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vanillacorpse · 3 months

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I would Love to hear your detailed boiling critique of that shitty werewolf book >.> if you would be so kind as to share

My god where do I begin. "Bored Gay Werewolf", I thought picking this thing out of the shelf and giving the first page a skim. "interesting!". It didn't have the world's most impressive prose but something about the first page got me interested. Not every good book starts off strong. A lousy gay guy who is also a werewolf, that lives in his own filth. He's a mess. It's honestly not a bad premise!! Much has been made of less!

But then the rest of the book... it honestly felt like the entirety of it was written to undermine and enshitten the characters in it. FINE not every character has to be likable. But when NO character whatsoever manages to inspire any sympathy in me I have to wonder why the author would even write a book. I can make a guess what the purpose of this book was, and it wasn't to tell a story-- it was to entertain the UNBEARABLE social critique that the author very bravely, very embarrassingly, tries to present to the reader. It fails. It sucks. It's complete total ass on every front. It's like reading the diary of a twitter gay who isn't even That terminally online. It's the lowest hanging fruit, every page, every joke, every God forsaken Take.

The prose is ass too. It gave up immediately, second page. Just pages of pages of telling. There's nothing interesting that actually happens, you see; the author doesn't have the skills necessary to describe them. There is a VERY COOL, VERY MOVING performance from one of the characters, but of course he can't actually depict it! That would require skill! An understanding of poetry! Instead we have to trust everything the author tells us happens. "There's a heartwarming performance"-- are you a teenage journalist? Why on earth am I reading this? Is this the first fucking draft? Holy fuck.

Our main character, Brian, is a gay werewolf who hangs out with other cool queer people. They're kind of his friends (they're also his coworkers, and one of them is his boss!) but he doesn't really want to open up to them. He's lonely, and, for reasons which aren't interesting at all, he just isn't that comfortable with being intimate. That's his main "issue", the only semblance of friction in his otherwise boring boring boring gay werewolf life. Also he kills people at night but we never see that? and he doesn't feel guilty? and there's no consequences for it ever? Whatever. He has these work friends and together they sometimes make bad jokes together. That's their tear-jerkingly fond dynamic.

Then he meets another werewolf called Tyler who is a trust fund baby that wants to start some alpha-male style multiple-marketing crypto scheme or something of that sort (not actually ever defined). Our boring guy Brian thinks: fuck it. This sounds lame and like a scam and kind of hypermasculine in the toxic way (he's aware of all of these concepts, all of these "progressive" ideas, the entire book) BUT Tyler promises to show him how to control his werewolf form so he doesn't kill people every full moon so WHY NOT.

That's what happens in the first.... I don't know. 3 chapters? Of this book. The rest of the book can be summarized as such:

Brian continues to hang out with his toxic new cryptobro Tyler, and Tyler's other cis-het-normie friends. He HATES it the entire time but, somehow, some fucking how, it's not enough (despite constant internal dialogue calling it all lame and offensive!) to simply walk away from these people. They have no redeeming qualities. The author doesn't even try to give them redeeeming qualities. They are stock photo characters. Brian's internal dialogue refers to them as such. Tyler is a cartoon villain. There is never a single suspicion in the reader that he's anything but.

In refusing to walk away from these people, also, he estranges his cool queer work buddies who thinks he's insane for hanging with them. YOU WOULD THINK THAT, as a reader, you would feel sympathetic to his work buddies simply on the grounds that yeah, Brian is insane. At least another character recognizes it. But the author writes all of them in such a way that even THIS becomes unbearable to read: they're SO RIGHT that there is simply no argument. Brian is being stupid! He's acting weird! He needs to apologize for acting weird! It felt like going down another dumbass thread: "how to properly apologize" and the author just copy pasted that right in the book. Bam.

And that's also how the book ends. He apologizes to his friends for... almost becoming a hypermasculine cryptobro. He just says he's not going to hang out with those weirdos anymore. He "comes out" as a werewolf but apparently his work buddies already knew (????????) (because taking days off every full moon was suspicious enough to confirm it???????) (AT NO POINT IS IT IMPLIED THAT WEREWOLVES ARE A COMMON THING) and whatever. WHATEVER. Oh my god. Anyway. They accept him. It's perfect now.

His cryptobro doesn't like this, basically tries to have Brian killed. Of course it doesn't work, we knew this supervillain had to be disposed off somehow, but the reason Brian is able to kill him is because............................ because............................ secretly, one of Brian's work buddies' new weirdo boyfriends has been a werewolf hunter this entire time. His last name. is Van Helsing. He is a descendant. Of Van Helsing. And he helps kill Tyler. His cryptoscheme empire comes to a definite silver-bullet end. The fucking End.

PLEASE CLAP.

TL;DR:

#this is so long. and yet. not long enough.#i actually have more to say than this but i'll be gentle to myself. i need to go to bed. LMFAO.#but also there's so many points in this book where no character acts human at all. genuinely terrifying characterization. nobody cares abou #murder. people die and it's like whatever. if you have an allergic reaction to flowers you should go to hell #it's crazy. it's crazy. i genuinely feel like i was being pranked in the second half of the book i couldn't believe my fucking eyes.#like where did this book go. why did it do this. i swear to god it was fine in the beginning. HOW did it get so shit. and SO FAST?#WHATEVER

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hskinhome · 5 months

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General PSA/Information Post (I Guess?)

Hey, Mod Eridan here.

I wanted to address a few asks that have been cropping up recently, and also open the doors a little bit to what's going on behind the scenes here at the blog. I know there's a good handful of you who actively watch for updates from us, even for asks that aren't yours, and there are even more of you who are patiently waiting (which we so greatly appreciate, I would hug all of you if I could) for responses to said asks. This post is long overdue, but it's important, so I'm sitting my ass down and getting to work with it. Let's get into it.

No cut because, like I said, this is important and needs addressing.

"Where are my asks?"/"Why hasn't X been responded to/posted yet?"/VERBATIM asks.

The above is a very shitty logline of what I'm getting at, but I think the point is clear. As Meu has said before, we do not do inbox checks. Those are nonsense. We are not a corporation with deadlines. All of our time, resources, and effort are voluntarily given here. Asking us to see if X post is still in the box or just to give a rundown of what asks we have is ridiculous. If you're so worried about a timeframe for something to be answered, I cannot stress enough that this is not the place for you. I understand Tumblr has a horrible habit of eating asks as well. However, there has been a seemingly recent (to us moderators) influx of "Did my ask for Y get eaten?" to the point where it's become a problem.

As I am writing this, Tumblr (assuming it hasn't glitched out) is showing 49 asks in our inbox. Not including ones that have been drafted (mostly by me, because my energy for these things is extremely touch and go, coupled with my own real-life responsibilities; don't grow up kids, it sucks). However, most of these are asks that a lot of us cover. We just do not have the time/energy/[insert reason applicable to whichever moderator] to do them. Some of these are ones that only one or two moderators do as well, which means the odds are it'll take even longer to get to them. The more "niche" (i.e. the fewer mods that do the particular ask type) there are, the longer it takes for those ones to get pushed out. Please note that I am not saying that this is a reason not to send these asks-- This is just me explaining why it may take so long.

As outlined before, a lot of us also have jobs and other life dilemmas that of course take larger priority over this blog. I can't speak for the other moderators on this blog, but I work 40 hours a week right now at a coffee shop. I'm trying to get promoted to management by the end of the year, which entails a whole lot of back work, even on my off time. What other off time I have goes to doing chores/daily living things. Any extra off time goes to not doing those things, and this blog is one of those-- to an extent. This blog is something I would classify as socializing, for me, personally. Socializing drains my battery, but I enjoy doing it. Most people do. However, opening the box to see more people wondering where their things are is... It's gotten frustrating. It makes me not want to do these requests.

"So why not leave the blog then?"

Because, like the others, I enjoy doing these requests. They're fun. I have fun. I love interacting with you guys. The overbearing demand is just becoming a bit much. It's also not fair to just dump the load onto the others because I just want to call it quits; they're as busy as I am with other things, and I can't speak for them.

In essence though, the TLDR is that this is volunteer work at the end of the day. We'll get to asks when we get to them. It may take a long time, and if that's a problem?

Bye felica. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Regards, Mod Eridan

#Chit Chat #PSA #Mod Eridan #I'm so fucking tired man.

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lilliths-httyd-blog · 1 year

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Hi I have an odd question I’ve recently decided to get back into my old personal Viggo lives comic: “Beyond the Horizon” after seeing/reading other’s rtte art, theories, fics, and head canons on it (tbh your VLAU fic was definitely the kicker that made me want to get back into my comic) but I don’t want to seem like I’m copying or stealing ideas so I was wondering if you had any alternate names for Viggo’s Skrill (also some writing tips would be very helpful since I’m very rusty ;-;)

i mean

this is how i named viggo's skrill to begin with. just a random fucking chapter of a fic i started in early 2022 and abandoned until recently. i justified my choice of name because this bitch from black butler is also called beast and i think she's hot

in VLAU that story viggo referenced liking as a child about the boy with the magic eye was a reference to black butler i shit you not. i don't even like black butler anymore i haven't watched it in years and don't plan on watching it again any time soon.

i find using the Wings of Fire format of names really helps when naming dragons. lets look at the character names in WoF: Clay, Sunny, Starflight, Tsunami, Glory, Moonwatcher, Kinkajou, Deathbringer, Winter, Peril, Quibli and Turtle are some of the significant ones. go for something weather/sky/space themed for a skrill. just like that. combine weirder shit for the viking feel like hookfang or stormfly. but then you've also got like skullcrusher and cloudjumper so it's good. and then just words like barf, belch, toothless and grump so that works. steal the name Thunder from NR out of spite.

you can also search for old norse words that we're aware of and just find one that sounds like a name with a nice meaning if you want to be fancy and preppy.

another way i like to do it is steal species names from the httyd books like i'll just open up my copy of the incomplete book of dragons until i find something nice like... stickyworm? no... vorpent? no... toxic nightshade... NIGHTSHADE that would be a good name for a skrill you can use that if you want. doomfang seems like more of a dagur name than a viggo name but thats still a bangin skrill name.

and uhhh writing tips uhhhhh. i mean i don't got nothing tbh. be as self indulgent as you want. not everything has to live up to the standards of Scholars Mate and Choosing to Forget not everything has to be that good. my VLAU is genuinely just 17+(?) chapters of fluff and angst and vigcup being adorable and its just me projecting a bunch of my stupid little OOC headcanons onto my stupid little adhd blorbos. my other fics were either me being angsty, me listening a little too much to the httyd soundtrack, me just fucking daydreaming about random shit, or me going HAHAHAHAHAHA LETS MAKE VIGGO'S LIFE A LIVING HEL. i find inspiration from the most random shit. i took a bath once and when i hopped in my cold little toes burned like fire in the hot water and then i tried this coconut shampoo and now i have an entire WIP based on that one experience. there's no fancy thought or writing process behind it there's no "first drafts" (probably cuz i edit as i go lmao) there's no immaculate planning every little detail of the fic. it's just little magpie me going "oh shiny oh shiny oh shiny oh shiny" and then making a mosaic out of all the shitty pieces of glass i've found and somehow a couple people find the mosaic pretty so i am proud because i worked hard on it. and lemme tell you, writing self indulgent fanfiction where im not trying to please anyone except myself is so much fun like i've literally written about viggo being the twin's cousin and i literally made viggo a soft poetry boi and its just fun. i know some people aren't into that or aren't interested and thats fine they don t have to read it. write for yourself you don't even have to be good at it just do it who cares. thats the best advice i can give. just do whatever the fuck you fucking want

#feel free to use nightshade lol #answered asks #race to the edge #the skrill #viggo's skrill #viggo grimborn #viggo lives au

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tsvaling · 2 years

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Announcement? Update? Screaming at the void? I don’t know what to call this right now, so if anyone is curious about what the hell I’ve been doing all this time read on...

So, I’ve been getting a few asks about my ongoing fics and whether I’m going to continue them because I haven’t posted a new chapter in 2+ years. Well, as everyone knows, Covid fucked everything up, and 2020 was just a horrendously shitty year on the whole to start with. I have been insanely lucky to avoid getting sick (helps I do not socialize outside of work whatsoever, but considering I work in dental and am literally in people’s mouths all day - yeah, really fucking lucky to have avoid illness). But, the external stress and anxiety the ongoing plague has caused in me has really messed with my ability to write or do anything.

But, as I announced at the end of last year, I’m back in school. I took two classes in the spring and got A’s in both, with such amazingly consistent feedback on my writing that it began to inspire me again.... Except right as I was regaining my confidence, more shit started happening in my personal life to blow a hole in my intentions.

I’ll put the details to that under a cut at the end so if people don’t want to read the shit that’s led to endless existential dread and a burdensome mid-life crisis, you can ignore that part. I’ll just get to the point here.

Despite all the shit that’s been weighing on me the last few months... years, really... I do know I absolutely cannot continue to work where I’m at. I need to get out of the medical field for the sake of my mental health, as well as physical health. But, I can’t just quit because I have bills to pay and I don’t have anything lined up to move on to. I genuinely want to work from home, focusing on what I love and would like to do for a living - writing. My whole plan of getting a Master’s in Library Science after completing my B.A. is still kind of there, but all the feedback I got and the excitement I’m feeling for my writing courses has really told me that writing is something I need to be doing, but I can’t make money off fanfic (copyright law’s a lot stricter with writing versus art).

I’m almost afraid to announce this because it’s probably way too early, but I am working on an original high fantasy romance story that I intend to publish. I’m only in the early planning/ outlining/ worldbuilding stage, but it’s something I really want to write. It’s a smaller scale than a high fantasy saga I’ve had rattling around in my head for years, but it came to me and seems more manageable as a first foray into self-publishing that might give me a base to then spring into the larger saga that’s gotten more solid in shape over the years.

My plan for this is to make a Patreon once I have a solid draft of the story written, then post two chapters a week as I go through my early editing process, and then publish it as an ebook once I’m satisfied - likely using whatever funds I manage to get from Patreon to pay for an outside editor to finalize the book.

But, as I said, this is all in the early planning and hopeful yearning stage of my idea to make a career out of writing. I am absolutely terrified that even speaking about it may jinx me just because of how this year has gone, but I am excited to see if I can do it (all while also taking three classes this fall, ahahahaha).

As to what this means for my fanfic - I don’t know. I still really want to finish Amber Curse, but it’s become so difficult for me to concentrate on my fics that I might not be able to go back to it. Or, I might use it as a way to take a break from my own original work, especially since I can get away with sporadic posting and still get really great and inspiring feedback from people. We’ll see. I know I hate the idea of disappointing anyone with an incomplete story, especially one that is so BIG. So, while that’s sort of in limbo right now, I haven’t forgotten about it.

I’ll try to be more active on here, too - give updates about my process when I can.

But, for those curious as to what I’ve been dealing with this year that’s really fucked with my head, the details are under the cut. Fair warning for those who don’t want to be dragged down, there are mentions of illness and sudden death in the family.

Edit: Realized the post is on the long side, so the cut isn’t working on the mobile platform - so everything after this is just depressing shit you don’t have to read if you don’t want to.

At the beginning of the year my aunt died. She was my dad’s little sister and while we hadn’t been in regular contact with that side of the family, it still took a huge hit on my mental health. To add to it, at that same time, my dad discovered he had a lesion in his throat that came back as lymphoma. Fortunately it was caught early enough and is a form of lymphoma that responds incredibly well to chemo, so after three bouts of chemo and a few weeks of radiation, there is no sign of lymphoma in his system. But my dad is the type to panic over everything (I get it from him), and believe he’s going to die when he only has a common cold, so hearing he has cancer literally a few weeks after his sister died... yeah, not great news.

I am an only child, and I live with my parents, so I had to go with my dad to as many appointments as my schedule would allow so that I could help him understand the prognosis, treatment outcomes, and side effects. My mom’s also been having trouble driving, so anything he needed a driver for fell on me. To add to it, I had to basically act as his therapist and constantly reassure him that he is not going to die. My father and I had a very tense relationship when I was younger, and while we are on better terms now, spending any time with him is stressful because I’m innately terrified of him, but to add to it, I have to remain calm and be the voice of reason and reassurance throughout all this. Even when in the middle of a panic attack, I have to do everything in my power to mask it to make sure I don’t add to whatever the fuck my dad is freaking out about. Add to this extreme burnout from a job that requires me to show compassion and empathy to complete strangers on a regular basis that I no longer really have because it’s all used up - yeah, this whole thing has beaten down my already poor mental health.

And then, right as we were nearing the end of my dad’s treatment - literally he had one more radiation treatment the next day - my mom had a stroke. Again, we were insanely fortunate we caught it as early as we did. She had no signs of paralysis or facial drooping, but was extremely confused with verbal aphasia (word salad) worsening by the minute. My dad and I rushed her to the ER, they got a clot-busting medication into her within two hours of symptoms appearing, and she was pretty much back to normal and transferred to an ICU bed by the next morning. But, again, I had to act as medical advisor from the moment my dad noticed my mom’s changed mental state - assessing her symptoms as a nurse would and making the split second decision to go to the ER, and then literally assisted the nurse in the ER who was assigned to watch over her while the medication did its thing. I am not a nurse for a reason, and being my mother’s caretaker reaffirmed that reason, but my dad was relegated to a corner to do his best to hide his compulsion to freak the fuck out while I just took over all the hands-on work to keep my mom calm and give the nurse an extra pair of hands when my mom needed moving.

All of this has just reaffirmed that life is too short and I am too young to be facing my parents’ inevitable mortality. Chances are they will live for at least another 10 years, but they will need me to take care of them more and more over that time. While I am very fortunate that they are both still mobile and independent, these last few months have kept me on edge waiting for the next emergency to crop up.

Writing is therapeutic for me, so being stuck in a cycle of not being able to write but wanting to write has only made all this worse. But, I am forcing myself to break that cycle. Even if all I’m writing are little blurbs of poetry for myself, it is still something to maintain a fraction of my sanity. Hopefully things will calm down now that my parents have gotten over these hurdles and I can have some time to focus on my work, but if I suddenly go MIA again, chances are something major happened with piss poor timing again.

#;personal #ranting word vomit under the cut #hopefully i'm not jinxing myself by announcing this but fingers crossed I maintain my focus

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wildernessuntothemselves · 1 year

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Hey! I need some help if you don’t mind.

I’ve been seriously struggling with writers block and I’ve just been feeling like everything I write is shit.

It might have something to do with my creative writing class and having to write stuff for actual assignments and a grade and I’m really fucking terrible with deadlines so I feel like my work never lives up to its full potential so it’s really getting me down.

On my alternate account, I started writing but I only have the first part posted and it hasn’t been updated in around a year or more. I want to start writing for it so badly especially after someone commented that they want more, but I’m stuck in this slump. I also entered a bunch of collabs and I never finished or posted them and I’ve felt like a shitty horrible person ever since so I feel even less inclined to write even though I really wanna write and finish them.

And on top of school, I haven’t had enough time (or given myself enough time) to write at all.

I’m really stressed and scared because writing fan fiction really means a lot to me and I hate feeling so unpassionate about something I love and used to be so freaking passionate about.

Do you have any advice? Have you ever felt like this? What do you do when you get writers block or in a slump?

I’m sorry for the long message but this has been tearing me apart for weeks.❤️

I'm really sorry to hear you're going through that but I'm afraid I can't be of much help. Of course I've gone through multiple writing blocks, some lasting months but I don't really have good advice.

I think there are two ways of dealing with it: either you just don't try to force it and let it run its course until you become motivated/passionate again or you just write even if you don't like it because it's way easier to go back and keep refining the work you made rather than starting from scratch.

The second method is what I use most often. I just write whatever shitty draft comes to mind then I keep reviewing it and adding and altering thing. Each time i review it gets easier and better.

As for the work not living up to your expectations, I used to struggle with that a lot too but I just became so busy with work and other things and I had to face the fact that either I accpet the work for what it is or I don't post at all. Fanfiction is not my job and if I spent inordinate amounts of energy and time to perfect it, it would only harm me in the end because it would take away time out of my actual work and life. Besides, it's a hobby and hobbies are meant to be fun, not make you feel bad and guilty. I personally don't enter into any collabs and only do requests etc if I make it absolutely clear that there is no guarantee that I will actually follow through with it because I know it would only make me feel miserable if I don't.

The class is probably the reason things are going so bad for you so maybe when it's over you'll feel better and start enjoying writing again. I too am kind of going through this because of my work and other obligations so I have been writing very little and it upsets me because I really wanna update yamqn but I keep reminding myself that it's just a fanfic and while I love it and enjoy it, my real life comes first and I'll get to it when I get to it. I even warned readers multiple times that the chapters won't be as long or as good as previous chapters because I simply don't have the luxury to waste time and effort on it anymore and I and them are just gonna have to accept that since writing is not my actual job

#mort talks

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sassenashsworld · 11 months

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The Path of the Private : Silver Story

I'll explain something because I seem to have get a few more follower lately

A year and a half ago, I knew how to say yes, no, and toaster (yes, toaster… long story) I'm a Quebecker, I come from a family that has suffered a lot in the past, we were a little hm… conservative against the nasty English invader, so uh…

I'm going to avoid telling you how crazy I was the first time I met an english teacher (because English is mandatory in Quebec) but basically, I managed to completely avoid learning English throughout my school cursus. I had to have something good that my teachers appreciated, because I swear it there is no reason that I could pass degrees after degrees. I even remember having to do an oral presentation, and the teacher basically drafted it for me. His name was Mister Paradisis. Every Tuesday after school, he took me to try to teach me English. He taught me the accent (I get it poorly anyway), but my brain was determined not to remember the words

And all these years, especially in politics (ironically, I worked for the federal government), I was told: you need to learn English and. I. refused.

Then, after spending twenty years in the world of French writing, having published two novels in France and working with francophone authors and publishers, I suddenly decided that I wanted to write in English

I've been away from nationalist fighting for a long time, and now I want to study English

So I took out my three pocket dictionaries and began reading them as bedtime books in the evening, then listening to the Simpsons in English, etc… (for once without French subtitles)

But then, in February 2022, I wrote for the first time, really, in English for the first time in my life. Since then, I've done everything I can to improve, I've even gone on vacation in Ontario (no, it's a joke, I went to spend my vacation in Ontario because my brother lives there, not to improve my English, but Ontarians are the nicest people I've met in my life, complete society… off topic)

And here I am, I updated my pined post and I highlighted the link of my fanfiction and since then, I am anxious

I worry because when I started writing, I had a shitty level! My level is now just over average, but I continue to work hard

I've frequently requested assistance, advice, and critique, but for some reason, people are mostly mute when it comes time to tell me: hey, it's shit, you don't just say that in the correct way

So, I've presented Silver to you, and I hope you enjoy the story enough to read it despite its flaws (which I will rectify once I achieve a decent level of grasp of your language)

On this, good continuity

#sassenash writing #silence is silver #fallout 4 fanfiction #the writer #please don't crucify me

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alllinesarebeautiful · 1 year

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Day 272 of 14,600 art meditation, October 22, 2022

I am jacked up on caffeine this morning, the happiness after a good long swim, the words of Anne Lamott about writing, and Eckhart Tolle’s book “The New Earth” about ego. I am filled up with love and sense of direction…

◉

This morning I journaled into this fabulous photo I found in my parents collection of family slides. I love my little self’s ‘steaming glare’, because it’s not about being in a ‘bad mood’. The look describes my entire life up until this All-lines-are-beautiful section - the frustration my Soul feels, as I learn how to create all doesn’t produce the glare. When I look at this photo, I don’t see my little girl self, I see my Soul trying to express itself.

◎

I have been listening to - over and over again - a video of one of my favorite authors, Anne Lamott, explaining how to become a writer. The audience she is talking to is specifically to highly sensitive people (HSPs!) who are largely missed by mainstream society. Think : people who are HighSensitive People HSP’s! + introverts + aspergers combined into one, that’s this group, these are my people.

⦿

She explains that every morsel of my body is trying to stop me from writing my memoir. Hearing this is such a relief because it explains so much. Maybe for me it’s a double whammy because there is a huge amount of personal art on my to do list too, which is a whole other layer of vulnerability.

◎

My post today is about pushing into a deeper layer of vulnerability. It’s about me me me, and I’ve been taught to be selfless. Showing up for me in ways other people are not able to, including my family. The awareness is for me NOT to compare myself to Shonda Rhimes, who has her entire life had the full support of her parents and her 4 older siblings.

◉

I’ve been dragging ou this unhelpful thought that says the reason I am not farther along in creating my dreams is because my family isn’t like hers. I think I’m ready to lay that one to rest.

Something else Anne Lamott always promotes, like it’s part of her Brand, is creating your Shitty First Draft of a manuscript. I’ve heard her say this for eons, and this week it finally dawned on me, I have my shitty first draft manuscript.

⦿

A VERY shitty first draft, because a) there is no outline, b) I’m not done with the art, c) and I don't know if I have the courage to really put out there material that none of my family members will understand. ‘Who will want to read anything you have to write?’ And then there is the horrifying fact (to me and to them) that I will be writing my own truth, which is something my family would really prefer would just go away forever. To which I can only respond with my favorite Anne Lamott quote of all time, “If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should’ve behaved better.”

◎

Anne Lamott says you have to be ‘open for business’ … so …in a couple of weeks, I’ve signed up to do something that is the single most terrifying thing I have ever done — (much more than my first real, pure design jobs of my career, after I taught myself design). I’m going to be out among writers - potential writers and ‘real paid’ writers, even famous writers … Not just in my imagination, but in person.

⦿

The vulnerability is that I have no idea what I’m going to say, or how I’m going to introduce myself. Can I trust myself? Will I make new friends? Will I find the Tribe I have always been looking for? I am opening myself up more …

◎

My plan is to go - to not bail - and give myself permission to just sit near a wall with a box of tissues and be weepy while I look at people who are actually living the life I want to be living. The ultimate act of visualization? Writers who do art too, and make a living off it, with one burning question, how did they do it? I might treat this event like I’m watching a movie, but I think the whole point of it is to speak to people.

⦿

Posting photos of me today because it’s my life that is the art piece, and also, there is no glare. I am so excited.

Xo, Anne

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driftbending · 3 years

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me: i've done my studying, i've read more of my book, i’ve got my coffee and my cherries, time to sit down and write my stories! yay!

my brain: so, what if we write about how v/incenzo isn't a remotely anti-capitalist story because it was mostly a story about a mafioso who wanted to destroy the conglomerate that was getting between him and his gold which coincidentally helps the tenants as it gets rid of the people trying to destroy their livelihoods and kill them, and that if it had wanted to have an anti-capitalist message it would have likely have had paolo cut off his resources and make him powerless by making him a persona non grata amongst their associates, forcing him to truly rely on the tenants and begin to understand their lives as he lives like them poor and alone, forcing him to realize he has more in common as a mafioso to the banker that ruined his mother's life than his mother, forcing him to reconsider why he joined the mafia in the first place and address whatever pain it is that is inside him that made him so angry and—

me:

#i am just trying to live my life and write my shitty drafts #and this meta just ends up taking a seat and demanding attention #no thank you #not today #not right now #e.e.c. diary

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slugtranslation-hypmic · 3 years

Note

Hihihi this is may be a weird question but is your opinion on the main hypmic cast?

In brief:

(Spoiler alert: It was not brief. Stuck under a cut for length)

Ichirou: He's a good kid. I wasn’t super into him at first, as main protagonists very rarely hold my interest, but I appreciate him now for the struggles he goes through and the growth he’s experienced across the series.

Jirou: Jirou is also a good kid in his own way. I didn’t know what to do with him for a while, but now I feel like I understand him too. I don’t think he quite gets what makes Ichirou be as loved as he is, nor does he really understand what makes people love him for who he is. But that’s okay. He’ll get it someday.

Saburou: If you had tasked me as a fourteen year old to create an idealized anime boy sona, I would have come up with someone shockingly similar to Saburou. I’m fond of him. He can be a bit mean at times in a very fourteen way, but deep down, he’s a good kid too. All the BBs are good kids.

Samatoki: I just can’t not make fun of him. His posturing is so ridiculous to me that I am constantly filled with the urge to clown on him. Oh, you think you’re so tough? You think you’re a big tough guy? Well, I’m just a little bastard; what are you going to do about it? But underneath the posturing, I do feel sorry for him and admire his strengths a lot. He’s a good kid too under a very funny exterior.

Juuto: I’m enjoying learning more about him from the BB/MTC+ manga, but I’m a bit surprised at how much of a dick he is even deep down. Still, he has plenty of good qualities too, and I like him in a vague sort of way. I’d throw fruit at him over a fence but wouldn’t put any malice in it.

Riou: What a delightful individual he is. The BB/MTC chapter about him really resonated with me. For a character so outwardly obsessed with the military, Riou has an incredible understanding of the weight of his actions and such a deep appreciation for every living thing. There’s a lot of his depth to his simplicity, and the level of care he exhibits towards everyone is delightful to witness. An absolute favorite among the cast.

Ramuda: Self-recognition through the other (derogatory). In all seriousness, Ramuda’s story arc and actions are great narrative tools for me to examine some things about myself and grow to try to be a better, more considerate person towards myself and others. I want to see him achieve freedom and happiness.

Gentarou: I enjoy Gentarou quite a bit, although I think he gets overshadowed by the other members of Fling Posse at times due to my sheer passion for Dice and Ramuda. He’s my favorite character to translate at the moment, which is apparently heresy among Hypmic translators. More than the sheer fun of writing his witty banter, I find him to be a very intriguing individual, and I’m excited to learn more about him. I want his happiness too.

Dice: Oh, Dice... He’s a really good kid in a way that the BBs could never be. He’s deceptively good, and he does choose to hurt other people and himself in ways that characters like Ichirou don’t. But he also finds the goodness in the oddest places, like a person finding a coin in a cracked sidewalk, and that’s delightful. His narrative is one of the most compelling for me. What a champion of a character.

Jakurai: Wow, what a good foil for Ramuda. Let me bounce narratives off of you like a mirror. I’m slowly learning to find him compelling in his own right, however. This is also a self-recognition through the other (derogatory) scenario, but there’s more of an emphasis on the derogatory part.

Hifumi: A funny little individual bearing a lot of sadness and a whole lot more courage. Like most of Matenrou, I admire him a lot, but I think that Matenrou resonates much more strongly with other people than they do for me, so I prefer to sit back and let other people appreciate them. I think he’s very brave and very fun to read/write.

Doppo: The biggest fucking mood in existence. When you move past the stereotypical aspects, you end up with another character who has a lot of deep flaws but also an incredible amount of courage. I’m excited to see where they go with him, but again, I’ll sit back and let others take the first row here.

Kuukou: Having already drafted Saburou, if you came back to me at age eighteen and asked me to make an idealized anime boy sona, you would probably have ended up with a character astonishingly like Kuukou. He brings me sheer joy. Astonishingly, I feel like Kuukou has exhibited the least growth out of any of the cast, and yet I do not mind a bit. He is the closest to the perfect man I have ever met. I would drop everything to be this dude’s homie if he existed in real life. Just a champion individual.

Juushi: Juushi’s a good kid. I’m very fond of him and like writing him, but much like Matenrou, I feel like he does a lot more for other people than he does for me. Therefore, much of how I work with him is less, “How do I enjoy this character as a reader?” and more “How do I nurture the traits about him that other people love?”

Hitoya: Hitoya strikes me as a damn good person with a lot of heart who sometimes lets his anger drive him a bit too much. He’s also utterly ridiculous, of course, but I try to write him with as much strength as possible to be present behind his words. He honestly seems like a great person to know in real life, not simply as a fictional character, as well.

Sasara: I have to clown on him to assert dominance. Joking aside, I admire the depths of his character and the growth he’s shown over the series. He can be pretty callous at times and goes to odd lengths to get what he wants, but I think he’s now starting to realize how much his actions affect other people. For a while I was really in his camp as a hardcore Sasara lover (back before he was a main cast member - I love writing quirky minor characters), but now I approach him with the idea mentioned above, ie how I can present him for other people.

Roshou: Whenever he’s around the rest of Dotsu Hon, I think he’s kind of an idiot. I mean that in the best way possible. It’s very endearing. Yet moments when he’s on his own are where I think he best shines, and I would love to see more solo material for him. He’s an incredibly good support character, and I admire his passion for his students.

Rei: I really enjoy asshole antagonists, which is why I liked Ramuda for a while before the clone story came up behind me and struck me into the ground with its mighty fists. Now Rei fills this role. I would love to learn more about him and team up with the Buster Bros to pelt him with rotten eggs in a fun bonding activity. I’m sure there is some strong backstory that will absolve him of at least some of his shittiness, but until now, I’m still not excusing his whole abandoning his children thing, not to mention the human trafficking thing he pulled with Ramuda.

Otome: I hate translating her, if only because she and Rei frequently talk about things in extremely vague terms that I have no context for. It’s hard to make her sound idiomatic in English while also not shooting myself in the foot by accidentally filling in the wrong information. But with that aside, she’s okay. I like her, I guess. Her motivations are pretty interesting.

Ichijiku: Ichijiku was written for people who are sexually attracted to women, and I’m not at all, so I 100% approach her in terms of her pull on other people. She’s fun on her own, though, and I’m impressed at her ability to walk in high heels. Her complete disrespect for everyone but Otome brings me no end of entertainment in reading and writing.

Nemu: YOU. Maybe this is some stupid toxic masculinity thing, but I always feel embarrassed speaking affectionately about male characters but not at all about female characters. Therefore Nemu gets all of my loveposting. She’s a wonderful girl! She has such a strong spirit, and I’m completely overjoyed that she’s making her own decisions and becoming her own character defined on her own terms. I want to watch her grow up big and strong. Fuck yes, baby girl! Fuck it up! I’m very proud of her.

#not a translation #asks #hypmic asks

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cursed-or-not · 3 years

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I couldn’t get one of the vignettes to work, so naturally this sat in my drafts for way too long, but this is based on a post by @thiscastielhasflown about Cas blushing around Dean :)))

Cas doesn’t think he’s ever felt so human and so holy at the same time.

He is not who he thought he was, and neither is Dean Winchester.

When Cas accepted his orders, when he agreed to go to Hell, it was under the pretense of rescuing a righteous man. Cas expected a soul so pure it hurts to look at it straight-on, one so bright it burns.

What he did not expect were the ragged shards in front of him, thrumming like a heartbeat.

It’s not the concept of a soul, not the made-to-order design, but instead the lived-in, broken essence of a human.

It is still bright, but just enough that Cas can’t look away.

Here is a human soul: righteous and recalcitrant and real.

Cas doesn’t know how he’s supposed to move on. This is an order unlike any other, a mission he’s not sure he can complete; he doesn’t know how he can pull this soul from the fire with the clinical precision that’s expected of him. He isn’t sure he can leave the scene without leaving fingerprints, a sprawling scar that proves his guilt.

Yes, this is ordered, but it’s also intimate.

Cas knows what souls look like in theory, but this is messy and charred, and there is light shining through the tatters.

Cas is captivated by the man behind it.

Here, Cas can see the toll a lifetime takes on a human; he can see this soul’s--Dean’s-- greatest joys and miseries, can feel his pain and pleasure and imperfection.

It’s achingly, hauntingly personal, and Cas’ face burns at the intimacy of it all.

Cas doesn’t know what this feeling is, but he thinks it’s distinctly human.

Cas is already marked.

. . .

It happens more and more often now that he’s human.

Cas’s cheeks burn every time a customer yells at him at the Gas n Sip, every time Nora looks at him a little too long, every time he makes a new mistake at being human.

It never feels the same as when it’s Dean making him blush, but Cas has started to forget what that feels like.

When Dean visits, he can’t fathom how he ever couldn’t remember.

They’re in Dean’s motel room together, and Cas is trying with everything in him not to break down.

This man, this kind, beautiful, caring man is the same one who sent Cas away.

He doesn’t know how to reconcile that, and Cas feels ready to burst with everything he’s not saying.

Part of him wants to ask. Part of him wants to make Dean tell him why Cas had to leave, why he wasn’t good enough anymore, and part of him wants to tell Dean that look, this is what’s become of me since then; I don’t have a bed or a home or a family, and I don’t know what I did wrong, but I know you sent me away.

Another part of him wants to cup Dean’s jaw in his hands and kiss him until everything feels okay.

“You know, Cas, it’s real good to see you,” Dean says, and Cas almost yells at the sincerity.

It’s not fair. It’s not fair because Cas wants to hear it and Dean means it and they’re still so far apart.

“You too, Dean,” Cas tells him, because this part of him always wins out.

Dean offers a small smile, but something in his face is crumpled and wavering beneath it.

Dean lets out a quick exhale, and Cas can’t read his expression.

“Cas…” Dean begins, and Cas doesn’t want to hear it anymore.

“It’s okay,” Cas says quickly, and he can’t tell if he means it or not.

Dean closes his eyes.

“It’s not,” he shakes his head bitterly. “I’ll explain it to you, one day, but for now it’s shitty and selfish and not okay.”

Cas doesn’t know what to say. He’s still hurt and angry, but this is Dean, and today is one of the days Cas wishes that he had powers that could heal more than just physical wounds. He wishes he could lay a hand on Dean and make him better, make him smile, but even when he was an angel, the best he could do was heal battle wounds before they bled out. Today, he doesn’t even have powers.

“I believe that you had a good reason,” Cas says honestly.

He doesn’t know what else he believes, but that much has to be true.

“It doesn’t matter if I did,” Dean tells him, but he doesn’t look quite as exhausted as he did before. “I’m sorry.”

Cas smiles gratefully.

“Thank you for coming,” Cas says. “And for letting me stay with you.”

“Well, mi casa es tu casa,” Dean jokes, gesturing around the motel room. “Weird stains and all.”

Cas almost slips up, then. He almost says that a cheap motel room with Dean is better than a sleeping bag in a lonely store, but he catches himself.

“I don’t mind,” Cas says instead. “I’m grateful.” Dean huffs a laugh.

“Come on, man, it’s not like I’m doing a huge favor. It’s a shitty motel room.” Dean grins. “Not even the honeymoon suite.”

For some reason, the idea of sharing a honeymoon suite sets Cas’s cheeks ablaze.

Dean doesn’t notice under the dingy motel lighting.

Later, when Dean wakes up to Cas watching him for the first time in years, Cas doesn’t notice the blush coloring Dean’s cheeks, either.

. . .

“I love you.”

The words hang in the air like the Sword of Damocles, but Cas thinks that the only one threatened is himself.

Dean won’t say it back, Cas knows.

He isn’t sure what he expected, but Dean won’t look him in the eyes and Cas needs to say something else before this stretches on any longer and his cheeks are burning again.

Cas wishes he could write off the blush as an effect of the poison, but he thinks that whatever this is won’t break as easily as a fever.

Cas looks away.

“I love all of you.”

He leaves it at that.

. . .

Cas has been back for three days when the house of cards finally crashes.

It’s been delicate, since he got back.

He understands; you can’t just drop a love confession on someone and expect it not to get awkward. Cas may not understand everything about being human, but this, he does.

At first the lack of confrontation surprised him. Looking back, though, Cas thinks that it’s the most in character reaction possible.

Cas had come back, Dean had pulled him into a fierce hug, and then they’ve been carefully avoiding any alone time since.

Cas thinks this might be the kindest reaction, might just be Dean trying not to break his best friend’s heart, but the silence is worse.

Cas has accepted his role in all of this, and he knows not to expect more than he can have. Still, if nothing else he wants his best friend back.

Cas has never really been one to take the first step, but considering the leap of faith he took before the Empty came, he figures he can manage a conversation.

He waits until Dean’s the only one left in the kitchen.

“Hello, Dean,” Cas says carefully, and Dean doesn’t look as trapped as he expected. Mostly, he just looks tired.

“I think…” Cas struggles to find a way to begin. “We should talk.”

Dean nods around his beer, taking care not to look at Cas.

Cas stays on the other side of the counter.

“I know that we’re acting like nothing has changed,” Cas begins, “And if that’s what you want, then I understand. But if you have any… concerns, then--”

“Really, Cas? Concerns?”

Cas blinks. “Maybe that’s not exactly the right word, but--”

“Cas, that’s not even the right sentiment,” Dean responds, finally looking at him.

“Then what are you looking for?” Cas asks, and he hates that even now, he doesn’t know.

“What am I looking for?”

If Dean objected to “concerns,” his offense is even greater now. Cas’s brow furrows.

Dean continues, “Cas, you told me you love me!”

Cas almost flinches.

“I know,” he says quietly. “I did.”

Cas can’t meet Dean’s eyes, but he’s not sure he wants to know what they’re saying, anyway.

“There’s-- kind of a lot to unpack there, man,” Dean says, and his voice is marginally calmer.

Cas looks up.

“I’m sorry.”

Cas knows immediately that wasn’t what Dean was looking for, but for the life of him, he can’t figure out what he is.

“You’re sorry, huh?” Dean’s voice is low, and Cas thinks there might be something ragged in it.

Cas blinks. “Yes.”

Dean huffs a bitter laugh.

“Okay, then. Think we’re done talking.”

“What-- Dean,” Cas protests, utterly confused as to how this went so wrong.

Cas steels himself to continue. “I never meant to make you uncomfortable, but Dean, I don’t want-- I can’t lose you.”

Something in Dean’s expression softens, but his shoulders stay tensed.

“You’re not gonna lose me,” he offers. “Listen, I get it. You said something on impulse and I misinterpreted it and now you’re sorry, apparently. Yeah, it sucks, but you’re not gonna lose me.”

Cas feels confusion etch onto his face.

“You think that my apology means I regret it?”

Dean looks at him like it’s obvious.

“I mean, it’s understandable,” Dean replies, gesturing widely.

Cas can’t believe how wrong this conversation is going.

“Dean, of course I don’t regret it,” Cas admits, still at a loss for how Dean could have reached that conclusion. “When someone confesses something in their dying moments that they’ve been carrying with them for more than a decade, they’re not generally lying.”

Dean looks at him half in doubt and half in wonder.

“I never said you were lying,” Dean grumbles in protest. Cas thinks the sullenness is more for show than anything else.

He has moved to Cas’s side of the counter.

“Well, I wasn’t,” Cas responds, and he knows it’s not witty or clever or important, but maybe if he keeps reaffirming it, Dean will start to believe it.

“I’m glad,” Dean says, and he puzzles Cas by offering him his beer. Now, they’re shoulder to shoulder.

Cas isn’t sure why, but he takes the beer. Dean’s eyes track the motion as he raises it to his lips, and Cas’s cheeks burn when Dean watches him swallow.

This time, Dean notices.

“You blushing?” Dean asks through a cocky grin, and damn it that just made it worse.

“No,” Cas grumbles.

“Now you’re lying through your teeth,” Dean accuses, taking his beer back and taking a sip.

“Well, I wasn’t lying about the other thing,” Cas responds, trying to regain his composure.

Dean’s joking disposition crumbles, and he glances at Cas’s face.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Dean nods, looking like he’s milling something over.

He seems to decide to take another sip of beer instead, but as he raises it to his lips, he says, “I love you, too, you know.”

Of all the responses Cas was expecting, this never made the list.

His face is hot again, though, and his heartrate is a little too sporadic, and if Dean keeps drinking beer like it’s a normal friday night, Cas is going to go insane.

His brain finally catches up to the situation.

“You what?” Cas asks incredulously.

Dean’s casual dimeanor finally falls away, and this time it’s his turn to blush as he looks at Cas over his beer.

“Love you,” Dean mutters, and it’s barely audible, but it’s more than enough.

Cas gives himself five more seconds of shocked staring before he huffs a laugh.

“I never thought…” Cas doesn’t know where it’s going, just knows that he’s never felt awe like this before.

“Yeah, me either,” Dean admits. “But it’s true.”

Dean sets his bottle on the counter, and Cas watches the movement, heart still beating a little too fast.

There’s still too much to say and also nothing. When Cas turns to face Dean, Dean takes his face in his hands.

Cas looks at him in wonder, eyes tracing the freckles and smile lines on his face.

Dean bites his lip quickly, still considering something, and then Cas doesn’t know who leans in first, but they’re kissing.

It’s honey-sweet and molasses-slow, and Cas thinks that this has to be why freedom exists.

#idk definitively what this is #bc it's part 15x18 coda #and part destiel through the years #but it was nice to write something #spn fanfic #destiel #15x18 coda #first kiss #spn spoilers #mine

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msmarvelouswinchester · 3 years

Text

Irresistibly Yours

Chapter 1 - The Elevator

Summary - Y/N Y/L/N moves to NYC in hopes for a fresh start after a nasty breakup. There she meets her neighbor, the cynical lawyer, Dean Winchester. A love-hate relationship starts evolving between them ever since they met in the elevator one morning but a desperate situation and a string of lies forces the two friendly rivals to go on a date or rather a fake date. Will sparks fly between them when Dean gets to know Y/N real and up close? Will Y/N finally find her Prince Charming in the grumpy, workaholic, divorce lawyer?

Pairing - Lawyer!Dean Winchester x Y/N

Warning - None for this chapter

Word Count - 1981

Square Filled - Moodboard ( @girl-next-door-writes )

A/N - *Cracks knuckles* Ta-daaaa! The series is finally here it's already Sunday where I live and I was dying to share this! It's going to be a wild ride ahead. So buckle up your seatbelts and enjoy the ride!

This is also my submission to @flamencodiva's Writing Challenge and @deanwanddamons' 2K Blogiversary challenge (congratulations on your milestone, Sian). Prompts are in bold.

Beta'd by @miss-nerd95 (Thanks again, hon❤️)

Dividers by @firefly-graphics

Series Masterlist Masterlist

Throwing her bag over the table, Y/N slumped down on the couch, letting out a sigh. The pressure from the higher-ups, consistent criticism of your work and impending deadlines were weighing heavily on her shoulders and she was in a desperate need of a break.

She looked over to the stack of papers on the table that now lay abandoned. The rejection from the publishing company was the fucking cherry on top. Y/N buried her face in her hands in frustration as she was almost on the verge of a mental breakdown, a few angry tears rolling down her cheeks. Letting her head fall back, she swiped away those angry tears, letting out a long sigh of defeat.

“Why can't I ever do anything right?” She mumbled, her breathing heavy as she bit down on her trembling lips.

In her late twenties, after a nasty break up, Y/N had a marvellous thought that she needed a fresh start. So she had left her corporate job back in Atlanta and moved to New York to pursue her dreams of becoming a writer. She had secured a good position in one of the leading magazine companies and started to write the novel that she had been planning since she was seventeen, but lately nothing seemed to work out the way she wanted. Sure, she was getting paid well but it wasn't enough compared to how much she had to deal with her shitty coworkers and bosses. She had now lost every motivation to continue her novel after the first draft got rejected by the publishing companies enough times to make her feel insecure about her writing.

“Why can't my life just be a goddamn Hallmark movie?” Y/N muttered under her breath as she picked up a cushion and covered your face, letting out a muffled scream.

Her wallowing time was interrupted by the blaring noise of her phone in the awfully quiet apartment, making her nearly jump out of her skin. Another frustrated groan left her lips as she saw the person calling her.

“I told you to stop calling me, for god's sake!” Y/N yelled into her phone.

“Come on, Y/N. One dinner.” The man on the other end pestered. “You know, at work people talk about how uptight you are. Let yourself go, once in a while.”

“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn. Michael- I'm not interested. I told you a hundred times before and I'll say it again. Leave. Me. Alone!” She said. The line on the other side went quiet.

“Bitch.” She heard him say before the call disconnected.

“Fuck off!” She yelled again, knowing fully well he couldn't have heard her now. Y/N finally decided to put him in her blocklist because Michael didn't seem like he was gonna stop otherwise.

It wasn't that she had a stick up her ass for not wanting to go on a dinner date with her coworker. Honestly, she missed the whole first date experience, but Michael was definitely not the guy for her, or for any other girls out there in her opinion. He threw around sexist comments around the office like it was some cool shit and chivalry was definitely dead for him.

Y/N finally got up from her seat, shoulders still tense from the day's events. Opening the refrigerator, she stood there gawking at the leftovers in it.

“Cold pizza….spaghetti….chocolate brownies….” She looked at your dinner options, weighing each one's pros and cons before settling on - “Brownies it is.”

Taking out the chocolate confection , she returned to the couch. She put on Netflix as she browsed through it's movie section.

“Stupid Prince Charming-” she scoffed, biting into the delicious the chocolate chip brownie in hand. Grumbling at the unrealistic standards of Netflix rom coms, she still pressed the play on the film The Proposal.

Finishing her 'dinner', Y/N picked up the comforter, nestling deep into her couch as she watched the coldhearted Margaret fall head over heels for her assistant, the exhaustion kicked in.

“Fuck!”

And that's how the next morning started as Y/N woke up one hour later than usual. She had fallen into a deep sleep on her couch before Andrew even got to propose to Margaret, which was not exactly the wisest decision as the next morning, her neck and back screaming in pain.

The girl knew she was going to be late to work today by the time she had left the house. Hair up in a messy bun, a bag hanging from her shoulder, she tried to smoothen down the creases on her skirt before rushing towards the elevator in high heels.

“Hold the door!” She yelled at the man inside as soon as the door started to close. She sprinted towards the elevator as the man kept looking at her, an annoyed look evident on his face when he slammed the button, taking a step forward to keep the door from closing.

“Thank you!” Y/N huffed, as she got in the elevator. The man chose to remain silent and he pressed the ground button on the elevator. “I am so screwed today! I have never been this late to work!” She babbled on but the man still maintained the stoic look on his face. Y/N slightly turned to face the man of stone. He was probably in his thirties, his dirty blonde hair, sparkling green eyes and light stubble on his cheeks went very well with the crisp grey suit he was wearing. One hand in his pocket, he just stood there, jaw clenched together, eyes focused on the shut doors.

“You know, I should have set the alarm! Stupid-”

“Do you ever shut up?” The man finally spoke, a look of disinterest passing his face.

“Wow. Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed, I guess.” Y/N rolled her eyes.

“Excuse me?” His voice was hard.

“I said, someone woke up-”

“I heard what you said. I am just not interested in listening to your morning fuck-up story.” He scoffed.

“Woah, okay.” She widened her eyes at his disrespectful comment, “I just-” The elevator reached the ground floor of their apartment building and the doors opened with a ‘ding’.

“I think you don't want to waste anymore time talking since you're already running late.” Y/N gasped slightly at the audacity of the man. “Have a good day, Miss L/N.” The man wished before moving out of the confined space as Y/N narrowed her eyes at him and wondered how he knew her name.

“Have a good day as well, Mr….” She trailed off as she got out of the vator as well.

“Dean Winchester.” He said as he walked away, never once looking back as Y/N stood there, bewildered at what just happened.

Hands balled up into fists in apprehension, Y/N inhaled audibly, as she stood on the other side of the door. She was late to the meeting by half an hour, twenty-four minutes to be precise and nothing annoyed her boss more than tardiness.

“Y/N, it's a pleasure that you finally graced this meeting with your presence on this fine morning.” Abaddon’s words laced with acute sarcasm made it quite clear that Y/N was doomed when she entered the room. The remaining four pairs of eyes in the room were zeroed in on her, as she abashedly took a seat at the far-end of the table. She couldn't risk her job because of her smartass mouth and she was already on thin ice, so she kept quiet and let Abaddon carry on with the meeting cause even Cruella De Vil would be hiding her face in shame if she ever met Abaddon. She was an Umbridge before her coffee and a Regina George after drinking her coffee. There was no way she was going to spare the poor girl today.

“As I was pointing out, our sales have gone down in recent months quite drastically. Readers are saying the contents are not relatable or entertaining enough….”

A yawn threatened to leave Y/N as she listened to Abaddon go on about the poor performance of the company, her mind preoccupied by a certain green-eyed man. She had never seen Dean in the building before this morning. He was annoyingly good looking and rude and Y/N couldn't seem to get rid of the image of him looking dapper in that grey suit. She was barely able to focus on what Abaddon was saying.

With Dean Winchester still running through her mind, Y/N trudged back to her small cubicle after the painfully hour long meeting.

Plopping down on the chair, covering her face with her hands, she exclaimed, “I need coffee!”

“Thank me later.” She turned her head to Meg as she pushed a hot cup of coffee towards her before going back to her own cubicle.

“Black, just like my heart.” She said before inhaling the strong smell of the drink. Taking a little sip, she let out a sigh of content. “Jesus, I needed this badly.”

“Yeah, you look like shit,” Meg chuckled, earning a glare from her friend. “Did you even take a look at the mirror today? Honestly, I am not even exaggerating, I-”

“Meg, I’ll forever be grateful to you for this cup of coffee, but please stop talking.” Y/N groaned loudly.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Michael walking towards her and put on headphones and turning the volume up, trying to look busy. “Heads up, incoming douchebag.” The brunette said. After the hubbub of the morning and the shitshow of a meeting, Michael was the last person Y/N wanted to see.

“Morning, Y/N.” The smug smile on his face made her cringe. This had been going on for a month now. She thought after last night, Michael would finally back down, but apparently she was very wrong. “My messages don't seem to get through anymore.”

“She blocked you. God, take a hint.” Meg muttered.

“She's right. It's ‘cause you can’t seem to take no for an answer.” Y/N huffed.

“One dinner. Just one.”

“No.”

“She said no. Isn't that enough?” Meg jumped to her friend’s rescue when she saw her fumbling and getting uncomfortable. Michael inched towards Y/N anyway, completely ignoring his colleague’s comment, a smirk evident on his face.

“Y/N, don't be so uptight. What harm does a single dinner gonna do?” He asked.

“It’ll be cheating. I have a boyfriend.” Y/N blurted out, making Meg’s eyes go wide, but it actually seemed to work as Michael moved away from her.

“A boyfriend?”

“Yeah. We have been going out for a while now.” The said man frowned as he thought the words over before leaving her space with a little nod of his head. Maybe it worked on him without any hassle, but she knew this lie would come back to bite her in the ass if the whole office got to know about it. Oh, and they would know since turning around, Y/N saw Ruby staring at her, a grin appearing on her face as she took in all the juicy gossip. The lie was now gonna spread like wildfire.

“Spill.” Y/N turned to look at her friend who stood there, hands folded, eyes wide, brows raised in utter disbelief. She puckered her lips as she waited on Y/N to explain who just frowned in reply. “Well? What happened? I want all the details, Y/N!”

“Oh come on, L/N. Share the deets.” Ruby snickered. “Who's the man that actually managed to capture your heart?”

“Dean Winchester.” The name tumbled out of her lips so easily and that was how she knew she was screwed.

Chapter 2

Feedback is highly appreciated!

Let me know if you want to be tagged in this series!

#deanwanddamons2kcelebration #girl next door's make me feel bingo #dean x reader #dean winchester x reader #dean winchester fic #au dean x reader #dean winchester #irresistibly yours #au dean winchester x reader #dean x y/n #dean winchester x y/n

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sisterspooky1013 · 3 years

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Only One Choice, Chapter 6

Read it here on AO3 / Tagging @today-in-fic

Mulder stands at the coffee pot in the bureau break room, pouring a mug full of the shitty burnt bean water and thinking back to the look on Scully’s face as he told her about the Icy Cape X file.

Valerie had always shown interest in his work, but she had her limits. She listened politely, but if he mentioned details like black nodules she made a face and told him he was going to ruin her dinner. It’s understandable that people would be turned off by the nitty gritty of his work; heck, even the Gunmen ask him to tone it down sometimes. But Scully displayed only fascination and curiosity. He suspects he could tell her about the Tooms case and she’d be more interested in discussing the plausibility of a one-hundred-twenty year old man than she’d be disgusted that he stuck his hand in bile.

“Who is she?”

He turns to see Agent Kissop, one of the more senior analysts on the team, smiling at him over her bifocals.

“I’m sorry?” he asks.

“You’ve been staring at that coffee pot with a shit-eating grin on your face for the last ten minutes. Only reason a man does that is if he has a lady on his mind. So who is she?” Kissop asks pointedly.

Mulder blushes and her smile broadens.

“I’m glad to see you putting yourself out there again, Agent Mulder,” she says with a maternal pat to his arm. “Sweet guy like you deserves to be with someone who makes him happy.”

He smiles politely and escapes to his desk, disappointment gripping his chest. He’s got someone on his mind, alright, but he’ll never be with her. Trying to put Scully out of his thoughts, he logs in to check his email. Among requests for updates on various cases, a message from HR about his 401k, and a reminder not to store entire gallons of milk in the shared refrigerator, he sees an email that makes his heart leap into his throat.

He swallows hard and opens it, hoping against hope that it is what he thinks it is.

From: [email protected]

Sent: July 1, 1996 11:36am

To: [email protected]

Subject: X Files

Hi Mulder,

I hope you enjoyed the rest of your sunday.

If the offer still stands, I’d love to take a look at those X Files of yours. Perhaps one weekend? It’s hard for me to squeeze anything in on weeknights with my commute to Quantico. It just occurred to me that I don’t know where you live, either.

Anyway, let me know. Take care.

Scully

If Kissop thought he was smiling like an idiot before, she should see him now. He feels like doing a fist-pump, or a touchdown dance. Oh god, she’s going to come by his apartment, he needs to clean. What if Priscilla takes one of her colossal stinky shits while Scully’s there? Jesus Christ, he’s getting ahead of himself.

He hits reply and spends forty-five minutes writing and rewriting his response.

————

She’d written the email the moment she got to the office at 7:00 am, then left it in drafts for hours, re-reading it and changing a word here and there, adding and removing different parts. Should she sign it “sincerely, Scully,” or maybe “regards, Scully”? Or should she sign it Dana? He doesn’t call her Dana.

Maybe she shouldn’t send it at all. Isn’t it inappropriate to meet with a male coworker alone in his apartment, given that she’s engaged? But this is about work. It holds scientific significance. She wants to see the files, not Mulder. Right?

Finally she couldn't take it anymore and hit send, immediately going to her outbox to see if she could still call it back, but it was too late. Now all she can do is wait. Wait, wait, wait. She checks her email compulsively between classes and autopsies. What if he never responds? Finally, just after 1:00 pm, it arrives.

From: [email protected]

Sent: July 1, 1996 1:19pm

To: [email protected]

subject: RE: X Files

Scully,

I’d admonish you for discussing this via a monitored channel, but then you’d remind me that I very specifically told you to email me.

I’m free this Saturday, if you’d like to come by. Anytime is fine, but let’s say 6 so we can justify having a drink. I hope you’re partial to shitty beer.

I live in Alexandria, at 2630 Hegal Place, apartment 42. Don’t let the dilapidated exterior fool you; it’s a very respectable slum.

Talk to you soon,

Mulder

She bites at her lips, trying to fight off the flush of delight she feels as she reads his reply over and over. Should she just admit that she has a giant crush on him? Probably. It’s not illegal to have a crush as long as she has no intention of doing anything about it. Maybe his apartment will be filthy, or plastered with Star Trek paraphernalia, and it will effectively quash her affection for him. She can only hope. She hits reply, and this time doesn’t hesitate to send it right away.

———

Her reply is waiting for him when he returns from his lunch break, and he smiles before he even opens it.

From: [email protected]

Sent: July 1, 1996 1:31pm

To: [email protected]

Subject: RE:RE: X Files

Mulder,

Forgive me for neglecting to speak in code. Perhaps we should establish one for future need?

Saturday at six sounds great. Who told you about my affinity for low-quality malt beverages?

I’m not overly concerned about your questionable neighborhood. I may not be a field agent, but I’m still typically armed. Consider that a warning.

See you on Saturday,

Scully

He leans back in his chair, his love struck-face shining up at the ceiling like a full moon. Why he is torturing himself by spending more time with her he doesn’t know, but he can’t seem to resist.

————-

“What about October thirteenth?” Ethan says, and she turns to look at him, confusion pulling at her face.

“What about it?” she asks.

Her mind was wandering again as they chatted over chicken and rice. Wandering back to Mulder, to their email correspondence and their plans for Saturday. Plans she hasn’t shared with Ethan.

“Dana, are you okay? I feel like you’re not listening to me,” Ethan replies with a wounded tone, his expression equally concerned and hurt.

She sets her fork down and takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Ethan, I’m just distracted by some work stuff. What’s happening on October thirteenth?”

She focuses on giving him her full attention.

“For the wedding, Dana. The church is available October thirteenth. It’s a Sunday.”

Suddenly she’s not hungry anymore.

“Oh. Um, okay. Why do we need to get married this year, again? Isn’t that a pretty short engagement?”

He makes a quizzical face. “I guess...when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible?” he offers with a soft smile.

When Harry Met Sally is one of her favorite movies and he knows it. She can’t help but feel a swell of affection for him, with a hefty side of guilt.

“October thirteenth sounds perfect,” she says with a forced smile and a squeeze of his hand.

Ethan beams. “Great. I’ll go by and put a deposit down to hold it for us. We have a date, babe, that’s big progress!”

She holds the smile steady, excusing herself to the bathroom as soon as he stands to clear the table.

That night he goes down on her for an eternity, and she is sure that she is the absolute worst fiancée that has ever, or will ever live. She does not deserve this man’s love, but she wants to. She’ll try harder.

#the x files #txf #dana scully #fox mulder #gillovny #msr #sculder #x files #x files fanfic #alternate universe

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camilliar · 3 years

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recs for someone new to omgcp

[February 2021.]

Reading, or not reading, OMGCP fics has come up in a couple of conversations I’ve had recently with artists newish to the fandom (ie. @jovishark; @decafffff), who are making OMGCP art (!!!) but haven’t started exploring fic -- but maybe want to? Which of course reminded me that I’ve never bothered to make an actual, concrete recs list for this fandom. So, I mean. Here is one.

The approach is, what do I think about when I think about OMGCP fanfic? What comes to mind, what stands out to me? I have excluded some very popular fics. Some of these I just don’t think are very good, and others I do think are good, and/or I enjoy them, but I don’t see why you’d need me, specifically, to recommend them. I am thinking of a story like maybe i’m waking up, which I discuss below because I link to a podfic of it. It has a lot of merits, to be sure, but it’s the second-most-read fic in this fandom by hits, and it’s got thousands of comments, and it’s by an author whose work is relatively widely praised and circulated. I am not sure what telling you more about this fic will add to the conversation; if you want to find and read it, you inevitably will. I’m happy to, say, answer asks about these kinds of fics, or talk more generally about them via DM or whatever. Feel free.

Also, I don’t think there’s a point to pretending to be objective about fanfic; this list has a perspective and that perspective is mine. In this fandom I largely read stories that navigate the tension around Jack, Bitty, and Parse, in various permutations. This is not to say that I’ve never read fic about the frogs, or that I have no interest at all in other pairings, but I am by no means an expert on Dex/Nursey and can really only speak to the one fic about them that sticks out to me because it goes beyond being merely Dex/Nursey and does something else. This is just to say that I am sure there are great and interesting fics about other things and ideas--but I’m not the person to hear about those from.

Likewise, I’m not super interested in stories that really reproduce that which is already in OMGCP. I like Zimbits--albeit maybe not in the ways or for the reasons most fans would--but I do not really need to see endless iterations of the same story about them falling in love and being cute together. I don’t think these stories are bad or they shouldn’t exist or that they have no merit by default. Still, I don’t need fanfic to give me more OMGCP. I need fanfic to complicate, to comment on, and to transform OMGCP. Many people don’t work like this! Totally okay! But I can’t rec you fics that do that.

What I have noticed, however, is that over time there appears to have been a shift in how people do write fic for this fandom. (Other than, you know, increases and decreases in activity pending the status of the comic, pairings going in and out of vogue, and so on.) Early on, say during Y1 and Y2, the comic was about the group of friends having a cool time at college together; about whether the burgeoning attraction between Jack and Bitty would manifest and, if so, how; and, especially, Jack’s past coming into fuller view for Bitty and how it would have to be dealt with in order for a relationship between them to work. YMMV on how great the comic executed there, but as Y3 went on these themes increasingly disappeared from the story. I think this means a lot of fic written over 2015-2016 or 2017 has one kind of tone, and was written mostly around these questions; after that, it feels like a new crop of writers and a new crop of ideas started circulating, that is, either embracing Jack and Bitty’s canon relationship and accepting its relative straightforwardness in text--or deconstructing it, imagining what readers aren’t seeing, or how problems not dealt with in the comic would manifest later. People who have read my fic know which of these I’m mainly interested in exploring.

All of which is to say, looking at what I’m reccing here, when the fics were posted or when I first read them probably has a lot to do with why they stick out to me so much. Because there’s no real culture of fanfic criticism--and I mean that in the positivist sense of broad evaluation not explicitly for fault and merit but rather, for context--I think it’s really hard to keep this in mind. But I’m obnoxious and I can’t just be easy about things.

Fic recs

In alphabetical order, somewhat unsorted; if a stand-alone fic has a summary I’ve included it, but in other cases I’ve recced a couple of conceptually related fics or series, which I’ve tried to just describe or explain as opposed to copying the summary off AO3.

There are so many more fanfics I think are great and worth reading! In an ideal world I’d come back and add more later, or create a secondary list that’s more along the lines of “if you like this, read these,” or whatever. But, being realistic, this is a starter kit. I’m open to talking about fanfic.

- - - - - - - - - - -

7-0-2 by Idday; Friends in Low Places and Sorry for the Blood in Your Mouth; I Wish it was Mine by blue_rocket_frost | I’m not sure it would be correct to say that I don’t like Parse/Tater, or that I’m not interested in Parse/Tater. I’m not interested in Patater a priori; I think it could be interesting, with teeth. These fics stick out to me when I think about this pairing, because they feel different. Accusations of a preference for just linking any two white men who happen to be hanging around have validity, but because of what hockey is and how it works and who’s hanging around it, it’s not exactly a leap to imagine what kind of gritty spark the friction between two closeted NHL players would create. A little violence in your sex? A little sex in your violence.

A Sight Worth Seeing by sadtomato | A four-fic Jack/Bitty/Shitty/Lardo explicit BDSM series. Either you want that or you don’t. It’s nothing hardcore, and not properly a four-way, really; more properly a kind of voyeuristic round-robin. There’s a more open and egalitarian view of sex here than I really get from the characters in the back end of the comic. It’s an expansive, propulsive view of sex and relationships that’s really nice to see. I love Lardo's detached coolness, and Bitty as a smooth operator; if you’re looking for some kind of Dom/sub dynamics world, this really isn’t it, but it’s a lively exploration into the sexual dynamics in a group of friends that’s super close to the good-times vibe you get from Haus scenes in the first couple years of extras.

call me son (one more time) by Summerfrost, Verbyna, and blithelybonny | This is a series, incomplete, and you will love it or be massively put off by it. I mean that as a compliment. I love it. The premise is, Bob Zimmermann and Kent Parson have been having sex since Kent was, like, 19. Everyone in this story has been chewed up: by themselves, by each other, by hockey. Plainly, this is a pretty bleak view of what OMGCP, as a story, is supposedly offering. If you want fic that is dark and glamorous, treading the toxic melange of substance abuse, sex-as-sublimation, and so much money you can’t possibly throw all of it away without trying, this series has that sick-inducing shimmer to it. But, again, its strength is its examination of Kent Parson, textually and meta-textually, as someone to be projected onto. Bob, Alicia, Jack, and Bitty all impute certain feelings of their own onto him, displacing their own issues to a character who’s centralized in every fic but defies neat or total comprehension. Some critiques I’ve read of this series feel it’s too dark, and I’ve also seen it argued on FFA that an overwhelming amount of praise heaped onto these stories has made it tough for other writers to make headway in writing Bob/Kent fic. But I’m also not sure you could engage with Bob/Kent fic without going down this road at some point? I’m sure there are ways to scale it back, but ultimately it’s a story about how hockey’s violent, homophobic, old-guard gatekeeping has continued to set the terms for a younger and ostensibly less toxic culture. I fully embrace PWP fics that tread on the power dynamic without fully excavating it, but buried within any PWP is the fact that a 53-year-old man is ensnaring a 19-year-old, no matter how much the latter is, realistically, into it, and legally empowered to consent. Not to mention the dynamics of it being a 53-year-old man who is the father of the 19-year-old’s ex-boyfriend, and a 53-year-old man who is an eminence grise in the field the 19-year-old is trying to make a career in The sexual element--the vaguely incestuous nature of it--is making textual the subtext of how hockey works, actually: objectification of teenage bodies as older men’s capital.

Coach Z by thistidalwave | Just before the 2009 NHL Entry Draft, tp prospect Jack Zimmermann overdoses on his anxiety medication and is admitted to rehab. His future turns from a clear-cut road to the top into an uncertain path filled with therapy appointments, ignored text messages, a group of boys who aren't there to teach him a lesson about himself, and, of course, hockey. | I keep reccing this fic because it has 360 comments on AO3 but nobody, as far as I can tell, has ever read it; it never appears on rec lists. This isn’t the kind of fanfic I usually go in for, but I can’t help being charmed by it. This is a character study in the truest sense, a kind of Mighty Ducks-but-better view on what Jack’s time coaching peewee hockey might have been like. I have no interest in kids and my own aesthetic is maybe a little darker than this, but I admire this story because it injects vibrancy into a period of Jack’s life that OMGCP has left largely unexplored, and so has the fandom. We know nothing about what made Jack want to go to college, nothing about how he spent his days in between juniors and Samwell. It posits a very sympathetic and patient Jack/Parse dynamic, showcasing the exact kind of ragged teenage push-and-pull that would have led to the circumstances we see in Parse I-III. The outside perspective Jack needs is largely present in an OFC who’s not a love interest. Super unique, somehow both engrossing and low-key.

#dirtbags by angularmomentum | A series that is a Kent Parson/Claude Giroux fuckfest with feelings. I’ve long suspected that Parse is popular in part because he is the character who most easily elides OMGCP with the actual NHL, or rather, NHL fandom; I think he made it appealing to write OMGCP fics where the NHL is a factor. Case in point, this series, which is basically “what if Kent Parson was a real hockey player and therefore part of NHL RPS”? I have only read some NHL RPS, so I’m not the person to assess accuracy, but what I do know is superstar IRL hockey players take turns here as the caricature fanfic versions of themselves, and since Kent Parson is already that, it’s great how seamlessly he integrates into their social fabric. Rambunctious energy peppered with regret and loss, but ultimately this series is farcical, and it doesn’t take its sentimental ending too seriously--which, good.

fated to pretend by nighimpossible | 5 Jack/Kent fics that Ransom and Holster dramatically reenact for the Haus + the truth. | As a fic format, 5+1 doesn’t usually work for me, but this one isn’t just front-loaded with five too-knowing vignettes; it then wraps up by using its +1 better than you might expect. Sometimes I talk about economy of fic, and this one exemplifies it. A zero-waste fic.

go ahead and move along by originally | "Leave, Parse," Jack says. Again. Or: Kent finds himself stuck in a time loop. | Kent Parson is trapped in a Groundhog Day scenario on the day of Epikegster. I’m sure you can imagine, just from that, what happens. And yet I think this fic is super entertaining, reserving some key surprises. What this story is doing is something a lot, and perhaps even the majority, of great Jack/Parse fic wants to do: digging into the question of just why this can’t work in comic canon. Most often this is approached from the past, by writing teenage Jack/Parse deep-dives that examine their lives mid-juniors, or by writing AUs where enough circumstances are shifted that it does work, or via future fics that posit enough growth has happened, and enough things have changed. But this fic makes Parse live the same bad day again and again, testing multiple theories about just how dependent on circumstance and incident real life actually is. Another day, another tone, 10 minutes sooner, not at all--you just can’t know why it didn’t work until you exhaust every possible variable. I worry that this rec has sucked the life out of the story, though--it’s so fun!

I Saw a Life and Strange Lovers by @bluegrasshole | Most AUs in this fandom seem to retell the story in a new setting or with some big detail change, following OMGCP’s rhythm beat-for-beat. I think of this as, “It’s the plot of Check, Please, but” -- they’re doing high school football? They’re acrobats? They’re a/b/o? They’re in a DIY punk band? And so on. These two stories are not that! They’re both 1950s AUs, each deeply felt, and yet hugely different from each other. I Saw a Life is about displacement and fragmentation, two sides of a similar but incongruent social critique; Strange Lovers is a finely wrought social drama about coal mining in Nova Scotia in the 1950s, centered around historical events. I suppose a theme on this rec list is something like, “I don’t even like this, but” -- yes, okay, I don’t even like Dex/Nursey, but--! This fic is so overwhelmingly complete, the AU laid out so carefully that the story breathes with all the background details informing the writing that aren’t actually, in the story; you just know they’re below the surface. (With the exception of one investigation of Jack’s character in a short, separate fic.) I Saw a Life, meanwhile, really tests the limits of the notion that Jack and Bitty are soulmates--not by calling it into question but by asking, rather innovatively, how the setting and place of the comic itself activates that.

Les Hivers de mon enfance by staranise | What do you do when hockey is the language of prayer for your soul, and also the toxic thing that almost killed you? 2009: Jack Zimmermann takes a mental health year. God knows he needs it. | Here’s a fic by someone who’s no longer around so much, but she felt ubiquitous in 2016-2019 OMGCP fandom. Before any of that, though, she wrote this one lovely fic about Jack’s pre-Samwell recovery. The author is Canadian and really irritated by hockey culture, and I think this fic benefits greatly because she is clear-eyed about Jack’s being caught in an exploitative system; it’s hockey he’s in recovery for, in a way. There’s an epistolary element that works for me, too. I read this early on in my time in OMGCP fandom and it really stuck with me.

Lysistrata? I Hardly Know Her! (by which I mean everything) by @tomatowrites | It feels somehow like cheating to recommend OMGCP fanfics by my OMGCP BFF with whom I make an OMGCP podcast where we talk about OMGCP. You know the fics I really want to rec, like truly the ones that speak to some kind of shared depravity, are the ones where Jack is miserably mpreg for the second time and accidentally lets his kid see Kent Parson’s Long John Silver’s shrimp scampi promo spot, which obviously would get twisted into a self-hating three-way. How many times do I have to rec this fic? As many as I need to, is my feeling. If you don’t know, Long John Silver’s is an American fast-food chain that sells, like, fried pollock sandwiches; it is nautical-themed; I have never eaten there; I don’t know where there is one; I don’t eat fried fish. (Shrimp, on the other hand?) All of which is to say that it takes a real genius to investigate a premise that far out. And while a lot of people almost certainly will start reading this humanity’s depths-themed sex scene and back the fuck out, readers with refined taste will note that Kent, the point-of-view character, is right there with you, despairing that he can’t help himself. And so long as you’re in that story collection, honestly, you’ll love petite gems like Jack is transmasc, Jack and Shitty play hockey in 18th-century England, and oh, right, he’s from Georgia. Tomato holds the distinction of being probably the gamest author I know in this fandom, just really like fearless in her pursuit of any range of concept she’s pushed to. (I can push her to?) See, for example, a sublime bandom AU; Bitty is cancelled for buying a maybe-unethically exported Roman fragment of a youth’s torso; or, god, the masterwork that is this future fic series where Jack keeps relapsing and Bitty exiles him to their guesthouse. Do I think you need to read a fic where Bitty is snide about the teen prostitute whose baby they’re adopting? Yes, I mean, he would be snide, don’t tell me he wouldn’t. I could go on, but my main thing here is, if I have to pick just one, I’m going to pick this Lysistrata fic. The premise, literally, is that Bitty reads the Lysistrata and it gives him ideas. Like most of Tomato’s OMGCP fic, it’s a stripping away of the comic’s polite fiction that Jack and Bitty could possibly attain the ideal it reaches in the comic without some kind of messy, efflusive breakdown. Life is like that, you see! Tricky. Like a lot of people, although it’s tough to say precisely how many, I have always intuited that maybe Bitty is kind of a natural top? But obviously when you meet him, as a literal virgin, it’s hard to see how he’d go from zero to self-actualization so neatly. This fic floats a theory, and it has a fun little side plot for Whiskey, something I never thought about or needed before Tomato built it out herein. In conclusion, BONUS: Dex’s gay lobster novel.

only fools rush in and the light of all lights by decinq | This person wrote of the nature of the wound, one of the early, formative Jack/Bitty fics that was oft-recced when I was getting into the fandom in 2016. It forms part of a larger series that deals deeply with how Jack has been shaped by his struggles (? I hate this word) with homophobia and his own mental health. It’s a picture of the character as you might have imagined him much earlier in the comic’s run. The formatting is atrocious and he author’s flair is what Tomato would call “AO3 house style.” It’s a voice that works great for her writing. I think it’s at its best in these shorter fics; the former is about Parse and Shitty stumbling into a relationship almost accidentally; the latter, an eerie PBJ vampire fic. I had begun writing a fic where Parse is a vampire early on in this fandom, only to read this and immediately quit, because you only need one, and this one’s all I need. The Parse/Shitty rare pair fic shares its exuberance with hockey RPS when it’s good: here’s how fun it can be when you’re young, rich, and jocular. And I don’t even like accidental marriage AUs, they’re usually boring, so that says a lot. By all means, read the wound fic; read the entire series. But these are highly unusual.

OVERDOSE and Oomph and a little spin-o-rama by jedusaur | None of these are long, or plotty, and they’re all a little experimental. OVERDOSE is an AU set in a world where you know how you’ll die, but no details; Oomph, a little fic where Jack hears hockey pucks talking to him. This is the kind of stuff I used to think I’d find in fandom forever, coming out of Lotrips lurking in the 2000s: short, zany bursts of energy that surprise and delight. a little spin-o-rama peers at Kent’s character through the grim reality of being the hypertalented superstar stuck on a dead-last team. All three are sparse and stylish in a way that’s really smart, practically economical.

Sowing Season by @agrossunderstatement | Parse and Zimms, Zimms and Parse. Kent Parson's life, from the Q, through his early years with the Aces, to Jack's senior year. Canon divergent. A story of love, loss, moving on, regressing, hockey, and found families of all kinds. | Effectively a novel, digging into Kent’s personal history, mostly concerning his life in juniors but expanding into his present, overlapping with the plot of OMGCP. I think there is room enough for endless speculations on what went down pre-canon; this one offers a fuller life for Kent than nearly any others, digging into him as a whole person rather than as a satellite to Jack or the plot of the comic. Which isn’t to say that the Kent/Jack stuff isn’t dealt with here; it explicitly is. But the fact of Kent Parson’s life, if we can begin to imagine it beyond mere text, would exist before, after, and alongside Jack; he gets to juniors without Jack, presumably, and he is the captain of a hockey team without Jack, and Pinkerton lays the foundation of Parse’s character within a junior hockey that Jack also inhabits, more so that Parse existing for Jack, so to speak. And I’m not implying this latter tactic is wrong; I have certainly employed it, and others have employed it to great impact and effect. But, still, the title of this series tells you what you ought to know: Kent and his story are the potentiality of OMGCP, up to a point; seeds being planted. Young hockey players, similarly. The question implied there is, what will be reaped? And the answer to the latter, in a sense, that reaping is a sort of violence. Which makes this series sound pretty heavy, but it’s not -- more like, realistic.

(tell everyone) you were a good wife by @queerofcups | The biggest problem with pretending that he doesn’t know that Kent Parson is fucking his husband is that Jack can’t tell Kent how grateful he is. | The ne plus ultra of PBJ triangulation; I’ve been squealing to the writer about how good it is since August, begging for behind-the-scenes insights, and I’d only do that if I really meant it. The precarious social fabric stretched across these three chapters is fraying before the reader’s eyes. The details are delicious, and I don’t want to spoil them, but they sing in chorus with the plot. My favorite OMGCP fics, honestly, remove the romance narrative guardrails that keep things in the comic itself humming along. I think Dann’s take is to ask who in this comic has power and what they would end up doing with it. (Or not doing, from another angle.) At one point, early on in its telling, OMGCP looked like it was going to be a story dealing with the compounded traumas of hockey’s discontents. Then, of course, it wasn’t. This is a fic that steps back and asks what the fallout of that oversight would be. But that’s just the moldering core of this fanfic; it’s actually embroidered, like I said, with glittering detail. The color of the suit Bitty wears to his wedding is burned into my brain. The gray manicure of a woman Jack knows. The ingredients in a cake. This is one of those fics I still haven’t reviewed because the thought of stacking everything I could say about it into mere AO3 comments is inadequate.

when you’re ready by megancrtr | The Aces’ director of communications gets the call at 3:13 a.m. Jack Zimmermann has withdrawn from the draft. | “What happened at the draft” is so mythological it gets asked in the comic proper, and I’ve never counted how many fics attempt to answer this question--from Kent’s point of view, even--but it’s gotta be, oh, hundreds. This story replays the situation from the perspective of an Aces staffer who just wants to do her job, and gets at the jarring discordance between the plot of OMGCP in its quest for social justice and the business of actual hockey. Important context is that this story was written around the time the comic was playing out the end of Y3 and start of Y4, and Bitty pointedly asked Jack the question, “why can’t we?” This story reframes the question as literal, rather than rhetorical. A sterling example of fanfic being a gloss on its source.

BONUS, podfics

hockeyed up | There are many things on Jack's mind. Namely: hockey, hockey, Bitty, hockey, anxiety, hockey, hockey, anxiety, Bitty, hockey, hockey, anxiety, and hockey. | A fic read aloud by its French-Canadian author. Also a relatively early OMGCP fanfic; composed while the first semester of Y2 was posting, the story suggests a version of OMGCP that was in some ways more and in other ways less complex than what it would turn into not long after. The real power of this podfic, however, is that it’s read by the writer, so you can hear the intended emphasis in every line. Also, because she’s French-Canadian, Sophie’s intonation is what I picture when I read or write dialogue for Jack.

maybe i’m waking up | It’s almost funny. All he ever wanted was to play hockey, to play in the NHL, to win the Cup. This—Samwell, the team, the Haus—was supposed to be just a detour, but now it feels more like a destination he failed to realize he’s already reached.(Or: Jack signs with the Falconers, graduates, and leaves. It's the hardest thing he's ever done. What comes after is even harder.) | Don’t get too excited; this isn’t finished. A podfic of probably the best-known, most-recced fic in OMGCP fandom. Striking for its use of metatext woven into the story, this is one of several early longform Jack/Bitty fics that posits that maybe Jack has a lot more development to undergo before he can really, truly, be okay--or be okay enough to be with Bitty? To be honest, this story strikes me now as too long, but the parts in it that work are effective beyond that which fanfic demands. Meanwhile, this audio version only covers six chapters, but it’s so slick, so well-realized, so true to the story. Podfic as art.

my own dear friends | Ever since the day he met Jack Zimmermann, Shitty has seen it as his solemn duty to aggressively love him. (He just didn't know how aggressive the love Jack needed would be.) | There’s previous little Jack/Shitty in this fandom and a lot less quality BDSM,

the city’s ours until the fall | Kent has been, historically, good at this—forgetting about things until suddenly he doesn’t, and then it’s like the scar has never been there in the first place, just the wound. (Or: Kent Parson lets himself be happy, after all this time.) | I’ve never read this fic and I never will. I cannot imagine how, no matter how good it is, it could compare to the version that lives in my head, with Kent’s voice so totally realized. Vocal fry and pathos, a languid energy that I still think about when I think about Parse.

the model home | It’s going to be better, and that’s great, but sometimes Jack thinks, why can’t it be good right now? | j/k j/k, this is a self-reminder to finally one day review this.

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mkstrigidae · 3 years

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Current WIPs and Fic Concepts

I promised I would do this yesterday, and then I forgot!!! (I was very sleep deprived). Anyways, here are a bunch of the WIP premises that I have in my 'unfinished drafts' folder. Most have at least a few pages written for them, but I love them all! ☺️💕

- A Santa Clarita Diet AU (Jonsa) Takes place in sunny southern California, where a shitty dinner at a mediocre restaurant turns into a huge problem for Jon and Sansa when Sansa's heart stops beating. Although she seems fine, Jon is flabbergasted several days later as he watches his wife- who alphabetizes their pantry and refuses to let anyone wear shoes in the house- rip the throat out of one of the sleazy new partners at their law firm, eating half of him before anyone processes what's going on. Hilarity ensues as Sansa's inhibitions and filter disappear, Arya ropes an extremely confused Gendry into helping figure out what the hell is going on just because he moderates the zombie forum on reddit, and Jon tries to deal with the fact that the woman he loves more than anything is now a humanitarian. He really could use a drink. (This one is actually mostly complete, but i need to refine a few things- i really love it. It's as gory and irreverent as the show, so viewer discretion advised, but it's a BLAST to write).

- A Thor/MCU AU (Jonsa, Steve Rogers/Sansa)- Asgardian prince Aegon is banished to Midgard after one too many arrogant decisions, and is promptly hit by a van containing Dr. Sansa Stark, Dr. Barristan Selmy, and Margaery Tyrell- two astrophysicists studying wormholes and Sansa's best friend and pseudo-intern. Marg yells at him, he yells back, Sansa tases him, and Barristan didn't sign up for the kind of heavy lifting that getting a 200+ pound slab of muscle into the back of a van takes. And then Aegon's younger brother, Jon, shows up, in the middle of an identity crisis because, apparently, he's adopted. He wasn't intending to stay, but he's rather drawn to Dr. Stark and her brilliance, and against her better judgement, she starts to trust him, and maybe even like him. This story is in about three parts so far- the first is based on 'Thor' and the second on 'The Avengers' and are fully Jonsa, and the third started as a family bonding story between the Stark kids and Tony (Ned and Tony are second cousins, and Ned was really supportive of Tony in rehab without expecting anything in return), and accidentally turned into a Steve Rogers/Sansa Stark story, which is a pairing i am HERE for. A lot of this one is written, but it needs some fill in before publishing, although it's one of my favorites that i've written to go back and actually read.

- A Star Wars AU (Jonsa) where Sansa and Arya are Alderaanian princesses who are off planet when Alderaan is destroyed- Sansa as a senator and Arya as a pilot, both working for the rebellion, and jon is a smuggler who does not know how all of these people got on his ship and why two princesses are sassing him. His copilot, Tormund (yes he's a wookie), thinks it is hilarious. I started this one just the other day, and it's already thirty pages long, most of them involving Sansa and Arya sassing people. Dany is a leader in the rebellion, Roose Bolton is the emperor, and Barbrey Dustin is a disgruntled former jedi trying to live in peace on a remote planet until another Stark crashes into her life and harangues her into teaching again.

- A witches/magic AU (Jonsa) where the Starks run an apothecary and spellcasting supplies shop. Jon had been completely in the dark about magic before his mother confessed to being born into a family of witches. He finds himself traveling to her hometown, trying to understand her world more clearly, and what it means for him. On the way, he develops something of a crush on the red-headed shop clerk who brews the best headache potions in town. Featuring lots of magical shenanigans, this is one of my favorites in the folder :)

- A 24 hour diner AU (Jonsa) where Jon is a local mob boss, and Sansa works the late shift at Seaworth's diner to buy textbooks for the PhD she's working on in botany. Sansa's running from memories, and Jon has a soft spot for the red-headed waitress who always remembers how he likes his coffee.

- An East of the Sun, West of the Moon AU!!! (Jonsa) This is one of my fav fairy tales, and of course i couldn't resist Jon as a direwolf striking a deal with the starks!

- A Roomates AU (Jonsa)- Arya, Jon, Tormund, and Sam have been renting the same house together off Winterfell's campus for years- but when Sam moves in with his girlfriend, they need one more person on the lease. Sansa, about to relocate to Winterfell for grad school, finds out that her boyfriend has been cheating on her and that her housing plans have fallen through, all on the same day. Needless to say, she's a bit upset when she calls Arya to relay the news. There's a simple solution here, if Arya and Tormund can stop teasing Jon about his crush for five minutes. (any excuse to write tormund and arya roasting jon, tbh).

- A Fae AU (Jonsa)- When Sansa, a baker living in the city, washes her face in an enchanted spring on a camping trip, she gains the sight as a result. Suddenly able to see the fae underworld all around her is disorienting and terrifying. Sansa tries to conceal it- afraid of what might happen if the fae around her know that she can see them- but slips up, and catches the attention of Jon Snow- one of the lords of the unseelie court.

- A nuclear winter wasteland AU (Jonsa)- (?? I don't even know how to describe this premise, haha) where the Starks are living and running the Free Winterfell settlement in Siberia after a worldwide nuclear meltdown. Before the fallout, Sansa was one of the world's preeminent researchers in plant genetics and pathology, and works at the settlement to create newer, disease and radiation resistant crops to distribute for free to other settlements, aiming to break up the monopoly that Lannister Corp has on the market. Jon is a scavenger, searching throughout Siberia for his sister Rhae who disappeared several years previously. When he runs across Arya Starkovna, helping her fight off another band of radiation ravaged scavengers is just instinct- he doesn't think twice about it. In thanks, she brings him to the Winterfell settlement, where her brother Robb offers Jon sanctuary and resources, in exchange for serving as a bodyguard for Sansa when she travels to other settlements. Sansa is not particularly thrilled by this arrangement, but given that multiple parties seem to want her dead, she doesn't have much of a choice but to accept his company.

- A reincarnation AU (Jonsa)- of sorts. Robb is an archaeologist who finds a strange set of runes at a site up north, and immediately calls in Jon Snow- a historian and expert in said ancient language, as well as an old university friend of Robb's. When he arrives though, Robb shows him their most valuable finds- two mysterious ice blocks, with what appear to be perfectly preserved bodies from over a thousand years ago. No one could ever have imagined that either of them were still alive, but when the ice melts, revealing two very alive girls, the entire crew is instantly buried in NDAs, and given an assignment from the Westerosi government to figure out what the hell was going on. Sansa and Arya wake up, extremely confused about the world they live in, trying to adapt and mourning all that they've lost, even as the people around them wear familiar faces.

- Soulmates AU (Jonsa)- (Yes, another one, I love this dumb trope) Trauma surgeon and medical resident Sansa Stark is having a very bad day, and ends up meeting her soulmate during what she thinks is a mugging gone wrong. Fortunately, he’s not the one mugging her, just an intervening bystander, but she ends up slightly shot nonetheless. Sansa’s fretting about bleeding on the upholstery in his car, but Jon is a bit more worried about her injuries than the blood stains. He’s a bit confused when she threatens him if he takes her to a specific hospital, nearly has a nervous breakdown when she insists on doing her own triage, and is very charmed when she insists on ice cream after taking pain meds at the hospital. On Sansa’s part, she’s a little less concerned about being shot, and a bit more concerned about whatever weird first impression she’s making to her soulmate while high as a kite on pain pills. (this one just needs some tweaking to be postable- I'm not sure if it's going to be a oneshot or a series, but i love what I have already)

- A Demon/Archivist AU (Jonsa)- where Sansa works in the university's historical archives in Oldtown, and is learning to restore old texts with her fellow student and friend, Alleras (Trans Sarella is an amazing concept). When Joffrey Baratheon shows up with a pile of old books from his family's library to donate, Sansa is eager to get away from his sleaze, and accidentally takes one of the books home with her in her rush to leave. Unbeknownst to her, it's more than it appears, and when she leaves it open overnight, she accidentally summons forth Jon- an ancient, powerful, and extremely annoyed demon who is under a curse, and now hers to command. As Jon and Sansa try to get used to this new normal, the Lannisters (unaware that Joffrey had donated the tome) try desperately to find the book and it's owner, wanting Jon's power for themselves, and putting Sansa in considerable danger unless she can figure out how to break Jon's curse. Fortunately, she's a pretty good researcher, even if Jon is initially a bit of a grump. (This is based on a total wish-fulfillment mary-sue type premise for something I wrote when I was thirteen, and I revisited it and wanted to see what it would look like if i took it very seriously, and i am really enjoying it so far. It's a love letter to the terrible, heartfelt writing i was doing in middle school that created the foundations for my writing today, and so much fun).

The one that I am MOST excited about though:

- A Pacific Rim AU!!!! (Ned/Cat, Gendrya, Braime, Sansa/Jon Umber)-Twins Sansa and Robb Stark have always been completely in tune with each other, and when your parents are Jaeger pilots and your mother invented the neural handshake, what option is there but the Jaeger academy? Sansa studies to be an engineer, but ends up copiloting the Jaeger 'Winter Wolf' with her twin brother, after they lose Ned Stark to cancer. When Robb is ripped out of the conn-pod and killed by a kaiju while he's still connected to Sansa, she barely manages to kill the creature before stumbling back to shore, traumatized, grieving, and swearing that she'll never pilot again.

Unfortunately, the Kaiju don't stop just because Sansa does, and when the end of the world is imminent, Marshall Catelyn Stark orders both her daughter and former pilot Jaime Lannister (who lost his twin and copilot, Cersei, several years previously) back to Hong Kong for one final stand. Forced to face both her demons and an irate Arya, furious that Sansa had abandoned the rest of them after Robb's death, Sansa and Arya have to figure out how to pilot Winter Wolf together before the apocalypse comes for them all.

Featuring Marshall Catelyn Stark (commander of the Hong Kong Shatterdome, inventor of the neural handshake, former Jaeger pilot, and BAMF), Sansa x Jon Umber (Yes i know it's a rare pair but i've always kind of loved the idea of them, even though we know so little about him), Kaiju parts dealer and smuggler Petyr Baelish, bickering kaiju biologist Dany and theoretical mathematician Jon Snow, LOCCENT officer Theon, lots of snark, lots of angst and heartfelt conversations, and a weird friendship between snarky-grieving-asshole Jaime Lannister and kind-quiet-grieving Sansa Stark, who are the only two people in the world who know what it's like to lose a copilot and a twin in the drift.

Thanks for reading guys!! There are more, but some of them I just don't know how to explain quite yet, haha. I'd love to hear what you guys think about these!

#my writing #fanfics #fanfic wip #jonsa #jonsa fic

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