knows the general gist as to what went wrong, what led to all the suffering which kick-started the revolution. Understandably, she does not want another revolution to happen, or at the very least, if it does happen, she hopes no one will be particularly angry with her or that she will have enough goodwill to be able to escape.

So her every action, her every good deed, her ever interaction with people is fundamentally fueled by her desire to not be executed and trying her hardest to seem selfless and nice or at the very least not cruel or selfish.

And it works, it works so well that everyone thinks she is a wise saint who has appeared to save mankind,w ho is literally too pure, too good for this world. She makes some vague suggestion as to what could possibly go wrong,more capable people run with it and make it happen but because she was the catalyst, she gets the credit and praise.

It really, really works. The manga version is neat but the LN version especially shines with the way the narrator always makes sure to note how actually selfish Tia is. Tia does something nice or kind, the characters around her praise her for it and the narrator then goes on to state how very not wise and kind Tia actually is.

The story and characters are funny and likeable. It helps that Tia was never a muahahaha I love to be cruel kind of person. She was never evil. She was just spoiled and selfish, living an extremely privileged and self-absorbed life. It wasn‘t her fault that the country went down the drain, she just didn‘t care about anything but her own comfort and was the typical spoiled noble-lady to her servants and those she saw as beneath her class-wise. That meant that no one was inclined to be charitable towards her and saw her as part of the problem.

It is a very charming story, and really, really fun. Tia is a delightful protagonist because despite her still very selfish if understandable motivation, she is still doing good and right things in the world. She makes the world better, even if that desire comes from the fear of being executed otherwise and not because she particularly cares about other people. She does like others though, like her maid who was the only person who was kind to her during her imprisonment in her first life and Tia tries her best to repay her in this life for her loyalty and kindness which of course makes the maid love her even more. A few instances, Tia does good because she knows Anna (the maid) sees her as this avatar of justice and Anna expects her to step in and help and Tia is forced because she doesn’t want to lose Anna’s loyalty.

So yeah, give it a try if that sounds appealing. Manga has only 9 chapters though and only two volumes of the LN are translated/out.

#tearmoon empire #manga #light novel

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out-of-this-dimension · 4 years

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A Fic PSA

I meant to post this a few days ago but I forgot, oops.

Some of you may be aware that my fic updates have been dwindling lately and to be honest, I’ve been feeling a bit of a funk when it comes to writing Star Fox particularly. It’s not that I’ve fallen out of love for the series or anything, but it’s just a few factors that have become detrimental to my mental health when it comes to updating fics and posting new works. I’ve been kinda hiding from it for a while now but I’ve decided to take my creative process in a different direction so, read on for those who read my fics and are remotely interested.

Because I’m looking at writing fics in other fandoms and on my own personal works, I’m going to be trimming down my SF fics output and focusing on fewer, bigger projects. It was kinda a mistake to just spout a bunch of multi-chapter fics at once because sustaining that kind of flow is frankly impossible, even with staying home most of the time due to the pandemic.

Think of the following as a sort of... idk, patch notes for my content lol:

Star-Crossed is going to be my main focus for Star Fox fics. I’ll still do oneshots every so often but for the most part, I’ll be focusing entirely on Star-Crossed.

Legacies Never Die is going to resume being what my original intention was-- something on the side that I can update infrequently with short stories about the first gen SF team.

The Price We Pay is on hiatus indefinitely.

Love Guru is on hiatus with the intention to be redone entirely.

Tempered, which hasn’t seen an update in like actual years, is def on hiatus lol

Fragments will continue to be where I shove all of my oneshots EXCEPT for ship-related oneshots. I do have 2 ship oneshots in my drafts atm so those will hopefully come out soon.

If it’s not listed here and it’s a WIP fic, then it’s on hiatus, pretty much.

This is kinda what I started doing awhile back but I wanted to make it kinda known that yeah, there’s a lot of unfinished fics but frankly, my creativity is just fluctuating so much that I think it’s best to just focus in on a handful of projects.

I also wanted to go ahead, on record, and say that I’m no longer uploading to FF.net, so all of my works will be available only through AO3. This might just be temporary but I could easily see it being a permanent thing. I have had my beef with FF.net in the past and I realized that uploading there has just been draining overall. I get very little response on there anyways compared to AO3 so I don’t particularly feel like my fic updates there will be missed. I find the site to be really annoying in terms of layout and just messy in general and lately the SF fandom on there has really been sapping up my positive vibes, so I’ve made the decision to step away from there at least for a period of time.

Anyways, sorry for the long rambly post, but I figured I’d update people in case they were on the lookout for any fic updates. I’m going to spend some time this afternoon working on some things to hopefully show you guys within the next week!

#fic talk #ramblings //#a blog and fic psa #long post

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milstrim · 4 years

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Rise From the Ashes; Just to See You Again

Chapter 5: Penny Parker

"Miss Parker."

Penny looked up sharply at her teacher's reprimanding voice, snapping her computer shut, almost flinching at how suspicious that was. She hadn't been looking at anything weird, just...herself. Well, theories about Spider-Woman (though the media called her Spider-Girl, much to her annoyance).

"Mmhm?" she hummed, her lips pursed as she tried to appear as though she had been paying attention. It worked about half the time.

"You still with us?" Mrs. Warren asked.

"Uhh, yeah. Yeah, yeah," she looked at the equation on the board, hoping it had been what she'd been talking about, "Um, mass cancels out, so it's just gravity times sin."

"Right," she praised, turning around and walking back to the front of the classroom, "See, Flash, being fast isn't the same as being right."

Oh my, God, Penny thought, about to bang her head on the table. Flash? Why did Mrs. Warren think that was a good idea?? As if he read her thoughts, Flash turned around in his chair and mouthed, "You're dead."

Great.

She didn't let it get to her though, Flash couldn't hurt her, not really. Still, she was just a little uneasy the rest of the day.

Once the final bell rung she rushed out the doors, reaching the gate before anyone else even stepped outside and leaping over it with ease. The teen ran to her usual spot, grabbing a sandwich from Mr. Delmar's on her way, and changed into her suit. Electricity seemed to flow through her as she pulled her mask on and began to swing through the city. As she landed on an especially tall building, static crackled in her ear.

"Ned Solo to Spider-Girl. I repeat, Ned Solo to Spider-Girl," said her best friend, his voice as clear as if he were standing right next to him. The earpieces they had made were really holding up.

She snorted at his words, cracking a smile and trying to contain a laugh.

"Spider-Woman, Ned. Is it really that hard to remember?"

"Ned Solo, " he replied, putting on a fancy accent, "Sorry, though. Anyway, how is the earpiece holding up?"

"Sounds like we're right next to each other," she answered, "How's the camera?" She had installed a small camera of her own creation into her lenses, and Ned had linked it to his computer so he could watch and alert her of crimes after tapping into the police scanner.

"Sweet. I finally get to experience being a superhero first hand!!"

"It's really not that exciting," Penny told him, leaping off of the building and shooting a web, "For me anyway. The most exciting thing we'll see is someone robbing an ATM machine."

She was right. Spider-Woman patrolled the streets of New York for nearly five hours, and a lot of it was spent goofing around. Don't get her wrong, there was plenty of crime in Queens, but it generally wasn't enough to keep her busy for a whole afternoon. Ned somehow managed to stay on the whole time, though he did start doing his homework halfway through. Penny did have fun taking pictures though, getting some nice angles for The Daily Bugle.

Despite the afternoon being boring, things had gotten a little more intense recently. She'd been encountering a lot of alien weapons, though she'd never actually managed to get one from someone, or a name. They always either hit her or something else, making her have to stop instead of grabbing the people and the guns. She was looking around for leads, but had none at the moment, she wasn't exactly a detective. She figured that if she continued patrolling she'd be likely to find more of the weapons.

It was dark by the time she climbed into her room, ripping off her mask and throwing it on the floor. Thankfully, she had remembered to actually close her door before she left for school that morning.

Penny could hear May bustling around in the kitchen, she could smell it too, though she wished she couldn't. Hopefully they'd go to that new Mexican place a few blocks over, it had really good enchiladas. She quickly changed into some shorts and a sweatshirt and headed in the main room, grabbing her backpack so she could do her homework on the couch.

"Hey, May!" Penny greeted cheerily, "Can we get Mexican tonight?"

"I made lasagna!" her aunt protested, waving a rag at the burnt lasagna as if it would help. Penny raised an eyebrow, a small smile gracing her lips. May furrowed her brows in response, but it was playful.

They did end up getting Mexican, and a guy from another table ended up hitting on May, who never quite got the hint. It was kinda funny to be honest.

"So, your birthday's next week," May commented after dinner as they walked down the street, making their way to the apartment.

"Yeah, I know," Penny sassed playfully, which made May swat at her.

"Fifteen's a big deal!" she insisted, suddenly going serious, "I know things have been tough lately, what with...but I still want you to have a good birthday."

"I'm fine, May, really. I don't want anything big."

"What do you want?"

"I..." Penny hesitated, "I wanna go to the Stark Expo."

May paused, clearly hesitating.

"The Penelope Stark Expo? That thing Stark does every year?"

"Yeah, it's like a fundraiser, for people who would be around his daughter's age or whatever. They do science exhibitions and stuff. It's free to go to, I just wanted to walk around," Penny rushed. May wasn't a huge fan of Tony Stark, and after what they had seen on the news about the Expo in 2010, she hadn't been too keen about Penny going.

"I don't know, Penny, the Avengers will be there an--"

"Exactly! The Avengers! It'll be safe as long as they're there, I mean, that's their whole job," Penny interrupted, wondering if one day that would be her job.

"Trouble follows the Avengers. I honestly don't think it will be safe, and I get that it's a good opportunity for you, but I'm just not comfortable with it."

"Please, May," Penny whined, "I really want to go! I promise it's all I'll ask for, and I only want to go one night, it's not like I want to go every day of the week."

"No, Penny."

"But, May--"

"I said 'no,' Penny, you can't go!" May said, her voice firm and frustrated.

Penny shut up then, and the two walked in silence up to their apartment. She didn't want to make May upset. Her aunt had been so fragile since Ben died (and if was being honest with herself, she had too), so she'd been doing everything right to the best of her ability. She cleaned, she kept her grades up, she stayed in Academic Decathlon, and she even got a job at the Daily Bugle to help make ends meet, which was like the easiest job ever since all she really had to do was take selfies. Except for Spider-Woman, she had done everything right, and her aunt didn't even know about Spider-Woman.

So she kept quiet as they walked into the apartment, finishing her homework and going to bed. She fell asleep immediately, though her dreams were plagued with screams, an echoing gunshot, blood that filled the streets and stained her hands and arms, and the feeling of being ripped away from strong, comforting arms.

When Penny woke up, gasping, it was 3 AM and she felt hot and itchy all over. She tried to go back to sleep, but to no avail.

Penny climbed out of bed, her mattress creaking as she swung her legs over the side. The teen walked over to the window, sticking her hands on it and opening it slowly, not wanting to wake up May. She then climbed out and onto the wall, the chilly night air biting her skin and washing over her with relief. With surprising energy for the time of night, she jumped from her fire escape to the roof, escaping the pressing confines of her room.

There was no moon that night, and being in New York City, there weren't any stars either. Still, she could make out plenty from the lights of the city skyline. The cool night air washed over her, blowing her curly hair, which she'd cut to her chin recently, as she stared at the cloudy sky, wondering if she would ever be able to make the difference she was hoping for.

He shot up in bed, grasping the ghost of his arc reactor on his chest as he let out a pained gasp. It had been a nightmare, just another nightmare tormenting him when he couldn't protect himself. He sucked in a stunted breath, managing to take in a little air as he wiped at his clammy and sweaty face, blinking away tears that streamed down his face and found their way into his mouth as it hung open in the attempt to breathe, to feel his chest loosen.

It took several minutes, in which he stumbled out of his bed, managing to not wake Pepper, and shuffled to sit in the chair facing the New York skyline. The man stifled his gasps and continued to wipe uselessly at his wet face, his hands too sweaty to make any difference. When, after several minutes of suppressed panicking, he finally calmed down he managed to actually think.

The dream had started off so nice, well, not nice, but normal, nonthreatening. But it quickly devolved into the same pain he'd been feeling since he'd lost Penny, the constant cloud of rage and grief that hung over him day and night, no matter how he tried to escape it.

The nightmare had been more of a feeling that anything; the way she'd been ripped from his arms, the creeping of the gas as it wrapped around his throat and tied him down. But then it had changed, turning into a faceless woman falling whom he failed to catch, her fingers slipping through his, and though he didn't recognize the woman, and though she had been dead since she was four, it had been Penny.

It had been like Pepper, too much like Pepper, like he was unable to catch his family, to protect them.

"Tony?" Speak of the devil, "It's late. Are you okay?"

"Fine," he replied, but his voice was taut and he knew she wasn't fooled. She never was.

"Do you want to talk about it?" she asked softly, entering his view and sitting on the footrest in front of him. He just leaned forward in response, taking her hands and pressing his lips to them gently. He didn't speak for a moment, and Pepper didn't make him, just waited patiently, her blue eyes sad.

"It was about Penny," he admitted, "I couldn't...I didn't catch her. She just...fell, and I didn't catch her, I couldn't even hold her."

Pepper placed her hand on his cheek soothingly, and he leaned into it, placing his hand on top of hers.

"Oh, Tony," her voice was so soft and so heartbreakingly sad, "It wasn't your fault, you know it wasn't."

"I was her dad, Pep," he croaked, "I was supposed to protect her, that was my job. What happened to her was my fault."

The woman only sighed, knowing it was a losing battle. It had been an ongoing fight since his daughter's kidnapping, and no amount of therapy she'd made him take or time he'd had had made him believe anything else.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, the two of them staring out the floor-to-ceiling window companionably until Pepper got up. He didn't make any moves to follow her, or to even watch her, just staring out over the city blankly. His fiancée returned, though he didn't know how long she'd been gone, sitting in the chair with him this time and spreading a large book over their laps. It was a dark blue--Penny's favorite color--with large and elegant lettering on the front, simply titled Penny.

Pepper had given it to him on the first anniversary of the worst day of his life, and though he wasn't much of a crier, he'd shed more than a few tears when he'd opened it.

Tony opened it now, flipping through every page reverently, pausing to look at the photos of Penny, to admire every drawing she'd ever given him, from ones of unicorns and dragons to ones of the two of them, usually including Platty. His chest hung heavy as he and Pepper flicked through the memories of the best years of his life, to the years now permanently stained by grief.

"It'll be okay, Tony. It'll be okay."

No it won't.

"I know."

#Iron Man #spiderman #irondad #spiderson #spiderdaughter #spiderwoman #penny parker #female peter parker #tony stark #fanfic #irondad fanfiction

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the-ship-sails-itself · 4 years

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The Ennui of Writing

Weirdly enough, have been writing quite a bit for being someone filled with something like ennui in regards writing.

I don’t feel like writing.

But I am in fact writing.

I dislike almost everything I’ve written.

Also, still grappling with wordcount envy.

On a good day I struggle to make a chapter hit 1000 words.

Have come up with a number of new ideas.

They all sound either too stupid or too exhausting to write.

Multi-chapter, multiple installments in a series... ugh.

Every idea I’ve had recently devolved into them banging when I started writing it out.

Even the ones I didn’t intend to go higher than a T-rating.

Don’t feel like posting anything saxy at the moment.

As in I feel more than reluctance.

Almost like I feel... disappointed in myself for writing the way I do.

I feel like there’s plenty of that content up as it is. I don’t feel I need to be contributing atm.

I have this weird suspicion that folks out there might be wishing I *wouldn’t* contribute so much smut.

I don’t even like how i write that stuff most of the time.

I get concerned that my smut writing is trite.

Reads as unrealistic.

Reads as unsexy

Reads like it has no understanding of human anatomy much less the anatomy involved with such activities.

Reads like maybe I’m failing to grasp either of the characters’ voices.

I seem to be in the minority when it comes to like 90% of my opinions regarding the characters I write about.

Based on all the fic I’ve read.

Am I really getting them *that* wrong?

My dialogue sounds different.

Do I just not know how people talk?

Do *I* not know how to talk?

jfc do I sound like some weird ass robot when I talk irl???

My motivations for the characters re: plot and sex sounds different.

Am I writing either or both characters as too soft?

Would Macy actually be that soft or caring towards Harry?

Is she even the comforting type?

Am I just projecting what I want her to be vs how she’s actually portrayed in canon?

(Macy at the end of 1.10 makes me wonder)

Too angry?

Too uptight?

Should Macy have a looser voice and use more modern-ish slang?

Not uptight enough?

Do I write Harry as not formal enough in the way that he speaks?

And back to the dialogue: How shitty am I at making Harry sound British?

Am I using slang wrong?

Is there any native UK English speaker out there that can help a shitty fanfic writer out?

Most of the time I just can’t find a properly british way to have Harry get angry at himself and call himself terrible names.

I’m not trying to be competitive but I feel like even If I did want to write smut I’d have to up my game big time given what’s already been posted.

And just don’t have it in me to even go looking for my A-game, much less bringing it anywhere...

god, just the idea of trying to come up with a satisfying/original way to write vanilla sex just fills me with dread and a need for a sad panda nap.

I had this whole saga planned that was almost all kink/fet/smut but now I’m just like...

I feel like people are tired of me writing this stuff.

That could be a projection.

Maybe I’m just tired of me writing this stuff...

There’s already way better and wilder stuff out there.

Me adding to the pile...

(yes, i’m aware of the Two Cakes argument)

I want to work on my WIPs

All the next chapters of all my WIPs have mature content.

I don’t feel like posting that kind of content right now.

Like there seems to be a lot.

And, yes, I’m aware I contributed quite a bit to that number

But for some reason, while I don’t care if the numbers continue to go up, I, just for right now, don’t want to be the reason they go up.

I don’t want smut to be my main thing.

And, again, I’m not even sure if I do it well or how I could improve.

I’m kind of scared to think about it.

Probably in the same vein as an actor that doesn’t want to be pigeonholed as a sci-fi baddie or girl who gets kidnapped or hot guy who is also an unlikable douchebag or lady cop/lawyer/doctor who is always wrong or mistaken despite heart being in the right place.

Even the unpublished WIPs I started last year are languishing in the shame folder due to my sudden smut writing related reluctance.

I’m being unreasonably picky with my pre-writing requirements

printouts of outlines

hand written outlines

snacks and beverages

just the right music

etc

I want to write fluff

Sadly no fluffy ideas come to mind.

Hacy week prompts are giving me ideas but again...

those ideas are mainly awful and/or y’know...

I’m just making myself sadder and more annoyed with myself.

Good gravy this was a long ass pity party.

I’m gonna go to bed.

I hope you all don’t find it too annoying if I start posting stupid little single or double drabbles in the next few days.

(gonna assume it’d be pretty hard to write people banging in less than two-hundred words or even a hundred.)

#hacy #hacy writing #sometimes I hate writing

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aeneidpdf · 4 years

Text

big sky country

chapter: 3/?

word count: 4.3k+

summary: they set out for Niagara Falls, and stop for lunch at Becket Quarry.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/24394804/chapters/59282086

They got through the checkout line quickly, and then they were back in the van- Pete in the back, Ray and Art in the middle seats, and Abraham and Collie up front. Abraham fiddled with his phone, pulling up the directions to Niagara Falls while Collie popped in the first of the Johnny Cash CDs that Pete had bought.

It was the American IV: The Man Comes Around album. Johnny Cash’s voice came over the speakers, saying: "And I heard, as it were, the noise of thunder. One of the four beasts saying, 'Come and see.' and I saw, and behold a white horse."

“Great,” Abraham said. “A song about judgement day to start our trip. That’s not a bad sign at all.”

“It’s just a song,” Ray said.

“Ray’s right,” Pete added, lazing in the back row. “No need to worry yourself, Abe. Geez, good thing it wasn’t God’s Gonna Cut You Down or we never would’ve gotten this thing off the ground.”

In the side mirror, Art could see a hint of a grimace on Abraham’s face, but Collie was laughing and asking him to start the directions. Over top of the music, came the canned voice of the maps app: “Turn right to merge onto Maine Turnpike toward I-95. In 55 miles, keep left on I-95 South.”

Collie whistled low through his teeth. “Shit. Fifty-five miles.”

“Better get a move on!” It was Pete, a shit-eating grin on his face. “Lot more where that came from.”

Collie didn’t answer that, and they pulled out of the parking lot and merged onto the Maine Turnpike. Art didn’t quite know what he thought about the song, but he felt like he was on Abraham’s side. He didn’t practice much now, but he was raised Baptist, and his family had been heavily involved in the church down home in Louisiana, until they moved. They’d found a new church when they moved up to Maine. Art had been baptized in Highland Lake, just a thirty minute drive out of Portland, when he was eleven.

He had stood in the water that came up nearly to his armpits, his clothing floating loose around him and the marshy bottom of the lake swirling and tugging at his feet. It was a bright hot day in early May, but the water was cold, and the look in the minister’s eyes was serious. Art had been scared then. He wanted to turn tail and run back to his mother. But his mother and father and aunt and uncle were watching with bated breath, and his siblings were waiting on the shore, their shoes and socks shucked off and tossed aside. They were watching him too, and waiting for their turn. He was the oldest now; he had to be brave.

Art had then been dunked under the water and he resisted the urge to thrash against the strong hands that held him. The lake water wrapped around him and engulfed him like a coffin. He was drowning. He had forgotten to take a breath before the minister submerged him, and now he was drowning. He thought of another body, rotting in standing water, and bubbles expelled from his mouth in a mad burst as he let out a soundless scream. Finally, he was hauled up by the collar of his starched white dress shirt, and he came up breathless and temporarily blinded by the sun, while his mother cheered hysterically on the shore.

Thinking of it now still made him feel like he was going to be sick.

Even more than religion though, his life was ruled by superstition.

Superstitions were as sure as summer storms and waves of summer heat rising up from the cracked and melted asphalt. The whole south was steeped in superstition, and the Baker family was no exception. Superstition worked its way into the practices and customs of every season. On New Year’s, they ate black-eyed peas and collard greens for good luck and money. In fact, that was what they ate nearly all year round, because that was what they could afford.

The Baker children went around town with dimes strung around their necks to ward off the devil, and whenever his mother opened a new loaf of bread, she threw the first end slice in the garbage. “To keep money comin’ our way,” she explained when Art asked about it. Art watched, forlorn and hungry, as she tossed the bread into the garbage. Money never seemed to come their way.

In the summer, when the alligators came out of hibernation and the humidity floated off the wetlands and settled heavily over everything, Art was warned about alligators climbing out of the bayou and slithering under his house. Those meant there would be a death in the family soon. Art always took the stairs up and down the porch two at a time, frantic to get away from the monster hiding under the house, waiting for the perfect moment to snap at his ankles and drag him under.

There weren’t any alligators in Maine, but Art still sometimes dreamed of one, lying in wait for him, red eyes glowing out of the darkness. He shuddered imperceptibly at the thought.

Would a song ruin their whole trip? No, but a part of him still felt apprehensive.

Outside the window, South Portland disappeared, and they were on the Maine Turnpike, heading south. The song had changed, and Hurt was playing now. Over the van’s speaker system, Johnny Cash’s voice sang: “What have I become, my sweetest friend? Everyone I know goes away in the end.” The guitar melody built behind his voice in a way that made Art’s chest tighten. It rose in a crescendo and then disappeared as the next verse began.

“Have any of you heard the original of this song?” Ray asked.

From behind them, Pete answered, “Yeah. Nine Inch Nails. It’s good, but, you know, it’s not this.”

“I’d be fucking pissed if I wrote a song and then found out Johnny Cash did a cover of it,” Collie said.

Abraham laughed in the passenger seat. “Of course you’d be pissed.”

“Well, yeah! You write a song about some personal shit, and then Johnny Cash comes along and sings it and makes it a hundred times better. How would you feel?”

He thought for a moment and shrugged. “Shit, yeah. I guess I’d be kinda mad too.”

“You guys are thinking about it the wrong way,” Art said. “Imagine getting a call that Johnny Cash wants to record your song? That’d be exciting. That’d be an honor.”

He could see Collie looking at him in the rearview mirror, his eyes creased with his smile. “I guess that’s right.” It made Art smile too, and duck his head.

“It’s a good thing you’re on this thing with us, Art,” Abraham said, twisting around in his seat to face him. “It’s a good thing at least one of us isn’t an asshole.”

“Hey!” Pete protested. “Ray’s not an asshole.”

Ray snorted, and said, “Thanks, Pete.” Abraham twisted back around in his seat. The song changed. Art looked back out the window.

///

In a half hour, approximately forty miles into their journey, they passed a sign saying that there was a toll plaza in four miles.

“Alright,” Collie said, turning the music down a few notches. “Who brought cash for tolls?” Silence answered him. Art had completely forgotten that they’d even need to pay tolls. “Jesus, nobody?”

“There’s a rest stop coming up on the right,” Abraham told him, reading the road signs as they zoomed past. “There’ll be an ATM there. We can take some cash out there.”

A couple miles down the road and they pulled into the rest stop. The parking lot was mostly empty as they all piled out of the minivan. The rest stop was a small building with a dramatically slanting roof and the front was mostly covered over with windows. Out front was a Smokey the Bear statue with a sign next to him proclaiming the fire danger in the area for today. The risk was low.

“I say we each take out $20,” Abraham suggested. “That should be good to start out, right?”

“I think so,” Ray said, looking like he was deep in thought. “After this, we’ve got a toll to get on the New Hampshire turnpike, and a shitton of them in Massachusetts. Once we’re west of New York, I have no clue.”

“Geez, you’re like a walking road map,” Pete said admiringly. Ray ducked his head. “We can spend whatever leftover cash we have on food and stuff.”

The group turned and headed towards the rest stop. Art followed, but Collie caught his arm and held him back. Art looked down at the hand and then into his friend’s face. Collie dropped his hand quickly.

“Art, if you want I can take out money for both of us,” he offered, his face flushed like he was embarrassed. “You don’t have to take out the $20 if you don’t want to.” Art heard the implication there. He meant: “if you can’t.”

Now it was Art’s turn to feel embarrassed. It brought him back to being a kid, and not being allowed to go to birthday parties because he couldn’t afford to rent the bowling shoes or the roller skates. It brought him back to eleventh grade, when they all got their driver’s licenses and started to go out to eat on the weekends and pass late nights crammed into diner booths. Pete had always pulled him aside and offered to pay his way for him. Pete always looked at him with a kind and earnest look in his eyes, and shame always rolled around in Art’s stomach like a hot coal.

He felt it now, rolling around in his stomach and pressing down on the back of his neck, forcing him to look down at his shoes. Collie was bouncing from one foot to the other, looking back at the rest stop every so often. The others were probably already crowded around the ATM, wondering what the hell was wrong with them.

“It’s alright, Collie. I can pay my own way. I have some money saved up,” he answered, finally looking back up at Collie. “Besides, it’s not like any of us have a ton of money.” Sickly he thought: there’s a big difference between being middle class and being poor. He knew that, and he knew Collie knew that. For a second, he thought Collie was going to say it, but mercifully, he didn’t. He just patted Art on the back, and the two of them walked across the parking lot to the rest stop.

///

Once they had finished at the rest stop, Collie had a modest stack of twenty dollar bills in his hand. The twisted the key in the ignition and the van rumbled to life. They pulled easily out onto the highway.

It was still only 9:30 in the morning, and the only traffic was huge semi-trucks carrying goods and produce across state lines. They rose up around the minivan on all sides, dwarfing it. Art figured the traffic would be heavier once they got closer to Boston. The route that Pete had devised had them driving within thirty miles of the city before veering off west into New York. Abraham’s phone estimated they wouldn’t reach Niagara Falls until 5:00 in the evening.

Their Johnny Cash CD had just restarted, and Abraham was shuffling through the other ones Pete had bought as Collie pulled up to the tollbooth. The toll only cost $3.00, and he handed the woman working in the booth a twenty with what looked like an apologetic smile. She gave him his change, the bar lifted, and they drove on.

“She probably thought I was a dick, paying with a twenty,” he mumbled to himself, sticking the change in his cup holder as he continued down I-95 South. Over the radio, Johnny Cash sang: “Whoever is unjust let him be unjust still. Whoever is righteous let him be righteous still. Whoever is filthy let him be filthy still. Listen to the words long written down, when the man comes around.” It was the song that had played when they first left the Target back in South Portland, the song that had made Abraham nervous. It made Art nervous, too. The upbeat guitar playing underneath it only served to remind him of his father, playing hymns on the back porch in Louisiana. The songs were always happy, but they said such horrible things.

He wondered if Abraham still thought the song was a bad sign. He wanted to ask him, but couldn’t bring himself to do it, in the car, in broad daylight. It seemed like the sort of thing where, if you admitted to it in the daylight, all the monsters and all the bad luck in the world would find you and strike you down. Better to say it in the dark, where you could hide. Art gulped- he guessed he was more superstitious than he thought.

Abraham ejected the CD, causing the music to cut out sharply. He put in the next CD, the American III: Solitary Man album. The first song on the album was I Won’t Back Down. A cover of a Tom Petty song. He noticed Collie was singing softly to himself. It made Art smile. He knew it was just the sort of song Collie would latch onto.

Ray had turned in his seat, and he and Pete had their heads together, putting their playlist together. Collie’s words in the Target that morning hadn’t deterred them.

“How much do y’all have so far?” Art asked, turning in his seat too to face them better.

“We’ve got like a hundred songs,” Ray answered. “All sorts of stuff.”

“Wow,” was Art’s only response.

“I think once we add a bit more we’ll be done,” Pete added. “We’re gonna be on the road for some ninety hours. Gotta be prepared.”

Art turned back around. Not for the first time, he wondered what exactly he had set into motion. Ninety hours on the road.

They crossed over a bridge, and beneath them the Piscataqua River lazed along. Some sailboats were gliding over the surface. Art wondered what it would be like, to lay on the deck on a sailboat, warming in the sun. Maybe his friends would be there too, casting their fishing lines over the side of the boat. Art decided that would be nice.

A sign posted on their right announced that they were entering New Hampshire.

“Look at that! We’re in New Hampshire!” he gasped out.

“New state!” Abe cheered, banging on the car dashboard.

“Maybe New Hampshire will be more to your liking, Parker,” Pete teased from the backseat.

Art was excited- it had been a long time since he’d crossed the Maine state line. They finished crossing the bridge, and the Maine Turnpike became the Blue Star Turnpike. The trip felt real in a way it hadn’t before. Art hadn’t left Maine since he was a kid, and now he was going to travel across the country. He looked around him, eagerly left and right, and took it all in.

After another twenty miles of driving, they came to another tollbooth. “Christ, again?” Collie exclaimed. “Fuck Maine, and fuck Maine’s roads.” They all laughed at his customary outburst.

“I think you mean New Hampshire?” Abe supplied.

“Yeah, fuck New Hampshire, too,” Collie grumbled.

“So… so far Parker hates 4% of states. Should we start placing bets on what that number’ll be by the end of the trip?” Pete asked.

Collie ignored him and gave the man at the tollbooth a few crumpled dollar bills. Then they were through.

“You really don’t know when to quit, do you?” Ray asked him fondly.

“Not at all,” Pete replied, and leaned back in his seat.

Art looked out the window.

///

They were in New Hampshire for only half an hour, and then they were crossing into Massachusetts. Another state to add to Art’s list. As they passed over the state line, Pete asked, in that fake earnest voice of his, “What do ya think of this one, Collie? Gonna add it to the list? Make it 6%?”

“You’re gonna get your stupid ass thrown out,” Art choked out between laughs.

“Art’s right, Pete. You’re getting yourself on my shit list,” Collie said.

“Who isn’t on your shit list?” Abraham asked.

“You know, Abe, you’re supposed to be on my side.”

“Hell, it’s fun to watch you get all red in the face.” Abraham grinned. Collie rolled his eyes but grinned too and kept on driving. They merged onto I-495 South, and then all the road signs began to point towards Boston.

“I was thinking we could stop and eat lunch around noon, and then switch drivers,” Pete said. His antagonistic streak seemed to be over, and he was back to examining the itinerary he’d put together for the trip.

“That sounds like a good idea,” Ray agreed.

“I like the sound of that,” Collie said.

“How you doin’ up there, Collie?” Art asked.

“Oh, I’m fine. Don’t worry about me,” he assured, rolling back his shoulders and stretching. “But I’ll be ready to switch two hours from now.”

///

They were mostly quiet after that, just singing along to the CD playing over the radio, until they were nearing Lawrence, Massachusetts. There was an exit leading onto I-93 South, which would take them into Boston.

“Collie, can we go to Boston?” Abraham asked, looking longingly out the window, as if he could see the city’s skyline from the highway, thirty miles away. “I’ve never been to Boston.”

“Who the fuck lives in Maine and hasn’t been to Boston?” Collie asked in disbelief. “I’m not even from here and I’ve fucking been to Boston.”

“Well, fuck you. I don’t have a car, dipshit,” Abe shot back.

“That’s a shitty excuse. Just take a Greyhound from Portland into Boston,” Collie replied. “You guys have been to Boston, right? Even you, Art?”

Ray and Pete nodded, but Art shook his head. “No, I’ve never been. Until this, I hadn’t even left Maine in like eight years.”

They all looked faintly surprised at this. “Jesus, what?” Collie asked incredulously. “I’ve failed the two of you as a friend,” he said to Art and Abraham. “Once we get back, I’m taking the two of you to Boston.”

Art liked the sound of that- exploring a new city with Abraham and Collie Parker. His world seemed so much bigger than it had this morning, so much bigger than his present in Maine and his past in Louisiana.

///

By the time noon rolled around, they were nearing Blandford, Massachusetts. Boston was over a hundred miles behind them. “Pull off here,” Abraham instructed, and Collie did, and they rolled into Blandford. The welcome sign said the population was 1,233.

“There’s a park around here that’s really pretty. We should eat there,” Ray said, looking intently at his phone screen. Collie asked for directions, and Ray gave them. After a few minutes of driving they pulled into the parking lot of Becket Quarry and Collie paid the parking attendant $10. They’d already spent nearly $20, and it had only been a few hours. That stack of twenties wasn’t stretching as far as Art thought it would.

They all got out of the van and crowded around the trunk, pulling sandwiches and water bottles out of the cooler Abraham had brought. Collie grabbed one of the packs of beef jerky out of a Target bag, and then they were locking up the van and heading down the trail.

It wasn’t a far walk to the quarry, and along the path and trees surrounded them, green and leafy and tall. They reached the end of the path, and came upon the quarry. It was beautiful- the surface of the water reflected the endless blue sky overhead, and large rock faces emerged from the water and towered over it, covered over with moss and bright green foliage. There were a few different groups sitting around the quarry, but it was mostly empty- plenty of room for them to spread out and eat their lunch.

Abraham climbed one of the smaller rock formations overlooking the water and set his water and sandwich down. “We should go swimming.”

The rest of the group looked eager, excited at the prospect, but Art hesitated. “How deep is it?” he asked.

“Well, it’s a quarry, so I think the most shallow spot will still be at least forty feet,” Ray answered.

“Forty feet,” Art repeated softly to himself. That was awfully deep. It would be easy to disappear in that water and never come up again. That old panic gripped him.

The rest of them were stripping down to their boxers to swim. Abraham dove in first, and then Pete jumped in, dragging Ray with him by his hands. Collie went next, doing a cannonball and splashing the three of them in the water.

Art wished he could follow, but he imagined jumping in and sinking down down down, away from the light. Instead he took off his shoes and socks and sat at the edge of the water, his legs under it up to his mid-calves. The water was cold, perfectly refreshing for a summer day.

A few feet away, Abraham was floating on his back, and Pete and Ray splashed at him, giggling to each other like conspirators. Collie was swimming laps around them, his tanned arms glinting in the sunlight. Show off, Art thought, and suppressed a secret smile.

It made Art happy to watch him, and it felt good to bask in the sun, to feel it on his arms and his legs. It was still early June, but the temperature must have climbed past eighty degrees. It had been humid in the forest, but by the water the air felt crisp and clean.

The sun flashed brilliantly off the surface of the water, casting his friends in a harsh glare. They looked like an old overexposed photograph, or a child’s crayon-colored dream come to life. This, he thought, is what summer is.

Collie noticed him sitting on the bank alone and swam over. “You coming in?” he asked. Art shook his head. “Can you not swim?”

“I can swim,” Art answered. “It’s just… it’s too deep.” He could only see a foot or two below the water’s surface. Below that, darkness straight down. He could see Collie’s arms as he tread water, but the rest of him was obscured by the quarry water. Pete, Ray, and Abraham were just floating heads, bobbing and laughing a dozen yards from shore.

“Oh.” Collie pushed his wet hair out of his face. “I get that.” He braced his hands on the rock and lifted himself up out of the water, sitting next to Art. Art’s shirt sleeve was wet from where Collie’s arm touched his.

“You don’t have to stop swimming on account of me,” he said softly.

“Oh, it’s not on account of you,” Collie answered. “We have to dry off and eat anyways. I don’t know about the rest of them, but I don’t want to drive around for another four hours in wet shorts.”

They sat in companionable silence for a minute, Collie kicking his legs and churning up water. The droplets seemed to catch fire in the afternoon sunlight. “What bothers you about the water?” Collie asked, looking over at him. The heat of Collie’s arm was still heavy against his arm, but neither of them moved away. Art’s face burned with the proximity.

“I can’t see the bottom. I can swim fine,” Art explained. “But I don’t like it when I can’t see the bottom.” He almost wanted to add that no one knew what was down there, lurking below the reach of the sun. But that was the stuff of nightmares, and he didn’t want to seem stupid.

“We’ll have to find you a swimming pool, then,” Collie replied.

Art fixed him with a look. “Are you making fun of me?”

“No, I’m not making fun of you. I’m trying to be nice. I don’t make fun of you, you know. At least not, like, seriously.” He had a faintly hurt look in his eyes, like this was something he really wanted to get across.

Art answered that look with a smile. “A swimming pool sounds nice, then.”

“Good,” Collie said simply. He got up and walked over to where his clothes were discarded, and started getting dressed. Art averted his eyes. He called out to the three in the water, “Come on and get out now! We gotta hit the road soon to keep on schedule!”

“Don’t be so lame!” Pete shouted back, in the middle of dunking Ray under the water. Ray pushed him away, laughing.

“Dumbass, it’s your schedule,” Collie answered, sitting back down and ripping open the pack of beef jerky. “Get over here and eat your sandwiches.” The three reluctantly swam over and pulled themselves out of water, instead eating their lunch and drying under the sun. Art left his perch on the edge of the rock and went to sit with them.

They ate their sandwiches and drank from their water bottles, warming themselves in the sun and keeping an eye on the time. When it hit 1:00 PM, Collie got up and said, “Time to go, guys. Pete, you’re driving.” He tossed the keys, and Pete caught them cleanly.

“Aye aye, captain.” Pete gave a mock salute and started getting dressed. “Ray can sit up front with me. We’ll debut our playlist.”

“Can’t wait,” Collie grumbled.

As they left, Art looked back at the quarry one more time, at the murky depths and the glare it cast on the rock formations surrounding it. Then, he turned around and followed his friends through the trees.

#the long walk #art baker #collie parker #bakerparker #my fic #big sky country au

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padfootagain · 4 years

Note

Heyyy there! I don't know for sure, but it feels like you are struggling nowadays. Just know, we are here for you and it's okay to take a break even when you already did. We love your work and you are one of the most amazing people around here! Take care! Hope you have a nice day ;)

Hi!!!

😭😭😭 this is so kind!!! Thank you so much, this makes me feel so soft and loved 😭😭

I mean... my life is a bit hectic these days but I'm okay. We're working on shifts at the lab because of the coronavirus, which kind of makes my days utterly wild. I've spent the last few weeks on afternoon shift (14h-20h) and am now on mornings (7h-13h). Which means I have only 6 hours to get done as much work as possible every day, instead of my usual 8-10 hours. And I will easily admit that waking up at 5am to go to work this week is not easy 😅

Plus, tbh, I am writing. I am not on break, and I don't feel the need for one. BUT I don't feel like writing requests, and I... hmm hmm. I tried to stop myself from starting yet another story for a new character, because I have already too many of those going on. Which is the main reason why I took a break a few weeks ago. BUT did it work? Absolutely not.

So I wrote almost three chapters in the span of a week for this fic... damn it. I am hesitating to post it because a) should I start posting for yet another fandom? b) I am so obsessed with this idea that I don't need my readers' encouragement/validation to write it, c) would people even be interested in me writing for this person? On the other hand, I am excited about it, and I like sharing my work on here so... I don't know what to do.

Oh, and I'm not writing in the right chapters order, so I haven't written the beginning yet... I'm writing the end atm... 😅

Anyway, all that to say that I'm okay, still writing and not going through a writer's block or anything. Just hesitating to post what I'm working on atm.

Thank you again for your kind words. It made feel so appreciated and loved. I hope you have a nice day as well 💕💕

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buckybabybaby · 5 years

Text

Mr Hollywood (Chapter 2)

Summary: Bucky Barnes, an underpaid teaching assistant in a small English village, dreams of a movie career back in his home country of America. He finally gets the break he's always wanted, and if it wasn't for you, his best friend, he wouldn't have been able to take it. But is that fact enough to save your friendship when it's tested by the pressures of Hollywood?

A/n: There is not much plot atm but we'll get there soon, this is just establishing their friendship...

Pairing: Bucky Barnes/Reader (Gender Neutral)

Word count: 1481

Warnings: None for now!

Chapter 1

Mr Hollywood Masterlist

Masterlist

*****

Sports day. Not everyone's favourite two words, in fact a lot of peoples least favourite, but over the years you've been at this school you've made it your mission to make sure every child feels included in the day, regardless of sporting ability.

During the year, house points were given out to the pupils, and the cup is rewarded to the victor at the end of today’s events. The school is split in to two houses, either Buttercup or Thistle, and the children are encouraged to find an outfit in the same colour as the flower, turning the playing fields in front of you into a sea of yellow and blue.

As the weather can be unpredictable, even in early July, there is always a contingency plan in case of rain, but this year you're lucky. Maybe a little too lucky you think, as you wipe the sweat away from your brow, too hot even with your loose cotton outfit, the cloudless sky matching your shorts perfectly.

Parent's and other family members can come to watch and bring a picnic to share if they're able, which is great for you as it gives you a free lunch hour for once, which you're taking full advantage of. Sprawled out on one of the playgrounds benches in the shade, you watch the kitchen staff hurry back for more supplies through the heat haze coming off the tarmac.

“You look like you need a drink,” Bucky says from behind you, and you twist in your seat to squint up at him. Smiling down at you with two bottles of water, you can see exactly what that TV producer saw when they thought of him as their leading man. Looking like he spent three weeks in the sun not three days, his tan works well against his hair, which is a little longer now due to the end of term coming up, the length finally allowing a gentle wave to form through it.

There is no doubt in your eyes that he is absolutely beautiful.

It can be difficult being friends with Bucky, when he's so attractive, so kind and thoughtful and funny, and you have to keep your cool because you know it'd never work out. Your friendship with him means so much that you wouldn't even want to risk it, and besides, he is going to be the next big thing in Hollywood and you're just... you. A long time ago you told yourself nothing could happen, and that mantra has kept you sane through the years, especially during that long weekend last summer when you and Bucky had babysat his nephew. He was so good with little Benjamin, and the three of you together for those few days had felt so much like a family your heart ached.

You sit up, shaking the thought out of your head, not wanting to go down that track again. Bucky was leaving in a week or so, and you were going to make sure he went off to America ready for his new adventure, without the burden of an unplanned, unexpected and unwanted confession.

It wasn't like you were in love with him anyway.

Collecting yourself, you grab your bottle from him with a grin. “Feels as though you brought some of that L.A. weather back with you.”

“It's too hot!” He whines, sitting next to you with an over the top groan. The yellow bandana he always insists on wearing in his hair is unravelling at the back and you tuck it back in place as he shuffles closer, leaning into your touch. “Do you think I'll get used to the heat when I move?”

“Maybe. Can you really not tell me anything about what you'll be shooting?”

You'd been pressing him for details since he came back but his answer was always the same. “Nope.”

“You're no fun.”

“Would if I could, you know that.”

You're not sure you do but at that moment you're interrupted by a passing Year Three, whose name you think is Oscar. He's evidently clocked Bucky hair piece, matching his own, and waits for a high five from his favourite teaching assistant before he's off just as quick as he arrived, rejoining his friends in the bright sunshine.

Watching them kick a ball to each other, Bucky hums happily, sipping his water. “I'm going to miss this.”

Its then the thought of being here without him really hits you for the first time. Who will you sit with next sports day? Sure, Peggy is another one of your best friends, however as deputy head teacher she's usually busy at such events. Edwin is an absolute sweetheart too, but his own children attend the school so he always tries to be with them, and you sigh as you think that even now, all grown up, you're still the quiet one with only a few friends.

You want to tell him not to go, that you can't see yourself here without him, but who would you be to ask him to stay just because you're going to be lonely? This was his dream, all he's ever envisioned for himself when talking about the future, and this current job was only ever meant as a temporary fix for when he was here after Dayton's crash. One way or another he would have gone, you just selfishly hoped it wouldn't be so soon.

*****

The bell rings again to signify the end of lunch, and the beginning of the teachers race. A non traditional relay with eight stages, you've opted to go fifth, as has Bucky, and you're excited to see how you fare against him. He may be a beast in the gym, but you feel over the short distance you might just have the upper hand.

It's eerily calm over on the other side of the field, away from the main crowds, and you take a moment to enjoy the peace of the beautiful summers day. The quiet doesn't last long, however, as Bucky starts stretching loudly next to you, grunting obscenely in a way you know is meant to throw your concentration off. Flicking your hand in his direction, you work really hard at ignoring his actions as he sniggers.

A cymbal borrowed from the music room is hit, and the race begins. The sound of the children screaming does reach you then, watching beside a suddenly still Bucky as the baton is passed from the first runners to the second then third. You're both in the zone as the forth stage begin running, and you share a grin as you start jogging before they reach the two of you. It all happens in a blur, the cool metal is pressed into your hand and you don't think of anything other than getting it to the next person along, not caring what you look like or where Bucky is. Your legs are aching but that does not concern you, not when the Reception teacher in front of you doesn't drop the baton when you pass it over, finally slowing down whilst you cheer them on their way.

Only then do you allow yourself to look for Bucky, who appears by you as if summoned, tickling your sides, causing you to shriek and skip out of his reach.

“I think I won that, yeah?”

He nods, smirking. “Who'd have thought little Y/N could be so fast?”

Pushing him, your attempt to trip him up fails as you fall over your own feet, ending up flat on your back on the grass, deciding just to stay there as you catch your breath, propping your head up to watch the race end.

It's hard for you to tell which team won at this distance, but the far too pleased look on Bucky's face as he towers over you tells you all you need to know. Clearly his eyesight is better than yours.

“Next year we'll...” You don't finish your sentence as you remember there won't be a next year. It's all happening so quickly it's hard to get your head round, and there will be a lot more 'last times' to come.

“You never know, I might be back.” He tries to cheer you up. “It could all go wrong and I'll be begging them for my old job.”

You blink away your tears, determined not to make him feel guilty about leaving.

“You're too high profile now, they'd never be able to afford the security.”

He raises his eyebrows and tilts his head in a mock cocky way, making you giggle as you accept a hand back up.

You were joking, but there is an ounce of truth in that statement, you realise, and as you amble back towards the main stage you swallow the bitter taste in your mouth at the idea of something changing things between you and Bucky.

*****

Chapter 3

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes imagine #bucky imagine #bucky x reader #Mr Hollywood #buckybabybaby

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